great writers. edited by eric s. robertson, m.a., professor of english literature and philosophy in the university of the punjab, lahore. [illustration: portrait of dickens] life of charles dickens by frank t. marzials london walter scott warwick lane, paternoster row note. that i should have to acknowledge a fairly heavy debt to forster's "life of charles dickens," and "the letters of charles dickens," edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter, is almost a matter of course; for these are books from which every present and future biographer of dickens must perforce borrow in a more or less degree. my work, too, has been much lightened by mr. kitton's excellent "dickensiana." contents. chapter i. page the lottery of education; charles dickens born february , ; his pathetic feeling towards his own childhood; happy days at chatham; family troubles; similarity between little charles and david copperfield; john dickens taken to the marshalsea; his character; charles employed in blacking business; over-sensitive in after years about this episode in his career; isolation; is brought back into family and prison circle; family in comparative comfort at the marshalsea; father released; charles leaves the blacking business; his mother; he is sent to wellington house academy in ; character of that place of learning; dickens masters its humours thoroughly. chapter ii. dickens becomes a solicitor's clerk in ; then a reporter; his experiences in that capacity; first story published in _the old monthly magazine_ for january, ; writes more "sketches"; power of minute observation thus early shown; masters the writer's art; is paid for his contributions to the _chronicle_; marries miss hogarth on april , ; appearance at that date; power of physical endurance; admirable influence of his peculiar education; and its drawbacks chapter iii. origin of "pickwick"; seymour's part therein; first number published on april , ; early numbers not a success; suddenly the book becomes the rage; english literature just then in want of its novelist; dickens' kingship acknowledged; causes of the book's popularity; its admirable humour, and other excellent qualities; sam weller; mr. pickwick himself; book read by everybody chapter iv. dickens works "double tides" from to ; appointed editor of _bentley's miscellany_ at beginning of , and commences "oliver twist"; _quarterly review_ predicts his speedy downfall; pecuniary position at this time; moves from furnival's inn to doughty street; death of his sister-in-law mary hogarth; his friendships; absence of all jealousy in his character; habits of work; riding and pedestrianizing; walking in london streets necessary to the exercise of his art chapter v. "oliver twist"; analysis of the book; doubtful probability of oliver's character; "nicholas nickleby"; its wealth of character; _master humphrey's clock_ projected and begun in april, ; the public disappointed in its expectations of a novel; "old curiosity shop" commenced, and miscellaneous portion of _master humphrey's clock_ dropped; dickens' fondness for taking a child as his hero or heroine; little nell; tears shed over her sorrows; general admiration for the pathos of her story; is such admiration altogether deserved? paul dombey more natural; little nell's death too declamatory as a piece of writing; dickens nevertheless a master of pathos; "barnaby rudge"; a historical novel dealing with times of the gordon riots chapter vi. dickens starts for united states in january, ; had been splendidly received a little before at edinburgh; why he went to the united states; is enthusiastically welcomed; at first he is enchanted; then expresses the greatest disappointment; explanation of the change; what the americans thought of _him_; "american notes"; his views modified on his second visit to america in - ; takes to fierce private theatricals for rest; delight of the children on his return to england; an admirable father chapter vii. dickens again at work and play; publication of "martin chuzzlewit" begun in january, ; plot not dickens' strong point; this not of any vital consequence; a novel not really remembered by its story; dickens' books often have a higher unity than that of plot; selfishness the central idea of "martin chuzzlewit"; a great book, and yet not at the time successful; dickens foresees money embarrassments; publishes the admirable "christmas carol" at christmas, ; and determines to go for a space to italy chapter viii. journey through france; genoa; the italy of ; dickens charmed with its untidy picturesqueness; he is idle for a few weeks; his palace at genoa; he sets to work upon "the chimes"; gets passionately interested in the little book; travels through italy to read it to his friends in london; reads it on december , ; is soon back again in italy; returns to london in the summer of ; on january , , starts _the daily news_; holds the post of editor three weeks; "pictures from italy" first published in _daily news_ chapter ix. dickens as an amateur actor and stage-manager; he goes to lausanne in may, , and begins "dombey"; has great difficulty in getting on without streets; the "battle of life" written; "dombey"; its pathos; pride the subject of the book; reality of the characters; dickens' treatment of partial insanity; m. taine's false criticism thereon; dickens in paris in the winter of - ; private theatricals again; the "haunted man"; "david copperfield" begun in may, ; it marks the culminating point in dickens' career as a writer; _household words_ started on march , ; character of that periodical and its successor, _all the year round_; domestic sorrows cloud the opening of the year ; dickens moves in same year from devonshire terrace to tavistock house, and begins "bleak house"; story of the novel; its chancery episodes; dickens is overworked and ill, and finds pleasant quarters at boulogne chapter x. dickens gives his first public (not paid) readings in december, ; was it _infra dig._ that he should read for money? he begins his paid readings in april, ; reasons for their success; care bestowed on them by the reader; their dramatic character; carlyle's opinion of them; how the tones of dickens' voice linger in the memory of one who heard him chapter xi. "hard times" commenced in _household words_ for april , ; it is an attack on the "hard fact" school of philosophers; what macaulay and mr. ruskin thought of it; the russian war of - , and the cry for "administrative reform"; dickens in the thick of the movement; "little dorrit" and the "circumlocution office"; character of mr. dorrit admirably drawn; dickens is in paris from december, , to may, ; he buys gad's hill place; it becomes his hobby; unfortunate relations with his wife; and separation in may ; lying rumours; how these stung dickens through his honourable pride in the love which the public bore him; he publishes an indignant protest in _household words_; and writes an unjustifiable letter chapter xii. "the tale of two cities," a story of the great french revolution; phiz's connection with dickens' works comes to an end; his art and that of cruikshank; both too essentially caricaturists of an old school to be permanently the illustrators of dickens; other illustrators; "great expectations"; its story and characters; "our mutual friend" begun in may, ; a complicated narrative; dickens' extraordinary sympathy for eugene wrayburn; generally his sympathies are so entirely right; which explains why his books are not vulgar; he himself a man of great real refinement chapter xiii. dickens' health begins to fail; he is much shaken by an accident in june, ; but bates no jot of his high courage, and works on at his readings; sails for america on a reading tour in november, ; is wretchedly ill, and yet continues to read day after day; comes back to england, and reads on; health failing more and more; reading has to be abandoned for a time; begins to write his last and unfinished book, "edwin drood"; except health all seems well with him; on june , , he works at his book nearly all day; at dinner time is struck down; dies on the following day, june the th; is buried in westminster abbey among his peers; nor will his fame suffer eclipse index life of charles dickens. chapter i. education is a kind of lottery in which there are good and evil chances, and some men draw blanks and other men draw prizes. and in saying this i do not use the word education in any restricted sense, as applying exclusively to the course of study in school or college; nor certainly, when i speak of prizes, am i thinking of scholarships, exhibitions, fellowships. by education i mean the whole set of circumstances which go to mould a man's character during the apprentice years of his life; and i call that a prize when those circumstances have been such as to develop the man's powers to the utmost, and to fit him to do best that of which he is best capable. looked at in this way, charles dickens' education, however untoward and unpromising it may often have seemed while in the process, must really be pronounced a prize of value quite inestimable. his father, john dickens, held a clerkship in the navy pay office, and was employed in the portsmouth dockyard when little charles first came into the world, at landport, in portsea, on february , . wealth can never have been one of the familiar friends of the household, nor plenty have always sat at its board. charles had one elder sister, and six other brothers and sisters were afterwards added to the family; and with eight children, and successive removals from portsmouth to london, and london to chatham, and no more than the pay of a government clerk[ ]--pay which not long afterwards dwindled to a pension,--even a better domestic financier than the elder dickens might have found some difficulty in facing his liabilities. it was unquestionably into a tottering house that the child was born, and among its ruins that he was nurtured. but through all these early years i can do nothing better than take him for my guide, and walk as it were in his companionship. perhaps no novelist ever had a keener feeling of the pathos of childhood than dickens, or understood more fully how real and overwhelming are its sorrows. no one, too, has entered more sympathetically into its ways. and of the child and boy that he himself had once been, he was wont to think very tenderly and very often. again and again in his writings he reverts to the scenes and incidents and emotions of his earlier days. sometimes he goes back to his young life directly, speaking as of himself. more often he goes back to it indirectly, placing imaginary children and boys in the position he had once occupied. thus it is almost possible, by judiciously selecting from his works, and using such keys as we possess, to construct as it were a kind of autobiography. nor, if we make due allowance for the great writer's tendency to idealize the past, and intensify its humorous and pathetic aspects, need we at all fear that the self-written story of his life should convey a false impression. he was but two years old when his father left portsea for london, and but four when a second migration took the family to chatham. here we catch our first glimpse of him, in his own word-painting, as a "very queer small boy," a small boy who was sickly and delicate, and could take but little part in the rougher sports of his school companions, but read much, as sickly boys will--read the novels of the older novelists in a "blessed little room," a kind of palace of enchantment, where "'roderick random,' 'peregrine pickle,' 'humphrey clinker,' 'tom jones,' 'the vicar of wakefield,' 'don quixote, 'gil blas,' and 'robinson crusoe,' came out, a glorious host, to keep him company." and the queer small boy had read shakespeare's "henry iv.," too, and knew all about falstaff's robbery of the travellers at gad's hill, on the rising ground between rochester and gravesend, and all about mad prince henry's pranks; and, what was more, he had determined that when he came to be a man, and had made his way in the world, he should own the house called gad's hill place, with the old associations of its site, and its pleasant outlook over rochester and over the low-lying levels by the thames. was that a child's dream? the man's tenacity and steadfast strength of purpose turned it into fact. the house became the home of his later life. it was there that he died. but death was a long way forward in those old chatham days; nor, as the time slipped by, and his father's pecuniary embarrassments began to thicken, and make the forward ways of life more dark and difficult, could the purchase of gad's hill place have seemed much less remote. there is one of dickens' works which was his own special favourite, the most cherished, as he tells us, among the offspring of his brain. that work is "david copperfield." nor can there be much difficulty in discovering why it occupied such an exceptional position in "his heart of hearts;" for in its pages he had enshrined the deepest memories of his own childhood and youth. like david copperfield, he had known what it was to be a poor, neglected lad, set to rough, uncongenial work, with no more than a mechanic's surroundings and outlook, and having to fend for himself in the miry ways of the great city. like david copperfield, he had formed a very early acquaintance with debts and duns, and been initiated into the mysteries and sad expedients of shabby poverty. like david copperfield, he had been made free of the interior of a debtor's prison. poor lad, he was not much more than ten or eleven years old when he left chatham, with all the charms that were ever after to live so brightly in his recollection,--the gay military pageantry, the swarming dockyard, the shifting sailor life, the delightful walks in the surrounding country, the enchanted room, tenanted by the first fairy day-dreams of his genius, the day-school, where the master had already formed a good opinion of his parts, giving him goldsmith's "bee" as a keepsake. this pleasant land he left for a dingy house in a dingy london suburb, with squalor for companionship, no teaching but the teaching of the streets, and all around and above him the depressing hideous atmosphere of debt. with what inimitable humour and pathos has he told the story of these darkest days! substitute john dickens for mr. micawber, and mrs. dickens for mrs. micawber, and make david copperfield a son of mr. micawber, a kind of elder wilkins, and let little charles dickens be that son--and then you will have a record, true in every essential respect, of the child's life at this period. "poor mrs. micawber! she said she had tried to exert herself; and so, i have no doubt, she had. the centre of the street door was perfectly covered with a great brass-plate, on which was engraved 'mrs. micawber's boarding establishment for young ladies;' but i never found that any young lady had ever been to school there; or that any young lady ever came, or proposed to come; or that the least preparation was ever made to receive any young lady. the only visitors i ever saw or heard of were creditors. _they_ used to come at all hours, and some of them were quite ferocious." even such a plate, bearing the inscription, _mrs. dickens's establishment_, ornamented the door of a house in gower street north, where the family had hoped, by some desperate effort, to retrieve its ruined fortunes. even so did the pupils refuse the educational advantages offered to them, though little charles went from door to door in the neighbourhood, carrying hither and thither the most alluring circulars. even thus was the place besieged by assiduous and angry duns. and when, in the ordinary course of such sad stories, mr. dickens is arrested for debt, and carried off to the marshalsea prison,[ ] he moralizes over the event in precisely the same strain as mr. micawber, using, indeed, the very same words, and calls on his son, with many tears, "to take warning by the marshalsea, and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; but that a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched." the son was taking note of other things besides these moral apothegms, and reproduced, in after days, with a quite marvellous detail and fidelity, all the incidents of his father's incarceration. probably, too, he was beginning, as children will, almost unconsciously, to form some estimate of his father's character. and a very queer study in human nature _that_ must have been, giving dickens, when once he had mastered it, a most exceptional insight into the ways of impecuniosity. charles lamb, as we all remember, divided mankind into two races, the mighty race of the borrowers, and the mean race of the lenders; and expatiated, with a whimsical and charming eloquence, upon the greatness of one bigod, who had been as a king among those who by process of loan obtain possession of other people's money. shift the line of division a little, so that instead of separating borrowers and lenders, it separates those who pay their debts from those who do not pay them, and then dickens the elder may succeed to something of bigod's kingship. he was of the great race of debtors, possessing especially that _ideal_ quality of mind on which lamb laid such stress. imagination played the very mischief with him. he had evidently little grasp of fact, and moved in a kind of haze, through which all clear outlines would show blurred and unreal. sometimes--most often, perhaps--that haze would be irradiated with sanguine visionary hopes and expectations. sometimes it would be fitfully darkened with all the horrors of despair. but whether in gloom or gleam, the realities of his position would be lost. he never, certainly, contracted a debt which he did not mean honourably to pay. but either he had never possessed the faculty of forming a just estimate of future possibilities, or else, through the indulgence of what may be called a vague habit of thought, he had lost the power of seeing things as they are. thus all his excellencies and good gifts were neutralized at this time, so far as his family were concerned, and went for practically nothing. he was, according to his son's testimony, full of industry, most conscientious in the discharge of any business, unwearying in loving patience and solicitude when those bound to him by blood or friendship were ill or in trouble, "as kind-hearted and generous a man as ever lived in the world." yet as debts accumulated, and accommodation bills shed their baleful shadow on his life, and duns grew many and furious, he became altogether immersed in mean money troubles, and suffered the son who was to shed such lustre on his name to remain for a time without the means of learning, and to sink first into a little household drudge, and then into a mere warehouse boy. so little charles, aged from eleven to twelve, first blacked boots, and minded the younger children, and ran messages, and effected the family purchases--which can have been no pleasant task in the then state of the family credit,--and made very close acquaintance with the inside of the pawnbrokers' shops, and with the purchasers of second-hand books, disposing, among other things, of the little store of books he loved so well; and then, when his father was imprisoned, ran more messages hither and thither, and shed many childish tears in his father's company--the father doubtless regarding the tears as a tribute to his eloquence, though, heaven knows, there were other things to cry over besides his sonorous periods. after which a connection, james lamert by name, who had lived with the family before they moved from camden town to gower street, and was manager of a worm-eaten, rat-riddled blacking business, near old hungerford market, offered to employ the lad, on a salary of some six shillings a week, or thereabouts. the duties which commanded these high emoluments consisted of the tying up and labelling of blacking pots. at first charles, in consideration probably of his relationship to the manager, was allowed to do his tying, clipping, and pasting in the counting-house. but soon this arrangement fell through, as it naturally would, and he descended to the companionship of the other lads, similarly employed, in the warehouse below. they were not bad boys, and one of them, who bore the name of bob fagin, was very kind to the poor little better-nurtured outcast, once, in a sudden attack of illness, applying hot blacking-bottles to his side with much tenderness. but, of course, they were rough and quite uncultured, and the sensitive, bookish, imaginative child felt that there was something uncongenial and degrading in being compelled to associate with them. nor, though he had already sufficient strength of character to learn to do his work well, did he ever regard the work itself as anything but unsuitable, and almost discreditable. indeed it may be doubted whether the iron of that time did not unduly rankle and fester as it entered into his soul, and whether the scar caused by the wound was altogether quite honourable. he seems to have felt, in connection with his early employment in a warehouse, a sense of shame such as would be more fittingly associated with the commission of an unworthy act. that he should not have habitually referred to the subject in after life, may readily be understood. but why he should have kept unbroken silence about it for long years, even with his wife, even with so very close a friend as forster, is less clear. and in the terms used, when the revelation was finally made to forster, there has always, i confess, appeared to me to be a tone of exaggeration. "my whole nature," he says, "was so penetrated with grief and humiliation, ... that even now, famous and caressed and happy, i often forget in my dreams that i have a dear wife and children; even that i am a man, and wander desolately back to that time of my life." and again: "from that hour until this, at which i write, no word of that part of my childhood, which i have now gladly brought to a close, has passed my lips to any human being.... i have never, until i now impart it to this paper, in any burst of confidence with any one, my own wife not excepted, raised the curtain i then dropped, thank god." great part, perhaps the greatest part, of dickens' success as a writer, came from the sympathy and power with which he showed how the lower walks of life no less than the higher are often fringed with beauty. i have never been able to entirely divest myself of a slight feeling of the incongruous in reading what he wrote about the warehouse episode in his career. at first, when he began his daily toil at the blacking business, some poor dregs of family life were left to the child. his father was at the marshalsea. but his mother and brothers and sisters were, to use his own words, "still encamped, with a young servant girl from chatham workhouse, in the two parlours in the emptied house in gower street north." and there he lived with them, in much "hugger-mugger," merely taking his humble midday meal in nomadic fashion, on his own account. soon, however, his position became even more forlorn. the paternal creditors proved insatiable. the gipsy home in gower street had to be broken up. mrs. dickens and the children went to live at the marshalsea. little charles was placed under the roof--it cannot be called under the care--of a "reduced old lady," dwelling in camden town, who must have been a clever and prophetic old lady if she anticipated that her diminutive lodger would one day give her a kind of indirect unenviable immortality by making her figure, under the name of "mrs. pipchin," in "dombey and son." here the boy seems to have been left almost entirely to his own devices. he spent his sundays in the prison, and, to the best of his recollection, his lodgings at "mrs. pipchin's" were paid for. otherwise, he "found himself," in childish fashion, out of the six or seven weekly shillings, breakfasting on two pennyworth of bread and milk, and supping on a penny loaf and a bit of cheese, and dining hither and thither, as his boy's appetite dictated--now, sensibly enough, on _à la mode_ beef or a saveloy; then, less sensibly, on pudding; and anon not dining at all, the wherewithal having been expended on some morning treat of cheap stale pastry. but are not all these things, the lad's shifts and expedients, his sorrows and despair, his visits to the public-house, where the kindly publican's wife stoops down to kiss the pathetic little face--are they not all written in "david copperfield"? and if so be that i have a reader unacquainted with that peerless book, can i do better than recommend him, or her, to study therein the story of dickens' life at this particular time? at last the child's solitude and sorrows seem to have grown unbearable. his fortitude broke down. one sunday night he appealed to his father, with many tears, on the subject, not of his employment, which he seems to have accepted at the time manfully, but of his forlornness and isolation. the father's kind, thoughtless heart was touched. a back attic was found for charles near the marshalsea, at lant street, in the borough--where bob sawyer, it will be remembered, afterwards invited mr. pickwick to that disastrous party. the boy moved into his new quarters with the same feeling of elation as if he had been entering a palace. the change naturally brought him more fully into the prison circle. he used to breakfast there every morning, before going to the warehouse, and would spend the larger portion of his spare time among the inmates. nor do mr. dickens and his family, and charles, who is to us the family's most important member, appear to have been relatively at all uncomfortable while under the shadow of the marshalsea. there is in "david copperfield" a passage of inimitable humour, where mr. micawber, enlarging on the pleasures of imprisonment for debt, apostrophizes the king's bench prison as being the place "where, for the first time in many revolving years, the overwhelming pressure of pecuniary liabilities was not proclaimed from day to day, by importunate voices declining to vacate the passage; where there was no knocker on the door for any creditor to appeal to; where personal service of process was not required, and detainers were lodged merely at the gate." there is a similar passage in "little dorrit," where the tipsy medical practitioner of the marshalsea comforts mr. dorrit in his affliction by saying: "we are quiet here; we don't get badgered here; there's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors, and bring a man's heart into his mouth. nobody comes here to ask if a man's at home, and to say he'll stand on the door-mat till he is. nobody writes threatening letters about money to this place. it's freedom, sir, it's freedom!" one smiles as one reads; and it adds a pathos, i think, to the smile, to find that these are records of actual experience. the marshalsea prison was to mr. dickens a haven of peace, and to his household a place of plenty. not only could he pursue his career there untroubled by fears of arrest, but he exercised among the other "gentlemen gaol-birds" a supremacy, a kind of kingship, such as that to which charles lamb referred. they recognized in him the superior spirit, ready of pen, and affluent of speech, and with a certain grandeur in his conviviality. he it was who drew up their memorial to george of england on an occasion no less important than the royal birthday, when they, the monarch's "unfortunate subjects,"--so they were described in the memorial--besought the king's "gracious majesty," of his "well-known munificence," to grant them a something towards the drinking of the royal health. (ah, with what keen eyes and penetrative genius did little charles, from his corner, watch the strange sad stream of humanity that trickled through the room, and may be said to have _smeared_ its approval of that petition!) and while mr. dickens was enjoying his prison honours, he was also enjoying his admiralty pension,[ ] which was not forfeited by his imprisonment; and his wife and children were consequently enjoying a larger measure of the necessaries of life than had been theirs for many a month. so all went on merrily enough at the marshalsea. but even under the old law, imprisonment for debt did not always last for ever. a legacy, and the insolvent debtors act, enabled mr. dickens to march out of durance, in some sort with the honours of war, after a few months' incarceration--this would be early in ;--and he went with his family, including charles, to lodge with the "mrs. pipchin" already mentioned. charles meanwhile still toiled on in the blacking warehouse, now removed to chandos street, covent garden; and had reached such skill in the tying, pasting, and labelling of the bottles, that small crowds used to collect at the window for the purpose of watching his deft fingers. there was pride in this, no doubt, but also humiliation; and release was at hand. his father and lamert quarrelled about something--about _what_, dickens seems never to have known--and he was sent home. mrs. dickens acted the part of the peacemaker on the next day, probably feeling that amid the shadowy expectations on which she and her husband had subsisted for so long, even six or seven shillings a week was something tangible, and not to be despised. yet in spite of this, he did not return to the business. his father decided that he should go to school. "i do not write resentfully or angrily," said dickens, in the confidential communication made long afterwards to forster, and to which reference has already been made; "but i never afterwards forgot, i never shall forget, i never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back." the mothers of great men is a subject that has been handled often, and eloquently. how many of those who have achieved distinction can trace their inherited gifts to a mother's character, and their acquired gifts to a mother's teaching and influence. mrs. dickens seems not to have been a mother of this stamp. she scarcely, i fear, possessed those admirable qualities of mind and heart which one can clearly recognize as having borne fruit in the greatness and goodness of her famous son. so far as i can discover, she exercised no influence upon him at all. her name hardly appears in his biographies. he never, that i can recollect, mentions her in his correspondence; only refers to her on the rarest occasions. and perhaps, on the whole, this is not to be wondered at, if we accept the constant tradition that she had, unknown to herself, sat to her son for the portrait of mrs. nickleby, and suggested to him the main traits in the character of that inconsequent and not very wise old lady. mrs. nickleby, i take it, was not the kind of person calculated to form the mind of a boy of genius. as well might one expect some very domestic bird to teach an eaglet how to fly. the school to which our callow eaglet was sent (in the spring or early summer of ), belonged emphatically to the old school of schools. it bore the goodly name of _wellington house academy_, and was situated in mornington place, near the hampstead road. a certain mr. jones held chief rule there; and as more than fifty years have now elapsed since dickens' connection with the establishment ceased, i trust there may be nothing libellous in giving further currency to his statement, or rather, perhaps, to his recorded impression,[ ] that the head master's one qualification for his office was dexterity in the use of the cane;--especially as another "old boy" corroborates that impression, and declares mr. jones to have been "a most ignorant fellow, and a mere tyrant." dickens, however, escaped with comparatively little beating, because he was a day-boy, and sound policy dictated that day-boys, who had facilities for carrying home their complaints, should be treated with some leniency. so he had to get his learning without tears, which was not at all considered the orthodox method in the good old days; and, indeed, i doubt if he finally took away from wellington house academy very much of the book knowledge that would tell in a modern competitive examination. for though in his own account of the school it is implied that he resumed his interrupted studies with virgil, and was, before he left, head boy, and the possessor of many prizes, yet this is not corroborated by the evidence of his surviving fellow pupils; nor can we, of course, in the face of their direct counter evidence, treat statements made in a fictitious or half-fictitious narrative as if made in what professed to be a sober autobiography. dickens, i repeat, seems to have acquired a very scant amount of classic lore while under the instruction of mr. jones, and not too much lore of any kind. but if he learned little, he observed much. he thoroughly mastered the humours of the place, just as he had mastered the humours of the marshalsea. he had got to know all about the masters, and all about the boys, and all about the white mice--of which there were many in various stages of civilization. he acquired, in short, a fund of school knowledge that seemed inexhaustible, and on which he drew again and again, with the most excellent results, in "david copperfield," in "dombey," in such inimitable short papers as "old cheeseman." and while thus, half unconsciously perhaps, assimilating the very life of the school, he was himself a thorough schoolboy, bright, alert, intelligent; taking part in all fun and frolic; amply indemnifying himself for his enforced abstinence from childish games during the dreary warehouse days; good at recitations and mimic plays; and already possessed of a reputation among his peers as a writer of tales. footnotes: [ ] £ a year "without extras" from to , and then £ . see "childhood and youth of charles dickens," by robert langton, a very valuable monograph. [ ] mr. langton appears to doubt whether john dickens was not imprisoned in the king's bench. but this seems scarcely a point on which dickens himself can have been mistaken. [ ] according to mr. langton's dates, he would still be drawing his pay. [ ] see paper entitled "our school." chapter ii. dickens cannot have been very long at wellington house academy, for before may, , he had been at another school near brunswick square, and had also obtained, and quitted, some employment in the office of a solicitor in new square, lincoln's inn fields. it seems clear, therefore, that the whole of his school life might easily be computed in months; and in may, , it will be remembered, he was still but a lad of fifteen. at that date he entered the office of a second solicitor, in gray's inn this time, on a salary of thirteen shillings and sixpence a week, afterwards increased to fifteen shillings. here he remained till november, , again picking up a good deal of information that cannot perhaps be regarded as strictly legal, but such as he was afterwards able to turn to admirable account. he would seem to have studied the profession exhaustively in all its branches, from the topmost tulkinghorns and perkers, to the lowest pettifoggers like pell and brass, and also to have given particular attention to the parasites of the law--the guppys and chucksters; and altogether to have stored his mind, as he had done at school, with a series of invaluable notes and observations. all very well, no doubt, as we look at the matter now. but then it must often have seemed to the ambitious, energetic lad, that he was wasting his time. was he to remain for ever a lawyer's clerk who has not the means to be an articled clerk, and who can never, therefore, aspire to become a full-blown solicitor? was he to spend the future obscurely in the dingy purlieus of the law? his father, in whose career "something," as mr. micawber would have said, had at last "turned up," was now a reporter for the press. the son determined to be a reporter too. he threw himself into this new career with characteristic energy. of course a reporter is not made in a day. it takes many months of drudgery to obtain such skill in shorthand as shall enable the pen of the ready-writer to keep up with the winged words of speech, and make dots and lines that shall be readable. dickens laboured hard to acquire the art. in the intervals of his work he made it a kind of holiday task to attend the reading-room of the british museum, and so remedy the defects in the literary part of his education. but the best powers of his mind were directed to "gurney's system of shorthand." and in time he had his reward. he earned and justified the reputation of being one of the best reporters of his day. i shall not quote the autobiographical passages in "david copperfield" which bear on the difficulties of stenography. the book is in everybody's hands. but i cannot forego the pleasure of brightening my pages with dickens' own description of his experiences as a reporter, a description contained in one of those charming felicitous speeches of his which are almost as unique in kind as his novels. speaking in may, , as chairman of a public dinner on behalf of the newspaper press fund, he said: "i have pursued the calling of a reporter under circumstances of which many of my brethren at home in england here, many of my modern successors, can form no adequate conception. i have often transcribed for the printer, from my shorthand notes, important public speeches, in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a mistake in which would have been, to a young man, severely compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. the very last time i was at exeter, i strolled into the castle-yard there to identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot on which i once took, as we used to call it, an election speech of my noble friend lord russell, in the midst of a lively fight maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, and under such pelting rain, that i remember two good-natured colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my note-book, after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. i have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery in the old house of commons; and i have worn my feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old house of lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep, kept in waiting, say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing. returning home from excited political meetings in the country to the waiting press in london, i do verily believe i have been upset in almost every description of vehicle known in this country. i have been, in my time, belated in miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from london, in a wheel-less carriage, with exhausted horses, and drunken postboys, and have got back in time for publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by the late mr. black, coming in the broadest of scotch from the broadest of hearts i ever knew." what shall i add to this? that the papers on which he was engaged as a reporter, were _the true sun_, _the mirror of parliament_, and _the morning chronicle_; that long afterwards, little more than two years before his death, when addressing the journalists of new york, he gave public expression to his "grateful remembrance of a calling that was once his own," and declared, "to the wholesome training of severe newspaper work, when i was a very young man, i constantly refer my first success;" that his income as a reporter appears latterly to have been some five guineas a week, of course in addition to expenses and general breakages and damages; that there is independent testimony to his exceptional quickness in reporting and transcribing, and to his intelligence in condensing; that to an observer so keen and apt, the experiences of his business journeys in those more picturesque and eventful ante-railway days must have been invaluable; and, finally, that his connection with journalism lasted far into , and so did not cease till some months after "pickwick" had begun to add to the world's store of merriment and laughter. but i have not really reached "pickwick" yet, nor anything like it. that master-work was not also a first work. with all dickens' genius, he had to go through some apprenticeship in the writer's art before coming upon the public as the most popular novelist of his time. let us go back for a little to the twilight before the full sunrise, nay, to the earliest streak upon the greyness of night, to his first original published composition. dickens himself, and in his preface to "pickwick" too, has told us somewhat about that first paper of his; how it was "dropped stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office, up a dark court in fleet street;" how it was accepted, and "appeared in all the glory of print;" and how he was so filled with pleasure and pride on purchasing a copy of the magazine in which it was published, that he went into westminster hall to hide the tears of joy that would come into his eyes. the paper thus joyfully wept over was originally entitled "a dinner at poplar walk," and now bears, among the "sketches by boz," the name of "mr. minns and his cousin"; the periodical in which it was published was _the old monthly magazine_, and the date of publication was january , . "a dinner at poplar walk" may be pronounced a very fairly told tale. it is, no doubt, always easy to be wise after the event, in criticism particularly easy, and when once a writer has achieved success, there is but too little difficulty in showing that his earlier productions were prophetic of his future greatness. at the risk, however, of incurring a charge of this kind, i repeat that dickens' first story is well told, and that the editor of _the old monthly magazine_ showed due discernment in accepting it and encouraging his unknown contributor to further efforts. quite apart from the fact that the author was only a young fellow of some two or three and twenty, both this first story and the stories that followed it in _the old monthly magazine_, during and the early part of , possessed qualities of a very remarkable kind. so also did the humorous descriptive papers shortly afterwards published in _the evening chronicle_, papers that, with the stories, now compose the book known as "sketches by boz." sir arthur helps, speaking of dickens, just after dickens' death,[ ] said, "his powers of observation were almost unrivalled.... indeed, i have said to myself when i have been with him, he sees and observes nine facts for any two that i see and observe." this particular faculty is, i think, almost as clearly discernible in the "sketches" as in the author's later and greater works. london--its sins and sorrows, its gaieties and amusements, its suburban gentilities, and central squalor, the aspects of its streets, and the humours of the dingier classes among its inhabitants,--all this had certainly never been so seen and described before. the power of exact minute delineation lavished upon the picture is admirable. again, the dialogue in the dramatic parts is natural, well-conducted, characteristic, and so used as to help, not impede, the narrative. the speech, for instance, of mr. bung, the broker's man, is a piece of very good dickens. of course there is humour, and very excellent fooling some of it is; and equally, of course, there is pathos, and some of that is not bad. do i mean at all that this earlier work stands on the same level of excellence as the masterpieces of the writer? clearly not. it were absurd to expect the stripling, half-furtively coming forward, first without a name at all, and then under the pseudonym of boz,[ ] to write with the superb practised ease and mastery of the charles dickens who penned "david copperfield." by dint of doing blacksmith's work, says the french proverb, one becomes a blacksmith. the artist, like the handicraftsman, must learn his art. much in the "sketches" betrays inexperience; or, perhaps, it would be more just to say, comparative clumsiness of hand. the descriptions, graphic as they undoubtedly are, lack for the most part the final imaginative touch; the kind of inbreathing of life which afterwards gave such individual charm to dickens' word-painting. the humour is more obvious, less delicate, turns too readily on the claim of the elderly spinster to be considered young, and the desire of all spinsters to get married. the pathos is often spoilt by over-emphasis and declamation. it lacks simplicity. for the "sketches" published in _the old monthly magazine_, dickens got nothing, beyond the pleasure of seeing himself in print. the _chronicle_ treated him somewhat more liberally, and, on his application, increased his salary, giving him, in view of his original contributions, seven guineas a week, instead of the five guineas which he had been drawing as a reporter. not a particularly brilliant augmentation, perhaps, and one at which he must often have smiled in after years, when his pen was dropping gold as well as ink. still, the addition to his income was substantial, and the son of john dickens must always, i imagine, have been in special need of money. moreover the circumstances of the next few months would render any increased earnings doubly pleasant. for dickens was shortly after this engaged to be married to miss catherine hogarth, the daughter of one of his fellow-workers on the _chronicle_. there had been, so forster tells us, a previous very shadowy love affair in his career,--an affair so visionary indeed, and boyish, as scarcely to be worthy of mention in this history, save for three facts: first, that his devotion, dreamlike as it was, seems to have had love's highest practical effect in inducing him to throw his whole strength into the study of shorthand; secondly, that the lady of his love appears to have had some resemblance to dora, the child-wife of david copperfield; and thirdly, that he met her again long years afterwards, when time had worked its changes, and the glamour of love had left his eyes, and that to that meeting we owe the passages in "little dorrit" relating to poor flora. this, however, is a parenthesis. the engagement to miss hogarth was neither shadowy nor unreal--an engagement only in dreamland. better for both, perhaps--who knows?--if it had been. ah me, if one could peer into the future, how many weddings there are at which tears would be more appropriate than smiles and laughter! would charles dickens and catherine hogarth have foreborne to plight their troth, one wonders, if they could have foreseen how slowly and surely the coming years were to sunder their hearts and lives?--they were married on the nd of april, . this date again leads me to a time subsequent to the publication of the first number of "pickwick," which had appeared a day or two before;--and again i refrain from dealing with that great book. for before i do so, i wish to pause a brief space to consider what manner of man charles dickens was when he suddenly broke on the world in his full popularity; and also what were the influences, for good and evil, which his early career had exercised upon his character and intellect. what manner of man he was? in outward aspect all accounts agree that he was singularly, noticeably prepossessing--bright, animated, eager, with energy and talent written in every line of his face. such he was when forster saw him, on the occasion of their first meeting, when dickens was acting as spokesman for the insurgent reporters engaged on the _mirror_. so carlyle, who met him at dinner shortly after this, and was no flatterer, sketches him for us with a pen of unwonted kindliness. "he is a fine little fellow--boz, i think. clear, blue, intelligent eyes, eyebrows that he arches amazingly, large protrusive rather loose mouth, a face of most extreme _mobility_, which he shuttles about--eyebrows, eyes, mouth and all--in a very singular manner while speaking. surmount this with a loose coil of common-coloured hair, and set it on a small compact figure, very small, and dressed _à la_ d'orsay rather than well--this is pickwick. for the rest, a quiet, shrewd-looking little fellow, who seems to guess pretty well what he is and what others are."[ ] is not this a graphic little picture, and characteristic even to the touch about d'orsay, the dandy french count? for dickens, like the young men of the time--disraeli, bulwer, and the rest--was a great fop. we, of these degenerate days, shall never see again that antique magnificence in coloured velvet waistcoats. but to return. dickens, it need scarcely be said, had by this [time][ ] long out-lived the sickliness of his earlier years. the hardships and trials of his childhood and boyhood had served but to brace his young manhood, knitting the frame and strengthening the nerves. light and small, as carlyle describes him, he was wiry and very active, and could bear without injury an amount of intellectual work and bodily fatigue that would have killed many men of seemingly stronger build. and as what might have seemed unfortunate in his youth had helped perchance to develop his physical powers, so had it assisted to strengthen his character and foster his genius. i go back here to the point from which i started. no doubt a weaker man would have been crushed by such a youth. he would have been indolently content to remain a warehouse drudge, would have listlessly fallen into his father's ways about money, would have had no ambition beyond his desk and salary as a lawyer's clerk, would have never cared to piece together and supplement the scattered scraps of his education, would have rested on his oars when he had once shot into the waters of ordinary journalism. with dickens it was not so. the alchemy of a fine nature had transmuted his disadvantages into gold. to him the lessons of such a childhood and boyhood as he had had, were energy, self-reliance, a determination to overcome all obstacles, to fight the battles of life, in all honour and rectitude, so as to win. from the muddle of his father's affairs he had taken away a lesson of method, order, and punctuality in business and other arrangements. "what is worth doing at all is worth doing well," was not only one of his favourite maxims--it was the rule of his life. and for what was to be his life work, what better preparation could there have been than that which he received? i am far from recommending warehouses, squalid solitary lodgings, pawnshops, debtors' prisons,--if such could now be found,--ill-conducted private schools,--which probably could be found,--attorneys' offices, and the hand-to-mouth of journalism, as constituting generally the highest ideal of a liberal education. i am equally far from asserting that the majority of men do not require more training of a purely scholastic kind than fell to dickens' lot. but dickens was not a bookish man. his genius did not lie in that direction. to have forced him unduly into the world of books would have made him, doubtless, an average scholar, but might have weakened his hold on life. such a risk was certainly not worth the running. fate arranged it otherwise. what he was above all was a student of the world of men, a passionately keen observer of the ways of humanity. men were to be his books, his special branch of knowledge; and in order to graduate and take high honours in that school, i repeat, he could have had no better training. not only had he passed through a range of most unwonted experiences, experiences calculated to quicken to the uttermost his superb faculties of observation and insight; but he had been placed in sympathetic communication with a strange assortment of characters, lying quite out of the usual ken of the literary classes. knowledge and sympathy, the seeing eye and the feeling heart--were these nothing to have acquired? that so abnormal an education can have been entirely without drawbacks, it is no part of my purpose to affirm. tossed, as one may say, to sink or swim amid the waves of life, where those waves ran turbid and brackish, dickens had emerged strengthened, triumphant. but that some little signs should not remain of the straining and effort with which he had won the land, was scarcely to be expected. he himself, in his more confidential communications with forster, seems to avow a consciousness that this was so; and forster, though he speaks guardedly, lovingly, appears to be of opinion that a certain self-assertiveness and fierce intolerance of advice or control[ ] occasionally discernible in his friend, might justly be attributed to the harsh influence of early struggles and privations. but what then? that system of education has yet to be devised which shall mould this poor human clay of ours into flawless shapes of use and beauty. a man may be considered fortunate indeed, when his training has left in him only what the french call the "defects of his virtues," that is, the exaggeration of his good qualities till they turn into faults. without his immense strength of purpose and iron will, dickens might never have emerged from obscurity, and the world would have been very distinctly the poorer. one cannot be very sorry that he possessed these gifts in excess. and now, at last, having slightly sketched the history of his earlier years, and endeavoured to show, however perfectly, what influences had gone to the formation of his character, i proceed to consider the book that lifted him to fame and fortune. the years of apprenticeship are over, and the master-workman brings forth his finished work in its flower of perfection. let us study "pickwick." footnotes: [ ] _macmillan's magazine_, july, . [ ] it was the pet name of one of his brothers; that was why he took it. [ ] froude's "thomas carlyle: a history of his life in london." [ ] transcriber's note: the word "time" appears to be missing from the original text. [ ] "i have heard dickens described by those who knew him," says mr. edmund yates, in his "recollections," "as aggressive, imperious, and intolerant, and i can comprehend the accusation.... he was imperious in the sense that his life was conducted on the _sic volo sic jubeo_ principle, and that everything gave way before him. the society in which he mixed, the hours which he kept, the opinions which he held, his likes and dislikes, his ideas of what should or should not be, were all settled by himself, not merely for himself, but for all those brought into connection with him, and it was never imagined they could be called in question.... he had immense powers of will." chapter iii. dickens has told us, in his preface to the later editions, much of how "pickwick" came to be projected and published. it was in this wise: seymour, a caricaturist of very considerable merit, though not, as we should now consider, in the first rank of the great caricaturists, had proposed to messrs. chapman and hall, then just starting on their career as publishers, a "series of cockney sporting plates." messrs. chapman and hall entertained the idea favourably, but opined that the plates would require illustrative letter-press; and casting about for some suitable author, bethought themselves of dickens, whose tales and sketches had been exciting some little sensation in the world of journalism; and who had, indeed, already written for the firm a story, the "tuggs at ramsgate," which may be read among the "sketches." accordingly mr. hall called on dickens for the purpose of proposing the scheme. this would be in , towards the latter end of the year; and dickens, who had apparently left the paternal roof for some little time, was living bachelorwise, in furnival's inn. what was his astonishment, when mr. hall came in, to find he was the same person who had sold him the copy of the magazine containing his first story--that memorable copy at which he had looked, in westminster hall, through eyes bedimmed with joyful tears. such coincidences always had for dickens a peculiar, almost a superstitious, interest. the circumstance seemed of happy augury to both the "high contracting parties." publisher and author were for the nonce on the best of terms. the latter, no doubt, saw his opening; was more than ready to undertake the work, and had no quarrel with the remuneration offered. but even then he was not the man to play second fiddle to anybody. before they parted, he had quite succeeded in turning the tables on seymour. the original proposal had been that the artist should produce four caricatures on sporting subjects every month, and that the letter-press should be in illustration of the caricatures. dickens got mr. hall to agree to reverse that position. _he_, dickens, was to have the command of the story, and the artist was to illustrate _him_. how far these altered relations would have worked quite smoothly if seymour had lived, and if dickens' story had not so soon assumed the proportions of a colossal success, it is idle to speculate. seymour died by his own hand before the second number was published, and so ceased to be in a position to assert himself. it was, however, in deference to the peculiar bent of his art that mr. winkle, with his disastrous sporting proclivities, made part of the first conception of the book; and it is also very significant of the book's origin, that the design on the green wrapper in which the monthly parts made their appearance, should have had a purely sporting character, and exhibited mr. pickwick sleepily fishing in a punt, and mr. winkle shooting at what looks like a cock-sparrow, the whole surrounded by a chaste arabesque of guns, rods, and landing-nets. to seymour, too, we owe the portrait of mr. pickwick, which has impressed that excellent old gentleman's face and figure upon all our memories. but to return to dickens' interview with mr. hall. they seem to have parted in mutual satisfaction. at least it is certain dickens was satisfied, for in a letter written, apparently on the same day, to "my dearest kate," he thus sums up the proposals of the publishers: "they have made me an offer of fourteen pounds a month to write and edit a new publication they contemplate, entirely by myself, to be published monthly, and each number to contain four wood-cuts.... the work will be no joke, but the emolument is too tempting to resist."[ ] so, little thinking how soon he would begin to regard the "emolument" as ludicrously inadequate, he set to work on "pickwick." the first part was published on the st of march or st of april, . that part seems scarcely to have created any sensation. mr james grant, the novelist, says indeed, that the first five parts were "a dead failure," and that the publishers were even debating whether the enterprise had not better be abandoned altogether, when suddenly sam weller appeared upon the scene, and turned their gloom into laughter. be that as it may, certain it is that before many months had passed, messrs. chapman and hall must have been thoroughly confirmed in a policy of perseverance. "the first order for part i.," that is, the first order for binding, "was," says the bookbinder who executed the work, "for four hundred copies only." the order for part xv. had risen to forty thousand. all contemporary accounts agree that the success was sudden, immense. the author, like lord byron, some twenty-five years before, "awoke and found himself famous." young as he was, not having yet numbered more than twenty-four summers, he at one stride reached the topmost height of popularity. everybody read his book. everybody laughed over it. everybody talked about it. everybody felt, confusedly perhaps, but very surely, that a new and vital force had arisen in english literature. and english literature just then was in one of its times of slackness, rather than full flow. the great tide of the beginning of the century had ebbed. the tide of the victorian age had scarcely begun to do more than ripple and flash on the horizon. byron was dead, and shelley and keats and coleridge and lamb; southey's life was on the decline; wordsworth had long executed his best work; while of the coming men, carlyle, though in the plenitude of his power, having published "sartor resartus," had not yet published his "french revolution,"[ ] or delivered his lectures on the "heroes," and was not yet in the plenitude of his fame and influence; and macaulay, then in india, was known only as the essayist and politician; and lord tennyson and the brownings were more or less names of the future. looking especially at fiction, the time may be said to have been waiting for its master-novelist. five years had gone by since the good and great sir walter scott had been laid to rest in dryburgh abbey, there to sleep, as is most fit, amid the ruins of that old middle age world he loved so well, with the babble of the tweed for lullaby. nor had any one shown himself of stature to step into his vacant place, albeit bulwer, more precocious even than dickens, was already known as the author of "pelham," "eugene aram," and the "last days of pompeii;" and disraeli had written "vivian grey," and his earlier books; while thackeray, charlotte brontë, kingsley, george eliot were all, of course, to come later. no, there was a vacant throne among the novelists. here was the hour--and here, too, was the man. in virtue of natural kingship he took up his sceptre unquestioned. still, it may not be superfluous to inquire into the why and wherefore of his success. all effects have a cause. what was the cause of this special phenomenon? in the first place, the admirable freshness of the book won its way into every heart. there is a fervour of youth and healthy good spirits about the whole thing. in a former generation, byron had uttered his wail of despair over a worthless world. we, in our own time, have got back to the dreary point of considering whether life be worth living. here was a writer who had no such misgivings. for him life was pleasant, useful, full of delight--to be not only tolerated, but enjoyed. he liked its sights, its play of character, its adventures--affected no superiority to its amusements and convivialities--thoroughly laid himself out to please and to be pleased. and his characters were in the same mood. their fund of animal spirits seemed inexhaustible. for life's jollities they were never unprepared. no doubt there were "mighty mean moments" in their existence, as there have been in the existence of most of us. it cannot have been pleasant to mr. winkle to have his eye blackened by the obstreperous cabman. mr. tracy tupman probably felt a passing pang when jilted by the maiden aunt in favour of the audacious jingle. no man would elect to occupy the position of defendant in an action for breach of promise, or prefer to sojourn in a debtors' prison. but how jauntily do mr. pickwick and his friends shake off such discomforts! how buoyantly do they override the billows that beset their course! and what excellent digestions they have, and how slightly do they seem to suffer the next day from any little excesses in the matter of milk punch! then besides the good spirits and good temper, there is dickens' royal gift of humour. as some actors have only to show their face and utter a word or two, in order to convulse an audience with merriment, so here does almost every sentence hold good and honest laughter. not, perhaps, objects the superfine and too dainty critic, humour of the most delicate sort--not humour that for its rare and exquisite quality can be placed beside the masterpieces in that kind of lamb, or sterne, or goldsmith, or washington irving. granted freely; not humour of that special character. but very good humour nevertheless, the thoroughly popular humour of broad comedy and obvious farce--the humour that finds its account where absurd characters are placed in ridiculous situations, that delights in the oddities of the whimsical and eccentric, that irradiates stupidity and makes dulness amusing. how thoroughly wholesome it is too! to be at the same time merry and wise, says the old adage, is a hard combination. dickens was both. with all his boisterous merriment, his volleys of inextinguishable laughter, he never makes game of what is at all worthy of respect. here, as in his later books, right is right, and wrong wrong, and he is never tempted to jingle his jester's bell out of season, and make right look ridiculous. and if the humour of "pickwick" be wholesome, it is also most genial and kindly. we have here no acrid cynic sneeringly pointing out the plague spots of humanity, and showing pleasantly how even the good are tainted with evil. rather does dickens delight in finding some touch of goodness, some lingering memory of better things, some hopeful aspiration, some trace of unselfish devotion in characters where all seems soddened and lost. in brief, the laughter is the laughter of one who sees the foibles, and even the vices of his fellow-men, and yet looks on them lovingly and helpfully. so much the first readers of "pickwick" might note as the book unfolded itself to them, part by part; and they might also note one or two things besides. they might note--they could scarcely fail to do so--that though there was a touch of caricature in nearly all the characters, yet those characters were, one and all, wonderfully real, and very much alive. it was no world of shadows to which the author introduced them. mr. pickwick had a very distinct existence, and so had his three friends, and bob sawyer, and benjamin allen, and mr. jingle, and tony weller, and all the swarm of minor characters. while as to sam weller, if it be really true that he averted impending ruin from the book, and turned defeat into victory, one can only say that it was like him. when did he ever "stint stroke" in "foughten field"? by what array of adverse circumstances was he ever taken at a disadvantage? to have created a character of this vitality, of this individual force, would be a feather in the cap of any novelist who ever lived. something i think of dickens' own blood passed into this special progeniture of his. it has been irreverently said that falstaff might represent shakespeare in his cups, just as hamlet might represent him in his more sober moments. so i have always had a kind of fancy that sam weller might be regarded as dickens himself seen in a certain aspect--a sort of dickens, shall i say?--in an humbler sphere of life, and who had never devoted himself to literature. there is in both the same energy, pluck, essential goodness of heart, fertility of resource, abundance of animal spirits, and also an imagination of a peculiar kind, in which wit enters as a main ingredient. and having noted how highly vitalized were the characters in "pickwick," i think the first readers might also fairly be expected to note,--and, in fact, it is clear from dickens' preface that they did note--how greatly the book increased in scope and power as it proceeded. the beginning was conceived almost in a spirit of farce. the incidents and adventures had scarcely any other object than to create amusement. mr. pickwick himself appeared on the scene with fantastic honours and the badge of absurdity, as "the man who had traced to their source the mighty ponds of hampstead, and agitated the scientific world with the theory of tittlebats." but in all this there is a gradual change. mr. pickwick is presented to us latterly as an exceedingly sound-headed as well as sound-hearted old gentleman, whom we should never think of associating with the sources of hampstead ponds or any other folly. while in such scenes as those at the fleet prison, the author is clearly endeavouring to do much more than raise a laugh. he is sounding the deeper, more tragic chords in human feeling. ah, if we add to all this--to the freshness, the "go," the good spirits, the keen observation, the graphic painting, the humour, the vitality of the characters, the gradual development of power--if we add to all this that something which is in all, and greater than all, viz., genius, and genius of a highly popular kind, then we shall have no difficulty in understanding why everybody read "pickwick," and how it came to pass that its publishers made some £ , by a work that they had once thought of abandoning as worthless.[ ] footnotes: [ ] see the letters published by chapman and hall. [ ] it was finished in january, , and not published till six months afterwards. [ ] they acknowledged to dickens that they had made £ , by the sale of the monthly parts alone. chapter iv. dickens was not at all the man to rest on his oars while "pickwick" was giving such a magnificent impetus to the boat that contained his fortunes. the amount of work which he accomplished in the years , , , and is, if we consider its quality, amazing. "pickwick," as we have seen, was begun with the first of these years, and its publication continued till the november of . independently of his work on "pickwick," he was, in the year , engaged in the arduous profession of a reporter till the close of the parliamentary session, and also wrote a pamphlet on sabbatarianism, a farce in two acts, "the strange gentleman," for the st. james's theatre, and a comic opera, "the village coquettes," which was set to music by hullah. with the very commencement of --"pickwick," it will be remembered, going on all the while--he entered upon the duties of editor of _bentley's miscellany_, and in the second number began the publication of "oliver twist," which was continued into the early months of , when his connection with the magazine ceased. in the april of , and simultaneously, of course, with "oliver twist," appeared the first part of "nicholas nickleby"--the last part appearing in the october of the following year. three novels of more than full size and of first-rate importance, in less than four years, besides a good deal of other miscellaneous work--certainly that was "good going." the pace was decidedly fast. small wonder that _the quarterly review_, even so early as october, , was tempted to croak about "mr. dickens" as writing "too often and too fast, and putting forth in their crude, unfinished, undigested state, thoughts, feelings, observations, and plans which it required time and study to mature," and to warn him that as he had "risen like a rocket," so he was in danger of "coming down like the stick." small wonder, i say, and yet to us now, how unjust the accusation appears, and how false the prophecy. rapidly as those books were executed, dickens, like the real artist that he was, had put into them his best work. there was no scamping. the critics of the time judged superficially, not making allowance for the ample fund of observations he had amassed, for the genuine fecundity of his genius, and for the admirable industry of an extremely industrious man. "the world's workers"--there exists under that general designation a series of short biographies, for which miss dickens has written a sketch of her father's life. to no one could the description more fittingly apply. throughout his life he worked desperately hard. he possessed, in a high degree, the "infinite faculty for taking pains," which is so great an adjunct to genius, though it is not, as the good sir joshua reynolds held, genius itself. thus what he had done rapidly was done well; and, for the rest, the writer, who had yet to give the world "martin chuzzlewit," "the christmas carol," "david copperfield," and "dombey," was not "coming down like a stick." there were many more stars, and of very brilliant colours, to be showered out by that rocket; and the stick has not even yet fallen to the ground.[ ] naturally, with the success of "pickwick," came a great change in dickens' pecuniary position. he had, as we have seen, been glad enough, before he began the book, to close with the offer of £ for each monthly part. that sum was afterwards increased to £ , and the two first payments seem to have been made in advance for the purpose of helping him to defray the expenses of his marriage. but as the sale leapt up, the publishers themselves felt that such a rate of remuneration was altogether insufficient, and sent him, first and last, a goodly number of supplementary cheques, for sums amounting in the aggregate, as _they_ computed, to £ , , and as forster computes to about £ , . this dickens, who, to use his own words, "never undervalued his own work," considered a very inadequate percentage on their gains--forgetting a little, perhaps, that the risks had been wholly theirs, and that he had been more than content with the original bargain. similarly he was soon utterly dissatisfied with his arrangements with bentley about the editorship of the _miscellany_ and "oliver twist,"--arrangements which had been entered into in august, , while "pickwick" was in progress; and he utterly refused to let that publisher have "gabriel varden, the locksmith of london" ("barnaby rudge") on the terms originally agreed upon. with macrone also, who had made some £ , by the "sketches," and given him about £ , he was no better pleased, especially when that enterprising gentleman threatened a re-issue in monthly parts, and so compelled him to re-purchase the copyright for £ , . but however much he might consider himself ill-treated by the publishing fraternity, he was, of course, rapidly getting far richer than he had been, and so able to enlarge his mode of life. he had begun, modestly enough, by taking his wife to live with him in his bachelor's quarters in furnival's inn,--much as tommy traddles, in "david copperfield," took _his_ wife to live in chambers at gray's inn; and there, in furnival's inn, his first child, a boy, was born on the th of january, . but in the march of that year he moved to a more commodious dwelling, at , doughty street, where he remained till the end of , when still increasing means enabled him to move to a still better house at , devonshire terrace, regent's park. but the house in doughty street must have been endeared to him by many memories. it was there, on the th of may, , that he lost, at the early age of seventeen, and quite suddenly, a sister-in-law, mary hogarth, to whom he was greatly attached. the blow fell so heavily at the time as to incapacitate him from all work, and delayed the publication of one of the numbers of "pickwick." nor was the sorrow only sharp and transient. he speaks of her in the preface to the first edition of that book. her spirit seemed to be hovering near as he stood looking at niagara. he felt her hallowing influence when in danger of growing too much elated by his first reception in america. she came back to him in dreams in italy. her image remained in his heart, unchanged by time, as he declared, to the very end. she represented to his mind all that was pure and lovely in opening womanhood, and lives, in the world created by his art, as the little nell of "the old curiosity shop." it was in doughty street, too, that he began to gather round him the circle of friends whose names seem almost like a muster-roll of the famous men and women in the first thirty years of queen victoria's reign. i shall not enumerate them. the list of writers, artists, actors, would be too long. but this at least it would be unjust not to note, that among his friends were included nearly all those who by any stretch of fancy could be regarded as his rivals in the fields of humour and fiction. with washington irving, hood, douglas jerrold, lord lytton, harrison ainsworth, mr. wilkie collins, mrs. gaskell, and, save for a passing foolish quarrel, with thackeray, the novelist who really was his peer, he maintained the kindliest and most cordial relations. nor when george eliot published her first books, "the scenes of clerical life" and "adam bede," did any one acknowledge their excellence more freely. petty jealousies found no place in the nature of this great writer. it was also while living at doughty street that he seems, in great measure, to have formed those habits of work and relaxation which every artist fashions so as to suit his own special needs and idiosyncrasies. his favourite time for work was the morning, between the hours of breakfast and lunch; and though, at this particular period, the enormous pressure of his engagements compelled him to work "double tides," and often far into the night, yet he was essentially a day-worker, not a night-worker. like the great german poet goethe, he preferred to exercise his art in the fresh morning hours, when the dewdrops, as it were, lay bright upon his imagination and fancy. and for relaxation and sedative, when he had thoroughly worn himself out with mental toil, he would have recourse to the hardest bodily exercise. at first riding seems to have contented him--fifteen miles out and fifteen miles in, with a halt at some road-side inn for refreshment. but soon walking took the place of riding, and he became an indefatigable pedestrian. he would think nothing of a walk of twenty or thirty miles, and that not merely in the vigorous heyday of youth, but afterwards, to the very last. he was always on those alert, quick feet of his, perambulating london from end to end, and in every direction; perambulating the suburbs, perambulating the "greater london" that lies within a radius of twenty miles, round the central core of metropolitan houses. in short, he was everywhere, in all weathers, at all hours. nor was london, smaller and greater, his only walking field. he would walk wherever he was--walked through and through genoa, and all about genoa, when he lived there; knew every inch of the kent country round broadstairs and round gad's hill--was, as i have said, always, always, always on his feet. but if he would pedestrianize everywhere, london remained the walking ground of his heart. as dr. johnson held that nothing equalled a stroll down fleet street, so did dickens, sitting in full view of genoa's perfect bay, and with the blue mediterranean sparkling at his feet, turn in thought for inspiration to his old haunts. "never," he writes to forster, when about to begin "the chimes," "never did i stagger so upon a threshold before. i seem as if i had plucked myself out of my proper soil when i left devonshire terrace, and could take root no more until i return to it.... did i tell you how many fountains we have here? no matter. if they played nectar, they wouldn't please me half so well as the west middlesex waterworks at devonshire terrace.... put me down on waterloo bridge at eight o'clock in the evening, with leave to roam about as long as i like, and i would come home, as you know, panting to go on. i am sadly strange as it is, and can't settle." "eight o'clock in the evening,"--that points to another of his peculiarities. as he liked best to walk in london, so he liked best to walk at night. the darkness of the great city had a strange fascination for him. he never grew tired of it, would find pleasure and refreshment, when most weary and jaded, in losing himself in it, in abandoning himself to its mysteries. looked at with this knowledge, the opening of the "old curiosity shop" becomes a passage of autobiography. and how all these wanderings must have served him in his art! remember what a keen observer he was, perhaps one of the keenest that ever lived, and then think what food for observation he would thus be constantly collecting. to the eye that knows how to see, there is no stage where so many scenes from the drama of life are being always enacted as the streets of london. dickens frequented that theatre very assiduously, and of his power of sight there can be no question. footnotes: [ ] i think critics, and perhaps i myself, have been a little hard on this quarterly reviewer. he did not, after all, say that dickens would come down like a stick, only that he might do so if he wrote too fast and furiously. chapter v. "pickwick" had been a novel without any plot. the story, if story it can be called, bore every trace of its hasty origin. scene succeeded scene, and incident incident, and mr. pickwick and his three friends were hurried about from place to place, and through adventures of all kinds, without any particularly defined purpose. in truth, many people, and myself among the number, find some difficulty in reading the book as a connected narrative, and prefer to take it piecemeal. but in "oliver twist" there is a serious effort to work out a coherent plot, and real unity of conception. whether that conception be based on probability, is another point. oliver is the illegitimate son of a young lady who has lapsed from virtue under circumstances of great temptation, but still lapsed from virtue, and who dies in giving him birth. he is brought up as a pauper child in a particularly ill-managed workhouse, and apprenticed to a low undertaker. thence he escapes, and walks to london, where he falls in with a gang of thieves. his legitimate brother, an unutterable scoundrel, happens to see him in london, and recognizing him by a likeness to their common father, bribes the thieves to recapture him when he has escaped from their clutches. now i would rather not say whether i consider it quite likely that a boy of this birth and nurture would fly at a boy much bigger than himself in vindication of the fair fame of a mother whom he had never known, or would freely risk his life to warn a sleeping household that they were being robbed, or would, on all occasions, exhibit the most excellent manners and morals, and a delicacy of feeling that is quite dainty. but this is the essence of the book. to show purity and goodness of disposition as self-sufficient in themselves to resist all adverse influences, is dickens' main object. take oliver's sweet uncontaminated character away, and the story crumbles to pieces. with mere improbabilities of plot, i have no quarrel. of course it is not likely that the boy, on the occasion of his first escape from the thieves, should be rescued by his father's oldest friend, and, on the second occasion, come across his aunt. but such coincidences must be accepted in any story; they violate no truth of character. i am afraid i can't say as much of master oliver's graces and virtues. with this reservation, however, how much there is in the book to which unstinted admiration can be given! as "pickwick" first fully exhibited the humorous side of dickens' genius, so "oliver twist" first fully exhibited its tragic side;--the pathetic side was to come somewhat later. the scenes at the workhouse; at the thieves' dens in london; the burglary; the murder of poor nancy; the escape and death of the horror-haunted sikes,--all are painted with a master's hand. and the book, like its predecessor, and like those that were to follow, contains characters that have passed into common knowledge as types,--characters of the keenest individuality, and that yet seem in themselves to sum up a whole class. such are bill sikes, whose ruffianism has an almost epic grandeur; and black-hearted fagin, the jew, receiver of stolen goods and trainer of youth in the way they should _not_ go; and master dawkins, the artful dodger. such, too, is mr. bumble, greatest and most unhappy of beadles. comedy had predominated in "pickwick," tragedy in "oliver twist." the more complete fusion of the two was effected in "nicholas nickleby." but as the mighty actor garrick, in the well-known picture by sir joshua reynolds, is drawn towards the more mirthful of the two sisters, so, here again, i think that comedy decidedly bears away the palm,--though tragedy is not beaten altogether without a struggle either. here is the story as it unfolds itself. the two heroes are ralph nickleby and his nephew nicholas. they stand forth, almost from the beginning, as antagonists, in battle array the one against the other; and the story is, in the main, a history of the campaigns between them--cunning and greed being mustered on the one side, and young, generous courage on the other. at first nicholas believes in his uncle, who promises to befriend nicholas's mother and sister, and obtains for nicholas himself a situation as usher in a yorkshire school kept by one squeers. but the young fellow's gorge rises at the sickening cruelty exercised in the school, and he leaves it, having first beaten mr. squeers,--leaves it followed by a poor shattered creature called smike. meanwhile ralph, the usurer, befriends his sister-in-law and niece after his own fashion, and tries to use the latter's beauty in furtherance of his trade as a money-lender. nicholas discovers his plots, frustrates all his schemes, rescues, and ultimately marries, a young lady who had been immeshed in one of them; and ralph, at last, utterly beaten, commits suicide on finding that smike, through whom he had been endeavouring all through to injure nicholas, and who is now dead, was his own son. such are the book's dry bones, its skeleton, which one is almost ashamed to expose thus nakedly. for the beauty of these novels lies not at all in the plot; it is in the incidents, situations, characters. and with beauty of this kind how richly dowered is "nicholas nickleby"! take the characters alone. what lavish profusion of humour in the theatrical group that clusters round mr. vincent crummles, the country manager; and in the squeers family too; and in the little shop-world of mrs. mantalini, the fashionable dressmaker; and in cheeryble brothers, the golden-hearted old merchants who take nicholas into their counting-house. then for single characters commend me to mrs. nickleby, whose logic, which some cynics would call feminine, is positively sublime in its want of coherence; and to john browdie, the honest yorkshire cornfactor, as good a fellow almost as dandie dinmont, the border yeoman whom scott made immortal. the high-life personages are far less successful. dickens had small gift that way, and seldom succeeded in his society pictures. nor, if the truth must be told, do i greatly care for the description of the duel between sir mulberry hawk and lord verisopht, though it was evidently very much admired at the time, and is quoted, as a favourable specimen of dickens' style, in charles knight's "half-hours with the best authors." the writing is a little too _tall_. it lacks simplicity, as is sometimes the case with dickens, when he wants to be particularly impressive. and this leads me, by a kind of natural sequence, to what i have to say about his next book, "the old curiosity shop;" for here, again, though in a very much more marked degree, i fear i shall have to run counter to a popular opinion. but first a word as to the circumstances under which the book was published. casting about, after the conclusion of "nicholas nickleby," for further literary ventures, dickens came to the conclusion that the public must be getting tired of his stories in monthly parts. it occurred to him that a weekly periodical, somewhat after the manner of addison's _spectator_ or goldsmith's _bee_, and containing essays, stories, and miscellaneous papers,--to be written mainly, but not entirely, by himself,--would be just the thing to revive interest, and give his popularity a spur. accordingly an arrangement was entered into with messrs. chapman and hall, by which they covenanted to give him £ for each weekly number of such a periodical, and half profits;--and the first number of _master humphrey's clock_ made its appearance in the april of . unfortunately dickens had reckoned altogether without his host. the public were not to be cajoled. what they expected from their favourite was novels, not essays, short stories, or sketches, however admirable. the orders for the first number had amounted to seventy thousand; but they fell off as soon as it was discovered that master humphrey, sitting by his clock, had no intention of beguiling the world with a continuous narrative,--that the title, in short, did not stand for the title of a novel. either the times were not ripe for the _household words_, which, ten years afterwards, proved to be such a great and permanent success, or dickens had laid his plans badly. vainly did he put forth all his powers, vainly did he bring back upon the stage those old popular favourites, mr. pickwick, sam weller, and tony weller. all was of no avail. clearly, in order to avoid defeat, a change of front had become necessary. the novel of "the old curiosity shop" was accordingly commenced in the fourth number of the _clock_, and very soon acted the cuckoo's part of thrusting master humphrey and all that belonged to him out of the nest. he disappeared pretty well from the periodical, and when the novel was republished, the whole machinery of the _clock_ had gone;--and with it i may add, some very characteristic and admirable writing. dickens himself confessed that he "winced a little," when the "opening paper, ... in which master humphrey described himself and his manner of life," "became the property of the trunkmaker and the butterman;" and most dickens lovers will agree with me in rejoicing that the omitted parts have now at last been tardily rescued from unmerited neglect, and finds [transcriber's note: sic] a place in the recently issued "charles dickens" edition of the works. there is no hero in "the old curiosity shop,"--unless mr. richard swiveller, "perpetual grand-master of the glorious apollos," be the questionable hero; and the heroine is little nell, a child. of dickens' singular feeling for the pathos and humour of childhood, i have already spoken. many novelists, perhaps one might even say, most novelists, have no freedom of utterance when they come to speak about children, do not know what to do with a child if it chances to stray into their pages. but how different with dickens! he is never more thoroughly at home than with the little folk. perhaps his best speech, and they all are good, is the one uttered at the dinner given on behalf of the children's hospital. certainly there is no figure in "dombey and son" on which more loving care has been lavished than the figure of little paul, and when the lad dies one quite feels that the light has gone out of the book. "david copperfield" shorn of david's childhood and youth would be a far less admirable performance. the hero of "oliver twist" is a boy. pip is a boy through a fair portion of "great expectations." the heroine of "the old curiosity shop" is, as i have just said, a girl. and of all these children, the one who seems, from the first, to have stood highest in popular favour, and won most hearts, is little nell. ay me, what tears have been shed over her weary wanderings with that absurd old gambling grandfather of hers; how many persons have sorrowed over her untimely end as if she had been a daughter or a sister. high and low, literate and illiterate, over nearly all has she cast her spell. hood, he who sang the "song of the shirt," paid her the tribute of his admiration, and jeffrey, the hard-headed old judge and editor of _the edinburgh review_, the tribute of his tears. landor volleyed forth his thunderous praises over her grave, likening her to juliet and desdemona. nay, dickens himself sadly bewailed her fate, described himself as being the "wretchedest of the wretched" when it drew near, and shut himself from all society as if he had suffered a real bereavement. while as to the feeling which she has excited in the breasts of the illiterate, we may take mr. bret harte's account of the haggard golddiggers by the roaring californian camp fire, who throw down their cards to listen to her story, and, for the nonce, are softened and humanized.[ ]--such is the sympathy she has created. and for the description of her death and burial, as a superb piece of pathetic writing, there has been a perfect chorus of praise broken here and there no doubt by a discordant voice, but still of the loudest and most heartfelt. did not horne, a poet better known to the last generation than to this, point out that though printed as prose, these passages were, perhaps as "the result of harmonious accident," essentially poetry, and "written in blank verse of irregular metres and rhythms, which southey and shelley and some other poets have occasionally adopted"? did he not print part of the passages in this form, substituting only, as a concession to the conventionalities of verse, the word "grandames" for "grandmothers"; and did he not declare of one of the extracts so printed that it was "worthy of the best passages in wordsworth"? if it "argues an insensibility" to stand somewhat unmoved among all these tears and admiration, i am afraid i must be rather pebble-hearted. to tell the whole damaging truth, i am, and always have been, only slightly affected by the story of little nell; have never felt any particular inclination to shed a tear over it, and consider the closing chapters as failing of their due effect, on me at least, because they are pitched in a key that is altogether too high and unnatural. of course one makes a confession of this kind with diffidence. it is no light thing to stem the current of a popular opinion. but one can only go with the stream when one thinks the stream is flowing in a right channel. and here i think the stream is meandering out of its course. for me, little nell is scarcely more than a figure in cloudland. possibly part of the reason why i do not feel as much sympathy with her as i ought, is because i do not seem to know her very well. with paul dombey i am intimately acquainted. i should recognize the child anywhere, should be on the best of terms with him in five minutes. few things would give me greater pleasure than an hour's saunter by the side of his little invalid's carriage along the parade at brighton. how we should laugh, to be sure, if we happened to come across mr. toots, and smile, too, if we met feeder, b.a., and give a furtive glance of recognition at glubb, the discarded charioteer. then the classic cornelia blimber would pass, on her constitutional, and we should quail a little--at least i am certain _i_ should--as she bent upon us her scholastic spectacles; and a glimpse of dr. blimber would chill us even more; till--ah! what's this? why does a flush of happiness mantle over my little friend's pale face? why does he utter a faint cry of pleasure? yes, there she is--he has caught sight of floy running forward to meet him.--so am i led, almost instinctively, whenever the figure of paul flashes into my mind, to think of him as a child i have actually known. but nell--she has no such reality of existence. she has been etherealized, vapourized, rhapsodized about, till the flesh and blood have gone out of her. i recognize her attributes, unselfishness, sweetness of disposition, gentleness. but these don't constitute a human being. they don't make up a recognizable individuality. if i met her in the street, i am afraid i should not know her; and if i did, i am sure we should both find it difficult to keep up a conversation. do the passages describing her death and burial really possess the rhythm of poetry? that would seem to me, i confess, to be as ill a compliment as to say of a piece of poetry that it was really prose. the music of prose and of poetry are essentially different. they do not affect the ear in the same way. the one is akin to song, the other to speech. give to prose the recurring cadences, the measure, and the rhythmic march of verse, and it becomes bad prose without becoming good poetry.[ ] so, in fairness to dickens, one is bound, as far as one can, to forget horne's misapplied praise. but even thus, and looking upon it as prose alone, can we say that the account of nell's funeral is, in the high artistic sense, a piece of good work. here is an extract: "and now the bell--the bell she had so often heard, by night and day, and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice--rang its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so good. decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless infancy, poured forth--on crutches, in the pride of strength and health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life--to gather round her tomb. old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing--grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and still been old,--the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that earthly grave. what was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl and creep above it?" such is the tone throughout, and one feels inclined to ask whether it is quite the appropriate tone in which to speak of the funeral of a child in a country churchyard? all this pomp of rhetoric seems to me--shall i say it?--as much out of place as if nell had been buried like some great soldier or minister of state--with a hearse, all sable velvet and nodding plumes, drawn by a long train of sable steeds, and a final discharge of artillery over the grave. the verbal honours paid here to the deceased are really not much less incongruous and out of keeping. surely in such a subject, above all others, the pathos of simplicity would have been most effective. there are some, indeed, who deny to dickens the gift of pathos altogether. such persons acknowledge, for the most part a little unwillingly, that he was a master of humour of the broader, more obvious kind. but they assert that all his sentiment is mawkish and overstrained, and that his efforts to compel our tears are so obvious as to defeat their own purpose. now it will be clear, from what i have said about little nell, that i am capable of appreciating the force of any criticism of this kind; nay, that i go so far as to acknowledge that dickens occasionally lays himself open to it. but go one inch beyond this i cannot. of course we may, if we like, take up a position of pure stoicism, and deny pathos altogether, in life as in art. we may regard all human affairs but as a mere struggle for existence, and say that might makes right, and that the weak is only treated according to his deserts when he goes to the wall. we may hold that neither sorrow nor suffering call for any meed of sympathy. such is mainly the attitude which the french novelist adopts towards the world of his creation.[ ] but once admit that feeling is legitimate; once allow that tears are due to those who have been crushed and left bleeding by this great world of ours as it crashes blundering on its way; once grant that the writer's art can properly embrace what shakespeare calls "the pity of it," the sorrows inwoven in all our human relationships; once acknowledge all this, and then i affirm, most confidently, that dickens, working at his best, was one of the greatest masters of pathos who ever lived. i can myself see scarce a strained discordant note in the account of the short life and early death of paul dombey, and none in the description of the death of paul dombey's mother, or in the story of tiny tim, or in the record of david copperfield's childhood and boyhood. i consider the passage in "american notes" describing the traits of gentle kindliness among the emigrants as being nobly, pathetically eloquent. did space allow, i could support my position by quotations and example to any extent. and my conclusion is that, though he failed with little nell, yet he succeeded elsewhere, and superbly. the number of _master humphrey's clock_, containing the conclusion of "the old curiosity shop," appeared on the th of january, , and "barnaby rudge" began its course in the ensuing week. the first had been essentially a tale of modern life. all the characters that made a kind of background, mostly grotesque or hideous, for the figure of little nell, were characters of to-day, or at least of the day when the book was written; for i must not forget that that day ran into the past some six and forty years ago. quilp, the dwarf,--and a far finer specimen of a scoundrel by the by, in every respect, than that poor stage villain monks; sampson brass and his legal sister sally, a goodly pair; kit, golden-hearted and plain of body, who so barely escapes from the plot laid by the afore-mentioned worthies to prove him a thief; chuckster, most lady-killing of notaries' clerks; mrs. jarley, the good-natured waxwork woman, in whose soul there would be naught save kindliness, only she cannot bring herself to tolerate punch and judy; short and codlin, the punch and judy men; the little misused servant, whom dick swiveller in his grandeur creates a marchioness; and the magnificent swiveller himself, prince among the idle and impecunious, justifying by his snatches of song, and flowery rhetoric, his high position as "perpetual grand-master" among the "glorious apollers,"--all these, making allowance perhaps for some idealization, were personages of dickens' own time. but in "barnaby rudge," dickens threw himself back into the last century. the book is a historical novel, one of the two which he wrote, the other being the "tale of two cities," and its scenes are many of them laid among the no popery riots of . a ghastly time, a time of aimless, brutal incendiarism and mad turbulence on the part of the mob; a time of weakness and ineptitude on the part of the government; a time of wickedness, folly, and misrule. dickens describes it admirably. his picture of the riots themselves seems painted in pigments of blood and fire; and yet, through all the hurry and confusion, he retains the clearness of arrangement and lucidity which characterize the pictures of such subjects when executed by the great masters of the art--as carlyle, for example. his portrait of the poor, crazy-brained creature, lord george gordon, who sowed the wind which the country was to reap in whirlwind, is excellent. nor is what may be called the private part of the story unskilfully woven with the historical part. the plot, though not good, rises perhaps above the average of dickens' plots; for even we, his admirers, are scarcely bound to maintain that plot was his strong point. beyond this, i think i may say that the book is, on the whole, the least characteristic of his books. it is the one which those who are most out of sympathy with his peculiar vein of humour and pathos will probably think the best, and the one which the true dickens lovers will generally regard as bearing the greatest resemblance to an ordinary novel. footnotes: [ ] "dickens in camp." [ ] dickens himself knew that he had a tendency to fall into blank verse in moments of excitement, and tried to guard against it. [ ] m. daudet, in many respects a follower of dickens, is a fine and notable exception. chapter vi. the last number of "barnaby rudge" appeared in november, , and, on the th of the following january dickens sailed with his wife for a six months' tour in the united states. what induced him to undertake this journey, more formidable then, of course, than now? mainly, i think, that restless desire to see the world which is strong in a great many men, and was specially strong in dickens. ride as he might, and walk as he might, his abounding energies remained unsatisfied. in there had been trips to belgium, broadstairs, brighton; in to yorkshire, broadstairs, north wales, and a fairly long stay at twickenham; in a similar stay at petersham--where, as at twickenham, frolic, gaiety and athletics had prevailed,--and trips to broadstairs and devonshire; in trips again to bath, birmingham, shakespeare's country, broadstairs, devonshire; in more trips, and a very notable visit to edinburgh, with which little nell had a great deal to do. for lord jeffrey was enamoured of that young lady, declaring to whomsoever would hear that there had been "nothing so good ... since cordelia;" and inoculating the citizens of the northern capital with his enthusiasm, he had induced them to offer to dickens a right royal banquet, and the freedom of their city. accordingly to edinburgh he repaired, and the dinner took place on the th of june, with three hundred of the chief notabilities for entertainers, and a reception such as kings might have envied. jeffrey himself was ill and unable to take the chair, but wilson, the leonine "christopher north," editor of _blackwood_, and author of those "noctes ambrosianæ" which were read so eagerly as they came out, and which some of us find so difficult to read now--wilson presided most worthily. of speechifying there was of course much, and compliments abounded. but the banquet itself, the whole reception at edinburgh was the most magnificent of compliments. never, i imagine, can such efforts have been made to turn any young man's brain, as were made, during this and the following year, to turn the head of dickens, who was still, be it remembered, under thirty. nevertheless he came unscathed through the ordeal. a kind of manly genuineness bore him through. amid all the adulation and excitement, the public and private hospitalities, the semi-regal state appearance at the theatre, he could write, and write truly, to his friend forster: "the moral of this is, that there is no place like home; and that i thank god most heartily for having given me a quiet spirit and a heart that won't hold many people. i sigh for devonshire terrace and broadstairs, for battledore and shuttlecock; i want to dine in a blouse with you and mac (maclise).... on sunday evening, the th july, i shall revisit my household gods, please heaven. i wish the day were here." yes, except during the few years when he and his wife lived unhappily together, he was greatly attached to his home, with its friendships and simple pleasures; but yet, as i have said, a desire to see more of the world, and to garner new experiences, was strong upon him. the two conflicting influences often warred in his life, so that it almost seemed sometimes as if he were being driven by relentless furies. those furies pointed now with stern fingers towards america, though "how" he was "to get on" "for seven or eight months without" his friends, he could not upon his "soul conceive;" though he dreaded "to think of breaking up all" his "old happy habits for so long a time;" though "kate," remembering doubtless her four little children, wept whenever the subject was "spoken of." something made him feel that the going was "a matter of imperative necessity." washington irving beckoned from across the atlantic, speaking, as jeffrey had spoken from edinburgh, of little nell and her far-extended influence. there was a great reception foreshadowed, and a new world to be seen, and a book to be written about it. while as to the strongest of the home ties--the children that brought the tears into mrs. dickens' eyes,--the separation, after all, would not be eternal, and the good macready, tragic actor and true friend, would take charge of the little folk while their parents were away. so dickens, who had some time before "begun counting the days between this and coming home again," set sail, as i have said, for america on the th of january, . and a very rough experience he, and mrs. dickens, and mrs. dickens' maid seem to have had during that january passage from liverpool to halifax and boston. most of the time it blew horribly, and they were direfully ill. then a storm supervened, which swept away the paddle-boxes and stove in the life-boats, and they seem to have been in real peril. next the ship struck on a mud-bank. but dangers and discomforts must have been forgotten, at any rate to begin with, in the glories of the reception that awaited the "inimitable,"--as dickens whimsically called himself in those days,--when he landed in the new world. if he had been received with princely honours in edinburgh, he was treated now as an emperor in some triumphant progress. halifax sounded the first note of welcome, gave, as it were, the preliminary trumpet flourish. from that town he writes: "i wish you could have seen the crowds cheering the inimitable in the streets. i wish you could have seen judges, law-officers, bishops, and law-makers welcoming the inimitable. i wish you could have seen the inimitable shown to a great elbow-chair by the speaker's throne, and sitting alone in the middle of the floor of the house of commons, the observed of all observers, listening with exemplary gravity to the queerest speaking possible, and breaking, in spite of himself, into a smile as he thought of this commencement to the thousand and one stories in reserve for home." at boston the enthusiasm had swelled to even greater proportions. "how can i give you," he writes, "the faintest notion of my reception here; of the crowds that pour in and out the whole day; of the people that line the streets when i go out; of the cheering when i went to the theatre; of the copies of verses, letters of congratulation, welcomes of all kinds, balls, dinners, assemblies without end?... there is to be a dinner in new york, ... to which i have had an invitation with every known name in america appended to it.... i have had deputations from the far west, who have come from more than two thousand miles' distance; from the lakes, the rivers, the backwoods, the log-houses, the cities, factories, villages, and towns. authorities from nearly all the states have written to me. i have heard from the universities, congress, senate, and bodies, public and private, of every sort and kind." all was indeed going happy as a marriage bell. did i not rightly say that the world was conspiring to spoil this young man of thirty, whose youth had certainly not been passed in the splendour of opulence or power? what wonder if in the dawn of his american experiences, and of such a reception, everything assumed a roseate hue? is it matter for surprise if he found the women "very beautiful," the "general breeding neither stiff nor forward," "the good nature universal"; if he expatiated, not without a backward look at unprogressive old england, on the comparative comfort among the working classes, and the absence of beggars in the streets? but, alas, that rosy dawn ended, as rosy dawns sometimes will, in sleet and mist and very dirty weather. before many weeks, before many days had flown, dickens was writing in a very different spirit. on the th of february, in the midst of a perfect ovation of balls and dinners, he writes "with reluctance, disappointment, and sorrow," that "there is no country on the face of the earth, where there is less freedom of opinion on any subject in reference to which there is a broad difference of opinion, than in" the united states. on the nd of march he writes again, to macready, who seems to have remonstrated with him on his growing discontent: "it is of no use, i _am_ disappointed. this is not the republic i came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination. i infinitely prefer a liberal monarchy--even with its sickening accompaniment of court circulars--to such a government as this. the more i think of its youth and strength, the poorer and more trifling in a thousand aspects it appears in my eyes. in everything of which it has made a boast, excepting its education of the people, and its care for poor children, it sinks immeasurably below the level i had placed it upon, and england, even england, bad and faulty as the old land is, and miserable as millions of her people are, rises in the comparison.... freedom of opinion; where is it? i see a press more mean and paltry and silly and disgraceful than any country i ever knew.... in the respects of not being left alone, and of being horribly disgusted by tobacco chewing and tobacco spittle, i have suffered considerably." extracts like these could be multiplied to any extent, and the question arises, why did such a change come over the spirit of dickens? washington irving, at the great new york dinner, had called him "the guest of the nation." why was the guest so quickly dissatisfied with his host, and quarrelling with the character of his entertainment? sheer physical fatigue, i think, had a good deal to do with it. even at boston, before he had begun to travel over the unending railways, water-courses, and chaotic coach-roads of the great republic, that key-note had been sounded. "we are already," he had written, "weary at times, past all expression." few men can wander with impunity out of their own professional sphere, and undertake duties for which they have neither the training nor acquired tastes. dickens was a writer, not a king; and here he was expected to hold a king's state, and live in a king's publicity, but without the formal etiquette that hedge a king from intruders, and make his position tolerable. he was hemmed in by curious eyes, mobbed in the streets, stared at in his own private rooms, interviewed by the hour, shaken by the hand till his arm must often have been ready to drop off, waylaid at every turn with formal addresses. if he went to church the people crowded into the adjacent pews, and the preacher preached at him. if he got into a public conveyance, every one inside insisted on an introduction, and the people outside--say before the train started--would pull down the windows and comment freely on his nose and eyes and personal appearance generally, some even touching him as if to see if he were real. he was safe from intrusion nowhere--no, not when he was washing and his wife in bed. such attentions must have been exhausting to a degree that can scarcely be imagined. but there was more than mere physical weariness in his growing distaste for the united states. perfectly outspoken at all times, and eager for the strife of tongues in any cause which he had at heart, it horrified him to find that he was expected not to express himself freely on such subjects as international copyright, and that even in private, or semi-private intercourse, slavery was a topic to be avoided. then i fear, too, that as he left cultured boston behind, he was brought into close and habitual contact with natives whom he did not appreciate. rightly or wrongly, he took a strong dislike for brother jonathan as brother jonathan existed, in the rough, five and forty years ago. he was angered by that young gentleman's brag, offended by the rough familiarity of his manners, indignant at his determination by all means to acquire dollars, incensed by his utter want of care for literature and art, sickened by his tobacco-chewing and expectorations. so when dickens gets to "niagara falls, upon the _english_ side," he puts ten dashes under the word english; and, meeting two english officers, contrasts them in thought with the men whom he has just left, and seems, by note of exclamation and italics, to call upon the world to witness, "what _gentlemen_, what noblemen of nature they seemed!" and brother jonathan, how did _he_ regard his young guest? well, jonathan, great as he was, and greater as he was destined to be, did not possess the gift of prophecy, and could not of course foresee the scathing satire of "american notes" and "martin chuzzlewit." but still, amid all his enthusiasm, i think there must have been a feeling of uneasiness and disappointment. part, as there is no doubt, of the fervour with which he greeted dickens, was due to his regarding dickens as the representative of democratic feeling in aristocratic england, as the advocate of the poor and down-trodden against the wealthy and the strong; "and"--thus argued jonathan--"because we are a democracy, therefore dickens will admire and love us, and see how immeasurably superior we are to the retrograde britishers of his native land." but unfortunately dickens showed no signs of being impressed in that particular way. on the contrary, as we have seen, such comparison as he made in his own mind was infinitely to the disadvantage of the united states. "we must be cracked up," says hannibal chollop, in "martin chuzzlewit," speaking of his fellow countrymen. and dickens, even while fêted and honoured, would not "crack up" the americans. he lectured them almost with truculence on their sins in the matter of copyright; he could scarcely be restrained from testifying against slavery; he was not the man to say he liked manners and customs which he loathed. jonathan must have been very doubtfully satisfied with his guest. it is no part of my purpose to follow dickens lingeringly, and step by step, from the day when he landed at halifax, to the th of june, when he re-embarked at new york for england. from boston he went to new york, where the great dinner was given with washington irving in the chair, and thence to philadelphia and washington,--which was still the empty "city of magnificent distances," that mr. goldwin smith declares it has now ceased to be;--and thence again westward, and by niagara and canada back to new york. and if any persons want to know what he thought about these and other places, and the railway travelling, and the coach travelling, and the steamboat travelling, and the prisons and other public institutions--aye, and many other things besides, they cannot do better than read the "american notes for general circulation," which he wrote and published within the year after his return. nor need such persons be deterred by the fact that macaulay thought meanly of the book; for macaulay, with all his great gifts, did not, as he himself knew full well, excel in purely literary criticism. so when he pronounces, that "what is meant to be easy and sprightly is vulgar and flippant," and "what is meant to be fine is a great deal too fine for me, as the description of the falls of niagara," one can venture to differ without too great a pang. the book, though not assuredly one of dickens' best, contains admirable passages which none but he could have written, and the description of niagara is noticeably fine, the sublimity of the subject being remembered, as a piece of impassioned prose. whether satire so bitter and unfriendly as that in which he indulged, both here and in "martin chuzzlewit," was justifiable from what may be called an international point of view, is another question. publicists do not always remember that a cut which would smart for a moment, and then be forgotten, if aimed at a countryman, rankles and festers if administered to a foreigner. and if this be true as regards the english publicist's comment on the foreigner who does not understand our language, it is, of course, true with tenfold force as regards the foreigner whose language is our own. _he_ understands only too well the jibe and the sneer, and the tone of superiority, more offensive perhaps than either. looked at in this way, it can, i think, but be accounted a misfortune that the most popular of english writers penned two books containing so much calculated to wound american feeling, as the "notes" and "martin chuzzlewit." nor are signs entirely wanting that, as the years went by, the mind of dickens himself was haunted by some such suspicion. a quarter of a century later, he visited the united states a second time; and speaking at a public dinner given in his honour by the journalists of new york, he took occasion to comment on the enormous strides which the country had made in the interval, and then said, "nor am i, believe me, so arrogant as to suppose that in five and twenty years there have been no changes in me, and that i had nothing to learn, and no extreme impressions to correct when i was here first." and he added that, in all future editions of the two books just named, he would cause to be recorded, that, "wherever he had been, in the smallest place equally with the largest, he had been received with unsurpassable politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, consideration, and with unsurpassable respect for the privacy daily enforced upon him by the nature of his avocation there" (as a public reader), "and the state of his health." and now, with three observations, i will conclude what i have to say about the visit to america in . the first is that the "notes" are entirely void of all vulgarity of reference to the private life of the notable americans whom dickens had met. he seems to have known, more or less intimately, the chief writers of the time--washington irving, channing, dana, bryant, longfellow, bancroft; but his intercourse with them he held sacred, and he made no literary capital out of it. secondly, it is pleasant to note that there was, so far, no great "incompatibility of temper" between him and his wife. he speaks of her enthusiastically, in his correspondence, as a "most admirable traveller," and expatiates on the good temper and equanimity with which she had borne the fatigues and jars of a most trying journey. and the third point to which i will call attention is the thoroughly characteristic form of rest to which he had recourse in the midst of all his toil and travel. most men would have sought relaxation in being quiet. he found it in vigorously getting up private theatricals with the officers of the coldstream guards, at montreal. besides acting in all the three pieces played, he also accepted the part of stage manager; and "i am not," he says, "placarded as stage manager for nothing. everybody was told that they would have to submit to the most iron despotism, and didn't i come macready over them? oh no, by no means; certainly not. the pains i have taken with them, and the perspiration i have expended, during the last ten days, exceed in amount anything you can imagine." what bright vitality, and what a singular charm of exuberant animal spirits! and who was glad one evening--which would be about the last evening in june, or the first of july--when a hackney coach rattled up to the door of the house in devonshire terrace, and four little folk, two girls and two boys, were hurried down, and kissed through the bars of the gate, because their father was too eager to wait till it was opened? who were glad but the little folk aforementioned--i say nothing of the joy of father and mother; for children as they were, a sense of sorrowful loss had been theirs while their parents were away, and greater strictness seems to have reigned in the good macready's household than in their own joyous home. it is miss dickens herself who tells us this, and in whose memory has lingered that pretty scene of the kiss through the bars in the summer gloaming. and she has much to tell us too of her father's tenderness and care,--of his sympathy with the children's terrors, so that, for instance, he would sit beside the cot of one of the little girls who had been startled, and hold her hand in his till she fell asleep; of his having them on his knees, and singing to them the merriest of comic songs; of his interest in all their small concerns; of the many pet names with which he invested them.[ ] then, as they grew older, there were twelfth night parties and magic lanterns. "never such magic lanterns as those shown by him," she says. "never such conjuring as his." there was dancing, too, and the little ones taught him his steps, which he practised with much assiduity, once even jumping out of bed in terror, lest he had forgotten the polka, and indulging in a solitary midnight rehearsal. then, as the children grew older still, there were private theatricals. "he never," she says again, "was too busy to interest himself in his children's occupations, lessons, amusements, and general welfare." clearly not one of those brilliant men, a numerous race, who when away from their homes, in general society, sparkle and scintillate, flash out their wit, and irradiate all with their humour, but who, when at home, are dull as rusted steel. among the many tributes to his greatness, that of his own child has a place at once touching and beautiful. footnotes: [ ] miss dickens evidently bears proudly still her pet name of "mamie," and signs it to her book. chapter vii. with the return from america began the old life of hard work and hard play. there was much industrious writing of "american notes," at broadstairs and elsewhere; and there were many dinners of welcome home, and strolls, doubtless, with forster and maclise, and other intimates, to old haunts, as jack straw's castle on hampstead heath, and similar houses of public entertainment. and then in the autumn there was "such a trip ... into cornwall," with forster, and the painters stanfield and maclise for travelling companions. how they enjoyed themselves to be sure, and with what bubbling, bursting merriment. "i never laughed in my life as i did on this journey," writes dickens, "... i was choking and gasping ... all the way. and stanfield got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we could recover him." immediately on their return, refreshed and invigorated by this wholesome hilarity and enjoyment, he threw himself into the composition of his next book, and the first number of "martin chuzzlewit" appeared in january, . "martin chuzzlewit" is unquestionably one of dickens' great works. he himself held it to be "in a hundred points" and "immeasurably" superior to anything he had before written, and that verdict may, i think, be accepted freely. the plot, as plot is usually understood, can scarcely indeed be commended. but then plot was never his strong point. later in life, and acting, as i have always surmised, under the influence of his friend, mr. wilkie collins, he endeavoured to construct ingenious stories that turned on mysterious disappearances, and the substitution of one person for another, and murders real or suspected. all this was, to my mind, a mistake. dickens had no real gift for the manufacture of these ingenious pieces of mechanism. he did not even many times succeed in disposing the events and marshalling the characters in his narratives so as to work, by seemingly unforced and natural means, to a final situation and climax. too often, in order to hold his story together and make it move forward at all, he was compelled to make his personages pursue a line of conduct preposterous and improbable, and even antagonistic to their nature. take this very book. old martin chuzzlewit is a man who has been accustomed, all through a long life, to have his own way, and to take it with a high hand. yet he so far sets aside, during a course of months, every habit of his life, as to simulate the weakest subservience to pecksniff--and that not for the purpose of unmasking pecksniff, who wanted no unmasking, but only in order to disappoint him. is it believable that old martin should have thought pecksniff worth so much trouble, personal inconvenience, and humiliation? or take again mr. boffin in "our mutual friend." mr. boffin is a simple, guileless, open-hearted, open-handed old man. yet, in order to prove to miss bella wilfer that it is not well to be mercenary, he, again, goes through a long course of dissimulation, and does some admirable comic business in the character of a miser. i say it boldly, i do not believe mr. boffin possessed that amount of histrionic talent. plots requiring to be worked out by such means are ill-constructed plots; or, to put it in another way, a man who had any gift for the construction of plots would never have had recourse to such means. nor would he, i think, have adopted, as dickens did habitually and for all his stories, a mode of publication so destructive of unity of effect, as the publication in monthly or weekly parts. how could the reader see as a whole that which was presented to him at intervals of time more or less distant? how, and this is of infinitely greater importance, how could the writer produce it as a whole? for dickens, it must be remembered, never finished a book before the commencement of publication. at first he scarcely did more than complete each monthly instalment as required; and though afterwards he was generally some little way in advance, yet always he wrote by parts, having the interest of each separate part in his mind, as well as the general interest of the whole novel. thus, however desirable in the development of the story, he dared not risk a comparatively tame and uneventful number. moreover, any portion once issued was unalterable and irrevocable. if, as sometimes happened, any modification seemed desirable as the book progressed, there was no possibility of changing anything in the chapters already in the hands of the public, and so making them harmonize better with the new. but of course, with all this, the question still remains how far dickens' comparative failure as a constructor of plots really detracts from his fame and standing as a novelist. to my mind, i confess, not very much. plot i regard as the least essential element in the novelist's art. a novel can take the very highest rank without it. there is not any plot to speak of in lesage's "gil blas," and just as little in thackeray's "vanity fair," and only a very bad one in goldsmith's "vicar of wakefield." coleridge admired the plot of "tom jones," but though one naturally hesitates to differ from a critic of such superb mastery and power, i confess i have never been struck by that plot, any more than by the plots, such as they are, in "joseph andrews," or in smollett's works. nor, if i can judge of other people's memories by my own, is it by the mechanism of the story, or by the intrigue, however admirably woven and unravelled, that one remembers a work of fiction. these may exercise an intense passing interest of curiosity, especially during a first perusal. but afterwards they fade from the mind, while the characters, if highly vitalized and strong, will stand out in our thoughts, fresh and full coloured, for an indefinite time. scott's "guy mannering" is a well-constructed story. the plot is deftly laid, the events are prepared for with a cunning hand; the coincidences are so arranged as to be made to look as probable as may be. yet we remember and love the book, not for such excellences as these, but for dandie dinmont, the border farmer, and pleydell, the edinburgh advocate, and meg merrilies, the gipsy. the book's life is in its flesh and blood, not in its plot. and the same is true of dickens' novels. he crowds them so full of human creatures, each with its own individuality and character, that we have no care for more than just as much story as may serve to show them struggling, joying, sorrowing, loving. if the incidents will do this for us we are satisfied. it is not necessary that those incidents should be made to go through cunning evolutions to a definite end. each is admirable in itself, and admirably adapted to its immediate purpose. that should more than suffice. and dickens sometimes succeeds in reaching a higher unity than that of mere plot. he takes one central idea, and makes of it the soul of his novel, animating and vivifying every part. that central idea in "martin chuzzlewit" is the influence of selfishness. the chuzzlewits are a selfish race. old martin is selfish; and so, with many good qualities and possibilities of better things, is his grandson, young martin. the other branch of the family, anthony chuzzlewit and his son jonas, are much worse. the latter especially is a horrible creature. brought up to think of nothing except his own interests and the main chance, he is only saved by an accident from the crime of parricide, and afterwards commits a murder and poisons himself. as his career is one of terrible descent, so young martin's is one of gradual regeneration from his besetting weakness. he falls in love with his cousin mary--the only unselfish member of the family, by the bye--and quarrels about this love affair with his grandfather, and so passes into the hard school of adversity. there he learns much. specially valuable is the teaching which he gets as a settler in the swampy backwoods of the united states in company with mark tapley, jolliest and most helpful of men. on his return, he finds his grandfather seemingly under the influence of pecksniff, the hypocrite, the english tartuffe. but that, as i have already mentioned, is only a ruse. old martin is deceiving pecksniff, who in due time receives the reward of his deeds, and all ends happily for those who deserve happiness. such is something like a bare outline of the story, with the beauty eliminated. for what makes its interest, we must go further, to the household of pecksniff with his two daughters, charity and mercy, and tom pinch, whose beautiful, unselfish character stands so in contrast to that of the grasping self-seekers by whom he is surrounded; we must study young martin himself, whose character is admirably drawn, and without dickens' usual tendency to caricature; we must laugh in sympathy with mark tapley; we must follow them both through the american scenes, which, intensely amusing as they are, must have bitterly envenomed the wounds inflicted on the national vanity by "american notes," and, according to dickens' own expression, "sent them all stark staring raving mad across the water;" we must frequent the boarding establishment for single gentlemen kept by lean mrs. todgers, and sit with sarah gamp and betsy prig as they hideously discuss their avocations, or quarrel over the shadowy mrs. harris; we must follow jonas chuzzlewit on his errand of murder, and note how even his felon nature is appalled by the blackness and horror of his guilt, and how the ghastly terror of it haunts and cows him. a great book, i say again, a very great book. yet not at the time a successful book. why fortune, the fickle jade, should have taken it into her freakish head to frown, or half frown, on dickens at this particular juncture, who shall tell? he was wooing her with his very best work, and she turned from him. the sale of "pickwick" and "nicholas nickleby" had been from forty to fifty thousand copies of each part; the sale of _master humphrey's clock_ had risen still higher; the sale of even the most popular parts of "martin chuzzlewit" fell to twenty-three thousand. this was, as may be supposed, a grievous disappointment. dickens' personal expenditure had not perhaps been lavish in view of what he thought he could calculate on earning; but it had been freely based on that calculation. demands, too, were being made upon his purse by relations,--probably by his father, and certainly by his brother frederic, which were frequent, embarrassing, and made in a way which one may call worse than indelicate. any permanent loss of popularity would have meant serious money entanglements. with his father's career in full view, such a prospect must have been anything but pleasant. he cast about what he should do, and determined to leave england for a space, live more economically on the continent, and gather materials in italy or switzerland for a new travel book. but before carrying out this project, he would woo fortune once again, and in a different form. during the months of october and november, , in the intervals of "chuzzlewit," he wrote a short story that has taken its place, by almost universal consent, among his masterpieces, nay, among the masterpieces of english literature: "the christmas carol." all dickens' great gifts seem reflected, sharp and distinct, in this little book, as in a convex mirror. his humour, his best pathos, which is not that of grandiloquence, but of simplicity, his bright poetic fancy, his kindliness, all here find a place. it is great painting in miniature, genius in its quintessence, a gem of perfect water. we may apply to it any simile that implies excellence in the smallest compass. none but a fine imagination would have conceived the supernatural agency that works old scrooge's moral regeneration--the ghosts of christmas past, present, and to come, that each in turn speaks to the wizened heart of the old miser, so that, almost unwittingly, he is softened by the tender memories of childhood, warmed by sympathy for those who struggle and suffer, and appalled by the prospect of his own ultimate desolation and black solitude. then the episodes: the scenes to which these ghostly visitants convey scrooge; the story of his earlier years as shown in vision; the household of the cratchits, and poor little crippled tiny tim; the party given by scrooge's nephew; nay, before all these, the terrible interview with marley's ghost. all are admirably executed. sacrilege would it be to suggest the alteration of a word. first of the christmas books in the order of time, it is also the best of its own kind; it is in its own order perfect. nor did the public of christmas, , fail to appreciate that something of very excellent quality had been brought forth for their benefit. "the first edition of six thousand copies," says forster, "was sold" on the day of publication, and about as many more would seem to have been disposed of before the end of february, . but, alas, dickens had set his heart on a profit of £ , , whereas in february he did not see his way to much more than £ ,[ ] and his unpaid bills for the previous year he described as "terrific." so something, as i have said, had to be done. a change of front became imperative. messrs. bradbury and evans advanced him £ , "for a fourth share in whatever he might write during the ensuing eight years,"--he purchased at the pantechnicon "a good old shabby devil of a coach," also described as "an english travelling carriage of considerable proportions"; engaged a courier who turned out to be the courier of couriers, a very conjurer among couriers; let his house in devonshire terrace; and so started off for italy, as i calculate the dates, on the st of july, . footnotes: [ ] the profit at the end of was £ . chapter viii. ah, those eventful, picturesque, uncomfortable old travelling days, when railways were unborn, or in their infancy; those interminable old dusty drives, in diligence or private carriage, along miles and miles of roads running straight to the low horizon, through a line of tall poplars, across the plains of france! what an old-world memory it seems, and yet, as the years go, not so very long since after all. the party that rumbled from boulogne to marseilles in the old "devil of a coach" aforesaid, "and another conveyance for luggage," and i know not what other conveyances besides, consisted of dickens himself; mrs. dickens; her sister, miss georgina hogarth, who had come to live with them on their return from america; five children, for another boy had been born some six months before; roche, the prince of couriers; "anne," apparently the same maid who had accompanied them across the atlantic; and other dependents: a somewhat formidable troupe and cavalcade. of their mode of travel, and what they saw on the way, or perhaps, more accurately, of what dickens saw, with those specially keen eyes of his, at lyons, avignon, marseilles, and other places--one may read the master's own account in the "pictures from italy." marseilles was reached on the th of july, and thence a steamer took them, coasting the fairy mediterranean shores, to genoa, their ultimate destination, where they landed on the th. the italy of was like, and yet unlike the italy of to-day. it was the old disunited italy of several small kingdoms and principalities, the italy over which lowered the shadow of despotic austria, and of the pope's temporal power, not the italy which the genius of cavour has welded into a nation. it was a land whose interest came altogether from the past, and that lay as it were in the beauty of time's sunset. how unlike the united states! the contrast has always, i confess, seemed to me a piquant one. it has often struck me with a feeling of quaintness that the two countries which dickens specially visited and described, were, the one this lovely land of age and hoar antiquity, and the other that young giant land of the west, which is still in the garish strong light of morning, and whose great day is in the future. nor, i think, before he had seen both, would dickens himself have been able to tell on which side his sympathies would lie. thoroughly popular in his convictions, thoroughly satisfied that to-day was in all respects better than yesterday, it is clear that he expected to find more pleasure in the brand new republic than his actual experience warranted. the roughness of the strong, uncultured young life grated upon him. it jarred upon his sensibilities. but of italy he wrote with very different feeling. what though the places were dirty, the people shiftless, idle, unpunctual, unbusinesslike, and the fleas as the sand which is upon the sea-shore for multitude? it mattered not while life was so picturesque and varied, and manners were so full of amenity. your inn might be, and probably was, ill-appointed, untidy, the floors of brick, the doors agape, the windows banging--a contrast in every way to the palatial hotel in new york or washington. but then how cheerful and amusing were mine host and hostess, and how smilingly determined all concerned to make things pleasant. so the artist in dickens turned from the new to the old, and italy, as she is wont, cast upon him her spell. first impressions, however, were not altogether satisfactory. dickens owns to a pang when he was "set down" at albaro, a suburb of genoa, "in a rank, dull, weedy courtyard, attached to a kind of pink jail, and told he lived there." but he immediately adds: "i little thought that day that i should ever come to have an attachment for the very stones in the streets of genoa, and to look back upon the city with affection, as connected with many hours of happiness and quiet." in sooth, he enjoyed the place thoroughly. "martin chuzzlewit" had left his hands. he was fairly entitled for a few weeks to the luxury of idleness, and he threw himself into doing nothing, as he was accustomed to throw himself into his work, with all energy. and there was much to do, much especially to see. so dickens bathed and walked; and strolled about the city hither and thither, and about the suburbs and about the surrounding country; and visited public buildings and private palaces; and noted the ways of the inhabitants; and saw genoese life in its varied forms; and wrote light glancing letters about it all to friends at home; and learnt italian; and, in the end of september, left his "pink jail," which had been taken for him at a disproportionate rent, and moved into the palazzo peschiere, in genoa itself: a wonderful palace, with an entrance-hall fifty feet high, and larger than "the dining-room of the academy," and bedrooms "in size and shape like those at windsor castle, but greatly higher," and a view from the windows over gardens where the many fountains sparkled, and the gold fish glinted, and into genoa itself, with its "many churches, monasteries, and convents pointing to the sunny sky," and into the harbour, and over the sapphire sea, and up again to the encircling hills--a view, as dickens declared, that "no custom could impair, and no description enhance." but with the beginning of october came again the time for work; and beautiful beyond all beauty as were his surroundings, the child of london turned to the home of his heart, and pined for the london streets. for some little space he seemed to be thinking in vain, and cudgelling his brains for naught, when suddenly the chimes of genoa's many churches, that seemed to have been clashing and clanging nothing but distraction and madness, rang harmony into his mind. the subject and title of his new christmas book were found. he threw himself into the composition of "the chimes." earnest at all times in what he wrote, living ever in intense and passionate sympathy with the world of his imagination, he seems specially to have put his whole heart into this book. "all my affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and i became as haggard as a murderer long before i wrote 'the end,'"--so he told lady blessington on the th of november; and to forster he expressed the yearning that was in him to "leave" his "hand upon the time, lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for the mass of toiling people that nothing could obliterate." this was the keynote of "the chimes." he intended in it to strike a great and memorable blow on behalf of the poor and down-trodden. his purpose, so far as i can make it out, was to show how much excuse there is for their shortcomings, and how in their errors, nay even in their crimes, there linger traces of goodness and kindly feeling. on this i shall have something to say when discussing "hard times," which is somewhat akin to "the chimes" in scope and purpose. meanwhile it cannot honestly be affirmed that the story justifies the passion that dickens threw into its composition. the supernatural machinery is weak as compared with that of the "carol." little trotty veck, dreaming to the sound of the bells in the old church tower, is a bad substitute for scrooge on his midnight rambles. nor are his dreams at all equal, for humour or pathos, to scrooge's visions and experiences. and the moral itself is not clearly brought out. i confess to being a little doubtful as to what it exactly is, and how it follows from the premises furnished. i wish, too, that it had been carried home to some one with more power than little trotty to give it effect. what was the good of convincing that kindly old soul that the people of his own class had warm hearts? he knew it very well. take from the book the fine imaginative description of the goblin music that leaps into life with the ringing of the bells, and there remain the most excellent intentions--and not much more. such, however, was very far from being dickens' view. he had "undergone," he said, "as much sorrow and agitation" in the writing "as if the thing were real," and on the rd of november, when the last page was written, had indulged "in what women call a good cry;" and, as usually happens, the child that had cost much sorrow was a child of special love.[ ] so, when all was over, nothing would do but he must come to london to read his book to the choice literary spirits whom he specially loved. accordingly he started from genoa on the th of november, travelled by parma, modena, bologna, ferrara, venice--where, such was the enchantment of the place, that he felt it "cruel not to have brought kate and georgy, positively cruel and base";--and thence again by verona, mantua, milan, the simplon pass, strasbourg, paris, and calais, to dover, and wintry england. sharp work, considering all he had seen by the way, and how effectually he had seen it, for he was in london on the evening of the th of november, and, on the nd of december, reading his little book to the choice spirits aforesaid, all assembled for the purpose at forster's house. there they are: they live for us still in maclise's drawing, though time has plied his scythe among them so effectually, during the forty-two years since flown, that each has passed into the silent land. there they sit: carlyle, not the shaggy scotch terrier with the melancholy eyes that we were wont to see in his later days, but close shaven and alert; and swift-witted douglas jerrold; and laman blanchard, whose name goes darkling in the literature of the last generation; and forster himself, journalist and author of many books; and the painters dyce, maclise, and stanfield; and byron's friend and school companion, the clergyman harness, who, like dyce, pays to the story the tribute of his tears. dickens can have been in london but the fewest of few days, for on the th of december he was leaving paris for genoa, and that after going to the theatre more than once. from genoa he started again, on the th of january, , with mrs. dickens, to see the carnival at rome. thence he went to naples, returning to rome for the holy week; and thence again by florence to genoa. he finally left italy in the beginning of june, and was back with his family in devonshire terrace at the end of that month. to what use of a literary kind should he turn his italian observations and experiences? in what form should he publish the notes made by the way? events soon answered that question. the year stands in the history of queen victoria's reign as a time of intense political excitement. the corn law agitation raged somewhat furiously. dickens felt strongly impelled to throw himself into the strife. why should he not influence his fellow-men, and "battle for the true, the just," as the able editor of a daily newspaper? accordingly, after all the negotiations which enterprises of this kind necessitate, he made the due arrangements for starting a new paper, _the daily news_. it was to be edited by himself, to "be kept free," the prospectus said, "from personal influence or party bias," and to be "devoted to the advocacy of all rational and honest means by which wrong may be redressed, just rights maintained, and the happiness and welfare of society promoted." his salary, so i have seen it stated, was to be £ , a year; and the first number came out on the morning of the st of january, . he held the post of editor three weeks. the world may, i think, on the whole, be congratulated that he did not hold it longer. able editors are more easily found than such writers as dickens. there were higher claims upon his time. but to return to the italian notes: it was in the columns of _the daily news_ that they first saw the light. they were among the baby attractions and charms, if i may so speak, of the nascent paper, which is now, as i need not remind my readers, enjoying a hale and vigorous manhood. and admirable sketches they are. much, very much has been written about italy. the subject has been done to death by every variety of pen, and in every civilized tongue. but amid all this writing, dickens' "pictures from italy" still holds a high and distinctive position. that the descriptions, whether of places and works of art, or of life's pageantry, and what may be called the social picturesque, should be graphic, vivid, animated, was almost a matter of course. but _à priori_, i think one might have feared lest he should "chaff" the place and its inhabitants overmuch, and yield to the temptation of making merriment over matters which hoar age and old associations had hallowed. we can all imagine the kind of observation that would occur to sam weller in strolling through st. mark's at venice, or the vatican; and, guessing beforehand, guessing before the "pictures" were produced, one might, i repeat, have been afraid lest dickens should go through italy as a kind of educated sam weller. such prophecies would have been falsified by the event. the book as a whole is very free from banter or _persiflage_. once and again the comic side of some situation strikes him, of course. thus, after the ceremony of the pope washing the feet of thirteen poor men, in memory of our lord washing the feet of the apostles, dickens says: "the whole thirteen sat down to dinner; grace said by the pope; peter in the chair." but these humorous touches are rare, and not in bad taste; while for the historic and artistic grandeurs of italy he shows an enthusiasm which is _individual_ and discriminating. we feel, in what he says about painting, that we are getting the fresh impressions of a man not specially trained in the study of the old masters, but who yet succeeds, by sheer intuitive sympathy; in appreciating much of their greatness. his criticism of the paintings at venice, for instance, is very decidedly superior to that of macaulay. in brief the "pictures," to give to the book the name which dickens gave it, are painted with a brush at once kindly and brilliant. footnotes: [ ] he read "the chimes" at his first reading as a paid reader. chapter ix. the publication of the "pictures," though i have dealt with it as a sort of complement to dickens' sojourn in italy, carries us to the year . but before going on with the history of that year, there are one or two points to be taken up in the history of . the first is the performance, on the st of september, of ben jonson's play of "every man in his humour," by a select company of amateur actors, among whom dickens held chief place. "he was the life and soul of the entire affair," says forster. "i never seem till then to have known his business capabilities. he took everything on himself, and did the whole of it without an effort. he was stage director, very often stage carpenter, scene arranger, property man, prompter, and band-master. without offending any one, he kept every one in order. for all he had useful suggestions.... he adjusted scenes, assisted carpenters, invented costumes, devised playbills, wrote out calls, and enforced, as well as exhibited in his own proper person, everything of which he urged the necessity on others." dickens had once thought of the stage as a profession, and was, according to all accounts, an amateur actor of very unusual power. but of course he only acted for his amusement, and i don't know that i should have dwelt upon this performance, which was followed by others of a similar kind, if it did not, in forster's description, afford such a signal instance of his efficiency as a practical man. the second event to be mentioned as happening in , is the publication of another very pretty christmas story, "the cricket on the hearth." though dickens had ceased to edit _the daily news_ on the th of february, , he contributed to the paper for some few weeks longer. but by the month of may his connection with it had entirely ceased; and on the st of that month, he started, by belgium and the rhine, for lausanne in switzerland, where he had determined to spend some time, and commence his next great book, and write his next christmas story. a beautiful place is lausanne, as many of my readers will know; and a beautiful house the house called rosemont, situated on a hill that rises from the lake of geneva, with the lake's blue waters stretching below, and across, on the other side, a magnificent panorama of snowy mountains, the simplon, st. gothard, mont blanc, towering to the sky. this delightful place dickens took at a rent of some £ a month. then he re-arranged all the furniture, as was his energetic wont. then he spent a fortnight or so in looking about him, and writing a good deal for lord john russell on ragged schools, and for miss coutts about her various charities; and finally, on the th of june, as he announced to forster in capital letters, began dombey. but as the swiss pine with home-sickness when away from their own dear land, so did this londoner, amid all the glories of the alps, pine for the london streets. it seemed almost as if they were essential to the exercise of his genius. the same strange mental phenomenon which he had observed in himself at genoa was reproduced here. everything else in his surroundings smiled most congenially. the place was fair beyond speech. the shifting, changing beauty of the mountains entranced him. the walks offered an endless variety of enjoyment. he liked the people. he liked the english colony. he had made several dear friends among them and among the natives. he was interested in the politics of the country, which happened, just then, to be in a state of peculiar excitement and revolution. everything was charming;--"but," he writes, "the toil and labour of writing, day after day, without that magic-lantern (of the london streets) is immense!" it literally knocked him up. he had "bad nights," was "sick and giddy," desponding over his book, more than half inclined to abandon the christmas story altogether for that year. however, a short trip to geneva, and the dissipation of a stroll or so in its thoroughfares, to remind him, as it were, of what streets were like, and a week of "idleness" "rusting and devouring," "complete and unbroken," set him comparatively on his legs again, and before he left lausanne for paris on the th of november, he had finished three parts of "dombey," and the "battle of life." of the latter i don't know that i need say anything. it is decidedly the weakest of his christmas books. but "dombey" is very different work, and the first five numbers especially, which carry the story to the death of little paul, contain passages of humour and pathos, and of humour and pathos mingled together and shot in warp and woof, like some daintiest silken fabric, that are scarcely to be matched in the language. as i go in my mind through the motherless child's short history--his birth, his christening, the engagement of the wet-nurse, the time when he is consigned to the loveless care of mrs. pipchin, his education in dr. blimber's academy under the classic cornelia, and his death--as i follow it all in thought, now smiling at each well-remembered touch of humour, and now saddened and solemnized as the shadow of death deepens over the frail little life, i confess to something more than critical admiration for the writer as an artist. i feel towards him as towards one who has touched my heart. of course it is the misfortune of the book, regarding it as a whole, that the chapters relating to paul, which are only an episode, should be of such absorbing interest, and come so early. dickens really wrote them too well. they dwarf the rest of the story. we find a difficulty in resuming the thread of it with the same zest when the child is gone. but though the remainder of the book inevitably suffers in this way, it ought not to suffer unduly. even apart from little paul the novel is a fine one. pride is its subject, as selfishness is that of "martin chuzzlewit." mr. dombey, the city merchant, has as much of the arrogance of caste and position as any blue-blooded hidalgo. he is as proud of his name as if he had inherited it from a race of princes. that he neglects and slights his daughter, and loves his son, is mainly because the latter will add a sort of completeness to the firm, and make it truly dombey _and son_, while the girl, for all commercial purposes, can be nothing but a cipher. and through his pride he is struck to the heart, and ruined. mr. carker, his confidential agent and manager, trades upon it for all vile ends, first to feather his own nest, and then to launch his patron into large and unsound business ventures. the second wife, whom he marries, certainly with no affection on either side, but purely because of her birth and connections, and because her great beauty will add to his social prestige--she, with ungovernable pride equal to his own, revolts against his authority, and, in order to humiliate him the more, pretends to elope with carker, whom in turn she scorns and crushes. broken thus in fortune and honour, mr. dombey yet falls not ignobly. his creditors he satisfies in full, reserving to himself nothing; and with a softened heart turns to the daughter he had slighted, and in her love finds comfort. such is the main purport of the story, and round it, in graceful arabesques, are embroidered, after dickens' manner, a whole world of subsidiary incidents thronged with all sorts of characters. what might not one say about dr. blimber's genteel academy at brighton; and the toodles family, so humble in station and intellect and so large of heart; and the contrast between carker the manager and his brother, who for some early dishonest act, long since repented of, remains always carker the junior; and about captain cuttle, and that poor, muddled nautical philosopher, captain bunsby, and the game chicken, and mrs. pipchin, and miss tox; and cousin feenix with wilful legs so little under control, and yet to the core of him a gentleman; and the apoplectic major bagstock, the joey b. who claimed to be "rough and tough and devilish sly;" and susan nipper, as swift of tongue as a rapier, and as sharp? reader, don't you know all these people? for myself, i have jostled against them constantly any time the last twenty years. they are as much part of my life as the people i meet every day. but there is one person whom i have left out of my enumeration, not certainly because i don't know him, for i know him very well, but because i want to speak about him more particularly. that person is my old friend, mr. toots; and the special point in his character which induces me to linger is the slight touch of craziness that sits so charmingly upon him. m. taine, the french critic, in his chapters on dickens, repeats the old remark that genius and madness are near akin.[ ] he observes, and observes truly, that dickens describes so well because an imagination of singular intensity enables him to _see_ the object presented, and at the same time to impart to it a kind of visionary life. "that imagination," says m. taine, "is akin to the imagination of the monomaniac." and, starting from this point, he proceeds to show, here again quite truly, with what admirable sympathetic power and insight dickens has described certain cases of madness, as in mr. dick. but here, having said some right things, m. taine goes all wrong. according to him, these portraits of persons who have lost their wits, "however amusing they may seem at first sight," are "horrible." they could only have been painted by "an imagination such as that of dickens, excessive, disordered, and capable of hallucination." he seems to be not far from thinking that only our splenetic and melancholy race could have given birth to such literary monsters. to speak like this, as i conceive, shows a singular misconception of the instinct or set purpose that led dickens to introduce these characters into his novels at all. it is perfectly true that he has done so several times. barnaby rudge, the hero of the book of the same name, is half-witted. mr. dick, in "david copperfield," is decidedly crazy. mr. toots is at least simple. little miss flite, in "bleak house," haunting the law courts in expectation of a judgment on the day of judgment, is certainly not _compos mentis_. and one may concede to m. taine that some element of sadness must always be present when we see a human creature imperfectly gifted with man's noblest attribute of reason. but, granting this to the full, is it possible to conceive of anything more kindly and gentle in the delineation of partial insanity than the portraits which the french critic finds horrible? barnaby rudge's lunatic symptoms are compatible with the keenest enjoyment of nature's sights and sounds, fresh air and free sunlight, and compatible with loyalty and high courage. many men might profitably change their reason for his unreason. mr. dick's flightiness is allied to an intense devotion and gratitude to the woman who had rescued him from confinement in an asylum; there lives a world of kindly sentiments in his poor bewildered brains. of mr. toots, susan nipper says truly, "he may not be a solomon, nor do i say he is, but this i do say, a less selfish human creature human nature never knew." and to this one may add that he is entirely high-minded, generous, and honourable. miss flite's crazes do not prevent her from being full of all womanly sympathies. here i think lies the charm these characters had for dickens. as he was fond of showing a soul of goodness in the ill-favoured and uncouth, so he liked to make men feel that even in a disordered intellect all kindly virtues might find a home, and a happy one. m. taine may call this "horrible" if he likes. i think myself it would be possible to find a better adjective. dickens was at work on "dombey and son" during the latter part of the year , and the whole of , and the early part of . we left him on the th of november, in the first of these years, starting from lausanne for paris, which he reached on the evening of the th. here he took a house--a "preposterous" house, according to his own account, with only gleams of reason in it; and visited many theatres; and went very often to the morgue, where lie the unowned dead; and had pleasant friendly intercourse with the notable french authors of the time, alexandre dumas the great, most prolific of romance writers; and scribe of the innumerable plays; and the poets lamartine and victor hugo; and chateaubriand, then in his sad and somewhat morose old age. and in paris too, with the help of streets and crowded ways, he wrote the great number of dombey, the number in which little paul dies. three months did dickens spend in the french capital, the incomparable city, and then was back in london, at the old life of hard work; but with even a stronger infusion than before of private theatricals--private theatricals on a grandiose scale, that were applauded by the queen herself, and took him and his troupe starring about during the next three or four years, hither and thither, and here and there, in london and the provinces. "splendid strolling" forster calls it; and a period of unmixed jollity and enjoyment it seems to have been. of course dickens was the life and soul of it all. mrs. cowden clarke, one of the few survivors, looking back to that happy time, says enthusiastically, "charles dickens, beaming in look, alert in manner, radiant with good humour, genial-voiced, gay, the very soul of enjoyment, fun, good taste, and good spirits, admirable in organizing details and suggesting novelty of entertainment, was of all beings the very man for a holiday season."[ ] the proceeds of the performances were devoted to various objects, but chiefly to an impossible "guild of literature and art," which, in the sanguine confidence of its projectors, and especially of dickens, was to inaugurate a golden age for the author and the artist. but of all this, and of dickens' speeches at the leeds mechanics' institute, and glasgow athenæum, in the december of , i don't know that i need say very much. the interest of a great writer's life is, after all, mainly in what he writes; and when i have said that "dombey" proved to be a pecuniary success, the first six numbers realizing as much as £ , , i think i may fairly pass on to dickens' next book, the "haunted man." this was his christmas story for ; the last, and not the worst of his christmas stories. both conception and treatment are thoroughly characteristic. mr. redlaw, a chemist, brooding over an ancient wrong, comes to the conclusion that it would be better for himself, better for all, if, in each of us, every memory of the past could be cancelled. a ghostly visitant, born of his own resentment and gloom, gives him the boon he seeks, and enables him to go about the world freezing all recollection in those he meets. and lo the boon turns out to be a curse. his presence blights those on whom it falls. for with the memory of past wrongs, goes the memory of past benefits, of all the mutual kindlinesses of life, and each unit of humanity becomes self-centred and selfish. two beings alone resist his influence--one, a creature too selfishly nurtured for any of mankind's better recollections; and the other a woman so good as to resist the spell, and even, finally, to exorcise it in mr. redlaw's own breast. "david copperfield" was published between may, , and the autumn of , and marks, i think, the culminating point in dickens' career as a writer. so far there had been, not perhaps from book to book, but on the whole, decided progress, the gradual attainment of greater ease, and of the power of obtaining results of equal power by simpler means. beyond this there was, if not absolute declension, for he never wrote anything that could properly be called careless and unworthy of himself, yet at least no advance. of the interest that attaches to the book from the fact that so many portions are autobiographical, i have already spoken; nor need i go over the ground again. but quite apart from such adventitious attractions, the novel is an admirable one. all the scenes of little david's childhood in the norfolk home--the blunderstone rookery, where there were no rooks--are among the most beautiful pictures of childhood in existence. in what sunshine of love does the lad bask with his mother and peggotty, till mrs. copperfield contracts her disastrous second marriage with mr. murdstone! then how the scene changes. there come harshness and cruelty; banishment to mr. creakle's villainous school; the poor mother's death; the worse banishment to london, and descent into warehouse drudgery; the strange shabby-genteel, happy-go-lucky life with the micawbers; the flight from intolerable ills in the forlorn hope that david's aunt will take pity on him. here the scene changes again. miss betsy trotwood, a fine old gnarled piece of womanhood, places the boy at school at canterbury, where he makes acquaintance with agnes, the woman whom he marries far, far on in the story; and with her father, mr. wickham, a somewhat port wine-loving lawyer; and with uriah heep, the fawning villain of the piece. how david is first articled to a proctor in doctors' commons, and then becomes a reporter, and then a successful author; and how he marries his first wife, the childish dora, who dies; and how, meanwhile, uriah is effecting the general ruin, and aspiring to the hand of agnes, till his villanies are detected and his machinations defeated by micawber--how all this comes about, would be a long story to tell. but, as is usual with dickens, there are subsidiary rills of story running into the main stream, and by one of these i should like to linger a moment. the head-boy, and a kind of parlour-boarder, at mr. creakles' establishment, is one steerforth, the spoilt only son of a widow. this steerforth, david meets again when both are young men, and they go down together to yarmouth, and there david is the means of making him known to a family of fisherfolk. he is rich, handsome, with an indescribable charm, according to his friends' testimony, and he induces the fisherman's niece, the pretty em'ly, to desert her home, and the young boat-builder to whom she is engaged, and to fly to italy. now to this story, as dickens tells it, french criticism objects that he dwells exclusively on the sin and sorrow, and sets aside that in which the french novelist would delight, viz., the mad force and irresistible sway of passion. to which english criticism may, i think, reply, that the "pity of it," the wide-working desolation, are as essentially part of such an event as the passion; and, therefore, even from an exclusively artistic point of view, just as fit subjects for the novelist. while "david copperfield" was in progress, dickens started on a new venture. he had often before projected a periodical, and twice, as we have seen,--once in _master humphrey's clock_, and again as editor of _the daily news_,--had attempted quasi-journalism or its reality. but now at last he had struck the right vein. he had discovered a means of utilizing his popularity, and imparting it to a paper, without being under the crushing necessity of writing the whole of that paper himself. the first number of _household words_ appeared on the th of march, . the "preliminary word" heralds the paper in thoroughly characteristic fashion, and is, not unnaturally, far more personal in tone than the first leading article of the first number of _the daily news_, though that, too, be it said in passing, bears traces, through all its officialism, of having come from the same pen.[ ] in introducing _household words_ to his new readers, dickens speaks feelingly, eloquently, of his own position as a writer, and the responsibilities attached to his popularity, and tells of his hope that a future of instruction, and amusement, and kindly playful fancy may be in store for the paper. nor were his happy anticipations belied. all that he had promised, he gave. _household words_ found an entrance into innumerable homes, and was everywhere recognized as a friend. never did editor more strongly impress his own personality upon his staff. the articles were sprightly, amusing, interesting, and instructive too--often very instructive, but always in an interesting way. that was one of the periodical's main features. the pill of knowledge was always presented gilt. taking _household words_ and _all the year round_ together--and for this purpose they may properly be regarded as one and the same paper, because the change of name and proprietorship in [ ] brought no change in form or character,--taking them together, i say, they contain a vast quantity of very pleasant, if not very profound, reading. even apart from the stories, one can do very much worse than while away an hour, now and again, in gleaning here and there among their pages. among dickens' own contributions may be mentioned "the child's history of england," and "lazy tour of two idle apprentices"--being the record of an excursion made by him in , with mr. wilkie collins; and "the uncommercial traveller" papers. while as to stories, "hard times" appeared in _household words_; and "the tale of two cities" and "great expectations," in _all the year round_. and to the christmas numbers he gave some of his best and daintiest work. nor were novels and tales by other competent hands wanting. here it was that mrs. gaskell gave to the world those papers on "cranford" that are so full of a dainty, delicate humour, and "my lady ludlow," and "north and south," and "a dark night's work." here, too, mr. wilkie collins wove together his ingenious threads of plot and mystery in "the moonstone," "the woman in white," and "no name." and here also lord lytton published "a strange story," and charles reade his "very hard cash." the year opened sadly for dickens. his wife, who had been confined of a daughter in the preceding august, was so seriously unwell that he had to take her to malvern. his father, to whom, notwithstanding the latter's peculiarities and eccentricities, he was greatly attached, died on the st of march; and on the th of april his infant daughter died also. in connection with this latter death there occurred an incident of great pathos. dickens had come up from malvern on the th, to take the chair at the dinner on behalf of the theatrical fund, and looking in at devonshire terrace on his way, played with the children, as was his wont, and fondled the baby, and then went on to the london tavern.[ ] shortly after he left the house, the child died, suddenly. the news was communicated to forster, who was also at the dinner, and he decided that it would be better not to tell the poor father till the speech of the evening had been made. so dickens made his speech, and a brilliant one it was--it is brilliant even as one reads it now, in the coldness of print, without the glamour of the speaker's voice, and presence, and yet brilliant with an undertone of sadness, which the recent death of the speaker's father would fully explain. and forster, who knew of the yet later blow impending on his friend, had to sit by and listen as that dear friend, all unconscious of the dread application of the words, spoke of "the actor" having "sometimes to come from scenes of sickness, of suffering, ay, even of death itself, to play his part;" and then went on to tell how "all of us, in our spheres, have as often to do violence to our feelings, and to hide our hearts in fighting this great battle of life, and in discharging our duties and responsibilities." in this same year, , dickens left the house in devonshire terrace, now grown too small for his enlarging household, and, after a long sojourn at broadstairs, moved into tavistock house, in tavistock square. here "bleak house" was begun at the end of november, the first number being published in the ensuing march. it is a fine work of art unquestionably, a very fine work of art--the canvas all crowded with living figures, and yet the main lines of the composition well-ordered and harmonious. two threads of interest run through the story, one following the career of lady dedlock, and the other tracing the influence of a great chancery suit on the victims immeshed in its toils. from the first these two threads are distinct, and yet happily interwoven. let us take lady dedlock's thread first. she is the wife of sir leicester dedlock, whose "family is as old as the hills, and a great deal more respectable," and she is still very beautiful, though no longer in the bloom of youth, and she is cold and haughty of manner, as a woman of highest fashion sometimes may be. but in her past there is an ugly hidden secret; and a girl of sweetest disposition walks her kindly course through the story, who might call lady dedlock "mother." this secret, or perhaps rather the fact that there is a secret at all, she reveals in a moment of surprise to the family lawyer; and she lays herself still further open to his suspicions by going, disguised in her maid's clothes, to the poor graveyard where her former lover lies buried. the lawyer worms the whole story out, and, just as he is going to reveal it, is murdered by the french maid aforesaid. but the murder comes too late to save my lady, nay, adds to her difficulties. she flies, in anticipation of the disclosure of her secret, and is found dead at the graveyard gate. to such end has the sin of her youth led her. so once again has dickens dwelt, not on the passionate side of wrongful love, but on its sorrow. now take the other thread--the chancery suit--"jarndyce _versus_ jarndyce," a suit held in awful reverence by the profession as a "monument of chancery practice"--a suit seemingly interminable, till, after long, long years of wrangling and litigation, the fortuitous discovery of a will settles it all, with the result that the whole estate has been swallowed up in the costs. and how about the litigants? how about poor richard carstone and his wife, whom we see, in the opening of the story, in all the heyday and happiness of their youth, strolling down to the court--they are its wards,--and wondering sadly over the "headache and heartache" of it all, and then saying, gleefully, "at all events chancery will work none of its bad influence on _us_"? "none of its bad influence on _us_!" poor lad, whose life is wasted and character impaired in following the mirage of the suit, and who is killed by the mockery of its end. thus do the two intertwined stories run; but apart from these, though all in place and keeping, and helping on the general development, there is a whole profusion of noticeable characters. in enumerating them, however baldly, one scarcely knows where to begin. the lawyer group--clerks and all--is excellent. dickens' early experiences stood him in good stead here. excellent too are those studies in the ways of impecuniosity and practical shiftlessness, harold skimpole, the airy, irresponsible, light-hearted epicurean, with his pretty tastes and dilettante accomplishments, and mrs. jellyby, the philanthropist, whose eyes "see nothing nearer" than borrioboola-gha, on the banks of the far niger, and never dwell to any purpose on the utter discomfort of the home of her husband and children. characters of this kind no one ever delineated better than dickens. that leigh hunt, the poet and essayist, who had sat for the portrait of skimpole, was not altogether flattered by the likeness, is comprehensible enough; and in truth it is unfair, both to painter and model, that we should take such portraits too seriously. landor, who sat for the thunderous and kindly boythorn, had more reason to be satisfied. besides these one may mention joe, the outcast; and mr. turveydrop, the beau of the school of the regency--how horrified he would have been at the juxtaposition--and george, the keeper of the rifle gallery, a fine soldierly figure; and mr. bucket, the detective--though dickens had a tendency to idealize the abilities of the police force. as to sir leicester dedlock, i think he is, on the whole, "mine author's" best study of the aristocracy, a direction in which dickens' forte did not lie, for sir leicester _is_ a gentleman, and receives the terrible blow that falls upon him in a spirit at once chivalrous and human. what between "bleak house," _household words_, and "the child's history of england," dickens, in the spring of , was overworked and ill. brighton failed to restore him; and he took his family over to boulogne in june, occupying there a house belonging to a certain m. de beaucourt. town, dwelling, and landlord, all suited him exactly. boulogne he declared to be admirable for its picturesqueness in buildings and life, and equal in some respects to naples itself. the dwelling, "a doll's house of many rooms," embowered in roses, and with a terraced garden, was a place after his own heart. while as to the landlord--he was "wonderful." dickens never tires of extolling his virtues, his generosity, his kindness, his anxiety to please, his pride in "the property." all the pleasant delicate quaint traits in the man's character are irradiated as if with french sunshine in his tenant's description. it is a dainty little picture and painted with the kindliest of brushes. poor beaucourt, he was "inconsolable" when he and dickens finally parted three years afterwards--for twice again did the latter occupy a house, but not this same house, on "the property." many were the tears that he shed, and even the garden, the loved garden, went forlorn and unweeded. but that was in . the parting was not so final and terrible in the october of , when dickens, having finished "bleak house," started with mr. wilkie collins, and augustus egg, the artist, for a holiday tour in switzerland and italy. footnotes: [ ] "history of english literature," vol. v. [ ] "recollections of writers," by charles and mary cowden clarke. [ ] as, for instance, in such expressions as this: "the stamp on newspapers is not like the stamp on universal medicine bottles, which licenses anything, however false and monstrous." [ ] the last number of _household words_ appeared on the th of may, , and the first of _all the year round_ on the th of april, . [ ] there are one or two slight discrepancies between forster's narrative and that of miss dickens and miss hogarth. the latter are clearly more likely to be right on such a matter. chapter x. on his return to england, just after the christmas of , dickens gave his first public readings. he had, as we have seen, read "the chimes" some nine years before, to a select few among his literary friends; and at lausanne he had similarly read portions of "dombey and son." but the three readings given at birmingham, on the th, th, and th december, , were, in every sense, public entertainments, and, except that the proceeds were devoted entirely to the local institute, differed in no way from the famous readings by which he afterwards realized what may almost be called a fortune. the idea of coming before the world in this new character had long been in his mind. as early as , after the private reading at lausanne, he had written to forster: "i was thinking the other day that in these days of lecturings and readings, a great deal of money might possibly be made (if it were not _infra dig._) by one's having readings of one's own books. i think it would take immensely. what do you say?" forster said then, and said consistently throughout, that he held the thing to _be_ "_infra dig._," and unworthy of dickens' position; and in this i think one may venture to assert that forster was wrong. there can surely be no reason why a popular writer, who happens also to be an excellent elocutionist, should not afford general pleasure by giving sound to his prose, and a voice to his imaginary characters. nor is it opposed to the fitness of things that he should be paid for his skill. if, however, one goes further in dickens' case, and asks whether the readings did not involve too great an expenditure of time, energy, and, as we shall see, ultimately of life, and whether he would not, in the highest sense, have been better employed over his books,--why then the question becomes more difficult of solution. but, after all, each man must answer such questions for himself. dickens may have felt, as the years began to tell, that he required the excitement of the readings for mental stimulus, and that he would not even have written as much as he did without them. be that as it may, the success at birmingham, where a sum of from £ to £ was realized, the requests that poured in upon him to read at other places, the invariably renewed success whenever he did so, the clear evidence that a large sum was to be realized if he determined to come forward on his own account, all must have contributed to scatter forster's objections to the winds. on the th of april, , at st. martin's hall, in london, he started his career as a paid public reader, and he continued to read, with shorter or longer periods of intermission, till his death. but into the story of his professional tours it is not my intention just now to enter. i shall only stay to say a few words about the character and quality of his readings. that they were a success can readily be accounted for. the mere desire to see and hear dickens, the great dickens, the novelist who was more than popular, who was the object of real personal affection on the part of the english-speaking race,--this would have drawn a crowd at any time. but dickens was not the man to rely upon such sources of attraction, any more than an actress who is really an actress will consent to rely exclusively on her good looks. "whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well," such as we have seen was one of the governing principles of his life; and he read very well. of nervousness there was no trace in his composition. to some one who asked him whether he ever felt any shyness as a speaker, he answered, "not in the least; the first time i took the chair (at a public dinner) i felt as much confidence as if i had done the thing a hundred times." this of course helped him much as a reader, and gave him full command over all his gifts. but the gifts were also assiduously cultivated. he laboured, one might almost say, agonized, to make himself a master of the art. mr. dolby, who acted as his "manager," during the tours undertaken from to , tells us that before producing "dr. marigold," he not only gave a kind of semi-public rehearsal, but had rehearsed it to himself considerably over two hundred times. writing to forster dickens says: "you have no idea how i have worked at them [the readings].... i have tested all the serious passion in them by everything i know, made the humorous points much more humorous; corrected my utterance of certain words; ... i learnt 'dombey' like the rest, and did it to myself often twice a day, with exactly the same pains as at night, over, and over, and over again." the results justified the care and effort bestowed. there are, speaking generally, two schools of readers: those who dramatize what they read, and those who read simply, audibly, with every attention to emphasis and point, but with no effort to do more than slightly indicate differences of personage or character. to the latter school thackeray belonged. he read so as to be perfectly heard, and perfectly understood, and so that the innate beauty of his literary style might have full effect. dickens read quite differently. he read not as a writer to whom style is everything, but as an actor throwing himself into the world he wished to bring before his hearers. he was so careless indeed of pure literature, in this particular matter, that he altered his books for the readings, eliminating much of the narrative, and emphasizing the dialogue. he was pre-eminently the dramatic reader. carlyle, who had been dragged to "hanover rooms," to "the complete upsetting," as he says, "of my evening habitudes, and spiritual composure," was yet constrained to declare: "dickens does it capitally, such as _it_ is; acts better than any macready in the world; a whole tragic, comic, heroic, _theatre_ visible, performing under one _hat_, and keeping us laughing--in a sorry way, some of us thought--the whole night. he is a good creature, too, and makes fifty or sixty pounds by each of these readings." "a whole theatre"--that is just the right expression minted for us by the great coiner of phrases. dickens, by mere play of voice, for the gestures were comparatively sober, placed before you, on his imaginary stage, the men and women he had created. there dr. marigold pattered his cheap-jack phrases; and mrs. gamp and betsy prig, with throats rendered husky by much gin, had their memorable quarrel; and sergeant buzfuz bamboozled that stupid jury; and boots at the swan told his pretty tale of child-elopement; and fagin, in his hoarse jew whisper, urged bill sikes to his last foul deed of murder. ay me, in the great hush of the past there are tones of the reader's voice that still linger in my ears! i seem to hear once more the agonized quick utterance of poor nancy, as she pleads for life, and the dread stillness after the ruffian's cruel blows have fallen on her upturned face. again comes back to me the break in bob cratchit's voice, as he speaks of the death of tiny tim. as of old i listen to poor little chops, the dwarf, declaring, very piteously, that his "fashionable friends" don't use him well, and put him on the mantel-piece when he refuses to "have in more champagne-wine," and lock him in the sideboard when he "won't give up his property." and i _see_--yes, i declare i _see_, as i saw when dickens was reading, such was the illusion of voice and gesture--that dying flame of scrooge's fire, which leaped up when marley's ghost came in, and then fell again. nor can i forbear to mention, among these reminiscences, that there is also a passage in one of thackeray's lectures that is still in my ears as on the evening when i heard it. it is a passage in which he spoke of the love that children had for the works of his more popular rival, and told how his own children would come to him and ask, "why don't you write books like mr. dickens?" chapter xi. chancery had occupied a prominent place in "bleak house." philosophical radicalism occupied the same kind of position in "hard times," which was commenced in the number of _household words_ for the st of april, . the book, when afterwards published in a complete form, bore a dedication to carlyle; and very fittingly so, for much of its philosophy is his. dickens, like kingsley, and like mr. ruskin and mr. froude, and so many other men of genius and ability, had come under the influence of the old chelsea sage.[ ] and what are the ideas which "hard times" is thus intended to popularize? these: that men are not merely intellectual calculating machines, with reason and self-interest for motive power, but creatures possessing also affections, feelings, fancy--a whole world of emotions that lie outside the ken of the older school of political economists. therefore, to imagine that they can live and flourish on facts alone is a fallacy and pernicious; as is also the notion that any human relations can be permanently established on a basis of pure supply and demand. if we add to this an unlimited contempt for parliament, as a place where the national dustmen are continually stirring the national dust to no purpose at all, why then we are pretty well advanced in the philosophy of carlyle. and how does dickens illustrate these points? we are at coketown, a place, as its name implies, of smoke and manufacture. here lives and flourishes thomas gradgrind, "a man of realities; a man of facts and calculations;" not essentially a bad man, but bound in an iron system as in a vice. he brings up his children on knowledge, and enlightened self-interest exclusively; and the boy becomes a cub and a mean thief, and the girl marries, quite without love, a certain blustering mr. bounderby, and is as nearly as possible led astray by the first person who approaches her with the language of gallantry and sentiment. mr. bounderby, her husband, is, one may add, a man who, in mere lying bounce, makes out his humble origin to be more humble than it is. on the other side of the picture are mr. sleary and his circus troupe; and cissy jupe, the daughter of the clown; and the almost saintly figures of stephen blackpool, and rachel, a working man and a working woman. with these people facts are as naught, and self-interest as dust in the balance. mr. sleary has a heart which no brandy-and-water can harden, and he enables mr. gradgrind to send off the wretched cub to america, refusing any guerdon but a glass of his favourite beverage. the circus troupe are kindly, simple, loving folk. cissy jupe proves the angel of the gradgrind household. stephen is the victim of unjust persecution on the part of his own class, is suspected, by young gradgrind's machinations, of the theft committed by that young scoundrel, falls into a disused pit as he is coming to vindicate his character, and only lives long enough to forgive his wrongs, and clasp in death the hand of rachel--a hand which in life could not be his, as he had a wife alive who was a drunkard and worse. a marked contrast, is it not? on one side all darkness, and on the other all light. the demons of fact and self-interest opposed to the angels of fancy and unselfishness. a contrast too violent unquestionably. exaggeration is the fault of the novel. one may at once allow, for instance, that rachel and stephen, though human nature in its infinite capacity may include such characters, are scarcely a typical working woman and working man. but then neither, heaven be praised, are coupeau the sot, and gervaise the drab, in m. zola's "drink"--and, for my part, i think rachel and stephen the better company. "sullen socialism"--such is macaulay's view of the political philosophy of "hard times." "entirely right in main drift and purpose"--such is the verdict of mr. ruskin. who shall decide between the two? or, if a decision be necessary, then i would venture to say, yes, entirely right in feeling. dickens is right in sympathy for those who toil and suffer, right in desire to make their lives more human and beautiful, right in belief that the same human heart beats below all class distinctions. but, beyond this, a novelist only, not a philosopher, not fitted to grapple effectively with complex social and political problems, and to solve them to right conclusions. there are some things unfortunately which even the best and kindest instincts cannot accomplish. the last chapter of "hard times" appeared in the number of _household words_ for the th of august, , and the first number of "little dorrit" came out at christmas, . between those dates a great war had waxed and waned. the heart of england had been terribly moved by the story of the sufferings and privations which the army had had to undergo amid the snows of a russian winter. from the trenches before sebastopol the newspaper correspondents had sent terrible accounts of death and disease, and of ills which, as there seemed room for suspicion, might have been prevented by better management. through long disuse the army had rusted in its scabbard, and everything seemed to go wrong but the courage of officers and men. a great demand arose for reform in the whole administration of the country. a movement, now much forgotten, though not fruitless at the time, was started for the purpose of making the civil service more efficient, and putting john bull's house in order. "administrative reform," such was the cry of the moment, and dickens uttered it with the full strength of his lungs. he attended a great meeting held at drury lane theatre on the th of june, in furtherance of the cause, and made what he declared to be his first political speech. he spoke on the subject again at the dinner of the theatrical fund. he urged on his friends in the press to the attack. he was in the forefront of the battle. and when his next novel, "little dorrit," appeared, there was the civil service, like a sort of gibbeted punch, executing the strangest antics. but the "circumlocution office," where the clerks sit lazily devising all day long "how _not_ to do" the business of the country, and devote their energies alternately to marmalade and general insolence,--the "circumlocution office" occupies after all only a secondary position in the book. the main interest of it circles round the place that had at one time been almost a home to dickens. again he drew upon his earlier experiences. we are once more introduced into a debtors' prison. little dorrit is the child of the marshalsea, born and bred within its walls, the sole living thing about the place on which its taint does not fall. her worthless brother, her sister, her father--who is not only her father, but the "father of the marshalsea"--the prison blight is on all three. her father especially is a piece of admirable character-drawing. dickens has often been accused of only catching the surface peculiarities of his personages, their outward tricks, and obvious habits of speech and of mind. such a study as mr. dorrit would alone be sufficient to rebut the charge. no novelist specially famed for dissecting character to its innermost recesses could exhibit a finer piece of mental analysis. we follow the poor weak creature's deterioration from the time when the helpless muddle in his affairs brings him into durance. we note how his sneaking pride seems to feed even on the garbage of his degradation. we see how little inward change there is in the man himself when there comes a transformation scene in his fortunes, and he leaves the marshalsea wealthy and prosperous. it is all thoroughly worked out, perfect, a piece of really great art. no wonder that mr. clennam pities the child of such a father; indeed, considering what a really admirable woman she is, one only wonders that his pity does not sooner turn to love. "little dorrit" ran its course from december, , to june, , and within that space of time there occurred two or three incidents in dickens' career which should not pass unnoticed. at the first of these dates he was in paris, where he remained till the middle of may, , greatly fêted by the french world of letters and art; dining hither and thither; now enjoying an arabian nights sort of banquet given by emile de girardin, the popular journalist; now meeting george sand, the great novelist, whom he describes as "just the sort of woman in appearance whom you might suppose to be the queen's monthly nurse--chubby, matronly, swarthy, black-eyed;" then studying french art, and contrasting it with english art, somewhat to the disadvantage of the latter; anon superintending the translation of his works into french, and working hard at "little dorrit;" and all the while frequenting the paris theatres with great assiduity and admiration. meanwhile, too, on the th of march, , a friday, his lucky day as he considered it, he had written a cheque for the purchase of gad's hill place, at which he had so often looked when a little lad, living penuriously at chatham--the house which it had been the object of his childish ambition to win for his own. so had merit proved to be not without its visible prize, literally a prize for good conduct. he took possession of the house in the following february, and turned workmen into it, and finished "little dorrit" there. at first the purchase was intended mainly as an investment, and he only purposed to spend some portion of his time at gad's hill, letting it at other periods, and so recouping himself for the interest on the £ , which it had cost, and for the further sums which he expended on improvements. but as time went on it became his hobby, the love of his advancing years. he beautified here and beautified there, built a new drawing-room, added bedrooms, constructed a tunnel under the road, erected in the "wilderness" on the other side of the road a swiss châlet, which had been presented to him by fechter, the french-english actor, and in short indulged in all the thousand and one vagaries of a proprietor who is enamoured of his property. the matter seems to have been one of the family jokes; and when, on the sunday before his death, he showed the conservatory to his younger daughter, and said, "well, katey, now you see _positively_ the last improvement at gad's hill," there was a general laugh. but this is far on in the story; and very long before the building of the conservatory, long indeed before the main other changes had been made, the idea of an investment had been abandoned. in he sold tavistock house, in london, and made gad's hill place his final home. even here, however, i am anticipating; for before getting to there is in dickens' history a page which one would willingly turn over, if that were possible, in silence and sadness. but it is not possible. no account of his life would be complete, and what is of more importance, true, if it made no mention of his relations with his wife. for some time before dickens had been in an over-excited, nervous, morbid state. during earlier manhood his animal spirits and fresh energy had been superb. now, as the years advanced, and especially at this particular time, the energy was the same; but it was accompanied by something of feverishness and disease. he could not be quiet. in the autumn of he wrote to forster, "i have now no relief but in action. i am become incapable of rest. i am quite confident i should rust, break, and die if i spared myself. much better to die doing." and again, a little later, "if i couldn't walk fast and far, i should just explode and perish." it was the foreshadowing of such utterances as these, and the constant wanderings to and fro for readings and theatricals and what not, that led harriet martineau, who had known and greatly liked dickens, to say after perusing the second volume of his life, "i am much struck by his hysterical restlessness. it must have been terribly wearing to his wife." on the other hand, there can be no manner of doubt that his wife wore _him_. "why is it," he had said to forster in one of the letters from which i have just quoted, "that, as with poor david (copperfield), a sense comes always crushing on me now, when i fall into low spirits, as of one happiness i have missed in life, and one friend and companion i have never made?" and again: "i find that the skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty big one." then come even sadder confidences: "poor catherine and i are not made for each other, and there is no help for it. it is not only that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but that i make her so too, and much more so. she is exactly what you know in the way of being amiable and complying; but we are strangely ill-assorted for the bond there is between us.... her temperament will not go with mine." and at last, in march, , two months before the end: "it is not with me a matter of will, or trial, or sufferance, or good humour, or making the best of it, or making the worst of it, any longer. it is all despairingly over." so, after living together for twenty years, these two went their several ways in may, . dickens allowed to his wife an income of £ a year, and the eldest son went to live with her. the other children and their aunt, miss hogarth, remained with dickens himself. scandal has not only a poisonous, but a busy tongue, and when a well-known public man and his wife agree to live apart, the beldame seldom neglects to give her special version of the affair. so it happened here. some miserable rumour was whispered about to the detriment of dickens' morals. he was at the time, as we have seen, in an utterly morbid, excited state, sore doubtless with himself, and altogether out of mental condition, and the lie stung him almost to madness. he published an article branding it as it deserved in the number of _household words_ for the th of june, . so far his course of action was justifiable. granted that it was judicious to notice the rumour at all, and to make his private affairs the matter of public comment, then there was nothing in the terms of the article to which objection could be taken. it contained no reflection of any kind on mrs. dickens. it was merely an honest man's indignant protest against an anonymous libel which implicated others as well as himself. whether the publication, however, was judicious is a different matter. forster thinks not. he holds that dickens had altogether exaggerated the public importance of the rumour, and the extent of its circulation. and this, according to my own recollection, is entirely true. i was a lad at the time, but a great lover of dickens' works, as most lads then were, and i well remember the feeling of surprise and regret which that article created among us of the general public. at the same time, it is only fair to dickens to recollect that the lying story was, at least, so far fraught with danger to his reputation, that mrs. dickens would seem for a time to have believed it; and further, that dickens occupied a very peculiar position towards the public, and a position that might well in his own estimation, and even in ours, give singular importance to the general belief in his personal character. this point will bear dwelling upon. dickens claimed, and claimed truly, that the relation between himself and the public was one of exceptional sympathy and affection. perhaps an illustration will best show what that kind of relationship was. thackeray tells of two ladies with whom he had, at different times, discussed "the christmas carol," and how each had concluded by saying of the author, "god bless him!" god bless him!--that was the sort of feeling towards himself which dickens had succeeded in producing in most english hearts. he had appealed from the first and so constantly to every kind and gentle emotion, had illustrated so often what is good and true in human character, had pleaded the cause of the weak and suffering with such assiduity, had been so scathingly indignant at all wrong; and he had moreover shown such a manly and chivalrous purity in all his utterance with regard to women, that his readers felt for him a kind of personal tenderness, quite distinct from their mere admiration for his genius as a writer. nor was that feeling based on his books alone. so far as one could learn at the time, no great dissimilarity existed between the author and the man. we all remember byron's corrosive remark on the sentimentalist sterne, that he "whined over a dead ass, and allowed his mother to die of hunger." but dickens' feelings were by no means confined to his pen. he was known to be a good father and a good friend, and of perfect truth and honesty. the kindly tolerance for the frailties of a father or brother which he admired in little dorrit, he was ready to extend to his own father and his own brother. he was most assiduous in the prosecution of his craft as a writer, and yet had time and leisure of heart at command for all kinds of good and charitable work. his private character had so far stood above all floating cloud of suspicion. that dickens felt an honourable pride in the general affection he inspired, can readily be understood. he also felt, even more honourably, its great responsibility. he knew that his books and he himself were a power for good, and he foresaw how greatly his influence would suffer if a suspicion of hypocrisy--the vice at which he had always girded--were to taint his reputation. here, for instance, in "little dorrit," the work written in the thick of his home troubles, he had written of clennam as "a man who had, deep-rooted in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things his life had been without," and had shown how this belief had "saved clennam still from the whimpering weakness and cruel selfishness of holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue had not come into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore it was not in the great scheme, but was reducible, when found in appearance, to the basest elements." a touching utterance if it expressed the real feeling of a writer sorely disappointed and in great trouble; but an utterance moving rather to contempt if it came from a writer who had transferred his affections from his wife to some other woman. i do not wonder, therefore, that dickens, excited and exasperated, spoke out, though i think it would have been better if he had kept silence. but he did other things that were not justifiable. he quarrelled with messrs. bradbury and evans, his publishers, because they did not use their influence to get _punch_, a periodical in which dickens had no interest, to publish the personal statement that had appeared in _household words_; and worse, much worse, he wrote a letter, which ought never to have been written, detailing the grounds on which he and his wife had separated. this letter, dated the th of may, , was addressed to his secretary, arthur smith, and was to be shown to any one interested. arthur smith showed it to the london correspondent of _the new york tribune_, who naturally caused it to be published in that paper. then dickens was horrified. he was a man of far too high and chivalrous feeling not to know that the letter contained statements with regard to his wife's failings which ought never to have been made public. he knew as well as any one, that a literary man ought not to take the world into his confidence on such a subject. ever afterwards he referred to the letter as his "violated letter." but, in truth, the wrong went deeper than the publication. the letter should never have been written, certainly never sent to arthur smith for general perusal. dickens' only excuse is the fact that he was clearly not himself at the time, and that he never fell into a like error again. it is, however, sad to notice how entirely his wife seems to have passed out of his affection. the reference to her in his will is almost unkind; and when death was on him she seems not to have been summoned to his bedside. footnotes: [ ] dickens did not accept the whole carlyle creed. he retained a sort of belief in the collective wisdom of the people, which carlyle certainly did not share. chapter xii. dickens' career as a reader reading for money commenced on the th of april, , while the trouble about his wife was at the thickest; and, after reading in london on sixteen nights, he made a reading tour in the provinces, and in scotland and ireland. in the following year he read likewise. but meanwhile, which is more important to us than his readings, he was writing another book. on the th of april, , in the first number of _all the year round_,[ ] was begun "the tale of two cities," a simultaneous publication in monthly parts being also commenced. "the tale of two cities" is a tale of the great french revolution of , and the two cities in question are london and paris,--london as it lay comparatively at peace in the days when george iii. was king, and paris running blood and writhing in the fierce fire of anarchy and mob rule. a powerful book, unquestionably. no doubt there is in its heat and glare a reflection from carlyle's "french revolution," a book for which dickens had the greatest admiration. but that need not be regarded as a demerit. dickens is no pale copyist, and adds fervour to what he borrows. his pictures of paris in revolution are as fine as the london scenes in "barnaby rudge;" and the interweaving of the story with public events is even better managed in the later book than in the earlier story of the gordon riots. and the story, what does it tell? it tells of a certain dr. manette, who, after long years of imprisonment in the bastille, is restored to his daughter in london; and of a young french noble, who has assumed the name of darnay, and left france in horror of the doings of his order, and who marries dr. manette's daughter; and of a young english barrister, able enough in his profession, but careless of personal success, and much addicted to port wine, and bearing a striking personal resemblance to the young french noble. these persons, and others, being drawn to paris by various strong inducements, darnay is condemned to death as a _ci-devant_ noble, and the ne'er-do-well barrister, out of the great pure love he bears to darnay's wife, succeeds in dying for him. that is the tale's bare outline; and if any one says of the book that it is in parts melodramatic, one may fitly answer that never was any portion of the world's history such a thorough piece of melodrama as the french revolution. with "the tale of two cities" hablôt k. browne's connection with dickens, as the illustrator of his books, came to an end. the "sketches" had been illustrated by cruikshank, who was the great popular illustrator of the time, and it is amusing to read, in the preface to the first edition of the first series, published in , how the trembling young author placed himself, as it were, under the protection of the "well-known individual who had frequently contributed to the success of similar undertakings." cruikshank also illustrated "oliver twist;" and indeed, with an arrogance which unfortunately is not incompatible with genius, afterwards set up a rather preposterous claim to have been the real originator of that book, declaring that he had worked out the story in a series of etchings, and that dickens had illustrated _him_, and not he dickens.[ ] but apart from the drawings for the "sketches" and "oliver twist," and the first few drawings by seymour, and two drawings by buss,[ ] in "pickwick," and some drawings by cattermole in _master humphrey's clock_, and by samuel palmer in the "pictures from italy," and by various hands in the christmas stories--apart from these, browne, or "phiz," had executed the illustrations to dickens' novels. nor, with all my admiration for certain excellent qualities which his work undeniably possessed, do i think that this was altogether a good thing. such, i know, is not a popular opinion. but i confess i am unable to agree with those critics who, from their remarks on the recent jubilee edition of "pickwick," seem to think his illustrations so pre-eminently fine that they should be permanently associated with dickens' stories. the editor of that edition was, in my view, quite right in treating browne's illustrations as practically obsolete. the value of dickens' works is perennial, and browne's illustrations represent the art fashion of a time only. so, too, i am unable to see any great cause to regret that cruikshank's artistic connection with dickens came to an end so soon.[ ] for both browne and cruikshank were pre-eminently caricaturists, and caricaturists of an old school. the latter had no idea of beauty. his art, very great art in its way, was that of grotesqueness and exaggeration. he never drew a lady or gentleman in his life. and though browne, in my view much the lesser artist, was superior in these respects to cruikshank, yet he too drew the most hideous pecksniffs, and tom pinches, and joey b.'s, and a whole host of characters quite unreal and absurd. the mischief of it is, too, that dickens' humour will not bear caricaturing. the defect of his own art as a writer is that it verges itself too often on caricature. exaggeration is its bane. when, for instance, he makes the rich alderman in "the chimes" eat up poor trotty veck's little last tit-bit of tripe, we are clearly in the region of broad farce. when mr. pancks, in "little dorrit," so far abandons the ordinary ways of mature rent collectors as to ask a respectable old accountant to "give him a back," in the marshalsea court, and leaps over his head, we are obviously in a world of pantomime. dickens' comic effects are generally quite forced enough, and should never be further forced when translated into the sister art of drawing. rather, if anything, should they be attenuated. but unfortunately exaggeration happened to be inherent in the draftsmanship of both cruikshank and browne. and, having said this, i may as well finish with the subject of the illustrations to dickens' books. "our mutual friend" was illustrated by mr. marcus stone, r.a., then a rising young artist, and the son of dickens' old friend, frank stone. here the designs fall into the opposite defect. they are, some of them, pretty enough, but they want character. mr. fildes' pictures for "edwin drood" are a decided improvement. as to the illustrations for the later _household edition_, they are very inferior. the designs for a great many are clearly bad, and the mechanical execution almost uniformly so. even mr. barnard's skill has had no fair chance against poor woodcutting, careless engraving, and inferior paper. and this is the more to be regretted, in that mr. barnard, by natural affinity of talent, has, to my thinking, done some of the best art work that has been done at all in connection with dickens. his _character sketches_, especially the lithographed series, are admirable. the jingle is a masterpiece; but all are good, and he even succeeds in making something pictorially acceptable of little nell and little dorrit. just a year, almost to a day, elapsed between the conclusion of "the tale of two cities," and the commencement of "great expectations." the last chapter of the former appeared in the number of _all the year round_ for the th of november, , and the first chapter of the latter in the number of the same periodical for the st of december, . poor pip--for such is the name of the hero of the book--poor pip, i think he is to be pitied. certainly he lays himself open to the charge of snobbishness, and is unduly ashamed of his connections. but then circumstances were decidedly against him. through some occult means he is removed from his natural sphere, from the care of his "rampageous" sister and of her husband, the good, kind, honest joe, and taken up to london, and brought up as a gentleman, and started in chambers in barnard's inn. all this is done through the instrumentality of mr. jaggers, a barrister in highest repute among the criminal brotherhood. but pip not unnaturally thinks that his unknown benefactress is a certain miss havisham, who, having been bitterly wronged in her love affairs, lives in eccentric fashion near his native place, amid the mouldering mementoes of her wedding day. what is his horror when he finds that his education, comfort, and prospects have no more reputable foundation than the bounty of a murderous criminal called magwitch, who has showered all these benefits upon him from the antipodes, in return for the gift of food and a file when he, magwitch, was trying to escape from the hulks, and pip was a little lad. magwitch, the transported convict, comes back to england, at the peril of his life, to make himself known to pip, and to have the pleasure of looking at that young gentleman. he is again tracked by the police, and caught, notwithstanding pip's efforts to get him off, and dies in prison. pip ultimately, very ultimately, marries a young lady oddly brought up by the queer miss havisham, and who turns out to be magwitch's daughter. such, as i have had occasion to say before in speaking of similar analyses, such are the dry bones of the story. pip's character is well drawn. so is that of joe. and mr. jaggers, the criminal's friend, and his clerk, wemmick, are striking and full of a grim humour. miss havisham and her _protégée_, estella, whom she educates to be the scourge of men, belong to what may be called the melodramatic side of dickens' art. they take their place with mrs. dombey and with miss dartle in "david copperfield," and miss wade in "little dorrit"--female characters of a fantastic and haughty type, and quite devoid, miss dartle and miss wade especially, of either verisimilitude or the milk of human kindness. "great expectations" was completed in august, , and the first number of "our mutual friend" appeared in may, . this was an unusual interval, but the great writer's faculty of invention was beginning to lose its fresh spring and spontaneity. and besides he had not been idle. though writing no novel, he had been busy enough with readings, and his work on _all the year round_. he had also written a short, but very graceful paper[ ] on thackeray, whose death, on the christmas eve of , had greatly affected him. now, however, he again braced himself for one of his greater efforts. scarcely, i think, as all will agree, with the old success. in "our mutual friend" he is not at his best. it is a strange complicated story that seems to have some difficulty in unravelling itself: the story of a man who pretends to be dead in order that he may, under a changed name, investigate the character and eligibility of the young woman whom an erratic father has destined to be his bride. a golden-hearted old dust contractor, who hides a will that will give him all that erratic father's property, and disinherit the man aforesaid, and who, to crown his virtues, pretends to be a miser in order to teach the young woman, also aforesaid, how bad it is to be mercenary, and to induce her to marry the unrecognized and seemingly penniless son; their marriage accordingly, with ultimate result that the bridegroom turns out to be no poor clerk, but the original heir, who, of course, is not dead, and is the inheritor of thousands; subsidiary groups of characters, of course, one which i think rather uninteresting, of some brand-new people called the veneerings and their acquaintances, for they have no friends; and some fine sketches of the river-side population; striking and amusing characters too--silas wegg, the scoundrelly vendor of songs, who ferrets among the dust for wills in order to confound the good dustman, his benefactor; and the little deformed dolls' dressmaker, with her sot of a father; and betty higden, the sturdy old woman who has determined neither in life nor death to suffer the pollution of the workhouse; such, with more added, are the ingredients of the story. one episode, however, deserves longer comment. it is briefly this: eugene wrayburn is a young barrister of good family and education, and of excellent abilities and address, all gifts that he has turned to no creditable purpose whatever. he falls in with a girl, lizzie hexham, of more than humble rank, but of great beauty and good character. she interests him, and in mere wanton carelessness, for he certainly has no idea of offering marriage, he gains her affection, neither meaning, in any definite way, to do anything good nor anything bad with it. there is another man who loves lizzie, a schoolmaster, who, in his dull, plodding way, has made the best of his intellect, and risen in life. he naturally, and we may say properly, for no good can come of them, resents wrayburn's attentions, as does the girl's brother. wrayburn uses the superior advantages of his position to insult them in the most offensive and brutal manner, and to torture the schoolmaster, just as he has used those advantages to win the girl's heart. whereupon, after being goaded to heart's desire for a considerable time, the schoolmaster as nearly as possible beats out wrayburn's life, and commits suicide. wrayburn is rescued by lizzie as he lies by the river bank sweltering in blood, and tended by her, and they are married and live happy ever afterwards. now the amazing part of this story is, that dickens' sympathies throughout are with wrayburn. how this comes to be so i confess i do not know. to me wrayburn's conduct appears to be heartless, cruel, unmanly, and the use of his superior social position against the schoolmaster to be like a foul blow, and quite unworthy of a gentleman. schoolmasters ought not to beat people about the head, decidedly. but if wrayburn's thoughts took a right course during convalescence, i think he may have reflected that he deserved his beating, and also that the woman whose affection he had won was a great deal too good for him. dickens' misplaced sympathy in this particular story has, i repeat, always struck me with amazement. usually his sympathies are so entirely right. nothing is more common than to hear the accusation of vulgarity made against his books. a certain class of people seem to think, most mistakenly, that because he so often wrote about vulgar people, uneducated people, people in the lower ranks of society, therefore his writing was vulgar, nay more, he himself vulgar too. such an opinion can only be based on a strange confusion between subject and treatment. there is scarcely any subject not tainted by impurity, that cannot be treated with entire refinement. washington irving wrote to dickens, most justly, of "that exquisite tact that enabled him to carry his reader through the veriest dens of vice and villainy without a breath to shock the ear or a stain to sully the robe of the most shrinking delicacy;" and added: "it is a rare gift to be able to paint low life without being low, and to be comic without the least taint of vulgarity." this is well said; and if we look for the main secret of the inherent refinement of dickens' books, we shall find it, i think, in this: that he never intentionally paltered with right and wrong. he would make allowance for evil, would take pleasure in showing that there were streaks of lingering good in its blackness, would treat it kindly, gently, humanly. but it always stood for evil, and nothing else. he made no attempt by cunning jugglery to change its seeming. he had no sneaking affection for it. and therefore, i say again, his attachment to eugene wrayburn has always struck me with surprise. as regards dickens' own refinement, i cannot perhaps do better than quote the words of sir arthur helps, an excellent judge. "he was very refined in his conversation--at least, what i call refined--for he was one of those persons in whose society one is comfortable from the certainty that they will never say anything which can shock other people, or hurt their feelings, be they ever so fastidious or sensitive." footnotes: [ ] his foolish quarrel with bradbury and evans had necessitated the abandonment of _household words_. [ ] see his pamphlet, "the artist and the author." the matter is fully discussed in his life by mr. blanchard jerrold. [ ] buss's illustrations were executed under great disadvantages, and are bad. those of seymour are excellent. [ ] i am always sorry, however, that cruikshank did not illustrate the christmas stories. [ ] see _cornhill magazine_ for february, . chapter xiii. but we are now, alas, nearing the point where the "rapid" of dickens' life began to "shoot to its fall." the year , during which he partly wrote "our mutual friend," was a fatal one in his career. in the month of february he had been very ill, with an affection of the left foot, at first thought to be merely local, but which really pointed to serious mischief, and never afterwards wholly left him. then, on june th, when returning from france, where he had gone to recruit, he as nearly as possible lost his life in a railway accident at staplehurst. a bridge had broken in; some of the carriages fell through, and were smashed; that in which dickens was, hung down the side of the chasm. of courage and presence of mind he never showed any lack. they were evinced, on one occasion, at the readings, when an alarm of fire arose. they shone conspicuous here. he quieted two ladies who were in the same compartment of the carriage; helped to extricate them and others from their perilous position; gave such help as he could to the wounded and dying; probably was the means of saving the life of one man, whom he was the first to hear faintly groaning under a heap of wreckage; and then, as he tells in the "postscript" to the book, scrambled back into the carriage to find the crumpled ms. of a portion of "our mutual friend."[ ] but even pluck is powerless to prevent a ruinous shock to the nerves. though dickens had done so manfully what he had to do at the time, he never fully recovered from the blow. his daughter tells us how he would often, "when travelling home from london, suddenly fall into a paroxysm of fear, tremble all over, clutch the arms of the railway carriage, large beads of perspiration standing on his face, and suffer agonies of terror.... he had ... apparently no idea of our presence." and mr. dolby tells us also how in travelling it was often necessary for him to ward off such attacks by taking brandy. dickens had been failing before only too surely; and this accident, like a coward's blow, struck him heavily as he fell. but whether failing or stricken, he bated no jot of energy or courage; nay, rather, as his health grew weaker, did he redouble the pressure of his work. i think there is a grandeur in the story of the last five years of his life, that dwarfs even the tale of his rapid and splendid rise. it reads like some antique myth of the titans defying jove's thunder. there is about the man something indomitable and heroic. he had, as we have seen, given a series of readings in - ; and he gave another in the years to --successful enough in a pecuniary sense, but through failure of business capacity on the part of the manager, entailing on the reader himself a great deal of anxiety and worry.[ ] now, in the spring of , with his left foot giving him unceasing trouble, and his nerves shattered, and his heart in an abnormal state, he accepted an offer from messrs. chappell to read "in england, ireland, scotland, and paris," for £ , , and the payment of all expenses, and then to give forty-two more readings for £ , . mr. dolby, who accompanied dickens as business manager in this and the remaining tours, has told their story in an interesting volume.[ ] of course the wear was immense. the readings themselves involved enormous fatigue to one who so identified himself with what he read, and whose whole being seemed to vibrate not only with the emotions of the characters in his stories, but of the audience. then there was the weariness of long railway journeys in all seasons and weathers--journeys that at first must have been rendered doubly tedious, as he could not bear to travel by express trains. yet, notwithstanding failure of strength, notwithstanding fatigue, his native gaiety and good spirits smile like a gleam of winter sunlight over the narrative. as he had been the brightest and most genial of companions in the old holiday days when strolling about the country with his actor-troupe, so now he was occasionally as frolic as a boy, dancing a hornpipe in the train for the amusement of his companions, compounding bowls of punch in which he shared but sparingly--for he was really convivial only in idea--and always considerate and kindly towards his companions and dependents. and mingled pathetically with all this are confessions of pain, weariness, illness, faintness, sleeplessness, internal bleeding,--all bravely borne, and never for an instant suffered to interfere with any business arrangement. but if the strain of the readings was too heavy here at home, what was it likely to be during a winter in america? nevertheless he determined, against all remonstrances, to go thither. it would almost seem as if he felt that the day of his life was waning, and that it was his duty to gather in a golden harvest for those he loved ere the night came on. so he sailed for boston once more on the th of november, . the americans, it must be said, behaved nobly. all the old grudges connected with "the american notes," and "martin chuzzlewit," sank into oblivion. the reception was everywhere enthusiastic, the success of the readings immense. again and again people waited all night, amid the rigours of an almost arctic winter, in order to secure an opportunity of purchasing tickets as soon as the ticket office opened. there were enormous and intelligent audiences at boston, new york, washington, philadelphia--everywhere. the sum which dickens realized by the tour, amounted to the splendid total of nearly £ , . nor, in this money triumph, did he fail to excite his usual charm of personal fascination, though the public affection and admiration were manifested in forms less objectionable and offensive than of old. on his birthday, the th of february, , he says, "i couldn't help laughing at myself ...; it was observed so much as though i were a little boy." flowers, garlands were set about his room; there were presents on his dinner-table, and in the evening the hall where he read was decorated by kindly unknown hands. of public and private entertainment he might have had just as much as he chose. but to this medal there was a terrible reverse. travelling from new york to boston just before christmas, he took a most disastrous cold, which never left him so long as he remained in the country. he was constantly faint. he ate scarcely anything. he slept very little. latterly he was so lame, as scarcely to be able to walk. again and again it seemed impossible that he should fulfil his night's engagement. he was constantly so exhausted at the conclusion of the reading, that he had to lie down for twenty minutes or half an hour, "before he could undergo the fatigue even of dressing." mr. dolby lived in daily fear lest he should break down altogether. "i used to steal into his room," he says, "at all hours of the night and early morning, to see if he were awake, or in want of anything; always though to find him wide awake, and as cheerful and jovial as circumstances would admit--never in the least complaining, and only reproaching me for not taking my night's rest." "only a man of iron will could have accomplished what he did," says mr. fields, who knew him well, and saw him often during the tour. in the first week of may, , dickens was back in england, and soon again in the thick of his work and play. mr. wills, the sub-editor of _all the year round_, had met with an accident. dickens supplied his place. chauncy hare townshend had asked him to edit a chaotic mass of religious lucubrations. he toilfully edited them. then, with the autumn, the readings began again;--for it marks the indomitable energy of the man that, even amid the terrible physical trials incident to his tour in america, he had agreed with messrs. chappell, for a sum of £ , , to give one hundred more readings after his return. so in october the old work began again, and he was here, there, and everywhere, now reading at manchester and liverpool, now at edinburgh and glasgow, anon coming back to read fitfully in london, then off again to ireland, or the west of england. nor is it necessary to say that he spared himself not one whit. in order to give novelty to these readings, which were to be positively the last, he had laboriously got up the scene of nancy's murder, in "oliver twist," and persisted in giving it night after night, though of all his readings it was the one that exhausted him most terribly.[ ] but of course this could not last. the pain in his foot "was always recurring at inconvenient and unexpected moments," says mr. dolby, and occasionally the american cold came back too. in february, in london, the foot was worse than it had ever been, so bad that sir henry thompson, and mr. beard, his medical adviser, compelled him to postpone a reading. at edinburgh, a few days afterwards, mr. syme, the eminent surgeon, strongly recommended perfect rest. still he battled on, but "with great personal suffering such as few men could have endured." sleeplessness was on him too. and still he fought on, determined, if it were physically possible, to fulfil his engagement with messrs. chappell, and complete the hundred nights. but it was not to be. symptoms set in that pointed alarmingly towards paralysis of the left side. at preston, on the nd of april, mr. beard, who had come post-haste from london, put a stop to the readings, and afterwards decided, in consultation with sir thomas watson, that they ought to be suspended entirely for the time, and never resumed in connection with any railway travelling. even this, however, was not quite the end; for a summer of comparative rest, or what dickens considered rest, seemed so far to have set him up that he gave a final series of twelve readings in london between the th of january and th of march, , thus bringing to its real conclusion an enterprise by which, at whatever cost to himself, he had made a sum of about £ , . meanwhile, in the autumn of , he had gone back to the old work, and was writing a novel, "the mystery of edwin drood." it is a good novel unquestionably. without going so far as longfellow, who had doubts whether it was not "the most beautiful of all" dickens' works, one may admit that there is about it a singular freshness, and no sign at all of mental decay. as for the "mystery," i do not think _that_ need baffle us altogether. but then i see no particular reason to believe that dickens had wished to baffle us, or specially to rival edgar allan poe or mr. wilkie collins in the construction of criminal puzzles. even though only half the case is presented to us, and the book remains for ever unfinished, we need have, i think, no difficulty in working out its conclusion. the course pursued by mr. jasper, lay precentor of the cathedral at cloisterham, is really too suspicious. no intelligent british jury, seeing the facts as they are presented to us, the readers, could for a moment think of acquitting him of the murder of his nephew, edwin drood. take those facts seriatim. first, we have the motive: he is passionately in love with the girl to whom his nephew is engaged. then we have a terrible coil of compromising circumstances: his extravagant profession of devotion to his nephew, his attempts to establish a hidden influence over the girl's mind to his nephew's detriment and his own advantage, his gropings amid the dark recesses of the cathedral and inquiries into the action of quicklime, his endeavours to foment a quarrel between edwin drood and a fiery young gentleman from ceylon, on the night of the murder, and his undoubted doctoring of the latter's drink. then, after the murder, how damaging is his conduct. he falls into a kind of fit on discovering that his nephew's engagement had been broken off, which he might well do if his crime turned out to be not only a crime but also a blunder. and his conduct to the girl is, to say the least of it, strange. nor will his character help him. he frequents the opium dens of the east-end of london. guilty, guilty, most certainly guilty. there is nothing to be said in arrest of judgment. let the judge put on the black cap, and jasper be devoted to his merited doom. such was the story that dickens was unravelling in the spring and early summer of . and fortune smiled upon it. he had sold the copyright for the large sum of £ , , and a half share of the profits after a sale of twenty-five thousand copies, plus £ , for the advance sheets sent to america; and the sale was more than answering his expectations. nor did prosperity look favourably on the book alone. it also, in one sense, showered benefits on the author. he was worth, as the evidence of the probate court was to show only too soon, a sum of over £ , . he was happy in his children. he was universally loved, honoured, courted. "troops of friends," though, alas! death had made havoc among the oldest, were still his. never had man exhibited less inclination to pay fawning court to greatness and social rank. yet when the queen expressed a desire to see him, as she did in march, , he felt not only pride, but a gentleman's pleasure in acceding to her wish, and came away charmed from a long chatting interview. but, while prosperity was smiling thus, the shadows of his day of life were lengthening, lengthening, and the night was at hand. on wednesday, june th, he seemed in excellent spirits; worked all the morning in the châlet[ ] as was his wont, returned to the house for lunch and a cigar, and then, being anxious to get on with "edwin drood," went back to his desk once more. the weather was superb. all round the landscape lay in fullest beauty of leafage and flower, and the air rang musically with the song of birds. what were his thoughts that summer day as he sat there at his work? writing many years before, he had asked whether the "subtle liquor of the blood" may not "perceive, by properties within itself," when danger is imminent, and so "run cold and dull"? did any such monitor within, one wonders, warn him at all that the hand of death was uplifted to strike, and that its shadow lay upon him? judging from the words that fell from his pen that day we might almost think that it was so--we might almost go further, and guess with what hopes and fears he looked into the darkness beyond. never at any time does he appear to have been greatly troubled by speculative doubt. there is no evidence in his life, no evidence in his letters, no evidence in his books, that he had ever seen any cause to question the truth of the reply which christianity gives to the world-old problems of man's origin and destiny. for abstract speculation he had not the slightest turn or taste. in no single one of his characters does he exhibit any fierce mental struggle as between truth and error. all that side of human experience, with its anguish of battle, its despairs, and its triumphs, seems to have been unknown to him. perhaps he had the stronger grasp of other matters in consequence--who knows? but the fact remains. with a trust quite simple and untroubled, he held through life to the faith of christ. when his children were little, he had written prayers for them, had put the bible into simpler language for their use. in his will, dated may , , he had said, "i commit my soul to the mercy of god through our lord and saviour jesus christ, and i exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the broad teaching of the new testament in its broad spirit, and to put no faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter here or there." and now, on this last day of his life, in probably the last letter that left his pen, he wrote to one who had objected to some passage in "edwin drood" as irreverent: "i have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our saviour--because i feel it." and with a significance, of which, as i have said, he may himself have been dimly half-conscious, among the last words of his unfinished story, written that very afternoon, are words that tell of glorious summer sunshine transfiguring the city of his imagination, and of the changing lights, and the song of birds, and the incense from garden and meadow that "penetrate into the cathedral" of cloisterham, "subdue its earthy odour, and preach the resurrection and the life." for now the end had come. when he went in to dinner miss hogarth noticed that he looked very ill, and wished at once to send for a doctor. but he refused, struggled for a short space against the impending fit, and tried to talk, at last very incoherently. then, when urged to go up to his bed, he rose, and, almost immediately, slid from her supporting arm, and fell on the floor. nor did consciousness return. he passed from the unrest of life into the peace of eternity on the following day, june , , at ten minutes past six in the evening. and now he lies in westminster abbey, among the men who have most helped, by deed or thought, to make this england of ours what it is. dean stanley only gave effect to the national voice when he assigned to him that place of sepulture. the most popular, and in most respects the greatest novelist of his time; the lord over the laughter and tears of a whole generation; the writer, in his own field of fiction, whose like we shall probably not see again for many a long, long year, if ever; where could he be laid more fittingly for his last long sleep than in the hallowed resting-place which the country sets apart for the most honoured of her children? so he lies there among his peers in the southern transept. close beside him sleep dr. johnson, the puissant literary autocrat of his own time; and garrick, who was that time's greatest actor; and handel, who may fittingly claim to have been one of the mightiest musicians of all time. there sleeps, too, after the fitful fever of his troubled life, the witty, the eloquent sheridan. in close proximity rests macaulay, the artist-historian and essayist. within the radius of a few yards lies all that will ever die of chaucer, who five hundred years ago sounded the spring note of english literature, and gave to all after-time the best, brightest glimpse into mediæval england; and all that is mortal also of spenser of the honey'd verse; and of beaumont, who had caught an echo of shakespeare's sweetness if not his power; and of sturdy ben jonson, held in his own day a not unworthy rival of shakespeare's self; and of "glorious" and most masculine john dryden. from his monument shakespeare looks upon the place with his kindly eyes, and addison too, and goldsmith; and one can almost imagine a smile of fellowship upon the marble faces of those later dead--burns, coleridge, southey, and thackeray. nor in that great place of the dead does dickens enjoy cold barren honour alone. nearly seventeen years have gone by since he was laid there--yes, nearly seventeen years, though it seems only yesterday that i was listening to the funeral sermon in which dean stanley spoke of the simple and sufficient faith in which he had lived and died. but though seventeen years have gone by, yet are outward signs not wanting of the peculiar love that clings to him still. as i strolled through the abbey this last christmas eve i found his grave, and his grave alone, made gay with the season's hollies. "lord, keep my memory green,"--in another sense than he used the words, that prayer is answered. and of the future what shall we say? his fame had a brilliant day while he lived; it has a brilliant day now. will it fade into twilight, without even an after-glow; will it pass altogether into the night of oblivion? i cannot think so. the vitality of dickens' works is singularly great. they are all a-throb, as it were, with hot human blood. they are popular in the highest sense because their appeal is universal, to the uneducated as well as the educated. the humour is superb, and most of it, so far as one can judge, of no ephemeral kind. the pathos is more questionable, but that too, at its simplest and best; and especially when the humour is shot with it--is worthy of a better epithet than excellent. it is supremely touching. imagination, fancy, wit, eloquence, the keenest observation, the most strenuous endeavour to reach the highest artistic excellence, the largest kindliness,--all these he brought to his life-work. and that work, as i think, will live, i had almost dared to prophesy for ever. of course fashions change. of course no writer of fiction, writing for his own little day, can permanently meet the needs of all after times. some loss of immediate vital interest is inevitable. nevertheless, in dickens' case, all will not die. half a century, a century hence, he will still be read; not perhaps as he was read when his words flashed upon the world in their first glory and freshness, nor as he is read now in the noon of his fame. but he will be read much more than we read the novelists of the last century--be read as much, shall i say, as we still read scott. and so long as he _is_ read, there will be one gentle and humanizing influence the more at work among men. the end. footnotes: [ ] for his own graphic account of the accident, see his "letters." [ ] he computed that he had made £ , by the two first series of readings. [ ] "charles dickens as i knew him." by george dolby. miss dickens considers this "the best and truest picture of her father yet written." [ ] mr. dolby remonstrated on this, and it was in connection with a very slight show of temper on the occasion that he says: "in all my experiences with the chief that was the only time i ever heard him address angry words to any one." [ ] the châlet, since sold and removed, stood at the edge of a kind of "wilderness," which is separated from gad's hill place by the high road. a tunnel, constructed by dickens, connects the "wilderness" and the garden of the house. close to the road, in the "wilderness," and fronting the house, are two fine cedars. index. a. "administrative reform" agitation, _all the year round_, , america, dickens' first visit to united states in , , - , , ; second visit in - , - "american notes," , - b. "barnaby rudge," , - , barnard, mr., his illustrations to dickens' works, "battle of life," _bentley's miscellany_ edited by dickens, , "bleak house," - boulogne, , bret harte, mr., on little nell, browne, or "phiz," his illustrations to dickens' works, - c. carlyle, his description of dickens quoted, ; and of dickens' reading, ; his influence on dickens, , ; see also and chapman and hall, , , , , chatham, childhood, dickens' feeling for its pathos, , "child's history of england," "chimes," , - , "christmas carol," - , "christopher north," cowden clarke, mrs., quoted, cruikshank, his illustrations to "sketches" and "oliver twist," - d. _daily news_, started with dickens as editor, , , , "david copperfield"--in many respects autobiographical, - , , ; analysis of, , , - dick, mr., , dickens, charles, birth, ; childhood and boyhood, - ; school experiences, , ; law experiences, , ; experiences as reporter for the press, - ; first attempts at authorship, - ; marriage, ; his personal appearance in early manhood, , ; influence of his early training, - ; pecuniary position after publication of "pickwick," , ; habits of work and relaxation, - ; reception at edinburgh, , ; american experiences, - ; affection for his children, , ; italian experiences, - ; appointed editor of _daily news_, , ; efficiency in practical matters, , ; his charm as a holiday companion, ; first public readings in , ; character of his reading, , ; purchase of gad's hill place, , ; separation from his wife, - ; general love in which he was held, , ; tendency to caricature in his art, ; essential refinement in his writing and in himself, , ; his presence of mind, ; his brave battle against failing strength, - ; with what thoughts he faced death, , ; his death, ; resting-place in westminster abbey, - ; love that clings to his memory, ; future of his fame, , dickens, john, his character, , ; his imprisonment, , , ; his death, dickens, miss, biography of her father, quoted, , , dickens, mrs. (dickens' mother), , dickens, mrs., ; separated from her husband, - dolby, mr., manager for the readings, , , "dombey and son," , - , dombey, paul, , - , , e. edinburgh, dickens' reception there, , "edwin drood," , - f. fildes, mr. l., a.r.a., illustrates "edwin drood," flite, miss, , forster, john, , , , ; his opinion on the advisability of public readings, , g. gad's hill place, ; purchase of, , genoa, , , - , , grant, mr. james, "great expectations," , - h. "hard times," - "haunted man," the, - helps, sir arthur, on dickens' powers of observation, ; on his essential refinement, hogarth, mary, her death and character, - horne, on description of little nell's death and burial, , - _household words_, - , humour of dickens, , , , , , i. italy in , - j. jeffrey, his opinion of little nell, , , l. landor, his admiration for little nell, ; his likeness to mr. boythorn, lausanne, , leigh hunt, "little dorrit," , - , - little nell, criticism on her character and story, - , , , london, dickens' knowledge of, and walks in, , - m. macaulay, , , macready, the tragic actor, , , , marshalsea prison, dickens' father imprisoned there, , , - ; made the chief scene of "little dorrit," "martin chuzzlewit," , , - _master humphrey's clock_, , , , micawber, mr., , , n. nickleby, mrs., "nicholas nickleby," , - , o. "old curiosity shop," , - "oliver twist," , , - , , "our mutual friend," , , - p. paris, , pathos of dickens, , , - , "pickwick," - , , , , "pictures from italy," , - pipchin, mrs., , plots, dickens', - q. _quarterly review_ foretells dickens' speedy downfall, , r. readings, dickens', - , , - ruskin, mr., his opinion of "hard times," s. sam weller, , scott, sir walter, , , seymour, his connection with "pickwick," - , "sketches by boz," - , , , stanley, dean, , stone, mr. marcus, r.a., illustrates "our mutual friend," t. taine, m., his criticism criticised, - "tale of two cities," - thackeray, , , ; as a reader, , tiny tim, , toots, mr., , , w. washington irving, , westminster abbey, dickens place of burial, - y. yates, edmund, mr., quoted, bibliography. by john p. anderson _(british museum)._ * * * * * i. works. ii. selections. iii. single works. iv. miscellaneous works. v. appendix-- biographical, critical, etc. dramatic. musical. parodies and imitations. poetical. magazine and newspaper articles. vi. chronological list of works. * * * * * i. works. first cheap edition. vols. london, - , vo. this edition was in three series, the first and third being published by messrs. chapman and hall, the second by messrs. bradbury and evans. it was printed in double columns, with frontispieces by leslie, hablôt k. browne, cruikshank, etc. library edition. vols. london, - , vo. library edition. illustrated. vols. london, - . the original illustrations were added to the later issues of the library edition, and the series completed in vols. the people's edition. vols. london, - , vo. a re-issue of the cheap edition. the charles dickens edition. illustrated. vols. london, - , vo. the household edition. illustrated. vols. london, - , to. illustrated library edition. vols. london, - , vo. the popular library edition. illustrated. vols. london, - , vo. the pocket edition. vols. london, , mo. the diamond edition. illustrated. vols. london, , mo. Ã�dition de luxe. illustrated. vols. london, , to. one thousand copies only of this Ã�dition de luxe were printed for sale, each numbered, and it was dedicated to her majesty the queen. the cabinet edition. illustrated. london, , etc., mo. a re-issue of the pocket edition. ii. selections. the beauties of pickwick. collected and arranged by sam weller. london, , vo. the story teller. a collection of tales, stories, and novels. by walter scott, washington irving, charles dickens, etc. edited by hermann schütz. siegen, , vo. immortelles from c.d. by ich. london, , vo. novels and tales reprinted from household words. vols. (_tauchnitz edition_). leipzig, - , mo. christmas stories from the household words. conducted by c.d. london [ ], vo. the poor traveller: boots at the holly-tree inn; and mrs. gamp, by c.d. london, , vo. arranged by dickens for his readings. dialogues from dickens. arranged by w.e. fette. two series. boston, - , vo. a cyclopædia of the best thoughts of c.d. compiled and alphabetically arranged by f.g. de fontaine. new york, , vo. a series of character sketches from dickens. being fac-similes of original drawings by f. barnard [with extracts from some of d.'s works]. pts. london [ ]- , folio. ----another edition. london, , folio. the dickens reader. character readings from the stories of charles dickens. selected, adapted, and arranged by nathan sheppard, with numerous illustrations by f. barnard, new york, , to. the charles dickens birthday book. compiled and edited by his eldest daughter (mary dickens). with illustrations by his youngest daughter (kate perugini). london, , vo. readings from the works of c.d. condensed and adapted by j.a. jennings. dublin [ ], vo. the readings of c.d. as arranged and read by himself. with illustrations. london, , vo. chips from dickens selected by thomas mason. glasgow [ ], mo. tales from charles dickens's works. london [ ], vo. the humour and pathos of charles dickens. selected by chas. kent. london, , vo. child-pictures from dickens. [illustrated.] london, , to. wellerisms from "pickwick" and "master humphrey's clock." selected by charles f. rideal, and edited, with an introduction, by charles kent, author of "the humour and pathos of charles dickens." london, , vo. iii. single works. american notes for general circulation. vols. london, , vo. ----[other editions. london, , vo.; london, , vo]. bleak house. with illustrations, by h.k. browne. london, , vo. boots at the holly-tree inn, by charles dickens, as condensed by himself for his readings. boston, , vo. the holly-tree inn was the christmas number of "household words" for . dickens contributed "the guest," "the boots," and "the bill." a child's history of england. with a frontispiece by f.w. topham. vols. london, - , mo. the chimes: a goblin story of some bells that rang an old year out and a new year in. by charles dickens. [illustrated by maclise, doyle, leech, and clarkson stanfield.] london, , vo. an edition with notes and elucidations by k. ten bruggencate was published at groningen in . christmas books. london, , vo. christmas books. with illustrations by sir e. landseer, maclise, stanfield, f. stone, doyle, leech, and tenniel. london, , vo. a christmas carol in prose. being a ghost story of christmas. by c.d. with illustrations by john leech. london, , vo. ----condensed by himself, for his readings. boston [u.s.], , vo. the cricket on the hearth. a fairy tale of home. by c.d. [illustrated by maclise, doyle, clarkson stanfield, leech, and landseer.] london, , mo. the battle of life: a love story. [illustrated by maclise, stanfield, doyle, and leech.] london, , mo. the haunted man and the ghost's bargain. a fancy for christmas time. [illustrated by stanfield, john tenniel, frank stone, and john leech.] london, , mo. dealings with the firm of dombey and son, wholesale, retail, and for exportation. with illustrations by h.k. browne. london, , vo. the story of little dombey. by c.d. london, , vo. revised by dickens for his readings. the story of little dombey. by c.d., as condensed by himself for his readings. boston [u.s.], , vo. doctor marigold's prescriptions. (_tauchnitz edition_, vol. .) leipzig, , mo. the christmas number of "all the year round" for . dickens contributed chap. i., "to be taken immediately;" chap. vi., "to be taken with a grain of salt;" and the concluding chapter, "to be taken for life." doctor marigold. by c.d., as condensed by himself for his readings. boston [u.s.], , vo. great expectations. by c.d. in three volumes. london, , vo. appeared originally in _all the year round_, december , , to august , . an american edition was published the same year with illustrations by j. mclenan. hard times. for these times. by c.d. london, , vo. appeared originally in household words, april to august , . hunted down. (_tauchnitz edition_, vol. .) leipzig, , mo. appeared originally in the _new york ledger_, august , , sept. , , and _all the year round_, aug. and , . hunted down. a story. by c.d. with some account of t.g. wainewright, the poisoner [by john camden hotten]. london [ ], vo. is she his wife? or, something singular. a comic burletta in one act. boston [u.s.], , mo. first produced at the st. james's theatre, march , . mr. shepherd says that this was first printed in , but no copy is known to exist. the lamplighter: a farce. by c.d. ( ). only copies were privately printed in from the ms. copy in the forster collection at south kensington; each copy numbered. the life and adventures of martin chuzzlewit. with illustrations by phiz [_i.e._, h.k. browne]. london, , vo. mrs. gamp [extracted from "the life and adventures of martin chuzzlewit"]. by c.d., as condensed by himself, for his readings. boston [u.s.], , vo. the life and adventures of nicholas nickleby. with illustrations by phiz. london, , vo. contains a portrait of dickens, and illustrations. nicholas nickleby at the yorkshire school [extracted from "the life and adventures of nicholas nickleby"]. by c.d., as condensed by himself, for his readings. (four chapters). boston [u.s.], , vo. another edition in three chapters was published at boston the same year. little dorrit. with illustrations, by h.k. browne. london [ ]- , vo. master humphrey's clock. with illustrations by george cattermole and h.k. browne. vols. london, - , vo. comprises two stories, "the old curiosity shop" and "barnaby rudge," both subsequently issued as independent works, the first in , and the second in . the old curiosity shop. london, , vo. barnaby rudge. a tale of the riots of eighty. london, , vo. mr. nightingale's diary: a farce, in one act. london, , vo. privately printed and extremely scarce. there is a copy in the forster collection at south kensington. ----another edition. boston [u.s.], , mo. this edition is now scarce. the mudfog papers. now first collected. london, , vo. reprinted from bentley's miscellany. ----second edition. london, , vo. the mystery of edwin drood. with twelve illustrations by s.l. fildes, and a portrait. london, , vo. oliver twist; or, the parish boy's progress. by "boz." in three volumes. [with illustrations by george cruikshank.] london, , vo. the second edition, with the title-page reading "oliver twist, by charles dickens," appeared the following year; the third edition, with a new preface, was published in . the edition of , in one volume, bears the following title-page:--"the adventures of oliver twist; or, the parish boy's progress. by charles dickens. with twenty-four illustrations on steel, by george cruikshank." our mutual friend. with illustrations by marcus stone. vols. london, , vo. the personal history of david copperfield. with illustrations, by h.k. browne. london, , vo. david copperfield. by c.d., as condensed by himself, for his readings. boston [u.s.], , vo. pictures from italy. by c.d. the vignette illustrations on wood, by samuel palmer. london, , vo. appeared originally in the _daily news_, from january to march , with the title of "travelling letters written on the road. by charles dickens." the posthumous papers of the pickwick club. being a faithful record of the perambulations, perils, travels, adventures, and sporting transactions of the corresponding members. edited by "boz." with forty-three illustrations by r. seymour, r.w. buss, and phiz [h.k. browne], london, , vo. in twenty monthly parts, commencing april , and ending november , no number being issued for june . ----another edition. v.d. land, launceston, , vo. this edition of pickwick is interesting from the fact that it was published in van dieman's land, the illustrations being exact copies of the originals executed in lithography. there is an additional title-page, engraved, bearing date . ----the posthumous papers of the pickwick club, with notes and illustrations. edited by c. dickens the younger, (jubilee edition.) vols. london, , vo. mr. bob. sawyer's party [extracted from "the posthumous papers of the pickwick club"] by c.d., as condensed by himself, for his readings. boston [u.s.], , vo. bardell and pickwick [extracted from "the posthumous papers of the pickwick club"] by c.d., as condensed by himself, for his readings. boston [u.s.], , vo. sketches by "boz," illustrative of every-day life and every-day people. in two volumes. illustrations by george cruikshank. london, , mo. ----second edition. london, , mo. sketches by "boz." third edition. london, , mo. ----second series. london, , mo. ----first complete edition of the two series. with forty illustrations by george cruikshank. london, , vo. ----sketches and tales of london life. [selections from "sketches by boz."] london [ ], vo. ----the tuggs's at ramsgate [from "sketches by boz"]. london [ ], vo. sketches of young gentlemen. dedicated to the young ladies. with six illustrations by "phiz" (h.k. browne). london, , vo. sketches of young couples; with an urgent remonstrance to the gentlemen of england (being bachelors or widowers) on the present alarming crisis. with six illustrations by "phiz" [h.k. browne]. london, , vo. an edition was published in with the title "sketches of young couples, young ladies, young gentlemen. by quiz. illustrated by phiz." only the first and third of these sketches were written by charles dickens. "the sketches of young ladies" were by an anonymous author, who also assumed the pseudonym of quiz. somebody's luggage. (_tauchnitz edition_, vol. .) leipzig, , mo. the christmas number of _all the year round_ for . dickens contributed "his leaving it till called for"; "his boots"; "his brown-paper parcel" and "his wonderful end." the strange gentleman: a comic burletta. in two acts. by "boz." first performed at the st. james's theatre, on thursday, september , . london, , vo. sunday under three heads. as it is; as sabbath bills would make it; as it might be made. by timothy sparks. london, , mo. reproduced in fac-simile, london, , and in pearson's manchester series of fac-simile reprints, manchester, same date. a tale of two cities. with illustrations by h.k. browne. london, , vo. originally issued in _all the year round_, between april and november , . the uncommercial traveller. by c.d. london, , vo. consists of seventeen papers which originally appeared in _all the year round_ with this title between january and october , . the impression which was issued in in the charles dickens edition contains eleven fresh papers. the village coquettes: a comic opera. in two acts. by c.d. the music by john hullah. london, , vo. ----songs, choruses, and concerted pieces in the operatic burletta of the village coquettes as produced at st. james's theatre. the drama and words of the songs by "boz." the music by john hullah. london, , vo. editions of "the village coquettes" were published at leipzig, , and at amsterdam, , in english, and it was reprinted in . _see_ also under _music_. iv. miscellaneous works. all the year round. a weekly journal conducted by charles dickens. london, - , vo. commenced on the th of april . bentley's miscellany. [successively edited by boz, ainsworth, albert smith, etc.] vol. - . london, - , vo. evenings of a working man, being the occupation of his scanty leisure. by john overs. with a preface relative to the author, by c.d. london, , mo. household words: a weekly journal. conducted by c.d. vols. london, - , vo. this journal commenced on the th march , and was continued to the th of may , when it was incorporated with _all the year round_. a cheap edition of household words, in vols. was published in - . ----christmas stories from household words ( - ). conducted by c.d. london, [ ], vo. legends and lyrics, by adelaide anne procter. with an introduction by c.d. new edition, illustrated by dobson, palmer, tenniel, etc. london, , to. the letters of c.d. edited by his sister-in-law (g. hogarth) and his eldest daughter (m. dickens). vols. london, - , vo. ----another edition. vols. london, , vo. the library of fiction; or family story-teller. [edited by c.d.] london, - , vo. the loving ballad of lord bateman. illustrated by george cruikshank. london, , vo. the notes and preface were written by dickens. memoirs of joseph grimaldi. edited by "boz." with illustrations by g. cruikshank. vols. london, , mo. memoirs of joseph grimaldi. another edition. revised by c. whitehead. london, , vo. ----another edition. london, , vo. ----another edition. london, , vo. two other editions were published in by g. routledge and sons, and j. dicks. the newsvendors' benevolent and provident institution. speeches on behalf of the institution by c.d. london, , vo. the pic-nic papers by various hands. edited by c.d. with illustrations by george cruikshank. vols. london, , vo. dickens contributed a preface and the opening tale, "the lamplighter's story." the plays and poems of charles dickens. with a few miscellanies in prose. now first collected, edited, prefaced, and annotated by r.h. shepherd. vols. london, , vo. this work was almost immediately suppressed, as it contained copyright matter. a new edition appeared in , without the copyright play of "no thoroughfare." religious opinions of chauncy hare townshend. published as directed in his will, by his literary executor [charles dickens]. london, , vo. royal literary fund. a summary of facts in answer to allegations contained in "the case of the reformers of the literary fund," stated by c.d., etc. [london, ], vo. speech delivered at the meeting of the administrative reform association. london, , vo. speech of c.d. as chairman of the anniversary festival dinner of the royal free hospital, . [london, ], mo. the speeches of c.d., - , edited and prefaced by r.h. shepherd. with a new bibliography, revised and enlarged. london, , vo. speeches, letters, and sayings of c.d. to which is added a sketch of the author by g.a. sala, and dean stanley's sermon. new york, , vo. speeches: literary and social. london [ ], vo. a wonderful ghost story. with letters of c.d. to the author respecting it. by thomas heaphy. london, , vo. v. appendix. biographical, critical, etc. adshead, joseph.--prisons and prisoners. london, , vo. the fictions of dickens upon solitary confinement, pp. - . allbut, robert.--london rambles "en zigzag," with charles dickens. london [ ], vo. atlantic almanac.--the atlantic almanac for . boston, , vo. a short biographical notice of dickens, with portrait and view of gad's hill, pp. - . bagehot, walter.--literary studies, by the late walter bagehot. vols. london, , vo. charles dickens ( ), vol. , pp. - . bayne, peter.--essays in biography and criticism. by peter bayne. first series. boston, , vo. the modern novel: dickens, bulwer, thackeray, pp. - . behn-eschenburg, h.--charles dickens. von h. behn-eschenburg. basel, , vo. hft. , of "oeffentliche vorträge gehalten in der schweiz." brimley, george.--essays by the late george brimley. edited by william george clark. cambridge, , vo. "bleak house," pp. - . reprinted from the _spectator_, september th, . browne, hablôt k.--dombey and son. the four portraits of edith, florence, alice, and little paul. london, , vo. ----dombey and son. full-length portraits of dombey and carker, miss tox, mrs. skewton, etc. london, , vo. ----six illustrations to the posthumous papers of the pickwick club. engraved from original drawings by phiz. london [ ], vo. buchanan, robert.--a poet's sketch-book; selections from the prose writings of robert buchanan. london, , vo. the good genie of fiction. charles dickens, pp. - . (reprinted from _st. paul's magazine_, , pp. - .) calverley, c.s.--fly leaves. second edition. by c.s. calverley. cambridge, , vo. an examination paper. "the posthumous papers of the pickwick club," pp. - . canning, s.g.--philosophy of charles dickens. by the hon. albert s.g. canning. london, , vo. cary, thomas g.--letter to a lady in france on the supposed failure of a national bank ... with answers to enquiries concerning the books of captain marryat and mr. dickens. [by thomas g. cary.] boston [u.s.], , vo. ----second edition. boston, [u.s.], , vo. chambers, robert.--cyclopædia of english literature. edited by robert chambers. vols. edinburgh, , vo. charles dickens, vol. ii., pp. - . ----another edition. vols. edinburgh, , vo. charles dickens, with a portrait, vol. ii., pp. - . ----third edition, vols. london, , vo. charles dickens, with a portrait, vol. ii., pp. - . chapman, t.j.--schools and schoolmasters; from the works of charles dickens. new york, , vo. clarke, charles and mary cowden.--recollections of writers. by charles and mary cowden clarke. with letters of charles lamb ... and charles dickens, etc. london, , vo. cleveland, charles dexter.--english literature of the nineteenth century. a new edition. philadelphia, , vo. charles dickens, pp. - . cochrane, robert.--risen by perseverance; or, lives of self-made men. by robert cochrane. edinburgh, , vo. charles dickens, pp. - . cook, james.--bibliography of the writings of charles dickens, with many curious and interesting particulars relating to his works. by james cook. london, , vo. cruikshank, george.--george cruikshank's magazine. london, , vo. february , pp. - , "a letter from hop-o'-my-thumb to charles dickens, esq., upon 'frauds on the fairies,' 'whole hogs,' etc." d., h.w.--ward and lock's penny books for the people. biographical series. the life of charles dickens. by h.w.d. pp. - . london, , vo. davey, samuel.--darwin, carlyle and dickens, with other essays. by samuel davey. london, [ ], vo. denman, lord.--uncle tom's cabin, bleak house, slavery and slave trade. six articles by lord denman. london, , vo. ----second edition. london, , vo. dépret, louis.--chez les anglais. shakespeare, charles dickens, longfellow, etc. paris, . charles dickens, - , occupies pp. - . dickens, charles.--chas. dickens. a critical biography. london, , vo. no. of a series entitled "our contemporaries," etc. ----the life and times of charles dickens. with a portrait. (_police news_ edition.) london. [ ], vo. ----the life of charles dickens. london [ ], vo. ----the life of charles dickens. london [ ], vo. part of haughton's popular illustrated biographies. ----some notes on america to be re-written, suggested with respect to charles dickens. philadelphia, , vo. ----catalogue of the beautiful collection of modern pictures, etc., of charles dickens, which will be sold by auction by messrs. christie, manson and woods ... july , . london [ ], to. ----dickens memento, with introduction by f. phillimore, and "hints to dickens collectors," by j.f. dexter. catalogue with purchasers' names, etc. london [ ], to. ----mary.--charles dickens. by his eldest daughter (mary dickens). london, , vo. part of the series "the world's workers," etc. dilke, charles w.--the papers of a critic, etc. vols. london, , vo. reference to the literary fund controversy, with a letter from c.d. to c.w. dilke. vol. i., pp. , . dolby, george.--charles dickens as i knew him. the story of the reading tours in great britain and america ( - ). by george dolby. london, , vo. drake, samuel adams.--our great benefactors; short biographies, etc. boston, , vo. charles dickens, pp. - , illustrated. dulcken, a.--scenes from "the pickwick papers," designed by a. dulcken. london [ ], obl. fol. ----h.w.--worthies of the world, a series of historical and critical sketches, etc. edited by h.w. dulcken. london [ ], vo. biography of charles dickens, with a portrait, pp. - . essays.--english essays. vols. hamburg, , vo. vol. iv. contains an article reprinted from the _illustrated london news_, june , , on charles dickens. field, kate.--pen photographs of charles dickens's readings. taken from life. by kate field. boston, [u.s.], [ ], vo. ----another edition. illustrated. boston (u.s.), , vo. fields, james t.--in and out of doors with charles dickens. by james t. fields. boston, (u.s.), , mo. ----james t. fields. biographical notes and personal sketches. boston [u.s.], , vo. pp. - relate to dickens. fitzgerald, percy.--two english essayists. c. lamb and c. dickens. by percy fitzgerald. london, , vo. afternoon lectures on literature and art, series . ----recreations of a literary man. by percy fitzgerald. vols. london, , vo. charles dickens as an editor, vol. i., pp. - ; charles dickens at home, vol. i., pp. - . forster, john.--the life of charles dickens. (with portraits.) vols. london, - , vo. numerous editions. friswell, j. hain.--modern men of letters honestly criticised. by j. hain friswell. london, , vo. charles dickens, pp. - . frost, thomas.--in kent with charles dickens. by thomas frost. london, , vo. gill, t.--report of the dinner given to c.d. in boston. reported by t. gill and w. english. boston [u.s.], , vo. hall, samuel carter.--a book of memories of great men and women of the age, etc. by s.c. hall. london, , to. charles dickens, pp. - . ----second edition. london, , to. charles dickens, pp. - . ham, james panton.--parables of fiction: a memorial discourse on c. dickens. by james panton ham. london, , vo. hanaford, p.a.--life and writings of c. dickens. new york, , vo. hassard, john r.g.--a pickwickian pilgrimage. (letters on "the london of charles dickens.") by john r.g. hassard. boston (u.s.), , vo. heavisides, edward marsh.--the poetical and prose remains of edward marsh heavisides. london, , vo. the essay on dickens's writings, pp. - . hollingshead, john.--to-day; essays and miscellanies. vols. london, , vo. mr. dickens and his critics, vol. ii., pp. - ; mr. dickens as a reader, vol. ii., pp. - . hollingshead, john.--miscellanies. stories and essays by john hollingshead. vols. london, , vo. mr. dickens and his critics, vol. iii., pp. - ; mr. dickens as a reader, vol. iii., pp. - . horne, richard h.--a new spirit of the age. edited by r.h. horne. vols. london, , mo. charles dickens, with portrait, vol. i., pp. - . hotten, john camden.--charles dickens, the story of his life. by the author of the life of thackeray (j.c. hotten). with illustrations and fac-similes. london ( ), vo. ----popular edition. london ( ), mo. hume, a.b.--a christmas memorial of charles dickens. by a.b. hume. , vo. contains a fac-simile of charles dickens's letter to mr. j.w. makeham, dated june , , and an ode to his memory. hutton, laurence.--literary landmarks of london. by laurence hutton. london [ ], vo. charles dickens, - , pp. - . irving, walter.--charles dickens. [an essay.] by walter irving. edinburgh, , vo. jeaffreson, j. cordy.--novels and novelists from elizabeth to victoria. by j. cordy jeaffreson. vols. london, , vo. charles dickens, vol. ii., pp. - . jerrold, blanchard.--the best of all good company. edited by blanchard jerrold. pt. ., a day with charles dickens. london, , vo. reprinted in , vo. johnson, charles plumptre.--hints to collectors of original editions of the works of charles dickens. by charles plumptre johnson. london, , vo. johnson, joseph.--clever boys of our time, and how they became famous men. edinburgh [ ], vo. charles dickens, pp. - . jones, charles h.--appleton's new handy-volume series. a short life of charles dickens, etc. by charles h. jones. new york, , vo. joubert, andré.--andré joubert. charles dickens, sa vie et ses oeuvres. paris, , vo. kent, charles.--the charles dickens dinner. an authentic record of the public banquet given to mr charles dickens ... prior to his departure for the united states. [with a preface signed c.k. _i.e._, charles kent.] london, , vo. kent, charles.--charles dickens as a reader. by charles kent. london, , vo. kitton, fred. g.--"phiz" (hablôt knight browne.) a memoir. including a selection from his correspondence and notes on his principal works. by fred. g. kitton. with a portrait and numerous illustrations. london, , vo. an account is given of the relationship that existed between dickens and phiz. ----dickensiana. a bibliography of the literature relating to charles dickens and his writings. compiled by fred. g. kitton. london, , vo. langton, robert.--charles dickens and rochester, etc. by robert langton. london, , vo. langton, robert.--the childhood and youth of charles dickens, etc. by robert langton. manchester, , vo. l'estrange, a.g.--history of english humour, etc. by the rev. a.g. l'estrange. vols. london, , vo. chapter of vol. ii. is devoted to dickens. lynch, judge.--judge lynch (of america), his two letters to charles dickens (of england) upon the subject of the court of chancery. london, , vo. mccarthy, justin.--a history of our own times. a new edition. vols. london, , vo. dickens and thackeray, vol. ii., pp. - . mckenzie, charles h.--the religious sentiments of c.d., collected from his writings. by charles h. mckenzie. newcastle, , vo. mackenzie, r. shelton.--life of charles dickens, etc. by r. shelton mackenzie. philadelphia [ ], vo. macrae, david.--home and abroad; sketches and gleanings. by david macrae. glasgow, , vo. carlyle and dickens, pp. - . masson, david.--british novelists and their styles: being a critical sketch of the history of british prose fiction. by david masson. cambridge, , vo. dickens and thackeray, pp. - . mateaux, c.l.--brave lives and noble. by miss c.l. mateaux. london, , vo. the boyhood of dickens, pp. - . mézières, l.--histoire critique de la littérature anglaise, etc. seconde édition. tom. paris, , vo. dickens, le club pickwick, tom. iii., pp. - . nicholson, renton.--nicholson's sketches of celebrated characters. london [ ], vo. charles dickens. by renton nicholson, p. . nicoll, henry j.--landmarks of english literature. by henry j. nicoll. london, , vo. dickens noticed, pp. - . notes and queries. general index to notes and queries. five series. london, - , to. numerous references to c.d. parley.--parley's penny library. london, [ ], mo. charles dickens, with a portrait, vol. i. ----peter parley's annual for , etc. london [ ], vo. charles dickens as boy and man, pp. - . parton, james.--illustrious men and their achievements; or, the people's book of biography. new york [ ], vo. charles dickens as a citizen, pp. - . ----some noted princes, authors, and statesmen of our time. by canon farrar, james t. fields, archibald forbes, etc. edited by james parton. new york [ ], to. dickens with his children, by mamie dickens, pp. - , illustrated; recollections of dickens, by james t. fields, pp. - . payn, james.--the youth and middle age of charles dickens. by james payn. edinburgh, , vo. reprinted from _chambers's journal_, january , february , march . ----some literary recollections. by james payn. london, , vo. chapter vi., first meeting with dickens. reprinted from _the cornhill magazine_. pemberton, t. edgar.--dickens's london; or, london in the works of charles dickens. by t. edgar pemberton. london, , vo. perkins, f.b.--charles dickens: a sketch of his life and works. by f.b. perkins. new york, , mo. pierce, gilbert a.--the dickens dictionary. a key to the characters and principal incidents in the tales of charles dickens. by gilbert a. pierce. illustrated. boston [u.s.], , mo. ----another edition. london, , vo. poe, edgar a.--the literati: some honest opinions about autorial merits and demerits, etc. by edgar a. poe. new york, , vo. notice of "barnaby rudge," pp. - . ----the works of e.a. poe. vols. edinburgh, , vo. vol. , marginalia, dickens's "old curiosity shop," and dickens and bulwer, pp. - . powell, thomas.--the living authors of england. by thos. powell. new york, , vo. charles dickens, pp. - . ----pictures of the living authors of britain. by thos. powell. london, , vo. charles dickens, pp. - . pryde, david.--the genius and writings of charles dickens. by david pryde. edinburgh, , vo. reeve, lovell a.--portraits of men of eminence in literature, science, and art, with biographical memoirs. [vols. iii.-vi. by e. walford]. vols. london, - , vo. vol. iv., charles dickens, pp. - . richardson, david lester.--literary recreations, etc. by david lester richardson. london, , vo. dickens's "david copperfield," and thackeray's "pendennis," pp. - . rimmer, alfred.--about england with dickens. by alfred rimmer. with fifty-eight illustrations. london, , vo. sala, geo. a.--charles dickens. [an essay.] london [ ], vo. santvoord, c. van.--discourses on special occasions, and miscellaneous papers. by c. van santvoord. new york, , vo. charles dickens and his philosophy, pp. - . schmidt, julian.--charles dickens. eine charakteristik. leipzig , vo. seymour, mrs.--an account of the origin of the "pickwick papers." by mrs. seymour, etc. london, n.d. shepard, william.--the literary life. edited by william shepard. pen pictures of modern authors. new york, , vo. charles dickens, pp. - . shepherd, richard herne.--the bibliography of dickens. a bibliographical list, arranged in chronological order, of the published writings in prose and verse of charles dickens. from to . manchester, [ ], vo. spedding, james.--reviews and discussions, literary, political, and historical. by james spedding. london, , vo. dickens's "american notes," pp. - . reprinted from the _edinburgh review_, jan. . stanley, arthur penrhyn.--sermon preached in westminster abbey, ... the sunday following the funeral of dickens. london, , vo. stoddard, richard henry.--bric-a-brac series. anecdote biographies of thackeray and dickens. edited by richard henry stoddard. new york, , vo. taine, h.--histoire de la littérature anglaise. par h. taine. tom. paris, , vo. le roman--dickens, tom. iv., pp. - . ----history of english literature. vols. edinburgh, , vo. the novel--dickens. vol. iv., pp. - . taylor, theodore.--charles dickens: the story of his life. new york, n.d., vo. thackeray, william makepeace.--early and late papers hitherto uncollected. boston, , vo. dickens in france (a description of a performance of nicholas nickleby in paris), pp. - . appeared originally in _fraser's magazine_, march . thomson, david croal.--life and labours of hablôt knight browne, "phiz." by david croal thomson. with one hundred and thirty illustrations, etc. london, , vo. contains a series of illustrations to dickens, printed from the original plates and blocks. timbs, john.--anecdote lives of the later wits and humourists. by john timbs. vols. london, , vo. vol. ii., pp. - , relate to dickens. times, the.--a second series of essays from _the times_. london, , vo. dickens and thackeray, pp. - . ----eminent persons: biographies reprinted from the _times_, - . london, , vo. mr. charles dickens--leading article, june , ; obituary notice, june , , pp. - . tooley, mrs. g.w.--lives, great and simple. london, , vo. charles dickens, pp. - . ward, adolphus w.--charles dickens. a lecture by professor ward. [_science lectures_, series .] manchester, , vo. ----dickens. by adolphus william ward. [_english men of letters_ series.] london, , vo. watkins, william.--charles dickens, with anecdotes and recollections of his life. written and compiled by william watkins. london [ ], vo. watt, james crabb.--great novelists. scott, thackeray, dickens, lytton. by james crabb watt. edinburgh, , vo. ----another edition. london [ ], vo. weizmann, louis.--dickens und daudet in deutscher uebersetzung. von louis weizmann. berlin, , vo. weller, sam.--on the origin of sam weller, and the real cause of the success of the posthumous papers of the pickwick club, etc. london, , vo. welsh, alfred h.--development of english literature and language. vols. chicago, , vo. dickens, vol. ii., pp. - . world.--the world's great men: a gallery of over a hundred portraits and biographies, etc. london [ ], vo. charles dickens, with portrait, pp. - . yates, edmund.--edmund yates: his recollections and experiences. vols. london, , vo. a dickens chapter, vol. ii., pp. - . dramatic. plays founded on dickens's works. yankee notes for english circulation: a farce, in one act. by e. stirling. london, n.d., mo. duncombe's british theatre, vol. . the battle of life: a drama, in three acts. by edward stirling. london, n.d., mo. duncombe's british theatre, vol. . the drama founded on the christmas annual of charles dickens, called the battle of life: dramatized by albert smith. in three acts and in verse. london ( ), mo. la bataille de la vie. pièce en trois actes, etc. par m.m. mélesville et andré de goy. paris, , vo. bleak house; or, poor "jo:" a drama, in four acts. adapted from dickens's "bleak house," by george lander. (_dicks' standard plays_, no. .) london, n.d., mo. lady dedlock's secret: a drama, in four acts. founded on an episode in dickens's "bleak house." by j. palgrave simpson. london, n.d., vo. "move on;" or, jo, the outcast: a drama, in three acts. adapted by james mortimer. not published. poor "jo:" a drama, in three acts. adapted by mr. terry hurst. not published. jo: a drama, in three acts. adapted from charles dickens's "bleak house." by j.p. burnett. not published. the chimes: a goblin story. a drama, in four quarters, dramatised by mark lemon and gilbert a. a'beckett. london, n.d., vo. webster's "acting national drama," vol. . a christmas carol. by c.z. barnett. london ( ), mo. lacy's acting edition of plays, vol. . the cricket on the hearth; or, a fairy tale of home: a drama, in three acts. dramatized by albert smith (_dicks' standard plays_, no. ). london, n.d., mo. the cricket on the hearth: a fairy tale of home. by edward stirling. (_webster's "acting national drama_," vol. .) london, n.d., mo. the cricket on the hearth: a fairy tale of home in three chirps. by w.t. townsend. london ( ), mo. lacy's acting edition of plays, vol. . dot: a fairy tale of home. a drama, in three acts. from the "cricket on the hearth," by charles dickens. dramatized by dion boucicault. not published. david copperfield: a drama, in three acts. adapted from dickens's popular work of the same name, by john brougham. (_dicks' standard plays_, no. .) london, n.d., mo. little em'ly: a drama, in four acts. adapted from dickens's "david copperfield," by andrew halliday. new york, n.d., vo. dombey and son: in three acts. dramatized by john brougham. (_dicks' standard plays_, no. .) london, n.d., mo. captain cuttle: a comic drama, in one act. by john brougham. (_dicks' standard plays_, no. .) london, n.d., mo. great expectations: a drama, in three acts, and a prologue. adapted by w.s. gilbert. not published. the haunted man: a drama. adapted from charles dickens's christmas story. not published. tom pinch: a domestic comedy, in three acts. adapted by messrs. dilley and clifton, from "martin chuzzlewit." london, n.d. martin chuzzlewit: or, his wills and his ways, etc. a drama, in three acts. by thomas higgie. london [ ], mo. lacy's acting edition, supplement, vol. i. tartüffe junior, von h.c.l. klein. [play in five acts, after "the life of martin chuzzlewit."] neuwied, , mo. martin chuzzlewit: a drama, in three acts. by e. stirling. london, n.d., mo. duncombe's british theatre, vol. . mrs. harris! a farce, in one act. by edward stirling. london, n.d., mo. duncombe's british theatre, vol. . mrs. gamp's party. (adapted from "martin chuzzlewit.") in one act. manchester, n.d., mo. mrs. sarah gamp's tea and turn out: a bozzian sketch, in one act. by b. webster. london, n.d., mo. acting national drama, vol. xiii. martin chuzzlewit: a drama, in three acts. by charles webb. london, n.d., mo. master humphrey's clock: a domestic drama, in two acts. by f.f. cooper. (_duncombe's british theatre_, vol. xli.) london, n.d., mo. the old curiosity shop: a drama, in four acts. adapted by mr. charles dickens, jun., from his father's novel. not published. mrs. jarley's far-famed collection of wax-works, as arranged by g.b. bartlett. in two parts. london [ ], vo. the old curiosity shop: a drama, in four acts. adapted from charles dickens's novel of the same name, by george lander. (_dicks' standard plays_, no. .) london, n.d., mo. the old curiosity shop: a drama, in two acts. by e. stirling. london [ ], mo. lacy's acting edition of plays, vol. lxxvii. barnaby rudge: a drama, in three acts. adapted from dickens's work by thomas higgie. london [ ], mo. barnaby rudge: a domestic drama, in three acts. by charles selby and charles melville. london [ ], mo. lacy's acting edition of plays, vol. ci. a message from the sea: a drama, in four acts. founded on charles dickens's tale of that name. by john brougham. (_dicks' standard plays_, no. .) london, n.d., mo. a message from the sea: a drama, in three acts. by charles dickens and william wilkie collins. london, , vo. the infant phenomenon, etc.: a domestic piece, in one act. being an episode in the adventures of "nicholas nickleby." adapted by h. horncastle. london, n.d., vo. nicholas nickleby: a drama, in four acts. adapted by h. simms. (_dicks' standard plays_, no. .) london, n.d., mo. the fortunes of smike, or a sequel to nicholas nickleby: a drama, in two acts. by edward stirling. london, n.d., mo. webster's "acting national drama," vol. ix. nicholas nickleby: a farce, in two acts. by edward stirling. london, n.d., mo. webster's "acting national drama," vol. v. nicholas nickleby: an episodic sketch, in three tableaux, based upon an incident in "nicholas nickleby." not published. l'abîme, drame en cinq actes. [founded on the story of "no thoroughfare."] paris, , vo. no thorough fare: a drama, in five acts, and a prologue. by charles dickens and wilkie collins. new york, n.d., vo. identity; or, no thoroughfare. a drama, in four acts. by louis lequêl. new york, n.d., vo. bumble's courtship. from dickens's "oliver twist." a comic interlude, in one act. by frank e. emson. london [ ], mo. lacy's acting edition of plays, vol. xcix. oliver twist: a serio-comic burletta, in three acts. by george almar. london, n.d., mo. webster's "acting national drama," vol. vi. oliver twist, or the parish boy's progress: a domestic drama, in three acts. by c.z. barnett. london, n.d., mo. duncombe's british theatre, vol. xxix. oliver twist: a serio-comic burletta, in four acts. by george almar. new york, n.d. sam weller, or the pickwickians: a drama, in three acts, etc. by w.t. moncrieff. london, , vo. the pickwickians, or the peregrinations of sam weller: a comic drama, in three acts. arranged from moncrieff's adaptation of charles dickens's work, by t.h. lacy. london [ ], vo. the great pickwick case, arranged as a comic operetta. the words of the songs by robert pollitt; the music arranged by thomas rawson. manchester [ ], vo. the pickwick club ... a burletta, in three acts. by e. stirling. london [ ], mo. duncombe's british theatre, vol. xxvi. the peregrinations of pickwick: an acting drama. by william leman rede. london, , vo. bardell _versus_ pickwick; versified and diversified. songs and choruses. words by t.h. gem; music by frank spinney. leamington [ ], mo. the dead witness; or sin and its shadow. a drama, in three acts, founded on "the widow's story" of the seven poor travellers, by charles dickens. the drama written by wybert reeve. london [ ], mo. lacy's acting edition of plays, vol. xcix. a tale of two cities: a drama, in two acts, etc. by tom taylor. london [ ], mo. lacy's acting edition of plays, vol. xlv. the tale of two cities: a drama, in three acts. adapted by h.j. rivers, etc. london [ ], mo. musical. all the year round; or, the search for happiness. a song. words by w.s. passmore; music by john j. blockley. london [ ], fol. yankee notes for english circulation; or, boz in a-merry-key. comic song, by j. briton. music by loder. [ .] dolly varden: a ballad. words and music by cotsford dick. london [ ], fol. maypole hugh: a song. words by charles bradberry; music by george e. fox. london [ ], fol. the chimes quadrille. (_musical bouquet_, no. .) london, n.d., fol. the cricket on the hearth: quadrille. by f. lancelott. (_musical bouquet_, no. .) london [ ], fol. what are the wild waves saying? a vocal duet. written by joseph e. carpenter; music by stephen glover. london [ ], fol. a voice from the waves: a vocal duet, in answer to the above. words by r. ryan; music by stephen glover. london [ ], fol. little dorrit's vigil. a song. written by john barnes; composed by george linley. london [ ], fol. who passes by this road so late? blandois' song, from "little dorrit." words by charles dickens. music by h.r.s. dalton, london [ ], fol. my dear old home: a ballad. words by j.e. carpenter. music by john j. blockley. [founded on dickens's "little dorrit."] london [ ], fol. floating away: a ballad. words by j.e. carpenter. music by john j. blockley. [founded on a passage in "little dorrit."] london [ ], fol. the nicholas nickleby quadrilles and nickleby galop. by sydney vernon. london, , fol. little nell: a melody. composed by george linley, and arranged for the pianoforte by carlo zotti. london [ ], fol. the ivy green: a song. music by mrs. henry dale. london [ ], fol. the song is introduced in chap. vi. of the "pickwick papers" as a recitation by the clergyman of dingley dell. the ivy green: a song. music by a. de belfour. london [ ], fol. the ivy green. arranged for the pianoforte by ricardo linter. london [ ], fol. the ivy green: a song. music by henry russell. london [ ], fol. the ivy green. music by w. lovell phillips. london [ ], fol. gabriel grub. cantata seria buffa. adapted from "pickwick." music by george e. fox. london [ ], to. sam weller's adventures: a song of the pickwickians. (reprinted in _the life and times of james catnach_, by charles hindley. london, ). the tuggs's at ramsgate. versified from "boz's" sketch. the child and the old man: song in the opera, "the village coquettes." the words by charles dickens, the music by john hullah. london [ ], fol. love is not a feeling to pass away: a ballad in "the village coquettes." words by c. dickens. music by john hullah. london [ ], fol. my fair home: air in "the village coquettes." words by charles dickens. music by john hullah. london [ ], fol. no light bound of stag or timid hare. quintett in the opera, "the village coquettes." the words by charles dickens, the music by john hullah. london [ ], fol. some folks who have grown old. song in "the village coquettes." words by charles dickens. music by john hullah. london [ ], fol. there's a charm in spring: a ballad in "the village coquettes." words by charles dickens. music by john hullah. london [ ], fol. the cares of the day: song with chorus, in the opera, "the village coquettes." the words by charles dickens, composed by john hullah. london [ ], fol. in rich and lowly station shine. duet in the opera, "the village coquettes." the words by charles dickens, the music by john hullah. london [ ], fol. autumn leaves: air from the opera, "the village coquettes." the words by charles dickens, the music by john hullah. london [ ], fol. parodies and imitations. change for the american notes; or, letters from london to new york. by an american lady. london, , vo. current american notes. by "buz." london, n.d. the battle of london life; or, "boz" and his secretary. by morna. with a portrait and illustrations by g.a. sala. london, . the battle won by the wind. by ch----s d*ck*ns, etc. published in _the puppet showman's album_. illustrated by gavarni. bleak house: a narrative of real life, etc. london, . characteristic sketches of young gentlemen. by quiz junior. with woodcut illustrations. london [ ]. a child's history of germany. by h.w. friedlaender. a pendant to a child's history of england, by charles dickens. celle, , vo. "christmas eve" with the spirits ... with some further tidings of the lives of scrooge and tiny tim. london, . a christmas carol: being a few scattered staves, from a familiar composition, re-arranged for performance, by a distinguished musical amateur, during the holiday season, at h--rw--rd--n. with four illustrations by harry furness. _punch_, dec. , pp. , . micawber redivivus; or, how to make a fortune as a middleman, etc. by jonathan coalfield [_i.e._ w. graham simpson?]. [london, ], vo. [transcriber's note: the subtitle of this volume should be "how he made a fortune as a middleman, etc."] dombey and son finished: a burlesque. illustrated by albert smith. _the man in the moon_, , pp. - . dombey and daughter: a moral fiction. by renton nicholson. london [ ], vo. dolby and father, by buz. [a satire on c. dickens.] new york, , mo. hard times (refinished). by charles diggens. parody on _hard times_, published in "our miscellany." edited by h. yates and r.b. brough, pp. - . the haunted man. by ch--r--s d--c--k--n--s. new york, , mo. _condensed novels, and other papers._ by f. bret harte. mister humfries' clock. "bos," maker. a miscellany of striking interest. illustrated. london, , vo. master timothy's bookcase; or, the magic lanthorn of the world. by g.w.m. reynolds. london, . a girl at a railway junction's reply [to an article in the christmas number for of "all the year round," entitled "mugby junction."] london [ ], vo. the cloven foot: being an adaptation of the english novel, "the mystery of edwin drood" to american scenes, characters, customs, and nomenclature. by orpheus c. kerr. new york, , vo. the mystery of mr. e. drood. by orpheus c. kerr. _the piccadilly annual_, dec. , pp. - . the mystery of mr. e. drood. an adaptation. by o.c. kerr. london [ ], vo. john jasper's secret: a sequel to charles dickens's unfinished novel, "the mystery of edwin drood." philadelphia [ ]. the mystery of edwin drood. part the second, by the spirit pen of charles dickens, etc. brattleboro' [u.s.], . a great mystery solved: being a sequel to "the mystery of edwin drood." by gillian vase. vols. london, , vo. nicholas nickelbery. containing the adventures of the family of nickelbery. by "bos." with forty-three woodcut illustrations. london [ ], vo. scenes from the life of nickleby married ... being a sequel to the "life and adventures of nicholas nickleby." edited by "guess." with twenty-one etched illustrations by "quiz." london, . no thoroughfare: the book in eight acts, etc. _the mask._ february , pp. - . no throughfare. [a parody upon dickens's "no thoroughfare."] by c----s d----s, b. brownjohn, and domby. second edition. boston [u.s.], , vo. the life and adventures of oliver twiss, the workhouse boy. [edited by bos.] london [ ]. vo. posthumous papers of the cadger's club. with sixteen engravings. london [ ]. posthumous papers of the wonderful discovery club, formerly of camden town. established by sir peter patron. edited by "poz." with eleven illustrations, designed by squib, and engraved by point. london, . the post-humourous notes of the pickwickian club. edited by "bos." illustrated with engravings. vols. london [ ], vo. there are, in fact, engravings. pickwick in america! detailing all the ... adventures of taat [_sic._] individual in the united states. edited by "bos." illustrated with forty-six engravings. london [ ], vo. pickwick abroad; or, the tour in france. by george w.m. reynolds. illustrated with forty-one steel plates, by alfred crowquill, etc. london, , vo. --another edition. london, , vo. lloyd's pickwickian songster, etc. london [ ]. pickwick songster. with portraits, designed by c.j. grant, of "mr. pickwick as apollo," and "sam weller brushing boots." london, n.d. the pickwick comic almanac for . with twelve comic woodcut illustrations, drawn by r. cruikshank. london, . mr. pickwick's collection of songs. illustrated. london [ ], mo. pickwick treasury of wit; or, joe miller's jest book. dublin, . sam weller's favourite song book. london [ ], mo. sam weller's pickwick jest-book, etc. with illustrations by cruikshank, and portraits of all the "pickwick" characters. london, . the sam weller scrap sheet. with forty woodcut portraits of "all the pickwick characters," etc. london, n.d. facts and figures from italy. addressed during the last two winters to c. dickens, being an appendix to his "pictures." by don jeremy savonarola. london, , vo. the sketch book. by "bos." containing tales, sketches, etc. with seventeen woodcut illustrations. london [ ], vo. poetical. impromptu. by c.j. davids. _bentley's miscellany_, no. , march , p. . poetical epistle from father prout to "boz." a poem of seven verses. _bentley's miscellany_, jan. , p. . a tribute to charles dickens. a poem of twelve lines. by the hon. mrs. norton. _english bijou almanac_, . to charles dickens on his proposed voyage to america, . by thomas hood. _new monthly magazine_, feb. , p. . to charles dickens, on his "christmas carol." a poem of fifteen lines. by w.w.g. _illuminated magazine_, feb. , p. . to charles dickens on his "oliver twist." by t.n. talfourd. _tragedies; to which are added a few sonnets and verses_, by t.n. talfourd, p. . london, . mo. the american's apostrophe to "boz." a poem. _the book of ballads_ [_by t. martin and w.e. aytoun_]. _edited by bon gaultier_, pp. - . london, , mo. to charles dickens. a sonnet. _douglas jerrold's shilling magazine_, march , p. . to charles dickens. a dedicatory sonnet. by john forster. _the life and adventures of oliver goldsmith_, by john forster. london, , vo. to charles dickens. a dedicatory poem of two verses. by james ballantine. _poems_, by james ballantine. edinburgh, , vo. au revoir. a poem of four verses. _judy_, oct. , , p. . a welcome to dickens. a poem of eighty-four lines. by f.j. parmentier. _harper's weekly_, nov. , , pp. , . impromptu. a humorous verse of six lines. _life of charles dickens_, by r. shelton mackenzie, p. . philadelphia [ ], vo. charles dickens reading to his daughters on the lawn at gadshill. a poem of eight verses. by the editor (c.w.). _life_, dec. , , p. . memorial verses, june , . fifteen verses. by f.t.p. _daily news_, june , , p. . ode to the memory of charles dickens. by a.b. hume. _a christmas memorial of charles dickens_, by a.b. hume. london, , vo. charles dickens. born february , . died june , . a memorial poem of fourteen verses. _punch_, june , , p. . in memoriam. june , . a poem of six verses. _graphic_, june , , p. . charles dickens. born th february ; died th june . a memorial sonnet. _judy_, june , , p. . in memory. a poem of ten verses, with an illustration by f. barnard. _fun_, june , , p. . in memoriam. a poem of seventy lines. by h.m.c. _gentleman's magazine_, july , , p. . to his memory. a poem of five verses. _argosy_, august, , p. . a man of the crowd to charles dickens. a poem of a hundred-and-six lines. by e.j. milliken. _gentleman's magazine_, august , pp. - . dickens. a memorial poem of two verses. by o.c.k. (orpheus c. kerr). _piccadilly annual_, dec. , p. . in memoriam. charles dickens. _obiit_, june , . five verses. _charles dickens, with anecdotes and recollections of his life._ by william watkins. london [ ], vo. dickens in camp. a poem of ten verses. by f. bret harte. _poems_, by f. bret harte. boston, , mo. dickens at gadshill. a poem of eighteen verses. by c.k. (charles kent). _athenæum_, june , , p. . death of charles dickens. a poem of seventeen verses. _the circe and other poems_, by john appleby, . at gad's hill. an obituary poem of fourteen verses. by richard henry stoddard. _bric-a-brac series. anecdote biographies of thackeray and dickens_, p. . by richard henry stoddard. new york, , vo. at the grave of dickens. a sonnet. by clelia r. crespi. _detroit free press_, july . in memoriam: charles dickens. died june , . a sonnet. by c.k. _graphic_, june , , p. . magazine and newspaper articles. charles dickens. _revue britannique_, avril , pp. - .--_people's journal_ (portrait), by william howitt, , vol. , pp. - .--_revue des deux mondes_, by arthur dudley, march , pp. - --_blackwood's edinburgh magazine_, april , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, june , pp. - .--_die gartenlaube_ (portrait), , pp. - .--_saturday review_, may , pp. , ; same article, _littell's living age_, july , pp. - --_town talk_, june , p. .--_national review_, vol. , , pp. - .--_illustrated news of the world_, supplement, oct. , .--_national review_ (by w. bagehot), oct. , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, , pp. - ; and in "literary studies by the late walter bagehot."--_critic_ (portrait), , pp. - .--_harper's new monthly magazine_, , pp. - .--_every saturday_, vol. , , p. ; vol. , p. .--_harper's weekly_ (portrait), , p. ; same article, _littell's living age_, , pp. - .--_north american review_, by c.e. norton, april, , pp. - .--_court suburb magazine_, by b., dec. , pp. , .--_contemporary review_, by george stott, feb. , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, march , pp. - .--_l'illustration_ (portrait), by jules claretie, juin, --_le monde illustré_ (portrait), by léo de bernard, juin, .--_annual register_, , pp. - .--_illustrated london news_ (portrait), june, , p. .--_spectator_, , pp. , .--_ueber land und meer_ (portrait), no. , , p. --_fraser's magazine_, july , pp. - .--_putnam's monthly magazine_, by p. godwin, vol. , , p. .--_st. paul's magazine_, by anthony trollope, july , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, sept. , pp. - .--_illustrated magazine_, by "meteor," , pp. , .--_illustrated review_, with portrait, vol. , , pp. - .--_hours at home_, by d.g. mitchell, , pp. - .--_gentleman's magazine_ (portrait), july , pp. , .--_graphic_ (portrait), , p. .--_nation_ (by j.r. dennett), , pp. , .--_temple bar_, by alfred austin, july , pp. - .--_st. james's magazine_ (portrait), , pp. - .--_victoria magazine_, by edward roscoe, vol. , , pp. - .--_art journal_, july, , p. .--_leisure hour_ (portrait), by miss e.j. whately, nov. , pp. - .--_new eclectic_, by b. jerrold, vol. , , p. .--_london quarterly review_, jan. , pp. - .--_blackwood's edinburgh magazine_, june , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, sept. , pp. , ; _littell's living age_, july , pp. - .--_gentleman's magazine_, by george barnett smith, , pp. - .--_social notes_, by moy thomas (portrait), etc., oct. , pp. - .--_fortnightly review_, by mowbray morris, dec. , pp. - . ----about england with. _scribner's monthly_, by b.e. martin [illustrated], aug. , pp. - . ----amateur theatricals. _macmillan's magazine_, jan. , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, march , pp. - .--_every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----as "captain bobadil" (portrait). _every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----american notes. _fraser's magazine_, nov. , pp. - .--_monthly review_, nov. , pp. - .--_chambers's edinburgh journal_, nov. , pp. , , , .--_new monthly magazine_ (by thomas hood), nov. , pp. - .--_blackwood's edinburgh magazine_, by q.q.q., dec. , pp. - .--_tait's edinburgh magazine_, vol. , , pp. - .--_christian remembrancer_, dec. , pp. , .--_edinburgh review_, by james spedding, jan. , pp. - . reprinted in "reviews and discussions," etc., by james spedding; note to the above, feb. , p. .--_eclectic museum_, vol. , , p. .--_north american review_, jan. , pp. - .--_quarterly review_, march , pp. - .--_westminster review_, by h., , pp. - .--_new englander_, by j.p. thompson, , pp. - .--_southern literary messenger_, , pp. - .--_atlantic monthly_, by edwin p. whipple, april , pp. - . ----and benjamin disraeli. _tailor and cutter_, july , pp. - . ----the styles of disraeli and. _galaxy_, by richard grant white, aug. , pp. - . ----and thackeray. _littell's living age_, vol. , p. .--_dublin review_, april , pp. - . ----and bulwer. a contrast. _temple bar_, jan. , pp. - . ----living literati; sir e. bulwer lytton and mr. charles dickens. _eginton's literary railway miscellany_, , pp. - , - . ----and chauncy hare townshend. _london society_, aug. , pp. - . ----and his critics. _the train_, by john hollingshead, aug. , pp. - ; reprinted in "essays and miscellanies" by john hollingshead. ----and his debt of honour. _land we love_, vol. , p. . ----and his illustrators. with nine illustrations. _christmas bookseller_, , pp. - . ----and his letters. part . by mary cowden clarke. _gentleman's magazine_, dec. , pp. - . ----and his works. _fraser's magazine_, april , pp. - . ----another gossip about.--_englishwoman's domestic magazine_, vol. , , pp. - . ----as an author and reader. _welcome_, with portrait, vol. , , pp. - . ----as a dramatic critic. _longman's magazine_, by dutton cook, may , pp. - . ----as a dramatist and a poet. _gentleman's magazine_, by percy fitzgerald, , pp. - . ----as a humaniser. _st. james's magazine_, by arnold quamoclit, , pp. - . ----as a journalist. _journalist, a monthly phonographic magazine_, by charles kent, in pitman's shorthand, vol. , dec. , pp. - . done into english--_time_, july , pp. - . ----as a literary exemplar. _university quarterly_, by f.a. walker, vol. , p. , etc. ----as a moralist. _old and new_, april , pp. - . ----as a moral teacher. _monthly religious magazine_, by j.h. morison, vol. , p. , etc. ----as a reader. _the critic_, , pp. , . ----eine vorlesung von charles dickens. _die gartenlaube_, by corvin (portrait), , pp. - . ----readings by charles dickens. _land we love_, by t.c. de leon, vol. , p. , etc. ----farewell reading in london. _every saturday_, vol. , pp. , . ----last readings. _graphic_, february , p. . ----new reading. illustrated. _tinsley's magazine_, by edmund yates, , pp. - . ----at home. _every saturday_, vol. , p. . _gentleman's magazine_ (by percy fitzgerald), november , pp. - .--_cornhill magazine_ (by his eldest daughter), , pp. - . ----at gadshill place. _life_, , pp. , . ----biographical sketch of. _the eclectic magazine_ (portrait), , pp. - . ----bleak house. _rambler_, vol. . n.s., , pp. - . ----boyhood of. _thistle_, by j.d.d., vol. , pp. - . ----childhood of. (illustrated.) _manchester quarterly_, by robert l. langton, vol. , , pp. - . ----early life of. _every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----boz. _the englishwoman's domestic magazine_, by j.t., july , pp. - . ----the "boz" ball. _historical magazine_, by p.m., pp. - and - . ----"boz" in paris.--_englishwoman's domestic magazine_, vol. , pp. - . ----boz _versus_ dickens. _parker's london magazine_, february , pp. - . ----grip the raven, in "barnaby rudge." _every saturday_, vol. , , , . ----the battle of life. _tait's edinburgh magazine_, , pp. - . ----bleak house. _spectator_ (by george brimley), sep. , pp. - . reprinted in "essays by the late george brimley."--_united states magazine and democratic review_, sep. , pp. - .--_north american review_ (by w. sargent,) oct. , pp. - .--_eclectic review_, dec. , pp. - . ----characters in. _putnam's monthly magazine_ (by c.f. riggs), , pp. - . ----characters from dickens [illustrated]. _jack and jill_, - . ----the chimes. _dublin review_, dec. , pp. - .--_eclectic review_, , pp. - .--_edinburgh review_, jan. , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, may , pp. - . ----christmas books. _union magazine_, , pp. - . ----a christmas carol. _dublin review_, , pp. - .--_fraser's magazine_, by m.a.t., feb. , pp. - .--_hood's magazine_, , pp. - .--_knickerbocker_, by s.g. clark, march, , pp. - . ----controversy. _american publishers' circular_, june , pp. - . ----cricket on the hearth. _chambers's edinburgh journal_, , pp. - .--_oxford and cambridge review_, vol. , , pp. - . ----david copperfield. _fraser's magazine_, dec. , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, feb. , pp. - . ----david copperfield and arthur pendennis. _southern literary messenger_, , pp. - .--_prospective review_, july , pp. - .--_north british review_ (by david masson), may , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, july , pp. - . ----schools; or, teachers and taught. _family herald_, july , pp. - . ----the death of. articles reprinted from the _saturday review_, the _spectator_, the _daily news_, and the _times_. _eclectic magazine_, aug. , pp. - .--_saturday review_, june , , pp. , .--_every saturday_, vol. , , p. . ----devonshire house theatricals. _bentley's miscellany_, , pp. - . ----dictionary of (pierce and wheeler's). _every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----dogs; or, the landseer of fiction. [illustrated.] _london society_, july , pp. - . ----dombey and son. _chambers's edinburgh journal_, oct. , pp. , .--_north british review_, may , pp. - .--_rambler_, vol. , , pp. , .--_sun_ (by charles kent), april , . ---- ----humourists: dickens and thackeray (dombey and son and vanity fair). _english review_, dec. , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, march , pp. - . ---- ----the wooden midshipman (of "dombey and son"). (by ashby sterry.) _all the year round_, oct. , pp. - . ----english magazines on, . _every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----farewell banquet to, . _every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----a few words on. _town and country_, by a.j.h. crespi, n.s., vol. , , pp. - . ----footprints of. _harper's new monthly magazine_, by m.d. conway. , pp. - . ----forster's life of (vol. ). _examiner_, by herbert wilson, dec. , pp. , ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, feb. , pp. - .--_chambers's journal_ (by james payn), jan. , pp. - and - .--_quarterly review_, jan. , pp. - .--_nation_, , pp. , .--_fortnightly review_, by j. herbert stack, jan. , pp. - .--_fraser's magazine_, jan. , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, march , pp. - .--_canadian monthly_, feb. , pp. - .--_lakeside monthly_, april , pp. - .--_overland monthly_, by george b. merrill, may , pp. - . ----forster's life of (vol. ). _examiner_, nov. , pp. , .--_nation_, , pp. , .--_chambers's journal_ (by james payn), feb. , pp. - .--_canadian monthly_, feb. , pp. - .--_temple bar_, may , pp. - . ----forster's life of (vol. ). _examiner_, , pp. , .--_nation_, , pp. , .--_chambers's journal_ (by james payn), march , pp. - .--_canadian monthly_, april , pp. - . ----forster's life of. _international review_, may , pp. - .--_north american review_, vol. , p. .--_every saturday_, vol. , p. .--_revue des deux mondes_, by léon boucher, tom. , , pp. - .--_american bibliopolist_, vol. , p. .--_catholic world_, by j.r.g. hassard, vol. , p. . ----four months with. ( .) _atlantic monthly_, by g.w. putnam. , pp. - , - . ----french criticism of. _people's journal_, vol. , p. . ----on the genius of. _knickerbocker_, by f.w. shelton, may , pp. - .--_putnam's monthly magazine_, by g.f. talbot, , pp. - .--_atlantic monthly_, by e.p. whipple, may , pp. - .--_spectator_, , pp. - .--_new eclectic_, vol. , , p. ----the "good genie" of fiction. _st. paul's magazine_, by robert buchanan, , pp. - ; reprinted in "a poet's sketch-book," etc., by robert buchanan, . ----great expectations. _atlantic monthly_, by edwin p. whipple, sep. , pp. - .--_eclectic review_, oct. , pp. - .--_dublin university magazine_, dec. , pp. - . ----bygone celebrities: i. the guild of literature and art. _gentleman's magazine_, by r.h. horne, feb. , pp. - . ----hard times. _westminster review_, oct. , pp. - .--_atlantic monthly_, by edwin p. whipple, march , pp. - . ----the home of. _hours at home_, by john d. sherwood, july , pp. - .--_every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----in and out of london with. _scribner's monthly_, by b.e. martin. [illustrated.] may , pp. - . ----in london with. _scribner's monthly_, by b.e. martin. (illustrated). march , pp. - . ----in the editor's chair. _gentleman's magazine_, by percy fitzgerald, june , pp. - . ----in memoriam. by a.h. (arthur helps). _macmillan's magazine_, july , pp. - .--_gentleman's magazine_, by blanchard jerrold, july , pp. - ; reprinted, with additions, as "a day with charles dickens," in the "best of all good company," by blanchard jerrold, . ----in new york (by j.r. dennett). _nation_, , pp. , . ----in poet's corner. _illustrated london news_, june , pp. and , . ----in relation to christmas. _graphic_ christmas number, , p, . ----in relation to criticism. _fortnightly review_, by george henry lewes, , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, , pp. - ; _every saturday_, vol. ., p. , etc. ----a lost work of (is she his wife? or, something singular). _the pen; a journal of literature_, by richard herne shepherd, october , pp. , . ----least known writings of. _every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----letters of. _fortnightly review_, by william minto, dec. , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, , pp. - ; _eclectic magazine_, , pp. - .--_nation_, by w.c. brownell, december , pp. - .--_literary world_, december , pp. - .--_scribner's monthly_, jan. , pp. , .--_appleton's journal of literature_, , pp. - .--_contemporary review_, by matthew browne, , pp. - .--_north american review_, by eugene l. didier, march , pp. - .--_westminster review_, april , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, june , pp. - .--_dublin review_, by helen atteridge, april , pp. - .--_month_, by the rev. g. macleod, may , pp. - .--_international review_, by j.s. morse, jnn., vol. , p. . ----life and letters of. _catholic world_, vol. , pp. - . ----little boys and great men. _little folks_, by c.l.m. nos. , . ----little dorrit. _edinburgh review_, july , pp. - .--_leader_, june , pp. , .--_sun_, by charles kent, june , . ----lives of the illustrious. _the biographical magazine_, by j.h.f., vol. , pp. - . ----manuscripts, _chambers's journal_, nov. , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, , pp. - ; _littell's living age_, , pp. - .--_potter's american monthly_, vol. , p. . ----life and adventures of martin chuzzlewit. _monthly review_, sept. , pp. - .--_national review_, july , pp. - . ----master humphrey's clock. _monthly review_, may , pp. - .--_christian examiner_, march , pp. - . ----memories of charles dickens. _atlantic monthly_, by j.t. fields, aug. , pp. - ; same article, _piccadilly annual_, , pp. - . ----bygone celebrities: ii. mr. nightingale's diary. _gentleman's magazine_, by r.h. horne. may , pp. - . ----modern novelists. _westminster review_, oct. , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, , pp. - . ----modern novels. including the "pickwick papers," "nicholas nickleby," and "master humphrey's clock." _christian remembrancer_, dec. , pp. - . ----moral services to literature. _spectator_, april , pp. , ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, july , pp. - . ----mystery of edwin drood. _graphic_, april , p. .--_every saturday_, , vol. , pp. , .--_spectator_, , pp. , .--_old and new_, (by george b. woods), nov. , pp. - .--_southern magazine_, , vol. , p. .--_belgravia_ (by thomas foster), june , pp. - . ----how "edwin drood" was illustrated. [illustrated.] _century magazine_, by alice meynell, feb. , pp. - . ----a quasi-scientific inquiry into "the mystery of edwin drood." illustrated. _knowledge_, by thomas foster, sep. , nov. , . ----suggestions for a conclusion to "edwin drood." _cornhill magazine_, march , pp. - . ----edwin drood. concluded by charles dickens, through a medium. _transatlantic_, vol. , , pp. - . ----in france. (acting of nicholas nickleby in paris.) _fraser's magazine_, march , pp. - . ----nomenclature. _belgravia_, by w.f. peacock, , pp. - , - . ----notes and correspondence. _englishwoman's domestic magazine_, vol. , , pp. - . ----novel reading: the works of. _nineteenth century_, by anthony trollope, , pp. - . ----novels and novelists. _north american review_, by e.p. whipple, october , pp. - ; reprinted in "literature and life," etc., by e.p. whipple. ----old curiosity shop, barnaby rudge. _christian remembrancer_, vol. , , p. .--_pall mall gazette_, january , , pp. , . ----the old lady of fetter lane (old curiosity shop). (illustrated.) _pall mall gazette_, january , , p. ----oliver twist. _southern literary messenger_, may , pp. - .--_london and westminster review_, july , pp. - .--_dublin university magazine_, december , pp. - .--_quarterly review_, june , pp. - .--_christian examiner_, by j.s.d., nov. , pp. - .--_atlantic monthly_, by edwin p. whipple, oct. , pp. - . ----on bells. _belgravia_, by george delamere cowan, jan. , pp. - . ----our letter. _st. nicholas_, by m.f. armstrong, , pp. - . ----our mutual friend. _eclectic review_, nov. , pp. - .--_nation_, dec. , pp. , .--_westminster review_, april , pp. - . ----our mutual friend in manuscript. _scribner's monthly magazine_, by kate field, august , pp. - . ----pickwick club. _southern literary messenger_, , pp. , ; sept. , pp. - .--_littell's museum of foreign literature_, vol. , , p. .--_monthly review_, feb. , pp. - .--_eclectic review_, april , pp. - .--_chambers's edinburgh journal_, april , pp. , .--_london and westminster review_, july , pp. - .--_quarterly review_, oct. , pp. - .--_belgravia_, by w.s. (w. sawyer), july , pp. - .--_atlantic monthly_, by edwin p. whipple, aug. , pp. - . ---- ----mr. pickwick and nicholas nickleby. [illustrated.] _scribner's monthly_, by b.e. martin, sept. , pp. - . ---- ----from faust to mr. pickwick. _contemporary review_, by matthew browne, july , pp. - . ---- ----german translation of the "pickwick papers." _dublin review_, feb. , pp. - . ---- ----the origin of the pickwick papers. _society_, by r.h. shepherd, oct. , , pp. - . ---- ----the portrait of mr. pickwick. _belgravia_, by george augustus sala, aug. , pp. - . ----pictures from italy. _tait's edinburgh magazine_, vol. , , pp. - .--_chambers's edinburgh journal_, , pp. - .--_dublin review_, sept. , pp. - .--_sun_, by charles kent, march . ----poetic element in the style of. _every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----the pressmen of, and thackeray. _graphic_, by t.h. north, , p. . ----reception of. _united states magazine and democratic review_ (portrait), april , pp. - . ----reminiscences of. _englishwoman's domestic magazine_, by e.e.c., vol. , , pp. - . ----remonstrance with. _blackwood's edinburgh magazine_, april , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, may , pp. - . ----sale of the effects of. _every saturday_, vol. , p. .--_chambers's journal_, , pp. - . ----seasonable words about. _the overland monthly_, by n.s. dodge, , pp. - . ----secularistic teaching. _secular chronicle_, by harriet t. law (portrait). dec. , pp. - . ----shadow on life of. _atlantic monthly_, by edwin p. whipple, aug. , pp. - . ----sketches by boz. _monthly review_, march , pp. - ; , pp. - .--_mirror_, april , pp. - --_london and westminster review_, july , pp. - .--_quarterly review_, oct. , pp. - . ---- ----the boarding house (sketches by boz). _chambers's edinburgh journal_, april , pp. , . ---- ----watkins tottle and other sketches (sketches by boz). _southern literary messenger_, , pp. - . ----son talent et ses oeuvres. _revue des deux mondes_, by h. taine. feb. , pp. - . ----studien über dickens und den humor. _westermann's jahrbuch der illustrirten deutschen monatshefte_, von julian schmidt (portrait), april-july . ----studies of english authors. no. v. charles dickens. in eleven chapters. _literary world_, by peter bayne, march to may , . ----study. _graphic_ christmas number, by c.c. . ----a tale of two cities. _saturday review_, dec. , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, feb. , pp. - . _sun_, by charles kent, aug. , . ----tales. _edinburgh review_, oct. , pp. - . ----the tendency of works of. _argosy_, by a.d., , pp. - . ----the tension in. _every saturday_, dec. , pp. - . ----a tramp with. through london by night with the great novelist. _detroit free press_, april , . ----tulrumble, and oliver twist. _southern literary messenger_, may , pp. - . ----the "two green leaves" (portrait). _graphic_, march , , pp. - . ----unpublished letters. _times_, oct. , . ----satire on. _blackwood's magazine_, by s. warren, vol. , , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, vol. , , p. . ----use of the bible. _temple bar_, september , pp. - ; same article, _appleton's journal_, oct. , , , pp. - , , ; _every saturday_, vol. , p. . ----verse. _spectator_, , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, , pp. - . ----visit to charles dickens by hans christian andersen. _bentley's miscellany_, , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, , pp. - , _eclectic magazine_, , pp. - . ---- ----andersen's. _temple bar_, december , pp. - ; same article, _eclectic magazine_, , pp. - , _every saturday_, vol. , p. , etc.; appendix to _pictures of travels in sweden_, etc. ---- ----pilgrimage. [visit to gadshill.] _lippincott's magazine_, by barton hill. sept. , pp. - . ----voice of christmas past. (illustrated.) _harper's new monthly magazine_, by mrs. z.b. buddington, january , pp. - . ----with the newsvendors.--_every saturday_, vol. . p. . ----works. _london university magazine_, by j.s. (james spedding), vol. , , pp. - .--_north british review_, by j. cleghorn, may , pp. - ; same article, _littell's living age_, june , pp. - .--_national quarterly review_, by h. dennison, , vol. , p. .--_british quarterly review_, jan. , pp. - .--_scottish review_, dec. , pp. - . vi.--chronological list of works. sketches by boz - sunday under three heads the village coquettes the strange gentleman pickwick papers oliver twist sketches of young gentlemen memoirs of joseph grimaldi nicholas nickleby sketches of young couples master humphrey's clock (the old curiosity shop and barnaby rudge) - american notes christmas carol martin chuzzlewit the chimes cricket on the hearth pictures from italy battle of life dombey and son haunted man david copperfield mr. nightingale's diary child's history of england - bleak house hard times little dorrit hunted down tale of two cities great expectations uncommercial traveller our mutual friend mystery of edwin drood _printed by_ walter scott, _felling, newcastle-on-tyne_ great writers. a new series of critical biographies. edited by professor eric s. robertson. _monthly shilling volumes._ * * * * * vol. i.--"life of longfellow." by professor eric s. robertson "the object of 'great writers' is to 'furnish the public with interesting and accurate accounts of the men and women notable in modern literature.' the first volume, now before us, is on longfellow, by the editor, and gives, in the space of pages, a detailed account of the poet's life, an analysis of his work, and an essay on his place in literature. it is as the household poet _par excellence_ that longfellow may reasonably take the first place in such a series as that now to be issued, and, as an accompaniment to the reading of the poems themselves, nothing more is wanted than will be found in these pages. the type is clear, the paper good, the binding stout, and the size handy. altogether a remarkable shillingsworth, even in this day of cheap books. other numbers promised are 'coleridge,' by hall caine; 'dickens,' by frank marzials; and 'rossetti,' by joseph knight. if the future numbers are as good as the first, a great success may be anticipated."--_the standard._ vol. ii. is "life of coleridge." by hall caine. vol. iii. will be "life of dickens." by frank t. marzials. [ready feb. . vol. iv. will be "life of rossetti." by joseph knight. [ready march . the following gentlemen have agreed to write the volumes forming the first year's issue:--william rossetti, hall caine, richard garnett, frank t. marzials, william sharp, joseph knight, augustine birrell, professor d'arcy thompson, r.b. haldane, m.p., austin dobson, colonel f. grant, and the editor. library edition of "great writers."--a limited issue of all the volumes in this series will be published, printed on large paper of extra quality, in handsome binding, demy vo, price s. d. per volume. * * * * * london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. the canterbury poets. _in_ shilling _monthly volumes, square vo. well printed on fine toned paper, with red-line border, and strongly bound in cloth. each volume contains from to pages. with introductory notices by_ william sharp, mathilde blind, walter lewin, john hogben, a.j. symington, joseph skipsey, eva hope, john richmond, ernest rhys, percy e. pinkerton, mrs. garden, dean carrington, dr. j. bradshaw, frederick cooper, hon. roden noel, j. addington symonds, g. willis cooke, eric mackay, eric s. robertson, william tirebuck, stuart j. reid, mrs. freiligrath kroeker, j. logie robertson, m.a., samuel waddington, _etc., etc._ _cloth, red edges_ s. _cloth, uncut edges_ s. _red roan, gilt edges_ s. d. _silk plush, gilt edges_ s. d. * * * * * _the following volumes are now ready_ christian year. by rev. john keble. coleridge. edited by joseph skipsey. longfellow. edited by eva hope. campbell. edited by j. hogben. shelley. edited by joseph skipsey. wordsworth. edited by a.j. symington. blake. edited by joseph skipsey. whittier. edited by eva hope. poe. edited by joseph skipsey. chatterton. edited by john richmond. burns. poems. burns. songs. edited by joseph skipsey. marlowe. edited by p.e. pinkerton. keats. edited by john hogben. herbert. edited by ernest rhys. victor hugo. translated by dean carrington. cowper. edited by eva hope. shakespeare: songs, poems, and sonnets. edited by william sharp. emerson. edited by walter lewin. sonnets of this century. edited by william sharp. whitman. edited by ernest rhys. scott. marmion, etc. scott. lady of the lake, etc. edited by william sharp. praed. edited by frederick cooper. hogg. by his daughter, mrs. garden. goldsmith. edited by william tirebuck. love letters of a violinist. by eric mackay. spenser. edited by hon. roden noel. children of the poets. edited by eric s. robertson. ben jonson. edited by j.a. symonds. byron ( vols.) edited by mathilde blind. the sonnets of europe. edited by s. waddington. allan ramsay. edited by j. logie robertson. sydney dobell. edited by mrs. dobell. * * * * * london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. the camelot classics. _volumes already issued._ romance of king arthur. by sir t. malory. edited by ernest rhys. walden. by henry david thoreau. with introductory note by will h. dircks. confessions of an english opium-eater. by thomas de quincey. with introduction by william sharp. imaginary conversations. by walter savage landor. with introduction by havelock ellis. plutarch's lives. edited by b.j. snell, m.a. sir thomas browne's religio medici, etc. edited, with introduction, by john addington symonds. essays and letters. by percy bysshe shelley. edited, with introduction, by ernest rhys. prose writings of swift. edited by w. lewin. my study windows. by james russell lowell. edited, with introduction, by richard garnett, ll.d. great english painters. by allan cunningham. edited, with introduction, by william sharp. lord byron's letters. edited by m. blind. essays by leigh hunt. edited by a. symons. longfellow's prose works. edited, with introduction, by william tirebuck. * * * * * the series is issued in two styles of binding--red cloth, cut edges; and dark blue cloth, uncut edges. either style, price one shilling. * * * * * _price sixpence; crown to, pages._ part i. ready th february . the monthly chronicle of north-country lore and legend. _from the "newcastle weekly chronicle."_ it has repeatedly been suggested that the valuable matter published every week in the _weekly chronicle_ should be reprinted in some handier form, so as to be capable of permanent preservation. not a few of our readers take the trouble to cut out the articles in which they are interested, paste them in scrap-books, and thus form a serviceable collection of local and other literature. but this process involves the purchase of special requisites, and the consumption of considerable patience and time. we have, therefore, arranged with mr. walter scott, the well-known publisher, of felling-on-tyne, and warwick lane, paternoster row, london, to publish, in monthly parts, all the more permanently interesting contributions that will appear in the future issues of the _weekly chronicle_. this publication will be entitled the _monthly chronicle of north-country lore and legend_, and will be offered to the public in a special wrapper at the price of sixpence. the size of the reprint will be crown quarto, and each number will consist of forty-eight double-column pages. the articles reprinted will be so revised that the errors which necessarily creep into a weekly newspaper will, as far as possible, be corrected or erased. the first number of the _monthly chronicle_ (for march) will be published on the th of february. * * * * * _published for the proprietor of "the newcastle weekly chronicle," by_ walter scott, warwick lane, london, and newcastle-on-tyne. science lectures delivered before the tyneside sunday lecture society. * * * * * _now ready, price threepence each._ the natural history of instinct. by g.j. romanes, f.r.s. animal life on the ocean surface. by professor h.n. moseley, m.a., f.r.s. the eye and its work. by litton forbes, m.d., f.r.c.s.e., l.r.c.p. the movements of plants. by ernest a. parkyn, m.a. the relations between natural science and literature. by professor h. nettleship, m.a. facts and fictions in zoology. by dr. andrew wilson, f.r.s.e. the animals that make limestone. by dr. p. herbert carpenter, f.r.s. the seven lectures may be had in one vol., cloth, price / . * * * * * london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. the elswick science series. the elswick series is intended to supply teachers and students with good books, void of cram. they will be issued as rapidly as is consistent with the caution necessary to secure accuracy. a great aim will be to adapt them to modern requirements and improvement, and to keep abreast with the latest discoveries in science, and the most recent practice in engineering. * * * * * _already issued. crown vo, cloth, price s. d._ practical and theoretical trigonometry. by henry evers, ll.d., author of "steam," "navigation," etc. _the following works may be expected to appear shortly--_ manual of steam and prime movers. by henry evers, ll.d., author of "steam," "navigation," etc. algebra (an elementary treatise). by professor r.h. jude, of huddersfield technical college, m.a. cantab., d.sc. london. descriptive geometry. by t.h. eagles, m.a., instructor in geometrical drawing and lecturer in architecture at the royal indian engineering college, cooper's hill. theoretical mechanics. by w.m. madden, m.a., cantab. wrangler, scholar of queen's, etc. elementary lectures of physics and electricity. by william john grey, f.c.s., etc., silver medallist. _others are in preparation or consideration, such as--_ machine design. by h. foster, m.e. and d. medallist. building construction. by t.n. andrews, esq. springs: iron and steel. applied mechanics. by henry evers, ll.d., medallist. a course of qualitative analysis. by w.j. grey, f.c.s. medallist, etc. inorganic chemistry. by w.j. grey, f.c.s. medallist, etc. animal physiology. by charles j. evers, m.b., m.r.c.s. (london), medallist, etc. a series of practical lessons for blackboard teaching of machine drawing. * * * * * london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. now ready. _uniform in size with the "canterbury poets," pages, cloth gilt, price s. d._ * * * * * days of the year. a poetic calendar of passages from the works of alfred austin. _selected and arranged by a.s._ with an introduction by william sharp. * * * * * london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. the canterbury poets. _in crown quarto, printed on antique paper, price s. d._ * * * * * edition de luxe. sonnets of this century. _with an exhaustive and critical essay on the sonnet,_ by william sharp. this edition has been thoroughly revised, and several new sonnets added. _the volume contains sonnets by_ lord tennyson. robert browning. a.c. swinburne. matthew arnold. theodore watts. archbishop trench. j. addington symonds. w. bell scott. christina rossetti. edward dowden. edmund gosse. andrew lang. george meredith. cardinal newman. _by the late_ dante gabriel rossetti. mrs. barrett browning. c. tennyson-turner, etc. and all the best writers of this century. * * * * * london: walter scott, warwick lane, paternoster row. for the reader: things that were handwritten are denoted in the text as hw: the letters of [illustration: hw: charles dickens] the letters of charles dickens. edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter. =in two volumes.= vol. ii. to . london: chapman and hall, , piccadilly. . [_the right of translation is reserved._] charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. errata. vol. ii. page , line . for "south kensington museum," _read_ "the south kensington museum." " , line . for "frequent contributor," _read_ "a frequent contributor." " , lines , . for "great remonstrance," _read_ "great remonstrance." " , line . for "after," _read_ "afore." " , " . for "a head," _read_ "ahead." " , " . for "shea," _read_ "shoe." " , " . for "mabel's progress," _read_ "mabel's progress." =book ii.=--_continued._ the letters of charles dickens. . narrative. this was a very full year in many ways. in february, charles dickens obtained possession of gad's hill, and was able to turn workmen into it. in april he stayed, with his wife and sister-in-law, for a week or two at wate's hotel, gravesend, to be at hand to superintend the beginning of his alterations of the house, and from thence we give a letter to lord carlisle. he removed his family, for a summer residence in the house, in june; and he finished "little dorrit" there early in the summer. one of his first visitors at gad's hill was the famous writer, hans christian andersen. in january "the frozen deep" had been played at the tavistock house theatre with such great success, that it was necessary to repeat it several times, and the theatre was finally demolished at the end of that month. in june charles dickens heard, with great grief, of the death of his dear friend douglas jerrold; and as a testimony of admiration for his genius and affectionate regard for himself, it was decided to organise, under the management of charles dickens, a series of entertainments, "in memory of the late douglas jerrold," the fund produced by them (a considerable sum) to be presented to mr. jerrold's family. the amateur company, including many of mr. jerrold's colleagues on "punch," gave subscription performances of "the frozen deep;" the gallery of illustration, in regent street, being engaged for the purpose. charles dickens gave two readings at st. martin's hall of "the christmas carol" (to such immense audiences and with such success, that the idea of giving public readings for his _own_ benefit first occurred to him at this time). the professional actors, among them the famous veteran actor, mr. t. p. cooke, gave a performance of mr. jerrold's plays of "the rent day" and "black-eyed susan," in which mr. t. p. cooke sustained the character in which he had originally made such great success when the play was written. a lecture was given by mr. thackeray, and another by mr. w. h. russell. finally, the queen having expressed a desire to see the play, which had been much talked of during that season, there was another performance before her majesty and the prince consort at the gallery of illustration in july, and at the end of that month charles dickens read his "carol" in the free trade hall, at manchester. and to wind up the "memorial fund" entertainments, "the frozen deep" was played again at manchester, also in the great free trade hall, at the end of august. for the business of these entertainments he secured the assistance of mr. arthur smith, of whom he writes to mr. forster, at this time: "i have got hold of arthur smith, as the best man of business i know, and go to work with him to-morrow morning." and when he began his own public readings, both in town and country, he felt himself most fortunate in having the co-operation of this invaluable man of business, and also of his zealous friendship and pleasant companionship. in july, his second son, walter landor, went to india as a cadet in the "company's service," from which he was afterwards transferred to the nd royal highlanders. his father and his elder brother went to see him off, to southampton. from this place charles dickens writes to mr. edmund yates, a young man in whom he had been interested from his boyhood, both for the sake of his parents and for his own sake, and for whom he had always an affectionate regard. in september he made a short tour in the north of england, with mr. wilkie collins, out of which arose the "lazy tour of two idle apprentices," written by them jointly, and published in "household words." some letters to his sister-in-law during this expedition are given here, parts of which (as is the case with many letters to his eldest daughter and his sister-in-law) have been published in mr. forster's book. the letters which follow are almost all on the various subjects mentioned in our notes, and need little explanation. his letter to mr. procter makes allusion to a legacy lately left to that friend. the letters to mr. dilke, the original and much-respected editor of "the athenæum," and to mr. forster, on the subject of the "literary fund," refer, as the letters indicate, to a battle which they were carrying on together with that institution. a letter to mr. frank stone is an instance of his kind, patient, and judicious criticism of a young writer, and the letter which follows it shows how thoroughly it was understood and how perfectly appreciated by the authoress of the "notes" referred to. another instance of the same kind criticism is given in a second letter this year to mr. edmund yates. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] tavistock house, _january nd, ._ my dear procter, i have to thank you for a delightful book, which has given me unusual pleasure. my delight in it has been a little dashed by certain farewell verses, but i have made up my mind (and you have no idea of the obstinacy of my character) not to believe them. perhaps it is not taking a liberty--perhaps it is--to congratulate you on kenyon's remembrance. either way i can't help doing it with all my heart, for i know no man in the world (myself excepted) to whom i would rather the money went. affectionately yours ever. [sidenote: sir james emerson tennent.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear tennent, i must thank you for your earnest and affectionate letter. it has given me the greatest pleasure, mixing the play in my mind confusedly and delightfully with pisa, the valetta, naples, herculanæum--god knows what not. as to the play itself; when it is made as good as my care can make it, i derive a strange feeling out of it, like writing a book in company; a satisfaction of a most singular kind, which has no exact parallel in my life; a something that i suppose to belong to the life of a labourer in art alone, and which has to me a conviction of its being actual truth without its pain, that i never could adequately state if i were to try never so hard. you touch so kindly and feelingly on the pleasure such little pains give, that i feel quite sorry you have never seen this drama in progress during the last ten weeks here. every monday and friday evening during that time we have been at work upon it. i assure you it has been a remarkable lesson to my young people in patience, perseverance, punctuality, and order; and, best of all, in that kind of humility which is got from the earned knowledge that whatever the right hand finds to do must be done with the heart in it, and in a desperate earnest. when i changed my dress last night (though i did it very quickly), i was vexed to find you gone. i wanted to have secured you for our green-room supper, which was very pleasant. if by any accident you should be free next wednesday night (our last), pray come to that green-room supper. it would give me cordial pleasure to have you there. ever, my dear tennent, very heartily yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _monday night, jan, th, ._ my dear cerjat, so wonderfully do good (epistolary) intentions become confounded with bad execution, that i assure you i laboured under a perfect and most comfortable conviction that i had answered your christmas eve letter of . more than that, in spite of your assertions to the contrary, i still strenuously believe that i did so! i have more than half a mind ("little dorrit" and my other occupations notwithstanding) to charge you with having forgotten my reply!! i have even a wild idea that townshend reproached me, when the last old year was new, with writing to you instead of to him!!! we will argue it out, as well as we can argue anything without poor dear haldimand, when i come back to elysée. in any case, however, don't discontinue your annual letter, because it has become an expected and a delightful part of the season to me. with one of the prettiest houses in london, and every conceivable (and inconceivable) luxury in it, townshend is voluntarily undergoing his own sentence of transportation in nervi, a beastly little place near genoa, where you would as soon find a herd of wild elephants in any villa as comfort. he has a notion that he _must_ be out of england in the winter, but i believe him to be altogether wrong (as i have just told him in a letter), unless he could just take his society with him. workmen are now battering and smashing down my theatre here, where we have just been acting a new play of great merit, done in what i may call (modestly speaking of the getting-up, and not of the acting) an unprecedented way. i believe that anything so complete has never been seen. we had an act at the north pole, where the slightest and greatest thing the eye beheld were equally taken from the books of the polar voyagers. out of thirty people, there were certainly not two who might not have gone straight to the north pole itself, completely furnished for the winter! it has been the talk of all london for these three weeks. and now it is a mere chaos of scaffolding, ladders, beams, canvases, paint-pots, sawdust, artificial snow, gas-pipes, and ghastliness. i have taken such pains with it for these ten weeks in all my leisure hours, that i feel now shipwrecked--as if i had never been without a play on my hands before. a third topic comes up as this ceases. down at gad's hill, near rochester, in kent--shakespeare's gad's hill, where falstaff engaged in the robbery--is a quaint little country-house of queen anne's time. i happened to be walking past, a year and a half or so ago, with my sub-editor of "household words," when i said to him: "you see that house? it has always a curious interest for me, because when i was a small boy down in these parts i thought it the most beautiful house (i suppose because of its famous old cedar-trees) ever seen. and my poor father used to bring me to look at it, and used to say that if i ever grew up to be a clever man perhaps i might own that house, or such another house. in remembrance of which, i have always in passing looked to see if it was to be sold or let, and it has never been to me like any other house, and it has never changed at all." we came back to town, and my friend went out to dinner. next morning he came to me in great excitement, and said: "it is written that you were to have that house at gad's hill. the lady i had allotted to me to take down to dinner yesterday began to speak of that neighbourhood. 'you know it?' i said; 'i have been there to-day.' 'o yes,' said she, 'i know it very well. i was a child there, in the house they call gad's hill place. my father was the rector, and lived there many years. he has just died, has left it to me, and i want to sell it.' 'so,' says the sub-editor, 'you must buy it. now or never!'" i did, and hope to pass next summer there, though i may, perhaps, let it afterwards, furnished, from time to time. all about myself i find, and the little sheet nearly full! but i know, my dear cerjat, the subject will have its interest for you, so i give it its swing. mrs. watson was to have been at the play, but most unfortunately had three children sick of gastric fever, and could not leave them. she was here some three weeks before, looking extremely well in the face, but rather thin. i have not heard of your friend mr. percival skelton, but i much misdoubt an amateur artist's success in this vast place. i hope you detected a remembrance of our happy visit to the great st. bernard in a certain number of "little dorrit"? tell mrs. cerjat, with my love, that the opinions i have expressed to her on the subject of cows have become matured in my mind by experience and venerable age; and that i denounce the race as humbugs, who have been getting into poetry and all sorts of places without the smallest reason. haldimand's housekeeper is an awful woman to consider. pray give him our kindest regards and remembrances, if you ever find him in a mood to take it. "our" means mrs. dickens's, georgie's, and mine. we often, often talk of our old days at lausanne, and send loving regard to mrs. cerjat and all your house. adieu, my dear fellow; ever cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dearest macready, your friend and servant is as calm as pecksniff, saving for his knitted brows now turning into cordage over little dorrit. the theatre has disappeared, the house is restored to its usual conditions of order, the family are tranquil and domestic, dove-eyed peace is enthroned in this study, fire-eyed radicalism in its master's breast. i am glad to hear that our poetess is at work again, and shall be very much pleased to have some more contributions from her. love from all to your dear sister, and to katie, and to all the house. we dined yesterday at frederick pollock's. i begged an amazing photograph of you, and brought it away. it strikes me as one of the most ludicrous things i ever saw in my life. i think of taking a public-house, and having it copied larger, for the size. you may remember it? very square and big--the saracen's head with its hair cut, and in modern gear? staring very hard? as your particular friend, i would not part with it on any consideration. i will never get such a wooden head again. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] tavistock house, _february th, ._ my dear mary, half-a-dozen words on this, my birthday, to thank you for your kind and welcome remembrance, and to assure you that your joseph is proud of it. for about ten minutes after his death, on each occasion of that event occurring, richard wardour was in a floored condition. and one night, to the great terror of devonshire, the arctic regions, and newfoundland (all of which localities were afraid to speak to him, as his ghost sat by the kitchen fire in its rags), he very nearly did what he never did, went and fainted off, dead, again. but he always plucked up, on the turn of ten minutes, and became facetious. likewise he chipped great pieces out of all his limbs (solely, as i imagine, from moral earnestness and concussion of passion, for i never know him to hit himself in any way) and terrified aldersley[ ] to that degree, by lunging at him to carry him into the cave, that the said aldersley always shook like a mould of jelly, and muttered, "by g----, this is an awful thing!" ever affectionately. p.s.--i shall never cease to regret mrs. watson's not having been there. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _sunday, feb. th, ._ my dear white, i send these lines by mary and katey, to report my love to all. your note about the _golden mary_ gave me great pleasure; though i don't believe in one part of it; for i honestly believe that your story, as really belonging to the rest of the narrative, had been generally separated from the other stories, and greatly liked. i had not that particular shipwreck that you mention in my mind (indeed i doubt if i know it), and john steadiman merely came into my head as a staunch sort of name that suited the character. the number has done "household words" great service, and has decidedly told upon its circulation. you should have come to the play. i much doubt if anything so complete will ever be seen again. an incredible amount of pains and ingenuity was expended on it, and the result was most remarkable even to me. when are you going to send something more to h. w.? are you lazy?? low-spirited??? pining for paris???? ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. c. w. dilke.] office of "household words," _thursday, march th, ._ my dear mr. dilke, forster has another notion about the literary fund. will you name a day next week--that day being neither thursday nor saturday--when we shall hold solemn council there at half-past four? for myself, i beg to report that i have my war-paint on, that i have buried the pipe of peace, and am whooping for committee scalps. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] gravesend, kent, _wednesday, april th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, i am writing by the river-side for a few days, and at the end of last week ---- appeared here with your note of introduction. i was not in the way; but as ---- had come express from london with it, mrs. dickens opened it, and gave her (in the limited sense which was of no use to her) an audience. she did not quite seem to know what she wanted of me. but she said she had understood at stafford house that i had a theatre in which she could read; with a good deal of modesty and diffidence she at last got so far. now, my little theatre turns my house out of window, costs fifty pounds to put up, and is only two months taken down; therefore, is quite out of the question. this mrs. dickens explained, and also my profound inability to do anything for ---- readings which they could not do for themselves. she appeared fully to understand the explanation, and indeed to have anticipated for herself how powerless i must be in such a case. she described herself as being consumptive, and as being subject to an effusion of blood from the lungs; about the last condition, one would think, poor woman, for the exercise of public elocution as an art. between ourselves, i think the whole idea a mistake, and have thought so from its first announcement. it has a fatal appearance of trading upon uncle tom, and am i not a man and a brother? which you may be by all means, and still not have the smallest claim to my attention as a public reader. the town is over-read from all the white squares on the draught-board; it has been considerably harried from all the black squares--now with the aid of old banjoes, and now with the aid of exeter hall; and i have a very strong impression that it is by no means to be laid hold of from this point of address. i myself, for example, am the meekest of men, and in abhorrence of slavery yield to no human creature, and yet i don't admit the sequence that i want uncle tom (or aunt tomasina) to expound "king lear" to me. and i believe my case to be the case of thousands. i trouble you with this much about it, because i am naturally desirous you should understand that if i could possibly have been of any service, or have suggested anything to this poor lady, i would not have lost the opportunity. but i cannot help her, and i assure you that i cannot honestly encourage her to hope. i fear her enterprise has no hope in it. in your absence i have always followed you through the papers, and felt a personal interest and pleasure in the public affection in which you are held over there.[ ] at the same time i must confess that i should prefer to have you here, where good public men seem to me to be dismally wanted. i have no sympathy with demagogues, but am a grievous radical, and think the political signs of the times to be just about as bad as the spirit of the people will admit of their being. in all other respects i am as healthy, sound, and happy as your kindness can wish. so you will set down my political despondency as my only disease. on the tip-top of gad's hill, between this and rochester, on the very spot where falstaff ran away, i have a pretty little old-fashioned house, which i shall live in the hope of showing to you one day. also i have a little story respecting the manner in which it became mine, which i hope (on the same occasion in the clouds) to tell you. until then and always, i am, dear lord carlisle, yours very faithfully and obliged. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear forster, i have gone over dilke's memoranda, and i think it quite right and necessary that those points should be stated. nor do i see the least difficulty in the way of their introduction into the pamphlet. but i do not deem it possible to get the pamphlet written and published before the dinner. i have so many matters pressing on my attention, that i cannot turn to it immediately on my release from my book just finished. it shall be done and distributed early next month. as to anything being lost by its not being in the hands of the people who dine (as you seem to think), i have not the least misgiving on that score. they would say, if it were issued, just what they will say without it. lord granville is committed to taking the chair, and will make the best speech he can in it. the pious ---- will cram him with as many distortions of the truth as his stomach may be strong enough to receive. ----, with bardolphian eloquence, will cool his nose in the modest merits of the institution. ---- will make a neat and appropriate speech on both sides, round the corner and over the way. and all this would be done exactly to the same purpose and in just the same strain, if twenty thousand copies of the pamphlet had been circulated. ever affectionately. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _friday, may nd, ._ my dear white, my emancipation having been effected on saturday, the ninth of this month, i take some shame to myself for not having sooner answered your note. but the host of things to be done as soon as i was free, and the tremendous number of ingenuities to be wrought out at gad's hill, have kept me in a whirl of their own ever since. we purpose going to gad's hill for the summer on the st of june; as, apart from the master's eye being a necessary ornament to the spot, i clearly see that the workmen yet lingering in the yard must be squeezed out by bodily pressure, or they will never go. how will this suit you and yours? if you will come down, we can take you all in, on your way north; that is to say, we shall have that ample verge and room enough, until about the eighth; when hans christian andersen (who has been "coming" for about three years) will come for a fortnight's stay in england. i shall like you to see the little old-fashioned place. it strikes me as being comfortable. so let me know your little game. and with love to mrs. white, lotty, and clara, believe me, ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] office of "household words," _monday, june st, ._ my dear stone, i know that what i am going to say will not be agreeable; but i rely on the authoress's good sense; and say it, knowing it to be the truth. these "notes" are destroyed by too much smartness. it gives the appearance of perpetual effort, stabs to the heart the nature that is in them, and wearies by the manner and not by the matter. it is the commonest fault in the world (as i have constant occasion to observe here), but it is a very great one. just as you couldn't bear to have an épergne or a candlestick on your table, supported by a light figure always on tiptoe and evidently in an impossible attitude for the sustainment of its weight, so all readers would be more or less oppressed and worried by this presentation of everything in one smart point of view, when they know it must have other, and weightier, and more solid properties. airiness and good spirits are always delightful, and are inseparable from notes of a cheerful trip; but they should sympathise with many things as well as see them in a lively way. it is but a word or a touch that expresses this humanity, but without that little embellishment of good nature there is no such thing as humour. in this little ms. everything is too much patronised and condescended to, whereas the slightest touch of feeling for the rustic who is of the earth earthy, or of sisterhood with the homely servant who has made her face shine in her desire to please, would make a difference that the writer can scarcely imagine without trying it. the only relief in the twenty-one slips is the little bit about the chimes. it _is_ a relief, simply because it is an indication of some kind of sentiment. you don't want any sentiment laboriously made out in such a thing. you don't want any maudlin show of it. but you do want a pervading suggestion that it is there. it makes all the difference between being playful and being cruel. again i must say, above all things--especially to young people writing: for the love of god don't condescend! don't assume the attitude of saying, "see how clever i am, and what fun everybody else is!" take any shape but that. i observe an excellent quality of observation throughout, and think the boy at the shop, and all about him, particularly good. i have no doubt whatever that the rest of the journal will be much better if the writer chooses to make it so. if she considers for a moment within herself, she will know that she derived pleasure from everything she saw, because she saw it with innumerable lights and shades upon it, and bound to humanity by innumerable fine links; she cannot possibly communicate anything of that pleasure to another by showing it from one little limited point only, and that point, observe, the one from which it is impossible to detach the exponent as the patroness of a whole universe of inferior souls. this is what everybody would mean in objecting to these notes (supposing them to be published), that they are too smart and too flippant. as i understand this matter to be altogether between us three, and as i think your confidence, and hers, imposes a duty of friendship on me, i discharge it to the best of my ability. perhaps i make more of it than you may have meant or expected; if so, it is because i am interested and wish to express it. if there had been anything in my objection not perfectly easy of removal, i might, after all, have hesitated to state it; but that is not the case. a very little indeed would make all this gaiety as sound and wholesome and good-natured in the reader's mind as it is in the writer's. affectionately always. [sidenote: anonymous.] gad's hill place, higham, _thursday, june th, ._ my dear ---- coming home here last night, from a day's business in london, i found your most excellent note awaiting me, in which i have had a pleasure to be derived from none but good and natural things. i can now honestly assure you that i believe you will write _well_, and that i have a lively hope that i may be the means of showing you yourself in print one day. your powers of graceful and light-hearted observation need nothing but the little touches on which we are both agreed. and i am perfectly sure that they will be as pleasant to you as to anyone, for nobody can see so well as you do, without feeling kindly too. to confess the truth to you, i was half sorry, yesterday, that i had been so unreserved; but not half as sorry, yesterday, as i am glad to-day. you must not mind my adding that there is a noble candour and modesty in your note, which i shall never be able to separate from you henceforth. affectionately yours always. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] gad's hill, _saturday, june th, ._ my dear henry, here is a very serious business on the great estate respecting the water supply. last night, they had pumped the well dry merely in raising the family supply for the day; and this morning (very little water having been got into the cisterns) it is dry again! it is pretty clear to me that we must look the thing in the face, and at once bore deeper, dig, or do some beastly thing or other, to secure this necessary in abundance. meanwhile i am in a most plaintive and forlorn condition without your presence and counsel. i raise my voice in the wilderness and implore the same!!! wild legends are in circulation among the servants how that captain goldsmith on the knoll above--the skipper in that crow's-nest of a house--has millions of gallons of water always flowing for him. can he have damaged my well? can we imitate him, and have our millions of gallons? goldsmith or i must fall, so i conceive. if you get this, send me a telegraph message informing me when i may expect comfort. i am held by four of the family while i write this, in case i should do myself a mischief--it certainly won't be taking to drinking water. ever affectionately (most despairingly). [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _monday, july th, ._ my dearest macready, many thanks for your indian information. i shall act upon it in the most exact manner. walter sails next monday. charley and i go down with him to southampton next sunday. we are all delighted with the prospect of seeing you at gad's hill. these are my jerrold engagements: on friday, the th, i have to repeat my reading at st. martin's hall; on saturday, the th, to repeat "the frozen deep" at the gallery of illustration for the last time. on thursday, the th, or friday, the st, i shall probably read at manchester. deane, the general manager of the exhibition, is going down to-night, and will arrange all the preliminaries for me. if you and i went down to manchester together, and were there on a sunday, he would give us the whole exhibition to ourselves. it is probable, i think (as he estimates the receipts of a night at about seven hundred pounds), that we may, in about a fortnight or so after the reading, play "the frozen deep" at manchester. but of this contingent engagement i at present know no more than you do. now, will you, upon this exposition of affairs, choose your own time for coming to us, and, when you have made your choice, write to me at gad's hill? i am going down this afternoon for rest (which means violent cricket with the boys) after last saturday night; which was a teaser, but triumphant. the st. martin's hall audience was, i must confess, a very extraordinary thing. the two thousand and odd people were like one, and their enthusiasm was something awful. yet i have seen that before, too. your young remembrance cannot recall the man; but he flourished in my day--a great actor, sir--a noble actor--thorough artist! i have seen him do wonders in that way. he retired from the stage early in life (having a monomaniacal delusion that he was old), and is said to be still living in your county. all join in kindest love to your dear sister and all the rest. ever, my dearest macready, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, _sunday, july th, ._ my dear yates, although i date this ashore, i really write it from southampton (don't notice this fact in your reply, for i shall be in town on wednesday). i have come here on an errand which will grow familiar to you before you know that time has flapped his wings over your head. like me, you will find those babies grow to be young men before you are quite sure they are born. like me, you will have great teeth drawn with a wrench, and will only then know that you ever cut them. i am here to send walter away over what they call, in green bush melodramas, "the big drink," and i don't at all know this day how he comes to be mine, or i his. i don't write to say this--or to say how seeing charley, and he going aboard the ship before me just now, i suddenly came into possession of a photograph of my own back at sixteen and twenty, and also into a suspicion that i had doubled the last age. i merely write to mention that telbin and his wife are going down to gad's hill with us, about mid-day next sunday, and that if you and mrs. yates will come too, we shall be delighted to have you. we can give you a bed, and you can be in town (if you have such a savage necessity) by twenty minutes before ten on monday morning. i was very much pleased (as i had reason to be) with your account of the reading in _the daily news_. i thank you heartily. [sidenote: mr. t. p. cooke.] in remembrance of the late mr. douglas jerrold. committee's office, gallery of illustration, regent street, _thursday, july th, ._ my dear mr. cooke, i cannot rest satisfied this morning without writing to congratulate you on your admirable performance of last night. it was so fresh and vigorous, so manly and gallant, that i felt as if it splashed against my theatre-heated face along with the spray of the breezy sea. what i felt everybody felt; i should feel it quite an impertinence to take myself out of the crowd, therefore, if i could by any means help doing so. but i can't; so i hope you will feel that you bring me on yourself, and have only yourself to blame. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. compton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _sunday night, aug nd, ._ my dear mrs. compton, we are going to play "the frozen deep" (pursuant to requisition from town magnates, etc.) at manchester, at the new free trade hall, on the nights of friday and saturday, the st and nd august. the place is out of the question for my girls. their action could not be seen, and their voices could not be heard. you and i have played, there and elsewhere, so sociably and happily, that i am emboldened to ask you whether you would play my sister-in-law georgina's part (compton and babies permitting). we shall go down in the old pleasant way, and shall have the art treasures exhibition to ourselves on the sunday; when even "he" (as rogers always called every pretty woman's husband) might come and join us. what do you say? what does he say? and what does baby say? when i use the term "baby," i use it in two tenses--present and future. answer me at this address, like the juliet i saw at drury lane--when was it?--yesterday. and whatever your answer is, if you will say that you and compton will meet us at the north kent station, london bridge, next sunday at a quarter before one, and will come down here for a breath of sweet air and stay all night, you will give your old friends great pleasure. not least among them, yours faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _monday, aug. rd, ._ my dearest macready, i write to you in reference to your last note, as soon as i positively know our final movements in the jerrold matter. we are going to wind up by acting at manchester (on solemn requisition) on the evenings of friday and saturday, the st and nd (actresses substituted for the girls, of course). we shall have to leave here on the morning of the th. you thought of coming on the th; can't you make it a day or two earlier, so as to be with us a whole week? decide and pronounce. again, cannot you bring katey with you? decide and pronounce thereupon, also. i read at manchester last friday. as many thousand people were there as you like to name. the collection of pictures in the exhibition is wonderful. and the power with which the modern english school asserts itself is a very gratifying and delightful thing to behold. the care for the common people, in the provision made for their comfort and refreshment, is also admirable and worthy of all commendation. but they want more amusement, and particularly (as it strikes me) _something in motion_, though it were only a twisting fountain. the thing is too still after their lives of machinery, and art flies over their heads in consequence. i hope you have seen my tussle with the "edinburgh." i saw the chance last friday week, as i was going down to read the "carol" in st. martin's hall. instantly turned to, then and there, and wrote half the article. flew out of bed early next morning, and finished it by noon. went down to gallery of illustration (we acted that night), did the day's business, corrected the proofs in polar costume in dressing-room, broke up two numbers of "household words" to get it out directly, played in "frozen deep" and "uncle john," presided at supper of company, made no end of speeches, went home and gave in completely for four hours, then got sound asleep, and next day was as fresh as you used to be in the far-off days of your lusty youth. all here send kindest love to your dear good sister and all the house. ever and ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _sunday afternoon, aug. th, ._ my dear stone, now here, without any preface, is a good, confounding, stunning question for you--would you like to play "uncle john" on the two nights at manchester? it is not a long part. you could have a full rehearsal on the friday, and i could sit in the wing at night and pull you through all the business. perhaps you might not object to being in the thing in your own native place, and the relief to me would be enormous. this is what has come into my head lying in bed to-day (i have been in bed all day), and this is just my plain reason for writing to you. it's a capital part, and you are a capital old man. you know the play as we play it, and the manchester people don't. say the word, and i'll send you my own book by return of post. the agitation and exertion of richard wardour are so great to me, that i cannot rally my spirits in the short space of time i get. the strain is so great to make a show of doing it, that i want to be helped out of "uncle john" if i can. think of yourself far more than me; but if you half think you are up to the joke, and half doubt your being so, then give me the benefit of the doubt and play the part. answer me at gad's hill. ever affectionately. p.s.--if you play, i shall immediately announce it to all concerned. if you don't, i shall go on as if nothing had happened, and shall say nothing to anyone. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] gad's hill place, _saturday, aug. th, ._ my dear henry, at last, i am happy to inform you, we have got at a famous spring!! it rushed in this morning, ten foot deep. and our friends talk of its supplying "a ton a minute for yourself and your family, sir, for nevermore." they ask leave to bore ten feet lower, to prevent the possibility of what they call "a choking with sullage." likewise, they are going to insert "a rose-headed pipe;" at the mention of which implement, i am (secretly) well-nigh distracted, having no idea of what it means. but i have said "yes," besides instantly standing a bottle of gin. can you come back, and can you get down on monday morning, to advise and endeavour to decide on the mechanical force we shall use for raising the water? i would return with you, as i shall have to be in town until thursday, and then to go to manchester until the following tuesday. i send this by hand to john, to bring to you. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] gad's hill place, _monday, aug. th, ._ my dear stone, i received your kind note this morning, and write this reply here to take to london with me and post in town, being bound for that village and three days' drill of the professional ladies who are to succeed the tavistock girls. my book i enclose. there is a slight alteration (which does not affect you) at the end of the first act, in order that the piece may be played through without having the drop curtain down. you will not find the situations or business difficult, with me on the spot to put you right. now, as to the dress. you will want a pair of pumps, and a pair of white silk socks; these you can get at manchester. the extravagantly and anciently-frilled shirts that i have had got up for the part, i will bring you down; large white waistcoat, i will bring you down; large white hat, i will bring you down; dressing-gown, i will bring you down; white gloves and ditto choker you can get at manchester. there then remain only a pair of common nankeen tights, to button below the calf, and blue wedding-coat. the nankeen tights you had best get made at once; my "uncle john" coat i will send you down in a parcel by to-morrow's train, to have altered in manchester to your shape and figure. you will then be quite independent of christian chance and jewish nathan, which latter potentate is now at canterbury with the cricket amateurs, and might fail. a thursday's rehearsal is (unfortunately) now impracticable, the passes for the railway being all made out, and the company's sailing orders issued. but, as i have already suggested, with a careful rehearsal on friday morning, and with me at the wing at night to put you right, you will find yourself sliding through it easily. there is nothing in the least complicated in the business. as to the dance, you have only to knock yourself up for a twelvemonth and it will go nobly. after all, too, if you _should_, through any unlucky breakdown, come to be afraid of it, i am no worse off than i was before, if i have to do it at last. keep your pecker up with that. i am heartily obliged to you, my dear old boy, for your affectionate and considerate note, and i wouldn't have you do it, really and sincerely--immense as the relief will be to me--unless you are quite comfortable in it, and able to enjoy it. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] office of "household words," _tuesday, aug. th, ._ my dear stone, i sent you a telegraph message last night, in total contradiction of the letter you received from me this morning. the reason was simply this: arthur smith and the other business men, both in manchester and here, urged upon me, in the strongest manner, that they were afraid of the change; that it was well known in manchester that i had done the part in london; that there was a danger of its being considered disrespectful in me to give it up; also that there was a danger that it might be thought that i did so at the last minute, after an immense let, whereas i might have done it at first, etc. etc. etc. having no desire but for the success of our object, and a becoming recognition on my part of the kind manchester public's cordiality, i gave way, and thought it best to go on. i do so against the grain, and against every inclination, and against the strongest feeling of gratitude to you. my people at home will be miserable too when they hear i am going to do it. if i could have heard from you sooner, and got the bill out sooner, i should have been firmer in considering my own necessity of relief. as it is, i sneak under; and i hope you will feel the reasons, and approve. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] gad's hill place, _wednesday, sept. nd, ._ my dear henry, the second conspirator has been here this morning to ask whether you wish the windlass to be left in the yard, and whether you will want him and his mate any more, and, if so, when? of course he says (rolling something in the form of a fillet in at one broken tooth all the while, and rolling it out at another) that they could wish fur to have the windlass if it warn't any ways a hill conwenience fur to fetch her away. i have told him that if he will come back on friday he shall have your reply. will you, therefore, send it me by return of post? he says he'll "look up" (as if he was an astronomer) "a friday arterdinner." on monday i am going away with collins for ten days or a fortnight, on a "tour in search of an article" for "household words." we have not the least idea where we are going; but _he_ says, "let's look at the norfolk coast," and _i_ say, "let's look at the back of the atlantic." i don't quite know what i mean by that; but have a general impression that i mean something knowing. i am horribly used up after the jerrold business. low spirits, low pulse, low voice, intense reaction. if i were not like mr. micawber, "falling back for a spring" on monday, i think i should slink into a corner and cry. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] allonby, cumberland, _wednesday night, sept. th, ._ my dear georgy, * * * * * think of collins's usual luck with me! we went up a cumberland mountain yesterday--a huge black hill, fifteen hundred feet high. we took for a guide a capital innkeeper hard by. it rained in torrents--as it only does rain in a hill country--the whole time. at the top, there were black mists and the darkness of night. it then came out that the innkeeper had not been up for twenty years, and he lost his head and himself altogether; and we couldn't get down again! what wonders the inimitable performed with his compass until it broke with the heat and wet of his pocket no matter; it did break, and then we wandered about, until it was clear to the inimitable that the night must be passed there, and the enterprising travellers probably die of cold. we took our own way about coming down, struck, and declared that the guide might wander where he would, but we would follow a watercourse we lighted upon, and which must come at last to the river. this necessitated amazing gymnastics; in the course of which performances, collins fell into the said watercourse with his ankle sprained, and the great ligament of the foot and leg swollen i don't know how big. how i enacted wardour over again in carrying him down, and what a business it was to get him down; i may say in gibbs's words: "vi lascio a giudicare!" but he was got down somehow, and we got off the mountain somehow; and now i carry him to bed, and into and out of carriages, exactly like wardour in private life. i don't believe he will stand for a month to come. he has had a doctor, and can wear neither shoe nor stocking, and has his foot wrapped up in a flannel waistcoat, and has a breakfast saucer of liniment, and a horrible dabbling of lotion incessantly in progress. we laugh at it all, but i doubt very much whether he can go on to doncaster. it will be a miserable blow to our h. w. scheme, and i say nothing about it as yet; but he is really so crippled that i doubt the getting him there. we have resolved to fall to work to-morrow morning and begin our writing; and there, for the present, that point rests. this is a little place with fifty houses, five bathing-machines, five girls in straw hats, five men in straw hats, and no other company. the little houses are all in half-mourning--yellow stone on white stone, and black; and it reminds me of what broadstairs might have been if it had not inherited a cliff, and had been an irishman. but this is a capital little homely inn, looking out upon the sea; and we are really very comfortably lodged. i can just stand upright in my bedroom. otherwise, it is a good deal like one of ballard's top-rooms. we have a very obliging and comfortable landlady; and it is a clean nice place in a rough wild country. we came here haphazard, but could not have done better. we lay last night at a place called wigton--also in half-mourning--with the wonderful peculiarity that it had no population, no business, no streets to speak of; but five linendrapers within range of our small windows, one linendraper's next door, and five more linendrapers round the corner. i ordered a night-light in my bedroom. a queer little old woman brought me one of the common child's night-lights, and seeming to think that i looked at it with interest, said: "it's joost a vara keeyourious thing, sir, and joost new coom oop. it'll burn awt hoors a' end, an no gootther, nor no waste, nor ony sike a thing, if you can creedit what i say, seein' the airticle." of course _i_ shall go to doncaster, whether or no (please god), and my postage directions to you remain unchanged. love to mamey, katey, charley, harry, and the darling plorn. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] lancaster, _saturday night, sept. th, ._ my dear georgy, i received your letter at allonby yesterday, and was delighted to get it. we came back to carlisle last night (to a capital inn, kept by breach's brother), and came on here to-day. we are on our way to doncaster; but sabbath observance throws all the trains out; and although it is not a hundred miles from here, we shall have, as well as i can make out the complicated lists of trains, to sleep at leeds--which i particularly detest as an odious place--to-morrow night. accustomed as you are to the homage which men delight to render to the inimitable, you would be scarcely prepared for the proportions it assumes in this northern country. station-masters assist him to alight from carriages, deputations await him in hotel entries, innkeepers bow down before him and put him into regal rooms, the town goes down to the platform to see him off, and collins's ankle goes into the newspapers!!! it is a great deal better than it was, and he can get into new hotels and up the stairs with two thick sticks, like an admiral in a farce. his spirits have improved in a corresponding degree, and he contemplates cheerfully the keeping house at doncaster. i thought (as i told you) he would never have gone there, but he seems quite up to the mark now. of course he can never walk out, or see anything of any place. we have done our first paper for h. w., and sent it up to the printer's. the landlady of the little inn at allonby lived at greta bridge, in yorkshire, when i went down there before "nickleby," and was smuggled into the room to see me, when i was secretly found out. she is an immensely fat woman now. "but i could tuck my arm round her waist then, mr. dickens," the landlord said when she told me the story as i was going to bed the night before last. "and can't you do it now," i said, "you insensible dog? look at me! here's a picture!" accordingly, i got round as much of her as i could; and this gallant action was the most successful i have ever performed, on the whole. i think it was the dullest little place i ever entered; and what with the monotony of an idle sea, and what with the monotony of another sea in the room (occasioned by collins's perpetually holding his ankle over a pail of salt water, and laving it with a milk jug), i struck yesterday, and came away. we are in a very remarkable old house here, with genuine old rooms and an uncommonly quaint staircase. i have a state bedroom, with two enormous red four-posters in it, each as big as charley's room at gad's hill. bellew is to preach here to-morrow. "and we know he is a friend of yours, sir," said the landlord, when he presided over the serving of the dinner (two little salmon trout; a sirloin steak; a brace of partridges; seven dishes of sweets; five dishes of dessert, led off by a bowl of peaches; and in the centre an enormous bride-cake--"we always have it here, sir," said the landlord, "custom of the house.") (collins turned pale, and estimated the dinner at half a guinea each.) this is the stupidest of letters, but all description is gone, or going, into "the lazy tour of two idle apprentices." kiss the darling plorn, who is often in my thoughts. best love to charley, mamey, and katie. i will write to you again from doncaster, where i shall be rejoiced to find another letter from you. ever affectionately, my dearest georgy. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] angel hotel, doncaster, _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear georgy, i found your letter here on my arrival yesterday. i had hoped that the wall would have been almost finished by this time, and the additions to the house almost finished too--but patience, patience! we have very good, clean, and quiet apartments here, on the second floor, looking down into the main street, which is full of horse jockeys, bettors, drunkards, and other blackguards, from morning to night--and all night. the races begin to-day and last till friday, which is the cup day. i am not going to the course this morning, but have engaged a carriage (open, and pair) for to-morrow and friday. "the frozen deep's" author gets on as well as could be expected. he can hobble up and down stairs when absolutely necessary, and limps to his bedroom on the same floor. he talks of going to the theatre to-night in a cab, which will be the first occasion of his going out, except to travel, since the accident. he sends his kind regards and thanks for enquiries and condolence. i am perpetually tidying the rooms after him, and carrying all sorts of untidy things which belong to him into his bedroom, which is a picture of disorder. you will please to imagine mine, airy and clean, little dressing-room attached, eight water-jugs (i never saw such a supply), capital sponge-bath, perfect arrangement, and exquisite neatness. we breakfast at half-past eight, and fall to work for h. w. afterwards. then i go out, and--hem! look for subjects. the mayor called this morning to do the honours of the town, whom it pleased the inimitable to receive with great courtesy and affability. he propounded invitation to public _déjeûner_, which it did _not_ please the inimitable to receive, and which he graciously rejected. that's all the news. everything i can describe by hook or by crook, i describe for h. w. so there is nothing of that sort left for letters. best love to dear mamey and katey, and to charley, and to harry. any number of kisses to the noble plorn. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] gad's hill place, _saturday evening, oct. rd, ._ my dear sir, i have had the honour and pleasure of receiving your letter of the th of last month, informing me of the distinction that has been conferred upon me by the council of the birmingham and midland institute. allow me to assure you with much sincerity, that i am highly gratified by having been elected one of the first honorary members of that establishment. nothing could have enhanced my interest in so important an undertaking; but the compliment is all the more welcome to me on that account. i accept it with a due sense of its worth, with many acknowledgments and with all good wishes. i am ever, my dear sir, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, _monday night, nov. th, ._ my dear yates, i retain the story with pleasure; and i need not tell you that you are not mistaken in the last lines of your note. excuse me, on that ground, if i say a word or two as to what i think (i mention it with a view to the future) might be better in the paper. the opening is excellent. but it passes too completely into the irishman's narrative, does not light it up with the life about it, or the circumstances under which it is delivered, and does not carry through it, as i think it should with a certain indefinable subtleness, the thread with which you begin your weaving. i will tell wills to send me the proof, and will try to show you what i mean when i shall have gone over it carefully. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _wednesday, dec. th, ._ my dear stone, i find on enquiry that the "general theatrical fund" has relieved non-members in one or two instances; but that it is exceedingly unwilling to do so, and would certainly not do so again, saving on some very strong and exceptional case. as its trustee, i could not represent to it that i think it ought to sail into those open waters, for i very much doubt the justice of such cruising, with a reference to the interests of the patient people who support it out of their small earnings. affectionately ever. footnotes: [ ] the part played in "the frozen deep" by its author, mr. wilkie collins. [ ] the earl of carlisle was at this time viceroy of ireland. book iii. to . . narrative. all through this year, charles dickens was constantly moving about from place to place. after much and careful consideration, he had come to the determination of, for the future, giving readings for his own benefit. and although in the spring of this year he gave one reading of his "christmas carol" for a charity, all the other readings, beginning from the th april, and ever after, were for himself. in the autumn of this year he made reading tours in england, scotland, and ireland, always accompanied by his friend and secretary, mr. arthur smith. at newcastle, charles dickens was joined by his daughters, who accompanied him in his scotch tour. the letters to his sister-in-law, and to his eldest daughter, are all given here, and will be given in all future reading tours, as they form a complete diary of his life and movements at these times. to avoid the constant repetition of the two names, the beginning of the letters will be dispensed with in all cases where they follow each other in unbroken succession. the mr. frederick lehmann mentioned in the letter written from sheffield, had married a daughter of mr. robert chambers, and niece of mrs. wills. coming to settle in london a short time after this date, mr. and mrs. lehmann became intimately known to charles dickens and his family--more especially to his eldest daughter, to whom they have been, and are, the kindest and truest of friends. the "pretty little boy" mentioned as being under mrs. wills's care, was their eldest son. we give the letter to mr. thackeray, not because it is one of very great interest, but because, being the only one we have, we are glad to have the two names associated together in this work. the "little speech" alluded to in this first letter to mr. macready was one made by charles dickens at a public dinner, which was given in aid of the hospital for sick children, in great ormond street. he afterwards (early in april) gave a reading from his "christmas carol" for this same charity. the christmas number of "household words," mentioned in a letter to mr. wilkie collins, was called "a house to let," and contained stories written by charles dickens, mr. wilkie collins, and other contributors to "household words." [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _sunday, jan. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i am very sorry to receive so bad an account of the foot. but i hope it is all in the past tense now. i met with an incident the other day, which i think is a good deal in your way, for introduction either into a long or short story. dr. sutherland and dr. monro went over st. luke's with me (only last friday), to show me some distinctly and remarkably developed types of insanity. among other patients, we passed a deaf and dumb man, now afflicted with incurable madness too, of whom they said that it was only when his madness began to develop itself in strongly-marked mad actions, that it began to be suspected. "though it had been there, no doubt, some time." this led me to consider, suspiciously, what employment he had been in, and so to ask the question. "aye," says dr. sutherland, "that is the most remarkable thing of all, mr. dickens. he was employed in the transmission of electric-telegraph messages; and it is impossible to conceive what delirious despatches that man may have been sending about all over the world!" rejoiced to hear such good report of the play. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, _tuesday, feb. nd, ._ my dear yates, your quotation is, as i supposed, all wrong. the text is _not_ "which his 'owls was organs." when mr. harris went into an empty dog-kennel, to spare his sensitive nature the anguish of overhearing mrs. harris's exclamations on the occasion of the birth of her first child (the princess royal of the harris family), "he never took his hands away from his ears, or came out once, till he was showed the baby." on encountering that spectacle, he was (being of a weakly constitution) "took with fits." for this distressing complaint he was medically treated; the doctor "collared him, and laid him on his back upon the airy stones"--please to observe what follows--"and she was told, to ease her mind, his 'owls was organs." that is to say, mrs. harris, lying exhausted on her bed, in the first sweet relief of freedom from pain, merely covered with the counterpane, and not yet "put comfortable," hears a noise apparently proceeding from the back-yard, and says, in a flushed and hysterical manner: "what 'owls are those? who is a-'owling? not my ugebond?" upon which the doctor, looking round one of the bottom posts of the bed, and taking mrs. harris's pulse in a reassuring manner, says, with much admirable presence of mind: "howls, my dear madam?--no, no, no! what are we thinking of? howls, my dear mrs. harris? ha, ha, ha! organs, ma'am, organs. organs in the streets, mrs. harris; no howls." yours faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. m. thackeray.] tavistock house, _tuesday, feb. nd, ._ my dear thackeray, the wisdom of parliament, in that expensive act of its greatness which constitutes the guild, prohibits that corporation _from doing anything_ until it shall have existed in a perfectly useless condition for seven years. this clause (introduced by some private-bill magnate of official might) seemed so ridiculous, that nobody could believe it to have this meaning; but as i felt clear about it when we were on the very verge of granting an excellent literary annuity, i referred the point to counsel, and my construction was confirmed without a doubt. it is therefore needless to enquire whether an association in the nature of a provident society could address itself to such a case as you confide to me. the prohibition has still two or three years of life in it. but, assuming the gentleman's title to be considered as an "author" as established, there is no question that it comes within the scope of the literary fund. they would habitually "lend" money if they did what i consider to be their duty; as it is they only give money, but they give it in such instances. i have forwarded the envelope to the society of arts, with a request that they will present it to prince albert, approaching h.r.h. in the siamese manner. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] tavistock house, _wednesday night, feb. rd, ._ my dear forster, i beg to report two phenomena: . an excellent little play in one act, by marston, at the lyceum; title, "a hard struggle;" as good as "la joie fait peur," though not at all like it. . capital acting in the same play, by mr. dillon. real good acting, in imitation of nobody, and honestly made out by himself!! i went (at marston's request) last night, and cried till i sobbed again. i have not seen a word about it from oxenford. but it is as wholesome and manly a thing altogether as i have seen for many a day. (i would have given a hundred pounds to have played mr. dillon's part). love to mrs. forster. ever affectionately. [sidenote: dr. westland marston.] tavistock house, _wednesday, feb. rd, ._ my dear marston, i most heartily and honestly congratulate you on your charming little piece. it moved me more than i could easily tell you, if i were to try. except "la joie fait peur," i have seen nothing nearly so good, and there is a subtlety in the comfortable presentation of the child who is to become a devoted woman for reuben's sake, which goes a long way beyond madame de girardin. i am at a loss to let you know how much i admired it last night, or how heartily i cried over it. a touching idea, most delicately conceived and wrought out by a true artist and poet, in a spirit of noble, manly generosity, that no one should be able to study without great emotion. it is extremely well acted by all concerned; but mr. dillon's performance is really admirable, and deserving of the highest commendation. it is good in these days to see an actor taking such pains, and expressing such natural and vigorous sentiment. there is only one thing i should have liked him to change. i am much mistaken if any man--least of all any such man--would crush a letter written by the hand of the woman he loved. hold it to his heart unconsciously and look about for it the while, he might; or he might do any other thing with it that expressed a habit of tenderness and affection in association with the idea of her; but he would never crush it under any circumstances. he would as soon crush her heart. you will see how closely i went with him, by my minding so slight an incident in so fine a performance. there is no one who could approach him in it; and i am bound to add that he surprised me as much as he pleased me. i think it might be worth while to try the people at the français with the piece. they are very good in one-act plays; such plays take well there, and this seems to me well suited to them. if you would like samson or regnier to read the play (in english), i know them well, and would be very glad indeed to tell them that i sent it with your sanction because i had been so much struck by it. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, london, w.c., _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dear regnier, i want you to read the enclosed little play. you will see that it is in one act--about the length of "la joie fait pour." it is now acting at the lyceum theatre here, with very great success. the author is mr. westland marston, a dramatic writer of reputation, who wrote a very well-known tragedy called "the patrician's daughter," in which macready and miss faucit acted (under macready's management at drury lane) some years ago. this little piece is so very powerful on the stage, its interest is so simple and natural, and the part of reuben is such a very fine one, that i cannot help thinking you might make one grand _coup_ with it, if with your skilful hand you arranged it for the français. i have communicated this idea of mine to the author, "_et là-dessus je vous écris_." i am anxious to know your opinion, and shall expect with much interest to receive a little letter from you at your convenience. mrs. dickens, miss hogarth, and all the house send a thousand kind loves and regards to madame regnier and the dear little boys. you will bring them to london when you come, with all the force of the français--will you not? ever, my dear regnier, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, _saturday, feb. th, ._ my dear regnier, let me thank you with all my heart for your most patient and kind letter. i made its contents known to mr. marston, and i enclose you his reply. you will see that he cheerfully leaves the matter in your hands, and abides by your opinion and discretion. you need not return his letter, my friend. there is great excitement here this morning, in consequence of the failure of the ministry last night to carry the bill they brought in to please your emperor and his troops. _i_, for one, am extremely glad of their defeat. "le vieux p----," i have no doubt, will go staggering down the rue de la paix to-day, with his stick in his hand and his hat on one side, predicting the downfall of everything, in consequence of this event. his handwriting shakes more and more every quarter, and i think he mixes a great deal of cognac with his ink. he always gives me some astonishing piece of news (which is never true), or some suspicious public prophecy (which is never verified), and he always tells me he is dying (which he never is). adieu, my dear regnier, accept a thousand thanks from me, and believe me, now and always, your affectionate and faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _march th, ._ my dearest macready, i have safely received your cheque this morning, and will hand it over forthwith to the honorary secretary of the hospital. i hope you have read the little speech in the hospital's publication of it. they had it taken by their own shorthand-writer, and it is done verbatim. you may be sure that it is a good and kind charity. it is amazing to me that it is not at this day ten times as large and rich as it is. but i hope and trust that i have happily been able to give it a good thrust onward into a great course. we all send our most affectionate love to all the house. i am devising all sorts of things in my mind, and am in a state of energetic restlessness incomprehensible to the calm philosophers of dorsetshire. what a dream it is, this work and strife, and how little we do in the dream after all! only last night, in my sleep, i was bent upon getting over a perspective of barriers, with my hands and feet bound. pretty much what we are all about, waking, i think? but, lord! (as i said before) you smile pityingly, not bitterly, at this hubbub, and moralise upon it, in the calm evenings when there is no school at sherborne. ever affectionately and truly. [sidenote: mrs hogge.[ ]] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday, april th, ._ my dear mrs. hogge, after the profoundest cogitation, i come reluctantly to the conclusion that i do not know that orphan. if you were the lady in want of him, i should certainly offer _myself_. but as you are not, i will not hear of the situation. it is wonderful to think how many charming little people there must be, to whom this proposal would be like a revelation from heaven. why don't i know one, and come to kensington, boy in hand, as if i had walked (i wish to god i had) out of a fairy tale! but no, i do _not_ know that orphan. he is crying somewhere, by himself, at this moment. i can't dry his eyes. he is being neglected by some ogress of a nurse. i can't rescue him. i will make a point of going to the athenæum on monday night; and if i had five hundred votes to give, mr. macdonald should have them all, for your sake. i grieve to hear that you have been ill, but i hope that the spring, when it comes, will find you blooming with the rest of the flowers. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday, april th, ._ my dear yates, for a good many years i have suffered a great deal from charities, but never anything like what i suffer now. the amount of correspondence they inflict upon me is really incredible. but this is nothing. benevolent men get behind the piers of the gates, lying in wait for my going out; and when i peep shrinkingly from my study-windows, i see their pot-bellied shadows projected on the gravel. benevolent bullies drive up in hansom cabs (with engraved portraits of their benevolent institutions hanging over the aprons, like banners on their outward walls), and stay long at the door. benevolent area-sneaks get lost in the kitchens and are found to impede the circulation of the knife-cleaning machine. my man has been heard to say (at the burton arms) "that if it was a wicious place, well and good--_that_ an't door work; but that wen all the christian wirtues is always a-shoulderin' and a-helberin' on you in the 'all, a-tryin' to git past you and cut upstairs into master's room, why no wages as you couldn't name wouldn't make it up to you." persecuted ever. [sidenote: mrs yates.] (the charming actress, the mother of mr. edmund yates.) tavistock house, tavistock square, w.c., _saturday evening, may th, ._ my dear mrs. yates, pray believe that i was sorry with all my heart to miss you last thursday, and to learn the occasion of your absence; also that, whenever you can come, your presence will give me a new interest in that evening. no one alive can have more delightful associations with the lightest sound of your voice than i have; and to give you a minute's interest and pleasure, in acknowledgment of the uncountable hours of happiness you gave me when you were a mysterious angel to me, would honestly gratify my heart. very faithfully and gratefully yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill, _wednesday, july th, ._ my dear cerjat, i should vainly try to tell you--so i _won't_ try--how affected i have been by your warm-hearted letter, or how thoroughly well convinced i always am of the truth and earnestness of your friendship. i thank you, my dear, dear fellow, with my whole soul. i fervently return that friendship and i highly cherish it. you want to know all about me? i am still reading in london every thursday, and the audiences are very great, and the success immense. on the nd of august i am going away on a tour of some four months in england, ireland, and scotland. i shall read, during that time, not fewer than four or five times a week. it will be sharp work; but probably a certain musical clinking will come of it, which will mitigate the hardship. at this present moment i am on my little kentish freehold (_not_ in top-boots, and not particularly prejudiced that i know of), looking on as pretty a view out of my study window as you will find in a long day's english ride. my little place is a grave red brick house (time of george the first, i suppose), which i have added to and stuck bits upon in all manner of ways, so that it is as pleasantly irregular, and as violently opposed to all architectural ideas, as the most hopeful man could possibly desire. it is on the summit of gad's hill. the robbery was committed before the door, on the man with the treasure, and falstaff ran away from the identical spot of ground now covered by the room in which i write. a little rustic alehouse, called the sir john falstaff, is over the way--has been over the way, ever since, in honour of the event. cobham woods and park are behind the house; the distant thames in front; the medway, with rochester, and its old castle and cathedral, on one side. the whole stupendous property is on the old dover road, so when you come, come by the north kent railway (not the south-eastern) to strood or higham, and i'll drive over to fetch you. the blessed woods and fields have done me a world of good, and i am quite myself again. the children are all as happy as children can be. my eldest daughter, mary, keeps house, with a state and gravity becoming that high position; wherein she is assisted by her sister katie, and by her aunt georgina, who is, and always has been, like another sister. two big dogs, a bloodhound and a st. bernard, direct from a convent of that name, where i think you once were, are their principal attendants in the green lanes. these latter instantly untie the neckerchiefs of all tramps and prowlers who approach their presence, so that they wander about without any escort, and drive big horses in basket-phaetons through murderous bye-ways, and never come to grief. they are very curious about your daughters, and send all kinds of loves to them and to mrs. cerjat, in which i heartily join. you will have read in the papers that the thames in london is most horrible. i have to cross waterloo or london bridge to get to the railroad when i come down here, and i can certify that the offensive smells, even in that short whiff, have been of a most head-and-stomach-distending nature. nobody knows what is to be done; at least everybody knows a plan, and everybody else knows it won't do; in the meantime cartloads of chloride of lime are shot into the filthy stream, and do something i hope. you will know, before you get this, that the american telegraph line has parted again, at which most men are sorry, but very few surprised. this is all the news, except that there is an italian opera at drury lane, price eighteenpence to the pit, where viardot, by far the greatest artist of them all, sings, and which is full when the dear opera can't let a box; and except that the weather has been exceptionally hot, but is now quite cool. on the top of this hill it has been cold, actually cold at night, for more than a week past. i am going over to rochester to post this letter, and must write another to townshend before i go. my dear cerjat, i have written lightly enough, because i want you to know that i am becoming cheerful and hearty. god bless you! i love you, and i know that you love me. ever your attached and affectionate. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] west hoe, plymouth, _thursday, aug. th, ._ my dearest georgy, i received your letter this morning with the greatest pleasure, and read it with the utmost interest in all its domestic details. we had a most wonderful night at exeter. it is to be regretted that we cannot take the place again on our way back. it was a prodigious cram, and we turned away no end of people. but not only that, i think they were the finest audience i have ever read to. i don't think i ever read, in some respects, so well; and i never beheld anything like the personal affection which they poured out upon me at the end. it was really a very remarkable sight, and i shall always look back upon it with pleasure. last night here was not so bright. there are quarrels of the strangest kind between the plymouth people and the stonehouse people. the room is at stonehouse (tracy says the wrong room; there being a plymouth room in this hotel, and he being a plymouthite). we had a fair house, but not at all a great one. all the notabilities come this morning to "little dombey," for which we have let one hundred and thirty stalls, which local admiration of local greatness considers very large. for "mrs. gamp and the boots," to-night, we have also a very promising let. but the races are on, and there are two public balls to-night, and the yacht squadron are all at cherbourg to boot. arthur is of opinion that "two sixties" will do very well for us. i doubt the "two sixties" myself. _mais nous verrons._ the room is a very handsome one, but it is on the top of a windy and muddy hill, leading (literally) to nowhere; and it looks (except that it is new and _mortary_) as if the subsidence of the waters after the deluge might have left it where it is. i have to go right through the company to get to the platform. big doors slam and resound when anybody comes in; and all the company seem afraid of one another. nevertheless they were a sensible audience last night, and much impressed and pleased. tracy is in the room (wandering about, and never finishing a sentence), and sends all manner of sea-loves to you and the dear girls. i send all manner of land-loves to you from myself, out of my heart of hearts, and also to my dear plorn and the boys. arthur sends his kindest love. he knows only two characters. he is either always corresponding, like a secretary of state, or he is transformed into a rout-furniture dealer of rathbone place, and drags forms about with the greatest violence, without his coat. i have no time to add another word. ever, dearest georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss dickens.] london, _saturday, aug. th, ._ my dearest mamey, the closing night at plymouth was a very great scene, and the morning there was exceedingly good too. you will be glad to hear that at clifton last night, a torrent of five hundred shillings bore arthur away, pounded him against the wall, flowed on to the seats over his body, scratched him, and damaged his best dress suit. all to his unspeakable joy. this is a very short letter, but i am going to the burlington arcade, desperately resolved to have all those wonderful instruments put into operation on my head, with a view to refreshing it. kindest love to georgy and to all. ever your affectionate. [sidenote: miss dickens.] shrewsbury, _thursday, aug. th, ._ a wonderful audience last night at wolverhampton. if such a thing can be, they were even quicker and more intelligent than the audience i had in edinburgh. they were so wonderfully good and were so much on the alert this morning by nine o'clock for another reading, that we are going back there at about our bradford time. i never saw such people. and the local agent would take no money, and charge no expenses of his own. this place looks what plorn would call "ortily" dull. local agent predicts, however, "great satisfaction to mr. dickens, and excellent attendance." i have just been to look at the hall, where everything was wrong, and where i have left arthur making a platform for me out of dining-tables. if he comes back in time, i am not quite sure but that he is himself going to write to gad's hill. we talk of coming up from chester _in the night to-morrow, after the reading_; and of showing our precious selves at an apparently impossibly early hour in the gad's hill breakfast-room on saturday morning. i have not felt the fatigue to any extent worth mentioning; though i get, every night, into the most violent heats. we are going to dine at three o'clock (it wants a quarter now) and have not been here two hours, so i have seen nothing of clement. tell georgy with my love, that i read in the same room in which we acted, but at the end opposite to that where our stage was. we are not at the inn where the amateur company put up, but at the lion, where the fair miss mitchell was lodged alone. we have the strangest little rooms (sitting-room and two bed-rooms all together), the ceilings of which i can touch with my hand. the windows bulge out over the street, as if they were little stern-windows in a ship. and a door opens out of the sitting-room on to a little open gallery with plants in it, where one leans over a queer old rail, and looks all downhill and slant-wise at the crookedest black and yellow old houses, all manner of shapes except straight shapes. to get into this room we come through a china closet; and the man in laying the cloth has actually knocked down, in that repository, two geraniums and napoleon bonaparte. i think that's all i have to say, except that at the wolverhampton theatre they played "oliver twist" last night (mr. toole the artful dodger), "in consequence of the illustrious author honouring the town with his presence." we heard that the device succeeded very well, and that they got a good many people. john's spirits have been equable and good since we rejoined him. berry has always got something the matter with his digestion--seems to me the male gender of maria jolly, and ought to take nothing but revalenta arabica. bottled ale is not to be got in these parts, and arthur is thrown upon draught. my dearest love to georgy and to katey, also to marguerite. also to all the boys and the noble plorn. ever your affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday morning, aug. th, ._ i write this hurried line before starting, to report that my cold is decidedly better, thank god (though still bad), and that i hope to be able to stagger through to-night. after dinner yesterday i began to recover my voice, and i think i sang half the irish melodies to myself, as i walked about to test it. i got home at half-past ten, and mustard-poulticed and barley-watered myself tremendously. love to the dear girls, and to all. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _friday night, aug. th, ._ i received your welcome and interesting letter to-day, and i write you a very hurried and bad reply; but it is _after the reading_, and you will take the will for the deed under these trying circumstances, i know. we have had a tremendous night; the largest house i have ever had since i first began--two thousand three hundred people. to-morrow afternoon, at three, i read again. my cold has been oppressive, and is not yet gone. i have been very hard to sleep too, and last night i was all but sleepless. this morning i was very dull and seedy; but i got a good walk, and picked up again. it has been blowing all day, and i fear we shall have a sick passage over to dublin to-morrow night. tell mamie (with my dear love to her and katie) that i will write to her from dublin--probably on sunday. tell her too that the stories she told me in her letter were not only capital stories in themselves, but _excellently told_ too. what arthur's state has been to-night--he, john, berry, and boylett, all taking money and going mad together--you _cannot_ imagine. they turned away hundreds, sold all the books, rolled on the ground of my room knee-deep in checks, and made a perfect pantomime of the whole thing. he has kept quite well, i am happy to say, and sends a hundred loves. in great haste and fatigue. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens.] morrison's hotel, dublin, _monday, aug. rd, ._ we had a nasty crossing here. we left holyhead at one in the morning, and got here at six. arthur was incessantly sick the whole way. i was not sick at all, but was in as healthy a condition otherwise as humanity need be. we are in a beautiful hotel. our sitting-room is exactly like the drawing-room at the peschiere in all its dimensions. i never saw two rooms so exactly resembling one another in their proportions. our bedrooms too are excellent, and there are baths and all sorts of comforts. the lord lieutenant is away, and the place looks to me as if its professional life were away too. nevertheless, there are numbers of people in the streets. somehow, i hardly seem to think we are going to do enormously here; but i have scarcely any reason for supposing so (except that a good many houses are shut up); and i _know_ nothing about it, for arthur is now gone to the agent and to the room. the men came by boat direct from liverpool. they had a rough passage, were all ill, and did not get here till noon yesterday. donnybrook fair, or what remains of it, is going on, within two or three miles of dublin. they went out there yesterday in a jaunting-car, and john described it to us at dinner-time (with his eyebrows lifted up, and his legs well asunder), as "johnny brooks's fair;" at which arthur, who was drinking bitter ale, nearly laughed himself to death. berry is always unfortunate, and when i asked what had happened to berry on board the steamboat, it appeared that "an irish gentleman which was drunk, and fancied himself the captain, wanted to knock berry down." i am surprised by finding this place very much larger than i had supposed it to be. its bye-parts are bad enough, but cleaner, too, than i had supposed them to be, and certainly very much cleaner than the old town of edinburgh. the man who drove our jaunting-car yesterday hadn't a piece in his coat as big as a penny roll, and had had his hat on (apparently without brushing it) ever since he was grown up. but he was remarkably intelligent and agreeable, with something to say about everything. for instance, when i asked him what a certain building was, he didn't say "courts of law" and nothing else, but: "av you plase, sir, it's the foor coorts o' looyers, where misther o'connell stood his trial wunst, ye'll remimber, sir, afore i tell ye of it." when we got into the phoenix park, he looked round him as if it were his own, and said: "that's a park, sir, av yer plase." i complimented it, and he said: "gintlemen tills me as they'r bin, sir, over europe, and never see a park aqualling ov it. 'tis eight mile roond, sir, ten mile and a half long, and in the month of may the hawthorn trees are as beautiful as brides with their white jewels on. yonder's the vice-regal lodge, sir; in them two corners lives the two sicretirries, wishing i was them, sir. there's air here, sir, av yer plase! there's scenery here, sir! there's mountains--thim, sir! yer coonsider it a park, sir? it is that, sir!" you should have heard john in my bedroom this morning endeavouring to imitate a bath-man, who had resented his interference, and had said as to the shower-bath: "yer'll not be touching _that_, young man. divil a touch yer'll touch o' that insthrument, young man!" it was more ridiculously unlike the reality than i can express to you, yet he was so delighted with his powers that he went off in the absurdest little gingerbeery giggle, backing into my portmanteau all the time. my dear love to katie and to georgy, also to the noble plorn and all the boys. i shall write to katie next, and then to aunty. my cold, i am happy to report, is very much better. i lay in the wet all night on deck, on board the boat, but am not as yet any the worse for it. arthur was quite insensible when we got to dublin, and stared at our luggage without in the least offering to claim it. he left his kindest love for all before he went out. i will keep the envelope open until he comes in. ever, my dearest mamie, your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] morrison's hotel, dublin, _wednesday, aug. th, ._ i begin my letter to you to-day, though i don't know when i may send it off. we had a very good house last night, after all, that is to say, a great rush of shillings and good half-crowns, though the stalls were comparatively few. for "little dombey," this morning, we have an immense stall let--already more than two hundred--and people are now fighting in the agent's shop to take more. through some mistake of our printer's, the evening reading for this present wednesday was dropped, in a great part of the announcements, and the agent opened no plan for it. i have therefore resolved not to have it at all. arthur smith has waylaid me in all manner of ways, but i remain obdurate. i am frightfully tired, and really relieved by the prospect of an evening--overjoyed. they were a highly excitable audience last night, but they certainly did not comprehend--internally and intellectually comprehend--"the chimes" as a london audience do. i am quite sure of it. i very much doubt the irish capacity of receiving the pathetic; but of their quickness as to the humorous there can be no doubt. i shall see how they go along with little paul, in his death, presently. while i was at breakfast this morning, a general officer was announced with great state--having a staff at the door--and came in, booted and plumed, and covered with crimean decorations. it was cunninghame, whom we knew in genoa--then a captain. he was very hearty indeed, and came to ask me to dinner. of course i couldn't go. olliffe has a brother at cork, who has just now (noon) written to me, proposing dinners and excursions in that neighbourhood which would fill about a week; i being there a day and a half, and reading three times. the work will be very severe here, and i begin to feel depressed by it. (by "here," i mean ireland generally, please to observe.) we meant, as i said in a letter to katie, to go to queenstown yesterday and bask on the seashore. but there is always so much to do that we couldn't manage it after all. we expect a tremendous house to-morrow night as well as to-day; and arthur is at the present instant up to his eyes in business (and seats), and, between his regret at losing to-night, and his desire to make the room hold twice as many as it _will_ hold, is half distracted. i have become a wonderful irishman--must play an irish part some day--and his only relaxation is when i enact "john and the boots," which i consequently do enact all day long. the papers are full of remarks upon my white tie, and describe it as being of enormous size, which is a wonderful delusion, because, as you very well know, it is a small tie. generally, i am happy to report, the emerald press is in favour of my appearance, and likes my eyes. but one gentleman comes out with a letter at cork, wherein he says that although only forty-six i look like an old man. _he_ is a rum customer, i think. the rutherfords are living here, and wanted me to dine with them, which, i needn't say, could not be done; all manner of people have called, but i have seen only two. john has given it up altogether as to rivalry with the boots, and did not come into my room this morning at all. boots appeared triumphant and alone. he was waiting for me at the hotel-door last night. "whaa't sart of a hoose, sur?" he asked me. "capital." "the lard be praised fur the 'onor o' dooblin!" arthur buys bad apples in the streets and brings them home and doesn't eat them, and then i am obliged to put them in the balcony because they make the room smell faint. also he meets countrymen with honeycomb on their heads, and leads them (by the buttonhole when they have one) to this gorgeous establishment and requests the bar to buy honeycomb for his breakfast; then it stands upon the sideboard uncovered and the flies fall into it. he buys owls, too, and castles, and other horrible objects, made in bog-oak (that material which is not appreciated at gad's hill); and he is perpetually snipping pieces out of newspapers and sending them all over the world. while i am reading he conducts the correspondence, and his great delight is to show me seventeen or eighteen letters when i come, exhausted, into the retiring-place. berry has not got into any particular trouble for forty-eight hours, except that he is all over boils. i have prescribed the yeast, but ineffectually. it is indeed a sight to see him and john sitting in pay-boxes, and surveying ireland out of pigeon-holes. _same evening before bed-time._ everybody was at "little dombey" to-day, and although i had some little difficulty to work them up in consequence of the excessive crowding of the place, and the difficulty of shaking the people into their seats, the effect was unmistakable and profound. the crying was universal, and they were extraordinarily affected. there is no doubt we could stay here a week with that one reading, and fill the place every night. hundreds of people have been there to-night, under the impression that it would come off again. it was a most decided and complete success. arthur has been imploring me to stop here on the friday after limerick, and read "little dombey" again. but i have positively said "no." the work is too hard. it is not like doing it in one easy room, and always the same room. with a different place every night, and a different audience with its own peculiarity every night, it is a tremendous strain. i was sick of it to-day before i began, then got myself into wonderful train. here follows a dialogue (but it requires imitation), which i had yesterday morning with a little boy of the house--landlord's son, i suppose--about plorn's age. i am sitting on the sofa writing, and find him sitting beside me. inimitable. holloa, old chap. young ireland. hal-loo! inimitable (_in his delightful way_). what a nice old fellow you are. i am very fond of little boys. young ireland. air yer? ye'r right. inimitable. what do you learn, old fellow? young ireland (_very intent on inimitable, and always childish, except in his brogue_). i lairn wureds of three sillibils, and wureds of two sillibils, and wureds of one sillibil. inimitable (_gaily_). get out, you humbug! you learn only words of one syllable. young ireland (_laughs heartily_). you may say that it is mostly wureds of one sillibil. inimitable. can you write? young ireland. not yet. things comes by deegrays. inimitable. can you cipher? young ireland (_very quickly_). wha'at's that? inimitable. can you make figures? young ireland. i can make a nought, which is not asy, being roond. inimitable. i say, old boy, wasn't it you i saw on sunday morning in the hall, in a soldier's cap? you know--in a soldier's cap? young ireland (_cogitating deeply_). was it a very good cap? inimitable. yes. young ireland. did it fit unkommon? inimitable. yes. young ireland. dat was me! there are two stupid old louts at the room, to show people into their places, whom john calls "them two old paddies," and of whom he says, that he "never see nothing like them (snigger) hold idiots" (snigger). they bow and walk backwards before the grandees, and our men hustle them while they are doing it. we walked out last night, with the intention of going to the theatre; but the piccolomini establishment (they were doing the "lucia") looked so horribly like a very bad jail, and the queen's looked so blackguardly, that we came back again, and went to bed. i seem to be always either in a railway carriage, or reading, or going to bed. i get so knocked up, whenever i have a minute to remember it, that then i go to bed as a matter of course. i send my love to the noble plorn, and to all the boys. to dear mamie and katie, and to yourself of course, in the first degree. i am looking forward to the last irish reading on thursday, with great impatience. but when we shall have turned this week, once knocked off belfast, i shall see land, and shall (like poor timber in the days of old) "keep up a good heart." i get so wonderfully hot every night in my dress clothes, that they positively won't dry in the short interval they get, and i have been obliged to write to doudney's to make me another suit, that i may have a constant change. ever, my dearest georgy, most affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens.] belfast, _saturday, aug. th, ._ when i went down to the rotunda at dublin on thursday night, i said to arthur, who came rushing at me: "you needn't tell me. i know all about it." the moment i had come out of the door of the hotel (a mile off), i had come against the stream of people turned away. i had struggled against it to the room. there, the crowd in all the lobbies and passages was so great, that i had a difficulty in getting in. they had broken all the glass in the pay-boxes. they had offered frantic prices for stalls. eleven bank-notes were thrust into that pay-box (arthur saw them) at one time, for eleven stalls. our men were flattened against walls, and squeezed against beams. ladies stood all night with their chins against my platform. other ladies sat all night upon my steps. you never saw such a sight. and the reading went tremendously! it is much to be regretted that we troubled ourselves to go anywhere else in ireland. we turned away people enough to make immense houses for a week. we arrived here yesterday at two. the room will not hold more than from eighty to ninety pounds. the same scene was repeated with the additional feature, that the people are much rougher here than in dublin, and that there was a very great uproar at the opening of the doors, which, the police in attendance being quite inefficient and only looking on, it was impossible to check. arthur was in the deepest misery because shillings got into stalls, and half-crowns got into shillings, and stalls got nowhere, and there was immense confusion. it ceased, however, the moment i showed myself; and all went most brilliantly, in spite of a great piece of the cornice of the ceiling falling with a great crash within four or five inches of the head of a young lady on my platform (i was obliged to have people there), and in spite of my gas suddenly going out at the time of the game of forfeits at scrooge's nephew's, through some belfastian gentleman accidentally treading on the flexible pipe, and needing to be relighted. we shall not get to cork before mid-day on monday; it being difficult to get from here on a sunday. we hope to be able to start away to-morrow morning to see the giant's causeway (some sixteen miles off), and in that case we shall sleep at dublin to-morrow night, leaving here by the train at half-past three in the afternoon. dublin, you must understand, is on the way to cork. this is a fine place, surrounded by lofty hills. the streets are very wide, and the place is very prosperous. the whole ride from dublin here is through a very picturesque and various country; and the amazing thing is, that it is all particularly neat and orderly, and that the houses (outside at all events) are all brightly whitewashed and remarkably clean. i want to climb one of the neighbouring hills before this morning's "dombey." i am now waiting for arthur, who has gone to the bank to remit his last accumulation of treasure to london. our men are rather indignant with the irish crowds, because in the struggle they don't sell books, and because, in the pressure, they can't force a way into the room afterwards to sell them. they are deeply interested in the success, however, and are as zealous and ardent as possible. i shall write to katie next. give her my best love, and kiss the darling plorn for me, and give my love to all the boys. ever, my dearest mamie, your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] morrison's hotel, dublin, _sunday night, aug. th, ._ i am so delighted to find your letter here to-night (eleven o'clock), and so afraid that, in the wear and tear of this strange life, i have written to gad's hill in the wrong order, and have not written to you, as i should, that i resolve to write this before going to bed. you will find it a wretchedly stupid letter; but you may imagine, my dearest girl, that i am tired. the success at belfast has been equal to the success here. enormous! we turned away half the town. i think them a better audience, on the whole, than dublin; and the personal affection there was something overwhelming. i wish you and the dear girls could have seen the people look at me in the street; or heard them ask me, as i hurried to the hotel after reading last night, to "do me the honour to shake hands, misther dickens, and god bless you, sir; not ounly for the light you've been to me this night, but for the light you've been in mee house, sir (and god love your face), this many a year." every night, by-the-bye, since i have been in ireland, the ladies have beguiled john out of the bouquet from my coat. and yesterday morning, as i had showered the leaves from my geranium in reading "little dombey," they mounted the platform, after i was gone, and picked them all up as keepsakes! i have never seen _men_ go in to cry so undisguisedly as they did at that reading yesterday afternoon. they made no attempt whatever to hide it, and certainly cried more than the women. as to the "boots" at night, and "mrs. gamp" too, it was just one roar with me and them; for they made me laugh so that sometimes i _could not_ compose my face to go on. you must not let the new idea of poor dear landor efface the former image of the fine old man. i wouldn't blot him out, in his tender gallantry, as he sat upon that bed at forster's that night, for a million of wild mistakes at eighty years of age. i hope to be at tavistock house before five o'clock next saturday morning, and to lie in bed half the day, and come home by the . on sunday. tell the girls that arthur and i have each ordered at belfast a trim, sparkling, slap-up _irish jaunting-car_!!! i flatter myself we shall astonish the kentish people. it is the oddest carriage in the world, and you are always falling off. but it is gay and bright in the highest degree. wonderfully neapolitan. what with a sixteen mile ride before we left belfast, and a sea-beach walk, and a two o'clock dinner, and a seven hours' railway ride since, i am--as we say here--"a thrifle weary." but i really am in wonderful force, considering the work. for which i am, as i ought to be, very thankful. arthur was exceedingly unwell last night--could not cheer up at all. he was so very unwell that he left the hall(!) and became invisible after my five minutes' rest. i found him at the hotel in a jacket and slippers, and with a hot bath just ready. he was in the last stage of prostration. the local agent was with me, and proposed that he (the wretched arthur) should go to his office and balance the accounts then and there. he went, in the jacket and slippers, and came back in twenty minutes, _perfectly well_, in consequence of the admirable balance. he is now sitting opposite to me on the bag of silver, forty pounds (it must be dreadfully hard), writing to boulogne. i suppose it is clear that the next letter i write is katie's. either from cork or from limerick, it shall report further. at limerick i read in the theatre, there being no other place. best love to mamie and katie, and dear plorn, and all the boys left when this comes to gad's hill; also to my dear good anne, and her little woman. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, sept. th, ._ my dear wilkie, first, let me report myself here for something less than eight-and-forty hours. i come last (and direct--a pretty hard journey) from limerick. the success in ireland has been immense. the work is very hard, sometimes overpowering; but i am none the worse for it, and arrived here quite fresh. secondly, will you let me recommend the enclosed letter from wigan, as the groundwork of a capital article, in your way, for h. w.? there is not the least objection to a plain reference to him, or to phelps, to whom the same thing happened a year or two ago, near islington, in the case of a clever and capital little daughter of his. i think it a capital opportunity for a discourse on gentility, with a glance at those other schools which advertise that the "sons of gentlemen only" are admitted, and a just recognition of the greater liberality of our public schools. there are tradesmen's sons at eton, and charles kean was at eton, and macready (also an actor's son) was at rugby. some such title as "scholastic flunkeydom," or anything infinitely contemptuous, would help out the meaning. surely such a schoolmaster must swallow all the silver forks that the pupils are expected to take when they come, and are not expected to take away with them when they go. and of course he could not exist, unless he had flunkey customers by the dozen. secondly--no, this is thirdly now--about the christmas number. i have arranged so to stop my readings, as to be available for it on _the th of november_, which will leave me time to write a good article, if i clear my way to one. do you see your way to our making a christmas number of this idea that i am going very briefly to hint? some disappointed person, man or woman, prematurely disgusted with the world, for some reason or no reason (the person should be young, i think) retires to an old lonely house, or an old lonely mill, or anything you like, with one attendant, resolved to shut out the world, and hold no communion with it. the one attendant sees the absurdity of the idea, pretends to humour it, but really thus to slaughter it. everything that happens, everybody that comes near, every breath of human interest that floats into the old place from the village, or the heath, or the four cross-roads near which it stands, and from which belated travellers stray into it, shows beyond mistake that you can't shut out the world; that you are in it, to be of it; that you get into a false position the moment you try to sever yourself from it; and that you must mingle with it, and make the best of it, and make the best of yourself into the bargain. if we could plot out a way of doing this together, i would not be afraid to take my part. if we could not, could we plot out a way of doing it, and taking in stories by other hands? if we could not do either (but i think we could), shall we fall back upon a round of stories again? that i would rather not do, if possible. will you think about it? and can you come and dine at tavistock house _on monday, the th september, at half-past five_? i purpose being at home there with the girls that day. answer this, according to my printed list for the week. i am off to huddersfield on wednesday morning. i think i will now leave off; merely adding that i have got a splendid brogue (it really is exactly like the people), and that i think of coming out as the only legitimate successor of poor power. ever, my dear wilkie, affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] station hotel, york, _friday, sept. th, ._ dearest meery, first let me tell you that all the magicians and spirits in your employ have fulfilled the instructions of their wondrous mistress to admiration. flowers have fallen in my path wherever i have trod; and when they rained upon me at cork i was more amazed than you ever saw me. secondly, receive my hearty and loving thanks for that same. (excuse a little irish in the turn of that sentence, but i can't help it). thirdly, i have written direct to mr. boddington, explaining that i am bound to be in edinburgh on the day when he courteously proposes to do me honour. i really cannot tell you how truly and tenderly i feel your letter, and how gratified i am by its contents. your truth and attachment are always so precious to me that i can_not_ get my heart out on my sleeve to show it you. it is like a child, and, at the sound of some familiar voices, "goes and hides." you know what an affection i have for mrs. watson, and how happy it made me to see her again--younger, much, than when i first knew her in switzerland. god bless you always! ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] royal hotel, scarborough, _sunday, sept. th, ._ my dearest georgy, we had a very fine house indeed at york. all kinds of applications have been made for another reading there, and no doubt it would be exceedingly productive; but it cannot be done. at harrogate yesterday; the queerest place, with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest lives of dancing, newspaper reading, and tables d'hôte. the piety of york obliging us to leave that place for this at six this morning, and there being no night train from harrogate, we had to engage a special engine. we got to bed at one, and were up again before five; which, after yesterday's fatigues, leaves me a little worn out at this present. i have no accounts of this place as yet, nor have i received any letter here. but the post of this morning is not yet delivered, i believe. we have a charming room, overlooking the sea. leech is here (living within a few doors), with the partner of his bosom, and his young family. i write at ten in the morning, having been here two hours; and you will readily suppose that i have not seen him. of news, i have not the faintest breath. i seem to have been doing nothing all my life but riding in railway-carriages and reading. the railway of the morning brought us through castle howard, and under the woods of easthorpe, and then just below malton abbey, where i went to poor smithson's funeral. it was a most lovely morning, and, tired as i was, i couldn't sleep for looking out of window. yesterday, at harrogate, two circumstances occurred which gave arthur great delight. firstly, he chafed his legs sore with his black bag of silver. secondly, the landlord asked him as a favour, "if he could oblige him with a little silver." he obliged him directly with some forty pounds' worth; and i suspect the landlord to have repented of having approached the subject. after the reading last night we walked over the moor to the railway, three miles, leaving our men to follow with the luggage in a light cart. they passed us just short of the railway, and john was making the night hideous and terrifying the sleeping country, by _playing the horn_ in prodigiously horrible and unmusical blasts. my dearest love, of course, to the dear girls, and to the noble plorn. apropos of children, there was one gentleman at the "little dombey" yesterday morning, who exhibited, or rather concealed, the profoundest grief. after crying a good deal without hiding it, he covered his face with both his hands, and laid it down on the back of the seat before him, and really shook with emotion. he was not in mourning, but i supposed him to have lost some child in old time. there was a remarkably good fellow of thirty or so, too, who found something so very ludicrous in "toots," that he _could not_ compose himself at all, but laughed until he sat wiping his eyes with his handkerchief. and whenever he felt "toots" coming again he began to laugh and wipe his eyes afresh, and when he came he gave a kind of cry, as if it were too much for him. it was uncommonly droll, and made me laugh heartily. ever, dear georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss dickens.] scarborough arms, leeds, _wednesday, sept. th, ._ my dearest mamie, i have added a pound to the cheque. i would recommend your seeing the poor railway man again and giving him ten shillings, and telling him to let you see him again in about a week. if he be then still unable to lift weights and handle heavy things, i would then give him another ten shillings, and so on. since i wrote to georgy from scarborough, we have had, thank god, nothing but success. the hull people (not generally considered excitable, even on their own showing) were so enthusiastic, that we were obliged to promise to go back there for two readings. i have positively resolved not to lengthen out the time of my tour, so we are now arranging to drop some small places, and substitute hull again and york again. but you will perhaps have heard this in the main from arthur. i know he wrote to you after the reading last night. this place i have always doubted, knowing that we should come here when it was recovering from the double excitement of the festival and the queen. but there is a very large hall let indeed, and the prospect of to-night consequently looks bright. arthur told you, i suppose, that he had his shirt-front and waistcoat torn off last night? he was perfectly enraptured in consequence. our men got so knocked about that he gave them five shillings apiece on the spot. john passed several minutes upside down against a wall, with his head amongst the people's boots. he came out of the difficulty in an exceedingly touzled condition, and with his face much flushed. for all this, and their being packed as you may conceive they would be packed, they settled down the instant i went in, and never wavered in the closest attention for an instant. it was a very high room, and required a great effort. oddly enough, i slept in this house three days last year with wilkie. arthur has the bedroom i occupied then, and i have one two doors from it, and gordon has the one between. not only is he still with us, but he _has_ talked of going on to manchester, going on to london, and coming back with us to darlington next tuesday!!! these streets look like a great circus with the season just finished. all sorts of garish triumphal arches were put up for the queen, and they have got smoky, and have been looked out of countenance by the sun, and are blistered and patchy, and half up and half down, and are hideous to behold. spiritless men (evidently drunk for some time in the royal honour) are slowly removing them, and on the whole it is more like the clearing away of "the frozen deep" at tavistock house than anything within your knowledge--with the exception that we are not in the least sorry, as we were then. vague ideas are in arthur's head that when we come back to hull, we are to come here, and are to have the town hall (a beautiful building), and read to the million. i can't say yet. that depends. i remember that when i was here before (i came from rockingham to make a speech), i thought them a dull and slow audience. i hope i may have been mistaken. i never saw better audiences than the yorkshire audiences generally. i am so perpetually at work or asleep, that i have not a scrap of news. i saw the leech family at scarboro', both in my own house (that is to say, hotel) and in theirs. they were not at either reading. scarboro' is gay and pretty, and i think gordon had an idea that we were always at some such place. kiss the darling plorn for me, and give him my love; dear katie too, giving her the same. i feel sorry that i cannot get down to gad's hill this next time, but i shall look forward to our being there with georgy, after scotland. tell the servants that i remember them, and hope they will live with us many years. ever, my dearest mamie, your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] king's head, sheffield, _friday, sept. th, ._ i write you a few lines to tavistock house, thinking you may not be sorry to find a note from me there on your arrival from gad's hill. halifax was too small for us. i never saw such an audience though. they were really worth reading to for nothing, though i didn't do exactly that. it is as horrible a place as i ever saw, i think. the run upon the tickets here is so immense that arthur is obliged to get great bills out, signifying that no more can be sold. it will be by no means easy to get into the place the numbers who have already paid. it is the hall we acted in. crammed to the roof and the passages. we must come back here towards the end of october, and are again altering the list and striking out small places. the trains are so strange and unintelligible in this part of the country that we were obliged to leave halifax at eight this morning, and breakfast on the road--at huddersfield again, where we had an hour's wait. wills was in attendance on the platform, and took me (here at sheffield, i mean) out to frederick lehmann's house to see mrs. wills. she looked pretty much the same as ever, i thought, and was taking care of a very pretty little boy. the house and grounds are as nice as anything _can_ be in this smoke. a heavy thunderstorm is passing over the town, and it is raining hard too. this is a stupid letter, my dearest georgy, but i write in a hurry, and in the thunder and lightning, and with the crowd of to-night before me. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] station hotel, newcastle-on-tyne, _sunday, sept. th, ._ extract. the girls (as i have no doubt they have already told you for themselves) arrived here in good time yesterday, and in very fresh condition. they persisted in going to the room last night, though i had arranged for their remaining quiet. we have done a vast deal here. i suppose you know that we are going to berwick, and that we mean to sleep there and go on to edinburgh on monday morning, arriving there before noon? if it be as fine to-morrow as it is to-day, the girls will see the coast piece of railway between berwick and edinburgh to great advantage. i was anxious that they should, because that kind of pleasure is really almost the only one they are likely to have in their present trip. stanfield and roberts are in edinburgh, and the scottish royal academy gave them a dinner on wednesday, to which i was very pressingly invited. but, of course, my going was impossible. i read twice that day. remembering what you do of sunderland, you will be surprised that our profit there was very considerable. i read in a beautiful new theatre, and (i thought to myself) quite wonderfully. such an audience i never beheld for rapidity and enthusiasm. the room in which we acted (converted into a theatre afterwards) was burnt to the ground a year or two ago. we found the hotel, so bad in our time, really good. i walked from durham to sunderland, and from sunderland to newcastle. don't you think, as we shall be at home at eleven in the forenoon this day fortnight, that it will be best for you and plornish to come to tavistock house for that sunday, and for us all to go down to gad's hill next day? my best love to the noble plornish. if he is quite reconciled to the postponement of his trousers, i should like to behold his first appearance in them. but, if not, as he is such a good fellow, i think it would be a pity to disappoint and try him. and now, my dearest georgy, i think i have said all i have to say before i go out for a little air. i had a very hard day yesterday, and am tired. ever your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, _sunday, oct. th, ._ my dear forster, as to the truth of the readings, i cannot tell you what the demonstrations of personal regard and respect are. how the densest and most uncomfortably-packed crowd will be hushed in an instant when i show my face. how the youth of colleges, and the old men of business in the town, seem equally unable to get near enough to me when they cheer me away at night. how common people and gentlefolks will stop me in the streets and say: "mr. dickens, will you let me touch the hand that has filled my home with so many friends?" and if you saw the mothers, and fathers, and sisters, and brothers in mourning, who invariably come to "little dombey," and if you studied the wonderful expression of comfort and reliance with which they hang about me, as if i had been with them, all kindness and delicacy, at their own little death-bed, you would think it one of the strangest things in the world. as to the mere effect, of course i don't go on doing the thing so often without carefully observing myself and the people too in every little thing, and without (in consequence) greatly improving in it. at aberdeen, we were crammed to the street twice in one day. at perth (where i thought when i arrived there literally could be nobody to come), the nobility came posting in from thirty miles round, and the whole town came and filled an immense hall. as to the effect, if you had seen them after lilian died, in "the chimes," or when scrooge woke and talked to the boy outside the window, i doubt if you would ever have forgotten it. and at the end of "dombey" yesterday afternoon, in the cold light of day, they all got up, after a short pause, gentle and simple, and thundered and waved their hats with that astonishing heartiness and fondness for me, that for the first time in all my public career they took me completely off my legs, and i saw the whole eighteen hundred of them reel on one side as if a shock from without had shaken the hall. the dear girls have enjoyed themselves immensely, and their trip has been a great success. i hope i told you (but i forget whether i did or no) how splendidly newcastle[ ] came out. i am reminded of newcastle at the moment because they joined me there. i am anxious to get to the end of my readings, and to be at home again, and able to sit down and think in my own study. but the fatigue, though sometimes very great indeed, hardly tells upon me at all. and although all our people, from smith downwards, have given in, more or less, at times, i have never been in the least unequal to the work, though sometimes sufficiently disinclined for it. my kindest and best love to mrs. forster. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens.] royal hotel, derby, _friday, oct. nd, ._ my dearest mamie, i am writing in a very poor condition; i have a bad cold all over me, pains in my back and limbs, and a very sensitive and uncomfortable throat. there was a great draught up some stone steps near me last night, and i daresay that caused it. the weather on my first two nights at birmingham was so intolerably bad--it blew hard, and never left off raining for one single moment--that the houses were not what they otherwise would have been. on the last night the weather cleared, and we had a grand house. last night at nottingham was almost, if not quite, the most amazing we have had. it is not a very large place, and the room is by no means a very large one, but three hundred and twenty stalls were let, and all the other tickets were sold. here we have two hundred and twenty stalls let for to-night, and the other tickets are gone in proportion. it is a pretty room, but not large. i have just been saying to arthur that if there is not a large let for york, i would rather give it up, and get monday at gad's hill. we have telegraphed to know. if the answer comes (as i suppose it will) before post time, i will tell you in a postscript what we decide to do. coming to london in the night of to-morrow (saturday), and having to see mr. ouvry on sunday, and having to start for york early on monday, i fear i should not be able to get to gad's hill at all. you won't expect me till you see me. arthur and i have considered plornish's joke in all the immense number of aspects in which it presents itself to reflective minds. we have come to the conclusion that it is the best joke ever made. give the dear boy my love, and the same to georgy, and the same to katey, and take the same yourself. arthur (excessively low and inarticulate) mutters that he "unites." [we knocked up boylett, berry, and john so frightfully yesterday, by tearing the room to pieces and altogether reversing it, as late as four o'clock, that we gave them a supper last night. they shine all over to-day, as if it had been entirely composed of grease.] ever, my dearest mamie, your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] wolverhampton, _wednesday, nov. rd, ._ little leamington came out in the most amazing manner yesterday--turned away hundreds upon hundreds of people. they are represented as the dullest and worst of audiences. i found them very good indeed, even in the morning. there awaited me at the hotel, a letter from the rev. mr. young, wentworth watson's tutor, saying that mrs. watson wished her boy to shake hands with me, and that he would bring him in the evening. i expected him at the hotel before the readings. but he did not come. he spoke to john about it in the room at night. the crowd and confusion, however, were very great, and i saw nothing of him. in his letter he said that mrs. watson was at paris on her way home, and would be at brighton at the end of this week. i suppose i shall see her there at the end of next week. we find a let of two hundred stalls here, which is very large for this place. the evening being fine too, and blue being to be seen in the sky beyond the smoke, we expect to have a very full hall. tell mamey and katey that if they had been with us on the railway to-day between leamington and this place, they would have seen (though it is only an hour and ten minutes by the express) fires and smoke indeed. we came through a part of the black country that you know, and it looked at its blackest. all the furnaces seemed in full blast, and all the coal-pits to be working. it is market-day here, and the ironmasters are standing out in the street (where they always hold high change), making such an iron hum and buzz, that they confuse me horribly. in addition, there is a bellman announcing something--not the readings, i beg to say--and there is an excavation being made in the centre of the open place, for a statue, or a pump, or a lamp-post, or something or other, round which all the wolverhampton boys are yelling and struggling. and here is arthur, begging to have dinner at half-past three instead of four, because he foresees "a wiry evening" in store for him. under which complication of distractions, to which a waitress with a tray at this moment adds herself, i sink, and leave off. my best love to the dear girls, and to the noble plorn, and to you. marguerite and ellen stone not forgotten. all yesterday and to-day i have been doing everything to the tune of: and the day is dark and dreary. ever, dearest georgy, your most affectionate and faithful. p.s.--i hope the brazier is intolerably hot, and half stifles all the family. then, and not otherwise, i shall think it in satisfactory work. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w. c., _friday, nov. th, ._ my dear white, may i entreat you to thank mr. carter very earnestly and kindly in my name, for his proffered hospitality; and, further, to explain to him that since my readings began, i have known them to be incompatible with all social enjoyments, and have neither set foot in a friend's house nor sat down to a friend's table in any one of all the many places i have been to, but have rigidly kept myself to my hotels. to this resolution i must hold until the last. there is not the least virtue in it. it is a matter of stern necessity, and i submit with the worst grace possible. will you let me know, either at southampton or portsmouth, whether any of you, and how many of you, if any, are coming over, so that arthur smith may reserve good seats? tell lotty i hope she does not contemplate coming to the morning reading; i always hate it so myself. mary and katey are down at gad's hill with georgy and plornish, and they have marguerite power and ellen stone staying there. i am sorry to say that even my benevolence descries no prospect of their being able to come to my native place. on saturday week, the th, my tour, please god, ends. my best love to mrs. white, and to lotty, and to clara. ever, my dear white, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _monday, dec. th, ._ my dear stone, many thanks for these discourses. they are very good, i think, as expressing what many men have felt and thought; otherwise not specially remarkable. they have one fatal mistake, which is a canker at the foot of their ever being widely useful. half the misery and hypocrisy of the christian world arises (as i take it) from a stubborn determination to refuse the new testament as a sufficient guide in itself, and to force the old testament into alliance with it--whereof comes all manner of camel-swallowing and of gnat-straining. but so to resent this miserable error, or to (by any implication) depreciate the divine goodness and beauty of the new testament, is to commit even a worse error. and to class jesus christ with mahomet is simply audacity and folly. i might as well hoist myself on to a high platform, to inform my disciples that the lives of king george the fourth and of king alfred the great belonged to one and the same category. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] tavistock house, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear procter, a thousand thanks for the little song. i am charmed with it, and shall be delighted to brighten "household words" with such a wise and genial light. i no more believe that your poetical faculty has gone by, than i believe that you have yourself passed to the better land. you and it will travel thither in company, rely upon it. so i still hope to hear more of the trade-songs, and to learn that the blacksmith has hammered out no end of iron into good fashion of verse, like a cunning workman, as i know him of old to be. very faithfully yours, my dear procter. footnotes: [ ] niece to the rev. w. harness. [ ] the birthplace of mr. forster. . narrative. during the winter, charles dickens was living at tavistock house, removing to gad's hill for the summer early in june, and returning to london in november. at this time a change was made in his weekly journal. "household words" became absolutely his own--mr. wills being his partner and editor, as before--and was "incorporated with 'all the year round,'" under which title it was known thenceforth. the office was still in wellington street, but in a different house. the first number with the new name appeared on the th april, and it contained the opening of "a tale of two cities." the first letter which follows shows that a proposal for a series of readings in america had already been made to him. it was carefully considered and abandoned for the time. but the proposal was constantly renewed, and the idea never wholly relinquished for many years before he actually decided on making so distant a "reading tour." mr. procter contributed to the early numbers of "all the year round" some very spirited "songs of the trades." we give notes from charles dickens to the veteran poet, both in the last year, and in this year, expressing his strong approval of them. the letter and two notes to mr. (afterwards sir antonio) panizzi, for which we are indebted to mr. louis fagan, one of sir a. panizzi's executors, show the warm sympathy and interest which he always felt for the cause of italian liberty, and for the sufferings of the state prisoners who at this time took refuge in england. we give a little note to the dear friend and companion of charles dickens's daughters, "lotty" white, because it is a pretty specimen of his writing, and because the young girl, who is playfully "commanded" to get well and strong, died early in july of this year. she was, at the time this note was written, first attacked with the illness which was fatal to all her sisters. mamie and kate dickens went from gad's hill to bonchurch to pay a last visit to their friend, and he writes to his eldest daughter there. also we give notes of loving sympathy and condolence to the bereaved father and mother. in the course of this summer charles dickens was not well, and went for a week to his old favourite, broadstairs--where mr. wilkie collins and his brother, mr. charles allston collins, were staying--for sea-air and change, preparatory to another reading tour, in england only. his letter from peterborough to mr. frank stone, giving him an account of a reading at manchester (mr. stone's native town), was one of the last ever addressed to that affectionate friend, who died very suddenly, to the great grief of charles dickens, in november. the letter to mr. thomas longman, which closes this year, was one of introduction to that gentleman of young marcus stone, then just beginning his career as an artist, and to whom the premature death of his father made it doubly desirable that he should have powerful helping hands. charles dickens refers, in a letter to mrs. watson, to his portrait by mr. frith, which was finished at the end of . it was painted for mr. forster, and is now in the "forster collection" at south kensington museum. the christmas number of this year, again written by several hands as well as his own, was "the haunted house." in november, his story of "a tale of two cities" was finished in "all the year round," and in december was published, complete, with dedication to lord john russell. [sidenote: mr. arthur smith.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear arthur, will you first read the enclosed letters, having previously welcomed, with all possible cordiality, the bearer, mr. thomas c. evans, from new york? you having read them, let me explain that mr. fields is a highly respectable and influential man, one of the heads of the most classical and most respected publishing house in america; that mr. richard grant white is a man of high reputation; and that felton is the greek professor in their cambridge university, perhaps the most distinguished scholar in the states. the address to myself, referred to in one of the letters, being on its way, it is quite clear that i must give some decided and definite answer to the american proposal. now, will you carefully discuss it with mr. evans before i enter on it at all? then, will you dine here with him on sunday--which i will propose to him--and arrange to meet at half-past four for an hour's discussion? the points are these: first. i have a very grave question within myself whether i could go to america at all. secondly. if i did go, i could not possibly go before the autumn. thirdly. if i did go, how long must i stay? fourthly. if the stay were a short one, could _you_ go? fifthly. what is his project? what could i make? what occurs to you upon his proposal? i have told him that the business arrangements of the readings have been from the first so entirely in your hands, that i enter upon nothing connected with them without previous reference to you. ever faithfully. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _tuesday, feb. st, ._ my dear cerjat, i received your always welcome annual with even more interest than usual this year, being (in common with my two girls and their aunt) much excited and pleased by your account of your daughter's engagement. apart from the high sense i have of the affectionate confidence with which you tell me what lies so tenderly on your own heart, i have followed the little history with a lively sympathy and regard for her. i hope, with you, that it is full of promise, and that you will all be happy in it. the separation, even in the present condition of travel (and no man can say how much the discovery of a day may advance it), is nothing. and so god bless her and all of you, and may the rosy summer bring her all the fulness of joy that we all wish her. to pass from the altar to townshend (which is a long way), let me report him severely treated by bully, who rules him with a paw of iron; and complaining, moreover, of indigestion. he drives here every sunday, but at all other times is mostly shut up in his beautiful house, where i occasionally go and dine with him _tête-à-tête_, and where we always talk of you and drink to you. that is a rule with us from which we never depart. he is "seeing a volume of poems through the press;" rather an expensive amusement. he has not been out at night (except to this house) save last friday, when he went to hear me read "the poor traveller," "mrs. gamp," and "the trial" from "pickwick." he came into my room at st. martin's hall, and i fortified him with weak brandy-and-water. you will be glad to hear that the said readings are a greater _furore_ than they ever have been, and that every night on which they now take place--once a week--hundreds go away, unable to get in, though the hall holds thirteen hundred people. i dine with ---- to-day, by-the-bye, along with his agent; concerning whom i observe him to be always divided between an unbounded confidence and a little latent suspicion. he always tells me that he is a gem of the first water; oh yes, the best of business men! and then says that he did not quite like his conduct respecting that farm-tenant and those hay-ricks. there is a general impression here, among the best-informed, that war in italy, to begin with, is inevitable, and will break out before april. i know a gentleman at genoa (swiss by birth), deeply in with the authorities at turin, who is already sending children home. in england we are quiet enough. there is a world of talk, as you know, about reform bills; but i don't believe there is any general strong feeling on the subject. according to my perceptions, it is undeniable that the public has fallen into a state of indifference about public affairs, mainly referable, as i think, to the people who administer them--and there i mean the people of all parties--which is a very bad sign of the times. the general mind seems weary of debates and honourable members, and to have taken _laissez-aller_ for its motto. my affairs domestic (which i know are not without their interest for you) flow peacefully. my eldest daughter is a capital housekeeper, heads the table gracefully, delegates certain appropriate duties to her sister and her aunt, and they are all three devotedly attached. charley, my eldest boy, remains in barings' house. your present correspondent is more popular than he ever has been. i rather think that the readings in the country have opened up a new public who were outside before; but however that may be, his books have a wider range than they ever had, and his public welcomes are prodigious. said correspondent is at present overwhelmed with proposals to go and read in america. will never go, unless a small fortune be first paid down in money on this side of the atlantic. stated the figure of such payment, between ourselves, only yesterday. expects to hear no more of it, and assuredly will never go for less. you don't say, my dear cerjat, when you are coming to england! somehow i feel that this marriage ought to bring you over, though i don't know why. you shall have a bed here and a bed at gad's hill, and we will go and see strange sights together. when i was in ireland, i ordered the brightest jaunting-car that ever was seen. it has just this minute arrived per steamer from belfast. say you are coming, and you shall be the first man turned over by it; somebody must be (for my daughter mary drives anything that can be harnessed, and i know of no english horse that would understand a jaunting-car coming down a kentish hill), and you shall be that somebody if you will. they turned the basket-phaeton over, last summer, in a bye-road--mary and the other two--and had to get it up again; which they did, and came home as if nothing had happened. they send their loves to mrs. cerjat, and to you, and to all, and particularly to the dear _fiancée_. so do i, with all my heart, and am ever your attached and affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. antonio panizzi.] tavistock house, _monday night, march th, ._ my dear panizzi, if you should feel no delicacy in mentioning, or should see no objection to mentioning, to signor poerio, or any of the wronged neapolitan gentlemen to whom it is your happiness and honour to be a friend on their arrival in this country, an idea that has occurred to me, i should regard it as a great kindness in you if you would be my exponent. i think you will have no difficulty in believing that i would not, on any consideration, obtrude my name or projects upon any one of those noble souls, if there were any reason of the slightest kind against it. and if you see any such reason, i pray you instantly to banish my letter from your thoughts. it seems to me probable that some narrative of their ten years' suffering will, somehow or other, sooner or later, be by some of them laid before the english people. the just interest and indignation alive here, will (i suppose) elicit it. false narratives and garbled stories will, in any case, of a certainty get about. if the true history of the matter is to be told, i have that sympathy with them and respect for them which would, all other considerations apart, render it unspeakably gratifying to me to be the means of its diffusion. what i desire to lay before them is simply this. if for my new successor to "household words" a narrative of their ten years' trial could be written, i would take any conceivable pains to have it rendered into english, and presented in the sincerest and best way to a very large and comprehensive audience. it should be published exactly as you might think best for them, and remunerated in any way that you might think generous and right. they want no mouthpiece and no introducer, but perhaps they might have no objection to be associated with an english writer, who is possibly not unknown to them by some general reputation, and who certainly would be animated by a strong public and private respect for their honour, spirit, and unmerited misfortunes. this is the whole matter; assuming that such a thing is to be done, i long for the privilege of helping to do it. these gentlemen might consider it an independent means of making money, and i should be delighted to pay the money. in my absence from town, my friend and sub-editor, mr. wills (to whom i had expressed my feeling on the subject), has seen, i think, three of the gentlemen together. but as i hear, returning home to-night, that they are in your good hands, and as nobody can be a better judge than you of anything that concerns them, i at once decide to write to you and to take no other step whatever. forgive me for the trouble i have occasioned you in the reading of this letter, and never think of it again if you think that by pursuing it you would cause them an instant's uneasiness. believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. antonio panizzi.] tavistock house, _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear panizzi, let me thank you heartily for your kind and prompt letter. i am really and truly sensible of your friendliness. i have not heard from higgins, but of course i am ready to serve on the committee. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] tavistock house, _saturday, march th, ._ my dear procter, i think the songs are simply admirable! and i have no doubt of this being a popular feature in "all the year round." i would not omit the sexton, and i would not omit the spinners and weavers; and i would omit the hack-writers, and (i think) the alderman; but i am not so clear about the chorister. the pastoral i a little doubt finding audience for; but i am not at all sure yet that my doubt is well founded. had i not better send them all to the printer, and let you have proofs kept by you for publishing? i shall not have to make up the first number of "all the year round" until early in april. i don't like to send the manuscript back, and i never do like to do so when i get anything that i know to be thoroughly, soundly, and unquestionably good. i am hard at work upon my story, and expect a magnificent start. with hearty thanks, ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear edmund, . i think that no one seeing the place can well doubt that my house at gad's hill is the place for the letter-box. the wall is accessible by all sorts and conditions of men, on the bold high road, and the house altogether is the great landmark of the whole neighbourhood. captain goldsmith's _house_ is up a lane considerably off the high road; but he has a garden _wall_ abutting on the road itself. . "the pic-nic papers" were originally sold to colburn, for the benefit of the widow of mr. macrone, of st. james's square, publisher, deceased. two volumes were contributed--of course gratuitously--by writers who had had transactions with macrone. mr. colburn, wanting three volumes in all for trade purposes, added a third, consisting of an american reprint. of that volume i didn't know, and don't know, anything. the other two i edited, gratuitously as aforesaid, and wrote the lamplighter's story in. it was all done many years ago. there was a preface originally, delicately setting forth how the book came to be. . i suppose ---- to be, as mr. samuel weller expresses it somewhere in "pickwick," "ravin' mad with the consciousness o' willany." under their advertisement in _the times_ to-day, you will see, without a word of comment, the shorthand writer's verbatim report of the judgment. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. antonio panizzi.] "all the year round" office, _thursday, april th, ._ my dear panizzi, if you don't know, i think you should know that a number of letters are passing through the post-office, purporting to be addressed to the charitable by "italian exiles in london," asking for aid to raise a fund for a tribute to "london's lord mayor," in grateful recognition of the reception of the neapolitan exiles. i know this to be the case, and have no doubt in my own mind that the whole thing is an imposture and a "do." the letters are signed "gratitudine italiana." ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss white.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _monday, april th, ._ my dear lotty, this is merely a notice to you that i must positively insist on your getting well, strong, and into good spirits, with the least possible delay. also, that i look forward to seeing you at gad's hill sometime in the summer, staying with the girls, and heartlessly putting down the plorn you know that there is no appeal from the plorn's inimitable father. what _he_ says must be done. therefore i send you my love (which please take care of), and my commands (which please obey). ever your affectionate. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _tuesday, may st, ._ my dear mrs. watson, you surprise me by supposing that there is ever latent a defiant and roused expression in the undersigned lamb! apart from this singular delusion of yours, and wholly unaccountable departure from your usual accuracy in all things, your satisfaction with the portrait is a great pleasure to me. it has received every conceivable pains at frith's hands, and ought on his account to be good. it is a little too much (to my thinking) as if my next-door neighbour were my deadly foe, uninsured, and i had just received tidings of his house being afire; otherwise very good. i cannot tell you how delighted we shall be if you would come to gad's hill. you should see some charming woods and a rare old castle, and you should have such a snug room looking over a kentish prospect, with every facility in it for pondering on the beauties of its master's beard! _do_ come, but you positively _must not_ come and go on the same day. we retreat there on monday, and shall be there all the summer. my small boy is perfectly happy at southsea, and likes the school very much. i had the finest letter two or three days ago, from another of my boys--frank jeffrey--at hamburg. in this wonderful epistle he says: "dear papa, i write to tell you that i have given up all thoughts of being a doctor. my conviction that i shall never get over my stammering is the cause; all professions are barred against me. the only thing i should like to be is a gentleman farmer, either at the cape, in canada, or australia. with my passage paid, fifteen pounds, a horse, and a rifle, i could go two or three hundred miles up country, sow grain, buy cattle, and in time be very comfortable." considering the consequences of executing the little commission by the next steamer, i perceived that the first consequence of the fifteen pounds would be that he would be robbed of it--of the horse, that it would throw him--and of the rifle, that it would blow his head off; which probabilities i took the liberty of mentioning, as being against the scheme. with best love from all, ever believe me, my dear mrs. watson, your faithful and affectionate. [sidenote: mrs. white.] tavistock house, _sunday, june th, ._ my dear mrs. white, i do not write to you this morning because i have anything to say--i well know where your consolation is set, and to what beneficent figure your thoughts are raised--but simply because you are so much in my mind that it is a relief to send you and dear white my love. you are always in our hearts and on our lips. may the great god comfort you! you know that mary and katie are coming on thursday. they will bring dear lotty what she little needs with you by her side--love; and i hope their company will interest and please her. there is nothing that they, or any of us, would not do for her. she is a part of us all, and has belonged to us, as well as to you, these many years. ever your affectionate and faithful. [sidenote: miss dickens.] gad's hill, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, june th, ._ my dearest mamie, on saturday night i found, very much to my surprise and pleasure, the photograph on my table at tavistock house. it is not a very pleasant or cheerful presentation of my daughters; but it is wonderfully like for all that, and in some details remarkably good. when i came home here yesterday i tried it in the large townshend stereoscope, in which it shows to great advantage. it is in the little stereoscope at present on the drawing-room table. one of the balustrades of the destroyed old rochester bridge has been (very nicely) presented to me by the contractor for the works, and has been duly stonemasoned and set up on the lawn behind the house. i have ordered a sun-dial for the top of it, and it will be a very good object indeed. the plorn is highly excited to-day by reason of an institution which he tells me (after questioning george) is called the "cobb, or bodderin," holding a festival at the falstaff. he is possessed of some vague information that they go to higham church, in pursuance of some old usage, and attend service there, and afterwards march round the village. it so far looks probable that they certainly started off at eleven very spare in numbers, and came back considerably recruited, which looks to me like the difference between going to church and coming to dinner. they bore no end of bright banners and broad sashes, and had a band with a terrific drum, and are now (at half-past two) dining at the falstaff, partly in the side room on the ground-floor, and partly in a tent improvised this morning. the drum is hung up to a tree in the falstaff garden, and looks like a tropical sort of gourd. i have presented the band with five shillings, which munificence has been highly appreciated. ices don't seem to be provided for the ladies in the gallery--i mean the garden; they are prowling about there, endeavouring to peep in at the beef and mutton through the holes in the tent, on the whole, in a debased and degraded manner. turk somehow cut his foot in cobham lanes yesterday, and linda hers. they are both lame, and looking at each other. fancy mr. townshend not intending to go for another three weeks, and designing to come down here for a few days--with henri and bully--on wednesday! i wish you could have seen him alone with me on saturday; he was so extraordinarily earnest and affectionate on my belongings and affairs in general, and not least of all on you and katie, that he cried in a most pathetic manner, and was so affected that i was obliged to leave him among the flowerpots in the long passage at the end of the dining-room. it was a very good piece of truthfulness and sincerity, especially in one of his years, able to take life so easily. mr. and mrs. wills are here now (but i daresay you know it from your aunt), and return to town with me to-morrow morning. we are now going on to the castle. mrs. wills was very droll last night, and told me some good stories. my dear, i wish particularly to impress upon you and dear katie (to whom i send my other best love) that i hope your stay will not be very long. i don't think it very good for either of you, though of course i know that lotty will be, and must be, and should be the first consideration with you both. i am very anxious to know how you found her and how you are yourself. best love to dear lotty and mrs. white. the same to mr. white and clara. we are always talking about you all. ever, dearest mamie, your affectionate father. [sidenote: rev. james white.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, july th, ._ my dear white, i send my heartiest and most affectionate love to mrs. white and you, and to clara. you know all that i could add; you have felt it all; let it be unspoken and unwritten--it is expressed within us. do you not think that you could all three come here, and stay with us? you and mrs. white should have your own large room and your own ways, and should be among us when you felt disposed, and never otherwise. i do hope you would find peace here. can it not be done? we have talked very much about it among ourselves, and the girls are strong upon it. think of it--do! ever your affectionate. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] gad's hill, _thursday night, aug. th, ._ my dear forster, heartily glad to get your letter this morning. i cannot easily tell you how much interested i am by what you tell me of our brave and excellent friend the chief baron, in connection with that ruffian. i followed the case with so much interest, and have followed the miserable knaves and asses who have perverted it since, with so much indignation, that i have often had more than half a mind to write and thank the upright judge who tried him. i declare to god that i believe such a service one of the greatest that a man of intellect and courage can render to society. of course i saw the beast of a prisoner (with my mind's eye) delivering his cut-and-dried speech, and read in every word of it that no one but the murderer could have delivered or conceived it. of course i have been driving the girls out of their wits here, by incessantly proclaiming that there needed no medical evidence either way, and that the case was plain without it. lastly, of course (though a merciful man--because a merciful man i mean), i would hang any home secretary (whig, tory, radical, or otherwise) who should step in between that black scoundrel and the gallows. i can_not_ believe--and my belief in all wrong as to public matters is enormous--that such a thing will be done. i am reminded of tennyson, by thinking that king arthur would have made short work of the amiable ----, whom the newspapers strangely delight to make a sort of gentleman of. how fine the "idylls" are! lord! what a blessed thing it is to read a man who can write! i thought nothing could be grander than the first poem till i came to the third; but when i had read the last, it seemed to be absolutely unapproached and unapproachable. to come to myself. i have written and begged the "all the year round" publisher to send you directly four weeks' proofs beyond the current number, that are in type. i hope you will like them. nothing but the interest of the subject, and the pleasure of striving with the difficulty of the forms of treatment, nothing in the mere way of money, i mean, could also repay the time and trouble of the incessant condensation. but i set myself the little task of making a _picturesque_ story, rising in every chapter with characters true to nature, but whom the story itself should express, more than they should express themselves, by dialogue. i mean, in other words, that i fancied a story of incident might be written, in place of the bestiality that _is_ written under that pretence, pounding the characters out in its own mortar, and beating their own interests out of them. if you could have read the story all at once, i hope you wouldn't have stopped halfway. as to coming to your retreat, my dear forster, think how helpless i am. i am not well yet. i have an instinctive feeling that nothing but the sea will restore me, and i am planning to go and work at ballard's, at broadstairs, from next wednesday to monday. i generally go to town on monday afternoon. all tuesday i am at the office, on wednesday i come back here, and go to work again. i don't leave off till monday comes round once more. i am fighting to get my story done by the first week in october. on the th of october i am going away to read for a fortnight at ipswich, norwich, oxford, cambridge, and a few other places. judge what my spare time is just now! i am very much surprised and very sorry to find from the enclosed that elliotson has been ill. i never heard a word of it. georgy sends best love to you and to mrs. forster, so do i, so does plorn, so does frank. the girls are, for five days, with the whites at ramsgate. it is raining, intensely hot, and stormy. eighteen creatures, like little tortoises, have dashed in at the window and fallen on the paper since i began this paragraph [illustration: ink-blot] (that was one!). i am a wretched sort of creature in my way, but it is a way that gets on somehow. and all ways have the same fingerpost at the head of them, and at every turning in them. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens and miss katie dickens.] albion, broadstairs, _friday, sept. nd, ._ my dearest mamie and katie, i have been "moved" here, and am now (ballard having added to the hotel a house we lived in three years) in our old dining-room and sitting-room, and our old drawing-room as a bedroom. my cold is so bad, both in my throat and in my chest, that i can't bathe in the sea; tom collin dissuaded me--thought it "bad"--but i get a heavy shower-bath at mrs. crampton's every morning. the baths are still hers and her husband's, but they have retired and live in "nuckells"--are going to give a stained-glass window, value three hundred pounds, to st. peter's church. tom collin is of opinion that the miss dickenses has growed two fine young women--leastwise, asking pardon, ladies. an evangelical family of most disagreeable girls prowl about here and trip people up with tracts, which they put in the paths with stones upon them to keep them from blowing away. charles collins and i having seen a bill yesterday--about a mesmeric young lady who did feats, one of which was set forth in the bill, in a line by itself, as the rigid legs, --were overpowered with curiosity, and resolved to go. it came off in the assembly room, now more exquisitely desolate than words can describe. eighteen shillings was the "take." behind a screen among the company, we heard mysterious gurglings of water before the entertainment began, and then a slippery sound which occasioned me to whisper c. c. (who laughed in the most ridiculous manner), "soap." it proved to be the young lady washing herself. she must have been wonderfully dirty, for she took a world of trouble, and didn't come out clean after all--in a wretched dirty muslin frock, with blue ribbons. she was the alleged mesmeriser, and a boy who distributed bills the alleged mesmerised. it was a most preposterous imposition, but more ludicrous than any poor sight i ever saw. the boy is clearly out of pantomime, and when he pretended to be in the mesmeric state, made the company back by going in among them head over heels, backwards, half-a-dozen times, in a most insupportable way. the pianist had struck; and the manner in which the lecturer implored "some lady" to play a "polker," and the manner in which no lady would; and in which the few ladies who were there sat with their hats on, and the elastic under their chins, as if it were going to blow, is never to be forgotten. i have been writing all the morning, and am going for a walk to ramsgate. this is a beast of a letter, but i am not well, and have been addling my head. ever, dear girls, your affectionate father. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday night, sept. th, ._ my dear wilkie, just a word to say that i have received yours, and that i look forward to the reunion on thursday, when i hope to have the satisfaction of recounting to you the plot of a play that has been laid before me for commending advice. ditto to what you say respecting the _great eastern_. i went right up to london bridge by the boat that day, on purpose that i might pass her. i thought her the ugliest and most unshiplike thing these eyes ever beheld. i wouldn't go to sea in her, shiver my ould timbers and rouse me up with a monkey's tail (man-of-war metaphor), not to chuck a biscuit into davy jones's weather eye, and see double with my own old toplights. turk has been so good as to produce from his mouth, for the wholesome consternation of the family, eighteen feet of worm. when he had brought it up, he seemed to think it might be turned to account in the housekeeping and was proud. pony has kicked a shaft off the cart, and is to be sold. why don't you buy her? she'd never kick with you. barber's opinion is, that them fruit-trees, one and all, is touchwood, and not fit for burning at any gentleman's fire; also that the stocking of this here garden is worth less than nothing, because you wouldn't have to grub up nothing, and something takes a man to do it at three-and-sixpence a day. was "left desponding" by your reporter. i have had immense difficulty to find a man for the stable-yard here. barber having at last engaged one this morning, i enquired if he had a decent hat for driving in, to which barber returned this answer: "why, sir, not to deceive you, that man flatly say that he never have wore that article since man he was!" i am consequently fortified into my room, and am afraid to go out to look at him. love from all. ever affectionately. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dear regnier, you will receive by railway parcel the proof-sheets of a story of mine, that has been for some time in progress in my weekly journal, and that will be published in a complete volume about the middle of november. nobody but forster has yet seen the latter portions of it, or will see them until they are published. i want you to read it for two reasons. firstly, because i hope it is the best story i have written. secondly, because it treats of a very remarkable time in france; and i should very much like to know what you think of its being dramatised for a french theatre. if you should think it likely to be done, i should be glad to take some steps towards having it well done. the story is an extraordinary success here, and i think the end of it is certain to make a still greater sensation. don't trouble yourself to write to me, _mon ami_, until you shall have had time to read the proofs. remember, they are _proofs_, and _private_; the latter chapters will not be before the public for five or six weeks to come. with kind regards to madame regnier, in which my daughters and their aunt unite, believe me, ever faithfully yours. p.s.--the story (i daresay you have not seen any of it yet) is called "a tale of two cities." [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] peterborough, _wednesday evening, oct. th, ._ my dear stone, we had a splendid rush last night--exactly as we supposed, with the pressure on the two shillings, of whom we turned a crowd away. they were a far finer audience than on the previous night; i think the finest i have ever read to. they took every word of the "dombey" in quite an amazing manner, and after the child's death, paused a little, and then set up a shout that it did one good to hear. mrs. gamp then set in with a roar, which lasted until i had done. i think everybody for the time forgot everything but the matter in hand. it was as fine an instance of thorough absorption in a fiction as any of us are likely to see ever again. ---- (in an exquisite red mantle), accompanied by her sister (in another exquisite red mantle) and by the deaf lady, (who leaned a black head-dress, exactly like an old-fashioned tea-urn without the top, against the wall), was charming. he couldn't get at her on account of the pressure. he tried to peep at her from the side door, but she (ha, ha, ha!) was unconscious of his presence. i read to her, and goaded him to madness. he is just sane enough to send his kindest regards. this is a place which--except the cathedral, with the loveliest front i ever saw--is like the back door to some other place. it is, i should hope, the deadest and most utterly inert little town in the british dominions. the magnates have taken places, and the bookseller is of opinion that "such is the determination to do honour to mr. dickens, that the doors _must_ be opened half an hour before the appointed time." you will picture to yourself arthur's quiet indignation at this, and the manner in which he remarked to me at dinner, "that he turned away twice peterborough last night." a very pretty room--though a corn exchange--and a room we should have been glad of at cambridge, as it is large, bright, and cheerful, and wonderfully well lighted. the difficulty of getting to bradford from here to-morrow, at any time convenient to us, turned out to be so great, that we are all going in for leeds (only three-quarters of an hour from bradford) to-night after the reading, at a quarter-past eleven. we are due at leeds a quarter before three. so no more at present from, yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. r. sculthorpe.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _thursday, nov. th, ._ dear sir, judgment must go by default. i have not a word to plead against dodson and fogg. i am without any defence to the action; and therefore, as law goes, ought to win it. seriously, the date of your hospitable note disturbs my soul. but i have been incessantly writing in kent and reading in all sorts of places, and have done nothing in my own personal character these many months; and now i come to town and our friend[ ] is away! let me take that defaulting miscreant into council when he comes back. faithfully yours. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday, nov. th, ._ my dear regnier, i send you ten thousand thanks for your kind and explicit letter. what i particularly wished to ascertain from you was, whether it is likely the censor would allow such a piece to be played in paris. in the case of its being likely, then i wished to have the piece as well done as possible, and would even have proposed to come to paris to see it rehearsed. but i very much doubted whether the general subject would not be objectionable to the government, and what you write with so much sagacity and with such care convinces me at once that its representation would be prohibited. therefore i altogether abandon and relinquish the idea. but i am just as heartily and cordially obliged to you for your interest and friendship, as if the book had been turned into a play five hundred times. i again thank you ten thousand times, and am quite sure that you are right. i only hope you will forgive my causing you so much trouble, after your hard work. my girls and georgina send their kindest regards to madame regnier and to you. my gad's hill house (i think i omitted to tell you, in reply to your enquiry) is on the very scene of falstaff's robbery. there is a little _cabaret_ at the roadside, still called the sir john falstaff. and the country, in all its general features, is, at this time, what it was in shakespeare's. i hope you will see the house before long. it is really a pretty place, and a good residence for an english writer, is it not? macready, we are all happy to hear from himself, is going to leave the dreary tomb in which he lives, at sherborne, and to remove to cheltenham, a large and handsome place, about four or five hours' railway journey from london, where his poor girls will at least see and hear some life. madame céleste was with me yesterday, wishing to dramatise "a tale of two cities" for the lyceum, after bringing out the christmas pantomime. i gave her my permission and the book; but i fear that her company (troupe) is a very poor one. this is all the news i have, except (which is no news at all) that i feel as if i had not seen you for fifty years, and that i am ever your attached and faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. t. longman.] tavistock house, _monday, nov. th, ._ my dear longman, i am very anxious to present to you, with the earnest hope that you will hold him in your remembrance, young mr. marcus stone, son of poor frank stone, who died suddenly but a little week ago. you know, i daresay, what a start this young man made in the last exhibition, and what a favourable notice his picture attracted. he wishes to make an additional opening for himself in the illustration of books. he is an admirable draughtsman, has a most dexterous hand, a charming sense of grace and beauty, and a capital power of observation. these qualities in him i know well of my own knowledge. he is in all things modest, punctual, and right; and i would answer for him, if it were needful, with my head. if you will put anything in his way, you will do it a second time, i am certain. faithfully yours always. footnotes: [ ] mr. edmund yates. . narrative. this winter was the last spent at tavistock house. charles dickens had for some time been inclining to the idea of making his home altogether at gad's hill, giving up his london house, and taking a furnished house for the sake of his daughters for a few months of the london season. and, as his daughter kate was to be married this summer to mr. charles collins, this intention was confirmed and carried out. he made arrangements for the sale of tavistock house to mr. davis, a jewish gentleman, and he gave up possession of it in september. up to this time gad's hill had been furnished merely as a temporary summer residence--pictures, library, and all best furniture being left in the london house. he now set about beautifying and making gad's hill thoroughly comfortable and homelike. and there was not a year afterwards, up to the year of his death, that he did not make some addition or improvement to it. he also furnished, as a private residence, a sitting-room and some bedrooms at his office in wellington street, to be used, when there was no house in london, as occasional town quarters by himself, his daughter, and sister-in-law. he began in this summer his occasional papers for "all the year round," which he called "the uncommercial traveller," and which were continued at intervals in his journal until . in the autumn of this year he began another story, to be published weekly in "all the year round." the letter to mr. forster, which we give, tells him of this beginning and gives him the name of the book. the first number of "great expectations" appeared on the st december. the christmas number, this time, was written jointly by himself and mr. wilkie collins. the scene was laid at clovelly, and they made a journey together into devonshire and cornwall, for the purpose of this story, in november. the letter to sir edward bulwer lytton is, unfortunately, the only one we have as yet been able to procure. the present lord lytton, the viceroy of india, has kindly endeavoured to help us even during his absence from england. but it was found to be impossible without his own assistance to make the necessary search among his father's papers. and he has promised us that, on his return, he will find and lend to us, many letters from charles dickens, which are certainly in existence, to his distinguished fellow-writer and great friend. we hope, therefore, it may be possible for us at some future time to be able to publish these letters, as well as those addressed to the present lord lytton (when he was mr. robert lytton, otherwise "owen meredith," and frequent contributor to "household words" and "all the year round"). we have the same hope with regard to letters addressed to sir henry layard, at present ambassador at constantinople, which, of course, for the same reason, cannot be lent to us at the present time. we give a letter to mr. forster on one of his books on the commonwealth, the "impeachment of the five members;" which, as with other letters which we are glad to publish on the subject of mr. forster's own works, was not used by himself for obvious reasons. a letter to his daughter mamie (who, after her sister's marriage, paid a visit with her dear friends the white family to scotland, where she had a serious illness) introduces a recent addition to the family, who became an important member of it, and one to whom charles dickens was very tenderly attached--her little white pomeranian dog "mrs. bouncer" (so called after the celebrated lady of that name in "box and cox"). it is quite necessary to make this formal introduction of the little pet animal (who lived to be a very old dog and died in ), because future letters to his daughter contain constant references and messages to "mrs. bouncer," which would be quite unintelligible without this explanation. "boy," also referred to in this letter, was his daughter's horse. the little dog and the horse were gifts to mamie dickens from her friends mr. and mrs. arthur smith, and the sister of the latter, miss craufurd. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _monday, jan. nd, ._ my dearest macready, a happy new year to you, and many happy years! i cannot tell you how delighted i was to receive your christmas letter, or with what pleasure i have received forster's emphatic accounts of your health and spirits. but when was i ever wrong? and when did i not tell you that you were an impostor in pretending to grow older as the rest of us do, and that you had a secret of your own for reversing the usual process! it happened that i read at cheltenham a couple of months ago, and that i have rarely seen a place that so attracted my fancy. i had never seen it before. also i believe the character of its people to have greatly changed for the better. all sorts of long-visaged prophets had told me that they were dull, stolid, slow, and i don't know what more that is disagreeable. i found them exactly the reverse in all respects; and i saw an amount of beauty there--well--that is not to be more specifically mentioned to you young fellows. katie dined with us yesterday, looking wonderfully well, and singing "excelsior" with a certain dramatic fire in her, whereof i seem to remember having seen sparks afore now. etc. etc. etc. with kindest love from all at home to all with you, ever, my dear macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _saturday night, jan. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i have read this book with great care and attention. there cannot be a doubt that it is a very great advance on all your former writing, and most especially in respect of tenderness. in character it is excellent. mr. fairlie as good as the lawyer, and the lawyer as good as he. mr. vesey and miss halcombe, in their different ways, equally meritorious. sir percival, also, is most skilfully shown, though i doubt (you see what small points i come to) whether any man ever showed uneasiness by hand or foot without being forced by nature to show it in his face too. the story is very interesting, and the writing of it admirable. i seem to have noticed, here and there, that the great pains you take express themselves a trifle too much, and you know that i always contest your disposition to give an audience credit for nothing, which necessarily involves the forcing of points on their attention, and which i have always observed them to resent when they find it out--as they always will and do. but on turning to the book again, i find it difficult to take out an instance of this. it rather belongs to your habit of thought and manner of going about the work. perhaps i express my meaning best when i say that the three people who write the narratives in these proofs have a dissective property in common, which is essentially not theirs but yours; and that my own effort would be to strike more of what is got _that way_ out of them by collision with one another, and by the working of the story. you know what an interest i have felt in your powers from the beginning of our friendship, and how very high i rate them? _i_ know that this is an admirable book, and that it grips the difficulties of the weekly portion and throws them in masterly style. no one else could do it half so well. i have stopped in every chapter to notice some instance of ingenuity, or some happy turn of writing; and i am absolutely certain that you never did half so well yourself. so go on and prosper, and let me see some more, when you have enough (for your own satisfaction) to show me. i think of coming in to back you up if i can get an idea for my series of gossiping papers. one of those days, please god, we may do a story together; i have very odd half-formed notions, in a mist, of something that might be done that way. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] , wellington street, north strand, london, w.c., _wednesday, may nd, ._ my dear forster, it did not occur to me in reading your most excellent, interesting, and remarkable book, that it could with any reason be called one-sided. if clarendon had never written his "history of the rebellion," then i can understand that it might be. but just as it would be impossible to answer an advocate who had misstated the merits of a case for his own purpose, without, in the interests of truth, and not of the other side merely, re-stating the merits and showing them in their real form, so i cannot see the practicability of telling what you had to tell without in some sort championing the misrepresented side, and i think that you don't do that as an advocate, but as a judge. the evidence has been suppressed and coloured, and the judge goes through it and puts it straight. it is not _his_ fault if it all goes one way and tends to one plain conclusion. nor is it his fault that it goes the further when it is laid out straight, or seems to do so, because it was so knotted and twisted up before. i can understand any man's, and particularly carlyle's, having a lingering respect that does not like to be disturbed for those (in the best sense of the word) loyal gentlemen of the country who went with the king and were so true to him. but i don't think carlyle sufficiently considers that the great mass of those gentlemen _didn't know the truth_, that it was a part of their loyalty to believe what they were told on the king's behalf, and that it is reasonable to suppose that the king was too artful to make known to _them_ (especially after failure) what were very acceptable designs to the desperate soldiers of fortune about whitehall. and it was to me a curious point of adventitious interest arising out of your book, to reflect on the probability of their having been as ignorant of the real scheme in charles's head, as their descendants and followers down to this time, and to think with pity and admiration that they believed the cause to be so much better than it was. this is a notion i was anxious to have expressed in our account of the book in these pages. for i don't suppose clarendon, or any other such man to sit down and tell posterity something that he has not "tried on" in his own time. do you? in the whole narrative i saw nothing anywhere to which i demurred. i admired it all, went with it all, and was proud of my friend's having written it all. i felt it to be all square and sound and right, and to be of enormous importance in these times. firstly, to the people who (like myself) are so sick of the shortcomings of representative government as to have no interest in it. secondly, to the humbugs at westminster who have come down--a long, long way--from those men, as you know. when the great remonstrance came out, i was in the thick of my story, and was always busy with it; but i am very glad i didn't read it then, as i shall read it now to much better purpose. all the time i was at work on the "two cities," i read no books but such as had the air of the time in them. to return for a final word to the five members. i thought the marginal references overdone. here and there, they had a comical look to me for that reason, and reminded me of shows and plays where everything is in the bill. lastly, i should have written to you--as i had a strong inclination to do, and ought to have done, immediately after reading the book--but for a weak reason; of all things in the world i have lost heart in one--i hope no other--i cannot, times out of calculation, make up my mind to write a letter. ever, my dear forster, affectionately yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _thursday, may rd, ._ my dear cerjat, the date of this letter would make me horribly ashamed of myself, if i didn't know that _you_ know how difficult letter-writing is to one whose trade it is to write. you asked me on christmas eve about my children. my second daughter is going to be married in the course of the summer to charles collins, the brother of wilkie collins, the novelist. the father was one of the most famous painters of english green lanes and coast pieces. he was bred an artist; is a writer, too, and does "the eye witness," in "all the year round." he is a gentleman, accomplished, and amiable. my eldest daughter has not yet started any conveyance on the road to matrimony (that i know of); but it is likely enough that she will, as she is very agreeable and intelligent. they are both very pretty. my eldest boy, charley, has been in barings' house for three or four years, and is now going to hong kong, strongly backed up by barings, to buy tea on his own account, as a means of forming a connection and seeing more of the practical part of a merchant's calling, before starting in london for himself. his brother frank (jeffrey's godson) i have just recalled from france and germany, to come and learn business, and qualify himself to join his brother on his return from the celestial empire. the next boy, sydney smith, is designed for the navy, and is in training at portsmouth, awaiting his nomination. he is about three foot high, with the biggest eyes ever seen, and is known in the portsmouth parts as "young dickens, who can do everything." another boy is at school in france; the youngest of all has a private tutor at home. i have forgotten the second in order, who is in india. he went out as ensign of a non-existent native regiment, got attached to the nd highlanders, one of the finest regiments in the queen's service; has remained with them ever since, and got made a lieutenant by the chances of the rebellious campaign, before he was eighteen. miss hogarth, always miss hogarth, is the guide, philosopher, and friend of all the party, and a very close affection exists between her and the girls. i doubt if she will ever marry. i don't know whether to be glad of it or sorry for it. i have laid down my pen and taken a long breath after writing this family history. i have also considered whether there are any more children, and i don't think there are. if i should remember two or three others presently, i will mention them in a postscript. we think townshend looking a little the worse for the winter, and we perceive bully to be decidedly old upon his legs, and of a most diabolical turn of mind. when they first arrived the weather was very dark and cold, and kept them indoors. it has since turned very warm and bright, but with a dusty and sharp east wind. they are still kept indoors by this change, and i begin to wonder what change will let them out. townshend dines with us every sunday. you may be sure that we always talk of you and yours, and drink to you heartily. public matters here are thought to be rather improving; the deep mistrust of the gentleman in paris being counteracted by the vigorous state of preparation into which the nation is getting. you will have observed, of course, that we establish a new defaulter in respect of some great trust, about once a quarter. the last one, the cashier of a city bank, is considered to have distinguished himself greatly, a quarter of a million of money being high game. no, my friend, i have not shouldered my rifle yet, but i should do so on more pressing occasion. every other man in the row of men i know--if they were all put in a row--is a volunteer though. there is a tendency rather to overdo the wearing of the uniform, but that is natural enough in the case of the youngest men. the turn-out is generally very creditable indeed. at the ball they had (in a perfectly unventilated building), their new leather belts and pouches smelt so fearfully that it was, as my eldest daughter said, like shoemaking in a great prison. she, consequently, distinguished herself by fainting away in the most inaccessible place in the whole structure, and being brought out (horizontally) by a file of volunteers, like some slain daughter of albion whom they were carrying into the street to rouse the indignant valour of the populace. lord, my dear cerjat, when i turn to that page of your letter where you write like an ancient sage in whom the fire has paled into a meek-eyed state of coolness and virtue, i half laugh and half cry! _you_ old! _you_ a sort of hermit? boh! get out. with this comes my love and all our loves, to you and mrs. cerjat, and your daughter. i add my special and particular to the sweet "singing cousin." when shall you and i meet, and where? must i come to see townshend? i begin to think so. ever, my dear cerjat, your affectionate and faithful. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] gad's hill, _tuesday, june th, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am very much interested and gratified by your letter concerning "a tale of two cities." i do not quite agree with you on two points, but that is no deduction from my pleasure. in the first place, although the surrender of the feudal privileges (on a motion seconded by a nobleman of great rank) was the occasion of a sentimental scene, i see no reason to doubt, but on the contrary, many reasons to believe, that some of these privileges had been used to the frightful oppression of the peasant, quite as near to the time of the revolution as the doctor's narrative, which, you will remember, dates long before the terror. and surely when the new philosophy was the talk of the salons and the slang of the hour, it is not unreasonable or unallowable to suppose a nobleman wedded to the old cruel ideas, and representing the time going out, as his nephew represents the time coming in; as to the condition of the peasant in france generally at that day, i take it that if anything be certain on earth it is certain that it was intolerable. no _ex post facto_ enquiries and provings by figures will hold water, surely, against the tremendous testimony of men living at the time. there is a curious book printed at amsterdam, written to make out no case whatever, and tiresome enough in its literal dictionary-like minuteness, scattered up and down the pages of which is full authority for my marquis. this is "mercier's tableau de paris." rousseau is the authority for the peasant's shutting up his house when he had a bit of meat. the tax-taker was the authority for the wretched creature's impoverishment. i am not clear, and i never have been clear, respecting that canon of fiction which forbids the interposition of accident in such a case as madame defarge's death. where the accident is inseparable from the passion and emotion of the character, where it is strictly consistent with the whole design, and arises out of some culminating proceeding on the part of the character which the whole story has led up to, it seems to me to become, as it were, an act of divine justice. and when i use miss pross (though this is quite another question) to bring about that catastrophe, i have the positive intention of making that half-comic intervention a part of the desperate woman's failure, and of opposing that mean death--instead of a desperate one in the streets, which she wouldn't have minded--to the dignity of carton's wrong or right; this _was_ the design, and seemed to be in the fitness of things. now, as to the reading. i am sorry to say that it is out of the question this season. i have had an attack of rheumatism--quite a stranger to me--which remains hovering about my left side, after having doubled me up in the back, and which would disable me from standing for two hours. i have given up all dinners and town engagements, and come to my little falstaff house here, sensible of the necessity of country training all through the summer. smith would have proposed any appointment to see you on the subject, but he has been dreadfully ill with tic. whenever i read in london, i will gladly put a night aside for your purpose, and we will plot to connect your name with it, and give it some speciality. but this could not be before christmas time, as i should not be able to read sooner, for in the hot weather it would be useless. let me hear from you about this when you have considered it. it would greatly diminish the expenses, remember. ever affectionately and faithfully. [sidenote: the lord john russell.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, june th, ._ my dear lord john russell, i cannot thank you enough for your kind note and its most welcome enclosure. my sailor-boy comes home from portsmouth to-morrow, and will be overjoyed. his masters have been as anxious for getting his nomination as though it were some distinction for themselves. ever your faithful and obliged. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, aug. th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, coming back here after an absence of three days in town, i find your kind and cordial letter lying on my table. i heartily thank you for it, and highly esteem it. i understand that the article on the spirits to which you refer was written by ---- (he played an irish porter in one scene of bulwer's comedy at devonshire house). between ourselves, i think it must be taken with a few grains of salt, imperial measure. the experiences referred to "came off" at ----, where the spirit of ---- (among an extensive and miscellaneous bodiless circle) _dines_ sometimes! mr. ----, the high priest of the mysteries, i have some considerable reason--derived from two honourable men--for mistrusting. and that some of the disciples are very easy of belief i know. this is falstaff's own gad's hill, and i live on the top of it. all goes well with me, thank god! i should be thoroughly delighted to see you again, and to show you where the robbery was done. my eldest daughter keeps my house, and it is one i was extraordinarily fond of when a child. my dear lord carlisle, ever affectionately yours. p.s.--i am prowling about, meditating a new book. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear wills, your description of your sea-castle makes your room here look uncommonly dusty. likewise the costermongers in the street outside, and the one customer (drunk, with his head on the table) in the crown coffee house over the way, in york street, have an earthy, and, as i may say, a land-lubberly aspect. cape horn, to the best of _my_ belief, is a tremendous way off, and there are more bricks and cabbage-leaves between this office and that dismal point of land than _you_ can possibly imagine. coming here from the station this morning, i met, coming from the execution of the wentworth murderer, such a tide of ruffians as never could have flowed from any point but the gallows. without any figure of speech it turned one white and sick to behold them. tavistock house is cleared to-day, and possession delivered up. i must say that in all things the purchaser has behaved thoroughly well, and that i cannot call to mind any occasion when i have had money dealings with a christian that have been so satisfactory, considerate, and trusting. i am ornamented at present with one of my most intensely preposterous and utterly indescribable colds. if you were to make a voyage from cape horn to wellington street, you would scarcely recognise in the bowed form, weeping eyes, rasped nose, and snivelling wretch whom you would encounter here, the once gay and sparkling, etc. etc. everything else here is as quiet as possible. business reports you receive from holsworth. wilkie looked in to-day, going to gloucestershire for a week. the office is full of discarded curtains and coverings from tavistock house, which georgina is coming up this evening to select from and banish. mary is in raptures with the beauties of dunkeld, but is not very well in health. the admiral (sydney) goes up for his examination to-morrow. if he fails to pass with credit, i will never believe in anybody again, so in that case look out for your own reputation with me. this is really all the news i have, except that i am lazy, and that wilkie dines here next tuesday, in order that we may have a talk about the christmas number. i beg to send my kind regard to mrs. wills, and to enquire how she likes wearing a hat, which of course she does. i also want to know from her in confidence whether _crwllm festidiniog llymthll y wodd_? yesterday i burnt, in the field at gad's hill, the accumulated letters and papers of twenty years. they sent up a smoke like the genie when he got out of the casket on the seashore; and as it was an exquisite day when i began, and rained very heavily when i finished, i suspect my correspondence of having overcast the face of the heavens. ever faithfully. p.s.--kind regard to mr. and mrs. novelli.[ ] i have just sent out for _the globe_. no news. hullah's daughter (an artist) tells me that certain female students have addressed the royal academy, entreating them to find a place for their education. i think it a capital move, for which i can do something popular and telling in _the register_. adelaide procter is active in the business, and has a copy of their letter. will you write to her for that, and anything else she may have about it, telling her that i strongly approve, and want to help them myself? [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday night, sept. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i lose no time in answering your letter; and first as to business, the school in the high town at boulogne was excellent. the boys all english, the two proprietors an old eton master and one of the protestant clergymen of the town. the teaching unusually sound and good. the manner and conduct developed in the boys quite admirable. but i have never seen a gentleman so perfectly acquainted with boy-nature as the eton master. there was a perfect understanding between him and his charges; nothing pedantic on his part, nothing slavish on their parts. the result was, that either with him or away from him, the boys combined an ease and frankness with a modesty and sense of responsibility that was really above all praise. alfred went from there to a great school at wimbledon, where they train for india and the artillery and engineers. sydney went from there to mr. barrow, at southsea. in both instances the new masters wrote to me of their own accord, bearing quite unsolicited testimony to the merits of the old, and expressing their high recognition of what they had done. these things speak for themselves. sydney has just passed his examination as a naval cadet and come home, all eyes and gold buttons. he has twelve days' leave before going on board the training-ship. katie and her husband are in france, and seem likely to remain there for an indefinite period. mary is on a month's visit in scotland; georgina, frank, and plorn are at home here; and we all want mary and her little dog back again. i have sold tavistock house, am making this rather complete in its way, and am on the restless eve of beginning a new big book; but mean to have a furnished house in town (in some accessible quarter) from february or so to june. may we meet there. your handwriting is always so full of pleasant memories to me, that when i took it out of the post-office at rochester this afternoon it quite stirred my heart. but we must not think of old times as sad times, or regard them as anything but the fathers and mothers of the present. we must all climb steadily up the mountain after the talking bird, the singing tree, and the yellow water, and must all bear in mind that the previous climbers who were scared into looking back got turned into black stone. mary boyle was here a little while ago, as affectionate at heart as ever, as young, and as pleasant. of course we talked often of you. so let me know when you are established in halfmoon street, and i shall be truly delighted to come and see you. for my attachments are strong attachments and never weaken. in right of bygones, i feel as if "all northamptonshire" belonged to me, as all northumberland did to lord bateman in the ballad. in memory of your warming your feet at the fire in that waste of a waiting-room when i read at brighton, i have ever since taken that watering-place to my bosom as i never did before. and you and switzerland are always one to me, and always inseparable. charley was heard of yesterday, from shanghai, going to japan, intending to meet his brother walter at calcutta, and having an idea of beguiling the time between whiles by asking to be taken as an amateur with the english chinese forces. everybody caressed him and asked him everywhere, and he seemed to go. with kind regards, my dear mrs. watson, ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, sept. rd, ._ on the death of his mother. my dear e. y., i did not write to you in your bereavement, because i knew that the girls had written to you, and because i instinctively shrunk from making a form of what was so real. _you_ knew what a loving and faithful remembrance i always had of your mother as a part of my youth--no more capable of restoration than my youth itself. all the womanly goodness, grace, and beauty of my drama went out with her. to the last i never could hear her voice without emotion. i think of her as of a beautiful part of my own youth, and this dream that we are all dreaming seems to darken. but it is not to say this that i write now. it comes to the point of my pen in spite of me. "holding up the mirror" is in next week's number. i have taken out all this funeral part of it. not because i disliked it (for, indeed, i thought it the best part of the paper), but because it rather grated on me, going over the proof at that time, as a remembrance that would be better reserved a little while. also because it made rather a mixture of yourself as an individual, with something that does not belong or attach to you as an individual. you can have the ms.; and as a part of a paper describing your own juvenile remembrances of a theatre, there it is, needing no change or adaption. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss dickens.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, sept. rd, ._ my dearest mamie, if you had been away from us and ill with anybody in the world but our dear mrs. white, i should have been in a state of the greatest anxiety and uneasiness about you. but as i know it to be impossible that you could be in kinder or better hands, i was not in the least restless about you, otherwise than as it grieved me to hear of my poor dear girl's suffering such pain. i hope it is over now for many a long day, and that you will come back to us a thousand times better in health than you left us. don't come back too soon. take time and get well restored. there is no hurry, the house is not near to-rights yet, and though we all want you, and though boy wants you, we all (including boy) deprecate a fatiguing journey being taken too soon. as to the carpenters, they are absolutely maddening. they are always at work, yet never seem to do anything. lillie was down on friday, and said (his eye fixed on maidstone, and rubbing his hand to conciliate his moody employer) that "he didn't think there would be very much left to do after saturday, the th." i didn't throw him out of the window. your aunt tells you all the news, and leaves me no chance of distinguishing myself, i know. you have been told all about my brackets in the drawing-room, all about the glass rescued from the famous stage-wreck of tavistock house, all about everything here and at the office. the office is really a success. as comfortable, cheerful, and private as anything of the kind can possibly be. i took the admiral (but this you know too, no doubt) to dollond's, the mathematical instrument maker's, last monday, to buy that part of his outfit. his sextant (which is about the size and shape of a cocked hat), on being applied to his eye, entirely concealed him. not the faintest vestige of the distinguished officer behind it was perceptible to the human vision. all through the city, people turned round and stared at him with the sort of pleasure people take in a little model. we went on to chatham this day week, in search of some big man-of-war's-man who should be under obligation to salute him--unfortunately found none. but this no doubt you know too, and all my news falls flat. i am driven out of my room by paint, and am writing in the best spare room. the whole prospect is excessively wet; it does not rain now, but yesterday it did tremendously, and it rained very heavily in the night. we are even muddy; and that is saying a great deal in this dry country of chalk and sand. everywhere the corn is lying out and saturated with wet. the hops (nearly everywhere) look as if they had been burnt. in my mind's eye i behold mrs. bouncer, still with some traces of her late anxiety on her faithful countenance, balancing herself a little unequally on her bow fore-legs, pricking up her ears, with her head on one side, and slightly opening her intellectual nostrils. i send my loving and respectful duty to her. to dear mrs. white, and to white, and to clara, say anything from me that is loving and grateful. my dearest mamie, ever and ever your most affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] office of "all the year round," _monday night, sept. th, ._ my dearest georgy, at the waterloo station we were saluted with "hallo! here's dickens!" from divers naval cadets, and sir richard bromley introduced himself to me, who had his cadet son with him, a friend of sydney's. we went down together, and the boys were in the closest alliance. bromley being accountant-general of the navy, and having influence on board, got their hammocks changed so that they would be serving side by side, at which they were greatly pleased. the moment we stepped on board, the "hul-lo! here's dickens!" was repeated on all sides, and the admiral (evidently highly popular) shook hands with about fifty of his messmates. taking bromley for my model (with whom i fraternised in the most pathetic manner), i gave sydney a sovereign before stepping over the side. he was as little overcome as it was possible for a boy to be, and stood waving the gold-banded cap as we came ashore in a boat. there is no denying that he looks very small aboard a great ship, and that a boy must have a strong and decided speciality for the sea to take to such a life. captain harris was not on board, but the other chief officers were, and were highly obliging. we went over the ship. i should say that there can be little or no individuality of address to any particular boy, but that they all tumble through their education in a crowded way. the admiral's servant (i mean our admiral's) had an idiotic appearance, but perhaps it did him injustice (a mahogany-faced marine by station). the admiral's washing apparatus is about the size of a muffin-plate, and he could easily live in his chest. the meeting with bromley was a piece of great good fortune, and the dear old chap could not have been left more happily. ever, my dearest georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss power.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear marguerite, i like the article exceedingly, and think the translations _admirable_--spirited, fresh, bold, and evidently faithful. i will get the paper into the next number i make up, no. . i will send a proof to you for your correction, either next monday or this day week. or would you like to come here next monday and dine with us at five, and go over to madame céleste's opening? then you could correct your paper on the premises, as they drink their beer at the beer-shops. some of the introductory remarks on french literature i propose to strike out, as a little too essayical for this purpose, and likely to throw out a large portion of the large audience at starting, as suggesting some very different kind of article. my daring pen shall have imbued its murderous heart with ink before you see the proof. with kind regards, ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dear forster, it would be a great pleasure to me to come to you, an immense pleasure, and to sniff the sea i love (from the shore); but i fear i must come down one morning and come back at night. i will tell you why. last week, i got to work on a new story. i called a council of war at the office on tuesday. it was perfectly clear that the one thing to be done was, for me to strike in. i have therefore decided to begin a story, the length of the "tale of two cities," on the st of december--begin publishing, that is. i must make the most i can out of the book. when i come down, i will bring you the first two or three weekly parts. the name is, "great expectations." i think a good name? now the preparations to get ahead, combined with the absolute necessity of my giving a good deal of time to the christmas number, will tie me to the grindstone pretty tightly. it will be just as much as i can hope to do. therefore, what i had hoped would be a few days at eastbourne diminish to a few hours. i took the admiral down to portsmouth. every maritime person in the town knew him. he seemed to know every boy on board the _britannia_, and was a tremendous favourite evidently. it was very characteristic of him that they good-naturedly helped him, he being so very small, into his hammock at night. but he couldn't rest in it on these terms, and got out again to learn the right way of getting in independently. official report stated that "after a few spills, he succeeded perfectly, and went to sleep." he is perfectly happy on board, takes tea with the captain, leads choruses on saturday nights, and has an immense marine for a servant. i saw edmund yates at the office, and he told me that during all his mother's wanderings of mind, which were almost incessant at last, she never once went back to the old adelphi days until she was just dying, when he heard her say, in great perplexity: "i can _not_ get the words." best love to mrs. forster. ever, my dear forster, affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i have been down to brighton to see forster, and found your letter there on arriving by express this morning. i also found a letter from georgina, describing that mary's horse went down suddenly on a stone, and how mary was thrown, and had her riding-habit torn to pieces, and has a deep cut just above the knee--fortunately not in the knee itself, which is doing exceedingly well, but which will probably incapacitate her from walking for days and days to come. it is well it was no worse. the accident occurred at milton, near gravesend, and they found mary in a public-house there, wonderfully taken care of and looked after. i propose that we start on thursday morning, the st of november. the train for penzance leaves the great western terminus at a quarter-past nine in the morning. it is a twelve hours' journey. shall we meet at the terminus at nine? i shall be here all the previous day, and shall dine here. your account of your passage goes to my heart through my stomach. what a pity i was not there on board to present that green-visaged, but sweet-tempered and uncomplaining spectacle of imbecility, at which i am so expert under stormy circumstances, in the poet's phrase: as i sweep through the deep, when the stormy winds do blow. what a pity i am not there, at meurice's, to sleep the sleep of infancy through the long plays where the gentlemen stand with their backs to the mantelpieces. what a pity i am not with you to make a third at the trois frères, and drink no end of bottles of bordeaux, without ever getting a touch of redness in my (poet's phrase again) "innocent nose." but i must go down to gad's to-night, and get to work again. four weekly numbers have been ground off the wheel, and at least another must be turned before we meet. they shall be yours in the slumberous railway-carriage. i don't think forster is at all in good health. he was tremendously hospitable and hearty. i walked six hours and a half on the downs yesterday, and never stopped or sat. early in the morning, before breakfast, i went to the nearest baths to get a shower-bath. they kept me waiting longer than i thought reasonable, and seeing a man in a cap in the passage, i went to him and said: "i really must request that you'll be good enough to see about this shower-bath;" and it was hullah! waiting for another bath. rumours were brought into the house on saturday night, that there was a "ghost" up at larkins's monument. plorn was frightened to death, and i was apprehensive of the ghost's spreading and coming there, and causing "warning" and desertion among the servants. frank was at home, and andrew gordon was with us. time, nine o'clock. village talk and credulity, amazing. i armed the two boys with a short stick apiece, and shouldered my double-barrelled gun, well loaded with shot. "now observe," says i to the domestics, "if anybody is playing tricks and has got a head, i'll blow it off." immense impression. new groom evidently convinced that he has entered the service of a bloodthirsty demon. we ascend to the monument. stop at the gate. moon is rising. heavy shadows. "now, look out!" (from the bloodthirsty demon, in a loud, distinct voice). "if the ghost is here and i see him, so help me god i'll fire at him!" suddenly, as we enter the field, a most extraordinary noise responds--terrific noise--human noise--and yet superhuman noise. b. t. d. brings piece to shoulder. "did you hear that, pa?" says frank. "i did," says i. noise repeated--portentous, derisive, dull, dismal, damnable. we advance towards the sound. something white comes lumbering through the darkness. an asthmatic sheep! dead, as i judge, by this time. leaving frank to guard him, i took andrew with me, and went all round the monument, and down into the ditch, and examined the field well, thinking it likely that somebody might be taking advantage of the sheep to frighten the village. drama ends with discovery of no one, and triumphant return to rum-and-water. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] bideford, north devon, _thursday night, nov. st, ._ my dearest georgy, i write (with the most impracticable iron pen on earth) to report our safe arrival here, in a beastly hotel. we start to-morrow morning at nine on a two days' posting between this and liskeard in cornwall. we are due in liskeard (but nobody seems to know anything about the roads) on saturday afternoon, and we purpose making an excursion in that neighbourhood on sunday, and coming up from liskeard on monday by great western fast train, which will get us to london, please god, in good time on monday evening. there i shall hear from you, and know whether dear mamie will move to london too. we had a pleasant journey down here, and a beautiful day. no adventures whatever. nothing has happened to wilkie, and he sends love. we had stinking fish for dinner, and have been able to drink nothing, though we have ordered wine, beer, and brandy-and-water. there is nothing in the house but two tarts and a pair of snuffers. the landlady is playing cribbage with the landlord in the next room (behind a thin partition), and they seem quite comfortable. ever, my dearest georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] office of "all the year round," _friday, dec. th, ._ my dear mary, i cannot tell you how much i thank you for the beautiful cigar-case, and how seasonable, and friendly, and good, and warm-hearted it looked when i opened it at gad's hill. besides which, it is a cigar-case, and will hold cigars; two crowning merits that i never yet knew to be possessed by any article claiming the same name. for all of these reasons, but more than all because it comes from you, i love it, and send you eighteen hundred and sixty kisses, with one in for the new year. both excellent stories and perfectly new. your joe swears that he never heard either--never a word or syllable of either--after he laughed at 'em this blessed day. i have no news, except that i am not quite well, and am being doctored. pray read "great expectations." i think it is very droll. it is a very great success, and seems universally liked. i suppose because it opens funnily, and with an interest too. i pass my time here (i am staying here alone) in working, taking physic, and taking a stall at a theatre every night. on boxing night i was at covent garden. a dull pantomime was "worked" (as we say) better than i ever saw a heavy piece worked on a first night, until suddenly and without a moment's warning, every scene on that immense stage fell over on its face, and disclosed chaos by gaslight behind! there never was such a business; about sixty people who were on the stage being extinguished in the most remarkable manner. not a soul was hurt. in the uproar, some moon-calf rescued a porter pot, six feet high (out of which the clown had been drinking when the accident happened), and stood it on the cushion of the lowest proscenium box, p.s., beside a lady and gentleman, who were dreadfully ashamed of it. the moment the house knew that nobody was injured, they directed their whole attention to this gigantic porter pot in its genteel position (the lady and gentleman trying to hide behind it), and roared with laughter. when a modest footman came from behind the curtain to clear it, and took it up in his arms like a brobdingnagian baby, we all laughed more than ever we had laughed in our lives. i don't know why. we have had a fire here, but our people put it out before the parish-engine arrived, like a drivelling perambulator, with _the beadle in it_, like an imbecile baby. popular opinion, disappointed in the fire having been put out, snowballed the beadle. god bless it! over the way at the lyceum, there is a very fair christmas piece, with one or two uncommonly well-done nigger songs--one remarkably gay and mad, done in the finale to a scene. also a very nice transformation, though i don't know what it means. the poor actors waylay me in bow street, to represent their necessities; and i often see one cut down a court when he beholds me coming, cut round drury lane to face me, and come up towards me near this door in the freshest and most accidental way, as if i was the last person he expected to see on the surface of this globe. the other day, there thus appeared before me (simultaneously with a scent of rum in the air) one aged and greasy man, with a pair of pumps under his arm. he said he thought if he could get down to somewhere (i think it was newcastle), he would get "taken on" as pantaloon, the existing pantaloon being "a stick, sir--a mere muff." i observed that i was sorry times were so bad with him. "mr. dickens, you know our profession, sir--no one knows it better, sir--there is no right feeling in it. i was harlequin on your own circuit, sir, for five-and-thirty years, and was displaced by a boy, sir!--a boy!" so no more at present, except love to mrs. watson and bedgey prig and all, from my dear mary. your ever affectionate joe. p.s.--don't i pine neither? p.p.s.--i did my best to arouse forster's worst feelings; but he had got into a christmas habit of mind, and wouldn't respond. footnotes: [ ] with whom mr. and mrs. wills were staying at aberystwith. narrative. . this, as far as his movements were concerned, was again a very unsettled year with charles dickens. he hired a furnished house in the regent's park, which he, with his household, occupied for some months. during the season he gave several readings at st. james's hall. after a short summer holiday at gad's hill, he started, in the autumn, on a reading tour in the english provinces. mr. arthur smith, being seriously ill, could not accompany him in this tour; and mr. headland, who was formerly in office at the st. martin's hall, was engaged as business-manager of these readings. mr. arthur smith died in october, and charles dickens's distress at the loss of this loved friend and companion is touchingly expressed in many of his letters of this year. there are also sorrowful allusions to the death of his brother-in-law, mr. henry austin, which sad event likewise happened in october. and the letter we give to mrs. austin ("letitia") has reference to her sad affliction. in june of this year he paid a short visit to sir e. b. lytton at knebworth, accompanied by his daughter and sister-in-law, who also during his autumn tour joined him in edinburgh. but this course of readings was brought rather suddenly to an end on account of the death of the prince consort. besides being constantly occupied with the business of these readings, charles dickens was still at work on his story of "great expectations," which was appearing weekly in "all the year round." the story closed on the rd of august, when it was published as a whole in three volumes, and inscribed to mr. chauncey hare townshend. the christmas number of "all the year round" was called "tom tiddler's ground," to which charles dickens contributed three stories. our second letter in this year is given more as a specimen of the claims which were constantly being made upon charles dickens's time and patience, than because we consider the letter itself to contain much public interest; excepting, indeed, as showing his always considerate and courteous replies to such constant applications. "the fire" mentioned in the letter to mr. forster was the great fire in tooley street. the "morgan" was an american sea-captain, well known in those days, and greatly liked and respected. it may interest our readers to know that the character of captain jorgan, in the christmas number of the previous year, was suggested by this pleasant sailor, for whom charles dickens had a hearty liking. young mr. morgan was, during the years he passed in england, a constant visitor at gad's hill. the "elwin" mentioned in the letter written from bury st. edmunds, was the rev. whitwell elwin, a norfolk gentleman, well known in the literary world, and who was for many years editor of "the quarterly review." the explanation of the letter to mr. john agate, of dover, we give in that gentleman's own words: "there are few public men with the strain upon their time and energies which he had particularly (and which i know better now that i have read his life), who would have spared the time to have written such a long courteous letter. "i wrote to him rather in anger, and left the letter myself at the lord warden, as i and my family were very much disappointed, after having purchased our tickets so long before, to find we could not got into the room, as money was being received, but his kind letter explained all." [sidenote: miss hogarth.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dearest georgy, "we" are in the full swing of stopping managers from playing "a message from the sea." i privately doubt the strength of our position in the court of chancery, if we try it; but it is worth trying. i am aware that mr. lane of the britannia sent an emissary to gad's hill yesterday. it unfortunately happens that the first man "we" have to assert the principle against is a very good man, whom i really respect. i have no news, except that i really hope and believe i am gradually getting well. if i have no check, i hope to be soon discharged by the medico. ever affectionately. p.s.--best love to mamie, also to the boys and miss craufurd. office of "all the year round," , wellington street, w.c., _tuesday evening, jan. th, ._ dear sir, i feel it quite hopeless to endeavour to present my position before you, in reference to such a letter as yours, in its plain and true light. when you suppose it would have cost mr. thackeray "but a word" to use his influence to obtain you some curatorship or the like, you fill me with the sense of impossibility of leading you to a more charitable judgment of mr. dickens. nevertheless, i will put the truth before you. scarcely a day of my life passes, or has passed for many years, without bringing me some letters similar to yours. often they will come by dozens--scores--hundreds. my time and attention would be pretty well occupied without them, and the claims upon me (some very near home), for all the influence and means of help that i do and do not possess, are not commonly heavy. i have no power to aid you towards the attainment of your object. it is the simple exact truth, and nothing can alter it. so great is the disquietude i constantly undergo from having to write to some new correspondent in this strain, that, god knows, i would resort to another relief if i could. your studies from nature appear to me to express an excellent observation of nature, in a loving and healthy spirit. but what then? the dealers and dealers' prices of which you complain will not be influenced by that honest opinion. nor will it have the least effect upon the president of the royal academy, or the directors of the school of design. assuming your supposition to be correct that these authorities are adverse to you, i have no more power than you have to render them favourable. and assuming them to be quite disinterested and dispassionate towards you, i have no voice or weight in any appointment that any of them make. i will retain your packet over to-morrow, and will then cause it to be sent to your house. i write under the pressure of occupation and business, and therefore write briefly. faithfully yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] office of "all the year round," _friday, feb. st, ._ my dear cerjat, you have read in the papers of our heavy english frost. at gad's hill it was so intensely cold, that in our warm dining-room on christmas day we could hardly sit at the table. in my study on that morning, long after a great fire of coal and wood had been lighted, the thermometer was i don't know where below freezing. the bath froze, and all the pipes froze, and remained in a stony state for five or six weeks. the water in the bedroom-jugs froze, and blew up the crockery. the snow on the top of the house froze, and was imperfectly removed with axes. my beard froze as i walked about, and i couldn't detach my cravat and coat from it until i was thawed at the fire. my boys and half the officers stationed at chatham skated away without a check to gravesend--five miles off--and repeated the performance for three or four weeks. at last the thaw came, and then everything split, blew up, dripped, poured, perspired, and got spoilt. since then we have had a small visitation of the plague of servants; the cook (in a riding-habit) and the groom (in a dress-coat and jewels) having mounted mary's horse and mine, in our absence, and scoured the neighbouring country at a rattling pace. and when i went home last saturday, i innocently wondered how the horses came to be out of condition, and gravely consulted the said groom on the subject, who gave it as his opinion "which they wanted reg'lar work." we are now coming to town until midsummer. having sold my own house, to be more free and independent, i have taken a very pretty furnished house, no. , hanover terrace, regent's park. this, of course, on my daughter's account. for i have very good and cheerful bachelor rooms here, with an old servant in charge, who is the cleverest man of his kind in the world, and can do anything, from excellent carpentery to excellent cookery, and has been with me three-and-twenty years. the american business is the greatest english sensation at present. i venture to predict that the struggle of violence will be a very short one, and will be soon succeeded by some new compact between the northern and southern states. meantime the lancashire mill-owners are getting very uneasy. the italian state of things is not regarded as looking very cheerful. what from one's natural sympathies with a people so oppressed as the italians, and one's natural antagonism to a pope and a bourbon (both of which superstitions i do suppose the world to have had more than enough of), i agree with you concerning victor emmanuel, and greatly fear that the southern italians are much degraded. still, an united italy would be of vast importance to the peace of the world, and would be a rock in louis napoleon's way, as he very well knows. therefore the idea must be championed, however much against hope. my eldest boy, just home from china, was descried by townshend's henri the moment he landed at marseilles, and was by him borne in triumph to townshend's rooms. the weather was snowy, slushy, beastly; and marseilles was, as it usually is to my thinking, well-nigh intolerable. my boy could not stay with townshend, as he was coming on by express train; but he says: "i sat with him and saw him dine. he had a leg of lamb, and a tremendous cold." that is the whole description i have been able to extract from him. this journal is doing gloriously, and "great expectations" is a great success. i have taken my third boy, frank (jeffrey's godson), into this office. if i am not mistaken, he has a natural literary taste and capacity, and may do very well with a chance so congenial to his mind, and being also entered at the bar. dear me, when i have to show you about london, and we dine _en garçon_ at odd places, i shall scarcely know where to begin. only yesterday i walked out from here in the afternoon, and thought i would go down by the houses of parliament. when i got there, the day was so beautifully bright and warm, that i thought i would walk on by millbank, to see the river. i walked straight on _for three miles_ on a splendid broad esplanade overhanging the thames, with immense factories, railway works, and what-not erected on it, and with the strangest beginnings and ends of wealthy streets pushing themselves into the very thames. when i was a rower on that river, it was all broken ground and ditch, with here and there a public-house or two, an old mill, and a tall chimney. i had never seen it in any state of transition, though i suppose myself to know this rather large city as well as anyone in it. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. e. m. ward, r.a.] , hanover terrace, regent's park, _saturday night, march th, ._ my dear ward, i cannot tell you how gratified i have been by your letter, and what a splendid recompense it is for any pleasure i am giving you. such generous and earnest sympathy from such a brother-artist gives me true delight. i am proud of it, believe me, and moved by it to do all the better. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] "all the year round" office, _tuesday, june th, ._ my dearest macready, there is little doubt, i think, of my reading at cheltenham somewhere about november. i submit myself so entirely to arthur smith's arrangements for me, that i express my sentiments on this head with modesty. but i think there is scarcely a doubt of my seeing you then. i have just finished my book of "great expectations," and am the worse for wear. neuralgic pains in the face have troubled me a good deal, and the work has been pretty close. but i hope that the book is a good book, and i have no doubt of very soon throwing off the little damage it has done me. what with blondin at the crystal palace and léotard at leicester square, we seem to be going back to barbaric excitements. i have not seen, and don't intend to see, the hero of niagara (as the posters call him), but i have been beguiled into seeing léotard, and it is at once the most fearful and most graceful thing i have ever seen done. clara white (grown pretty) has been staying with us. i am sore afraid that _the times_, by playing fast and loose with the american question, has very seriously compromised this country. the americans northward are perfectly furious on the subject; and motley the historian (a very sensible man, strongly english in his sympathies) assured me the other day that he thought the harm done very serious indeed, and the dangerous nature of the daily widening breach scarcely calculable. kindest and best love to all. wilkie collins has just come in, and sends best regard. ever most affectionately, my dearest macready. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] gad's hill, _monday, july st, ._ my dear forster, * * * * * you will be surprised to hear that i have changed the end of "great expectations" from and after pip's return to joe's, and finding his little likeness there. bulwer (who has been, as i think i told you, extraordinarily taken by the book), so strongly urged it upon me, after reading the proofs, and supported his views with such good reasons, that i resolved to make the change. you shall have it when you come back to town. i have put in a very pretty piece of writing, and i have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through the alteration. i have not seen bulwer's changed story. i brought back the first month with me, and i know the nature of his changes throughout; but i have not yet had the revised proofs. he was in a better state at knebworth than i have ever seen him in all these years, a little weird occasionally regarding magic and spirits, but perfectly fair and frank under opposition. he was talkative, anecdotical, and droll; looked young and well, laughed heartily, and enjoyed some games we played with great zest. in his artist character and talk he was full of interest and matter, but that he always is. socially, he seemed to me almost a new man. i thoroughly enjoyed myself, and so did georgina and mary. the fire i did not see until the monday morning, but it was blazing fiercely then, and was blazing hardly less furiously when i came down here again last friday. i was here on the night of its breaking out. if i had been in london i should have been on the scene, pretty surely. you will be perhaps surprised to hear that it is morgan's conviction (his son was here yesterday), that the north will put down the south, and that speedily. in his management of his large business, he is proceeding steadily on that conviction. he says that the south has no money and no credit, and that it is impossible for it to make a successful stand. he may be all wrong, but he is certainly a very shrewd man, and he has never been, as to the united states, an enthusiast of any class. poor lord campbell's seems to me as easy and good a death as one could desire. there must be a sweep of these men very soon, and one feels as if it must fall out like the breaking of an arch--one stone goes from a prominent place, and then the rest begin to drop. so one looks towards brougham, and lyndhurst, and pollock. i will add no more to this, or i know i shall not send it; for i am in the first desperate laziness of having done my book, and think of offering myself to the village school as a live example of that vice for the edification of youth. ever, my dear forster, affectionately. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, july th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i have owed you a letter for so long a time that i fear you may sometimes have misconstrued my silence. but i hope that the sight of the handwriting of your old friend will undeceive you, if you have, and will put that right. during the progress of my last story, i have been working so hard that very, very little correspondence--except enforced correspondence on business--has passed this pen. and now that i am free again, i devote a few of my first leisure moments to this note. you seemed in your last to think that i had forgotten you in respect of the christmas number. not so at all. i discussed with them here where you were, how you were to be addressed, and the like; finally left the number in a blank envelope, and did not add the address to it until it would have been absurd to send you such stale bread. this was my fault, but this was all. and i should be so pained at heart if you supposed me capable of failing in my truth and cordiality, or in the warm remembrance of the time we have passed together, that perhaps i make more of it than you meant to do. my sailor-boy is at home--i was going to write, for the holidays, but i suppose i must substitute "on leave." under the new regulations, he must not pass out of the _britannia_ before december. the younger boys are all at school, and coming home this week for the holidays. mary keeps house, of course, and katie and her husband surprised us yesterday, and are here now. charley is holiday-making at guernsey and jersey. he has been for some time seeking a partnership in business, and has not yet found one. the matter is in the hands of mr. bates, the managing partner in barings' house, and seems as slow a matter to adjust itself as ever i looked on at. georgina is, as usual, the general friend and confidante and factotum of the whole party. your present correspondent read at st. james's hall in the beginning of the season, to perfectly astounding audiences; but finding that fatigue and excitement very difficult to manage in conjunction with a story, deemed it prudent to leave off reading in high tide and mid-career, the rather by reason of something like neuralgia in the face. at the end of october i begin again; and if you are at brighton in november, i shall try to see you there. i deliver myself up to mr. arthur smith, and i know it is one of the places for which he has put me down. this is all about me and mine, and next i want to know why you never come to gad's hill, and whether you are never coming. the stress i lay on these questions you will infer from the size of the following note of interrogation[hw: =?=] i am in the constant receipt of news from lausanne. of mary boyle, i daresay you have seen and heard more than i have lately. rumours occasionally reach me of her acting in every english shire incessantly, and getting in a harvest of laurels all the year round. cavendish i have not seen for a long time, but when i did see him last, it was at tavistock house, and we dined together jovially. mention of that locality reminds me that when you do come here, you will see the pictures looking wonderfully better, and more precious than they ever did in town. brought together in country light and air, they really are quite a baby collection and very pretty. i direct this to rockingham, supposing you to be there in this summer time. if you are as leafy in northamptonshire as we are in kent, you are greener than you have been for some years. i hope you may have seen a large-headed photograph with little legs, representing the undersigned, pen in hand, tapping his forehead to knock an idea out. it has just sprung up so abundantly in all the shops, that i am ashamed to go about town looking in at the picture-windows, which is my delight. it seems to me extraordinarily ludicrous, and much more like than the grave portrait done in earnest. it made me laugh when i first came upon it, until i shook again, in open sunlighted piccadilly. pray be a good christian to me, and don't be retributive in measuring out the time that shall pass before you write to me. and believe me ever, your affectionate and faithful. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, aug. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i have been going to write to you ever since i received your letter from whitby, and now i hear from charley that you are coming home, and must be addressed in the rue harley. let me know whether you will dine here this day week at the usual five. i am at present so addle-headed (having hard wednesday work in wills's absence) that i can't write much. i have got the "copperfield" reading ready for delivery, and am now going to blaze away at "nickleby," which i don't like half as well. every morning i "go in" at these marks for two or three hours, and then collapse and do nothing whatever (counting as nothing much cricket and rounders). in my time that curious railroad by the whitby moor was so much the more curious, that you were balanced against a counter-weight of water, and that you did it like blondin. but in these remote days the one inn of whitby was up a back-yard, and oyster-shell grottoes were the only view from the best private room. likewise, sir, i have posted to whitby. "pity the sorrows of a poor old man." the sun is glaring in at these windows with an amount of ferocity insupportable by one of the landed interest, who lies upon his back with an imbecile hold on grass, from lunch to dinner. feebleness of mind and head are the result. ever affectionately. p.s.--the boys have multiplied themselves by fifty daily, and have seemed to appear in hosts (especially in the hottest days) round all the corners at gad's hill. i call them the prowlers, and each has a distinguishing name attached, derived from his style of prowling. [sidenote: mr. arthur smith.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, sept. rd, ._ my dear arthur, i cannot tell you how sorry i am to receive your bad account of your health, or how anxious i shall be to receive a better one as soon as you can possibly give it. if you go away, don't you think in the main you would be better here than anywhere? you know how well you would be nursed, what care we should take of you, and how perfectly quiet and at home you would be, until you become strong enough to take to the medway. moreover, i think you would be less anxious about the tour, here, than away from such association. i would come to worthing to fetch you, i needn't say, and would take the most careful charge of you. i will write no more about this, because i wish to avoid giving you more to read than can be helped; but i do sincerely believe it would be at once your wisest and least anxious course. as to a long journey into wales, or any long journey, it would never do. nice is not to be thought of. its dust, and its sharp winds (i know it well), towards october are very bad indeed. i send you the enclosed letters, firstly, because i have no circular to answer them with, and, secondly, because i fear i might confuse your arrangements by interfering with the correspondence. i shall hope to have a word from you very soon. i am at work for the tour every day, except my town wednesdays. ever faithfully. p.s.--kindest regards from all. [sidenote: mr. john watkins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday night, sept. th, ._ dear mr. watkins, in reply to your kind letter i must explain that i have not yet brought down any of your large photographs of myself, and therefore cannot report upon their effect here. i think the "cartes" are all liked. a general howl of horror greeted the appearance of no. , and a riotous attempt was made to throw it out of window. i calmed the popular fury by promising that it should never again be beheld within these walls. i think i mentioned to you when you showed it to me, that i felt persuaded it would not be liked. it has a grim and wasted aspect, and perhaps might be made useful as a portrait of the ancient mariner. i feel that i owe you an apology for being (innocently) a difficult subject. when i once excused myself to ary scheffer while sitting to him, he received the apology as strictly his due, and said with a vexed air: "at this moment, _mon cher_ dickens, you look more like an energetic dutch admiral than anything else;" for which i apologised again. in the hope that the pains you have bestowed upon me will not be thrown away, but that your success will prove of some use to you, believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, oct. th, ._ after the death of mr. arthur smith. my dear edmund, coming back here to-day, i find your letter. i was so very much distressed last night in thinking of it all, and i find it so very difficult to preserve my composure when i dwell in my mind on the many times fast approaching when i shall sorely miss the familiar face, that i am hardly steady enough yet to refer to the readings like a man. but your kind reference to them makes me desirous to tell you that i took headland (formerly of st. martin's hall, who has always been with us in london) to conduct the business, when i knew that our poor dear fellow could never do it, even if he had recovered strength to go; and that i consulted with himself about it when i saw him for the last time on earth, and that it seemed to please him, and he said: "we couldn't do better." write to me before you come; and remember that i go to town wednesday mornings. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss dickens.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dearest mamie, i received your affectionate little letter here this morning, and was very glad to get it. poor dear arthur is a sad loss to me, and indeed i was very fond of him. but the readings must be fought out, like all the rest of life. ever your affectionate. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, oct. th, ._ my dearest macready, this is a short note. but the moment i know for certain what is designed for me at cheltenham, i write to you in order that you may know it from me and not by chance from anyone else. i am to read there on the evening of friday, the rd of january, and on the morning of saturday, the th; as i have nothing to do on thursday, the nd, but come from leamington, i shall come to you, please god, for a quiet dinner that day. the death of arthur smith has caused me great distress and anxiety. i had a great regard for him, and he made the reading part of my life as light and pleasant as it _could_ be made. i had hoped to bring him to see you, and had pictured to myself how amused and interested you would have been with his wonderful tact and consummate mastery of arrangement. but it's all over. i begin at norwich on the th, and am going north in the middle of november. i am going to do "copperfield," and shall be curious to test its effect on the edinburgh people. it has been quite a job so to piece portions of the long book together as to make something continuous out of it; but i hope i have got something varied and dramatic. i am also (not to slight _your_ book) going to do "nickleby at mr. squeers's." it is clear that both must be trotted out at cheltenham. with kindest love and regard to all your house, ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. p.s.--fourth edition of "great expectations" almost gone! [sidenote: miss hogarth.] angel hotel, bury st. edmunds, _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dearest georgy, i have just now received your welcome letter, and i hasten to report (having very little time) that we had a splendid hall last night, and that i think "nickleby" tops all the readings. somehow it seems to have got in it, by accident, exactly the qualities best suited to the purpose, and it went last night not only with roars, but with a general hilarity and pleasure that i have never seen surpassed. we are full here for to-night. fancy this: last night at about six, who should walk in but elwin! he was exactly in his usual state, only more demonstrative than ever, and had been driven in by some neighbours who were coming to the reading. i had tea up for him, and he went down at seven with me to the dismal den where i dressed, and sat by the fire while i dressed, and was childishly happy in that great privilege! during the reading he sat on a corner of the platform and roared incessantly. he brought in a lady and gentleman to introduce while i was undressing, and went away in a perfect and absolute rapture. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] royal hotel, norwich, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ i cannot say that we began well last night. we had not a good hall, and they were a very lumpish audience indeed. this did not tend to cheer the strangeness i felt in being without arthur, and i was not at all myself. we have a large let for to-night, i think two hundred and fifty stalls, which is very large, and i hope that both they and i will go better. i could have done perfectly last night, if the audience had been bright, but they were an intent and staring audience. they laughed though very well, and the storm made them shake themselves again. but they were not magnetic, and the great big place was out of sorts somehow. to-morrow i will write you another short note, however short. it is "nickleby" and the "trial" to-night; "copperfield" again to-morrow. a wet day here, with glimpses of blue. i shall not forget katey's health at dinner. a pleasant journey down. ever, my dearest georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: the same.] the great white horse, ipswich, _friday, nov. st, ._ i cannot quite remember in the whirl of travelling and reading, whether or no i wrote you a line from bury st. edmunds. but i think (and hope) i did. we had a fine room there, and "copperfield" made a great impression. at mid-day we go on to colchester, where i shall expect the young morgans. i sent a telegram on yesterday, after receiving your note, to secure places for them. the answer returned by telegraph was: "no box-seats left but on the fourth row." if they prefer to sit on the stage (for i read in the theatre, there being no other large public room), they shall. meantime i have told john, who went forward this morning with the other men, to let the people at the inn know that if three travellers answering that description appear before my dinner-time, they are to dine with me. plorn's admission that he likes the school very much indeed, is the great social triumph of modern times. i am looking forward to sunday's rest at gad's, and shall be down by the ten o'clock train from town. i miss poor arthur dreadfully. it is scarcely possible to imagine how much. it is not only that his loss to me socially is quite irreparable, but that the sense i used to have of compactness and comfort about me while i was reading is quite gone. and when i come out for the ten minutes, when i used to find him always ready for me with something cheerful to say, it is forlorn. i cannot but fancy, too, that the audience must miss the old speciality of a pervading gentleman. nobody i know has turned up yet except elwin. i have had many invitations to all sorts of houses in all sorts of places, and have of course accepted them every one. love to mamie, if she has come home, and to bouncer, if _she_ has come; also marguerite, who i hope is by this time much better. ever, my dear georgy, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mrs. henry austin.] gad's hill, _sunday, nov. rd, ._ extract. i am heartily glad to hear that you have been out in the air, and i hope you will go again very soon and make a point of continuing to go. there is a soothing influence in the sight of the earth and sky, which god put into them for our relief when he made the world in which we are all to suffer, and strive, and die. i will not fail to write to you from many points of my tour, and if you ever want to write to me you may be sure of a quick response, and may be certain that i am sympathetic and true. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens.] fountain hotel, canterbury, _windy night, nov. th, ._ my dearest mamie, a word of report before i go to bed. an excellent house to-night, and an audience positively perfect. the greatest part of it stalls, and an intelligent and delightful response in them, like the touch of a beautiful instrument. "copperfield" wound up in a real burst of feeling and delight. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. john agate.] lord warden hotel, dover, _wednesday, nov. th, ._ sir, i am exceedingly sorry to find, from the letter you have addressed to me, that you had just cause of complaint in being excluded from my reading here last night. it will now and then unfortunately happen when the place of reading is small (as in this case), that some confusion and inconvenience arise from the local agents over-estimating, in perfect good faith and sincerity, the capacity of the room. such a mistake, i am assured, was made last night; and thus all the available space was filled before the people in charge were at all prepared for that circumstance. you may readily suppose that i can have no personal knowledge of the proceedings of the people in my employment at such a time. but i wish to assure you very earnestly, that they are all old servants, well acquainted with my principles and wishes, and that they are under the strongest injunction to avoid any approach to mercenary dealing; and to behave to all comers equally with as much consideration and politeness as they know i should myself display. the recent death of a much-regretted friend of mine, who managed this business for me, and on whom these men were accustomed to rely in any little difficulty, caused them (i have no doubt) to feel rather at a loss in your case. do me the favour to understand that under any other circumstances you would, as a matter of course, have been provided with any places whatever that could be found, without the smallest reference to what you had originally paid. this is scanty satisfaction to you, but it is so strictly the truth, that yours is the first complaint of the kind i have ever received. i hope to read in dover again, but it is quite impossible that i can make any present arrangement for that purpose. whenever i may return here, you may be sure i shall not fail to remember that i owe you a recompense for a disappointment. in the meanwhile i very sincerely regret it. faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] bedford hotel, brighton, _thursday, nov. th, ._ my dear georgy, * * * * * the duchess of cambridge comes to-night to "copperfield." the bad weather has not in the least touched us, and beyond all doubt a great deal of money has been left untaken at each place. the storm was most magnificent at dover. all the great side of the lord warden next the sea had to be emptied, the break of the sea was so prodigious, and the noise was so utterly confounding. the sea came in like a great sky of immense clouds, for ever breaking suddenly into furious rain. all kinds of wreck were washed in. miss birmingham and i saw, among other things, a very pretty brass-bound chest being thrown about like a feather. on tuesday night, the unhappy ostend packet could not get in, neither could she go back, and she beat about the channel until noon yesterday. i saw her come in then, _with five men at the wheel_; such a picture of misery, as to the crew (of passengers there were no signs), as you can scarcely imagine. tho effect at hastings and at dover really seems to have outdone the best usual impression, and at dover they wouldn't go, but sat applauding like mad. the most delicate audience i have seen in any provincial place is canterbury. the audience with the greatest sense of humour certainly is dover. the people in the stalls set the example of laughing, in the most curiously unreserved way; and they really laughed when squeers read the boys' letters, with such cordial enjoyment, that the contagion extended to me, for one couldn't hear them without laughing too. so, thank god, all goes well, and the recompense for the trouble is in every way great. there is rather an alarming breakdown at newcastle, in respect of all the bills having been, in some inscrutable way, lost on the road. i have resolved to send berry there, with full powers to do all manner of things, early next week. the amended route-list is not printed yet, because i am trying to get off manchester and liverpool; both of which i strongly doubt, in the present state of american affairs. therefore i can't send it for marguerite; but i can, and do, send her my love and god-speed. this is addressed to the office because i suppose you will be there to-morrow. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _november th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, you know poor austin, and what his work was, and how he did it. if you have no private objection to signing the enclosed memorial (which will receive the right signatures before being presented), i think you will have no public objection. i shall be heartily glad if you can put your name to it, and shall esteem your doing so as a very kind service. will you return the memorial under cover to mr. tom taylor, at the local government act office, whitehall? he is generously exerting himself in furtherance of it, and so delay will be avoided. my dear lord carlisle, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, nov. th, ._ my dear mary, i am perfectly enraptured with the quilt. it is one of the most tasteful, lively, elegant things i have ever seen; and i need not tell you that while it is valuable to me for its own ornamental sake, it is precious to me as a rainbow-hint of your friendship and affectionate remembrance. please god you shall see it next summer occupying its allotted place of state in my brand-new bedroom here. you shall behold it then, with all cheerful surroundings, the envy of mankind. my readings have been doing absolute wonders. your duchess and princess came to hear first "nickleby" and the "pickwick trial," then "copperfield," at brighton. i think they were pleased with me, and i am sure i was with them; for they are the very best audience one could possibly desire. i shall always have a pleasant remembrance of them. on wednesday i am away again for the longest part of my trip. yes, mary dear, i must say that i like my carton, and i have a faint idea sometimes that if i had acted him, i could have done something with his life and death. believe me, ever your affectionate and faithful joe. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] queen's head, newcastle, _friday, nov. nd, ._ i received your letter this morning, and grieve to report that the unlucky headland has broken down most awfully! first, as perhaps you remember, this is the place where the bills were "lost" for a week or two. the consequence has been that the agent could not announce all through the "jenny lind" time (the most important for announcing), and could but stand still and stare when people came to ask what i was going to read. last night i read "copperfield" to the most enthusiastic and appreciative audience imaginable, but in numbers about half what they might have been. to-night we shall have a famous house; but we might have had it last night too. to-morrow (knowing by this time what can, of a certainty, be done with "copperfield"), i had, of course, given out "copperfield" to be read again. conceive my amazement and dismay when i find the printer to have announced "little dombey"!!! this, i declare, i had no more intention of reading than i had of reading an account of the solar system. and this, after a sensation last night, of a really extraordinary nature in its intensity and delight! says the unlucky headland to this first head of misery: "johnson's mistake" (johnson being the printer). second, i read at edinburgh for the first time--observe the day--_next wednesday_. jenny lind's concert at edinburgh is to-night. this morning comes a frantic letter from the edinburgh agent. "i have no bills, no tickets; i lose all the announcement i would have made to hundreds upon hundreds of people to-night, all of the most desirable class to be well informed beforehand. i can't announce what mr. dickens is going to read; i can answer no question; i have, upon my responsibility, put a dreary advertisement into the papers announcing that he _is_ going to read so many times, and that particulars will shortly be ready; and i stand bound hand and foot." "johnson's mistake," says the unlucky headland. of course, i know that the man who never made a mistake in poor arthur's time is not likely to be always making mistakes now. but i have written by this post to wills, to go to him and investigate. i have also detached berry from here, and have sent him on by train at a few minutes' notice to edinburgh, and then to glasgow (where i have no doubt everything is wrong too). glasgow we may save; edinburgh i hold to be irretrievably damaged. if it can be picked up at all, it can only be at the loss of the two first nights, and by the expenditure of no end of spirits and force. and this is the harder, because it is impossible not to see that the last readings polished and prepared the audiences in general, and that i have not to work them up in any place where i have been before, but that they start with a london intelligence, and with a respect and preparation for what they are going to hear. i hope by the time you and mamie come to me, we shall have got into some good method. i must take the thing more into my own hands and look after it from hour to hour. if such a thing as this edinburgh business could have happened under poor arthur, i really believe he would have fallen into a fit, or gone distracted. no one can ever know what he was but i who have been with him and without him. headland is so anxious and so good-tempered that i cannot be very stormy with him; but it is the simple fact that he has no notion of the requirements of such work as this. without him, and with a larger salary to berry (though there are objections to the latter as _first_ man), i could have done a hundred times better. as forster will have a strong interest in knowing all about the proceedings, perhaps you will send him this letter to read. there is no very tremendous harm, indeed, done as yet. at edinburgh i know what i can do with "copperfield." i think it is not too much to say that for every one who does come to hear it on the first night, i can get back fifty on the second. and whatever can be worked up there will tell on glasgow. berry i shall continue to send on ahead, and i shall take nothing on trust and more as being done. on sunday morning at six, i have to start for berwick. from berwick, in the course of that day, i will write again; to mamie next time. with best love to her and mrs. b. [sidenote: miss dickens.] queen's head, newcastle-on-tyne, _saturday, nov. rd, ._ a most tremendous hall here last night; something almost terrible in the cram. a fearful thing might have happened. suddenly, when they were all very still over smike, my gas batten came down, and it looked as if the room was falling. there were three great galleries crammed to the roof, and a high steep flight of stairs, and a panic must have destroyed numbers of people. a lady in the front row of stalls screamed, and ran out wildly towards me, and for one instant there was a terrible wave in the crowd. i addressed that lady laughing (for i knew she was in sight of everybody there), and called out as if it happened every night, "there's nothing the matter, i assure you; don't be alarmed; pray sit down;" and she sat down directly, and there was a thunder of applause. it took some few minutes to mend, and i looked on with my hands in my pockets; for i think if i had turned my back for a moment there might still have been a move. my people were dreadfully alarmed, boylett in particular, who i suppose had some notion that the whole place might have taken fire. "but there stood the master," he did me the honour to say afterwards, in addressing the rest, "as cool as ever i see him a-lounging at a railway station." a telegram from berry at edinburgh yesterday evening, to say that he had got the bills, and that they would all be up and dispersed yesterday evening under his own eyes. so no time was lost in setting things as right as they can be set. he has now gone on to glasgow. p.s.--duty to mrs. bouncer. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] berwick-on-tweed, _monday, nov. th, ._ i write (in a gale of wind, with a high sea running), to let you know that we go on to edinburgh at half-past eight to-morrow morning. a most ridiculous room was designed for me in this odd out-of-the-way place. an immense corn exchange made of glass and iron, round, dome-topped, lofty, utterly absurd for any such purpose, and full of thundering echoes, with a little lofty crow's-nest of a stone gallery breast high, deep in the wall, into which it was designed to put _me_! i instantly struck, of course, and said i would either read in a room attached to this house (a very snug one, capable of holding five hundred people) or not at all. terrified local agents glowered, but fell prostrate. berry has this moment come back from edinburgh and glasgow with hopeful accounts. he seems to have done the business extremely well, and he says that it was quite curious and cheering to see how the glasgow people assembled round the bills the instant they were posted, and evidently with a great interest in them. we left newcastle yesterday morning in the dark, when it was intensely cold and froze very hard. so it did here. but towards night the wind went round to the s.w., and all night it has been blowing very hard indeed. so it is now. tell mamie that i have the same sitting-room as we had when we came here with poor arthur, and that my bedroom is the room out of it which she and katie had. surely it is the oddest town to read in! but it is taken on poor arthur's principle that a place in the way pays the expenses of a through journey; and the people would seem to be coming up to the scratch gallantly. it was a dull sunday, though; o it _was_ a dull sunday, without a book! for i had forgotten to buy one at newcastle, until it was too late. so after dark i made a jug of whisky-punch, and drowned the unlucky headland's remembrance of his failures. i shall hope to hear very soon that the workmen have "broken through," and that you have been in the state apartments, and that upholstery measurements have come off. there has been a horrible accident in edinburgh. one of the seven-storey old houses in the high street fell when it was full of people. berry was at the bill-poster's house, a few doors off, waiting for him to come home, when he heard what seemed like thunder, and then the air was darkened with dust, "as if an immense quantity of steam had been blown off," and then all that dismal quarter set up shrieks, which he says were most dreadful. [sidenote: miss dickens.] waterloo hotel, edinburgh, _wednesday, nov. th, ._ mrs. bouncer must decidedly come with you to carlisle. she shall be received with open arms. apropos of carlisle, let me know _when_ you purpose coming there. we shall be there, please god, on the saturday in good time, as i finish at glasgow on the friday night. i have very little notion of the state of affairs here, as headland brought no more decisive information from the agents yesterday (he never _can_ get decisive information from any agents), than "the teeckets air joost moving reecht and left." i hope this may be taken as satisfactory. jenny lind carried off a world of money from here. miss glyn, or mrs. dallas, is playing lady macbeth at the theatre, and mr. shirley brooks is giving two lectures at the philosophical society on the house of commons and horace walpole. grisi's farewell benefits are (i think) on my last two nights here. gordon dined with me yesterday. he is, if anything, rather better, i think, than when we last saw him in town. he was immensely pleased to be with me. i went with him (as his office goes anywhere) right into and among the ruins of the fallen building yesterday. they were still at work trying to find two men (brothers), a young girl, and an old woman, known to be all lying there. on the walls two or three common clocks are still hanging; one of them, judging from the time at which it stopped, would seem to have gone for an hour or so after the fall. great interest had been taken in a poor linnet in a cage, hanging in the wind and rain high up against the broken wall. a fireman got it down alive, and great exultation had been raised over it. one woman, who was dug out unhurt, staggered into the street, stared all round her, instantly ran away, and has never been heard of since. it is a most extraordinary sight, and of course makes a great sensation. [sidenote: miss dickens.] waterloo hotel, edinburgh, _friday, nov. th, ._ i think it is my turn to write to you, and i therefore send a brief despatch, like a telegram, to let you know that in a gale of wind and a fierce rain, last night, we turned away a thousand people. there was no getting into the hall, no getting near the hall, no stirring among the people, no getting out, no possibility of getting rid of them. and yet, in spite of all that, and of their being steaming wet, they never flagged for an instant, never made a complaint, and took up the trial upon their very shoulders, to the last word, in a triumphant roar. the talk about "copperfield" rings through the whole place. it is done again to-morrow night. to-morrow morning i read "dombey." to-morrow morning is grisi's "farewell" morning concert, and last night was her "farewell" evening concert. neither she, nor jenny lind, nor anything, nor anybody seems to make the least effect on the draw of the readings. i lunch with blackwood to-day. he was at the reading last night; a capital audience. young blackwood has also called here. a very good young fellow, i think. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] carrick's royal hotel, glasgow, _tuesday, dec. rd, ._ i send you by this post another _scotsman_. from a paragraph in it, a letter, and an advertisement, you may be able to form some dim guess of the scene at edinburgh last night. such a pouring of hundreds into a place already full to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a rending and tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of good humour on the whole. i never saw the faintest approach to it. while i addressed the crowd in the room, gordon addressed the crowd in the street. fifty frantic men got up in all parts of the hall and addressed me all at once. other frantic men made speeches to the walls. the whole blackwood family were borne in on the top of a wave, and landed with their faces against the front of the platform. i read with the platform crammed with people. i got them to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible tableau or gigantic picnic; one pretty girl in full dress lying on her side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my table. it was the most extraordinary sight. and yet from the moment i began to the moment of my leaving off, they never missed a point, and they ended with a burst of cheers. the confusion was decidedly owing to the local agents. but i think it may have been a little heightened by headland's way of sending them the tickets to sell in the first instance. now, as i must read again in edinburgh on saturday night, your travelling arrangements are affected. so observe carefully (you and mamie) all that i am going to say. it appears to me that the best course will be for you to come to _edinburgh_ on saturday; taking the fast train from the great northern station at nine in the morning. this would bring you to the waterloo at edinburgh, at about nine or so at night, and i should be home at ten. we could then have a quiet sunday in edinburgh, and go over to carlisle on the monday morning. the expenditure of lungs and spirits was (as you may suppose) rather great last night, and to sleep well was out of the question; i am therefore rather fagged to-day. and as the hall in which i read to-night is a large one, i must make my letter a short one. my people were torn to ribbons last night. they have not a hat among them, and scarcely a coat. give my love to mamie. to her question, "will there be war with america?" i answer, "yes;" i fear the north to be utterly mad, and war to be unavoidable. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] victoria hotel, preston, _friday, dec. th, ._ my dear wills, the news of the christmas number is indeed glorious, and nothing can look brighter or better than the prospects of the illustrious publication. both carlisle and lancaster have come out admirably, though i doubted both, as you did. but, unlike you, i always doubted this place. i do so still. it is a poor place at the best (you remember?), and the mills are working half time, and trade is very bad. the expenses, however, will be a mere nothing. the accounts from manchester for to-morrow, and from liverpool for the readings generally, are very cheering indeed. the young lady who sells the papers at the station is just the same as ever. has orders for to-night, and is coming "with a person." "_the_ person?" said i. "never _you_ mind," said she. i was so charmed with robert chambers's "traditions of edinburgh" (which i read _in_ edinburgh), that i was obliged to write to him and say so. glasgow finished nobly, and the last night in edinburgh was signally successful and positively splendid. will you give my small admiral, on his personal application, one sovereign? i have told him to come to you for that recognition of his meritorious services. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear wills, i sent you a telegram to-day, and i write before the answer has come to hand. i have been very doubtful what to do here. we have a great let for to-morrow night. the mayor recommends closing to-morrow, and going on on tuesday and wednesday, so does the town clerk, so do the agents. but i have a misgiving that they hardly understand what the public general sympathy with the queen will be. further, i feel personally that the queen has always been very considerate and gracious to me, and i would on no account do anything that might seem unfeeling or disrespectful. i shall attach great weight, in this state of indecision, to your telegram. a capital audience at preston. not a capacious room, but full. great appreciation. the scene at manchester last night was really magnificent. i had had the platform carried forward to our "frozen deep" point, and my table and screen built in with a proscenium and room scenery. when i went in (there was a very fine hall), they applauded in the most tremendous manner; and the extent to which they were taken aback and taken by storm by "copperfield" was really a thing to see. the post closes early here on a sunday, and i shall close this also without further reference to "a message from the" w. h. w. being probably on the road. radley is ill, and supposed to be fast declining, poor fellow. the house is crammed, the assizes on, and troops perpetually embarking for canada, and their officers passing through the hotel. kindest regards, ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] gad's hill, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear mary, on monday (as you know) i am away again, but i am not sorry to see land and a little rest before me; albeit, these are great experiences of the public heart. the little admiral has gone to visit america in the _orlando_, supposed to be one of the foremost ships in the service, and the best found, best manned, and best officered that ever sailed from england. he went away much gamer than any giant, attended by a chest in which he could easily have stowed himself and a wife and family of his own proportions. ever and always, your affectionate joe. . narrative. at the beginning of this year, charles dickens resumed the reading tour which he had commenced at the close of the previous year and continued up to christmas. the first letter which follows, to mr. wills, a new year's greeting, is written from a railway station between one town and another on this journey. mr. macready, who had married for the second time not very long before this, was now settled at cheltenham. charles dickens had arranged to give readings there, chiefly for the pleasure of visiting him, and of having him as one of his audience. this reading tour went on until the beginning of february. one of the last of the series was in his favourite "beautiful room," the st. george's hall at liverpool. in february, he made an exchange of houses with his friends mr. and mrs. hogge, they going to gad's hill, and he and his family to mr. hogge's house in hyde park gate south. in march he commenced a series of readings at st. james's hall, which went on until the middle of june, when he, very gladly, returned to his country home. a letter beginning "my dear girls," addressed to some american ladies who happened to be at colchester, in the same inn with him when he was reading there, was published by one of them under the name of "our letter," in the "st. nicholas magazine," new york, in . we think it best to explain it in the young lady's own words, which are, therefore, appended to the letter. mr. walter thornbury was one of charles dickens's most valuable contributors to "all the year round." his letters to him about the subjects of his articles for that journal, are specimens of the minute and careful attention and personal supervision, never neglected or distracted by any other work on which he might be engaged, were it ever so hard or engrossing. the letter addressed to mr. baylis we give chiefly because it has, since mr. baylis's death, been added to the collection of mss. in the british museum. he was a very intimate and confidential friend of the late lord lytton, and accompanied him on a visit to gad's hill in that year. we give an extract from another letter from charles dickens to his sister, as a beautiful specimen of a letter of condolence and encouragement to one who was striving, very bravely, but by very slow degrees, to recover from the overwhelming grief of her bereavement. mr. wilkie collins was at this time engaged on his novel of "no name," which appeared in "all the year round," and was threatened with a very serious breakdown in health. charles dickens wrote the letter which we give, to relieve mr. collins's mind as to his work. happily he recovered sufficiently to make an end to his own story without any help; but the true friendship and kindness which suggested the offer were none the less appreciated, and may, very likely, by lessening his anxiety, have helped to restore his health. at the end of october in this year, charles dickens, accompanied by his daughter and sister-in-law, went to reside for a couple of months in paris, taking an apartment in the rue du faubourg st. honoré. from thence he writes to m. charles fechter. he had been greatly interested in this fine artist from the time of his first appearance in england, and was always one of his warmest friends and supporters during his stay in this country. m. fechter was, at this time, preparing for the opening of the lyceum theatre, under his own management, at the beginning of the following year. just before christmas, charles dickens returned to gad's hill. the christmas number for this year was "somebody's luggage." [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] at the birmingham station, _thursday, jan. nd, ._ my dear wills, being stationed here for an hour, on my way from leamington to cheltenham, i write to you. firstly, to reciprocate all your cordial and affectionate wishes for the new year, and to express my earnest hope that we may go on through many years to come, as we have gone on through many years that are gone. and i think we can say that we doubt whether any two men can have gone on more happily and smoothly, or with greater trust and confidence in one another. a little packet will come to you from hunt and roskell's, almost at the same time, i think, as this note. the packet will contain a claret-jug. i hope it is a pretty thing in itself for your table, and i know that you and mrs. wills will like it none the worse because it comes from me. it is not made of a perishable material, and is so far expressive of our friendship. i have had your name and mine set upon it, in token of our many years of mutual reliance and trustfulness. it will never be so full of wine as it is to-day of affectionate regard. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] cheltenham, _friday, jan. rd, ._ my dearest georgy, mrs. macready in voice is very like poor mrs. macready dead and gone; not in the least like her otherwise. she is perfectly satisfactory, and exceedingly winning. quite perfect in her manner with him and in her ease with his children, sensible, gay, pleasant, sweet-tempered; not in the faintest degree stiff or pedantic; accessible instantly. i have very rarely seen a more agreeable woman. the house is (on a smaller scale) any house we have known them in. furnished with the old furniture, pictures, engravings, mirrors, tables, and chairs. butty is too tall for strength, i am afraid, but handsome, with a face of great power and character, and a very nice girl. katie you know all about. macready, decidedly much older and infirm. very much changed. his old force has gone out of him strangely. i don't think i left off talking a minute from the time of my entering the house to my going to bed last night, and he was as much amused and interested as ever i saw him; still he was, and is, unquestionably aged. and even now i am obliged to cut this letter short by having to go and look after headland. it would never do to be away from the rest of them. i have no idea what we are doing here; no notion whether things are right or wrong; no conception where the room is; no hold of the business at all. for which reason i cannot rest without going and looking after the worthy man. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] torquay, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ you know, i think, that i was very averse to going to plymouth, and would not have gone there again but for poor arthur. but on the last night i read "copperfield," and positively enthralled the people. it was a most overpowering effect, and poor andrew[ ] came behind the screen, after the storm, and cried in the best and manliest manner. also there were two or three lines of his shipmates and other sailors, and they were extraordinarily affected. but its culminating effect was on macready at cheltenham. when i got home after "copperfield," i found him quite unable to speak, and able to do nothing but square his dear old jaw all on one side, and roll his eyes (half closed), like jackson's picture of him. and when i said something light about it, he returned: "no--er--dickens! i swear to heaven that, as a piece of passion and playfulness--er--indescribably mixed up together, it does--er--no, really, dickens!--amaze me as profoundly as it moves me. but as a piece of art--and you know--er--that i--no, dickens! by ----! have seen the best art in a great time--it is incomprehensible to me. how is it got at--er--how is it done--er--how one man can--well? it lays me on my--er--back, and it is of no use talking about it!" with which he put his hand upon my breast and pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and i felt as if i were doing somebody to his werner. katie, by-the-bye, is a wonderful audience, and has a great fund of wild feeling in her. johnny not at all unlike plorn. i have not yet seen the room here, but imagine it to be very small. exeter i know, and that is small also. i am very much used up, on the whole, for i cannot bear this moist warm climate. it would kill me very soon. and i have now got to the point of taking so much out of myself with "copperfield," that i might as well do richard wardour. you have now, my dearest georgy, the fullest extent of my tidings. this is a very pretty place--a compound of hastings, tunbridge wells, and little bits of the hills about naples; but i met four respirators as i came up from the station, and three pale curates without them, who seemed in a bad way. frightful intelligence has just been brought in by boylett, concerning the small size of the room. i have terrified headland by sending him to look at it, and swearing that if it's too small i will go away to exeter. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _tuesday, jan. th, ._ the beautiful room was crammed to excess last night, and numbers were turned away. its beauty and completeness when it is lighted up are most brilliant to behold, and for a reading it is simply perfect. you remember that a liverpool audience is usually dull, but they put me on my mettle last night, for i never saw such an audience--no, not even in edinburgh! i slept horribly last night, and have been over to birkenhead for a little change of air to-day. my head is dazed and worn by gas and heat, and i fear that "copperfield" and "bob" together to-night won't mend it. best love to mamie and katie, if still at gad's. i am going to bring the boys some toffee. [sidenote: the misses armstrong] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, feb. th, ._ my dear girls, for if i were to write "young friends," it would look like a schoolmaster; and if i were to write "young ladies," it would look like a schoolmistress; and worse than that, neither form of words would look familiar and natural, or in character with our snowy ride that tooth-chattering morning. i cannot tell you both how gratified i was by your remembrance, or how often i think of you as i smoke the admirable cigars. but i almost think you must have had some magnetic consciousness across the atlantic, of my whiffing my love towards you from the garden here. my daughter says that when you have settled those little public affairs at home, she hopes you will come back to england (possibly in united states) and give a minute or two to this part of kent. _her_ words are, "a day or two;" but i remember your italian flights, and correct the message. i have only just now finished my country readings, and have had nobody to make breakfast for me since the remote ages of colchester! ever faithfully yours. our letter. by m. f. armstrong. "from among all my treasures--to each one of which some pleasant history is bound--i choose this letter, written on coarse blue paper. the letter was received in answer to cigars sent from america to mr. dickens. the 'little public affairs at home' refers to the war of the rebellion. at colchester, he read 'the trial' from 'pickwick,' and selections from 'nicholas nickleby.' the lady, her two sisters, and her brother were mr. dickens's guests at the queer old english inn at colchester. through the softly falling snow we came back together to london, and on the railway platform parted, with a hearty hand-shaking, from the man who will for ever be enshrined in our hearts as the kindest and most generous, not to say most brilliant of hosts." [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] , hyde park gate, south kensington gore, _sunday, march th, ._ my dear cerjat, my daughter naturally liking to be in town at this time of year, i have changed houses with a friend for three months. my eldest boy is in business as an eastern merchant in the city, and will do well if he can find continuous energy; otherwise not. my second boy is with the nd highlanders in india. my third boy, a good steady fellow, is educating expressly for engineers or artillery. my fourth (this sounds like a charade), a born little sailor, is a midshipman in h.m.s. _orlando_, now at bermuda, and will make his way anywhere. remaining two at school, elder of said remaining two very bright and clever. georgina and mary keeping house for me; and francis jeffrey (i ought to have counted him as the third boy, so we'll take him in here as number two and a half) in my office at present. now you have the family bill of fare. you ask me about fechter and his hamlet. it was a performance of extraordinary merit; by far the most coherent, consistent, and intelligible hamlet i ever saw. some of the delicacies with which he rendered his conception clear were extremely subtle; and in particular he avoided that brutality towards ophelia which, with a greater or less amount of coarseness, i have seen in all other hamlets. as a mere _tour de force_, it would have been very remarkable in its disclosure of a perfectly wonderful knowledge of the force of the english language; but its merit was far beyond and above this. foreign accent, of course, but not at all a disagreeable one. and he was so obviously safe and at ease, that you were never in pain for him as a foreigner. add to this a perfectly picturesque and romantic "make up," and a remorseless destruction of all conventionalities, and you have the leading virtues of the impersonation. in othello he did not succeed. in iago he is very good. he is an admirable artist, and far beyond anyone on our stage. a real artist and a gentleman. last thursday i began reading again in london--a condensation of "copperfield," and "mr. bob sawyer's party," from "pickwick," to finish merrily. the success of "copperfield" is astounding. it made an impression that _i_ must not describe. i may only remark that i was half dead when i had done; and that although i had looked forward, all through the summer, when i was carefully getting it up, to its being a london sensation; and that although macready, hearing it at cheltenham, told me to be prepared for a great effect, it even went beyond my hopes. i read again next thursday, and the rush for places is quite furious. tell townshend this with my love, if you see him before i have time to write to him; and tell him that i thought the people would never let me go away, they became so excited, and showed it so very warmly. i am trying to plan out a new book, but have not got beyond trying. yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. walter thornbury.] office of "all the year round," _friday, april th, ._ my dear thornbury, the bow street runners ceased out of the land soon after the introduction of the new police. i remember them very well as standing about the door of the office in bow street. they had no other uniform than a blue dress-coat, brass buttons (i am not even now sure that that was necessary), and a bright red cloth waistcoat. the waistcoat was indispensable, and the slang name for them was "redbreasts," in consequence. they kept company with thieves and the like, much more than the detective police do. i don't know what their pay was, but i have no doubt their principal complements were got under the rose. it was a very slack institution, and its head-quarters were the brown bear, in bow street, a public-house of more than doubtful reputation, opposite the police-office; and either the house which is now the theatrical costume maker's, or the next door to it. field, who advertises the secret enquiry office, was a bow street runner, and can tell you all about it; goddard, who also advertises an enquiry office, was another of the fraternity. they are the only two i know of as yet existing in a "questionable shape." faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. baylis.] gad's hill, etc., _wednesday, july nd, ._ my dear mr. baylis, i have been in france, and in london, and in other parts of kent than this, and everywhere but here, for weeks and weeks. pray excuse my not having (for this reason specially) answered your kind note sooner. after carefully cross-examining my daughter, i do not believe her to be worthy of the fernery. last autumn we transplanted into the shrubbery a quantity of evergreens previously clustered close to the front of the house, and trained more ivy about the wall and the like. when i ask her where she would have the fernery and what she would do with it, the witness falters, turns pale, becomes confused, and says: "perhaps it would be better not to have it at all." i am quite confident that the constancy of the young person is not to be trusted, and that she had better attach her fernery to one of her châteaux in spain, or one of her english castles in the air. none the less do i thank you for your more than kind proposal. we have been in great anxiety respecting miss hogarth, the sudden decline of whose health and spirits has greatly distressed us. although she is better than she was, and the doctors are, on the whole, cheerful, she requires great care, and fills us with apprehension. the necessity of providing change for her will probably take us across the water very early in the autumn; and this again unsettles home schemes here, and withers many kinds of fern. if they knew (by "they" i mean my daughter and miss hogarth) that i was writing to you, they would charge me with many messages of regard. but as i am shut up in my room in a ferocious and unapproachable condition, owing to the great accumulation of letters i have to answer, i will tell them at lunch that i have anticipated their wish. as i know they have bills for me to pay, and are at present shy of producing them, i wish to preserve a gloomy and repellent reputation. my dear mr. baylis, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. henry austin.] gad's hill, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ * * * * * i do not preach consolation because i am unwilling to preach at any time, and know my own weakness too well. but in this world there is no stay but the hope of a better, and no reliance but on the mercy and goodness of god. through those two harbours of a shipwrecked heart, i fully believe that you will, in time, find a peaceful resting-place even on this careworn earth. heaven speed the time, and do you try hard to help it on! it is impossible to say but that our prolonged grief for the beloved dead may grieve them in their unknown abiding-place, and give them trouble. the one influencing consideration in all you do as to your disposition of yourself (coupled, of course, with a real earnest strenuous endeavour to recover the lost tone of spirit) is, that you think and feel you _can_ do. i do not in the least regard your change of course in going to havre as any evidence of instability. but i rather hope it is likely that through such restlessness you will come to a far quieter frame of mind. the disturbed mind and affections, like the tossed sea, seldom calm without an intervening time of confusion and trouble. but nothing is to be attained without striving. in a determined effort to settle the thoughts, to parcel out the day, to find occupation regularly or to make it, to be up and doing something, are chiefly to be found the mere mechanical means which must come to the aid of the best mental efforts. it is a wilderness of a day, here, in the way of blowing and raining, and as darkly dismal, at four o'clock, as need be. my head is but just now raised from a day's writing, but i will not lose the post without sending you a word. katie was here yesterday, just come back from clara white's (that was), in scotland. in the midst of her brilliant fortune, it is too clear to me that she is already beckoned away to follow her dead sisters. macready was here from saturday evening to yesterday morning, older but looking wonderfully well, and (what is very rare in these times) with the old thick sweep of hair upon his head. georgina being left alone here the other day, was done no good to by a great consternation among the servants. on going downstairs, she found marsh (the stableman) seated with great dignity and anguish in an arm-chair, and incessantly crying out: "i am dead." to which the women servants said with great pathos (and with some appearance of reason): "no, you ain't, marsh!" and to which he persisted in replying: "yes, i am; i am dead!" some neighbouring vagabond was impressed to drive a cart over to rochester and fetch the doctor, who said (the patient and his consolers being all very anxious that the heart should be the scene of affliction): "stomach." [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday night, oct. th, ._ my dear wilkie, frank beard has been here this evening, of course since i posted my this day's letter to you, and has told me that you are not at all well, and how he has given you something which he hopes and believes will bring you round. it is not to convey this insignificant piece of intelligence, or to tell you how anxious i am that you should come up with a wet sheet and a flowing sail (as we say at sea when we are not sick), that i write. it is simply to say what follows, which i hope may save you some mental uneasiness. for i was stricken ill when i was doing "bleak house," and i shall not easily forget what i suffered under the fear of not being able to come up to time. dismiss that fear (if you have it) altogether from your mind. write to me at paris at any moment, and say you are unequal to your work, and want me, and i will come to london straight and do your work. i am quite confident that, with your notes and a few words of explanation, i could take it up at any time and do it. absurdly unnecessary to say that it would be a makeshift! but i could do it at a pinch, so like you as that no one should find out the difference. don't make much of this offer in your mind; it is nothing, except to ease it. if you should want help, i am as safe as the bank. the trouble would be nothing to me, and the triumph of overcoming a difficulty great. think it a christmas number, an "idle apprentice," a "lighthouse," a "frozen deep." i am as ready as in any of these cases to strike in and hammer the hot iron out. you won't want me. you will be well (and thankless!) in no time. but there i am; and i hope that the knowledge may be a comfort to you. call me, and i come. as beard always has a sense of medical responsibility, and says anything important about a patient in confidence, i have merely remarked here that "wilkie" is out of sorts. charley (who is here with katie) has no other cue from me. ever affectionately. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] paris, rue du faubourg st. honorÉ, , _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dear fechter, you know, i believe, how our letters crossed, and that i am here until christmas. also, you know with what pleasure and readiness i should have responded to your invitation if i had been in london. pray tell paul féval that i shall be charmed to know him, and that i shall feel the strongest interest in making his acquaintance. it almost puts me out of humour with paris (and it takes a great deal to do that!) to think that i was not at home to prevail upon him to come with you, and be welcomed to gad's hill; but either there or here, i hope to become his friend before this present old year is out. pray tell him so. you say nothing in your note of your lyceum preparations. i trust they are all going on well. there is a fine opening for you, i am sure, with a good beginning; but the importance of a good beginning is very great. if you ever have time and inclination to tell me in a short note what you are about, you can scarcely interest me more, as my wishes and strongest sympathies are for and with your success--_mais cela va sans dire_. i went to the châtelet (a beautiful theatre!) the other night to see "rothomago," but was so mortally _gêné_ with the poor nature of the piece and of the acting, that i came out again when there was a week or two (i mean an hour or two, but the hours seemed weeks) yet to get through. my dear fechter, very faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] paris, rue du faubourg st. honorÉ, , _friday, dec. th, ._ my dear stanny, we have been here for two months, and i shall probably come back here after christmas (we go home for christmas week) and stay on into february. but i shall write and propose a theatre before christmas is out, so this is to warn you to get yourself into working pantomime order! i hope wills has duly sent you our new christmas number. as you may like to know what i myself wrote of it, understand the dick contributions to be, _his leaving it till called for_, and _his wonderful end_, _his boots_, and _his brown paper parcel_. since you were at gad's hill i have been travelling a good deal, and looking up many odd things for use. i want to know how you are in health and spirits, and it would be the greatest of pleasures to me to have a line under your hand. god bless you and yours with all the blessings of the time of year, and of all times! ever your affectionate and faithful dick. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] paris, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear fechter, i have read "the white rose" attentively, and think it an extremely good play. it is vigorously written with a great knowledge of the stage, and presents many striking situations. i think the close particularly fine, impressive, bold, and new. but i greatly doubt the expediency of your doing _any_ historical play early in your management. by the words "historical play," i mean a play founded on any incident in english history. our public are accustomed to associate historical plays with shakespeare. in any other hands, i believe they care very little for crowns and dukedoms. what you want is something with an interest of a more domestic and general nature--an interest as romantic as you please, but having a more general and wider response than a disputed succession to the throne can have for englishmen at this time of day. such interest culminated in the last stuart, and has worn itself out. it would be uphill work to evoke an interest in perkin warbeck. i do not doubt the play's being well received, but my fear is that these people would be looked upon as mere abstractions, and would have but a cold welcome in consequence, and would not lay hold of your audience. now, when you _have_ laid hold of your audience and have accustomed them to your theatre, you may produce "the white rose," with far greater justice to the author, and to the manager also. wait. feel your way. perkin warbeck is too far removed from analogy with the sympathies and lives of the people for a beginning. my dear fechter, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear mary, i must send you my christmas greeting and happy new year wishes in return for yours; most heartily and fervently reciprocating your interest and affection. you are among the few whom i most care for and best love. being in london two evenings in the opening week, i tried to persuade my legs (for whose judgment i have the highest respect) to go to an evening party. but i _could not_ induce them to pass leicester square. the faltering presentiment under which they laboured so impressed me, that at that point i yielded to their terrors. they immediately ran away to the east, and i accompanied them to the olympic, where i saw a very good play, "camilla's husband," very well played. real merit in mr. neville and miss saville. we came across directly after the gale, with the channel all bestrewn with floating wreck, and with a hundred and fifty sick schoolboys from calais on board. i am going back on the morning after fechter's opening night, and have promised to read "copperfield" at the embassy, for a british charity. georgy continues wonderfully well, and she and mary send you their best love. the house is pervaded by boys; and every boy has (as usual) an unaccountable and awful power of producing himself in every part of the house at every moment, apparently in fourteen pairs of creaking boots. my dear mary, ever affectionately your joe. footnotes: [ ] lieutenant andrew gordon, r.n., son of the sheriff of midlothian. . narrative. at the beginning of this year, charles dickens was in paris for the purpose of giving a reading at the english embassy. he remained in paris until the beginning of february, staying with his servant "john" at the hôtel du helder. there was a series of readings in london this season at the hanover square rooms. the christmas number of "all the year round" was entitled "mrs. lirriper's lodgings," to which charles dickens contributed the first and last chapter. the lyceum theatre, under the management of m. fechter, was opened in january with "the duke's motto," and the letter given here has reference to this first night. we regret very much having no letters to lady molesworth, who was an old and dear friend of charles dickens. but this lady explains to us that she has long ceased to preserve any letters addressed to her. the "mr. and mrs. humphery" (now sir william and lady humphery) mentioned in the first letter for this year, were dear and intimate friends of his eldest daughter, and were frequent guests in her father's house. mrs. humphery and her sister lady olliffe were daughters of the late mr. william cubitt, m.p. we have in this year the first letter of charles dickens to mr. percy fitzgerald. this gentleman had been a valuable contributor to his journal before he became personally known to charles dickens. the acquaintance once made soon ripened into friendship, and for the future mr. fitzgerald was a constant and always a welcome visitor to gad's hill. the letter to mr. charles reade alludes to his story, "hard cash," which was then appearing in "all the year round." as a writer, and as a friend, he was held by charles dickens in the highest estimation. charles dickens's correspondence with his solicitor and excellent friend, mr. frederic ouvry (now a vice-president of the society of antiquaries), was almost entirely of a business character; but we are glad to give one or two notes to that gentleman, although of little public interest, in order to have the name in our book of one of the kindest of our own friends. [sidenote: miss dickens.] paris, hÔtel du helder, rue du helder, _friday, jan. th, ._ my dearest mamie, as i send a line to your aunt to-day and know that you will not see it, i send another to you to report my safe (and neuralgic) arrival here. my little rooms are perfectly comfortable, and i like the hotel better than any i have ever put up at in paris. john's amazement at, and appreciation of, paris are indescribable. he goes about with his mouth open, staring at everything and being tumbled over by everybody. the state dinner at the embassy, yesterday, coming off in the room where i am to read, the carpenters did not get in until this morning. but their platforms were ready--or supposed to be--and the preparations are in brisk progress. i think it will be a handsome affair to look at--a very handsome one. there seems to be great artistic curiosity in paris, to know what kind of thing the reading is. i know a "rela-shon" (with one weak eye), who is in the gunmaking line, very near here. there is a strong family resemblance--but no muzzle. lady molesworth and i have not begun to "toddle" yet, but have exchanged affectionate greetings. i am going round to see her presently, and i dine with her on sunday. the only remaining news is, that i am beset by mysterious adorers, and smuggle myself in and out of the house in the meanest and basest manner. with kind regard to mr. and mrs. humphery, ever, my dearest mamey, your affectionate father. p.s.--_hommage à madame b.!_ [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] paris, _sunday, feb. st, ._ my dear regnier, i was charmed by the receipt of your cordial and sympathetic letter, and i shall always preserve it carefully as a most noble tribute from a great and real artist. i wished you had been at the embassy on friday evening. the audience was a fine one, and the "carol" is particularly well adapted to the purpose. it is an uncommon pleasure to me to learn that i am to meet you on tuesday, for there are not many men whom i meet with greater pleasure than you. heaven! how the years roll by! we are quite old friends now, in counting by years. if we add sympathies, we have been friends at least a thousand years. affectionately yours ever. [sidenote: miss dickens.] hÔtel du helder, paris, _sunday, feb. st, ._ my dearest mamie, i cannot give you any idea of the success of the readings here, because no one can imagine the scene of last friday night at the embassy. such audiences and such enthusiasm i have never seen, but the thing culminated on friday night in a two hours' storm of excitement and pleasure. they actually recommenced and applauded right away into their carriages and down the street. you know your parent's horror of being lionised, and will not be surprised to hear that i am half dead of it. i cannot leave here until thursday (though i am every hour in danger of running away) because i have to dine out, to say nothing of breakfasting--think of me breakfasting!--every intervening day. but my project is to send john home on thursday, and then to go on a little perfectly quiet tour for about ten days, touching the sea at boulogne. when i get there, i will write to your aunt (in case you should not be at home), saying when i shall arrive at the office. i must go to the office instead of gad's, because i have much to do with forster about elliotson. i enclose a short note for each of the little boys. give harry ten shillings pocket-money, and plorn six. the olliffe girls, very nice. florence at the readings, prodigiously excited. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] paris, _sunday, feb. st, ._ from my hurried note to mamie, you will get some faint general idea of a new star's having arisen in paris. but of its brightness you can have no adequate conception. [john has locked me up and gone out, and the little bell at the door is ringing demoniacally while i write.] you have never heard me read yet. i have been twice goaded and lifted out of myself into a state that astonished _me_ almost as much as the audience. i have a cold, but no neuralgia, and am "as well as can be expected." i forgot to tell mamie that i went (with lady molesworth) to hear "faust" last night. it is a splendid work, in which that noble and sad story is most nobly and sadly rendered, and perfectly delighted me. but i think it requires too much of the audience to do for a london opera house. the composer must be a very remarkable man indeed. some management of light throughout the story is also very poetical and fine. we had carvalho's box. i could hardly bear the thing, it affected me so. but, as a certain frenchman said, "no weakness, danton!" so i leave off. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] paris, _wednesday, feb. th, ._ my dear fechter, a thousand congratulations on your great success! never mind what they say, or do, _pour vous écraser_; you have the game in your hands. the romantic drama, thoroughly well done (with a touch of shakespeare now and then), is the speciality of your theatre. give the public the picturesque, romantic drama, with yourself in it; and (as i told you in the beginning) you may throw down your gauntlet in defiance of all comers. it is a most brilliant success indeed, and it thoroughly rejoices my heart! unfortunately i cannot now hope to see "maquet," because i am packing up and going out to dinner (it is late in the afternoon), and i leave to-morrow morning when all sensible people, except myself, are in bed; and i do not come back to paris or near it. i had hoped to see him at breakfast last monday, but he was not there. paul féval was there, and i found him a capital fellow. if i can do anything to help you on with "maquet"[ ] when i come back i will most gladly do it. my readings here have had the finest possible reception, and have achieved a most noble success. i never before read to such fine audiences, so very quick of perception, and so enthusiastically responsive. i shall be heartily pleased to see you again, my dear fechter, and to share your triumphs with the real earnestness of a real friend. and so go on and prosper, and believe me, as i truly am, most cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dearest macready, i have just come back from paris, where the readings--"copperfield," "dombey" and "trial," and "carol" and "trial"--have made a sensation which modesty (my natural modesty) renders it impossible for me to describe. you know what a noble audience the paris audience is! they were at their very noblest with me. i was very much concerned by hearing hurriedly from georgy that you were ill. but when i came home at night, she showed me katie's letter, and that set me up again. ah, you have the best of companions and nurses, and can afford to be ill now and then for the happiness of being so brought through it. but don't do it again yet awhile for all that. legouvé (whom you remember in paris as writing for the ristori) was anxious that i should bring you the enclosed. a manly and generous effort, i think? regnier desired to be warmly remembered to you. he looks just as of yore. paris generally is about as wicked and extravagant as in the days of the regency. madame viardot in the "orphée," most splendid. an opera of "faust," a very sad and noble rendering of that sad and noble story. stage management remarkable for some admirable, and really poetical, effects of light. in the more striking situations, mephistopheles surrounded by an infernal red atmosphere of his own. marguerite by a pale blue mournful light. the two never blending. after marguerite has taken the jewels placed in her way in the garden, a weird evening draws on, and the bloom fades from the flowers, and the leaves of the trees droop and lose their fresh green, and mournful shadows overhang her chamber window, which was innocently bright and gay at first. i couldn't bear it, and gave in completely. fechter doing wonders over the way here, with a picturesque french drama. miss kate terry, in a small part in it, perfectly charming. you may remember her making a noise, years ago, doing a boy at an inn, in "the courier of lyons"? she has a tender love-scene in this piece, which is a really beautiful and artistic thing. i saw her do it at about three in the morning of the day when the theatre opened, surrounded by shavings and carpenters, and (of course) with that inevitable hammer going; and i told fechter: "that is the very best piece of womanly tenderness i have ever seen on the stage, and you'll find that no audience can miss it." it is a comfort to add that it was instantly seized upon, and is much talked of. stanfield was very ill for some months, then suddenly picked up, and is really rosy and jovial again. going to see him when he was very despondent, i told him the story of fechter's piece (then in rehearsal) with appropriate action; fighting a duel with the washing-stand, defying the bedstead, and saving the life of the sofa-cushion. this so kindled his old theatrical ardour, that i think he turned the corner on the spot. with love to mrs. macready and katie, and (be still my heart!) benvenuta, and the exiled johnny (not too attentive at school, i hope?), and the personally-unknown young parr, ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: miss power.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dear marguerite, i think i have found a first-rate title for your book, with an early and a delightful association in most people's minds, and a strong suggestion of oriental pictures: "arabian days and nights." i have sent it to low's. if they have the wit to see it, do you in your first chapter touch that string, so as to bring a fanciful explanation in aid of the title, and sound it afterwards, now and again, when you come to anything where haroun al raschid, and the grand vizier, and mesrour, the chief of the guard, and any of that wonderful _dramatis personæ_ are vividly brought to mind. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, march th, ._ my dear charles knight, at a quarter to seven on monday, the th, a stately form will be descried breathing birthday cordialities and affectionate amenities, as it descends the broken and gently dipping ground by which the level country of the clifton road is attained. a practised eye will be able to discern two humble figures in attendance, which from their flowing crinolines may, without exposing the prophet to the imputation of rashness, be predicted to be women. though certes their importance, absorbed and as it were swallowed up in the illustrious bearing and determined purpose of the maturer stranger, will not enthrall the gaze that wanders over the forest of san giovanni as the night gathers in. ever affectionately, g. p. r. james. [sidenote: mrs. dallas.[ ]] extract. the time of the princess alexandra's arrival in london. it is curious to see london gone mad. down in the strand here, the monomaniacal tricks it is playing are grievous to behold, but along fleet street and cheapside it gradually becomes frenzied, dressing itself up in all sorts of odds and ends, and knocking itself about in a most amazing manner. at london bridge it raves, principally about the kings of denmark and their portraits. i have been looking among them for hamlet's uncle, and have discovered one personage with a high nose, who i think is the man. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. lehmann.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, london, w.c., _tuesday, march th, ._ dear mrs. lehmann, two stalls for to-morrow's reading were sent to you by post before i heard from you this morning. two will always come to you while you remain a gummidge, and i hope i need not say that if you want more, none could be better bestowed in my sight. pray tell lehmann, when you next write to him, that i find i owe him a mint of money for the delightful swedish sleigh-bells. they are the wonder, awe, and admiration of the whole country side, and i never go out without them. let us make an exchange of child stories. i heard of a little fellow the other day whose mamma had been telling him that a french governess was coming over to him from paris, and had been expatiating on the blessings and advantages of having foreign tongues. after leaning his plump little cheek against the window glass in a dreary little way for some minutes, he looked round and enquired in a general way, and not as if it had any special application, whether she didn't think "that the tower of babel was a great mistake altogether?" ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. major.[ ]] office of "all the year round," a weekly journal, etc. etc., , wellington street, strand, _thursday, march th, ._ my dear mary, i am quite concerned to hear that you and your party (including your brother willie) paid for seats at my reading last night. you must promise me never to do so any more. my old affections and attachments are not so lightly cherished or so easily forgotten as that i can bear the thought of you and yours coming to hear me like so many strangers. it will at all times delight me if you will send a little note to me, or to georgina, or to mary, saying when you feel inclined to come, and how many stalls you want. you may always be certain, even on the fullest nights, of room being made for you. and i shall always be interested and pleased by knowing that you are present. mind! you are to be exceedingly penitent for last night's offence, and to make me a promise that it shall never be repeated. on which condition accept my noble forgiveness. with kind regard to mr. major, my dear mary, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, march st, ._ my dearest macready, i mean to go on reading into june. for the sake of the finer effects (in "copperfield" principally), i have changed from st. james's hall to the hanover square room. the latter is quite a wonderful room for sound, and so easy that the least inflection will tell anywhere in the place exactly as it leaves your lips; but i miss my dear old shilling galleries--six or eight hundred strong--with a certain roaring sea of response in them, that you have stood upon the beach of many and many a time. the summer, i hope and trust, will quicken the pace at which you grow stronger again. i am but in dull spirits myself just now, or i should remonstrate with you on your slowness. having two little boys sent home from school "to see the illuminations" on the marriage-night, i chartered an enormous van, at a cost of five pounds, and we started in majesty from the office in london, fourteen strong. we crossed waterloo bridge with the happy design of beginning the sight at london bridge, and working our way through the city to regent street. in a by-street in the borough, over against a dead wall and under a railway bridge, we were blocked for four hours. we were obliged to walk home at last, having seen nothing whatever. the wretched van turned up in the course of the next morning; and the best of it was that at rochester here they illuminated the fine old castle, and really made a very splendid and picturesque thing (so my neighbours tell me). with love to mrs. macready and katie, ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, april nd, ._ on the death of mr. egg. extract. ah, poor egg! i knew what you would think and feel about it. when we saw him in paris on his way out i was struck by his extreme nervousness, and derived from it an uneasy foreboding of his state. what a large piece of a good many years he seems to have taken with him! how often have i thought, since the news of his death came, of his putting his part in the saucepan (with the cover on) when we rehearsed "the lighthouse;" of his falling out of the hammock when we rehearsed "the frozen deep;" of his learning italian numbers when he ate the garlic in the carriage; of the thousands (i was going to say) of dark mornings when i apostrophised him as "kernel;" of his losing my invaluable knife in that beastly stage-coach; of his posting up that mysterious book[ ] every night! i hardly know why, but i have always associated that volume most with venice. in my memory of the dear gentle little fellow, he will be (as since those days he always has been) eternally posting up that book at the large table in the middle of our venice sitting-room, incidentally asking the name of an hotel three weeks back! and his pretty house is to be laid waste and sold. if there be a sale on the spot i shall try to buy something in loving remembrance of him, good dear little fellow. think what a great "frozen deep" lay close under those boards we acted on! my brother alfred, luard, arthur, albert, austin, egg. even among the audience, prince albert and poor stone! "i heard the"--i forget what it was i used to say--"come up from the great deep;" and it rings in my ears now, like a sort of mad prophecy. however, this won't do. we must close up the ranks and march on. [sidenote: rev. w. brookfield.] gad's hill, _may th, ._ my dear brookfield, it occurs to me that you may perhaps know, or know of, a kind of man that i want to discover. one of my boys (the youngest) now is at wimbledon school. he is a docile, amiable boy of fair abilities, but sensitive and shy. and he writes me so very earnestly that he feels the school to be confusingly large for him, and that he is sure he could do better with some gentleman who gave his own personal attention to the education of half-a-dozen or a dozen boys, as to impress me with the belief that i ought to heed his conviction. has any such phenomenon as a good and reliable man in this wise ever come in your way? forgive my troubling you, and believe me, cordially yours. [sidenote: rev. w. brookfield.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _may th, ._ my dear brookfield, i am most truly obliged to you for your kind and ready help. when i am in town next week, i will call upon the bishop of natal, more to thank him than with the hope of profiting by that gentleman of whom he writes, as the limitation to "little boys" seems to stop the way. i want to find someone with whom this particular boy could remain; if there were a mutual interest and liking, that would be a great point gained. why did the kings in the fairy tales want children? i suppose in the weakness of the royal intellect. concerning "nickleby," i am so much of your mind (comparing it with "copperfield"), that it was a long time before i could take a pleasure in reading it. but i got better, as i found the audience always taking to it. i have been trying, alone by myself, the "oliver twist" murder, but have got something so horrible out of it that i am afraid to try it in public. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, may th, ._ my dear cerjat, i don't wonder at your finding it difficult to reconcile your mind to a french hamlet; but i assure you that fechter's is a very remarkable performance perfectly consistent with itself (whether it be my particular hamlet, or your particular hamlet, or no), a coherent and intelligent whole, and done by a true artist. i have never seen, i think, an intelligent and clear view of the whole character so well sustained throughout; and there is a very captivating air of romance and picturesqueness added, which is quite new. rely upon it, the public were right. the thing could not have been sustained by oddity; it would have perished upon that, very soon. as to the mere accent, there is far less drawback in that than you would suppose. for this reason, he obviously knows english so thoroughly that you feel he is safe. you are never in pain for him. this sense of ease is gained directly, and then you think very little more about it. the colenso and jowett matter is a more difficult question, but here again i don't go with you. the position of the writers of "essays and reviews" is, that certain parts of the old testament have done their intended function in the education of the world _as it was_; but that mankind, like the individual man, is designed by the almighty to have an infancy and a maturity, and that as it advances, the machinery of its education must advance too. for example: inasmuch as ever since there was a sun and there was vapour, there _must have_ been a rainbow under certain conditions, so surely it would be better now to recognise that indisputable fact. similarly, joshua might command the sun to stand still, under the impression that it moved round the earth; but he could not possibly have inverted the relations of the earth and the sun, whatever his impressions were. again, it is contended that the science of geology is quite as much a revelation to man, as books of an immense age and of (at the best) doubtful origin, and that your consideration of the latter must reasonably be influenced by the former. as i understand the importance of timely suggestions such as these, it is, that the church should not gradually shock and lose the more thoughtful and logical of human minds; but should be so gently and considerately yielding as to retain them, and, through them, hundreds of thousands. this seems to me, as i understand the temper and tendency of the time, whether for good or evil, to be a very wise and necessary position. and as i understand the danger, it is not chargeable on those who take this ground, but on those who in reply call names and argue nothing. what these bishops and such-like say about revelation, in assuming it to be finished and done with, i can't in the least understand. nothing is discovered without god's intention and assistance, and i suppose every new knowledge of his works that is conceded to man to be distinctly a revelation by which men are to guide themselves. lastly, in the mere matter of religious doctrine and dogmas, these men (protestants--protestors--successors of the men who protested against human judgment being set aside) talk and write as if they were all settled by the direct act of heaven; not as if they had been, as we know they were, a matter of temporary accommodation and adjustment among disputing mortals as fallible as you or i. coming nearer home, i hope that georgina is almost quite well. she has no attack of pain or flurry now, and is in all respects immensely better. mary is neither married nor (that i know of) going to be. she and katie and a lot of them have been playing croquet outside my window here for these last four days, to a mad and maddening extent. my sailor-boy's ship, the _orlando_, is fortunately in chatham dockyard--so he is pretty constantly at home--while the shipwrights are repairing a leak in her. i am reading in london every friday just now. great crams and great enthusiasm. townshend i suppose to have left lausanne somewhere about this day. his house in the park is hermetically sealed, ready for him. the prince and princess of wales go about (wisely) very much, and have as fair a chance of popularity as ever prince and princess had. the city ball in their honour is to be a tremendously gorgeous business, and mary is highly excited by her father's being invited, and she with him. meantime the unworthy parent is devising all kinds of subterfuges for sending her and getting out of it himself. a very intelligent german friend of mine, just home from america, maintains that the conscription will succeed in the north, and that the war will be indefinitely prolonged. _i_ say "no," and that however mad and villainous the north is, the war will finish by reason of its not supplying soldiers. we shall see. the more they brag the more i don't believe in them. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] gad's hill place, _saturday night, july th_, . my dear mr. fitzgerald, i have been most heartily gratified by the perusal of your article on my dogs. it has given me an amount and a kind of pleasure very unusual, and for which i thank you earnestly. the owner of the renowned dog cæsar understands me so sympathetically, that i trust with perfect confidence to his feeling what i really mean in these few words. you interest me very much by your kind promise, the redemption of which i hereby claim, to send me your life of sterne when it comes out. if you should be in england before this, i should be delighted to see you here on the top of falstaff's own gad's hill. it is a very pretty country, not thirty miles from london; and if you could spare a day or two for its fine walks, i and my two latest dogs, a st. bernard and a bloodhound, would be charmed with your company as one of ourselves. believe me, very faithfully yours. _friday, july th, ._[ ] dear madam, i hope you will excuse this tardy reply to your letter. it is often impossible for me, by any means, to keep pace with my correspondents. i must take leave to say, that if there be any general feeling on the part of the intelligent jewish people, that i have done them what you describe as "a great wrong," they are a far less sensible, a far less just, and a far less good-tempered people than i have always supposed them to be. fagin, in "oliver twist," is a jew, because it unfortunately was true of the time to which that story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably was a jew. but surely no sensible man or woman of your persuasion can fail to observe--firstly, that all the rest of the wicked _dramatis personæ_ are christians; and secondly, that he is called the "jew," not because of his religion, but because of his race. if i were to write a story, in which i described a frenchman or a spaniard as "the roman catholic," i should do a very indecent and unjustifiable thing; but i make mention of fagin as the jew, because he is one of the jewish people, and because it conveys that kind of idea of him which i should give my readers of a chinaman, by calling him a chinese. the enclosed is quite a nominal subscription towards the good object in which you are interested; but i hope it may serve to show you that i have no feeling towards the jewish people but a friendly one. i always speak well of them, whether in public or in private, and bear my testimony (as i ought to do) to their perfect good faith in such transactions as i have ever had with them; and in my "child's history of england," i have lost no opportunity of setting forth their cruel persecution in old times. dear madam, faithfully yours. in reply to this, the jewish lady thanks him for his kind letter and its enclosure, still remonstrating and pointing out that though, as he observes, "all the other criminal characters were christians, they are, at least, contrasted with characters of good christians; this wretched fagin stands alone as the jew." the reply to _this_ letter afterwards was the character of riah, in "our mutual friend," and some favourable sketches of jewish character in the lower class, in some articles in "all the year round." [sidenote: mr. ouvry.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday night, july th, ._ my dear ouvry, i have had some undefined idea that you were to let me know if you were coming to the archæologs at rochester. (i myself am keeping out of their way, as having had enough of crowding and speech-making in london.) will you tell me where you are, whether you are in this neighbourhood or out of it, whether you will come here on saturday and stay till monday or till tuesday morning? if you will come, i _know_ i can give you the heartiest welcome in kent, and i _think_ i can give you the best wine in this part of it. send me a word in reply. i will fetch you from anywhere, at any indicated time. we have very pretty places in the neighbourhood, and are not uncomfortable people (i believe) to stay with. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. charles reade.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, sept. th, ._ my dear reade, i _must_ write you one line to say how interested i am in your story, and to congratulate you upon its admirable art and its surprising grace and vigour. and to hint my hope, at the same time, that you will be able to find leisure for a little dash for the christmas number. it would be a really great and true pleasure to me if you could. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dearest georgy, you will see by to-day's _times_ that it _was_ an earthquake that shook me, and that my watch showed exactly the same time as the man's who writes from blackheath so near us--twenty minutes past three. it is a great satisfaction to me to make it out so precisely; i wish you would enquire whether the servants felt it. i thought it was the voice of the cook that answered me, but that was nearly half an hour later. i am strongly inclined to think that there is a peculiar susceptibility in iron--at all events in our part of the country--to the shock, as though there were something magnetic in it. for, whereas my long iron bedstead was so violently shaken, i certainly heard nothing rattle in the room. i will write about my return as soon as i get on with the still unbegun "uncommercial." ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] gad's hill, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear wills, i am clear that you took my cold. why didn't you do the thing completely, and take it away from me? for it hangs by me still. will you tell mrs. linton that in looking over her admirable account (_most_ admirable) of mrs. gordon's book, i have taken out the references to lockhart, not because i in the least doubt their justice, but because i knew him and he liked me; and because one bright day in rome, i walked about with him for some hours when he was dying fast, and all the old faults had faded out of him, and the now ghost of the handsome man i had first known when scott's daughter was at the head of his house, had little more to do with this world than she in her grave, or scott in his, or small hugh littlejohn in his. lockhart had been anxious to see me all the previous day (when i was away on the campagna), and as we walked about i knew very well that _he_ knew very well why. he talked of getting better, but i never saw him again. this makes me stay mrs. linton's hand, gentle as it is. mrs. lirriper is indeed a most brilliant old lady. god bless her. i am glad to hear of your being "haunted," and hope to increase your stock of such ghosts pretty liberally. ever faithfully. footnotes: [ ] alluding to a translation of a play by m. maquet, which m. fechter was then preparing for his theatre. [ ] now mrs. dallas glyn. [ ] formerly miss talfourd. [ ] his travelling journal. [ ] answer to letter from jewish lady, remonstrating with him on injustice to the jews, shown in the character of fagin, and asking for subscription for the benefit of the jewish poor. . narrative. charles dickens was, as usual, at gad's hill, with a family and friendly party, at the opening of this year, and had been much shocked and distressed by the news of the sudden death of mr. thackeray, brought to him by friends arriving from london on the christmas eve of , the day on which the sad event happened. he writes of it, in the first letter of the year, to mr. wilkie collins, who was passing the winter in italy. he tells him, also, of his having got well to work upon a new serial story, the first number of which ("our mutual friend") was published on the st of may. the year began very sadly for charles dickens. on the th of february (his own birthday) he received the mournful announcement of the death of his second son, walter landor (a lieutenant in the nd royal highlanders), who had died quite suddenly at calcutta, on the last night of the year of , at the age of twenty-three. his third son, francis jeffrey, had started for india at the end of january. his annual letter to m. de cerjat contains an allusion to "another generation beginning to peep above the table"--the children of his son charles, who had been married three years before, to miss bessie evans. in the middle of february he removed to a house in london ( , gloucester place, hyde park), where he made a stay of the usual duration, up to the middle of june, all the time being hard at work upon "our mutual friend" and "all the year round." mr. marcus stone was the illustrator of the new monthly work, and we give a specimen of one of many letters which he wrote to him about his "subjects." his old friend, mr. charles knight, with whom for many years charles dickens had dined on his birthday, was staying, this spring, in the isle of wight. to him he writes of the death of walter, and of another sad death which happened at this time, and which affected him almost as much. clara, the last surviving daughter of mr. and mrs. white, who had been happily married to mr. gordon, of cluny, not more than two years, had just died at bonchurch. her father, as will be seen by the touching allusion to him in this letter, had died a short time after this daughter's marriage. a letter to mr. edmund ollier has reference to certain additions which charles dickens wished him to make to an article (by mr. ollier) on working men's clubs, published in "all the year round." we are glad to have one letter to the lord chief baron, sir frederick pollock, which shows the great friendship and regard charles dickens had for him, and his admiration of his qualities in his judicial capacity. we give a pleasant letter to mrs. storrar, for whom, and for her husband, dr. storrar, charles dickens had affectionate regard, because we are glad to have their names in our book. the letter speaks for itself and needs no explanation. the latter part of the year was uneventful. hard at work, he passed the summer and autumn at gad's hill, taking holidays by receiving visitors at home (among them, this year, sir j. emerson tennent, his wife and daughter, who were kindly urgent for his paying them a return visit in ireland) and occasional "runs" into france. the last letters we give are his annual one to m. de cerjat, and a graceful little new year's note to his dear old friend "barry cornwall." the christmas number was "mrs. lirriper's legacy," the first and last part written by himself, as in the case of the previous year's "mrs. lirriper." [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] gad's hill, _monday, jan. th, ._ extract. my dear wilkie, i am horribly behindhand in answering your welcome letter; but i have been so busy, and have had the house so full for christmas and the new year, and have had so much to see to in getting frank out to india, that i have not been able to settle down to a regular long letter, which i mean this to be, but which it may not turn out to be, after all. first, i will answer your enquiries about the christmas number and the new book. the christmas number has been the greatest success of all; has shot ahead of last year; has sold about two hundred and twenty thousand; and has made the name of mrs. lirriper so swiftly and domestically famous as never was. i had a very strong belief in her when i wrote about her, finding that she made a great effect upon me; but she certainly has gone beyond my hopes. (probably you know nothing about her? which is a very unpleasant consideration.) of the new book, i have done the two first numbers, and am now beginning the third. it is a combination of drollery with romance which requires a great deal of pains and a perfect throwing away of points that might be amplified; but i hope it is _very good_. i confess, in short, that i think it is. strange to say, i felt at first quite dazed in getting back to the large canvas and the big brushes; and even now, i have a sensation as of acting at the san carlo after tavistock house, which i could hardly have supposed would have come upon so old a stager. you will have read about poor thackeray's death--sudden, and yet not sudden, for he had long been alarmingly ill. at the solicitation of mr. smith and some of his friends, i have done what i would most gladly have excused myself from doing, if i felt i could--written a couple of pages about him in what was his own magazine. concerning the italian experiment, de la rue is more hopeful than you. he and his bank are closely leagued with the powers at turin, and he has long been devoted to cavour; but he gave me the strongest assurances (with illustrations) of the fusion between place and place, and of the blending of small mutually antagonistic characters into one national character, progressing cheeringly and certainly. of course there must be discouragements and discrepancies in the first struggles of a country previously so degraded and enslaved, and the time, as yet, has been very short. i should like to have a day with you at the coliseum, and on the appian way, and among the tombs, and with the orvieto. but rome and i are wide asunder, physically as well as morally. i wonder whether the dramatic stable, where we saw the marionettes, still receives the roman public? and lord! when i think of you in that hotel, how i think of poor dear egg in the long front drawing-room, giving on to the piazza, posting up that wonderful necromantic volume which we never shall see opened! [sidenote: mr. marcus stone.] , gloucester place, hyde park,, hyde park, _tuesday, feb. rd, ._ my dear marcus, i think the design for the cover _excellent_, and do not doubt its coming out to perfection. the slight alteration i am going to suggest originates in a business consideration not to be overlooked. the word "our" in the title must be out in the open like "mutual friend," making the title three distinct large lines--"our" as big as "mutual friend." this would give you too much design at the bottom. i would therefore take out the dustman, and put the wegg and boffin composition (which is capital) in its place. i don't want mr. inspector or the murder reward bill, because these points are sufficiently indicated in the river at the top. therefore you can have an indication of the dustman in mr. inspector's place. note, that the dustman's face should be droll, and not horrible. twemlow's elbow will still go out of the frame as it does now, and the same with lizzie's skirts on the opposite side. with these changes, work away! mrs. boffin, as i judge of her from the sketch, "very good, indeed." i want boffin's oddity, without being at all blinked, to be an oddity of a very honest kind, that people will like. the doll's dressmaker is immensely better than she was. i think she should now come extremely well. a weird sharpness not without beauty is the thing i want. affectionately always. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] , gloucester place, w., _tuesday, march st, ._ my dear knight, we knew of your being in the isle of wight, and had said that we should have this year to drink your health in your absence. rely on my being always ready and happy to renew our old friendship in the flesh. in the spirit it needs no renewal, because it has no break. ah, poor mrs. white! a sad, sad story! it is better for poor white that that little churchyard by the sea received his ashes a while ago, than that he should have lived to this time. my poor boy was on his way home from an up-country station, on sick leave. he had been very ill, but was not so at the time. he was talking to some brother-officers in the calcutta hospital about his preparations for home, when he suddenly became excited, had a rush of blood from the mouth, and was dead. his brother frank would arrive out at calcutta, expecting to see him after six years, and he would have been dead a month. my "working life" is resolving itself at the present into another book, in twenty green leaves. you work like a trojan at ventnor, but you do that everywhere; and that's why you are so young. mary and georgina unite in kindest regard to you, and to mrs. knight, and to your daughters. so do i. and i am ever, my dear knight, affectionately yours. p.s.--serene view! what a placid address! [sidenote: mr. edmund ollier.] "all the year round" office, _march, ._ extract. i want the article on "working men's clubs" to refer back to "the poor man and his beer" in no. , and to maintain the principle involved in that effort. also, emphatically, to show that trustfulness is at the bottom of all social institutions, and that to trust a man, as one of a body of men, is to place him under a wholesome restraint of social opinion, and is a very much better thing than to make a baby of him. also, to point out that the rejection of beer in this club, tobacco in that club, dancing or what-not in another club, are instances that such clubs are founded on mere whims, and therefore cannot successfully address human nature in the general, and hope to last. also, again to urge that patronage is the curse and blight of all such endeavours, and to impress upon the working men that they must originate and manage for themselves. and to ask them the question, can they possibly show their detestation of drunkenness better, or better strive to get rid of it from among them, than to make it a hopeless disqualification in all their clubs, and a reason for expulsion. also, to encourage them to declare to themselves and their fellow working men that they want social rest and social recreation for themselves and their families; and that these clubs are intended for that laudable and necessary purpose, and do not need educational pretences or flourishes. do not let them be afraid or ashamed of wanting to be amused and pleased. [sidenote: the lord chief baron.] , gloucester place, _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear chief baron, many thanks for your kind letter, which i find on my return from a week's holiday. your answer concerning poor thackeray i will duly make known to the active spirit in that matter, mr. shirley brooks. your kind invitation to me to come and see you and yours, and hear the nightingales, i shall not fail to discuss with forster, and with an eye to spring. i expect to see him presently; the rather as i found a note from him when i came back yesterday, describing himself somewhat gloomily as not having been well, and as feeling a little out of heart. it is not out of order, i hope, to remark that you have been much in my thoughts and on my lips lately? for i really have not been able to repress my admiration of the vigorous dignity and sense and spirit, with which one of the best of judges set right one of the dullest of juries in a recent case. believe me ever, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] , gloucester place, _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear forster, i meant to write to you last night, but to enable wills to get away i had to read a book of fitzgerald's through before i went to bed. concerning eliot, i sat down, as i told you, and read the book through with the strangest interest and the highest admiration. i believe it to be as honest, spirited, patient, reliable, and gallant a piece of biography as ever was written, the care and pains of it astonishing, the completeness of it masterly; and what i particularly feel about it is that the dignity of the man, and the dignity of the book that tells about the man, always go together, and fit each other. this same quality has always impressed me as the great leading speciality of the goldsmith, and enjoins sympathy with the subject, knowledge of it, and pursuit of it in its own spirit; but i think it even more remarkable here. i declare that apart from the interest of having been so put into the time, and enabled to understand it, i personally feel quite as much the credit and honour done to literature by such a book. it quite clears out of the remembrance a thousand pitiful things, and sets one up in heart again. i am not surprised in the least by bulwer's enthusiasm. i was as confident about the effect of the book when i closed the first volume, as i was when i closed the second with a full heart. no man less in earnest than eliot himself could have done it, and i make bold to add that it never could have been done by a man who was so distinctly born to do the work as eliot was to do his. saturday at hastings i must give up. i have wavered and considered, and considered and wavered, but if i take that sort of holiday, i must have a day to spare after it, and at this critical time i have not. if i were to lose a page of the five numbers i have purposed to myself to be ready by the publication day, i should feel that i had fallen short. i have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly, and i have so much bad fiction, that _will_ be thought of when i don't want to think of it, that i am forced to take more care than i ever took. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. storrar.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday morning, may th, ._ my dear mrs. storrar, our family dinner must come off at gad's hill, where i have improvements to exhibit, and where i shall be truly pleased to see you and the doctor again. i have deferred answering your note, while i have been scheming and scheming for a day between this time and our departure. but it is all in vain. my engagements have accumulated, and become such a whirl, that no day is left me. nothing is left me but to get away. i look forward to my release from this dining life with an inexpressible longing after quiet and my own pursuits. what with public speechifying, private eating and drinking, and perpetual simmering in hot rooms, i have made london too hot to hold me and my work together. mary and georgina acknowledge the condition of imbecility to which we have become reduced in reference to your kind reminder. they say, when i stare at them in a forlorn way with your note in my hand: "what can you do!" to which i can only reply, implicating them: "see what you have brought me to!" with our united kind regard to yourself and dr. storrar, i entreat your pity and compassion for an unfortunate wretch whom a too-confiding disposition has brought to this pass. if i had not allowed my "cheeild" to pledge me to all manner of fellow-creatures, i and my digestion might have been in a state of honourable independence this day. faithfully and penitently yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] office of "all the year round," etc. etc. etc. _wednesday, july th, ._ my dear mr. fitzgerald, first, let me assure you that it gave us all real pleasure to see your sister and you at gad's hill, and that we all hope you will both come and stay a day or two with us when you are next in england. next, let me convey to you the intelligence that i resolve to launch "miss manuel," fully confiding in your conviction of the power of the story. on all business points, wills will communicate with you. i purpose beginning its publication in our first september number, therefore there is no time to be lost. the only suggestion i have to make as to the ms. in hand and type is, that captain fermor wants relief. it is a disagreeable character, as you mean it to be, and i should be afraid to do so much with him, if the case were mine, without taking the taste of him, here and there, out of the reader's mouth. it is remarkable that if you do not administer a disagreeable character carefully, the public have a decided tendency to think that the _story_ is disagreeable, and not merely the fictitious person. what do you think of the title, never forgotten? it is a good one in itself, would express the eldest sister's pursuit, and glanced at now and then in the text, would hold the reader in suspense. i would propose to add the line, by the author of bella donna. let me know your opinion as to the title. i need not assure you that the greatest care will be taken of you here, and that we shall make you as thoroughly well and widely known as we possibly can. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir james emerson tennent.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, aug. th, ._ my dear tennent, believe me, i fully intended to come to you--did not doubt that i should come--and have greatly disappointed mary and her aunt, as well as myself, by not coming. but i do not feel safe in going out for a visit. the mere knowledge that i had such a thing before me would put me out. it is not the length of time consumed, or the distance traversed, but it is the departure from a settled habit and a continuous sacrifice of pleasures that comes in question. this is an old story with me. i have never divided a book of my writing with anything else, but have always wrought at it to the exclusion of everything else; and it is now too late to change. after receiving your kind note i resolved to make another trial. but the hot weather and a few other drawbacks did not mend the matter, for i have dropped astern this month instead of going ahead. so i have seen forster, and shown him my chains, and am reduced to taking exercise in them, like baron trenck. i am heartily pleased that you set so much store by the dedication. you may be sure that it does not make me the less anxious to take pains, and to work out well what i have in my mind. mary and georgina unite with me in kindest regards to lady tennent and miss tennent, and wish me to report that while they are seriously disappointed, they still feel there is no help for it. i can testify that they had great pleasure in the anticipation of the visit, and that their faces were very long and blank indeed when i began to hint my doubts. they fought against them valiantly as long as there was a chance, but they see my difficulty as well as anyone not myself can. believe me, my dear tennent, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] the athenÆum, _wednesday, sept. st, ._ my dear stanny, i met george in the street a few days ago, and he gave me a wonderful account of the effect of your natural element upon you at ramsgate. i expect you to come back looking about twenty-nine, and feeling about nineteen. this morning i have looked in here to put down fechter as a candidate, on the chance of the committee's electing him some day or other. he is a most devoted worshipper of yours, and would take it as a great honour if you would second him. supposing you to have not the least objection (of course, if you should have any, i can in a moment provide a substitute), will you write your name in the candidates' book as his seconder when you are next in town and passing this way? lastly, if you should be in town on his opening night (a saturday, and in all probability the nd of october), will you come and dine at the office and see his new piece? you have not yet "pronounced" in the matter of that new french stage of his, on which calcott for the said new piece has built up all manner of villages, camps, versailles gardens, etc. etc. etc. etc., with no wings, no flies, no looking off in any direction. if you tell me that you are to be in town by that time, i will not fail to refresh your memory as to the precise day. with kind regard to mrs. stanfield, believe me, my dear old boy, ever your affectionate dick. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear cerjat, here is a limping brute of a reply to your always-welcome christmas letter! but, as usual, when i have done my day's work, i jump up from my desk and rush into air and exercise, and find letter-writing the most difficult thing in my daily life. i hope that your asthmatic tendencies may not be strong just now; but townshend's account of the premature winter at lausanne is not encouraging, and with us here in england all such disorders have been aggravated this autumn. however, a man of your dignity _must_ have either asthma or gout, and i hope you have got the better of the two. in london there is, as you see by the papers, extraordinarily little news. at present the apprehension (rather less than it was thought) of a commercial crisis, and the trial of müller next thursday, are the two chief sensations. i hope that gentleman will be hanged, and have hardly a doubt of it, though croakers contrariwise are not wanting. it is difficult to conceive any other line of defence than that the circumstances proved, taken separately, are slight. but a sound judge will immediately charge the jury that the strength of the circumstances lies in their being put together, and will thread them together on a fatal rope. as to the church, my friend, i am sick of it. the spectacle presented by the indecent squabbles of priests of most denominations, and the exemplary unfairness and rancour with which they conduct their differences, utterly repel me. and the idea of the protestant establishment, in the face of its own history, seeking to trample out discussion and private judgment, is an enormity so cool, that i wonder the right reverends, very reverends, and all other reverends, who commit it, can look in one another's faces without laughing, as the old soothsayers did. perhaps they can't and don't. how our sublime and so-different christian religion is to be administered in the future i cannot pretend to say, but that the church's hand is at its own throat i am fully convinced. here, more popery, there, more methodism--as many forms of consignment to eternal damnation as there are articles, and all in one forever quarrelling body--the master of the new testament put out of sight, and the rage and fury almost always turning on the letter of obscure parts of the old testament, which itself has been the subject of accommodation, adaptation, varying interpretation without end--these things cannot last. the church that is to have its part in the coming time must be a more christian one, with less arbitrary pretensions and a stronger hold upon the mantle of our saviour, as he walked and talked upon this earth. of family intelligence i have very little. charles collins continuing in a very poor way, and showing no signs of amendment. he and my daughter katie went to wiesbaden and thence to nice, where they are now. i have strong apprehensions that he will never recover, and that she will be left a young widow. all the rest are as they were. mary neither married nor going to be; georgina holding them all together and perpetually corresponding with the distant ones; occasional rallyings coming off here, in which another generation begins to peep above the table. i once used to think what a horrible thing it was to be a grandfather. finding that the calamity falls upon me without my perceiving any other change in myself, i bear it like a man. mrs. watson has bought a house in town, to which she repairs in the season, for the bringing out of her daughter. she is now at rockingham. her eldest son is said to be as good an eldest son as ever was, and to make her position there a perfectly independent and happy one. i have not seen him for some years; her i often see; but he ought to be a good fellow, and is very popular in his neighbourhood. i have altered this place very much since you were here, and have made a pretty (i think an unusually pretty) drawing-room. i wish you would come back and see it. my being on the dover line, and my being very fond of france, occasion me to cross the channel perpetually. whenever i feel that i have worked too much, or am on the eve of overdoing it, and want a change, away i go by the mail-train, and turn up in paris or anywhere else that suits my humour, next morning. so i come back as fresh as a daisy, and preserve as ruddy a face as though i never leant over a sheet of paper. when i retire from a literary life i think of setting up as a channel pilot. pray give my love to mrs. cerjat, and tell her that i should like to go up the great st. bernard again, and shall be glad to know if she is open to another ascent. old days in switzerland are ever fresh to me, and sometimes i walk with you again, after dark, outside the hotel at martigny, while lady mary taylour (wasn't it?) sang within very prettily. lord, how the time goes! how many years ago! affectionately yours. _wednesday, nov. th, ._[ ] dear madam, i have received your letter with great pleasure, and hope to be (as i have always been at heart) the best of friends with the jewish people. the error you point out to me had occurred to me, as most errors do to most people, when it was too late to correct it. but it will do no harm. the peculiarities of dress and manner are fused together for the sake of picturesqueness. dear madam, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, dec. st, ._ my dear procter, i have reserved my acknowledgment of your delightful note (the youngest note i have had in all this year) until to-day, in order that i might send, most heartily and affectionately, all seasonable good wishes to you and to mrs. procter, and to those who are nearest and dearest to you. take them from an old friend who loves you. mamie returns the tender compliments, and georgina does what the americans call "endorse them." mrs. lirriper is proud to be so remembered, and says over and over again "that it's worth twenty times the trouble she has taken with the narrative, since barry cornwall, esquire, is pleased to like it." i got rid of a touch of neuralgia in france (as i always do there), but i found no old friends in my voyages of discovery on that side, such as i have left on this. my dear procter, ever your affectionate. footnotes: [ ] in answer to another letter from the "jewish lady," in which she gives her reasons for still being dissatisfied with the character of riah. . narrative. for this spring a furnished house in somer's place, hyde park, had been taken, which charles dickens occupied, with his sister-in-law and daughter, from the beginning of march until june. during the year he paid two short visits to france. he was still at work upon "our mutual friend," two numbers of which had been issued in january and february, when the first volume was published, with dedication to sir james emerson tennent. the remaining numbers were issued between march and november, when the complete work was published in two volumes. the christmas number, to which charles dickens contributed three stories, was called "doctor marigold's prescriptions." being out of health, and much overworked, charles dickens, at the end of may, took his first short holiday trip into france. and on his way home, and on a day afterwards so fatal to him, the th of june, he was in that most terrible railway accident at staplehurst. many of our letters for this year have reference to this awful experience--an experience from the effects of which his nerves never wholly recovered. his letters to mr. thomas mitton and to mrs. hulkes (an esteemed friend and neighbour) are graphic descriptions of this disaster. but they do not tell of the wonderful presence of mind and energy shown by charles dickens when most of the terrified passengers were incapable of thought or action, or of his gentleness and goodness to the dead and dying. the mr. dickenson[ ] mentioned in the letter to mrs. hulkes soon recovered. he always considers that he owes his life to charles dickens, the latter having discovered and extricated him from beneath a carriage before it was too late. our first letter to mr. kent is one of congratulation upon his having become the proprietor of _the sun_ newspaper. professor owen has been so kind as to give us some notes, which we publish for the sake of his great name. charles dickens had not much correspondence with professor owen, but there was a firm friendship and great mutual admiration between them. the letter to mrs. procter is in answer to one from her, asking charles dickens to write a memoir of her daughter adelaide, as a preface to a collected edition of her poems. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, jan. th, ._ my dear kent, i meant to have written instantly on the appearance of your paper in its beautiful freshness, to congratulate you on its handsome appearance, and to send you my heartiest good wishes for its thriving and prosperous career. through a mistake of the postman's, that remarkable letter has been tesselated into the infernal pavement instead of being delivered in the strand. we have been looking and waiting for your being well enough to propose yourself for a mouthful of fresh air. are you well enough to come on sunday? we shall be coming down from charing cross on sunday morning, and i shall be going up again at nine on monday morning. it amuses me to find that you don't see your way with a certain "mutual friend" of ours. i have a horrible suspicion that you may begin to be fearfully knowing at somewhere about no. or . but you shan't if i can help it. your note delighted me because it dwelt upon the places in the number that _i_ dwell on. not that that is anything new in your case, but it is always new to me in the pleasure i derive from it, which is truly inexpressible. ever cordially yours. [sidenote: mrs. procter.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, feb. th, ._ my dear mrs. procter, of course i will do it, and of course i will do it for the love of you and procter. you can give me my brief, and we can speak about its details. once again, of course i will do it, and with all my heart. i have registered a vow (in which there is not the least merit, for i couldn't help it) that when i am, as i am now, very hard at work upon a book, i never will dine out more than one day in a week. why didn't you ask me for the wednesday, before i stood engaged to lady molesworth for the tuesday? it is so delightful to me to sit by your side anywhere and be brightened up, that i lay a handsome sacrifice upon the altar of "our mutual friend" in writing this note, very much against my will. but for as many years as can be made consistent with my present juvenility, i always have given my work the first place in my life, and what can i do now at !--or at least at the two figures, never mind their order. i send my love to procter, hoping you may appropriate a little of it by the way. affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, march st, ._ my dearest macready, i have been laid up here with a frost-bitten foot (from hard walking in the snow), or you would have heard from me sooner. my reply to professor agassiz is short, but conclusive. daily seeing improper uses made of confidential letters in the addressing of them to a public audience that have no business with them, i made not long ago a great fire in my field at gad's hill, and burnt every letter i possessed. and now i always destroy every letter i receive not on absolute business, and my mind is so far at ease. poor dear felton's letters went up into the air with the rest, or his highly distinguished representative should have had them most willingly. we never fail to drink old p.'s health on his birthday, or to make him the subject of a thousand loving remembrances. with best love to mrs. macready and katie, ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , somer's place, hyde park, _saturday night, april nd, ._ my dearest macready, a thousand thanks for your kind letter, most heartily welcome. my frost-bitten foot, after causing me great inconvenience and much pain, has begun to conduct itself amiably. i can now again walk my ten miles in the morning without inconvenience, but am absurdly obliged to sit shoeless all the evening--a very slight penalty, as i detest going out to dinner (which killed the original old parr by-the-bye). i am working like a dragon at my book, and am a terror to the household, likewise to all the organs and brass bands in this quarter. gad's hill is being gorgeously painted, and we are here until the st of june. i wish i might hope you would be there any time this summer; i really _have_ made the place comfortable and pretty by this time. it is delightful to us to hear such good news of butty. she made so deep an impression on fechter that he always asks me what ceylon has done for her, and always beams when i tell him how thoroughly well it has made her. as to _you_, you are the youngest man (worth mentioning as a thorough man) that i know. oh, let me be as young when i am as----did you think i was going to write "old?" no, sir--withdrawn from the wear and tear of busy life is my expression. poole still holds out at kentish town, and says he is dying of solitude. his memory is astoundingly good. i see him about once in two or three months, and in the meantime he makes notes of questions to ask me when i come. having fallen in arrear of the time, these generally refer to unknown words he has encountered in the newspapers. his three last (he always reads them with tremendous difficulty through an enormous magnifying-glass) were as follows: . what's croquet? . what's an albert chain? . let me know the state of mind of the queen. when i had delivered a neat exposition on these heads, he turned back to his memoranda, and came to something that the utmost power of the enormous magnifying-glass couldn't render legible. after a quarter of an hour or so, he said: "o yes, i know." and then rose and clasped his hands above his head, and said: "thank god, i am not a dram-drinker." do think of coming to gad's in the summer; and do give my love to mrs. macready, and tell her i know she can make you come if she will. mary and georgy send best and dearest loves to her, to you, and to katie, and to baby. johnny we suppose to be climbing the tree of knowledge elsewhere. my dearest macready, ever yours most affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill, _monday, june th, ._ my dearest macready, [_so far in his own writing._] many thanks for your kind words of remembrance.[ ] this is not all in my own hand, because i am too much shaken to write many notes. not by the beating and dragging of the carriage in which i was--it did not go over, but was caught on the turn, among the ruins of the bridge--but by the work afterwards to get out the dying and dead, which was terrible. [_the rest in his own writing_.] ever your affectionate friend. p.s.--my love to mrs. macready. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, june th, ._ my dear mitton, i should have written to you yesterday or the day before, if i had been quite up to writing. i was in the only carriage that did not go over into the stream. it was caught upon the turn by some of the ruin of the bridge, and hung suspended and balanced in an apparently impossible manner. two ladies were my fellow-passengers, an old one and a young one. this is exactly what passed. you may judge from it the precise length of the suspense: suddenly we were off the rail, and beating the ground as the car of a half-emptied balloon might. the old lady cried out, "my god!" and the young one screamed. i caught hold of them both (the old lady sat opposite and the young one on my left), and said: "we can't help ourselves, but we can be quiet and composed. pray don't cry out." the old lady immediately answered: "thank you. rely upon me. upon my soul i will be quiet." we were then all tilted down together in a corner of the carriage, and stopped. i said to them thereupon: "you may be sure nothing worse can happen. our danger _must_ be over. will you remain here without stirring, while i get out of the window?" they both answered quite collectedly, "yes," and i got out without the least notion what had happened. fortunately i got out with great caution and stood upon the step. looking down i saw the bridge gone, and nothing below me but the line of rail. some people in the two other compartments were madly trying to plunge out at window, and had no idea that there was an open swampy field fifteen feet down below them, and nothing else! the two guards (one with his face cut) were running up and down on the down side of the bridge (which was not torn up) quite wildly. i called out to them: "look at me. do stop an instant and look at me, and tell me whether you don't know me." one of them answered: "we know you very well, mr. dickens." "then," i said, "my good fellow, for god's sake give me your key, and send one of those labourers here, and i'll empty this carriage." we did it quite safely, by means of a plank or two, and when it was done i saw all the rest of the train, except the two baggage vans, down in the stream. i got into the carriage again for my brandy flask, took off my travelling hat for a basin, climbed down the brickwork, and filled my hat with water. suddenly i came upon a staggering man covered with blood (i think he must have been flung clean out of his carriage), with such a frightful cut across the skull that i couldn't bear to look at him. i poured some water over his face and gave him some to drink, then gave him some brandy, and laid him down on the grass, and he said, "i am gone," and died afterwards. then i stumbled over a lady lying on her back against a little pollard-tree, with the blood streaming over her face (which was lead colour) in a number of distinct little streams from the head. i asked her if she could swallow a little brandy and she just nodded, and i gave her some and left her for somebody else. the next time i passed her she was dead. then a man, examined at the inquest yesterday (who evidently had not the least remembrance of what really passed), came running up to me and implored me to help him find his wife, who was afterwards found dead. no imagination can conceive the ruin of the carriages, or the extraordinary weights under which the people were lying, or the complications into which they were twisted up among iron and wood, and mud and water. i don't want to be examined at the inquest, and i don't want to write about it. i could do no good either way, and i could only seem to speak about myself, which, of course, i would rather not do. i am keeping very quiet here. i have a--i don't know what to call it--constitutional (i suppose) presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the time. i instantly remembered that i had the ms. of a number with me, and clambered back into the carriage for it. but in writing these scanty words of recollection i feel the shake and am obliged to stop. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. walter jones.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, june th, _.[ ] sir, i beg you to assure the committee of the newsvendors' benevolent and provident institution, that i have been deeply affected by their special remembrance of me in my late escape from death or mutilation, and that i thank them with my whole heart. faithfully yours and theirs. [sidenote: mrs. hulkes.] gad's hill, _sunday, june th, ._ my dear mrs. hulkes, i return the _examiner_ with many thanks. the account is true, except that i _had_ brandy. by an extraordinary chance i had a bottle and a half with me. i slung the half-bottle round my neck, and carried my hat full of water in my hands. but i can understand the describer (whoever he is) making the mistake in perfect good faith, and supposing that i called for brandy, when i really called to the others who were helping: "i have brandy here." the mr. dickenson mentioned had changed places with a frenchman, who did not like the window down, a few minutes before the accident. the frenchman was killed, and a labourer and i got mr. dickenson out of a most extraordinary heap of dark ruins, in which he was jammed upside down. he was bleeding at the eyes, ears, nose, and mouth; but he didn't seem to know that afterwards, and of course i didn't tell him. in the moment of going over the viaduct the whole of his pockets were shaken empty! he had no watch, no chain, no money, no pocket-book, no handkerchief, when we got him out. he had been choking a quarter of an hour when i heard him groaning. if i had not had the brandy to give him at the moment, i think he would have been done for. as it was, i brought him up to london in the carriage with me, and couldn't make him believe he was hurt. he was the first person whom the brandy saved. as i ran back to the carriage for the whole full bottle, i saw the first two people i had helped lying dead. a bit of shade from the hot sun, into which we got the unhurt ladies, soon had as many dead in it as living. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, june st, ._ my dear mr. ryland, i need not assure you that i regard the unanimous desire of the town council committee as a great honour, and that i feel the strongest interest in the occasion, and the strongest wish to associate myself with it. but, after careful consideration, i most unwillingly come to the conclusion that i must decline. at the time in question i shall, please god, either have just finished, or be just finishing, my present book. country rest and reflection will then be invaluable to me, before casting about for christmas. i am a little shaken in my nervous system by the terrible and affecting incidents of the late railway accident, from which i bodily escaped. i am withdrawing myself from engagements of all kinds, in order that i may pursue my story with the comfortable sense of being perfectly free while it is a-doing, and when it is done. the consciousness of having made this engagement would, if i were to make it, render such sense incomplete, and so open the way to others. this is the real state of the case, and the whole reason for my declining. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. lehmann.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, june th, ._ dear mrs. lehmann, come (with self and partner) on either of the days you name, and you will be heartily welcomed by the humble youth who now addresses you, and will then cast himself at your feet. i am quite right again, i thank god, and have even got my voice back; i most unaccountably brought somebody else's out of that terrible scene. the directors have sent me a resolution of thanks for assistance to the unhappy passengers. with kind regards to lehmann, ever yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] office of "all the year round," _friday, july th, ._ my dear fitzgerald, i shall be delighted to see you at gad's hill on sunday, and i hope you will bring a bag with you and will not think of returning to london at night. we are a small party just now, for my daughter mary has been decoyed to andover for the election week, in the conservative interest; think of my feelings as a radical parent! the wrong-headed member and his wife are the friends with whom she hunts, and she helps to receive (and _de_ceive) the voters, which is very awful! but in the week after next we shall be in great croquet force. i shall hope to persuade you to come back to us then for a few days, and we will try to make you some amends for a dull sunday. turn it over in your mind and try to manage it. sincerely yours ever. [sidenote: professor owen, f.r.s.] gad's hill, _wednesday, july th, ._ my dear owen, studying the gorilla last night for the twentieth time, it suddenly came into my head that i had never thanked you for that admirable treatise. this is to bear witness to my blushes and repentance. if you knew how much interest it has awakened in me, and how often it has set me a-thinking, you would consider me a more thankless beast than any gorilla that ever lived. but happily you do _not_ know, and i am not going to tell you. believe me, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the earl russell.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, aug. th, ._ my dear lord russell, mr. dallas, who is a candidate for the scotch professional chair left vacant by aytoun's death, has asked me if i would object to introduce to you the first volume of a book he has in the press with my publishers, on "the gay science of art and criticism." i have replied i would _not_ object, as i have read as many of the sheets as i could get, with extreme pleasure, and as i know you will find it a very winning and brilliant piece of writing. therefore he will send the proofs of the volume to you as soon as he can get them from the printer (at about the end of this week i take it), and if you read them you will not be hard upon me for bearing the responsibility of his doing so, i feel assured. i suppose mr. dallas to have some impression that his pleasing you with his book might advance his scottish suit. but all i know is, that he is a gentleman of great attainments and erudition, much distinguished as the writer of the best critical literary pieces in _the times_, and thoroughly versed in the subjects which professor aytoun represented officially. i beg to send my regard to lady russell and all the house, and am ever, my dear lord russell, your faithful and obliged. p.s.--i am happy to report that my sailor-boy's captain, relinquishing his ship on sick leave, departs from the mere form of certificate given to all the rest, and adds that his obedience to orders is remarkable, and that he is a highly intelligent and promising young officer. [sidenote: mr. marcus stone.] hÔtel du helder, paris, _wednesday, sept. th, ._ my dear marcus, i leave here to-morrow, and propose going to the office by tidal train _next saturday evening_. through the whole of next week, on and off, i shall be at the office; when not there, at gad's; but much oftener at the office. the sooner i can know about the subjects you take for illustration the better, as i can then fill the list of illustrations to the second volume for the printer, and enable him to make up his last sheet. necessarily that list is now left blank, as i cannot give him the titles of the subjects, not knowing them myself. it has been fearfully hot on this side, but is something cooler. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--on glancing over this note, i find it very like the king's love-letter in "ruy blas." "madam, there is a high wind. i have shot six wolves." i think the frontispiece to the second volume should be the dustyard with the three mounds, and mr. boffin digging up the dutch bottle, and venus restraining wegg's ardour to get at him. or mr. boffin might be coming down with the bottle, and venus might be dragging wegg out of the way as described. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] office of "all the year round," _saturday, sept. rd, ._ my dear fitzgerald, i cannot thank you too much for sultan. he is a noble fellow, has fallen into the ways of the family with a grace and dignity that denote the gentleman, and came down to the railway a day or two since to welcome me home (it was our first meeting), with a profound absence of interest in my individual opinion of him which captivated me completely. i am going home to-day to take him about the country, and improve his acquaintance. you will find a perfect understanding between us, i hope, when you next come to gad's hill. (he has only swallowed bouncer once, and temporarily.) your hint that you were getting on with your story and liked it was more than golden intelligence to me in foreign parts. the intensity of the heat, both in paris and the provinces, was such that i found nothing else so refreshing in the course of my rambles. with many more thanks for the dog than my sheet of paper would hold, believe me, ever very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. procter.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sept. th, ._ my dear mrs. procter, i have written the little introduction, and have sent it to my printer, in order that you may read it without trouble. but if you would like to keep the few pages of ms., of course they are yours. it is brief, and i have aimed at perfect simplicity, and an avoidance of all that your beloved adelaide would have wished avoided. do not expect too much from it. if there should be anything wrong in fact, or anything that you would like changed for any reason, _of course you will tell me so_, and of course you will not deem it possible that you can trouble me by making any such request most freely. you will probably receive the proof either on friday or saturday. don't write to me until you have read it. in the meantime i send you back the two books, with the two letters in the bound one. with love to procter, ever your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. edmund yates.] hÔtel du helder, paris, _wednesday, sept. th, ._ my dear edmund, i leave here to-morrow and purpose being at the office on saturday night; all next week i shall be there, off and on--"off" meaning gad's hill; the office will be my last address. the heat has been excessive on this side of the channel, and i got a slight sunstroke last thursday, and was obliged to be doctored and put to bed for a day; but, thank god, i am all right again. the man who sells the _tisane_ on the boulevards can't keep the flies out of his glasses, and as he wears them on his red velvet bands, the flies work themselves into the ends of the tumblers, trying to get through and tickle the man. if fly life were long enough, i think they would at last. three paving blouses came to work at the corner of this street last monday, pulled up a bit of road, sat down to look at it, and fell asleep. on tuesday one of the blouses spat on his hands and seemed to be going to begin, but didn't. the other two have shown no sign of life whatever. this morning the industrious one ate a loaf. you may rely upon this as the latest news from the french capital. faithfully ever. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] , wellington street, _monday, nov. th, ._ my dear kent, _no_, i _won't_ write in this book, because i have sent another to the binder's for you. i have been unwell with a relaxed throat, or i should have written to you sooner to thank you for your dedication, to assure you that it heartily, most heartily, gratifies me, as the sincere tribute of a true and generous heart, and to tell you that i have been charmed with your book itself. i am proud of having given a name to anything so picturesque, so sympathetic and spirited. i hope and believe the "doctor" is nothing but a good 'un. he has perfectly astonished forster, who writes: "neither good, gooder, nor goodest, but super-excellent; all through there is such a relish of you at your best, as i could not have believed in, after a long story." i shall be charmed to see you to-night. ever affectionately. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _november th, ._ extract. my dear cerjat, having achieved my book and my christmas number, and having shaken myself after two years' work, i send you my annual greeting. how are you? asthmatic, i know you will reply; but as my poor father (who was asthmatic, too, and the jolliest of men) used philosophically to say, "one must have something wrong, i suppose, and i like to know what it is." in england we are groaning under the brigandage of the butcher, which is being carried to that height that i think i foresee resistance on the part of the middle-class, and some combination in perspective for abolishing the middleman, whensoever he turns up (which is everywhere) between producer and consumer. the cattle plague is the butcher's stalking-horse, and it is unquestionably worse than it was; but seeing that the great majority of creatures lost or destroyed have been cows, and likewise that the rise in butchers' meat bears no reasonable proportion to the market prices of the beasts, one comes to the conclusion that the public is done. the commission has ended very weakly and ineffectually, as such things in england rather frequently do; and everybody writes to _the times_, and nobody does anything else. if the americans don't embroil us in a war before long it will not be their fault. what with their swagger and bombast, what with their claims for indemnification, what with ireland and fenianism, and what with canada, i have strong apprehensions. with a settled animosity towards the french usurper, i believe him to have always been sound in his desire to divide the states against themselves, and that we were unsound and wrong in "letting i dare not wait upon i would." the jamaica insurrection is another hopeful piece of business. that platform-sympathy with the black--or the native, or the devil--afar off, and that platform indifference to our own countrymen at enormous odds in the midst of bloodshed and savagery, makes me stark wild. only the other day, here was a meeting of jawbones of asses at manchester, to censure the jamaica governor for his manner of putting down the insurrection! so we are badgered about new zealanders and hottentots, as if they were identical with men in clean shirts at camberwell, and were to be bound by pen and ink accordingly. so exeter hall holds us in mortal submission to missionaries, who (livingstone always excepted) are perfect nuisances, and leave every place worse than they found it. of all the many evidences that are visible of our being ill-governed, no one is so remarkable to me as our ignorance of what is going on under our government. what will future generations think of that enormous indian mutiny being ripened without suspicion, until whole regiments arose and killed their officers? a week ago, red tape, half-bouncing and half pooh-poohing what it bounced at, would have scouted the idea of a dublin jail not being able to hold a political prisoner. but for the blacks in jamaica being over-impatient and before their time, the whites might have been exterminated, without a previous hint or suspicion that there was anything amiss. _laissez aller_, and britons never, never, never!---- meantime, if your honour were in london, you would see a great embankment rising high and dry out of the thames on the middlesex shore, from westminster bridge to blackfriars. a really fine work, and really getting on. moreover, a great system of drainage. another really fine work, and likewise really getting on. lastly, a muddle of railways in all directions possible and impossible, with no general public scheme, no general public supervision, enormous waste of money, no fixable responsibility, no accountability but under lord campbell's act. i think of that accident in which i was preserved. before the most furious and notable train in the four-and-twenty hours, the head of a gang of workmen takes up the rails. that train changes its time every day as the tide changes, and that head workman is not provided by the railway company with any clock or watch! lord shaftesbury wrote to me to ask me what i thought of an obligation on railway companies to put strong walls to all bridges and viaducts. i told him, of course, that the force of such a shock would carry away anything that any company could set up, and i added: "ask the minister what _he_ thinks about the votes of the railway interest in the house of commons, and about his being afraid to lay a finger on it with an eye to his majority." i seem to be grumbling, but i am in the best of humours. all goes well with me and mine, thank god. last night my gardener came upon a man in the garden and fired. the man returned the compliment by kicking him in the groin and causing him great pain. i set off, with a great mastiff-bloodhound i have, in pursuit. couldn't find the evil-doer, but had the greatest difficulty in preventing the dog from tearing two policemen down. they were coming towards us with professional mystery, and he was in the air on his way to the throat of an eminently respectable constable when i caught him. my daughter mary and her aunt georgina send kindest regard and remembrance. katey and her husband are going to try london this winter, but i rather doubt (for they are both delicate) their being able to weather it out. it has been blowing here tremendously for a fortnight, but to-day is like a spring day, and plenty of roses are growing over the labourers' cottages. the _great eastern_ lies at her moorings beyond the window where i write these words; looks very dull and unpromising. a dark column of smoke from chatham dockyard, where the iron shipbuilding is in progress, has a greater significance in it, i fancy. [sidenote: miss dickens.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dearest mamie, as you want to know my views of the sphinx, here they are. but i have only seen it once; and it is so extraordinarily well done, that it ought to be observed closely several times. anyone who attentively notices the flower trick will see that the two little high tables hung with drapery cover each a trap. each of those tables, during that trick, hides a confederate, who changes the paper cone twice. when the cone has been changed as often as is required, the trap is closed and the table can be moved. when the curtain is removed for the performance of the sphinx trick, there is a covered, that is, draped table on the stage, which is never seen before or afterwards. in front of the middle of it, and between it and the audience, stands one of those little draped tables covering a trap; this is a third trap in the centre of the stage. the box for the head is then upon it, and the conjuror takes it off and shows it. the man whose head is afterwards shown in that box is, i conceive, in the table; that is to say, is lying on his chest in the thickness of the table, in an extremely constrained attitude. to get him into the table, and to enable him to use the trap in the table through which his head comes into the box, the two hands of a confederate are necessary. that confederate comes up a trap, and stands in the space afforded by the interval below the stage and the height of the little draped table! his back is towards the audience. the moment he has assisted the hidden man sufficiently, he closes the trap, and the conjuror then immediately removes the little draped table, and also the drapery of the larger table; when he places the box on the last-named table _with the slide on_ for the head to come into it, he stands with his back to the audience and his face to the box, and masks the box considerably to facilitate the insertion of the head. as soon as he knows the head to be in its place, he undraws the slide. when the verses have been spoken and the trick is done, he loses no time in replacing the slide. the curtain is then immediately dropped, because the man cannot otherwise be got out of the table, and has no doubt had quite enough of it. with kindest regards to all at penton, ever your most affectionate. footnotes: [ ] now captain e. newton dickenson. [ ] this was a circular note which he sent in answer to innumerable letters of enquiry, after the accident. [ ] this letter was written in reply to the committee's congratulations upon mr. dickens's escape from the accident to the tidal train from folkestone, at staplehurst, just previous to this date. . narrative. the furnished house hired by charles dickens in the spring of this year was in southwick place, hyde park. having entered into negotiations with the messrs. chappell for a series of readings to be given in london, in the english provinces, in scotland and ireland, charles dickens had no leisure for more than his usual editorial work for "all the year round." he contributed four parts to the christmas number, which was entitled, "mugby junction." for the future all his english readings were given in connection with the messrs. chappell, and never in all his career had he more satisfactory or more pleasant business relations than those connected with these gentlemen. moreover, out of this connection sprang a sincere friendship on both sides. mr. dolby is so constantly mentioned in future letters, that they themselves will tell of the cordial companionship which existed between charles dickens and this able and most obliging "manager." the letter to "lily" was in answer to a child's letter from miss lily benzon, inviting him to a birthday party. the play alluded to in the letter to m. fechter was called "a long strike," and was performed at the lyceum theatre. the "sultan" mentioned in the letter to mr. fitzgerald was a noble irish bloodhound, presented by this gentleman to charles dickens. the story of the dog's death is told in a letter to m. de cerjat, which we give in the following year. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] office of "all the year round," _saturday, jan. th, ._ my dear mary, feeling pretty certain that i shall never answer your letter unless i answer it at once (i got it this morning), here goes! i did not dramatise "the master of ravenswood," though i did a good deal towards and about the piece, having an earnest desire to put scott, for once, upon the stage in his own gallant manner. it is _an enormous success_, and increases in attraction nightly. i have never seen the people in all parts of the house so leaning forward, in lines sloping towards the stage, earnestly and intently attractive, as while the story gradually unfolds itself. but the astonishing circumstance of all is, that miss leclercq (never thought of for lucy till all other lucies had failed) is marvellously good, highly pathetic, and almost unrecognisable in person! what note it touches in her, always dumb until now, i do not pretend to say, but there is no one on the stage who could play the contract scene better, or more simply and naturally, and i find it impossible to see it without crying! almost everyone plays well, the whole is exceedingly picturesque, and there is scarcely a movement throughout, or a look, that is not indicated by scott. so you get a life romance with beautiful illustrations, and i do not expect ever again to see a book take up its bed and walk in like manner. i am charmed to learn that you have had a freeze out of my ghost story. it rather did give me a shiver up the back in the writing. "dr. marigold" has just now accomplished his two hundred thousand. my only other news about myself is that i am doubtful whether to read or not in london this season. if i decide to do it at all, i shall probably do it on a large scale. many happy years to you, my dear mary. so prays your ever affectionate jo. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] gad's hill, _thursday, jan. th, ._ my dear kent, i cannot tell you how grieved we all are here to know that you are suffering again. your patient tone, however, and the hopefulness and forbearance of ferguson's course, gives us some reassurance. apropos of which latter reference i dined with ferguson at the lord mayor's, last tuesday, and had a grimly distracted impulse upon me to defy the toast-master and rush into a speech about him and his noble art, when i sat pining under the imbecility of constitutional and corporational idiots. i did seize him for a moment by the hair of his head (in proposing the lady mayoress), and derived some faint consolation from the company's response to the reference. o! no man will ever know under what provocation to contradiction and a savage yell of repudiation i suffered at the hands of ----, feebly complacent in the uniform of madame tussaud's own military waxers, and almost the worst speaker i ever heard in my life! mary and georgina, sitting on either side of me, urged me to "look pleasant." i replied in expressions not to be repeated. shea (the judge) was just as good and graceful, as he (the member) was bad and gawky. bulwer's "lost tales of miletus" is a most noble book! he is an extraordinary fellow, and fills me with admiration and wonder. it is of no use writing to you about yourself, my dear kent, because you are likely to be tired of that constant companion, and so i have gone scratching (with an exceedingly bad pen) about and about you. but i come back to you to let you know that the reputation of this house as a convalescent hospital stands (like the house itself) very high, and that testimonials can be produced from credible persons who have recovered health and spirits here swiftly. try us, only try us, and we are content to stake the reputation of the establishment on the result. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] gad's hill, _friday, feb. nd, ._ my dear fitzgerald, i ought to have written to you days and days ago, to thank you for your charming book on charles lamb, to tell you with what interest and pleasure i read it as soon as it came here, and to add that i was honestly affected (far more so than your modesty will readily believe) by your intimate knowledge of those touches of mine concerning childhood. let me tell you now that i have not in the least cooled, after all, either as to the graceful sympathetic book, or as to the part in it with which i am honoured. it has become a matter of real feeling with me, and i postponed its expression because i couldn't satisfactorily get it out of myself, and at last i came to the conclusion that it must be left in. my dear fitzgerald, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] office of "all the year round," _friday, feb. th, ._ my dearest georgy, i found your letter here when i came back on wednesday evening, and was extremely glad to get it. frank beard wrote me word that with such a pulse as i described, an examination of the heart was absolutely necessary, and that i had better make an appointment with him alone for the purpose. this i did. i was not at all disconcerted, for i knew well beforehand that the effect could not possibly be without that one cause at the bottom of it. there seems to be degeneration of some functions of the heart. it does not contract as it should. so i have got a prescription of iron, quinine, and digitalis, to set it a-going, and send the blood more quickly through the system. if it should not seem to succeed on a reasonable trial, i will then propose a consultation with someone else. of course i am not so foolish as to suppose that all my work can have been achieved without _some_ penalty, and i have noticed for some time a decided change in my buoyancy and hopefulness--in other words, in my usual "tone." i shall wait to see beard again on monday, and shall most probably come down that day. if i should not, i will telegraph after seeing him. best love to mamie. [sidenote: mrs. brookfield.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, feb. th, ._ my dear mrs. brookfield, having gone through your ms. (which i should have done sooner, but that i have not been very well), i write these few following words about it. firstly, with a limited reference to its unsuitability to these pages. secondly, with a more enlarged reference to the merits of the story itself. if you will take any part of it and cut it up (in fancy) into the small portions into which it would have to be divided here for only a month's supply, you will (i think) at once discover the impossibility of publishing it in weekly parts. the scheme of the chapters, the manner of introducing the people, the progress of the interest, the places in which the principal places fall, are all hopelessly against it. it would seem as though the story were never coming, and hardly ever moving. there must be a special design to overcome that specially trying mode of publication, and i cannot better express the difficulty and labour of it than by asking you to turn over any two weekly numbers of "a tale of two cities," or "great expectations," or bulwer's story, or wilkie collins's, or reade's, or "at the bar," and notice how patiently and expressly the thing has to be planned for presentation in these fragments, and yet for afterwards fusing together as an uninterrupted whole. of the story itself i honestly say that i think highly. the style is particularly easy and agreeable, infinitely above ordinary writing, and sometimes reminds me of mrs. inchbald at her best. the characters are remarkably well observed, and with a rare mixture of delicacy and truthfulness. i observe this particularly in the brother and sister, and in mrs. neville. but it strikes me that you constantly hurry your narrative (and yet without getting on) _by telling it, in a sort of impetuous breathless way, in your own person, when the people should tell it and act it for themselves_. my notion always is, that when i have made the people to play out the play, it is, as it were, their business to do it, and not mine. then, unless you really have led up to a great situation like basil's death, you are bound in art to make more of it. such a scene should form a chapter of itself. impressed upon the reader's memory, it would go far to make the fortune of the book. suppose yourself telling that affecting incident in a letter to a friend. wouldn't you describe how you went through the life and stir of the streets and roads to the sick-room? wouldn't you say what kind of room it was, what time of day it was, whether it was sunlight, starlight, or moonlight? wouldn't you have a strong impression on your mind of how you were received, when you first met the look of the dying man, what strange contrasts were about you and struck you? i don't want you, in a novel, to present _yourself_ to tell such things, but i want the things to be there. you make no more of the situation than the index might, or a descriptive playbill might in giving a summary of the tragedy under representation. as a mere piece of mechanical workmanship, i think all your chapters should be shorter; that is to say, that they should be subdivided. also, when you change from narrative to dialogue, or _vice versâ_, you should make the transition more carefully. also, taking the pains to sit down and recall the principal landmarks in your story, you should then make them far more elaborate and conspicuous than the rest. even with these changes i do not believe that the story would attract the attention due to it, if it were published even in such monthly portions as the space of "fraser" would admit of. even so brightened, it would not, to the best of my judgment, express itself piecemeal. it seems to me to be so constituted as to require to be read "off the reel." as a book in two volumes i think it would have good claims to success, and good chances of obtaining success. but i suppose the polishing i have hinted at (not a meretricious adornment, but positively necessary to good work and good art) to have been first thoroughly administered. now don't hate me if you can help it. i can afford to be hated by some people, but i am not rich enough to put you in possession of that luxury. ever faithfully yours. p.s.--the ms. shall be delivered at your house to-morrow. and your petitioner again prays not to be, etc. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi, liverpool, _friday, april th, ._ my dearest georgy, the reception at manchester last night was quite a magnificent sight; the whole of the immense audience standing up and cheering. i thought them a little slow with "marigold," but believe it was only the attention necessary in so vast a place. they gave a splendid burst at the end. and after "nickleby" (which went to perfection), they set up such a call, that i was obliged to go in again. the unfortunate gasman, a very steady fellow, got a fall off a ladder and sprained his leg. he was put to bed in a public opposite, and was left there, poor man. this is the first very fine day we have had. i have taken advantage of it by crossing to birkenhead and getting some air upon the water. it was fresh and beautiful. i send my best love to mamie, and hope she is better. i am, of course, tired (the pull of "marigold" upon one's energy, in the free trade hall, was great); but i stick to my tonic, and feel, all things considered, in very good tone. the room here (i mean the hall) being my special favourite and extraordinarily easy, is _almost_ a rest! [sidenote: miss dickens.] adelphi, liverpool, _saturday, april th, ._ my dearest mamie, the police reported officially that three thousand people were turned away from the hall last night. i doubt if they were so numerous as that, but they carried in the outer doors and pitched into dolby with great vigour. i need not add that every corner of the place was crammed. they were a very fine audience, and took enthusiastically every point in "copperfield" and the "trial." they made the reading a quarter of an hour longer than usual. one man advertised in the morning paper that he would give thirty shillings (double) for three stalls, but nobody would sell, and he didn't get in. except that i cannot sleep, i really think myself in much better training than i had anticipated. a dozen oysters and a little champagne between the parts every night, constitute the best restorative i have ever yet tried. john appears low, but i don't know why. a letter comes for him daily; the hand is female; whether smudger's, or a nearer one still and a dearer one, i don't know. so it may or may not be the cause of his gloom. "miss emily" of preston is married to a rich cotton lord, rides in open carriages in gorgeous array, and is altogether splendid. with this effective piece of news i close. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] glasgow, _april th, ._ we arrived here at ten yesterday evening. i don't think the journey shook me at all. dolby provided a superb cold collation and "the best of drinks," and we dined in the carriage, and i made him laugh all the way. the let here is very large. every precaution taken to prevent my platform from being captured as it was last time; but i don't feel at all sure that it will not be stormed at one of the two readings. wills is to do the genteel to-night at the stalls, and dolby is to stem the shilling tide _if_ he can. the poor gasman cannot come on, and we have got a new one here who is to go to edinburgh with us. of edinburgh we know nothing, but as its first night has always been shady, i suppose it will stick to its antecedents. i like to hear about harness and his freshness. the let for the next reading at st. james's is "going," they report, "admirably." lady russell asked me to dinner to-morrow, and i have written her a note to-day. the rest has certainly done me good. i slept thoroughly well last night, and feel fresh. what to-night's work, and every night's work this week, may do contrariwise, remains to be seen. i hope harry's knee may be in the way of mending, from what you relate of it. [sidenote: miss dickens.] waterloo hotel, edinburgh, _wednesday, april th, ._ we had a tremendous house again last night at glasgow; and turned away great numbers. not only that, but they were a most brilliant and delicate audience, and took "marigold" with a fine sense and quickness not to be surpassed. the shillings pitched into dolby again, and one man writes a sensible letter in one of the papers this morning, showing to _my_ satisfaction (?) that they really had, through the local agent, some cause of complaint. nevertheless, the shilling tickets are sold for to-morrow, and it seems to be out of the question to take any money at the doors, the call for all parts is so enormous. the thundering of applause last night was quite staggering, and my people checked off my reception by the minute hand of a watch, and stared at one another, thinking i should never begin. i keep quite well, have happily taken to sleeping these last three nights; and feel, all things considered, very little conscious of fatigue. i cannot reconcile my town medicine with the hours and journeys of reading life, and have therefore given it up for the time. but for the moment, i think i am better without it. what we are doing here i have not yet heard. i write at half-past one, and we have been little more than an hour in the house. but i am quite prepared for the inevitable this first edinburgh night. endeavours have been made (from glasgow yesterday) to telegraph the exact facts out of our local agent; but hydraulic pressure wouldn't have squeezed a straight answer out of him. "friday and saturday doing very well, wednesday not so good." this was all electricity could discover. i am going to write a line this post to katie, from whom i have a note. i hope harry's leg will now step out in the manner of the famous cork leg in the song. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] edinburgh, _thursday, april th, ._ the house was more than twice better than any first night here previously. they were, as usual here, remarkably intelligent, and the reading went _brilliantly_. i have not sent up any newspapers, as they are generally so poorly written, that you may know beforehand all the commonplaces that they will write. but _the scotsman_ has so pretty an article this morning, and (so far as i know) so true a one, that i will try to post it to you, either from here or glasgow. john and dolby went over early, and wills and i follow them at half-past eleven. it is cold and wet here. we have laid half-crown bets with dolby, that he will be assaulted to-night at glasgow. he has a surprising knowledge of what the receipts will be always, and wins half-crowns every night. chang is living in this house. john (not knowing it) was rendered perfectly drivelling last night, by meeting him on the stairs. the tartar dwarf is always twining himself upstairs sideways, and drinks a bottle of whisky per day, and is reported to be a surprising little villain. [sidenote: miss dickens.] waterloo hotel, edinburgh, _friday, april th, ._ no row at glasgow last night. great placards were posted about the town by the anxious dolby, announcing that no money would be taken at the doors. this kept the crowd off. two files of policemen and a double staff everywhere did the rest, and nothing could be better-tempered or more orderly. tremendous enthusiasm with the "carol" and "trial." i was dead beat afterwards, that reading being twenty minutes longer than usual; but plucked up again, had some supper, slept well, and am quite right to-day. it is a bright day, and the express ride over from glasgow was very pleasant. everything is gone here for to-night. but it is difficult to describe what the readings have grown to be. the let at st. james's hall is not only immense for next tuesday, but so large for the next reading afterwards, that chappell writes: "that will be the greatest house of the three." from manchester this morning they write: "send us more tickets instantly, for we are sold out and don't know what to do with the people." last night the whole of my money under the agreement had been taken. i notice that a great bank has broken at liverpool, which may hurt us there, but when last heard of it was going as before. and the audience, though so enormous, do somehow express a personal affection, which makes them very strange and moving to see. i have a story to answer you and your aunt with. before i left southwick place for liverpool, i received a letter from glasgow, saying, "your little emily has been woo'd and married and a'! since you last saw her;" and describing her house within a mile or two of the city, and asking me to stay there. i wrote the usual refusal, and supposed mrs. ---- to be some romantic girl whom i had joked with, perhaps at allison's or where not. on the first night at glasgow i received a bouquet from ----, and wore one of the flowers. this morning at the glasgow station, ---- appeared, and proved to be the identical miss emily, of whose marriage dolby had told me on our coming through preston. she was attired in magnificent raiment, and presented the happy ----. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] liverpool, _thursday, april th, ._ we noticed between london and rugby (the first stoppage) something very odd in our carriage yesterday, not so much in its motion as in its sound. we examined it as well as we could out of both windows, but could make nothing of it. on our arrival at rugby, it was found to be on fire. and as it was in the middle of the train, the train had to be broken to get it off into a siding by itself and get another carriage on. with this slight exception we came down all right. my voice is much better, i am glad to report, and i mean to try beard's remedy after dinner to-day. this is all my present news. [sidenote: the same.] down hotel, clifton, _friday, may th, ._ i received your note before i left birmingham this morning. it has been very heavy work getting up at half-past six each morning after a heavy night, and i am not at all well to-day. we had a tremendous hall at birmingham last night--two thousand one hundred people. i made a most ridiculous mistake. had "nickleby" on my list to finish with, instead of "trial." read "nickleby" with great go, and the people remained. went back again at ten and explained the accident, and said if they liked, i would give them the "trial." they _did_ like, and i had another half-hour of it in that enormous place. this stoppage of overend and gurney in the city will play the ---- with all public gaieties, and with all the arts. my cold is no better. john fell off a platform about ten feet high yesterday, and fainted. he looks all the colours of the rainbow to-day, but does not seem much hurt beyond being puffed up one hand, arm, and side. [sidenote: miss lily benzon.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, june th, ._ my dear lily, i am sorry that i cannot come to read to you "the boots at the holly tree inn," as you ask me to do; but the truth is, that i am tired of reading at this present time, and have come into the country to rest and hear the birds sing. there are a good many birds, i daresay, in kensington palace gardens, and upon my word and honour they are much better worth listening to than i am. so let them sing to you as hard as ever they can, while their sweet voices last (they will be silent when the winter comes); and very likely after you and i have eaten our next christmas pudding and mince-pies, you and i and uncle harry may all meet together at st. james's hall; uncle harry to bring you there, to hear the "boots;" i to receive you there, and read the "boots;" and you (i hope) to applaud very much, and tell me that you like the "boots." so, god bless you and me, and uncle harry, and the "boots," and long life and happiness to us all! your affectionate friend. p.s.--there's a flourish! [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, aug. th, ._ my dear procter, i have read your biography of charles lamb with inexpressible pleasure and interest. i do not think it possible to tell a pathetic story with a more unaffected and manly tenderness. and as to the force and vigour of the style, if i did not know you i should have made sure that there was a printer's error in the opening of your introduction, and that the word "seventy" occupied the place of "forty." let me, my dear friend, most heartily congratulate you on your achievement. it is not an ordinary triumph to do such justice to the memory of such a man. and i venture to add, that the fresh spirit with which you have done it impresses me as being perfectly wonderful. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: sir james emerson tennent.] gad's hill, _monday, aug. th, ._ my dear tennent, i have been very much interested by your extract, and am strongly inclined to believe that the founder of the refuge for poor travellers meant the kind of man to which it refers. chaucer certainly meant the pardonere to be a humbug, living on the credulity of the people. after describing the sham reliques he carried, he says: but with these relikes whawne that he found a poure personne dwelling up on lond upon a day he gat him more monnie than that the personne got in monthes time, and thus, with fained flattering and japes he made the personne, and the people, his apes. and the worthy watts (founder of the charity) may have had these very lines in his mind when he excluded such a man. when i last heard from my boy he was coming to you, and was full of delight and dignity. my midshipman has just been appointed to the _bristol_, on the west coast of africa, and is on his voyage out to join her. i wish it was another ship and another station. she has been unlucky in losing men. kindest regard from all my house to yours. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] gad's hill, _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear fechter, this morning i received the play to the end of the telegraph scene, and i have since read it twice. i clearly see the _ground_ of mr. boucicault's two objections; but i do not see their _force_. first, as to the writing. if the characters did not speak in a terse and homely way, their idea and language would be inconsistent with their dress and station, and they would lose, as characters, before the audience. the dialogue seems to be exactly what is wanted. its simplicity (particularly in mr. boucicault's part) is often very effective; and throughout there is an honest, straight-to-the-purpose ruggedness in it, like the real life and the real people. secondly, as to the absence of the comic element. i really do not see how more of it could be got into the story, and i think mr. boucicault underrates the pleasant effect of his own part. the very notion of a sailor, whose life is not among those little courts and streets, and whose business does not lie with the monotonous machinery, but with the four wild winds, is a relief to me in reading the play. i am quite confident of its being an immense relief to the audience when they see the sailor before them, with an entirely different bearing, action, dress, complexion even, from the rest of the men. i would make him the freshest and airiest sailor that ever was seen; and through him i can distinctly see my way out of "the black country" into clearer air. (i speak as one of the audience, mind.) i should like something of this contrast to be expressed in the dialogue between the sailor and jew, in the second scene of the second act. again, i feel widdicomb's part (which is charming, and ought to make the whole house cry) most agreeable and welcome, much better than any amount in such a story, of mere comicality. it is unnecessary to say that the play is done with a master's hand. its closeness and movement are quite surprising. its construction is admirable. i have the strongest belief in its making a great success. but i must add this proviso: i never saw a play so dangerously depending in critical places on strict natural propriety in the manner and perfection in the shaping of the small parts. those small parts cannot take the play up, but they can let it down. i would not leave a hair on the head of one of them to the chance of the first night, but i would see, to the minutest particular, the make-up of every one of them at a night rehearsal. of course you are free to show this note to mr. boucicault, and i suppose you will do so; let me throw out this suggestion to him and you. might it not ease the way with the lord chamberlain's office, and still more with the audience, when there are manchester champions in it, if instead of "manchester" you used a fictitious name? when i did "hard times" i called the scene coketown. everybody knew what was meant, but every cotton-spinning town said it was the other cotton-spinning town. i shall be up on saturday, and will come over about mid-day, unless you name any other time. ever heartily. [sidenote: mr. walter thornbury] "all the year round" office, _saturday, sept. th, ._ my dear thornbury, many thanks for your letter. in reference to your shakespeare queries, i am not so much enamoured of the first and third subjects as i am of the ariosto enquiry, which should be highly interesting. but if you have so got the matter in your mind, as that its execution would be incomplete and unsatisfactory to you unless you write all the three papers, then by all means write the three, and i will most gladly take them. for some years i have had so much pleasure in reading you, that i can honestly warrant myself as what actors call "a good audience." the idea of old stories retold is decidedly a good one. i greatly like the notion of that series. of course you know de quincey's paper on the ratcliffe highway murderer? do you know also the illustration (i have it at gad's hill), representing the horrible creature as his dead body lay on a cart, with a piece of wood for a pillow, and a stake lying by, ready to be driven through him? i don't _quite_ like the title, "the social history of london." i should better like some title to the effect, "the history of london's social changes in so many years." such a title would promise more, and better express your intention. what do you think of taking for a first title, "london's changes"? you could then add the second title, "being a history," etc. i don't at all desire to fix a limit to the series of old stories retold. i would state the general intention at the beginning of the first paper, and go on like banquo's line. don't let your london title remind people, by so much as the place of the word "civilisation," of buckle. it seems a ridiculous caution, but the indolent part of the public (a large part!) on such points tumble into extraordinary mistakes. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] gad's hill, _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dear fitzgerald, it is always pleasant to me to hear from you, and i hope you will believe that this is not a mere fashion of speech. concerning the green covers, i find the leaves to be budding--on unquestionable newspaper authority; but, upon my soul, i have no other knowledge of their being in embryo! really, i do not see a chance of my settling myself to such work until after i have accomplished forty-two readings, to which i stand pledged. i hope to begin this series somewhere about the middle of january, in dublin. touching the details of the realisation of this hope, will you tell me in a line as soon as you can--_is the exhibition room a good room for speaking in?_ your mention of the late sultan touches me nearly. he was the finest dog i ever saw, and between him and me there was a perfect understanding. but, to adopt the popular phrase, it was so very confidential that it "went no further." he would fly at anybody else with the greatest enthusiasm for destruction. i saw him, muzzled, pound into the heart of a regiment of the line; and i have frequently seen him, muzzled, hold a great dog down with his chest and feet. he has broken loose (muzzled) and come home covered with blood, again and again. and yet he never disobeyed me, unless he had first laid hold of a dog. you heard of his going to execution, evidently supposing the procession to be a party detached in pursuit of something to kill or eat? it was very affecting. and also of his bolting a blue-eyed kitten, and making me acquainted with the circumstance by his agonies of remorse (or indigestion)? i cannot find out that there is anyone in rochester (a sleepy old city) who has anything to tell about garrick, except what is not true. his brother, the wine merchant, would be more in rochester way, i think. how on earth do you find time to do all these books? you make my hair stand on end; an agreeable sensation, for i am charmed to find that i have any. why don't you come yourself and look after garrick? i should be truly delighted to receive you. my dear fitzgerald, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, dec. th, ._ my dearest macready, i have received your letter with the utmost pleasure and we all send our most affectionate love to you, mrs. macready, katie, johnny, and the boy of boys. all good christmas and new year greetings are to be understood as included. you will be interested in knowing that, encouraged by the success of summer cricket-matches, i got up a quantity of foot-races and rustic sports in my field here on the th last past: as i have never yet had a case of drunkenness, the landlord of the falstaff had a drinking-booth on the ground. all the prizes i gave were in money, too. we had two thousand people here. among the crowd were soldiers, navvies, and labourers of all kinds. not a stake was pulled up, or a rope slackened, or one farthing's-worth of damage done. to every competitor (only) a printed bill of general rules was given, with the concluding words: "mr. dickens puts every man upon his honour to assist in preserving order." there was not a dispute all day, and they went away at sunset rending the air with cheers, and leaving every flag on a six hundred yards' course as neat as they found it when the gates were opened at ten in the morning. surely this is a bright sign in the neighbourhood of such a place as chatham! "mugby junction" turned, yesterday afternoon, the extraordinary number of two hundred and fifty thousand! in the middle of next month i begin a new course of forty-two readings. if any of them bring me within reach of cheltenham, with an hour to spare, i shall come on to you, even for that hour. more of this when i am afield and have my list, which dolby (for chappell) is now preparing. forster and mrs. forster were to have come to us next monday, to stay until saturday. i write "were," because i hear that forster (who had a touch of bronchitis when he wrote to me on christmas eve) is in bed. katie, who has been ill of low nervous fever, was brought here yesterday from london. she bore the journey much better than i expected, and so i hope will soon recover. this is my little stock of news. i begin to discover in your riper years, that you have been secretly vain of your handwriting all your life. for i swear i see no change in it! what it always was since i first knew it (a year or two!) it _is_. this i will maintain against all comers. ever affectionately, my dearest macready. . narrative. as the london and provincial readings were to be resumed early in the year and continued until the end of march, charles dickens took no house in london this spring. he came to his office quarters at intervals, for the series in town; usually starting off again, on his country tour, the day after a london reading. from some passages in his letters to his daughter and sister-in-law during this country course, it will be seen that (though he made very light of the fact) the great exertion of the readings, combined with incessant railway travelling, was beginning to tell upon his health, and he was frequently "heavily beaten" after reading at his best to an enthusiastic audience in a large hall. during the short intervals between his journeys, he was as constantly and carefully at work upon the business of "all the year round" as if he had no other work on hand. a proof of this is given in a letter dated " th february." it is written to a young man (the son of a friend), who wrote a long novel when far too juvenile for such a task, and had submitted it to charles dickens for his opinion, with a view to publication. in the midst of his own hard and engrossing occupation he read the book, and the letter which he wrote on the subject needs no remark beyond this, that the young writer received the adverse criticism with the best possible sense, and has since, in his literary profession, profited by the advice so kindly given. at this time the proposals to charles dickens for reading in america, which had been perpetually renewed from the time of his first abandoning the idea, became so urgent and so tempting, that he found at last he must, at all events, give the subject his most serious consideration. he took counsel with his two most confidential friends and advisers, mr. john forster and mr. w. h. wills. they were both, at first, strongly opposed to the undertaking, chiefly on the ground of the trial to his health and strength which it would involve. but they could not deny the counterbalancing advantages. and, after much deliberation, it was resolved that mr. george dolby should be sent out by the messrs. chappell, to take an impression, on the spot, as to the feeling of the united states about the readings. his report as to the undoubted enthusiasm and urgency on the other side of the atlantic it was impossible to resist. even his friends withdrew their opposition (though still with misgivings as to the effect upon his health, which were but too well founded!), and on the th september he telegraphed "yes" to america. the "alfred" alluded to in a letter from glasgow was charles dickens's fourth son, alfred tennyson, who had gone to australia two years previously. we give, in april, the last letter to one of the friends for whom charles dickens had always a most tender love--mr. stanfield. he was then in failing health, and in may he died. another death which affected him very deeply happened this summer. miss marguerite power died in july. she had long been very ill, but, until it became impossible for her to travel, she was a frequent and beloved guest at gad's hill. the mrs. henderson to whom he writes was miss power's youngest sister. before he started for america it was proposed to wish him god-speed by giving him a public dinner at the freemasons' hall. the proposal was most warmly and fully responded to. his zealous friend, mr. charles kent, willingly undertook the whole work of arrangement of this banquet. it took place on the nd november, and lord lytton presided. on the th he left london for liverpool, accompanied by his daughters, his sister-in-law, his eldest son, mr. arthur chappell, mr. charles collins, mr. wilkie collins, mr. kent, and mr. wills. the next morning the whole party took a final leave of charles dickens on board the _cuba_, which sailed that day. we give a letter which he wrote to mr. j. l. toole on the morning of the dinner, thanking him for a parting gift and an earnest letter. that excellent comedian was one of his most appreciative admirers, and, in return, he had for mr. toole the greatest admiration and respect. the christmas number for this year, "no thoroughfare," was written by charles dickens and mr. wilkie collins. it was dramatised by mr. collins chiefly. but, in the midst of all the work of preparation for departure, charles dickens gave minute attention to as much of the play as could be completed before he left england. it was produced, after christmas, at the adelphi theatre, where m. fechter was then acting, under the management of mr. benjamin webster. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _new year's day, ._ my dear cerjat, thoroughly determined to be beforehand with "the middle of next summer," your penitent friend and remorseful correspondent thus addresses you. the big dog, on a day last autumn, having seized a little girl (sister to one of the servants) whom he knew, and was bound to respect, was flogged by his master, and then sentenced to be shot at seven next morning. he went out very cheerfully with the half-dozen men told off for the purpose, evidently thinking that they were going to be the death of somebody unknown. but observing in the procession an empty wheelbarrow and a double-barrelled gun, he became meditative, and fixed the bearer of the gun with his eyes. a stone deftly thrown across him by the village blackguard (chief mourner) caused him to look round for an instant, and he then fell dead, shot through the heart. two posthumous children are at this moment rolling on the lawn; one will evidently inherit his ferocity, and will probably inherit the gun. the pheasant was a little ailing towards christmas day, and was found dead under some ivy in his cage, with his head under his wing, on the morning of the twenty-seventh of december, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six. i, proprietor of the remains of the two deceased, am working hard, getting up "barbox" and "the boy at mugby," with which i begin a new series of readings in london on the fifteenth. next morning i believe i start into the country. when i read, i _don't_ write. i only edit, and have the proof-sheets sent me for the purpose. here are your questions answered. as to the reform question, it should have been, and could have been, perfectly known to any honest man in england that the more intelligent part of the great masses were deeply dissatisfied with the state of representation, but were in a very moderate and patient condition, awaiting the better intellectual cultivation of numbers of their fellows. the old insolent resource of assailing them and making the most audaciously wicked statements that they are politically indifferent, has borne the inevitable fruit. the perpetual taunt, "where are they?" has called them out with the answer: "well then, if you _must_ know, here we are." the intolerable injustice of vituperating the bribed to an assembly of bribers, has goaded their sense of justice beyond endurance. and now, what they would have taken they won't take, and whatever they are steadily bent upon having they will get. rely upon it, this is the real state of the case. as to your friend "punch," you will find him begin to turn at the very selfsame instant when the new game shall manifestly become the losing one. you may notice his shoes pinching him a little already. my dear fellow, i have no more power to stop that mutilation of my books than you have. it is as certain as that every inventor of anything designed for the public good, and offered to the english government, becomes _ipso facto_ a criminal, to have his heart broken on the circumlocutional wheel. it is as certain as that the whole crimean story will be retold, whenever this country again goes to war. and to tell the truth, i have such a very small opinion of what the great genteel have done for us, that i am very philosophical indeed concerning what the great vulgar may do, having a decided opinion that they can't do worse. this is the time of year when the theatres do best, there being still numbers of people who make it a sort of religion to see christmas pantomimes. having my annual houseful, i have, as yet, seen nothing. fechter has neither pantomime nor burlesque, but is doing a new version of the old "trente ans de la vie d'un joueur." i am afraid he will not find his account in it. on the whole, the theatres, except in the articles of scenery and pictorial effect, are poor enough. but in some of the smaller houses there are actors who, if there were any dramatic head-quarters as a school, might become very good. the most hopeless feature is, that they have the smallest possible idea of an effective and harmonious whole, each "going in" for himself or herself. the music-halls attract an immense public, and don't refine the general taste. but such things as they do are well done of their kind, and always briskly and punctually. the american yacht race is the last sensation. i hope the general interest felt in it on this side will have a wholesome interest on that. it will be a woeful day when john and jonathan throw their caps into the ring. the french emperor is indubitably in a dangerous state. his parisian popularity wanes, and his army are discontented with him. i hear on high authority that his secret police are always making discoveries that render him desperately uneasy. you know how we have been swindling in these parts. but perhaps you don't know that mr. ----, the "eminent" contractor, before he fell into difficulties settled _one million of money_ on his wife. such a good and devoted husband! my daughter katie has been very ill of nervous fever. on the th of december she was in a condition to be brought down here (old high road and post-horses), and has been steadily getting better ever since. her husband is here too, and is on the whole as well as he ever is or ever will be, i fear. we played forfeit-games here, last night, and then pool. for a billiard-room has been added to the house since you were here. come and play a match with me. always affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _monday, jan. st, ._ my dearest georgy, first i send you my most affectionate wishes for many, many happy returns of your birthday. that done, from my heart of hearts, i go on to my small report of myself. the readings have produced such an immense effect here that we are coming back for two more in the middle of february. "marigold" and the "trial," on friday night, and the "carol," on saturday afternoon, were a perfect furore; and the surprise about "barbox" has been amusingly great. it is a most extraordinary thing, after the enormous sale of that christmas number, that the provincial public seems to have combined to believe that it _won't_ make a reading. from wolverhampton and leeds we have exactly the same expression of feelings _beforehand_. exactly as i made "copperfield"--always to the poorest houses i had with headland, and against that luminary's entreaty--so i should have to make this, if i hadn't "marigold" always in demand. it being next to impossible for people to come out at night with horses, we have felt the weather in the stalls, and expect to do so through this week. the half-crown and shilling publics have crushed to their places most splendidly. the enthusiasm has been unbounded. on friday night i quite astonished myself; but i was taken so faint afterwards that they laid me on a sofa at the hall for half an hour. i attribute it to my distressing inability to sleep at night, and to nothing worse. scott does very well indeed. as a dresser he is perfect. in a quarter of an hour after i go into the retiring-room, where all my clothes are airing and everything is set out neatly in its own allotted space, i am ready; and he then goes softly out, and sits outside the door. in the morning he is equally punctual, quiet, and quick. he has his needles and thread, buttons, and so forth, always at hand; and in travelling he is very systematic with the luggage. what with dolby and what with this skilful valet, everything is made as easy to me as it possibly _can_ be, and dolby would do anything to lighten the work, and does everything. there is great distress here among the poor (four thousand people relieved last saturday at one workhouse), and there is great anxiety concerning _seven mail-steamers some days overdue_. such a circumstance as this last has never been known. it is supposed that some great revolving storm has whirled them all out of their course. one of these missing ships is an american mail, another an australian mail. _same afternoon._ we have been out for four hours in the bitter east wind, and walking on the sea-shore, where there is a broad strip of great blocks of ice. my hands are so rigid that i write with great difficulty. we have been constantly talking of the terrible regent's park accident. i hope and believe that nearly the worst of it is now known. [sidenote: miss dickens.] chester, _tuesday, jan. nd, ._ my dearest mamie, we came over here from liverpool at eleven this forenoon. there was a heavy swell in the mersey breaking over the boat; the cold was nipping, and all the roads we saw as we came along were wretched. we find a very moderate let here; but i am myself rather surprised to know that a hundred and twenty stalls have made up their minds to the undertaking of getting to the hall. this seems to be a very nice hotel, but it is an extraordinarily cold one. our reading for to-night is "marigold" and "trial." with amazing perversity the local agent said to dolby: "they hoped that mr. dickens _might_ have given them 'the boy at mugby.'" barton, the gasman who succeeded the man who sprained his leg, sprained _his_ leg yesterday!! and that, not at his work, but in running downstairs at the hotel. however, he has hobbled through it so far, and i hope will hobble on, for he knows his work. i have seldom seen a place look more hopelessly frozen up than this place does. the hall is like a methodist chapel in low spirits, and with a cold in its head. a few blue people shiver at the corners of the streets. and this house, which is outside the town, looks like an ornament on an immense twelfth cake baked for . i am now going to the fire to try to warm myself, but have not the least expectation of succeeding. the sitting-room has two large windows in it, down to the ground and facing due east. the adjoining bedroom (mine) has also two large windows in it, down to the ground and facing due east. the very large doors are opposite the large windows, and i feel as if i were something to eat in a pantry. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] hen and chickens, birmingham, _thursday, jan. th, ._ at chester we read in a snowstorm and a fall of ice. i think it was the worst weather i ever saw. nevertheless, the people were enthusiastic. at wolverhampton last night the thaw had thoroughly set in, and it rained heavily. we had not intended to go back there, but have arranged to do so on the day after ash wednesday. last night i was again heavily beaten. we came on here after the reading (it is only a ride of forty minutes), and it was as much as i could do to hold out the journey. but i was not faint, as at liverpool; i was only exhausted. i am all right this morning; and to-night, as you know, i have a rest. i trust that charley collins is better, and that mamie is strong and well again. yesterday i had a note from katie, which seemed hopeful and encouraging. [sidenote: miss dickens.] hen and chickens, birmingham, _thursday, jan. th, ._ since i wrote to your aunt just now, i have received your note addressed to wolverhampton. we left the men there last night, and they brought it on with them at noon to-day. the maimed gasman's foot is much swollen, but he limps about and does his work. i have doctored him up with arnica. during the "boy" last night there was an escape of gas from the side of my top batten, which caught the copper-wire and was within a thread of bringing down the heavy reflector into the stalls. it was a very ticklish matter, though the audience knew nothing about it. i saw it, and the gasman and dolby saw it, and stood at that side of the platform in agonies. we all three calculated that there would be just time to finish and save it; when the gas was turned out the instant i had done, the whole thing was at its very last and utmost extremity. whom it would have tumbled on, or what might have been set on fire, it is impossible to say. i hope you rewarded your police escort on tuesday night. it was the most tremendous night i ever saw at chester. [sidenote: miss dickens.] leeds, _friday, feb. st, ._ we got here prosperously, and had a good (but not great) house for "barbox" and "boy" last night. for "marigold" and "trial," to-night, everything is gone. and i even have my doubts of the possibility of dolby's cramming the people in. for "marigold" and "trial" at manchester, to-morrow, we also expect a fine hall. i shall be at the office for next wednesday. if charley collins should have been got to gad's, i will come there for that day. if not, i suppose we had best open the official bower again. this is a beastly place, with a very good hotel. except preston, it is one of the nastiest places i know. the room is like a capacious coal cellar, and is incredibly filthy; but for sound it is perfect. [sidenote: anonymous.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, feb. th, ._ dear sir, i have looked at the larger half of the first volume of your novel, and have pursued the more difficult points of the story through the other two volumes. you will, of course, receive my opinion as that of an individual writer and student of art, who by no means claims to be infallible. i think you are too ambitious, and that you have not sufficient knowledge of life or character to venture on so comprehensive an attempt. evidences of inexperience in every way, and of your power being far below the situations that you imagine, present themselves to me in almost every page i have read. it would greatly surprise me if you found a publisher for this story, on trying your fortune in that line, or derived anything from it but weariness and bitterness of spirit. on the evidence thus put before me, i cannot even entirely satisfy myself that you have the faculty of authorship latent within you. if you have not, and yet pursue a vocation towards which you have no call, you cannot choose but be a wretched man. let me counsel you to have the patience to form yourself carefully, and the courage to renounce the endeavour if you cannot establish your case on a very much smaller scale. you see around you every day, how many outlets there are for short pieces of fiction in all kinds. try if you can achieve any success within these modest limits (i have practised in my time what i preach to you), and in the meantime put your three volumes away. faithfully yours. p.s.--your ms. will be returned separately from this office. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] liverpool, _friday, feb. th, ._ my short report of myself is that we had an enormous turn-away last night, and do not doubt about having a cram to-night. the day has been very fine, and i have turned it to the wholesomest account by walking on the sands at new brighton all the morning. i am not quite right, but believe it to be an effect of the railway shaking. there is no doubt of the fact that, after the staplehurst experience, it tells more and more, instead of (as one might have expected) less and less. the charming room here greatly lessens the fatigue of this fatiguing week. i read last night with no more exertion than if i had been at gad's, and yet to eleven hundred people, and with astonishing effect. it is "copperfield" to-night, and liverpool is the "copperfield" stronghold. [sidenote: miss dickens.] glasgow, _sunday, feb. th, ._ we arrived here this morning at our time to the moment, five minutes past ten. we turned away great numbers on both nights at liverpool; and manchester last night was a splendid spectacle. they cheered to that extent after it was over, that i was obliged to huddle on my clothes (for i was undressing to prepare for the journey), and go back again. after so heavy a week, it _was_ rather stiff to start on this long journey at a quarter to two in the morning; but i got more sleep than i ever got in a railway-carriage before, and it really was not tedious. the travelling was admirable, and a wonderful contrast to my friend the midland. i am not by any means knocked up, though i have, as i had in the last series of readings, a curious feeling of soreness all round the body, which i suppose to arise from the great exertion of voice. it is a mercy that we were not both made really ill at liverpool. on friday morning i was taken so faint and sick, that i was obliged to leave the table. on the same afternoon the same thing happened to dolby. we then found that a part of the hotel close to us was dismantled for painting, and that they were at that moment painting a green passage leading to our rooms, with a most horrible mixture of white lead and arsenic. on pursuing the enquiry, i found that the four lady book-keepers in the bar were all suffering from the poison. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] bridge of allan, _tuesday, feb. th, ._ i was very glad to get your letter before leaving glasgow this morning. this is a poor return for it, but the post goes out early, and we come in late. yesterday morning i was so unwell that i wrote to frank beard, from whom i shall doubtless hear to-morrow. i mention it, only in case you should come in his way, for i know how perversely such things fall out. i felt it a little more exertion to read afterwards, and i passed a sleepless night after that again; but otherwise i am in good force and spirits to-day. i may say, in the best force. the quiet of this little place is sure to do me good. the little inn in which we are established seems a capital house of the best country sort. [sidenote: miss dickens.] glasgow, _thursday, feb. st, ._ after two days' rest at the bridge of allan i am in renewed force, and have nothing to complain of but inability to sleep. i have been in excellent air all day since tuesday at noon, and made an interesting walk to stirling yesterday, and saw its lions, and (strange to relate) was not bored by them. indeed, they left me so fresh that i knocked at the gate of the prison, presented myself to the governor, and took dolby over the jail, to his unspeakable interest. we then walked back again to our excellent country inn. enclosed is a letter from alfred, which you and your aunt will be interested in reading, and which i meant to send you sooner but forgot it. wonderful as it is to mention, the sun shines here to-day! but to counterbalance that phenomenon i am in close hiding from ----, who has christened his infant son in my name, and, consequently, haunts the building. he and dolby have already nearly come into collision, in consequence of the latter being always under the dominion of the one idea that he is bound to knock everybody down who asks for me. * * * * * the "jewish lady," wishing to mark her "appreciation of mr. dickens's nobility of character," presented him with a copy of benisch's hebrew and english bible, with this inscription: "presented to charles dickens, in grateful and admiring recognition of his having exercised the noblest quality man can possess--that of atoning for an injury as soon as conscious of having inflicted it." the acknowledgment of the gift is the following letter: [sidenote: jewish lady.] bradford, yorkshire, _friday, march st, ._ my dear mrs. ----, i am working through a series of readings, widely dispersed through england, scotland, and ireland, and am so constantly occupied that it is very difficult for me to write letters. i have received your highly esteemed note (forwarded from my home in kent), and should have replied to it sooner but that i had a hope of being able to get home and see your present first. as i have not been able to do so, however, and am hardly likely to do so for two months to come, i delay no longer. it is safely awaiting me on my own desk in my own quiet room. i cannot thank you for it too cordially, and cannot too earnestly assure you that i shall always prize it highly. the terms in which you send me that mark of your remembrance are more gratifying to me than i can possibly express to you; for they assure me that there is nothing but goodwill left between you and me and a people for whom i have a real regard, and to whom i would not wilfully have given an offence or done an injustice for any worldly consideration. believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] newcastle-on-tyne, _wednesday, march th, ._ the readings have made an immense effect in this place, and it is remarkable that although the people are individually rough, collectively they are an unusually tender and sympathetic audience; while their comic perception is quite up to the high london standard. the atmosphere is so very heavy that yesterday we escaped to tynemouth for a two hours' sea walk. there was a high north wind blowing and a magnificent sea running. large vessels were being towed in and out over the stormy bar, with prodigious waves breaking on it; and spanning the restless uproar of the waters was a quiet rainbow of transcendent beauty. the scene was quite wonderful. we were in the full enjoyment of it when a heavy sea caught us, knocked us over, and in a moment drenched us, and filled even our pockets. we had nothing for it but to shake ourselves together (like doctor marigold) and dry ourselves as well as we could by hard walking in the wind and sunshine! but we were wet through for all that when we came back here to dinner after half an hour's railway ride. i am wonderfully well, and quite fresh and strong. have had to doctor dolby for a bad cold; have not caught it (yet), and have set him on his legs again. scott is striking the tents and loading the baggages, so i must deliver up my writing-desk. we meet, please god, on tuesday. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] shelbourne hotel, dublin, _friday, march th, ._ we made our journey through an incessant snowstorm on wednesday night; at last got snowed up among the welsh mountains in a tremendous storm of wind, came to a stop, and had to dig the engine out. we went to bed at holyhead at six in the morning of thursday, and got aboard the packet at two yesterday afternoon. it blew hard, but as the wind was right astern, we only rolled and did not pitch much. as i walked about on the bridge all the four hours, and had cold salt beef and biscuit there and brandy-and-water, you will infer that my channel training has not worn out. our "business" here is _very bad_, though at belfast it is enormous. there is no doubt that great alarm prevails here. this hotel is constantly filling and emptying as families leave the country, and set in a current to the steamers. there is apprehension of some disturbance between to-morrow night and monday night (both inclusive), and i learn this morning that all the drinking-shops are to be closed from to-night until tuesday. it is rumoured here that the liverpool people are very uneasy about some apprehended disturbance there at the same time. very likely you will know more about this than i do, and very likely it may be nothing. there is no doubt whatever that alarm prevails, and the manager of this hotel, an intelligent german, is very gloomy on the subject. on the other hand, there is feasting going on, and i have been asked to dinner-parties by divers civil and military authorities. don't _you_ be uneasy, i say once again. you may be absolutely certain that there is no cause for it. we are splendidly housed here, and in great comfort. love to charley and katey. [sidenote: miss dickens.] shelbourne hotel, dublin, _saturday, march th, ._ i daresay you know already that i held many councils in london about coming to ireland at all, and was much against it. everything looked as bad here as need be, but we did very well last night after all. there is considerable alarm here beyond all question, and great depression in all kinds of trade and commerce. to-morrow being st. patrick's day, there are apprehensions of some disturbance, and croakers predict that it will come off between to-night and monday night. of course there are preparations on all sides, and large musters of soldiers and police, though they are kept carefully out of sight. one would not suppose, walking about the streets, that any disturbance was impending; and yet there is no doubt that the materials of one lie smouldering up and down the city and all over the country. [i have a letter from mrs. bernal osborne this morning, describing the fortified way in which she is living in her own house in the county tipperary.] you may be quite sure that your venerable parent will take good care of himself. if any riot were to break out, i should immediately stop the readings here. should all remain quiet, i begin to think they will be satisfactorily remunerative after all. at belfast, we shall have an enormous house. i read "copperfield" and "bob" here on monday; "marigold" and "trial" at belfast, on wednesday; and "carol" and "trial" here, on friday. this is all my news, except that i am in perfect force. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] shelbourne hotel, dublin, _sunday, march th, ._ everything remains in appearance perfectly quiet here. the streets are gay all day, now that the weather is improved, and singularly quiet and deserted at night. but the whole place is secretly girt in with a military force. to-morrow night is supposed to be a critical time; but in view of the enormous preparations, i should say that the chances are at least one hundred to one against any disturbance. i cannot make sure whether i wrote to you yesterday, and told you that we had done very well at the first reading after all, even in money. the reception was prodigious, and the readings are the town talk. but i rather think i did actually write this to you. my doubt on the subject arises from my having deliberated about writing on a saturday. the most curious, and for facilities of mere destruction, such as firing houses in different quarters, the most dangerous piece of intelligence imparted to me on authority is, that the dublin domestic men-servants as a class are all fenians. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] belfast, _wednesday, march th, ._ the post goes out at twelve, and i have only time to report myself. the snow not lying between this and dublin, we got here yesterday to our time, after a cold but pleasant journey. fitzgerald came on with us. i had a really charming letter from mrs. fitzgerald, asking me to stay there. she must be a perfectly unaffected and genuine lady. there are kind messages to you and mary in it. i have sent it on to mary, who will probably in her turn show it to you. we had a wonderful crowd at dublin on monday, and the greatest appreciation possible. we have a good let, in a large hall, here to-night. but i am perfectly convinced that the worst part of the fenian business is to come yet. all about the fitzgeralds and everything else when we meet. [sidenote: miss dickens.] belfast, _thursday, march st, ._ in spite of public affairs and dismal weather, we are doing wonders in ireland. that the conspiracy is a far larger and more important one than would seem from what it has done yet, there is no doubt. i have had a good deal of talk with a certain colonel, whose duty it has been to investigate it, day and night, since last september. that it will give a world of trouble, and cost a world of money, i take to be (after what i have thus learned) beyond all question. one regiment has been found to contain five hundred fenian soldiers every man of whom was sworn in the barrack-yard. how information is swiftly and secretly conveyed all over the country, the government with all its means and money cannot discover; but every hour it is found that instructions, warnings, and other messages are circulated from end to end of ireland. it is a very serious business indeed. i have just time to send this off, and to report myself quite well except for a slight cold. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] norwich, _friday, march th, ._ the reception at cambridge last night was something to be proud of in such a place. the colleges mustered in full force from the biggest guns to the smallest, and went far beyond even manchester in the roars of welcome and the rounds of cheers. all through the readings, the whole of the assembly, old men as well as young, and women as well as men, took everything with a heartiness of enjoyment not to be described. the place was crammed, and the success the most brilliant i have ever seen. what we are doing in this sleepy old place i don't know, but i have no doubt it is mild enough. [sidenote: mr. walter thornbury] office of "all the year round," _monday, april st, ._ my dear thornbury, i am very doubtful indeed about "vaux," and have kept it out of the number in consequence. the mere details of such a rascal's proceedings, whether recorded by himself or set down by the reverend ordinary, are not wholesome for a large audience, and are scarcely justifiable (i think) as claiming to be a piece of literature. i can understand barrington to be a good subject, as involving the representation of a period, a style of manners, an order of dress, certain habits of street life, assembly-room life, and coffee-room life, etc.; but there is a very broad distinction between this and mere newgate calendar. the latter would assuredly damage your book, and be protested against to me. i have a conviction of it, founded on constant observation and experience here. your kind invitation is extremely welcome and acceptable to me, but i am sorry to add that i must not go a-visiting. for this reason: so incessantly have i been "reading," that i have not once been at home at gad's hill since last january, and am little likely to get there before the middle of may. judge how the master's eye must be kept on the place when it does at length get a look at it after so long an absence! i hope you will descry in this a reason for coming to me again, instead of my coming to you. the extinct prize-fighters, as a body, i take to be a good subject, for much the same reason as george barrington. their patrons were a class of men now extinct too, and the whole ring of those days (not to mention jackson's rooms in bond street) is a piece of social history. now vaux is not, nor is he even a phenomenon among thieves. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _thursday, april th, ._ my dear stanny, the time of year reminds me how the months have gone, since i last heard from you through mrs. stanfield. i hope you have not thought me unmindful of you in the meanwhile. i have been almost constantly travelling and reading. england, ireland, and scotland have laid hold of me by turns, and i have had no rest. as soon as i had finished this kind of work last year, i had to fall to work upon "all the year round" and the christmas number. i was no sooner quit of that task, and the christmas season was but run out to its last day, when i was tempted into another course of fifty readings that are not yet over. i am here now for two days, and have not seen the place since twelfth night. when a reading in london has been done, i have been brought up for it from some great distance, and have next morning been carried back again. but the fifty will be "paid out" (as we say at sea) by the middle of may, and then i hope to see you. reading at cheltenham the other day, i saw macready, who sent his love to you. his face was much more massive and as it used to be, than when i saw him previous to his illness. his wife takes admirable care of him, and is on the happiest terms with his daughter katie. his boy by the second marriage is a jolly little fellow, and leads a far easier life than the children you and i remember, who used to come in at dessert and have each a biscuit and a glass of water, in which last refreshment i was always convinced that they drank, with the gloomiest malignity, "destruction to the gormandising grown-up company!" i hope to look up your latest triumphs on the day of the academy dinner. of course as yet i have had no opportunity of even hearing of what anyone has done. i have been (in a general way) snowed up for four months. the locomotive with which i was going to ireland was dug out of the snow at midnight, in wales. both passages across were made in a furious snowstorm. the snow lay ankle-deep in dublin, and froze hard at belfast. in scotland it slanted before a perpetual east wind. in yorkshire, it derived novelty from thunder and lightning. whirlwinds everywhere i don't mention. god bless you and yours. if i look like some weather-beaten pilot when we meet, don't be surprised. any mahogany-faced stranger who holds out his hand to you will probably turn out, on inspection, to be the old original dick. ever, my dear stanny, your faithful and affectionate. p.s.--i wish you could have been with me (of course in a snowstorm) one day on the pier at tynemouth. there was a very heavy sea running, and a perfect fleet of screw merchantmen were plunging in and out on the turn of the tide at high-water. suddenly there came a golden horizon, and a most glorious rainbow burst out, arching one large ship, as if she were sailing direct for heaven. i was so enchanted by the scene, that i became oblivious of a few thousand tons of water coming on in an enormous roller, and was knocked down and beaten by its spray when it broke, and so completely wetted through and through, that the very pockets in my pocket-book were full of sea. [sidenote: mr. george stanfield.] office of "all the year round," _sunday, may th, ._ on the death of his father. my dear george, when i came up to the house this afternoon and saw what had happened, i had not the courage to ring, though i had thought i was fully prepared by what i heard when i called yesterday. no one of your father's friends can ever have loved him more dearly than i always did, or can have better known the worth of his noble character. it is idle to suppose that i can do anything for you; and yet i cannot help saying that i am staying here for some days, and that if i could, it would be a much greater relief to me than it could be a service to you. your poor mother has been constantly in my thoughts since i saw the quiet bravery with which she preserved her composure. the beauty of her ministration sank into my heart when i saw him for the last time on earth. may god be with her, and with you all, in your great loss. affectionately yours always. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] _thursday, june th, ._ my dear wills, i cannot tell you how warmly i feel your letter, or how deeply i appreciate the affection and regard in which it originates. i thank you for it with all my heart. you will not suppose that i make light of any of your misgivings if i present the other side of the question. every objection that you make strongly impresses me, and will be revolved in my mind again and again. when i went to america in ' , i was so much younger, but (i think) very much weaker too. i had had a painful surgical operation performed shortly before going out, and had had the labour from week to week of "master humphrey's clock." my life in the states was a life of continual speech-making (quite as laborious as reading), and i was less patient and more irritable then than i am now. my idea of a course of readings in america is, that it would involve far less travelling than you suppose, that the large first-class rooms would absorb the whole course, and that the receipts would be very much larger than your estimate, unless the demand for the readings is enormously exaggerated on all hands. there is considerable reason for this view of the case. and i can hardly think that all the speculators who beset, and all the private correspondents who urge me, are in a conspiracy or under a common delusion. * * * * * i shall never rest much while my faculties last, and (if i know myself) have a certain something in me that would still be active in rusting and corroding me, if i flattered myself that i was in repose. on the other hand, i think that my habit of easy self-abstraction and withdrawal into fancies has always refreshed and strengthened me in short intervals wonderfully. i always seem to myself to have rested far more than i have worked; and i do really believe that i have some exceptional faculty of accumulating young feelings in short pauses, which obliterates a quantity of wear and tear. my worldly circumstances (such a large family considered) are very good. i don't want money. all my possessions are free and in the best order. still, at fifty-five or fifty-six, the likelihood of making a very great addition to one's capital in half a year is an immense consideration.... i repeat the phrase, because there should be something large to set against the objections. i dine with forster to-day, to talk it over. i have no doubt he will urge most of your objections and particularly the last, though american friends and correspondents he has, have undoubtedly staggered him more than i ever knew him to be staggered on the money question. be assured that no one can present any argument to me which will weigh more heartily with me than your kind words, and that whatever comes of my present state of abeyance, i shall never forget your letter or cease to be grateful for it. ever, my dear wills, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, june th, ._ my dear wills, i have read the first three numbers of wilkie's story this morning, and have gone minutely through the plot of the rest to the last line. it gives a series of "narratives," but it is a very curious story, wild, and yet domestic, with excellent character in it, and great mystery. it is prepared with extraordinary care, and has every chance of being a hit. it is in many respects much better than anything he has done. the question is, how shall we fill up the blank between mabel's progress and wilkie? what do you think of proposing to fitzgerald to do a story three months long? i daresay he has some unfinished or projected something by him. i have an impression that it was not silvester who tried eliza fenning, but knowles. one can hardly suppose thornbury to make such a mistake, but i wish you would look into the annual register. i have added a final paragraph about the unfairness of the judge, whoever he was. i distinctly recollect to have read of his "putting down" of eliza fenning's father when the old man made some miserable suggestion in his daughter's behalf (this is not noticed by thornbury), and he also stopped some suggestion that a knife thrust into a loaf adulterated with alum would present the appearance that these knives presented. but i may have got both these points from looking up some pamphlets in upcott's collection which i once had. your account of your journey reminds me of one of the latest american stories, how a traveller by stage-coach said to the driver: "did you ever see a snail, sir?" "yes, sir." "where did you meet him, sir?" "i _didn't_ meet him, sir!" "wa'al, sir, i think you did, if you'll excuse me, for i'm damned if you ever overtook him." ever faithfully. [sidenote: mrs. henderson.] gad's hill, _thursday, july th, ._ my dear mrs. henderson, i was more shocked than surprised by the receipt of your mother's announcement of our poor dear marguerite's death. when i heard of the consultation, and recalled what had preceded it and what i have seen here, my hopes were very slight. your letter did not reach me until last night, and thus i could not avoid remaining here to-day, to keep an american appointment of unusual importance. you and your mother both know, i think, that i had a great affection for marguerite, that we had many dear remembrances together, and that her self-reliance and composed perseverance had awakened my highest admiration in later times. no one could have stood by her grave to-day with a better knowledge of all that was great and good in her than i have, or with a more loving remembrance of her through all her phases since she first came to london a pretty timid girl. i do not trouble your mother by writing to her separately. it is a sad, sad task to write at all. god help us! faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] gad's hill, _july st, ._ my dear fitzgerald, i am heartily glad to get your letter, and shall be thoroughly well pleased to study you again in the pages of a. y. r. i have settled nothing yet about america, but am going to send dolby out on the rd of next month to survey the land, and come back with a report on some heads whereon i require accurate information. proposals (both from american and english speculators) of a very tempting nature have been repeatedly made to me; but i cannot endure the thought of binding myself to give so many readings there whether i like it or no; and if i go at all, am bent on going with dolby single-handed. i have been doing two things for america; one, the little story to which you refer; the other, four little papers for a child's magazine. i like them both, and think the latter a queer combination of a child's mind with a grown-up joke. i have had them printed to assure correct printing in the united states. you shall have the proof to read, with the greatest pleasure. on second thoughts, why shouldn't i send you the children's proof by this same post? i will, as i have it here, send it under another cover. when you return it, you shall have the short story. believe me, always heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. percy fitzgerald.] extract. _july th, ._ i am glad you like the children, and particularly glad you like the pirate. i remember very well when i had a general idea of occupying that place in history at the same age. but i loved more desperately than boldheart. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _friday night, aug. nd, ._ my dearest georgy, i cannot get a boot on--wear a slipper on my left foot, and consequently am here under difficulties. my foot is occasionally painful, but not very. i don't think it worth while consulting anybody about it as yet. i make out so many reasons against supposing it to be gouty, that i really do not think it is. dolby begs me to send all manner of apologetic messages for his going to america. he is very cheerful and hopeful, but evidently feels the separation from his wife and child very much. his sister[ ] was at euston square this morning, looking very well. sainton too, very light and jovial. with the view of keeping myself and my foot quiet, i think i will not come to gad's hill until monday. if i don't appear before, send basket to gravesend to meet me, leaving town by the . on monday. this is important, as i couldn't walk a quarter of a mile to-night for five hundred pounds. love to all at gad's. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] gad's hill, _monday, sept. nd, ._ my dear wills, like you, i was shocked when this new discovery burst upon me on friday, though, unlike you, i never could believe in ----, solely (i think) because, often as i have tried him, i never found him standing by my desk when i was writing a letter without trying to read it. i fear there is no doubt that since ----'s discharge, he (----) has stolen money at the readings. a case of an abstracted shilling seems to have been clearly brought home to him by chappell's people, and they know very well what _that_ means. i supposed a very clear keeping off from anne's husband (whom i recommended for employment to chappell) to have been referable only to ----; but now i see how hopeless and unjust it would be to expect belief from him with two such cases within his knowledge. but don't let the thing spoil your holiday. if we try to do our duty by people we employ, by exacting their proper service from them on the one hand, and treating them with all possible consistency, gentleness, and consideration on the other, we know that we do right. their doing wrong cannot change our doing right, and that should be enough for us. so i have given _my_ feathers a shake, and am all right again. give _your_ feathers a shake, and take a cheery flutter into the air of hertfordshire. great reports from dolby and also from fields! but i keep myself quite calm, and hold my decision in abeyance until i shall have book, chapter, and verse before me. dolby hoped he could leave uncle sam on the th of this month. sydney has passed as a lieutenant, and appeared at home yesterday, all of a sudden, with the consequent golden garniture on his sleeve, which i, god forgive me, stared at without the least idea that it meant promotion. i am glad you see a certain unlikeness to anything in the american story. upon myself it has made the strangest impression of reality and originality!! and i feel as if i had read something (by somebody else), which i should never get out of my mind!!! the main idea of the narrator's position towards the other people was the idea that i _had_ for my next novel in a. y. r. but it is very curious that i did not in the least see how to begin his state of mind until i walked into hoghton towers one bright april day with dolby. faithfully ever. [sidenote: mr. f. d. finlay.] contradicting a newspaper report of his being in a critical state of health. gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, sept. rd, ._ this is to certify that the undersigned victim of a periodical paragraph-disease, which usually breaks out once in every seven years (proceeding to england by the overland route to india and per cunard line to america, where it strikes the base of the rocky mountains, and, rebounding to europe, perishes on the steppes of russia), is _not_ in a "critical state of health," and has _not_ consulted "eminent surgeons," and never was better in his life, and is _not_ recommended to proceed to the united states for "cessation from literary labour," and has not had so much as a headache for twenty years. charles dickens. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] "all the year round" office, _monday, sept. th, ._ my dear fechter, going over the prompt-book carefully, i see one change in your part to which (on lytton's behalf) i positively object, as i am quite certain he would not consent to it. it is highly injudicious besides, as striking out the best known line in the play. turn to your part in act iii., the speech beginning pauline, _by pride angels have fallen ere thy time_: by pride---- you have made a passage farther on stand: _then did i seek to rise out of my mean estate. thy bright image, etc._ i must stipulate for your restoring it thus: then did i seek to rise out of the prison of my mean estate; and, with such jewels as the exploring mind brings from the caves of knowledge, buy my ransom from those twin jailers of the daring heart-- low birth and iron fortune. thy bright image, etc. etc. the last figure has been again and again quoted; is identified with the play; is fine in itself; and above all, i know that lytton would not let it go. in writing to him to-day, fully explaining the changes in detail, and saying that i disapprove of nothing else, i have told him that i notice this change and that i immediately let you know that it must not be made. (there will not be a man in the house from any newspaper who would not detect mutilations in that speech, moreover.) ever. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] _monday, sept. th, ._ my dearest georgy, the telegram is despatched to boston: "yes. go ahead." after a very anxious consultation with forster, and careful heed of what is to be said for and against, i have made up my mind to see it out. i do not expect as much money as the calculators estimate, but i cannot set the hope of a large sum of money aside. i am so nervous with travelling and anxiety to decide something, that i can hardly write. but i send you these few words as my dearest and best friend. [sidenote: miss dickens.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, london, w.c., _monday, sept. th, ._ my dearest mamie, you will have had my telegram that i go to america. after a long discussion with forster, and consideration of what is to be said on both sides, i have decided to go through with it. i doubt the profit being as great as the calculation makes it, but the prospect is sufficiently alluring to turn the scale on the american side. unless i telegraph to the contrary, i will come to gravesend (send basket there) by train on wednesday. love to all. we have telegraphed "yes" to boston. i begin to feel myself drawn towards america, as darnay, in the "tale of two cities," was attracted to the loadstone rock, paris. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] , wellington street, _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dear kent, in the midst of the great trouble you are taking in the cause of your undersigned affectionate friend, i hope the reading of the enclosed may be a sort of small godsend. of course it is very strictly private. the printers are not yet trusted with the name, but the name will be, "no thoroughfare." i have done the greater part of it; may you find it interesting! my solicitor, a man of some mark and well known, is anxious to be on the committee: frederic ouvry, esquire, , lincoln's inn fields. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--my sailor son! i forgot him!! coming up from portsmouth for the dinner!!! der--er--oo not cur--ur--urse me, i implore. penitently. [sidenote: mrs. power.] gad's hill, _wednesday, oct. rd, ._ my dear mrs. power, i have a sad pleasure in the knowledge that our dear marguerite so remembered her old friend, and i shall preserve the token of her remembrance with loving care. the sight of it has brought back many old days. with kind remembrance to mrs. henderson, believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. j. l. toole.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, nov. nd, ._ my dear mr. toole, i heartily thank you for your elegant token of remembrance, and for your earnest letter. both have afforded me real pleasure, and the first-named shall go with me on my journey. let me take this opportunity of saying that on receipt of your letter concerning to-day's dinner, i immediately forwarded your request to the honorary secretary. i hope you will understand that i could not, in delicacy, otherwise take part in the matter. again thanking you most cordially, believe me, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , wellington street, _sunday, nov. rd, ._ my dear wills, if you were to write me many such warm-hearted letters as you send this morning, my heart would fail me! there is nothing that so breaks down my determination, or shows me what an iron force i put upon myself, and how weak it is, as a touch of true affection from a tried friend. all that you so earnestly say about the goodwill and devotion of all engaged, i perceived and deeply felt last night. it moved me even more than the demonstration itself, though i do suppose it was the most brilliant ever seen. when i got up to speak, but for taking a desperate hold of myself, i should have lost my sight and voice and sat down again. god bless you, my dear fellow. i am, ever and ever, your affectionate. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, a thousand thanks for your kind letter, and many congratulations on your having successfully attained a dignity which i never allow to be mentioned in my presence. charley's children are instructed from their tenderest months only to know me as "wenerables," which they sincerely believe to be my name, and a kind of title that i have received from a grateful country. alas! i cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before i presently go to liverpool. every moment of my time is preoccupied. but i send you my sincere love, and am always truthful to the dear old days, and the memory of one of the dearest friends i ever loved. affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss dickens.] aboard the "cuba," queenstown harbour, _sunday, nov. th, ._ my dearest mamie, we arrived here at seven this morning, and shall probably remain awaiting our mail, until four or five this afternoon. the weather in the passage here was delightful, and we had scarcely any motion beyond that of the screw. we are nearly but not quite full of passengers. at table i sit next the captain, on his right, on the outside of the table and close to the door. my little cabin is big enough for everything but getting up in and going to bed in. as it has a good window which i can leave open all night, and a door which i can set open too, it suits my chief requirements of it--plenty of air--admirably. on a writing-slab in it, which pulls out when wanted, i now write in a majestic manner. many of the passengers are american, and i am already on the best terms with nearly all the ship. we began our voyage yesterday a very little while after you left us, which was a great relief. the wind is s.e. this morning, and if it would keep so we should go along nobly. my dearest love to your aunt, and also to katie and all the rest. i am in very good health, thank god, and as well as possible. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] aboard the "cuba," five days out, _wednesday, nov. th, ._ my dearest georgy, as i wrote to mamie last, i now write to you, or mean to do it, if the motion of the ship will let me. we are very nearly halfway to-day. the weather was favourable for us until yesterday morning, when we got a head-wind which still stands by us. we have rolled and pitched, of course; but on the whole have been wonderfully well off. i have had headache and have felt faint once or twice, _but have not been sick at all_. my spacious cabin is very noisy at night, as the most important working of the ship goes on outside my window and over my head; but it is very airy, and if the weather be bad and i can't open the window, i can open the door all night. if the weather be fine (as it is now), i can open both door and window, and write between them. last night, i got a foot-bath under the dignified circumstances of sitting on a camp-stool in my cabin, and having the bath (and my feet) in the passage outside. the officers' quarters are close to me, and, as i know them all, i get reports of the weather and the way we are making when the watch is changed, and i am (as i usually am) lying awake. the motion of the screw is at its slightest vibration in my particular part of the ship. the silent captain, reported gruff, is a very good fellow and an honest fellow. kelly has been ill all the time, and not of the slightest use, and is ill now. scott always cheerful, and useful, and ready; a better servant for the kind of work there never can have been. young lowndes has been fearfully sick until mid-day yesterday. his cabin is pitch dark, and full of blackbeetles. he shares mine until nine o'clock at night, when scott carries him off to bed. he also dines with me in my magnificent chamber. this passage in winter time cannot be said to be an enjoyable excursion, but i certainly am making it under the best circumstances. (i find dolby to have been enormously popular on board, and to have known everybody and gone everywhere.) so much for my news, except that i have been constantly reading, and find that "pierra" that mrs. hogge sent me by katie to be a very remarkable book, not only for its grim and horrible story, but for its suggestion of wheels within wheels, and sad human mysteries. baker's second book not nearly so good as his first, but his first anticipated it. we hope to get to halifax either on sunday or monday, and to boston either on tuesday or wednesday. the glass is rising high to-day, and everybody on board is hopeful of an easterly wind. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] _saturday, th._ last thursday afternoon a heavy gale of wind sprang up and blew hard until dark, when it seemed to lull. but it then came on again with great violence, and blew tremendously all night. the noise, and the rolling and plunging of the ship, were awful. nobody on board could get any sleep, and numbers of passengers were rolled out of their berths. having a side-board to mine to keep me in, like a baby, i lay still. but it was a dismal night indeed, and it was curious to see the change it had made in the faces of all the passengers yesterday. it cannot be denied that these winter crossings are very trying and startling; while the personal discomfort of not being able to wash, and the miseries of getting up and going to bed, with what small means there are all sliding, and sloping, and slopping about, are really in their way distressing. this forenoon we made cape race, and are now running along at full speed with the land beside us. kelly still useless, and positively declining to show on deck. scott, with an eight-day-old moustache, more super like than ever. my foot (i hope from walking on the boarded deck) in a very shy condition to-day, and rather painful. i shaved this morning for the first time since liverpool; dodging at the glass, very much like fechter's imitation of ----. the white cat that came off with us in the tender a general favourite. she belongs to the daughter of a southerner, returning with his wife and family from a two-years' tour in europe. _sunday, th._ at four o'clock this morning we got into bad weather again, and the state of things at breakfast-time was unutterably miserable. nearly all the passengers in their berths--no possibility of standing on deck--sickness and groans--impracticable to pass a cup of tea from one pair of hands to another. it has slightly moderated since (between two and three in the afternoon i write), and the sun is shining, but the rolling of the ship surpasses all imagination or description. we expect to be at halifax about an hour after midnight, and this letter shall be posted there, to make certain of catching the return mail on wednesday. boston is only thirty hours from halifax. best love to mamie, and to katie and charley. i know you will report me and my love to forster and mrs. forster. i write with great difficulty, wedged up in a corner, and having my heels on the paper as often as the pen. kelly worse than ever, and scott better than ever. my desk and i have just arisen from the floor. [sidenote: miss dickens.] parker house, boston, _thursday, nov. st, ._ i arrived here on tuesday night, after a very slow passage from halifax against head-winds. all the tickets for the first four readings here (all yet announced) were sold immediately on their being issued. you know that i begin on the nd of december with "carol" and "trial"? shall be heartily glad to begin to count the readings off. this is an immense hotel, with all manner of white marble public passages and public rooms. i live in a corner high up, and have a hot and cold bath in my bedroom (communicating with the sitting-room), and comforts not in existence when i was here before. the cost of living is enormous, but happily we can afford it. i dine to-day with longfellow, emerson, holmes, and agassiz. longfellow was here yesterday. perfectly white in hair and beard, but a remarkably handsome and notable-looking man. the city has increased enormously in five-and-twenty years. it has grown more mercantile--is like leeds mixed with preston, and flavoured with new brighton; but for smoke and fog you substitute an exquisitely bright light air. i found my rooms beautifully decorated (by mrs. fields) with choice flowers, and set off by a number of good books. i am not much persecuted by people in general, as dolby has happily made up his mind that the less i am exhibited for nothing the better. so our men sit outside the room door and wrestle with mankind. we had speech-making and singing in the saloon of the _cuba_ after the last dinner of the voyage. i think i have acquired a higher reputation from drawing out the captain, and getting him to take the second in "all's well," and likewise in "there's not in the wide world" (your parent taking first), than from anything previously known of me on these shores. i hope the effect of these achievements may not dim the lustre of the readings. we also sang (with a chicago lady, and a strong-minded woman from i don't know where) "auld lang syne," with a tender melancholy, expressive of having all four been united from our cradles. the more dismal we were, the more delighted the company were. once (when we paddled i' the burn) the captain took a little cruise round the compass on his own account, touching at the "canadian boat song," and taking in supplies at "jubilate," "seas between us braid ha' roared," and roared like the seas themselves. finally, i proposed the ladies in a speech that convulsed the stewards, and we closed with a brilliant success. but when you dine with mr. forster, ask him to read to you how we got on at church in a heavy sea. hillard has just been in and sent his love "to those dear girls." he has grown much older. he is now district attorney of the state of massachusetts, which is a very good office. best love to your aunt and katie, and charley and all his house, and all friends. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] parker house, boston, _monday, nov. th, ._ i cannot remember to whom i wrote last, but it will not much matter if i make a mistake; this being generally to report myself so well, that i am constantly chafing at not having begun to-night instead of this night week. the tickets being all sold for next week, and no other announcement being yet made, there is nothing new in that way to tell of. dolby is over at new york, where we are at our wits' end how to keep tickets out of the hands of speculators. morgan is staying with me; came yesterday to breakfast, and goes home to-morrow. fields and mrs. fields also dined yesterday. she is a very nice woman, with a rare relish for humour and a most contagious laugh. the bostonians having been duly informed that i wish to be quiet, really leave me as much so as i should be in manchester or liverpool. this i cannot expect to last elsewhere; but it is a most welcome relief here, as i have all the readings to get up. the people are perfectly kind and perfectly agreeable. if i stop to look in at a shop-window, a score of passers-by stop; and after i begin to read, i cannot expect in the natural course of things to get off so easily. but i every day take from seven to ten miles in peace. communications about readings incessantly come in from all parts of the country. we take no offer whatever, lying by with our plans until after the first series in new york, and designing, if we make a furore there, to travel as little as possible. i fear i shall have to take canada at the end of the whole tour. they make such strong representations from montreal and toronto, and from nova scotia--represented by st. john's and halifax--of the slight it would be to them, if i wound up with the states, that i am shaken. it is sad to see longfellow's house (the house in which his wife was burnt) with his young daughters in it, and the shadow of that terrible story. the young undergraduates of cambridge (he is a professor there) have made a representation to him that they are five hundred strong, and cannot get one ticket. i don't know what is to be done for them; i suppose i must read there somehow. we are all in the clouds until i shall have broken ground in new york, as to where readings will be possible and where impossible. agassiz is one of the most natural and jovial of men. i go out a-visiting as little as i can, but still have to dine, and what is worse, sup pretty often. socially, i am (as i was here before) wonderfully reminded of edinburgh when i had many friends in it. your account and mamie's of the return journey to london gave me great pleasure. i was delighted with your report of wilkie, and not surprised by chappell's coming out gallantly. my anxiety to get to work is greater than i can express, because time seems to be making no movement towards home until i shall be reading hard. then i shall begin to count and count and count the upward steps to may. if ever you should be in a position to advise a traveller going on a sea voyage, remember that there is some mysterious service done to the bilious system when it is shaken, by baked apples. noticing that they were produced on board the _cuba_, every day at lunch and dinner, i thought i would make the experiment of always eating them freely. i am confident that they did wonders, not only at the time, but in stopping the imaginary pitching and rolling after the voyage is over, from which many good amateur sailors suffer. i have hardly had the sensation at all, except in washing of a morning. at that time i still hold on with one knee to the washing-stand, and could swear that it rolls from left to right. the _cuba_ does not return until wednesday, the th december. you may suppose that every officer on board is coming on monday, and that dolby has provided extra stools for them. his work is very hard indeed. cards are brought to him every minute in the day; his correspondence is immense; and he is jerked off to new york, and i don't know where else, on the shortest notice and the most unreasonable times. moreover, he has to be at "the bar" every night, and to "liquor up with all creation" in the small hours. he does it all with the greatest good humour, and flies at everybody who waylays the chief, furiously. we have divided our men into watches, so that one always sits outside the drawing-room door. dolby knows the whole cunard line, and as we could not get good english gin, went out in a steamer yesterday and got two cases (twenty-four bottles) out of cunard officers. osgood and he were detached together last evening for new york, whence they telegraph every other hour about some new point in this precious sale of tickets. so distracted a telegram arrived at three that i have telegraphed back, "explain yourselves," and am now waiting for the explanation. i think you know that osgood is a partner in ticknor and fields'. tuesday morning.--dolby has come back from new york, where the prospects seem immense. we sell tickets there next friday and saturday, and a tremendous rush is expected. [sidenote: mr. charles dickens.] parker house, boston, u.s., _saturday, nov. th, ._ my dear charley, you will have heard before now how fortunate i was on my voyage, and how i was not sick for a moment. these screws are tremendous ships for carrying on, and for rolling, and their vibration is rather distressing. but my little cabin, being for'ard of the machinery, was in the best part of the vessel, and i had as much air in it, night and day, as i chose. the saloon being kept absolutely without air, i mostly dined in my own den, in spite of my being allotted the post of honour on the right hand of the captain. the tickets for the first four readings here (the only readings announced) were all sold immediately, and many are now re-selling at a large premium. the tickets for the first four readings in new york (the only readings announced there also) were on sale yesterday, and were all sold in a few hours. the receipts are very large indeed; but engagements of any kind and every kind i steadily refuse, being resolved to take what is to be taken myself. dolby is nearly worked off his legs, is now at new york, and goes backwards and forwards between this place and that (about the distance from london to liverpool, though they take nine hours to do it) incessantly. nothing can exceed his energy and good humour, and he is extremely popular everywhere. my great desire is to avoid much travelling, and to try to get the people to come to me, instead of my going to them. if i can effect this to any moderate extent, i shall be saved a great deal of knocking about. my original purpose was not to go to canada at all; but canada is so up in arms on the subject that i think i shall be obliged to take it at last. in that case i should work round to halifax, nova scotia, and then take the packet for home. as they don't seem (americans who have heard me on their travels excepted) to have the least idea here of what the readings are like, and as they are accustomed to mere readings out of a book, i am inclined to think the excitement will increase when i shall have begun. everybody is very kind and considerate, and i have a number of old friends here, at the bar and connected with the university. i am now negotiating to bring out the dramatic version of "no thoroughfare" at new york. it is quite upon the cards that it may turn up trumps. i was interrupted in that place by a call from my old secretary in the states, mr. putnam. it was quite affecting to see his delight in meeting his old master again. and when i told him that anne was married, and that i had (unacknowledged) grandchildren, he laughed and cried together. i suppose you don't remember longfellow, though he remembers you in a black velvet frock very well. he is now white-haired and white-bearded, but remarkably handsome. he still lives in his old house, where his beautiful wife was burnt to death. i dined with him the other day, and could not get the terrific scene out of my imagination. she was in a blaze in an instant, rushed into his arms with a wild cry, and never spoke afterwards. my love to bessie, and to mekitty, and all the babbies. i will lay this by until tuesday morning, and then add a final line to it. ever, my dear charley, your affectionate father. _tuesday, dec. rd, ._ success last night beyond description or exaggeration. the whole city is quite frantic about it to-day, and it is impossible that prospects could be more brilliant. [sidenote: miss dickens.] parker house, boston, _sunday, dec. st, ._ i received yours of the th november, yesterday. as i left halifax in the _cuba_ that very day, you probably saw us telegraphed in _the times_ on the th. dolby came back from another run to new york, this morning. the receipts are very large indeed, far exceeding our careful estimate made at gad's. i think you had best in future (unless i give you intimation to the contrary) address your letters to me, at the westminster hotel, irving place, new york city. it is a more central position than this, and we are likely to be much more there than here. i am going to set up a brougham in new york, and keep my rooms at that hotel. the account of matilda is a very melancholy one, and really distresses me. what she must sink into, it is sad to consider. however, there was nothing for it but to send her away, that is quite clear. they are said to be a very quiet audience here, appreciative but not demonstrative. i shall try to change their character a little. i have been going on very well. a horrible custom obtains in these parts of asking you to dinner somewhere at half-past two, and to supper somewhere else about eight. i have run this gauntlet more than once, and its effect is, that there is no day for any useful purpose, and that the length of the evening is multiplied by a hundred. yesterday i dined with a club at half-past two, and came back here at half-past eight, with a general impression that it was at least two o'clock in the morning. two days before i dined with longfellow at half-past two, and came back at eight, supposing it to be midnight. to-day we have a state dinner-party in our rooms at six, mr. and mrs. fields, and mr. and mrs. bigelow. (he is a friend of forster's, and was american minister in paris). there are no negro waiters here, all the servants are irish--willing, but not able. the dinners and wines are very good. i keep our own rooms well ventilated by opening the windows, but no window is ever opened in the halls or passages, and they are so overheated by a great furnace, that they make me faint and sick. the air is like that of a pre-adamite ironing-day in full blast. your respected parent is immensely popular in boston society, and its cordiality and unaffected heartiness are charming. i wish i could carry it with me. the leading new york papers have sent men over for to-morrow night with instructions to telegraph columns of descriptions. great excitement and expectation everywhere. fields says he has looked forward to it so long that he knows he will die at five minutes to eight. at the new york barriers, where the tickets are on sale and the people ranged as at the paris theatres, speculators went up and down offering "twenty dollars for anybody's place." the money was in no case accepted. one man sold two tickets for the second, third, and fourth night for "one ticket for the first, fifty dollars" (about seven pounds ten shillings), "and a brandy cocktail," which is an iced bitter drink. the weather has been rather muggy and languid until yesterday, when there was the coldest wind blowing that i ever felt. in the night it froze very hard, and to-day the sky is beautiful. _tuesday, dec. rd._ most magnificent reception last night, and most signal and complete success. nothing could be more triumphant. the people will hear of nothing else and talk of nothing else. nothing that was ever done here, they all agree, evoked any approach to such enthusiasm. i was quite as cool and quick as if i were reading at greenwich, and went at it accordingly. tell your aunt, with my best love, that i have this morning received hers of the st, and that i will write to her next. that will be from new york. my love to mr. and mrs. hulkes and the boy, and to mr. and mrs. malleson.[ ] [sidenote: miss hogarth.] boston, _wednesday, dec. th, ._ i find that by going off to the _cuba_ myself this morning i can send you the enclosed for mary boyle (i don't know how to address her), whose usual flower for my button-hole was produced in the most extraordinary manner here last monday night! all well and prosperous. "copperfield" and "bob" last night; great success. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] boston, _december th, ._ my dear meery, you can have no idea of the glow of pleasure and amazement with which i saw your remembrance of me lying on my dressing-table here last monday night. whosoever undertook that commission accomplished it to a miracle. but you must go away four thousand miles, and have such a token conveyed to _you_, before you can quite appreciate the feeling of receiving it. ten thousand loving thanks. immense success here, and unbounded enthusiasm. my largest expectations far surpassed. ever your affectionate jo. [sidenote: miss dickens.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york city, _wednesday, dec th, ._ amazing success here. a very fine audience; _far better than that at boston_. great reception. great, "carol" and "trial," on the first night; still greater, "copperfield" and "bob," on the second. dolby sends you a few papers by this post. you will see from their tone what a success it is. i cannot pay this letter, because i give it at the latest moment to the mail-officer, who is going on board the cunard packet in charge of the mails, and who is staying in this house. we are now selling (at the hall) the tickets for the four readings of next week. at nine o'clock this morning there were two thousand people in waiting, and they had begun to assemble in the bitter cold as early as two o'clock. all night long dolby and our man have been stamping tickets. (immediately over my head, by-the-bye, and keeping me awake.) this hotel is quite as quiet as mivart's, in brook street. it is not very much larger. there are american hotels close by, with five hundred bedrooms, and i don't know how many boarders; but this is conducted on what is called "the european principle," and is an admirable mixture of a first-class french and english house. i keep a very smart carriage and pair; and if you were to behold me driving out, furred up to the moustache, with furs on the coach-boy and on the driver, and with an immense white, red, and yellow striped rug for a covering, you would suppose me to be of hungarian or polish nationality. will you report the success here to mr. forster with my love, and tell him he shall hear from me by next mail? dolby sends his kindest regards. he is just come in from our ticket sales, and has put such an immense untidy heap of paper money on the table that it looks like a family wash. he hardly ever dines, and is always tearing about at unreasonable hours. he works very hard. my best love to your aunt (to whom i will write next), and to katie, and to both the charleys, and all the christmas circle, not forgetting chorley, to whom give my special remembrance. you may get this by christmas day. _we_ shall have to keep it travelling from boston here; for i read at boston on the rd and th, and here again on the th. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york city, _monday, dec. th, ._ we have been snowed up here, and the communication with boston is still very much retarded. thus we have received no letters by the cunard steamer that came in last wednesday, and are in a grim state of mind on that subject. last night i was getting into bed just at twelve o'clock, when dolby came to my door to inform me that the house was on fire (i had previously smelt fire for two hours). i got scott up directly, told him to pack the books and clothes for the readings first, dressed, and pocketed my jewels and papers, while dolby stuffed himself out with money. meanwhile the police and firemen were in the house, endeavouring to find where the fire was. for some time it baffled their endeavours, but at last, bursting out through some stairs, they cut the stairs away, and traced it to its source in a certain fire-grate. by this time the hose was laid all through the house from a great tank on the roof, and everybody turned out to help. it was the oddest sight, and people had put the strangest things on! after a little chopping and cutting with axes and handing about of water, the fire was confined to a dining-room in which it had originated, and then everybody talked to everybody else, the ladies being particularly loquacious and cheerful. and so we got to bed again at about two. the excitement of the readings continues unabated, the tickets for readings are sold as soon as they are ready, and the public pay treble prices to the speculators who buy them up. they are a wonderfully fine audience, even better than edinburgh, and almost, if not quite, as good as paris. dolby continues to be the most unpopular man in america (mainly because he can't get four thousand people into a room that holds two thousand), and is reviled in print daily. yesterday morning a newspaper proclaims of him: "surely it is time that the pudding-headed dolby retired into the native gloom from which he has emerged." he takes it very coolly, and does his best. mrs. morgan sent me, the other night, i suppose the finest and costliest basket of flowers ever seen, made of white camellias, yellow roses, pink roses, and i don't know what else. it is a yard and a half round at its smallest part. i must bring this to a close, as i have to go to the hall to try an enlarged background. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] boston, _sunday, dec. nd, ._ coming here from new york last night (after a detestable journey), i was delighted to find your letter of the th. i read it at my ten o'clock dinner with the greatest interest and pleasure, and then we talked of home till we went to bed. our tour is now being made out, and i hope to be able to send it in my next letter home, which will be to mamie, from whom i have _not_ heard (as you thought i had) by the mail that brought out yours. after very careful consideration i have reversed dolby's original plan, and have decided on taking baltimore, washington, cincinnati, _chicago_ (!), st. louis, and a few other places nearer here, instead of staying in new york. my reason is that we are doing immensely, both at new york and here, and that i am sure it is in the peculiar character of the people to prize a thing the more the less easily attainable it is made. therefore, i want, by absence, to get the greatest rush and pressure upon the five farewell readings in new york in april. all our announced readings are already crammed. when we got here last saturday night, we found that mrs. fields had not only garnished the rooms with flowers, but also with holly (with real red berries) and festoons of moss dependent from the looking-glasses and picture frames. she is one of the dearest little women in the world. the homely christmas look of the place quite affected us. yesterday we dined at her house, and there was a plum-pudding, brought on blazing, and not to be surpassed in any house in england. there is a certain captain dolliver, belonging to the boston custom house, who came off in the little steamer that brought me ashore from the _cuba_. he took it into his head that he would have a piece of english mistletoe brought out in this week's cunard, which should be laid upon my breakfast-table. and there it was this morning. in such affectionate touches as this, these new england people are especially amiable. as a general rule, you may lay it down that whatever you see about me in the papers is not true. but although my voyage out was of that highly hilarious description that you first made known to me, you may _generally_ lend a more believing ear to the philadelphia correspondent of _the times_. i don't know him, but i know the source from which he derives his information, and it is a very respectable one. did i tell you in a former letter from here, to tell anne, with her old master's love, that i had seen putnam, my old secretary? grey, and with several front teeth out, but i would have known him anywhere. he is coming to "copperfield" to-night, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and is in the seventh heaven at having his tickets given him. our hotel in new york was on fire _again_ the other night. but fires in this country are quite matters of course. there was a large one there at four this morning, and i don't think a single night has passed since i have been under the protection of the eagle, but i have heard the fire bells dolefully clanging all over the city. dolby sends his kindest regard. his hair has become quite white, the effect, i suppose, of the climate. he is so universally hauled over the coals (for no reason on earth), that i fully expect to hear him, one of these nights, assailed with a howl when he precedes me to the platform steps. you may conceive what the low newspapers are here, when one of them yesterday morning had, as an item of news, the intelligence: "dickens's readings. the chap calling himself dolby got drunk last night, and was locked up in a police-station for fighting an irishman." i don't find that anybody is shocked by this liveliness. my love to all, and to mrs. hulkes and the boy. by-the-bye, when we left new york for this place, dolby called my amazed attention to the circumstance that scott was leaning his head against the side of the carriage and weeping bitterly. i asked him what was the matter, and he replied: "the owdacious treatment of the luggage, which was more outrageous than a man could bear." i told him not to make a fool of himself; but they do knock it about cruelly. i think every trunk we have is already broken. i must leave off, as i am going out for a walk in a bright sunlight and a complete break-up of the frost and snow. i am much better than i have been during the last week, but have a cold. [sidenote: miss dickens.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york city, _thursday, dec. th, ._ i got your aunt's last letter at boston yesterday, christmas day morning, when i was starting at eleven o'clock to come back to this place. i wanted it very much, for i had a frightful cold (english colds are nothing to those of this country), and was exceedingly depressed and miserable. not that i had any reason but illness for being so, since the bostonians had been quite astounding in their demonstrations. i never saw anything like them on christmas eve. but it is a bad country to be unwell and travelling in; you are one of say a hundred people in a heated car, with a great stove in it, and all the little windows closed, and the hurrying and banging about are indescribable. the atmosphere is detestable, and the motion often all but intolerable. however, we got our dinner here at eight o'clock, and plucked up a little, and i made some hot gin punch to drink a merry christmas to all at home in. but it must be confessed that we were both very dull. i have been in bed all day until two o'clock, and here i am now (at three o'clock) a little better. but i am not fit to read, and i must read to-night. after watching the general character pretty closely, i became quite sure that dolby was wrong on the length of the stay and the number of readings we had proposed in this place. i am quite certain that it is one of the national peculiarities that what they want must be difficult of attainment. i therefore a few days ago made a _coup d'état_, and altered the whole scheme. we shall go to philadelphia, baltimore, washington, also some new england towns between boston and this place, away to the falls of niagara, and off far west to chicago and st. louis, before coming back for ten farewell readings here, preceded by farewells at boston, leaving canada altogether. this will not prolong the list beyond eighty-four readings, the exact original number, and will, please god, work it all out in april. in my next, i daresay, i shall be able to send the exact list, so that you may know every day where we are. there has been a great storm here for a few days, and the streets, though wet, are becoming passable again. dolby and osgood are out in it to-day on a variety of business, and left in grave and solemn state. scott and the gasman are stricken with dumb concern, not having received one single letter from home since they left. what their wives can have done with the letters they take it for granted they have written, is their stormy speculation at the door of my hall dressing-room every night. if i do not send a letter to katie by this mail, it will be because i shall probably be obliged to go across the water to brooklyn to-morrow to see a church, in which it is proposed that i shall read!!! horrible visions of being put in the pulpit already beset me. and whether the audience will be in pews is another consideration which greatly disturbs my mind. no paper ever comes out without a leader on dolby, who of course reads them all, and never can understand why i don't, in which he is called all the bad names in (and not in) the language. we always call him p. h. dolby now, in consequence of one of these graceful specimens of literature describing him as the "pudding-headed." i fear that when we travel he will have to be always before me, so that i may not see him six times in as many weeks. however, i shall have done a fourth of the whole this very next week! best love to your aunt, and the boys, and katie, and charley, and all true friends. _friday._ i managed to read last night, but it was as much as i could do. to-day i am so very unwell, that i have sent for a doctor; he has just been, and is in doubt whether i shall not have to stop reading for a while. [sidenote: miss dickens.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york, _monday, dec. th, ._ i am getting all right again. i have not been well, been very low, and have been obliged to have a doctor; a very agreeable fellow indeed, who soon turned out to be an old friend of olliffe's.[ ] he has set me on my legs and taken his leave "professionally," though he means to give me a call now and then. in the library at gad's is a bound book, "remarkable criminal trials," translated by lady duff gordon, from the original by fauerbach. i want that book, and a copy of praed's poems, to be sent out to boston, care of ticknor and fields. if you will give the "criminal trials" to wills, and explain my wish, and ask him to buy a copy of praed's poems and add it to the parcel, he will know how to send the packet out. i think the "criminal trials" book is in the corner book-case, by the window, opposite the door. no news here. all going on in the regular way. i read in that church i told you of, about the middle of january. it is wonderfully seated for two thousand people, and is as easy to speak in as if they were two hundred. the people are seated in pews, and we let the pews. i stood on a small platform from which the pulpit will be removed for the occasion!! i emerge from the vestry!!! philadelphia, baltimore, and another two nights in boston will follow this coming month of january. on friday next i shall have read a fourth of my whole list, besides having had twelve days' holiday when i first came out. so please god i shall soon get to the half, and so begin to work hopefully round. i suppose you were at the adelphi on thursday night last. they are pirating the bill as well as the play here, everywhere. i have registered the play as the property of an american citizen, but the law is by no means clear that i established a right in it by so doing; and of course the pirates knew very well that i could not, under existing circumstances, try the question with them in an american court of law. nothing is being played here scarcely that is not founded on my books--"cricket," "oliver twist," "our mutual friend," and i don't know what else, every night. i can't get down broadway for my own portrait; and yet i live almost as quietly in this hotel, as if i were at the office, and go in and out by a side door just as i might there. i go back to boston on saturday to read there on monday and tuesday. then i am back here, and keep within six or seven hours' journey of hereabouts till february. my further movements shall be duly reported as the details are arranged. i shall be curious to know who were at gad's hill on christmas day, and how you (as they say in this country) "got along." it is exceedingly cold here again, after two or three quite spring days. footnotes: [ ] madame sainton dolby. [ ] the nearest neighbour at higham, and intimate friends. [ ] dr. fordyce barker. . narrative. charles dickens remained in america through the winter, returning home from new york in the _russia_, on the th of april. his letters show how entirely he gave himself up to the business of the readings, how severely his health suffered from the climate, and from the perpetual travelling and hard work, and yet how he was able to battle through to the end. these letters are also full of allusions to the many kind and dear friends who contributed so largely to the pleasure of this american visit, and whose love and attention gave a touch of _home_ to his private life, and left such affection and gratitude in his heart as he could never forget. many of these friends paid visits to gad's hill; the first to come during this summer being mr. longfellow, his daughters, and mr. appleton, brother-in-law of mr. longfellow, and mr. and mrs. charles eliot norton, of cambridge. for the future, there were to be no more christmas numbers of "all the year round." observing the extent to which they were now copied in all directions, charles dickens supposed them likely to become tiresome to the public, and so determined that in his journal they should be discontinued. while still in america, he made an agreement with the messrs. chappell to give a series of farewell readings in england, to commence in the autumn of this year. so, in october, charles dickens started off again for a tour in the provinces. he had for some time been planning, by way of a novelty for this series, a reading from the murder in "oliver twist," but finding it so very horrible, he was fearful of trying its effect for the first time on a public audience. it was therefore resolved, that a trial of it should be made to a limited private audience in st. james's hall, on the evening of the th of november. this trial proved eminently successful, and "the murder from oliver twist" became one of the most popular of his selections. but the physical exertion it involved was far greater than that of any of his previous readings, and added immensely to the excitement and exhaustion which they caused him. one of the first letters of the year from america is addressed to mr. samuel cartwright, of surgical and artistic reputation, and greatly esteemed by charles dickens, both in his professional capacity and as a private friend. the letter written to mrs. cattermole, in may, tells of the illness of mr. george cattermole. this dear old friend, so associated with charles dickens and his works, died soon afterwards, and the letter to his widow shows that charles dickens was exerting himself in her behalf. the play of "no thoroughfare" having been translated into french under the title of "l'abîme," charles dickens went over to paris to be present at the first night of its production. on the th of september, his youngest son, edward bulwer lytton (the "plorn" so often mentioned), started for australia, to join his brother alfred tennyson, who was already established there. it will be seen by his own words how deeply and how sadly charles dickens felt this parting. in october of this year, his son henry fielding entered trinity hall, cambridge, as an undergraduate. the miss forster mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law, and for whom the kind and considerate arrangements were suggested, was a sister of mr. john forster, and a lady highly esteemed by charles dickens. the illness from which she was then suffering was a fatal one. she died in this same year, a few days before christmas. mr. j. c. parkinson, to whom a letter is addressed, was a gentleman holding a government appointment, and contributing largely to journalism and periodical literature. as our last letter for this year, we give one which charles dickens wrote to his youngest son on his departure for australia. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york, _friday, jan. rd, ._ my dearest georgy, i received yours of the th from gad's and the office this morning. i read here to-night, and go back to boston to-morrow, to read there monday and tuesday. to-night, i read out the first quarter of my list. our houses have been very fine here, but have never quite recovered the dolby uproar. it seems impossible to devise any scheme for getting the tickets into the people's hands without the intervention of speculators. the people _will not_ help themselves; and, of course, the speculators and all other such prowlers throw as great obstacles in dolby's way (an englishman's) as they possibly can. he may be a little injudicious into the bargain. last night, for instance, he met one of the "ushers" (who show people to their seats) coming in with kelly. it is against orders that anyone employed in front should go out during the readings, and he took this man to task in the british manner. instantly the free and independent usher put on his hat and walked off. seeing which, all the other free and independent ushers (some twenty in number) put on _their_ hats and walked off, leaving us absolutely devoid and destitute of a staff for to-night. one has since been improvised; but it was a small matter to raise a stir and ill will about, especially as one of our men was equally in fault. we have a regular clerk, a bostonian whose name is wild. he, osgood, dolby, kelly, scott, george the gasman, and perhaps a boy or two, constitute my body-guard. it seems a large number of people, but the business cannot be done with fewer. the speculators buying the front seats to sell at a premium (and we have found instances of this being done by merchants in good position!), and the public perpetually pitching into dolby for selling them back seats, the result is that they won't have the back seats, send back their tickets, write and print volumes on the subject, and deter others from coming. you may get an idea of the staff's work, by what is in hand now. they are preparing, numbering, and stamping six thousand tickets for philadelphia, and eight thousand tickets for brooklyn. the moment those are done, another eight thousand tickets will be wanted for baltimore, and probably another six thousand for washington. this in addition to the correspondence, advertisements, accounts, travellings, and the mighty business of the reading four times a week. the cunard steamers being now removed from halifax, i have decided _not_ to go there, or to st. john's, new brunswick. and as there would be a perfect uproar if i picked out such a place in canada as quebec or montreal, and excluded those two places (which would guarantee three hundred pounds a night), and further, as i don't want places, having more than enough for my list of eighty-four, i have finally resolved not to go to canada either. this will enable me to embark for home in april instead of may. tell plorn, with my love, that i think he will find himself much interested at that college,[ ] and that it is very likely he may make some acquaintances there that will thereafter be pleasant and useful to him. sir sydney dacres is the best of friends. i have a letter from mrs. hulkes by this post, wherein the boy encloses a violet, now lying on the table before me. let her know that it arrived safely, and retaining its colour. i took it for granted that mary would have asked chorley for christmas day, and am very glad she ultimately did so. i am sorry that harry lost his prize, but believe it was not his fault. let _him_ know _that_, with my love. i would have written to him by this mail in answer to his, but for other occupation. did i tell you that my landlord made me a drink (brandy, rum, and snow the principal ingredients) called a "rocky mountain sneezer"? or that the favourite drink before you get up is an "eye-opener"? or that roberts (second landlord), no sooner saw me on the night of the first fire, than, with his property blazing, he insisted on taking me down into a roomful of hot smoke to drink brandy and water with him? we have not been on fire again, by-the-bye, more than once. there has been another fall of snow, succeeded by a heavy thaw. i have laid down my sledge, and taken up my carriage again, in consequence. i am nearly all right, but cannot get rid of an intolerable cold in the head. no more news. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] parker house, boston, u.s., _jan. th, ._ i write to you by this opportunity, though i really have nothing to tell you. the work is hard and the climate is hard. we made a tremendous hit last night with "nickleby" and "boots," which the bostonians certainly on the whole appreciate more than "copperfield"! dolby is always going about with an immense bundle that looks like a sofa cushion, but it is in reality paper money; and always works like a trojan. his business at night is a mere nothing, for these people are so accustomed to take care of themselves, that one of these immense audiences will fall into their places with an ease amazing to a frequenter of st. james's hall. and the certainty with which they are all in, before i go on, is a very acceptable mark of respect. i must add, too, that although there is a conventional familiarity in the use of one's name in the newspapers as "dickens," "charlie," and what not, i do not in the least see that familiarity in the writers themselves. an inscrutable tone obtains in journalism, which a stranger cannot understand. if i say in common courtesy to one of them, when dolby introduces, "i am much obliged to you for your interest in me," or so forth, he seems quite shocked, and has a bearing of perfect modesty and propriety. i am rather inclined to think that they suppose their printed tone to be the public's love of smartness, but it is immensely difficult to make out. all i can as yet make out is, that my perfect freedom from bondage, and at any moment to go on or leave off, or otherwise do as i like, is the only safe position to occupy. again; there are two apparently irreconcilable contrasts here. down below in this hotel every night are the bar loungers, dram drinkers, drunkards, swaggerers, loafers, that one might find in a boucicault play. within half an hour is cambridge, where a delightful domestic life--simple, self-respectful, cordial, and affectionate--is seen in an admirable aspect. all new england is primitive and puritanical. all about and around it is a puddle of mixed human mud, with no such quality in it. perhaps i may in time sift out some tolerably intelligible whole, but i certainly have not done so yet. it is a good sign, may be, that it all seems immensely more difficult to understand than it was when i was here before. felton left two daughters. i have only seen the eldest, a very sensible, frank, pleasant girl of eight-and-twenty, perhaps, rather like him in the face. a striking-looking daughter of hawthorn's (who is also dead) came into my room last night. the day has slipped on to three o'clock, and i must get up "dombey" for to-night. hence this sudden break off. best love to mamie, and to katie and charley collins. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] westminster hotel, new york, _sunday, jan. th, ._ my dear wilkie, first, of the play.[ ] i am truly delighted to learn that it made so great a success, and i hope i may yet see it on the adelphi boards. you have had a world of trouble and work with it, but i hope will be repaid in some degree by the pleasure of a triumph. even for the alteration at the end of the fourth act (of which you tell me in your letter received yesterday), i was fully prepared, for i could not see the original effect in the reading of the play, and could not make it go. i agree with webster in thinking it best that obenreizer should die on the stage; but no doubt that point is disposed of. in reading the play before the representation, i felt that it was too long, and that there was a good deal of unnecessary explanation. those points are, no doubt, disposed of too by this time. we shall do nothing with it on this side. pirates are producing their own wretched versions in all directions, thus (as wills would say) anticipating and glutting "the market." i registered one play as the property of ticknor and fields, american citizens. but, besides that the law on the point is extremely doubtful, the manager of the museum theatre, boston, instantly announced his version. (you may suppose what it is and how it is done, when i tell you that it was playing within ten days of the arrival out of the christmas number.) thereupon, ticknor and fields gave him notice that he mustn't play it. unto which he replied, that he meant to play it and would play it. of course he knew very well that if an injunction were applied for against him, there would be an immediate howl against my persecution of an innocent, and he played it. then the noble host of pirates rushed in, and it is being done, in some mangled form or other, everywhere. it touches me to read what you write of your poor mother. but, of course, at her age, each winter counts heavily. do give her my love, and tell her that i asked you about her. i am going on here at the same great rate, but am always counting the days that lie between me and home. i got through the first fourth of my readings on friday, january rd. i leave for two readings at philadelphia this evening. being at boston last sunday, i took it into my head to go over the medical school, and survey the holes and corners in which that extraordinary murder was done by webster. there was the furnace--stinking horribly, as if the dismembered pieces were still inside it--and there are all the grim spouts, and sinks, and chemical appliances, and what not. at dinner, afterwards, longfellow told me a terrific story. he dined with webster within a year of the murder, one of a party of ten or twelve. as they sat at their wine, webster suddenly ordered the lights to be turned out, and a bowl of some burning mineral to be placed on the table, that the guests might see how ghostly it made them look. as each man stared at all the rest in the weird light, all were horrified to see webster _with a rope round his neck_, holding it up, over the bowl, with his head jerked on one side, and his tongue lolled out, representing a man being hanged! poking into his life and character, i find (what i would have staked my head upon) that he was always a cruel man. so no more at present from, my dear wilkie, yours ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] westminster hotel, new york, _sunday, jan. th, ._ as i am off to philadelphia this evening, i may as well post my letter here. i have scarcely a word of news. my cold steadily refuses to leave me; but otherwise i am as right as one can hope to be under this heavy work. my new york readings are over (except four farewell nights in april), and i look forward to the relief of being out of my hardest hall. last friday night, though it was only "nickleby" and "boots," i was again dead beat at the end, and was once more laid upon a sofa. but the faintness went off after a little while. we have now cold, bright, frosty weather, without snow--the best weather for me. having been in great trepidation about the play, i am correspondingly elated by the belief that it really _is_ a success. no doubt the unnecessary explanations will have been taken out, and the flatness of the last act fetched up. at some points i could have done wonders to it, in the way of screwing it up sharply and picturesquely, if i could have rehearsed it. your account of the first night interested me immensely, but i was afraid to open the letter until dolby rushed in with the opened _times_. on wednesday i come back here for my four church readings at brooklyn. each evening an enormous ferryboat will convey me and my state carriage (not to mention half-a-dozen waggons, and any number of people, and a few score of horses) across the river, and will bring me back again. the sale of tickets there was an amazing scene. the noble army of speculators are now furnished (this is literally true, and i am quite serious), each man with a straw mattress, a little bag of bread and meat, two blankets, and a bottle of whisky. with this outfit _they lie down in line on the pavement_ the whole night before the tickets are sold, generally taking up their position at about ten. it being severely cold at brooklyn, they made an immense bonfire in the street--a narrow street of wooden houses!--which the police turned out to extinguish. a general fight then took place, out of which the people farthest off in the line rushed bleeding when they saw a chance of displacing others near the door, and put their mattresses in those places, and then held on by the iron rails. at eight in the morning dolby appeared with the tickets in a portmanteau. he was immediately saluted with a roar of "halloa, dolby! so charley has let you have the carriage, has he, dolby! how is he, dolby! don't drop the tickets, dolby! look alive, dolby!" etc. etc. etc., in the midst of which he proceeded to business, and concluded (as usual) by giving universal dissatisfaction. he is now going off upon a little journey "to look over the ground and cut back again." this little journey (to chicago) is fifteen hundred miles on end, by railway, and back again! we have an excellent gasman, who is well up to that department. we have enlarged the large staff by another clerk, yet even now the preparation of such an immense number of new tickets constantly, and the keeping and checking of the accounts, keep them hard at it. and they get so oddly divided! kelly is at philadelphia, another man at baltimore, two others are stamping tickets at the top of this house, another is cruising over new england, and osgood will come on duty to-morrow (when dolby starts off) to pick me up after the reading, and take me to the hotel, and mount guard over me, and bring me back here. you see that even such wretched domesticity as dolby and self by a fireside is broken up under these conditions. dolby has been twice poisoned, and osgood once. morgan's sharpness has discovered the cause. when the snow is deep upon the ground, and the partridges cannot get their usual food, they eat something (i don't know what, if anybody does) which does not poison _them_, but which poisons the people who eat them. the symptoms, which last some twelve hours, are violent sickness, cold perspiration, and the formation of some detestable mucus in the stomach. you may infer that partridges have been banished from our bill of fare. the appearance of our sufferers was lamentable in the extreme. did i tell you that the severity of the weather, and the heat of the intolerable furnaces, dry the hair and break the nails of strangers? there is not a complete nail in the whole british suite, and my hair cracks again when i brush it. (i am losing my hair with great rapidity, and what i don't lose is getting very grey.) the _cuba_ will bring this. she has a jolly new captain--moody, of the _java_--and her people rushed into the reading, the other night, captain-headed, as if i were their peculiar property. please god i shall come home in her, in my old cabin; leaving here on the nd of april, and finishing my eighty-fourth reading on the previous night! it is likely enough that i shall read and go straight on board. i think this is all my poor stock of intelligence. by-the-bye, on the last sunday in the old year, i lost my old year's pocket-book, "which," as mr. pepys would add, "do trouble me mightily." give me katie's new address; i haven't got it. [sidenote: miss dickens.] philadelphia, _monday, jan. th, ._ i write you this note, a day later than your aunt's, not because i have anything to add to the little i have told her, but because you may like to have it. we arrived here last night towards twelve o'clock, more than an hour after our time. this is one of the immense american hotels (it is called the continental); but i find myself just as quiet here as elsewhere. everything is very good indeed, the waiter is german, and the greater part of the house servants seem to be coloured people. the town is very clean, and the day as blue and bright as a fine italian day. but it freezes very hard. all the tickets being sold here for six nights (three visits of two nights each), the suite complain of want of excitement already, having been here ten hours! mr. and mrs. barney williams, with a couple of servants, and a pretty little child-daughter, were in the train each night, and i talked with them a good deal. they are reported to have made an enormous fortune by acting among the californian gold-diggers. my cold is no better, for the cars are so intolerably hot, that i was often obliged to go and stand upon the break outside, and then the frosty air was biting indeed. the great man of this place is one mr. childs, a newspaper proprietor, and he is so exactly like mr. esse in all conceivable respects except being an inch or so taller, that i was quite confounded when i saw him waiting for me at the station (always called depôt here) with his carriage. during the last two or three days, dolby and i have been making up accounts, which are excellently kept by mr. osgood, and i find them amazing, quite, in their results. i was very much interested in the home accounts of christmas day. i think i have already mentioned that we were in very low spirits on that day. i began to be unwell with my cold that morning, and a long day's travel did not mend the matter. we scarcely spoke (except when we ate our lunch), and sat dolefully staring out of window. i had a few affectionate words from chorley, dated from my room, on christmas morning, and will write him, probably by this mail, a brief acknowledgment. i find it necessary (so oppressed am i with this american catarrh, as they call it) to dine at three o'clock instead of four, that i may have more time to get voice, so that the days are cut short, and letter-writing is not easy. my best love to katie, and to charley, and to our charley, and to all friends. if i could only get to the point of being able to hold my head up and dispense with my pocket-handkerchief for five minutes, i should be all right. [sidenote: mr. charles dickens.] westminster hotel, irving place, new york, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear charley, finding your letter here this afternoon on my return from philadelphia (where i have been reading two nights), i take advantage of a spare half-hour in which to answer it at once, though it will not leave here until saturday. i had previously heard of the play, and had _the times_. it was a great relief and delight to me, for i had no confidence in its success; being reduced to the confines of despair by its length. if i could have rehearsed it, i should have taken the best part of an hour out of it. fechter must be very fine, and i should greatly like to see him play the part. i have not been very well generally, and am oppressed (and i begin to think that i probably shall be until i leave) by a true american cold, which i hope, for the comfort of human nature, may be peculiar to only one of the four quarters of the world. the work, too, is very severe. but i am going on at the same tremendous rate everywhere. the staff, too, has had to be enlarged. dolby was at baltimore yesterday, is at washington to-day, and will come back in the night, and start away again on friday. we find it absolutely necessary for him to go on ahead. we have not printed or posted a single bill here, and have just sold ninety pounds' worth of paper we had got ready for bills. in such a rush a short newspaper advertisement is all we want. "doctor marigold" made a great hit here, and is looked forward to at boston with especial interest. i go to boston for another fortnight, on end, the th of february. the railway journeys distress me greatly. i get out into the open air (upon the break), and it snows and blows, and the train bumps, and the steam flies at me, until i am driven in again. i have finished here (except four farewell nights in april), and begin four nights at brooklyn, on the opposite side of the river, to-night; and thus oscillate between philadelphia, baltimore, and washington, and then cut into new england, and so work my way back to boston for a fortnight, after which come chicago, cincinnati, detroit and cleveland, and buffalo, and then philadelphia, boston, and new york farewells. i will not pass my original bound of eighty-four readings in all. my mind was made up as to that long ago. it will be quite enough. chicago is some fifteen hundred miles from here. what with travelling, and getting ready for reading, and reading, the days are pretty fully occupied. not the less so because i rest very indifferently at night. the people are exceedingly kind and considerate, and desire to be most hospitable besides. but i cannot accept hospitality, and never go out, except at boston, or i should not be fit for the labour. if dolby holds out well to the last it will be a triumph, for he has to see everybody, drink with everybody, sell all the tickets, take all the blame, and go beforehand to all the places on the list. i shall not see him after to-night for ten days or a fortnight, and he will be perpetually on the road during the interval. when he leaves me, osgood, a partner in ticknor and fields' publishing firm, mounts guard over me, and has to go into the hall from the platform door every night, and see how the public are seating themselves. it is very odd to see how hard he finds it to look a couple of thousand people in the face, on which head, by-the-bye, i notice the papers to take "mr. dickens's extraordinary composure" (their great phrase) rather ill, and on the whole to imply that it would be taken as a suitable compliment if i would stagger on to the platform and instantly drop, overpowered by the spectacle before me. dinner is announced (by scott, with a stiff neck and a sore throat), and i must break off with love to bessie and the incipient wenerableses. you will be glad to hear of your distinguished parent that philadelphia has discovered that "he is not like the descriptions we have read of him at the little red desk. he is not at all foppish in appearance. he wears a heavy moustache and a vandyke beard, and looks like a well-to-do philadelphian gentleman." ever, my dear charley, your affectionate father. p.s.--your paper is remarkably good. there is not the least doubt that you can write constantly for a. y. r. i am very pleased with it. [sidenote: miss dickens.] westminster hotel, new york, _friday, jan, th, ._ this will be but a very short report, as i must get out for a little exercise before dinner. my "true american catarrh" (the people seem to have a national pride in it) sticks to me, but i am otherwise well. i began my church readings last night, and it was very odd to see the pews crammed full of people, all in a broad roar at the "carol" and "trial." best love to all. i have written charley a few lines by this mail, and also chorley. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] westminster hotel, new york, _tuesday, jan. st, ._ i finished my church to-night. it is mrs. stowe's brother's, and a most wonderful place to speak in. we had it enormously full last night ("marigold" and "trial"), but it scarcely required an effort. mr. ward beecher (mrs. stowe's brother's name) being present in his pew. i sent to invite him to come round before he left; and i found him to be an unostentatious, straightforward, and agreeable fellow. my cold sticks to me, and i can scarcely exaggerate what i sometimes undergo from sleeplessness. the day before yesterday i could get no rest until morning, and could not get up before twelve. this morning the same. i rarely take any breakfast but an egg and a cup of tea, not even toast or bread-and-butter. my dinner at three, and a little quail or some such light thing when i come home at night, is my daily fare. at the hall i have established the custom of taking an egg beaten up in sherry before going in, and another between the parts. i think that pulls me up; at all events, i have since had no return of faintness. as the men work very hard, and always with their hearts cheerfully in the business, i cram them into and outside of the carriage, to bring them back from brooklyn with me. the other night, scott (with a portmanteau across his knees and a wideawake hat low down upon his nose) told me that he had presented himself for admission in the circus (as good as franconi's, by-the-bye), and had been refused. "the only theayter," he said in a melancholy way, "as i was ever in my life turned from the door of." says kelly: "there must have been some mistake, scott, because george and me went, and we said, 'mr. dickens's staff,' and they passed us to the best seats in the house. go again, scott." "no, i thank you, kelly," says scott, more melancholy than before, "i'm not a-going to put myself in the position of being refused again. it's the only theayter as i was ever turned from the door of, and it shan't be done twice. but it's a beastly country!" "scott," interposed majesty, "don't you express your opinions about the country." "no, sir," says scott, "i never do, please, sir, but when you are turned from the door of the only theayter you was ever turned from, sir, and when the beasts in railway cars spits tobacco over your boots, you (privately) find yourself in a beastly country." i expect shortly to get myself snowed up on some railway or other, for it is snowing hard now, and i begin to move to-morrow. there is so much floating ice in the river that we are obliged to leave a pretty wide margin of time for getting over the ferry to read. the dinner is coming in, and i must leave off. [sidenote: miss dickens.] philadelphia, _thursday, jan. rd, ._ when i wrote to your aunt by the last mail, i accidentally omitted to touch upon the question of helping anne. so i will begin in this present writing with reference to her sad position. i think it will be best for you to be guided by an exact knowledge of her _wants_. try to ascertain from herself what means she has, whether her sick husband gets what he ought to have, whether she is pinched in the articles of necessary clothing, bedding, or the like of that; add to this intelligence your own observation of the state of things about her, and supply what she most wants, and help her where you find the greatest need. the question, in the case of so old and faithful a servant, is not one of so much or so little money on my side, but how _most efficiently_ to ease her mind and help _her_. to do this at once kindly and sensibly is the only consideration by which you have to be guided. take _carte blanche_ from me for all the rest. my washington week is the first week in february, beginning on monday, rd. the tickets are sold, and the president is coming, and the chief members of the cabinet, and the leaders of parties, and so forth, are coming; and, as the holly tree boots says: "that's where it is, don't you see!" in my washington doubts i recalled dolby for conference, and he joined me yesterday afternoon, and we have been in great discussion ever since on the possibility of giving up the far west, and avoiding such immense distances and fatigues as would be involved in travelling to chicago and cincinnati. we have sketched another tour for the last half of march, which would be infinitely easier for me, though on the other hand less profitable, the places and the halls being smaller. the worst of it is, that everybody one advises with has a monomania respecting chicago. "good heaven, sir," the great philadelphian authority said to me this morning, "if you don't read in chicago, the people will go into fits." in reference to fatigue, i answered: "well, i would rather they went into fits than i did." but he didn't seem to see it at all. ---- alone constantly writes me: "don't go to the west; you can get what you want so much more easily." how we shall finally decide, i don't yet know. my brooklyn church has been an immense success, and i found its minister was a bachelor, a clever, unparsonic, and straightforward man, and a man with a good knowledge of art into the bargain. we are not a bit too soon here, for the whole country is beginning to be stirred and shaken by the presidential election, and trade is exceedingly depressed, and will be more so. fanny kemble lives near this place, but had gone away a day before my first visit here. _she_ is going to read in february or march. du chaillu has been lecturing out west about the gorilla, and has been to see me; i saw the cunard steamer _persia_ out in the stream, yesterday, beautifully smart, her flags flying, all her steam up, and she only waiting for her mails to slip away. she gave me a horrible touch of home-sickness. when the st of march arrives, and i can say "next month," i shall begin to grow brighter. a fortnight's reading in boston, too (last week of february and first week of march), will help me on gaily, i hope (the work so far off tells). it is impossible for the people to be more affectionately attached to a third, i really believe, than fields and his wife are to me; and they are a landmark in the prospect. dolby sends kindest regards, and wishes it to be known that he has not been bullied lately. we do _not_ go west at all, but take the easier plan. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] baltimore, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ as i have an hour to spare, before starting to philadelphia, i begin my letter this morning. it has been snowing hard for four-and-twenty hours, though this place is as far south as valentia in spain; and dolby, being on his way to new york, has a good chance of being snowed up somewhere. they are a bright responsive people here, and very pleasant to read to. i have rarely seen so many fine faces in an audience. i read here in a charming little opera-house built by a society of germans, quite a delightful place for the purpose. i stand on the stage, with a drop curtain down, and my screen before it. the whole scene is very pretty and complete, and the audience have a "ring" in them that sounds in the ear. i go from here to philadelphia to read to-morrow night and friday, come through here again on saturday on my way to washington, come back here on saturday week for two finishing nights, then go to philadelphia for two farewells, and so turn my back on the southern part of the country. distances and travelling have obliged us to reduce the list of readings by two, leaving eighty-two in all. of course we afterwards discovered that we had finally settled the list on a friday! i shall be halfway through it at washington, of course, on a friday also, and my birthday! dolby and osgood, who do the most ridiculous things to keep me in spirits (i am often very heavy, and rarely sleep much), have decided to have a walking-match at boston, on saturday, february th. beginning this design in joke, they have become tremendously in earnest, and dolby has actually sent home (much to his opponent's terror) for a pair of seamless socks to walk in. our men are hugely excited on the subject, and continually make bets on "the men." fields and i are to walk out six miles, and "the men" are to turn and walk round us. neither of them has the least idea what twelve miles at a pace is. being requested by both to give them "a breather" yesterday, i gave them a stiff one of five miles over a bad road in the snow, half the distance uphill. i took them at a pace of four miles and a half an hour, and you never beheld such objects as they were when we got back; both smoking like factories, and both obliged to change everything before they could come to dinner. they have the absurdest ideas of what are tests of walking power, and continually get up in the maddest manner and see _how high they can kick_ the wall! the wainscot here, in one place, is scored all over with their pencil-marks. to see them doing this--dolby, a big man, and osgood, a very little one, is ridiculous beyond description. philadelphia, _same night._ we came on here through a snowstorm all the way, but up to time. fanny kemble (who begins to read shortly) is coming to "marigold" and "trial" to-morrow night. i have written her a note, telling her that if it will at all assist _her_ movements to know _mine_, my list is at her service. probably i shall see her to-morrow. tell mamie (to whom i will write next), with my love, that i found her letter of the th of this month awaiting me here. the _siberia_ that brought it is a new cunarder, and made an unusually slow passage out. probably because it would be dangerous to work new machinery too fast on the atlantic. _thursday, th._ my cold still sticks to me. the heat of the railway cars and their unventilated condition invariably brings it back when i think it going. this morning my head is as stuffed and heavy as ever! a superb sledge and four horses have been offered me for a ride, but i am afraid to take it, lest i should make the "true american catarrh" worse, and should get hoarse. so i am going to give osgood another "breather" on foot instead. the communication with new york is not interrupted, so we consider the zealous dolby all right. you may imagine what his work is, when you hear that he goes three times to every place we visit. firstly, to look at the hall, arrange the numberings, and make five hundred acquaintances, whom he immediately calls by their christian-names; secondly, to sell the tickets--a very nice business, requiring great tact and temper; thirdly, with me. he will probably turn up at washington next sunday, but only for a little while; for as soon as i am on the platform on monday night, he will start away again, probably to be seen no more until we pass through new york in the middle of february. [sidenote: mr. samuel cartwright] baltimore, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear cartwright, as i promised to report myself to you from this side of the atlantic, and as i have some leisure this morning, i am going to lighten my conscience by keeping my word. i am going on at a great pace and with immense success. next week, at washington, i shall, please god, have got through half my readings. the remaining half are all arranged, and they will carry me into the third week of april. it is very hard work, but it is brilliantly paid. the changes that i find in the country generally (this place is the least changed of any i have yet seen) exceed my utmost expectations. i had been in new york a couple of days before i began to recognise it at all; and the handsomest part of boston was a black swamp when i saw it five-and-twenty years ago. considerable advances, too, have been made socially. strange to say, the railways and railway arrangements (both exceedingly defective) seem to have stood still while all other things have been moving. one of the most comical spectacles i have ever seen in my life was "church," with a heavy sea on, in the saloon of the cunard steamer coming out. the officiating minister, an extremely modest young man, was brought in between two big stewards, exactly as if he were coming up to the scratch in a prize-fight. the ship was rolling and pitching so, that the two big stewards had to stop and watch their opportunity of making a dart at the reading-desk with their reverend charge, during which pause he held on, now by one steward and now by the other, with the feeblest expression of countenance and no legs whatever. at length they made a dart at the wrong moment, and one steward was immediately beheld alone in the extreme perspective, while the other and the reverend gentleman _held on by the mast_ in the middle of the saloon--which the latter embraced with both arms, as if it were his wife. all this time the congregation was breaking up into sects and sliding away; every sect (as in nature) pounding the other sect. and when at last the reverend gentleman had been tumbled into his place, the desk (a loose one, put upon the dining-table) deserted from the church bodily, and went over to the purser. the scene was so extraordinarily ridiculous, and was made so much more so by the exemplary gravity of all concerned in it, that i was obliged to leave before the service began. this is one of the places where butler carried it with so high a hand in the war, and where the ladies used to spit when they passed a northern soldier. it still wears, i fancy, a look of sullen remembrance. (the ladies are remarkably handsome, with an eastern look upon them, dress with a strong sense of colour, and make a brilliant audience.) the ghost of slavery haunts the houses; and the old, untidy, incapable, lounging, shambling black serves you as a free man. free of course he ought to be; but the stupendous absurdity of making him a voter glares out of every roll of his eye, stretch of his mouth, and bump of his head. i have a strong impression that the race must fade out of the states very fast. it never can hold its own against a striving, restless, shifty people. in the penitentiary here, the other day, in a room full of all blacks (too dull to be taught any of the work in hand), was one young brooding fellow, very like a black rhinoceros. he sat glowering at life, as if it were just endurable at dinner time, until four of his fellows began to sing, most unmelodiously, a part song. he then set up a dismal howl, and pounded his face on a form. i took him to have been rendered quite desperate by having learnt anything. i send my kind regard to mrs. cartwright, and sincerely hope that she and you have no new family distresses or anxieties. my standing address is the westminster hotel, irving place, new york city. and i am always, my dear cartwright, cordially yours. [sidenote: miss dickens.] philadelphia, _friday, jan. st, ._ since writing to your aunt i have received yours of the th, and am truly glad to have the last news of you confirmed by yourself. from a letter wilkie has written to me, it seems there can be no doubt that the "no thoroughfare" drama is a real, genuine, and great success. it is drawing immensely, and seems to "go" with great effect and applause. "doctor marigold" here last night (for the first time) was an immense success, and all philadelphia is going to rush at once for tickets for the two philadelphian farewells the week after next. the tickets are to be sold to-morrow, and great excitement is anticipated in the streets. dolby not being here, a clerk will sell, and will probably wish himself dead before he has done with it. it appears to me that chorley[ ] writes to you on the legacy question because he wishes you to understand that there is no danger of his changing his mind, and at the bottom i descry an honest desire to pledge himself as strongly as possible. you may receive it in that better spirit, or i am much mistaken. tell your aunt, with my best love, that i wrote to chauncey weeks ago, in answer to a letter from him. i am now going out in a sleigh (and four) with unconceivable dignity and grandeur; mentioning which reminds me that i am informed by trusty scouts that ---- intends to waylay me at washington, and may even descend upon me in the train to-morrow. best love to katie, the two charleys, and all. [sidenote: miss dickens.] washington, _tuesday, feb. th, ._ i began here last night with great success. the hall being small, the prices were raised to three dollars each ticket. the audience was a superior one, composed of the foremost public men and their families. at the end of the "carol" they gave a great break out, and applauded, i really believe, for five minutes. you would suppose them to be manchester shillings instead of washington half-sovereigns. immense enthusiasm. a devoted adherent in this place (an englishman) had represented to dolby that if i were taken to an hotel here it would be impossible to secure me a minute's rest, and he undertook to get one wheleker, a german, who keeps a little vérey's, to furnish his private dining-rooms for the illustrious traveller's reception. accordingly here we are, on the first and second floor of a small house, with no one else in it but our people, a french waiter, and a very good french cuisine. perfectly private, in the city of all the world (i should say) where the hotels are intolerable, and privacy the least possible, and quite comfortable. "wheleker's restaurant" is our rather undignified address for the present week. i dined (against my rules) with charles sumner on sunday, he having been an old friend of mine. mr. secretary staunton (war minister) was there. he is a man of a very remarkable memory, and famous for his acquaintance with the minutest details of my books. give him any passage anywhere, and he will instantly cap it and go on with the context. he was commander-in-chief of all the northern forces concentrated here, and never went to sleep at night without first reading something from my books, which were always with him. i put him through a pretty severe examination, but he was better up than i was. the gas was very defective indeed last night, and i began with a small speech, to the effect that i must trust to the brightness of their faces for the illumination of mine; this was taken greatly. in the "carol," a most ridiculous incident occurred all of a sudden. i saw a dog look out from among the seats into the centre aisle, and look very intently at me. the general attention being fixed on me, i don't think anybody saw the dog; but i felt so sure of his turning up again and barking, that i kept my eye wandering about in search of him. he was a very comic dog, and it was well for me that i was reading a very comic part of the book. but when he bounced out into the centre aisle again, in an entirely new place (still looking intently at me) and tried the effect of a bark upon my proceedings, i was seized with such a paroxysm of laughter, that it communicated itself to the audience, and we roared at one another loud and long. the president has sent to me twice, and i am going to see him to-morrow. he has a whole row for his family every night. dolby rejoined his chief yesterday morning, and will probably remain in the august presence until sunday night. he and osgood, "training for the match," are ludicrous beyond belief. i saw them just now coming up a street, each trying to pass the other, and immediately fled. since i have been writing this, they have burst in at the door and sat down on the floor to blow. dolby is now writing at a neighbouring table, with his bald head smoking as if he were on fire. kelly (his great adherent) asked me, when he was last away, whether it was quite fair that i should take mr. osgood out for "breathers" when mr. dolby had no such advantage. i begin to expect that half boston will turn out on the th to see the match. in which case it will be unspeakably droll. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] washington, _my birthday_, . (_and my cold worse than ever._) this will be but a short letter, as i have been to see the president this morning, and have little time before the post goes. he had sent a gentleman to me, most courteously begging me to make my own appointment, and i did so. a man of very remarkable appearance indeed, of tremendous firmness of purpose. not to be turned or trifled with. as i mention my cold's being so bad, i will add that i have never had anything the matter with me since i came here _but_ the cold. it is now in my throat, and slightly on my chest. it occasions me great discomfort, and you would suppose, seeing me in the morning, that i could not possibly read at night. but i have always come up to the scratch, have not yet missed one night, and have gradually got used to that. i had got much the better of it; but the dressing-room at the hall here is singularly cold and draughty, and so i have slid back again. the papers here having written about this being my birthday, the most exquisite flowers came pouring in at breakfast time from all sorts of people. the room is covered with them, made up into beautiful bouquets, and arranged in all manner of green baskets. probably i shall find plenty more at the hall to-night. this is considered the dullest and most apathetic place in america. _my_ audiences have been superb. i mentioned the dog on the first night here. next night i thought i heard (in "copperfield") a suddenly suppressed bark. it happened in this wise: osgood, standing just within the door, felt his leg touched, and looking down beheld the dog staring intently at me, and evidently just about to bark. in a transport of presence of mind and fury, he instantly caught him up in both hands and threw him over his own head out into the entry, where the check-takers received him like a game at ball. last night he came again _with another dog_; but our people were so sharply on the look-out for him that he didn't get in. he had evidently promised to pass the other dog free. [sidenote: miss dickens.] baltimore, u.s., _tuesday, feb. th, ._ the weather has been desperately severe, and my cold quite as bad as ever. i couldn't help laughing at myself on my birthday at washington. it was observed as much as though i were a little boy. flowers and garlands (of the most exquisite kind) bloomed all over the room; letters radiant with good wishes poured in; a shirt pin, a handsome silver travelling bottle, a set of gold shirt studs, and a set of gold sleeve links were on the dinner-table. after "boots," at night, the whole audience rose and remained (secretaries of state, president's family, judges of supreme court, and so forth) standing and cheering until i went back to the table and made them a little speech. on the same august day of the year i was received by the president, a man with a very remarkable and determined face. each of us looked at each other very hard, and each of us managed the interview (i think) to the satisfaction of the other. in the outer room was sitting a certain sunburnt general blair, with many evidences of the war upon him. he got up to shake hands with me, and then i found he had been out in the prairie with me five-and-twenty years ago. that afternoon my "catarrh" was in such a state that charles sumner, coming in at five o'clock and finding me covered with mustard poultice, and apparently voiceless, turned to dolby and said: "surely, mr. dolby, it is impossible that he can read to-night." says dolby: "sir, i have told the dear chief so four times to-day, and i have been very anxious. but you have no idea how he will change when he gets to the little table." after five minutes of the little table, i was not (for the time) even hoarse. the frequent experience of this return of force when it is wanted saves me a vast amount of anxiety. i wish you would get from homan and report to me, as near as he can make, an approximate estimate is the right term in the trade, i believe, of the following work: . to re-cover, with red leather, all the dining-room chairs. . to ditto, with green leather, all the library chairs and the couch. . to provide and lay down new _brussels_ carpets in the front spare and the two top spares. quality of carpet, quality of yours and mine. i have some doubts about the state of the hall floor-cloth, and also the floor-cloth in the dining-room. will you and your aunt carefully examine both (calling in homan too, if necessary), _and report to me_? it would seem that "no thoroughfare" has really developed as a drama into an amazing success. i begin to think that i shall see it. dolby is away this morning, to conquer or die in a terrific struggle with the mayor of newhaven (where i am to read next week), who has assailed him on a charge of false play in selling tickets. osgood, my other keeper, stands at the table to take me out, and have a "breather" for the walking-match, so i must leave off. think of my dreaming of mrs. bouncer each night!!! [sidenote: mr. henry fielding dickens.] baltimore, u.s., _tuesday, feb. th, ._ my dear harry, i should have written to you before now, but for constant and arduous occupation. in reference to the cricket club's not being what it might be, i agree with you in the main. there are some things to be considered, however, which you have hardly taken into account. the first thing to be avoided is, the slightest appearance of patronage (one of the curses of england). the second thing to be avoided is, the deprival of the men of their just right to manage their own affairs. i would rather have no club at all, than have either of these great mistakes made. the way out of them is this: call the men together, and explain to them that the club might be larger, richer, and better. say that you think that more of the neighbouring gentlemen could be got to be playing members. that you submit to them that it would be better to have a captain who could correspond with them, and talk to them, and in some sort manage them; and that, being perfectly acquainted with the game, and having long played it at a great public school, you propose yourself as captain, for the foregoing reasons. that you propose to them to make the subscription of the gentlemen members at least double that of the working men, for no other reason than that the gentlemen can afford it better; but that both classes of members shall have exactly the same right of voting equally in all that concerns the club. say that you have consulted me upon the matter, and that i am of these opinions, and am ready to become chairman of the club, and to preside at their meetings, and to overlook its business affairs, and to give it five pounds a year, payable at the commencement of each season. then, having brought them to this point, draw up the club's rules and regulations, amending them where they want amendment. discreetly done, i see no difficulty in this. but it can only be honourably and hopefully done by having the men together. and i would not have them at the falstaff, but in the hall or dining-room--the servants' hall, an excellent place. whatever you do, let the men ratify; and let them feel their little importance, and at once perceive how much better the business begins to be done. i am very glad to hear of the success of your reading, and still more glad that you went at it in downright earnest. i should never have made my success in life if i had been shy of taking pains, or if i had not bestowed upon the least thing i have ever undertaken exactly the same attention and care that i have bestowed upon the greatest. do everything at your best. it was but this last year that i set to and learned every word of my readings; and from ten years ago to last night, i have never read to an audience but i have watched for an opportunity of striking out something better somewhere. look at such of my manuscripts as are in the library at gad's, and think of the patient hours devoted year after year to single lines. * * * * * the weather is very severe here, and the work is very hard. dolby, having been violently pitched into by the mayor of newhaven (a town at which i am to read next week), has gone bodily this morning with defiant written instructions from me to inform the said mayor that, if he fail to make out his case, he (dolby) is to return all the money taken, and to tell him that i will not set foot in his jurisdiction; whereupon the newhaven people will probably fall upon the mayor in his turn, and lead him a pleasant life. ever, my dear harry, your affectionate father. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] philadelphia, _thursday, feb. th, ._ we have got into an immense difficulty with the people of newhaven. i have a strong suspicion that one of our men (who sold there) has been speculating all this while, and that he must have put front seats in his pockets, and sold back ones. he denies what the mayor charges, but the mayor holds on grimly. dolby set off from baltimore as soon as we found out what was amiss, to examine and report; but some new feature of difficulty must have come out, for this morning he telegraphs from new york (where he had to sleep last night on his way to newhaven), that he is coming back for further consultation with the chief. it will certainly hurt us, and will of course be distorted by the papers into all manner of shapes. my suspicion _may not_ be correct, but i have an instinctive belief that it is. we shall probably have the old new york row (and loss) over again, unless i can catch this mayor tripping in an assertion. in this very place, we are half-distracted by the speculators. they have been holding out for such high prices, that the public have held out too; and now (frightened at what they have done) the speculators are trying to sell their worst seats at half the cost price, so that we are in the ridiculous situation of having sold the room out, and yet not knowing what empty seats there may be. _we_ could sell at our box-office to any extent; but _we_ can't buy back of the speculators, because we informed the public that all the tickets were gone. and if we bought _under_ our own price and _sold_ at our own price, we should at once be in treaty with the speculators, and should be making money by it! dolby, the much bullied, will come back here presently, half bereft of his senses; and i should be half bereft of mine, if the situation were not comically disagreeable. nothing will induce the people to believe in the farewells. at baltimore on tuesday night (a very brilliant night indeed), they asked as they came out: "when will mr. dickens read here again?" "never." "nonsense! not come back, after such houses as these? come. say when he'll read again." just the same here. we could as soon persuade them that i am the president, as that i am going to read here, for the last time, to-morrow night. there is a child of the barney williams's in this house--a little girl--to whom i presented a black doll when i was here last. i have seen her eye at the keyhole since i began writing this, and i think she and the doll are outside still. "when you sent it up to me by the coloured boy," she said after receiving it (coloured boy is the term for black waiter), "i gave such a cream that ma came running in and creamed too, 'cos she fort i'd hurt myself. but i creamed a cream of joy." _she_ had a friend to play with her that day, and brought the friend with her, to my infinite confusion. a friend all stockings, and much too tall, who sat on the sofa very far back, with her stockings sticking stiffly out in front of her, and glared at me and never spake word. dolby found us confronted in a sort of fascination, like serpent and bird. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] new york, _monday, feb. th, ._ i got your letter of the rd of february here this morning. as i am off at seven to-morrow morning, i answer it at once, though indeed i have nothing to say. "true american" still sticking to me. but i am always ready for my work, and therefore don't much mind. dolby and the mayor of newhaven alternately embrace and exchange mortal defiances. in writing out some advertisements towards midnight last night, he made a very good mistake. "the reading will be comprised within two _minutes_, and the audience are earnestly entreated to be seated ten _hours_ before its commencement." the weather has been finer lately, but the streets are in a horrible condition, through half-melted snow, and it is now snowing again. the walking-match (next saturday week) is already in the boston papers! i suppose half boston will turn out on the occasion. as a sure way of not being conspicuous, "the men" are going to walk in flannel! they are in a mingled state of comicality and gravity about it that is highly ridiculous. yesterday being a bright cool day, i took dolby for a "buster" of eight miles. as everybody here knows me, the spectacle of our splitting up the fashionable avenue (the only way out of town) excited the greatest amazement. no doubt _that_ will be in the papers to-morrow. i give a gorgeous banquet to eighteen (ladies and gentlemen) after the match. mr. and mrs. fields, do. ticknor, longfellow and his daughter, lowell, holmes and his wife, etc. etc. sporting speeches to be made, and the stakes (four hats) to be handed over to the winner. my ship will not be the _cuba_ after all. she is to go into dock, and the _russia_ (a larger ship, and the latest built for the cunard line) is to take her place. very glad to hear of plorn's success. best love to mamie. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] washington, _february th, ._ my dear fechter, your letter reached me here yesterday. i have sent you a telegram (addressed to the theatre) this morning, and i write this by the earliest return mail. my dear fellow, consider yourself my representative. whatever you do, or desire to do, about the play, i fully authorise beforehand. tell webster, with my regard, that i think his proposal honest and fair; that i think it, in a word, like himself; and that i have perfect confidence in his good faith and liberality. as to making money of the play in the united states here, boucicault has filled wilkie's head with golden dreams that have _nothing_ in them. he makes no account of the fact that, wherever i go, the theatres (with my name in big letters) instantly begin playing versions of my books, and that the moment the christmas number came over here they pirated it and played "no thoroughfare." now, i have enquired into the law, and am extremely doubtful whether i _could_ have prevented this. why should they pay for the piece as you act it, when they have no actors, and when all they want is my name, and they can get that for nothing? wilkie has uniformly written of you enthusiastically. in a letter i had from him, dated the th of january, he described your conception and execution of the part in the most glowing terms. "here fechter is magnificent." "here his superb playing brings the house down." "i should call even his exit in the last act one of the subtlest and finest things he does in the piece." "you can hardly imagine what he gets out of the part, or what he makes of his passionate love for marguerite." these expressions, and many others like them, crowded his letter. i never did so want to see a character played on the stage as i want to see you play obenreizer. as the play was going when i last heard of it, i have some hopes that i may see it yet. please god, your adelphi dressing-room will be irradiated with the noble presence of "never wrong" (if you are acting), about the evening of monday, the th of may! i am doing enormous business. it is a wearying life, away from all i love, but i hope that the time will soon begin to spin away. among the many changes that i find here is the comfortable change that the people are in general extremely considerate, and very observant of my privacy. even in this place, i am really almost as much my own master as if i were in an english country town. generally, they are very good audiences indeed. they do not (i think) perceive touches of art to _be_ art; but they are responsive to the broad results of such touches. "doctor marigold" is a great favourite, and they laugh so unrestrainedly at "the trial" from "pickwick" (which you never heard), that it has grown about half as long again as it used to be. if i could send you a "brandy cocktail" by post i would. it is a highly meritorious dram, which i hope to present to you at gad's. my new york landlord made me a "rocky mountain sneezer," which appeared to me to be compounded of all the spirits ever heard of in the world, with bitters, lemon, sugar, and snow. you can only make a true "sneezer" when the snow is lying on the ground. there, my dear boy, my paper is out, and i am going to read "copperfield." count always on my fidelity and true attachment, and look out, as i have already said, for a distinguished visitor about monday, the th of may. ever, my dear fechter, your cordial and affectionate friend. [sidenote: miss dickens.] boston, _tuesday, feb. th, ._ it is so very difficult to know, by any exercise of common sense, what turn or height the political excitement may take next, and it may so easily, and so soon, swallow up all other things, that i think i shall suppress my next week's readings here (by good fortune not yet announced) and watch the course of events. dolby's sudden desponding under these circumstances is so acute, that it is actually swelling his head as i glance at him in the glass while writing. the catarrh is no better and no worse. the weather is intensely cold. the walking-match (of which i will send particulars) is to come off on sunday. mrs. fields is more delightful than ever, and fields more hospitable. my room is always radiant with brilliant flowers of their sending. i don't know whether i told you that the walking-match is to celebrate the extinction of february, and the coming of the day when i can say "next month." [sidenote: miss hogarth.] boston, _thursday, feb. th, ._ this morning at breakfast i received yours of the th from palace gate house. i have very little news to give you in return for your budget. the walking-match is to come off on saturday, and fields and i went over the ground yesterday to measure the miles. we went at a tremendous pace. the condition of the ground is something indescribable, from half-melted snow, running water, and sheets and blocks of ice. the two performers have not the faintest notion of the weight of the task they have undertaken. i give a dinner afterwards, and have just now been settling the bill of fare and selecting the wines. in the first excitement of the presidential impeachment, our houses instantly went down. after carefully considering the subject, i decided to take advantage of the fact that next week's four readings here have not yet been announced, and to abolish them altogether. nothing in this country lasts long, and i think the public may be heartily tired of the president's name by the th of march, when i read at a considerable distance from here. so behold me with a whole week's holiday in view! the boston audiences have come to regard the readings and the reader as their peculiar property; and you would be at once amused and pleased if you could see the curious way in which they seem to plume themselves on both. they have taken to applauding too whenever they laugh or cry, and the result is very inspiriting. i shall remain here until saturday, the th, but shall not read here, after to-morrow night, until the st of april, when i begin my boston farewells, six in number. _friday, th._ it has been snowing all night, and the city is in a miserable condition. we had a fine house last night for "carol" and "trial," and such an enthusiastic one that they persisted in a call after the "carol," and, while i was out, covered the little table with flowers. the "true american" has taken a fresh start, as if it were quite a novelty, and is on the whole rather worse than ever to-day. the cunard packet, the _australasian_ (a poor ship), is some days overdue, and dolby is anxiously looking out for her. there is a lull in the excitement about the president, but the articles of impeachment are to be produced this afternoon, and then it may set in again. osgood came into camp last night from selling in remote places, and reports that at rochester and buffalo (both places near the frontier), canada people bought tickets, who had struggled across the frozen river and clambered over all sorts of obstructions to get them. some of those halls turn out to be smaller than represented, but i have no doubt, to use an american expression, that we shall "get along." to-morrow fortnight we purpose being at the falls of niagara, and then we shall turn back and really begin to wind up. i have got to know the "carol" so well that i can't remember it, and occasionally go dodging about in the wildest manner to pick up lost pieces. they took it so tremendously last night that i was stopped every five minutes. one poor young girl in mourning burst into a passion of grief about tiny tim, and was taken out. this is all my news. each of the pedestrians is endeavouring to persuade the other to take something unwholesome before starting. [sidenote: miss dickens.] boston, _monday, march nd, ._ a heavy gale of wind and a snowstorm oblige me to write suddenly for the cunard steamer a day earlier than usual. the railroad between this and new york will probably be stopped somewhere. after all the hard weather we have had, this is the worst day we have seen. the walking-match came off on saturday, over tremendously difficult ground, against a biting wind, and through deep snow-wreaths. it was so cold, too, that our hair, beards, eyelashes, eyebrows, were frozen hard, and hung with icicles. the course was thirteen miles. they were close together at the turning-point, when osgood went ahead at a splitting pace and with extraordinary endurance, and won by half a mile. dolby did very well indeed, and begs that he may not be despised. in the evening i gave a very splendid dinner. eighteen covers, most magnificent flowers, such table decoration as was never seen in these parts. the whole thing was a great success, and everybody was delighted. i am holiday-making until friday, when we start on the round of travel that is to bring us back here for the st of april. my holiday-making is simply thorough resting, except on wednesday, when i dine with longfellow. there is still great political excitement, but i hope it may not hurt us very much. my fear is that it may damage the farewell. dolby is not of my mind as to this, and i hope he may be right. we are not quite determined whether mrs. fields did not desert our colours, by coming on the ground in a carriage, and having _bread soaked in brandy_ put into the winning man's mouth as he steamed along. she pleaded that she would have done as much for dolby, if _he_ had been ahead, so we are inclined to forgive her. as she had done so much for me in the way of flowers, i thought i would show her a sight in that line at the dinner. you never saw anything like it. two immense crowns; the base, of the choicest exotics; and the loops, oval masses of violets. in the centre of the table an immense basket, overflowing with enormous bell-mouthed lilies; all round the table a bright green border of wreathed creeper, with clustering roses at intervals; a rose for every button-hole, and a bouquet for every lady. they made an exhibition of the table before dinner to numbers of people. p. h. has just come in with a newspaper, containing a reference (in good taste!) to the walking-match. he posts it to you by this post. it is telegraphed that the storm prevails over an immense extent of country, and is just the same at chicago as here. i hope it may prove a wind-up. we are getting sick of the sound of sleigh-bells even. your account of anne has greatly interested me. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] syracuse, u.s. of america, _sunday night, march th, ._ my dear fechter, i am here in a most wonderful out-of-the-world place, which looks as if it had begun to be built yesterday, and were going to be imperfectly knocked together with a nail or two the day after to-morrow. i am in the worst inn that ever was seen, and outside is a thaw that places the whole country under water. i have looked out of window for the people, and i can't find any people. i have tried all the wines in the house, and there are only two wines, for which you pay six shillings a bottle, or fifteen, according as you feel disposed to change the name of the thing you ask for. (the article never changes.) the bill of fare is "in french," and the principal article (the carte is printed) is "paettie de shay." i asked the irish waiter what this dish was, and he said: "it was the name the steward giv' to oyster patties--the frinch name." these are the drinks you are to wash it down with: "mooseux," "abasinthe," "curacco," "marschine," "annise," and "margeaux"! i am growing very home-sick, and very anxious for the nd of april; on which day, please god, i embark for home. i am beginning to be tired, and have been depressed all the time (except when reading), and have lost my appetite. i cannot tell you--but you know, and therefore why should i?--how overjoyed i shall be to see you again, my dear boy, and how sorely i miss a dear friend, and how sorely i miss all art, in these parts. no disparagement to the country, which has a great future in reserve, or to its people, who are very kind to me. i mean to take my leave of readings in the autumn and winter, in a final series in england with chappell. this will come into the way of literary work for a time, for, after i have rested--don't laugh--it is a grim reality--i shall have to turn my mind to--ha! ha! ha!--to--ha! ha! ha! (more sepulchrally than before)--the--the christmas number!!! i feel as if i had murdered a christmas number years ago (perhaps i did!) and its ghost perpetually haunted me. nevertheless in some blessed rest at gad's, we will talk over stage matters, and all matters, in an even way, and see what we can make of them, please god. be sure that i shall not be in london one evening, after disembarking, without coming round to the theatre to embrace you, my dear fellow. i have had an american cold (the worst in the world) since christmas day. i read four times a week, with the most tremendous energy i can bring to bear upon it. i travel about pretty heavily. i am very resolute about calling on people, or receiving people, or dining out, and so save myself a great deal. i read in all sorts of places--churches, theatres, concert rooms, lecture halls. every night i read i am described (mostly by people who have not the faintest notion of observing) from the sole of my boot to where the topmost hair of my head ought to be, but is not. sometimes i am described as being "evidently nervous;" sometimes it is rather taken ill that "mr. dickens is so extraordinarily composed." my eyes are blue, red, grey, white, green, brown, black, hazel, violet, and rainbow-coloured. i am like "a well-to-do american gentleman," and the emperor of the french, with an occasional touch of the emperor of china, and a deterioration from the attributes of our famous townsman, rufus w. b. d. dodge grumsher pickville. i say all sorts of things that i never said, go to all sorts of places that i never saw or heard of, and have done all manner of things (in some previous state of existence i suppose) that have quite escaped my memory. you ask your friend to describe what he is about. this is what he is about, every day and hour of his american life. i hope to be back with you before you write to me! ever, my dear fechter, your most affectionate and hearty friend. p.s.--don't let madame fechter, or marie, or paul forget me! [sidenote: miss hogarth.] syracuse, _sunday, march th, ._ as we shall probably be busy all day to-morrow, i write this to-day, though it will not leave new york until wednesday. this is a very grim place in a heavy thaw, and a most depressing one. the hotel also is surprisingly bad, quite a triumph in that way. we stood out for an hour in the melting snow, and came in again, having to change completely. then we sat down by the stove (no fireplace), and there we are now. we were so afraid to go to bed last night, the rooms were so close and sour, that we played whist, double dummy, till we couldn't bear each other any longer. we had an old buffalo for supper, and an old pig for breakfast, and we are going to have i don't know what for dinner at six. in the public rooms downstairs, a number of men (speechless) are sitting in rocking-chairs, with their feet against the window-frames, staring out at window and spitting dolefully at intervals. scott is in tears, and george the gasman is suborning people to go and clean the hall, which is a marvel of dirt. and yet we have taken considerably over three hundred pounds for to-morrow night! we were at albany the night before last and yesterday morning; a very pretty town, where i am to read on the th and th. this day week we hope to wash out this establishment with the falls of niagara. and there is my news, except that your _last letters_ to me in america must be posted by the cunard steamer, which will sail from liverpool on _saturday, the th of april_. these i shall be safe to get before embarking. i send a note to katie (addressed to mamie) by this mail. i wrote to harry some weeks ago, stating to him on what principles he must act in remodelling the cricket club, if he would secure success. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] _monday morning, th._ nothing new. weather cloudy, and town more dismal than yesterday. it froze again last night, and thaws again this morning. somebody sent me an australian newspaper this morning--some citizen of syracuse i mean--because of a paragraph in it describing the taking of two freebooters, at which taking alfred was present. though i do not make out that he had anything in the world to do with it, except having his name pressed into the service of the newspaper. buffalo, _thursday, march th, ._ i hope this may be in time for next saturday's mail; but this is a long way from new york, and rivers are swollen with melted snow, and travelling is unusually slow. just now (two o'clock in the afternoon) i received your sad news of the death of poor dear chauncey.[ ] it naturally goes to my heart. it is not a light thing to lose such a friend, and i truly loved him. in the first unreasonable train of feeling, i dwelt more than i should have thought possible on my being unable to attend his funeral. i know how little this really matters; but i know he would have wished me to be there with real honest tears for his memory, and i feel it very much. i never, never, never was better loved by man than i was by him, i am sure. poor dear fellow, good affectionate gentle creature. i have not as yet received any letter from henri, nor do i think he can have written to new york by your mail. i believe that i am--i know that i _was_--one of the executors. in that case mr. jackson, his agent, will either write to me very shortly on henri's information of my address, or enquiry will be made at gad's or at the office about it. it is difficult for me to write more just now. the news is a real shock at such a distance, and i must read to-night, and i must compose my mind. let mekitty know that i received her violets with great pleasure, and that i sent her my best love and my best thanks. on the th of february i read "copperfield" and "bob" at boston. either on that very day, or very close upon it, i was describing his (townshend's) house to fields, and telling him about the great danby picture that he should see when he came to london. [sidenote: miss dickens.] rochester, _sunday, march th, ._ i found yours of the th february, when i came back here last night. we have had two brilliant sunny days at niagara, and have seen that wonderful place under the finest circumstances. enclosed i return you homan's estimate; let all that work be done, including the curtains. as to the hall, i have my doubts whether one of the parqueted floors made by aaron smith's, of bond street, ought not to be better than tiles, for the reason that perhaps the nature of the house's construction might render the "bed" necessary for wooden flooring more easy to be made than the "bed" necessary for tiles. i don't think you can do better than call in the trusty lillie to advise. decide with your aunt on which appears to be better, under the circumstances. have estimate made for _cash_, select patterns and colours, and let the work be done out of hand. (here's a prompt order; now i draw breath.) let it be thoroughly well done--no half measures. there is a great thaw all over the country here, and i think it has done the catarrh good. i am to read at the famous newhaven on tuesday, the th. i hope without a row, but cannot say. the readings are running out fast now, and we are growing very restless. this is a short letter, but we are pressed for time. it is two o'clock, and we dine at three, before reading. to-morrow we rise at six, and have eleven hours' railway or so. we have now come back from our farthest point, and are steadily working towards home. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] springfield, mass., _saturday, march st, ._ my dearest macready, what with perpetual reading and travelling, what with a "true american catarrh" (on which i am complimented almost boastfully), and what with one of the severest winters ever known, your coals of fire received by the last mail did not burn my head so much as they might have done under less excusatory circumstances. but they scorched it too! you would find the general aspect of america and americans decidedly much improved. you would find immeasurably greater consideration and respect for your privacy than of old. you would find a steady change for the better everywhere, except (oddly enough) in the railroads generally, which seem to have stood still, while everything else has moved. but there is an exception westward. there the express trains have now a very delightful carriage called a "drawing-room car," literally a series of little private drawing-rooms, with sofas and a table in each, opening out of a little corridor. in each, too, is a large plate-glass window, with which you can do as you like. as you pay extra for this luxury, it may be regarded as the first move towards two classes of passengers. when the railroad straight away to san francisco (in six days) shall be opened through, it will not only have these drawing-rooms, but sleeping-rooms too; a bell in every little apartment communicating with a steward's pantry, a restaurant, a staff of servants, marble washing-stands, and a barber's shop! i looked into one of these cars a day or two ago, and it was very ingeniously arranged and quite complete. i left niagara last sunday, and travelled on to albany, through three hundred miles of flood, villages deserted, bridges broken, fences drifting away, nothing but tearing water, floating ice, and absolute wreck and ruin. the train gave in altogether at utica, and the passengers were let loose there for the night. as i was due at albany, a very active superintendent of works did all he could to "get mr. dickens along," and in the morning we resumed our journey through the water, with a hundred men in seven-league boots pushing the ice from before us with long poles. how we got to albany i can't say, but we got there somehow, just in time for a triumphal "carol" and "trial." all the tickets had been sold, and we found the albanians in a state of great excitement. you may imagine what the flood was when i tell you that we took the passengers out of two trains that had their fires put out by the water four-and-twenty hours before, and cattle from trucks that had been in the water i don't know how long, but so long that the sheep had begun to eat each other! it was a horrible spectacle, and the haggard human misery of their faces was quite a new study. there was a fine breath of spring in the air concurrently with the great thaw; but lo and behold! last night it began to snow again with a strong wind, and to-day a snowdrift covers this place with all the desolation of winter once more. i never was so tired of the sight of snow. as to sleighing, i have been sleighing about to that extent, that i am sick of the sound of a sleigh-bell. i have seen all our boston friends, except curtis. ticknor is dead. the rest are very little changed, except that longfellow has a perfectly white flowing beard and long white hair. but he does not otherwise look old, and is infinitely handsomer than he was. i have been constantly with them all, and they have always talked much of you. it is the established joke that boston is my "native place," and we hold all sorts of hearty foregatherings. they all come to every reading, and are always in a most delightful state of enthusiasm. they give me a parting dinner at the club, on the thursday before good friday. to pass from boston personal to new york theatrical, i will mention here that one of the proprietors of my new york hotel is one of the proprietors of niblo's, and the most active. consequently i have seen the "black crook" and the "white fawn," in majesty, from an arm-chair in the first entrance, p.s., more than once. of these astonishing dramas, i beg to report (seriously) that i have found no human creature "behind" who has the slightest idea what they are about (upon my honour, my dearest macready!), and that having some amiable small talk with a neat little spanish woman, who is the _première danseuse_, i asked her, in joke, to let me measure her skirt with my dress glove. holding the glove by the tip of the forefinger, i found the skirt to be just three gloves long, and yet its length was much in excess of the skirts of two hundred other ladies, whom the carpenters were at that moment getting into their places for a transformation scene, on revolving columns, on wires and "travellers" in iron cradles, up in the flies, down in the cellars, on every description of float that wilmot, gone distracted, could imagine! i have taken my passage for liverpool from new york in the cunarder _russia_, on the nd of april. i had the second officer's cabin on deck coming out, and i have the chief steward's cabin on deck going home, because it will be on the sunny side of the ship. i have experienced nothing here but good humour and cordiality. in the autumn and winter i have arranged with chappells to take my farewell of reading in the united kingdom for ever and ever. i am delighted to hear of benvenuta's marriage, and i think her husband a very lucky man. johnnie has my profound sympathy under his examinatorial woes. the noble boy will give me gavazzi revised and enlarged, i expect, when i next come to cheltenham. i will give you and mrs. macready all my american experiences when you come to london, or, better still, to gad's. meanwhile i send my hearty love to all, not forgetting dear katie. niagara is not at all spoiled by a very dizzy-looking suspension bridge. is to have another still nearer to the horse-shoe opened in july. my last sight of that scene (last sunday) was thus: we went up to the rapids above the horse-shoe--say two miles from it--and through the great cloud of spray. everything in the magnificent valley--buildings, forest, high banks, air, water, everything--was _made of rainbow_. turner's most imaginative drawing in his finest day has nothing in it so ethereal, so gorgeous in fancy, so celestial. we said to one another (dolby and i), "let it for evermore remain so," and shut our eyes and came away. god bless you and all dear to you, my dear old friend! i am ever your affectionate and loving. [sidenote: miss dickens.] portland, _sunday, march th, ._ i should have written to you by the last mail, but i really was too unwell to do it. the writing day was last friday, when i ought to have left boston for new bedford (fifty-five miles) before eleven in the morning. but i was so exhausted that i could not be got up, and had to take my chance of an evening's train producing me in time to read, which it just did. with the return of snow, nine days ago, the "true american" (which had lulled) came back as bad as ever. i have coughed from two or three in the morning until five or six, and have been absolutely sleepless. i have had no appetite besides, and no taste. last night here i took some laudanum, and it is the only thing that has done me good. but the life in this climate is so very hard. when i did manage to get from boston to new bedford, i read with my utmost force and vigour. next morning, well or ill, i must turn out at seven to get back to boston on my way here. i dine at boston at three, and at five must come on here (a hundred and thirty miles or so), for to-morrow night; there being no sunday train. to-morrow night i read here in a very large place, and tuesday morning at six i must start again to get back to boston once more. but after to-morrow night, i have only the boston and new york farewells, thank god! i am most grateful to think that when we came to devise the details of the tour, i foresaw that it could never be done, as dolby and osgood proposed, by one unassisted man, as if he were a machine. if i had not cut out the work, and cut out canada, i could never have gone there, i am quite sure. even as it is, i have just now written to dolby (who is in new york), to see my doctor there, and ask him to send me some composing medicine that i can take at night, inasmuch as without sleep i cannot get through. however sympathetic and devoted the people are about me, they _can not_ be got to comprehend that one's being able to do the two hours with spirit when the time comes round, may be co-existent with the consciousness of great depression and fatigue. i don't mind saying all this, now that the labour is so nearly over. you shall have a brighter account of me, please god, when i close this at boston. _monday, march th._ without any artificial aid, i got a splendid night's rest last night, and consequently am very much freshened up to-day. yesterday i had a fine walk by the sea, and to-day i have had another on the heights overlooking it. boston, _tuesday, st._ i have safely arrived here, just in time to add a line to that effect, and get this off by to-morrow's english mail from new york. catarrh rather better. everything triumphant last night, except no sleep again. i suppose dolby to be now on his way back to join me here. i am much mistaken if the political crisis do not damage the farewells by almost one half. i hope that i am certainly better altogether. my room well decorated with flowers, of course, and mr. and mrs. fields coming to dinner. they are the most devoted of friends, and never in the way and never out of it. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] boston, _wednesday, april st, ._ i received your letter of from the th to the th of march, here, last night. my new york doctor has prescribed for me promptly, and i hope i am better. i am certainly no worse. we shall do (to the best of my belief) _very well_ with the farewells here and at new york, but not greatly. everything is at a standstill, pending the impeachment and the next presidential election. i forgot whether i told you that the new york press are going to give me a public dinner, on saturday, the th. i hear (but not from himself) that wills has had a bad fall in hunting, and is, or has been, laid up. i am supposed, i take it, not to know this until i hear it from himself. _thursday._ my notion of the farewells is pretty certain now to turn out right. it is not at all probable that we shall do anything enormous. every pulpit in massachusetts will resound to violent politics to-day and to-night. you remember the hutchinson family?[ ] i have had a grateful letter from john hutchinson. he speaks of "my sister abby" as living in new york. the immediate object of his note is to invite me to the marriage of his daughter, twenty-one years of age. you will see by the evidence of this piece of paper that i am using up my stationery. scott has just been making anxious calculations as to our powers of holding out in the articles of tooth-powder, etc. the calculations encourage him to believe that we shall just hold out, and no more. i think i am still better to-day than i was yesterday; but i am far from strong, and have no appetite. to see me at my little table at night, you would think me the freshest of the fresh. and this is the marvel of fields' life. i don't forget that this is forster's birthday. _friday afternoon, rd._ catarrh worse than ever! and we don't know (at four) whether i can read to-night or must stop. otherwise all well. [sidenote: miss dickens.] boston, _tuesday, april th, ._ i not only read last friday, when i was doubtful of being able to do so, but read as i never did before, and astonished the audience quite as much as myself. you never saw or heard such a scene of excitement. longfellow and all the cambridge men urged me to give in. i have been very near doing so, but feel stronger to-day. i cannot tell whether the catarrh may have done me any lasting injury in the lungs or other breathing organs, until i shall have rested and got home. i hope and believe not. consider the weather. there have been two snowstorms since i wrote last, and to-day the town is blotted out in a ceaseless whirl of snow and wind. i cannot eat (to anything like the ordinary extent), and have established this system: at seven in the morning, in bed, a tumbler of new cream and two tablespoonsful of rum. at twelve, a sherry cobbler and a biscuit. at three (dinner time), a pint of champagne. at five minutes to eight, an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry. between the parts, the strongest beef tea that can be made, drunk hot. at a quarter-past ten, soup, and anything to drink that i can fancy. i don't eat more than half a pound of solid food in the whole four-and-twenty hours, if so much. if i hold out, as i hope to do, i shall be greatly pressed in leaving here and getting over to new york before next saturday's mail from there. do not, therefore, _if all be well_, expect to hear from me by saturday's mail, but look for my last letter from america by the mail of the following wednesday, the th. _be sure_ that you shall hear, however, by saturday's mail, if i should knock up as to reading. i am tremendously "beat," but i feel really and unaffectedly so much stronger to-day, both in my body and hopes, that i am much encouraged. i have a fancy that i turned my worst time last night. dolby is as tender as a woman and as watchful as a doctor. he never leaves me during the reading now, but sits at the side of the platform and keeps his eye upon me all the time. ditto george, the gasman, steadiest and most reliable man i ever employed. i am the more hopeful of my not having to relinquish a reading, because last night was "copperfield" and "bob"--by a quarter of an hour the longest, and, in consideration of the storm, by very much the most trying. yet i was far fresher afterwards than i have been these three weeks. i have "dombey" to do to-night, and must go through it carefully; so here ends my report. the personal affection of the people in this place is charming to the last. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] gad's hill place, _monday, may th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i am delighted to have your letter. it comes to me like a faithful voice from dear old rockingham, and awakens many memories. the work in america has been so very hard, and the winter there has been so excessively severe, that i really have been very unwell for some months. but i had not been at sea three days on the passage home when i became myself again. if you will arrange with mary boyle any time for coming here, we shall be charmed to see you, and i will adapt my arrangements accordingly. i make this suggestion because she generally comes here early in the summer season. but if you will propose yourself _anyhow_, giving me a margin of a few days in case of my being pre-engaged for this day or that, we will (as my american friends say) "fix it." what with travelling, reading night after night, and speech-making day after day, i feel the peace of the country beyond all expression. on board ship coming home, a "deputation" (two in number, of whom only one could get into my cabin, while the other looked in at my window) came to ask me to read to the passengers that evening in the saloon. i respectfully replied that sooner than do it, i would assault the captain, and be put in irons. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. george cattermole.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, may th, ._ my dear mrs. cattermole, on my return from america just now, i accidentally heard that george had been ill. my sister-in-law had heard it from forster, but vaguely. until i received your letter of wednesday's date, i had no idea that he had been very ill; and should have been greatly shocked by knowing it, were it not for the hopeful and bright assurance you give me that he is greatly better. my old affection for him has never cooled. the last time he dined with me, i asked him to come again that day ten years, for i was perfectly certain (this was my small joke) that i should not set eyes upon him sooner. the time being fully up, i hope you will remind him, with my love, that he is due. his hand is upon these walls here, so i should like him to see for himself, and _you_ to see for _yourself_, and in this hope i shall pursue his complete recovery. i heartily sympathise with you in your terrible anxiety, and in your vast relief; and, with many thanks for your letter, am ever, my dear mrs. cattermole, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill, _wednesday, june th, ._ my dearest macready, since my return from america, i have been so overwhelmed with business that i have not had time even to write to you. you may imagine what six months of arrear are to dispose of; added to this, wills has received a concussion of the brain (from an accident in the hunting-field), and is sent away by the doctors, and strictly prohibited from even writing a note. consequently all the business and money details of "all the year round" devolve upon me. and i have had to get them up, for i have never had experience of them. then i am suddenly entreated to go to paris, to look after the french version of "no thoroughfare" on the stage. and i go, and come back, leaving it a great success. i hope mrs. macready and you have not abandoned the idea of coming here? the expression of this hope is the principal, if not the only, object of this present note. may the amiable secretary vouchsafe a satisfactory reply! katie, mary, and georgina send their very best love to your katie and mrs. macready. the undersigned is in his usual brilliant condition, and indeed has greatly disappointed them at home here, by coming back "so brown and looking so well." they expected a wreck, and were, at first, much mortified. but they are getting over it now. to my particular friends, the noble boy and johnny, i beg to be warmly remembered. ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mrs. henry austin.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, july st, ._ on the death of mr. henry austin.[ ] my dear letitia, you will have had a telegram from me to-day. i received your sad news by this morning's post. they never, without express explanation, mind "immediate" on a letter addressed to the office, because half the people who write there on business that does not press, or on no business at all, so mark their letters. on thursday i have people to see and matters to attend to, both at the office and at coutts', which, in wills's absence, i cannot forego or depute to another. but, _between ourselves_, i must add something else: i have the greatest objection to attend a funeral in which my affections are not strongly and immediately concerned. i have no notion of a funeral as a matter of form or ceremony. and just as i should expressly prohibit the summoning to my own burial of anybody who was not very near or dear to me, so i revolt from myself appearing at that solemn rite unless the deceased were very near or dear to me. i cannot endure being dressed up by an undertaker as part of his trade show. i was not in this poor good fellow's house in his lifetime, and i feel that i have no business there when he lies dead in it. my mind is penetrated with sympathy and compassion for the young widow, but that feeling is a real thing, and my attendance as a mourner would not be--to myself. it would be to you, i know, but it would not be to myself. i know full well that you cannot delegate to me your memories of and your associations with the deceased, and the more true and tender they are the more invincible is my objection to become a form in the midst of the most awful realities. with love and condolence from georgina, mary, and katie, believe me, ever your affectionate brother. [sidenote: mrs. george cattermole.] gad's hill, _wednesday, july nd, ._ my dear mrs. cattermole, of course i will sign your memorial to the academy. if you take either of the landseers, certainly take edwin ( , st. john's wood road, n.w.) but, if you would be content with frith, i have already spoken to him, and believe that i can answer for him. i shall be at "all the year round" office, , wellington street, london, to-morrow, from eleven to three. frith will be here on saturday, and i shall be here too. i spoke to him a fortnight ago, and i found him most earnest in the cause. he said he felt absolutely sure that the whole profession in its best and highest representation would do anything for george. i sounded him, having the opportunity of meeting him at dinner at cartwright's. ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] _friday, july st, ._ my dear wills, i had such a hard day at the office yesterday, that i had not time to write to you before i left. so i write to-day. i am very unwilling to abandon the christmas number, though even in the case of my little christmas books (which were immensely profitable) i let the idea go when i thought it was wearing out. ever since i came home, i have hammered at it, more or less, and have been uneasy about it. i have begun something which is very droll, but it manifestly shapes itself towards a book, and could not in the least admit of even that shadowy approach to a congruous whole on the part of other contributors which they have ever achieved at the best. i have begun something else (aboard the american mail-steamer); but i don't like it, because the stories must come limping in after the old fashion, though, of course, what i _have_ done will be good for a. y. r. in short, i have cast about with the greatest pains and patience, and i have been wholly unable to find what i want. and yet i cannot quite make up my mind to give in without another fight for it. i offered one hundred pounds reward at gad's to anybody who could suggest a notion to satisfy me. charles collins suggested one yesterday morning, in which there is _something_, though not much. i will turn it over and over, and try a few more starts on my own account. finally, i swear i will not give it up until august is out. vow registered. i am clear that a number by "various writers" would not do. if we have not the usual sort of number, we must call the current number for that date the christmas number, and make it as good as possible. i sit in the châlet,[ ] like mariana in the moated grange, and to as much purpose. i am buying the freehold of the meadow at gad's, and of an adjoining arable field, so that i shall now have about eight-and-twenty freehold acres in a ring-fence. no more now. i made up a very good number yesterday. you will see in it a very short article that i have called "now!" which is a highly remarkable piece of description. it is done by a new man, from whom i have accepted another article; but he will never do anything so good again. ever affectionately. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, aug. th, ._ my dear cerjat, i was happy to receive your esteemed letter a few days ago. the severity of the winter in america (which was quite exceptional even in that rigorous climate), combined with the hard work i had to do, tried me a good deal. neuralgia and colds beset me, either by turns or both together, and i had often much to do to get through at night. but the sea voyage home again did wonders in restoring me, and i have been very well indeed, though a little fatigued, ever since. i am now preparing for a final reading campaign in england, scotland, and ireland. it will begin on the th of october, and will probably last, with short occasional intermissions, until june. the great subject in england for the moment is the horrible accident to the irish mail-train. it is now supposed that the petroleum (known to be a powerful anæsthetic) rendered the unfortunate people who were burnt almost instantly insensible to any sensation. my escape in the staplehurst accident of three years ago is not to be obliterated from my nervous system. to this hour i have sudden vague rushes of terror, even when riding in a hansom cab, which are perfectly unreasonable but quite insurmountable. i used to make nothing of driving a pair of horses habitually through the most crowded parts of london. i cannot now drive, with comfort to myself, on the country roads here; and i doubt if i could ride at all in the saddle. my reading secretary and companion knows so well when one of these odd momentary seizures comes upon me in a railway carriage, that he instantly produces a dram of brandy, which rallies the blood to the heart and generally prevails. i forget whether i ever told you that my watch (a chronometer) has never gone exactly since the accident? so the irish catastrophe naturally revives the dreadful things i saw that day. the only other news here you know as well as i; to wit, that the country is going to be ruined, and that the church is going to be ruined, and that both have become so used to being ruined, that they will go on perfectly well. * * * * * [sidenote: miss dickens.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, london, w.c., _saturday, sept. th, ._ my dearest mamie, i will add a line to this at the athenæum, after seeing plorn off, to tell you how he went away. athenÆum, _quarter to six._ i can honestly report that he went away, poor dear fellow, as well as could possibly be expected. he was pale, and had been crying, and (harry said) had broken down in the railway carriage after leaving higham station; but only for a short time. just before the train started he cried a good deal, but not painfully. (tell dear georgy that i bought him his cigars.) these are hard, hard things, but they might have to be done without means or influence, and then they would be far harder. god bless him! parliament. reply to a proposal made through alexander russel, of "the scotsman," that he should allow himself to be put forward as a candidate for the representation of edinburgh. [sidenote: mr. f. d. finlay.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, oct. th, ._ my dear finlay, i am much obliged to you in all friendship and sincerity for your letter. i have a great respect for your father-in-law and his paper, and i am much attached to the edinburgh people. you may suppose, therefore, that if my mind were not fully made up on the parliamentary question, i should waver now. but my conviction that i am more useful and more happy as i am than i could ever be in parliament is not to be shaken. i considered it some weeks ago, when i had a stirring proposal from the birmingham people, and i then set it up on a rock for ever and a day. do tell mr. russel that i truly feel this mark of confidence, and that i hope to acknowledge it in person in edinburgh before christmas. there is no man in scotland from whom i should consider his suggestion a greater honour. ever yours. [sidenote: m. charles fechter.] * * * * * poor plorn is gone to australia. it was a hard parting at the last. he seemed to me to become once more my youngest and favourite little child as the day drew near, and i did not think i could have been so shaken. you were his idol to the hour of his departure, and he asked me to tell you how much he wanted to bid you good-bye. kindest love from all. ever heartily. [sidenote: the same.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dear fechter, i got your letter sent to gad's hill this morning. until i received it, i supposed the piece to have been put into english from your french by young ben. if i understand that the english is yours, then i say that it is extraordinarily good, written by one in another country. i do not read again in london until the th; and then "copperfield." but by that time you will be at work yourself. let us dine at six to-day, in order that we may not have to hurry for the comic dog. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] queen's hotel, manchester, _sunday, oct. th, ._ my dearest georgy, we had a fine audience last night in the free trade hall, though not what we consider a large money-house. the let in liverpool is extremely good, and we are going over there at half-past one. we got down here pleasantly enough and in good time; so all has gone well you see. titiens, santley, and an opera company of that class are at the theatre here. they have been doing very poorly in manchester. there is the whole of my scanty news. i was in wonderful voice last night, but croak a little this morning, after so much speaking in so very large a place. otherwise i am all right. i find myself constantly thinking of plorn. [sidenote: miss dickens.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _monday, oct. th, ._ my dearest mamie, our lets here are excellent, and we shall have a great house to-night. we had a very fine and enthusiastic audience in the free trade hall, at manchester, on saturday; but our first nights there never count up in money, as the rest do. yesterday, "charlotte," sainton, and piatti stayed with us here; and they went on to hull this morning. it was pleasant to be alone again, though they were all very agreeable. the exertion of going on for two hours in that immense place at manchester being very great, i was hoarse all day yesterday, though i was not much distressed on saturday night. i am becoming melodious again (at three in the afternoon) rapidly, and count on being quite restored by a basin of turtle at dinner. i am glad to hear about armatage, and hope that a service begun in a personal attachment to plorn may go on well. i shall never be over-confident in such matters, i think, any more. the day is delicious here. we have had a blow on the mersey this morning, and exulted over the american steamers. with kind regard to sir william and lady humphery. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ as i sent a line to mary yesterday, i enclose you alfred's letter. please send it on to her when you next write to penton. i have just now written to mrs. forster, asking her to explain to miss forster how she could have an easy-chair or a sofa behind my side screen on tuesday, without occasioning the smallest inconvenience to anybody. also, how she would have a door close at hand, leading at once to cool passages and a quiet room, etc. etc. etc. it is a sad story. we had a fine house here last night, and a large turn-away. "marigold" and "trial" went immensely. i doubt if "marigold" were ever more enthusiastically received. "copperfield" and "bob" to-night, and a large let. this notwithstanding election meetings and all sorts of things. my favourite room brought my voice round last night, and i am in considerable force. dolby sends kindest regard, and the message: "everton toffee shall not be forgotten." [sidenote: mr. henry fielding dickens.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dear harry, i have your letter here this morning. i enclose you another cheque for twenty-five pounds, and i write to london by this post, ordering three dozen sherry, two dozen port, and three dozen light claret, to be sent down to you. now, observe attentively. we must have no shadow of debt. square up everything whatsoever that it has been necessary to buy. let not a farthing be outstanding on any account, when we begin together with your allowance. be particular in the minutest detail. i wish to have no secret from you in the relations we are to establish together, and i therefore send you joe chitty's letter bodily. reading it, you will know exactly what i know, and will understand that i treat you with perfect confidence. it appears to me that an allowance of two hundred and fifty pounds a year will be handsome for all your wants, if i send you your wines. i mean this to include your tailor's bills as well as every other expense; and i strongly recommend you to buy nothing in cambridge, and to take credit for nothing but the clothes with which your tailor provides you. as soon as you have got your furniture accounts in, let us wipe all those preliminary expenses clean out, and i will then send you your first quarter. we will count in it october, november, and december; and your second quarter will begin with the new year. if you dislike, at first, taking charge of so large a sum as sixty-two pounds ten shillings, you can have your money from me half-quarterly. you know how hard i work for what i get, and i think you know that i never had money help from any human creature after i was a child. you know that you are one of many heavy charges on me, and that i trust to your so exercising your abilities and improving the advantages of your past expensive education, as soon to diminish _this_ charge. i say no more on that head. whatever you do, above all other things keep out of debt and confide in me. if you ever find yourself on the verge of any perplexity or difficulty, come to me. you will never find me hard with you while you are manly and truthful. as your brothers have gone away one by one, i have written to each of them what i am now going to write to you. you know that you have never been hampered with religious forms of restraint, and that with mere unmeaning forms i have no sympathy. but i most strongly and affectionately impress upon you the priceless value of the new testament, and the study of that book as the one unfailing guide in life. deeply respecting it, and bowing down before the character of our saviour, as separated from the vain constructions and inventions of men, you cannot go very wrong, and will always preserve at heart a true spirit of veneration and humility. similarly i impress upon you the habit of saying a christian prayer every night and morning. these things have stood by me all through my life, and remember that i tried to render the new testament intelligible to you and lovable by you when you were a mere baby. and so god bless you. ever your affectionate father. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] office of "all the year round," _monday, nov. th, ._ my dear kent, i was on the eve of writing to you. we thought of keeping the trial private; but oxenford has suggested to chappell that he would like to take the opportunity of to-morrow night's reading, of saying something about "oliver" in _wednesday's paper_. chappell has told levy of this, and also mr. tompkin, of _the post_, who was there. consequently, on wednesday evening your charming article can come out to the best advantage. you have no idea of the difficulty of getting in the end of sikes. as to the man with the invaluable composition! my dear fellow, believe me, no audience on earth could be held for ten minutes after the girl's death. give them time, and they would be revengeful for having had such a strain put upon them. trust me to be right. i stand there, and i know. concerning harry, i like to guide the boys to a distinct choice, rather than to press it on them. that will be my course as to the middle temple, of which i think as you do. with cordial thanks for every word in your letter, affectionately yours always. [sidenote: mrs. f. lehmann.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. lehmann, i hope you will see nancy with the light of a great audience upon her some time between this and may; always supposing that she should not prove too weird and woeful for the general public. you know the aspect of this city on a sunday, and how gay and bright it is. the merry music of the blithe bells, the waving flags, the prettily-decorated houses with their draperies of various colours, and the radiant countenances at the windows and in the streets, how charming they are! the usual preparations are making for the band in the open air, in the afternoon; and the usual pretty children (selected for that purpose) are at this moment hanging garlands round the scott monument, preparatory to the innocent sunday dance round that edifice, with which the diversions invariably close. it is pleasant to think that these customs were themselves of the early christians, those early birds who _didn't_ catch the worm--and nothing else--and choke their young with it. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _sunday, dec. th, ._ we got down here to our time to the moment; and, considering the length of the journey, very easily. i made a calculation on the road, that the railway travelling over such a distance involves something more than thirty thousand shocks to the nerves. dolby didn't like it at all. the signals for a gale were up at berwick, and along the road between there and here. it came on just as we arrived, and blew tremendously hard all night. the wind is still very high, though the sky is bright and the sun shining. we couldn't sleep for the noise. we are very comfortably quartered. i fancy that the "business" will be on the whole better here than in glasgow, where trade is said to be very bad. but i think i shall be pretty correct in both places as to the run being on the final readings. we are going up arthur's seat presently, which will be a pull for our fat friend. scott, in a new mephistopheles hat, baffles imagination and description. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _tuesday, dec. th, ._ my dear wilkie, i am hard at it here as usual, though with an audience so finely perceptive that the labour is much diminished. i have got together in a very short space the conclusion of "oliver twist" that you suggested, and am trying it daily with the object of rising from that blank state of horror into a fierce and passionate rush for the end. as yet i cannot make a certain effect of it; but when i shall have gone over it as many score of times as over the rest of that reading, perhaps i may strike one out. i shall be very glad to hear when you have done your play, and i _am_ glad to hear that you like the steamer. i agree with you about the reading perfectly. in no. you will see an exact account of some places i visited at ratcliffe. there are two little instances in it of something comic rising up in the midst of the direst misery, that struck me very humorously at the time. as i have determined not to do the "oliver murder" until after the th of january, when i shall ascertain its effect on a great audience, it is curious to notice how the shadow of its coming affects the scotch mind. there was such a disposition to hold back for it here (until i return to finish in february) that we had next to no "let" when we arrived. it all came with a rush yesterday. they gave me a most magnificent welcome back from america last night. i am perpetually counting the weeks before me to be "read" through, and am perpetually longing for the end of them; and yet i sometimes wonder whether i shall miss something when they are over. it is a very, very bad day here, very dark and very wet. dolby is over at glasgow, and i am sitting at a side window looking up the length of prince's street, watching the mist change over the castle and murdering nancy by turns. ever affectionately. p.s.--i have read the whole of fitzgerald's "zero," and the idea is exceedingly well wrought out. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _saturday, dec. th, ._ i send another _scotsman_ by this post, because it is really a good newspaper, well written, and well managed. we had an immense house here last night, and a very large turn-away. we have four guests to dinner to-day: peter fraser, ballantyne, john blackwood, and mr. russel. immense preparations are making in the establishment, "on account," mr. kennedy says, "of a' four yon chiels being chiels wha' ken a guid dinner." i enquired after poor doctor burt, not having the least idea that he was dead. my voice holds out splendidly so far, and i have had no return of the american. but i sleep very indifferently indeed. it blew appallingly here the night before last, but the wind has since shifted northward, and it is now bright and cold. the _star of hope_, that picked up those shipwrecked people in the boat, came into leith yesterday, and was received with tremendous cheers. her captain must be a good man and a noble fellow. [sidenote: the same.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _monday, dec. th, ._ the dinner-party of saturday last was an immense success. russel swore on the occasion that he would go over to belfast expressly to dine with me at the finlays'. ballantyne informed me that he was going to send you some scotch remembrance (i don't know what) at christmas! the edinburgh houses are very fine. the glasgow room is a big wandering place, with five prices in it, which makes it the more aggravating, as the people get into knots which they can't break, as if they were afraid of one another. forgery of my name is becoming popular. you sent me, this morning, a letter from russell sturgis, answering a supposed letter of mine (presented by "miss jefferies"), and assuring me of his readiness to give not only the ten pounds i asked for, but any contribution i wanted, towards sending that lady and her family back to boston. i wish you would take an opportunity of forewarning lady tennent that the first night's reading she will attend is an experiment quite out of the way, and that she may find it rather horrible. the keeper of the edinburgh hall, a fine old soldier, presented me, on friday night, with the finest red camellia for my button-hole that ever was seen. nobody can imagine how he came by it, as the florists had had a considerable demand for that colour from ladies in the stalls, and could get no such thing. the day is dark, wet, and windy. the weather is likely to be vile indeed at glasgow, where it always rains, and where the sun is never seen through the smoke. we go over there to-morrow at ten. [sidenote: miss dickens.] carrick's royal hotel, glasgow, _tuesday, dec. th, ._ it occurs to me that my table at st. james's hall might be appropriately ornamented with a little holly next tuesday. if the two front legs were entwined with it, for instance, and a border of it ran round the top of the fringe in front, with a little sprig by way of bouquet at each corner, it would present a seasonable appearance. if you will think of this, and will have the materials ready in a little basket, i will call for you at the office at half-past twelve on tuesday, and take you up to the hall, where the table will be ready for you. no news, except that we had a great crush and a wonderful audience in edinburgh last night. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] carrick's royal hotel, glasgow, _wednesday, dec. th, ._ this is to report all well, except that i have wretched nights. the weather is diabolical here, and times are very bad. i cut "copperfield" with a bold dexterity that amazed myself and utterly confounded george at the wing; knocking off that and "bob" by ten minutes to ten. i don't know anything about the liverpool banquet, except from _the times_. as i don't finish there in february (as they seem to have supposed), but in april, it may, perhaps, stand over or blow over altogether. such a thing would be a serious addition to the work, and yet refusal on my part would be too ungracious. the density and darkness of this atmosphere are fearful. i shall be heartily glad to start for edinburgh again on friday morning. [sidenote: the same.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _friday, dec. th, ._ i am heartily glad to get back here this afternoon. the day is bright and cheerful, and the relief from glasgow inexpressible. the affectionate regard of the people exceeds all bounds, and is shown in every way. the manager of the railway being at the reading the other night, wrote to me next morning, saying that a large saloon should be prepared for my journey up, if i would let him know when i purposed making the journey. on my accepting the offer he wrote again, saying that he had inspected "our northern saloons," and not finding them so convenient for sleeping in as the best english, had sent up to king's cross for the best of the latter; which i would please consider my own carriage as long as i wanted it. the audiences do everything but embrace me, and take as much pains with the readings as i do. i find your christmas present (just arrived) to be a haggis and shortbread! [sidenote: mr. j. c. parkinson.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _christmas day, ._ my dear parkinson, when your letter was delivered at "all the year round" office yesterday, i was attending a funeral. it comes to hand here consequently to-day. i am diffident of addressing mr. gladstone on the subject of your desire to be appointed to the vacant commissionership of inland revenue, because, although my respect for him and confidence in him are second to those of no man in england (a bold word at this time, but a truthful one), my personal acquaintance with him is very slight. but you may make, through any of your friends, any use you please of this letter, towards the end of bringing its contents under mr. gladstone's notice. in expressing my conviction that you deserve the place, and are in every way qualified for it, i found my testimony upon as accurate a knowledge of your character and abilities as anyone can possibly have acquired. in my editorship both of "household words" and "all the year round," you know very well that i have invariably offered you those subjects of political and social interest to write upon, in which integrity, exactness, a remarkable power of generalising evidence and balancing facts, and a special clearness in stating the case, were indispensable on the part of the writer. my confidence in your powers has never been misplaced, and through all our literary intercourse you have never been hasty or wrong. whatever trust you have undertaken has been so completely discharged, that it has become my habit to read your proofs rather for my own edification than (as in other cases) for the detection of some slip here or there, or the more pithy presentation of the subject. that your literary work has never interfered with the discharge of your official duties, i may assume to be at least as well known to your colleagues as it is to me. it is idle to say that if the post were in my gift you should have it, because you have had, for some years, most of the posts of high trust that have been at my disposal. an excellent public servant in your literary sphere of action, i should be heartily glad if you could have this new opportunity of distinguishing yourself in the same character. and this is at least unselfish in me, for i suppose i should then lose you? always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. edward bulwer lytton dickens.] letter to his youngest son on his departure for australia in .[ ] my dearest plorn, i write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind, and because i want you to have a few parting words from me to think of now and then at quiet times. i need not tell you that i love you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. but this life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. it is my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for which you are beat fitted. i think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would ever have been; and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable occupation. what you have already wanted until now has been a set, steady, constant purpose. i therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you have to do as well as you can do it. i was not so old as you are now when i first had to win my food, and do this out of this determination, and i have never slackened in it since. never take a mean advantage of anyone in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power. try to do to others, as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. it is much better for you that they should fail in obeying the greatest rule laid down by our saviour, than that you should. i put a new testament among your books, for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes that made me write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child; because it is the best book that ever was or will be known in the world, and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty can possibly be guided. as your brothers have gone away, one by one, i have written to each such words as i am now writing to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this book, putting aside the interpretations and inventions of men. you will remember that you have never at home been wearied about religious observances or mere formalities. i have always been anxious not to weary my children with such things before they are old enough to form opinions respecting them. you will therefore understand the better that i now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the christian religion, as it came from christ himself, and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect it. only one thing more on this head. the more we are in earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about it. never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. i have never abandoned it myself, and i know the comfort of it. i hope you will always be able to say in after life, that you had a kind father. you cannot show your affection for him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty. your affectionate father. footnotes: [ ] the agricultural college, cirencester. [ ] "no thoroughfare." [ ] the mr. h. f. chorley so often mentioned was the well-known musical critic, and a dear and intimate friend of charles dickens and his family. we have no letters to him, mr. chorley having destroyed all his correspondence before his death. [ ] mr. chauncey hare townshend. he was one of the dearest friends of charles dickens and a very constant correspondent; but no letters addressed to him are in existence. [ ] an american family of brothers and a sister who came to london to give a musical entertainment shortly after charles dickens's return from his first visit to america. he had a great interest in, and liking for, these young people. [ ] cousin and adopted child of mr. and mrs. austin. [ ] a model of a swiss châlet, and a present from m. charles fechter, used by charles dickens as a summer writing-room. [ ] this letter has been already published by mr. forster in his "life." . narrative. the "farewell readings" in town and country were resumed immediately after the beginning of this year, and were to have been continued until the end of may. the work was even harder than it had ever been. charles dickens began his country tour in ireland early in january, and read continuously in all parts of england and scotland until the end of april. a public dinner (in commemoration of his last readings in the town) was given to him at liverpool on the th april. besides all this severe country work, he was giving a series of readings at st. james's hall, and reading the "murder" from "oliver twist," in london and in the country, frequently four times a week. in the second week of february, a sudden and unusually violent attack of the old trouble in his foot made it imperatively necessary to postpone a reading at st. james's hall, and to delay for a day or two his departure for scotland. the foot continued to cause him pain and inconvenience, but, as will be seen from his letters, he generally spoke of himself as otherwise well, until he arrived at preston, where he was to read on the nd of april. the day before this appointed reading, he writes home of some grave symptoms which he had observed in himself, and had reported to his doctor, mr. f. carr beard. that gentleman, taking alarm at what he considered "indisputable evidences of overwork," wisely resolved not to content himself with written consultations, but went down to preston on the day appointed for the reading there, and, after seeing his patient, peremptorily stopped it, carried him off to liverpool, and the next day to london. there he consulted sir thomas watson, who entirely corroborated mr. beard's opinion. and the two doctors agreed that the course of readings must be stopped for this year, and that reading, _combined with travelling_, must be stopped _for ever_. charles dickens had no alternative but to acquiesce in this verdict; but he felt it keenly, not only for himself, but for the sake of the messrs. chappell, who showed the most disinterested kindness and solicitude on the occasion. he at once returned home to gad's hill, and the rest and quiet of the country restored him, for the time, to almost his usual condition of health and spirits. but it was observed, by all who loved him, that from this time forth he never regained his old vigour and elasticity. the attack at preston was the "beginning of the end!" during the spring and summer of this year, he received visits from many dearly valued american friends. in may, he stayed with his daughter and sister-in-law for two or three weeks at the st. james's hotel, piccadilly, having promised to be in london at the time of the arrival of mr. and mrs. fields, of boston, who visited europe, accompanied by miss mabel lowell (the daughter of the famous american poet) this year. besides these friends, mr. and mrs. childs, of philadelphia--from whom he had received the greatest kindness and hospitality, and for whom he had a hearty regard--dr. fordyce barker and his son, mr. eytinge (an illustrator of an american edition of charles dickens's works), and mr. bayard taylor paid visits to gad's hill, which were thoroughly enjoyed by charles dickens and his family. this last summer was a very happy one. he had the annual summer visitors and parties of his friends in the neighbourhood. he was, as usual, projecting improvements in his beloved country home; one, which he called the "crowning improvement of all," was a large conservatory, which was to be added during the absence of the family in london in the following spring. the state of mr. wills's health made it necessary for him now to retire altogether from the editorship of "all the year round." charles dickens's own letters express the regret which he felt at the dissolution of this long and always pleasant association. mr. wills's place at the office was filled by charles dickens's eldest son, now sole editor and proprietor of the journal. in september charles dickens went to birmingham, accompanied by his son harry, and presided at the opening of the session of (what he calls in his letter to mr. arthur ryland, "_our_ institution") the midland institute. he made a speech on education to the young students, and promised to go back early in the following year and distribute the prizes. in one of the letters which we give to mr. ryland, he speaks of himself as "being in full force again," and "going to finish his farewell readings soon after christmas." he had obtained the sanction of sir thomas watson to giving twelve readings, _in london only_, which he had fixed for the beginning of the following year. the letter to his friend mr. finlay, which opens the year, was in reply to a proposal for a public banquet at belfast, projected by the mayor of that town, and conveyed through mr. finlay. this gentleman was at that time proprietor of _the northern whig_ newspaper at belfast, and he was son-in-law to mr. alexander russel, editor of _the scotsman_. charles dickens's letter this new year to m. de cerjat was his last. that faithful and affectionate friend died very shortly afterwards. to miss mary boyle he writes to acknowledge a new year's gift, which he had been much touched by receiving from her, at a time when he knew she was deeply afflicted by the sudden death of her brother, captain cavendish boyle, for whom charles dickens had a true regard and friendship. while he was giving his series of london readings in the spring, he received a numerously signed circular letter from actors and actresses of the various london theatres. they were very curious about his new reading of the "oliver twist" murder, and representing to him the impossibility of their attending an evening, requested him to give a morning reading, for their especial benefit. we give his answer, complying with the request. and the occasion was, to him, a most gratifying and deeply interesting one. the letter to mr. edmund ollier was in answer to an invitation to be present at the inauguration of a bust of mr. leigh hunt, which was to be placed over his grave at kensal green. the letter to mr. shirley brooks, the well-known writer, who succeeded mr. mark lemon as editor of "punch," and for whom charles dickens had a cordial regard, was on the subject of a memorial on behalf of mrs. peter cunningham, whose husband had recently died. the "remarkable story," of which he writes to his daughter in august, was called "an experience." it was written by a lady (who prefers to be anonymous) who had been a contributor to "household words" from its first starting, and was always highly valued in this capacity by charles dickens. our latest letters for this year are in october. one to mr. charles kent, sympathising with him on a disappointment which he had experienced in a business undertaking, and one to mr. macready, in which he tells him of his being in the "preliminary agonies" of a new book. the first number of "edwin drood" was to appear before the end of his course of readings in march; and he was at work so long beforehand with a view to sparing himself, and having some numbers ready before the publication of the first one. [sidenote: mr. f. d. finlay.] the athenÆum (club), _new year's day, ._ my dear finlay, first my heartfelt wishes for many prosperous and happy years. next, as to the mayor's kind intentions. i feel really grateful to him and gratified by the whole idea, but acceptance of the distinction on my part would be impracticable. my time in ireland is all anticipated, and i could not possibly prolong my stay, because i _must_ be back in london to read on tuesday fortnight, and then must immediately set forth for the west of england. it is not likely, besides, that i shall get through these farewells before the end of may. and the work is so hard, and my voice is so precious, that i fear to add an ounce to the fatigue, or i might be overweighted. the avoidance of gas and crowds when i am not in the act of being cooked before those lights of mine, is an essential part of the training to which (as i think you know) i strictly adhere, and although i have accepted the liverpool invitation, i have done so as an exception; the liverpool people having always treated me in our public relations with a kind of personal affection. i am sincerely anxious that the mayor of belfast should know how the case stands with me. if you will kindly set me straight and right, i shall be truly obliged to you. my sister-in-law has been very unwell (though she is now much better), and is recommended a brisk change. as she is a good sailor, i mean to bring her to ireland with me; at which she is highly delighted. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, jan. th, ._ my dear cerjat, i will answer your question first. have i done with my farewell readings? lord bless you, no; and i shall think myself well out of it if i get done by the end of may. i have undertaken one hundred and six, and have as yet only vanquished twenty-eight. to-morrow night i read in london for the first time the "murder" from "oliver twist," which i have re-arranged for the purpose. next day i start for dublin and belfast. i am just back from scotland for a few christmas holidays. i go back there next month; and in the meantime and afterwards go everywhere else. take my guarantee for it, you may be quite comfortable on the subject of papal aspirations and encroachments. the english people are in unconquerable opposition to that church. they have the animosity in the blood, derived from the history of the past, though perhaps unconsciously. but they do sincerely want to win ireland over if they can. they know that since the union she has been hardly used. they know that scotland has _her_ religion, and a very uncomfortable one. they know that scotland, though intensely anti-papal, perceives it to be unjust that ireland has not _her_ religion too, and has very emphatically declared her opinion in the late elections. they know that a richly-endowed church, forced upon a people who don't belong to it, is a grievance with these people. they know that many things, but especially an artfully and schemingly managed institution like the romish church, thrive upon a grievance, and that rome has thriven exceedingly upon this, and made the most of it. lastly, the best among them know that there is a gathering cloud in the west, considerably bigger than a man's hand, under which a powerful irish-american body, rich and active, is always drawing ireland in that direction; and that these are not times in which other powers would back our holding ireland by force, unless we could make our claim good in proving fair and equal government. poor townshend charged me in his will "to publish without alteration his religious opinions, which he sincerely believed would tend to the happiness of mankind." to publish them without alteration is absolutely impossible; for they are distributed in the strangest fragments through the strangest note-books, pocket-books, slips of paper and what not, and produce a most incoherent and tautological result. i infer that he must have held some always-postponed idea of fitting them together. for these reasons i would certainly publish nothing about them, if i had any discretion in the matter. having none, i suppose a book must be made. his pictures and rings are gone to the south kensington museum, and are now exhibiting there. charley collins is no better and no worse. katie looks very young and very pretty. her sister and miss hogarth (my joint housekeepers) have been on duty this christmas, and have had enough to do. my boys are now all dispersed in south america, india, and australia, except charley, whom i have taken on at "all the year round" office, and henry, who is an undergraduate at trinity hall, and i hope will make his mark there. all well. the thames embankment is (faults of ugliness in detail apart) the finest public work yet done. from westminster bridge to near waterloo it is now lighted up at night, and has a fine effect. they have begun to plant it with trees, and the footway (not the road) is already open to the temple. besides its beauty, and its usefulness in relieving the crowded streets, it will greatly quicken and deepen what is learnedly called the "scour" of the river. but the corporation of london and some other nuisances have brought the weirs above twickenham into a very bare and unsound condition, and they already begin to give and vanish, as the stream runs faster and stronger. your undersigned friend has had a few occasional reminders of his "true american catarrh." although i have exerted my voice very much, it has not yet been once touched. in america i was obliged to patch it up constantly. i like to read your patriarchal account of yourself among your swiss vines and fig-trees. you wouldn't recognise gad's hill now; i have so changed it, and bought land about it. and yet i often think that if mary were to marry (which she won't) i should sell it and go genteelly vagabondising over the face of the earth. then indeed i might see lausanne again. but i don't seem in the way of it at present, for the older i get, the more i do and the harder i work. yours ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear mary, i was more affected than you can easily believe, by the sight of your gift lying on my dressing-table on the morning of the new year. to be remembered in a friend's heart when it is sore is a touching thing; and that and the remembrance of the dead quite overpowered me, the one being inseparable from the other. you may be sure that i shall attach a special interest and value to the beautiful present, and shall wear it as a kind of charm. god bless you, and may we carry the friendship through many coming years! my preparations for a certain murder that i had to do last night have rendered me unfit for letter-writing these last few days, or you would have heard from me sooner. the crime being completely off my mind and the blood spilled, i am (like many of my fellow-criminals) in a highly edifying state to-day. ever believe me, your affectionate friend. [sidenote: miss dickens.] torquay, _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dearest mamie, we have been doing immensely. this place is most beautiful, though colder now than one would expect. this hotel, an immense place, built among picturesque broken rocks out in the blue sea, is quite delicious. there are bright green trees in the garden, and new peas a foot high. our rooms are _en suite_, all commanding the sea, and each with two very large plate-glass windows. everything good and well served. a _pantomime_ was being done last night, in the place where i am to read to-night. it is something between a theatre, a circus, a riding-school, a methodist chapel, and a cow-house. i was so disgusted with its acoustic properties on going in to look at it, that the whole unfortunate staff have been all day, and now are, sticking up baize and carpets in it to prevent echoes. i have rarely seen a more uncomfortable edifice than i thought it last night. at clifton, on monday night, we had a contagion of fainting. and yet the place was not hot. i should think we had from a dozen to twenty ladies borne out, stiff and rigid, at various times. it became quite ridiculous. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] bath, _friday, jan. th, ._ my dearest georgy, you must not trust blank places in my list, because many have been, and will be, gradually filled up. after the tuesday's reading in london, i have two for that same week in the country--nottingham and leicester. in the following week i have none; but my arrangements are all at sea as yet, for i must somehow and somewhere do an "uncommercial" in that week, and i also want to get poor chauncey's "opinions" to the printer. this mouldy old roosting-place comes out mouldily as to let of course. i hate the sight of the bygone assembly-rooms, and the bath chairs trundling the dowagers about the streets. as to to-morrow morning in the daylight!---- i have no cold to speak of. dolby sends kindest regard. [sidenote: mrs. lehmann.] office, _wednesday, feb. rd, ._ dear mrs. lehmann, before getting your kind note, i had written to lehmann, explaining why i cannot allow myself any social pleasure while my farewell task is yet unfinished. the work is so very hard, that every little scrap of rest _and silence_ i can pick up is precious. and even those morsels are so flavoured with "all the year round," that they are not quite the genuine article. joachim[ ] came round to see me at the hall last night, and i told him how sorry i was to forego the pleasure of meeting him (he is a noble fellow!) at your pleasant table. i am glad you are coming to the "murder" on the nd of march. (the house will be prodigious.) such little changes as i have made shall be carefully presented to your critical notice, and i hope will be crowned with your approval. but you are always such a fine audience that i have no fear on that head. i saw chorley yesterday in his own room. a sad and solitary sight. the widowed drake, with a certain _gin_coherence of manner, presented a blooming countenance and buxom form in the passage; so buxom indeed that she was obliged to retire before me like a modest stopper, before i could get into the dining decanter where poor chorley reposed. faithfully yours always. p.s.--my love to rudie. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] glasgow, _thursday, feb. th, ._ i received your letter at edinburgh this morning. i did not write to you yesterday, as there had been no reading on the previous night. the foot bears the fatigue wonderfully well, and really occasions me no inconvenience beyond the necessity of wearing the big work of art. syme saw me again this morning, and utterly scouted the gout notion altogether. i think the edinburgh audience understood the "murder" better last night than any audience that has heard it yet. "business" is enormous, and dolby jubilant. it is a most deplorable afternoon here, deplorable even for glasgow. a great wind blowing, and sleet driving before it in a storm of heavy blobs. we had to drive our train dead in the teeth of the wind, and got in here late, and are pressed for time. strange that in the north we have had absolutely no snow. there was a very thin scattering on the pentlands for an hour or two, but no more. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] edinburgh, _friday, feb. th, ._ writing to-morrow morning would be all but impracticable for me; would be quite so for dolby, who has to go to the agents and "settle up" in the midst of his breakfast. so i write to-day, in reply to your note received at glasgow this morning. the foot conducts itself splendidly. we had a most enormous cram at glasgow. syme saw me again yesterday (before i left here for glasgow), and repeated "gout!" with the greatest indignation and contempt, several times. the aching is going off as the day goes on, if it be worth mentioning again. the ride from glasgow was charming this morning; the sun shining brilliantly, and the country looking beautiful. i told you what the nortons were. mabel lowell is a charming little thing, and very retiring in manner and expression. we shall have a scene here to-night, no doubt. the night before last, ballantyne, unable to get in, had a seat behind the screen, and was nearly frightened off it by the "murder." every vestige of colour had left his face when i came off, and he sat staring over a glass of champagne in the wildest way. i have utterly left off _my_ champagne, and, i think, with good results. nothing during the readings but a very little weak iced brandy-and-water. i hope you will find me greatly improved on tuesday. [sidenote: miss dickens.] birmingham, _friday, march th, ._ this is to send you my best love, and to wish you many and many happy returns of to-morrow, which i miraculously remember to be your birthday. i saw this morning a very pretty fan here. i was going to buy it as a remembrance of the occasion, when i was checked by a dim misgiving that you had a fan not long ago from chorley. tell me what you would like better, and consider me your debtor in that article, whatever it may be. i have had my usual left boot on this morning, and have had an hour's walk. it was in a gale of wind and a simoom of dust, but i greatly enjoyed it. immense enthusiasm at wolverhampton last night over "marigold." scott made a most amazing ass of himself yesterday. he reported that he had left behind somewhere three books--"boots," "murder," and "gamp." we immediately telegraphed to the office. answer, no books there. as my impression was that he must have left them at st. james's hall, we then arranged to send him up to london at seven this morning. meanwhile (though not reproached), he wept copiously and audibly. i had asked him over and over again, was he sure he had not put them in my large black trunk? too sure, too sure. hadn't opened that trunk after tuesday night's reading. he opened it to get some clothes out when i went to bed, and there the books were! he produced them with an air of injured surprise, as if we had put them there. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] queen's hotel, manchester, _sunday, march th, ._ we have had our sitting-room chimney afire this morning, and have had to turn out elsewhere to breakfast; but the chamber has since been cleaned up, and we are reinstated. manchester is (_for_ manchester) bright and fresh. tell russell that a crop of hay is to be got off the meadow this year, before the club use it. they did not make such use of it last year as reconciles me to losing another hay-crop. so they must wait until the hay is in, before they commence active operations. poor olliffe! i am truly sorry to read those sad words about his suffering, and fear that the end is not far off. we are very comfortably housed here, and certainly that immense hall is a wonderful place for its size. without much greater expenditure of voice than usual, i a little enlarged the action last night, and dolby (who went to all the distant points of view) reported that he could detect no difference between it and any other place. as always happens now--and did not at first--they were unanimously taken by noah claypole's laugh. but the go, throughout, was enormous. sims reeves was doing henry bertram at the theatre, and of course took some of our shillings. it was a night of excitement for cottonopolis. i received from mrs. keeley this morning a very good photograph of poor old bob. yesterday i had a letter from harry, reminding me that our intended cambridge day is the day next after that of the boat-race. clearly it must be changed. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] queen's hotel, manchester, _saturday, march th, ._ getting yours and its enclosure, mary's note, at two this afternoon, i write a line at once in order that you may have it on monday morning. the theatre royal, liverpool, will be a charming place to read in. ladies are to dine at the dinner, and we hear it is to be a very grand affair. dolby is doubtful whether it may not "hurt the business," by drawing a great deal of money in another direction, which i think possible enough. trade is very bad _here_, and the gloom of the preston strike seems to brood over the place. the titiens company have been doing wretchedly. i should have a greater sympathy with them if they were not practising in the next room now. my love to letitia and harriette,[ ] wherein dolby (highly gratified by being held in remembrance) joins with the same to you. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] manchester, _sunday, march st, ._ will you tell mary that i have had a letter from frith, in which he says that he will be happy to show her his pictures "any day in the first week of april"? i have replied that she will be proud to receive his invitation. his object in writing was to relieve his mind about the "murder," of which he cannot say enough. tremendous enthusiasm here last night, calling in the most thunderous manner after "marigold," and again after the "trial," shaking the great hall, and cheering furiously. love to all. [sidenote: mr. john clarke.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, march th, ._ ladies and gentlemen, i beg to assure you that i am much gratified by the desire you do me the honour to express in your letter handed to me by mr. john clarke. before that letter reached me, i had heard of your wish, and had mentioned to messrs. chappell that it would be highly agreeable to me to anticipate it, if possible. they readily responded, and we agreed upon having three morning readings in london. as they are not yet publicly announced, i add a note of the days and subjects: saturday, may st. "boots at the holly-tree inn," and "sikes and nancy" from "oliver twist." saturday, may th. "the christmas carol." saturday, may nd. "sikes and nancy" from "oliver twist," and "the trial" from "pickwick." with the warmest interest in your art, and in its claims upon the general gratitude and respect, believe me, always faithfully your friend. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _sunday, april th, ._ by this post i send to mary the truly affecting account of poor dear katie macready's death. it is as sorrowful as anything so peaceful and trustful can be! both my feet are very tender, and often feel as though they were in hot water. but i was wonderfully well and strong, thank god! and had no end of voice for the two nights running in that great birmingham hall. we had enormous houses. so far as i understand the dinner arrangements here, they are much too long. as to the acoustics of that hall, and the position of the tables (both as bad as bad can be), my only consolation is that, if anybody can be heard, _i_ probably can be. the honorary secretary tells me that six hundred people are to dine. the mayor, being no speaker and out of health besides, hands over the toast of the evening to lord dufferin. the town is full of the festival. the theatre royal, touched up for the occasion, will look remarkably bright and well for the readings, and our lets are large. it is remarkable that our largest let as yet is for thursday, not friday. i infer that the dinner damages friday, but dolby does not think so. there appears to be great curiosity to hear the "murder." (on friday night last i read to two thousand people, and odd hundreds.) i hear that anthony trollope, dixon, lord houghton, lemon, esquiros (of the _revue des deux mondes_), and sala are to be called upon to speak; the last, for the newspaper press. all the liverpool notabilities are to muster. and manchester is to be represented by its mayor with due formality. i had been this morning to look at st. george's hall, and suggest what can be done to improve its acoustics. as usually happens in such cases, their most important arrangements are already made and unchangeable. i should not have placed the tables in the committee's way at all, and could certainly have placed the daïs to much greater advantage. so all the good i could do was to show where banners could be hung with some hope of stopping echoes. such is my small news, soon exhausted. we arrived here at three yesterday afternoon; it is now mid-day; chorley has not yet appeared, but he had called at the local agent's while i was at birmingham. it is a curious little instance of the way in which things fit together that there is a ship-of-war in the mersey, whose flags and so forth are to be brought up to st. george's hall for the dinner. she is the _donegal_, of which paynter told me he had just been captain, when he told me all about sydney at bath. one of the pleasantest things i have experienced here this time, is the manner in which i am stopped in the streets by working men, who want to shake hands with me, and tell me they know my books. i never go out but this happens. down at the docks just now, a cooper with a fearful stutter presented himself in this way. his modesty, combined with a conviction that if he were in earnest i would see it and wouldn't repel him, made up as true a piece of natural politeness as i ever saw. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] imperial hotel, blackpool, _wednesday, april st, ._ i send you this hasty line to let you know that i have come to this sea-beach hotel (charming) for a day's rest. i am much better than i was on sunday, but shall want careful looking to, to get through the readings. my weakness and deadness are all _on the left side_, and if i don't look at anything i try to touch with my left hand, i don't know where it is. i am in (secret) consultation with frank beard; he recognises, in the exact description i have given him, indisputable evidences of overwork, which he would wish to treat immediately. so i have said: "go in and win." i have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and i sleep soundly, and have picked up amazingly in appetite. my foot is greatly better too, and i wear my own boot. [sidenote: miss dickens.] preston, _thursday evening, april nd, ._ _don't be in the least alarmed._ beard has come down, and instantly echoes my impression (perfectly unknown to him), that the readings must be _stopped_. i have had symptoms that must not be disregarded. i go to liverpool to-night with him (to get away from here), and proceed to the office to-morrow. [sidenote: the lord john russell.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, may th, ._ my dear lord russell, i have delayed answering your kind letter, in order that you might get home before i wrote. i am happy to report myself quite well again, and i shall be charmed to come to pembroke lodge on any day that may be most convenient to lady russell and yourself after the middle of june. you gratify me beyond expression by your reference to the liverpool dinner. i made the allusion to you with all my heart at least, and it was most magnificently received. i beg to send my kind regard to lady russell, with many thanks for her remembrance, and am ever, my dear lord russell, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, june th, ._ my dear wills, at a great meeting[ ] compounded of your late "chief," charley, morley, grieve, and telbin, your letter was read to-day, and a very sincere record of regret and thanks was placed on the books of the great institution. many thanks for the suggestion about the condition of churches. i am so aweary of church questions of all sorts that i am not quite clear as to tackling this. but i am turning it in my mind. i am afraid of two things: firstly, that the thing would not be picturesquely done; secondly, that a general cucumber-coolness would pervade the mind of our circulation. nothing new here but a speaking-pipe, a post-box, and a mouldy smell from some forgotten crypt--an extra mouldy smell, mouldier than of yore. lillie sniffs, projects one eye into nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and does no more. i have been to chadwick's, to look at a new kind of cottage he has built (very ingenious and cheap). we were all much disappointed last saturday afternoon by a neighbouring fire being only at a carpenter's, and not at drury lane theatre. ellen's[ ] child having an eye nearly poked out by a young friend, and being asked whether the young friend was not very sorry afterwards, replied: "no. _she_ wasn't. _i_ was." london execrable. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--love to mrs. wills. [sidenote: mr. shirley brooks.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dear brooks, i have appended my sign manual to the memorial, which i think is very discreetly drawn up. i have a strong feeling of sympathy with poor mrs. cunningham, for i remember the pretty house she managed charmingly. she has always done her duty well, and has had hard trials. but i greatly doubt the success of the memorial, i am sorry to add. it was hotter here yesterday on this kentish chalk than i have felt it anywhere for many a day. now it is overcast and raining hard, much to the satisfaction of great farmers like myself. i am glad to infer from your companionship with the cocked hats, that there is no such thing as gout within several miles of you. may it keep its distance. ever, my dear brooks, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dearest macready, i have received your letter here to-day, and deeply feel with you and for you the affliction of poor dear katie's loss. i was not unprepared for the sad news, but it comes in such a rush of old remembrances and withered joys that strikes to the heart. god bless you! love and youth are still beside you, and in that thought i take comfort for my dear old friend. i am happy to report myself perfectly well and flourishing. we are just now announcing the resumption and conclusion of the broken series of farewell readings in a london course of twelve, beginning early in the new year. scarcely a day has gone by this summer in which we have not talked of you and yours. georgina, mary, and i continually speak of you. in the spirit we certainly are even more together than we used to be in the body in the old times. i don't know whether you have heard that harry has taken the second scholarship (fifty pounds a year) at trinity hall, cambridge. the bigwigs expect him to do a good deal there. wills having given up in consequence of broken health (he has been my sub-editor for twenty years), i have taken charley into "all the year round." he is a very good man of business, and evinces considerable aptitude in sub-editing work. this place is immensely improved since you were here, and really is now very pretty indeed. we are sorry that there is no present prospect of your coming to see it; but i like to know of your being at the sea, and having to do--_from the beach_, as mrs. keeley used to say in "the prisoner of war"--with the winds and the waves and all their freshening influences. i dined at greenwich a few days ago with delane. he asked me about you with much interest. he looks as if he had never seen a printing-office, and had never been out of bed after midnight. great excitement caused here by your capital news of butty. i suppose willy has at least a dozen children by this time. our loves to the noble boy and to dear mrs. macready. ever, my dearest macready, your attached and affectionate. [sidenote: mr. edmund ollier.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, aug. rd, ._ my dear mr. ollier, i am very sensible of the feeling of the committee towards me; and i receive their invitation (conveyed through you) as a most acceptable mark of their consideration. but i have a very strong objection to speech-making beside graves. i do not expect or wish my feeling in this wise to guide other men; still, it is so serious with me, and the idea of ever being the subject of such a ceremony myself is so repugnant to my soul, that i must decline to officiate. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss dickens.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, london, w.c., _tuesday, aug. rd, ._ my dearest mamie, i send you the second chapter of the remarkable story. the printer is late with it, and i have not had time to read it, and as i altered it considerably here and there, i have no doubt there are some verbal mistakes in it. however, they will probably express themselves. but i offer a prize of six pairs of gloves--between you, and your aunt, and ellen stone, as competitors--to whomsoever will tell me what idea in this second part is mine. i don't mean an idea in language, in the turning of a sentence, in any little description of an action, or a gesture, or what not in a small way, but an idea, distinctly affecting the whole story _as i found it_. you are all to assume that i found it in the main as you read it, with one exception. if i had written it, i should have made the woman love the man at last. and i should have shadowed that possibility out, by the child's bringing them a little more together on that holiday sunday. but i didn't write it. so, finding that it wanted something, i put that something in. what was it? love to ellen stone. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, aug. th, ._ my dear mr. ryland, many thanks for your letter. i have very strong opinions on the subject of speechification, and hold that there is, everywhere, a vast amount too much of it. a sense of absurdity would be so strong upon me, if i got up at birmingham to make a flourish on the advantages of education in the abstract for all sorts and conditions of men, that i should inevitably check myself and present a surprising incarnation of the soul of wit. but if i could interest myself in the practical usefulness of the particular institution; in the ways of life of the students; in their examples of perseverance and determination to get on; in their numbers, their favourite studies, the number of hours they must daily give to the work that must be done for a livelihood, before they can devote themselves to the acquisition of new knowledge, and so forth, then i could interest others. this is the kind of information i want. mere holding forth "i utterly detest, abominate, and abjure." i fear i shall not be in london next week. but if you will kindly send me here, at your leisure, the roughest notes of such points as i have indicated, i shall be heartily obliged to you, and will take care of their falling into shape and order in my mind. meantime i "make a note of" monday, th september, and of writing to you touching your kind offer of hospitality, three weeks before that date. i beg to send my kind regard to mrs. and miss ryland, and am always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frederic ouvry.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, aug. nd, ._ my dear ouvry, i will expect a call from you at the office, on thursday, at your own most convenient hour. i admit the soft impeachment concerning mrs. gamp: i likes my payments to be made reg'lar, and i likewise likes my publisher to draw it mild. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, sept. th, ._ my dear mr. ryland, i am sorry to find--i had a foreshadowing of it some weeks ago--that i shall not be able to profit by your kind offer of hospitality when i come to birmingham for _our_ institution. i must come down in time for a quiet dinner at the hotel with my "readings" secretary, mr. dolby, and must away next morning. besides having a great deal in hand just now (the title of a new book among other things), i shall have visitors from abroad here at the time, and am severely claimed by my daughter, who indeed is disloyal to birmingham in the matter of my going away at all. pray represent me to mrs. ryland as the innocent victim of circumstances, and as sacrificing pleasure to the work i have to do, and to the training under which alone i can do it without feeling it. you will see from the enclosed that i am in full force, and going to finish my readings, please god, after christmas. i am in the hope of receiving your promised notes in due course, and continue in the irreverent condition in which i last reported myself on the subject of speech-making. now that men not only make the nights of the session hideous by what the americans call "orating" in parliament, but trouble the peace of the vacation by saying over again what they said there (with the addition of what they _didn't_ say there, and never will have the courage to say there), i feel indeed that silence, like gold across the atlantic, is a rarity at a premium. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dear kent, i felt that you would be deeply disappointed. i thought it better not to make the first sign while you were depressed, but my mind has been constantly with you. and not mine alone. you cannot think with what affection and sympathy you have been made the subject of our family dinner talk at gad's hill these last three days. nothing could exceed the interest of my daughters and my sister-in-law, or the earnestness of their feeling about it. i have been really touched by its warm and genuine expression. cheer up, my dear fellow; cheer up, for god's sake. that is, for the sake of all that is good in you and around you. ever your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] gad's hill, _monday, oct. th, ._ my dearest macready, i duly received your letter nearly a fortnight ago, with the greatest interest and pleasure. above all things i am delighted with the prospect of seeing you here next summer; a prospect which has been received with nine times nine and one more by the whole house. you will hardly know the place again, it is so changed. you are not expected to admire, but there _is_ a conservatory building at this moment--be still, my soul! this leaves me in the preliminary agonies of a new book, which i hope to begin publishing (in twelve numbers, not twenty) next march. the coming readings being all in london, and being, after the first fortnight, only once a week, will divert my attention very little, i hope. harry has just gone up to cambridge again, and i hope will get a fellowship in good time. wills is much gratified by your remembrance, and sends you his warm regard. he wishes me to represent that he is very little to be pitied. that he suffers no pain, scarcely inconvenience, even, so long as he is idle. that he likes idleness exceedingly. he has bought a country place by welwyn in hertfordshire, near lytton's, and takes possession presently. my boy sydney is now a second lieutenant, the youngest in the service, i believe. he has the highest testimonials as an officer. you may be quite sure there will be no international racing in american waters. oxford knows better, or i am mistaken. the harvard crew were a very good set of fellows, and very modest. ryland of birmingham doesn't look a day older, and was full of interest in you, and asked me to remind you of him. by-the-bye, at elkington's i saw a pair of immense tea-urns from a railway station (stafford), sent there to be repaired. they were honeycombed within in all directions, and had been supplying the passengers, under the active agency of hot water, with decomposed lead, copper, and a few other deadly poisons, for heaven knows how many years! i must leave off in a hurry to catch the post, after a hard day's work. ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate and attached. footnotes: [ ] herr joseph joachim, the renowned violinist. [ ] his sister-in-law, mrs. augustus dickens, always a welcome visitor at gad's hill. [ ] of the guild of literature and art. [ ] the housekeeper at the office. . narrative. charles dickens passed his last christmas and new year's day at gad's hill, with a party of family and friends, in the usual way, except that he was suffering again from an attack of the foot trouble, particularly on christmas day, when he was quite disabled by it and unable to walk at all--able only to join the party in the evening by keeping his room all day. however, he was better in a day or two, and early in january he went to london, where he had taken the house of his friends, mr. and mrs. milner gibson, for the season. his series of "farewell readings" at st. james's hall began in january, and ended on the th march. he was writing "edwin drood" also, and was, of course, constantly occupied with "all the year round" work. in the beginning of january, he fulfilled his promise of paying a second visit to birmingham and making a speech, of which he writes in his last letter to mr. macready. for his last reading he gave the "christmas carol" and "the trial" from "pickwick," and at the end of the evening he addressed a few farewell words to his audience. it was a memorable and splendid occasion. he was very deeply affected by the loving enthusiasm of his greeting, and it was a real sorrow to him to give up for ever the personal associations with thousands of the readers of his books. but when the pain, mingled with pleasure, of this last reading was over, he felt greatly the relief of having undisturbed time for his own quieter pursuits, and looked forward to writing the last numbers of "edwin drood" at gad's hill, where he was to return in june. the last public appearance of any kind that he made was at the royal academy dinner in may. he was at the time far from well, but he made a great effort to be present and to speak, from his strong desire to pay a tribute to the memory of his dear old friend mr. maclise, who died in april. her majesty having expressed a wish, conveyed through mr. helps (afterwards sir arthur helps), to have a personal interview with charles dickens, he accompanied mr. helps to buckingham palace one afternoon in march. he was most graciously and kindly received by her majesty, and came away with a hope that the visit had been mutually agreeable. the queen presented him with a copy of her "journal in the highlands," with an autograph inscription. and he had afterwards the pleasure of requesting her acceptance of a set of his books. he attended a levée held by the prince of wales in april, and the last time he dined out in london was at a party given by lord houghton for the king of the belgians and the prince of wales, who had both expressed a desire to meet charles dickens. all through the season he had been suffering, at intervals, from the swollen foot, and on this occasion it was so bad, that up to the last moment it was very doubtful whether he could fulfil his engagement. we have very few letters for this year, and none of any very particular interest, but we give them all, as they are _the last_. mr. s. l. fildes was his "new illustrator," to whom he alludes in a note to mr. frith; we also give a short note to mr. fildes himself. the correspondence of charles dickens with mrs. dallas glyn, the celebrated actress, for whom he had a great friendship, is so much on the subject of her own business, that we have only been able to select two notes of any public interest. in explanation of _the last letter_, we give an extract from a letter addressed to _the daily news_ by mr. j. m. makeham, soon after the death of charles dickens, as follows: "that the public may exactly understand the circumstances under which charles dickens's letter to me was written, i am bound to explain that it is in reply to a letter which i addressed to him in reference to a passage in the tenth chapter of "edwin drood," respecting which i ventured to suggest that he had, perhaps, forgotten that the figure of speech alluded to by him, in a way which, to my certain knowledge, was distasteful to some of his admirers, was drawn from a passage of holy writ which is greatly reverenced by a large number of his countrymen as a prophetic description of the sufferings of our saviour." the ms. of the little "history of the new testament" is now in the possession of his eldest daughter. she has (together with her aunt) received many earnest entreaties, both from friends and strangers, that this history might be allowed to be published, for the benefit of other children. these many petitions have his daughter's fullest sympathy. but she knows that her father wrote this history only for his own children, that it was his particular wish that it never should be published, and she therefore holds this wish as sacred and irrevocable. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , hyde park place, london, w., _sunday, jan. rd, ._ my dear wills, in the note i had from you about nancy and sikes, you seem to refer to some other note you had written me. therefore i think it well merely to mention that i have received no other note. i do not wonder at your not being up to the undertaking (even if you had had no cough) under the wearing circumstances. it was a very curious scene. the actors and actresses (most of the latter looking very pretty) mustered in extraordinary force, and were a fine audience. i set myself to carrying out of themselves and their observation, those who were bent on watching how the effects were got; and i believe i succeeded. coming back to it again, however, i feel it was madness ever to do it so continuously. my ordinary pulse is seventy-two, and it runs up under this effort to one hundred and twelve. besides which, it takes me ten or twelve minutes to get my wind back at all; i being, in the meantime, like the man who lost the fight--in fact, his express image. frank beard was in attendance to make divers experiments to report to watson; and although, as you know, he stopped it instantly when he found me at preston, he was very much astonished by the effects of the reading on the reader. so i hope you may be able to come and hear it before it is silent for ever. it is done again on the evenings of the st february, th february, and th march. i hope, now i have got over the mornings, that i may be able to work on my book. but up to this time the great preparation required in getting the subjects up again, and the twice a week besides, have almost exclusively occupied me. i have something the matter with my right thumb, and can't (as you see) write plainly. i sent a word to poor robert chambers,[ ] and i send my love to mrs. wills. ever, my dear wills, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. dallas.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, jan. th, ._ my dear mrs. dallas, it is perfectly delightful to me to get your fervent and sympathetic note this morning. a thousand thanks for it. i will take care that two places on the front row, by my daughter, are reserved for your occasion next time. i cannot see you in too good a seat, or too often. believe me, ever very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. s. l. fildes.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, jan. th, ._ dear sir, i beg to thank you for the highly meritorious and interesting specimens of your art that you have had the kindness to send me. i return them herewith, after having examined them with the greatest pleasure. i am naturally curious to see your drawing from "david copperfield," in order that i may compare it with my own idea. in the meanwhile, i can honestly assure you that i entertain the greatest admiration for your remarkable powers. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. henry fielding dickens.] , hyde park place, w., _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dear harry, i am extremely glad to hear that you have made a good start at the union. take any amount of pains about it; open your mouth well and roundly, speak to the last person visible, and give yourself time. loves from all. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] _wednesday, march nd, ._ my dearest macready, this is to wish you and yours all happiness and prosperity at the well-remembered anniversary to-morrow. you may be sure that loves and happy returns will not be forgotten at _our_ table. i have been getting on very well with my book, and we are having immense audiences at st. james's hall. mary has been celebrating the first glimpses of spring by having the measles. she got over the disorder very easily, but a weakness remains behind. katie is blooming. georgina is in perfect order, and all send you their very best loves. it gave me true pleasure to have your sympathy with me in the second little speech at birmingham. i was determined that my radicalism should not be called in question. the electric wires are not very exact in their reporting, but at all events the sense was there. ryland, as usual, made all sorts of enquiries about you. with love to dear mrs. macready and the noble boy my particular friend, and a hearty embrace to you, i am ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. ----.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, march th, ._ my dear ----, you make me very uneasy on the subject of your new long story here, by sowing your name broadcast in so many fields at once, and undertaking such an impossible amount of fiction at one time. just as you are coming on with us, you have another story in progress in "the gentleman's magazine," and another announced in "once a week." and so far as i know the art we both profess, it cannot be reasonably pursued in this way. i think the short story you are now finishing in these pages obviously marked by traces of great haste and small consideration; and a long story similarly blemished would really do the publication irreparable harm. these considerations are so much upon my mind that i cannot forbear representing them to you, in the hope that they may induce you to take a little more into account the necessity of care and preparation, and some self-denial in the quantity done. i am quite sure that i write fully as much in your interest as in that of "all the year round." believe me, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] , hyde park place, w., _friday, march th, ._ my dear ----, of course the engagement between us is to continue, and i am sure you know me too well to suppose that i have ever had a thought to the contrary. your explanation is (as it naturally would be, being yours) manly and honest, and i am both satisfied and hopeful. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] , hyde park place, w., _saturday, march th, ._ my dear kent, i received both copies of _the sun_, with the tenderest pleasure and gratification. everything that i can let you have in aid of the proposed record[ ] (which, _of course_, would be far more agreeable to me if done by you than by any other hand), shall be at your service. dolby has all the figures relating to america, and you shall have for reference the books from which i read. they are afterwards going into forster's collection.[ ] ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. henry fielding dickens.] , hyde park place, w., _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear harry, your next tuesday's subject is a very good one. i would not lose the point that narrow-minded fanatics, who decry the theatre and defame its artists, are absolutely the advocates of depraved and barbarous amusements. for wherever a good drama and a well-regulated theatre decline, some distorted form of theatrical entertainment will infallibly arise in their place. in one of the last chapters of "hard times," mr. sleary says something to the effect: "people will be entertained thomehow, thquire. make the betht of uth, and not the wortht." ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. shirley brooks.] , hyde park place, w., _friday, april st, ._ my dear shirley brooks, i have written to mr. low, expressing my regret that i cannot comply with his request, backed as it is by my friend s. b. but i have told him what is perfectly true--that i leave town for the peaceful following of my own pursuits, at the end of next month; that i have excused myself from filling all manner of claims, on the ground that the public engagements i could make for the season were very few and were all made; and that i cannot bear hot rooms when i am at work. i have smoothed this as you would have me smooth it. with your longing for fresh air i can thoroughly sympathise. may you get it soon, and may you enjoy it, and profit by it half as much as i wish! ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. p. frith, r.a.] , hyde park place, w., _saturday, april th, ._ my dear frith, i shall be happy to go on wednesday evening, if convenient. you please me with what you say of my new illustrator, of whom i have great hopes. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] _monday morning, april th, ._ my dear kent, i received your book[ ] with the greatest pleasure, and heartily thank you for it. it is a volume of a highly prepossessing appearance, and a most friendly look. i felt as if i should have taken to it at sight; even (a very large even) though i had known nothing of its contents, or of its author! for the last week i have been most perseveringly and ding-dong-doggedly at work, making headway but slowly. the spring always has a restless influence over me; and i weary, at any season, of this london dining-out beyond expression; and i yearn for the country again. this is my excuse for not having written to you sooner. besides which, i had a baseless conviction that i should see you at the office last thursday. not having done so, i fear you must be worse, or no better? if you _can_ let me have a report of yourself, pray do. [sidenote: mrs. frederick pollock.] , hyde park place, w., _monday, may nd, ._ my dear mrs. pollock, pray tell the illustrious philip van artevelde, that i will deal with the nefarious case in question if i can. i am a little doubtful of the practicability of doing so, and frisking outside the bounds of the law of libel. i have that high opinion of the law of england generally, which one is likely to derive from the impression that it puts all the honest men under the diabolical hoofs of all the scoundrels. it makes me cautious of doing right; an admirable instance of its wisdom! i was very sorry to have gone astray from you that sunday; but as the earlier disciples entertained angels unawares, so the later often miss them haphazard. your description of la font's acting is the complete truth in one short sentence: nature's triumph over art; reversing the copy-book axiom! but the lord deliver us from plessy's mechanical ingenuousness!! and your petitioner will ever pray. and ever be, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. e. m. ward.] , hyde park place, w., _wednesday, may th, ._ my dear mrs. ward, i grieve to say that i am literally laid by the heels, and incapable of dining with you to-morrow. a neuralgic affection of the foot, which usually seizes me about twice a year, and which will yield to nothing but days of fomentation and horizontal rest, set in last night, and has caused me very great pain ever since, and will too clearly be no better until it has had its usual time in which to wear itself out. i send my kindest regard to ward, and beg to be pitied. believe me, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] , hyde park place, w., _tuesday, may th, ._ my dear kent, many, many thanks! it is only my neuralgic foot. it has given me such a sharp twist this time that i have not been able, in its extreme sensitiveness, to put any covering upon it except scalding fomentations. having viciously bubbled and blistered it in all directions, i hope it now begins to see the folly of its ways. affectionately ever. p.s.--i hope the sun shines. [sidenote: mrs. bancroft.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, may st, ._ my dear mrs. bancroft,[ ] i am most heartily obliged to you for your kind note, which i received here only last night, having come here from town circuitously to get a little change of air on the road. my sense of your interest cannot be better proved than by my trying the remedy you recommend, and that i will do immediately. as i shall be in town on thursday, my troubling you to order it would be quite unjustifiable. i will use your name in applying for it, and will report the result after a fair trial. whether this remedy succeeds or fails as to the neuralgia, i shall always consider myself under an obligation to it for having indirectly procured me the great pleasure of receiving a communication from you; for i hope i may lay claim to being one of the most earnest and delighted of your many artistic admirers. believe me, faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] on the death of his second wife. [ ] of the readings. the intention was carried out. mr. kent's book, "charles dickens as a reader," was published in . [ ] no doubt charles dickens intended to add the reading books to the legacy of his mss. to mr. forster. but he did not do so, therefore the "readings" are not a part of the "forster collection" at the south kensington museum. [ ] a new collective edition of "kent's poems," dedicated to his cousin, colonel kent, of the th regiment. [ ] miss marie wilton. two last letters. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] [illustration: gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent.[ ] hw: wednesday eighth june hw: dear kent tomorrow is a very bad day for me to make a call, as, in addition to my usual office business, i have a mass of accounts to settle with wills. but i hope i may be ready for you at o'clock. if i can't be--why, then i shan't be. you must really get rid of those opal enjoyments. they are too overpowering: "these violent delights have violent ends." i think it was a father of your churches who made the wise remark to a young gentleman who got up early (or stayed out late) at verona? ever affectionately signature: chd] [sidenote: mr. john m. makeham.] =gad's hill place,= =higham by rochester, kent.= [illustration: hw: wednesday eighth june dear sir it would be quite inconceivable i think--but for your letter--that any reasonable reader could possibly attach a scriptural reference to a passage in a book of mine, reproducing a much abused social figure of speech, impressed into all sorts of service on all sorts of inappropriate occasions, without the faintest connexion of it with its original source. i am truly shocked to find that any reader can make the mistake i have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our saviour; because i feel it; and because i re-wrote that history for my children--every one of whom knew it from having it repeated to them--long before they could read, and almost as soon as they could speak. but i have never made proclamation of this from the house tops faithfully yours, charles dickens john m. markham esq.] all through this spring in london, charles dickens had been ailing in health, and it was remarked by many friends that he had a weary look, and was "aged" and altered. but he was generally in good spirits, and his family had no uneasiness about him, relying upon the country quiet and comparative rest at gad's hill to have their usual influence in restoring his health and strength. on the nd june he attended a private play at the house of mr. and mrs. freake, where his two daughters were among the actresses. the next day he went back to gad's hill. his daughter kate (whose home was there at all times when she chose, and almost always through the summer months) went down on sunday, the th june, for a day's visit, to see the "great improvement of the conservatory." her father laughingly assured her she had now seen "the last" improvement at gad's hill. at this time he was tolerably well, but she remarked to her sister and aunt how strangely he was tired, and what a curious grey colour he had in his face after a very short walk on that sunday afternoon. however, he seemed quite himself again in the evening. the next day his daughter kate went back, accompanied by her sister, who was to pay her a short visit, to london. charles dickens was very hard at work on the sixth number of "edwin drood." on the monday and tuesday he was well, but he was unequal to much exercise. his last walk was one of his greatest favourites--through cobham park and wood--on the afternoon of tuesday. on the morning of wednesday, the th (one of the loveliest days of a lovely summer), he was very well; in excellent spirits about his book, of which he said he _must_ finish his number that day--the next (thursday) being the day of his weekly visit to "all the year round" office. therefore, he would write all day in the châlet, and take no walk or drive until the evening. in the middle of the day he came to the house for an hour's rest, and smoked a cigar in the conservatory--out of which new addition to the house he was taking the greatest personal enjoyment--and seemed perfectly well, and exceedingly cheerful and hopeful. when he came again to the house, about an hour before the time fixed for the early dinner, he seemed very tired, silent, and absorbed. but this was so usual with him after a day of engrossing work, that it caused no alarm or surprise to his sister-in-law--the only member of his household who happened to be at home. he wrote some letters--among them, these last letters which we give--in the library of the house, and also arranged many trifling business matters, with a view to his departure for london the next morning. he was to be accompanied, on his return at the end of the week, by mr. fildes, to introduce the "new illustrator" to the neighbourhood in which many of the scenes of this last book of charles dickens, as of his first, were laid. it was not until they were seated at the dinner-table that a striking change in the colour and expression of his face startled his sister-in-law, and on her asking him if he was ill, he said, "yes, very ill; i have been very ill for the last hour." but on her expressing an intention of sending instantly for a doctor, he stopped her, and said: "no, he would go on with dinner, and go afterwards to london." and then he made an effort to struggle against the fit that was fast coming on him, and talked, but incoherently, and soon very indistinctly. it being now evident that he _was_ ill, and very seriously ill, his sister-in-law begged him to come to his own room before she sent off for medical help. "come and lie down," she entreated. "yes, on the ground," he said, very distinctly--these were the last words he spoke--and he slid from her arm, and fell upon the floor. the servants brought a couch into the dining-room, where he was laid. a messenger was despatched for mr. steele, the rochester doctor, and with a telegram to his doctor in london, and to his daughters. this was a few minutes after six o'clock. his daughters arrived, with mr. frank beard, this same evening. his eldest son the next morning, and his son henry and his sister letitia in the evening of the th--too late, alas! all through the night, charles dickens never opened his eyes, or showed a sign of consciousness. in the afternoon of the th, dr. russell reynolds arrived at gad's hill, having been summoned by mr. frank beard to meet himself and mr. steele. but he could only confirm their hopeless verdict, and made his opinion known with much kind sympathy, to the family, before returning to london. charles dickens remained in the same unconscious state until the evening of this day, when, at ten minutes past six, the watchers saw a shudder pass over him, heard him give a deep sigh, saw one tear roll down his cheek, and he was gone from them. and as they saw the dark shadow steal across his calm, beautiful face, not one among them--could they have been given such a power--would have recalled his sweet spirit back to earth. as his family were aware that charles dickens had a wish to be buried near gad's hill, arrangements were made for his burial in the pretty churchyard of shorne, a neighbouring village, of which he was very fond. but this intention was abandoned in consequence of a pressing request from the dean and chapter of rochester cathedral that his remains might be placed there. a grave was prepared and everything arranged, when it was made known to the family, through dean stanley, that there was a general and very earnest desire that charles dickens should find his resting-place in westminster abbey. to such a fitting tribute to his memory they could make no possible objection, although it was with great regret that they relinquished the idea of laying him in a place so closely identified with his life and his works. his name, notwithstanding, is associated with rochester, a tablet to his memory having been placed by his executors on the wall of rochester cathedral. with regard to westminster abbey, his family only stipulated that the funeral might be made as private as possible, and that the words of his will, "i emphatically direct that i be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," should be religiously adhered to. and so they were. the solemn service in the vast cathedral being as private as the most thoughtful consideration could make it. the family of charles dickens were deeply grateful to all in authority who so carried out his wishes. and more especially to dean stanley and to the (late) lady augusta stanley, for the tender sympathy shown by them to the mourners on this day, and also on sunday, the th, when the dean preached his beautiful funeral sermon. as during his life charles dickens's fondness for air, light, and gay colours amounted almost to a passion, so when he lay dead in the home he had so dearly loved, these things were not forgotten. the pretty room opening into the conservatory (from which he had never been removed since his seizure) was kept bright with the most beautiful of all kinds of flowers, and flooded with the summer sun: "and nothing stirred in the room. the old, old fashion. the fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. the old, old fashion--death! "oh, thank god, all who see it, for that older fashion yet, of immortality!" footnotes: [ ] this letter has lately been presented by mr. charles kent to the british museum. index. a'beckett, gilbert, i. actors, dickens a friend to poor, ii. affidavit, a facetious, i. agassiz, professor, ii. , agate, john, ii. ; letter to, ii. ainsworth, w. h., letters to, i. , , alison, sir archibald, i. "all the year round," commencement of, ii. ; "the uncommercial traveller" in, ii. ; christmas numbers of: "the haunted house," ii. ; "a message from the sea," ii. , ; "tom tiddler's ground," ii. ; "somebody's luggage," ii. ; "mrs. lirriper's lodgings," ii. ; "mrs. lirriper's legacy," ii. , ; "dr. marigold's prescriptions," ii. , , ; "mugby junction," ii. , ; "no thoroughfare," ii. , , , , , , , , , , ; and see ii. , and see charles dickens as an editor america, feeling for dickens in the backwoods of, i. , ; dickens's first visit to, i. ; his welcome in, i. ; his opinion of, i. - ; freedom of opinion in, i. ; dickens's levées in, i. ; change of temperature in, i. ; hotel charges in, i. ; midnight rambles in new york, i. ; descriptions of niagara, i. , ; ii. , ; a maid's views on niagara, i. ; copyright in, i. , , ; dickens's tribute to mrs. trollope's book on, i. ; press-ridden, i. ; absence of quiet in, i. ; criticisms of dickens in, i. ; the great war in, ii. , ; feeling between england and, ii. ; dickens's second visit to--the journey, ii. - ; dickens's letters on, ii. - ; fires in, ii. , ; treatment of luggage in, ii. ; drinks in, ii. , ; literary piracy in, ii. ; walking-match between dolby and osgood in, ii. , , , , , , , ; changes and improvements in since dickens's first visit, ii. , ; the negroes in, ii. ; personal descriptions of dickens in, ii. ; travelling in, ii. ; and see readings "american notes," publication of, i. andersen, hans christian, ii. "animal magnetism," tag to, written by dickens, i. anne, mrs. dickens's maid, i. , ; ii. , , , "apprentices, the tour of the two idle," ii. , , "arabian nights," a mistake in the, i. , armatage, isaac, ii. armstrong, the misses, letter to, ii. ; and see ii. astley's theatre, description of a clown at, i. austin, henry, i. ; ii. , ; and see letters austin, mrs. henry, ii. ; letters to, ii. , , author, the highest reward of an, i. autobiography, a concise, of dickens, i. autograph of dickens in , i. ; dickens leaves his in shakespeare's room, i. ; of boz, i. ; of dickens as bobadil, i. ; facsimile of dickens's handwriting in , i. ; facsimile letters of dickens written the day before his death, ii. - babbage, charles, letters to, i. , , ballantyne, ii. bancroft, mrs., letter to, ii. banks, g., i. ; letter to, i. barber, dickens's gardener, ii. barker, dr. fordyce, ii. , "barnaby rudge" written and published, i. ; dickens's descriptions of the illustrations of: the raven, i. ; the locksmith's house, i. ; rioters in the maypole, i. ; scene in the ruins of the warren, i. ; abduction of dolly varden, i. ; lord george gordon in the tower, the duel, frontispiece, i. ; hugh taken to gaol, i. "battle of life, the," dedication of, i. , ; dickens superintends rehearsals of the play of, i. , , ; sale of, i. , ; reception of the play of, i. baylis, mr., ii. ; letter to, ii. beadle, a, in office, ii. beard, frank, ii. , , , , beaucourt, m., i. , , bedstead, a german, i. beecher, ward, ii. begging letters, dickens's answers to, i. - belgians, the king of the, ii. benzon, miss lily, letter to, ii. berry, one of dickens's readings men, ii. , , bicknell, henry, i. ; letter to, i. biographers, dickens on, i. ; his opinion of john forster as a biographer, i. - birthday wishes, i. "black-eyed susan," dickens as t. p. cooke in, i. ; a new version of, i. blackwood, mr., ii. blair, general, ii. blanchard, laman, letter to, i. "bleak house," commenced, i. ; publication of, i. ; dickens's opinion of, i. ; circulation of, i. , , blessington, lady, i. bobadil, captain, dickens plays, i. ; dickens's remarks on, i. ; a letter after, i. book-backs, dickens's imitation, i. , book clubs, established, i. ; dickens on, i. boucicault, dion, ii. , boulogne, dickens at, i. , , - , , , - ; a shakespearian performance at, i. ; _en fête_, i. ; illuminations at, on the occasion of the prince consort's visit, i. ; fire at, i. ; condition of, during the crimean war, i. ; letters descriptive of, i. , , , , , , , bouncer, mrs., miss dickens's dog, ii. , , , bow street runners, ii. boxall, sir william, i. , boyle, captain cavendish, ii. boyle, miss mary, i. , , , ; ii. , , , ; and see letters breach of promise, a new sort of, i. breakfast, a yorkshire, i. broadstairs, dickens at, i. , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , ; description of lodgings at, i. ; amusements of, i. , ; size of fort house at, i. bromley, sir richard, ii. brookfield, mrs., letter to, ii. brookfield, the rev. w., letters to, ii. , brooks, shirley, ii. ; letters to, ii. , brougham, lord, i. ; ii. browne, h. k., i. , buckstone, j. b., i. burnett, mrs., i. cabin, a, on board ship, i. campbell, lord, ii, capital punishment, dickens's views on, i. carlisle, the earl of, letters to, i. , ; ii. , , carlyle, thomas, ii. cartwright, samuel, ii. ; letter to, ii. castlereagh, lord, i. cat-hunting, i. cattermole, george, i. , ; ii. , ; and see letters cattermole, mrs., letters to, ii. , céleste, madame, ii. cerjat, m. de, i. ; ii. ; and see letters chambers, robert, ii. , chancery, dickens on the court of, i. chapman and hall, messrs., i. ; letter to, i. chappell, messrs., ii. , , , , , charities, dickens's sufferings from public, ii. children, stories of, i. , , ; ii. , , childs, mr., ii. , "chimes, the," written, i. ; an attack on cant, i. , ; dickens's opinion of, i. , ; dickens gives a private reading of, i. chorley, h. f., ii. , "christmas carol, the," publication of, i. ; criticisms on, i. christmas greetings, i. church, dickens on the, ii. ; service on board ship, ii. ; dickens on the romish, ii. , circumlocution, dickens on, ii. , clarke, john, letter to, ii. cockspur street society, the, i. - cold, effects of a, i. , ; remedy for a, i. colden, david, i. collins, c. a., ii. , , , , , , collins, wilkie, i. , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , ; and see letters comedy, mr. webster's offer for a prize, dickens an imaginary competitor, i. , compton, mrs., letter to, ii. conjuring feats, i. ; and see ii. cooke, t. p., i. ; ii. ; letter to, ii. copyright, i. ; dickens's struggles to secure english, in america, i. , , costello, dudley, i. ; letters to, i. , cottage, a cheap, i. coutts, miss, i. covent garden theatre, macready retires from management of, i. ; ruins of, i. ; a scene at, ii. "cricket on the hearth, the," i. , croker, j. crofton, i. ; letter to, i. cruikshank, george, i. cunningham, mrs., ii. cunningham, peter, i. , ; letters to, i. , , , dacres, sir sydney, ii. _daily news, the_, started, i. dallas, mrs., letters to, ii. , dallas, mr., ii. "david copperfield," dedication of, i. ; purpose of little emily in, i. ; success of, i. ; reading of, i. , ; dickens's favourite work, i. ; and see i. , , , deane, f. h., letter to, i. delane, john, i. ; ii. ; letter to, i. de la rue, mr., ii. devonshire, the duke of, letters to, i. , , devrient, emil, i. dickens, charles, at furnival's inn, i. ; his marriage, i. ; employed as a parliamentary reporter, i. ; spends his honeymoon at chalk, kent, i. ; employed on _the morning chronicle_, i. ; removes to doughty street, i. ; writes for the stage, i. , , , , ; his visit to the yorkshire schools, i. ; at twickenham park, i. ; his visits to broadstairs, see broadstairs; his visit to stratford-on-avon and kenilworth, i. , ; in shakespeare's room, i. ; elected at the athenæum club, i. ; removes to devonshire terrace, i. ; portraits of, see portraits; visits to scotland, i. , ii. , and see ii. ; personal feeling of for his characters, i. , , ; declines to enter parliament, i. , ; ii. ; public dinners to, i. , , ; ii. , , , , , , ; an enemy of cant, i. , , ; visits of to america, see america; expedition of to cornwall, i. ; his travels in italy, see italy; political opinions of, i. , , , ; fancy signatures to letters of, i. , , , , , , ; ii. ; takes the chair at the opening of the liverpool mechanics' institute, i. , and see i. - ; his theatrical performances, see theatrical performances; effects of work on, i. ,; ii. , , ; _the daily news_, started by, i. ; his visits to lausanne and switzerland, i. , , and see switzerland; his visits to paris, see paris; as a stage, manager, i. , , , , ; ii. ; at chester place, regent's park, i. ; takes the chair at the opening of the leeds mechanics' institute, and of the glasgow athenæum, i. ; at brighton, i. , ; at bonchurch, i, ; purchases tavistock house, i. , and see tavistock house; as an editor, i. , , , , ; ii. , , , , ; his readings, see readings; illnesses of, i. , ; ii. , , , ; in america, ii. , , , , , , , , , , ; his visits to boulogne, see boulogne; presentation of plate to, at birmingham, i. ; purchases gad's hill, i. , , and see gad's hill; delivers a speech on administrative reform, i. ; at folkestone, i. , ; restlessness of, when at work, i. , ; tour of, in the north, ii. , - ; his kindly criticisms of young writers, ii. , , , , for other criticisms see i. , ; ii. , , , ; elected a member of the birmingham institute, ii. ; religious views of, ii. , , , , , ; visit of, to cornwall, ii. ; at hanover terrace, regent's park, ii. ; visits lord lytton at knebworth, ii. ; at hyde park gate south, ii. ; at , gloucester place, hyde park, ii. ; at somer's place, hyde park, ii. ; in the staplehurst accident, ii. ; at southwick place, hyde park, ii. ; his energy, ii. ; one of the secrets of the success of, ii. , ; the midland institute at birmingham opened by, ii. , and see ii. ; his last speech, at the royal academy dinner, ii. ; his interview with the queen, ii. ; attends a levée of the prince of wales, ii. ; his last illness, ii. ; his death, ii. ; funeral of, ii. , ; and see letters of dickens, mrs. charles, marriage of, i. ; visit of, to america, i. ; at rome, i. ; accident to, i. ; at malvern, i. ; present to, at birmingham, i. ; and see letters dickens, charles, jun., birth of, i. ; nickname of, i. ; at eton, i. , , , , ; at leipsic, i. , , ; at barings', i. ; marriage of, ii. ; on "all the year round," ii. , , ; and see i. , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , ; letters to, ii. , dickens, kate, nickname of, i. ; marriage of, ii. , ; illness of, ii. , ; and see ii. , , , , , , , ; letters to, i. ; ii. dickens, mamie, nickname of, i. ; illnesses of, i. , ; accident to, ii. ; and see ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and letters dickens, walter, nickname of, i. ; goes to india, ii. , ; attached to the nd highlanders, ii. , ; death of, ii. , ; and see i. , , , ; ii. dickens, frank, nickname of, i. ; letter of, to dickens, ii. ; in india, ii. , ; and see ii. , , , dickens, alfred, at wimbledon school, ii. ; settles in australia, ii. ; and see ii. , dickens, sydney, birth of, i. ; nickname of, i. ; death of, i. ; story of, i. ; a naval cadet, ii. , , , ; on board h.m.s. _orlando_, ii. ; and see i. ; ii. , , , , , , , , dickens, henry, entered at trinity hall, cambridge, ii. ; wins a scholarship, ii. , ; and see i. ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , ; letters to, ii. , , , dickens, edward, nicknames of, i. , ; goes to australia, ii. , ; dickens's love for, ii. - ; and see i. , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , ; letter to, ii. dickens, dora, birth of, i. ; death of, i. dickens, alfred, sen., i. , ; ii. dickens, mrs. augustus, ii. dickens, fanny, see mrs. burnett dickens, frederick, i. dickens, john, i. , ; ii. dickens, mrs. john, ii. dickens, letitia, see mrs. henry austin dickenson, captain, ii. , dickson, david, letter to, i. diezman, s. a., letter to, i. dilke, c. w., ii. ; letter to, ii. dillon, c., ii. dinner, a search for a, i. ; ladies at public dinners, i. dogs, dickens's, i. , , ; ii. , , ; ii. , , , , , ; a plague of, i. ; stories of, i. , , , dolby, george, ii. , - , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , - , - , , , "dombey and son," i. ; success of, i. , ; sale of, i. d'orsay, comte, i. , driver, dickens's estimate of himself as a, i. drury lane theatre, the saloon at, i. ; suggestions for the saloon at, i. , dufferin, lord, ii. dwarf, the tartar, ii. earthquake, an, in england, ii. edinburgh on a sunday, ii. education, dickens an advocate of, for the people, i. "edwin drood," ii. , , , eeles, mr., letters to, i. , egg, augustus, i. , , , , , ; ii. eliot, sir john, dickens on forster's life of, ii. elliotson, dr., i. , , ii. elton, mr., i. , elwin, rev. w., ii. , ely, miss, letter to, i. emerson, mr., ii. emery, mr., i. england, state of, in , i. ; politically, i. epitaph, dickens's, on a little child, i. executions, dickens on public, i. , exhibition, an infant school at the, i. eytinge, mr., ii. fairy tales, dickens on, i. "faust," gounod's, ii. , fechter, charles, ii. , , , , , , , ; and see letters felton, mr., ii. ferguson, sir william, ii. , féval, paul, ii. , fielding, henry, i. fields, cyrus w., ii. , , , , , , fields, mrs., ii. , , , , , , , , fildes, s. l., ii. , ; letter to, ii. finlay, f. d., ii. ; letters to, ii. , , fitzgerald, mrs., ii. fitzgerald, percy, ii. , ; and see letters flunkeydom, scholastic, ii. forgues, m., i. , forster, miss, ii. forster, john, i. , , , , , , , ; ii. , , ; and see letters franklin, sir john, i. freake, mr. and mrs., ii. french portraits of the english, i. friday, dickens's lucky day, i. , frith, w. p., ii. , , , ; letters to, i. ; ii. frost, the great, of , ii. funerals, dickens on state, i. ; ii. gad's hill, purchase of, i. , , ; dickens takes possession of, ii. ; his childish impressions of, ii. ; improvements in, ii. , , , ; sports at, ii. ; cricket club at, ii. ; letters concerning, i. , , ; ii. , , , , , , , gaskell, mrs., i. ; and see letters germany, esteem felt for dickens in, i. ghost, stalking a, ii. gibson, m., i. ; ii. gibson, mr. and mrs. milner, ii. gladstone, right hon. w. e., ii. goldsmith, oliver, dickens on forster's life of, i. ; on the works of, i. gordon, andrew, ii. gordon, mr. sheriff, ii. "great expectations," commenced, ii. , ; letters concerning, ii. , , , , , grief, the perversity of, exemplified, i. grimaldi, life of, edited by dickens, i. guild of literature and art, i. ; theatrical performances in aid of the, i. , , , , , ; and see ii. haldimand, mr., i. , , , ; letters to, i. , halleck, fitz-greene, i. "hard times," i. ; satire of, explained, i. ; letters concerning, i. , harley, j. p., letters to, i. , harness, rev. w., ii. ; letters to, i. , , "haunted man, the," i. , , ; subjects for illustrations in, described, i. , ; dramatisation of, i. headland, mr., ii. , , , helps, sir arthur, ii. henderson, mrs., letter to, ii. hewett, captain, i. "history of england, the child's," i. hogarth, mary, i. , hogarth, georgina, i. ; ii. , , , , , , ; and see letters hogge, mrs., letter to, ii. holland, lady, i. holmes, mr., ii. home, longings for, i. , hood, tom, i. ; letter to, i. horne, mrs., letter to, i. horne, r. h., letter to, i. hospital, a dinner at a, i. ; great ormond street, ii. , houghton, lord, ii. ; letter to, i. "household words," i. ; scheme of, i. ; suggested titles for, i. ; success of, i. ; christmas numbers of, i. , ; "the golden mary," i. ; ii. , "a house to let," ii. ; incorporated with "all the year round," ii. ; letters concerning, i. , , , , , - , , , , , , , , ; ii. hughes, master hastings, letter to, i. hulkes, mrs., ii. , , ; letter to, ii. hullah, john, i. ; ii. humphery, mr. and mrs., afterwards sir w. and lady, ii. hunt, leigh, ii. hutchinson, john, ii. _illustrated london news_, offers to dickens from, i. illustrations of dickens's works, his descriptions for, i. - , , , , , - ; ii. impeachment of the five members, dickens on forster's, ii. ireland, a dialogue in, ii. ; feeling for dickens in, ii. ; fenianism in, ii. - ; proposed banquet to dickens in, ii. ; dickens on the established church in, ii. ; and see ii. , , italy, dickens's first visit to, i. ; the sky of, i. ; the colouring of, i. ; a sunset in, i. ; twilight in, i. ; frescoes in, i. ; churches in, i. ; fruit in, i. ; climate of, i. ; a coastguard in, i. ; dickens at albaro, i. - ; at genoa, i. - , , ; at venice and verona, i. - , ; at naples, i. - , ; an ascent of vesuvius, i. - ; at rome, i. , , - ; dickens on the unity of, ii. , , , , ; and see i. , jamaica, the insurrection in, ii. jeffrey, lord, i. , jerrold, douglas, i. , , , ; ii. , , ; and see letters jews, dickens's friendly feeling for, ii. , , joachim, joseph, ii. john, dickens's manservant, ii. , , , , , , , joll, miss, letter to, i. jones, walter, letter to, ii. keeley, mrs., ii. keeley, robert, i. ; letter to, i. kelly, miss, i. , kelly, one of dickens's readings men, ii. , , kemble, fanny, ii. , kent, w. charles, i. ; ii. , , ; and see letters kinkel, dr., i. knight, charles, i. ; ii. ; and see letters knowles, sheridan, i. ; letter to, i. "lady of lyons, the," ii. la font, ii. lamartine, i. landor, walter savage, i. , ; ii. ; and see letters landseer, edwin, letter to, i. landseer, tom, i. lansdowne, lord, i. law, dickens's opinion of english, ii. layard, a. h., i. ; ii. ; letters to, i. , leclercq, miss, ii. lectures, dickens on public, i. leech, john, i. , , , , le gros, mr., i. , lehmann, mrs., ii. , ; and see letters lehmann, f., ii. , lemaître, m., i. lemon, mark, i. , , , , , ; and see letters lemon, mrs., i. léotard, ii. letters of charles dickens to: agate, john, ii. ainsworth, w. h., i. , , anonymous, i. ; ii. armstrong, the misses, ii. austin, henry, i. , - , , - , , ; ii. , , austin, mrs., ii. , , babbage, charles, i. , , bancroft, mrs., ii. banks, g., i. baylis, mr., ii. benzon, miss, ii. bicknell, h., i. blanchard, laman, i. boyle, miss, i. , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , brookfield, mrs., ii. brookfield, rev. w., ii. , brooks, shirley, ii. , carlisle, the earl of, i. , ; ii. , , cartwright, samuel, ii. cattermole, mrs., ii. , cattermole, george, i. , - , , - , , , , , - , , , , cerjat, m. de, i. , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , chapman and hall, i. clarke, john, ii. collins, wilkie, i. , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , compton, mrs., ii. cooke, t. p., ii. costello, dudley, i. , croker, j. crofton, i. cunningham, peter, i. , , , dallas, mrs., ii. , deane, f. h., i. delane, john, i. devonshire, the duke of, i. , , dickens, mrs. charles, i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , dickens, charles, ii. , dickens, edward, ii. dickens, henry, ii. , , , dickens, miss kate, i. ; ii. dickens, miss, i. , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , dickson, david, i. diezman, s. a., i. dilke, c. w., ii. eeles, mr., i. , ely, miss, i. fechter, charles, ii. , , , , , , , fildes, s. l., ii. finlay, f. d., ii. , , fitzgerald, percy, ii. , , , , , , , forster, john, i. , , ; ii. , , , , , , , frith, w. p., i. ; ii. gaskell, mrs., i. , , , , , , , , haldimand, mr., i. halleck, fitz-greene, i. harley, j. p., i. , harness, rev. w., i. , , henderson, mrs., ii. hogarth, catherine, i. hogarth, miss, i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , hogge, mrs., ii. hood, tom, i. horne, mrs., i. horne, r. h., i. hughes, master, i. hulkes, mrs., ii. jerrold, douglas, i. , , , , jewish lady, a, ii. , , joll, miss, i. jones, walter, ii. keeley, robert, i. kent, w. charles, i. , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , knight, charles, i. , , , , , , , ; ii. , knowles, sheridan, i. landor, walter savage, i. , , , , landseer, edwin, i. layard, a. h., i. , lehmann, mrs. f., ii. , , , lemon, mark, i. , , , , , , , , , longman, thomas, i. ; ii. longman, william, i. lovejoy, g., i. lytton, sir e. b., ii. maclise, daniel, i. , macready, w. c., i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , major, mrs., ii. makeham, john, ii. marston, dr. westland, ii. milnes, r. monckton, i. mitton, thomas, i. , , , , , , , ; ii. morpeth, viscount, i. , , and see carlisle, the earl of ollier, edmund, ii. , ouvry, f., ii. , owen, professor, ii. panizzi, antonio, ii. , , pardoe, miss, i. parkinson, j. c., ii. pollock, mrs. f., ii. pollock, sir f., ii. poole, john, i. power, miss, i. , , ; ii. , power, mrs., ii. procter, adelaide, i. procter, b. w., i. ; ii. , , , , procter, mrs., ii. , reade, charles, ii. regnier, monsieur, i. , , , ; ii. , , , , roberts, david, i. , , , russell, lord john, i. , ; ii. , , ryland, arthur, i. , , ; ii. , , , sandys, william, i. saunders, john, i. sculthorpe, w. r., ii. smith, arthur, ii. , smith, h. p., i. , , stanfield, clarkson, i. , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , stanfield, george, ii. stone, marcus, i. ; ii. , stone, frank, i. - , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , storrar, mrs., ii. "_sun, the_," the editor of, i. tagart, edward, i. , talfourd, miss mary, i. talfourd, serjeant, i. tennent, sir james emerson, i. ; ii. , , thackeray, w. m., ii. thornbury, walter, ii. , , tomlin, john, i. toole, j. l., ii. trollope, mrs., i. , viardot, madame, i. ward, e. m., ii. ward, mrs., ii. watkins, john, i. ; ii. watson, hon. mrs., i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , watson, hon. r., i. white, mrs., ii. white, miss, ii. white, rev. james, i. , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , wills, w. h., i. - , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , wilson, effingham, i. yates, edmund, ii. , , , , , , , yates, mrs., ii. lewes, g. h., i. "lighthouse, the," the play of, i. ; dickens's prologue to, i. ; dickens's "song of the wreck" in, i. ; and see ii. linton, mrs., ii. lion, a chained, i. literary fund, the, ii. , "little dorrit," i. , , ; proposed name of, i. ; sale of, i. ; letters concerning, i. , , , lockhart, mr., ii. london, the mayor of, from a french point of view, i. ; in september, i. ; dickens's opinion of the corporation of, i. ; ii. ; facetious advice to country visitors to, i. longfellow, w. h., ii. , , , , , , longman, thomas, letters to, i. ; ii. longman, william, letter to, i. lovejoy, g., i. lowell, miss mabel, ii. , lyceum theatre under fechter, ii. , , ; and see fechter lyndhurst, lord, i. ; ii. lynn, miss, i. lyttelton, hon. spencer, i. , lytton, the first lord, i. , ; ii. , , , , ; letter to, ii. lytton, lord, ii. maclise, daniel, i. , , , , ; ii. ; letters to, i. , macready, w. c., i. , , , ; ii. , , ; and see letters macready, benvenuta, i. ; ii. macready, kate, i. ; ii. macready, mrs., ii. , macready, jonathan, ii. macready, nina, i. macready, w., ii. major, mrs., letter to, ii. makeham, j. m., ii. ; dickens's last letter written to, ii. malleson, mr. and mrs., ii. marsh, dickens's coachman, a story of, ii. marston, dr. westland, ii. , , ; letter to, ii. martineau, i. , "martin chuzzlewit," i. ; dramatised, i. , ; a story of mrs. harris, ii. "master humphrey's clock," i. ; the plan of, described, i. ; letters concerning illustrations for, i. - , - , - , - , - "mémoires du diable, les," i. mesmerism, a séance of, ii. missionaries, dickens on, i. ; ii. mitton, thomas, see letters molesworth, lady, ii. , monuments, dickens on, i. , moore, tom, i. morgan, captain, ii. , morgan, w., ii. , morley, mr., i. morpeth, viscount, letters to, i. , ; and see carlisle, the earl of motley, mr., ii. mountain, a hazardous ascent of a, ii. mulgrave, earl of, i. narrative, i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , nathan, messrs. h. and l., i. , , neville, mr., ii. newsvendors' benevolent institution, ii. new testament, dickens's love for the, ii. , ; dickens writes a history of the, for his children, ii. "nicholas nickleby," publication of, i. ; rewards and punishments of characters in, i. ; dickens at work on, i. ; dedication of, i, ; the kenwigs in, i, ; and see ii. nicknames, dickens's, of george cattermole, i. , ; of his children, i. , , , , , ; nautical, i. ; of himself, i. , , , ; of frank stone, i. , norton, c. e., ii. noviomagians, the, i. "old curiosity shop, the," dickens engaged on, i. ; scenes in, described by dickens for illustration, i. , - , ; dickens heartbroken over the story, i. , , "oliver twist," publication of, i. ; dickens at work on, i. ; the reading of "the murder" from, ii. , , , ollier, edmund, ii. , ; letters to, ii. , olliffe, lady, ii. , olliffe, sir j., ii. olliffe, the misses, ii. organs, street, i. osgood, mr., ii. , , , , , , , "our mutual friend," ii. , , ; and as to illustrations for, see ii. , ouvry, frederic, ii. , ; letters to, ii. , overs, i. , owen, professor, ii. panizzi, antonio, ii. ; letters to, ii. , , pardoe, miss, letter to, i. paris, dickens at, i. , , , - , , , , , , - , , - , , ; ii. , ; house-hunting in, i. ; description of dickens's house in, i. ; state of, in , i. , ; feeling of people of, for dickens, i. ; dickens's reading at, ii. - , parkinson, j. c., ii. ; letter to, ii. parrots, human, i. , "patrician's daughter, the," prologue to, written by dickens, i. , patronage, the curse of england, ii. , paxton, sir joseph, i. phelps, j., i. "pickwick," origin and publication of, i. , ; first mention of jingle, i. ; conclusion of, celebrated, i. ; the design of the shepherd in, explained, i. , picnic, a, of the elements, i, ; with eton boys, i. , "picnic papers," dickens's share of the, ii. plessy, madame, i. ; ii. pollock, sir f., ii. , , ; letter to, ii. , pollock, mrs. f., letter to, ii. poole, john, i. , ; ii. ; letter to, i. "poor travellers, the," i. ; sale of, i. portraits of dickens, by maclise, i. , ; by frith, ii. , ; by ary scheffer, i. , ; by john watkins, ii. ; a caricature, ii. postman, an albaro, i. , power, miss, i. ; ii. , , ; and see letters power, nelly, i. power, mrs., letter to, ii. presence of mind of dickens, ii. , , press, the, freedom of, i. ; in america, i. ; taxation of the, i. procter, adelaide, i. ; ii. ; letter to, i. procter, b. w., i. ; ii. , ; and see letters procter, mrs., letter to, ii. , publishing system, how to improve the, i. purse, the power of the, i. putnam, mr., ii. queen, the, dickens's theatrical performance before, i. ; his feeling for, ii. ; his interview with, ii. rae, dr., i. railways, ii. reade, charles, ii. ; letter to, ii. reader, charles dickens as a, ii. readings, dickens's public, for charities, i. , , ; ii. , , ; first reading for his own benefit, ii. ; at paris, ii. , , ; in america, ii. ; farewell series of readings in england, ii. , , ; trial reading of "the murder" from "oliver twist," ii. ; reading to the actors, ii. , ; farewell reading, ii. ; effects of "the murder" reading on dickens, ii. ; books of the, ii. ; letters concerning the readings in england, scotland, and ireland, i. , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , - , - , , , , , - , , , , , - , - ; letters concerning american, ii. , , , , , , - ; letters concerning the farewell series of, ii. , , - , - reform, dickens speaks on administrative, i. , ; association for, i. ; dickens on parliamentary, ii. , refreshment rooms, i. regnier, m., i. ; and see letters reynolds, dr. russell, ii. richardson, samuel, dickens's opinion of, i. "rivals, the," a scene from, rewritten, i. roberts, david, i. ; ii. ; letters to, i. , , , "robinson crusoe," dickens on, i. robson, f., i. roche, dickens's courier, i. , - , rochester cathedral, proposed burial of dickens in, ii. royal academy, female students at the, ii. ; dickens's last public appearance, at the dinner of the, ii. russel, alexander, ii. , , , russell, lord john, i. ; ii. ; and see letters russell, w. h., ii. ryland, arthur, ii. , ; and see letters sainton-dolby, madame, ii. , sanatorium for art-students, i. sand, georges, i. sandys, william, letter to, i. saunders, john, i. ; letter to, i. savage, i. saville, miss, ii. scheffer, ary, i. , ; ii. schoolmistress, a yorkshire, i. scott, sir walter, i. , scott, dickens's dresser, ii. , , , , , , , scribe, eugène, i. , sculthorpe, w. r., letter to, ii. seaside, the, in wet weather, i. sea voyage, a, i. shaftesbury, lord, ii. shakespeare, dickens in room of, i. ; dickens's criticisms of charles knight's biography of, i. ; and see i. shea, mr. justice, ii. shower-bath, a perpetual, i. "sketches," publication of the, i. smith, arthur, ii. , , , , - , - , , , , , , , , , - ; letters to, ii. , smith, h. p., letters to, i. , , smith, sydney, i. smollett, dickens on the works of, i. snevellicci, miss, in real life, i. snore, a mighty, i. songs by dickens: on mark lemon, i. ; of "the wreck" in "the lighthouse," i. speaking, dickens on public, ii. , ; advice to his son henry on public, ii. spencer, lord, i. spider, a fearful, i. spiritualism, dickens on, i. , stage-coach, american story of a, ii. stage suggestions, i. ; a stage mob, i. ; a piece of stage business, i. stanfield, clarkson, i. , , , , ; ii. , , ; and see letters stanfield, george, letter to, ii. stanley, dean, ii. , stanley, lady augusta, ii. staplehurst, dickens in the railway accident at, ii. ; description of the accident, ii. - ; effects of the accident on dickens, ii. staunton, mr. secretary, ii. steele, sir richard, dickens on forster's essay on, i. steele, mr., ii. , stone, arthur, i. stone, ellen, ii. stone, frank, i. , , , ; ii. ; and see letters stone, marcus, i. ; ii. , , ; letters to, i. ; ii. , storrar, mrs., ii. ; letter to, ii. "strange gentleman, the," farce written by dickens and produced, i. ; price of, i. ; sent to macready, i. strikes, dickens on, i. sumner, charles, ii. , _sun, the_, newspaper, ii. ; letter to editor of, i. switzerland, the simplon pass in, i. ; pleasant recollections of, i. , ; dickens at lausanne in, i. ; a revolution in, i. , ; friends in, i. ; dickens's love for, i. ; letters concerning lausanne in, i. , , , , sympathy, letters of, i. , , , , ; ii. , , , , , , tagart, edward, letters to, i. , "tale of two cities, a," ii. , , ; letters concerning, ii. , , , , talfourd, miss mary, letter to, i. talfourd, mr. justice, i. ; letter to, i. taüchnitz, baron, i. , tavistock house, purchase of, i. ; sale of, ii. ; letters concerning, i. , - taxation, dickens on, i. ; of newspapers, i. taylor, bayard, ii. telegraph, the dramatic side of the, i. tennent, sir james emerson, i. ; ii. , ; letters to, i. ; ii. , tenniel, john, i. tennyson, alfred, dickens's admiration for, ii. terry, miss kate, ii. thackeray, w. m., ii. , , , , , ; letter to, ii. thames, drainage of the, ii. ; embankment of the, ii. theatre, dickens at the, i. ; phiz's laughter at the, i. ; the saloon at drury lane, i. , ; scents of a, i. ; story of a, i. ; proposal for a national, i. ; dickens on the, ii. , theatrical fund, the, ii. theatrical performances of charles dickens: at montreal, i. ; at miss kelly's theatre, i. ; "fortunio" at tavistock house, i. , ; "the lighthouse," i. , - ; "the frozen deep," i. ; for the jerrold memorial fund, ii. , ; before the queen, i. ; and see i. , , , , , , , ; ii. ; letters concerning the, i. , , , , , , , - , , , , , , , , , , , , ; ii. , , thornbury, walter, ii. , ; letters to, ii. , , tomlin, john, letter to, i. toole, j. l., ii. , ; letter to, ii. topham, f. w., i. , townshend, chauncey hare, ii. , , , , , , , trollope, mrs., letters to, i. , "uncle tom's cabin," dickens on, i. "uncommercial traveller, the," ii. viardot, madame, ii. ; letter to, i. "village coquettes, the," operetta written by dickens, i. ; and see i. volunteers, dickens on the, ii. waistcoat, a wonderful, i. ; the loan by dickens of macready's, i. wales, the prince of, popularity of, ii. ; dickens attends levée of, ii. wales, the princess of, her arrival in england, ii. ; the illuminations in honour of, ii. ; popularity of, ii. war, dickens on the russian, i. ward, e. m., i. ; letter to, ii. ward, mrs., letter to, ii. watkins, john, i. ; letters to, i. ; ii. watson, hon. r., i. , ; letter to, i. watson, hon. mrs., i. ; ii. , ; and see letters watson, sir thomas, ii. , watson, wentworth, ii. watts's refuge for poor travellers, ii. webster, benjamin, i. , , ; ii. webster, a story of the murderer, ii. welcome home, a, i. westminster abbey, burial of dickens in, ii. whewell, dr., i. white, clara, ii. , , white, rev. james, i. , ; ii. ; and see letters white, mrs., ii. ; letter to, ii. white, miss, ii. , , ; letter to, ii. white, richard grant, ii. wigan, alfred, i. williams, mr. and mrs. barney, ii. , wills, w. h., i. , , ; ii. , , , , ; and see letters wills, mrs., ii. , , wilson, effingham, letter to, i. working men, clubs for, ii. , ; dickens on the management of such clubs, ii. ; feeling of, for dickens, ii. yates, edmund, i. , ; ii. , ; and see letters yates, mrs., ii. ; letter to, ii. the end. charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. * * * * * transcriber's notes: page , "leotard" changed to "léotard" twice (palace and léotard) and (into seeing léotard) page , "shefound" changed to "she found" (she found marsh) page , "levee" changed to "levée" (a levée held) page , "celeste" changed to "céleste" (céleste, madame) page - , entries for "dickens, mamie" and "dickens, kate" were originally not in alphabetically order. this was corrected. page , "fitzgreene" changed to "fitz-greene" (halleck, fitz-greene) page , "fitzgreene" changed to "fitz-greene" (halleck, fitz-greene) page , "lyttleton" changed to "lyttelton" (lyttleton, hon. spencer) page , "shee" changed to "shea" (shea, mr. justice) for the reader: things that were handwritten are denoted in the text as hw: asterisms in the text are denoted by [asterism] the letters of [hw: charles dickens] the letters of charles dickens. edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter. in two volumes. vol. i. to . london: chapman and hall, , piccadilly. . [_the right of translation is reserved._] charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. to kate perugini, this memorial of her father is lovingly inscribed by her aunt and sister. preface. we intend this collection of letters to be a supplement to the "life of charles dickens," by john forster. that work, perfect and exhaustive as a biography, is only incomplete as regards correspondence; the scheme of the book having made it impossible to include in its space any letters, or hardly any, besides those addressed to mr. forster. as no man ever expressed _himself_ more in his letters than charles dickens, we believe that in publishing this careful selection from his general correspondence we shall be supplying a want which has been universally felt. our request for the loan of letters was so promptly and fully responded to, that we have been provided with more than sufficient material for our work. by arranging the letters in chronological order, we find that they very frequently explain themselves and form a narrative of the events of each year. our collection dates from , the commencement of charles dickens's literary life, just before the starting of the "pickwick papers," and is carried on up to the day before his death, in . we find some difficulty in being quite accurate in the arrangements of letters up to the end of , for he had a careless habit in those days about dating his letters, very frequently putting only the day of the week on which he wrote, curiously in contrast with the habit of his later life, when his dates were always of the very fullest. a blank is made in charles dickens's correspondence with his family by the absence of any letter addressed to his daughter kate (mrs. perugini), to her great regret and to ours. in , her furniture and other possessions were stored in the warehouse of the pantechnicon at the time of the great fire there. all her property was destroyed, and, among other things, a box of papers which included her letters from her father. it was our intention as well as our desire to have thanked, individually, every one--both living friends and representatives of dead ones--for their readiness to give us every possible help to make our work complete. but the number of such friends, besides correspondents hitherto unknown, who have volunteered contributions of letters, make it impossible in our space to do otherwise than to express, collectively, our earnest and heartfelt thanks. a separate word of gratitude, however, must be given by us to mr. wilkie collins for the invaluable help which we have received from his great knowledge and experience, in the technical part of our work, and for the deep interest which he has shown from the beginning, in our undertaking. it is a great pleasure to us to have the name of henry fielding dickens associated with this book. to him, for the very important assistance he has given in making our index, we return our loving thanks. in writing our explanatory notes we have, we hope, left nothing out which in any way requires explanation from us. but we have purposely made them as short as possible; our great desire being to give to the public another book from charles dickens's own hands--as it were, a portrait of himself by himself. those letters which need no explanation--and of those we have many--we give without a word from us. in publishing the more private letters, we do so with the view of showing him in his homely, domestic life--of showing how in the midst of his own constant and arduous work, no household matter was considered too trivial to claim his care and attention. he would take as much pains about the hanging of a picture, the choosing of furniture, the superintending any little improvement in the house, as he would about the more serious business of his life; thus carrying out to the very letter his favourite motto of "what is worth doing at all is worth doing well." mamie dickens. georgina hogarth. london: _october_, . errata. vol. i. page , line . for "because if i hear of you," _read_ "because i hear of you." " , line . for "any old end," _read_ "or any old end." " . first paragraph, second sentence, _should read_, "all the ancient part of rome is wonderful and impressive in the extreme, far beyond the possibility of exaggeration. as to the," etc. " , line . for "mr." _read_ "mrs." book i. to . the letters of charles dickens. or , and , . narrative. we have been able to procure so few early letters of any general interest that we put these first years together. charles dickens was then living, as a bachelor, in furnival's inn, and was engaged as a parliamentary reporter on _the morning chronicle_. the "sketches by boz" were written during these years, published first in "the monthly magazine" and continued in _the evening chronicle_. he was engaged to be married to catherine hogarth in --the marriage took place on the nd april, ; and he continued to live in furnival's inn with his wife for more than a year after their marriage. they passed the summer months of that year in a lodging at chalk, near gravesend, in the neighbourhood associated with all his life, from his childhood to his death. the two letters which we publish, addressed to his wife as miss hogarth, have no date, but were written in . the first of the two refers to the offer made to him by chapman and hall to edit a monthly periodical, the emolument (which he calls "too tempting to resist!") to be fourteen pounds a month. the bargain was concluded, and this was the starting of "the pickwick papers." the first number was published in march, . the second letter to miss hogarth was written after he had completed three numbers of "pickwick," and the character who is to "make a decided hit" is "jingle." the first letter of this book is addressed to henry austin, a friend from his boyhood, who afterwards married his second sister letitia. it bears no date, but must have been written in or , during the early days of his reporting for _the morning chronicle_; the journey on which he was "ordered" being for that paper. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] furnival's inn, _wednesday night, past ._ dear henry, i have just been ordered on a journey, the length of which is at present uncertain. i may be back on sunday very probably, and start again on the following day. should this be the case, you shall hear from me before. don't laugh. i am going (alone) in a gig; and, to quote the eloquent inducement which the proprietors of hampstead _chays_ hold out to sunday riders--"the gen'l'm'n drives himself." i am going into essex and suffolk. it strikes me i shall be spilt before i pay a turnpike. i have a presentiment i shall run over an only child before i reach chelmsford, my first stage. let the evident haste of this specimen of "the polite letter writer" be its excuse, and believe me, dear henry, most sincerely yours, [hw: charles dickens] note.--to avoid the monotony of a constant repetition, we propose to dispense with the signature at the close of each letter, excepting to the first and last letters of our collection. charles dickens's handwriting altered so much during these years of his life, that we have thought it advisable to give a facsimile of his autograph to this our first letter; and we reproduce in the same way his latest autograph. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] furnival's inn, _wednesday evening, ._ my dearest kate, the house is up; but i am very sorry to say that i must stay at home. i have had a visit from the publishers this morning, and the story cannot be any longer delayed; it must be done to-morrow, as there are more important considerations than the mere payment for the story involved too. i must exercise a little self-denial, and set to work. they (chapman and hall) have made me an offer of fourteen pounds a month, to write and edit a new publication they contemplate, entirely by myself, to be published monthly, and each number to contain four woodcuts. i am to make my estimate and calculation, and to give them a decisive answer on friday morning. the work will be no joke, but the emolument is too tempting to resist. * * * * * [sidenote: the same.] _sunday evening._ * * * * * i have at this moment got pickwick and his friends on the rochester coach, and they are going on swimmingly, in company with a very different character from any i have yet described, who i flatter myself will make a decided hit. i want to get them from the ball to the inn before i go to bed; and i think that will take me until one or two o'clock at the earliest. the publishers will be here in the morning, so you will readily suppose i have no alternative but to stick at my desk. * * * * * . narrative. from the commencement of "the pickwick papers," and of charles dickens's married life, dates the commencement of his literary life and his sudden world-wide fame. and this year saw the beginning of many of those friendships which he most valued, and of which he had most reason to be proud, and which friendships were ended only by death. the first letters which we have been able to procure to mr. macready and mr. harley will be found under this date. in january, , he was living in furnival's inn, where his first child, a son, was born. it was an eventful year to him in many ways. he removed from furnival's inn to doughty street in march, and here he sustained the first great grief of his life. his young sister-in-law, mary hogarth, to whom he was devotedly attached, died very suddenly, at his house, on the th may. in the autumn of this year he took lodgings at broadstairs. this was his first visit to that pleasant little watering-place, of which he became very fond, and whither he removed for the autumn months with all his household, for many years in succession. besides the monthly numbers of "pickwick," which were going on through this year until november, when the last number appeared, he had commenced "oliver twist," which was appearing also monthly, in the magazine called "bentley's miscellany," long before "pickwick" was completed. and during this year he had edited, for mr. bentley, "the life of grimaldi," the celebrated clown. to this book he wrote himself only the preface, and altered and rearranged the autobiographical ms. which was in mr. bentley's possession. the letter to mr. harley, which bears no date, but must have been written either in or , refers to a farce called "the strange gentleman" (founded on one of the "sketches," called the "great winglebury duel"), which he wrote expressly for mr. harley, and which was produced at the st. james's theatre, under the management of mr. braham. the only other piece which he wrote for that theatre was the story of an operetta, called "the village coquettes," the music of which was composed by mr. john hullah. [sidenote: mr. j. p. harley.] , doughty street, _saturday morning._ my dear sir, i have considered the terms on which i could afford just now to sell mr. braham the acting copyright in london of an entirely new piece for the st. james's theatre; and i could not sit down to write one in a single act of about one hour long, under a hundred pounds. for a new piece in two acts, a hundred and fifty pounds would be the sum i should require. i do not know whether, with reference to arrangements that were made with any other writers, this may or may not appear a large item. i state it merely with regard to the value of my own time and writings at this moment; and in so doing i assure you i place the remuneration below the mark rather than above it. as you begged me to give you my reply upon this point, perhaps you will lay it before mr. braham. if these terms exceed his inclination or the ability of the theatre, there is an end of the matter, and no harm done. believe me ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , doughty street, _wednesday evening._ my dear sir, there is a semi-business, semi-pleasure little dinner which i intend to give at the prince of wales, in leicester place, leicester square, on saturday, at five for half-past precisely, at which only talfourd, forster, ainsworth, jerdan, and the publishers will be present. it is to celebrate (that is too great a word, but i can think of no better) the conclusion of my "pickwick" labours; and so i intend, before you take that roll upon the grass you spoke of, to beg your acceptance of one of the first complete copies of the work. i shall be much delighted if you would join us. i know too well the many anxieties that press upon you just now to seek to persuade you to come if you would prefer a night's repose and quiet. let me assure you, notwithstanding, most honestly and heartily that there is no one i should be more happy or gratified to see, and that among your brilliant circle of well-wishers and admirers you number none more unaffectedly and faithfully yours than, my dear sir, yours most truly. . narrative. in february of this year charles dickens made an expedition with his friend, and the illustrator of most of his books, mr. hablot k. browne ("phiz"), to investigate for himself the real facts as to the condition of the yorkshire schools, and it may be observed that portions of a letter to his wife, dated greta bridge, yorkshire, which will be found among the following letters, were reproduced in "nicholas nickleby." in the early summer he had a cottage at twickenham park. in august and september he was again at broadstairs; and in the late autumn he made another bachelor excursion--mr. browne being again his companion--in england, which included his first visit to stratford-on-avon and kenilworth. in february appeared the first number of "nicholas nickleby," on which work he was engaged all through the year, writing each number ready for the following month, and never being in advance, as was his habit with all his other periodical works, until his very latest ones. the first letter which appears under this date, from twickenham park, is addressed to mr. thomas mitton, a schoolfellow at one of his earliest schools, and afterwards for some years his solicitor. the letter contains instructions for his first will; the friend of almost his whole life, mr. john forster, being appointed executor to this will as he was to the last, to which he was "called upon to act" only three years before his own death. the letter which we give in this year to mr. justice talfourd is, unfortunately, the only one we have been able to procure to that friend, who was, however, one with whom he was most intimately associated, and with whom he maintained a constant correspondence. the letter beginning "respected sir" was an answer to a little boy (master hastings hughes), who had written to him as "nicholas nickleby" approached completion, stating his views and wishes as to the rewards and punishments to be bestowed on the various characters in the book. the letter was sent to him through the rev. thomas barham, author of "the ingoldsby legends." the two letters to mr. macready, at the end of this year, refer to a farce which charles dickens wrote, with an idea that it might be suitable for covent garden theatre, then under mr. macready's management. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] greta bridge, _thursday, feb. st, ._ my dearest kate, i am afraid you will receive this later than i could wish, as the mail does not come through this place until two o'clock to-morrow morning. however, i have availed myself of the very first opportunity of writing, so the fault is that mail's, and not this. we reached grantham between nine and ten on thursday night, and found everything prepared for our reception in the very best inn i have ever put up at. it is odd enough that an old lady, who had been outside all day and came in towards dinner time, turned out to be the mistress of a yorkshire school returning from the holiday stay in london. she was a very queer old lady, and showed us a long letter she was carrying to one of the boys from his father, containing a severe lecture (enforced and aided by many texts of scripture) on his refusing to eat boiled meat. she was very communicative, drank a great deal of brandy and water, and towards evening became insensible, in which state we left her. yesterday we were up again shortly after seven a.m., came on upon our journey by the glasgow mail, which charged us the remarkably low sum of six pounds fare for two places inside. we had a very droll male companion until seven o'clock in the evening, and a most delicious lady's-maid for twenty miles, who implored us to keep a sharp look-out at the coach-windows, as she expected the carriage was coming to meet her and she was afraid of missing it. we had many delightful vauntings of the same kind; but in the end it is scarcely necessary to say that the coach did not come, but a very dirty girl did. as we came further north the mire grew deeper. about eight o'clock it began to fall heavily, and, as we crossed the wild heaths hereabout, there was no vestige of a track. the mail kept on well, however, and at eleven we reached a bare place with a house standing alone in the midst of a dreary moor, which the guard informed us was greta bridge. i was in a perfect agony of apprehension, for it was fearfully cold, and there were no outward signs of anybody being up in the house. but to our great joy we discovered a comfortable room, with drawn curtains and a most blazing fire. in half an hour they gave us a smoking supper and a bottle of mulled port (in which we drank your health), and then we retired to a couple of capital bedrooms, in each of which there was a rousing fire halfway up the chimney. we have had for breakfast, toast, cakes, a yorkshire pie, a piece of beef about the size and much the shape of my portmanteau, tea, coffee, ham, and eggs; and are now going to look about us. having finished our discoveries, we start in a postchaise for barnard castle, which is only four miles off, and there i deliver the letter given me by mitton's friend. all the schools are round about that place, and a dozen old abbeys besides, which we shall visit by some means or other to-morrow. we shall reach york on saturday i hope, and (god willing) i trust i shall be at home on wednesday morning. i wish you would call on mrs. bentley and thank her for the letter; you can tell her when i expect to be in york. a thousand loves and kisses to the darling boy, whom i see in my mind's eye crawling about the floor of this yorkshire inn. bless his heart, i would give two sovereigns for a kiss. remember me too to frederick, who i hope is attentive to you. is it not extraordinary that the same dreams which have constantly visited me since poor mary died follow me everywhere? after all the change of scene and fatigue, i have dreamt of her ever since i left home, and no doubt shall till i return. i should be sorry to lose such visions, for they are very happy ones, if it be only the seeing her in one's sleep. i would fain believe, too, sometimes, that her spirit may have some influence over them, but their perpetual repetition is extraordinary. love to all friends. ever, my dear kate, your affectionate husband. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] twickenham park, _tuesday night._ dear tom, i sat down this morning and put on paper my testamentary meaning. whether it is sufficiently legal or not is another question, but i hope it is. the rough draft of the clauses which i enclose will be preceded by as much of the fair copy as i send you, and followed by the usual clause about the receipts of the trustees being a sufficient discharge. i also wish to provide that if all our children should die before twenty-one, and kate married again, half the surplus should go to her and half to my surviving brothers and sisters, share and share alike. this will be all, except a few lines i wish to add which there will be no occasion to consult you about, as they will merely bear reference to a few tokens of remembrance and one or two slight funeral directions. and so pray god that you may be gray, and forster bald, long before you are called upon to act as my executors. i suppose i shall see you at the water-party on thursday? we will then make an appointment for saturday morning, and if you think my clauses will do, i will complete my copy, seal it up, and leave it in your hands. there are some other papers which you ought to have. we must get a box. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. serjeant talfourd, m.p.] twickenham park, _sunday, july th, ._ my dear talfourd, i cannot tell you how much pleasure i have derived from the receipt of your letter. i have heard little of you, and seen less, for so long a time, that your handwriting came like the renewal of some old friendship, and gladdened my eyes like the face of some old friend. if i hear from lady holland before you return, i shall, as in duty bound, present myself at her bidding; but between you and me and the general post, i hope she may not renew her invitation until i can visit her with you, as i would much rather avail myself of your personal introduction. however, whatever her ladyship may do i shall respond to, and anyway shall be only too happy to avail myself of what i am sure cannot fail to form a very pleasant and delightful introduction. your kind invitation and reminder of the subject of a pleasant conversation in one of our pleasant rides, has thrown a gloom over the brightness of twickenham, for here i am chained. it is indispensably necessary that "oliver twist" should be published in three volumes, in september next. i have only just begun the last one, and, having the constant drawback of my monthly work, shall be sadly harassed to get it finished in time, especially as i have several very important scenes (important to the story i mean) yet to write. nothing would give me so much pleasure as to be with you for a week or so. i can only imperfectly console myself with the hope that when you see "oliver" you will like the close of the book, and approve my self-denial in staying here to write it. i should like to know your address in scotland when you leave town, so that i may send you the earliest copy if it be produced in the vacation, which i pray heaven it may. meanwhile, believe that though my body is on the banks of the thames, half my heart is going the oxford circuit. mrs. dickens and charley desire their best remembrances (the latter expresses some anxiety, not unmixed with apprehension, relative to the copyright bill, in which he conceives himself interested), with hearty wishes that you may have a fine autumn, which is all you want, being sure of all other means of enjoyment that a man can have. i am, my dear talfourd, ever faithfully yours. p.s.--i hope you are able to spare a moment now and then to glance at "nicholas nickleby," and that you have as yet found no reason to alter the opinion you formed on the appearance of the first number. you know, i suppose, that they elected me at the athenæum? pray thank mr. serjeant storks for me. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] lion hotel, shrewsbury, _thursday, nov. st, ._ my dearest love, i received your welcome letter on arriving here last night, and am rejoiced to hear that the dear children are so much better. i hope that in your next, or your next but one, i shall learn that they are quite well. a thousand kisses to them. i wish i could convey them myself. we found a roaring fire, an elegant dinner, a snug room, and capital beds all ready for us at leamington, after a very agreeable (but very cold) ride. we started in a postchaise next morning for kenilworth, with which we were both enraptured, and where i really think we must have lodgings next summer, please god that we are in good health and all goes well. you cannot conceive how delightful it is. to read among the ruins in fine weather would be perfect luxury. from here we went on to warwick castle, which is an ancient building, newly restored, and possessing no very great attraction beyond a fine view and some beautiful pictures; and thence to stratford-upon-avon, where we sat down in the room where shakespeare was born, and left our autographs and read those of other people and so forth. we remained at stratford all night, and found to our unspeakable dismay that father's plan of proceeding by bridgenorth was impracticable, as there were no coaches. so we were compelled to come here by way of birmingham and wolverhampton, starting at eight o'clock through a cold wet fog, and travelling, when the day had cleared up, through miles of cinder-paths and blazing furnaces, and roaring steam-engines, and such a mass of dirt, gloom, and misery as i never before witnessed. we got pretty well accommodated here when we arrived at half-past four, and are now going off in a postchaise to llangollen--thirty miles--where we shall remain to-night, and where the bangor mail will take us up to-morrow. such are our movements up to this point, and when i have received your letter at chester i shall write to you again and tell you when i shall be back. i can say positively that i shall not exceed the fortnight, and i think it very possible that i may return a day or two before it expires. we were at the play last night. it was a bespeak--"the love chase," a ballet (with a phenomenon!), divers songs, and "a roland for an oliver." it is a good theatre, but the actors are very funny. browne laughed with such indecent heartiness at one point of the entertainment, that an old gentleman in the next box suffered the most violent indignation. the bespeak party occupied two boxes, the ladies were full-dressed, and the gentlemen, to a man, in white gloves with flowers in their button-holes. it amused us mightily, and was really as like the miss snevellicci business as it could well be. my side has been very bad since i left home, although i have been very careful not to drink much, remaining to the full as abstemious as usual, and have not eaten any great quantity, having no appetite. i suffered such an ecstasy of pain all night at stratford that i was half dead yesterday, and was obliged last night to take a dose of henbane. the effect was most delicious. i slept soundly, and without feeling the least uneasiness, and am a great deal better this morning; neither do i find that the henbane has affected my head, which, from the great effect it had upon me--exhilarating me to the most extraordinary degree, and yet keeping me sleepy--i feared it would. if i had not got better i should have turned back to birmingham, and come straight home by the railroad. as it is, i hope i shall make out the trip. god bless you, my darling. i long to be back with you again and to see the sweet babs. your faithful and most affectionate husband. [sidenote: master hastings hughes.] doughty street, london, _dec. th, ._ respected sir, i have given squeers one cut on the neck and two on the head, at which he appeared much surprised and began to cry, which, being a cowardly thing, is just what i should have expected from him--wouldn't you? i have carefully done what you told me in your letter about the lamb and the two "sheeps" for the little boys. they have also had some good ale and porter, and some wine. i am sorry you didn't say _what_ wine you would like them to have. i gave them some sherry, which they liked very much, except one boy, who was a little sick and choked a good deal. he was rather greedy, and that's the truth, and i believe it went the wrong way, which i say served him right, and i hope you will say so too. nicholas had his roast lamb, as you said he was to, but he could not eat it all, and says if you do not mind his doing so he should like to have the rest hashed to-morrow with some greens, which he is very fond of, and so am i. he said he did not like to have his porter hot, for he thought it spoilt the flavour, so i let him have it cold. you should have seen him drink it. i thought he never would have left off. i also gave him three pounds of money, all in sixpences, to make it seem more, and he said directly that he should give more than half to his mamma and sister, and divide the rest with poor smike. and i say he is a good fellow for saying so; and if anybody says he isn't i am ready to fight him whenever they like--there! fanny squeers shall be attended to, depend upon it. your drawing of her is very like, except that i don't think the hair is quite curly enough. the nose is particularly like hers, and so are the legs. she is a nasty disagreeable thing, and i know it will make her very cross when she sees it; and what i say is that i hope it may. you will say the same i know--at least i think you will. i meant to have written you a long letter, but i cannot write very fast when i like the person i am writing to, because that makes me think about them, and i like you, and so i tell you. besides, it is just eight o'clock at night, and i always go to bed at eight o'clock, except when it is my birthday, and then i sit up to supper. so i will not say anything more besides this--and that is my love to you and neptune; and if you will drink my health every christmas day i will drink yours--come. i am, respected sir, your affectionate friend. p.s.--i don't write my name very plain, but you know what it is you know, so never mind. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] doughty street, _monday morning._ my dear macready, i have not seen you for the past week, because i hoped when we next met to bring "the lamplighter" in my hand. it would have been finished by this time, but i found myself compelled to set to work first at the "nickleby" on which i am at present engaged, and which i regret to say--after my close and arduous application last month--i find i cannot write as quickly as usual. i must finish it, at latest, by the th (a doubtful comfort!), and the instant i have done so i will apply myself to the farce. i am afraid to name any particular day, but i pledge myself that you shall have it this month, and you may calculate on that promise. i send you with this a copy of a farce i wrote for harley when he left drury lane, and in which he acted for some seventy nights. it is the best thing he does. it is barely possible you might like to try it. any local or temporary allusions could be easily altered. believe me that i only feel gratified and flattered by your inquiry after the farce, and that if i had as much time as i have inclination, i would write on and on and on, farce after farce and comedy after comedy, until i wrote you something that would run. you do me justice when you give me credit for good intentions; but the extent of my good-will and strong and warm interest in you personally and your great undertaking, you cannot fathom nor express. believe me, my dear macready, ever faithfully yours. p.s.--for heaven's sake don't fancy that i hold "the strange gentleman" in any estimation, or have a wish upon the subject. [sidenote: mr. w. c macready.] , doughty street, _december th, ._ my dear macready, i can have but one opinion on the subject--withdraw the farce at once, by all means. i perfectly concur in all you say, and thank you most heartily and cordially for your kind and manly conduct, which is only what i should have expected from you; though, under such circumstances, i sincerely believe there are few but you--if any--who would have adopted it. believe me that i have no other feeling of disappointment connected with this matter but that arising from the not having been able to be of some use to you. and trust me that, if the opportunity should ever arrive, my ardour will only be increased--not damped--by the result of this experiment. believe me always, my dear macready, faithfully yours. . narrative. charles dickens was still living in doughty street, but he removed at the end of this year to , devonshire terrace, regent's park. he hired a cottage at petersham for the summer months, and in the autumn took lodgings at broadstairs. the cottage at alphington, near exeter, mentioned in the letter to mr. mitton, was hired by charles dickens for his parents. he was at work all through this year on "nicholas nickleby." we have now the commencement of his correspondence with mr. george cattermole. his first letter was written immediately after mr. cattermole's marriage with miss elderton, a distant connection of charles dickens; hence the allusions to "cousin," which will be found in many of his letters to mr. cattermole. the bride and bridegroom were passing their honeymoon in the neighbourhood of petersham, and the letter refers to a request from them for the loan of some books, and also to his having lent them his pony carriage and groom, during their stay in this neighbourhood. the first letter in this year to mr. macready is in answer to one from him, announcing his retirement from the management of covent garden theatre. the portrait by mr. maclise, mentioned to mr. harley, was the, now, well-known one, which appeared as a frontispiece to "nicholas nickleby." [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] doughty street, _sunday._ my dear macready, i will have, if you please, three dozen of the extraordinary champagne; and i am much obliged to you for recollecting me. i ought not to be sorry to hear of your abdication, but i am, notwithstanding, most heartily and sincerely sorry, for my own sake and the sake of thousands, who may now go and whistle for a theatre--at least, such a theatre as you gave them; and i do now in my heart believe that for a long and dreary time that exquisite delight has passed away. if i may jest with my misfortunes, and quote the portsmouth critic of mr. crummles's company, i say that: "as an exquisite embodiment of the poet's visions and a realisation of human intellectuality, gilding with refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama is gone--perfectly gone." with the same perverse and unaccountable feeling which causes a heart-broken man at a dear friend's funeral to see something irresistibly comical in a red-nosed or one-eyed undertaker, i receive your communication with ghostly facetiousness; though on a moment's reflection i find better cause for consolation in the hope that, relieved from your most trying and painful duties, you will now have leisure to return to pursuits more congenial to your mind, and to move more easily and pleasantly among your friends. in the long catalogue of the latter, i believe that there is not one prouder of the name, or more grateful for the store of delightful recollections you have enabled him to heap up from boyhood, than, my dear macready, yours always faithfully. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] new london inn, exeter, _wednesday morning, march th, ._ dear tom, perhaps you have heard from kate that i succeeded yesterday in the very first walk, and took a cottage at a place called alphington, one mile from exeter, which contains, on the ground-floor, a good parlour and kitchen, and above, a full-sized country drawing-room and three bedrooms; in the yard behind, coal-holes, fowl-houses, and meat-safes out of number; in the kitchen, a neat little range; in the other rooms, good stoves and cupboards; and all for twenty pounds a year, taxes included. there is a good garden at the side well stocked with cabbages, beans, onions, celery, and some flowers. the stock belonging to the landlady (who lives in the adjoining cottage), there was some question whether she was not entitled to half the produce, but i settled the point by paying five shillings, and becoming absolute master of the whole! i do assure you that i am charmed with the place and the beauty of the country round about, though i have not seen it under very favourable circumstances, for it snowed when i was there this morning, and blew bitterly from the east yesterday. it is really delightful, and when the house is to rights and the furniture all in, i shall be quite sorry to leave it. i have had some few things second-hand, but i take it seventy pounds will be the mark, even taking this into consideration. i include in that estimate glass and crockery, garden tools, and such like little things. there is a spare bedroom of course. that i have furnished too. i am on terms of the closest intimacy with mrs. samuell, the landlady, and her brother and sister-in-law, who have a little farm hard by. they are capital specimens of country folks, and i really think the old woman herself will be a great comfort to my mother. coals are dear just now--twenty-six shillings a ton. they found me a boy to go two miles out and back again to order some this morning. i was debating in my mind whether i should give him eighteenpence or two shillings, when his fee was announced--twopence! the house is on the high road to plymouth, and, though in the very heart of devonshire, there is as much long-stage and posting life as you would find in piccadilly. the situation is charming. meadows in front, an orchard running parallel to the garden hedge, richly-wooded hills closing in the prospect behind, and, away to the left, before a splendid view of the hill on which exeter is situated, the cathedral towers rising up into the sky in the most picturesque manner possible. i don't think i ever saw so cheerful or pleasant a spot. the drawing-room is nearly, if not quite, as large as the outer room of my old chambers in furnival's inn. the paint and paper are new, and the place clean as the utmost excess of snowy cleanliness can be. you would laugh if you could see me powdering away with the upholsterer, and endeavouring to bring about all sorts of impracticable reductions and wonderful arrangements. he has by him two second-hand carpets; the important ceremony of trying the same comes off at three this afternoon. i am perpetually going backwards and forwards. it is two miles from here, so i have plenty of exercise, which so occupies me and prevents my being lonely that i stopped at home to read last night, and shall to-night, although the theatre is open. charles kean has been the star for the last two evenings. he was stopping in this house, and went away this morning. i have got his sitting-room now, which is smaller and more comfortable than the one i had before. you will have heard perhaps that i wrote to my mother to come down to-morrow. there are so many things she can make comfortable at a much less expense than i could, that i thought it best. if i had not, i could not have returned on monday, which i now hope to do, and to be in town at half-past eight. will you tell my father that if he could devise any means of bringing him down, i think it would be a great thing for him to have dash, if it be only to keep down the trampers and beggars. the cheque i send you below. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] elm cottage, petersham, _wednesday morning._ my dear cattermole, why is "peveril" lingering on my dusty shelves in town, while my fair cousin and your fair bride remains in blissful ignorance of his merits? there he is, i grieve to say, but there he shall not be long, for i shall be visiting my other home on saturday morning, and will bring him bodily down and forward him the moment he arrives. not having many of my books here, i don't find any among them which i think more suitable to your purpose than a carpet-bagful sent herewith, containing the italian and german novelists (convenient as being easily taken up and laid down again; and i suppose you won't read long at a sitting), leigh hunt's "indicator" and "companion" (which have the same merit), "hood's own" (complete), "a legend of montrose," and "kenilworth," which i have just been reading with greater delight than ever, and so i suppose everybody else must be equally interested in. i have goldsmith, swift, fielding, smollett, and the british essayists "handy;" and i need not say that you have them on hand too, if you like. you know all i would say from my heart and soul on the auspicious event of yesterday; but you don't know what i could say about the delightful recollections i have of your "good lady's" charming looks and bearing, upon which i discoursed most eloquently here last evening, and at considerable length. as i am crippled in this respect, however, by the suspicion that possibly she may be looking over your shoulder while you read this note (i would lay a moderate wager that you have looked round twice or thrice already), i shall content myself with saying that i am ever heartily, my dear cattermole, hers and yours. p.s.--my man (who with his charge is your man while you stay here) waits to know if you have any orders for him. [sidenote: mr. j. p. harley.] elm cottage, petersham, near richmond, _june th, ._ my dear harley, i have "left my home," and been here ever since the end of april, and shall remain here most probably until the end of september, which is the reason that we have been such strangers of late. i am very sorry that i cannot dine with you on sunday, but some people are coming here, and i cannot get away. better luck next time, i hope. i was on the point of writing to you when your note came, to ask you if you would come down here next saturday--to-morrow week, i mean--and stop till monday. i will either call for you at the theatre, at any time you name, or send for you, "punctual," and have you brought down. can you come if it's fine? say yes, like a good fellow as you are, and say it per post. i have countermanded that face. maclise has made another face of me, which all people say is astonishing. the engraving will be ready soon, and i would rather you had that, as i am sure you would if you had seen it. in great haste to save the post, i am, my dear harley, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. william longman.] doughty street, _monday morning._ my dear sir, on friday i have a family dinner at home--uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, cousins--an annual gathering. by what fatality is it that you always ask me to dine on the wrong day? while you are tracing this non-consequence to its cause, i wish you would tell mr. sydney smith that of all the men i ever heard of and never saw, i have the greatest curiosity to see and the greatest interest to know him. begging my best compliments at home, i am, my dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] petersham, _july th, ._ my dear macready, fix your visit for whenever you please. it can never give us anything but delight to see you, and it is better to look forward to such a pleasure than to look back upon it, as the last gratification is enjoyable all our lives, and the first for a few short stages in the journey. i feel more true and cordial pleasure than i can express to you in the request you have made. anything which can serve to commemorate our friendship and to keep the recollection of it alive among our children is, believe me, and ever will be, most deeply prized by me. i accept the office with hearty and fervent satisfaction; and, to render this pleasant bond between us the more complete, i must solicit you to become godfather to the last and final branch of a genteel small family of three which i am told may be looked for in that auspicious month when lord mayors are born and guys prevail. this i look upon as a bargain between us, and i have shaken hands with you in spirit upon it. family topics remind me of mr. kenwigs. as the weather is wet, and he is about to make his last appearance on my little stage, i send mrs. macready an early proof of the next number, containing an account of his baby's progress. i am going to send you something else on monday--a tragedy. don't be alarmed. i didn't write it, nor do i want it acted. a young scotch lady whom i don't know (but she is evidently very intelligent and accomplished) has sent me a translation of a german play, soliciting my aid and advice in the matter of its publication. among a crowd of germanisms, there are many things in it which are so very striking, that i am sure it will amuse you very much. at least i think it will; it has me. i am going to send it back to her--when i come to elstree will be time enough; and meantime, if you bestow a couple of hours upon it, you will not think them thrown away. it's a large parcel, and i must keep it here till somebody goes up to town and can book it by the coach. i warrant it, large as it looks, readable in two hours; and i very much want to know what you think of the first act, and especially the opening, which seems to me quite famous. the metre is very odd and rough, but now and then there's a wildness in it which helps the thing very much; and altogether it has left a something on my mind which i can't get rid of. mrs. dickens joins with me in kindest regards to yourself, mrs., and miss macready. and i am always, my dear macready, faithfully and truly yours. p.s.--a dreadful thought has just occurred to me--that this is a quadruple letter, and that elstree may not be within the twopenny post. pray heaven my fears are unfounded. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , albion street, broadstairs, _september st, ._ my dear macready, i am so anxious to prefer a request to you which does not admit of delay that i send you a double letter, with the one redeeming point though of having very little in it. let me prefix to the last number of "nickleby," and to the book, a duplicate of the leaf which i now send you. believe me that there will be no leaf in the volume which will afford me in times to come more true pleasure and gratification, than that in which i have written your name as foremost among those of the friends whom i love and honour. believe me, there will be no one line in it conveying a more honest truth or a more sincere feeling than that which describes its dedication to you as a slight token of my admiration and regard. so let me tell the world by this frail record that i was a friend of yours, and interested to no ordinary extent in your proceedings at that interesting time when you showed them such noble truths in such noble forms, and gave me a new interest in, and associations with, the labours of so many months. i write to you very hastily and crudely, for i have been very hard at work, having only finished to-day, and my head spins yet. but you know what i mean. i am then always, believe me, my dear macready, faithfully yours. p.s.--(proof of dedication enclosed): "to w. c. macready, esq., the following pages are inscribed, as a slight token of admiration and regard, by his friend, the author." [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] doughty street, _friday night, oct. th, ._ my dear macready, the book, the whole book, and nothing but the book (except the binding, which is an important item), has arrived at last, and is forwarded herewith. the red represents my blushes at its gorgeous dress; the gilding, all those bright professions which i do not make to you; and the book itself, my whole heart for twenty months, which should be yours for so short a term, as you have it always. with best regards to mrs. and miss macready, always believe me, my dear macready, your faithful friend. [sidenote: the same.] doughty street, _thursday, nov. th, ._ my dear macready, tom landseer--that is, the deaf one, whom everybody quite loves for his sweet nature under a most deplorable infirmity--tom landseer asked me if i would present to you from him the accompanying engraving, which he has executed from a picture by his brother edwin; submitting it to you as a little tribute from an unknown but ardent admirer of your genius, which speaks to his heart, although it does not find its way there through his ears. i readily undertook the task, and send it herewith. i urged him to call upon you with me and proffer it boldly; but he is a very modest and delicately-minded creature, and was shy of intruding. if you thank him through me, perhaps you will say something about my bringing him to call, and so gladden the gentle artist and make him happy. you must come and see my new house when we have it to rights. by christmas day we shall be, i hope, your neighbours. kate progresses splendidly, and, with me, sends her best remembrances to mrs. macready and all your house. ever believe me, dear macready, faithfully yours. . narrative. charles dickens was at broadstairs with his family for the autumn months. during all this year he was busily engaged with the periodical entitled "master humphrey's clock," in which the story of "the old curiosity shop" subsequently appeared. nearly all these letters to mr. george cattermole refer to the illustrations for this story. the one dated march th alludes to short papers written for "master humphrey's clock" prior to the commencement of "the old curiosity shop." we have in this year charles dickens's first letter to mr. daniel maclise, this and one other being, unfortunately, the only letters we have been able to obtain addressed to this much-loved friend and most intimate companion. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] , devonshire terrace, _monday, january th, ._ my dear cattermole, i am going to propound a mightily grave matter to you. my now periodical work appears--or i should rather say the first number does--on saturday, the th of march; and as it has to be sent to america and germany, and must therefore be considerably in advance, it is now in hand; i having in fact begun it on saturday last. instead of being published in monthly parts at a shilling each only, it will be published in weekly parts at threepence and monthly parts at a shilling; my object being to baffle the imitators and make it as novel as possible. the plan is a new one--i mean the plan of the fiction--and it will comprehend a great variety of tales. the title is: "master humphrey's clock." now, among other improvements, i have turned my attention to the illustrations, meaning to have woodcuts dropped into the text and no separate plates. i want to know whether you would object to make me a little sketch for a woodcut--in indian-ink would be quite sufficient--about the size of the enclosed scrap; the subject, an old quaint room with antique elizabethan furniture, and in the chimney-corner an extraordinary old clock--the clock belonging to master humphrey, in fact, and no figures. this i should drop into the text at the head of my opening page. i want to know besides--as chapman and hall are my partners in the matter, there need be no delicacy about my asking or your answering the question--what would be your charge for such a thing, and whether (if the work answers our expectations) you would like to repeat the joke at regular intervals, and, if so, on what terms? i should tell you that i intend to ask maclise to join me likewise, and that the copying the drawing on wood and the cutting will be done in first-rate style. we are justified by past experience in supposing that the sale would be enormous, and the popularity very great; and when i explain to you the notes i have in my head, i think you will see that it opens a vast number of very good subjects. i want to talk the matter over with you, and wish you would fix your own time and place--either here or at your house or at the athenæum, though this would be the best place, because i have my papers about me. if you would take a chop with me, for instance, on tuesday or wednesday, i could tell you more in two minutes than in twenty letters, albeit i have endeavoured to make this as businesslike and stupid as need be. of course all these tremendous arrangements are as yet a profound secret, or there would be fifty humphreys in the field. so write me a line like a worthy gentleman, and convey my best remembrances to your worthy lady. believe me always, my dear cattermole, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday afternoon._ my dear cattermole, i think the drawing most famous, and so do the publishers, to whom i sent it to-day. if browne should suggest anything for the future which may enable him to do you justice in copying (on which point he is very anxious), i will communicate it to you. it has occurred to me that perhaps you will like to see his copy on the block before it is cut, and i have therefore told chapman and hall to forward it to you. in future, i will take care that you have the number to choose your subject from. i ought to have done so, perhaps, in this case; but i was very anxious that you should do the room. perhaps the shortest plan will be for me to send you, as enclosed, regularly; but if you prefer keeping account with the publishers, they will be happy to enter upon it when, where, and how you please. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] , devonshire terrace, _monday, march th, ._ my dear cattermole, i have been induced, on looking over the works of the "clock," to make a slight alteration in their disposal, by virtue of which the story about "john podgers" will stand over for some little time, and that short tale will occupy its place which you have already by you, and which treats of the assassination of a young gentleman under circumstances of peculiar aggravation. i shall be greatly obliged to you if you will turn your attention to this last morsel as the feature of no. , and still more if you can stretch a point with regard to time (which is of the last importance just now), and make a subject out of it, rather than find one in it. i would neither have made this alteration nor have troubled you about it, but for weighty and cogent reasons which i feel very strongly, and into the composition of which caprice or fastidiousness has no part. i should tell you perhaps, with reference to chapman and hall, that they will never trouble you (as they never trouble me) but when there is real and pressing occasion, and that their representations in this respect, unlike those of most men of business, are to be relied upon. i cannot tell you how admirably i think master humphrey's room comes out, or what glowing accounts i hear of the second design you have done. i had not the faintest anticipation of anything so good--taking into account the material and the despatch. with best regards at home, believe me, dear cattermole, heartily yours. p.s.--the new (no. ) tale begins: "i hold a lieutenant's commission in his majesty's army, and served abroad in the campaigns of and ." it has at present no title. [sidenote: mr. s. a. diezman.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _ th march, ._ my dear sir, i will not attempt to tell you how much gratified i have been by the receipt of your first english letter; nor can i describe to you with what delight and gratification i learn that i am held in such high esteem by your great countrymen, whose favourable appreciation is flattering indeed. to you, who have undertaken the laborious (and often, i fear, very irksome) task of clothing me in the german garb, i owe a long arrear of thanks. i wish you would come to england, and afford me an opportunity of slightly reducing the account. it is with great regret that i have to inform you, in reply to the request contained in your pleasant communication, that my publishers have already made such arrangements and are in possession of such stipulations relative to the proof-sheets of my new works, that i have no power to send them out of england. if i had, i need not tell you what pleasure it would afford me to promote your views. i am too sensible of the trouble you must have already had with my writings to impose upon you now a long letter. i will only add, therefore, that i am, my dear sir, with great sincerity, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. daniel maclise.] broadstairs, _june nd, ._ my dear maclise, my foot is in the house, my bath is on the sea, and, before i take a souse, here's a single note to thee. it merely says that the sea is in a state of extraordinary sublimity; that this place is, as the guide book most justly observes, "unsurpassed for the salubrity of the refreshing breezes, which are wafted on the ocean's pinions from far-distant shores." that we are all right after the perils and voyages of yesterday. that the sea is rolling away in front of the window at which i indite this epistle, and that everything is as fresh and glorious as fine weather and a splendid coast can make it. bear these recommendations in mind, and shunning talfourdian pledges, come to the bower which is shaded for you in the one-pair front, where no chair or table has four legs of the same length, and where no drawers will open till you have pulled the pegs off, and then they keep open and won't shut again. come! i can no more. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _december st._ my dear george, kit, the single gentleman, and mr. garland go down to the place where the child is, and arrive there at night. there has been a fall of snow. kit, leaving them behind, runs to the old house, and, with a lanthorn in one hand and the bird in its cage in the other, stops for a moment at a little distance with a natural hesitation before he goes up to make his presence known. in a window--supposed to be that of the child's little room--a light is burning, and in that room the child (unknown, of course, to her visitors, who are full of hope) lies dead. if you have any difficulty about kit, never mind about putting him in. the two others to-morrow. faithfully always. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _friday morning._ my dear cattermole, i sent the ms. of the enclosed proof, marked , up to chapman and hall, from devonshire, mentioning a subject of an old gateway, which i had put in expressly with a view to your illustrious pencil. by a mistake, however, it went to browne instead. chapman is out of town, and such things have gone wrong in consequence. the subject to which i wish to call your attention is in an unwritten number to follow this one, but it is a mere echo of what you will find at the conclusion of this proof marked . i want the cart, gaily decorated, going through the street of the old town with the wax brigand displayed to fierce advantage, and the child seated in it also dispersing bills. as many flags and inscriptions about jarley's wax work fluttering from the cart as you please. you know the wax brigands, and how they contemplate small oval miniatures? that's the figure i want. i send you the scrap of ms. which contains the subject. will you, when you have done this, send it with all speed to chapman and hall, as we are mortally pressed for time, and i must go hard to work to make up for what i have lost by being dutiful and going to see my father. i want to see you about a frontispiece to our first "clock" volume, which will come out (i think) at the end of september, and about other matters. when shall we meet and where? i say nothing about our cousin or the baby, for kate bears this, and will make me a full report and convey all loves and congratulations. could you dine with us on sunday, at six o'clock sharp? i'd come and fetch you in the morning, and we could take a ride and walk. we shall be quite alone, unless macready comes. what say you? don't forget despatch, there's a dear fellow, and ever believe me, heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] _december nd, ._ dear george, the child lying dead in the little sleeping-room, which is behind the open screen. it is winter time, so there are no flowers; but upon her breast and pillow, and about her bed, there may be strips of holly and berries, and such free green things. window overgrown with ivy. the little boy who had that talk with her about angels may be by the bedside, if you like it so; but i think it will be quieter and more peaceful if she is quite alone. i want it to express the most beautiful repose and tranquillity, and to have something of a happy look, if death can. . the child has been buried inside the church, and the old man, who cannot be made to understand that she is dead, repairs to the grave and sits there all day long, waiting for her arrival, to begin another journey. his staff and knapsack, her little bonnet and basket, etc., lie beside him. "she'll come to-morrow," he says when it gets dark, and goes sorrowfully home. i think an hourglass running out would help the notion; perhaps her little things upon his knee, or in his hand. i am breaking my heart over this story, and cannot bear to finish it. love to missis. ever and always heartily. . narrative. in the summer of this year charles dickens made, accompanied by mrs. dickens, his first visit to scotland, and was received in edinburgh with the greatest enthusiasm. he was at broadstairs with his family for the autumn, and at the close of the year he went to windsor for change of air after a serious illness. on the th january "the old curiosity shop" was finished. in the following week the first number of his story of "barnaby rudge" appeared, in "master humphrey's clock," and the last number of this story was written at windsor, in november of this year. we have the first letters to his dear and valued friends the rev. william harness and mr. harrison ainsworth. also his first letter to mr. monckton milnes (now lord houghton). of the letter to mr. john tomlin we would only remark, that it was published in an american magazine, edited by mr. e. a. poe, in the year . "the new first rate" (first letter to mr. harrison ainsworth) must, we think, be an allusion to the outside cover of "bentley's miscellany," which first appeared in this year, and of which mr. ainsworth was editor. the two letters to mr. lovejoy are in answer to a requisition from the people of reading that he would represent them in parliament. the letter to mr. george cattermole ( th june) refers to a dinner given to charles dickens by the people of edinburgh, on his first visit to that city. the "poor overs," mentioned in the letter to mr. macready of th august, was a carpenter dying of consumption, to whom dr. elliotson had shown extraordinary kindness. "when poor overs was dying" (wrote charles dickens to mr. forster), "he suddenly asked for a pen and ink and some paper, and made up a little parcel for me, which it was his last conscious act to direct. she (his wife) told me this, and gave it me. i opened it last night. it was a copy of his little book, in which he had written my name, 'with his devotion.' i thought it simple and affecting of the poor fellow." "the saloon," alluded to in our last letter of this year, was an institution at drury lane theatre during mr. macready's management. the original purpose for which this saloon was established having become perverted and degraded, charles dickens had it much at heart to remodel and improve it. hence this letter to mr. macready. [sidenote: rev. william harness.] devonshire terrace, _saturday morning, jan. nd, ._ my dear harness, i should have been very glad to join your pleasant party, but all next week i shall be laid up with a broken heart, for i must occupy myself in finishing the "curiosity shop," and it is such a painful task to me that i must concentrate myself upon it tooth and nail, and go out nowhere until it is done. i have delayed answering your kind note in a vague hope of being heart-whole again by the seventh. the present state of my work, however (christmas not being a very favourable season for making progress in such doings), assures me that this cannot be, and that i must heroically deny myself the pleasure you offer. always believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _thursday, jan. th, ._ my dear cattermole, i cannot tell you how much obliged i am to you for altering the child, or how much i hope that my wish in that respect didn't go greatly against the grain. i saw the old inn this morning. words cannot say how good it is. i can't bear the thought of its being cut, and should like to frame and glaze it in _statu quo_ for ever and ever. will you do a little tail-piece for the "curiosity" story?--only one figure if you like--giving some notion of the etherealised spirit of the child; something like those little figures in the frontispiece. if you will, and can despatch it at once, you will make me happy. i am, for the time being, nearly dead with work and grief for the loss of my child. always, my dear george, heartily yours. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _thursday night, jan. th, ._ my dear george, i sent to chapman and hall yesterday morning about the second subject for no. of "barnaby," but found they had sent it to browne. the first subject of no. i will either send to you on saturday, or, at latest, on sunday morning. i have also directed chapman and hall to send you proofs of what has gone before, for reference, if you need it. i want to know whether you feel ravens in general and would fancy barnaby's raven in particular. barnaby being an idiot, my notion is to have him always in company with a pet raven, who is immeasurably more knowing than himself. to this end i have been studying my bird, and think i could make a very queer character of him. should you like the subject when this raven makes his first appearance? faithfully always. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _saturday evening, jan. th, ._ my dear george, i send you the first four slips of no. , containing the description of the locksmith's house, which i think will make a good subject, and one you will like. if you put the "'prentice" in it, show nothing more than his paper cap, because he will be an important character in the story, and you will need to know more about him as he is minutely described. i may as well say that he is very short. should you wish to put the locksmith in, you will find him described in no. of "barnaby" (which i told chapman and hall to send you). browne has done him in one little thing, but so very slightly that you will not require to see his sketch, i think. now, i must know what you think about the raven, my buck; i otherwise am in this fix. i have given browne no subject for this number, and time is flying. if you would like to have the raven's first appearance, and don't object to having both subjects, so be it. i shall be delighted. if otherwise, i must feed that hero forthwith. i cannot close this hasty note, my dear fellow, without saying that i have deeply felt your hearty and most invaluable co-operation in the beautiful illustrations you have made for the last story, that i look at them with a pleasure i cannot describe to you in words, and that it is impossible for me to say how sensible i am of your earnest and friendly aid. believe me that this is the very first time any designs for what i have written have touched and moved me, and caused me to feel that they expressed the idea i had in my mind. i am most sincerely and affectionately grateful to you, and am full of pleasure and delight. believe me, my dear cattermole, always heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. john tomlin.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _tuesday, feb. rd, ._ dear sir, you are quite right in feeling assured that i should answer the letter you have addressed to me. if you had entertained a presentiment that it would afford me sincere pleasure and delight to hear from a warm-hearted and admiring reader of my books in the backwoods of america, you would not have been far wrong. i thank you cordially and heartily both for your letter and its kind and courteous terms. to think that i have awakened a fellow-feeling and sympathy with the creatures of many thoughtful hours among the vast solitudes in which you dwell, is a source of the purest delight and pride to me; and believe me that your expressions of affectionate remembrance and approval, sounding from the green forests on the banks of the mississippi, sink deeper into my heart and gratify it more than all the honorary distinctions that all the courts in europe could confer. it is such things as these that make one hope one does not live in vain, and that are the highest reward of an author's life. to be numbered among the household gods of one's distant countrymen, and associated with their homes and quiet pleasures; to be told that in each nook and corner of the world's great mass there lives one well-wisher who holds communion with one in the spirit, is a worthy fame indeed, and one which i would not barter for a mine of wealth. that i may be happy enough to cheer some of your leisure hours for a very long time to come, and to hold a place in your pleasant thoughts, is the earnest wish of "boz." and, with all good wishes for yourself, and with a sincere reciprocation of all your kindly feeling, i am, dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. r. monckton milnes] devonshire terrace, _wednesday, march th, ._ my dear milnes, i thank you very much for the "nickleby" correspondence, which i will keep for a day or two, and return when i see you. poor fellow! the long letter is quite admirable, and most affecting. i am not quite sure either of friday or saturday, for, independently of the "clock" (which for ever wants winding), i am getting a young brother off to new zealand just now, and have my mornings sadly cut up in consequence. but, knowing your ways, i know i may say that i will come if i can; and that if i can't i won't. that nellicide was the act of heaven, as you may see any of these fine mornings when you look about you. if you knew the pain it gave me--but what am i talking of? if you don't know, nobody does. i am glad to shake you by the hand again autographically, and am always, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, february th._ my dear george, my notes tread upon each other's heels. in my last i quite forgot business. will you, for no. , do the locksmith's house, which was described in no. ? i mean the outside. if you can, without hurting the effect, shut up the shop as though it were night, so much the better. should you want a figure, an ancient watchman in or out of his box, very sleepy, will be just the thing for me. i have written to chapman and requested him to send you a block of a long shape, so that the house may come upright as it were. faithfully ever. [sidenote: the same.] old ship hotel, brighton, _feb. th, ._ my dear kittenmoles, i passed your house on wednesday, being then atop of the brighton era; but there was nobody at the door, saving a solitary poulterer, and all my warm-hearted aspirations lodged in the goods he was delivering. no doubt you observed a peculiar relish in your dinner. that was the cause. i send you the ms. i fear you will have to read all the five slips; but the subject i think of is at the top of the last, when the guest, with his back towards the spectator, is looking out of window. i think, in your hands, it will be a very pretty one. then, my boy, when you have done it, turn your thoughts (as soon as other engagements will allow) first to the outside of the warren--see no. ; secondly, to the outside of the locksmith's house, by night--see no. . put a penny pistol to chapman's head and demand the blocks of him. i have addled my head with writing all day, and have barely wit enough left to send my love to my cousin, and--there's a genealogical poser--what relation of mine may the dear little child be? at present, i desire to be commended to her clear blue eyes. always, my dear george, faithfully yours, [hw: boz.] [sidenote: mr. william harrison ainsworth.] devonshire terrace, _april th, ._ my dear ainsworth, with all imaginable pleasure. i quite look forward to the day. it is an age since we met, and it ought not to be. the artist has just sent home your "nickleby." he suggested variety, pleading his fancy and genius. as an artful binder must have his way, i put the best face on the matter, and gave him his. i will bring it together with the "pickwick" to your house-warming with me. the old _royal george_ went down in consequence of having too much weight on one side. i trust the new "first rate" won't be heavy anywhere. there seems to me to be too much whisker for a shilling, but that's a matter of taste. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. g. lovejoy.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _monday evening, may st, ._ sir, i am much obliged and flattered by the receipt of your letter, which i should have answered immediately on its arrival but for my absence from home at the moment. my principles and inclinations would lead me to aspire to the distinction you invite me to seek, if there were any reasonable chance of success, and i hope i should do no discredit to such an honour if i won and wore it. but i am bound to add, and i have no hesitation in saying plainly, that i cannot afford the expense of a contested election. if i could, i would act on your suggestion instantly. i am not the less indebted to you and the friends to whom the thought occurred, for your good opinion and approval. i beg you to understand that i am restrained solely (and much against my will) by the consideration i have mentioned, and thank both you and them most warmly. yours faithfully. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _june th, ._ dear sir, i am favoured with your note of yesterday's date, and lose no time in replying to it. the sum you mention, though small i am aware in the abstract, is greater than i could afford for such a purpose; as the mere sitting in the house and attending to my duties, if i were a member, would oblige me to make many pecuniary sacrifices, consequent upon the very nature of my pursuits. the course you suggest did occur to me when i received your first letter, and i have very little doubt indeed that the government would support me--perhaps to the whole extent. but i cannot satisfy myself that to enter parliament under such circumstances would enable me to pursue that honourable independence without which i could neither preserve my own respect nor that of my constituents. i confess therefore (it may be from not having considered the points sufficiently, or in the right light) that i cannot bring myself to propound the subject to any member of the administration whom i know. i am truly obliged to you nevertheless, and am, dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _wednesday evening, july th, ._ my dear george, can you do for me by saturday evening--i know the time is short, but i think the subject will suit you, and i am greatly pressed--a party of rioters (with hugh and simon tappertit conspicuous among them) in old john willet's bar, turning the liquor taps to their own advantage, smashing bottles, cutting down the grove of lemons, sitting astride on casks, drinking out of the best punch-bowls, eating the great cheese, smoking sacred pipes, etc. etc.; john willet, fallen backward in his chair, regarding them with a stupid horror, and quite alone among them, with none of the maypole customers at his back. it's in your way, and you'll do it a hundred times better than i can suggest it to you, i know. faithfully always. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] broadstairs, _friday, august th, ._ my dear george, here is a subject for the next number; the next to that i hope to send you the ms. of very early in the week, as the best opportunities of illustration are all coming off now, and we are in the thick of the story. the rioters went, sir, from john willet's bar (where you saw them to such good purpose) straight to the warren, which house they plundered, sacked, burned, pulled down as much of as they could, and greatly damaged and destroyed. they are supposed to have left it about half an hour. it is night, and the ruins are here and there flaming and smoking. i want--if you understand--to show one of the turrets laid open--the turret where the alarm-bell is, mentioned in no. ; and among the ruins (at some height if possible) mr. haredale just clutching our friend, the mysterious file, who is passing over them like a spirit; solomon daisy, if you can introduce him, looking on from the ground below. please to observe that the m. f. wears a large cloak and a slouched hat. this is important, because browne will have him in the same number, and he has not changed his dress meanwhile. mr. haredale is supposed to have come down here on horseback, pell-mell; to be excited to the last degree. i think it will make a queer picturesque thing in your hands. i have told chapman and hall that you may like to have a block of a peculiar shape for it. one of them will be with you almost as soon as you receive this. we are very anxious to know that our cousin is out of her trouble, and you free from your anxiety. mind you write when it comes off. and when she is quite comfortable come down here for a day or two, like a bachelor, as you will be. it will do you a world of good. think of that. always, dear cattermole, heartily yours. p.s.--when you have done the subject, i wish you'd write me one line and tell me how, that i may be sure we agree. loves from kate. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _thursday, august th._ my dear cattermole, will you turn your attention to a frontispiece for our first volume, to come upon the left-hand side of the book as you open it, and to face a plain printed title? my idea is, some scene from the "curiosity shop," in a pretty border, or scroll-work, or architectural device; it matters not what, so that it be pretty. the scene even might be a fanciful thing, partaking of the character of the story, but not reproducing any particular passage in it, if you thought that better for the effect. i ask you to think of this, because, although the volume is not published until the end of september, there is no time to lose. we wish to have it engraved with great care, and worked very skilfully; and this cannot be done unless we get it on the stocks soon. they will give you every opportunity of correction, alteration, revision, and all other ations and isions connected with the fine arts. always believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] broadstairs, _august th, ._ my dear george, when hugh and a small body of the rioters cut off from the warren beckoned to their pals, they forced into a very remarkable postchaise dolly varden and emma haredale, and bore them away with all possible rapidity; one of their company driving, and the rest running beside the chaise, climbing up behind, sitting on the top, lighting the way with their torches, etc. etc. if you can express the women inside without showing them--as by a fluttering veil, a delicate arm, or so forth appearing at the half-closed window--so much the better. mr. tappertit stands on the steps, which are partly down, and, hanging on to the window with one hand and extending the other with great majesty, addresses a few words of encouragement to the driver and attendants. hugh sits upon the bar in front; the driver sitting postilion-wise, and turns round to look through the window behind him at the little doves within. the gentlemen behind are also anxious to catch a glimpse of the ladies. one of those who are running at the side may be gently rebuked for his curiosity by the cudgel of hugh. so they cut away, sir, as fast as they can. always faithfully. p.s.--john willet's bar is noble. we take it for granted that cousin and baby are hearty. our loves to them. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] broadstairs, _tuesday, august th, ._ my dear macready, i must thank you, most heartily and cordially, for your kind note relative to poor overs. i can't tell you how glad i am to know that he thoroughly deserves such kindness. what a good fellow elliotson is. he kept him in his room a whole hour, and has gone into his case as if he were prince albert; laying down all manner of elaborate projects and determining to leave his friend wood in town when he himself goes away, on purpose to attend to him. then he writes me four sides of paper about the man, and says he can't go back to his old work, for that requires muscular exertion (and muscular exertion he mustn't make), what are we to do with him? he says: "here's five pounds for the present." i declare before god that i could almost bear the jones's for five years out of the pleasure i feel in knowing such things, and when i think that every dirty speck upon the fair face of the almighty's creation, who writes in a filthy, beastly newspaper; every rotten-hearted pander who has been beaten, kicked, and rolled in the kennel, yet struts it in the editorial "we," once a week; every vagabond that an honest man's gorge must rise at; every live emetic in that noxious drug-shop the press, can have his fling at such men and call them knaves and fools and thieves, i grow so vicious that, with bearing hard upon my pen, i break the nib down, and, with keeping my teeth set, make my jaws ache. i have put myself out of sorts for the day, and shall go and walk, unless the direction of this sets me up again. on second thoughts i think it will. always, my dear macready, your faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] broadstairs, _sunday, september th, ._ my dear george, here is a business letter, written in a scramble just before post time, whereby i dispose of loves to cousin in a line. firstly. will you design, upon a block of wood, lord george gordon, alone and very solitary, in his prison in the tower? the chamber as ancient as you please, and after your own fancy; the time, evening; the season, summer. secondly. will you ditto upon a ditto, a sword duel between mr. haredale and mr. chester, in a grove of trees? no one close by. mr. haredale has just pierced his adversary, who has fallen, dying, on the grass. he (that is, chester) tries to staunch the wound in his breast with his handkerchief; has his snuffbox on the earth beside him, and looks at mr. haredale (who stands with his sword in his hand, looking down on him) with most supercilious hatred, but polite to the last. mr. haredale is more sorry than triumphant. thirdly. will you conceive and execute, after your own fashion, a frontispiece for "barnaby"? fourthly. will you also devise a subject representing "master humphrey's clock" as stopped; his chair by the fireside, empty; his crutch against the wall; his slippers on the cold hearth; his hat upon the chair-back; the mss. of "barnaby" and "the curiosity shop" heaped upon the table; and the flowers you introduced in the first subject of all withered and dead? master humphrey being supposed to be no more. i have a fifthly, sixthly, seventhly, and eighthly; for i sorely want you, as i approach the close of the tale, but i won't frighten you, so we'll take breath. always, my dear cattermole, heartily yours. p.s.--i have been waiting until i got to subjects of this nature, thinking you would like them best. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] broadstairs, _september st, ._ my dear george, will you, before you go on with the other subjects i gave you, do one of hugh, bareheaded, bound, tied on a horse, and escorted by horse-soldiers to jail? if you can add an indication of old fleet market, and bodies of foot soldiers firing at people who have taken refuge on the tops of stalls, bulk-heads, etc., it will be all the better. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: miss mary talfourd.] devonshire terrace, _december th, ._ my dear mary, i should be delighted to come and dine with you on your birthday, and to be as merry as i wish you to be always; but as i am going, within a very few days afterwards, a very long distance from home, and shall not see any of my children for six long months, i have made up my mind to pass all that week at home for their sakes; just as you would like your papa and mamma to spend all the time they possibly could spare with you if they were about to make a dreary voyage to america; which is what i am going to do myself. but although i cannot come to see you on that day, you may be sure i shall not forget that it is your birthday, and that i shall drink your health and many happy returns, in a glass of wine, filled as full as it will hold. and i shall dine at half-past five myself, so that we may both be drinking our wine at the same time; and i shall tell my mary (for i have got a daughter of that name but she is a very small one as yet) to drink your health too; and we shall try and make believe that you are here, or that we are in russell square, which is the best thing we can do, i think, under the circumstances. you are growing up so fast that by the time i come home again i expect you will be almost a woman; and in a very few years we shall be saying to each other: "don't you remember what the birthdays used to be in russell square?" and "how strange it seems!" and "how quickly time passes!" and all that sort of thing, you know. but i shall always be very glad to be asked on your birthday, and to come if you will let me, and to send my love to you, and to wish that you may live to be very old and very happy, which i do now with all my heart. believe me always, my dear mary, yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, dec. th, ._ my dear macready, this note is about the saloon. i make it as brief as possible. read it when you have time. as we were the first experimentalists last night you will be glad to know what it wants. first, the refreshments are preposterously dear. a glass of wine is a shilling, and it ought to be sixpence. secondly, they were served out by the wrong sort of people--two most uncomfortable drabs of women, and a dirty man with his hat on. thirdly, there ought to be a box-keeper to ring a bell or give some other notice of the commencement of the overture to the after-piece. the promenaders were in a perpetual fret and worry to get back again. and fourthly, and most important of all--if the plan is ever to succeed--you must have some notice up to the effect that as it is now a place of resort for ladies, gentlemen are requested not to lounge there in their hats and greatcoats. no ladies will go there, though the conveniences should be ten thousand times greater, while the sort of swells who have been used to kick their heels there do so in the old sort of way. i saw this expressed last night more strongly than i can tell you. hearty congratulations on the brilliant triumph. i have always expected one, as you know, but nobody could have imagined the reality. always, my dear macready, affectionately yours. . narrative. in january of this year charles dickens went, with his wife, to america, the house in devonshire terrace being let for the term of their absence (six months), and the four children left in a furnished house in osnaburgh street, regent's park, under the care of mr. and mrs. macready. they returned from america in july, and in august went to broadstairs for the autumn months as usual, and in october charles dickens made an expedition to cornwall, with mr. forster, mr. maclise, and mr. stanfield for his companions. during his stay at broadstairs he was engaged in writing his "american notes," which book was published in october. at the end of the year he had written the first number of "martin chuzzlewit," which appeared in january, . an extract from a letter, addressed to messrs. chapman and hall before his departure for america, is given as a testimony of the estimation in which charles dickens held the firm with whom he was connected for so many years. his letters to mr. h. p. smith, for many years actuary of the eagle insurance office, are a combination of business and friendship. mr. smith gives us, as an explanation of a note to him, dated th july, that he alluded to the stamp of the office upon the cheque, which was, as he described it, "almost a work of art"--a truculent-looking eagle seated on a rock and scattering rays over the whole sheet. of letters written by charles dickens in america we have been able to obtain very few. one, to dr. f. h. deane, cincinnati, complying with his request to write him an epitaph for the tombstone of his little child, has been kindly copied for us from an album, by mrs. fields, of boston. therefore, it is not directly received, but as we have no doubt of its authenticity, we give it here; and there is one to mr. halleck, the american poet. at the close of the voyage to america (a very bad and dangerous one), a meeting of the passengers, with lord mulgrave in the chair, took place, and a piece of plate and thanks were voted to the captain of the _britannia_, captain hewett. the vote of thanks, being drawn up by charles dickens, is given here. we have letters in this year to mr. thomas hood, miss pardoe, mrs. trollope, and mr. w. p. frith. the last-named artist--then a very young man--had made great success with several charming pictures of dolly varden. one of these was bought by charles dickens, who ordered a companion picture of kate nickleby, from the young painter, whose acquaintance he made at the same time; and the two letters to mr. frith have reference to the purchase of the one picture and the commission for the other. the letter to mr. cattermole is an acknowledgment also of a completed commission of two water-colour drawings, from the subjects of two of mr. cattermole's illustrations to "the old curiosity shop." a note to mr. macready, at the close of this year, refers to the first representation of mr. westland marston's play, "the patrician's daughter." charles dickens took great interest in the production of this work at drury lane. it was, to a certain extent, an experiment of the effect of a tragedy of modern times and in modern dress; and the prologue, which charles dickens wrote and which we give, was intended to show that there need be no incongruity between plain clothes of this century and high tragedy. the play was quite successful. [sidenote: messrs. chapman and hall.] * * * * * having disposed of the business part of this letter, i should not feel at ease on leaving england if i did not tell you once more with my whole heart that your conduct to me on this and all other occasions has been honourable, manly, and generous, and that i have felt it a solemn duty, in the event of any accident happening to me while i am away, to place this testimony upon record. it forms part of a will i have made for the security of my children; for i wish them to know it when they are capable of understanding your worth and my appreciation of it. always believe me, faithfully and truly yours. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _monday, jan. rd, ._ my dear mitton, this is a short note, but i will fulfil the adage and make it a merry one. we came down in great comfort. our luggage is now aboard. anything so utterly and monstrously absurd as the size of our cabin, no "gentleman of england who lives at home at ease" can for a moment imagine. neither of the portmanteaus would go into it. there! these cunard packets are not very big you know actually, but the quantity of sleeping-berths makes them much smaller, so that the saloon is not nearly as large as in one of the ramsgate boats. the ladies' cabin is so close to ours that i could knock the door open without getting off something they call my bed, but which i believe to be a muffin beaten flat. this is a great comfort, for it is an excellent room (the only good one in the ship); and if there be only one other lady besides kate, as the stewardess thinks, i hope i shall be able to sit there very often. they talk of seventy passengers, but i can't think there will be so many; they talk besides (which is even more to the purpose) of a very fine passage, having had a noble one this time last year. god send it so! we are in the best spirits, and full of hope. i was dashed for a moment when i saw our "cabin," but i got over that directly, and laughed so much at its ludicrous proportions, that you might have heard me all over the ship. god bless you! write to me by the first opportunity. i will do the like to you. and always believe me, your old and faithful friend. narrative. at a meeting of the passengers on board the _britannia_ steam-ship, travelling from liverpool to boston, held in the saloon of that vessel, on friday, the st january, , it was moved and seconded: "that the earl of mulgrave do take the chair." the motion having been carried unanimously, the earl of mulgrave took the chair accordingly. it was also moved and seconded, and carried unanimously: "that charles dickens, esq., be appointed secretary and treasurer to the meeting." the three following resolutions were then proposed and carried _nem. con._: "first. that, gratefully recognising the blessing of divine providence by which we are brought nearly to the termination of our voyage, we have great pleasure in expressing our high appreciation of captain hewett's nautical skill and of his indefatigable attention to the management and safe conduct of the ship, during a more than ordinarily tempestuous passage. "secondly. that a subscription be opened for the purchase of a piece of silver plate, and that captain hewett be respectfully requested to accept it, as a sincere expression of the sentiments embodied in the foregoing resolution. "thirdly. that a committee be appointed to carry these resolutions into effect; and that the committee be composed of the following gentlemen: charles dickens, esq., e. dunbar, esq., and solomon hopkins, esq." the committee having withdrawn and conferred with captain hewett, returned, and informed the meeting that captain hewett desired to attend and express his thanks, which he did. the amount of the subscription was reported at fifty pounds, and the list was closed. it was then agreed that the following inscription should be placed upon the testimonial to captain hewett: this piece of plate was presented to captain john hewett, of the britannia steam-ship, by the passengers on board that vessel in a voyage from liverpool to boston, in the month of january, , as a slight acknowledgment of his great ability and skill under circumstances of much difficulty and danger, and as a feeble token of their lasting gratitude. thanks were then voted to the chairman and to the secretary, and the meeting separated. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] tremont house, boston, _january st, ._ my dear mitton, i am so exhausted with the life i am obliged to lead here, that i have had time to write but one letter which is at all deserving of the name, as giving any account of our movements. forster has it, in trust, to tell you all its news; and he has also some newspapers which i had an opportunity of sending him, in which you will find further particulars of our progress. we had a dreadful passage, the worst, the officers all concur in saying, that they have ever known. we were eighteen days coming; experienced a dreadful storm which swept away our paddle-boxes and stove our lifeboats; and ran aground besides, near halifax, among rocks and breakers, where we lay at anchor all night. after we left the english channel we had only one fine day. and we had the additional discomfort of being eighty-six passengers. i was ill five days, kate six; though, indeed, she had a swelled face and suffered the utmost terror all the way. i can give you no conception of my welcome here. there never was a king or emperor upon the earth so cheered and followed by crowds, and entertained in public at splendid balls and dinners, and waited on by public bodies and deputations of all kinds. i have had one from the far west--a journey of two thousand miles! if i go out in a carriage, the crowd surround it and escort me home; if i go to the theatre, the whole house (crowded to the roof) rises as one man, and the timbers ring again. you cannot imagine what it is. i have five great public dinners on hand at this moment, and invitations from every town and village and city in the states. there is a great deal afloat here in the way of subjects for description. i keep my eyes open pretty wide, and hope to have done so to some purpose by the time i come home. when you write to me again--i say again, hoping that your first letter will be soon upon its way here--direct to me to the care of david colden, esq., new york. he will forward all communications by the quickest conveyance and will be perfectly acquainted with all my movements. always your faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. fitz-greene halleck.] carlton house, _february th, ._ my dear sir, will you come and breakfast with me on tuesday, the nd, at half-past ten? say yes. i should have been truly delighted to have a talk with you to-night (being quite alone), but the doctor says that if i talk to man, woman, or child this evening i shall be dumb to-morrow. believe me, with true regard, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] baltimore, _march nd, ._ my dear friend, i beg your pardon, but you were speaking of rash leaps at hasty conclusions. are you quite sure you designed that remark for me? have you not, in the hurry of correspondence, slipped a paragraph into my letter which belongs of right to somebody else? when did you ever find me leap at wrong conclusions? i pause for a reply. pray, sir, did you ever find me admiring mr. ----? on the contrary, did you never hear of my protesting through good, better, and best report that he was not an open or a candid man, and would one day, beyond all doubt, displease you by not being so? i pause again for a reply. are you quite sure, mr. macready--and i address myself to you with the sternness of a man in the pit--are you quite sure, sir, that you do not view america through the pleasant mirage which often surrounds a thing that has been, but not a thing that is? are you quite sure that when you were here you relished it as well as you do now when you look back upon it. the early spring birds, mr. macready, _do_ sing in the groves that you were, very often, not over well pleased with many of the new country's social aspects. are the birds to be trusted? again i pause for a reply. my dear macready, i desire to be so honest and just to those who have so enthusiastically and earnestly welcomed me, that i burned the last letter i wrote to you--even to you to whom i would speak as to myself--rather than let it come with anything that might seem like an ill-considered word of disappointment. i preferred that you should think me neglectful (if you could imagine anything so wild) rather than i should do wrong in this respect. still it is of no use. i _am_ disappointed. this is not the republic i came to see; this is not the republic of my imagination. i infinitely prefer a liberal monarchy--even with its sickening accompaniments of court circulars--to such a government as this. the more i think of its youth and strength, the poorer and more trifling in a thousand aspects it appears in my eyes. in everything of which it has made a boast--excepting its education of the people and its care for poor children--it sinks immeasurably below the level i had placed it upon; and england, even england, bad and faulty as the old land is, and miserable as millions of her people are, rises in the comparison. _you_ live here, macready, as i have sometimes heard you imagining! _you!_ loving you with all my heart and soul, and knowing what your disposition really is, i would not condemn you to a year's residence on this side of the atlantic for any money. freedom of opinion! where is it? i see a press more mean, and paltry, and silly, and disgraceful than any country i ever knew. if that is its standard, here it is. but i speak of bancroft, and am advised to be silent on that subject, for he is "a black sheep--a democrat." i speak of bryant, and am entreated to be more careful, for the same reason. i speak of international copyright, and am implored not to ruin myself outright. i speak of miss martineau, and all parties--slave upholders and abolitionists, whigs, tyler whigs, and democrats, shower down upon me a perfect cataract of abuse. "but what has she done? surely she praised america enough!" "yes, but she told us of some of our faults, and americans can't bear to be told of their faults. don't split on that rock, mr. dickens, don't write about america; we are so very suspicious." freedom of opinion! macready, if i had been born here and had written my books in this country, producing them with no stamp of approval from any other land, it is my solemn belief that i should have lived and died poor, unnoticed, and a "black sheep" to boot. i never was more convinced of anything than i am of that. the people are affectionate, generous, open-hearted, hospitable, enthusiastic, good-humoured, polite to women, frank and candid to all strangers, anxious to oblige, far less prejudiced than they have been described to be, frequently polished and refined, very seldom rude or disagreeable. i have made a great many friends here, even in public conveyances, whom i have been truly sorry to part from. in the towns i have formed perfect attachments. i have seen none of that greediness and indecorousness on which travellers have laid so much emphasis. i have returned frankness with frankness; met questions not intended to be rude, with answers meant to be satisfactory; and have not spoken to one man, woman, or child of any degree who has not grown positively affectionate before we parted. in the respects of not being left alone, and of being horribly disgusted by tobacco chewing and tobacco spittle, i have suffered considerably. the sight of slavery in virginia, the hatred of british feeling upon the subject, and the miserable hints of the impotent indignation of the south, have pained me very much; on the last head, of course, i have felt nothing but a mingled pity and amusement; on the other, sheer distress. but however much i like the ingredients of this great dish, i cannot but come back to the point upon which i started, and say that the dish itself goes against the grain with me, and that i don't like it. you know that i am truly a liberal. i believe i have as little pride as most men, and i am conscious of not the smallest annoyance from being "hail fellow well met" with everybody. i have not had greater pleasure in the company of any set of men among the thousands i have received (i hold a regular levée every day, you know, which is duly heralded and proclaimed in the newspapers) than in that of the carmen of hertford, who presented themselves in a body in their blue frocks, among a crowd of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and bade me welcome through their spokesman. they had all read my books, and all perfectly understood them. it is not these things i have in my mind when i say that the man who comes to this country a radical and goes home again with his opinions unchanged, must be a radical on reason, sympathy, and reflection, and one who has so well considered the subject that he has no chance of wavering. we have been to boston, worcester, hertford, new haven, new york, philadelphia, baltimore, washington, fredericksburgh, richmond, and back to washington again. the premature heat of the weather (it was eighty yesterday in the shade) and clay's advice--how you would like clay!--have made us determine not to go to charleston; but having got to richmond, i think i should have turned back under any circumstances. we remain at baltimore for two days, of which this is one; then we go to harrisburgh. then by the canal boat and the railroad over the alleghany mountains to pittsburgh, then down the ohio to cincinnati, then to louisville, and then to st. louis. i have been invited to a public entertainment in every town i have entered, and have refused them; but i have excepted st. louis as the farthest point of my travels. my friends there have passed some resolutions which forster has, and will show you. from st. louis we cross to chicago, traversing immense prairies. thence by the lakes and detroit to buffalo, and so to niagara. a run into canada follows of course, and then--let me write the blessed word in capitals--we turn towards home. kate has written to mrs. macready, and it is useless for me to thank you, my dearest friend, or her, for your care of our dear children, which is our constant theme of discourse. forster has gladdened our hearts with his account of the triumph of "acis and galatea," and i am anxiously looking for news of the tragedy. forrest breakfasted with us at richmond last saturday--he was acting there, and i invited him--and he spoke very gratefully, and very like a man, of your kindness to him when he was in london. david colden is as good a fellow as ever lived; and i am deeply in love with his wife. indeed we have received the greatest and most earnest and zealous kindness from the whole family, and quite love them all. do you remember one greenhow, whom you invited to pass some days with you at the hotel on the kaatskill mountains? he is translator to the state office at washington, has a very pretty wife, and a little girl of five years old. we dined with them, and had a very pleasant day. the president invited me to dinner, but i couldn't stay for it. i had a private audience, however, and we attended the public drawing-room besides. now, don't you rush at the quick conclusion that i have rushed at a quick conclusion. pray, be upon your guard. if you can by any process estimate the extent of my affectionate regard for you, and the rush i shall make when i reach london to take you by your true right hand, i don't object. but let me entreat you to be very careful how you come down upon the sharpsighted individual who pens these words, which you seem to me to have done in what willmott would call "one of mr. macready's rushes." as my pen is getting past its work, i have taken a new one to say that i am ever, my dear macready, your faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] baltimore, united states, _march nd, ._ my dear friend, we have been as far south as richmond in virginia (where they grow and manufacture tobacco, and where the labour is all performed by slaves), but the season in those latitudes is so intensely and prematurely hot, that it was considered a matter of doubtful expediency to go on to charleston. for this unexpected reason, and because the country between richmond and charleston is but a desolate swamp the whole way, and because slavery is anything but a cheerful thing to live amidst, i have altered my route by the advice of mr. clay (the great political leader in this country), and have returned here previous to diving into the far west. we start for that part of the country--which includes mountain travelling, and lake travelling, and prairie travelling--the day after to-morrow, at eight o'clock in the morning; and shall be in the west, and from there going northward again, until the th of april or st of may, when we shall halt for a week at niagara, before going further into canada. we have taken our passage home (god bless the word) in the _george washington_ packet-ship from new york. she sails on the th of june. i have departed from my resolution not to accept any more public entertainments; they have been proposed in every town i have visited--in favour of the people of st. louis, my utmost western point. that town is on the borders of the indian territory, a trifling distance from this place--only two thousand miles! at my second halting-place i shall be able to write to fix the day; i suppose it will be somewhere about the th of april. think of my going so far towards the setting sun to dinner! in every town where we stay, though it be only for a day, we hold a regular levée or drawing-room, where i shake hands on an average with five or six hundred people, who pass on from me to kate, and are shaken again by her. maclise's picture of our darlings stands upon a table or sideboard the while; and my travelling secretary, assisted very often by a committee belonging to the place, presents the people in due form. think of two hours of this every day, and the people coming in by hundreds, all fresh, and piping hot, and full of questions, when we are literally exhausted and can hardly stand. i really do believe that if i had not a lady with me, i should have been obliged to leave the country and go back to england. but for her they never would leave me alone by day or night, and as it is, a slave comes to me now and then in the middle of the night with a letter, and waits at the bedroom door for an answer. it was so hot at richmond that we could scarcely breathe, and the peach and other fruit trees were in full blossom; it was so cold at washington next day that we were shivering; but even in the same town you might often wear nothing but a shirt and trousers in the morning, and two greatcoats at night, the thermometer very frequently taking a little trip of thirty degrees between sunrise and sunset. they do lay it on at the hotels in such style! they charge by the day, so that whether one dines out or dines at home makes no manner of difference. t'other day i wrote to order our rooms at philadelphia to be ready on a certain day, and was detained a week longer than i expected in new york. the philadelphia landlord not only charged me half rent for the rooms during the whole of that time, but board for myself and kate and anne during the whole time too, though we were actually boarding at the same expense during the same time in new york! what do you say to that? if i remonstrated, the whole virtue of the newspapers would be aroused directly. we were at the president's drawing-room while we were in washington. i had a private audience besides, and was asked to dinner, but couldn't stay. parties--parties--parties--of course, every day and night. but it's not all parties. i go into the prisons, the police-offices, the watch-houses, the hospitals, the workhouses. i was out half the night in new york with two of their most famous constables; started at midnight, and went into every brothel, thieves' house, murdering hovel, sailors' dancing-place, and abode of villany, both black and white, in the town. i went _incog._ behind the scenes to the little theatre where mitchell is making a fortune. he has been rearing a little dog for me, and has called him "boz."[ ] i am going to bring him home. in a word i go everywhere, and a hard life it is. but i am careful to drink hardly anything, and not to smoke at all. i have recourse to my medicine-chest whenever i feel at all bilious, and am, thank god, thoroughly well. when i next write to you, i shall have begun, i hope, to turn my face homeward. i have a great store of oddity and whimsicality, and am going now into the oddest and most characteristic part of this most queer country. always direct to the care of david colden, esq., , laight street, hudson square, new york. i received your caledonia letter with the greatest joy. kate sends her best remembrances. and i am always. p.s.--richmond was my extreme southern point, and i turn from the south altogether the day after to-morrow. will you let the britannia[ ] know of this change--if needful? [sidenote: dr. f. h. deane.] cincinnati, ohio, _april th, ._ my dear sir, i have not been unmindful of your request for a moment, but have not been able to think of it until now. i hope my good friends (for whose christian-names i have left blanks in the epitaph) may like what i have written, and that they will take comfort and be happy again. i sail on the th of june, and purpose being at the carlton house, new york, about the st. it will make me easy to know that this letter has reached you. faithfully yours. this is the grave of a little child, whom god in his goodness called to a bright eternity when he was very young. hard as it is for human affection to reconcile itself to death in any shape (and most of all, perhaps, at first in this), his parents can even now believe that it will be a consolation to them throughout their lives, and when they shall have grown old and gray, always to think of him as a child in heaven. "_and jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them._" he was the son of q---- and m---- thornton, christened charles jerking. he was born on the th day of january, , and he died on the th day of march, , having lived only thirteen months and twenty days. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] niagara falls (english side), _sunday, may st, ._ my dear henry, although i date this letter as above, it will not be so old a one as at first sight it would appear to be when it reaches you. i shall carry it on with me to montreal, and despatch it from there by the steamer which goes to halifax, to meet the cunard boat at that place, with canadian letters and passengers. before i finally close it, i will add a short postscript, so that it will contain the latest intelligence. we have had a blessed interval of quiet in this beautiful place, of which, as you may suppose, we stood greatly in need, not only by reason of our hard travelling for a long time, but on account of the incessant persecutions of the people, by land and water, on stage coach, railway car, and steamer, which exceeds anything you can picture to yourself by the utmost stretch of your imagination. so far we have had this hotel nearly to ourselves. it is a large square house, standing on a bold height, with overhanging eaves like a swiss cottage, and a wide handsome gallery outside every story. these colonnades make it look so very light, that it has exactly the appearance of a house built with a pack of cards; and i live in bodily terror lest any man should venture to step out of a little observatory on the roof, and crush the whole structure with one stamp of his foot. our sitting-room (which is large and low like a nursery) is on the second floor, and is so close to the falls that the windows are always wet and dim with spray. two bedrooms open out of it--one our own; one anne's. the secretary slumbers near at hand, but without these sacred precincts. from the three chambers, or any part of them, you can see the falls rolling and tumbling, and roaring and leaping, all day long, with bright rainbows making fiery arches down a hundred feet below us. when the sun is on them, they shine and glow like molten gold. when the day is gloomy, the water falls like snow, or sometimes it seems to crumble away like the face of a great chalk cliff, or sometimes again to roll along the front of the rock like white smoke. but it all seems gay or gloomy, dark or light, by sun or moon. from the bottom of both falls, there is always rising up a solemn ghostly cloud, which hides the boiling cauldron from human sight, and makes it in its mystery a hundred times more grand than if you could see all the secrets that lie hidden in its tremendous depth. one fall is as close to us as york gate is to no. , devonshire terrace. the other (the great horse-shoe fall) may be, perhaps, about half as far off as "creedy's."[ ] one circumstance in connection with them is, in all the accounts, greatly exaggerated--i mean the noise. last night was perfectly still. kate and i could just hear them, at the quiet time of sunset, a mile off. whereas, believing the statements i had heard i began putting my ear to the ground, like a savage or a bandit in a ballet, thirty miles off, when we were coming here from buffalo. i was delighted to receive your famous letter, and to read your account of our darlings, whom we long to see with an intensity it is impossible to shadow forth, ever so faintly. i do believe, though i say it as shouldn't, that they are good 'uns--both to look at and to go. i roared out this morning, as soon as i was awake, "next month," which we have been longing to be able to say ever since we have been here. i really do not know how we shall ever knock at the door, when that slowest of all impossibly slow hackney-coaches shall pull up--at home. i am glad you exult in the fight i have had about the copyright. if you knew how they tried to stop me, you would have a still greater interest in it. the greatest men in england have sent me out, through forster, a very manly, and becoming, and spirited memorial and address, backing me in all i have done. i have despatched it to boston for publication, and am coolly prepared for the storm it will raise. but my best rod is in pickle. is it not a horrible thing that scoundrel booksellers should grow rich here from publishing books, the authors of which do not reap one farthing from their issue by scores of thousands; and that every vile, blackguard, and detestable newspaper, so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a scullery door-mat, should be able to publish those same writings side by side, cheek by jowl, with the coarsest and most obscene companions with which they must become connected, in course of time, in people's minds? is it tolerable that besides being robbed and rifled an author should be forced to appear in any form, in any vulgar dress, in any atrocious company; that he should have no choice of his audience, no control over his own distorted text, and that he should be compelled to jostle out of the course the best men in this country who only ask to live by writing? i vow before high heaven that my blood so boils at these enormities, that when i speak about them i seem to grow twenty feet high, and to swell out in proportion. "robbers that ye are," i think to myself when i get upon my legs, "here goes!" the places we have lodged in, the roads we have gone over, the company we have been among, the tobacco-spittle we have wallowed in, the strange customs we have complied with, the packing-cases in which we have travelled, the woods, swamps, rivers, prairies, lakes, and mountains we have crossed, are all subjects for legends and tales at home; quires, reams, wouldn't hold them. i don't think anne has so much as seen an american tree. she never looks at a prospect by any chance, or displays the smallest emotion at any sight whatever. she objects to niagara that "it's nothing but water," and considers that "there is too much of that." i suppose you have heard that i am going to act at the montreal theatre with the officers? farce-books being scarce, and the choice consequently limited, i have selected keeley's part in "two o'clock in the morning." i wrote yesterday to mitchell, the actor and manager at new york, to get and send me a comic wig, light flaxen, with a small whisker halfway down the cheek; over this i mean to wear two night-caps, one with a tassel and one of flannel; a flannel wrapper, drab tights and slippers, will complete the costume. i am very sorry to hear that business is so flat, but the proverb says it never rains but it pours, and it may be remarked with equal truth upon the other side, that it never _don't_ rain but it holds up very much indeed. you will be busy again long before i come home, i have no doubt. we purpose leaving this on wednesday morning. give my love to letitia and to mother, and always believe me, my dear henry, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] montreal, canada, _may th, ._ all well, though (with the exception of one from fred) we have received no letters whatever by the _caledonia_. we have experienced impossible-to-be-described attentions in canada. everybody's carriage and horses are at our disposal, and everybody's servants; and all the government boats and boats' crews. we shall play, between the th and the th, "a roland for an oliver," "two o'clock in the morning," and "deaf as a post." [sidenote: mr. thomas longman.] athenÃ�um, _friday afternoon._ my dear sir, if i could possibly have attended the meeting yesterday i would most gladly have done so. but i have been up the whole night, and was too much exhausted even to write and say so before the proceedings came on. i have fought the fight across the atlantic with the utmost energy i could command; have never been turned aside by any consideration for an instant; am fresher for the fray than ever; will battle it to the death, and die game to the last. i am happy to say that my boy is quite well again. from being in perfect health he fell into alarming convulsions with the surprise and joy of our return. i beg my regards to mrs. longman, and am always, faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss pardoe.] devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _july th, ._ dear madam, i beg to set you right on one point in reference to the american robbers, which perhaps you do not quite understand. the existing law allows them to reprint any english book, without any communication whatever with the author or anybody else. my books have all been reprinted on these agreeable terms. but sometimes, when expectation is awakened there about a book before its publication, one firm of pirates will pay a trifle to procure early proofs of it, and get so much the start of the rest as they can obtain by the time necessarily consumed in printing it. directly it is printed it is common property, and may be reprinted a thousand times. my circular only referred to such bargains as these. i should add that i have no hope of the states doing justice in this dishonest respect, and therefore do not expect to overtake these fellows, but we may cry "stop thief!" nevertheless, especially as they wince and smart under it. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. h. p. smith.] devonshire terrace, _thursday, july th, ._ my dear smith, the cheque safely received. as you say, it would be cheap at any money. my devotion to the fine arts renders it impossible for me to cash it. i have therefore ordered it to be framed and glazed. i am really grateful to you for the interest you take in my proceedings. next time i come into the city i will show you my introductory chapter to the american book. it may seem to prepare the reader for a much greater amount of slaughter than he will meet with; but it is honest and true. therefore my hand does not shake. best love and regards. "certainly" to the richmondian intentions. always faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. harrison ainsworth.] broadstairs, kent, _september th, ._ my dear ainsworth, the enclosed has been sent to me by a young gentleman in devonshire (of whom i know no more than that i have occasionally, at his request, read and suggested amendments in some of his writings), with a special petition that i would recommend it to you for insertion in your magazine. i think it very pretty, and i have no doubt you will also. but it is poetry, and may be too long. he is a very modest young fellow, and has decided ability. i hope when i come home at the end of the month, we shall foregather more frequently. of course you are working, tooth and nail; and of course i am. kate joins me in best regards to yourself and all your house (not forgetting, but especially remembering, my old friend, mrs. touchet), and i am always, my dear ainsworth, heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, _sunday, september th, ._ my dear henry, i enclose you the niagara letter, with many thanks for the loan of it. pray tell mr. chadwick that i am greatly obliged to him for his remembrance of me, and i heartily concur with him in the great importance and interest of the subject, though i do differ from him, to the death, on his crack topic--the new poor-law. i have been turning my thoughts to this very item in the condition of american towns, and had put their present aspects strongly before the american people; therefore i shall read his report with the greater interest and attention. we return next saturday night. if you will dine with us next day or any day in the week, we shall be truly glad and delighted to see you. let me know, then, what day you will come. i need scarcely say that i shall joyfully talk with you about the metropolitan improvement society, then or at any time; and with love to letitia, in which kate and the babies join, i am always, my dear henry, affectionately yours. p.s.--the children's present names are as follows: katey (from a lurking propensity to fieryness), lucifer box. mamey (as generally descriptive of her bearing), mild glo'ster. charley (as a corruption of master toby), flaster floby. walter (suggested by his high cheek-bones), young skull. each is pronounced with a peculiar howl, which i shall have great pleasure in illustrating. [sidenote: rev. william harness.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ my dear harness, some time ago, you sent me a note from a friend of yours, a barrister, i think, begging me to forward to him any letters i might receive from a deranged nephew of his, at newcastle. in the midst of a most bewildering correspondence with unknown people, on every possible and impossible subject, i have forgotten this gentleman's name, though i have a kind of hazy remembrance that he lived near russell square. as the post office would be rather puzzled, perhaps, to identify him by such an address, may i ask the favour of you to hand him the enclosed, and to say that it is the second i have received since i returned from america? the last, i think, was a defiance to mortal combat. with best remembrances to your sister, in which mrs. dickens joins, believe me, my dear harness, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, nov. th, ._ my dear macready, you pass this house every day on your way to or from the theatre. i wish you would call once as you go by, and soon, that you may have plenty of time to deliberate on what i wish to suggest to you. the more i think of marston's play, the more sure i feel that a prologue to the purpose would help it materially, and almost decide the fate of any ticklish point on the first night. now i have an idea (not easily explainable in writing but told in five words), that would take the prologue out of the conventional dress of prologues, quite. get the curtain up with a dash, and begin the play with a sledge-hammer blow. if on consideration, you should think with me, i will write the prologue heartily. faithfully yours ever. prologue to mr. marston's play of "the patrician's daughter." no tale of streaming plumes and harness bright dwells on the poet's maiden harp to-night; no trumpet's clamour and no battle's fire breathes in the trembling accents of his lyre; enough for him, if in his lowly strain he wakes one household echo not in vain; enough for him, if in his boldest word the beating heart of man be dimly heard. its solemn music which, like strains that sigh through charmèd gardens, all who hearing die; its solemn music he does not pursue to distant ages out of human view; nor listen to its wild and mournful chime in the dead caverns on the shore of time; but musing with a calm and steady gaze before the crackling flames of living days, he hears it whisper through the busy roar of what shall be and what has been before. awake the present! shall no scene display the tragic passion of the passing day? is it with man, as with some meaner things, that out of death his single purpose springs? can his eventful life no moral teach until he be, for aye, beyond its reach? obscurely shall he suffer, act, and fade, dubb'd noble only by the sexton's spade? awake the present! though the steel-clad age find life alone within the storied page, iron is worn, at heart, by many still-- the tyrant custom binds the serf-like will; if the sharp rack, and screw, and chain be gone, these later days have tortures of their own; the guiltless writhe, while guilt is stretched in sleep, and virtue lies, too often, dungeon deep. awake the present! what the past has sown be in its harvest garner'd, reap'd, and grown! how pride breeds pride, and wrong engenders wrong, read in the volume truth has held so long, assured that where life's flowers freshest blow, the sharpest thorns and keenest briars grow, how social usage has the pow'r to change good thoughts to evil; in its highest range to cramp the noble soul, and turn to ruth the kindling impulse of our glorious youth, crushing the spirit in its house of clay, learn from the lessons of the present day. not light its import and not poor its mien; yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] _saturday morning._ my dear macready, one suggestion, though it be a late one. do have upon the table, in the opening scene of the second act, something in a velvet case, or frame, that may look like a large miniature of mabel, such as one of ross's, and eschew that picture. it haunts me with a sense of danger. even a titter at that critical time, with the whole of that act before you, would be a fatal thing. the picture is bad in itself, bad in its effect upon the beautiful room, bad in all its associations with the house. in case of your having nothing at hand, i send you by bearer what would be a million times better. always, my dear macready, faithfully yours. p.s.--i need not remind you how common it is to have such pictures in cases lying about elegant rooms. [sidenote: mr. w. p. frith.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _november th, ._ my dear sir, i shall be very glad if you will do me the favour to paint me two little companion pictures; one, a dolly varden (whom you have so exquisitely done already), the other, a kate nickleby. faithfully yours always. p.s.--i take it for granted that the original picture of dolly with the bracelet is sold? [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ my dear sir, pray consult your own convenience in the matter of my little commission; whatever suits your engagements and prospects will best suit me. i saw an unfinished proof of dolly at mitchell's some two or three months ago; i thought it was proceeding excellently well then. it will give me great pleasure to see her when completed. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thomas hood.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ my dear hood, in asking your and mrs. hood's leave to bring mrs. d.'s sister (who stays with us) on tuesday, let me add that i should very much like to bring at the same time a very unaffected and ardent admirer of your genius, who has no small portion of that commodity in his own right, and is a very dear friend of mine and a very famous fellow; to wit, maclise, the painter, who would be glad (as he has often told me) to know you better, and would be much pleased, i know, if i could say to him, "hood wants me to bring you." i use so little ceremony with you, in the conviction that you will use as little with me, and say, "my dear d.--convenient;" or, "my dear d.--ill-convenient," (as the popular phrase is), just as the case may be. of course, i have said nothing to him. always heartily yours, boz. [sidenote: mrs. trollope.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _december th, ._ my dear mrs. trollope, let me thank you most cordially for your kind note, in reference to my notes, which has given me true pleasure and gratification. as i never scrupled to say in america, so i can have no delicacy in saying to you, that, allowing for the change you worked in many social features of american society, and for the time that has passed since you wrote of the country, i am convinced that there is no writer who has so well and accurately (i need not add so entertainingly) described it, in many of its aspects, as you have done; and this renders your praise the more valuable to me. i do not recollect ever to have heard or seen the charge of exaggeration made against a feeble performance, though, in its feebleness, it may have been most untrue. it seems to me essentially natural, and quite inevitable, that common observers should accuse an uncommon one of this fault, and i have no doubt that you were long ago of this opinion; very much to your own comfort. mrs. dickens begs me to thank you for your kind remembrance of her, and to convey to you her best regards. always believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] devonshire terrace, _december th, ._ my dear george, it is impossible for me to tell you how greatly i am charmed with those beautiful pictures, in which the whole feeling, and thought, and expression of the little story is rendered to the gratification of my inmost heart; and on which you have lavished those amazing resources of yours with a power at which i fairly wondered when i sat down yesterday before them. i took them to mac, straightway, in a cab, and it would have done you good if you could have seen and heard him. you can't think how moved he was by the old man in the church, or how pleased i was to have chosen it before he saw the drawings. you are such a queer fellow and hold yourself so much aloof, that i am afraid to say half i would say touching my grateful admiration; so you shall imagine the rest. i enclose a note from kate, to which i hope you will bring the only one acceptable reply. always, my dear cattermole, faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the little dog--a white havana spaniel--_was_ brought home and renamed, after an incidental character in "nicholas nickleby," "mr. snittle timbery." this was shortened to "timber," and under that name the little dog lived to be very old, and accompanied the family in all its migrations, including the visits to italy and switzerland. [ ] life insurance office. [ ] mr. macready's--so pronounced by one of charles dickens's little children. book ii. to . . narrative. we have, unfortunately, very few letters of interest in this year. but we are able to give the commencement of charles dickens's correspondence with his beloved friends, mr. douglas jerrold and mr. clarkson stanfield; with lord morpeth (afterwards lord carlisle), for whom he always entertained the highest regard; and with mr. charles babbage. he was at work upon "martin chuzzlewit" until the end of the year, when he also wrote and published the first of his christmas stories--"the christmas carol." he was much distressed by the sad fate of mr. elton (a respected actor), who was lost in the wreck of the _pegasus_, and was very eager and earnest in his endeavours to raise a fund on behalf of mr. elton's children. we are sorry to be unable to give any explanation as to the nature of the cockspur street society, mentioned in this first letter to mr. charles babbage. but we publish it notwithstanding, considering it to be one of general interest. the "little history of england" was never finished--not, that is to say, the one alluded to in the letter to mr. jerrold. mr. david dickson kindly furnishes us with an explanation of the letter dated th may. "it was," he says, "in answer to a letter from me, pointing out that the 'shepherd' in 'pickwick' was apparently reflecting on the scriptural doctrine of the new birth." the beginning of the letter to mr. jerrold ( th june) is, as will be readily understood, an imaginary cast of a purely imaginary play. a portion of this letter has already been published, in mr. blanchard jerrold's life of his father. it originated in a proposal of mr. webster's--the manager of the haymarket theatre--to give five hundred pounds for a prize comedy by an english author. the opera referred to in the letter to mr. r. h. horne was called "the village coquettes," and the farce was "the strange gentleman," already alluded to by us, in connection with a letter to mr. harley. [sidenote: mr. charles babbage.] devonshire terrace, _april th, ._ my dear sir, i write to you, _confidentially_, in answer to your note of last night, and the tenor of mine will tell you why. you may suppose, from seeing my name in the printed letter you have received, that i am favourable to the proposed society. i am decidedly opposed to it. i went there on the day i was in the chair, after much solicitation; and being put into it, opened the proceedings by telling the meeting that i approved of the design in theory, but in practice considered it hopeless. i may tell you--i did not tell them--that the nature of the meeting, and the character and position of many of the men attending it, cried "failure" trumpet-tongued in my ears. to quote an expression from tennyson, i may say that if it were the best society in the world, the grossness of some natures in it would have weight to drag it down. in the wisdom of all you urge in the notes you have sent me, taking them as statements of theory, i entirely concur. but in practice, i feel sure that the present publishing system cannot be overset until authors are different men. the first step to be taken is to move as a body in the question of copyright, enforce the existing laws, and try to obtain better. for that purpose i hold that the authors and publishers must unite, as the wealth, business habits, and interest of that latter class are of great importance to such an end. the longmans and murray have been with me proposing such an association. that i shall support. but having seen the cockspur street society, i am as well convinced of its invincible hopelessness as if i saw it written by a celestial penman in the book of fate. my dear sir, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] devonshire terrace, _may rd, ._ my dear jerrold, let me thank you most cordially for your books, not only for their own sakes (and i have read them with perfect delight), but also for this hearty and most welcome mark of your recollection of the friendship we have established; in which light i know i may regard and prize them. i am greatly pleased with your opening paper in the illuminated. it is very wise, and capital; written with the finest end of that iron pen of yours; witty, much needed, and full of truth. i vow to god that i think the parrots of society are more intolerable and mischievous than its birds of prey. if ever i destroy myself, it will be in the bitterness of hearing those infernal and damnably good old times extolled. once, in a fit of madness, after having been to a public dinner which took place just as this ministry came in, i wrote the parody i send you enclosed, for fonblanque. there is nothing in it but wrath; but that's wholesome, so i send it you. i am writing a little history of england for my boy, which i will send you when it is printed for him, though your boys are too old to profit by it. it is curious that i have tried to impress upon him (writing, i daresay, at the same moment with you) the exact spirit of your paper, for i don't know what i should do if he were to get hold of any conservative or high church notions; and the best way of guarding against any such horrible result is, i take it, to wring the parrots' necks in his very cradle. oh heaven, if you could have been with me at a hospital dinner last monday! there were men there who made such speeches and expressed such sentiments as any moderately intelligent dustman would have blushed through his cindery bloom to have thought of. sleek, slobbering, bow-paunched, over-fed, apoplectic, snorting cattle, and the auditory leaping up in their delight! i never saw such an illustration of the power of purse, or felt so degraded and debased by its contemplation, since i have had eyes and ears. the absurdity of the thing was too horrible to laugh at. it was perfectly overwhelming. but if i could have partaken it with anybody who would have felt it as you would have done, it would have had quite another aspect; or would at least, like a "classic mask" (oh d---- that word!) have had one funny side to relieve its dismal features. supposing fifty families were to emigrate into the wilds of north america--yours, mine, and forty-eight others--picked for their concurrence of opinion on all important subjects and for their resolution to found a colony of common-sense, how soon would that devil, cant, present itself among them in one shape or other? the day they landed, do you say, or the day after? that is a great mistake (almost the only one i know) in the "arabian nights," when the princess restores people to their original beauty by sprinkling them with the golden water. it is quite clear that she must have made monsters of them by such a christening as that. my dear jerrold, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. david dickson.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _may th, ._ sir, permit me to say, in reply to your letter, that you do not understand the intention (i daresay the fault is mine) of that passage in the "pickwick papers" which has given you offence. the design of "the shepherd" and of this and every other allusion to him is, to show how sacred things are degraded, vulgarised, and rendered absurd when persons who are utterly incompetent to teach the commonest things take upon themselves to expound such mysteries, and how, in making mere cant phrases of divine words, these persons miss the spirit in which they had their origin. i have seen a great deal of this sort of thing in many parts of england, and i never knew it lead to charity or good deeds. whether the great creator of the world and the creature of his hands, moulded in his own image, be quite so opposite in character as you believe, is a question which it would profit us little to discuss. i like the frankness and candour of your letter, and thank you for it. that every man who seeks heaven must be born again, in good thoughts of his maker, i sincerely believe. that it is expedient for every hound to say so in a certain snuffling form of words, to which he attaches no good meaning, i do not believe. i take it there is no difference between us. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] devonshire terrace, _june th, ._ my dear jerrold, yes, you have anticipated my occupation. chuzzlewit be d----d. high comedy and five hundred pounds are the only matters i can think of. i call it "the one thing needful; or, a part is better than the whole." here are the characters: old febrile mr. farren. young febrile (his son) mr. howe. jack hessians (his friend) mr. w. lacy. chalks (a landlord) mr. gough. hon. harry staggers mr. mellon. sir thomas tip mr. buckstone. swig mr. webster. the duke of leeds mr. coutts. sir smivin growler mr. macready. servants, gamblers, visitors, etc. mrs. febrile mrs. gallot. lady tip mrs. humby. mrs. sour mrs. w. clifford. fanny miss a. smith. one scene, where old febrile tickles lady tip in the ribs, and afterwards dances out with his hat behind him, his stick before, and his eye on the pit, i expect will bring the house down. there is also another point, where old febrile, at the conclusion of his disclosure to swig, rises and says: "and now, swig, tell me, have i acted well?" and swig says: "well, mr. febrile, have you ever acted ill?" which will carry off the piece. herne bay. hum. i suppose it's no worse than any other place in this weather, but it is watery rather--isn't it? in my mind's eye, i have the sea in a perpetual state of smallpox; and the chalk running downhill like town milk. but i know the comfort of getting to work in a fresh place, and proposing pious projects to one's self, and having the more substantial advantage of going to bed early and getting up ditto, and walking about alone. i should like to deprive you of the last-named happiness, and to take a good long stroll, terminating in a public-house, and whatever they chanced to have in it. but fine days are over, i think. the horrible misery of london in this weather, with not even a fire to make it cheerful, is hideous. but i have my comedy to fly to. my only comfort! i walk up and down the street at the back of the theatre every night, and peep in at the green-room window, thinking of the time when "dick--ins" will be called for by excited hundreds, and won't come till mr. webster (half swig and half himself) shall enter from his dressing-room, and quelling the tempest with a smile, beseech that wizard, if he be in the house (here he looks up at my box), to accept the congratulations of the audience, and indulge them with a sight of the man who has got five hundred pounds in money, and it's impossible to say how much in laurel. then i shall come forward, and bow once--twice--thrice--roars of approbation--brayvo--brarvo--hooray--hoorar--hooroar--one cheer more; and asking webster home to supper, shall declare eternal friendship for that public-spirited individual. they have not sent me the "illustrated magazine." what do they mean by that? you don't say your daughter is better, so i hope you mean that she is quite well. my wife desires her best regards. i am always, my dear jerrold, faithfully your friend, the congreve of the nineteenth century (which i mean to be called in the sunday papers). p.s.--i shall dedicate it to webster, beginning: "my dear sir,--when you first proposed to stimulate the slumbering dramatic talent of england, i assure you i had not the least idea"--etc. etc. etc. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] , devonshire terrace, _july th, ._ my dear stanfield, i am chairman of a committee, whose object is to open a subscription, and arrange a benefit for the relief of the seven destitute children of poor elton the actor, who was drowned in the _pegasus_. they are exceedingly anxious to have the great assistance of your name; and if you will allow yourself to be announced as one of the body, i do assure you you will help a very melancholy and distressful cause. faithfully always. p.s.--the committee meet to-night at the freemasons', at eight o'clock. [sidenote: lord morpeth.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _august rd, ._ dear lord morpeth, in acknowledging the safe receipt of your kind donation in behalf of poor mr. elton's orphan children, i hope you will suffer me to address you with little ceremony, as the best proof i can give you of my cordial reciprocation of all you say in your most welcome note. i have long esteemed you and been your distant but very truthful admirer; and trust me that it is a real pleasure and happiness to me to anticipate the time when we shall have a nearer intercourse. believe me, with sincere regard, faithfully your servant. [sidenote: mr. william harrison ainsworth.] devonshire terrace, _october th, ._ my dear ainsworth, i want very much to see you, not having had that old pleasure for a long time. i am at this moment deaf in the ears, hoarse in the throat, red in the nose, green in the gills, damp in the eyes, twitchy in the joints, and fractious in the temper from a most intolerable and oppressive cold, caught the other day, i suspect, at liverpool, where i got exceedingly wet; but i will make prodigious efforts to get the better of it to-night by resorting to all conceivable remedies, and if i succeed so as to be only negatively disgusting to-morrow, i will joyfully present myself at six, and bring my womankind along with me. cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. r. h. horne.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ * * * * * pray tell that besotted ---- to let the opera sink into its native obscurity. i did it in a fit of d----ble good nature long ago, for hullah, who wrote some very pretty music to it. i just put down for everybody what everybody at the st. james's theatre wanted to say and do, and that they could say and do best, and i have been most sincerely repentant ever since. the farce i also did as a sort of practical joke, for harley, whom i have known a long time. it was funny--adapted from one of the published sketches called the "great winglebury duel," and was published by chapman and hall. but i have no copy of it now, nor should i think they have. but both these things were done without the least consideration or regard to reputation. i wouldn't repeat them for a thousand pounds apiece, and devoutly wish them to be forgotten. if you will impress this on the waxy mind of ---- i shall be truly and unaffectedly obliged to you. always faithfully yours. . narrative. in the summer of this year the house in devonshire terrace was let, and charles dickens started with his family for italy, going first to a villa at albaro, near genoa, for a few months, and afterwards to the palazzo pescheire, genoa. towards the end of this year he made excursions to the many places of interest in this country, and was joined at milan by his wife and sister-in-law, previous to his own departure alone on a business visit to england. he had written his christmas story, "the chimes," and was anxious to take it himself to england, and to read it to some of his most intimate friends there. mr. macready went to america and returned in the autumn, and towards the end of the year he paid a professional visit to paris. charles dickens's letter to his wife ( th february) treats of a visit to liverpool, where he went to take the chair on the opening of the mechanics' institution and to make a speech on education. the "fanny" alluded to was his sister, mrs. burnett; the _britannia_, the ship in which he and mrs. dickens made their outward trip to america; the "mrs. bean," the stewardess, and "hewett," the captain, of that same vessel. the letter to mr. charles knight was in acknowledgment of the receipt of a prospectus entitled "book clubs for all readers." the attempt, which fortunately proved completely successful, was to establish a cheap book club. the scheme was, that a number of families should combine together, each contributing about three halfpennies a week; which contribution would enable them, by exchanging the volumes among them, to have sufficient reading to last the year. the publications, which were to be made as cheap as possible, could be purchased by families at the end of the year, on consideration of their putting by an extra penny a week for that purpose. charles dickens, who always had the comfort and happiness of the working-classes greatly at heart, was much interested in this scheme of mr. charles knight's, and highly approved of it. charles dickens and this new correspondent became subsequently true and fast friends. "martin chuzzlewit" was dramatised in the early autumn of this year, at the lyceum theatre, which was then under the management of mr. and mrs. robert keeley. charles dickens superintended some rehearsals, but had left england before the play was acted in public. the man "roche," alluded to in his letter to mr. maclise, was the french courier engaged to go with the family to italy. he remained as servant there, and was with charles dickens through all his foreign travels. his many excellent qualities endeared him to the whole family, and his master never lost sight of this faithful servant until poor roche's untimely death in . the rev. edward tagart was a celebrated unitarian minister, and a very highly esteemed and valued friend. the "chickenstalker" (letter to mrs. dickens, november th), is an instance of the eccentric names he was constantly giving to his children, and these names he frequently made use of in his books. in this year we have our first letter to mr. (afterwards sir edwin) landseer, for whom charles dickens had the highest admiration and personal regard. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _january rd, ._ my very dear macready, you know all the news, and you know i love you; so i no more know why i write than i do why i "come round" after the play to shake hands with you in your dressing-room. i say come, as if you were at this present moment the lessee of drury lane, and had ---- with a long face on one hand, ---- elaborately explaining that everything in creation is a joint-stock company on the other, the inimitable b. by the fire, in conversation with ----. well-a-day! i see it all, and smell that extraordinary compound of odd scents peculiar to a theatre, which bursts upon me when i swing open the little door in the hall, accompanies me as i meet perspiring supers in the narrow passage, goes with me up the two steps, crosses the stage, winds round the third entrance p.s. as i wind, and escorts me safely into your presence, where i find you unwinding something slowly round and round your chest, which is so long that no man can see the end of it. oh that you had been at clarence terrace on nina's birthday! good god, how we missed you, talked of you, drank your health, and wondered what you were doing! perhaps you are falkland enough (i swear i suspect you of it) to feel rather sore--just a little bit, you know, the merest trifle in the world--on hearing that mrs. macready looked brilliant, blooming, young, and handsome, and that she danced a country dance with the writer hereof (acres to your falkland) in a thorough spirit of becoming good humour and enjoyment. now you don't like to be told that? nor do you quite like to hear that forster and i conjured bravely; that a plum-pudding was produced from an empty saucepan, held over a blazing fire kindled in stanfield's hat without damage to the lining; that a box of bran was changed into a live guinea-pig, which ran between my godchild's feet, and was the cause of such a shrill uproar and clapping of hands that you might have heard it (and i daresay did) in america; that three half-crowns being taken from major burns and put into a tumbler-glass before his eyes, did then and there give jingling answers to the questions asked of them by me, and knew where you were and what you were doing, to the unspeakable admiration of the whole assembly. neither do you quite like to be told that we are going to do it again next saturday, with the addition of demoniacal dresses from the masquerade shop; nor that mrs. macready, for her gallant bearing always, and her best sort of best affection, is the best creature i know. never mind; no man shall gag me, and those are my opinions. my dear macready, the lecturing proposition is not to be thought of. i have not the slightest doubt or hesitation in giving you my most strenuous and decided advice against it. looking only to its effect at home, i am immovable in my conviction that the impression it would produce would be one of failure, and a reduction of yourself to the level of those who do the like here. to us who know the boston names and honour them, and who know boston and like it (boston is what i would have the whole united states to be), the boston requisition would be a valuable document, of which you and your friends might be proud. but those names are perfectly unknown to the public here, and would produce not the least effect. the only thing known to the public here is, that they ask (when i say "they" i mean the people) everybody to lecture. it is one of the things i have ridiculed in "chuzzlewit." lecture you, and you fall into the roll of lardners, vandenhoffs, eltons, knowleses, buckinghams. you are off your pedestal, have flung away your glass slipper, and changed your triumphal coach into a seedy old pumpkin. i am quite sure of it, and cannot express my strong conviction in language of sufficient force. "puff-ridden!" why to be sure they are. the nation is a miserable sindbad, and its boasted press the loathsome, foul old man upon his back, and yet they will tell you, and proclaim to the four winds for repetition here, that they don't need their ignorant and brutal papers, as if the papers could exist if they didn't need them! let any two of these vagabonds, in any town you go to, take it into their heads to make you an object of attack, or to direct the general attention elsewhere, and what avail those wonderful images of passion which you have been all your life perfecting! i have sent you, to the charge of our trusty and well-beloved colden, a little book i published on the th of december, and which has been a most prodigious success--the greatest, i think, i have ever achieved. it pleases me to think that it will bring you home for an hour or two, and i long to hear you have read it on some quiet morning. do they allow you to be quiet, by-the-way? "some of our most fashionable people, sir," denounced me awfully for liking to be alone sometimes. now that we have turned christmas, i feel as if your face were directed homewards, macready. the downhill part of the road is before us now, and we shall travel on to midsummer at a dashing pace; and, please heaven, i will be at liverpool when you come steaming up the mersey, with that red funnel smoking out unutterable things, and your heart much fuller than your trunks, though something lighter! if i be not the first englishman to shake hands with you on english ground, the man who gets before me will be a brisk and active fellow, and even then need put his best leg foremost. so i warn forster to keep in the rear, or he'll be blown. if you shall have any leisure to project and put on paper the outline of a scheme for opening any theatre on your return, upon a certain list subscribed, and on certain understandings with the actors, it strikes me that it would be wise to break ground while you are still away. of course i need not say that i will see anybody or do anything--even to the calling together of the actors--if you should ever deem it desirable. my opinion is that our respected and valued friend mr. ---- will stagger through another season, if he don't rot first. i understand he is in a partial state of decomposition at this minute. he was very ill, but got better. how is it that ---- always do get better, and strong hearts are so easy to die? kate sends her tender love; so does georgy, so does charlie, so does mamey, so does katey, so does walter, so does the other one who is to be born next week. look homeward always, as we look abroad to you. god bless you, my dear macready. ever your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. laman blanchard.] devonshire terrace, _january th, ._ my dear blanchard, i cannot thank you enough for the beautiful manner and the true spirit of friendship in which you have noticed my "carol." but i _must_ thank you because you have filled my heart up to the brim, and it is running over. you meant to give me great pleasure, my dear fellow, and you have done it. the tone of your elegant and fervent praise has touched me in the tenderest place. i cannot write about it, and as to talking of it, i could no more do that than a dumb man. i have derived inexpressible gratification from what i know was a labour of love on your part. and i can never forget it. when i think it likely that i may meet you (perhaps at ainsworth's on friday?) i shall slip a "carol" into my pocket and ask you to put it among your books for my sake. you will never like it the less for having made it the means of so much happiness to me. always, my dear blanchard, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] liverpool, radley's hotel, _monday, feb. th, ._ my dear kate, i got down here last night (after a most intolerably wet journey) before seven, and found thompson sitting by my fire. he had ordered dinner, and we ate it pleasantly enough, and went to bed in good time. this morning, mr. yates, the great man connected with the institution (and a brother of ashton yates's), called. i went to look at it with him. it is an enormous place, and the tickets have been selling at two and even three guineas apiece. the lecture-room, in which the celebration is held, will accommodate over thirteen hundred people. it was being fitted with gas after the manner of the ring at astley's. i should think it an easy place to speak in, being a semicircle with seats rising one above another to the ceiling, and will have eight hundred ladies to-night, in full dress. i am rayther shaky just now, but shall pull up, i have no doubt. at dinner-time to-morrow you will receive, i hope, a facetious document hastily penned after i return to-night, telling you how it all went off. when i came back here, i found fanny and hewett had picked me up just before. we all went off straight to the _britannia_, which lay where she did when we went on board. we went into the old little cabin and the ladies' cabin, but mrs. bean had gone to scotland, as the ship does not sail again before may. in the saloon we had some champagne and biscuits, and hewett had set out upon the table a block of boston ice, weighing fifty pounds. scott, of the _caledonia_, lunched with us--a very nice fellow. he saw macready play macbeth in boston, and gave me a tremendous account of the effect. poor burroughs, of the _george washington_, died on board, on his last passage home. his little wife was with him. hewett dines with us to-day, and i have procured him admission to-night. i am very sorry indeed (and so was he), that you didn't see the old ship. it was the strangest thing in the world to go on board again. i had bacon with me as far as watford yesterday, and very pleasant. sheil was also in the train, on his way to ireland. give my best love to georgy, and kisses to the darlings. also affectionate regards to mac and forster. ever affectionately. out of the common--please. dickens _against_ the world. charles dickens, of no. , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, in the county of middlesex, gentleman, the successful plaintiff in the above cause, maketh oath and saith: that on the day and date hereof, to wit at seven o'clock in the evening, he, this deponent, took the chair at a large assembly of the mechanics' institution at liverpool, and that having been received with tremendous and enthusiastic plaudits, he, this deponent, did immediately dash into a vigorous, brilliant, humorous, pathetic, eloquent, fervid, and impassioned speech. that the said speech was enlivened by thirteen hundred persons, with frequent, vehement, uproarious, and deafening cheers, and to the best of this deponent's knowledge and belief, he, this deponent, did speak up like a man, and did, to the best of his knowledge and belief, considerably distinguish himself. that after the proceedings of the opening were over, and a vote of thanks was proposed to this deponent, he, this deponent, did again distinguish himself, and that the cheering at that time, accompanied with clapping of hands and stamping of feet, was in this deponent's case thundering and awful. and this deponent further saith, that his white-and-black or magpie waistcoat, did create a strong sensation, and that during the hours of promenading, this deponent heard from persons surrounding him such exclamations as, "what is it! _is_ it a waistcoat? no, it's a shirt"--and the like--all of which this deponent believes to have been complimentary and gratifying; but this deponent further saith that he is now going to supper, and wishes he may have an appetite to eat it. charles dickens. sworn before me, at the adelphi } hotel, liverpool, on the th } of february, . } s. radley. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] devonshire terrace, _april th, ._ my dear stanfield, the sanatorium, or sick house for students, governesses, clerks, young artists, and so forth, who are above hospitals, and not rich enough to be well attended in illness in their own lodgings (you know its objects), is going to have a dinner at the london tavern, on tuesday, the th of june. the committee are very anxious to have you for a steward, as one of the heads of a large class; and i have told them that i have no doubt you will act. there is no steward's fee or collection whatever. they are particularly anxious also to have mr. etty and edwin landseer. as you see them daily at the academy, will you ask them or show them this note? sir martin became one of the committee some few years ago, at my solicitation, as recommending young artists, struggling alone in london, to the better knowledge of this establishment. the dinner is to comprise the new feature of ladies dining at the tables with the gentlemen--not looking down upon them from the gallery. i hope in your reply you will not only book yourself, but mrs. stanfield and mary. it will be very brilliant and cheerful i hope. dick in the chair. gentlemen's dinner-tickets a guinea, as usual; ladies', twelve shillings. i think this is all i have to say, except (which is nonsensical and needless) that i am always, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. edwin landseer.] athenÃ�um, _monday morning, may th, ._ my dear landseer, i have let my house with such delicious promptitude, or, as the americans would say, "with sich everlass'in slickness and al-mity sprydom," that we turn out to-night! in favour of a widow lady, who keeps it all the time we are away! wherefore if you, looking up into the sky this evening between five and six (as possibly you may be, in search of the spring), should see a speck in the air--a mere dot--which, growing larger and larger by degrees, appears in course of time to be an eagle (chain and all) in a light cart, accompanied by a raven of uncommon sagacity, curse that good-nature which prompted you to say it--that you would give them house-room. and do it for the love of boz. p.s.--the writer hereof may be heerd on by personal enquiry at no. , osnaburgh terrace, new road. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] devonshire terrace, _june th, ._ my dear sir, many thanks for your proof, and for your truly gratifying mention of my name. i think the subject excellently chosen, the introduction exactly what it should be, the allusion to the international copyright question most honourable and manly, and the whole scheme full of the highest interest. i had already seen your prospectus, and if i can be of the feeblest use in advancing a project so intimately connected with an end on which my heart is set--the liberal education of the people--i shall be sincerely glad. all good wishes and success attend you! believe me always, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. dudley costello.] _june th, ._ dear sir, mrs. harris, being in that delicate state (just confined, and "made comfortable," in fact), hears some sounds below, which she fancies may be the owls (or howls) of the husband to whom she is devoted. they ease her mind by informing her that these sounds are only organs. by "they" i mean the gossips and attendants. by "organs" i mean instrumental boxes with barrels in them, which are commonly played by foreigners under the windows of people of sedentary pursuits, on a speculation of being bribed to leave the street. mrs. harris, being of a confiding nature, believed in this pious fraud, and was fully satisfied "that his owls was organs." faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. robert keeley.] , osnaburgh terrace, _monday evening, june th, ._ my dear sir, i have been out yachting for two or three days; and consequently could not answer your letter in due course. i cannot, consistently with the opinion i hold and have always held, in reference to the principle of adapting novels for the stage, give you a prologue to "chuzzlewit." but believe me to be quite sincere in saying that if i felt i could reasonably do such a thing for anyone, i would do it for you. i start for italy on monday next, but if you have the piece on the stage, and rehearse on friday, i will gladly come down at any time you may appoint on that morning, and go through it with you all. if you be not in a sufficiently forward state to render this proposal convenient to you, or likely to assist your preparations, do not take the trouble to answer this note. i presume mrs. keeley will do ruth pinch. if so, i feel secure about her, and of mrs. gamp i am certain. but a queer sensation begins in my legs, and comes upward to my forehead, when i think of tom. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. daniel maclise.] villa di bagnarello, albaro, _monday, july nd, ._ my very dear mac, i address you with something of the lofty spirit of an exile--a banished commoner--a sort of anglo-pole. i don't exactly know what i have done for my country in coming away from it; but i feel it is something--something great--something virtuous and heroic. lofty emotions rise within me, when i see the sun set on the blue mediterranean. i am the limpet on the rock. my father's name is turner and my boots are green. apropos of blue. in a certain picture, called "the serenade," you painted a sky. if you ever have occasion to paint the mediterranean, let it be exactly of that colour. it lies before me now, as deeply and intensely blue. but no such colour is above me. nothing like it. in the south of france--at avignon, at aix, at marseilles--i saw deep blue skies (not _so_ deep though--oh lord, no!), and also in america; but the sky above me is familiar to my sight. is it heresy to say that i have seen its twin-brother shining through the window of jack straw's--that down in devonshire i have seen a better sky? i daresay it is; but like a great many other heresies, it is true. but such green--green--green--as flutters in the vineyard down below the windows, _that_ i never saw; nor yet such lilac, and such purple as float between me and the distant hills; nor yet--in anything--picture, book, or verbal boredom--such awful, solemn, impenetrable blue, as is that same sea. it has such an absorbing, silent, deep, profound effect, that i can't help thinking it suggested the idea of styx. it looks as if a draught of it--only so much as you could scoop up on the beach, in the hollow of your hand--would wash out everything else, and make a great blue blank of your intellect. when the sun sets clearly, then, by heaven, it is majestic! from any one of eleven windows here, or from a terrace overgrown with grapes, you may behold the broad sea; villas, houses, mountains, forts, strewn with rose leaves--strewn with thorns--stifled in thorns! dyed through and through and through. for a moment. no more. the sun is impatient and fierce, like everything else in these parts, and goes down headlong. run to fetch your hat--and it's night. wink at the right time of black night--and it's morning. everything is in extremes. there is an insect here (i forget its name, and fletcher and roche are both out) that chirps all day. there is one outside the window now. the chirp is very loud, something like a brobdingnagian grasshopper. the creature is born to chirp--to progress in chirping--to chirp louder, louder, louder--till it gives one tremendous chirp, and bursts itself. that is its life and death. everything "is in a concatenation accordingly." the day gets brighter, brighter, brighter, till it's night. the summer gets hotter, hotter, hotter, till it bursts. the fruit gets riper, riper, riper, till it tumbles down and rots. ask me a question or two about fresco--will you be so good? all the houses are painted in fresco hereabout--the outside walls i mean; the fronts, and backs, and sides--and all the colour has run into damp and green seediness, and the very design has struggled away into the component atoms of the plaster. sometimes (but not often) i can make out a virgin with a mildewed glory round her head; holding nothing, in an indiscernible lap, with invisible arms; and occasionally the leg or arms of a cherub, but it is very melancholy and dim. there are two old fresco-painted vases outside my own gate--one on either hand--which are so faint, that i never saw them till last night; and only then because i was looking over the wall after a lizard, who had come upon me while i was smoking a cigar above, and crawled over one of these embellishments to his retreat. there is a church here--the church of the annunciation--which they are now (by "they" i mean certain noble families) restoring at a vast expense, as a work of piety. it is a large church, with a great many little chapels in it, and a very high dome. every inch of this edifice is painted, and every design is set in a great gold frame or border elaborately wrought. you can imagine nothing so splendid. it is worth coming the whole distance to see. but every sort of splendour is in perpetual enactment through the means of these churches. gorgeous processions in the streets, illuminations of windows on festa nights; lighting up of lamps and clustering of flowers before the shrines of saints; all manner of show and display. the doors of the churches stand wide open; and in this hot weather great red curtains flutter and wave in their palaces; and if you go and sit in one of these to get out of the sun, you see the queerest figures kneeling against pillars, and the strangest people passing in and out, and vast streams of women in veils (they don't wear bonnets), with great fans in their hands, coming and going, that you are never tired of looking on. except in the churches, you would suppose the city (at this time of year) to be deserted, the people keep so close within doors. indeed it is next to impossible to go out into the heat. i have only been into genoa twice myself. we are deliciously cool here, by comparison; being high, and having the sea breeze. there is always some shade in the vineyard, too; and underneath the rocks on the sea-shore, so if i choose to saunter i can do it easily, even in the hot time of the day. i am as lazy, however, as--as you are, and do little but eat and drink and read. as i am going to transmit regular accounts of all sight-seeings and journeyings to forster, who will show them to you, i will not bore you with descriptions, however. i hardly think you allow enough for the great brightness and brilliancy of colour which is commonly achieved on the continent, in that same fresco painting. i saw some--by a french artist and his pupil--in progress at the cathedral at avignon, which was as bright and airy as anything can be,--nothing dull or dead about it; and i have observed quite fierce and glaring colours elsewhere. we have a piano now (there was none in the house), and have fallen into a pretty settled easy track. we breakfast about half-past nine or ten, dine about four, and go to bed about eleven. we are much courted by the visiting people, of course, and i very much resort to my old habit of bolting from callers, and leaving their reception to kate. green figs i have already learnt to like. green almonds (we have them at dessert every day) are the most delicious fruit in the world. and green lemons, combined with some rare hollands that is to be got here, make prodigious punch, i assure you. you ought to come over, mac; but i don't expect you, though i am sure it would be a very good move for you. i have not the smallest doubt of that. fletcher has made a sketch of the house, and will copy it in pen-and-ink for transmission to you in my next letter. i shall look out for a place in genoa, between this and the winter time. in the meantime, the people who come out here breathe delightedly, as if they had got into another climate. landing in the city, you would hardly suppose it possible that there could be such an air within two miles. write to me as often as you can, like a dear good fellow, and rely upon the punctuality of my correspondence. losing you and forster is like losing my arms and legs, and dull and lame i am without you. but at broadstairs next year, please god, when it is all over, i shall be very glad to have laid up such a store of recollections and improvement. i don't know what to do with timber. he is as ill-adapted to the climate at this time of year as a suit of fur. i have had him made a lion dog; but the fleas flock in such crowds into the hair he has left, that they drive him nearly frantic, and renders it absolutely necessary that he should be kept by himself. of all the miserable hideous little frights you ever saw, you never beheld such a devil. apropos, as we were crossing the seine within two stages of paris, roche suddenly said to me, sitting by me on the box: "the littel dog 'ave got a great lip!" i was thinking of things remote and very different, and couldn't comprehend why any peculiarity in this feature on the part of the dog should excite a man so much. as i was musing upon it, my ears were attracted by shouts of "helo! hola! hi, hi, hi! le voilà! regardez!" and the like. and looking down among the oxen--we were in the centre of a numerous drove--i saw him, timber, lying in the road, curled up--you know his way--like a lobster, only not so stiff, yelping dismally in the pain of his "lip" from the roof of the carriage; and between the aching of his bones, his horror of the oxen, and his dread of me (who he evidently took to be the immediate agent in and cause of the damage), singing out to an extent which i believe to be perfectly unprecedented; while every frenchman and french boy within sight roared for company. he wasn't hurt. kate and georgina send their best loves; and the children add "theirs." katey, in particular, desires to be commended to "mr. teese." she has a sore throat; from sitting in constant draughts, i suppose; but with that exception, we are all quite well. ever believe me, my dear mac, your affectionate friend. [sidenote: rev. edward tagart.] albaro, near genoa, _friday, august th, ._ my dear sir, i find that if i wait to write you a long letter (which has been the cause of my procrastination in fulfilling my part of our agreement), i am likely to wait some time longer. and as i am very anxious to hear from you; not the less so, because if i hear of you through my brother, who usually sees you once a week in my absence; i take pen in hand and stop a messenger who is going to genoa. for my main object being to qualify myself for the receipt of a letter from you, i don't see why a ten-line qualification is not as good as one of a hundred lines. you told me it was possible that you and mrs. tagart might wander into these latitudes in the autumn. i wish you would carry out that infant intention to the utmost. it would afford us the truest delight and pleasure to receive you. if you come in october, you will find us in the palazzo peschiere, in genoa, which is surrounded by a delicious garden, and is a most charming habitation in all respects. if you come in september, you will find us less splendidly lodged, but on the margin of the sea, and in the midst of vineyards. the climate is delightful even now; the heat being not at all oppressive, except in the actual city, which is what the americans would call considerable fiery, in the middle of the day. but the sea-breezes out here are refreshing and cool every day, and the bathing in the early morning is something more agreeable than you can easily imagine. the orange trees of the peschiere shall give you their most fragrant salutations if you come to us at that time, and we have a dozen spare beds in that house that i know of; to say nothing of some vast chambers here and there with ancient iron chests in them, where mrs. tagart might enact ginevra to perfection, and never be found out. to prevent which, i will engage to watch her closely, if she will only come and see us. the flies are incredibly numerous just now. the unsightly blot a little higher up was occasioned by a very fine one who fell into the inkstand, and came out, unexpectedly, on the nib of my pen. we are all quite well, thank heaven, and had a very interesting journey here, of which, as well as of this place, i will not write a word, lest i should take the edge off those agreeable conversations with which we will beguile our walks. pray tell me about the presentation of the plate, and whether ---- was very slow, or trotted at all, and if so, when. he is an excellent creature, and i respect him very much, so i don't mind smiling when i think of him as he appeared when addressing you and pointing to the plate, with his head a little on one side, and one of his eyes turned up languidly. also let me know exactly how you are travelling, and when, and all about it; that i may meet you with open arms on the threshold of the city, if happily you bend your steps this way. you had better address me, "poste restante, genoa," as the albaro postman gets drunk, and when he has lost letters, and is sober, sheds tears--which is affecting, but hardly satisfactory. kate and her sister send their best regards to yourself, and mrs. and miss tagart, and all your family. i heartily join them in all kind remembrances and good wishes. as the messenger has just looked in at the door, and shedding on me a balmy gale of onions, has protested against being detained any longer, i will only say (which is not at all necessary) that i am ever, faithfully yours. p.s.--there is a little to see here, in the church way, i assure you. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] albaro, _saturday night, august th, ._ my dear stanfield, i love you so truly, and have such pride and joy of heart in your friendship, that i don't know how to begin writing to you. when i think how you are walking up and down london in that portly surtout, and can't receive proposals from dick to go to the theatre, i fall into a state between laughing and crying, and want some friendly back to smite. "je-im!" "aye, aye, your honour," is in my ears every time i walk upon the sea-shore here; and the number of expeditions i make into cornwall in my sleep, the springs of flys i break, the songs i sing, and the bowls of punch i drink, would soften a heart of stone. we have had weather here, since five o'clock this morning, after your own heart. suppose yourself the admiral in "black-eyed susan" after the acquittal of william, and when it was possible to be on friendly terms with him. i am t. p.[ ] my trousers are very full at the ankles, my black neckerchief is tied in the regular style, the name of my ship is painted round my glazed hat, i have a red waistcoat on, and the seams of my blue jacket are "paid"--permit me to dig you in the ribs when i make use of this nautical expression--with white. in my hand i hold the very box connected with the story of sandomingerbilly. i lift up my eyebrows as far as i can (on the t. p. model), take a quid from the box, screw the lid on again (chewing at the same time, and looking pleasantly at the pit), brush it with my right elbow, take up my right leg, scrape my right foot on the ground, hitch up my trousers, and in reply to a question of yours, namely, "indeed, what weather, william?" i deliver myself as follows: lord love your honour! weather! such weather as would set all hands to the pumps aboard one of your fresh-water cockboats, and set the purser to his wits' ends to stow away, for the use of the ship's company, the casks and casks full of blue water as would come powering in over the gunnel! the dirtiest night, your honour, as ever you see 'atween spithead at gun-fire and the bay of biscay! the wind sou'-west, and your house dead in the wind's eye; the breakers running up high upon the rocky beads, the light'us no more looking through the fog than davy jones's sarser eye through the blue sky of heaven in a calm, or the blue toplights of your honour's lady cast down in a modest overhauling of her catheads: avast! (_whistling_) my dear eyes; here am i a-goin' head on to the breakers (_bowing_). _admiral_ (_smiling_). no, william! i admire plain speaking, as you know, and so does old england, william, and old england's queen. but you were saying---- _william._ aye, aye, your honour (_scratching his head_). i've lost my reckoning. damme!--i ast pardon--but won't your honour throw a hencoop or any old end of towline to a man as is overboard? _admiral_ (_smiling still_). you were saying, william, that the wind---- _william_ (_again cocking his leg, and slapping the thighs very hard_). avast heaving, your honour! i see your honour's signal fluttering in the breeze, without a glass. as i was a-saying, your honour, the wind was blowin' from the sou'-west, due sou'-west, your honour, not a pint to larboard nor a pint to starboard; the clouds a-gatherin' in the distance for all the world like beachy head in a fog, the sea a-rowling in, in heaps of foam, and making higher than the mainyard arm, the craft a-scuddin' by all taught and under storms'ils for the harbour; not a blessed star a-twinklin' out aloft--aloft, your honour, in the little cherubs' native country--and the spray is flying like the white foam from the jolly's lips when poll of portsea took him for a tailor! (_laughs._) _admiral_ (_laughing also_). you have described it well, william, and i thank you. but who are these? _enter supers in calico jackets to look like cloth, some in brown holland petticoat-trousers and big boots, all with very large buckles. last super rolls on a cask, and pretends to keep it. other supers apply their mugs to the bunghole and drink, previously holding them upside down._ _william_ (_after shaking hands with everybody_). who are these, your honour! messmates as staunch and true as ever broke biscuit. ain't you, my lads? _all._ aye, aye, william. that we are! that we are! _admiral_ (_much affected_). oh, england, what wonder that----! but i will no longer detain you from your sports, my humble friends (admiral _speaks very low, and looks hard at the orchestra, this being the cue for the dance_)--from your sports, my humble friends. farewell! _all._ hurrah! hurrah! [_exit_ admiral. _voice behind._ suppose the dance, mr. stanfield. are you all ready? go then! my dear stanfield, i wish you would come this way and see me in that palazzo peschiere! was ever man so welcome as i would make you! what a truly gentlemanly action it would be to bring mrs. stanfield and the baby. and how kate and her sister would wave pocket-handkerchiefs from the wharf in joyful welcome! ah, what a glorious proceeding! do you know this place? of course you do. i won't bore you with anything about it, for i know forster reads my letters to you; but what a place it is. the views from the hills here, and the immense variety of prospects of the sea, are as striking, i think, as such scenery can be. above all, the approach to genoa, by sea from marseilles, constitutes a picture which you ought to paint, for nobody else can ever do it! william, you made that bridge at avignon better than it is. beautiful as it undoubtedly is, you made it fifty times better. and if i were morrison, or one of that school (bless the dear fellows one and all!), i wouldn't stand it, but would insist on having another picture gratis, to atone for the imposition. the night is like a seaside night in england towards the end of september. they say it is the prelude to clear weather. but the wind is roaring now, and the sea is raving, and the rain is driving down, as if they had all set in for a real hearty picnic, and each had brought its own relations to the general festivity. i don't know whether you are acquainted with the coastguard and men in these parts? they are extremely civil fellows, of a very amiable manner and appearance, but the most innocent men in matters you would suppose them to be well acquainted with, in virtue of their office, that i ever encountered. one of them asked me only yesterday, if it would take a year to get to england in a ship? which i thought for a coastguardman was rather a tidy question. it would take a long time to catch a ship going there if he were on board a pursuing cutter though. i think he would scarcely do it in twelve months, indeed. so you were at astley's t'other night. "now, mr. stickney, sir, what can i come for to go for to do for to bring for to fetch for to carry for you, sir?" "he, he, he! oh, i say, sir!" "well, sir?" "miss woolford knows me, sir. she laughed at me!" i see him run away after this; not on his feet, but on his knees and the calves of his legs alternately; and that smell of sawdusty horses, which was never in any other place in the world, salutes my nose with painful distinctness. what do you think of my suddenly finding myself a swimmer? but i have really made the discovery, and skim about a little blue bay just below the town here, like a fish in high spirits. i hope to preserve my bathing-dress for your inspection and approval, or possibly to enrich your collection of italian costumes on my return. do you recollect yarnold in "masaniello"? i fear that i, unintentionally, "dress at him," before plunging into the sea. i enhanced the likeness very much, last friday morning, by singing a barcarole on the rocks. i was a trifle too flesh-coloured (the stage knowing no medium between bright salmon and dirty yellow), but apart from that defect, not badly made up by any means. when you write to me, my dear stanny, as i hope you will soon, address poste restante, genoa. i remain out here until the end of september, and send in for my letters daily. there is a postman for this place, but he gets drunk and loses the letters; after which he calls to say so, and to fall upon his knees. about three weeks ago i caught him at a wine-shop near here, playing bowls in the garden. it was then about five o'clock in the afternoon, and he had been airing a newspaper addressed to me, since nine o'clock in the morning. kate and georgina unite with me in most cordial remembrances to mrs. and miss stanfield, and to all the children. they particularise all sorts of messages, but i tell them that they had better write themselves if they want to send any. though i don't know that this writing would end in the safe deliverance of the commodities after all; for when i began this letter, i meant to give utterance to all kinds of heartiness, my dear stanfield; and i come to the end of it without having said anything more than that i am--which is new to you--under every circumstance and everywhere, your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] palazzo peschiere, genoa, _october th, ._ my very dear macready, my whole heart is with you _at home_. i have not yet felt so far off as i do now, when i think of you there, and cannot fold you in my arms. this is only a shake of the hand. i couldn't _say_ much to you, if i were home to greet you. nor can i write much, when i think of you, safe and sound and happy, after all your wanderings. my dear fellow, god bless you twenty thousand times. happiness and joy be with you! i hope to see you soon. if i should be so unfortunate as to miss you in london, i will fall upon you, with a swoop of love, in paris. kate says all kind things in the language; and means more than are in the dictionary capacity of all the descendants of all the stonemasons that worked at babel. again and again and again, my own true friend, god bless you! ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] cremona, _saturday night, october th, ._ my dear jerrold, as half a loaf is better than no bread, so i hope that half a sheet of paper may be better than none at all, coming from one who is anxious to live in your memory and friendship. i should have redeemed the pledge i gave you in this regard long since, but occupation at one time, and absence from pen and ink at another, have prevented me. forster has told you, or will tell you, that i very much wish you to hear my little christmas book; and i hope you will meet me, at his bidding, in lincoln's inn fields. i have tried to strike a blow upon that part of the brass countenance of wicked cant, when such a compliment is sorely needed at this time, and i trust that the result of my training is at least the exhibition of a strong desire to make it a staggerer. if _you_ should think at the end of the four rounds (there are no more) that the said cant, in the language of _bell's life_, "comes up piping," i shall be very much the better for it. i am now on my way to milan; and from thence (after a day or two's rest) i mean to come to england by the grandest alpine pass that the snow may leave open. you know this place as famous of yore for fiddles. i don't see any here now. but there is a whole street of coppersmiths not far from this inn; and they throb so d----ably and fitfully, that i thought i had a palpitation of the heart after dinner just now, and seldom was more relieved than when i found the noise to be none of mine. i was rather shocked yesterday (i am not strong in geographical details) to find that romeo was only banished twenty-five miles. that is the distance between mantua and verona. the latter is a quaint old place, with great houses in it that are now solitary and shut up--exactly the place it ought to be. the former has a great many apothecaries in it at this moment, who could play that part to the life. for of all the stagnant ponds i ever beheld, it is the greenest and weediest. i went to see the old palace of the capulets, which is still distinguished by their cognizance (a hat carved in stone on the courtyard wall). it is a miserable inn. the court was full of crazy coaches, carts, geese, and pigs, and was ankle-deep in mud and dung. the garden is walled off and built out. there was nothing to connect it with its old inhabitants, and a very unsentimental lady at the kitchen door. the montagues used to live some two or three miles off in the country. it does not appear quite clear whether they ever inhabited verona itself. but there is a village bearing their name to this day, and traditions of the quarrels between the two families are still as nearly alive as anything can be, in such a drowsy neighbourhood. it was very hearty and good of you, jerrold, to make that affectionate mention of the "carol" in _punch_, and i assure you it was not lost on the distant object of your manly regard, but touched him as you wished and meant it should. i wish we had not lost so much time in improving our personal knowledge of each other. but i have so steadily read you, and so selfishly gratified myself in always expressing the admiration with which your gallant truths inspired me, that i must not call it time lost, either. you rather entertained a notion, once, of coming to see me at genoa. i shall return straight, on the th of december, limiting my stay in town to one week. now couldn't you come back with me? the journey, that way, is very cheap, costing little more than twelve pounds; and i am sure the gratification to you would be high. i am lodged in quite a wonderful place, and would put you in a painted room, as big as a church and much more comfortable. there are pens and ink upon the premises; orange trees, gardens, battledores and shuttlecocks, rousing wood-fires for evenings, and a welcome worth having. come! letter from a gentleman in italy to bradbury and evans in london. letter from a gentleman in a country gone to sleep to a gentleman in a country that would go to sleep too, and never wake again, if some people had their way. you can work in genoa. the house is used to it. it is exactly a week's post. have that portmanteau looked to, and when we meet, say, "i am coming." i have never in my life been so struck by any place as by venice. it is _the_ wonder of the world. dreamy, beautiful, inconsistent, impossible, wicked, shadowy, d----able old place. i entered it by night, and the sensation of that night and the bright morning that followed is a part of me for the rest of my existence. and, oh god! the cells below the water, underneath the bridge of sighs; the nook where the monk came at midnight to confess the political offender; the bench where he was strangled; the deadly little vault in which they tied him in a sack, and the stealthy crouching little door through which they hurried him into a boat, and bore him away to sink him where no fisherman dare cast his net--all shown by torches that blink and wink, as if they were ashamed to look upon the gloomy theatre of sad horrors; past and gone as they are, these things stir a man's blood, like a great wrong or passion of the instant. and with these in their minds, and with a museum there, having a chamber full of such frightful instruments of torture as the devil in a brain fever could scarcely invent, there are hundreds of parrots, who will declaim to you in speech and print, by the hour together, on the degeneracy of the times in which a railroad is building across the water at venice; instead of going down on their knees, the drivellers, and thanking heaven that they live in a time when iron makes roads, instead of prison bars and engines for driving screws into the skulls of innocent men. before god, i could almost turn bloody-minded, and shoot the parrots of our island with as little compunction as robinson crusoe shot the parrots in his. i have not been in bed, these ten days, after five in the morning, and have been, travelling many hours every day. if this be the cause of my inflicting a very stupid and sleepy letter on you, my dear jerrold, i hope it will be a kind of signal at the same time, of my wish to hail you lovingly even from this sleepy and unpromising state. and believe me as i am, always your friend and admirer. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] peschiere, genoa, _tuesday, nov. th, ._ my dear mitton, the cause of my not having written to you is too obvious to need any explanation. i have worn myself to death in the month i have been at work. none of my usual reliefs have been at hand; i have not been able to divest myself of the story--have suffered very much in my sleep in consequence--and am so shaken by such work in this trying climate, that i am as nervous as a man who is dying of drink, and as haggard as a murderer. i believe i have written a tremendous book, and knocked the "carol" out of the field. it will make a great uproar, i have no doubt. i leave here to-morrow for venice and many other places; and i shall certainly come to london to see my proofs, coming by new ground all the way, cutting through the snow in the valleys of switzerland, and plunging through the mountains in the dead of winter. i would accept your hearty offer with right goodwill, but my visit being one of business and consultation, i see impediments in the way, and insurmountable reasons for not doing so. therefore, i shall go to an hotel in covent garden, where they know me very well, and with the landlord of which i have already communicated. my orders are not upon a mighty scale, extending no further than a good bedroom and a cold shower-bath. bradbury and evans are going at it, ding-dong, and are wild with excitement. all news on that subject (and on every other) i must defer till i see you. that will be immediately after i arrive, of course. most likely on monday, nd december. kate and her sister (who send their best regards) and all the children are as well as possible. the house is _perfect_; the servants are as quiet and well-behaved as at home, which very rarely happens here, and roche is my right hand. there never was such a fellow. we have now got carpets down--burn fires at night--draw the curtains, and are quite wintry. we have a box at the opera, which, is close by (for nothing), and sit there when we please, as in our own drawing-room. there have been three fine days in four weeks. on every other the water has been falling down in one continual sheet, and it has been thundering and lightening every day and night. my hand shakes in that feverish and horrible manner that i can hardly hold a pen. and i have so bad a cold that i can't see. in haste to save the post, ever faithfully. p.s.--charley has a writing-master every day, and a french master. he and his sisters are to be waited on by a professor of the noble art of dancing, next week. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] parma, albergo della posta, _friday, nov. th, ._ my dearest kate, "if missis could see us to-night, what would she say?" that was the brave c.'s remark last night at midnight, and he had reason. we left genoa, as you know, soon after five on the evening of my departure; and in company with the lady whom you saw, and the dog whom i don't think you did see, travelled all night at the rate of four miles an hour over bad roads, without the least refreshment until daybreak, when the brave and myself escaped into a miserable caffé while they were changing horses, and got a cup of that drink hot. that same day, a few hours afterwards, between ten and eleven, we came to (i hope) the d----dest inn in the world, where, in a vast chamber, rendered still more desolate by the presence of a most offensive specimen of what d'israeli calls the mosaic arab (who had a beautiful girl with him), i regaled upon a breakfast, almost as cold, and damp, and cheerless, as myself. then, in another coach, much smaller than a small fly, i was packed up with an old padre, a young jesuit, a provincial avvocato, a private gentleman with a very red nose and a very wet brown umbrella, and the brave c. and i went on again at the same pace through the mud and rain until four in the afternoon, when there was a place in the coupé (two indeed), which i took, holding that select compartment in company with a very ugly but very agreeable tuscan "gent," who said "_gia_" instead of "_si_," and rung some other changes in this changing language, but with whom i got on very well, being extremely conversational. we were bound, as you know perhaps, for piacenza, but it was discovered that we couldn't get to piacenza, and about ten o'clock at night we halted at a place called stradella, where the inn was a series of queer galleries open to the night, with a great courtyard full of waggons and horses, and "_velociferi_," and what not in the centre. it was bitter cold and very wet, and we all walked into a bare room (mine!) with two immensely broad beds on two deal dining-tables, a third great empty table, the usual washing-stand tripod, with a slop-basin on it, and two chairs. and then we walked up and down for three-quarters of an hour or so, while dinner, or supper, or whatever it was, was getting ready. this was set forth (by way of variety) in the old priest's bedroom, which had two more immensely broad beds on two more deal dining-tables in it. the first dish was a cabbage boiled in a great quantity of rice and hot water, the whole flavoured with cheese. i was so cold that i thought it comfortable, and so hungry that a bit of cabbage, when i found such a thing floating my way, charmed me. after that we had a dish of very little pieces of pork, fried with pigs' kidneys; after that a fowl; after that something very red and stringy, which i think was veal; and after that two tiny little new-born-baby-looking turkeys, very red and very swollen. fruit, of course, to wind up, and garlic in one shape or another in every course. i made three jokes at supper (to the immense delight of the company), and retired early. the brave brought in a bush or two and made a fire, and after that a glass of screeching hot brandy and water; that bottle of his being full of brandy. i drank it at my leisure, undressed before the fire, and went into one of the beds. the brave reappeared about an hour afterwards and went into the other; previously tying a pocket-handkerchief round and round his head in a strange fashion, and giving utterance to the sentiment with which this letter begins. at five this morning we resumed our journey, still through mud and rain, and at about eleven arrived at piacenza; where we fellow-passengers took leave of one another in the most affectionate manner. as there was no coach on till six at night, and as it was a very grim, despondent sort of place, and as i had had enough of diligences for one while, i posted forward here in the strangest carriages ever beheld, which we changed when we changed horses. we arrived here before six. the hotel is quite french. i have dined very well in my own room on the second floor; and it has two beds in it, screened off from the room by drapery. i only use one to-night, and that is already made. i purpose posting on to bologna, if i can arrange it, at twelve to-morrow; seeing the sights here first. it is dull work this travelling alone. my only comfort is in motion. i look forward with a sort of shudder to sunday, when i shall have a day to myself in bologna; and i think i must deliver my letters in venice in sheer desperation. never did anybody want a companion after dinner so much as i do. there has been music on the landing outside my door to-night. two violins and a violoncello. one of the violins played a solo, and the others struck in as an orchestra does now and then, very well. then he came in with a small tin platter. "bella musica," said i. "bellissima musica, signore. mi piace moltissimo. sono felice, signoro," said he. i gave him a franc. "o moltissimo generoso. tanto generoso signore!" it was a joke to laugh at when i was learning, but i swear unless i could stagger on, zoppa-wise, with the people, i verily believe i should have turned back this morning. in all other respects i think the entire change has done me undoubted service already. i am free of the book, and am red-faced; and feel marvellously disposed to sleep. so for all the straggling qualities of this straggling letter, want of sleep must be responsible. give my best love to georgy, and my paternal blessing to mamey, katey, charley, wally, and chickenstalker. p.s.--get things in their places. i can't bear to picture them otherwise. p.p.s.--i think i saw roche sleeping with his head on the lady's shoulder, in the coach. i couldn't swear it, and the light was deceptive. but i think i did. alia sign^{a} sign^{a} dickens. palazzo peschiere, genova. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] fribourg, _saturday night, november rd, ._ my dearest kate, for the first time since i left you i am sitting in a room of my own hiring, with a fire and a bed in it. and i am happy to say that i have the best and fullest intentions of sleeping in the bed, having arrived here at half-past four this afternoon, without any cessation of travelling, night or day, since i parted from mr. bairr's cheap firewood. the alps appeared in sight very soon after we left milan--by eight or nine o'clock in the morning; and the brave c. was so far wrong in his calculations that we began the ascent of the simplon that same night, while you were travelling (as i would i were) towards the peschiere. most favourable state of circumstances for journeying up that tremendous pass! the brightest moon i ever saw, all night, and daybreak on the summit. the glory of which, making great wastes of snow a rosy red, exceeds all telling. we _sledged_ through the snow on the summit for two hours or so. the weather was perfectly fair and bright, and there was neither difficulty nor danger--except the danger that there always must be, in such a place, of a horse stumbling on the brink of an immeasurable precipice. in which case no piece of the unfortunate traveller would be left large enough to tell his story in dumb show. you may imagine something of the rugged grandeur of such a scene as this great passage of these great mountains, and indeed glencoe, well sprinkled with snow, would be very like the ascent. but the top itself, so wild, and bleak, and lonely, is a thing by itself, and not to be likened to any other sight. the cold was piercing; the north wind high and boisterous; and when it came driving in our faces, bringing a sharp shower of little points of snow and piercing it into our very blood, it really was, what it is often said to be, "cutting"--with a very sharp edge too. there are houses of refuge here--bleak, solitary places--for travellers overtaken by the snow to hurry to, as an escape from death; and one great house, called the hospital, kept by monks, where wayfarers get supper and bed for nothing. we saw some coming out and pursuing their journey. if all monks devoted themselves to such uses, i should have little fault to find with them. the cold in switzerland, since, has been something quite indescribable. my eyes are tingling to-night as one may suppose cymbals to tingle when they have been lustily played. it is positive pain to me to write. the great organ which i was to have had "pleasure in hearing" don't play on a sunday, at which the brave is inconsolable. but the town is picturesque and quaint, and worth seeing. and this inn (with a german bedstead in it about the size and shape of a baby's linen-basket) is perfectly clean and comfortable. butter is so cheap hereabouts that they bring you a great mass like the squab of a sofa for tea. and of honey, which is most delicious, they set before you a proportionate allowance. we start to-morrow morning at six for strasburg, and from that town, or the next halting-place on the rhine, i will report progress, if it be only in half-a-dozen words. i am anxious to hear that you reached genoa quite comfortably, and shall look forward with impatience to that letter which you are to indite with so much care and pains next monday. my best love to georgy, and to charley, and mamey, and katey, and wally, and chickenstalker. i have treated myself to a new travelling-cap to-night (my old one being too thin), and it is rather a prodigious affair i flatter myself. swiss towns, and mountains, and the lake of geneva, and the famous suspension bridge at this place, and a great many other objects (with a very low thermometer conspicuous among them), are dancing up and down me, strangely. but i am quite collected enough, notwithstanding, to have still a very distinct idea that this hornpipe travelling is uncomfortable, and that i would gladly start for my palazzo out of hand without any previous rest, stupid as i am and much as i want it. ever, my dear love, affectionately yours. p.s.--i hope the dancing lessons will be a success. don't fail to let me know. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] hÃ�tel bristol, paris, _thursday night, nov. th, , half-past ten._ my dearest macready, since i wrote to you what would be called in law proceedings the exhibit marked a, i have been round to the hôtel brighton, and personally examined and cross-examined the attendants. it is painfully clear to me that i shall not see you to-night, nor until tuesday, the th of december, when, please god, i shall re-arrive here, on my way to my italian bowers. i mean to stay all the wednesday and all the thursday in paris. one night to see you act (my old delight when you little thought of such a being in existence), and one night to read to you and mrs. macready (if that scamp of lincoln's inn fields has not anticipated me) my little christmas book, in which i have endeavoured to plant an indignant right-hander on the eye of certain wicked cant that makes my blood boil, which i hope will not only cloud that eye with black and blue, but many a gentle one with crystal of the finest sort. god forgive me, but i think there are good things in the little story! i took it for granted you were, as your american friends say, "in full blast" here, and meant to have sent a card into your dressing-room, with "mr. g. s. hancock muggridge, united states," upon it. but paris looks coldly on me without your eye in its head, and not being able to shake your hand i shake my own head dolefully, which is but poor satisfaction. my love to mrs. macready. i will swear to the death that it is truly hers, for her gallantry in your absence if for nothing else, and to you, my dear macready, i am ever a devoted friend. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] hÃ�tel bristol, paris, _thursday night, nov. th, ._ my dearest kate, with an intolerable pen and no ink, i am going to write a few lines to you to report progress. i got to strasburg on monday night, intending to go down the rhine. but the weather being foggy, and the season quite over, they could not insure me getting on for certain beyond mayence, or our not being detained by unpropitious weather. therefore i resolved (the malle poste being full) to take the diligence hither next day in the afternoon. i arrived here at half-past five to-night, after fifty hours of it in a french coach. i was so beastly dirty when i got to this house, that i had quite lost all sense of my identity, and if anybody had said, "are you charles dickens?" i should have unblushingly answered, "no; i never heard of him." a good wash, and a good dress, and a good dinner have revived me, however; and i can report of this house, concerning which the brave was so anxious when we were here before, that it is the best i ever was in. my little apartment, consisting of three rooms and other conveniences, is a perfect curiosity of completeness. you never saw such a charming little baby-house. it is infinitely smaller than those first rooms we had at meurice's, but for elegance, compactness, comfort, and quietude, exceeds anything i ever met with at an inn. the moment i arrived here, i enquired, of course, after macready. they said the english theatre had not begun yet, that they thought he was at meurice's, where they knew some members of the company to be. i instantly despatched the porter with a note to say that if he were there, i would come round and hug him, as soon as i was clean. they referred the porter to the hôtel brighton. he came back and told me that the answer there was: "m. macready's rooms were engaged, but he had not arrived. he was expected to-night!" if we meet to-night, i will add a postscript. wouldn't it be odd if we met upon the road between this and boulogne to-morrow? i mean, as a recompense for my late sufferings, to get a hackney-carriage if i can and post that journey, starting from here at eight to-morrow morning, getting to boulogne sufficiently early next morning to cross at once, and dining with forster that same day--to wit, saturday. i have notions of taking you with me on my next journey (if you would like to go), and arranging for georgy to come to us by steamer--under the protection of the english captain, for instance--to naples; there i would top and cap all our walks by taking her up to the crater of vesuvius with me. but this is dependent on her ability to be perfectly happy for a fortnight or so in our stately palace with the children, and such foreign aid as the simpsons. for i love her too dearly to think of any project which would involve her being uncomfortable for that space of time. you can think this over, and talk it over; and i will join you in doing so, please god, when i return to our italian bowers, which i shall be heartily glad to do. they tell us that the landlord of this house, going to london some week or so ago, was detained at boulogne two days by a high sea, in which the packet could not put out. so i hope there is the greater chance of no such bedevilment happening to me. paris is better than ever. oh dear, how grand it was when i came through it in that caravan to-night! i hope we shall be very hearty here, and able to say with wally, "han't it plassant!" love to charley, mamey, katey, wally, and chickenstalker. the last-named, i take it for granted, is indeed prodigious. best love to georgy. ever, my dearest kate, affectionately yours. p.s.--i have been round to macready's hotel; it is now past ten, and he has not arrived, nor does it seem at all certain that he seriously intended to arrive to-night. so i shall not see him, i take it for granted, until my return. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] piazza coffee house, covent garden, _monday, dec. nd, ._ my dearest kate, i received, with great delight, your _excellent_ letter of this morning. do not regard this as my answer to it. it is merely to say that i have been at bradbury and evans's all day, and have barely time to write more than that i _will_ write to-morrow. i arrived about seven on saturday evening, and rushed into the arms of mac and forster. both of them send their best love to you and georgy, with a heartiness not to be described. the little book is now, as far as i am concerned, all ready. one cut of doyle's and one of leech's i found so unlike my ideas, that i had them both to breakfast with me this morning, and with that winning manner which you know of, got them with the highest good humour to do both afresh. they are now hard at it. stanfield's readiness, delight, wonder at my being pleased with what he has done is delicious. mac's frontispiece is charming. the book is quite splendid; the expenses will be very great, i have no doubt. anybody who has heard it has been moved in the most extraordinary manner. forster read it (for dramatic purposes) to a'beckett. he cried so much and so painfully, that forster didn't know whether to go on or stop; and he called next day to say that any expression of his feeling was beyond his power. but that he believed it, and felt it to be--i won't say what. as the reading comes off to-morrow night, i had better not despatch my letters to you until _wednesday's_ post. i must close to save this (heartily tired i am, and i dine at gore house to-day), so with love to georgy, mamey, katey, charley, wally, and chickenstalker, ever, believe me, yours, with true affection. p.s.--if you had seen macready last night, undisguisedly sobbing and crying on the sofa as i read, you would have felt, as i did, what a thing it is to have power. footnotes: [ ] t. p. cooke, the celebrated actor of "william" in douglas jerrold's play of "black-eyed susan." . narrative. at the beginning of this year, charles dickens was still living at the palazzo peschiere, genoa, with his family. in february, he went with his wife to rome for the carnival, leaving his sister-in-law and children at genoa; miss hogarth joining them later on at naples. they all returned to rome for the holy week, and then went to florence, and so back to genoa. he continued his residence at genoa until june of this year, when he returned to england by switzerland and belgium, the party being met at brussels by mr. forster, mr. maclise, and mr. douglas jerrold, and arriving at home at the end of june. the autumn months, until the st october, were again spent at broadstairs. and in this september was the first amateur play at miss kelly's theatre in dean street, under the management of charles dickens, with messrs. jerrold, mark lemon, john leech, gilbert a'beckett, leigh, frank stone, forster, and others as his fellow-actors. the play selected was ben jonson's "every man in his humour," in which charles dickens acted captain bobadil. the first performance was a private one, merely as an entertainment for the actors and their friends, but its success speedily led to a repetition of the same performance, and afterwards to many other performances for public and charitable objects. "every man in his humour" was shortly after repeated, at the same little theatre, for a useful charity which needed help; and later in the year beaumont and fletcher's play of "the elder brother" was given by the same company, at the same place, for the benefit of miss kelly. there was a farce played after the comedy on each occasion--not always the same one--in which charles dickens and mark lemon were the principal actors. the letters which we have for this year, refer, with very few exceptions, to these theatricals, and therefore need no explanation. he was at work at the end of this year on another christmas book, "the cricket on the hearth," and was also much occupied with the project of _the daily news_ paper, of which he undertook the editorship at its starting, which took place in the beginning of the following year, . [sidenote: miss hogarth.] rome, _tuesday, february th, ._ my dearest georgy, this is a very short note, but time is still shorter. come by the first boat by all means. if there be a good one a day or two before it, come by that. don't delay on any account. i am very sorry you are not here. the carnival is a very remarkable and beautiful sight. i have been regretting the having left you at home all the way here. kate says, will you take counsel with charlotte about colour (i put in my word, as usual, for brightness), and have the darlings' bonnets made at once, by the same artist as before? kate would have written, but is gone with black to a day performance at the opera, to see cerito dance. at two o'clock each day we sally forth in an open carriage, with a large sack of sugar-plums and at least five hundred little nosegays to pelt people with. i should think we threw away, yesterday, a thousand of the latter. we had the carriage filled with flowers three or four times. i wish you could have seen me catch a swell brigand on the nose with a handful of very large confetti every time we met him. it was the best thing i have ever done. "the chimes" are nothing to it. anxiously expecting you, i am ever, dear georgy, yours most affectionately. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] naples, _monday, february th, ._ my dear mitton, this will be a hasty letter, for i am as badly off in this place as in america--beset by visitors at all times and seasons, and forced to dine out every day. i have found, however, an excellent man for me--an englishman, who has lived here many years, and is well acquainted with _the people_, whom he doctored in the bad time of the cholera, when the priests and everybody else fled in terror. under his auspices, i have got to understand the low life of naples (among the fishermen and idlers) almost as well as i understand the do. do. of my own country; always excepting the language, which is very peculiar and extremely difficult, and would require a year's constant practice at least. it is no more like italian than english is to welsh. and as they don't say half of what they mean, but make a wink or a kick stand for a whole sentence, it's a marvel to me how they comprehend each other. at rome they speak beautiful italian (i am pretty strong at that, i believe); but they are worse here than in genoa, which i had previously thought impossible. it is a fine place, but nothing like so beautiful as people make it out to be. the famous bay is, to my thinking, as a piece of scenery, immeasurably inferior to the bay of genoa, which is the most lovely thing i have ever seen. the city, in like manner, will bear no comparison with genoa. but there is none in italy that will, except venice. as to houses, there is no palace like the peschiere for architecture, situation, gardens, or rooms. it is a great triumph to me, too, to find how cheap it is. at rome, the english people live in dirty little fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, with not one room as large as your own drawing-room, and pay, commonly, seven or eight pounds a week. i was a week in rome on my way here, and saw the carnival, which is perfectly delirious, and a great scene for a description. all the ancient part of rome is wonderful and impressive in the extreme. far beyond the possibility of exaggeration as to the modern part, it might be anywhere or anything--paris, nice, boulogne, calais, or one of a thousand other places. the weather is so atrocious (rain, snow, wind, darkness, hail, and cold) that i can't get over into sicily. but i don't care very much about it, as i have planned out ten days of excursion into the neighbouring country. one thing of course--the ascent of vesuvius, herculaneum and pompeii, the two cities which were covered by its melted ashes, and dug out in the first instance accidentally, are more full of interest and wonder than it is possible to imagine. i have heard of some ancient tombs (quite unknown to travellers) dug in the bowels of the earth, and extending for some miles underground. they are near a place called viterbo, on the way from rome to florence. i shall lay in a small stock of torches, etc., and explore them when i leave rome. i return there on the st of march, and shall stay there nearly a month. saturday, february nd.--since i left off as above, i have been away on an excursion of three days. yesterday evening, at four o'clock, we began (a small party of six) the ascent of mount vesuvius, with six saddle-horses, an armed soldier for a guard, and twenty-two guides. the latter rendered necessary by the severity of the weather, which is greater than has been known for twenty years, and has covered the precipitous part of the mountain with deep snow, the surface of which is glazed with one smooth sheet of ice from the top of the cone to the bottom. by starting at that hour i intended to get the sunset about halfway up, and night at the top, where the fire is raging. it was an inexpressibly lovely night without a cloud; and when the day was quite gone, the moon (within a few hours of the full) came proudly up, showing the sea, and the bay of naples, and the whole country, in such majesty as no words can express. we rode to the beginning of the snow and then dismounted. catherine and georgina were put into two litters, just chairs with poles, like those in use in england on the th of november; and a fat englishman, who was of the party, was hoisted into a third, borne by eight men. i was accommodated with a tough stick, and we began to plough our way up. the ascent was as steep as this line /--very nearly perpendicular. we were all tumbling at every stop; and looking up and seeing the people in advance tumbling over one's very head, and looking down and seeing hundreds of feet of smooth ice below, was, i must confess, anything but agreeable. however, i knew there was little chance of another clear night before i leave this, and gave the word to get up, somehow or other. so on we went, winding a little now and then, or we should not have got on at all. by prodigious exertions we passed the region of snow, and came into that of fire--desolate and awful, you may well suppose. it was like working one's way through a dry waterfall, with every mass of stone burnt and charred into enormous cinders, and smoke and sulphur bursting out of every chink and crevice, so that it was difficult to breathe. high before us, bursting out of a hill at the top of the mountain, shaped like this [hw: a], the fire was pouring out, reddening the night with flames, blackening it with smoke, and spotting it with red-hot stones and cinders that fell down again in showers. at every step everybody fell, now into a hot chink, now into a bed of ashes, now over a mass of cindered iron; and the confusion in the darkness (for the smoke obscured the moon in this part), and the quarrelling and shouting and roaring of the guides, and the waiting every now and then for somebody who was not to be found, and was supposed to have stumbled into some pit or other, made such a scene of it as i can give you no idea of. my ladies were now on foot, of course; but we dragged them on as well as we could (they were thorough game, and didn't make the least complaint), until we got to the foot of that topmost hill i have drawn so beautifully. here we all stopped; but the head guide, an english gentleman of the name of le gros--who has been here many years, and has been up the mountain a hundred times--and your humble servant, resolved (like jackasses) to climb that hill to the brink, and look down into the crater itself. you may form some notion of what is going on inside it, when i tell you that it is a hundred feet higher than it was six weeks ago. the sensation of struggling up it, choked with the fire and smoke, and feeling at every step as if the crust of ground between one's feet and the gulf of fire would crumble in and swallow one up (which is the real danger), i shall remember for some little time, i think. but we did it. we looked down into the flaming bowels of the mountain and came back again, alight in half-a-dozen places, and burnt from head to foot. you never saw such devils. and _i_ never saw anything so awful and terrible. roche had been tearing his hair like a madman, and crying that we should all three be killed, which made the rest of the company very comfortable, as you may suppose. but we had some wine in a basket, and all swallowed a little of that and a great deal of sulphur before we began to descend. the usual way, after the fiery part is past--you will understand that to be all the flat top of the mountain, in the centre of which, again, rises the little hill i have drawn--is to slide down the ashes, which, slipping from under you, make a gradually increasing ledge under your feet, and prevent your going too fast. but when we came to this steep place last night, we found nothing there but one smooth solid sheet of ice. the only way to get down was for the guides to make a chain, holding by each other's hands, and beat a narrow track in it into the snow below with their sticks. my two unfortunate ladies were taken out of their litters again, with half-a-dozen men hanging on to each, to prevent their falling forward; and we began to descend this way. it was like a tremendous dream. it was impossible to stand, and the only way to prevent oneself from going sheer down the precipice, every time one fell, was to drive one's stick into one of the holes the guides had made, and hold on by that. nobody could pick one up, or stop one, or render one the least assistance. now, conceive my horror, when this mr. le gros i have mentioned, being on one side of georgina and i on the other, suddenly staggers away from the narrow path on to the smooth ice, gives us a jerk, lets go, and plunges headforemost down the smooth ice into the black night, five hundred feet below! almost at the same instant, a man far behind, carrying a light basket on his head with some of our spare cloaks in it, misses his footing and rolls down in another place; and after him, rolling over and over like a black bundle, goes a boy, shrieking as nobody but an italian can shriek, until the breath is tumbled out of him. the englishman is in bed to-day, terribly bruised but without any broken bones. he was insensible at first and a mere heap of rags; but we got him before the fire, in a little hermitage there is halfway down, and he so far recovered as to be able to take some supper, which was waiting for us there. the boy was brought in with his head tied up in a bloody cloth, about half an hour after the rest of us were assembled. and the man who had had the basket was not found when we left the mountain at midnight. what became of the cloaks (mine was among them) i know as little. my ladies' clothes were so torn off their backs that they would not have been decent, if there could have been any thought of such things at such a time. and when we got down to the guides' house, we found a french surgeon (one of another party who had been up before us) lying on a bed in a stable, with god knows what horrible breakage about him, but suffering acutely and looking like death. a pretty unusual trip for a pleasure expedition, i think! i am rather stiff to-day but am quite unhurt, except a slight scrape on my right hand. my clothes are burnt to pieces. my ladies are the wonder of naples, and everybody is open-mouthed. address me as usual. all letters are forwarded. the children well and happy. best regards. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] albion hotel, broadstairs, _sunday, aug. th, ._ my dear macready, i have been obliged to communicate with the _punch_ men in reference to saturday, the th, as that day of the week is usually their business dinner day, and i was not quite sure that it could be conveniently altered. jerrold now assures me that it can for such a purpose, and that it shall, and therefore consider the play as being arranged to come off on saturday, the th of next month. i don't know whether i told you that we have changed the farce; and now we are to act "two o'clock in the morning," as performed by the inimitable b. at montreal. in reference to bruce castle school, i think the question set at rest most probably by the fact of there being no vacancy (it is always full) until christmas, when howitt's two boys and jerrold's one go in and fill it up again. but after going carefully through the school, a question would arise in my mind whether the system--a perfectly admirable one; the only recognition of education as a broad system of moral and intellectual philosophy, that i have ever seen in practice--do not require so much preparation and progress in the mind of the boy, as that he shall have come there younger and less advanced than willy; or at all events without that very different sort of school experience which he must have acquired at brighton. i have no warrant for this doubt, beyond a vague uneasiness suggesting a suspicion of its great probability. on such slight ground i would not hint it to anyone but you, who i know will give it its due weight, and no more and no less. i have the paper setting forth the nature of the higher classical studies, and the books they read. it is the usual course, and includes the great books in greek and latin. they have a miscellaneous library, under the management of the boys themselves, of some five or six thousand volumes, and every means of study and recreation, and every inducement to self-reliance and self-exertion that can easily be imagined. as there is no room just now, you can turn it over in your mind again. and if you would like to see the place yourself, when you return to town, i shall be delighted to go there with you. i come home on wednesday. it is our rehearsal night; and of course the active and enterprising stage-manager must be at his post. ever, my dear macready, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. george cattermole.] _august th, ._ my dear george, i write a line to tell you a project we have in view. a little party of us have taken miss kelly's theatre for the night of the th of next month, and we are going to act a play there, with correct and pretty costume, good orchestra, etc. etc. the affair is strictly private. the admission will be by cards of invitation; every man will have from thirty to thirty-five. nobody can ask any person without the knowledge and sanction of the rest, my objection being final; and the expense to each (exclusive of the dress, which every man finds for himself) will not exceed two guineas. forster plays, and stone plays, and i play, and some of the _punch_ people play. stanfield, having the scenery and carpenters to attend to, cannot manage his part also. it is downright, in "every man in his humour," not at all long, but very good; he wants you to take it. and so help me. we shall have a brilliant audience. the uphill part of the thing is already done, our next rehearsal is next tuesday, and if you will come in you will find everything to your hand, and all very merry and pleasant. let me know what you decide, like a kittenmolian trojan. and with love from all here to all there, believe me, ever, heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _thursday, sept. th, ._ my dear macready, we have a little supper, sir, after the farce, at no. , powis place, great ormond street, in an empty house belonging to one of the company. there i am requested by my fellows to beg the favour of thy company and that of mrs. macready. the guests are limited to the actors and their ladies--with the exception of yourselves, and d'orsay, and george cattermole, "or so"--that sounds like bobadil a little. i am going to adopt your reading of the fifth act with the worst grace in the world. it seems to me that you don't allow enough for bobadil having been frequently beaten before, as i have no doubt he had been. the part goes down hideously on this construction, and the end is mere lees. but never mind, sir, i intend bringing you up with the farce in the most brilliant manner. ever yours affectionately. n.b.--observe. i think of changing my present mode of life, and am open to an engagement. n.b. no. .--i will undertake not to play tragedy, though passion is my strength. n.b. no. .--i consider myself a chained lion.[ ] [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] devonshire terrace, _october nd, ._ my dear stanny, i send you the claret jug. but for a mistake, you would have received the little remembrance almost immediately after my return from abroad. i need not say how much i should value another little sketch from your extraordinary hand in this year's small volume, to which mac again does the frontispiece. but i cannot hear of it, and will not have it (though the gratification of such aid, to me, is really beyond all expression), unless you will so far consent to make it a matter of business as to receive, without asking any questions, a cheque in return from the publishers. do not misunderstand me--though i am not afraid there is much danger of your doing so, for between us misunderstanding is, i hope, not easy. i know perfectly well that nothing can pay you for the devotion of any portion of your time to such a use of your art. i know perfectly well that no terms would induce you to go out of your way, in such a regard, for perhaps anybody else. i cannot, nor do i desire to, vanquish the friendly obligation which help from you imposes on me. but i am not the sole proprietor of those little books; and it would be monstrous in you if you were to dream of putting a scratch into a second one without some shadowy reference to the other partners, ten thousand times more monstrous in me if any consideration on earth could induce me to permit it, which nothing will or shall. so, see what it comes to. if you will do me a favour on my terms it will be more acceptable to me, my dear stanfield, than i can possibly tell you. if you will not be so generous, you deprive me of the satisfaction of receiving it at your hands, and shut me out from that possibility altogether. what a stony-hearted ruffian you must be in such a case! ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _friday evening, oct. th, ._ my dear macready, you once--only once--gave the world assurance of a waistcoat. you wore it, sir, i think, in "money." it was a remarkable and precious waistcoat, wherein certain broad stripes of blue or purple disported themselves as by a combination of extraordinary circumstances, too happy to occur again. i have seen it on your manly chest in private life. i saw it, sir, i think, the other day in the cold light of morning--with feelings easier to be imagined than described. mr. macready, sir, are you a father? if so, lend me that waistcoat for five minutes. i am bidden to a wedding (where fathers are made), and my artist cannot, i find (how should he?), imagine such a waistcoat. let me show it to him as a sample of my tastes and wishes; and--ha, ha, ha, ha!--eclipse the bridegroom! i will send a trusty messenger at half-past nine precisely, in the morning. he is sworn to secrecy. he durst not for his life betray us, or swells in ambuscade would have the waistcoat at the cost of his heart's blood. thine, the unwaistcoated one. [sidenote: viscount morpeth.] devonshire terrace, _nov. th, ._ my dear lord morpeth, i have delayed writing to you until now, hoping i might have been able to tell you of our dramatic plans, and of the day on which we purpose playing. but as these matters are still in abeyance, i will give you that precious information when i come into the receipt of it myself. and let me heartily assure you, that i had at least as much pleasure in seeing you the other day as you can possibly have had in seeing me; and that i shall consider all opportunities of becoming better known to you among the most fortunate and desirable occasions of my life. and that i am with your conviction about the probability of our liking each other, and, as lord lyndhurst might say, with "something more." ever faithfully yours. footnote: [ ] this alludes to a theatrical story of a second-rate actor, who described himself as a "chained lion," in a theatre where he had to play inferior parts to mr. macready. . narrative. in the spring of this year charles dickens gave up the editorship of, and finally, all connection with _the daily news_, and went again abroad with his family; the house in devonshire terrace being let for twelve months. he made his summer residence at lausanne, taking a villa (rosemont) there, from may till november. here he wrote "the battle of life," and the first number of "dombey and son." in november he removed to paris, where he took a house in the rue de courcelles for the winter, and where he lived and was at work upon "dombey" until march, . among the english residents that summer at lausanne he made many friendships, in proof of which he dedicated the christmas book written there to his "english friends in lausanne." the especially intimate friendships which he formed were with m. de cerjat, who was always a resident of lausanne with his family; mr. haldimand, whose name is identified with the place, and with the hon. richard and mrs. watson, of rockingham castle. he maintained a constant correspondence with them, and to mr. and mrs. watson he afterwards dedicated his own favourite of all his books, "david copperfield." m. de cerjat, from the time of charles dickens leaving lausanne, began a custom, which he kept up almost without an interval to the time of his own death, of writing him a long letter every christmas, to which he returned answers, which will be given in this and the following years. in this year we have the commencement of his association and correspondence with mr. w. h. wills. their connection began in the short term of his editorship of _the daily news_, when he at once fully appreciated mr. wills's invaluable business qualities. and when, some time later, he started his own periodical, "household words," he thought himself very fortunate in being able to secure mr. wills's co-operation as editor of that journal, and afterwards of "all the year round," with which "household words" was incorporated. they worked together on terms of the most perfect mutual understanding, confidence, and affectionate regard, until mr. wills's health made it necessary for him to retire from the work in . besides his first notes to mr. wills in this year, we have our first letters to his dear friends, the rev. james white, walter savage landor, and miss marion ely, the niece of lady talfourd. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _february th, ._ my dear mr. wills, do look at the enclosed from mrs. what's-her-name. for a surprising audacity it is remarkable even to me, who am positively bullied, and all but beaten, by these people. i wish you would do me the favour to write to her (in your own name and from your own address), stating that you answered her letter as you did, because if i were the wealthiest nobleman in england i could not keep pace with one-twentieth part of the demands upon me, and because you saw no internal evidence in her application to induce you to single it out for any especial notice. that the tone of this letter renders you exceedingly glad you did so; and that you decline, from me, holding any correspondence with her. something to that effect, after what flourish your nature will. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: rev. james white.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _february th, ._ i cannot help telling you, my dear white, for i can think of no formal use of mister to such a writer as you, that i have just now read your tragedy, "the earl of gowrie," with a delight which i should in vain endeavour to express to you. considered with reference to its story, or its characters, or its noble poetry, i honestly regard it as a work of most remarkable genius. it has impressed me powerfully and enduringly. i am proud to have received it from your hand. and if i have to tell you what complete possession it has taken of me--that is, if i _could_ tell you--i do believe you would be glad to know it. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _monday morning, march nd, ._ my dear mr. wills, i really don't know what to say about the new brunswicker. the idea will obtrude itself on my mind, that he had no business to come here on such an expedition; and that it is a piece of the wild conceit for which his countrymen are so remarkable, and that i can hardly afford to be steward to such adventurers. on the other hand, your description of him pleases me. then that purse which i could never keep shut in my life makes mouths at me, saying, "see how empty i am." then i fill it, and it looks very rich indeed. i think the best way is to say, that if you think you can do him any _permanent_ good with five pounds (that is, get him home again) i will give you the money. but i should be very much indisposed to give it him, merely to linger on here about town for a little time and then be hard up again. as to employment, i do in my soul believe that if i were lord chancellor of england, i should have been aground long ago, for the patronage of a messenger's place. say all that is civil for me to the proprietor of _the illustrated london news_, who really seems to be very liberal. "other engagements," etc. etc., "prevent me from entertaining," etc. etc. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _march th, ._ my dear mr. wills, i assure you i am very truly and unaffectedly sensible of your earnest friendliness, and in proof of my feeling its worth i shall unhesitatingly trouble you sometimes, in the fullest reliance on your meaning what you say. the letter from nelson square is a very manly and touching one. but i am more helpless in such a case as that than in any other, having really fewer means of helping such a gentleman to employment than i have of firing off the guns in the tower. such, appeals come to me here in scores upon scores. the letter from little white lion street does not impress me favourably. it is not written in a simple or truthful manner, i am afraid, and is _not_ a good reference. moreover, i think it probable that the writer may have deserted some pursuit for which he is qualified, for vague and laborious strivings which he has no pretensions to make. however, i will certainly act on your impression of him, whatever it may be. and if you could explain to the gentleman in nelson square, that i am not evading his request, but that i do not know of anything to which i can recommend him, it would be a great relief to me. i trust this new printer _is_ a tartar; and i hope to god he will so proclaim and assert his tartar breeding, as to excommunicate ---- from the "chapel" over which he presides. tell powell (with my regards) that he needn't "deal with" the american notices of the "cricket." i never read one word of their abuse, and i should think it base to read their praises. it is something to know that one is righted so soon; and knowing that, i can afford to know no more. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] devonshire terrace, _march th, ._ my dear stanny, in reference to the damage of the candlesticks, i beg to quote (from "the cricket on the hearth," by the highly popular and deservedly so dick) this reply: "i'll damage you if you enquire." ever yours, my block-reeving, main-brace splicing, lead-heaving, ship-conning, stun'sail-bending, deck-swabbing son of a sea-cook, henry bluff, h.m.s. _timber._ [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, april th, ._ my dear sir, do you recollect sending me your biography of shakespeare last autumn, and my not acknowledging its receipt? i do, with remorse. the truth is, that i took it out of town with me, read it with great pleasure as a charming piece of honest enthusiasm and perseverance, kept it by me, came home, meant to say all manner of things to you, suffered the time to go by, got ashamed, thought of speaking to you, never saw you, felt it heavy on my mind, and now fling off the load by thanking you heartily, and hoping you will not think it too late. always believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss ely.] devonshire terrace, _sunday, april th, ._ my dear miss ely, a mysterious emissary brought me a note in your always welcome handwriting at the athenæum last night. i enquired of the servant in attendance whether the bearer of this letter was of my vast establishment. to which he replied "yezzir." "then," said i, "tell him not to wait." maclise was with me. it was then half-past seven. we had been walking, and were splashed to the eyes. we debated upon the possibility of getting to russell square in reasonable time--decided that it would be in the worst taste to appear when the performance would be half over--and very reluctantly decided not to come. you may suppose how dirty and dismal we were when we went to the thames tunnel, of all places in the world, instead! when i came home here at midnight i found another letter from you (i left off in this place to press it dutifully to my lips). then my mind misgave me that _you_ must have sent to the athenæum. at the apparent rudeness of my reply, my face, as hadji baba says, was turned upside down, and fifty donkeys sat upon my father's grave--or would have done so, but for his not being dead yet. therefore i send this humble explanation--protesting, however, which i do most solemnly, against being invited under such untoward circumstances; and claiming as your old friend and no less old admirer to be instantly invited to the next performance, if such a thing is ever contemplated. ever, my dear miss ely, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, may th, ._ my dear jerrold, i send you herewith some books belonging to you. a thousand thanks for the "hermit." he took my fancy mightily when i first saw him in the "illuminated;" and i have stowed him away in the left-hand breast pocket of my travelling coat, that we may hold pleasant converse together on the rhine. you see what confidence i have in him! i wish you would seriously consider the expediency and feasibility of coming to lausanne in the summer or early autumn. i must be at work myself during a certain part of every day almost, and you could do twice as much there as here. it is a wonderful place to see--and what sort of welcome you would find i will say nothing about, for i have vanity enough to believe that you would be willing to feel yourself as much at home in my household as in any man's. do think it over. i could send you the minutest particular of the journey. it is really all railroad and steamboat, and the easiest in the world. at macready's on thursday, we shall meet, please god! always, my dear jerrold, cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] geneva, _saturday, october th, ._ my dear macready, the welcome sight of your handwriting moves me (though i have nothing to say) to show you mine, and if i could recollect the passage in virginius i would paraphrase it, and say, "does it seem to tremble, boy? is it a loving autograph? does it beam with friendship and affection?" all of which i say, as i write, with--oh heaven!--such a splendid imitation of you, and finally give you one of those grasps and shakes with which i have seen you make the young icilius stagger again. here i am, running away from a bad headache as tristram shandy ran away from death, and lodging for a week in the hôtel de l'Ã�cu de genève, wherein there is a large mirror shattered by a cannon-ball in the late revolution. a revolution, whatever its merits, achieved by free spirits, nobly generous and moderate, even in the first transports of victory, elevated by a splendid popular education, and bent on freedom from all tyrants, whether their crowns be shaven or golden. the newspapers may tell you what they please. i believe there is no country on earth but switzerland in which a violent change could have been effected in the christian spirit shown in this place, or in the same proud, independent, gallant style. not one halfpennyworth of property was lost, stolen, or strayed. not one atom of party malice survived the smoke of the last gun. nothing is expressed in the government addresses to the citizens but a regard for the general happiness, and injunctions to forget all animosities; which they are practically obeying at every turn, though the late government (of whose spirit i had some previous knowledge) did load the guns with such material as should occasion gangrene in the wounds, and though the wounded _do_ die, consequently, every day, in the hospital, of sores that in themselves were nothing. _you_ a mountaineer! _you_ examine (i have seen you do it) the point of your young son's bâton de montagne before he went up into the snow! and _you_ talk of coming to lausanne in march! why, lord love your heart, william tell, times are changed since you lived at altorf. there is not a mountain pass open until june. the snow is closing in on all the panorama already. i was at the great st. bernard two months ago, and it was bitter cold and frosty then. do you think i could let you hazard your life by going up any pass worth seeing in bleak march? never shall it be said that dickens sacrificed his friend upon the altar of his hospitality! onward! to paris! (cue for band. dickens points off with truncheon, first entrance p.s. page delivers gauntlets on one knee. dickens puts 'em on and gradually falls into a fit of musing. mrs. dickens lays her hand upon his shoulder. business. procession. curtain.) it is a great pleasure to me, my dear macready, to hear from yourself, as i had previously heard from forster, that you are so well pleased with "dombey," which is evidently a great success and a great hit, thank god! i felt that mrs. brown was strong, but i was not at all afraid of giving as heavy a blow as i could to a piece of hot iron that lay ready at my hand. for that is my principle always, and i hope to come down with some heavier sledge-hammers than that. i know the lady of whom you write. ---- left there only yesterday. the story may arise only in her manner, which is extraordinarily free and careless. he was visiting her here, when i was here last, three weeks ago. i knew her in italy. it is not her fault if scandal ever leaves her alone, for such a braver of all conventionalities never wore petticoats. but i should be sorry to hear there was anything guilty in her conduct. she is very clever, really learned, very pretty, much neglected by her husband, and only four-and-twenty years of age. kate and georgy send their best loves to mrs. and miss macready and all your house. your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. haldimand.] paris, _november, ._ * * * * * talking of which[ ] reminds me to say, that i have written to my printers, and told them to prefix to "the battle of life" a dedication that is printed in illuminated capitals on my heart. it is only this: "this christmas book is cordially inscribed to my english friends in switzerland." i shall trouble you with a little parcel of three or four copies to distribute to those whose names will be found written in them, as soon as they can be made ready, and believe me, that there is no success or approval in the great world beyond the jura that will be more precious and delightful to me, than the hope that i shall be remembered of an evening in the coming winter time, at one or two friends' i could mention near the lake of geneva. it runs with a spring tide, that will always flow and never ebb, through my memory; and nothing less than the waters of lethe shall confuse the music of its running, until it loses itself in that great sea, for which all the currents of our life are desperately bent. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] paris, _sunday, november nd, ._ young man, i will not go there if i can help it. i have not the least confidence in the value of your introduction to the devil. i can't help thinking that it would be of better use "the other way, the other way," but i won't try it there, either, at present, if i can help it. your godson says is that your duty? and he begs me to enclose a blush newly blushed for you. as to writing, i have written to you twenty times and twenty more to that, if you only knew it. i have been writing a little christmas book, besides, expressly for you. and if you don't like it, i shall go to the font of marylebone church as soon as i conveniently can and renounce you: i am not to be trifled with. i write from paris. i am getting up some french steam. i intend to proceed upon the longing-for-a-lap-of-blood-at-last principle, and if you _do_ offend me, look to it. we are all well and happy, and they send loves to you by the bushel. we are in the agonies of house-hunting. the people are frightfully civil, and grotesquely extortionate. one man (with a house to let) told me yesterday that he loved the duke of wellington like a brother. the same gentleman wanted to hug me round the neck with one hand, and pick my pocket with the other. don't be hard upon the swiss. they are a thorn in the sides of european despots, and a good wholesome people to live near jesuit-ridden kings on the brighter side of the mountains. my hat shall ever be ready to be thrown up, and my glove ever ready to be thrown down for switzerland. if you were the man i took you for, when i took you (as a godfather) for better and for worse, you would come to paris and amaze the weak walls of the house i haven't found yet with that steady snore of yours, which i once heard piercing the door of your bedroom in devonshire terrace, reverberating along the bell-wire in the hall, so getting outside into the street, playing eolian harps among the area railings, and going down the new road like the blast of a trumpet. i forgive you your reviling of me: there's a shovelful of live coals for your head--does it burn? and am, with true affection--does it burn now?-- ever yours. [sidenote: the hon. richard watson.] paris, , rue de courcelles, st. honorÃ�, _friday, nov. th, ._ my dear watson, we were housed only yesterday. i lose no time in despatching this memorandum of our whereabouts, in order that you may not fail to write me a line before you come to paris on your way towards england, letting me know on what day we are to expect you to dinner. we arrived here quite happily and well. i don't mean here, but at the hôtel brighton, in paris, on friday evening, between six and seven o'clock. the agonies of house-hunting were frightfully severe. it was one paroxysm for four mortal days. i am proud to express my belief, that we are lodged at last in the most preposterous house in the world. the like of it cannot, and so far as my knowledge goes does not, exist in any other part of the globe. the bedrooms are like opera-boxes. the dining-rooms, staircases, and passages, quite inexplicable. the dining-room is a sort of cavern, painted (ceiling and all) to represent a grove, with unaccountable bits of looking-glass sticking in among the branches of the trees. there is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room. but it is approached through a series of small chambers, like the joints in a telescope, which are hung with inscrutable drapery. the maddest man in bedlam, having the materials given him, would be likely to devise such a suite, supposing his case to be hopeless and quite incurable. pray tell mrs. watson, with my best regards, that the dance of the two sisters in the little christmas book is being done as an illustration by maclise; and that stanfield is doing the battle-ground and the outside of the nutmeg grater inn. maclise is also drawing some smaller subjects for the little story, and they write me that they hope it will be very pretty, and they think that i shall like it. i shall have been in london before i see you, probably, and i hope the book itself will then be on its road to lausanne to speak for itself, and to speak a word for me too. i have never left so many friendly and cheerful recollections in any place; and to represent me in my absence, its tone should be very eloquent and affectionate indeed. well, if i don't turn up again next summer it shall not be my fault. in the meanwhile, i shall often and often look that way with my mind's eye, and hear the sweet, clear, bell-like voice of ---- with the ear of my imagination. in the event of there being any change--but it is not likely--in the appearance of his cravat behind, where it goes up into his head, i mean, and frets against his wig--i hope some one of my english friends will apprise me of it, for the love of the great saint bernard. i have not seen lord normanby yet. i have not seen anything up to this time but houses and lodgings. there seems to be immense excitement here on the subject of ---- however, and a perfectly stupendous sensation getting up. i saw the king the other day coming into paris. his carriage was surrounded by guards on horseback, and he sat very far back in it, i thought, and drove at a great pace. it was strange to see the préfet of police on horseback some hundreds of yards in advance, looking to the right and left as he rode, like a man who suspected every twig in every tree in the long avenue. the english relations look anything but promising, though i understand that the count st. aulaire is to remain in london, notwithstanding the newspaper alarms to the contrary. if there be anything like the sensation in england about ---- that there is here, there will be a bitter resentment indeed. the democratic society of paris have announced, this morning, their intention of printing and circulating fifty thousand copies of an appeal in every european language. it is a base business beyond question, and comes at an ill time. mrs. dickens and her sister desire their best regards to be sent to you and their best loves to mrs. watson, in which i join, as nearly as i may. believe me, with great truth, very sincerely yours. p.s.--mrs. dickens is going to write to mrs. watson next week, she says. [sidenote: m. cerjat.] paris, , rue de courcelles, st. honorÃ�, _friday, nov. th, ._ my dear cerjat, when we turned out of your view on that disconsolate monday, when you so kindly took horse and rode forth to say good-bye, we went on in a very dull and drowsy manner, i can assure you. i could have borne a world of punch in the rumble and been none the worse for it. there was an uncommonly cool inn that night, and quite a monstrous establishment at auxonne the next night, full of flatulent passages and banging doors. the next night we passed at montbard, where there is one of the very best little inns in all france. the next at sens, and so we got here. the roads were bad, but not very for french roads. there was no deficiency of horses anywhere; and after pontarlier the weather was really not too cold for comfort. they weighed our plate at the frontier custom-house, spoon by spoon, and fork by fork, and we lingered about there, in a thick fog and a hard frost, for three long hours and a half, during which the officials committed all manner of absurdities, and got into all sorts of disputes with my brave courier. this was the only misery we encountered--except leaving lausanne, and that was enough to last us and _did_ last us all the way here. we are living on it now. i felt, myself, much as i should think the murderer felt on that fair morning when, with his gray-haired victim (those unconscious gray hairs, soon to be bedabbled with blood), he went so far towards heaven as the top of that mountain of st. bernard without one touch of remorse. a weight is on my breast. the only difference between me and the murderer is, that his weight was guilt and mine is regret. i haven't a word of news to tell you. i shouldn't write at all if i were not the vainest man in the world, impelled by a belief that you will be glad to hear from me, even though you hear no more than that i have nothing to say. "dombey" is doing wonders. it went up, after the publication of the second number, over the thirty thousand. this is such a very large sale, so early in the story, that i begin to think it will beat all the rest. keeley and his wife are making great preparations for producing the christmas story, and i have made them (as an old stage manager) carry out one or two expensive notions of mine about scenery and so forth--in particular a sudden change from the inside of the doctor's house in the midst of the ball to the orchard in the snow--which ought to tell very well. but actors are so bad, in general, and the best are spread over so many theatres, that the "cast" is black despair and moody madness. there is no one to be got for marion but a certain miss ----, i am afraid--a pupil of miss kelly's, who acted in the private theatricals i got up a year ago. macready took her afterwards to play virginia to his virginius, but she made nothing of it, great as the chance was. i have promised to show her what i mean, as near as i can, and if you will look into the english opera house on the morning of the th, th, or th of next month, between the hours of eleven and four, you will find me in a very hot and dusty condition, playing all the parts of the piece, to the immense diversion of all the actors, actresses, scene-shifters, carpenters, musicians, chorus people, tailors, dressmakers, scene-painters, and general ragamuffins of the theatre. moore, the poet, is very ill--i fear dying. the last time i saw him was immediately before i left london, and i thought him sadly changed and tamed, but not much more so than such a man might be under the heavy hand of time. i believe he suffered severe grief in the death of a son some time ago. the first man i met in paris was ----, who took hold of me as i was getting into a coach at the door of the hotel. he hadn't a button on his shirt (but i don't think he ever has), and you might have sown what boys call "mustard and cress" in the dust on his coat. i have not seen lord normanby yet, as we have only just got a house (the queerest house in europe!) to lay our heads in; but there seems reason to fear that the growing dissensions between england and france, and the irritation of the french king, may lead to the withdrawal of the minister on each side of the channel. have you cut down any more trees, played any more rubbers, propounded any more teasers to the players at the game of yes and no? how is the old horse? how is the gray mare? how is crab (to whom my respectful compliments)? have you tried the punch yet; if yes, did it succeed; if no, why not? is mrs. cerjat as happy and as well as i would have her, and all your house ditto ditto? does haldimand play whist with any science yet? ha, ha, ha! the idea of his saying _i_ hadn't any! and are those damask-cheeked virgins, the miss ----, still sleeping on dewy rose leaves near the english church? remember me to all your house, and most of all to its other head, with all the regard and earnestness that a "numble individual" (as they always call it in the house of commons) who once travelled with her in a car over a smooth country may charge you with. i have added two lines to the little christmas book, that i hope both you and she may not dislike. haldimand will tell you what they are. kate and georgy send their kindest loves, and kate is "going" to write "next week." believe me always, my dear cerjat, full of cordial and hearty recollections of this past summer and autumn, and your part in my part of them, very faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] , lincoln's inn fields, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dearest kate, i really am bothered to death by this confounded _dramatization_ of the christmas book. they were in a state so horrible at keeley's yesterday (as perhaps forster told you when he wrote), that i was obliged to engage to read the book to them this morning. it struck me that mrs. leigh murray, miss daly, and vining seemed to understand it best. certainly miss daly knew best what she was about yesterday. at eight to-night we have a rehearsal with scenery and band, and everything but dresses. i see no possibility of escaping from it before one or two o'clock in the morning. and i was at the theatre all day yesterday. unless i had come to london, i do not think there would have been much hope of the version being more than just tolerated, even that doubtful. all the actors bad, all the business frightfully behindhand. the very words of the book confused in the copying into the densest and most insufferable nonsense. i must exempt, however, from the general slackness both the keeleys. i hope they will be very good. i have never seen anything of its kind better than the manner in which they played the little supper scene between clemency and britain, yesterday. it was quite perfect, even to me. the small manager, forster, talfourd, stanny, and mac dine with me at the piazza to-day, before the rehearsal. i have already one or two uncommonly good stories of mac. i reserve them for narration. i have also a dreadful cold, which i would not reserve if i could help it. i can hardly hold up my head, and fight through from hour to hour, but had serious thoughts just now of walking off to bed. christmas book published to-day--twenty-three thousand copies already gone!!! browne's plates for next "dombey" much better than usual. i have seen nobody yet, of course. but i sent roche up to your mother this morning, to say i am in town and will come shortly. there is a great thaw here to-day, and it is raining hard. i hope you have the advantage (if it be one, which i am not sure of) of a similar change in paris. of course i start again on thursday. we are expecting (roche and i) a letter from the malle poste people, to whom we have applied for places. the journey here was long and cold--twenty-four hours from paris to boulogne. passage not very bad, and made in two hours. i find i can't write at all, so i had best leave off. i am looking impatiently for your letter on monday morning. give my best love to georgy, and kisses to all the dear children. and believe me, my love, most affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] piazza coffee-house, covent garden, _monday, dec. st, ._ my dearest kate, in a quiet interval of half an hour before going to dine at macready's, i sit down to write you a few words. but i shall reserve my letter for to-morrow's post, in order that you may hear what _i_ hear of the "going" of the play to-night. think of my being there on saturday, with a really frightful cold, and working harder than ever i did at the amateur plays, until two in the morning. there was no supper to be got, either here or anywhere else, after coming out; and i was as hungry and thirsty as need be. the scenery and dresses are very good indeed, and they have spent money on it _liberally_. the great change from the ball-room to the snowy night is most effective, and both the departure and the return will tell, i think, strongly on an audience. i have made them very quick and excited in the passionate scenes, and so have infused some appearance of life into those parts of the play. but i can't make a marion, and miss ---- is awfully bad. she is a mere nothing all through. i put mr. leigh murray into such a state, by making him tear about, that the perspiration ran streaming down his face. they have a great let. i believe every place in the house is taken. roche is going. _tuesday morning._--the play went, as well as i can make out--i hoped to have had stanny's report of it, but he is ill--with great effect. there was immense enthusiasm at its close, and great uproar and shouting for me. forster will go on wednesday, and write you his account of it. i saw the keeleys on the stage at eleven o'clock or so, and they were in prodigious spirits and delight. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] , rue de courcelles, paris, _sunday night, dec. th, ._ my very dear forster, amen, amen. many merry christmases, many happy new years, unbroken friendship, great accumulation of cheerful recollections, affection on earth, and heaven at last, for all of us. i enclose you a letter from jeffrey, which you may like to read. _bring it to me back when you come over._ i have told him all he wants to know. is it not a strange example of the hazards of writing in numbers that a man like him should form his notion of dombey and miss tox on three months' knowledge? i have asked him the same question, and advised him to keep his eye on both of them as time rolls on. we had a cold journey here from boulogne, but the roads were not very bad. the malle poste, however, now takes the trains at amiens. we missed it by ten minutes, and had to wait three hours--from twelve o'clock until three, in which interval i drank brandy and water, and slept like a top. it is delightful travelling for its speed, that malle poste, and really for its comfort too. but on this occasion it was not remarkable for the last-named quality. the director of the post at boulogne told me a lamentable story of his son at paris being ill, and implored me to bring him on. the brave doubted the representations altogether, but i couldn't find it in my heart to say no; so we brought the director, bodkinwise, and being a large man, in a great number of greatcoats, he crushed us dismally until we got to the railroad. for two passengers (and it never carries more) it is capital. for three, excruciating. write to ---- what you have said to me. you need write no more. he is full of vicious fancies and wrong suspicions, even of hardwick, and i would rather he heard it from you than from me, whom he is not likely to love much in his heart. i doubt it may be but a rusty instrument for want of use, the ----ish heart. my most important present news is that i am going to take a jorum of hot rum and egg in bed immediately, and to cover myself up with all the blankets in the house. love from all. i have a sensation in my head, as if it were "on edge." it is still very cold here, but the snow had disappeared on my return, both here and on the road, except within ten miles or so of boulogne. ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] "the battle of life." . narrative. at the beginning of the year charles dickens was still living in paris--rue de courcelles. his stay was cut shorter than he intended it to have been, by the illness from scarlet fever of his eldest son, who was at school in london. consequent upon this, he and his wife went to london at the end of february, taking up their abode at the victoria hotel, euston square, the devonshire terrace house being still occupied by its tenant, sir james duke, and the sick boy under the care of his grandmother, mrs. hogarth, in albany street. the children, with their aunt, remained in paris, until a temporary house had been taken for the family in chester place, regent's park; and roche was then sent back to take _all_ home. in chester place another son was born--sydney smith haldimand--his godfathers being mr. haldimand, of lausanne, and mr. h. p. smith, of the eagle life assurance office. he was christened at the same time as a daughter of mr. macready's, and the letters to mr. smith have reference to the postponement of the christening on mr. smith's account. in may, charles dickens had lodgings in brighton for some weeks, for the recovery of mrs. dickens's health; going there first with his wife and sister-in-law and the eldest boy--now recovered from his fever--and being joined at the latter part of the time by his two little daughters, to whom there are some letters among those which follow here. he removed earlier than usual this summer to broadstairs, which remained his head-quarters until october, with intervals of absence for amateur theatrical tours (which mr. forster calls "splendid strolling"), in which he was usually accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law. several new recruits had been added to the theatrical company, from among distinguished literary men and artists, and it now included, besides those previously named, mr. george cruikshank, mr. george henry lewes, and mr. augustus egg; the supreme management and arrangement of everything being always left to charles dickens. "every man in his humour" and farces were again played at manchester and liverpool, for the benefit of mr. leigh hunt, and the dramatic author, mr. john poole. by the end of the broadstairs holiday, the house in devonshire terrace was vacant, and the family returned to it in october. all this year charles dickens had been at work upon the monthly numbers of "dombey and son," in spite of these many interruptions. he began at broadstairs a christmas book. but he found that the engrossing interest of his novel approaching completion made it impossible for him to finish the other work in time. so he decided to let this christmas pass without a story, and postponed the publication of "the haunted man" until the following year. at the close of the year he went to leeds, to take the chair at a meeting of the mechanics' institute, and on the th december he presided at the opening of the glasgow athenæum; he and his wife being the guests of the historian--_then_ mr. sheriff, afterwards sir archibald alison. from a letter to his sister-in-law, written from edinburgh, it will be seen that mrs. dickens was prevented by sudden illness from being present at the "demonstration." at the end of that letter there is another illustration of the odd names he was in the habit of giving to his children, the last of the three, the "hoshen peck," being a corruption of "ocean spectre"--a name which had, afterwards, a sad significance, as the boy (sydney smith) became a sailor, and died and was buried at sea two years after his father's death. the letters in this year need very little explanation. in the first letter to mrs. watson, he alludes to a sketch which she had made from "the battle of life," and had sent to charles dickens, as a remembrance, when her husband paid a short visit to paris in this winter. and there are two letters to miss marguerite power, the niece of the countess of blessington--a lady for whom he had then, and until her death, a most affectionate friendship and respect, for the sake of her own admirable qualities, and in remembrance of her delightful association with gore house, where he was a frequent visitor. for lady blessington he had a high admiration and great regard, and she was one of his earliest appreciators; and alfred, comte d'orsay, was also a much-loved friend. his "own marchioness," alluded to in the second letter to miss power, was the younger and very charming sister of his correspondent. we much regret having been unable to procure any letters addressed to mr. egg. his intimacy with him began first in the plays of this year; but he became, almost immediately, one of the friends for whom he had an especial affection; and mr. egg was a regular visitor at his house and at his seaside places of resort for many years after this date. the letter to mr. william sandys has reference to an intention which charles dickens _had_ entertained, of laying the scene of a story in cornwall; mr. sandys, himself a cornishman, having proposed to send him some books to help him as to the dialect. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] paris, , rue de courcelles, _jan. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i cannot allow your wandering lord to return to your--i suppose "arms" is not improper--arms, then, without thanking you in half-a-dozen words for your letter, and assuring you that i had great interest and pleasure in its receipt, and that i say amen to all _you_ say of our happy past and hopeful future. there is a picture of lausanne--st. bernard--the tavern by the little lake between lausanne and vevay, which is kept by that drunken dog whom haldimand believes to be so sober--and of many other such scenes, within doors and without--that rises up to my mind very often, and in the quiet pleasure of its aspect rather daunts me, as compared with the reality of a stirring life; but, please god, we will have some more pleasant days, and go up some more mountains, somewhere, and laugh together, at somebody, and form the same delightful little circle again, somehow. i quite agree with you about the illustrations to the little christmas book. i was delighted with yours. your good lord before-mentioned will inform you that it hangs up over my chair in the drawing-room here; and when you come to england (after i have seen you again in lausanne) i will show it you in my little study at home, quietly thanking you on the bookcase. then we will go and see some of turner's recent pictures, and decide that question to haldimand's utmost confusion. you will find watson looking wonderfully well, i think. when he was first here, on his way to england, he took an extraordinary bath, in which he was rubbed all over with chemical compounds, and had everything done to him that could be invented for seven francs. it _may_ be the influence of this treatment that i see in his face, but i think it's the prospect of coming back to elysée. all i can say is, that when _i_ come that way, and find myself among those friends again, i expect to be perfectly lovely--a kind of glorious apollo, radiant and shining with joy. kate and her sister send all kinds of love in this hasty packet, and i am always, my dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours. [sidenote: rev. edward tagart.] paris, , rue de courcelles, st. honorÃ�, _thursday, jan. th, ._ my dear sir, before you read any more, i wish you would take those tablets out of your drawer, in which you have put a black mark against my name, and erase it neatly. i don't deserve it, on my word i don't, though appearances are against me, i unwillingly confess. i had gone to geneva, to recover from an uncommon depression of spirits consequent on too much sitting over "dombey" and the little christmas book, when i received your letter as i was going out walking, one sunshiny, windy day. i read it on the banks of the rhone, where it runs, very blue and swift, between two high green hills, with ranges of snowy mountains filling up the distance. its cordial and unaffected tone gave me the greatest pleasure--did me a world of good--set me up for the afternoon, and gave me an evening's subject of discourse. for i talked to "them" (that is, kate and georgy) about those bright mornings at the peschiere, until bedtime, and threatened to write you such a letter next day as would--i don't exactly know what it was to do, but it was to be a great letter, expressive of all kinds of pleasant things, and, perhaps the most genial letter that ever was written. from that hour to this, i have again and again and again said, "i'll write to-morrow," and here i am to-day full of penitence--really sorry and ashamed, and with no excuse but my writing-life, which makes me get up and go out, when my morning work is done, and look at pen and ink no more until i begin again. besides which, i have been seeing paris--wandering into hospitals, prisons, dead-houses, operas, theatres, concert-rooms, burial-grounds, palaces, and wine-shops. in my unoccupied fortnight of each month, every description of gaudy and ghastly sight has been passing before me in a rapid panorama. before that, i had to come here from switzerland, over frosty mountains in dense fogs, and through towns with walls and drawbridges, and without population, or anything else in particular but soldiers and mud. i took a flight to london for four days, and went and came back over one sheet of snow, sea excepted; and i wish that had been snow too. then forster (who is here now, and begs me to send his kindest regards) came to see paris for himself, and in showing it to him, away i was borne again, like an enchanted rider. in short, i have had no rest in my play; and on monday i am going to work again. a fortnight hence the play will begin once more; a fortnight after that the work will follow round, and so the letters that i care for go unwritten. do you care for french news? i hope not, because i don't know any. there is a melodrama, called "the french revolution," now playing at the cirque, in the first act of which there is the most tremendous representation of _a people_ that can well be imagined. there are wonderful battles and so forth in the piece, but there is a power and massiveness in the mob which is positively awful. at another theatre, "clarissa harlowe" is still the rage. there are some things in it rather calculated to astonish the ghost of richardson, but clarissa is very admirably played, and dies better than the original to my thinking; but richardson is no great favourite of mine, and never seems to me to take his top-boots off, whatever he does. several pieces are in course of representation, involving rare portraits of the english. in one, a servant, called "tom bob," who wears a particularly english waistcoat, trimmed with gold lace and concealing his ankles, does very good things indeed. in another, a prime minister of england, who has ruined himself by railway speculations, hits off some of our national characteristics very happily, frequently making incidental mention of "vishmingster," "regeenstreet," and other places with which you are well acquainted. "sir fakson" is one of the characters in another play--"english to the core;" and i saw a lord mayor of london at one of the small theatres the other night, looking uncommonly well in a stage-coachman's waistcoat, the order of the garter, and a very low-crowned broad-brimmed hat, not unlike a dustman. i was at geneva at the time of the revolution. the moderation and mildness of the successful party were beyond all praise. their appeals to the people of all parties--printed and pasted on the walls--have no parallel that i know of, in history, for their real good sterling christianity and tendency to promote the happiness of mankind. my sympathy is strongly with the swiss radicals. they know what catholicity is; they see, in some of their own valleys, the poverty, ignorance, misery, and bigotry it always brings in its train wherever it is triumphant; and they would root it out of their children's way at any price. i fear the end of the struggle will be, that some catholic power will step in to crush the dangerously well-educated republics (very dangerous to such neighbours); but there is a spirit in the people, or i very much mistake them, that will trouble the jesuits there many years, and shake their altar steps for them. this is a poor return (i look down and see the end of the paper) for your letter, but in its cordial spirit of reciprocal friendship, it is not so bad a one if you could read it as i do, and it eases my mind and discharges my conscience. we are coming home, please god, at the end of march. kate and georgy send their best regards to you, and their loves to mrs. and miss tagart and the children. _our_ children wish to live too in _your_ children's remembrance. you will be glad, i know, to hear that "dombey" is doing wonders, and that the christmas book shot far ahead of its predecessors. i hope you will like _the last chapter of no. _. if you can spare me a scrap of your handwriting in token of forgiveness, do; if not, i'll come and beg your pardon on the st of march. ever believe me, cordially and truly yours. [sidenote: miss dickens.] victoria hotel, euston square, _thursday, march th, ._ my dearest mamey, i have not got much to say, and that's the truth; but i cannot let this letter go into the post without wishing you many many happy returns of your birthday, and sending my love to auntey and to katey, and to all of them. we were at mrs. macready's last night, where there was a little party in honour of mr. macready's birthday. we had some dancing, and they wished very much that you and katey had been there; so did i and your mamma. we have not got back to devonshire terrace yet, but are living at an hotel until sir james duke returns from scotland, which will be on saturday or monday. i hope when he comes home and finds us here he will go out of devonshire terrace, and let us get it ready for you. roche is coming back to you very soon. he will leave here on saturday morning. he says he hopes you will have a very happy birthday, and he means to drink your health on the road to paris. always your affectionate. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] chester place, _tuesday night._ my dearest georgy, * * * * * so far from having "got through my agonies," as you benevolently hope, i have not yet begun them. no, on this _ninth of the month_ i have not yet written a single slip. what could i do; house-hunting at first, and beleaguered all day to-day and yesterday by furniture that must be altered, and things that must be put away? my wretchedness, just now, is inconceivable. tell anne, by-the-bye (not with reference to my wretchedness, but in connection with the arrangements generally), that i can't get on at all without her. if kate has not mentioned it, get katey and mamey to write and send a letter to charley; of course not hinting at our being here. he wants to hear from them. poor little hall is dead, as you will have seen, i dare say, in the paper. this house is very cheerful on the drawing-room floor and above, looking into the park on one side and albany street on the other. forster is mild. maclise, exceedingly bald on the crown of his head. roche has just come in to know if he may "blow datter light." love to all the darlings. regards to everybody else. love to yourself. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss dickens and miss katey dickens.] , king's road, brighton, _monday, may , ._ my dear mamey and katey, i was very glad to receive your nice letter. i am going to tell you something that i hope will please you. it is this: i am coming to london thursday, and i mean to bring you both back here with me, to stay until we all come home together on the saturday. i hope you like this. tell john to come with the carriage to the london bridge station, on thursday morning at ten o'clock, and to wait there for me. i will then come home and fetch you. mamma and auntey and charley send their loves. i send mine too, to walley, spim, and alfred, and sydney. always, my dears, your affectionate papa. [sidenote: mr. william sandys.] , devonshire terrace, _june th, ._ dear sir, many thanks for your kind note. i shall hope to see you when we return to town, from which we shall now be absent (with a short interval in next month) until october. your account of the cornishmen gave me great pleasure; and if i were not sunk in engagements so far, that the crown of my head is invisible to my nearest friends, i should have asked you to make me known to them. the new dialogue i will ask you by-and-by to let me see. i have, for the present, abandoned the idea of sinking a shaft in cornwall. i have sent your shakesperian extracts to collier. it is a great comfort, to my thinking, that so little is known concerning the poet. it is a fine mystery; and i tremble every day lest something should come out. if he had had a boswell, society wouldn't have respected his grave, but would calmly have had his skull in the phrenological shop-windows. believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. h. p. smith.] chester place, _june th, ._ my dear smith, haldimand stayed at no. , connaught place, hyde park, when i saw him yesterday. but he was going to cross to boulogne to-day. the young pariah seems pretty comfortable. he is of a cosmopolitan spirit i hope, and stares with a kind of leaden satisfaction at his spoons, without afflicting himself much about the established church. affectionately yours. p.s.--i think of bringing an action against you for a new sort of breach of promise, and calling all the bishops to estimate the damage of having our christening postponed for a fortnight. it appears to me that i shall get a good deal of money in this way. if you have any compromise to offer, my solicitors are dodson and fogg. [sidenote: miss power.] broadstairs, kent, _july nd, ._ my dear miss power, let me thank you, very sincerely, for your kind note and for the little book. i read the latter on my way down here with the greatest pleasure. it is a charming story gracefully told, and very gracefully and worthily translated. i have not been better pleased with a book for a long time. i cannot say i take very kindly to the illustrations. they are a long way behind the tale to my thinking. the artist understands it very well, i dare say, but does not express his understanding of it, in the least degree, to any sense of mine. ah rosherville! that fated rosherville, when shall we see it! perhaps in one of those intervals when i am up to town from here, and suddenly appear at gore house, somebody will propose an excursion there, next day. if anybody does, somebody else will be ready to go. so this deponent maketh oath and saith. i am looking out upon a dark gray sea, with a keen north-east wind blowing it in shore. it is more like late autumn than midsummer, and there is a howling in the air as if the latter were in a very hopeless state indeed. the very banshee of midsummer is rattling the windows drearily while i write. there are no visitors in the place but children, and they (my own included) have all got the hooping-cough, and go about the beach choking incessantly. a miserable wanderer lectured in a library last night about astronomy; but being in utter solitude he snuffed out the transparent planets he had brought with him in a box and fled in disgust. a white mouse and a little tinkling box of music that stops at "come," in the melody of the buffalo gals, and can't play "out to-night," are the only amusements left. i beg from my solitude to send my love to lady blessington, and your sister, and count d'orsay. i think of taming spiders, as baron trenck did. there is one in my cell (with a speckled body and twenty-two very decided knees) who seems to know me. dear miss power, faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. h. p. smith.] broadstairs, _july th, ._ my dear smith, i am really more obliged to you for your kindness about "the eagle" (as i always call your house) than i can say. but when i come to town to-morrow week, for the liverpool and manchester plays, i shall have kate and georgy with me. moreover i shall be continually going out and coming in at unholy hours. item, the timid will come at impossible seasons to "go over" their parts with the manager. item, two jews with musty sacks of dresses will be constantly coming backwards and forwards. item, sounds as of "groans" will be heard while the inimitable boz is "getting" his words--which happens all day. item, forster will incessantly deliver an address by bulwer. item, one hundred letters per diem will arrive from manchester and liverpool; and five actresses, in very limp bonnets, with extraordinary veils attached to them, will be always calling, protected by five mothers. no, no, my actuary. some congenial tavern is the fitting scene for these things, if i don't get into devonshire terrace, whereof i have some spark of hope. eagles couldn't look the sun in the face and have such enormities going on in their nests. i am, for the time, that obscene thing, in short, now chronicled in the marylebone register of births-- a player, though still yours. [sidenote: miss power.] broadstairs, kent, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dear miss power, though i am hopeless of rosherville until after the th--for am i not beckoned, by angels of charity and by local committees, to manchester and liverpool, and to all sorts of bedevilments (if i may be allowed the expression) in the way of managerial miseries in the meantime--here i find myself falling into parenthesis within parenthesis, like lord brougham--yet will i joyfully come up to london on friday, to dine at your house and meet the dane, whose books i honour, and whose--to make the sentiment complete, i want something that would sound like "bones, i love!" but i can't get anything that unites reason with beauty. you, who have genius and beauty in your own person, will supply the gap in your kindness. an advertisement in the newspapers mentioning the dinner-time, will be esteemed a favour. some wild beasts (in cages) have come down here, and involved us in a whirl of dissipation. a young lady in complete armour--at least, in something that shines very much, and is exceedingly scaley--goes into the den of ferocious lions, tigers, leopards, etc., and pretends to go to sleep upon the principal lion, upon which a rustic keeper, who speaks through his nose, exclaims, "behold the abazid power of woobad!" and we all applaud tumultuously. seriously, she beats van amburgh. and i think the duke of wellington must have her painted by landseer. my penitent regards to lady blessington, count d'orsay, and my own marchioness. ever, dear miss power, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss dickens.] broadstairs, _wednesday, august th, ._ my dearest mamey, i am delighted to hear that you are going to improve in your spelling, because nobody can write properly without spelling well. but i know you will learn whatever you are taught, because you are always good, industrious, and attentive. that is what i always say of my mamey. the note you sent me this morning is a very nice one, and the spelling is beautiful. always, my dear mamey, your affectionate papa. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday morning, nov. rd, ._ my dear macready, i am in the whirlwind of finishing a number with a crisis in it; but i can't fall to work without saying, in so many words, that i feel all words insufficient to tell you what i think of you after a night like last night. the multitudes of new tokens by which i know you for a great man, the swelling within me of my love for you, the pride i have in you, the majestic reflection i see in you of all the passions and affections that make up our mystery, throw me into a strange kind of transport that has no expression but in a mute sense of an attachment, which, in truth and fervency, is worthy of its subject. what is this to say! nothing, god knows, and yet i cannot leave it unsaid. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--i never saw you more gallant and free than in the gallant and free scenes last night. it was perfectly captivating to behold you. however, it shall not interfere with my determination to address you as old parr in all future time. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] edinburgh, _thursday, december th, ._ my dear georgy, i "take up my pen," as the young ladies write, to let you know how we are getting on; and as i shall be obliged to put it down again very soon, here goes. we lived with very hospitable people in a very splendid house near glasgow, and were perfectly comfortable. the meeting was the most stupendous thing as to numbers, and the most beautiful as to colours and decorations i ever saw. the inimitable did wonders. his grace, elegance, and eloquence, enchanted all beholders. _kate didn't go!_ having been taken ill on the railroad between here and glasgow. it has been snowing, sleeting, thawing, and freezing, sometimes by turns and sometimes all together, since the night before last. lord jeffrey's household are in town here, not at craigcrook, and jogging on in a cosy, old-fashioned, comfortable sort of way. we have some idea of going to york on sunday, passing that night at alfred's, and coming home on monday; but of this, kate will advise you when she writes, which she will do to-morrow, after i shall have seen the list of railway trains. she sends her best love. she is a little poorly still, but nothing to speak of. she is frightfully anxious that her not having been to the great demonstration should be kept a secret. but i say that, like murder, it will out, and that to hope to veil such a tremendous disgrace from the general intelligence is out of the question. in one of the glasgow papers she is elaborately described. i rather think miss alison, who is seventeen, was taken for her, and sat for the portrait. best love from both of us, to charley, mamey, katey, wally, chickenstalker, skittles, and the hoshen peck; last, and not least, to you. we talked of you at the macreadys' party on monday night. i hope ---- came out lively, also that ---- was truly amiable. finally, that ---- took everybody to their carriages, and that ---- wept a good deal during the festivities? god bless you. take care of yourself, for the sake of mankind in general. ever affectionately, dear georgy. . narrative. in march of this year charles dickens went with his wife for two or three weeks to brighton, accompanied by mrs. macready, who was in delicate health, and we give a letter to mr. macready from brighton. early in the year, "dombey and son" was finished, and he was again busy with an amateur play, with the same associates and some new adherents; the proceeds being, at first, intended to go towards the curatorship of shakespeare's house, which post was to be given to mr. sheridan knowles. the endowment was abandoned, upon the town and council of stratford-on-avon taking charge of the house; the large sum realised by the performances being handed over to mr. sheridan knowles. the play selected was "the merry wives of windsor;" the farce, "love, law, and physic." there were two performances at the haymarket in april, at one of which her majesty and the prince consort were present; and in july there were performances at manchester, liverpool, birmingham, edinburgh, and glasgow. some ladies accompanied the "strollers" on this theatrical provincial tour, and mrs. dickens and her sister were of the party. many of the following letters bear reference to these plays. in this summer, his eldest sister fanny (mrs. burnett) died, and there are sorrowful allusions to her illness in several of the letters. the autumn months were again spent at broadstairs, where he wrote "the haunted man," which was illustrated by mr. frank stone, mr. leech, and others. at the end of the year and at the end of his work, he took another short holiday at brighton with his wife and sister-in-law; and the letters to mr. stone on the subject of his illustrations to "the haunted man" are written from brighton. the first letters which we have to mr. mark lemon come here. we regret to have been unable to procure any letters addressed to mr. leech, with whom, as with mr. lemon, charles dickens was very intimately associated for many years. also, we have the beginning of his correspondence with mr. charles kent. he wrote (an unusual thing for him to do) to the editor of _the sun_ newspaper, begging him to thank the writer of a particularly sympathetic and earnest review of "dombey and son," which appeared in _the sun_ at the close of the book. mr. charles kent replied in his proper person, and from that time dates a close friendship and constant correspondence. with the letter to mr. forster we give, as a note, a letter which baron taüchnitz published in his edition of mr. forster's "life of oliver goldsmith." mr. peter cunningham, as an important member of the "shakespeare's house" committee, managed the _un_-theatrical part of this amateur provincial tour, and was always pleasantly connected with the plays. the book alluded to in the last letter for this year, to be dedicated to charles dickens's daughters by mr. mark lemon, was called "the enchanted doll." [sidenote: mr. charles babbage.] devonshire terrace, _february th, ._ my dear sir, pray let me thank you for your pamphlet. i confess that i am one of the unconvinced grumblers, and that i doubt the present or future existence of any government in england, strong enough to convert the people to your income-tax principles. but i do not the less appreciate the ability with which you advocate them, nor am i the less gratified by any mark of your remembrance. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] junction house, brighton, _march nd, ._ my dear macready, we have migrated from the bedford and come here, where we are very comfortably (not to say gorgeously) accommodated. mrs. macready is certainly better already, and i really have very great hopes that she will come back in a condition so blooming, as to necessitate the presentation of a piece of plate to the undersigned trainer. you mean to come down on sunday and on sunday week. if you don't, i shall immediately take the victoria, and start mr. ----, of the theatre royal, haymarket, as a smashing tragedian. pray don't impose upon me this cruel necessity. i think lamartine, so far, one of the best fellows in the world; and i have lively hopes of that great people establishing a noble republic. our court had best be careful not to overdo it in respect of sympathy with ex-royalty and ex-nobility. those are not times for such displays, as, it strikes me, the people in some of our great towns would be apt to express pretty plainly. however, we'll talk of all this on these sundays, and mr. ---- shall _not_ be raised to the pinnacle of fame. ever affectionately yours, my dear macready. [sidenote: editor of _the sun_.] devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _friday, april th, ._ _private._ mr. charles dickens presents his compliments to the editor of _the sun_, and begs that gentleman will have the goodness to convey to the writer of the notice of "dombey and son," in last evening's paper, mr. dickens's warmest acknowledgments and thanks. the sympathy expressed in it is so very earnestly and unaffectedly stated, that it is particularly welcome and gratifying to mr. dickens, and he feels very desirous indeed to convey that assurance to the writer of that frank and genial farewell. [sidenote: mr. w. charles m. kent.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _april th, ._ dear sir, pray let me repeat to you personally what i expressed in my former note, and allow me to assure you, as an illustration of my sincerity, that i have never addressed a similar communication to anybody except on one occasion. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, april nd, ._ my dear forster,[ ] i finished goldsmith yesterday, after dinner, having read it from the first page to the last with the greatest care and attention. as a picture of the time, i really think it impossible to give it too much praise. it seems to me to be the very essence of all about the time that i have ever seen in biography or fiction, presented in most wise and humane lights, and in a thousand new and just aspects. i have never liked johnson half so well. nobody's contempt for boswell ought to be capable of increase, but i have never seen him in my mind's eye half so plainly. the introduction of him is quite a masterpiece. i should point to that, if i didn't know the author, as being done by somebody with a remarkably vivid conception of what he narrated, and a most admirable and fanciful power of communicating it to another. all about reynolds is charming; and the first account of the literary club and of beauclerc as excellent a piece of description as ever i read in my life. but to read the book is to be in the time. it lives again in as fresh and lively a manner as if it were presented on an impossibly good stage by the very best actors that ever lived, or by the real actors come out of their graves on purpose. and as to goldsmith himself, and _his_ life, and the tracing of it out in his own writings, and the manful and dignified assertion of him without any sobs, whines, or convulsions of any sort, it is throughout a noble achievement, of which, apart from any private and personal affection for you, i think (and really believe) i should feel proud, as one who had no indifferent perception of these books of his--to the best of my remembrance--when little more than a child. i was a little afraid in the beginning, when he committed those very discouraging imprudences, that you were going to champion him somewhat indiscriminately; but i very soon got over that fear, and found reason in every page to admire the sense, calmness, and moderation with which you make the love and admiration of the reader cluster about him from his youth, and strengthen with his strength--and weakness too, which is better still. i don't quite agree with you in two small respects. first, i question very much whether it would have been a good thing for every great man to have had his boswell, inasmuch as i think that two boswells, or three at most, would have made great men extraordinarily false, and would have set them on always playing a part, and would have made distinguished people about them for ever restless and distrustful. i can imagine a succession of boswells bringing about a tremendous state of falsehood in society, and playing the very devil with confidence and friendship. secondly, i cannot help objecting to that practice (begun, i think, or greatly enlarged by hunt) of italicising lines and words and whole passages in extracts, without some very special reason indeed. it does appear to be a kind of assertion of the editor over the reader--almost over the author himself--which grates upon me. the author might almost as well do it himself to my thinking, as a disagreeable thing; and it is such a strong contrast to the modest, quiet, tranquil beauty of "the deserted village," for instance, that i would almost as soon hear "the town crier" speak the lines. the practice always reminds me of a man seeing a beautiful view, and not thinking how beautiful it is half so much as what he shall say about it. in that picture at the close of the third book (a most beautiful one) of goldsmith sitting looking out of window at the temple trees, you speak of the "gray-eyed" rooks. are you sure they are "gray-eyed"? the raven's eye is a deep lustrous black, and so, i suspect, is the rook's, except when the light shines full into it. i have reserved for a closing word--though i _don't_ mean to be eloquent about it, being far too much in earnest--the admirable manner in which the case of the literary man is stated throughout this book. it is splendid. i don't believe that any book was ever written, or anything ever done or said, half so conducive to the dignity and honour of literature as "the life and adventures of oliver goldsmith," by j. f., of the inner temple. the gratitude of every man who is content to rest his station and claims quietly on literature, and to make no feint of living by anything else, is your due for evermore. i have often said, here and there, when you have been at work upon the book, that i was sure it would be; and i shall insist on that debt being due to you (though there will be no need for insisting about it) as long as i have any tediousness and obstinacy to bestow on anybody. lastly, i never will hear the biography compared with boswell's except under vigorous protest. for i do say that it is mere folly to put into opposite scales a book, however amusing and curious, written by an unconscious coxcomb like that, and one which surveys and grandly understands the characters of all the illustrious company that move in it. my dear forster, i cannot sufficiently say how proud i am of what you have done, or how sensible i am of being so tenderly connected with it. when i look over this note, i feel as if i had said no part of what i think; and yet if i were to write another i should say no more, for i can't get it out. i desire no better for my fame, when my personal dustiness shall be past the control of my love of order, than such a biographer and such a critic. and again i say, most solemnly, that literature in england has never had, and probably never will have, such a champion as you are, in right of this book. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] _wednesday, may rd, ._ my dear lemon, do you think you could manage, before we meet to-morrow, to get from the musical director of the haymarket (whom i don't know) a note of the overtures he purposes playing on our two nights? i am obliged to correct and send back the bill proofs to-morrow (they are to be brought to miss kelly's)--and should like, for completeness' sake, to put the music in. before "the merry wives," it must be something shakespearian. before "animal magnetism," something very telling and light--like "fra diavolo." wednesday night's music in a concatenation accordingly, and jolly little polkas and quadrilles between the pieces, always beginning the moment the act-drop is down. if any little additional strength should be really required in the orchestra, so be it. can you come to miss kelly's by _three_? i should like to show you bills, tickets, and so forth, before they are worked. in order that they may not interfere with or confuse the rehearsal, i have appointed peter cunningham to meet me there at three, instead of half-past. faithfully ever. p.s.--if you should be disposed to chop together early, send me a line to the athenæum. i have engaged to be with barry at ten, to go over the houses of parliament. when i have done so, i will go to the club on the chance of a note from you, and would meet you where you chose. [sidenote: rev. james white.] athenÃ�um, _thursday, may th, ._ my dear white, i have not been able to write to you until now. i have lived in hope that kate and i might be able to run down to see you and yours for a day, before our design for enforcing the government to make knowles the first custodian of the shakespeare house should come off. but i am so perpetually engaged in drilling the forces, that i see no hope of making a pleasant expedition to the isle of wight until about the twentieth. then i shall hope to do so for one day. but of this i will advise you further, in due course. my doubts about the house you speak of are twofold, first, i could not leave town so soon as may, having affairs to arrange for a sick sister. and secondly, i fear bonchurch is not sufficiently bracing for my chickens, who thrive best in breezy and cool places. this has set me thinking, sometimes of the yorkshire coast, sometimes of dover. i would not have the house at bonchurch reserved for me, therefore. but if it should be empty, we will go and look at it in a body. i reserve the more serious part of my letter until the last, my dear white, because it comes from the bottom of my heart. none of your friends have thought and spoken oftener of you and mrs. white than we have these many weeks past. i should have written to you, but was timid of intruding on your sorrow. what you say, and the manner in which you tell me i am connected with it in your recollection of your dear child, now among the angels of god, gives me courage to approach your grief--to say what sympathy we have felt with it, and how we have not been unimaginative of these deep sources of consolation to which you have had recourse. the traveller who journeyed in fancy from this world to the next was struck to the heart to find the child he had lost, many years before, building him a tower in heaven. our blessed christian hopes do not shut out the belief of love and remembrance still enduring there, but irradiate it and make it sacred. who should know that better than you, or who more deeply feel the touching truths and comfort of that story in the older book, where, when the bereaved mother is asked, "is it well with the child?" she answers, "it _is_ well." god be with you. kate and her sister desire their kindest love to yourself and mrs. white, in which i heartily join. being ever, my dear white, your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _wednesday, may th, ._ my dear macready, we are rehearsing at the haymarket now, and lemon mentioned to me yesterday that webster had asked him if he would sound forster or me as to your intention of having a farewell benefit before going to america, and whether you would like to have it at the haymarket, and also as to its being preceded by a short engagement there. i don't know what your feelings may be on this latter head, but thinking it well that you may know how the land lies in these seas, send you this; the rather (excuse elizabethan phrase, but you know how indispensable it is to me under existing circumstances)--the rather that i am thereto encouraged by thy consort, who has just come a-visiting here, with thy fair daughters, mistress nina and the little kate. wherefore, most selected friend, perpend at thy leisure, and so god speed thee! and no more at present from, thine ever. from my tent in my garden. another "bobadil" note. i must tell you this, sir, i am no general man; but for william shakespeare's sake (you may embrace it at what height of favour you please) i will communicate with you on the twenty-first, and do esteem you to be a gentleman of some parts--of a good many parts in truth. i love few words. [illustration: hw: signature: bobadil] at cobb's, a water-bearer, _october th._ [sidenote: mr. peter cunningham.] devonshire terrace, _thursday morning, june nd, ._ my dear cunningham, i will be at miss kelly's to-morrow evening, from seven to eight, and shall hope to see you there, for a little conversation, touching the railroad arrangements. all preparations completed in edinburgh and glasgow. there will be a great deal of money taken, especially at the latter place. i wish i could persuade you, seriously, to come into training for nym, in "the merry wives." he is never on by himself, and all he has to do is good, without being difficult. if you could screw yourself up to the doing of that part in scotland, it would prevent our taking some new man, and would cover you (all over) with glory. faithfully yours always. p.s.--i am fully persuaded that an amateur manager has more correspondence than the home secretary. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] , devonshire terrace, regent's park, _july th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i thought to have been at rockingham long ago! it seems a century since i, standing in big boots on the haymarket stage, saw you come into a box upstairs and look down on the humbled bobadil, since then i have had the kindest of notes from you, since then the finest of venison, and yet i have not seen the rockingham flowers, and they are withering i daresay. but we have acted at manchester, liverpool, birmingham, edinburgh, and glasgow; and the business of all this--and graver and heavier daily occupation in going to see a dying sister at hornsey--has so worried me that i have hardly had an hour, far less a week. i shall never be quite happy, in a theatrical point of view, until you have seen me play in an english version of the french piece, "l'homme blasé," which fairly turned the head of glasgow last thursday night as ever was; neither shall i be quite happy, in a social point of view, until i have been to rockingham again. when the first event will come about heaven knows. the latter will happen about the end of the november fogs and wet weather. for am i not going to broadstairs now, to walk about on the sea-shore (why don't you bring your rosy children there?) and think what is to be done for christmas! an idea occurs to me all at once. i must come down and read you that book before it's published. shall it be a bargain? were you all in switzerland? i don't believe _i_ ever was. it is such a dream now. i wonder sometimes whether i ever disputed with a haldimand; whether i ever drank mulled wine on the top of the great st. bernard, or was jovial at the bottom with company that have stolen into my affection; whether i ever was merry and happy in that valley on the lake of geneva, or saw you one evening (when i didn't know you) walking down among the green trees outside elysée, arm-in-arm with a gentleman in a white hat. i am quite clear that there is no foundation for these visions. but i should like to go somewhere, too, and try it all over again. i don't know how it is, but the ideal world in which my lot is cast has an odd effect on the real one, and makes it chiefly precious for such remembrances. i get quite melancholy over them sometimes, especially when, as now, those great piled-up semicircles of bright faces, at which i have lately been looking--all laughing, earnest and intent--have faded away like dead people. they seem a ghostly moral of everything in life to me. kate sends her best love, in which georgy would as heartily unite, i know, but that she is already gone to broadstairs with the children. we think of following on saturday morning, but that depends on my poor sister. pray give my most cordial remembrances to watson, and tell him they include a great deal. i meant to have written you a letter. i don't know what this is. there is no word for it. so, if you will still let me owe you one, i will pay my debt, on the smallest encouragement, from the seaside. here, there, and elsewhere, i am, with perfect truth, believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] broadstairs, kent, _saturday, august th, ._ my dear macready, i was about to write to you when i received your welcome letter. you knew i should come from a somewhat longer distance than this to give you a hearty god-speed and farewell on the eve of your journey. what do you say to monday, the fourth, or saturday, the second? fix either day, let me know which suits you best--at what hour you expect the inimitable, and the inimitable will come up to the scratch like a man and a brother. permit me, in conclusion, to nail my colours to the mast. stars and stripes are so-so--showy, perhaps; but my colours is the union jack, which i am told has the remarkable property of having braved a thousand years the battle and the breeze. likewise, it is the flag of albion--the standard of britain; and britons, as i am informed, never, never, never--will--be--slaves! my sentiment is: success to the united states as a golden campaigning ground, but blow the united states to 'tarnal smash as an englishman's place of residence. gentlemen, are you all charged? affectionately ever. [sidenote: miss dickens.] devonshire terrace, _friday, sept. th, ._ my dearest mamey, we shall be very glad to see you all again, and we hope you will be very glad to see us. give my best love to dear katey, also to frankey, alley, and the peck. i have had a nice note from charley just now. he says it is expected at school that when walter puts on his jacket, all the miss kings will fall in love with him to desperation and faint away. ever, my dear mamey, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. effingham william wilson.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _nov. th, ._ "a national theatre." sir, i beg you to accept my best thanks for your pamphlet and your obliging note. that such a theatre as you describe would be but worthy of this nation, and would not stand low upon the list of its instructors, i have no kind of doubt. i wish i could cherish a stronger faith than i have in the probability of its establishment on a rational footing within fifty years. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, nov. st, ._ my dear stone, i send you herewith the second part of the book, which i hope may interest you. if you should prefer to have it read to you by the inimitable rather than to read it, i shall be at home this evening (loin of mutton at half-past five), and happy to do it. the proofs are full of printers' errors, but with the few corrections i have scrawled upon it, you will be able to make out what they mean. i send you, on the opposite side, a list of the subjects already in hand from this second part. if you should see no other in it that you like (i think it important that you should keep milly, as you have begun with her), i will, in a day or two, describe you an unwritten subject for the third part of the book. ever faithfully. subjects in hand for the second part. . illuminated page. tenniel. representing redlaw going upstairs, and the tetterby family below. . the tetterby supper. leech. . the boy in redlaw's room, munching his food and staring at the fire. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] brighton, _thursday night, nov. rd, ._ my dear stone, we are unanimous. the drawing of milly on the chair is charming. i cannot tell you how much the little composition and expression please me. do that, by all means. i fear she must have a little cap on. there is something coming in the last part, about her having had a dead child, which makes it yet more desirable than the existing text does that she should have that little matronly sign about her. unless the artist is obdurate indeed, and then he'll do as he likes. i am delighted to hear that you have your eye on her in the students' room. you will really, pictorially, make the little woman whom i love. kate and georgy send their kindest remembrances. i write hastily to save the post. ever, my dear stone, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] bedford hotel, brighton, _monday night, nov. th, ._ my dear stone, you are a trump, emphatically a trump, and such are my feelings towards you at this moment that i think (but i am not sure) that if i saw you about to place a card on a wrong pack at bibeck (?), i wouldn't breathe a word of objection. sir, there is a subject i have written to-day for the third part, that i think and hope will just suit you. scene, tetterby's. time, morning. the power of bringing back people's memories of sorrow, wrong and trouble, has been given by the ghost to milly, though she don't know it herself. as she comes along the street, mr. and mrs. tetterby recover themselves, and are mutually affectionate again, and embrace, closing _rather_ a good scene of quarrel and discontent. the moment they do so, johnny (who has seen her in the distance and announced her before, from which moment they begin to recover) cries "here she is!" and she comes in, surrounded by the little tetterbys, the very spirit of morning, gladness, innocence, hope, love, domesticity, etc. etc. etc. etc. i would limit the illustration to her and the children, which will make a fitness between it and your other illustrations, and give them all a character of their own. the exact words of the passage i endorsed on another slip of paper. note. there are six boy tetterbys present (young 'dolphus is not there), including johnny; and in johnny's arms is moloch, the baby, who is a girl. i hope to be back in town next monday, and will lose no time in reporting myself to you. don't wait to send me the drawing of this. i know how pretty she will be with the children in your hands, and should be a stupendous jackass if i had any distrust of it. the duke of cambridge is staying in this house, and they are driving me mad by having life guards bands under our windows, playing _our_ overtures! i have been at work all day, and am going to wander into the theatre, where (for the comic man's benefit) "two gentlemen of brighton" are performing two counts in a melodrama. i was quite addle-headed for the time being, and think an amateur or so would revive me. no 'tone! i don't in the abstract approve of brighton. i couldn't pass an autumn here; but it is a gay place for a week or so; and when one laughs and cries, and suffers the agitation that some men experience over their books, it's a bright change to look out of window, and see the gilt little toys on horseback going up and down before the mighty sea, and thinking nothing of it. kate's love and georgy's. they say you'll contradict every word of this letter. faithfully ever. [slip of paper enclosed.] "hurrah! here's mrs. williams!" cried johnny. so she was, and all the tetterby children with her; and as she came in, they kissed her and kissed one another, and kissed the baby and kissed their father and mother, and then ran back and flocked and danced about her, trooping on with her in triumph. (after which, she is going to say: "what, are _you_ all glad to see me too! oh, how happy it makes me to find everyone so glad to see me this bright morning!") [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] bedford hotel, brighton, _nov. th, ._ my dear mark, i assure you, most unaffectedly and cordially, that the dedication of that book to mary and _kate_ (not catherine) will be a real delight to me, and to all of us. i know well that you propose it in "affectionate regard," and value and esteem it, therefore, in a way not easy of expression. you were talking of "coming" down, and now, in a mean and dodging way, you write about "sending" the second act! i have a propogician to make. come down on friday. there is a train leaves london bridge at two--gets here at four. by that time i shall be ready to strike work. we can take a little walk, dine, discuss, and you can go back in good time next morning. i really think this ought to be done, and indeed must be done. write and say it shall be done. a little management will be required in dramatising the third part, where there are some things i _describe_ (for effect's sake, and as a matter of art) which must be _said_ on the stage. redlaw is in a new condition of mind, which fact must be shot point-blank at the audience, i suppose, "as from the deadly level of a gun." by anybody who knew how to play milly, i think it might be made very good. its effect is very pleasant upon me. i have also given mr. and mrs. tetterby another innings. i went to the play last night--fifth act of richard the third. richmond by a stout _lady_, with a particularly well-developed bust, who finished all the speeches with the soubrette simper. also, at the end of the tragedy she came forward (still being richmond) and said, "ladies and gentlemen, on wednesday next the entertainments will be for _my_ benefit, when i hope to meet your approbation and support." then, having bowed herself into the stage-door, she looked out of it, and said, winningly, "won't you come?" which was enormously applauded. ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] letter of baron taÃ�chnitz. having had the privilege to see a letter which the late mr. charles dickens wrote to the author of this work upon its first appearance, and which there was no intention to publish in england, it became my lively wish to make it known to the readers of my edition. i therefore addressed an earnest request to mr. forster, that he would permit the letter to be prefixed to a reprint not designed for circulation in england, where i could understand his reluctance to sanction its publication. its varied illustration of the subject of the book, and its striking passages of personal feeling and character, led me also to request that i might be allowed to present it in facsimile. mr. forster complied; and i am most happy to be thus enabled to give to my public, on the following pages, so attractive and so interesting a letter, reproduced in the exact form in which it was written, by the most popular and admired-of writers--too early gone. taÃ�chnitz. leipsic, _may , ._ . narrative. this, as far as correspondence is concerned, was an uneventful year. in the spring charles dickens took one of his holidays at brighton, accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law and two daughters, and they were joined in their lodgings by mr. and mrs. leech. from brighton he writes the letter--as a song--which we give, to mr. mark lemon, who had been ill, asking him to pay them a visit. in the summer, charles dickens went with his family, for the first time, to bonchurch, isle of wight, having hired for six months the charming villa, winterbourne, belonging to the rev. james white. and now began that close and loving intimacy which for the future was to exist between these two families. mr. leech also took a house at bonchurch. all through this year charles dickens was at work upon "david copperfield." as well as giving eccentric names to his children and friends, he was also in the habit of giving such names to himself--that of "sparkler" being one frequently used by him. miss joll herself gives us the explanation of the letter to her on capital punishment: "soon after the appearance of his 'household words,' some friends were discussing an article in it on 'private executions.' they contended that it went to prove mr. dickens was an advocate of capital punishment. i, however, took a different view of the matter, and ventured to write and inquire his views on the subject, and to my letter he sent me a courteous reply." [sidenote: mr. dudley costello.] devonshire terrace, _friday night, jan. th, ._ my dear costello, i am desperate! engaged in links of adamant to a "monster in human form"--a remarkable expression i think i remember to have once met with in a newspaper--whom i encountered at franconi's, whence i have just returned, otherwise i would have done all three things right heartily and with my accustomed sweetness. think of me another time when chops are on the carpet (figuratively speaking), and see if i won't come and eat 'em! ever faithfully yours. p.s.--i find myself too despondent for the flourish. [sidenote: miss dickens.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday night, feb. th, ._ my dearest mamey, i am not engaged on the evening of your birthday. but even if i had an engagement of the most particular kind, i should excuse myself from keeping it, so that i might have the pleasure of celebrating at home, and among my children, the day that gave me such a dear and good daughter as you. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] devonshire terrace, _may th, ._ my dear stanfield. no--no--no! murder, murder! madness and misconception! any _one_ of the subjects--not the whole. oh, blessed star of early morning, what do you think i am made of, that i should, on the part of any man, prefer such a pig-headed, calf-eyed, donkey-eared, imp-hoofed request! says my friend to me, "will you ask _your_ friend, mr. stanfield, what the damage of a little picture of that size would be, that i may treat myself with the same, if i can afford it?" says i, "i will." says he, "will you suggest that i should like it to be _one_ of those subjects?" says i, "i will." i am beating my head against the door with grief and frenzy, and i shall continue to do so, until i receive your answer. ever heartily yours, the misconceived one. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] devonshire terrace, _monday, june th, ._ my dear stone, leech and sparkler having promised their ladies to take them to ascot, and having failed in their truths, propoge to take them to greenwich instead, next wednesday. will that alteration in the usual arrangements be agreeable to gaffin, s.? if so, the place of meeting is the sparkler's bower, and the hour, one exactly. ever yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] shanklin, isle of wight, _monday night, june th, ._ my dear kate, i have but a moment. just got back and post going out. i have taken a most delightful and beautiful house, belonging to white, at bonchurch; cool, airy, private bathing, everything delicious. i think it is the prettiest place i ever saw in my life, at home or abroad. anne may begin to dismantle devonshire terrace. i have arranged for carriages, luggage, and everything. the man with the post-bag is swearing in the passage. ever affectionately. p.s.--a waterfall on the grounds, which i have arranged with a carpenter to convert into a perpetual shower-bath. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] devonshire terrace, _monday, june th, ._ my dear lemon, i am very unwilling to deny charley the pleasure you so kindly offer him. but as it is just the close of the half-year when they are getting together all the half-year's work--and as that day's pleasure would weaken the next day's duty, i think i must be "more like an ancient roman than a ----" sparkler, and that it will be wisest in me to say nothing about it. get a clean pocket-handkerchief ready for the close of "copperfield" no. ; "simple and quiet, but very natural and touching."--_evening bore._ ever affectionately. new song. tune--"lesbia hath a beaming eye." . lemon is a little hipped, and this is lemon's true position; he is not pale, he's not white-lipped, yet wants a little fresh condition. sweeter 'tis to gaze upon old ocean's rising, falling billows, than on the houses every one, that form the street called saint anne's willers. oh, my lemon, round and fat, oh, my bright, my right, my tight 'un, think a little what you're at-- don't stay at home, but come to brighton! . lemon has a coat of frieze, but all so seldom lemon wears it, that it is a prey to fleas, and ev'ry moth that's hungry tears it. oh, that coat's the coat for me, that braves the railway sparks and breezes, leaving every engine free to smoke it, till its owner sneezes! then my lemon, round and fat, l., my bright, my right, my tight 'un, think a little what you're at-- on tuesday first, come down to brighton! t. sparkler. also signed, catherine dickens, annie leech, georgina hogarth, mary dickens, katie dickens, john leech. [sidenote: rev. james white.] winterbourne, _sunday evening, sept. rd, ._ my dear white, i have a hundred times at least wanted to say to you how good i thought those papers in "blackwood"--how excellent their purpose, and how delicately and charmingly worked out. their subtle and delightful humour, and their grasp of the whole question, were something more pleasant to me than i can possibly express. "how comes this lumbering inimitable to say this, on this sunday night of all nights in the year?" you naturally ask. now hear the inimitable's honest avowal! i make so bold because i heard that morning service better read this morning than ever i have heard it read in my life. and because--for the soul of me--i cannot separate the two things, or help identifying the wise and genial man out of church with the earnest and unaffected man in it. midsummer madness, perhaps, but a madness i hope that will hold us true friends for many and many a year to come. the madness is over as soon as you have burned this letter (see the history of the gunpowder plot), but let us be friends much longer for these reasons and many included in them not herein expressed. affectionately always. [sidenote: miss joll.] rockingham castle, northamptonshire, _nov. th, ._ mr. charles dickens presents his compliments to miss joll. he is, on principle, opposed to capital punishment, but believing that many earnest and sincere people who are favourable to its retention in extreme cases would unite in any temperate effort to abolish the evils of public executions, and that the consequences of public executions are disgraceful and horrible, he has taken the course with which miss joll is acquainted as the most hopeful, and as one undoubtedly calculated to benefit society at large. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _friday night, nov. th, ._ _a quarter-past ten._ my dear mrs. watson, plunged in the deepest gloom, i write these few words to let you know that, just now, when the bell was striking ten, i drank to [illustration: h. e. r.!] and to all the rest of rockingham; as the wine went down my throat, i felt distinctly that it was "changing those thoughts to madness." on the way here i was a terror to my companions, and i am at present a blight and mildew on my home. think of me sometimes, as i shall long think of our glorious dance last night. give my most affectionate regards to watson, and my kind remembrances to all who remember me, and believe me, ever faithfully yours. p.s.--i am in such an incapable state, that after executing the foregoing usual flourish i swooned, and remained for some time insensible. ha, ha, ha! why was i ever restored to consciousness!!! p.p.s.--"changing" those thoughts ought to be "driving." but my recollection is incoherent and my mind wanders. [sidenote: m. cerjat.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear cerjat, i received your letter at breakfast-time this morning with a pleasure my eloquence is unable to express and your modesty unable to conceive. it is so delightful to be remembered at this time of the year in your house where we have been so happy, and in dear old lausanne, that we always hope to see again, that i can't help pushing away the first page of "copperfield" no. , now staring at me with what i may literally call a blank aspect, and plunging energetically into this reply. what a strange coincidence that is about blunderstone house! of all the odd things i have ever heard (and their name is legion), i think it is the oddest. i went down into that part of the country on the th of january last year, when i was meditating the story, and chose blunderstone for the sound of its name. i had previously observed much of what you say about the poor girls. in all you suggest with so much feeling about their return to virtue being cruelly cut off, i concur with a sore heart. i have been turning it over in my mind for some time, and hope, in the history of little em'ly (who _must_ fall--there is no hope for her), to put it before the thoughts of people in a new and pathetic way, and perhaps to do some good. you will be glad to hear, i know, that "copperfield" is a great success. i think it is better liked than any of my other books. we had a most delightful time at watsons' (for both of them we have preserved and strengthened a real affection), and were the gayest of the gay. there was a miss boyle staying in the house, who is an excellent amateur actress, and she and i got up some scenes from "the school for scandal" and from "nickleby," with immense success. we played in the old hall, with the audience filled up and running over with servants. the entertainments concluded with feats of legerdemain (for the performance of which i have a pretty good apparatus, collected at divers times and in divers places), and we then fell to country dances of a most frantic description, and danced all night. we often spoke of you and mrs. cerjat and of haldimand, and wished you were all there. watson and i have some fifty times "registered a vow" (like o'connell) to come to lausanne together, and have even settled in what month and week. something or other has always interposed to prevent us; but i hope, please god, most certainly to see it again, when my labours-copperfieldian shall have terminated. you have no idea what that hanging of the mannings really was. the conduct of the people was so indescribably frightful, that i felt for some time afterwards almost as if i were living in a city of devils. i feel, at this hour, as if i never could go near the place again. my letters have made a great to-do, and led to a great agitation of the subject; but i have not a confident belief in any change being made, mainly because the total abolitionists are utterly reckless and dishonest (generally speaking), and would play the deuce with any such proposition in parliament, unless it were strongly supported by the government, which it would certainly not be, the whig motto (in office) being "_laissez aller_." i think peel might do it if he came in. two points have occurred to me as being a good commentary to the objections to my idea. the first is that a most terrific uproar was made when the hanging processions were abolished, and the ceremony shrunk from tyburn to the prison door. the second is that, at this very time, under the british government in new south wales, executions take place _within the prison walls_, with decidedly improved results. (i am waiting to explode this fact on the first man of mark who gives me the opportunity.) unlike you, we have had no marriages or giving in marriage here. we might have had, but a certain young lady, whom you know, is hard to please. the children are all well, thank god! charley is going to eton the week after next, and has passed a first-rate examination. kate is quite well, and unites with me and georgina in love to you and mrs. cerjat and haldimand, whom i would give a good deal (tell him) to have several hours' contradiction of at his own table. good heavens, how obstinate we would both be! i see him leaning back in his chair, with his right forefinger out, and saying, "good god!" in reply to some proposition of mine, and then laughing. all in a moment a feeling comes over me, as if you and i have been still talking, smoking cigars outside the inn at martigny, the piano sounding inside, and lady mary taylour singing. i look into my garden (which is covered with snow) rather dolefully, but take heart again, and look brightly forward to another expedition to the great st. bernard, when mrs. cerjat and i shall laugh as i fancy i have never laughed since, in one of those one-sided cars; and when we shall again learn from haldimand, in a little dingy cabaret, at lunch-time, how to secure a door in travelling (do you remember?) by balancing a chair against it on its two hind-legs. i do hope that we may all come together again once more, while there is a head of hair left among us; and in this hope remain, my dear cerjat, your faithful friend. . narrative. in the spring charles dickens took a short holiday again, with his wife and sister-in-law, at brighton, from whence he wrote to mr. wills, on "household words" business. the first number of this journal appeared on the th march. this autumn he succeeded, for the first time, in getting possession of the "fort house," broadstairs, on which he had always set his affections. he was hard at work on the closing numbers of "david copperfield" during all the summer and autumn. the family moved to broadstairs in july, but as a third daughter was born in august, they were not joined by mrs. dickens until the end of september. "david copperfield" was finished in october. the beginning of his correspondence with mrs. gaskell is in his asking her to contribute to "household words," which she did from the first number, and very frequently afterwards both to "household words" and "all the year round." the letter to mr. david roberts, r.a., is one thanking him for a remembrance of his (mr. roberts's) travels in the east--a picture of a "simoom in the desert," which was one of charles dickens's most highly prized possessions. a letter to mr. sheridan knowles contains allusions which we have no means of explaining, but we publish it, as it is characteristic, and addressed to a literary celebrity. its being inscribed to "daddy" knowles illustrates a habit of charles dickens--as does a letter later in this year to mr. stone, beginning, "my dear p."--of giving nicknames to the friends with whom he was on the most affectionate and intimate terms. mr. stone--especially included in this category--was the subject of many such names; "pump," or "pumpion," being one by which he was frequently addressed--a joke as good-humouredly and gladly received as it was kindly and pleasantly intended. there were no public amateur theatricals this year; but in november, the greater part of the amateur company played for three nights at knebworth park, as the guests of sir edward bulwer lytton (afterwards lord lytton), who entertained all his county neighbours to witness the performances. the play was "every man in his humour," and farces, varied each night. this year we have our first letter to miss mary boyle, a cousin of mrs. watson, well known as an amateur actress and an accomplished lady. miss boyle was to have acted with the amateur company at knebworth, but was prevented by domestic affliction. early in the following year there was a private play at rockingham castle, when miss boyle acted with charles dickens, the play being "used up," in which mrs. dickens also acted; and the farce, "animal magnetism," in which miss boyle and miss hogarth played. the letters to mrs. watson in this year refer chiefly to the preparations for the play in her house. the accident mentioned in the letter addressed to mr. henry bicknell (son-in-law of mr. david roberts, r.a., and a much-esteemed friend of charles dickens) was an accident which happened to mrs. dickens, while rehearsing at a theatre. she fell through a trap-door, spraining her ankle so badly as to be incapacitated from taking her part in the theatricals at knebworth. [sidenote: mr. david roberts, r.a.] devonshire terrace, _january rd, ._ my dear roberts, i am more obliged to you than i can tell you for the beautiful mark of your friendly remembrance which you have sent me this morning. i shall set it up among my household gods with pride. it gives me the highest gratification, and i beg you to accept my most cordial and sincere thanks. a little bit of the tissue paper was sticking to the surface of the picture, and has slightly marked it. it requires but a touch, as one would dot an "i" or cross a "t," to remove the blemish; but as i cannot think of a recollection so full of poetry being touched by any hand but yours, i have told green the framer, whenever he shall be on his way with it, to call on you by the road. i enclose a note from mrs. dickens, which i hope will impress you into a country dance, with which we hope to dismiss christmas merrily. ever, my dear roberts, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. james sheridan knowles.] devonshire terrace, _january rd, ._ my dear good knowles, many happy new years to you, and to all who are near and dear to you. your generous heart unconsciously exaggerates, i am sure, my merit in respect of that most honourable gentleman who has been the occasion of our recent correspondence. i cannot sufficiently admire the dignity of his conduct, and i really feel indebted to you for giving me the gratification of observing it. as to that "cross note," which, rightly considered, was nothing of the sort, if ever you refer to it again, i'll do--i don't exactly know what, but something perfectly desperate and ferocious. if i have ever thought of it, it has only been to remember with delight how soon we came to a better understanding, and how heartily we confirmed it with a most expressive shake of the hand, one evening down in that mouldy little den of miss kelly's. heartily and faithfully yours. "daddy" knowles. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] devonshire terrace, _january st, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, you may perhaps have seen an announcement in the papers of my intention to start a new cheap weekly journal of general literature. i do not know what your literary vows of temperance or abstinence may be, but as i do honestly know that there is no living english writer whose aid i would desire to enlist in preference to the authoress of "mary barton" (a book that most profoundly affected and impressed me), i venture to ask you whether you can give me any hope that you will write a short tale, or any number of tales, for the projected pages. no writer's name will be used, neither my own nor any other; every paper will be published without any signature, and all will seem to express the general mind and purpose of the journal, which is the raising up of those that are down, and the general improvement of our social condition. i should set a value on your help which your modesty can hardly imagine; and i am perfectly sure that the least result of your reflection or observation in respect of the life around you, would attract attention and do good. of course i regard your time as valuable, and consider it so when i ask you if you could devote any of it to this purpose. if you could and would prefer to speak to me on the subject, i should be very glad indeed to come to manchester for a few hours and explain anything you might wish to know. my unaffected and great admiration of your book makes me very earnest in all relating to you. forgive my troubling you for this reason, and believe me ever, faithfully yours. p.s.--mrs. dickens and her sister send their love. [sidenote: rev. james white.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, feb. th, ._ my dear white, i have been going to write to you for a long time, but have always had in my mind that you might come here with lotty any day. as lotty has come without you, however (witness a tremendous rampaging and ravaging now going on upstairs!), i despatch this note to say that i suppose you have seen the announcement of "the" new weekly thing, and that if you would ever write anything for it, you would please me better than i can tell you. we hope to do some solid good, and we mean to be as cheery and pleasant as we can. (and, putting our hands in our breeches pockets, we say complacently, that our money is as good as blackwood's any day in the week.) now the murder's out! are you never coming to town any more? must i come to bonchurch? am i born (for the eight-and-thirtieth time) next thursday, at half-past five, and do you mean to say you are _not_ coming to dinner? well, well, i can always go over to puseyism to spite my friends, and that's some comfort. poor dear jeffrey! i had heard from him but a few days, and the unopened proof of no. was lying on his table when he died. i believe i have lost as affectionate a friend as i ever had, or ever shall have, in this world. ever heartily yours, my dear white. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] devonshire terrace, _february th, ._ my dear knight, let me thank you in the heartiest manner for your most kind and gratifying mention of me in your able pamphlet. it gives me great pleasure, and i sincerely feel it. i quite agree with you in all you say so well of the injustice and impolicy of this excessive taxation. but when i think of the condition of the great mass of the people, i fear that i could hardly find the heart to press for justice in this respect, before the window-duty is removed. they cannot read without light. they cannot have an average chance of life and health without it. much as we feel our wrong, i fear that they feel their wrong more, and that the things just done in this wise must bear a new physical existence. i never see you, and begin to think we must have another play--say in cornwall--expressly to bring us together. very faithfully yours. suggestions for titles of "household words." the forge: a weekly journal, conducted by charles dickens. "thus at the glowing forge of life our actions must be wrought, thus on its sounding anvil shaped each burning deed and thought."--_longfellow._ the hearth. the forge. the crucible. the anvil of the time. charles dickens's own. seasonable leaves. evergreen leaves. home. home-music. change. time and tide. twopence. english bells. weekly bells. the rocket. good humour. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , king's road, brighton, _tuesday night, march th, ._ my dear wills, i have made a correction or two in my part of the post-office article. i still observe the top-heavy "household words" in the title. the title of "the amusements of the people" has to be altered as i have marked it. i would as soon have my hair cut off as an intolerable scotch shortness put into my titles by the elision of little words. "the seasons" wants a little punctuation. will the "incident in the life of mademoiselle clairon" go into those two pages? i fear not, but one article would be infinitely better, i am quite certain, than two or three short ones. if it will go in, in with it. i shall be back, please god, by dinner-time to-morrow week. i will be ready for smithfield either on the following monday morning at four, or any other morning you may arrange for. would it do to make up no. on wednesday, the th, instead of saturday? if so, it would be an immense convenience to me. but if it be distinctly necessary to make it up on saturday, say by return, and i am to be relied upon. don't fail in this. i really _can't_ promise to be comic. indeed, your note put me out a little, for i had just sat down to begin, "it will last my time." i will shake my head a little, and see if i can shake a more comic substitute out of it. as to _two_ comic articles, or two any sort of articles, out of me, that's the intensest extreme of no-goism. ever faithfully. [sidenote: rev. james white.] devonshire terrace, _july th, ._ my dear white, being obliged (sorely against my will) to leave my work this morning and go out, and having a few spare minutes before i go, i write a hasty note, to hint how glad i am to have received yours, and how happy and tranquil we feel it to be for you all, that the end of that long illness has come.[ ] kate and georgy send best loves to mrs. white, and we hope she will take all needful rest and relief after those arduous, sad, and weary weeks. i have taken a house at broadstairs, from early in august until the end of october, as i don't want to come back to london until i shall have finished "copperfield." i am rejoiced at the idea of your going there. you will find it the healthiest and freshest of places; and there are canterbury, and all varieties of what leigh hunt calls "greenery," within a few minutes' railroad ride. it is not very picturesque ashore, but extremely so seaward; all manner of ships continually passing close inshore. so come, and we'll have no end of sports, please god. i am glad to say, as i know you will be to hear, that there seems a bright unanimity about "copperfield." i am very much interested in it and pleased with it myself. i have carefully planned out the story, for some time past, to the end, and am making out my purposes with great care. i should like to know what you see from that tower of yours. i have little doubt you see the real objects in the prospect. "household words" goes on _thoroughly well_. it is expensive, of course, and demands a large circulation; but it is taking a great and steady stand, and i have no doubt already yields a good round profit. to-morrow week i shall expect you. you shall have a bottle of the "twenty." i have kept a few last lingering caskets with the gem enshrined therein, expressly for you. ever, my dear white, cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] hÃ�tel windsor, paris, _thursday, july th, ._ _after post-time._ my dear wills, i have had much ado to get to work; the heat here being so intense that i can do nothing but lie on the bare floor all day. i never felt it anything like so hot in italy. there is nothing doing in the theatres, and the atmosphere is so horribly oppressive there that one can hardly endure it. i came out of the français last night half dead. i am writing at this moment with nothing on but a shirt and pair of white trousers, and have been sitting four hours at this paper, but am as faint with the heat as if i had been at some tremendous gymnastics; and yet we had a thunderstorm last night. i hope we are doing pretty well in wellington street. my anxiety makes me feel as if i had been away a year. i hope to be home on tuesday evening, or night at latest. i have picked up a very curious book of french statistics that will suit us, and an odd proposal for a company connected with the gambling in california, of which you will also be able to make something. i saw a certain "lord spleen" mentioned in a playbill yesterday, and will look after that distinguished english nobleman to-night, if possible. rachel played last night for the last time before going to london, and has not so much in her as some of our friends suppose. the english people are perpetually squeezing themselves into courtyards, blind alleys, closed edifices, and other places where they have no sort of business. the french people, as usual, are making as much noise as possible about everything that is of no importance, but seem (as far as one can judge) pretty quiet and good-humoured. they made a mighty hullabaloo at the theatre last night, when brutus (the play was "lucretia") declaimed about liberty. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _august th, ._ my dear wills, i shall be obliged to you if you will write to this man, and tell him that what he asks i never do--firstly, because i have no kind of connection with any manager or theatre; secondly, because i am asked to read so many manuscripts, that compliance is impossible, or i should have no other occupation or relaxation in the world. [symbol: right hand] a foreign gentleman, with a beard, name unknown, but signing himself "a fellow man," and dating from nowhere, declined, twice yesterday, to leave this house for any less consideration than the insignificant one of "twenty pounds." i have had a policeman waiting for him all day. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] broadstairs, _tuesday, sept. rd, ._ my dearest kate, i enclose a few lines from georgy, and write these to say that i purpose going home at some time on thursday, but i cannot say precisely when, as it depends on what work i do to-morrow. yesterday charles knight, white, forster, charley, and i walked to richborough castle and back. knight dined with us afterwards; and the whites, the bicknells, and mrs. gibson came in in the evening and played vingt-et-un. having no news i must tell you a story of sydney. the children, georgy, and i were out in the garden on sunday evening (by-the-bye, i made a beautiful passage down, and got to margate a few minutes after one), when i asked sydney if he would go to the railroad and see if forster was coming. as he answered very boldly "yes," i opened the garden-gate, upon which he set off alone as fast as his legs would carry him; and being pursued, was not overtaken until he was through the lawn house archway, when he was still going on at full speed--i can't conceive where. being brought back in triumph, he made a number of fictitious starts, for the sake of being overtaken again, and we made a regular game of it. at last, when he and ally had run away, instead of running after them, we came into the garden, shut the gate, and crouched down on the ground. presently we heard them come back and say to each other with some alarm, "why, the gate's shut, and they're all gone!" ally began in a dismayed way to cry out, but the phenomenon shouting, "open the gate!" sent an enormous stone flying into the garden (among our heads) by way of alarming the establishment. i thought it a wonderful piece of character, showing great readiness of resource. he would have fired a perfect battery of stones, or very likely have broken the pantry window, i think, if we hadn't let him in. they are all in great force, and send their loves. they are all much excited with the expectation of receiving you on friday, and would start me off to fetch you now if i would go. our train on friday will be half-past twelve. i have spoken to georgy about the partridges, and hope we may find some. ever, my dearest kate, most affectionately. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] broadstairs, kent, _monday night, sept. th, ._ my dear miss boyle, your letter having arrived in time for me to write a line by the evening post, i came out of a paroxysm of "copperfield," to say that i am _perfectly delighted_ to read it, and to know that we are going to act together in that merry party. we dress "every man" in queen elizabeth's time. the acting copy is much altered from the old play, but we still smooth down phrases when needful. i don't remember anyone that is changed. georgina says she can't describe the dress mrs. kitely used to wear. i shall be in town on saturday, and will then get maclise to make me a little sketch, of it, carefully explained, which i will post to you. at the same time i will send you the book. after consideration of forces, it has occurred to me (old ben being, i daresay, rare; but i _do_ know rather heavy here and there) that mrs. inchbald's "animal magnetism," which we have often played, will "go" with a greater laugh than anything else. that book i will send you on saturday too. you will find your part (lisette, i think it is called, but it is a waiting-maid) a most admirable one; and i have seen people laugh at the piece until they have hung over the front of the boxes like ripe fruit. you may dress the part to please yourself after reading it. we wear powder. i will take care (bringing a theatrical hairdresser for the company) of your wig! we will rehearse the two pieces when we go down, or at least anything with which you have to do, over and over again. you will find my company so well used to it, and so accustomed to consider it a grave matter of business, as to make it easy. i am now awaiting the french books with a view to "rockingham," and i hope to report of that too, when i write to you on saturday. my dear miss boyle, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] devonshire terrace, _friday, sept. th, ._ my dear miss boyle, i enclose you the book of "animal magnetism," and the book of "every man in his humour;" also a sketch by mr. maclise of a correct and picturesque mrs. kitely. mr. forster is kitely; mr. lemon, brainworm; mr. leech, master matthew; mr. jerrold, master stephen; mr. stone, downright. kitely's dress is a very plain purple gown, like a bluecoat-boy's. downright's dress is also very sober, chiefly brown and gray. all the rest of us are very bright. i am flaming red. georgina will write you about your colour and hers in "animal magnetism;" the gayer the better. i am the doctor, in black, with red stockings. mr. lemon (an excellent actor), the valet, as far as i can remember, in blue and yellow, and a chintz waistcoat. mr. leech is the marquis, and mr. egg the one-eyed servant. what do you think of doing "animal magnetism" as the last piece (we may play three in all, i think) at rockingham? if so, we might make quin the one-eyed servant, and beat up with mrs. watson for a marquis. will you tell me what you think of this, addressed to broadstairs? i have not heard from bulwer again. i daresay i have crossed a letter from him by coming up to-day; but i have every reason to believe that the last week in october is the time. ever very faithfully yours. p.s.--this is quite a managerial letter, which i write with all manner of appointments and business discussions going on about me, having my pen on the paper and my eye on "household words," my head on "copperfield" and my ear nowhere particularly. i will let you know about "a day after the wedding." i have sent for the book on monday. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] broadstairs, kent, _september th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, coming out of "copperfield" into a condition of temporary and partial consciousness, i plunge into histrionic duties, and hold enormous correspondence with miss boyle, between whom and myself the most portentous packets are continually passing. i send you a piece we purpose playing last at rockingham, which "my company" played in london, scotland, manchester, liverpool, and i don't know where else. it is one of the most ridiculous things ever done. we purpose, as i have said, playing it last. why do i send it to you? because there is an excellent part (played in my troupe by george cruikshank) for your brother in it--jeffrey; with a black patch on his eye, and a lame leg, he would be charming--noble! if he is come home, give him my love and tell him so. if he is not come home, do me that favour when he does come. and add that i have a wig for him belonging to the part, which i have an idea of sending to the exposition of ' , as a triumph of human ingenuity. i am the doctor; miss boyle, lisette; georgy, the other little woman. we have nearly arranged our "bill" for rockingham. we shall want one more reasonably good actor, besides your brother and miss boyle's, to play the marquis in this piece. do you know a being endowed by nature with the requisite qualities? there are some things in the next "copperfield" that i think better than any that have gone before. after i have been believing such things with all my heart and soul, two results always ensue: first, i can't write plainly to the eye; secondly, i can't write sensibly to the mind. so "copperfield" is to blame, and i am not, for this wandering note; and if you like it, you'll forgive me. with my affectionate remembrances to watson, ever, my dear mrs. watson, very faithfully yours. p.s.--i find i am not equal to the flourish. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] devonshire terrace, _wednesday, oct th, ._ my dear miss boyle, we are all extremely concerned and distressed to lose you. but we feel that it cannot be otherwise, and we do not, in our own expectation of amusement, forget the sad cause of your absence. bulwer was here yesterday; and if i were to tell you how earnestly he and all the other friends whom you don't know have looked forward to the projected association with you, and in what a friendly spirit they all express their disappointment, you would be quite moved by it, i think. pray don't give yourself the least uneasiness on account of the blank in our arrangements. i did not write to you yesterday, in the hope that i might be able to tell you to-day that i had replaced you, in however poor a way. i cannot do that yet, but i am busily making out some means of filling the parts before we rehearse to-morrow night, and i trust to be able to do so in some out-of-the-way manner. mrs. dickens and bridget send you their kindest remembrances. they are bitterly disappointed at not seeing you to-day, but we all hope for a better time. dear miss boyle, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _saturday evening, nov. rd, ._ my dear mrs. watson, being well home from knebworth, where everything has gone off in a whirl of triumph and fired the whole length and breadth of the county of hertfordshire, i write a short note to say that we are yours any time after twelfth-night, and that we look forward to seeing you with the greatest pleasure. i should have made this reply to your last note sooner, but that i have been waiting to send you "copperfield" in a new waistcoat. his tailor is so slow that it has not yet appeared; but when the resplendent garment comes home it shall be forwarded. i have not your note at hand, but i think you said "any time after christmas." at all events, and whatever you said, we will conclude a treaty on any terms you may propose. and if it should include any of charley's holidays, perhaps you would allow us to put a brass collar round his neck, and chain him up in the stable. kate and georgina (who has covered herself with glory) join me in best remembrances and regards to watson and you and all the house. i have stupendous proposals to make concerning switzerland in the spring. i promised bulwer to make enquiry of you about "miss watson," whom he once knew and greatly wished to hear of. he associated her (but was not clear how) with lady palmer. my dear mrs. watson, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. henry bicknell.] devonshire terrace, _november th, ._ my dear mr. bicknell, if i ever did such a thing, believe me i would do it at your request. but i don't, and if you could see the ramparts of letters from similar institutions with which my desk bristles every now and then, you would feel that nothing lies between total abstinence (in this regard) and utter bewilderment and lecturation. mrs. dickens and her sister unite with me in kind regards to you and mrs. bicknell. the consequences of the accident are fast fading, i am happy to say. we all hope to hear shortly that mrs. bicknell has recovered that other little accident, which (as you and i know) will occasionally happen in well-regulated families. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] office of "household words," _wednesday, dec. th, ._ my dear landor, i have been (a strange thing for me) so very unwell since sunday, that i have hardly been able to hold up my head--a bilious attack, i believe, and a very miserable sort of business. this, my dear friend, is the reason why i have not sooner written to you in reference to your noble letter, which i read in _the examiner_, and for which--as it exalts me--i cannot, cannot thank you in words. we had been following up the blow in kinkel's[ ] favour, and i was growing sanguine, in the hope of getting him out (having enlisted strong and active sympathy in his behalf), when the news came of his escape. since then we have heard nothing of him. i rather incline to the opinion that the damnable powers that be connived at his escape, but know nothing. whether he be retaken or whether he appear (as i am not without hope he may) in the streets of london, i shall be a party to no step whatever without consulting you; and if any scrap of intelligence concerning him shall reach me, it shall be yours immediately. horne wrote the article. i shall see him here to-night, and know how he will feel your sympathy and support. but i do not wait to see him before writing, lest you should think me slow to feel your generosity. we said at home when we read your letter, that it was like the opening of your whole munificent and bare heart. ever most affectionately yours, my dear landor. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] [symbol: right hand] this is no. . devonshire terrace, _monday morning, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, your note to me of saturday has crossed mine to you, i find. if you open both of mine together, please to observe _this is no. _. you may rely on mr. tucker's doing his work thoroughly well and charging a fair price. it is not possible for him to say aforehand, in such a case, what it will cost, i imagine, as he will have to adapt his work to the place. nathan's stage knowledge may be stated in the following figures: . therefore, i think you had best refer mr. tucker to _me_, and i will apply all needful screws and tortures to him. i have thought of one or two very ingenious (hem!) little contrivances for adapting the difficulties of "used up" to the small stage. they will require to be so exactly explained to your carpenter (though very easy little things in themselves), that i think i had better, before christmas, send my servant down for an hour--he is quite an old stager now--to show him precisely what i mean. it is not a day's work, but it would be extremely difficult to explain in writing. i developed these wonderful ideas to the master carpenter at one of the theatres, and he shook his head with an intensely mournful air, and said, "ah, sir, it's a universal observation in the profession, sir, that it was a great loss to the public when you took to writing books!" which i thought complimentary to "copperfield." ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _saturday, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i shall be delighted to come on the seventh instead of the eighth. we consider it an engagement. over and above the pleasure of a quiet day with you, i think i can greatly facilitate the preparations (that's the way, you see, in which we cheat ourselves into making duties of pleasures) by being at rockingham a day earlier. so that's settled. i was quite certain when that child of israel mentioned those dimensions, that he must be wrong. for which wooden-headedness the child shall be taken to task on monday morning, when i am going to look at his preparations, by appointment, about the door. don't you observe, that the scenery not being made expressly for the room, it may be impossible to use it as you propose? there is a scene before that wall, and unless the door in the scene (supposing there to be one, which i am not sure of) should come exactly into the place of the door of the room, the door of the room might as well be in africa. if it could be used it would still require to be backed (excuse professional technicality) by another scene in the passage. and if it be rather in the side of the bottom of the room (as i seem to remember it), it would be shut out of sight, or partially, by the side scenes. do you comprehend these stage managerial sagacities? that piece of additional room in so small a stage would be of immense service, if we could avail ourselves of it. if we can't, i have another means (i think) of discovering leech, saville, and coldstream at table. i am constantly turning over in my mind the capacities of the place, and hope by one means or other to make something more than the best of it. as to the fireplace, you will never be able to use that. the heat of the lamp will be very great, and ventilation will be the thing wanted. thirteen feet and a half of depth, diminished by stage fittings and furniture, is a small space. i think the doorway could be used in the last scene, with the castle steps and platform for the staircase running straight through it toward the hall. _nous verrons._ i will write again about my visit of inspection, probably on monday. will you let them know that messrs. nathan, of titchborne street, haymarket, will dress them, please, and that i will engage for their doing it thoroughly well; also that mr. wilson, theatrical hairdresser, strand, near st. clement's churchyard, will come down with wigs, etc., to "make up" everybody; that he has a list of the pieces from me, and that he will be glad to measure the heads and consult the tastes of all concerned, if they will give him the opportunity beforehand? i should like to see sir adonis leech and the hon. t. saville if i can. for they ought to be wonderfully made up, and to be as unlike themselves as possible, and to contrast well with each other and with me. i rather grudge _caro sposo_ coming into the company. i should like him so much to see the play. if we do it all well together it ought to be so very pleasant. i never saw a great mass of people so charmed with a little story as when we acted it at the glasgow theatre. but i have no other reason for faltering when i take him to my arms. i feel that he is the man for the part.[ ] i see him with a blue bag, a flaxen wig, and green spectacles. i know what it will be. i foresee how all that sessional experience will come out. i reconcile myself to it, in spite of the selfish consideration of wanting him elsewhere; and while i have a heavy sense of a light being snuffed out in the audience, perceive a new luminary shining on the stage! your brother[ ] would make a capital tiger, too! very short tight surtout, doeskins, bright top-boots, white cravat, bouquet in button-hole, close wig--very good, ve--ry good. it clearly must be so. the thing is done. i told you we were opening a tremendous correspondence when we first began to write on such a long subject. but do let me tell you, once and for all, that i am in the business heart and soul, and that you cannot trouble me respecting it, and that i wouldn't willingly or knowingly leave the minutest detail unprovided for. it cannot possibly be a success if the smallest peppercorn of arrangement be omitted. and a success it must be! i couldn't go into such a thing, or help to bring you poorly out of it, for any earthly consideration. talking of forgetting, isn't it odd? i doubt if i could forget words i had learned, so long as i wanted them. but the moment the necessity goes, they go. i know my place and everybody's place in this identical piece of "used up" perfectly, and could put every little object on its own square inches of room exactly where it ought to be. but i have no more recollection of my words now (i took the book up yesterday) than if i had only seen the play as one of the audience at a theatre. perhaps not so much. with cordial remembrances, ever, dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _december th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i am sorry to say that business ("household words" business) will keep me in town to-morrow. but on monday i propose coming down and returning the same day. the train for my money appears to be the half-past six a.m. (horrible initials!), and to that invention for promoting early rising i design to commit myself. i am shocked if i also made the mistake of confounding those two (and too) similar names.[ ] but i think mr. s-t-a-f-f-o-r-d had better do the marquis. i am glad to find that we agree, but we always do. i have closely overhauled the little theatre, and the carpenter and painter. the whole has been entirely repainted (i mean the proscenium and scenery) for this especial purpose, and is extremely pretty. i don't think, the scale considered, that anything better _could_ be done. it is very elegant. i have brought "the child" to this. for the hire of the theatre, fifteen pounds. the carriage to be extra. the child's fares and expenses (which will be very moderate) to be extra. the stage carpenter's wages to be extra--seven shillings a day. i don't think, when you see the things, that you will consider this too much. it is as good as the queen's little theatre at windsor, raised stage excepted. i have had an extraction made, which will enable us to use the door. i am at present breaking my man's heart, by teaching him how to imitate the sounds of the smashing of the windows and the breaking of the balcony in "used up." in the event of his death from grief, i have promised to do something for his mother. thinking it possible that you might not see the enclosed until next month, and hoping that it is seasonable for christmas, i send it. being, with cordial regards and all seasonable good wishes, ever, dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours. p.s.--this [blot] is a tear over the devotion of captain boyle, who (as i learned from the child of israel this morning) would not decide upon farmer wurzel's coat, without referring the question of buttons to managerial approval. [sidenote: mr. john poole.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday night, christmas eve, ._ my dear poole, on the sunday when i last saw you, i went straight to lord john's with the letter you read. he was out of town, and i left it with my card. on the following wednesday i received a note from him, saying that he did not bear in mind exactly what i had told him of you before, and asking me to tell it again. i immediately replied, of course, and gave him an exact description of you and your condition, and your way of life in paris and everything else; a perfect diorama in little, with you pervading it. to-day i got a letter from him, announcing that you have a pension of _a hundred a year_! of which i heartily wish you joy. he says: "i am happy to say that the queen has approved of a pension of one hundred pounds a year to mr. poole. "the queen, in her gracious answer, informs me that she meant to have mentioned mr. poole to me, and that she had wished to place him in the charter house, but found the society there was not such as he could associate with. "be so good as to inform mr. poole that directions are given for his pension, which will date from the end of june last." i have lost no time in answering this, but you must brace up your energies to write him a short note too, and another for the queen. if you are in paris, shall i ascertain what authority i shall need from you to receive the half-year, which i suppose will be shortly due? i can receive it as usual. with all good wishes and congratulations, seasonable and unseasonable, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _monday morning, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, as your letter is _decided_, the scaffolding shall be re-erected round charley's boots (it has been taken down, and the workmen had retired to their respective homes in various parts of england and wales) and his dressing proceeded with. i have been very much pleased with him in the matter, as he has never made the least demonstration of disappointment or mortification, and was perfectly contented to give in. (_here i break off to go to boxall._) (_here i return much exhausted._) your time shall be stated in the bills for both nights. i propose to rehearse on the day, on thursday and friday, and in the evening on saturday, that we may try our lights. therefore: {will come on tuesday, th january, as there must be a {responsible person to anathematise, and as the company nathan {seem so slow about their dresses, that i foresee the and {strong probability of nathan having a good deal to do stage carpenter {at rockingham without respect. wilson will come on saturday, th january. tucker will come on saturday, th january. i shall be delighted to see your brother, and so no more at present from yours ever, coldstream freelove doctor dickens. p.s.--as boxall (with his head very much on one side and his spectacles on) danced backward from the canvas incessantly with great nimbleness, and returned, and made little digs at it with his pencil, with a horrible grin on his countenance, i augur that he pleased himself this morning. "tag" added by mr. dickens to "animal magnetism," played at rockingham castle. animal magnetism.--tag. [after la fleur says to the marquis: "sir, return him the wand; and the ladies, i daresay, will fall in love with him again."] doctor. i'm cheated, robbed! i don't believe! i hate wand, marquis, doctor, ward, lisette, and fate! la fleur. not me? doctor. _you_ worse, you rascal, than the rest. la fleur. (_bowing_). to merit it, good sir, i've done my best. lisette. (_sharply_). and i. constance. i fear that i too have a claim upon your anger. lisette. anger, madam? shame! he's justly treated, as he might have known. and if the wand were a divining one it would have turn'd, within his very hands, point-blank to where your handsome husband stands. constance (_glancing at_ doctor). i would it were the wand of harlequin, to change his temper and his favour win. jeffrey (_peeping in_). in that case, mistress, you might be so kind as wave me back the eye of which i'm blind. marquis (_laughing and examining it_). 'tis nothing but a piece of senseless wood, and has no influence for harm or good. yet stay! it surely draws me towards those indulgent, pleasant, smiling, beaming rows! it surely charms me. all. and us too. marquis. to bend before their gen'rous efforts to commend; to cheer us on, through these few happy hours, and strew our mimic way with real flowers. [_all make obeisance._ stay yet again. among us all, i feel one subtle, all-pervading influence steal, stirring one wish within one heart and head, bright be the path our host and hostess tread! blest be their children, happy be their race, long may they live, this ancient hall to grace long bear of english virtues noble fruit-- green-hearted rockingham! strike deep thy root footnotes: [ ] the last illness of mrs. white's mother. [ ] dr. gottfried kinkel, a distinguished scholar and professor in the university of bonn, who was at that time undergoing very rigorous state imprisonment in prussia, for political reasons. dr. kinkel was afterwards well known as a teacher and lecturer on art in london, where he resided for many years. [ ] the part of the lawyer in "used up." it was _not_ played after all by mr. watson, but by mr. (now sir william) boxall, r.a., a very old and intimate friend of mr. and mrs. watson, and of charles dickens. [ ] this part, finally, was played by charles dickens, junior. [ ] mr. stafford and mr. stopford, who both acted in the plays at rockingham. . narrative. in february this year, charles dickens made a short bachelor excursion with mr. leech and the hon. spencer lyttelton to paris, from whence we give a letter to his wife. she was at this time in very bad health, and the little infant dora had a serious illness during the winter. the child rallied for the time, but mrs. dickens continued so ill that she was advised to try the air--and water--of malvern. and early in march, she and her sister were established in lodgings there, the children being left in london, and charles dickens dividing his time between devonshire terrace and malvern. he was busily occupied before this time in superintending the arrangements for mr. macready's last appearance on the stage at drury lane, and for a great dinner which was given to mr. macready after it on the st march, at which the chair was taken by sir edward bulwer lytton. with him charles dickens was then engaged in maturing a scheme, which had been projected at the time of the amateur play at knebworth, of a guild of literature and art, which was to found a provident fund for literary men and artists; and to start which, a series of dramatic performances by the amateur company was proposed. sir e. b. lytton wrote a comedy, "not so bad as we seem," for the purpose, to be played in london and the provinces; and the duke of devonshire turned one of the splendid rooms in devonshire house into a theatre, for the first occasion of its performance. it was played early in may before her majesty and the prince consort, and a large audience. later in the season, there were several representations of the comedy (with a farce, "mr. nightingale's diary," written by charles dickens for himself and mr. mark lemon) in the hanover square rooms. but in the interval between the macready banquet and the play at devonshire house, charles dickens underwent great family trouble and sorrow. his father, whose health had been declining for some time, became seriously ill, and charles dickens was summoned from malvern to attend upon him. mr. john dickens died on the st march. on the th april, charles dickens had gone from malvern to preside at the annual dinner of the general theatrical fund, and found his children all well at devonshire terrace. he was playing with his baby, dora, before he went to the dinner; soon after he left the house the child died suddenly in her nurse's arms. the sad news was communicated to the father after his duties at the dinner were over. the next day, mr. forster went to malvern to break the news to mrs. dickens, and she and her sister returned with him to london, and the malvern lodgings were given up. but mrs. dickens being still out of health, and london being more than usually full (this being the year of the great exhibition), charles dickens decided to let the town house again for a few months, and engaged the fort house, broadstairs, from the beginning of may until november. this, which was his longest sojourn at broadstairs, was also the last, as the following summer he changed his seaside resort, and never returned to that pretty little watering-place, although he always retained an affectionate interest in it. the lease of the devonshire terrace house was to expire this year. it was now too small for his family, so he could not renew it, although he left it with regret. from the beginning of the year, he had been in negotiation for a house in tavistock square, in which his friend mr. frank stone had lived for some years. many letters which follow are on the subject of this house and the improvements charles dickens made in it. his brother-in-law, henry austin--himself an architect--superintended the "works" at tavistock house, as he did afterwards those at gad's hill--and there are many characteristic letters to mr. austin while these works were in progress. in the autumn, as a letter written in august to mr. stone will show, an exchange of houses was made--mr. stone removing with his family to devonshire terrace until his own new house was ready--while the alterations in tavistock house went on, and charles dickens removed into it from broadstairs, in november. his eldest son was now an eton boy. he had been one of the party and had played a small part in the play at rockingham castle, in the christmas holidays, and his father's letters to mrs. watson at the beginning of this year have reference to this play. this year he wrote and published the "haunted man," which he had found himself unable to finish for the previous christmas. it was the last of the christmas _books_. he abandoned them in favour of a christmas number of "household words," which he continued annually for many years in "household words" and "all the year round," and in which he had the collaboration of other writers. the "haunted man" was dramatised and produced at the adelphi theatre, under the management of mr. benjamin webster. charles dickens read the book himself, at tavistock house, to a party of actors and actresses. at the end of the year he wrote the first number of "bleak house," although it was not published until march of the following year. with the close attention and the hard work he gave, from the time of its starting, to his weekly periodical, he found it to be most desirable, now, in beginning a new monthly serial, that he should be ready with some numbers in advance before the appearance of the first number. a provincial tour for the "guild" took place at the end of the year. a letter to his wife, from clifton, in november, gives a notion of the general success and enthusiasm with which the plays were attended. the "new hardman," to whom he alludes as taking that part in sir e. b. lytton's comedy in the place of mr. forster, was mr. john tenniel, who was a new addition, and a very valuable and pleasant one, to the company. mr. topham, the delightful water-colour painter, mr. dudley costello, and mr. wilkie collins were also new recruits to the company of "splendid strollers" about this time. a letter to mr. wills, asking him to take a part in the comedy, is given here. he never did _act_ with the company, but he complied with charles dickens's desire that he should be "in the scheme" by giving it all sorts of assistance, and almost invariably being one of the party in the provincial tours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] devonshire terrace, _january th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, kate will have told you, i daresay, that my despondency on coming to town was relieved by a talk with lady john russell, of which you were the subject, and in which she spoke of you with an earnestness of old affection and regard that did me good. i date my recovery (which has been slow) from that hour. i am still feeble, and liable to sudden outbursts of causeless rage and demoniacal gloom, but i shall be better presently. what a thing it is, that we can't be always innocently merry and happy with those we like best without looking out at the back windows of life! well, one day perhaps--after a long night--the blinds on that side of the house will be down for ever, and nothing left but the bright prospect in front. concerning supper-toast (of which i feel bound to make some mention), you did, as you always do, right, and exactly what was most agreeable to me. my love to your excellent husband (i wonder whether he and the dining-room have got to rights yet!), and to the jolly little boys and the calm little girl. somehow, i shall always think of lord spencer as eternally walking up and down the platform at rugby, in a high chill wind, with no apparent hope of a train--as i left him; and somehow i always think of rockingham, after coming away, as if i belonged to it and had left a bit of my heart behind, which it is so very odd to find wanting twenty times a day. ever, dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours, and his. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday night, jan. th, ._ my dear, dear mrs. watson, i presume you mean mr. stafford and mr. stopford to pay wilson (as i have instructed him) a guinea each? am i right? in that just case i still owe you a guinea for _my_ part. i was going to send you a post-office order for that amount, when a faint sense of absurdity mantled my ingenuous visage with a blush, and i thought it better to owe you the money until we met. i hope it may be soon! i believe i may lay claim to the mysterious inkstand, also to a volume lettered on the back, "shipwrecks and disasters at sea, ii.," which i left when i came down at christmas. will you take care of them as hostages until we effect an exchange? charley went back in great spirits, threatening to write to george. it was a very wet night, and john took him to the railway. he said, on his return: "mas'r charles went off very gay, sir. he found some young gen'lemen as was his friends in the train, sir." "come," said i, "i am glad of that. how many were there? two or three?" "oh dear, sir, there was a matter of forty, sir! all with their heads out o' the coach-windows, sir, a-hallooing 'dickens!' all over the station!" her ladyship and the ward of the fiz-zish-un send their best loves, in which i heartily join. if you and your dear husband come to town before we bring out bulwer's comedy, i think we must have a snug reading of it. ever, dear mrs. watson, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] devonshire terrace, _friday, jan. st, ._ my dear lemon, we are deeply sorry to receive the mournful intelligence of your calamity. but we know you will both have found comfort in that blessed belief, from which the sacred figure with the child upon his knee is, in all stages of our lives, inseparable, for of such is the kingdom of god! we join in affectionate loves to you and your dear wife. she well deserves your praise, i am sure. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _monday, feb. th, ._ my dear wills, there is a small part in bulwer's comedy, but very good what there is--not much--my servant, who opens the play, which i should be very glad if you would like to do. pray understand that there is no end of men who would do it, and that if you have the least objection to the trouble, i don't make this the expression of a wish even. otherwise, i would like you to be in the scheme, which is a very great and important one, and which cannot have too many men who are steadily--not flightily, like some of our friends--in earnest, and who are not to be lightly discouraged. if you do the part, i would like to have a talk with you about the secretarial duties. they must be performed by someone i clearly see, and will require good business direction. i should like to put some young fellow, to whom such work and its remuneration would be an object, under your eye, if we could find one entire and perfect chrysolite anywhere. let me know whether i am to rate you on the ship's books or not. if yes, consider yourself "called" to the reading (by macready) at forster's rooms, on wednesday, the th, at three. and in the meantime you shall have a proof of the plan. ever yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] hÃ�tel wagram, paris, _thursday, feb. th, ._ my dearest kate, i received your letter this morning (on returning from an expedition to a market thirteen miles away, which involved the necessity of getting up at five), and am delighted to have such good accounts of all at home. we had d'orsay to dinner yesterday, and i am hurried to dress now, in order to pay a promised visit to his _atelier_. he was very happy with us, and is much improved both in spirits and looks. lord and lady castlereagh live downstairs here, and we went to them in the evening, and afterwards brought him upstairs to smoke. to-night we are going to see lemaître in the renowned "belphégor" piece. to-morrow at noon we leave paris for calais (the boulogne boat does not serve our turn), and unless the weather for crossing should be absurd, i shall be at home, please god, early on the evening of saturday. it continues to be delightful weather here--gusty, but very clear and fine. leech and i had a charming country walk before breakfast this morning at poissy and enjoyed it very much. the rime was on the grass and trees, and the country most delicious. spencer lyttelton is a capital companion on a trip, and a great addition to the party. we have got on famously and been very facetious. with best love to georgina and the darlings, ever most affectionately. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] devonshire terrace, _friday night, late, feb. st, ._ my dear miss boyle, i have devoted a couple of hours this evening to going very carefully over your paper (which i had read before) and to endeavouring to bring it closer, and to lighten it, and to give it that sort of compactness which a habit of composition, and of disciplining one's thoughts like a regiment, and of studying the art of putting each soldier into his right place, may have gradually taught me to think necessary. i hope, when you see it in print, you will not be alarmed by my use of the pruning-knife. i have tried to exercise it with the utmost delicacy and discretion, and to suggest to you, especially towards the end, how this sort of writing (regard being had to the size of the journal in which it appears) requires to be compressed, and is made pleasanter by compression. this all reads very solemnly, but only because i want you to read it (i mean the article) with as loving an eye as i have truly tried to touch it with a loving and gentle hand. i propose to call it "my mahogany friend." the other name is too long, and i think not attractive. until i go to the office to-morrow and see what is actually in hand, i am not certain of the number in which it will appear, but georgy shall write on monday and tell you. we are always a fortnight in advance of the public or the mechanical work could not be done. i think there are many things in it that are _very pretty_. the katie part is particularly well done. if i don't say more, it is because i have a heavy sense, in all cases, of the responsibility of encouraging anyone to enter on that thorny track, where the prizes are so few and the blanks so many; where---- but i won't write you a sermon. with the fire going out, and the first shadows of a new story hovering in a ghostly way about me (as they usually begin to do, when i have finished an old one), i am in danger of doing the heavy business, and becoming a heavy guardian, or something of that sort, instead of the light and airy joe. so good-night, and believe that you may always trust me, and never find a grim expression (towards you) in any that i wear. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. david roberts, r.a.] _february st, ._ oh my dear roberts, if you knew the trouble we have had and the money we pay for drury lane for one night for the benefit, you would never dream of it for the dinner. _there isn't possibility of getting a theatre._ i will do all i can for your charming little daughter, and hope to squeeze in half-a-dozen ladies at the last; but we must not breathe the idea or we shall not dare to execute it, there will be such an outcry. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] devonshire terrace, _february th, ._ my dear macready, forster told me to-day that you wish tennyson's sonnet to be read after your health is given on saturday. i am perfectly certain that it would not do at that time. i am quite convinced that the audience would not receive it, under these exciting circumstances, as it ought to be received. if i had to read it, i would on no account undertake to do so at that period, in a great room crowded with a dense company. i have an instinctive assurance that it would fail. being with bulwer this morning, i communicated your wish to him, and he immediately felt as i do. i could enter into many reasons which induce me to form this opinion. but i believe that you have that confidence in me that i may spare you the statement of them. i want to know one thing from you. as i shall be obliged to be at the london tavern in the afternoon of to-morrow, friday (i write, observe, on thursday night), i shall be much helped in the arrangements if you will send me your answer by a messenger (addressed here) on the receipt of this. which would you prefer--that "auld lang syne" should be sung after your health is given and before you return thanks, or after you have spoken? i cannot forbear a word about last night. i think i have told you sometimes, my much-loved friend, how, when i was a mere boy, i was one of your faithful and devoted adherents in the pit; i believe as true a member of that true host of followers as it has ever boasted. as i improved myself and was improved by favouring circumstances in mind and fortune, i only became the more earnest (if it were possible) in my study of you. no light portion of my life arose before me when the quiet vision to which i am beholden, in i don't know how great a decree, or for how much--who does?--faded so nobly from my bodily eyes last night. and if i were to try to tell you what i felt--of regret for its being past for ever, and of joy in the thought that you could have taken your leave of _me_ but in god's own time--i should only blot this paper with some drops that would certainly not be of ink, and give very faint expression to very strong emotions. what is all this in writing! it is only some sort of relief to my full heart, and shows very little of it to you; but that's something, so i let it go. ever, my dearest macready, your most affectionate friend. p.s.--my very flourish departs from me for the moment. [sidenote: mr. david roberts, r.a.] knutsford lodge, great malvern, _march th, ._ my dear roberts, mrs. dickens has been unwell, and i am here with her. i want you to give a quarter of an hour to the perusal of the enclosed prospectus; to consider the immense value of the design, if it be successful, to artists young and old; and then to bestow your favourable consideration on the assistance i am going to ask of you for the sake and in the name of the cause. for the representation of the new comedy bulwer has written for us, to start this scheme, i am having an ingenious theatre made by webster's people, for erection on certain nights in the hanover square rooms. but it will first be put up in the duke of devonshire's house, where the first representation will take place before a brilliant company, including (i believe) the queen. now, will you paint us a scene--the scene of which i enclose bulwer's description from the prompter's book? it will be a cloth with a set-piece. it should be sent to your studio or put up in a theatre painting-room, as you would prefer. i have asked stanny to do another scene, edwin landseer, and louis haghe. the devonshire house performance will probably be on monday, the th of april. i should want to have the scenery complete by the th, as it would require to be elaborately worked and rehearsed. _you_ could do it in no time after sending in your pictures, and will you? what the value of such aid would be i need not say. i say no more of the reasons that induce me to ask it, because if they are not in the prospectus they are nowhere. on monday and tuesday nights i shall be in town for rehearsal, but until then i shall be here. will you let me have a line from you in reply? my dear roberts, ever faithfully yours. _description of the scene proposed:_ streets of london in the time of george i. in perspective, an alley inscribed deadman's lane; a large, old-fashioned, gloomy, mysterious house in the corner, marked no. . (_this no. , deadman's lane, has been constantly referred to in the play as the abode of a mysterious female figure, who enters masked, and passes into this house on the scene being disclosed._) it is night, and there are moonlight mediums. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] h. w. office, _monday, march th, ._ my dearest kate, i reserve all news of the play until i come down. the queen appoints the th of april. there is no end of trouble. my father slept well last night, and is as well this morning (they send word) as anyone in such a state, so cut and slashed, can be. i have been waiting at home for bulwer all the morning (it is now two), and am now waiting for lemon before i go up there. i will not close this note until i have been. it is raining here incessantly. the streets are in a most miserable state. a van, containing the goods of some unfortunate family moving, has broken down close outside, and the whole scene is a picture of dreariness. the children are quite well and very happy. i had dora down this morning, who was quite charmed to see me. that miss ketteridge appointed two to-day for seeing the house, and probably she is at this moment disparaging it. my father is very weak and low, but not worse, i hope, than might be expected. i am going home to dine with the children. by working here late to-night (coming back after dinner) i can finish what i have to do for the play. therefore i hope to be with you to-morrow, in good time for dinner. ever affectionately. p.s.--love to georgy. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] devonshire terrace, _thursday morning, april rd, ._ my dear wills, i took my threatened walk last night, but it yielded little but generalities. however, i thought of something for _to-night_, that i think will make a splendid paper. i have an idea that it might be connected with the gas paper (making gas a great agent in an effective police), and made one of the articles. this is it: "a night in a station-house." if you would go down to our friend mr. yardley, at scotland yard, and get a letter or order to the acting chief authority at that station-house in bow street, to enable us to hear the charges, observe the internal economy of the station-house all night, go round to the cells with the visiting policeman, etc., i would stay there, say from twelve to-night to four or five in the morning. we might have a "night-cap," a fire, and some tea at the office hard by. if you could conveniently borrow an hour or two from the night we could both go. if not, i would go alone. it would make a wonderful good paper at a most appropriate time, when the back slums of london are going to be invaded by all sorts of strangers. you needn't exactly say that _i_ was going _in propriâ_ (unless it were necessary), and, of course, you wouldn't say that i propose to-night, because i am so worn by the sad arrangements in which i am engaged, and by what led to them, that i cannot take my natural rest. but to-morrow night we go to the gas-works. i might not be so disposed for this station-house observation as i shall be to-night for a long time, and i see a most singular and admirable chance for us in the descriptive way, not to be lost. therefore, if you will arrange the thing before i come down at four this afternoon, any of the scotland yard people will do it, i should think; if our friend by any accident should not be there, i will go into it. if they should recommend any other station-house as better for the purpose, or would think it better for us to go to more than one under the guidance of some trustworthy man, of course we will pay any man and do as they recommend. but i think one topping station-house would be best. faithfully ever. p.s.--i write from my bed. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] _saturday, may th, ._ my dear macready, we are getting in a good heap of money for the guild. the comedy has been very much improved, in many respects, since you read it. the scene to which you refer is certainly one of the most telling in the play. and there _is_ a farce to be produced on tuesday next, wherein a distinguished amateur will sustain a variety of assumption-parts, and in particular, samuel weller and mrs. gamp, of which i say no more. i am pining for broadstairs, where the children are at present. i lurk from the sun, during the best part of the day, in a villainous compound of darkness, canvas, sawdust, general dust, stale gas (involving a vague smell of pepper), and disenchanted properties. but i hope to get down on wednesday or thursday. ah! you country gentlemen, who live at home at ease, how little do you think of us among the london fleas! but they tell me you are coming in for dorsetshire. you must be very careful, when you come to town to attend to your parliamentary duties, never to ask your way of people in the streets. they will misdirect you for what the vulgar call "a lark," meaning, in this connection, a jest at your expense. always go into some respectable shop or apply to a policeman. you will know him by his being dressed in blue, with very dull silver buttons, and by the top of his hat being made of sticking-plaster. you may perhaps see in some odd place an intelligent-looking man, with a curious little wooden table before him and three thimbles on it. he will want you to bet, but don't do it. he really desires to cheat you. and don't buy at auctions where the best plated goods are being knocked down for next to nothing. these, too, are delusions. if you wish to go to the play to see real good acting (though a little more subdued than perfect tragedy should be), i would recommend you to see ---- at the theatre royal, drury lane. anybody will show it to you. it is near the strand, and you may know it by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. cab fares are eightpence a mile. a mile london measure is half a dorsetshire mile, recollect. porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is fourpence. the zoological gardens are in the regent's park, and the price of admission is one shilling. of the streets, i would recommend you to see regent street and the quadrant, bond street, piccadilly, oxford street, and cheapside. i think these will please you after a time, though the tumult and bustle will at first bewilder you. if i can serve you in any way, pray command me. and with my best regards to your happy family, so remote from this babel, believe me, my dear friend, ever affectionately yours. p.s.--i forgot to mention just now that the black equestrian figure you will see at charing cross, as you go down to the house, is a statue of _king charles the first_. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] broadstairs, _july th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, we shall be delighted to see you, if you will come down on saturday. mr. lemon may perhaps be here, with his wife, but no one else. and we can give you a bed that may be surpassed, with a welcome that certainly cannot be. the general character of broadstairs as to size and accommodation was happily expressed by miss eden, when she wrote to the duke of devonshire (as he told me), saying how grateful she felt to a certain sailor, who asked leave to see her garden, for not plucking it bodily up, and sticking it in his button-hole. as we think of putting mignonette-boxes outside the windows, for the younger children to sleep in by-and-by, i am afraid we should give your servant the cramp if we hardily undertook to lodge him. but in case you should decide to bring one, he is easily disposable hard by. don't come by the boat. it is rather tedious, and both departs and arrives at inconvenient hours. there is a railway train from the dover terminus to ramsgate, at half-past twelve in the day, which will bring you in three hours. another at half-past four in the afternoon. if you will tell me by which you come (i hope the former), i will await you at the terminus with my little brougham. you will have for a night-light in the room we shall give you, the north foreland lighthouse. that and the sea and air are our only lions. it is a very rough little place, but a very pleasant one, and you will make it pleasanter than ever to me. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] broadstairs, kent, _july th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i am so desperately indignant with you for writing me that short apology for a note, and pretending to suppose that under any circumstances i could fail to read with interest anything _you_ wrote to me, that i have more than half a mind to inflict a regular letter upon you. if i were not the gentlest of men i should do it! poor dear haldimand, i have thought of him so often. that kind of decay is so inexpressibly affecting and piteous to me, that i have no words to express my compassion and sorrow. when i was at abbotsford, i saw in a vile glass case the last clothes scott wore. among them an old white hat, which seemed to be tumbled and bent and broken by the uneasy, purposeless wandering, hither and thither, of his heavy head. it so embodied lockhart's pathetic description of him when he tried to write, and laid down his pen and cried, that it associated itself in my mind with broken powers and mental weakness from that hour. i fancy haldimand in such another, going listlessly about that beautiful place, and remembering the happy hours we have passed with him, and his goodness and truth. i think what a dream we live in, until it seems for the moment the saddest dream that ever was dreamed. pray tell us if you hear more of him. we really loved him. to go to the opposite side of life, let me tell you that a week or so ago i took charley and three of his schoolfellows down the river gipsying. i secured the services of charley's godfather (an old friend of mine, and a noble fellow with boys), and went down to slough, accompanied by two immense hampers from fortnum and mason, on (i believe) the wettest morning ever seen out of the tropics. it cleared before we got to slough; but the boys, who had got up at four (we being due at eleven), had horrible misgivings that we might not come, in consequence of which we saw them looking into the carriages before us, all face. they seemed to have no bodies whatever, but to be all face; their countenances lengthened to that surprising extent. when they saw us, the faces shut up as if they were upon strong springs, and their waistcoats developed themselves in the usual places. when the first hamper came out of the luggage-van, i was conscious of their dancing behind the guard; when the second came out with bottles in it, they all stood wildly on one leg. we then got a couple of flys to drive to the boat-house. i put them in the first, but they couldn't sit still a moment, and were perpetually flying up and down like the toy figures in the sham snuff-boxes. in this order we went on to "tom brown's, the tailor's," where they all dressed in aquatic costume, and then to the boat-house, where they all cried in shrill chorus for "mahogany"--a gentleman, so called by reason of his sunburnt complexion, a waterman by profession. (he was likewise called during the day "hog" and "hogany," and seemed to be unconscious of any proper name whatsoever.) we embarked, the sun shining now, in a galley with a striped awning, which i had ordered for the purpose, and all rowing hard, went down the river. we dined in a field; what i suffered for fear those boys should get drunk, the struggles i underwent in a contest of feeling between hospitality and prudence, must ever remain untold. i feel, even now, old with the anxiety of that tremendous hour. they were very good, however. the speech of one became thick, and his eyes too like lobsters' to be comfortable, but only temporarily. he recovered, and i suppose outlived the salad he took. i have heard nothing to the contrary, and i imagine i should have been implicated on the inquest if there had been one. we had tea and rashers of bacon at a public-house, and came home, the last five or six miles in a prodigious thunderstorm. this was the great success of the day, which they certainly enjoyed more than anything else. the dinner had been great, and mahogany had informed them, after a bottle of light champagne, that he never would come up the river "with ginger company" any more. but the getting so completely wet through was the culminating part of the entertainment. you never in your life saw such objects as they were; and their perfect unconsciousness that it was at all advisable to go home and change, or that there was anything to prevent their standing at the station two mortal hours to see me off, was wonderful. as to getting them to their dames with any sort of sense that they were damp, i abandoned the idea. i thought it a success when they went down the street as civilly as if they were just up and newly dressed, though they really looked as if you could have rubbed them to rags with a touch, like saturated curl-paper. i am sorry you have not been able to see our play, which i suppose you won't now, for i take it you are not going on monday, the st, our last night in town? it is worth seeing, not for the getting up (which modesty forbids me to approve), but for the little bijou it is, in the scenery, dresses, and appointments. they are such as never can be got together again, because such men as stanfield, roberts, grieve, haghe, egg, and others, never can be again combined in such a work. everything has been done at its best from all sorts of authorities, and it is really very beautiful to look at. i find i am "used up" by the exhibition. i don't say "there is nothing in it"--there's too much. i have only been twice; so many things bewildered me. i have a natural horror of sights, and the fusion of so many sights in one has not decreased it. i am not sure that i have seen anything but the fountain and perhaps the amazon. it is a dreadful thing to be obliged to be false, but when anyone says, "have you seen ----?" i say, "yes," because if i don't, i know he'll explain it, and i can't bear that. ---- took all the school one day. the school was composed of a hundred "infants," who got among the horses' legs in crossing to the main entrance from the kensington gate, and came reeling out from between the wheels of coaches undisturbed in mind. they were clinging to horses, i am told, all over the park. when they were collected and added up by the frantic monitors, they were all right. they were then regaled with cake, etc., and went tottering and staring all over the place; the greater part wetting their forefingers and drawing a wavy pattern on every accessible object. one infant strayed. he was not missed. ninety and nine were taken home, supposed to be the whole collection, but this particular infant went to hammersmith. he was found by the police at night, going round and round the turnpike, which he still supposed to be a part of the exhibition. he had the same opinion of the police, also of hammersmith workhouse, where he passed the night. when his mother came for him in the morning, he asked when it would be over? it was a great exhibition, he said, but he thought it long. as i begin to have a foreboding that you will think the same of this act of vengeance of mine, this present letter, i shall make an end of it, with my heartiest and most loving remembrances to watson. i should have liked him of all things to have been in the eton expedition, tell him, and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, i have forgotten that) sung in the thunderstorm, solos by charley, chorus by the friends, describing the career of a booby who was plucked at college, every verse ending: i don't care a fig what the people may think, but what will the governor say! which was shouted with a deferential jollity towards myself, as a governor who had that day done a creditable action, and proved himself worthy of all confidence. with love to the boys and girls, ever, dear mrs. watson, most sincerely yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] "household words," _sunday, july th, ._ my dear stone, i have been considering the great house question since you kindly called yesterday evening, and come to the conclusion that i had better not let it go. i am convinced it is the prudent thing for me to do, and that i am very unlikely to find the same comforts for the rising generation elsewhere, for the same money. therefore, as robins no doubt understands that you would come to me yesterday--passing his life as he does amidst every possible phase of such negotiations--i think it hardly worth while to wait for the receipt of his coming letter. if you will take the trouble to call on him in the morning, and offer the £ , , i shall be very much obliged to you. if you will receive from me full power to conclude the purchase (subject of course to my solicitor's approval of the lease), pray do. i give you _carte blanche_ to £ , , but i think the £ , ought to win the day. i don't make any apologies for thrusting this honour upon you, knowing what a thorough-going old pump you are. lemon and his wife are coming here, after the rehearsal, to a gipsy sort of cold dinner. time, half-past three. viands, pickled salmon and cold pigeon-pie. occupation afterwards, lying on the carpet as a preparation for histrionic strength. will you come with us from the hanover square rooms? ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] broadstairs, kent, _sunday, july th, ._ my dear knight, a most excellent shadow![ ] i have sent it up to the printer, and wills is to send you a proof. will you look carefully at all the earlier part, where the use of the past tense instead of the present a little hurts the picturesque effect? i understand each phase of the thing to be _always a thing present before the mind's eye_--a shadow passing before it. whatever is done, must be _doing_. is it not so? for example, if i did the shadow of robinson crusoe, i should not say he _was_ a boy at hull, when his father lectured him about going to sea, and so forth; but he _is_ a boy at hull. there he is, in that particular shadow, eternally a boy at hull; his life to me is a series of shadows, but there is no "was" in the case. if i choose to go to his manhood, i can. these shadows don't change as realities do. no phase of his existence passes away, if i choose to bring it to this unsubstantial and delightful life, the only death of which, to me, is _my_ death, and thus he is immortal to unnumbered thousands. if i am right, will you look at the proof through the first third or half of the papers, and see whether the factor comes before us in that way? if not, it is merely the alteration of the verb here and there that is requisite. you say you are coming down to look for a place next week. now, jerrold says he is coming on thursday, by the cheap express at half-past twelve, to return with me for the play early on monday morning. can't you make that holiday too? i have promised him our only spare bed, but we'll find you a bed hard by, and shall be delighted "to eat and drink you," as an american once wrote to me. we will make expeditions to herne bay, canterbury, where not? and drink deep draughts of fresh air. come! they are beginning to cut the corn. you will never see the country so pretty. if you stay in town these days, you'll do nothing. i feel convinced you'll not buy the "memoirs of a man of quality." say you'll come! ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] broadstairs, kent, _saturday, august rd, ._ my dear stone, a "dim vision" occurs to me, arising out of your note; also presents itself to the brains of my other half. supposing you should find, on looking onward, a possibility of your being houseless at michaelmas, what do you say to using devonshire terrace as a temporary encampment? it will not be in its usual order, but we would take care that there should be as much useful furniture of all sorts there, as to render it unnecessary for you to move a stick. if you should think this a convenience, then i should propose to you to pile your furniture in the middle of the rooms at tavistock house, and go out to devonshire terrace two or three weeks _before_ michaelmas, to enable my workmen to commence their operations. this might be to our mutual convenience, and therefore i suggest it. certainly the sooner i can begin on tavistock house the better. and possibly your going into devonshire terrace might relieve you from a difficulty that would otherwise be perplexing. i make this suggestion (i need not say to _you_) solely on the chance of its being useful to both of us. if it were merely convenient to me, you know i shouldn't dream of it. such an arrangement, while it would cost you nothing, would perhaps enable you to get your new house into order comfortably, and do exactly the same thing for me. ever affectionately. p.s.--i anticipated your suggestion some weeks ago, when i found i couldn't build a stable. i said i ought to have permission to take the piece of ground into my garden, which was conceded. loaden writes me this morning that he thinks he can get permission to build a stable one storey high, without a chimney. i reply that on the whole i would rather enlarge the garden than build a stable with those restrictions. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, _sunday, september th, ._ my dear henry, i am in that state of mind which you may (once) have seen described in the newspapers as "bordering on distraction;" the house given up to me, the fine weather going on (soon to break, i daresay), the painting season oozing away, my new book waiting to be born, and no workmen on the premises, along of my not hearing from you!! i have torn all my hair off, and constantly beat my unoffending family. wild notions have occurred to me of sending in my own plumber to do the drains. then i remember that you have probably written to prepare _your_ man, and restrain my audacious hand. then stone presents himself, with a most exasperatingly mysterious visage, and says that a rat has appeared in the kitchen, and it's his opinion (stone's, not the rat's) that the drains want "compo-ing;" for the use of which explicit language i could fell him without remorse. in my horrible desire to "compo" everything, the very postman becomes my enemy because he brings no letter from you; and, in short, i don't see what's to become of me unless i hear from you to-morrow, which i have not the least expectation of doing. going over the house again, i have materially altered the plans--abandoned conservatory and front balcony--decided to make stone's painting-room the drawing-room (it is nearly six inches higher than the room below), to carry the entrance passage right through the house to a back door leading to the garden, and to reduce the once intended drawing-room--now school-room--to a manageable size, making a door of communication between the new drawing-room and the study. curtains and carpets, on a scale of awful splendour and magnitude, are already in preparation, and still--still-- no workmen on the premises. to pursue this theme is madness. where are you? when are you coming home? where is the man who is to do the work? does he know that an army of artificers must be turned in at once, and the whole thing finished out of hand? o rescue me from my present condition. come up to the scratch, i entreat and implore you! i send this to lætitia to forward, being, as you well know why, completely floored by n. w., i _sleep_. i hope you may be able to read this. my state of mind does not admit of coherence. ever affectionately. p.s.--no workmen on the premises! ha! ha! ha! (i am laughing demoniacally.) [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, _sunday, september st, ._ my dear henry, it is quite clear we could do nothing else with the drains than what you have done. will it be at all a heavy item in the estimate? if there be the _least_ chance of a necessity for the pillar, let us have it. let us dance in peace, whatever we do, and only go into the kitchen by the staircase. have they cut the door between the drawing-room and the study yet? the foreman will let shoolbred know when the feat is accomplished. o! and did you tell him of another brass ventilator in the dining-room, opening into the dining-room flue? i don't think i shall come to town until you want to show the progress, whenever that may be. i shall look forward to another dinner, and i think we must encourage the oriental, for the goodness of its wine. i am getting a complete set of a certain distinguished author's works prepared for a certain distinguished architect, which i hope he will accept, as a slight, though very inadequate, etc. etc.; affectionate, etc.; so heartily and kindly taking so much interest, etc. etc. love to lætitia. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, kent, _october th, ._ my dear henry, o! o! o! d---- the pantechnicon. o! i will be at tavistock house at twelve on saturday, and then will wait for you until i see you. if we return together--as i hope we shall--our express will start at half-past four, and we ought to dine (somewhere about temple bar) at three. the infamous ---- says the stoves shall be fixed to-morrow. o! if this were to last long; the distraction of the new book, the whirling of the story through one's mind, escorted by workmen, the imbecility, the wild necessity of beginning to write, the not being able to do so, the, o! i should go---- o! ever affectionately. p.s.--none. i have torn it off. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] broadstairs, kent, _october th, ._ on the death of her mother. my dear miss boyle, your remembrance at such a time--not thrown away upon me, trust me--is a sufficient assurance that you know how truly i feel towards you, and with what an earnest sympathy i must think of you now. god be with you! there is indeed nothing terrible in such a death, nothing that we would undo, nothing that we may remember otherwise than with deeply thankful, though with softened hearts. kate sends you her affectionate love. i enclose a note from georgina. pray give my kindest remembrances to your brother cavendish, and believe me now and ever, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. eeles.] "household words" office, _wednesday evening, oct. nd, ._ dear mr. eeles, i send you the list i have made for the book-backs. i should like the "history of a short chancery suit" to come at the bottom of one recess, and the "catalogue of statues of the duke of wellington" at the bottom of the other. if you should want more titles, and will let me know how many, i will send them to you. faithfully yours. list of imitation book-backs. _tavistock house_, . five minutes in china. vols. forty winks at the pyramids. vols. abernethy on the constitution. vols. mr. green's overland mail. vols. captain cook's life of savage. vols. a carpenter's bench of bishops. vols. toot's universal letter-writer. vols. orson's art of etiquette. downeaster's complete calculator. history of the middling ages. vols. jonah's account of the whale. captain parry's virtues of cold tar. kant's ancient humbugs. vols. bowwowdom. a poem. the quarrelly review. vols. the gunpowder magazine. vols. steele. by the author of "ion." the art of cutting the teeth. matthew's nursery songs. vols. paxton's bloomers. vols. on the use of mercury by the ancient poets. drowsy's recollections of nothing. vols. heavyside's conversations with nobody. vols. commonplace book of the oldest inhabitant. vols. growler's gruffiology, with appendix. vols. the books of moses and sons. vols. burke (of edinburgh) on the sublime and beautiful. vols. teazer's commentaries. king henry the eighth's evidences of christianity. vols. miss biffin on deportment. morrison's pills progress. vols. lady godiva on the horse. munchausen's modern miracles. vols. richardson's show of dramatic literature. vols. hansard's guide to refreshing sleep. as many volumes as possible. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] office of "household words," _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dear henry, on the day of our departure, i thought we were going--backward--at a most triumphant pace; but yesterday we rather recovered. the painters still mislaid their brushes every five minutes, and chiefly whistled in the intervals; and the carpenters (especially the pantechnicon) continued to look sideways with one eye down pieces of wood, as if they were absorbed in the contemplation of the perspective of the thames tunnel, and had entirely relinquished the vanities of this transitory world; but still there was an improvement, and it is confirmed to-day. white lime is to be seen in kitchens, the bath-room is gradually resolving itself from an abstract idea into a fact--youthful, extremely youthful, but a fact. the drawing-room encourages no hope whatever, nor the study. staircase painted. irish labourers howling in the school-room, but i don't know why. i see nothing. gardener vigorously lopping the trees, and really letting in the light and air. foreman sweet-tempered but uneasy. inimitable hovering gloomily through the premises all day, with an idea that a little more work is done when he flits, bat-like, through the rooms, than when there is no one looking on. catherine all over paint. mister mccann, encountering inimitable in doorways, fades obsequiously into areas, and there encounters him again, and swoons with confusion. several reams of blank paper constantly spread on the drawing-room walls, and sliced off again, which looks like insanity. two men still clinking at the new stair-rails. i think they must be learning a tune; i cannot make out any other object in their proceedings. since writing the above, i have been up there again, and found the young paper-hanger putting on his slippers, and looking hard at the walls of the servants' room at the top of the house, as if he meant to paper it one of these days. may heaven prosper his intentions! when do you come back? i hope soon. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] clifton, _november th, ._ my dearest kate, i have just received your second letter, and am quite delighted to find that all is going on so vigorously, and that you are in such a methodical, business-like, and energetic state. i shall come home by the express on saturday morning, and shall hope to be at home between eleven and twelve. we had a noble night last night. the room (which is the largest but one in england) was crammed in every part. the effect of from thirteen to fourteen hundred people, all well dressed, and all seated in one unbroken chamber, except that the floor rose high towards the end of the hall, was most splendid, and we never played to a better audience. the enthusiasm was prodigious; the place delightful for speaking in; no end of gas; another hall for a dressing-room; an immense stage; and every possible convenience. we were all thoroughly pleased, i think, with the whole thing, and it was a very great and striking success. to-morrow-night, having the new hardman, i am going to try the play with all kinds of cuts, taking out, among other things, some half-dozen printed pages of "wills's coffee house." we are very pleasant and cheerful. they are all going to matthew davenport hill's to lunch this morning, and to see some woods about six or seven miles off. i prefer being quiet, and shall go out at my leisure and call on elliot. we are very well lodged and boarded, and, living high up on the downs, are quite out of the filth of bristol. i saw old landor at bath, who has bronchitis. when he was last in town, "kenyon drove him about, by god, half the morning, under a most damnable pretence of taking him to where walter was at school, and they never found the confounded house!" he had in his pocket on that occasion a souvenir for walter in the form of a union shirt-pin, which is now in my possession, and shall be duly brought home. i am tired enough, and shall be glad when to-morrow night is over. we expect a very good house. forster came up to town after the performance last night, and promised to report to you that all was well. jerrold is in extraordinary force. i don't think i ever knew him so humorous. and this is all my news, which is quite enough. i am continually thinking of the house in the midst of all the bustle, but i trust it with such confidence to you that i am quite at my ease about it. with best love to georgy and the girls, ever, my dearest kate, most affectionately yours. p.s.--i forgot to say that topham has suddenly come out as a juggler, and swallows candles, and does wonderful things with the poker very well indeed, but with a bashfulness and embarrassment extraordinarily ludicrous. [sidenote: mr. eeles.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _nov. th, ._ dear mr. eeles, i must thank you for the admirable manner in which you have done the book-backs in my room. i feel personally obliged to you, i assure you, for the interest you have taken in my whim, and the promptitude with which you have completely carried it out. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _thursday afternoon, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i write in great haste to tell you that mr. wills, in the utmost consternation, has brought me your letter, just received (four o'clock), and that it is _too late_ to recall your tale. i was so delighted with it that i put it first in the number (not hearing of any objection to my proposed alteration by return of post), and the number is now made up and in the printer's hands. i cannot possibly take the tale out--it has departed from me. i am truly concerned for this, but i hope you will not blame me for what i have done in perfect good faith. any recollection of me from your pen cannot (as i think you know) be otherwise than truly gratifying to me; but with my name on every page of "household words," there would be--or at least i should feel--an impropriety in so mentioning myself. i was particular, in changing the author, to make it "hood's _poems_" in the most important place--i mean where the captain is killed--and i hope and trust that the substitution will not be any serious drawback to the paper in any eyes but yours. i would do anything rather than cause you a minute's vexation arising out of what has given me so much pleasure, and i sincerely beseech you to think better of it, and not to fancy that any shade has been thrown on your charming writing, by the unfortunate but innocent. p.s.--i write at a gallop, not to lose another post. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _sunday, december st, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, if you were not the most suspicious of women, always looking for soft sawder in the purest metal of praise, i should call your paper delightful, and touched in the tenderest and most delicate manner. being what you are, i confine myself to the observation that i have called it "a love affair at cranford," and sent it off to the printer. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. peter cunningham.] tavistock house, _december th, ._ my dear cunningham, about the three papers. st. with mr. plowman of oxford, wills will communicate. nd. (now returned.) i have seen, in nearly the same form, before. the list of names is overwhelming. rd. i am not at all earnest in the savage matter; firstly, because i think so tremendous a vagabond never could have obtained an honest living in any station of existence or at any period of time; and secondly, because i think it of the highest importance that such an association as our guild should not appear to resent upon society the faults of individuals who were flagrantly impracticable. at its best, it is liable to that suspicion, as all such efforts have been on the part of many jealous persons, to whom it _must_ look for aid. and any stop that in the least encourages it is one of a fatal kind. i do _not_ think myself, but this is merely an individual opinion, that savage _was_ a man of genius, or that anything of his writing would have attracted much notice but for the bastard's reference to his mother. for these reasons combined, i should not be inclined to add my subscription of two guineas to yours, unless the inscription were altered as i have altered it in pencil. but in that case i should be very glad to respond to your suggestion, and to snuff out all my smaller disinclination. faithfully yours ever. footnote: [ ] mr. charles knight was writing a series of papers in "household words," called "shadows." . narrative. in the summer of this year, charles dickens hired a house at dover for three months, whither he went with his family. at the end of this time he sent his children and servants back to tavistock house, and crossed over to boulogne, with his wife and sister-in-law, to inspect that town and its neighbourhood, with a view of making it his summer quarters in the following year. many amateur performances were given in the provinces in aid of the fund for the guild of literature and art; charles dickens, as usual, taking the whole management on his own shoulders. in march, the first number of "bleak house" appeared, and he was at work on this book all through the year, as well as being constantly occupied with his editorship of "household words." we have, in the letters for this year, charles dickens's first to lord john russell (afterwards the earl russell); a friend whom he held in the highest estimation, and to whom he was always grateful for many personal kindnesses. we have also his first letter to mr. wilkie collins, with whom he became most intimately associated in literary work. the affectionate friendship he had for him, the high value in which he held him as a brother-artist, are constantly expressed in charles dickens's own letters to mr. collins, and in his letters to other friends. "those gallant men" (in the letter to mr. j. crofton croker) had reference to an antiquarian club, called the noviomagians, who were about to give a dinner in honour of sir edward belcher and captain kellett, the officers in command of the arctic exploring expedition, to which charles dickens was also invited. mr. crofton croker was the president of this club, and to denote his office it was customary to put on a cocked hat after dinner. the "lost character" he writes of in a letter to mrs. watson, refers to two different decipherings of his handwriting; this sort of study being in fashion then, and he and his friends at rockingham castle deriving much amusement from it. the letter dated july th was in answer to an anonymous correspondent, who wrote to him as follows: "i venture to trespass on your attention with one serious query, touching a sentence in the last number of 'bleak house.' do the supporters of christian missions to the heathen really deserve the attack that is conveyed in the sentence about jo' seated in his anguish on the door-step of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts? the allusion is severe, but is it just? are such boys as jo' neglected? what are ragged schools, town missions, and many of those societies i regret to see sneered at in the last number of 'household words'?" the "duke of middlesex," in the letter we have here to mr. charles knight, was the name of the character played by mr. f. stone, in sir e. b. lytton's comedy of "not so bad as we seem." our last letter in this year, to mr. g. linnæus banks, was in acknowledgment of one from him on the subject of a proposed public dinner to charles dickens, to be given by the people of birmingham, when they were also to present him with a salver and a diamond ring. the dinner was given in the following year, and the ring and salver (the latter an artistic specimen of birmingham ware) were duly presented by mr. banks, who acted as honorary secretary, in the names of the subscribers, at the rooms of the birmingham fine arts association. mr. banks, and the artist, mr. j. c. walker, were the originators of this demonstration. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _january st, ._ my dear macready, if the "taxes on knowledge" mean the stamp duty, the paper duty, and the advertisement duty, they seem to me to be unnecessarily confounded, and unfairly too. i have already declined to sign a petition for the removal of the stamp duty on newspapers. i think the reduced duty is some protection to the public against the rash and hasty launching of blackguard newspapers. i think the newspapers are made extremely accessible to the poor man at present, and that he would not derive the least benefit from the abolition of the stamp. it is not at all clear to me, supposing he wants _the times_ a penny cheaper, that he would get it a penny cheaper if the tax were taken off. if he supposes he would get in competition two or three new journals as good to choose from, he is mistaken; not knowing the immense resources and the gradually perfective machinery necessary to the production of such a journal. it appears to me to be a fair tax enough, very little in the way of individuals, not embarrassing to the public in its mode of being levied, and requiring some small consideration and pauses from the american kind of newspaper projectors. further, a committee has reported in favour of the repeal, and the subject may be held to need no present launching. the repeal of the paper duty would benefit the producers of periodicals immensely. it would make a very large difference to me, in the case of such a journal as "household words." but the gain to the public would be very small. it would not make the difference of enabling me, for example, to reduce the price of "household words," by its fractional effect upon a copy, or to increase the quantity of matter. i might, in putting the difference into my pocket, improve the quality of the paper a little, but not one man in a thousand would notice it. it _might_ (though i am not sure even of this) remove the difficulties in the way of a deserving periodical with a small sale. charles knight holds that it would. but the case, on the whole, appeared to me so slight, when i went to downing street with a deputation on the subject, that i said (in addressing the chancellor of the exchequer) i could not honestly maintain it for a moment as against the soap duty, or any other pressing on the mass of the poor. the advertisement duty has this preposterous anomaly, that a footman in want of a place pays as much in the way of tax for the expression of his want, as professor holloway pays for the whole list of his miraculous cures. but i think, at this time especially, there is so much to be considered in the necessity the country will be under of having money, and the necessity of justice it is always under, to consider the physical and moral wants of the poor man's home, as to justify a man in saying: "i must wait a little, all taxes are more or less objectionable, and so no doubt are these, but we must have some; and i have not made up my mind that all these things that are mixed up together _are_ taxes on knowledge in reality." kate and georgy unite with me in kindest and heartiest love to dear mrs. macready. we are always with you in spirit, and always talking about you. i am obliged to conclude very hastily, being beset to-day with business engagements. saw the lecture and was delighted; thought the idea admirable. again, loves upon loves to dear mrs. macready and to miss macready also, and kate and all the house. i saw ---- play (o heaven!) "macbeth," the other night, in three hours and fifty minutes, which is quick, i think. ever and always affectionately. [sidenote: mr. j. crofton croker.] tavistock house, _march th, ._ my dear sir, i have the greatest interest in those gallant men, and should have been delighted to dine in their company. i feel truly obliged to you for your kind remembrance on such an occasion. but i am engaged to lord lansdowne on wednesday, and can only drink to them in the spirit, which i have often done when they have been farther off. i hope you will find occasion to put on your cocked hat, that they may see how terrific and imposing "a fore-and-after" can be made on shore. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _april th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, my "lost character" was one of those awful documents occasionally to be met with, which will be everywhere. it glared upon me from every drawer i had, fell out of books, lurked under keys, hid in empty inkstands, got into portfolios, frightened me by inscrutably passing into locked despatch-boxes, and was not one character, but a thousand. this was when i didn't want it. i look for it this morning, and it is nowhere! probably will never be beheld again. but it was very unlike this one; and there is no doubt that when these ventures come out good, it is only by lucky chance and coincidence. she never mentioned my love of order before, and it is so remarkable (being almost a _dis_order), that she ought to have fainted with surprise when my handwriting was first revealed to her. i was very sorry to leave rockingham the other day, and came away in quite a melancholy state. the birmingham people were very active; and the shrewsbury gentry quite transcendent. i hope we shall have a very successful and dazzling trip. it is delightful to me to think of your coming to birmingham; and, by-the-bye, if you will tell me in the previous week what hotel accommodation you want, mr. wills will look to it with the greatest pleasure. your bookseller ought to be cashiered. i suppose "he" (as rogers calls everybody's husband) went out hunting with the idea of diverting his mind from dwelling on its loss. abortive effort! charley brings this with himself. with kindest regards and remembrances, ever, dear mrs. watson, most faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] tavistock house, _june th, ._ my dear knight, a thousand thanks for the shadow, which, is charming. may you often go (out of town) and do likewise! i dined with charles kemble, yesterday, to meet emil devrient, the german actor. he said (devrient is my antecedent) that ophelia _spoke_ the snatches of ballads in their german version of "hamlet," because they didn't know the airs. tom taylor said that you had published the airs in your "shakespeare." i said that if it were so, i knew you would be happy to place them at the german's service. if you have got them and will send them to me, i will write to devrient (who knows no english) a french explanation and reminder of the circumstance, and will tell him that you responded like a man and a--i was going to say publisher, but you are nothing of the sort, except as tonson. then indeed you are every inch a pub.! ever affectionately. [sidenote: the lord john russell.] tavistock house, _wednesday, june th, ._ my dear lord, i am most truly obliged to you for your kind note, and for your so generously thinking of me in the midst of your many occupations. i do assure you that your ever ready consideration had already attached me to you in the warmest manner, and made me very much your debtor. i thank you unaffectedly and very earnestly, and am proud to be held in your remembrance. believe me always, yours faithfully and obliged. [sidenote: anonymous correspondent.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _july th, ._ sir, i have received your letter of yesterday's date, and shall content myself with a brief reply. there was a long time during which benevolent societies were spending immense sums on missions abroad, when there was no such thing as a ragged school in england, or any kind of associated endeavour to penetrate to those horrible domestic depths in which such schools are now to be found, and where they were, to my most certain knowledge, neither placed nor discovered by the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts. if you think the balance between the home mission and the foreign mission justly held in the present time, i do not. i abstain from drawing the strange comparison that might be drawn between the sums even now expended in endeavours to remove the darkest ignorance and degradation from our very doors, because i have some respect for mistakes that may be founded in a sincere wish to do good. but i present a general suggestion of the still-existing anomaly (in such a paragraph as that which offends you), in the hope of inducing some people to reflect on this matter, and to adjust the balance more correctly. i am decidedly of opinion that the two works, the home and the foreign, are _not_ conducted with an equal hand, and that the home claim is by far the stronger and the more pressing of the two. indeed, i have very grave doubts whether a great commercial country, holding communication with all parts of the world, can better christianise the benighted portions of it than by the bestowal of its wealth and energy on the making of good christians at home, and on the utter removal of neglected and untaught childhood from its streets, before it wanders elsewhere. for, if it steadily persist in this work, working downward to the lowest, the travellers of all grades whom it sends abroad will be good, exemplary, practical missionaries, instead of undoers of what the best professed missionaries can do. these are my opinions, founded, i believe, on some knowledge of facts and some observation. if i could be scared out of them, let me add in all good humour, by such easily-impressed words as "antichristian" or "irreligious," i should think that i deserved them in their real signification. i have referred in vain to page of "household words" for the sneer to which you call my attention. nor have i, i assure you, the least idea where else it is to be found. i am, sir, your faithful servant. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] , camden crescent, dover, _july nd, ._ my dear mary, this is indeed a noble letter. the description of the family is quite amazing. i _must_ return it myself to say that i have appreciated it. i am going to do "used up" at manchester on the nd of september. o, think of that! with another mary!!! how can i ever say, "_dear_ joe, if you like!" the voice may fully frame the falsehood, but the heart--the heart, mr. wurzel--will have no part in it. my dear mary, you do scant justice to dover. it is not quite a place to my taste, being too bandy (i mean musical, no reference to its legs), and infinitely too genteel. but the sea is very fine, and the walks are quite remarkable. there are two ways of going to folkestone, both lovely and striking in the highest degree; and there are heights, and downs, and country roads, and i don't know what, everywhere. to let you into a secret, i am not quite sure that i ever did like, or ever shall like, anything quite so well as "copperfield." but i foresee, i think, some very good things in "bleak house." i shouldn't wonder if they were the identical things that d'israeli sees looming in the distance. i behold them in the months ahead and weep. watson seemed, when i saw him last, to be holding on as by a sheet-anchor to theatricals at christmas. then, o rapture! but be still, my fluttering heart. this is one of what i call my wandering days before i fall to work. i seem to be always looking at such times for something i have not found in life, but may possibly come to a few thousands of years hence, in some other part of some other system. god knows. at all events i won't put your pastoral little pipe out of tune by talking about it. i'll go and look for it on the canterbury road among the hop-gardens and orchards. ever faithfully your friend, joe. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] , camden crescent, dover, _sunday, aug. st, ._ my dear knight, i don't see why you should go to the ship, and i won't stand it. the state apartment will be occupied by the duke of middlesex (whom i think you know), but we can easily get a bed for you hard by. therefore you will please to drive here next saturday evening. our regular dinner hour is half-past five. if you are later, you will find something ready for you. if you go on in that way about your part, i shall think you want to play mr. gabblewig. your rôle, though a small one on the stage, is a large one off it; and no man is more important to the guild, both on and off. my dear friend watson! dead after an illness of four days. he dined with us this day three weeks. i loved him as my heart, and cannot think of him without tears. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] dover, _august th, ._ my dear mark, poor dear watson was dead when the paragraph in the paper appeared. he was buried in his own church yesterday. last sunday three weeks (the day before he went abroad) he dined with us, and was quite well and happy. she has come home, is at rockingham with the children, and does not weakly desert his grave, but sets up her rest by it from the first. he had been wandering in his mind a little before his death, but recovered consciousness, and fell asleep (she says) quite gently and peacefully in her arms. i loved him very much, and god knows he deserved it. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the earl of carlisle.] , camden crescent, dover, _thursday, aug. th, ._ my dear lord carlisle, 'peared to me (as uncle tom would say) until within these last few days, that i should be able to write to you, joyfully accepting your saturday's invitation after newcastle, in behalf of all whom it concerned. but the sunderland people rushed into the field to propose our acting there on that saturday, the only possible night. and as it is the concluding guild expedition, and the guild has a paramount claim on us, i have been obliged to knock my own inclinations on the head, cut the throat of my own wishes, and bind the company hand and foot to the sunderland lieges. i don't mean to tell them now of your invitation until we shall have got out of that country. there might be rebellion. we are staying here for the autumn. is there any hope of your repeating your visit to these coasts? ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] , camden crescent, dover, _august th, ._ on the death of mr. watson. my dear, dear mrs. watson, i cannot bear to be silent longer, though i know full well--no one better i think--how your love for him, and your trust in god, and your love for your children will have come to the help of such a nature as yours, and whispered better things than any friendship can, however faithful and affectionate. we held him so close in our hearts--all of us here--and have been so happy with him, and so used to say how good he was, and what a gentle, generous, noble spirit he had, and how he shone out among commoner men as something so real and genuine, and full of every kind of worthiness, that it has often brought the tears into my eyes to talk of him; we have been so accustomed to do this when we looked forward to years of unchanged intercourse, that now, when everything but truth goes down into the dust, those recollections which make the sword so sharp pour balm into the wound. and if it be a consolation to us to know the virtues of his character, and the reasons that we had for loving him, o how much greater is your comfort who were so devoted to him, and were the happiness of his life! we have thought of you every day and every hour; we think of you now in the dear old house, and know how right it is, for his dear children's sake, that you should have bravely set up your rest in the place consecrated by their father's memory, and within the same summer shadows that fall upon his grave. we try to look on, through a few years, and to see the children brightening it, and george a comfort and a pride and an honour to you; and although it _is_ hard to think of what we have lost, we know how something of it will be restored by your example and endeavours, and the blessing that will descend upon them. we know how the time will come when some reflection of that cordial, unaffected, most affectionate presence, which we can never forget, and never would forget if we could--such is god's great mercy--will shine out of your boy's eyes upon you, his best friend and his last consoler, and fill the void there is now. may god, who has received into his rest through this affliction as good a man as ever i can know and love and mourn for on this earth, be good to you, dear friends, through these coming years! may all those compassionate and hopeful lessons of the great teacher who shed divine tears for the dead bring their full comfort to you! i have no fear of that, my confidence is certainty. i cannot write what i wish; i had so many things to say, i seem to have said none. it is so with the remembrances we send. i cannot put them into words. if you should ever set up a record in the little church, i would try to word it myself, and god knows out of the fulness of my heart, if you should think it well. my dear friend, yours, with the truest affection and sympathy. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] hÃ�tel des bains, boulogne, _tuesday night, oct. th, ._ on the death of mrs. macready. my dearest macready, i received your melancholy letter while we were staying at dover, a few days after it was written; but i thought it best not to write to you until you were at home again, among your dear children. its tidings were not unexpected to us, had been anticipated in many conversations, often thought of under many circumstances; but the shock was scarcely lessened by this preparation. the many happy days we have passed together came crowding back; all the old cheerful times arose before us; and the remembrance of what we had loved so dearly and seen under so many aspects--all natural and delightful and affectionate and ever to be cherished--was, how pathetic and touching you know best! but my dear, dear macready, this is not the first time you have felt that the recollection of great love and happiness associated with the dead soothes while it wounds. and while i can imagine that the blank beside you may grow wider every day for many days to come, i _know_--i think--that from its depths such comfort will arise as only comes to great hearts like yours, when they can think upon their trials with a steady trust in god. my dear friend, i have known her so well, have been so happy in her regard, have been so light-hearted with her, have interchanged so many tender remembrances of you with her when you were far away, and have seen her ever so simply and truly anxious to be worthy of you, that i cannot write as i would and as i know i ought. as i would press your hand in your distress, i let this note go from me. i understand your grief, i deeply feel the reason that there is for it, yet in that very feeling find a softening consolation that must spring up a hundred-thousandfold for you. may heaven prosper it in your breast, and the spirits that have gone before, from the regions of mercy to which they have been called, smooth the path you have to tread alone! children are left you. your good sister (god bless her!) is by your side. you have devoted friends, and more reasons than most men to be self-reliant and stedfast. something is gone that never in this world can be replaced, but much is left, and it is a part of her life, her death, her immortality. catherine and georgina, who are with me here, send you their overflowing love and sympathy. we hope that in a little while, and for a little while at least, you will come among us, who have known the happiness of being in this bond with you, and will not exclude us from participation in your past and future. ever, my dearest macready, with unchangeable affection, yours in all love and truth. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] hÃ�tel des bains, boulogne, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear wills, h. w. i have thought of the christmas number, but not very successfully, because i have been (and still am) constantly occupied with "bleak house." i purpose returning home either on sunday or monday, as my work permits, and we will, immediately thereafter, dine at the office and talk it over, so that you may get all the men to their work. the fault of ----'s poem, besides its intrinsic meanness as a composition, is that it goes too glibly with the comfortable ideas (of which we have had a great deal too much in england since the continental commotions) that a man is to sit down and make himself domestic and meek, no matter what is done to him. it wants a stronger appeal to rulers in general to let men do this, fairly, by governing them well. as it stands, it is at about the tract-mark ("dairyman's daughter," etc.) of political morality, and don't think that it is necessary to write _down_ to any part of our audience. i always hold that to be as great a mistake as can be made. i wish you would mention to thomas, that i think the paper on hops _extremely well done_. he has quite caught the idea we want, and caught it in the best way. in pursuing the bridge subject, i think it would be advisable to look up the _thames police_. i have a misty notion of some capital papers coming out of it. will you see to this branch of the tree among the other branches? myself. to chapman i will write. my impression is that i shall not subscribe to the hood monument, as i am not at all favourable to such posthumous honours. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] hÃ�tel des bains, boulogne, _wednesday night, oct. th, ._ my dear wills, the number coming in after dinner, since my letter was written and posted, i have gone over it. i am grievously depressed by it; it is so exceedingly bad. if you have anything else to put first, don't put ----'s paper first. (there is nothing better for a beginning in the number as it stands, but this is very bad.) it is a mistake to think of it as a first article. the article itself is in the main a mistake. firstly, the subject requires the greatest discretion and nicety of touch. and secondly, it is all wrong and self-contradictory. nobody can for a moment suppose that "sporting" amusements are the sports of the people; the whole gist of the best part of the description is to show that they are the amusements of a peculiar and limited class. the greater part of them are at a miserable discount (horse-racing excepted, which has been already sufficiently done in h. w.), and there is no reason for running amuck at them at all. i have endeavoured to remove much of my objection (and i think have done so), but, both in purpose and in any general address, it is as wide of a first article as anything can well be. it would do best in the opening of the number. about sunday in paris there is no kind of doubt. take it out. such a thing as that crucifixion, unless it were done in a masterly manner, we have no business to stagger families with. besides, the name is a comprehensive one, and should include a quantity of fine matter. lord bless me, what i could write under that head! strengthen the number, pray, by anything good you may have. it is a very dreary business as it stands. the proofs want a thorough revision. in haste, going to bed. ever faithfully. p.s.--i want a name for miss martineau's paper. triumphant carriages (or triumphal). dublin stoutheartedness. patience and prejudice. take which you like best. [sidenote: mr. john watkins.] monday, _october th, ._ sir, on my return to town i find the letter awaiting me which you did me the favour to address to me, i believe--for it has no date--some days ago. i have the greatest tenderness for the memory of hood, as i had for himself. but i am not very favourable to posthumous memorials in the monument way, and i should exceedingly regret to see any such appeal as you contemplate made public, remembering another public appeal that was made and responded to after hood's death. i think that i best discharge my duty to my deceased friend, and best consult the respect and love with which i remember him, by declining to join in any such public endeavours as that which you (in all generosity and singleness of purpose, i am sure) advance. i shall have a melancholy gratification in privately assisting to place a simple and plain record over the remains of a great writer that should be as modest as he was himself, but i regard any other monument in connection with his mortal resting-place as a mistake. i am, sir, your faithful servant. [sidenote: rev. james white.] office of "household words," _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear white, we are now getting our christmas extra number together, and i think you are the boy to do, if you will, one of the stories. i propose to give the number some fireside name, and to make it consist entirely of short stories supposed to be told by a family sitting round the fire. _i don't care about their referring to christmas at all_; nor do i design to connect them together, otherwise than by their names, as: the grandfather's story. the father's story. the daughter's story. the schoolboy's story. the child's story. the guest's story. the old nurse's story. the grandfather might very well be old enough to have lived in the days of the highwaymen. do you feel disposed, from fact, fancy, or both, to do a good winter-hearth story of a highwayman? if you do, i embrace you (per post), and throw up a cap i have purchased for the purpose into mid-air. think of it and write me a line in reply. we are all well and blooming. are you never coming to town any more? never going to drink port again, metropolitaneously, but _always_ with fielden? love to mrs. white and the children, if lotty be not out of the list long ago. ever faithfully, my dear white. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] athenÃ�um, _monday, november nd, ._ my dear mrs. watson, having just now finished my work for the time being, i turn in here in the course of a rainy walk, to have the gratification of writing a few lines to you. if my occupations with this same right hand were less numerous, you would soon be tired of me, i should write to you so often. you asked catherine a question about "bleak house." its circulation is half as large again as "copperfield"! i have just now come to the point i have been patiently working up to in the writing, and i hope it will suggest to you a pretty and affecting thing. in the matter of "uncle tom's cabin," i partly though not entirely agree with mr. james. no doubt a much lower art will serve for the handling of such a subject in fiction, than for a launch on the sea of imagination without such a powerful bark; but there are many points in the book very admirably done. there is a certain st. clair, a new orleans gentleman, who seems to me to be conceived with great power and originality. if he had not "a grecian outline of face," which i began to be a little tired of in my earliest infancy, i should think him unexceptionable. he has a sister too, a maiden lady from new england, in whose person the besetting weaknesses and prejudices of the abolitionists themselves, on the subject of the blacks, are set forth in the liveliest and truest colours and with the greatest boldness. i have written for "household words" of this next publication-day an article on the state funeral,[ ] showing why i consider it altogether a mistake, to be temperately but firmly objected to; which i daresay will make a good many of the admirers of such things highly indignant. it may have right and reason on its side, however, none the less. charley and i had a great talk at dover about his going into the army, when i thought it right to set before him fairly and faithfully the objections to that career, no less than its advantages. the result was that he asked in a very manly way for time to consider. so i appointed to go down to eton on a certain day at the beginning of this month, and resume the subject. we resumed it accordingly at the white hart, at windsor, and he came to the conclusion that he would rather be a merchant, and try to establish some good house of business, where he might find a path perhaps for his younger brothers, and stay at home, and make himself the head of that long, small procession. i was very much pleased with him indeed; he showed a fine sense and a fine feeling in the whole matter. we have arranged, therefore, that he shall leave eton at christmas, and go to germany after the holidays, to become well acquainted with that language, now most essential in such a walk of life as he will probably tread. and i think this is the whole of my news. we are always talking of you at home. mary boyle dined with us a little while ago. you look out, i imagine, on a waste of water. when i came from windsor, i thought i must have made a mistake and got into a boat (in the dark) instead of a railway-carriage. catherine and georgina send their kindest loves. i am ever, with the best and truest wishes of my heart, my dear mrs. watson, your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: rev. james white.] office of "household words," _monday, nov. nd, ._ my dear white, first and foremost, there is no doubt whatever of your story suiting "household words." it is a very good story indeed, and would be serviceable at any time. i am not quite so clear of its suiting the christmas number, for this reason. you know what the spirit of the christmas number is. when i suggested the stories being about a highwayman, i got hold of that idea as being an adventurous one, including various kinds of wrong, expressing a state of society no longer existing among us, and pleasant to hear (therefore) from an old man. now, your highwayman not being a real highwayman after all, the kind of suitable christmas interest i meant to awaken in the story is not in it. do you understand? for an ordinary number it is quite unobjectionable. if you should think of any other idea, narratable by an old man, which you think would strike the chord of the season; and if you should find time to work it out during the short remainder of this month, i should be greatly pleased to have it. in any case, this story goes straightway into type. what tremendous weather it is! our best loves to all at home. (i have just bought thirty bottles of the most stunning port on earth, which ellis of the star and garter, richmond, wrote to me of.) i think you will find some good going in the next "bleak house." i write shortly, having been working my head off. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] office of "household words," _wednesday, dec. st, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i send you the proof of "the old nurse's story," with my proposed alteration. i shall be glad to know whether you approve of it. to assist you in your decision, i send you, also enclosed, the original ending. and i have made a line with ink across the last slip but one, where the alteration begins. of course if you wish to enlarge, explain, or re-alter, you will do it. do not keep the proof longer than you can help, as i want to get to press with all despatch. i hope i address this letter correctly. i am far from sure. in haste. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] tavistock house, _thursday, december th, ._ my dear wills, i am driven mad by dogs, who have taken it into their accursed heads to assemble every morning in the piece of ground opposite, and who have barked this morning _for five hours without intermission_; positively rendering it impossible for me to work, and so making what is really ridiculous quite serious to me. i wish, between this and dinner, you would send john to see if he can hire a gun, with a few caps, some powder, and a few charges of small shot. if you duly commission him with a card, he can easily do it. and if i get those implements up here to-night, i'll be the death of some of them to-morrow morning. ever faithfully. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _thursday evening, dec. th, ._ my dear white, i hear you are not going to poor macready's. now, don't you think it would do you good to come here instead? _i_ say it would, and i ought to know! we can give you everything but a bed (all ours are occupied in consequence of the boys being at home), and shall all be delighted to see you. leave the bed to us, and we'll find one hard by. i say nothing of the last day of the old year, and the dancing out of that good old worthy that will take place here (for you might like to hear the bells at home); but after the twentieth, i shall be comparatively at leisure, and good for anything or nothing. don't you consider it your duty to your family to come? _i_ do, and i again say that i ought to know. our best love to mrs. white and lotty--happily so much better, we rejoice to hear--and all. so no more at present from the inimitable b. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _friday, dec. th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i received your kind note yesterday morning with the truest gratification, for i _am_ the writer of "the child's story" as well as of "the poor relation's." i assure you, you have given me the liveliest and heartiest pleasure by what you say of it. i don't claim for my ending of "the nurse's story" that it would have made it a bit better. all i can urge in its behalf is, that it is what i should have done myself. but there is no doubt of the story being admirable as it stands, and there _is_ some doubt (i think) whether forster would have found anything wrong in it, if he had not known of my hammering over the proofs in making up the number, with all the three endings before me. with kindest regards to mr. gaskell, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _monday, dec. th, ._ my dear collins, if i did not know that you are likely to have a forbearing remembrance of my occupation, i should be full of remorse for not having sooner thanked you for "basil." not to play the sage or the critic (neither of which parts, i hope, is at all in my line), but to say what is the friendly truth, i may assure you that i have read the book with very great interest, and with a very thorough conviction that you have a call to this same art of fiction. i think the probabilities here and there require a little more respect than you are disposed to show them, and i have no doubt that the prefatory letter would have been better away, on the ground that a book (of all things) should speak for and explain itself. but the story contains admirable writing, and many clear evidences of a very delicate discrimination of character. it is delightful to find throughout that you have taken great pains with it besides, and have "gone at it" with a perfect knowledge of the jolter-headedness of the conceited idiots who suppose that volumes are to be tossed off like pancakes, and that any writing can be done without the utmost application, the greatest patience, and the steadiest energy of which the writer is capable. for all these reasons, i have made "basil's" acquaintance with great gratification, and entertain a high respect for him. and i hope that i shall become intimate with many worthy descendants of his, who are yet in the limbo of creatures waiting to be born. always faithfully yours. p.s.--i am open to any proposal to go anywhere any day or days this week. fresh air and change in any amount i am ready for. if i could only find an idle man (this is a general observation), he would find the warmest recognition in this direction. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _monday evening, dec. th, ._ my dear stone, every appearance of brightness! shall i expect you to-morrow morning? if so, at what hour? i think of taking train afterwards, and going down for a walk on chatham lines. if you can spare the day for fresh air and an impromptu bit of fish and chop, i can recommend you one of the most delightful of men for a companion. o, he is indeed refreshing!!! ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "household words," _christmas eve, ._ my dear wills, i have gone carefully through the number--an awful one for the amount of correction required--and have made everything right. if my mind could have been materialised, and drawn along the tops of all the spikes on the outside of the queen's bench prison, it could not have been more agonised than by the ----, which, for imbecility, carelessness, slovenly composition, relatives without antecedents, universal chaos, and one absorbing whirlpool of jolter-headedness, beats anything in print and paper i have ever "gone at" in my life. i shall come and see how you are to-morrow. meantime everything is in perfect trim in these parts, and i have sent down to stacey to come here and top up with a final interview before i go. just after i had sent the messenger off to you, yesterday, concerning the toll-taker memoranda, the other idea came into my head, and in the most obliging manner came out of it. ever faithfully yours. p.s.--here is ---- perpetually flitting about brydges street, and hovering in the neighbourhood, with a veil of secrecy drawn down over his chin, so ludicrously transparent, that i can't help laughing while he looks at me. [sidenote: mr. g. linnæus banks.] tavistock house, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear sir, i will not attempt to tell you how affected and gratified i am by the intelligence your kind letter conveys to me. nothing would be more welcome to me than such a mark of confidence and approval from such a source, nothing more precious, or that i could set a higher worth upon. i hasten to return the gauges, of which i have marked one as the size of the finger, from which this token will never more be absent as long as i live. with feelings of the liveliest gratitude and cordiality towards the many friends who so honour me, and with many thanks to you for the genial earnestness with which you represent them, i am, my dear sir, very faithfully yours. p.s.--will you do me the favour to inform the dinner committee that a friend of mine, mr. clement, of shrewsbury, is very anxious to purchase a ticket for the dinner, and that if they will be so good as to forward one for him to me i shall feel much obliged. footnote: [ ] the great duke of wellington's funeral. . narrative. in this year, charles dickens was still writing "bleak house," and went to brighton for a short time in the spring. in may he had an attack of illness, a return of an old trouble of an inflammatory pain in the side, which was short but very severe while it lasted. immediately on his recovery, early in june, a departure from london for the summer was resolved upon. he had decided upon trying boulogne this year for his holiday sojourn, and as soon as he was strong enough to travel, he, his wife, and sister-in-law went there in advance of the family, taking up their quarters at the hôtel des bains, to find a house, which was speedily done. the pretty little villa des moulineaux, and its excellent landlord, at once took his fancy, and in that house, and in another on the same ground, also belonging to m. beaucourt, he passed three very happy summers. and he became as much attached to "our french watering place" as to "our english" one. having written a sketch of broadstairs under that name in "household words," he did the same of boulogne under the former title. during the summer, besides his other work, he was employed in dictating "the child's history of england," which he published in "household words," and which was the only book he ever wrote by dictation. but, as at broadstairs and other seaside homes, he had always plenty of relaxation and enjoyment in the visits of his friends. in september he finished "bleak house," and in october he started with mr. wilkie collins and mr. egg from boulogne, on an excursion through parts of switzerland and italy; his wife and family going home at the same time, and he himself returning to tavistock house early in december. his eldest son, charles, had left eton some time before this, and had gone for the completion of his education to leipsic. he was to leave germany at the end of the year, therefore it was arranged that he should meet the travellers in paris on their homeward journey, and they all returned together. just before christmas he went to birmingham in fulfilment of an offer which he had made at the dinner given to him at birmingham on the th of january (of which he writes to mr. macready in the first letter that follows here), to give two readings from his own books for the benefit of the new midland institute. they were his first public readings. he read "the christmas carol" on one evening, and "the cricket on the hearth" on the next, before enormous audiences. the success was so great, and the sum of money realised for the institute so large, that he consented to give a second reading of "the christmas carol," remaining another night in birmingham for the purpose, on the condition that seats were reserved, at prices within their means, for the working men. and to his great satisfaction they formed a large proportion, and were among the most enthusiastic and appreciative of his audience. he was accompanied by his wife and sister-in-law, and on this occasion a breakfast was given to him after his last reading, at which a silver flower-basket, duly inscribed, was very gracefully presented to _mrs._ charles dickens. the letters in this year require little explanation. those to his wife and sister-in-law and mr. wills give a little history of his italian journey. at naples he found his excellent friend sir james emerson tennent, with his wife and daughter, with whom he joined company in the ascent of vesuvius. the two letters to m. regnier, the distinguished actor of the théâtre français--with whom charles dickens had formed a sincere friendship during his first residence in paris--on the subject of a projected benefit to miss kelly, need no further explanation. mr. john delane, editor of _the times_, and always a highly-esteemed friend of charles dickens, had given him an introduction to a school at boulogne, kept by two english gentlemen, one a clergyman and the other a former eton master, the rev. w. bewsher and mr. gibson. he had at various times four boys at this school, and very frequently afterwards he expressed his gratitude to mr. delane for having given him the introduction, which turned out so satisfactory in every respect. the letter of grateful acknowledgment from mr. poole and charles dickens to lord russell was for the pension for which the old dramatic author was indebted to that nobleman, and which enabled him to live comfortably until the end of his life. a note to mr. marcus stone was sent with a copy of "the child's history of england." the sketch referred to was one of "jo'," in "bleak house," which showed great feeling and artistic promise, since fully fulfilled by the young painter, but very remarkable in a boy so young as he was at that time. the letter to mr. stanfield, in seafaring language, is a specimen of a playful way in which he frequently addressed that dear friend. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] "a curiosity from _him_. no date. no signature."--w. h. h. my dear wills, i have not a shadow of a doubt about miss martineau's story. it is certain to tell. i think it very effectively, admirably done; a fine plain purpose in it; quite a singular novelty. for the last story in the christmas number it will be great. i couldn't wish for a better. mrs. gaskell's ghost story i have got this morning; have not yet read. it is long. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield.] h.m.s. _tavistock, january nd, ._ yoho, old salt! neptun' ahoy! you don't forget, messmet, as you was to meet dick sparkler and mark porpuss on the fok'sle of the good ship _owssel words_, wednesday next, half-past four? not you; for when did stanfell ever pass his word to go anywheers and not come! well. belay, my heart of oak, belay! come alongside the _tavistock_ same day and hour, 'stead of _owssel words_. hail your shipmets, and they'll drop over the side and join you, like two new shillings a-droppin' into the purser's pocket. damn all lubberly boys and swabs, and give me the lad with the tarry trousers, which shines to me like di'mings bright! [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _friday night, jan. th, ._ my dearest macready, i have been much affected by the receipt of your kindest and best of letters; for i know out of the midst of what anxieties it comes to me, and i appreciate such remembrance from my heart. you and yours are always with us, however. it is no new thing for you to have a part in any scene of my life. it very rarely happens that a day passes without our thoughts and conversation travelling to sherborne. we are so much there that i cannot tell you how plainly i see you as i write. i know you would have been full of sympathy and approval if you had been present at birmingham, and that you would have concurred in the tone i tried to take about the eternal duties of the arts to the people. i took the liberty of putting the court and that kind of thing out of the question, and recognising nothing _but_ the arts and the people. the more we see of life and its brevity, and the world and its varieties, the more we know that no exercise of our abilities in any art, but the addressing of it to the great ocean of humanity in which we are drops, and not to bye-ponds (very stagnant) here and there, ever can or ever will lay the foundations of an endurable retrospect. is it not so? _you_ should have as much practical information on this subject, now, my dear friend, as any man. my dearest macready, i cannot forbear this closing word. i still look forward to our meeting as we used to do in the happy times we have known together, so far as your old hopefulness and energy are concerned. and i think i never in my life have been more glad to receive a sign, than i have been to hail that which i find in your handwriting. some of your old friends at birmingham are full of interest and enquiry. kate and georgina send their dearest loves to you, and to miss macready, and to all the children. i am ever, and no matter where i am--and quite as much in a crowd as alone--my dearest macready, your affectionate and most attached friend. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _may rd, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, the subject is certainly not too serious, so sensibly treated. i have no doubt that you may do a great deal of good by pursuing it in "household words." i thoroughly agree in all you say in your note, have similar reasons for giving it some anxious consideration, and shall be greatly interested in it. pray decide to do it. send the papers, as you write them, to me. meanwhile i will think of a name for them, and bring it to bear upon yours, if i think yours improvable. i am sure you may rely on being widely understood and sympathised with. forget that i called those two women my dear friends! why, if i told you a fiftieth part of what i have thought about them, you would write me the most suspicious of notes, refusing to receive the fiftieth part of that. so i don't write, particularly as you laid your injunctions on me concerning ruth. in revenge, i will now mention one word that i wish you would take out whenever you reprint that book. she would never--i am ready to make affidavit before any authority in the land--have called her seducer "sir," when they were living at that hotel in wales. a girl pretending to be what she really was would have done it, but she--never! ever most faithfully yours. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, _monday, may th, ._ my dear regnier, i meant to have spoken to you last night about a matter in which i hope you can assist me, but i forgot it. i think i must have been quite _bouleversé_ by your supposing (as you pretended to do, when you went away) that it was not a great pleasure and delight to me to see you act! there is a certain miss kelly, now sixty-two years old, who was once one of the very best of english actresses, in the greater and better days of the english theatre. she has much need of a benefit, and i am exerting myself to arrange one for her, on about the th of june, if possible, at the st. james's theatre. the first piece will be an entertainment of her own, and she will act in the last. between these two (and at the best time of the night), it would be a great attraction to the public, and a great proof of friendship to me, if you would act. if we could manage, through your influence and with your assistance, to present a little french vaudeville, such as "_le bon homme jadis_," it would make the night a grand success. mitchell's permission, i suppose, would be required. that i will undertake to apply for, if you will tell me that you are willing to help us, and that you could answer for the other necessary actors in the little french piece, whatever the piece might be, that you would choose for the purpose. pray write me a short note in answer, on this point. i ought to tell you that the benefit will be "under distinguished patronage." the duke of devonshire, the duke of leinster, the duke of beaufort, etc. etc., are members of the committee with me, and i have no doubt that the audience will be of the _élite_. i have asked mr. chapman to come to me to-morrow, to arrange for the hiring of the theatre. mr. harley (a favourite english comedian whom you may know) is our secretary. and if i could assure the committee to-morrow afternoon of your co-operation, i am sure they would be overjoyed. _votre tout dévoué._ [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear regnier, i am heartily obliged to you for your kind letter respecting miss kelly's benefit. it is to take place _on thursday, the th june_; thursday the th (the day originally proposed) being the day of ascot races, and therefore a bad one for the purpose. mitchell, like a brave _garçon_ as he is, most willingly consents to your acting for us. will you think what little french piece it will be best to do, in order that i may have it ready for the bills? ever faithfully yours, my dear regnier. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _monday, june th, ._ my dear wills, you will be glad, i know, to hear that we had a delightful passage yesterday, and that i made a perfect phenomenon of a dinner. it is raining hard to-day, and my back feels the draught; but i am otherwise still mending. i have signed, sealed, and delivered a contract for a house (once occupied for two years by a man i knew in switzerland), which is not a large one, but stands in the middle of a great garden, with what the landlord calls a "forest" at the back, and is now surrounded by flowers, vegetables, and all manner of growth. a queer, odd, french place, but extremely well supplied with all table and other conveniences, and strongly recommended. the address is: château des moulineaux, rue beaurepaire, boulogne. there is a coach-house, stabling for half-a-dozen horses, and i don't know what. we take possession this afternoon, and i am now laying in a good stock of creature comforts. so no more at present from yours ever faithfully. p.s.--mrs. dickens and her sister unite in kindest regards. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] chÃ�teau des moulineaux, boulogne, _saturday night, june th, ._ my dear wills, "bleak house." thank god, i have done half the number with great care, and hope to finish on thursday or friday next. o how thankful i feel to be able to have done it, and what a relief to get the number out! general movements of inimitable. _i don't think_ (i am not sure) i shall come to london until after the completion of "bleak house," no. --the number after this now in hand--for it strikes me that i am better here at present. i have picked up in the most extraordinary manner, and i believe you would never suppose to look at me that i had had that week or barely an hour of it. if there should be any occasion for our meeting in the meantime, a run over here would do you no harm, and we should be delighted to see you at any time. if you suppose this place to be in a street, you are much mistaken. it is in the country, though not more than ten minutes' walk from the post-office, and is the best doll's-house of many rooms, in the prettiest french grounds, in the most charming situation i have ever seen; the best place i have ever lived in abroad, except at genoa. you can scarcely imagine the beauty of the air in this richly-wooded hill-side. as to comforts in the house, there are all sorts of things, beginning with no end of the coldest water and running through the most beautiful flowers down to english foot-baths and a parisian liqueur-stand. your parcel (frantic enclosures and all) arrived quite safely last night. this will leave by steamer to-morrow, sunday evening. there is a boat in the morning, but having no one to send to-night i can't reach it, and to-morrow being sunday it will come to much the same thing. i think that's all at present. ever, my dear wills, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] chÃ�teau des moulineaux, rue beaurepaire, boulogne, _thursday, june rd, ._ my dear pumpion, i take the earliest opportunity, after finishing my number--ahem!--to write you a line, and to report myself (thank god) brown, well, robust, vigorous, open to fight any man in england of my weight, and growing a moustache. any person of undoubted pluck, in want of a customer, may hear of me at the bar of bleak house, where my money is down. i think there is an abundance of places here that would suit you well enough; and georgina is ready to launch on voyages of discovery and observation with you. but it is necessary that you should consider for how long a time you want it, as the folks here let much more advantageously for the tenant when they know the term--don't like to let without. it seems to me that the best thing you can do is to get a paper of the south eastern tidal trains, fix your day for coming over here in five hours (when you will pay through to boulogne at london bridge), let me know the day, and come and see how you like the place. _i_ like it better than ever. we can give you a bed (two to spare, at a pinch three), and show you a garden and a view or so. the town is not so cheap as places farther off, but you get a great deal for your money, and by far the best wine at tenpence a bottle that i have ever drank anywhere. i really desire no better. i may mention for your guidance (for i count upon your coming to overhaul the general aspect of things), that you have nothing on earth to do with your luggage when it is once in the boat, _until after you have walked ashore_. that you will be filtered with the rest of the passengers through a hideous, whitewashed, quarantine-looking custom-house, where a stern man of a military aspect will demand your passport. that you will have nothing of the sort, but will produce your card with this addition: "restant à boulogne, chez m. charles dickens, château des moulineaux." that you will then be passed out at a little door, like one of the ill-starred prisoners on the bloody september night, into a yelling and shrieking crowd, cleaving the air with the names of the different hotels, exactly seven thousand six hundred and fifty-four in number. and that your heart will be on the point of sinking with dread, then you will find yourself in the arms of the sparkler of albion. all unite in kindest regards. ever affectionately. p.s.--i thought you might like to see the flourish again. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _wednesday, july th, ._ my dear wills, i have thought of another article to be called "frauds upon the fairies," _à propos_ of george cruikshank's editing. half playfully and half seriously, i mean to protest most strongly against alteration, for any purpose, of the beautiful little stories which are so tenderly and humanly useful to us in these times, when the world is too much with us, early and late; and then to re-write "cinderella" according to total abstinence, peace society, and bloomer principles, and expressly for their propagation. i shall want his book of "hop o' my thumb" (forster noticed it in the last _examiner_), and the most simple and popular version of "cinderella" you can get me. i shall not be able to do it until after finishing "bleak house," but i shall do it the more easily for having the books by me. so send them, if convenient, in your next parcel. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] chÃ�teau des moulineaux, boulogne, _sunday, aug. th, ._ my dearest macready, some unaccountable delay in the transmission here of the parcel which contained your letter, caused me to come into the receipt of it a whole week after its date. i immediately wrote to miss coutts, who has written to you, and i hope some good may come of it. i know it will not be her fault if none does. i was very much concerned to read your account of poor mrs. warner, and to read her own plain and unaffected account of herself. pray assure her of my cordial sympathy and remembrance, and of my earnest desire to do anything in my power to help to put her mind at ease. we are living in a beautiful little country place here, where i have been hard at work ever since i came, and am now (after an interval of a week's rest) going to work again to finish "bleak house." kate and georgina send their kindest loves to you, and miss macready, and all the rest. they look forward, i assure you, to their sherborne visit, when i--a mere forlorn wanderer--shall be roaming over the alps into italy. i saw "the midsummer night's dream" of the opéra comique, done here (very well) last night. the way in which a poet named willyim shay kes peer gets drunk in company with sir john foll stayffe, fights with a noble 'night, lor latimeer (who is in love with a maid-of-honour you may have read of in history, called mees oleevia), and promises not to do so any more on observing symptoms of love for him in the queen of england, is very remarkable. queen elizabeth, too, in the profound and impenetrable disguise of a black velvet mask, two inches deep by three broad, following him into taverns and worse places, and enquiring of persons of doubtful reputation for "the sublime williams," was inexpressibly ridiculous. and yet the nonsense was done with a sense quite admirable. i have been very much struck by the book you sent me. it is one of the wisest, the manliest, and most serviceable i ever read. i am reading it again with the greatest pleasure and admiration. ever most affectionately yours, my dear macready. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _saturday, aug. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i received your letter--most welcome and full of interest to me--when i was hard at work finishing "bleak house." we are always talking of you; and i had said but the day before, that one of the first things i would do on my release would be to write to you. to finish the topic of "bleak house" at once, i will only add that i like the conclusion very much and think it _very pretty indeed_. the story has taken extraordinarily, especially during the last five or six months, when its purpose has been gradually working itself out. it has retained its immense circulation from the first, beating dear old "copperfield" by a round ten thousand or more. i have never had so many readers. we had a little reading of the final double number here the night before last, and it made a great impression i assure you. we are all extremely well, and like boulogne very much indeed. i laid down the rule before we came, that we would know nobody here, and we _do_ know nobody here. we evaded callers as politely as we could, and gradually came to be understood and left to ourselves. it is a fine bracing air, a beautiful open country, and an admirable mixture of town and country. we live on a green hill-side out of the town, but are in the town (on foot) in ten minutes. things are tolerably cheap, and exceedingly good; the people very cheerful, good-looking, and obliging; the houses very clean; the distance to london short, and easily traversed. i think if you came to know the place (which i never did myself until last october, often as i have been through it), you could be but in one mind about it. charley is still at leipzig. i shall take him up somewhere on the rhine, to bring him home for christmas, as i come back on my own little tour. he has been in the hartz mountains on a walking tour, and has written a journal thereof, which he has sent home in portions. it has cost about as much in postage as would have bought a pair of ponies. i contemplate starting from here on monday, the th of october; catherine, georgina, and the rest of them will then go home. i shall go first by paris and geneva to lausanne, for it has a separate place in my memory. if the autumn should be very fine (just possible after such a summer), i shall then go by chamonix and martigny, over the simplon to milan, thence to genoa, leghorn, pisa, and naples, thence, i hope, to sicily. back by bologna, florence, rome, verona, mantua, etc., to venice, and home by germany, arriving in good time for christmas day. three nights in christmas week, i have promised to read in the town hall at birmingham, for the benefit of a new and admirable institution for working men projected there. the friday will be the last night, and i shall read the "carol" to two thousand working people, stipulating that they shall have that night entirely to themselves. it just occurs to me that i mean to engage, for the two months odd, a travelling servant. i have not yet got one. if you should happen to be interested in any good foreigner, well acquainted with the countries and the languages, who would like such a master, how delighted i should be to like _him_! ever since i have been here, i have been very hard at work, often getting up at daybreak to write through many hours. i have never had the least return of illness, thank god, though i was so altered (in a week) when i came here, that i doubt if you would have known me. i am redder and browner than ever at the present writing, with the addition of a rather formidable and fierce moustache. lowestoft i know, by walking over there from yarmouth, when i went down on an exploring expedition, previous to "copperfield." it is a fine place. i saw the name "blunderstone" on a direction-post between it and yarmouth, and took it from the said direction-post for the book. we imagined the captain's ecstasies when we saw the birth of his child in the papers. in some of the descriptions of chesney wold, i have taken many bits, chiefly about trees and shadows, from observations made at rockingham. i wonder whether you have ever thought so! i shall hope to hear from you again soon, and shall not fail to write again before i go away. there seems to be nothing but "i" in this letter; but "i" know, my dear friend, that you will be more interested in that letter in the present connection, than in any other i could take from the alphabet. catherine and georgina send their kindest loves, and more messages than this little sheet would hold. if i were to give you a hint of what we feel at the sight of your handwriting, and at the receipt of a word from yourself about yourself, and the dear boys, and the precious little girls, i should begin to be sorrowful, which is rather the tendency of my mind at the close of another long book. i heard from cerjat two or three days since. goff, by-the-bye, lived in this house two years. ever, my dear mrs. watson, yours, with true affection and regard. [sidenote: mr. peter cunningham.] chÃ�teau des moulineaux, rue beaurepaire, boulogne. my dear cunningham, a note--cerberus-like--of three heads. first. i know you will be glad to hear that the manager is himself again. vigorous, brown, energetic, muscular; the pride of albion and the admiration of gaul. secondly. i told wills when i left home, that i was quite pained to see the end of your excellent "bowl of punch" altered. i was unaffectedly touched and gratified by the heartiness of the original; and saw no earthly, celestial, or subterranean objection to its remaining, as it did not so unmistakably apply to me as to necessitate the observance of my usual precaution in the case of such references, by any means. thirdly. if you ever have a holiday that you don't know what to do with, _do_ come and pass a little time here. we live in a charming garden in a very pleasant country, and should be delighted to receive you. excellent light wines on the premises, french cookery, millions of roses, two cows (for milk punch), vegetables cut for the pot, and handed in at the kitchen window; five summer-houses, fifteen fountains (with no water in 'em), and thirty-seven clocks (keeping, as i conceive, australian time; having no reference whatever to the hours on this side of the globe). i know, my dear cunningham, that the british nation can ill afford to lose you; and that when the audit office mice are away, the cats of that great public establishment will play. but pray consider that the bow may be sometimes bent too long, and that ever-arduous application, even in patriotic service, is to be avoided. no one can more highly estimate your devotion to the best interests of britain than i. but i wish to see it tempered with a wise consideration for your own amusement, recreation, and pastime. all work and no play may make peter a dull boy as well as jack. and (if i may claim the privilege of friendship to remonstrate) i would say that you do not take enough time for your meals. dinner, for instance, you habitually neglect. believe me, this rustic repose will do you good. winkles also are to be obtained in these parts, and it is well remarked by poor richard, that a bird in the handbook is worth two in the bush. ever cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] tavistock house, london, _sept. th, ._ my dear landor, i am in town for a day or two, and forster tells me i may now write to thank you for the happiness you have given me by honouring my name with such generous mention, on such a noble place, in your great book. i believe he has told you already that i wrote to him from boulogne, not knowing what to do, as i had not received the precious volume, and feared you might have some plan of sending it to me, with which my premature writing would interfere. you know how heartily and inexpressibly i prize what you have written to me, or you never would have selected me for such a distinction. i could never thank you enough, my dear landor, and i will not thank you in words any more. believe me, i receive the dedication like a great dignity, the worth of which i hope i thoroughly know. the queen could give me none in exchange that i wouldn't laughingly snap my fingers at. we are staying at boulogne until the th of october, when i go into italy until christmas, and the rest come home. kate and georgina would send you their best loves if they were here, and would never leave off talking about it if i went back and told them i had written to you without such mention of them. walter is a very good boy, and comes home from school with honourable commendation. he passed last sunday in solitary confinement (in a bath-room) on bread and water, for terminating a dispute with the nurse by throwing a chair in her direction. it is the very first occasion of his ever having got into trouble, for he is a great favourite with the whole house, and one of the most amiable boys in the boy world. (he comes out on birthdays in a blaze of shirt-pin). if i go and look at your old house, as i shall if i go to florence, i shall bring you back another leaf from the same tree as i plucked the last from. ever, my dear landor, heartily and affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. john delane.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _monday, sept. th, ._ my dear delane, i am very much obliged to you, i assure you, for your frank and full reply to my note. nothing could be more satisfactory, and i have to-day seen mr. gibson and placed my two small representatives under his charge. his manner is exactly what you describe him. i was greatly pleased with his genuineness altogether. we remain here until the tenth of next month, when i am going to desert my wife and family and run about italy until christmas. if i can execute any little commission for you or mrs. delane--in the genoa street of silversmiths, or anywhere else--i shall be delighted to do so. i have been in the receipt of several letters from macready lately, and rejoice to find him quite himself again, though i have great misgivings that he will lose his eldest boy before he can be got to india. mrs. dickens and her sister are proud of your message, and beg their kind regards to be forwarded in return; my other half being particularly comforted and encouraged by your account of mr. gibson. in this charge i am to include mrs. delane, who, i hope, will make an exchange of remembrances, and give me hers for mine. i never saw anything so ridiculous as this place at present. they expected the emperor ten or twelve days ago, and put up all manner of triumphal arches made of evergreens, which look like tea-leaves now, and will take a withered and weird appearance hardly to be foreseen, long before the twenty-fifth, when the visit is vaguely expected to come off. in addition to these faded garlands all over the leading streets, there are painted eagles hoisted over gateways and sprawling across a hundred ways, which have been washed out by the rain and are now being blistered by the sun, until they look horribly ludicrous. and a number of our benighted compatriots who came over to see a perfect blaze of _fêtes_, go wandering among these shrivelled preparations and staring at ten thousand flag-poles without any flags upon them, with a kind of indignant curiosity and personal injury quite irresistible. with many thanks, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _sunday, sept. th, ._ my dear wills, courier. edward kaub will bring this. he turned up yesterday, accounting for his delay by waiting for a written recommendation, and having at the last moment (as a foreigner, not being an englishman) a passport to get. i quite agree with you as to his appearance and manner, and have engaged him. it strikes me that it would be an excellent beginning if you would deliver him a neat and appropriate address, telling him what in your conscience you can find to tell of me favourably as a master, and particularly impressing upon him _readiness and punctuality_ on his part as the great things to be observed. i think it would have a much better effect than anything i could say in this stage, if said from yourself. but i shall be much obliged to you if you will act upon this hint forthwith. w. h. wills. no letter having arrived from the popular author of "the larboard fin,"[ ] by this morning's post, i rather think one must be on the way in the pocket of gordon's son. if kaub calls for this before young scotland arrives, you will understand if i do not herein refer to an unreceived letter. but i shall leave this open, until kaub comes for it. ever faithfully. [sidenote: the lord john russell.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _wednesday, sept. st, ._ my dear lord, your note having been forwarded to me here, i cannot forbear thanking you with all my heart for your great kindness. mr. forster had previously sent me a copy of your letter to him, together with the expression of the high and lasting gratification he had in your handsome response. i know he feels it most sincerely. i became the prey of a perfect spasm of sensitive twinges, when i found that the close of "bleak house" had not penetrated to "the wilds of the north" when your letter left those parts. i was so very much interested in it myself when i wrote it here last month, that i have a fond sort of faith in its interesting its readers. but for the hope that you may have got it by this time, i should refuse comfort. that supports me. the book has been a wonderful success. its audience enormous. i fear there is not much chance of my being able to execute any little commission for lady john anywhere in italy. but i am going across the alps, leaving here on the tenth of next month, and returning home to london for christmas day, and should indeed be happy if i could do her any dwarf service. you will be interested, i think, to hear that poole lives happily on his pension, and lives within it. he is quite incapable of any mental exertion, and what he would have done without it i cannot imagine. i send it to him at paris every quarter. it is something, even amid the estimation in which you are held, which is but a foreshadowing of what shall be by-and-by as the people advance, to be so gratefully remembered as he, with the best reason, remembers you. forgive my saying this. but the manner of that transaction, no less than the matter, is always fresh in my memory in association with your name, and i cannot help it. my dear lord, yours very faithfully and obliged. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] boulogne, _wednesday, sept. st, ._ my dear mrs. watson, the courier was unfortunately engaged. he offered to recommend another, but i had several applicants, and begged mr. wills to hold a grand review at the "household words" office, and select the man who is to bring me down as his victim. i am extremely sorry the man you recommend was not to be had. i should have been so delighted to take him. i am finishing "the child's history," and clearing the way through "household words," in general, before i go on my trip. i forget whether i told you that mr. egg the painter and mr. collins are going with me. the other day i was in town. in case you should not have heard of the condition of that deserted village, i think it worth mentioning. all the streets of any note were unpaved, mountains high, and all the omnibuses were sliding down alleys, and looking into the upper windows of small houses. at eleven o'clock one morning i was positively _alone_ in bond street. i went to one of my tailors, and he was at brighton. a smutty-faced woman among some gorgeous regimentals, half finished, had not the least idea when he would be back. i went to another of my tailors, and he was in an upper room, with open windows and surrounded by mignonette boxes, playing the piano in the bosom of his family. i went to my hosier's, and two of the least presentable of "the young men" of that elegant establishment were playing at draughts in the back shop. (likewise i beheld a porter-pot hastily concealed under a turkish dressing-gown of a golden pattern.) i then went wandering about to look for some ingenious portmanteau, and near the corner of st. james's street saw a solitary being sitting in a trunk-shop, absorbed in a book which, on a close inspection, i found to be "bleak house." i thought this looked well, and went in. and he really was more interested in seeing me, when he knew who i was, than any face i had seen in any house, every house i knew being occupied by painters, including my own. i went to the athenæum that same night, to get my dinner, and it was shut up for repairs. i went home late, and had forgotten the key and was locked out. preparations were made here, about six weeks ago, to receive the emperor, who is not come yet. meanwhile our countrymen (deluded in the first excitement) go about staring at these arrangements, with a personal injury upon them which is most ridiculous. and they _will_ persist in speaking an unknown tongue to the french people, who _will_ speak english to them. kate and georgina send their kindest loves. we are all quite well. going to drop two small boys here, at school with a former eton tutor highly recommended to me. charley was heard of a day or two ago. he says his professor "is very short-sighted, always in green spectacles, always drinking weak beer, always smoking a pipe, and always at work." the last qualification seems to appear to charley the most astonishing one. ever, my dear mrs. watson, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] hotel de la villa, milan, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear georgy, i have walked to that extent in switzerland (walked over the simplon on sunday, as an addition to the other feats) that one pair of the new strong shoes has gone to be mended this morning, and the other is in but a poor way; the snow having played the mischief with them. on the swiss side of the simplon, we slept at the beastliest little town, in the wildest kind of house, where some fifty cats tumbled into the corridor outside our bedrooms all at once in the middle of the night--whether through the roof or not, i don't know; for it was dark when we got up--and made such a horrible and terrific noise that we started out of our beds in a panic. i strongly objected to opening the door lest they should get into the room and tear at us; but edward opened his, and laid about him until he dispersed them. at domo d'ossola we had three immense bedrooms (egg's bed twelve feet wide!), and a sala of imperceptible extent in the dim light of two candles and a wood fire; but were very well and very cheaply entertained. here, we are, as you know, housed in the greatest comfort. we continue to get on very well together. we really do admirably. i lose no opportunity of inculcating the lesson that it is of no use to be out of temper in travelling, and it is very seldom wanted for any of us. egg is an excellent fellow, and full of good qualities; i am sure a generous and staunch man at heart, and a good and honourable nature. i shall send catherine from genoa a list of the places where letters will find me. i shall hope to hear from you too, and shall be very glad indeed to do so. no more at present. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] croce di malta, genoa, _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dearest georgy, we had thirty-one hours consecutively on the road between this and milan, and arrived here in a rather damaged condition. we live at the top of this immense house, overlooking the port and sea, pleasantly and airily enough, though it is no joke to get so high, and though the apartment is rather vast and faded. the old walks are pretty much the same as ever, except that they have built behind the peschiere on the san bartolomeo hill, and changed the whole town towards san pietro d'arena, where we seldom went. the bisagno looks just the same, strong just now, and with very little water in it. vicoli stink exactly as they used to, and are fragrant with the same old flavour of very rotten cheese kept in very hot blankets. the mezzaro pervades them as before. the old jesuit college in the strada nuova is under the present government the hôtel de ville, and a very splendid caffé with a terrace garden has arisen between it and palavicini's old palace. another new and handsome caffé has been built in the piazza carlo felice, between the old caffé of the bei arti (where fletcher stopped for the bouquets in the green times, when we went to the ----'s party), and the strada carlo felice. the old beastly gate and guardhouse on the albaro road are still in their dear old beastly state, and the whole of that road is just as it was. the man without legs is still in the strada nuova; but the beggars in general are all cleared off, and our old one-armed belisario made a sudden evaporation a year or two ago. i am going to the peschiere to-day. the puppets are here, and the opera is open, but only with a buffo company, and without a buffet. we went to the scala, where they did an opera of verdi's, called "il trovatore," and a poor enough ballet. the whole performance miserable indeed. i wish you were here to take some of the old walks. it is quite strange to walk about alone. good-bye, my dear georgy. pray tell me how kate is. i rather fancy from her letter, though i scarcely know why, that she is not quite as well as she was at boulogne. i was charmed with your account of the plornishghenter and everything and everybody else. kiss them all for me. ever most affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] hÃ�tel des Ã�trangers, naples, _friday night, nov. th, ._ my dearest georgy, instead of embarking on monday at genoa, we were delayed (in consequence of the boat's being a day later when there are thirty-one days in the month) until tuesday. going aboard that morning at half-past nine, we found the steamer more than full of passengers from marseilles, and in a state of confusion not to be described. we could get no places at the table, got our dinners how we could on deck, had no berths or sleeping accommodation of any kind, and had paid heavy first-class fares! to add to this, we got to leghorn too late to steam away again that night, getting the ship's papers examined first--as the authorities said so, not being favourable to the new express english ship, english officered--and we lay off the lighthouse all night long. the scene on board beggars description. ladies on the tables, gentlemen under the tables, and ladies and gentlemen lying indiscriminately on the open deck, arrayed like spoons on a sideboard. no mattresses, no blankets, nothing. towards midnight, attempts were made by means of an awning and flags to make this latter scene remotely approach an australian encampment; and we three lay together on the bare planks covered with overcoats. we were all gradually dozing off when a perfectly tropical rain fell, and in a moment drowned the whole ship. the rest of the night was passed upon the stairs, with an immense jumble of men and women. when anybody came up for any purpose we all fell down; and when anybody came down we all fell up again. still, the good-humour in the english part of the passengers was quite extraordinary. there were excellent officers aboard, and the first mate lent me his cabin to wash in in the morning, which i afterwards lent to egg and collins. then we and the emerson tennents (who were aboard) and the captain, the doctor, and the second officer went off on a jaunt together to pisa, as the ship was to lie at leghorn all day. the captain was a capital fellow, but i led him, facetiously, such a life all day, that i got almost everything altered at night. emerson tennent, with the greatest kindness, turned his son out of his state room (who, indeed, volunteered to go in the most amiable manner), and i got a good bed there. the store-room down by the hold was opened for egg and collins, and they slept with the moist sugar, the cheese in cut, the spices, the cruets, the apples and pears--in a perfect chandler's shop; in company with what the ----'s would call a "hold gent"--who had been so horribly wet through overnight that his condition frightened the authorities--a cat, and the steward--who dozed in an arm-chair, and all night long fell headforemost, once in every five minutes, on egg, who slept on the counter or dresser. last night i had the steward's own cabin, opening on deck, all to myself. it had been previously occupied by some desolate lady, who went ashore at civita vecchia. there was little or no sea, thank heaven, all the trip; but the rain was heavier than any i have ever seen, and the lightning very constant and vivid. we were, with the crew, some two hundred people; with boats, at the utmost stretch, for one hundred, perhaps. i could not help thinking what would happen if we met with any accident; the crew being chiefly maltese, and evidently fellows who would cut off alone in the largest boat on the least alarm. the speed (it being the crack express ship for the india mail) very high; also the running through all the narrow rocky channels. thank god, however, here we are. though the more sensible and experienced part of the passengers agreed with me this morning that it was not a thing to try often. we had an excellent table after the first day, the best wines and so forth, and the captain and i swore eternal friendship. ditto the first officer and the majority of the passengers. we got into the bay about seven this morning, but could not land until noon. we towed from civita vecchia the entire greek navy, i believe, consisting of a little brig-of-war, with great guns, fitted as a steamer, but disabled by having burst the bottom of her boiler in her first run. she was just big enough to carry the captain and a crew of six or so, but the captain was so covered with buttons and gold that there never would have been room for him on board to put these valuables away if he hadn't worn them, which he consequently did, all night. whenever anything was wanted to be done, as slackening the tow-rope or anything of that sort, our officers roared at this miserable potentate, in violent english, through a speaking-trumpet, of which he couldn't have understood a word under the most favourable circumstances, so he did all the wrong things first, and the right things always last. the absence of any knowledge of anything not english on the part of the officers and stewards was most ridiculous. i met an italian gentleman on the cabin steps, yesterday morning, vainly endeavouring to explain that he wanted a cup of tea for his sick wife. and when we were coming out of the harbour at genoa, and it was necessary to order away that boat of music you remember, the chief officer (called aft for the purpose, as "knowing something of italian,") delivered himself in this explicit and clear manner to the principal performer: "now, signora, if you don't sheer off, you'll be run down; so you had better trice up that guitar of yours, and put about." we get on as well as possible, and it is extremely pleasant and interesting, and i feel that the change is doing me great and real service, after a long continuous strain upon the mind; but i am pleased to think that we are at our farthest point, and i look forward with joy to coming home again, to my old room, and the old walks, and all the old pleasant things. i wish i had arranged, or could have done so--for it would not have been easy--to find some letters here. it is a blank to stay for five days in a place without any. i don't think edward knows fifty italian words; but much more french is spoken in italy now than when we were here, and he stumbles along somehow. i am afraid this is a dull letter, for i am very tired. you must take the will for the deed, my dear, and good night. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] rome, _sunday night, nov. th, ._ my dearest georgy, we arrived here yesterday afternoon, at between three and four. on sending to the post-office this morning, i received your pleasant little letter, and one from miss coutts, who is still at paris. but to my amazement there was none from catherine! you mention her writing, and i cannot but suppose that your two letters must have been posted together. however, i received none from her, and i have all manner of doubts respecting the plainness of its direction. they will not produce the letters here as at genoa, but persist in looking them out at the post-office for you. i shall send again to-morrow, and every day until friday, when we leave here. if i find no letter from her _to-morrow_, i shall write to her nevertheless by that post which brings this, so that you may both hear from me together. one night, at naples, edward came in, open-mouthed, to the table d'hôte where we were dining with the tennents, to announce "the marchese garofalo." i at first thought it must be the little parrot-marquess who was once your escort from genoa; but i found him to be a man (married to an englishwoman) whom we used to meet at ridgway's. he was very glad to see me, and i afterwards met him at dinner at mr. lowther's, our chargé d'affaires. mr. lowther was at the rockingham play, and is a very agreeable fellow. we had an exceedingly pleasant dinner of eight, preparatory to which i was near having the ridiculous adventure of not being able to find the house and coming back dinnerless. i went in an open carriage from the hotel in all state, and the coachman, to my surprise, pulled up at the end of the chiaja. "behold the house," says he, "of il signor larthoor!"--at the same time pointing with his whip into the seventh heaven, where the early stars were shining. "but the signor larthoor," returns the inimitable darling, "lives at pausilippo." "it is true," says the coachman (still pointing to the evening star), "but he lives high up the salita sant' antonio, where no carriage ever yet ascended, and that is the house" (evening star as aforesaid), "and one must go on foot. behold the salita sant' antonio!" i went up it, a mile and a half i should think. i got into the strangest places, among the wildest neapolitans--kitchens, washing-places, archways, stables, vineyards--was baited by dogs, answered in profoundly unintelligible neapolitan, from behind lonely locked doors, in cracked female voices, quaking with fear; could hear of no such englishman or any englishman. by-and-by i came upon a polenta-shop in the clouds, where an old frenchman, with an umbrella like a faded tropical leaf (it had not rained for six weeks) was staring at nothing at all, with a snuff-box in his hand. to him i appealed concerning the signor larthoor. "sir," said he, with the sweetest politeness, "can you speak french?" "sir," said i, "a little." "sir," said he, "i presume the signor loothere"--you will observe that he changed the name according to the custom of his country--"is an englishman." i admitted that he was the victim of circumstances and had that misfortune. "sir," said he, "one word more. _has_ he a servant with a wooden leg?" "great heaven, sir," said i, "how do i know! i should think not, but it is possible." "it is always," said the frenchman, "possible. almost all the things of the world are always possible." "sir," said i--you may imagine my condition and dismal sense of my own absurdity, by this time--"that is true." he then took an immense pinch of snuff, wiped the dust off his umbrella, led me to an arch commanding a wonderful view of the bay of naples, and pointed deep into the earth from which i had mounted. "below there, near the lamp, one finds an englishman, with a servant with a wooden leg. it is always possible that he is the signor loothere." i had been asked at six, and it was now getting on for seven. i went down again in a state of perspiration and misery not to be described, and without the faintest hope of finding the place. but as i was going down to the lamp, i saw the strangest staircase up a dark corner, with a man in a white-waistcoat (evidently hired) standing on the top of it, fuming. i dashed in at a venture, found it was the place, made the most of the whole story, and was indescribably popular. the best of it was, that as nobody ever did find the place, he had put a servant at the bottom of the salita, to "wait for an english gentleman." the servant (as he presently pleaded), deceived by the moustache, had allowed the english gentleman to pass unchallenged. the night before we left naples we were at the san carlo, where, with the verdi rage of our old genoa time, they were again doing the "trovatore." it seemed rubbish on the whole to me, but was very fairly done. i think "la tenco," the prima donna, will soon be a great hit in london. she is a very remarkable singer and a fine actress, to the best of my judgment on such premises. there seems to be no opera here, at present. there was a festa in st. peter's to-day, and the pope passed to the cathedral in state. we were all there. we leave here, please god, on friday morning, and post to florence in three days and a half. we came here by vetturino. upon the whole, the roadside inns are greatly improved since our time. half-past three and half-past four have been, however, our usual times of rising on the road. i was in my old place at the coliseum this morning, and it was as grand as ever. with that exception the ruined part of rome--the real original rome--looks smaller than my remembrance made it. it is the only place on which i have yet found that effect. we are in the old hotel. you are going to bonchurch i suppose? will be there, perhaps, when this letter reaches you? i shall be pleased to think of you as at home again, and making the commodious family mansion look natural and home-like. i don't like to think of my room without anybody to peep into it now and then. here is a world of travelling arrangements for me to settle, and here are collins and egg looking sideways at me with an occasional imploring glance as beseeching me to settle it. so i leave off. good-night. ever, my dearest georgy, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: sir james emerson tennent.] hÃ�tel des Ã�les britanniques, piazza del popolo, rome, _monday, nov. th, ._ my dear tennent, as i never made a good bargain in my life--except once, when, on going abroad, i let my house on excellent terms to an admirable tenant, who never paid anything--i sent edward into the casa dies yesterday morning, while i invested the premises from the outside, and carefully surveyed them. it is a very clean, large, bright-looking house at the corner of the via gregoriana; not exactly in a part of rome i should pick out for living in, and on what i should be disposed to call the wrong side of the street. however, this is not to the purpose. signor dies has no idea of letting an apartment for a short time--scouted the idea of a month--signified that he could not be brought to the contemplation of two months--was by no means clear that he could come down to the consideration of three. this of course settled the business speedily. this hotel is no longer kept by the melloni i spoke of, but is even better kept than in his time, and is a very admirable house. i have engaged a small apartment for you to be ready on thursday afternoon (at two piastres and a half--two-and-a-half per day--sitting-room and three bedrooms, one double-bedded and two not). if you would like to change to ours, which is a very good one, on friday morning, you can of course do so. as our dining-room is large, and there is no table d'hôte here, i will order dinner in it for our united parties at six on thursday. you will be able to decide how to arrange for the remainder of your stay, after being here and looking about you--two really necessary considerations in rome. pray make my kind regards to lady tennent, and miss tennent, and your good son, who became homeless for my sake. mr. egg and mr. collins desire to be also remembered. it has been beautiful weather since we left naples, until to-day, when it rains in a very dogged, sullen, downcast, and determined manner. we have been speculating at breakfast on the possibility of its raining in a similar manner at naples, and of your wandering about the hotel, refusing consolation. i grieve to report the orvieto considerably damaged by the general vine failure, but still far from despicable. montefiascone (the est wine you know) is to be had here; and we have had one bottle in the very finest condition, and one in a second-rate state. the coliseum, in its magnificent old decay, is as grand as ever; and with the electric telegraph darting through one of its ruined arches like a sunbeam and piercing direct through its cruel old heart, is even grander. believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] rome, _monday, nov. th, ._ my dearest catherine, as i have mentioned in my letter to georgy (written last night but posted with this), i received her letter without yours, to my unbounded astonishment. this morning, on sending again to the post-office, i at last got yours, and most welcome it is with all its contents. i found layard at naples, who went up vesuvius with us, and was very merry and agreeable. he is travelling with lord and lady somers, and lord somers being laid up with an attack of malaria fever, layard had a day to spare. craven, who was lord normanby's secretary of legation in paris, now lives at naples, and is married to a french lady. he is very hospitable and hearty, and seemed to have vague ideas that something might be done in a pretty little private theatre he has in his house. he told me of fanny kemble and the sartoris's being here. i have also heard of thackeray's being here--i don't know how truly. lockhart is here, and, i fear, very ill. i mean to go and see him. we are living in the old hotel, which is not now kept by meloni, who has retired. i don't know whether you recollect an apartment at the top of the house, to which we once ran up with poor roche to see the horses start in the race at the carnival time? that is ours, in which i at present write. we have a large back dining-room, a handsome front drawing-room, looking into the piazza del popolo, and three front bedrooms, all on a floor. the whole costs us about four shillings a day each. the hotel is better kept than ever. there is a little kitchen to each apartment where the dinner is kept hot. there is no house comparable to it in paris, and it is better than mivart's. we start for florence, post, on friday morning, and i am bargaining for a carriage to take us on to venice. edward is an excellent servant, and always cheerful and ready for his work. he knows no italian, except the names of a few things, but french is far more widely known here now than in our time. neither is he an experienced courier as to roads and so forth; but he picks up all that i want to know, here and there, somehow or other. i am perfectly pleased with him, and would rather have him than an older hand. poor dear roche comes back to my mind though, often. i have written to engage the courier from turin into france, from _tuesday, the th december_. this will bring us home some two days after the tenth, probably. i wrote to charley from naples, giving him his choice of meeting me at lyons, in paris, or at boulogne. i gave him full instructions what to do if he arrived before me, and he will write to me at turin saying where i shall find him. i shall be a day or so later than i supposed as the nearest calculation i could make when i wrote to him; but his waiting for me at an hotel will not matter. we have had delightful weather, with one day's exception, until to-day, when it rained very heavily and suddenly. egg and collins have gone to the vatican, and i am "going" to try whether i can hit out anything for the christmas number. give my love to forster, and tell him i won't write to him until i hear from him. i have not come across any english whom i know except layard and the emerson tennents, who will be here on thursday from civita vecchia, and are to dine with us. the losses up to this point have been two pairs of shoes (one mine and one egg's), collins's snuff-box, and egg's dressing-gown. we observe the managerial punctuality in all our arrangements, and have not had any difference whatever. i have been reserving this side all through my letter, in the conviction that i had something else to tell you. if i had, i cannot remember what it is. i introduced myself to salvatore at vesuvius, and reminded him of the night when poor le gros fell down the mountains. he was full of interest directly, remembered the very hole, put on his gold-banded cap, and went up with us himself. he did not know that le gros was dead, and was very sorry to hear it. he asked after the ladies, and hoped they were very happy, to which i answered, "very." the cone is completely changed since our visit, is not at all recognisable as the same place; and there is no fire from the mountain, though there is a great deal of smoke. its last demonstration was in . i shall be glad to think of your all being at home again, as i suppose you will be soon after the receipt of this. will you see to the invitations for christmas day, and write to lætitia? i shall be very happy to be at home again myself, and to embrace you; for of course i miss you _very much_, though i feel that i could not have done a better thing to clear my mind and freshen it up again, than make this expedition. if i find charley much ahead of me, i shall start on through a night or so to meet him, and leave the others to catch us up. i look upon the journey as almost closed at turin. my best love to mamey, and katey, and sydney, and harry, and the darling plornishghenter. we often talk about them, and both my companions do so with interest. they always send all sorts of messages to you, which i never deliver. god bless you! take care of yourself. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] rome, _thursday afternoon, nov. th, ._ my dear wills, just as i wrote the last words of the enclosed little story for the christmas number just now, edward brought in your letter. also one from forster (tell him) which i have not yet opened. i will write again--and write to him--from florence. i am delighted to have news of you. the enclosed little paper for the christmas number is in a character that nobody else is likely to hit, and which is pretty sure to be considered pleasant. let forster have the ms. with the proof, and i know he will correct it to the minutest point. i have a notion of another little story, also for the christmas number. if i can do it at venice, i will, and send it straight on. but it is not easy to work under these circumstances. in travelling we generally get up about three; and in resting we are perpetually roaming about in all manner of places. not to mention my being laid hold of by all manner of people. keep "household words" imaginative! is the solemn and continual conductorial injunction. delighted to hear of mrs. gaskell's contributions. yes by all manner of means to lady holland. will you ask her whether she has sydney smith's letters to me, which i placed (at mrs. smith's request) either in mrs. smith's own hands or in mrs. austin's? i cannot remember which, but i think the latter. in making up the christmas number, don't consider my paper or papers, with any reference saving to where they will fall best. i have no liking, in the case, for any particular place. all perfectly well. companion moustaches (particularly egg's) dismal in the extreme. kindest regards to mrs. wills. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] florence, _monday, nov. st, ._ h. w. my dear wills, i sent you by post from rome, on wednesday last, a little story for the christmas number, called "the schoolboy's story." i have an idea of another short one, to be called "nobody's story," which i hope to be able to do at venice, and to send you straight home before this month is out. i trust you have received the first safely. edward continues to do extremely well. he is always, early and late, what you have seen him. he is a very steady fellow, a little too bashful for a courier even; settles prices of everything now, as soon as we come into an hotel; and improves fast. his knowledge of italian is painfully defective, and, in the midst of a howling crowd at a post-house or railway station, this deficiency perfectly stuns him. i was obliged last night to get out of the carriage, and pluck him from a crowd of porters who were putting our baggage into wrong conveyances--by cursing and ordering about in all directions. i should think about ten substantives, the names of ten common objects, form his whole italian stock. it matters very little at the hotels, where a great deal of french is spoken now; but, on the road, if none of his party knew italian, it would be a very serious inconvenience indeed. will you write to ryland if you have not heard from him, and ask him what the birmingham reading-nights are really to be? for it is ridiculous enough that i positively don't know. can't a saturday night in a truck district, or a sunday morning among the ironworkers (a fine subject) be knocked out in the course of the same visit? if you should see any managing man you know in the oriental and peninsular company, i wish you would very gravely mention to him from me that if they are not careful what they are about with their steamship _valetta_, between marseilles and naples, they will suddenly find that they will receive a blow one fine day in _the times_, which it will be a very hard matter for them ever to recover. when i sailed in her from genoa, there had been taken on board, _with no caution in most cases from the agent, or hint of discomfort_, at least forty people of both sexes for whom there was no room whatever. i am a pretty old traveller as you know, but i never saw anything like the manner in which pretty women were compelled to lie among the men in the great cabin and on the bare decks. the good humour was beyond all praise, but the natural indignation very great; and i was repeatedly urged to stand up for the public in "household words," and to write a plain description of the facts to _the times_. if i had done either, and merely mentioned that all these people paid heavy first-class fares, i will answer for it that they would have been beaten off the station in a couple of months. i did neither, because i was the best of friends with the captain and all the officers, and never saw such a fine set of men; so admirable in the discharge of their duty, and so zealous to do their best by everybody. it is impossible to praise them too highly. but there is a strong desire at all the ports along the coast to throw impediments in the way of the english service, and to favour the french and italian boats. in those boats (which i know very well) great care is taken of the passengers, and the accommodation is very good. if the peninsula and oriental add to all this the risk of such an exposure as they are _certain_ to get (if they go on so) in _the times_, they are dead sure to get a blow from the public which will make them stagger again. i say nothing of the number of the passengers and the room in the ship's boats, though the frightful consideration the contrast presented must have been in more minds than mine. i speak only of the taking people for whom there is no sort of accommodation as the most decided swindle, and the coolest, i ever did with my eyes behold. kindest regards from fellow-travellers. ever, my dear wills, faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] venice, _friday, november th, ._ my dearest georgy, we found an english carriage from padua at florence, and hired it to bring it back again. we travelled post with four horses all the way (from padua to this place there is a railroad) and travelled all night. we left florence at half-past six in the morning, and got to padua at eleven next day--yesterday. the cold at night was most intense. i don't think i have ever felt it colder. but our carriage was very comfortable, and we had some wine and some rum to keep us warm. we came by bologna (where we had tea) and ferrara. you may imagine the delays in the night when i tell you that each of our passports, after receiving _six visés_ at florence, received in the course of the one night, _nine more_, every one of which was written and sealed; somebody being slowly knocked out of bed to do it every time! it really was excruciating. landor had sent me a letter to his son, and on the day before we left florence i thought i would go out to fiesoli and leave it. so i got a little one-horse open carriage and drove off alone. we were within half a mile of the villa landoro, and were driving down a very narrow lane like one of those at albaro, when i saw an elderly lady coming towards us, very well dressed in silk of the queen's blue, and walking freshly and briskly against the wind at a good round pace. it was a bright, cloudless, very cold day, and i thought she walked with great spirit, as if she enjoyed it. i also thought (perhaps that was having him in my mind) that her ruddy face was shaped like landor's. all of a sudden the coachman pulls up, and looks enquiringly at me. "what's the matter?" says i. "ecco la signora landoro?" says he. "for the love of heaven, don't stop," says i. "_i_ don't know her, i am only going to the house to leave a letter--go on!" meanwhile she (still coming on) looked at me, and i looked at her, and we were both a good deal confused, and so went our several ways. altogether, i think it was as disconcerting a meeting as i ever took part in, and as odd a one. under any other circumstances i should have introduced myself, but the separation made the circumstances so peculiar that "i didn't like." the plornishghenter is evidently the greatest, noblest, finest, cleverest, brightest, and most brilliant of boys. your account of him is most delightful, and i hope to find another letter from you somewhere on the road, making me informed of his demeanour on your return. on which occasion, as on every other, i have no doubt he will have distinguished himself as an irresistibly attracting, captivating may-roon-ti-groon-ter. give him a good many kisses for me. i quite agree with syd as to his ideas of paying attention to the old gentleman. it's not bad, but deficient in originality. the usual deficiency of an inferior intellect with so great a model before him. i am very curious to see whether the plorn remembers me on my reappearance. i meant to have gone to work this morning, and to have tried a second little story for the christmas number of "household words," but my letters have (most pleasantly) put me out, and i defer all such wise efforts until to-morrow. egg and collins are out in a gondola with a servitore di piazza. you will find this but a stupid letter, but i really have no news. we go to the opera, whenever there is one, see sights, eat and drink, sleep in a natural manner two or three nights, and move on again. edward was a little crushed at padua yesterday. he had been extraordinarily cold all night in the rumble, and had got out our clothes to dress, and i think must have been projecting a five or six hours' sleep, when i announced that he was to come on here in an hour and a half to get the rooms and order dinner. he fell into a sudden despondency of the profoundest kind, but was quite restored when we arrived here between eight and nine. we found him waiting at the custom house with a gondola in his usual brisk condition. it is extraordinary how few english we see. with the exception of a gentlemanly young fellow (in a consumption i am afraid), married to the tiniest little girl, in a brown straw hat, and travelling with his sister and her sister, and a consumptive single lady, travelling with a maid and a scotch terrier christened trotty veck, we have scarcely seen any, and have certainly spoken to none, since we left switzerland. these were aboard the _valetta_, where the captain and i indulged in all manner of insane suppositions concerning the straw hat--the "little matron" we called her; by which name she soon became known all over the ship. the day we entered rome, and the moment we entered it, there was the little matron, alone with antiquity--and murray--on the wall. the very first church i entered, there was the little matron. on the last afternoon, when i went alone to st. peter's, there was the little matron and her party. the best of it is, that i was extremely intimate with them, invited them to tavistock house, when they come home in the spring, and have not the faintest idea of their name. there was no table d'hôte at rome, or at florence, but there is one here, and we dine at it to-day, so perhaps we may stumble upon somebody. i have heard from charley this morning, who appoints (wisely) paris as our place of meeting. i had a letter from coote, at florence, informing me that his volume of "household songs" was ready, and requesting permission to dedicate it to me. which of course i gave. i am beginning to think of the birmingham readings. i suppose you won't object to be taken to hear them? this is the last place at which we shall make a stay of more than one day. we shall stay at parma one, and at turin one, supposing de la rue to have been successful in taking places with the courier into france for the day on which we want them (he was to write to bankers at turin to do it), and then we shall come hard and fast home. i feel almost there already, and shall be delighted to close the pleasant trip, and get back to my own piccola camera--if, being english, you understand what _that_ is. my best love and kisses to mamey, katey, sydney, harry, and the noble plorn. last, not least, to yourself, and many of them. i will not wait over to-morrow, tell kate, for her letter; but will write then, whether or no. ever, my dearest georgy, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. marcus stone.] tavistock house, _december th, ._ my dear marcus, you made an excellent sketch from a book of mine which i have received (and have preserved) with great pleasure. will you accept from me, in remembrance of it, _this_ little book? i believe it to be true, though it may be sometimes not as genteel as history has a habit of being. faithfully yours. footnote: [ ] meaning mr. w. h. wills himself. . narrative. the summer of this year was also spent at boulogne, m. beaucourt being again the landlord; but the house, though still on the same "property," stood on the top of the hill, above the moulineaux, and was called the villa du camp de droite. in the early part of the year charles dickens paid several visits to the english provinces, giving readings from his books at many of the large manufacturing towns, and always for some good and charitable purpose. he was still at work upon "hard times," which was finished during the summer, and was constantly occupied with "household words." many of our letters for this year are to the contributors to this journal. the last is an unusually interesting one. he had for some time past been much charmed with the writings of a certain miss berwick, who, he knew, to be a contributor under a feigned name. when at last the lady confided her real name, and he discovered in the young poetess the daughter of his dear friends, mr.[ ] and mrs. procter, the "new sensation" caused him intense surprise, and the greatest pleasure and delight. miss adelaide procter was, from this time, a frequent contributor to "household words," more especially to the christmas numbers. there are really very few letters in this year requiring any explanation from us--many explaining themselves, and many having allusion to incidents in the past year, which have been duly noted by us for . the portrait mentioned in the letter to mr. collins, for which he was sitting to mr. e. m. ward, r.a., was to be one of a series of oil sketches of the then celebrated literary men of the day, in their studies. we believe this portrait to be now in the possession of mrs. ward. in explanation of the letter to mr. john saunders on the subject of the production of the latter's play, called "love's martyrdom," we will give the dramatist's own words: "having printed for private circulation a play entitled 'love's martyrdom,' and for which i desired to obtain the independent judgment of some of our most eminent literary men, before seeking the ordeal of the stage, i sent a copy to mr. dickens, and the letter in question is his acknowledgment. * * * * * "he immediately took steps for the introduction of the play to the theatre. at first he arranged with mr. phelps, of sadler's wells, but subsequently, with that gentleman's consent, removed it to the haymarket. there it was played with miss helen faucit in the character of margaret, miss swanborough (who shortly after married and left the stage) as julia, mr. barry sullivan as franklyn, and mr. howe as laneham. "as far as the play itself was concerned, it was received on all sides as a genuine dramatic and poetic success, achieved, however, as an eminent critic came to my box to say, through greater difficulties than he had ever before seen a dramatic work pass through. the time has not come for me to speak freely of these, but i may point to two of them: the first being the inadequate rehearsals, which caused mr. dickens to tell me on the stage, four or five days only before the first performance, that the play was not then in as good a state as it would have been in at paris three weeks earlier. the other was the breakdown of the performer of a most important secondary part; a collapse so absolute that he was changed by the management before the second representation of the piece." this ill-luck of the beginning, pursued the play to its close. "the haymarket theatre was at the time in the very lowest state of prostration, through the crimean war; the habitual frequenters were lovers of comedy, and enjoyers of farce and burlesque; and there was neither the money nor the faith to call to the theatre by the usual methods, vigorously and discriminatingly pursued, the multitudes that i believed could have been so called to a better and more romantic class of comedy. "even under these and other, similarly depressing circumstances, the nightly receipts were about £ , the expenses being £ ; and on the last--an author's--night, there was an excellent and enthusiastic house, yielding, to the best of my recollection, about £ , but certainly between £ and £ . and with that night--the sixth or seventh--the experiment ended." [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear landor, i heartily assure you that to have your name coupled with anything i have done is an honour and a pleasure to me. i cannot say that i am sorry that you should have thought it necessary to write to me, for it is always delightful to me to see your hand, and to know (though i want no outward and visible sign as an assurance of the fact) that you are ever the same generous, earnest, gallant man. catherine and georgina send their kind loves. so does walter landor, who came home from school with high judicial commendation and a prize into the bargain. ever, my dear landor, affectionately yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _friday, january th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, on the very day after i sent the christmas number to rockingham, i heard of your being at brighton. i should have sent another there, but that i had a misgiving i might seem to be making too much of it. for, when i thought of the probability of the rockingham copy going on to brighton, and pictured to myself the advent of two of those very large envelopes at once at junction house at breakfast time, a sort of comic modesty overcame me. i was heartily pleased with the birmingham audience, which was a very fine one. i never saw, nor do i suppose anybody ever did, such an interesting sight as the working people's night. there were two thousand five hundred of them there, and a more delicately observant audience it is impossible to imagine. they lost nothing, misinterpreted nothing, followed everything closely, laughed and cried with most delightful earnestness, and animated me to that extent that i felt as if we were all bodily going up into the clouds together. it is an enormous place for the purpose; but i had considered all that carefully, and i believe made the most distant person hear as well as if i had been reading in my own room. i was a little doubtful before i began on the first night whether it was quite practicable to conceal the requisite effort; but i soon had the satisfaction of finding that it was, and that we were all going on together, in the first page, as easily, to all appearance, as if we had been sitting round the fire. i am obliged to go out on monday at five and to dine out; but i will be at home at any time before that hour that you may appoint. you say you are only going to stay one night in town; but if you could stay two, and would dine with us alone on tuesday, _that_ is the plan that we should all like best. let me have one word from you by post on monday morning. few things that i saw, when i was away, took my fancy so much as the electric telegraph, piercing, like a sunbeam, right through the cruel old heart of the coliseum at rome. and on the summit of the alps, among the eternal ice and snow, there it was still, with its posts sustained against the sweeping mountain winds by clusters of great beams--to say nothing of its being at the bottom of the sea as we crossed the channel. with kindest loves, ever, my dear mrs. watson, most faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] tavistock house, _monday, january th, ._ my dear mary, it is all very well to pretend to love me as you do. ah! if you loved as _i_ love, mary! but, when my breast is tortured by the perusal of such a letter as yours, falkland, falkland, madam, becomes my part in "the rivals," and i play it with desperate earnestness. as thus: falkland (_to acres_). then you see her, sir, sometimes? acres. see her! odds beams and sparkles, yes. see her acting! night after night. falkland (_aside and furious_). death and the devil! acting, and i not there! pray, sir (_with constrained calmness_), what does she act? acres. odds, monthly nurses and babbies! sairey gamp and betsey prig, "which, wotever it is, my dear (_mimicking_), i likes it brought reg'lar and draw'd mild!" _that's_ very like her. falkland. confusion! laceration! perhaps, sir, perhaps she sometimes acts--ha! ha! perhaps she sometimes acts, i say--eh! sir?--a--ha, ha, ha! a fairy? (_with great bitterness._) acres. odds, gauzy pinions and spangles, yes! you should hear her sing as a fairy. you should see her dance as a fairy. tol de rol lol--la--lol--liddle diddle. (_sings and dances_). _that's_ very like her. falkland. misery! while i, devoted to her image, can scarcely write a line now and then, or pensively read aloud to the people of birmingham. (_to him._) and they applaud her, no doubt they applaud her, sir. and she--i see her! curtsies and smiles! and they--curses on them! they laugh and--ha, ha, ha!--and clap their hands--and say it's very good. do they not say it's very good, sir? tell me. do they not? acres. odds, thunderings and pealings, of course they do! and the third fiddler, little tweaks, of the county town, goes into fits. ho, ho, ho, i can't bear it (_mimicking_); take me out! ha, ha, ha! o what a one she is! she'll be the death of me. ha, ha, ha, ha! _that's_ very like her! falkland. damnation! heartless mary! (_rushes out._) scene opens, and discloses coals of fire, heaped up into form of letters, representing the following inscription: when the praise thou meetest to thine ear is sweetest, o then remember joe! (_curtain falls._) [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _monday, jan. th, ._ my dear cerjat, guilty. the accused pleads guilty, but throws himself upon the mercy of the court. he humbly represents that his usual hour for getting up, in the course of his travels, was three o'clock in the morning, and his usual hour for going to bed, nine or ten the next night. that the places in which he chiefly deviated from these rules of hardship, were rome and venice; and that at those cities of fame he shut himself up in solitude, and wrote christmas papers for the incomparable publication known as "household words." that his correspondence at all times, arising out of the business of the said "household words" alone, was very heavy. that his offence, though undoubtedly committed, was unavoidable, and that a nominal punishment will meet the justice of the case. we had only three bad days out of the whole time. after naples, which was very hot, we had very cold, clear, bright weather. when we got to chamounix, we found the greater part of the inns shut up and the people gone. no visitors whatsoever, and plenty of snow. these were the very best circumstances under which to see the place, and we stayed a couple of days at the hôtel de londres (hastily re-furbished for our entertainment), and climbed through the snow to the mer de glace, and thoroughly enjoyed it. then we went, in mule procession (i walking) to the old hotel at martigny, where collins was ill, and i suppose i bored egg to death by talking all the evening about the time when you and i were there together. naples (a place always painful to me, in the intense degradation of the people) seems to have only three classes of inhabitants left in it--priests, soldiers (standing army one hundred thousand strong), and spies. of macaroni we ate very considerable quantities everywhere; also, for the benefit of italy, we took our share of every description of wine. at naples i found layard, the nineveh traveller, who is a friend of mine and an admirable fellow; so we fraternised and went up vesuvius together, and ate more macaroni and drank more wine. at rome, the day after our arrival, they were making a saint at st. peter's; on which occasion i was surprised to find what an immense number of pounds of wax candles it takes to make the regular, genuine article. from turin to paris, over the mont cenis, we made only one journey. the rhone, being frozen and foggy, was not to be navigated, so we posted from lyons to chalons, and everybody else was doing the like, and there were no horses to be got, and we were stranded at midnight in amazing little cabarets, with nothing worth mentioning to eat in them, except the iron stove, which was rusty, and the billiard-table, which was musty. we left turin on a tuesday evening, and arrived in paris on a friday evening; where i found my son charley, hot--or i should rather say cold--from germany, with his arms and legs so grown out of his coat and trousers, that i was ashamed of him, and was reduced to the necessity of taking him, under cover of night, to a ready-made establishment in the palais royal, where they put him into balloon-waisted pantaloons, and increased my confusion. leaving calais on the evening of sunday, the th of december; fact of distinguished author's being aboard, was telegraphed to dover; thereupon authorities of dover railway detained train to london for distinguished author's arrival, rather to the exasperation of british public. d. a. arrived at home between ten and eleven that night, thank god, and found all well and happy. i think you see _the times_, and if so, you will have seen a very graceful and good account of the birmingham readings. it was the most remarkable thing that england could produce, i think, in the way of a vast intelligent assemblage; and the success was most wonderful and prodigious--perfectly overwhelming and astounding altogether. they wound up by giving my wife a piece of plate, having given me one before; and when you come to dine here (may it be soon!) it shall be duly displayed in the centre of the table. tell mrs. cerjat, to whom my love, and all our loves, that i have highly excited them at home here by giving them an account in detail of all your daughters; further, that the way in which catherine and georgina have questioned me and cross-questioned me about you all, notwithstanding, is maddening. mrs. watson has been obliged to pass her christmas at brighton alone with her younger children, in consequence of her two eldest boys coming home to rockingham from school with the whooping-cough. the quarantine expires to-day, however; and she drives here, on her way back into northamptonshire, to-morrow. the sad affair of the preston strike remains unsettled; and i hear, on strong authority, that if that were settled, the manchester people are prepared to strike next. provisions very dear, but the people very temperate and quiet in general. so ends this jumble, which looks like the index to a chapter in a book, i find, when i read it over. ever, my dear cerjat, heartily your friend. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear sir, i am quite delighted to find that you are so well satisfied, and that the enterprise has such a light upon it. i think i never was better pleased in my life than i was with my birmingham friends. that principle of fair representation of all orders carefully carried out, i believe, will do more good than any of us can yet foresee. does it not seem a strange thing to consider that i have never yet seen with these eyes of mine, a mechanic in any recognised position on the platform of a mechanics' institution? mr. wills may be expected to sink, shortly, under the ravages of letters from all parts of england, ireland, and scotland, proposing readings. he keeps up his spirits, but i don't see how they are to carry him through. mrs. dickens and miss hogarth beg their kindest regards; and i am, my dear sir, with much regard, too, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear knight, indeed there is no fear of my thinking you the owner of a cold heart. i am more than three parts disposed, however, to be ferocious with you for ever writing down such a preposterous truism. my satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else--the representatives of the wickedest and most enormous vice of this time--the men who, through long years to come, will do more to damage the real useful truths of political economy than i could do (if i tried) in my whole life; the addled heads who would take the average of cold in the crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothing a soldier in nankeens on a night when he would be frozen to death in fur, and who would comfort the labourer in travelling twelve miles a day to and from his work, by telling him that the average distance of one inhabited place from another in the whole area of england, is not more than four miles. bah! what have you to do with these? i shall put the book upon a private shelf (after reading it) by "once upon a time." i should have buried my pipe of peace and sent you this blast of my war-horn three or four days ago, but that i have been reading to a little audience of three thousand five hundred at bradford. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _tuesday, march th, ._ my dear white, i am tardy in answering your letter; but "hard times," and an immense amount of enforced correspondence, are my excuse. to you a sufficient one, i know. as i should judge from outward and visible appearances, i have exactly as much chance of seeing the russian fleet reviewed by the czar as i have of seeing the english fleet reviewed by the queen. "club law" made me laugh very much when i went over it in the proof yesterday. it is most capitally done, and not (as i feared it might be) too directly. it is in the next number but one. mrs. ---- has gone stark mad--and stark naked--on the spirit-rapping imposition. she was found t'other day in the street, clothed only in her chastity, a pocket-handkerchief and a visiting card. she had been informed, it appeared, by the spirits, that if she went out in that trim she would be invisible. she is now in a madhouse, and, i fear, hopelessly insane. one of the curious manifestations of her disorder is that she can bear nothing black. there is a terrific business to be done, even when they are obliged to put coals on her fire. ---- has a thing called a psycho-grapher, which writes at the dictation of spirits. it delivered itself, a few nights ago, of this extraordinarily lucid message: x. y. z! upon which it was gravely explained by the true believers that "the spirits were out of temper about something." said ---- had a great party on sunday, when it was rumoured "a count was going to raise the dead." i stayed till the ghostly hour, but the rumour was unfounded, for neither count nor plebeian came up to the spiritual scratch. it is really inexplicable to me that a man of his calibre can be run away with by such small deer. _Ã� propos_ of spiritual messages comes in georgina, and, hearing that i am writing to you, delivers the following enigma to be conveyed to mrs. white: "wyon of the mint lives _at_ the mint." feeling my brain going after this, i only trust it with loves from all to all. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. charles knight.] tavistock house, _march th, ._ my dear knight, i have read the article with much interest. it is most conscientiously done, and presents a great mass of curious information condensed into a surprisingly small space. i have made a slight note or two here and there, with a soft pencil, so that a touch of indiarubber will make all blank again. and i earnestly entreat your attention to the point (i have been working upon it, weeks past, in "hard times") which i have jocosely suggested on the last page but one. the english are, so far as i know, the hardest-worked people on whom the sun shines. be content if, in their wretched intervals of pleasure, they read for amusement and do no worse. they are born at the oar, and they live and die at it. good god, what would we have of them! affectionately yours always. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "household words," no. , wellington street, north strand, _wednesday, april th, ._ * * * * * i know all the walks for many and many miles round about malvern, and delightful walks they are. i suppose you are already getting very stout, very red, very jovial (in a physical point of view) altogether. mark and i walked to dartford from greenwich, last monday, and found mrs. ---- acting "the stranger" (with a strolling company from the standard theatre) in mr. munn's schoolroom. the stage was a little wider than your table here, and its surface was composed of loose boards laid on the school forms. dogs sniffed about it during the performances, and _the_ carpenter's highlows were ostentatiously taken off and displayed in the proscenium. we stayed until a quarter to ten, when we were obliged to fly to the railroad, but we sent the landlord of the hotel down with the following articles: bottle superior old port, do. do. golden sherry, do. do. best french brandy, do. do. st quality old tom gin, bottle superior prime jamaica rum, do. do. small still _isla_ whiskey, kettle boiling water, two pounds finest white lump sugar, our cards, lemon, and our compliments. the effect we had previously made upon the theatrical company by being beheld in the first two chairs--there was nearly a pound in the house--was altogether electrical. my ladies send their kindest regards, and are disappointed at your not saying that you drink two-and-twenty tumblers of the limpid element, every day. the children also unite in "loves," and the plornishghenter, on being asked if he would send his, replies "yes--man," which we understand to signify cordial acquiescence. forster just come back from lecturing at sherborne. describes said lecture as "blaze of triumph." h. w. again. miss--i mean mrs.--bell's story very nice. i have sent it to the printer, and entitled it "the green ring and the gold ring." this apartment looks desolate in your absence; but, o heavens, how tidy! f. w. mrs. wills supposed to have gone into a convent at somers town. my dear wills, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] tavistock house, _saturday night, april th, ._ my dear procter, i have read the "fatal revenge." don't do what the minor theatrical people call "despi-ser" me, but i think it's very bad. the concluding narrative is by far the most meritorious part of the business. still, the people are so very convulsive and tumble down so many places, and are always knocking other people's bones about in such a very irrational way, that i object. the way in which earthquakes won't swallow the monsters, and volcanoes in eruption won't boil them, is extremely aggravating. also their habit of bolting when they are going to explain anything. you have sent me a very different and a much better book; and for that i am truly grateful. with the dust of "maturin" in my eyes, i sat down and read "the death of friends," and the dust melted away in some of those tears it is good to shed. i remember to have read "the backroom window" some years ago, and i have associated it with you ever since. it is a most delightful paper. but the two volumes are all delightful, and i have put them on a shelf where you sit down with charles lamb again, with talfourd's vindication of him hard by. we never meet. i hope it is not irreligious, but in this strange london i have an inclination to adapt a portion of the church service to our common experience. thus: "we have left unmet the people whom we ought to have met, and we have met the people whom we ought not to have met, and there seems to be no help in us." but i am always, my dear procter, (at a distance), very cordially yours. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _april st, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i safely received the paper from mr. shaen, welcomed it with three cheers, and instantly despatched it to the printer, who has it in hand now. i have no intention of striking. the monstrous claims at domination made by a certain class of manufacturers, and the extent to which the way is made easy for working men to slide down into discontent under such hands, are within my scheme; but i am not going to strike, so don't be afraid of me. but i wish you would look at the story yourself, and judge where and how near i seem to be approaching what you have in your mind. the first two months of it will show that. i will "make my will" on the first favourable occasion. we were playing games last night, and were fearfully clever. with kind regards to mr. gaskell, always, my dear mrs. gaskell, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear stone, i can_not_ stand a total absence of ventilation, and i should have liked (in an amiable and persuasive manner) to have punched ----'s head, and opened the register stoves. i saw the supper tables, sir, in an empty state, and was charmed with them. likewise i recovered myself from a swoon, occasioned by long contact with an unventilated man of a strong flavour from copenhagen, by drinking an unknown species of celestial lemonade in that enchanted apartment. i am grieved to say that on saturday i stand engaged to dine, at three weeks' notice, with one ----, a man who has read every book that ever was written, and is a perfect gulf of information. before exploding a mine of knowledge he has a habit of closing one eye and wrinkling up his nose, so that he seems perpetually to be taking aim at you and knocking you over with a terrific charge. then he looks again, and takes another aim. so you are always on your back, with your legs in the air. how can a man be conversed with, or walked with, in the county of middlesex, when he is reviewing the kentish militia on the shores of dover, or sailing, every day for three weeks, between dover and calais? ever affectionately. p.s.--"humphry clinker" is certainly smollett's best. i am rather divided between "peregrine pickle" and "roderick random," both extraordinarily good in their way, which is a way without tenderness; but you will have to read them both, and i send the first volume of "peregrine" as the richer of the two. [sidenote: mr. peter cunningham.] tavistock house, _june th, ._ my dear cunningham, i cannot become one of the committee for wilson's statue, after entertaining so strong an opinion against the expediency of such a memorial in poor dear talfourd's case. but i will subscribe my three guineas, and will pay that sum to the account at coutts's when i go there next week, before leaving town. "the goldsmiths" admirably done throughout. it is a book i have long desired to see done, and never expected to see half so well done. many thanks to you for it. ever faithfully yours. p.s.--please to observe the address at boulogne: "villa du camp de droite." [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] villa du camp de droite, _thursday, june nd, ._ my dear wills, i have nothing to say, but having heard from you this morning, think i may as well report all well. we have a most charming place here. it beats the former residence all to nothing. we have a beautiful garden, with all its fruits and flowers, and a field of our own, and a road of our own away to the column, and everything that is airy and fresh. the great beaucourt hovers about us like a guardian genius, and i imagine that no english person in a carriage could by any possibility find the place. of the wonderful inventions and contrivances with which a certain inimitable creature has made the most of it, i will say nothing, until you have an opportunity of inspecting the same. at present i will only observe that i have written exactly seventy-two words of "hard times," since i have been here. the children arrived on tuesday night, by london boat, in every stage and aspect of sea-sickness. the camp is about a mile off, and huts are now building for (they say) sixty thousand soldiers. i don't imagine it to be near enough to bother us. if the weather ever should be fine, it might do you good sometimes to come over with the proofs on a saturday, when the tide serves well, before you and mrs. w. make your annual visit. recollect there is always a bed, and no sudden appearance will put us out. kind regards. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] villa du camp de droite, boulogne, _wednesday night, july th, ._ my dear collins, bobbing up, corkwise, from a sea of "hard times" i beg to report this tenement--amazing!!! range of view and air, most free and delightful; hill-side garden, delicious; field, stupendous; speculations in haycocks already effected by the undersigned, with the view to the keeping up of a "home" at rounders. i hope to finish and get to town by next wednesday night, the th; what do you say to coming back with me on the following tuesday? the interval i propose to pass in a career of amiable dissipation and unbounded license in the metropolis. if you will come and breakfast with me about midnight--anywhere--any day, and go to bed no more until we fly to these pastoral retreats, i shall be delighted to have so vicious an associate. will you undertake to let ward know that if he still wishes me to sit to him, he shall have me as long as he likes, at tavistock house, on monday, the th, from ten a.m.? i have made it understood here that we shall want to be taken the greatest care of this summer, and to be fed on nourishing meats. several new dishes have been rehearsed and have come out very well. i have met with what they call in the city "a parcel" of the celebrated champagne. it is a very fine wine, and calculated to do us good when weak. the camp is about a mile off. voluptuous english authors reposing from their literary fatigues (on their laurels) are expected, when all other things fail, to lie on straw in the midst of it when the days are sunny, and stare at the blue sea until they fall asleep. (about one hundred and fifty soldiers have been at various times billeted on beaucourt since we have been here, and he has clinked glasses with them every one, and read a ms. book of his father's, on soldiers in general, to them all.) i shall be glad to hear what you say to these various proposals. i write with the emperor in the town, and a great expenditure of tricolour floating thereabouts, but no stir makes its way to this inaccessible retreat. it is like being up in a balloon. lionising englishmen and germans start to call, and are found lying imbecile in the road halfway up. ha! ha! ha! kindest regards from all. the plornishghenter adds mr. and mrs. goose's duty. ever faithfully. p.s.--the cobbler has been ill these many months, and unable to work; has had a carbuncle in his back, and has it cut three times a week. the little dog sits at the door so unhappy and anxious to help, that i every day expect to see him beginning a pair of top boots. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] office of "household words," _saturday, july nd, ._ my dear georgina, neither you nor catherine did justice to collins's book.[ ] i think it far away the cleverest novel i have ever seen written by a new hand. it is in some respects masterly. "valentine blyth" is as original, and as well done as anything can be. the scene where he shows his pictures is full of an admirable humour. old mat is admirably done. in short, i call it a very remarkable book, and have been very much surprised by its great merit. tell kate, with my love, that she will receive to-morrow in a little parcel, the complete proofs of "hard times." they will not be corrected, but she will find them pretty plain. i am just now going to put them up for her. i saw grisi the night before last in "lucrezia borgia"--finer than ever. last night i was drinking gin-slings till daylight, with buckstone of all people, who saw me looking at the spanish dancers, and insisted on being convivial. i have been in a blaze of dissipation altogether, and have succeeded (i think), in knocking the remembrance of my work out. loves to all the darlings, from the plornish-maroon upward. london is far hotter than naples. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] villa du camp de droite, boulogne, _thursday, aug. th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i sent your ms. off to wills yesterday, with instructions to forward it to you without delay. i hope you will have received it before this notification comes to hand. the usual festivity of this place at present--which is the blessing of soldiers by the ten thousand--has just now been varied by the baptising of some new bells, lately hung up (to my sorrow and lunacy) in a neighbouring church. an english lady was godmother; and there was a procession afterwards, wherein an english gentleman carried "the relics" in a highly suspicious box, like a barrel organ; and innumerable english ladies in white gowns and bridal wreaths walked two and two, as if they had all gone to school again. at a review, on the same day, i was particularly struck by the commencement of the proceedings, and its singular contrast to the usual military operations in hyde park. nothing would induce the general commanding in chief to begin, until chairs were brought for all the lady-spectators. and a detachment of about a hundred men deployed into all manner of farmhouses to find the chairs. nobody seemed to lose any dignity by the transaction, either. with kindest regards, my dear mrs. gaskell, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: rev. william harness.] villa du camp de droite, boulogne, _saturday, aug. th, ._ my dear harness, yes. the book came from me. i could not put a memorandum to that effect on the title-page, in consequence of my being here. i am heartily glad you like it. i know the piece you mention, but am far from being convinced by it. a great misgiving is upon me, that in many things (this thing among the rest) too many are martyrs to _our_ complacency and satisfaction, and that we must give up something thereof for their poor sakes. my kindest regards to your sister, and my love (if i may send it) to another of your relations. always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] villa du camp de droite, boulogne, _wednesday, sept. th, ._ * * * * * any saturday on which the tide serves your purpose (next saturday excepted) will suit me for the flying visit you hint at; and we shall be delighted to see you. although the camp is not above a mile from this gate, we never see or hear of it, unless we choose. if you could come here in dry weather you would find it as pretty, airy, and pleasant a situation as you ever saw. we illuminated the whole front of the house last night--eighteen windows--and an immense palace of light was seen sparkling on this hill-top for miles and miles away. i rushed to a distance to look at it, and never saw anything of the same kind half so pretty. the town[ ] looks like one immense flag, it is so decked out with streamers; and as the royal yacht approached yesterday--the whole range of the cliff tops lined with troops, and the artillery matches in hand, all ready to fire the great guns the moment she made the harbour; the sailors standing up in the prow of the yacht, the prince in a blazing uniform, left alone on the deck for everybody to see--a stupendous silence, and then such an infernal blazing and banging as never was heard. it was almost as fine a sight as one could see under a deep blue sky. in our own proper illumination i laid on all the servants, all the children now at home, all the visitors (it is the annual "household words" time), one to every window, with everything ready to light up on the ringing of a big dinner-bell by your humble correspondent. st. peter's on easter monday was the result. best love from all. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] boulogne, _tuesday, sept. th, ._ my dear collins, first, i have to report that i received your letter with much pleasure. secondly, that the weather has entirely changed. it is so cool that we have not only a fire in the drawing-room regularly, but another to dine by. the delicious freshness of the air is charming, and it is generally bright and windy besides. thirdly, that ----'s intellectual faculties appear to have developed suddenly. he has taken to borrowing money; from which i infer (as he has no intention whatever of repaying) that his mental powers are of a high order. having got a franc from me, he fell upon mrs. dickens for five sous. she declining to enter into the transaction, he beleaguered that feeble little couple, harry and sydney, into paying two sous each for "tickets" to behold the ravishing spectacle of an utterly-non-existent-and-there-fore-impossible-to-be-produced toy theatre. he eats stony apples, and harbours designs upon his fellow-creatures until he has become light-headed. from the couch rendered uneasy by this disorder he has arisen with an excessively protuberant forehead, a dull slow eye, a complexion of a leaden hue, and a croaky voice. he has become a horror to me, and i resort to the most cowardly expedients to avoid meeting him. he, on the other hand, wanting another franc, dodges me round those trees at the corner, and at the back door; and i have a presentiment upon me that i shall fall a sacrifice to his cupidity at last. on the sunday night after you left, or rather on the monday morning at half-past one, mary was taken _very ill_. english cholera. she was sinking so fast, and the sickness was so exceedingly alarming, that it evidently would not do to wait for elliotson. i caused everything to be done that we had naturally often thought of, in a lonely house so full of children, and fell back upon the old remedy; though the difficulty of giving even it was rendered very great by the frightful sickness. thank god, she recovered so favourably that by breakfast time she was fast asleep. she slept twenty-four hours, and has never had the least uneasiness since. i heard--of course afterwards--that she had had an attack of sickness two nights before. i think that long ride and those late dinners had been too much for her. without them i am inclined to doubt whether she would have been ill. last sunday as ever was, the theatre took fire at half-past eleven in the forenoon. being close by the english church, it showered hot sparks into that temple through the open windows. whereupon the congregation shrieked and rose and tumbled out into the street; ---- benignly observing to the only ancient female who would listen to him, "i fear we must part;" and afterwards being beheld in the street--in his robes and with a kind of sacred wildness on him--handing ladies over the kennel into shops and other structures, where they had no business whatever, or the least desire to go. i got to the back of the theatre, where i could see in through some great doors that had been forced open, and whence the spectacle of the whole interior, burning like a red-hot cavern, was really very fine, even in the daylight. meantime the soldiers were at work, "saving" the scenery by pitching it into the next street; and the poor little properties (one spinning-wheel, a feeble imitation of a water-mill, and a basketful of the dismalest artificial flowers very conspicuous) were being passed from hand to hand with the greatest excitement, as if they were rescued children or lovely women. in four or five hours the whole place was burnt down, except the outer walls. never in my days did i behold such feeble endeavours in the way of extinguishment. on an average i should say it took ten minutes to throw half a gallon of water on the great roaring heap; and every time it was insulted in this way it gave a ferocious burst, and everybody ran off. beaucourt has been going about for two days in a clean collar; which phenomenon evidently means something, but i don't know what. elliotson reports that the great conjuror lives at his hotel, has extra wine every day, and fares expensively. is he the devil? i have heard from the kernel.[ ] wa'al, sir, sayin' as he minded to locate himself with us for a week, i expected to have heard from him again this morning, but have not. beard comes to-morrow. kindest regards and remembrances from all. ward lives in a little street between the two tintilleries. the plornish-maroon desires his duty. he had a fall yesterday, through overbalancing himself in kicking his nurse. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] boulogne, _friday, oct. th, ._ my dear stone, having some little matters that rather press on my attention to see to in town, i have made up my mind to relinquish the walking project, and come straight home (by way of folkestone) on tuesday. i shall be due in town at midnight, and shall hope to see you next day, with the top of your coat-collar mended. everything that happens here we suppose to be an announcement of the taking of sebastopol. when a church-clock strikes, we think it is the joy-bell, and fly out of the house in a burst of nationality--to sneak in again. if they practise firing at the camp, we are sure it is the artillery celebrating the fall of the russian, and we become enthusiastic in a moment. i live in constant readiness to illuminate the whole house. whatever anybody says i believe; everybody says, every day, that sebastopol is in flames. sometimes the commander-in-chief has blown himself up, with seventy-five thousand men. sometimes he has "cut" his way through lord raglan, and has fallen back on the advancing body of the russians, one hundred and forty-two thousand strong, whom he is going to "bring up" (i don't know where from, or how, or when, or why) for the destruction of the allies. all these things, in the words of the catechism, "i steadfastly believe," until i become a mere driveller, a moonstruck, babbling, staring, credulous, imbecile, greedy, gaping, wooden-headed, addle-brained, wool-gathering, dreary, vacant, obstinate civilian. ever, my fellow-countryman, affectionately. [sidenote: mr. john saunders.] tavistock house, _october th, ._ dear sir, i have had much gratification and pleasure in the receipt of your obliging communication. allow me to thank you for it, in the first place, with great cordiality. although i cannot say that i came without any prepossessions to the perusal of your play (for i had favourable inclinings towards it before i began), i _can_ say that i read it with the closest attention, and that it inspired me with a strong interest, and a genuine and high admiration. the parts that involve some of the greatest difficulties of your task appear to me those in which you shine most. i would particularly instance the end of julia as a very striking example of this. the delicacy and beauty of her redemption from her weak rash lover, are very far, indeed beyond the range of any ordinary dramatist, and display the true poetical strength. as your hopes now centre in mr. phelps, and in seeing the child of your fancy on his stage, i will venture to point out to you not only what i take to be very dangerous portions of "love's martyrdom" as it stands, _for presentation on the stage_, but portions which i believe mr. phelps will speedily regard in that light when he sees it before him in the persons of live men and women on the wooden boards. knowing him, i think he will be then as violently discouraged as he is now generously exalted; and it may be useful to you to be prepared for the consideration of those passages. i do not regard it as a great stumbling-block that the play of modern times best known to an audience proceeds upon the main idea of this, namely, that there was a hunchback who, because of his deformity, mistrusted himself. but it is certainly a grain in the balance when the balance is going the wrong way, and therefore it should be most carefully trimmed. the incident of the ring is an insignificant one to look at over a row of gaslights, is difficult to convey to an audience, and the least thing will make it ludicrous. if it be so well done by mr. phelps himself as to be otherwise than ludicrous, it will be disagreeable. if it be either, it will be perilous, and doubly so, because you revert to it. the quarrel scene between the two brothers in the third act is now so long that the justification of blind passion and impetuosity--which can alone bear out franklyn, before the bodily eyes of a great concourse of spectators, in plunging at the life of his own brother--is lost. that the two should be parted, and that franklyn should again drive at him, and strike him, and then wound him, is a state of things to set the sympathy of an audience in the wrong direction, and turn it from the man you make happy to the man you leave unhappy. i would on no account allow the artist to appear, attended by that picture, more than once. all the most sudden inconstancy of clarence i would soften down. margaret must act much better than any actress i have ever seen, if all her lines fall in pleasant places; therefore, i think she needs compression too. all this applies solely to the theatre. if you ever revise the sheets for readers, will you note in the margin the broken laughter and the appeals to the deity? if, on summing them up, you find you want them all, i would leave them as they stand by all means. if not, i would blot accordingly. it is only in the hope of being slightly useful to you by anticipating what i believe mr. phelps will discover--or what, if ever he should pass it, i have a strong conviction the audience will find out--that i have ventured on these few hints. your concurrence with them generally, on reconsideration, or your preference for the poem as it stands, can not in the least affect my interest in your success. on the other hand, i have a perfect confidence in your not taking my misgivings ill; they arise out of my sincere desire for the triumph of your work. with renewed thanks for the pleasure you have afforded me, i am, dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _november st, ._ (and a constitutionally foggy day.) my dearest macready, i thought it better not to encumber the address to working men with details. firstly, because they would detract from whatever fiery effect the words may have in them; secondly, because writing and petitioning and pressing a subject upon members and candidates are now so clearly understood; and thirdly, because the paper was meant as an opening to a persistent pressure of the whole question on the public, which would yield other opportunities of touching on such points. in the number _for next week_--not this--is one of those following-up articles called "a home question." it is not written by me, but is generally of my suggesting, and is exceedingly well done by a thorough and experienced hand. i think you will find in it, generally, what you want. i have told the printers to send you a proof by post as soon as it is corrected--that is to say, as soon as some insertions i made in it last night are in type and in their places. my dear old parr, i don't believe a word you write about king john! that is to say, i don't believe you take into account the enormous difference between the energy summonable-up in your study at sherborne and the energy that will fire up in you (without so much as saying "with your leave" or "by your leave") in the town hall at birmingham. i know you, you ancient codger, i know you! therefore i will trouble you to be so good as to do an act of honesty after you have been to birmingham, and to write to me, "ingenuous boy, you were correct. i find i could have read 'em 'king john' with the greatest ease." in that vast hall in the busy town of sherborne, in which our illustrious english novelist is expected to read next month--though he is strongly of opinion that he is deficient in power, and too old--i wonder what accommodation there is for reading! because our illustrious countryman likes to stand at a desk breast-high, with plenty of room about him, a sloping top, and a ledge to keep his book from tumbling off. if such a thing should not be there, however, on his arrival, i suppose even a sherborne carpenter could knock it up out of a deal board. _is_ there a deal board in sherborne though? i should like to hear katey's opinion on that point. in this week's "household words" there is an exact portrait of our boulogne landlord, which i hope you will like. i think of opening the next long book i write with a man of juvenile figure and strong face, who is always persuading himself that he is infirm. what do you think of the idea? i should like to have your opinion about it. i would make him an impetuous passionate sort of fellow, devilish grim upon occasion, and of an iron purpose. droll, i fancy? ---- is getting a little too fat, but appears to be troubled by the great responsibility of directing the whole war. he doesn't seem to be quite clear that he has got the ships into the exact order he intended, on the sea point of attack at sebastopol. we went to the play last saturday night with stanfield, whose "high lights" (as maclise calls those knobs of brightness on the top of his cheeks) were more radiant than ever. we talked of you, and i told stanny how they are imitating his "acis and galatea" sea in "pericles," at phelps's. he didn't half like it; but i added, in nautical language, that it was merely a piratical effort achieved by a handful of porpoise-faced swabs, and that brought him up with a round turn, as we say at sea. we are looking forward to the twentieth of next month with great pleasure. all tavistock house send love and kisses to all sherborne house. if there is anything i can bring down for you, let me know in good course of time. ever, my dearest macready, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _wednesday, nov. st, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i take upon myself to answer your letter to catherine, as i am referred to in it. the "walk" is not my writing. it is very well done by a close imitator. why i found myself so "used up" after "hard times" i scarcely know, perhaps because i intended to do nothing in that way for a year, when the idea laid hold of me by the throat in a very violent manner, and because the compression and close condensation necessary for that disjointed form of publication gave me perpetual trouble. but i really was tired, which is a result so very incomprehensible that i can't forget it. i have passed an idle autumn in a beautiful situation, and am dreadfully brown and big. for further particulars of boulogne, see "our french watering place," in this present week of "household words," which contains a faithful portrait of our landlord there. if you carry out that bright croydon idea, rely on our glad co-operation, only let me know all about it a few days beforehand; and if you feel equal to the contemplation of the moustache (which has been cut lately) it will give us the heartiest pleasure to come and meet you. this in spite of the terrific duffery of the crystal palace. it is a very remarkable thing in itself; but to have so very large a building continually crammed down one's throat, and to find it a new page in "the whole duty of man" to go there, is a little more than even i (and you know how amiable i am) can endure. you always like to know what i am going to do, so i beg to announce that on the th of december i am going to read the "carol" at reading, where i undertook the presidency of the literary institution on the death of poor dear talfourd. then i am going on to sherborne, in dorsetshire, to do the like for another institution, which is one of the few remaining pleasures of macready's life. then i am coming home for christmas day. then i believe i must go to bradford, in yorkshire, to read once more to a little fireside party of four thousand. then i am coming home again to get up a new little version of "the children in the wood" (yet to be written, by-the-bye), for the children to act on charley's birthday. i am full of mixed feeling about the war--admiration of our valiant men, burning desires to cut the emperor of russia's throat, and something like despair to see how the old cannon-smoke and blood-mists obscure the wrongs and sufferings of the people at home. when i consider the patriotic fund on the one hand, and on the other the poverty and wretchedness engendered by cholera, of which in london alone, an infinitely larger number of english people than are likely to be slain in the whole russian war have miserably and needlessly died--i feel as if the world had been pushed back five hundred years. if you are reading new books just now, i think you will be interested with a controversy between whewell and brewster, on the question of the shining orbs about us being inhabited or no. whewell's book is called, "on the plurality of worlds;" brewster's, "more worlds than one." i shouldn't wonder if you know all about them. they bring together a vast number of points of great interest in natural philosophy, and some very curious reasoning on both sides, and leave the matter pretty much where it was. we had a fine absurdity in connection with our luggage, when we left boulogne. the barometer had within a few hours fallen about a foot, in honour of the occasion, and it was a tremendous night, blowing a gale of wind and raining a little deluge. the luggage (pretty heavy, as you may suppose), in a cart drawn by two horses, stuck fast in a rut in our field, and couldn't be moved. our man, made a lunatic by the extremity of the occasion, ran down to the town to get two more horses to help it out, when he returned with those horses and carter b, the most beaming of men; carter a, who had been soaking all the time by the disabled vehicle, descried in carter b the acknowledged enemy of his existence, took his own two horses out, and walked off with them! after which, the whole set-out remained in the field all night, and we came to town, thirteen individuals, with one comb and a pocket-handkerchief. i was upside-down during the greater part of the passage. dr. rae's account of franklin's unfortunate party is deeply interesting; but i think hasty in its acceptance of the details, particularly in the statement that they had eaten the dead bodies of their companions, which i don't believe. franklin, on a former occasion, was almost starved to death, had gone through all the pains of that sad end, and lain down to die, and no such thought had presented itself to any of them. in famous cases of shipwreck, it is very rare indeed that any person of any humanising education or refinement resorts to this dreadful means of prolonging life. in open boats, the coarsest and commonest men of the shipwrecked party have done such things; but i don't remember more than one instance in which an officer had overcome the loathing that the idea had inspired. dr. rae talks about their _cooking_ these remains too. i should like to know where the fuel came from. kindest love and best regards. ever, my dear mrs. watson, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] tavistock house, _friday night, nov. rd, ._ my dear stanny, first of all, here is enclosed a letter for mrs. stanfield, which, if you don't immediately and faithfully deliver, you will hear of in an unpleasant way from the station-house at the curve of the hill above you. secondly, this is not to remind you that we meet at the athenæum next monday at five, because none but a mouldy swab as never broke biscuit or lay out on the for'sel-yard-arm in a gale of wind ever forgot an appointment with a messmate. but what i want you to think of at your leisure is this: when our dear old macready was in town last, i saw it would give him so much interest and pleasure if i promised to go down and read my "christmas carol" to the little sherborne institution, which is now one of the few active objects he has in the life about him, that i came out with that promise in a bold--i may say a swaggering way. consequently, on wednesday, the th of december, i am going down to see him, with kate and georgina, returning to town in good time for christmas, on saturday, the rd. do you think you could manage to go and return with us? i really believe there is scarcely anything in the world that would give him such extraordinary pleasure as such a visit; and if you would empower me to send him an intimation that he may expect it, he will have a daily joy in looking forward to the time (i am seriously sure) which we--whose light has not gone out, and who are among our old dear pursuits and associations--can scarcely estimate. i don't like to broach the idea in a careless way, and so i propose it thus, and ask you to think of it. ever most affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss procter.] tavistock house, _sunday, dec. th, ._ my dear miss procter, you have given me a new sensation. i did suppose that nothing in this singular world could surprise me, but you have done it. you will believe my congratulations on the delicacy and talent of your writing to be sincere. from the first, i have always had an especial interest in that miss berwick, and have over and over again questioned wills about her. i suppose he has gone on gradually building up an imaginary structure of life and adventure for her, but he has given me the strangest information! only yesterday week, when we were "making up" "the poor travellers," as i sat meditatively poking the office fire, i said to him, "wills, have you got that miss berwick's proof back, of the little sailor's song?" "no," he said. "well, but why not?" i asked him. "why, you know," he answered, "as i have often told you before, she don't live at the place to which her letters are addressed, and so there's always difficulty and delay in communicating with her." "do you know what age she is?" i said. here he looked unfathomably profound, and returned, "rather advanced in life." "you said she was a governess, didn't you?" said i; to which he replied in the most emphatic and positive manner, "a governess." he then came and stood in the corner of the hearth, with his back to the fire, and delivered himself like an oracle concerning you. he told me that early in life (conveying to me the impression of about a quarter of a century ago) you had had your feelings desperately wounded by some cause, real or imaginary--"it does not matter which," said i, with the greatest sagacity--and that you had then taken to writing verses. that you were of an unhappy temperament, but keenly sensitive to encouragement. that you wrote after the educational duties of the day were discharged. that you sometimes thought of never writing any more. that you had been away for some time "with your pupils." that your letters were of a mild and melancholy character, and that you did not seem to care as much as might be expected about money. all this time i sat poking the fire, with a wisdom upon me absolutely crushing; and finally i begged him to assure the lady that she might trust me with her real address, and that it would be better to have it now, as i hoped our further communications, etc. etc. etc. you must have felt enormously wicked last tuesday, when i, such a babe in the wood, was unconsciously prattling to you. but you have given me so much pleasure, and have made me shed so many tears, that i can only think of you now in association with the sentiment and grace of your verses. so pray accept the blessing and forgiveness of richard watts, though i am afraid you come under both his conditions of exclusion.[ ] very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the poet "barry cornwall." [ ] "hide and seek." [ ] on the occasion of the prince consort's visit to the camp at boulogne. [ ] mr. egg. [ ] the inscription on the house in rochester known as "watts's charity" is to the effect that it furnishes a night's lodging for six poor travellers--"not being rogues or proctors." . narrative. in the beginning of this year, charles dickens gave public readings at reading, sherborne, and bradford in yorkshire, to which reference is made in the first following letters. besides this, he was fully occupied in getting up a play for his children, which was acted on the th january. mr. planché's fairy extravaganza of "fortunio and his seven gifted servants" was the play selected, the parts being filled by all his own children and some of their young friends, and charles dickens, mr. mark lemon, and mr. wilkie collins playing with them, the only grown-up members of the company. in february he made a short trip to paris with mr. wilkie collins, with an intention of going on to bordeaux, which was abandoned on account of bad weather. out of the success of the children's play at tavistock house rose a scheme for a serious play at the same place. mr. collins undertaking to write a melodrama for the purpose, and mr. stanfield to paint scenery and drop-scene, charles dickens turned one of the rooms of the house into a very perfect little theatre, and in june "the lighthouse" was acted for three nights, with "mr. nightingale's diary" and "animal magnetism" as farces; the actors being himself and several members of the original amateur company, the actresses, his two daughters and his sister-in-law. mr. stanfield, after entering most heartily into the enterprise, and giving constant time and attention to the painting of his beautiful scenes, was unfortunately ill and unable to attend the first performance. we give a letter to him, reporting its great success. in this summer charles dickens made a speech at a great meeting at drury lane theatre on the subject of "administrative reform," of which he writes to mr. macready. on this subject of "administrative reform," too, we give two letters to the great nineveh traveller mr. layard (now sir austen h. layard), for whom, as his letters show, he conceived at once the affectionate friendship which went on increasing from this time for the rest of his life. mr. layard also spoke at the drury lane meeting. charles dickens had made a promise to give another reading at birmingham for the funds of the institute which still needed help; and in a letter to mr. arthur ryland, asking him to fix a time for it, he gives the first idea of a selection from "david copperfield," which was afterwards one of the most popular of his readings. he was at all times fond of making excursions for a day--or two or three days--to rochester and its neighbourhood; and after one of these, this year, he writes to mr. wills that he has seen a "small freehold" to be sold, _opposite_ the house on which he had fixed his childish affections (and which he calls in _this_ letter the "hermitage," its real name being "gad's hill place"). the latter house was not, at that time, to be had, and he made some approach to negotiations as to the other "little freehold," which, however, did not come to anything. later in the year, however, mr. wills, by an accident, discovered that gad's hill place, the property of miss lynn, the well-known authoress, and a constant contributor to "household words," was itself for sale; and a negotiation for its purchase commenced, which was not, however, completed until the following spring. later in the year, the performance of "the lighthouse" was repeated, for a charitable purpose, at the campden house theatre. this autumn was passed at folkestone. charles dickens had decided upon spending the following winter in paris, and the family proceeded there from folkestone in october, making a halt at boulogne; from whence his sister-in-law preceded the party to paris, to secure lodgings, with the help of lady olliffe. he followed, to make his choice of apartments that had been found, and he writes to his wife and to mr. wills, giving a description of the paris house. here he began "little dorrit." in a letter to mrs. watson, from folkestone, he gives her the name which he had first proposed for this story--"nobody's fault." during his absence from england, mr. and mrs. hogarth occupied tavistock house, and his eldest son, being now engaged in business, remained with them, coming to paris only for christmas. three of his boys were at school at boulogne at this time, and one, walter landor, at wimbledon, studying for an indian army appointment. [sidenote: m. de cerjat.] tavistock house, _january rd, ._ my dear cerjat, when your christmas letter did not arrive according to custom, i felt as if a bit of christmas had fallen out and there was no supplying the piece. however, it was soon supplied by yourself, and the bowl became round and sound again. the christmas number of "household words," i suppose, will reach lausanne about midsummer. the first ten pages or so--all under the head of "the first poor traveller"--are written by me, and i hope you will find, in the story of the soldier which they contain, something that may move you a little. it moved me _not_ a little in the writing, and i believe has touched a vast number of people. we have sold eighty thousand of it. i am but newly come home from reading at reading (where i succeeded poor talfourd as the president of an institution), and at sherborne, in dorsetshire, and at bradford, in yorkshire. wonderful audiences! and the number at the last place three thousand seven hundred. and yet but for the noise of their laughing and cheering, they "went" like one man. the absorption of the english mind in the war is, to me, a melancholy thing. every other subject of popular solicitude and sympathy goes down before it. i fear i clearly see that for years to come domestic reforms are shaken to the root; every miserable red-tapist flourishes war over the head of every protester against his humbug; and everything connected with it is pushed to such an unreasonable extent, that, however kind and necessary it may be in itself, it becomes ridiculous. for all this it is an indubitable fact, i conceive, that russia must be stopped, and that the future peace of the world renders the war imperative upon us. the duke of newcastle lately addressed a private letter to the newspapers, entreating them to exercise a larger discretion in respect of the letters of "our own correspondents," against which lord raglan protests as giving the emperor of russia information for nothing which would cost him (if indeed he could get it at all) fifty or a hundred thousand pounds a year. the communication has not been attended with much effect, so far as i can see. in the meantime i do suppose we have the wretchedest ministry that ever was--in whom nobody not in office of some sort believes--yet whom there is nobody to displace. the strangest result, perhaps, of years of reformed parliaments that ever the general sagacity did _not_ foresee. let me recommend you, as a brother-reader of high distinction, two comedies, both goldsmith's--"she stoops to conquer" and "the good-natured man." both are so admirable and so delightfully written that they read wonderfully. a friend of mine, forster, who wrote "the life of goldsmith," was very ill a year or so ago, and begged me to read to him one night as he lay in bed, "something of goldsmith's." i fell upon "she stoops to conquer," and we enjoyed it with that wonderful intensity, that i believe he began to get better in the first scene, and was all right again in the fifth act. i am charmed by your account of haldimand, to whom my love. tell him sydney smith's daughter has privately printed a life of her father with selections from his letters, which has great merit, and often presents him exactly as he used to be. i have strongly urged her to publish it, and i think she will do so, about march. my eldest boy has come home from germany to learn a business life at birmingham (i think), first of all. the whole nine are well and happy. ditto, mrs. dickens. ditto, georgina. my two girls are full of interest in yours; and one of mine (as i think i told you when i was at elysée) is curiously like one of yours in the face. they are all agog now about a great fairy play, which is to come off here next monday. the house is full of spangles, gas, jew theatrical tailors, and pantomime carpenters. we all unite in kindest and best loves to dear mrs. cerjat and all the blooming daughters. and i am, with frequent thoughts of you and cordial affection, ever, my dear cerjat, your faithful friend. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] tavistock house, _january rd, ._ my dear mary, this is a word of heartfelt greeting; in exchange for yours, which came to me most pleasantly, and was received with a cordial welcome. if i had leisure to write a letter, i should write you, at this point, perhaps the very best letter that ever was read; but, being in the agonies of getting up a gorgeous fairy play for the postboys, on charley's birthday (besides having the work of half-a-dozen to do as a regular thing), i leave the merits of the wonderful epistle to your lively fancy. enclosing a kiss, if you will have the kindness to return it when done with. i have just been reading my "christmas carol" in yorkshire. i should have lost my heart to the beautiful young landlady of my hotel (age twenty-nine, dress, black frock and jacket, exquisitely braided) if it had not been safe in your possession. many, many happy years to you! my regards to that obstinate old wurzell[ ] and his dame, when you have them under lock and key again. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _january th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, let me congratulate you on the conclusion of your story; not because it is the end of a task to which you had conceived a dislike (for i imagine you to have got the better of that delusion by this time), but because it is the vigorous and powerful accomplishment of an anxious labour. it seems to me that you have felt the ground thoroughly firm under your feet, and have strided on with a force and purpose that must now give you pleasure. you will not, i hope, allow that not-lucid interval of dissatisfaction with yourself (and me?), which beset you for a minute or two once upon a time, to linger in the shape of any disagreeable association with "household words." i shall still look forward to the large sides of paper, and shall soon feel disappointed if they don't begin to reappear. i thought it best that wills should write the business letter on the conclusion of the story, as that part of our communications had always previously rested with him. i trust you found it satisfactory? i refer to it, not as a matter of mere form, but because i sincerely wish everything between us to be beyond the possibility of misunderstanding or reservation. dear mrs. gaskell, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] tavistock house, _monday, jan. th, ._ my dear mr. ryland, i have been in the greatest difficulty--which i am not yet out of--to know what to read at birmingham. i fear the idea of next month is now impracticable. which of two other months do you think would be preferable for your birmingham objects? next may, or next december? having already read two christmas books at birmingham, i should like to get out of that restriction, and have a swim in the broader waters of one of my long books. i have been poring over "copperfield" (which is my favourite), with the idea of getting a reading out of it, to be called by some such name as "young housekeeping and little emily." but there is still the huge difficulty that i constructed the whole with immense pains, and have so woven it up and blended it together, that i cannot yet so separate the parts as to tell the story of david's married life with dora, and the story of mr. peggotty's search for his niece, within the time. this is my object. if i could possibly bring it to bear, it would make a very attractive reading, with, a strong interest in it, and a certain completeness. this is exactly the state of the case. i don't mind confiding to you, that i never can approach the book with perfect composure (it had such perfect possession of me when i wrote it), and that i no sooner begin to try to get it into this form, than i begin to read it all, and to feel that i cannot disturb it. i have not been unmindful of the agreement we made at parting, and i have sat staring at the backs of my books for an inspiration. this project is the only one that i have constantly reverted to, and yet i have made no progress in it! faithfully yours always. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] tavistock house, london, _saturday evening, feb. rd, ._ my dear regnier, i am coming to paris for a week, with my friend collins--son of the english painter who painted our green lanes and our cottage children so beautifully. do not tell this to le vieux. unless i have the ill fortune to stumble against him in the street i shall not make my arrival known to him. i purpose leaving here on sunday, the th, but i shall stay that night at boulogne to see two of my little boys who are at school there. we shall come to paris on monday, the th, arriving there in the evening. now, _mon cher_, do you think you can, without inconvenience, engage me for a week an apartment--cheerful, light, and wholesome--containing a comfortable _salon et deux chambres à coucher_. i do not care whether it is an hotel or not, but the reason why i do not write for an apartment to the hôtel brighton is, that there they expect one to dine at home (i mean in the apartment) generally; whereas, as we are coming to paris expressly to be always looking about us, we want to dine wherever we like every day. consequently, what we want to find is a good apartment, where we can have our breakfast but where we shall never dine. can you engage such accommodation for me? if you can, i shall feel very much obliged to you. if the apartment should happen to contain a little bed for a servant i might perhaps bring one, but i do not care about that at all. i want it to be pleasant and gay, and to throw myself _en garçon_ on the festive _diableries de paris_. mrs. dickens and her sister send their kindest regards to madame regnier and you, in which i heartily join. all the children send their loves to the two brave boys and the normandy _bonnes_. i shall hope for a short answer from you one day next week. my dear regnier, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] office of "household words," _friday, feb. th, ._ my dear wills, i want to alter the arrangements for to-morrow, and put you to some inconvenience. when i was at gravesend t'other day, i saw, at gad's hill--just opposite to the hermitage, where miss lynn used to live--a little freehold to be sold. the spot and the very house are literally "a dream of my childhood," and i should like to look at it before i go to paris. with that purpose i must go to strood by the north kent, at a quarter-past ten to-morrow morning, and i want you, strongly booted, to go with me! (i know the particulars from the agent.) can you? let me know. if you can, can you manage so that we can take the proofs with us? if you can't, will you bring them to tavistock house at dinner time to-morrow, half-past five? forster will dine with us, but no one else. i am uncertain of your being in town to-night, but i send john up with this. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] hÃ�tel meurice, paris, _friday, feb. th, ._ my dear georgy, i heard from home last night; but the posts are so delayed and put out by the snow, that they come in at all sorts of times except the right times, and utterly defy all calculation. will you tell catherine with my love, that i will write to her again to-morrow afternoon; i hope she may then receive my letter by monday morning, and in it i purpose telling her when i may be expected home. the weather is so severe and the roads are so bad, that the journey to and from bordeaux seems out of the question. we have made up our minds to abandon it for the present, and to return about tuesday night or wednesday. collins continues in a queer state, but is perfectly cheerful under the stoppage of his wine and other afflictions. we have a beautiful apartment, very elegantly furnished, very thickly carpeted, and as warm as any apartment in paris _can_ be in such weather. we are very well waited on and looked after. we breakfast at ten, read and write till two, and then i go out walking all over paris, while the invalid sits by the fire or is deposited in a café. we dine at five, in a different restaurant every day, and at seven or so go to the theatre--sometimes to two theatres, sometimes to three. we get home about twelve, light the fire, and drink lemonade, to which _i_ add rum. we go to bed between one and two. i live in peace, like an elderly gentleman, and regard myself as in a negative state of virtue and respectability. the theatres are not particularly good, but i have seen lemaître act in the most wonderful and astounding manner. i am afraid we must go to the opéra comique on sunday. to-morrow we dine with regnier and to-day with the olliffes. "la joie fait peur," at the français, delighted me. exquisitely played and beautifully imagined altogether. last night we went to the porte st. martin to see a piece (english subject) called "jane osborne," which the characters pronounce "ja nosbornnne." the seducer was lord nottingham. the comic englishwoman's name (she kept lodgings and was a very bad character) was missees christmas. she had begun to get into great difficulties with a gentleman of the name of meestair cornhill, when we were obliged to leave, at the end of the first act, by the intolerable stench of the place. the whole theatre must be standing over some vast cesspool. it was so alarming that i instantly rushed into a café and had brandy. my ear has gradually become so accustomed to french, that i understand the people at the theatres (for the first time) with perfect ease and satisfaction. i walked about with regnier for an hour and a half yesterday, and received many compliments on my angelic manner of speaking the celestial language. there is a winter franconi's now, high up on the boulevards, just like the round theatre on the champs elysées, and as bright and beautiful. a clown from astley's is all in high favour there at present. he talks slang english (being evidently an idiot), as if he felt a perfect confidence that everybody understands him. his name is boswell, and the whole cirque rang last night with cries for boz zwilllll! boz zweellll! boz zwuallll! etc. etc. etc. etc. i must begin to look out for the box of bon-bons for the noble and fascinating plornish-maroon. give him my love and a thousand kisses. loves to mamey, katey, sydney, harry, and the following stab to anne--she forgot to pack me any shaving soap. ever, my dear georgy, most affectionately yours. p.s.--collins sends kind regards. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] hÃ�tel meurice, paris, _friday, feb. th, ._ my dear wills, i received your letter yesterday evening. i have not yet seen the lists of trains and boats, but propose arranging to return about tuesday or wednesday. in the meantime i am living like gil blas and doing nothing. i am very much obliged to you, indeed, for the trouble you have kindly taken about the little freehold. it is clear to me that its merits resolve themselves into the view and the spot. if i had more money these considerations might, with me, overtop all others. but, as it is, i consider the matter quite disposed of, finally settled in the negative, and to be thought no more about. i shall not go down and look at it, as i could add nothing to your report. paris is finer than ever, and i go wandering about it all day. we dine at all manner of places, and go to two or three theatres in the evening. i suppose, as an old farmer said of scott, i am "makin' mysel'" all the time; but i seem to be rather a free-and-easy sort of superior vagabond. i live in continual terror of ----, and am strongly fortified within doors, with a means of retreat into my bedroom always ready. up to the present blessed moment, his staggering form has not appeared. as to yesterday's post from england, i have not, at the present moment, the slightest idea where it may be. it is under the snow somewhere, i suppose; but nobody expects it, and _galignani_ reprints every morning leaders from _the times_ of about a fortnight or three weeks old. collins, who is not very well, sends his "penitent regards," and says he is enjoying himself as much as a man with the weight of a broken promise on his conscience can. ever, my dear wills, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. arthur ryland.] tavistock house, _february th, ._ my dear mr. ryland, charley came home, i assure you, perfectly delighted with his visit to you, and rapturous in his accounts of your great kindness to him. it appears to me that the first question in reference to my reading (i have not advanced an inch in my "copperfield" trials by-the-bye) is, whether you think you could devise any plan in connection with the room at dee's, which would certainly bring my help in money up to five hundred pounds. that is what i want. if it could be done by a subscription for two nights, for instance, i would not be chary of my time and trouble. but if you cannot see your way clearly to that result in that connection, then i think it would be better to wait until we can have the town hall at christmas. i have promised to read, about christmas time, at sheffield and at peterboro'. i _could_ add birmingham to the list, then, if need were. but what i want is, to give the institution in all five hundred pounds. that is my object, and nothing less will satisfy me. will you think it over, taking counsel with whomsoever you please, and let me know what conclusion you arrive at. only think of me as subservient to the institution. my dear mr. ryland, always very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. david roberts, r.a.] tavistock house, _february th, ._ my dear david roberts, i hope to make it quite plain to you, in a few words, why i think it right to stay away from the lord mayor's dinner to the club. if i did not feel a kind of rectitude involved in my non-acceptance of his invitation, your note would immediately induce me to change my mind. entertaining a strong opinion on the subject of the city corporation as it stands, and the absurdity of its pretensions in an age perfectly different, in all conceivable respects, from that to which it properly belonged as a reality, i have expressed that opinion on more than one occasion, within a year or so, in "household words." i do not think it consistent with my respect for myself, or for the art i profess, to blow hot and cold in the same breath; and to laugh at the institution in print, and accept the hospitality of its representative while the ink is staring us all in the face. there is a great deal too much of this among us, and it does not elevate the earnestness or delicacy of literature. this is my sole consideration. personally i have always met the present lord mayor on the most agreeable terms, and i think him an excellent one. as between you, and me, and him, i cannot have the slightest objection to your telling him the truth. on a more private occasion, when he was not keeping his state, i should be delighted to interchange any courtesy with that honourable and amiable gentleman, mr. moon. believe me always cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. austen h. layard.] tavistock house, _tuesday evening, april rd, ._ dear layard, since i had the pleasure of seeing you again at miss coutts's (really a greater pleasure to me than i could easily tell you), i have thought a good deal of the duty we all owe you of helping you as much as we can. being on very intimate terms with lemon, the editor of "punch" (a most affectionate and true-hearted fellow), i mentioned to him in confidence what i had at heart. you will find yourself the subject of their next large cut, and of some lines in an earnest spirit. he again suggested the point to mr. shirley brookes, one of their regular corps, who will do what is right in _the illustrated london news_ and _the weekly chronicle_, papers that go into the hands of large numbers of people. i have also communicated with jerrold, whom i trust, and have begged him not to be diverted from the straight path of help to the most useful man in england on all possible occasions. forster i will speak to carefully, and i have no doubt it will quicken him a little; not that we have anything to complain of in his direction. if you ever see any new loophole, cranny, needle's-eye, through which i can present your case to "household words," i most earnestly entreat you, as your staunch friend and admirer--you _can_ have no truer--to indicate it to me at any time or season, and to count upon my being damascus steel to the core. all this is nothing; because all these men, and thousands of others, dote upon you. but i know it would be a comfort to me, in your hard-fighting place, to be assured of such sympathy, and therefore only i write. you have other recreations for your sundays in the session, i daresay, than to come here. but it is generally a day on which i do not go out, and when we dine at half-past five in the easiest way in the world, and smoke in the peacefulest manner. perhaps one of these sundays after easter you might not be indisposed to begin to dig us out? and i should like, on a saturday of your appointing, to get a few of the serviceable men i know--such as i have mentioned--about you here. will you think of this, too, and suggest a saturday for our dining together? i am really ashamed and moved that you should do your part so manfully and be left alone in the conflict. i felt you to be all you are the first moment i saw you. i know you will accept my regard and fidelity for what they are worth. dear layard, very heartily yours. [sidenote: mr. austen h. layard.] tavistock house, _tuesday, april th, ._ dear layard, i shall of course observe the strictest silence, at present, in reference to your resolutions. it will be a most acceptable occupation to me to go over them with you, and i have not a doubt of their producing a strong effect out of doors. there is nothing in the present time at once so galling and so alarming to me as the alienation of the people from their own public affairs. i have no difficulty in understanding it. they have had so little to do with the game through all these years of parliamentary reform, that they have sullenly laid down their cards, and taken to looking on. the players who are left at the table do not see beyond it, conceive that gain and loss and all the interest of the play are in their hands, and will never be wiser until they and the table and the lights and the money are all overturned together. and i believe the discontent to be so much the worse for smouldering, instead of blazing openly, that it is extremely like the general mind of france before the breaking out of the first revolution, and is in danger of being turned by any one of a thousand accidents--a bad harvest--the last strain too much of aristocratic insolence or incapacity--a defeat abroad--a mere chance at home--with such a devil of a conflagration as never has been beheld since. meanwhile, all our english tuft-hunting, toad-eating, and other manifestations of accursed gentility--to say nothing of the lord knows who's defiances of the proven truth before six hundred and fifty men--are expressing themselves every day. so, every day, the disgusted millions with this unnatural gloom are confirmed and hardened in the very worst of moods. finally, round all this is an atmosphere of poverty, hunger, and ignorant desperation, of the mere existence of which perhaps not one man in a thousand of those not actually enveloped in it, through the whole extent of this country, has the least idea. it seems to me an absolute impossibility to direct the spirit of the people at this pass until it shows itself. if they begin to bestir themselves in the vigorous national manner; if they would appear in political reunion, array themselves peacefully but in vast numbers against a system that they know to be rotten altogether, make themselves heard like the sea all round this island, i for one should be in such a movement heart and soul, and should think it a duty of the plainest kind to go along with it, and try to guide it by all possible means. but you can no more help a people who do not help themselves than you can help a man who does not help himself. and until the people can be got up from the lethargy, which is an awful symptom of the advanced state of their disease, i know of nothing that can be done beyond keeping their wrongs continually before them. i shall hope to see you soon after you come back. your speeches at aberdeen are most admirable, manful, and earnest. i would have such speeches at every market-cross, and in every town-hall, and among all sorts and conditions of men; up in the very balloons, and down in the very diving-bells. ever, cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. john forster.] tavistock house, _saturday, april th, ._ my dear forster, i cannot express to you how very much delighted i am with the "steele." i think it incomparably the best of the series. the pleasanter humanity of the subject may commend it more to one's liking, but that again requires a delicate handling, which you have given to it in a most charming manner. it is surely not possible to approach a man with a finer sympathy, and the assertion of the claims of literature throughout is of the noblest and most gallant kind. i don't agree with you about the serious papers in _the spectator_, which i think (whether they be steele's or addison's) are generally as indifferent as the humour of _the spectator_ is delightful. and i have always had a notion that prue understood her husband very well, and held him in consequence, when a fonder woman with less show of caprice must have let him go. but these are points of opinion. the paper is masterly, and all i have got to say is, that if ---- had a grain of the honest sentiment with which it overflows, he never would or could have made so great a mistake. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] tavistock house, _thursday, april th, ._ on the death of an infant. my dear mark, i will call for you at two, and go with you to highgate, by all means. leech and i called on tuesday evening and left our loves. i have not written to you since, because i thought it best to leave you quiet for a day. i have no need to tell you, my dear fellow, that my thoughts have been constantly with you, and that i have not forgotten (and never shall forget) who sat up with me one night when a little place in my house was left empty. it is hard to lose any child, but there are many blessed sources of consolation in the loss of a baby. there is a beautiful thought in fielding's "journey from this world to the next," where the baby he had lost many years before was found by him all radiant and happy, building him a bower in the elysian fields where they were to live together when he came. ever affectionately yours. p.s.--our kindest loves to mrs. lemon. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] tavistock house, _sunday, may th, ._ my dear stanny, i have a little lark in contemplation, if you will help it to fly. collins has done a melodrama (a regular old-style melodrama), in which there is a very good notion. i am going to act it, as an experiment, in the children's theatre here--i, mark, collins, egg, and my daughter mary, the whole _dram. pers._; our families and yours the whole audience; for i want to make the stage large and shouldn't have room for above five-and-twenty spectators. now there is only one scene in the piece, and that, my tarry lad, is the inside of a lighthouse. will you come and paint it for us one night, and we'll all turn to and help? it is a mere wall, of course, but mark and i have sworn that you must do it. if you will say yes, i should like to have the tiny flats made, after you have looked at the place, and not before. on wednesday in this week i am good for a steak and the play, if you will make your own appointment here; or any day next week except thursday. write me a line in reply. we mean to burst on an astonished world with the melodrama, without any note of preparation. so don't say a syllable to forster if you should happen to see him. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] tavistock house, _tuesday afternoon, six o'clock, may nd, ._ my dear stanny, your note came while i was out walking. even if i had been at home i could not have managed to dine together to-day, being under a beastly engagement to dine out. unless i hear from you to the contrary, i shall expect you here some time to-morrow, and will remain at home. i only wait your instructions to get the little canvases made. o, what a pity it is not the outside of the light'us, with the sea a-rowling agin it! never mind, we'll get an effect out of the inside, and there's a storm and a shipwreck "off;" and the great ambition of my life will be achieved at last, in the wearing of a pair of very coarse petticoat trousers. so hoorar for the salt sea, mate, and bouse up! ever affectionately, dicky. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] tavistock house, _may rd, ._ my dear mark, stanny says he is only sorry it is not the outside of the lighthouse with a raging sea and a transparent light. he enters into the project with the greatest delight, and i think we shall make a capital thing of it. it now occurs to me that we may as well do a farce too. i should like to get in a little part for katey, and also for charley, if it were practicable. what do you think of "animal mag."? you and i in our old parts; collins, jeffrey; charley, the markis; katey and mary (or georgina), the two ladies? can you think of anything merry that is better? it ought to be broad, as a relief to the melodrama, unless we could find something funny with a story in it too. i rather incline myself to "animal mag." will you come round and deliver your sentiments? ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _thursday, may th, ._ my dear stone, great projects are afoot here for a grown-up play in about three weeks' time. former schoolroom arrangements to be reversed--large stage and small audience. stanfield bent on desperate effects, and all day long with his coat off, up to his eyes in distemper colours. will you appear in your celebrated character of mr. nightingale? i want to wind up with that popular farce, we all playing our old parts. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear stone, that's right! you will find the words come back very quickly. why, _of course_ your people are to come, and if stanfield don't astonish 'em, i'm a dutchman. o heaven, if you could hear the ideas he proposes to me, making even _my_ hair stand on end! will you get marcus or some similar bright creature to copy out old nightingale's part for you, and then return the book? this is the prompt-book, the only one i have; and katey and georgina (being also in wild excitement) want to write their parts out with all despatch. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _thursday, may th, ._ my dear collins, i shall expect you to-morrow evening at "household words." i have written a little ballad for mary--"the story of the ship's carpenter and the little boy, in the shipwreck." let us close up with "mr. nightingale's diary." will you look whether you have a book of it, or your part. all other matters and things hereunto belonging when we meet. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mrs. trollope.] tavistock house, _tuesday morning, june th, ._ my dear mrs. trollope, i was out of town on sunday, or i should have answered your note immediately on its arrival. i cannot have the pleasure of seeing the famous "medium" to-night, for i have some theatricals at home. but i fear i shall not in any case be a good subject for the purpose, as i altogether want faith in the thing. i have not the least belief in the awful unseen world being available for evening parties at so much per night; and, although i should be ready to receive enlightenment from any source, i must say i have very little hope of it from the spirits who express themselves through mediums, as i have never yet observed them to talk anything but nonsense, of which (as carlyle would say) there is probably enough in these days of ours, and in all days, among mere mortality. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. clarkson stanfield, r.a.] tavistock house, _wednesday, june th, ._ my dear stanny, i write a hasty note to let you know that last night was perfectly wonderful!!! such an audience! such a brilliant success from first to last! the queen had taken it into her head in the morning to go to chatham, and had carried phipps with her. he wrote to me asking if it were possible to give him a quarter of an hour. i got through that time before the overture, and he came without any dinner, so influenced by eager curiosity. lemon and i did every conceivable absurdity, i think, in the farce; and they never left off laughing. at supper i proposed your health, which was drunk with nine times nine, and three cheers over. we then turned to at scotch reels (having had no exercise), and danced in the maddest way until five this morning. it is as much as i can do to guide the pen. with loves to mrs. stanfield and all, ever most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] tavistock house, _saturday, june th, ._ my very dear macready, i write shortly, after a day's work at my desk, rather than lose a post in answering your enthusiastic, earnest, and young--how young, in all the best side of youth--letter. to tell you the truth, i confidently expected to hear from you. i knew that if there were a man in the world who would be interested in, and who would approve of, my giving utterance to whatever was in me at this time, it would be you. i was as sure of you as of the sun this morning. the subject is surrounded by difficulties; the association is sorely in want of able men; and the resistance of all the phalanx, who have an interest in corruption and mismanagement, is the resistance of a struggle against death. but the great, first, strong necessity is to rouse the people up, to keep them stirring and vigilant, to carry the war dead into the tent of such creatures as ----, and ring into their souls (or what stands for them) that the time for dandy insolence is gone for ever. it may be necessary to come to that law of primogeniture (i have no love for it), or to come to even greater things; but this is the first service to be done, and unless it is done, there is not a chance. for this, and to encourage timid people to come in, i went to drury lane the other night; and i wish you had been there and had seen and heard the people. the association will be proud to have your name and gift. when we sat down on the stage the other night, and were waiting a minute or two to begin, i said to morley, the chairman (a thoroughly fine earnest fellow), "this reminds me so of one of my dearest friends, with a melancholy so curious, that i don't know whether the place feels familiar to me or strange." he was full of interest directly, and we went on talking of you until the moment of his getting up to open the business. they are going to print my speech in a tract-form, and send it all over the country. i corrected it for the purpose last night. we are all well. charley in the city; all the boys at home for the holidays; three prizes brought home triumphantly (one from the boulogne waters and one from wimbledon); i taking dives into a new book, and runs at leap-frog over "household words;" and anne going to be married--which is the only bad news. catherine, georgie, mary, katey, charley, and all the rest, send multitudes of loves. ever, my dearest macready, with unalterable affection and attachment, your faithful friend. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] , albion villas, folkestone, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dear collins, walter goes back to school on the st of august. will you come out of school to this breezy vacation on the same day, or rather _this day fortnight, july st_? for that is the day on which he leaves us, and we begin (here's a parent!) to be able to be comfortable. why a boy of that age should seem to have on at all times a hundred and fifty pair of double-soled boots, and to be always jumping a bottom stair with the whole hundred and fifty, i don't know. but the woeful fact is within my daily experience. we have a very pleasant little house, overlooking the sea, and i think you will like the place. it rained, in honour of our arrival, with the greatest vigour, yesterday. i went out after dinner to buy some nails (you know the arrangements that would be then in progress), and i stopped in the rain, about halfway down a steep, crooked street, like a crippled ladder, to look at a little coachmaker's, where there had just been a sale. speculating on the insolvent coachmaker's business, and what kind of coaches he could possibly have expected to get orders for in folkestone, i thought, "what would bring together fifty people now, in this little street, at this little rainy minute?" on the instant, a brewer's van, with two mad horses in it, and the harness dangling about them--like the trappings of those horses you are acquainted with, who bolted through the starry courts of heaven--dashed by me, and in that instant, such a crowd as would have accumulated in fleet street sprang up magically. men fell out of windows, dived out of doors, plunged down courts, precipitated themselves down steps, came down waterspouts, instead of rain, i think, and i never saw so wonderful an instance of the gregarious effect of an excitement. a man, a woman, and a child had been thrown out on the horses taking fright and the reins breaking. the child is dead, and the woman very ill but will probably recover, and the man has a hand broken and other mischief done to him. let me know what wigan says. if he does not take the play, and readily too, i would recommend you not to offer it elsewhere. you have gained great reputation by it, have done your position a deal of good, and (as i think) stand so well with it, that it is a pity to engender the notion that you care to stand better. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] folkestone, _september th, ._ my dear wills, scrooge is delighted to find that bob cratchit is enjoying his holiday in such a delightful situation; and he says (with that warmth of nature which has distinguished him since his conversion), "make the most of it, bob; make the most of it." [i am just getting to work on no. of the new book, and am in the hideous state of mind belonging to that condition.] i have not a word of news. i am steeped in my story, and rise and fall by turns into enthusiasm and depression. ever faithfully. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] folkestone, _sunday, sept. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, this will be a short letter, but i hope not unwelcome. if you knew how often i write to you--in intention--i don't know where you would find room for the correspondence. catherine tells me that you want to know the name of my new book. i cannot bear that you should know it from anyone but me. it will not be made public until the end of october; the title is: "nobody's fault." keep it as the apple of your eye--an expressive form of speech, though i have not the least idea of what it means. next, i wish to tell you that i have appointed to read at peterboro', on tuesday, the th of december. i have told the dean that i cannot accept his hospitality, and that i am going with mr. wills to the inn, therefore i shall be absolutely at your disposal, and shall be more than disappointed if you don't stay with us. as the time approaches will you let me know your arrangements, and whether mr. wills can bespeak any rooms for you in arranging for me? georgy will give you our address in paris as soon as we shall have settled there. we shall leave here, i think, in rather less than a month from this time. you know my state of mind as well as i do, indeed, if you don't know it much better, it is not the state of mind i take it to be. how i work, how i walk, how i shut myself up, how i roll down hills and climb up cliffs; how the new story is everywhere--heaving in the sea, flying with the clouds, blowing in the wind; how i settle to nothing, and wonder (in the old way) at my own incomprehensibility. i am getting on pretty well, have done the first two numbers, and am just now beginning the third; which egotistical announcements i make to you because i know you will be interested in them. all the house send their kindest loves. i think of inserting an advertisement in _the times_, offering to submit the plornishghenter to public competition, and to receive fifty thousand pounds if such another boy cannot be found, and to pay five pounds (my fortune) if he can. ever, my dear mrs. watson, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] folkestone, _sunday, sept. th, ._ my dear collins, welcome from the bosom of the deep! if a hornpipe will be acceptable to you at any time (as a reminder of what the three brothers were always doing), i shall be, as the chairman says at mr. evans's, "happy to oblige." i have almost finished no. , in which i have relieved my indignant soul with a scarifier. sticking at it day after day, i am the incompletest letter-writer imaginable--seem to have no idea of holding a pen for any other purpose but that book. my fair laura has not yet reported concerning paris, but i should think will have done so before i see you. and now to that point. i purpose being in town on _monday, the th_, when i have promised to dine with forster. at the office, between half-past eleven and one that day, i will expect you, unless i hear from you to the contrary. of course the h. w. stories are at your disposition. if you should have completed your idea, we might breakfast together at the g. on the tuesday morning and discuss it. or i shall be in town after ten on the monday night. at the office i will tell you the idea of the christmas number, which will put you in train, i hope, for a story. i have postponed the shipwreck idea for a year, as it seemed to require more force from me than i could well give it with the weight of a new start upon me. all here send their kindest remembrances. we missed you very much, and the plorn was quite inconsolable. we slide down cæsar occasionally. they launched the boat, the rapid building of which you remember, the other day. all the fishermen in the place, all the nondescripts, and all the boys pulled at it with ropes from six a.m. to four p.m. every now and then the ropes broke, and they all fell down in the shingle. the obstinate way in which the beastly thing wouldn't move was so exasperating that i wondered they didn't shoot it, or burn it. whenever it moved an inch they all cheered; whenever it wouldn't move they all swore. finally, when it was quite given over, some one tumbled against it accidentally (as it appeared to me, looking out at my window here), and it instantly shot about a mile into the sea, and they all stood looking at it helplessly. kind regards to pigott, in which all unite. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] folkestone, _thursday, oct. th, ._ my dearest macready, i have been hammering away in that strenuous manner at my book, that i have had leisure for scarcely any letters but such, as i have been obliged to write; having a horrible temptation when i lay down my book-pen to run out on the breezy downs here, tear up the hills, slide down the same, and conduct myself in a frenzied manner, for the relief that only exercise gives me. your letter to miss coutts in behalf of little miss warner i despatched straightway. she is at present among the pyrenees, and a letter from her crossed that one of mine in which i enclosed yours, last week. pray stick to that dim notion you have of coming to paris! how delightful it would be to see your aged countenance and perfectly bald head in that capital! it will renew your youth, to visit a theatre (previously dining at the trois frères) in company with the jocund boy who now addresses you. do, do stick to it. you will be pleased to hear, i know, that charley has gone into baring's house under very auspicious circumstances. mr. bates, of that firm, had done me the kindness to place him at the brokers' where he was. and when said bates wrote to me a fortnight ago to say that an excellent opening had presented itself at baring's, he added that the brokers gave charley "so high a character for ability and zeal" that it would be unfair to receive him as a volunteer, and he must begin at a fifty-pound salary, to which i graciously consented. as to the suffrage, i have lost hope even in the ballot. we appear to me to have proved the failure of representative institutions without an educated and advanced people to support them. what with teaching people to "keep in their stations," what with bringing up the soul and body of the land to be a good child, or to go to the beershop, to go a-poaching and go to the devil; what with having no such thing as a middle class (for though we are perpetually bragging of it as our safety, it is nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper); what with flunkyism, toadyism, letting the most contemptible lords come in for all manner of places, reading _the court circular_ for the new testament, i do reluctantly believe that the english people are habitually consenting parties to the miserable imbecility into which we have fallen, _and never will help themselves out of it_. who is to do it, if anybody is, god knows. but at present we are on the down-hill road to being conquered, and the people will be content to bear it, sing "rule britannia," and will not be saved. in no. of my new book i have been blowing off a little of indignant steam which would otherwise blow me up, and with god's leave i shall walk in the same all the days of my life; but i have no present political faith or hope--not a grain. i am going to read the "carol" here to-morrow in a long carpenter's shop, which looks far more alarming as a place to hear in than the town hall at birmingham. kindest loves from all to your dear sister, kate and the darlings. it is blowing a gale here from the south-west and raining like mad. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] , rue st. florentin, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dearest catherine, we have had the most awful job to find a place that would in the least suit us, for paris is perfectly full, and there is nothing to be got at any sane price. however, we have found two apartments--an _entresol_ and a first floor, with a kitchen and servants' room at the top of the house, at no. , avenue des champs elysées. you must be prepared for a regular continental abode. there is only one window in each room, but the front apartments all look upon the main street of the champs elysées, and the view is delightfully cheerful. there are also plenty of rooms. they are not over and above well furnished, but by changing furniture from rooms we don't care for to rooms we _do_ care for, we shall be able to make them home-like and presentable. i think the situation itself almost the finest in paris; and the children will have a window from which to look on the busy life outside. we could have got a beautiful apartment in the rue faubourg st. honoré for a very little more, most elegantly furnished; but the greater part of it was on a courtyard, and it would never have done for the children. this, that i have taken for six months, is seven hundred francs per month, and twenty more for the _concierge_. what you have to expect is a regular french residence, which a little habitation will make pretty and comfortable, with nothing showy in it, but with plenty of rooms, and with that wonderful street in which the barrière de l'Ã�toile stands outside. the amount of rooms is the great thing, and i believe it to be the place best suited for us, at a not unreasonable price in paris. georgina and lady olliffe[ ] send their loves. georgina and i add ours to mamey, katey, the plorn, and harry. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, paris, _friday, oct. th, ._ my dear wills, after going through unheard-of bedevilments (of which you shall have further particulars as soon as i come right side upwards, which may happen in a day or two), we are at last established here in a series of closets, but a great many of them, with all paris perpetually passing under the windows. letters may have been wandering after me to that home in the rue de balzac, which is to be the subject of more lawsuits between the man who let it to me and the man who wouldn't let me have possession, than any other house that ever was built. but i have had no letters at all, and have been--ha, ha!--a maniac since last monday. i will try my hand at that paper for h. w. to-morrow, if i can get a yard of flooring to sit upon; but we have really been in that state of topsy-turvyhood that even that has been an unattainable luxury, and may yet be for eight-and-forty hours or so, for anything i see to the contrary. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, paris, _sunday night, oct. st, ._ my dear wills, coming here from a walk this afternoon, i found your letter of yesterday awaiting me. i send this reply by my brother alfred, who is here, and who returns home to-morrow. you should get it at the office early on tuesday. i will go to work to-morrow, and will send you, please god, an article by tuesday's post, which you will get on wednesday forenoon. look carefully to the proof, as i shall not have time to receive it for correction. when you arrange about sending your parcels, will you ascertain, and communicate to me, the prices of telegraph messages? it will save me trouble, having no foreign servant (though french is in that respect a trump), and may be useful on an emergency. i have two floors here--_entresol_ and first--in a doll's house, but really pretty within, and the view without astounding, as you will say when you come. the house is on the exposition side, about half a quarter of a mile above franconi's, of course on the other side of the way, and close to the jardin d'hîver. each room has but one window in it, but we have no fewer than six rooms (besides the back ones) looking on the champs elysées, with the wonderful life perpetually flowing up and down. we have no spare-room, but excellent stowage for the whole family, including a capital dressing-room for me, and a really slap-up kitchen near the stairs. damage for the whole, seven hundred francs a month. but, sir--but--when georgina, the servants, and i were here for the first night (catherine and the rest being at boulogne), i heard georgy restless--turned out--asked: "what's the matter?" "oh, it's dreadfully dirty. i can't sleep for the smell of my room." imagine all my stage-managerial energies multiplied at daybreak by a thousand. imagine the porter, the porter's wife, the porter's wife's sister, a feeble upholsterer of enormous age from round the corner, and all his workmen (four boys), summoned. imagine the partners in the proprietorship of the apartment, and martial little man with françois-prussian beard, also summoned. imagine your inimitable chief briefly explaining that dirt is not in his way, and that he is driven to madness, and that he devotes himself to no coat and a dirty face, until the apartment is thoroughly purified. imagine co-proprietors at first astounded, then urging that "it's not the custom," then wavering, then affected, then confiding their utmost private sorrows to the inimitable, offering new carpets (accepted), embraces (not accepted), and really responding like french bricks. sallow, unbrushed, unshorn, awful, stalks the inimitable through the apartment until last night. then all the improvements were concluded, and i do really believe the place to be now worth eight or nine hundred francs per month. you must picture it as the smallest place you ever saw, but as exquisitely cheerful and vivacious, clean as anything human can be, and with a moving panorama always outside, which is paris in itself. you mention a letter from miss coutts as to mrs. brown's illness, which you say is "enclosed to mrs. charles dickens." it is not enclosed, and i am mad to know where she writes from that i may write to her. pray set this right, for her uneasiness will be greatly intensified if she have no word from me. i thought we were to give £ , for the house at gad's hill. are we bound to £ , ? considering the improvements to be made, it is a little too much, isn't it? i have a strong impression that at the utmost we were only to divide the difference, and not to pass £ , . you will set me right if i am wrong. but i don't think i am. i write very hastily, with the piano playing and alfred looking for this. ever, my dear wills, faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, _wednesday, oct. th, ._ my dear wills, in the gad's hill matter, i too would like to try the effect of "not budging." _so do not go beyond the_ £ , . considering what i should have to expend on the one hand, and the low price of stock on the other, i do not feel disposed to go beyond that mark. they won't let a purchaser escape for the sake of the £ , i think. and austin was strongly of opinion, when i saw him last, that £ , was enough. you cannot think how pleasant it is to me to find myself generally known and liked here. if i go into a shop to buy anything, and give my card, the officiating priest or priestess brightens up, and says: "_ah! c'est l'écrivain célèbre! monsieur porte un nom très-distingué. mais! je suis honoré et intéressé de voir monsieur dick-in. je lis un des livres de monsieur tous les jours_" (in the _moniteur_). and a man who brought some little vases home last night, said: "_on connaît bien en france que monsieur dick-in prend sa position sur la dignité de la littérature. ah! c'est grande chose! et ses caractères_" (this was to georgina, while he unpacked) "_sont si spirituellement tournées! cette madame tojare_" (todgers), "_ah! qu'elle est drôle et précisément comme une dame que je connais à calais._" you cannot have any doubt about this place, if you will only recollect it is the great main road from the place de la concorde to the barrière de l'Ã�toile. ever faithfully. [sidenote: monsieur regnier.] _wednesday, november st, ._ my dear regnier, in thanking you for the box you kindly sent me the day before yesterday, let me thank you a thousand times for the delight we derived from the representation of your beautiful and admirable piece. i have hardly ever been so affected and interested in any theatre. its construction is in the highest degree excellent, the interest absorbing, and the whole conducted by a masterly hand to a touching and natural conclusion. through the whole story from beginning to end, i recognise the true spirit and feeling of an artist, and i most heartily offer you and your fellow-labourer my felicitations on the success you have achieved. that it will prove a very great and a lasting one, i cannot for a moment doubt. o my friend! if i could see an english actress with but one hundredth part of the nature and art of madame plessy, i should believe our english theatre to be in a fair way towards its regeneration. but i have no hope of ever beholding such a phenomenon. i may as well expect ever to see upon an english stage an accomplished artist, able to write and to embody what he writes, like you. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: madame viardot.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, _monday, dec. rd, ._ dear madame viardot, mrs. dickens tells me that you have only borrowed the first number of "little dorrit," and are going to send it back. pray do nothing of the sort, and allow me to have the great pleasure of sending you the succeeding numbers as they reach me. i have had such delight in your great genius, and have so high an interest in it and admiration of it, that i am proud of the honour of giving you a moment's intellectual pleasure. believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _sunday, dec. rd, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i have a moment in which to redeem my promise, of putting you in possession of my little friend no. , before the general public. it is, of course, at the disposal of your circle, but until the month is out, is understood to be a prisoner in the castle. if i had time to write anything, i should still quite vainly try to tell you what interest and happiness i had in once more seeing you among your dear children. let me congratulate you on your eton boys. they are so handsome, frank, and genuinely modest, that they charmed me. a kiss to the little fair-haired darling and the rest; the love of my heart to every stone in the old house. enormous effect at sheffield. but really not a better audience perceptively than at peterboro', for that could hardly be, but they were more enthusiastically demonstrative, and they took the line, "and to tiny tim who did not die," with a most prodigious shout and roll of thunder. ever, my dear friend, most faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] captain cavendish boyle was governor of the military prison at weedon. [ ] wife of the late sir joseph olliffe, physician to the british embassy. . narrative. charles dickens having taken an _appartement_ in paris for the winter months, , avenue des champs elysées, was there with his family until the middle of may. he much enjoyed this winter sojourn, meeting many old friends, making new friends, and interchanging hospitalities with the french artistic world. he had also many friends from england to visit him. mr. wilkie collins had an _appartement de garçon_ hard by, and the two companions were constantly together. the rev. james white and his family also spent their winter at paris, having taken an _appartement_ at , avenue des champs elysées, and the girls of the two families had the same masters, and took their lessons together. after the whites' departure, mr. macready paid charles dickens a visit, occupying the vacant _appartement_. during this winter charles dickens was, however, constantly backwards and forwards between paris and london on "household words" business, and was also at work on his "little dorrit." while in paris he sat for his portrait to the great ary scheffer. it was exhibited at the royal academy exhibition of this year, and is now in the national portrait gallery. the summer was again spent at boulogne, and once more at the villa des moulineaux, where he received constant visits from english friends, mr. wilkie collins taking up his quarters for many weeks at a little cottage in the garden; and there the idea of another play, to be acted at tavistock house, was first started. many of our letters for this year have reference to this play, and will show the interest which charles dickens took in it, and the immense amount of care and pains given by him to the careful carrying out of this favourite amusement. the christmas number of "household words," written by charles dickens and mr. collins, called "the wreck of the _golden mary_," was planned by the two friends during this summer holiday. it was in this year that one of the great wishes of his life was to be realised, the much-coveted house--gad's hill place--having been purchased by him, and the cheque written on the th of march--on a "friday," as he writes to his sister-in-law, in the letter of this date. he frequently remarked that all the important, and so far fortunate, events of his life had happened to him on a friday. so that, contrary to the usual superstition, that day had come to be looked upon by his family as his "lucky" day. the allusion to the "plainness" of miss boyle's handwriting is good-humouredly ironical; that lady's writing being by no means famous for its legibility. the "anne" mentioned in the letter to his sister-in-law, which follows the one to miss boyle, was the faithful servant who had lived with the family so long; and who, having left to be married the previous year, had found it a very difficult matter to recover from her sorrow at this parting. and the "godfather's present" was for a son of mr. edmund yates. "the humble petition" was written to mr. wilkie collins during that gentleman's visit to paris. the explanation of the remark to mr. wills ( th april), that he had paid the money to mr. poole, is that charles dickens was the trustee through whom the dramatist received his pension. the letter to the duke of devonshire has reference to the peace illuminations after the crimean war. the m. forgues for whom, at mr. collins's request, he writes a short biography of himself, was the editor of the _revue des deux mondes_. the speech at the london tavern was on behalf of the artists' benevolent fund. miss kate macready had sent some clever poems to "household words," with which charles dickens had been much pleased. he makes allusion to these, in our two remaining letters to mr. macready. "i did write it for you" (letter to mrs. watson, th october), refers to that part of "little dorrit" which treats of the visit of the dorrit family to the great st. bernard. an expedition which it will be remembered he made himself, in company with mr. and mrs. watson and other friends. the letter to mrs. horne refers to a joke about the name of a friend of this lady's, who had once been brought by her to tavistock house. the letter to mr. mitton concerns the lighting of the little theatre at tavistock house. our last letter is in answer to one from mr. kent, asking him to sit to mr. john watkins for his photograph. we should add, however, that he did subsequently give this gentleman some sittings. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , champs elysÃ�es, _sunday, jan. th, ._ my dear wills, i should like morley to do a strike article, and to work into it the greater part of what is here. but i cannot represent myself as holding the opinion that all strikes among this unhappy class of society, who find it so difficult to get a peaceful hearing, are always necessarily wrong, because i don't think so. to open a discussion of the question by saying that the men are "_of course_ entirely and painfully in the wrong," surely would be monstrous in any one. show them to be in the wrong here, but in the name of the eternal heavens show why, upon the merits of this question. nor can i possibly adopt the representation that these men are wrong because by throwing themselves out of work they throw other people, possibly without their consent. if such a principle had anything in it, there could have been no civil war, no raising by hampden of a troop of horse, to the detriment of buckinghamshire agriculture, no self-sacrifice in the political world. and o, good god, when ---- treats of the suffering of wife and children, can he suppose that these mistaken men don't feel it in the depths of their hearts, and don't honestly and honourably, most devoutly and faithfully believe that for those very children, when they shall have children, they are bearing all these miseries now! i hear from mrs. fillonneau that her husband was obliged to leave town suddenly before he could get your parcel, consequently he has not brought it; and white's sovereigns--unless you have got them back again--are either lying out of circulation somewhere, or are being spent by somebody else. i will write again on tuesday. my article is to begin the enclosed. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] , champs elysÃ�es, paris, _monday, jan. th, ._ my dear mark, i want to know how "jack and the beanstalk" goes. i have a notion from a notice--a favourable notice, however--which i saw in _galignani_, that webster has let down the comic business. in a piece at the ambigu, called the "rentrée à paris," a mere scene in honour of the return of the troops from the crimea the other day, there is a novelty which i think it worth letting you know of, as it is easily available, either for a serious or a comic interest--the introduction of a supposed electric telegraph. the scene is the railway terminus at paris, with the electric telegraph office on the prompt side, and the clerks _with their backs to the audience_--much more real than if they were, as they infallibly would be, staring about the house--working the needles; and the little bell perpetually ringing. there are assembled to greet the soldiers, all the easily and naturally imagined elements of interest--old veteran fathers, young children, agonised mothers, sisters and brothers, girl lovers--each impatient to know of his or her own object of solicitude. enter to these a certain marquis, full of sympathy for all, who says: "my friends, i am one of you. my brother has no commission yet. he is a common soldier. i wait for him as well as all brothers and sisters here wait for _their_ brothers. tell me whom you are expecting." then they all tell him. then he goes into the telegraph-office, and sends a message down the line to know how long the troops will be. bell rings. answer handed out on slip of paper. "delay on the line. troops will not arrive for a quarter of an hour." general disappointment. "but we have this brave electric telegraph, my friends," says the marquis. "give me your little messages, and i'll send them off." general rush round the marquis. exclamations: "how's henri?" "my love to georges;" "has guillaume forgotten elise?" "is my son wounded?" "is my brother promoted?" etc. etc. marquis composes tumult. sends message--such a regiment, such a company--"elise's love to georges." little bell rings, slip of paper handed out--"georges in ten minutes will embrace his elise. sends her a thousand kisses." marquis sends message--such a regiment, such a company--"is my son wounded?" little bell rings. slip of paper handed out--"no. he has not yet upon him those marks of bravery in the glorious service of his country which his dear old father bears" (father being lamed and invalided). last of all, the widowed mother. marquis sends message--such a regiment, such a company--"is my only son safe?" little bell rings. slip of paper handed out--"he was first upon the heights of alma." general cheer. bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "he was made a sergeant at inkermann." another cheer. bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "he was made colour-sergeant at sebastopol." another cheer. bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "he was the first man who leaped with the french banner on the malakhoff tower." tremendous cheer. bell rings again, another slip of paper handed out. "but he was struck down there by a musket-ball, and----troops have proceeded. will arrive in half a minute after this." mother abandons all hope; general commiseration; troops rush in, down a platform; son only wounded, and embraces her. as i have said, and as you will see, this is available for any purpose. but done with equal distinction and rapidity, it is a tremendous effect, and got by the simplest means in the world. there is nothing in the piece, but it was impossible not to be moved and excited by the telegraph part of it. i hope you have seen something of stanny, and have been to pantomimes with him, and have drunk to the absent dick. i miss you, my dear old boy, at the play, woefully, and miss the walk home, and the partings at the corner of tavistock square. and when i go by myself, i come home stewing "little dorrit" in my head; and the best part of _my_ play is (or ought to be) in gordon street. i have written to beaucourt about taking that breezy house--a little improved--for the summer, and i hope you and yours will come there often and stay there long. my present idea, if nothing should arise to unroot me sooner, is to stay here until the middle of may, then plant the family at boulogne, and come with catherine and georgy home for two or three weeks. when i shall next run across i don't know, but i suppose next month. we are up to our knees in mud here. literally in vehement despair, i walked down the avenue outside the barrière de l'Ã�toile here yesterday, and went straight on among the trees. i came back with top-boots of mud on. nothing will cleanse the streets. numbers of men and women are for ever scooping and sweeping in them, and they are always one lake of yellow mud. all my trousers go to the tailor's every day, and are ravelled out at the heels every night. washing is awful. tell mrs. lemon, with my love, that i have bought her some eau d'or, in grateful remembrance of her knowing what it is, and crushing the tyrant of her existence by resolutely refusing to be put down when that monster would have silenced her. you may imagine the loves and messages that are now being poured in upon me by all of them, so i will give none of them; though i am pretending to be very scrupulous about it, and am looking (i have no doubt) as if i were writing them down with the greatest care. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] , champs elysÃ�es, _saturday, jan. th, ._ my dear collins, i had no idea you were so far on with your book, and heartily congratulate you on being within sight of land. it is excessively pleasant to me to get your letter, as it opens a perspective of theatrical and other lounging evenings, and also of articles in "household words." it will not be the first time that we shall have got on well in paris, and i hope it will not be by many a time the last. i purpose coming over, early in february (as soon, in fact, as i shall have knocked out no. of "little d."), and therefore we can return in a jovial manner together. as soon as i know my day of coming over, i will write to you again, and (as the merchants--say charley--would add) "communicate same" to you. the lodging, _en garçon_, shall be duly looked up, and i shall of course make a point of finding it close here. there will be no difficulty in that. i will have concluded the treaty before starting for london, and will take it by the month, both because that is the cheapest way, and because desirable places don't let for shorter terms. i have been sitting to scheffer to-day--conceive this, if you please, with no. upon my soul--four hours!! i am so addleheaded and bored, that if you were here, i should propose an instantaneous rush to the trois frères. under existing circumstances i have no consolation. i think the portrait[ ] is the most astounding thing ever beheld upon this globe. it has been shrieked over by the united family as "oh! the very image!" i went down to the _entresol_ the moment i opened it, and submitted it to the plorn--then engaged, with a half-franc musket, in capturing a malakhoff of chairs. he looked at it very hard, and gave it as his opinion that it was misser hegg. we suppose him to have confounded the colonel with jollins. i met madame georges sand the other day at a dinner got up by madame viardot for that great purpose. the human mind cannot conceive any one more astonishingly opposed to all my preconceptions. if i had been shown her in a state of repose, and asked what i thought her to be, i should have said: "the queen's monthly nurse." _au reste_, she has nothing of the _bas bleu_ about her, and is very quiet and agreeable. the way in which mysterious frenchmen call and want to embrace me, suggests to any one who knows me intimately, such infamous lurking, slinking, getting behind doors, evading, lying--so much mean resort to craven flights, dastard subterfuges, and miserable poltroonery--on my part, that i merely suggest the arrival of cards like this: [illustration: hw: horgues homme de lettres or drouse membre de l'institut or cregibus patalanternois ecole des beaux arts --every five minutes. books also arrive with, on the flyleaf, jaubaud hommage à l'illustre romancier d'angleterre charles de kean.] --and i then write letters of terrific _empressement_, with assurances of all sorts of profound considerations, and never by any chance become visible to the naked eye. at the porte st. martin they are doing the "orestes," put into french verse by alexandre dumas. really one of the absurdest things i ever saw. the scene of the tomb, with all manner of classical females, in black, grouping themselves on the lid, and on the steps, and on each other, and in every conceivable aspect of obtrusive impossibility, is just like the window of one of those artists in hair, who address the friends of deceased persons. to-morrow week a fête is coming off at the jardin d'hîver, next door but one here, which i must certainly go to. the fête of the company of the folies nouvelles! the ladies of the company are to keep stalls, and are to sell to messieurs the amateurs orange-water and lemonade. paul le grand is to promenade among the company, dressed as pierrot. kalm, the big-faced comic singer, is to do the like, dressed as a russian cossack. the entertainments are to conclude with "la polka des bêtes féroces, par la troupe entière des folies nouvelles." i wish, without invasion of the rights of british subjects, or risk of war, ---- could be seized by french troops, brought over, and made to assist. the _appartement_ has not grown any bigger since you last had the joy of beholding me, and upon my honour and word i live in terror of asking ---- to dinner, lest she should not be able to get in at the dining-room door. i _think_ (am not sure) the dining-room would hold her, if she could be once passed in, but i don't see my way to that. nevertheless, we manage our own family dinners very snugly there, and have good ones, as i think you will say, every day at half-past five. i have a notion that we may knock out a _series_ of descriptions for h. w. without much trouble. it is very difficult to get into the catacombs, but my name is so well known here that i think i may succeed. i find that the guillotine can be got set up in private, like punch's show. what do you think of _that_ for an article? i find myself underlining words constantly. it is not my nature. it is mere imbecility after the four hours' sitting. all unite in kindest remembrances to you, your mother and brother. ever cordially. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] , champs elysÃ�es, paris, _jan. th, ._ my dear mary, i am afraid you will think me an abandoned ruffian for not having acknowledged your more than handsome warm-hearted letter before now. but, as usual, i have been so occupied, and so glad to get up from my desk and wallow in the mud (at present about six feet deep here), that pleasure correspondence is just the last thing in the world i have had leisure to take to. business correspondence with all sorts and conditions of men and women, o my mary! is one of the dragons i am perpetually fighting; and the more i throw it, the more it stands upon its hind legs, rampant, and throws me. yes, on that bright cold morning when i left peterboro', i felt that the best thing i could do was to say that word that i would do anything in an honest way to avoid saying, at one blow, and make off. i was so sorry to leave you all! you can scarcely imagine what a chill and blank i felt on that monday evening at rockingham. it was so sad to me, and engendered a constraint so melancholy and peculiar, that i doubt if i were ever much more out of sorts in my life. next morning, when it was light and sparkling out of doors, i felt more at home again. but when i came in from seeing poor dear watson's grave, mrs. watson asked me to go up in the gallery, which i had last seen in the days of our merry play. we went up, and walked into the very part he had made and was so fond of, and she looked out of one window and i looked out of another, and for the life of me i could not decide in my own heart whether i should console or distress her by going and taking her hand, and saying something of what was naturally in my mind. so i said nothing, and we came out again, and on the whole perhaps it was best; for i have no doubt we understood each other very well without speaking a word. sheffield was a tremendous success and an admirable audience. they made me a present of table-cutlery after the reading was over; and i came away by the mail-train within three-quarters of an hour, changing my dress and getting on my wrappers partly in the fly, partly at the inn, partly on the platform. when we got among the lincolnshire fens it began to snow. that changed to sleet, that changed to rain; the frost was all gone as we neared london, and the mud has all come. at two or three o'clock in the morning i stopped at peterboro' again, and thought of you all disconsolately. the lady in the refreshment-room was very hard upon me, harder even than those fair enslavers usually are. she gave me a cup of tea, as if i were a hyena and she my cruel keeper with a strong dislike to me. i mingled my tears with it, and had a petrified bun of enormous antiquity in miserable meekness. it is clear to me that climates are gradually assimilating over a great part of the world, and that in the most miserable part of our year there is very little to choose between london and paris, except that london is not so muddy. i have never seen dirtier or worse weather than we have had here since i returned. in desperation i went out to the barrières last sunday on a headlong walk, and came back with my very eyebrows smeared with mud. georgina is usually invisible during the walking time of the day. a turned-up nose may be seen in the midst of splashes, but nothing more. i am settling to work again, and my horrible restlessness immediately assails me. it belongs to such times. as i was writing the preceding page, it suddenly came into my head that i would get up and go to calais. i don't know why; the moment i got there i should want to go somewhere else. but, as my friend the boots says (see christmas number "household words"): "when you come to think what a game you've been up to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap you were, and how it's always yesterday with you, or else to-morrow, and never to-day, that's where it is." my dear mary, would you favour me with the name and address of the professor that taught you writing, for i want to improve myself? many a hand have i seen with many characteristics of beauty in it--some loopy, some dashy, some large, some small, some sloping to the right, some sloping to the left, some not sloping at all; but what i like in _your_ hand, mary, is its plainness, it is like print. them as runs may read just as well as if they stood still. i should have thought it was copper-plate if i hadn't known you. they send all sorts of messages from here, and so do i, with my best regards to bedgy and pardner and the blessed babbies. when shall we meet again, i wonder, and go somewhere! ah! believe me ever, my dear mary, yours truly and affectionately, joe. (that doesn't look plain.) joe. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] "household words," _friday, feb. th, ._ my dear georgy, i must write this at railroad speed, for i have been at it all day, and have numbers of letters to cram into the next half-hour. i began the morning in the city, for the theatrical fund; went on to shepherd's bush; came back to leave cards for mr. baring and mr. bates; ran across piccadilly to stratton street, stayed there an hour, and shot off here. i have been in four cabs to-day, at a cost of thirteen shillings. am going to dine with mark and webster at half-past four, and finish the evening at the adelphi. the dinner was very successful. charley was in great force, and floored peter cunningham and the audit office on a question about some bill transactions with baring's. the other guests were b. and e., shirley brooks, forster, and that's all. the dinner admirable. i never had a better. all the wine i sent down from tavistock house. anne waited, and looked well and happy, very much brighter altogether. it gave me great pleasure to see her so improved. just before dinner i got all the letters from home. they could not have arrived more opportunely. the godfather's present looks charming now it is engraved, and john is just now going off to take it to mrs. yates. to-morrow wills and i are going to gad's hill. it will occupy the whole day, and will just leave me time to get home to dress for dinner. and that's all that i have to say, except that the first number of "little dorrit" has gone to forty thousand, and the other one fast following. my best love to catherine, and to mamey and katey, and walter and harry, and the noble plorn. i am grieved to hear about his black eye, and fear that i shall find it in the green and purple state on my return. ever affectionately. the humble petition of charles dickens, a distressed foreigner, sheweth, that your petitioner has not been able to write one word to-day, or to fashion forth the dimmest shade of the faintest ghost of an idea. that your petitioner is therefore desirous of being taken out, and is not at all particular where. that your petitioner, being imbecile, says no more. but will ever, etc. (whatever that may be). paris, _march rd, ._ [sidenote: mr. douglas jerrold.] "household words" office, _march th, ._ my dear jerrold, buckstone has been with me to-day in a state of demi-semi-distraction, by reason of macready's dreading his asthma so much as to excuse himself (of necessity, i know) from taking the chair for the fund on the occasion of their next dinner. i have promised to back buckstone's entreaty to you to take it; and although i know that you have an objection which you once communicated to me, i still hold (as i did then) that it is a reason _for_ and not against. pray reconsider the point. your position in connection with dramatic literature has always suggested to me that there would be a great fitness and grace in your appearing in this post. i am convinced that the public would regard it in that light, and i particularly ask you to reflect that we never can do battle with the lords, if we will not bestow ourselves to go into places which they have long monopolised. now pray discuss this matter with yourself once more. if you can come to a favourable conclusion i shall be really delighted, and will of course come from paris to be by you; if you cannot come to a favourable conclusion i shall be really sorry, though i of course most readily defer to your right to regard such a matter from your own point of view. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] "household words" office, _tuesday, march th, _.[ ] my dear georgy, i have been in bed half the day with my cold, which is excessively violent, consequently have to write in a great hurry to save the post. tell catherine that i have the most prodigious, overwhelming, crushing, astounding, blinding, deafening, pulverising, scarifying secret, of which forster is the hero, imaginable by the whole efforts of the whole british population. it is a thing of that kind that, after i knew it, (from himself) this morning, i lay down flat as if an engine and tender had fallen upon me. love to catherine (not a word of forster before anyone else), and to mamey, katey, harry, and the noble plorn. tell collins with my kind regards that forster has just pronounced to me that "collins is a decidedly clever fellow." i hope he is a better fellow in health, too. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] "household words," _friday, march th, ._ my dear georgy, i am amazed to hear of the snow (i don't know why, but it excited john this morning beyond measure); though we have had the same east wind here, and _the_ cold and _my_ cold have both been intense. yesterday evening webster, mark, stanny, and i went to the olympic, where the wigans ranged us in a row in a gorgeous and immense private box, and where we saw "still waters run deep." i laughed (in a conspicuous manner) to that extent at emery, when he received the dinner-company, that the people were more amused by me than by the piece. i don't think i ever saw anything meant to be funny that struck me as so extraordinarily droll. i couldn't get over it at all. after the piece we went round, by wigan's invitation, to drink with him. it being positively impossible to get stanny off the stage, we stood in the wings during the burlesque. mrs. wigan seemed really glad to see her old manager, and the company overwhelmed him with embraces. they had nearly all been at the meeting in the morning. i have seen charley only twice since i came to london, having regularly been in bed until mid-day. to my amazement, my eye fell upon him at the adelphi yesterday. this day i have paid the purchase-money for gad's hill place. after drawing the cheque, i turned round to give it to wills (£ , ), and said: "now isn't it an extraordinary thing--look at the day--friday! i have been nearly drawing it half-a-dozen times, when the lawyers have not been ready, and here it comes round upon a friday, as a matter of course." kiss the noble plorn a dozen times for me, and tell him i drank his health yesterday, and wished him many happy returns of the day; also that i hope he will not have broken all his toys before i come back. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , champs elysÃ�es, paris, _saturday, march nd, ._ my dear macready, i want you--you being quite well again, as i trust you are, and resolute to come to paris--so to arrange your order of march as to let me know beforehand when you will come, and how long you will stay. we owe scribe and his wife a dinner, and i should like to pay the debt when you are with us. ary scheffer too would be delighted to see you again. if i could arrange for a certain day i would secure them. we cannot afford (you and i, i mean) to keep much company, because we shall have to look in at a theatre or so, i daresay! it would suit my work best, if i could keep myself clear until monday, the th of april. but in case that day should be too late for the beginning of your brief visit with a deference to any other engagements you have in contemplation, then fix an earlier one, and i will make "little dorrit" curtsy to it. my recent visit to london and my having only just now come back have thrown me a little behindhand; but i hope to come up with a wet sail in a few days. you should have seen the ruins of covent garden theatre. i went in the moment i got to london--four days after the fire. although the audience part and the stage were so tremendously burnt out that there was not a piece of wood half the size of a lucifer-match for the eye to rest on, though nothing whatever remained but bricks and smelted iron lying on a great black desert, the theatre still looked so wonderfully like its old self grown gigantic that i never saw so strange a sight. the wall dividing the front from the stage still remained, and the iron pass-doors stood ajar in an impossible and inaccessible frame. the arches that supported the stage were there, and the arches that supported the pit; and in the centre of the latter lay something like a titanic grape-vine that a hurricane had pulled up by the roots, twisted, and flung down there; this was the great chandelier. gye had kept the men's wardrobe at the top of the house over the great entrance staircase; when the roof fell in it came down bodily, and all that part of the ruins was like an old babylonic pavement, bright rays tesselating the black ground, sometimes in pieces so large that i could make out the clothes in the "trovatore." i should run on for a couple of hours if i had to describe the spectacle as i saw it, wherefore i will immediately muzzle myself. all here unite in kindest loves to dear miss macready, to katie, lillie, benvenuta, my godson, and the noble johnny. we are charmed to hear such happy accounts of willy and ned, and send our loving remembrance to them in the next letters. all parisian novelties you shall see and hear for yourself. ever, my dearest macready, your affectionate friend. p.s.--mr. f.'s aunt sends her defiant respects. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] , avenue des champs elysÃ�es, paris, _thursday night, march th, (after post time)._ my dearest macready, if i had had any idea of your coming (see how naturally i use the word when i am three hundred miles off!) to london so soon, i would never have written one word about the jump over next week. i am vexed that i did so, but as i did i will not now propose a change in the arrangements, as i know how methodical you tremendously old fellows are. that's your secret i suspect. that's the way in which the blood of the mirabels mounts in your aged veins, even at your time of life. how charmed i shall be to see you, and we all shall be, i will not attempt to say. on that expected sunday you will lunch at amiens but not dine, because we shall wait dinner for you, and you will merely have to tell that driver in the glazed hat to come straight here. when the whites left i added their little apartment to this little apartment, consequently you shall have a snug bedroom (is it not waiting expressly for you?) overlooking the champs elysées. as to the arm-chair in my heart, no man on earth----but, good god! you know all about it. you will find us in the queerest of little rooms all alone, except that the son of collins the painter (who writes a good deal in "household words") dines with us every day. scheffer and scribe shall be admitted for one evening, because they know how to appreciate you. the emperor we will not ask unless you expressly wish it; it makes a fuss. if you have no appointed hotel at boulogne, go to the hôtel des bains, there demand "marguerite," and tell her that i commended you to her special care. it is the best house within my experience in france; marguerite the best housekeeper in the world. i shall charge at "little dorrit" to-morrow with new spirits. the sight of you is good for my boyish eyes, and the thought of you for my dawning mind. give the enclosed lines a welcome, then send them on to sherborne. ever yours most affectionately and truly. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , champs elysÃ�es, paris, _sunday, april th, ._ my dear wills, christmas. collins and i have a mighty original notion (mine in the beginning) for another play at tavistock house. i propose opening on twelfth night the theatrical season of that great establishment. but now a tremendous question. is mrs. wills! game to do a scotch housekeeper, in a supposed country-house, with mary, katey, georgina, etc.? if she can screw her courage up to saying "yes," that country-house opens the piece in a singular way, and that scotch housekeeper's part shall flow from the present pen. if she says "no" (but she won't), no scotch housekeeper can be. the tavistock house season of four nights pauses for a reply. scotch song (new and original) of scotch housekeeper would pervade the piece. you had better pause for breath. ever faithfully. poole. i have paid him his money. here is the proof of life. if you will get me the receipt to sign, the money can go to my account at coutts's. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] tavistock house, _monday, may th, ._ my dear catherine, i did nothing at dover (except for "household words"), and have not begun "little dorrit," no. , yet. but i took twenty-mile walks in the fresh air, and perhaps in the long run did better than if i had been at work. the report concerning scheffer's portrait i had from ward. it is in the best place in the largest room, but i find the _general_ impression of the artists exactly mine. they almost all say that it wants something; that nobody could mistake whom it was meant for, but that it has something disappointing in it, etc. etc. stanfield likes it better than any of the other painters, i think. his own picture is magnificent. and frith, in a "little child's birthday party," is quite delightful. there are many interesting pictures. when you see scheffer, tell him from me that eastlake, in his speech at the dinner, referred to the portrait as "a contribution from a distinguished man of genius in france, worthy of himself and of his subject." i did the maddest thing last night, and am deeply penitent this morning. we stayed at webster's till any hour, and they wanted me, at last, to make punch, which couldn't be done when the jug was brought, because (to webster's burning indignation) there was only one lemon in the house. hereupon i then and there besought the establishment in general to come and drink punch on thursday night, after the play; on which occasion it will become necessary to furnish fully the table with some cold viands from fortnum and mason's. mark has looked in since i began this note, to suggest that the great festival may come off at "household words" instead. i am inclined to think it a good idea, and that i shall transfer the locality to that business establishment. but i am at present distracted with doubts and torn by remorse. the school-room and dining-room i have brought into habitable condition and comfortable appearance. charley and i breakfast at half-past eight, and meet again at dinner when he does not dine in the city, or has no engagement. he looks very well. the audiences at gye's are described to me as absolute marvels of coldness. no signs of emotion can be hammered, out of them. panizzi sat next me at the academy dinner, and took it very ill that i disparaged ----. the amateurs here are getting up another pantomime, but quarrel so violently among themselves that i doubt its ever getting on the stage. webster expounded his scheme for rebuilding the adelphi to stanfield and myself last night, and i felt bound to tell him that i thought it wrong from beginning to end. this is all the theatrical news i know. i write by this post to georgy. love to mamey, katey, harry, and the noble plorn. i should be glad to see him here. ever affectionately. [sidenote: miss hogarth.] tavistock house, _monday, may th, ._ my dear georgy, you will not be much surprised to hear that i have done nothing yet (except for h. w.), and have only just settled down into a corner of the school-room. the extent to which john and i wallowed in dust for four hours yesterday morning, getting things neat and comfortable about us, you may faintly imagine. at four in the afternoon came stanfield, to whom i no sooner described the notion of the new play, than he immediately upset all my new arrangements by making a proscenium of the chairs, and planning the scenery with walking-sticks. one of the least things he did was getting on the top of the long table, and hanging over the bar in the middle window where that top sash opens, as if he had got a hinge in the middle of his body. he is immensely excited on the subject. mark had a farce ready for the managerial perusal, but it won't do. i went to the dover theatre on friday night, which was a miserable spectacle. the pit is boarded over, and it is a drinking and smoking place. it was "for the benefit of mrs. ----," and the town had been very extensively placarded with "don't forget friday." i made out four and ninepence (i am serious) in the house, when i went in. we may have warmed up in the course of the evening to twelve shillings. a jew played the grand piano; mrs. ---- sang no end of songs (with not a bad voice, poor creature); mr. ---- sang comic songs fearfully, and danced clog hornpipes capitally; and a miserable woman, shivering in a shawl and bonnet, sat in the side-boxes all the evening, nursing master ----, aged seven months. it was a most forlorn business, and i should have contributed a sovereign to the treasury, if i had known how. i walked to deal and back that day, and on the previous day walked over the downs towards canterbury in a gale of wind. it was better than still weather after all, being wonderfully fresh and free. if the plorn were sitting at this school-room window in the corner, he would see more cats in an hour than he ever saw in his life. _i_ never saw so many, i think, as i have seen since yesterday morning. there is a painful picture of a great deal of merit (egg has bought it) in the exhibition, painted by the man who did those little interiors of forster's. it is called "the death of chatterton." the dead figure is a good deal like arthur stone; and i was touched on saturday to see that tender old file standing before it, crying under his spectacles at the idea of seeing his son dead. it was a very tender manifestation of his gentle old heart. this sums up my news, which is no news at all. kiss the plorn for me, and expound to him that i am always looking forward to meeting him again, among the birds and flowers in the garden on the side of the hill at boulogne. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the duke of devonshire.] tavistock house, _sunday, june st, ._ my dear duke of devonshire, allow me to thank you with all my heart for your kind remembrance of me on thursday night. my house was already engaged to miss coutts's, and i to--the top of st. paul's, where the sight was most wonderful! but seeing that your cards gave me leave to present some person not named, i conferred them on my excellent friend dr. elliotson, whom i found with some fireworkless little boys in a desolate condition, and raised to the seventh heaven of happiness. you are so fond of making people happy, that i am sure you approve. always your faithful and much obliged. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _june th, ._ my dear collins, i have never seen anything about myself in print which has much correctness in it--any biographical account of myself i mean. i do not supply such particulars when i am asked for them by editors and compilers, simply because i am asked for them every day. if you want to prime forgues, you may tell him without fear of anything wrong, that i was born at portsmouth on the th of february, ; that my father was in the navy pay office; that i was taken by him to chatham when i was very young, and lived and was educated there till i was twelve or thirteen, i suppose; that i was then put to a school near london, where (as at other places) i distinguished myself like a brick; that i was put in the office of a solicitor, a friend of my father's, and didn't much like it; and after a couple of years (as well as i can remember) applied myself with a celestial or diabolical energy to the study of such things as would qualify me to be a first-rate parliamentary reporter--at that time a calling pursued by many clever men who were young at the bar; that i made my début in the gallery (at about eighteen, i suppose), engaged on a voluminous publication no longer in existence, called _the mirror of parliament_; that when _the morning chronicle_ was purchased by sir john easthope and acquired a large circulation, i was engaged there, and that i remained there until i had begun to publish "pickwick," when i found myself in a condition to relinquish that part of my labours; that i left the reputation behind me of being the best and most rapid reporter ever known, and that i could do anything in that way under any sort of circumstances, and often did. (i daresay i am at this present writing the best shorthand writer in the world.) that i began, without any interest or introduction of any kind, to write fugitive pieces for the old "monthly magazine," when i was in the gallery for _the mirror of parliament_; that my faculty for descriptive writing was seized upon the moment i joined _the morning chronicle_, and that i was liberally paid there and handsomely acknowledged, and wrote the greater part of the short descriptive "sketches by boz" in that paper; that i had been a writer when i was a mere baby, and always an actor from the same age; that i married the daughter of a writer to the signet in edinburgh, who was the great friend and assistant of scott, and who first made lockhart known to him. and that here i am. finally, if you want any dates of publication of books, tell wills and he'll get them for you. this is the first time i ever set down even these particulars, and, glancing them over, i feel like a wild beast in a caravan describing himself in the keeper's absence. ever faithfully. p.s.--i made a speech last night at the london tavern, at the end of which all the company sat holding their napkins to their eyes with one hand, and putting the other into their pockets. a hundred people or so contributed nine hundred pounds then and there. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _sunday, june th ._ my dear old boy, this place is beautiful--a burst of roses. your friend beaucourt (who _will not_ put on his hat), has thinned the trees and greatly improved the garden. upon my life, i believe there are at least twenty distinct smoking-spots expressly made in it. and as soon as you can see your day in next month for coming over with stanny and webster, will you let them both know? i should not be very much surprised if i were to come over and fetch you, when i know what your day is. indeed, i don't see how you could get across properly without me. there is a fête here to-night in honour of the imperial baptism, and there will be another to-morrow. the plorn has put on two bits of ribbon (one pink and one blue), which he calls "companys," to celebrate the occasion. the fact that the receipts of the fêtes are to be given to the sufferers by the late floods reminds me that you will find at the passport office a tin-box, condescendingly and considerately labelled in english: for the overflowings, which the chief officer clearly believes to mean, for the sufferers from the inundations. i observe more mingles in the laundresses' shops, and one inscription, which looks like the name of a duet or chorus in a playbill, "here they mingle." will you congratulate mrs. lemon, with our loves, on her gallant victory over the recreant cabman? walter has turned up, rather brilliant on the whole; and that (with shoals of remembrances and messages which i don't deliver) is all my present intelligence. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. mark lemon.] h. w. office, _july nd, ._ my dear mark, i am concerned to hear that you are ill, that you sit down before fires and shiver, and that you have stated times for doing so, like the demons in the melodramas, and that you mean to take a week to get well in. make haste about it, like a dear fellow, and keep up your spirits, because i have made a bargain with stanny and webster that they shall come to boulogne to-morrow week, thursday the th, and stay a week. and you know how much pleasure we shall all miss if you are not among us--at least for some part of the time. if you find any unusually light appearance in the air at brighton, it is a distant refraction (i have no doubt) of the gorgeous and shining surface of tavistock house, now transcendently painted. the theatre partition is put up, and is a work of such terrific solidity, that i suppose it will be dug up, ages hence, from the ruins of london, by that australian of macaulay's who is to be impressed by its ashes. i have wandered through the spectral halls of the tavistock mansion two nights, with feelings of the profoundest depression. i have breakfasted there, like a criminal in pentonville (only not so well). it is more like westminster abbey by midnight than the lowest-spirited man--say you at present for example--can well imagine. there has been a wonderful robbery at folkestone, by the new manager of the pavilion, who succeeded giovannini. he had in keeping £ , of a foreigner's, and bolted with it, as he supposed, but in reality with only £ , of it. the frenchman had previously bolted with the whole, which was the property of his mother. with him to england the frenchman brought a "lady," who was, all the time and at the same time, endeavouring to steal all the money from him and bolt with it herself. the details are amazing, and all the money (a few pounds excepted) has been got back. they will be full of sympathy and talk about you when i get home, and i shall tell them that i send their loves beforehand. they are all enclosed. the moment you feel hearty, just write me that word by post. i shall be so delighted to receive it. ever, my dear boy, your affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. walter savage landor.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _saturday evening, july th, ._ my dear landor, i write to you so often in my books, and my writing of letters is usually so confined to the numbers that i _must_ write, and in which i have no kind of satisfaction, that i am afraid to think how long it is since we exchanged a direct letter. but talking to your namesake this very day at dinner, it suddenly entered my head that i would come into my room here as soon as dinner should be over, and write, "my dear landor, how are you?" for the pleasure of having the answer under your own hand. that you _do_ write, and that pretty often, i know beforehand. else why do i read _the examiner_? we were in paris from october to may (i perpetually flying between that city and london), and there we found out, by a blessed accident, that your godson was horribly deaf. i immediately consulted the principal physician of the deaf and dumb institution there (one of the best aurists in europe), and he kept the boy for three months, and took unheard-of pains with him. he is now quite recovered, has done extremely well at school, has brought home a prize in triumph, and will be eligible to "go up" for his india examination soon after next easter. having a direct appointment, he will probably be sent out soon after he has passed, and so will fall into that strange life "up the country," before he well knows he is alive, which indeed seems to be rather an advanced stage of knowledge. and there in paris, at the same time, i found marguerite power and little nelly, living with their mother and a pretty sister, in a very small, neat apartment, and working (as marguerite told me) hard for a living. all that i saw of them filled me with respect, and revived the tenderest remembrances of gore house. they are coming to pass two or three weeks here for a country rest, next month. we had many long talks concerning gore house, and all its bright associations; and i can honestly report that they hold no one in more gentle and affectionate remembrance than you. marguerite is still handsome, though she had the smallpox two or three years ago, and bears the traces of it here and there, by daylight. poor little nelly (the quicker and more observant of the two) shows some little tokens of a broken-off marriage in a face too careworn for her years, but is a very winning and sensible creature. we are expecting mary boyle too, shortly. i have just been propounding to forster if it is not a wonderful testimony to the homely force of truth, that one of the most popular books on earth has nothing in it to make anyone laugh or cry? yet i think, with some confidence, that you never did either over any passage in "robinson crusoe." in particular, i took friday's death as one of the least tender and (in the true sense) least sentimental things ever written. it is a book i read very much; and the wonder of its prodigious effect on me and everyone, and the admiration thereof, grows on me the more i observe this curious fact. kate and georgina send you their kindest loves, and smile approvingly on me from the next room, as i bend over my desk. my dear landor, you see many i daresay, and hear from many i have no doubt, who love you heartily; but we silent people in the distance never forget you. do not forget us, and let us exchange affection at least. ever your admirer and friend. [sidenote: the duke of devonshire.] villa des moulineaux, near boulogne, _saturday night, july th, ._ my dear duke of devonshire, from this place where i am writing my way through the summer, in the midst of rosy gardens and sea airs, i cannot forbear writing to tell you with what uncommon pleasure i received your interesting letter, and how sensible i always am of your kindness and generosity. you were always in the mind of my household during your illness; and to have so beautiful, and fresh, and manly an assurance of your recovery from it, under your own hand, is a privilege and delight that i will say no more of. i am so glad you like flora. it came into my head one day that we have all had our floras, and that it was a half-serious, half-ridiculous truth which had never been told. it is a wonderful gratification to me to find that everybody knows her. indeed, some people seem to think i have done them a personal injury, and that their individual floras (god knows where they are, or who!) are each and all little dorrit's. we were all grievously disappointed that you were ill when we played mr. collins's "lighthouse" at my house. if you had been well, i should have waited upon you with my humble petition that you would come and see it; and if you had come i think you would have cried, which would have charmed me. i hope to produce another play at home next christmas, and if i can only persuade you to see it from a special arm-chair, and can only make you wretched, my satisfaction will be intense. may i tell you, to beguile a moment, of a little "tag," or end of a piece, i saw in paris this last winter, which struck me as the prettiest i had ever met with? the piece was not a new one, but a revival at the vaudeville--"les mémoires du diable." admirably constructed, very interesting, and extremely well played. the plot is, that a certain m. robin has come into possession of the papers of a deceased lawyer, and finds some relating to the wrongful withholding of an estate from a certain baroness, and to certain other frauds (involving even the denial of the marriage to the deceased baron, and the tarnishing of his good name) which are so very wicked that he binds them up in a book and labels them "mémoires du diable." armed with this knowledge he goes down to the desolate old château in the country--part of the wrested-away estate--from which the baroness and her daughter are going to be ejected. he informs the mother that he can right her and restore the property, but must have, as his reward, her daughter's hand in marriage. she replies: "i cannot promise my daughter to a man of whom i know nothing. the gain would be an unspeakable happiness, but i resolutely decline the bargain." the daughter, however, has observed all, and she comes forward and says: "do what you have promised my mother you can do, and i am yours." then the piece goes on to its development, in an admirable way, through the unmasking of all the hypocrites. now, m. robin, partly through his knowledge of the secret ways of the old château (derived from the lawyer's papers), and partly through his going to a masquerade as the devil--the better to explode what he knows on the hypocrites--is supposed by the servants at the château really to be the devil. at the opening of the last act he suddenly appears there before the young lady, and she screams, but, recovering and laughing, says: "you are not really the ----?" "oh dear no!" he replies, "have no connection with him. but these people down here are so frightened and absurd! see this little toy on the table; i open it; here's a little bell. they have a notion that whenever this bell rings i shall appear. very ignorant, is it not?" "very, indeed," says she. "well," says m. robin, "if you should want me very much to appear, try the bell, if only for a jest. will you promise?" yes, she promises, and the play goes on. at last he has righted the baroness completely, and has only to hand her the last document, which proves her marriage and restores her good name. then he says: "madame, in the progress of these endeavours i have learnt the happiness of doing good for its own sake. i made a necessary bargain with you; i release you from it. i have done what i undertook to do. i wish you and your amiable daughter all happiness. adieu! i take my leave." bows himself out. people on the stage astonished. audience astonished--incensed. the daughter is going to cry, when she looks at the box on the table, remembers the bell, runs to it and rings it, and he rushes back and takes her to his heart; upon which we all cry with pleasure, and then laugh heartily. this looks dreadfully long, and perhaps you know it already. if so, i will endeavour to make amends with flora in future numbers. mrs. dickens and her sister beg to present their remembrances to your grace, and their congratulations on your recovery. i saw paxton now and then when you were ill, and always received from him most encouraging accounts. i don't know how heavy he is going to be (i mean in the scale), but i begin to think daniel lambert must have been in his family. ever your grace's faithful and obliged. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _tuesday, july th, ._ my dearest macready, i perfectly agree with you in your appreciation of katie's poem, and shall be truly delighted to publish it in "household words." it shall go into the very next number we make up. we are a little in advance (to enable wills to get a holiday), but as i remember, the next number made up will be published in three weeks. we are pained indeed to read your reference to my poor boy. god keep him and his father. i trust he is not conscious of much suffering himself. if that be so, it is, in the midst of the distress, a great comfort. "little dorrit" keeps me pretty busy, as you may suppose. the beginning of no. --the first line--now lies upon my desk. it would not be easy to increase upon the pains i take with her anyhow. we are expecting stanfield on thursday, and peter cunningham and his wife on monday. i would we were expecting you! this is as pretty and odd a little french country house as could be found anywhere; and the gardens are most beautiful. in "household words," next week, pray read "the diary of anne rodway" (in two not long parts). it is by collins, and i think possesses great merit and real pathos. being in town the other day, i saw gye by accident, and told him, when he praised ---- to me, that she was a very bad actress. "well!" said he, "_you_ may say anything, but if anybody else had told me that i should have stared." nevertheless, i derived an impression from his manner that she had not been a profitable speculation in respect of money. that very same day stanfield and i dined alone together at the garrick, and drank your health. we had had a ride by the river before dinner (of course he _would_ go and look at boats), and had been talking of you. it was this day week, by-the-bye. i know of nothing of public interest that is new in france, except that i am changing my moustache into a beard. we all send our most tender loves to dearest miss macready and all the house. the hammy boy is particularly anxious to have his love sent to "misr creedy." ever, my dearest macready, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. wilkie collins.] villa des moulineaux, boulogne, _sunday, july th, ._ my dear collins, we are all sorry that you are not coming until the middle of next month, but we hope that you will then be able to remain, so that we may all come back together about the th of october. i think (recreation allowed, etc.), that the play will take that time to write. the ladies of the _dram. pers._ are frightfully anxious to get it under way, and to see you locked up in the pavilion; apropos of which noble edifice i have omitted to mention that it is made a more secluded retreat than it used to be, and is greatly improved by the position of the door being changed. it is as snug and as pleasant as possible; and the genius of order has made a few little improvements about the house (at the rate of about tenpence apiece), which the genius of disorder will, it is hoped, appreciate. i think i must come over for a small spree, and to fetch you. suppose i were to come on the th or th of august to stay three or four days in town, would that do for you? let me know at the end of this month. i cannot tell you what a high opinion i have of anne rodway. i took "extracts" out of the title because it conveyed to the many-headed an idea of incompleteness--of something unfinished--and is likely to stall some readers off. i read the first part at the office with strong admiration, and read the second on the railway coming back here, being in town just after you had started on your cruise. my behaviour before my fellow-passengers was weak in the extreme, for i cried as much as you could possibly desire. apart from the genuine force and beauty of the little narrative, and the admirable personation of the girl's identity and point of view, it is done with an amount of honest pains and devotion to the work which few men have better reason to appreciate than i, and which no man can have a more profound respect for. i think it excellent, feel a personal pride and pleasure in it which is a delightful sensation, and know no one else who could have done it. of myself i have only to report that i have been hard at it with "little dorrit," and am now doing no. . this last week i sketched out the notion, characters, and progress of the farce, and sent it off to mark, who has been ill of an ague. it ought to be very funny. the cat business is too ludicrous to be treated of in so small a sheet of paper, so i must describe it _vivâ voce_ when i come to town. french has been so insufferably conceited since he shot tigerish cat no. (intent on the noble dick, with green eyes three inches in advance of her head), that i am afraid i shall have to part with him. all the boys likewise (in new clothes and ready for church) are at this instant prone on their stomachs behind bushes, whooshing and crying (after tigerish cat no. ): "french!" "here she comes!" "there she goes!" etc. i dare not put my head out of window for fear of being shot (it is as like a _coup d'état_ as possible), and tradesmen coming up the avenue cry plaintively: "_ne tirez pas, monsieur fleench; c'est moi--boulanger. ne tirez pas, mon ami._" likewise i shall have to recount to you the secret history of a robbery at the pavilion at folkestone, which you will have to write. tell piggot, when you see him, that we shall all be much pleased if he will come at his own convenience while you are here, and stay a few days with us. i shall have more than one notion of future work to suggest to you while we are beguiling the dreariness of an arctic winter in these parts. may they prosper! kind regards from all to the dramatic poet of the establishment, and to the d. p.'s mother and brother. ever yours. p.s.--if the "flying dutchman" should be done again, pray do go and see it. webster expressed his opinion to me that it was "a neat piece." i implore you to go and see a neat piece. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _thursday, august th, ._ my dear wills, i do not feel disposed to record those two chancery cases; firstly, because i would rather have no part in engendering in the mind of any human creature, a hopeful confidence in that den of iniquity. and secondly, because it seems to me that the real philosophy of the facts is altogether missed in the narrative. the wrong which chanced to be set right in these two cases was done, as all such wrong is, mainly because these wicked courts of equity, with all their means of evasion and postponement, give scoundrels confidence in cheating. if justice were cheap, sure, and speedy, few such things could be. it is because it has become (through the vile dealing of those courts and the vermin they have called into existence) a positive precept of experience that a man had better endure a great wrong than go, or suffer himself to be taken, into chancery, with the dream of setting it right. it is because of this that such nefarious speculations are made. therefore i see nothing at all to the credit of chancery in these cases, but everything to its discredit. and as to owing it to chancery to bear testimony to its having rendered justice in two such plain matters, i have no debt of the kind upon my conscience. in haste, ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready.] boulogne, _friday, august th, ._ my dearest macready, i like the second little poem very much indeed, and think (as you do) that it is a great advance upon the first. please to note that i make it a rule to pay for everything that is inserted in "household words," holding it to be a part of my trust to make my fellow-proprietors understand that they have no right to unrequited labour. therefore, when wills (who has been ill and is gone for a holiday) does his invariable spiriting gently, don't make katey's case different from adelaide procter's. i am afraid there is no possibility of my reading dorsetshirewards. i have made many conditional promises thus: "i am very much occupied; but if i read at all, i will read for your institution in such an order on my list." edinburgh, which is no. , i have been obliged to put as far off as next christmas twelvemonth. bristol stands next. the working men at preston come next. and so, if i were to go out of the record and read for your people, i should bring such a house about my ears as would shake "little dorrit" out of my head. being in town last saturday, i went to see robson in a burlesque of "medea." it is an odd but perfectly true testimony to the extraordinary power of his performance (which is of a very remarkable kind indeed), that it points the badness of ----'s acting in a most singular manner, by bringing out what she might do and does not. the scene with jason is perfectly terrific; and the manner in which the comic rage and jealousy does not pitch itself over the floor at the stalls is in striking contrast to the manner in which the tragic rage and jealousy does. he has a frantic song and dagger dance, about ten minutes long altogether, which has more passion in it than ---- could express in fifty years. we all unite in kindest love to miss macready and all your dear ones; not forgetting my godson, to whom i send his godfather's particular love twice over. the hammy boy is so brown that you would scarcely know him. ever, my dear macready, affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] tavistock house, _sunday morning, sept. th, ._ my dear wills, i suddenly remember this morning that in mr. curtis's article, "health and education," i left a line which must come out. it is in effect that the want of healthy training leaves girls in a fit state to be the subjects of mesmerism. i would not on any condition hurt elliotson's feelings (as i should deeply) by leaving that depreciatory kind of reference in any page of h. w. he has suffered quite enough without a stab from a friend. so pray, whatever the inconvenience may be in what bradbury calls "the friars," take that passage out. by some extraordinary accident, after observing it, i forgot to do it. ever faithfully. [sidenote: miss dickens.] tavistock house, _saturday, oct. th, ._ my dear mamey, the preparations for the play are already beginning, and it is christened (this is a great dramatic secret, which i suppose you know already) "the frozen deep." tell katey, with my best love, that if she fail to come back six times as red, hungry, and strong as she was when she went away, i shall give her part to somebody else. we shall all be very glad to see you both back again; when i say "we" i include the birds (who send their respectful duty) and the plorn. kind regards to all at brighton. ever, my dear mamey, your affectionate father. [sidenote: the hon. mrs. watson.] tavistock house, _tuesday, oct. th, ._ my dear mrs. watson, i _did_ write it for you; and i hoped in writing it, that you would think so. all those remembrances are fresh in my mind, as they often are, and gave me an extraordinary interest in recalling the past. i should have been grievously disappointed if you had not been pleased, for i took aim at you with a most determined intention. let me congratulate you most heartily on your handsome eddy having passed his examination with such credit. i am sure there is a spirit shining out of his eyes, which will do well in that manly and generous pursuit. you will naturally feel his departure very much, and so will he; but i have always observed within my experience, that the men who have left home young have, many long years afterwards, had the tenderest love for it, and for all associated with it. that's a pleasant thing to think of, as one of the wise and benevolent adjustments in these lives of ours. i have been so hard at work (and shall be for the next eight or nine months), that sometimes i fancy i have a digestion, or a head, or nerves, or some odd encumbrance of that kind, to which i am altogether unaccustomed, and am obliged to rush at some other object for relief; at present the house is in a state of tremendous excitement, on account of mr. collins having nearly finished the new play we are to act at christmas, which is very interesting and extremely clever. i hope this time you will come and see it. we purpose producing it on charley's birthday, twelfth night; but we shall probably play four nights altogether--"the lighthouse" on the last occasion--so that if you could come for the two last nights, you would see both the pieces. i am going to try and do better than ever, and already the school-room is in the hands of carpenters; men from underground habitations in theatres, who look as if they lived entirely upon smoke and gas, meet me at unheard-of hours. mr. stanfield is perpetually measuring the boards with a chalked piece of string and an umbrella, and all the elder children are wildly punctual and business-like to attract managerial commendation. if you don't come, i shall do something antagonistic--try to unwrite no. , i think. i should particularly like you to see a new and serious piece so done. because i don't think you know, without seeing, how good it is!!! none of the children suffered, thank god, from the boulogne risk. the three little boys have gone back to school there, and are all well. katey came away ill, but it turned out that she had the whooping-cough for the second time. she has been to brighton, and comes home to-day. i hear great accounts of her, and hope to find her quite well when she arrives presently. i am afraid mary boyle has been praising the boulogne life too highly. not that i deny, however, our having passed some very pleasant days together, and our having had great pleasure in her visit. you will object to me dreadfully, i know, with a beard (though not a great one); but if you come and see the play, you will find it necessary there, and will perhaps be more tolerant of the fearful object afterwards. i need not tell you how delighted we should be to see george, if you would come together. pray tell him so, with my kind regards. i like the notion of wentworth and his philosophy of all things. i remember a philosophical gravity upon him, a state of suspended opinion as to myself, it struck me, when we last met, in which i thought there was a great deal of oddity and character. charley is doing very well at baring's, and attracting praise and reward to himself. within this fortnight there turned up from the west indies, where he is now a chief justice, an old friend of mine, of my own age, who lived with me in lodgings in the adelphi, when i was just charley's age. he had a great affection for me at that time, and always supposed i was to do some sort of wonders. it was a very pleasant meeting indeed, and he seemed to think it so odd that i shouldn't be charley! this is every atom of no-news that will come out of my head, and i firmly believe it is all i have in it--except that a cobbler at boulogne, who had the nicest of little dogs, that always sat in his sunny window watching him at work, asked me if i would bring the dog home, as he couldn't afford to pay the tax for him. the cobbler and the dog being both my particular friends, i complied. the cobbler parted with the dog heart-broken. when the dog got home here, my man, like an idiot as he is, tied him up and then untied him. the moment the gate was open, the dog (on the very day after his arrival) ran out. next day, georgy and i saw him lying, all covered with mud, dead, outside the neighbouring church. how am i ever to tell the cobbler? he is too poor to come to england, so i feel that i must lie to him for life, and say that the dog is fat and happy. mr. plornish, much affected by this tragedy, said: "i s'pose, pa, i shall meet the cobbler's dog" (in heaven). georgy and catherine send their best love, and i send mine. pray write to me again some day, and i can't be too busy to be happy in the sight of your familiar hand, associated in my mind with so much that i love and honour. ever, my dear mr. watson, most faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. horne.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _oct. th, ._ my dear mrs. horne, i answer your note by return of post, in order that you may know that the stereoscopic nottage has not written to me yet. of course i will not lose a moment in replying to him when he does address me. we shall be greatly pleased to see you again. you have been very, very often in our thoughts and on our lips, during this long interval. and "she" is near you, is she? o i remember her well! and i am still of my old opinion! passionately devoted to her sex as i am (they are the weakness of my existence), i still consider her a failure. she had some extraordinary christian-name, which i forget. lashed into verse by my feelings, i am inclined to write: my heart disowns ophelia jones; only i think it was a more sounding name. are these the tones-- volumnia jones? no. again it seems doubtful. god bless her bones, petronia jones! i think not. carve i on stones olympia jones? can _that_ be the name? fond memory favours it more than any other. my love to her. ever, my dear mrs. horne, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the duke of devonshire.] tavistock house, _december st, ._ my dear duke of devonshire, the moment the first bill is printed for the first night of the new play i told you of, i send it to you, in the hope that you will grace it with your presence. there is not one of the old actors whom you will fail to inspire as no one else can; and i hope you will see a little result of a friendly union of the arts, that you may think worth seeing, and that you can see nowhere else. we propose repeating it on thursday, the th; monday, the th; and wednesday, the th of january. i do not encumber this note with so many bills, and merely mention those nights in case any one of them should be more convenient to you than the first. but i shall hope for the first, unless you dash me (n. b.--i put flora into the current number on purpose that this might catch you softened towards me, and at a disadvantage). if there is hope of your coming, i will have the play clearly copied, and will send it to you to read beforehand. with the most grateful remembrances, and the sincerest good wishes for your health and happiness, i am ever, my dear duke of devonshire, your faithful and obliged. [sidenote: mr. thomas mitton.] tavistock house, _wednesday, dec. rd, ._ my dear mitton, the inspector from the fire office--surveyor, by-the-bye, they called him--duly came. wills described him as not very pleasant in his manners. i derived the impression that he was so exceedingly dry, that if _he_ ever takes fire, he must burn out, and can never otherwise be extinguished. next day, i received a letter from the secretary, to say that the said surveyor had reported great additional risk from fire, and that the directors, at their meeting next tuesday, would settle the extra amount of premium to be paid. thereupon i thought the matter was becoming complicated, and wrote a common-sense note to the secretary (which i begged might be read to the directors), saying that i was quite prepared to pay any extra premium, but setting forth the plain state of the case. (i did not say that the lord chief justice, the chief baron, and half the bench were coming; though i felt a temptation to make a joke about burning them all.) finally, this morning comes up the secretary to me (yesterday having been the great tuesday), and says that he is requested by the directors to present their compliments, and to say that they could not think of charging for any additional risk at all; feeling convinced that i would place the gas (which they considered to be the only danger) under the charge of one competent man. i then explained to him how carefully and systematically that was all arranged, and we parted with drums beating and colours flying on both sides. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. w. c. macready] tavistock house, _saturday evening, dec. th_, . my dearest macready, we shall be charmed to squeeze willie's friend in, and it shall be done by some undiscovered power of compression on the second night, thursday, the th. will you make our compliments to his honour, the deputy fiscal, present him with the enclosed bill, and tell him we shall be cordially glad to see him? i hope to entrust him with a special shake of the hand, to be forwarded to our dear boy (if a hoary sage like myself may venture on that expression) by the next mail. i would have proposed the first night, but that is too full. you may faintly imagine, my venerable friend, the occupation of these also gray hairs, between "golden marys," "little dorrits," "household wordses," four stage-carpenters entirely boarding on the premises, a carpenter's shop erected in the back garden, size always boiling over on all the lower fires, stanfield perpetually elevated on planks and splashing himself from head to foot, telbin requiring impossibilities of smart gasmen, and a legion of prowling nondescripts for ever shrinking in and out. calm amidst the wreck, your aged friend glides away on the "dorrit" stream, forgetting the uproar for a stretch of hours, refreshes himself with a ten or twelve miles walk, pitches headforemost into foaming rehearsals, placidly emerges for editorial purposes, smokes over buckets of distemper with mr. stanfield aforesaid, again calmly floats upon the "dorrit" waters. with very best love to miss macready and all the rest, ever, my dear macready, most affectionately yours. [sidenote: miss power.] tavistock house, _december th, ._ my dear marguerite, i am not _quite_ clear about the story; not because it is otherwise than exceedingly pretty, but because i am rather in a difficult position as to stories just now. besides beginning a long one by collins with the new year (which will last five or six months), i have, as i always have at this time, a considerable residue of stories written for the christmas number, not suitable to it, and yet available for the general purposes of "household words." this limits my choice for the moment to stories that have some decided specialties (or a great deal of story) in them. but i will look over the accumulation before you come, and i hope you will never see your little friend again but in print. you will find us expecting you on the night of the twenty-fourth, and heartily glad to welcome you. the most terrific preparations are in hand for the play on twelfth night. there has been a carpenter's shop in the garden for six weeks; a painter's shop in the school-room; a gasfitter's shop all over the basement; a dressmaker's shop at the top of the house; a tailor's shop in my dressing-room. stanfield has been incessantly on scaffoldings for two months; and your friend has been writing "little dorrit," etc. etc., in corners, like the sultan's groom, who was turned upside-down by the genie. kindest love from all, and from me. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. william charles kent.] tavistock house, _christmas eve, ._ my dear sir, i cannot leave your letter unanswered, because i am really anxious that you should understand why i cannot comply with your request. scarcely a week passes without my receiving requests from various quarters to sit for likenesses, to be taken by all the processes ever invented. apart from my having an invincible objection to the multiplication of my countenance in the shop-windows, i have not, between my avocations and my needful recreation, the time to comply with these proposals. at this moment there are three cases out of a vast number, in which i have said: "if i sit at all, it shall be to you first, to you second, and to you third." but i assure you, i consider myself almost as unlikely to go through these three conditional achievements as i am to go to china. judge when i am likely to get to mr. watkins! i highly esteem and thank you for your sympathy with my writings. i doubt if i have a more genial reader in the world. very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] of mr. wilkie collins. [ ] this note was written after hearing from mr. forster of his intended marriage. prologue to "the lighthouse." (spoken by charles dickens.) _slow music all the time, unseen speaker, curtain down._ a story of those rocks where doomed ships come to cast them wreck'd upon the steps of home, where solitary men, the long year through-- the wind their music and the brine their view-- warn mariners to shun the beacon-light; a story of those rocks is here to-night. eddystone lighthouse [_exterior view discovered._ in its ancient form; ere he who built it wish'd for the great storm that shiver'd it to nothing; once again behold outgleaming on the angry main! within it are three men; to these repair in our frail bark of fancy, swift as air! they are but shadows, as the rower grim took none but shadows in his boat with him. so be _ye_ shades, and, for a little space, the real world a dream without a trace. return is easy. it will have ye back too soon to the old beaten dusty track; for but one hour forget it. billows rise, blow winds, fall rain, be black ye midnight skies; and you who watch the light, arise! arise! [_exterior view rises and discovers the scene._ the song of the wreck. i. the wind blew high, the waters raved, a ship drove on the land, a hundred human creatures saved, kneeled down upon the sand. threescore were drowned, threescore were thrown upon the black rocks wild, and thus among them, left alone, they found one helpless child. ii. a seaman rough, to shipwreck bred, stood out from all the rest, and gently laid the lonely head upon his honest breast. and travelling o'er the desert wide, it was a solemn joy, to see them, ever side by side, the sailor and the boy. iii. in famine, sickness, hunger, thirst, the two were still but one, until the strong man drooped the first, and felt his labours done. then to a trusty friend he spake, "across the desert wide, o take this poor boy for my sake!" and kissed the child and died. iv. toiling along in weary plight, through heavy jungle, mire, these two came later every night to warm them at the fire. until the captain said one day, "o seaman good and kind, to save thyself now come away, and leave the boy behind!" v. the child was slumb'ring near the blaze, "o captain, let him rest until it sinks, when god's own ways shall teach us what is best!" they watched the whitened ashy heap, they touched the child in vain; they did not leave him there asleep, he never woke again. this song was sung to the music of "little nell," a ballad composed by the late mr. george linley, to the words of miss charlotte young, and dedicated to charles dickens. he was very fond of it, and his eldest daughter had been in the habit of singing it to him constantly since she was quite a child. end of vol. i. charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. page , "levee" changed to "levée" (regular levée every) page , "levee" changed to "levée" (a regular levée) page , word "or" inserted into text. (hencoop or any old) page , , , , "chateau" changed to "château" page , "chistened" changed to "christened" (christened trotty veck) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see -h.htm or -h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h/ -h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/ / -h.zip) tales from dickens by hallie erminie rives author of the castaway, hearts courageous a furnace of earth, etc. with illustrations by reginald b. birch [illustration: david copperfield and his friend, mr. micawber _see page _] indianapolis the bobbs-merrill company publishers copyright the bobbs-merrill company november to george baker robbins, jr. contents charles dickens the old curiosity shop i little nell ii the wanderers iii the search oliver twist i how oliver came to london and what he found there ii oliver's adventures iii how everything turned out right for oliver in the end barnaby rudge i barnaby's boyhood ii the mysterious stranger and who he was iii barnaby gets into trouble iv barnaby prospers at last david copperfield i david's early ups and downs ii little em'ly iii david and his child-wife iv david finds all well at last great expectations i pip and the convict ii the queer miss havisham iii pip discovers his benefactor iv pip comes to himself nicholas nickleby i nicholas at dotheboys hall ii nicholas becomes an actor iii nicholas comes to kate's rescue iv what happened to everybody dombey and son i little paul ii how florence lost her father iii how florence reached a refuge iv how florence found her father at last the pickwick papers i the pickwickians begin their adventures. they meet mr. alfred jingle, and winkle is involved in a duel ii tupman has a love-affair with a spinster, and the pickwickians find out the real character of jingle iii mr. pickwick has an interesting scene with mrs. bardell, his housekeeper. further pursuit of jingle leads to an adventure at a young ladies' boarding school iv sam weller meets his father, and the pursuit of jingle is continued. mr. pickwick makes a strange call on a middle-aged lady in yellow curl papers v the pickwickians find themselves in the grasp of the law. the final exposure of jingle, and a christmas merrymaking vi the celebrated case of bardell against pickwick. sergeant buzfuz's speech and an unexpected verdict vii winkle has an exciting adventure with mr. dowler, and with the aid of mr. pickwick and sam weller discovers the whereabouts of miss arabella allen viii mr. pickwick's experiences in the debtors' prison, where he finds an old enemy and heaps coals of fire on the head of mrs. bardell ix snodgrass gets into difficulties, but wins his lady-love. the adventures of the pickwickians come to an end little dorrit i how arthur came home from china ii the child of the marshalsea iii what riches brought to the dorrits iv what happened to arthur clennam v "all's well that ends well" martin chuzzlewit i how martin left england ii pecksniff and old chuzzlewit iii jonas gets rid of an enemy iv what came of martin's trip to america v old chuzzlewit's plot succeeds our mutual friend i what happened to john harmon ii lizzie hexam and the dolls' dressmaker iii the rise and fall of silas wegg iv bella and the golden dustman v the end of the story a tale of two cities i how lucie found a father ii darnay caught in the net iii sydney carton's sacrifice bleak house i the court of chancery ii lady dedlock's secret iii little joe plays a part iv esther becomes the mistress of bleak house hard times i mr. gradgrind and his "system" ii the robbery of bounderby's bank iii harthouse's plan fails iv stephen's return the mystery of edwin drood i john jasper ii the coming of neville landless iii the choirmaster's dinner iv jasper shows his teeth index to characters tales from dickens charles dickens charles john huffham dickens, the master story-teller, was born in landport, england, february , . his father was a clerk in one of the offices of the navy, and he was one of eight children. when he was four years old, his father moved to the town of chatham, near the old city of rochester. round about are chalk hills, green lanes, forests and marshes, and amid such scenes the little charles's genius first began to show itself. he did not like the rougher sports of his school-fellows and preferred to amuse himself in his own way, or to wander about with his older sister, fanny, whom he especially loved. they loved to watch the stars together, and there was one particular star which they used to pretend was their own. people called him a "very queer small boy" because he was always thinking or reading instead of playing. the children of the neighborhood would gather around him to listen while he told them stories or sang comic songs to them, and when he was only eight years old he taught them to act in plays which he invented. he was fond of reading books of travel, and most of all he loved _the arabian nights_ and _robinson crusoe_. he had a great affection for chatham and rochester, and after he began to write stories that were printed, he often used to put these places into them. it was at chatham that poor little david in the story, _david copperfield_, lay down to sleep when he was running away from london to find his aunt, miss betsy trotwood. it was to rochester that mr. pickwick in _pickwick papers_, rode with jingle. rochester was really the "cloisterham" where the wicked choir master, john jasper, killed his nephew, in _the mystery of edwin drood_. and it was in those very marshes near by, that magwitch, the escaped convict in _great expectations_, so frightened little pip. it is easy to see that the young charles dickens noted carefully and remembered everything he saw, and this habit was of great use to him all his life. these happy years were not to last long. when he was nine years old, his father became poor and the family was obliged to move to london, where it lived in a shabby house in a poor suburb. before another year had passed, his father was put into prison for debt--the same prison in which little dorrit, in the story of that name, grew up. a very bitter period followed for the solitary ten-year-old boy--a time in which, he long afterward wrote, "but for the mercy of god, he might easily have become, for any care that was taken of him, a little robber or a little vagabond." the earlier history of david in _david copperfield_ is really and truly a history of the real charles dickens in london. he was left to the city streets, or to earn a hard and scanty living in a dirty warehouse, by pasting labels on pots of blacking. all of this wretched experience he has written in _david copperfield_, and the sad scenes of the debtors' prison he has put into _pickwick papers_ and into _little dorrit_. even mrs. pipchin, of whom he told in _dombey and son_, and mr. micawber in _david copperfield_, were real people whom he knew in these years of poverty and despair. dickens's life at this time was so miserable that always afterward he dreaded to speak of it, and never could bear even to walk in the street where the blacking warehouse of his boyhood had stood. better days, however, came at last. he was able to begin school again, and though the head-master was ignorant and brutal (just such a one as mr. creakle in _david copperfield_) yet dickens profited by such teaching as he received. after two or three years of school, he found employment as clerk in a lawyer's office. this did not content him and he made up his mind to learn to write shorthand so as to become a reporter, in the houses of parliament, for a newspaper. this was by no means an easy task. but dickens had great strength of will and a determination to do well whatever he did at all, and he succeeded, just as david copperfield did in the story. and like the latter, too, about this time dickens fell in love. he did not marry on this occasion, as did david, but how much he was in love one may see by the story of david's dora. the theater had always a great attraction for dickens. throughout his life he loved to act in plays got up and often written, too, by himself and his friends. some of his early experiences of this kind he has told in the adventures of nicholas nickleby at mr. crummles's theater. but his acting was for his own amusement, and it is doubtful if he ever thought seriously of adopting the stage as a profession. if he did, his success as a reporter soon determined him otherwise. when he was twenty-one he saw his first printed sketch in a monthly magazine. he had dropped it into a letter-box with mingled hope and fear, and read it now through tears of joy and pride. he followed this with others as successful, signed "boz"--the child nickname of one of his younger brothers. this was his beginning. he was soon on the road to a comfortable fortune, and when at length _pickwick papers_ appeared, dickens's fame was assured. this was his first long story. it became, almost at once, the most popular book of its day, perhaps, indeed, the most popular book ever published in england. soon after the appearance of its first chapters, dickens married miss catherine hogarth, daughter of the editor of one of the london newspapers, who had helped him in his career. many have tried to explain the marvelous popularity of _pickwick papers_. certainly its honest fun, its merriment, its quaintness, good humor and charity appealed to every reader. more than all, it made people acquainted with a new company of characters, none of whom had ever existed, or could ever exist, and yet whose manners and appearance were pictured so really that they seemed to be actual persons whom one might meet and laugh with anywhere. with such a success, and the money it brought him, dickens had leisure to begin the wonderful series of stories which endeared him to the whole english-speaking world, and made him the most famous author of his day. _oliver twist_ came first, and it was followed by _nicholas nickleby_ and _the old curiosity shop_. in the first two of these stories one may see most clearly the principle that underlay almost all of dickens's work. he was never content merely to tell an interesting story. he wrote with a purpose. in _oliver twist_ that purpose was, first, to better the poorhouse system, and second, to show that even in the lowest and wickedest paths of life (the life wherein lived fagin with his pupils in crime and bill sikes the brutal burglar) there could yet be found, as in the case of poor nancy, real kindness and sacrifice. in _nicholas nickleby_ the purpose was to show what terrible wrongs were done to children in country schools, numbers of which at that time were managed by men almost as cruel and inhuman as was squeers in the story. it is good to learn that, as a result of this novel, an end was made of many such boys' schools. true artist as he was, dickens seldom wrote without having in his mind the thought of showing some defect in the law, or some wrong condition of affairs which might be righted. no one could read _pickwick papers_ or _little dorrit_ without realizing how much wrong and misery was caused by the law which made it possible to throw a man into prison for debt. nor can one read _bleak house_ without seeing that the legal system which robbed quaint miss flite of her mind and kept poor richard carstone from his fortune till the fortune itself had disappeared, was a very wrong legal system indeed. often, too, dickens's stories are, in a sense, sermons against very human sins. in _the old curiosity shop_ it is the sin of gambling which brings about the death of little nell. in _great expectations_ it is the sin of pride which pip has to fight. in _martin chuzzlewit_ the evil and folly of selfishness is what dickens had in mind. with his increasing wealth, dickens had, of course, changed his manner of life. he lived part of the time in the country near london, in brighton, in dover, and in france and italy. he liked best, however, a little english watering place called broadstairs--a tiny fishing village, built on a cliff, with the sea rolling and dashing beneath it. in such a place he felt that he could write best, but he greatly missed his london friends. he used to say that being without them was "like losing his arms and legs." the first great grief of his life came to him at this time, in the death of his wife's sister, mary hogarth, a gentle, lovable girl of seventeen. no sorrow ever touched him as this did. "after she died," he wrote years afterward, "i dreamed of her every night for many weeks, and always with a kind of quiet happiness, so that i never lay down at night without a hope of the vision coming back." hers was the character he drew in little nell in _the old curiosity shop_. when he came to the part of the story which tells of little nell's death, he could scarcely write the chapter. when he ended it he said, "it seems as though dear mary died but yesterday." when he was less than thirty, dickens was invited to visit scotland, and there he received his first great national tribute. a public banquet was given him in edinburgh, and he was much sought after and entertained. up to this time he had never seen the united states; he decided now to visit this country and meet his american readers face to face. he landed at boston accompanied by his wife, in , and visited many of the greater cities of the eastern states. everywhere he was counted the guest of the nation, and the four months of his stay were one continual welcome. unfortunately, however, dickens had taken a dislike to american ways, and this dislike appeared in many things he wrote after his return to england. the pictures he drew of american life in _martin chuzzlewit_ were both unjust and untrue, and made him for a time lose a large part of the good opinion which american readers had had for him. dickens soon came to regret the writing of these chapters, and when, twenty-five years later, he visited the united states a second time, he did all in his power to show his kindly feeling, and america admired and loved him so much that it gradually forgot the incident in the great pleasure with which it read his stories. dickens was a very active man, and his life was simple and full of work and exercise. he rose early and almost every day might have been seen tramping for miles along the country roads, or riding horseback with his dogs racing after him. he liked best to wander along the cliffs or across the downs by the sea. when he was in london he often walked the streets half the night, thinking out his stories, or searching for the odd characters which he put in them. this natural activity and restlessness even led him sometimes to make political speeches, and finally to the establishment of a new london newspaper--the _daily news_--of which he was the first editor. before this, he had started a weekly journal, in which several of his stories had appeared, but it had not been very successful. it was not long before he withdrew also from this second venture. in the meantime he had met with both joy and sorrow. several children had been born to him. his much loved sister, his father, and his own little daughter, the youngest of his family, had died. these sorrows made him throw himself into his work with greater earnestness. he even found leisure to organize a theatrical company (in which he himself acted with a number of other famous writers of the time), which gave several plays for the benefit of charity. one of these was performed before queen victoria. people have often wondered how dickens found time to accomplish so many different things. one of the secrets of this, no doubt, was his love of order. he was the most systematic of men. everything he did "went like clockwork," and he prided himself on his punctuality. he could not work in a room unless everything in it was in its proper place. as a consequence of this habit of regularity, he never wasted time. the work of editorship was very pleasant to dickens, and scarcely three years after his leaving the _daily news_ he began the publication of a new magazine which he called _household words_. his aim was to make it cheerful, useful and at the same time cheap, so that the poor could afford to buy it as well as the rich. his own story, _hard times_, first appeared in this, with the earliest work of more than one writer who later became celebrated. dickens loved to encourage young writers, and would just as quickly accept a good story or poem from an unknown author as from the most famous. it was while engaged in this work that dickens wrote the best one of all his tales--_david copperfield_, the one which is in so large a part the history of his own early life. this book brought dickens to the height of his career. he was now both famous and rich. he bought a house on gad's hill--a place near chatham, where he had spent the happiest part of his childhood--and settled down to a life of comfort and labor. when he was a little boy his father had pointed out this fine house to him, and told him he might even come to live there some day, if he were very persevering and worked hard. and so, indeed, it had proved. perhaps it is in connection with this house on gad's hill that the world oftenest remembers dickens now. everyone, old and young throughout the neighborhood, liked him. children, dogs and horses were his friends. his hand was open for charity, and he was always the champion of the poor, the helpless and the outcast. everyone, he thought, had some good in him, and in all he met he was on the lookout to find it. the great purpose underneath all his writings was after all to teach that every man and woman, however degraded, has his or her better side. so earnest was he in this that he was not pleased at all when a person praised one of his stories, unless the other showed that he had grasped the lesson that lay beneath it. the text of dickens's whole life and work is best expressed in his own words: "i hope to do some solid good, and i mean to be as cheery and pleasant as i can." the wrongs and sufferings of the young especially appealed to him, and perhaps the most beautiful speech he ever made was one asking for money for the support of the london hospital for sick children. he spoke often in behalf of workingmen, and once he spoke for the benefit of a company of poor actors, when, unknown to him, a little child of his own was lying dead at home. with such a tender heart for all the world, he was more than an affectionate father to his own children, and gave much thought to their happiness and education. in order that they should properly learn of their own country, he went to the labor of preparing a _child's history of england_ for them, and at another time he wrote out the story of the gospels, to help them in their study of the new testament. as the years went by, his letters to his oldest son told of his own work and plans. when his youngest son sailed away to live in australia, he wrote: "poor plorn is gone. it was a hard parting at the last. he seemed to me to become once more my youngest and favorite child as the day drew near, and i did not think i could have been so shaken." when he moved to gad's hill it seemed as though dickens had gained almost all of the things men strive most for. but he was not to be happy there--nor, perhaps, was he ever again to be really happy anywhere. he and his wife were very different in all their tastes and habits, and had never loved each other as well as people should when they marry. perhaps, after all, it would have been better if in his youth he had married his dora--the one whom he had pictured in the love-story of david copperfield and his child-wife. but, however this may be, dickens and his wife had not lived happily together, and now decided to part, and from that time, though they wrote to each other, he never saw her again. it is sad to reflect that he who has painted so beautifully for others the joys and sorrows of perfect love and home, was himself destined to know neither. the years that followed this separation were years of constant labor for dickens. his restlessness, perhaps also his lack of happiness, drove him to work without rest. he wrote to a friend: "i am quite confident i should rust, break and die if i spared myself. much better to die doing." the idea of giving public readings from his stories suggested itself to him, and he was soon engaged in preparation. "i must do _something_," he wrote, "or i shall wear my heart away." that heart his physician had declared out of order, and this effort was destined to wear it away in quite another sense, though for some time dickens felt no ill effects. he gave readings, not only in england, but also in scotland and ireland, and everywhere he met with enormous success. the first series was hardly over, when he was at work on a new story, and this was scarcely completed when he was planning more readings. the strain of several seasons of such work told on his health. a serious illness followed, and afterward he was troubled with an increasing lameness--the first real warning of the end. in spite of his weakness, he decided on another trip to america, and here, in , he began a series of readings which left him in a far worse condition. often at the close of an evening he would become so faint that he would have to lie down. he was unable to sleep and his appetite entirely failed him. yet his wonderful determination and energy made him able to complete the task. a great banquet of farewell was given to him in new york and he returned to england bearing the admiration and love of the whole american people. before leaving england he had promised to give one other course of readings there, and this promise, after a summer's quiet at home, he attempted to fulfil. but he was too ill. he found himself for the first time in his life feeling, as he said, "giddy, jarred, shaken, faint, uncertain of voice and sight, and tread and touch, and dull of spirit." he was obliged to discontinue the course and to rest. this summer of --the last summer of his life--was a contented and even a happy one. at home, at first in london, and later in the house on gad's hill, surrounded by his children and by the friends he loved best, dickens lived quietly, working at his last story which his death was to leave for ever unfinished--the _mystery of edwin drood_. he attempted one more series of readings, and with their close bade farewell for ever to his english audience. he was seen in public but a few times more--once at the last dinner party he ever attended, to meet the prince of wales and the king of the belgians, and once when the queen invited him to buckingham palace. soon after, the end came. one day as he entered the house at gad's hill, he seemed tired and silent. as he sat down to dinner all present noticed that he looked very ill. they begged him to lie down. "yes, on the ground," he said--these were the last words he ever uttered--and as he spoke he slipped down upon the floor. he never fully recovered consciousness, and next day, june , , charles dickens breathed his last. five days later he was laid to rest in westminster abbey, where are buried so many of the greatest of england's dead. for days, thousands came to visit the spot, and rich and poor alike looked upon his grave with tears. hallie erminie rives. the old curiosity shop published _scene_: london and neighboring towns _time_: characters "little nell" an orphan girl mr. trent her aged grandfather proprietor of "the old curiosity shop" "the stranger" mr. trent's brother christopher nubbles little nell's friend and protector known as "kit" quilp a dwarf mrs. quilp his wife mrs. jarley proprietress of "jarley's waxwork" brass a dishonest lawyer sally brass his sister dick swiveller brass's clerk the old curiosity shop i little nell in a narrow side street in london there once stood a shabby building called the old curiosity shop, because all sorts of curious things were kept for sale there--such as rusty swords, china figures, quaint carvings and old-fashioned furniture. a little old man named trent owned the shop, and he looked as old as anything in it. he was thin and bent, with long gray hair and bright blue eyes, and his face was wrinkled and full of care. he had an orphan grandchild who lived with him--a pretty little golden-haired girl whom every one called little nell, who kept the shop clean and neat and cooked the meals just as a grown woman would have done. she slept in a back room in a bed so small it might almost have been a fairy's. she lived a very lonely life, but she kept a cheerful face and did not complain. she had only one protector besides her grandfather, and that was a big, awkward boy named christopher nubbles, called kit for short. he had a very large mouth and a turned-up nose, and when he spoke he had a habit of standing sidewise and twisting his head back over his shoulder. everything he did seemed funny, and little nell laughed at him all the while, though she loved him almost as much as she did her grandfather. he ran errands for them, and in the long winter evenings she used to teach him to read and write. kit liked to be taught and even liked to be laughed at, and always ended by laughing himself, with his mouth wide open and his eyes shut. he was the best-natured lad in the world, and would have given his life to make little nell happy. she was not as happy as she seemed to her grandfather's eyes. there was some mystery about the old man that she could not understand. almost every night he left her to go to bed all alone in the shop, and went away and did not come back till sunrise, when the door-bell woke her and she let him in. and, too, he always talked of the great fortune she was to have sometime--if only some mysterious plan he was working on turned out right--the carriages and fine frocks and jewels. but the plan seemed always to go wrong, and the poor old man grew sadder and sadder as he grew more feeble. often at night little nell sat at the upper window, watching for him, crying, and fearing that he might die or lose his mind; she never knew that kit used to stand in the shadow of an archway opposite and watch to see that no harm came to her, till she vanished and he knew she had gone to bed. what troubled little nell most of all was a strange visitor her grandfather used to have. this was a hideous man named quilp, with the body of a dwarf and the head of a giant. his black eyes were sharp and cunning, his face was always covered with a stubby beard and he had a cruel smile that made him look like a panting dog. he had grizzled, tangled hair, crooked finger nails, and wore a dirty handkerchief tied around his neck, instead of a collar. he used to bring money to her grandfather, and little nell more than once saw him look at her and at the contents of the shop in a gloating way that made her shiver. indeed, everybody who ever met quilp was afraid of him, and most afraid of all was his wife. he had a habit of drinking scalding tea and of eating boiled eggs, shell and all, that quite terrified her. besides, he treated the poor woman cruelly. sometimes, for instance, when she displeased him, he made her sit bolt upright in a chair all night, without moving or going to bed, while he sat smoking and making faces at her. little nell often had to carry messages from her grandfather to the dwarf, and came to know that he had somehow fallen into quilp's power. the fact was that the old man had been borrowing money from the dwarf for a long time, and had spent it on the great plan, which he had thought sure to succeed, and he now owed the other much more than all the shop and everything in it was worth. quilp had loaned the money because he thought when the wonderful plan succeeded he would make the grandfather give him back very much more than he had loaned him. but when the old man continually wanted to borrow more money and yet paid none back, the dwarf grew suspicious and tried hard to find out what the great plan was. to do this he used to question little nell and try to persuade her to tell how her grandfather passed the time. she would never tell him anything, but one day, when she had brought a message to his house, the dwarf hid in a closet and listened while the child told his wife how her grandfather, every night after quilp had brought him money, went out and did not come home till daybreak, and always sadly then. you see, little nell was in such trouble that she had to tell somebody about it and ask advice, and the dwarf's wife had always been very kind to her. when quilp heard the story he guessed the secret--that her grandfather, hoping to win more for little nell, had gambled away all the money. he was full of rage and sent word that he would loan no more. the old man was in great grief at this. his mind had not been strong for a long time, or this foolish and wrong plan would never have misled him, and now, at the thought that he would have no more chance to win the fortune for his grandchild, he fell ill. the child did her best to comfort him, but he told her that if quilp deserted them they would be no better than beggars. "let us be beggars then, and be happy," said little nell, putting her arms around his neck. "i would rather beg than live as we do now. if you are sorrowful now, let me know it. if you are weaker, let me be your nurse. it breaks my heart to see you so and not to know why. let us leave this place and sleep in the fields in the country and never think of money again, and i will beg for us both." neither had heard the dwarf, who had stolen into the shop behind them. little nell shrieked when she saw him, and her grandfather sent her into her own room. "so that is the way all the money i have loaned you has gone!" sneered quilp. "your precious scheme to make a fortune was the gaming-table!" the old man cried out at this, trembling, that he had done it all for little nell; that he had never staked a single penny for himself, or without praying that it might win for her good. he told how he had begun gambling months before, knowing he must soon die, hoping thus to leave her enough to live on; how, after losing all his own savings, he had borrowed and lost all that, too. and he begged the dwarf to loan him a little more so that he might tempt luck again. any one but quilp would have pitied the poor old man, but not he. he refused, and thinking of a lie which would make the other yet more miserable, he told him as he left that it was kit who had told him where the money was going. the first kit knew of this was that night when little nell came to tell him her grandfather was very ill, and that he raved continually against kit so that he must never come to the shop again. kit was stupefied at this, but there was no help for it, so little nell went sorrowfully back alone. the old curiosity shop belonged to the dwarf now and he at once moved into the parlor. he took little nell's own bed for himself and she had to sleep on a pallet on the floor up stairs. she was busy nursing her grandfather, for he was very ill for some time, and she scarcely ever came down because she was so afraid of the dwarf. quilp was waiting for the old man to die, thinking that then he would have the shop for his own, and meantime he did a hundred disagreeable things, such as filling the house with strong tobacco smoke from a big pipe he used all the time and driving every one away who came to ask how the sick man was. he even drove off kit when he came below the window to beg little nell to come and bring her grandfather to live at his own mother's house. the old man would certainly have died if little nell had not nursed him so faithfully, all alone, till he grew better and at length was able to sit up. but it was a bitter thing to live as they did, and one day little nell begged her grandfather to come away with her--to wander anywhere in the world, only so it was under god's sky and away from every one that pursued them--and he agreed. so that night they dressed and stole down stairs very quietly in order not to waken the dwarf who was snoring frightfully in the back room, and went through the shop to the front door. the bolts were rusty and creaked loudly, and, worst of all, they found the key was not in the lock. little nell had to take off her shoes and creep into the back room to get it out of the dwarf's pocket. she was terribly frightened at the sight of quilp, for he was having a bad dream, and was hanging so far out of bed that he was almost standing on his head; his ugly mouth was wide open, and his breath came in a sort of growl. but she found the key at last, and they unlocked the door and came safely into the dark street. the old man did not know where to go, but little nell took his hand and led him gently away. ii the wanderers it was a bright june morning. they walked through many city streets, then through more scattered suburbs, and at last came to the open country. that night they slept at a cottage where the people were kind to them, and all the next day they walked on and on. at sunset they stopped to rest in a churchyard, where two men were sitting patching a punch-and-judy show booth, while the figures of punch, the doctor, the executioner and the devil were lying on the grass waiting to be mended. the men were mending the dolls very badly, so little nell took a needle and sewed them all neatly. they were delighted at this, and took the pair to the inn where they were to show the punch-and-judy, and there they found them a place to sleep in an empty loft. the next day the wanderers went on with the showmen. whenever they came to a village, the booth was pitched and the show took place, and they never left a town without a pack of ragged children at their heels. the punch-and-judy show grew tiresome, but the company seemed better than none. little nell was weary with walking, but she tried to hide it from her grandfather. the inn at which they lodged the next night was full of showmen with trained dogs, conjurers and others, hurrying to a town where there was to be a fair with horse-races, to which the punch-and-judy partners were bound, and little nell began to distrust their company. to tell the truth, the others believed the child and the old man were running away from their friends, and that a reward might be obtained for giving them up. the way in which the men watched them frightened little nell, and when they reached the scene of the fair she had determined to escape. it was the second day of the races before a chance came, and then, while the showmen's backs were turned, they slipped away in the crowd to the open fields again. these alarms and the exposure had begun to affect the old man. he seemed to understand that he was not wholly in his right mind. he was full of the fear that he would be taken from her and chained in a dungeon, and little nell had great trouble in cheering him. at evening when they were both worn out, they came to a village where stood a cottage with the sign school in big letters in its window. the pale old schoolmaster sat smoking in the garden. he was a sad, solitary man, and loved little nell when he first saw her, because she was like a favorite pupil he once had. he made them sleep in the school-room that night, and he begged them to stay longer next day, but little nell was anxious to get as far as possible from london and from the dwarf, who she was all the time in fear might find them. so they bade the schoolmaster good-by and walked on. another day's journey left them so exhausted they could scarcely keep moving. they had almost reached another village when they came to a tiny painted house on wheels with horses to draw it. at its door sat a stout lady wearing a large bonnet, taking tea with a big drum for a table. the lady, as it happened, had seen them at the fair, and had wondered then to see them in company with a punch-and-judy show. noticing how tired they were, she gave them tea and then took them into the wagon with her to help them on their way. the inside of the wagon was like a cozy room. it had a little bed in one end, and a kitchen in the other, and had two curtained windows. as the wheels rattled on the old man fell asleep, and the stout lady made little nell sit by her and talk. in the wagon was a big canvas sign that read: __________________________ | | | jarley's waxwork | | one hundred figures | | the full size of life | | now exhibited within | |__________________________| "i am mrs. jarley," the woman said, "and my waxwork is gone to the next town, where it is to be exhibited." she thought little nell and her grandfather were in the show business, too, and when she found they were not, that they had no home, and did not even know where they were going, she held up her hands in astonishment. but it was easy to see that they were not ordinary beggars, and she was kind-hearted and wanted to help them. so, after much thought, she asked little nell if they would take a situation with her. she explained that the child's duty would be to point out the wax figures to the visitors and tell their names, while her grandfather could help dust them. they accepted this offer very thankfully (for almost all the money they had brought was now spent), and when the wagon arrived at the place of exhibition and the waxwork had been set up, mrs. jarley put a long wand in little nell's hand and taught her to point out each figure and describe it: "this, ladies and gentlemen," little nell learned to say, "is jasper packlemerton, who murdered fourteen wives by tickling the soles of their feet," or, "this is queen elizabeth's maid of honor, who died from pricking her finger while sewing on sunday." she was quick to learn and soon became a great favorite with the visitors. mrs. jarley was kind, and but for the fact that her grandfather's mind failed more and more every day little nell would have been quite happy. one evening the two walked into the country beyond the town and a sudden thunder-storm arose. they took shelter at an inn on the highroad, and while they waited there some rough men began a noisy game of cards behind a screen. the talk and the chink of the money roused the old man's failing senses. he imagined himself still gambling to win the old fortune for little nell. he made her give him the money she had earned from the waxwork, joined the gamblers and in a few hours had lost it all. his insanity had made him forget the presence of the child he so loved, and when the game was done it was too late to leave the inn that night. little nell had now only one piece of money left, a gold piece sewed in her dress. this she had to change into silver and to pay a part for their lodging. when she was abed she could not sleep for fear of the wicked men she had seen gambling. when at last she fell asleep she waked suddenly to see a figure in the room. she was too frightened to scream, and lay very still and trembled. the robber searched her clothing, took the rest of the money and went out. she was dreadfully afraid he might return to harm her. if she could get to her grandfather, she thought, she would be safe. she opened the door softly, and in the moonlight saw the figure entering the old man's room. she caught a view of his face and then she knew that the figure was her own grandfather, and that, crazed by the gambling scene, he himself had robbed her! all that night little nell lay and cried. she knew, to be sure, that her grandfather was not a thief and that he did not know what he was doing when he stole her money; but she knew, too, that if people found out he was crazy they would take him away from her and shut him up where she could not be with him, and of this she could not bear to think. the next day, when they had gone back to the waxwork, she was in even greater terror for fear he should rob mrs. jarley, their benefactress. so, to lessen the chance of this, each day she gave him every penny she earned. this, she soon knew, he gambled away, for often he was out all night, and even seemed to shun her; so she was sad and took many long walks alone through the fields. one evening it happened that she passed a meadow where, beside a hedge, a fire was burning, with three men sitting and lying around it. she was in the shadow and they did not see her. one, she saw, was her grandfather, and the others were the gamblers with whom he had played at the inn on the night of the storm. little nell crept close. they were tempting the poor daft old man to steal the money from mrs. jarley's strong box, and while she listened he consented. she ran home in terrible grief. she tried to sleep, but could not. at last she could bear it no longer. she went to the old man's room and wakened him. "i have had a dreadful dream," she told him, "a dream of an old gray-haired man like you robbing people of their gold. i can not stay! i can not leave you here. we must go." to the crazy old man she seemed an angel. he dressed himself in fear, and with her little basket on her arm she led him out of the house, on, away from the town, into the country, far away from mrs. jarley, who had been so kind to them, and from the new home they had found. they climbed a high hill just as the sun was rising, and far behind them little nell caught a last view of the village. as she looked back and thought how contented they had been there at first, and of the further wandering that lay before them now, poor little nell burst into tears. but at length she bravely dried her tears lest they sadden her grandfather, and they went on. when the sun grew warm they fell asleep on the bank of the canal, and when they awoke in the afternoon some rough canal men took them aboard their dirty craft as far as the next town. the men were well-meaning enough and meant the travelers no harm, but after a while they began to drink and quarreled and fought among themselves, and little nell sat all night, wet with the rain, and sang to them to quiet them. the place to which they finally came was a town of wretched workmen who toiled all day in iron furnaces for little wages, and were almost as miserable and hungry as the wanderers themselves. no one gave them anything, and they lived for three days with only two penny loaves to eat (for all their money was now gone), and slept at night in the ashes of some poor laborer's hut. the fourth day they dragged themselves into the country again. little nell's shoes were worn through to the bare ground, her feet were bleeding, her limbs ached and she was deadly faint. they begged, but no one would help them. the child's strength was almost gone, when they met a traveler who was reading in a book as he walked along. he looked up as they came near. it was the kind old schoolmaster in whose school they had slept before they met mrs. jarley in her house on wheels. when she saw him little nell shrieked and fell unconscious at his feet. the schoolmaster carried her to an inn near by, where she was put to bed and doctored under his care, for she was very weak. she told him all the story of their wanderings, and he heard it with astonishment and wonder to find such a great heart and heroism in a child. he had been appointed schoolmaster, he told her, in another town, to which he was then on his way, and he declared they should go with him and he would care for them. he hired a farm wagon to carry little nell, and he and the old man walked beside it, and so they came to their new place. next door to the school-house was the church. a very old woman, nearly a hundred years old, had lived in a tenement near by to keep the keys and open the church for services. the old woman was now dead, and the schoolmaster went to the clergyman and asked that her place be given to the grandfather, so that he and little nell could live in the house next to his own dwelling. the child sewed the tattered curtains and mended the worn carpet and the schoolmaster trimmed the long grass and trained the ivy before the door. in the evening a bright fire was kindled and they all three took their supper together, and then the schoolmaster said a prayer before they went gladly to bed. they were very happy in this new home. the old man lost the insane thirst for gaming and the mad look faded from his eyes, but poor little nell grew paler and more fragile every day. the long days of hunger and nights of exposure had sowed the seeds of illness. the whole village soon grew to love her. many came to visit her and the schoolmaster read to her each day, so that she was content even when she could no longer walk abroad as she had always done. as she lay looking out at the peaceful churchyard, where so many whose lives were over lay sleeping, it seemed to her that the painful past was only an ugly vision. and at night she often dreamed of the roof opening and a column of bright faces, rising far into the sky, looking down on her asleep. the quiet spot outside remained the same, save that the air was full of music and a sound of angels' wings. so the weeks passed into winter, and though she came soon to know that she was not long for earth, she thought of death without regret and of heaven with joy. iii the search it is not to be supposed, of course, that the flight of little nell and her grandfather from the old curiosity shop was not noticed. all the time, while they were wandering about homeless and wretched, more than one went searching everywhere for them without success. one of these was quilp, the ugly dwarf. he had loaned the grandfather more money than the shop would bring, and he made up his mind now that the old man had a secret hoard somewhere, which might be his if he could find it. he soon learned that if kit knew anything about it he would not tell, so he and his lawyer (a sleek, oily rascal named brass) made many plans for finding them. but for a long time quilp could get no trace. another who tried to find them was a curious lodger who roomed in brass's house. he seemed to have plenty of money but was very eccentric. nobody knew even his name and so they called him the stranger. he kept in his room a big box-like trunk, in which was a silver stove that he used to cook his meals. the stove had a lot of little openings. in one he would put an egg, in another some coffee, in another a piece of meat and in the fourth some water. then he would light a lamp that stood under it, and in five minutes the egg would be cooked, the coffee boiled and the meat done--all ready to eat. he was the queerest sort of boarder! the strangest habit he had was this: he seemed to be very fond of punch-and-judy shows, and whenever he heard one on the street he would run out without his hat, make the showmen perform in front of the house and then invite them to his rooms, where he would question them for a long time. this habit used to puzzle both brass and quilp, the dwarf, and they never could guess why he did it. the truth was, the mysterious stranger was a long-missing brother of little nell's grandfather. a misunderstanding had come between them many years before when both were young men. the younger had become a traveler in many countries and had never seen his brother since. but he dreamed often of the days when they had been children and at last he forgot the thing that had driven them apart. he had come back now to england, a rich man, to find the other had vanished with little nell, his grandchild. he had soon learned the story of their misfortune and how the fear of quilp had driven them away. after much inquiry he had discovered they had been seen with a punch-and-judy show and now he was trying to find the showmen. and finally, in this way, he did find the very same pair the wanderers had met! he learned from them all they could tell him--that the child and the old man had disappeared at the fair, and that since then (so they had heard) a pair resembling them had been seen with the jarley waxwork exhibition. the stranger easily discovered where mrs. jarley was, and determined to set out to her at once. but he remembered that his brother, little nell's grandfather, could not be expected to know him after all the years he had been gone, and as for little nell herself, she had never seen him, and he was afraid if they heard a strange man had come for them they would take fright and run away again. so he tried to find some one they had loved to go with him to show that he intended only kindness. he was not long in hearing of kit, who had found a situation as footman, and he gained his employer's leave to take the lad with him. when kit learned that the stranger had discovered where little nell was he was overjoyed; but he knew he himself was not the one to go, because before they disappeared she had told him he must never come to the old curiosity shop again and that her grandfather blamed him as the cause of their misfortune. but kit promised the stranger that his mother should go in his place, and went to tell her at once. kit found his mother was at church, but the matter was so urgent that he went straight to the pew and brought her out, which caused even the minister to pause in his sermon and made all the congregation look surprised. kit took her home, packed her box and bundled her into the coach which the stranger brought, and away they went to find the wanderers. now quilp had all along suspected that kit and his mother knew something of their whereabouts, and he had made it his business to watch either one or the other. the dwarf, in fact, was in the church when kit came for his mother, and he followed. when she left with the stranger he took another coach and pursued, feeling certain he was on the right track. but they were all too late. when the stranger found mrs. jarley next day she could only tell him that little nell and her grandfather had disappeared again, and he had to return with kit's mother, much discouraged, to london. the part kit had played in this made the dwarf hate him, if possible, more than ever, and he agreed to pay brass, his rascally lawyer, to ruin the lad by making a false charge of theft against him. one day, when kit came to brass's house to see the stranger, who lodged up stairs, the lawyer cunningly hid a five-pound note in the lad's hat and as soon as he left ran after him, seized him in the street and accused him of taking it from his office desk. kit was arrested, and the note, of course, was found on his person. the evidence seemed so strong that the poor fellow was quickly tried, found guilty and sentenced to prison for a long time. all might have gone wrong but for a little maid-servant of brass's, whom the lawyer had starved and mistreated for years. he used to keep her locked in the moldy cellar and gave her so little to eat that she would creep into the office at night (she had found a key that fitted the door) to pick up the bits of bread that dick swiveller, brass's clerk, had left when he ate his luncheon. one night, while this little drudge was prowling about above stairs, she overheard brass telling his sister, sally (who was his partner and colder and crueler and more wicked even than he was), the trick he was going to play. after kit was arrested she ran away from brass's house and told her story to kit's employer, who had all along believed in his innocence. brass in the meantime had gone to quilp to get his reward for this evil deed, but the terrible dwarf now only laughed at him and pretended to remember nothing at all about the bargain. this so enraged the lawyer that, when he was brought face to face with the little maid's evidence and found that he himself was caught, he made full confession of the part quilp had played, and told the whole story to revenge himself on the dwarf. officers were sent at once to arrest quilp at a dingy dwelling on a wharf in the river where he often slept with the object of terrifying his wife by his long absences. here he had set up the battered figurehead of a wrecked ship and, imagining that its face resembled that of kit whom he so fiendishly hated, he used to amuse himself by screwing gimlets into its breast, sticking forks into its eyes and beating it with a poker. a few minutes before the officers arrived the dwarf received warning from sally brass, but he had no time to get away. when he heard the knocking on the gates and knew that the law he had so long defied was at last upon him, he fell into a panic and did not know which way to turn. he tried to cover the light of the fire, but only succeeded in upsetting the stove. then he ran out of the house on to the dock in the darkness. it was a black, foggy night, and he could not see a foot before him. he thought he could climb over the wall to the next wharf and so escape, but in his fright he missed his way and fell over the edge of the platform into the swift-flowing river. he screamed in terror, but the water filled his throat and the knocking on the gates was so loud that no one heard him. the water swept him close to a ship, but its keel was smooth and slippery and there was nothing to cling to. he had been so wicked that he was afraid to die and he fought desperately, but the rapid tide smothered his cries and dragged him down--to death. the waves threw his drowned body finally on the edge of a dismal swamp, in the red glare of the blazing ruin which the overturned stove that night made of the building in which he had framed his evil plots. and this was the end of quilp, the dwarf. as for kit, he found himself all at once not only free, but a hero. his employer came to the jail to tell him that he was free and that everyone knew now of his innocence, and they made him eat and drink, and everybody shook hands with him. then he was put into a coach and they drove straight home, where his mother was waiting to kiss him and cry over him with joy. and last, but by no means least of all his new good fortune, he learned then that the stranger who had been searching so long for little nell and her grandfather had found certainly where they were and that kit was to go with him and his employer at once and bring them back again to london. they started the next day, and on the long road they talked much of little nell and the strange chance by which the lost had been found. a gentleman who lived in the village to which they were now bound, who had himself been kind to the child and to the old man whom the new schoolmaster had brought with him, had written of the pair to kit's employer, and the letter had been the lost clue, so long sought, to their hiding-place. snow began falling as the daylight wore away, and the coach wheels made no noise. all night and all the next day, they rode, and it was midnight before they came to the town where the two wanderers had taken refuge. the village was very still, and the air was frosty and cold. only a single light was to be seen, coming from a window beside a church. this was the house which the stranger knew sheltered those they sought, but both he and kit felt a strange fear as they saw that light--the only one in the whole village. they left the driver to take the horses to the inn and approached the building afoot. they went quite close and looked through the window. in the room an old man bent low over a fire crooning to himself, and kit, seeing that it was his old master, opened the door, ran in, knelt by him and caught his hand. the old grandfather did not recognize kit. he believed him a spirit, as he thought many spirits had talked to him that day. he was much changed, and it seemed as if some great blow or grief had crazed him. he had a dress of little nell's in his hand and smoothed and patted it as he muttered that she had been asleep--asleep a long time now, and was marble cold and would not wake. "her little homely dress!" he said. "and see here--these shoes--how worn they are! you see where her feet went bare upon the ground. they told me afterward that the stones had cut and bruised them. she never told me that. no, no, god bless her! and i have remembered since how she walked behind me, that i might not see how lame she was, but yet she had my hand in hers and seemed to lead me still." so he muttered on, and the cheeks of the others were wet with tears, for they had begun to understand the sad truth. kit could not speak, but the stranger did: "you speak of little nell," he said. "do you remember, long ago, another child, too, who loved you when you were a child yourself? say that you had a brother, long forgotten, who now at last came back to you to be what you were then to him. give me but one word, dear brother, to say you know me, and life will still be precious to us again." the old man shook his head, for grief had killed all memory. pushing them aside, he went into the next room, calling little nell's name softly as he went. they followed. kit sobbed as they entered, for there on her bed little nell lay dead. dear, gentle, patient, noble nell! the schoolmaster told them of her last hours. they had read and talked to her a while, and then she had sunk peacefully to sleep. they knew by what she said in her dreams that they were of her wanderings, and of the people who had helped them, for often she whispered, "god bless you." and she spoke once of beautiful music that was in the air. opening her eyes at last, she begged that they would kiss her once again. that done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile on her face--such, he said, as he had never seen--and threw both arms about his neck. they did not know at first that she was dead. they laid little nell to rest the next day in the churchyard where she had so often sat. the old man never realized quite what had happened. he thought she would come back to him some day, and that then they would go away together. he used to sit beside her grave and watch for her each afternoon. one day he did not return at the usual hour and they went to look for him. he was lying dead upon the stone. they buried him beside the child he had loved, and there in the churchyard where they had often talked together they both lie side by side. none of those who had known little nell ever forgot her story. after the death of the old man, his brother, the stranger who had sought them so long, traveled in the footsteps of the two wanderers to search out and reward all who had been kind to them--mrs. jarley of the waxwork, the punch-and-judy showmen, he found them all. even the rough canal boatmen were not forgotten. kit's story got abroad and he found himself with hosts of friends, who gave him a good position and secured his mother from want. so that his greatest misfortune turned out, after all, to be his greatest good. the little maid whose evidence cleared kit of the terrible charge against him lived to marry dick swiveller, the clerk of brass, the lawyer, while meek mrs. quilp, after her husband's drowning, married a clever young man and lived a pleasant life on the dead dwarf's money. the fate of the others, whose wickedness has been a part of this story, was not so pleasant. the two gamblers who tempted the old man to steal mrs. jarley's strong box were detected in another crime and sent to jail. brass became a convict, condemned to walk on a treadmill, chained to a long line of other evil men, and dragging wherever he went a heavy iron ball. after he was released he joined his wicked sister, sally, and the two sank lower and lower till they might even be seen on dark nights on narrow london streets searching in refuse boxes for bits of food, like twin spirits of wickedness and crime. when kit had grown to be a man and had children of his own, he often took them to the spot where stood what had been the old curiosity shop and told them over and over the story of little nell. and he always ended by saying that if they were good like her they might go some time where they could see and know her as he had done when he was a boy. the adventures of oliver twist published _scene_: london and neighboring towns _time_: to characters oliver twist a foundling mr. bumble the master of the poorhouse mrs. bumble the mistress of the poorhouse monks oliver's half-brother and his enemy mr. brownlow oliver's benefactor mrs. maylie oliver's benefactress miss rose mrs. maylie's adopted niece in reality oliver's aunt fagin a jew leader of a gang of thieves in london bill sikes a burglar nancy sikes's partner in crime "the artful dodger" a youthful pickpocket oliver twist i how oliver came to london and what he found there oliver twist was the son of a poor lady who was found lying in the street one day in an english village, almost starved and very ill. she had walked a long way, for her shoes were worn to pieces, but where she came from or where she was going nobody knew. as she had no money, she was taken to the poorhouse, where she died the next day without even telling her name, leaving behind her only a gold locket, which was around her neck, and a baby. the locket fell into the hands of the mistress of the poorhouse, who was named mrs. bumble. it contained the dead mother's wedding-ring, and, as mrs. bumble was a dishonest woman, she hid both locket and ring, intending sometime to sell them. the baby was left, with no one to care for it, to grow up at the poorhouse with the other wretched orphan children, who wore calico dresses all alike and had little to eat and many whippings. mr. bumble, the master of the poorhouse, was a pompous, self-important bully who browbeat every one weaker than himself and scolded and cuffed the paupers to his heart's content. it was he who named the baby "oliver twist." he used to name all the babies as they came along, by the letters of the alphabet. the one before oliver was named swubble; then came oliver with a t; the next would be unwin, the next vilkins, and so on down to z. then he would begin the alphabet all over again. little oliver, the baby, grew without any idea of who he was. when he was a year old he was sent to the poor-farm where an old woman took care of orphan children for a very small sum apiece each week. this money, which was paid by the town, was hardly enough to buy them food, but nevertheless the old woman took good care to save the bigger share for herself. he lived there till he was a pale, handsome boy of nine years, and then he was taken to the workhouse, where, with many other boys of his own age or older, he had to work hard all day picking oakum. the boys had nothing but thin gruel for their meals, with an onion twice a week and half a roll on sundays. they ate in a great stone hall, in one end of which stood the big copper of gruel which mr. bumble ladled out. each boy got only one helping, and the bowls never needed washing, because, when the meal was through, there was not a drop of gruel left in them. after each meal they all sat staring at the copper and sucking their fingers, but nobody dared ask for more. one day they felt so terribly hungry that one of the biggest boys said unless he got another helping of gruel he was afraid he would have to eat the boy who slept next him. the little boys all believed this and cast lots to see who should ask for more. it fell to oliver twist. so that night after supper, though he was dreadfully frightened, oliver rose and went up to the end of the room and said to mr. bumble, "please, sir, i want some more." mr. bumble was so surprised he turned pale. "what!" he gasped. "please, sir," said oliver again, "i want some more." mr. bumble picked up the ladle and struck oliver on the head with it; then he pounced on him and shook him. when he was tired shaking him, he dragged him away and shut him up in a dark room, where he stayed a whole week, and was only taken out once a day to be whipped. then, to make an example of him, a notice was pasted on the gate of the workhouse offering a reward to anybody who would take poor oliver away and do what he liked with him. the first one who came by was a middle-aged chimney-sweep, who wanted a boy to climb up the insides of chimneys and clean out the soot. this was a dangerous thing to do, for sometimes the boys who did it got burned or choked with the smoke, and when oliver found what they were going to do with him and looked at the man's cruel face, he burst out crying, so that a kind-hearted magistrate interfered and would not let the chimney-sweep have him. mr. bumble finally gave him to the village undertaker, and there he had to mind the shop and do all the chores. he slept under the counter among piles of empty coffins. the undertaker's wife beat him often, and whenever he was not at work he had to attend funerals, which was by no means amusing, so that he found life no better than it had been at the workhouse. the undertaker had an apprentice, too, who kicked him whenever he came near. all this wretchedness oliver bore as well as he could, without complaining. but one day the cowardly apprentice began to say unkind things of oliver's dead mother, and this he could not stand. his anger made him stronger even than his tormentor, though the latter was more than a head taller and much older, and he sprang upon him, caught him by the throat and, after shaking him till his teeth rattled, knocked him flat on the floor. the big bully screamed for help and cried that he was being murdered, so that the undertaker and his wife came running in. oliver told them what the apprentice had said, but that made no difference. the undertaker sent for mr. bumble, and between them they flogged him till he could hardly stand and sent him to bed without anything to eat. till then oliver had not shed a tear, but now, alone in the dark, he felt so miserable that he cried for a long time. there was nothing to do, he thought at last, but to run away. so he tied up his few belongings in a handkerchief and, waiting till the first beam of sunrise, he unbarred the door and ran away as fast as he could, through the town into the country. he hid behind hedges whenever he saw anybody, for fear the undertaker or mr. bumble were after him, and before long he found a road that he knew led to london. oliver had never seen a city, but he thought where there were so many people there would certainly be something for a boy to do to earn his living, so he trudged stoutly on and before nightfall had walked twenty miles. he begged a crust of bread at a cottage and slept under a hayrick. the next day and night he was so very hungry and cold that when morning came again he could scarcely walk at all. he sat down finally at the edge of a village, wondering whether he was going to die, when he saw coming along the queerest-looking boy. he was about oliver's age, with a snub nose, bow legs and little sharp eyes. his face was very dirty and he wore a man's coat, whose ragged tails came to his heels. the boy saw oliver's plight and asked him what the matter was, mixing his words with such a lot of strange slang that oliver could hardly understand him. when oliver explained that he had been walking a number of days and was very hungry, the other took him to a shop near by, bought him some bread and ham, and watched him eat it with great attention, asking him many questions--whether he had any money or knew any place in london where he could stay. oliver answered no. "don't fret about that," said the other. "i know a 'spectable old genelman as lives there wot'll give you lodgings for nothing if i interduce you." oliver did not think his new host looked very respectable himself, but he thought it might be as well for him to know the old gentleman, particularly as he had nowhere else to go. so they set off. it was night when they reached london, and it was so big and crowded that oliver kept close to his guide. he noticed, however, that the streets they passed through were narrow and dirty and the houses old and hideously filthy. the people, too, seemed low and wretched. he was just wondering if he had not better run away when the boy pushed open a door, drew oliver inside, up a broken stairway and into a back room. here, frying some sausages over a stove, was a shriveled old jew in a greasy flannel gown. he was very ugly and his matted red hair hung down over his villainous face. in a corner stood a clothes-horse on which hung hundreds of silk handkerchiefs, and four or five boys, as dirty and oddly dressed as the one who had brought oliver, sat about a table smoking pipes like rough, grown men. oliver's guide introduced him to the jew, whose name was fagin, and the boys crowded around him, putting their hands into his pockets, which he thought a queer joke. fagin grinned horribly as he shook hands with him and told him he was very welcome, which did not tend to reassure him, and then the sausages were passed around. the jew gave oliver a glass of something to drink, and as soon as he drank it he became very sleepy and knew nothing more till the following morning. the next few days oliver saw much to wonder at. when he woke up, fagin was sorting over a great box full of watches, which he hid away when he saw oliver was looking. every day the boy who had brought him there, whom they called "the artful dodger," came in and gave the jew some pocketbooks and handkerchiefs. oliver thought he must have made the pocketbooks, only they did not look new, and some seemed to have money in them. he noticed, too, that whenever the artful dodger came home empty-handed fagin seemed angry and cuffed and kicked him and sent him to bed supperless; but when he brought home a good number everything was very jolly. whenever there was nothing else to do, the old jew played a very curious game with the boys. this was the way they played it: fagin would put a snuff-box in one pocket, a watch in another and a handkerchief in a third; then he would walk about the room just as any old gentleman would walk about the street, stopping now and then, as if he were looking into shop-windows. all the time the boys followed him closely, sometimes treading on his toes or stumbling against him, and when this happened one of them would slip a hand into his pocket and take out either the watch or the snuff-box or the handkerchief. if the jew felt a hand in his pocket he cried out which it was, and then the game began all over again. at last fagin made oliver try if he could take something out of his pocket without his knowing it, and when oliver succeeded he patted his head and seemed well pleased. but oliver grew very tired of the dirty room and the same game. he longed for the open air and begged to be allowed to go out; so one day the jew put him in charge of the artful dodger and they went upon the streets, oliver wondering where in the world he was going to be taught to make pocketbooks. he was on the point of asking, when the artful dodger signed to him to be silent, and slunk behind an old gentleman who was reading a book in front of a book-stall. you can imagine oliver's horror when he saw him thrust his hand into the old gentleman's pocket, draw out a silk handkerchief and run off at full speed. in an instant oliver understood the mystery of the handkerchiefs, the watches, the purses and the curious game he had learned at fagin's. he knew then that the artful dodger was a pickpocket. he was so frightened that for a minute he lost his wits and ran off as fast as he could go. just then the old gentleman found his handkerchief was gone and, seeing oliver running away, shouted "stop thief!" which frightened the poor boy even more and made him run all the faster. everybody joined the chase, and before he had gone far a burly fellow overtook oliver and knocked him down. a policeman was at hand and he was dragged, more dead than alive, to the police court, followed by the angry old gentleman. the moment the latter saw the boy's face, however, he could not believe it was the face of a thief, and refused to appear against him, but the magistrate was in a bad humor and was about to sentence oliver to prison, anyway, when the owner of the book-stall came hurrying in. he had seen the theft and knew oliver was not guilty, so the magistrate was obliged to let him go. but the terror and the blow he had received had been too much for oliver. he fell down in a faint, and the old gentleman, whose name was mr. brownlow, overcome with pity, put him into a coach and drove him to his own home, determined, if the boy had no parents, to adopt him as his own son. ii oliver's adventures while oliver was resting in such good hands, very strange things were occurring in the house of fagin. when the artful dodger told him of the arrest the jew was full of anger. he had intended to make a clever thief of oliver and compel him to bring him many stolen things; now he had not only failed in this and lost the boy's help, but he was also afraid that oliver would tell all about the wicked practices he had seen and show the officers where he had lived. this he thought was likely to happen at any time, unless he could get the boy into his power again. something had occurred, too, meantime, that made fagin almost crazy with rage at losing him. it was this: a wicked man--so wicked that he was afraid of thunder--who went by the name of monks, had come to him and told him he would pay a large sum of money if he could succeed in making oliver a thief and so ruin his reputation and his good name. it was plain enough that for some reason the man hated oliver, but, cunning as fagin was, he would never have guessed why. for monks was really oliver's older half-brother! a little while before this story began, oliver's father had been obliged to go on a trip to a foreign country, where he died very suddenly. but before he died he made a will, in which he left all his fortune to be divided between the baby oliver and his mother. he left only a small sum to his older son, because he knew that he was wicked, and did not deserve any. the will declared oliver should have the money only on condition that he never stain his name with any act of meanness, dishonor, cowardice or wrong. if he did do this, then half the money was to go to the older son. the dying man also wrote a letter to oliver's mother, telling her that he had made the will and that he was dying; but the older son, who was with him when he died, found the letter and destroyed it. so oliver's poor mother, knowing nothing of all this, when his father did not come back, thought at last that he had deserted her, and in her shame stole away from her home, poor and ill-clad, to die finally in the poorhouse. the older brother, who had taken the name of monks, hunted and hunted for them, because he hated oliver on account of their father's will, and wanted to do him all the harm he could. he discovered that they had been taken into the poorhouse, and went there, but this was after oliver had run away. he found, however, to his satisfaction, that the boy knew nothing about his parentage or his real name, and monks made up his mind to prevent his ever learning. there was only one person who could have told oliver, and that one was mrs. bumble. she knew through the locket she had kept, which had belonged to oliver's mother and which contained the dead woman's wedding-ring with her name engraved inside it. when mrs. bumble heard that a man named monks was searching for news of oliver, she thought it a capital chance to make some money. she went, therefore, to monks's house and sold the locket and ring to him. these, monks thought, were the only proofs in the world that could ever show oliver who he was, and to make it impossible for him ever to see them, he dropped them through a trap-door in his house down into the river, where they could never be found. but monks did not give up searching for oliver, and at last, on the very day that oliver was arrested, he saw him coming from fagin's house with the artful dodger. from his wonderful resemblance to their dead father, he guessed at once that oliver was the half-brother whose very name he hated. knowing the other now to be in london, monks was afraid that by some accident he might yet find out what a fortune had been willed him. if he could only make oliver dishonest, monks reflected, half their father's fortune would become his own. with this thought in mind he had gone to fagin and had made him his offer of money to make the boy a thief. fagin, of course, had agreed, and now, to find his victim was out of his power made the jew grind his teeth with rage. all these things made fagin determined to gain possession of oliver again, and to do this he got the help of two others--a young woman named nancy and her lover, a brutal robber named bill sikes. these two discovered that oliver was at mr. brownlow's house, and lay in wait to kidnap him if he ever came out. the chance they waited for occurred before many days. mr. brownlow sent oliver to take some money to the very book-stall in front of which the artful dodger had stolen the handkerchief, and oliver went without dreaming of any danger. suddenly a young woman in a cap and apron screamed out behind him very loudly: "oh, my dear little brother!" and threw her arms tight around him. "oh, my gracious, i've found him!" she cried. "come home directly, you naughty boy! for shame, to treat your poor mother so!" oliver struggled, but to no purpose. nancy (for it was she) told the people that crowded about them that it was her little brother, who had run away from home and nearly broken his mother's heart, and that she wanted to take him back. oliver insisted that he didn't know her at all and hadn't any sister, but just then bill sikes appeared (as he had planned) and said the young woman was telling the truth and that oliver was a little rascal and a liar. the people were all convinced at this, and when sikes struck oliver and seized him by the collar they said, "serves him right!" and so oliver found himself dragged away from mr. brownlow to the filthy house where lived fagin. the wily old jew was overjoyed to see them. he smiled such a fiendish smile that oliver screamed for help as loud as he could, and at this fagin picked up a great jagged club to beat him with. now, nancy had been very wicked all her life, but in spite of this there was a little good in her. she had already begun to repent having helped steal the boy, and now his plight touched her heart. she seized the club and threw it into the fire, and so saved him the beating for that time. for many days oliver was kept a prisoner. he was free to wander about the mildewed old house, but every outer door was locked and every window had closed iron shutters. all the light came in through small round holes at the top, which made the rooms gloomy and full of shadows. spiderwebs were over all the walls, and often the mice would go scampering across the floor. there was only one window to look out of, and that was in a back garret, but it had iron bars and looked out only on to the housetops. he found only one book to read: this was a history of the lives of great criminals and was full of stories of secret thefts and murders. for the old jew, having tortured his mind by loneliness and gloom, had left the volume in his way, hoping it would instil into his soul the poison that would blacken it for ever. but oliver's blood ran cold as he read, and he pushed the book away in horror, and, falling on his knees, prayed that he might be spared from such deeds and rescued from that terrible place. he was still on his knees when nancy came in and told him he must get ready at once to go on a journey with bill sikes. she had been crying and her face was bruised as though she had been beaten. oliver saw she was very sorry for him, and, indeed, she told him she would help him if she could, but that there was no use trying to escape now, because they were watched all the time, and if he got away sikes would certainly kill her. nancy took him to the house where sikes lived, and the next morning the latter started out, making oliver go with him. sikes had a loaded pistol in his overcoat pocket, and he showed this to oliver and told him if he spoke to anybody on the road or tried to get away he would shoot him with it. they walked a long way out of london, once or twice riding in carts which were going in their direction. whenever this happened sikes kept his hand in the pocket where the pistol was, so that oliver was afraid to appeal for help. late at night they came to an old deserted mansion in the country, and in the basement of this, where a fire had been kindled, they joined two other men whom oliver had seen more than once in fagin's house in london. the journey had been cold and long and oliver was very hungry, but he could scarcely eat the supper that was given him for fear of what they intended to do with him in that lonely spot. he was so tired, however, that he finally went fast asleep and knew nothing more till two o'clock in the morning, when sikes woke him roughly and bade him come with them. it was foggy and cold and dark outside. sikes and one of the others each took one of oliver's hands, and so they walked a quarter of a mile to where was a fine house with a high wall around it. they made him climb over the wall with them, and, pulling him along, crept toward the house. it was not till now that oliver knew what they intended--that they were going to rob the house and make him help them, so that he, too, would be a burglar. his limbs began to tremble and he sank to his knees, begging them to have mercy and to let him run away and die in the fields rather than to make him steal. but sikes drew his pistol with a frightful oath and dragged him on. in the back of the house was a window, which was not fastened, because it was much too small for a man to get through. but oliver was so little that he could do it easily. with the pistol in his hand, sikes put oliver through the window, gave him a lantern and bade him go and unlock the front door for them. [illustration: "the artful dodger" introducing oliver twist to fagin _see page _] oliver had made up his mind that as soon as he got beyond the range of sikes's pistol he would scream and wake everybody in the house, but just then there was a sound from inside, and sikes called to him to come back. suddenly there was a loud shout from the top of the stairs--a flash--a report--and oliver staggered back with a terrible pain in his arm and with everything swimming before his eyes. he heard cries and the loud ringing of a bell and felt sikes drag him backward through the window. he felt himself being carried along rapidly, and then a cold sensation crept over his heart and he knew no more. iii how everything turned out right for oliver in the end after a long, long time oliver came to himself. the morning was breaking. he tried to rise and found that his arm was wounded and his clothes wet with blood. he was so dizzy he could hardly stand, but it was freezing cold, and he knew if he stayed there he must die. so he staggered on till he came to a road where, a little way off, he saw a house. there, he thought, he might get help. but when he came closer he saw that it was the very house the men had tried to rob that night. fear came over him then, and he would have run away, but he was too weak. he had just strength left to push open the gate, totter across the lawn and knock at the door; then he sank in a faint on the steps. in the house lived a lady named mrs. maylie, just as kind-hearted as was mr. brownlow who had rescued oliver at the police station, and with her lived a beautiful girl whom she had adopted, named rose. the servants, when they came to the door, made sure oliver was one of the robbers, and sent at once for policemen to take him in charge; but miss rose, the moment she saw what a good face the boy had and how little he looked like a thief, made them put him to bed and send at once for the doctor. when the good doctor arrived and saw oliver, who was still unconscious, he thought miss rose was right, and when the boy had come to himself and told them how he had suffered, he was certain of it. they were both sorry the policemen had been sent for, because the doctor was sure they would not believe oliver's story, especially as he had been arrested once before. he would have taken him away, but he was too sick to be moved. so when the officers came the doctor told them that the boy had been accidentally shot and had come to the house for assistance, when the servants had mistaken him for one of the burglars. this was not exactly the truth, but it seemed necessary to deceive the policemen if oliver was to be saved. of course, the servant that had fired the pistol was not able to swear that he had hit anybody at all, so the officers had to go away without arresting anybody. after this oliver was ill for a long time, but he was carefully nursed, especially by miss rose, who grew as fond of him as if she had been his sister. as soon as he grew better she wrote a letter for him to mr. brownlow, the old gentleman who had rescued him from the police station, but to oliver's grief she found that he had gone to the west indies. thus the time passed till oliver was quite well, and then miss rose (first carefully instructing the servant who went with them not to lose sight of him for a moment for fear of his old enemies) took him with her for a visit to london. meantime there had been a dreadful scene in fagin's house when bill sikes got back to london and told the old jew that the robbery had failed and that oliver was lost again. they were more afraid than ever that they would be caught and sent to prison. fagin swore at sikes, and monks cursed fagin, and between them all they determined that oliver must either be captured or killed. while they were plotting afresh nancy, who had been feeling sorrier and sorrier for what she had done, overheard them, and so found out that monks was oliver's half-brother and why he so hated him; and she made up her mind to save the boy from his last and greatest danger. so one evening, when she was alone with him, she gave sikes some laudanum in a glass of liquor, and when he was asleep she slipped away, found miss rose and told her all about it. bad as nancy was, however, she was not willing to betray fagin or bill sikes, so she only told her of monks. miss rose was greatly astonished, for she had never heard of him before, but she pitied nancy because she had tried to help oliver, and, of course, she herself wanted very much to help him discover who he was and who his parents had been. she thanked nancy and begged her to come to see her again. nancy was afraid to do this, because bill sikes watched her so closely, but she promised that on the next sunday at midnight she would be on a certain bridge where miss rose might see her. then nancy hurried back before sikes should wake up. miss rose was in trouble now, for there was no one in london with her then who could help her. but the same afternoon, whom should oliver see at a distance, walking into his house, but mr. brownlow. he came back in great joy to tell miss rose, and she concluded that the old gentleman would be the very one to aid her. she took oliver to the house, and, sure enough, there was the boy's old benefactor. very glad, indeed, he was to hear what she told him. for the old gentleman, when oliver had disappeared with the money he had given him to take to the bookseller, had been reluctant to think the boy he had befriended was, after all, a liar and a thief. he had advertised for him, but the only result had been a call from mr. bumble, who told him terrible tales of oliver's wickedness. to find now, after all this time, that oliver had not run away, and that mr. bumble's tales were lying ones, was a joyful surprise to mr. brownlow. after he had heard the whole, and when oliver had gone into the garden, miss rose told him of nancy's visit and of the man monks who still pursued the boy to do him harm. it was fortunate that she had come to mr. brownlow, for, as it happened, he knew a great deal about monks and his evil life. years before the old gentleman himself had been a friend of oliver's father. he knew all about his death in a foreign country, and had watched his older son's career of shame with sorrow. the very trip he had made to the west indies had acquainted him with a crime monks had committed there, from which he had fled to england. but, while mr. brownlow knew of the curious will oliver's father had made, what had become of the baby to which the latter referred he had never known. now, from the story miss rose told him, he was assured that oliver was, indeed, this baby half-brother of monks. but it was one thing to know this and quite another to enable oliver to prove it. the old gentleman was quick to see that they must get possession of monks and frighten him into confessing the fact--whose only proofs had been lost when he threw the locket and ring into the river. mr. brownlow, for this reason, agreed with miss rose that they should both meet nancy on the bridge on the coming sunday to hear all she had been able to find out. they said not a word of this to oliver, and when sunday night came they drove to the spot where nancy had promised to meet them. she had kept her word. she was there before them, and mr. brownlow heard her story over again from her own lips. but some one else was there, too, hidden behind a pillar, where he could hear every word she said, and this listener was a spy of fagin's. nancy had cried so much and acted so strangely that the old jew had grown suspicious and had set some one to watch her. and who do you suppose this spy was? no other than the cowardly apprentice who had bullied oliver until he ran away from the undertaker's house. the apprentice had finally run away, too, had come to london and begun a wicked life. he was too big a coward to rob any one but little children who had been sent to the shop to buy something, so fagin had given him spying work to do, and in this, being by nature a sneak, he proved very successful. the spy lay hid till he had heard all nancy said; then he slipped out and ran as fast as his legs would carry him back to fagin. the latter sent for bill sikes, knowing him to be the most brutal and bloodthirsty ruffian of all, and told him what nancy had done. the knowledge, as the jew expected, turned sikes into a demon. he rushed to where nancy lived. she had returned and was asleep on her couch, but she woke as he entered, and saw by his face that he meant to murder her. through all her evil career nancy had been true to sikes and would not have betrayed him. but he would not listen now, though she pleaded with him pitifully to come with her to some foreign country (as miss rose had begged her to do), where they might both lead better lives. fury had made him mad. as she clung to his knees, he seized a heavy club and struck her down. so poor nancy died, with only time for a feeble prayer to god for mercy. of all bad deeds that sikes had ever done, that was the worst. the sun shone through the window and lit the room where nancy lay. he tried to shut it out, but he could not. he grew suddenly afraid. horror came upon him. he crept out of the room, locked the door behind him, and plunged into the crowded street. he walked for miles and miles, here and there, without purpose. whichever way he went he could not rid himself of that horror. when night came he crawled into a disused shed, but he could not sleep. whenever he closed his eyes he seemed to see nancy's eyes looking at him. he got up and wandered on again, desperately lonely for some one to talk to. he heard a man telling another about the murder as he read the account in a newspaper, and knew that he must hide. he hastened then to a den he knew in a house beside the river, dirty and dismal and the haunt of thieves. some of his old companions were there, but even they shrank from him. he had been seen to enter the place, however, and in a few minutes the street was full of people, all yelling for his capture. he barred the doors and windows, but they began to break down the shutters with sledge-hammers. he ran to the roof with a rope, thinking to let himself down on the side next the river and so escape. here he fastened one end of the rope to the chimney, and, making a loop in the other end, put it over his head. just at that instant he imagined he saw nancy's eyes again looking at him. he staggered back in terror, missed his footing, and fell over the edge of the roof. he had not had time to draw the noose down under his arms, so that it slipped up around his neck, and there he hung, dead, with a broken neck. meanwhile mr. brownlow had acted very quickly, so that monks had got no warning. he had had men watching for the latter and now, having found out all he wanted to know, he had him seized in the street, put into a coach and driven to his office, where he brought him face to face with oliver. the old gentleman told monks he could do one of two things: either he could confess before witnesses the whole infamous plot he had framed against oliver, and so restore to him his rights and name, or else he could refuse, in which case he would at once be arrested and sent to prison. seeing that mr. brownlow knew all about the part he had played, monks, to save himself, made a full confession--how he had planned to keep his half-brother from his inheritance. and he also confessed what no one there had guessed: that miss rose, who had been adopted in her infancy, was really the sister of oliver's dead mother--his aunt, indeed. this was the happiest of all oliver's surprises that day, for he had learned to love miss rose very dearly. monks thus bought his own freedom, and cheap enough he probably thought it, for before he had finished his story, word came that fagin the jew had been captured by the police and was to be tried without delay for his life. oliver no longer had anything to fear, and came into possession of his true name and his fortune. mr. brownlow adopted him as his own son, and moved to the village where oliver had been cared for in the family of miss rose, and where they all lived happily ever afterward. the company of thieves was broken up with fagin's arrest. fagin himself was found guilty, and died on the gallows shrieking with fear. monks sailed for america, where he was soon detected in crime and died in prison. the wicked apprentice, who had been the real cause of poor nancy's murder, was so frightened at the fate of fagin that he reformed and became a spy for the police, and by his aid the artful dodger, who continued to pick pockets, soon found himself in jail. as for mr. and mrs. bumble, they, of course, lost their positions, and sank from bad to worse till they finally became paupers and were sent to the very same poorhouse where they had tortured little oliver twist. barnaby rudge published _scene_: london and the country _time_: to characters barnaby rudge a half-witted boy rudge his father a murderer mrs. rudge his mother geoffrey haredale a country gentleman emma haredale his niece sir john chester an enemy of haredale's edward chester his son in love with emma haredale varden a locksmith dolly varden his daughter a friend of emma haredale's simon tappertit varden's apprentice joe willet the son of an innkeeper in love with dolly varden "maypole hugh" a giant hostler in reality, the son of sir john chester lord george gordon a deluded nobleman gashford his secretary dennis a hangman "grip" barnaby's tame raven barnaby rudge i barnaby's boyhood many years ago a gentleman named haredale lived at a house called the warren, near london. his wife was dead and he had one baby daughter, emma. one morning he was found murdered in his house, which had been robbed. both the gardener and the steward, rudge, were missing, and some people thought one had done it and some thought the other. but some days later a disfigured body was found in a pond on the grounds which, by its clothes and a watch and ring, was recognized as that of rudge, the missing steward. then, of course, every one believed the gardener had murdered both, and the police searched for him a long time, but he was never found. on the same day this cruel murder was discovered, a baby was born to mrs. rudge, the wife of the steward--a pretty boy, though with a birth-mark on the wrist as red as blood, and a strange look of terror on the baby face. he was named barnaby, and his mother loved him all the more because it was soon seen he was weak-minded, and could never be in his right senses. she herself, poor woman! seemed never able to forget the horror of that day. geoffrey haredale, the brother and heir of the murdered man, took up his abode at the warren and adopted the little emma, his niece, as his own daughter. he was kind to mrs. rudge also. not only did he let her live rent-free in a house he owned, but he did many a kind deed secretly for her half-witted son as he grew older. barnaby rudge grew up a strange, weird creature. his hair was long and red and hung in disorder about his shoulders. his skin was pale, his eyes bright and his clothes he trimmed most curiously with bits of gaudy lace and bright ribbons and glass toys. he wore a cluster of broken peacock feathers in his hat and girded at his side was the broken hilt of an old sword without a blade. but strangest of all was a little wicker basket he always carried on his back. when he set this down and opened it, there hopped out a tame raven who would cock its head on one side and say hoarsely and very knowingly: "hello! hello! hello! what's the matter here? keep up your spirits. never say die. i'm a devil, i'm a devil, i'm a devil! hurrah!" then it would whistle or make a noise like the drawing of a cork out of a bottle, repeated a great many times, and flap its wings against its sides as if it were bursting with laughter. this raven was named grip and was barnaby's constant companion. the neighbors used to say it was one hundred and twenty years old (for ravens live a very long time), and some said it knew altogether too much to be only a bird. but barnaby would hear nothing said against it, and, next to his mother, loved it better than anything in the world. barnaby knew that folks called him half-witted, but he cared little for that. sometimes he would laugh at what they said. "why," he would say, "how much better to be silly than as wise as you! _you_ don't see shadowy people like those that live in sleep--not you. nor eyes in the knotted panes of glass, nor swift ghosts when it blows hard, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor see men stalking in the sky--not you. i lead a merrier life than you with all your cleverness. _you're_ the dull men. _we're_ the bright ones. ha, ha! i'll not change with you, not i!" haredale, who had been so kind to barnaby's mother, was a burly, stern man who had few acquaintances and lived much alone. when first he came to live at the warren an enemy of his, sir john chester, had circulated suspicious rumors about him, so that some came half to believe he himself had had something to do with his brother's murder. these whispers so affected haredale that as time passed he grew gloomy and morose and lived in seclusion, thinking only how he could solve the mystery of the murder, and loving more and more the little emma as she grew into a beautiful girl. he neglected the warren so that the property looked quite desolate and ruined, and at length superstitious people in the neighborhood came to mutter that it was haunted by the ghost of rudge, the steward, whose body had been found in the pond. the old bell-ringer of the near-by church even said he had seen this ghost once, when he went, late one night, to wind the church clock. but of course others, who knew there were no such things as ghosts, only smiled at these stories. sir john chester, who so hated haredale, was just as smooth and smiling and elegant as the other was rough. haredale had been sir john's drudge and scapegoat at school and the latter had always despised him. and as the years went by sir john came to hate him. his own son edward had fallen in love with emma, haredale's niece, and she loved him in return. sir john had been all his life utterly selfish and without conscience. he had little money and was much in debt and wanted his son to marry an heiress, so that he himself could continue his life of pleasure. edward, however, gave his father to understand that he would never give up his love for emma. sir john believed that if haredale chose, he could make his niece dislike edward, and because he did not, sir john hated haredale the more bitterly. emma had a close friend named dolly varden, the daughter of a locksmith. dolly was a pretty, dimpled, roguish little flirt, as rosy and sparkling and fresh as an apple, and she had a great many lovers. one of these was her father's apprentice, who lived in the same house. his name was simon tappertit--a conceited, bragging, empty-headed young man with a great opinion of his own good looks. when he looked at his thin legs, which he admired exceedingly, he could not see how it was that dolly could help worshiping him. tappertit had ambitions of his own and thought himself a great man who was kept down by a tyrannical master, though the good-natured locksmith was the kindest man in london. he had formed a society of apprentices whose toast was, "death to all masters, life to all apprentices, and love to all fair damsels!" he was their leader. he had made them all keys to fit their masters' doors, and at night, when they were supposed to be asleep in bed, they would steal out to meet in a dirty cellar owned by an old blind man, where they kept a skull and cross-bones and signed high-sounding oaths with a pen dipped in blood, and did other silly things. the object of the society was to hurt, annoy, wrong and pick quarrels with such of their masters as happened not to please them. with such cheap fooleries tappertit had convinced himself that he was fit to be a great general. but with all his smirking, dolly varden only laughed at him. to tell the truth, she was very fond of young joe willet, whose father kept the maypole inn, very near the warren where her friend emma haredale lived. joe was a good, brave fellow, and was head over ears in love with dolly, but dolly was a coquette, and never let him know how much she cared for him. joe was not contented at home, for his father seemed to think him a child and did not treat him according to his years, so that but for leaving dolly varden he would long ago have run away to seek his fortune. both joe and dolly knew how edward chester loved emma haredale, and they used sometimes to carry notes from one to the other, since the hatred of sir john for emma's uncle often prevented the lovers from meeting. sir john found this out, and bribed a hostler at the maypole inn to spy for him and prevent, if he could, these letters passing. the hostler was an uncouth, drunken giant that people called maypole hugh, as strong as an ox, and cruel and cunning. hugh watched carefully, and from time to time would go to sir john's house in london and report what he had seen. ii the mysterious stranger and who he was about this time residents in the neighborhood of the warren and the maypole inn began to tell tales of a mysterious man who roamed about the country-side. he was seen often and by many persons, always at night, skulking in the shadow or riding furiously on a horse. he was fierce and haggard and discourteous to travelers, wore a slouch hat which he never took off, and generally kept the lower part of his face muffled in a handkerchief. he always went alone. some said he slept in church-yards, others that he never slept at all, and still others that he was a wicked man who had sold his soul to the evil one. one night he rested at the maypole inn, and a little while after he had gone, varden the locksmith, dolly's father, as he drove home, found edward chester lying in the road, having been wounded and robbed of his money. barnaby rudge had seen the attack and was bending over him. he had been too frightened to give aid, but from his description varden knew the robber was the stranger who had stopped at the inn. the honest locksmith took edward into his chaise, drove him to barnaby's house, which was near by, and left him in care of mrs. rudge, where a doctor soon dressed the wound, which was not serious. next day mr. varden came to see how the wounded man was. as he sat talking with mrs. rudge a tapping came at the window. she went to the door. the locksmith heard her cry out, and sprang forward to find standing there, to his astonishment, the robber of the night before. he grasped at him, but the woman threw herself before him, clasped his arm and besought him, for her life's sake, not to pursue the man. the locksmith had known barnaby's mother all his life, but so strange was her action now (especially since she refused to answer any question, begging him to ask her nothing) that he almost wondered if she herself could be in league with a crime-doer. her apparent agony touched him, however, and, raising no alarm, he went home in great puzzle of mind. he would have been far more disturbed if he had known the whole truth. for the mysterious stranger he had seen, who by night had haunted the neighborhood, was none other than mrs. rudge's husband, barnaby's father, the steward who everybody believed had been murdered with his master, and whose body had been found in the pond. rudge himself had committed that wicked deed. he had killed both master and gardener, and to cover the crime had put his own clothes, his watch and ring on the latter's body and sunk it in the pond. when, on the night of the murder, he told his wife what he had done, she had shrunk fearfully from him, declaring that, although being his wife she would not give him up to justice, yet she would never own him or shelter him. he had fled then with the money he had stolen, and that night, while she lay sick with horror, barnaby had been born with his poor crazed brain, the look of terror in his baby face and the birth-mark of blood on his wrist. for many years the guilty wretch had wandered the earth, but he could not escape the knowledge of his deed. and at last his conscience had driven him back to the scene of his crime, friendless, penniless, fearful of the sunlight, slinking by night like a ghost about the house in which he had murdered his master, and hounding his miserable wife for money with which to buy food and drink. the poor woman had kept her terrible secret, giving him every coin she could save, striving so that barnaby, unhappily born as he was, should never know the shame of having his father suffer death on the gallows. when rudge had come to her house that day he had thought her alone, and she had saved him from capture only by begging the locksmith to stay his hand. after his hairbreadth escape from varden, rudge hid himself in a narrow street. when the next dawn came, as he searched for some dark den in which he might lie sheltered till another night, he saw simon tappertit issuing with his noisy apprentice crew from the cellar in which they held their meetings. he entered its door, made friends with the villainous blind man who kept it and there established his headquarters. once more, one night after the wounded edward had been taken to his own home, rudge hunted out his trembling wife and demanded money, threatening to bring harm to barnaby if she refused him, and she gave him all she had. but this time dread of him made her desperate. when morning came she went to haredale and told him that she and her son could no longer live on his bounty. the next day, with barnaby, who carried on his back his beloved raven, grip, she left the house afoot, telling no one where they were going lest her husband find her out, and pushed far into the country to find a home in some obscure village. and though rudge, the murderer, and the blind man (who was much more crafty and cunning than many men with eyesight) searched for them everywhere, it was a long time before they found any trace. perhaps joe and dolly varden missed poor cheery barnaby more than did any one else. but several events occurred soon after this that gave them other things to think of. maypole hugh, the savage hostler, had continued his spying work for edward's father, and sir john determined it was high time to break off his son's attachment for emma haredale. one day dolly was carrying a letter from emma at the warren to edward, and as she passed through the fields, hugh attacked her, throwing his arms around her and pretending to make coarse love to her. she was dreadfully frightened and screamed as loud as she could. joe, as it happened, was walking within sound of her voice, and ran like the wind to her aid. in another moment hugh had leaped the hedge and disappeared and dolly was sobbing in her rescuer's arms. she was afraid to tell joe who had frightened her, for fear the hostler would take his revenge by harming him, so she only said she had been attacked by a man whom she had never seen. in her scare she had forgotten all about the letter she had carried, and now she discovered it was gone. it was nowhere to be found. this, of course, was because hugh had stolen it. it was to get the letter that he had frightened her, and he was soon on his way to carry it to sir john. dolly did not guess this. she wrote to emma telling her of the mishap, and this note joe, to whom she intrusted it, knowing no reason to distrust the hostler, gave to hugh to deliver. so sir john got both missives in the end. emma haredale, not understanding why edward returned no answer to her letter, was hurt, and thought him cold. sir john, seizing his opportunity, told her one day (pretending sorrow while he did so) that his son, naturally fickle, had fallen in love with some one else, to whom he was soon to be married. emma, not dreaming the father of the man she loved could be such a false liar, believed him, and when edward wrote her, speaking of his poverty and telling her he was going to leave england to try to better his prospects, she thought his manly letter only an excuse to part from her. proud, though heartbroken, she did not answer it, and so, thanks to his father's selfish scheming, edward sailed away to the west indies, hopeless and despairing. another left england at the same time whose going meant far more to dolly varden. this was joe. his father, the innkeeper, had been restraining him more and more, until his treatment had become the jest of the country-side, and joe had chafed to the point of rebellion at the gibes that continually met him. one day, at the jeer of an old enemy of his, his wrath boiled over. he sprang upon him and thrashed him soundly in the inn before the assembled guests. then, knowing his father would never forgive him, he went to his own room and barricaded the door. that night joe let himself down from his window and before daylight was in london. he went first to the locksmith's house to tell dolly he had run away and that he loved her, but dolly being a flirt, only laughed. to tell the truth, she was so very fond of joe that she didn't like to show him how sorry she was. so the poor fellow went away thinking she cared very little (though as soon as he was out of sight she nearly cried her eyes out), and enlisted as a soldier. that same night joe started from london to fight in the war in america. and it was a long time before either he or edward chester was heard of again. iii barnaby gets into trouble five years went by, and edward chester remained in the west indies and prospered. for five years joe willet fought in the war in america. and for five years barnaby rudge with his mother and grip, the raven, lived unmolested in their little village and were happy. at the end of the five years three things happened at about the same time: edward started back to england from the west indies with a fair fortune in his pocket; joe was sent back from america with one arm gone, and barnaby and his mother left their village home again, secretly, and set out for london, hoping to lose themselves in its hugeness. the wily blind man, the companion now of rudge, the murderer, had found them out! he came one day and made mrs. rudge give him all the money she had been able to lay by in these five years except a single gold piece. he told her he would return in a week for more and that if she had not got it then, he would entice barnaby away to join in the evil life of his father. so she left the village the very next morning, and she and barnaby trudged afoot all the weary way to the great city. though they knew nothing of it, there was great excitement in london. lord george gordon, a well-meaning but crack-brained nobleman, led astray by flatterers till he believed he had a god-given mission to drive all catholics out of england, had, sometime before this, begun to hold meetings and to stir up the people with the cry of "no popery!" he declared that the religion of the country was in danger of being overthrown and that the pope of rome was plotting to make his religion supreme. and this idea he talked wherever he went. he was a slender, sallow man who dressed in severe black and wore his hair smoothly combed, and his bright, restless eyes and his look of uncertainty made it clear that he was no man to lead, but was rather himself the misled dupe of others. one of these schemers who ruled him was his secretary, gashford, a man of ugly face, with beetling brows and great flapped ears. he had been a thief and a scoundrel all his life, and had wormed himself into lord george's confidence by flattery. he easily fooled his master into believing that the rabble who flocked to hear him, and the idle loungers who yelled themselves hoarse at what he said, were crowds of honest citizens who believed as he did, and were ready to follow his leadership. gashford had added to his followers even dennis, the hangman of london, and the foolish nobleman not knowing the ruffian's true calling, thought him a man to trust. for many weeks this banding together of all the lawless ragamuffins of london had gone on, till one had only to shout "no popery!" on any street corner to draw together a crowd bent on mischief. respectable people grew afraid and kept to their houses, and criminals and street vagabonds grew bolder and bolder. as may be guessed, simon tappertit, the one-time apprentice of varden the locksmith, rejoiced at this excitement as at a chance to show his talent for leadership. his apprentice society had now become the "united bulldogs," and he himself, helping the schemes of gashford, strutted about among the crowds with an air of vast importance. sir john chester watched the trouble gathering with glee. his old enemy haredale, he knew, was a catholic, and as this movement, if it grew bold enough, meant harm to all of that religion, he hoped for its success. he was too cunning to aid it publicly, but he sent maypole hugh, who was still his spy, to gashford; and the brawny hostler, who savagely longed for fighting and plunder, joined with the secretary and with dennis the hangman to help increase the tumult. a day had been set on which lord george gordon had vowed he would march to parliament at the head of forty thousand men to demand the passing of a law to forbid all catholics to enter the country. this vast rabble-army gathered in a great field, under the command of these sorry leaders--the misguided lord, dennis the hangman, tappertit, hugh the hostler, gashford the secretary, and other rowdies picked for their boldness and daring. the mob thus formed covered an immense space. all wore blue cockades in their hats or carried blue flags, and from them went up a hoarse roar of oaths, shouts and ribald songs. such was the scene on which barnaby and his mother came as they walked into london. they knew nothing of its cause or its meaning. mrs. rudge saw its rough disorder with terror, but the confusion, the waving flags and the shouts had got into barnaby's brain. to him this seemed a splendid host marching to some noble cause. he watched with sparkling eyes, longing to join it. suddenly maypole hugh rushed from the crowd with a shout of recognition, and, thrusting a flagstaff into barnaby's hands, drew him into the ranks. his mother shrieked and ran forward, but she was thrown to the ground; barnaby was whirled away into the moving mass and she saw him no more. barnaby enjoyed that hour of march with all his soul, and the louder the howling the more he was thrilled. the crowd surrounded the houses of parliament and fought the police. at length a regiment of mounted soldiers charged them. barnaby thought this brave work and held his ground valiantly, even knocking one soldier off his horse with the flagstaff, until others dragged him to a place of safety. that night the drunken mob, grown bolder, tore down, pillaged and burned all the catholic chapels within their reach, and, with hugh and dennis the hangman, poor crazed barnaby ran at its head, covered with dirt, his garments torn to rags, singing and leaping with delight. he thought he was the most courageous of all, that he was helping to destroy the country's enemies, and that when the fighting was over he and his mother would be rich and she would always be proud that he was so noble and so brave. the golden cups, the candlesticks and the money they stole from the burned chapels hugh and the hangman buried under a heap of straw in the tavern which they had made their headquarters, and left barnaby to guard the place. he counted this a sacred trust, and when soldiers came to arrest all in the building he refused to fly in time. he even fought them single-handed and felled two before he was knocked down with the butt of a musket and handcuffed. while he had been resisting, grip had been busily plucking away the straw from the hidden plunder; now his hoarse croak showed them the hoard and they unearthed it all. at length, closing ranks around barnaby, they marched him off to a barracks, from which he was taken to newgate prison, where a blacksmith put irons on his arms and legs, and he and the raven were locked in a cell. while barnaby was guarding the tavern room, hugh, egged on by his master, sir john chester, had proposed the burning of the warren, where haredale still lived with emma, his niece, and dolly varden, now her companion. the crowd agreed gladly, since haredale was a catholic and that same day in london had given evidence to the police against the rioters who had burned the chapels. they rushed away, marched hastily across the fields, tied the old host of the maypole inn to his chair, drank all the liquor they could find and then rushed to the warren. there they put the servants to flight, burst in the doors, staved the wine-casks in the cellar, split up the costly furniture with hammers and axes and set fire to the building, so that it soon burned to the ground. haredale, in london, saw the red glare in the sky and rode post-haste to the place, but found on his arrival only ruins and ashes. he believed that emma and dolly had had time to escape to safety; but while he was searching the grounds for some sign of them he saw in the starlight a man hiding in a broken turret. he drew his sword and advanced. as the figure moved into the light he rushed forward, flung himself upon him and clutched his throat. "villain!" he cried in a terrible voice, "dead and buried as all men supposed, at last, at last i have you! you, rudge, slayer of my brother and of his faithful servant! double murderer and monster, i arrest you in the name of god!" bound and fettered in his carriage, haredale took rudge back to london and had him locked in newgate prison. iv barnaby prospers at last haredale searched vainly next day for emma and dolly varden. he could not believe they had lost their lives in the burning building, yet he was filled with anxiety because of their disappearance. could he have known what had happened he would have been even more fearful. simon tappertit had seen his chance at last to win for himself the lovely dolly, who had scorned him when he was an apprentice of the locksmith. he had bribed hugh and the hangman to aid him. while the mob was occupied at the front of the house this precious pair had entered from the back, seized the two girls and put them into a coach. this they guarded at a distance till the burning was done; then, with tappertit on the box and surrounded by his ruffians, the coach was driven into the city. emma had spent the day in the fear that her uncle had been killed with other catholics in london, and at this new and surpassing fright she had fainted. dolly, though no less concerned, had fought her captors bravely, though vainly. often in that long ride she wished that joe, her vanished lover, were there to rescue her as he had rescued her once from maypole hugh. she had determined when she reached the london streets to scream as loudly as she could for help; but before they came to the city hugh climbed into the carriage and sat between them, threatening to choke either if she made a noise. in this wise they were driven to a miserable cottage, and in the dirty apartment to which they were taken dolly threw herself upon the unconscious emma and wept pitifully, unmindful of the jeers of hugh and of the hangman. when tappertit entered the room suddenly, dolly, not knowing his part in the plot, screamed with joy and threw herself into his arms crying: "i knew it! my dear father's at the door! heaven bless you for rescuing us!" but she saw in an instant her mistake, when the ridiculous braggart laid his hand on his breast and told her, now that he no longer was an apprentice but a famous leader of the people, he had chosen to be her husband. with this announcement he left them. meanwhile mrs. rudge, day and night, had searched everywhere for barnaby. in one of the riots she was injured, and was taken to a hospital, and while she lay there she heard with agony that her son had been so active in the disturbances that a price had been put by the government on his head. but in his present trouble barnaby had unexpectedly found an old friend. joe willet, just returned with one empty sleeve from his five years of soldiering in america, had been with the soldiers in the barracks when barnaby had been brought there on his way to prison. he soon discovered who the boy's rioting companions had been and took them word of his plight, for he knew it meant death to barnaby unless he escaped. maypole hugh, tappertit and the hangman were all itching for more disorder, and this news gave them an excuse. they went out at once and gathered the mob together to attack newgate prison and to release all the prisoners. they themselves led the procession. the house of varden, dolly's father, was on their way; they stopped there, and, in spite of the lusty fight he made, carried the locksmith with them to compel him to open the prison gates with his tools. this he refused to do, and they would doubtless have killed him, but for two men who dragged him from their clutches in the nick of time. these two men were the one-armed joe and edward chester, just returned from the west indies, whom the former had met by accident that day. they took the locksmith to his home, while the raging crowd brought furniture from neighboring houses and built a bonfire of it to burn down the great prison gate. from this same mob haredale himself had a narrow escape. he was staying at a house near by, which, belonging to a catholic, was attacked. he tried to escape across the roof, but was recognized from the street by the giant hugh. the cellar luckily had a back door opening into a lane, and with the assistance of joe and edward, who had hastened to the rear to aid him, he escaped that way. maypole hugh, during this terrible time while the mob was burning houses everywhere and the soldiers firing on the rioters in every quarter of london, seemed to bear a charmed life. he rode a great brewer's horse and carried an ax, and wherever the fight was thickest there he was to be found. never had such a sight been seen in london as when the prison gate fell and the crowd rushed from cell to cell, smashing the iron doors to release the prisoners, some of whom, being under sentence of death, had never expected to be free again. rudge, the murderer, knowing nothing of what the uproar meant, suffered tortures, thinking in his guilty fear that the hordes were howling for his life. when he was finally released and in the open street he found barnaby beside him. they broke off their fetters, and that night took refuge in a shed in a field. next day rudge sent barnaby to try to find the blind man, his cunning partner, in whose wits he trusted to help them get away. barnaby brought the blind man, and brought also hugh, whom he found wounded in the street, but in so doing he was seen by dennis, the hangman. this villainous sneak, knowing that the daring of the rioters had reached its limit, and that they must soon be scattered and captured, and thinking to buy pardon for himself by a piece of treachery, without delay brought soldiers, who surrounded the shed. the blind man, attempting to run away, was shot dead, and the others, rudge, hugh and poor, innocent barnaby, were captured. then, well satisfied with his work, dennis set out for the house where simon tappertit had confined emma haredale and dolly varden. the hangman wanted them well out of the way, so they could not testify that he had helped to burn the warren and to kidnap them. he had thought of a plan to have them taken to a boat in the river and conveyed where their friends would never find them, and to carry them off he chose gashford, lord george gordon's secretary, who was the more willing as he had fallen in love with emma's beauty. but this wicked plan was never to be carried out. the very hour that gashford came on this pitiless errand, while he roughly bade emma prepare to depart, the doors flew open. men poured in, led by edward chester, who knocked gashford down; and in another moment emma was clasped in her uncle's embrace, and dolly, laughing and crying at the same time, fell into the arms of her father. their place of concealment had been discovered a few hours before, and the three men had lost no time in planning their capture. dennis the hangman, in spite of his previous treachery, caught in the trap, was taken straight-way to jail, and simon tappertit, wounded and raging, watched dolly's departure from the floor, where he lay with his wonderful legs, the pride and glory of his life, broken and crushed into shapeless ugliness. the famous riots were over. lord george gordon was a prisoner, hundreds were being arrested, and london was again growing quiet. mrs. rudge, poor mother! at last found barnaby where he lay chained in his cell and condemned to death. day after day she never left him, while varden, the locksmith, and haredale worked hard for his release. they carried his case even to the king, and at the last moment, while he rode on his way to execution, his pardon was granted. of the rest who died on the scaffold, rudge, the murderer, was hanged, cursing all men to the last; maypole hugh died glorying in his evil life and with a jest on his lips, and dennis, the hangman, was dragged to the gallows cringing and shrieking for mercy. a few weeks later emma haredale was married to edward chester and sailed with him back to the west indies, where he had established a flourishing business. before this, however, his father, sir john chester, was well punished for his hard heart and bad deeds by the discovery that maypole hugh, the hostler, was really his own unacknowledged son, whose mother he had deserted many years before. but even this blow, and the marriage of his son edward to the niece of his lifelong enemy, did not soften him. he still hated haredale with his old venom and loved to go to the ruins of the warren and gloat over its destruction. on one of these visits he met and taunted haredale beyond all endurance. the two men drew their swords and fought a duel, which ended by haredale's running sir john through the heart. haredale left england at once, entered a convent in a foreign country and spent his few remaining years in penance and remorse. lord george gordon, the poor deluded noble who had been the cause of all this disorder, finally died, harmless and quite crazy, in newgate prison. simon tappertit, in spite of his active part in the riots, was luckier, for he got off with two wooden legs and lived for many years, a corner boot-black. joe, of course, married dolly varden, and the locksmith gave her such a generous marriage portion that he was able to set up in business, succeeding his father as landlord of the old maypole inn, and there they lived long and happily. barnaby rudge, after the death of his father, gradually became more rational and was everywhere a great favorite with old and young. he and his mother lived always on the maypole farm, and there were never two more contented souls than they. as for grip, the raven, he soon forgot his jail experience and grew sleek and glossy again. for a whole year he never uttered a word till one sunny morning he suddenly broke out with, "i'm a devil, i'm a devil, i'm a devil!" in extraordinary rapture. from that time on he talked more and more, and as he was only one hundred and fifty years old when barnaby was gray headed (a mere infant for a raven) he is very probably talking yet. the personal history of david copperfield published - _scene_: london, yarmouth, dover and the country _time_: to characters david copperfield a fatherless boy miss betsy trotwood his aunt peggotty his nurse mr. murdstone his stepfather miss murdstone mr. murdstone's sister mr. peggotty a fisherman peggotty's brother ham their nephew mrs. gummidge the widow of mr. peggotty's dead partner "little em'ly" peggotty's orphan niece barkis a cart driver later, peggotty's husband mr. creakle proprietor of a boys' school tommy traddles } } schoolmates and friends of david's james steerforth } mr. micawber a london friend of david's always "waiting for something to turn up" "mr. dick" a simple-minded relative of miss betsy trotwood's mr. wickfield miss betsy's lawyer agnes his daughter uriah heep his clerk later, his partner doctor strong david's schoolmaster in dover dora spenlow the daughter of david's employer and his "child-wife" david copperfield i david's early ups and downs there was once a little boy by the name of david copperfield, whose father had died before he was born. the night he was born his great-aunt, miss betsy trotwood--a grim lady with a black cap tied under her chin and a great gold watch chain--came to the house to ask his mother to name the baby, which she took for granted was a girl, after her; but as soon as she found it was a boy she flounced out in anger and never came back again. the first thing david remembered was living in a big country house in england with his pretty, golden-haired mother and with peggotty, his nurse, a red-faced, kindly woman, with a habit of wearing her dresses so tight that whenever she hugged him some buttons would fly off the back. he loved his mother dearly--so dearly that when a tall, handsome man named murdstone began to come to see her in the evenings david was jealous and sad. mr. murdstone acted as if he liked him, and even took him riding on his horse; but there was something in his face that david could not like. one summer day david was sent off with peggotty for a two weeks' visit to her brother's house in yarmouth. yarmouth was a queer fishing town on the sea-coast, and the house they went to was the queerest thing in it. it was made of an old barge, drawn up high and dry on the beach. it had a chimney on one side and little windows, and there were sea-shells around the door. david's room was in the stern, and the window was the hole which the rudder had once passed through. everything smelled of salt water and lobsters, and david thought it was the most wonderful house in the world. he soon made friends with the family--mr. peggotty, a big fisherman with a laugh like a gale of wind; ham, his nephew, a big, overgrown boy who carried david from the coach on his back, and mrs. gummidge, who was the widow of mr. peggotty's drowned partner. and, last of all, there was a beautiful little girl with curly hair and a string of blue beads around her neck whom they called little em'ly. she was an orphan niece of peggotty's. none of these people belonged to mr. peggotty, but, though he was only a poor fisherman himself, he was so kind that he gave them all a home. david played with little em'ly, and went out in the boat with mr. peggotty, and enjoyed his visit greatly, though he grew anxious to see his mother again. he had no idea what had happened to her till he got back home with peggotty. then he found why he had been sent off on his visit. while he was away his mother had married mr. murdstone. david found things sadly altered after this. mr. murdstone was a hard, cruel master. he cared nothing for the little boy and was harsh to him in everything. he even took away david's own cozy bedroom and made him sleep in a gloomy chamber. when he was sad mr. murdstone called him obstinate and locked him up and forbade his mother to pet or comfort him. david's mother loved him, but she loved her new husband, too, and it was a most unhappy state of things. to make it worse, mr. murdstone's sister came to live with them. she was an unlovely old maid with big black eyebrows, and liked david no better than her brother did. after this there were no more pleasant hours of sitting with his mother or walking with her to church, for mr. murdstone and his sister kept them apart. the only happy moments david spent were in a little upper room where there was a collection of books left by his dead father. he got some comfort from reading these. mr. murdstone made david's mother give him hard tasks and lessons to do, and when david recited them he and his sister both sat and listened. to feel their presence and disapproval confused the little fellow so much that even when he knew his lesson he failed. one day when he came to recite he saw mr. murdstone finishing the handle of a whip he had been making. this frightened him so that he could scarcely remember a word. mr. murdstone grasped him then and led him to his room to whip him. poor little david was so terrified that he hardly knew what he was doing, and in his agony and terror, while the merciless blows were falling, he seized the hand that held him and bit it as hard as he could. mr. murdstone then beat him almost to death and locked him in the room. he was kept there for five days with only bread and milk to eat. every day he was taken down for family prayers and then taken back again, and during prayers he was made to sit in a corner where he could not even see his mother's face. he had to sit all day long with nothing to do but think of mr. peggotty's house-boat and of little em'ly and wish he was there. the last night peggotty, his nurse, crept up and whispered through the keyhole that mr. murdstone was going to send him away the next day to a school near london. the next morning he started in a carrier's cart. his mother was so much in awe of mr. murdstone that she hardly dared kiss david good-by, and he saw nothing of peggotty. but as he was crying, peggotty came running from behind a hedge and jumped into the cart and hugged him so hard that all the buttons flew off the back of her dress. the man who drove the cart was named barkis. he seemed to be very much taken with peggotty, and after she had gone back david told him all about her. before they parted he made david promise to write her a message for him. it was a very short message--"barkis is willin'." david didn't know in the least what the driver meant, but he promised, and he sent the message in his very first letter. probably peggotty knew what he meant, though, for before david came back again mr. barkis and she were courting. however, that has not much to do with this part of the story. the school to which mr. murdstone had sent him was a bare building with gratings on all the windows like a prison, and a high brick wall around it. it was owned by a man named creakle, who had begun by raising hops, and had gone into the school business because he had lost all of his own and his wife's money and had no other way to live. he was fat and spoke always in a whisper, and he was so cruel and bad-tempered that not only the boys, but his wife, too, was terribly afraid of him. he nearly twisted david's ear off the first day, and he made one of the teachers tie a placard to david's back (this, he said, was by mr. murdstone's order) which read: ____________________ | | | take care of him | | he bites | |____________________| to have to wear this before everybody made david sorrowful and ashamed, but luckily a good-natured boy named tommy traddles, who liked david's looks, said it was a shame to make him wear it, and as tommy traddles was very popular, all the other boys said it was a shame, too. so, beyond calling him "towser" for a few days, and saying "lie down, sir!" as if he were a dog, they did not make much fun of him while he wore it. besides tommy traddles, david liked best the head boy, james steerforth--the oldest boy in the school, and the only one creakle did not dare beat or mistreat. steerforth took david under his wing and helped him with his lessons, while in return david used to tell him stories from the books he had read. what with the beatings and tasks, david was glad enough when vacation time came. but his home-coming was anything but pleasant. he found his mother with a little baby, and she looked careworn and ill. mr. murdstone, he saw at once, hated him as much as ever, and miss murdstone would not let him even so much as touch his baby brother. he was forbidden to sit in the kitchen with peggotty, and when he crept away to the upper room with the books mr. murdstone called him sullen and obstinate. david was so miserable every day that he was almost glad to bid his mother good-by, and as he rode away, to look back at her as she stood there at the gate holding up her baby for david to see. that was the last picture david carried in his heart of his pretty mother. one day not long after, he was called from the school-room to the parlor, and there mr. creakle told him that his mother was dead and that the baby had died, too. david reached home the next day. peggotty took him into her arms at the door and called his mother her "dear, poor pretty," and comforted him, but he was very sad. it seemed to him that life could never be bright again. after the funeral miss murdstone discharged peggotty and, probably not knowing what else to do with him, let david go with the faithful old servant down to the old house-boat at yarmouth, where he had been visiting when his mother was married to mr. murdstone. the wonderful house on the beach was just the same. mr. peggotty and ham and mrs. gummidge were still there, with everything smelling just as usual of salt water and lobsters; and little em'ly was there, too, grown to be quite a big girl. it seemed, somehow, like coming back to a dear old quiet home, where nothing changed and where all was restful and good. but this happiness was not to last. david had to go home again, and there it was worse than ever. he was utterly neglected. he was sent to no school, taught nothing, allowed to make no friends. and at last mr. murdstone, as if he could think of nothing worse, apprenticed him as a chore boy in a warehouse in london. the building where david now was compelled to work was on a wharf on the river bank, and was dirty and dark and overrun with rats. here he had to labor hard for bare living wages, among rough boys and rougher men, with no counselor, hearing their coarse oaths about him, and fearing that one day he would grow up to be no better than they. he was given a bedroom in the house of a mr. micawber, and this man was, in his way, a friend. there was never a better-hearted man than mr. micawber, but he seemed to be always unlucky. he had a head as bald as an egg, wore a tall, pointed collar, and carried for ornament an eye-glass which he never used. he never had any money, was owing everybody who would lend him any, and was always, as he said, "waiting for something to turn up." with this exception david had not a friend in london, and finally mr. micawber himself was put in prison for debt, and his relatives, who paid his debts to release him, did so on condition that he leave london. so at length david had not even this one friend. david bore this friendless and wretched life as long as he could, but at length he felt that he could stay at the warehouse no longer and made up his mind to run away. the only one in the world he could think of who might help him was--whom do you think? his great-aunt, miss betsy trotwood, who had left his mother's house the night he was born because he did not happen to be a girl. she was the only real relative he had in the world. she lived, peggotty had told him, in dover, and that was seventy miles away; but the distance did not daunt him. so one day he put all his things into a box and hired a boy with a cart to take it to the coach office. but the boy robbed him of all the money he had (a gold piece peggotty had sent him) and drove off with his box besides, and poor david, crying, set out afoot, without a penny, in the direction he thought dover lay. that evening he sold his waistcoat to a clothes-dealer for a few pennies, and when night came he slept on the ground, under the walls of mr. creakle's old school where he had known steerforth and tommy traddles. the next day he offered his jacket for sale to a half-crazy old store-keeper, who took the coat but would not pay him at first, and david had to sit all day on the door-step before the other would give him the money. the next four nights he slept under haystacks, greatly in fear of tramps, and at length, on the sixth day, ragged, sunburned, dusty and almost dead from weariness, he got to dover. he had to ask many people before he could find out where miss betsy trotwood lived. it was outside the town, in a cottage with a little garden. here she lived all alone, except for a simple-minded old man, whom she called mr. dick, who was a relative of hers, and who did nothing all day but fly big kites and write petitions to the king, which he began every morning and never finished. all the neighbors thought miss betsy trotwood a most queer old woman, but those who knew her best knew that she had a very kind heart under her grim appearance. when david reached the house miss betsy was digging at some flowers in the garden. all she saw was a ragged, dirty little boy, and she called out, without even turning her head: "go away; no boys here!" but david was so wretched that he went right in at the gate and went up behind her and said: "if you please, aunt, i'm your nephew." his aunt was so startled at his looks and at what he said, that she sat down plump on the ground; and david, his misery getting all at once the better of him, sobbed out all the pitiful tale of his wrongs and sorrows since his mother had died. miss betsy trotwood's heart was touched. she seized david by the collar, led him into the house, made him drink something and then made him lie down on the sofa while she fed him hot broth. then she had a warm bath prepared, and at last, very tired and comfortable, and wrapped up in a big shawl, david fell asleep on the sofa. that night he was put to bed in a clean room, and before he slept he prayed that he might never be homeless and friendless again. ii little em'ly good fortune was with david now. his aunt wrote to mr. murdstone, and he and his sister came, fully expecting to take the boy back with them, but, instead, miss betsy told mr. murdstone plainly that he was a stony-hearted hypocrite, who had broken his wife's heart and tortured her son, and she ordered him and his sister from the house. david was so delighted at this that he threw his arms around her neck and kissed her, and from that moment miss betsy trotwood began to love him as if he had been her own son. david loved her in return. he drove out with her and helped mr. dick fly his kites and was very grateful. and at length his aunt placed him in a school in dover and found him pleasant lodgings there in the house of her lawyer, mr. wickfield. it was a different sort of school from what his first had been. his teacher was a doctor strong, and the school-boys were not the frightened, ill-treated lot he had known at mr. creakle's house. he was happy there, but his happiest hours of all were those spent, after school was out, at mr. wickfield's. the lawyer had an only daughter, agnes, just david's age, a sweet, gentle girl, who seemed to live for her father, and whom david came to consider before long almost as a sister. one person connected with the lawyer's household whom he did not like so well was uriah heep. heep was a high-shouldered, red-headed, bony young man, with no eyebrows or eyelashes, and with long skeleton fingers. he dressed all in black, and his hands were clammy and cold, like a fish, so that it chilled one to touch them. he never smiled--the nearest he could come to it was to make two creases down his cheeks. he was always cringing and pretending to be humble, but really he was a sneak and a scoundrel at heart. david detested him without knowing why, the more so when he came to see that heep was gaining an influence over agnes's father. all the while, too, heep pretended to like david, though david knew very well he did not. so time went on. david studied hard and was a favorite with both pupils and teachers. at length he was head boy himself, and at seventeen his school life was finished. he parted regretfully from doctor strong and from agnes, and after paying his aunt, miss betsy trotwood, a visit, he started off to yarmouth to see his old nurse, now the wife of barkis, the driver, and just as fond of david as ever. on his way through london, as it happened, david met the old school-fellow whom he had so liked, james steerforth, and, loath to part with him so quickly, he proposed that the latter accompany him to yarmouth. steerforth agreed and they went together. they took dinner at peggotty's and spent the first evening in the old house-boat, where mr. peggotty still lived with ham and mrs. gummidge and little em'ly, the latter now grown to be a lovely girl and engaged to marry ham. they spent some weeks there, each amusing himself in his own way, and soon steerforth was as popular as david had always been, for he sang beautifully and talked entertainingly, and all, from mr. peggotty to little em'ly, thought they had never seen so brilliant and handsome a lad. if david could have read the thoughts that were in steerforth's mind he would have grieved that he had ever brought him to that peaceful, innocent spot. for steerforth had changed since the old school-days when david had been so fond of him. he had learned wickedness, and now, while he was exerting himself in every way to make the peggottys like and admire him, in his heart he was trying to fascinate little em'ly and to steal her love that she had given to ham, till she would leave her home and run away with him to a foreign country. this, however, david could not guess, nor could any of the others, who regretted when the two friends' visit was over. now that his school-days were finished david's aunt had planned for him to study law in an office in london, and accordingly david began his new life there, very near the street where he had once toiled, a wretched, friendless helper, in the dirty warehouse on the dock. he found tommy traddles, who had stood his friend at mr. creakle's school, studying now to be a lawyer also, and boarding, curiously enough, at the house of mr. micawber, who had drifted back to london, still as poor and as hopeful as ever and still "waiting for something to turn up." in spite of these and all his new acquaintances, david was very lonely at first and missed agnes, who all through his life at doctor strong's school had been his friend and adviser. he saw her once when she was visiting in london, and then she had bad news to tell him; her father had been steadily failing in health and business, and little by little uriah heep, his red-headed clerk with the clammy hands, had got him and his affairs into his power and made himself a partner in the firm. david guessed that heep had planned to entrap her father so as to compel agnes herself to marry him, and this suspicion made david despise the clerk more and more. but he knew of no way to help. all this time he often saw steerforth, but never guessed how often the latter had been secretly to see little em'ly or of the wicked part he was playing. but one day david heard that barkis, peggotty's husband (whose early courtship he himself had aided when he took her the message "barkis is willin'") had died, and david went at once to yarmouth to try to comfort his old nurse in her loss. while he was there the blow came which caused such sorrow to all who lived in the old house-boat. little em'ly, the pride and joy of mr. peggotty's tender heart, ran away with steerforth. she left a letter, begging them to forgive her, especially her uncle, mr. peggotty--and bidding them all good-by. it broke mr. peggotty's heart, and ham's, too. and david was scarcely less sorrowful. because, for what he had done, steerforth, whose friendship had been so much to him, could never be his friend again. but nothing could change mr. peggotty's love for little em'ly. he determined to start out and search throughout the world for her; and, meantime, ham and mrs. gummidge were to stay there in the old home, to keep it looking just the same, with a lighted candle in the window every night, so that if little em'ly by any chance came back it would be bright and warm to welcome her. mr. peggotty's parting words to david were: "i'm a-going to seek her far and wide. if any hurt should come to me, remember that the last word i left for her was, 'my unchanged love is with my darling child, and i forgive her.'" iii david and his child-wife though agnes always held a large place in his heart, david was very impressionable. in the next few years he thought himself in love a good many times, but when finally he met dora spenlow, the daughter of one of the members of the law firm with which he was studying, he knew that all his other love-affairs had been only fancies. dora was blue-eyed, with cheeks like a pink sea-shell, and looked like a fairy. david fell head over ears in love with her the first time he ever saw her. he lost his appetite, and took to wearing tight gloves and shoes too small for him, and he used to put on his best clothes and walk around her house in the moonlight and do other extravagant things. they found a good deal of trouble in their love-making, for dora was under the care of none other than the terrible sister of mr. murdstone, who had made david so miserable in his childhood, but he and dora used to meet sometimes, and they sent each other letters through one of dora's girl friends. david, perhaps, would not have done this if he had thought he would have a fair chance to win dora; but with his old enemy, miss murdstone, against him, he was afraid to tell her father of his love. but one day he told it to dora, and she promised to marry him. good luck, however, never comes without a bit of bad luck. soon after this david came home to his rooms one night to find his aunt, miss betsy trotwood, there, with her trunk and mr. dick, kites and all. she told david she had no other place to go; that she had lost all of her money and was quite ruined. this was misfortune indeed, for it seemed to put his hope of marrying dora a great deal further away; but david faced the situation bravely and began at once to look for something to do outside of the law office to earn money enough to support them all. in this trouble agnes was his true friend. he had written her already of his love for dora and she had advised him. through her now he found employment as secretary to his old schoolmaster, doctor strong, who had given up the school at dover and had moved to london. he told dora, of course, all about his changed prospects, but dora was like a little butterfly who knew only how to fly about among flowers; she hardly knew what poverty meant, and thought he was scolding when he told her. david worked hard in the morning at doctor strong's, in the afternoons at the law office, and in the evenings he studied shorthand so he might come to be a newspaper reporter. and all this while he wrote to dora every day. it was one of these letters that at last betrayed their secret. dora dropped it from her pocket and miss murdstone picked it up. she showed it to dora's father and he sent at once for david and told him angrily that he could never marry his child and that he must not see dora any more. and david went home disconsolate. this might have ended their engagement for ever, but that same day dora's father dropped dead of heart-disease. instead of being rich he was found to have left no money at all, and dora was taken to live with two aunts on the outskirts of london. david did not know what was best to do now, so he went to dover to ask agnes's advice. he was shocked at the changes he found there. her father looked ill and scarcely seemed himself. uriah heep, his new partner, with his ugly, fawning way and clammy hands, was living in their house and eating with them at their table. he had obtained more and more power over mr. wickfield and gloried in it. and the other seemed no longer to dare to oppose uriah in anything. but in spite of all this, agnes talked bravely and cheerfully with david. under her direction, he wrote a letter to dora's aunts, declaring his love and asking permission to call, and they, pleased with his frankness, gave their permission. before the year was out david began to earn money with his shorthand, reporting speeches in parliament for a newspaper. he had discovered besides that he could write stories that the magazines were glad to buy. so one day david married dora and they went to housekeeping in a tiny house of their own. life seemed very sweet to them both, though dora, while she was the most loving little wife in the world, knew no more about housekeeping than a bird. the servants stole the silver spoons, and the storekeepers overcharged them, and the house was never tidy or comfortable. for a while david tried to make dora learn these things, but when he chid her the tears would come, and she would throw her arms around his neck and sob that she was only his child-wife after all, and he would end by kissing her and telling her not to mind. she was most like a beautiful toy; and like a toy, she seemed made only to play with, just as she played with her dog jip, instead of helping and encouraging david in his work. but at length dora fell ill--so ill that they knew she was too frail and weak to get well and strong again. david carried her down stairs every day, and every day the burden grew lighter. she never complained, but called him her poor, dear boy, and one day she whispered that she was only his child-wife and could never have been more, so that it was better as it was! agnes came, and was there when dora died. but for her comfort all the world would have been blank for poor david as he sat alone, longing for the child-wife who could never be his again! iv david finds all well at last more than once during this life of david's with his child-wife he had seen mr. peggotty. the brave old man had searched europe for little em'ly in vain; then he had come back to london, feeling somehow that some day she would stray there. he used to walk the streets by night, looking at every face he passed. in the room where he lived he kept a candle always lighted and one of her dresses hanging on a chair for her. after dora's death david joined in the search, and at length they did find poor little em'ly. steerforth had treated her cruelly and finally deserted her, and she had crept back to london heartbroken and repentant, hoping for nothing but to die within sight of those who had loved her so. but nothing had dimmed mr. peggotty's love. wretched as she was, he caught her in his arms, held her to his breast as he had done so often when she was a child, and told her she was still his own little em'ly, just as she had always been. she was ill, but he nursed her back to health. then he went to yarmouth to fetch mrs. gummidge, and they and the little em'ly that had been found took passage for australia, where they might forget the dark past and find happiness in a new life. but before they sailed fate had brought to naught the villainous plot that had been woven by uriah heep about agnes and her father. and the one whom they had most to thank for this was mr. micawber. heep had met mr. micawber once, when the latter, as usual, was in money difficulties, and, thinking to make a tool of him, had hired him for his clerk. little by little heep had then got the other into his debt, till mr. micawber saw no prospect before him but the debtors' prison. threatening him with this, heep tried to compel him to do various bits of dirty and dishonest work, at which the other's soul revolted until at length he made up his mind to expose his employer. so, pretending obedience, mr. micawber wormed himself into all of the sneaking heep's affairs, found out the evidence of his guilt, and finally taking all the books and papers from the office safe, sent for david and his friend tommy traddles and told them all he had discovered. they found it was by forgery that heep had got agnes's father into his power in the first place, and that among others whom he had robbed was david's aunt, miss betsy trotwood, whose fortune he had stolen. david and tommy traddles sent for miss betsy and for agnes and her father, and they faced uriah all together. he tried to brazen it out, but when he saw the empty safe he knew that all was known. they told him the only way he could save himself from prison was by giving back the business to agnes's father, just as it had been years before, when david had lived there, and by restoring to miss betsy trotwood every cent he had robbed her of. this he did with no very good grace and with an especial curse for david, whom he seemed to blame for it all. in reward for mr. micawber's good services, miss betsy and agnes's father paid off all his debts and gave him money enough to take him and his family to australia. they sailed in the same vessel that carried mr. peggotty and little em'ly. before it sailed little em'ly had written a letter to ham, whose promised wife she had been before she ran away with steerforth, begging his forgiveness, and this letter she had asked david to give him after they had gone. accordingly one day he went to yarmouth to do this. that night a terrible storm arose. the wind was so strong that it uprooted trees and threw down chimneys and rolled waves mountain high on the sand where stood the old deserted house-boat of the peggottys. next morning david was awakened with the news that a spanish ship had gone ashore and was fast going to pieces, and he ran to the beach, where all the town was gathered. he could see the doomed vessel plainly where the surf broke over her. her masts had snapped short off and at every wave she rolled and beat the sand as if she would pound herself to fragments. several figures were clinging to the broken masts, and one by one the waves beat them off, and they went down for ever. at length but one was left, and he held on so long that a shout of encouragement went up from the throng. at this ham, the bravest and strongest of all the hardy boatmen there, tied a rope about his waist and plunged into the sea to try to save him. but it was not to be. the same huge wave that dashed the vessel to pieces threw the rescuer back on the sand, dead. the body of the man he had tried to save was washed ashore, too, and it was that of james steerforth, who had so wronged little em'ly! so poor, great-souled ham died, honest and faithful to the last, giving his life for the man who had injured him. and so, too, james steerforth met his fate on the very spot where he had done such evil, for his corpse was found among the fragments of the old peggotty house-boat, which the tempest tore down that night. after this david went abroad and stayed three years. he lived in switzerland, and wrote novels that were printed in london and made him famous there. and now, alone, he had time to think of all that made up his past. he thought of dora, his child-wife, and sorrowed for her, and of the peggottys and little em'ly; but most of all he found himself thinking of agnes, who, throughout his youth, had seemed like his guiding star. so one day he went back to england and told her, and asked her if she would marry him. and with her sweet face on his breast she whispered that she had loved him all her life! david and agnes lived long and happily, and their children had three guardians who loved them all--miss betsy trotwood, david's old nurse, peggotty, and white-haired mr. dick, who taught them to fly kites and thought them the greatest children in the world. tommy traddles, when he had become a famous lawyer, often visited them, and once, too, mr. peggotty, older, but still hale and strong, came back from australia to tell them how he had prospered and grown rich, and had always his little em'ly beside him, and how mr. micawber had ceased to owe everybody money and had become a magistrate, and many other things. david had one thing, however, to tell mr. peggotty, and that was of a certain prisoner he had seen in one of the country's greatest prisons, sentenced for life for an attempt to rob the bank of england, and whose name was--uriah heep. great expectations published - _scene_: london, neighboring towns and the country _time_: to characters philip pirrip an orphan boy known as "pip" joe gargery a blacksmith "mrs. joe" his wife pip's sister uncle pumblechook joe's pompous uncle wopsle clerk of the village church later, an actor orlick a workman of joe's biddy a girl friend of pip's and mrs. joe's nurse later, joe's wife abel magwitch a convict miss havisham an eccentric woman once disappointed in love estella her ward in reality, magwitch's daughter compeyson miss havisham's former suitor and deceiver a convict mr. jaggers lawyer for miss havisham and for magwitch wemmick his clerk mr. pocket pip's tutor mrs. pocket his wife herbert pocket his son. pip's comrade in london great expectations i pip and the convict in england, in a lonely village not far from london, there once lived a little orphan boy named philip pirrip, whom everybody called, for short, "pip." his parents had died when he was a baby, and he had been brought up by his older sister, the wife of joe gargery, a blacksmith whose forge looked out across wide marshes and a river that flowed through them. joe, the blacksmith, was a fair-faced man with flaxen whiskers and very bright blue eyes. he was a mild, honest, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow, tender-hearted and kind to little pip and yet a hercules for strength. very different, indeed, was "mrs. joe," as everybody spoke of her. she was tall and bony and had black hair, a red skin and a continual habit of scolding. she may have loved pip in her way, but that way was a very cross-grained one. she treated joe, the big blacksmith, and pip, the little boy, just alike, and they were both equally in dread of her. this made them quite like partners. whenever pip came into the house he used to look at joe's fingers; if joe crossed them that was a sign mrs. joe was cross and that pip was to look out for himself. joe had an uncle named pumblechook, who was a corn seller in the next town and a pompous old hypocrite. he had a way of standing pip before him, rumpling up his hair and asking him hard questions out of the multiplication table. and whenever he told a story of any one who was ungrateful or wicked he would glower at pip in a way that made him feel very uncomfortable. another who came as often and was almost as dismal to see was wopsle, the clerk, who read the lesson in church every sunday. he had an idea he would make a great actor and used to recite whole pages from shakespeare when he could find any one to listen to him. worst of all was a workman of joe's named orlick. he was a loose-limbed, swarthy, slouching giant with a hangdog look. he used to tell pip that the devil lived in a certain corner of the forge, and once in every seven years the fire had to be rekindled with a live boy. orlick at heart disliked everybody--especially harmless little pip--and often quarreled with mrs. joe. beside the blacksmith, the only one who understood pip was a little girl named biddy, about his own age and an orphan, too. she liked him and used to help him with his lessons at school. but in spite of joe and biddy, pip was sometimes so lonely and miserable that he would steal off alone to the village churchyard, where his father and mother lay buried, to cry. one afternoon--it was the day before christmas--pip was more wretched than usual, and was sitting crying among the graves when suddenly a rough voice spoke behind him. "keep still, you little imp!" it said, "or i'll cut your throat!" with the words a man rose up from behind a tombstone and seized him. he was a fearful-looking man, dressed all in gray clothes, with a great iron band riveted on his leg. his shoes were torn, he had no hat and wore a ragged, dirty handkerchief tied around his head. he was soaked with water, caked with mud and limped and shivered as he walked. he set pip on a tombstone and tilted him so far back that the church steeple seemed to turn a somersault, growling at him in a terrible voice. pip had never been so frightened in his life. with a trembling voice he begged his captor to spare him. the man asked him his name and where he lived, and told him he would let him go on one condition. he had to promise to come next morning at daybreak to a certain spot in the marshes and to bring a file and something to eat. and the man said if pip did not do so, or if he told any one what he was going to do, he would catch him again and cut out his heart and eat it. this terrible threat frightened poor little pip more than ever. his voice shook so that he could hardly promise, and when the man set him down he ran home as fast as his legs would carry him. the evening was a miserable one. pip thought he would save his own supper for the man in case he should not be able to get into his sister's pantry, so instead of eating his bread and butter he slipped it down his trouser-leg. before long a great gun began to boom, and he asked joe what it was. the blacksmith told him that in the river across the marshes were anchored some big hulks of ships, like wicked noah's arks, where convicts were kept prisoners, and that the gun was a signal that some of these convicts had escaped. then pip knew the man he had promised to help was a criminal--perhaps a murderer--who had got away and was hiding from the soldiers. all night he did not sleep. he hated to steal the food, but he felt certain he would be killed if he did not. so at dawn he slipped down stairs, got a file from the forge, unlocked the pantry, took some bread and cheese and a pork pie that uncle pumblechook had sent for christmas dinner, and ran out through the foggy morning to the marshes. he had not got quite there when he came on a man in gray, sitting on the ground, with an iron fetter on his leg. pip thought he was the one he was in search of, but as soon as the other turned his face he saw by a bruise on the cheek that he was not. this second man in gray, as soon as he saw him, sprang to his feet and ran away. greatly wondering, pip went on, and at the right spot he found the man who had frightened him in the graveyard. he seemed now to be almost starved, for he snatched the food and ate it like a hungry dog. he asked pip if he had seen any one else on his way there, and pip told him of the other man in gray who also wore an iron on his leg. he asked pip to describe the other, and when pip told of the bruised cheek, the man he was feeding flew into a rage. he began to curse, and, seizing the file, set to filing like mad at his fetter. pip could see that he hated the other convict, and was sorry he had escaped; but he had fulfilled his promise now, so he turned and ran home again, and the last thing he heard was the rasp of the file as the man worked madly at the iron. very guilty pip felt all that christmas morning. he went to church with joe, and after service uncle pumblechook, wopsle, the clerk, and other company came to dinner. he could not enjoy the good things to eat, for he knew now his sister must discover that the pork pie was gone. just as she went to get it he got up from the table to run away, but as he opened the door he ran plump into a file of soldiers. he was sure at first they had come to arrest him for helping the convict, but he was soon relieved, when the officer at their head explained that they were on their way to search the marshes for the escaped men and wanted the blacksmith to mend a broken handcuff. in the flurry of their arrival the pork pie was forgotten, while joe mended the handcuff in the forge. when the soldiers left, the blacksmith set pip on his broad shoulder, and he and wopsle went striding with them to see the result of the hunt. it was sunset as the party entered the marshes, and the searchers opened out into a wide line. on a sudden all stopped, for a confused shouting had come from the distance. they ran toward it, cocking their guns, and wopsle and joe, with pip on his shoulder, followed. the shouts became plainer and plainer. all at once they came to a ditch and in it the convict pip had fed and the one with the bruised cheek were struggling fiercely together. the soldiers seized and handcuffed them both, the man with the bruised cheek pale and trembling, the other boasting that he had dragged the man he hated back to captivity, even though it cost him his own freedom. while the soldiers were preparing to take their prisoners back, pip's convict saw the boy standing there with joe. pip hoped he would not think he had had anything to do with bringing the soldiers. he was pretty sure the man did not, because he presently told the officer, in every one's hearing, that the night before he had broken into a house where a blacksmith lived, near a church, and had stolen a pork pie. joe heard this and so pip knew that he himself would be clear of any blame. the convicts were taken back to their cells and joe and pip went home to tell the company of their adventure. but neither then nor ever afterward did pip find courage to tell joe the part he had played; for pip loved the honest blacksmith and did not want him to think him worse than he really was. time went on and pip grew older and bigger, and though he never forgot the adventure of the churchyard, yet the memory of it grew dimmer. in the next few years only one thing happened to recall it to him. one evening mrs. joe sent pip to the village inn, the three jolly bargemen, with a message. pip found joe there, sitting with a stranger--a secret-looking man, who held his head on one side and kept one eye perpetually shut as if he were taking aim with a gun. this man, when he heard pip's name, looked at him with a curious wink, and when no one but pip was looking he took out of his pocket, to stir his drink with, the very file pip had stolen from joe's forge. pip knew that minute that the man was a friend of the convict he had aided. when pip left the inn the stranger called him back and gave him a shilling wrapped up in a piece of paper. when he got home mrs. joe (who took the prize away from him) discovered that the piece of paper was in reality two bank-notes, and both joe and she wondered at it. the blacksmith tried next day to find the stranger to restore the money, but he had left the inn. so it always remained a mystery--to all but pip of course, who knew in his heart that the convict had remembered his aid and had taken this means of repaying him. ii the queer miss havisham one day, when pip was considerably older, uncle pumblechook brought mrs. joe word that a miss havisham, a lady who lived in his own town, had heard of pip, and wanted him to come to her house to see her. miss havisham was a very queer lady, indeed; so queer that some said she was crazy. but she was rich, and for this reason mrs. joe scrubbed pip and dressed him in his best clothes and sent him off in care of uncle pumblechook, who took him as far as miss havisham's gate. miss havisham, when a beautiful young lady, had been engaged to marry a man named compeyson, whom she loved very much. he was a wicked, heartless villain, however, and had made her love him only that he might persuade her to give him great sums of money. the marriage day finally was fixed, her wedding-clothes were bought, the house was decorated for the ceremony, the bride-cake was put on the table in the dining-room and the guests arrived. but compeyson, the bridegroom, did not come. miss havisham was dressing for the wedding when she received a cruel note from him telling her he did not intend to marry her. she had put on her white wedding gown and her lace veil and one of her satin slippers--the other lay on the dressing-table. it was exactly twenty minutes to nine o'clock when she read the note. she fainted and afterward lay for a long time ill. when she recovered she laid the whole place waste. she never afterward let the light of day into the old mansion. the shutters were closed, candles were kept always lighted, and all the clocks in the house were stopped at exactly twenty minutes to nine o'clock. not a thing in any room was changed. the bride-cake rotted on the table, the decorations faded on the walls, and day after day miss havisham sat in the dressing-room clad in her wedding gown and veil, with one slipper on, the dead flowers on her table and the trunks for her wedding journey scattered about half-packed. in time she became shrunken and old and the white satin and lace became faded yellow, but she never varied this habit of life. soon after her love disappointment she had written to her lawyer in london, who was named jaggers, asking him to find a baby girl for her to adopt as her own. now mr. jaggers had just defended in court a man named abel magwitch, the tool of compeyson, who had broken miss havisham's heart. compeyson had tempted magwitch into passing some stolen money and they had both been arrested. at the trial compeyson (sneak and liar as he was!) threw all the blame on his comrade, who was duller and less sharp than he, and as a consequence, while compeyson got a light sentence, magwitch, though really the more innocent of the two, had been sent to the prison-ship for a term of many years. these two men, by the way, were the pair who escaped from the hulks into the marshes. magwitch was pip's convict of the churchyard, and compeyson was the one he had dragged back to capture. this magwitch, at the time of his arrest, had a baby daughter, who had fallen into mr. jaggers's care, and in answer to miss havisham's request the lawyer had sent the little girl to her, telling her nothing whatever of the child's parentage. miss havisham had named the child estella, and, seeing she would be a very beautiful woman, had determined to bring her up heartless and cold, to ruin as many men's lives as possible, so as to avenge her own wrongs and broken heart. so estella had grown up in the dismal house, miss havisham's only companion. day by day she became more lovely, and even while she was still a little girl, the same age as pip, miss havisham was impatient to begin teaching her her lesson. this was the reason pip had received his invitation to miss havisham's house. though he had no idea of it, he was intended only as practice for little estella, who under miss havisham's teaching was growing up very fond of admiration and very cold-hearted, too. pip thought miss havisham the strangest lady he had ever seen, and the yellow satin, the candle-lighted rooms, and the stopped clocks seemed to him very odd. but estella was so pretty that from the first moment he saw her he had no eyes for anything else. even though she called him clumsy and common, and seemed to delight in hurting his feelings, pip fell in love with her and could not help himself. miss havisham made them play together and told him to come again the next week. pip went home in very bad humor on account of all the hurts which estella had given his feelings. uncle pumblechook, being very curious to know all about his trip, bullied and questioned him so (beginning as usual with the multiplication table) that pip, perfectly frantic, told him the most impossible tales. he said miss havisham was in a black coach inside the house, and had cake and wine handed to her through the coach window on a golden plate, and that he and she played with flags and swords, while four dogs fought for veal cutlets out of a silver basket. but when uncle pumblechook told joe these wonders, pip was remorseful. he went to the forge and confessed to joe that he had been telling a falsehood, and promised he would never do so again. this visit was the first of many that pip paid to the gloomy house whose shutters were always closed. next time he went he was taken into the chamber where the decayed wedding-cake sat on the table. the room was full of relatives of miss havisham (for it was her birthday), who spent their lives flattering and cringing, hoping when she died she would leave them some money. after a time pip went into the garden and there he met another relative in the person of a pale young gentleman about his own age, but larger, who promptly lowered his head, butted pip in the stomach and invited him to fight. pip was so sure nobody else's head belonged in the pit of his stomach that he obliged him at once, and as practice at the forge had made him tough, it was not many minutes before the pale young gentleman was lying on his back, looking up at him out of an exceedingly black eye and with a bleeding countenance. when estella let pip out of the gate that day he guessed that she had seen the encounter and that somehow it had pleased her, for she gave him her cheek to kiss. yet he knew that at heart she thought him only a coarse, common boy, fit to be treated rudely and insolently. this thought rankled more and more in him. he made up his mind to study and learn, and he got faithful little biddy to teach him all she knew. pip saw no more of the pale young gentleman, though for almost a year he went to miss havisham's every other day. each time he saw estella and found himself loving her more and more. but she was always unkind, and often, when she had been ruder than usual, he saw that miss havisham seemed to take delight in his mortification. sometimes she would fondle estella's hand, and he would hear her say: "that's right! break their hearts, my pride and hope! break their hearts and have no mercy!" one day miss havisham sent for joe, the blacksmith, and gave him a bag of money, telling him that he was not to send pip to her any more, but that he should put him to work and teach him the trade of blacksmithing. so uncle pumblechook took pip to town that very day and had him bound to joe as an apprentice. this was just what pip had once looked forward to with pleasure. but now it made him wretched. through estella's jeers he had come to feel that blacksmithing was common and low. as he helped joe to blow the forge fire, he thought constantly of estella's looks of disdain, yet in spite of all he longed to see her. on his first half-holiday he went to call on miss havisham. but there was no estella. miss havisham told him she had sent her abroad to be educated as a lady, and when the miserable tears sprang to pip's eyes, she laughed. when he got home he confided in biddy. he told her how he loved estella, and that he wanted more than anything else in the world to be a gentleman. meanwhile he began to study hard in any spare time he had, and biddy helped him all she could. pip might have fallen in love with biddy if he had not had estella always in his mind. orlick, joe's helper, indeed, thought he had done so, and it made him hate pip more than ever, for he was in love with biddy himself. he grew morose and quarrelsome and spoke so roughly to mrs. joe one day that she was not satisfied till the blacksmith took off his singed apron and knocked the surly orlick flat in the coal dust. this was a costly revenge for mrs. joe, however. orlick never forgave it, and a few nights after, when no one was at home but herself he crept in behind her in the kitchen and struck her a terrible blow on the head with a piece of iron. hours afterward joe found her lying senseless, and though she lived to recover a part of her senses, she never scolded or spoke again. she grew well enough at last to sit all day in her chair, but was so helpless that biddy came to the house to be her nurse. it chanced that a prisoner had escaped from the prison-boats on the night mrs. joe was injured, and he was thought to be the one who attacked her. but pip suspected orlick all the while. so time went on. once a year, on his birthday, pip went to see miss havisham, but he never saw estella there. and nothing else of particular importance occurred till he had been for four years joe's apprentice. one night, as pip sat with joe before the fire in the three jolly bargemen, they were called out by a gentleman whom pip remembered to have seen once at miss havisham's. it was, as a matter of fact, mr. jaggers, her lawyer, who had sent estella to her as a baby. the lawyer walked home with them, for he had a wonderful piece of news to relate. it was that an unknown benefactor, whose name he was not permitted to tell, intended when he died to leave pip a fortune. in the meantime he wished to have him educated to become a gentleman, and as a lad of great expectations, and, the better to accomplish this, he wished pip to go without delay to london. this great good fortune seemed so marvelous that pip could hardly believe it. he had never imagined miss havisham intended to befriend him, but now he guessed at once that she was this unknown benefactor. and he jumped next to another conclusion even more splendid--that she intended him sometime to marry estella and was even then educating her for him. pip went home almost in a dream, too full of his own prospects to see how sad biddy was beneath her gladness for him, or how sorrowful the good news made joe. that night estella's face came before him, more full of disdain than ever. as he thought of her and of the fine gentleman he was to be, the humble kitchen and forge seemed to grow commoner and meaner by contrast. he began to become a little spoiled and disdainful himself. the news soon spread about, and every one who had looked down upon pip now gave him smiles and flattery. uncle pumblechook wept on his shoulder and (instead of telling him, as usual, that he was sure to come to a bad end) reminded him that he had always been his favorite. mr. jaggers had given pip a generous amount of money to buy new clothes with, and these tended to make him more spoiled than ever. he began to feel condescending toward biddy, and found himself wondering whether, when he should be rich and educated, joe's manners would not make him blush if they should meet. and even when the day came for him to bid them good-by and he climbed aboard the coach for london, he thought more of these things and his own good luck than of the home he was parting from for ever, or of the true and loving hearts he was leaving behind him. this was an ignoble beginning for pip and one that he came afterward to remember with shame! iii pip discovers his benefactor mr. jaggers, the lawyer in whose care pip found himself in london, was sharp and secret, and was so feared by criminals that they would never go near his house, though he never locked his door, even at night. he had a crusty clerk named wemmick, as secret as he and a deal queerer. wemmick lived in a little wooden cottage that he called the castle, and which had its top cut out like a fort. it had a ditch all around it with a plank drawbridge. when he got home from the office in the evening he pulled up the drawbridge and ran up a flag on a flagstaff planted there. and exactly at nine every night he fired off a brass cannon that he kept in a latticework fortress beside it. wemmick was the first one pip met in london, and the clerk took him to the rooms where mr. jaggers had arranged for pip to live, with the son of a gentleman who was to be his teacher. this gentleman was a mr. pocket, a relative (as pip discovered) of miss havisham, which fact made him all the more certain that she was his unknown friend. mr. pocket's son was named herbert, and the minute he and pip first saw each other they burst out laughing. for herbert was none other than the pale young gentleman who, years before in miss havisham's garden, pip had last seen looking up at him out of a very black eye. they were excellent friends from that hour. they occupied the rooms together when they were in london, and pip also had a room of his own at mr. pocket's house in the country. mr. pocket was a helpless scholarly man who depended on mrs. pocket to manage everything, and she depended on the servants. there were seven little pockets of various ages tumbling about the house, and mrs. pocket's only idea of management seemed to be to send them all to bed when any one of them was troublesome. at such times mr. pocket would groan, put his hands in his hair, lift himself several inches out of his chair and then let himself down again. in spite of his oddities, however, mr. pocket was an excellent teacher, and pip in some ways made progress. but his great expectations taught him bad habits. he found it so easy to spend money that he soon overstepped the allowance mr. jaggers had told him was his, and not only had got into debt himself, but had led herbert, who was far poorer, into debt also. joe came to see him only once, and then pip's spoiled eyes overlooked his true, rugged manliness and noted more clearly his awkward manners and halting speech. joe was quick to see this difference in the pip he had known and he did not stay long--only long enough to leave a message from miss havisham: that estella had returned from abroad and would be glad to see him if he came. pip lost no time in making this visit, and started the very next day. the old house looked just the same, but a new servant opened the gate for him: it was orlick, as low-browed and sullen and surly as ever, and pip saw at the first glance that his old hatred was still smoldering. miss havisham was in her room, dressed in the same worn wedding dress, and beside her, with diamonds on her neck and hair, sat estella. pip hardly knew her, she had grown so beautiful. but she was proud and wilful as of old, and though he felt the old love growing stronger every moment, he felt no nearer to her than in those past wretched days of his boyhood. before he left, miss havisham asked him eagerly if estella was not more lovely, and, as he sat by her alone, she drew his head close to her lips and whispered fiercely: "love her, love her, love her! if she favors you, love her! if she tears your heart to pieces, love her, love her, love her!" though this visit took him so near the old forge, pip did not go to see joe and biddy. indeed, only once in the months that followed did he see them--when he went to attend the funeral of mrs. joe. after that he had no need to leave the city to see estella, for miss havisham soon sent her to live in london. from there she required her to write letters weekly, telling how many men she had fascinated and made wretched. pip saw her constantly and tortured himself with the growing belief that miss havisham's training (the purpose of which he had begun to guess) was really succeeding in crushing her heart, and was leaving her with no power to love any one. thus, between hope and despair, pip became of age. mr. jaggers now told him that a certain large sum was his to spend each year. he was deeply in debt and a great part of his first year's portion went to pay his creditors. but with the remainder he did a good and unselfish deed: he bought secretly a share in a good business for herbert, so that his comrade became a partner in it. a great blow was now to fall upon pip without warning--something that changed the whole course of his life. one rainy night, when herbert was away from london, as he sat alone in their rooms, a heavy step stumbled up the stair and a man entered. he was coarse and rough-looking and tanned with exposure, with a furrowed bald head, tufted at the sides with gray hair. there was something strangely familiar to pip in his face, but at first he did not recognize him. seeing this, the stranger threw down his hat, twisted a handkerchief around his head, took a file from his pocket and walked across the room with a curious shivering gait that brought back to pip's mind, like a lightning flash, the scene in the churchyard so many years ago, when he had sat perched on a tombstone looking in terror at that same man's face. and he knew all at once that the man was the escaped convict of that day! it was a strange tale the new-comer told then, one that pip's heart sank to hear. miss havisham had not been his benefactor after all. the one whose money had educated him, had set him there in london to live the life of a gentleman, the one to whom he was indebted for every penny he owned, was abel magwitch, a criminal--the convict for whom he had once stolen food years before! pip sank into a chair trembling as magwitch, in a hoarse voice, told his story. he told how the man compeyson had led him into crime and then deserted him. how he had hated the other so fiercely that after they both had escaped from the prison-hulks he had dragged compeyson back to imprisonment even at the loss of his own liberty. how for that attempt to escape he had been sentenced to transportation for life, and had been sent to botany bay in australia, where in time he became in a measure free, though forbidden under penalty of death to return to england. how he had never forgotten the little pip who had tried to aid him, and how he had sworn that he would repay him many times over. how he had taken to sheep-raising and prospered, and became a rich man. how he had written to mr. jaggers, the lawyer who had defended him, and paid him to find pip and educate him. and how at last he had dared even the death penalty to come to england to see how he fared. his voice shook as he told how he had slaved through all the years, looking forward only to this moment when he should come back to see the little pip whom he had made into a gentleman. poor pip! it was an end to all his dreams of miss havisham and of estella. he shrank from magwitch, horrified at the bare thought of what he owed to him. he forced himself to utter some trembling words and set food before the convict, watching him as he ate like a ravenous old dog. his heart was like lead, all his plans knocked askew. even while he pitied the old man, he shrank from him as if from a wild beast, with all his childish dread increased a hundredfold. at length pip put magwitch in herbert's room to sleep, but all that night he himself lay tossing and sleepless, staring into the darkness and listening to the rain outside. iv pip comes to himself the days that followed were one long agony to pip. when herbert returned he told him the whole story. herbert was shocked and surprised, but he was true to his friendship and together they planned what to do. it was clear to pip that he could not spend any more of magwitch's money; indeed, recoiling from him as he did, he would gladly have repaid every penny if it had been possible. to make the matter worse, it seemed that magwitch had brought a great deal of money with him and was determined that pip should move into a fashionable house, buy fast horses, keep servants and live most expensively. pip hesitated to tell magwitch his decision, however, for what the convict now planned showed how much he had thought of him and loved him in his rough way during all his years in australia. meanwhile he and herbert kept magwitch hidden as much as possible, and gave out that the old man was pip's uncle, on a visit from the country. unluckily, however, magwitch's presence in london had been seen. he had been recognized in the street and followed to pip's rooms. and the man who saw him was his bitterest enemy--compeyson, the breaker of miss havisham's heart, who had first made magwitch a criminal, and whom the convict so hated. compeyson had served out his term, and was now free. he saw his chance to pay the old grudge with magwitch's life. in order, however, to make sure of his capture he decided to entice pip away and bring the police upon magwitch when he would have no one to warn him. meanwhile, unconscious of this plot, pip made a last visit to miss havisham. he felt now that he was again poor and without prospects, and with small hope of winning estella. but finding her there, in miss havisham's presence, he told her how dearly he had always loved her since the first day they had met. she seemed moved by his distress, but her heart had not yet awakened. she told him that she was about to marry one whom he knew for a coarse, brutal man, in every way beneath her. and then pip knew for certain that miss havisham's bitter teaching had borne its fruit at last, and that estella was to marry this man, not because she loved him, but merely as a final stab to all the other worthier ones. in spite of her years of self-torture and revengeful thoughts, miss havisham had still a spark of real pity. as pip reminded her of the wreck she had made of him, through estella, and through allowing him falsely to believe her his benefactor, his agony struck her with remorse. she put her hand to her heart as he ended, and as he left them he saw through his own tears her hand still pressed to her side and her faded face ghastly in the candlelight. sick with despair, pip went back to london, to learn from wemmick, mr. jaggers's friendly clerk, that the rooms were being watched, and that he and herbert (who in the absence of pip had confided in him) had removed magwitch to another lodging--a room overlooking the river, from which it would be easier, if worst came to worst, to get him on a ship and so out of the country. to do this it was necessary to wait for a favorable chance. so pip, providing for magwitch's comfort meantime, bought a boat, and he and herbert rowed daily up and down the river, so that when the time came to row the convict to some sea-going ship they would know the turns of the stream. pip soon learned that compeyson was their spy. wopsle, who in pip's boyhood had been the clerk in the village church, had turned actor (he made, to be sure, a very poor one!), and was now playing in london. in the theater one night he recognized in the audience the pale-faced convict whom he had once, with joe, the blacksmith, and little pip, seen dragged back to capture by his more powerful fellow. pip had long ago learned from magwitch that this man was compeyson, and when wopsle said he had seen him sitting directly back of pip at the play, the latter realized that they had this bitter enemy to reckon with, and that magwitch was in terrible danger. only once was this time of waiting interrupted, and that was by a letter from miss havisham begging pip to come to see her. he went, and she told him she realized now too late how wicked her plans had been, and begged him with tears to try to forgive her. pip, sore as his own heart was, forgave her freely, and he was glad ever afterward that he had done so, for that same evening, while he was standing near her, her yellowed wedding veil, sweeping too near the hearth, caught fire and in an instant her whole dress burst into flame. pip worked desperately to put out the fire, but she was so frightfully burned that it was plain she could not live long. his own hands and arms were painfully injured, so that he returned to london with one arm, for the time being, almost useless. compeyson, meanwhile, made friends with orlick, and between them they wrote pip a letter, decoying him to a lonely hut in the marshes. when he came there orlick threw a noose over his head, tied him to the wall and would have killed him with a great stone-hammer but for herbert, who broke down the door and rushed in just in time to put orlick to flight and to save pip's life. herbert had picked up the letter pip had thrown down, read it, seen in it something suspicious, and had followed from london. pip saw now there was no time to lose if he would save magwitch. they made haste to london, and when night fell, took the convict in the rowboat and rowing a few miles down the river, waited to board a steamer bound for germany. what happened next happened very speedily. they were about to board the steamer when a boat containing compeyson and some police shot out from the bank, compeyson calling on magwitch to surrender. the two boats clashed together, and the steamer, unable to stop, ran them both down. at the same moment magwitch seized compeyson and they went into the water together. when pip came to himself the steamer had gone, his own boat had sunk and he and herbert had been dragged aboard the other. a few minutes later magwitch was picked up, badly injured in the chest, and was handcuffed. but they did not find compeyson--the other had killed him in that fearful struggle under water. that night magwitch was lodged in jail. before many days he was tried for returning to england and was sentenced to be hanged. but it was clear before the trial ended that his injury would never let him live to suffer this penalty. and now, as he saw the convict lying day by day drawing nearer to death, calling him "dear boy" and watching for his face, all the loathing and repugnance pip had felt for him vanished away. he had sat beside the sick man at his trial; now he sat beside his cot each day in his cell, holding his hand. he knew there could be no longer any possibility of his taking the fortune the convict would leave, for, being condemned to death, all magwitch's property went to the crown. but he did not tell this to magwitch. one thing he discovered, however, which he told the dying man. this concerned estella. as the film of death came over the convict's face pip said: "dear magwitch, you had a child once, whom you loved and lost. she is living still. she is a lady and very beautiful. and i love her!" and hearing this last glad news, magwitch died. before this happened herbert had left england for egypt where his business took him. left alone, after the strain, pip fell sick of a fever and in the midst of this found himself arrested for debt. that was the last he knew for many weeks. when he came to himself he found joe, the true-hearted blacksmith, nursing him. he had paid pip's debts. miss havisham was dead and orlick had been sent to jail for robbing uncle pumblechook's house. joe's faithfulness smote pip with a sense of his own ingratitude. after a visit to the old forge with joe and biddy, now joe's wife, pip felt how true were the old friends. he buried for ever the past false pride and folly and knew himself for all his trials a nobler man. he sailed to egypt, where he became a clerk in herbert's business house, and finally a partner, and it was eleven years before he was in england again. then, one day he went down to the old ruined house where miss havisham had lived. he entered the weed-grown garden, and there on a bench, a sad, beautiful widow, sat estella. her husband had treated her brutally till he died, and she had learned through suffering to know that she had a heart and had thrown away the one thing that could have made her happy--pip's love. when pip and she left the old house that day it was hand in hand, never to part again. life and adventures of nicholas nickleby published _scene_: london, portsmouth and the country _time_: about characters nicholas nickleby a young gentleman mrs. nickleby his mother kate his sister ralph nickleby his uncle a miserly money-lender noggs ralph nickleby's clerk squeers the proprietor of dotheboys hall, a country school for boys mrs. squeers his wife fanny their daughter wackford their son smike a poor drudge at dotheboys hall befriended by nicholas. in reality ralph nickleby's son madame mantalini a london dressmaker kate's first employer mr. mantalini her husband miss knag her forewoman sir mulberry hawk a dissolute man of the world lord frederick verisopht a young nobleman hawk's friend mr. vincent crummles manager of a theater in portsmouth mrs. crummles his wife ninetta their daughter known as "the infant phenomenon" mrs. wititterly a would-be fashionable lady kate's second employer the cheeryble brothers twin merchants nicholas's benefactors bray a spendthrift and invalid madeline his daughter gride a miser nicholas nickleby i nicholas at dotheboys hall once on a time, in england, there were two brothers named nickleby who had grown up to be very different men. ralph was a rich and miserly money-lender who gained his wealth by persecuting the poor of london--a thin, cold-hearted, crafty man with a cruel smile. the other, who lived in the country, was generous but poor, so that when he died he left his wife and two children, nicholas and kate, with hardly a penny to keep them from starving. in their trouble the mother decided to go and try to obtain help from her husband's brother, ralph nickleby. ralph was angry when he learned they had come to london, for he loved his gold better than anything else in the world. he lived in golden square, a very rich part of the city, in a great fine house, all alone save for one servant, and he kept only one clerk. this clerk, who was named noggs, had one glass eye and long, bony fingers which he had an uncomfortable habit of cracking together when he spoke to any one. he had once been rich, but he had given his money to ralph nickleby to invest for him, and the money-lender had ended by getting it all, so that the poor man at last had to become the other's clerk. when he first saw nicholas and kate, noggs was sorry enough for them, because he knew it would be little help they would get from their stingy uncle. nicholas was proud-mettled, and his very bearing angered the money-lender. he called him a young puppy, and a pauper besides, to which nicholas replied with heat and spirit. his mother succeeded in smoothing things over for the time, and though ralph nickleby from that moment hated the boy, he grudgingly promised her to get him a situation as a teacher. the school the miser selected was one called dotheboys hall, a long, cold-looking, tumble-down building, one story high, in a dreary part of the country. it belonged to a man named squeers, a burly, ruffianly hypocrite, who pretended to the world to be a kind, fatherly master, but in fact treated his pupils with such cruelty that almost the only ones ever sent there were poor little orphans, whose guardians were glad to get rid of them. squeers had an oily, wrinkled face and flat shiny hair, brushed straight up from his forehead. his sleeves were too long and his trousers too short, and he carried a leather whip about in his pocket to punish the boys with. mrs. squeers was a fat woman, who wore a soiled dressing-gown, kept her hair in curl papers all day, and always had a yellow handkerchief tied around her neck. she was as cruel as her husband. they had one daughter and a son named wackford. the latter they kept as plump as could be, so he would serve as an advertisement of the school; the rest of the boys, however, were pale and thin. no wonder, for they got almost nothing to eat. for dinner all they had was a bowl of thin porridge with a wedge of bread for a spoon. when they had eaten the porridge they ate the spoon. once a week they were forced to swallow a dreadful mixture of brimstone and sulphur, because this dose took away their appetites so that they ate less for several days afterward. they were made to sleep five in a bed, and were poorly clothed, for whenever a new boy came mrs. squeers took his clothes away from him for wackford, and made the new boy wear any old ones she could find. they were allowed to write only letters telling how happy they were there, and when letters came for any of them, mrs. squeers opened them first and took for herself any money that they contained. there was no attempt at teaching at dotheboys hall. the books were dirty and torn and the classes were scarecrows. all the boys were made to work hard at chores about the place, and were flogged almost every day, so that their lives were miserable. what squeers wanted was the money their guardians paid him for keeping them. this was the kind of school for which nicholas found himself hired at very low wages as a teacher. he knew nothing about it yet, however, and thought himself lucky and his uncle kind as he bade his mother and kate good-by and took the coach for dotheboys hall. noggs, ralph nickleby's one-eyed clerk, was there to see him off, and put a letter into his hand as he started. nicholas was so sad at leaving the two he loved best in the world, that he put it into his pocket and for the time forgot all about it. on his arrival next day nicholas's heart sank into his boots. when he saw the boys gathered in the barn, which served for a school-room, he was ready to die with shame and disgust to think he was to be a teacher in such a place. but he had no money to take him back to london, and because he did not want to make his mother and kate unhappy, he wrote them as cheerfully as he could. the letter noggs had given him he remembered at last to read. it told him the writer feared his uncle had deceived him in regard to the school, and said if nicholas needed a friend at any time, he would find one in him, noggs. these kind words from the old clerk brought tears to nicholas's eyes. of all the wretched boys there nicholas pitied most a poor fellow named smike, whom squeers had made a drudge. he was tall and lanky and wore a little boy's suit, too short in the arms and legs. he had been placed there when a child, and the man who had brought him had disappeared and left no money to pay for his keep. squeers's cruelties had made the unfortunate lad simple-minded. besides this he was lame. nicholas helped smike all he could, and the poor fellow was so grateful that he followed the other about like a slave. squeers's daughter was named fanny. she had red hair, which she wore in five exact rows on the top of her head. she thought herself very beautiful and at once fell in love with nicholas. as he could not help showing that he did not like her, miss fanny grew spiteful and in revenge began to persecute smike, knowing nicholas liked him. smike stood this as long as he could, but at last one day he ran away. squeers was furious. he took one chaise and mrs. squeers another, and off they went in different directions to find him. nicholas was miserable, for he knew smike would be caught. sure enough, on the second day mrs. squeers returned, dragging her victim. when squeers arrived smike was taken from the cellar, where he had been locked up, and brought before the assembled boys for a public thrashing. at the rain of brutal blows which began nicholas's blood boiled. he stepped forward, crying "stop!" for answer squeers struck him savagely in the face with his heavy ruler. then nicholas threw away his self-control, and leaping on the bully, to the unmeasured delight of the boys, took the ruler from him and thrashed him until he cried for mercy. all the while mrs. squeers was trying to drag the victor away by his coat tails, while the spiteful miss fanny threw inkstands at his head. when his arm was tired nicholas gave squeers a final blow, which knocked him senseless into a corner, coolly went to his room, packed his few belongings in a bundle and left dotheboys hall for ever. he was two hundred and fifty miles from london and had very little money. snow was falling and for that night he took refuge in an empty barn. in the morning he awoke, startled, to see a figure sitting by him. it was smike, who had followed him. the poor creature fell on his knees. "let me go with you!" he cried. "i want no clothes and i can beg my food. i will be your faithful servant. only let me go with you." "and so you shall!" said nicholas. "come!" he rose, took up his bundle, gave his hand to smike and so they set out toward london together. ii nicholas becomes an actor meanwhile ralph nickleby, the money-lender, had given kate and her mother leave to live in a rickety, unoccupied house which he owned. it was a dingy building on an old wharf, but noggs, the clerk, himself cleaned and furnished one of its rooms so that it was fairly comfortable. when they were settled ralph took kate to a dressmaker's, where he got her a situation, hoping thus they would not call on him for any money. the dressmaker called herself madame mantalini. her real name was muntle, but she thought the other sounded better. her husband was a plump, lazy man with huge side-whiskers, who spent most of the time curling them and betting on horse-races. he gambled away all the money madame mantalini made, but he pretended to be terribly fond of her, and was always calling her his "little fairy" and his "heart's delight," so that the silly woman always forgave him. he tried to kiss kate the first day, which made her detest him. at madame mantalini's kate had to stand up all day trying on dresses for rich ladies, who were often rude to her. and because they preferred to be waited on by the pretty, rosy-cheeked girl, miss knag, the ugly forewoman, hated the child, and did all she could to make her unhappy. kate's mother used to wait each evening on the street corner outside, and they would walk home together. they had no idea what trouble nicholas was having all this time, because he had written them such cheerful letters, and whenever they felt sadder than usual they would comfort themselves by thinking how well he was getting along and what a fine position he had. if they could have seen him when he finally got to london after running away from dotheboys hall, they would hardly have known him. both he and poor smike were hungry and muddy and tired. remembering noggs's kind letter, nicholas went first to the little garret where the clerk lived, and through him he found a cheap room on the roof of the building, which he rented for himself and smike. then he started out to find his mother and kate. he would have hastened if he had guessed what was happening or how badly kate had been treated by ralph nickleby. the evening before, as it happened, kate had been invited to dinner at her uncle's fine house, and there she had met two dissipated young men--lord frederick verisopht and sir mulberry hawk, the latter of whom had looked at her and talked to her so rudely that she had indignantly left the table and gone home. she had not slept a wink that night, and the next morning, to make her and her mother more wretched still, ralph nickleby called with a letter he had just received from fanny squeers, declaring that nicholas was a thief and a scoundrel; that he had tried to murder her father and all his family, and had run off with one of the pupils of dotheboys hall. to be sure, neither of them believed it, but if made them very unhappy. and then, just as ralph was reading them the last line of the letter, in came nicholas! you may be sure he comforted them and told them it was a lie. he told ralph what he thought of him also in stern language, which made his uncle angrier than ever. then, seeing that his presence was making things worse, and realizing in what poverty his dear ones were, and that they were so wholly dependent on ralph for help, nicholas came to a very brave determination. he told them that, as he could not help them himself, he would go away from them until his fortune bettered. so, bidding them good-by, and telling his uncle he should keep watch over them and that if any harm came to them he would hold him accountable, nicholas went sadly back to his garret room and to smike. he tried hard for some days to find a situation, but failed, and he would not take money from noggs, who was so poor himself. so at last, with smike, he set out on foot for portsmouth, which was a seaport, thinking there they might find a chance to go as sailors in some ship. at an inn on the way, however, nicholas met a man who caused him to change all his plans. this man was a mr. vincent crummles. when nicholas first saw him in the inn he was teaching his two sons to make-believe fight with swords. they were practising for a play, for mr. crummles was manager of a theater in portsmouth, and he proposed that nicholas join the company and become an actor. there seemed nothing else to do, so nicholas agreed, and next day they went to the portsmouth theater, where he was introduced to all the company. it was a very curious mixture. there was mrs. crummles, who took the tickets, and little miss crummles, whom the bills called "the infant phenomenon," and who was always said to be only ten years old. there was a slim young man with weak eyes who played the lover, and a fat man with a turned-up nose who played the funny countryman, and a shabby old man whose breath smelled of gin, who took the part of the good old banker with the gray side-whiskers. then there was the lady who acted the rôle of the wicked adventuress, and all the others. nicholas had to begin by writing a play which had parts for all of them, and it proved a great success. smike, whom he drilled himself, took the part of a hungry boy, and he looked so starved, naturally, from his life with squeers, that he was tremendously applauded. one of the other actors was so jealous at the play's success that he sent nicholas a challenge to a duel, but nicholas walked on to the stage before the whole company and knocked the actor down, and after that he had no trouble and was a great favorite. he might have stayed a long time at mr. crummles's theater, for he had earned quite a good deal of money, but one day he got a letter from noggs, the clerk, telling him that all was not well with his mother and kate. and without waiting an hour, nicholas resigned from the company and, with smike, set out again for london. iii nicholas comes to kate's rescue noggs was right. ralph nickleby had never ceased to persecute kate and her mother. in fact, when he had invited kate to the dinner at which she had been insulted, it was for his own evil purpose. he had done so, hoping she might impress the foolish young lord verisopht, whose money he was hoping to get, and whom he wished to attract to his house. the young nobleman, as ralph had intended, fell in love with kate's sweet face at once, and found out from her uncle where she lived. she had lost her first position at the dressmaker's (for mr. mantalini had thrown away his wife's money on race-horses until the sheriff had seized the business), and she was acting now as companion to a mrs. wititterly, a pale, languid lady who considered herself a very fashionable person indeed, and was always suffering from imaginary ailments. lord frederick and sir mulberry hawk came often to the house, pretending to flatter mrs. wititterly, but really to see kate, who heartily disliked them both. mrs. wititterly at last came to realize that the two men at whose attentions she had felt so flattered really cared only for her young companion, and, being vain and jealous, she tormented and scolded kate till the poor girl's life was a burden. at length, feeling that she could endure it no longer, kate went to ralph and begged him with tears to help her find another situation, but the money-lender refused to aid her. noggs, the clerk, was sorry for her, but could do nothing except write to nicholas, and this was the reason for the letter that had brought nicholas post-haste back to london. just what kind of persecution kate had had to bear he learned by accident almost as soon as he got there. as he sat in a coffee-house he suddenly heard the words, "little kate nickleby," spoken by a man behind him. he turned and listened. four men whom he had never seen were drinking toasts to her, and nicholas grew hot with rage at the coarse words they used. sitting there, scarcely able to contain himself, he heard the whole story of his uncle ralph's plot, he heard his sister's sufferings derided, her goodness jeered at, her beauty made the subject of insolent jests. one of the four men, of course, was lord frederick verisopht, and the coarsest and the most vulgar of them all, as may be guessed, was sir mulberry hawk. white with anger, nicholas confronted the party and, throwing down his card on the table, declared that the lady in question was his sister, and demanded of hawk his name. hawk refused to answer. nicholas called him a liar and a coward, and seating himself, swore the other should not leave his sight before he knew who he was. when hawk attempted to enter his carriage nicholas sprang on to the step. the other, in a fury, struck him with the whip, and nicholas, wrenching it from him, with one blow laid open hawk's cheek. the horse, frightened at the struggle, started off at a terrific speed, and nicholas felt himself hurled to the ground. as he rose, he saw the runaway horse, whirling across the pavement, upset the carriage with a crash of breaking glass. nicholas had no doubt that the man it held had been frightfully hurt if not killed. he felt faint from his own fall, and it was with difficulty that he reached noggs's garret, whither, before the adventure in the coffee-room, he had sent smike to announce his coming. his first step now was to write a letter to ralph, telling him he at last knew what a villain he was, and that he and his mother and sister cast him off for ever, with shame that they had ever asked his aid. the next day nicholas took kate from the wititterly house and his mother from her poor lodging, and rented them rooms in another part of the city. then he started out to find some employment for himself. for a long time he was unsuccessful, but one day (and a very lucky day nicholas thought it ever afterward) he met on the street a round-faced, jolly-looking old gentleman, with whom he fell into conversation, and before long, almost without knowing it, he had told him all his troubles. this old gentleman was named cheeryble, and the firm to which he belonged was cheeryble brothers. he and his twin brother had come to london, barefoot, when they were boys, and though they had grown very rich, they had never forgotten what it was to be poor and wretched. the old gentleman asked nicholas to come with him to his office and there they met the other mr. cheeryble. nicholas could scarcely tell the two brothers apart, for they were like as two peas. they were precisely the same size, wore clothes just alike and laughed in the same key. each had even lost exactly the same number of teeth. they were loved by everybody, for they went through life doing good wherever they could. they both liked nicholas at once, and the upshot was that they gave him a position in their counting-room and rented a pleasant cottage near by for his mother and kate. so there nicholas took up work and they were all happy and comfortable--very different from ralph nickleby, the money-lender, in his fine house, with only the memory of his own wickedness for company. iv what happened to everybody ralph nickleby's hatred had been growing day by day. as he could not harm nicholas now, he tried to hurt him through smike. he sent for squeers, and the latter, finding smike alone one day on the street, seized him, put him in a coach and started to take him back to dotheboys hall. but luckily his victim escaped and got back to london. then ralph formed a wicked plot to get smike surely into their hands. he hired a man to claim that he was the boy's father, who had first taken him to squeers's school. squeers, too, swore to this lying tale. but the cheeryble brothers suspected the story, and when ralph saw they were determined to help nicholas protect smike, he was afraid to go any further with the plan. so he smothered his rage for the time being, and meanwhile a most important thing happened to nicholas--he fell in love! it came about in this way: there was a man named bray, who had been arrested for debt and was allowed to live only in a certain street under the guardianship of the jailer, for this was the law in england then. he was slowly dying of heart-disease, and all the money he had to live on was what his only daughter, a lovely girl named madeline, earned by painting and selling pictures. the cheeryble brothers had learned of their poverty, (for it was hard for madeline to find purchasers), and they sent nicholas to buy some of the pictures. he was to pretend to be a dealer, so that madeline would not suspect it was done for charity. nicholas went more than once and soon had fallen very much in love with madeline bray. he was not the only one who admired her, however. there was an old man named gride, almost as stingy as ralph nickleby, who had discovered by accident that a large sum of money really belonged to madeline, which she and her father knew nothing about, and he thought it would be a fine thing to marry her and thus get this fortune into his hands. now, ralph nickleby was one of the men who was keeping bray a prisoner, and so gride went to him and asked him to help him marry madeline. if bray made his daughter marry the old miser he himself was to be set free. ralph, for his share, was to get some of the money the old man gride knew should be madeline's. it was a pretty plan and it pleased ralph, for he cared little what lives he ruined so long as he got money by it. so he agreed, and soon convinced bray (who, ill as he was, was utterly selfish) that it would be a fine thing for madeline to marry the hideous old gride and so free her father. at length, in despair, because she thought it her duty to her heartless father, madeline consented to do so. nicholas might never have known of this till after the wedding, but luckily noggs, the clerk, had overheard the old skinflint make the bargain with ralph, and when one day nicholas confessed that he was in love with madeline, the good-hearted clerk told him all that he had found out. nicholas was in great trouble, for he loved madeline very dearly. he went to her and begged her not to marry gride, but she thought it her duty. he went to gride, too, but the hideous old miser only sneered at him. at last, in desperation, he told kate, and the brother and sister went together to bray's house. they reached it just as the wedding was about to begin. ralph nickleby, who was there, foamed with fury to find the nephew he so hated again stepping between him and his evil designs. he tried to bar them out, but nicholas forced him back. they would doubtless have come to blows, but at that moment there came from another room the sound of a fall, and a scream from madeline. the excitement had proved too much for her father. his heart had failed and he had fallen dead on the floor. thus providence interfered to bring the wicked scheme of the marriage to naught. vainly did gride bemoan the loss of the money he had hoped to gain, and vainly did ralph nickleby, with curses, try to prevent. nicholas thrust them both aside, lifted the unconscious madeline as easily as if she had been a baby, placed her with kate in a coach and, daring ralph to follow; jumped up beside the coachman and bade him drive away. he took her to his own home, where his mother and kate cared for her tenderly till she had recovered from the shock and was her own lovely self again. the penalty that he had so long deserved was soon to overtake ralph nickleby. he lost much of his wealth through a failure, and close on the heels of this misfortune came the news that the infamous plot he had formed against smike had been discovered and that squeers, his accomplice, had been arrested. the most terrible blow came last. a man whom ralph had long ago ruined and had caused to be transported for a crime, confessed that he had been the one who, many years before, had left smike at dotheboys hall, and he confessed also that smike was really ralph nickleby's own son by a secret marriage. ralph had not known this, because the man, in revenge, had falsely told him the child was dead. the knowledge that, in smike, he had been persecuting his own son was the crowning blow for cruel ralph nickleby. when he heard this he locked himself up alone in his great house and never was seen alive again. his body was found in the garret where he had hanged himself to a rafter. poor smike, however, did not live to sorrow over the villainy of his father. the exposure and hardships of his years at squeers's school had broken his health. he had for long been gradually growing weaker, and at last one day he died peacefully, with nicholas's arms around him. every one of whose villainy this story tells came to a bad end. sir mulberry hawk quarreled with young lord verisopht and shot him dead in the duel that followed. for this he himself had to fly to a foreign country, where he finally died miserably in jail. gride, the miser who had plotted to marry madeline, met almost as terrible a fate as ralph's. his house was broken into by burglars one night and he was found murdered in his bed. squeers was declared guilty and transported for seven years. when the news reached dotheboys hall such a cheer arose as had never been heard there. it came on the weekly "treacle day," and the boys ducked young wackford in the soup kettle and made mrs. squeers swallow a big dose of her own brimstone. then, big and little, they all ran away, just as nicholas and smike had done. kate married a nephew of the cheeryble brothers, and nicholas, of course, married madeline, and in time became a partner in the firm. all of them lived near by, and their little children played together under the watchful care of old noggs, the one-eyed clerk, who loved them all alike. the children laid flowers every day on poor smike's grave, and often their eyes filled with tears as they spoke low and softly of the dead cousin they had never known. dealings with the firm of dombey and son wholesale, retail, and for exportation published - _scene_: london, brighton, and france _time_: about to characters mr. dombey a london merchant head of the firm of dombey and son "little paul" his son florence his daughter called by little paul, "floy" edith granger a widow later, mr. dombey's wife walter gay a clerk for dombey and son later, florence's husband solomon gills his uncle a ship's instrument maker. known as old sol captain cuttle a retired seaman bosom friend of old sol's carker manager for dombey and son mrs. pipchin proprietress of a children's boarding-house at brighton later, mr. dombey's housekeeper doctor blimber proprietor of a boys' school at brighton major bagstock a retired army officer diogenes doctor blimber's dog later a pet of florence's dombey and son i little paul in london there was once a business house known as dombey and son. it had borne that name for generations, though at the time this story begins mr. dombey, the head of the house, had no son. he was a merchant, hard, cold and selfish, who thought the world was made only for his firm to trade in. he had one little daughter, florence, but never since her birth had he loved or petted her because of his disappointment that she was not a boy. when at last a son was born to him it wakened something at the bottom of his cold and heavy heart that he had never known before. he scarcely grieved for his wife, who died when the baby was born, but gave all his thought to the child. he named him paul, and began at once to long for the time when he should become old enough to be a real member of the firm in which all his own interest centered--dombey and son. he hired the best nurse he could find, and, when he was not at his office, would sit and watch the baby paul hour after hour, laying plans for his future. so selfishly was the father's soul wrapped up in this that he scarcely ever noticed poor, lonely little florence, whose warm heart was starving for affection. little paul's nurse was very fond of him, and of his sister, too; but she had children of her own also, and one day, instead of walking up and down with florence and the baby near the dombey house, she took the children to another part of the city to visit her own home. this was a wrong thing to do, and resulted in a very unhappy adventure for florence. on their way home a mad bull broke away from his keepers and charged through the crowded street. there was great screaming and confusion and people ran in every direction, florence among the rest. she ran for a long way, and when she stopped, her nurse was nowhere to be seen. terrified to find herself lost in the great city, she began to cry. the next thing she knew, an ugly old woman, with red-rimmed eyes and a mouth that mumbled all the while, grasped her by the wrist and dragged her through the shabby doorway of a dirty house into a back room heaped with rags. "i want that pretty frock," said she, "and that little bonnet and your petticoat. come! take them off!" florence, dreadfully frightened, obeyed. the old woman took away her shoes, too, and made her put on some filthy ragged clothing from the heaps on the floor. then she let her go, first making her promise she would not ask any one to show her the way home. the poor child could think of nothing else but to find her father's office at dombey and son's, and for two hours she walked, asking the way of everybody she met. she might not have found it at all, but at a wharf where she wandered, there happened to be a young clerk of dombey and son's, and the minute he was pointed out to her she felt such trust in his bright and open face that she caught his hand and sobbed out all her story. this lad's name was walter gay. he lived with his uncle, honest old solomon gills, a maker of ship's instruments, who kept a little shop with the wooden figure of a midshipman set outside. very few customers ever came into the shop, and, indeed, hardly any one else, for old sol, as the neighbors called him, had only one intimate friend. this friend was a retired seaman named captain cuttle, who always dressed in blue, as if he were a bird and those were his feathers. he had a hook instead of a hand attached to his right wrist, a shirt collar so large that it looked like a small sail, and wherever he went he carried in his left hand a thick stick that was covered all over (like his nose) with knobs. captain cuttle used to talk on land just as if he were at sea. he would say "steady!" and "belay, there!" and called old sol "shipmate," as though the little shop, in which he spent his evenings, was a ship. he had a deep, rumbling voice, in which he would sing _lovely peg_, the only song he knew, and which he never but once got through to the last line. but in spite of his queer ways and talk, captain cuttle had the softest, kindest heart in the world. he thought old solomon gills the greatest man alive, and was as fond as possible of "wal'r," as he called the nephew. and, indeed, walter was a handsome boy, and as good as he was handsome. walter soothed florence's tears and took her, ragged clothes and all, straight home to solomon gills's shop, where his uncle gave her a warm supper, while walter ran to the dombey house with the news that she was found, and to bring back a dress for her to wear. so florence's adventure turned out very well in one way, since through it she first met walter gay; but it turned out badly in another way, for mr. dombey was angry that any one should have seen a daughter of his in such a plight, and, unjustly enough, treasured this anger against walter. florence, however, never forgot her rescuer after that day, and as for walter, he fell quite in love with her. florence loved her little brother very dearly, but paul, in the constant companionship of his father, grew up without boys or play. his face was old and wistful, and he had an old-fashioned way of sitting, brooding in his little arm-chair beside his father, looking into the fire. he used to ask strange, wise questions, and the only time he seemed childlike at all was when he was with florence. he was never strong and well, like her, but he grew tired easily, and used to say that his bones ached. mr. dombey at length grew anxious about paul's health and sent him with florence to brighton, a town on the sea-coast, to the house of a mrs. pipchin, a stooped old lady with a mottled face, a hooked nose and a hard gray eye. mrs. pipchin took little children to board, and her idea of "managing" them was to give them everything they didn't like and nothing they did like. she lived in a gloomy house, so windy that it always sounded to any one in it like a great shell which one had to hold to his ear whether he liked it or not. the children there stayed most of the time in a bare room they called "the dungeon," with a big ragged fireplace in it. they, had only bread and butter and rice to eat, while mrs. pipchin had tea and mutton chops and buttered toast and other nice things. little paul's father did not know what a dreary place this was for a child, or doubtless he would not have sent him there. mr. dombey knew so little about children that it seemed as if he had never been a child himself. paul was not happy--except when he was out on the beach with florence, who used to draw him in a little carriage and sing to him and tell him stories. once a week mr. dombey came to brighton and then she and little paul would go to his hotel to take tea with him. paul seemed to find a curious fascination in mrs. pipchin. he would sit by the hour before the fire looking steadily at her, where she sat with her old black cat beside her, till his gaze quite disturbed her. he did not care to play with other children--only with florence, whom he called "floy." often, as they sat together on the beach, he would ask her what it was the sea was always saying, and would rise up on his couch to listen to something he seemed to hear, far, far away. walter gay, meanwhile, in london, was working away and thinking often of florence. he was greatly worried about his uncle solomon, for the business of the old instrument maker was in a bad way, and old sol himself was melancholy. one day walter came home from his work at dombey and son's to find that an officer had taken possession of the shop and all that was in it for debt. his old uncle sol was sobbing like a child, and not knowing what else to do, he went post-haste for captain cuttle. he found the captain with his hat on, peeling potatoes with a knife screwed into the wooden socket in his wrist instead of the hook. when he told him what had happened, captain cuttle jumped up, put all the money he had, his silver watch, some spoons and a pair of sugar-tongs into his pocket and went back at once with him to the shop. but the debt, he found, was far too big to be thus paid, and captain cuttle advised walter to go to mr. dombey and ask him to help them, or else everything in the shop would have to be sold, and that would kill old solomon gills. it was saturday, and mr. dombey had gone to see little paul, so walter and captain cuttle took the next coach for brighton. they found him with the children at breakfast, and walter, discouraged by his cold look, faltered lamely through his story, while captain cuttle laid on the table the money, the watch, the spoons and the sugar-tongs, offering them to help pay the debt. mr. dombey was astonished at his strange appearance and indignant at being annoyed by such an errand, so that florence, seeing his mood and walter's trouble, began to sob. little paul, however, stood looking from walter to his father so intently and wisely that the latter, telling him he was one day to be a part of dombey and son, asked him if he would like to loan walter the money. paul joyfully said yes, and mr. dombey, telling walter that it was to be considered a loan from the boy, gave him a note which would at once release his uncle from his difficulty. so walter and captain cuttle went gladly back to london. soon after this, when paul was six years old, his father thought he should be studying, so he put him in a school next door to mrs. pipchin's. the master was doctor blimber, a portly gentleman in knee-breeches, with a bald head and a double chin. he made all the boys there study much too hard; even those only six years old had to learn greek and history. poor little paul did the best he could, but such difficult tasks made him giddy and dull. it was only the saturdays he enjoyed; these he spent with florence on the seashore or in mrs. pipchin's bare room. paul would have broken down sooner under doctor blimber's system but that florence bought all the books he studied and studied them herself, so as to help him on saturdays. people called him "old-fashioned," and that troubled him a great deal, but he tried to love even the old watch-dog at doctor blimber's, and before the holidays came everybody in the school liked him. but before the term ended little paul fell sick. he seemed not to be ill of any particular disease, but only weak; so weak he had to sit propped up with pillows at the entertainment doctor blimber gave on the final evening. after that everything was hazy until he found himself, somehow, at home in bed, with florence beside him. he lay there day after day, watching and dreaming. he dreamed often of a swift, silent river that flowed on and on, and he wanted to stop it with his hands. "why will it never stop, floy?" he would ask her. "it is bearing me away, i think." there were many shadowy figures that came and went. one came often and sat long, but never spoke. one day he saw it was his father, and he called out to it: "don't be so sorry for me, dear papa. indeed, i am quite happy." once he roused himself, and there were many about the bed: florence, his father, his old nurse and walter gay, and he called each by name and waved his hand to them. florence took him in her arms and he heard the swift river flowing. "how fast it runs, floy! it is taking me with it. there is a shore before me now. who is standing on the bank?" he put his hands together behind her neck, as he had been used to do at his prayers. "mama is like you, floy," he said. "i know her by her face. the light about the head is shining upon me as i go." so little paul died. ii how florence lost her father it was a sad, sad house for many days after that, and florence, in her loneliness, often thought her heart would break. her father she scarcely ever saw, for he sat alone in his room. every night she would steal down the dark hall to his door, and lay her head against the panels, hungering for a little love; but he thought only of his dead son, and gave no sign of tenderness to her. one of doctor blimber's pupils begged for and brought her diogenes, the old watch-dog which little paul had petted at the school and this dog was all she had to love. she had not seen walter gay since the death of her brother, though he himself thought of her very often. walter's prospects, thanks to an enemy he had made without knowing it, had changed since then. this enemy was carker, the manager at dombey and son's. carker was a thin man, with the whitest, most regular teeth, which he continually showed in an unpleasant smile. there was something cat-like about him; the more he disliked a person the wider was his smile. carker had a brother whom he hated, and walter unconsciously earned his enmity by liking and being kind to this brother. mr. dombey was not fond of walter either, the less so because florence liked him, and disliking florence, he disliked all for whom she cared. so, between mr. dombey and carker, walter was ordered to go, on business for the firm, on a long voyage to the west indies. walter was not deceived. he knew he was not sent there for his own good, but in order not to worry his uncle he and captain cuttle pretended that it was a splendid opportunity. so old solomon gills tried not to sorrow for his going. florence heard of the voyage, and, the night before walter sailed, in she came to the little shop where walter had brought her years before when she had been lost. she kissed old sol and called walter her brother, and said she would never forget him. and so walter, when next day he sailed away, waving his hand to his uncle and captain cuttle, went with even more of love in his heart for florence than he had had. after his going florence was lonelier than before. she was all alone, save for the dog diogenes and her books and music. her father was much away, and in the evenings she could go into his room and nestle in his easy chair without fear of repulse. she kept the room in order and a fresh nosegay on the table, and never left it without leaving on his deserted desk a kiss and a tear. the purpose of her life, she determined, should be to try continually to let her father know how much she loved him. but months passed and she had no chance. her father, in fact, seldom came near the house. he was away visiting in the country with a major bagstock, who had struck up an acquaintance with him because of mr. dombey's wealth. bagstock (who had a habit of referring to himself as "j. b." or "joey b.," or almost anything but his full name) was as fat as a dancing bear, with a purple, apoplectic-looking face, and a laugh like a horse's cough. he was a glutton, and stuffed himself so at meals that he did little but choke and wheeze through the latter half of them. he was a great flatterer, however, and he flattered so well that mr. dombey, blind from his own pride, thought him a very proper person indeed. and even though everybody laughed at the major, mr. dombey always found him most agreeable company. there was an old lady at the town they visited who was poor, but very fond of fashion and rich people. she had no heart, and was silly enough, even though she was seventy years old, to wear rouge on her cheeks and dress like a girl of seventeen. she had a widowed daughter, edith granger, a proud, lovely woman, who despised the life her mother led, but, in spite of this, was weak enough to be influenced by her. major bagstock introduced mr. dombey to the mother, and the latter soon made up her mind that her daughter should marry him. the major (who wanted mr. dombey to marry so he himself could profit by the dinners and entertainments that would follow) helped this affair on all he could, and edith, though at times she hated herself for the false part she was playing, agreed to it. to tell the truth, mr. dombey was so full of his own conceit that he never stopped to wonder if edith could really love him. she was beautiful and as cold and haughty as he was himself, and that was all he considered. so major bagstock and the old lady were soon chuckling and wheezing together with delight at the success of their plan, and before long edith had promised to marry florence's father. poor florence! she had other griefs of her own by this time. carker, of dombey and son, with the false smile and the white teeth, came several times to see her, asking if she had messages to send to her father--each time seeming purposely to wound her by recalling her father's dislike. she tried to like the smooth, oily manager, but there was something in his face she could not but distrust. to add to her trouble, the ship by which walter gay had sailed for the west indies had not yet arrived there. it was long overdue, and in the absence of news people began to fear it had been lost. she went to the little shop where the wooden midshipman stood, but found old solomon gills and captain cuttle in as great anxiety. old sol, indeed, was soon in such distress for fear walter had been drowned, that he felt he could bear the suspense no longer. one day, soon after florence's visit, he disappeared from london, leaving a letter for captain cuttle. this letter said he had gone to the west indies to search for walter, and asked the captain to care for the little shop and keep it open, so that it could be a home for his nephew if he should ever appear. as for himself, old sol said if he did not return within a year he would be dead, and the captain should take the shop for his own. the disappearance of his old friend was a great blow to bluff captain cuttle, but, determined to do his part, he left his own lodgings and took up his place at the sign of the wooden midshipman to wait for news either of walter or of old solomon gills. florence knew nothing about this, for the captain had not the heart to tell her. and, for her own part, she had much to think of in the approaching marriage of her father, in preparation for which the house was full of painters and paper-hangers, making it over for the bride. the first time florence saw edith was when one day she entered the parlor to find her father there with a strange, beautiful lady beside him. mr. dombey told her the lady would soon be her mama, and edith, touched by the child's sweet face, bent down and kissed her so tenderly that florence, so starved for affection, began at that moment to love her, and to hope through edith's love finally to win the love of her father. the wedding was a very grand one, and many people were at the church to see it. even captain cuttle watched it from the gallery, and carker's smile, as he looked on, showed more of his white teeth than ever. the only thing that marred florence's happiness and hope on this day was the knowledge that walter had not been heard from and the fear that he might never return. but in spite of her brave hope, after her father and edith came back from their wedding journey and the life of parties and dinners began, florence was soon disheartened. in the first flush of confidence she opened all her soul to edith and begged her to teach her to win her father's liking. but edith, knowing (as florence did not know) how she had sold herself in this rich marriage and that she had no particle of love in her heart for her husband, told her sadly that she could not help her. this puzzled florence greatly, for she loved edith and knew that edith loved her in return. in fact, it was florence's trust and innocence that made edith's conscience torture her the more. in florence's pure presence she felt more and more unworthy, and the knowledge that her husband's hardness of heart was crushing the child's life and happiness made her hate him. florence saw, before many months passed, that her father and edith did not live in love and contentment. indeed, how could they? she had married for ambition, he for pride, and neither loved nor would yield to the other. they had not the same friends or acquaintances. hers were people of fashion; his were men of business. at the dinners they gave, mr. dombey did not think edith treated his friends politely enough. he began to reprove her more and more often, and when she paid no heed he finally chid her openly and sternly in the presence of carker (who brought his smile and gleaming teeth often to the house), knowing this action would most wound edith's pride. and at length he took the management of the house out of her hands and hired as housekeeper mrs. pipchin, the old ogre of brighton, at whose house florence and little paul had once lived. the worst of it all was that the more mr. dombey grew to dislike his wife the more he saw she loved florence, and this made him detest the poor child more than ever. he imagined, in his cruel selfishness, that as florence had come between him and the love of little paul, so she was now coming between him and his wife. finally he sent carker to edith, telling her she must no longer sit or talk with florence--that they must see each other only in his presence. florence's cup of bitterness was now almost full, for she knew nothing of this command, and, when she saw that edith avoided her, sorrowed in secret. she was quite alone again now, save for diogenes. neither major bagstock, her father's flatterer, nor carker, with his cat-like smile, could she see without a shudder, and all the while her heart was aching for her father's love. mr. dombey's insults were heaped more and more upon the defenseless edith, till at last, made desperate by his pride and cruelty, she prepared a terrible revenge. on the morning of the anniversary of their wedding-day mr. dombey was startled by the news that edith had run away with the false-hearted carker! on that terrible morning, when the proud old man sat stunned in his room, florence, yielding to her first impulse of grief and pity for him, ran to him to comfort him. but when she would have thrown her arms around his neck he lifted his arm and struck her so that she tottered. and as he did so he bade her follow edith, since they had always been in league! in that blow florence felt at last his cruelty, neglect and hatred trampling down any feeling of compassion he may once have had for her. she saw she had no longer a father she could love; and, wringing her hands, with her head bent to hide her agony of tears, ran out of the house that could no more be her home, into the heartless street. iii how florence reached a refuge for a long time she ran without purpose, weeping, and not knowing where to go. but at last she thought of the day, so many years before, when she had been lost and when walter gay had found her. he had taken her then to the shop of his uncle, old solomon gills. there, she thought, she might at least find shelter. when she got to the sign of the wooden midshipman she had just enough strength to knock and push open the door, and then, at sight of captain cuttle's honest face, all her strength left her, and she fainted on the threshold. captain cuttle was cooking his breakfast. he knew her at once, even though she had grown to be a young lady. he lifted her and laid her on the sofa, calling her his "lady lass," and bathed her face in cold water till she opened her eyes and knew him. she told him all her story, and he comforted her, and told her the shop should be her home just as long as she would stay in it. when she had eaten some toast and drunk some tea he made her lie down in the little upper room and sleep till she woke refreshed at evening. when she came down the stair she found captain cuttle cooking dinner. he seemed to her then to have some great, joyful and mysterious secret. all through the evening and until she went to bed he would persist in drawing the conversation around to walter, which brought the tears again and again to her eyes. then he would rumble out, "wal'r's drown-ded, ain't he, pretty?" and nod his head and look very wise. indeed, captain cuttle _did_ have a wonderful secret. while florence had been sleeping he had received a great piece of news: walter, whom every one had believed drowned, had escaped death alone of all on the wrecked vessel. he had clung to a spar when the ship went down, and had been picked up by a vessel going in another direction, so he had had no way of sending back news of his safety. the ship that had rescued him had at last brought him back to london, and it would not be long now before he would appear at the shop. you may guess captain cuttle's heart was full of thankfulness. but, not knowing much about such matters, he had an idea that the good news must be broken very gently to florence. so at last he commenced to tell her a story about a shipwreck in which only one was saved, and then she began to suspect the truth and her heart beat joyfully. just as he finished the story the door opened. there was walter himself, alive and well, and with a cry of joy she sprang to his arms. there was much to talk of that night in the little shop. with her face on captain cuttle's shoulder, florence told him how and why she had left her home. and walter, as he took her hand and kissed it, knew that she was a homeless, wandering fugitive, but richer to him thus than in all the wealth and pride of her former station, that had once made her seem so far off from him. very soon after that he told florence that he loved her--not as a brother, but as something even dearer--and she promised to be his wife. on the evening before their wedding-day one more surprise came to them. they were all gathered in the shop when the outer door opened. captain cuttle suddenly hit the table a terrific blow with his hook, shouted "sol gills, ahoy!" and tumbled into the arms of a man in an old, weather-beaten coat. it was old solomon gills indeed, returned from his long search, and now, to see walter there, weeping with joy. in another moment walter and florence were both in his arms, too, and everybody was laughing and crying and talking together. old sol had been half-way around the world in his search for walter, but had finally heard of his safety and started home, knowing he would go there also. it was a very joyous evening, that last evening of florence's girl life. the next morning walter and florence paid an early visit to the grave of little paul. she bade it a long good-by, for walter had become an officer of a ship and she was to make the coming voyage with her husband. then they went to the church, where they were married, and a few days later they sailed away to china (with captain cuttle's big watch and sugar-tongs and teaspoons, that he had once offered to mr. dombey, for wedding presents), content in each other's love. often, indeed, in this happy honeymoon florence remembered the father who had spurned her. but walter's love had taken away the bitterness of that thought. she tried to love her father now rather as she loved the memory of little paul--not as a cruel, cold, living man, but as some one who had once lived and who might once have loved her. iv how florence found her father at last mr. dombey, alone in the silent house, had made no search for florence. his pride bade him hide all traces of his grief and rage from the world. he had only one thought--to find where carker had fled with his wife, to follow and to kill him. he hired detectives and at last discovered that carker had gone to a certain city in france. and to that place he followed him. now edith, desperate as she had been, had not really been so wicked as mr. dombey supposed her. she had deserted him, but she had _not_ run away with carker. in all the trouble between herself and mr. dombey, carker (the smooth, smiling hypocrite!) had labored to make matters worse. he had lied to mr. dombey about his wife and taunted her with her position, and done everything in his power to make them hate each other more bitterly. at last, when he saw edith could bear it no longer, he had begged her to run away with him, and when she refused, he had threatened her in many cowardly ways. but edith hated him as much as she disliked her husband, and had not the least idea of running away with him. she had pretended to carker that she would do so, and had led her husband and everybody else to think she _had_ done so, but this was only to wound her husband's pride, and to punish him for all his tortures. carker had followed her to france, but, once there, he had found the tables turned. edith laughed at him and scorned him, and sent him from her, baffled and furious. carker was thus caught in his own trap. he had lost his own position and reputation, and had gained nothing for all his evil plots. and besides this, he was a fugitive, and mr. dombey, the man he had wronged, was on his track. when he learned his enemy had followed him to france, carker, raging, but cowardly, fled back to england; and back to england edith's revengeful husband followed him day and night. the wicked manager knew no more peace or rest. he traveled into the country, seeking some lonely village in which to hide, but he could not shake off that grim pursuer. they met at last face to face one day on a railroad platform when neither was expecting to see the other. in the surprise of the meeting, carker's foot slipped--he stepped backward, directly in the path of the engine that was roaring up the track. it caught him, and tossed him, and tore him limb from limb, and its iron wheels crushed and ground him to pieces. and that was the end of carker, of the white teeth and false smile, and mr. dombey went back to london, still proud and alone, still cold and forbidding. but his conscience at last had begun to cry out against him, and to deafen its voice he plunged more and more recklessly into business, spending money too lavishly, and taking risks of which, in other days, he would not have thought. the months went by and little by little the old firm of dombey and son became more entangled. soon there were whispers that the business was in difficulty, but mr. dombey did not hear them. one morning the crash came. a bank closed and then suddenly the word went around that the old firm had failed. it was too true. the proud, hard-hearted merchant, who had driven his daughter from him, was ruined and a beggar. his rich friends, whom he had treated so haughtily, shrugged their shoulders and sneered. even major bagstock at his club grew purple in the face with chuckling. the servants were all sent away, most of the furniture was sold at a public sale, and the old man, who had once been so proud and held his gray head so high, still sat on hour after hour in the echoing house, so empty now that even the rats would not live in it. what was he thinking? at last, in his agony, his sorrow, his remorse, his despair, he remembered florence. he saw again her trembling lips, her lonely face longing for love--the terrible hopeless change that came over it when his own cruel arm struck her on that final day when she had stood before him. his pride at last had fallen. he knew now himself what it was to be rejected and deserted. he thought how the daughter he had disliked, of them all, had never changed in her love for him. and by his own act he had lost her for ever. his son, his wife, his fortune, all had gone, and now at last in his wretchedness he knew that florence would always have been true to him if he had only let her. days passed, but he never left the house; every night he wandered through the empty rooms like a ghost. he grew to be a haggard, wasted likeness of himself. and one day the thought came to him that it would be better if he, too, were dead, even if it be by his own hand. this thought clung to him. he could not shake it off. one day he took a pistol from his dressing-table and sat hugging it to his breast. at length he rose and stood in front of a mirror with the weapon in his hand. but suddenly he heard a cry--a piercing, loving, rapturous cry--and he saw at his feet, clasping his knees, with her face lifted to his, florence, his long-lost daughter. "papa, dearest papa!" she cried, "i have come back to you. i never can be happy more without you." he tottered to a chair, feeling her draw his arms around her neck. he felt her wet cheek laid against his own. he heard her soft voice telling him that now she herself had a little child--a baby boy born at sea--whom she and walter had named paul. "dear papa," she said, "you will come home with me. we will teach our little child to love and honor you, and we will tell him when he can understand that you had a son of that name once, and that he died and that you were sorry; but that he is gone to heaven, where we all hope to see him sometime. kiss me, papa, as a promise that you will be reconciled. never let us be parted any more!" his hard heart had been melting while she spoke. as she clung closer to him he kissed her, and she heard him mutter, "oh, god forgive me, for i need it very much!" she drew him to his feet, and walking with a feeble gait he went with her. with her eyes upon his face and his arm about her, she led him to the coach waiting at the door and carried him away. mr. dombey was very ill for a long time. when he recovered he was no longer his old self, but a gentle, loving, white-haired old man. walter did not go to sea again, but found a position of great trust and confidence in london, and in their home the old man felt growing stronger and stronger his new-found love for the daughter whom till now he had never really known. florence never saw edith again but once. then the latter came back to bid her farewell for ever before she went to live in italy. in these years edith had seen her own pride and grieved for her fault. there were tears in her stern, dark eyes when florence asked if she would send some message to mr. dombey. "tell him," she answered, "that if in his own present he can find a reason to think less bitterly of me, i asked him to do so. i will try to forgive him his share of blame; let him try to forgive me mine." time went happily by in the home of walter and florence. they often visited the little shop where stood the wooden midshipman, now in a new suit of paint. the sign above the door had become "gills and cuttle," for old sol and the captain had gone into partnership, and the firm had grown rich through the successes of some of solomon gills's old investments which had finally turned out well. walter was beloved by everybody who knew him, and in time refounded the old firm of dombey and son. often in the summer, on the sea-beach, old mr. dombey might have been seen wandering with florence's little children. the oldest was little paul, and he thought of him sometimes almost as of the other little paul who died. but most of all the old gentleman loved the little girl. he could not bear to see her sit apart or with a cloud on her face. he often stole away to look at her in her sleep, and was fondest and most loving to her when there was no one by. the child used to say then sometimes: "dear grandpa, why do you cry when you kiss me?" but he would only answer, "little florence! little florence!" and smooth away the curls that shaded her earnest eyes. the posthumous papers of the pickwick club published - _scene_: london, neighboring towns, bath, and the country _time_: to characters mr. samuel pickwick a gentleman of an inquiring mind founder and chairman of "the pickwick club" sam weller his body-servant mrs. bardell his london landlady tupman } } snodgrass} members of "the pickwick club" } winkle } alfred jingle a strolling actor and adventurer later, known as "fitz-marshall" job trotter his servant mrs. budger a rich widow doctor slammer an army surgeon mrs. budger's suitor mr. wardle a country gentleman a friend of the pickwickians emily his daughter miss wardle his spinster sister joe mr. wardle's footman known as "the fat boy" tony weller a stage driver. sam's father mrs. weller his second wife mrs. leo hunter a lady with a fondness for knowing celebrated persons mr. peter magnus one of mr. pickwick's traveling acquaintances nupkins mayor of ipswich mrs. nupkins his wife miss nupkins his daughter ben allen } } medical students bob sawyer } arabella allen ben's pretty sister sergeant buzfuz mrs. bardell's lawyer mr. dowler one of mr. pickwick's acquaintances at bath mrs. dowler his wife mr. angelo cyrus bantam a society leader at bath mary nupkins's pretty housemaid the pickwick papers i the pickwickians begin their adventures they meet mr. alfred jingle, and winkle is involved in a duel once upon a time, in london, there was a club called "the pickwick club." mr. samuel pickwick, its founder and chairman, was a benevolent, simple-hearted old gentleman of some wealth, with a taste for science. he delighted to invent the most profound theories, to explain the most ordinary happenings and to write long papers to be read before the club. he had a large bald head, and eyes that twinkled behind round spectacles, and he made a speech with one hand under his coat tails and the other waving in the air. his fellow members looked upon mr. pickwick as a very great man, and when he proposed that he and three others form a "corresponding society," which should travel about and forward to the club accounts of their adventures, the idea was at once adopted. the three that mr. pickwick chose were named tupman, snodgrass and winkle. tupman was middle-aged with a double chin and was so fat that for years he had not seen the watch chain that crossed his silk waistcoat. but he had a youthful, romantic disposition, and a great liking for the fair sex. snodgrass, who had no parents, was a ward of mr. pickwick's and imagined himself a poet. winkle was a young man whose father had sent him to london to learn life; he wore a green shooting-coat and his great ambition was to be considered a sportsman, though at heart he was afraid of either a horse or a gun. with these three companions mr. pickwick prepared to set out in search of adventures. next morning as he drove in a cab to the inn where all were to take the coach, mr. pickwick began to chat with the driver. the cabman amused himself by telling the most impossible things, all of which mr. pickwick believed. when he said his horse was forty-two years old and that he often kept him out three weeks at a time without resting, down it went in mr. pickwick's note-book as a wonderful instance of the endurance of horses. unfortunately, however, the driver thought mr. pickwick was putting down the number of the cab so as to complain of him, and as they arrived just then at the inn, he jumped from his seat with the intention of fighting his dismayed passenger. he knocked off mr. pickwick's spectacles and, dancing back and forth as the other's three comrades rushed to the rescue, planted a blow in mr. snodgrass's eye, another in tupman's waistcoat and ended by knocking all the breath out of winkle's body. from this dilemma they were rescued by a tall, thin, long-haired, young man in a faded green coat, worn black trousers and patched shoes, who seized mr. pickwick and lugged him into the inn by main force, talking with a jaunty independent manner and in rapid and broken sentences: "this way, sir--where's your friends?--all a mistake--never mind--here, waiter--brandy and water--raw beefsteak for the gentleman's eye--eh,--ha-ha!" the seedy-looking stranger, whose name was alfred jingle, was a passenger on the same coach that day and entertained the pickwickians with marvelous stories of his life in spain. none of these was true, to be sure, but they were all entered in mr. pickwick's note-book. in gratitude, that night the latter invited jingle to dinner at the town inn where they stopped. the dinner was long, and almost before it was over not only mr. pickwick, but snodgrass and winkle also were asleep. tupman, however, was more wakeful; a ball, the waiter had told him, was to be held that night on the upper floor and he longed to attend it. jingle readily agreed, especially when tupman said he could borrow for him a blue dress suit, the property of the sleeping winkle. they were soon dressed and at the ball. jingle's jaunty air gained him a number of introductions. before long he was dancing with a little old widow named mrs. budger, who was very rich, and to whom he at once began to make love. there was an army surgeon present named slammer--a short fat man with a ring of upright black hair around his head, and a bald plain on top of it--who had been courting the rich widow himself. doctor slammer was old; jingle was young, and the lady felt flattered. every moment the doctor grew angrier and at last tried to pick a quarrel with the wearer of the blue dress suit, at which jingle only laughed. the ball over, tupman and jingle went down stairs. winkle's clothes were returned to their place, and jingle, promising to join the party at dinner next day, took his departure. the pickwickians were hardly awake next morning when an army officer came to the inn inquiring which gentleman of their number owned a blue dress suit with gilt buttons. when told that mr. winkle had such a costume he demanded to see him, and at once, in the name of his friend doctor slammer, challenged him to fight a duel that night at sunset. poor winkle almost fainted with surprise. when the stranger explained that the wearer of the blue suit had insulted doctor slammer, winkle concluded that he must have drunk too much wine at dinner, changed his clothes, gone somewhere, and insulted somebody--of all of which he had no recollection. he saw no way, therefore, but to accept the bloodthirsty challenge, hoping that something would happen to prevent the duel. winkle was dreadfully afraid, for he had never fired a pistol in his life. he chose snodgrass for his second, hoping the latter would tell mr. pickwick; but snodgrass, he soon found to his dismay, had no idea of doing so. the day wore heavily away, and winkle could think of no escape. at sunset they walked to the appointed spot--a lonely field--and at last winkle found himself, pistol in hand, opposite another man armed likewise, and waiting the signal to shoot. at that moment doctor slammer saw that the man he faced was not the one who had insulted him at the ball. explanations were soon made and the whole party walked back together to the inn, where winkle introduced his new friends to the pickwickians. jingle, however, was with the latter, and doctor slammer at once recognized him as the wearer of the blue dress suit. the doctor flew into a rage and only the statement of his fellow officer, that jingle was not a gentleman, but a strolling actor far beneath the doctor's dignity, prevented an encounter. as it was, slammer stumped off in anger, leaving the pickwickians to enjoy the evening in their own way. ii tupman has a love-affair with a spinster, and the pickwickians find out the real character of jingle next day a military drill was held just outside the town and the pickwickians went to see it. in the confusion of running officers and prancing horses they became separated from one another. mr. pickwick, snodgrass and winkle found themselves between two lines of troops, in danger of being run down. at this moment they saw tupman standing in an open carriage near by and, hurrying to it, were hoisted in. the carriage belonged to a short, stout old gentleman named wardle who had attended some of the club's meetings in london and knew mr. pickwick by sight. he lived at a place near by called dingley dell, from which he had driven to see the drill, with his old maid sister and his own two pretty daughters. fastened behind was a big hamper of lunch and on the box was a fat boy named joe, whom mr. wardle kept as a curiosity because he did nothing but eat and sleep. joe went on errands fast asleep and snored as he waited on the table. he had slept all through the roaring of the cannon and the old gentleman had to pinch him awake to serve the luncheon. they had a merry time that day, tupman being deeply smitten with the charms of the elderly miss wardle, and snodgrass no less in love with emily, one of the pretty daughters. when the review was over the old gentleman invited them all to visit dingley dell next day. early in the morning they set out, mr. pickwick driving tupman and snodgrass in a chaise, while winkle rode on horseback to uphold his reputation as a sportsman. mr. pickwick was distrustful of the horse he hired, but the hostler assured him that even a wagon-load of monkeys with their tails burnt off would not make him shy. winkle had never ridden a horse before, but he was ashamed to admit it. for a while all went well; then the luckless winkle dropped his whip and when he dismounted the horse would not let him mount again. mr. pickwick got out of the chaise to help, and at this the animal jerked the bridle away and trotted home. hearing the clatter the other horse bolted, too. snodgrass and tupman jumped for their lives and the chaise was smashed to pieces against a wooden bridge. with difficulty the horse was freed from the ruins and, leading him, the four friends walked the seven miles to dingley dell, where they found mr. wardle and the fat boy, the latter fast asleep as usual, posted in the lane to meet them. brushes, a needle and thread and some cherry-brandy soon cured their rents and bruises and they forgot their misfortunes in an evening of pleasure. mr. wardle's mother was a deaf old lady with an ear-trumpet, who loved to play whist. when she disliked a person she would pretend she could not hear a word he said, but mr. pickwick's jollity and compliments made her forget even to use her ear-trumpet. tupman flirted with the spinster aunt and snodgrass whispered poetry into emily's ear to his heart's content. next morning mr. wardle took winkle rook-shooting. the pair set out with their guns, preceded by the fat boy and followed by mr. pickwick, snodgrass and the corpulent tupman. winkle, who disliked to admit his ignorance of guns, showed it in a painful way. his first shot missed the birds, and lodged itself in the arm of tupman, who fell to the ground. the confusion that followed can not be described. they bound up his wounds and supported him to the house, where the ladies waited at the garden gate, mr. wardle calling out to them not to be frightened. the warning, however, had no effect on the spinster aunt. at the sight of her tupman wounded, she began to scream. old mr. wardle told her not to be a fool, but tupman was affected almost to tears and spoke her name with such romantic tenderness that the poor foolish lady felt quite a flutter at her heart. a surgeon found the wound a slight one, and as a cricket match was to be played that day, the host left tupman in the care of the ladies and carried off the others to the game. when they reached the field, the first words that fell on mr. pickwick's ear made him start: "this way--capital fun--glorious day--make yourself at home--glad to see you--very." it was jingle, still clad in his faded green coat. he had fallen in with the visiting players, and by telling wonderful tales of the games he had played in the west indies, soon convinced them he was a great cricket player. seeing him greet mr. pickwick, mr. wardle, thinking him a friend of his guest, procured him an invitation to the dinner that followed the match. there jingle made good use of his time in eating and drinking, and at midnight was heard leading with great effect the chorus: "we won't go home till morning." meanwhile, the romantic tupman at dingley dell had been free to woo the middle-aged spinster. this he did with such success that when evening came, he and she sat together in a vine-covered arbor in the garden like a pair of carefully folded kid gloves--bound up in each other. he had just printed a kiss on her lips when both looked up to see the fat boy, perfectly motionless, staring into the arbor. "supper's ready," said the fat boy, and his look was so blank that they both concluded he must have been asleep and had seen nothing. it was long past midnight when a tremendous noise told that the absent ones had returned. all rushed to the kitchen, where jingle's voice was heard crying: "cricket dinner--glorious party--capital songs--very good--wine ma'am--wine!" mr. pickwick, snodgrass and winkle went to bed, but the talkative jingle remained with the ladies and before they retired had made tupman almost mad with jealousy by his attentions to the spinster aunt, who showed herself greatly pleased with his politeness. now the fat boy, for once in his life, had not been asleep when he had announced supper that evening. he had seen tupman's love-making, and took the first occasion to tell the deaf old lady, as she sat in the garden arbor next morning. he was obliged to shout it in her ear, and thus the whole story was overheard by jingle, who happened to be near. the deceitful jingle saw in this a chance to benefit himself. the spinster, he thought, had money; what could he better do than turn her against tupman, and marry her himself? with this plan he went to tupman, recited what the fat boy had told, and advised him, for a time, in order to throw off the suspicions of the old lady and of mr. wardle, to pay special attention to one of the younger daughters and to pretend to care nothing for the spinster. he told tupman that the latter herself had made this plan and wished him to carry it out for her sake. tupman, thinking it the wish of his lady-love, did this with such success that the old lady concluded the fat boy must have been dreaming. the spinster, however, thought tupman false, and jingle used the next few days to make such violent love to her that the silly creature believed him, forgot tupman, and agreed to run away with the deceiver to london. there was great excitement when their absence was discovered, and the wrathful mr. wardle and mr. pickwick pursued them at once in a four-horse chaise. they rode all night and, reaching london, at once began to inquire at various inns to find a trace of the runaway pair. they came at length to one called the white hart, in whose courtyard a round-faced man-servant was cleaning boots. this servant, whose name was sam weller, wore a coat with blue glass buttons, a bright red handkerchief tied around his neck and an old white hat stuck on the side of his head. he spoke with a quaint country accent, but he was a witty fellow, with a clever answer for every one. "werry well, i'm agreeable," he said when mr. pickwick gave him a gold piece. "what the devil do you want with me, as the man said when he see the ghost?" with sam weller's aid, they soon found that jingle and the spinster were there, and entered the room in which the couple sat at the very moment jingle was showing the marriage license which he had just brought. the spinster at once went into violent hysterics, and jingle, seeing the game was up, accepted the sum of money which mr. wardle offered him to take himself off. there were deep lamentations when the confiding spinster found herself deserted by the faithless jingle, and slowly and sadly mr. pickwick and mr. wardle bore her back to dingley dell. the heartbroken tupman had already left there, and with feelings of gloom mr. pickwick, with snodgrass and winkle, also departed. iii mr. pickwick has an interesting scene with mrs. bardell, his housekeeper. further pursuit of jingle leads to an adventure at a young ladies' boarding-school mr. pickwick lived in lodgings, let for a single gentleman, in the house of a mrs. bardell, a widow with one little boy. for a long time she had secretly adored her benevolent lodger, as some one far above her own humble station. mr. pickwick had not forgotten sam weller, the servant who had aided in the pursuit of jingle, and on returning to london he wrote, asking sam to come to see him, intending to offer him a position as body-servant. sam came promptly and mr. pickwick then proceeded to tell his landlady of his plan--a more or less delicate matter, since it would cause some change in her household affairs. "mrs. bardell," said he, "do you think it a much greater expense to keep two people than one?" "la, mr. pickwick!" answered mrs. bardell, fancying she saw matrimony in his eye. "that depends on whether it's a saving person." "very true," said mr. pickwick, "but the person i have in my eye"--here he looked at mrs. bardell--"has this quality. and to tell you the truth, i have made up my mind." mrs. bardell blushed to her cap border. her lodger was going to propose! "oh, mr. pickwick!" she said, "you're very kind, sir. i'm sure i ought to be a very happy woman." "it'll save you a deal of trouble," mr. pickwick went on, "and when i'm in town you'll always have somebody to sit with you." "oh, you dear--" said mrs. bardell. mr. pickwick started. "oh, you kind, good, playful dear!" said mrs. bardell, and flung herself on his neck with a cataract of tears. the astonished mr. pickwick struggled violently, pleading and reproving, but in vain. mrs. bardell clung the tighter, and exclaiming frantically that she would never leave him, fainted away in his arms. at the same moment tupman, winkle and snodgrass entered the room. mr. pickwick tried to explain, but in their faces he read that they suspected him of making love to the widow. this reflection made him miserable and ill at ease. he lost no time in taking sam weller into his service, on condition that he travel with the pickwickians in their further search for adventures, and at once proposed to his three comrades another journey. next day, therefore, found them on the road for eatanswill, a town near london which was then on the eve of a political election. this was a very exciting struggle and interested them greatly. here, one morning soon after their arrival, a fancy dress breakfast was given by mrs. leo hunter, a lady who had once written an _ode to an expiring frog_ and who made a great point of knowing everybody who was at all celebrated for anything. all of the pickwickians attended the breakfast. mr. pickwick's dignity was too great for him to don a fancy costume, but the rest wore them, tupman going as a bandit in a green velvet coat with a two-inch tail. mrs. leo hunter herself, in the character of minerva, insisted on presenting mr. pickwick to all the guests. in the midst of the gaiety mrs. leo hunter's husband called out: "my dear, here comes mr. fitz-marshall," and, to his astonishment, mr. pickwick heard a well-known voice exclaiming: "coming, my dear ma'am--crowds of people--full room--hard work--very!" it was jingle. mr. pickwick indignantly faced him, but the impostor, at the first glance turned and fled. mr. pickwick, after hurriedly questioning his hostess, who told him mr. fitz-marshall lived at an inn in a village not far away, left the entertainment instantly, bent on pursuit. with sam weller, his faithful servant, he took the next stage-coach and nightfall found him lodged in a room in that very inn, while sam set himself to discover jingle's whereabouts. with the money mr. wardle had paid him jingle had set up as a gentleman: he even had a servant--a sneaking fellow with a sallow, solemn face and lank hair, named job trotter, who could burst into tears whenever it suited his purpose and whose favorite occupation seemed to be reading a hymn-book. sam weller soon picked an acquaintance with job, and it was not long before the latter confided to him that jingle his master (whom he pretended to think very wicked) had plotted to run away that same night, with a beautiful young lady from a boarding-school just outside the village, at which he was a frequent caller. job said his master was such a villain that he had made up his mind to betray him. sam took job to mr. pickwick, to whom he repeated his tale, adding that he and his master were to be let into the school building at ten o'clock, and that if mr. pickwick would climb over the garden wall and tap on the kitchen door a little before midnight, he, job, would let him in to catch jingle in the very act of eloping. this seemed to mr. pickwick a good plan, and he proceeded to act upon it. in good time that night sam hoisted him over the high garden-wall of the school, after which he returned to the inn, while his master stealthily approached the building. it was very still. when the church chimes struck half-past eleven mr. pickwick tapped on the door. instead of being opened by job, however, a servant-girl appeared with a candle. mr. pickwick had presence of mind enough to hide behind the door as she opened it. she concluded the noise must have been the cat. mr. pickwick did not know what was best to do. to make matters worse, a thunder-storm broke and he had no refuge from the rain. he was thoroughly drenched before he dared repeat the signal. this time windows were thrown open and frightened voices demanded "who's there?" mr. pickwick was in a dreadful situation. he could not retreat, and when the door was timidly opened and some one screamed "a man!" there was a dreadful chorus of shrieks from the lady principal, three teachers, five female servants and thirty young lady boarders, all half-dressed and in a forest of curl papers. mr. pickwick was desperate. he protested that he was no robber--that he would even consent to be tied or locked up, only to convince them. a closet stood in the hall; as a pledge of good faith he stepped inside it. its door was quickly locked and only then the trembling principal consented to listen to him. by the time he had told his story, he knew that he had been cruelly hoaxed by jingle and job trotter. she knew not even the name of mr. fitz-marshall. for her own part she was certain mr. pickwick was crazy, and he had to stay in the stuffy closet over an hour while at his request some one was sent to find sam weller. the latter came at length, bringing with him old mr. wardle, who, as it happened, unknown to mr. pickwick, was stopping at the inn. explanations were made and mr. pickwick, choking with wrath, returned to the inn to find jingle and his servant gone, and to be, himself, for some time thereafter, a prey to rheumatism. a serious matter at this juncture called mr. pickwick home. this was a legal summons notifying him that mrs. bardell, his landlady, had brought a suit for damages against him, claiming he had promised to marry her and had then run away. a firm of tricky lawyers had persuaded her to this in the hope of getting some money out of it themselves. mr. pickwick was very angry, but there was nothing for it but to hire a lawyer, so he and sam weller set out without delay. iv sam weller meets his father, and the pursuit of jingle is continued. mr. pickwick makes a strange call on a middle-aged lady in yellow curl papers having arranged this matter in london, master and servant sat one evening in a public house when sam recognized in a stout man with his face buried in a quart pot, his own father, old tony weller, the stage-coach driver, and with great affection introduced him to mr. pickwick. "how's mother-in-law?" asked sam. the elder mr. weller shook his head as he replied, "i've done it once too often, samivel. take example by your father, my boy, and be very careful o' widders, 'specially if they've kept a public house." mrs. weller the second, indeed, was the proprietress of a public house. to a shrill voice and a complaining disposition she added a dismal sort of piety which showed itself in much going to meeting, in considering her husband a lost and sinful wretch and in the entertaining of a prim-faced, red-nosed, rusty old hypocrite of a preacher who sat by her fireside every evening consuming quantities of toast and pineapple rum, and groaning at the depravity of her husband, who declined to give money to the preacher's society for sending flannel waistcoats and colored handkerchiefs to the infant negroes of the west indies. as may be imagined, sam's father led a sorry life at home. the meeting with the elder weller proved a fortunate one, for when sam told of their experiences with jingle and job trotter, his father declared that he himself had driven the pair to the town of ipswich, where they were then living. nothing would satisfy mr. pickwick, when he heard this, but pursuit, and he and sam set out next morning by coach, mr. pickwick having written to the other pickwickians to follow him. on the coach was a red-haired man with an inquisitive nose and blue spectacles, whose name was mr. peter magnus, and with whom (since they stopped at the same inn) mr. pickwick dined on his arrival. mr. magnus, before they parted for the night, grew confidential and informed him that he had come there to propose to a lady who was in the inn at that very moment. for some time after he retired, mr. pickwick sat in his bedroom thinking. at length he rose to undress, when he remembered he had left his watch down stairs, and taking a candle he went to get it. he found it easily, but to retrace his steps proved more difficult. a dozen doors he thought his own, and a dozen times he turned a door-knob only to hear a gruff voice within. at last he found what he thought was his own room, the door ajar. the wind had blown out his candle, but the fire was bright, and mr. pickwick, as he retired behind the bed curtains to undress, smiled till he almost cracked his nightcap strings as he thought of his wanderings. suddenly the smile faded--some one had entered the room and locked the door. "robbers!" thought mr. pickwick. he peered out between the curtains and almost fainted with horror. standing before the mirror was a middle-aged lady in yellow curl papers, brushing her back-hair. "bless my soul!" thought mr. pickwick. "i must be in the wrong room. this is fearful!" he waited a while, then coughed, first gently, then more loudly. "gracious heaven!" said the middle-aged lady. "what's that?" "it's--it's only a gentleman, ma'am," said mr. pickwick. "a strange man!" exclaimed the lady with a terrific scream. mr. pickwick put out his head in desperation. "wretch!" she said, covering her face with her hands. "what do you want here?" "nothing, ma'am--nothing whatever, ma'am," said mr. pickwick earnestly. "i am almost ready to sink, ma'am, beneath the confusion of addressing a lady in my nightcap (here the lady snatched off hers) but i can't get it off, ma'am! (here mr. pickwick gave it a tremendous tug). it is evident to me now that i have mistaken this bedroom for my own." "if this be true," said the lady sobbing violently, "you will leave it instantly." "certainly, ma'am," answered mr. pickwick appearing, "i--i--am very sorry, ma'am." the lady pointed to the door. with his hat on over his nightcap, his shoes in his hand and his coat over his arm, mr. pickwick opened the door, dropping both shoes with a crash. "i trust, ma'am," he resumed, bowing very low, "that my unblemished character--" but before he could finish the sentence the lady had thrust him into the hall and bolted the door. luckily mr. pickwick met, coming along the corridor, the faithful sam weller who took him safely to his room. v the pickwickians find themselves in the grasp of the law. the final exposure of jingle, and a christmas merrymaking mr. pickwick was still indoors next morning, when sam, strolling through the town, met, coming from a certain garden-gate, the wily job trotter. job tried at first to disguise himself by making a horrible face, but sam was not to be deceived, and finding this trick vain, the other burst into tears of joy to see him. job told sam that his master, jingle, had bribed the mistress of the boarding-school to deny to mr. pickwick that she knew him, and had then cruelly deserted the beautiful young lady for a richer one. but this time sam was too wise to believe anything job said. meanwhile, in the inn, mr. pickwick was giving mr. peter magnus some good advice as to the best method of proposing. the latter finally plucked up his courage, saw the lady, proposed to her, and was accepted. in his gratitude, he insisted on taking mr. pickwick to be introduced to her. the instant he saw her, however, mr. pickwick uttered an exclamation, and the lady, with a slight scream, hid her face in her hands. she was none other than the owner of the room into which mr. pickwick had intruded the night before. mr. peter magnus, in astonishment, demanded where and when they had seen each other before. this the lady declared she would not reveal for the world, and mr. pickwick likewise refusing, the other flew into a jealous rage, which ended in his rushing from the room swearing he would challenge mr. pickwick to mortal combat. tupman, winkle and snodgrass being announced at that moment, mr. pickwick joined them, and the middle-aged lady was left alone in a state of terrible alarm. the longer she thought the more terrified she became at the idea of possible bloodshed and harm to her lover. at length, overcome by dread, and knowing no other way to stop the duel, she hastened to the house of the mayor of the town, a pompous magistrate named nupkins, and begged him to stop the duel. not wishing to make trouble for mr. peter magnus, she declared that the two rioters who threatened to disturb the peace of the town were named pickwick and tupman; these two, nupkins, thinking them cutthroats from london, at once sent men to arrest. mr. pickwick was just telling his followers the story of his mishap of the night before, when a half-dozen officers burst into the room. boiling with indignation, mr. pickwick had to submit, and the officers put him and tupman into an old sedan-chair and carried them off, followed by winkle and snodgrass and by all the town loafers. sam weller met the procession and tried to rescue them, but was knocked down and taken prisoner also. so they were all brought to nupkins's house. the mayor refused to hear a word mr. pickwick said and was about to send them all to jail as desperate characters when sam weller called his master aside and whispered to him that the house they were in was the very one from which he had seen job trotter come, and from this fact he guessed that jingle himself had wormed himself into the good graces of the mayor. at this mr. pickwick asked to have a private talk with nupkins. this was grudgingly granted and in a few moments mr. pickwick had learned that jingle, calling himself "captain fitz-marshall," had imposed so well on the pompous mayor that the latter's wife and daughter had introduced him everywhere and he himself had boasted to everybody of his acquaintance. it was nupkins's turn to feel humble when mr. pickwick told him jingle's real character. he was terribly afraid the story would get out and that the town would laugh at him, so he became all at once tremendously polite, declared their arrest had been all a mistake and begged the pickwickians to make themselves at home. sam weller was sent down to the kitchen to get his dinner, where he met a pretty housemaid named mary, with whom he proceeded to fall very much in love for the first time in his life. jingle and job walked into the trap a little later, not expecting the kind of reception they were to find there. but even before the combined scorn of nupkins, mrs. nupkins, miss nupkins and the pickwickians, jingle showed a brazen front. he knew pride would prevent the mayor from exposing him, and when finally shown the door, he left with a mocking jeer, followed by the chuckling job. in spite of his own troubles mr. pickwick left ipswich comforted by the defeat of jingle. as for sam, he kissed the pretty housemaid behind the door and they parted with mutual regrets. to atone for these difficult adventures, the pickwickians prepared for a long visit to dingley dell, where they spent an old-fashioned merry christmas; where they found the fat boy even fatter and mr. wardle even jollier; where tupman was not saddened by the sight of his lost love, the spinster aunt, who had been sent to live with another relative; where snodgrass came more than ever to admire emily, the pretty daughter; where winkle fell head over ears in love with a black-eyed young lady visitor named arabella allen, who wore a nice little pair of boots with fur around the top; where they went skating and mr. pickwick broke through, and had to be carried home and put to bed; where they hung mistletoe and told stories, and altogether enjoyed themselves in a hundred ways. ben allen, arabella's brother, reached dingley dell on christmas day--a thick-set, mildewy young man, with short black hair, a long white face and spectacles. he was a medical student, and brought with him his chum, bob sawyer, a slovenly, smart, swaggering young gentleman, who smelled strongly of tobacco smoke and looked like a dissipated robinson crusoe. ben intended that his chum should marry his sister arabella, and bob sawyer paid her so much attention that winkle began to hate him on the spot. the christmas merrymaking was all too soon over, and as mrs. bardell's lawsuit against mr. pickwick was shortly to be tried, the pickwickians returned regretfully to the city. vi the celebrated case of barbell against pickwick. sergeant buzfuz's speech and an unexpected verdict on the morning of the trial mr. pickwick went to court certain that the outcome would be in his favor. the room was full of people, and all the pickwickians were there when he arrived. the judge was a very short man, so plump that he seemed all face and waistcoat. when he had rolled in upon two little turned legs, and sat down at his desk, all you could see of him was two little eyes, one broad pink face, and about half of a comical, big wig. scarcely had the jurors taken their seats, when mrs. bardell's lawyers brought in the lady herself, half hysterical, and supported by two tearful lady friends. the ushers called for silence and the trial began. the lawyer who spoke for mrs. bardell was named sergeant buzfuz, a blustering man with a fat body and a red face. he began by picturing mr. pickwick's housekeeper as a lonely widow who had been heartlessly deceived by the villainy of her lodger. he declared that for two years, mrs. bardell had attended to mr. pickwick's comforts, that once he had patted her little boy on the head and asked him how he would like to have another father; that he had also asked her to marry him, and on the same day had been seen by three of his friends holding her in his arms and soothing her agitation. drawing forth two scraps of paper, sergeant buzfuz went on: "gentlemen, one word more. two letters have passed between these parties, which speak volumes. they are not open, fervent letters of affection. they are sly, underhanded communications evidently intended by pickwick to mislead and delude any one into whose hands they might fall. let me read the first: '_dear mrs. b.--chops and tomato sauce. yours, pickwick._' gentlemen, what does this mean? chops! gracious heavens! and tomato sauce. gentlemen, is the happiness of a trusting female to be trifled away by such shallow tricks? the next has no date. '_dear mrs. b.--i shall not be at home till to-morrow._' and then follows this remarkable expression--'_don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan._' the warming-pan! why is mrs. bardell begged not to trouble herself about this warming-pan, unless (as is no doubt the case) it is a mere substitute for some endearing word or promise, cunningly used by pickwick, with a view to his intended desertion? "but enough of this, gentlemen. it is hard to smile with an aching heart. my client's hopes are ruined. all is gloom in the house; the child's sports are forgotten while his mother weeps. but pickwick, gentlemen, pickwick, the pitiless destroyer--pickwick who comes before you to-day with his heartless tomato sauce and warming-pans--pickwick still rears his head, and gazes without a sigh on the ruins he has made. damages, gentlemen, heavy damages is the only punishment with which you can visit him. and for these damages, my client now appeals to a high-minded, a right-feeling, a sympathizing jury of her countrymen!" with this sergeant buzfuz stopped, and began to call his witnesses. the first was one of mrs. bardell's female cronies, whose testimony of course, was all in her favor. then winkle was called. knowing that he was a friend of mr. pickwick's, mrs. bardell's lawyers browbeat and puzzled him till poor mr. winkle had the air of a disconcerted pickpocket, and was in a terrible state of confusion. he was soon made to tell how, with tupman and snodgrass, he had come into mr. pickwick's lodgings one day to find him holding mrs. bardell in his arms. the other two pickwickians were also compelled to testify to this. nor was this all. sergeant buzfuz finally entrapped the agonized winkle into telling how mr. pickwick had been found at night in the wrong room at the ipswich inn and how as a result a lady's marriage had been broken off and the whole party arrested and taken before the mayor. poor winkle was obliged to tell this, though he knew it would hurt the case of mr. pickwick. when he was released he rushed away to the nearest inn, where he was found some hours later by the waiter, groaning dismally with his head under the sofa cushions. mr. pickwick's case looked black. the only comfort he received was from the testimony of sam weller, who tried to do mrs. bardell's side all possible harm yet say as little about his master as he could, and who kept the court room in a roar of laughter with his sallies. "do you mean to tell me, mr. weller," said sergeant buzfuz finally, "that you saw nothing of mrs. bardell's fainting in the arms of mr. pickwick? have you a pair of eyes, mr. weller?" "yes, i _have_ a pair of eyes," replied sam, "and that's just it. if they was a pair o' patent-double-million-magnifyin'-gas-miscroscopes of hextra power, p'r'aps i might be able to see through a flight o' stairs and a deal door; but bein' only eyes, you see, my wision's limited." sergeant buzfuz could make nothing out of sam, and so the case for mrs. bardell closed. mr. pickwick's lawyer made a long speech in his favor, but it was of no use. the evidence seemed all against him. the jury found him guilty of breach of promise of marriage, and sentenced him to pay mrs. bardell her damages. mr. pickwick was speechless with indignation. he vowed that not one penny would he ever pay if he spent the rest of his life in a jail. his own lawyer warned him that if he did not pay within two months, mrs. bardell's lawyers could put him into the debtors' prison, but mr. pickwick prepared to start on another excursion with his three friends, still declaring that he would never pay. vii winkle has an exciting adventure with mr. dowler, and with the aid of mr. pickwick and sam weller discovers the whereabouts of miss arabella allen at bath, a resort very popular with people of fashion, the pickwickians decided to spend the next two months, and started by coach at once, accompanied by sam weller. on the coach they fell in with a fierce-looking, abrupt gentleman named dowler, with a bald, glossy forehead and large black whiskers, who introduced them to the society of bath, particularly to mr. angelo cyrus bantam, master of ceremonies at the famous assembly-room, where the fashionable balls were held. mr. bantam carried a gold eye-glass, a gold snuff-box, gold rings on his finger, a gold watch in his waistcoat pocket, a gold chain and an ebony cane with a gold head. his linen was the whitest, his wig the blackest, and his teeth were so fine that it was hard to tell the real ones from the false ones. mr. bantam made the pickwickians welcome and in three days' time they were settled in a fine house, where mr. and mrs. dowler also lodged. mr. pickwick passed his days in drinking the spring-water for which bath was famous, and in walking; his evenings he spent at the assembly balls, at the theater or in making entries in his journal. one evening mrs. dowler was carried off to a party in her sedan-chair, leaving her husband to sit up for her. the pickwickians had long since gone to bed, and mr. dowler fell fast asleep while he waited. it was a very windy night and the sedan-carriers, who brought the lady home, knocked in vain at the door. mr. dowler did not wake, though they knocked like an insane postman. at length winkle in his own room was roused by the racket. he donned slippers and dressing-gown, hurried down stairs half asleep and opened the door. at the glare of the torches he jumped to the conclusion that the house was on fire and rushed outside, when the door blew shut behind him. seeing a lady's face at the window of the sedan-chair, he turned and knocked at the door frantically, but with no response. he was undressed and the wind blew his dressing-gown in a most unpleasant manner. "there are people coming down the street now. there are ladies with 'em; cover me up with something! stand before me!" roared winkle, but the chairmen only laughed. the ladies were nearer and in desperation he bolted into the sedan-chair where mrs. dowler was. now mr. dowler, a moment before, had bounced off the bed, and now threw open the window just in time to see this. he thought his wife was running away with another man, and seizing a supper knife, the indignant husband tore into the street, shouting furiously. winkle, hearing his horrible threats, did not wait. he leaped out of the sedan-chair and took to his heels, hotly pursued by dowler. he dodged his pursuer at length, rushed back, slammed the door in dowler's face, gained his bedroom, barricaded his door with furniture and packed his belongings. at the first streak of dawn, he slipped out and took coach for bristol. mr. pickwick was greatly vexed over winkle's unheroic flight. sam weller soon discovered where he had gone, and mr. pickwick sent him after the fugitive, bidding him find winkle and either compel him to return or keep him in sight until mr. pickwick himself could follow. winkle, meanwhile, walking about the bristol streets, chanced to stop at a doctor's office to make some inquiries, and in a young medical gentleman in green spectacles recognized, to his huge surprise, bob sawyer, the bosom friend of ben allen, both of whom he had met on christmas day at dingley dell. bob, in delight, dragged winkle into the back room where sat ben allen, amusing himself by boring holes in the chimney piece with a red-hot poker. the precious couple had, in fact, set up shop together, and were using every trick they knew to make people think them great doctors with a tremendous practice. they insisted on winkle's staying to supper, and it was lucky he did so, for he heard news of arabella, the pretty girl who had worn the little boots with fur around the top at dingley dell, and with whom he had fallen in love. he learned that arabella had scorned the sprightly bob sawyer, and that her brother, in anger, had taken her away from mr. wardle's and put her in the house of an old aunt--a dull, close place not far from bristol. before he bade them good night, winkle had determined to find her. he met with a shock, on returning to his inn, to come suddenly upon dowler sitting in the coffee-room. winkle drew back, very pale, and was greatly surprised to see the bloodthirsty dowler do likewise as, growing even paler than winkle, he began an apology for his action of the evening before. as a matter of fact, dowler had run away from bath, too, at dawn, in fear of winkle, and thought now the latter had pursued him. winkle, suspecting this, put on a look of great fierceness but accepted the apology, and the pair shook hands. winkle's plan for finding arabella allen met now with a set-back. sam weller arrived at midnight and insisted that winkle be waked at once. once in his room, sam told him mr. pickwick's instructions and declared he would not leave his sight till winkle came back with him to bath. this was awkward, but luckily, mr. pickwick himself, to whom sam wrote, arrived next day and released his follower. mr. pickwick approved of winkle's determination to find the pretty arabella, and so the next morning sam weller was sent on a voyage of discovery among the servants of the town. for many hours sam searched in vain without a clue. in the afternoon he sat in a lane running between rows of gardens in one of the suburbs, when a gate opened and a maid-servant came out to shake some carpets. sam gallantly rose to help her, when she uttered a half-suppressed scream. it was mary, the good-looking housemaid whom sam had kissed at the house of nupkins, the mayor of ipswich, on the day of the arrest of the pickwickians and the exposure of jingle. she had left her place there for this new situation. when sam had finished his gallant speeches and mary her blushing, he told her of winkle's search. what was his surprise when she told him that arabella was living the very next door. she let sam come into the garden, and presently when arabella came out to walk, he scrambled on to the wall and pleaded winkle's cause. "ve thought ve should ha' been obliged to straitveskit him last night," he declared. "he's been a-ravin' all day; and he says if he can't see you afore to-morrow night's over, he vishes he may be somethin'-unpleasanted if he don't drownd hisself." arabella, in great distress at this prospect, promised she would be in the garden next evening, and sam returned with the news to mr. pickwick and winkle. the next evening all three set out for the spot. mary let them into the garden and, while winkle climbed the wall to throw himself at arabella's feet, mr. pickwick kept guard at the gate with a dark lantern. so far he threw its beam that a scientific gentleman who lived a few houses away, seeing the light from his window, took it for some new and wonderful freak of electricity and came out to investigate. before he arrived, however, winkle had scrambled back over the wall and arabella had run into the house. seeing the scientific gentleman's head poked out of a garden-gate as they passed, sam gave it a gentle tap with his fist and then, hoisting mr. pickwick on his back, and followed by winkle, he ran off at full speed, leaving the scientific gentleman to go back to his room and write a long article about the wonderful light and to tell how he had received a shock of electricity which left him stunned for a quarter of an hour afterward. the pickwickians' stay at bath came to an end soon after this adventure, and their leader, with sam weller, returned to london. viii mr. pickwick's experiences in the debtors' prison, where he finds an old enemy and heaps coals of fire on the head of mrs. bardell mr. pickwick had not been long in london when his lawyer's warning proved too true. one morning a bailiff forced his way to his bedroom and, since he had not paid the damages to mrs. bardell, arrested him in bed, waited till he was dressed and carried him off to the debtors' prison. the prison was called the fleet. it was a gloomy building with a heavy gate, guarded by a turnkey, holding all classes, from laboring men to broken-down spendthrifts. its filthy galleries, and low coffee-room reeked with tobacco smoke and its open court was noisy with the oaths of card-players. in some of the rooms lived men with their wives and whole families of children, and mr. pickwick found he would have to pay extra even to have a room to himself. caged with this coarse, vulgar crowd, mr. pickwick suffered greatly, but no idea of paying the unjust damages entered his mind. instead, he busied himself with wandering about the prison and learning all he could of its customs and inmates. those who, like himself, had money were well-treated. those who had none lived in starvation and wretchedness. in one wall was a kind of iron cage, within which was posted a lean and hungry prisoner who rattled a money-box and called out: "remember the poor debtors!" the money he collected from passers-by in the street was divided and bought food for the poorest. as mr. pickwick entered the room given over to the latter class, he started. in one of its occupants, clad in tattered garments and yellow shirt, pinched with starvation and pale with illness, he saw alfred jingle; and near him, faithful still in rags and dirt, was job trotter. jingle was no longer jaunty and impudent. he had pawned all his belongings; had lived, in fact, for the last week on a silk umbrella with an ivory handle. his smile now was a mere twitch of the face as he said: "nothing soon--starve--die--workhouse funeral--serve him right--all over--drop the curtain!" unable, however, to keep up this make-believe recklessness, jingle sat down at length and sobbed like a child. mr. pickwick was greatly moved at the sight, and gave job some money for his master as he turned away. sam weller had come with mr. pickwick to the prison. the latter, however, told his servant he must now leave him, though his wages would go on as usual. sam pretended to agree, but lost no time in going to his father with a plan by which he, too, should be sent to the fleet prison for debt, so as to be near his master. he borrowed some money from the old stage-driver, and then when he refused to pay it, his father had him arrested and sent to the prison as he wished. old tony weller and all his friends went with him, and gave him three tremendous cheers at the door. when mr. pickwick saw sam return and learned what he had done, he was much affected at the devotion of this faithful servant and felt himself more fond of him than ever. it was a long time before winkle, tupman and snodgrass learned of their leader's imprisonment and came to see him. sam also had visitors in the person of his mother-in-law (who, of course, did not know he had brought about his own arrest) and the hypocritical, red-nosed preacher who came with her to lecture him on his evil ways. old tony weller came, too, with a plan that he had thought of for mr. pickwick's escape in a piano. "it'll hold him easy," he whispered, "with his hat and shoes on, and breathe through the legs, vich is holler. have a passage ready taken for 'mericker. the 'merikin gov'ment will never give him up when they finds as he's got money to spend, sammy. let him stop there till mrs. bardell's dead, then let him come back and write a book about the 'merikins as'll pay all his expenses and more if he blows 'em up enough." but mr. pickwick did not avail himself of this plan to escape to america. day by day he wandered about the prison, learning its tales of misery and hopelessness, till his head and his heart ached and he could bear no more. for three months he remained there, shut up all day, stealing from his room only at night, and no entreaties would induce him to pay the money which was keeping him a prisoner. mrs. bardell's lawyers meanwhile grew impatient. they had not been paid even the costs of the trial, and these mrs. bardell had agreed to pay if they won the suit. as mr. pickwick had not paid the damages, however, she had no money, and so the lawyers at last had her arrested, and she, too, was sent to the fleet prison. after a few hours there, mrs. bardell was willing to do anything to escape, and she agreed if mr. pickwick paid the costs, to release him from the damages. mr. pickwick was still so indignant that he would possibly not have consented, but at this juncture winkle entered, leading by the hand the beautiful girl who had been arabella allen, but whom he introduced now as mrs. winkle. he had run away with her from the old aunt's house, with the help of mary, the pretty housemaid, and they had been married without the knowledge of winkle's father. they had come to mr. pickwick to beg him to go and plead with old mr. winkle for forgiveness. arabella's tears and winkle's plight proved too much for mr. pickwick's resolution. he paid mrs. bardell's costs and left fleet prison that very day, with sam weller, whose father, of course, immediately released him also. ix snodgrass gets into difficulties, but wins his lady-love. the adventures of the pickwickians come to an end mr. pickwick journeyed first to bristol, to break the news of arabella's marriage to her brother, ben allen. the latter was angry at first, but finally he and bob sawyer shook hands with the visitor and agreed to treasure no ill-feeling. both the young gentlemen insisted on going with mr. pickwick to the winkle homestead--a circumstance which did not make that visit an easy one. arabella's brother went fast asleep in the parlor while they waited, and when bob sawyer pinched him, as the old gentleman entered, he awoke with a shriek without the least idea where he was. this was most embarrassing to mr. pickwick, but he said all he could for winkle. the old gentleman, however, would send no message to his son, and mr. pickwick and sam weller returned with disappointment. in london sam found a letter awaiting him from his father. his mother-in-law was dead and the public house and its earnings were now the old stage-driver's. sam went to see old tony and found him terrified. all the widows in town were setting their caps for him and he was afraid one of them would succeed in marrying him. he had determined to sell out the business, give the money to mr. pickwick to invest for him, and keep to stage-driving so as to be safe. while sam sat with his father talking matters over, the red-nosed preacher came sidling in to inquire whether mrs. weller's will had not left some money for him. he felt so much at home that he went to the cupboard and poured himself out a big tumbler of his favorite pineapple rum. this was more than old tony weller could stand. he fell upon the old hypocrite, kicked him through the door and ducked him in the horse trough. mr. pickwick, meanwhile, had been arranging to buy the release of jingle and job trotter, and to send them to the west indies, where they might have a chance to make an honest living. while he was attending to this at his lawyer's, a prolonged knock came at the door. it was joe, mr. wardle's fat boy, erect, but gone fast asleep between his knocks. mr. wardle came up from his carriage, delighted to see his old friend, of whose imprisonment he had just heard. he told mr. pickwick that his daughter emily had fallen in love with snodgrass, and that, discovering it, he had brought her to london to ask the advice of mr. pickwick in the matter. while they talked he sent the fat boy back to the inn to tell emily that mr. pickwick would dine there with them. the fat boy went on this errand, and coming suddenly into the inn sitting-room, discovered emily, with her waist encircled with snodgrass's arm while arabella and her pretty housemaid were obligingly looking out of the window. there was but one thing to do: they bribed the fat boy not to tell! snodgrass, unluckily, stayed too long. as he was leaving, he heard mr. wardle, with mr. pickwick and winkle, coming up the stair. he was obliged to retreat, and took refuge in mr. wardle's bedroom, from which there was no escape, save through the dining-room. the dinner hour was a painful one to emily, for the fat boy's secret kept him awake, and he winked at her and at arabella so often that mr. wardle noticed it. the latter sent him into the bedroom finally for his snuff-box and he came out very pale, mr. snodgrass having seized him there, and begged him to tell some one secretly to release him. accordingly the fat boy made desperate efforts to attract mr. pickwick's attention--first by making faces at him when he thought no one else was looking and finally by running a pin into his leg. but this did not have the desired results. mr. pickwick concluded he was crazy, and mr. wardle was about to have him taken down stairs, when into the confusion, with a very red face, walked snodgrass, out of the bedroom. he explained his presence there, declared his love for emily, was forgiven on the spot and joined the dinner. the happiness of all was complete when old mr. winkle arrived (having made up his mind to see his son's wife and judge for himself) and found arabella so sweet that he kissed her and forgave winkle on the instant. thus the last adventure of the pickwickians ended happily. mr. pickwick had seen, before this, that the marriage of his companions would change his own life. he withdrew his name from the pickwick club (which thereupon went to pieces), and purchased a house near london for the entertainment of his friends, and there a few days later snodgrass and emily were married in the presence of mr. wardle and all the pickwickians. after the wedding, snodgrass bought a farm near dingley dell where, with emily, he lived many years, and was always accounted a great poet on account of his pensive and absent-minded manner. winkle, with arabella, settled a half-mile from mr. pickwick. tupman never again fell in love, though for years his romantic air made him the admiration of numerous single ladies of the neighborhood. ben allen and bob sawyer went to india as surgeons where (after having had yellow fever fourteen times) they became teetotalers and thereafter did well. mrs. bardell continued to let lodgings to single gentlemen, but never had another breach of promise suit. old tony weller finally gave up business and retired to live on the interest of the money mr. pickwick had invested for him, having, to the end of his life, a great dislike for widows. his son, sam, remaining faithful to his master, mr. pickwick at length made mary, the pretty maid, his housekeeper, on condition that she marry sam, which she did at once. mr. pickwick lived happily, occupied in writing his adventures and in acting as godfather to the children of snodgrass and winkle. he never regretted what he had done for jingle and job trotter, who became in time worthy members of society. he was a favorite with all and the children loved him. every year he went to mr. wardle's to a large merrymaking, attended by his faithful sam weller, between whom and his master there was a regard that nothing but death could end. little dorrit published - _scene_: london and various places on the continent _time_: to characters mr. dorrit an inmate of the debtors' prison known as "the father of the marshalsea." later a wealthy man of the world "little dorrit" his daughter amy fanny his older daughter "tip" his son mrs. general his daughters' chaperon arthur clennam little dorrit's champion mr. clennam his father mrs. clennam his supposed mother flintwinch a family servant later mrs. clennam's partner in business affery his wife, and mrs. clennam's servant pancks a rent collector. little dorrit's friend john chivery the son of one of the prison turnkeys little dorrit's suitor maggy a half-witted woman doyce an inventor. arthur's partner in business rigaud a blackmailing adventurer and jailbird mr. tite barnacle a self-important official in the "circumlocution office" mr. merdle a supposedly wealthy man of affairs in london mrs. merdle his wife mr. meagles a business man. arthur's friend mrs. meagles his wife "pet" their daughter "tattycoram" pet's maid little dorrit i how arthur came home from china a long, long time ago there lived in london a young man named clennam. he was an orphan, and was brought up by a stern uncle, who crushed and repressed his youth and finally forced him to marry a cold, unfeeling, stubborn woman whom he did not in the least love. some time before this marriage, the nephew had met a beautiful young woman, also an orphan, whom a rich man named dorrit was educating to be a singer, since she had a remarkable voice. clennam had fallen in love with her and had persuaded her to give him all her love in return. there had even been a kind of ceremony of marriage between them. but they were both very poor and could not really marry for fear of the anger of clennam's cruel uncle, who finally compelled his nephew to marry the other woman, whom he had picked out for him. and the singer, because she loved him and could not bear to see him made a beggar, gave him up. so clennam married one woman while loving another, and this, as all wrong things must do, resulted in unhappiness for them both. the singer had given him a little silk watch-paper worked in beads with the initials d. n. f. these letters stood for the words, "do not forget." the wife saw the paper with her husband's watch in his secret drawer and wondered what it meant. one day she found an old letter, that had passed between her husband and the singer, which explained the initials and betrayed the secret of their love. she was hard and unforgiving. though she had never loved clennam herself, her anger was terrible. she went to the singer, and under threat of for ever disgracing her in the eyes of the world, she made her give up to her her baby boy, arthur, to rear as her own. she promised, in return, that the little arthur should be provided for and should never know the real history of his parentage. she also compelled her husband and the singer to take an oath that neither would ever see or communicate with the other again. mrs. clennam, in taking this terrible revenge, cheated herself into believing that she was only the instrument of god, carrying out his will and punishment. but in reality she was satisfying the rage and hatred of her own heart. year by year she nursed this rage in the gloomy house in which clennam lived and where he carried on the london branch of his business. it was an old brick house separated from the street by a rusty courtyard. it seemed to have once been about to slide down sidewise, but had been propped up as though it leaned on some half-dozen gigantic crutches. inside it was dark and miserable, with sunken floors and blackened furniture. in a corner of the sitting-room was an ugly old clock that was wound once a week with an iron handle, and on the walls were pictures showing the "plagues of egypt." the only pleasure the grim woman enjoyed was reading aloud from those parts of the old testament which call for dreadful punishments to fall upon all the enemies of the righteous, and in these passages she gloried. in this melancholy place the boy arthur clennam grew up in silence and in dread, wondering much why they lived so lonely and why his father and mother (for so he thought mrs. clennam to be) sat always so silent with faces turned from each other. there were but two servants, an old woman named affery, and flintwinch, her husband, a short, bald man, who was both clerk and footman, and who carried his head awry and walked in a one-sided crab-like way, as though he were falling and needed propping up like the house. flintwinch was cunning and without conscience. very few secrets his mistress had which he did not know, and they often quarreled. at length the uncle, who had compelled the unhappy marriage of arthur's father, died. feeling sorry at the last for the wretched singer, whose life had been ruined, he left her in his will a sum of money, and another sum to the youngest niece of the man who had befriended and educated her--mr. dorrit. this money, however, mrs. clennam did not intend either the woman she hated or the niece of her patron should get. she hid the part of the will which referred to it, and made flintwinch (who, beside her husband, was the only one who knew of it) promise not to tell. arthur's father she compelled to sail to china, to take charge of the branch of his business in that country, and when arthur was old enough, she sent him there also. for twenty years, while arthur stayed with his father on the other side of the world, mrs. clennam, cold and unforgiving as ever, lived on in the old, tumbling house, carrying on the london business with the aid of flintwinch. the poor, forsaken singer lost her mind and at last died. mr. dorrit, of course, knowing nothing about the hidden will, could not claim his share, and the guilty secret remained (except for arthur's unhappy father) in possession of only mrs. clennam and the crafty flintwinch. so the years rolled by, and mrs. clennam's cold gray eyes grew colder, her gray hair grayer and her face more hard and stony. she went out less and less, and finally paralysis made her keep to her room and her chair. the time came when arthur's father lay dying with his son beside him. on his death-bed he did not forget the money which had never been restored. he had not strength to write, but with his dying hand he gave arthur his watch, making him promise to take it back to england to the wife whose anger and hatred still lived. the watch still held the little paper with the bead initials that stood for "do not forget," and he meant thus to remind her of the wrong which was still unrighted. many times thereafter, on his way back to london, arthur thought of his father's strange manner and wondered if it could be that some wrong deed lay on his conscience. this idea clung to him, so that when he saw mrs. clennam again on his arrival, and spoke to her of his father's last hours, he asked her if she thought this might be so. but at this her anger rose; she upbraided him and declared if he ever referred again to the subject she would renounce him as her son and cast him off for ever. it was her guilty conscience, of course, that caused this burst of rage. and yet, just because it was not for the money's sake that she had done that evil act, but because she so hated the woman to whom it should have been given, she tried to convince herself that she had acted rightly, as the instrument of god, to punish wickedness. she had told herself this falsehood over and over again so often that she had ended by quite believing it to be the truth. arthur said no more to her about the matter. he was a man now, and his father's death had made him master of a very considerable fortune. he decided that he would not carry on the business, but would make a new one for himself. this resolution angered mrs. clennam greatly, but she grimly determined to carry it on herself, and in arthur's place took the wily flintwinch as her partner and told arthur coldly to go his own way. ii the child of the marshalsea on the first night of his return to the house of his childhood arthur had noticed there a little seamstress, with pale, transparent face, hazel eyes and a figure as small as a child's. she wore a spare thin dress, spoke little, and passed through the rooms noiselessly and shy. they called her "little dorrit." she came in the morning and sewed quietly till nightfall, when she vanished. it had been so rare in the old days for any one to please the mistress of that gloomy house that the little creature's presence there interested arthur greatly and he longed to know something of her history. he soon found there was nothing to be learned from flintwinch, and so one night he followed little dorrit when she left the house. to his great surprise he saw her finally enter a great bare building surrounded with spiked walls and called the marshalsea. this was a famous prison where debtors were kept. in those days the law not only permitted a man to be put in jail for debt, but compelled him to stay there till all he owed was paid--a strange custom, since while he was in jail he was unable to earn any money to pay with. in fact, in many cases poor debtors had to stay there all their lives. inside the walls of the marshalsea the wives and children of unfortunate prisoners were allowed to come to live with them just as in a boarding-house or hotel, but the debtors themselves could never pass out of the gate. arthur entered the prison ignorant of its rules and so stayed too long, for presently the bell for closing rang, the gates were shut, and he had to stay inside all night. this was not so pleasant, but it gave him a chance easily to find out all he wished to learn of little dorrit's history. her father, before she was born, had lost all his money through a business failure, and had thus been thrown into the marshalsea. there amy, or little dorrit, as they came to call her, was born; there her mother had languished away, and there she herself had always lived, mothering her pretty frivolous sister fanny, and her lazy, ne'er-do-well brother, "tip." her father had been an inmate of the prison so many years that he was called "the father of the marshalsea." from being a haughty man of wealth, he had become a shabby old white-haired dignitary with a soft manner, who took little gifts of money which any one gave him half-shame-facedly and to the mortification of little dorrit alone. the child had grown up the favorite of the turnkeys and of all the prison, calling the high, blank walls "home." when she was a little slip of a girl she had her sister and brother sent to night-school for a time, and later taught herself fine sewing, so that at the time arthur clennam returned to london she was working every day outside the walls, for small wages. each night she returned to the prison to prepare her father's supper, bringing him whatever she could hide from her own dinner at the house where she sewed, loving him devotedly through all. she even had a would-be lover, too. the son of one of the turnkeys, a young man with weak legs and weak, light hair, soft-hearted and soft-headed, had long pursued her in vain. he was now engaged in seeking comfort for his hopeless love by composing epitaphs for his own tombstone, such as: _______________________________________________ | | | here lie the mortal remains of | | john chivery | | never anything worth mentioning | | who died of a broken heart, requesting with | | his last breath that the word | | amy | | might be inscribed over his ashes | | which was done by his afflicted parents | |_______________________________________________| old mr. dorrit held his position among the marshalsea prisoners with great fancied dignity and received all visitors and new-comers in his room like a man of society at home. during that evening arthur called on him and treated the old man so courteously and talked to little dorrit with such kindness that she began to love him from that moment. many things of little dorrit's pathetic story arthur learned that night. his first surprise at finding her in the clennam house mingled strangely with his old thought that his father on his death-bed seemed to be troubled by some remorseful memory; and as he slept in the gloomy prison he dreamed that the little seamstress was in some mysterious way mingled with this wrong and remorse. there was more truth than fancy in this dream. not knowing the true history of his parentage, and wholly ignorant of the sad life and death of the poor singer, his own unhappy mother, arthur had never heard the name dorrit. he did not know, to be sure, that it was the name of the wealthy patron who had once educated her. as a matter of fact, this patron had been little dorrit's own uncle, who now was living in poverty. it was to his youngest niece that the will mrs. clennam had wickedly hidden declared the money should go. and as little dorrit was this niece, it rightfully belonged to her. the real reason of mrs. clennam's apparent kindness to little dorrit was the pricking of her conscience, which gave her no rest. but all this arthur could not guess. nevertheless, he had gained such an interest in the little seamstress that next day he determined to find out all he could about her father's unfortunate affairs. he had great difficulty in this. the government had taken charge of old mr. dorrit's debts, and his affairs were in the hands of a department which some people sneeringly called the "circumlocution office"--because it took so much time and talk for it to accomplish anything. this department had a great many clerks, every one of whom seemed to have nothing to do but to keep people from troubling them by finding out anything. arthur went to one clerk, who sent him to a mr. tite barnacle, a fat, pompous man with a big collar, a big watch chain and stiff boots. mr. barnacle treated him quite as an outsider and would give him no information whatever. then he tried another department, where they said they knew nothing of the matter. still a third advised him not to bother about it. so at last he had to give up, quite discouraged. though he could do nothing for little dorrit's father, arthur did what he could for her lazy brother. he paid his debts so that he was released from the marshalsea, and this kindness, though tip himself was ungrateful to the last degree, endeared him still more to little dorrit, who needed his friendship so greatly. the night her brother was released she came to arthur to thank him--alone save for a half-witted woman named maggie, who believed she herself was only ten years old, and called little dorrit "little mother," and who used to go with her when she went through the streets at night. little dorrit was dressed so thinly and looked so slight and helpless that when she left, arthur felt as if he would like to take her up in his arms and carry her home again. it would have been better if he had. for when they got back to the marshalsea the prison gates had closed for the night and they had to stay out till morning. they wandered in the cold street till nearly dawn; then a kind-hearted sexton who was opening a church let them come in and made little dorrit a bed of pew cushions, and there she slept a while with a big church-book for a pillow. arthur did not know of this adventure till long afterward, for little dorrit would not tell him for fear he should blame himself for letting them go home alone. little dorrit had one other valuable friend beside arthur at this time. this was a rent collector named pancks, who was really kind-hearted, but who was compelled to squeeze rent money out of the poor by his master. the latter looked so good and benevolent that people called him "the patriarch," but he was at heart a genuine skinflint, for whose meanness pancks got all the credit. pancks was a short, wiry man, with a scrubby chin and jet-black eyes, and when he walked or talked he puffed and blew and snorted like a little steam-engine. little dorrit used sometimes to go to sew at the house of "the patriarch," and pancks often saw her there. one day he greatly surprised her by asking to see the palm of her hand, and then he pretended to read her fortune. he told her all about herself (which astonished her, for she did not know that he knew anything of her history), and then, with many mysterious puffs and winks, he told her she would finally be happy. after that she seemed to meet pancks wherever she went--at mrs. clennam's and at the marshalsea as well--but at such meetings he would pretend not to know her. only sometimes, when no one else was near, he would whisper: "i'm pancks, the gipsy--fortune-telling." [illustration: arthur clennam calling on little dorrit and her father at the marshalsea _see page _] these strange actions puzzled little dorrit very much. but she was far from guessing the truth: that pancks had for some time been interested (as had arthur clennam) in finding out how her father's affairs stood. he had discovered thus, accidentally, that old mr. dorrit was probably the heir at law to a great estate that had lain for years forgotten, unclaimed and growing larger all the time. the question now was to prove this, and this, pancks, out of friendship for little dorrit, was busily trying to do. one day the rent-collector came to arthur to tell him that he had succeeded. the proof was all found. mr. dorrit's right was clear; all he had to do was to sign his name to a paper, and the marshalsea gates would open and he would be free and a rich man. arthur found little dorrit and told her the glad tidings. they made her almost faint for joy, although all her rejoicing was for her father. then he put her in a carriage and drove as fast as possible with her to the prison to carry her father the great news. little dorrit told the old man with her arms around his neck, and as she clasped him, thinking that she had never yet in her life known him as he had once been, before his prison years, she cried: "i shall see him as i never saw him yet--my dear love, with the dark cloud cleared away! i shall see him, as my poor mother saw him long ago! o my dear, my dear! o father, father! o thank god, thank god!" so "the father of the marshalsea" left the old prison, in which he had lived so long, and all the prisoners held a mass-meeting and gave him a farewell address and a dinner. on the last day, when they drove away from the iron gates, old mr. dorrit was in fine, new clothing, and tip and fanny were clad in the height of fashion. poor little dorrit, in joy for her father and grief at parting from arthur (for they were to go abroad at once), did not appear at the last moment, and arthur, who had come to see them off, hastening to her room, found that she had fainted away. he carried her gently down to the carriage, and as he lifted her in, he saw she had put on the same thin little dress that she had worn on the day he had first seen her. so, amid cheers and good wishes, they drove away, and arthur, as he walked back through the crowded streets, somehow felt very lonely. iii what riches brought to the dorrits great changes came to old mr. dorrit with his money. as they traveled slowly through switzerland and into italy, he put on greater dignity daily. he lived each day suspecting that every one was in some way trying to slight him and grew very much ashamed of his past years in the marshalsea, and forbade all mention of them. he hired a great number of servants, and, to improve the manners of fanny and little dorrit, he employed a woman named mrs. general, who had many silly notions of society. little dorrit could not even say "father" without being reproved by mrs. general. "papa is preferable, my dear," the lady would insist, "and, besides, it gives a pretty form to the lips. papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prisms are all good words for the lips. you will find it serviceable in the formation of a demeanor, if you say to yourself in company--on entering a room, for instance--'papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prisms!'" fanny and tip were as spoiled as possible. fanny, morning and night, thought of nothing but wearing costly dresses and "going into society," and tip did little but play cards and bet on horse-races. only little dorrit, through all, kept her old sweet self unchanged. wherever they went they lived in splendid hotels. in venice the palace they occupied was six times as big as the whole marshalsea. mr. dorrit, when he remembered arthur clennam at all, spoke of him as an upstart who had intruded his presence upon them in their poverty, and quickly forgot all his kindness and his efforts to help and comfort them. but little dorrit never forgot. her present existence seemed a dream. she tried to care for her father as she used to do, but he was afraid people would think he had not been used to servants (foolish man!) so she lost even the little pleasure of her old prison life in the marshalsea. there were valets and maids now to do all the little things she had once loved to do with her own hands, and she seemed to be no longer of use to him. she loved her father as dearly as she always had, but now she had begun to feel that she could never see him as he used to be before his prison days, because first poverty and now wealth had changed him. the old sad shadow came over her. he grew angry at her and chid her, and hurt her. it seemed he had entirely forgotten the old days when she slaved so for him. poor little dorrit! she was far lonelier now than she had ever been before in the debtors' prison--lonelier and unhappier than arthur clennam in london could have guessed. the gay, fashionable life of her brother and sister did not attract her. she was timid of joining in their gaieties. she asked leave only to be left alone, and went about the city in a gondola in a quiet, scared, lost manner. it often seemed to her as if the marshalsea must be just behind the next big building, or mrs. clennam's house, where she had first met arthur, just around the next corner. and she used to look into gondolas as they passed, as if she might see arthur any minute. in the days of their prison-poverty fanny had occasionally earned some money by dancing at a theater. there she had met a silly, chuckle-headed young man, the son of a mrs. merdle, and he had been fascinated by her beauty. now, in their wealth, he saw fanny again and fell even more deeply in love with her. mrs. merdle was a cold-hearted, artificial woman, who kept a parrot that was always shrieking, and who thought of nothing but riches and society. she would have refused to let her son marry fanny in the old days, but now it was another matter. he proposed, and fanny, who had been made angry a thousand times by mrs. merdle's insolence and patronizing ways, made up her mind to marry him if only to take her revenge on his mother. mrs. merdle's husband always stayed in london. he was immensely rich--so rich that people said everything he touched turned into gold. he was a quiet, dull man, with dull red cheeks, and cared nothing at all for society, though everybody flattered and courted him. when old mr. dorrit saw mrs. merdle's son was in love with fanny he was greatly pleased. he had by this time grown so selfish that he considered much less her happiness than his own profit, and he thought if they were married he could persuade mr. merdle to invest his own great fortune for him, so that he would be even richer than he was now. mr. merdle's name had been growing bigger and bigger every day. nobody believed the great man could make a mistake, but that he was going to keep on getting richer and richer (though nobody knew how he did it) as long as he lived. so, before long, fanny married mrs. merdle's son, and went back to london to take up life in the magnificent merdle mansion with her silly, chuckle-headed husband. mr. merdle had got a very rich position for him in the "circumlocution office" with which arthur clennam had had so much trouble once on a time. old mr. dorrit went to london, too, and, as he had schemed, gave the famous mr. merdle all his fortune to invest. then he returned to italy, where, in rome, his faithful and lonely little dorrit waited lovingly for him. on the night after he reached rome mrs. merdle gave a dinner party to a large company, and little dorrit and her father attended. in the midst of the dinner he suddenly called to her across the table. his voice was so loud and excited that all the guests were frightened and rose to their feet. little dorrit ran to him and put her arms about him, for she saw at once that he was not himself. he began to address the company, and his first words showed that his mind had failed. he imagined he was still in the debtors' prison and that all the rich people about him were the other poor prisoners. he made them a speech, welcoming them to its walls, thanking them in advance for any money they might give to him as "the father of the marshalsea." and he ended by calling for the old turnkey he had known there to help him up the narrow stair to bed, as he had been used to do in the prison. little dorrit was not ashamed--she loved him too much for that. her only wish was to soothe him, and with a pale, frightened face, she begged him to come with her. they got him away at last and carried him to his house. once laid on his bed, he never rose from it again. nor did he regain his memory of the immediate present. that, with its show and its servants, its riches and power, in which little dorrit had had so small a part, had faded out for ever, and now his mind, back in the marshalsea, recognized his daughter as his only stay and faithful comfort. it was well so, for this was the father she had most loved. so she watched beside him day and night, while every day his life grew weaker and weaker. every day the shadow of death stole deeper and deeper over his face, until one morning, when the dawn came, they saw that he would never wake again. iv what happened to arthur clennam arthur, meanwhile, had missed little dorrit greatly. he was very friendly with a couple named meagles--a comely, healthy, good-humored and kind-hearted pair, and he was so lonely he almost thought himself in love with their daughter "pet" for a while. but pet soon married a portrait-painter and went to live abroad. mr. and mrs. meagles had a little orphan maid whom they called "tattycoram," for no particular reason except that her first name had been hattie, and the name of the man who founded the asylum where they found her was "coram." tattycoram had a very bad temper, so that mr. meagles, when he saw one of these fits coming on, used to stop and say, "count twenty-five, tattycoram." and tattycoram would count twenty-five, and by that time the fit of temper was over. but one day she had an attack that was very much worse than usual--so much worse that she couldn't wait to count twenty-five, and ran away. and it was a long time before they saw tattycoram again. at mr. meagles's house arthur met an inventor named doyce, a quiet, straightforward man, whom he soon came to like. doyce had made a useful invention and for twelve years had been trying to bring it to the notice of the british government. but this matter, too, had to go through the famous "circumlocution office," and so there it had stuck just as arthur's inquiry had done. arthur having chosen no new business as yet, before long proposed a partnership between himself and doyce. the latter agreed readily, and the new firm was established. soon after this doyce went abroad on business, leaving arthur to manage the affairs. all might have gone well but for the fame of mr. merdle. his wealth seemed so enormous, and his plans so sure, that many people throughout england, just as old mr. dorrit had done, put their money in his care. even pancks, the rent collector, did so, and strongly advised arthur to do the same. convinced by such advice arthur was unhappily led to invest the money of the new firm in merdle's schemes. one day soon after, mr. merdle, whom every one had looked up to and respected, killed himself, and then to every one's astonishment it was found that his money was all gone, that his schemes were all exploded, and that the famous man who had dined and wined with the great was simply the greatest forger and the greatest thief that had ever cheated the gallows. but it was too late then. arthur's firm was utterly ruined with all the rest. what hurt him most was the knowledge that by using the firm's money he had ruined his honest partner, doyce. in order to set the latter as near right as he could, arthur turned over every cent of his own personal fortune to pay as much of the firm's debt as it would, keeping nothing of value but his clothes and his books. beside doing this, he wrote out a statement, declaring that he, arthur clennam, had of his own act and against his partner's express caution, used the firm's money for this purpose, and that he alone, and not doyce, was to blame. he declared also that his own share (if any remained out of the wreck) should go to his partner, and that he himself would work as a mere clerk, at as small a salary as he could live on. he published this statement at once, unwisely no doubt, when all london was so enraged against merdle and glad to have some one on whom to vent its madness. in the public anger and excitement the generosity of his act was lost sight of. a few hours later a man who had invested some of his money in arthur's firm, and thus lost it, had him arrested for debt, and that night he entered the dismal iron gates of the marshalsea prison, not now as a visitor, but as one whom the pitiless bars locked in from liberty. the turnkey took him up the old familiar staircase and into the old familiar room in which he had so often been. and as he sat down in its loneliness, thinking of the fair, slight form that had dwelt in it so long, he turned his face to the wall and sobbed aloud, "oh, my little dorrit!" wherever he looked he seemed to see her, and just as she herself in a foreign country found herself looking and listening for his step and voice, so, too, it was with him. in the days that followed he thought of her all the while. he was too depressed and too retiring and unhappy to mingle with the other prisoners, so he kept his own room and made no friends. the rest disliked him and said he was proud or sullen. a burning, reckless mood soon added its sufferings to his dread and hatred of the place. the thought grew on him that he would in the end break his heart and die there. he felt that he was being stifled, and at times the longing to be free made him believe he must go mad. a week of this suffering found him in his bed in the grasp of a slow, wasting fever. he felt light-headed and delirious, and heard tunes playing that he knew were only in his brain. one day when he had dragged himself to his chair by the window, the door of his room seemed to open to a quiet figure, which dropped a mantle it wore; then it seemed to be little dorrit in her old dress, and it seemed first to smile and then to burst into tears. he roused himself, and all at once he saw that it was no dream. she was really there, kneeling by him now with her tears falling on his hands and her voice crying, "oh, my best friend! don't let me see you weep! i am your own poor child come back!" no one had told her he was ill, for she had just returned from italy. she made the room fresh and neat, sewed a white curtain for its window, and sent out for grapes, roast chicken and jellies, and every good thing. she sat by him all day, smoothing his hot pillow or giving him a cooling drink. though he had been strangely blind, he knew at last that she must have loved him all along. and to find her great heart turned to him thus in his misfortune made him realize that during all those months in the lonely prison he had been loving her, too, though he had not known it. a feeling of peace came to him. whenever he opened his eyes he saw her at his side--the same trusting little dorrit that he had always known. v "all's well that ends well" all the while these things were happening, mrs. clennam and flintwinch had continued their grim partnership. mrs. clennam at last decided to burn the part of the will she had hidden, so that her share in the wicked plan could never be found out. flintwinch, however, wishing for his own purposes to keep her in his power, deceived her. he cunningly put in its place a worthless piece of paper, and this mrs. clennam burned instead. flintwinch then locked up the real piece in an iron box, with a lot of private letters that had been written by the poor crazed singer to mrs. clennam, begging her forgiveness. the box he gave to his brother, who took it to holland with him for safe-keeping. but flintwinch, in this deception, overreached himself. there was an adventurer in holland named rigaud, who used to drink and smoke with this brother. he was an oily villain, who had been in jail in france on suspicion of having murdered his wife. he had shaggy dry hair streaked with red, and a thick mustache, and when he smiled his eyes went close together, his mustache went up under his hooked nose, and his nose came down over his mustache. rigaud saw the box, concluded it contained something valuable, and made up his mind to get it. his chance came when the brother of flintwinch died suddenly one day, and he lost no time in making away with the iron box. by means of the letters it contained, he soon guessed the secret which mrs. clennam had been for so many years at such pains to conceal, and, deciding that by this knowledge he could squeeze money out of her, he came to london to find and threaten her. but she, believing she had burned the part of the will which rigaud claimed to possess, refused to listen to him, until at last, maddened by her refusals, he searched out the dorrits. he soon discovered that the man who had educated the singer (arthur's real mother) was frederick dorrit, little dorrit's dead uncle, and that it was little dorrit herself, since she was his youngest niece, from whom the money was now being unjustly kept. rigaud easily found little dorrit, for she was now in the marshalsea nursing arthur, where he lay sick, and to her the cunning adventurer sent a copy of the paper in a sealed packet, asking her, if it was not reclaimed before the prison closed that same night, to open and read it herself. he then went to the clennam house, told mrs. clennam and flintwinch what he had done and demanded money at once as the price of his reclaiming the packet before little dorrit should learn the secret it held. at this flintwinch had to confess what he had done, and mrs. clennam knew that the fatal paper had not been burned, after all. the wretched woman, seeing this sharp end to all her scheming, was almost distracted. she had not walked a step for twelve years, but now her excitement and frenzy gave her unnatural strength. she rose from her invalid chair and ran with all her speed from the house. old affery, the servant, followed her mistress, wringing her hands as she tried vainly to overtake her. mrs. clennam did not pause till she had reached the prison and found little dorrit. she told her to open the packet at once and to read what it contained, and then, kneeling at her feet, she promised to restore to her all she had withheld, and begged her to forgive and to come back with her to tell rigaud that she already knew the secret and that he might do his worst. little dorrit was greatly moved to see the stern, gray-haired woman at her feet. she raised and comforted her, assuring her that, come what would, arthur should never learn the truth from her lips. this return of good for evil from the one she had most injured brought the tears to the hard woman's eyes. "god bless you," she said in a broken voice. side by side they hastened back to the clennam house, but as they reached the entrance of its dark courtyard there came a sudden noise like thunder. for one instant they saw the building, with the insolent rigaud waiting smoking in the window; then the walls heaved, surged outward, opened and fell into pieces. its great pile of chimneys rocked, broke and tumbled on the fragments, and only a huge mass of timbers and stone, with a cloud of dust hovering over it, marked the spot where it had stood. the rotten old building, propped up so long, had fallen at last. for years old affery had insisted that the house was haunted. she had often heard mysterious rustlings and noises, and in the mornings sometimes she would find little heaps of dust on the floors. curious, crooked cracks would appear, too, in the walls, and the doors would stick with no apparent reason. these things, of course, had been caused by the gradual settling of the crazy walls and timbers, which now finally had collapsed all at once. frightened, they ran back to the street and there mrs. clennam's strange strength left her, and she fell in a heap upon the pavement. she never from that hour was able to speak a word or move a finger. she lived for three years in a wheel-chair, but she lived--and died--like a statue. for two days workmen dug industriously in the ruins before they found the body of rigaud, with his head smashed to atoms beneath a huge beam. they dug longer than that for the body of flintwinch, and stopped at last when they came to the conclusion that he was not there. by that time, however, he had had a chance to get together all of the firm's money he could lay his hands on and to decamp. he was never seen again in england, but travelers claimed to have seen him in holland, where he lived comfortably under the name of "mynheer von flyntevynge"--which is, after all, about as near as one can come to saying "flintwinch" in dutch. no one grieved greatly over his loss. it was long before arthur knew of these events, and little dorrit was too happy in nursing him back to health to think much about it. she was not content with this, either, but wrote to mr. and mrs. meagles, who were abroad, of the sick man's misfortune. the former went at once in search of doyce and brought him back to london, where together they set the firm of "doyce and clennam" on its feet again and arranged to buy arthur's liberty. they did not tell arthur anything of this, however, in order that they might surprise him. mr. meagles, for little dorrit's sake, tried hard to find the fragment of the will which rigaud had kept in the iron box. but it was tattycoram, the little maid with the bad temper, who finally found it in a lodging rigaud had occupied, and brought it to mr. meagles, praying on her knees that he take her back into his service, which, to be sure, he was very glad to do. arthur, while he was slowly growing better, had thought much of his condition. though little dorrit had begged him again and again to take her money and use it as his own, he had refused, telling her as gently as he could that now that she was rich and he a ruined man, this could never be, and that, as the time had long gone by when she and the marshalsea had anything in common, they two must soon part. one day, however, when he was well enough to sit up, little dorrit came to his room in the prison and told him she had received a very great fortune and asked him again if he would not take it. "never," he told her. "you will not take even half of it?" she asked pleadingly. "never, dear little dorrit!" he said emphatically. then, at last, she laid her face on his breast crying: "i have nothing in the world. i am as poor as when i lived here in the marshalsea. i have just found that papa gave all we had to mr. merdle and it is swept away with the rest. my great fortune now is poverty, because it is all you will take. oh, my dearest and best, are you quite sure you will not share my fortune with me now?" he had locked her in his arms, and his tears were falling on her cheek as she said joyfully: "i never was rich before, or proud, or happy. i would rather pass my life here in prison with you, and work daily for my bread, than to have the greatest fortune that ever was told and be the greatest lady that ever was honored!" but arthur's prison life was to be short. for mr. meagles and doyce burst upon them with all the other good news at once. arthur was free, the firm had been reëstablished with him at its head, and to-morrow the debtors' prison would be only a memory. next morning, before they left the marshalsea for ever, little dorrit handed arthur a folded paper, and asked him to please her by putting it into the fire with his own hand. "is it a charm?" he asked. "it is anything you like best," she answered, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. "only say 'i love you' as you do it!" he said it, and the paper burned away. and so the will that had been the cause of so much pain and wrong was turned to ashes. little dorrit kept the promise she had made, and arthur never learned of the sin of which the woman he had always called his mother had been guilty. then, when all good-bys had been said, they walked together to the very same church where little dorrit had slept on the cushions the night she had been locked out of the marshalsea, and there she and arthur were married. doyce gave the bride away. and among the many who came to witness the wedding were not only pancks, and maggie, the half-witted woman, but even a group of little dorrit's old turnkey friends from the prison--among whom was the disconsolate chivery, who had so long solaced himself by composing epitaphs for his own tombstone, and who went home to meditate over his last inscription: _________________________________________________ | | | stranger! respect the tomb of | | john chivery, junior | | who died at an advanced age not necessary to | | mention. he encountered his rival and | | felt inclined | | _to have a round with him_; | | but, for the sake of the loved one, conquered | | those feelings of bitterness and became | | magnanimous | |_________________________________________________| life and adventures of martin chuzzlewit published - _scene_: london, neighboring towns, new york and the mississippi valley _time_: characters martin chuzzlewit a young gentleman chuzzlewit his grandfather. a rich old man mary graham old chuzzlewit's nurse and secretary jonas his grasping nephew chuffey an aged clerk to jonas's father pecksniff an architect and hypocrite a distant relative of old chuzzlewit's charity his daughter mercy his daughter. later, jonas's wife tom pinch a charity pupil of pecksniff's ruth his sister john westlock one of pecksniff's former pupils mark tapley an assistant at a village inn later, martin's comrade in the united states bevan an american mrs. todgers the proprietress of a london boarding-house montague tigg a penniless adventurer later known as "tigg montague," and president of the anglo-bengalee company "sairey" gamp a nurse "mrs. harris" an imaginary friend of sairey gamp's nadgett a police spy martin chuzzlewit i how martin left england martin chuzzlewit was the grandson of an old man who, from being poor, became so rich that he found not only that people bowed low and flattered him, but that many of his relatives were trying by every trick to get some of his money. the old man was naturally suspicious and obstinate, and when he saw this he began to distrust everybody and to think the whole world selfish and deceitful. he had loved most of all his grandson, martin, but at length his heart became hardened to him also. this was partly martin's own fault, for he was somewhat selfish, but he had, nevertheless, a great deal of good in him. and perhaps his selfishness was partly his grandfather's fault, too, because the latter had brought him up to believe he would inherit all his money and would sometime be very rich. at last, ill and grown suspicious of every one he met, old chuzzlewit gave a home to a beautiful orphan girl named mary graham, and kept her near him as his nurse and secretary. in order that she might not have any selfish interest in being kind to him, he took an oath in her presence that he would not leave her a cent when he died. he paid her monthly wages and it was agreed that there should be no affection shown between them. in spite of his seeming harshness, mary knew his heart was naturally kind, and she soon loved him as a father. and he, softened by her sympathy, came in spite of himself to love her as a daughter. it was not long before young martin, too, had fallen very deeply in love with mary. he concluded too hastily, however, that his grandfather would not approve of his marrying her, and told the old man his intentions in such a fiery way that chuzzlewit resented it. the old man accused martin of a selfish attempt to steal from him mary's care, and at this, martin, whose temper was as quick as his grandfather's flew to anger. they quarreled and martin left him, declaring he would henceforth make his own way until he was able to claim mary for his wife. while he was wondering what he should do, martin saw in a newspaper the advertisement of a mr. pecksniff, an architect, living near salisbury, not many miles from london, who wished a pupil to board and teach. an architect was what martin wanted to be, and he answered the advertisement at once and accepted pecksniff's terms. now, to tell the truth, martin had another reason for this. pecksniff was his grandfather's cousin, and he knew the old man thought him the worst hypocrite of all his relatives, and disliked him accordingly. and martin was so angry with his grandfather that he went to pecksniff's partly to vex him. pecksniff was just the man old chuzzlewit thought him. he was a smooth, sleek hypocrite, with an oily manner. he had heavy eyelids and a wide, whiskerless throat, and when he talked he fairly oozed virtuous sayings, for which people deemed him a most moral and upright man. he was a widower with two daughters, charity and mercy, the older of whom had a very bitter temper, which made it hard for the few students as long as they stayed there. after pecksniff had once got a pupil's money in advance, he made no pretense of teaching him. he kept him drawing designs for buildings, and that was all. if any of the designs were good, he said nothing to the pupil, but sold them as his own, and pocketed the money. his pupils soon saw through him and none of them had ever stayed long except one. this one was named tom pinch. he had been poor and mr. pecksniff had pretended to take him in at a reduced rate. but really pinch paid as much as the others, beside being a clever fellow who made himself useful in a thousand ways. he was a musician, too, and played the organ in the village church, which was a credit to pecksniff. with all this, pinch was a generous, open-hearted lad, who believed every one honest and true, and he was so grateful to pecksniff (whose hypocrisy he never imagined) that he was always singing his praises everywhere. in return for all this, pecksniff treated him with contempt and made him quite like a servant. tom pinch, however, was a favorite with every one else. he had a sister ruth who loved him dearly, but he seldom saw her, for she was a governess in the house of a brass and iron founder, who did not like her to have company. one of tom's greatest friends had been a pupil named john westlock, who in vain had tried to open the other's eyes to pecksniff's real character. when westlock came into his money he had left and gone to live in london, and it was to take his vacant place that the new pupil martin was now coming. another friend of pinch's was mark tapley, a rakish, good-humored fellow, whose one ambition was to find a position so uncomfortable and dismal that he would get some credit for being jolly in it. tapley was an assistant at the blue dragon, the village inn, whose plump, rosy landlady was so fond of him that he might have married her if he had chosen to. but, as tapley said, there was no credit in being jolly where he was so comfortable, so he left the blue dragon and went off, too, to london. with neither westlock nor mark tapley there tom pinch was lonely and welcomed the arrival of martin, with whom he soon made friends. mr. pecksniff folded his new pupil to his breast, shed a crocodile tear and set him to work designing a grammar-school. old chuzzlewit soon heard where martin his grandson was, and wrote to pecksniff asking him to meet him in london. pecksniff was so anxious to curry favor with the rich old man that, taking his daughters with him, he left at once for london, where they put up at a boarding-house kept by a mrs. todgers, while pecksniff awaited the arrival of old chuzzlewit. mrs. todgers's house smelled of cabbage and greens and mice, and mrs. todgers herself was bony and wore a row of curls on the front of her head like little barrels of flour. but a number of young men boarded there, and charity and mercy enjoyed themselves very much. one whom they met on this trip to london was a remote relative of theirs, a nephew of old chuzzlewit's, named jonas. jonas's father was eighty years old and a miser, and the son, too, was so mean and grasping that he often used to wish his father were dead so he would have his money. the old father, indeed, would have had no friend in his own house but for an old clerk, chuffey, who had been his schoolmate in boyhood and had always lived with him. chuffey was as old and dusty and rusty as if he had been put away and forgotten fifty years before and some one had just found him in a lumber closet. but in his own way chuffey loved his master. jonas called on the two pecksniff daughters, and charity, the elder, determined to marry him. jonas, however, had his own opinion, and made up his mind to marry mercy, her younger sister. before long old chuzzlewit reached london, and when pecksniff called he told him his grandson, martin, was an ingrate, who had left his protection, and asked the architect not to harbor him. pecksniff, who worshiped the other's money and would have betrayed his best friend for old chuzzlewit's favor, returned home instantly, heaped harsh names upon martin and ordered him to leave his house at once. martin guessed what had caused pecksniff to change his mind so suddenly, and with hearty contempt for his truckling action, he left that very hour in the rain, though he had only a single silver piece in his pocket. tom pinch, in great grief for his trouble, ran after him with a book as a parting gift, and between its leaves martin found another silver piece--all tom had. most of the way to london martin walked. once there he took a cheap lodging, and tried to find some vessel on which he could work his passage to america, for there, as he walked, he had made up his mind to go. but he found no such opportunity. his money gone, he pawned first his watch and then his other belongings, one by one, until he had nothing left, and was even in distress for food. yet his pride was strong, and he gave what was almost his last coin to escape the attentions of one montague tigg, a dirty, jaunty, bold, mean, swaggering, slinking vagabond of the shabby-genteel sort, whom he recognized as one who had more than once tried to squeeze money out of his grandfather. at last, when he was almost in despair, a surprise came in the shape of an envelop addressed to himself, containing no letter, but a bank-note for a generous amount. there was no clue whatever to the sender, but the sum was enough to pay his passage and he determined therefore to sail next day. while he was still wondering at this good luck, martin chanced to come upon mark tapley, the old assistant at the blue dragon inn. tapley had found london too pleasant a place to be jolly in with any credit, and, as he had heard america was a very dismal place, he proposed to go with martin. as it happened, tapley knew that mary graham was then in london, for he had seen old chuzzlewit going into his house. when martin learned this he sent a letter to her by tapley, and she met him next morning in a little park near by. there he told her of his leaving pecksniff's and of his coming voyage. she was very sorrowful over his departure, but he cheered her by telling her he would soon return, well and prosperous, for her. she told him that pecksniff seemed somehow to have made his grandfather trust him, and that by his advice they were both to move to the blue dragon inn, near his house. martin told her of pecksniff's true character, warned her against him, and begged her to trust in tom pinch as a true friend. so they parted, pledging each other their love whatever befell. before martin left next day mary sent him a diamond ring, which he thought his grandfather had given her, but for which in reality she had paid all her savings, so that he should have with him something of value to sell if he be in want. so martin and mark tapley took ship for america, and mary graham and old chuzzlewit went to live at the blue dragon, to the huge satisfaction of the oily pecksniff, who thought now he could easily get the rich old man under his thumb. ii pecksniff and old chuzzlewit after his first burst of anger at martin's leaving him, old chuzzlewit, to mary's eyes, seemed to grow gradually a different man. he appeared more old and stooped and deaf, and took little interest in anything. after they came to the blue dragon inn, pecksniff threw himself constantly in old chuzzlewit's way, flattering and smooth, and before long mary saw, to her grief, that the old man was coming more and more under the other's influence. when she was alone with him he seemed more his former eager self; but let pecksniff appear and the strange dull look would come and he would seem only anxious to ask his advice about the smallest matters. little wonder pecksniff concluded he could wind his victim around his finger. at length he proposed that old chuzzlewit and mary leave the blue dragon, where he said he felt sure they were not comfortable, and come and live with him under his own roof. to mary's dismay, the old man consented, and they were soon settled in the architect's house. the only thing that now seemed to stand in pecksniff's way was mary, and he decided that, as old chuzzlewit was fond of her, he himself would marry her. once married to her, he reasoned, with both of them to influence old chuzzlewit, it would be easy to do what they pleased with him and with his money, too. with this end in view, he began to persecute poor mary with his attentions, squeezing her hand and throwing kisses to her when no one else was looking. charity, pecksniff's older daughter, was not blind to his plan. she was in a sour temper because the miserly jonas, who came from london often now to see them, had begun to make love to mercy instead of to her. to see her father now paying so much attention to mary graham made charity angry, and she left her father's house and went to live in london at mrs. todgers's boarding-house, where she set her cap to catch a young man, whether he wanted to be caught or not. as for mercy, the younger sister, she was leading jonas such a dance that she thought very little of her father's schemes. his vinegary daughter charity out of the way, pecksniff began to persecute mary more and more. one day he made her so angry by holding her hand and kissing it that she threatened to complain to old chuzzlewit. pecksniff told her that if she did he would use all his influence to turn the old man still more against his grandson. the poor girl was in great trouble then, for she loved martin and feared pecksniff's growing power with old chuzzlewit. and seeing that this threat frightened her, pecksniff continued his annoyances. according to martin's parting advice, mary had learned to like and to trust tom pinch, in spite of his mistaken worship of pecksniff. one day while tom was practising the organ at the church she came to him and, confiding in him, told all that she had endured. in his simple-heartedness he had admired and looked up to pecksniff all his life, but this evidence opened tom pinch's eyes. at last he saw the pompous hypocrite in his true light. he agreed with her that the architect was a scoundrel, and comforted her, and asked her always to trust in his own friendship. unluckily while they talked there was an eavesdropper near. it was pecksniff himself. he had gone into the church to rest, and lying down in one of the high-back pews, had gone to sleep, and now the voices of tom and mary had awakened him. he listened and waited till they had both gone; then he stole out and went home by a roundabout way. that night he went to old chuzzlewit and, pretending to shed tears of sorrow, told him he had overheard tom pinch, the pauper pupil, whom he had trusted and befriended, making love to mary, the old man's ward, in the church. making a great show of his respect and regard for old chuzzlewit, he told him this villain should not remain under his roof one night longer. then he called in tom pinch and, abusing and insulting him in chuzzlewit's presence, sent him away as he had sent away martin. tom was feeling so bad over his loss of faith in his idol, pecksniff, that he did not greatly mind this last blow. in fact, he had about concluded he could not live any longer with such a wicked hypocrite anyway. he packed his things and set off for london, feeling almost as if the world had come to an end. once there, however, he plucked up spirit and felt better. first of all he looked up westlock, the former pupil of pecksniff's, and found him the same friendly, clever fellow now in his riches as he was of old. westlock was glad tom had at last found his master out, and began at once to plan for his future. next tom went to see his sister ruth at the house where she was governess. he arrived there at a fortunate time, for the vulgar brass and iron founder who had hired her to try to teach his spoiled little daughter was at that moment scolding ruth harshly for what was not her fault at all. tom had been gaining a spirit of his own since he had parted from pecksniff, and, now, at sight of his gentle little sister's tears, his honest indignation rose. he gave her unjust employer a lecture that left him much astonished, and then, drawing ruth's arm through his, he led her from the house for ever. it was not long before each had told the other all that had happened. tom decided that they should part no more, and they set out together to find a lodging. they took some rooms in a quiet neighborhood and settled down together till tom could find something to do. ruth was a neat housekeeper, but she had to learn to cook, and they had great fun over their first meal. while she was making her first beefsteak pudding westlock called with a great piece of news. an agent had come to him asking him to offer to his friend tom pinch a position as a librarian at a good salary. who the employer was tom was not to know. here was a rare mystery, and ruth in her mingled excitement and pie-making looked so sweet and charming that then and there westlock fell in love with her. tom and he went at once to the agent who had made this extraordinary offer, and he took them to an unoccupied house, to a dusty room whose floor was covered all over with books. tom, he said, was to arrange and make a list of these. then he gave him the key, told him to come to him each week for his salary, and disappeared. still wondering, the two friends went back together, for of course westlock had to taste the beefsteak pudding. ruth had supper waiting for them. every minute westlock thought she grew more lovely, and as he walked home he knew he was in love at last. now, the mystery of tom's library, and of the bank-note that martin had received when his money was all gone, would have been a very joyful one to them both if they could have guessed it. old chuzzlewit, whom they believed so harsh, and whom the wily pecksniff thought he had got under his thumb, was a very deep and knowing old man indeed. he had never ceased to love martin, his grandson, though he had misunderstood him at first, but he had seen very plainly that the lad was growing selfish and he wished to save him from this. he had longed for nothing more than that martin and mary should marry, but he wished to try their love for each other as well as martin's affection for him. it was to test pecksniff that old chuzzlewit had asked the architect to send martin from his house, and when he saw that pecksniff was fawning hound enough to do it, he determined to punish him in the end. it was old chuzzlewit who had found where martin lodged in london, and had sent him the bank-note. and, won by tom pinch's goodness and honor, it was he who now, secretly, made him this position. if pecksniff had guessed all this, he would probably have had a stroke of apoplexy. iii jonas gets rid of an enemy jonas, meanwhile, in his miserly soul, had been wishing that his old father would hurry and die. he wanted the money and he wanted to marry mercy pecksniff, and to do both he preferred the old man out of his way. he thought of this and wished it so long that at last he began to think of helping the matter along. his father kept in a drawer some cough lozenges which he constantly used. jonas at last bought some poison from a dissipated man who needed money badly, and made some lozenges like them. these he put in his father's drawer instead of the others. his father, however, and chuffey, the old clerk, noticed that the lozenges were not the same, and they guessed what jonas had done. the shock of discovering that his own son had tried to murder him proved the old man's death. he made chuffey promise not to betray jonas, then fell in a fit and never spoke again. jonas naturally thought the poison had done the work, and was at first in dreadful fear of discovery. he made a fine funeral, with four-horse coaches, velvet trappings and silver plate, so that people would think he loved his father, and not till the body was buried did he forget his dread. chuffey, however, seemed to go almost daft. he would walk and cry and wring his hands and talk so strangely about his master's death that jonas feared he would cause suspicion that all was not right. so he hired a nurse to come and keep him in his room. this nurse went by the name of "sairey" gamp. she was a fat old woman, with a red face, a husky voice and a moist eye, which often turned up so as to show only the white. wherever she went she carried a faded umbrella with a round white patch on top, and she always smelled of whisky. mrs. gamp was fond of talking of a certain "mrs. harris," whom she spoke of as a dear friend, but whom nobody else had ever seen. when she wanted to say something nice of herself she would put it in the mouth of mrs. harris. she was always quoting, "i says to mrs. harris," or "mrs. harris says to me." people used to say there was no such person at all, but this never failed to make mrs. gamp very angry. she was a cruel nurse, and her way of making a sick man swallow a dose of medicine was by choking him till he gasped and then putting the spoon down his throat. such was the guardian jonas chose to keep old chuffey quiet in london, while he himself courted pecksniff's daughter at her father's house. and it was not very long before he proposed to mercy and they were married. if pecksniff had searched london he could not have found a worse man for his daughter to marry. but pecksniff cared for nothing but money, and, as jonas was now rich, he pretended great love for his new son-in-law and went around with his hands clasped and his eyes lifted to heaven in pious thankfulness. as for jonas, he began to treat mercy brutally and soon she was miserable. jonas, meanwhile, had fallen in with a very prosperous individual. this was none other than montague tigg, the bold, jaunty, swaggering, shabby-genteel tigg, who had once been glad to beg a coin from any one he knew. now he had changed in both appearance and name. his face was covered with glossy black whiskers, his clothes were the costliest and his jewelry the most expensive. he was known now as "mr. tigg montague," and was president of the great "anglo-bengalee company." the anglo-bengalee company was a business which pretended to insure people's lives. it had fine offices with new furniture, new paper and a big brass plate on the door. it looked most solid and respectable, but it was really a trap, for tigg and its other officers were only waiting until they had taken in enough money to run away with it to a foreign country. jonas, sharp as he was, was deceived into believing it an honest enterprise. he came there to get his wife's life insured, and so he met tigg. tigg, however, knowing jonas of old, knew he had a great deal of money of his own, and thought, too, that he might influence mr. pecksniff, now his father-in-law. tigg flattered jonas accordingly, telling him what a sharp man he was and offered to make him a director in the company. he assured jonas that there would be enormous profits and showed him how, by putting his own money into it, he could cheat other people out of much more. this idea tickled jonas and he agreed. having got thus far, tigg hired a spy named nadgett to see if he could discover whether jonas had ever committed any crime, the knowledge of which would put him in their power. nadgett began his work, got on the right side of sairey gamp, the nurse, found out that old chuffey was locked up for fear he might talk, and soon had a suspicion that jonas had been concerned in his father's death. as an experiment tigg boldly charged him with it one day, and knew in an instant, by the way jonas's face whitened with fear, that he had stumbled on the truth. he then told jonas he not only must put into the company more of his own money, but must persuade pecksniff to do likewise. jonas dared not now refuse. he thought of escaping to some other country, but wherever he turned he found tigg's spies watching, and at last, he determined on a second murder to hide the first--the murder of tigg, who knew his secret. tigg did not forget his plan to ensnare pecksniff. to do this he took jonas by carriage from london to salisbury and, mile by mile, as they sped, the latter laid his plans. near their destination accident came near assisting him. in the storm the carriage was upset and tigg was thrown under the horses' feet. jonas lashed the struggling horses, hoping they would trample and kill his companion, but the driver pulled him out just in time. they finally reached the blue dragon inn, and there, the next day, jonas brought pecksniff to dine with tigg, and the latter told the architect all about his wonderful company. though pecksniff pretended he took the idea as a joke, yet the thought of cheating other people for big profits was very attractive to him. before the evening was over he had fallen into the trap and had promised next day to give tigg his money. jonas, his part of the bargain finished, hurried back to london. there, after telling mercy not to disturb him, as he expected to sleep all next day, he locked himself into his room. when it was dark he dressed himself in a rough suit that he had prepared for disguise, let himself out by a rear way and took the stage back again to the village where he had left tigg with pecksniff. he lay in wait in a wood through which tigg passed after his last call on the architect, and there he killed him with a club. then he went swiftly back to london and let himself into his room again, thinking no one had noticed his absence. but there had been an eye at the shutter of the window in the house opposite that did not fail to observe jonas when he went and when he came. and this eye belonged to nadgett, the spy. iv what came of martin's trip to america while these things were occurring, much had happened to martin and mark tapley far away in america. the sailing vessel on which they crossed was crowded and dirty, and in order to save their money they had taken passage in the steerage. for a long time martin was very seasick, and even when he grew better he was so ashamed at having to travel in the worst and cheapest part of the vessel that he would not go on deck. but tapley had none of this false pride. he made friends with all, helped every one he could and soon became such a general favorite that (as he thought sadly) he was having much too good a time for him to be jolly with any credit. the long voyage of so many weeks came to an end at last, and they reached new york. they found it a strange place indeed, and met many strange characters in it. only one they met pleased them: a gentleman named bevan, and from him they got much information and advice. there seemed, however, to be little opening for an architect in new york, and martin at length decided to go west and settle in some newer region. in the western town where they left the train they found a land agent who was selling lots in a new settlement, on the mississippi river, called eden. to buy their railway tickets martin had already sold the ring mary graham had given him, and he had just enough to purchase a tract of land in eden and to pay their fare there. martin looked at the agent's splendid plans of the new town, showing wharves, churches and public buildings, and thought it a capital place for a young architect; so they closed the bargain without more ado and took the next steamer down the desolate mississippi. a terrible disappointment awaited them when they found what eden really was--a handful of rotting log cabins set in a swamp. the wharves and public buildings existed only on the agent's map with which he had so cruelly cheated them. there were only a few wan men alive there--the rest had succumbed to the sickly hot vapor that rose from the swamp and hung in the air. at the sight of what they had come to, martin lay down and wept in very despair. but for his comrade's cheerfulness he would have wholly given up hope. next morning martin found himself in the grip of the deadly fever with which the place reeked, and for many days thereafter he lay helpless and burning, nursed like a child by the faithful mark tapley. when he had begun to recover it came the other's turn to fall ill and martin took his place at nursing. through all tapley never complained. at last he found himself in circumstances where to be jolly was really a credit to anybody. he always insisted that he was in great spirits, and when he was weakest and could not speak he wrote "jolly" on a slate for martin to see. watching beside his friend day by day, martin came to know himself truly and to see his own selfishness. as he nursed tapley to health again he determined to root it out of his nature and to return to england a nobler man. he began to think not of what he had sacrificed for mary, but of what she would have sacrificed for him, and to wish with all his heart that he had not parted from his grandfather in anger. and even before tapley was able to sit up martin had determined to return as soon as possible to england. he laid aside his pride and wrote to bevan, who had befriended them in new york, to borrow money enough to bring them both to that city. once there, tapley found a position as cook in the same ship that had brought them from england and his wages proved sufficient to pay for martin's passage. so martin started back to the home he had parted from a year before, poorer than he had left it, but at heart a better and a sounder man. his false pride was gone now. he mingled with others and helped them, and by the time they landed he was as popular a passenger as mark tapley was a cook. almost the first man they saw on landing, curiously enough, was the oily pecksniff. they saw him escorted along the street, pointed out by the crowds as "the great architect." on that day the corner stone of a splendid public building was to be laid, and pecksniff's design for this structure had taken the prize. the two comrades went with the crowd to hear pecksniff's speech, and looking over a gentleman's shoulder at a picture of the building as it was to look, martin saw that it was the very grammar school he himself had designed when he had first come to pecksniff's. the old rascal had stolen the plans! martin was angry, of course, but there was no help for it, and besides he had other things to think of. mary graham, to be sure, was his first thought, and he and tapley set out at once for the blue dragon to learn the latest news. the rosy landlady laughed and cried together to see them and mark tapley kissed her so many times that she was quite out of breath. she cooked the finest dinner in the world for them and told them all she knew about their friends: how tom pinch had been sent away, and how every one said that pecksniff intended to marry mary. this news made martin grind his teeth, and it would have been unlucky for the architect if he had been near at that moment. martin first sent tapley with a note addressed to his grandfather, but pecksniff, who came to the door, tore up the letter before the bearer's face. mark told martin of this, and together they forced themselves into the house, and into the room where old chuzzlewit sat, with pecksniff beside him, and mary standing behind his chair. martin's grandfather hardly looked at him, keeping his eyes on pecksniff's face, as though he depended on him even for his thoughts. martin, seeing this, was almost hopeless, but he did as he had determined, and in a few manly words begged old chuzzlewit's pardon for his own haste and temper, and asked him to take him back to his favor. while he talked, mary had hidden her face in her hands and was weeping, for she believed his grandfather so wholly in pecksniff's power that she had no hope for martin. pecksniff was in rare good humor, for it was this very day that he had turned his money over to tigg to make a fortune for him in the great anglo-bengalee company. now, rejoicing in his opportunity, he took it upon himself to answer. he called martin a shameless, cowardly vagabond and ordered him from the door. then he gave his arm to the old man and led him out of the room. martin clasped mary for a moment in his arms as he kissed her and told her to keep up heart. then he left the house and set out with mark tapley for london. v old chuzzlewit's plot succeeds where was the guilty jonas meanwhile? shivering at every sound, listening for the news that tigg's body had been found in the wood, wondering if by any chance the crime might be laid on him. already fate was weaving a net about his feet. the man from whom he had bought the poison to kill his father had fallen very ill, and in his illness had repented of the part he had played. he had confessed to westlock, whom, before he had fallen into wicked company, he had once known. westlock sent for old chuzzlewit, and he, too, was told the story of the purchased poison. then together the three went to jonas's house and brought him face to face with his accuser. confronted with their evidence jonas gave himself up for lost, but old chuffey, whom he had so abused, escaped the watchful eye of sairey gamp and entered just in time to keep his promise to his dead master and to clear jonas, the son. he told them how it had really happened: how jonas had intended to kill his father but how the latter's death had been due, not to the poison which he had never taken, but to the knowledge of his son's wickedness. jonas, in the reaction from his fear, laughed aloud, and was abusively ordering them to leave, when the door opened and the color suddenly left his cheeks. policemen stood there, and at their head was nadgett, the spy. in another moment there were handcuffs on his wrists and he knew not only that the murder of tigg had been discovered, but that every action of his own on that fatal night had been traced and that he was surely doomed to die on the gallows. when he realized that he was lost he fell to the floor in pitiable fear. they put him in a wagon to take him to jail, but when they arrived there they found him motionless in his seat. he had swallowed some of his own poison which he carried in his pocket, and was as dead as any hangman could have made him. old chuzzlewit had yet another purpose to carry out before he left london, and for this purpose he asked westlock to meet him in his rooms at a certain time next day. he sent for tom pinch and his sister ruth, for his grandson martin, and mark tapley, and last, but not least, for pecksniff himself, all to meet him there at the same hour. all save pecksniff arrived together, and greatly astonished most of them were, you may be sure, to see old chuzzlewit so changed. for now the dull, bent look had vanished. his eyes were bright, his form erect and every feature eager and full of purpose. even mary graham scarcely knew what to make of it. as they sat wondering and waiting for old chuzzlewit to speak, pecksniff came hurriedly in, to start back as if at a shock of electricity. but he recovered himself, and clasped his hands with a look of pious joy to see the old man safe and well. then he looked around him and shook his head. "oh, vermin! oh, bloodsuckers!" he said. "horde of unnatural plunderers and robbers! begone! leave him and do not stay in a spot hallowed by the gray hairs of this patriarchal gentleman!" he advanced with outstretched arms, but he had not seen how tightly old chuzzlewit's hand clasped the walking-stick he held. the latter, in one great burst of indignation, rose up, and with a single blow, stretched him on the ground. mark tapley dragged him into a corner and propped him against the wall, and in this ridiculous position, cringing, and with his assurance all gone, pecksniff listened, as did they all, to the old man's story. he told the assembled company how the curse of selfishness had seemed to him always to rest upon his family. how he had misunderstood martin, his best loved grandson, and how he had seen pecksniff doing his best to add to this bad feeling. he beckoned martin to him and put mary's hand in his, as he told how he had tested them both and had at last resolved to see to what a length the hypocrisy of pecksniff would lead him. how to this end he had pretended feebleness of mind and had planned and plotted finally to expose pecksniff and set all right. when he had finished the door was opened and pecksniff, looking all shrunken and frowsy and yellow, passed out, never to enter again into the lives of any of them. there was a great and joyful gathering that night, when all these, so strangely united, took dinner together. martin sat beside mary, while westlock walked home with ruth, and before they reached there she had promised to be his wife. martin and mary were married soon, and old chuzzlewit made martin his heir. he also gave a home to poor mercy, the wife of the dead jonas. tom pinch lived a long and happy life in the home which westlock made for ruth, where he had a fine organ on which he played every day. mark tapley, of course, married the rosy landlady of the blue dragon, and settled down at the inn, which he renamed the jolly tapley. charity pecksniff succeeded in ensnaring her young man at last. the day they were to be married, however, he did not come to the church, but ran off to van diemen's land, and she lived and died a vinegary, shrewish old maid. as for pecksniff himself, having lost all his money in the anglo-bengalee company (which, of course, went to pieces on tigg's death), he sank lower and lower, till at last, a drunken, squalid old man, he eked out a miserable existence writing whining begging letters to the very people whom he had once labored so hard to make unhappy. our mutual friend published - _scene_: london and neighboring towns _time_: characters mr. harmon a rich dust collector mr. boffin foreman of the dust business and heir to the harmon fortune known as "the golden dustman" mrs. boffin his wife john harmon mr. harmon's son later mr. boffin's secretary, under the name of "john rokesmith" mr. veneering a rich man with social and political ambitions mr. wilfer a clerk in mr. veneering's office bella his daughter silas wegg a one-legged ballad seller "rogue" riderhood a riverman of bad reputation later a lock tender hexam a riverman charley his son lizzie his daughter "jenny wren" a crippled friend of lizzie's, known as "the dolls' dressmaker" eugene wrayburn a reckless young lawyer headstone a schoolmaster mr. venus a dismal young man with a dismal trade--the stringing together of human skeletons on wires our mutual friend i what happened to john harmon in london there once lived an old man named harmon who had made a great fortune by gathering the dust and ashes of the city and sorting it for whatever it contained of value. he lived in a house surrounded by great mounds of dust that he had collected. he was a hard-hearted man and when his daughter would not marry as he wished he turned her out of the house on a winter's night. the poor girl died soon after, and her younger brother (a boy of only fourteen), indignant at his father's cruelty, ran away to a foreign country, where for years he was not heard of. the old man, hard-hearted as he was, and though he never spoke of the son save with anger and curses, felt this keenly, for in his own way he had loved the boy. a mr. boffin was foreman of harmon's dust business, and both he and his wife had loved the two children. being kind and just people, they did not hesitate to let the father know how wicked they considered his action, and they never ceased to grieve for the poor little john who had run away. so, though they did not guess it, the old man made up his mind they were an honest and deserving pair. one morning the dust collector was discovered dead in his bed, and then it was found that he had left a very curious will. the will bequeathed all his vast fortune to the son who had run away, on one condition: that he marry a young lady by the name of bella wilfer, the daughter of a poor london clerk. the son had never seen bella in his life, and in fact the old man himself had seen her only a few times--and that was a long, long time before, when she was a very little girl. he was sitting in the park one sunday morning, and the baby bella, because her father would not go the exact way she wanted, was screaming and stamping her little foot. old mr. harmon, having such a stubborn temper himself, admired it in the little child, and came to watch for her. then, for some strange reason, which nobody ever could guess, he had put the baby's name in his will, declaring that his son john should get his money only by marrying this little girl. and the will declared, moreover, that if the son, john harmon, should die, or should refuse to marry bella, all the fortune should go to mr. boffin. the lawyers had great trouble in finding where john harmon was, but finally they did so, and received word that he would return at once to england. the ship he sailed on reached london, but the passenger it carried did not appear. a few days later, a riverman named hexam found a body floating in the river thames, which flows through the middle of london. in his pockets were the letters the lawyers had written to john harmon, and there seemed no doubt that the unfortunate young man had been murdered and his body thrown into the river. the night the body was found, while it lay at the police station, a young man, very much excited, came and asked to see it. he would not tell who he was, and his whole appearance was most wild and strange. the police wondered, but they saw no reason to detain the stranger, so after looking at the body, he went away again very hastily. a great stir was made about the case, and the police tried their best to discover the murderer, but they were unsuccessful. then it occurred to them that there was something suspicious in the appearance of the young man that night. they tried to find him, but he seemed to have disappeared. at last the fortune was turned over to mr. boffin, and all but a few people thought no more about the murder. now, it was not really true that john harmon had been drowned. this is what had happened: the young man had come back to england unwillingly, though he was coming to such wealth. having left his father so long before in anger, he hardly liked to touch the money. and he dreaded having to marry a young lady he had never seen, with whom all his life he might be most unhappy. on the ship was a seaman about his own age whose face somewhat resembled his own. with this man harmon became friendly and before the ship reached england he had told him his trouble and his dread. the other proposed that harmon disguise himself in sailor's clothes, go into the neighborhood where miss bella wilfer lived, and see if she was one whom he could love. now the man whom harmon was thus trusting was a villain, who, while he had been listening to the other's story, had been planning a crime against him. he had made up his mind to kill harmon, and, as he looked so much like him, to marry bella himself and claim the fortune. near the docks where the ship came in was a sailors' boarding-house owned by a riverman of bad reputation named "rogue" riderhood. riderhood had once been the partner of hexam, the man who found the floating body, but one day he was caught trying to rob a live man and hexam had cast him off. the seaman took harmon to this house and there he secretly got from riderhood some poison. last he persuaded harmon to change clothes with him. all that remained now was to get rid of the real harmon. to do this he put the poison in a cup of coffee, and harmon, drinking this, became insensible. the lodging-house hung out over the river and the wicked man had intended throwing the other's body, dressed now in seaman's clothing, into the water. but fate was quickly to spoil his plan. he and some others fell to quarreling over the money found in the clothing of the unconscious man. the result was a desperate fight, and when it was over there were _two_ bodies thrown from the window into the black river--the drugged man and the seaman who had planned his murder. the shock of the cold water brought the drugged harmon to his senses. he struck out, and after a terrible struggle succeeded in reaching shore. the exposure and the poison made him very ill and he lay abed in an inn for some days. while he was lying helpless there the drowned body of the seaman was found by hexam, the riverman. as it wore the clothes of john harmon, and had his papers in its pockets, every one supposed, of course, that it was the body of the missing heir. the first thing john harmon saw after he was well enough to walk was a printed notice announcing the finding of his own dead body--which gave him a very queer sensation. lying there he had had time to think over the adventure and he had guessed pretty nearly how it all had happened. he went at once to the police station to look at the corpse and saw it was that of his false friend, who had tried to lure him to his death. so it was the real john harmon who had so excitedly appeared that night to the police inspectors, and had vanished immediately, and whom they had searched for so long in vain, under the suspicion that he himself was the murderer. he had a very good reason for not letting the police find him, too. now that the world considered him dead, he had determined, before he came to life, to carry out his first plan, and to find out for himself just what kind of person the bella wilfer he was expected to marry was, and whether mr. and mrs. boffin, who had been so kind to him in his childhood, would still be as true to his memory in their wealth. for this reason he did not correct the error that had been made. he took the name of john rokesmith, and, to get acquainted with bella, hired lodgings in her own father's house. mr. wilfer was a clerk for a mr. veneering, a man who had made a big fortune in the drug business and wanted now to get into parliament. everything the veneerings had was brand new. they spent a great deal of money entertaining society people at dinners, but mr. veneering spent very little on his clerks. bella's father, though he was always as happy as a cherub, was so poor that he never had been able to buy a whole new suit at once. his hat was shabby before he could afford a coat, and his trousers were worn before he got to new shoes. so he was glad enough indeed to get a lodger. mr. and mrs. boffin, to be sure, now had the great fortune. they bought a fine house, and everybody called mr. boffin "the golden dustman," because he was so rich. mrs. boffin wore velvet dresses, and mr. boffin, thinking that now he was rich he ought to know a great deal about books, bought a big volume of the _history of the roman empire_ and hired a man with a wooden leg who kept a ballad shop near by to come and read to him in the evenings. but in spite of all their fine things, mr. and mrs. boffin remained the same good, kind-hearted couple they had always been. john harmon (or john rokesmith, as he now called himself), soon found this out, for he cleverly got a position as mr. boffin's secretary, taking charge of all his papers and preventing many dishonest people from cheating him. and mr. and mrs. boffin, never suspecting who he really was, instead of "secretary," called him "our mutual friend," and soon grew fond of him. nor did they forget bella wilfer (for whose disappointment, at not getting the rich husband she had expected, they felt very sorry), and soon invited her to live with them. bella was a good-tempered, pretty girl, though inclined to be somewhat selfish and spoiled, and she was not sure, after all, that she would have liked a husband who had been willed to her like a dozen silver spoons; so she did not grieve greatly, and accepted mr. and mrs. boffin's offer gratefully. so now the secretary, john rokesmith, beside being constantly with mr. and mrs. boffin, whom he had always loved, had a chance to see bella every day, and he was not long in finding out that it would be very easy, indeed, for him to fall in love with her. ii lizzie hexam and the dolls' dressmaker hexam, the riverman who had found the body floating in the thames, made a living by watching in his boat for drowned bodies, and getting any rewards that might be offered for finding them. he had two children--a daughter, lizzie, who used to row the boat for him, and a younger son, charley. lizzie was a beautiful girl and a good daughter, and she never ceased to beseech her father to quit this ghastly business. she saved every cent she could get to give her brother some schooling, and kept urging the boy until he left home and became a teacher in a respectable school. for her own part she chose to stay by her father, hoping, in spite of her hatred of his calling, to make him sometime something better. the night hexam found the body the lawyers who had the harmon will in charge came to his house to see about it. one of them, a careless young man by the name of eugene wrayburn, was greatly struck with the beauty of lizzie, and pitied her because of the life she was obliged to live, and this interest in her made him even more deeply interested in the case of the odd will and the strange murder. now mr. and mrs. boffin, since they were rich, had offered a great reward for the arrest of the murderer of john harmon. to get this reward and at the same time to avenge himself on his old partner hexam for casting him off, rogue riderhood went to the lawyers and declared that it was hexam himself who had really killed the man whose body he had found. riderhood swore that hexam had confessed the crime to him. wrayburn, knowing what a shock this charge against her father would be for lizzie, went with the officers sent to seize him. but they made no arrest, for that night hexam himself was drowned by accidentally falling from his own boat. but the false charge against him lay heavy on lizzie's mind. she hated the river and all that was connected with it, and soon found herself a decent lodging in another part of london. here she lived with a weird little dwarf of a girl, so deformed that she could scarcely walk at all. "i can't get up," she used to say to strangers, "because my back's bad and my legs are queer." she had an odd face, with sharp gray eyes, and her wits were sharper yet. she worked at the strangest trade in the world. she had visiting cards on which was printed: ________________________________________ | | | miss jennie wren | | dolls' dressmaker | | | | dolls attended at their own residence | |________________________________________| she was really and truly a dolls' dressmaker and sat all day long making tiny frocks out of silk and ribbon. every evening she would hobble out to the door of the theater or of a house where a ball was going on and wait until a lady came out in a beautiful costume; then she would take careful note of it and go home and dress a doll just like it. she even made a minister doll, in clerical collar and surplice, and used to rent him out for doll weddings. but in spite of her trade she disliked children, because the rude ones of the neighborhood called her names through her keyhole and mimicked her bent back and crooked legs. "don't talk to _me_ of children," she often said; "_i_ know their tricks and their manners!" and when she said this she would make a fierce little jab in the air with her needle, as if she were putting out somebody's eyes. jennie wren had a miserable drunkard of a father, whom she called her "troublesome child." "he is enough to break his mother's heart," she would say when he staggered in. "i wish i had never brought him up. ugh! you muddling, disgraceful, prodigal old son! i can't bear to look at you. go into your corner this minute." and the wretched creature, whining and maudlin, would shuffle into his corner in disgrace, not daring to disobey her. the odd little dolls' dressmaker was cheerful and merry with all her trials and loved lizzie hexam very much. wrayburn, the young lawyer, used to come to see them, but she did not approve of him. she saw almost before lizzie did herself that the latter was falling in love with wrayburn, and the wise little creature feared that this would only bring pain to lizzie, because she was an uneducated girl and wrayburn a gentleman, who, when he married, would be expected to marry a lady far above lizzie's station. lizzie knew this, too, but she could not help loving wrayburn, and as for the lawyer, he thought nothing of what the outcome might be. meanwhile lizzie's brother charley, for whom she had worked so hard, was doing well at school, but now that he was getting up in the world he had turned out to be a selfish boy and was afraid that his sister might draw him down. one day he came to visit her, bringing with him the master of his school. the master's name was headstone. he was a gloomy, passionate, revengeful man who dressed always in black and had no friends. unfortunately enough, the first time he saw lizzie he fell in love with her. it was unfortunate in more ways than one, for lizzie disliked him greatly, and he was, as it proved, a man who would stop at nothing--not even at the worst of crimes--to attain an object. when lizzie's brother found headstone wanted to marry her, in his selfishness he saw only what a fine thing it would be for himself, and when she refused, he said many harsh things and finally left her in anger, telling her she was no longer a sister of his. this was not the worst either, for she knew headstone had been made almost angry by her dislike, and she was in dreadful fear lest he do harm to eugene wrayburn, whom he suspected she loved. in her anxiety lizzie left her lodging with the dolls' dressmaker, and found employment in a paper-mill in a village on the river, some miles from london, letting neither wrayburn nor headstone know where she had gone. the schoolmaster imagined that the lawyer (whom he now hated with a deadly hatred) knew where she was, and in order to discover if he visited her he began to dog the other's footsteps. at night, after teaching all day in school, headstone would lie in wait outside the lawyer's door and whenever he came out would follow him. wrayburn soon discovered this and delighted to fool his enemy. every night he would take a new direction and lead his pursuer for hours about the city. so that in a few weeks headstone became almost insane with murderous anger and disappointment. so things went on for a long while. lizzie continued to love eugene wrayburn, who kept trying in every way to find her. headstone, the schoolmaster, kept watching him and meditating evil. the little dolls' dressmaker worked on cheerily every day in the city, and in their fine house mr. and mrs. boffin grew fonder and fonder of miss bella, whom john rokesmith, the secretary, thought more beautiful every day. iii the rise and fall of silas wegg the wooden-legged ballad seller whom mr. boffin had hired to read to him was a sly, dishonest rascal named silas wegg, who soon made up his mind to get all the money he could out of his employer. there is an old story of a camel who once asked a shopkeeper to let him put his nose in at the shop door to warm it. the shopkeeper consented, and little by little the camel got his head, then his neck, then his shoulders and at last his whole body into the shop, so that there was no room for the poor shopkeeper, who had to sit outside in the cold. wegg soon began to act like the camel and took such advantage of easy-going mr. boffin that the latter at last let him live rent-free in the house amid the dust heaps, which he himself had occupied before he got old harmon's money. wegg imagined the mounds contained treasures hidden by the old man and thought it would be a fine thing to cheat mr. boffin out of them. so every night he spent hours prodding the heaps. finally he persuaded a mr. venus (a man who had been disappointed in love and made a melancholy living by stringing skeletons together on wires), to become his partner in the search. one day wegg really did find something. it was a parchment hidden in an empty pump, and he soon saw that it was a second will of old harmon's, later than the one already known, leaving the whole fortune, not to the son at all, but to the crown. when wegg saw this his hypocritical soul swelled with joy, for he thought, sooner than give up all the money to the crown, mr. boffin would pay him a great deal to destroy this new will. he was such a rascal himself that it never occurred to him that maybe mr. boffin would prefer to be honest. he took it for granted everybody else was as bad as he was himself, yet all the while he tried to make himself believe that he was upright and noble in all he did, as hypocrites generally do. the only point wegg could not make up his mind about was how much he could squeeze out of his benefactor, mr. boffin. at first he had thought of asking for half, but the more he hugged his secret the lesser the half seemed. at last he determined to demand for himself, as the price for giving up the will, all but a very small share of the whole fortune. now mr. venus, though he had yielded at first to the rosy temptations of wegg, was after all quite honest at heart, and his conscience troubled him so that at last he went and told mr. boffin all about wegg's discovery. the golden dustman at first thought mr. venus had some underhanded plan, so he pretended he was terribly frightened for fear of wegg and the will he had found. as a matter of fact, sly old mr. boffin was not afraid in the least, because he knew something that neither wegg nor venus, nor even john rokesmith, the secretary, knew. this was, that the old original dustman, harmon, had made still a _third_ will, later than either of the others. the first will found was the one that had called the son back to england to marry bella. the second will was the one leaving all his fortune to the crown, which wegg had found in the empty pump. the third and last one gave all the money to mr. boffin, no matter whom the son married, and gave none to any one else. and this third and last will, the one that was the _true_ will, the golden dustman had long ago found himself, buried in a bottle in one of the dust heaps. mr. boffin had never told any one about this last will, because he had all the fortune anyway. now, however, seeing how wegg had planned to act, he was very glad he had found it. and when he was convinced that mr. venus was really honest and wanted no reward whatever, mr. boffin determined to fool the rascally wegg up to the very last moment. wegg's plan was not to demand the money until he had fully searched all the dust mounds. mr. boffin spurred wegg on in this regard by making him read to him in the evenings from a book called _the lives of famous misers_ which he had bought: about the famous mr. dancer who had warmed his dinner by sitting on it and died naked in a sack, and yet had gold and bank-notes hidden in the crevices of the walls and in cracked jugs and tea-pots; of an old apple woman in whose house a fortune was found wrapped up in little scraps of paper; of "vulture hopkins" and "blewbury jones" and many others whose riches after their death were found hidden in strange places. while wegg read, mr. boffin would pretend to get tremendously excited about his dust mounds, so that wegg grew surer and surer there must be riches hidden in them. finally the golden dustman sold the mounds and had them carted away little by little, wegg watching every shovelful for fear he would miss something. mr. boffin hired a foreman to manage the removal of the dust who wore wegg down to skin and bone. he worked by daylight and torchlight, too. just as wegg, tired out by watching all day in the rain, would crawl into bed, the foreman, like a goblin, would reappear and go to work again. sometimes wegg would be waked in the middle of the night, and sometimes kept at his post for as much as forty-eight hours at a stretch, till he grew so gaunt and haggard that even his wooden leg looked chubby in comparison. at last he could not keep quiet any longer and he told mr. boffin what he had found. mr. boffin pretended the most abject dread. wegg bullied and browbeat him to his heart's content, and ended by ordering him, like a slave, to be ready to receive him on a certain morning, and to have the money ready to pay him. when he went to the fine boffin house to keep this appointment he entered insolently, whistling and with his hat on. a servant showed him into the library where mr. boffin and the secretary sat waiting, and where the secretary at once astonished him by taking off the hat and throwing it out of the window. in another moment wegg found himself seized by the cravat, shaken till his teeth rattled, and pinned in a corner of the room, where the secretary knocked his head against the wall while he told him in a few words what a scoundrel he was. when he learned that the will he had discovered was worthless paper, wegg lost all his bullying air and cringed before them. mr. boffin was disposed to be merciful and offered to make good his loss of his ballad business, but wegg, grasping and mean to the last, set its value at such a ridiculously high figure that mr. boffin put his money back into his pocket. then, at a sign from john rokesmith, one of the servants caught wegg by the collar, hoisted him on his back, ran down to the street with him and threw him into a garbage cart, where he disappeared from view with a tremendous splash. and that, so far as this story is concerned, was the end of silas wegg. iv bella and the golden dustman it was not long before john rokesmith, the secretary, was very much in love with bella indeed. bella saw this plainly, but the fine house and costly clothes had quite spoiled her, and, thinking him only a poor secretary and her father's lodger, she treated him almost with contempt. yet he would not tell her who he was, for he did not want her to marry him merely because of the money it would bring her. she hurt his feelings often, but in spite of it she could not help being attracted to him. he had a way, too, of looking at her that made her feel how proud and unjust she was, and sometimes made her quite despise herself. but having had a taste of the pleasures and comforts that wealth would bring, bella had quite determined when she married to marry nobody but a very rich man. mr. and mrs. boffin both noticed how changed she was growing from her own sweet self and regretted it, for they liked bella and they liked the secretary, too, and they could easily see that the latter was in love with her. one day mrs. boffin went to the secretary's room for something. as she entered, rokesmith, who was sitting sadly over the fire, looked up with a peculiar expression that told the good woman all in a flash who he was. "i know you now," she cried, "you're little john harmon!" in the joy and surprise she almost fainted, but he caught her and set her down beside him. just then in came mr. boffin, and the secretary told them the whole story, and how he now loved bella, but would not declare himself because of her contempt. both mr. and mrs. boffin were so glad to know he was really alive they fell to crying with joy. the golden dustman declared that, no matter how the last will read, john should have the fortune for his own. rokesmith (or harmon) at first refused to do this, but mr. boffin swore that if he did not he himself would not touch the money, and it would have to go to the crown anyway. so at last it was agreed that mr. boffin should keep a small portion for his own, but that the other should take all the rest. mr. boffin wanted to tell everybody the truth at once, but john would not let them. you see he wouldn't marry bella for anything unless she loved him for himself alone. and she was growing so fond of riches that there seemed little chance of this happening. nevertheless they believed that at heart bella was good and sweet, if they could only get to her real self, so mr. boffin that moment made a plan. he determined to show bella how much unhappiness misused riches could cause, and how too much money might sometimes spoil the kindest and best people. as a lesson to her in this he was to pretend gradually to turn into a mean, hard-hearted miser. they agreed that he should begin to treat the secretary harshly and unjustly in bella's presence, feeling sure that her true self would stand up for him when he was slighted, and be kinder to him when he seemed poorest and most friendless. the golden dustman began the new plan that very night. every day he made himself act like a regular brown bear, and every evening he would say, "i'll be a grislier old growler to-morrow." he made the secretary slave from morning till night and found fault with him and sneered at his poverty and cut down his wages. each afternoon, when he went walking with bella, mr. boffin would make her go into bookshops and inquire if they had any book about a miser. if they had, he would buy it, no matter what it cost, and lug it home to read. he began to drive hard bargains for everything he bought and all his talk came to be about money and the fine thing it was to have it. "go in for money, my dear," he would say to bella. "money's the article! you'll make money of your good looks, and of the money mrs. boffin and me will leave you, and you'll live and die rich. that's the state to live and die in--r-r-rich!" bella was greatly shocked at the sorrowful change in mr. boffin. wealth began to look less lovely when she saw him growing so miserly. she began to wonder if she herself might ever become like that, too, and sometimes, when she thought how kind and generous the old mr. boffin had been, she fairly hated money and wished it had never been invented. there was an old woman who peddled knitting-work through the country whom mr. and mrs. boffin had befriended, and to whom they had given a letter to carry wherever she went. this letter asked whoever should find her, if she fell sick, to let them know. the old woman fell and died one day by the roadside near the spot where lizzie hexam was now living, and lizzie, finding the letter, wrote about it to mr. and mrs. boffin. they sent the secretary and bella, to make arrangements for the poor woman's burial, and in this way bella met lizzie and became her friend. lizzie soon told her all her story, and bella, seeing how unselfishly she loved, began to think her own ambition to marry for money a mean and ignoble thing. she thought how patient and kind the secretary had always been, and, knowing he loved her, wished heartily that her own coldness had not forbidden him to tell her so. one day mr. boffin's pretended harsh treatment of his secretary seemed to come to a climax. he sent for him to come to the room where mrs. boffin and bella sat, and made a fearful scene. he said he had just heard that he, rokesmith, had been presuming on his position to make love to bella--a young lady who wanted to marry money, who had _a right_ to marry money, and who was very far from wanting to marry a poor beggar of a private secretary! he threw the wages that were due rokesmith on the floor and discharged him on the spot, telling him the sooner he could pack up and leave, the better. then, at last, in the face of this apparent meanness and injustice, bella saw herself and mr. boffin's money and john rokesmith's love and dignity, all in their true light. she burst out crying, begged rokesmith's forgiveness, told mr. boffin he was an old wretch of a miser, and when the secretary had gone, she said rokesmith was a gentleman and worth a million boffins, and she would not stay in the house a minute longer. then she packed up her things and went straight to her father's office. all the other clerks had gone home, for it was after hours, and she put her head on his shoulder and told him all about it. and while they were talking, in came john rokesmith, and seeing her there alone with her father, rushed to her and caught her in his arms. "my dear, brave, noble, generous girl!" he said, and bella, feeling all at once that she had never been quite so happy in her life, laid her head on his breast, as if that were the one place for it in all the world. they had a talk together and then walked home to mr. wilfer's poor little house, bella's father agreeing that she had done exactly the proper thing, and bella herself feeling so happy now in having john rokesmith's love, that she cared not a bit for the fine mansion and clothes and money of the boffins which she had left for ever. a few days later john rokesmith and bella were married and went to live in a little furnished cottage outside of london, where they settled down as happy as two birds. v the end of the story while these things were happening at mr. boffin's house, eugene wrayburn, with headstone the schoolmaster watching him like a hawk, had never left off trying to find where lizzie hexam had gone. at length, through the "troublesome child" of the little dolls' dressmaker, he learned the name of the village where she was living and went at once to see her. headstone followed close behind him and when, from his hiding-place, he saw how glad lizzie was to see the lawyer, he went quite mad with jealousy and hate, and that moment he determined to kill wrayburn. it happened that rogue riderhood was then working on the river that flowed past the village, where he tended a lock. the schoolmaster, in order to turn suspicion from himself in case any one should see him when he did this wicked deed, observing carefully how riderhood was dressed, got himself clothes exactly like the lock tender's, even to a red handkerchief tied around his neck. in this guise, with murder in his heart, he lay in wait along the riverside till wrayburn passed one evening just after he had bade good night to lizzie hexam. the schoolmaster crept up close behind the lawyer and struck him a fearful crashing blow on the head with a club. wrayburn grappled with him, but headstone struck again and again with the bloody weapon, and still again as the other lay prostrate at his feet, and dragging the body to the bank, threw it into the river. then he fled. lizzie hexam had not yet turned homeward from the riverside. she heard through the night the sound of the blows, the faint moan and the splash. she ran to the spot, saw the trampled grass, and, looking across the water, saw a bloody face drifting away. she ran to launch a boat, and rowed with all her strength to overtake it. but for her dreadful life on the river with her father she could not have found the drowning man in the darkness, but she did, and then she saw it was the man she loved. one terrible cry she uttered, then rowed with desperate strokes to the shore and with superhuman strength carried him to a near-by inn. wrayburn was not dead, but was dreadfully disfigured. for many days he hovered between life and death. jennie wren, the dolls' dressmaker, came, and she and lizzie nursed him. as soon as he could speak he made them understand that before he died he wanted lizzie to marry him. a minister was sent for, and with him came john rokesmith and bella. so the sick man was married to lizzie, and from that hour he began to get better, till before long they knew that he would recover. meanwhile, not waiting to see the result of his murderous attack, headstone had fled down the river bank to the hut where riderhood lived and there the villainous lock tender let him rest and sleep. as the schoolmaster tossed in his guilty slumber, riderhood noted that his clothes were like his own. he unbuttoned the sleeping man's jacket, saw the red handkerchief, and, having heard from a passing boatman of the attempted murder, he guessed that headstone had done it and saw how he had plotted to lay the crime on him. when the schoolmaster went away riderhood followed him, watched him change clothes in the bushes and rescued the bloody garments the other threw away. with these in his hands he faced the schoolmaster one day in his class room and made him promise, under threat of exposure, to come that night to the hut by the lock. headstone was afraid to disobey. when he came, riderhood told him he must give him money at once or he would follow him till he did. headstone refused and, as the other had threatened, when he started back to london, he found the lock tender by his side. he returned to the hut and the other did the same. he started again, and again the other walked beside him. then headstone, turning suddenly, caught riderhood around the waist and dragged him to the edge of the lock. "let go!" said riderhood. "you can't drown me!" "i can," panted headstone. "and i can drown myself. i'll hold you living and i'll hold you dead. come down!" riderhood went over backward into the water, and the schoolmaster upon him. when they found them, long afterward, riderhood's body was girdled still with the schoolmaster's arms and they held him tight. this was the awful end of the two wicked men whom fate had brought into lizzie's life. all this time, of course, bella had been believing her husband to be very poor. at first he had intended to tell her who he was on the day they were married, but he said to himself: "no, she's so unselfish and contented i can't afford to be rich yet." so he pretended to get a position in the city at small wages. then after a few months he thought it over again, and he said to himself, "she's such a cheerful little housewife that i can't afford to be rich yet." and at last a little baby was born to bella, and then they were so happy that he said, "she's so much sweeter than she ever was that i can't afford to be rich just yet!" but meantime bella was imagining that mr. boffin was a cruel old miser, and mr. boffin didn't like this, so john agreed that he would tell her all about it. but first he got bella to describe exactly the kind of house she would like if they were very, very rich, and when she told him, he and mr. boffin had the boffin mansion fixed over in just the way she had said--with a nursery with rainbow-colored walls and flowers on the staircase, and even a little room full of live birds, and a jewel box full of jewels on the dressing-table. fate, however, had arranged even a greater trial of bella's love for him than all the others. as they walked together on the street one day, they came face to face with a man who had been in the police office on the night the body which every one believed to be john harmon's had lain there. he had seen the entrance of the agitated stranger, and had helped the police in their later vain search for rokesmith. now he at once recognized bella's husband as that man, who the police believed had probably committed the murder. rokesmith knew the man had recognized him, and when they got home he told bella that he was accused of killing the man the harmon will had bidden her marry. [illustration: jennie wren and her "troublesome child" _see page _] but nothing now could shake her faith in him. "how dare they!" she cried indignantly. "my beloved husband." he caught her in his arms at that, and while he held her thus the officers entered to arrest him. rokesmith found the matter very easy to explain to the satisfaction of the police, but he told bella nothing as yet, and, trusting and believing in him absolutely, she waited in great wonder. next day he told her he had a new position and that now they must live in the city where he had taken a furnished house for them. they drove together to see it. strangely enough it seemed to be in the same street as mr. boffin's house, and stranger yet, the coach stopped at mr. boffin's own door. her husband put his arm around her and drew her in, and she saw that everything was covered with flowers. as he led her on she exclaimed in astonishment to see the little room full of birds just as she had wished. suddenly her husband opened a door and there was mr. boffin beaming and mrs. boffin shedding tears of joy, and folding her to her breast as she said: "my deary, deary, deary, wife of john and mother of his little child! my loving loving, bright bright, pretty pretty! welcome to your house and home, my deary!" then of course the whole story came out. the mystery was solved and she knew that john rokesmith was the true john harmon and that her husband was really the man the harmon will had picked out for her to marry. in the splendid boffin house they lived happily for many years, surrounded by bella's children. and they were never so happy as when they welcomed eugene wrayburn with lizzie his wife, or jennie wren, the little dolls' dressmaker. a tale of two cities published _scene_: london and paris _time_: to characters doctor manette a french physician rescued after long imprisonment in the bastille lucie his daughter miss pross her english nurse sydney carton an idle and dissipated law student mr. lorry the agent of an english bank doing business in paris the marquis de st. evrémonde a french nobleman charles darnay his nephew a young frenchman living in england as a tutor later, the marquis de st. evrémonde, and lucie's husband gabelle the steward of darnay's french estates defarge a paris wine shop keeper a leader of the revolutionists madame defarge his wife barsad a spy and turnkey a tale of two cities i how lucie found a father a little more than a hundred years ago there lived in london (one of the two cities of this tale) a lovely girl of seventeen named lucie manette. her mother had died when she was a baby, in france, and she lived alone with her old nurse, miss pross, a homely, grim guardian with hair as red as her face, who called lucie "ladybird" and loved her very much. miss pross was sharp of speech and was always snapping people up as if she would bite their heads off, but, though she seldom chose to show it, she was the kindest, truest, most unselfish person in the world. lucie had no memory of her father, and had always believed he also had died when she was a baby. one day, however, through a mr. lorry, the agent of a bank, she learned a wonderful piece of news. he told her that her father was not dead, but that he had been wickedly thrown into a secret prison in paris before she was born, and had been lost thus for eighteen long years. this prison was the bastille--a cold, dark building like a castle, with high gray towers, a deep moat and drawbridge, and soldiers and cannon to defend it. in those days in france the rich nobles who belonged to the royal court were very powerful and overbearing, and the rest of the people had few rights. one could be put into prison then without any trial at all, so that many innocent people suffered. lucie's mother had guessed that doctor manette (for he was a physician) had in some way incurred the hatred of some one of the nobles and had thus been taken from her; but all she certainly knew was that he had disappeared one day in paris and had never come back. for a year she had tried in every way to find him, but at length, desolate and heartbroken, she had fallen ill and died, leaving little lucie with only miss pross, her english nurse, to care for her. mr. lorry himself, who told lucie this story, having known her father, had brought her, a baby, to london in his arms. now, he told her, after all these years, her father had been released, and was at that moment in paris in charge of a man named defarge, who had once been his servant. but the long imprisonment had affected his mind, so that he was little more than the broken wreck of the man he had once been. mr. lorry was about to go to paris to identify him, and he wished lucie to go also to bring him to himself. you can imagine that lucie's heart was both glad and sorrowful at the news; joyful that the father she had always believed dead was alive, and yet full of grief for his condition. she hastily made ready and that same day set out with mr. lorry for france. when they reached paris they went at once to find defarge. he was a stern, forbidding man, who kept a cheap wine shop in one of the poorer quarters of the city. he took them through a dirty courtyard behind the shop and up five flights of filthy stairs to a door, which he unlocked for them to enter. in the dim room sat a withered, white-haired old man on a low bench making shoes. his cheeks were worn and hollow, his eyes were bright and his long beard was as white as snow. he wore a ragged shirt, and his hands were thin and transparent from confinement. it was lucie's father, doctor manette! he scarcely looked up when they entered, for his mind was gone and he knew no one. all that seemed to interest him was his shoemaking. he had forgotten everything else. he even thought his own name was "one hundred and five, north tower," which had been the number of his cell in the bastille. lucie's heart almost broke to see him. she wanted to throw her arms about him, to lay her head on his breast and tell him she was his daughter who loved him and had come to take him home at last. but she was afraid this would frighten him. she came close to him, and after a while he began to look at her. she greatly resembled her dead mother, and presently her face seemed to remind him of something. he unwound a string from around his neck and unfolded a little rag which was tied to it, and there was a lock of hair like lucie's. then he suddenly burst into tears--the first he had shed for long, long years--and the tears seemed to bring back a part of the past. lucie took him in her arms and soothed him, while mr. lorry went to bring the coach that was to take them to england. through all their preparations for departure her father sat watching in a sort of scared wonder, holding tight to lucie's hand like a child, and when they told him to come with them he descended the stairs obediently. but he would not go into the coach without his bench and shoemaking tools, and, to quiet him, they were obliged to take them, too. so the father and daughter and mr. lorry journeyed back to lucie's home in london. all the miles they rode lucie held her father's hand, and the touch seemed to give him strength and confidence. on the boat crossing to london was a young man who called himself charles darnay, handsome, dark and pale. he was most kind to lucie, and showed her how to make a couch on deck for her father, and how she could shelter it from the wind. in the long months that followed their arrival, while the poor old man regained a measure of health, she never forgot darnay's face and his kindness to them. doctor manette's mind and memory came slowly back with his improving health. there were some days when his brain clouded. then lucie would find him seated at his old prison bench making shoes, and she would coax him away and talk to him until the insanity would pass away. so time went by peacefully till a strange thing happened: charles darnay, who had been so kind to lucie and her father on the boat, was arrested on a charge of treason. england at that time was not on good terms with france, and darnay, who was of french birth, was accused of selling information concerning the english forts and army to the french government. this was a very serious charge, for men convicted of treason then were put to death in the cruelest ways that could be invented. the charge was not true, and darnay himself knew quite well who was working against him. the fact was that charles darnay was not his true name. he was really charles st. evrémonde, the descendant of a rich and noble french family, though he chose to live in london as charles darnay, and earned his living by giving lessons in french. he did this because he would not be one of the hated noble class of his own country, who treated the poor so heartlessly. in france the peasants had to pay many oppressive taxes, and were wretched and half-starved, while the rich nobles rode in gilded coaches, and, if they ran over a little peasant child, threw a coin to its mother and drove on without a further thought. among the hardest-hearted of all, and the most hated by the common people, were the evrémondes, the family of the young man who was now accused of treason. as soon as he was old enough to know how unjust was his family's treatment of the poor who were dependent on them, he had protested against it. when he became a man he had refused to live on the money that was thus taken from the hungry peasantry, and had left his home and come to london to earn his own way by teaching. his heartless uncle, the marquis de st. evrémonde, in france, the head of the family, hated the young man for this noble spirit. it was this uncle who had invented the plot to accuse his nephew of treason. he had hired a dishonest spy known as barsad, who swore he had found papers in darnay's trunk that proved his guilt, and, as darnay had been often back and forth to france on family matters, the case looked dark for him. cruelly enough, among those who were called to the trial as witnesses, to show that darnay had made these frequent journeys to france, were doctor manette and lucie--because they had seen him on the boat during that memorable crossing. lucie's tears fell fast as she gave her testimony, believing him innocent and knowing that her words would be used to condemn him. darnay would doubtless have been convicted but for a curious coincidence: a dissipated young lawyer, named sydney carton, sitting in the court room, had noticed with surprise that he himself looked very much like the prisoner; in fact, that they were so much alike they might almost have been taken for twin brothers. he called the attention of darnay's lawyer to this, and the latter--while one of the witnesses against darnay was making oath that he had seen him in a certain place in france--made carton take off his wig (all lawyers wear wigs in england while in court) and stand up beside darnay. the two were so alike the witness was puzzled, and he could not swear which of the two he had seen. for this reason darnay, to lucie's great joy, was found not guilty. sydney carton, who had thought of and suggested this clever thing, was a reckless, besotted young man. he cared for nobody, and nobody, he used to say, cared for him. he lacked energy and ambition to work and struggle for himself, but for the sake of plenty of money with which to buy liquor, he studied cases for another lawyer, who was fast growing rich by his labor. his master, who hired him, was the lion; carton was content, through his own indolence and lack of purpose, to be the jackal. his conscience had always condemned him for this, and now, as he saw the innocent darnay's look, noble and straightforward, so like himself as he might have been, and as he thought of lucie's sweet face and of how she had wept as she was forced to give testimony against the other, carton felt that he almost hated the man whose life he had saved. the trial brought lucie and these two men (so like each other in feature, yet so unlike in character) together, and afterward they often met at doctor manette's house. it was in a quiet part of london that lucie and her father lived, all alone save for the faithful miss pross. they had little furniture, for they were quite poor, but lucie made the most of everything. doctor manette had recovered his mind, but not all of his memory. sometimes he would get up in the night and walk up and down, up and down, for hours. at such times lucie would hurry to him and walk up and down with him till he was calm again. she never knew why he did this, but she came to believe he was trying vainly to remember all that had happened in those lost years which he had forgotten. he kept his prison bench and tools always by him, but as time went on he gradually used them less and less often. mr. lorry, with his flaxen wig and constant smile, came to tea every sunday with them and helped to keep doctor manette cheerful. sometimes darnay, sydney carton and mr. lorry would meet there together, but of them all, darnay came oftenest, and soon it was easy to see that he was in love with lucie. sydney carton, too, was in love with her, but he was perfectly aware that he was quite undeserving, and that lucie could never love him in return. she was the last dream of his wild, careless life, the life he had wasted and thrown away. once he told her this, and said that, although he could never be anything to her himself, he would give his life gladly to save any one who was near and dear to her. lucie fell in love with darnay at length and one day they were married and went away on their wedding journey. until then, since his rescue, lucie had never been out of doctor manette's sight. now, though he was glad for her happiness, yet he felt the pain of the separation so keenly that it unhinged his mind again. miss pross and mr. lorry found him next morning making shoes at the old prison bench and for nine days he did not know them at all. at last, however, he recovered, and then, lest the sight of it affect him, one day when he was not there they chopped the bench to pieces and burned it up. but her father was better after lucie came back with her husband, and they took up their quiet life again. darnay loved lucie devotedly. he supported himself still by teaching. mr. lorry came from the bank oftener to tea and sydney carton more rarely, and their life was peaceful and content. once after his marriage, his cruel uncle, the marquis de st. evrémonde, sent for darnay to come to france on family matters. darnay went, but declined to remain or to do the other's bidding. but his uncle's evil life was soon to be ended. while darnay was there the marquis was murdered one night in his bed by a grief-crazed laborer, whose little child his carriage had run over. darnay returned to england, shocked and horrified the more at the indifference of the life led by his race in france. although now, by the death of his uncle, he had himself become the marquis de st. evrémonde, yet he would not lay claim to the title, and left all the estates in charge of one of the house servants, an honest steward named gabelle. he had intended after his return to lucie to settle all these affairs and to dispose of the property, which he felt it wrong for him to hold; but in the peace and happiness of his life in england he put it off and did nothing further. and this neglect of darnay's--as important things neglected are apt to prove--came before long to be the cause of terrible misfortune and agony to them all. ii darnay caught in the net while these things were happening in london, the one city of this tale, other very different events were occurring in the other city of the story--paris, the french capital. the indifference and harsh oppression of the court and the nobles toward the poor had gone on increasing day by day, and day by day the latter had grown more sullen and resentful. all the while the downtrodden people of paris were plotting secretly to rise in rebellion, kill the king and queen and all the nobles, seize their riches and govern france themselves. the center of this plotting was defarge, the keeper of the wine shop, who had cared for doctor manette when he had first been released from prison. defarge and those he trusted met and planned often in the very room where mr. lorry and lucie had found her father making shoes. they kept a record of all acts of cruelty toward the poor committed by the nobility, determining that, when they themselves should be strong enough, those thus guilty should be killed, their fine houses burned, and all their descendants put to death, so that not even their names should remain in france. this was a wicked and awful determination, but these poor, wretched people had been made to suffer all their lives, and their parents before them, and centuries of oppression had killed all their pity and made them as fierce as wild beasts that only wait for their cages to be opened to destroy all in their path. they were afraid, of course, to keep any written list of persons whom they had thus condemned, so madame defarge, the wife of the wine seller, used to knit the names in fine stitches into a long piece of knitting that she seemed always at work on. madame defarge was a stout woman with big coarse hands and eyes that never seemed to look at any one, yet saw everything that happened. she was as strong as a man and every one was somewhat afraid of her. she was even crueler and more resolute than her husband. she would sit knitting all day long in the dirty wine shop, watching and listening, and knitting in the names of people whom she hoped soon to see killed. one of the hated names that she knitted over and over again was "evrémonde." the laborer who, in the madness of his grief for his dead child, had murdered the marquis de st. evrémonde, darnay's hard-hearted uncle, had been caught and hanged; and, because of this, defarge and his wife and the other plotters had condemned all of the name of evrémonde to death. meanwhile the king and queen of france and all their gay and careless court of nobles feasted and danced as heedlessly as ever. they did not see the storm rising. the bitter taxes still went on. the wine shop of defarge looked as peaceful as ever, but the men who drank there now were dreaming of murder and revenge. and the half-starved women, who sat and looked on as the gilded coaches of the rich rolled through the streets, were sullenly waiting--watching madame defarge as she silently knitted, knitted into her work names of those whom the people had condemned to death without mercy. one day this frightful human storm, which for so many years had been gathering in france, burst over paris. the poor people rose by thousands, seized whatever weapons they could get--guns, axes, or even stones of the street--and, led by defarge and his tigerish wife, set out to avenge their wrongs. their rage turned first of all against the bastille, the old stone prison in which so many of their kind had died, where doctor manette for eighteen years had made shoes. they beat down the thick walls and butchered the soldiers who defended it, and released the prisoners. and wherever they saw one of the king's uniforms they hanged the wearer to the nearest lamp post. it was the beginning of the terrible revolution in france that was to end in the murder of thousands of innocent lives. it was the beginning of a time when paris's streets were to run with blood, when all the worst passions of the people were loosed, and when they went mad with the joy of revenge. the storm spread over france--to the village where stood the great château of the evrémonde family, and the peasants set fire to it and burned it to the ground. and gabelle (the servant who had been left in charge by darnay, the new marquis de st. evrémonde, whom they had never seen, but yet hated) they seized and put in prison. they stormed the royal palace and arrested the king and queen, threw all who bore noble names or titles into dungeons, and, as they had planned, set up a government of their own. darnay, safe in london with lucie, knew little and thought less of all this, till he received a pitiful letter from gabelle, who expected each morning to be dragged out to be killed, telling of the plight into which his faithfulness had brought him, and beseeching his master's aid. this letter made darnay most uneasy. he blamed himself, because he knew it was his fault that gabelle had been left so long in such a dangerous post. he did not forget that his own family, the evrémondes, had been greatly hated. but he thought the fact that he himself had refused to be one of them, and had given his sympathy rather to the people they oppressed, would make it possible for him to obtain gabelle's release. and with this idea he determined to go himself to paris. he knew the very thought of his going, now that france was mad with violence, would frighten lucie, so he determined not to tell her. he packed some clothing hurriedly and left secretly, sending a letter back telling her where and why he was going. and by the time she read this he was well on his way from england. darnay had expected to find no trouble in his errand and little personal risk in his journey, but as soon as he landed on the shores of france he discovered his mistake. he had only to give his real name, "the marquis de st. evrémonde," which he was obliged to do if he would help gabelle, and the title was the signal for rude threats and ill treatment. once in, he could not go back, and he felt as if a monstrous net were closing around him (as indeed, it was) from which there was no escape. he was sent on to paris under a guard of soldiers, and there he was at once put into prison to be tried--and in all probability condemned to death--as one of the hated noble class whom the people were now killing as fast as they could. the great room of the prison to which he was taken darnay found full of ladies and gentlemen, most of them rich and titled, the men chatting, the women reading or doing embroidery, all courteous and polite, as if they sat in their own splendid homes, instead of in a prison from which most of them could issue only to a dreadful death. he was allowed to remain here only a few moments; then he was taken to an empty cell and left alone. it happened that the bank of which mr. lorry was agent had an office also in paris, and the old gentleman had come there on business the day before darnay arrived. mr. lorry was an englishman born, and for him there was no danger. he knew nothing of the arrest of darnay until a day or two later, when, as he sat in his room, doctor manette and lucie entered, just arrived from london, deeply agitated and in great fear for darnay's safety. as soon as lucie had read her husband's letter she had followed at once with her father and miss pross. doctor manette, knowing darnay's real name and title (for, before he married lucie, he had told her father everything concerning himself), feared danger for him. but he had reasoned that his own long imprisonment in the bastille--the building the people had first destroyed--would make him a favorite, and render him able to aid darnay if danger came. on the way, they had heard the sad news of his arrest, and had come at once to mr. lorry to consider what might best be done. while they talked, through the window they saw a great crowd of people come rushing into the courtyard of the building to sharpen weapons at a huge grindstone that stood there. they were going to murder the prisoners with which the jails were by this time full! fearful that he would be too late to save darnay, doctor manette rushed to the yard, his white hair streaming in the wind, and told the leaders of the mob who he was--how he had been imprisoned for eighteen years in the bastille, and that now one of his kindred, by some unknown error, had been seized. they cheered him, lifted him on their shoulders and rushed away to demand for him the release of darnay, while lucie, in tears, with mr. lorry and miss pross, waited all night for tidings. but none came that night. the rescue had not proved easy. next day defarge, the wine shop keeper, brought a short note to lucie from darnay at the prison, but it was four days before doctor manette returned to the house. he had, indeed, by the story of his own sufferings, saved darnay's life for the time being, but the prisoner, he had been told, could not be released without trial. for this trial they waited, day after day. the time passed slowly and terribly. prisoners were no longer murdered without trial, but few escaped the death penalty. the king and queen were beheaded. thousands were put to death merely on suspicion, and thousands more were thrown into prison to await their turn. this was that dreadful period which has always since been called "the reign of terror," when no one felt sure of his safety. there was a certain window in the prison through which darnay sometimes found a chance to look, and from which he could see one dingy street corner. on this corner, every afternoon, lucie took her station for hours, rain or shine. she never missed a day, and thus at long intervals her husband got a view of her. so months passed till a year had gone. all the while doctor manette, now become a well-known figure in paris, worked hard for darnay's release. and at length his turn came to be tried and he was brought before the drunken, ignorant men who called themselves judge and jury. he told how he had years before renounced his family and title, left france, and supported himself rather than be a burden on the peasantry. he told how he had married a woman of french birth, the only daughter of the good doctor manette, whom all paris knew, and had come to paris now of his own accord to help a poor servant who was in danger through his fault. the story caught the fancy of the changeable crowd in the room. they cheered and applauded it. when he was acquitted they were quite as pleased as if he had been condemned to be beheaded, and put him in a great chair and carried him home in triumph to lucie. there was only one there, perhaps, who did not rejoice at the result, and that was the cold, cruel wife of the wine seller, madame defarge, who had knitted the name "evrémonde" so many times into her knitting. iii sydney carton's sacrifice that same night of his release all the happiness of darnay and lucie was suddenly broken. soldiers came and again arrested him. defarge and his wife were the accusers this time, and he was to be retried. the first one to bring this fresh piece of bad news to mr. lorry was sydney carton, the reckless and dissipated young lawyer. probably he had heard, in london, of lucie's trouble, and out of his love for her, which he always carried hidden in his heart, had come to paris to try to aid her husband. he had arrived only to hear, at the same time, of the acquittal and the rearrest. as carton walked along the street thinking sadly of lucie's new grief, he saw a man whose face and figure seemed familiar. following, he soon recognized him as the english spy, barsad, whose false testimony, years before in london, had come so near convicting darnay when he was tried for treason. barsad (who, as it happened, was now a turnkey in the very prison where darnay was confined) had left london to become a spy in france, first on the side of the king and then on the side of the people. at the time of this story england was so hated by france that if the people had known of barsad's career in london they would have cut off his head at once. carton, who was well aware of this, threatened the spy with his knowledge and made him swear that if worst came to worst and darnay were condemned, he would admit carton to the cell to see him once before he was taken to execution. why carton asked this barsad could not guess, but to save himself he had to promise. next day darnay was tried for the second time. when the judge asked for the accusation, defarge laid a paper before him. it was a letter that had been found when the bastille fell, in the cell that had been occupied for eighteen years by doctor manette. he had written it before his reason left him, and hidden it behind a loosened stone in the wall; and in it he had told the story of his own unjust arrest. defarge read it aloud to the jury. and this was the terrible tale it told: the marquis de st. evrémonde (the cruel uncle of darnay), when he was a young man, had dreadfully wronged a young peasant woman, had caused her husband's death and killed her brother with his own hand. as the brother lay dying from the sword wound, doctor manette, then also a young man, had been called to attend him, and so, by accident, had learned the whole. horrified at the wicked wrong, he wrote of it in a letter to the minister of justice. the marquis whom it accused learned of this, and, to put doctor manette out of the way, had him arrested secretly, taken from his wife and baby daughter and thrown into a secret cell of the bastille, where he had lived those eighteen years, not knowing whether his wife and child lived or died. he waited ten years for release, and when none came, at last, feeling his mind giving way, he wrote the account, which he concealed in the cell wall, denouncing the family of evrémonde and all their descendants. the reading of this paper by defarge, as may be guessed, aroused all the murderous passions of the people in the court room. there was a further reason for madame defarge's hatred, for the poor woman whom darnay's uncle had so wronged had been her own sister! in vain old doctor manette pleaded. that his own daughter was now darnay's wife made no difference in their eyes. the jury at once found darnay guilty and sentenced him to die by the guillotine the next morning. lucie fainted when the sentence was pronounced. sydney carton, who had witnessed the trial, lifted her and bore her to a carriage. when they reached home he carried her up the stairs and laid her on a couch. before he went, he bent down and touched her cheek with his lips, and they heard him whisper: "for a life you love!" they did not know until next day what he meant. carton had, in fact, formed a desperate plan to rescue lucie's husband, whom he so much resembled in face and figure, even though it meant his own death. he went to mr. lorry and made him promise to have ready next morning passports and a coach and swift horses to leave paris for england with doctor manette, lucie and himself, telling him that if they delayed longer, lucie's life and her father's also would be lost. next, carton bought a quantity of a drug whose fumes would render a man insensible, and with this in his pocket early next morning he went to the spy, barsad, and bade him redeem his promise and take him to the cell where darnay waited for the signal of death. darnay was seated, writing a last letter to lucie, when carton entered. pretending that he wished him to write something that he dictated, carton stood over him and held the phial of the drug to his face. in a moment the other was unconscious. then carton changed clothes with him and called in the spy, directing him to take the unconscious man, who now seemed to be sydney carton instead of charles darnay, to mr. lorry's house. he himself was to take the prisoner's place and suffer the penalty. the plan worked well. darnay, who would not have allowed this sacrifice if he had known, was carried safely and without discovery, past the guards. mr. lorry, guessing what had happened when he saw the unconscious figure, took coach at once with him, doctor manette and lucie, and started for england that very hour. miss pross was left to follow them in another carriage. while miss pross sat waiting in the empty house, who should come in but the terrible madame defarge! the latter had made up her mind, as carton had suspected, to denounce lucie also. it was against the law to mourn for any one who had been condemned as an enemy to france, and the woman was sure, of course, that lucie would be mourning for her husband, who was to die within the hour. so she stopped on her way to the execution to see lucie and thus have evidence against her. when madame defarge entered, miss pross read the hatred and evil purpose in her face. the grim old nurse knew if it were known that lucie had gone, the coach would be pursued and brought back. so she planted herself in front of the door of lucie's room, and would not let madame defarge open it. the savage frenchwoman tried to tear her away, but miss pross seized her around the waist, and held her back. the other drew a loaded pistol from her breast to shoot her, but in the struggle it went off and killed madame defarge herself. then miss pross, all of a tremble, locked the door, threw the key into the river, took a carriage and followed after the coach. not long after the unconscious darnay, with lucie and doctor manette, passed the gates of paris, the jailer came to the cell where sydney carton sat and called him. it was the summons to die. and with his thoughts on lucie, whom he had always hopelessly loved, and on her husband, whom he had thus saved to her, he went almost gladly. a poor little seamstress rode in the death cart beside him. she was so small and weak that she feared to die, and carton held her cold hand all the way and comforted her to the end. cruel women of the people sat about the guillotine knitting and counting with their stitches, as each poor victim died. and when carton's turn came, thinking he was darnay, the hated marquis de st. evrémonde, they cursed him and laughed. men said of him about the city that night that it was the peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. if they could have read his thought, if he could have spoken it in words it would have been these: "i see the lives, for which i lay down mine, peaceful and happy in that england i shall see no more. i see lucie and darnay with a child that bears my name, and i see that i shall hold a place in their hearts for ever. i see her weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. i see the blot i threw upon my name faded away, and i know that till they die neither shall be more honored in the soul of the other than i am honored in the souls of both. it is a far, far better thing that i do, than i have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that i go to than i have ever known!" bleak house published - _scene_: london and the country _time_: to characters mr. jarndyce master of bleak house mr. boythorn his friend sir leicester dedlock an aged nobleman mr. boythorn's neighbor lady dedlock his wife mr. tulkinghorn his lawyer captain hawdon a dissipated and poverty-stricken copyist in london, known as "nemo" esther summerson mr. jarndyce's ward in reality a daughter of captain hawdon and lady dedlock ada clare } } wards of mr. jarndyce richard carstone } vholes richard's lawyer mrs. rouncewell sir leicester's housekeeper "mr. george" proprietor of a london shooting-gallery her son hortense lady dedlock's french maid miss flite a little, old, demented woman mrs. jellyby a lady greatly interested in the welfare of the heathen caddy jellyby her daughter harold skimpole a trifler with life, preferring to live at other people's expense allan woodcourt a young surgeon grandfather smallweed a money-lender mrs. smallweed his crazy wife mr. turveydrop the proprietor of a dancing school and a model of deportment prince turveydrop his son. later, caddy's husband joe a crossing sweeper krook a dealer in rags and old bottles "lady jane" his cat bleak house i the court of chancery an englishman named jarndyce, once upon a time having made a great fortune, died and left a great will. the persons appointed to carry out its provisions could not agree; they fell to disputing among themselves and went to law over it. the court which in england decides such suits is called the court of chancery. its action is slow and its delays many, so that men generally consider it a huge misfortune to be obliged to have anything to do with it. sometimes it has kept cases undecided for many years, till the heirs concerned were dead and gone; and often when the decision came at last there was no money left to be divided, because it had all been eaten up by the costs of the suit. lawyers inherited some cases from their fathers, who themselves had made a living by them, and many suits had become so twisted that nobody alive could have told at last what they really meant. such came to be the case with the jarndyce will. it had been tried for so many years that the very name had become a joke. those who began it were long since dead and their heirs either knew nothing of it or had given up hope of its ever being ended. the only one who seemed to be interested in it was a little old woman named miss flite, whom delay and despair in a suit of her own had made half crazy. for many years she had attended the chancery court every day and many thoughtless people made fun of her. she was wretchedly poor and lived in a small room over a rag-and-bottle shop kept by a man named krook. here she had a great number of birds in little cages--larks and linnets and goldfinches. she had given them names to represent the different things which the cruel chancery court required to carry on these shameful suits, such as hope, youth, rest, ashes, ruin, despair, madness, folly, words, plunder and jargon. she used to say that when the jarndyce case was decided she would open the cages and let the birds all go. the last jarndyce that was left had given up in disgust all thought of the famous lawsuit and steadfastly refused to have anything to do with it. he lived quietly in the country in a big, bare building called bleak house. he was past middle-age, and his hair was silver-gray, but he was straight and strong and merry. he was rich, yet was so tender-hearted and benevolent that all who knew him loved him. most of his good deeds he never told, for he had a great dislike to being thanked. it used to be said that once, after he had done an extremely generous thing for a relative of his, seeing her coming in the front gate to thank him, he escaped by the back door and was not seen again for three months. he never spoke ill of his neighbors, and whenever he was vexed he would pretend to look for a weather-cock and say, "dear, dear! the wind must be coming from the east!" it happened, finally, that all the other jarndyce heirs had died except two, a young girl named ada clare and a young man named richard carstone. these two, who were cousins, were left orphans. the master of bleak house, therefore, in the goodness of his heart, offered them a home with him, and this they thankfully accepted. mr. jarndyce now wished to find a companion for ada clare; and this is how esther summerson comes into this story. esther was a sweet girl who had been brought up by a stern, hard-hearted woman whom she had always called "godmother," in ignorance of her parentage. she had never known who were her mother or father, for from earliest babyhood her godmother had forbidden her to ask questions concerning them, and she would have had a sad and lonely youth but for her sunny disposition. it was not till her godmother died suddenly that she found she had a guardian, and that he was mr. jarndyce of bleak house. how he came to be her guardian was a mystery to her, but she was glad to find herself not altogether friendless. although he had taken the pains to see her more than once, and had noticed with pleasure what a cheerful, loving nature she had, yet esther had never, so far as she knew, seen him, so that she received his invitation to come and live at bleak house with joyful surprise. she went, on the day appointed, to london, and there she met ada, whom she began to love at once, and richard, a handsome, careless young fellow of nineteen. they spent the day together and got well acquainted before they took the morrow's coach to bleak house. at the chancery court they met poor, crazy little miss flite, who insisted on taking them to her room above the rag-and-bottle shop to show them her caged birds. and that night (as they had been directed) they stayed at the house of a mrs. jellyby, of whom mr. jarndyce had heard as a woman of great charity. mrs. jellyby was a woman with a mission, which mission was the education of the natives of borrioboola-gha, in africa, and the cultivation there of the coffee-bean. she thought of nothing else, and was for ever sending out letters or pamphlets about it. but she seemed unable to see or think of anything nearer home than africa. the house was unswept, the children dirty and always under foot, and the meals half-cooked. she would sit all day in slipshod slippers and a dress that did not meet in the back, drinking coffee and dictating to her eldest daughter caddy (who hated africa and all its natives) letters about coffee cultivation and the uplifting of the natives of borrioboola-gha. a very strange sort of philanthropist both esther and ada thought mrs. jellyby. perhaps, however, mr. jarndyce sent them there for a useful lesson, for he afterward asked them what they thought of her, and he seemed well pleased to learn that they considered her ideas of doing good in the world extremely odd. next day they drove to bleak house. not one of them had ever seen mr. jarndyce, but they found him all they had imagined and more--the kindest, pleasantest and most thoughtful person in the world. before they had been there two days they felt as if they had known him all their lives. bleak house was a building where one went up and down steps from one room to another, and where there were always more rooms when one thought he had seen them all. in the daytime there was horseback riding or walking to amuse them, and in the evenings ada often sang and played to the rest. altogether the time flew by most pleasantly, and, judging by mr. jarndyce's jollity, the wind seldom showed any signs of coming from the east. it was soon clear to everybody that richard was in love with ada and that ada was beginning to love him in return. this pleased mr. jarndyce, for he was fond of both. but he was fondest of esther. he made her his housekeeper and she carried a big bunch of keys and kept the house as clean as a new pin. he used to say she reminded him of: "little old woman and whither so high? to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky." she was so cheerful, he said, she would sweep the cobwebs out of anybody's sky. and from this they took to calling her "little old woman," and "cobweb," and "mother hubbard," till none of them thought of her real name at all. bleak house had a number of visitors who came more or less often. one of these was an old school friend of mr. jarndyce's, named boythorn. he was a big, blustering man with a laugh as big as himself. wherever he went he carried a tiny tame canary, that used to sit at meal-time perched on the top of his great shaggy head. it was odd to see this wee bird sitting there unafraid, even at one of his "ha-ha-ha's" that shook the whole house. mr. boythorn was exceedingly tender-hearted, but took delight in pretending to be the stubbornest, most cross-grained, worst-tempered individual possible. his neighbor was sir leicester dedlock, a dignified and proud old baronet, and him mr. boythorn loved to keep in perpetual anger by bringing against him all manner of lawsuits regarding the boundary between their land. another visitor whom esther found amusing was harold skimpole, a light, bright creature of charming manners, with a large head and full of simple gaiety. he was a man who seemed to trifle with everything. he sang a little, composed a little and sketched a little. but his songs were never completed and his sketches never finished. his aim in life seemed to be to avoid all responsibility, and to find some one else to pay his debts. he always spoke of himself as a "child," though he was middle-aged. he claimed to have no idea whatever of the value of money. he would take a handful of coins from his pocket and say laughing, "now, there's some money. i have no idea how much. i don't know how to count it. i dare say i owe more than that. if good-natured people don't stop letting me owe them, why should i? there you have harold skimpole." mr. jarndyce was far too honest and innocent himself to see through the man's hollow selfishness and was continually paying his debts, as they soon learned. most of all bleak house's visitors, esther came to like allan woodcourt, a handsome dark-haired young surgeon, and before long she found herself unconsciously looking and longing for his coming. woodcourt was poor, however, and although he was in love with esther he did not tell her, but soon sailed away on a long voyage as a ship's doctor. ii lady dedlock's secret sir leicester dedlock, whom mr. boythorn so loved to torment, was seventy years old. his wife, many years younger than himself, he had married for love. lady dedlock was not noble by birth--no one, indeed, knew who she had been before her marriage--but she was very beautiful. she was as proud and haughty, too, as she was lovely, and was much sought after. but with all her popularity she had few close friends, and no one in whom she confided. even her housekeeper, mrs. rouncewell, a fine, handsome old woman who had been sir leicester's servant for fifty years, thought her cold and reserved. mrs. rouncewell herself had had a son george, who many years before had gone off to be a soldier and had never come back; and, looking at her mistress's face, she often wondered if the shadow of pain there was the mark of some old grief or loss of which no one knew. however that may have been, the old baronet loved his wife and was very proud of her. sir leicester's family lawyer was named tulkinghorn. he was a dull, dignified man who always dressed in black and seldom spoke unless he had to. his one passion was the discovery of other people's secrets. he knew more family secrets than any one else in london, and to discover a new one he would have risked all his fortune. now, among the very many persons connected in some way or other with the famous jarndyce case, which seemed destined never to end, was sir leicester dedlock, and one day (the chancery court having actually made a little progress) mr. tulkinghorn brought the baronet some legal papers to read to him. as the lawyer held one in his hand, lady dedlock, seeing the handwriting, asked in an agitated voice who had written it. he answered that it was the work of one of his copyists. a moment later, as he went on reading, they found that lady dedlock had fainted away. her husband did not connect her faintness with the paper, but mr. tulkinghorn did, and that instant he determined that lady dedlock had a secret, that this secret had something to do with the copyist, and that what this secret was, he, tulkinghorn, would discover. he easily found that the writing had been done by a man who called himself "nemo," and who lived above krook's rag-and-bottle shop, a neighbor to crazy little miss flite of the chancery court and the many bird-cages. krook himself was an ignorant, spectacled old rascal, whose sole occupations seemed to be to sleep and to drink gin, a bottle of which stood always near him. his only intimate was a big, gray, evil-tempered cat called "lady jane," who, when not lying in wait for miss flite's birds, used to sit on his shoulder with her tail sticking straight up like a hairy feather. people in the neighborhood called his dirty shop the "court of chancery," because, like that other court, it had so many old things in it and whatever its owner once got into it never got out again. in return for mr. tulkinghorn's money krook told him all he knew about his lodger. nemo, it seemed, was surly and dissipated and did what legal copying he could get to do in order to buy opium with which he drugged himself daily. so far as was known, he had but one friend--joe, a wretched crossing sweeper, to whom, when he had it, he often gave a coin. thus much the lawyer learned, but from the strange lodger himself he learned nothing. for when krook took him to the room nemo occupied, they found the latter stretched on his couch, dead (whether by accident or design no one could tell) of an overdose of opium. curious to see how lady dedlock would receive this news, mr. tulkinghorn called on her and told her of the unknown man's death. she pretended to listen with little interest, but his trained eye saw that she was deeply moved by it, and he became more anxious than ever to find out what connection there could be between this proud and titled woman and the miserable copyist who had lived and died in squalor. chance favored mr. tulkinghorn's object. one night he saw joe, the ragged crossing sweeper pointing out to a woman whose face was hidden by a veil, and whose form was closely wrapped in a french shawl, the gate of the cemetery where nemo had been buried. later, at sir leicester's, he saw lady dedlock's maid, hortense--a black-haired, jealous french woman, with wolf-like ways--wearing the same shawl. he cunningly entrapped the maid into coming to his house one night wearing both veil and shawl, and there brought her unexpectedly face to face with joe. by the boy's actions mr. tulkinghorn decided at once that joe had never seen hortense before, and that instant, he guessed the truth--that the veiled woman who had gone to the cemetery was really lady dedlock herself, and that she had worn her maid's clothes to mislead any observer. this was a clever trick in the lawyer, but it proved too clever for his own good, for, finding she had been enticed there for some deeper purpose, hortense flew into a passion with him. he sneered at her and turned her out into the street, threatening if she troubled him to have her put into prison. because of this she began to hate him with a fierceness which he did not guess. mr. tulkinghorn felt himself getting nearer to his goal. but he now had to find out who nemo really had been. if he had only known it, krook could have aided him. the old man had found a bundle of old letters in nemo's room after his death, and these were all addressed to "captain hawdon." krook himself could not read, except enough to spell out an address, and he had no idea what the letters contained. but he was quick to think the bundle might be worth some money. so he put it carefully away. but mr. tulkinghorn found out nothing from krook, for one day a strange thing happened. krook had drunk so much gin in his life that he had become perfectly soaked with alcohol, so that he was just like a big spongeful of it. now, it is a curious fact that when a great mass of inflammable material is heaped together, sometimes it will suddenly burst into flame and burn up all in a minute, without anything or anybody setting fire to it. this is just what happened to krook. as he stood in the middle of the dirty shop, without any warning, all in a twinkling, he blazed up and burned, clothes and all, and in less time than it takes to tell it, there was nothing left but a little pile of ashes, a burnt mark in the floor and a sticky smoke that stuck to the window-panes and hung in the air like soot. and this was all the neighbors found when they came to search for him. this was the end of krook, and the rag-and-bottle shop was taken possession of by grandfather smallweed, a hideous, crippled money-lender, who had been his brother-in-law, and who at once went to work ransacking all the papers he could find on the premises. grandfather smallweed was a thin, toothless, wheezy, green-eyed old miser, who was so nearly dead from age and asthma that he had to be wheeled about by his granddaughter judy. he had a wife who was out of her mind. everything said in her hearing she connected with the idea of money. if one said, for example, "it's twenty minutes past noon," mrs. smallweed would at once begin to gabble: "twenty pence! twenty pounds! twenty thousand millions of bank-notes locked up in a black box!" and she would not stop till her husband threw a cushion at her (which he kept beside him for that very purpose) and knocked her mouth shut. grandfather smallweed soon discovered the bundle of letters hidden back of the shelf where lady jane, krook's big cat, slept. the name they bore, "captain hawdon," was familiar enough to the money-lender. long ago, when hawdon was living a dissipated life in london, he had borrowed money from grandfather smallweed, and this money was still unpaid when he had disappeared. it was said that he had fallen overboard from a vessel and had been drowned. to think now that the captain had been living as a copyist all these years in london, free from arrest for the debt, filled the wizened soul of the old man with rage. he was ready enough to talk when mr. tulkinghorn questioned him, and finally sold him the bundle of letters. the lawyer saw that they were in lady dedlock's penmanship; it remained to prove that the dead nemo had really been captain hawdon. mr. tulkinghorn, of course, had many specimens of the copyist's hand, and after much search he found a man who had once been a fellow soldier of the captain's. he was called "mr. george," and kept a shooting-gallery. mr. george had among his papers a letter once written him by captain hawdon, and not knowing the purpose for which it was to be used, loaned it to the lawyer. the handwriting was the same! and thus mr. tulkinghorn knew that the copyist had really been captain hawdon and that the letters in the bundle had once been written to him by the woman who was now the haughty lady dedlock. it was a strange, sad story that the letters disclosed, as mr. tulkinghorn, gloating over his success, read them, line by line. the man who had fallen so low as to drag out a wretched existence by copying law papers--whom, until she saw the handwriting in the lawyer's hands, she had believed to be dead--was a man lady dedlock had once loved. many years before, when a young woman, she had run away from home with him. a little child was born to them whom she named esther. when she and hawdon had separated, her sister, to hide from the world the knowledge of the elopement, had told her the baby esther was dead, had taken the child to another part of the country, given her the name of summerson, and, calling herself her godmother instead of her aunt, brought her up in ignorance of the truth. years had gone by and captain hawdon was reported drowned. at length the little esther's mother had met and married sir leicester dedlock, and in his love and protection had thought her dark past buried from view for ever. all this the pitiless lawyer read in the letters, and knew that lady dedlock's happiness was now in his hands. and as he thought how, with this knowledge, he could torture her with the fear of discovery, his face took on the look of a cat's when it plays with a mouse it has caught. meanwhile lady dedlock had suffered much. the knowledge that hawdon had not been drowned as she had supposed, had come to her like a thunderclap. and the news of his death, following so soon after this discovery, had unnerved her. she felt mr. tulkinghorn's suspicious eyes watching her always and began to tremble in dread of what he might know. in the midst of these fears, she accidentally discovered one day that the baby name of esther summerson of bleak house had been, not summerson, but hawdon. this made lady dedlock guess the whole truth--that esther was in reality her own daughter. as soon as she was alone, she threw herself on her knees in the empty room with sobs, crying: "oh, my child! my child! not dead in the first hours of her life, as my cruel sister told me, but sternly nurtured by her, after she had renounced me and my name! oh, my child! my child!" iii little joe plays a part while these events, which so closely concerned esther, were occurring in london, life at bleak house went quietly on. ada and esther had become bosom friends, and both loved and respected mr. jarndyce above every one. harold skimpole, as charming and careless as ever, and as willing as ever that some one else should pay his debts for him, was often there, and whenever they went to the city they saw miss flite and mrs. jellyby, the latter still busily sending letters about the growing of coffee and the education of the natives of borrioboola-gha. esther grew especially to like caddy, the slipshod daughter to whom mrs. jellyby dictated her letters. the poor girl had much good in her, and esther encouraged and helped her all she could. caddy finally fell in love with prince turveydrop, a blue-eyed, flaxen-haired young man whose father kept a dancing school. old mr. turveydrop, his father, was a fat man with a false complexion, false teeth, false whiskers, a wig and a padded chest. he always carried a cane, eye-glass and snuff-box and was so tightly buttoned up that when he bowed you could almost see creases come into the whites of his eyes. he thought himself a model of politeness and stood about to show off his clothes while he made his son, prince, do all the teaching. caddy was so tired of hearing about africa that at last she married prince and moved into the turveydrop dancing school, and mrs. jellyby had to hire a boy to help her with her great plans for the education of the natives of borrioboola-gha. once esther and ada went with mr. jarndyce to visit mr. boythorn--the man with the tremendous laugh and the pet canary--at his country house where he lived in one perpetual quarrel with his neighbor, sir leicester dedlock. esther had often heard of the beauty of lady dedlock, and one sunday in the village church she saw her. there was something strangely familiar in her look that reminded esther of her godmother. an odd sensation came over her then and she felt her heart beat quickly. but this was before lady dedlock had guessed the truth, and esther and she did not meet. richard carstone had soon begun to be a source of great anxiety to all at bleak house. it was plainly to be seen that he loved ada dearly, and that she loved him as well, but to mr. jarndyce's regret he had begun to think and dream of the famous chancery suit and of the fortune that would be his when it ended. mr. jarndyce, from his own bitter experience, hated the chancery court and everything connected with it, and saw with grief that richard was growing to be a ne'er-do-well, who found it easier to trust in the future than to labor in the present. in spite of all advice richard went from bad to worse. he began the study of medicine, soon changed this for law, and lastly decided to enter the army. he was naturally a spendthrift, and as long as his money lasted harold skimpole found him a very fine friend and helped him spend it. skimpole also introduced to him a knavish lawyer named vholes, who made him believe the great chancery suit must soon end in his favor, and who (when richard had put the case in his hands) proceeded to rob him of all he had. he poisoned his mind, too, against mr. jarndyce, so that richard began to think his truest friend deceitful. ada saw this with pain, but she loved richard above all else, and the more so when she saw him so wretched and deceived; and at last, without telling either mr. jarndyce or esther what she was going to do, she went to richard one day and married him, so that, as her husband, he could take the little fortune she possessed to pay vholes to go on with the chancery suit. a great misfortune befell esther about this time--a misfortune that came to her, strangely enough, through little joe, the crossing sweeper. half-starved, ragged and homeless all his life, joe had never known kindness save that given to him by the poor copyist who had lived above krook's rag-and-bottle shop. he lived (if having a corner to sleep in can be called living) in a filthy alley called "tom-all-alone's." it seemed to him that every one he met told him to "move on." the policeman, the shopkeepers at whose doors he stopped for warmth, all told him to "move on," till the wretched lad wondered if there was any spot in london where he could rest undisturbed. mr. tulkinghorn, in his search to find out the woman who had hired joe to show her the cemetery, had dogged him so with his detective that at length the lad had become frightened and left london for the open country. there he was taken very ill, and on the highway near bleak house one evening esther found him helpless and delirious with fever. touched by his condition she had him taken at once to bleak house and put to bed, intending when morning came to send for a doctor. but in the morning little joe was missing. though they searched high and low he was not to be found, and they decided that in his delirium he had taken to the road again. it was not till long after that esther found his leaving had been brought about by harold skimpole, who was then visiting bleak house, and who, in his selfishness, feared the boy might be the bearer of some contagious disease. this unfortunately proved to be the case. joe's illness was smallpox, and a few days later a maid of esther's fell ill with it. esther nursed her day and night, and just as she was recovering was stricken with it herself. in her unselfishness and love for the rest, before unconsciousness came, she made the maid promise faithfully to allow no one (particularly neither mr. jarndyce nor her beloved ada) to enter the room till all danger was past. for many days esther hovered between life and death and all the time the maid kept her word. caddy came from the turveydrop dancing school early and late, and little miss flite walked the twenty miles from london in thin shoes to inquire for her. and at length, slowly, she began to grow well again. but the disease had left its terrible mark. when she first looked in a mirror she found that her beauty was gone and her face strangely altered. this was a great grief to her at first, but on the day when mr. jarndyce came into her sick-room and held her in his arms and said, "my dear, dear girl!" she thought, "he has seen me and is fonder of me than before. so what have i to mourn for?" she thought of allan woodcourt, too, the young surgeon somewhere on the sea, and she was glad that, if he had loved her before he sailed away, he had not told her so. now, she told herself, when they met again and he saw her so sadly changed he would have given her no promise he need regret. when she was able to travel, esther went for a short stay at the house of mr. boythorn, and there, walking under the trees she grew stronger. one day, as she sat in the park that surrounded the house, she saw lady dedlock coming toward her, and seeing how pale and agitated she was, esther felt the same odd sensation she had felt in the church. lady dedlock threw herself sobbing at her feet, and put her arms around her and kissed her, as she told her that she was her unhappy mother, who must keep her secret for the sake of her husband, sir leicester. esther thought her heart must break with both grief and joy at once. but she comforted lady dedlock, and told her nothing would ever change her love for her, and they parted with tears and kisses. another surprise of a different sort awaited esther on her return to bleak house. mr. jarndyce told her that he loved her and asked her if she would marry him. and, remembering how tender he had always been, and knowing that he loved her in spite of her disfigured face, she said yes. but one day--the very day he returned--esther saw allan woodcourt on the street. somehow at the first glimpse of him she knew that she had loved him all along. then she remembered that she had promised to marry mr. jarndyce, and she began to tremble and ran away without speaking to woodcourt at all. but they soon met, and this time it was joe the crossing sweeper who brought them together. woodcourt found the poor ragged wanderer in the street, so ill that he could hardly walk. he had recovered from smallpox, but it had left him so weak that he had become a prey to consumption. the kind-hearted surgeon took the boy to little miss flite and they found him a place to stay in mr. george's shooting-gallery, where they did what they could for him, and where esther and mr. jarndyce came to see him. joe was greatly troubled when he learned he had brought the smallpox to bleak house, and one day he got some one to write out for him in very large letters that he was sorry and hoped esther and all the others would forgive him. and this was his will. on the last day allan woodcourt sat beside him, "joe, my poor fellow," he said. "i hear you, sir, but it's dark--let me catch your hand." "joe, can you say what i say?" "i'll say anything as you do, sir, for i know it's good." "our father." "our father; yes, that's very good, sir." "which art in heaven." "art in heaven. is the light a-comin', sir?" "hallowed be thy name." "hallowed be--thy----" but the light had come at last. little joe was dead. iv esther becomes the mistress of bleak house when the last bit of proof was fast in his possession mr. tulkinghorn, pluming himself on the cleverness with which he had wormed his way into lady dedlock's secret, went to her at her london home and informed her of all he had discovered, delighting in the fear and dread which she could not help showing. she knew now that this cruel man would always hold his knowledge over her head, torturing her with the threat of making it known to her husband. some hours after he had gone home, she followed him there to beg him not to tell her husband what he had discovered. but all was dark in the lawyer's house. she rang the private bell twice, but there was no answer, and she returned in despair. by a coincidence some one else had been seen to call at mr. tulkinghorn's that same night. this was mr. george, of the shooting-gallery, who came to get back the letter he had loaned to the lawyer. when morning came it was found that a dreadful deed had been done that night. mr. tulkinghorn was found lying dead on the floor of his private apartment, shot through the heart. all the secrets he had so cunningly discovered and gloated over with such delight had not been able to save his life there in that room. mr. tulkinghorn was so well-known that the murder made a great sensation. the police went at once to the shooting-gallery to arrest mr. george and he was put into jail. he was able later to prove his innocence, however, and, all in all, his arrest turned out to be a fortunate thing. for by means of it old mrs. rouncewell, lady dedlock's housekeeper, discovered that he was her own son george, who had gone off to be a soldier so many years before. he had made up his mind not to return till he was prospering. but somehow this time had never come; bad fortune had followed him and he had been ashamed to go back. but though he had acted so wrongly he had never lost his love for his mother, and was glad to give up the shooting-gallery and go with mrs. rouncewell to become sir leicester's personal attendant. at first, after the death of mr. tulkinghorn, lady dedlock had hoped that her dread and fear were now ended, but she soon found that this was not to be. the telltale bundle of letters was in the possession of a detective whom the cruel lawyer had long ago called to his aid, and the detective, thinking lady dedlock herself might have had something to do with the murder, thought it his duty to tell all that his dead employer had discovered to sir leicester. it was a fearful shock to the haughty baronet to find so many tongues had been busy with the name his wife had borne so proudly. when the detective finished, sir leicester fell unconscious, and when he came to his senses had lost the power to speak. they laid him on his bed, sent for doctors and went to tell lady dedlock, but she had disappeared. almost at one and the same moment the unhappy woman had learned not only that the detective had told his story to sir leicester, but that she herself was suspected of the murder. these two blows were more than she could bear. she put on a cloak and veil and, leaving all her money and jewels behind her, with a note for her husband, went out into the shrill, frosty wind. the note read: "if i am sought for or accused of his murder, believe i am wholly innocent. i have no home left, i will trouble you no more. may you forget me and forgive me." they gave sir leicester this note, and great agony came to the stricken man's heart. he had always loved and honored her, and he loved her no less now for what had been told him. nor did he believe for a moment that she could be guilty of the murder. he wrote on a slate the words, "forgive--find," and the detective started at once to overtake the fleeing woman. he went first to esther, to whom he told the sad outcome, and together they began the search. for two days they labored, tracing lady dedlock's movements step by step, through the pelting snow and wind, across the frozen wastes outside of london, where brick-kilns burned and where she had exchanged clothes with a poor laboring woman, the better to elude pursuit--then back to london again, where at last they found her. but it was too late. she was lying frozen in the snow, at the gate of the cemetery where captain hawdon, the copyist whom she had once loved, lay buried. so lady dedlock's secret was hidden at last by death. only the detective, whose business was silence, sir leicester her husband, and esther her daughter, knew what her misery had been or the strange circumstances of her flight, for the police soon succeeded in tracing the murder of mr. tulkinghorn to hortense, the revengeful french maid whom he had threatened to put in prison. one other shadow fell on esther's life before the clouds cleared away for ever. grandfather smallweed, rummaging among the papers in krook's shop, found an old will, and this proved to be a last will made by the original jarndyce, whose affairs the court of chancery had been all these years trying to settle. this will bequeathed the greater part of the fortune to richard carstone, and its discovery, of course, would have put a stop to the famous suit. but the suit stopped of its own accord, for it was found now that there was no longer any fortune left to go to law about or to be willed to anybody. all the money had been eaten up by the costs. after all the years of hope and strain, this disappointment was too much for richard, and he died that night, at the very hour when poor crazed little miss flite (as she had said she would do when the famous suit ended) gave all her caged birds their liberty. the time came at length, after the widowed ada and her baby boy had come to make their home with mr. jarndyce, when esther felt that she should fulfil her promise and become the mistress of bleak house. so she told her guardian she was ready to marry him when he wished. he appointed a day, and she began to prepare her wedding-clothes. but mr. jarndyce, true-hearted and generous as he had always been, had an idea very different from this in his mind. he had found, on allan woodcourt's return from his voyage, that the young surgeon still loved esther. his keen eye had seen that she loved him in return, and he well knew that if she married him, jarndyce, it would be because of her promise and because her grateful heart could not find it possible to refuse him. so, wishing most of all her happiness, he determined to give up his own love for her sake. he bought a house in the town in which woodcourt had decided to practise medicine, remodeled it and named it "bleak house," after his own. when it was finished in the way he knew esther liked best, he took her to see it, telling her it was to be a present from him to the surgeon to repay him for his kindness to little joe. then, when she had seen it all, he told her that he had guessed her love for woodcourt, and that, though she married the surgeon and not himself, she would still be carrying out her promise and would still become the mistress of "bleak house." when she lifted her tearful face from his shoulder she saw that woodcourt was standing near them. "this is 'bleak house,'" said jarndyce. "this day i give this house its little mistress, and, before god, it is the brightest day of my life!" hard times published _scene_: coketown (an english factory town) and the country. _time_: about characters mr. gradgrind a believer in "facts" mrs. gradgrind his wife louisa their daughter tom their son josiah bounderby a pompous mill owner and banker later, louisa's husband "mrs. pegler" his mother mrs. sparsit his housekeeper mr. m'choakumchild a schoolmaster sleary the proprietor of a circus "signor" jupe the clown cecelia jupe his daughter. known as "sissy" stephen blackpool } } mill workers rachel } james harthouse a man of the world "merrylegs" signor jupe's performing dog hard times i mr. gradgrind and his "system" in a cheerless house called stone lodge, in coketown, a factory town in england, where great weaving mills made the sky a blur of soot and smoke, lived a man named gradgrind. he was an obstinate, stubborn man, with a square wall of a forehead and a wide, thin, set mouth. his head was bald and shining, covered with knobs like the crust of a plum pie, and skirted with bristling hair. he had grown rich in the hardware business, and was a school director of the town. he believed in nothing but "facts." everything in the world to him was good only to weigh and measure, and wherever he went one would have thought he carried in his pocket a rule and scales and the multiplication table. he seemed a kind of human cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts. "now, what i want is facts!" he used to say to mr. m'choakumchild, the schoolmaster. "teach boys and girls nothing but facts. facts alone are wanted in life. nothing else is of any service to anybody. stick to facts, sir." he had several children whom he had brought up according to this system of his, and they led wretched lives. no little gradgrind child had ever seen a face in the moon, or learned _mother goose_ or listened to fairy stories, or read _the arabian nights_. they all hated coketown, always rattling and throbbing with machinery; they hated its houses all built of brick as red as an indian's face, and its black canal and river purple with dyes. and most of all they hated facts. louisa, the eldest daughter, looked jaded, for her imagination was quite starved under their teachings. tom, her younger brother, was defiant and sullen. "i wish," he used to say, "that i could collect all the facts and all the figures in the world, and all the people who found them out, and i wish i could put a thousand pounds of gunpowder under them and blow them all up together!" louisa was generous, and the only love she knew was for her selfish, worthless brother, who repaid her with very little affection. of their mother they saw very little; she was a thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of shawls, feeble and ailing, and had too little mind to oppose her husband in anything. strangely enough, mr. gradgrind had once had a tender heart, and down beneath the facts of his system he had it still, though it had been covered up so long that nobody would have guessed it. least of all, perhaps, his own children. mr. gradgrind's intimate friend,--one whom he was foolish enough to admire,--was josiah bounderby, a big, loud, staring man with a puffed head whose skin was stretched so tight it seemed to hold his eyes open. he owned the coketown mills and a bank besides, and was very rich and pompous. bounderby was a precious hypocrite, of an odd sort. his greatest pride was to talk continually of his former poverty and wretchedness, and he delighted to tell everybody that he had been born in a ditch, deserted by his wicked mother, and brought up a vagabond by a drunken grandmother--from which low state he had made himself wealthy and respected by his own unaided efforts. now, this was not in the least true. as a matter of fact, his grandmother had been a respectable, honest soul, and his mother had pinched and saved to bring him up decently, had given him some schooling, and finally apprenticed him in a good trade. but bounderby was so ungrateful and so anxious to have people think he himself deserved all the credit, that after he became rich he forbade his mother even to tell any one who she was, and made her live in a little shop in the country forty miles from coketown. but in her good and simple heart the old woman was so proud of her son that she used to spend all her little savings to come into town, sometimes walking a good part of the way, cleanly and plainly dressed, and with her spare shawl and umbrella, just to watch him go into his fine house or to look in admiration at the mills or the fine bank he owned. on such occasions she called herself "mrs. pegler," and thought no one else would be the wiser. the house in which bounderby lived had no ornaments. it was cold and lonely and rich. he made his mill-hands more than earn their wages, and when any of them complained, he sneered that they wanted to be fed on turtle-soup and venison with a golden spoon. bounderby had for housekeeper a mrs. sparsit, who talked a great deal of her genteel birth, rich relatives and of the better days she had once seen. she was a busybody, and when she sat of an evening cutting out embroidery with sharp scissors, her bushy eyebrows and roman nose made her look like a hawk picking out the eyes of a very tough little bird. in her own mind she had set her cap at bounderby. so firmly had mr. gradgrind put his trust in the gospel of facts which he had taught louisa and tom that he was greatly shocked one day to catch them (instead of studying any one of the dry sciences ending in "ology" which he made them learn) peeping through the knot holes in a wooden pavilion along the road at the performance of a traveling circus. the circus, which was run by a man named sleary, had settled itself in the neighborhood for some time to come, and all the performers meanwhile boarded in a near-by public house, the pegasus's arms. the show was given every day, and at the moment of mr. gradgrind's appearance one "signor" jupe, the clown, was showing the tricks of his trained dog, merrylegs, and entertaining the audience with his choicest jokes. mr. gradgrind, dumb with amazement, seized both louisa and tom and led them home, repeating at intervals, with indignation: "what would mr. bounderby say!" this question was soon answered, for the latter was at stone lodge when they arrived. he reminded mr. gradgrind that there was an evil influence in the school the children attended, which no doubt had led them to such idle pursuits--this evil influence being the little daughter of jupe, the circus clown. and bounderby advised mr. gradgrind to have the child put out of the school at once. the name of the clown's little daughter was cecelia, but every one called her sissy. she was a dark-eyed, dark-haired, appealing child, frowned upon by mr. m'choakumchild, the schoolmaster, because somehow many figures would not stay in her head at one time. when the circus first came, her father, who loved her very much, had brought her to the gradgrind house and begged that she be allowed to attend school. mr. gradgrind had consented. now, however, at bounderby's advice, he wished he had not done so, and started off with the other to the pegasus's arms to find signor jupe and deny to little sissy the right of any more schooling. poor jupe had been in great trouble that day. for a long time he had felt that he was growing too old for the circus business. his joints were getting stiff, he missed in his tumbling, and he could no longer make the people laugh as he had once done. he knew that before long sleary would be obliged to discharge him, and this he thought he could not bear to have sissy see. he had therefore made up his mind to leave the company and disappear. he was too poor to take sissy with him, so, loving her as he did, he decided to leave her there where at least she had some friends. he had come to this melancholy conclusion this very day, and had sent sissy out on an errand so that he might slip away, accompanied only by his dog, merrylegs, while she was absent. sissy was returning when she met mr. gradgrind and bounderby, and came with them to find her father. but at the public house she met only sympathizing looks, for all of the performers had guessed what her father had done. they told her as gently as they could, but poor sissy was at first broken-hearted in her grief and was comforted only by the assurance that her father would certainly come back to her before long. while sissy wept mr. gradgrind had been pondering. he saw here an excellent chance to put his "system" to the test. to take this untaught girl and bring her up from the start entirely on facts would be a good experiment. with this in view, then, he proposed to take sissy to his house and to care for and teach her, provided she promised to have nothing further to do with the circus or its members. sissy knew how anxious her father had been to have her learn, so she agreed, and was taken at once to stone lodge and set to work upon facts. but alas! mr. gradgrind's education seemed to make sissy low-spirited, but no wiser. every day she watched and longed for some message from her father, but none came. she was loving and lovable, and louisa liked her and comforted her as well as she could. but louisa was far too unhappy herself to be of much help to any one else. several years went by. sissy's father had never returned. she had grown into a quiet, lovely girl, the only ray of light in that gloomy home. mr. gradgrind had realized one of his ambitions, had been elected to parliament and now spent much time in london. mrs. gradgrind was yet feebler and more ailing. tom had grown to be a young man, a selfish and idle one, and bounderby had made him a clerk in his bank. louisa, not blind to her brother's faults, but loving him devotedly, had become, in this time, an especial object of bounderby's notice. indeed, the mill owner had determined to marry her. louisa had always been repelled by his coarseness and rough ways, and when he proposed for her hand she shrank from the thought. if her father had ever encouraged her confidence she might then have thrown herself on his breast and told him all that she felt, but to mr. gradgrind marriage was only a cold fact with no romance in it, and his manner chilled her. tom, in his utter selfishness, thought only of what a good thing it would be for him if his sister married his employer, and urged it on her with no regard whatever for her own liking. at length, thinking, as long as she had never been allowed to have a sentiment that could not be put down in black and white, that it did not much matter whom she married after all, and believing that at least it would help tom, she consented. she married bounderby, the richest man in coketown, and went to live in his fine house, while mrs. sparsit, the housekeeper, angry and revengeful, found herself compelled to move into small rooms over bounderby's bank. ii the robbery of bounderby's bank in one of bounderby's weaving mills a man named stephen blackpool had worked for years. he was sturdy and honest, but had a stooping frame, a knitted brow and iron-gray hair, for in his forty years he had known much trouble. many years before he had married; unhappily, for through no fault or failing of his own, his wife took to drink, left off work, and became a shame and a disgrace to the town. when she could get no money to buy drink with, she sold his furniture, and often he would come home from the mill to find the rooms stripped of all their belongings and his wife stretched on the floor in drunken slumber. at last he was compelled to pay her to stay away, and even then he lived in daily fear lest she return to disgrace him afresh. what made this harder for stephen to bear was the true love he had for a sweet, patient, working woman in the mill named rachel. she had an oval, delicate face, with gentle eyes and dark, shining hair. she knew his story and loved him, too. he could not marry her, because his own wife stood in the way, nor could he even see or walk with her often, for fear busy tongues might talk of it, but he watched every flutter of her shawl. one night stephen went home to his lodging to find his wife returned. she was lying drunk across his bed, a besotted creature, stained and splashed, and evil to look at. all that night he sat sleepless and sick at heart. next day, at the noon hour, he went to his employer's house to ask his advice. he knew the law sometimes released two people from the marriage tie when one or the other lived wickedly, and his whole heart longed to marry rachel. but bounderby told him bluntly that the law he had in mind was only for rich men, who could afford to spend a great deal of money. and he further added (according to his usual custom) that he had no doubt stephen would soon be demanding the turtle-soup and venison and the golden spoon. stephen went home that night hopeless, knowing what he should find there. but rachel had heard and was there before him. she had tidied the room and was tending the woman who was his wife. it seemed to stephen, as he saw her in her work of mercy, there was an angel's halo about her head. soon the wretched creature she had aided passed out of his daily life again to go he knew not where, and this act of rachel's remained to make his love and longing greater. about this time a stranger came to coketown. he was james harthouse, a suave, polished man of the world, good-looking, well-dressed, with a gallant yet indolent manner and bold eyes. being wealthy, he had tried the army, tried a government position, tried jerusalem, tried yachting and found himself bored by them all. at last he had tried facts and figures, having some idea these might help in politics. in london he had met the great believer in facts, mr. gradgrind, and had been sent by him to coketown to make the acquaintance of his friend bounderby. harthouse thus met the mill owner, who introduced him to louisa, now his wife. the year of married life had not been a happy one for her. she was reserved and watchful and cold as ever, but harthouse easily saw that she was ashamed of bounderby's bragging talk and shrank from his coarseness as from a blow. he soon perceived, too, that the only love she had for any one was given to tom, though the latter little deserved it. in his own mind harthouse called her father a machine, her brother a whelp and her husband a bear. harthouse was attracted by louisa's beauty no less than by her pride. he was without conscience or honor, and determined, though she was already married, to make her fall in love with him. he knew the surest way to her liking was to pretend an interest in tom, and he at once began to flatter the sullen young fellow. under his influence the latter was not long in telling the story of louisa's marriage, and in boasting that he himself had brought it about for his own advancement. to louisa, harthouse spoke regretfully of the lad's idle habits, yet hopefully of his future, so that she, deeming him honestly tom's friend, confided in him, telling him of her brother's love of gambling and how she had more than once paid his debts by selling some of her own jewelry. in such ways as these harthouse, step by step, gained an intimacy with her. while harthouse was thus setting his net, stephen blackpool, the mill worker, was on trial. it was a time of great dissatisfaction among workmen throughout the country. in many towns they were banding themselves together into "unions" in order to gain more privileges and higher wages from their employers. this movement in time had reached coketown. rachel was opposed to these unions, believing they would in the end do their members more harm than good, and knowing her mind, stephen had long ago promised her that he would never join one. the day had come, however, when a workman who thus declined was looked on with suspicion and dislike by his fellows, and at length--though all had liked and respected stephen--because he steadfastly refused to join the rest, he found himself shunned. day after day he went to and from his work alone and spoken to by none, and, not seeing rachel in these days, was lonely and disheartened. this condition of things did not escape the eye of bounderby, who sent for stephen and questioned him. but even in his trouble, thinking his fellow workmen believed themselves in the right, stephen refused to complain or to bear tales of them. bounderby, in his arrogance, chose to be angry that one of his mill-hands should presume not to answer his questions and discharged him forthwith, so that now stephen found himself without friends, money or work. not wholly without friends, either, for rachel was still the same. and he had gained another friend, too. while he told her that evening in his lodgings what had occurred, and that he must soon go in search of work in some other town, louisa came to him. she had witnessed the interview in which her husband had discharged this faithful workman, had found out where he lived, and had made her brother tom bring her there that she might tell stephen how sorry she was and beg him to accept money from her to help him in his distress. this kindness touched stephen. he thanked her and took as a loan a small portion of the money she offered him. tom had come on this errand with his sister in a sulky humor. while he listened now a thought came to him. as louisa talked with rachel, he beckoned stephen from the room and told him that he could perhaps aid him in finding work. he told him to wait during the next two or three evenings near the door of bounderby's bank, and promised that he himself would seek stephen there and tell him further. there was no kindness, however, in this proposal. it was a sudden plan, wicked and cowardly. tom had become a criminal. he had stolen money from the bank and trembled daily lest the theft become known. what would be easier now, he thought, than to hide his crime, by throwing suspicion on some one else? he could force the door of the safe before he left at night, and drop a key of the bank door, which he had secretly made, in the street where it would afterward be found. he himself, then, next morning, could appear to find the safe open and the money missing. stephen, he considered, would be just the one to throw suspicion upon. all unconscious of this plot, stephen in good faith waited near the bank during three evenings, walking past the building again and again, watching vainly for tom to appear. mrs. sparsit, at her upper window, wondered to see his bowed form haunting the place. nothing came of his waiting, however, and the fourth morning saw him, with his thoughts on rachel, trudging out of town along the highroad, bravely and uncomplainingly, toward whatever new lot the future held for him. tom's plot worked well. next day there was a sensation in coketown. bounderby's bank was found to have been robbed. the safe, tom declared, he had found open, with a large part of its contents missing. a key to the bank door was picked up in the street; this, it was concluded, the thief had thrown away after using. who had done it? had any suspicious person been seen about the place? many people remembered a strange old woman, apparently from the country, who called herself "mrs. pegler," and who had often been seen standing looking fixedly at the bank. what more natural than to suspect her? then another rumor began to grow. stephen blackpool, discharged from the mill by bounderby himself--the workman who had been shunned by all his comrades, to whom no one spoke--he had been seen recently loitering, night after night, near the robbed bank. where was he? gone, none knew where! in an hour stephen was suspected. by the next day half of coketown believed him guilty. iii harthouse's plan fails two persons, however, had a suspicion of the truth. one of these was the porter of the bank, whose suspicion was strong. the other was louisa, who, though her love denied it room, hid in her secret heart a fear that her brother had had a share in the crime. in the night she went to tom's bedside, put her arms around him and begged him to tell her any secret he might be keeping from her. but he answered sullenly that he did not know what she meant. mrs. sparsit's fine-bred nerves (so she insisted) were so shaken by the robbery that she came to bounderby's house to remain till she recovered. the feeble, pink-eyed bundle of shawls that was mrs. gradgrind, happening to die at this time, and louisa being absent at her mother's funeral, mrs. sparsit saw her opportunity. she had never forgiven louisa for marrying bounderby, and she now revenged herself by a course of such flattery that the vulgar bully began to think his cold, proud wife much too regardless of him and of his importance. what pleased the hawk-faced old busybody most was the game the suave harthouse was playing, which she was sharp enough to see through at once. if louisa would only disgrace herself by running away with harthouse, thought mrs. sparsit, bounderby might be free again and she might marry him. so she watched narrowly the growing intimacy between them, hoping for louisa's ruin. there came a day when bounderby was summoned on business to london, and louisa stayed meanwhile at the bounderby country house, which lay some distance from coketown. mrs. sparsit guessed that harthouse would use this chance to see louisa alone, and, to spy upon her, took the train herself, reaching there at nightfall. she went afoot from the station to the grounds, opened the gate softly and crept close to the house. here and there in the dusk, through garden and wood, she stole, and at length she found what she sought. there under the trees stood harthouse, his horse tied near by, and talking with him was louisa. mrs. sparsit stood behind a tree, like robinson crusoe in his ambuscade against the savages, and listened with all her ears. she could not hear all, but caught enough to know that he was telling her he loved her, and begging her to leave her husband, her home and friends, and to run away with him. in her delight and in the noise of rain upon the foliage (for a thunder-storm was rolling up) mrs. sparsit did not catch louisa's answer. where and when harthouse asked her to join him, she could not hear, but as he mounted and rode away she thought he said "to-night." she waited in the rain, rejoicing, till her patience was at length rewarded by seeing louisa, cloaked and veiled as if for a journey, come from the house and go toward the railroad station. then mrs. sparsit, drawing her draggled shawl over her head to hide her face, followed, boarded the same train, and hastened to tell the news of his wife's elopement to bounderby in london. wet to the skin, her feet squashing in her shoes, her clothes spoiled and her bonnet looking like an over-ripe fig, with a terrible cold that made her voice only a whisper, and sneezing herself almost to pieces, mrs. sparsit found bounderby at his city hotel, exploded with the combustible information she carried and fainted quite away on his coat collar. furious at the news she brought, bounderby hustled her into a fast train, and together, he raging and glaring and she inwardly jubilant, they hurried toward coketown to inform mr. gradgrind, who was then at home, of his daughter's doings. but where, meanwhile, was louisa? not run away with harthouse, as mrs. sparsit so fondly imagined, but safe in her own father's house in coketown. she had suffered much without complaint, but harthouse's proposal had been the last straw. added to all the insults she had suffered at her husband's hands, and her fearful suspicion of tom's guilt, it had proven too much for her to bear. she had pretended to agree to harthouse's plan only that she might the more quickly rid herself of his presence. mr. gradgrind, astonished at her sudden arrival at stone lodge, was shocked no less at her ghastly appearance than by what she said. she told him she cursed the hour when she had been born to grow up a victim to his teachings; that her whole life had been empty; that every hope, affection and fancy had been crushed from her very infancy and her better angel made a demon. she told him the whole truth about her marriage to bounderby--that she had married him solely for the advancement of tom, the only one she had ever loved--and that now she could no longer live with her husband or bear the life she had made for herself. and when she had said this, louisa, the daughter his "system" had brought to such despair, fell at his feet. at her pitiful tale the tender heart that mr. gradgrind had buried in his long-past youth under his mountain of facts stirred again and began to beat. the mountain crumbled away, and he saw in an instant, as by a lightning flash, that the plan of life to which he had so rigidly held was a complete and hideous failure. he had thought there was but one wisdom, that of the head; he knew at last that there was a deeper wisdom of the heart also, which all these years he had denied! when she came to herself, louisa found her father sitting by her bedside. his face looked worn and older. he told her he realized at last his life mistake and bitterly reproached himself. sissy, too, was there, her love shining like a beautiful light on the other's darkness. she knelt beside the bed and laid the weary head on her breast, and then for the first time louisa burst into sobs. next day sissy sought out harthouse, who was waiting, full of sulky impatience at the failure of louisa to appear as he had expected. sissy told him plainly what had occurred, and that he should never see louisa again. harthouse, realizing that his plan had failed, suddenly discovered that he had a great liking for camels, and left the same hour for egypt, never to return to coketown. it was while sissy was absent on this errand of her own that the furious bounderby and the triumphant mrs. sparsit, the latter voiceless and still sneezing, appeared at stone lodge. mr. gradgrind took the mill owner greatly aback with the statement that louisa had had no intention whatever of eloping and was then in that same house and under his care. angry and blustering at being made such a fool of, bounderby turned on mrs. sparsit, but in her disappointment at finding it a mistake, she had dissolved in tears. when mr. gradgrind told him he had concluded it would be better for louisa to remain for some time there with him, bounderby flew into a still greater rage and stamped off, swearing his wife should come home by noon next day or not at all. to be sure louisa did not go, and next day bounderby sent her clothes to mr. gradgrind, advertised his country house for sale, and, needing something to take his spite out upon, redoubled his efforts to find the robber of the bank. and he began by covering the town with printed placards, offering a large regard for the arrest of stephen blackpool. iv stephen's return rachel had known, of course, of the rumors against stephen, and had been both indignant and sorrowful. she alone knew where he was, and how to find him, for deeming it impossible, because of his trouble with the coketown workmen, to get work under his own name, he had taken another. now that he was directly charged with the crime, she wrote him the news at once, so that he might lose no time in returning to face the unjust accusation. being so certain herself of his innocence, she made no secret of what she had done, and all coketown waited, wondering whether he would appear or not. two days passed and he had not come, and then rachel told bounderby the address to which she had written him. messengers were sent, who came back with the report that stephen had received her letter and had left at once, saying he was going to coketown, where he should long since have arrived. another day with no stephen, and now almost every one believed he was guilty, had taken rachel's letter as a warning and had fled. all the while tom waited nervously, biting his nails and with fevered lips, knowing that stephen, when he came, would tell the real reason why he had loitered near the bank, and so point suspicion to himself. on the third day mrs. sparsit saw a chance to distinguish herself. she recognized on the street "mrs. pegler," the old countrywoman who also had been suspected. she seized her and, regardless of her entreaties, dragged her to bounderby's house and into his dining-room, with a curious crowd flocking at their heels. she plumed herself on catching one of the robbers, but what was her astonishment when the old woman called bounderby her dear son, pleading that her coming to his house was not her fault and begging him not to be angry even if people did know at last that she was his mother. mr. gradgrind, who was present when they entered, having always heard bounderby tell such dreadful tales of his bringing-up, reproached her for deserting her boy in his infancy to a drunken grandmother. at this the old woman nearly burst with indignation, calling on bounderby himself to tell how false this was and how she had pinched and denied herself for him till he had begun to be successful. everybody laughed at this, for now the true story of the bullying mill owner's tales was out. bounderby, who had turned very red, was the only one who did not seem to enjoy the scene. after he had wrathfully shut every one else from the house, he vented his anger on mrs. sparsit for meddling (as he called it) with his own family affairs. he ended by giving her the wages due her and inviting her to take herself off at once. so mrs. sparsit, for all her cap-setting and spying, had to leave her comfortable nest and go to live in a poor lodging as companion to the most grudging, peevish, tormenting one of her noble relatives, an invalid with a lame leg. but meanwhile another day had passed--the fourth since rachel had sent her letter--and still stephen had not come. on this day, full of her trouble, rachel had wandered with sissy, now her fast friend, some distance out of the town, through some fields where mining had once been carried on. suddenly she cried out--she had picked up a hat and inside it was the name "stephen blackpool." an instant later a scream broke from her lips that echoed over the country-side. before them, at their very feet, half-hidden by rubbish and grasses, yawned the ragged mouth of a dark, abandoned shaft. that instant both rachel and sissy guessed the truth--that stephen, returning, had not seen the chasm in the darkness, and had fallen into its depths. they ran and roused the town. crowds came from coketown. rope and windlass were brought and two men were lowered into the pit. the poor fellow was there, alive but terribly injured. a rough bed was made, and so at last the crushed and broken form was brought up to the light and air. a surgeon was at hand with wine and medicines, but it was too late. stephen spoke with rachel first, then called mr. gradgrind to him and asked him to clear the blemish from his name. he told him simply that he could do so through his son tom. this was all. he died while they bore him home, holding the hand of rachel, whom he loved. stephen's last words had told the truth to mr. gradgrind. he read in them that his own son was the robber. tom's guilty glance had seen also. with suspicion removed from stephen, he felt his own final arrest sure. sissy noted tom's pale face and trembling limbs. guessing that he would attempt flight too late, and longing to save the heartbroken father from the shame of seeing his son's arrest and imprisonment, she drew the shaking thief aside and in a whisper bade him go at once to sleary, the proprietor of the circus to which her father had once belonged. she told him where the circus was to be found at that season of the year, and bade him ask sleary to hide him for her sake till she came. tom obeyed. he disappeared that night, and later sissy told his father what she had done. mr. gradgrind, with sissy and louisa, followed as soon as possible, intending to get his son to the nearest seaport and so out of the country on a vessel, for he knew that soon he himself, tom's father, would be questioned and obliged to tell the truth. they traveled all night, and at length reached the town where the circus showed. sleary, for sissy's sake, had provided tom with a disguise in which not even his father recognized him. he had blacked his sullen face and dressed him in a moth-eaten greatcoat and a mad cocked hat, in which attire he played the rôle of a black servant in the performance. tom met them, grimy and defiant, ashamed to meet louisa's eyes, brazen to his father, anxious only to be saved from his deserved punishment. a seaport was but three hours away. he was soon dressed and plans for his departure were completed. but at the last moment danger appeared. it came in the person of the porter of bounderby's bank, who had all along suspected tom. he had watched the gradgrind house, followed its master when he left and now laid hands on tom, vowing he would take him back to coketown. in this moment of the father's despair, sleary the showman saved the day for the shivering thief. he agreed with the porter that as tom was guilty of a crime he must certainly go with him, and he offered, moreover, to drive the captor and his prisoner at once to the nearest railroad station. he winked at sissy as he proposed this, and she was not alarmed. the porter accepted the proposal at once, but he did not guess what the showman had in mind. sleary's horse was an educated horse. at a certain word from its owner it would stop and begin to dance, and would not budge from the spot till he gave the command in a particular way. he had an educated dog, also, that would do anything it was told. with this horse hitched to the carriage and this dog trotting innocently behind, the showman set off with the porter and tom, while mr. gradgrind and louisa, whom sissy had told to trust in sleary, waited all night for his return. it was morning before sleary came back, with the news that tom was undoubtedly safe from pursuit, if not already aboard ship. he told them how, at the word from him, the educated horse had begun to dance; how tom had slipped down and got away, while the educated dog, at his command, had penned the frightened porter in the carriage all night, fearing to stir. thus tom, who did not deserve any such good luck, got safely away, but though his father was spared the shame of ever seeing his son behind the bars of a jail, yet he was a broken man ever after the truth became known. what was the fate of all these? bounderby, a bully to the last, died of a fit five years afterward, leaving his entire fortune to the perpetual support of twenty-five humbugs, each of whom was required to take the name of "josiah bounderby of coketown." louisa never remarried, but lived to be the comfort of her father and the loving comrade of sissy jupe. sissy never found her father, and when at last merrylegs, his wonderful dog, came back alone to die of old age at sleary's feet, all knew that his master must be dead. tom died, softened and penitent, in a foreign land. rachel remained the same pensive little worker, always dressed in black, beloved by all and helping every one, even stephen's besotted wife. as for mr. gradgrind, a white-haired, decrepit old man, he forgot all the facts on which he had so depended, and tried for ever after to mingle his life's acts with faith, hope and charity. the mystery of edwin drood published _scene_: london and cloisterham, a neighboring town _time_: about characters edwin drood a young engineer john jasper his uncle and guardian. a choir master rosa bud an orphan girl, engaged to marry drood known as "rosebud" mr. grewgious a lawyer. her guardian miss twinkleton the principal of the young ladies' seminary in cloisterham the reverend mr. crisparkle a minister a minister neville landless mr. crisparkle's pupil helena his twin sister rosebud's room-mate in the seminary luke honeythunder a self-styled "philanthropist" and bore. guardian of neville and helena lieutenant tartar a retired naval officer "dick datchery" a detective durdles a stone-mason and chiseler of tombstones "the deputy" a street arab the mystery of edwin drood i john jasper in the quiet town of cloisterham, in england, in a boarding-school, once lived a beautiful girl named rosa bud--an amiable, wilful, winning, whimsical little creature whom every one called rosebud. she was an orphan. her mother had been drowned when she was only seven years old and her father had died of grief on the first anniversary of that day. her father's friend and college mate, a mr. drood, had comforted his last hours, and they had agreed between them that when rosebud was old enough she should marry mr. drood's son edwin, then a little boy. her father put this wish in his will, as did mr. drood, who died also soon after his friend, and so rosebud and edwin drood grew up knowing that, though not bound in any way, each was intended for the other. so it came about that, while if they had been let alone they might have fallen in love naturally, yet as it was they were always shy and ill at ease with one another. yet they liked each other, too. rosebud's guardian was a mr. grewgious, an arid, sandy man who looked as if he might be put in a grinding-mill and turned out first-class snuff. he had scanty hair like a yellow fur tippet, and deep notches in his forehead, and was very near-sighted. he seemed to have been born old, so that when he came to london to call on rosebud amid all the school-girls he used to say he felt like a bear with the cramp. grewgious, however, under his oddity had a very tender heart, particularly for rosebud, whose mother he had been secretly in love with before she married. but he had grown up a dry old bachelor, living in gloomy rooms in london, and no one would have guessed him ever to have been a bit romantic. the school rosebud attended was called nun's house. miss twinkleton, the prim old maid who managed it, termed it a "seminary for young ladies." it had a worn front, with a shining brass door-plate that made it look at a distance like a battered old beau with a big new eye-glass stuck in his blind eye. here rosebud lived a happy life, the pet of the whole seminary, till she was a young lady. cloisterham was a dull, gray town with an ancient cathedral, which was so cold and dark and damp that looking into its door was like looking down the throat of old father time. the cathedral had a fine choir, which sang at all the services and was taught and led by a music-master whose name was john jasper. this jasper, as it happened, was the uncle and guardian of edwin drood. drood, who was studying to be an engineer, was very fond of his uncle and came often to cloisterham to visit him, so that rosebud saw a great deal of her intended husband. he always called her "pussy." he used to call on her at the school and take her walking and buy her candy at a turkish shop, called "lumps of delight," and did his best to get on well with her, though he felt awkward. drood and jasper were much more like two friends than like uncle and nephew, for the choir master was very little older than the other. jasper seemed to be wonderfully fond of drood, and every one who knew him thought him a most honorable and upright man; but in reality he was far different. at heart he hated the cathedral and the singing, and wished often that he could find relief, like some old monk, in carving demons out of the desks and seats. he had a soul that was without fear or conscience. one vile and wicked practice he had which he had hidden from all who knew him. he was an opium smoker. he would steal away to london to a garret kept by a mumbling old woman who knew the secret of mixing the drug, and there, stretched on a dirty pallet, sometimes with a drunken chinaman or a lascar beside him, would smoke pipe after pipe of the dreadful mixture that stole away his senses and left him worse than before. hours later he would awake, give the woman money and hurry back to cloisterham just in time, perhaps, to put on his church robes and lead the cathedral choir. though no one knew of this, and though edwin drood thought his uncle was well-nigh perfect, rosebud, after she grew up, had no liking for jasper. he gave her music lessons and every time they met he terrified her. she felt sometimes that he haunted her thoughts like a dreadful ghost. he seemed almost to make a slave of her with his looks, and she felt that in every glance he was telling her that he, jasper, loved her and yet compelled her to keep silence. but, though disliking the choir master so, and shivering whenever he came near her, rosebud did not know how to tell edwin, who she knew loved and believed in jasper, of her feelings. ii the coming of neville landless one of the ministers in charge of the cathedral was the reverend mr. crisparkle, a ruddy, young, active, honest fellow, who was perpetually practising boxing before the looking-glass or pitching himself head-foremost into all the streams about the town for a swim, even when it was winter and he had to break the ice with his head. mr. crisparkle sometimes took young men into his home to live while he tutored them to prepare them for college. one day he received word from a mr. luke honeythunder in london, telling him he was about to bring to cloisterham a twin brother and sister, neville and helena landless, the young man to be taught by mr. crisparkle and his sister helena to be put in miss twinkleton's seminary. this luke honeythunder called himself a philanthropist, but he was a queer sort of one, indeed. he was always getting up public meetings and talking loudly, insisting on everybody's thinking exactly as he did, and saying dreadful things of them if they did not. helena and neville landless had been born in ceylon, where as little children they had been cruelly treated by their stepfather. but they had brave spirits, and four times in six years they had run away, only to be brought back each time and punished. on each of these occasions (the first had been when they were but seven years old) helena had dressed as a boy and once had even tried to cut off her long hair with neville's pocket-knife. at length their cruel stepfather died, and they were sent to england, where for no other reason than that his name was continually appearing in the newspapers, mr. honeythunder had been appointed their guardian. no wonder the brother and sister had grown up thinking everybody was their enemy. they were quite prepared to hate mr. crisparkle when their guardian brought them. but by the time mr. honeythunder had gone (and mr. crisparkle was as glad as they were when he went home) they liked the young minister and felt that they would be happy there. they were a handsome pair, and mr. crisparkle was attracted to them both. neville was lithe, and dark and rich in color; helena was almost like a gypsy, slender, supple and quick. both seemed half shy, half defiant, as though their blood were untamed. to make them welcome that first evening, mr. crisparkle invited to his house jasper, the choir master, with edwin drood, who was visiting him, and rosebud from the seminary. before they parted rosebud was asked to sing. jasper played her accompaniment, and while she sang he watched her lips intently. all at once, to their great astonishment, rosebud covered her face with her hands and, crying out, "i can't bear this! i am frightened! take me away!" burst into tears. helena, the new-comer, who had liked rosebud at first sight, seemed to understand her better than any one else. she laid her on a sofa, soothed her, and in a few moments rosebud seemed again as usual. mr. crisparkle and edwin drood thought it only a fit of nervousness. to her relief, they made light of the matter, and so the evening ended. but later, at nun's house, where she and helena were to be room-mates, rosebud told her new friend how much she disliked jasper and how his eyes terrified her, and how, as she sang, with his eyes watching her lips, she felt as if he had kissed her. while the two girls were talking of this, neville and edwin drood, who had gone with them as far as the door of the seminary, were walking back together. mr. crisparkle had told neville of drood's betrothal to rosebud, and neville now spoke of it. drood, who had felt all along that he and rosebud did not get along well together and who was sensitive on the subject, was unjustly angry that the other should so soon know what he considered his own private affair. he answered in a surly way and, as both were quick-tempered, they soon came to high words. as it happened, jasper was walking near, and, overhearing, came between them. he reproved them good-naturedly and took them to his rooms, where he insisted they should drink a glass of wine with him to their good fellowship. there he did a dastardly thing. he mixed with the wine a drug which, once drunk, aroused their angry passions. their speech grew thick and the quarrel began again. safe now from any spectator, jasper did not attempt to soothe them. he let them go on until they were about to come to blows. then, pretending the greatest indignation, he threw himself upon neville and forced him, hatless, from the house. in the cool night air neville's strange dizziness, and with it his rage, cleared away. he realized that the blame for the quarrel had been jasper's, but he did not guess the drugging of the wine and could not explain the incident even to himself. he went, however, manfully and sorrowfully to mr. crisparkle and told him what had occurred, and naturally mr. crisparkle, who had never found edwin drood quarrelsome, thought it the fault of neville's hot blood and revengeful character. he was the more certain of this when jasper came to him, bringing neville's hat, and told him his own story of the meeting. jasper told him falsely that neville had made a murderous attack on drood, and but for him would have laid his nephew dead at his feet. he warned the minister that neville had a tigerish nature and would yet be guilty of terrible crime. mr. crisparkle liked neville, and all this saddened him, for he had not the least suspicion that jasper was lying for a cruel purpose of his own. the affair was an unhappy one for neville. jasper took care that the story spread abroad, and as it went it grew, so that almost everybody in cloisterham came to consider helena's brother a sullen fellow of a furious temper. and they believed it the more because neville made no secret of the fact that he had fallen in love, too, with rosebud, and in this they thought they saw a reason for his hating edwin drood. mr. crisparkle was a faithful friend. he concluded soon that the fault was not all on neville's side. but he was anxious to have the two young men friends, and he begged his pupil for his own part to lay aside the ill feeling. he went to the choir master also on the same errand, and jasper assured him that his nephew would do the same. he even promised, hypocritically, that to bring this about he would invite both edwin drood and neville to dine with him on christmas eve, in his own rooms, where they might meet and shake hands. both young men promised to come to the dinner, and mr. crisparkle was highly pleased, little dreaming what the outcome would be. iii the choir master's dinner there was a quaint character in cloisterham named durdles. he was a stone-mason whose specialty was the chiseling of tombstones. he was an old bachelor and was both a very skilful workman and a very great sot. he had keys to all the cathedral vaults and was fond of prowling about the old pile and its dismal crypt, for ever tap-tapping, with a little hammer he carried, on its stones and walls, hunting for forgotten cavities, in which, perhaps, centuries before, persons had been buried. he wore a coarse flannel suit with horn buttons and a yellow handkerchief with draggled ends, and it was a daily sight to see him perched on a tombstone eating his dinner out of a bundle. when he was not feeling well he used to say he had a touch of "tomb-atism," instead of rheumatism. durdles was drunk so much that he was never certain about getting home at night, so he had hired, at a penny a day, a hideous small boy, known as "the deputy" to throw stones at him whenever he found him out of doors after ten o'clock, and drive him home to his little hole of an unfurnished stone house. the deputy used to watch for durdles after this hour, and when he saw him he would dance up and sing: "widdy, widdy, wen! i ketches--him--out--arter ten! widdy, widdy wy! when he--don't--go--then--i shy! widdy, widdy, wake-cock-warning!" it was a part of the bargain that he must give this warning before he began to throw the stones, and when durdles heard this yell he knew what was coming. before the christmas eve dinner jasper picked a friendship with durdles, and, pretending he wanted to make a trip by moonlight with him among the vaults, he persuaded him one night to be his guide. while they were in the crypt of the cathedral jasper plied him with liquor which he had brought, to such purpose that durdles went fast asleep and the key of the crypt fell from his hand. he had a dim idea that jasper picked up the key and went away with it, and was a long time gone, but when he awoke he could not tell whether this had really happened or not. and this, when the deputy stoned him home that night, was all he could remember of the expedition. but what jasper had really done while durdles was asleep--whether he had taken away the key to make a copy of it so as to make one like it for some evil purpose of his own, or whether he wanted to be able to unlock that dark underground place and hide something in it sometime when no one would be with him--this only jasper himself knew! the christmas season arrived, and edwin drood, according to his promise, came to cloisterham to his uncle's dinner, at which he was to meet neville. before leaving, however, he called upon mr. grewgious, rosebud's guardian, who had sent for him with a particular purpose. this purpose was to give into his hands a ring set with diamonds and rubies that had belonged to rosebud's mother. it had been left in trust to mr. grewgious to give to the man who married her, that he might himself put it on her finger. and in accordance with the trust, the lawyer charged drood if anything should be amiss or if anything happened between him and rosebud, to bring back the ring. mr. grewgious gave him this keepsake with such wise and friendly advice on the seriousness of marriage that all the way to cloisterham with the ring in his pocket, edwin drood was very thoughtful. he asked himself whether he really loved rosebud as a man should love his wife, whether he had not drifted into this betrothal rather as a result of their parents' wish and wills than from any deeper feeling. and he began to wonder if by marrying her thus he would not be doing her a vast injustice. he decided, therefore, to tell her all that was in his mind and be guided by her judgment. rosebud, meanwhile, in the silence of the christmas vacation, with only helena for her companion, had been thinking of the same matter, and her wise little head had reached almost the same conclusion. when drood came they walked out together under the trees by the cathedral. their talk was not so difficult after all as each had feared it would be, and both felt relieved when they decided they could be far happier to remain as brother and sister, and not become husband and wife. so they agreed without pain on either side. drood's only anxiety was for his uncle. he thought jasper had looked forward to his marriage to rosebud so long that he would be pained and disappointed to learn it was not to be. so he concluded he would not tell him as yet. poor rosebud! she was greatly agitated. she felt the falseness of jasper, and knew that he loved her himself, but she realized the impossibility of telling this to the nephew who believed in him. so she was silent. drood, for his part, since the betrothal was ended, said nothing to her of the ring grewgious had given to him, intending to return it to the lawyer. they kissed each other when they parted. the wicked choir master, who happened to be walking near, saw the embrace and thought it the kiss of lovers soon to be wed. drood left rosebud then, to pass the time till the hour of the dinner in jasper's rooms. neville that day had determined, the dinner over, to start at dawn next morning on a walking tour, to be absent a fortnight. he bought a knapsack and a heavy steel-shod stick in preparation for this expedition, and bade his sister helena and mr. crisparkle good-by before he went to the appointed meeting at the choir master's. jasper himself, it was noticed, had never seemed in better spirits than on that day, nor had he ever sung more sweetly than in the afternoon service before the dinner which he gave to the two young men. if he was contemplating a terrible crime, no one would have guessed it from his serene face and his agreeable manner. edwin drood had one warning just before he went up the postern stair that led to his uncle jasper's. the old hag who mixed the opium in the london garret where the choir master smoked the drug, had more than once tried to find out who her strange, gentlemanly visitor was. she had listened to his mutterings in his drunken slumber, and at length that day had followed him from london to cloisterham, only to lose track of him there. as drood strolled, waiting for the dinner hour to strike from the cathedral chimes, he passed her and she begged money from him. he gave it to her and she asked him his name and whether he had a sweetheart. he answered edwin, and that he had none. "be thankful your name's not ned," she said, "for it's a bad name and a threatened name!" "ned" was the name jasper always called him by, but drood did not think seriously of the old woman's words. he could not have guessed that the threats she spoke of against the ned who had a sweetheart had been murmured in his drugged slumber by his own uncle against himself. and yet something at just that moment made him shudder. so the chimes struck, and edwin drood went on to jasper's rooms to meet his uncle and neville landless--went to his doom! for from that time no one who loved him ever saw him again in this world! iv jasper shows his teeth that night a fearful tempest howled over cloisterham. in the morning early, as the storm was breaking, jasper, the choir master, came pale, panting and half-dressed, to mr. crisparkle's, asking for edwin drood. he said his nephew had left his rooms the evening before with neville landless to go to the river to look at the storm, and had not returned. strange rumors sprang up at once. neville had left for his walking tour and an ugly suspicion flew from house to house. he had got only a few miles from the town when he was overtaken by a party of men, who surrounded him. thinking at first that they were thieves, he fought them, but was soon rendered helpless and bleeding, and in the midst of them was taken back toward cloisterham. mr. crisparkle and jasper met them on the way, and from the former neville first learned of what he was suspected. the blood from his encounter with his captors was on his clothes and stick. jasper pointed it out, and even those who had seen it fall there looked darkly at the stains. he was taken back to the town and to mr. crisparkle's house, who promised that he should remain in his own custody. neville's story was simple. he said they had gone to the river, as jasper had said, and returned together, he to mr. crisparkle's, edwin drood to his uncle's. he had not seen the other since that time. the river was dragged and its banks searched, but to no purpose, till mr. crisparkle himself found drood's watch caught among some timbers in a weir. but as the body could not be found, it could not be definitely proven that drood was dead, or that any murder had been committed, so at last neville was released. the whole neighborhood, however, believed him guilty of the murder. no one spoke to him and he was obliged to quit the place. beside his sister helena and rosebud, who, of course, believed in his innocence, he had but one friend there--mr. crisparkle. the latter stoutly refused to believe him guilty. when neville left for london, through mr. grewgious, rosebud's guardian, the minister found him a cheap lodging and made frequent trips to the city to help and advise him in his studies. mr. grewgious had his own opinion of the affair. one day he went to cloisterham to see jasper, and there told him a thing the other did not yet know--that before that last night edwin drood and rosebud had agreed not to marry. when he heard this the choir master's face turned the color of lead. he shrieked and fell senseless at the lawyer's feet. mr. grewgious went back to the city more thoughtful than ever, and it was not long before a detective came from london to cloisterham and began to interest himself in all the doings of john jasper. the detective, to be sure, was not known as such. he called himself "dick datchery" and gave it out that he was an idle dog who lived on his money and had nothing to do. he was a curious-looking man, with a great shock of white hair, black eyebrows and a military air. he rented lodgings next door to the choir master, and before long had made friends with durdles, the tombstone maker, and even with the deputy of the "wake-cock warning." meanwhile jasper, haggard and red-eyed, took again his place in the cathedral choir, while neville landless worked sadly and alone in his london garret. the latter made but one friend in this time--a lodger whose window adjoined his own. this lodger was lieutenant tartar, a retired young naval officer. tartar might have lived in fine apartments, for he was rich, but he had been so long on shipboard that he felt more at home where the walls were low enough for him to knock his head on the ceiling. he used to climb across to neville's room by the window ledges, and they became friendly--the warmer friends when mr. crisparkle discovered in the lieutenant a schoolmate who had once saved his life. later, too, helena left miss twinkleton's seminary and came to be with her brother. and so a year went by. vacation arrived, and one day when rosebud was alone at nun's house, jasper, for the first time since edwin drood's disappearance, came to see her. he found her in the garden, and she felt again the repulsion and fear she had always felt at sight of him. this time the choir master threw away all concealment. he told her that he had always loved her hopelessly and madly, though while she was betrothed to his nephew he had hidden the fact. she answered indignantly that, by look if not by word, he had always been false to edwin drood; that he had made her life unhappy by his pursuit of her, and that, though she had shrunk from opening his nephew's eyes, she had always known he was a wicked man. then, maddened by her dislike, jasper swore that no one else should ever marry her--that he would pursue her to the death, and that if she repulsed him he would bring dreadful ruin upon neville landless. he said this, no doubt, knowing that neville loved rosebud, and thinking, perhaps, that she loved him in return. when jasper left her, rosebud was faint from fear of his wicked eyes. she made up her mind to go at once for protection to mr. grewgious in london, and, leaving a note for miss twinkleton, she left by the next omnibus. she told her guardian her story, he told it to mr. crisparkle, who came to london next morning, and between them they told lieutenant tartar. while rosebud visited with helena the three men took counsel together, agreeing that jasper was a villain and planning how best to deal with him. the next time the choir master visited the opium garret the old woman tracked him back to cloisterham, with more success--with such success, indeed, that she heard him sing in the cathedral and found out his name from a stranger whom she encountered. this stranger was dick datchery, the detective, who discovered so much, before he left her, of jasper's london habits that he went home in high good humor. datchery had a trick, whenever he was following a particular search, of marking each step of his progress by a chalk mark on a wall or door. to-day he must have been highly pleased, for he drew a thick line from the very top of the cupboard door to the bottom! * * * * * _when charles dickens, the master story-teller, had told this tale thus far, he fell ill and died, and it was never finished. the mystery of the disappearance of edwin drood, what became of rosebud and of mr. crisparkle, how neville and helena fared and what was the end of jasper, are matters for each one of us to guess. many have tried to finish this story and they have ended it in various ways. before dickens died, however, he told to a friend the part of the story that remained unwritten, and this, the friend has recorded, was to be as follows_: by means of the old woman of the opium den, durdles, the tombstone maker, and the deputy, the ragged stone-thrower, dick datchery unraveled the threads which finally, made into a net, caught jasper, the murderer, in its meshes. little by little, word by word, he was made at last to betray himself. he had killed edwin drood, had hidden his body in one of the vaults and covered it with lime. but there had been one thing in the dead man's pocket which the lime could not destroy: this was the ring set with diamonds and rubies, that had been given to him by mr. grewgious. by this the murder was proven. mr. crisparkle and mr. grewgious worked hard to clear neville landless (of whose guilt, by the way, mr. honeythunder remained always sure), but poor neville himself perished in aiding lieutenant tartar to seize the murderer. finding all hope of escape gone, jasper confessed his crime in the cell in which he waited for death. but, after all, the story closed happily, with the marriage of mr. crisparkle to neville's sister helena, and that of lieutenant tartar to pretty little rosebud. index to characters affery _little dorrit_ agnes _david copperfield_ allen, arabella _pickwick papers_ allen, ben _pickwick papers_ "artful dodger, the" _oliver twist_ bagstock, major _dombey and son_ bantam, angelo cyrus _pickwick papers_ bardell, mrs. _pickwick papers_ barkis _david copperfield_ barnaby rudge _barnaby rudge_ barnacle, mr. tite _little dorrit_ barsad _tale of two cities_ bevan _martin chuzzlewit_ biddy _great expectations_ blackpool, stephen _hard times_ blimber, doctor _dombey and son_ boffin, mr. _our mutual friend_ boffin, mrs. _our mutual friend_ bounderby, josiah _hard times_ boythorn, mr. _bleak house_ brass _old curiosity shop_ brass, sally _old curiosity shop_ bray _nicholas nickleby_ bray, madeline _nicholas nickleby_ brownlow, mr. _oliver twist_ bud, rosa _edwin drood_ budger, mrs. _pickwick papers_ bumble, mr. _oliver twist_ bumble, mrs. _oliver twist_ buzfuz, sergeant _pickwick papers_ carker _dombey and son_ carstone, richard _bleak house_ carton, sydney _tale of two cities_ cheeryble brothers, the _nicholas nickleby_ chester, edward _barnaby rudge_ chester, sir john _barnaby rudge_ chivery, john _little dorrit_ chuffey _martin chuzzlewit_ chuzzlewit _martin chuzzlewit_ chuzzlewit, martin _martin chuzzlewit_ clare, ada _bleak house_ clennam, arthur _little dorrit_ clennam, mr. _little dorrit_ clennam, mrs. _little dorrit_ compeyson _great expectations_ copperfield, david _david copperfield_ creakle, mr. _david copperfield_ crisparkle, reverend mr. _edwin drood_ crummles, mrs. _nicholas nickleby_ crummles, ninetta _nicholas nickleby_ crummles, vincent _nicholas nickleby_ cuttle, captain _dombey and son_ darnay, charles _tale of two cities_ datchery, dick _edwin drood_ dedlock, lady _bleak house_ dedlock, sir leicester _bleak house_ defarge _tale of two cities_ defarge, madame _tale of two cities_ dennis _barnaby rudge_ "deputy, the" _edwin drood_ "dick, mr." _david copperfield_ "diogenes" _dombey and son_ "dodger, the artful" _oliver twist_ dombey, florence _dombey and son_ dombey, mr. _dombey and son_ dombey, paul _dombey and son_ dorrit, amy _little dorrit_ dorrit, fanny _little dorrit_ "dorrit, little" _little dorrit_ dorrit, mr. _little dorrit_ dorrit, "tip" _little dorrit_ dowler, mr. _pickwick papers_ dowler, mrs. _pickwick papers_ doyce _little dorrit_ drood, edwin _edwin drood_ durdles _edwin drood_ "em'ly, little" _david copperfield_ estella _great expectations_ fagin _oliver twist_ "fat boy, the" _pickwick papers_ "father of the marshalsea, the" _little dorrit_ "fitz-marshall, mr." _pickwick papers_ "fitz-marshall, captain" _pickwick papers_ flintwinch _little dorrit_ flite, miss _bleak house_ "floy" _dombey and son_ gabelle _tale of two cities_ gamp, "sairey" _martin chuzzlewit_ gargery, joe _great expectations_ gargery, mrs. _great expectations_ gashford _barnaby rudge_ gay, walter _dombey and son_ general, mrs. _little dorrit_ "george, mr." _bleak house_ "golden dustman, the" _our mutual friend_ gordon, lord george _barnaby rudge_ gills, solomon _dombey and son_ gradgrind, louisa _hard times_ gradgrind, mr. _hard times_ gradgrind, mrs. _hard times_ gradgrind, tom _hard times_ graham, mary _martin chuzzlewit_ grandfather smallweed _bleak house_ granger, edith _dombey and son_ grewgious, mr. _edwin drood_ gride _nicholas nickleby_ "grip" _barnaby rudge_ gummidge, mrs. _david copperfield_ ham _david copperfield_ haredale, emma _barnaby rudge_ haredale, geoffrey _barnaby rudge_ harmon, john _our mutual friend_ harmon, mr. _our mutual friend_ "harris, mrs." _martin chuzzlewit_ harthouse, james _hard times_ havisham, miss _great expectations_ hawdon, captain _bleak house_ hawk, sir mulberry _nicholas nickleby_ headstone _our mutual friend_ heep, uriah _david copperfield_ hexam _our mutual friend_ hexam, charlie _our mutual friend_ hexam, lizzie _our mutual friend_ honeythunder, luke _edwin drood_ hortense _bleak house_ "hugh, maypole" _barnaby rudge_ hunter, mrs. leo _pickwick papers_ "infant phenomenon, the" _nicholas nickleby_ jaggers, mr. _great expectations_ jarley, mrs. _old curiosity shop_ jarndyce, mr. _bleak house_ jasper, john _edwin drood_ jellyby, caddy _bleak house_ jellyby, mrs. _bleak house_ "jenny wren" _our mutual friend_ jingle, alfred _pickwick papers_ joe _pickwick papers_ joe _bleak house_ "joe, mrs." _great expectations_ jonas _martin chuzzlewit_ jupe, cecelia _hard times_ "jupe, signor" _hard times_ "kit" _old curiosity shop_ knag, miss _nicholas nickleby_ krook _bleak house_ "lady jane" _bleak house_ landless, helena _edwin drood_ landless, neville _edwin drood_ "little em'ly" _david copperfield_ "little nell" _old curiosity shop_ "little paul" _dombey and son_ lorry, mr. _tale of two cities_ maggie _little dorrit_ magnus, mr. peter _pickwick papers_ magwitch, abel _great expectations_ manette, doctor _tale of two cities_ manette, lucie _tale of two cities_ mantalini, mr. _nicholas nickleby_ mantalini, madame _nicholas nickleby_ mary _pickwick papers_ maylie, mrs. _oliver twist_ "maypole hugh" _barnaby rudge_ m'choakumchild, mr. _hard times_ meagles, mr. _little dorrit_ meagles, mrs. _little dorrit_ meagles, "pet" _little dorrit_ merdle, mr. _little dorrit_ merdle, mrs. _little dorrit_ "merrylegs" _hard times_ micawber, mr. _david copperfield_ monks _oliver twist_ montague, tigg _martin chuzzlewit_ murdstone, miss _david copperfield_ murdstone, mr. _david copperfield_ nadgett _martin chuzzlewit_ nancy _oliver twist_ "nell, little" _old curiosity shop_ "nemo" _bleak house_ nickleby, kate _nicholas nickleby_ nickleby, mrs. _nicholas nickleby_ nickleby, nicholas _nicholas nickleby_ nickleby, ralph _nicholas nickleby_ noggs _nicholas nickleby_ nubbles, christopher _old curiosity shop_ nupkins _pickwick papers_ nupkins, miss _pickwick papers_ nupkins, mrs. _pickwick papers_ "old sol" _dombey and son_ orlick _great expectations_ pancks _little dorrit_ "paul, little" _dombey and son_ pecksniff _martin chuzzlewit_ pecksniff, charity _martin chuzzlewit_ pecksniff, mercy _martin chuzzlewit_ peggotty _david copperfield_ peggotty, mr. _david copperfield_ "pegler, mrs." _hard times_ pickwick, mr. samuel _pickwick papers_ pinch, tom _martin chuzzlewit_ pinch, ruth _martin chuzzlewit_ "pip" _great expectations_ pipchin, mrs. _dombey and son_ pirrip, philip _great expectations_ pocket, herbert _great expectations_ pocket, mr. _great expectations_ pocket, mrs. _great expectations_ pross, miss _tale of two cities_ pumblechook, uncle _great expectations_ quilp _old curiosity shop_ quilp, mrs. _old curiosity shop_ rachel _hard times_ rigaud _little dorrit_ riderhood, "rogue" _our mutual friend_ "rokesmith," john _our mutual friend_ "rosebud" _edwin drood_ rose, miss _oliver twist_ rouncewell, mrs. _bleak house_ rudge _barnaby rudge_ rudge, barnaby _barnaby rudge_ rudge, mrs. _barnaby rudge_ st. evrÃ�monde, charles _tale of two cities_ st. evrÃ�monde, marquis de _tale of two cities_ sawyer, bob _pickwick papers_ sikes, bill _oliver twist_ "sissy" _hard times_ skimpole, harold _bleak house_ slammer, doctor _pickwick papers_ sleary _hard times_ smallweed, grandfather _bleak house_ smallweed, mrs. _bleak house_ smike _nicholas nickleby_ snodgrass _pickwick papers_ "sol, old" _dombey and son_ sparsit, mrs. _hard times_ spenlow, dora _david copperfield_ squeers _nicholas nickleby_ squeers, fanny _nicholas nickleby_ squeers, mrs. _nicholas nickleby_ squeers, wackford _nicholas nickleby_ steerforth, james _david copperfield_ "stranger, the" _old curiosity shop_ strong, doctor _david copperfield_ summerson, esther _bleak house_ swiveller, dick _old curiosity shop_ tapley, mark _martin chuzzlewit_ tappertit, simon _barnaby rudge_ tartar, lieutenant _edwin drood_ "tattycoram" _little dorrit_ tigg, montague _martin chuzzlewit_ todgers, mrs. _martin chuzzlewit_ traddles, tommy _david copperfield_ trent, mr. _old curiosity shop_ trotter, job _pickwick papers_ trotwood, miss betsy _david copperfield_ tulkinghorn, mr. _bleak house_ tupman _pickwick papers_ turveydrop, mr. _bleak house_ turveydrop, prince _bleak house_ twinkleton, miss _edwin drood_ twist, oliver _oliver twist_ uncle pumblechook _great expectations_ varden _barnaby rudge_ varden, dolly _barnaby rudge_ veneering, mr. _our mutual friend_ venus, mr. _our mutual friend_ verisopht, lord frederick _nicholas nickleby_ vholes _bleak house_ wardle, emily _pickwick papers_ wardle, mr. _pickwick papers_ wardle, miss _pickwick papers_ wegg, silas _our mutual friend_ weller, mrs. _pickwick papers_ weller, sam _pickwick papers_ weller, tony _pickwick papers_ wemmick _great expectations_ westlock, john _martin chuzzlewit_ wickfield, agnes _david copperfield_ wickfield, mr. _david copperfield_ wilfer, bella _our mutual friend_ wilfer, mr. _our mutual friend_ willet, joe _barnaby rudge_ winkle _pickwick papers_ wititterly, mrs. _nicholas nickleby_ woodcourt, allan _bleak house_ wopsle _great expectations_ wrayburn, eugene _our mutual friend_ "wren, jennie" _our mutual friend_ the letters of charles dickens [illustration] the letters of charles dickens. edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter vol. iii. to . london: chapman and hall, limited, , henrietta street, covent garden. . [_the right of translation is reserved._] charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. preface. since our publication of "the letters of charles dickens" we have received the letters addressed to the late lord lytton, which we were unable to procure in time for our first two volumes in consequence of his son's absence in india. we thank the earl of lytton cordially for his kindness in sending them to us very soon after his return. we also offer our sincere thanks to sir austen h. layard, and to the senders of many other letters, which we now publish for the first time. with a view to making our selection as complete as possible, we have collected together the letters from charles dickens which have already been published in various biographies, and have chosen and placed in chronological order among our new letters those which we consider to be of the greatest interest. as our narrative was finished in our second volume, this volume consists of letters _only_, with occasional foot-notes wherever there are allusions requiring explanation. mamie dickens. georgina hogarth. london: _september, ._ errata. vol. iii. page , line . for "j. w. leigh murray," _read_ "mr. leigh murray." " , line . for "annoying," _read_ "amazing." " , line . for "tarass boulla," _read_ "tarass boulba." " , line , and in footnote. for "hazlett," _read_ "hazlitt." " , line . for "procters," _read_ "proctors." the letters of charles dickens. to . [sidenote: mr. john hullah.] furnival's inn, _sunday evening ( )_ (?). my dear hullah, have you seen _the examiner_? it is rather depreciatory of the opera; but, like all inveterate critiques against braham, so well done that i cannot help laughing at it, for the life and soul of me. i have seen _the sunday times_, _the dispatch_, and _the satirist_, all of which blow their critic trumpets against unhappy me most lustily. either i must have grievously awakened the ire of all the "adapters" and their friends, or the drama must be decidedly bad. i haven't made up my mind yet which of the two is the fact. i have not seen the _john bull_ or any of the sunday papers except _the spectator_. if you have any of them, bring 'em with you on tuesday. i am afraid that for "dirty cummins'" allusion to hogarth i shall be reduced to the necessity of being valorous the next time i meet him. believe me, most faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] furnival's inn, _monday afternoon, o'clock ( )._ my dear hullah, mr. hogarth has just been here, with news which i think you will be glad to hear. he was with braham yesterday, who was _far more full_ of the opera[ ] than he was; speaking highly of my works and "fame" (!), and expressing an earnest desire to be the first to introduce me to the public as a dramatic writer. he said that he intended opening at michaelmas; and added (unasked) that it was his intention to produce the opera within _one month_ of his first night. he wants a low comedy part introduced--without singing--thinking it will take with the audience; but he is desirous of explaining to me what he means and who he intends to play it. i am to see him on sunday morning. full particulars of the interview shall be duly announced. perhaps i shall see you meanwhile. i have only time to add that i am most faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] petersham, _monday evening ( )._ dear hullah, since i called on you this morning i have not had time to look over the words of "the child and the old man." it occurs to me, as i shall see you on wednesday morning, that the best plan will be for you to bring the music (if you possibly can) without the words, and we can put them in then. of course this observation applies only to that particular song. braham having sent to me about the farce, i called on him this morning. harley wrote, when he had read the whole of the opera, saying: "it's a sure card--nothing wrong there. bet you ten pound it runs fifty nights. come; don't be afraid. you'll be the gainer by it, and you mustn't mind betting; it's a capital custom." they tell the story with infinite relish. i saw the fair manageress,[ ] who is fully of harley's opinion, so is braham. the only difference is, that they are far more enthusiastic than harley--far more enthusiastic than ourselves even. that is a bold word, isn't it? it is a true one, nevertheless. "depend upon it, sir," said braham to hogarth yesterday, when he went there to say i should be in town to-day, "depend upon it, sir, that there has been no such music since the days of sheil, and no such piece since "the duenna."" "everybody is delighted with it," he added, to me to-day. "i played it to stansbury, who is by no means an excitable person, and he was charmed." this was said with great emphasis, but i have forgotten the grand point. it was not, "i played it to stansbury," but, "i sang it--_all through_!!!" i begged him, as the choruses are to be put into rehearsal directly the company get together, to let us have, through mrs. braham, the necessary passports to the stage, which will be forwarded. he leaves town on the _ th of september_. he will be absent a month, and the first rehearsal will take place immediately on his return; previous to it (i mean the first rehearsal--not the return) i am to read the piece. his only remaining suggestion is, that miss rainforth will want another song when the piece is in rehearsal--"a bravura--something in the 'soldier tired' way." we must have a confab about this on wednesday morning. harley called in furnival's inn, to express his high delight and gratification, but unfortunately we had left town. i shall be at head-quarters by wednesday noon. believe me, dear hullah, most faithfully yours. p.s.--tell me on wednesday when you can come down here, for a day or two. beautiful place--meadow for exercise, horse for your riding, boat for your rowing, room for your studying--anything you like. [sidenote: mr. george hogarth.] [ ] , furnival's inn, _tuesday evening, january th, ._ my dear sir, as you have begged me to write an original sketch for the first number of the new evening paper, and as i trust to your kindness to refer my application to the proper quarter, should i be unreasonably or improperly trespassing upon you, i beg to ask whether it is probable that if i commenced a series of articles, written under some attractive title, for _the evening chronicle_, its conductors would think i had any claim to some additional remuneration (of course, of no great amount) for doing so? let me beg of you not to misunderstand my meaning. whatever the reply may be, i promised you an article, and shall supply it with the utmost readiness, and with an anxious desire to do my best, which i honestly assure you would be the feeling with which i should always receive any request coming personally from yourself. i merely wish to put it to the proprietors, first, whether a continuation of light papers in the style of my "street sketches" would be considered of use to the new paper; and, secondly, if so, whether they do not think it fair and reasonable that, taking my share of the ordinary reporting business of _the chronicle_ besides, i should receive something for the papers beyond my ordinary salary as a reporter. begging you to excuse my troubling you, and taking this opportunity of acknowledging the numerous kindnesses i have already received at your hands since i have had the pleasure of acting under you, i am, my dear sir, very sincerely yours. [sidenote: mrs. hogarth.] doughty street, _thursday night, october th, ._ my dear mrs. hogarth, i need not thank you for your present[ ] of yesterday, for you know the sorrowful pleasure i shall take in wearing it, and the care with which i shall prize it, until--so far as relates to this life--i am like her. i have never had her ring off my finger by day or night, except for an instant at a time, to wash my hands, since she died. i have never had her sweetness and excellence absent from my mind so long. i can solemnly say that, waking or sleeping, i have never lost the recollection of our hard trial and sorrow, and i feel that i never shall. it will be a great relief to my heart when i find you sufficiently calm upon this sad subject to claim the promise i made you when she lay dead in this house, never to shrink from speaking of her, as if her memory must be avoided, but rather to take a melancholy pleasure in recalling the times when we were all so happy--so happy that increase of fame and prosperity has only widened the gap in my affections, by causing me to think how she would have shared and enhanced all our joys, and how proud i should have been (as god knows i always was) to possess the affections of the gentlest and purest creature that ever shed a light on earth. i wish you could know how i weary now for the three rooms in furnival's inn, and how i miss that pleasant smile and those sweet words which, bestowed upon our evening's work, in our merry banterings round the fire, were more precious to me than the applause of a whole world would be. i can recall everything she said and did in those happy days, and could show you every passage and line we read together. i see _now_ how you are capable of making great efforts, even against the afflictions you have to deplore, and i hope that, soon, our words may be where our thoughts are, and that we may call up those old memories, not as shadows of the bitter past, but as lights upon a happier future. believe me, my dear mrs. hogarth, ever truly and affectionately yours. footnotes: [ ] "the village coquettes." [ ] mrs. braham. [ ] printed in "forty years' recollections of life, literature, and public affairs," by charles mackay. [ ] a chain made of mary hogarth's hair, sent to charles dickens on the first anniversary of her birthday, after her death. [ ]diary-- . _monday, january st, ._ a sad new year's day in one respect, for at the opening of last year poor mary was with us. very many things to be grateful for since then, however. increased reputation and means--good health and prospects. we never know the full value of blessings till we lose them (we were not ignorant of this one when we had it, i hope). but if she were with us now, the same winning, happy, amiable companion, sympathising with all my thoughts and feelings more than anyone i knew ever did or will, i think i should have nothing to wish for, but a continuance of such happiness. but she is gone, and pray god i may one day, through his mercy, rejoin her. i wrote to mrs. hogarth yesterday, taking advantage of the opportunity afforded me by her sending, as a new year's token, a pen-wiper of poor mary's, imploring her, as strongly as i could, to think of the many remaining claims upon her affection and exertions, and not to give way to unavailing grief. her answer came to-night, and she seems hurt at my doing so--protesting that in all useful respects she is the same as ever. meant it for the best, and still hope i did right. _saturday, january th, ._ our boy's birthday--one year old. a few people at night--only forster, the de gex's, john ross, mitton, and the beards, besides our families--to twelfth-cake and forfeits. this day last year, mary and i wandered up and down holborn and the streets about for hours, looking after a little table for kate's bedroom, which we bought at last at the very first broker's which we had looked into, and which we had passed half-a-dozen times because i _didn't like_ to ask the price. i took her out to brompton at night, as we had no place for her to sleep in (the two mothers being with us); she came back again next day to keep house for me, and stopped nearly the rest of the month. i shall never be so happy again as in those chambers three storeys high--never if i roll in wealth and fame. i would hire them to keep empty, if i could afford it. _monday, january th, ._ i began the "sketches of young gentlemen" to-day. one hundred and twenty-five pounds for such a little book, without my name to it, is pretty well. this and the "sunday"[ ] by-the-bye, are the only two things i have not done as boz. _tuesday, january th, ._ went to the sun office to insure my life, where the board seemed disposed to think i work too much. made forster and pickthorn, my doctor, the references--and after an interesting interview with the board and the board's doctor, came away to work again. _wednesday, january th, ._ at work all day, and to a quadrille party at night. city people and rather dull. intensely cold coming home, and vague reports of a fire somewhere. frederick says the royal exchange, at which i sneer most sagely; for---- _thursday, january th, ._ to-day the papers are full of it, and it _was_ the royal exchange, lloyd's, and all the shops round the building. called on browne and went with him to see the ruins, of which we saw as much as we should have done if we had stopped at home. _sunday, january th, ._ to church in the morning, and when i came home i wrote the preceding portion of this diary, which henceforth i make a steadfast resolution not to neglect, or _paint_. i have not done it yet, nor will i; but say what rises to my lips--my mental lips at least--without reserve. no other eyes will see it, while mine are open in life, and although i daresay i shall be ashamed of a good deal in it, i should like to look over it at the year's end. in scott's diary, which i have been looking at this morning, there are thoughts which have been mine by day and by night, in good spirits and bad, since mary died. "another day, and a bright one to the external world again opens on us; the air soft, and the flowers smiling, and the leaves glittering. they cannot refresh her to whom mild weather was a natural enjoyment. cerements of lead and of wood already hold her; cold earth must have her soon. but it is not . . . (she) who will be laid among the ruins. . . . she is sentient and conscious of my emotions _somewhere_--where, we cannot tell, how, we cannot tell; yet would i not at this moment renounce the mysterious yet certain hope that i shall see her in a better world, for all that this world can give me. * * * * * "i have seen her. there is the same symmetry of form, though those limbs are rigid which were once so gracefully elastic; but that yellow masque with pinched features, which seems to mock life rather than emulate it, can it be the face that was once so full of lively expression? i will not look upon it again." i know but too well how true all this is. _monday, january th, ._ here ends this brief attempt at a diary. i grow sad over this checking off of days, and can't do it. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. w. l. sammins.] , doughty street, london, _january st, ._ sir, circumstances have enabled me to relinquish my old connection with the "miscellany"[ ] at an earlier period than i had expected. i am no longer its editor, but i have referred your paper to my successor, and marked it as one "requiring attention." i have no doubt it will receive it. with reference to your letter bearing date on the th of last october, let me assure you that i have delayed answering it--not because a constant stream of similar epistles has rendered me callous to the anxieties of a beginner, in those doubtful paths in which i walk myself--but because you ask me to do that which i would scarce do, of my own unsupported opinion, for my own child, supposing i had one old enough to require such a service. to suppose that i could gravely take upon myself the responsibility of withdrawing you from pursuits you have already undertaken, or urging you on in a most uncertain and hazardous course of life, is really a compliment to my judgment and inflexibility which i cannot recognize and do not deserve (or desire). i hoped that a little reflection would show you how impossible it is that i could be expected to enter upon a task of so much delicacy, but as you have written to me since, and called (unfortunately at a period when i am obliged to seclude myself from all comers), i am compelled at last to tell you that i can do nothing of the kind. if it be any satisfaction to you to know that i have read what you sent me, and read it with great pleasure, though, as you treat of local matters, i am necessarily in the dark here and there, i can give you the assurance very sincerely. with this, and many thanks to you for your obliging expressions towards myself, i am, sir, your very obedient servant. [sidenote: mr. j. p. harley.] doughty street, _thursday morning._[ ] my dear harley, this is my birthday. many happy returns of the day to you and me. i took it into my head yesterday to get up an impromptu dinner on this auspicious occasion--only my own folks, leigh hunt, ainsworth, and forster. i know you can't dine here in consequence of the tempestuous weather on the covent garden shores, but if you will come in when you have done trinculizing, you will delight me greatly, and add in no inconsiderable degree to the "conviviality" of the meeting. lord bless my soul! twenty-seven years old. who'd have thought it? i _never_ did! but i grow sentimental. always yours truly. [sidenote: mr. edward chapman.] , devonshire terrace, _ th december, ._ my dear sir, the place where you pledge yourself to pay for my beef and mutton when i eat it, and my ale and wine when i drink it, is the treasurer's office of the middle temple, the new building at the bottom of middle temple lane on the right-hand side. you walk up into the first-floor and say (boldly) that you come to sign mr. charles dickens's bond--which is already signed by mr. sergeant talfourd. i suppose i should formally acquaint you that i have paid the fees, and that the responsibility you incur is a very slight one--extending very little beyond my good behaviour, and honourable intentions to pay for all wine-glasses, tumblers, or other dinner-furniture that i may break or damage. i wish you would do me another service, and that is to choose, at the place you told me of, a reasonable copy of "the beauties of england and wales." you can choose it quite as well as i can, or better, and i shall be much obliged to you. i should like you to send it at once, as i am diving into all kinds of matters at odd minutes with a view to our forthcoming operations. faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] this fragment of a diary was found amongst some papers which have recently come to light. the editors give only those paragraphs which are likely to be of any public interest. the original manuscript has been added to "the forster collection," at the south kensington museum. [ ] "sunday, under three heads," a small pamphlet published about this time. [ ] "bentley's miscellany." [ ] no other date, but it must have been th february, . . [sidenote: mr. h. g. adams.[ ]] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _saturday, jan. th, ._ dear sir, the pressure of other engagements will, i am compelled to say, prevent me from contributing a paper to your new local magazine.[ ] but i beg you to set me down as a subscriber to it, and foremost among those whose best wishes are enlisted in your cause. it will afford me real pleasure to hear of your success, for i have many happy recollections connected with kent, and am scarcely less interested in it than if i had been a kentish man bred and born, and had resided in the county all my life. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thompson.[ ]] devonshire terrace, _tuesday, th december, ._ my dear thompson, i have received a most flattering message from the head turnkey of the jail this morning, intimating that "there warn't a genelman in all london he'd be gladder to show his babies to, than muster dickins, and let him come wenever he would to that shop he wos welcome." but as the governor (who is a very nice fellow and a gentleman) is not at home this morning, and furthermore as the morning itself has rather gone out of town in respect of its poetical allurements, i think we had best postpone our visit for a day or two. faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] mr. adams, the hon. secretary of the chatham mechanics' institute, which office he held for many years. [ ] "the kentish coronal." [ ] an intimate friend. . [sidenote: rev. thomas robinson.[ ]] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _thursday, april th, ._ dear sir, i am much obliged to you for your interesting letter. nor am i the less pleased to receive it, by reason that i cannot find it in my conscience to agree in many important respects with the body to which you belong. in the love of virtue and hatred of vice, in the detestation of cruelty and encouragement of gentleness and mercy, all men who endeavour to be acceptable to their creator in any way, may freely agree. there are more roads to heaven, i am inclined to think, than any sect believes; but there can be none which have not these flowers garnishing the way. i feel it a great tribute, therefore, to receive your letter. it is most welcome and acceptable to me. i thank you for it heartily, and am proud of the approval of one who suffered in his youth, even more than my poor child. while you teach in your walk of life the lessons of tenderness you have learnt in sorrow, trust me that in mine, i will pursue cruelty and oppression, the enemies of all god's creatures of all codes and creeds, so long as i have the energy of thought and the power of giving it utterance. faithfully yours. [sidenote: the countess of blessington.] [ ]devonshire terrace, _june nd, ._ dear lady blessington, the year goes round so fast, that when anything occurs to remind me of its whirling, i lose my breath, and am bewildered. so your handwriting last night had as startling an effect upon me, as though you had sealed your note with one of your own eyes. i remember my promise, as in cheerful duty bound, and with heaven's grace will redeem it. at this moment, i have not the faintest idea how, but i am going into scotland on the th to see jeffrey, and while i am away (i shall return, please god, in about three weeks) will look out for some accident, incident, or subject for small description, to send you when i come home. you will take the will for the deed, i know; and, remembering that i have a "clock" which always wants winding up, will not quarrel with me for being brief. have you seen townshend's magnetic boy? you heard of him, no doubt, from count d'orsay. if you get him to gore house, don't, i entreat you, have more than eight people--four is a better number--to see him. he fails in a crowd, and is _marvellous_ before a few. i am told that down in devonshire there are young ladies innumerable, who read crabbed manuscripts with the palms of their hands, and newspapers with their ankles, and so forth; and who are, so to speak, literary all over. i begin to understand what a blue-stocking means, and have not the smallest doubt that lady ---- (for instance) could write quite as entertaining a book with the sole of her foot as ever she did with her head. i am a believer in earnest, and i am sure you would be if you saw this boy, under moderately favourable circumstances, as i hope you will, before he leaves england. believe me, dear lady blessington, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. l. gaylord clark.] _september th, ._ my dear sir, i condole with you from my heart on the loss[ ] you have sustained, and i feel proud of your permitting me to sympathise with your affliction. it is a great satisfaction to me to have been addressed, under similar circumstances, by many of your countrymen since the "curiosity shop" came to a close. some simple and honest hearts in the remote wilds of america have written me letters on the loss of children--so numbering my little book, or rather heroine, with their household gods; and so pouring out their trials and sources of comfort in them, before me as a friend, that i have been inexpressibly moved, and am whenever i think of them, i do assure you. you have already all the comfort, that i could lay before you; all, i hope, that the affectionate spirit of your brother, now in happiness, can shed into your soul. on the th of next january, if it please god, i am coming with my wife on a three or four months' visit to america. the british and north american packet will bring me, i hope, to boston, and enable me, in the third week of the new year, to set my foot upon the soil i have trodden in my day-dreams many times, and whose sons (and daughters) i yearn to know and to be among. i hope you are surprised, and i hope not unpleasantly. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. hogarth.] [ ]devonshire terrace, _sunday, october th, ._ my dear mrs. hogarth, for god's sake be comforted, and bear this well, for the love of your remaining children. i had always intended to keep poor mary's grave for us and our dear children, and for you. but if it will be any comfort to you to have poor george buried there, i will cheerfully arrange to place the ground at your entire disposal. do not consider me in any way. consult only your own heart. mine seems to tell me that as they both died so young and so suddenly, they ought both to be buried together. try--do try--to think that they have but preceded you to happiness, and will meet you with joy in heaven. there _is_ consolation in the knowledge that you have treasure there, and that while you live on earth, there are creatures among the angels, who owed their being to you. always yours with true affection. [sidenote: mr. washington irving.] my dear sir,[ ] there is no man in the world who could have given me the heartfelt pleasure you have, by your kind note of the th of last month. there is no living writer, and there are very few among the dead, whose approbation i should feel so proud to earn. and with everything you have written upon my shelves, and in my thoughts, and in my heart of hearts, i may honestly and truly say so. if you could know how earnestly i write this, you would be glad to read it--as i hope you will be, faintly guessing at the warmth of the hand i autobiographically hold out to you over the broad atlantic. i wish i could find in your welcome letter some hint of an intention to visit england. i can't. i have held it at arm's length, and taken a bird's-eye view of it, after reading it a great many times, but there is no greater encouragement in it this way than on a microscopic inspection. i should love to go with you--as i have gone, god knows how often--into little britain, and eastcheap, and green arbour court, and westminster abbey. i should like to travel with you, outside the last of the coaches down to bracebridge hall. it would make my heart glad to compare notes with you about that shabby gentleman in the oilcloth hat and red nose, who sat in the nine-cornered back-parlour of the masons' arms; and about robert preston and the tallow-chandler's widow, whose sitting-room is second nature to me; and about all those delightful places and people that i used to walk about and dream of in the daytime, when a very small and not over-particularly-taken-care-of boy. i have a good deal to say, too, about that dashing alonzo de ojeda, that you can't help being fonder of than you ought to be; and much to hear concerning moorish legend, and poor unhappy boabdil. diedrich knickerbocker i have worn to death in my pocket, and yet i should show you his mutilated carcass with a joy past all expression. i have been so accustomed to associate you with my pleasantest and happiest thoughts, and with my leisure hours, that i rush at once into full confidence with you, and fall, as it were naturally, and by the very laws of gravity, into your open arms. questions come thronging to my pen as to the lips of people who meet after long hoping to do so. i don't know what to say first or what to leave unsaid, and am constantly disposed to break off and tell you again how glad i am this moment has arrived. my dear washington irving, i cannot thank you enough for your cordial and generous praise, or tell you what deep and lasting gratification it has given me. i hope to have many letters from you, and to exchange a frequent correspondence. i send this to say so. after the first two or three i shall settle down into a connected style, and become gradually rational. you know what the feeling is, after having written a letter, sealed it, and sent it off. i shall picture your reading this, and answering it before it has lain one night in the post-office. ten to one that before the fastest packet could reach new york i shall be writing again. do you suppose the post-office clerks care to receive letters? i have my doubts. they get into a dreadful habit of indifference. a postman, i imagine, is quite callous. conceive his delivering one to himself, without being startled by a preliminary double knock! always your faithful friend. footnotes: [ ] a dissenting minister, once himself a workhouse boy, and writing on the character of oliver twist. this letter was published in "harper's new monthly magazine," in . [ ] this, and all other letters addressed to the countess of blessington, were printed in "literary life and correspondence of the countess of blessington." [ ] the death of his correspondent's twin-brother, willis gaylord clark. [ ] on the occasion of the sudden death of mrs. hogarth's son, george. [ ] this, and all other letters addressed to mr. washington irving, were printed in "the life and letters of washington irving," edited by his nephew, pierre m. irving. . [sidenote: professor felton.] fuller's hotel, washington, _monday, march th, ._ my dear felton,[ ] i was more delighted than i can possibly tell you, to receive (last saturday night) your welcome letter. we and the oysters missed you terribly in new york. you carried away with you more than half the delight and pleasure of my new world; and i heartily wish you could bring it back again. there are very interesting men in this place--highly interesting, of course--but it's not a comfortable place; is it? if spittle could wait at table we should be nobly attended, but as that property has not been imparted to it in the present state of mechanical science, we are rather lonely and orphan-like, in respect of "being looked arter." a blithe black was introduced on our arrival, as our peculiar and especial attendant. he is the only gentleman in the town who has a peculiar delicacy in intruding upon my valuable time. it usually takes seven rings and a threatening message from ---- to produce him; and when he comes he goes to fetch something, and, forgetting it by the way, comes back no more. we have been in great distress, really in distress, at the non-arrival of the _caledonia_. you may conceive what our joy was, when, while we were dining out yesterday, h. arrived with the joyful intelligence of her safety. the very news of her having really arrived seemed to diminish the distance between ourselves and home, by one half at least. and this morning (though we have not yet received our heap of despatches, for which we are looking eagerly forward to this night's mail)--this morning there reached us unexpectedly, through the government bag (heaven knows how they came there!), two of our many and long-looked-for letters, wherein was a circumstantial account of the whole conduct and behaviour of our pets; with marvellous narrations of charley's precocity at a twelfth night juvenile party at macready's; and tremendous predictions of the governess, dimly suggesting his having got out of pot-hooks and hangers, and darkly insinuating the possibility of his writing us a letter before long; and many other workings of the same prophetic spirit, in reference to him and his sisters, very gladdening to their mother's heart, and not at all depressing to their father's. there was, also, the doctor's report, which was a clean bill; and the nurse's report, which was perfectly electrifying; showing as it did how master walter had been weaned, and had cut a double tooth, and done many other extraordinary things, quite worthy of his high descent. in short, we were made very happy and grateful; and felt as if the prodigal father and mother had got home again. what do you think of this incendiary card being left at my door last night? "general g. sends compliments to mr. dickens, and called with two literary ladies. as the two l. l.'s are ambitious of the honour of a personal introduction to mr. d., general g. requests the honour of an appointment for to-morrow." i draw a veil over my sufferings. they are sacred. we shall be in buffalo, please heaven, on the th of april. if i don't find a letter from you in the care of the postmaster at that place, i'll never write to you from england. but if i _do_ find one, my right hand shall forget its cunning, before i forget to be your truthful and constant correspondent; not, dear felton, because i promised it, nor because i have a natural tendency to correspond (which is far from being the case), nor because i am truly grateful to you for, and have been made truly proud by, that affectionate and elegant tribute which ---- sent me, but because you are a man after my own heart, and i love you _well_. and for the love i bear you, and the pleasure with which i shall always think of you, and the glow i shall feel when i see your handwriting in my own home, i hereby enter into a solemn league and covenant to write as many letters to you as you write to me, at least. amen. come to england! come to england! our oysters are small, i know; they are said by americans to be coppery; but our hearts are of the largest size. we are thought to excel in shrimps, to be far from despicable in point of lobsters, and in periwinkles are considered to challenge the universe. our oysters, small though they be, are not devoid of the refreshing influence which that species of fish is supposed to exercise in these latitudes. try them and compare. affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. washington irving.] washington, _monday afternoon, march st, ._ my dear irving, we passed through--literally passed through--this place again to-day. i did not come to see you, for i really have not the heart to say "good-bye" again, and felt more than i can tell you when we shook hands last wednesday. you will not be at baltimore, i fear? i thought, at the time, that you only said you might be there, to make our parting the gayer. wherever you go, god bless you! what pleasure i have had in seeing and talking with you, i will not attempt to say. i shall never forget it as long as i live. what would i give, if we could have but a quiet week together! spain is a lazy place, and its climate an indolent one. but if you have ever leisure under its sunny skies to think of a man who loves you, and holds communion with your spirit oftener, perhaps, than any other person alive--leisure from listlessness, i mean--and will write to me in london, you will give me an inexpressible amount of pleasure. your affectionate friend. [sidenote: professor felton.] montreal, _saturday, st may, ._ my dear felton, i was delighted to receive your letter yesterday, and was well pleased with its contents. i anticipated objection to carlyle's[ ] letter. i called particular attention to it for three reasons. firstly, because he boldly _said_ what all the others _think_, and therefore deserved to be manfully supported. secondly, because it is my deliberate opinion that i have been assailed on this subject in a manner in which no man with any pretensions to public respect or with the remotest right to express an opinion on a subject of universal literary interest would be assailed in any other country. . . . i really cannot sufficiently thank you, dear felton, for your warm and hearty interest in these proceedings. but it would be idle to pursue that theme, so let it pass. the wig and whiskers are in a state of the highest preservation. the play comes off next wednesday night, the th. what would i give to see you in the front row of the centre box, your spectacles gleaming not unlike those of my dear friend pickwick, your face radiant with as broad a grin as a staid professor may indulge in, and your very coat, waistcoat, and shoulders expressive of what we should take together when the performance was over! i would give something (not so much, but still a good round sum) if you could only stumble into that very dark and dusty theatre in the daytime (at any minute between twelve and three), and see me with my coat off, the stage manager and universal director, urging impracticable ladies and impossible gentlemen on to the very confines of insanity, shouting and driving about, in my own person, to an extent which would justify any philanthropic stranger in clapping me into a strait-waistcoat without further inquiry, endeavouring to goad h. into some dim and faint understanding of a prompter's duties, and struggling in such a vortex of noise, dirt, bustle, confusion, and inextricable entanglement of speech and action as you would grow giddy in contemplating. we perform "a roland for an oliver," "a good night's rest," and "deaf as a post." this kind of voluntary hard labour used to be my great delight. the _furor_ has come strong upon me again, and i begin to be once more of opinion that nature intended me for the lessee of a national theatre, and that pen, ink, and paper have spoiled a manager. oh, how i look forward across that rolling water to home and its small tenantry! how i busy myself in thinking how my books look, and where the tables are, and in what positions the chairs stand relatively to the other furniture; and whether we shall get there in the night, or in the morning, or in the afternoon; and whether we shall be able to surprise them, or whether they will be too sharply looking out for us; and what our pets will say; and how they'll look, and who will be the first to come and shake hands, and so forth! if i could but tell you how i have set my heart on rushing into forster's study (he is my great friend, and writes at the bottom of all his letters: "my love to felton"), and into maclise's painting-room, and into macready's managerial ditto, without a moment's warning, and how i picture every little trait and circumstance of our arrival to myself, down to the very colour of the bow on the cook's cap, you would almost think i had changed places with my eldest son, and was still in pantaloons of the thinnest texture. i left all these things--god only knows what a love i have for them--as coolly and calmly as any animated cucumber; but when i come upon them again i shall have lost all power of self-restraint, and shall as certainly make a fool of myself (in the popular meaning of that expression) as ever grimaldi did in his way, or george the third in his. and not the less so, dear felton, for having found some warm hearts, and left some instalments of earnest and sincere affection, behind me on this continent. and whenever i turn my mental telescope hitherward, trust me that one of the first figures it will descry will wear spectacles so like yours that the maker couldn't tell the difference, and shall address a greek class in such an exact imitation of your voice, that the very students hearing it should cry, "that's he! three cheers. hoo-ray-ay-ay-ay-ay!" about those joints of yours, i think you are mistaken. they _can't_ be stiff. at the worst they merely want the air of new york, which, being impregnated with the flavour of last year's oysters, has a surprising effect in rendering the human frame supple and flexible in all cases of rust. a terrible idea occurred to me as i wrote those words. the oyster-cellars--what do they do when oysters are not in season? is pickled salmon vended there? do they sell crabs, shrimps, winkles, herrings? the oyster-openers--what do _they_ do? do they commit suicide in despair, or wrench open tight drawers and cupboards and hermetically-sealed bottles for practice? perhaps they are dentists out of the oyster season. who knows? affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _sunday, july st, ._ my dear felton, of all the monstrous and incalculable amount of occupation that ever beset one unfortunate man, mine has been the most stupendous since i came home. the dinners i have had to eat, the places i have had to go to, the letters i have had to answer, the sea of business and of pleasure in which i have been plunged, not even the genius of an ---- or the pen of a ---- could describe. wherefore i indite a monstrously short and wildly uninteresting epistle to the american dando; but perhaps you don't know who dando was. he was an oyster-eater, my dear felton. he used to go into oyster-shops, without a farthing of money, and stand at the counter eating natives, until the man who opened them grew pale, cast down his knife, staggered backward, struck his white forehead with his open hand, and cried, "you are dando!!!" he has been known to eat twenty dozen at one sitting, and would have eaten forty, if the truth had not flashed upon the shopkeeper. for these offences he was constantly committed to the house of correction. during his last imprisonment he was taken ill, got worse and worse, and at last began knocking violent double knocks at death's door. the doctor stood beside his bed, with his fingers on his pulse. "he is going," says the doctor. "i see it in his eye. there is only one thing that would keep life in him for another hour, and that is--oysters." they were immediately brought. dando swallowed eight, and feebly took a ninth. he held it in his mouth and looked round the bed strangely. "not a bad one, is it?" says the doctor. the patient shook his head, rubbed his trembling hand upon his stomach, bolted the oyster, and fell back--dead. they buried him in the prison-yard, and paved his grave with oyster-shells. we are all well and hearty, and have already begun to wonder what time next year you and mrs. felton and dr. howe will come across the briny sea together. to-morrow we go to the seaside for two months. i am looking out for news of longfellow, and shall be delighted when i know that he is on his way to london and this house. i am bent upon striking at the piratical newspapers with the sharpest edge i can put upon my small axe, and hope in the next session of parliament to stop their entrance into canada. for the first time within the memory of man, the professors of english literature seem disposed to act together on this question. it is a good thing to aggravate a scoundrel, if one can do nothing else, and i think we _can_ make them smart a little in this way. . . . i wish you had been at greenwich the other day, where a party of friends gave me a private dinner; public ones i have refused. c---- was perfectly wild at the reunion, and, after singing all manner of marine songs, wound up the entertainment by coming home (six miles) in a little open phaeton of mine, _on his head_, to the mingled delight and indignation of the metropolitan police. we were very jovial indeed; and i assure you that i drank your health with fearful vigour and energy. on board that ship coming home i established a club, called the united vagabonds, to the large amusement of the rest of the passengers. this holy brotherhood committed all kinds of absurdities, and dined always, with a variety of solemn forms, at one end of the table, below the mast, away from all the rest. the captain being ill when we were three or four days out, i produced my medicine-chest and recovered him. we had a few more sick men after that, and i went round "the wards" every day in great state, accompanied by two vagabonds, habited as ben allen and bob sawyer, bearing enormous rolls of plaster and huge pairs of scissors. we were really very merry all the way, breakfasted in one party at liverpool, shook hands, and parted most cordially. . . . affectionately your faithful friend. p.s.--i have looked over my journal, and have decided to produce my american trip in two volumes. i have written about half the first since i came home, and hope to be out in october. this is "exclusive news," to be communicated to any friends to whom you may like to intrust it, my dear f----. [sidenote: the same.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _september st, ._ my dear felton, of course that letter in the papers was as foul a forgery as ever felon swung for. . . . i have not contradicted it publicly, nor shall i. when i tilt at such wringings out of the dirtiest mortality, i shall be another man--indeed, almost the creature they would make me. i gave your message to forster, who sends a despatch-box full of kind remembrances in return. he is in a great state of delight with the first volume of my american book (which i have just finished), and swears loudly by it. it is _true_ and honourable i know, and i shall hope to send it you, complete, by the first steamer in november. your description of the porter and the carpet-bags prepares me for a first-rate facetious novel, brimful of the richest humour, on which i have no doubt you are engaged. what is it called? sometimes i imagine the title-page thus: oysters in every style or openings of life by young dando. as to the man putting the luggage on his head, as a sort of sign, i adopt it from this hour. i date this from london, where i have come, as a good profligate, graceless bachelor, for a day or two; leaving my wife and babbies at the seaside. . . . heavens! if you were but here at this minute! a piece of salmon and a steak are cooking in the kitchen; it's a very wet day, and i have had a fire lighted; the wine sparkles on a side table; the room looks the more snug from being the only _un_dismantled one in the house; plates are warming for forster and maclise, whose knock i am momentarily expecting; that groom i told you of, who never comes into the house, except when we are all out of town, is walking about in his shirt-sleeves without the smallest consciousness of impropriety; a great mound of proofs are waiting to be read aloud, after dinner. with what a shout i would clap you down into the easiest chair, my genial felton, if you could but appear, and order you a pair of slippers instantly! since i have written this, the aforesaid groom--a very small man (as the fashion is), with fiery red hair (as the fashion is _not_)--has looked very hard at me and fluttered about me at the same time, like a giant butterfly. after a pause, he says, in a sam wellerish kind of way: "i vent to the club this mornin', sir. there vorn't no letters, sir." "very good, topping." "how's missis, sir?" "pretty well, topping." "glad to hear it, sir. _my_ missis ain't wery well, sir." "no!" "no, sir, she's a goin', sir, to have a hincrease wery soon, and it makes her rather nervous, sir; and ven a young voman gets at all down at sich a time, sir, she goes down wery deep, sir." to this sentiment i replied affirmatively, and then he adds, as he stirs the fire (as if he were thinking out loud): "wot a mystery it is! wot a go is natur'!" with which scrap of philosophy, he gradually gets nearer to the door, and so fades out of the room. this same man asked me one day, soon after i came home, what sir john wilson was. this is a friend of mine, who took our house and servants, and everything as it stood, during our absence in america. i told him an officer. "a wot, sir?" "an officer." and then, for fear he should think i meant a police-officer, i added, "an officer in the army." "i beg your pardon, sir," he said, touching his hat, "but the club as i always drove him to wos the united servants." the real name of this club is the united service, but i have no doubt he thought it was a high-life-below-stairs kind of resort, and that this gentleman was a retired butler or superannuated footman. there's the knock, and the great western sails, or steams rather, to-morrow. write soon again, dear felton, and ever believe me. . . . your affectionate friend. p.s.--all good angels prosper dr. howe! he, at least, will not like me the less, i hope, for what i shall say of laura. [sidenote: the same.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _ st december, ._ my dear felton, many and many happy new years to you and yours! as many happy children as may be quite convenient (no more!), and as many happy meetings between them and our children, and between you and us, as the kind fates in their utmost kindness shall favourably decree! the american book (to begin with that) has been a most complete and thorough-going success. four large editions have now been sold _and paid for_, and it has won golden opinions from all sorts of men, except our friend in f----, who is a miserable creature; a disappointed man in great poverty, to whom i have ever been most kind and considerate (i need scarcely say that); and another friend in b----, no less a person than an illustrious gentleman named ----, who wrote a story called ----. they have done no harm, and have fallen short of their mark, which, of course, was to annoy me. now i am perfectly free from any diseased curiosity in such respects, and whenever i hear of a notice of this kind, i never read it; whereby i always conceive (don't you?) that i get the victory. with regard to your slave-owners, they may cry, till they are as black in the face as their own slaves, that dickens lies. dickens does not write for their satisfaction, and dickens will not explain for their comfort. dickens has the name and date of every newspaper in which every one of those advertisements appeared, as they know perfectly well; but dickens does not choose to give them, and will not at any time between this and the day of judgment. . . . i have been hard at work on my new book, of which the first number has just appeared. the paul joneses who pursue happiness and profit at other men's cost will no doubt enable you to read it, almost as soon as you receive this. i hope you will like it. and i particularly commend, my dear felton, one mr. pecksniff and his daughters to your tender regards. i have a kind of liking for them myself. blessed star of morning, such a trip as we had into cornwall, just after longfellow went away! the "we" means forster, maclise, stanfield (the renowned marine painter), and the inimitable boz. we went down into devonshire by the railroad, and there we hired an open carriage from an innkeeper, patriotic in all pickwick matters, and went on with post-horses. sometimes we travelled all night, sometimes all day, sometimes both. i kept the joint-stock purse, ordered all the dinners, paid all the turnpikes, conducted facetious conversations with the post-boys, and regulated the pace at which we travelled. stanfield (an old sailor) consulted an enormous map on all disputed points of wayfaring; and referred, moreover, to a pocket-compass and other scientific instruments. the luggage was in forster's department; and maclise, having nothing particular to do, sang songs. heavens! if you could have seen the necks of bottles--distracting in their immense varieties of shape--peering out of the carriage pockets! if you could have witnessed the deep devotion of the post-boys, the wild attachment of the hostlers, the maniac glee of the waiters! if you could have followed us into the earthy old churches we visited, and into the strange caverns on the gloomy sea-shore, and down into the depths of mines, and up to the tops of giddy heights where the unspeakably green water was roaring, i don't know how many hundred feet below! if you could have seen but one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat in the big rooms of ancient inns at night, until long after the small hours had come and gone, or smelt but one steam of the hot punch (not white, dear felton, like that amazing compound i sent you a taste of, but a rich, genial, glowing brown) which came in every evening in a huge broad china bowl! i never laughed in my life as i did on this journey. it would have done you good to hear me. i was choking and gasping and bursting the buckle off the back of my stock, all the way. and stanfield (who is very much of your figure and temperament, but fifteen years older) got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we could recover him. seriously, i do believe there never was such a trip. and they made such sketches, those two men, in the most romantic of our halting-places, that you would have sworn we had the spirit of beauty with us, as well as the spirit of fun. but stop till you come to england--i say no more. the actuary of the national debt couldn't calculate the number of children who are coming here on twelfth night, in honour of charley's birthday, for which occasion i have provided a magic lantern and divers other tremendous engines of that nature. but the best of it is that forster and i have purchased between us the entire stock-in-trade of a conjurer, the practice and display whereof is intrusted to me. and o my dear eyes, felton, if you could see me conjuring the company's watches into impossible tea-caddies, and causing pieces of money to fly, and burning pocket-handkerchiefs without hurting 'em, and practising in my own room, without anybody to admire, you would never forget it as long as you live. in those tricks which require a confederate, i am assisted (by reason of his imperturbable good humour) by stanfield, who always does his part exactly the wrong way, to the unspeakable delight of all beholders. we come out on a small scale, to-night, at forster's, where we see the old year out and the new one in. particulars shall be forwarded in my next. i have quite made up my mind that f---- really believes he _does_ know you personally, and has all his life. he talks to me about you with such gravity that i am afraid to grin, and feel it necessary to look quite serious. sometimes he _tells_ me things about you, doesn't ask me, you know, so that i am occasionally perplexed beyond all telling, and begin to think it was he, and not i, who went to america. it's the queerest thing in the world. the book i was to have given longfellow for you is not worth sending by itself, being only a barnaby. but i will look up some manuscript for you (i think i have that of the american notes complete), and will try to make the parcel better worth its long conveyance. with regard to maclise's pictures, you certainly are quite right in your impression of them; but he is "such a discursive devil" (as he says about himself) and flies off at such odd tangents, that i feel it difficult to convey to you any general notion of his purpose. i will try to do so when i write again. i want very much to know about ---- and that charming girl. . . . give me full particulars. will you remember me cordially to sumner, and say i thank him for his welcome letter? the like to hillard, with many regards to himself and his wife, with whom i had one night a little conversation which i shall not readily forget. the like to washington allston, and all friends who care for me and have outlived my book. . . . always, my dear felton, with true regard and affection, yours. [sidenote: mr. tom hood.] my dear hood, i can't state in figures (not very well remembering how to get beyond a million) the number of candidates for the sanatorium matronship, but if you will ask your little boy to trace figures in the beds of your garden, beginning at the front wall, going down to the cricket-ground, coming back to the wall again, and "carrying over" to the next door, and will then set a skilful accountant to add up the whole, the product, as the tutor's assistants say, will give you the amount required. i have pledged myself (being assured of her capability) to support a near relation of miss e----'s; otherwise, i need not say how glad i should have been to forward any wish of yours. very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] this, and all other letters addressed to professor felton, were printed in mr. field's "yesterdays with authors," originally published in _the atlantic monthly magazine_. [ ] on the subject of international copyright. . [sidenote: mr. macvey napier.] [ ]devonshire terrace, london, _january st, ._ my dear sir, let me hasten to say, in the fullest and most explicit manner, that you have acted a most honourable, open, fair and manly part in the matter of my complaint,[ ] for which i beg you to accept my best thanks, and the assurance of my friendship and regard. i would on no account publish the letter you have sent me for that purpose, as i conceive that by doing so, i should not reciprocate the spirit in which you have written to me privately. but if you should, upon consideration, think it not inexpedient to set the _review_ right in regard to this point of fact, by a note in the next number, i should be glad to see it there. in reference to the article itself, it did, by repeating this statement, hurt my feelings excessively; and is, in this respect, i still conceive, most unworthy of its author. i am at a loss to divine who its author is. i _know_ he read in some cut-throat american paper, this and other monstrous statements, which i could at any time have converted into sickening praise by the payment of some fifty dollars. i know that he is perfectly aware that his statement in the _review_ in corroboration of these lies, would be disseminated through the whole of the united states; and that my contradiction will never be heard of. and though i care very little for the opinion of any person who will set the statement of an american editor (almost invariably an atrocious scoundrel) against my character and conduct, such as they may be; still, my sense of justice does revolt from this most cavalier and careless exhibition of me to a whole people, as a traveller under false pretences, and a disappointed intriguer. the better the acquaintance with america, the more defenceless and more inexcusable such conduct is. for, i solemnly declare (and appeal to any man but the writer of this paper, who has travelled in that country, for confirmation of my statement) that the source from which he drew the "information" so recklessly put forth again in england, is infinitely more obscene, disgusting, and brutal than the very worst sunday newspaper that has ever been printed in great britain. conceive _the edinburgh review_ quoting _the satirist_, or _the man about town_, as an authority against a man with one grain of honour, or feather-weight of reputation. with regard to yourself, let me say again that i thank you with all sincerity and heartiness, and fully acquit you of anything but kind and generous intentions towards me. in proof of which, i do assure you that i am even more desirous than before to write for the _review_, and to find some topic which would at once please me and you. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: professor felton.] , devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, _march nd, ._ my dear felton, i don't know where to begin, but plunge headlong with a terrible splash into this letter, on the chance of turning up somewhere. hurrah! up like a cork again, with _the north american review_ in my hand. like you, my dear ----, and i can say no more in praise of it, though i go on to the end of the sheet. you cannot think how much notice it has attracted here. brougham called the other day, with the number (thinking i might not have seen it), and i being out at the time, he left a note, speaking of it, and of the writer, in terms that warmed my heart. lord ashburton (one of whose people wrote a notice in the _edinburgh_ which they have since publicly contradicted) also wrote to me about it in just the same strain. and many others have done the like. i am in great health and spirits and powdering away at chuzzlewit, with all manner of facetiousness rising up before me as i go on. as to news, i have really none, saving that ---- (who never took any exercise in his life) has been laid up with rheumatism for weeks past, but is now, i hope, getting better. my little captain, as i call him--he who took me out, i mean, and with whom i had that adventure of the cork soles--has been in london too, and seeing all the lions under my escort. good heavens! i wish you could have seen certain other mahogany-faced men (also captains) who used to call here for him in the morning, and bear him off to docks and rivers and all sorts of queer places, whence he always returned late at night, with rum-and-water tear-drops in his eyes, and a complication of punchy smells in his mouth! he was better than a comedy to us, having marvellous ways of tying his pocket-handkerchief round his neck at dinner-time in a kind of jolly embarrassment, and then forgetting what he had done with it; also of singing songs to wrong tunes, and calling land objects by sea names, and never knowing what o'clock it was, but taking midnight for seven in the evening; with many other sailor oddities, all full of honesty, manliness, and good temper. we took him to drury lane theatre to see "much ado about nothing." but i never could find out what he meant by turning round, after he had watched the first two scenes with great attention, and inquiring "whether it was a polish piece." . . . on the th of april i am going to preside at a public dinner for the benefit of the printers; and if you were a guest at that table, wouldn't i smite you on the shoulder, harder than ever i rapped the well-beloved back of washington irving at the city hotel in new york! you were asking me--i love to say asking, as if we could talk together--about maclise. he is such a discursive fellow, and so eccentric in his might, that on a mental review of his pictures i can hardly tell you of them as leading to any one strong purpose. but the annual exhibition of the royal academy comes off in may, and then i will endeavour to give you some notion of him. he is a tremendous creature, and might do anything. but, like all tremendous creatures, he takes his own way, and flies off at unexpected breaches in the conventional wall. you know h----'s book, i daresay. ah! i saw a scene of mingled comicality and seriousness at his funeral some weeks ago, which has choked me at dinner-time ever since. c---- and i went as mourners; and as he lived, poor fellow, five miles out of town, i drove c---- down. it was such a day as i hope, for the credit of nature, is seldom seen in any parts but these--muddy, foggy, wet, dark, cold, and unutterably wretched in every possible respect. now, c---- has enormous whiskers, which straggle all down his throat in such weather, and stick out in front of him, like a partially unravelled bird's-nest; so that he looks queer enough at the best, but when he is very wet, and in a state between jollity (he is always very jolly with me) and the deepest gravity (going to a funeral, you know), it is utterly impossible to resist him; especially as he makes the strangest remarks the mind of man can conceive, without any intention of being funny, but rather meaning to be philosophical. i really cried with an irresistible sense of his comicality all the way; but when he was dressed out in a black cloak and a very long black hat-band by an undertaker (who, as he whispered me with tears in his eyes--for he had known h---- many years--was a "character, and he would like to sketch him"), i thought i should have been obliged to go away. however, we went into a little parlour where the funeral party was, and god knows it was miserable enough, for the widow and children were crying bitterly in one corner, and the other mourners--mere people of ceremony, who cared no more for the dead man than the hearse did--were talking quite coolly and carelessly together in another; and the contrast was as painful and distressing as anything i ever saw. there was an independent clergyman present, with his bands on and a bible under his arm, who, as soon as we were seated, addressed ---- thus, in a loud emphatic voice: "mr. c----, have you seen a paragraph respecting our departed friend, which has gone the round of the morning papers?" "yes, sir," says c----, "i have," looking very hard at me the while, for he had told me with some pride coming down that it was his composition. "oh!" said the clergyman. "then you will agree with me, mr. c----, that it is not only an insult to me, who am the servant of the almighty, but an insult to the almighty, whose servant i am." "how is that, sir?" said c----. "it is stated, mr. c----, in that paragraph," says the minister, "that when mr. h---- failed in business as a bookseller, he was persuaded by _me_ to try the pulpit; which is false, incorrect, unchristian, in a manner blasphemous, and in all respects contemptible. let us pray." with which, my dear felton, and in the same breath, i give you my word, he knelt down, as we all did, and began a very miserable jumble of an extemporary prayer. i was really penetrated with sorrow for the family, but when c---- (upon his knees, and sobbing for the loss of an old friend) whispered me, "that if that wasn't a clergyman, and it wasn't a funeral, he'd have punched his head," i felt as if nothing but convulsions could possibly relieve me. . . . faithfully always, my dear felton. [sidenote: mrs. hogarth.] devonshire terrace, _ th may, ._ my dear mrs. hogarth, i was dressing to go to church yesterday morning--thinking, very sadly, of that time six years--when your kind note and its accompanying packet were brought to me. the best portrait that was ever painted would be of little value to you and me, in comparison with that unfading picture we have within us; and of the worst (which ----'s really is) i can only say, that it has no interest in my eyes, beyond being something which she sat near in its progress, full of life and beauty. in that light, i set some store by the copy you have sent me; and as a mark of your affection, i need not say i value it very much. as any record of that dear face, it is utterly worthless. i trace in many respects a strong resemblance between her mental features and georgina's--so strange a one, at times, that when she and kate and i are sitting together, i seem to think that what has happened is a melancholy dream from which i am just awakening. the perfect like of what she was, will never be again, but so much of her spirit shines out in this sister, that the old time comes back again at some seasons, and i can hardly separate it from the present. after she died, i dreamed of her every night for many months--i think for the better part of a year--sometimes as a spirit, sometimes as a living creature, never with any of the bitterness of my real sorrow, but always with a kind of quiet happiness, which became so pleasant to me that i never lay down at night without a hope of the vision coming back in one shape or other. and so it did. i went down into yorkshire, and finding it still present to me, in a strange scene and a strange bed, i could not help mentioning the circumstance in a note i wrote home to kate. from that moment i have never dreamed of her once, though she is so much in my thoughts at all times (especially when i am successful, and have prospered in anything) that the recollection of her is an essential part of my being, and is as inseparable from my existence as the beating of my heart is. always affectionately. [sidenote: professor felton.] broadstairs, kent, _september st, ._ my dear felton, if i thought it in the nature of things that you and i could ever agree on paper, touching a certain chuzzlewitian question whereupon f---- tells me you have remarks to make, i should immediately walk into the same, tooth and nail. but as i don't, i won't. contenting myself with this prediction, that one of these years and days, you will write or say to me: "my dear dickens, you were right, though rough, and did a world of good, though you got most thoroughly hated for it." to which i shall reply: "my dear felton, i looked a long way off and not immediately under my nose." . . . at which sentiment you will laugh, and i shall laugh; and then (for i foresee this will all happen in my land) we shall call for another pot of porter and two or three dozen of oysters. now, don't you in your own heart and soul quarrel with me for this long silence? not half so much as i quarrel with myself, i know; but if you could read half the letters i write to you in imagination, you would swear by me for the best of correspondents. the truth is, that when i have done my morning's work, down goes my pen, and from that minute i feel it a positive impossibility to take it up again, until imaginary butchers and bakers wave me to my desk. i walk about brimful of letters, facetious descriptions, touching morsels, and pathetic friendships, but can't for the soul of me uncork myself. the post-office is my rock ahead. my average number of letters that _must_ be written every day is, at the least, a dozen. and you could no more know what i was writing to you spiritually, from the perusal of the bodily thirteenth, than you could tell from my hat what was going on in my head, or could read my heart on the surface of my flannel waistcoat. this is a little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff, whereon--in the centre of a tiny semicircular bay--our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. seven miles out are the goodwin sands (you've heard of the goodwin sands?) whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. also there is a big lighthouse called the north foreland on a hill behind the village, a severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. under the cliff are rare good sands, where all the children assemble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications, which the sea throws down again at high water. old gentlemen and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner in two reading-rooms and on a great many scattered seats in the open air. other old gentlemen look all day through telescopes and never see anything. in a bay-window in a one-pair sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. his name is boz. at one he disappears, and presently emerges from a bathing-machine, and may be seen--a kind of salmon-coloured porpoise--splashing about in the ocean. after that he may be seen in another bay-window on the ground-floor, eating a strong lunch; after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back in the sand reading a book. nobody bothers him unless they know he is disposed to be talked to; and i am told he is very comfortable indeed. he's as brown as a berry, and they _do_ say is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch. but this is mere rumour. sometimes he goes up to london (eighty miles, or so, away), and then i'm told there is a sound in lincoln's inn fields at night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and forks and wine-glasses. i never shall have been so near you since we parted aboard the _george washington_ as next tuesday. forster, maclise, and i, and perhaps stanfield, are then going aboard the cunard steamer at liverpool, to bid macready good-bye, and bring his wife away. it will be a very hard parting. you will see and know him of course. we gave him a splendid dinner last saturday at richmond, whereat i presided with my accustomed grace. he is one of the noblest fellows in the world, and i would give a great deal that you and i should sit beside each other to see him play virginius, lear, or werner, which i take to be, every way, the greatest piece of exquisite perfection that his lofty art is capable of attaining. his macbeth, especially the last act, is a tremendous reality; but so indeed is almost everything he does. you recollect, perhaps, that he was the guardian of our children while we were away. i love him dearly. . . . you asked me, long ago, about maclise. he is such a wayward fellow in his subjects, that it would be next to impossible to write such an article as you were thinking of about him. i wish you could form an idea of his genius. one of these days a book will come out, "moore's irish melodies," entirely illustrated by him, on every page. _when_ it comes, i'll send it to you. you will have some notion of him then. he is in great favour with the queen, and paints secret pictures for her to put upon her husband's table on the morning of his birthday, and the like. but if he has a care, he will leave his mark on more enduring things than palace walls. and so l---- is married. i remember _her_ well, and could draw her portrait, in words, to the life. a very beautiful and gentle creature, and a proper love for a poet. my cordial remembrances and congratulations. do they live in the house where we breakfasted? . . . i very often dream i am in america again; but, strange to say, i never dream of you. i am always endeavouring to get home in disguise, and have a dreary sense of the distance. _Ã� propos_ of dreams, is it not a strange thing if writers of fiction never dream of their own creations; recollecting, i suppose, even in their dreams, that they have no real existence? _i_ never dreamed of any of my own characters, and i feel it so impossible that i would wager scott never did of his, real as they are. i had a good piece of absurdity in my head a night or two ago. i dreamed that somebody was dead. i don't know who, but it's not to the purpose. it was a private gentleman, and a particular friend; and i was greatly overcome when the news was broken to me (very delicately) by a gentleman in a cocked hat, top boots, and a sheet. nothing else. "good god!" i said, "is he dead?" "he is as dead, sir," rejoined the gentleman, "as a door-nail. but we must all die, mr. dickens, sooner or later, my dear sir." "ah!" i said. "yes, to be sure. very true. but what did he die of?" the gentleman burst into a flood of tears, and said, in a voice broken by emotion: "he christened his youngest child, sir, with a toasting-fork." i never in my life was so affected as at his having fallen a victim to this complaint. it carried a conviction to my mind that he never could have recovered. i knew that it was the most interesting and fatal malady in the world; and i wrung the gentleman's hand in a convulsion of respectful admiration, for i felt that this explanation did equal honour to his head and heart! what do you think of mrs. gamp? and how do you like the undertaker? i have a fancy that they are in your way. oh heaven! such green woods as i was rambling among down in yorkshire, when i was getting that done last july! for days and weeks we never saw the sky but through green boughs; and all day long i cantered over such soft moss and turf, that the horse's feet scarcely made a sound upon it. we have some friends in that part of the country (close to castle howard, where lord morpeth's father dwells in state, _in_ his park indeed), who are the jolliest of the jolly, keeping a big old country house, with an ale cellar something larger than a reasonable church, and everything, like goldsmith's bear dances, "in a concatenation accordingly." just the place for you, felton! we performed some madnesses there in the way of forfeits, picnics, rustic games, inspections of ancient monasteries at midnight, when the moon was shining, that would have gone to your heart, and, as mr. weller says, "come out on the other side." . . . write soon, my dear felton; and if i write to you less often than i would, believe that my affectionate heart is with you always. loves and regards to all friends, from yours ever and ever. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. macvey napier.] broadstairs, _september th, ._ my dear sir, i hinted, in a letter of introduction i gave mr. hood to you, that i had been thinking of a subject for the _edinburgh_. would it meet the purposes of the _review_ to come out strongly against any system of education based exclusively on the principles of the established church? if it would, i should like to show why such a thing as the church catechism is wholly inapplicable to the state of ignorance that now prevails; and why no system but one, so general in great religious principles as to include all creeds, can meet the wants and understandings of the dangerous classes of society. this is the only broad ground i could hold, consistently with what i feel and think on such a subject. but i could give, in taking it, a description of certain voluntary places of instruction, called "the ragged schools," now existing in london, and of the schools in jails, and of the ignorance presented in such places, which would make a very striking paper, especially if they were put in strong comparison with the effort making, by subscription, to maintain exclusive church instruction. i could show these people in a state so miserable and so neglected, that their very nature rebels against the simplest religion, and that to convey to them the faintest outlines of any system of distinction between right and wrong is in itself a giant's task, before which mysteries and squabbles for forms _must_ give way. would this be too much for the _review_? faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] this, and all other letters addressed to mr. macvey napier, were printed in "selection from the correspondence of the late macvey napier, esq.," editor of _the edinburgh review_, edited by his son macvey napier. [ ] his complaint was that the reviewer of his "american notes," in the number for january, , had represented him as having gone to america as a missionary in the cause of international copyright--an allegation which charles dickens repudiated, and which was rectified in the way he himself suggested. . [sidenote: professor felton.] devonshire terrace, london, _january nd, ._ my very dear felton, you are a prophet, and had best retire from business straightway. yesterday morning, new year's day, when i walked into my little workroom after breakfast, and was looking out of window at the snow in the garden--not seeing it particularly well in consequence of some staggering suggestions of last night, whereby i was beset--the postman came to the door with a knock, for which i denounced him from my heart. seeing your hand upon the cover of a letter which he brought, i immediately blessed him, presented him with a glass of whisky, inquired after his family (they are all well), and opened the despatch with a moist and oystery twinkle in my eye. and on the very day from which the new year dates, i read your new year congratulations as punctually as if you lived in the next house. why don't you? now, if instantly on the receipt of this you will send a free and independent citizen down to the cunard wharf at boston, you will find that captain hewett, of the _britannia_ steamship (my ship), has a small parcel for professor felton of cambridge; and in that parcel you will find a christmas carol in prose; being a short story of christmas by charles dickens. over which christmas carol charles dickens wept and laughed and wept again, and excited himself in a most extraordinary manner in the composition; and thinking whereof he walked about the black streets of london, fifteen and twenty miles many a night when all the sober folks had gone to bed. . . . its success is most prodigious. and by every post all manner of strangers write all manner of letters to him about their homes and hearths, and how this same carol is read aloud there, and kept on a little shelf by itself. indeed, it is the greatest success, as i am told, that this ruffian and rascal has ever achieved. forster is out again; and if he don't go in again, after the manner in which we have been keeping christmas, he must be very strong indeed. such dinings, such dancings, such conjurings, such blindman's-buffings, such theatre-goings, such kissings-out of old years and kissings-in of new ones, never took place in these parts before. to keep the chuzzlewit going, and do this little book, the carol, in the odd times between two parts of it, was, as you may suppose, pretty tight work. but when it was done i broke out like a madman. and if you could have seen me at a children's party at macready's the other night, going down a country dance with mrs. m., you would have thought i was a country gentleman of independent property, residing on a tiptop farm, with the wind blowing straight in my face every day. . . . your friend, mr. p----, dined with us one day (i don't know whether i told you this before), and pleased us very much. mr. c---- has dined here once, and spent an evening here. i have not seen him lately, though he has called twice or thrice; for k---- being unwell and i busy, we have not been visible at our accustomed seasons. i wonder whether h---- has fallen in your way. poor h----! he was a good fellow, and has the most grateful heart i ever met with. our journeyings seem to be a dream now. talking of dreams, strange thoughts of italy and france, and maybe germany, are springing up within me as the chuzzlewit clears off. it's a secret i have hardly breathed to anyone, but i "think" of leaving england for a year, next midsummer, bag and baggage, little ones and all--then coming out with _such_ a story, felton, all at once, no parts, sledgehammer blow. i send you a manchester paper, as you desire. the report is not exactly done, but very well done, notwithstanding. it was a very splendid sight, i assure you, and an awful-looking audience. i am going to preside at a similar meeting at liverpool on the th of next month, and on my way home i may be obliged to preside at another at birmingham. i will send you papers, if the reports be at all like the real thing. i wrote to prescott about his book, with which i was perfectly charmed. i think his descriptions masterly, his style brilliant, his purpose manly and gallant always. the introductory account of aztec civilisation impressed me exactly as it impressed you. from beginning to end the whole history is enchanting and full of genius. i only wonder that, having such an opportunity of illustrating the doctrine of visible judgments, he never remarks, when cortes and his men tumble the idols down the temple steps and call upon the people to take notice that their gods are powerless to help themselves, that possibly if some intelligent native had tumbled down the image of the virgin or patron saint after them nothing very remarkable might have ensued in consequence. of course you like macready. your name's felton. i wish you could see him play lear. it is stupendously terrible. but i suppose he would be slow to act it with the boston company. hearty remembrances to sumner, longfellow, prescott, and all whom you know i love to remember. countless happy years to you and yours, my dear felton, and some instalment of them, however slight, in england, in the loving company of the proscribed one. oh, breathe not his name! [sidenote: sir edward lytton bulwer.] athenÃ�um, _thursday afternoon, th january, ._ my dear sir edward, i received your kind cheque yesterday, in behalf of the elton family; and am much indebted to you on their behalf. pray do not believe that the least intentional neglect has prevented me from calling on you, or that i am not sincerely desirous to avail myself of any opportunity of cultivating your friendship. i venture to say this to you in an unaffected and earnest spirit, and i hope it will not be displeasing to you. at the time when you called, and for many weeks afterwards, i was so closely occupied with my little carol (the idea of which had just occurred to me), that i never left home before the owls went out, and led quite a solitary life. when i began to have a little time and to go abroad again, i knew that you were in affliction, and i then thought it better to wait, even before i left a card at your door, until the pressure of your distress had past. i fancy a reproachful spirit in your note, possibly because i knew that i may appear to deserve it. but _do_ let me say to you that it would give me real pain to retain the idea that there was any coldness between us, and that it would give me heartfelt satisfaction to know the reverse. i shall make a personal descent upon you before sunday, in the hope of telling you this myself. but i cannot rest easy without writing it also. and if this should lead to a better knowledge in each of us, of the other, believe me that i shall always look upon it as something i have long wished for. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thompson.] [ ]liverpool, _wednesday night, th february, half-past ten at night._ my dear thompson, there never were such considerate people as they are here. after offering me unbounded hospitality and my declining it, they leave me to myself like gentlemen. they saved me from all sorts of intrusion at the town hall--brought me back--and left me to my quiet supper (now on the table) as they had left me to my quiet dinner. i wish you had come. it was really a splendid sight. the town hall was crammed to the roof by, i suppose, two thousand persons. the ladies were in full dress and immense numbers; and when dick showed himself, the whole assembly stood up, rustling like the leaves of a wood. dick, with the heart of a lion, dashed in bravely. he introduced that about the genie in the casket with marvellous effect; and was applauded to the echo, which did applaud again. he was horribly nervous when he arrived at birmingham,[ ] but when he stood upon the platform, i don't believe his pulse increased ten degrees. a better and quicker audience never listened to man. the ladies had hung the hall (do you know what an immense place it is?) with artificial flowers all round. and on the front of the great gallery, immediately fronting this young gentleman, were the words in artificial flowers (you'll observe) "welcome boz" in letters about six feet high. behind his head, and about the great organ, were immense transparencies representing several fames crowning a corresponding number of dicks, at which victoria (taking out a poetic licence) was highly delighted. * * * * * i am going to bed. the landlady is not literary, and calls me mr. digzon. in other respects it is a good house. my dear thompson, always yours. [sidenote: countess of blessington.] devonshire terrace, _march th, ._ my dear lady blessington, i have made up my mind to "see the world," and mean to decamp, bag and baggage, next midsummer for a twelvemonth. i purpose establishing my family in some convenient place, from whence i can make personal ravages on the neighbouring country, and, somehow or other, have got it into my head that nice would be a favourable spot for head-quarters. you are so well acquainted with these matters, that i am anxious to have the benefit of your kind advice. i do not doubt that you can tell me whether this same nice be a healthy place the year through, whether it be reasonably cheap, pleasant to look at and to live in, and the like. if you will tell me, when you have ten minutes to spare for such a client, i shall be delighted to come to you, and guide myself by your opinion. i will not ask you to forgive me for troubling you, because i am sure beforehand that you will do so. i beg to be kindly remembered to count d'orsay and to your nieces--i was going to say "the misses power," but it looks so like the blue board at a ladies' school, that i stopped short. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thompson.] devonshire terrace, _march th, ._ my dear thompson, think of italy! don't give that up! why, my house is entered at phillips's and at gillow's to be let for twelve months; my letter of credit lies ready at coutts's; my last number of chuzzlewit comes out in june; and the first week, if not the first day in july, sees me, god willing, steaming off towards the sun. yes. we must have a few books, and everything that is idle, sauntering, and enjoyable. we must lie down at the bottom of those boats, and devise all kinds of engines for improving on that gallant holiday. i see myself in a striped shirt, moustache, blouse, red sash, straw hat, and white trousers, sitting astride a mule, and not caring for the clock, the day of the month, or the week. tinkling bells upon the mule, i hope. i look forward to it day and night, and wish the time were come. don't _you_ give it up. that's all. * * * * * always, my dear thompson, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _sunday, march th, ._ my dear thompson, my study fireplace having been suddenly seized with symptoms of insanity, i have been in great affliction. the bricklayer was called in, and considered it necessary to perform an extensive operation without delay. i don't know whether you are aware of a peculiar bricky raggedness (not unaccompanied by pendent stalactites of mortar) which is exposed to view on the removal of a stove, or are acquainted with the suffocating properties of a kind of accidental snuff which flies out of the same cavernous region in great abundance. it is very distressing. i have been walking about the house after the manner of the dove before the waters subsided for some days, and have no pens or ink or paper. hence this gap in our correspondence which i now repair. what are you doing??? when are you coming away???? why are you stopping there????? do enlighten me, for i think of you constantly, and have a true and real interest in your proceedings. d'orsay, who knows italy very well indeed, strenuously insists there is no such place for headquarters as pisa. lady blessington says so also. what do you say? on the first of july! the first of july! dick turns his head towards the orange groves. * * * * * daniel not having yet come to judgment, there is no news stirring. every morning i proclaim: "at home to mr. thompson." every evening i ejaculate with monsieur jacques[ ]: "but he weel come. i know he weel." after which i look vacantly at the boxes; put my hands to my gray wig, as if to make quite sure that it is still on my head, all safe: and go off, first entrance o.p. to soft music. * * * * * always faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. ebenezer jones.] devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, _monday, th april, ._ dear sir, i don't know how it has happened that i have been so long in acknowledging the receipt of your kind present of your poems[ ]; but i _do_ know that i have often thought of writing to you, and have very often reproached myself for not carrying that thought into execution. i have not been neglectful of the poems themselves, i assure you, but have read them with very great pleasure. they struck me at the first glance as being remarkably nervous, picturesque, imaginative, and original. i have frequently recurred to them since, and never with the slightest abatement of that impression. i am much flattered and gratified by your recollection of me. i beg you to believe in my unaffected sympathy with, and appreciation of, your powers; and i entreat you to accept my best wishes, and genuine though tardy thanks. dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. charles babbage.] , osnaburgh terrace, new road, _ th may, ._ my dear sir, i regret to say that we are placed in the preposterous situation of being obliged to postpone our little dinner-party on saturday, by reason of having no house to dine in. we have not been burnt out; but a desirable widow (as a tenant, i mean) proposed, only last saturday, to take our own house for the whole term of our intended absence abroad, on condition that she had possession of it to-day. we fled, and were driven into this place, which has no convenience for the production of any other banquet than a cold collation of plate and linen, the only comforts we have not left behind us. my consolation lies in knowing what sort of dinner you would have had if you had come _here_, and in looking forward to claiming the fulfilment of your kind promise when we are again at home. always believe me, my dear sir, faithfully yours. [sidenote: countess of blessington.] milan, _wednesday, november th, ._ my dear lady blessington, appearances are against me. don't believe them. i have written you, in intention, fifty letters, and i can claim no credit for anyone of them (though they were the best letters you ever read), for they all originated in my desire to live in your memory and regard. since i heard from count d'orsay, i have been beset in i don't know how many ways. first of all, i went to marseilles and came back to genoa. then i moved to the peschiere. then some people, who had been present at the scientific congress here, made a sudden inroad on that establishment, and overran it. then they went away, and i shut myself up for a month, close and tight, over my little christmas book, "the chimes." all my affections and passions got twined and knotted up in it, and i became as haggard as a murderer, long before i wrote "the end." when i had done that, like "_the_ man of thessaly," who having scratched his eyes out in a quickset hedge, plunged into a bramble-bush to scratch them in again, i fled to venice, to recover the composure i had disturbed. from thence i went to verona and to mantua. and now i am here--just come up from underground, and earthy all over, from seeing that extraordinary tomb in which the dead saint lies in an alabaster case, with sparkling jewels all about him to mock his dusty eyes, not to mention the twenty-franc pieces which devout votaries were ringing down upon a sort of sky-light in the cathedral pavement above, as if it were the counter of his heavenly shop. you know verona? you know everything in italy, _i_ know. the roman amphitheatre there delighted me beyond expression. i never saw anything so full of solemn ancient interest. there are the four-and-forty rows of seats, as fresh and perfect as if their occupants had vacated them but yesterday--the entrances, passages, dens, rooms, corridors, the numbers over some of the arches. an equestrian troop had been there some days before, and had scooped out a little ring at one end of the arena, and had their performances in that spot. i should like to have seen it, of all things, for its very dreariness. fancy a handful of people sprinkled over one corner of the great place (the whole population of verona wouldn't fill it now); and a spangled cavalier bowing to the echoes, and the grass-grown walls! i climbed to the topmost seat, and looked away at the beautiful view for some minutes; when i turned round, and looked down into the theatre again, it had exactly the appearance of an immense straw hat, to which the helmet in the castle of otranto was a baby; the rows of seats representing the different plaits of straw, and the arena the inside of the crown. i had great expectations of venice, but they fell immeasurably short of the wonderful reality. the short time i passed there went by me in a dream. i hardly think it possible to exaggerate its beauties, its sources of interest, its uncommon novelty and freshness. a thousand and one realisations of the thousand and one nights, could scarcely captivate and enchant me more than venice. your old house at albaro--il paradiso--is spoken of as yours to this day. what a gallant place it is! i don't know the present inmate, but i hear that he bought and furnished it not long since, with great splendour, in the french style, and that he wishes to sell it. i wish i were rich and could buy it. there is a third-rate wine shop below byron's house, and the place looks dull and miserable, and ruinous enough. old ---- is a trifle uglier than when i first arrived. he has periodical parties, at which there are a great many flowerpots and a few ices--no other refreshments. he goes about, constantly charged with extemporaneous poetry, and is always ready, like tavern dinners, on the shortest notice and the most reasonable terms. he keeps a gigantic harp in his bedroom, together with pen, ink, and paper, for fixing his ideas as they flow, a kind of profane king david, but truly good-natured and very harmless. pray say to count d'orsay everything that is cordial and loving from me. the travelling purse he gave me has been of immense service. it has been constantly opened. all italy seems to yearn to put its hand in it. i think of hanging it, when i come back to england, on a nail as a trophy, and of gashing the brim like the blade of an old sword, and saying to my son and heir, as they do upon the stage: "you see this notch, boy? five hundred francs were laid low on that day, for post-horses. where this gap is, a waiter charged your father treble the correct amount--and got it. this end, worn into teeth like the rasped edge of an old file, is sacred to the custom houses, boy, the passports, and the shabby soldiers at town-gates, who put an open hand and a dirty coat-cuff into the coach windows of all 'forestieri.' take it, boy. thy father has nothing else to give!" my desk is cooling itself in a mail-coach, somewhere down at the back of the cathedral, and the pens and ink in this house are so detestable, that i have no hope of your ever getting to this portion of my letter. but i have the less misery in this state of mind, from knowing that it has nothing in it to repay you for the trouble of perusal. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] covent garden, _sunday, noon (december, )._ my dear lady blessington, business for other people (and by no means of a pleasant kind) has held me prisoner during two whole days, and will so detain me to-day, in the very agony of my departure for italy again, that i shall not even be able to reach gore house once more, on which i had set my heart. i cannot bear the thought of going away without some sort of reference to the happy day you gave me on monday, and the pleasure and delight i had in your earnest greeting. i shall never forget it, believe me. it would be worth going to china--it would be worth going to america, to come home again for the pleasure of such a meeting with you and count d'orsay--to whom my love, and something as near it to miss power and her sister as it is lawful to send. it will be an unspeakable satisfaction to me (though i am not maliciously disposed) to know under your own hand at genoa that my little book made you cry. i hope to prove a better correspondent on my return to those shores. but better or worse, or any how, i am ever, my dear lady blessington, in no common degree, and not with an every-day regard, yours. very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] on the occasion of a great meeting of the mechanics' institution at liverpool, with charles dickens in the chair. [ ] he had also presided two evenings previously at a meeting of the polytechnic institution at birmingham. [ ] a character in a play, well known at this time. [ ] "studies of sensation and event." . [sidenote: the same.] genoa, _may th, ._ my dear lady blessington, once more in my old quarters, and with rather a tired sole to my foot, from having found such an immense number of different resting-places for it since i went away. i write you my last italian letter for this bout, designing to leave here, please god, on the ninth of next month, and to be in london again by the end of june. i am looking forward with great delight to the pleasure of seeing you once more, and mean to come to gore house with such a swoop as shall astonish the poodle, if, after being accustomed to his own size and sense, he retain the power of being astonished at anything in the wide world. you know where i have been, and every mile of ground i have travelled over, and every object i have seen. it is next to impossible, surely, to exaggerate the interest of rome; though, i think, it _is_ very possible to find the main source of interest in the wrong things. naples disappointed me greatly. the weather was bad during a great part of my stay there. but if i had not had mud, i should have had dust, and though i had had sun, i must still have had the lazzaroni. and they are so ragged, so dirty, so abject, so full of degradation, so sunken and steeped in the hopelessness of better things, that they would make heaven uncomfortable, if they could ever get there. i didn't expect to see a handsome city, but i expected something better than that long dull line of squalid houses, which stretches from the chiaja to the quarter of the porta capuana; and while i was quite prepared for a miserable populace, i had some dim belief that there were bright rays among them, and dancing legs, and shining sun-browned faces. whereas the honest truth is, that connected with naples itself, i have not one solitary recollection. the country round it charmed me, i need not say. who can forget herculaneum and pompeii? as to vesuvius, it burns away in my thoughts, beside the roaring waters of niagara, and not a splash of the water extinguishes a spark of the fire; but there they go on, tumbling and flaming night and day, each in its fullest glory. i have seen so many wonders, and each of them has such a voice of its own, that i sit all day long listening to the roar they make as if it were in a sea-shell, and have fallen into an idleness so complete, that i can't rouse myself sufficiently to go to pisa on the twenty-fifth, when the triennial illumination of the cathedral and leaning tower, and bridges, and what not, takes place. but i have already been there; and it cannot beat st. peter's, i suppose. so i don't think i shall pluck myself up by the roots, and go aboard a steamer for leghorn. let me thank you heartily for the "keepsake" and the "book of beauty." they reached me a week or two ago. i have been very much struck by two papers in them--one, landor's "conversations," among the most charming, profound, and delicate productions i have ever read; the other, your lines on byron's room at venice. i am as sure that you wrote them from your heart, as i am that they found their way immediately to mine. it delights me to receive such accounts of maclise's fresco. if he will only give his magnificent genius fair play, there is not enough cant and dulness even in the criticism of art from which sterne prayed kind heaven to defend him, as the worst of all the cants continually canted in this canting world--to keep the giant down an hour. our poor friend, the naval governor,[ ] has lost his wife, i am sorry to hear, since you and i spoke of his pleasant face. do not let your nieces forget me, if you can help it, and give my love to count d'orsay, with many thanks to him for his charming letter. i was greatly amused by his account of ----. there was a cold shade of aristocracy about it, and a dampness of cold water, which entertained me beyond measure. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. macvey napier.] , devonshire terrace, _july th, ._ my dear sir, as my note is to bear reference to business, i will make it as short and plain as i can. i think i could write a pretty good and a well-timed article on the _punishment of death_, and sympathy with great criminals, instancing the gross and depraved curiosity that exists in reference to them, by some of the outrageous things that were written, done, and said in recent cases. but as i am not sure that my views would be yours, and as their statement would be quite inseparable from such a paper, i will briefly set down their purport that you may decide for yourself. society, having arrived at that state in which it spares bodily torture to the worst criminals, and having agreed, if criminals be put to death at all, to kill them in the speediest way, i consider the question with reference to society, and not at all with reference to the criminal, holding that, in a case of cruel and deliberate murder, he is already mercifully and sparingly treated. but, as a question for the deliberate consideration of all reflective persons, i put this view of the case. with such very repulsive and odious details before us, may it not be well to inquire whether the punishment of death be beneficial to society? i believe it to have a horrible fascination for many of those persons who render themselves liable to it, impelling them onward to the acquisition of a frightful notoriety; and (setting aside the strong confirmation of this idea afforded in individual instances) i presume this to be the case in very badly regulated minds, when i observe the strange fascination which everything connected with this punishment, or the object of it, possesses for tens of thousands of decent, virtuous, well-conducted people, who are quite unable to resist the published portraits, letters, anecdotes, smilings, snuff-takings, of the bloodiest and most unnatural scoundrel with the gallows before him. i observe that this strange interest does not prevail to anything like the same degree where death is not the penalty. therefore i connect it with the dread and mystery surrounding death in any shape, but especially in this avenging form, and am disposed to come to the conclusion that it produces crime in the criminally disposed, and engenders a diseased sympathy--morbid and bad, but natural and often irresistible--among the well-conducted and gentle. regarding it as doing harm to both these classes, it may even then be right to inquire, whether it has any salutary influence on those small knots and specks of people, mere bubbles in the living ocean, who actually behold its infliction with their proper eyes. on this head it is scarcely possible to entertain a doubt, for we know that robbery, and obscenity, and callous indifference are of no commoner occurrence anywhere than at the foot of the scaffold. furthermore, we know that all exhibitions of agony and death have a tendency to brutalise and harden the feelings of men, and have always been the most rife among the fiercest people. again, it is a great question whether ignorant and dissolute persons (ever the great body of spectators, as few others will attend), seeing _that_ murder done, and not having seen the other, will not, almost of necessity, sympathise with the man who dies before them, especially as he is shown, a martyr to their fancy, tied and bound, alone among scores, with every kind of odds against him. i should take all these threads up at the end by a vivid little sketch of the origin and progress of such a crime as hooker's, stating a somewhat parallel case, but an imaginary one, pursuing its hero to his death, and showing what enormous harm he does _after_ the crime for which he suffers. i should state none of these positions in a positive sledge-hammer way, but tempt and lure the reader into the discussion of them in his own mind; and so we come to this at last--whether it be for the benefit of society to elevate even this crime to the awful dignity and notoriety of death; and whether it would not be much more to its advantage to substitute a mean and shameful punishment, degrading the deed and the committer of the deed, and leaving the general compassion to expend itself upon the only theme at present quite forgotten in the history, that is to say, the murdered person. i do not give you this as an outline of the paper, which i think i could make attractive. it is merely an exposition of the inferences to which its whole philosophy must tend. always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. thompson.] devonshire terrace, _ th october, ._ my dear thompson, roche has not returned; and from what i hear of your movements, i fear i cannot answer for his being here in time for you. i enclose you, lest i should forget it, the letter to the peschiere agent. he is the marquis pallavicini's man of business, and speaks the most abominable genoese ever heard. he is a rascal of course; but a more reliable villain, in his way, than the rest of his kind. you recollect what i told you of the swiss banker's wife, the english lady? if you would like christiana[ ] to have a friend at genoa in the person of a most affectionate and excellent little woman, and if you would like to have a resource in the most elegant and comfortable family there, i need not say that i shall be delighted to give you a letter to those who would die to serve me. always yours. [sidenote: mr. h. p. smith.] devonshire terrace, _ th november, ._ my dear smith, my chickens and their little aunt will be delighted to do honour to the lord mayor on the ninth. so should i be, but i am hard at it, grinding my teeth. i came down with thompson the other day, hoping to see you. you are keeping it up, however, in some holiday region, and your glass-case looked like a large pantry, out of which some giant had stolen the meat. best regards to mrs. smith from all of us. kate quite hearty, and the baby, like goldsmith's bear, "in a concatenation" accordingly. always, my dear smith, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. macvey napier.] _november th, ._ my dear sir, i write to you in great haste. i most bitterly regret the being obliged to disappoint and inconvenience you (as i fear i shall do), but i find it will be _impossible_ for me to write the paper on capital punishment for your next number. the fault is really not mine. i have been involved for the last fortnight in one maze of distractions, which nothing could have enabled me to anticipate or prevent. everything i have had to do has been interfered with and cast aside. i have never in my life had so many insuperable obstacles crowded into the way of my pursuits. it is as little my fault, believe me, as though i were ill and wrote to you from my bed. and pray bear as gently as you can with the vexation i occasion you, when i tell you how very heavily it falls upon myself. faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] lieut. tracey, r.n., who was at this time governor of tothill fields prison. [ ] mrs. thompson. . [sidenote: mr. w. j. fox.] office of the "daily news," whitefriars, _ st january, ._ my dear fox,[ ] the boy is in waiting. i need not tell you how our printer failed us last night.[ ] i hope for better things to-night, and am bent on a fight for it. if we can get a good paper to-morrow, i believe we are as safe as such a thing can be. your leader most excellent. i made bold to take out ---- for reasons that i hinted at the other day, and which i think have validity in them. he is unscrupulous and indiscreet. cobden never so. it didn't offend you? ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. thompson.] rosemont, _tuesday morning._ my dear thompson, all kinds of hearty and cordial congratulations on the event.[ ] we are all delighted that it is at last well over. there is an uncertainty attendant on angelic strangers (as miss tox says) which it is a great relief to have so happily disposed of. ever yours. [sidenote: the same.] , rue de courcelles, st. honorÃ�, paris, _ nd december, ._ my dear thompson, we got to paris, in due course, on the friday evening. we had a pleasant and prosperous journey, having rather cold weather in switzerland and on the borders thereof, and a slight detention of three hours and a half at the frontier custom house, atop of a mountain, in a hard frost and a dense fog. we came into this house last thursday. it has a pretty drawing-room, approached through four most extraordinary chambers. it is the most ridiculous and preposterous house in the world, i should think. it belongs to a marquis castellane, but was fitted (so paul pry poole said, who dined here yesterday) by ---- in a fit of temporary insanity, i have no doubt. the dining-room is mere midsummer madness, and is designed to represent a bosky grove. at this present writing, snow is falling in the street, and the weather is very cold, but not so cold as it was yesterday. i dined with lord normanby on sunday last. everything seems to be queer and uncomfortable in the diplomatic way, and he is rather bothered and worried, to my thinking. i found young sheridan (mrs. norton's brother) the attaché. i know him very well, and he is a good man for my sight-seeing purposes. there are to be no theatricals unless the times should so adjust themselves as to admit of their being french, to which the markis seems to incline, as a bit of conciliation and a popular move. lumley, of italian opera notoriety, also dined here yesterday, and seems hugely afeard of the opposition opera at covent garden, who have already spirited away grisi and mario, which he affects to consider a great comfort and relief. i gave him some uncompromising information on the subject of his pit, and told him that if he didn't conciliate the middle classes, he might depend on being damaged, very decidedly. the danger of the covent garden enterprise seems to me to be that they are going in for ballet too, and i really don't think the house is large enough to repay the double expense. forster writes me that mac has come out with tremendous vigour in the christmas book, and took off his coat at it with a burst of such alarming energy that he has done four subjects! stanfield has done three. keeleys are making that "change"[ ] i was so hot upon at lausanne, and seem ready to spend money with bold hearts, but the cast (as far as i know it, at present) would appear to be black despair and moody madness. j. w. leigh murray, from the princess's, is to be the alfred, and forster says there is a mrs. gordon at bolton's who must be got for grace. i am horribly afraid ---- will do one of the lawyers, and there seems to be nobody but ---- for marion. i shall run over and carry consternation into the establishment, as soon as i have done the number. but i have not begun it yet, though i hope to do so to-night, having been quite put out by chopping and changing about, and by a vile touch of biliousness, that makes my eyes feel as if they were yellow bullets. "dombey" has passed its thirty thousand already. do you remember a mysterious man in a straw hat low-crowned, and a petersham coat, who was a sort of manager or amateur man-servant at miss kelly's? mr. baynton bolt, sir, came out, the other night, as macbeth, at the royal surrey theatre. there's all my news for you! let me know, in return, whether you have fought a duel yet with your milingtary landlord, and whether lausanne is still that giddy whirl of dissipation it was wont to be, also full particulars of your fairer and better half, and of the baby. i will send a christmas book to clermont as soon as i get any copies. and so no more at present from yours ever. footnotes: [ ] mr. w. j. fox, afterwards m.p. for oldham, well known for his eloquent advocacy of the repeal of the corn laws, was engaged to write the political articles in the first numbers of the _daily news_. [ ] the first issue of the _daily news_ was a sad failure, as to printing. [ ] the birth, at lausanne, of mr. thompson's eldest daughter, elizabeth thompson, now mrs. butler, the celebrated artist. [ ] in the dramatised "battle of life." . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] devonshire terrace, _january th, ._ my dear sir edward, the committee of the general theatrical fund (who are all actors) are anxious to prefer a petition to you to preside at their next annual dinner at the london tavern, and having no personal knowledge of you, have requested me, as one of their trustees, through their secretary, mr. cullenford, to give them some kind of presentation to you. i will only say that i have felt great interest in their design, which embraces all sorts and conditions of actors from the first, and it has been maintained by themselves with extraordinary perseverance and determination. it has been in existence some years, but it is only two years since they began to dine. at their first festival i presided, at their second, macready. they very naturally hold that if they could prevail on you to reign over them now they would secure a most powerful and excellent advocate, whose aid would serve and grace their cause immensely. i sympathise with their feeling so cordially, and know so well that it would certainly be mine if i were in their case (as, indeed, it is, being their friend), that i comply with their request for an introduction. and i will not ask you to excuse my troubling you, feeling sure that i may use this liberty with you. believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: countess of blessington.] , rue de courcelles, paris, _january th, ._ my dear lady blessington, i feel very wicked in beginning this note, and deeply remorseful for not having begun and ended it long ago. but _you_ know how difficult it is to write letters in the midst of a writing life; and as you know too (i hope) how earnestly and affectionately i always think of you, wherever i am, i take heart, on a little consideration, and feel comparatively good again. forster has been cramming into the space of a fortnight every description of impossible and inconsistent occupation in the way of sight-seeing. he has been now at versailles, now in the prisons, now at the opera, now at the hospitals, now at the conservatoire, and now at the morgue, with a dreadful insatiability. i begin to doubt whether i had anything to do with a book called "dombey," or ever sat over number five (not finished a fortnight yet) day after day, until i half began, like the monk in poor wilkie's story, to think it the only reality in life, and to mistake all the realities for short-lived shadows. among the multitude of sights, we saw our pleasant little bud of a friend, rose chéri, play clarissa harlowe the other night. i believe she does it in london just now, and perhaps you may have seen it. a most charming, intelligent, modest, affecting piece of acting it is, with a death superior to anything i ever saw on the stage, except macready's lear. the theatres are admirable just now. we saw "gentil bernard" at the variétés last night, acted in a manner that was absolutely perfect. it was a little picture of watteau, animated and talking from beginning to end. at the cirque there is a new show-piece called the "french revolution," in which there is a representation of the national convention, and a series of battles (fought by some five hundred people, who look like five thousand) that are wonderful in their extraordinary vigour and truth. gun-cotton gives its name to the general annual jocose review at the palais royal, which is dull enough, saving for the introduction of alexandre dumas, sitting in his study beside a pile of quarto volumes about five feet high, which he says is the first tableau of the first act of the first piece to be played on the first night of his new theatre. the revival of molière's "don juan," at the français, has drawn money. it is excellently played, and it is curious to observe how different _their_ don juan and valet are from our english ideas of the master and man. they are playing "lucretia borgia" again at the porte st. martin, but it is poorly performed and hangs fire drearily, though a very remarkable and striking play. we were at victor hugo's house last sunday week, a most extraordinary place, looking like an old curiosity shop, or the property-room of some gloomy, vast, old theatre. i was much struck by hugo himself, who looks like a genius as he is, every inch of him, and is very interesting and satisfactory from head to foot. his wife is a handsome woman, with flashing black eyes. there is also a charming ditto daughter of fifteen or sixteen, with ditto eyes. sitting among old armour and old tapestry, and old coffers, and grim old chairs and tables, and old canopies of state from old palaces, and old golden lions going to play at skittles with ponderous old golden balls, they made a most romantic show and looked like a chapter out of one of his own books. * * * * * [sidenote: mr. edward chapman.] chester place, _monday, rd may, ._ my dear sir, here is a young lady--miss power, lady blessington's niece--has "gone and been" and translated a story by georges sand, the french writer, which she has printed, and got four woodcuts engraved ready for. she wants to get it published--something in the form of the christmas books. i know the story, and it is a very fine one. will you do it for her? there is no other risk than putting a few covers on a few copies. half-profits is what she expects and no loss. she has made appeal to me, and if there is to be a hard-hearted ogre in the business at all, i would rather it should be you than i; so i have told her i would make proposals to your mightiness. answer this straightway, for i have no doubt the fair translator thinks i am tearing backwards and forwards in a cab all day to bring the momentous affair to a conclusion. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. james sheridan knowles.] [ ] , king's road, brighton, _ th may, ._ my dear knowles, i have learned, i hope, from the art we both profess (if you will forgive this classification of myself with you) to respect a man of genius in his mistakes, no less than in his triumphs. you have so often read the human heart well that i can readily forgive your reading mine ill, and greatly wronging me by the supposition that any sentiment towards you but honour and respect has ever found a place in it. you write as few lines which, dying, you would wish to blot, as most men. but if you ever know me better, as i hope you may (the fault shall not be mine if you do not), i know you will be glad to have received the assurance that some part of your letter has been written on the sand and that the wind has already blown over it. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: dr. hodgson.[ ]] regent's park, london, _friday, th june, ._ my dear sir, i have rarely, if ever, seen a more remarkable effort of what i may call intellectual memory than the enclosed. it is evidence, i think, of very uncommon power. i have read it with the greatest interest and surprise, and i am truly obliged to you for giving me the opportunity. if you should see no objection to telling the young lady herself this much, pray do so, as it is sincere praise. your criticism of coombe's pamphlet is as justly felt as it is earnestly and strongly written. i undergo more astonishment and disgust in connection with that question of education almost every day of my life than is awakened in me by any other member of the whole magazine of social monsters that are walking about in these times. you were in my thoughts when your letter arrived this morning, for we have a half-formed idea of reviving our old amateur theatrical company for a special purpose, and even of bringing it bodily to manchester and liverpool, on which your opinion would be very valuable. if we should decide on monday, when we meet, to pursue our idea in this warm weather, i will explain it to you in detail, and ask counsel of you in regard of a performance at liverpool. meantime it is mentioned to no one. your interest in "dombey" gives me unaffected pleasure. i hope you will find no reason to think worse of it as it proceeds. there is a great deal to do--one or two things among the rest that society will not be the worse, i hope, for thinking about a little. may i beg to be remembered to mrs. hodgson? you always remember me yourself, i hope, as one who has a hearty interest in all you do and in all you have so admirably done for the advancement of the best objects. always believe me very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] regent's park, london, _june th, ._ my dear sir, i write to you in reference to a scheme to which you may, perhaps, already have seen some allusion in the london _athenæum_ of to-day. the party of amateurs connected with literature and art, who acted in london two years ago, have resolved to play again at one of the large theatres here for the benefit of leigh hunt, and to make a great appeal to all classes of society in behalf of a writer who should have received long ago, but has not yet, some enduring return from his country for all he has undergone and all the good he has done. it is believed that such a demonstration by literature on behalf of literature, and such a mark of sympathy by authors and artists, for one who has written so well, would be of more service, present and prospective, to hunt than almost any other means of help that could be devised. and we know, from himself, that it would be most gratifying to his own feelings. the arrangements are, as yet, in an imperfect state; for the date of their being carried out depends on our being able to get one of the large theatres before the close of the present london season. in the event of our succeeding, we purpose acting in london, on wednesday the th of july, and on monday the th. on the first occasion we shall play "every man in his humour," and a farce; on the second, "the merry wives of windsor," and a farce. but we do not intend to stop here. believing that leigh hunt has done more to instruct the young men of england, and to lend a helping hand to those who educate themselves, than any writer in england, we are resolved to come down, in a body, to liverpool and manchester, and to act one night at each place. and the object of my letter is, to ask you, as the representative of the great educational establishment of liverpool, whether we can count on your active assistance; whether you will form a committee to advance our object; and whether, if we send you our circulars and addresses, you will endeavour to secure us a full theatre, and to enlist the general sympathy and interest in behalf of the cause we have at heart? i address, by this post, a letter, which is almost the counterpart of the present, to the honorary secretaries of the manchester athenæum. if we find in both towns such a response as we confidently expect, i would propose, on behalf of my friends, that the liverpool and manchester institutions should decide for us, at which town we shall first appear, and which play we shall act in each place. i forbear entering into any more details, however, until i am favoured with your reply. always believe me, my dear sir, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. alexander ireland.] regent's park, london, _june th, ._ dear sir,[ ] in the hope that i may consider myself personally introduced to you by dr. hodgson, of liverpool, i take the liberty of addressing you in this form. i hear from that friend of ours, that you are greatly interested in all that relates to mr. leigh hunt, and that you will be happy to promote our design in reference to him. allow me to assure you of the gratification with which i have received this intelligence, and of the importance we shall all attach to your valuable co-operation. i have received a letter from mr. langley, of the athenæum, informing me that a committee is in course of formation, composed of directors of that institution (acting as private gentlemen) and others. may i hope to find that you are one of this body, and that i may soon hear of its proceedings, and be in communication with it? allow me to thank you beforehand for your interest in the cause, and to look forward to the pleasure of doing so in person, when i come to manchester. dear sir, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] athenÃ�um club, london, _saturday, june th, ._ my dear sir, the news of mr. hunt's pension is quite true. we do not propose to act in london after this change in his affairs, but we do still distinctly propose to act in manchester and liverpool. i have set forth the plain state of the case in a letter to mr. robinson by this post (a counterpart of which i have addressed to liverpool), and to which, in the midst of a most laborious correspondence on the subject, i beg to refer you. it will be a great satisfaction to us to believe that we shall still be successful in manchester. there is great and urgent need why we should be so, i assure you. if you can help to bring the matter speedily into a practical and plain shape, you will render hunt the greatest service. i fear, in respect to your kind invitation, that neither jerrold nor i will feel at liberty to accept it. there was a pathetic proposal among us that we should "keep together;" and, as president of the society, i am bound, i fear, to stand by the brotherhood with particular constancy. nor do i think that we shall have more than one very short evening in manchester. i write in great haste. the sooner i can know (at broadstairs, in kent) the manchester and liverpool nights, and what the managers say, the better (i hope) will be the entertainments. my dear sir, very faithfully yours. p.s.--i enclose a copy of our london circular, issued before the granting of the pension. [sidenote: the same.] broadstairs, kent, _july th, ._ my dear sir, i am much indebted to you for the present of your notice of hunt's books. i cannot praise it better or more appropriately than by saying it is in hunt's own spirit, and most charmingly expressed. i had the most sincere and hearty pleasure in reading it.[ ] your announcement of "the working man's life" had attracted my attention by reason of the title, which had a great interest for me.[ ] i hardly know if there is something wanting to my fancy in a certain genuine simple air i had looked for in the first part. but there is great promise in it, and i shall be earnest to know how it proceeds. now, to leave these pleasant matters, and resume my managerial character, which i shall be heartily glad (between ourselves) to lay down again, though i have none but pleasant correspondents, and the most easily governable company of actors on earth. i have written to mr. robinson by this post that i wish these words, from our original london circular, to stand at top of the bills, after "for the benefit of mr. leigh hunt": "it is proposed to devote a portion of the proceeds of this benefit to the assistance of another celebrated writer, whose literary career is at an end, and who has no provision for the decline of his life." i have also told him that there is no objection to its being known that this is mr. poole, the author of "paul pry," and "little pedlington," and many comic pieces of great merit, and whose farce of "turning the tables" we mean to finish with in manchester. beyond what he will get from these benefits, he has no resource in this wide world, _i know_. there are reasons which make it desirable to get this fact abroad, and if you see no objection to paragraphing it at your office (sending the paragraph round, if you should please, to the other manchester papers), i should be much obliged to you. you may like to know, as a means of engendering a more complete individual interest in our actors, who they are. jerrold and myself you have heard of; mr. george cruikshank and mr. leech (the best caricaturists of any time perhaps) need no introduction. mr. frank stone (a manchester man) and mr. egg are artists of high reputation. mr. forster is the critic of _the examiner_, the author of "the lives of the statesmen of the commonwealth," and very distinguished as a writer in _the edinburgh review_. mr. lewes is also a man of great attainments in polite literature, and the author of a novel published not long since, called "ranthorpe." mr. costello is a periodical writer, and a gentleman renowned as a tourist. mr. mark lemon is a dramatic author, and the editor of _punch_--a most excellent actor, as you will find. my brothers play small parts, for love, and have no greater note than the treasury and the city confer on their disciples. mr. thompson is a private gentleman. you may know all this, but i thought it possible you might like to hold the key to our full company. pray use it as you will. my dear sir, faithfully yours always. footnotes: [ ] written to mr. sheridan knowles after some slight misunderstanding, the cause of which is unknown to the editors. [ ] dr. hodgson, then principal of the liverpool institute, and principal of the chorlton high school, manchester. [ ] mr. alexander ireland, the manager and one of the proprietors of _the manchester examiner_. [ ] this refers to an essay on "the genius and writings of leigh hunt," contributed to _the manchester examiner_. [ ] the "autobiography of a working man," by "one who has whistled at the plough" (alex. somerville), originally appeared in _the manchester examiner_, and afterwards was published as a volume, . . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] devonshire terrace, _ th april, , monday evening._ my dear bulwer lytton, i confess to small faith in any american profits having international copyright for their aim. but i will carefully consider blackwood's letter (when i get it) and will call upon you and tell you what occurs to me in reference to it, before i communicate with that northern light. i have been "going" to write to you for many a day past, to thank you for your kindness to the general theatrical fund people, and for your note to me; but i have waited until i should hear of your being stationary somewhere. what you said of the "battle of life" gave me great pleasure. i was thoroughly wretched at having to use the idea for so short a story. i did not see its full capacity until it was too late to think of another subject, and i have always felt that i might have done a great deal better if i had taken it for the groundwork of a more extended book. but for an insuperable aversion i have to trying back in such a case, i should certainly forge that bit of metal again, as you suggest--one of these days perhaps. i have not been special constable myself to-day--thinking there was rather an epidemic in that wise abroad. i walked over and looked at the preparations, without any baggage of staff, warrant, or affidavit. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clarke.] [ ]devonshire terrace, _ th april, ._ dear mrs. cowden clarke, i did not understand, when i had the pleasure of conversing with you the other evening, that you had really considered the subject, and desired to play. but i am very glad to understand it now; and i am sure there will be a universal sense among us of the grace and appropriateness of such a proceeding. falstaff (who depends very much on mrs. quickly) may have in his modesty, some timidity about acting with an amateur actress. but i have no question, as you have studied the part, and long wished to play it, that you will put him completely at his ease on the first night of your rehearsal. will you, towards that end, receive this as a solemn "call" to rehearsal of "the merry wives" at miss kelly's theatre, to-morrow (saturday) _week_ at seven in the evening? and will you let me suggest another point for your consideration? on the night when "the merry wives" will _not_ be played, and when "every man in his humour" _will_ be, kenny's farce of "love, law, and physic" will be acted. in that farce there is a very good character (one mrs. hilary, which i have seen mrs. orger, i think, act to admiration), that would have been played by mrs. c. jones, if she had acted dame quickly, as we at first intended. if you find yourself quite comfortable and at ease among us, in mrs. quickly, would you like to take this other part too? it is an excellent farce, and is safe, i hope, to be very well done. we do not play to purchase the house[ ] (which may be positively considered as paid for), but towards endowing a perpetual curatorship of it, for some eminent literary veteran. and i think you will recognise in this even a higher and more gracious object than the securing, even, of the debt incurred for the house itself. believe me, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. alexander ireland.] devonshire terrace, _may nd, ._ my dear sir, you very likely know that my company of amateurs have lately been playing, with a great reputation, in london here. the object is, "the endowment of a perpetual curatorship of shakespeare's house, to be always held by some one distinguished in literature, and more especially in dramatic literature," and we have already a pledge from the shakespeare house committee that sheridan knowles shall be recommended to the government as the first curator. this pledge, which is in the form of a minute, we intend to advertise in our country bills. now, on monday, the th of june, we are going to play at liverpool, where we are assured of a warm reception, and where an active committee for the issuing of tickets is already formed. do you think the manchester people would be equally glad to see us again, and that the house could be filled, as before, at our old prices? _if yes, would you and our other friends go, at once, to work in the cause?_ the only night on which we could play in manchester would be saturday, the rd of june. it is possible that the depression of the times may render a performance in manchester unwise. in that case i would immediately abandon the idea. but what i want to know, _by return of post_ is, is it safe or unsafe? if the former, here is the bill as it stood in london, with the addition, on the back, of a paragraph i would insert in manchester, of which immediate use can be made. if the latter, my reason for wishing to settle the point immediately is that we may make another use of that saturday night. assured of your generous feeling i make no apology for troubling you. a sum of money, got together by these means, will insure to literature (i will take good care of that) a proper expression of itself in the bestowal of an essentially literary appointment, not only now but henceforth. much is to be done, time presses, and the least added the better. i have addressed a counterpart of this letter to mr. francis robinson, to whom perhaps you will communicate the bill. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clarke.] devonshire terrace, _monday evening, july nd, ._ my dear mrs. clarke, i have no energy whatever, i am very miserable. i loathe domestic hearths. i yearn to be a vagabond. why can't i marry mary?[ ] why have i seven children--not engaged at sixpence a-night apiece, and dismissable for ever, if they tumble down, not taken on for an indefinite time at a vast expense, and never,--no never, never,--wearing lighted candles round their heads.[ ] i am deeply miserable. a real house like this is insupportable, after that canvas farm wherein i was so happy. what is a humdrum dinner at half-past five, with nobody (but john) to see me eat it, compared with _that_ soup, and the hundreds of pairs of eyes that watched its disappearance? forgive this tear.[ ] it is weak and foolish, i know. pray let me divide the little excursional excesses of the journey among the gentlemen, as i have always done before, and pray believe that i have had the sincerest pleasure and gratification in your co-operation and society, valuable and interesting on all public accounts, and personally of no mean worth, nor held in slight regard. you had a sister once, when we were young and happy--i think they called her emma. if she remember a bright being who once flitted like a vision before her, entreat her to bestow a thought upon the "gas" of departed joys. i can write no more. y. g.[ ] the (darkened) g. l. b.[ ] p.s.--"i am completely _blasé_--literally used up. i am dying for excitement. is it possible that nobody can suggest anything to make my heart beat violently, my hair stand on end--but no!" where did i hear those words (so truly applicable to my forlorn condition) pronounced by some delightful creature? in a previous state of existence, i believe. oh, memory, memory! ever yours faithfully. y--no c. g.--no d. c. d. i think it is--but i don't know--"there's nothing in it." footnotes: [ ] this and following letters to mr. and mrs. cowden clarke appeared in a volume entitled "recollections of writers." [ ] the house in which shakespeare was born, at stratford-on-avon. [ ] a character in "used up." [ ] as fairies in "merry wives." [ ] a huge blot of smeared ink. [ ] "young gas."} [ ] "gas-light boy."} names he had playfully given himself. . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] devonshire terrace, _ rd february, ._ my dear sir edward, i have not written sooner to thank you for "king arthur" because i felt sure you would prefer my reading it before i should do so, and because i wished to have an opportunity of reading it with the sincerity and attention which such a composition demands. this i have done. i do not write to express to you the measure of my gratification and pleasure (for i should find that very difficult to be accomplished to my own satisfaction), but simply to say that i have read the poem, and dwelt upon it with the deepest interest, admiration, and delight; and that i feel proud of it as a very good instance of the genius of a great writer of my own time. i should feel it as a kind of treason to what has been awakened in me by the book, if i were to try to set off my thanks to you, or if i were tempted into being diffuse in its praise. i am too earnest on the subject to have any misgiving but that i shall convey something of my earnestness to you in the briefest and most unaffected flow of expression. accept it for what a genuine word of homage is worth, and believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. c. cowden clarke.] devonshire terrace, _may th, ._ my dear sir, i am very sorry to say that my orphan working school vote is promised in behalf of an unfortunate young orphan, who, after being canvassed for, polled for, written for, quarrelled for, fought for, called for, and done all kind of things for, by ladies who wouldn't go away and wouldn't be satisfied with anything anybody said or did for them, was floored at the last election and comes up to the scratch next morning, for the next election, fresher than ever. i devoutly hope he may get in, and be lost sight of for evermore. pray give my kindest regards to my quondam quickly, and believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. joseph c. king.[ ]] devonshire terrace, _saturday, december st, ._ my dear sir, i hasten to let you know what took place at eton to-day. i found that i _did_ stand in some sort committed to mr. evans, though not so much so but that i could with perfect ease have declined to place charley in his house if i had desired to do so. i must say, however, that after seeing mr. cookesley (a most excellent man in his way) and seeing mr. evans, and mr. evans's house, i think i should, under any circumstances, have given the latter the preference as to the domestic part of charley's life. i would certainly prefer to try it. i therefore thought it best to propose to have mr. cookesley for his tutor, and to place him as a boarder with mr. evans. both gentlemen seemed satisfied with this arrangement, and dr. hawtrey expressed his approval of it also. mr. cookesley, wishing to know what charley could do, asked me if i would object to leaving him there for half-an-hour or so. as charley appeared not at all afraid of this proposal, i left him then and there. on my return, mr. cookesley said, in high and unqualified terms, that he had been thoroughly well grounded and well taught--that he had examined him in virgil and herodotus, and that he not only knew what he was about perfectly well, but showed an intelligence in reference to those authors which did his tutor great credit. he really appeared most interested and pleased, and filled me with a grateful feeling towards you, to whom charley owes so much. he said there were certain verses in imitation of horace (i really forget what sort of verses) to which charley was unaccustomed, and which were a little matter enough in themselves, but were made a great point of at eton, and could be got up well in a month "_from an old etonian_." for this purpose he would desire charley to be sent every day to a certain mr. hardisty, in store street, bedford square, to whom he had already (in my absence) prepared a note. between ourselves, i must not hesitate to tell you plainly that this appeared to me to be a conventional way of bestowing a little patronage. but, of course, i had nothing for it but to say it should be done; upon which, mr. cookesley added that he was then certain that charley, on coming after the christmas holidays, would be placed at once in "the remove," which seemed to surprise mr. evans when i afterwards told him of it as a high station. i will take him to this gentleman on monday, and arrange for his going there every day; but, if you will not object, i should still like him to remain with you, and to have the advantage of preparing these annoying verses under your eye until the holidays. that mr. cookesley may have his own way thoroughly, i will send charley to mr. hardisty daily until the school at eton recommences. let me impress upon you in the strongest manner, not only that i was inexpressibly delighted myself by the readiness with which charley went through this ordeal with a stranger, but that i also saw you would have been well pleased and much gratified if you could have seen mr. cookesley afterwards. he had evidently not expected such a result, and took it as not at all an ordinary one. my dear sir, yours faithfully and obliged. [sidenote: mr. alexander ireland.] [private.] devonshire terrace, london, _ th december, ._ my dear sir, you will not be offended by my saying that (in common with many other men) i think "our london correspondent" one of the greatest nuisances of this kind, inasmuch as our london correspondent, seldom knowing anything, feels bound to know everything, and becomes in consequence a very reckless gentleman in respect of the truthfulness of his intelligence. in your paper, sent to me this morning, i see the correspondent mentions one ----, and records how i was wont to feast in the house of the said ----. as i never was in the man's house in my life, or within five miles of it that i know of, i beg you will do me the favour to contradict this. you will be the less surprised by my begging you to set this right, when i tell you that, hearing of his book, and knowing his history, i wrote to new york denouncing him as "a forger and a thief;" that he thereupon put the gentleman who published my letter into prison, and that having but one day before the sailing of the last steamer to collect the proofs printed in the accompanying sheet (which are but a small part of the villain's life), i got them together in short time, and sent them out to justify the character i gave him. it is not agreeable to me to be supposed to have sat at this amiable person's feasts. faithfully yours. footnote: [ ] mr. joseph charles king, the friend of many artists and literary men, conducted a private school, at which the sons of mr. macready and of charles dickens were being educated at this time. . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] broadstairs, kent, _tuesday, rd september, ._ my dear sir edward, i have had the long-contemplated talk with forster about the play, and write to assure you that i shall be delighted to come down to knebworth and do bobadil, or anything else, provided it would suit your convenience to hold the great dramatic festival in the last week of october. the concluding number of "copperfield" will prevent me from leaving here until saturday, the th of that month. if i were at my own disposal, i hope i need not say i should be at yours. forster will tell you with what men we must do the play, and what laurels we would propose to leave for the gathering of new aspirants; of whom i hope you have a reasonable stock in your part of the country. do you know mary boyle--daughter of the old admiral? because she is the very best actress i ever saw off the stage, and immeasurably better than a great many i have seen on it. i have acted with her in a country house in northamptonshire, and am going to do so again next november. if you know her, i think she would be more than pleased to play, and by giving her something good in a farce we could get her to do mrs. kitely. in that case my little sister-in-law would "go on" for the second lady, and you could do without actresses, besides giving the thing a particular grace and interest. if we could get mary boyle, we would do "used up," which is a delightful piece, as the farce. but maybe you know nothing about the said mary, and in that case i should like to know what you would think of doing. you gratify me more than i can tell you by what you say about "copperfield," the more so as i hope myself that some heretofore-deficient qualities are there. you are not likely to misunderstand me when i say that i like it very much, and am deeply interested in it, and that i have kept and am keeping my mind very steadily upon it. believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _sunday night, november rd, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i should have waited at home to-day on the chance of your calling, but that i went over to look after lemon; and i went for this reason: the surgeon opines that there is no possibility of mrs. dickens being able to play, although she is going on "as well as possible," which i sincerely believe. now, _when_ the accident happened, mrs. lemon told my little sister-in-law that she would gladly undertake the part if it should become necessary. going after her to-day, i found that she and lemon had gone out of town, but will be back to-night. i have written to her, earnestly urging her to the redemption of her offer. i have no doubt of being able to see her well up in the characters; and i hope you approve of this remedy. if she once screws her courage to the sticking place, i have no fear of her whatever. this is what i would say to you. if i don't see you here, i will write to you at forster's, reporting progress. don't be discouraged, for i am full of confidence, and resolve to do the utmost that is in me--and i well know they all will--to make the nights at knebworth _triumphant_. once in a thing like this--once in everything, to my thinking--it must be carried out like a mighty enterprise, heart and soul. pray regard me as wholly at the disposal of the theatricals, until they shall be gloriously achieved. my unfortunate other half (lying in bed) is very anxious that i should let you know that she means to break her heart if she should be prevented from coming as one of the audience, and that she has been devising means all day of being brought down in the brougham with her foot upon a t. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] office of "household words," _wednesday evening, november th, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, on the principle of postponing nothing connected with the great scheme, i have been to ollivier's, where i found our friend the choremusicon in a very shattered state--his mouth wide open--the greater part of his teeth out--his bowels disclosed to the public eye--and his whole system frightfully disordered. in this condition he is speechless. i cannot, therefore, report touching his eloquence, but i find he is a piano as well as a choremusicon--that he requires to pass through no intermediate stage between choremusicon and piano, and therefore that he can easily and certainly accompany songs. now, will you have it? i am inclined to believe that on the whole, it is the best thing. i have not heard of anything else having happened to anybody. if i should not find you gone to australia or elsewhere, and should not have occasion to advertise in the third column of _the times_, i shall hope not to add to your misfortunes--i dare not say to afford you consolation--by shaking hands with you to-morrow night, and afterwards keeping every man connected with the theatrical department to his duty. ever faithfully yours. . [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _sunday night, january th, ._ my dear bulwer, i am so sorry to have missed you! i had gone down to forster, comedy in hand. i think it _most admirable_.[ ] full of character, strong in interest, rich in capital situations, and _certain to go nobly_. you know how highly i thought of "money," but i sincerely think these three acts finer. i did not think of the slight suggestions you make, but i said, _en passant_, that perhaps the drunken scene might do better on the stage a little concentrated. i don't believe it would require even that, with the leading-up which you propose. i cannot say too much of the comedy to express what i think and feel concerning it; and i look at it, too, remember, with the yellow eye of an actor! i should have taken to it (need i say so!) _con amore_ in any case, but i should have been jealous of your reputation, exactly as i appreciate your generosity. if i had a misgiving of ten lines i should have scrupulously mentioned it. stone will take the duke capitally; and i will answer for his being got into doing it _very well_. looking down the perspective of a few winter evenings here, i am confident about him. forster will be thoroughly sound and real. lemon is so surprisingly sensible and trustworthy on the stage, that i don't think any actor could touch his part as he will; and i hope you will have opportunities of testing the accuracy of this prediction. egg ought to do the author to absolute perfection. as to jerrold--there he stands in the play! i would propose leech (well made up) for easy. he is a good name, and i see nothing else for him. this brings me to my own part. if we had anyone, or could get anyone, for wilmot, i could do (i think) something so near your meaning in sir gilbert, that i let him go with a pang. assumption has charms for me--i hardly know for how many wild reasons--so delightful, that i feel a loss of, oh! i can't say what exquisite foolery, when i lose a chance of being someone in voice, etc., not at all like myself. but--i speak quite freely, knowing you will not mistake me--i know from experience that we could find nobody to hold the play together in wilmot if i didn't do it. i think i could touch the gallant, generous, careless pretence, with the real man at the bottom of it, so as to take the audience with him from the first scene. i am quite sure i understand your meaning; and i am absolutely certain that as jerrold, forster, and stone came in, i could, as a mere little bit of mechanics, present them better by doing that part, and paying as much attention to their points as my own, than another amateur actor could. therefore i throw up my cap for wilmot, and hereby devote myself to him, heart and head! i ought to tell you that in a play we once rehearsed and never played (but rehearsed several times, and very carefully), i saw lemon do a piece of reality with a rugged pathos in it, which i felt, as i stood on the stage with him to be extraordinarily good. in the serious part of sir gilbert he will surprise you. and he has an intuitive discrimination in such things which will just keep the suspicious part from being too droll at the outset--which will just show a glimpse of something in the depths of it. the moment i come back to town (within a fortnight, please god!) i will ascertain from forster where you are. then i will propose to you that we call our company together, agree upon one general plan of action, and that you and i immediately begin to see and book our vice-presidents, etc. further, i think we ought to see about the queen. i would suggest our playing first about three weeks before the opening of the exhibition, in order that it may be the town talk before the country people and foreigners come. macready thinks with me that a very large sum of money may be got in london. i propose (for cheapness and many other considerations) to make a theatre expressly for the purpose, which we can put up and take down--say in the hanover square rooms--and move into the country. as watson wanted something of a theatre made for his forthcoming little go, i have made it a sort of model of what i mean, and shall be able to test its working powers before i see you. many things that, for portability, were to be avoided in mr. hewitt's theatre, i have replaced with less expensive and weighty contrivances. now, my dear bulwer, i have come to the small hours, and am writing alone here, as if _i_ were writing something to do what your comedy will. at such a time the temptation is strong upon me to say a great deal more, but i will only say this--in mercy to you--that i do devoutly believe that this plan carried, will entirely change the status of the literary man in england, and make a revolution in his position, which no government, no power on earth but his own, could ever effect. i have implicit confidence in the scheme--so splendidly begun--if we carry it out with a steadfast energy. i have a strong conviction that we hold in our hands the peace and honour of men of letters for centuries to come, and that you are destined to be their best and most enduring benefactor. oh! what a procession of new years might walk out of all this, after we are very dusty! ever yours faithfully. p.s.--i have forgotten something. i suggest this title: "knowing the world; or, not so bad as we seem." [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday night, march th, ._ my dear bulwer, i know you will be glad to hear what i have to tell you. i wrote to the duke of devonshire this morning, enclosing him the rough proof of the scheme, and plainly telling him what we wanted, _i.e._, to play for the first time at his house, to the queen and court. within a couple of hours he wrote me as follows: "dear sir, "i have read with very great interest the prospectus of the new endowment which you have confided to my perusal. "your manner of doing so is a proof that i am honoured by your goodwill and approbation. "i'm truly happy to offer you my earnest and sincere co-operation. my services, my house, and my subscription will be at your orders. and i beg you to let me see you before long, not merely to converse upon this subject, but because i have long had the greatest wish to improve our acquaintance, which has, as yet, been only one of crowded rooms." this is quite princely, i think, and will push us along as brilliantly as heart could desire. don't you think so too? yesterday lemon and i saw the secretary of the national provident institution (the best office for the purpose, i am inclined to think) and stated all our requirements. we appointed to meet the chairman and directors next tuesday; so on the day of our reading and dining i hope we shall have that matter in good time. the theatre is also under consultation; and directly after the reading we shall go briskly to work in all departments. i hear nothing but praises of your macready speech--of its eloquence, delicacy, and perfect taste, all of which it is good to hear, though i know it all beforehand as well as most men can tell it me. ever cordially. [sidenote: the same.] devonshire terrace, _tuesday morning, th march, ._ my dear bulwer, coming home at midnight last night after our first rehearsal, i find your letter. i write to entreat you, if you make any change in the first three acts, to let it be only of the slightest kind. because we are now fairly under way, everybody is already drilled into his place, and in two or three rehearsals those acts will be in a tolerably presentable state. it is of vital importance that we should get the last two acts _soon_. the queen and prince are coming--phipps wrote me yesterday the most earnest letter possible--the time is fearfully short, and we _must_ have the comedy in such a state as that it will go like a machine. whatever you do, for heaven's sake don't be persuaded to endanger that! even at the risk of your falling into the pit with despair at beholding anything of the comedy in its present state, if you can by any possibility come down to covent garden theatre to-night, do. i hope you will see in lemon the germ of a very fine presentation of sir geoffrey. i think topham, too, will do easy admirably. we really did wonders last night in the way of arrangement. i see the ground-plan of the first three acts distinctly. the dressing and furnishing and so forth, will be a perfect picture, and i will answer for the men in three weeks' time. in great haste, my dear bulwer, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clarke.] great malvern, _ th march, ._ my dear mrs. cowden clarke, ah, those were days indeed, when we were so fatigued at dinner that we couldn't speak, and so revived at supper that we couldn't go to bed; when wild in inns the noble savage ran; and all the world was a stage, gas-lighted in a double sense--by the young gas and the old one! when emmeline montague (now compton, and the mother of two children) came to rehearse in our new comedy[ ] the other night, i nearly fainted. the gush of recollection was so overpowering that i couldn't bear it. i use the portfolio[ ] for managerial papers still. that's something. but all this does not thank you for your book.[ ] i have not got it yet (being here with mrs. dickens, who has been very unwell), but i shall be in town early in the week, and shall bring it down to read quietly on these hills, where the wind blows as freshly as if there were no popes and no cardinals whatsoever--nothing the matter anywhere. i thank you a thousand times, beforehand, for the pleasure you are going to give me. i am full of faith. your sister emma, she is doing work of some sort on the p.s. side of the boxes, in some dark theatre, _i know_, but where, i wonder? w.[ ] has not proposed to her yet, has he? i understood he was going to offer his hand and heart, and lay his leg[ ] at her feet. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. mitton.] devonshire terrace, _ th april, ._ my dear mitton, i have been in trouble, or i should have written to you sooner. my wife has been, and is, far from well. my poor father's death caused me much distress. i came to london last monday to preside at a public dinner--played with little dora, my youngest child, before i went--and was told when i left the chair that she had died in a moment. i am quite happy again, but i have undergone a good deal. i am not going back to malvern, but have let this house until september, and taken the "fort," at broadstairs. faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] devonshire terrace, _monday, th april, ._ my dear bulwer, i see you are so anxious, that i shall endeavour to send you this letter by a special messenger. i think i can relieve your mind completely. the duke has read the play. he asked for it a week ago, and had it. he has been at brighton since. he called here before eleven on saturday morning, but i was out on the play business, so i went to him at devonshire house yesterday. he almost knows the play by heart. he is supremely delighted with it, and critically understands it. in proof of the latter part of this sentence i may mention that he had made two or three memoranda of trivial doubtful points, _every one of which had attracted our attention in rehearsal_, as i found when he showed them to me. he thoroughly understands and appreciates the comedy of the duke--threw himself back in his chair and laughed, as i say of walpole, "till i thought he'd have choked," about his first duchess, who was a percy. he suggested that he shouldn't say: "you know how to speak to the heart of a noble," because it was not likely that he would call himself a noble. he thought we might close up the porter and softhead a little more (already done) and was so charmed and delighted to recall the comedy that he was more pleased than any boy you ever saw when i repeated two or three of the speeches in my part for him. he is coming to the rehearsal to-day (we rehearse now at devonshire house, three days a-week, all day long), and, since he read the play, has conceived a most magnificent and noble improvement in the devonshire house plan, by which, i daresay, we shall get another thousand or fifteen hundred pounds. there is not a grain of distrust or doubt in him. i am perfectly certain that he would confide to me, and does confide to me, his whole mind on the subject. more than this, the duke comes out the best man in the play. i am happy to report to you that stone does the honourable manly side of that pride inexpressibly better than i should have supposed possible in him. the scene where he makes that reparation to the slandered woman is _certain_ to be an effect. he is _not_ a jest upon the order of dukes, but a great tribute to them. i have sat looking at the play (as you may suppose) pretty often, and carefully weighing every syllable of it. i see, in the duke, the most estimable character in the piece. i am as sure that i represent the audience in this as i am that i hear the words when they are spoken before me. the first time that scene with hardman was seriously done, it made an effect on the company that quite surprised and delighted me; and whenever and wherever it is done (but most of all at devonshire house) the result will be the same. everyone is greatly improved. i wrote an earnest note to forster a few days ago on the subject of his being too loud and violent. he has since subdued himself with the most admirable pains, and improved the part a thousand per cent. all the points are gradually being worked and smoothed out with the utmost neatness all through the play. they are all most heartily anxious and earnest, and, upon the least hitch, will do the same thing twenty times over. the scenery, furniture, etc., are rapidly advancing towards completion, and will be beautiful. the dresses are a perfect blaze of colour, and there is not a pocket-flap or a scrap of lace that has not been made according to egg's drawings to the quarter of an inch. every wig has been made from an old print or picture. from the duke's snuff-box to will's coffee-house, you will find everything in perfect truth and keeping. i have resolved that whenever we come to a weak place in the acting, it must, somehow or other, be made a strong one. the places that i used to be most afraid of are among the best points now. will you come to the dress rehearsal on the tuesday evening before the queen's night? there will be no one present but the duke. i write in the greatest haste, for the rehearsal time is close at hand, and i have the master carpenter and gasman to see before we begin. miss coutts is one of the most sensible of women, and if i had not seen the duke yesterday, i would have shown her the play directly. but there can't be any room for anxiety on the head that has troubled you so much. you may clear it from your mind as completely as gunpowder plot. in great haste, ever cordially. [sidenote: the hon. miss eden.[ ]] broadstairs, _sunday, th september, ._ my dear miss eden, many thanks for the grapes; which must have come from the identical vine a man ought to sit under. they were a prodigy of excellence. i have been concerned to hear of your indisposition, but thought the best thing i could do, was to make no formal calls when you were really ill. i have been suffering myself from another kind of malady--a severe, spasmodic, house-buying-and-repairing attack--which has left me extremely weak and all but exhausted. the seat of the disorder has been the pocket. i had the kindest of notes from the kindest of men this morning, and am going to see him on wednesday. of course i mean the duke of devonshire. can i take anything to chatsworth for you? very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone.] extract from letter to mr. stone. _ th september, ._ you never saw such a sight as the sands between this and margate presented yesterday. this day fortnight a steamer laden with cattle going from rotterdam to the london market, was wrecked on the goodwin--on which occasion, by-the-bye, the coming in at night of our salvage luggers laden with dead cattle, which where hoisted up upon the pier where they lay in heaps, was a most picturesque and striking sight. the sea since wednesday has been very rough, blowing in straight upon the land. yesterday, the shore was strewn with hundreds of oxen, sheep, and pigs (and with bushels upon bushels of apples), in every state and stage of decay--burst open, rent asunder, lying with their stiff hoofs in the air, or with their great ribs yawning like the wrecks of ships--tumbled and beaten out of shape, and yet with a horrible sort of humanity about them. hovering among these carcases was every kind of water-side plunderer, pulling the horns out, getting the hides off, chopping the hoofs with poleaxes, etc. etc., attended by no end of donkey carts, and spectral horses with scraggy necks, galloping wildly up and down as if there were something maddening in the stench. i never beheld such a demoniacal business! very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. henry austin.] broadstairs, _monday, th september, ._ my dear henry, your letter, received this morning, has considerably allayed the anguish of my soul. our letters crossed, of course, as letters under such circumstances always do. i am perpetually wandering (in fancy) up and down the house[ ] and tumbling over the workmen; when i feel that they are gone to dinner i become low, when i look forward to their total abstinence on sunday, i am wretched. the gravy at dinner has a taste of glue in it. i smell paint in the sea. phantom lime attends me all the day long. i dream that i am a carpenter and can't partition off the hall. i frequently dance (with a distinguished company) in the drawing-room, and fall into the kitchen for want of a pillar. a great to-do here. a steamer lost on the goodwins yesterday, and our men bringing in no end of dead cattle and sheep. i stood a supper for them last night, to the unbounded gratification of broadstairs. they came in from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the nature of their prize--which, i suppose, after all, will have to be recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. one lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminative over the bodies as they lay on the pier: "couldn't sassages be made on it?" but retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations of the bystanders. ever affectionately. p.s.--sometimes i think ----'s bill will be too long to be added up until babbage's calculating machine shall be improved and finished. sometimes that there is not paper enough ready made, to carry it over and bring it forward upon. i dream, also, of the workmen every night. they make faces at me, and won't do anything. [sidenote: mr. austen henry layard.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _ th december, ._ my dear layard,[ ] i want to renew your recollection of "the last time we parted"--not at wapping old stairs, but at miss coutts's--when we vowed to be more intimate after all nations should have departed from hyde park, and i should be able to emerge from my cave on the sea-shore. can you, and will you, be in town on wednesday, the last day of the present old year? if yes, will you dine with us at a quarter after six, and see the new year in with such extemporaneous follies of an exploded sort (in genteel society) as may occur to us? both mrs. dickens and i would be really delighted if this should find you free to give us the pleasure of your society. believe me always, very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] "not so bad as we seem; or, many sides to a character." [ ] "not so bad as we seem." [ ] an embroidered blotting-book given by mrs. cowden clarke. [ ] one of the series in "the girlhood of shakespeare's heroines," dedicated to charles dickens. [ ] wilmot, the clever veteran prompter, who was engaged to accompany the acting-tours. [ ] a wooden one. [ ] miss eden had a cottage at broadstairs, and was residing there at this time. [ ] tavistock house. [ ] now sir austen henry layard. . [sidenote: mr. james bower harrison.] tavistock house, tavistock square, _ th january, ._ dear sir, i have just received the work[ ] you have had the kindness to send me, and beg to thank you for it, and for your obliging note, cordially. it is a very curious little volume, deeply interesting, and written (if i may be allowed to say so) with as much power of knowledge and plainness of purpose as modesty. faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] tavistock house, _sunday night, th february, ._ my dear bulwer, i left liverpool at four o'clock this morning, and am so blinded by excitement, gas, and waving hats and handkerchiefs, that i can hardly see to write, but i cannot go to bed without telling you what a triumph we have had. allowing for the necessarily heavy expenses of all kinds, i believe we can hardly fund less than a thousand pounds out of this trip alone. and, more than that, the extraordinary interest taken in the idea of the guild by "this grand people of england" down in these vast hives, and the enthusiastic welcome they give it, assure me that we may do what we will if we will only be true and faithful to our design. there is a social recognition of it which i cannot give you the least idea of. i sincerely believe that we have the ball at our feet, and may throw it up to the very heaven of heavens. and i don't speak for myself alone, but for all our people, and not least of all for forster, who has been absolutely stunned by the tremendous earnestness of these great places. to tell you (especially after your affectionate letter) what i would have given to have had you there would be idle. but i can most seriously say that all the sights of the earth turned pale in my eyes, before the sight of three thousand people with one heart among them, and no capacity in them, in spite of all their efforts, of sufficiently testifying to you how they believe you to be right, and feel that they cannot do enough to cheer you on. they understood the play (_far better acted by this time than ever you have seen it_) as well as you do. they allowed nothing to escape them. they rose up, when it was over, with a perfect fury of delight, and the manchester people sent a requisition after us to liverpool to say that if we will go back there in may, when we act at birmingham (as of course we shall) they will joyfully undertake to fill the free trade hall again. among the tories of liverpool the reception was equally enthusiastic. we played, two nights running, to a hall crowded to the roof--more like the opera at genoa or milan than anything else i can compare it to. we dined at the town hall magnificently, and it made no difference in the response. i said what we were quietly determined to do (when the guild was given as the toast of the night), and really they were so noble and generous in their encouragement that i should have been more ashamed of myself than i hope i ever shall be, if i could have felt conscious of having ever for a moment faltered in the work. i will answer for birmingham--for any great working town to which we chose to go. we have won a position for the idea which years upon years of labour could not have given it. i believe its worldly fortunes have been advanced in this last week fifty years at least. i feebly express to you what forster (who couldn't be at liverpool, and has not those shouts ringing in his ears) has felt from the moment he set foot in manchester. believe me we may carry a perfect fiery cross through the north of england, and over the border, in this cause, if need be--not only to the enrichment of the cause, but to the lasting enlistment of the people's sympathy. i have been so happy in all this that i could have cried on the shortest notice any time since tuesday. and i do believe that our whole body would have gone to the north pole with me if i had shown them good reason for it. i hope i am not so tired but that you may be able to read this. i have been at it almost incessantly, day and night for a week, and i am afraid my handwriting suffers. but in all other respects i am only a giant refreshed. we meet next saturday you recollect? until then, and ever afterwards, believe me, heartily yours. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clarke.] tavistock house, _ rd march, ._ my dear mrs. clarke, it is almost an impertinence to tell you how delightful your flowers were to me; for you who thought of that beautiful and delicately-timed token of sympathy and remembrance, must know it very well already. i do assure you that i have hardly ever received anything with so much pleasure in all my life. they are not faded yet--are on my table here--but never can fade out of my remembrance. i should be less than a young gas, and more than an old manager--that commemorative portfolio is here too--if i could relieve my heart of half that it could say to you. all my house are my witnesses that you have quite filled it, and this note is my witness that i can _not_ empty it. ever faithfully and gratefully your friend. [sidenote: mr. james bower harrison.] london, tavistock house, _ th march, ._ dear sir, i beg to thank you for your interesting pamphlet, and to add that i shall be very happy to accept an article from you on the subject[ ] for "household words." i should already have suggested to you that i should have great pleasure in receiving contributions from one so well and peculiarly qualified to treat of many interesting subjects, but that i felt a delicacy in encroaching on your other occupations. will you excuse my remarking that to make an article on this particular subject useful, it is essential to address the employed as well as the employers? in the case of the sheffield grinders the difficulty was, for many years, not with the masters, but the men. painters who use white lead are with the greatest difficulty persuaded to be particular in washing their hands, and i daresay that i need not remind you that one could not generally induce domestic servants to attend to the commonest sanitary principles in their work without absolutely forcing them to experience their comfort and convenience. dear sir, very faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the "medical aspects of death, and the medical aspects of the human mind." [ ] the injurious effects of the manufacture of lucifer matches on the employed. . [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] , junction parade, brighton, _thursday night, th march, ._ my dear wills, i am sorry, but brutus sacrifices unborn children of his own as well as those of other people. "the sorrows of childhood," long in type, and long a mere mysterious name, must come out. the paper really is, like the celebrated ambassadorial appointment, "too bad." "a doctor of morals," _impossible of insertion as it stands_. a mere puff, with all the difficult facts of the question blinked, and many statements utterly at variance with what i am known to have written. it is exactly because the great bulk of offences in a great number of places are committed by professed thieves, that it will not do to have pet prisoning advocated without grave remonstrance and great care. that class of prisoner is not to be reformed. we must begin at the beginning and prevent, by stringent correction and supervision of wicked parents, that class of prisoner from being regularly supplied as if he were a human necessity. do they teach trades in workhouses and try to fit _their_ people (the worst part of them) for society? come with me to tothill fields bridewell, and i will show you what a workhouse girl is. or look to my "walk in a workhouse" (in "h. w.") and to the glance at the youths i saw in one place positively kept like wolves. mr. ---- thinks prisons could be made nearly self-supporting. have you any idea of the difficulty that is found in disposing of prison-work, or does he think that the treadmills didn't grind the air because the state or the magistracy objected to the competition of prison-labour with free-labour, but because the work _could not be got_? i never can have any kind of prison-discipline disquisition in "h. w." that does not start with the first great principle i have laid down, and that does not protest against prisons being considered _per se_. whatever chance is given to a man in a prison must be given to a man in a refuge for distress. the article in itself is very good, but it must have these points in it, otherwise i am not only compromising opinions i am known to hold, but the journal itself is blowing hot and cold, and playing fast and loose in a ridiculous way. "starting a paper in india" is very droll to us. but it is full of references that the public don't understand, and don't in the least care for. bourgeois, brevier, minion, and nonpareil, long primer, turn-ups, dunning advertisements, and reprints, back forme, imposing-stone, and locking-up, are all quite out of their way, and a sort of slang that they have no interest in. let me see a revise when you have got it together, and if you can strengthen it--do. i mention all the objections that occur to me as i go on, not because you can obviate them (except in the case of the prison-paper), but because if i make a point of doing so always you will feel and judge the more readily both for yourself and me too when i take an italian flight. you: how are the eyes getting on? me: i have been at work all day. ever faithfully. [sidenote: the same.] boulogne, _sunday, th august, ._ my dear wills, can't possibly write autographs until i have written "bleak house." my work has been very hard since i have been here; and when i throw down my pen of a day, i throw down myself, and can take up neither article. the "c. p." is very well done, but i cannot make up my mind to lend my blow to the great forge-bellows of puffery at work. i so heartily desire to have nothing to do with it, that i wish you would cancel this article altogether, and substitute something else. as to the guide-books, i think they are a sufficiently flatulent botheration in themselves, without being discussed. a lurking desire is always upon me to put mr. ----'s speech on accidents to the public, as chairman of the brighton railway, against his pretensions as a chairman of public instructors and guardians. and i don't know but that i may come to it at some odd time. this strengthens me in my wish to avoid the bellows. how two men can have gone, one after the other, to the camp, and have written nothing about it, passes my comprehension. i have been in great doubt about the end of ----. i wish you would suggest to him from me, when you see him, how wrong it is. surely he cannot be insensible to the fact that military preparations in england at this time mean defence. woman, says ----, means home, love, children, mother. does he not find any protection for these things in a wise and moderate means of defence; and is not the union between these things and those means one of the most natural, significant, and plain in the world? i wish you would send friend barnard here a set of "household words," in a paid parcel (on the other side is an inscription to be neatly pasted into vol. i. before sending), with a post-letter beforehand from yourself, saying that i had begged you to forward the books, feeling so much obliged to him for his uniform attention and politeness. also that you will not fail to continue his set, as successive volumes appear. aspects of nature. we have had a tremendous sea here. steam-packet in the harbour frantic, and dashing her brains out against the stone walls. ever faithfully. [sidenote: rev. james white.] boulogne, _september th, ._ my dear white, as you wickedly failed in your truth to the writer of books you adore, i write something that i hoped to have said, and meant to have said, in the confidence of the pavilion among the trees. will you write another story for the christmas no.? it will be exactly (i mean the xmas no.) on the same plan as the last. i shall be at the office from monday to thursday, and shall hope to receive a cheery "yes," in reply. loves from all to all, and my particular love to mrs. white. ever cordially yours. [sidenote: mrs. charles dickens.] hotel de londres, chamounix, _thursday night, th october, ._ my dearest kate, we[ ] came here last night after a very long journey over very bad roads, from geneva, and leave here (for montigny, by the tête noire) at to-morrow morning. next morning early we mean to try the simplon. after breakfast to-day we ascended to the mer de glace--wonderfully different at this time of the year from when we saw it--a great portion of the ascent being covered with snow, and the climbing very difficult. regardless of my mule, i walked up and walked down again, to the great admiration of the guides, who pronounced me "an intrepid." the little house at the top being closed for the winter, and edward having forgotten to carry any brandy, we had nothing to drink at the top--which was a considerable disappointment to the inimitable, who was streaming with perspiration from head to foot. but we made a fire in the snow with some sticks, and after a not too comfortable rest came down again. it took a long time--from to . the appearance of chamounix at this time of year is very remarkable. the travellers are over for the season, the inns are generally shut up, all the people who can afford it are moving off to geneva, the snow is low on the mountains, and the general desolation and grandeur extraordinarily fine. i wanted to pass by the col de balme, but the snow lies too deep upon it. you would have been quite delighted if you could have seen the warmth of our old lausanne friends, and the heartiness with which they crowded down on a fearfully bad morning to see us off. we passed the night at the ecu de genève, in the rooms once our old rooms--at that time (the day before yesterday) occupied by the queen of the french (ex- i mean) and prince joinville and his family. tell sydney that all the way here from geneva, and up to the sea of ice this morning, i wore his knitting, which was very comfortable indeed. i mean to wear it on the long mule journey to martigny to-morrow. we get on extremely well. edward continues as before. he had never been here, and i took him up to the mer de glace this morning, and had a mule for him. i shall leave this open, as usual, to add a word or two on our arrival at martigny. we have had an amusingly absurd incident this afternoon. when we came here, i saw added to the hotel--our old hotel, and i am now writing in the room where we once dined at the table d'hôte--some baths, cold and hot, down on the margin of the torrent below. this induced us to order three hot baths. thereupon the keys of the bath-rooms were found with immense difficulty, women ran backwards and forwards across the bridge, men bore in great quantities of wood, a horrible furnace was lighted, and a smoke was raised which filled the whole valley. this began at half-past three, and we congratulated each other on the distinction we should probably acquire by being the cause of the conflagration of the whole village. we sat by the fire until half-past five (dinner-time), and still no baths. then edward came up to say that the water was as yet only "tippit," which we suppose to be tepid, but that by half-past eight it would be in a noble state. ever since the smoke has poured forth in enormous volume, and the furnace has blazed, and the women have gone and come over the bridge, and piles of wood have been carried in; but we observe a general avoidance of us by the establishment which still looks like failure. we have had a capital dinner, the dessert whereof is now on the table. when we arrived, at nearly seven last night, all the linen in the house, newly washed, was piled in the sitting-room, all the curtains were taken down, and all the chairs piled bottom upwards. they cleared away as much as they could directly, and had even got the curtains up at breakfast this morning. i am looking forward to letters at genoa, though i doubt if we shall get there (supposing all things right at the simplon) before monday night or tuesday morning. i found there last night what f---- would call "mr. smith's" story of mont blanc, and took it to bed to read. it is extremely well and unaffectedly done. you would be interested in it. martigny, _friday afternoon, october st._ safely arrived here after a most delightful day, without a cloud. i walked the whole way. the scenery most beautifully presented. we are in the hotel where our old st. bernard party assembled. i should like to see you all very much indeed. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] hÃ�tel de la ville, milan, _ th october, ._ my dearest catherine, the road from chamounix here takes so much more time than i supposed (for i travelled it day and night, and my companions don't at all understand the idea of never going to bed) that we only reached milan last night, though we had been travelling twelve and fifteen hours a day. we crossed the simplon on sunday, when there was not (as there is not now) a particle of cloud in the whole sky, and when the pass was as nobly grand and beautiful as it possibly can be. there was a good deal of snow upon the top, but not across the road, which had been cleared. we crossed the austrian frontier yesterday, and, both there and at the gate of milan, received all possible consideration and politeness. i have not seen bairr yet. he has removed from the old hotel to a larger one at a few hours' distance. the head-waiter remembered me very well last night after i had talked to him a little while, and was greatly interested in hearing about all the family, and about poor roche. the boy we used to have at lausanne is now seventeen-and-a-half--very tall, he says. the elder girl, fifteen, very like her mother, but taller and more beautiful. he described poor mrs. bairr's death (i am speaking of the head-waiter before mentioned) in most vivacious italian. it was all over in ten minutes, he said. she put her hands to her head one day, down in the courtyard, and cried out that she heard little bells ringing violently in her ears. they sent off for bairr, who was close by. when she saw him, she stretched out her arms, said in english, "adieu, my dear!" and fell dead. he has not married again, and he never will. she was a good woman (my friend went on), excellent woman, full of charity, loved the poor, but _un poco furiosa_--that was nothing! the new hotel is just like the old one, admirably kept, excellently furnished, and a model of comfort. i hope to be at genoa on thursday morning, and to find your letter there. we have agreed to drop sicily, and to return home by way of marseilles. our projected time for reaching london is the th of december. as this house is full, i daresay we shall meet some one we know at the table d'hôte to-day. it is extraordinary that the only travellers we have encountered, since we left paris, have been one horribly vapid englishman and wife whom we dropped at basle, one boring englishman whom we found (and, thank god, left) at geneva, and two english maiden ladies, whom we found sitting on a rock (with parasols) the day before yesterday, in the most magnificent part of the gorge of gondo, the most awful portion of the simplon--there awaiting their travelling chariot, in which, with their money, their parasols, and a perfect shop of baskets, they were carefully _locked up_ by an english servant in sky blue and silver buttons. we have been in the most extraordinary vehicles--like swings, like boats, like noah's arks, like barges and enormous bedsteads. after dark last night, a landlord, where we changed horses, discovered that the luggage would certainly be stolen from _questo porco d'uno carro_--this pig of a cart--his complimentary description of our carriage, unless cords were attached to each of the trunks, which cords were to hang down so that we might hold them in our hands all the way, and feel any tug that might be made at our treasures. you will imagine the absurdity of our jolting along some twenty miles in this way, exactly as if we were in three shower-baths and were afraid to pull the string. we are going to the scala to-night, having got the old box belonging to the hotel, the old key of which is lying beside me on the table. there seem to be no singers of note here now, and it appears for the time to have fallen off considerably. i shall now bring this to a close, hoping that i may have more interesting jottings to send you about the old scenes and people, from genoa, where we shall stay two days. you are now, i take it, at macready's. i shall be greatly interested by your account of your visit there. we often talk of you all. edward's italian is (i fear) very weak. when we began to get really into the language, he reminded me of poor roche in germany. but he seems to have picked up a little this morning. he has been unfortunate with the unlucky egg, leaving a pair of his shoes (his favourite shoes) behind in paris, and his flannel dressing-gown yesterday morning at domo d'ossola. in all other respects he is just as he was. egg and collins have gone out to kill the lions here, and i take advantage of their absence to write to you, georgie, and miss coutts. wills will have told you, i daresay, that cerjat accompanied us on a miserably wet morning, in a heavy rain, down the lake. by-the-bye, the wife of one of his cousins, born in france of german parents, living in the next house to haldimand's, is one of the most charming, natural, open-faced, and delightful women i ever saw. madame de ---- is set up as the great attraction of lausanne; but this capital creature shuts her up altogether. we have called her (her--the real belle), ever since, the early closing movement. i am impatient for letters from home; confused ideas are upon me that you are going to white's, but i have no notion when. take care of yourself, and god bless you. ever most affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] croce di malta, genoa, _friday night, october th, ._ my dearest catherine, as we arrived here later than i had expected (in consequence of the journey from milan being most horribly slow) i received your welcome letter only this morning. i write this before going to bed, that i may be sure of not being taken by any engagement off the post time to-morrow. we came in last night between seven and eight. the railroad to turin is finished and opened to within twenty miles of genoa. its effect upon the whole town, and especially upon that part of it lying down beyond the lighthouse and away by san pietro d'arena, is quite wonderful. i only knew the place by the lighthouse, so numerous were the new buildings, so wide the streets, so busy the people, and so thriving and busy the many signs of commerce. to-day i have seen ----, the ----, the ----, and the ----, the latter of whom live at nervi, fourteen or fifteen miles off, towards porto fino. first, of the ----. they are just the same, except that mrs. ----'s face is larger and fuller, and her hair rather gray. as i rang at their bell she came out walking, and stared at me. "what! you don't know me?" said i; upon which she recognised me very warmly, and then said in her old quiet way: "i expected to find a ruin. we heard you had been so ill; and i find you younger and better-looking than ever. but it's so strange to see you without a bright waistcoat. why haven't you got a bright waistcoat on?" i apologised for my black one, and was sent upstairs, when ---- presently appeared in a hideous and demoniacal nightdress, having turned out of bed to greet his distinguished countryman. after a long talk, in the course of which i arranged to dine there on sunday early, before starting by the steamer for naples, and in which they told me every possible and impossible particular about their minutest affairs, and especially about ----'s marriage, i set off for ----, at ----. i had found letters from him here, and he had been here over and over again, and had driven out no end of times to the gate to leave messages for me, and really is (in his strange uncouth way) crying glad to see me. i found him and his wife in a little comfortable country house, overlooking the sea, sitting in a small summer-house on wheels, exactly like a bathing machine. i found her rather pretty, extraordinarily cold and composed, a mere piece of furniture, _talking broken english_. through eight months in the year they live in this country place. she never reads, never works, never talks, never gives an order or directs anything, has only a taste for going to the theatre (where she never speaks either) and buying clothes. they sit in the garden all day, dine at four, _smoke their cigars_, go in at eight, sit about till ten, and then go to bed. the greater part of this i had from ---- himself in a particularly unintelligible confidence in the garden, the only portion of which that i could clearly understand were the words "and one thing and another," repeated one hundred thousand times. he described himself as being perfectly happy, and seemed very fond of his wife. "but that," said ---- to me this morning, looking like the figure-head of a ship, with a nutmeg-grater for a face, "that he ought to be, and must be, and is bound to be--he couldn't help it." then i went on to the ----'s, and found them living in a beautiful situation in a ruinous albaro-like palace. coming upon them unawares, i found ----, with a pointed beard, smoking a great german pipe, in a pair of slippers; the two little girls very pale and faint from the climate, in a singularly untidy state--one (heaven knows why!) without stockings, and both with their little short hair cropped in a manner never before beheld, and a little bright bow stuck on the top of it. ---- said she had invented this headgear as a picturesque thing, adding that perhaps it was--and perhaps it was not. she was greatly flushed and agitated, but looked very well, and seems to be greatly liked here. we had disturbed her at her painting in oils, and i rather received an impression that, what with that, and what with music, the household affairs went a little to the wall. ---- was teaching the two little girls the multiplication table in a disorderly old billiard-room with all manner of maps in it. having obtained a gracious permission from the lady of the school, i am going to show my companions the sala of the peschiere this morning. it is raining intensely hard in the regular genoa manner, so that i can hardly hope for genoa's making as fine an impression as i could desire. our boat for naples is a large french mail boat, and we hope to get there on tuesday or wednesday. if the day after you receive this you write to the poste restante, rome, it will be the safest course. friday's letter write poste restante, florence. you refer to a letter you suppose me to have received from forster--to whom my love. no letter from him has come to hand. i will resume my report of this place in my next. in the meantime, i will not fail to drink dear katey's health to-day. edward has just come in with mention of an english boat on tuesday morning, superior to french boat to-morrow, and faster. i shall inquire at ---- and take the best. when i next write i will give you our route in detail. i am pleased to hear of mr. robson's success in a serious part, as i hope he will now be a fine actor. i hope you will enjoy yourself at macready's, though i fear it must be sometimes but a melancholy visit. good-bye, my dear, and believe me ever most affectionately. _sunday, th october._ we leave for naples to-morrow morning by the peninsular and oriental company's steamer the _valletta_. i send a sketch of our movements that i have at last been able to make. mrs. ---- quite came out yesterday. so did mrs. ---- (in a different manner), by violently attacking mrs. ---- for painting ill in oils when she might be playing well on the piano. it rained hard all yesterday, but is finer this morning. we went over the peschiere in the wet afternoon. the garden is sorely neglected now, and the rooms are all full of boarding-school beds, and most of the fireplaces are closed up, but the old beauty and grandeur of the place were in it still. this will find you, i suppose, at sherborne. my heartiest love to dear macready, and to miss macready, and to all the house. i hope my godson has not forgotten me. i will think of charley (from whom i have heard here) and soon write to him definitely. at present i think he had better join me at boulogne. i shall not bring the little boys over, as, if we keep our time, it would be too long before christmas day. with love to georgy, ever most affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] hotel des Ã�trangers, naples, _friday night, november th, ._ my dearest catherine, we arrived here at midday--two days after our intended time, under circumstances which i reserve for georgina's letter, by way of variety--in what forster used to call good health and sp--p--pirits. we have a charming apartment opposite the sea, a little lower down than the victoria--in the direction of the san carlo theatre--and the windows are now wide open as on an english summer night. the first persons we found on board at genoa, were emerson tennent, lady tennent, their son and daughter. they are all here too, in an apartment over ours, and we have all been constantly together in a very friendly way, ever since our meeting. we dine at the table d'hôte--made a league together on board--and have been mutually agreeable. they have no servant with them, and have profited by edward. he goes on perfectly well, is always cheerful and ready, has been sleeping on board (upside down, i believe), in a corner, with his head in the wet and his heels against the side of the paddle-box--but has been perpetually gay and fresh. as soon as we got our luggage from the custom house, we packed complete changes in a bag, set off in a carriage for some warm baths, and had a most refreshing cleansing after our long journey. there was an odd neapolitan attendant--a steady old man--who, bringing the linen into my bath, proposed to "soap me." upon which i called out to the other two that i intended to have everything done to me that could be done, and gave him directions accordingly. i was frothed all over with naples soap, rubbed all down, scrubbed with a brush, had my nails cut, and all manner of extraordinary operations performed. he was as much disappointed (apparently) as surprised not to find me dirty, and kept on ejaculating under his breath, "oh, heaven! how clean this englishman is!" he also remarked that the englishman is as fair as a beautiful woman. some relations of lord john russell's, going to malta, were aboardship, and we were very pleasant. likewise there was a mr. young aboard--an agreeable fellow, not very unlike forster in person--who introduced himself as the brother of the miss youngs whom we knew at boulogne. he was musical and had much good-fellowship in him, and we were very agreeable together also. on the whole i became decidedly popular, and was embraced on all hands when i came over the side this morning. we are going up vesuvius, of course, and to herculaneum and pompeii, and the usual places. the tennents will be our companions in most of our excursions, but we shall leave them here behind us. naples looks just the same as when we left it, except that the weather is much better and brighter. on the day before we left genoa, we had another dinner with ---- at his country place. he was the soul of hospitality, and really seems to love me. you would have been quite touched if you could have seen the honest warmth of his affection. on the occasion of this second banquet, egg made a brilliant mistake that perfectly convulsed us all. i had introduced all the games with great success, and we were playing at the "what advice would you have given that person?" game. the advice was "not to bully his fellow-creatures." upon which, egg triumphantly and with the greatest glee, screamed, "mr. ----!" utterly forgetting ----'s relationship, which i had elaborately impressed upon him. the effect was perfectly irresistible and uncontrollable; and the little woman's way of humouring the joke was in the best taste and the best sense. while i am upon genoa i may add, that when we left the croce the landlord, in hoping that i was satisfied, told me that as i was an old inhabitant, he had charged the prices "as to a genoese." they certainly were very reasonable. mr. and mrs. sartoris have lately been staying in this house, but are just gone. it is kept by an english waiting-maid who married an italian courier, and is extremely comfortable and clean. i am getting impatient to hear from you with all home news, and shall be heartily glad to get to rome, and find my best welcome and interest at the post-office there. that ridiculous ---- and her mother were at the hotel at leghorn the day before yesterday, where the mother (poor old lady!) was so ill from the fright and anxiety consequent on her daughter's efforts at martyrdom, that it is even doubtful whether she will recover. i learnt from a lady friend of ----, that all this nonsense originated at nice, where she was stirred up by free kirk parsons--itinerant--any one of whom i take her to be ready to make a semi-celestial marriage with. the dear being who told me all about her was a noble specimen--single, forty, in a clinging flounced black silk dress, which wouldn't drape, or bustle, or fall, or do anything of that sort--and with a leghorn hat on her head, at least (i am serious) _six feet round_. the consequence of its immense size, was, that whereas it had an insinuating blue decoration in the form of a bow in front, it was so out of her knowledge behind, that it was all battered and bent in that direction--and, viewed from that quarter, she looked drunk. my best love to mamey and katey, and sydney the king of the nursery, and harry and the dear little plornishghenter. i kiss almost all the children i encounter in remembrance of their sweet faces, and talk to all the mothers who carry them. i hope to hear nothing but good news from you, and to find nothing but good spirits in your expected letter when i come to rome. i already begin to look homeward, being now at the remotest part of the journey, and to anticipate the pleasure of return. ever most affectionately. footnote: [ ] charles dickens, mr. wilkie collins, mr. augustus egg, and edward the courier. . [sidenote: mr. frederick grew.[ ]] tavistock house, london, _ th january, ._ my dear sir, i beg, through you, to assure the artizans' committee in aid of the birmingham and midland institute, that i have received the resolution they have done me the honour to agree upon for themselves and their fellow-workmen, with the highest gratification. i awakened no pleasure or interest among them at birmingham which they did not repay to me with abundant interest. i have their welfare and happiness sincerely at heart, and shall ever be their faithful friend. your obedient servant. [sidenote: mrs. gaskell.] tavistock house, _february th, ._ my dear mrs. gaskell, i am sorry to say that i am not one of the zoologicals, or i should have been delighted to have had a hand in the introduction of a child to the lions and tigers. but wills shall send up to the gardens this morning, and see if mr. mitchell, the secretary, can be found. if he be producible i have no doubt that i can send you what you want in the course of the day. such has been the distraction of _my_ mind in _my_ story, that i have twice forgotten to tell you how much i liked the modern greek songs. the article is printed and at press for the very next number as ever is. don't put yourself out at all as to the division of the story into parts; i think you had far better write it in your own way. when we come to get a little of it into type, i have no doubt of being able to make such little suggestions as to breaks of chapters as will carry us over all that easily. my dear mrs. gaskell, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: rev. w. harness.] tavistock house, _friday evening, may th, ._ my dear harness, on thursday, the first of june, we shall be delighted to come. (might i ask for the mildest whisper of the dinner-hour?) i am more than ever devoted to your niece, if possible, for giving me the choice of two days, as on the second of june i am a fettered mortal. i heard a manly, christian sermon last sunday at the foundling--with _great satisfaction_. if you should happen to know the preacher of it, pray thank him from me. ever cordially yours. [sidenote: rev. james white.] tavistock house, _may th, ._ my dear white, here is conolly in a dreadful state of mind because you won't dine with him on the th of june next to meet stratford-on-avon people, writing to me, to ask me to write to you and ask you what you mean by it. what _do_ you mean by it? it appears to conolly that your supposing you _can_ have anything to do is a clear case of monomania, one of the slight instances of perverted intellect, wherein a visit to him cannot fail to be beneficial. after conference with my learned friend i am of the same opinion. loves from all in tavistock to all in bonchurch. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] boulogne, _wednesday, august nd, ._ my dear wills, i will endeavour to come off my back (and the grass) to do an opening paper for the starting number of "north and south." i can't positively answer for such a victory over the idleness into which i have delightfully sunk, as the achievement of this feat; but let us hope. during a fête on monday night the meteor flag of england (forgotten to be struck at sunset) was _stolen!!!_ manage the proofs of "h. w." so that i may not have to correct them on a sunday. i am not going over to the sabbatarians, but like the haystack (particularly) on a sunday morning. i should like john to call on m. henri, townshend's servant, , norfolk street, park lane, and ask him if, when he comes here with his master, he can take charge of a trap bat and ball. if yea, then i should like john to proceed to mr. darke, lord's cricket ground, and purchase said trap bat and ball of the best quality. townshend is coming here on the th, probably will leave town a day or two before. pray be in a condition to drink a glass of the champagne when _you_ come. i think i have no more to say at present. i cannot sufficiently admire my prodigious energy in coming out of a stupor to write this letter. ever faithfully. footnote: [ ] secretary to the artizans' committee in aid of the birmingham and midland institute. . [sidenote: miss king.] tavistock house, _friday evening, february th, ._ my dear miss king, i wish to get over the disagreeable part of my letter in the beginning. i have great doubts of the possibility of publishing your story in portions. but i think it possesses _very great merit_. my doubts arise partly from the nature of the interest which i fear requires presentation as a whole, and partly on your manner of relating the tale. the people do not sufficiently work out their own purposes in dialogue and dramatic action. you are too much their exponent; what you do for them, they ought to do for themselves. with reference to publication in detached portions (or, indeed, with a reference to the force of the story in any form), that long stoppage and going back to possess the reader with the antecedents of the clergyman's biography, are rather crippling. i may mention that i think the boy (the child of the second marriage) a little too "slangy." i know the kind of boyish slang which belongs to such a character in these times; but, considering his part in the story, i regard it as the author's function to elevate such a characteristic, and soften it into something more expressive of the ardour and flush of youth, and its romance. it seems to me, too, that the dialogues between the lady and the italian maid are conventional but not natural. this observation i regard as particularly applying to the maid, and to the scene preceding the murder. supposing the main objection surmountable, i would venture then to suggest to you the means of improvement in this respect. the paper is so full of good touches of character, passion, and natural emotion, that i very much wish for a little time to reconsider it, and to try whether condensation here and there would enable us to get it say into four parts. i am not sanguine of this, for i observed the difficulties as i read it the night before last; but i am very unwilling, i assure you, to decline what has so much merit. i am going to paris on sunday morning for ten days or so. i purpose being back again within a fortnight. if you will let me think of this matter in the meanwhile, i shall at least have done all i can to satisfy my own appreciation of your work. but if, in the meantime, you should desire to have it back with any prospect of publishing it through other means, a letter--the shortest in the world--from you to mr. wills at the "household words" office will immediately produce it. i repeat with perfect sincerity that i am much impressed by its merits, and that if i had read it as the production of an entire stranger, i think it would have made exactly this effect upon me. my dear miss king, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] tavistock house, _ th february, ._ my dear miss king, i have gone carefully over your story again, and quite agree with you that the episode of the clergyman could be told in a very few lines. startling as i know it will appear to you, i am bound to say that i think the purpose of the whole tale would be immensely strengthened by great compression. i doubt if it could not be told more forcibly in half the space. it is certainly too long for "household words," and i fear my idea of it is too short for you. i am, if possible, more unwilling than i was at first to decline it; but the more i have considered it, the longer it has seemed to grow. nor can i ask you to try to present it free from that objection, because i already perceive the difficulty, and pain, of such an effort. to the best of my knowledge, you are wrong about the lady at last, and to the best of my observation, you do not express what you explain yourself to mean in the case of the italian attendant. i have met with such talk in the romances of maturin's time--certainly never in italian life. these, however, are slight points easily to be compromised in an hour. the great obstacle i must leave wholly to your own judgment, in looking over the tale again. believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. w. m. thackeray.] tavistock house, _friday evening, rd march, ._ my dear thackeray,[ ] i have read in _the times_ to-day an account of your last night's lecture, and cannot refrain from assuring you in all truth and earnestness that i am profoundly touched by your generous reference to me. i do not know how to tell you what a glow it spread over my heart. out of its fulness i do entreat you to believe that i shall never forget your words of commendation. if you could wholly know at once how you have moved me, and how you have animated me, you would be the happier i am very certain. faithfully yours ever. [sidenote: mr. forster.] tavistock house, _friday, th march, ._ my dear forster, i have hope of mr. morley,[ ] whom one cannot see without knowing to be a straightforward, earnest man. _i_ also think higgins[ ] will materially help them.[ ] generally, i quite agree with you that they hardly know what to be at; but it is an immensely difficult subject to start, and they must have every allowance. at any rate, it is not by leaving them alone and giving them no help, that they can be urged on to success. (travers, too, i think, a man of the anti-corn-law-league order.) higgins told me, after the meeting on monday night, that on the previous evening he had been closeted with ----, whose letter in that day's paper he had put right for _the times_. he had never spoken to ---- before, he said, and found him a rather muddle-headed scotchman as to his powers of conveying his ideas. he (higgins) had gone over his documents judicially, and with the greatest attention; and not only was ---- wrong in every particular (except one very unimportant circumstance), but, in reading documents to the house, had stopped short in sentences where no stop was, and by so doing had utterly perverted their meaning. this is to come out, of course, when said ---- gets the matter on. i thought the case so changed, before i knew this, by his letter and that of the other shipowners, that i told morley, when i went down to the theatre, that i felt myself called upon to relieve him from the condition i had imposed. for the rest, i am quite calmly confident that i only do justice to the strength of my opinions, and use the power which circumstances have given me, conscientiously and moderately, with a right object, and towards the prevention of nameless miseries. i should be now reproaching myself if i had not gone to the meeting, and, having been, i am very glad. a good illustration of a government office. ---- very kindly wrote to me to suggest that "houses of parliament" illustration. after i had dined on wednesday, and was going to jog slowly down to drury lane, it suddenly came into my head that perhaps his details were wrong. i had just time to turn to the "annual register," and _not one of them was correct_! this is, of course, in close confidence. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mrs. winter.] _tuesday, rd april, ._ my dear maria,[ ] a necessity is upon me now--as at most times--of wandering about in my old wild way, to think. i could no more resist this on sunday or yesterday than a man can dispense with food, or a horse can help himself from being driven. i hold my inventive capacity on the stern condition that it must master my whole life, often have complete possession of me, make its own demands upon me, and sometimes, for months together, put everything else away from me. if i had not known long ago that my place could never be held, unless i were at any moment ready to devote myself to it entirely, i should have dropped out of it very soon. all this i can hardly expect you to understand--or the restlessness and waywardness of an author's mind. you have never seen it before you, or lived with it, or had occasion to think or care about it, and you cannot have the necessary consideration for it. "it is only half-an-hour,"--"it is only an afternoon,"--"it is only an evening," people say to me over and over again; but they don't know that it is impossible to command one's self sometimes to any stipulated and set disposal of five minutes,--or that the mere consciousness of an engagement will sometimes worry a whole day. these are the penalties paid for writing books. whoever is devoted to an art must be content to deliver himself wholly up to it, and to find his recompense in it. i am grieved if you suspect me of not wanting to see you, but i can't help it; i must go my way whether or no. i thought you would understand that in sending the card for the box i sent an assurance that there was nothing amiss. i am pleased to find that you were all so interested with the play. my ladies say that the first part is too painful and wants relief. i have been going to see it a dozen times, but have never seen it yet, and never may. madame céleste is injured thereby (you see how unreasonable people are!) and says in the green-room, "m. dickens est artiste! mais il n'a jamais vu 'janet pride!'" it is like a breath of fresh spring air to know that that unfortunate baby of yours is out of her one close room, and has about half-a-pint of very doubtful air per day. i could only have become her godfather on the condition that she had five hundred gallons of open air at any rate every day of her life; and you would soon see a rose or two in the face of my other little friend, ella, if you opened all your doors and windows throughout the whole of all fine weather, from morning to night. i am going off; i don't know where or how far, to ponder about i don't know what. sometimes i am half in the mood to set off for france, sometimes i think i will go and walk about on the seashore for three or four months, sometimes i look towards the pyrenees, sometimes switzerland. i made a compact with a great spanish authority last week, and vowed i would go to spain. two days afterwards layard and i agreed to go to constantinople when parliament rises. to-morrow i shall probably discuss with somebody else the idea of going to greenland or the north pole. the end of all this, most likely, will be, that i shall shut myself up in some out-of-the-way place i have not yet thought of, and go desperately to work there. once upon a time i didn't do such things you say. no. but i have done them through a good many years now, and they have become myself and my life. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] tavistock house, _wednesday, june th, ._ my dear mrs. winter, i am truly grieved to hear of your affliction in the loss of your darling baby. but if you be not, even already, so reconciled to the parting from that innocent child for a little while, as to bear it gently and with a softened sorrow, i know that that not unhappy state of mind must soon arise. the death of infants is a release from so much chance and change--from so many casualties and distresses--and is a thing so beautiful in its serenity and peace--that it should not be a bitterness, even in a mother's heart. the simplest and most affecting passage in all the noble history of our great master, is his consideration for little children, and in reference to yours, as many millions of bereaved mothers poor and rich will do in reference to theirs until the end of time, you may take the comfort of the generous words, "and he took a child, and set it in the midst of them." in a book, by one of the greatest english writers, called "a journey from this world to the next," a parent comes to the distant country beyond the grave, and finds the little girl he had lost so long ago, engaged in building a bower to receive him in, when his aged steps should bring him there at last. he is filled with joy to see her, so young--so bright--so full of promise--and is enraptured to think that she never was old, wan, tearful, withered. this is always one of the sources of consolation in the deaths of children. with no effort of the fancy, with nothing to undo, you will always be able to think of the pretty creature you have lost, _as a child_ in heaven. a poor little baby of mine lies in highgate cemetery--and i laid her just as you think of laying yours, in the catacombs there, until i made a resting-place for all of us in the free air. it is better that i should not come to see you. i feel quite sure of that, and will think of you instead. god bless and comfort you! mrs. dickens and her sister send their kindest condolences to yourself and mr. winter. i add mine with all my heart. affectionately your friend. [sidenote: mr. wilkie collins.] tavistock house, _sunday, th july, ._ my dear collins, i don't know whether you may have heard from webster, or whether the impression i derived from mark's manner on friday may be altogether correct. but it strongly occurred to me that webster was going to decline the play, and that he really has worried himself into a fear of playing aaron. now, when i got this into my head--which was during the rehearsal--i considered two things:--firstly, how we could best put about the success of the piece more widely and extensively even than it has yet reached; and secondly, how you could be best assisted against a bad production of it hereafter, or no production of it. i thought i saw immediately, that the point would be to have this representation noticed in the newspapers. so i waited until the rehearsal was over and we had profoundly astonished the family, and then asked colonel waugh what he thought of sending some cards for tuesday to the papers. he highly approved, and i yesterday morning directed mitchell to send to all the morning papers, and to some of the weekly ones--a dozen in the whole. i dined at lord john's yesterday (where meyerbeer was, and said to me after dinner: "ah, mon ami illustre! que c'est noble de vous entendre parler d'haute voix morale, à la table d'un ministre!" for i gave them a little bit of truth about sunday that was like bringing a sebastopol battery among the polite company), i say, after this long parenthesis, i dined at lord john's, and found great interest and talk about the play, and about what everybody who had been here had said of it. and i was confirmed in my decision that the thing for you was the invitation to the papers. hence i write to tell you what i have done. i dine at home at half-past five if you are disengaged, and i shall be at home all the evening. ever faithfully. note (by mr. wilkie collins).--this characteristically kind endeavour to induce managers of theatres to produce "the lighthouse," after the amateur performances of the play, was not attended with any immediate success. the work remained in the author's desk until messrs. robson and emden undertook the management of the olympic theatre. they opened their first season with "the lighthouse;" the part of aaron gurnock being performed by mr. f. robson.--w. c. [sidenote: miss emily jolly.] , albion villas, folkestone, kent, _tuesday, th july, ._ dear madam,[ ] your manuscript, entitled a "wife's story," has come under my own perusal within these last three or four days. i recognise in it such great merit and unusual promise, and i think it displays so much power and knowledge of the human heart, that i feel a strong interest in you as its writer. i have begged the gentleman, who is in my confidence as to the transaction of the business of "household words," to return the ms. to you by the post, which (as i hope) will convey this note to you. my object is this: i particularly entreat you to consider the catastrophe. you write to be read, of course. the close of the story is unnecessarily painful--will throw off numbers of persons who would otherwise read it, and who (as it stands) will be deterred by hearsay from so doing, and is so tremendous a piece of severity, that it will defeat your purpose. all my knowledge and experience, such as they are, lead me straight to the recommendation that you will do well to spare the life of the husband, and of one of the children. let her suppose the former dead, from seeing him brought in wounded and insensible--lose nothing of the progress of her mental suffering afterwards when that doctor is in attendance upon her--but bring her round at last to the blessed surprise that her husband is still living, and that a repentance which can be worked out, _in the way of atonement for the misery she has occasioned to the man whom she so ill repaid for his love, and made so miserable_, lies before her. so will you soften the reader whom you now as it were harden, and so you will bring tears from many eyes, which can only have their spring in affectionately and gently touched hearts. i am perfectly certain that with this change, all the previous part of your tale will tell for twenty times as much as it can in its present condition. and it is because i believe you have a great fame before you if you do justice to the remarkable ability you possess, that i venture to offer you this advice in what i suppose to be the beginning of your career. i observe some parts of the story which would be strengthened, even in their psychological interest, by condensation here and there. if you will leave that to me, i will perform the task as conscientiously and carefully as if it were my own. but the suggestion i offer for your acceptance, no one but yourself can act upon. let me conclude this hasty note with the plain assurance that i have never been so much surprised and struck by any manuscript i have read, as i have been by yours. your faithful servant. [sidenote: the same.] , albion villas, folkestone, _july st, ._ dear madam, i did not enter, in detail, on the spirit of the alteration i propose in your story; because i thought it right that you should think out that for yourself if you applied yourself to the change. i can now assure you that you describe it exactly as i had conceived it; and if i had wanted anything to confirm me in my conviction of its being right, our both seeing it so precisely from the same point of view, would be ample assurance to me. i would leave her new and altered life to be inferred. it does not appear to me either necessary or practicable (within such limits) to do more than that. do not be uneasy if you find the alteration demanding time. i shall quite understand that, and my interest will keep. _when_ you finish the story, send it to mr. wills. besides being in daily communication with him, i am at the office once a week; and i will go over it in print, before the proof is sent to you. very faithfully yours. .[ ] [sidenote: captain morgan.] dear friend,[ ] i am always delighted to hear from you. your genial earnestness does me good to think of. and every day of my life i feel more and more that to be thoroughly in earnest is everything, and to be anything short of it is nothing. you see what we have been doing to our valiant soldiers.[ ] you see what miserable humbugs we are. and because we have got involved in meshes of aristocratic red tape to our unspeakable confusion, loss, and sorrow, the gentlemen who have been so kind as to ruin us are going to give us a day of humiliation and fasting the day after to-morrow. i am sick and sour to think of such things at this age of the world. . . . i am in the first stage of a new book, which consists in going round and round the idea, as you see a bird in his cage go about and about his sugar before he touches it. always most cordially yours. footnotes: [ ] the editors have great pleasure in publishing another note to mr. thackeray, which has been found and sent to them by his daughter, mrs. ritchie, since the publication of the first two volumes. [ ] chairman of the "administrative reform league" meeting at drury lane theatre. [ ] mr. higgins, best known as a writer in _the times_, under the name of "jacob omnium." [ ] the members of the administrative reform league. [ ] mrs. winter, a very dear friend and companion of charles dickens in his youth. [ ] miss emily jolly, authoress of "mr. arle," and many other clever novels. [ ] this, and another letter to captain morgan which appears under date of , were published in _scribner's monthly_, october, . [ ] captain morgan was a captain in the american merchant service. he was an intimate friend of mr. leslie, r.a. (the great painter), by whom he was made known to charles dickens. [ ] this letter was written during the crimean war. . [sidenote: mr. t. ross. mr. j. kenny.] tavistock house, _monday, th may, ._ gentlemen, i have received a letter signed by you (which i assume to be written mainly on behalf of what are called working-men and their families) inviting me to attend a meeting in our parish vestry hall this evening on the subject of the stoppage of the sunday bands in the parks. i thoroughly agree with you that those bands have afforded an innocent and healthful enjoyment on the sunday afternoon, to which the people have a right. but i think it essential that the working people should, of themselves and by themselves, assert that right. they have been informed, on the high authority of their first minister (lately rather in want of house of commons votes i am told) that they are almost indifferent to it. the correction of that mistake, if official omniscience can be mistaken, lies with themselves. in case it should be considered by the meeting, which i prefer for this reason not to attend, expedient to unite with other metropolitan parishes in forming a fund for the payment of such expenses as may be incurred in peaceably and numerously representing to the governing powers that the harmless recreation they have taken away is very much wanted, i beg you to put down my name as a subscriber of ten pounds. and i am, your faithful servant. [sidenote: mr. washington irving.] tavistock house, _london, july th, ._ my dear irving, if you knew how often i write to you individually and personally in my books, you would be no more surprised in seeing this note than you were in seeing me do my duty by that flowery julep (in what i dreamily apprehend to have been a former state of existence) at baltimore. will you let me present to you a cousin of mine, mr. b----, who is associated with a merchant's house in new york? of course he wants to see you, and know you. how can _i_ wonder at that? how can anybody? i had a long talk with leslie at the last academy dinner (having previously been with him in paris), and he told me that you were flourishing. i suppose you know that he wears a moustache--so do i for the matter of that, and a beard too--and that he looks like a portrait of don quixote. holland house has four-and-twenty youthful pages in it now--twelve for my lord, and twelve for my lady; and no clergyman coils his leg up under his chair all dinner-time, and begins to uncurve it when the hostess goes. no wheeled chair runs smoothly in with that beaming face in it; and ----'s little cotton pocket-handkerchief helped to make (i believe) this very sheet of paper. a half-sad, half-ludicrous story of rogers is all i will sully it with. you know, i daresay, that for a year or so before his death he wandered, and lost himself like one of the children in the wood, grown up there and grown down again. he had mrs. procter and mrs. carlyle to breakfast with him one morning--only those two. both excessively talkative, very quick and clever, and bent on entertaining him. when mrs. carlyle had flashed and shone before him for about three-quarters of an hour on one subject, he turned his poor old eyes on mrs. procter, and pointing to the brilliant discourser with his poor old finger, said (indignantly), "who is _she_?" upon this, mrs. procter, cutting in, delivered (it is her own story) a neat oration on the life and writings of carlyle, and enlightened him in her happiest and airiest manner; all of which he heard, staring in the dreariest silence, and then said (indignantly, as before), "and who are _you_?" ever, my dear irving, most affectionately and truly yours. [sidenote: mr. frank stone, a.r.a] ville des moulineaux, boulogne, _wednesday, th july, ._ my dear stone, i have got a capital part for you in the farce,[ ] not a difficult one to learn, as you never say anything but "yes" and "no." you are called in the _dramatis personæ_ an able-bodied british seaman, and you are never seen by mortal eye to do anything (except inopportunely producing a mop) but stand about the deck of the boat in everybody's way, with your hair immensely touzled, one brace on, your hands in your pockets, and the bottoms of your trousers tucked up. yet you are inextricably connected with the plot, and are the man whom everybody is inquiring after. i think it is a very whimsical idea and extremely droll. it made me laugh heartily when i jotted it all down yesterday. loves from all my house to all yours. ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] the farce alluded to, however, was never written. it had been projected to be played at the amateur theatricals at tavistock house. . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] tavistock house, _wednesday, th january, ._ my dear bulwer, i thought wills had told you as to the guild (for i begged him to) that he can do absolutely nothing until our charter is seven years old. it is the stringent and express prohibition of the act of parliament--for which things you members, thank god, are responsible and not i. when i observed this clause (which was just as we were going to grant a pension, if we could agree on a good subject), i caused our counsel's opinion to be taken on it, and there is not a doubt about it. i immediately recommended that there should be no expenses--that the interest on the capital should be all invested as it accrued--that the chambers should be given up and the clerk discharged--and that the guild should have the use of the "household words" office rent free, and the services of wills on the same terms. all of which was done. a letter is now copying, to be sent round to all the members, explaining, with the new year, the whole state of the thing. you will receive this. it appears to me that it looks wholesome enough. but if a strong idiot comes and binds your hands, or mine, or both, for seven years, what is to be done against him? as to greater matters than this, however--as to all matters on this teeming earth--it appears to me that the house of commons and parliament altogether, is just the dreariest failure and nuisance that has bothered this much-bothered world. ever yours. [sidenote: miss emily jolly.] gravesend, kent, _ th april, ._ dear madam, as i am away from london for a few days, your letter has been forwarded to me. i can honestly encourage and assure you that i believe the depression and want of confidence under which you describe yourself as labouring to have no sufficient foundation. first as to "mr. arle." i have constantly heard it spoken of with great approval, and i think it a book of considerable merit. if i were to tell you that i see no evidence of inexperience in it, that would not be true. i think a little more stir and action to be desired also; but i am surprised by your being despondent about it, for i assure you that i had supposed it (always remembering that it is your first novel) to have met with a very good reception. i can bring to my memory--here, with no means of reference at hand--only two papers of yours that have been unsuccessful at "household words." i think the first was called "the brook." it appeared to me to break down upon a confusion that pervaded it, between a coroner's inquest and a trial. i have a general recollection of the mingling of the two, as to facts and forms that should have been kept apart, in some inextricable manner that was beyond my powers of disentanglement. the second was about a wife's writing a novel and keeping the secret from her husband until it was done. i did not think the incident of sufficient force to justify the length of the narrative. but there is nothing fatal in either of these mischances. mr. wills told me when i spoke to him of the latter paper that you had it in contemplation to offer a longer story to "household words." if you should do so, i assure you i shall be happy to read it myself, and that i shall have a sincere desire to accept it, if possible. i can give you no better counsel than to look into the life about you, and to strive for what is noblest and true. as to further encouragement, i do not, i can most strongly add, believe that you have any reason to be downhearted. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] tavistock house, _saturday morning, th may, ._ dear madam, i read your story, with all possible attention, last night. i cannot tell you with what reluctance i write to you respecting it, for my opinion of it is _not_ favourable, although i perceive your heart in it, and great strength. pray understand that i claim no infallibility. i merely express my own honest opinion, formed against my earnest desire. i do not lay it down as law for others, though, of course, i believe that many others would come to the same conclusion. it appears to me that the story is one that cannot possibly be told within the compass to which you have limited yourself. the three principal people are, every one of them, in the wrong with the reader, and you cannot put any of them right, without making the story extend over a longer space of time, and without anatomising the souls of the actors more slowly and carefully. nothing would justify the departure of alice, but her having some strong reason to believe that in taking that step, _she saved her lover_. in your intentions as to that lover's transfer of his affections to eleanor, i descry a striking truth; but i think it confusedly wrought out, and all but certain to fail in expressing itself. eleanor, i regard as forced and overstrained. the natural result is, that she carries a train of anti-climax after her. i particularly notice this at the point when she thinks she is going to be drowned. the whole idea of the story is sufficiently difficult to require the most exact truth and the greatest knowledge and skill in the colouring throughout. in this respect i have no doubt of its being extremely defective. the people do not talk as such people would; and the little subtle touches of description which, by making the country house and the general scene real, would give an air of reality to the people (much to be desired) are altogether wanting. the more you set yourself to the illustration of your heroine's passionate nature, the more indispensable this attendant atmosphere of truth becomes. it would, in a manner, oblige the reader to believe in her. whereas, for ever exploding like a great firework without any background, she glares and wheels and hisses, and goes out, and has lighted nothing. lastly, i fear she is too convulsive from beginning to end. pray reconsider, from this point of view, her brow, and her eyes, and her drawing herself up to her full height, and her being a perfumed presence, and her floating into rooms, also her asking people how they dare, and the like, on small provocation. when she hears her music being played, i think she is particularly objectionable. i have a strong belief that if you keep this story by you three or four years, you will form an opinion of it not greatly differing from mine. there is so much good in it, so much reflection, so much passion and earnestness, that, if my judgment be right, i feel sure you will come over to it. on the other hand, i do not think that its publication, as it stands, would do you service, or be agreeable to you hereafter. i have no means of knowing whether you are patient in the pursuit of this art; but i am inclined to think that you are not, and that you do not discipline yourself enough. when one is impelled to write this or that, one has still to consider: "how much of this will tell for what i mean? how much of it is my own wild emotion and superfluous energy--how much remains that is truly belonging to this ideal character and these ideal circumstances?" it is in the laborious struggle to make this distinction, and in the determination to try for it, that the road to the correction of faults lies. [perhaps i may remark, in support of the sincerity with which i write this, that i am an impatient and impulsive person myself, but that it has been for many years the constant effort of my life to practise at my desk what i preach to you.] i should not have written so much, or so plainly, but for your last letter to me. it seems to demand that i should be strictly true with you, and i am so in this letter, without any reservation either way. very faithfully yours. . [sidenote: mr. albert smith.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _wednesday night, st december, ._ my dear albert, i cannot tell you how grieved i am for poor dear arthur (even you can hardly love him better than i do), or with what anxiety i shall wait for further news of him. pray let me know how he is to-morrow. tell them at home that olliffe is the kindest and gentlest of men--a man of rare experience and opportunity--perfect master of his profession, and to be confidently and implicitly relied upon. there is no man alive, in whose hands i would more thankfully trust myself. i will write a cheery word to the dear fellow in the morning. ever faithfully. [sidenote: mr. arthur smith.] tavistock house, tavistock square, london, w.c., _thursday, nd december, ._ my dear arthur, i cannot tell you how surprised and grieved i was last night to hear from albert of your severe illness. it is not my present intention to give you the trouble of reading anything like a letter, but i must send you my loving word; and tell you how we all think of you. and here am i going off to-morrow to that meeting at manchester without _you!_ the wildest and most impossible of moves as it seems to me. and to think of my coming back by coventry, on saturday, to receive the chronometer--also without you! if you don't get perfectly well soon, my dear old fellow, i shall come over to paris to look after you, and to tell olliffe (give him my love, and the same for lady olliffe) what a blessing he is. with kindest regards to mrs. arthur and her sister, ever heartily and affectionately yours. . [sidenote: mr. w. p. frith, r.a.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, _wednesday, th january, ._ my dear frith, at eleven on monday morning next, the gifted individual whom you will transmit to posterity,[ ] will be at watkins'. table also shall be there, and chair. velvet coat likewise if the tailor should have sent it home. but the garment is more to be doubted than the man whose signature here follows. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mrs. cowden clark.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _ st august, ._ my dear mrs. cowden clarke, i cannot tell you how much pleasure i have derived from the receipt of your earnest letter. do not suppose it possible that such praise can be "less than nothing" to your old manager. it is more than all else. here in my little country house on the summit of the hill where falstaff did the robbery, your words have come to me in the most appropriate and delightful manner. when the story can be read all at once, and my meaning can be better seen, i will send it to you (sending it to dean street, if you tell me of no better way), and it will be a hearty gratification to think that you and your good husband are reading it together. for you must both take notice, please, that i have a reminder of you always before me. on my desk, here, stand two green leaves[ ] which i every morning station in their ever-green place at my elbow. the leaves on the oak-trees outside the window are less constant than these, for they are with me through the four seasons. lord! to think of the bygone day when you were stricken mute (was it not at glasgow?) and, being mounted on a tall ladder at a practicable window, stared at forster, and with a noble constancy refused to utter word! like the monk among the pictures with wilkie, i begin to think _that_ the real world, and this the sham that goes out with the lights. god bless you both. ever faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the portrait by mr. frith is now in the forster collection, at the south kensington museum. [ ] a porcelain paper-weight with two green leaves enamelled on it, between which were placed the initials c. d. a present from mrs. c. clarke. . [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] [ ]tavistock house, tavistock square, w.c., _friday night, feb. , ._ my dear chorley, i can most honestly assure you that i think "roccabella" a very remarkable book indeed. apart--quite apart--from my interest in you, i am certain that if i had taken it up under any ordinarily favourable circumstances as a book of which i knew nothing whatever, i should not--could not--have relinquished it until i had read it through. i had turned but a few pages, and come to the shadow on the bright sofa at the foot of the bed, when i knew myself to be in the hands of an artist. that rare and delightful recognition i never lost for a moment until i closed the second volume at the end. i am "a good audience" when i have reason to be, and my girls would testify to you, if there were need, that i cried over it heartily. your story seems to me remarkably ingenious. i had not the least idea of the purport of the sealed paper until you chose to enlighten me; and then i felt it to be quite natural, quite easy, thoroughly in keeping with the character and presentation of the liverpool man. the position of the bell family in the story has a special air of nature and truth; is quite new to me, and is so dexterously and delicately done that i find the deaf daughter no less real and distinct than the clergyman's wife. the turn of the story round that damnable princess i pursued with a pleasure with which i could pursue nothing but a true interest; and i declare to you that if i were put upon finding anything better than the scene of roccabella's death, i should stare round my bookshelves very much at a loss for a long time. similarly, your characters have really surprised me. from the lawyer to the princess, i swear to them as true; and in your fathoming of rosamond altogether, there is a profound wise knowledge that i admire and respect with a heartiness not easily overstated in words. i am not quite with you as to the italians. your knowledge of the italian character seems to me surprisingly subtle and penetrating; but i think we owe it to those most unhappy men and their political wretchedness to ask ourselves mercifully, whether their faults are not essentially the faults of a people long oppressed and priest-ridden;--whether their tendency to slink and conspire is not a tendency that spies in every dress, from the triple crown to a lousy head, have engendered in their ancestors through generations? again, like you, i shudder at the distresses that come of these unavailing risings; my blood runs hotter, as yours does, at the thought of the leaders safe, and the instruments perishing by hundreds; yet what is to be done? their wrongs are so great that they _will_ rise from time to time somehow. it would be to doubt the eternal providence of god to doubt that they will rise successfully at last. unavailing struggles against a dominant tyranny precede all successful turning against it. and is it not a little hard in us englishman, whose forefathers have risen so often and striven against so much, to look on, in our own security, through microscopes, and detect the motes in the brains of men driven mad? think, if you and i were italians, and had grown from boyhood to our present time, menaced in every day through all these years by that infernal confessional, dungeons, and soldiers, could we be better than these men? should we be so good? i should not, i am afraid, if i know myself. such things would make of me a moody, bloodthirsty, implacable man, who would do anything for revenge; and if i compromised the truth--put it at the worst, habitually--where should i ever have had it before me? in the old jesuits' college at genoa, on the chiaja at naples, in the churches of rome, at the university of padua, on the piazzo san marco at venice, where? and the government is in all these places, and in all italian places. i have seen something of these men. i have known mazzini and gallenga; manin was tutor to my daughters in paris; i have had long talks about scores of them with poor ary scheffer, who was their best friend. i have gone back to italy after ten years, and found the best men i had known there exiled or in jail. i believe they have the faults you ascribe to them (nationally, not individually), but i could not find it in my heart, remembering their miseries, to exhibit those faults without referring them back to their causes. you will forgive my writing this, because i write it exactly as i write my cordial little tribute to the high merits of your book. if it were not a living reality to me, i should care nothing about this point of disagreement; but you are far too earnest a man, and far too able a man, to be left unremonstrated with by an admiring reader. you cannot write so well without influencing many people. if you could tell me that your book had but twenty readers, i would reply, that so good a book will influence more people's opinions, through those twenty, than a worthless book would through twenty thousand; and i express this with the perfect confidence of one in whose mind the book has taken, for good and all, a separate and distinct place. accept my thanks for the pleasure you have given me. the poor acknowledgment of testifying to that pleasure wherever i go will be my pleasure in return. and so, my dear chorley, good night, and god bless you. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir john bowring.] gad's hill, _wednesday, st october, ._ my dear sir john,[ ] first let me congratulate you on your marriage and wish you all happiness and prosperity. secondly, i must tell you that i was greatly vexed with the chatham people for not giving me early notice of your lecture. in that case i should (of course) have presided, as president of the institution, and i should have asked you to honour my falstaff house here. but when they made your kind intention known to me, i had made some important business engagements at the "all the year round" office for that evening, which i could not possibly forego. i charged them to tell you so, and was going to write to you when i found your kind letter. thanks for your paper, which i have sent to the printer's with much pleasure. we heard of your accident here, and of your "making nothing of it." i said that you didn't make much of disasters, and that you took poison (from natives) as quite a matter of course in the way of business. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. a. h. layard.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, th december, ._ my dear layard, i know you will readily believe that i would come if i could, and that i am heartily sorry i cannot. a new story of my writing, nine months long, is just begun in "all the year round." a certain allotment of my time when i have that story-demand upon me, has, all through my author life, been an essential condition of my health and success. i have just returned here to work so many hours every day for so many days. it is really impossible for me to break my bond. there is not a man in england who is more earnestly your friend and admirer than i am. the conviction that you know it, helps me out through this note. you are a man of so much mark to me, that i even regret your going into the house of commons--for which assembly i have but a scant respect. but i would not mention it to the southwark electors if i could come to-morrow; though i should venture to tell them (and even that your friends would consider very impolitic) that i think them very much honoured by having such a candidate for their suffrages. my daughter and sister-in-law want to know what you have done with your "pledge" to come down here again. if they had votes for southwark they would threaten to oppose you--but would never do it. i was solemnly sworn at breakfast to let you know that we should be delighted to see you. bear witness that i kept my oath. ever, my dear layard, faithfully yours. [sidenote: captain morgan.] dear friend, i am heartily obliged to you for your seasonable and welcome remembrance. it came to the office (while i was there) in the pleasantest manner, brought by two seafaring men as if they had swum across with it. i have already told ---- what i am very well assured of concerning you, but you are such a noble fellow that i must not pursue that subject. but you will at least take my cordial and affectionate thanks. . . . we have a touch of most beautiful weather here now, and this country is most beautiful too. i wish i could carry you off to a favourite spot of mine between this and maidstone, where i often smoke your cigars and think of you. we often take our lunch on a hillside there in the summer, and then i lie down on the grass--a splendid example of laziness--and say, "now for my morgan!" my daughter and her aunt declare that they know the true scent of the true article (which i don't in the least believe), and sometimes they exclaim, "that's not a morgan," and the worst of it is they were once right by accident. . . . i hope you will have seen the christmas number of "all the year round."[ ] here and there, in the description of the sea-going hero, i have given a touch or two of remembrance of somebody you know; very heartily desiring that thousands of people may have some faint reflection of the pleasure i have for many years derived from the contemplation of a most amiable nature and most remarkable man. with kindest regards, believe me, dear morgan, ever affectionately yours. footnotes: [ ] this and all other letters addressed to mr. h. f. chorley, were printed in "autobiography, memoir, and letters of henry fothergill chorley," compiled by mr. h. g. hewlett. [ ] sir john bowring, formerly her majesty's plenipotentiary in china, and governor of hong kong. [ ] "a message from the sea." . [sidenote: mrs. malleson.] office of "all the year round," _monday, th january, ._ my dear mrs. malleson, i am truly sorry that i cannot have the pleasure of dining with you on thursday. although i consider myself quite well, and although my doctor almost admits the fact when i indignantly tax him with it, i am not discharged. his treatment renders him very fearful that i should take cold in going to and fro; and he makes excuses, therefore (as i darkly suspect), for keeping me here until said treatment is done with. this morning he tells me he must see me "once more, on wednesday." as he has said the like for a whole week, my confidence is not blooming enough at this present writing to justify me in leaving a possibility of banquo's place at your table. hence this note. it is screwed out of me. with kind regards to mr. malleson, believe me, ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] office of "all the year round," _wednesday, rd january, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am delighted to receive your letter, and to look forward with confidence to having such a successor in august. i can honestly assure you that i never have been so pleased at heart in all my literary life, as i am in the proud thought of standing side by side with you before this great audience. in regard of the story,[ ] i have perfect faith in such a master-hand as yours; and i know that what such an artist feels to be terrible and original, is unquestionably so. you whet my interest by what you write of it to the utmost extent. believe me ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] , hanover terrace, regent's park, _sunday, th april, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, my story will finish in the first week in august. yours ought to begin in the last week of july, or the last week but one. wilkie collins will be at work to follow you. the publication has made a very great success with "great expectations," and could not present a finer time for you. the question of length may be easily adjusted. of the misgiving you entertain i cannot of course judge until you give me leave to rush to the perusal. i swear that i never thought i had half so much self-denial as i have shown in this case! i think i shall come out at exeter hall as a choice vessel on the strength of it. in the meanwhile i have quickened the printer and told him to get on fast. you cannot think how happy you make me by what you write of "great expectations." there is nothing like the pride of making such an effect on such a writer as you. ever faithfully. [sidenote: the same.] , hanover terrace, regent's park, _wednesday, th may, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am anxious to let you know that mr. frederic lehmann, who is coming down to knebworth to see you (with his sister mrs. benzon) is a particular friend of mine, for whom i have a very high and warm regard. although he will sufficiently enlist your sympathy on his own behalf, i am sure that you will not be the less interested in him because i am. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: the same.] , hanover terrace, _sunday, th may, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i received your revised proofs only yesterday, and i sat down to read them last night. and before i say anything further i may tell you that i could not lay them aside, but was obliged to go on with them in my bedroom until i got into a very ghostly state indeed. this morning i have taken them again and have gone through them with the utmost attention. of the beauty and power of the writing i say not a word, or of its originality and boldness, or of its quite extraordinary constructive skill. i confine myself solely to your misgiving, and to the question whether there is any sufficient foundation for it. on the last head i say, without the faintest hesitation, most decidedly there is not sufficient foundation for it. i do not share it in the least. i believe that the readers who have here given their minds (or perhaps had any to give) to those strange psychological mysteries in ourselves, of which we are all more or less conscious, will accept your wonders as curious weapons in the armoury of fiction, and will submit themselves to the art with which said weapons are used. even to that class of intelligence the marvellous addresses itself from a very strong position; and that class of intelligence is not accustomed to find the marvellous in such very powerful hands as yours. on more imaginative readers the tale will fall (or i am greatly mistaken) like a spell. by readers who combine some imagination, some scepticism, and some knowledge and learning, i hope it will be regarded as full of strange fancy and curious study, startling reflections of their own thoughts and speculations at odd times, and wonder which a master has a right to evoke. in the last point lies, to my thinking, the whole case. if you were the magician's servant instead of the magician, these potent spirits would get the better of you; but you _are_ the magician, and they don't, and you make them serve your purpose. occasionally in the dialogue i see an expression here and there which might--always solely with a reference to your misgiving--be better away; and i think that the vision, to use the word for want of a better--in the museum, should be made a little less abstruse. i should not say that, if the sale of the journal was below the sale of _the times_ newspaper; but as it is probably several thousands higher, i do. i would also suggest that after the title we put the two words--a romance. it is an absurdly easy device for getting over your misgiving with the blockheads, but i think it would be an effective one. i don't, on looking at it, like the title. here are a few that have occurred to me. "the steel casket." "the lost manuscript." "derval court." "perpetual youth." "maggie." "dr. fenwick." "life and death." the four last i think the best. there is an objection to "dr. fenwick" because there has been "dr. antonio," and there is a book of dumas' which repeats the objection. i don't think "fenwick" startling enough. it appears to me that a more startling title would take the (john) bull by the horns, and would be a serviceable concession to your misgiving, as suggesting a story off the stones of the gas-lighted brentford road. the title is the first thing to be settled, and cannot be settled too soon. for the purposes of the weekly publication the divisions of the story will often have to be greatly changed, though afterwards, in the complete book, you can, of course, divide it into chapters, free from that reference. for example: i would end the first chapter on the third slip at "and through the ghostly streets, under the ghostly moon, went back to my solitary room." the rest of what is now your first chapter might be made chapter ii., and would end the first weekly part. i think i have become, by dint of necessity and practice, rather cunning in this regard; and perhaps you would not mind my looking closely to such points from week to week. it so happens that if you had written the opening of this story expressly for the occasion its striking incidents could not possibly have followed one another better. one other merely mechanical change i suggest now. i would not have an initial letter for the town, but would state in the beginning that i gave the town a fictitious name. i suppose a blank or a dash rather fends a good many people off--because it always has that effect upon me. be sure that i am perfectly frank and open in all i have said in this note, and that i have not a grain of reservation in my mind. i think the story a very fine one, one that no other man could write, and that there is no strength in your misgiving for the two reasons: firstly, that the work is professedly a work of fancy and fiction, in which the reader is not required against his will to take everything for fact; secondly, that it is written by the man who can write it. the magician's servant does not know what to do with the ghost, and has, consequently, no business with him. the magician does know what to do with him, and has all the business with him that he can transact. i am quite at ease on the points that you have expressed yourself as not at ease upon. quite. i cannot too often say that if they were carried on weak shoulders they would break the bearer down. but in your mastering of them lies the mastery over the reader. this will reach you at knebworth, i hope, to-morrow afternoon. pray give your doubts to the winds of that high spot, and believe that if i had them i would swarm up the flag-staff quite as nimbly as margrave and nail the fenwick colours to the top. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] , hanover terrace, regent's park, _monday, twentieth may, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i did not read from australia till the end, because i was obliged to be hard at work that day, and thought it best that the ms. should come back to you rather than that i should detain it. of course, i _can_ read it, whenever it suits you. as to isabel's dying and fenwick's growing old, i would say that, beyond question, whatever the meaning of the story tends to, is the proper end. all the alterations you mention in your last, are excellent. as to title, "margrave, a tale of mystery," would be sufficiently striking. i prefer "wonder" to "mystery," because i think it suggests something higher and more apart from ordinary complications of plot, or the like, which "mystery" might seem to mean. will you kindly remark that the title presses, and that it will be a great relief to have it as soon as possible. the last two months of my story are our best time for announcement and preparation. of course, it is most desirable that your story should have the full benefit of them. ever faithfully. [sidenote: lady olliffe.] lord warden hotel, dover, _sunday, twenty-sixth may, ._ my dear lady olliffe, i have run away to this sea-beach to get rid of my neuralgic face. touching the kind invitations received from you this morning, i feel that the only course i can take--without being a humbug--is to decline them. after the middle of june i shall be mostly at gad's hill--i know that i cannot do better than keep out of the way of hot rooms and late dinners, and what would you think of me, or call me, if i were to accept and not come! no, no, no. be still my soul. be virtuous, eminent author. do _not_ accept, my dickens. she is to come to gad's hill with her spouse. await her _there_, my child. (thus the voice of wisdom.) my dear lady olliffe, ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. milner gibson.] gad's hill, _monday, eighth july, ._ my dear mrs. gibson, i want very affectionately and earnestly to congratulate you on your eldest daughter's approaching marriage. up to the moment when mary told me of it, i had foolishly thought of her always as the pretty little girl with the frank loving face whom i saw last on the sands at broadstairs. i rubbed my eyes and woke at the words "going to be married," and found i had been walking in my sleep some years. i want to thank you also for thinking of me on the occasion, but i feel that i am better away from it. i should really have a misgiving that i was a sort of shadow on a young marriage, and you will understand me when i say so, and no more. but i shall be with you in the best part of myself, in the warmth of sympathy and friendship--and i send my love to the dear girl, and devoutly hope and believe that she will be happy. the face that i remember with perfect accuracy, and could draw here, if i could draw at all, was made to be happy and to make a husband so. i wonder whether you ever travel by railroad in these times! i wish mary could tempt you to come by any road to this little place. with kind regard to milner gibson, believe me ever, affectionately and faithfully yours. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _tuesday, seventeenth september, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am delighted with your letter of yesterday--delighted with the addition to the length of the story--delighted with your account of it, and your interest in it--and even more than delighted by what you say of our working in company. not one dissentient voice has reached me respecting it. through the dullest time of the year we held our circulation most gallantly. and it could not have taken a better hold. i saw forster on friday (newly returned from thousands of provincial lunatics), and he really was more impressed than i can tell you by what he had seen of it. just what you say you think it will turn out to be, _he_ was saying, almost in the same words. i am burning to get at the whole story;--and you inflame me in the maddest manner by your references to what i don't know. the exquisite art with which you have changed it, and have overcome the difficulties of the mode of publication, has fairly staggered me. i know pretty well what the difficulties are; and there is no other man who could have done it, i ween. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. h. g. adams.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, sixth october, ._ my dear mr. adams, my readings are a sad subject to me just now, for i am going away on the th to read fifty times, and i have lost mr. arthur smith--a friend whom i can never replace--who always went with me, and transacted, as no other man ever can, all the business connected with them, and without whom, i fear, they will be dreary and weary to me. but this is not to the purpose of your letter. i desire to be useful to the institution of the place with which my childhood is inseparably associated, and i will serve it this next christmas if i can. will you tell me when i could do you most good by reading for you? faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. b. w. procter.] office of "all the year round," _tuesday, twelfth november, ._ my dear procter, i grieve to reply to your note, that i am obliged to read at newcastle on the st. poor arthur smith had pledged me to do so before i knew that my annual engagement with you was being encroached on. i am heartily sorry for this, and shall miss my usual place at your table, quite as much (to say the least) as my place can possibly miss me. you may be sure that i shall drink to my dear old friend in a bumper that day, with love and best wishes. don't leave me out next year for having been carried away north this time. ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] queen's head hotel, newcastle-on-tyne, _wednesday night, twentieth november, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i have read here, this evening, very attentively, nos. and . i have not the least doubt of the introduced matter; whether considered for its policy, its beauty, or its wise bearing on the story, it is decidedly a great improvement. it is at once very suggestive and very new to have these various points of view presented to the reader's mind. that the audience is good enough for anything that is well presented to it, i am quite sure. when you can avoid _notes_, however, and get their substance into the text, it is highly desirable in the case of so large an audience, simply because, as so large an audience necessarily reads the story in small portions, it is of the greater importance that they should retain as much of its argument as possible. whereas the difficulty of getting numbers of people to read notes (which they invariably regard as interruptions of the text, not as strengtheners or elucidators of it) is wonderful. ever affectionately. [sidenote: the same.] "all the year round" office, _eighteenth december_, . my dear bulwer lytton, i have not had a moment in which to write to you. even now i write with the greatest press upon me, meaning to write in detail in a day or two. but i have _read_, at all events, though not written. and i say, most masterly and most admirable! it is impossible to lay the sheets down without finishing them. i showed them to georgina and mary, and they read and read and never stirred until they had read all. there cannot be a doubt of the beauty, power, and artistic excellence of the whole. i counsel you most strongly not to append the proposed dialogue between fenwick and faber, and not to enter upon any explanation beyond the title-page and the motto, unless it be in some very brief preface. decidedly i would not help the reader, if it were only for the reason that that anticipates his being in need of help, and his feeling objections and difficulties that require solution. let the book explain itself. it speaks _for_ itself with a noble eloquence. ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] "a strange story." . [sidenote: the same.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, twenty-fourth january, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i have considered your questions, and here follow my replies. . i think you undoubtedly _have_ the right to forbid the turning of your play into an opera. . i do _not_ think the production of such an opera in the slightest degree likely to injure the play or to render it a less valuable property than it is now. if it could have any effect on so standard and popular a work as "the lady of lyons," the effect would, in my judgment, be beneficial. but i believe the play to be high above any such influence. . assuming you do consent to the adaptation, in a desire to oblige oxenford, i would not recommend your asking any pecuniary compensation. this for two reasons: firstly, because the compensation could only be small at the best; secondly, because your taking it would associate you (unreasonably, but not the less assuredly) with the opera. the only objection i descry is purely one of feeling. pauline trotting about in front of the float, invoking the orchestra with a limp pocket-handkerchief, is a notion that makes goose-flesh of my back. also a yelping tenor going away to the wars in a scene a half-an-hour long is painful to contemplate. damas, too, as a bass, with a grizzled bald head, blatently bellowing about years long ago, when the sound of the drum first made his blood glow with a rum ti tum tum-- rather sticks in my throat; but there really seems to me to be no other objection, if you can get over this. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. baylis.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, first february, ._ my dear mr. baylis, i have just come home. finding your note, i write to you at once, or you might do me the wrong of supposing me unmindful of it and you. i agree with you about smith himself, and i don't think it necessary to pursue the painful subject. such things are at an end, i think, for the time being;--fell to the ground with the poor man at cremorne. if they should be resumed, then they must be attacked; but i hope the fashion (far too much encouraged in its blondin-beginning by those who should know much better) is over. it always appears to me that the common people have an excuse in their patronage of such exhibitions which people above them in condition have not. their lives are full of physical difficulties, and they like to see such difficulties overcome. they go to see them overcome. if i am in danger of falling off a scaffold or a ladder any day, the man who claims that he can't fall from anything is a very wonderful and agreeable person to me. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] , hyde park gate, south kensington gore, w., _saturday, st march, ._ my dear chorley, i was at your lecture[ ] this afternoon, and i hope i may venture to tell you that i was extremely pleased and interested. both the matter of the materials and the manner of their arrangement were quite admirable, and a modesty and complete absence of any kind of affectation pervaded the whole discourse, which was quite an example to the many whom it concerns. if you could be a very little louder, and would never let a sentence go for the thousandth part of an instant until the last word is out, you would find the audience more responsive. a spoken sentence will never run alone in all its life, and is never to be trusted to itself in its most insignificant member. see it _well out_--with the voice--and the part of the audience is made surprisingly easier. in that excellent description of the spanish mendicant and his guitar, as well as the very happy touches about the dance and the castanets, the people were really desirous to express very hearty appreciation; but by giving them rather too much to do in watching and listening for latter words, you stopped them. i take the liberty of making the remark, as one who has fought with beasts (oratorically) in divers arenas. for the rest nothing could be better. knowledge, ingenuity, neatness, condensation, good sense, and good taste in delightful combination. affectionately always. [sidenote: mrs. austin.] paris, rue du faubourg st. honorÃ�, , _friday, seventh november, ._ my dear letitia, i should have written to you from here sooner, but for having been constantly occupied. your improved account of yourself is very cheering and hopeful. through determined occupation and action, lies the way. be sure of it. i came over to france before georgina and mary, and went to boulogne to meet them coming in by the steamer on the great sunday--the day of the storm. i stood (holding on with both hands) on the pier at boulogne, five hours. the sub-marine telegraph had telegraphed their boat as having come out of folkestone--though the companion boat from boulogne didn't try it--and at nine o'clock at night, she being due at six, there were no signs of her. my principal dread was, that she would try to get into boulogne; which she could not possibly have done without carrying away everything on deck. the tide at nine o'clock being too low for any such desperate attempt, i thought it likely that they had run for the downs and would knock about there all night. so i went to the inn to dry my pea-jacket and get some dinner anxiously enough, when, at about ten, came a telegram from them at calais to say they had run in there. to calais i went, post, next morning, expecting to find them half-dead (of course, they had arrived half-drowned), but i found them elaborately got up to come on to paris by the next train, and the most wonderful thing of all was, that they hardly seem to have been frightened! of course, they had discovered at the end of the voyage, that a young bride and her husband, the only other passengers on deck, and with whom they had been talking all the time, were an officer from chatham whom they knew very well (when dry), just married and going to india! so they all set up house-keeping together at dessin's at calais (where i am well known), and looked as if they had been passing a mild summer there. we have a pretty apartment here, but house-rent is awful to mention. mrs. bouncer (muzzled by the parisian police) is also here, and is a wonderful spectacle to behold in the streets, restrained like a raging lion. i learn from an embassy here, that the emperor has just made an earnest proposal to our government to unite with france (and russia, if russia will) in an appeal to america to stop the brutal war. our government's answer is not yet received, but i think i clearly perceive that the proposal will be declined, on the ground "that the time has not yet come." ever affectionately. footnote: [ ] the first of the series on "national music." . [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, december th, ._ my dear chorley, this is a "social science" note, touching prospective engagements. if you are obliged, as you were last year, to go away between christmas day and new year's day, then we rely upon your coming back to see the old year out. furthermore, i rely upon you for this: lady molesworth says she will come down for a day or two, and i have told her that i shall ask you to be her escort, and to arrange a time. will you take counsel with her, and arrange accordingly? after our family visitors are gone, mary is going a-hunting in hampshire; but if you and lady molesworth could make out from saturday, the th of january, as your day of coming together, or for any day between that and saturday, the th, it would be beforehand with her going and would suit me excellently. there is a new officer at the dockyard, _vice_ captain ---- (now an admiral), and i will take that opportunity of paying him and his wife the attention of asking them to dine in these gorgeous halls. for all of which reasons, if the social science congress of two could meet and arrive at a conclusion, the conclusion would be thankfully booked by the illustrious writer of these lines. on christmas eve there is a train from your own victoria station at . p.m., which will bring you to strood (rochester bridge station) in an hour, and there a majestic form will be descried in a basket. yours affectionately. . [sidenote: mr. w. h. wills.] lord warden hotel, dover, _sunday, th october, ._ my dear wills, i was unspeakably relieved, and most agreeably surprised to get your letter this morning. i had pictured you as lying there waiting full another week. whereas, please god, you will now come up with a wet sheet and a flowing sail--as we say in these parts. my expectations of "mrs. lirriper's" sale are not so mighty as yours, but i am heartily glad and grateful to be honestly able to believe that she is nothing but a good 'un. it is the condensation of a quantity of subjects and the very greatest pains. george russell knew nothing whatever of the slightest doubt of your being elected at the garrick. rely on my probing the matter to the bottom and ascertaining everything about it, and giving you the fullest information in ample time to decide what shall be done. don't bother yourself about it. i have spoken. on my eyes be it. as next week will not be my working-time at "our mutual friend," i shall devote the day of friday (_not_ the evening) to making up news. therefore i write to say that if you would rather stay where you are than come to london, _don't come_. i shall throw my hat into the ring at eleven, and shall receive all the punishment that can be administered by two nos. on end like a british glutton. ever. [sidenote: the same.] gad's hill, _wednesday, th november, ._ my dear wills, i found the beautiful and perfect brougham[ ] awaiting me in triumph at the station when i came down yesterday afternoon. georgina and marsh were both highly mortified that it had fallen dark, and the beauties of the carriage were obscured. but of course i had it out in the yard the first thing this morning, and got in and out at both the doors, and let down and pulled up the windows, and checked an imaginary coachman, and leaned back in a state of placid contemplation. it is the lightest and prettiest and best carriage of the class ever made. but you know that i value it for higher reasons than these. it will always be dear to me--far dearer than anything on wheels could ever be for its own sake--as a proof of your ever generous friendship and appreciation, and a memorial of a happy intercourse and a perfect confidence that have never had a break, and that surely never can have any break now (after all these years) but one. ever your faithful. [sidenote: miss mary boyle.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _saturday, st december, ._ my dear mary, many happy years to you and those who are near and dear to you. these and a thousand unexpressed good wishes of his heart from the humble jo. and also an earnest word of commendation of the little christmas book.[ ] very gracefully and charmingly done. the right feeling, the right touch; a very neat hand, and a very true heart. ever your affectionate. footnotes: [ ] a present from mr. wills. [ ] the book was called "woodland gossip." . [sidenote: sir edward bulwer lytton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _thursday, th july, ._ my dear bulwer lytton, i am truly sorry to reply to your kind and welcome note that we cannot come to knebworth on a visit at this time: firstly, because i am tied by the leg to my book. secondly, because my married daughter and her husband are with us. thirdly, because my two boys are at home for their holidays. but if you would come out of that murky electioneering atmosphere and come to us, you don't know how delighted we should be. you should have your own way as completely as though you were at home. you should have a cheery room, and you should have a swiss châlet all to yourself to write in. _smoking regarded as a personal favour to the family._ georgina is so insupportably vain on account of being a favourite of yours, that you might find _her_ a drawback; but nothing else would turn out in that way, i hope. _won't_ you manage it? _do_ think of it. if, for instance, you would come back with us on that guild saturday. i have turned the house upside down and inside out since you were here, and have carved new rooms out of places then non-existent. pray do think of it, and do manage it. i should be heartily pleased. i hope you will find the purpose and the plot of my book very plain when you see it as a whole piece. i am looking forward to sending you the proofs complete about the end of next month. it is all sketched out and i am working hard on it, giving it all the pains possible to be bestowed on a labour of love. your critical opinion two months in advance of the public will be invaluable to me. for you know what store i set by it, and how i think over a hint from you. i notice the latest piece of poisoning ingenuity in pritchard's case. when he had made his medical student boarders sick, by poisoning the family food, he then quietly walked out, took an emetic, and made himself sick. this with a view to ask them, in examination on a possible trial, whether he did not present symptoms at the time like the rest?--a question naturally asked for him and answered in the affirmative. from which i get at the fact. if your constituency don't bring you in they deserve to lose you, and may the gods continue to confound them! i shudder at the thought of such public life as political life. would there not seem to be something horribly rotten in the system of it, when one stands amazed how any man--not forced into it by position, as you are--can bear to live it? but the private life here is my point, and again i urge upon you. do think of it, and do come. i want to tell you how i have been impressed by the "boatman." it haunts me as only a beautiful and profound thing can. the lines are always running in my head, as the river runs with me. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] office of "all the year round," no. , wellington street, strand, w.c., _saturday, th of october, ._ my dear chorley, i find your letter here only to-day. i shall be delighted to dine with you on tuesday, the th, but i cannot answer for mary, as she is staying with the lehmanns. to the best of my belief, she is coming to gad's this evening to dine with a neighbour. in that case, she will immediately answer for herself. i have seen the _athenæum_, and most heartily and earnestly thank you. trust me, there is nothing i could have wished away, and all that i read there affects and delights me. i feel so generous an appreciation and sympathy so very strongly, that if i were to try to write more, i should blur the words by seeing them dimly. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mrs. procter.] gad's hill, _sunday, th october, ._ my dear mrs. procter, the beautiful table-cover was a most cheering surprise to me when i came home last night, and i lost not a moment in finding a table for it, where it stands in a beautiful light and a perfect situation. accept my heartiest thanks for a present on which i shall set a peculiar and particular value. enclosed is the ms. of the introduction.[ ] the printers have cut it across and mended it again, because i always expect them to be quick, and so they distribute my "copy" among several hands, and apparently not very clean ones in this instance. odd as the poor butcher's feeling appears, i think i can understand it. much as he would not have liked his boy's grave to be without a tombstone, had he died ashore and had a grave, so he can't bear him to drift to the depths of the ocean unrecorded. my love to procter. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. w. b. rye.[ ]] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _friday, rd november, ._ dear sir, i beg you to accept my cordial thanks for your curious "visits to rochester." as i peeped about its old corners with interest and wonder when i was a very little child, few people can find a greater charm in that ancient city than i do. believe me, yours faithfully and obliged. footnotes: [ ] written by charles dickens for a new edition of miss adelaide procter's poems, which was published after her death. [ ] late keeper of printed books at the british museum, now of exeter. . [sidenote: mr. forster.] office of "all the year round," _friday, th january, ._ my dear forster, i most heartily hope that your doleful apprehensions will prove unfounded. these changes from muggy weather to slight sharp frost, and back again, touch weak places, as i find by my own foot; but the touch goes by. may it prove so with you! yesterday captain ----, captain ----, and captain ----, dined at gad's. they are, all three, naval officers of the highest reputation. ---- is supposed to be the best sailor in our service. i said i had been remarking at home, _à propos_ of the _london_, that i knew of no shipwreck of a large strong ship (not carrying weight of guns) in the open sea, and that i could find none such in the shipwreck books. they all agreed that the unfortunate captain martin _must_ have been unacquainted with the truth as to what can and what can not be done with a steamship having rigging and canvas; and that no sailor would dream of turning a ship's stern to such a gale--_unless his vessel could run faster than the sea_. ---- said (and the other two confirmed) that the _london_ was the better for everything that she lost aloft in such a gale, and that with her head kept to the wind by means of a storm topsail--which is hoisted from the deck and requires no man to be sent aloft, and can be set under the worst circumstances--the disaster could not have occurred. if he had no such sail, he could have improvised it, even of hammocks and the like. they said that under a board of enquiry into the wreck, any efficient witness must of necessity state this as the fact, and could not possibly avoid the conclusion that the seamanship was utterly bad; and as to the force of the wind, for which i suggested allowance, they all had been in west indian hurricanes and in typhoons, and had put the heads of their ships to the wind under the most adverse circumstances. i thought you might be interested in this, as you have no doubt been interested in the case. they had a great respect for the unfortunate captain's character, and for his behaviour when the case was hopeless, but they had not the faintest doubt that he lost the ship and those two hundred and odd lives. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. r. m. ross.[ ]] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, th february, ._ dear sir, i have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging letter enclosing a copy of the resolution passed by the members of the st. george club on my last past birthday. do me the kindness to assure those friends of mine that i am touched to the heart by their affectionate remembrance, and that i highly esteem it. to have established such relations with readers of my books is a great happiness to me, and one that i hope never to forfeit by being otherwise than manfully and truly in earnest in my vocation. i am, dear sir, your faithful servant. [sidenote: mr. r. browning.] , southwick place, hyde park, _monday, th march, ._ my dear browning,[ ] will you dine here next sunday at half-past six punctually, instead of with forster? i am going to read thirty times, in london and elsewhere, and as i am coming out with "doctor marigold," i had written to ask forster to come on sunday and hear me sketch him. forster says (with his own boldness) that he is sure it would not bore you to have that taste of his quality after dinner. i should be delighted if this should prove true. but i give warning that in that case i shall exact a promise from you to come to st. james's hall one evening in april or may, and hear "david copperfield," my own particular favourite. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: lord lytton.] gad's hill, _monday, th july, ._ my dear lytton, first, let me congratulate you on the honour which lord derby has conferred upon the peerage. and next, let me thank you heartily for your kind letter. i am very sorry to report that we are so encumbered with engagements in the way of visitors coming here that we cannot see our way to getting to knebworth yet. mary and georgina send you their kind regard, and hope that the delight of coming to see you is only deferred. fitzgerald will be so proud of your opinion of his "mrs. tillotson," and will (i know) derive such great encouragement from it that i have faithfully quoted it, word for word, and sent it on to him in ireland. he is a very clever fellow (you may remember, perhaps, that i brought him to knebworth on the guild day) and has charming sisters and an excellent position. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. rusden.[ ]] _september, ._ my dear sir, again i have to thank you very heartily for your kindness in writing to me about my son. the intelligence you send me concerning him is a great relief and satisfaction to my mind, and i cannot separate those feelings from a truly grateful recognition of the advice and assistance for which he is much beholden to you, or from his strong desire to deserve your good opinion. believe me always, my dear sir, your faithful and truly obliged. [sidenote: anonymous.] gad's hill, _thursday, th december, ._ dear madam,[ ] you make an absurd, though common mistake, in supposing that any human creature can help you to be an authoress, if you cannot become one in virtue of your own powers. i know nothing about "impenetrable barrier," "outsiders," and "charmed circles." i know that anyone who can write what is suitable to the requirements of my own journal--for instance--is a person i am heartily glad to discover, and do not very often find. and i believe this to be no rare case in periodical literature. i cannot undertake to advise you in the abstract, as i number my unknown correspondents by the hundred. but if you offer anything to me for insertion in "all the year round," you may be sure that it will be honestly read, and that it will be judged by no test but its own merits and adaptability to those pages. but i am bound to add that i do not regard successful fiction as a thing to be achieved in "leisure moments." faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] the honorary secretary of the st. george club, manchester. [ ] robert browning, the poet, a dear and valued friend. [ ] mr. rusden was, at this time, clerk to the house of parliament, in melbourne. he was the kindest of friends to the two sons of charles dickens, in australia, from the time that the elder of the two first went out there. and charles dickens had the most grateful regard for him, and maintained a frequent correspondence with him--as a friend--although they never saw each other. [ ] anonymous. . [sidenote: hon. robert lytton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _wednesday, th april, ._ my dear robert lytton,[ ] it would have been really painful to me, if i had seen you and yours at a reading of mine in right of any other credentials than my own. your appreciation has given me higher and purer gratification than your modesty can readily believe. when i first entered on this interpretation of myself (then quite strange in the public ear) i was sustained by the hope that i could drop into some hearts, some new expression of the meaning of my books, that would touch them in a new way. to this hour that purpose is so strong in me, and so real are my fictions to myself, that, after hundreds of nights, i come with a feeling of perfect freshness to that little red table, and laugh and cry with my hearers, as if i had never stood there before. you will know from this what a delight it is to be delicately understood, and why your earnest words cannot fail to move me. we are delighted to be remembered by your charming wife, and i am entrusted with more messages from this house to her, than you would care to give or withhold, so i suppress them myself and absolve you from the difficulty. affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. henry w. phillips.] gad's hill, _thursday, th april, ._ my dear mr. phillips,[ ] although i think the scheme has many good points, i have this doubt: would boys so maintained at any one of our great public schools stand at a decided disadvantage towards boys not so maintained? foundation scholars, in many cases, win their way into public schools and so enforce respect and even assert superiority. in many other cases their patron is a remote and misty person, or institution, sanctioned by time and custom. but the proposed position would be a very different one for a student to hold, and boys are too often inconsiderate, proud, and cruel. i should like to know whether this point has received consideration from the projectors of the design? faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. henry f. chorley.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, june nd, ._ my dear chorley, thank god i have come triumphantly through the heavy work of the fifty-one readings, and am wonderfully fresh. i grieve to hear of your sad occupation. you know where to find rest, and quiet, and sympathy, when you can change the dreary scene. i saw poor dear stanfield (on a hint from his eldest son) in a day's interval between two expeditions. it was clear that the shadow of the end had fallen on him. it happened well that i had seen, on a wild day at tynemouth, a remarkable sea-effect, of which i wrote a description to him, and he had kept it under his pillow. this place is looking very pretty. the freshness and repose of it, after all those thousands of gas-lighted faces, sink into the soul.[ ] [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] _september rd, ._ my dear fields,[ ] your cheering letter of the st of august arrived here this morning. a thousand thanks for it. i begin to think (nautically) that i "head west'ard." you shall hear from me fully and finally as soon as dolby shall have reported personally. the other day i received a letter from mr. ----, of new york (who came over in the winning yacht, and described the voyage in _the times_), saying he would much like to see me. i made an appointment in london, and observed that when he _did_ see me he was obviously astonished. while i was sensible that the magnificence of my appearance would fully account for his being overcome, i nevertheless angled for the cause of his surprise. he then told me that there was a paragraph going round the papers to the effect that i was "in a critical state of health." i asked him if he was sure it wasn't "cricketing" state of health. to which he replied, quite. i then asked him down here to dinner, and he was again staggered by finding me in sporting training; also much amused. yesterday's and to-day's post bring me this unaccountable paragraph from hosts of uneasy friends, with the enormous and wonderful addition that "eminent surgeons" are sending me to america for "cessation from literary labour"!!! so i have written a quiet line to _the times_, certifying to my own state of health, and have also begged dixon to do the like in _the athenæum_. i mention the matter to you, in order that you may contradict, from me, if the nonsense should reach america unaccompanied by the truth. but i suppose that _the new york herald_ will probably have got the letter from mr. ---- aforesaid. . . . charles reade and wilkie collins are here; and the joke of the time is to feel my pulse when i appear at table, and also to inveigle innocent messengers to come over to the summer-house, where i write (the place is quite changed since you were here, and a tunnel under the highroad connects this shrubbery with the front garden), to ask, with their compliments, how i find myself _now_. if i come to america this next november, even you can hardly imagine with what interest i shall try copperfield on an american audience, or, if they give me their heart, how freely and fully i shall give them mine. we will ask dolby then whether he ever heard it before. i cannot thank you enough for your invaluable help to dolby. he writes that at every turn and moment the sense and knowledge and tact of mr. osgood are inestimable to him. ever, my dear fields, faithfully yours. [sidenote: lord lytton.] "all the year round" office, _tuesday, th september, ._ my dear lytton, i am happy to tell you that the play was admirably done last night, and made a marked impression. pauline is weak, but so carefully trained and fitted into the picture as to be never disagreeable, and sometimes (as in the last scene) very pathetic. fechter has played nothing nearly so well as claude since he played in paris in the "dame aux camélias," or in london as ruy blas. he played the fourth act as finely as macready, and the first much better. the dress and bearing in the fifth act are quite new, and quite excellent. of the scenic arrangements, the most noticeable are:--the picturesque struggle of the cottage between the taste of an artist, and the domestic means of poverty (expressed to the eye with infinite tact);--the view of lyons (act v. scene ), with a foreground of quay wall which the officers are leaning on, waiting for the general;--and the last scene--a suite of rooms giving on a conservatory at the back, through which the moon is shining. you are to understand that all these scenic appliances are subdued to the piece, instead of the piece being sacrificed to them; and that every group and situation has to be considered, not only with a reference to each by itself, but to the whole story. beauséant's speaking the original contents of the letter was a decided point, and the immense house was quite breathless when the tempter and the tempted stood confronted as he made the proposal. there was obviously a great interest in seeing a frenchman play the part. the scene between claude and gaspar (the small part very well done) was very closely watched for the same reason, and was loudly applauded. i cannot say too much of the brightness, intelligence, picturesqueness, and care of fechter's impersonation throughout. there was a remarkable delicacy in his gradually drooping down on his way home with his bride, until he fell upon the table, a crushed heap of shame and remorse, while his mother told pauline the story. his gradual recovery of himself as he formed better resolutions was equally well expressed; and his being at last upright again and rushing enthusiastically to join the army, brought the house down. i wish you could have been there. he never spoke english half so well as he spoke your english; and the audience heard it with the finest sympathy and respect. i felt that i should have been very proud indeed to have been the writer of the play. ever affectionately. [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] [ ]_october, ._ my dear fields, i hope the telegraph clerks did not mutilate out of recognition or reasonable guess the words i added to dolby's last telegram to boston. "_tribune_ london correspondent totally false." not only is there not a word of truth in the pretended conversation, but it is so absurdly unlike me that i cannot suppose it to be even invented by anyone who ever heard me exchange a word with mortal creature. for twenty years i am perfectly certain that i have never made any other allusion to the republication of my books in america than the good-humoured remark, "that if there had been international copyright between england and the states, i should have been a man of very large fortune, instead of a man of moderate savings, always supporting a very expensive public position." nor have i ever been such a fool as to charge the absence of international copyright upon individuals. nor have i ever been so ungenerous as to disguise or suppress the fact that i have received handsome sums for advance sheets. when i was in the states, i said what i had to say on the question, and there an end. i am absolutely certain that i have never since expressed myself, even with soreness, on the subject. reverting to the preposterous fabrication of the london correspondent, the statement that i ever talked about "these fellows" who republished my books or pretended to know (what i don't know at this instant) who made how much out of them, or ever talked of their sending me "conscience money," is as grossly and completely false as the statement that i ever said anything to the effect that i could not be expected to have an interest in the american people. and nothing can by any possibility be falser than that. again and again in these pages ("all the year round") i have expressed my interest in them. you will see it in the "child's history of england." you will see it in the last preface to "american notes." every american who has ever spoken with me in london, paris, or where not, knows whether i have frankly said, "you could have no better introduction to me than your country." and for years and years when i have been asked about reading in america, my invariable reply has been, "i have so many friends there, and constantly receive so many earnest letters from personally unknown readers there, that, but for domestic reasons, i would go to-morrow." i think i must, in the confidential intercourse between you and me, have written you to this effect more than once. the statement of the london correspondent from beginning to end is false. it is false in the letter and false in the spirit. he may have been misinformed, and the statement may not have originated with him. with whomsoever it originated, it never originated with me, and consequently is false. more than enough about it. as i hope to see you so soon, my dear fields, and as i am busily at work on the christmas number, i will not make this a longer letter than i can help. i thank you most heartily for your proffered hospitality, and need not tell you that if i went to any friend's house in america, i would go to yours. but the readings are very hard work, and i think i cannot do better than observe the rule on that side of the atlantic which i observe on this, of never, under such circumstances, going to a friend's house, but always staying at a hotel. i am able to observe it here, by being consistent and never breaking it. if i am equally consistent there, i can (i hope) offend no one. dolby sends his love to you and all his friends (as i do), and is girding up his loins vigorously. ever, my dear fields, heartily and affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. thornbury.] gad's hill, _saturday, th october, ._ my dear thornbury, behold the best of my judgment on your questions.[ ] susan hopley and jonathan bradford? no. too well known. london strikes and spitalfields cutters? yes. fighting fitzgerald? never mind him. duel of lord mohun and duke of hamilton? ye-e-es. irish abductions? i think not. brunswick theatre? more yes than no. theatrical farewells? yes. bow street runners (as compared with modern detectives)? yes. vauxhall and ranelagh in the last century? most decidedly. don't forget miss burney. smugglers? no. overdone. lacenaire? no. ditto. madame laffarge? no. ditto. fashionable life last century? most decidedly yes. debates on the slave trade? yes, generally. but beware of the pirates, as we did them in the beginning of "household words." certainly i acquit you of all blame in the bedford case. but one cannot do otherwise than sympathise with a son who is reasonably tender of his father's memory. and no amount of private correspondence, we must remember, reaches the readers of a printed and published statement. i told you some time ago that i believed the arsenic in eliza fenning's case to have been administered by the apprentice. i never was more convinced of anything in my life than of the girl's innocence, and i want words in which to express my indignation at the muddle-headed story of that parsonic blunderer whose audacity and conceit distorted some words that fell from her in the last days of her baiting. ever faithfully yours. [sidenote: lord lytton.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _monday, th october, ._ my dear lytton, i am truly delighted to find that you are so well pleased with fechter in "the lady of lyons." it was a labour of love with him, and i hold him in very high regard. _don't_ give way to laziness, and _do_ proceed with that play. there never was a time when a good new play was more wanted, or had a better opening for itself. fechter is a thorough artist, and what he may sometimes want in personal force is compensated by the admirable whole he can make of a play, and his perfect understanding of its presentation as a picture to the eye and mind. i leave london on the th of november early, and sail from liverpool on the th. ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: the same.] "all the year round" office, _friday, th october, ._ my dear lytton, i have read the play[ ] with great attention, interest, and admiration; and i need not say to _you_ that the art of it--the fine construction--the exquisite nicety of the touches--with which it is wrought out--have been a study to me in the pursuit of which i have had extraordinary relish. taking the play as it stands, i have nothing whatever to add to your notes and memoranda of the points to be touched again, except that i have a little uneasiness in that burst of anger and inflexibility consequent on having been deceived, coming out of hegio. i see the kind of actor who _must_ play hegio, and i see that the audience will not believe in his doing anything so serious. (i suppose it would be impossible to get this effect out of the mother--or through the mother's influence, instead of out of the godfather of hegiopolis?) now, as to the classical ground and manners of the play. i suppose the objection to the greek dress to be already--as defoe would write it, "gotten over" by your suggestion. i suppose the dress not to be conventionally associated with stilts and boredom, but to be new to the public eye and very picturesque. grant all that;--the names remain. now, not only used such names to be inseparable in the public mind from stately weariness, but of late days they have become inseparable in the same public mind from silly puns upon the names, and from burlesque. you do not know (i hope, at least, for my friend's sake) what the strand theatre is. a greek name and a break-down nigger dance, have become inseparable there. i do not mean to say that your genius may not be too powerful for such associations; but i do most positively mean to say that you would lose half the play in overcoming them. at the best you would have to contend against them through the first three acts. the old tendency to become frozen on classical ground would be in the best part of the audience; the new tendency to titter on such ground would be in the worst part. and instead of starting fair with the audience, it is my conviction that you would start with them against you and would have to win them over. furthermore, with reference to your note to me on this head, you take up a position with reference to poor dear talfourd's "ion" which i altogether dispute. it never was a popular play, i say. it derived a certain amount of out-of-door's popularity from the circumstances under which, and the man by whom, it was written. but i say that it never was a popular play on the stage, and never made out a case of attraction there. as to changing the ground to russia, let me ask you, did you ever see the "nouvelles russes" of nicolas gogol, translated into french by louis viardot? there is a story among them called "tarass boulla," in which, as it seems to me, all the conditions you want for such transplantation are to be found. so changed, you would have the popular sympathy with the slave or serf, or prisoner of war, from the first. but i do not think it is to be got, save at great hazard, and with lamentable waste of force on the ground the play now occupies. i shall keep this note until to-morrow to correct my conviction if i can see the least reason for correcting it; but i feel very confident indeed that i cannot be shaken in it. * * * * * _saturday._ i have thought it over again, and have gone over the play again with an imaginary stage and actors before me, and i am still of the same mind. shall i keep the ms. till you come to town? believe me, ever affectionately yours. [sidenote: mr. fechter.] parker house, boston, _ rd december, ._ my dear fechter, i have been very uneasy about you, seeing in the paper that you were taken ill on the stage. but a letter from georgy this morning reassures me by giving me a splendid account of your triumphant last night at the lyceum. i hope to bring out our play[ ] with wallack in new york, and to have it played in many other parts of the states. i have sent to wilkie for models, etc. if i waited for time to do more than write you my love, i should miss the mail to-morrow. take my love, then, my dear fellow, and believe me ever your affectionate. footnotes: [ ] the hon. robert lytton--now the earl of lytton--in literature well known as "owen meredith." [ ] mr. henry w. phillips, at this time secretary of the artists' general benevolent society. he was eager to establish some educational system in connection with that institution. [ ] the remainder has been cut off for the signature. [ ] this and all other letters to mr. j. t. fields were printed in mr. fields' "in and out of doors with charles dickens." [ ] a ridiculous paragraph in the papers following close on the public announcement that charles dickens was coming to america in november, drew from him this letter to mr. fields, dated early in october. [ ] as to subjects for articles in "all the year round." [ ] the play referred to is founded on the "captives" of plautus, and is entitled "the captives." it has never been acted or published. [ ] "no thoroughfare." . _ rd february, ._ [ ]articles of agreement entered into at baltimore, in the united states of america, this third day of february in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, between ---- ----, british subject, _alias_ the man of ross, and ---- ---- ----, american citizen, _alias_ the boston bantam. whereas, some bounce having arisen between the above men in reference to feats of pedestrianism and agility, they have agreed to settle their differences and prove who is the better man, by means of a walking-match for two hats a side and the glory of their respective countries; and whereas they agree that the said match shall come off, whatsoever the weather, on the mill dam road outside boston, on saturday, the twenty-ninth day of this present month; and whereas they agree that the personal attendants on themselves during the whole walk, and also the umpires and starters and declarers of victory in the match shall be ---- ---- of boston, known in sporting circles as massachusetts jemmy, and charles dickens of falstaff's gad's hill, whose surprising performances (without the least variation) on that truly national instrument, the american catarrh, have won for him the well-merited title of the gad's hill gasper: . the men are to be started, on the day appointed, by massachusetts jemmy and the gasper. . jemmy and the gasper are, on some previous day, to walk out at the rate of not less than four miles an hour by the gasper's watch, for one hour and a half. at the expiration of that one hour and a half they are to carefully note the place at which they halt. on the match's coming off they are to station themselves in the middle of the road, at that precise point, and the men (keeping clear of them and of each other) are to turn round them, right shoulder inward, and walk back to the starting-point. the man declared by them to pass the starting-point first is to be the victor and the winner of the match. . no jostling or fouling allowed. . all cautions or orders issued to the men by the umpires, starters, and declarers of victory to be considered final and admitting of no appeal. a sporting narrative of the match to be written by the gasper within one week after its coming off, and the same to be duly printed (at the expense of the subscribers to these articles) on a broadside. the said broadside to be framed and glazed, and one copy of the same to be carefully preserved by each of the subscribers to these articles. . the men to show on the evening of the day of walking at six o'clock precisely, at the parker house, boston, when and where a dinner will be given them by the gasper. the gasper to occupy the chair, faced by massachusetts jemmy. the latter promptly and formally to invite, as soon as may be after the date of these presents, the following guests to honour the said dinner with their presence; that is to say [here follow the names of a few of his friends, whom he wished to be invited]. now, lastly. in token of their accepting the trusts and offices by these articles conferred upon them, these articles are solemnly and formally signed by massachusetts jemmy and by the gad's hill gasper, as well as by the men themselves. signed by the man of ross, otherwise ----. signed by the boston bantam, otherwise ----. signed by massachusetts jemmy, otherwise ----. signed by the gad's hill gasper, otherwise charles dickens. witness to the signatures, ----. [sidenote: mr. charles lanman.] washington, _february th, ._ my dear sir, allow me to thank you most cordially for your kind letter, and for its accompanying books. i have a particular love for books of travel, and shall wander into the "wilds of america" with great interest. i have also received your charming sketch with great pleasure and admiration. let me thank you for it heartily. as a beautiful suggestion of nature associated with this country, it shall have a quiet place on the walls of my house as long as i live. your reference to my dear friend washington irving renews the vivid impressions reawakened in my mind at baltimore the other day. i saw his fine face for the last time in that city. he came there from new york to pass a day or two with me before i went westward, and they were made among the most memorable of my life by his delightful fancy and genial humour. some unknown admirer of his books and mine sent to the hotel a most enormous mint julep, wreathed with flowers. we sat, one on either side of it, with great solemnity (it filled a respectable-sized paper), but the solemnity was of very short duration. it was quite an enchanted julep, and carried us among innumerable people and places that we both knew. the julep held out far into the night, and my memory never saw him afterward otherwise than as bending over it, with his straw, with an attempted gravity (after some anecdote, involving some wonderfully droll and delicate observation of character), and then, as his eyes caught mine, melting into that captivating laugh of his which was the brightest and best i have ever heard. dear sir, with many thanks, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. pease.] baltimore, _ th february, ._ dear madam, mr. dolby has _not_ come between us, and i have received your letter. my answer to it is, unfortunately, brief. i am not coming to cleveland or near it. every evening on which i can possibly read during the remainder of my stay in the states is arranged for, and the fates divide me from "the big woman with two smaller ones in tow." so i send her my love (to be shared in by the two smaller ones, if she approve--but not otherwise), and seriously assure her that her pleasant letter has been most welcome. dear madam, faithfully your friend. [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] aboard the "russia," bound for liverpool, _sunday, th april, ._ my dear fields, in order that you may have the earliest intelligence of me, i begin this note to-day in my small cabin, purposing (if it should prove practicable) to post it at queenstown for the return steamer. we are already past the banks of newfoundland, although our course was seventy miles to the south, with the view of avoiding ice seen by judkins in the _scotia_ on his passage out to new york. the _russia_ is a magnificent ship, and has dashed along bravely. we had made more than thirteen hundred and odd miles at noon to-day. the wind, after being a little capricious, rather threatens at the present time to turn against us, but our run is already eighty miles ahead of the _russia's_ last run in this direction--a very fast one. . . . to all whom it may concern, report the _russia_ in the highest terms. she rolls more easily than the other cunard screws, is kept in perfect order, and is most carefully looked after in all departments. we have had nothing approaching to heavy weather, still one can speak to the trim of the ship. her captain, a gentleman; bright, polite, good-natured, and vigilant. . . . as to me, i am greatly better, i hope. i have got on my right boot to-day for the first time; the "true american" seems to be turning faithless at last; and i made a gad's hill breakfast this morning, as a further advance on having otherwise eaten and drunk all day ever since wednesday. you will see anthony trollope, i daresay. what was my amazement to see him with these eyes come aboard in the mail tender just before we started! he had come out in the _scotia_ just in time to dash off again in said tender to shake hands with me, knowing me to be aboard here. it was most heartily done. he is on a special mission of convention with the united states post-office. we have been picturing your movements, and have duly checked off your journey home, and have talked about you continually. but i have thought about you both, even much, much more. you will never know how i love you both; or what you have been to me in america, and will always be to me everywhere; or how fervently i thank you. all the working of the ship seems to be done on my forehead. it is scrubbed and holystoned (my head--not the deck) at three every morning. it is scraped and swabbed all day. eight pairs of heavy boots are now clattering on it, getting the ship under sail again. legions of ropes'-ends are flopped upon it as i write, and i must leave off with dolby's love. * * * * * _thursday, th._ soon after i left off as above we had a gale of wind which blew all night. for a few hours on the evening side of midnight there was no getting from this cabin of mine to the saloon, or _vice versâ_, so heavily did the sea break over the decks. the ship, however, made nothing of it, and we were all right again by monday afternoon. except for a few hours yesterday (when we had a very light head-wind), the weather has been constantly favourable, and we are now bowling away at a great rate, with a fresh breeze filling all our sails. we expect to be at queenstown between midnight and three in the morning. i hope, my dear fields, you may find this legible, but i rather doubt it, for there is motion enough on the ship to render writing to a landsman, however accustomed to pen and ink, rather a difficult achievement. besides which, i slide away gracefully from the paper, whenever i want to be particularly expressive. . . . ----, sitting opposite to me at breakfast, always has the following items: a large dish of porridge into which he casts slices of butter and a quantity of sugar. two cups of tea. a steak. irish stew. chutnee and marmalade. another deputation of two has solicited a reading to-night. illustrious novelist has unconditionally and absolutely declined. more love, and more to that, from your ever affectionate friend. [sidenote: the same.] "all the year round" office, _may th, ._ my dear fields, i have found it so extremely difficult to write about america (though never so briefly) without appearing to blow trumpets on the one hand, or to be inconsistent with my avowed determination _not_ to write about it on the other, that i have taken the simple course enclosed. the number will be published on the th of june. it appears to me to be the most modest and manly course, and to derive some graceful significance from its title. thank my dear mrs. fields for me for her delightful letter received on the th. i will write to her very soon, and tell her about the dogs. i would write by this post, but that wills' absence (in sussex, and getting no better there as yet) so overwhelms me with business that i can scarcely get through it. miss me? ah, my dear fellow, but how do i miss _you_! we talk about you both at gad's hill every day of our lives. and i never see the place looking very pretty indeed, or hear the birds sing all day long and the nightingales all night, without restlessly wishing that you were both there. with best love, and truest and most enduring regard, ever, my dear fields, your most affectionate. . . . i hope you will receive by saturday's cunard a case containing: . a trifling supply of the pen-knibs that suited your hand. . a do. of unfailing medicine for cockroaches. . mrs. gamp, for ----. the case is addressed to you at bleecker street, new york. if it should be delayed for the knibs (or nibs) promised to-morrow, and should be too late for the cunard packet, it will in that case come by the next following inman steamer. everything here looks lovely, and i find it (you will be surprised to hear) really a pretty place! i have seen "no thoroughfare" twice. excellent things in it, but it drags to my thinking. it is, however, a great success in the country, and is now getting up with great force in paris. fechter is ill, and was ordered off to brighton yesterday. wills is ill too, and banished into sussex for perfect rest. otherwise, thank god, i find everything well and thriving. you and my dear mrs. fields are constantly in my mind. procter greatly better. [sidenote: mr. fechter.] office of "all the year round," _friday, nd may, ._ my dear fechter, i have an idea about the bedroom act, which i should certainly have suggested if i had been at our "repetitions" here.[ ] i want it done _to the sound of the waterfall_. i want the sound of the waterfall louder and softer as the wind rises and falls, to be spoken through--like the music. i want the waterfall _listened to when spoken of, and not looked out at_. the mystery and gloom of the scene would be greatly helped by this, and it would be new and picturesquely fanciful. i am very anxious to hear from you how the piece seems to go,[ ] and how the artists, who are to act it, seem to understand their parts. pray tell me, too, when you write, how you found madame fechter, and give all our loves to all. ever heartily yours. [sidenote: mrs. james t. fields.] gad's hill, higham by rochester, kent, _ th may, ._ my dear mrs. fields, as you ask me about the dogs, i begin with them. when i came down first, i came to gravesend, five miles off. the two newfoundland dogs, coming to meet me with the usual carriage and the usual driver, and beholding me coming in my usual dress out at the usual door, it struck me that their recollection of my having been absent for any unusual time was at once cancelled. they behaved (they are both young dogs) exactly in their usual manner; coming behind the basket phaeton as we trotted along, and lifting their heads to have their ears pulled--a special attention which they receive from no one else. but when i drove into the stable-yard, linda (the st. bernard) was greatly excited; weeping profusely, and throwing herself on her back that she might caress my foot with her great fore-paws. mamie's little dog, too, mrs. bouncer, barked in the greatest agitation on being called down and asked by mamie, "who is this?" and tore round and round me, like the dog in the faust outlines. you must know that all the farmers turned out on the road in their market-chaises to say, "welcome home, sir!" and that all the houses along the road were dressed with flags; and that our servants, to cut out the rest, had dressed this house so that every brick of it was hidden. they had asked mamie's permission to "ring the alarm-bell" (!) when master drove up, but mamie, having some slight idea that that compliment might awaken master's sense of the ludicrous, had recommended bell abstinence. but on sunday the village choir (which includes the bell-ringers) made amends. after some unusually brief pious reflections in the crowns of their hats at the end of the sermon, the ringers bolted out, and rang like mad until i got home. there had been a conspiracy among the villagers to take the horse out, if i had come to our own station, and draw me here. mamie and georgy had got wind of it and warned me. divers birds sing here all day, and the nightingales all night. the place is lovely, and in perfect order. i have put five mirrors in the swiss châlet (where i write) and they reflect and refract in all kinds of ways the leaves that are quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river. my room is up among the branches of the trees; and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in, at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. the scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious. dolby (who sends a world of messages) found his wife much better than he expected, and the children (wonderful to relate!) perfect. the little girl winds up her prayers every night with a special commendation to heaven of me and the pony--as if i must mount him to get there! i dine with dolby (i was going to write "him," but found it would look as if i were going to dine with the pony) at greenwich this very day, and if your ears do not burn from six to nine this evening, then the atlantic is a non-conductor. we are already settling--think of this!--the details of my farewell course of readings. i am brown beyond belief, and cause the greatest disappointment in all quarters by looking so well. it is really wonderful what those fine days at sea did for me! my doctor was quite broken down in spirits when he saw me, for the first time since my return, last saturday. "good lord!" he said, recoiling, "seven years younger!" it is time i should explain the otherwise inexplicable enclosure. will you tell fields, with my love (i suppose he hasn't used _all_ the pens yet?), that i think there is in tremont street a set of my books, sent out by chapman, not arrived when i departed. such set of the immortal works of our illustrious, etc., is designed for the gentleman to whom the enclosure is addressed. if t., f. and co., will kindly forward the set (carriage paid) with the enclosure to ----'s address, i will invoke new blessings on their heads, and will get dolby's little daughter to mention them nightly. "no thoroughfare" is very shortly coming out in paris, where it is now in active rehearsal. it is still playing here, but without fechter, who has been very ill. the doctor's dismissal of him to paris, however, and his getting better there, enables him to get up the play there. he and wilkie missed so many pieces of stage-effect here, that, unless i am quite satisfied with his report, i shall go over and try my stage-managerial hand at the vaudeville theatre. i particularly want the drugging and attempted robbing in the bedroom scene at the swiss inn to be done to the sound of a waterfall rising and falling with the wind. although in the very opening of that scene they speak of the waterfall and listen to it, nobody thought of its mysterious music. i could make it, with a good stage-carpenter, in an hour. my dear love to fields once again. same to you and him from mamie and georgy. i cannot tell you both how i miss you, or how overjoyed i should be to see you here. ever, my dear mrs. fields, your most affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. alexander ireland.] the athenÃ�um, _saturday, th may, ._ dear mr. ireland, many thanks for the book[ ] you have kindly lent me. my interest in its subject is scarcely less than your own, and the book has afforded me great pleasure. i hope it will prove a very useful tribute to hazlett and hunt (in extending the general knowledge of their writings), as well as a deservedly hearty and loving one. you gratify me much by your appreciation of my desire to promote the kindest feelings between england and america. but the writer of the generous article in _the manchester examiner_ is quite mistaken in supposing that i intend to write a book on the united states. the fact is exactly the reverse, or i could not have spoken without some appearance of having a purpose to serve. very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] gad's hill place, _tuesday, th july, ._ my dear fields, i have delayed writing to you (and mrs. fields, to whom my love) until i should have seen longfellow. when he was in london the first time he came and went without reporting himself, and left me in a state of unspeakable discomfiture. indeed, i should not have believed in his having been here at all, if mrs. procter had not told me of his calling to see procter. however, on his return he wrote to me from the langham hotel, and i went up to town to see him, and to make an appointment for his coming here. he, the girls, and appleton, came down last saturday night and stayed until monday forenoon. i showed them all the neighbouring country that could be shown in so short a time, and they finished off with a tour of inspection of the kitchens, pantry, wine-cellar, pickles, sauces, servants' sitting-room, general household stores, and even the cellar book, of this illustrious establishment. forster and kent (the latter wrote certain verses to longfellow, which have been published in _the times_, and which i sent to d----) came down for a day, and i hope we all had a really "good time." i turned out a couple of postillions in the old red jacket of the old red royal dover road, for our ride; and it was like a holiday ride in england fifty years ago. of course we went to look at the old houses in rochester, and the old cathedral, and the old castle, and the house for the six poor travellers who, "not being rogues or procters, shall have lodging, entertainment, and four pence each." nothing can surpass the respect paid to longfellow here, from the queen downward. he is everywhere received and courted, and finds (as i told him he would, when we talked of it in boston) the working-men at least as well acquainted with his books as the classes socially above them. . . . last thursday i attended, as sponsor, the christening of dolby's son and heir--a most jolly baby, who held on tight by the rector's left whisker while the service was performed. what time, too, his little sister, connecting me with the pony, trotted up and down the centre aisle, noisily driving herself as that celebrated animal, so that it went very hard with the sponsorial dignity. wills is not yet recovered from that concussion of the brain, and i have all his work to do. this may account for my not being able to devise a christmas number, but i seem to have left my invention in america. in case you should find it, please send it over. i am going up to town to-day to dine with longfellow. and now, my dear fields, you know all about me and mine. you are enjoying your holiday? and are still thinking sometimes of our boston days, as i do? and are maturing schemes for coming here next summer? a satisfactory reply to the last question is particularly entreated. i am delighted to find you both so well pleased with the blind book scheme.[ ] i said nothing of it to you when we were together, though i had made up my mind, because i wanted to come upon you with that little burst from a distance. it seemed something like meeting again when i remitted the money and thought of your talking of it. the dryness of the weather is amazing. all the ponds and surface-wells about here are waterless, and the poor people suffer greatly. the people of this village have only one spring to resort to, and it is a couple of miles from many cottages. i do not let the great dogs swim in the canal, because the people have to drink of it. but when they get into the medway it is hard to get them out again. the other day bumble (the son, newfoundland dog) got into difficulties among some floating timber, and became frightened. don (the father) was standing by me, shaking off the wet and looking on carelessly, when all of a sudden he perceived something amiss, and went in with a bound and brought bumble out by the ear. the scientific way in which he towed him along was charming. ever your loving. [sidenote: mr. j. e. millais, r.a.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, th july, ._ my dear millais,[ ] i received the enclosed letter yesterday, and i have, perhaps unjustly--some vague suspicions of it. as i know how faithful and zealous you have been in all relating to poor leech, i make no apology for asking you whether you can throw any light upon its contents. you will be glad to hear that charles collins is decidedly better to-day, and is out of doors. believe me always, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. serle.] gad's hill, _wednesday, th july, ._ my dear serle,[ ] i do not believe there is the slightest chance of an international copyright law being passed in america for a long time to come. some massachusetts men do believe in such a thing, but they fail (as i think) to take into account the prompt western opposition. such an alteration as you suggest in the english law would give no copyright in america, you see. the american publisher could buy no absolute _right_ of priority. any american newspaper could (and many would, in a popular case) pirate from him, as soon as they could get the matter set up. he could buy no more than he buys now when he arranges for advance sheets from england, so that there may be simultaneous publication in the two countries. and success in england is of so much importance towards the achievement of success in america, that i greatly doubt whether previous publications in america would often be worth more to an american publisher or manager than simultaneous publication. concerning the literary man in parliament who would undertake to bring in a bill for such an amendment of our copyright law, with weight enough to keep his heart unbroken while he should be getting it through its various lingering miseries, all i can say is--i decidedly don't know him. on that horrible staplehurst day, i had not the slightest idea that i knew anyone in the train out of my own compartment. mrs. cowden clarke[ ] wrote me afterwards, telling me in the main what you tell me, and i was astonished. it is remarkable that my watch (a special chronometer) has never gone quite correctly since, and to this day there sometimes comes over me, on a railway--in a hansom cab--or any sort of conveyance--for a few seconds, a vague sense of dread that i have no power to check. it comes and passes, but i cannot prevent its coming. believe me, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] _ th august, ._ my dear sir, i should have written to you much sooner, but that i have been home from the united states barely three months, and have since been a little uncertain as to the precise time and way of sending my youngest son out to join his brother alfred. it is now settled that he shall come out in the ship _sussex_, tons, belonging to messrs. money, wigram, and co. she sails from gravesend, but he will join her at plymouth on the th september, and will proceed straight to melbourne. of this i apprise alfred by this mail. . . . i cannot sufficiently thank you for your kindness to alfred. i am certain that a becoming sense of it and desire to deserve it, has done him great good. your report of him is an unspeakable comfort to me, and i most heartily assure you of my gratitude and friendship. in the midst of your colonial seethings and heavings, i suppose you have some leisure to consult equally the hopeful prophets and the dismal prophets who are all wiser than any of the rest of us as to things at home here. my own strong impression is that whatsoever change the new reform bill may effect will be very gradual indeed and quite wholesome. numbers of the middle class who seldom or never voted before will vote now, and the greater part of the new voters will in the main be wiser as to their electoral responsibilities and more seriously desirous to discharge them for the common good than the bumptious singers of "rule britannia," "our dear old church of england," and all the rest of it. if i can ever do anything for any accredited friend of yours coming to the old country, command me. i shall be truly glad of any opportunity of testifying that i do not use a mere form of words in signing myself, cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. russell sturgis.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _monday, th december, ._[ ] my dear mr. russell sturgis, i am "reading" here, and shall be through this week. consequently i am only this morning in receipt of your kind note of the th, forwarded from my own house. believe me i am as much obliged to you for your generous and ready response to my supposed letter as i should have been if i had really written it. but i know nothing whatever of it or of "miss jeffries," except that i have a faint impression of having recently noticed that name among my begging-letter correspondents, and of having associated it in my mind with a regular professional hand. your caution has, i hope, disappointed this swindler. but my testimony is at your service if you should need it, and i would take any opportunity of bringing one of those vagabonds to punishment; for they are, one and all, the most heartless and worthless vagabonds on the face of the earth. believe me, faithfully yours. [sidenote: mrs. james t. fields.] glasgow, _wednesday, december , ._ my dear mrs. fields, . . . first, as you are curious about the oliver murder, i will tell you about that trial of the same at which you _ought_ to have assisted. there were about a hundred people present in all. i have changed my stage. besides that back screen which you know so well, there are two large screens of the same colour, set off, one on either side, like the "wings" at a theatre. and besides these again, we have a quantity of curtains of the same colour, with which to close in any width of room from wall to wall. consequently, the figure is now completely isolated, and the slightest action becomes much more important. this was used for the first time on the occasion. but behind the stage--the orchestra being very large and built for the accommodation of a numerous chorus--there was ready, on the level of the platform, a very long table, beautifully lighted, with a large staff of men ready to open oysters and set champagne-corks flying. directly i had done, the screens being whisked off by my people, there was disclosed one of the prettiest banquets you can imagine; and when all the people came up, and the gay dresses of the ladies were lighted by those powerful lights of mine, the scene was exquisitely pretty; the hall being newly decorated, and very elegantly; and the whole looking like a great bed of flowers and diamonds. now, you must know that all this company were, before the wine went round, unmistakably pale, and had horror-stricken faces. next morning harness (fields knows--rev. william--did an edition of shakespeare--old friend of the kembles and mrs. siddons), writing to me about it, and saying it was "a most amazing and terrific thing," added, "but i am bound to tell you that i had an almost irresistible impulse upon me to _scream_, and that, if anyone had cried out, i am certain i should have followed." he had no idea that, on the night, p----, the great ladies' doctor, had taken me aside and said: "my dear dickens, you may rely upon it that if only one woman cries out when you murder the girl, there will be a contagion of hysteria all over this place." it is impossible to soften it without spoiling it, and you may suppose that i am rather anxious to discover how it goes on the th of january!!! we are afraid to announce it elsewhere, without knowing, except that i have thought it pretty safe to put it up once in dublin. i asked mrs. k----, the famous actress, who was at the experiment: "what do _you_ say? do it or not?" "why, of course, do it," she replied. "having got at such an effect as that, it must be done. but," rolling her large black eyes very slowly, and speaking very distinctly, "the public have been looking out for a sensation these last fifty years or so, and by heaven they have got it!" with which words, and a long breath and a long stare, she became speechless. again, you may suppose that i am a little anxious! not a day passes but dolby and i talk about you both, and recall where we were at the corresponding time of last year. my old likening of boston to edinburgh has been constantly revived within these last ten days. there is a certain remarkable similarity of _tone_ between the two places. the audiences are curiously alike, except that the edinburgh audience has a quicker sense of humour and is a little more genial. no disparagement to boston in this, because i consider an edinburgh audience perfect. i trust, my dear eugenius, that you have recognised yourself in a certain uncommercial, and also some small reference to a name rather dear to you? as an instance of how strangely something comic springs up in the midst of the direst misery, look to a succeeding uncommercial, called "a small star in the east," published to-day, by-the-bye. i have described, _with exactness_, the poor places into which i went, and how the people behaved, and what they said. i was wretched, looking on; and yet the boiler-maker and the poor man with the legs filled me with a sense of drollery not to be kept down by any pressure. the atmosphere of this place, compounded of mists from the highlands and smoke from the town factories, is crushing my eyebrows as i write, and it rains as it never does rain anywhere else, and always does rain here. it is a dreadful place, though much improved and possessing a deal of public spirit. improvement is beginning to knock the old town of edinburgh about, here and there; but the canongate and the most picturesque of the horrible courts and wynds are not to be easily spoiled, or made fit for the poor wretches who people them to live in. edinburgh is so changed as to its notabilities, that i had the only three men left of the wilson and jeffrey time to dine with me there, last saturday. i think you will find "fatal zero" (by percy fitzgerald) a very curious analysis of a mind, as the story advances. a new beginner in "a. y. r." (hon. mrs. clifford, kinglake's sister), who wrote a story in the series just finished, called "the abbot's pool," has just sent me another story. i have a strong impression that, with care, she will step into mrs. gaskell's vacant place. wills is no better, and i have work enough even in that direction. god bless the woman with the black mittens for making me laugh so this morning! i take her to be a kind of public-spirited mrs. sparsit, and as such take her to my bosom. god bless you both, my dear friends, in this christmas and new year time, and in all times, seasons, and places, and send you to gad's hill with the next flowers! ever your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. russell sturgis.] kennedy's hotel, edinburgh, _friday, th december, ._ my dear mr. russell sturgis, i return you the forged letter, and devoutly wish that i had to flog the writer in virtue of a legal sentence. i most cordially reciprocate your kind expressions in reference to our future intercourse, and shall hope to remind you of them five or six months hence, when my present labours shall have gone the way of all other earthly things. it was particularly interesting to me when i was last at boston to recognise poor dear felton's unaffected and genial ways in his eldest daughter, and to notice how, in tender remembrance of him, she is, as it were, cambridge's daughter. believe me always, faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] it was at baltimore that charles dickens first conceived the idea of a walking-match, which should take place on his return to boston, and he drew up a set of humorous "articles." [ ] the play of "no thoroughfare," was produced at the adelphi theatre, under the management of mr. webster. [ ] mr. fechter was, at this time, superintending the production of a french version of "no thoroughfare," in paris. it was called "l'abîme." [ ] the volume referred to is a "list of the writings of william hazlett and leigh hunt, chronologically arranged, with notes, descriptive, critical, and explanatory, etc." [ ] a copy of "the old curiosity shop," in raised letters for the use of the blind, had been printed by charles dickens's order at the "perkins institution for the blind" in boston, and presented by him to that institution in this year. [ ] john everett millais, r.a. (the editors make use of this note, as it is the only one which mr. millais has been able to find for them, and they are glad to have the two names associated together). [ ] a dramatic author, who was acting manager of covent garden theatre in , when his acquaintance with charles dickens first began. this letter is in answer to some questions put to charles dickens by mr. serle on the subject of the extension of copyright to the united states of america. [ ] mrs. cowden clarke wrote to tell charles dickens that her sister, miss sabilla novello, and her brother, mr. alfred novello, were also in the train, and escaped without injury. [ ] a forged letter from charles dickens, introducing an impostor, had been addressed to mr. russell sturgis. . [sidenote: mrs. forster.] queen's hotel, manchester, _monday, th march, ._ my dear mrs. forster, a thousand thanks for your note, which has reached me here this afternoon. at breakfast this morning dolby showed me the local paper with a paragraph in it recording poor dear tennent's[ ] death. you may imagine how shocked i was. immediately before i left town this last time, i had an unusually affectionate letter from him, enclosing one from forster, and proposing the friendly dinner since appointed for the th. i replied to him in the same spirit, and felt touched at the time by the gentle earnestness of his tone. it is remarkable that i talked of him a great deal yesterday to dolby (who knew nothing of him), and that i reverted to him again at night before going to bed--with no reason that i know of. dolby was strangely impressed by this, when he showed me the newspaper. god be with us all! ever your affectionate. [sidenote: mr. h. a. layard.] office of "all the year round," _saturday, th march, ._ my dear layard, coming to town for a couple of days, from york, i find your beautiful present.[ ] with my heartiest congratulations on your marriage, accept my most cordial thanks for a possession that i shall always prize foremost among my worldly goods; firstly, for your sake; secondly, for its own. not one of these glasses shall be set on table until mrs. layard is there, to touch with her lips the first champagne that any of them shall ever hold! this vow has been registered in solemn triumvirate at gad's hill. the first week in june will about see me through my present work, i hope. i came to town hurriedly to attend poor dear emerson tennent's funeral. you will know how my mind went back, in the york up-train at midnight, to mount vesuvius and our neapolitan supper. i have given mr. hills, of oxford street, the letter of introduction to you that you kindly permitted. he has immense local influence, and could carry his neighbours in favour of any good design. my dear layard, ever cordially yours. [sidenote: miss florence olliffe.] , wellington street, _tuesday, th march, ._ my dear florence,[ ] i have received your kind note this morning, and i hasten to thank you for it, and to assure your dear mother of our most cordial sympathy with her in her great affliction, and in loving remembrance of the good man and excellent friend we have lost. the tidings of his being very ill indeed had, of course, been reported to me. for some days past i had taken up the newspaper with sad misgivings; and this morning, before i got your letter, they were realised. i loved him truly. his wonderful gentleness and kindness, years ago, when we had sickness in our household in paris, has never been out of my grateful remembrance. and, socially, his image is inseparable from some of the most genial and delightful friendly hours of my life. i am almost ashamed to set such recollections by the side of your mother's great bereavement and grief, but they spring out of the fulness of my heart. may god be with her and with you all! ever yours affectionately. [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] adelphi hotel, liverpool, _friday, april th, ._ my dear fields, the faithful _russia_ will bring this out to you, as a sort of warrant to take you into loving custody and bring you back on her return trip. i rather think that when the th of june shall have shaken off these shackles,[ ] there _will_ be borage on the lawn at gad's. your heart's desire in that matter, and in the minor particulars of cobham park, rochester castle, and canterbury, shall be fulfilled, please god! the red jackets shall turn out again upon the turnpike-road, and picnics among the cherry-orchards and hop-gardens shall be heard of in kent. then, too, shall the uncommercial resuscitate (being at present nightly murdered by mr. w. sikes) and uplift his voice again. the chief officer of the _russia_ (a capital fellow) was at the reading last night, and dolby specially charged him with the care of you and yours. we shall be on the borders of wales, and probably about hereford, when you arrive. dolby has insane projects of getting over here to meet you; so amiably hopeful and obviously impracticable, that i encourage him to the utmost. the regular little captain of the _russia_, cook, is just now changed into the _cuba_, whence arise disputes of seniority, etc. i wish he had been with you, for i liked him very much when i was his passenger. i like to think of your being in _my_ ship! ---- and ---- have been taking it by turns to be "on the point of death," and have been complimenting one another greatly on the fineness of the point attained. my people got a very good impression of ----, and thought her a sincere and earnest little woman. the _russia_ hauls out into the stream to-day, and i fear her people may be too busy to come to us to-night. but if any of them do, they shall have the warmest of welcomes for your sake. (by-the-bye, a very good party of seamen from the queen's ship _donegal_, lying in the mersey, have been told off to decorate st. george's hall with the ship's bunting. they were all hanging on aloft upside down, holding to the gigantically high roof by nothing, this morning, in the most wonderfully cheerful manner.) my son charley has come for the dinner, and chappell (my proprietor, as--isn't it wemmick?--says) is coming to-day, and lord dufferin (mrs. norton's nephew) is to come and make _the_ speech. i don't envy the feelings of my noble friend when he sees the hall. seriously, it is less adapted to speaking than westminster abbey, and is as large. . . . i hope you will see fechter in a really clever piece by wilkie.[ ] also you will see the academy exhibition, which will be a very good one; and also we will, please god, see everything and more, and everything else after that. i begin to doubt and fear on the subject of your having a horror of me after seeing the murder. i don't think a hand moved while i was doing it last night, or an eye looked away. and there was a fixed expression of horror of me, all over the theatre, which could not have been surpassed if i had been going to be hanged to that red velvet table. it is quite a new sensation to be execrated with that unanimity; and i hope it will remain so! [is it lawful--would that woman in the black gaiters, green veil, and spectacles, hold it so--to send my love to the pretty m----?] pack up, my dear fields, and be quick. ever your most affectionate. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] preston, _thursday, nd april, ._ my dear sir, i am finishing my farewell readings--to-night is the seventy-fourth out of one hundred--and have barely time to send you a line to thank you most heartily for yours of the th january, and for your great kindness to alfred and edward. the latter wrote by the same mail, on behalf of both, expressing the warmest gratitude to you, and reporting himself in the stoutest heart and hope. i never can thank you sufficiently. you will see that the new ministry has made a decided hit with its budget, and that in the matter of the irish church it has the country at its back. you will also see that the "reform league" has dissolved itself, indisputably because it became aware that the people did not want it. i think the general feeling in england is a desire to get the irish church out of the way of many social reforms, and to have it done _with_ as already done _for_. i do not in the least believe myself that agrarian ireland is to be pacified by any such means, or can have it got out of its mistaken head that the land is of right the peasantry's, and that every man who owns land has stolen it and is therefore to be shot. but that is not the question. the clock strikes post-time as i write, and i fear to write more, lest, at this distance from london, i should imperil the next mail. cordially yours. [sidenote: mr. thomas chappell.] office of "all the year round," _monday, rd may, ._ my dear mr. chappell, i am really touched by your letter. i can most truthfully assure you that your part in the inconvenience of this mishap has given me much more concern than my own; and that if i did not hope to have our london farewells yet, i should be in a very gloomy condition on your account. pray do not suppose that _you_ are to blame for my having done a little too much--a wild fancy indeed! the simple fact is, that the rapid railway travelling was stretched a hair's breadth too far, and that _i_ ought to have foreseen it. for, on the night before the last night of our reading in america, when dolby was cheering me with a review of the success, and the immediate prospect of the voyage home, i told him, to his astonishment: "i am too far gone, and too worn out to realise anything but my own exhaustion. believe me, if i had to read but twice more, instead of once, i couldn't do it." we were then just beyond our recent number. and it was the travelling that i had felt throughout. the sharp precautionary remedy of stopping instantly, was almost as instantly successful the other day. i told dr. watson that he had never seen me knocked out of time, and that he had no idea of the rapidity with which i should come up again. just as three days' repose on the atlantic steamer made me, in my altered appearance, the amazement of the captain, so this last week has set me up, thank god, in the most wonderful manner. the sense of exhaustion seems a dream already. of course i shall train myself carefully, nevertheless, all through the summer and autumn. i beg to send my kind regards to mrs. chappell, and i shall hope to see her and you at teddington in the long bright days. it would disappoint me indeed if a lasting friendship did not come of our business relations. in the spring i trust i shall be able to report to you that i am ready to take my farewells in london. of this i am pretty certain: that i never will take them at all, unless with you on your own conditions. with an affectionate regard for you and your brother, believe me always, very faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] "all the year round" office, _tuesday, th may, ._ my dear mr. rusden, as i daresay some exaggerated accounts of my having been very ill have reached you, i begin with the true version of the case. i daresay i _should_ have been very ill if i had not suddenly stopped my farewell readings when there were yet five-and-twenty remaining to be given. i was quite exhausted, and was warned by the doctors to stop (for the time) instantly. acting on the advice, and going home into kent for rest, i immediately began to recover, and within a fortnight was in the brilliant condition in which i can now--thank god--report myself. i cannot thank you enough for your care of plorn. i was quite prepared for his not settling down without a lurch or two. i still hope that he may take to colonial life. . . . in his letter to me about his leaving the station to which he got through your kindness, he expresses his gratitude to you quite as strongly as if he had made a wonderful success, and seems to have acquired no distaste for anything but the one individual of whom he wrote that betrayed letter. but knowing the boy, i want to try him fully. you know all our public news, such as it is, at least as well as i do. many people here (of whom i am one) do not like the look of american matters. what i most fear is that the perpetual bluster of a party in the states will at last set the patient british back up. and if our people begin to bluster too, and there should come into existence an exasperating war-party on both sides, there will be great danger of a daily-widening breach. the first shriek of the first engine that traverses the san francisco railroad from end to end will be a death-warning to the disciples of jo smith. the moment the mormon bubble gets touched by neighbours it will break. similarly, the red man's course is very nearly run. a scalped stoker is the outward and visible sign of his utter extermination. not quakers enough to reach from here to jerusalem will save him by the term of a single year. i don't know how it may be with you, but it is the fashion here to be absolutely certain that the emperor of the french is fastened by providence and the fates on a throne of adamant expressly constructed for him since the foundations of the universe were laid. he knows better, and so do the police of paris, and both powers must be grimly entertained by the resolute british belief, knowing what they have known, and doing what they have done through the last ten years. what victor hugo calls "the drop-curtain, behind which is constructing the great last act of the french revolution," has been a little shaken at the bottom lately, however. one seems to see the feet of a rather large chorus getting ready. i enclose a letter for plorn to your care, not knowing how to address him. forgive me for so doing (i write to alfred direct), and believe me, my dear mr. rusden, yours faithfully and much obliged. [sidenote: miss emily jolly.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, nd july, ._ dear miss jolly, mr. wills has retired from here (for rest and to recover his health), and my son, who occupies his place, brought me this morning a story[ ] in ms., with a request that i would read it. i read it with extraordinary interest, and was greatly surprised by its uncommon merit. on asking whence it came, i found that it came from you! you need not to be told, after this, that i accept it with more than readiness. if you will allow me i will go over it with great care, and very slightly touch it here and there. i think it will require to be divided into three portions. you shall have the proofs and i will publish it immediately. i think so very highly of it that i will have special attention called to it in a separate advertisement. i congratulate you most sincerely and heartily on having done a very special thing. it will always stand apart in my mind from any other story i ever read. i write with its impression newly and strongly upon me, and feel absolutely sure that i am not mistaken. believe me, faithfully yours always. [sidenote: hon. robert lytton.] , wellington street, london, _thursday, nd september, ._ my dear robert lytton, "john acland" is most willingly accepted, and shall come in to the next monthly part. i shall make bold to condense him here and there (according to my best idea of story-telling), and particularly where he makes the speech:--and with the usual fault of being too long, here and there, i think you let the story out too much--prematurely--and this i hope to prevent artfully. i think your title open to the same objection, and therefore propose to substitute: the disappearance of john acland. this will leave the reader in doubt whether he really _was_ murdered, until the end. i am sorry you do not pursue the other prose series. you can do a great deal more than you think for, with whatever you touch; and you know where to find a firmly attached and admiring friend always ready to take the field with you, and always proud to see your plume among the feathers in the staff. your account of my dear boffin[ ] is highly charming:--i had been troubled with a misgiving that he was good. may his shadow never be more correct! i wish i could have you at the murder from "oliver twist." i am always, my dear robert lytton, affectionately your friend. * * * * * pray give my kindest regards to fascination fledgeby, who (i have no doubt) has by this time half-a-dozen new names, feebly expressive of his great merits. [sidenote: the same.] office of "all the year round," , wellington street, strand, london, _friday, st october, ._ my dear robert lytton, i am assured by a correspondent that "john acland" has been done before. said correspondent has evidently read the story--and is almost confident in "chambers's journal." this is very unfortunate, but of course cannot be helped. there is always a possibility of such a malignant conjunction of stars when the story is a true one. in the case of a good story--as this is--liable for years to be told at table--as this was--there is nothing wonderful in such a mischance. let us shuffle the cards, as sancho says, and begin again. you will of course understand that i do not tell you this by way of complaint. indeed, i should not have mentioned it at all, but as an explanation to you of my reason for winding the story up (which i have done to-day) as expeditiously as possible. you might otherwise have thought me, on reading it as published, a little hard on mr. doilly. i have not had time to direct search to be made in "chambers's;" but as to the main part of the story having been printed somewhere, i have not the faintest doubt. and i believe my correspondent to be also right as to the where. you could not help it any more than i could, and therefore will not be troubled by it any more than i am. the more i get of your writing, the better i shall be pleased. do believe me to be, as i am, your genuine admirer and affectionate friend. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent, _sunday, th october, ._ my dear mr. rusden, this very day a great meeting is announced to come off in london, as a demonstration in favour of a fenian "amnesty." no doubt its numbers and importance are ridiculously over-estimated, but i believe the gathering will turn out to be big enough to be a very serious obstruction in the london streets. i have a great doubt whether such demonstrations ought to be allowed. they are bad as a precedent, and they unquestionably interfere with the general liberty and freedom of the subject. moreover, the time must come when this kind of threat and defiance will have to be forcibly stopped, and when the unreasonable toleration of it will lead to a sacrifice of life among the comparatively innocent lookers-on that might have been avoided but for a false confidence on their part, engendered in the damnable system of _laisser-aller_. you see how right we were, you and i, in our last correspondence on this head, and how desperately unsatisfactory the condition of ireland is, especially when considered with a reference to america. the government has, through mr. gladstone, just now spoken out boldly in reference to the desired amnesty. (so much the better for them or they would unquestionably have gone by the board.) still there is an uneasy feeling abroad that mr. gladstone himself would grant this amnesty if he dared, and that there is a great weakness in the rest of their irish policy. and this feeling is very strong amongst the noisiest irish howlers. meanwhile, the newspapers go on arguing irish matters as if the irish were a reasonable people, in which immense assumption i, for one, have not the smallest faith. again, i have to thank you most heartily for your kindness to my two boys. it is impossible to predict how plorn will settle down, or come out of the effort to do so. but he has unquestionably an affectionate nature, and a certain romantic touch in him. both of these qualities are, i hope, more impressible for good than for evil, and i trust in god for the rest. the news of lord derby's death will reach you, i suppose, at about the same time as this letter. a rash, impetuous, passionate man; but a great loss for his party, as a man of mind and mark. i was staying last june with lord russell--six or seven years older, but (except for being rather deaf) in wonderful preservation, and brighter and more completely armed at all points than i have seen him these twenty years. as this need not be posted till friday, i shall leave it open for a final word or two; and am until then, and then, and always afterwards, my dear mr. rusden, your faithful and much obliged. _thursday, th._ we have no news in england except two slight changes in the government consequent on layard's becoming our minister at madrid. he is not long married to a charming lady, and will be far better in spain than in the house of commons. the ministry are now holding councils on the irish land tenure question, which is the next difficulty they have to deal with, as you know. last sunday's meeting was a preposterous failure; still, it brought together in the streets of london all the ruffian part of the population of london, and that is a serious evil which any one of a thousand accidents might render mischievous. there is no existing law, however, to stop these assemblages, so that they keep moving while in the streets. the government was undoubtedly wrong when it considered it had the right to close hyde park; that is now universally conceded. i write to alfred and plorn both by this mail. they can never say enough of your kindness when they write to me. [sidenote: mr. a. h. layard.] gad's hill place, _monday, th november, ._ my dear layard, on friday or saturday next i can come to you at any time after twelve that will suit your convenience. i had no idea of letting you go away without my god-speed; but i knew how busy you must be; and kept in the background, biding my time. i am sure you know that there is no man living more attached to you than i am. after considering the subject with the jealousy of a friend, i have a strong conviction that your change[ ] is a good one; ill as you can be spared from the ranks of men who are in earnest here. with kindest regards to mrs. layard. ever faithfully yours. footnotes: [ ] sir james emerson tennent. [ ] some venetian glass champagne tumblers. [ ] miss florence olliffe, who wrote to announce the death of her father, sir joseph olliffe. [ ] the readings. [ ] the "piece" here alluded to was called "black and white." it was presented at the adelphi theatre. the outline of the plot was suggested by mr. fechter. [ ] the story was called "an experience." [ ] "boffin" and "fascination fledgeby," were nicknames given to his children by mr. robert lytton at this time. [ ] mr. layard's appointment as british minister at madrid. . [sidenote: mr. james t. fields.] , hyde park place, london, w., _friday, january th, ._ my dear fields, we live here (opposite the marble arch) in a charming house until the st of june, and then return to gad's. the conservatory is completed, and is a brilliant success; but an expensive one! i should be quite ashamed of not having written to you and my dear mrs. fields before now, if i didn't know that you will both understand how occupied i am, and how naturally, when i put my papers away for the day, i get up and fly. i have a large room here, with three fine windows, overlooking the park--unsurpassable for airiness and cheerfulness. you saw the announcement of the death of poor dear harness. the circumstances are curious. he wrote to his old friend the dean of battle saying he would come to visit him on that day (the day of his death). the dean wrote back: "come next day, instead, as we are obliged to go out to dinner, and you will be alone." harness told his sister a little impatiently that he _must_ go on the first-named day; that he had made up his mind to go, and must. he had been getting himself ready for dinner, and came to a part of the staircase whence two doors opened--one, upon another level passage; one, upon a flight of stone steps. he opened the wrong door, fell down the steps, injured himself very severely, and died in a few hours. you will know--_i_ don't--what fechter's success is in america at the time of this present writing. in his farewell performances at the princess's he acted very finely. i thought the three first acts of his hamlet very much better than i had ever thought them before--and i always thought very highly of them. we gave him a foaming stirrup cup at gad's hill. forster (who has been ill with his bronchitis again) thinks no. of the new book ("edwin drood") a clincher,--i mean that word (as his own expression) for _clincher_. there is a curious interest steadily working up to no. , which requires a great deal of art and self-denial. i think also, apart from character and picturesqueness, that the young people are placed in a very novel situation. so i hope--at nos. and , the story will turn upon an interest suspended until the end. i can't believe it, and don't, and won't, but they say harry's twenty-first birthday is next sunday. i have entered him at the temple just now; and if he don't get a fellowship at trinity hall when his time comes, i shall be disappointed, if in the present disappointed state of existence. i hope you may have met with the little touch of radicalism i gave them at birmingham in the words of buckle? with pride i observe that it makes the regular political traders, of all sorts, perfectly mad. such was my intentions, as a grateful acknowledgment of having been misrepresented. i think mrs. ----'s prose very admirable; but i don't believe it! no, i do _not_. my conviction is that those islanders get frightfully bored by the islands, and wish they had never set eyes upon them! charley collins has done a charming cover for the monthly part of the new book. at the very earnest representations of millais (and after having seen a great number of his drawings) i am going to engage with a new man; retaining of course, c. c.'s cover aforesaid.[ ] katie has made some more capital portraits, and is always improving. my dear mrs. fields, if "he" (made proud by chairs and bloated by pictures) does not give you my dear love, let us conspire against him when you find him out, and exclude him from all future confidences. until then, ever affectionately yours and his. [sidenote: lord lytton.] , hyde park place, _monday, th february, ._ my dear lytton, i ought to have mentioned in my hurried note to you, that my knowledge of the consultation[ ] in question only preceded yours by certain hours; and that longman asked me if i would make the design known to you, as he thought it might be a liberty to address you otherwise. this i did therefore. the class of writers to whom you refer at the close of your note, have no copyright, and do not come within my case at all. i quite agree with you as to their propensities and deserts. indeed, i suppose in the main that there is very little difference between our opinions. i do not think the present government worse than another, and i think it better than another by the presence of mr. gladstone; but it appears to me that our system fails. ever yours. [sidenote: mr. frederic chapman.] , hyde park place, _monday, th march, ._ dear frederic chapman, mr. fildes has been with me this morning, and without complaining of ---- or expressing himself otherwise than as being obliged to him for his care in no. , represents that there is a brother-student of his, a wood-engraver, perfectly acquainted with his style and well understanding his meaning, who would render him better. i have replied to him that there can be no doubt that he has a claim beyond dispute to our employing whomsoever he knows will present him in his best aspect. therefore, we must make the change; the rather because the fellow-student in question has engraved mr. fildes' most successful drawings hitherto. faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. charles mackay.] office of "all the year round," _thursday, st april, ._ my dear mackay, i have placed "god's acre." the prose paper, "the false friend," has lingered, because it seems to me that the idea is to be found in an introduced story of mine called "the baron of grogzwig" in "pickwick." be pleasant with the scottish people in handling johnson, because i love them. ever faithfully. [sidenote: sir john bowring.] gad's hill, _thursday, th may, ._ my dear sir john, i send you many cordial thanks for your note, and the very curious drawing accompanying it. i ought to tell you, perhaps, that the opium smoking i have described, i saw (exactly as i have described it, penny ink-bottle and all) down in shadwell this last autumn. a couple of the inspectors of lodging-houses knew the woman and took me to her as i was making a round with them to see for myself the working of lord shaftesbury's bill. believe me, always faithfully yours. [sidenote: mr. j. b. buckstone.] [ ]_sunday, th may, ._ my dear buckstone, i send a duplicate of this note to the haymarket, in case it should miss you out of town. for a few years i have been liable, at wholly uncertain and incalculable times, to a severe attack of neuralgia in the foot, about once in the course of a year. it began in an injury to the finer muscles or nerves, occasioned by over-walking in the deep snow. when it comes on i cannot stand, and can bear no covering whatever on the sensitive place. one of these seizures is upon me now. until it leaves me i could no more walk into st. james's hall than i could fly in the air. i hope you will present my duty to the prince of wales, and assure his royal highness that nothing short of my being (most unfortunately) disabled for the moment would have prevented my attending, as trustee of the fund,[ ] at the dinner, and warmly expressing my poor sense of the great and inestimable service his royal highness renders to a most deserving institution by so kindly commending it to the public. faithfully yours always. [sidenote: mr. rusden.] athenÃ�um, _friday evening, th may, ._ my dear mr. rusden, i received your most interesting and clear-sighted letter about plorn just before the departure of the last mail from here to you. i did not answer then because another incoming mail was nearly due, and i expected (knowing plorn so well) that some communication from him such as he made to you would come to me. i was not mistaken. the same arguing of the squatter question--vegetables and all--appeared. this gave me an opportunity of touching on those points by this mail, without in the least compromising you. i cannot too completely express my concurrence with your excellent idea that his correspondence with you should be regarded as confidential. just as i could not possibly suggest a word more neatly to the point, or more thoughtfully addressed, to such a young man than your reply to his letter, i hope you will excuse my saying that it is a perfect model of tact, good sense, and good feeling. i had been struck by his persistently ignoring the possibility of his holding any other position in australasia than his present position, and had inferred from it a homeward tendency. what is most curious to me is that he is very sensible, and yet does not seem to understand that he has qualified himself for no public examinations in the old country, and could not possibly hold his own against any competition for anything to which i could get him nominated. but i must not trouble you about my boys as if they were yours. it is enough that i can never thank you for your goodness to them in a generous consideration of me. i believe the truth as to france to be that a citizen frenchman never forgives, and that napoleon will never live down the _coup d'état_. this makes it enormously difficult for any well-advised english newspaper to support him, and pretend not to know on what a volcano his throne is set. informed as to his designs on the one hand, and the perpetual uneasiness of his police on the other (to say nothing of a doubtful army), _the times_ has a difficult game to play. my own impression is that if it were played too boldly for him, the old deplorable national antagonism would revive in his going down. that the wind will pass over his imperiality on the sands of france i have not the slightest doubt. in no country on the earth, but least of all there, can you seize people in their houses on political warrants, and kill in the streets, on no warrant at all, without raising a gigantic nemesis--not very reasonable in detail, perhaps, but none the less terrible for that. the commonest dog or man driven mad is a much more alarming creature than the same individuality in a sober and commonplace condition. your friend ---- ---- is setting the world right generally all round (including the flattened ends, the two poles), and, as a minister said to me the other day, "has the one little fault of omniscience." you will probably have read before now that i am going to be everything the queen can make me.[ ] if my authority be worth anything believe on it that i am going to be nothing but what i am, and that that includes my being as long as i live, your faithful and heartily obliged. [sidenote: mr. alfred tennyson dickens.] athenÃ�um club, _friday night, th may, ._ my dear alfred,[ ] i have just time to tell you under my own hand that i invited mr. bear to a dinner of such guests as he would naturally like to see, and that we took to him very much, and got on with him capitally. i am doubtful whether plorn is taking to australia. can you find out his real mind? i notice that he always writes as if his present life were the be-all and the end-all of his emigration, and as if i had no idea of you two becoming proprietors, and aspiring to the first positions in the colony, without casting off the old connection. from mr. bear i had the best accounts of you. i told him that they did not surprise me, for i had unbounded faith in you. for which take my love and blessing. they will have told you all the news here, and that i am hard at work. this is not a letter so much as an assurance that i never think of you without hope and comfort. ever, my dear alfred, your affectionate father. * * * * * this letter did not reach australia until after these two absent sons of charles dickens had heard, by telegraph, the news of their father's death. the end. footnotes: [ ] mr. charles collins was obliged to give up the illustrating of "edwin drood," on account of his failing health. [ ] a meeting of publishers and authors to discuss the subject of international copyright. [ ] printed in mackenzie's "life of dickens." [ ] the general theatrical fund. [ ] an allusion to an unfounded rumour. [ ] charles dickens's son, alfred tennyson. index. acrobats, adams, mr. h. g., letters to, , agreement, a sporting, ainsworth, mr. w. h., air, dickens's love of fresh, allston, mr. washington, america, feeling for the "curiosity shop" in, ; projected visit to, ; description of life in, ; how dickens was interviewed in, ; amateur theatricals in, ; friends in, , ; voyage home from, ; second visit of dickens to, , , - ; dickens's feeling for the people of, ; the great walking-match in, ; second journey home from, - ; desire on the part of dickens to promote friendly relations between england and, ; letters from, , , , - "american notes, the," success of, ; criticisms on, , ; and see , , appleton, mr., ashburton, lord, austin, mr. henry, letter to, austin, mrs., letter to, author, dreams of an, ; penalties of an, babbage, mr. charles, letter to, bairr, mrs., bath, a, abroad, ; at naples, "battle of life, the," the drama of, ; dickens on, baylis, mr., letter to, bear, mr., beard, mr., begging-letter writers, dickens on, "bentley's miscellany," dickens's connection with, benzon, mrs., biliousness, an effect of, birmingham, meeting of polytechnic institution at, ; the institute at, birthday greeting, a, "black and white," fechter in wilkie collins's play of, "bleak house," blessington, the countess of, ; letters to, , , , , , blue-stockings, dickens on, boulogne, dickens at, , , bouncer, mrs., miss dickens's dog, , bowring, sir john, letters to, , boy, the magnetic, boyle, miss mary, ; letter to, braham, mr., - braham, mrs., breakfast, a, aboard ship, broadstairs, description of, ; life at, , ; a wreck at, , brougham, lord, browning, mr. robert, letter to, buckstone, mr., letter to, bulwer, sir edward lytton, letter to, ; and see lytton, sir edward bulwer, and lytton, lord butler, mrs., calculation, a long, captain, a sea, "captives, the," dickens's criticism on lord lytton's play of, carlyle, mr. thomas, carlyle, mrs., céleste, madame, cerjat, m. de, chapman, mr. edward, letters to, , chapman, mr. frederic, letter to, chappell, mr. t., ; letter to, charity, a vote for a, chéri, rose, children, dickens on the death of, "child's history of england, a," "chimes, the," dickens at work on, ; his interest in, chorley, mr. henry f., letters to, , , , , christening, a boisterous, "christmas carol, the," dickens at work on, , ; success of, christmas keeping, _chronicle, the evening_, dickens's connection with, clark, mr. l. gaylord, letter to, clark, mr. w. gaylord, clarke, mrs. cowden, ; and see letters clifford, hon. mrs., cobden, mr. richard, collins, mr. charles, collins, mr. wilkie, , , , , , ; letter to, conjurer, dickens as a, conolly, mr., cookesley, mr., copyright, dickens on international, , , , , , , corn laws, the repeal of the, cornwall, a trip to, costello, mr., coutts, miss, , , covent garden opera, commencement of the, criticism, on dickens's opera, ; dickens on american, ; on art, ; dickens's appreciation of thackeray's, ; by chorley on dickens, cruikshank, mr. george, cullenford, mr., _daily news, the_, first issue of, "dando," the oyster-eater, , "david copperfield," dickens at work on, ; dickens's feeling for, ; his liking for the reading of, , death, dickens on the punishment of, de gex, mr., derby, lord, dickens's opinion of, devonshire, the duke of, , , diary, fragments of dickens's, - dickens, alfred, , , ; letter to, dickens, charles, his affection for mary hogarth, - , , ; his diary, - ; his relations with _the chronicle_, ; his "sketches of young gentlemen," ; his "sunday in three parts," ; insures his life, ; his connection with "bentley's miscellany," ; is entered at the middle temple, ; his feeling for kent, ; his religious views, , ; the purpose of his writing, ; his childhood, ; his first visit to america, - ; as a stage-manager, , , ; dinner to, at greenwich, ; takes a trip to cornwall, ; as a conjuror, ; on american criticism, ; facetious description of himself, ; at broadstairs, , ; his views on education, ; at work on "the christmas carol," ; in italy, - ; at work on "the chimes," ; in paris, , ; organises theatricals for the benefit of leigh hunt, , , , , ; organises theatricals to found a curatorship of shakespeare's house, ; acts in theatricals at knebworth, , , ; theatricals in aid of the guild of literature and art, - , - ; as an editor, - , , - , - , , , , , , , , ; at boulogne, , , ; his expedition to switzerland and italy, - ; his excitability when at work, ; his love of fresh air, ; on the death of children, ; on red tape, ; on sunday bands, ; sits to frith for his portrait, ; his readings, , , , , ; at work on "our mutual friend," , ; readings in america, ; his love for the american people, ; his second visit to america, , , ; at gad's hill, ; farewell course of readings, , ; his reminiscences of the staplehurst accident, ; his reading of the murder from "oliver twist," ; serious illness of, , ; great physical power of, dickens, charles, jun., , , , , , ; at "all the year round" office, dickens, mrs. charles, , , , , , , ; and see letters dickens, dora, death of, dickens, edward, nicknamed plorn, , , , , , , dickens, henry f., ; entered at the temple, dickens, kate, , , dickens, miss, , , , , , , , , , , dickens, sydney, , dickens, walter, disease, a new form of, dissent, dickens's views on, "doctor marigold," reading of, dogs, dickens's, , ; don, the newfoundland, rescues his son, dolby, mr. george, , , , , , , , "dombey and son," sale of, ; see also , d'orsay, count, , , , , , , dream, an absurd, dufferin, lord, dumas, alexandre, earnestness, dickens on, eden, the hon. miss, letter to, edinburgh, editor, dickens as an, - , , - , - , , , , , , - , education, dickens on, edward, the courier, - , , "edwin drood," dickens on, ; the opium scene in, egg, mr. a., , , , , , evans, mr., "experience, an," "fatal zero," by percy fitzgerald, fechter, mr. charles, in "the lady of lyons," , ; dickens's admiration of, ; and see , , , ; letters to, , fechter, madame, felton, professor, ; and see letters felton, mrs., fenian amnesty, meeting in favour of a, , fields, mr. james t.; see letters fields, mrs., , , ; letter to, fildes, mr., fitzgerald, mr. percy, , forster, mr. john, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; letters to, , forster, mrs., letter to, fox, mr. w. j., letter to, frith, r.a., mr. w. p., letter to, funeral, the comic side of a, gad's hill, descriptions of, , ; dickens's writing-room at, ; longfellow's visit to, ; and see gallenga, monsieur, "gamp, mrs.," gaskell, mrs., ; letter to, general theatrical fund, the, , , gibson, mrs. milner, letter to, "girlhood of shakespeare's heroines, the," gladstone, mr., , glasgow, gordon, mrs., "great expectations," greenwich, dinner to dickens at, grew, mr. frederick, letter to, grisi, madame, guide books, guild of literature and art, the, , ; theatricals in aid of, - , - hardisty, mr., harley, mr. j. p., , ; letter to, harness, rev. w., , ; letter to, harrison, mr. james bower, letters to, , hat, a leghorn, hazlett, mr. william, higgins, mr., , hillard, mr., hills, mr., hodgson, dr., ; letters to, , hogarth, mr., hogarth, george, ; letter to, hogarth, georgina, , , , , , , , , , , hogarth, mary, - , , , hogarth, mrs., letters to, , , holland house, home, thoughts of, ; a welcome to, hood, mr. tom, letter to, house of commons, the, dickens's opinion of, , howe, dr., , hugo, victor, dickens's opinion of, ; and see hullah, mr. john, letters to, - hunt, mr. leigh, , , - , hyde park, closing of, by the government in , ireland, mr. alexander; see letters ireland, dickens on, ; in , ; land tenure in, irish church, the, the disestablishment of, irving, mr. washington, , ; letters to, , , italian patriots, dickens on, italy, visions of holiday life in, ; proposed visit to, , ; dickens in, - , - ; the peschiere palace at genoa in, ; a bath at naples in, jerrold, mr. douglas, , , "john acland," by the hon. robert lytton, , jolly, miss emily, letters to, , , , , jones, mr. ebenezer, letter to, keeley, mr. and mrs., kenny, mr. j., letter to, kent, mr. c., kent, dickens's affection for, "kentish coronal, the," king, mr. joseph c., letter to, king, miss, letters to, , "king arthur," dickens's opinion of lord lytton's poem of, king david, a profane, knowles, mr. james sheridan, ; letter to, "lady of lyons, the," dickens on the proposed opera of, ; fechter in, , landor, mr. walter, langley, mr., lanman, mr. charles, letter to, lausanne, friends in, layard, mr. austen henry, , ; and see letters layard, mrs., leech, mr. john, , lehmann, mr. frederic, , lemon, mr. mark, , , , , , lemon, mrs., leslie, r.a., mr., , letters of charles dickens to: adams, mr. h. g., , anonymous, austin, mr. henry, austin, mrs., babbage, mr. charles, baylis, mr., blessington, the countess of, , , , , , bowring, sir john, , boyle, miss mary, browning, mr. robert, buckstone, mr., bulwer, sir edward lytton, ; and see lytton, sir edward bulwer, and lytton, lord chapman, mr. edward, , chapman, mr. frederic, chappell, mr. tom, chorley, mr. henry f., , , , , clark, mr. l. gaylord, clarke, mrs. cowden, , , , , , collins, mr. wilkie, dickens, alfred, dickens, mrs. charles, , , , , eden, the hon. miss, fechter, mr. charles, , felton, professor, , , , , , , , fields, mr. james t., , , , , , , , fields, mrs. james t., forster, mr. john, , forster, mrs. john, fox, mr. w. j., frith, r.a., mr. w. p., gaskell, mrs., gibson, mrs. milner, grew, mr. frederick, harley, mr. j. p., harness, rev. w., harrison, mr. james bower, , hodgson, dr., , hogarth, mr. george, hogarth, mrs., , , hood, mr. tom, hullah, mr. john, - ireland, mr. alexander, - , , , irving, mr. washington, , , jolly, miss emily, , , , , jones, mr. ebenezer, kenny, mr. j., and ross, mr. t., king, mr. joseph c., king, miss, , knowles, mr. james sheridan, lanman, mr. charles, layard, mr. austen henry, , , , lytton, hon. robert, , , lytton, lord, , , , , ; see also bulwer, sir edward lytton, and lytton, sir edward bulwer lytton, sir edward bulwer, , , , , , , , , , , , , - , , , - , ; see also bulwer, sir edward lytton, and lytton, lord mackay, mr. charles, malleson, mrs., millais, r.a., mr. j. e., mitton, mr., morgan, captain, , napier, mr. macvey, , , , olliffe, lady, olliffe, miss, pease, mrs., phillips, mr. henry w., procter, mr. b. w., procter, mrs., robinson, rev. thomas, ross, mr. r. m., rusden, mr., , , , , , , rye, mr. w. b., sammins, mr. w. l., serle, mr., smith, mr. albert, smith, mr. arthur, smith, mr. h. p., stone, mr. frank, , sturgis, mr. russell, , thackeray, mr. w. m., thompson, mr., , , , , , thornbury, mr. walter, white, rev. james, , wills, mr. w. h., , , , , winter, mrs., , lewes, mr., "lighthouse, the," production of, at the olympic, "lirriper, mrs.," liverpool, meeting of the mechanics' institute at, ; theatricals at, , _london_, the, wreck of, longfellow, mr., , , , , , longman, mr., lumley, mr., lytton, sir edward bulwer; see letters; see also bulwer, sir edward lytton, and lytton, lord lytton, lord; see letters lytton, hon. robert, letters to, , , mackay, mr. charles, letter to, maclise, r.a., mr. daniel, , , , , , , , , macready, mr. w., , , , , , , , , , macready, miss, malleson, mrs., letter to, "man about town, the," manchester, dickens at, ; theatricals at, , , manin, m., mario, signor, martin, captain, "martin chuzzlewit," , , , mazzini, m., "medical aspects of death, the," "message from the sea, a," meyerbeer, m., millais, r.a., mr. j. e., ; letter to, mistake, a common, among would-be authors, mitton, mr., ; letter to, "modern greek songs," molesworth, lady, "money," dickens on lord lytton's play of, montague, miss emmeline, morgan, captain, letters to, , morley, mr., , morpeth, lord, "mrs. tillotson," by percy fitzgerald, "much ado about nothing," a captain's views on, murray, mr. leigh, napier, mr. macvey, letters to, , , , naples, dickens at, napoleon the third, dickens prophesies the overthrow of, "national music," mr. chorley's lecture on, nature, topping, the groom, on, niagara, the falls of, nicknames, of professor felton, ; dickens's, of himself, , , , , ; of his son edward, , normanby, lord, "no thoroughfare," the play of, , , , "not sso bad as we seem," dickens's opinion of lord lytton's comedy of, ; dickens plays in, , novello, mr. alfred, novello, miss sabilla, novel-writing, dickens on, "old curiosity shop, the," feeling for, in america, "oliver twist," ; the reading of the murder from, ; effect of the murder reading, olliffe, sir j., , olliffe, lady, ; letter to, olliffe, miss, letter to, osgood, mr., "our london correspondent," dickens on, "our mutual friend," , oyster cellars out of season, oysters, , paris, dickens in, , ; the drama in, pease, mrs., letter to, phillips, mr. henry w., letter to, pickthorn, dr., picnic, a, in kent, political life, dickens's opinion of, political meetings, dickens on, poole, mr., , portrait of dickens, by frith, power, miss, , , prescott, dickens's admiration for, prince consort, the, prince of wales, the, prisons, dickens on discipline in, pritchard the poisoner, procter, mr. b. w., , ; letter to, procter, mrs., , , procter, miss adelaide, puffery, dickens's hatred of, punishment of death, dickens on the, purse, a theatrical, queen, the, maclise and, ; her reception of longfellow, ; and see , , , rainforth, miss, reade, mr. charles, readings, dickens's public, , , , ; the object of the, ; the proposed series of, in america, ; the labour of the, ; farewell series of, , , ; the trial reading of the murder, , ; effect of the reading of the murder on the audience, red tape, dickens on, reform bill, dickens on the, reform meeting at drury-lane theatre, religion, dickens on, _review_, _the north american_, ; _the edinburgh_, , , , , , robinson, mr., , , robinson, rev. thomas, letter to, robson, mr. f., , "roccabella," dickens's opinion of mr. chorley's story of, roche, the courier, rogers, mr. samuel, rome, dickens at, ross, mr. john, ross, mr. r. m., letter to, ross, mr. t., letter to, royal exchange, the, fire at, rusden, mr.; see letters russell, mr. george, russell, lord john, , _russia_, s.s., the, , rye, mr. w. b., letter to, sammins, mr. w. l., letter to, sartoris, mr. and mrs., _satirist, the_, sausage, a questionable, scheffer, ary, schools, dickens on ragged, scotland, dickens's love for the people of, scott, sir walter, extracts from the diary of, , serle, mr., letter to, shakespeare, curatorship of house of, sheridan, "sketches of young gentlemen," by dickens, slave-owners, dickens on, smith, mr. albert, letter to, smith, mr. arthur, , ; letter to, smith, mr. h. p., letter to, speaking, dickens on public, stage-manager, dickens as a, , , stanfield, mr. clarkson, , , , , stansbury, mr., staplehurst, the railway accident at, stone, mr. frank, , , ; letters to, , "strange story, a," dickens's criticism on, , , , "studies of sensation and event," sturgis, mr. russell, letters to, , sumner, mr., , sunday bands, "sunday under three heads," by charles dickens, switzerland, expedition to, - ; ascent of the mer de glace, ; a hot bath in, ; passage of the simplon, ; travellers in, ; carriages in, sympathy, letters of, , , , tavistock house, temple, the, dickens becomes a student at, tennent, sir emerson, , , tennent, lady, thackeray, mr. w. m., letter to, theatricals, in america, ; dickens as a stage-manager, ; for the benefit of leigh hunt, , , , , , ; for the endowment of a curatorship of shakespeare's house, ; reminiscences of, ; at knebworth, , , ; for the guild of literature, - , - ; at tavistock house, thompson, mr.; see letters thompson, mrs., thompson, miss elizabeth, thornbury, mr. walter, letter to, topham, mr., topping, the groom, on nature, townshend, mr., tracey, lieutenant, travers, mr., "uncommercial traveller, the," , "united vagabonds, the," venice, dickens at, verona, dickens at, vesuvius, dickens's ascent of, "village coquettes," braham's opinion of dickens's opera of, ; harley's opinion of, "visits to rochester," waistcoats, dickens's fondness for bright, waterfall, a, as a stage effect, , watson, dr., white, rev. james, letters to, , white, mrs., "wilds of america," wills, mr. w. h., , , , , , , ; and see letters wilmot, mr., wilson, sir john, winter, mrs., letters to, , "woodland gossip," dickens's criticism on, work, dickens at, , "working man's life, the," young, mr., charles dickens and evans, crystal palace press. _ , henrietta street, covent garden, w.c._ (_late , piccadilly, w._) _november, ._ catalogue of books published by chapman & hall, limited, including drawing examples, diagrams, models, instruments, etc. issued under the authority of the science and art department, south kensington, for the use of schools and art and science classes. new novels. just ready, in vols., _the vicar's people: a story of a stain._ by george manville fenn, author of "the parson o' dumford." * * * * * just ready, in vol., _the missing note._ by mrs. corbett. * * * * * in november, in vols., _the great tontine._ by captain hawley smart. * * * * * in november, in vols., _a new novel by_ herman merivale. * * * * * in the press, a new edition, in vol., _aunt hepsy's foundling._ by mrs. leith adams. in the press, in vols., _a new novel by the same author._ * * * * * in the press, in vols., _a new novel by_ maria m. grant. * * * * * in the press, in vols., _a new novel by_ hon. mrs. henry chetwynd. * * * * * _the belstone._ by j. a. lake gloag. vols. * * * * * _young lochinvar; 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[***] _the remainder of dickens's works were not originally printed in demy vo._ library edition. _in post vo. with the original illustrations, vols., cloth, £ ._ _s._ _d._ pickwick papers illustrns., vols. nicholas nickleby " vols. martin chuzzlewit " vols. old curiosity shop & reprinted pieces " vols. barnaby rudge and hard times " vols. bleak house " vols. little dorrit " vols. dombey and son " vols. david copperfield " vols. our mutual friend " vols. sketches by "boz" " vol. oliver twist " vol. christmas books " vol. a tale of two cities " vol. great expectations " vol. pictures from italy & american notes " vol. uncommercial traveller " vol. child's history of england " vol. edwin drood and miscellanies " vol. christmas stories from "household words," &c. " vol. the life of charles dickens. by john forster. with illustrations. uniform with this edition. vol., s. d. the "charles dickens" edition. _in crown vo. in vols., cloth, with illustrations, £ s._ _s._ _d._ pickwick papers illustrations martin chuzzlewit " dombey and son " nicholas nickleby " david copperfield " bleak house " little dorrit " our mutual friend " barnaby rudge " old curiosity shop " a child's history of england " edwin drood and other stories " christmas stories, from "household words" " sketches by "boz" " american notes and reprinted pieces " christmas books " oliver twist " great expectations " tale of two cities " hard times and pictures from italy " uncommercial traveller " the life of charles dickens. uniform with this edition, with numerous illustrations. vols. the illustrated library edition. _complete in volumes. demy vo, s. each; or set, £ ._ this edition is printed on a finer paper and in a larger type than has been employed in any previous edition. the type has been cast especially for it, and the page is of a size to admit of the introduction of all the original illustrations. no such attractive issue has been made of the writings of mr. dickens, which, various as have been the forms of publication adapted to the demands of an ever widely-increasing popularity, have never yet been worthily presented in a really handsome library form. the collection comprises all the minor writings it was mr. dickens's wish to preserve. sketches by "boz." with illustrations by george cruikshank. pickwick papers. vols. with illustrations by phiz. oliver twist. with illustrations by cruikshank. nicholas nickleby. vols. with illustrations by phiz. old curiosity shop and reprinted pieces. vols. with illustrations by cattermole, &c. barnaby rudge and hard times. vols. with illustrations by cattermole, &c. martin chuzzlewit. vols. with illustrations by phiz. american notes and pictures from italy. vol. with illustrations. dombey and son. vols. with illustrations by phiz. david copperfield. vols. with illustrations by phiz. bleak house. vols. with illustrations by phiz. little dorrit. vols. with illustrations by phiz. a tale of two cities. with illustrations by phiz. the uncommercial traveller. with illustrations by marcus stone. great expectations. with illustrations by marcus stone. our mutual friend. vols. with illustrations by marcus stone. christmas books. with illustrations by sir edwin landseer, r.a. maclise, r.a., &c. &c. history of england. with illustrations by marcus stone. christmas stories. (from "household words" and "all the year round.") with illustrations. edwin drood and other stories. with illustrations by s. l. fildes. household edition. _complete in volumes. crown to, cloth, £ s. d._ martin chuzzlewit, with illustrations, cloth, s. david copperfield, with illustrations and a portrait, cloth, s. bleak house, with illustrations, cloth, s. little dorrit, with illustrations, cloth, s. pickwick papers, with illustrations, cloth, s. our mutual friend, with illustrations, cloth, s. nicholas nickleby, with illustrations, cloth, s. dombey and son, with illustrations, cloth, s. edwin drood; reprinted pieces; and other stories, with illustrations, cloth, s. the life of dickens. by john forster. with illustrations. cloth, s. barnaby rudge, with illustrations, cloth, s. old curiosity shop, with illustrations, cloth, s. christmas stories, with illustrations, cloth, s. oliver twist, with illustrations, cloth, s. great expectations, with illustrations, cloth, s. sketches by "boz," with illustrations, cloth, s. uncommercial traveller, with illustrations, cloth, s. christmas books, with illustrations, cloth, s. the history of england, with illustrations, cloth, s. american notes and pictures from italy, with illustrations, cloth, s. a tale of two cities, with illustrations, cloth, s. d. hard times, with illustrations, cloth, s. d. mr. dickens's readings. _fcap. vo, sewed._ christmas carol in prose. s. cricket on the hearth. s. chimes: a goblin story. s. story of little dombey. s. poor traveller, boots at the holly-tree inn, and mrs. gamp. s. * * * * * a christmas carol, with the original coloured plates; being a reprint of the original edition. small vo, red cloth, gilt edges, s. the popular library edition of the works of charles dickens, _in vols., large crown vo, price £ ; separate vols. s. each._ an edition printed on good paper, containing illustrations selected from the household edition, on plate paper. each volume has about pages and full-page illustrations. sketches by "boz." pickwick. vols. oliver twist. nicholas nickleby. vols. martin chuzzlewit. vols. dombey and son. vols. david copperfield. vols. christmas books. our mutual friend. vols. christmas stories. bleak house. vols. little dorrit. vols. old curiosity shop and reprinted pieces. vols. barnaby rudge. vols. uncommercial traveller. great expectations. tale of two cities. child's history of england. edwin drood and miscellanies. pictures from italy and american notes. * * * * * _the cheapest and handiest edition of_ the works of charles dickens. the pocket volume edition of charles dickens's works. _in vols., small fcap. vo, £ s._ _list of books, drawing examples, diagrams, models, instruments, &c.,_ including those issued under the authority of the science and art department, south kensington, for the use of schools and art and science classes. * * * * * catalogue of modern works on science and technology. vo, sewed, s. _benson (w.)_-- principles of the science of colour. small to, cloth, s. manual of the science of colour. coloured frontispiece and illustrations. mo, cloth, s. d. _bradley (thomas), of the royal military academy, woolwich_-- elements of geometrical drawing. in two parts, with plates. oblong folio, half-bound, each part s. selections (from the above) of plates, for the use of the royal military academy, woolwich. oblong folio, half-bound, s. _burchett_-- linear perspective. with illustrations. post vo, cloth, s. practical geometry. post vo, cloth, s. definitions of geometry. third edition. mo, sewed, d. _carroll (john)_-- freehand drawing lessons for the black board. s. _cubley (w. h.)_-- a system of elementary drawing. with illustrations and examples. imperial to, sewed, s. _davison (ellis a.)_-- drawing for elementary schools. post vo, cloth, s. model drawing. mo, cloth, s. the amateur house carpenter: a guide in building, making, and repairing. with numerous illustrations, drawn on wood by the author. demy vo, s. d. _delamotte (p. h.)_-- progressive drawing-book for beginners. mo, s. d. _dicksee (j. r.)_-- school perspective. vo, cloth, s. _dyce_-- drawing-book of the government school of design: elementary outlines of ornament. plates. small folio, sewed, s.; mounted, s. introduction to ditto. fcap. vo, d. _foster (vere)_-- drawing-books: (a) forty-two numbers, at d. each. (b) forty-six numbers, at d. each. the set _b_ includes the subjects in _a_. drawing-cards: freehand drawing: first grade, sets i., ii., iii., price s. each; in cloth cases, s. d. each. second grade, set i., price s.; in cloth case, s. _henslow (professor)_-- illustrations to be employed in the practical lessons on botany. prepared for south kensington museum. post vo, sewed, d. _jacobsthal (e.)_-- grammatik der ornamente, in parts of plates each. price, unmounted, £ s. d.; mounted on cardboard, £ s. the parts can be had separately. _jewitt_-- handbook of practical perspective. mo, cloth, s. d. _kennedy (john)_-- first grade practical geometry, mo, d. freehand drawing-book. mo, cloth, s. d. _lindley (john)_-- symmetry of vegetation: principles to be observed in the delineation of plants. mo, sewed, s. _marshall_-- human body. text and plates reduced from the large diagrams. vols., cloth, £ s. _newton (e. tulley, f.g.s.)_-- the typical parts in the skeletons of a cat, duck, and codfish, being a catalogue with comparative descriptions arranged in a tabular form. demy vo, s. _oliver (professor)_-- illustrations of the vegetable kingdom. plates. oblong vo, cloth. plain, s.; coloured, £ s. _poynter (e. j., r.a.), issued under the superintendence of_-- elementary, freehand, ornament: book i. simple geometrical forms, d. " ii. conventionalised floral forms, &c., d. freehand--first grade: book i. simple objects and ornament, d. " ii. various objects, d. " iii. objects and architectural ornaments, d. " iv. architectural ornament, d. " v. objects of glass and pottery, d. " vi. common objects, d. freehand--second grade: book i. various forms of anthermion, &c., s. " ii. greek, roman, and venetian, s. " iii. italian renaissance, s. " iv. roman, italian, japanese, &c. s. the south kensington drawing cards, containing the same examples as the books: elementary freehand cards. four packets, d. each. first grade freehand cards. six packets, s. each. second grade freehand cards. four packets, s. d. each. _puckett (r. campbell)_-- sciography, or radial projection of shadows. crown vo, cloth, s. _redgrave_-- manual and catechism on colour. fifth edition. mo, sewed, d. _robson (george)_-- elementary building construction. oblong folio, sewed, s. _wallis (george)_-- drawing-book. oblong, sewed, s. d.; mounted, s. _wornum (r. n.)_-- the characteristics of styles: an introduction to the study of the history of ornamental art. royal vo, cloth, s. drawing for young children. containing copies. mo, cloth, s. d. educational division of south kensington museum: classified catalogue of. ninth edition. vo, s. elementary drawing copy-books, for the use of children from four years old and upwards, in schools and families. compiled by a student certificated by the science and art department as an art teacher. seven books in to, sewed: book i. letters, d. " ii. ditto, d. " iii. geometrical and ornamental forms, d. " iv. objects, d. " v. leaves, d. " vi. birds, animals, &c., d. " vii. leaves, flowers, and sprays, d. [***] or in sets of seven books, s. d. engineer and machinist drawing-book, parts, plates. folio, £ s.; mounted, £ s. principles of decorative art. folio, sewed, s. diagram of the colours of the spectrum, with explanatory letterpress, on roller, s. d. copies for outline drawing: dyce's elementary outlines of ornament, selected plates, mounted back and front, s.; unmounted, sewed, s. weitbricht's outlines of ornament, reproduced by herman, plates, mounted back and front, s. d.; unmounted, s. morghen's outlines of the human figure reproduced by herman, plates, mounted back and front, s.; unmounted, s. d. one set of four plates, outlines of tarsia, from gruner, mounted, s. d. unmounted, d. albertolli's foliage, one set of four plates, mounted, s. d.; unmounted, d. outline of trajan frieze, mounted, s. wallis's drawing-book, mounted, s., unmounted, s. d. outline drawings of flowers, eight sheets, mounted, s. d.; unmounted, d. copies for shaded drawing: course of design. by ch. bargue (french), selected sheets, at s. and at s. each. £ s. architectural studies. by j. b. tripon. plates, £ . mechanical studies. by j. b. tripon. s. per dozen. foliated scroll from the vatican, unmounted, d.; mounted, s. d. twelve heads after holbein, selected from his drawings in her majesty's collection at windsor. reproduced in autotype. half imperial, £ s. lessons in sepia, s. per dozen, or s. each. coloured examples: a small diagram of colour, mounted, s. d.; unmounted, d. two plates of elementary design, unmounted, s.; mounted, s. d. camellia, mounted, s. d.; unmounted, s. d. cotman's pencil landscapes (set of ), mounted, s. " sepia drawings (set of ), mounted, £ . allonge's landscapes in charcoal (six), at s. each, or the set, £ s. solid models, &c.: *box of models, £ s. a stand with a universal joint, to show the solid models, &c., £ s. *one wire quadrangle, with a circle and cross within it, and one straight wire. one solid cube. one skeleton wire cube. one sphere. one cone. one cylinder. one hexagonal prism. £ s. skeleton cube in wood, s. d. -inch skeleton cube in wood, s. *three objects of form in pottery: indian jar, } celadon jar, } s. d. bottle, } *five selected vases in majolica ware, £ s. *three selected vases in earthenware, s. imperial deal frames, glazed, without sunk rings, s. each. *davidson's smaller solid models, in box, £ , containing-- square slabs. oblong blocks (steps). cubes. square blocks. octagon prism. cylinder. cone. jointed cross. triangular prism. pyramid, equilateral. pyramid, isosceles. square block. *davidson's advanced drawing models, £ .--the following is a brief description of the models:--an obelisk--composed of octagonal slabs, and inches across, and each inches high; cube, inches edge; monolith (forming the body of the obelisk) feet high; pyramid, inches base; the complete object is thus nearly feet high. a market cross--composed of slabs, , , and inches across, and each inches high; upright, feet high; cross arms, united by mortise and tenon joints; complete height, feet inches. a step-ladder, inches high. a kitchen table, / inches high. a chair to correspond. a four-legged stool, with projecting top and cross rails, height inches. a tub, with handles and projecting hoops, and the divisions between the staves plainly marked. a strong trestle, inches high. a hollow cylinder, inches in diameter, and inches long, divided lengthwise. a hollow sphere, inches in diameter, divided into semi-spheres, one of which is again divided into quarters; the semi-sphere, when placed on the cylinder, gives the form and principles of shading a dome, whilst one of the quarters placed on half the cylinder forms a niche. *davidson's apparatus for teaching practical geometry ( models), £ . *binn's models for illustrating the elementary principles of orthographic projection as applied to mechanical drawing, in box, £ s. miller's class drawing models.--these models are particularly adapted for teaching large classes; the stand is very strong, and the universal joint will hold the models in any position. _wood models_: square prism, inches side, inches high; hexagonal prism, inches side, inches high; cube, inches side; cylinder, inches diameter, inches high; hexagon pyramid, inches diameter, / inches side; square pyramid, inches side, / inches side; cone, inches diameter, / inches side; skeleton cube, inches solid wood / inch square; intersecting circles, inches solid wood / by / inches. _wire models_: triangular prism, inches side, inches high; square prism, inches side, inches high; hexagonal prism, inches diameter, inches high; cylinder, inches diameter, inches high; hexagon pyramid, inches diameter, inches high; square pyramid, inches side, inches high; cone, inches side, inches high; skeleton cube, inches side; intersecting circles, inches side; plain circle, inches side; plain square, inches side. table, inches by / inches. stand. the set complete, £ s. vulcanite set square, s. large compasses, with chalk-holder, s. *slip, two set squares and =t= square, s. *parkes's case of instruments, containing -inch compasses with pen and pencil leg, s. *prize instrument case, with -inch compasses, pen and pencil leg, small compasses, pen and scale, s. -inch compasses, with shifting pen and point, s. d. small compass, in case, s. * models, &c., entered as sets, can only be supplied in sets. large diagrams. astronomical: twelve sheets. by john drew, ph. dr., f.r.s.a. prepared for the committee of council on education. sheets, £ s.; on rollers and varnished, £ s. botanical: nine sheets. illustrating a practical method of teaching botany. by professor henslow, f.l.s. £ ; on rollers and varnished, £ s. class. division. section. diagram. { { thalamifloral dicotyledon { angiospermous { calycifloral & { { corollifloral { { incomplete { gymnospermous { petaloid { superior { { inferior monocotyledons { { glumaceous building construction: ten sheets. by william j. glenny, professor of drawing, king's college. in sets, £ s. laxton's examples of building construction in two divisions, containing imperial plates, £ . busbridge's drawings of building construction, sheets. s. d. mounted, s. d. geological: diagram of british strata. by h. w. bristow, f.r.s., f.g.s. a sheet, s.; on roller and varnished, s. d. mechanical: diagrams of the mechanical powers, and their applications in machinery and the arts generally. by dr. john anderson. diagrams, highly coloured on stout paper, feet inches by feet inches. sheets £ per set; mounted on rollers, £ . diagrams of the steam-engine. by professor goodeve and professor shelley. stout paper, inches by inches, highly coloured. sets of diagrams ( / sheets), £ s.; varnished and mounted on rollers, £ s. machine details. by professor unwin. coloured diagrams. sheets, £ s.; mounted on rollers and varnished, £ s. selected examples of machines, of iron and wood (french). by stanislas pettit. sheets, £ s.; s. per dozen. busbridge's drawings of machine construction. sheets, s. d. mounted, £ s. lessons in mechanical drawing. by stanislas pettit. s. per dozen; also larger sheets, more advanced copies, s. per dozen. lessons in architectural drawing. by stanislas pettit. s. per dozen; also larger sheets, more advanced copies, s. per dozen. physiological: eleven sheets. illustrating human physiology, life size and coloured from nature. prepared under the direction of john marshall, f.r.s., f.r.c.s., &c. each sheet, s. d. on canvas and rollers, varnished, £ s. . the skeleton and ligaments. . the muscles, joints, and animal mechanics. . the viscera in position.--the structure of the lungs. . the organs of circulation. . the lymphatics or absorbents. . the organs of digestion. . the brain and nerves.--the organs of the voice. . the organs of the senses. . the organs of the senses. . the microscopic structure of the textures and organs. . the microscopic structure of the textures and organs. * * * * * human body, life size. by john marshall, f.r.s., f.r.c.s. each sheet, s. d.; on canvas and rollers, varnished, £ s. explanatory key, s. . the skeleton, front view. . the muscles, front view. . the skeleton, back view. . the muscles, back view. . the skeleton, side view. . the muscles, side view. . the female skeleton, front view. zoological: ten sheets. illustrating the classification of animals. by robert patterson. £ ; on canvas and rollers, varnished, £ s. the same, reduced in size on royal paper, in sheets, uncoloured, s. the fortnightly review edited by john morley. the fortnightly review is published on the st of every month (the issue on the th being suspended), and a volume is completed every six months. _the following are among the contributors:_-- sir rutherford alcock. mathew arnold. professor bain. professor beesly. dr. bridges. hon. george c. brodrick. sir george campbell, m.p. j. chamberlain, m.p. professor sidney colvin. montague cookson, q.c. l. h. courtney, m.p. g. h. darwin. f. w. farrar. professor fawcett, m.p. edward a. freeman. mrs. garret-anderson. m. e. grant duff, m.p. thomas hare. f. harrison. lord houghton. professor huxley. professor jevons. Ã�mile de laveleye. t. e. cliffe leslie. right hon. r. lowe, m.p. sir john lubbock, m.p. lord lytton. sir h. s. maine. dr. maudsley. professor max mÃ�ller. professor henry morley. g. osborne morgan, q.c., m.p. william morris. f. w. newman. w. g. palgrave. walter h. pater. rt. hon. lyon playfair, m.p. dante gabriel rossetti. herbert spencer. hon. e. l. stanley. sir j. fitzjames stephen, q.c. leslie stephen. j. hutchison stirling. a. c. swinburne. dr. von sybel. j. a. symonds. w. t. thornton. hon. lionel a. tollemache. anthony trollope. professor tyndall. the editor. &c. &c. &c. the fortnightly review _is published at s. d._ * * * * * chapman & hall, limited, , henrietta street, covent garden, w.c. charles dickens and evans,] [crystal palace press. * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. asterisms, three asterisks in a triangle formation, are indicated by [***]. page , "recal" changed to "recall" (i can recall everything) page , "alway" changed to "always" (always look upon) page , "an" changed to "and" (straw hat, and) page , removed repeated word "it". (original reads: wherever it it is done) page , "d'hote" changed to "d'hôte" (the table d'hôte) page , "scena" changed to "scene a" (scene a half-an-hour) page , "tha" changed to "that" (have told her that) page , "withdraw" changed to "withdrawn" (withdrawn from the wear) page , word "be" inserted into text (to be found) page , "sich" changed to "such" (such was my) page , "conjuror" changed to "conjurer" to match text. (conjuror, dickens as a) page , "not so bad as we seem" changed to "not so bad as we seem" page , "rocabella" changed to "roccabella" ("roccabella," dickens's opini on) transcriber's note: for the reader: italic text is surrounded by _underscores_, bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and underlined text is surrounded by ~tildes~. two breves above the letter e are indicated by [)e] in the text. the life of [illustration: signature: charles dickens] [illustration] the life of charles dickens by john forster. three volumes in two. vol. i. * * * * * boston: james r. osgood & company, (late ticknor & fields, and fields, osgood, & co.) . the life of charles dickens by john forster. vol. i. - . to the daughters of charles dickens, my god-daughter mary and her sister kate, =this book is dedicated= by their friend, and their father's friend and executor, john forster note to the present edition. such has been the rapidity of the demand for successive impressions of this book, that i have found it impossible, until now, to correct at pages , , and three errors of statement made in the former editions; and some few other mistakes, not in themselves important, at pages , , and . i take the opportunity of adding that the mention at p. is not an allusion to the well-known "penny" and "saturday" magazines, but to weekly periodicals of some years' earlier date resembling them in form. one of them, i have since found from a later mention by dickens himself, was presumably of a less wholesome and instructive character. "i used," he says, "when i was at school, to take in the _terrific register_, making myself unspeakably miserable, and frightening my very wits out of my head, for the small charge of a penny weekly; which, considering that there was an illustration to every number in which there was always a pool of blood, and at least one body, was cheap." an obliging correspondent writes to me upon my reference to the fox-under-the-hill, at p. : "will you permit me to say that the house, shut up and almost ruinous, is still to be found at the bottom of a curious and most precipitous court, the entrance of which is just past salisbury street. . . . it was once, i think, the approach to the halfpenny boats. the house is now shut out from the water-side by the embankment." palace gate house, kensington, _ d december, _. table of contents. * * * * * chapter i. - . pages - . childhood. Æt. - . page birth at landport in portsea family of john dickens powers of observation in children two years old in london, æt. - in chatham, æt. - vision of boyhood the queer small child mother's teaching day-school in rome lane retrospects of childhood david copperfield and charles dickens access to small but good library tragedy-writing comic-song singing cousin james lamert first taken to theatre at mr. giles's school encored in the recitations boyish recollections birthplace of his fancy last night in chatham in london first impressions bayham street, camden-town faculty of early observation his description of his father small theatre made for him sister fanny at royal academy of music walks about london biography and autobiography at his godfather's and his uncle's first efforts at description "res angusta domi" mother exerting herself father in the marshalsea visit to the prison captain porter old friends disposed of at the pawnbroker's chapter ii. - . pages - . hard experiences in boyhood. Æt. - . mr. dilke's half-crown story of boyhood told d. c. and c. d. enterprise of the cousins lamert first employment in life blacking-warehouse a poor little drudge bob fagin and poll green "facilis descensus" crushed hopes the home in gower street regaling alamode home broken up at mrs. roylance's in camden-town sundays in prison pudding-shops and coffee-shops what was and might have been thomas and harry a lodging in lant street meals in the marshalsea c. d. and the marchioness originals of garland family adventure with bob fagin saturday-night shows appraised officially publican and wife at cannon row marshalsea incident in _copperfield_ incident as it occurred materials for _pickwick_ sister fanny's musical prize from hungerford stairs to chandos street father's quarrel with james lamert quits the warehouse bitter associations of servitude what became of the blacking business chapter iii. - . pages - . school-days and start in life. Æt. - . outcome of boyish trials disadvantage in later years advantages next move in life wellington house academy revisited and described letter from a schoolfellow c. d.'s recollections of school schoolfellow's recollections of c. d. fac-simile of schoolboy letter daniel tobin another schoolfellow's recollections writing tales and getting up plays master beverley scene-painter street-acting the schoolfellows after forty years smallness of the world in attorneys' offices at minor theatres the father on the son's education studying short-hand in british museum reading-room preparing for the gallery d. c. for c. d. a real dora in the same dora in dora changed into flora ashes of youth and hope chapter iv. - . pages - . reporters' gallery and newspaper literature. Æt. - . reporting for _true sun_ first seen by me reporting for _mirror_ and _chronicle_ first published piece discipline and experiences of reporting life as a reporter john black mr. thomas beard a letter to his editor incident of reporting days the same more correctly told origin of "boz" captain holland mr. george hogarth sketches in _evening chronicle_ c. d.'s first hearty appreciator chapter v. . pages - . first book, and origin of pickwick. Æt. . _sketches by boz_ fancy-piece by n. p. willis: a poor english author start of _pickwick_ marriage to miss hogarth first connection with chapman & hall mr. seymour's part in _pickwick_ letters relating thereto c. d.'s own account false claims refuted pickwick's original, his figure and his name first sprightly runnings of genius the _sketches_ characterized mr. seymour's death new illustrator chosen mr. hablot k. browne c. d. leaves the gallery _strange gentleman_ and _village coquettes_ chapter vi. . pages - . writing the pickwick papers. Æt. . first letter from him as he was thirty-five years ago mrs. carlyle and leigh hunt birth of eldest son from furnival's inn to doughty street a long-remembered sorrow i visit him hasty compacts with publishers self-sold into quasi-bondage agreements for editorship and writing mr. macrone's scheme to reissue _sketches_ attempts to prevent it exorbitant demand impatience of suspense purchase advised _oliver twist_ characters real to himself sense of responsibility for his writings criticism that satisfied him help given with his proofs writing _pickwick_, nos. and scenes in a debtors' prison a recollection of smollett reception of _pickwick_ a popular rage mr. carlyle's "dreadful" story secrets of success _pickwick_ inferior to later books exception for sam weller and mr. pickwick personal habits of c. d. reliefs after writing natural discontents the early agreements tale to follow _oliver twist_ compromise with mr. bentley trip to flanders first visit to broadstairs piracies of _pickwick_ a sufferer from agreements first visit to brighton what he is doing with _oliver twist_ reading de foe "no thoroughfare" proposed help to macready chapter vii. - . pages - . between pickwick and nickleby. Æt. - . edits _life of grimaldi_ his own opinion of it an objection answered his recollections of completion of _pickwick_ a purpose long entertained relations with chapman & hall payments made for _pickwick_ agreement for _nicholas nickleby_ _oliver twist_ characterized reasons for acceptance with every class nightmare of an agreement letter to mr. bentley proposal as to _barnaby rudge_ result of it birth of eldest daughter _young gentlemen_ and _young couples_ first number of _nicholas nickleby_ d of april, chapter viii. . pages - . oliver twist. Æt. . interest in characters at close of _oliver_ writing of the last chapter cruikshank illustrations etchings for last volume how executed slander respecting them exposed falsehood ascribed to the artist reputation of the new tale its workmanship social evils passed away living only in what destroyed them chief design of the story its principal figures comedy and tragedy of crime reply to attacks le sage, gay, and fielding likeness to them again the shadow of _barnaby_ appeal to mr. bentley for delay a very old story "sic vos non vobis" _barnaby_ given up by mr. bentley resignation of _miscellany_ parent parting from child chapter ix. - . pages - . nicholas nickleby. Æt. - . doubts of success dispelled realities of english life characters self-revealed miss bates and mrs. nickleby smike and dotheboys a favorite type of humanity sydney smith and newman noggs kindliness and breadth of humor goldsmith and smollett early and later books biographical not critical characteristics materials for the book birthday letter a difficulty at starting never in advance with _nickleby_ always with later books enjoying a play at the adelphi writing mrs. nickleby's love-scene sydney smith vanquished winding up the story parting from creatures of his fancy the nickleby dinner persons present the maclise portrait chapter x. - . pages - . during and after nickleby. Æt. - . the cottage at twickenham daniel maclise ainsworth and other friends mr. stanley of alderley petersham cottage childish enjoyments writes a farce for covent garden entered at the middle temple we see wainewright in newgate _oliver twist_ and the _quarterly_ hood's _up the rhine_ shakspeare society birth of second daughter house-hunting _barnaby_ at his tenth page letter from exeter a landlady and her friends a home for his father and mother autobiographical visit to an upholsterer visit from the same chapter xi. . pages - . new literary project. Æt. - . thoughts for the future doubts of old serial form suggestion for his publishers my mediation with them proposed weekly publication design of it old favorites to be revived subjects to be dealt with chapters on chambers gog and magog relaxations savage chronicles others as well as himself to write travels to ireland and america in view stipulation as to property and payments great hopes of success assent of his publishers no planned story terms of agreement notion for his hero a name hit upon sanguine of the issue chapter xii. - . pages - . the old curiosity shop. Æt. - . visit to walter landor first thought of little nell hopeful of master humphrey a title for the child-story first sale of _master humphrey's clock_ its original plan abandoned reasons for this to be limited to one story disadvantages of weekly publication a favorite description in bevis marks for sampson brass at lawn house, broadstairs dedication of his first volume to rogers chapters - dick swiveller and the marchioness masterpiece of kindly fun closing of the tale effect upon the writer making-believe very much the end approaching the realities of fiction death of little nell my share in the close a suggestion adopted by him success of the story useful lessons its mode of construction character and characteristics the art of it a recent tribute harte's "dickens in camp" chapter xiii. . pages - . devonshire terrace and broadstairs. Æt. . a good saying landor mystified the mirthful side of dickens extravagant flights humorous despair riding exercise first of the ravens the groom topping the smoky chimneys juryman at an inquest practical humanity publication of _clock's_ first number transfer of _barnaby_ settled a true prediction revisiting old scenes c. d. to chapman & hall terms of sale of _barnaby_ a gift to a friend final escape from bondage published libels about him said to be demented to be insane and turned catholic begging letter-writers a donkey asked for mr. kindheart friendly meetings social talk reconciling friends hint for judging men chapter xiv. . pages - . barnaby rudge. Æt. . advantage in beginning _barnaby_ birth of fourth child and second son the raven a loss in the family grip's death c. d. describes his illness family mourners apotheosis by maclise grip the second the inn at chigwell a _clock_ dinner lord jeffrey in london the _lamplighter_ the _pic nic papers_ character of lord george gordon a doubtful fancy interest in new labor constraints of weekly publication the prison-riots a serious illness close of _barnaby_ character of the tale defects in the plot the no-popery riots descriptive power displayed leading persons in story mr. dennis the hangman chapter xv. . pages - . public dinner in edinburgh. Æt. . his son walter landor dies in calcutta ( ) c. d. and the new poor-law moore and rogers jeffrey's praise of little nell resolve to visit scotland edinburgh dinner proposed sir david wilkie's death peter robertson professor wilson a fancy of scott lionization made tolerable thoughts of home the dinner and speeches his reception wilson's eulogy home yearnings freedom of city voted to him speakers at the dinner politics and party influences whig jealousies at the theatre hospitalities moral of it all proposed visit to the highlands maclise and macready guide to the highlands mr. angus fletcher (kindheart) chapter xvi. . pages - . adventures in the highlands. Æt. . a fright fletcher's eccentricities the trossachs the traveler's guide a comical picture highland accommodation grand scenery changes in route a waterfall entrance to glencoe the pass of glencoe loch leven a july evening postal service at loch earn head the maid of the inn impressions of glencoe an adventure torrents swollen with rain dangerous traveling incidents and accidents broken-down bridge a fortunate resolve post-boy in danger the rescue narrow escape a highland inn and inmates english comfort at dalmally dinner at glasgow proposed eagerness for home chapter xvii. . pages - . again at broadstairs. Æt. . peel and his party getting very radical thoughts of colonizing political squib by c. d. fine old english tory times mesmerism metropolitan prisons book by a workman an august day by the sea another story in prospect _clock_ discontents new adventure agreement for it signed the book that proved to be _chuzzlewit_ peel and lord ashley visions of america chapter xviii. . pages - . eve of the visit to america. Æt. . greetings from america reply to washington irving difficulties in the way resolve to go wish to revisit scenes of boyhood proposed book of travel arrangements for the journey impatience of suspense resolve to leave the children mrs. dickens reconciled a grave illness domestic griefs the old sorrow at windsor son walter's christening at liverpool with the travelers chapter xix. . pages - . first impressions of america. Æt. . rough passage a steamer in a storm resigned to the worst of himself and fellow-travelers the atlantic from deck the ladies' cabin its occupants card-playing on the atlantic ship-news a wager halifax harbor ship aground captain hewitt speaker of house of assembly ovation to c. d. arrival at boston incursion of editors at tremont house the welcome deputations dr. channing to c. d. public appearances a secretary engaged bostonians general characteristics personal notices perils of steamers a home-thought american institutions how first impressed reasons for the greeting what was welcomed in c. d. old world and new world daniel webster as to c. d. channing as to c. d. subsequent disappointments new york invitation to dinner} fac-similes of signatures } additional fac-similes } facing page . new york invitation to ball } fac-similes of signatures } additional fac-similes } chapter xx. . pages - . second impressions of america. Æt. . second letter international copyright third letter the dinner at boston worcester, springfield, and hartford queer traveling levees at hartford and new haven at wallingford serenades cornelius c. felton payment of personal expenses declined at new york irving and colden description of the ball newspaper accounts a phase of character opinion in america international copyright american authors in regard to it outcry against the nation's guest declines to be silent on copyright speech at dinner irving in the chair chairman's break-down an incident afterwards in london results of copyright speeches a bookseller's demand for help suggestion for copyright memorial henry clay's opinion life in new york distresses of popularity intentions for future refusal of invitations going south and west as to return dangers incident to steamers slavery ladies of america party conflicts non-arrival of cunard steamer copyright petition for congress no hope of the caledonia a substitute for her anxiety as to letters of distinguished americans hotel bills thoughts of the children acadia takes caledonia's place letter to c. d. from carlyle carlyle on copyright argument against stealing rob roy's plan worth bettering c. d. as to carlyle chapter xxi. . pages - . philadelphia, washington, and the south. Æt. . at philadelphia rule in printing letters promise as to railroads experience of them railway-cars charcoal stoves ladies' cars spittoons massachusetts and new york police-cells and prisons house of detention and inmates women and boy prisoners capital punishment a house of correction four hundred single cells comparison with english prisons inns and landlords at washington hotel extortion philadelphia penitentiary the solitary system solitary prisoners talk with inspectors bookseller carey changes of temperature henry clay proposed journeyings letters from england congress and senate leading american statesmen the people of america englishmen "located" there "surgit amari aliquid" the copyright petition at richmond irving appointed to spain experience of a slave city incidents of slave-life discussion with a slaveholder feeling of south to england levees at richmond one more banquet accepted my gift of _shakspeare_ home letters and fancies self-reproach of a noble nature washington irving's leave-taking chapter xxii. . pages - . canal-boat journeys: bound far west. Æt. . character in the letters the _notes_ less satisfactory personal narrative in letters the copyright differences social dissatisfactions a fact to be remembered literary merits of the letters personal character portrayed on board for pittsburgh choicest passages of _notes_ queer stage-coach something revealed on the top at harrisburg treaties with indians local legislatures a levee morning and night in canal-boat at and after breakfast making the best of it hardy habits by rail across mountain mountain scenery new settlements original of eden in _chuzzlewit_ a useful word party in america home news meets an early acquaintance "smallness of the world" queer customers at levees our anniversary the cincinnati steamer frugality in water and linen magnetic experiments life-preservers bores habits of neatness wearying for home another solitary prison new terror to loneliness arrival at cincinnati two judges in attendance the city described on the pavement chapter xxiii. . pages - . the far west: to niagara falls. Æt. . descriptions in letters and in _notes_ outline of westward travel an arabian-night city a temperance festival a party at judge walker's the party from another view young lady's description of c. d. mournful results of boredom down the mississippi listening and watching a levee at st. louis compliments lord ashburton's arrival talk with a judge on slavery a negro burnt alive feeling of slaves themselves american testimony pretty little scene a mother and her husband the baby st. louis in sight meeting of wife and husband trip to a prairie on the prairie at sunset general character of scenery the prairie described disappointment and enjoyment soirée at planter's house inn good fare no gray heads in st. louis dueling mrs. dickens as a traveler from cincinnati to columbus what a levee is like from columbus to sandusky the travelers alone a log house inn making tidy a monetary crisis americans not a humorous people the only recreations from sandusky to buffalo on lake erie reception and consolation of a mayor from buffalo to niagara nearing the falls the horse-shoe effect upon him of niagara the old recollection looking forward chapter xxiv. . pages - . niagara and montreal. Æt. . last two letters dickens vanquished obstacles to copyright two described value of literary popularity substitute for literature the secretary described his paintings the lion and ---- toryism of toronto canadian attentions proposed theatricals last letter the private play stage manager's report bill of the performance the lady performers a touch of crummles home page autograph of c. d. ( ) _fly-leaf_ c. d. æt. . from maclise's painting, by graves, a.r.a. _title-page_ fac-simile of letter written in boyhood outline of the maclise painting of . engraved by jeens apotheosis of grip the raven, by maclise, r.a. fac-simile of c. d.'s autograph signature boz ( ) fac-simile of invitation to the public dinner in new york, with the signatures fac-simile of invitation to the public ball in new york, with the signatures fac-simile of the bill of the private play in canada the life of charles dickens. chapter i. childhood - . birth at landport in portsea--family of john dickens--powers of observation in children--two years old--in london, æt. - --in chatham, æt. - --vision of boyhood--the queer small child--mother's teaching--day-school in rome lane--retrospects of childhood--david copperfield and charles dickens--access to small but good library--tragedy-writing--comic-song singing--cousin james lamert--first taken to theatre--at mr. giles's school--encored in the recitations--boyish recollections--birthplace of his fancy--last night in chatham--in london--first impressions--bayham street, camden-town--faculty of early observation--his description of his father--small theatre made for him--sister fanny at royal academy of music--walks about london--biography and autobiography--at his godfather's and his uncle's--first efforts at description--"res angusta domi"--mother exerting herself--father in the marshalsea--visit to the prison--captain porter--old friends disposed of--at the pawnbroker's. charles dickens, the most popular novelist of the century, and one of the greatest humorists that england has produced, was born at landport in portsea on friday, the th of february, . his father, john dickens, a clerk in the navy-pay office, was at this time stationed in the portsmouth dockyard. he had made acquaintance with the lady, elizabeth barrow, who became afterwards his wife, through her elder brother, thomas barrow, also engaged on the establishment at somerset house; and she bore him in all a family of eight children, of whom two died in infancy. the eldest, fanny (born ), was followed by charles (entered in the baptismal register of portsea as charles john huffham, though on the very rare occasions when he subscribed that name he wrote huffam); by another son, named alfred, who died in childhood; by letitia (born ); by another daughter, harriet, who died also in childhood; by frederick (born ); by alfred lamert (born ); and by augustus (born ); of all of whom only the second daughter now survives. walter scott tells us, in his fragment of autobiography, speaking of the strange remedies applied to his lameness, that he remembered lying on the floor in the parlor of his grandfather's farm-house, swathed up in a sheepskin warm from the body of the sheep, being then not three years old. david copperfield's memory goes beyond this. he represents himself seeing so far back into the blank of his infancy as to discern therein his mother and her servant, dwarfed to his sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and himself going unsteadily from the one to the other. he admits this may be fancy, though he believes the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy, and thinks that the recollection of most of us can go farther back into such times than many of us suppose. but what he adds is certainly not fancy. "if it should appear from anything i may set down in this narrative that i was a child of close observation, or that as a man i have a strong memory of my childhood, i undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics." applicable as it might be to david copperfield, this was simply and unaffectedly true of charles dickens. he has often told me that he remembered the small front garden to the house at portsea, from which he was taken away when he was two years old, and where, watched by a nurse through a low kitchen-window almost level with the gravel walk, he trotted about with something to eat, and his little elder sister with him. he was carried from the garden one day to see the soldiers exercise; and i perfectly recollect that, on our being at portsmouth together while he was writing _nickleby_, he recognized the exact shape of the military parade seen by him as a very infant, on the same spot, a quarter of a century before. when his father was again brought up by his duties to london from portsmouth, they went into lodgings in norfolk street, middlesex hospital; and it lived also in the child's memory that they had come away from portsea in the snow. their home, shortly after, was again changed, on the elder dickens being placed upon duty in chatham dockyard; and the house where he lived in chatham, which had a plain-looking whitewashed plaster front and a small garden before and behind, was in st. mary's place, otherwise called the brook, and next door to a baptist meeting-house called providence chapel, of which a mr. giles, to be presently mentioned, was minister. charles at this time was between four and five years old;[ ] and here he stayed till he was nine. here the most durable of his early impressions were received; and the associations that were around him when he died were those which at the outset of his life had affected him most strongly. the house called gadshill place stands on the strip of highest ground in the main road between rochester and gravesend. often had we traveled past it together, years and years before it became his home, and never without some allusion to what he told me when first i saw it in his company, that amid the recollections connected with his childhood it held always a prominent place, for, upon first seeing it as he came from chatham with his father, and looking up at it with much admiration, he had been promised that he might himself live in it, or in some such house, when he came to be a man, if he would only work hard enough. which for a long time was his ambition. the story is a pleasant one, and receives authentic confirmation at the opening of one of his essays on traveling abroad, when as he passes along the road to canterbury there crosses it a vision of his former self: "so smooth was the old high-road, and so fresh were the horses, and so fast went i, that it was midway between gravesend and rochester, and the widening river was bearing the ships, white-sailed or black-smoked, out to sea, when i noticed by the wayside a very queer small boy. "'holloa!' said i to the very queer small boy, 'where do you live?' "'at chatham,' says he. "'what do you do there?' says i. "'i go to school,' says he. "i took him up in a moment, and we went on. presently, the very queer small boy says, 'this is gadshill we are coming to, where falstaff went out to rob those travelers, and ran away.' "'you know something about falstaff, eh?' said i. "'all about him,' said the very queer small boy. 'i am old (i am nine), and i read all sorts of books. but _do_ let us stop at the top of the hill, and look at the house there, if you please!' "'you admire that house?' said i. "'bless you, sir,' said the very queer small boy, 'when i was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for me to be brought to look at it. and now i am nine, i come by myself to look at it. and ever since i can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, _if you were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it_. though that's impossible!' said the very queer small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring at the house out of window with all his might. "i was rather amazed to be told this by the very queer small boy; for that house happens to be _my_ house, and i have reason to believe that what he said was true." the queer small boy was indeed his very self. he was a very little and a very sickly boy. he was subject to attacks of violent spasm which disabled him for any active exertion. he was never a good little cricket-player. he was never a first-rate hand at marbles, or peg-top, or prisoner's base. but he had great pleasure in watching the other boys, officers' sons for the most part, at these games, reading while they played; and he had always the belief that this early sickness had brought to himself one inestimable advantage, in the circumstance of his weak health having strongly inclined him to reading. it will not appear, as my narrative moves on, that he owed much to his parents, or was other than in his first letter to washington irving he described himself to have been, a "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy;" but he has frequently been heard to say that his first desire for knowledge, and his earliest passion for reading, were awakened by his mother, who taught him the first rudiments not only of english, but also, a little later, of latin. she taught him regularly every day for a long time, and taught him, he was convinced, thoroughly well. i once put to him a question in connection with this to which he replied in almost exactly the words he placed five years later in the mouth of david copperfield: "i faintly remember her teaching me the alphabet; and when i look upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their shapes, and the easy good nature of o and s, always seem to present themselves before me as they used to do." then followed the preparatory day-school, a school for girls and boys to which he went with his sister fanny, and which was in a place called rome (pronounced room) lane. revisiting chatham in his manhood, and looking for the place, he found it had been pulled down to make a new street, "ages" before; but out of the distance of the ages arose nevertheless a not dim impression that it had been over a dyer's shop; that he went up steps to it; that he had frequently grazed his knees in doing so; and that in trying to scrape the mud off a very unsteady little shoe, he generally got his leg over the scraper.[ ] other similar memories of childhood have dropped from him occasionally in his lesser writings; whose readers may remember how vividly portions of his boyhood are reproduced in his fancy of the christmas-tree, and will hardly have forgotten what he says, in his thoughtful little paper on nurses' stories, of the doubtful places and people to which children may be introduced before they are six years old, and forced, night after night, to go back to against their wills, by servants to whom they are intrusted. that childhood exaggerates what it sees, too, has he not tenderly told? how he thought the rochester high street must be at least as wide as regent street, which he afterwards discovered to be little better than a lane; how the public clock in it, supposed to be the finest clock in the world, turned out to be as moon-faced and weak a clock as a man's eyes ever saw; and how in its town-hall, which had appeared to him once so glorious a structure that he had set it up in his mind as the model on which the genie of the lamp built the palace for aladdin, he had painfully to recognize a mere mean little heap of bricks, like a chapel gone demented. yet not so painfully, either, when second thoughts wisely came. "ah! who was i that i should quarrel with the town for being changed to me, when i myself had come back, so changed, to it? all my early readings and early imaginations dated from this place, and i took them away so full of innocent construction and guileless belief, and i brought them back so worn and torn, so much the wiser and so much the worse!" and here i may at once expressly mention, what already has been hinted, that even as fielding described himself and his belongings in captain booth and amelia, and protested always that he had writ in his books nothing more than he had seen in life, so it may be said of dickens in more especial relation to david copperfield. many guesses have been made since his death, connecting david's autobiography with his own; accounting, by means of such actual experiences, for the so frequent recurrence in his writings of the prison-life, its humor and pathos, described in them with such wonderful reality; and discovering in what david tells steerforth at school of the stories he had read in his childhood, what it was that had given the bent to his own genius. there is not only truth in all this, but it will very shortly be seen that the identity went deeper than any had supposed, and covered experiences not less startling in the reality than they appear to be in the fiction. of the "readings" and "imaginations" which he describes as brought away from chatham, this authority can tell us. it is one of the many passages in _copperfield_ which are literally true, and its proper place is here. "my father had left a small collection of books in a little room up-stairs to which i had access (for it adjoined my own), and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. from that blessed little room, _roderick random_, _peregrine pickle_, _humphrey clinker_, _tom jones_, the _vicar of wakefield_, _don quixote_, _gil blas_, and _robinson crusoe_ came out, a glorious host, to keep me company. they kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time,--they, and the _arabian nights_ and the _tales of the genii_,--and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me; _i_ knew nothing of it. it is astonishing to me now how i found time, in the midst of my porings and blunderings over heavier themes, to read those books as i did. it is curious to me how i could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles (which were great troubles to me), by impersonating my favorite characters in them. . . . i have been tom jones (a child's tom jones, a harmless creature) for a week together. i have sustained my own idea of roderick random for a month at a stretch, i verily believe. i had a greedy relish for a few volumes of voyages and travels--i forget what, now--that were on those shelves; and for days and days i can remember to have gone about my region of our house, armed with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees: the perfect realization of captain somebody, of the royal british navy, in danger of being beset by savages, and resolved to sell his life at a great price. . . . when i think of it, the picture always rises in my mind, of a summer evening, the boys at play in the churchyard, and i sitting on my bed, reading as if for life. every barn in the neighborhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own, in my mind, connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in them. i have seen tom pipes go climbing up the church-steeple; i have watched strap, with the knapsack on his back, stopping to rest himself upon the wicket-gate; and i _know_ that commodore trunnion held that club with mr. pickle, in the parlor of our little village ale-house." every word of this personal recollection had been written down as fact, some years before it found its way into _david copperfield_; the only change in the fiction being his omission of the name of a cheap series of novelists then in course of publication, by which his father had become happily the owner of so large a lump of literary treasure in his small collection of books. the usual result followed. the child took to writing, himself, and became famous in his childish circle for having written a tragedy called _misnar_, the sultan of india, founded (and very literally founded, no doubt) on one of the _tales of the genii_. nor was this his only distinction. he told a story offhand so well, and sang small comic songs so especially well, that he used to be elevated on chairs and tables, both at home and abroad, for more effective display of these talents; and when he first told me of this, at one of the twelfth-night parties on his eldest son's birthday, he said he never recalled it that his own shrill little voice of childhood did not again tingle in his ears, and he blushed to think what a horrible little nuisance he must have been to many unoffending grown-up people who were called upon to admire him. his chief ally and encourager in these displays was a youth of some ability, much older than himself, named james lamert, stepson to his mother's sister, and therefore a sort of cousin, who was his great patron and friend in his childish days. mary, the eldest daughter of charles barrow, himself a lieutenant in the navy, had for her first husband a commander in the navy called allen; on whose death by drowning at rio janeiro she had joined her sister, the navy-pay clerk's wife, at chatham; in which place she subsequently took for her second husband dr. lamert, an army-surgeon, whose son james, even after he had been sent to sandhurst for his education, continued still to visit chatham from time to time. he had a turn for private theatricals; and as his father's quarters were in the ordnance hospital there, a great rambling place otherwise at that time almost uninhabited, he had plenty of room in which to get up his entertainments. the staff-doctor himself played his part, and his portrait will be found in _pickwick_. by lamert, i have often heard him say, he was first taken to the theatre at the very tenderest age. he could hardly, however, have been younger than charles lamb, whose first experience was of having seen _artaxerxes_ when six years old; and certainly not younger than walter scott, who was only four when he saw _as you like it_ on the bath stage, and remembered having screamed out, _ain't they brothers?_ when scandalized by orlando and oliver beginning to fight.[ ] but he was at any rate old enough to recollect how his young heart leaped with terror as the wicked king richard, struggling for life against the virtuous richmond, backed up and bumped against the box in which he was; and subsequent visits to the same sanctuary, as he tells us, revealed to him many wondrous secrets, "of which not the least terrific were, that the witches in _macbeth_ bore an awful resemblance to the thanes and other proper inhabitants of scotland; and that the good king duncan couldn't rest in his grave, but was constantly coming out of it and calling himself somebody else." during the last two years of charles's residence at chatham, he was sent to a school kept in clover lane by the young baptist minister already named, mr. william giles. i have the picture of him here, very strongly in my mind, as a sensitive, thoughtful, feeble-bodied little boy, with an unusual sort of knowledge and fancy for such a child, and with a dangerous kind of wandering intelligence that a teacher might turn to good or evil, happiness or misery, as he directed it. nor does the influence of mr. giles, such as it was, seem to have been other than favorable. charles had himself a not ungrateful sense in after-years that this first of his masters, in his little-cared-for childhood, had pronounced him to be a boy of capacity; and when, about half-way through the publication of _pickwick_, his old teacher sent a silver snuff-box with admiring inscription to the "inimitable boz," it reminded him of praise far more precious obtained by him at his first year's examination in the clover lane academy, when his recitation of a piece out of the _humorist's miscellany_ about doctor bolus had received, unless his youthful vanity bewildered him, a double encore. a habit, the only bad one taught him by mr. giles, of taking for a time, in very moderate quantities, the snuff called irish blackguard, was the result of this gift from his old master; but he abandoned it after some few years, and it was never resumed. it was in the boys' playing-ground near clover lane in which the school stood, that, according to one of his youthful memories, he had been, in the hay-making time, delivered from the dungeons of seringapatam, an immense pile "(of haycock)," by his countrymen the victorious british "(boy next door and his two cousins)," and had been recognized with ecstasy by his affianced one "(miss green)," who had come all the way from england "(second house in the terrace)" to ransom and marry him. it was in this playing-field, too, as he has himself recorded, he first heard in confidence from one whose father was greatly connected, "being under government," of the existence of a terrible banditti called _the radicals_, whose principles were that the prince-regent wore stays, that nobody had a right to any salary, and that the army and navy ought to be put down; horrors at which he trembled in his bed, after supplicating that the radicals might be speedily taken and hanged. nor was it the least of the disappointments of his visit in after-life to the scenes of his boyhood that he found this play-field had been swallowed up by a railway station. it was gone, with its two beautiful trees of hawthorn; and where the hedge, the turf, and all the buttercups and daisies had been, there was nothing but the stoniest of jolting roads. he was not much over nine years old when his father was recalled from chatham to somerset house, and he had to leave this good master, and the old place endeared to him by recollections that clung to him afterwards all his life long. it was here he had made the acquaintance not only of the famous books that david copperfield specially names, of _roderick random_, _peregrine pickle_, _humphrey clinker_, _tom jones_, the _vicar of wakefield_, _don quixote_, _gil blas_, _robinson crusoe_, the _arabian nights_, and the _tales of the genii_, but also of the _spectator_, the _tatler_, the _idler_, the _citizen of the world_, and mrs. inchbald's _collection of farces_. these latter had been, as well, in the little library to which access was open to him; and of all of them his earliest remembrance was the having read them over and over at chatham, not for the first, the second, or the third time. they were a host of friends when he had no single friend; and in leaving the place, i have often heard him say, he seemed to be leaving them too, and everything that had given his ailing little life its picturesqueness or sunshine. it was the birthplace of his fancy; and he hardly knew what store he had set by its busy varieties of change and scene, until he saw the falling cloud that was to hide its pictures from him forever. the gay bright regiments always going and coming, the continual paradings and firings, the successions of sham sieges and sham defenses, the plays got up by his cousin in the hospital, the navy-pay yacht in which he had sailed to sheerness with his father, and the ships floating out in the medway with their far visions of sea,--he was to lose them all. he was never to watch the boys at their games any more, or see them sham over again the sham sieges and sham defenses. he was to be taken to london inside the stage-coach commodore; and kentish woods and fields, cobham park and hall, rochester cathedral and castle, and all the wonderful romance together, including the red-cheeked baby he had been wildly in love with, were to vanish like a dream. "on the night before we came away," he told me, "my good master came flitting in among the packing-cases to give me goldsmith's _bee_ as a keepsake. which i kept for his sake, and its own, a long time afterwards." a longer time afterwards he recollected the stage-coach journey, and said in one of his published papers that never had he forgotten, through all the intervening years, the smell of the damp straw in which he was packed and forwarded like game, carriage-paid. "there was no other inside passenger, and i consumed my sandwiches in solitude and dreariness, and it rained hard all the way, and i thought life sloppier than i expected to find it." the earliest impressions received and retained by him in london were of his father's money involvements; and now first he heard mentioned "the deed," representing that crisis of his father's affairs in fact which is ascribed in fiction to mr. micawber's. he knew it in later days to have been a composition with creditors; though at this earlier date he was conscious of having confounded it with parchments of a much more demoniacal description. one result from the awful document soon showed itself in enforced retrenchment. the family had to take up its abode in a house in bayham street, camden-town. bayham street was about the poorest part of the london suburbs then, and the house was a mean small tenement, with a wretched little back-garden abutting on a squalid court. here was no place for new acquaintances to him: no boys were near with whom he might hope to become in any way familiar. a washerwoman lived next door, and a bow-street officer lived over the way. many, many times has he spoken to me of this, and how he seemed at once to fall into a solitary condition apart from all other boys of his own age, and to sink into a neglected state at home which had been always quite unaccountable to him. "as i thought," he said on one occasion very bitterly, "in the little back-garret in bayham street, of all i had lost in losing chatham, what would i have given, if i had had anything to give, to have been sent back to any other school, to have been taught something anywhere!" he was at another school already, not knowing it. the self-education forced upon him was teaching him, all unconsciously as yet, what, for the future that awaited him, it most behooved him to know. that he took, from the very beginning of this bayham-street life, his first impression of that struggling poverty which is nowhere more vividly shown than in the commoner streets of the ordinary london suburb, and which enriched his earliest writings with a freshness of original humor and quite unstudied pathos that gave them much of their sudden popularity, there cannot be a doubt. "i certainly understood it," he has often said to me, "quite as well then as i do now." but he was not conscious yet that he did so understand it, or of the influence it was exerting on his life even then. it seems almost too much to assert of a child, say at nine or ten years old, that his observation of everything was as close and good, or that he had as much intuitive understanding of the character and weaknesses of the grown-up people around him, as when the same keen and wonderful faculty had made him famous among men. but my experience of him led me to put implicit faith in the assertion he unvaryingly himself made, that he had never seen any cause to correct or change what in his boyhood was his own secret impression of anybody whom he had had, as a grown man, the opportunity of testing in later years. how it came that, being what he was, he should now have fallen into the misery and neglect of the time about to be described, was a subject on which thoughts were frequently interchanged between us; and on one occasion he gave me a sketch of the character of his father, which, as i can here repeat it in the exact words employed by him, will be the best preface i can make to what i feel that i have no alternative but to tell. "i know my father to be as kind-hearted and generous a man as ever lived in the world. everything that i can remember of his conduct to his wife, or children, or friends, in sickness or affliction, is beyond all praise. by me, as a sick child, he has watched night and day, unweariedly and patiently, many nights and days. he never undertook any business, charge, or trust, that he did not zealously, conscientiously, punctually, honorably discharge. his industry has always been untiring. he was proud of me, in his way, and had a great admiration of the comic singing. but, in the ease of his temper, and the straitness of his means, he appeared to have utterly lost at this time the idea of educating me at all, and to have utterly put from him the notion that i had any claim upon him, in that regard, whatever. so i degenerated into cleaning his boots of a morning, and my own; and making myself useful in the work of the little house; and looking after my younger brothers and sisters (we were now six in all); and going on such poor errands as arose out of our poor way of living." the cousin by marriage of whom i have spoken, james lamert, who had lately completed his education at sandhurst and was waiting in hopes of a commission, lived now with the family in bayham street, and had not lost his taste for the stage, or his ingenuities in connection with it. taking pity on the solitary lad, he made and painted a little theatre for him. it was the only fanciful reality of his present life; but it could not supply what he missed most sorely, the companionship of boys of his own age, with whom he might share in the advantages of school and contend for its prizes. his sister fanny was at about this time elected as a pupil to the royal academy of music; and he has told me what a stab to his heart it was, thinking of his own disregarded condition, to see her go away to begin her education, amid the tearful good wishes of everybody in the house. nevertheless, as time went on, his own education still unconsciously went on as well, under the sternest and most potent of teachers; and, neglected and miserable as he was, he managed gradually to transfer to london all the dreaminess and all the romance with which he had invested chatham. there were then at the top of bayham street some almshouses, and were still when he revisited it with me nearly twenty-seven years ago; and to go to this spot, he told me, and look from it over the dust-heaps and dock-leaves and fields (no longer there when we saw it together) at the cupola of st. paul's looming through the smoke, was a treat that served him for hours of vague reflection afterwards. to be taken out for a walk into the real town, especially if it were anywhere about covent garden or the strand, perfectly entranced him with pleasure. but most of all he had a profound attraction of repulsion to st. giles's. if he could only induce whomsoever took him out to take him through seven-dials, he was supremely happy. "good heaven!" he would exclaim, "what wild visions of prodigies of wickedness, want, and beggary arose in my mind out of that place!" he was all this time, the reader will remember, still subject to continual attacks of illness, and, by reason of them, a very small boy even for his age. that part of his boyhood is now very near of which, when the days of fame and prosperity came to him, he felt the weight upon his memory as a painful burden until he could lighten it by sharing it with a friend; and an accident i will presently mention led him first to reveal it. there is, however, an interval of some months still to be described, of which, from conversations or letters that passed between us, after or because of this confidence, and that already have yielded fruit to these pages, i can supply some vague and desultory notices. the use thus made of them, it is due to myself to remark, was contemplated then; for though, long before his death, i had ceased to believe it likely that i should survive to write about him, he had never withdrawn the wish at this early time strongly expressed, or the confidences, not only then but to the very eve of his death reposed in me, that were to enable me to fulfill it.[ ] the fulfillment indeed he had himself rendered more easy by partially uplifting the veil in _david copperfield_. the visits made from bayham street were chiefly to two connections of the family, his mother's elder brother and his godfather. the latter, who was a rigger, and mast-, oar-, and block-maker, lived at limehouse in a substantial handsome sort of way, and was kind to his godchild. it was always a great treat to him to go to mr. huffham's; and the london night-sights as he returned were a perpetual joy and marvel. here, too, the comic-singing accomplishment was brought into play so greatly to the admiration of one of the godfather's guests, an honest boat-builder, that he pronounced the little lad to be a "progidy." the visits to the uncle who was at this time fellow-clerk with his father, in somerset house, were nearer home. mr. thomas barrow, the eldest of his mother's family, had broken his leg in a fall; and, while laid up with this illness, his lodging was in gerrard street, soho, in the upper part of the house of a worthy gentleman then recently deceased, a bookseller named manson, father to the partner in the celebrated firm of christie & manson, whose widow at this time carried on the business. attracted by the look of the lad as he went up-stairs, these good people lent him books to amuse him; among them miss porter's _scottish chiefs_, holbein's _dance of death_, and george colman's _broad grins_. the latter seized his fancy very much; and he was so impressed by its description of covent garden, in the piece called "the elder brother," that he stole down to the market by himself to compare it with the book. he remembered, as he said in telling me this, snuffing up the flavor of the faded cabbage-leaves as if it were the very breath of comic fiction. nor was he far wrong, as comic fiction then and for some time after was. it was reserved for himself to give sweeter and fresher breath to it. many years were to pass first, but he was beginning already to make the trial. his uncle was shaved by a very odd old barber out of dean street, soho, who was never tired of reviewing the events of the last war, and especially of detecting napoleon's mistakes, and rearranging his whole life for him on a plan of his own. the boy wrote a description of this old barber, but never had courage to show it. at about the same time, taking for his model the description of the canon's housekeeper in _gil blas_, he sketched a deaf old woman who waited on them in bayham street, and who made delicate hashes with walnut-ketchup. as little did he dare to show this, either; though he thought it, himself, extremely clever. in bayham street, meanwhile, affairs were going on badly; the poor boy's visits to his uncle, while the latter was still kept a prisoner by his accident, were interrupted by another attack of fever; and on his recovery the mysterious "deed" had again come uppermost. his father's resources were so low, and all his expedients so thoroughly exhausted, that trial was to be made whether his mother might not come to the rescue. the time was arrived for her to exert herself, she said; and she "must do something." the godfather down at limehouse was reported to have an indian connection. people in the east indies always sent their children home to be educated. she would set up a school. they would all grow rich by it. and then, thought the sick boy, "perhaps even i might go to school myself." a house was soon found at number four, gower street north; a large brass plate on the door announced mrs. dickens's establishment; and the result i can give in the exact words of the then small actor in the comedy, whose hopes it had raised so high: "i left, at a great many other doors, a great many circulars calling attention to the merits of the establishment. yet nobody ever came to school, nor do i recollect that anybody ever proposed to come, or that the least preparation was made to receive anybody. but i know that we got on very badly with the butcher and baker; that very often we had not too much for dinner; and that at last my father was arrested." the interval between the sponging-house and the prison was passed by the sorrowful lad in running errands and carrying messages for the prisoner, delivered with swollen eyes and through shining tears; and the last words said to him by his father before he was finally carried to the marshalsea were to the effect that the sun was set upon him forever. "i really believed at the time," said dickens to me, "that they had broken my heart." he took afterwards ample revenge for this false alarm by making all the world laugh at them in _david copperfield_. the readers of mr. micawber's history who remember david's first visit to the marshalsea prison, and how upon seeing the turnkey he recalled the turnkey in the blanket in _roderick random_, will read with curious interest what follows, written as a personal experience of fact two or three years before the fiction had even entered into his thoughts: "my father was waiting for me in the lodge, and we went up to his room (on the top story but one), and cried very much. and he told me, i remember, to take warning by the marshalsea, and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; but that a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched. i see the fire we sat before, now; with two bricks inside the rusted grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals. some other debtor shared the room with him, who came in by-and-by; and, as the dinner was a joint-stock repast, i was sent up to 'captain porter' in the room overhead, with mr. dickens's compliments, and i was his son, and could he, captain p., lend me a knife and fork? "captain porter lent the knife and fork, with his compliments in return. there was a very dirty lady in his little room; and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. i thought i should not have liked to borrow captain porter's comb. the captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness; and if i could draw at all, i would draw an accurate portrait of the old, old, brown great-coat he wore, with no other coat below it. his whiskers were large. i saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates, and dishes, and pots he had, on a shelf; and i knew (god knows how) that the two girls with the shock heads were captain porter's natural children, and that the dirty lady was not married to captain p. my timid, wondering station on his threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes, i dare say; but i came down again to the room below with all this as surely in my knowledge as the knife and fork were in my hand." how there was something agreeable and gipsy-like in the dinner after all, and how he took back the captain's knife and fork early in the afternoon, and how he went home to comfort his mother with an account of his visit, david copperfield has also accurately told. then, at home, came many miserable daily struggles that seemed to last an immense time, yet did not perhaps cover many weeks. almost everything by degrees was sold or pawned, little charles being the principal agent in those sorrowful transactions. such of the books as had been brought from chatham--_peregrine pickle_, _roderick random_, _tom jones_, _humphrey clinker_, and all the rest--went first. they were carried off from the little chiffonier, which his father called the library, to a bookseller in the hampstead road, the same that david copperfield describes as in the city road; and the account of the sales, as they actually occurred and were told to me long before david was born, was reproduced word for word in his imaginary narrative: "the keeper of this bookstall, who lived in a little house behind it, used to get tipsy every night, and to be violently scolded by his wife every morning. more than once, when i went there early, i had audience of him in a turn-up bedstead, with a cut in his forehead or a black eye bearing witness to his excesses overnight (i am afraid he was quarrelsome in his drink); and he, with a shaking hand, endeavoring to find the needful shillings in one or other of the pockets of his clothes, which lay upon the floor, while his wife, with a baby in her arms and her shoes down at heel, never left off rating him. sometimes he had lost his money, and then he would ask me to call again; but his wife had always got some (had taken his, i dare say, while he was drunk), and secretly completed the bargain on the stairs, as we went down together." the same pawnbroker's shop, too, which was so well known to david, became not less familiar to charles; and a good deal of notice was here taken of him by the pawnbroker, or by his principal clerk who officiated behind the counter, and who, while making out the duplicate, liked of all things to hear the lad conjugate a latin verb and translate or decline his _musa_ and _dominus_. everything to this accompaniment went gradually; until, at last, even of the furniture of gower street number four there was nothing left except a few chairs, a kitchen table, and some beds. then they encamped, as it were, in the two parlors of the emptied house, and lived there night and day. all which is but the prelude to what remains to be described. footnotes: [ ] "i shall cut this letter short, for they are playing masaniello in the drawing-room, and i feel much as i used to do when i was a small child a few miles off, and somebody (who, i wonder, and which way did _she_ go, when she died) hummed the evening hymn to me, and i cried on the pillow,--either with the remorseful consciousness of having kicked somebody else, or because still somebody else had hurt my feelings in the course of the day." from gadshill, sept. . "being here again, or as much here as anywhere in particular." [ ] "the mistress of the establishment holds no place in our memory; but, rampant on one eternal door-mat, in an eternal entry long and narrow, is a puffy pug-dog, with a personal animosity towards us, who triumphs over time. the bark of that baleful pug, a certain radiating way he had of snapping at our undefended legs, the ghastly grinning of his moist black muzzle and white teeth, and the insolence of his crisp tail curled like a pastoral crook, all live and flourish. from an otherwise unaccountable association of him with a fiddle, we conclude that he was of french extraction, and his name _fidèle_. he belonged to some female, chiefly inhabiting a back parlor, whose life appears to us to have been consumed in sniffing, and in wearing a brown beaver bonnet."--_reprinted pieces_, . (in such quotations as are made from his writings, the _charles dickens edition_ will be used.) [ ] "a few weeks' residence at home convinced me, who had till then been an only child in the house of my grandfather, that a quarrel between brothers was a very natural event."--lockhart's _life_, i. . [ ] the reader will forgive my quoting from a letter of the date of the d april, . "i desire no better for my fame, when my personal dustiness shall be past the control of my love of order, than such a biographer and such a critic." "you know me better," he wrote, resuming the same subject on the th of july, , "than any other man does, or ever will." in an entry of my diary during the interval between these years, i find a few words that not only mark the time when i first saw in its connected shape the autobiographical fragment which will form the substance of the second chapter of this biography, but also express his own feeling respecting it when written: " january, . the description may make none of the impression on others that the reality made on him. . . . highly probable that it may never see the light. no wish. left to j. f. or others." the first number of _david copperfield_ appeared five months after this date; but though i knew, even before he adapted his fragment of autobiography to the eleventh number, that he had now abandoned the notion of completing it under his own name, the "_no wish_," or the discretion left me, was never in any way subsequently modified. what follows, from the same entry, refers to the manuscript of the fragment: "no blotting, as when writing fiction; but straight on, as when writing ordinary letter." chapter ii. hard experiences in boyhood. - . mr. dilke's half-crown--story of boyhood told--d. c. and c. d.--enterprise of the cousins lamert--first employment in life--blacking-warehouse--a poor little drudge--bob fagin and poll green--"facilis descensus"--crushed hopes--the home in gower street--regaling alamode--home broken up--at mrs. roylance's in camden-town--sundays in prison--pudding-shops and coffee-shops--what was and might have been--thomas and harry--a lodging in lant street--meals in the marshalsea--c. d. and the marchioness--originals of garland family--adventure with bob fagin--saturday-night shows--appraised officially--publican and wife at cannon row--marshalsea incident in _copperfield_--incident as it occurred--materials for _pickwick_--sister fanny's musical prize--from hungerford stairs to chandos street--father's quarrel with james lamert--quits the warehouse--bitter associations of servitude--what became of the blacking-business. the incidents to be told now would probably never have been known to me, or indeed any of the occurrences of his childhood and youth, but for the accident of a question which i put to him one day in the march or april of . i asked if he remembered ever having seen in his boyhood our friend the elder mr. dilke, his father's acquaintance and contemporary, who had been a clerk in the same office in somerset house to which mr. john dickens belonged. yes, he said, he recollected seeing him at a house in gerrard street, where his uncle barrow lodged during an illness, and mr. dilke had visited him. never at any other time. upon which i told him that some one else had been intended in the mention made to me, for that the reference implied not merely his being met accidentally, but his having had some juvenile employment in a warehouse near the strand; at which place mr. dilke, being with the elder dickens one day, had noticed him, and received, in return for the gift of a half-crown, a very low bow. he was silent for several minutes; i felt that i had unintentionally touched a painful place in his memory; and to mr. dilke i never spoke of the subject again. it was not, however, then, but some weeks later, that dickens made further allusion to my thus having struck unconsciously upon a time of which he never could lose the remembrance while he remembered anything, and the recollection of which, at intervals, haunted him and made him miserable, even to that hour. very shortly afterwards i learnt in all their detail the incidents that had been so painful to him, and what then was said to me or written respecting them revealed the story of his boyhood. the idea of _david copperfield_, which was to take all the world into his confidence, had not at this time occurred to him; but what it had so startled me to know, his readers were afterwards told with only such change or addition as for the time might sufficiently disguise himself under cover of his hero. for the poor little lad, with good ability and a most sensitive nature, turned at the age of ten into a "laboring hind" in the service of "murdstone and grinby," and conscious already of what made it seem very strange to him that he could so easily have been thrown away at such an age, was indeed himself. his was the secret agony of soul at finding himself "companion to mick walker and mealy potatoes," and his the tears that mingled with the water in which he and they rinsed and washed out bottles. it had all been written, as fact, before he thought of any other use for it; and it was not until several months later, when the fancy of _david copperfield_, itself suggested by what he had so written of his early troubles, began to take shape in his mind, that he abandoned his first intention of writing his own life. those warehouse experiences fell then so aptly into the subject he had chosen, that he could not resist the temptation of immediately using them; and the manuscript recording them, which was but the first portion of what he had designed to write, was embodied in the substance of the eleventh and earlier chapters of his novel. what already had been sent to me, however, and proof-sheets of the novel interlined at the time, enable me now to separate the fact from the fiction, and to supply to the story of the author's childhood those passages, omitted from the book, which, apart from their illustration of the growth of his character, present to us a picture of tragical suffering, and of tender as well as humorous fancy, unsurpassed in even the wonders of his published writings. the person indirectly responsible for the scenes to be described was the young relative james lamert, the cousin by his aunt's marriage of whom i have made frequent mention, who got up the plays at chatham, and after passing at sandhurst had been living with the family in bayham street in the hope of obtaining a commission in the army. this did not come until long afterwards, when, in consideration of his father's services, he received it, and relinquished it then in favor of a younger brother; but he had meanwhile, before the family removed from camden-town, ceased to live with them. the husband of a sister of his (of the same name as himself, being indeed his cousin, george lamert), a man of some property, had recently embarked in an odd sort of commercial speculation, and had taken him into his office and his house, to assist in it. i give now the fragment of the autobiography of dickens: "this speculation was a rivalry of 'warren's blacking, , strand,'--at that time very famous. one jonathan warren (the famous one was robert), living at , hungerford stairs, or market, strand (for i forget which it was called then), claimed to have been the original inventor or proprietor of the blacking-recipe, and to have been deposed and ill used by his renowned relation. at last he put himself in the way of selling his recipe, and his name, and his , hungerford stairs, strand ( , strand, very large, and the intermediate direction very small), for an annuity; and he set forth by his agents that a little capital would make a great business of it. the man of some property was found in george lamert, the cousin and brother-in-law of james. he bought this right and title, and went into the blacking-business and the blacking-premises. "--in an evil hour for me, as i often bitterly thought. its chief manager, james lamert, the relative who had lived with us in bayham street, seeing how i was employed from day to day, and knowing what our domestic circumstances then were, proposed that i should go into the blacking-warehouse, to be as useful as i could, at a salary, i think, of six shillings a week. i am not clear whether it was six or seven. i am inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six at first, and seven afterwards. at any rate, the offer was accepted very willingly by my father and mother, and on a monday morning i went down to the blacking-warehouse to begin my business life. "it is wonderful to me how i could have been so easily cast away at such an age. it is wonderful to me that, even after my descent into the poor little drudge i had been since we came to london, no one had compassion enough on me--a child of singular abilities, quick, eager, delicate, and soon hurt, bodily or mentally--to suggest that something might have been spared, as certainly it might have been, to place me at any common school. our friends, i take it, were tired out. no one made any sign. my father and mother were quite satisfied. they could hardly have been more so if i had been twenty years of age, distinguished at a grammar-school, and going to cambridge. "the blacking-warehouse was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old hungerford stairs. it was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old gray rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if i were there again. the counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river. there was a recess in it, in which i was to sit and work. my work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round with a string; and then to clip the paper close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. when a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, i was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. one of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying the knot. his name was bob fagin; and i took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in _oliver twist_. "our relative had kindly arranged to teach me something in the dinner-hour; from twelve to one, i think it was; every day. but an arrangement so incompatible with counting-house business soon died away, from no fault of his or mine; and, for the same reason, my small work-table, and my grosses of pots, my papers, string, scissors, paste-pot, and labels, by little and little, vanished out of the recess in the counting-house, and kept company with the other small work-tables, grosses of pots, papers, string, scissors, and paste-pots, down-stairs. it was not long before bob fagin and i, and another boy whose name was paul green, but who was currently believed to have been christened poll (a belief which i transferred, long afterwards again, to mr. sweedlepipe, in _martin chuzzlewit_), worked generally, side by side. bob fagin was an orphan, and lived with his brother-in-law, a waterman. poll green's father had the additional distinction of being a fireman, and was employed at drury lane theatre; where another relation of poll's, i think his little sister, did imps in the pantomimes. "no words can express the secret agony of my soul as i sunk into this companionship; compared these every-day associates with those of my happier childhood; and felt my early hopes of growing up to be a learned and distinguished man, crushed in my breast. the deep remembrance of the sense i had of being utterly neglected and hopeless; of the shame i felt in my position; of the misery it was to my young heart to believe that, day by day, what i had learned, and thought, and delighted in, and raised my fancy and my emulation up by, was passing away from me, never to be brought back any more; cannot be written. my whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation of such considerations, that even now, famous and caressed and happy, i often forget in my dreams that i have a dear wife and children; even that i am a man; and wander desolately back to that time of my life. "my mother and my brothers and sisters (excepting fanny in the royal academy of music) were still encamped, with a young servant-girl from chatham workhouse, in the two parlors in the emptied house in gower street north. it was a long way to go and return within the dinner-hour, and usually i either carried my dinner with me, or went and bought it at some neighboring shop. in the latter case, it was commonly a saveloy and a penny loaf; sometimes, a fourpenny plate of beef from a cook's shop; sometimes, a plate of bread and cheese, and a glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house over the way: the swan, if i remember right, or the swan and something else that i have forgotten. once, i remember tucking my own bread (which i had brought from home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped up in a piece of paper like a book, and going into the best dining-room in johnson's alamode beef-house in clare court, drury lane, and magnificently ordering a small plate of alamode beef to eat with it. what the waiter thought of such a strange little apparition, coming in all alone, i don't know; but i can see him now, staring at me as i ate my dinner, and bringing up the other waiter to look. i gave him a halfpenny, and i wish, now, that he hadn't taken it." i lose here for a little while the fragment of direct narrative, but i perfectly recollect that he used to describe saturday night as his great treat. it was a grand thing to walk home with six shillings in his pocket, and to look in at the shop-windows and think what it would buy. hunt's roasted corn, as a british and patriotic substitute for coffee, was in great vogue just then; and the little fellow used to buy it, and roast it on the sunday. there was a cheap periodical of selected pieces called the _portfolio_, which he had also a great fancy for taking home with him. the new proposed "deed," meanwhile, had failed to propitiate his father's creditors; all hope of arrangement passed away; and the end was that his mother and her encampment in gower street north broke up and went to live in the marshalsea. i am able at this point to resume his own account: "the key of the house was sent back to the landlord, who was very glad to get it; and i (small cain that i was, except that i had never done harm to any one) was handed over as a lodger to a reduced old lady, long known to our family, in little college street, camden-town, who took children in to board, and had once done so at brighton; and who, with a few alterations and embellishments, unconsciously began to sit for mrs. pipchin in _dombey_ when she took in me. "she had a little brother and sister under her care then; somebody's natural children, who were very irregularly paid for; and a widow's little son. the two boys and i slept in the same room. my own exclusive breakfast, of a penny cottage loaf and a penny-worth of milk, i provided for myself. i kept another small loaf, and a quarter of a pound of cheese, on a particular shelf of a particular cupboard; to make my supper on when i came back at night. they made a hole in the six or seven shillings, i know well; and i was out at the blacking-warehouse all day, and had to support myself upon that money all the week. i suppose my lodging was paid for, by my father. i certainly did not pay it myself; and i certainly had no other assistance whatever (the making of my clothes, i think, excepted), from monday morning until saturday night. no advice, no counsel, no encouragement, no consolation, no support, from any one that i can call to mind, so help me god. "sundays, fanny and i passed in the prison. i was at the academy in tenterden street, hanover square, at nine o'clock in the morning, to fetch her; and we walked back there together, at night. "i was so young and childish, and so little qualified--how could i be otherwise?--to undertake the whole charge of my own existence, that, in going to hungerford stairs of a morning, i could not resist the stale pastry put out at half-price on trays at the confectioners' doors in tottenham court road; and i often spent in that the money i should have kept for my dinner. then i went without my dinner, or bought a roll, or a slice of pudding. there were two pudding-shops between which i was divided, according to my finances. one was in a court close to st. martin's church (at the back of the church) which is now removed altogether. the pudding at that shop was made with currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear: two penn'orth not being larger than a penn'orth of more ordinary pudding. a good shop for the latter was in the strand, somewhere near where the lowther arcade is now. it was a stout, hale pudding, heavy and flabby; with great raisins in it, stuck in whole, at great distances apart. it came up hot, at about noon every day; and many and many a day did i dine off it. "we had half an hour, i think, for tea. when i had money enough, i used to go to a coffee-shop, and have half a pint of coffee, and a slice of bread-and-butter. when i had no money, i took a turn in covent garden market, and stared at the pineapples. the coffee-shops to which i most resorted were, one in maiden lane; one in a court (non-existent now) close to hungerford market; and one in st. martin's lane, of which i only recollect that it stood near the church, and that in the door there was an oval glass plate, with coffee-room painted on it, addressed towards the street. if i ever find myself in a very different kind of coffee-room now, but where there is such an inscription on glass, and read it backward on the wrong side moor-eeffoc (as i often used to do then, in a dismal reverie,) a shock goes through my blood. "i know i do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulties of my life. i know that if a shilling or so were given me by any one, i spent it in a dinner or a tea. i know that i worked, from morning to night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. i know that i tried, but ineffectually, not to anticipate my money, and to make it last the week through; by putting it away in a drawer i had in the counting-house, wrapped into six little parcels, each parcel containing the same amount and labeled with a different day. i know that i have lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. i know that, but for the mercy of god, i might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond. "but i held some station at the blacking-warehouse too. besides that my relative at the counting-house did what a man so occupied, and dealing with a thing so anomalous, could, to treat me as one upon a different footing from the rest, i never said, to man or boy, how it was that i came to be there, or gave the least indication of being sorry that i was there. that i suffered in secret, and that i suffered exquisitely, no one ever knew but i. how much i suffered, it is, as i have said already, utterly beyond my power to tell. no man's imagination can overstep the reality. but i kept my own counsel, and i did my work. i knew from the first that, if i could not do my work as well as any of the rest, i could not hold myself above slight and contempt. i soon became at least as expeditious and as skillful with my hands as either of the other boys. though perfectly familiar with them, my conduct and manners were different enough from theirs to place a space between us. they, and the men, always spoke of me as 'the young gentleman.' a certain man (a soldier once) named thomas, who was the foreman, and another named harry, who was the carman and wore a red jacket, used to call me 'charles' sometimes, in speaking to me; but i think it was mostly when we were very confidential, and when i had made some efforts to entertain them over our work with the results of some of the old readings, which were fast perishing out of my mind. poll green uprose once, and rebelled against the 'young gentleman' usage; but bob fagin settled him speedily. "my rescue from this kind of existence i considered quite hopeless, and abandoned as such, altogether; though i am solemnly convinced that i never, for one hour, was reconciled to it, or was otherwise than miserably unhappy. i felt keenly, however, the being so cut off from my parents, my brothers and sisters, and, when my day's work was done, going home to such a miserable blank; and _that_, i thought, might be corrected. one sunday night i remonstrated with my father on this head, so pathetically, and with so many tears, that his kind nature gave way. he began to think that it was not quite right. i do believe he had never thought so before, or thought about it. it was the first remonstrance i had ever made about my lot, and perhaps it opened up a little more than i intended. a back-attic was found for me at the house of an insolvent-court agent, who lived in lant street in the borough, where bob sawyer lodged many years afterwards. a bed and bedding were sent over for me, and made up on the floor. the little window had a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard; and when i took possession of my new abode i thought it was a paradise." there is here another blank, which it is, however, not difficult to supply from letters and recollections of my own. what was to him of course the great pleasure of his paradise of a lodging was its bringing him again, though after a fashion sorry enough, within the circle of home. from this time he used to breakfast "at home,"--in other words, in the marshalsea; going to it as early as the gates were open, and for the most part much earlier. they had no want of bodily comforts there. his father's income, still going on, was amply sufficient for that; and in every respect indeed but elbow-room, i have heard him say, the family lived more comfortably in prison than they had done for a long time out of it. they were waited on still by the maid-of-all-work from bayham street, the orphan girl of the chatham workhouse, from whose sharp little worldly and also kindly ways he took his first impression of the marchioness in the _old curiosity shop_. she also had a lodging in the neighborhood, that she might be early on the scene of her duties; and when charles met her, as he would do occasionally, in his lounging-place by london bridge, he would occupy the time before the gates opened by telling her quite astonishing fictions about the wharves and the tower. "but i hope i believed them myself," he would say. besides breakfast, he had supper also in the prison, and got to his lodging generally at nine o'clock. the gates closed always at ten. i must not omit what he told me of the landlord of this little lodging. he was a fat, good-natured, kind old gentleman. he was lame, and had a quiet old wife; and he had a very innocent grown-up son, who was lame too. they were all very kind to the boy. he was taken with one of his old attacks of spasm one night, and the whole three of them were about his bed until morning. they were all dead when he told me this; but in another form they still live very pleasantly as the garland family in the _old curiosity shop_. he had a similar illness one day in the warehouse, which i can describe in his own words: "bob fagin was very good to me on the occasion of a bad attack of my old disorder. i suffered such excruciating pain that time, that they made a temporary bed of straw in my old recess in the counting-house, and i rolled about on the floor, and bob filled empty blacking-bottles with hot water, and applied relays of them to my side, half the day. i got better, and quite easy towards evening; but bob (who was much bigger and older than i) did not like the idea of my going home alone, and took me under his protection. i was too proud to let him know about the prison, and, after making several efforts to get rid of him, to all of which bob fagin in his goodness was deaf, shook hands with him on the steps of a house near southwark bridge on the surrey side, making believe that i lived there. as a finishing piece of reality in case of his looking back, i knocked at the door, i recollect, and asked, when the woman opened it, if that was mr. robert fagin's house." the saturday nights continued, as before, to be precious to him. "my usual way home was over blackfriars bridge, and down that turning in the blackfriars road which has rowland hill's chapel on one side, and the likeness of a golden dog licking a golden pot over a shop-door on the other. there are a good many little low-browed old shops in that street, of a wretched kind; and some are unchanged now. i looked into one a few weeks ago, where i used to buy boot-laces on saturday nights, and saw the corner where i once sat down on a stool to have a pair of ready-made half-boots fitted on. i have been seduced more than once, in that street on a saturday night, by a show-van at a corner; and have gone in, with a very motley assemblage, to see the fat-pig, the wild-indian, and the little-lady. there were two or three hat-manufactories there then (i think they are there still); and among the things which, encountered anywhere or under any circumstances, will instantly recall that time, is the smell of hat-making." his father's attempts to avoid going through the court having failed, all needful ceremonies had to be undertaken to obtain the benefit of the insolvent debtors' act; and in one of these little charles had his part to play. one condition of the statute was that the wearing-apparel and personal matters retained were not to exceed twenty pounds sterling in value. "it was necessary, as a matter of form, that the clothes i wore should be seen by the official appraiser. i had a half-holiday to enable me to call upon him, at his own time, at a house somewhere beyond the obelisk. i recollect his coming out to look at me with his mouth full, and a strong smell of beer upon him, and saying good-naturedly that 'that would do,' and 'it was all right.' certainly the hardest creditor would not have been disposed (even if he had been legally entitled) to avail himself of my poor white hat, little jacket, or corduroy trowsers. but i had a fat old silver watch in my pocket, which had been given me by my grandmother before the blacking-days, and i had entertained my doubts as i went along whether that valuable possession might not bring me over the twenty pounds. so i was greatly relieved, and made him a bow of acknowledgment as i went out." still, the want felt most by him was the companionship of boys of his own age. he had no such acquaintance. sometimes he remembered to have played on the coal-barges at dinner-time, with poll green and bob fagin; but those were rare occasions. he generally strolled alone, about the back streets of the adelphi, or explored the adelphi arches. one of his favorite localities was a little public-house by the water-side, called the fox-under-the-hill, approached by an underground passage which we once missed in looking for it together; and he had a vision which he has mentioned in _copperfield_ of sitting eating something on a bench outside, one fine evening, and looking at some coal-heavers dancing before the house. "i wonder what they thought of me," says david. he had himself already said the same in his fragment of autobiography. another characteristic little incident he made afterwards one of david's experiences, but i am able to give it here without the disguises that adapt it to the fiction: "i was such a little fellow, with my poor white hat, little jacket, and corduroy trowsers, that frequently, when i went into the bar of a strange public-house for a glass of ale or porter to wash down the saveloy and the loaf i had eaten in the street, they didn't like to give it me. i remember, one evening (i had been somewhere for my father, and was going back to the borough over westminster bridge), that i went into a public-house in parliament street,--which is still there, though altered,--at the corner of the short street leading into cannon row, and said to the landlord behind the bar, 'what is your very best--the very _best_--ale, a glass?' for the occasion was a festive one, for some reason: i forget why. it may have been my birthday, or somebody else's. 'two-pence,' says he. 'then,' says i, 'just draw me a glass of that, if you please, with a good head to it.' the landlord looked at me, in return, over the bar, from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face, and, instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife, who came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. here we stand, all three, before me now, in my study in devonshire terrace. the landlord, in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife, looking over the little half-door; and i, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. they asked me a good many questions, as what my name was, how old i was, where i lived, how i was employed, etc. etc. to all of which, that i might commit nobody, i invented appropriate answers. they served me with the ale, though i suspect it was not the strongest on the premises; and the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door and bending down, gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half compassionate, but all womanly and good, i am sure." a later, and not less characteristic, incident of the true story of this time found also a place, three or four years after it was written, in his now famous fiction. it preceded but by a short time the discharge, from the marshalsea, of the elder dickens; to whom a rather considerable legacy from a relative had accrued not long before ("some hundreds," i understood), and had been paid into court during his imprisonment. the scene to be described arose on the occasion of a petition drawn up by him before he left, praying, not for the abolition of imprisonment for debt, as david copperfield relates, but for the less dignified but more accessible boon of a bounty to the prisoners to drink his majesty's health on his majesty's forthcoming birthday. "i mention the circumstance because it illustrates, to me, my early interest in observing people. when i went to the marshalsea of a night, i was always delighted to hear from my mother what she knew about the histories of the different debtors in the prison; and when i heard of this approaching ceremony, i was so anxious to see them all come in, one after another (though i knew the greater part of them already, to speak to, and they me), that i got leave of absence on purpose, and established myself in a corner, near the petition. it was stretched out, i recollect, on a great ironing-board, under the window, which in another part of the room made a bedstead at night. the internal regulations of the place, for cleanliness and order, and for the government of a common room in the ale-house, where hot water and some means of cooking, and a good fire, were provided for all who paid a very small subscription, were excellently administered by a governing committee of debtors, of which my father was chairman for the time being. as many of the principal officers of this body as could be got into the small room without filling it up, supported him, in front of the petition; and my old friend captain porter (who had washed himself, to do honor to so solemn an occasion) stationed himself close to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents. the door was then thrown open, and they began to come in, in a long file; several waiting on the landing outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, and went out. to everybody in succession, captain porter said, 'would you like to hear it read?' if he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, captain porter, in a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. i remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such words as 'majesty--gracious majesty--your gracious majesty's unfortunate subjects--your majesty's well-known munificence,'--as if the words were something real in his mouth, and delicious to taste; my poor father meanwhile listening with a little of an author's vanity, and contemplating (not severely) the spikes on the opposite wall. whatever was comical in this scene, and whatever was pathetic, i sincerely believe i perceived in my corner, whether i demonstrated or not, quite as well as i should perceive it now. i made out my own little character and story for every man who put his name to the sheet of paper. i might be able to do that now, more truly: not more earnestly, or with a closer interest. their different peculiarities of dress, of face, of gait, of manner, were written indelibly upon my memory. i would rather have seen it than the best play ever played; and i thought about it afterwards, over the pots of paste-blacking, often and often. when i looked, with my mind's eye, into the fleet prison during mr. pickwick's incarceration, i wonder whether half a dozen men were wanting from the marshalsea crowd that came filing in again, to the sound of captain porter's voice!" when the family left the marshalsea they all went to lodge with the lady in little college street, a mrs. roylance, who has obtained unexpected immortality as mrs. pipchin; and they afterwards occupied a small house in somers-town. but, before this time, charles was present with some of them in tenterden street to see his sister. fanny received one of the prizes given to the pupils of the royal academy of music. "i could not bear to think of myself--beyond the reach of all such honorable emulation and success. the tears ran down my face. i felt as if my heart were rent. i prayed, when i went to bed that night, to be lifted out of the humiliation and neglect in which i was. i never had suffered so much before. there was no envy in this." there was little need that he should say so. extreme enjoyment in witnessing the exercise of her talents, the utmost pride in every success obtained by them, he manifested always to a degree otherwise quite unusual with him; and on the day of her funeral, which we passed together, i had most affecting proof of his tender and grateful memory of her in these childish days. a few more sentences, certainly not less touching than any that have gone before, will bring the story of them to its close. they stand here exactly as written by him: "i am not sure that it was before this time, or after it, that the blacking-warehouse was removed to chandos street, covent garden. it is no matter. next to the shop at the corner of bedford street in chandos street are two rather old-fashioned houses and shops adjoining one another. they were one then, or thrown into one, for the blacking-business; and had been a butter-shop. opposite to them was, and is, a public-house, where i got my ale, under these new circumstances. the stones in the street may be smoothed by my small feet going across to it at dinner-time, and back again. the establishment was larger now, and we had one or two new boys. bob fagin and i had attained to great dexterity in tying up the pots. i forget how many we could do in five minutes. we worked, for the light's sake, near the second window as you come from bedford street; and we were so brisk at it that the people used to stop and look in. sometimes there would be quite a little crowd there. i saw my father coming in at the door one day when we were very busy, and i wondered how he could bear it. "now, i generally had my dinner in the warehouse. sometimes i brought it from home, so i was better off. i see myself coming across russell square from somers-town, one morning, with some cold hotch-potch in a small basin tied up in a handkerchief. i had the same wanderings about the streets as i used to have, and was just as solitary and self-dependent as before; but i had not the same difficulty in merely living. i never, however, heard a word of being taken away, or of being otherwise than quite provided for. "at last, one day, my father, and the relative so often mentioned, quarreled; quarreled by letter, for i took the letter from my father to him which caused the explosion, but quarreled very fiercely. it was about me. it may have had some backward reference, in part, for anything i know, to my employment at the window. all i am certain of is, that, soon after i had given him the letter, my cousin (he was a sort of cousin, by marriage) told me he was very much insulted about me, and that it was impossible to keep me after that. i cried very much, partly because it was so sudden, and partly because in his anger he was violent about my father, though gentle to me. thomas, the old soldier, comforted me, and said he was sure it was for the best. with a relief so strange that it was like oppression, i went home. "my mother set herself to accommodate the quarrel, and did so next day. she brought home a request for me to return next morning, and a high character of me, which i am very sure i deserved. my father said i should go back no more, and should go to school. i do not write resentfully or angrily; for i know how all these things have worked together to make me what i am; but i never afterwards forgot, i never shall forget, i never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back. "from that hour until this at which i write, no word of that part of my childhood which i have now gladly brought to a close has passed my lips to any human being. i have no idea how long it lasted; whether for a year, or much more, or less. from that hour until this my father and my mother have been stricken dumb upon it. i have never heard the least allusion to it, however far off and remote, from either of them. i have never, until i now impart it to this paper, in any burst of confidence with any one, my own wife not excepted, raised the curtain i then dropped, thank god. "until old hungerford market was pulled down, until old hungerford stairs were destroyed, and the very nature of the ground changed, i never had the courage to go back to the place where my servitude began. i never saw it. i could not endure to go near it. for many years, when i came near to robert warren's in the strand, i crossed over to the opposite side of the way, to avoid a certain smell of the cement they put upon the blacking-corks, which reminded me of what i was once. it was a very long time before i liked to go up chandos street. my old way home by the borough made me cry, after my eldest child could speak. "in my walks at night i have walked there often, since then, and by degrees i have come to write this. it does not seem a tithe of what i might have written, or of what i meant to write." the substance of some after-talk explanatory of points in the narrative, of which a note was made at the time, may be briefly added. he could hardly have been more than twelve years old when he left the place, and was still unusually small for his age; much smaller, though two years older, than his own eldest son was at the time of these confidences. his mother had been in the blacking-warehouse many times; his father not more than once or twice. the rivalry of robert warren by jonathan's representatives, the cousins george and james, was carried to wonderful extremes in the way of advertisement; and they were all very proud, he told me, of the cat scratching the boot, which was _their_ house's device. the poets in the house's regular employ he remembered, too, and made his first study from one of them for the poet of mrs. jarley's wax-work. the whole enterprise, however, had the usual end of such things. the younger cousin tired of the concern; and a mr. wood, the proprietor who took james's share and became george's partner, sold it ultimately to robert warren. it continued to be his at the time dickens and myself last spoke of it together, and he had made an excellent bargain of it. chapter iii. school-days and start in life. - . outcome of boyish trials--disadvantage in later years--advantages--next move in life--wellington house academy--revisited and described--letter from a schoolfellow--c. d.'s recollections of school--schoolfellow's recollections of c. d.--fac-simile of schoolboy letter--daniel tobin--another schoolfellow's recollections--writing tales and getting up plays--master beverley scene-painter--street-acting--the schoolfellows after forty years--smallness of the world--in attorneys' offices--at minor theatres--the father on the son's education--studying short-hand--in british museum reading room--preparing for the gallery--d. c. for c. d.--a real dora in --the same dora in --dora changed into flora--ashes of youth and hope. in what way these strange experiences of his boyhood affected him afterwards, this narrative of his life must show; but there were influences that made themselves felt even on his way to manhood. what at once he brought out of the humiliation that had impressed him so deeply, though scarcely as yet quite consciously, was a natural dread of the hardships that might still be in store for him, sharpened by what he had gone through; and this, though in its effect for the present imperfectly understood, became by degrees a passionate resolve, even while he was yielding to circumstances, _not to be_ what circumstances were conspiring to make him. all that was involved in what he had suffered and sunk into, could not have been known to him at the time; but it was plain enough later, as we see; and in conversation with me after the revelation was made, he used to find, at extreme points in his life, the explanation of himself in those early trials. he had derived great good from them, but not without alloy. the fixed and eager determination, the restless and resistless energy, which opened to him opportunities of escape from many mean environments, not by turning off from any path of duty, but by resolutely rising to such excellence or distinction as might be attainable in it, brought with it some disadvantage among many noble advantages. of this he was himself aware, but not to the full extent. what it was that in society made him often uneasy, shrinking, and over-sensitive, he knew; but all the danger he ran in bearing down and overmastering the feeling, he did not know. a too great confidence in himself, a sense that everything was possible to the will that would make it so, laid occasionally upon him self-imposed burdens greater than might be borne by any one with safety. in that direction there was in him, at such times, something even hard and aggressive; in his determinations a something that had almost the tone of fierceness; something in his nature that made his resolves insuperable, however hasty the opinions on which they had been formed. so rare were these manifestations, however, and so little did they prejudice a character as entirely open and generous as it was at all times ardent and impetuous, that only very infrequently, towards the close of the middle term of a friendship which lasted without the interruption of a day for more than three-and-thirty years, were they ever unfavorably presented to me. but there they were; and when i have seen strangely present, at such chance intervals, a stern and even cold isolation of self-reliance side by side with a susceptivity almost feminine and the most eager craving for sympathy, it has seemed to me as though his habitual impulses for everything kind and gentle had sunk, for the time, under a sudden hard and inexorable sense of what fate had dealt to him in those early years. on more than one occasion, indeed, i had confirmation of this. "i must entreat you," he wrote to me in june, , "to pause for an instant, and go back to what you know of my childish days, and to ask yourself whether it is natural that something of the character formed in me then, and lost under happier circumstances, should have reappeared in the last five years. the never-to-be-forgotten misery of that old time bred a certain shrinking sensitiveness in a certain ill-clad ill-fed child, that i have found come back in the never-to-be-forgotten misery of this later time." one good there was, however, altogether without drawback, and which claims simply to be mentioned before my narrative is resumed. the story of his childish misery has itself sufficiently shown that he never throughout it lost his precious gift of animal spirits, or his native capacity for humorous enjoyment; and there were positive gains to him from what he underwent, which were also rich and lasting. to what in the outset of his difficulties and trials gave the decisive bent to his genius, i have already made special reference; and we are to observe, of what followed, that with the very poor and unprosperous, out of whose sufferings and strugglings, and the virtues as well as vices born of them, his not least splendid successes were wrought, his childish experiences had made him actually one. they were not his clients whose cause he pleaded with such pathos and humor, and on whose side he got the laughter and tears of all the world, but in some sort his very self. nor was it a small part of this manifest advantage that he should have obtained his experience as a child and not as a man; that only the good part, the flower and fruit of it, was plucked by him; and that nothing of the evil part, none of the earth in which the seed was planted, remained to soil him. his next move in life can also be given in his own language: "there was a school in the hampstead road kept by mr. jones, a welshman, to which my father dispatched me to ask for a card of terms. the boys were at dinner, and mr. jones was carving for them with a pair of holland sleeves on, when i acquitted myself of this commission. he came out, and gave me what i wanted; and hoped i should become a pupil. i did. at seven o'clock one morning, very soon afterwards, i went as day-scholar to mr. jones's establishment, which was in mornington place, and had its school-room sliced away by the birmingham railway, when that change came about. the school-room, however, was not threatened by directors or civil engineers then, and there was a board over the door, graced with the words wellington house academy." at wellington house academy he remained nearly two years, being a little over fourteen years of age when he quitted it. in his minor writings as well as in _copperfield_ will be found general allusions to it, and there is a paper among his pieces reprinted from _household words_ which purports specifically to describe it. to the account therein given of himself when he went to the school, as advanced enough, so safely had his memory retained its poor fragments of early schooling, to be put into _virgil_, as getting sundry prizes, and as attaining to the eminent position of its first boy, one of his two schoolfellows with whom i have had communication makes objection; but both admit that the general features of the place are reproduced with wonderful accuracy, and more especially in those points for which the school appears to have been much more notable than for anything connected with the scholarship of its pupils. in the reprinted piece dickens describes it as remarkable for white mice. he says that red-polls, linnets, and even canaries were kept by the boys in desks, drawers, hat-boxes, and other strange refuges for birds; but that white mice were the favorite stock, and that the boys trained the mice much better than the master trained the boys. he recalled in particular one white mouse who lived in the cover of a latin dictionary, ran up ladders, drew roman chariots, shouldered muskets, turned wheels, and even made a very creditable appearance on the stage as the dog of montàrgis, who might have achieved greater things but for having had the misfortune to mistake his way in a triumphal procession to the capitol, when he fell into a deep inkstand and was dyed black and drowned. nevertheless he mentions the school as one also of some celebrity in its neighborhood, though nobody could have said why; and adds that among the boys the master was supposed to know nothing, and one of the ushers was supposed to know everything. "we are still inclined to think the first-named supposition perfectly correct. we went to look at the place only this last midsummer, and found that the railway had cut it up, root and branch. a great trunk line had swallowed the playground, sliced away the school-room, and pared off the corner of the house. which, thus curtailed of its proportions, presented itself in a green stage of stucco, profile-wise towards the road, like a forlorn flat-iron without a handle, standing on end." one who knew him in those early days, mr. owen p. thomas, thus writes to me (february, ): "i had the honor of being mr. dickens's schoolfellow for about two years ( - ), both being day-scholars, at mr. jones's 'classical and commercial academy,' as then inscribed in front of the house, and which was situated at the corner of granby street and the hampstead road. the house stands now in its original state, but the school and large playground behind disappeared on the formation of the london and northwestern railway, which at this point runs in a slanting direction from euston square underneath the hampstead road. we were all companions and playmates when out of school, as well as fellow-students therein." (mr. thomas includes in this remark the names of henry danson, now a physician in practice in london; of daniel tobin, whom i remember to have been frequently assisted by his old schoolfellow in later years; and of richard bray.) "you will find a graphic sketch of the school by mr. dickens himself in _household words_ of th october, . the article is entitled our school. the names of course are feigned; but, allowing for slight coloring, the persons and incidents described are all true to life, and easily recognizable by any one who attended the school at the time. the latin master was mr. manville, or mandeville, who for many years was well known at the library of the british museum. the academy, after the railroad overthrew it, was removed to another house in the neighborhood, but mr. jones and two at least of his assistant masters have long ago departed this life." one of the latter was the usher believed to know everything, who was writing-master, mathematical master, english master, divided the little boys with the latin master, made out the bills, mended the pens, and always called at parents' houses to inquire after sick boys, because he had gentlemanly manners. this picture my correspondent recognized; as well as those of the fat little dancing-master who taught them hornpipes, of the latin master who stuffed his ears with onions for his deafness, of the gruff serving-man who nursed the boys in scarlet fever, and of the principal himself, who was always ruling ciphering-books with a bloated mahogany ruler, smiting the palms of offenders with the same diabolical instrument, or viciously drawing a pair of pantaloons tight with one of his large hands and caning the wearer with the other. "my recollection of dickens whilst at school," mr. thomas continues, "is that of a healthy-looking boy, small but well built, with a more than usual flow of spirits, inducing to harmless fun, seldom or never i think to mischief, to which so many lads at that age are prone. i cannot recall anything that then indicated he would hereafter become a literary celebrity; but perhaps he was too young then. he usually held his head more erect than lads ordinarily do, and there was a general smartness about him. his weekday dress of jacket and trowsers, i can clearly remember, was what is called pepper-and-salt; and, instead of the frill that most boys of his age wore then, he had a turn-down collar, so that he looked less youthful in consequence. he invented what we termed a 'lingo,' produced by the addition of a few letters of the same sound to every word; and it was our ambition, walking and talking thus along the street, to be considered foreigners. as an alternate amusement the present writer well remembers extemporizing tales of some sort, and reciting them offhand, with dickens and danson or tobin walking on either side of him. i inclose you a copy of a note i received from him when he was between thirteen and fourteen years of age, perhaps one of the earliest productions of his pen. the leg referred to was the legend of something, a pamphlet romance i had lent him; the clavis was of course the latin school-book so named." there is some underlying whim or fun in the "leg" allusions which mr. thomas appears to have overlooked, and certainly fails to explain; but the note, which is here given in fac-simile, may be left to speak for itself; and in the signature the reader will be amused to see the first faint beginning of a flourish afterwards famous. "after a lapse of years," mr. thomas continues, "i recognized the celebrated writer as the individual i had known so well as a boy, from having preserved this note; and upon mr. dickens visiting reading in december, , to give one of his earliest readings for the benefit of the literary institute, of which he had become president on mr. justice talfourd's death, i took the opportunity of showing it to him, when he was much diverted therewith. on the same occasion we conversed about mutual schoolfellows, and among others daniel tobin was referred to, whom i remembered to have been dickens's _most_ intimate companion in the school-days ( to ). his reply was that tobin either was then, or had previously been, assisting him in the capacity of amanuensis; but there is a subsequent mystery about tobin, in connection with his friend and patron, which i have never been able to comprehend; for i understood shortly afterwards that there was entire separation between them, and it must have been an offense of some gravity to have sundered an acquaintance formed in early youth, and which had endured, greatly to tobin's advantage, so long. he resided in our school-days in one of the now old and grimy-looking stone-fronted houses in george street, euston road, a few doors from the orange-tree tavern. it is the opinion of the other schoolfellow with whom we were intimate, doctor danson, that upon leaving school mr. dickens and tobin entered the same solicitor's office, and this he thinks was either in or near lincoln's inn fields." [illustration: handwritten note: punctuation and capitalization, retained: tim/ i am quite ashamed i have not returned your leg but you shall have it by harry to-morrow if you would like to purchase my clavis you shall have it at a very ~reduced price~ cheaper in comparison than a leg. yours &c ~c dickens.~ ps. i suppose all this time you have had ~a wooden~ leg. i have weighed yours every saturday night (no date, but was written in latter part of .)] the offense of tobin went no deeper than the having at last worn out even dickens's patience and kindness. his applications for relief were so incessantly repeated, that to cut him and them adrift altogether was the only way of escape from what had become an intolerable nuisance. to mr. thomas's letter the reader will thank me for adding one not less interesting with which dr. henry danson has favored me. we have here, with the same fun and animal spirits, a little of the proneness to mischief which his other schoolfellow says he was free from; but the mischief is all of the harmless kind, and might perhaps have been better described as but part of an irrepressible vivacity: "my impression is that i was a schoolfellow of dickens for nearly two years: he left before me, i think at about fifteen years of age. mr. jones's school, called the wellington academy, was in the hampstead road, at the northeast corner of granby street. the school-house was afterwards removed for the london and northwestern railway. it was considered at the time a very superior sort of school,--one of the best, indeed, in that part of london; but it was most shamefully mismanaged, and the boys made but very little progress. the proprietor, mr. jones, was a welshman; a most ignorant fellow, and a mere tyrant; whose chief employment was to scourge the boys. dickens has given a very lively account of this place in his paper entitled our school, but it is very mythical in many respects, and more especially in the compliment he pays in it to himself. i do not remember that dickens distinguished himself in any way, or carried off any prizes. my belief is that he did not learn greek or latin there; and you will remember there is no allusion to the classics in any of his writings. he was a handsome, curly-headed lad, full of animation and animal spirits, and probably was connected with every mischievous prank in the school. i do not think he came in for any of mr. jones's scourging propensity: in fact, together with myself, he was only a day-pupil, and with these there was a wholesome fear of tales being carried home to the parents. his personal appearance at that time is vividly brought home to me in the portrait of him taken a few years later by mr. lawrence. he resided with his friends in a very small house in a street leading out of seymour street, north of mr. judkin's chapel. "depend on it, he was quite a self-made man, and his wonderful knowledge and command of the english language must have been acquired by long and patient study after leaving his last school. "i have no recollection of the boy you name. his chief associates were, i think, tobin, mr. thomas, bray, and myself. the first-named was his chief ally, and his acquaintance with him appears to have continued many years afterwards. at about that time penny and saturday magazines were published weekly, and were greedily read by us. we kept bees, white mice, and other living things clandestinely in our desks; and the mechanical arts were a good deal cultivated, in the shape of coach-building, and making pumps and boats, the motive power of which was the white mice. "i think at that time dickens took to writing small tales, and we had a sort of club for lending and circulating them. dickens was also very strong in using a sort of lingo, which made us quite unintelligible to bystanders. we were very strong, too, in theatricals. we mounted small theatres, and got up very gorgeous scenery to illustrate the _miller and his men_ and _cherry and fair star_. i remember the present mr. beverley, the scene-painter, assisted us in this. dickens was always a leader at these plays, which were occasionally presented with much solemnity before an audience of boys and in the presence of the ushers. my brother, assisted by dickens, got up the _miller and his men_, in a very gorgeous form. master beverley constructed the mill for us in such a way that it could tumble to pieces with the assistance of crackers. at one representation the fireworks in the last scene, ending with the destruction of the mill, were so very real that the police interfered and knocked violently at the doors. dickens's after-taste for theatricals might have had its origin in these small affairs. "i quite remember dickens on one occasion heading us in drummond street in pretending to be poor boys, and asking the passers-by for charity,--especially old ladies, one of whom told us she 'had no money for beggar-boys.' on these adventures, when the old ladies were quite staggered by the impudence of the demand, dickens would explode with laughter and take to his heels. "i met him one sunday morning shortly after he left the school, and we very piously attended the morning service at seymour street chapel. i am sorry to say master dickens did not attend in the slightest degree to the service, but incited me to laughter by declaring his dinner was ready and the potatoes would be spoiled, and in fact behaved in such a manner that it was lucky for us we were not ejected from the chapel. "i heard of him some time after from tobin, whom i met carrying a foaming pot of london particular in lincoln's inn fields, and i then understood that dickens was in the same or some neighboring office. "many years elapsed after this before i became aware, from accidentally reading our school, that the brilliant and now famous dickens was my old schoolfellow. i didn't like to intrude myself upon him; and it was not until three or four years ago, when he presided at the university college dinner at willis's rooms, and made a most brilliant and effective speech, that i sent him a congratulatory note reminding him of our former fellowship. to this he sent me a kind note in reply, and which i value very much. i send you copies of these."[ ] from dickens himself i never heard much allusion to the school thus described; but i knew that, besides being the subject dealt with in _household words_, it had supplied some of the lighter traits of salem house for _copperfield_; and that to the fact of one of its tutors being afterwards engaged to teach a boy of macready's, our common friend, dickens used to point for one of the illustrations of his favorite theory as to the smallness of the world, and how things and persons apparently the most unlikely to meet were continually knocking up against each other. the employment as his amanuensis of his schoolfellow tobin dates as early as his doctors'-commons days, but both my correspondents are mistaken in the impression they appear to have received that tobin had been previously his fellow-clerk in the same attorney's office. i had thought him more likely to have been accompanied there by another of his boyish acquaintances who became afterwards a solicitor, mr. mitton, not recollected by either of my correspondents in connection with the school, but whom i frequently met with him in later years, and for whom he had the regard arising out of such early associations. in this, however, i have since discovered my own mistake: the truth being that it was this gentleman's connection, not with the wellington academy, but with a school kept by mr. dawson in hunter street, brunswick square, where the brothers of dickens were subsequently placed, which led to their early knowledge of each other. i fancy that they were together also, for a short time, at mr. molloy's in new square, lincoln's inn; but, whether or not this was so, dickens certainly had not quitted school many months before his father had made sufficient interest with an attorney of gray's inn, mr. edward blackmore, to obtain him regular employment in his office. in this capacity of clerk, our only trustworthy glimpse of him we owe to the last-named gentleman, who has described briefly, and i do not doubt authentically, the services so rendered by him to the law. it cannot be said that they were noteworthy, though it might be difficult to find a more distinguished person who has borne the title, unless we make exception for the very father of literature himself, whom chaucer, with amusing illustration of the way in which words change their meanings, calls "that conceited clerke homère." "i was well acquainted," writes mr. edward blackmore of alresford, "with his parents, and, being then in practice in gray's inn, they asked me if i could find employment for him. he was a bright, clever-looking youth, and i took him as a clerk. he came to me in may, , and left in november, ; and i have now an account-book which he used to keep of petty disbursements in the office, in which he charged himself with the modest salary first of thirteen shillings and sixpence, and afterwards of fifteen shillings, a week. several incidents took place in the office of which he must have been a keen observer, as i recognized some of them in his _pickwick_ and _nickleby_; and i am much mistaken if some of his characters had not their originals in persons i well remember. his taste for theatricals was much promoted by a fellow-clerk named potter, since dead, with whom he chiefly associated. they took every opportunity, then unknown to me, of going together to a minor theatre, where (i afterwards heard) they not unfrequently engaged in parts. after he left me i saw him at times in the lord chancellor's court, taking notes of cases as a reporter. i then lost sight of him until his _pickwick_ made its appearance." this letter indicates the position he held at mr. blackmore's; and we have but to turn to the passage in _pickwick_ which describes the several grades of attorney's clerk, to understand it more clearly. he was very far below the articled clerk, who has paid a premium and is attorney in perspective. he was not so high as the salaried clerk, with nearly the whole of his weekly thirty shillings spent on his personal pleasures. he was not even on the level with his middle-aged copying-clerk, always needy and uniformly shabby. he was simply among, however his own nature may have lifted him above, the "office-lads in their first surtouts, who feel a befitting contempt for boys at day-schools, club as they go home at night for saveloys and porter, and think there's nothing like life." thus far, not more or less, had he now reached. he was one of the office-lads, and probably in his first surtout. but, even thus, the process of education went on, defying what seemed to interrupt it; and in the amount of his present equipment for his needs of life, what he brought from the wellington house academy can have borne but the smallest proportion to his acquirement at mr. blackmore's. yet to seek to identify, without help from himself, any passages in his books with those boyish law-experiences, would be idle and hopeless enough. in the earliest of his writings, and down to the very latest, he worked exhaustively the field which is opened by an attorney's office to a student of life and manners; but we have not now to deal with his numerous varieties of the _genus_ clerk drawn thus for the amusement of others, but with the acquisitions which at present he was storing up for himself from the opportunities such offices opened to him. nor would it be possible to have better illustrative comment on all these years than is furnished by his father's reply to a friend it was now hoped to interest on his behalf, which more than once i have heard him whimsically, but good-humoredly, imitate. "pray, mr. dickens, where was your son educated?" "why, indeed, sir--ha! ha!--he may be said to have educated himself!" of the two kinds of education which gibbon says that all men who rise above the common level receive,--the first, that of his teachers, and the second, more personal and more important, _his own_,--he had the advantage only of the last. it nevertheless sufficed for him. very nearly another eighteen months were now to be spent mainly in practical preparation for what he was, at this time, led finally to choose as an employment from which a fair income was certain with such talents as he possessed; his father already having taken to it, in these latter years, in aid of the family resources. in his father's house, which was at hampstead through the first portion of the mornington street school time, then in the house out of seymour street mentioned by dr. danson, and afterwards, upon the elder dickens going into the gallery, in bentinck street, manchester square, charles had continued to live; and, influenced doubtless by the example before him, he took sudden determination to qualify himself thoroughly for what his father was lately become, a newspaper parliamentary reporter. he set resolutely, therefore, to the study of short-hand; and, for the additional help of such general information about books as a fairly-educated youth might be expected to have, as well as to satisfy some higher personal cravings, he became an assiduous attendant in the british museum reading-room. he would frequently refer to these days as decidedly the usefulest to himself he had ever passed; and, judging from the results, they must have been so. no man who knew him in later years, and talked to him familiarly of books and things, would have suspected his education in boyhood, almost entirely self-acquired as it was, to have been so rambling or hap-hazard as i have here described it. the secret consisted in this, that, whatever for the time he had to do, he lifted himself, there and then, to the level of, and at no time disregarded the rules that guided the hero of his novel. "whatever i have tried to do in life, i have tried with all my heart to do well. what i have devoted myself to, i have devoted myself to completely. never to put one hand to anything on which i could throw my whole self, and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was, i find now to have been my golden rules." of the difficulties that beset his short-hand studies, as well as of what first turned his mind to them, he has told also something in _copperfield_. he had heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life by reporting the debates in parliament, and he was not deterred by a friend's warning that the mere mechanical accomplishment for excellence in it might take a few years to master thoroughly; "a perfect and entire command of the mystery of short-hand writing and reading being about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages." undaunted, he plunged into it, self-teaching in this as in graver things, and, having bought mr. gurney's half-guinea book, worked steadily his way through its distractions. "the changes that were rung upon dots, which in such a position meant such a thing, and in such another position something else entirely different; the wonderful vagaries that were played by circles; the unaccountable consequences that resulted from marks like flies' legs; the tremendous effects of a curve in a wrong place; not only troubled my waking hours, but reappeared before me in my sleep. when i had groped my way, blindly, through these difficulties, and had mastered the alphabet, there then appeared a procession of new horrors, called arbitrary characters; the most despotic characters i have ever known; who insisted, for instance, that a thing like the beginning of a cobweb meant expectation, and that a pen-and-ink sky-rocket stood for disadvantageous. when i had fixed these wretches in my mind, i found that they had driven everything else out of it; then, beginning again, i forgot them; while i was picking them up, i dropped the other fragments of the system: in short, it was almost heart-breaking." what it was that made it not quite heart-breaking to the hero of the fiction, its readers know; and something of the same kind was now to enter into the actual experience of its writer. first let me say, however, that after subduing to his wants in marvelously quick time this unruly and unaccommodating servant of stenography, what he most desired was still not open to him. "there never _was_ such a short-hand writer," has been often said to me by mr. beard, the friend he first made in that line when he entered the gallery, and with whom to the close of his life he maintained the friendliest intercourse. but there was no opening for him in the gallery yet. he had to pass nearly two years as a reporter for one of the offices in doctors' commons, practicing in this and the other law courts, before he became a sharer in parliamentary toils and triumphs; and what sustained his young hero through something of the same sort of trial was also his own support. he too had his dora, at apparently the same hopeless elevation; striven for as the one only thing to be attained, and even more unattainable, for neither did he succeed nor happily did she die; but the one idol, like the other, supplying a motive to exertion for the time, and otherwise opening out to the idolater, both in fact and fiction, a highly unsubstantial, happy, foolish time. i used to laugh and tell him i had no belief in any but the book dora, until the incident of a sudden reappearance of the real one in his life, nearly six years after _copperfield_ was written, convinced me there had been a more actual foundation for those chapters of his book than i was ready to suppose. still, i would hardly admit it, and, that the matter could possibly affect him then, persisted in a stout refusal to believe. his reply ( ) throws a little light on this juvenile part of his career, and i therefore venture to preserve it: "i don't quite apprehend what you mean by my overrating the strength of the feeling of five-and-twenty years ago. if you mean of my own feeling, and will only think what the desperate intensity of my nature is, and that this began when i was charley's age; that it excluded every other idea from my mind for four years, at a time of life when four years are equal to four times four; and that i went at it with a determination to overcome all the difficulties, which fairly lifted me up into that newspaper life, and floated me away over a hundred men's heads; then you are wrong, because nothing can exaggerate that. i have positively stood amazed at myself ever since!--and so i suffered, and so worked, and so beat and hammered away at the maddest romances that ever got into any boy's head and stayed there, that to see the mere cause of it all, now, loosens my hold upon myself. without for a moment sincerely believing that it would have been better if we had never got separated, i cannot see the occasion of so much emotion as i should see any one else. no one can imagine in the most distant degree what pain the recollection gave me in _copperfield_. and, just as i can never open that book as i open any other book, i cannot see the face (even at four-and-forty), or hear the voice, without going wandering away over the ashes of all that youth and hope in the wildest manner." more and more plainly seen, however, in the light of four-and-forty, the romance glided visibly away, its work being fairly done; and at the close of the month following that in which this letter was written, during which he had very quietly made a formal call with his wife at his youthful dora's house, and contemplated with a calm equanimity, in the hall, her stuffed favorite jip, he began the fiction in which there was a flora to set against its predecessor's dora, both derived from the same original. the fancy had a comic humor in it he found it impossible to resist, but it was kindly and pleasant to the last;[ ] and if the later picture showed him plenty to laugh at in this retrospect of his youth, there was nothing he thought of more tenderly than the earlier, as long as he was conscious of anything. footnotes: [ ] the reader will probably think them worth subjoining. dr. danson wrote: "_april, ._ dear sir, on the recent occasion of the u. c. h. dinner, you would probably have been amused and somewhat surprised to learn that one of those whom you addressed had often accompanied you over that 'field of forty footsteps' to which you so aptly and amusingly alluded. it is now some years since i was accidentally reading a paper written by yourself in the _household words_, when i was first impressed with the idea that the writer described scenes and persons with which i was once familiar, and that he must necessarily be the veritable charles dickens of 'our school,'--the school of jones! i did not then, however, like to intrude myself upon you, for i could hardly hope that you would retain any recollection of myself; indeed, it was only barely possible you should do so, however vividly _i_ might recall you in many scenes of fun and frolic of my school-days. i happened to be present at the dinner of tuesday last (being interested as an old student in the school of the hospital), and was seated very near you; i was tempted during the evening to introduce myself to you, but feared lest an explanation such as this in a public room might attract attention and be disagreeable to yourself. a man who has attained a position and celebrity such as yours will probably have many early associates and acquaintances claiming his notice. i beg of you to believe that such is not my object, but that having so recently met you i feel myself unable to repress the desire to assure you that no one in the room could appreciate the fame and rank you have so fairly won, or could wish you more sincerely long life and happiness to enjoy them, than, dear sir, your old schoolfellow, henry danson." to this dickens replied: "gadshill place, _thursday, th may, _. dear sir, i should have assured you before now that the receipt of your letter gave me great pleasure, had i not been too much occupied to have leisure for correspondence. i perfectly recollect your name as that of an old schoolfellow, and distinctly remember your appearance and dress as a boy, and believe you had a brother who was unfortunately drowned in the serpentine. if you had made yourself personally known to me at the dinner, i should have been well pleased; though in that case i should have lost your modest and manly letter. faithfully yours, charles dickens." [ ] i take other fanciful allusions to the lady from two of his occasional writings. the first from his visit to the city churches (written during the dombey time, when he had to select a church for the marriage of florence): "its drowsy cadence soon lulls the three old women asleep, and the unmarried tradesman sits looking out at window, and the married tradesman sits looking at his wife's bonnet, and the lovers sit looking at one another, so superlatively happy, that i mind when i, turned of eighteen, went with my angelica to a city church on account of a shower (by this special coincidence that it was in huggin lane), and when i said to my angelica, 'let the blessed event, angelica, occur at no altar but this!' and when my angelica consented that it should occur at no other--which it certainly never did, for it never occurred anywhere. and o, angelica, what has become of you, this present sunday morning when i can't attend to the sermon? and, more difficult question than that, what has become of me as i was when i sat by your side?" the second, from his pleasant paper on birthdays: "i gave a party on the occasion. she was there. it is unnecessary to name her, more particularly; she was older than i, and had pervaded every chink and crevice of my mind for three or four years. i had held volumes of imaginary conversations with her mother on the subject of our union, and i had written letters more in number than horace walpole's, to that discreet woman, soliciting her daughter's hand in marriage. i had never had the remotest intention of sending any of those letters; but to write them, and after a few days tear them up, had been a sublime occupation." chapter iv. reporters' gallery and newspaper literature. - . reporting for _true sun_--first seen by me--reporting for _mirror_ and _chronicle_--first published piece--discipline and experiences of reporting--life as a reporter--john black--mr. thomas beard--a letter to his editor--incident of reporting days--the same more correctly told--origin of "boz"--captain holland--mr. george hogarth--sketches in _evening chronicle_--c. d.'s first hearty appreciator. dickens was nineteen years old when at last he entered the gallery. his father, with whom he still lived in bentinck street, had already, as we have seen, joined the gallery as a reporter for one of the morning papers, and was now in the more comfortable circumstances derived from the addition to his official pension which this praiseworthy labor insured; but his own engagement on the _chronicle_ dates somewhat later. his first parliamentary service was given to the _true sun_, a journal which had then on its editorial staff some dear friends of mine, through whom i became myself a contributor to it, and afterwards, in common with all concerned, whether in its writing, reporting, printing, or publishing, a sharer in its difficulties. the most formidable of these arrived one day in a general strike of the reporters; and i well remember noticing at this dread time, on the staircase of the magnificent mansion we were lodged in, a young man of my own age, whose keen animation of look would have arrested attention anywhere, and whose name, upon inquiry, i then for the first time heard. it was coupled with the fact, which gave it interest even then, that "young dickens" had been spokesman for the recalcitrant reporters, and conducted their case triumphantly. he was afterwards during two sessions engaged for the _mirror of parliament_, which one of his uncles by the mother's side originated and conducted; and finally, in his twenty-third year, he became a reporter for the _morning chronicle_. a step far more momentous to him (though then he did not know it) he had taken shortly before. in the december number for of what then was called the _old monthly magazine_, his first published piece of writing had seen the light. he has described himself dropping this paper (mr. minns and his cousin, as he afterwards entitled it, but which appeared in the magazine as a dinner at poplar walk) stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box in a dark office up a dark court in fleet street; and he has told his agitation when it appeared in all the glory of print: "on which occasion i walked down to westminster hall, and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there." he had purchased the magazine at a shop in the strand; and exactly two years afterwards, in the younger member of a publishing firm who had called, at the chambers in furnival's inn to which he had moved soon after entering the gallery, with the proposal that originated _pickwick_, he recognized the person he had bought that magazine from, and whom before or since he had never seen. this interval of two years more than comprised what remained of his career in the gallery and the engagements connected with it; but that this occupation was of the utmost importance in its influence on his life, in the discipline of his powers as well as of his character, there can be no doubt whatever. "to the wholesome training of severe newspaper work, when i was a very young man, i constantly refer my first successes," he said to the new york editors when he last took leave of them. it opened to him a wide and varied range of experience, which his wonderful observation, exact as it was humorous, made entirely his own. he saw the last of the old coaching-days, and of the old inns that were a part of them; but it will be long before the readers of his living page see the last of the life of either. "there never was," he once wrote to me (in ), "anybody connected with newspapers who, in the same space of time, had so much express and post-chaise experience as i. and what gentlemen they were to serve, in such things, at the old _morning chronicle_! great or small it did not matter. i have had to charge for half a dozen break-downs in half a dozen times as many miles. i have had to charge for the damage of a great-coat from the drippings of a blazing wax candle, in writing through the smallest hours of the night in a swift-flying carriage-and-pair. i have had to charge for all sorts of breakages fifty times in a journey without question, such being the ordinary results of the pace which we went at. i have charged for broken hats, broken luggage, broken chaises, broken harness--everything but a broken head, which is the only thing they would have grumbled to pay for." something to the same effect he said publicly twenty years later, on the occasion of his presiding, in may, , at the second annual dinner of the newspaper press fund, when he condensed within the compass of his speech a summary of the whole of his reporting life. "i am not here," he said, "advocating the case of a mere ordinary client of whom i have little or no knowledge. i hold a brief to-night for my brothers. i went into the gallery of the house of commons as a parliamentary reporter when i was a boy, and i left it--i can hardly believe the inexorable truth--nigh thirty years ago. i have pursued the calling of a reporter under circumstances of which many of my brethren here can form no adequate conception. i have often transcribed for the printer, from my short-hand notes, important public speeches in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a mistake in which would have been to a young man severely compromising, writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark-lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour. the very last time i was at exeter, i strolled into the castle-yard there, to identify, for the amusement of a friend, the spot on which i once 'took,' as we used to call it, an election-speech of lord john russell at the devon contest, in the midst of a lively fight maintained by all the vagabonds in that division of the county, and under such a pelting rain that i remember two good-natured colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my note-book, after the manner of a state canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. i have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery of the old house of commons; and i have worn my feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old house of lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep,--kept in waiting, say, until the woolsack might want restuffing. returning home from exciting political meetings in the country to the waiting press in london, i do verily believe i have been upset in almost every description of vehicle known in this country. i have been, in my time, belated on miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from london, in a wheelless carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken post-boys, and have got back in time for publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by the late mr. black, coming in the broadest of scotch from the broadest of hearts i ever knew. these trivial things i mention as an assurance to you that i never have forgotten the fascination of that old pursuit. the pleasure that i used to feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its exercise has never faded out of my breast. whatever little cunning of hand or head i took to it, or acquired in it, i have so retained as that i fully believe i could resume it to-morrow, very little the worse from long disuse. to this present year of my life, when i sit in this hall, or where not, hearing a dull speech (the phenomenon does occur), i sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by mentally following the speaker in the old, old way; and sometimes, if you can believe me, i even find my hand going on the table-cloth, taking an imaginary note of it all." the latter i have known him do frequently. it was indeed a quite ordinary habit with him. mr. james grant, a writer who was himself in the gallery with dickens, and who states that among its eighty or ninety reporters he occupied the very highest rank, not merely for accuracy in reporting but for marvelous quickness in transcribing, has lately also told us that while there he was exceedingly reserved in his manners, and that, though showing the usual courtesies to all he was concerned with in his duties, the only personal intimacy he formed was with mr. thomas beard, then too reporting for the _morning chronicle_. i have already mentioned the friendly and familiar relations maintained with this gentleman to the close of his life; and in confirmation of mr. grant's statement i can further say that the only other associate of these early reporting days to whom i ever heard him refer with special regard was the late mr. vincent dowling, many years editor of _bell's life_, with whom he did not continue much personal intercourse, but of whose character as well as talents he had formed a very high opinion. nor is there anything to add to the notice of these days which the reader's fancy may not easily supply. a letter has been kept as written by him while engaged on one of his "expresses;" but it is less for its saying anything new, than for its confirming with a pleasant vividness what has been said already, that its contents will justify mention here. he writes, on a "tuesday morning" in may, , from the bush inn, bristol; the occasion that has taken him to the west, connected with a reporting party, being lord john russell's devonshire contest above named, and his associate-chief being mr. beard, intrusted with command for the _chronicle_ in this particular express. he expects to forward "the conclusion of russell's dinner" by cooper's company's coach leaving the bush at half-past six next morning; and by the first ball's coach on thursday morning he will forward the report of the bath dinner, indorsing the parcel for immediate delivery, with extra rewards for the porter. beard is to go over to bath next morning. he is himself to come back by the mail from marlborough; he has no doubt, if lord john makes a speech of any ordinary dimensions, it can be done by the time marlborough is reached; "and taking into consideration the immense importance of having the addition of saddle-horses from thence, it is, beyond all doubt, worth an effort. . . . i need not say," he continues, "that it will be sharp work and will require two of us; for we shall both be up the whole of the previous night, and shall have to sit up all night again to get it off in time." he adds that as soon as they have had a little sleep they will return to town as quickly as they can; but they have, if the express succeeds, to stop at sundry places along the road to pay money and notify satisfaction. and so, for himself and beard, he is his editor's very sincerely. another anecdote of these reporting days, with its sequel, may be added from his own alleged relation, in which, however, mistakes occur that it seems strange he should have made. the story, as told, is that the late lord derby, when mr. stanley, had on some important occasion made a speech which all the reporters found it necessary greatly to abridge; that its essential points had nevertheless been so well given in the _chronicle_ that mr. stanley, having need of it for himself in greater detail, had sent a request to the reporter to meet him in carlton house terrace and take down the entire speech; that dickens attended and did the work accordingly, much to mr. stanley's satisfaction; and that, on his dining with mr. gladstone in recent years, and finding the aspect of the dining-room strangely familiar, he discovered afterwards on inquiry that it was there he had taken the speech. the story, as it actually occurred, is connected with the brief life of the _mirror of parliament_. it was not at any special desire of mr. stanley's, but for that new record of the debates, which had been started by one of the uncles of dickens and professed to excel _hansard_ in giving verbatim reports, that the famous speech against o'connell was taken as described. the young reporter went to the room in carlton terrace because the work of his uncle barrow's publication required to be done there; and if, in later years, the great author was in the same room as the guest of the prime minister, it must have been but a month or two before he died, when for the first time he visited and breakfasted with mr. gladstone. the mention of his career in the gallery may close with the incident. i will only add that his observation while there had not led him to form any high opinion of the house of commons or its heroes, and that of the pickwickian sense which so often takes the place of common sense in our legislature he omitted no opportunity of declaring his contempt at every part of his life. the other occupation had meanwhile not been lost sight of, and for this we are to go back a little. since the first sketch appeared in the _monthly magazine_, nine others have enlivened the pages of later numbers of the same magazine, the last in february, , and that which appeared in the preceding august having first had the signature of boz. this was the nickname of a pet child, his youngest brother augustus, whom in honor of the _vicar of wakefield_ he had dubbed moses, which being facetiously pronounced through the nose became boses, and being shortened became boz. "boz was a very familiar household word to me, long before i was an author, and so i came to adopt it." thus had he fully invented his sketches by boz before they were even so called, or any one was ready to give much attention to them; and the next invention needful to himself was some kind of payment in return for them. the magazine was owned as well as conducted at this time by a mr. holland, who had come back from bolivar's south american campaigns with the rank of captain, and had hoped to make it a popular mouthpiece for his ardent liberalism. but this hope, as well as his own health, quite failed; and he had sorrowfully to decline receiving any more of the sketches when they had to cease as voluntary offerings. i do not think that either he or the magazine lived many weeks after an evening i passed with him in doughty street in , when he spoke in a very touching way of the failure of this and other enterprises of his life, and of the help that dickens had been to him. nothing thus being forthcoming from the _monthly_, it was of course but natural the sketches too should cease to be forthcoming; and, even before the above-named february number appeared, a new opening had been found for them. an evening offshoot to the _morning chronicle_ had been lately in hand; and to a countryman of black's engaged in the preparations for it, mr. george hogarth, dickens was communicating from his rooms in furnival's inn, on the evening of tuesday, the th of january, , certain hopes and fancies he had formed. this was the beginning of his knowledge of an accomplished and kindly man, with whose family his relations were soon to become so intimate as to have an influence on all his future career. mr. hogarth had asked him, as a favor to himself, to write an original sketch for the first number of the enterprise, and in writing back to say with what readiness he should comply, and how anxiously he should desire to do his best for the person who had made the request, he mentioned what had arisen in his mind. it had occurred to him that he might not be unreasonably or improperly trespassing farther on mr. hogarth if, trusting to his kindness to refer the application to the proper quarter, he begged to ask whether it was probable, if he commenced a regular series of articles under some attractive title for the _evening chronicle_, its conductors would think he had any claim to _some_ additional remuneration (of course, of no great amount) for doing so. in short, he wished to put it to the proprietors--first, whether a continuation of some chapters of light papers in the style of his street-sketches would be considered of use to the new journal; and secondly, if so, whether they would not think it fair and reasonable that, taking his share of the ordinary reporting business of the _chronicle_ besides, he should receive something for the papers beyond his ordinary salary as a reporter. the request was thought fair, he began the sketches, and his salary was raised from five to seven guineas a week. they went on, with undiminished spirit and freshness, throughout the year; and, much as they were talked of outside as well as in the world of newspapers, nothing in connection with them delighted the writer half so much as the hearty praise of his own editor. mr. black is one of the men who has passed without recognition out of a world his labors largely benefited, but with those who knew him no man was so popular, as well for his broad kindly humor as for his honest great-hearted enjoyment of whatever was excellent in others. dickens to the last remembered that it was most of all the cordial help of this good old mirth-loving man which had started him joyfully on his career of letters. "it was john black that flung the slipper after me," he would often say. "dear old black! my first hearty out-and-out appreciator," is an expression in one of his letters written to me in the year he died. chapter v. first book, and origin of pickwick. . _sketches by boz_--fancy-piece by n. p. willis: a poor english author--start of _pickwick_--marriage to miss hogarth--first connection with chapman & hall--mr. seymour's part in _pickwick_--letters relating thereto--c. d.'s own account--false claims refuted--pickwick's original, his figure and his name--first sprightly runnings of genius--the _sketches_ characterized--mr. seymour's death--new illustrator chosen--mr. hablot k. browne--c. d. leaves the gallery--_strange gentleman_ and _village coquettes_. the opening of found him collecting into two volumes the first series of _sketches by boz_, of which he had sold the copyright for a conditional payment of (i think) a hundred and fifty pounds to a young publisher named macrone, whose acquaintance he had made through mr. ainsworth a few weeks before.[ ] at this time also, we are told in a letter before quoted, the editorship of the _monthly magazine_ having come into mr. james grant's hands, this gentleman, applying to him through its previous editor to know if he would again contribute to it, learned two things: the first, that he was going to be married; and the second, that, having entered into an arrangement to write a monthly serial, his duties in future would leave him small spare time. both pieces of news were soon confirmed. the _times_ of the th of march, , gave notice that on the st would be published the first shilling number of the _posthumous papers of the pickwick club, edited by boz_; and the same journal of a few days later announced that on the d of april mr. charles dickens had married catherine, the eldest daughter of mr. george hogarth, whom already we have met as his fellow-worker on the _chronicle_. the honeymoon was passed in the neighborhood to which at all times of interest in his life he turned with a strange recurring fondness; and while the young couple are at the quiet little village of chalk, on the road between gravesend and rochester, i will relate exactly the origin of the ever-memorable mr. pickwick. a young publishing-house had started recently, among other enterprises ingenious rather than important, a library of fiction; among the authors they wished to enlist in it was the writer of the sketches in the _monthly_; and, to the extent of one paper during the past year, they had effected this through their editor, mr. charles whitehead, a very ingenious and very unfortunate man. "i was not aware," wrote the elder member of the firm to dickens, thirteen years later, in a letter to which reference was made[ ] in the preface to _pickwick_ in one of his later editions, "that you were writing in the _chronicle_, or what your name was; but whitehead, who was an old _monthly_ man, recollected it, and got you to write the tuggs's at ramsgate." and now comes another person on the scene. "in november, ," continues mr. chapman, "we published a little book called the _squib annual_, with plates by seymour; and it was during my visit to him to see after them that he said he should like to do a series of cockney-sporting plates of a superior sort to those he had already published. i said i thought they might do, if accompanied by letter-press and published in monthly parts; and, this being agreed to, we wrote to the author of _three courses and a dessert_, and proposed it; but, receiving no answer, the scheme dropped for some months, till seymour said he wished us to decide, as another job had offered which would fully occupy his time; and it was on this we decided to ask you to do it. having opened already a connection with you for our library of fiction, we naturally applied to you to do the _pickwick_; but i do not think we even mentioned our intention to mr. seymour, and i am quite sure that from the beginning to the end nobody but yourself had anything whatever to do with it. our prospectus was out at the end of february, and it had all been arranged before that date." the member of the firm who carried the application to him in furnival's inn was not the writer of this letter, but mr. hall, who had sold him two years before, not knowing that he was the purchaser, the magazine in which his first effusion was printed; and he has himself described what passed at the interview: "the idea propounded to me was that the monthly something should be a vehicle for certain plates to be executed by mr. seymour; and there was a notion, either on the part of that admirable humorous artist, or of my visitor, that a nimrod club, the members of which were to go out shooting, fishing, and so forth, and getting themselves into difficulties through their want of dexterity, would be the best means of introducing these. i objected, on consideration that, although born and partly bred in the country, i was no great sportsman, except in regard to all kinds of locomotion; that the idea was not novel, and had already been much used; that it would be infinitely better for the plates to arise naturally out of the text; and that i would like to take my own way, with a freer range of english scenes and people, and was afraid i should ultimately do so in any case, whatever course i might prescribe to myself at starting. my views being deferred to, i thought of mr. pickwick, and wrote the first number; from the proof-sheets of which mr. seymour made his drawing of the club and his happy portrait of its founder. i connected mr. pickwick with a club, because of the original suggestion; and i put in mr. winkle expressly for the use of mr. seymour." mr. hall was dead when this statement was first made, in the preface to the cheap edition in ; but mr. chapman clearly recollected his partner's account of the interview, and confirmed every part of it, in his letter of ,[ ] with one exception. in giving mr. seymour credit for the figure by which all the habitable globe knows mr. pickwick, and which certainly at the outset helped to make him a reality, it had given the artist too much. the reader will hardly be so startled as i was on coming to the closing line of mr. chapman's confirmatory letter: "as this letter is to be historical, i may as well claim what little belongs to me in the matter, and that is the figure of pickwick. seymour's first sketch was of a long, thin man. the present immortal one he made from my description of a friend of mine at richmond, a fat old beau, who would wear, in spite of the ladies' protests, drab tights and black gaiters. his name was john foster." on the coincidences, resemblances, and surprises of life, dickens liked especially to dwell, and few things moved his fancy so pleasantly. the world, he would say, was so much smaller than we thought it; we were all so connected by fate without knowing it; people supposed to be far apart were so constantly elbowing each other; and to-morrow bore so close a resemblance to nothing half so much as to yesterday. here were the only two leading incidents of his own life before i knew him, his marriage and the first appearance of his pickwick; and it turned out after all that i had some shadowy association with both. he was married on the anniversary of my birthday, and the original of the figure of mr. pickwick bore my name.[ ] the first number had not yet appeared when his _sketches by boz, illustrative of every-day life and every-day people_, came forth in two duodecimos with some capital cuts by cruikshank, and with a preface in which he spoke of the nervousness he should have had in venturing alone before the public, and of his delight in getting the help of cruikshank, who had frequently contributed to the success, though his well-earned reputation rendered it impossible for him ever to have shared the hazard, of similar undertakings. it very soon became apparent that there was no hazard here. the _sketches_ were much more talked about than the first two or three numbers of _pickwick_, and i remember still with what hearty praise the book was first named to me by my dear friend albany fonblanque, as keen and clear a judge as ever lived either of books or men. richly did it merit all the praise it had, and more, i will add, than he was ever disposed to give to it himself. he decidedly underrated it. he gave, in subsequent writings, so much more perfect form and fullness to everything it contained, that he did not care to credit himself with the marvel of having yet so early anticipated so much. but the first sprightly runnings of his genius are undoubtedly here. mr. bumble is in the parish sketches, and mr. dawkins the dodger in the old bailey scenes. there is laughter and fun to excess, never misapplied; there are the minute points and shades of character, with all the discrimination and nicety of detail, afterwards so famous; there is everywhere the most perfect ease and skill of handling. the observation shown throughout is nothing short of wonderful. things are painted literally as they are, and, whatever the picture, whether of every-day vulgar, shabby-genteel, or downright low, with neither the condescending air which is affectation, nor the too familiar one which is slang. the book altogether is a perfectly unaffected, unpretentious, honest performance. under its manly, sensible, straightforward vein of talk there is running at the same time a natural flow of sentiment never sentimental, of humor always easy and unforced, and of pathos for the most part dramatic or picturesque, under which lay the germ of what his mature genius took afterwards most delight in. of course there are inequalities in it, and some things that would have been better away; but it is a book that might have stood its ground, even if it had stood alone, as containing unusually truthful observation of a sort of life between the middle class and the low, which, having few attractions for bookish observers, was quite unhackneyed ground. it had otherwise also the very special merit of being in no respect bookish or commonplace in its descriptions of the old city with which its writer was so familiar. it was a picture of every-day london at its best and worst, in its humors and enjoyments as well as its sufferings and sins, pervaded everywhere not only with the absolute reality of the things depicted, but also with that subtle sense and mastery of feeling which gives to the reader's sympathies invariably right direction, and awakens consideration, tenderness, and kindness precisely for those who most need such help. between the first and the second numbers of _pickwick_, the artist, mr. seymour, died by his own hand; and the number came out with three instead of four illustrations. dickens had seen the unhappy man only once, forty-eight hours before his death; when he went to furnival's inn with an etching for the "stroller's tale" in that number, which, altered at dickens's suggestion, he brought away again for the few further touches that occupied him to a late hour of the night before he destroyed himself. a notice attached to the number informed the public of this latter fact. there was at first a little difficulty in replacing him, and for a single number mr. buss was interposed. but before the fourth number a choice had been made, which as time went on was so thoroughly justified, that through the greater part of the wonderful career which was then beginning the connection was kept up, and mr. hablot browne's name is not unworthily associated with the masterpieces of dickens's genius. an incident which i heard related by mr. thackeray at one of the royal academy dinners belongs to this time: "i can remember when mr. dickens was a very young man, and had commenced delighting the world with some charming humorous works in covers which were colored light green and came out once a month, that this young man wanted an artist to illustrate his writings; and i recollect walking up to his chambers in furnival's inn, with two or three drawings in my hand, which, strange to say, he did not find suitable." dickens has himself described another change now made in the publication: "we started with a number of twenty-four pages and four illustrations. mr. seymour's sudden and lamented death before the second number was published, brought about a quick decision upon a point already in agitation: the number became one of thirty-two pages with only two illustrations, and remained so to the end." the session of terminated his connection with the gallery, and some fruits of his increased leisure showed themselves before the close of the year. his eldest sister's musical attainments and connections had introduced him to many cultivators and professors of that art; he was led to take much interest in mr. braham's enterprise at the st. james's theatre; and in aid of it he wrote a farce for mr. harley, founded upon one of his sketches, and the story and songs for an opera composed by his friend mr. hullah. both the _strange gentleman_, acted in september, and the _village coquettes_, produced in december, , had a good success; and the last is memorable to me for having brought me first into personal communication with dickens. footnotes: [ ] to this date belongs a visit paid him at furnival's inn in mr. macrone's company by the notorious mr. n. p. willis, who calls him "a young paragraphist for the _morning chronicle_," and thus sketches his residence and himself: "in the most crowded part of holborn, within a door or two of the bull-and-mouth inn, we pulled up at the entrance of a large building used for lawyers' chambers. i followed by a long flight of stairs to an upper story, and was ushered into an uncarpeted and bleak-looking room, with a deal table, two or three chairs and a few books, a small boy and mr. dickens, for the contents. i was only struck at first with one thing (and i made a memorandum of it that evening as the strongest instance i had seen of english obsequiousness to employers), the degree to which the poor author was overpowered with the honor of his publisher's visit! i remember saying to myself, as i sat down on a rickety chair, 'my good fellow, if you were in america with that fine face and your ready quill, you would have no need to be condescended to by a publisher.' dickens was dressed very much as he has since described dick swiveller, _minus_ the swell look. his hair was cropped close to his head, his clothes scant, though jauntily cut, and, after changing a ragged office-coat for a shabby blue, he stood by the door, collarless and buttoned up, the very personification, i thought, of a close sailer to the wind." i remember, while my friend lived, our laughing heartily at this description, hardly a word of which is true; and i give it now as no unfair specimen of the kind of garbage that since his death also has been served up only too plentifully by some of his own as well as by others of mr. willis's countrymen. [ ] not quoted in detail, on that or any other occasion; though referred to. it was, however, placed in my hands, for use if occasion should arise, when dickens went to america in . the letter bears date the th july, , and was mr. chapman's answer to the question dickens had asked him, whether the account of the origin of _pickwick_ which he had given in the preface to the cheap edition in was not strictly correct. "it is so correctly described," was mr. chapman's opening remark, "that i can throw but little additional light on it." the name of his hero, i may add, dickens took from that of a celebrated coach-proprietor of bath. [ ] the appeal was then made to him because of recent foolish statements by members of mr. seymour's family, which dickens thus contradicted: "it is with great unwillingness that i notice some intangible and incoherent assertions which have been made, professedly on behalf of mr. seymour, to the effect that he had some share in the invention of this book, or of anything in it, not faithfully described in the foregoing paragraph. with the moderation that is due equally to my respect for the memory of a brother-artist, and to my self-respect, i confine myself to placing on record here the facts--that mr. seymour never originated or suggested an incident, a phrase, or a word, to be found in this book. that mr. seymour died when only twenty-four pages of this book were published, and when assuredly not forty-eight were written. that i believe i never saw mr. seymour's handwriting in my life. that i never saw mr. seymour but once in my life, and that was on the night but one before his death, when he certainly offered no suggestion whatsoever. that i saw him then in the presence of two persons, both living, perfectly acquainted with all these facts, and whose written testimony to them i possess. lastly, that mr. edward chapman (the survivor of the original firm of chapman & hall) has set down in writing, for similar preservation, his personal knowledge of the origin and progress of this book, of the monstrosity of the baseless assertions in question, and (tested by details) even of the self-evident impossibility of there being any truth in them." the "written testimony" alluded to is also in my possession, having been inclosed to me by dickens, in , with mr. chapman's letter here referred to. [ ] whether mr. chapman spelt the name correctly, or has unconsciously deprived his fat beau of the letter "r," i cannot say; but experience tells me that the latter is probable. i have been trying all my life to get my own name spelt correctly, and have only very imperfectly succeeded. chapter vi. writing the pickwick papers. . first letter from him--as he was thirty-five years ago--mrs. carlyle and leigh hunt--birth of eldest son--from furnival's inn to doughty street--a long-remembered sorrow--i visit him--hasty compacts with publishers--self-sold into quasi-bondage--agreements for editorship and writing--mr. macrone's scheme to reissue _sketches_--attempts to prevent it--exorbitant demand--impatience of suspense--purchase advised--_oliver twist_--characters real to himself--sense of responsibility for his writings--criticism that satisfied him--help given with his proofs--writing _pickwick_, nos. and --scenes in a debtors' prison--a recollection of smollett--reception of _pickwick_--a popular rage--mr. carlyle's "dreadful" story--secrets of success--_pickwick_ inferior to later books--exception for sam weller and mr. pickwick--personal habits of c. d.--reliefs after writing--natural discontents--the early agreements--tale to follow _oliver twist_--compromise with mr. bentley--trip to flanders--first visit to broadstairs--piracies of _pickwick_--a sufferer from agreements--first visit to brighton--what he is doing with _oliver twist_--reading de foe--"no thoroughfare"--proposed help to macready. the first letter i had from him was at the close of , from furnival's inn, when he sent me the book of his opera of the _village coquettes_, which had been published by mr. bentley; and this was followed, two months later, by his collected _sketches_, both first and second series; which he desired me to receive "as a very small testimony of the donor's regard and obligations, as well as of his desire to cultivate and avail himself of a friendship which has been so pleasantly thrown in his way. . . . in short, if you will receive them for my sake and not for their own, you will very greatly oblige me." i had met him in the interval at the house of our common friend mr. ainsworth, and i remember vividly the impression then made upon me. very different was his face in those days from that which photography has made familiar to the present generation. a look of youthfulness first attracted you, and then a candor and openness of expression which made you sure of the qualities within. the features were very good. he had a capital forehead, a firm nose with full wide nostril, eyes wonderfully beaming with intellect and running over with humor and cheerfulness, and a rather prominent mouth strongly marked with sensibility. the head was altogether well formed and symmetrical, and the air and carriage of it were extremely spirited. the hair so scant and grizzled in later days was then of a rich brown and most luxuriant abundance, and the bearded face of his last two decades had hardly a vestige of hair or whisker; but there was that in the face as i first recollect it which no time could change, and which remained implanted on it unalterably to the last. this was the quickness, keenness, and practical power, the eager, restless, energetic outlook on each several feature, that seemed to tell so little of a student or writer of books, and so much of a man of action and business in the world. light and motion flashed from every part of it. _it was as if made of steel_, was said of it, four or five years after the time to which i am referring, by a most original and delicate observer, the late mrs. carlyle. "what a face is his to meet in a drawing-room!" wrote leigh hunt to me, the morning after i made them known to each other. "it has the life and soul in it of fifty human beings." in such sayings are expressed not alone the restless and resistless vivacity and force of which i have spoken, but that also which lay beneath them of steadiness and hard endurance. several unsuccessful efforts were made by each to get the other to his house before the door of either was opened at last. a son had been born to him on twelfth-day (the th january, ), and before the close of the following month he and his wife were in the lodgings at chalk they had occupied after their marriage. early in march there is a letter from him accounting for the failure of a promise to call on me because of "a crew of house-agents and attorneys" through whom he had nearly missed his conveyance to chalk, and been made "more than half wild besides." this was his last letter from furnival's inn. in that same month he went to , doughty street; and in his first letter to me from that address, dated at the close of the month, there is this passage: "we only called upon you a second time in the hope of getting you to dine with us, and were much disappointed not to find you. i have delayed writing a reply to your note, meaning to call upon you. i have been so much engaged, however, in the pleasant occupation of 'moving' that i have not had time; and i am obliged at last to write and say that i have been long engaged to the _pickwick_ publishers to a dinner in honor of that hero which comes off to-morrow. i am consequently unable to accept your kind invite, which i frankly own i should have liked much better." that saturday's celebration of his twelfth number, the anniversary of the birth of _pickwick_, preceded by but a few weeks a personal sorrow which profoundly moved him. his wife's next younger sister, mary, who lived with them, and by sweetness of nature even more than by graces of person had made herself the ideal of his life, died with a terrible suddenness that for the time completely bore him down.[ ] his grief and suffering were intense, and affected him, as will be seen, through many after-years. the publication of _pickwick_ was interrupted for two months, the effort of writing it not being possible to him. he moved for change of scene to hampstead, and here, at the close of may, i visited him, and became first his guest. more than ordinarily susceptible at the moment to all kindliest impressions, his heart opened itself to mine. i left him as much his friend, and as entirely in his confidence, as if i had known him for years. nor had many weeks passed before he addressed to me from doughty street words which it is my sorrowful pride to remember have had literal fulfillment: "i look back with unmingled pleasure to every link which each ensuing week has added to the chain of our attachment. it shall go hard, i hope, ere anything but death impairs the toughness of a bond now so firmly riveted." it remained unweakened till death came. there were circumstances that drew us at once into frequent and close communication. what the sudden popularity of his writings implied, was known to others some time before it was known to himself; and he was only now becoming gradually conscious of all the disadvantage this had placed him at. he would have laughed if, at this outset of his wonderful fortune in literature, his genius acknowledged by all without misgiving, young, popular, and prosperous, any one had compared him to the luckless men of letters of former days, whose common fate was to be sold into a slavery which their later lives were passed in vain endeavors to escape from. not so was his fate to be, yet something of it he was doomed to experience. he had unwittingly sold himself into a quasi-bondage, and had to purchase his liberty at a heavy cost, after considerable suffering. it was not until the fourth or fifth number of _pickwick_ (in the latter sam weller made his first appearance) that its importance began to be understood by "the trade," and on the eve of the issue of its sixth number, the d august, , he had signed an agreement with mr. bentley to undertake the editorship of a monthly magazine to be started the following january, to which he was to supply a serial story; and soon afterwards he had agreed with the same publisher to write two other tales, the first at a specified early date; the expressed remuneration in each case being certainly quite inadequate to the claims of a writer of any marked popularity. under these bentley agreements he was now writing, month by month, the first half of _oliver twist_, and, under his chapman & hall agreement, the last half of _pickwick_, not even by a week in advance of the printer with either; when a circumstance became known to him of which he thus wrote to me: "i heard half an hour ago, on authority which leaves me in no doubt about the matter (from the binder of _pickwick_, in fact), that macrone intends publishing a new issue of my _sketches_ in monthly parts of nearly the same size and in just the same form as the _pickwick papers_. i need not tell you that this is calculated to injure me most seriously, or that i have a very natural and most decided objection to being supposed to presume upon the success of the _pickwick_, and thus foist this old work upon the public in its new dress for the mere purpose of putting money in my own pocket. neither need i say that the fact of my name being before the town, attached to three publications at the same time, must prove seriously prejudicial to my reputation. as you are acquainted with the circumstances under which these copyrights were disposed of, and as i know i may rely on your kind help, may i beg you to see macrone, and to state in the strongest and most emphatic manner my feeling on this point? i wish him to be reminded of the sums he paid for those books; of the sale he has had for them; of the extent to which he has already pushed them; and of the very great profits he must necessarily have acquired from them. i wish him also to be reminded that no intention of publishing them in this form was in the remotest manner hinted to me, by him or on his behalf, when he obtained possession of the copyright. i then wish you to put it to his feelings of common honesty and fair dealing whether after this communication he will persevere in his intention." what else the letter contained need not be quoted, but it strongly moved me to do my best. i found mr. macrone inaccessible to all arguments of persuasion, however. that he had bought the book for a small sum at a time when the smallest was not unimportant to the writer, shortly before his marriage, and that he had since made very considerable profits by it, in no way disturbed his position that he had a right to make as much as he could of what was his, without regard to how it had become so. there was nothing for it but to change front, and, admitting it might be a less evil to the unlucky author to repurchase than to let the monthly issue proceed, to ask what further gain was looked for; but so wide a mouth was opened at this that i would have no part in the costly process of filling it. i told dickens so, and strongly counseled him to keep quiet for a time. but the worry and vexation were too great with all the work he had in hand, and i was hardly surprised next day to receive the letter sent me; which yet should be prefaced with the remark that suspense of any kind was at all times intolerable to the writer. the interval between the accomplishment of anything, and "its first motion," dickens never could endure, and he was too ready to make any sacrifice to abridge or end it. this did not belong to the strong side of his character, and advantage was frequently taken of the fact. "i sent down just now to know whether you were at home (two o'clock), as chapman & hall were with me, and, the case being urgent, i wished to have the further benefit of your kind advice and assistance. macrone and h---- (arcades ambo) waited on them this morning, and after a long discussion peremptorily refused to take one farthing less than the two thousand pounds. h---- repeated the statement of figures which he made to you yesterday, and put it to hall whether he could say from his knowledge of such matters that the estimate of probable profit was exorbitant. hall, whose judgment may be relied on in such matters, could not dispute the justice of the calculation. and so the matter stood. in this dilemma it occurred to them (my _pickwick_ men), whether, if the _sketches_ _must_ appear in monthly numbers, it would not be better for them to appear for their benefit and mine conjointly than for macrone's sole use and behoof; whether they, having all the _pickwick_ machinery in full operation, could not obtain for them a much larger sale than macrone could ever get; and whether, even at this large price of two thousand pounds, we might not, besides retaining the copyright, reasonably hope for a good profit on the outlay. these suggestions having presented themselves, they came straight to me (having obtained a few hours' respite) and proposed that we should purchase the copyrights between us for the two thousand pounds, and publish them in monthly parts. i need not say that no other form of publication would repay the expenditure; and they wish me to explain by an address that _they_, who may be fairly put forward as the parties, have been driven into that mode of publication, or the copyrights would have been lost. i considered the matter in every possible way. i sent for you, but you were out. i thought of"--what need not be repeated, now that all is past and gone--"and consented. was i right? i think you will say yes." i could not say no, though i was glad to have been no party to a price so exorbitant; which yet profited extremely little the person who received it. he died in hardly more than two years; and if dickens had enjoyed the most liberal treatment at his hands, he could not have exerted himself more generously for the widow and children. his new story was now beginning largely to share attention with his _pickwick papers_, and it was delightful to see how real all its people became to him. what i had most, indeed, to notice in him, at the very outset of his career, was his indifference to any praise of his performances on the merely literary side, compared with the higher recognition of them as bits of actual life, with the meaning and purpose on their part, and the responsibility on his, of realities rather than creatures of fancy. the exception that might be drawn from _pickwick_ is rather in seeming than substance. a first book has its immunities, and the distinction of this from the rest of the writings appears in what has been said of its origin. the plan of it was simply to amuse. it was to string together whimsical sketches of the pencil by entertaining sketches of the pen; and, at its beginning, where or how it was to end was as little known to himself as to any of its readers. but genius is a master as well as a servant, and when the laughter and fun were at their highest something graver made its appearance. he had to defend himself for this; and he said that, though the mere oddity of a new acquaintance was apt to impress one at first, the more serious qualities were discovered when we became friends with the man. in other words he might have said that the change was become necessary for his own satisfaction. the book itself, in teaching him what his power was, had made him more conscious of what would be expected from its use; and this never afterwards quitted him. in what he was to do hereafter, as in all he was doing now, with _pickwick_ still to finish and _oliver_ only beginning, it constantly attended him. nor could it well be otherwise, with all those fanciful creations so real, to a nature in itself so practical and earnest; and in this spirit i had well understood the letter accompanying what had been published of _oliver_ since its commencement the preceding february, which reached me the day after i visited him. something to the effect of what has just been said, i had remarked publicly of the portion of the story sent to me; and his instant warm-hearted acknowledgment, of which i permit myself to quote a line or two, showed me in what perfect agreement we were: "how can i thank you? can i do better than by saying that the sense of poor oliver's reality, which i know you have had from the first, has been the highest of all praise to me? none that has been lavished upon me have i felt half so much as that appreciation of my intent and meaning. you know i have ever done so, for it was your feeling for me and mine for you that first brought us together, and i hope will keep us so till death do us part. your notices make me grateful, but very proud: so have a care of them." there was nothing written by him after this date which i did not see before the world did, either in manuscript or proofs; and in connection with the latter i shortly began to give him the help which he publicly mentioned twenty years later in dedicating his collected writings to me. one of his letters reminds me when these corrections began, and they were continued very nearly to the last. they lightened for him a labor of which he had more than enough imposed upon him at this time by others, and they were never anything but an enjoyment to me. "i have," he wrote, "so many sheets of the _miscellany_ to correct before i can begin _oliver_, that i fear i shall not be able to leave home this morning. i therefore send your revise of the _pickwick_ by fred, who is on his way with it to the printers. you will see that my alterations are very slight, but i think for the better." this was the fourteenth number of the _pickwick papers_. fred was his next younger brother, who lived with him at the time. the number following this was the famous one in which the hero finds himself in the fleet; and another of his letters will show what enjoyment the writing of it had given to himself. i had sent to ask him where we were to meet for a proposed ride that day. "here," was his reply. "i am slippered and jacketed, and, like that same starling who is so very seldom quoted, can't get out. i am getting on, thank heaven, like 'a house o' fire,' and think the next _pickwick_ will bang all the others. i shall expect you at one, and we will walk to the stable together. if you know anybody at saint paul's, i wish you'd send round and ask them not to ring the bell so. i can hardly hear my own ideas as they come into my head, and say what they mean." the exulting tone of confidence in what he had thus been writing was indeed well justified. he had as yet done nothing so remarkable, in blending humor with tragedy, as his picture of what the poor side of a debtors' prison was in the days of which we have seen that he had himself had bitter experience; and we have but to recall, as it rises sharply to the memory, what is contained in this portion of a work that was not only among his earliest but his least considered as to plan, to understand what it was that not alone had given him his fame so early, but that in itself held the germ of the future that awaited him. every point was a telling one, and the truthfulness of the whole unerring. the dreadful restlessness of the place, undefined yet unceasing, unsatisfying and terrible, was pictured throughout with de foe's minute reality; while points of character were handled in that greater style which connects with the richest oddities of humor an insight into principles of character universal as nature itself. when he resolved that sam weller should be occupant of the prison with mr. pickwick, he was perhaps thinking of his favorite smollett, and how, when peregrine pickle was inmate of the fleet, hatchway and pipes refused to leave him; but fielding himself might have envied his way of setting about it. nor is any portion of his picture less admirable than this. the comedy gradually deepening into tragedy; the shabby vagabonds who are the growth of debtors' prisons, contrasting with the poor simple creatures who are their sacrifices and victims; mr. mivins and mr. smangle side by side with the cobbler ruined by his legacy, who sleeps under the table to remind himself of his old four-poster; mr. pickwick's first night in the marshal's room, sam weller entertaining stiggins in the snuggery, jingle in decline, and the chancery prisoner dying; in all these scenes there was writing of the first order, a deep feeling of character, that delicate form of humor which has a quaintly pathetic turn in it as well, comedy of the richest and broadest kind, and the easy handling throughout of a master in his art. we place the picture by the side of those of the great writers of this style, of fiction in our language, and it does not fall by the comparison. of what the reception of the book had been up to this time, and of the popularity dickens had won as its author, this also will be the proper place to speak. for its kind, its extent, and the absence of everything unreal or factitious in the causes that contributed to it, it is unexampled in literature. here was a series of sketches, without the pretense to such interest as attends a well-constructed story; put forth in a form apparently ephemeral as its purpose; having none that seemed higher than to exhibit some studies of cockney manners with help from a comic artist; and after four or five parts had appeared, without newspaper notice or puffing, and itself not subserving in the public anything false or unworthy, it sprang into a popularity that each part carried higher and higher, until people at this time talked of nothing else, tradesmen recommended their goods by using its name, and its sale, outstripping at a bound that of all the most famous books of the century, had reached to an almost fabulous number. of part one, the binder prepared four hundred; and of part fifteen, his order was for more than forty thousand. every class, the high equally with the low, was attracted to it. the charm of its gayety and good humor, its inexhaustible fun, its riotous overflow of animal spirits, its brightness and keenness of observation, and, above all, the incomparable ease of its many varieties of enjoyment, fascinated everybody. judges on the bench and boys in the street, gravity and folly, the young and the old, those who were entering life and those who were quitting it, alike found it to be irresistible. "an archdeacon," wrote mr. carlyle afterwards to me, "with his own venerable lips, repeated to me, the other night, a strange profane story: of a solemn clergyman who had been administering ghostly consolation to a sick person; having finished, satisfactorily as he thought, and got out of the room, he heard the sick person ejaculate, 'well, thank god, _pickwick_ will be out in ten days any way!'--this is dreadful." let me add that there was something more in it all than the gratification of mere fun and laughter, more even than the rarer pleasure that underlies the outbreak of all forms of genuine humor. another chord had been struck. over and above the lively painting of manners which at first had been so attractive, there was something that left deeper mark. genial and irrepressible enjoyment, affectionate heartiness of tone, unrestrained exuberance of mirth, these are not more delightful than they are fleeting and perishable qualities; but the attention eagerly excited by the charm of them in _pickwick_ found itself retained by something more permanent. we had all become suddenly conscious, in the very thick of the extravaganza of adventure and fun set before us, that here were real people. it was not somebody talking humorously about them, but they were there themselves. that a number of persons belonging to the middle and lower ranks of life (wardles, winkles, wellers, tupmans, bardells, snubbinses, perkers, bob sawyers, dodsons, and foggs) had been somehow added to his intimate and familiar acquaintance, the ordinary reader knew before half a dozen numbers were out; and it took not many more to make clear to the intelligent reader that a new and original genius in the walk of smollett and fielding had arisen in england. i do not, for reasons to be hereafter stated, think the _pickwick papers_ comparable to the later books; but, apart from the new vein of humor it opened, its wonderful freshness and its unflagging animal spirits, it has two characters that will probably continue to attract to it an unfading popularity. its pre-eminent achievement is of course sam weller,--one of those people that take their place among the supreme successes of fiction, as one that nobody ever saw but everybody recognizes, at once perfectly natural and intensely original. who is there that has ever thought him tedious? who is so familiar with him as not still to be finding something new in him? who is so amazed by his inexhaustible resources, or so amused by his inextinguishable laughter, as to doubt of his being as ordinary and perfect a reality, nevertheless, as anything in the london streets? when indeed the relish has been dulled that makes such humor natural and appreciable, and not his native fun only, his ready and rich illustration, his imperturbable self-possession, but his devotion to his master, his chivalry and his gallantry, are no longer discovered, or believed no longer to exist, in the ranks of life to which he belongs, it will be worse for all of us than for the fame of his creator. nor, when faith is lost in that possible combination of eccentricities and benevolences, shrewdness and simplicity, good sense and folly, all that suggests the ludicrous and nothing that suggests contempt for it, which form the delightful oddity of pickwick, will the mistake committed be one merely of critical misjudgment. but of this there is small fear. sam weller and mr. pickwick are the sancho and the quixote of londoners, and as little likely to pass away as the old city itself. dickens was very fond of riding in these early years, and there was no recreation he so much indulged, or with such profit to himself, in the intervals of his hardest work. i was his companion oftener than i could well afford the time for, the distances being great and nothing else to be done for the day; but when a note would unexpectedly arrive while i knew him to be hunted hard by one of his printers, telling me he had been sticking to work so closely that he must have rest, and, by way of getting it, proposing we should start together that morning at eleven o'clock for "a fifteen-mile ride out, ditto in, and a lunch on the road" with a wind-up of six o'clock dinner in doughty street, i could not resist the good fellowship. his notion of finding rest from mental exertion in as much bodily exertion of equal severity, continued with him to the last; taking in the later years what i always thought the too great strain of as many miles in walking as he now took in the saddle, and too often indulging it at night; for, though he was always passionately fond of walking, he observed as yet a moderation in it, even accepting as sufficient my seven or eight miles' companionship. "what a brilliant morning for a country walk!" he would write, with not another word in his dispatch. or, "is it possible that you can't, oughtn't, shouldn't, mustn't, _won't_ be tempted, this gorgeous day?" or, "i start precisely--precisely, mind--at half-past one. come, come, _come_, and walk in the green lanes. you will work the better for it all the week. come! i shall expect you." or, "you don't feel disposed, do you, to muffle yourself up and start off with me for a good brisk walk over hampstead heath? i knows a good 'ous there where we can have a red-hot chop for dinner, and a glass of good wine:" which led to our first experience of jack straw's castle, memorable for many happy meetings in coming years. but the rides were most popular and frequent. "i think," he would write, "richmond and twickenham, thro' the park, out at knightsbridge, and over barnes common, would make a beautiful ride." or, "do you know, i shouldn't object to an early chop at some village inn?" or, "not knowing whether my head was off or on, it became so addled with work, i have gone riding the old road, and should be truly delighted to meet or be overtaken by you." or, "where shall it be--_oh, where_--hampstead, greenwich, windsor? where?????? while the day is bright, not when it has dwindled away to nothing! for who can be of any use whatsomdever such a day as this, excepting out of doors?" or it might be interrogatory summons to "a hard trot of three hours?" or intimation as laconic "to be heard of at eel-pie house, twickenham!" when first i knew him, i may add, his carriage for his wife's use was a small chaise with a smaller pair of ponies, which, having a habit of making sudden rushes up by-streets in the day and peremptory standstills in ditches by night, were changed in the following year for a more suitable equipage. to this mention of his habits while at work when our friendship began, i have to add what will complete the relation already given, in connection with his _sketches_, of the uneasy sense accompanying his labor that it was yielding insufficient for himself while it enriched others, which is a needful part of his story at this time. at midsummer, , replying to some inquiries, and sending his agreement with mr. bentley for the _miscellany_ under which he was writing _oliver_, he went on: "it is a very extraordinary fact (i forgot it on sunday) that i have never had from him a copy of the agreement respecting the novel, which i never saw before or since i signed it at his house one morning long ago. shall i ask him for a copy or no? i have looked at some memoranda i made at the time, and i _fear_ he has my second novel on the same terms, under the same agreement. this is a bad lookout, but we must try and mend it. you will tell me you are very much surprised at my doing business in this way. so am i, for in most matters of labor and application i am punctuality itself. the truth is (though you do not need i should explain the matter to you, my dear fellow), that if i had allowed myself to be worried by these things, i could never have done as much as i have. but i much fear, in my desire to avoid present vexations, i have laid up a bitter store for the future." the second novel, which he had promised in a complete form for a very early date, and had already selected subject and title for, was published four years later as _barnaby rudge_; but of the third he at present knew nothing but that he was expected to begin it, if not in the magazine, somewhere or other independently within a specified time. the first appeal made, in taking action upon his letter, had reference to the immediate pressure of the _barnaby_ novel; but it also opened up the question of the great change of circumstances since these various agreements had been precipitately signed by him, the very different situation brought about by the extraordinary increase in the popularity of his writings, and the advantage it would be to both mr. bentley and himself to make more equitable adjustment of their relations. some misunderstandings followed, but were closed by a compromise in september, ; by which the third novel was abandoned[ ] on certain conditions, and _barnaby_ was undertaken to be finished by november, . this involved a completion of the new story during the progress of _oliver_, whatever might be required to follow on the close of _pickwick_; and i doubted its wisdom. but it was accepted for the time. he had meanwhile taken his wife abroad for a ten days' summer holiday, accompanied by the shrewd observant young artist, mr. hablot browne, whose admirable illustrations to _pickwick_ had more than supplied mr. seymour's loss; and i had a letter from him on their landing at calais on the d of july: "we have arranged for a post-coach to take us to ghent, brussels, antwerp, and a hundred other places, that i cannot recollect now and couldn't spell if i did. we went this afternoon in a barouche to some gardens where the people dance, and where they were footing it most heartily,--especially the women, who in their short petticoats and light caps look uncommonly agreeable. a gentleman in a blue surtout and silken berlins accompanied us from the hotel, and acted as curator. he even waltzed with a very smart lady (just to show us, condescendingly, how it ought to be done), and waltzed elegantly, too. we rang for slippers after we came back, and it turned out that this gentleman was the boots." his later sea-side holiday was passed at broadstairs, as were those of many subsequent years, and the little watering-place has been made memorable by his pleasant sketch of it. from his letters to myself a few lines may be given of his first doings and impressions there. writing on the d of september, he reports himself just risen from an attack of illness. "i am much better, and hope to begin _pickwick no. _ to-morrow. you will imagine how queer i must have been when i tell you that i have been compelled for four-and-twenty mortal hours to abstain from porter or other malt liquor!!! i have done it though--really. . . . i have discovered that the landlord of the albion has delicious hollands (but what is that to _you_? for you cannot sympathize with my feelings), and that a cobbler who lives opposite to my bedroom window is a roman catholic, and gives an hour and a half to his devotions every morning behind his counter. i have walked upon the sands at low-water from this place to ramsgate, and sat upon the same at high-ditto till i have been flayed with the cold. i have seen ladies and gentlemen walking upon the earth in slippers of buff, and pickling themselves in the sea in complete suits of the same. i have seen stout gentlemen looking at nothing through powerful telescopes for hours, and, when at last they saw a cloud of smoke, fancying a steamer behind it, and going home comfortable and happy. i have found out that our next neighbor has a wife and something else under the same roof with the rest of his furniture,--the wife deaf and blind, and the something else given to drinking. and if you ever get to the end of this letter _you_ will find out that i subscribe myself on paper, as on everything else (some atonement perhaps for its length and absurdity)," etc. etc. in his next letter (from , high street, broadstairs, on the th) there is allusion to one of the many piracies of _pickwick_, which had distinguished itself beyond the rest by a preface abusive of the writer plundered: "i recollect this 'member of the dramatic authors' society' bringing an action once against chapman who rented the city theatre, in which it was proved that he had undertaken to write under special agreement seven melodramas for five pounds, to enable him to do which a room had been hired in a gin-shop close by. the defendant's plea was that the plaintiff was always drunk, and had not fulfilled his contract. well, if the _pickwick_ has been the means of putting a few shillings in the vermin-eaten pockets of so miserable a creature, and has saved him from a workhouse or a jail, let him empty out his little pot of filth and welcome. i am quite content to have been the means of relieving him. besides, he seems to have suffered by agreements!" his own troubles in that way were compromised for the time, as already hinted, at the close of this september month; and at the end of the month following, after finishing _pickwick_ and resuming _oliver_, the latter having been suspended by him during the recent disputes, he made his first visit to brighton. the opening of his letter of friday the d of november is full of regrets that i had been unable to join them there: "it is a beautiful day, and we have been taking advantage of it, but the wind until to-day has been so high and the weather so stormy that kate has been scarcely able to peep out of doors. on wednesday it blew a perfect hurricane, breaking windows, knocking down shutters, carrying people off their legs, blowing the fires out, and causing universal consternation. the air was for some hours darkened with a shower of black hats (second-hand), which are supposed to have been blown off the heads of unwary passengers in remote parts of the town, and have been industriously picked up by the fishermen. charles kean was advertised for _othello_ 'for the benefit of mrs. sefton, having most kindly postponed for this one day his departure for london.' i have not heard whether he got to the theatre, but i am sure nobody else did. they do _the honeymoon_ to-night, on which occasion i mean to patronize the drayma. we have a beautiful bay-windowed sitting-room here, fronting the sea, but i have seen nothing of b.'s brother who was to have shown me the lions, and my notions of the place are consequently somewhat confined: being limited to the pavilion, the chain-pier, and the sea. the last is quite enough for me, and, unless i am joined by some male companion (_do you think i shall be?_), is most probably all i shall make acquaintance with. i am glad you like _oliver_ this month: especially glad that you particularize the first chapter. i hope to do great things with nancy. if i can only work out the idea i have formed of her, and of the female who is to contrast with her, i think i may defy mr. ---- and all his works.[ ] i have had great difficulty in keeping my hands off fagin and the rest of them in the evenings; but, as i came down for rest, i have resisted the temptation, and steadily applied myself to the labor of being idle. did you ever read (of course you have, though) de foe's _history of the devil_? what a capital thing it is! i bought it for a couple of shillings yesterday morning, and have been quite absorbed in it ever since. we must have been jolter-headed geniuses not to have anticipated m.'s reply. my best remembrances to him. i see h. at this moment. i must be present at a rehearsal of that opera. it will be better than any comedy that was ever played. talking of comedies, i still see no thoroughfare staring me in the face, every time i look down that road. i have taken places for tuesday next. we shall be at home at six o'clock, and i shall hope at least to see you that evening. i am afraid you will find this letter extremely dear at eightpence, but if the warmest assurances of friendship and attachment, and anxious lookings-forward to the pleasure of your society, be worth anything, throw them into the balance, together with a hundred good wishes and one hearty assurance that i am," etc. etc. "charles dickens. no room for the flourish--i'll finish it the next time i write to you." the flourish that accompanied his signature is familiar to every one. the allusion to the comedy expresses a fancy he at this time had of being able to contribute some such achievement in aid of macready's gallant efforts at covent garden to bring back to the stage its higher associations of good literature and intellectual enjoyment. it connects curiously now that unrealized hope with the exact title of the only story he ever helped himself to dramatize, and which mr. fechter played at the adelphi three years before his death. footnotes: [ ] her epitaph, written by him, remains upon a gravestone in the cemetery at kensal green: "young, beautiful, and good, god numbered her among his angels at the early age of seventeen." [ ] i have a memorandum in dickens's writing that five hundred pounds was to have been given for it, and an additional two hundred and fifty pounds on its sale reaching three thousand copies; but i feel certain it was surrendered on more favorable terms. [ ] the allusion was to the supposed author of a paper in the _quarterly review_ (oct. ), in the course of which there was much high praise, but where the writer said at the close, "indications are not wanting that the particular vein of humor which has hitherto yielded so much attractive metal is worked out. . . . the fact is, mr. dickens writes too often and too fast. . . . if he persists much longer in this course, it requires no gift of prophecy to foretell his fate:--he has risen like a rocket, and he will come down like the stick." chapter vii. between pickwick and nickleby. - . edits _life of grimaldi_--his own opinion of it--an objection answered--his recollections of --completion of _pickwick_--a purpose long entertained--relations with chapman & hall--payments made for _pickwick_--agreement for _nicholas nickleby_--_oliver twist_ characterized--reasons for acceptance with every class--nightmare of an agreement--letter to mr. bentley--proposal as to _barnaby rudge_--result of it--birth of eldest daughter--_young gentlemen and young couples_--first number of _nicholas nickleby_-- d of april, . not remotely bearing on the stage, nevertheless, was the employment on which i found him busy at his return from brighton; one result of his more satisfactory relations with mr. bentley having led to a promise to edit for him a life of the celebrated clown grimaldi. the manuscript had been prepared from autobiographical notes by a mr. egerton wilks, and contained one or two stories told so badly, and so well worth better telling, that the hope of enlivening their dullness at the cost of very little labor constituted a sort of attraction for him. except the preface, he did not write a line of this biography, such modifications or additions as he made having been dictated by him to his father; whom i found often in the supreme enjoyment of the office of amanuensis. he had also a most indifferent opinion of the mass of material which in general composed it, describing it to me as "twaddle," and his own modest estimate of the book, on its completion, may be guessed from the number of notes of admiration (no less than thirty) which accompanied his written mention to me of the sale with which it started in the first week of its publication: "seventeen hundred _grimaldis_ have been already sold, and the demand increases daily!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" it was not to have all its own way, however. a great many critical faults were found; and one point in particular was urged against his handling such a subject, that he could never himself even have seen grimaldi. to this last objection he was moved to reply, and had prepared a letter for the _miscellany_, "from editor to sub-editor," which it was thought best to suppress, but of which the opening remark may now be not unamusing: "i understand that a gentleman unknown is going about this town privately informing all ladies and gentlemen of discontented natures, that, on a comparison of dates and putting together of many little circumstances which occur to his great sagacity, he has made the profound discovery that i can never have seen grimaldi whose life i have edited, and that the book must therefore of necessity be bad. now, sir, although i was brought up from remote country parts in the dark ages of and to behold the splendor of christmas pantomimes and the humor of joe, in whose honor i am informed i clapped my hands with great precocity, and although i even saw him act in the remote times of , yet as i had not then aspired to the dignity of a tail-coat, though forced by a relentless parent into my first pair of boots, i am willing, with the view of saving this honest gentleman further time and trouble, to concede that i had not arrived at man's estate when grimaldi left the stage, and that my recollections of his acting are, to my loss, but shadowy and imperfect. which confession i now make publickly, and without mental qualification or reserve, to all whom it may concern. but the deduction of this pleasant gentleman that therefore the grimaldi book must be bad, i must take leave to doubt. i don't think that to edit a man's biography from his own notes it is essential you should have known him, and i don't believe that lord braybrooke had more than the very slightest acquaintance with mr. pepys, whose memoirs he edited two centuries after he died." enormous meanwhile, and without objection audible on any side, had been the success of the completed _pickwick_, which we celebrated by a dinner, with himself in the chair and talfourd in the vice-chair, everybody in hearty good humor with every other body; and a copy of which i received from him on the th of december in the most luxurious of hayday's bindings, with a note worth preserving for its closing allusion. the passage referred to in it was a comment, in delicately chosen words, that leigh hunt had made on the inscription at the grave in kensal green:[ ] "chapman & hall have just sent me, with a copy of our deed, three 'extra-super' bound copies of _pickwick_, as per specimen inclosed. the first i forward to you, the second i have presented to our good friend ainsworth, and the third kate has retained for herself. accept your copy with one sincere and most comprehensive expression of my warmest friendship and esteem; and a hearty renewal, if there need be any renewal when there has been no interruption, of all those assurances of affectionate regard which our close friendship and communion for a long time back has every day implied. . . . that beautiful passage you were so kind and considerate as to send me, has given me the only feeling akin to pleasure (sorrowful pleasure it is) that i have yet had, connected with the loss of my dear young friend and companion; for whom my love and attachment will never diminish, and by whose side, if it please god to leave me in possession of sense to signify my wishes, my bones, whenever or wherever i die, will one day be laid. tell leigh hunt when you have an opportunity how much he has affected me, and how deeply i thank him for what he has done. you cannot say it too strongly." the "deed" mentioned was one executed in the previous month to restore to him a third ownership in the book which had thus far enriched all concerned but himself. the original understanding respecting it mr. edward chapman thus describes for me: "there was no agreement about _pickwick_ except a verbal one. each number was to consist of a sheet and a half, for which we were to pay fifteen guineas; and we paid him for the first two numbers at once, as he required the money to go and get married with. we were also to pay more according to the sale, and i think _pickwick_ altogether cost us three thousand pounds." adjustment to the sale would have cost four times as much, and of the actual payments i have myself no note; but, as far as my memory serves, they are overstated by mr. chapman. my impression is that, above and beyond the first sum due for each of the twenty numbers (making no allowance for their extension after the first to thirty-two pages), successive checks were given, as the work went steadily on to the enormous sale it reached, which brought up the entire sum received to two thousand five hundred pounds. i had, however, always pressed so strongly the importance to him of some share in the copyright, that this at last was conceded in the deed above mentioned, though five years were to elapse before the right should accrue; and it was only yielded as part consideration for a further agreement entered into at the same date (the th of november, ), whereby dickens engaged to "write a new work, the title whereof shall be determined by him, of a similar character and of the same extent as the _posthumous papers of the pickwick club_," the first number of which was to be delivered on the th of the following march, and each of the numbers on the same day of each of the successive nineteen months; which was also to be the date of the payment to him, by messrs. chapman & hall, of twenty several sums of one hundred and fifty pounds each for five years' use of the copyright, the entire ownership in which was then to revert to dickens. the name of this new book, as all the world knows, was _the life and adventures of nicholas nickleby_; and between april, , and october, , it was begun and finished accordingly. all through the interval of these arrangements _oliver twist_ had been steadily continued. month by month, for many months, it had run its opening course with the close of _pickwick_, as we shall see it close with the opening of _nickleby_; and the expectations of those who had built most confidently on the young novelist were more than confirmed. here was the interest of a story simply but well constructed; and characters with the same impress of reality upon them, but more carefully and skillfully drawn. nothing could be meaner than the subject, the progress of a parish or workhouse boy, nothing less so than its treatment. as each number appeared, his readers generally became more and more conscious of what already, as we have seen, had revealed itself amid even the riotous fun of _pickwick_, that the purpose was not solely to amuse; and, far more decisively than its predecessor, the new story further showed what were the not least potent elements in the still increasing popularity that was gathering around the writer. his qualities could be appreciated as well as felt in an almost equal degree by all classes of his various readers. thousands were attracted to him because he placed them in the midst of scenes and characters with which they were already themselves acquainted; and thousands were reading him with no less avidity because he introduced them to passages of nature and life of which they before knew nothing, but of the truth of which their own habits and senses sufficed to assure them. only to genius are so revealed the affinities and sympathies of high and low, in regard to the customs and usages of life; and only a writer of the first rank can bear the application of such a test. for it is by the alliance of common habits, quite as much as by the bonds of a common humanity, that we are all of us linked together; and the result of being above the necessity of depending on other people's opinions, and that of being below it, are pretty much the same. it would equally startle both high and low to be conscious of the whole that is implied in this close approximation; but for the common enjoyment of which i speak such consciousness is not required; and for the present fagin may be left undisturbed in his school of practical ethics with only the dodger, charley bates, and his other promising scholars. with such work as this in hand, it will hardly seem surprising that as the time for beginning _nickleby_ came on, and as he thought of his promise for november, he should have the sense of "something hanging over him like a hideous nightmare." he felt that he could not complete the _barnaby rudge_ novel by the november of that year, as promised, and that the engagement he would have to break was unfitting him for engagements he might otherwise fulfill. he had undertaken what, in truth, was impossible. the labor of at once editing the _miscellany_ and supplying it with monthly portions of _oliver_ more than occupied all the time left him by other labors absolutely necessary. "i no sooner get myself up," he wrote, "high and dry, to attack _oliver_ manfully, than up come the waves of each month's work, and drive me back again into a sea of manuscript." there was nothing for it but that he should make further appeal to mr. bentley. "i have recently," he wrote to him on the th of february, , "been thinking a great deal about _barnaby rudge_. _grimaldi_ has occupied so much of the short interval i had between the completion of the _pickwick_ and the commencement of the new work, that i see it will be wholly impossible for me to produce it by the time i had hoped, with justice to myself or profit to you. what i wish you to consider is this: would it not be far more to your interest, as well as within the scope of my ability, if _barnaby rudge_ began in the _miscellany_ immediately on the conclusion of _oliver twist_, and were continued there for the same time, and then published in three volumes? take these simple facts into consideration. if the _miscellany_ is to keep its ground, it _must_ have some continuous tale from me when _oliver_ stops. if i sat down to _barnaby rudge_, writing a little of it when i could (and with all my other engagements it would necessarily be a very long time before i could hope to finish it that way), it would be clearly impossible for me to begin a new series of papers in the _miscellany_. the conduct of three different stories at the same time, and the production of a large portion of each, every month, would have been beyond scott himself. whereas, having _barnaby_ for the _miscellany_, we could at once supply the gap which the cessation of _oliver_ must create, and you would have all the advantage of that prestige in favor of the work which is certain to enhance the value of _oliver twist_ considerably. just think of this at your leisure. i am really anxious to do the best i can for you as well as for myself, and in this case the pecuniary advantage must be all on your side." this letter nevertheless, which had also requested an overdue account of the sales of the _miscellany_, led to differences which were only adjusted after six months' wrangling; and i was party to the understanding then arrived at, by which, among other things, _barnaby_ was placed upon the footing desired, and was to begin when _oliver_ closed. of the progress of his _oliver_, and his habits of writing at the time, it may perhaps be worth giving some additional glimpses from his letters of . "i was thinking about _oliver_ till dinner-time yesterday," he wrote on the th of march,[ ] "and, just as i had fallen upon him tooth and nail, was called away to sit with kate. i did eight slips, however, and hope to make them fifteen this morning." three days before, a little daughter had been born to him, who became a little god-daughter to me; on which occasion (having closed his announcement with a postscript of "i can do nothing this morning. what time will you ride? the sooner the better, for a good long spell"), we rode out fifteen miles on the great north road, and, after dining at the red lion in barnet on our way home, distinguished the already memorable day by bringing in both hacks dead lame. on that day week, monday, the th, after describing himself "sitting patiently at home waiting for _oliver twist_ who has not yet arrived," which was his pleasant form of saying that his fancy had fallen into sluggishness that morning, he made addition not less pleasant as to some piece of painful news i had sent him, now forgotten: "i have not yet seen the paper, and you throw me into a fever. the comfort is, that all the strange and terrible things come uppermost, and that the good and pleasant things are mixed up with every moment of our existence so plentifully that we scarcely heed them." at the close of the month mrs. dickens was well enough to accompany him to richmond, for now the time was come to start _nickleby_; and, having been away from town when _pickwick's_ first number came out, he made it a superstition to be absent at all future similar times. the magazine-day of that april month, i remember, fell upon a saturday, and the previous evening had brought me a peremptory summons: "meet me at the shakspeare on saturday night at eight; order your horse at midnight, and ride back with me." which was done accordingly. the smallest hour was sounding from st. paul's into the night before we started, and the night was none of the pleasantest; but we carried news that lightened every part of the road, for the sale of _nickleby_ had reached that day the astonishing number of nearly fifty thousand! i left him working with unusual cheerfulness at _oliver twist_ when i left the star and garter on the next day but one, after celebrating with both friends on the previous evening an anniversary[ ] which concerned us all (their second and my twenty-sixth), and which we kept always in future at the same place, except when they were living out of england, for twenty successive years. it was a part of his love of regularity and order, as well as of his kindliness of nature, to place such friendly meetings as these under rules of habit and continuance. footnotes: [ ] see _ante_, p. . [ ] there is an earlier allusion i may quote, from a letter in january, for its mention of a small piece written by him at this time, but not included in his acknowledged writings: "i am as badly off as you. i have not done the _young gentlemen_, nor written the preface to _grimaldi_, nor thought of _oliver twist_, or even supplied a subject for the plate." the _young gentlemen_ was a small book of sketches which he wrote anonymously as the companion to a similar half-crown volume of _young ladies_ (not written by him), for messrs. chapman & hall. he added subsequently a like volume of _young couples_, also without his name. [ ] see _ante_, p. . chapter viii. oliver twist. . interest in characters at close of _oliver_--writing of the last chapter--cruikshank illustrations--etchings for last volume--how executed--slander respecting them exposed--falsehood ascribed to the artist--reputation of the new tale--its workmanship--social evils passed away--living only in what destroyed them--chief design of the story--its principal figures--comedy and tragedy of crime--reply to attacks--le sage, gay, and fielding--likeness to them--again the shadow of _barnaby_--appeal to mr. bentley for delay--a very old story--"sic vos non vobis"--_barnaby_ given up by mr. bentley--resignation of _miscellany_--parent parting from child. the whole of his time not occupied by _nickleby_ was now given to _oliver_, and as the story shaped itself to its close it took extraordinary hold of him. i never knew him work so frequently after dinner, or to such late hours (a practice he afterwards abhorred), as during the final months of this task; which it was now his hope to complete before october, though its close in the magazine would not be due until the following march. "i worked pretty well last night," he writes, referring to it in may, "very well indeed; but, although i did eleven close slips before half-past twelve, i have four to write to complete the chapter; and, as i foolishly left them till this morning, have the steam to get up afresh." a month later he writes, "i got to the sixteenth slip last night, and shall try hard to get to the thirtieth before i go to bed."[ ] then, on a "tuesday night," at the opening of august, he wrote, "hard at work still. nancy is no more. i showed what i have done to kate last night, who was in an unspeakable '_state_:' from which and my own impression i augur well. when i have sent sikes to the devil, i must have yours." "no, no," he wrote, in the following month: "don't, don't let us ride till to-morrow, not having yet disposed of the jew, who is such an out-and-outer that i don't know what to make of him." no small difficulty to an inventor, where the creatures of his invention are found to be as real as himself; but this also was mastered; and then there remained but the closing quiet chapter to tell the fortunes of those who had figured in the tale. to this he summoned me in the first week of september, replying to a request of mine that he'd give me a call that day: "come and give _me_ a call, and let us have 'a bit o' talk' before we have a bit o' som'at else. my missis is going out to dinner, and i ought to go, but i have got a bad cold. so do you come, and sit here, and read, or work, or do something, while i write the last chapter of _oliver_, which will be arter a lamb chop." how well i remember that evening! and our talk of what should be the fate of charley bates, on behalf of whom (as indeed for the dodger too) talfourd had pleaded as earnestly in mitigation of judgment as ever at the bar for any client he had most respected. the publication had been announced for october, but the third-volume illustrations intercepted it a little. this part of the story, as we have seen, had been written in anticipation of the magazine, and the designs for it, having to be executed "in a lump," were necessarily done somewhat hastily. the matter supplied in advance of the monthly portions in the magazine formed the bulk of the last volume as published in the book; and for this the plates had to be prepared by cruikshank also in advance of the magazine, to furnish them in time for the separate publication: sikes and his dog, fagin in the cell, and rose maylie and oliver, being the three last. none of these dickens had seen until he saw them in the book on the eve of its publication; when he so strongly objected to one of them that it had to be canceled. "i returned suddenly to town yesterday afternoon," he wrote to the artist at the end of october, "to look at the latter pages of _oliver twist_ before it was delivered to the booksellers, when i saw the majority of the plates in the last volume for the first time. with reference to the last one,--rose maylie and oliver,--without entering into the question of great haste, or any other cause, which may have led to its being what it is, i am quite sure there can be little difference of opinion between us with respect to the result. may i ask you whether you will object to designing this plate afresh, and doing so _at once_, in order that as few impressions as possible of the present one may go forth? i feel confident you know me too well to feel hurt by this inquiry, and with equal confidence in you i have lost no time in preferring it." this letter, printed from a copy in dickens's handwriting fortunately committed to my keeping, entirely disposes of a wonderful story[ ] originally promulgated in america with a minute particularity of detail that might have raised the reputation of sir benjamin backbite himself. whether all sir benjamin's laurels, however, should fall to the person by whom the tale is told,[ ] or whether any part belongs to the authority alleged for it, is unfortunately not quite clear. there would hardly have been a doubt, if the fable had been confined to the other side of the atlantic; but it has been reproduced and widely circulated on this side also; and the distinguished artist whom it calumniates by attributing the invention to him has been left undefended from its slander. dickens's letter spares me the necessity of characterizing, by the only word which would have been applicable to it, a tale of such incredible and monstrous absurdity as that one of the masterpieces of its author's genius had been merely an illustration of etchings by mr. cruikshank! the completed _oliver twist_ found a circle of admirers, not so wide in its range as those of others of his books, but of a character and mark that made their honest liking for it, and steady advocacy of it, important to his fame; and the book has held its ground in the first class of his writings. it deserves that place. the admitted exaggerations in _pickwick_ are incident to its club's extravaganza of adventure, of which they are part, and are easily separable from the reality of its wit and humor, and its incomparable freshness; but no such allowances were needed here. make what deduction the too scrupulous reader of _oliver_ might please for "lowness" in the subject, the precision and the unexaggerated force of the delineation were not to be disputed. the art of copying from nature as it really exists in the common walks had not been carried by any one to greater perfection, or to better results in the way of combination. such was his handling of the piece of solid, existing, every-day life, which he made here the groundwork of his wit and tenderness, that the book which did much to help out of the world the social evils it portrayed will probably preserve longest the picture of them as they then were. thus far, indeed, he had written nothing to which in a greater or less degree this felicity did not belong. at the time of which i am speaking, the debtors' prisons described in _pickwick_, the parochial management denounced in _oliver_, and the yorkshire schools exposed in _nickleby_, were all actual existences,--which now have no vivider existence than in the forms he thus gave to them. with wiser purposes, he superseded the old petrifying process of the magician in the arabian tale, and struck the prisons and parish abuses of his country, and its schools of neglect and crime, into palpable life forever. a portion of the truth of the past, of the character and very history of the moral abuses of his time, will thus remain always in his writings; and it will be remembered that with only the light arms of humor and laughter, and the gentle ones of pathos and sadness, he carried cleansing and reform into those augean stables. not that such intentions are in any degree ever intruded by this least didactic of writers. it is the fact that teaches, and not any sermonizing drawn from it. _oliver twist_ is the history of a child born in a workhouse and brought up by parish overseers, and there is nothing introduced that is out of keeping with the design. it is a series of pictures from the tragi-comedy of lower life, worked out by perfectly natural agencies, from the dying mother and the starved wretches of the first volume, through the scenes and gradations of crime, careless or deliberate, which have a frightful consummation in the last volume, but are never without the reliefs and self-assertions of humanity even in scenes and among characters so debased. it is indeed the primary purpose of the tale to show its little hero, jostled as he is in the miserable crowd, preserved everywhere from the vice of its pollution by an exquisite delicacy of natural sentiment which clings to him under every disadvantage. there is not a more masterly touch in fiction, and it is by such that this delightful fancy is consistently worked out to the last, than oliver's agony of childish grief on being brought away from the branch-workhouse, the wretched home associated only with suffering and starvation, and with no kind word or look, but containing still his little companions in misery. of the figures the book has made familiar to every one it is not my purpose to speak. to name one or two will be enough. bumble and his wife; charley bates and the artful dodger; the cowardly charity-boy, noah claypole, whose _such agony, please, sir_, puts the whole of a school-life into one phrase; the so-called merry old jew, supple and black-hearted fagin; and bill sikes, the bolder-faced bulky-legged ruffian, with his white hat and white shaggy dog,--who does not know them all, even to the least points of dress, look, and walk, and all the small peculiarities that express great points of character? i have omitted poor wretched nancy; yet it is to be said of her, with such honest truthfulness her strength and weakness are shown, in the virtue that lies neighbored in her nature so closely by vice, that the people meant to be entirely virtuous show poorly beside her. but, though rose and her lover are trivial enough beside bill and his mistress, being indeed the weak part of the story, it is the book's pre-eminent merit that vice is nowhere made attractive in it. crime is not more intensely odious, all through, than it is also most wretched and most unhappy. not merely when its exposure comes, when the latent recesses of guilt are laid bare, and all the agonies of remorse are witnessed; not in the great scenes only, but in those lighter passages where no such aim might seem to have guided the apparently careless hand, this is emphatically so. whether it be the comedy or the tragedy of crime, terror and retribution dog closely at its heels. they are as plainly visible when fagin is first shown in his den, boiling the coffee in the saucepan and stopping every now and then to listen when there is the least noise below,--the villainous confidence of habit never extinguishing in him the anxious watchings and listenings of crime,--as when we see him at the last in the condemned cell, like a poisoned human rat in a hole. a word may be added upon the attacks directed against the subject of the book, to which dickens made reply in one of his later editions, declaring his belief that he had tried to do a service to society, and had certainly done no disservice, in depicting a knot of such associates in crime in all their deformity and squalid wretchedness, skulking uneasily through a miserable life to a painful and shameful death. it is, indeed, never the subject that can be objectionable, if the treatment is not so, as we may see by much popular writing since, where subjects unimpeachably high are brought low by degrading sensualism. when the object of a writer is to exhibit the vulgarity of vice, and not its pretensions to heroism or cravings for sympathy, he may measure his subject with the highest. we meet with a succession of swindlers and thieves in _gil blas_; we shake hands with highwaymen and housebreakers all round in the _beggars' opera_; we pack cards with la ruse or pick pockets with jonathan in fielding's _mr. wild the great_; we follow cruelty and vice from its least beginning to its grossest ends in the prints of hogarth; but our morals stand none the looser for any of them. as the spirit of the frenchman was pure enjoyment, the strength of the englishmen lay in wisdom and satire. the low was set forth to pull down the false pretensions of the high. and though for the most part they differ in manner and design from dickens in this tale, desiring less to discover the soul of goodness in things evil than to brand the stamp of evil on things apt to pass for good, their objects and results are substantially the same. familiar with the lowest kind of abasement of life, the knowledge is used, by both him and them, to teach what constitutes its essential elevation; and by the very coarseness and vulgarity of the materials employed we measure the gentlemanliness and beauty of the work that is done. the quack in morality will always call such writing immoral, and the impostors will continue to complain of its treatment of imposture, but for the rest of the world it will still teach the invaluable lesson of what men ought to be from what they are. we cannot learn it more than enough. we cannot too often be told that as the pride and grandeur of mere external circumstance is the falsest of earthly things, so the truth of virtue in the heart is the most lovely and lasting; and from the pages of _oliver twist_ this teaching is once again to be taken by all who will look for it there. and now, while _oliver_ was running a great career of popularity and success, the shadow of the tale of _barnaby rudge_, which he was to write on similar terms, and to begin in the _miscellany_ when the other should have ended, began to darken everything around him. we had much discussion respecting it, and i had no small difficulty in restraining him from throwing up the agreement altogether; but the real hardship of his position, and the considerate construction to be placed on every effort made by him to escape from obligations incurred in ignorance of the sacrifices implied by them, will be best understood from his own frank and honest statement. on the st of january, , inclosing me the copy of a letter which he proposed to send to mr. bentley the following morning, he thus wrote: "from what i have already said to you, you will have been led to expect that i entertained some such intention. i know you will not endeavor to dissuade me from sending it. go it must. it is no fiction to say that at present i _cannot_ write this tale. the immense profits which _oliver_ has realized to its publisher and is still realizing; the paltry, wretched, miserable sum it brought to me (not equal to what is every day paid for a novel that sells fifteen hundred copies at most); the recollection of this, and the consciousness that i have still the slavery and drudgery of another work on the same journeyman-terms; the consciousness that my books are enriching everybody connected with them but myself, and that i, with such a popularity as i have acquired, am struggling in old toils, and wasting my energies in the very height and freshness of my fame, and the best part of my life, to fill the pockets of others, while for those who are nearest and dearest to me i can realize little more than a genteel subsistence: all this puts me out of heart and spirits. and i cannot--cannot and will not--under such circumstances that keep me down with an iron hand, distress myself by beginning this tale until i have had time to breathe, and until the intervention of the summer, and some cheerful days in the country, shall have restored me to a more genial and composed state of feeling. there--for six months _barnaby rudge_ stands over. and but for you, it should stand over altogether. for i do most solemnly declare that morally, before god and man, i hold myself released from such hard bargains as these, after i have done so much for those who drove them. this net that has been wound about me so chafes me, so exasperates and irritates my mind, that to break it at whatever cost--_that_ i should care nothing for--is my constant impulse. but i have not yielded to it. i merely declare that i must have a postponement very common in all literary agreements; and for the time i have mentioned--six months from the conclusion of _oliver_ in the _miscellany_--i wash my hands of any fresh accumulation of labor, and resolve to proceed as cheerfully as i can with that which already presses upon me."[ ] to describe what followed upon this is not necessary. it will suffice to state the results. upon the appearance in the _miscellany_, in the early months of , of the last portion of _oliver twist_, its author, having been relieved altogether from his engagement to the magazine, handed over, in a familiar epistle from a parent to his child, the editorship to mr. ainsworth; and the still subsisting agreement to write _barnaby rudge_ was, upon the overture of mr. bentley himself in june of the following year, , also put an end to, on payment by dickens, for the copyright of _oliver twist_ and such printed stock as remained of the edition then on hand, of two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds. what was further incident to this transaction will be told hereafter; and a few words may meanwhile be taken, not without significance in regard to it, from the parent's familiar epistle. it describes the child as aged two years and two months (so long had he watched over it); gives sundry pieces of advice concerning its circulation, and the importance thereto of light and pleasant articles of food; and concludes, after some general moralizing on the shiftings and changes of this world having taken so wonderful a turn that mail-coach guards were become no longer judges of horse-flesh, "i reap no gain or profit by parting from you, nor will any conveyance of your property be required, for in this respect you have always been literally bentley's miscellany and never mine." footnotes: [ ] here is another of the same month: "all day i have been at work on _oliver_, and hope to finish the chapter by bedtime. i wish you'd let me know what sir francis burdett has been saying about him at some birmingham meeting. b. has just sent me the _courier_ containing some reference to his speech; but the speech i haven't seen." [ ] reproduced as below, in large type, and without a word of contradiction or even doubt, in a biography of mr. dickens put forth by mr. hotten: "dr. shelton mckenzie, in the american _round table_, relates this anecdote of _oliver twist_: in london i was intimate with the brothers cruikshank, robert and george, but more particularly with the latter. having called upon him one day at his house (it was then in myddelton terrace, pentonville), i had to wait while he was finishing an etching, for which a printer's boy was waiting. to while away the time, i gladly complied with his suggestion that i should look over a portfolio crowded with etchings, proofs, and drawings, which lay upon the sofa. among these, carelessly tied together in a wrap of brown paper, was a series of some twenty-five or thirty drawings, very carefully finished, through most of which were carried the well-known portraits of fagin, bill sikes and his dog, nancy, the artful dodger, and master charles bates--all well known to the readers of _oliver twist_. there was no mistake about it; and when cruikshank turned round, his work finished, i said as much. he told me that it had long been in his mind to show the life of a london thief by a series of drawings engraved by himself, in which, without a single line of letter-press, the story would be strikingly and clearly told. 'dickens,' he continued, 'dropped in here one day, just as you have done, and, while waiting until i could speak with him, took up that identical portfolio, and ferreted out that bundle of drawings. when he came to that one which represents fagin in the condemned cell, he studied it for half an hour, and told me that he was tempted to change the whole plot of his story; not to carry oliver twist through adventures in the country, but to take him up into the thieves' den in london, show what their life was, and bring oliver through it without sin or shame. i consented to let him write up to as many of the designs as he thought would suit his purpose; and that was the way in which fagin, sikes, and nancy were created. my drawings suggested them, rather than his strong individuality suggested my drawings.'" [ ] this question has been partly solved, since my last edition, by mr. cruikshank's announcement in the _times_, that, though dr. mackenzie had "confused some circumstances with respect to mr. dickens looking over some drawings and sketches," the substance of his information as to who it was that originated _oliver twist_, and all its characters, had been derived from mr. cruikshank himself. the worst part of the foregoing fable, therefore, has not dr. mackenzie for its author; and mr. cruikshank is to be congratulated on the prudence of his rigid silence respecting it as long as mr. dickens lived. [ ] upon receiving this letter i gently reminded him that i had made objection at the time to the arrangement on the failure of which he empowered me to bring about the settlement it was now proposed to supersede. i cannot give his reply, as it would be unbecoming to repeat the warmth of its expression to myself, but i preserve its first few lines to guard against any possible future misstatement: "if you suppose that anything in my letter could by the utmost latitude of construction imply the smallest dissatisfaction on my part, for god's sake dismiss such a thought from your mind. i have never had a momentary approach to doubt or discontent where you have been mediating for me. . . . i could say more, but you would think me foolish and rhapsodical; and such feeling as i have for you is better kept within one's own breast than vented in imperfect and inexpressive words." chapter ix. nicholas nickleby. - . doubts of success dispelled--realities of english life--characters self-revealed--miss bates and mrs. nickleby--smike and dotheboys--a favorite type of humanity--sydney smith and newman noggs--kindliness and breadth of humor--goldsmith and smollett--early and later books--biographical not critical--characteristics--materials for the book--birthday letter--a difficulty at starting--never in advance with _nickleby_--always with later books--enjoying a play--at the adelphi--writing mrs. nickleby's love-scene--sydney smith vanquished--winding up the story--parting from creatures of his fancy--the nickleby dinner--persons present--the maclise portrait. i well recollect the doubt there was, mixed with the eager expectation which the announcement of his second serial story had awakened, whether the event would justify all that interest, and if indeed it were possible that the young writer could continue to walk steadily under the burden of the popularity laid upon him. the first number dispersed this cloud of a question in a burst of sunshine; and as much of the gayety of nations as had been eclipsed by old mr. pickwick's voluntary exile to dulwich was restored by the cheerful confidence with which young mr. nicholas nickleby stepped into his shoes. everything that had given charm to the first book was here, with more attention to the important requisite of a story, and more wealth as well as truth of character. how this was poured forth in each successive number, it hardly needs that i should tell. to recall it now, is to talk of what since has so interwoven itself with common speech and thought as to have become almost part of the daily life of us all. it was well said of him, soon after his death, in mentioning how largely his compositions had furnished one of the chief sources of intellectual enjoyment to this generation, that his language had become part of the language of every class and rank of his countrymen, and his characters were a portion of our contemporaries. "it seems scarcely possible," continued this otherwise not too indulgent commentator, "to believe that there never were any such persons as mr. pickwick and mrs. nickleby and mrs. gamp. they are to us not only types of english life, but types actually existing. they at once revealed the existence of such people, and made them thoroughly comprehensible. they were not studies of persons, but persons. and yet they were idealized in the sense that the reader did not think that they were drawn from the life. they were alive; they were themselves." the writer might have added that this is proper to all true masters of fiction who work in the higher regions of their calling. nothing certainly could express better what the new book was at this time making manifest to its thousands of readers; not simply an astonishing variety in the creations of character, but what it was that made these creations so real; not merely the writer's wealth of genius, but the secret and form of his art. there never was any one who had less need to talk about his characters, because never were characters so surely revealed by themselves; and it was thus their reality made itself felt at once. they talked so well that everybody took to repeating what they said, as the writer just quoted has pointed out; and the sayings being the constituent elements of the characters, these also of themselves became part of the public. this, which must always be a novelist's highest achievement, was the art carried to exquisite perfection on a more limited stage by miss austen; and, under widely different conditions both of art and work, it was pre-eminently that of dickens. i told him, on reading the first dialogue of mrs. nickleby and miss knag, that he had been lately reading miss bates in _emma_, but i found that he had not at this time made the acquaintance of that fine writer. who that recollects the numbers of _nickleby_ as they appeared can have forgotten how each number added to the general enjoyment? all that had given _pickwick_ its vast popularity, the overflowing mirth, hearty exuberance of humor, and genial kindliness of satire, had here the advantage of a better-laid design, more connected incidents, and greater precision of character. everybody seemed immediately to know the nickleby family as well as his own. dotheboys, with all that rendered it, like a piece by hogarth, both ludicrous and terrible, became a household word. successive groups of mantalinis, kenwigses, crummleses, introduced each its little world of reality, lighted up everywhere with truth and life, with capital observation, the quaintest drollery, and quite boundless mirth and fun. the brothers cheeryble brought with them all the charities. with smike came the first of those pathetic pictures that filled the world with pity for what cruelty, ignorance, or neglect may inflict upon the young. and newman noggs ushered in that class of the creatures of his fancy in which he took himself perhaps the most delight, and which the oftener he dealt with the more he seemed to know how to vary and render attractive: gentlemen by nature, however shocking bad their hats or ungenteel their dialects; philosophers of modest endurance, and needy but most respectable coats; a sort of humble angels of sympathy and self-denial, though without a particle of splendor or even good looks about them, except what an eye as fine as their own feelings might discern. "my friends," wrote sydney smith, describing to dickens the anxiety of some ladies of his acquaintance to meet him at dinner, "have not the smallest objection to be put into a number, but on the contrary would be proud of the distinction; and lady charlotte, in particular, you may marry to newman noggs." lady charlotte was not a more real person to sydney than newman noggs; and all the world that dickens attracted to his books could draw from them the same advantage as the man of wit and genius. it has been lately objected that humanity is not seen in them in its highest or noblest types, and the assertion may hereafter be worth considering; but what is very certain is, that they have inculcated humanity in familiar and engaging forms to thousands and tens of thousands of their readers, who can hardly have failed each to make his little world around him somewhat the better for their teaching. from first to last they were never for a moment alien to either the sympathies or the understandings of any class; and there were crowds of people at this time that could not have told you what imagination meant, who were adding month by month to their limited stores the boundless gains of imagination. one other kindliest product of humor in _nickleby_, not to be passed over in even thus briefly recalling a few first impressions of it, was the good little miniature-painter miss la creevy, living by herself, overflowing with affections she has nobody to bestow on, but always cheerful by dint of industry and good-heartedness. when she is disappointed in the character of a woman she has been to see, she eases her mind by saying a very cutting thing at her expense _in a soliloquy_: and thereby illustrates one of the advantages of having lived alone so long, that she made always a confidante of herself; was as sarcastic as she could be, by herself, on people who offended her; pleased herself, and did no harm. here was one of those touches, made afterwards familiar to the readers of dickens by innumerable similar fancies, which added affection to their admiration for the writer, and enabled them to anticipate the feeling with which posterity would regard him as indeed the worthy companion of the goldsmiths and fieldings. there was a piece of writing, too, within not many pages of it, of which leigh hunt exclaimed on reading it that it surpassed the best things of the kind in smollett that he was able to call to mind. this was the letter of miss squeers to ralph nickleby, giving him her version of the chastisement inflicted by nicholas on the schoolmaster: "my pa requests me to write to you, the doctors considering it doubtful whether he will ever recuvver the use of his legs which prevents his holding a pen. we are in a state of mind beyond everything, and my pa is one mask of brooses both blue and green likewise two forms are steepled in his goar. . . . me and my brother were then the victims of his feury since which we have suffered very much which leads us to the arrowing belief that we have received some injury in our insides, especially as no marks of violence are visible externally. i am screaming out loud all the time i write and so is my brother which takes off my attention rather and i hope will excuse mistakes". . . . thus rapidly may be indicated some elements that contributed to the sudden and astonishingly wide popularity of these books. i purposely reserve from my present notices of them, which are biographical rather than critical, any statement of the reasons for which i think them inferior in imagination and fancy to some of the later works; but there was continued and steady growth in them on the side of humor, observation, and character, while freshness and raciness of style continued to be an important help. there are faults of occasional exaggeration in the writing, but none that do not spring from animal spirits and good humor, or a pardonable excess, here and there, on the side of earnestness; and it has the rare virtue, whether gay or grave, of being always thoroughly intelligible and for the most part thoroughly natural, of suiting itself without effort to every change of mood, as quick, warm, and comprehensive as the sympathies it is taxed to express. the tone also is excellent. we are never repelled by egotism or conceit, and misplaced ridicule never disgusts us. when good is going on, we are sure to see all the beauty of it; and when there is evil, we are in no danger of mistaking it for good. no one can paint more picturesquely by an apposite epithet, or illustrate more happily by a choice allusion. whatever he knows or feels, too, is always at his fingers' ends, and is present through whatever he is doing. what rebecca says to ivanhoe of the black knight's mode of fighting would not be wholly inapplicable to dickens's manner of writing: "there is more than mere strength, there seems as if the whole soul and spirit of the champion were given to every blow he deals." this, when a man deals his blows with a pen, is the sort of handling that freshens with new life the oldest facts, and breathes into thoughts the most familiar an emotion not felt before. there seemed to be not much to add to our knowledge of london until his books came upon us, but each in this respect outstripped the other in its marvels. in _nickleby_ the old city reappears under every aspect; and whether warmth and light are playing over what is good and cheerful in it, or the veil is uplifted from its darker scenes, it is at all times our privilege to see and feel it as it absolutely is. its interior hidden life becomes familiar as its commonest outward forms, and we discover that we hardly knew anything of the places we supposed that we knew the best. of such notices as his letters give of his progress with _nickleby_, which occupied him from february, , to october, , something may now be said. soon after the agreement for it was signed, before the christmas of was over, he went down into yorkshire with mr. hablot browne to look up the cheap schools in that county to which public attention had been painfully drawn by a law-case in the previous year; which had before been notorious for cruelties committed in them, whereof he had heard as early as in his childish days;[ ] and which he was bent upon destroying if he could. i soon heard the result of his journey; and the substance of that letter, returned to him for the purpose, is in his preface to the story written for the collected edition. he came back confirmed in his design, and in february set to work upon his first chapter. on his birthday he wrote to me, "i _have_ begun! i wrote four slips last night, so you see the beginning is made. and what is more, i can go on: so i hope the book is in training at last." "the first chapter of _nicholas_ is done," he wrote two days later. "it took time, but i think answers the purpose as well as it could." then, after a dozen days more, "i wrote twenty slips of _nicholas_ yesterday, left only four to do this morning (up at o'clock too!), and have ordered my horse at one." i joined him as he expected, and we read together at dinner that day the first number of _nicholas nickleby_. in the following number there was a difficulty which it was marvelous should not oftener have occurred to him in this form of publication. "i could not write a line till three o'clock," he says, describing the close of that number, "and have yet five slips to finish, and don't know what to put in them, for i have reached the point i meant to leave off with." he found easy remedy for such a miscalculation at his outset, and it was nearly his last as well as first misadventure of the kind: his difficulty in _pickwick_, as he once told me, having always been, not the running short, but the running over: not the whip, but the drag, that was wanted. sufflaminandus erat, as ben jonson said of shakspeare. and in future works, with such marvelous nicety could he do always what he had planned, strictly within the space available, that only another similar instance is remembered by me. the third number introduced the school; and "i remain dissatisfied until you have seen and read number three," was his way of announcing to me his own satisfaction with that first handling of dotheboys hall. nor had it the least part in my admiration of his powers at this time that he never wrote without the printer at his heels; that, always in his later works two or three numbers in advance, he was never a single number in advance with this story; that the more urgent the call upon him the more readily he rose to it; and that his astonishing animal spirits never failed him. as late in the november month of as the th, he thus wrote to me: "i have just begun my second chapter; cannot go out to-night; must get on; think there _will_ be a _nickleby_ at the end of this month now (i doubted it before); and want to make a start towards it if i possibly can." that was on tuesday; and on friday morning in the same week, explaining to me the failure of something that had been promised the previous day, he tells me, "i was writing incessantly until it was time to dress; and have not yet got the subject of my last chapter, which _must be_ finished to-night." but this was not all. between that tuesday and friday an indecent assault had been committed on his book by a theatrical adapter named stirling, who seized upon it without leave while yet only a third of it was written; hacked, cut, and garbled its dialogue to the shape of one or two farcical actors; invented for it a plot and an ending of his own, and produced it at the adelphi; where the outraged author, hard pressed as he was with an unfinished number, had seen it in the interval between the two letters i have quoted. he would not have run such a risk in later years, but he threw off lightly at present even such offenses to his art; and though i was with him at a representation of his _oliver twist_ the following month at the surrey theatre, when in the middle of the first scene he laid himself down upon the floor in a corner of the box and never rose from it until the drop-scene fell, he had been able to sit through _nickleby_ and to see a kind of merit in some of the actors. mr. yates had a sufficiently humorous meaning in his wildest extravagance, and mr. o. smith could put into his queer angular oddities enough of a hard dry pathos, to conjure up shadows at least of mantalini and newman noggs; of ralph nickleby there was indeed nothing visible save a wig, a spencer, and a pair of boots; but there was a quaint actor named wilkinson who proved equal to the drollery though not to the fierce brutality of squeers; and even dickens, in the letter that amazed me by telling me of his visit to the theatre, was able to praise "the skillful management and dressing of the boys, the capital manner and speech of fanny squeers, the dramatic representation of her card-party in squeers's parlor, the careful making-up of all the people, and the exceedingly good tableaux formed from browne's sketches. . . . mrs. keeley's first appearance beside the fire (see wollum), and all the rest of smike, was excellent; bating sundry choice sentiments and rubbish regarding the little robins in the fields which have been put in the boy's mouth by mr. stirling the adapter." his toleration could hardly be extended to the robins, and their author he very properly punished by introducing and denouncing him at mr. crummles's farewell supper. the story was well in hand at the next letter to be quoted, for i limit myself to those only with allusions that are characteristic or illustrative. "i must be alone in my glory to-day," he wrote, "and see what i can do. i perpetrated a great amount of work yesterday, and have every day indeed since monday, but i must buckle-to again and endeavor to get the steam up. if this were to go on long, i should 'bust' the boiler. i think mrs. nickleby's love-scene will come out rather unique." the steam doubtless rose dangerously high when such happy inspiration came. it was but a few numbers earlier than this, while that eccentric lady was imparting her confidences to miss knag, that sydney smith confessed himself vanquished by a humor against which his own had long striven to hold out. "_nickleby_ is _very good_," he wrote to sir george phillips after the sixth number. "i stood out against mr. dickens as long as i could, but he has conquered me."[ ] the close of the story was written at broadstairs, from which (he had taken a house "two doors from the albion hotel, where we had that merry night two years ago") he wrote to me on the th september, , "i am hard at it, but these windings-up wind slowly, and i shall think i have done great things if i have entirely finished by the th. chapman & hall came down yesterday with browne's sketches, and dined here. they imparted their intentions as to a nicklebeian fête which will make you laugh heartily--so i reserve them till you come. it has been blowing great guns for the last three days, and last night (i wish you could have seen it!) there was such a sea! i staggered down to the pier, and, creeping under the lee of a large boat which was high and dry, watched it breaking for nearly an hour. of course i came back wet through." on the afternoon of wednesday, the th, he wrote again: "i shall not finish entirely before friday, sending hicks the last twenty pages of manuscript by the night-coach. i have had pretty stiff work, as you may suppose, and i have taken great pains. the discovery is made, ralph is dead, the loves have come all right, tim linkinwater has proposed, and i have now only to break up dotheboys and the book together. i am very anxious that you should see this conclusion before it leaves my hands, and i plainly see therefore that i must come to town myself on saturday if i would not endanger the appearance of the number. so i have written to hicks to send proofs to your chambers as soon as he can that evening; and, if you don't object, i will dine with you any time after five, and we will devote the night to a careful reading. i have not written to macready, for they have not yet sent me the title-page of dedication, which is merely 'to w. c. macready, esq., the following pages are inscribed, as a slight token of admiration and regard, by his friend the author.' meanwhile will you let him know that i have fixed the nickleby dinner for saturday, the th of october? place, the albion in aldersgate street. time, six for half-past exactly. . . . i shall be more glad than i can tell you to see you again, and i look forward to saturday, and the evenings that are to follow it, with most joyful anticipation. i have had a good notion for _barnaby_, of which more anon." the shadow from the old quarter, we see, the unwritten _barnaby_ tale, intrudes itself still; though hardly, as of old, making other pleasanter anticipations less joyful. such, indeed, at this time was his buoyancy of spirit that it cost him little, compared with the suffering it gave him at all subsequent similar times, to separate from the people who for twenty months had been a part of himself. the increased success they had achieved left no present room but for gladness and well-won pride; and so, to welcome them into the immortal family of the english novel, and open cheerily to their author "fresh woods and pastures new," we had the dinner celebration. but there is small need now to speak of what has left, to one of the few survivors, only the sadness of remembering that all who made the happiness of it are passed away. there was talfourd, facile and fluent of kindliest speech, with whom we were in constant and cordial intercourse, and to whom, grateful for his copyright exertions in the house of commons, he had dedicated _pickwick_; there was maclise, dear and familiar friend to us both, whose lately-painted portrait of dickens hung in the room;[ ] and there was the painter of the rent-day, who made a speech as good as his pictures, rich in color and quaint with homely allusion, all about the reality of dickens's genius, and how there had been nothing like him issuing his novels part by part since richardson issued his novels volume by volume, and how in both cases people talked about the characters as if they were next-door neighbors or friends; and as many letters were written to the author of _nickleby_ to implore him not to kill poor smike, as had been sent by young ladies to the author of _clarissa_ to "save lovelace's soul alive." these and others are gone. of those who survive, only three arise to my memory,--macready, who spoke his sense of the honor done him by the dedication in english as good as his delivery of it, mr. edward chapman, and mr. thomas beard. footnotes: [ ] "i cannot call to mind now how i came to hear about yorkshire schools when i was a not very robust child, sitting in by-places near rochester castle, with a head full of partridge, strap, tom pipes, and sancho panza; but i know that my first impressions of them were picked up at that time." [ ] moore, in his _diary_ (april, ), describes sydney crying down dickens at a dinner in the row, "and evidently without having given him a fair trial." [ ] this portrait was given to dickens by his publishers, for whom it was painted with a view to an engraving for _nickleby_, which, however, was poorly executed, and of a size too small to do the original any kind of justice. to the courtesy of its present possessor, the rev. sir edward repps joddrell, and to the careful art of mr. robert graves, a.r.a., i owe the illustration at the opening of this volume, in which the head is for the first time worthily expressed. in some sort to help also the reader's fancy to a complete impression, maclise having caught as happily the figure as the face, a skillful outline of the painting has been executed for the present page by mr. jeens. "as a likeness," said mr. thackeray of the work, and no higher praise could be given to it, "it is perfectly amazing. a looking-glass could not render a better fac-simile. we have here the real identical man dickens, the inward as well as the outward of him." chapter x. during and after nickleby. - . the cottage at twickenham--daniel maclise--ainsworth and other friends--mr. stanley of alderley--petersham cottage--childish enjoyments--writes a farce for covent garden--entered at the middle temple--we see wainewright in newgate--_oliver twist_ and the _quarterly_--hood's _up the rhine_--shakspeare society--birth of second daughter--house-hunting--_barnaby_ at his tenth page--letter from exeter--a landlady and her friends--a home for his father and mother--autobiographical--visit to an upholsterer--visit from the same. the name of his old gallery-companion may carry me back from the days to which the close of _nickleby_ had led me to those when it was only beginning. "this snow will take away the cold weather," he had written, in that birthday letter of already quoted, "and then for twickenham." here a cottage was taken, nearly all the summer was passed, and a familiar face there was mr. beard's. there, with talfourd and with thackeray and jerrold, we had many friendly days, too; and the social charm of maclise was seldom wanting. nor was there anything that exercised a greater fascination over dickens than the grand enjoyment of idleness, the ready self-abandonment to the luxury of laziness, which we both so laughed at in maclise, under whose easy swing of indifference, always the most amusing at the most aggravating events and times, we knew that there was artist-work as eager, energy as unwearying, and observation almost as penetrating as dickens's own. a greater enjoyment than the fellowship of maclise at this period it would indeed be difficult to imagine. dickens hardly saw more than he did, while yet he seemed to be seeing nothing; and the small esteem in which this rare faculty was held by himself, a quaint oddity that gave to shrewdness itself in him an air of irish simplicity, his unquestionable turn for literature, and a varied knowledge of it not always connected with such intense love and such unwearied practice of one special and absorbing art, combined to render him attractive far beyond the common. his fine genius and his handsome person, of neither of which at any time he seemed himself to be in the slightest degree conscious, completed the charm. edwin landseer, all the world's favorite, and the excellent stanfield, came a few months later, in the devonshire-terrace days; but another painter-friend was george cattermole, who had then enough and to spare of fun as well as fancy to supply ordinary artists and humorists by the dozen, and wanted only a little more ballast and steadiness to have had all that could give attraction to good-fellowship. a friend now especially welcome, too, was the novelist mr. ainsworth, who shared with us incessantly for the three following years in the companionship which began at his house; with whom we visited, during two of those years, friends of art and letters in his native manchester, from among whom dickens brought away his brothers cheeryble, and to whose sympathy in tastes and pursuits, accomplishments in literature, open-hearted generous ways, and cordial hospitality, many of the pleasures of later years were due. frederick dickens, to whom soon after this a treasury clerkship was handsomely given, on dickens's application, by mr. stanley of alderley, known in and before those manchester days, was for the present again living with his father, but passed much time in his brother's home; and another familiar face was that of mr. thomas mitton, who had known him when himself a law-clerk in lincoln's inn, through whom there was introduction of the relatives of a friend and partner, mr. smithson, the gentleman connected with yorkshire mentioned in his preface to _nickleby_, who became very intimate in his house. these, his father and mother and their two younger sons, with members of his wife's family, and his married sisters and their husbands, mr. and mrs. burnett and mr. and mrs. austin, are figures that all associate themselves prominently with the days of doughty street and the cottages of twickenham and petersham as remembered by me in the summers of and . in the former of these years the sports were necessarily quieter[ ] than at petersham, where extensive garden-grounds admitted of much athletic competition, from the more difficult forms of which i in general modestly retired, but where dickens for the most part held his own against even such accomplished athletes as maclise and mr. beard. bar-leaping, bowling, and quoits were among the games carried on with the greatest ardor; and in sustained energy, what is called keeping it up, dickens certainly distanced every competitor. even the lighter recreations of battledoor and bagatelle were pursued with relentless activity; and at such amusements as the petersham races, in those days rather celebrated, and which he visited daily while they lasted, he worked much harder himself than the running horses did. what else his letters of these years enable me to recall, that could possess any interest now, may be told in a dozen sentences. he wrote a farce by way of helping the covent garden manager which the actors could not agree about, and which he turned afterwards into a story called _the lamplighter_. he entered his name among the students at the inn of the middle temple, though he did not eat dinners there until many years later. we made together a circuit of nearly all the london prisons, and, in coming to the prisoners under remand while going over newgate, accompanied by macready and mr. hablot browne,[ ] were startled by a sudden tragic cry of "my god! there's wainewright!" in the shabby-genteel creature, with sandy disordered hair and dirty moustache, who had turned quickly round with a defiant stare at our entrance, looking at once mean and fierce, and quite capable of the cowardly murders he had committed, macready had been horrified to recognize a man familiarly known to him in former years, and at whose table he had dined. between the completion of _oliver_ and its publication, dickens went to see something of north wales; and, joining him at liverpool, i returned with him.[ ] soon after his arrival he had pleasant communication with lockhart, dining with him at cruikshank's a little later; and this was the prelude to a _quarterly_ notice of _oliver_ by mr. ford, written at the instance of lockhart, but without the raciness he would have put into it, in which amende was made for previous less favorable remarks in that review. dickens had not, however, waited for this to express publicly his hearty sympathy with lockhart's handling of some passages in his admirable _life of scott_ that had drawn down upon him the wrath of the ballantynes. this he did in the _examiner_; where also i find him noticing a book by thomas hood: "rather poor, but i have not said so, because hood is too, and ill besides." in the course of the year he was taken into devonshire to select a home for his father, on the removal of the latter (who had long given up his reporting duties) from his london residence; and this he found in a cottage at alphington, near exeter, where he placed the elder dickens with his wife and their youngest son. the same year closed macready's covent garden management, and at the dinner to the retiring manager, when the duke of cambridge took the chair, dickens spoke with that wonderful instinct of knowing what to abstain from saying, as well as what to say, which made his after-dinner speeches quite unique. nor should mention be omitted of the shakspeare society, now diligently attended, of which procter, talfourd, macready, thackeray, henry davison, blanchard, charles knight, john bell, douglas jerrold, maclise, stanfield, george cattermole, the good tom landseer, frank stone, and other old friends were members, and where, out of much enjoyment and many disputings,[ ] there arose, from dickens and all of us, plenty of after-dinner oratory. the closing months of this year of had special interest for him. at the end of october another daughter was born to him, who bears the name of that dear friend of his and mine, macready, whom he asked to be her godfather; and before the close of the year he had moved out of doughty street into devonshire terrace, a handsome house with a garden of considerable size, shut out from the new road by a high brick wall facing the york gate into regent's park. these various matters, and his attempts at the _barnaby_ novel on the conclusion of _nickleby_, are the subject of his letters between october and december. "thank god, all goes famously. i have worked at _barnaby_ all day, and moreover seen a beautiful (and reasonable) house in kent terrace, where macready once lived, but larger than his." again (this having gone off): "_barnaby_ has suffered so much from the house-hunting, that i mustn't chop to-day." then (for the matter of the middle temple), "i return the form. it's the right temple, i take for granted. _barnaby_ moves, not at race-horse speed, but yet as fast (i think) as under these unsettled circumstances could possibly be expected." or again: "all well. _barnaby_ has reached his tenth page. i have just turned lazy, and have passed into _christabel_, and thence to _wallenstein_." at last the choice was made. "a house of great promise (and great premium), 'undeniable' situation, and excessive splendor, is in view. mitton is in treaty, and i am in ecstatic restlessness. kate wants to know whether you have any books to send her, so please to shoot here any literary rubbish on hand." to these i will only add a couple of extracts from his letters while in exeter arranging his father's and mother's new home. they are very humorous; and the vividness with which everything, once seen, was photographed in his mind and memory, is pleasantly shown in them. "i took a little house for them this morning" ( th march, : from the new london inn), "and if they are not pleased with it i shall be grievously disappointed. exactly a mile beyond the city on the plymouth road there are two white cottages: one is theirs and the other belongs to their landlady. i almost forget the number of rooms, but there is an excellent parlor with two other rooms on the ground floor, there is really a beautiful little room over the parlor which i am furnishing as a drawing-room, and there is a splendid garden. the paint and paper throughout is new and fresh and cheerful-looking, the place is clean beyond all description, and the neighborhood i suppose the most beautiful in this most beautiful of english counties. of the landlady, a devonshire widow with whom i had the honor of taking lunch to-day, i must make most especial mention. she is a fat, infirm, splendidly-fresh-faced country dame, rising sixty and recovering from an attack 'on the nerves'--i thought they never went off the stones, but i find they try country air with the best of us. in the event of my mother's being ill at any time, i really think the vicinity of this good dame, the very picture of respectability and good humor, will be the greatest possible comfort. _her_ furniture and domestic arrangements are a capital picture, but that i reserve till i see you, when i anticipate a hearty laugh. she bears the highest character with the bankers and the clergyman (who formerly lived in _my_ cottage himself), and is a kind-hearted worthy capital specimen of the sort of life, or i have no eye for the real and no idea of finding it out. "this good lady's brother and his wife live in the next nearest cottage, and the brother transacts the good lady's business, the nerves not admitting of her transacting it herself, although they leave her in her debilitated state something sharper than the finest lancet. now, the brother having coughed all night till he coughed himself into such a perspiration that you might have 'wringed his hair,' according to the asseveration of eye-witnesses, his wife was sent for to negotiate with me; and if you could have seen me sitting in the kitchen with the two old women, endeavoring to make them comprehend that i had no evil intentions or covert designs, and that i had come down all that way to take some cottage and had _happened_ to walk down that road and see that particular one, you would never have forgotten it. then, to see the servant-girl run backwards and forwards to the sick man, and when the sick man had signed one agreement which i drew up and the old woman instantly put away in a disused tea-caddy, to see the trouble and the number of messages it took before the sick man could be brought to sign another (a duplicate) that we might have one apiece, was one of the richest scraps of genuine drollery i ever saw in all my days. how, when the business was over, we became conversational; how i was facetious, and at the same time virtuous and domestic; how i drank toasts in the beer, and stated on interrogatory that i was a married man and the father of two blessed infants; how the ladies marveled thereat; how one of the ladies, having been in london, inquired where i lived, and, being told, remembered that doughty street and the foundling hospital were in the old kent road, which i didn't contradict,--all this and a great deal more must make us laugh when i return, as it makes me laugh now to think of. of my subsequent visit to the upholsterer recommended by the landlady; of the absence of the upholsterer's wife, and the timidity of the upholsterer fearful of acting in her absence; of my sitting behind a high desk in a little dark shop, calling over the articles in requisition and checking off the prices as the upholsterer exhibited the goods and called them out; of my coming over the upholsterer's daughter with many virtuous endearments, to propitiate the establishment and reduce the bill; of these matters i say nothing, either, for the same reason as that just mentioned. the discovery of the cottage i seriously regard as a blessing (not to speak it profanely) upon our efforts in this cause. i had heard nothing from the bank, and walked straight there, by some strange impulse, directly after breakfast. i am sure they may be happy there; for if i were older, and my course of activity were run, i am sure _i_ could, with god's blessing, for many and many a year.". . . "the theatre is open here, and charles kean is to-night playing for his last night. if it had been the 'rig'lar' drama i should have gone, but i was afraid sir giles overreach might upset me, so i stayed away. my quarters are excellent, and the head-waiter is _such_ a waiter! knowles (not sheridan knowles, but knowles of the cheetham hill road[ ]) is an ass to him. this sounds bold, but truth is stranger than fiction. by-the-by, not the least comical thing that has occurred was the visit of the upholsterer (with some further calculations) since i began this letter. i think they took me here at the new london for the wonderful being i am; they were amazingly sedulous; and no doubt they looked for my being visited by the nobility and gentry of the neighborhood. my first and only visitor came to-night: a ruddy-faced man in faded black, with extracts from a feather-bed all over him; an extraordinary and quite miraculously dirty face; a thick stick; and the personal appearance altogether of an amiable bailiff in a green old age. i have not seen the proper waiter since, and more than suspect i shall not recover this blow. he was announced (by _the_ waiter) as 'a person.' i expect my bill every minute. . . . "the waiter is laughing outside the door with another waiter--this is the latest intelligence of my condition." footnotes: [ ] we had at twickenham a balloon club for the children, of which i appear to have been elected the president on condition of supplying all the balloons, a condition which i seem so insufficiently to have complied with as to bring down upon myself the subjoined resolution. the snodgering blee and popem jee were the little brother and sister, for whom, as for their successors, he was always inventing these surprising descriptive epithets. "gammon lodge, saturday evening, june d, . sir, i am requested to inform you that at a numerous meeting of the gammon aeronautical association for the encouragement of science and the consumption of spirits (of wine)--thomas beard esquire, mrs. charles dickens, charles dickens, esquire, the snodgering blee, popem jee, and other distinguished characters being present and assenting, the vote of censure of which i inclose a copy was unanimously passed upon you for gross negligence in the discharge of your duty, and most unjustifiable disregard of the best interests of the society. i am, sir, your most obedient servant, charles dickens, honorary secretary. to john forster, esquire." [ ] not mr. procter, as, by an oversight of his own, dickens caused to be said in an interesting paper on wainewright which appeared in his weekly periodical. [ ] i quote from a letter dated llangollen, friday morning, d nov. : "i wrote to you last night, but by mistake the letter has gone on heaven knows where in my portmanteau. i have only time to say, go straight to liverpool by the first birmingham train on monday morning, and at the adelphi hotel in that town you will find me. i trust to you to see my dear kate and bring the latest intelligence of her and the darlings. my best love to them." [ ] one of these disputes is referred to by charles knight in his autobiography; and i see in dickens's letters the mention of another in which i seem to have been turned by his kindly counsel from some folly i was going to commit: "i need not, i am sure, impress upon you the sincerity with which i make this representation. our close and hearty friendship happily spares me the necessity. but i will add this--that feeling for you an attachment which no ties of blood or other relationship could ever awaken, and hoping to be to the end of my life your affectionate and chosen friend, i am convinced that i counsel you now as you would counsel me if i were in the like case; and i hope and trust that you will be led by an opinion which i am sure cannot be wrong when it is influenced by such feelings as i bear towards you, and so many warm and grateful considerations." [ ] this was the butler of mr. gilbert winter, one of the kind manchester friends whose hospitality we had enjoyed with mr. ainsworth, and whose shrewd, quaint, old-world ways come delightfully back to me as i write his once well-known and widely-honored name. chapter xi. new literary project. . thoughts for the future--doubts of old serial form--suggestion for his publishers--my mediation with them--proposed weekly publication--design of it--old favorites to be revived--subjects to be dealt with--chapters on chambers--gog and magog relaxations--savage chronicles--others as well as himself to write--travels to ireland and america in view--stipulation as to property and payments--great hopes of success--assent of his publishers--no planned story--terms of agreement--notion for his hero--a name hit upon--sanguine of the issue. the time was now come for him seriously to busy himself with a successor to _pickwick_ and _nickleby_, which he had not, however, waited thus long before turning over thoroughly in his mind. _nickleby's_ success had so far outgone even the expectation raised by _pickwick's_, that, without some handsome practical admission of this fact at the close, its publishers could hardly hope to retain him. this had been frequently discussed by us, and was well understood. but, apart from the question of his resuming with them at all, he had persuaded himself it might be unsafe to resume in the old way, believing the public likely to tire of the same twenty numbers over again. there was also another and more sufficient reason for change which naturally had great weight with him, and this was the hope that, by invention of a new mode as well as kind of serial publication, he might be able for a time to discontinue the writing of a long story with all its strain on his fancy, in any case to shorten and vary the length of the stories written by himself, and perhaps ultimately to retain all the profits of a continuous publication without necessarily himself contributing every line that was to be written for it. these considerations had been discussed still more anxiously; and for several months some such project had been taking form in his thoughts. while he was at petersham (july, ) he thus wrote to me: "i have been thinking that subject over. indeed, i have been doing so to the great stoppage of _nickleby_ and the great worrying and fidgeting of myself. i have been thinking that if chapman & hall were to admit you into their confidence with respect to what they mean to do at the conclusion of _nickleby_, without admitting me, it would help us very much. you know that i am well disposed towards them, and that if they do something handsome, even handsomer perhaps than they dreamt of doing, they will find it their interest, and will find me tractable. you know also that i have had straightforward offers from responsible men to publish anything for me at a percentage on the profits and take all the risk; but that i am unwilling to leave them, and have declared to you that if they behave with liberality to me i will not on any consideration, although to a certain extent i certainly and surely must gain by it. knowing all this, i feel sure that if you were to put before them the glories of our new project, and, reminding them that when _barnaby_ is published i am clear of all engagements, were to tell them that if they wish to secure me and perpetuate our connection now is the time for them to step gallantly forward and make such proposals as will produce that result,--i feel quite sure that if this should be done by you, as you only can do it, the result will be of the most vital importance to me and mine, and that a very great deal may be effected, thus, to recompense your friend for very small profits and very large work as yet. i shall see you, please god, on tuesday night; and if they wait upon you on wednesday, i shall remain in town until that evening." they came; and the tenor of the interview was so favorable that i wished him to put in writing what from time to time had been discussed in connection with the new project. this led to the very interesting letter i shall now quote, written also in the same month from petersham. i did not remember, until i lately read it, that the notion of a possible visit to america had been in his thoughts so early. "i should be willing to commence on the thirty-first of march, , a new publication, consisting entirely of original matter, of which one number, price threepence, should be published every week, and of which a certain amount of numbers should form a volume, to be published at regular intervals. the best general idea of the plan of the work might be given, perhaps, by reference to the _spectator_, the _tatler_, and goldsmith's _bee_; but it would be far more popular both in the subjects of which it treats and its mode of treating them. "i should propose to start, as the _spectator_ does, with some pleasant fiction relative to the origin of the publication; to introduce a little club or knot of characters and to carry their personal histories and proceedings through the work; to introduce fresh characters constantly; to reintroduce mr. pickwick and sam weller, the latter of whom might furnish an occasional communication with great effect; to write amusing essays on the various foibles of the day as they arise; to take advantage of all passing events; and to vary the form of the papers by throwing them into sketches, essays, tales, adventures, letters from imaginary correspondents, and so forth, so as to diversify the contents as much as possible. "in addition to this general description of the contents, i may add that under particular heads i should strive to establish certain features in the work, which should be so many veins of interest and amusement running through the whole. thus the chapters on chambers, which i have long thought and spoken of, might be very well incorporated with it; and a series of papers has occurred to me containing stories and descriptions of london as it was many years ago, as it is now, and as it will be many years hence, to which i would give some such title as the relaxations of gog and magog, dividing them into portions like the _arabian nights_, and supposing gog and magog to entertain each other with such narrations in guildhall all night long, and to break off every morning at daylight. an almost inexhaustible field of fun, raillery, and interest would be laid open by pursuing this idea. "i would also commence, and continue from time to time, a series of satirical papers purporting to be translated from some savage chronicles, and to describe the administration of justice in some country that never existed, and record the proceedings of its wise men. the object of this series (which if i can compare it with anything would be something between _gulliver's travels_ and the _citizen of the world_) would be to keep a special lookout upon the magistrates in town and country, and never to leave those worthies alone. "the quantity of each number that should be written by myself would be a matter for discussion and arrangement. of course i should pledge and bind myself upon that head. nobody but myself would ever pursue _these ideas_, but i must have assistance of course, and there must be some contents of a different kind. their general nature might be agreed upon beforehand, but i should stipulate that this assistance is chosen solely by myself, and that the contents of every number are as much under my own control, and subject to as little interference, as those of a number of _pickwick_ or _nickleby_. "in order to give fresh novelty and interest to this undertaking, i should be ready to contract to go at any specified time (say in the midsummer or autumn of the year, when a sufficient quantity of matter in advance should have been prepared, or earlier if it were thought fit) either to ireland or to america, and to write from thence a series of papers descriptive of the places and people i see, introducing local tales, traditions, and legends, something after the plan of washington irving's _alhambra_. i should wish the republication of these papers in a separate form, with others to render the subject complete (if we should deem it advisable), to form part of the arrangement for the work; and i should wish the same provision to be made for the republication of the gog and magog series, or indeed any that i undertook. "this is a very rough and slight outline of the project i have in view. i am ready to talk the matter over, to give any further explanations, to consider any suggestions, or to go into the details of the subject immediately. i say nothing of the novelty of such a publication nowadays, or its chances of success. of course i think them very great, very great indeed,--almost beyond calculation,--or i should not seek to bind myself to anything so extensive. "the heads of the terms upon which i should be prepared to go into this undertaking would be--that i be made a proprietor in the work and a sharer in the profits. that when i bind myself to write a certain portion of every number, i am insured, _for_ that writing in every number, a certain sum of money. that those who assist me, and contribute the remainder of every number, shall be paid by the publishers immediately after its appearance, according to a scale to be calculated and agreed upon, on presenting my order for the amount to which they may be respectively entitled. or, if the publishers prefer it, that they agree to pay me a certain sum for the _whole_ of every number, and leave me to make such arrangements for that part which i may not write, as i think best. of course i should require that for these payments, or any other outlay connected with the work, i am not held accountable in any way; and that no portion of them is to be considered as received by me on account of the profits. i need not add that some arrangement would have to be made, if i undertake my travels, relative to the expenses of traveling. "now, i want our publishing friends to take these things into consideration, and to give me the views and proposals they would be disposed to entertain when they have maturely considered the matter." the result of their consideration was, on the whole, satisfactory. an additional fifteen hundred pounds was to be paid at the close of _nickleby_, the new adventure was to be undertaken, and cattermole was to be joined with browne as its illustrator. nor was its plan much modified before starting, though it was felt by us all that, for the opening numbers at least, dickens would have to be sole contributor, and that, whatever otherwise might be its attraction, or the success of the detached papers proposed by him, some reinforcement of them from time to time, by means of a story with his name continued at reasonable if not regular intervals, would be found absolutely necessary. without any such planned story, however, the work did actually begin, its course afterwards being determined by circumstances stronger than any project he had formed. the agreement, drawn up in contemplation of a mere miscellany of detached papers or essays, and in which no mention of any story appeared, was signed at the end of march; and its terms were such as to place him in his only proper and legitimate position in regard to all such contracts, of being necessarily a gainer in any case, and, in the event of success, the greatest gainer of all concerned in the undertaking. all the risk of every kind was to be undergone by the publishers; and, as part of the expenses to be defrayed by them of each weekly number, he was to receive fifty pounds. whatever the success or failure, this was always to be paid. the numbers were then to be accounted for separately, and half the realized profits paid to him, the other half going to the publishers; each number being held strictly responsible for itself, and the loss upon it, supposing any, not carried to the general account. the work was to be continued for twelve months certain, with leave to the publishers then to close it; but if they elected to go on, he was himself bound to the enterprise for five years, and the ultimate copyright as well as profit was to be equally divided. six weeks before signature of this agreement, while a title was still undetermined, i had this letter from him: "i will dine with you. i intended to spend the evening in strict meditation (as i did last night); but perhaps i had better go out, lest all work and no play should make me a dull boy. _i_ have a list of titles too, but the final title i have determined on--or something very near it. i have a notion of this old file in the queer house, opening the book by an account of himself, and, among other peculiarities, of his affection for an old quaint queer-cased clock; showing how that when they have sat alone together in the long evenings, he has got accustomed to its voice, and come to consider it as the voice of a friend; how its striking, in the night, has seemed like an assurance to him that it was still, a cheerful watcher at his chamber-door; and now its very face has seemed to have something of welcome in its dusty features, and to relax from its grimness when he has looked at it from his chimney-corner. then i mean to tell how that he has kept odd manuscripts in the old, deep, dark, silent closet where the weights are; and taken them from thence to read (mixing up his enjoyments with some notion of his clock); and how, when the club came to be formed, they, by reason of their punctuality and his regard for this dumb servant, took their name from it. and thus i shall call the book either _old humphrey's clock_, or _master humphrey's clock_; beginning with a woodcut of old humphrey and his clock, and explaining the why and wherefore. all humphrey's own papers will be dated then from my clock-side, and i have divers thoughts about the best means of introducing the others. i thought about this all day yesterday and all last night till i went to bed. i am sure i can make a good thing of this opening, which i have thoroughly warmed up to in consequence." a few days later: "i incline rather more to _master humphrey's clock_ than _old humphrey's_--if so be that there is no danger of the pensive confounding master with a boy." after two days more: "i was thinking all yesterday, and have begun at _master humphrey_ to-day." then, a week later: "i have finished the first number, but have not been able to do more in the space than lead up to the giants, who are just on the scene." chapter xii. the old curiosity shop. - . visit to walter landor--first thought of little nell--hopeful of master humphrey--a title for the child-story--first sale of _master humphrey's clock_--its original plan abandoned--reasons for this--to be limited to one story--disadvantages of weekly publication--a favorite description--in bevis marks for sampson brass--at lawn house, broadstairs--dedication of his first volume to rogers--chapters - --dick swiveller and the marchioness--masterpiece of kindly fun--closing of the tale--effect upon the writer--making-believe very much--the end approaching--the realities of fiction--death of little nell--my share in the close--a suggestion adopted by him--success of the story--useful lessons--its mode of construction--character and characteristics--the art of it--a recent tribute--harte's "dickens in camp." a day or two after the date of the last letter quoted, dickens and his wife, with maclise and myself, visited landor in bath, and it was during three happy days we passed together there that the fancy which was shortly to take the form of little nell first occurred to its author,[ ]--but as yet with the intention only of making out of it a tale of a few chapters. on the st of march we returned from bath; and on the th i had this letter: "if you can manage to give me a call in the course of the day or evening, i wish you would. i am laboriously turning over in my mind how i can best effect the improvement we spoke of last night, which i will certainly make by hook or by crook, and which i would like you to see _before_ it goes finally to the printer's. i have determined not to put that witch-story into number , for i am by no means satisfied of the effect of its contrast with humphrey. i think of lengthening humphrey, finishing the description of the society, and closing with the little child-story, which is sure to be effective, especially after the old man's quiet way." then there came hard upon this: "what do you think of the following double title for the beginning of that little tale? 'personal adventures of master humphrey: _the old curiosity shop_.' i have thought of _master humphrey's tale_, _master humphrey's narrative_, _a passage in master humphrey's life_--but i don't think any does as well as this. i have also thought of _the old curiosity dealer and the child_ instead of _the old curiosity shop_. perpend. topping waits."----and thus was taking gradual form, with less direct consciousness of design on his own part than i can remember in any other instance of all his career, a story which was to add largely to his popularity, more than any other of his works to make the bond between himself and his readers one of personal attachment, and very widely to increase the sense entertained of his powers as a pathetic as well as humorous writer. he had not written more than two or three chapters, when the capability of the subject for more extended treatment than he had at first proposed to give to it pressed itself upon him, and he resolved to throw everything else aside, devoting himself to the one story only. there were other strong reasons for this. of the first number of the _clock_ nearly seventy thousand were sold; but with the discovery that there was no continuous tale the orders at once diminished, and a change must have been made even if the material and means for it had not been ready. there had been an interval of three numbers between the first and second chapters, which the society of mr. pickwick and the two wellers made pleasant enough; but after the introduction of dick swiveller there were three consecutive chapters; and in the continued progress of the tale to its close there were only two more breaks, one between the fourth and fifth chapters and one between the eighth and ninth, pardonable and enjoyable now for the sake of sam and his father. the reintroduction of these old favorites, it will have been seen, formed part of his original plan; of his abandonment of which his own description may be added, from his preface to the collected edition: "the first chapter of this tale appeared in the fourth number of _master humphrey's clock_, when i had already been made uneasy by the desultory character of that work, and when, i believe, my readers had thoroughly participated in the feeling. the commencement of a story was a great satisfaction to me, and i had reason to believe that my readers participated in this feeling too. hence, being pledged to some interruptions and some pursuit of the original design, i set cheerfully about disentangling myself from those impediments as fast as i could; and, this done, from that time until its completion _the old curiosity shop_ was written and published from week to week, in weekly parts." he had very early himself become greatly taken with it. "i am very glad indeed," he wrote to me after the first half-dozen chapters, "that you think so well of the _curiosity shop_, and especially that what may be got out of dick strikes you. i _mean_ to make much of him. i feel the story extremely myself, which i take to be a good sign; and am already warmly interested in it. i shall run it on now for four whole numbers together, to give it a fair chance." every step lightened the road as it became more and more real with each character that appeared in it, and i still recall the glee with which he told me what he intended to do not only with dick swiveller, but with septimus brass, changed afterwards to sampson. undoubtedly, however, dick was his favorite. "dick's behavior in the matter of miss wackles will, i hope, give you satisfaction," is the remark of another of his letters. "i cannot yet discover that his aunt has any belief in him, or is in the least degree likely to send him a remittance, so that he will probably continue to be the sport of destiny." his difficulties were the quickly recurring times of publication, the confined space in each number that yet had to contribute its individual effect, and (from the suddenness with which he had begun) the impossibility of getting in advance. "i was obliged to cramp most dreadfully what i thought a pretty idea in the last chapter. i hadn't room to turn:" to this or a similar effect his complaints are frequent, and of the vexations named it was by far the worst. but he steadily bore up against all, and made a triumph of the little story. to help his work he went twice to broadstairs, in june and in september. from this he wrote to me ( th june), "it's now four o'clock, and i have been at work since half-past eight. i have really dried myself up into a condition which would almost justify me in pitching off the cliff, head first--but i must get richer before i indulge in a crowning luxury. number , which i began to-day, i anticipate great things from. there is a description of getting gradually out of town, and passing through neighborhoods of distinct and various characters, with which, if i had read it as anybody else's writing, i think i should have been very much struck. the child and the old man are on their journey of course, and the subject is a very pretty one." between these two broadstairs visits he wrote to me, "i intended calling on you this morning on my way back from bevis marks, whither i went to look at a house for sampson brass. but i got mingled up in a kind of social paste with the jews of houndsditch, and roamed about among them till i came out in moorfields, quite unexpectedly. so i got into a cab, and came home again, very tired, by way of the city road." at the opening of september he was again at broadstairs. the residence he most desired there, fort house, stood prominently at the top of a breezy hill on the road to kingsgate, with a corn-field between it and the sea, and this in many subsequent years he always occupied; but he was fain to be content, as yet, with lawn house, a smaller villa between the hill and the corn-field, from which he now wrote of his attentions to mr. sampson brass's sister: "i have been at work of course" ( d september), "and have just finished a number. i have effected a reform by virtue of which we breakfast at a quarter-before eight, so that i get to work at half-past, and am commonly free by one o'clock or so, which is a great happiness. dick is now sampson's clerk, and i have touched miss brass in number , lightly, but effectively i hope." at this point it became necessary to close the first volume of the _clock_, which was issued accordingly with a dedication to rogers, and a preface to which allusion will be made hereafter. "i have opened the second volume," he wrote to me on the th of september, "with kit; and i saw this morning looking out at the sea, as if a veil had been lifted up, an affecting thing that i can do with him by-and-by. nous verrons." "i am glad you like that kit number," he wrote twelve days later; "i thought you would. i have altered that about the opera-going. of course i had no intention to delude the many-headed into a false belief concerning opera-nights, but merely to specify a class of senators. i needn't have done it, however, for god knows they're pretty well all alike." this referred to an objection made by me to something he had written of "opera-going senators on wednesday nights;" and, of another change made in compliance with some other objection of mine, he wrote on the th of october, "you will receive the proof herewith. i have altered it. you must let it stand now. i really think the dead mankind a million fathoms deep, the best thing in the sentence. i have a notion of the dreadful silence down there, and of the stars shining down upon their drowned eyes,--the fruit, let me tell you, of a solitary walk by starlight on the cliffs. as to the child-image, i have made a note of it for alteration. in number thirty there will be some cutting needed, i think. i have, however, something in my eye near the beginning which i can easily take out. you will recognize a description of the road we traveled between birmingham and wolverhampton; but i had conceived it so well in my mind that the execution doesn't please me quite as well as i expected. i shall be curious to know whether you think there's anything in the notion of the man and his furnace-fire. it would have been a good thing to have opened a new story with, i have been thinking since." in the middle of october he returned to town, and by the end of the month he had so far advanced that the close of the story began to be not far distant. "tell me what you think," he had written just before his return, "of and ? the way is clear for kit now, and for a great effect at the last with the marchioness." the last allusion i could not in the least understand, until i found, in the numbers just sent me, those exquisite chapters of the tale, the th and th, in which dick swiveller realizes his threat to miss wackles, discovers the small creature that his destiny is expressly saving up for him, dubs her marchioness, and teaches her the delights of hot purl and cribbage. this is comedy of the purest kind; its great charm being the good-hearted fellow's kindness to the poor desolate child hiding itself under cover of what seems only mirth and fun. altogether, and because of rather than in spite of his weakness, dick is a captivating person. his gayety and good humor survive such accumulations of "staggerers," he makes such discoveries of the "rosy" in the very smallest of drinks, and becomes himself by his solacements of verse such a "perpetual grand apollo," that his failings are all forgiven, and hearts resolutely shut against victims of destiny in general open themselves freely to dick swiveller. at the opening of november, there seems to have been a wish on maclise's part to try his hand at an illustration for the story; but i do not remember that it bore other fruit than a very pleasant day at jack straw's castle, where dickens read one of the later numbers to us. "maclise and myself (alone in the carriage)," he wrote, "will be with you at two exactly. we propose driving out to hampstead and walking there, if it don't rain in buckets'-full. i sha'n't send bradburys' the ms. of next number till to-morrow, for it contains the shadow of the number after that, and i want to read it to mac, as, if he likes the subject, it will furnish him with one, i think. you can't imagine (gravely i write and speak) how exhausted i am to-day with yesterday's labors. i went to bed last night utterly dispirited and done up. all night i have been pursued by the child; and this morning i am unrefreshed and miserable. i don't know what to do with myself. . . . i think the close of the story will be great." connected with the same design on maclise's part there was another reading, this time at my house, and of the number shadowed forth by what had been read at hampstead. "i will bring the ms.," he writes on the th of november, "and, for mac's information if needful, the number before it. i have only this moment put the finishing touch to it. the difficulty has been tremendous--the anguish unspeakable. i didn't say six. therefore dine at half-past five like a christian. i shall bring mac at that hour." he had sent me, shortly before, the chapters in which the marchioness nurses dick in his fever, and puts his favorite philosophy to the hard test of asking him whether he has ever put pieces of orange-peel into cold water and made believe it was wine. "if you make believe very much, it's quite nice; but if you don't, you know, it hasn't much flavor:" so it stood originally, and to the latter word in the little creature's mouth i seem to have objected. replying (on the th of december) he writes, "'if you make believe very much, it's quite nice; but if you don't, you know, it seems as if it would bear a little more seasoning, certainly.' i think that's better. flavor is a common word in cookery, and among cooks, and so i used it. the part you cut out in the other number, which was sent me this morning, i had put in with a view to quilp's last appearance on any stage, which is casting its shadow upon my mind; but it will come well enough without such a preparation, so i made no change. i mean to shirk sir robert inglis, and work to-night. i have been solemnly revolving the general story all this morning. the forty-fifth number will certainly close. perhaps this forty-first, which i am now at work on, had better contain the announcement of _barnaby_? i am glad you like dick and the marchioness in that sixty-fourth chapter. i thought you would." fast shortening as the life of little nell was now, the dying year might have seen it pass away; but i never knew him wind up any tale with such a sorrowful reluctance as this. he caught at any excuse to hold his hand from it, and stretched to the utmost limit the time left to complete it in. christmas interposed its delays too, so that twelfth-night had come and gone when i wrote to him in the belief that he was nearly done. "done!" he wrote back to me on friday, the th; "done!!! why, bless you, i shall not be done till wednesday night. i only began yesterday, and this part of the story is not to be galloped over, i can tell you. i think it will come famously--but i am the wretchedest of the wretched. it casts the most horrible shadow upon me, and it is as much as i can do to keep moving at all. i tremble to approach the place a great deal more than kit; a great deal more than mr. garland; a great deal more than the single gentleman. i sha'n't recover it for a long time. nobody will miss her like i shall. it is such a very painful thing to me, that i really cannot express my sorrow. old wounds bleed afresh when i only think of the way of doing it: what the actual doing it will be, god knows. i can't preach to myself the schoolmaster's consolation, though i try. dear mary died yesterday, when i think of this sad story. i don't know what to say about dining to-morrow--perhaps you'll send up to-morrow morning for news? that'll be the best way. i have refused several invitations for this week and next, determining to go nowhere till i had done. i am afraid of disturbing the state i have been trying to get into, and having to fetch it all back again." he had finished, all but the last chapter, on the wednesday named; that was the th of january; and on the following night he read to me the two chapters of nell's death, the seventy-first and seventy-second, with the result described in a letter to me of the following monday, the th january, : "i can't help letting you know how much your yesterday's letter pleased me. i felt sure you liked the chapters when we read them on thursday night, but it was a great delight to have my impression so strongly and heartily confirmed. you know how little value i should set on what i had done, if all the world cried out that it was good, and those whose good opinion and approbation i value most were silent. the assurance that this little closing of the scene touches and is felt by you so strongly, is better to me than a thousand most sweet voices out of doors. when i first began, _on your valued suggestion_, to keep my thoughts upon this ending of the tale, i resolved to try and do something which might be read by people about whom death had been, with a softened feeling, and with consolation. . . . after you left last night, i took my desk up-stairs, and, writing until four o'clock this morning, finished the old story. it makes me very melancholy to think that all these people are lost to me forever, and i feel as if i never could become attached to any new set of characters." the words printed in italics, as underlined by himself, give me my share in the story which had gone so closely to his heart. i was responsible for its tragic ending. he had not thought of killing her, when, about half-way through, i asked him to consider whether it did not necessarily belong even to his own conception, after taking so mere a child through such a tragedy of sorrow, to lift her also out of the commonplace of ordinary happy endings so that the gentle pure little figure and form should never change to the fancy. all that i meant he seized at once, and never turned aside from it again. the published book was an extraordinary success, and, in america more especially, very greatly increased the writer's fame. the pathetic vein it had opened was perhaps mainly the cause of this, but opinion at home continued still to turn on the old characteristics,--the freshness of humor of which the pathos was but another form and product, the grasp of reality with which character had again been seized, the discernment of good under its least attractive forms and of evil in its most captivating disguises, the cordial wisdom and sound heart, the enjoyment and fun, luxuriant yet under proper control. no falling-off was found in these; and i doubt if any of his people have been more widely liked than dick swiveller and the marchioness. the characters generally, indeed, work out their share in the purpose of the tale; the extravagances of some of them help to intensify its meaning; and the sayings and doings of the worst and the best alike have their point and applicability. many an oversuspicious person will find advantage in remembering what a too liberal application of foxey's principle of suspecting everybody brought mr. sampson brass to; and many an overhasty judgment of poor human nature will unconsciously be checked, when it is remembered that mr. christopher nubbles _did_ come back to work out that shilling. but the main idea and chief figure of the piece constitute its interest for most people, and give it rank upon the whole with the most attractive productions of english fiction. i am not acquainted with any story in the language more adapted to strengthen in the heart what most needs help and encouragement, to sustain kindly and innocent impulses, and to awaken everywhere the sleeping germs of good. it includes necessarily much pain, much uninterrupted sadness; and yet the brightness and sunshine quite overtop the gloom. the humor is so benevolent; the view of errors that have no depravity of heart in them is so indulgent; the quiet courage under calamity, the purity that nothing impure can soil, are so full of tender teaching. its effect as a mere piece of art, too, considering the circumstances in which i have shown it to be written, i think very noteworthy. it began with a plan for but a short half-dozen chapters; it grew into a full-proportioned story under the warmth of the feeling it had inspired its writer with; its very incidents created a necessity at first not seen; and it was carried to a close only contemplated after a full half of it had been written. yet, from the opening of the tale to that undesigned ending,--from the image of little nell asleep amid the quaint grotesque figures of the old curiosity warehouse to that other final sleep she takes among the grim forms and carvings of the old church aisle,--the main purpose seems to be always present. the characters and incidents that at first appear most foreign to it are found to have had with it a close relation. the hideous lumber and rottenness that surround the child in her grandfather's home take shape again in quilp and his filthy gang. in the first still picture of nell's innocence in the midst of strange and alien forms, we have the forecast of her after-wanderings, her patient miseries, her sad maturity of experience before its time. without the show-people and their blended fictions and realities, their wax-works, dwarfs, giants, and performing dogs, the picture would have wanted some part of its significance. nor could the genius of hogarth himself have given it higher expression than in the scenes by the cottage door, the furnace-fire, and the burial-place of the old church, over whose tombs and gravestones hang the puppets of mr. punch's show while the exhibitors are mending and repairing them. and when, at last, nell sits within the quiet old church where all her wanderings end, and gazes on those silent monumental groups of warriors,--helmets, swords, and gauntlets wasting away around them,--the associations among which her life had opened seem to have come crowding on the scene again, to be present at its close,--but stripped of their strangeness; deepened into solemn shapes by the suffering she has undergone; gently fusing every feeling of a life past into hopeful and familiar anticipation of a life to come; and already imperceptibly lifting her, without grief or pain, from the earth she loves, yet whose grosser paths her light steps only touched to show the track through them to heaven. this is genuine art, and such as all cannot fail to recognize who read the book in a right sympathy with the conception that pervades it. nor, great as the discomfort was of reading it in brief weekly snatches, can i be wholly certain that the discomfort of so writing it involved nothing but disadvantage. with so much in every portion to do, and so little space to do it in, the opportunities to a writer for mere self-indulgence were necessarily rare. of the innumerable tributes the story has received, and to none other by dickens have more or more various been paid, there is one, the very last, which has much affected me. not many months before my friend's death, he had sent me two _overland monthlies_ containing two sketches by a young american writer far away in california, "the luck of roaring camp," and "the outcasts of poker flat," in which he had found such subtle strokes of character as he had not anywhere else in late years discovered; the manner resembling himself, but the matter fresh to a degree that had surprised him; the painting in all respects masterly, and the wild rude thing painted a quite wonderful reality. i have rarely known him more honestly moved. a few months passed; telegraph-wires flashed over the world that he had passed away on the th of june; and the young writer of whom he had then written to me, all unconscious of that praise, put his tribute of gratefulness and sorrow into the form of a poem called _dickens in camp_.[ ] it embodies the same kind of incident which had so affected the master himself, in the papers to which i have referred; it shows the gentler influences which, in even those californian wilds, can restore outlawed "roaring camps" to silence and humanity; and there is hardly any form of posthumous tribute which i can imagine likely to have better satisfied his desire of fame than one which should thus connect, with the special favorite among all his heroines, the restraints and authority exerted by his genius over the rudest and least civilized of competitors in that far fierce race for wealth. "above the pines the moon was slowly drifting, the river sang below; the dim sierras, far beyond, uplifting their minarets of snow: "the roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted the ruddy tints of health on haggard face and form that drooped and fainted in the fierce race for wealth; "till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure a hoarded volume drew, and cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure to hear the tale anew; "and then, while round them shadows gathered faster, and as the fire-light fell, he read aloud the book wherein the master had writ of 'little nell:' "perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,--for the reader was youngest of them all,-- but, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar a silence seemed to fall; "the fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, listened in every spray, while the whole camp with 'nell' on english meadows wandered and lost their way. "and so in mountain solitudes--o'ertaken as by some spell divine-- their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken from out the gusty pine. "lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire; and he who wrought that spell?-- ah, towering pine and stately kentish spire, ye have one tale to tell! "lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story blend with the breath that thrills with hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory that fills the kentish hills. "and on that grave where english oak and holly and laurel wreaths entwine, deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,-- this spray of western pine! "july, ." footnotes: [ ] i have mentioned the fact in my _life of landor_; and to the passage i here add the comment made by dickens when he read it: "it was at a celebration of his birthday in the first of his bath lodgings, , st. james's square, that the fancy which took the form of little nell in the _curiosity shop_ first dawned on the genius of its creator. no character in prose fiction was a greater favorite with landor. he thought that, upon her, juliet might for a moment have turned her eyes from romeo, and that desdemona might have taken her hair-breadth escapes to heart, so interesting and pathetic did she seem to him; and when, some years later, the circumstance i have named was recalled to him, he broke into one of those whimsical bursts of comical extravagance out of which arose the fancy of boythorn. with tremendous emphasis he confirmed the fact, and added that he had never in his life regretted anything so much as his having failed to carry out an intention he had formed respecting it; for he meant to have purchased that house, , st. james's square, and then and there to have burnt it to the ground, to the end that no meaner association should ever desecrate the birthplace of nell. then he would pause a little, become conscious of our sense of his absurdity, and break into a thundering peal of laughter." dickens had himself proposed to tell this story as a contribution to my biography of our common friend, but his departure for america prevented him. "i see," he wrote to me, as soon as the published book reached him, "you have told, with what our friend would have called _won_-derful accuracy, the little st. james's square story, which a certain faithless wretch was to have related." [ ] _poems._ by bret harte (boston: osgood & co., ), pp. - . chapter xiii. devonshire terrace and broadstairs. . a good saying--landor mystified--the mirthful side of dickens--extravagant flights--humorous despair--riding exercise--first of the ravens--the groom topping--the smoky chimneys--juryman at an inquest--practical humanity--publication of _clock's_ first number--transfer of _barnaby_ settled--a true prediction--revisiting old scenes--c. d. to chapman & hall--terms of sale of _barnaby_--a gift to a friend--final escape from bondage--published libels about him--said to be demented--to be insane and turned catholic--begging letter-writers--a donkey asked for--mr. kindheart--friendly meetings--social talk--reconciling friends--hint for judging men. it was an excellent saying of the first lord shaftesbury, that, seeing every man of any capacity holds within himself two men, the wise and the foolish, each of them ought freely to be allowed his turn; and it was one of the secrets of dickens's social charm that he could, in strict accordance with this saying, allow each part of him its turn; could afford thoroughly to give rest and relief to what was serious in him, and, when the time came to play his gambols, could surrender himself wholly to the enjoyment of the time, and become the very genius and embodiment of one of his own most whimsical fancies. turning back from the narrative of his last piece of writing to recall a few occurrences of the year during which it had occupied him, i find him at its opening in one of these humorous moods, and another friend, with myself, enslaved by its influence. "what on earth does it all mean?" wrote poor puzzled mr. landor to me, inclosing a letter from him of the date of the th of february, the day after the royal nuptials of that year. in this he had related to our old friend a wonderful hallucination arising out of that event, which had then taken entire possession of him. "society is unhinged here," thus ran the letter, "by her majesty's marriage, and i am sorry to add that i have fallen hopelessly in love with the queen, and wander up and down with vague and dismal thoughts of running away to some uninhabited island with a maid of honor, to be entrapped by conspiracy for that purpose. can you suggest any particular young person, serving in such a capacity, who would suit me? it is too much perhaps to ask you to join the band of noble youths (forster is in it, and maclise) who are to assist me in this great enterprise, but a man of your energy would be invaluable. i have my eye upon lady . . . , principally because she is very beautiful and has no strong brothers. upon this, and other points of the scheme, however, we will confer more at large when we meet; and meanwhile burn this document, that no suspicion may arise or rumor get abroad." the maid of honor and the uninhabited island were flights of fancy, but the other daring delusion was for a time encouraged to such whimsical lengths, not alone by him, but (under his influence) by the two friends named, that it took the wildest forms of humorous extravagance; and of the private confidences much interchanged, as well as of the style of open speech in which our joke of despairing unfitness for any further use or enjoyment of life was unflaggingly kept up, to the amazement of bystanders knowing nothing of what it meant, and believing we had half lost our senses, i permit myself to give from his letters one further illustration. "i am utterly lost in misery," he writes to me on the th of february, "and can do nothing. i have been reading _oliver_, _pickwick_, and _nickleby_ to get my thoughts together for the new effort, but all in vain: "my heart is at windsor, my heart isn't here; my heart is at windsor. a following my dear. i saw the responsibilities this morning, and burst into tears. the presence of my wife aggravates me. i loathe my parents. i detest my house. i begin to have thoughts of the serpentine, of the regent's canal, of the razors up-stairs, of the chemist's down the street, of poisoning myself at mrs. ----'s table, of hanging myself upon the pear-tree in the garden, of abstaining from food and starving myself to death, of being bled for my cold and tearing off the bandage, of falling under the feet of cab-horses in the new road, of murdering chapman & hall and becoming great in story (she must hear something of me then--perhaps sign the warrant: or is that a fable?), of turning chartist, of heading some bloody assault upon the palace and saving her by my single hand--of being anything but what i have been, and doing anything but what i have done. your distracted friend, c. d." the wild derangement of asterisks in every shape and form, with which this incoherence closed, cannot here be given. some ailments which dated from an earlier period in his life made themselves felt in the spring of the year, as i remember, and increased horse-exercise was strongly recommended to him. "i find it will be positively necessary to go, for five days in the week, at least," he wrote to me in march, "on a perfect regimen of diet and exercise, and am anxious therefore not to delay treating for a horse." we were now in consequence, when he was not at the sea-side, much on horseback in suburban lanes and roads; and the spacious garden of his new house was also turned to healthful use at even his busiest times of work. i mark this, too, as the time when the first of his ravens took up residence there; and as the beginning of disputes with two of his neighbors about the smoking of the stable-chimney, which his groom topping, a highly absurd little man with flaming red hair, so complicated by secret devices of his own, meant to conciliate each complainant alternately and having the effect of aggravating both, that law-proceedings were only barely avoided. "i shall give you," he writes, "my latest report of the chimney in the form of an address from topping, made to me on our way from little hall's at norwood the other night, where he and chapman and i had been walking all day, while topping drove kate, mrs. hall, and her sisters, to dulwich. topping had been regaled upon the premises, and was just drunk enough to be confidential. 'beggin' your pardon, sir, but the genelman next door sir, seems to be gettin' quite comfortable and pleasant about the chimley.'--'i don't think he is, topping.'--'yes he is sir i think. he comes out in the yard this morning and says, _coachman_ he says' (observe the vision of a great large fat man called up by the word) _is that your raven_ he says, _coachman? or is it mr. dickens's raven?_ he says. my master's sir, i says. well, he says, it's a fine bird. _i think the chimley 'ill do now coachman,--now the jint's taken off the pipe_ he says. i hope it will sir, i says; my master's a genelman as wouldn't annoy no genelman if he could help it, i'm sure; and my missis is so afraid of havin' a bit o' fire that o' sundays our little bit o' weal or wot not, goes to the baker's a purpose.--_damn the chimley, coachman_, he says, _it's a smokin' now_.--it ain't a smokin' your way sir, i says; well he says _no more it is, coachman, and as long as it smokes anybody else's way, it's all right and i'm agreeable_.' of course i shall now have the man from the other side upon me, and very likely with an action of nuisance for smoking into his conservatory." a graver incident, which occurred to him also among his earliest experiences as tenant of devonshire terrace, illustrates too well the always practical turn of his kindness and humanity not to deserve relation here. he has himself described it in one of his minor writings, in setting down what he remembered as the only good that ever came of a beadle. of that great parish functionary, he says, "having newly taken the lease of a house in a certain distinguished metropolitan parish, a house which then appeared to me to be a frightfully first-class family mansion involving awful responsibilities, i became the prey." in other words, he was summoned, and obliged to sit, as juryman at an inquest on the body of a little child alleged to have been murdered by its mother; of which the result was, that, by his persevering exertion, seconded by the humane help of the coroner, mr. wakley, the verdict of himself and his fellow-jurymen charged her only with concealment of the birth. "the poor desolate creature dropped upon her knees before us with protestations that we were right (protestations among the most affecting that i have ever heard in my life), and was carried away insensible. i caused some extra care to be taken of her in the prison, and counsel to be retained for her defense when she was tried at the old bailey; and her sentence was lenient, and her history and conduct proved that it was right." how much he felt the little incident, at the actual time of its occurrence, may be judged from the few lines written to me next morning: "whether it was the poor baby, or its poor mother, or the coffin, or my fellow-jurymen, or what not, i can't say, but last night i had a most violent attack of sickness and indigestion, which not only prevented me from sleeping, but even from lying down. accordingly kate and i sat up through the dreary watches." the day of the first publication of _master humphrey_ (saturday, th april) had by this time come, and, according to the rule observed in his two other great ventures, he left town with mrs. dickens on friday, the d. with maclise we had been together at richmond the previous night; and i joined him at birmingham the day following with news of the sale of the whole sixty thousand copies to which the first working had been limited, and of orders already in hand for ten thousand more! the excitement of the success somewhat lengthened our holiday; and, after visiting shakspeare's house at stratford and johnson's at lichfield, we found our resources so straitened in returning, that, employing as our messenger of need his younger brother alfred, who had joined us from tamworth, where he was a student-engineer, we had to pawn our gold watches at birmingham. at the end of the following month he went to broadstairs, and not many days before (on the th of may) a note from mr. jordan on behalf of mr. bentley opened the negotiations formerly referred to,[ ] which transferred to messrs. chapman & hall the agreement for _barnaby rudge_. i was myself absent when he left, and in a letter announcing his departure he had written, "i don't know of a word of news in all london, but there will be plenty next week, for i am going away, and i hope you'll send me an account of it. i am doubtful whether it will be a murder, a fire, a vast robbery, or the escape of gould, but it will be something remarkable no doubt. i almost blame myself for the death of that poor girl who leaped off the monument upon my leaving town last year. she would not have done it if i had remained, neither would the two men have found the skeleton in the sewers." his prediction was quite accurate, for i had to tell him, after not many days, of the potboy who shot at the queen. "it's a great pity," he replied, very sensibly, "they couldn't suffocate that boy, master oxford, and say no more about it. to have put him quietly between two feather beds would have stopped his heroic speeches, and dulled the sound of his glory very much. as it is, she will have to run the gauntlet of many a fool and madman, some of whom may perchance be better shots and use other than brummagem firearms." how much of this actually came to pass, the reader knows. from the letters of his present broadstairs visit, there is little further to add to their account of his progress with his story; but a couple more lines may be given for their characteristic expression of his invariable habit upon entering any new abode, whether to stay in it for days or for years. on a monday night he arrived, and on the tuesday ( d of june) wrote to me, "_before_ i tasted bit or drop yesterday, i set out my writing-table with extreme taste and neatness, and improved the disposition of the furniture generally." he stayed till the end of june; when maclise and myself joined him for the pleasure of posting back home with him and mrs. dickens, by way of his favorite chatham and rochester and cobham, where we passed two agreeable days in revisiting well-remembered scenes. i had meanwhile brought to a close the treaty for repurchase of _oliver_ and surrender of _barnaby_, upon terms which are succinctly stated in a letter written by him to messrs. chapman & hall on the d of july, the day after our return: "the terms upon which you advance the money to-day for the purchase of the copyright and stock[ ] of _oliver_ on my behalf are understood between us to be these. that this _l._ is to be deducted from the purchase-money of a work by me entitled _barnaby rudge_, of which two chapters are now in your hands, and of which the whole is to be written within some convenient time to be agreed upon between us. but if it should not be written (which god forbid!) within five years, you are to have a lien to this amount on the property belonging to me that is now in your hands, namely, my shares in the stock and copyright of _sketches by boz_, _the pickwick papers_, _nicholas nickleby_, _oliver twist_, and _master humphrey's clock_; in which we do not include any share of the current profits of the last-named work, which i shall remain at liberty to draw at the times stated in our agreement. your purchase of _barnaby rudge_ is made upon the following terms. it is to consist of matter sufficient for ten monthly numbers of the size of _pickwick_ and _nickleby_, which you are, however, at liberty to divide and publish in fifteen smaller numbers if you think fit. the terms for the purchase of this edition in numbers, and for the copyright of the whole book for six months after the publication of the last number, are _l._ at the expiration of the six months the whole copyright reverts to me." the sequel was, as all the world knows, that barnaby became successor to little nell, the money being repaid by the profits of the _clock_; but i ought to mention also the more generous sequel that my own small service had, on my receiving from him, after not many days, an antique silver-mounted jug of great beauty of form and workmanship, but with a wealth far beyond jeweler's chasing or artist's design in the written words that accompanied it.[ ] i accepted them to commemorate, not the help they would have far overpaid, but the gladness of his own escape from the last of the agreements that had hampered the opening of his career, and the better future that was now before him. at the opening of august he was with mrs. dickens for some days in devonshire, on a visit to his father, but he had to take his work with him; and, as he wrote to me, they had only one real holiday, when dawlish, teignmouth, babbicombe, and torquay were explored, returning to exeter at night. in the beginning of september he was again at broadstairs. "i was just going to work," he wrote on the th, "when i got this letter, and the story of the man who went to chapman & hall's knocked me down flat. i wrote until now (a quarter to one) against the grain, and have at last given it up for one day. upon my word it is intolerable. i have been grinding my teeth all the morning. i think i could say in two lines something about the general report with propriety. i'll add them to the proof" (the preface to the first volume of the _clock_ was at this time in preparation), "giving you full power to cut them out if you should think differently from me, and from c. and h., who in such a matter must be admitted judges." he refers here to a report, rather extensively circulated at the time, and which through various channels had reached his publishers, that he was suffering from loss of reason and was under treatment in an asylum.[ ] i would have withheld from him the mention of it, as an absurdity that must quickly pass away, but against my wish it had been communicated to him, and i had difficulty in keeping within judicious bounds his extreme and very natural wrath. a few days later (the th) he wrote, "i have been rather surprised of late to have applications from roman catholic clergymen, demanding (rather pastorally, and with a kind of grave authority) assistance, literary employment, and so forth. at length it struck me that, through some channel or other, i must have been represented as belonging to that religion. would you believe that in a letter from lamert, at cork, to my mother, which i saw last night, he says, 'what do the papers mean by saying that charles is demented, and, further, _that he has turned roman catholic_?'--!" of the begging-letter-writers, hinted at here, i ought earlier to have said something. in one of his detached essays he has described, without a particle of exaggeration, the extent to which he was made a victim by this class of swindler, and the extravagance of the devices practiced on him; but he has not confessed, as he might, that for much of what he suffered he was himself responsible, by giving so largely, as at first he did, to almost every one who applied to him. what at last brought him to his senses in this respect, i think, was the request made by the adventurer who had exhausted every other expedient, and who desired finally, after describing himself reduced to the condition of a traveling cheap jack in the smallest way of crockery, that a donkey might be left out for him next day, which he would duly call for. this i perfectly remember, and i much fear that the applicant was the daniel tobin before mentioned.[ ] many and delightful were other letters written from broadstairs at this date, filled with whimsical talk and humorous description relating chiefly to an eccentric friend who stayed with him most of the time, and is sketched in one of his published papers as mr. kindheart; but all too private for reproduction now. he returned in the middle of october, when we resumed our almost daily ridings, foregatherings with maclise at hampstead and elsewhere, and social entertainments with macready, talfourd, procter, stanfield, fonblanque, elliotson, tennent, d'orsay, quin, harness, wilkie, edwin landseer, rogers, sydney smith, and bulwer. of the genius of the author of _pelham_ and _eugene aram_ he had, early and late, the highest admiration, and he took occasion to express it during the present year in a new preface which he published to _oliver twist_. other friends became familiar in later years; but, disinclined as he was to the dinner-invitations that reached him from every quarter, all such meetings with those whom i have named, and in an especial manner the marked attentions shown him by miss coutts which began with the very beginning of his career, were invariably welcome. to speak here of the pleasure his society afforded, would anticipate the fitter mention to be made hereafter. but what in this respect distinguishes nearly all original men, he possessed eminently. his place was not to be filled up by any other. to the most trivial talk he gave the attraction of his own character. it might be a small matter,--something he had read or observed during the day, some quaint odd fancy from a book, a vivid little out-door picture, the laughing exposure of some imposture, or a burst of sheer mirthful enjoyment,--but of its kind it would be something unique, because genuinely part of himself. this, and his unwearying animal spirits, made him the most delightful of companions; no claim on good-fellowship ever found him wanting; and no one so constantly recalled to his friends the description johnson gave of garrick, as the cheerfulest man of his age. of what occupied him in the way of literary labor in the autumn and winter months of the year, some description has been given; and, apart from what has already thus been said of his work at the closing chapters of _the old curiosity shop_, nothing now calls for more special allusion, except that in his town-walks in november, impelled thereto by specimens recently discovered in his country-walks between broadstairs and ramsgate, he thoroughly explored the ballad literature of seven-dials, and took to singing himself, with an effect that justified his reputation for comic singing in his childhood, not a few of these wonderful productions. his last successful labor of the year was the reconciliation of two friends; and his motive, as well as the principle that guided him, as they are described by himself, i think worth preserving. for the first: "in the midst of this child's death, i, over whom something of the bitterness of death has passed, not lightly perhaps, was reminded of many old kindnesses, and was sorry in my heart that men who really liked each other should waste life at arm's length." for the last: "i have laid it down as a rule in my judgment of men, to observe narrowly whether some (of whom one is disposed to think badly) don't carry all their faults upon the surface, and others (of whom one is disposed to think well) don't carry many more beneath it. i have long ago made sure that our friend is in the first class; and when i know all the foibles a man has, with little trouble in the discovery, i begin to think he is worth liking." his latest letter of the year, dated the day following, closed with the hope that we might, he and i, enjoy together "fifty more christmases, at least, in this world, and eternal summers in another." alas! footnotes: [ ] see _ante_, p. . [ ] by way of a novelty to help off the stock, he had suggested ( th june), "would it not be best to print new title-pages to the copies sheets and publish them as a new edition, with an interesting preface? i am talking about all this as though the treaty were concluded, but i hope and trust that in effect it is, for negotiation and delay are worse to me than drawn daggers." see my remark _ante_, p. . [ ] "accept from me" (july , ), "as a slight memorial of your attached companion, the poor keepsake which accompanies this. my heart is not an eloquent one on matters which touch it most, but suppose this claret-jug the urn in which it lies, and believe that its warmest and truest blood is yours. this was the object of my fruitless search, and your curiosity, on friday. at first i scarcely knew what trifle (you will deem it valuable, i know, for the giver's sake) to send you; but i thought it would be pleasant to connect it with our jovial moments, and to let it add, to the wine we shall drink from it together, a flavor which the choicest vintage could never impart. take it from my hand,--filled to the brim and running over with truth and earnestness. i have just taken one parting look at it, and it seems the most elegant thing in the world to me, for i lose sight of the vase in the crowd of welcome associations that are clustering and wreathing themselves about it." [ ] already he had been the subject of similar reports on the occasion of the family sorrow which compelled him to suspend the publication of _pickwick_ for two months (_ante_, p. ), when, upon issuing a brief address in resuming his work ( th june, ), he said, "by one set of intimate acquaintances, especially well informed, he has been killed outright; by another, driven mad; by a third, imprisoned for debt; by a fourth, sent per steamer to the united states; by a fifth, rendered incapable of mental exertion for evermore; by all, in short, represented as doing anything but seeking in a few weeks' retirement the restoration of that cheerfulness and peace of which a sad bereavement had temporarily deprived him." [ ] see _ante_, p. . chapter xiv. barnaby rudge. . advantage in beginning _barnaby_--birth of fourth child and second son--the raven--a loss in the family--grip's death--c. d. describes his illness--family mourners--apotheosis by maclise--grip the second--the inn at chigwell--a _clock_ dinner--lord jeffrey in london--the _lamplighter_--the _pic nic papers_--character of lord george gordon--a doubtful fancy--interest in new labor--constraints of weekly publication--the prison-riots--a serious illness--close of _barnaby_--character of the tale--defects in the plot--the no-popery riots--descriptive power displayed--leading persons in story--mr. dennis the hangman. the letters of yield similar fruit as to his doings and sayings, and may in like manner first be consulted for the literary work he had in hand. he had the advantage of beginning _barnaby rudge_ with a fair amount of story in advance, which he had only to make suitable, by occasional readjustment of chapters, to publication in weekly portions; and on this he was engaged before the end of january. "i am at present" ( d january, ) "in what leigh hunt would call a kind of impossible state,--thinking what on earth master humphrey can think of through four mortal pages. i added, here and there, to the last chapter of the _curiosity shop_ yesterday, and it leaves me only four pages to write." (they were filled by a paper from humphrey introductory of the new tale, in which will be found a striking picture of london from midnight to the break of day.) "i also made up, and wrote the needful insertions for, the second number of _barnaby_,--so that i came back to the mill a little." hardly yet; for after four days he writes, having meanwhile done nothing, "i have been looking (three o'clock) with an appearance of extraordinary interest and study at _one leaf_ of the _curiosities of literature_ ever since half-past ten this morning--i haven't the heart to turn over." then on friday the th better news came. "i didn't stir out yesterday, but sat and _thought_ all day; not writing a line; not so much as the cross of a t or dot of an i. i imaged forth a good deal of _barnaby_ by keeping my mind steadily upon him; and am happy to say i have gone to work this morning in good twig, strong hope, and cheerful spirits. last night i was unutterably and impossible-to-form-an-idea-of-ably miserable. . . . by-the-by, don't engage yourself otherwise than to me for sunday week, because it's my birthday. i have no doubt we shall have got over our troubles here by that time, and i purpose having a snug dinner in the study." we had the dinner, though the troubles were not over; but the next day another son was born to him. "thank god," he wrote on the th, "quite well. i am thinking hard, and have just written to browne inquiring when he will come and confer about the raven." he had by this time resolved to make that bird, whose accomplishments had been daily ripening and enlarging for the last twelve months to the increasing mirth and delight of all of us, a prominent figure in _barnaby_; and the invitation to the artist was for a conference how best to introduce him graphically. the next letter mentioning _barnaby_ was from brighton ( th february), whither he had flown for a week's quiet labor: "i have (it's four o'clock) done a very fair morning's work, at which i have sat very close, and been blessed besides with a clear view of the end of the volume. as the contents of one number usually require a day's thought at the very least, and often more, this puts me in great spirits. i think--that is, i hope--the story takes a great stride at this point, and takes it well. nous verrons. grip will be strong, and i build greatly on the varden household." upon his return he had to lament a domestic calamity, which, for its connection with that famous personage in _barnaby_, must be mentioned here. the raven had for some days been ailing, and topping had reported of him, as shakspeare of hamlet, that he had lost his mirth and foregone all customary exercises; but dickens paid no great heed, remembering his recovery from an illness of the previous summer when he swallowed some white paint; so that the graver report which led him to send for the doctor came upon him unexpectedly, and nothing but his own language can worthily describe the result. unable from the state of his feelings to write two letters, he sent the narrative to maclise, under an enormous black seal, for transmission to me; and thus it befell that this fortunate bird receives a double passport to fame, so great a humorist having celebrated his farewell to the present world, and so great a painter his welcome to another. "you will be greatly shocked" (the letter is dated friday evening, march , ) "and grieved to hear that the raven is no more. he expired to-day at a few minutes after twelve o'clock at noon. he had been ailing for a few days, but we anticipated no serious result, conjecturing that a portion of the white paint he swallowed last summer might be lingering about his vitals without having any serious effect upon his constitution. yesterday afternoon he was taken so much worse that i sent an express for the medical gentleman (mr. herring), who promptly attended, and administered a powerful dose of castor oil. under the influence of this medicine, he recovered so far as to be able at eight o'clock p.m. to bite topping. his night was peaceful. this morning at daybreak he appeared better; received (agreeably to the doctor's directions) another dose of castor oil; and partook plentifully of some warm gruel, the flavor of which he appeared to relish. towards eleven o'clock he was so much worse that it was found necessary to muffle the stable-knocker. at half-past, or thereabouts, he was heard talking to himself about the horse and topping's family, and to add some incoherent expressions which are supposed to have been either a foreboding of his approaching dissolution, or some wishes relative to the disposal of his little property: consisting chiefly of half-pence which he had buried in different parts of the garden. on the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach-house, stopped to bark, staggered, exclaimed _halloa old girl!_ (his favorite expression), and died. "he behaved throughout with a decent fortitude, equanimity, and self-possession, which cannot be too much admired. i deeply regret that being in ignorance of his danger i did not attend to receive his last instructions. something remarkable about his eyes occasioned topping to run for the doctor at twelve. when they returned together our friend was gone. it was the medical gentleman who informed me of his decease. he did it with great caution and delicacy, preparing me by the remark that 'a jolly queer start had taken place;' but the shock was very great notwithstanding. i am not wholly free from suspicions of poison. a malicious butcher has been heard to say that he would 'do' for him: his plea was that he would not be molested in taking orders down the mews, by any bird that wore a tail. other persons have also been heard to threaten: among others, charles knight, who has just started a weekly publication price fourpence: _barnaby_ being, as you know, threepence. i have directed a post-mortem examination, and the body has been removed to mr. herring's school of anatomy for that purpose. "i could wish, if you can take the trouble, that you could inclose this to forster immediately after you have read it. i cannot discharge the painful task of communication more than once. were they ravens who took manna to somebody in the wilderness? at times i hope they were, and at others i fear they were not, or they would certainly have stolen it by the way. in profound sorrow, i am ever your bereaved friend c. d. kate is as well as can be expected, but terribly low, as you may suppose. the children seem rather glad of it. he bit their ankles. but that was play." [illustration: [sideways text: apotheosis] my dear forster dickens desires me transmit to you the enclosed announcement of the raven's decease - which took place in devonshire terrace march hic dm] maclise's covering letter was an apotheosis, to be rendered only in fac-simile. in what way the loss was replaced, so that _barnaby_ should have the fruit of continued study of the habits of the family of birds which grip had so nobly represented, dickens has told in the preface to the story; and another, older, and larger grip, obtained through mr. smithson, was installed in the stable, almost before the stuffed remains of his honored predecessor had been sent home in a glass case, by way of ornament to his master's study. i resume our correspondence on what he was writing: "i see there is yet room for a few lines" ( th march), "and you are quite right in wishing what i cut out to be restored. i did not want joe to be so short about dolly, and really wrote his references to that young lady carefully,--as natural things with a meaning in them. chigwell, my dear fellow, is the greatest place in the world. name your day for going. such a delicious old inn opposite the churchyard,--such a lovely ride,--such beautiful forest scenery,--such an out-of-the-way, rural place,--such a sexton! i say again, name your day." the day was named at once; and the whitest of stones marks it, in now sorrowful memory. his promise was exceeded by our enjoyment; and his delight in the double recognition, of himself and of _barnaby_, by the landlord of the nice old inn, far exceeded any pride he would have taken in what the world thinks the highest sort of honor. "i have shut myself up" ( th march) "by myself to-day, and mean to try and 'go it' at the _clock_; kate being out, and the house peacefully dismal. i don't remember altering the exact part you object to, but if there be anything here you object to, knock it out ruthlessly." "don't fail" (april the th) "to erase anything that seems to you too strong. it is difficult for me to judge what tells too much, and what does not. i am trying a very quiet number to set against this necessary one. i hope it will be good, but i am in very sad condition for work. glad you think this powerful. what i have put in is more relief, from the raven." two days later: "i have done that number, and am now going to work on another. i am bent (please heaven) on finishing the first chapter by friday night. i hope to look in upon you to-night, when we'll dispose of the toasts for saturday. still bilious--but a good number, i hope, notwithstanding. jeffrey has come to town, and was here yesterday." the toasts to be disposed of were those to be given at the dinner on the th to celebrate the second volume of _master humphrey_: when talfourd presided, when there was much jollity, and, according to the memorandum drawn up that saturday night now lying before me, we all in the greatest good humor glorified each other: talfourd proposing the _clock_, macready mrs. dickens, dickens the publishers, and myself the artists; macready giving talfourd, talfourd macready, dickens myself, and myself the comedian mr. harley, whose humorous songs had been the not least considerable element in the mirth of the evening. five days later he writes, "i finished the number yesterday, and, although i dined with jeffrey, and was obliged to go to lord denman's afterwards (which made me late), have done eight slips of the _lamplighter_ for mrs. macrone, this morning. when i have got that off my mind, i shall try to go on steadily, fetching up the _clock_ lee-way." the _lamplighter_ was his old farce,[ ] which he now turned into a comic tale; and this, with other contributions given him by friends and edited by him as _pic nic papers_, enabled him to help the widow of his old publisher in her straitened means by a gift of £ . he had finished his work of charity before he next wrote of _barnaby rudge_, but he was fetching up his lee-way lazily. "i am getting on" ( th of april) "very slowly. i want to stick to the story; and the fear of committing myself, because of the impossibility of trying back or altering a syllable, makes it much harder than it looks. it was too bad of me to give you the trouble of cutting the number, but i knew so well you would do it in the right places. for what harley would call the 'onward work' i really think i have some famous thoughts." there is an interval of a month before the next allusion: "solomon's expression" ( d of june) "i meant to be one of those strong ones to which strong circumstances give birth in the commonest minds. deal with it as you like. . . . say what you please of gordon" (i had objected to some points in his view of this madman, stated much too favorably as i thought), "he must have been at heart a kind man, and a lover of the despised and rejected, after his own fashion. he lived upon a small income, and always within it; was known to relieve the necessities of many people; exposed in his place the corrupt attempt of a minister to buy him out of parliament; and did great charities in newgate. he always spoke on the people's side, and tried against his muddled brains to expose the profligacy of both parties. he never got anything by his madness, and never sought it. the wildest and most raging attacks of the time allow him these merits: and not to let him have 'em in their full extent, remembering in what a (politically) wicked time he lived, would lie upon my conscience heavily. the libel he was imprisoned for when he died, was on the queen of france; and the french government interested themselves warmly to procure his release,--which i think they might have done, but for lord grenville." i was more successful in the counsel i gave against a fancy he had at this part of the story, that he would introduce as actors in the gordon riots three splendid fellows who should order, lead, control, and be obeyed as natural guides of the crowd in that delirious time, and who should turn out, when all was over, to have broken out from bedlam; but, though he saw the unsoundness of this, he could not so readily see, in gordon's case, the danger of taxing ingenuity to ascribe a reasonable motive to acts of sheer insanity. the feeblest parts of the book are those in which lord george and his secretary appear. he left for scotland after the middle of june, but he took work with him. "you may suppose," he wrote from edinburgh on the th, "i have not done much work; but by friday night's post from here i hope to send the first long chapter of a number and both the illustrations; from loch earn on tuesday night, the closing chapter of that number; from the same place on thursday night, the first long chapter of another, with both the illustrations; and, from some place which no man ever spelt but which sounds like ballyhoolish, on saturday, the closing chapter of that number, which will leave us all safe till i return to town." nine days later he wrote from "ballechelish," "i have done all i can or need do in the way of _barnaby_ until i come home, and the story is progressing (i hope you will think) to good strong interest. i have left it, i think, at an exciting point, with a good dawning of the riots. in the first of the two numbers i have written since i have been away, i forget whether the blind man, in speaking to barnaby about riches, tells him they are to be found in _crowds_. if i have not actually used that word, will you introduce it? a perusal of the proof of the following number ( ) will show you how, and why." "have you," he wrote shortly after his return ( th july), "seen no. ? i thought there was a good glimpse of a crowd, from a window--eh?" he had now taken thoroughly to the interest of his closing chapters, and felt more than ever the constraints of his form of publication. "i am warming up very much" (on the th august from broadstairs) "about _barnaby_. oh! if i only had him, from this time to the end, in monthly numbers. _n'importe!_ i hope the interest will be pretty strong,--and, in every number, stronger." six days later, from the same place: "i was always sure i could make a good thing of _barnaby_, and i think you'll find that it comes out strong to the last word. i have another number ready, all but two slips. don't fear for young chester. the time hasn't come----there we go again, you see, with the weekly delays. i am in great heart and spirits with the story, and with the prospect of having time to think before i go on again." a month's interval followed, and what occupied it will be described shortly. on the th september he wrote, "i have just burnt into newgate, and am going in the next number to tear the prisoners out by the hair of their heads. the number which gets into the jail you'll have in proof by tuesday." this was followed up a week later: "i have let all the prisoners out of newgate, burnt down lord mansfield's, and played the very devil. another number will finish the fires, and help us on towards the end. i feel quite smoky when i am at work. i want elbow-room terribly." to this trouble, graver supervened at his return, a serious personal sickness not the least; but he bore up gallantly, and i had never better occasion than now to observe his quiet endurance of pain, how little he thought of himself where the sense of self is commonly supreme, and the manful duty with which everything was done that, ailing as he was, he felt it necessary to do. he was still in his sick-room ( d october) when he wrote, "i hope i sha'n't leave off any more, now, until i have finished _barnaby_." three days after that, he was busying himself eagerly for others; and on the d of november the printers received the close of _barnaby rudge_. this tale was dickens's first attempt out of the sphere of the life of the day and its actual manners. begun during the progress of _oliver twist_, it had been for some time laid aside; the form it ultimately took had been comprised only partially within its first design; and the story in its finished shape presented strongly a special purpose, the characteristic of all but his very earliest writings. its scene is laid at the time when the incessant execution of men and women, comparatively innocent, disgraced every part of the country; demoralizing thousands, whom it also prepared for the scaffold. in those days the theft of a few rags from a bleaching-ground, or the abstraction of a roll of ribbons from a counter, was visited with the penalty of blood; and such laws brutalized both their ministers and victims. it was the time, too, when a false religious outcry brought with it appalling guilt and misery. these are vices that leave more behind them than the first forms assumed, and they involve a lesson sufficiently required to justify a writer in dealing with them. there were also others grafted on them. in barnaby himself it was desired to show what sources of comfort there might be, for the patient and cheerful heart, in even the worst of all human afflictions; and in the hunted life of his outcast father, whose crime had entailed not that affliction only but other more fearful wretchedness, we have as powerful a picture as any in his writings of the inevitable and unfathomable consequences of sin. but, as the story went on, it was incident to these designs that what had been accomplished in its predecessor could hardly be attained here, in singleness of purpose, unity of idea, or harmony of treatment; and other defects supervened in the management of the plot. the interest with which the tale begins has ceased to be its interest before the close; and what has chiefly taken the reader's fancy at the outset almost wholly disappears in the power and passion with which, in the later chapters, the great riots are described. so admirable is this description, however, that it would be hard to have to surrender it even for a more perfect structure of fable. there are few things more masterly in any of his books. from the first low mutterings of the storm to its last terrible explosion, this frantic outbreak of popular ignorance and rage is depicted with unabated power. the aimlessness of idle mischief by which the ranks of the rioters are swelled at the beginning; the recklessness induced by the monstrous impunity allowed to the early excesses; the sudden spread of this drunken guilt into every haunt of poverty, ignorance, or mischief in the wicked old city, where the rich materials of crime lie festering; the wild action of its poison on all, without scheme or plan of any kind, who come within its reach; the horrors that are more bewildering for this complete absence of purpose in them; and, when all is done, the misery found to have been self-inflicted in every cranny and corner of london, as if a plague had swept over the streets: these are features in the picture of an actual occurrence, to which the manner of the treatment gives extraordinary force and meaning. nor, in the sequel, is there anything displayed with more profitable vividness than the law's indiscriminate cruelty at last, in contrast with its cowardly indifference at first; while, among the casual touches lighting up the scene with flashes of reality that illumine every part of it, may be instanced the discovery, in the quarter from which screams for succor are loudest when newgate is supposed to be accidentally on fire, of four men who were certain in any case to have perished on the drop next day. the story, which has unusually careful writing in it, and much manly upright thinking, has not so many people eagerly adopted as of kin by everybody, as its predecessors are famous for; but it has yet a fair proportion of such as take solid form within the mind and keep hold of the memory. to these belong in an especial degree gabriel varden and his household, on whom are lavished all the writer's fondness and not a little of his keenest humor. the honest locksmith with his jovial jug, and the tink-tink-tink of his pleasant nature making cheerful music out of steel and iron; the buxom wife, with her plaguy tongue that makes every one wretched whom her kindly disposition would desire to make happy; the good-hearted plump little dolly, coquettish minx of a daughter, with all she suffers and inflicts by her fickle winning ways and her small self-admiring vanities; and miggs the vicious and slippery, acid, amatory, and of uncomfortable figure, sower of family discontents and discords, who swears all the while she wouldn't make or meddle with 'em "not for a annual gold-mine and found in tea and sugar:" there is not much social painting anywhere with a better domestic moral than in all these; and a nice propriety of feeling and thought regulates the use of such satire throughout. no one knows more exactly how far to go with that formidable weapon, or understands better that what satirizes everything, in effect satirizes nothing. another excellent group is that which the story opens with, in the quaint old kitchen of the maypole; john willett and his friends, genuinely comic creations all of them. then we have barnaby and his raven: the light-hearted idiot, as unconscious of guilt as of suffering, and happy with no sense but of the influences of nature; and the grave sly bird, with sufficient sense to make himself as unhappy as rascally habits will make the human animal. there is poor brutish hugh, too, loitering lazily outside the maypole door, with a storm of passions in him raging to be let loose; already the scaffold's withered fruit, as he is doomed to be its ripe offering; and though with all the worst instincts of the savage, yet not without also some of the best. still farther out of kindly nature's pitying reach lurks the worst villain of the scene: with this sole claim to consideration, that it was by constant contact with the filthiest instrument of law and state he had become the mass of moral filth he is. mr. dennis the hangman is a portrait that hogarth would have painted with the same wholesome severity of satire which is employed upon it in _barnaby rudge_. footnotes: [ ] see _ante_, pp. and . chapter xv. public dinner in edinburgh. . his son walter landor--dies in calcutta ( )--c. d. and the new poor-law--moore and rogers--jeffrey's praise of little nell--resolve to visit scotland--edinburgh dinner proposed--sir david wilkie's death--peter robertson--professor wilson--a fancy of scott--lionization made tolerable--thoughts of home--the dinner and speeches--his reception--wilson's eulogy--home yearnings--freedom of city voted to him--speakers at the dinner--politics and party influences--whig jealousies--at the theatre--hospitalities--moral of it all--proposed visit to the highlands--maclise and macready--guide to the highlands--mr. angus fletcher (kindheart). among the occurrences of the year, apart from the tale he was writing, the birth of his fourth child and second son has been briefly mentioned. "i mean to call the boy edgar," he wrote, the day after he was born ( th february), "a good honest saxon name, i think." he changed his mind in a few days, however, on resolving to ask landor to be godfather. this intention, as soon as formed, he announced to our excellent old friend, telling him it would give the child something to boast of, to be called walter landor, and that to call him so would do his own heart good. for, as to himself, whatever realities had gone out of the ceremony of christening, the meaning still remained in it of enabling him to form a relationship with friends he most loved; and as to the boy, he held that to give him a name to be proud of was to give him also another reason for doing nothing unworthy or untrue when he came to be a man. walter, alas! only lived to manhood. he obtained a military cadetship through the kindness of miss coutts, and died at calcutta on the last day of , in his twenty-third year. the interest taken by this distinguished lady in him and in his had begun, as i have said, at an earlier date than even this; and i remember, while _oliver twist_ was going on, his pleasure because of her father's mention of him in a speech at birmingham, for his advocacy of the cause of the poor. whether to the new poor-law sir francis burdett objected as strongly as we have seen that dickens did, as well as many other excellent men, who forgot the atrocities of the system it displaced in their indignation at the needless and cruel harshness with which it was worked at the outset, i have not at hand the means of knowing. but certainly this continued to be strongly the feeling of dickens, who exulted in nothing so much as at any misadventure to the whigs in connection with it. "how often used black and i," he wrote to me in april, "to quarrel about the effect of the poor-law bill! walter comes in upon the cry. see whether the whigs go out upon it." it was the strong desire he had to make himself heard upon it, even in parliament, that led him not immediately to turn aside from a proposal, now privately made by some of the magnates of reading, to bring him in for that borough; but the notion was soon dismissed, as, on its revival more than once in later times, it continued very wisely to be. his opinions otherwise were extremely radical at present, as will be apparent shortly; and he did not at all relish peel's majority of one when it came soon after, and unseated the whigs. it was just now, i may add, he greatly enjoyed a quiet setting-down of moore by rogers at sir francis burdett's table, for talking exaggerated toryism. so debased was the house of commons by reform, said moore, that a burke, if you could find him, would not be listened to. "no such thing, tommy," said rogers; "_find yourself_, and they'd listen even to you." this was not many days before he hinted to me an intention soon to be carried out in a rather memorable manner: "i have done nothing to-day" ( th march: we had bought books together, the day before, at tom hill's sale) "but cut the _swift_, looking into it with a delicious laziness in all manner of delightful places, and put poor tom's books away. i had a letter from edinburgh this morning, announcing that jeffrey's visit to london will be the week after next; telling me that he drives about edinburgh declaring there has been 'nothing so good as nell since cordelia,' which he writes also to all manner of people; and informing me of a desire in that romantic town to give me greeting and welcome. for this and other reasons i am disposed to make scotland my destination in june rather than ireland. think, _do_ think, meantime (here are ten good weeks), whether you couldn't, by some effort worthy of the owner of the gigantic helmet, go with us. think of such a fortnight,--york, carlisle, berwick, your own borders, edinburgh, rob roy's country, railroads, cathedrals, country inns, arthur's seat, lochs, glens, and home by sea. do think of this, seriously, at leisure." it was very tempting, but not to be. early in april jeffrey came, many feasts and entertainments welcoming him, of which he very sparingly partook; and before he left, the visit to scotland in june was all duly arranged, to be initiated by the splendid welcome of a public dinner in edinburgh, with lord jeffrey himself in the chair. allan the painter had come up meanwhile, with increasing note of preparation; and it was while we were all regretting wilkie's absence abroad, and dickens with warrantable pride was saying how surely the great painter would have gone to this dinner, that the shock of his sudden death[ ] came, and there was left but the sorrowful satisfaction of honoring his memory. there was one other change before the day. "i heard from edinburgh this morning," he wrote on the th of june. "jeffrey is not well enough to take the chair, so wilson does. i think under all circumstances of politics, acquaintance, and _edinburgh review_, that it's much better as it is--don't you?" his first letter from edinburgh, where he and mrs. dickens had taken up quarters at the royal hotel on their arrival the previous night, is dated the d of june: "i have been this morning to the parliament house, and am now introduced (i hope) to everybody in edinburgh. the hotel is perfectly besieged, and i have been forced to take refuge in a sequestered apartment at the end of a long passage, wherein i write this letter. they talk of at the dinner. we are very well off in point of rooms, having a handsome sitting-room, another next to it for _clock_ purposes, a spacious bedroom, and large dressing-room adjoining. the castle is in front of the windows, and the view noble. there was a supper ready last night which would have been a dinner anywhere." this was his first practical experience of the honors his fame had won for him, and it found him as eager to receive as all were eager to give. very interesting still, too, are those who took leading part in the celebration; and in his pleasant sketches of them there are some once famous and familiar figures not so well known to the present generation. here, among the first, are wilson and robertson. "the renowned peter robertson is a large, portly, full-faced man, with a merry eye, and a queer way of looking under his spectacles which is characteristic and pleasant. he seems a very warm-hearted earnest man too, and i felt quite at home with him forthwith. walking up and down the hall of the courts of law (which was full of advocates, writers to the signet, clerks, and idlers) was a tall, burly, handsome man of eight-and-fifty, with a gait like o'connell's, the bluest eye you can imagine, and long hair--longer than mine--falling down in a wild way under the broad brim of his hat. he had on a surtout coat, a blue checked shirt; the collar standing up, and kept in its place with a wisp of black neckerchief; no waistcoat; and a large pocket-handkerchief thrust into his breast, which was all broad and open. at his heels followed a wiry, sharp-eyed, shaggy devil of a terrier, dogging his steps as he went slashing up and down, now with one man beside him, now with another, and now quite alone, but always at a fast, rolling pace, with his head in the air, and his eyes as wide open as he could get them. i guessed it was wilson, and it was. a bright, clear-complexioned, mountain-looking fellow, he looks as though he had just come down from the highlands, and had never in his life taken pen in hand. but he has had an attack of paralysis in his right arm, within this month. he winced when i shook hands with him; and once or twice, when we were walking up and down, slipped as if he had stumbled on a piece of orange-peel. he is a great fellow to look at, and to talk to; and, if you could divest your mind of the actual scott, is just the figure you would put in his place." nor have the most ordinary incidents of the visit any lack of interest for us now, in so far as they help to complete the picture of himself: "allan has been squiring me about, all the morning. he and fletcher have gone to a meeting of the dinner-stewards, and i take the opportunity of writing to you. they dine with us to-day, and we are going to-night to the theatre. m'ian is playing there. i mean to leave a card for him before evening. we are engaged for every day of our stay, already; but the people i have seen are so very hearty and warm in their manner that much of the horrors of lionization gives way before it. i am glad to find that they propose giving me for a toast on friday the memory of wilkie. i should have liked it better than anything, if i could have made my choice. communicate all particulars to mac. i would to god you were both here. do dine together at the gray's inn on friday, and think of me. if i don't drink my first glass of wine to you, may my pistols miss fire, and my mare slip her shoulder. all sorts of regard from kate. she has gone with miss allan to see the house she was born in, etc. write me soon, and long, etc." his next letter was written the morning after the dinner, on saturday, the th june: "the great event is over; and, being gone, i am a man again. it was the most brilliant affair you can conceive; the completest success possible, from first to last. the room was crammed, and more than seventy applicants for tickets were of necessity refused yesterday. wilson was ill, but plucked up like a lion, and spoke famously.[ ] i send you a paper herewith, but the report is dismal in the extreme. they say there will be a better one--i don't know where or when. should there be, i will send it to you. i _think_ (ahem!) that i spoke rather well. it was an excellent room, and both the subjects (wilson and scottish literature, and the memory of wilkie) were good to go upon. there were nearly two hundred ladies present. the place is so contrived that the cross table is raised enormously: much above the heads of people sitting below: and the effect on first coming in (on me, i mean) was rather tremendous. i was quite self-possessed, however, and, notwithstanding the enthoosemoosy, which was very startling, as cool as a cucumber. i wish to god you had been there, as it is impossible for the 'distinguished guest' to describe the scene. it beat all natur.". . . here was the close of his letter: "i have been expecting every day to hear from you, and not hearing mean to make this the briefest epistle possible. we start next sunday (that's to-morrow week). we are going out to jeffrey's to-day (he is very unwell), and return here to-morrow evening. if i don't find a letter from you when i come back, expect no lights and shadows of scottish life from your indignant correspondent. murray the manager made very excellent, tasteful, and gentlemanly mention of macready, about whom wilson had been asking me divers questions during dinner." "a hundred thanks for your letter," he writes four days later. "i read it this morning with the greatest pleasure and delight, and answer it with ditto, ditto. where shall i begin--about my darlings? i am delighted with charley's precocity. he takes arter his father, he does. god bless them, you can't imagine (_you!_ how can you?) how much i long to see them. it makes me quite sorrowful to think of them. . . . yesterday, sir, the lord provost, council, and magistrates voted me by acclamation the freedom of the city, in testimony (i quote the letter just received from 'james forrest, lord provost') 'of the sense entertained by them of your distinguished abilities as an author.' i acknowledged this morning in appropriate terms the honor they had done me, and through me the pursuit to which i was devoted. it _is_ handsome, is it not?" the parchment scroll of the city-freedom, recording the grounds on which it was voted, hung framed in his study to the last, and was one of his valued possessions. answering some question of mine, he told me further as to the speakers, and gave some amusing glimpses of the party-spirit which still at that time ran high in the capital of the north. "the men who spoke at the dinner were all the most rising men here, and chiefly at the bar. they were all, alternately, whigs and tories; with some few radicals, such as gordon, who gave the memory of burns. he is wilson's son-in-law and the lord-advocate's nephew--a very masterly speaker indeed, who ought to become a distinguished man. neaves, who gave the other poets, a _little_ too lawyer-like for my taste, is a great gun in the courts. mr. primrose is lord rosebery's son. adam black, the publisher as you know. dr. alison, a very popular friend of the poor. robertson you know. allan you know. colquhoun is an advocate. all these men were selected for the toasts as being crack speakers, known men, and opposed to each other very strongly in politics. for this reason, the professors and so forth who sat upon the platform about me made no speeches and had none assigned them. i felt it was very remarkable to see such a number of gray-headed men gathered about my brown flowing locks; and it struck most of those who were present very forcibly. the judges, solicitor-general, lord-advocate, and so forth, were all here to call, the day after our arrival. the judges never go to public dinners in scotland. lord meadowbank alone broke through the custom, and none of his successors have imitated him. it will give you a good notion of _party_ to hear that the solicitor-general and lord-advocate refused to go, though they had previously engaged, _unless_ the croupier or the chairman were a whig. both (wilson and robertson) were tories, simply because, jeffrey excepted, no whig could be found who was adapted to the office. the solicitor laid strict injunctions on napier not to go if a whig were not in office. no whig was, and he stayed away. i think this is good?--bearing in mind that all the old whigs of edinburgh were cracking their throats in the room. they gave out that they were ill, and the lord-advocate did actually lie in bed all the afternoon; but this is the real truth, and one of the judges told it me with great glee. it seems they couldn't quite trust wilson or robertson, as they thought; and feared some tory demonstration. nothing of the kind took place; and ever since, these men have been the loudest in their praises of the whole affair." the close of his letter tells us all his engagements, and completes his graceful picture of the hearty scottish welcome given him. it has also some personal touches that may be thought worth preserving. "a threat reached me last night (they have been hammering at it in their papers, it seems, for some time) of a dinner at glasgow. but i hope, having circulated false rumors of my movements, to get away before they send to me; and only to stop there on my way home, to change horses and send to the post-office. . . . you will like to know how we have been living. here's a list of engagements, past and present. wednesday, we dined at home, and went incog. to the theatre at night, to murray's box; the pieces admirably done, and m'ian in the _two drovers_ quite wonderful and most affecting. thursday, to lord murray's; dinner and evening party. friday, _the_ dinner. saturday, to jeffrey's, a beautiful place about three miles off" (craigcrook, which at lord jeffrey's invitation i afterwards visited with him), "stop there all night, dine on sunday, and home at eleven. monday, dine at dr. alison's, four miles off. tuesday, dinner and evening party at allan's. wednesday, breakfast with napier, dine with blackwood's seven miles off, evening party at the treasurer's of the town-council, supper with all the artists (!!). thursday, lunch at the solicitor-general's, dine at lord gillies's, evening party at joseph gordon's, one of brougham's earliest supporters. friday, dinner and evening party at robertson's. saturday, dine again at jeffrey's; back to the theatre, at half-past nine to the moment, for public appearance;[ ] places all let, etc. etc. etc. sunday, off at seven o'clock in the morning to stirling, and then to callender, a stage further. next day, to loch earn, and pull up there for three days, to rest and work. the moral of all this is, that there is no place like home; and that i thank god most heartily for having given me a quiet spirit, and a heart that won't hold many people. i sigh for devonshire terrace and broadstairs, for battledoor and shuttlecock; i want to dine in a blouse with you and mac; and i feel topping's merits more acutely than i have ever done in my life. on sunday evening, the th of july, i shall revisit my household gods, please heaven. i wish the day were here. for god's sake be in waiting. i wish you and mac would dine in devonshire terrace that day with fred. he has the key of the cellar. _do._ we shall be at inverary in the highlands on tuesday week, getting to it through the pass of glencoe, of which you may have heard! on thursday following we shall be at glasgow, where i shall hope to receive your last letter before we meet. at inverary, too, i shall make sure of finding at least one, at the post-office. . . . little allan is trying hard for the post of queen's limner for scotland, vacant by poor wilkie's death. every one is in his favor but ----, who is jobbing for some one else. appoint him, will you, and i'll give up the premiership.--how i breakfasted to-day in the house where scott lived seven-and-twenty years; how i have made solemn pledges to write about missing children in the _edinburgh review_, and will do my best to keep them; how i have declined to be brought in, free gratis for nothing and qualified to boot, for a scotch county that's going a-begging, lest i should be thought to have dined on friday under false pretenses; these, with other marvels, shall be yours anon. . . . i must leave off sharp, to get dressed and off upon the seven miles' dinner-trip. kate's affectionate regards. my hearty loves to mac and grim." grim was another great artist having the same beginning to his name, whose tragic studies had suggested an epithet quite inapplicable to any of his personal qualities. the narrative of the trip to the highlands must have a chapter to itself and its incidents of adventure and comedy. the latter chiefly were due to the guide who accompanied him, a quasi-highlander himself, named a few pages back as mr. kindheart, whose real name was mr. angus fletcher, and to whom it hardly needs that i should give other mention than will be supplied by such future notices of him as my friend's letters may contain. he had a wayward kind of talent, which he could never concentrate on a settled pursuit; and though at the time we knew him first he had taken up the profession of a sculptor, he abandoned it soon afterwards. his mother, a woman distinguished by many remarkable qualities, lived now in the english lake-country; and it was no fault of hers that this home was no longer her son's. but what mainly had closed it to him was undoubtedly not less the secret of such liking for him as dickens had. fletcher's eccentricities and absurdities, often divided by the thinnest partition from the most foolish extravagance, but occasionally clever, and always the genuine though whimsical outgrowth of the life he led, had a curious sort of charm for dickens. he enjoyed the oddity and humor; tolerated all the rest; and to none more freely than to kindheart during the next few years, both in italy and in england, opened his house and hospitality. the close of the poor fellow's life, alas! was in only too sad agreement with all the previous course of it; but this will have mention hereafter. he is waiting now to introduce dickens to the highlands. footnotes: [ ] dickens refused to believe it at first. "my heart assures me wilkie liveth," he wrote. "he is the sort of man who will be very old when he dies"--and certainly one would have said so. [ ] the speeches generally were good, but the descriptions in the text by himself will here be thought sufficient. one or two sentences ought, however, to be given to show the tone of wilson's praise, and i will only preface them by the remark that dickens's acknowledgments, as well as his tribute to wilkie, were expressed with great felicity, and that peter robertson seems to have thrown the company into convulsions of laughter by his imitation of dominie sampson's pro-di-gi-ous, in a supposed interview between that worthy schoolmaster and mr. squeers of dotheboys. i now quote from professor wilson's speech: "our friend has mingled in the common walks of life; he has made himself familiar with the lower orders of society. he has not been deterred by the aspect of vice and wickedness, and misery and guilt, from seeking a spirit of good in things evil, but has endeavored by the might of genius to transmute what was base into what is precious as the beaten gold. . . . but i shall be betrayed, if i go on much longer,--which it would be improper for me to do,--into something like a critical delineation of the genius of our illustrious guest. i shall not attempt that; but i cannot but express, in a few ineffectual words, the delight which every human bosom feels in the benign spirit which pervades all his creations. how kind and good a man he is, i need not say; nor what strength of genius he has acquired by that profound sympathy with his fellow-creatures, whether in prosperity and happiness, or overwhelmed with unfortunate circumstances, but who yet do not sink under their miseries, but trust to their own strength of endurance, to that principle of truth and honor and integrity which is no stranger to the uncultivated bosom, and which is found in the lowest abodes in as great strength as in the halls of nobles and the palaces of kings. mr. dickens is also a satirist. he satirizes human life, but he does not satirize it to degrade it. he does not wish to pull down what is high into the neighborhood of what is low. he does not seek to represent all virtue as a hollow thing, in which no confidence can be placed. he satirizes only the selfish, and the hard-hearted, and the cruel. our distinguished guest may not have given us, as yet, a full and complete delineation of the female character. but this he has done: he has not endeavored to represent women as charming merely by the aid of accomplishments, however elegant and graceful. he has not depicted those accomplishments as their essentials, but has spoken of them rather as always inspired by a love of domesticity, by fidelity, by purity, by innocence, by charity, and by hope, which makes them discharge, under the most difficult circumstances, their duties, and which brings over their path in this world some glimpses of the light of heaven. mr. dickens may be assured that there is felt for him all over scotland a sentiment of kindness, affection, admiration, and love; and i know for certain that the knowledge of these sentiments must make him happy." [ ] on this occasion, as he told me afterwards, the orchestra did a double stroke of business, much to the amazement of himself and his friends, by improvising at his entrance _charley is my darling_, amid tumultuous shouts of delight. chapter xvi. adventures in the highlands. . a fright--fletcher's eccentricities--the trossachs--the travelers' guide--a comical picture--highland accommodation--grand scenery--changes in route--a waterfall--entrance to glencoe--the pass of glencoe--loch leven--a july evening--postal service at loch earn head--the maid of the inn--impressions of glencoe--an adventure--torrents swollen with rain--dangerous traveling--incidents and accidents--broken-down bridge--a fortunate resolve--post-boy in danger--the rescue--narrow escape--a highland inn and inmates--english comfort at dalmally--dinner at glasgow proposed--eagerness for home. from loch earn head dickens wrote on monday, the th of july, having reached it, "wet through," at four that afternoon: "having had a great deal to do in a crowded house on saturday night at the theatre, we left edinburgh yesterday morning at half-past seven, and traveled, with fletcher for our guide, to a place called stewart's hotel, nine miles further than callender. we had neglected to order rooms, and were obliged to make a sitting-room of our own bed-chamber; in which my genius for stowing furniture away was of the very greatest service. fletcher slept in a kennel with three panes of glass in it, which formed part and parcel of a window; the other three panes whereof belonged to a man who slept on the other side of the partition. he told me this morning that he had had a nightmare all night, and had screamed horribly, he knew. the stranger, as you may suppose, hired a gig and went off at full gallop with the first glimpse of daylight.[ ] being very tired (for we had not had more than three hours' sleep on the previous night) we lay till ten this morning, and at half-past eleven went through the trossachs to loch katrine, where i walked from the hotel after tea last night. it is impossible to say what a glorious scene it was. it rained as it never does rain anywhere but here. we conveyed kate up a rocky pass to go and see the island of the lady of the lake, but she gave in after the first five minutes, and we left her, very picturesque and uncomfortable, with tom" (the servant they had brought with them from devonshire terrace) "holding an umbrella over her head, while we climbed on. when we came back, she had gone into the carriage. we were wet through to the skin, and came on in that state four-and-twenty miles. fletcher is very good-natured, and of extraordinary use in these outlandish parts. his habit of going into kitchens and bars, disconcerting at broadstairs, is here of great service. not expecting us till six, they hadn't lighted our fires when we arrived here; and if you had seen him (with whom the responsibility of the omission rested) running in and out of the sitting-room and the two bedrooms with a great pair of bellows, with which he distractedly blew each of the fires out in turn, you would have died of laughing. he had on his head a great highland cap, on his back a white coat, and cut such a figure as even the inimitable can't depicter. . . . "the inns, inside and out, are the queerest places imaginable. from the road, this one," at loch earn head, "looks like a white wall, with windows in it by mistake. we have a good sitting-room, though, on the first floor: as large (but not as lofty) as my study. the bedrooms are of that size which renders it impossible for you to move, after you have taken your boots off, without chipping pieces out of your legs. there isn't a basin in the highlands which will hold my face; not a drawer which will open, after you have put your clothes in it; not a water-bottle capacious enough to wet your toothbrush. the huts are wretched and miserable beyond all description. the food (for those who can pay for it) 'not bad,' as m. would say: oat-cake, mutton, hotch-potch, trout from the loch, small beer bottled, marmalade, and whiskey. of the last-named article i have taken about a pint to-day. the weather is what they call 'soft'--which means that the sky is a vast water-spout that never leaves off emptying itself; and the liquor has no more effect than water. . . . i am going to work to-morrow, and hope before leaving here to write you again. the elections have been sad work indeed. that they should return sibthorp and reject bulwer, is, by heaven, a national disgrace. . . . i don't wonder the devil flew over lincoln. the people were far too addle-headed, even for him. . . . i don't bore you with accounts of ben this and that, and lochs of all sorts of names, but this is a wonderful region. the way the mists were stalking about to-day, and the clouds lying down upon the hills; the deep glens, the high rocks, the rushing waterfalls, and the roaring rivers down in deep gulfs below; were all stupendous. this house is wedged round by great heights that are lost in the clouds; and the loch, twelve miles long, stretches out its dreary length before the windows. in my next i shall soar to the sublime, perhaps; in this here present writing i confine myself to the ridiculous. but i am always," etc. etc. his next letter bore the date of "ballechelish, friday evening, ninth july, , half-past nine, p.m.," and described what we had often longed to see together, the pass of glencoe. . . . "i can't go to bed without writing to you from here, though the post will not leave this place until we have left it and arrived at another. on looking over the route which lord murray made out for me, i found he had put down thursday next for abbotsford and dryburgh abbey, and a journey of seventy miles besides! therefore, and as i was happily able to steal a march upon myself at loch earn head, and to finish in two days what i thought would take me three, we shall leave here to-morrow morning; and, by being a day earlier than we intended at all the places between this and melrose (which we propose to reach by wednesday night), we shall have a whole day for scott's house and tomb, and still be at york on saturday evening, and home, god willing, on sunday. . . . we left loch earn head last night, and went to a place called killin, eight miles from it, where we slept. i walked some six miles with fletcher after we got there, to see a waterfall; and truly it was a magnificent sight, foaming and crashing down three great steeps of riven rock; leaping over the first as far off as you could carry your eye, and rumbling and foaming down into a dizzy pool below you, with a deafening roar. to-day we have had a journey of between and miles, through the bleakest and most desolate part of scotland, where the hill-tops are still covered with great patches of snow, and the road winds over steep mountain-passes, and on the brink of deep brooks and precipices. the cold all day has been _intense_, and the rain sometimes most violent. it has been impossible to keep warm, by any means; even whiskey failed; the wind was too piercing even for that. one stage of ten miles, over a place called the black mount, took us two hours and a half to do; and when we came to a lone public called the king's house, at the entrance to glencoe,--this was about three o'clock,--we were wellnigh frozen. we got a fire directly, and in twenty minutes they served us up some famous kippered salmon, broiled; a broiled fowl; hot mutton ham and poached eggs; pancakes; oat-cake; wheaten bread; butter; bottled porter; hot water, lump sugar, and whiskey; of which we made a very hearty meal. all the way, the road had been among moors and mountains, with huge masses of rock, which fell down god knows where, sprinkling the ground in every direction, and giving it the aspect of the burial-place of a race of giants. now and then we passed a hut or two, with neither window nor chimney, and the smoke of the peat fire rolling out at the door. but there were not six of these dwellings in a dozen miles; and anything so bleak and wild, and mighty in its loneliness, as the whole country, it is impossible to conceive. glencoe itself is perfectly _terrible_. the pass is an awful place. it is shut in on each side by enormous rocks from which great torrents come rushing down in all directions. in amongst these rocks on one side of the pass (the left as we came) there are scores of glens, high up, which form such haunts as you might imagine yourself wandering in, in the very height and madness of a fever. they will live in my dreams for years--i was going to say as long as i live, and i seriously think so. the very recollection of them makes me shudder. . . . well, i will not bore you with my impressions of these tremendous wilds, but they really are fearful in their grandeur and amazing solitude. wales is a mere toy compared with them." the further mention of his guide's whimsical ways may stand, for it cannot now be the possible occasion of pain or annoyance, or of anything but very innocent laughter: "we are now in a bare white house on the banks of loch leven, but in a comfortably-furnished room on the top of the house,--that is, on the first floor,--with the rain pattering against the window as though it were december, the wind howling dismally, a cold damp mist on everything without, a blazing fire within half way up the chimney, and a most infernal piper practicing under the window for a competition of pipers which is to come off shortly. . . . the store of anecdotes of fletcher with which we shall return will last a long time. it seems that the f.'s are an extensive clan, and that his father was a highlander. accordingly, wherever he goes, he finds out some cotter or small farmer who is his cousin. i wish you could see him walking into his cousins' curds and cream, and into their dairies generally! yesterday morning, between eight and nine, i was sitting writing at the open window, when the postman came to the inn (which at loch earn head is the post-office) for the letters. he is going away, when fletcher, who has been writing somewhere below-stairs, rushes out, and cries, 'halloa there! is that the post?' 'yes!' somebody answers. 'call him back!' says fletcher: 'just sit down till i've done, _and don't go away till i tell you_.'--fancy! the general post, with the letters of forty villages in a leathern bag! . . . to-morrow at oban. sunday at inverary. monday at tarbet. tuesday at glasgow (and that night at hamilton). wednesday at melrose. thursday at ditto. friday i don't know where. saturday at york. sunday--how glad i shall be to shake hands with you! my love to mac. i thought he'd have written once. ditto to macready. i had a very nice and welcome letter from him, and a most hearty one from elliotson. . . . p.s. half asleep. so excuse drowsiness of matter and composition. i shall be full of joy to meet another letter from you! . . . p.p.s. they speak gaelic here, of course, and many of the common people understand very little english. since i wrote this letter, i rang the girl up-stairs, and gave elaborate directions (you know my way) for a pint of sherry to be made into boiling negus; mentioning all the ingredients one by one, and particularly nutmeg. when i had quite finished, seeing her obviously bewildered, i said, with great gravity, 'now you know what you're going to order?' 'oh, yes. sure.' 'what?'--a pause--'just'--another pause--'just plenty of _nutbergs_!'" the impression made upon him by the pass of glencoe was not overstated in this letter. it continued with him as he there expressed it; and as we shall see hereafter, even where he expected to find nature in her most desolate grandeur on the dreary waste of an american prairie, his imagination went back with a higher satisfaction to glencoe. but his experience of it is not yet completely told. the sequel was in a letter of two days' later date, from "dalmally, sunday, july the eleventh, :" "as there was no place of this name in our route, you will be surprised to see it at the head of this present writing. but our being here is a part of such moving accidents by flood and field as will astonish you. if you should happen to have your hat on, take it off, that your hair may stand on end without any interruption. to get from ballyhoolish (as i am obliged to spell it when fletcher is not in the way; and he is out at this moment) to oban, it is necessary to cross two ferries, one of which is an arm of the sea, eight or ten miles broad. into this ferry-boat, passengers, carriages, horses, and all, get bodily, and are got across by hook or by crook if the weather be reasonably fine. yesterday morning, however, it blew such a strong gale that the landlord of the inn, where we had paid for horses all the way to oban (thirty miles), honestly came up-stairs just as we were starting, with the money in his hand, and told us it would be impossible to cross. there was nothing to be done but to come back five-and-thirty miles, through glencoe and inverouran, to a place called tyndrum, whence a road twelve miles long crosses to dalmally, which is sixteen miles from inverary. accordingly we turned back, and in a great storm of wind and rain began to retrace the dreary road we had come the day before. . . . i was not at all ill pleased to have to come again through that awful glencoe. if it had been tremendous on the previous day, yesterday it was perfectly horrific. it had rained all night, and was raining then, as it only does in these parts. through the whole glen, which is ten miles long, torrents were boiling and foaming, and sending up in every direction spray like the smoke of great fires. they were rushing down every hill and mountain side, and tearing like devils across the path, and down into the depths of the rocks. some of the hills looked as if they were full of silver, and had cracked in a hundred places. others as if they were frightened, and had broken out into a deadly sweat. in others there was no compromise or division of streams, but one great torrent came roaring down with a deafening noise, and a rushing of water that was quite appalling. such a _spaet_, in short (that's the country word), has not been known for many years, and the sights and sounds were beyond description. the post-boy was not at all at his ease, and the horses were very much frightened (as well they might be) by the perpetual raging and roaring; one of them started as we came down a steep place, and we were within that much (----) of tumbling over a precipice; just then, too, the drag broke, and we were obliged to go on as we best could, without it: getting out every now and then, and hanging on at the back of the carriage to prevent its rolling down too fast, and going heaven knows where. well, in this pleasant state of things we came to king's house again, having been four hours doing the sixteen miles. the rumble where tom sat was by this time so full of water that he was obliged to borrow a gimlet and bore holes in the bottom to let it run out. the horses that were to take us on were out upon the hills, somewhere within ten miles round; and three or four bare-legged fellows went out to look for 'em, while we sat by the fire and tried to dry ourselves. at last we got off again (without the drag and with a broken spring, no smith living within ten miles), and went limping on to inverouran. in the first three miles we were in a ditch and out again, and lost a horse's shoe. all this time it never once left off raining; and was very windy, very cold, very misty, and most intensely dismal. so we crossed the black mount, and came to a place we had passed the day before, where a rapid river runs over a bed of broken rock. now, this river, sir, had a bridge last winter, but the bridge broke down when the thaw came, and has never since been mended; so travelers cross upon a little platform, made of rough deal planks stretching from rock to rock; and carriages and horses ford the water, at a certain point. as the platform is the reverse of steady (we had proved this the day before), is very slippery, and affords anything but a pleasant footing, having only a trembling little rail on one side, and on the other nothing between it and the foaming stream, kate decided to remain in the carriage, and trust herself to the wheels rather than to her feet. fletcher and i had got out, and it was going away, when i advised her, as i had done several times before, to come with us; for i saw that the water was very high, the current being greatly swollen by the rain, and that the post-boy had been eyeing it in a very disconcerted manner for the last half-hour. this decided her to come out; and fletcher, she, tom, and i, began to cross, while the carriage went about a quarter of a mile down the bank, in search of a shallow place. the platform shook so much that we could only come across two at a time, and then it felt as if it were hung on springs. as to the wind and rain! . . . well, put into one gust all the wind and rain you ever saw and heard, and you'll have some faint notion of it! when we got safely to the opposite bank, there came riding up a wild highlander, in a great plaid, whom we recognized as the landlord of the inn, and who, without taking the least notice of us, went dashing on,--with the plaid he was wrapped in, streaming in the wind,--screeching in gaelic to the post-boy on the opposite bank, and making the most frantic gestures you ever saw, in which he was joined by some other wild man on foot, who had come across by a short cut, knee-deep in mire and water. as we began to see what this meant, we (that is, fletcher and i) scrambled on after them, while the boy, horses, and carriage were plunging in the water, which left only the horses' heads and the boy's body visible. by the time we got up to them, the man on horseback and the men on foot were perfectly mad with pantomime; for as to any of their shouts being heard by the boy, the water made such a great noise that they might as well have been dumb. it made me quite sick to think how i should have felt if kate had been inside. the carriage went round and round like a great stone, the boy was as pale as death, the horses were struggling and plashing and snorting like sea-animals, and we were all roaring to the driver to throw himself off and let them and the coach go to the devil, when suddenly it came all right (having got into shallow water), and, all tumbling and dripping and jogging from side to side, climbed up to the dry land. i assure you we looked rather queer, as we wiped our faces and stared at each other in a little cluster round about it. it seemed that the man on horseback had been looking at us through a telescope as we came to the track, and knowing that the place was very dangerous, and seeing that we meant to bring the carriage, had come on at a great gallop to show the driver the only place where he could cross. by the time he came up, the man had taken the water at a wrong place, and in a word was as nearly drowned (with carriage, horses, luggage, and all) as ever man was. was _this_ a good adventure? "we all went on to the inn,--the wild man galloping on first, to get a fire lighted,--and there we dined on eggs and bacon, oat-cake, and whiskey; and changed and dried ourselves. the place was a mere knot of little outhouses, and in one of these there were fifty highlanders _all drunk_. . . . some were drovers, some pipers, and some workmen engaged to build a hunting-lodge for lord breadalbane hard by, who had been driven in by stress of weather. one was a paper-hanger. he had come out three days before to paper the inn's best room, a chamber almost large enough to keep a newfoundland dog in, and, from the first half-hour after his arrival to that moment, had been hopelessly and irreclaimably drunk. they were lying about in all directions: on forms, on the ground, about a loft overhead, round the turf-fire wrapped in plaids, on the tables, and under them. we paid our bill, thanked our host very heartily, gave some money to his children, and after an hour's rest came on again. at ten o'clock at night we reached this place, and were overjoyed to find quite an english inn, with good beds (those we have slept on, yet, have always been of straw), and every possible comfort. we breakfasted this morning at half-past ten, and at three go on to inverary to dinner. i believe the very rough part of the journey is over, and i am really glad of it. kate sends all kind of regards. i shall hope to find a letter from you at inverary when the post reaches there, to-morrow. i wrote to oban yesterday, desiring the post-office keeper to send any he might have for us, over to that place. love to mac." one more letter, brief, but overflowing at every word with his generous nature, must close the delightful series written from scotland. it was dated from inverary the day following his exciting adventure; promised me another from melrose (which has unfortunately not been kept with the rest); and inclosed the invitation to a public dinner at glasgow. "i have returned for answer that i am on my way home, on pressing business connected with my weekly publication, and can't stop. but i have offered to come down any day in september or october, and accept the honor then. now, i shall come and return per mail; and, if this suits them, enter into a solemn league and covenant to come with me. _do._ you must. i am sure you will. . . . till my next, and always afterwards, god bless you. i got your welcome letter this morning, and have read it a hundred times. what a pleasure it is! kate's best regards. i am dying for sunday, and wouldn't stop now for twenty dinners of twenty thousand each. [illustration: 'always your affectionate friend 'doz.] "will lord john meet the parliament, or resign first?" i agreed to accompany him to glasgow; but illness intercepted that celebration. footnotes: [ ] poor good mr. fletcher had, among his other peculiarities, a habit of venting any particular emotion in a wildness of cry that went beyond even the descriptive power of his friend, who referred to it frequently in his broadstairs letters. here is an instance ( th sept, ): "mrs. m. being in the next machine the other day heard him howl like a wolf (as he does) when he first touched the cold water. i am glad to have my former story in that respect confirmed. there is no sound on earth like it. in the infernal regions there may be, but elsewhere there is no compound addition of wild beasts that could produce its like for their total. the description of the wolves in _robinson crusoe_ is the nearest thing; but it's feeble--very feeble--in comparison." of the generally amiable side to all his eccentricities i am tempted to give an illustration from the same letter: "an alarming report being brought to me the other day that he was preaching, i betook myself to the spot, and found he was reading wordsworth to a family on the terrace, outside the house, in the open air and public way. the whole town were out. when he had given them a taste of wordsworth, he sent home for mrs. norton's book, and entertained them with selections from that. he concluded with an imitation of mrs. hemans reading her own poetry, which he performed with a pocket-handkerchief over his head to imitate her veil--all this in public, before everybody." chapter xvii. again at broadstairs. . peel and his party--getting very radical--thoughts of colonizing--political squib by c. d.--fine old english tory times--mesmerism--metropolitan prisons--book by a workman--an august day by the sea--another story in prospect--_clock_ discontents--new adventure--agreement for it signed--the book that proved to be _chuzzlewit_--peel and lord ashley--visions of america. soon after his return, at the opening of august, he went to broadstairs; and the direction in which that last question shows his thoughts to have been busy was that to which he turned his first holiday leisure. he sent me some rhymed squibs as his anonymous contribution to the fight the liberals were then making against what was believed to be intended by the return to office of the tories; ignorant as we were how much wiser than his party the statesman then at the head of it was, or how greatly what we all most desired would be advanced by the very success that had been most disheartening. there will be no harm now in giving one of these pieces, which will sufficiently show the tone of all of them, and with what a hearty relish they were written. i doubt indeed if he ever enjoyed anything more than the power of thus taking part occasionally, unknown to outsiders, in the sharp conflict the press was waging at the time. "by jove, how radical i am getting!" he wrote to me ( th august). "i wax stronger and stronger in the true principles every day. i don't know whether it's the sea, or no, but so it is." he would at times even talk, in moments of sudden indignation at the political outlook, of carrying off himself and his household gods, like coriolanus, to a world elsewhere! "thank god there is a van diemen's land. that's my comfort. now, i wonder if i should make a good settler! i wonder, if i went to a new colony with my head, hands, legs, and health, i should force myself to the top of the social milk-pot and live upon the cream! what do you think? upon my word, i believe i should." his political squibs during the tory interregnum comprised some capital subjects for pictures after the manner of peter pindar; but that which i select has no touch of personal satire in it, and he would himself, for that reason, have least objected to its revival. thus ran his new version of "the fine old english gentleman, to be said or sung at all conservative dinners:" i'll sing you a new ballad, and i'll warrant it first-rate, of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate; when they spent the public money at a bountiful old rate on ev'ry mistress, pimp, and scamp, at ev'ry noble gate. in the fine old english tory times; soon may they come again! the good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips, and chains, with fine old english penalties, and fine old english pains, with rebel heads and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins; for all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains of the fine old english tory times; soon may they come again! this brave old code, like argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, and ev'ry english peasant had his good old english spies, to tempt his starving discontent with fine old english lies, then call the good old yeomanry to stop his peevish cries, in the fine old english tory times; soon may they come again! the good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need, the good old times for hunting men who held their fathers' creed, the good old times when william pitt, as all good men agreed, came down direct from paradise at more than railroad speed. . . . oh, the fine old english tory times; when will they come again? in those rare days, the press was seldom known to snarl or bark, but sweetly sang of men in pow'r, like any tuneful lark; grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark; and not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark. oh, the fine old english tory times; soon may they come again! . . . but tolerance, though slow in flight, is strong-wing'd in the main; that night must come on these fine days, in course of time was plain; the pure old spirit struggled, but its struggles were in vain; a nation's grip was on it, and it died in choking pain, with the fine old english tory days, all of the olden time. the bright old day now dawns again; the cry runs through the land, in england there shall be--dear bread! in ireland--sword and brand! and poverty, and ignorance, shall swell the rich and grand, so, rally round the rulers with the gentle iron hand of the fine old english tory days; hail to the coming time! of matters in which he had been specially interested before he quitted london, one or two may properly be named. he had always sympathized, almost as strongly as archbishop whately did, with dr. elliotson's mesmeric investigations; and, reinforced as these were in the present year by the displays of a belgian youth whom another friend, mr. chauncy hare townshend, brought over to england, the subject, which to the last had an attraction for him, was for the time rather ardently followed up. the improvement during the last few years in the london prisons was another matter of eager and pleased inquiry with him; and he took frequent means of stating what in this respect had been done, since even the date when his _sketches_ were written, by two most efficient public officers at clerkenwell and tothill fields, mr. chesterton and lieutenant tracey, whom the course of these inquiries turned into private friends. his last letter to me before he quitted town sufficiently explains itself. "slow rises worth by poverty deprest" was the thought in his mind at every part of his career, and he never for a moment was unmindful of the duty it imposed upon him: "i subscribed for a couple of copies" ( st july) "of this little book. i knew nothing of the man, but he wrote me a very modest letter of two lines, some weeks ago. i have been much affected by the little biography at the beginning, and i thought you would like to share the emotion it had raised in me. i wish we were all in eden again--for the sake of these toiling creatures." in the middle of august (monday, th) i had announcement that he was coming up for special purposes: "i sit down to write to you without an atom of news to communicate. yes, i have,--something that will surprise you, who are pent up in dark and dismal lincoln's inn fields. it is the brightest day you ever saw. the sun is sparkling on the water so that i can hardly bear to look at it. the tide is in, and the fishing-boats are dancing like mad. upon the green-topped cliffs the corn is cut and piled in shocks; and thousands of butterflies are fluttering about, taking the bright little red flags at the mast-heads for flowers, and panting with delight accordingly. [here the inimitable, unable to resist the brilliancy out of doors, breaketh off, rusheth to the machines, and plungeth into the sea. returning, he proceedeth:] jeffrey is just as he was when he wrote the letter i sent you. no better, and no worse. i had a letter from napier on saturday, urging the children's-labor subject upon me. but, as i hear from southwood smith that the report cannot be printed until the new parliament has sat at the least six weeks, it will be impossible to produce it before the january number. i shall be in town on saturday morning and go straight to you. a letter has come from little hall begging that when i _do_ come to town i will dine there, as they wish to talk about the new story. i have written to say that i will do so on saturday, and we will go together; but i shall be by no means good company. . . . i have more than half a mind to start a bookseller of my own. i could; with good capital too, as you know; and ready to spend it. _g. varden beware!_" small causes of displeasure had been growing out of the _clock_, and were almost unavoidably incident to the position in which he found himself respecting it. its discontinuance had become necessary, the strain upon himself being too great without the help from others which experience had shown to be impracticable; but i thought he had not met the difficulty wisely by undertaking, which already he had done, to begin a new story so early as the following march. on his arrival, therefore, we decided on another plan, with which we went armed that saturday afternoon to his publishers, and of which the result will be best told by himself. he had returned to broadstairs the following morning, and next day (monday, the d of august) he wrote to me in very enthusiastic terms of the share i had taken in what he calls "the development on saturday afternoon; when i thought chapman very manly and sensible, hall morally and physically feeble though perfectly well intentioned, and both the statement and reception of the project quite triumphant. didn't you think so too?" a fortnight later, tuesday, the th of september, the agreement was signed in my chambers, and its terms were to the effect following. the _clock_ was to cease with the close of _barnaby rudge_, the respective ownerships continuing as provided; and the new work in twenty numbers, similar to those of _pickwick_ and _nickleby_, was not to begin until after an interval of twelve months, in november, . during its publication he was to receive two hundred pounds monthly, to be accounted as part of the expenses; for all which, and all risks incident, the publishers made themselves responsible, under conditions the same as in the _clock_ agreement; except that out of the profits of each number they were to have only a fourth, three-fourths going to him, and this arrangement was to hold good until the termination of six months from the completed book, when, upon payment to him of a fourth of the value of all existing stock, they were to have half the future interest. during the twelve months' interval before the book began, he was to be paid one hundred and fifty pounds each month; but this was to be drawn from his three-fourths of the profits, and in no way to interfere with the monthly payments of two hundred pounds while the publication was going on.[ ] such was the "project," excepting only a provision to be mentioned hereafter against the improbable event of the profits being inadequate to the repayment; and my only drawback from the satisfaction of my own share in it arose from my fear of the use he was likely to make of the leisure it afforded him. that this fear was not ill founded appeared at the close of the next note i had from him: "there's no news" ( th september) "since my last. we are going to dine with rogers to-day, and with lady essex, who is also here. rogers is much pleased with lord ashley, who was offered by peel a post in the government, but resolutely refused to take office unless peel pledged himself to factory-improvement. peel 'hadn't made up his mind,' and lord ashley was deaf to all other inducements, though they must have been very tempting. much do i honor him for it. i am in an exquisitely lazy state, bathing, walking, reading, lying in the sun, doing everything but working. this frame of mind is superinduced by the prospect of rest, and the promising arrangements which i owe to you. i am still haunted by visions of america night and day. to miss this opportunity would be a sad thing. kate cries dismally if i mention the subject. but, god willing, i think it _must_ be managed somehow!" footnotes: [ ] "m. was quite aghast last night ( th of september) at the brilliancy of the c. & h. arrangement: which is worth noting perhaps." chapter xviii. eve of the visit to america. . greetings from america--reply to washington irving--difficulties in the way--resolve to go--wish to revisit scenes of boyhood--proposed book of travel--arrangements for the journey--impatience of suspense--resolve to leave the children--mrs. dickens reconciled--a grave illness--domestic griefs--the old sorrow--at windsor--son walter's christening--at liverpool with the travelers. the notion of america was in his mind, as we have seen, when he first projected the _clock_; and a very hearty letter from washington irving about little nell and the _curiosity shop_, expressing the delight with his writings and the yearnings to himself which had indeed been pouring in upon him for some time from every part of the states, had very strongly revived it. he answered irving with more than his own warmth: unable to thank him enough for his cordial and generous praise, or to tell him what lasting gratification it had given. "i wish i could find in your welcome letter," he added, "some hint of an intention to visit england. i should love to go with you, as i have gone, god knows how often, into little britain, and eastcheap, and green arbor court, and westminster abbey. . . . it would gladden my heart to compare notes with you about all those delightful places and people that i used to walk about and dream of in the daytime, when a very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy." after interchange of these letters the subject was frequently revived; upon his return from scotland it began to take shape as a thing that somehow or other, at no very distant date, _must be_; and at last, near the end of a letter filled with many unimportant things, the announcement, doubly underlined, came to me. the decision once taken, he was in his usual fever until its difficulties were disposed of. the objections to separation from the children led at first to the notion of taking them, but this was as quickly abandoned; and what remained to be overcome yielded readily to the kind offices of macready, the offer of whose home to the little ones during the time of absence, though not accepted to the full extent, gave yet the assurance needed to quiet natural apprehensions. all this, including an arrangement for publication of such notes as might occur to him on the journey, took but a few days; and i was reading in my chambers a letter he had written the previous day from broadstairs, when a note from him reached me, written that morning in london, to tell me he was on his way to take share of my breakfast. he had come overland by canterbury after posting his first letter, had seen macready the previous night, and had completed some part of the arrangements. this mode of rapid procedure was characteristic of him at all similar times, and will appear in the few following extracts from his letters: "now" ( th september) "to astonish you. after balancing, considering, and weighing the matter in every point of view, i have made up my mind (with god's leave) to go to america--and to start as soon after christmas as it will be safe to go." further information was promised immediately; and a request followed, characteristic as any he could have added to his design of traveling so far away, that we should visit once more together the scenes of his boyhood. "on the ninth of october we leave here. it's a saturday. if it should be fine dry weather, or anything like it, will you meet us at rochester, and stop there two or three days to see all the lions in the surrounding country? think of this. . . . if you'll arrange to come, i'll have the carriage down, and topping; and, supposing news from glasgow don't interfere with us, which i fervently hope it will not, i will insure that we have much enjoyment." three days later than that which announced his resolve, the subject was resumed: "i wrote to chapman & hall asking them what they thought of it, and saying i meant to keep a note-book, and publish it for half a guinea or thereabouts, on my return. they instantly sent the warmest possible reply, and said they had taken it for granted i would go, and had been speaking of it only the day before. i have begged them to make every inquiry about the fares, cabins, berths, and times of sailing; and i shall make a great effort to take kate _and_ the children. in that case i shall try to let the house furnished, for six months (for i shall remain that time in america); and if i succeed, the rent will nearly pay the expenses out, and home. i have heard of family cabins at £ ; and i think one of these is large enough to hold us all. a single fare, i think, is forty guineas. i fear i could not be happy if we had the atlantic between us; but leaving them in new york while i ran off a thousand miles or so, would be quite another thing. if i can arrange all my plans before publishing the _clock_ address, i shall state therein that i am going: which will be no unimportant consideration, as affording the best possible reason for a long delay. how i am to get on without you for seven or eight months, i cannot, upon my soul, conceive. i dread to think of breaking up all our old happy habits for so long a time. the advantages of going, however, appear by steady looking-at so great, that i have come to persuade myself it is a matter of imperative necessity. kate weeps whenever it is spoken of. washington irving has got a nasty low fever. i heard from him a day or two ago." his next letter was the unexpected arrival which came by hand from devonshire terrace, when i thought him still by the sea: "this is to give you notice that i am coming to breakfast with you this morning on my way to broadstairs. i repeat it, sir,--on my way _to_ broadstairs. for, directly i got macready's note yesterday i went to canterbury, and came on by day-coach for the express purpose of talking with him; which i did between and last night in clarence terrace. the american preliminaries are necessarily startling, and, to a gentleman of my temperament, destroy rest, sleep, appetite, and work, unless definitely arranged.[ ] macready has quite decided me in respect of time and so forth. the instant i have wrung a reluctant consent from kate, i shall take our joint passage in the mail-packet for next january. i never loved my friends so well as now." we had all discountenanced his first thought of taking the children; and, upon this and other points, the experience of our friend who had himself traveled over the states was very valuable. his next letter, two days later from broadstairs, informed me of the result of the macready conference: "only a word. kate is quite reconciled. 'anne' (her maid) goes, and is amazingly cheerful and light of heart upon it. and i think, at present, that it's a greater trial to me than anybody. the th of january is the day. macready's note to kate was received and acted upon with a perfect response. she talks about it quite gayly, and is satisfied to have nobody in the house but fred, of whom, as you know, they are all fond. he has got his promotion, and they give him the increased salary from the day on which the minute was made by baring, i feel so amiable, so meek, so fond of people, so full of gratitudes and reliances, that i am like a sick man. and i am already counting the days between this and coming home again." he was soon, alas! to be what he compared himself to. i met him at rochester at the end of september, as arranged; we passed a day and night there; a day and night in cobham and its neighborhood, sleeping at the leather bottle; and a day and night at gravesend. but we were hardly returned when some slight symptoms of bodily trouble took suddenly graver form, and an illness followed involving the necessity of surgical attendance. this, which with mention of the helpful courage displayed by him has before been alluded to,[ ] put off necessarily the glasgow dinner; and he had scarcely left his bedroom when a trouble arose near home which touched him to the depths of the greatest sorrow of his life, and, in the need of exerting himself for others, what remained of his own illness seemed to pass away. his wife's younger brother had died with the same unexpected suddenness that attended her younger sister's death; and the event had followed close upon the decease of mrs. hogarth's mother while on a visit to her daughter and mr. hogarth. "as no steps had been taken towards the funeral," he wrote ( th october) in reply to my offer of such service as i could render, "i thought it best at once to bestir myself; and not even you could have saved my going to the cemetery. it is a great trial to me to give up mary's grave; greater than i can possibly express. i thought of moving her to the catacombs and saying nothing about it; but then i remembered that the poor old lady is buried next her at her own desire, and could not find it in my heart, directly she is laid in the earth, to take her grandchild away. the desire to be buried next her is as strong upon me now as it was five years ago; and i _know_ (for i don't think there ever was love like that i bear her) that it will never diminish. i fear i can do nothing. do you think i can? they would move her on wednesday, if i resolved to have it done. i cannot bear the thought of being excluded from her dust; and yet i feel that her brothers and sisters, and her mother, have a better right than i to be placed beside her. it is but an idea. i neither think nor hope (god forbid) that our spirits would ever mingle _there_. i ought to get the better of it, but it is very hard. i never contemplated this--and coming so suddenly, and after being ill, it disturbs me more than it ought. it seems like losing her a second time. . . ." "no," he wrote the morning after, "i tried that. no, there is no ground on either side to be had. i must give it up. i shall drive over there, please god, on thursday morning, before they get there; and look at her coffin." he suffered more than he let any one perceive, and was obliged again to keep his room for some days. on the d of november he reported himself as progressing and ordered to richmond, which, after a week or so, he changed to the white hart at windsor, where i passed some days with him, mrs. dickens, and her younger sister georgina; but it was not till near the close of that month he could describe himself as thoroughly on his legs again, in the ordinary state on which he was wont to pride himself, bolt upright, staunch at the knees, a deep sleeper, a hearty eater, a good laugher, and nowhere a bit the worse, "bating a little weakness now and then, and a slight nervousness at times." we had some days of much enjoyment at the end of the year, when landor came up from bath for the christening of his godson; and the "britannia," which was to take the travelers from us in january, brought over to them in december all sorts of cordialities, anticipations, and stretchings-forth of palms, in token of the welcome awaiting them. on new year's eve they dined with me, and i with them on new year's day; when (his house having been taken for the period of his absence by general sir john wilson) we sealed up his wine-cellar, after opening therein some sparkling moselle in honor of the ceremony, and drinking it then and there to his happy return. next morning (it was a sunday) i accompanied them to liverpool, maclise having been suddenly stayed by his mother's death; the intervening day and its occupations have been humorously sketched in his american book; and on the th they sailed. i never saw the britannia after i stepped from her deck back to the small steamer that had taken us to her. "how little i thought" (were the last lines of his first american letter), "the first time you mounted the shapeless coat, that i should have such a sad association with its back as when i saw it by the paddle-box of that small steamer!" footnotes: [ ] see _ante_, p. . [ ] see _ante_, p. . chapter xix. first impressions of america. . rough passage--a steamer in a storm--resigned to the worst--of himself and fellow-travelers--the atlantic from deck--the ladies' cabin--its occupants--card-playing on the atlantic--ship-news--a wager--halifax harbor--ship aground--captain hewitt--speaker of house of assembly--ovation to c. d.--arrival at boston--incursion of editors--at tremont house--the welcome--deputations--dr. channing to c. d.--public appearances--a secretary engaged--bostonians--general characteristics--personal notices--perils of steamers--a home-thought--american institutions--how first impressed--reasons for the greeting--what was welcomed in c. d.--old world and new world--daniel webster as to c. d.--channing as to c. d.--subsequent disappointments--new york invitation to dinner--fac-similes of signatures--additional fac-similes--new york invitation to ball--fac-similes of signatures--additional fac-similes. the first lines of that letter were written as soon as he got sight of earth again, from the banks of newfoundland, on monday, the th of january, the fourteenth day from their departure: even then so far from halifax that they could not expect to make it before wednesday night, or to reach boston until saturday or sunday. they had not been fortunate in the passage. during the whole voyage the weather had been unprecedentedly bad, the wind for the most part dead against them, the wet intolerable, the sea horribly disturbed, the days dark, and the nights fearful. on the previous monday night it had blown a hurricane, beginning at five in the afternoon and raging all night. his description of the storm is published, and the peculiarities of a steamer's behavior in such circumstances are hit off as if he had been all his life a sailor. any but so extraordinary an observer would have described a steamer in a storm as he would have described a sailing-ship in a storm. but any description of the latter would be as inapplicable to my friend's account of the other as the ways of a jackass to those of a mad bull. in the letter from which it was taken, however, there were some things addressed to myself alone: "for two or three hours we gave it up as a lost thing; and with many thoughts of you, and the children, and those others who are dearest to us, waited quietly for the worst. i never expected to see the day again, and resigned myself to god as well as i could. it was a great comfort to think of the earnest and devoted friends we had left behind, and to know that the darlings would not want." this was not the exaggerated apprehension of a landsman merely. the head engineer, who had been in one or other of the cunard vessels since they began running, had never seen such stress of weather; and i heard captain hewitt himself say afterwards that nothing but a steamer, and one of that strength, could have kept her course and stood it out. a sailing-vessel must have beaten off and driven where she could; while through all the fury of that gale they actually made fifty-four miles headlong through the tempest, straight on end, not varying their track in the least. he stood out against sickness only for the day following that on which they sailed. for the three following days he kept his bed, miserable enough, and had not, until the eighth day of the voyage, six days before the date of his letter, been able to get to work at the dinner-table. what he then observed of his fellow-travelers, and had to tell of their life on board, has been set forth in his _notes_ with delightful humor; but in its first freshness i received it in this letter, and some whimsical passages, then suppressed, there will be no harm in printing now: "we have passengers; and such a strange collection of beasts never was got together upon the sea, since the days of the ark. i have never been in the saloon since the first day; the noise, the smell, and the closeness being quite intolerable. i have only been on deck _once_!--and then i was surprised and disappointed at the smallness of the panorama. the sea, running as it does and has done, is very stupendous, and viewed from the air or some great height would be grand no doubt. but seen from the wet and rolling decks, in this weather and these circumstances, it only impresses one giddily and painfully. i was very glad to turn away, and come below again. "i have established myself, from the first, in the ladies' cabin--you remember it? i'll describe its other occupants, and our way of passing the time, to you. "first, for the occupants. kate and i, and anne--when she is out of bed, which is not often. a queer little scotch body, a mrs. p--,[ ] whose husband is a silversmith in new york. he married her at glasgow three years ago, and bolted the day after the wedding; being (which he had not told her) heavily in debt. since then she has been living with her mother; and she is now going out under the protection of a male cousin, to give him a year's trial. if she is not comfortable at the expiration of that time, she means to go back to scotland again. a mrs. b--, about years old, whose husband is on board with her. he is a young englishman domiciled in new york, and by trade (as well as i can make out) a woolen-draper. they have been married a fortnight. a mr. and mrs. c--, marvelously fond of each other, complete the catalogue. mrs. c--, i have settled, is a publican's daughter, and mr. c-- is running away with her, the till, the time-piece off the bar mantel-shelf, the mother's gold watch from the pocket at the head of the bed; and other miscellaneous property. the women are all pretty; unusually pretty. i never saw such good faces together, anywhere." their "way of passing the time" will be found in the _notes_ much as it was written to me; except that there was one point connected with the card-playing which he feared might overtax the credulity of his readers, but which he protested had occurred more than once: "apropos of rolling, i have forgotten to mention that in playing whist we are obliged to put the tricks in our pockets, to keep them from disappearing altogether; and that five or six times in the course of every rubber we are all flung from our seats, roll out at different doors, and keep on rolling until we are picked up by stewards. this has become such a matter of course, that we go through it with perfect gravity, and, when we are bolstered up on our sofas again, resume our conversation or our game at the point where it was interrupted." the news that excited them from day to day, too, of which little more than a hint appears in the _notes_, is worth giving as originally written: "as for news, we have more of that than you would think for. one man lost fourteen pounds at vingt-un in the saloon yesterday, or another got drunk before dinner was over, or another was blinded with lobster-sauce spilt over him by the steward, or another had a fall on deck and fainted. the ship's cook was drunk yesterday morning (having got at some salt-water-damaged whiskey), and the captain ordered the boatswain to play upon him with the hose of the fire-engine until he roared for mercy--which he didn't get: for he was sentenced to look out, for four hours at a stretch for four nights running, without a great-coat, and to have his grog stopped. four dozen plates were broken at dinner. one steward fell down the cabin stairs with a round of beef, and injured his foot severely. another steward fell down after him and cut his eye open. the baker's taken ill; so is the pastry-cook. a new man, sick to death, has been required to fill the place of the latter officer, and has been dragged out of bed and propped up in a little house upon deck, between two casks, and ordered (the captain standing over him) to make and roll out pie-crust; which he protests, with tears in his eyes, it is death to him in his bilious state to look at. twelve dozen of bottled porter has got loose upon deck, and the bottles are rolling about distractedly, overhead. lord mulgrave (a handsome fellow, by-the-by, to look at, and nothing but a good 'un to go) laid a wager with twenty-five other men last night, whose berths, like his, are in the fore-cabin, which can only be got at by crossing the deck, that he would reach his cabin first. watches were set by the captain's, and they sallied forth, wrapped up in coats and storm caps. the sea broke over the ship so violently, that they were _five-and-twenty minutes_ holding on by the handrail at the starboard paddle-box, drenched to the skin by every wave, and not daring to go on or come back, lest they should be washed overboard. news! a dozen murders in town wouldn't interest us half as much." nevertheless their excitements were not over. at the very end of the voyage came an incident very lightly touched in the _notes_, but more freely told to me under date of the st january: "we were running into halifax harbor on wednesday night, with little wind and a bright moon; had made the light at its outer entrance, and given the ship in charge to the pilot; were playing our rubber, all in good spirits (for it had been comparatively smooth for some days, with tolerably dry decks and other unusual comforts), when suddenly the ship struck! a rush upon deck followed, of course. the men (i mean the crew! think of this) were kicking off their shoes and throwing off their jackets preparatory to swimming ashore; the pilot was beside himself; the passengers dismayed; and everything in the most intolerable confusion and hurry. breakers were roaring ahead; the land within a couple of hundred yards; and the vessel driving upon the surf, although her paddles were worked backwards, and everything done to stay her course. it is not the custom of steamers, it seems, to have an anchor ready. an accident occurred in getting ours over the side; and for half an hour we were throwing up rockets, burning blue-lights, and firing signals of distress, all of which remained unanswered, though we were so close to the shore that we could see the waving branches of the trees. all this time, as we veered about, a man was heaving the lead every two minutes; the depths of water constantly decreasing; and nobody self-possessed but hewitt. they let go the anchor at last, got out a boat, and sent her ashore with the fourth officer, the pilot, and four men aboard, to try and find out where we were. the pilot had no idea; but hewitt put his little finger upon a certain part of the chart, and was as confident of the exact spot (though he had never been there in his life) as if he had lived there from infancy. the boat's return about an hour afterwards proved him to be quite right. we had got into a place called the eastern passage, in a sudden fog and through the pilot's folly. we had struck upon a mud-bank, and driven into a perfect little pond, surrounded by banks and rocks and shoals of all kinds: the only safe speck in the place. eased by this report, and the assurance that the tide was past the ebb, we turned in at three o'clock in the morning, to lie there all night." the next day's landing at halifax, and delivery of the mails, are sketched in the _notes_; but not his personal part in what followed: "then, sir, comes a breathless man who has been already into the ship and out again, shouting my name as he tears along. i stop, arm in arm with the little doctor whom i have taken ashore for oysters. the breathless man introduces himself as the speaker of the house of assembly; _will_ drag me away to his house; and _will_ have a carriage and his wife sent down for kate, who is laid up with a hideously swoln face. then he drags me up to the governor's house (lord falkland is the governor), and then heaven knows where; concluding with both houses of parliament, which happen to meet for the session that very day, and are opened by a mock speech from the throne delivered by the governor, with one of lord grey's sons for his aide-de-camp, and a great host of officers about him. i wish you could have seen the crowds cheering the inimitable[ ] in the streets. i wish you could have seen judges, law-officers, bishops, and law-makers welcoming the inimitable. i wish you could have seen the inimitable shown to a great elbow-chair by the speaker's throne, and sitting alone in the middle of the floor of the house of commons, the observed of all observers, listening with exemplary gravity to the queerest speaking possible, and breaking in spite of himself into a smile as he thought of this commencement to the thousand and one stories in reserve for home and lincoln's inn fields and jack straw's castle.--ah, forster! when i _do_ come back again!----" he resumed his letter at tremont house on saturday, the th of january, having reached boston that day week at five in the afternoon; and, as his first american experience is very lightly glanced at in the _notes_, a fuller picture will perhaps be welcome. "as the cunard boats have a wharf of their own at the custom-house, and that a narrow one, we were a long time (an hour at least) working in. i was standing in full fig on the paddle-box beside the captain, staring about me, when suddenly, long before we were moored to the wharf, a dozen men came leaping on board at the peril of their lives, with great bundles of newspapers under their arms; worsted comforters (very much the worse for wear) round their necks; and so forth. 'aha!' says i, 'this is like our london bridge;' believing of course that these visitors were news-boys. but what do you think of their being editors? and what do you think of their tearing violently up to me and beginning to shake hands like madmen? oh! if you could have seen how i wrung their wrists! and if you could but know how i hated one man in very dirty gaiters, and with very protruding upper teeth, who said to all comers after him, 'so you've been introduced to our friend dickens--eh?' there was one among them, though, who really was of use; a doctor s., editor of the ----. he ran off here (two miles at least), and ordered rooms and dinner. and in course of time kate, and i, and lord mulgrave (who was going back to his regiment at montreal on monday, and had agreed to live with us in the mean while) sat down in a spacious and handsome room to a very handsome dinner, bating peculiarities of putting on table, and had forgotten the ship entirely. a mr. alexander, to whom i had written from england promising to sit for a portrait, was on board directly we touched the land, and brought us here in his carriage. then, after sending a present of most beautiful flowers, he left us to ourselves, and we thanked him for it." what further he had to say of that week's experience finds its first public utterance here. "how can i tell you," he continues, "what has happened since that first day? how can i give you the faintest notion of my reception here; of the crowds that pour in and out the whole day; of the people that line the streets when i go out; of the cheering when i went to the theatre; of the copies of verses, letters of congratulation, welcomes of all kinds, balls, dinners, assemblies without end? there is to be a public dinner to me here in boston, next tuesday, and great dissatisfaction has been given to the many by the high price (three pounds sterling each) of the tickets. there is to be a ball next monday week at new york, and names appear on the list of the committee. there is to be a dinner in the same place, in the same week, to which i have had an invitation with every known name in america appended to it. but what can i tell you about any of these things which will give you the slightest notion of the enthusiastic greeting they give me, or the cry that runs through the whole country? i have had deputations from the far west, who have come from more than two thousand miles' distance: from the lakes, the rivers, the back-woods, the log houses, the cities, factories, villages, and towns. authorities from nearly all the states have written to me. i have heard from the universities, congress, senate, and bodies, public and private, of every sort and kind. 'it is no-nonsense, and no common feeling,' wrote dr. channing to me yesterday. 'it is all heart. there never was, and never will be, such a triumph.' and it is a good thing, is it not, . . . to find those fancies it has given me and you the greatest satisfaction to think of, at the core of it all? it makes my heart quieter, and me a more retiring, sober, tranquil man, to watch the effect of those thoughts in all this noise and hurry, even than if i sat, pen in hand, to put them down for the first time. i feel, in the best aspects of this welcome, something of the presence and influence of that spirit which directs my life, and through a heavy sorrow has pointed upwards with unchanging finger for more than four years past. and if i know my heart, not twenty times this praise would move me to an act of folly.". . . there were but two days more before the post left for england, and the close of this part of his letter sketched the engagements that awaited him on leaving boston: "we leave here next saturday. we go to a place called worcester, about miles off, to the house of the governor of this place; and stay with him all sunday. on monday we go on by railroad about miles further to a town called springfield, where i am met by a 'reception committee' from hartford miles further, and carried on by the multitude: i am sure i don't know how, but i shouldn't wonder if they appear with a triumphal car. on wednesday i have a public dinner there. on friday i shall be obliged to present myself in public again, at a place called new haven, about miles further. on saturday evening i hope to be at new york; and there i shall stay ten days or a fortnight. you will suppose that i have enough to do. i am sitting for a portrait and for a bust. i have the correspondence of a secretary of state, and the engagements of a fashionable physician. i have a secretary whom i take on with me. he is a young man of the name of q.; was strongly recommended to me; is most modest, obliging, silent, and willing; and does his work _well_. he boards and lodges at my expense when we travel; and his salary is ten dollars per month--about two pounds five of our english money. there will be dinners and balls at washington, philadelphia, baltimore, and i believe everywhere. in canada, i have promised to _play_ at the theatre with the officers, for the benefit of a charity. we are already weary, at times, past all expression; and i finish this by means of a pious fraud. we were engaged to a party, and have written to say we are both desperately ill. . . . 'well,' i can fancy you saying, 'but about his impressions of boston and the americans?'--of the latter, i will not say a word until i have seen more of them, and have gone into the interior. i will only say, now, that we have never yet been required to dine at a table-d'hôte; that, thus far, our rooms are as much our own here as they would be at the clarendon; that but for an odd phrase now and then--such as _snap of cold weather_; a _tongue-y man_ for a talkative fellow; _possible?_ as a solitary interrogation; and _yes?_ for indeed--i should have marked, so far, no difference whatever between the parties here and those i have left behind. the women are very beautiful, but they soon fade; the general breeding is neither stiff nor forward; the good nature, universal. if you ask the way to a place--of some common water-side man, who don't know you from adam--he turns and goes with you. universal deference is paid to ladies; and they walk about at all seasons, wholly unprotected. . . . this hotel is a trifle smaller than finsbury square; and is made so infernally hot (i use the expression advisedly) by means of a furnace with pipes running through the passages, that we can hardly bear it. there are no curtains to the beds, or to the bedroom windows. i am told there never are, hardly, all through america. the bedrooms are indeed very bare of furniture. ours is nearly as large as your great room, and has a wardrobe in it of painted wood not larger (i appeal to k.) than an english watch-box. i slept in this room for two nights, quite satisfied with the belief that it was a shower-bath." the last addition made to this letter, from which many vividest pages of the _notes_ (among them the bright quaint picture of boston streets) were taken with small alteration, bore date the th of january: "i hardly know what to add to all this long and unconnected history. dana, the author of that _two years before the mast_" (a book which i had praised much to him, thinking it like de foe), "is a very nice fellow indeed; and in appearance not at all the man you would expect. he is short, mild-looking, and has a care-worn face. his father is exactly like george cruikshank after a night's jollity--only shorter. the professors at the cambridge university, longfellow, felton, jared sparks, are noble fellows. so is kenyon's friend, ticknor. bancroft is a famous man; a straightforward, manly, earnest heart; and talks much of you, which is a great comfort. doctor channing i will tell you more of, after i have breakfasted alone with him next wednesday. . . . sumner is of great service to me. . . . the president of the senate here presides at my dinner on tuesday. lord mulgrave lingered with us till last tuesday (we had our little captain to dinner on the monday), and then went on to canada. kate is quite well, and so is anne, whose smartness surpasses belief. they yearn for home, and so do i. "of course you will not see in the papers any true account of our voyage, for they keep the dangers of the passage, when there are any, very quiet. i observed so many perils peculiar to steamers that i am still undecided whether we shall not return by one of the new york liners. on the night of the storm, i was wondering within myself where we should be, if the chimney were blown overboard; in which case, it needs no great observation to discover that the vessel must be instantly on fire from stem to stern. when i went on deck next day, i saw that it was held up by a perfect forest of chains and ropes, which had been rigged in the night. hewitt told me (when we were on shore, not before) that they had men lashed, hoisted up, and swinging there, all through the gale, getting these stays about it. this is not agreeable--is it? "i wonder whether you will remember that next tuesday is my birthday! this letter will leave here that morning. "on looking back through these sheets, i am astonished to find how little i have told you, and how much i have, even now, in store which shall be yours by word of mouth. the american poor, the american factories, the institutions of all kinds--i have a book, already. there is no man in this town, or in this state of new england, who has not a blazing fire and a meat dinner every day of his life. a flaming sword in the air would not attract so much attention as a beggar in the streets. there are no charity uniforms, no wearisome repetition of the same dull ugly dress, in that blind school.[ ] all are attired after their own tastes, and every boy and girl has his or her individuality as distinct and unimpaired as you would find it in their own homes. at the theatres, all the ladies sit in the fronts of the boxes. the gallery are as quiet as the dress circle at dear drury lane. a man with seven heads would be no sight at all, compared with one who couldn't read and write. "i won't speak (i say 'speak'! i wish i could) about the dear precious children, because i know how much we shall hear about them when we receive those letters from home for which we long so ardently." * * * * * unmistakably to be seen, in this earliest of his letters, is the quite fresh and unalloyed impression first received by him at this memorable visit; and it is due, as well to himself as to the great country which welcomed him, that this should be considered independently of any modification it afterwards underwent. of the fervency and universality of the welcome there could indeed be no doubt, and as little that it sprang from feelings honorable both to giver and receiver. the sources of dickens's popularity in england were in truth multiplied many-fold in america. the hearty, cordial, and humane side of his genius had fascinated them quite as much; but there was also something beyond this. the cheerful temper that had given new beauty to the commonest forms of life, the abounding humor which had added largely to all innocent enjoyment, the honorable and in those days rare distinction of america which left no home in the union inaccessible to such advantages, had made dickens the object everywhere of grateful admiration, for the most part of personal affection. but even this was not all. i do not say it either to lessen or to increase the value of the tribute, but to express simply what it was; and there cannot be a question that the young english author, whom by his language they claimed equally for their own, was almost universally regarded by the americans as a kind of embodied protest against what they believed to be worst in the institutions of england, depressing and overshadowing in a social sense, and adverse to purely intellectual influences. in all the papers of every grade in the union, of which many were sent to me at the time, the feeling of triumph over the mother-country in this particular is everywhere predominant. you worship titles, they said, and military heroes, and millionaires, and we of the new world want to show you, by extending the kind of homage that the old world reserves for kings and conquerors, to a young man with nothing to distinguish him but his heart and his genius, what it is we think in these parts worthier of honor, than birth, or wealth, a title, or a sword. well, there was something in this too, apart from a mere crowing over the mother-country. the americans had honestly more than a common share in the triumphs of a genius which in more than one sense had made the deserts and wildernesses of life to blossom like the rose. they were entitled to select for a welcome, as emphatic as they might please to render it, the writer who pre-eminently in his generation had busied himself to "detect and save," in human creatures, such sparks of virtue as misery or vice had not availed to extinguish; to discover what is beautiful and comely under what commonly passes for the ungainly and the deformed; to draw happiness and hopefulness from despair itself; and, above all, so to have made known to his own countrymen the wants and sufferings of the poor, the ignorant, and the neglected, that they could be left in absolute neglect no more. "a triumph has been prepared for him," wrote mr. ticknor to our dear friend kenyon, "in which the whole country will join. he will have a progress through the states unequaled since lafayette's." daniel webster told the americans that dickens had done more already to ameliorate the condition of the english poor than all the statesmen great britain had sent into parliament. his sympathies are such, exclaimed dr. channing, as to recommend him in an especial manner to us. he seeks out that class, in order to benefit them, with whom american institutions and laws sympathize most strongly; and it is in the passions, sufferings, and virtues of the mass that he has found his subjects of most thrilling interest. "he shows that life in its rudest form may wear a tragic grandeur; that amidst follies and excesses, provoking laughter or scorn, the moral feelings do not wholly die; and that the haunts of the blackest crime are sometimes lighted up by the presence and influence of the noblest souls. his pictures have a tendency to awaken sympathy with our race, and to change the unfeeling indifference which has prevailed towards the depressed multitude, into a sorrowful and indignant sensibility to their wrongs and woes." whatever may be the turn which we are to see the welcome take, by dissatisfaction that arose on both sides, it is well that we should thus understand what in its first manifestations was honorable to both. dickens had his disappointments, and the americans had theirs; but what was really genuine in the first enthusiasm remained without grave alloy from either; and the letters, as i proceed to give them, will so naturally explain and illustrate the misunderstanding as to require little further comment. i am happy to be able here to place on record fac-similes of the invitations to the public entertainments in new york which reached him before he quitted boston. the mere signatures suffice to show how universal the welcome was from that great city of the union. footnotes: [ ] the initials used here are in no case those of the real names, being employed in every case for the express purpose of disguising the names. generally the remark is applicable to all initials used in the letters printed in the course of this work. [ ] this word, applied to him by his old master; mr. giles (_ante_, p. ), was for a long time the epithet we called him by. [ ] his descriptions of this school, and of the case of laura bridgeman, will be found in the _notes_, and have therefore been, of course, omitted here. chapter xx. second impressions of america. . second letter--international copyright--third letter--the dinner at boston--worcester, springfield, and hartford--queer traveling--levees at hartford and new haven--at wallingford--serenades--cornelius c. felton--payment of personal expenses declined--at new york--irving and colden--description of the ball--newspaper accounts--a phase of character--opinion in america--international copyright--american authors in regard to it--outcry against the nation's guest--declines to be silent on copyright--speech at dinner--irving in the chair--chairman's breakdown--an incident afterwards in london--results of copyright speeches--a bookseller's demand for help--suggestion for copyright memorial--henry clay's opinion--life in new york--distresses of popularity--intentions for future--refusal of invitations--going south and west--as to return--dangers incident to steamers--slavery--ladies of america--party conflicts--non-arrival of cunard steamer--copyright petition for congress--no hope of the caledonia--substitute for her--anxiety as to letters--of distinguished americans--hotel bills--thoughts of the children--acadia takes caledonia's place--letter to c. d. from carlyle--carlyle on copyright--argument against stealing--rob roy's plan worth bettering--c. d. as to carlyle. his second letter, radiant with the same kindly warmth that gave always pre-eminent charm to his genius, was dated from the carlton hotel, new york, on the th february, but its only allusion of any public interest was to the beginning of his agitation of the question of international copyright. he went to america with no express intention of starting this question in any way, and certainly with no belief that such remark upon it as a person in his position could alone be expected to make would be resented strongly by any sections of the american people. but he was not long left in doubt on this head. he had spoken upon it twice publicly, "to the great indignation of some of the editors here, who are attacking me for so doing, right and left." on the other hand, all the best men had assured him that, if only at once followed up in england, the blow struck might bring about a change in the law; and, yielding to the pleasant hope that the best men could be a match for the worst, he urged me to enlist on his side what force i could, and in particular, as he had made scott's claim his war-cry, to bring lockhart into the field. i could not do much, but i did what i could. three days later he began another letter; and, as this will be entirely new to the reader, i shall print it as it reached me, with only such omission of matter concerning myself as i think it my duty, however reluctantly, to make throughout these extracts. there was nothing in its personal details, or in those relating to international copyright, available for his _notes_; from which they were excluded by the two rules he observed in that book,--the first to be altogether silent as to the copyright discussion, and the second to abstain from all mention of individuals. but there can be no harm here in violating either rule, for, as sydney smith said with his humorous sadness, "we are all dead now." "carlton house, new york: thursday, february seventeenth, . . . . as there is a sailing-packet from here to england to-morrow which is warranted (by the owners) to be a marvelous fast sailer, and as it appears most probable that she will reach home (i write the word with a pang) before the cunard steamer of next month, i indite this letter. and lest this letter should reach you before another letter which i dispatched from here last monday, let me say in the first place that i _did_ dispatch a brief epistle to you on that day, together with a newspaper, and a pamphlet touching the boz ball; and that i put in the post-office at boston another newspaper for you containing an account of the dinner, which was just about to come off, you remember, when i wrote to you from that city. "it was a most superb affair; and the speaking _admirable_. indeed, the general talent for public speaking here is one of the most striking of the things that force themselves upon an englishman's notice. as every man looks on to being a member of congress, every man prepares himself for it; and the result is quite surprising. you will observe one odd custom,--the drinking of sentiments. it is quite extinct with us, but here everybody is expected to be prepared with an epigram as a matter of course. "we left boston on the fifth, and went away with the governor of the city to stay till monday at his house at worcester. he married a sister of bancroft's, and another sister of bancroft's went down with us. the village of worcester is one of the prettiest in new england. . . . on monday morning at nine o'clock we started again by railroad and went on to springfield, where a deputation of two were waiting, and everything was in readiness that the utmost attention could suggest. owing to the mildness of the weather, the connecticut river was 'open,' videlicet not frozen, and they had a steamboat ready to carry us on to hartford; thus saving a land-journey of only twenty-five miles, but on such roads at this time of year that it takes nearly twelve hours to accomplish! the boat was very small, the river full of floating blocks of ice, and the depth where we went (to avoid the ice and the current) not more than a few inches. after two hours and a half of this queer traveling, we got to hartford. there, there was quite an english inn; except in respect of the bedrooms, which are always uncomfortable; and the best committee of management that has yet presented itself. they kept us more quiet, and were more considerate and thoughtful, even to their own exclusion, than any i have yet had to deal with. kate's face being horribly bad, i determined to give her a rest here; and accordingly wrote to get rid of my engagement at new haven, on that plea. we remained in this town until the eleventh: holding a formal levee every day for two hours, and receiving on each from two hundred to three hundred people. at five o'clock on the afternoon of the eleventh, we set off (still by railroad) for new haven, which we reached about eight o'clock. the moment we had had tea, we were forced to open another levee for the students and professors of the college (the largest in the states), and the townspeople. i suppose we shook hands, before going to bed, with considerably more than five hundred people; and i stood, as a matter of course, the whole time. . . . "now, the deputation of two had come on with us from hartford; and at new haven there was another committee; and the immense fatigue and worry of all this, no words can exaggerate. we had been in the morning over jails and deaf and dumb asylums; had stopped on the journey at a place called wallingford, where a whole town had turned out to see me, and to gratify whose curiosity the train stopped expressly; had had a day of great excitement and exertion on the thursday (this being friday); and were inexpressibly worn out. and when at last we got to bed and were 'going' to fall asleep, the choristers of the college turned out in a body, under the window, and serenaded us! we had had, by-the-by, another serenade at hartford, from a mr. adams (a nephew of john quincy adams) and a german friend. _they_ were most beautiful singers: and when they began, in the dead of the night, in a long, musical, echoing passage outside our chamber door; singing, in low voices to guitars, about home and absent friends and other topics that they knew would interest us; we were more moved than i can tell you. in the midst of my sentimentality, though, a thought occurred to me which made me laugh so immoderately that i was obliged to cover my face with the bedclothes. 'good heavens!' i said to kate, 'what a monstrously ridiculous and commonplace appearance my boots must have, outside the door!' i never _was_ so impressed with a sense of the absurdity of boots, in all my life. "the new haven serenade was not so good; though there were a great many voices, and a 'reg'lar' band. it hadn't the heart of the other. before it was six hours old, we were dressing with might and main, and making ready for our departure; it being a drive of twenty minutes to the steamboat, and the hour of sailing nine o'clock. after a hasty breakfast we started off; and after another levee on the deck (actually on the deck), and 'three times three for dickens,' moved towards new york. "i was delighted to find on board a mr. felton whom i had known at boston. he is the greek professor at cambridge, and was going on to the ball and dinner. like most men of his class whom i have seen, he is a most delightful fellow,--unaffected, hearty, genial, jolly; quite an englishman of the best sort. we drank all the porter on board, ate all the cold pork and cheese, and were very merry indeed. i should have told you, in its proper place, that both at hartford and new haven a regular bank was subscribed, by these committees, for _all_ my expenses. no bill was to be got at the bar, and everything was paid for. but as i would on no account suffer this to be done, i stoutly and positively refused to budge an inch until mr. q. should have received the bills from the landlord's own hands, and paid them to the last farthing. finding it impossible to move me, they suffered me, most unwillingly, to carry the point. "about half-past we arrived here. in half an hour more, we reached this hotel, where a very splendid suite of rooms was prepared for us; and where everything is very comfortable, and no doubt (as at boston) _enormously_ dear. just as we sat down to dinner, david colden made his appearance; and when he had gone, and we were taking our wine, washington irving came in alone, with open arms. and here he stopped, until ten o'clock at night." (through lord jeffrey, with whom he was connected by marriage, and macready, of whom he was the cordial friend, we already knew mr. colden; and his subsequent visits to europe led to many years' intimate intercourse, greatly enjoyed by us both.) "having got so far, i shall divide my discourse into four points. first, the ball. secondly, some slight specimens of a certain phase of character in the americans. thirdly, international copyright. fourthly, my life here, and projects to be carried out while i remain. "firstly, the ball. it came off last monday (vide pamphlet.) 'at a quarter-past , exactly' (i quote the printed order of proceeding), we were waited upon by 'david colden, esquire, and general george morris;' habited, the former in full ball costume, the latter in the full dress uniform of heaven knows what regiment of militia. the general took kate, colden gave his arm to me, and we proceeded downstairs to a carriage at the door, which took us to the stage-door of the theatre, greatly to the disappointment of an enormous crowd who were besetting the main door and making a most tremendous hullaballoo. the scene on our entrance was very striking. there were three thousand people present in full dress; from the roof to the floor, the theatre was decorated magnificently; and the light, glitter, glare, show, noise, and cheering, baffle my descriptive powers. we were walked in through the centre of the centre dress-box, the front whereof was taken out for the occasion; so to the back of the stage, where the mayor and other dignitaries received us; and we were then paraded all round the enormous ball-room, twice, for the gratification of the many-headed. that done, we began to dance--heaven knows how we did it, for there was no room. and we continued dancing until, being no longer able even to stand, we slipped away quietly, and came back to the hotel. all the documents connected with this extraordinary festival (quite unparalleled here) we have preserved; so you may suppose that on this head alone we shall have enough to show you when we come home. the bill of fare for supper is, in its amount and extent, quite a curiosity. "now, the phase of character in the americans which amuses me most was put before me in its most amusing shape by the circumstances attending this affair. i had noticed it before, and have since; but i cannot better illustrate it than by reference to this theme. of course i can do nothing but in some shape or other it gets into the newspapers. all manner of lies get there, and occasionally a truth so twisted and distorted that it has as much resemblance to the real fact as quilp's leg to taglioni's. but with this ball to come off, the newspapers were if possible unusually loquacious; and in their accounts of me, and my seeings, sayings, and doings on the saturday night and sunday before, they describe my manner, mode of speaking, dressing, and so forth. in doing this, they report that i am a very charming fellow (of course), and have a very free and easy way with me; 'which,' say they, 'at first amused a few fashionables;' but soon pleased them exceedingly. another paper, coming after the ball, dwells upon its splendor and brilliancy; hugs itself and its readers upon all that dickens saw, and winds up by gravely expressing its conviction that dickens was never in such society in england as he has seen in new york, and that its high and striking tone cannot fail to make an indelible impression on his mind! for the same reason i am always represented, whenever i appear in public, as being 'very pale;' 'apparently thunderstruck;' and utterly confounded by all i see. . . . you recognize the queer vanity which is at the root of all this? i have plenty of stories in connection with it to amuse you with when i return." "_twenty-fourth february._ "it is unnecessary to say . . . that this letter _didn't_ come by the sailing packet, and _will_ come by the cunard boat. after the ball i was laid up with a very bad sore throat, which confined me to the house four whole days; and as i was unable to write, or indeed to do anything but doze and drink lemonade, i missed the ship. . . . i have still a horrible cold, and so has kate, but in other respects we are all right. i proceed to my third head: the international copyright question. "i believe there is no country on the face of the earth where there is less freedom of opinion on any subject in reference to which there is a broad difference of opinion, than in this.--there!--i write the words with reluctance, disappointment, and sorrow; but i believe it from the bottom of my soul. i spoke, as you know, of international copyright, at boston; and i spoke of it again at hartford. my friends were paralyzed with wonder at such audacious daring. the notion that i, a man alone by himself, in america, should venture to suggest to the americans that there was one point on which they were neither just to their own countrymen nor to us, actually struck the boldest dumb! washington irving, prescott, hoffman, bryant, halleck, dana, washington allston--every man who writes in this country is devoted to the question, and not one of them _dares_ to raise his voice and complain of the atrocious state of the law. it is nothing that of all men living i am the greatest loser by it. it is nothing that i have a claim to speak and be heard. the wonder is that a breathing man can be found with temerity enough to suggest to the americans the possibility of their having done wrong. i wish you could have seen the faces that i saw, down both sides of the table at hartford, when i began to talk about scott. i wish you could have heard how i gave it out. my blood so boiled as i thought of the monstrous injustice that i felt as if i were twelve feet high when i thrust it down their throats. "i had no sooner made that second speech than such an outcry began (for the purpose of deterring me from doing the like in this city) as an englishman can form no notion of. anonymous letters, verbal dissuasions; newspaper attacks making colt (a murderer who is attracting great attention here) an angel by comparison with me; assertions that i was no gentleman, but a mere mercenary scoundrel; coupled with the most monstrous misrepresentations relative to my design and purpose in visiting the united states; came pouring in upon me every day. the dinner committee here (composed of the first gentlemen in america, remember that) were so dismayed, that they besought me not to pursue the subject, _although they every one agreed with me_. i answered that i would. that nothing should deter me. . . . that the shame was theirs, not mine; and that as i would not spare them when i got home, i would not be silenced here. accordingly, when the night came, i asserted my right, with all the means i could command to give it dignity, in face, manner, or words; and i believe that if you could have seen and heard me, you would have loved me better for it than ever you did in your life. "the _new york herald_, which you will receive with this, is the _satirist_ of america; but having a great circulation (on account of its commercial intelligence and early news) it can afford to secure the best reporters. . . . my speech is done, upon the whole, with remarkable accuracy. there are a great many typographical errors in it; and by the omission of one or two words, or the substitution of one word for another, it is often materially weakened. thus, i did not say that i 'claimed' my right, but that i 'asserted' it; and i did not say that i had 'some claim,' but that i had 'a most righteous claim,' to speak. but altogether it is very correct." * * * * * washington irving was chairman of this dinner, and, having from the first a dread that he should break down in his speech, the catastrophe came accordingly. near him sat the cambridge professor who had come with dickens by boat from new haven, with whom already a warm friendship had been formed that lasted for life, and who has pleasantly sketched what happened. mr. felton saw irving constantly in the interval of preparation, and could not but despond at his daily iterated foreboding of _i shall certainly break down_; though besides the real dread there was a sly humor which heightened its whimsical horror with an irresistible drollery. but the professor plucked up hope a little when the night came and he saw that irving had laid under his plate the manuscript of his speech. during dinner, nevertheless, his old foreboding cry was still heard, and "at last the moment arrived; mr. irving rose; and the deafening and long-continued applause by no means lessened his apprehension. he began in his pleasant voice; got through two or three sentences pretty easily, but in the next hesitated; and, after one or two attempts to go on, gave it up, with a graceful allusion to the tournament and the troop of knights all armed and eager for the fray; and ended with the toast charles dickens, the guest of the nation. _there!_ said he, as he resumed his seat amid applause as great as had greeted his rising, _there! i told you i should break down, and i've done it!_" he was in london a few months later, on his way to spain; and i heard thomas moore describe[ ] at rogers's table the difficulty there had been to overcome his reluctance, because of this break-down, to go to the dinner of the literary fund on the occasion of prince albert's presiding. "however," said moore, "i told him only to attempt a few words, and i suggested what they should be, and he said he'd never thought of anything so easy, and he went, and did famously." i knew very well, as i listened, that this had _not_ been the result; but as the distinguished american had found himself, on this second occasion, not among orators as in new york, but among men as unable as himself to speak in public, and equally able to do better things,[ ] he was doubtless more reconciled to his own failure. i have been led to this digression by dickens's silence on his friend's break-down. he had so great a love for irving that it was painful to speak of him as at any disadvantage, and of the new york dinner he wrote only in its connection with his own copyright speeches. * * * * * "the effect of all this copyright agitation at least has been to awaken a great sensation on both sides of the subject; the respectable newspapers and reviews taking up the cudgels as strongly in my favor, as the others have done against me. some of the vagabonds take great credit to themselves (grant us patience!) for having made me popular by publishing my books in newspapers: as if there were no england, no scotland, no germany, no place but america in the whole world. a splendid satire upon this kind of trash has just occurred. a man came here yesterday, and demanded, not besought but demanded, pecuniary assistance; and fairly bullied mr. q. for money. when i came home, i dictated a letter to this effect,--that such applications reached me in vast numbers every day; that if i were a man of fortune, i could not render assistance to all who sought it; and that, depending on my own exertion for all the help i could give, i regretted to say i could afford him none. upon this, my gentleman sits down and writes me that he is an itinerant bookseller; that he is the first man who sold my books in new york; that he is distressed in the city where i am reveling in luxury; that he thinks it rather strange that the man who wrote _nickleby_ should be utterly destitute of feeling; and that he would have me 'take care i don't repent it.' what do you think of _that_?--as mac would say. i thought it such a good commentary, that i dispatched the letter to the editor of the only english newspaper here, and told him he might print it if he liked. "i will tell you what _i_ should like, my dear friend, always supposing that your judgment concurs with mine, and that you would take the trouble to get such a document. i should like to have a short letter addressed to me by the principal english authors who signed the international copyright petition, expressive of their sense that i have done my duty to the cause. i am sure i deserve it, but i don't wish it on that ground. it is because its publication in the best journals here would unquestionably do great good. as the gauntlet is down, let us go on. clay has already sent a gentleman to me express from washington (where i shall be on the th or th of next month) to declare his strong interest in the matter, his cordial approval of the 'manly' course i have held in reference to it, and his desire to stir in it if possible. i have lighted up such a blaze that a meeting of the foremost people on the other side (very respectfully and properly conducted in reference to me, personally, i am bound to say) was held in this town t'other night. and it would be a thousand pities if we did not strike as hard as we can, now that the iron is so hot. "i have come at last, and it is time i did, to my life here, and intentions for the future. i can do nothing that i want to do, go nowhere where i want to go, and see nothing that i want to see. if i turn into the street, i am followed by a multitude. if i stay at home, the house becomes, with callers, like a fair. if i visit a public institution, with only one friend, the directors come down incontinently, waylay me in the yard, and address me in a long speech. i go to a party in the evening, and am so inclosed and hemmed about by people, stand where i will, that i am exhausted for want of air. i dine out, and have to talk about everything, to everybody. i go to church for quiet, and there is a violent rush to the neighborhood of the pew i sit in, and the clergyman preaches _at_ me. i take my seat in a railroad-car, and the very conductor won't leave me alone. i get out at a station, and can't drink a glass of water, without having a hundred people looking down my throat when i open my mouth to swallow. conceive what all this is! then by every post, letters on letters arrive, all about nothing, and all demanding an immediate answer. this man is offended because i won't live in his house; and that man is thoroughly disgusted because i won't go out more than four times in one evening. i have no rest or peace, and am in a perpetual worry. "under these febrile circumstances, which this climate especially favors, i have come to the resolution that i will not (so far as my will has anything to do with the matter) accept any more public entertainments or public recognitions of any kind, during my stay in the united states; and in pursuance of this determination i have refused invitations from philadelphia, baltimore, washington, virginia, albany, and providence. heaven knows whether this will be effectual, but i shall soon see, for on monday morning, the th, we leave for philadelphia. there i shall only stay three days. thence we go to baltimore, and _there_ i shall only stay three days. thence to washington, where we may stay perhaps ten days; perhaps not so long. thence to virginia, where we may halt for one day; and thence to charleston, where we may pass a week perhaps, and where we shall very likely remain until your march letters reach us, through david colden. i had a design of going from charleston to columbia in south carolina, and there engaging a carriage, a baggage-tender and negro boy to guard the same, and a saddle-horse for myself,--with which caravan i intended going 'right away,' as they say here, into the west, through the wilds of kentucky and tennessee, across the alleghany mountains, and so on until we should strike the lakes and could get to canada. but it has been represented to me that this is a track only known to traveling merchants; that the roads are bad, the country a tremendous waste, the inns log houses, and the journey one that would play the very devil with kate. i am staggered, but not deterred. if i find it possible to be done in the time, i mean to do it; being quite satisfied that without some such dash i can never be a free agent, or see anything worth the telling. "we mean to return home in a packet-ship,--not a steamer. her name is the george washington, and she will sail from here, for liverpool, on the seventh of june. at that season of the year they are seldom more than three weeks making the voyage; and i never will trust myself upon the wide ocean, if it please heaven, in a steamer again. when i tell you all that i observed on board that britannia, i shall astonish you. meanwhile, consider two of their dangers. first, that if the funnel were blown overboard the vessel must instantly be on fire, from stem to stern; to comprehend which consequence, you have only to understand that the funnel is more than feet high, and that at night you see the solid fire two or three feet above its top. imagine this swept down by a strong wind, and picture to yourself the amount of flame on deck; and that a strong wind is likely to sweep it down you soon learn, from the precautions taken to keep it up in a storm, when it is the first thing thought of. secondly, each of these boats consumes between london and halifax tons of coals; and it is pretty clear, from this enormous difference of weight in a ship of only tons burden in all, that she must either be too heavy when she comes out of port, or too light when she goes in. the daily difference in her rolling, as she burns the coals out, is something absolutely fearful. add to all this, that by day and night she is full of fire and people, that she has no boats, and that the struggling of that enormous machinery in a heavy sea seems as though it would rend her into fragments--and you may have a pretty con-sid-erable damned good sort of a feeble notion that it don't fit nohow; and that it a'n't calculated to make you smart, overmuch; and that you don't feel 'special bright; and by no means first-rate; and not at all tonguey (or disposed for conversation); and that however rowdy you may be by natur', it does use you up com-plete, and that's a fact; and makes you quake considerable, and disposed toe damn the [)e]ngin[)e]!--all of which phrases, i beg to add, are pure americanisms of the first water. "when we reach baltimore, we are in the regions of slavery. it exists there, in its least shocking and most mitigated form; but there it is. they whisper, here (they dare only whisper, you know, and that below their breaths), that on that place, and all through the south, there is a dull gloomy cloud on which the very word seems written. i shall be able to say, one of these days, that i accepted no public mark of respect in any place where slavery was;--and that's something. "the ladies of america are decidedly and unquestionably beautiful. their complexions are not so good as those of englishwomen; their beauty does not last so long; and their figures are very inferior. but they are most beautiful. i still reserve my opinion of the national character,--just whispering that i tremble for a radical coming here, unless he is a radical on principle, by reason and reflection, and from the sense of right. i fear that if he were anything else, he would return home a tory. . . . i say no more on that head for two months from this time, save that i do fear that the heaviest blow ever dealt at liberty will be dealt by this country, in the failure of its example to the earth. the scenes that are passing in congress now, all tending to the separation of the states, fill one with such a deep disgust that i dislike the very name of washington (meaning the place, not the man), and am repelled by the mere thought of approaching it." "_twenty-seventh february. sunday._ "there begins to be great consternation here, in reference to the cunard packet which (we suppose) left liverpool on the fourth. she has not yet arrived. we scarcely know what to do with ourselves in our extreme anxiety to get letters from home. i have really had serious thoughts of going back to boston, alone, to be nearer news. we have determined to remain here until tuesday afternoon, if she should not arrive before, and to send mr. q. and the luggage on to philadelphia to-morrow morning. god grant she may not have gone down! but every ship that comes in brings intelligence of a terrible gale (which indeed was felt ashore here) on the night of the fourteenth; and the sea-captains swear (not without some prejudice, of course) that no steamer could have lived through it, supposing her to have been in its full fury. as there is no steam-packet to go to england, supposing the caledonia not to arrive, we are obliged to send our letters by the garrick ship, which sails early to-morrow morning. consequently i must huddle this up, and dispatch it to the post-office with all speed. i have so much to say that i could fill quires of paper, which renders this sudden pull-up the more provoking. "i have in my portmanteau a petition for an international copyright law, signed by all the best american writers, with washington irving at their head. they have requested me to hand it to clay for presentation, and to back it with any remarks i may think proper to offer. so 'hoo-roar for the principle, as the money-lender said ven he vouldn't renoo the bill.' "god bless you. . . . you know what i would say about home and the darlings. a hundred times god bless you. . . . fears are entertained for lord ashburton also. nothing has been heard of him." a brief letter, sent me next day by the minister's bag, was in effect a postscript to the foregoing, and expressed still more strongly the doubts and apprehensions his voyage out had impressed him with, and which, though he afterwards saw reason greatly to modify his misgivings, were not so strange at that time as they appear to us now: "carlton house, new york, february twenty-eighth, . . . . the caledonia, i grieve and regret to say, has not arrived. if she left england to her time, she has been four-and-twenty days at sea. there is no news of her; and on the nights of the fourteenth and eighteenth it blew a terrible gale, which almost justifies the worst suspicions. for myself, i have hardly any hope of her; having seen enough, in our passage out, to convince me that steaming across the ocean in heavy weather is as yet an experiment of the utmost hazard. "as it was supposed that there would be no steamer whatever for england this month (since in ordinary course the caledonia would have returned with the mails on the d of march), i hastily got the letters ready yesterday and sent them by the garrick; which may perhaps be three weeks out, but is not very likely to be longer. but belonging to the cunard company is a boat called the unicorn, which in the summertime plies up the st. lawrence, and brings passengers from canada to join the british and north american steamers at halifax. in the winter she lies at the last-mentioned place; from which news has come this morning that they have sent her on to boston for the mails, and, rather than interrupt the communication, mean to dispatch her to england in lieu of the poor caledonia. this in itself, by the way, is a daring deed; for she was originally built to run between liverpool and glasgow, and is no more designed for the atlantic than a calais packet-boat; though she once crossed it, in the summer season. "you may judge, therefore, what the owners think of the probability of the caledonia's arrival. how slight an alteration in our plans would have made us passengers on board of her! "it would be difficult to tell you, my dear fellow, what an impression this has made upon our minds, or with what intense anxiety and suspense we have been waiting for your letters from home. we were to have gone south to-day, but linger here until to-morrow afternoon (having sent the secretary and luggage forward) for one more chance of news. love to dear macready, and to dear mac, and every one we care for. it's useless to speak of the dear children. it seems now as though we should never hear of them. . . . "p.s. washington irving is a _great_ fellow. we have laughed most heartily together. he is just the man he ought to be. so is doctor channing, with whom i have had an interesting correspondence since i saw him last at boston. halleck is a merry little man. bryant a sad one, and very reserved. washington allston the painter (who wrote _monaldi_) is a fine specimen of a glorious old genius. longfellow, whose volume of poems i have got for you, is a frank accomplished man as well as a fine writer, and will be in town 'next fall.' tell macready that i suspect prices here must have rather altered since his time. i paid our fortnight's bill here, last night. we have dined out every day (except when i was laid up with a sore throat), and only had in all four bottles of wine. the bill was _l._ english!!! "you will see, by my other letter, how we have been fêted and feasted; and how there is war to the knife about the international copyright; and how i _will_ speak about it, and decline to be put down. . . . "oh for news from home! i think of your letters so full of heart and friendship, with perhaps a little scrawl of charley's or mamey's, lying at the bottom of the deep sea; and am as full of sorrow as if they had once been living creatures.--well! they _may_ come, yet." * * * * * they did reach him, but not by the caledonia. his fears as to that vessel were but too well founded. on the very day when she was due in boston (the th of february) it was learned in london that she had undergone misadventure; that, her decks having been swept and her rudder torn away, though happily no lives were lost, she had returned disabled to cork; and that the acadia, having received her passengers and mails, was to sail with them from liverpool next day. of the main subject of that letter written on the day preceding,--of the quite unpremeditated impulse, out of which sprang his advocacy of claims which he felt to be represented in his person,--of the injustice done by his entertainers to their guest in ascribing such advocacy to selfishness,--and of the graver wrong done by them to their own highest interests, nay, even to their commonest and most vulgar interests, in continuing to reject those claims, i will add nothing now to what all those years ago i labored very hard to lay before many readers. it will be enough if i here print, from the authors' letters i sent out to him by the next following mail, in compliance with his wish, this which follows from a very dear friend of his and mine. i fortunately had it transcribed before i posted it to him; mr. carlyle having in some haste written from "templand, march, ," and taken no copy. "we learn by the newspapers that you everywhere in america stir up the question of international copyright, and thereby awaken huge dissonance where all else were triumphant unison for you. i am asked my opinion of the matter, and requested to write it down in words. "several years ago, if memory err not, i was one of many english writers who, under the auspices of miss martineau, did already sign a petition to congress praying for an international copyright between the two nations,--which properly are not two nations, but one; _indivisible_ by parliament, congress, or any kind of human law or diplomacy, being already _united_ by heaven's act of parliament, and the everlasting law of nature and fact. to that opinion i still adhere, and am like to continue adhering. "in discussion of the matter before any congress or parliament, manifold considerations and argumentations will necessarily arise; which to me are not interesting, nor essential for helping me to a decision. they respect the time and manner in which the thing should be; not at all whether the thing should be or not. in an ancient book, reverenced i should hope on both sides of the ocean, it was thousands of years ago written down in the most decisive and explicit manner, 'thou _shalt not_ steal.' that thou belongest to a different 'nation,' and canst steal without being certainly hanged for it, gives thee no permission to steal! thou shalt _not_ in anywise steal at all! so it is written down, for nations and for men, in the law-book of the maker of this universe. nay, poor jeremy bentham and others step in here, and will demonstrate that it is actually our true convenience and expediency not to steal; which i for my share, on the great scale and on the small, and in all conceivable scales and shapes, do also firmly believe it to be. for example, if nations abstained from stealing, what need were there of fighting,--with its butcherings and burnings, decidedly the most expensive thing in this world? how much more two nations, which, as i said, are but one nation; knit in a thousand ways by nature and practical intercourse; indivisible brother elements of the same great saxondom, to which in all honorable ways be long life! "when mr. robert roy m'gregor lived in the district of menteith on the highland border two centuries ago, he for his part found it more convenient to supply himself with beef by stealing it alive from the adjacent glens, than by buying it killed in the stirling butchers' market. it was mr. roy's plan of supplying himself with beef in those days, this of stealing it. in many a little 'congress' in the district of menteith, there was debating, doubt it not, and much specious argumentation this way and that, before they could ascertain that, really and truly, buying was the best way to get your beef; which, however, in the long run they did with one assent find it indisputably to be: and accordingly they hold by it to this day." this brave letter was an important service rendered at a critical time, and dickens was very grateful for it. but, as time went on, he had other and higher causes for gratitude to its writer. admiration of carlyle increased in him with his years; and there was no one whom in later life he honored so much, or had a more profound regard for. footnotes: [ ] on the d of may, . [ ] the dinner was on the th of may, and early the following morning i had a letter about it from mr. blanchard, containing these words: "washington irving couldn't utter a word for trembling, and moore was as little as usual. but, poor tom campbell--great heavens! what a spectacle! amid roars of laughter he began a sentence three times about something that dugald stewart or lord bacon had said, and never could get beyond those words. the prince was capital, though deucedly frightened. he seems unaffected and amiable, as well as very clever." chapter xxi. philadelphia, washington, and the south. . at philadelphia--rule in printing letters--promise as to railroads--experience of them--railway-cars--charcoal stoves--ladies' cars--spittoons--massachusetts and new york--police-cells and prisons--house of detention and inmates--women and boy prisoners--capital punishment--a house of correction--four hundred single cells--comparison with english prisons--inns and landlords--at washington--hotel extortion--philadelphia penitentiary--the solitary system--solitary prisoners--talk with inspectors--bookseller carey--changes of temperature--henry clay--proposed journeyings--letters from england--congress and senate--leading american statesmen--the people of america--englishmen "located" there--"surgit amari aliquid"--the copyright petition--at richmond--irving appointed to spain--experience of a slave city--incidents of slave life--discussion with a slaveholder--feeling of south to england--levees at richmond--one more banquet accepted--my gift of _shakspeare_--home letters and fancies--self-reproach of a noble nature--washington irving's leave-taking. dickens's next letter was begun in the "united states hotel, philadelphia," and bore date "sunday, sixth march, ." it treated of much dealt with afterwards at greater length in the _notes_, but the freshness and vivacity of the first impressions in it have surprised me. i do not, however, print any passage here which has not its own interest independently of anything contained in that book. the rule will be continued, as in the portions of letters already given, of not transcribing anything before printed, or anything having even but a near resemblance to descriptions that appear in the _notes_. ". . . . . . as this is likely to be the only quiet day i shall have for a long time, i devote it to writing to you. we have heard nothing from you[ ] yet, and only have for our consolation the reflection that the columbia[ ] is now on her way out. no news had been heard of the caledonia yesterday afternoon, when we left new york. we _were_ to have quitted that place last tuesday, but have been detained there all the week by kate having so bad a sore throat that she was obliged to keep her bed. we left yesterday afternoon at five o'clock, and arrived here at eleven last night. let me say, by the way, that this is a very trying climate. "i have often asked americans in london which were the better railroads,--ours or theirs? they have taken time for reflection, and generally replied on mature consideration that they rather thought we excelled; in respect of the punctuality with which we arrived at our stations, and the smoothness of our traveling. i wish you could see what an american railroad is, in some parts where i now have seen them. i won't say i wish you could feel what it is, because that would be an unchristian and savage aspiration. it is never inclosed, or warded off. you walk down the main street of a large town; and, slap-dash, headlong, pell-mell, down the middle of the street, with pigs burrowing, and boys flying kites and playing marbles, and men smoking, and women talking, and children crawling, close to the very rails, there comes tearing along a mad locomotive with its train of cars, scattering a red-hot shower of sparks (from its _wood_ fire) in all directions; screeching, hissing, yelling, and panting; and nobody one atom more concerned than if it were a hundred miles away. you cross a turnpike-road; and there is no gate, no policeman, no signal--nothing to keep the wayfarer or quiet traveler out of the way, but a wooden arch on which is written, in great letters, 'look out for the locomotive.' and if any man, woman, or child don't look out, why, it's his or her fault, and there's an end of it. "the cars are like very shabby omnibuses,--only larger; holding sixty or seventy people. the seats, instead of being placed long ways, are put cross-wise, back to front. each holds two. there is a long row of these on each side of the caravan, and a narrow passage up the centre. the windows are usually all closed, and there is very often, in addition, a hot, close, most intolerable charcoal stove in a red-hot glow. the heat and closeness are quite insupportable. but this is the characteristic of all american houses, of all the public institutions, chapels, theatres, and prisons. from the constant use of the hard anthracite coal in these beastly furnaces, a perfectly new class of diseases is springing up in the country. their effect upon an englishman is briefly told. he is always very sick and very faint; and has an intolerable headache, morning, noon, and night. "in the ladies' car, there is no smoking of tobacco allowed. all gentlemen who have ladies with them sit in this car; and it is usually very full. before it, is the gentlemen's car; which is something narrower. as i had a window close to me yesterday which commanded this gentlemen's car, i looked at it pretty often, perforce. the flashes of saliva flew so perpetually and incessantly out of the windows all the way, that it looked as though they were ripping open feather-beds inside, and letting the wind dispose of the feathers.[ ] but this spitting is universal. in the courts of law, the judge has his spittoon on the bench, the counsel have theirs, the witness has his, the prisoner his, and the crier his. the jury are accommodated at the rate of three men to a spittoon (or spit-box as they call it here); and the spectators in the gallery are provided for, as so many men who in the course of nature expectorate without cessation. there are spit-boxes in every steamboat, bar-room, public dining-room, house of office, and place of general resort, no matter what it be. in the hospitals, the students are requested, by placard, to use the boxes provided for them, and not to spit upon the stairs. i have twice seen gentlemen, at evening parties in new york, turn aside when they were not engaged in conversation, and spit upon the drawing-room carpet. and in every bar-room and hotel passage the stone floor looks as if it were paved with open oysters--from the quantity of this kind of deposit which tessellates it all over. . . . "the institutions at boston, and at hartford, are most admirable. it would be very difficult indeed to improve upon them. but this is not so at new york; where there is an ill-managed lunatic asylum, a bad jail, a dismal workhouse, and a perfectly intolerable place of police-imprisonment. a man is found drunk in the streets, and is thrown into a cell below the surface of the earth; profoundly dark; so full of noisome vapors that when you enter it with a candle you see a ring about the light, like that which surrounds the moon in wet and cloudy weather; and so offensive and disgusting in its filthy odors that you _cannot bear_ its stench. he is shut up within an iron door, in a series of vaulted passages where no one stays; has no drop of water, or ray of light, or visitor, or help of any kind; and there he remains until the magistrate's arrival. if he die (as one man did not long ago), he is half eaten by the rats in an hour's time (as this man was). i expressed, on seeing these places the other night, the disgust i felt, and which it would be impossible to repress. 'well, i don't know,' said the night constable--that's a national answer, by-the-by,--'well, i don't know. i've had six-and-twenty young women locked up here together, and beautiful ones too, and that's a fact.' the cell was certainly no larger than the wine-cellar in devonshire terrace; at least three feet lower; and stunk like a common sewer. there was one woman in it then. the magistrate begins his examinations at five o'clock in the morning; the watch is set at seven at night; if the prisoners have been given in charge by an officer, they are not taken out before nine or ten; and in the interval they remain in these places, where they could no more be heard to cry for help, in case of a fit or swoon among them, than a man's voice could be heard after he was coffined up in his grave. "there is a prison in this same city, and indeed in the same building, where prisoners for grave offenses await their trial, and to which they are sent back when under remand. it sometimes happens that a man or woman will remain here for twelve months, waiting the result of motions for new trial, and in arrest of judgment, and what not. i went into it the other day: without any notice or preparation, otherwise i find it difficult to catch them in their work-a-day aspect. i stood in a long, high, narrow building, consisting of four galleries one above the other, with a bridge across each, on which sat a turnkey, sleeping or reading as the case might be. from the roof, a couple of wind-sails dangled and drooped, limp and useless; the sky-light being fast closed, and they only designed for summer use. in the centre of the building was the eternal stove; and along both sides of every gallery was a long row of iron doors--looking like furnace-doors, being very small, but black and cold as if the fires within had gone out. "a man with keys appears, to show us round. a good-looking fellow, and, in his way, civil and obliging." (i omit a dialogue of which the substance has been printed,[ ] and give only that which appears for the first time here.) "'suppose a man's here for twelve months. do you mean to say he never comes out at that little iron door?' "'he _may_ walk some, perhaps--not much.' "'will you show me a few of them?' "'ah! all, if you like.' "he threw open a door, and i looked in. an old man was sitting on his bed, reading. the light came in through a small chink, very high up in the wall. across the room ran a thick iron pipe to carry off filth; this was bored for the reception of something like a big funnel in shape; and over the funnel was a watercock. this was his washing apparatus and water-closet. it was not savory, but not very offensive. he looked up at me; gave himself an odd, dogged kind of shake; and fixed his eyes on his book again. i came out, and the door was shut and locked. he had been there a month, and would have to wait another month for his trial. 'has he ever walked out now, for instance?' 'no.'. . . "'in england, if a man is under sentence of death even, he has a yard to walk in at certain times.' "'possible?' ". . . making me this answer with a coolness which is perfectly untranslatable and inexpressible, and which is quite peculiar to the soil, he took me to the women's side, telling me, upon the way, all about this man, who, it seems, murdered his wife, and will certainly be hanged. the women's doors have a small square aperture in them; i looked through one, and saw a pretty boy about ten or twelve years old, who seemed lonely and miserable enough--as well he might. 'what's _he_ been doing?' says i. 'nothing,' says my friend. 'nothing!' says i. 'no,' says he. 'he's here for safe keeping. he saw his father kill his mother, and is detained to give evidence against him--that was his father you saw just now.' 'but that's rather hard treatment for a witness, isn't it?' 'well, i don't know. it a'n't a very rowdy life, and _that's_ a fact.' so my friend, who was an excellent fellow in his way, and very obliging, and a handsome young man to boot, took me off to show me some more curiosities; and i was very much obliged to him, for the place was so hot, and i so giddy, that i could scarcely stand. . . . "when a man is hanged in new york, he is walked out of one of these cells, without any condemned sermon or other religious formalities, straight into the narrow jail-yard, which may be about the width of cranbourn alley. there, a gibbet is erected, which is of curious construction; for the culprit stands on the earth with the rope about his neck, which passes through a pulley in the top of the 'tree' (see _newgate calendar_ passim), and is attached to a weight something heavier than the man. this weight, being suddenly let go, drags the rope down with it, and sends the criminal flying up fourteen feet into the air; while the judge, and jury, and five-and-twenty citizens (whose presence is required by the law), stand by, that they may afterwards certify to the fact. this yard is a very dismal place; and when i looked at it, i thought the practice infinitely superior to ours: much more solemn, and far less degrading and indecent. [illustration] "there is another prison near new york which is a house of correction. the convicts labor in stone-quarries near at hand, but the jail has no covered yards or shops, so that when the weather is wet (as it was when i was there) each man is shut up in his own little cell, all the live-long day. these cells, in all the correction-houses i have seen, are on one uniform plan,--thus: a, b, c, and d, are the walls of the building with windows in them, high up in the wall. the shaded place in the centre represents four tiers of cells, one above the other, with doors of grated iron, and a light grated gallery to each tier. four tiers front to b, and four to d, so that by this means you may be said, in walking round, to see eight tiers in all. the intermediate blank space you walk in, looking up at these galleries; so that, coming in at the door e, and going either to the right or left till you come back to the door again, you see all the cells under one roof and in one high room. imagine them in number , and in every one a man locked up; this one with his hands through the bars of his grate, this one in bed (in the middle of the day, remember), and this one flung down in a heap upon the ground with his head against the bars like a wild beast. make the rain pour down in torrents outside. put the everlasting stove in the midst; hot, suffocating, and vaporous, as a witch's cauldron. add a smell like that of a thousand old mildewed umbrellas wet through, and a thousand dirty-clothes-bags musty, moist, and fusty, and you will have some idea--a very feeble one, my dear friend, on my word--of this place yesterday week. you know of course that we adopted our improvements in prison-discipline from the american pattern; but i am confident that the writers who have the most lustily lauded the american prisons have never seen chesterton's domain or tracey's.[ ] there is no more comparison between these two prisons of ours, and any i have seen here yet, than there is between the keepers here, and those two gentlemen. putting out of sight the difficulty we have in england of finding _useful_ labor for the prisoners (which of course arises from our being an older country and having vast numbers of artisans unemployed), our system is more complete, more impressive, and more satisfactory in every respect. it is very possible that i have not come to the best, not having yet seen mount auburn. i will tell you when i have. and also when i have come to those inns, mentioned--vaguely rather--by miss martineau, where they undercharge literary people for the love the landlords bear them. my experience, so far, has been of establishments where (perhaps for the same reason) they very monstrously and violently overcharge a man whose position forbids remonstrance. "washington, sunday, march the thirteenth, . "in allusion to the last sentence, my dear friend, i must tell you a slight experience i had in philadelphia. my rooms had been ordered for a week, but, in consequence of kate's illness, only mr. q. and the luggage had gone on. mr. q. always lives at the table-d'hôte, so that while we were in new york our rooms were empty. the landlord not only charged me half the full rent for the time during which the rooms were reserved for us (which was quite right), but charged me also _for board for myself and kate and anne, at the rate of nine dollars per day_ for the same period, when we were actually living, at the same expense, in new york!!! i _did_ remonstrate upon this head, but was coolly told it was the custom (which i have since been assured is a lie), and had nothing for it but to pay the amount. what else could i do? i was going away by the steamboat at five o'clock in the morning; and the landlord knew perfectly well that my disputing an item of his bill would draw down upon me the sacred wrath of the newspapers, which would one and all demand in capitals if this was the gratitude of the man whom america had received as she had never received any other man but la fayette? "i went last tuesday to the eastern penitentiary near philadelphia, which is the only prison in the states, or i believe in the world, on the principle of hopeless, strict, and unrelaxed solitary confinement, during the whole term of the sentence. it is wonderfully kept, but a most dreadful, fearful place. the inspectors, immediately on my arrival in philadelphia, invited me to pass the day in the jail, and to dine with them when i had finished my inspection, that they might hear my opinion of the system. accordingly i passed the whole day in going from cell to cell, and conversing with the prisoners. every facility was given me, and no constraint whatever imposed upon any man's free speech. if i were to write you a letter of twenty sheets, i could not tell you this one day's work; so i will reserve it until that happy time when we shall sit round the table a jack straw's--you, and i, and mac--and go over my diary. i never shall be able to dismiss from my mind the impressions of that day. making notes of them, as i have done, is an absurdity, for they are written, beyond all power of erasure, in my brain. i saw men who had been there, five years, six years, eleven years, two years, two months, two days; some whose term was nearly over, and some whose term had only just begun. women too, under the same variety of circumstances. every prisoner who comes into the jail comes at night; is put into a bath, and dressed in the prison-garb; and then a black hood is drawn over his face and head, and he is led to the cell from which he never stirs again until his whole period of confinement has expired. i looked at some of them with the same awe as i should have looked at men who had been buried alive and dug up again. "we dined in the jail: and i told them after dinner how much the sight had affected me, and what an awful punishment it was. i dwelt upon this; for, although the inspectors are extremely kind and benevolent men, i question whether they are sufficiently acquainted with the human mind to know what it is they are doing. indeed, i am sure they do not know. i bore testimony, as every one who sees it must, to the admirable government of the institution (stanfield is the keeper: grown a little younger, that's all); but added that nothing could justify such a punishment but its working a reformation in the prisoners. that for short terms--say two years for the maximum--i conceived, especially after what they had told me of its good effects in certain cases, it might perhaps be highly beneficial; but that, carried to so great an extent, i thought it cruel and unjustifiable; and, further, that their sentences for small offenses were very rigorous, not to say savage. all this they took like men who were really anxious to have one's free opinion and to do right. and we were very much pleased with each other, and parted in the friendliest way. "they sent me back to philadelphia in a carriage they had sent for me in the morning; and then i had to dress in a hurry, and follow kate to carey's the bookseller's, where there was a party. he married a sister of leslie's. there are three miss leslies here, very accomplished; and one of them has copied all her brother's principal pictures. these copies hang about the room. we got away from this as soon as we could; and next morning had to turn out at five. in the morning i had received and shaken hands with five hundred people, so you may suppose that i was pretty well tired. indeed, i am obliged to be very careful of myself; to avoid smoking and drinking; to get to bed soon; and to be particular in respect of what i eat. . . . you cannot think how bilious and trying the climate is. one day it is hot summer, without a breath of air; the next, twenty degrees below freezing, with a wind blowing that cuts your skin like steel. these changes have occurred here several times since last wednesday night. "i have altered my route, and don't mean to go to charleston. the country, all the way from here, is nothing but a dismal swamp; there is a bad night of sea-coasting in the journey; the equinoctial gales are blowing hard; and clay (a most _charming_ fellow, by-the-by), whom i have consulted, strongly dissuades me. the weather is intensely hot there; the spring fever is coming on; and there is very little to see, after all. we therefore go next wednesday night to richmond, which we shall reach on thursday. there we shall stop three days; my object being to see some tobacco-plantations. then we shall go by james river back to baltimore, which we have already passed through, and where we shall stay two days. then we shall go west at once, straight through the most gigantic part of this continent: across the alleghany mountains, and over a prairie. "still at washington, fifteenth march, . . . . it is impossible, my dear friend, to tell you what we felt when mr. q. (who is a fearfully sentimental genius, but heartily interested in all that concerns us) came to where we were dining last sunday, and sent in a note to the effect that the caledonia[ ] had arrived! being really assured of her safety, we felt as if the distance between us and home were diminished by at least one-half. there was great joy everywhere here, for she had been quite despaired of, but our joy was beyond all telling. this news came on by express. last night your letters reached us. i was dining with a club (for i can't avoid a dinner of that sort, now and then), and kate sent me a note about nine o'clock to say they were here. but she didn't open them--which i consider heroic--until i came home. that was about half-past ten; and we read them until nearly two in the morning. "i won't say a word about your letters; except that kate and i have come to a conclusion which makes me tremble in my shoes, for we decide that humorous narrative is your forte, and not statesmen of the commonwealth. i won't say a word about your news; for how could i in that case, while you want to hear what we are doing, resist the temptation of expending pages on those darling children? . . . "i have the privilege of appearing on the floor of both houses here, and go to them every day. they are very handsome and commodious. there is a great deal of bad speaking, but there are a great many very remarkable men, in the legislature: such as john quincy adams, clay, preston, calhoun, and others: with whom i need scarcely add i have been placed in the friendliest relations. adams is a fine old fellow--seventy-six years old, but with most surprising vigor, memory, readiness, and pluck. clay is perfectly enchanting; an irresistible man. there are some very notable specimens, too, out of the west. splendid men to look at, hard to deceive, prompt to act, lions in energy, crichtons in varied accomplishments, indians in quickness of eye and gesture, americans in affectionate and generous impulse. it would be difficult to exaggerate the nobility of some of these glorious fellows. "when clay retires, as he does this month, preston will become the leader of the whig party. he so solemnly assures me that the international copyright shall and will be passed, that i almost begin to hope; and i shall be entitled to say, if it be, that i have brought it about. you have no idea how universal the discussion of its merits and demerits has become, or how eager for the change i have made a portion of the people. "you remember what ---- was, in england. if you _could_ but see him here! if you could only have seen him when he called on us the other day,--feigning abstraction in the dreadful pressure of affairs of state; rubbing his forehead as one who was aweary of the world; and exhibiting a sublime caricature of lord burleigh. he is the only thoroughly unreal man i have seen on this side the ocean. heaven help the president! all parties are against him, and he appears truly wretched. we go to a levee at his house to-night. he has invited me to dinner on friday, but i am obliged to decline; for we leave, per steamboat, to-morrow night. "i said i wouldn't write anything more concerning the american people, for two months. second thoughts are best. i shall not change, and may as well speak out--to _you_. they are friendly, earnest, hospitable, kind, frank, very often accomplished, far less prejudiced than you would suppose, warm-hearted, fervent, and enthusiastic. they are chivalrous in their universal politeness to women, courteous, obliging, disinterested; and, when they conceive a perfect affection for a man (as i may venture to say of myself), entirely devoted to him. i have received thousands of people of all ranks and grades, and have never once been asked an offensive or unpolite question,--except by englishmen, who, when they have been 'located' here for some years, are worse than the devil in his blackest painting. the state is a parent to its people; has a parental care and watch over all poor children, women laboring of child, sick persons, and captives. the common men render you assistance in the streets, and would revolt from the offer of a piece of money. the desire to oblige is universal; and i have never once traveled in a public conveyance without making some generous acquaintance whom i have been sorry to part from, and who has in many cases come on miles, to see us again. but i don't like the country. i would not live here, on any consideration. it goes against the grain with me. it would with you. i think it impossible, utterly impossible, for any englishman to live here and be happy. i have a confidence that i must be right, because i have everything, god knows, to lead me to the opposite conclusion; and yet i cannot resist coming to this one. as to the causes, they are too many to enter upon here. . . . "one of two petitions for an international copyright which i brought here from american authors, with irving at their head, has been presented to the house of representatives. clay retains the other for presentation to the senate after i have left washington. the presented one has been referred to a committee; the speaker has nominated as its chairman mr. kennedy, member for baltimore, who is himself an author and notoriously favorable to such a law; and i am going to assist him in his report. "richmond, in virginia. thursday night, march . "irving was with me at washington yesterday, and _wept heartily_ at parting. he is a fine fellow, when you know him well; and you would relish him, my dear friend, of all things. we have laughed together at some absurdities we have encountered in company, quite in my vociferous devonshire-terrace style. the 'merrikin' government has treated him, he says, most liberally and handsomely in every respect. he thinks of sailing for liverpool on the th of april, passing a short time in london, and then going to paris. perhaps you may meet him. if you do, he will know that you are my dearest friend, and will open his whole heart to you at once. his secretary of legation, mr. coggleswell, is a man of very remarkable information, a great traveler, a good talker, and a scholar. "i am going to sketch you our trip here from washington, as it involves nine miles of a 'virginny road.' that done, i must be brief, good brother.". . . the reader of the _american notes_ will remember the admirable and most humorous description of the night steamer on the potomac, and of the black driver over the virginia road. both were in this letter; which, after three days, he resumed "at washington again, monday, march the twenty-first: "we had intended to go to baltimore from richmond, by a place called norfolk; but, one of the boats being under repair, i found we should probably be detained at this norfolk two days. therefore we came back here yesterday, by the road we had traveled before; lay here last night; and go on to baltimore this afternoon, at four o'clock. it is a journey of only two hours and a half. richmond is a prettily situated town, but, like other towns in slave districts (as the planters themselves admit), has an aspect of decay and gloom which to an unaccustomed eye is _most_ distressing. in the black car (for they don't let them sit with the whites), on the railroad as we went there, were a mother and family, whom the steamer was conveying away, to sell; retaining the man (the husband and father, i mean) on his plantation. the children cried the whole way. yesterday, on board the boat, a slave-owner and two constables were our fellow-passengers. they were coming here in search of two negroes who had run away on the previous day. on the bridge at richmond there is a notice against fast driving over it, as it is rotten and crazy: penalty--for whites, five dollars; for slaves, fifteen stripes. my heart is lightened as if a great load had been taken from it, when i think that we are turning our backs on this accursed and detested system. i really don't think i could have borne it any longer. it is all very well to say 'be silent on the subject.' they won't let you be silent. they _will_ ask you what you think of it; and _will_ expatiate on slavery as if it were one of the greatest blessings of mankind. 'it's not,' said a hard, bad-looking fellow to me the other day, 'it's not the interest of a man to use his slaves ill. it's damned nonsense that you hear in england.'--i told him quietly that it was not a man's interest to get drunk, or to steal, or to game, or to indulge in any other vice, but he _did_ indulge in it for all that; that cruelty, and the abuse of irresponsible power, were two of the bad passions of human nature, with the gratification of which, considerations of interest or of ruin, had nothing whatever to do; and that, while every candid man must admit that even a slave might be happy enough with a good master, all human beings knew that bad masters, cruel masters, and masters who disgraced the form they bore, were matters of experience and history, whose existence was as undisputed as that of slaves themselves. he was a little taken aback by this, and asked me if i believed in the bible. yes, i said, but if any man could prove to me that it sanctioned slavery, i would place no further credence in it. 'well then,' he said, 'by god, sir, the niggers must be kept down, and the whites have put down the colored people wherever they have found them.' 'that's the whole question,' said i. 'yes, and by god,' says he, 'the british had better not stand out on that point when lord ashburton comes over, for i never felt so warlike as i do now,--and that's a fact.' i was obliged to accept a public supper in this richmond, and i saw plainly enough there that the hatred which these southern states bear to us as a nation has been fanned up and revived again by this creole business, and can scarcely be exaggerated. . . . . "we were desperately tired at richmond, as we went to a great many places and received a very great number of visitors. we appoint usually two hours in every day for this latter purpose, and have our room so full at that period that it is difficult to move or breathe. before we left richmond, a gentleman told me, when i really was so exhausted that i could hardly stand, that 'three people of great fashion' were much offended by having been told, when they called last evening, that i was tired and not visible, then, but would be 'at home' from twelve to two next day! another gentleman (no doubt of great fashion also) sent a letter to me two hours after i had gone to bed, preparatory to rising at four next morning, with instructions to the slave who brought it to knock me up and wait for an answer! "i am going to break my resolution of accepting no more public entertainments, in favor of the originators of the printed document overleaf. they live upon the confines of the indian territory, some two thousand miles or more west of new york! think of my dining there! and yet, please god, the festival will come off--i should say about the th or th of next month.". . . the printed document was a series of resolutions, moved at a public meeting attended by all the principal citizens, judges, professors, and doctors of st. louis, urgently inviting to that city of the far west the distinguished writer then the guest of america, eulogizing his genius, and tendering to him their warmest hospitalities. he was at baltimore when he closed his letter. "baltimore, _tuesday, march d._ "i have a great diffidence in running counter to any impression formed by a man of maclise's genius, on a subject he has fully considered." (referring, apparently, to some remark by myself on the picture of the play-scene in _hamlet_, exhibited this year.) "but i quite agree with you about the king in _hamlet_. talking of hamlet, i constantly carry in my great-coat pocket the _shakspeare_ you bought for me in liverpool. what an unspeakable source of delight that book is to me! "your ontario letter i found here to-night: sent on by the vigilant and faithful colden, who makes every thing having reference to us or our affairs a labor of the heartiest love. we devoured its contents, greedily. good heaven, my dear fellow, how i miss you! and how i count the time 'twixt this and coming home again! shall i ever forget the day of our parting at liverpool! when even ---- became jolly and radiant in his sympathy with our separation! never, never shall i forget that time. ah! how seriously i thought then, and how seriously i have thought many, many times since, of the terrible folly of ever quarreling with a true friend, on good-for-nothing trifles! every little hasty word that has ever passed between us rose up before me like a reproachful ghost. at this great distance, i seem to look back upon any miserable small interruption of our affectionate intercourse, though only for the instant it has never outlived, with a sort of pity for myself as if i were another creature. "i have bought another accordion. the steward lent me one, on the passage out, and i regaled the ladies' cabin with my performances. you can't think with what feeling i play _home sweet home_ every night, or how pleasantly sad it makes us. . . . and so god bless you. . . . i leave space for a short postscript before sealing this, but it will probably contain nothing. the dear, dear children! what a happiness it is to know that they are in such hands! * * * * * "p.s. twenty-third march, . nothing new. and all well. i have not heard that the columbia is in, but she is hourly expected. washington irving has come on for another leave-taking,[ ] and dines with me to-day. we start for the west, at half-after eight to-morrow morning. i send you a newspaper, the most respectable in the states, with a very just copyright article." footnotes: [ ] at the top of the sheet, above the address and date, are the words "read on. we _have_ your precious letters, but you'll think at first we have not. c. d." [ ] the ship next in rotation to the caledonia from liverpool. [ ] this comparison is employed in another descriptive passage to be found in the _notes_ (p. ). [ ] _notes_, p. . [ ] see _ante_, p. . [ ] this was the acadia with the caledonia mails. [ ] at his second visit to america, when in washington in february, , dickens, replying to a letter in which irving was named, thus describes the last meeting and leave-taking to which he alludes above: "your reference to my dear friend washington irving renews the vivid impressions reawakened in my mind at baltimore but the other day. i saw his fine face for the last time in that city. he came there from new york to pass a day or two with me before i went westward; and they were made among the most memorable of my life by his delightful fancy and genial humor. some unknown admirer of his books and mine sent to the hotel a most enormous mint-julep, wreathed with flowers. we sat, one on either side of it, with great solemnity (it filled a respectably-sized round table), but the solemnity was of very short duration. it was quite an enchanted julep, and carried us among innumerable people and places that we both knew. the julep held out far into the night, and my memory never saw him afterwards otherwise than as bending over it, with his straw, with an attempted air of gravity (after some anecdote involving some wonderfully droll and delicate observation of character), and then, as his eye caught mine, melting into that captivating laugh of his, which was the brightest and best i have ever heard." chapter xxii. canal-boat journeys: bound far west. . character in the letters--the _notes_ less satisfactory--personal narrative in letters--the copyright differences--social dissatisfactions--a fact to be remembered--literary merits of the letters--personal character portrayed--on board for pittsburgh--choicest passages of _notes_--queer stage-coach--something revealed on the top--at harrisburg--treaties with indians--local legislatures--a levee--morning and night in canal-boat--at and after breakfast--making the best of it--hardy habits--by rail across mountain--mountain scenery--new settlements--original of eden in _chuzzlewit_--a useful word--party in america--home news--meets an early acquaintance--"smallness of the world"--queer customers at levees--our anniversary--the cincinnati steamer--frugality in water and linen--magnetic experiments--life-preservers--bores--habits of neatness--wearying for home--another solitary prison--new terror to loneliness--arrival at cincinnati--two judges in attendance--the city described--on the pavement. it would not be possible that a more vivid or exact impression than that which is derivable from these letters could be given of either the genius or the character of the writer. the whole man is here in the supreme hour of his life, and in all the enjoyment of its highest sensations. inexpressibly sad to me has been the task of going over them, but the surprise has equaled the sadness. i had forgotten what was in them. that they contained, in their first vividness, all the most prominent descriptions of his published book, i knew. but the reproduction of any part of these was not permissible here; and, believing that the substance of them had been thus almost wholly embodied in the _american notes_, when they were lent to assist in its composition, i turned to them with very small expectation of finding anything available for present use. yet the difficulty has been, not to find, but to reject; and the rejection when most unavoidable has not been most easy. even where the subjects recur that are in the printed volume, there is a freshness of first impressions in the letters that renders it no small trial to act strictly on the rule adhered to in these extracts from them. in the _notes_ there is of course very much, masterly in observation and description, of which there is elsewhere no trace; but the passages amplified from the letters have not been improved, and the manly force and directness of some of their views and reflections, conveyed by touches of a picturesque completeness that no elaboration could give, have here and there not been strengthened by rhetorical additions in the printed work. there is also a charm in the letters which the plan adopted in the book necessarily excluded from it. it will always, of course, have value as a deliberate expression of the results gathered from the american experiences, but the _personal narrative_ of this famous visit to america is in the letters alone. in what way his experiences arose, the desire at the outset to see nothing that was not favorable, the slowness with which adverse impressions were formed, and the eager recognition of every truthful and noble quality that arose and remained above the fault-finding, are discoverable only in the letters. already it is manifest from them that the before-mentioned disappointments, as well of the guest in his entertainers as of the entertainers in their guest, had their beginning in the copyright differences; but it is not less plain that the social dissatisfactions on his side were of even earlier date, and with the country itself had certainly nothing to do. it was objected to him, i well remember, that in making such unfavorable remarks as his published book did on many points, he was assailing the democratic institutions that had formed the character of the nation; but the answer is obvious, that, democratic institutions being universal in america, they were as fairly entitled to share in the good as in the bad; and in what he praised, of which there is here abundant testimony, he must be held to have exalted those institutions as much, as in what he blamed he could be held to depreciate them. he never sets himself up in judgment on the entire people. as we see, from the way the letters show us that the opinions he afterwards published were formed, he does not draw conclusions while his observation is only half concluded; and he refrains throughout from the example too strongly set him, even in the very terms of his welcome by the writers of america,[ ] of flinging one nation in the other's face. he leaves each upon its own ground. his great business in his publication, as in the first impressions recorded here, is to exhibit social influences at work as he saw them himself; and it would surely have been of all bad compliments the worst, when resolving, in the tone and with the purpose of a friend, to make public what he had observed in america, if he had supposed that such a country would take truth amiss. there is, however, one thing to be especially remembered, as well in reading the letters as in judging of the book which was founded on them. it is a point to which i believe mr. emerson directed the attention of his countrymen. everything of an objectionable kind, whether the author would have it so or not, stands out more prominently and distinctly than matter of the opposite description. the social sin is a more tangible thing than the social virtue. pertinaciously to insist upon the charities and graces of life, is to outrage their quiet and unobtrusive character; but we incur the danger of extending the vulgarities and indecencies if we seem to countenance by omitting to expose them. and if this is only kept in view in reading what is here given, the proportion of censure will be found not to overbalance the just admiration and unexaggerated praise. apart from such considerations, it is to be also said, the letters, from which i am now printing exactly as they were written, have claims, as mere literature, of an unusual kind. unrivaled quickness of observation, the rare faculty of seizing out of a multitude of things the thing only that is essential, the irresistible play of humor, such pathos as only humorists of this high order possess, and the unwearied unforced vivacity of ever fresh, buoyant, bounding animal spirits, never found more natural, variously easy, or picturesque expression. written amid such distraction, fatigue, and weariness as they describe, amid the jarring noises of hotels and streets, aboard steamers, on canal-boats, and in log huts, there is not an erasure in them. not external objects only, but feelings, reflections, and thoughts, are photographed into visible forms with the same unexampled ease. they borrow no help from the matters of which they treat. they would have given, to the subjects described, old acquaintance and engrossing interest if they had been about a people in the moon. of the personal character at the same time self-portrayed, others, whose emotions it less vividly awakens, will judge more calmly and clearly than myself. yet to myself only can it be known how small were the services of friendship that sufficed to rouse all the sensibilities of this beautiful and noble nature. throughout our life-long intercourse it was the same. his keenness of discrimination failed him never excepting here, when it was lost in the limitless extent of his appreciation of all kindly things; and never did he receive what was meant for a benefit that he was not eager to return it a hundredfold. no man more truly generous ever lived. his next letter was begun from "on board the canal-boat. going to pittsburgh. monday, march twenty-eighth, ;" and the difficulties of rejection, to which reference has just been made, have been nowhere felt by me so much. several of the descriptive masterpieces of the book are in it, with such touches of original freshness as might fairly have justified a reproduction of them in their first form. among these are the harrisburg coach on its way through the susquehanna valley; the railroad across the mountain; the brown-forester of the mississippi, the interrogative man in pepper-and-salt, and the affecting scene of the emigrants put ashore as the steamer passes up the ohio. but all that i may here give, bearing any resemblance to what is given in the _notes_, are the opening sketch of the small creature on the top of the queer stage-coach, to which the printed version fails to do adequate justice, and an experience to which the interest belongs of having suggested the settlement of eden in _martin chuzzlewit_. . . . "we left baltimore last thursday, the twenty-fourth, at half-past eight in the morning, by railroad; and got to a place called york, about twelve. there we dined, and took a stage-coach for harrisburg; twenty-five miles further. this stage-coach was like nothing so much as the body of one of the swings you see at a fair set upon four wheels and roofed and covered at the sides with painted canvas. there were twelve _inside_! i, thank my stars, was on the box. the luggage was on the roof; among it, a good-sized dining-table, and a big rocking-chair. we also took up an intoxicated gentleman, who sat for ten miles between me and the coachman; and another intoxicated gentleman who got up behind, but in the course of a mile or two fell off without hurting himself, and was seen in the distant perspective reeling back to the grog-shop where we had found him. there were four horses to this land-ark, of course; but we did not perform the journey until after half-past six o'clock that night. . . . the first half of the journey was tame enough, but the second lay through the valley of the susquehanah (i think i spell it right, but i haven't that american geography at hand), which is very beautiful. . . . "i think i formerly made a casual remark to you touching the precocity of the youth of this country. when we changed horses on this journey i got down to stretch my legs, refresh myself with a glass of whiskey-and-water, and shake the wet off my great-coat,--for it was raining very heavily, and continued to do so, all night. mounting to my seat again, i observed something lying on the roof of the coach, which i took to be a rather large fiddle in a brown bag. in the course of ten miles or so, however, i discovered that it had a pair of dirty shoes at one end, and a glazed cap at the other; and further observation demonstrated it to be a small boy, in a snuff-colored coat, with his arms quite pinioned to his sides by deep forcing into his pockets. he was, i presume, a relative or friend of the coachman's, as he lay atop of the luggage, with his face towards the rain; and, except when a change of position brought his shoes in contact with my hat, he appeared to be asleep. sir, when we stopped to water the horses, about two miles from harrisburg, this thing slowly upreared itself to the height of three foot eight, and, fixing its eyes on me with a mingled expression of complacency, patronage, national independence, and sympathy for all outer barbarians and foreigners, said, in shrill piping accents, 'well now, stranger, i guess you find this a'most like an english a'ternoon,--hey?' it is unnecessary to add that i thirsted for his blood. . . . "we had all next morning in harrisburg, as the canal-boat was not to start until three o'clock in the afternoon. the officials called upon me before i had finished breakfast; and, as the town is the seat of the pennsylvanian legislature, i went up to the capitol. i was very much interested in looking over a number of treaties made with the poor indians, their signatures being rough drawings of the creatures or weapons they are called after; and the extraordinary drawing of these emblems, showing the queer, unused, shaky manner in which each man has held the pen, struck me very much. "you know my small respect for our house of commons. these local legislatures are too insufferably apish of mighty legislation, to be seen without bile; for which reason, and because a great crowd of senators and ladies had assembled in both houses to behold the inimitable, and had already begun to pour in upon him even in the secretary's private room, i went back to the hotel, with all speed. the members of both branches of the legislature followed me there, however, so we had to hold the usual levee before our half-past one o'clock dinner. we received a great number of them. pretty nearly every man spat upon the carpet, as usual; and one blew his nose with his fingers,--also on the carpet, which was a very neat one, the room given up to us being the private parlor of the landlord's wife. this has become so common since, however, that it scarcely seems worth mentioning. please to observe that the gentleman in question was a member of the senate, which answers (as they very often tell me) to our house of lords. "the innkeeper was the most attentive, civil, and obliging person i ever saw in my life. on being asked for his bill, he said there was no bill: the honor and pleasure, etc. being more than sufficient.[ ] i did not permit this, of course, and begged mr. q. to explain to him that, traveling four strong, i could not hear of it on any account. "and now i come to the canal-boat. bless your heart and soul, my dear fellow,--if you could only see us on board the canal-boat! let me think, for a moment, at what time of the day or night i should best like you to see us. in the morning? between five and six in the morning, shall i say? well! you _would_ like to see me, standing on the deck, fishing the dirty water out of the canal with a tin ladle chained to the boat by a long chain; pouring the same into a tin basin (also chained up in like manner); and scrubbing my face with the jack towel. at night, shall i say? i don't know that you _would_ like to look into the cabin at night, only to see me lying on a temporary shelf exactly the width of this sheet of paper when it's open (_i measured it this morning_),[ ] with one man above me, and another below; and, in all, eight-and-twenty in a low cabin, which you can't stand upright in with your hat on. i don't think you would like to look in at breakfast-time either, for then these shelves have only just been taken down and put away, and the atmosphere of the place is, as you may suppose, by no means fresh; though there _are_ upon the table tea and coffee, and bread and butter, and salmon, and shad, and liver, and steak, and potatoes, and pickles, and ham, and pudding, and sausages; and three-and-thirty people sitting round it, eating and drinking; and savory bottles of gin, and whiskey, and brandy, and rum, in the bar hard by; and seven-and-twenty out of the eight-and-twenty men, in foul linen, with yellow streams from half-chewed tobacco trickling down their chins. perhaps the best time for you to take a peep would be the present: eleven o'clock in the forenoon: when the barber is at his shaving, and the gentlemen are lounging about the stove waiting for their turns, and not more than seventeen are spitting in concert, and two or three are walking overhead (lying down on the luggage every time the man at the helm calls 'bridge!'), and i am writing this in the ladies' cabin, which is a part of the gentlemen's, and only screened off by a red curtain. indeed, it exactly resembles the dwarf's private apartment in a caravan at a fair; and the gentlemen, generally, represent the spectators at a penny a head. the place is just as clean and just as large as that caravan you and i were in at greenwich fair last past. outside, it is exactly like any canal-boat you have seen near the regent's park, or elsewhere. "you never can conceive what the hawking and spitting is, the whole night through. last night was the worst. _upon my honor and word_ i was obliged, this morning, to lay my fur coat on the deck, and wipe the half-dried flakes of spittle from it with my handkerchief; and the only surprise seemed to be that i should consider it necessary to do so. when i turned in last night, i put it on a stool beside me, and there it lay, under a cross-fire from five men,--three opposite, one above, and one below. i make no complaints, and show no disgust. i am looked upon as highly facetious at night, for i crack jokes with everybody near me until we fall asleep. i am considered very hardy in the morning, for i run up, bare-necked, and plunge my head into the half-frozen water, by half-past five o'clock. i am respected for my activity, inasmuch as i jump from the boat to the towing-path, and walk five or six miles before breakfast; keeping up with the horses all the time. in a word, they are quite astonished to find a sedentary englishman roughing it so well, and taking so much exercise; and question me very much on that head. the greater part of the men will sit and shiver round the stove all day, rather than put one foot before the other. as to having a window open, that's not to be thought of. "we expect to reach pittsburgh to-night, between eight and nine o'clock; and there we ardently hope to find your march letters awaiting us. we have had, with the exception of friday afternoon, exquisite weather, but cold. clear starlight and moonlight nights. the canal has run, for the most part, by the side of the susquehanah and iwanata rivers; and has been carried through tremendous obstacles. yesterday we crossed the mountain. this is done _by railroad_. . . . you dine at an inn upon the mountain; and, including the half-hour allowed for the meal, are rather more than five hours performing this strange part of the journey. the people north and 'down east' have terrible legends of its danger; but they appear to be exceedingly careful, and don't go to work at all wildly. there are some queer precipices close to the rails, certainly; but every precaution is taken, i am inclined to think, that such difficulties, and such a vast work, will admit of. "the scenery, before you reach the mountains, and when you are on them, and after you have left them, is very grand and fine; and the canal winds its way through some deep, sullen gorges, which, seen by moonlight, are very impressive: though immeasurably inferior to glencoe, to whose terrors i have not seen the smallest _approach_. we have passed, both in the mountains and elsewhere, a great number of new settlements and detached log houses. their utterly forlorn and miserable appearance baffles all description. i have not seen six cabins out of six hundred, where the windows have been whole. old hats, old clothes, old boards, old fragments of blanket and paper, are stuffed into the broken glass; and their air is misery and desolation. it pains the eye to see the stumps of great trees thickly strewn in every field of wheat; and never to lose the eternal swamp and dull morass, with hundreds of rotten trunks, of elm and pine and sycamore and logwood, steeped in its unwholesome water; where the frogs so croak at night that after dark there is an incessant sound as if millions of phantom teams, with bells, were traveling through the upper air, at an enormous distance off. it is quite an oppressive circumstance, too, to _come_ upon great tracks, where settlers have been burning down the trees; and where their wounded bodies lie about, like those of murdered creatures; while here and there some charred and blackened giant rears two bare arms aloft, and seems to curse his enemies. the prettiest sight i have seen was yesterday, when we--on the heights of the mountain, and in a keen wind--looked down into a valley full of light and softness; catching glimpses of scattered cabins; children running to the doors; dogs bursting out to bark; pigs scampering home, like so many prodigal sons; families sitting out in their gardens; cows gazing upward, with a stupid indifference; men in their shirt-sleeves, looking on at their unfinished houses, and planning work for to-morrow;--and the train riding on, high above them, like a storm. but i know this is beautiful--very--very beautiful! "i wonder whether you and mac mean to go to greenwich fair! perhaps you dine at the crown and sceptre to-day, for it's easter-monday--who knows! i wish you drank punch, dear forster. it's a shabby thing, not to be able to picture you with that cool green glass. . . . "i told you of the many uses of the word 'fix.' i ask mr. q. on board a steamboat if breakfast be nearly ready, and he tells me yes he should think so, for when he was last below the steward was 'fixing the tables'--in other words, laying the cloth. when we have been writing, and i beg him (do you remember anything of my love of order, at this distance of time?) to collect our papers, he answers that he'll 'fix 'em presently.' so when a man's dressing he's 'fixing' himself, and when you put yourself under a doctor he 'fixes' you in no time. t'other night, before we came on board here, when i had ordered a bottle of mulled claret and waited some time for it, it was put on table with an apology from the landlord (a lieutenant-colonel) that 'he feared it wasn't fixed properly.' and here, on saturday morning, a western man, handing the potatoes to mr. q. at breakfast, inquired if he wouldn't take some of 'these fixings' with his meat. i remained as grave as a judge. i catch them looking at me sometimes, and feel that they think i don't take any notice. politics are very high here; dreadfully strong; handbills, denunciations, invectives, threats, and quarrels. the question is, who shall be the next president. the election comes off in _three years and a half_ from this time." he resumed his letter, "on board the steamboat from pittsburgh to cincinnati, april the st, . a very tremulous steamboat, which makes my hand shake. this morning, my dear friend, this very morning, which, passing by without bringing news from england, would have seen us on our way to st. louis (viâ cincinnati and louisville) with sad hearts and dejected countenances, and the prospect of remaining for at least three weeks longer without any intelligence of those so inexpressibly dear to us--this very morning, bright and lucky morning that it was, a great packet was brought to our bedroom door, from home. how i have read and re-read your affectionate, hearty, interesting, funny, serious, delightful, and thoroughly forsterian columbia letter, i will not attempt to tell you; or how glad i am that you liked my first; or how afraid i am that my second was not written in such good spirits as it should have been; or how glad i am again to think that my third _was_; or how i hope you will find some amusement from my fourth: this present missive. all this, and more affectionate and earnest words than the post-office would convey at any price, though they have no sharp edges to hurt the stamping-clerk--you will understand, i know, without expression, or attempt at expression. so, having got over the first agitation of so much pleasure; and having walked the deck; and being now in the cabin, where one party are playing at chess, and another party are asleep, and another are talking round the stove, and all are spitting; and a persevering bore of a horrible new englander with a droning voice like a gigantic bee _will_ sit down beside me, though i am writing, and talk incessantly, in my very ear, to kate; here goes again. "let me see. i should tell you, first, that we got to pittsburgh between eight and nine o'clock of the evening of the day on which i left off at the top of this sheet; and were there received by a little man (a very little man) whom i knew years ago in london. he rejoiceth in the name of d. g.; and, when i knew him, was in partnership with his father on the stock-exchange, and lived handsomely at dalston. they failed in business soon afterwards, and then this little man began to turn to account what had previously been his amusement and accomplishment, by painting little subjects for the fancy shops. so i lost sight of him, nearly ten years ago; and here he turned up t'other day, as a portrait-painter in pittsburgh! he had previously written me a letter which moved me a good deal, by a kind of quiet independence and contentment it breathed, and still a painful sense of being alone, so very far from home. i received it in philadelphia, and answered it. he dined with us every day of our stay in pittsburgh (they were only three), and was truly gratified and delighted to find me unchanged,--more so than i can tell you. i am very glad to-night to think how much happiness we have fortunately been able to give him. "pittsburgh is like birmingham--at least its townsfolks say so; and i didn't contradict them. it is, in one respect. there is a great deal of smoke in it. i quite offended a man at our yesterday's levee, who supposed i was 'now quite at home,' by telling him that the notion of london being so dark a place was a popular mistake. we had very queer customers at our receptions, i do assure you. not least among them, a gentleman with his inexpressibles imperfectly buttoned and his waistband resting on his thighs, who stood behind the half-opened door, and could by no temptation or inducement be prevailed upon to come out. there was also another gentleman, with one eye and one fixed gooseberry, who stood in a corner, motionless like an eight-day clock, and glared upon me, as i courteously received the pittsburgians. there were also two red-headed brothers--boys--young dragons rather--who hovered about kate, and wouldn't go. a great crowd they were, for three days; and a very queer one." "still in the same boat. _april the second, ._ "many, many happy returns of the day. it's only eight o'clock in the morning now, but we mean to drink your health after dinner, in a bumper; and scores of richmond dinners to us! we have some wine (a present sent on board by our pittsburgh landlord) in our own cabin; and we shall tap it to good purpose, i assure you; wishing you all manner and kinds of happiness, and a long life to ourselves that we may be partakers of it. we have wondered a hundred times already, whether you and mac will dine anywhere together, in honor of the day. i say yes, but kate says no. she predicts that you'll ask mac, and he won't go. i have not yet heard from him. "we have a better cabin here than we had on board the britannia; the berths being much wider, and the den having two doors: one opening on the ladies' cabin, and one upon a little gallery in the stern of the boat. we expect to be at cincinnati some time on monday morning, and we carry about fifty passengers. the cabin for meals goes right through the boat, from the prow to the stern, and is very long; only a small portion of it being divided off, by a partition of wood and ground glass, for the ladies. we breakfast at half-after seven, dine at one, and sup at six. nobody will sit down to any one of these meals, though the dishes are smoking on the board, until the ladies have appeared and taken their chairs. it was the same in the canal-boat. "the washing department is a little more civilized than it was on the canal, but bad is the best. indeed, the americans when they are traveling, as miss martineau seems disposed to admit, are exceedingly negligent; not to say dirty. to the best of my making out, the ladies, under most circumstances, are content with smearing their hands and faces in a very small quantity of water. so are the men; who superadd to that mode of ablution a hasty use of the common brush and comb. it is quite a practice, too, to wear but one cotton shirt a week, and three or four fine linen _fronts_. anne reports that this is mr. q.'s course of proceeding; and my portrait-painting friend told me that it was the case with pretty nearly all his sitters; so that when he bought a piece of cloth not long ago, and instructed the sempstress to make it _all_ into shirts, not fronts, she thought him deranged. "my friend the new englander, of whom i wrote last night, is perhaps the most intolerable bore on this vast continent. he drones, and snuffles, and writes poems, and talks small philosophy and metaphysics, and never _will_ be quiet, under any circumstances. he is going to a great temperance convention at cincinnati; along with a doctor of whom i saw something at pittsburgh. the doctor, in addition to being everything that the new englander is, is a phrenologist besides. i dodge them about the boat. whenever i appear on deck, i see them bearing down upon me--and fly. the new englander was very anxious last night that he and i should 'form a magnetic chain,' and magnetize the doctor, for the benefit of all incredulous passengers; but i declined on the plea of tremendous occupation in the way of letter-writing. "and, speaking of magnetism, let me tell you that the other night at pittsburgh, there being present only mr. q. and the portrait-painter, kate sat down, laughing, for me to try my hand upon her. i had been holding forth upon the subject rather luminously, and asserting that i thought i could exercise the influence, but had never tried. in six minutes, i magnetized her into hysterics, and then into the magnetic sleep. i tried again next night, and she fell into the slumber in little more than two minutes. . . . i can wake her with perfect ease; but i confess (not being prepared for anything so sudden and complete) i was on the first occasion rather alarmed. . . . the western parts being sometimes hazardous, i have fitted out the whole of my little company with life-preservers, which i inflate with great solemnity when we get aboard any boat, and keep, as mrs. cluppins did her umbrella in the court of common pleas, ready for use upon a moment's notice.". . . he resumed his letter, on "sunday, april the third," with allusion to a general who had called upon him in washington with two literary ladies, and had written to him next day for an immediate interview, as "the two ll's" were ambitious of the honor of a personal introduction. "besides the doctor and the dread new englander, we have on board that valiant general who wrote to me about the 'two ll's.' he is an old, old man with a weazen face, and the remains of a pigeon-breast in his military surtout. he is acutely gentlemanly and officer-like. the breast has so subsided, and the face has become so strongly marked, that he seems, like a pigeon-pie, to show only the feet of the bird outside, and to keep the rest to himself. he is perhaps _the_ most horrible bore in this country. and i am quite serious when i say that i do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these united states. no man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here. there are no particular characters on board, with these three exceptions. indeed, i seldom see the passengers but at meal-times, as i read and write in our own little state-room. . . . i have smuggled two chairs into our crib, and write this on a book upon my knee. everything is in the neatest order, of course; and my shaving-tackle, dressing-case, brushes, books, and papers, are arranged with as much precision as if we were going to remain here a month. thank god we are not. "the average width of the river rather exceeds that of the thames at greenwich. in parts it is much broader; and then there is usually a green island, covered with trees, dividing it into two streams. occasionally we stop for a few minutes at a small town, or village (i ought to say city, everything is a city here); but the banks are for the most part deep solitudes, overgrown with trees, which, in these western latitudes, are already in leaf, and very green. . . . "all this i see, as i write, from the little door into the stern-gallery which i mentioned just now. it don't happen six times in a day that any other passenger comes near it; and, as the weather is amply warm enough to admit of our sitting with it open, here we remain from morning until night: reading, writing, talking. what our theme of conversation is, i need not tell you. no beauty or variety makes us weary less for home. we count the days, and say, 'when may comes, and we can say--_next month_--the time will seem almost gone.' we are never tired of imagining what you are all about. i allow of no calculation for the difference of clocks, but insist on a corresponding minute in london. it is much the shortest way, and best. . . . yesterday, we drank your health and many happy returns--in wine, after dinner; in a small milk-pot jug of gin-punch, at night. and when i made a temporary table, to hold the little candlestick, of one of my dressing-case trays; cunningly inserted under the mattress of my berth with a weight atop of it to keep it in its place, so that it made a perfectly exquisite bracket; we agreed, that, please god, this should be a joke at the star and garter on the second of april eighteen hundred and forty-three. if your blank _can_ be surpassed, . . . believe me ours transcends it. my heart gets, sometimes, sore for home. "at pittsburgh i saw another solitary confinement prison: pittsburgh being also in pennsylvania. a horrible thought occurred to me when i was recalling all i had seen, that night. _what if ghosts be one of the terrors of these jails?_ i have pondered on it often, since then. the utter solitude by day and night; the many hours of darkness; the silence of death; the mind forever brooding on melancholy themes, and having no relief; sometimes an evil conscience very busy; imagine a prisoner covering up his head in the bedclothes and looking out from time to time, with a ghastly dread of some inexplicable silent figure that always sits upon his bed, or stands (if a thing can be said to stand, that never walks as men do) in the same corner of his cell. the more i think of it, the more certain i feel that not a few of these men (during a portion of their imprisonment at least) are nightly visited by spectres. i did ask one man in this last jail, if he dreamed much. he gave me a most extraordinary look, and said--under his breath--in a whisper, 'no.'" "cincinnati. _fourth april, ._ "we arrived here this morning: about three o'clock, i believe, but i was fast asleep in my berth. i turned out soon after six, dressed, and breakfasted on board. about half-after eight, we came ashore and drove to the hotel, to which we had written on from pittsburgh ordering rooms; and which is within a stone's throw of the boat-wharf. before i had issued an official notification that we were 'not at home,' two judges called, on the part of the inhabitants, to know when we would receive the townspeople. we appointed to-morrow morning, from half-past eleven to one; arranged to go out, with these two gentlemen, to see the town, _at_ one; and were fixed for an evening party to-morrow night at the house of one of them. on wednesday morning we go on by the mail-boat to louisville, a trip of fourteen hours; and from that place proceed in the next good boat to st. louis, which is a voyage of four days. finding from my judicial friends (well-informed and most agreeable gentlemen) this morning that the prairie travel to chicago is a very fatiguing one, and that the lakes are stormy, sea-sicky, and not over safe at this season, i wrote by our captain to st. louis (for the boat that brought us here goes on there) to the effect, that i should not take the lake route, but should come back here; and should visit the prairies, which are within thirty miles of st. louis, immediately on my arrival there. . . . "i have walked to the window, since i turned this page, to see what aspect the town wears. we are in a wide street: paved in the carriage-way with small white stones, and in the footway with small red tiles. the houses are for the most part one story high; some are of wood; others of a clean white brick. nearly all have green blinds outside every window. the principal shops over the way are, according to the inscriptions over them, a large bread bakery; a book bindery; a dry goods store; and a carriage repository; the last-named establishment looking very like an exceedingly small retail coal-shed. on the pavement under our window, a black man is chopping wood; and another black man is talking (confidentially) to a pig. the public table, at this hotel and at the hotel opposite, has just now finished dinner. the diners are collected on the pavement, on both sides of the way, picking their teeth, and talking. the day being warm, some of them have brought chairs into the street. some are on three chairs; some on two; and some, in defiance of all known laws of gravity, are sitting quite comfortably on one: with three of the chair's legs, and their own two, high up in the air. the loungers, underneath our window, are talking of a great temperance convention which comes off here to-morrow. others, about me. others, about england. sir robert peel is popular here, with everybody. . . ." footnotes: [ ] see _ante_, pp. , . [ ] miss martineau was perhaps partly right, then? _ante_, p. . [ ] sixteen inches exactly. chapter xxiii. the far west: to niagara falls. . descriptions in letters and in _notes_--outline of westward travel--an arabian night city--a temperance festival--a party at judge walker's--the party from another view--mournful results of boredom--young lady's description of c. d.--down the mississippi--listening and watching--a levee at st. louis--compliments--lord ashburton's arrival--talk with a judge on slavery--a negro burnt alive--feeling of slaves themselves--american testimony--pretty little scene--a mother and her husband--the baby--st. louis in sight--meeting of wife and husband--trip to a prairie--on the prairie at sunset--general character of scenery--the prairie described--disappointment and enjoyment--soirée at planter's house inn--good fare--no gray heads in st. louis--dueling--mrs. dickens as a traveler--from cincinnati to columbus--what a levee is like--from columbus to sandusky--the travelers alone--a log house inn--making tidy--a momentary crisis--americans not a humorous people--the only recreations--from sandusky to buffalo--on lake erie--reception and consolation of a mayor--from buffalo to niagara--nearing the falls--the horse-shoe--effect upon him of niagara--the old recollection--looking forward. the next letter described his experiences in the far west, his stay in st. louis, his visit to a prairie, the return to cincinnati, and, after a stage-coach ride from that city to columbus, the travel thence to sandusky, and so, by lake erie, to the falls of niagara. all these subjects appear in the _notes_, but nothing printed there is repeated in the extracts now to be given. of the closing passages of his journey, when he turned from columbus in the direction of home, the story, here for the first time told, is in his most characteristic vein; the account that will be found of the prairie will probably be preferred to what is given in the _notes_; the cincinnati sketches are very pleasant; and even such a description as that of the niagara falls, of which so much is made in the book, has here an independent novelty and freshness. the first vividness is in his letter. the naturalness of associating no image or sense but of repose, with a grandeur so mighty and resistless, is best presented suddenly; and, in a few words, we have the material as well as moral beauty of a scene unrivaled in its kind upon the earth. the instant impression we find to be worth more than the eloquent recollection. the captain of the boat that had dropped them at cincinnati and gone to st. louis had stayed in the latter place until they were able to join and return with him; this letter bears date accordingly, "on board the messenger again. going from st. louis back to cincinnati. friday, fifteenth april, ;" and its first paragraph is an outline of the movements which it afterwards describes in detail. "we remained in cincinnati one whole day after the date of my last, and left on wednesday morning, the th. we reached louisville soon after midnight on the same night; and slept there. next day at one o'clock we put ourselves on board another steamer, and traveled on until sunday evening, the tenth; when we reached st. louis at about nine o'clock. the next day we devoted to seeing the city. next day, tuesday, the twelfth, i started off with a party of men (we were fourteen in all) to see a prairie; returned to st. louis about noon on the thirteenth; attended a soirée and ball--not a dinner--given in my honor that night; and yesterday afternoon at four o'clock we turned our faces homewards. thank heaven! "cincinnati is only fifty years old, but is a very beautiful city; i think the prettiest place i have seen here, except boston. it has risen out of the forest like an arabian-night city; is well laid out; ornamented in the suburbs with pretty villas; and above all, for this is a very rare feature in america, has smooth turf-plots and well-kept gardens. there happened to be a great temperance festival; and the procession mustered under, and passed, our windows early in the morning. i suppose they were twenty thousand strong, at least. some of the banners were quaint and odd enough. the ship-carpenters, for instance, displayed on one side of their flag the good ship temperance in full sail; on the other, the steamer alcohol blowing up sky-high. the irishmen had a portrait of father mathew, you may be sure. and washington's broad lower jaw (by-the-by, washington had not a pleasant face) figured in all parts of the ranks. in a kind of square at one outskirt of the city they divided into bodies, and were addressed by different speakers. drier speaking i never heard. i own that i felt quite uncomfortable to think they could take the taste of it out of their mouths with nothing better than water. "in the evening we went to a party at judge walker's, and were introduced to at least one hundred and fifty first-rate bores, separately and singly. i was required to sit down by the greater part of them, and talk![ ] in the night we were serenaded (as we usually are in every place we come to), and very well serenaded, i assure you. but we were very much knocked up. i really think my face has acquired a fixed expression of sadness from the constant and unmitigated boring i endure. the ll's have carried away all my cheerfulness. there is a line in my chin (on the right side of the under lip), indelibly fixed there by the new englander i told you of in my last. i have the print of a crow's foot on the outside of my left eye, which i attribute to the literary characters of small towns. a dimple has vanished from my cheek, which i felt myself robbed of at the time by a wise legislator. but on the other hand i am really indebted for a good broad grin to p. . e. . , literary critic of philadelphia, and sole proprietor of the english language in its grammatical and idiomatical purity; to p. . e. . , with the shiny straight hair and turned-down shirt-collar, who taketh all of us english men of letters to task in print, roundly and uncompromisingly, but told me, at the same time, that i had 'awakened a new era' in his mind. . . . "the last miles of the voyage from cincinnati to st. louis are upon the mississippi, for you come down the ohio to its mouth. it is well for society that this mississippi, the renowned father of waters, had no children who take after him. it is the beastliest river in the world.". . . (his description is in the _notes_.) "conceive the pleasure of rushing down this stream by night (as we did last night) at the rate of fifteen miles an hour; striking against floating blocks of timber every instant; and dreading some infernal blow at every bump. the helmsman in these boats is in a little glass house upon the roof. in the mississippi, another man stands in the very head of the vessel, listening and watching intently; listening, because they can tell in dark nights by the noise when any great obstruction is at hand. this man holds the rope of a large bell which hangs close to the wheel-house, and whenever he pulls it the engine is to stop directly, and not to stir until he rings again. last night, this bell rang at least once in every five minutes; and at each alarm there was a concussion which nearly flung one out of bed. . . . while i have been writing this account, we have shot out of that hideous river, thanks be to god; never to see it again, i hope, but in a nightmare. we are now on the smooth ohio, and the change is like the transition from pain to perfect ease. "we had a very crowded levee in st. louis. of course the paper had an account of it. if i were to drop a letter in the street, it would be in the newspaper next day, and nobody would think its publication an outrage. the editor objected to my hair, as not curling sufficiently. he admitted an eye; but objected again to dress, as being somewhat foppish, 'and indeed perhaps rather flash.' 'but such,' he benevolently adds, 'are the differences between american and english taste--rendered more apparent, perhaps, by all the other gentlemen present being dressed in black.' oh that you could have seen the other gentlemen! . . . "a st. louis lady complimented kate upon her voice and manner of speaking, assuring her that she should never have suspected her of being scotch, or even english. she was so obliging as to add that she would have taken her for an american, anywhere: which she (kate) was no doubt aware was a very great compliment, as the americans were admitted on all hands to have greatly refined upon the english language! i need not tell you that out of boston and new york a nasal drawl is universal, but i may as well hint that the prevailing grammar is also more than doubtful; that the oddest vulgarisms are received idioms; that all the women who have been bred in slave-states speak more or less like negroes, from having been constantly in their childhood with black nurses; and that the most fashionable and aristocratic (these are two words in great use), instead of asking you in what place you were born, inquire where you 'hail from.' ! ! "lord ashburton arrived at annapolis t'other day, after a voyage of forty odd days in heavy weather. straightway the newspapers state, on the authority of a correspondent who 'rowed round the ship' (i leave you to fancy her condition), that america need fear no superiority from england, in respect of her wooden walls. the same correspondent is 'quite pleased' with the frank manner of the english officers; and patronizes them as being, for john bulls, quite refined. my face, like haji baba's, turns upside down, and my liver is changed to water, when i come upon such things, and think who writes and who read them. . . . "they won't let me alone about slavery. a certain judge in st. louis went so far yesterday that i fell upon him (to the indescribable horror of the man who brought him) and told him a piece of my mind. i said that i was very averse to speaking on the subject here, and always forbore, if possible; but when he pitied our national ignorance of the truths of slavery, i must remind him that we went upon indisputable records, obtained after many years of careful investigation, and at all sorts of self-sacrifice, and that i believed we were much more competent to judge of its atrocity and horror than he who had been brought up in the midst of it. i told him that i could sympathize with men who admitted it to be a dreadful evil, but frankly confessed their inability to devise a means of getting rid of it; but that men who spoke of it as a blessing, as a matter of course, as a state of things to be desired, were out of the pale of reason; and that for them to speak of ignorance or prejudice was an absurdity too ridiculous to be combated. . . . "it is not six years ago, since a slave in this very same st. louis, being arrested (i forget for what), and knowing he had no chance of a fair trial, be his offense what it might, drew his bowie-knife and ripped the constable across the body. a scuffle ensuing, the desperate negro stabbed two others with the same weapon. the mob who gathered round (among whom were men of mark, wealth, and influence in the place) overpowered him by numbers; carried him away to a piece of open ground beyond the city; _and burned him alive_. this, i say, was done within six years, in broad day; in a city with its courts, lawyers, tipstaffs, judges, jails, and hangman; and not a hair on the head of one of those men has been hurt to this day. and it is, believe me, it is the miserable, wretched independence in small things, the paltry republicanism which recoils from honest service to an honest man, but does not shrink from every trick, artifice, and knavery in business, that makes these slaves necessary, and will render them so, until the indignation of other countries sets them free. "they say the slaves are fond of their masters. look at this pretty vignette[ ] (part of the stock in trade of a newspaper), and judge how you would feel, when men, looking in your face, told you such tales with the newspaper lying on the table. in all the slave-districts, advertisements for runaways are as much matters of course as the announcement of the play for the evening with us. the poor creatures themselves fairly worship english people: they would do anything for them. they are perfectly acquainted with all that takes place in reference to emancipation; and _of course_ their attachment to us grows out of their deep devotion to their owners. i cut this illustration out of a newspaper which had a leader in reference to _the abominable and hellish doctrine of abolition--repugnant alike to every law of god and nature_. 'i know something,' said a dr. bartlett (a very accomplished man), late a fellow-passenger of ours,--'i know something of their fondness for their masters. i live in kentucky; and i can assert upon my honor that, in my neighborhood, it is as common for a runaway slave, retaken, to draw his bowie-knife and rip his owner's bowels open, as it is for you to see a drunken fight in london.' "same boat, _saturday, sixteenth april, ._ "let me tell you, my dear forster, before i forget it, a pretty little scene we had on board the boat between louisville and st. louis, as we were going to the latter place. it is not much to tell, but it was very pleasant and interesting to witness." what follows has been printed in the _notes_, and ought not, by the rule i have laid down, to be given here. but, beautiful as the printed description is, it has not profited by the alteration of some touches and the omission of others in the first fresh version of it, which, for that reason, i here preserve,--one of the most charming soul-felt pictures of character and emotion that ever warmed the heart in fact or fiction. it was, i think, jeffrey's favorite passage in all the writings of dickens; and certainly, if any one would learn the secret of their popularity, it is to be read in the observation and description of this little incident. "there was a little woman on board, with a little baby; and both little woman and little child were cheerful, good-looking, bright-eyed, and fair to see. the little woman had been passing a long time with a sick mother in new york, and had left her home in st. louis in that condition in which ladies who truly love their lords desire to be. the baby had been born in her mother's house, and she had not seen her husband (to whom she was now returning) for twelve months: having left him a month or two after their marriage. well, to be sure, there never was a little woman so full of hope, and tenderness, and love, and anxiety, as this little woman was: and there she was, all the livelong day, wondering whether 'he' would be at the wharf; and whether 'he' had got her letter; and whether, if she sent the baby on shore by somebody else, _'he' would know it, meeting it in the street_: which, seeing that he had never set eyes upon it in his life, was not very likely in the abstract, but was probable enough to the young mother. she was such an artless little creature; and was in such a sunny, beaming, hopeful state; and let out all this matter, clinging close about her heart, so freely; that all the other lady passengers entered into the spirit of it as much as she: and the captain (who heard all about it from his wife) was wondrous sly, i promise you: inquiring, every time we met at table, whether she expected anybody to meet her at st. louis, and supposing she wouldn't want to go ashore the night we reached it, and cutting many other dry jokes which convulsed all his hearers, but especially the ladies. there was one little, weazen, dried-apple old woman among them, who took occasion to doubt the constancy of husbands under such circumstances of bereavement; and there was another lady (with a lap-dog), old enough to moralize on the lightness of human affections, and yet not so old that she could help nursing the baby now and then, or laughing with the rest when the little woman called it by its father's name, and asked it all manner of fantastic questions concerning him, in the joy of her heart. it was something of a blow to the little woman that when we were within twenty miles of our destination it became clearly necessary to put the baby to bed; but she got over that with the same good humor, tied a little handkerchief over her little head, and came out into the gallery with the rest. then, such an oracle as she became in reference to the localities! and such facetiousness as was displayed by the married ladies! and such sympathy as was shown by the single ones! and such peals of laughter as the little woman herself (who would just as soon have cried) greeted every jest with! at last, there were the lights of st. louis--and here was the wharf--and those were the steps--and the little woman, covering her face with her hands, and laughing, or seeming to laugh, more than ever, ran into her own cabin, and shut herself up tight. i have no doubt that, in the charming inconsistency of such excitement, she stopped her ears lest she should hear 'him' asking for her; but i didn't see her do it. then a great crowd of people rushed on board, though the boat was not yet made fast, and was staggering about among the other boats to find a landing-place; and everybody looked for the husband, and nobody saw him; when all of a sudden, right in the midst of them,--god knows how she ever got there,--there was the little woman hugging with both arms round the neck of a fine, good-looking, sturdy fellow! and in a moment afterwards, there she was again, dragging him through the small door of her small cabin, to look at the baby as he lay asleep!--what a good thing it is to know that so many of us would have been quite down-hearted and sorry if that husband had failed to come!" he then resumes; but in what follows nothing is repeated that will be found in his printed description of the jaunt to the looking-glass prairie: "but about the prairie--it is not, i must confess, so good in its way as this; but i'll tell you all about that too, and leave you to judge for yourself. tuesday the th was the day fixed; and we were to start at five in the morning--sharp. i turned out at four; shaved and dressed; got some bread and milk; and, throwing up the window, looked down into the street. deuce a coach was there, nor did anybody seem to be stirring in the house. i waited until half-past five; but no preparations being visible even then, i left mr. q. to look out, and lay down upon the bed again. there i slept until nearly seven, when i was called. . . . exclusive of mr. q. and myself, there were twelve of my committee in the party: all lawyers except one. he was an intelligent, mild, well-informed gentleman of my own age,--the unitarian minister of the place. with him, and two other companions, i got into the first coach. . . . "we halted at so good an inn at lebanon that we resolved to return there at night, if possible. one would scarcely find a better village alehouse of a homely kind in england. during our halt i walked into the village, and met a _dwelling-house_ coming down-hill at a good round trot, drawn by some twenty oxen! we resumed our journey as soon as possible, and got upon the looking-glass prairie at sunset. we halted near a solitary log house for the sake of its water; unpacked the baskets; formed an encampment with the carriages; and dined. "now, a prairie is undoubtedly worth seeing--but more, that one may say one has seen it, than for any sublimity it possesses in itself. like most things, great or small, in this country, you hear of it with considerable exaggerations. basil hall was really quite right in depreciating the general character of the scenery. the widely-famed far west is not to be compared with even the tamest portions of scotland or wales. you stand upon the prairie, and see the unbroken horizon all round you. you are on a great plain, which is like a sea without water. i am exceedingly fond of wild and lonely scenery, and believe that i have the faculty of being as much impressed by it as any man living. but the prairie fell, by far, short of my preconceived idea. i felt no such emotions as i do in crossing salisbury plain. the excessive flatness of the scene makes it dreary, but tame. grandeur is certainly not its characteristic. i retired from the rest of the party, to understand my own feelings the better; and looked all round, again and again. it was fine. it was worth the ride. the sun was going down, very red and bright; and the prospect looked like that ruddy sketch of catlin's, which attracted our attention (you remember?); except that there was not so much ground as he represents, between the spectator and the horizon. but to say (as the fashion is here) that the sight is a landmark in one's existence, and awakens a new set of sensations, is sheer gammon. i would say to every man who can't see a prairie--go to salisbury plain, marlborough downs, or any of the broad, high, open lands near the sea. many of them are fully as impressive, and salisbury plain is _decidedly_ more so. "we had brought roast fowls, buffalo's tongue, ham, bread, cheese, butter, biscuits, sherry, champagne, lemons and sugar for punch, and abundance of ice. it was a delicious meal; and, as they were most anxious that i should be pleased, i warmed myself into a state of surpassing jollity; proposed toasts from the coach-box (which was the chair); ate and drank with the best; and made, i believe, an excellent companion to a very friendly companionable party. in an hour or so we packed up, and drove back to the inn at lebanon. while supper was preparing, i took a pleasant walk with my unitarian friend; and when it was over (we drank nothing with it but tea and coffee) we went to bed. the clergyman and i had an exquisitely clean little chamber of our own; and the rest of the party were quartered overhead. . . . "we got back to st. louis soon after twelve at noon; and i rested during the remainder of the day. the soirée came off at night, in a very good ball-room at our inn,--the planter's house. the whole of the guests were introduced to us, singly. we were glad enough, you may believe, to come away at midnight; and were very tired. yesterday, i wore a blouse. to-day, a fur coat. trying changes! "in the same boat, "_sunday, sixteenth april, ._ "the inns in these outlandish corners of the world would astonish you by their goodness. the planter's house is as large as the middlesex hospital, and built very much on our hospital plan, with long wards abundantly ventilated, and plain whitewashed walls. they had a famous notion of sending up at breakfast-time large glasses of new milk with blocks of ice in them as clear as crystal. our table was abundantly supplied indeed at every meal. one day when kate and i were dining alone together, in our own room, we counted sixteen dishes on the table at the same time. "the society is pretty rough, and intolerably conceited. all the inhabitants are young. _i didn't see one gray head in st. louis._ there is an island close by, called bloody island. it is the dueling-ground of st. louis; and is so called from the last fatal duel which was fought there. it was a pistol duel, breast to breast, and both parties fell dead at the same time. one of our prairie party (a young man) had acted as second there, in several encounters. the last occasion was a duel with rifles, at forty paces; and coming home he told us how he had bought his man a coat of green linen to fight in, woolen being usually fatal to rifle-wounds. prairie is variously called (on the refinement principle, i suppose) para_a_rer; par_e_arer; and paro_a_rer. i am afraid, my dear fellow, you will have had great difficulty in reading all the foregoing text. i have written it, very laboriously, on my knee; and the engine throbs and starts as if the boat were possessed with a devil. "sandusky, "_sunday, twenty-fourth april, ._ "we went ashore at louisville this night week, where i left off, two lines above; and slept at the hotel, in which we had put up before. the messenger being abominably slow, we got our luggage out next morning, and started on again at eleven o'clock in the benjamin franklin mail-boat: a splendid vessel, with a cabin more than two hundred feet long, and little state-rooms affording proportionate conveniences. she got in at cincinnati by one o'clock next morning, when we landed in the dark and went back to our old hotel. as we made our way on foot over the broken pavement, anne measured her length upon the ground, but didn't hurt herself. i say nothing of kate's troubles--but you recollect her propensity? she falls into, or out of, every coach or boat we enter; scrapes the skin off her legs; brings great sores and swellings on her feet; chips large fragments out of her ankle-bones; and makes herself blue with bruises. she really has, however, since we got over the first trial of being among circumstances so new and so fatiguing, made a _most admirable_ traveler in every respect. she has never screamed or expressed alarm under circumstances that would have fully justified her in doing so, even in my eyes; has never given way to despondency or fatigue, though we have now been traveling incessantly, through a very rough country, for more than a month, and have been at times, as you may readily suppose, most thoroughly tired; has always accommodated herself, well and cheerfully, to everything; and has pleased me very much, and proved herself perfectly game. "we remained at cincinnati all tuesday the nineteenth, and all that night. at eight o'clock on wednesday morning the twentieth, we left in the mail-stage for columbus: anne, kate, and mr. q. inside; i on the box. the distance is a hundred and twenty miles; the road macadamized; and, for an american road, very good. we were three-and-twenty hours performing the journey. we traveled all night; reached columbus at seven in the morning; breakfasted; and went to bed until dinner-time. at night we held a levee for half an hour, and the people poured in as they always do: each gentleman with a lady on each arm, exactly like the chorus to god save the queen. i wish you could see them, that you might know what a splendid comparison this is. they wear their clothes precisely as the chorus people do; and stand--supposing kate and me to be in the centre of the stage, with our backs to the footlights--just as the company would, on the first night of the season. they shake hands exactly after the manner of the guests at a ball at the adelphi or the haymarket; receive any facetiousness on my part as if there were a stage direction 'all laugh;' and have rather more difficulty in 'getting off' than the last gentlemen, in white pantaloons, polished boots, and berlins, usually display, under the most trying circumstances. "next morning, that is to say, on friday, the d, at seven o'clock exactly, we resumed our journey. the stage from columbus to this place only running thrice a week, and not on that day, i bargained for an 'exclusive extra' with four horses; for which i paid forty dollars, or eight pounds english: the horses changing, as they would if it were the regular stage. to insure our getting on properly, the proprietors sent an agent on the box; and, with no other company but him and a hamper full of eatables and drinkables, we went upon our way. it is impossible to convey an adequate idea to you of the kind of road over which we traveled. i can only say that it was, at the best, but a track through the wild forest, and among the swamps, bogs, and morasses of the withered bush. a great portion of it was what is called a 'corduroy road:' which is made by throwing round logs or whole trees into a swamp, and leaving them to settle there. good heaven! if you only felt one of the least of the jolts with which the coach falls from log to log! it is like nothing but going up a steep flight of stairs in an omnibus. now the coach flung us in a heap on its floor, and now crushed our heads against its roof. now one side of it was deep in the mire, and we were holding on to the other. now it was lying on the horses' tails, and now again upon its back. but it never, never was in any position, attitude, or kind of motion, to which we are accustomed in coaches; or made the smallest approach to our experience of the proceedings of any sort of vehicle that goes on wheels. still, the day was beautiful, the air delicious, and we were _alone_; with no tobacco-spittle, or eternal prosy conversation about dollars and politics (the only two subjects they ever converse about, or can converse upon), to bore us. we really enjoyed it; made a joke of the being knocked about; and were quite merry. at two o'clock we stopped in the wood to open our hamper and dine; and we drank to our darlings and all friends at home. then we started again and went on until ten o'clock at night: when we reached a place called lower sandusky, sixty-two miles from our starting-point. the last three hours of the journey were not very pleasant; for it lightened--awfully: every flash very vivid, very blue, and very long; and, the wood being so dense that the branches on _either_ side of the track rattled and broke _against_ the coach, it was rather a dangerous neighborhood for a thunder-storm. "the inn at which we halted was a rough log house. the people were all abed, and we had to knock them up. we had the queerest sleeping-room, with two doors, one opposite the other; both opening directly on the wild black country, and neither having any lock or bolt. the effect of these opposite doors was, that one was always blowing the other open: an ingenuity in the art of building, which i don't remember to have met with before. you should have seen me, in my shirt, blockading them with portmanteaus, and desperately endeavoring to make the room tidy! but the blockading was really needful, for in my dressing-case i have about _l._ in gold; and for the amount of the middle figure in that scarce metal there are not a few men in the west who would murder their fathers. apropos of this golden store, consider at your leisure the strange state of things in this country. it has _no money_; really no money. the bank-paper won't pass; the newspapers are full of advertisements from tradesmen who sell by barter; and american gold is not to be had, or purchased. i bought sovereigns, english sovereigns, at first; but as i could get none of them at cincinnati, to this day, i have had to purchase french gold; -franc pieces; with which i am traveling as if i were in paris! "but let's go back to lower sandusky. mr. q. went to bed up in the roof of the log house somewhere, but was so beset by bugs that he got up after an hour and _lay in the coach_, . . . where he was obliged to wait till breakfast-time. we breakfasted, driver and all, in the one common room. it was papered with newspapers, and was as rough a place as need be. at half-past seven we started again, and we reached sandusky at six o'clock yesterday afternoon. it is on lake erie, twenty-four hours' journey by steamboat from buffalo. we found no boat here, nor has there been one, since. we are waiting, with every thing packed up, ready to start on the shortest notice; and are anxiously looking out for smoke in the distance. "there was an old gentleman in the log inn at lower sandusky who treats with the indians on the part of the american government, and has just concluded a treaty with the wyandot indians at that place to remove next year to some land provided for them west of the mississippi, a little way beyond st. louis. he described his negotiation to me, and their reluctance to go, exceedingly well. they are a fine people, but degraded and broken down. if you could see any of their men and women on a race-course in england, you would not know them from gipsies. "we are in a small house here, but a very comfortable one, and the people are exceedingly obliging. their demeanor in these country parts is invariably morose, sullen, clownish, and repulsive. i should think there is not, on the face of the earth, a people so entirely destitute of humor, vivacity, or the capacity of enjoyment. it is most remarkable. i am quite serious when i say that i have not heard a hearty laugh these six weeks, except my own; nor have i seen a merry face on any shoulders but a black man's. lounging listlessly about; idling in bar-rooms; smoking; spitting; and lolling on the pavement in rocking-chairs, outside the shop-doors; are the only recreations. i don't think the national shrewdness extends beyond the yankees; that is, the eastern men. the rest are heavy, dull, and ignorant. our landlord here is from the east. he is a handsome, obliging, civil fellow. he comes into the room with his hat on; spits in the fireplace as he talks; sits down on the sofa with his hat on; pulls out his newspaper, and reads; but to all this i am accustomed. he is anxious to please--and that is enough. "we are wishing very much for a boat; for we hope to find our letters at buffalo. it is half-past one; and, as there is no boat in sight, we are fain (sorely against our wills) to order an early dinner. "_tuesday, april twenty-sixth, ._ "niagara falls!!! (upon the english[ ] side.) "i don't know at what length i might have written you from sandusky, my beloved friend, if a steamer had not come in sight just as i finished the last unintelligible sheet! (oh! the ink in these parts!): whereupon i was obliged to pack up bag and baggage, to swallow a hasty apology for a dinner, and to hurry my train on board with all the speed i might. she was a fine steamship, four hundred tons burden, name the constitution, had very few passengers on board, and had bountiful and handsome accommodation. it's all very fine talking about lake erie, but it won't do for persons who are liable to sea-sickness. we were all sick. it's almost as bad in that respect as the atlantic. the waves are very short, and horribly constant. we reached buffalo at six this morning; went ashore to breakfast; sent to the post-office forthwith; and received--oh! who or what can say with how much pleasure and what unspeakable delight!--our english letters! "we lay all sunday night at a town (and a beautiful town too) called cleveland; on lake erie. the people poured on board, in crowds, by six on monday morning, to see me; and a party of 'gentlemen' actually planted themselves before our little cabin, and stared in at the door and windows _while i was washing, and kate lay in bed_. i was so incensed at this, and at a certain newspaper published in that town which i had accidentally seen in sandusky (advocating war with england to the death, saying that britain must be 'whipped again,' and promising all true americans that within two years they should sing yankee doodle in hyde park and hail columbia in the courts of westminster), that when the mayor came on board to present himself to me, according to custom, i refused to see him, and bade mr. q. tell him why and wherefore. his honor took it very coolly, and retired to the top of the wharf, with a big stick and a whittling knife, with which he worked so lustily (staring at the closed door of our cabin all the time) that long before the boat left, the big stick was no bigger than a cribbage-peg! "i never in my life was in such a state of excitement as coming from buffalo here, this morning. you come by railroad, and are nigh two hours upon the way. i looked out for the spray, and listened for the roar, as far beyond the bounds of possibility as though, landing in liverpool, i were to listen for the music of your pleasant voice in lincoln's inn fields. at last, when the train stopped, i saw two great white clouds rising up from the depths of the earth,--nothing more. they rose up slowly, gently, majestically, into the air. i dragged kate down a deep and slippery path leading to the ferry-boat; bullied anne for not coming fast enough; perspired at every pore; and felt, it is impossible to say how, as the sound grew louder and louder in my ears, and yet nothing could be seen for the mist. "there were two english officers with us (ah! what _gentlemen_, what noblemen of nature they seemed), and they hurried off with me; leaving kate and anne on a crag of ice; and clambered after me over the rocks at the foot of the small fall, while the ferryman was getting the boat ready. i was not disappointed--but i could make out nothing. in an instant i was blinded by the spray, and wet to the skin. i saw the water tearing madly down from some immense height, but could get no idea of shape, or situation, or anything but vague immensity. but when we were seated in the boat, and crossing at the very foot of the cataract--then i began to feel what it was. directly i had changed my clothes at the inn i went out again, taking kate with me, and hurried to the horse-shoe fall. i went down alone, into the very basin. it would be hard for a man to stand nearer god than he does there. there was a bright rainbow at my feet; and from that i looked up to--great heaven! to _what_ a fall of bright green water! the broad, deep, mighty stream seems to die in the act of falling; and from its unfathomable grave arises that tremendous ghost of spray and mist which is never laid, and has been haunting this place with the same dread solemnity--perhaps from the creation of the world. "we purpose remaining here a week. in my next i will try to give you some idea of my impressions, and to tell you how they change with every day. at present it is impossible. i can only say that the first effect of this tremendous spectacle on me was peace of mind--tranquillity--great thoughts of eternal rest and happiness--nothing of terror. i can shudder at the recollection of glencoe (dear friend, with heaven's leave we must see glencoe together), but whenever i think of niagara i shall think of its beauty. "if you could hear the roar that is in my ears as i write this. both falls are under our windows. from our sitting-room and bedroom we look down straight upon them. there is not a soul in the house but ourselves. what would i give if you and mac were here to share the sensations of this time! i was going to add, what would i give if the dear girl whose ashes lie in kensal green had lived to come so far along with us--but she has been here many times, i doubt not, since her sweet face faded from my earthly sight. * * * * * "one word on the precious letters before i close. you are right, my dear fellow, about the papers; and you are right (i grieve to say) about the people. _am i right?_ quoth the conjurer. _yes!_ from gallery, pit, and boxes. i _did_ let out those things, at first, against my will, but when i come to tell you all--well; only wait--only wait--till the end of july. i say no more. "i do perceive a perplexingly divided and subdivided duty, in the matter of the book of travels. oh! the sublimated essence of comicality that i _could_ distil, from the materials i have! . . . you are a part, and an essential part, of our home, dear friend, and i exhaust my imagination in picturing the circumstances under which i shall surprise you by walking into , lincoln's inn fields. we are truly grateful to god for the health and happiness of our inexpressibly dear children and all our friends. but one letter more--only one. . . . i don't seem to have been half affectionate enough, but there _are_ thoughts, you know, that lie too deep for words." footnotes: [ ] a young lady's account of this party, written next morning, and quoted in one of the american memoirs of dickens, enables us to contemplate his suffering from the point of view of those who inflicted it: "i went last evening to a party at judge walker's, given to the hero of the day. . . . when we reached the house, mr. dickens had left the crowded rooms, and was in the hall with his wife, about taking his departure when we entered the door. we were introduced to him in our wrapping; and in the flurry and embarrassment of the meeting, one of the party dropped a parcel, containing shoes, gloves, etc. mr. dickens, stooping, gathered them up and restored them with a laughing remark, and we bounded up-stairs to get our things off. hastening down again, we found him with mrs. dickens seated upon a sofa, surrounded by a group of ladies; judge walker having requested him to delay his departure for a few moments, for the gratification of some tardy friends who had just arrived, ourselves among the number. declining to re-enter the rooms where he had already taken leave of the guests, he had seated himself in the hall. he is young and handsome, has a mellow, beautiful eye, fine brow, and abundant hair. his mouth is large, and his smile so bright it seemed to shed light and happiness all about him. his manner is easy, negligent, but not elegant. his dress was foppish; in fact, he was overdressed, yet his garments were worn so easily they appeared to be a necessary part of him. (!) he had a dark coat, with lighter pantaloons; a black waistcoat, embroidered with colored flowers; and about his neck, covering his white shirt-front, was a black neckcloth, also embroidered in colors, in which were placed two large diamond pins connected by a chain. a gold watch-chain, and a large red rose in his button-hole, completed his toilet. he appeared a little weary, but answered the remarks made to him--for he originated none--in an agreeable manner. mr. beard's portrait of fagin was so placed in the room that we could see it from where we stood surrounding him. one of the ladies asked him if it was his idea of the jew. he replied, 'very nearly.' another, laughingly, requested that he would give her the rose he wore, as a memento. he shook his head and said, 'that will not do; he could not give it to one; the others would be jealous.' a half-dozen then insisted on having it, whereupon he proposed to divide the leaves among them. in taking the rose from his coat, either by design or accident, the leaves loosened and fell upon the floor, and amid considerable laughter the ladies stooped and gathered them. he remained some twenty minutes, perhaps, in the hall, and then took his leave. i must confess to considerable disappointment in the personal of my idol. i felt that his throne was shaken, although it never could be destroyed." this appalling picture supplements and very sufficiently explains the mournful passage in the text. [ ] "runaway negro in jail" was the heading of the advertisement inclosed, which had a woodcut of master and slave in its corner, and announced that wilford garner, sheriff and jailer of chicot county, arkansas, requested owner to come and prove property--or---- [ ] ten dashes underneath the word. chapter xxiv. niagara and montreal. . last two letters--dickens vanquished--obstacles to copyright--two described--value of literary popularity--substitute for literature--the secretary described--his paintings--the lion and ---- --toryism of toronto--canadian attentions--proposed theatricals--last letter--the private play--stage manager's report--the lady performers--bill of the performance--a touch of crummles--home. my friend was better than his word, and two more letters reached me before his return. the opening of the first was written from niagara on the d, and its close from montreal on the th, of may; from which latter city also, on the th of that month, the last of all was written. much of the first of these letters had reference to the international copyright agitation, and gave strong expression to the indignation awakened in him (nor less in some of the best men of america) by the adoption, at a public meeting in boston itself, of a memorial against any change of the law, in the course of which it was stated that, if english authors were invested with any control over the republication of their own books, it would be no longer possible for american editors to alter and adapt them to the american taste. this deliberate declaration, however, unsparing as dickens's anger at it was, in effect vanquished him. he saw the hopelessness of pursuing further any present effort to bring about the change desired; and he took the determination not only to drop any allusion to it in his proposed book, but to try what effect might be produced, when he should again be in england, by a league of english authors to suspend further intercourse with american publishers while the law should remain as it is. on his return he made accordingly a public appeal to this effect, stating his own intention for the future to forego all profit derivable from the authorized transmission of early proofs across the atlantic; but his hopes in this particular also were doomed to disappointment. i now leave the subject, quoting only from his present letter the general remarks with which it is dismissed by himself. "niagara falls, "_tuesday, third may, ._ "i'll tell you what the two obstacles to the passing of an international copyright law with england are: firstly, the national love of 'doing' a man in any bargain or matter of business; secondly, the national vanity. both these characteristics prevail to an extent which no stranger can possibly estimate. "with regard to the first, i seriously believe that it is an essential part of the pleasure derived from the perusal of a popular english book, that the author gets nothing for it. it is so dar-nation 'cute--so knowing in jonathan to get his reading on those terms. he has the englishman so regularly on the hip that his eye twinkles with slyness, cunning, and delight; and he chuckles over the humor of the page with an appreciation of it quite inconsistent with, and apart from, its honest purchase. the raven hasn't more joy in eating a stolen piece of meat, than the american has in reading the english book which he gets for nothing. "with regard to the second, it reconciles that better and more elevated class who are above this sort of satisfaction, with surprising ease. the man's read in america! the americans like him! they are glad to see him when he comes here! they flock about him, and tell him that they are grateful to him for spirits in sickness; for many hours of delight in health; for a hundred fanciful associations which are constantly interchanged between themselves and their wives and children at home! it is nothing that all this takes place in countries where he is _paid_; it is nothing that he has won fame for himself elsewhere, and profit too. the americans read him; the free, enlightened, independent americans; and what more _would_ he have? here's reward enough for any man. the national vanity swallows up all other countries on the face of the earth, and leaves but this above the ocean. now, mark what the real value of this american reading is. find me in the whole range of literature one single solitary english book which becomes popular with them before, by going through the ordeal at home and becoming popular there, it has forced itself on their attention--and i am content that the law should remain as it is, forever and a day. i must make one exception. there _are_ some mawkish tales of fashionable life before which crowds fall down as they were gilded calves, which have been snugly enshrined in circulating libraries at home, from the date of their publication. "as to telling them they will have no literature of their own, the universal answer (out of boston) is, 'we don't want one. why should we pay for one when we can get it for nothing? our people don't think of poetry, sir. dollars, banks, and cotton are _our_ books, sir.' and they certainly are in one sense; for a lower average of general information than exists in this country on all other topics, it would be very hard to find. so much, at present, for international copyright." the same letter kept the promise made in its predecessor that one or two more sketches of character should be sent: "one of the most amusing phrases in use all through the country, for its constant repetition, and adaptation to every emergency, is 'yes, sir.' let me give you a specimen." (the specimen was the dialogue, in the _notes_, of straw-hat and brown-hat, during the stage-coach ride to sandusky.) "i am not joking, upon my word. this is exactly the dialogue. nothing else occurring to me at this moment, let me give you the secretary's portrait. shall i? "he is of a sentimental turn--strongly sentimental; and tells anne as june approaches that he hopes 'we shall sometimes think of him' in our own country. he wears a cloak, like hamlet; and a very tall, big, limp, dusty black hat, which he exchanges on long journeys for a cap like harlequin's. . . . he sings; and in some of our quarters, when his bedroom has been near ours, we have heard him grunting bass notes through the keyhole of his door, to attract our attention. his desire that i should formally ask him to sing, and his devices to make me do so, are irresistibly absurd. there was a piano in our room at hartford (you recollect our being there, early in february?)--and he asked me one night, when we were alone, if 'mrs. d.' played. 'yes, mr. q.' 'oh, indeed, sir! _i_ sing: so whenever you want _a little soothing_--' you may imagine how hastily i left the room, on some false pretense, without hearing more. "he paints. . . . an enormous box of oil-colors is the main part of his luggage: and with these he blazes away, in his own room, for hours together. anne got hold of some big-headed, pot-bellied sketches he made of the passengers on board the canal-boat (including me in my fur coat), the recollection of which brings the tears into my eyes at this minute. he painted the falls, at niagara, superbly; and is supposed now to be engaged on a full-length representation of me: waiters having reported that chamber-maids have said that there is a picture in his room which has a great deal of hair. one girl opined that it was 'the beginning of the king's arms;' but i am pretty sure that the lion is myself. . . . "sometimes, but not often, he commences a conversation. that usually occurs when we are walking the deck after dark; or when we are alone together in a coach. it is his practice at such times to relate the most notorious and patriarchal joe miller, as something that occurred in his own family. when traveling by coach, he is particularly fond of imitating cows and pigs; and nearly challenged a fellow-passenger the other day, who had been moved by the display of this accomplishment into telling him that he was 'a perfect calf.' he thinks it an indispensable act of politeness and attention to inquire constantly whether we're not sleepy, or, to use his own words, whether we don't 'suffer for sleep.' if we have taken a long nap of fourteen hours or so, after a long journey, he is sure to meet me at the bedroom door when i turn out in the morning, with this inquiry. but, apart from the amusement he gives us, i could not by possibility have lighted on any one who would have suited my purpose so well. i have raised his ten dollars per month to twenty; and mean to make it up for six months." the conclusion of this letter was dated from "montreal, thursday, twelfth may," and was little more than an eager yearning for home: "this will be a very short and stupid letter, my dear friend; for the post leaves here much earlier than i expected, and all my grand designs for being unusually brilliant fall to the ground. i will write you _one line_ by the next cunard boat,--reserving all else until our happy and long long looked-for meeting. "we have been to toronto and kingston; experiencing attentions at each which i should have difficulty in describing. the wild and rabid toryism of toronto is, i speak seriously, _appalling_. english kindness is very different from american. people send their horses and carriages for your use, but they don't exact as payment the right of being always under your nose. we had no less than _five_ carriages at kingston waiting our pleasure at one time; not to mention the commodore's barge and crew, and a beautiful government steamer. we dined with sir charles bagot last sunday. lord mulgrave was to have met us yesterday at lachine; but, as he was wind-bound in his yacht and couldn't get in, sir richard jackson sent his drag four-in-hand, with two other young fellows who are also his aides, and in we came in grand style. "the theatricals (i think i told you[ ] i had been invited to play with the officers of the coldstream guards here) are _a roland for an oliver_; _two o'clock in the morning_; and either the _young widow_, or _deaf as a post_. ladies (unprofessional) are going to play, for the first time. i wrote to mitchell at new york for a wig for mr. snobbington, which has arrived, and is brilliant. if they had done _love, law, and physick_, as at first proposed, i was already 'up' in flexible, having played it of old, before my authorship days; but if it should be splash in the _young widow_, you will have to do me the favor to imagine me in a smart livery-coat, shiny black hat and cockade, white knee-cords, white top-boots, blue stock, small whip, red cheeks, and dark eyebrows. conceive topping's state of mind if i bring this dress home and put it on unexpectedly! . . . god bless you, dear friend. i can say nothing about the seventh, the day on which we sail. it is impossible. words cannot express what we feel, now that the time is so near. . . ." his last letter, dated from "peasco's hotel, montreal, canada, twenty-sixth of may," described the private theatricals, and inclosed me a bill of the play. "this, like my last, will be a stupid letter, because both kate and i are thrown into such a state of excitement by the near approach of the seventh of june that we can do nothing, and think of nothing. "the play came off last night. the audience, between five and six hundred strong, were invited as to a party; a regular table with refreshments being spread in the lobby and saloon. we had the band of the twenty-third (one of the finest in the service) in the orchestra, the theatre was lighted with gas, the scenery was excellent, and the properties were all brought from private houses. sir charles bagot, sir richard jackson, and their staffs were present; and as the military portion of the audience were all in full uniform, it was really a splendid scene. "we 'went' also splendidly; though with nothing very remarkable in the acting way. we had for sir mark chase a genuine odd fish, with plenty of humor; but our tristram sappy was not up to the marvelous reputation he has somehow or other acquired here. i am not however, let me tell you, placarded as stage-manager for nothing. everybody was told they would have to submit to the most iron despotism; and didn't i come macready over them? oh, no. by no means. certainly not. the pains i have taken with them, and the perspiration i have expended, during the last ten days, exceed in amount anything you can imagine. i had regular plots of the scenery made out, and lists of the properties wanted; and had them nailed up by the prompter's chair. every letter that was to be delivered, was written; every piece of money that had to be given, provided; and not a single thing lost sight of. i prompted, myself, when i was not on; when i was, i made the regular prompter of the theatre my deputy; and i never saw anything so perfectly touch and go, as the first two pieces. the bedroom scene in the interlude was as well furnished as vestris had it; with a 'practicable' fireplace blazing away like mad, and everything in a concatenation accordingly. i really do believe that i was very funny: at least i know that i laughed heartily at myself, and made the part a character, such as you and i know very well: a mixture of t----, harley, yates, keeley, and jerry sneak. it went with a roar, all through; and, as i am closing this, they have told me i was so well made up that sir charles bagot, who sat in the stage-box, had no idea who played mr. snobbington, until the piece was over. [illustration: private theatricals.] * * * * * =committee.= * * * * * mrs. torrens. w. c. ermatinger, esq. mrs. perry. captain torrens. the earl of mulgrave. * * * * * stage manager--mr. charles dickens. * * * * * queen's theatre, montreal * * * * * on wednesday evening, may th, , will be performed, =roland for an oliver.= * * * * * mrs. selborne. [handwritten: mrs. torrens] maria darlington. [handwritten: miss griffin] mrs. fixture. [handwritten: miss ermatinger.] mr. selborne. [handwritten: lord mulgrave.] alfred highflyer. [handwritten: mr. charles dickens] sir mark chase. [handwritten: honourable mr. methuen] fixture. [handwritten: captain willoughby.] gamekeeper. [handwritten: captain granville] * * * * * after which, an interlude in one scene, (from the french,) called =past two o'clock in the morning.= * * * * * the stranger. [handwritten: captain granville] mr. snobbington. [handwritten: mr. charles dickens] * * * * * to conclude with the farce, in one act, entitled =deaf as a post.= * * * * * mrs. plumpley. [handwritten: mrs. torrens] amy templeton. [handwritten: mrs. charles dickens!!!!!!!!] sophy walton. [handwritten: mrs. perry.] sally maggs. [handwritten: miss griffin] captain templeton. [handwritten: captain torrens] mr. walton. [handwritten: captain willoughby.] tristram sappy. [handwritten: doctor griffin] crupper. [handwritten: lord mulgrave] gallop. [handwritten: mr. charles dickens.] montreal, may , . gazette office. "but only think of kate playing! and playing devilish well, i assure you! all the ladies were capital, and we had no wait or hitch for an instant. you may suppose this, when i tell you that we began at eight, and had the curtain down at eleven. it is their custom here, to prevent heart-burnings in a very heart-burning town, whenever they have played in private, to repeat the performances in public. so, on saturday (substituting, of course, real actresses for the ladies), we repeat the two first pieces to a paying audience, for the manager's benefit. . . . "i send you a bill, to which i have appended a key. "i have not told you half enough. but i promise you i shall make you shake your sides about this play. wasn't it worthy of crummles that when lord mulgrave and i went out to the door to receive the governor-general, the regular prompter followed us in agony with four tall candlesticks with wax candles in them, and besought us with a bleeding heart to carry two apiece, in accordance with all the precedents? . . . * * * * * "i have hardly spoken of our letters, which reached us yesterday, shortly before the play began. a hundred thousand thanks for your delightful mainsail of that gallant little packet. i read it again and again; and had it all over again at breakfast-time this morning. i heard also, by the same ship, from talfourd, miss coutts, brougham, rogers, and others. a delicious letter from mac too, as good as his painting, i swear. give my hearty love to him. . . . god bless you, my dear friend. as the time draws nearer, we get fevered with anxiety for home. . . . kiss our darlings for us. we shall soon meet, please god, and be happier and merrier than ever we were, in all our lives. . . . oh, home--home--home--home--home--home--home!!!!!!!!!!!" =end of vol. i.= footnotes: [ ] see _ante_, p. . * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. page viii, "recoltions" changed to "recollections" (another schoolfellow's recollections) page ix, extraneous page number removed original text read: writing _pickwick_, nos. and page , "t" changed to "it" (it as early as) page , "reisssue" changed to "reissue" (scheme to reissue) page , "s" changed to "is" (there is little further) page , "hab" changed to "habit" (his invariable habit) page , "axing" changed to "taxing" (taxing ingenuity to) page , "f" chagned to "of" (of sheer insanity) page , word "i" inserted into text. (i have heard of) to retain the integrity of the original text, varied hyphenations, capitalizations, and, at times, spellings were retained. for example: varied hyphenation and capitalization of devonshire terrace was retained. also fac-simile and facsimile. varied spelling of a'beckett/a'becket was retained. ***** transcriber's note: for the reader: italic text is surrounded by _underscores_, bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and underlined text is surrounded by ~tildes~. two breves above the letter e are indicated by [)e] in the text. the life of [illustration: signature: charles dickens] [illustration] the life of charles dickens by john forster. vol. ii. - . corrections made in the later editions of the first volume. * * * * * a notice written under date of the rd december, , appeared with the tenth edition. "such has been the rapidity of the demand for successive impressions of this book, that i have found it impossible, until now, to correct at pages , , and three errors of statement made in the former editions; and some few other mistakes, not in themselves important, at pages , , and . i take the opportunity of adding, that the mention at p. is not an allusion to the well-known 'penny' and 'saturday' magazines, but to weekly periodicals of some years' earlier date resembling them in form. one of them, i have since found from a later mention by dickens himself, was presumably of a less wholesome and instructive character. 'i used,' he says, 'when i was at school, to take in the _terrific register_, making myself unspeakably miserable, and frightening my very wits out of my head, for the small charge of a penny weekly; which, considering that there was an illustration to every number in which there was always a pool of blood, and at least one body, was cheap.' an obliging correspondent writes to me upon my reference to the fox-under-the-hill, at p. : 'will you permit me to say, that the house, shut up and almost ruinous, is still to be found at the bottom of a curious and most precipitous court, the entrance of which is just past salisbury-street. . . . it was once, i think, the approach to the halfpenny boats. the house is now shut out from the water-side by the embankment.'" i proceed to state in detail what the changes thus referred to were. the passage about james lamert, beginning at the thirteenth line of p. , now stands: "his chief ally and encourager in these displays was a youth of some ability, much older than himself, named james lamert, stepson to his mother's sister and therefore a sort of cousin, who was his great patron and friend in his childish days. mary, the eldest daughter of charles barrow, himself a lieutenant in the navy, had for her first husband a commander in the navy called allen; on whose death by drowning at rio janeiro she had joined her sister, the navy-pay clerk's wife, at chatham; in which place she subsequently took for her second husband doctor lamert, an army surgeon, whose son james, even after he had been sent to sandhurst for his education, continued still to visit chatham from time to time. he had a turn for private theatricals; and as his father's quarters were in the ordnance-hospital there, a great rambling place otherwise at that time almost uninhabited, he had plenty of room in which to get up his entertainments." two other corrections were consequent on this change. at the st line of page , for "the elder cousin" read "the cousin by marriage;" and at the st line of p. , "cousin by his mother's side" should be "cousin by his aunt's marriage." at the th line of the st page, "his bachelor-uncle, fellow-clerk," &c. should be "the uncle who was at this time fellow-clerk," &c. at the th line of page , "charles-court" should be "clare-court." the allusion to one of his favourite localities at the d line of page should stand thus: "a little public-house by the water-side called the fox-under-the-hill, approached by an underground passage which we once missed in looking for it together." the passage at p. , having reference to an early friend who had been with him, as i supposed, at his first school, should run thus: "in this however i have since discovered my own mistake: the truth being that it was this gentleman's connection, not with the wellington-academy, but with a school kept by mr. dawson in hunter-street, brunswick-square, where the brothers of dickens were subsequently placed, which led to their early knowledge of each other. i fancy that they were together also, for a short time, at mr. molloy's in new-square, lincoln's-inn; but, whether or not this was so, dickens certainly had not quitted school many months before his father had made sufficient interest with an attorney of gray's-inn, mr. edward blackmore, to obtain him regular employment in his office." there is subsequent allusion to the same gentleman (at p. ) as his "school-companion at mr. dawson's in henrietta-street," which ought to stand as "having known him when himself a law-clerk in lincoln's-inn." at p. i had stated that mr. john dickens reported for the _morning chronicle_; and at p. that mr. thomas beard reported for the _morning herald_; whereas mr. dickens, though in the gallery for other papers, did not report for the _chronicle_, and mr. beard did report for that journal; and where (at p. ) dickens was spoken of as associated with mr. beard in a reporting party which represented respectively the _chronicle_ and _herald_, the passage ought simply to have described him as "connected with a reporting party, being lord john russell's devonshire contest above-named, and his associate chief being mr. beard, entrusted with command for the _chronicle_ in this particular express." at p. i had made a mistake about his "first published piece of writing," in too hastily assuming that he had himself forgotten what the particular piece was. it struck an intelligent and kind correspondent as very unlikely that dickens should have fallen into error on such a point; and, making personal search for himself (as i ought to have done), discovered that what i supposed to be another piece was merely the same under another title. the description of his first printed sketch should therefore be "(mr. minns and his cousin, as he afterwards entitled it, but which appeared in the magazine as a dinner at poplar walk)." there is another mistake at p. , of "bandy-legged" instead of "bulky-legged" and, at p. , of "fresh fields" for "fresh woods." those several corrections were made in the tenth edition. to the eleventh these words were prefixed (under date of the rd of january, ): "since the above mentioned edition went to press, a published letter has rendered necessary a brief additional note to the remarks made at pp. - ." the remark occurs in my notice of the silly story of mr. cruikshank having originated _oliver twist_, and, with the note referred to, now stands in the form subjoined. "whether all sir benjamin's laurels however should fall to the person by whom the tale is told,* or whether any part belongs to the authority alleged for it, is unfortunately not quite clear. there would hardly have been a doubt, if the fable had been confined to the other side of the atlantic; but it has been reproduced and widely circulated on this side also; and the distinguished artist whom it calumniates by attributing the invention to him has been left undefended from its slander. dickens's letter spares me the necessity of characterizing, by the only word which would have been applicable to it, a tale of such incredible and monstrous absurdity as that one of the masterpieces of its author's genius had been merely an illustration of etchings by mr. cruikshank!" note to the words "person by whom the tale is told:" "*this question has been partly solved, since my last edition, by mr. cruikshank's announcement in the _times_, that, though dr. mackenzie had 'confused some circumstances with respect to mr. dickens looking over some drawings and sketches,' the substance of his information as to who it was that originated _oliver twist_, and all its characters, had been derived from mr. cruikshank himself. the worst part of the foregoing fable, therefore, has not dr. mackenzie for its author; and mr. cruikshank is to be congratulated on the prudence of his rigid silence respecting it as long as mr. dickens lived." in the twelfth edition i mentioned, in the note at p. , a little work of which all notice had been previously omitted; and the close of that note now runs: "he had before written for them, without his name, _sunday under three heads_; and he added subsequently a volume of _young couples_." at p. , "parish abuses" is corrected in the same edition to "parish practices;" and at p. , "in his later works" to "in his latest works." i have received letters from several obliging correspondents, among them three or four who were scholars at the wellington-house academy before or after dickens's time, and one who attended the school with him; but such remark as they suggest will more properly accompany my third and closing volume. palace gate house, kensington, _ th of october, ._ illustrations. * * * * * page autograph of charles dickens _fly leaf_ charles dickens, æt. . from the portrait painted for the author in by w. p. frith, r.a. engraved by robert graves, a.r.a. _frontispiece_ charles dickens, his wife, and her sister. drawn by daniel maclise r.a. in . engraved by c. h. jeens sketch of the villa bagnerello (albaro), by angus fletcher drawing of the palazzo peschiere (genoa), by mr. batson at , lincoln's-inn-fields, monday the nd of december, . from a drawing by daniel maclise, r.a. engraved by c. h. jeens rosemont, lausanne. from a drawing by the hon. mrs. watson m. barthelémy's card seventeen "fancies" for mr. dombey. designed by h. k. browne twelve more similar fancies. from the design of the same artist charles dickens to george cruikshank. facsimile of a letter written in , concerning the later illustrations to _oliver twist_ - table of contents. * * * * * chapter i. . pages - . american notes. Æt. . page return from america longfellow in england at broadstairs preparing _notes_ fancy for opening of _chuzzlewit_ attractions at margate being, not always believing burlesque of classic tragedy a smart man and forged letter a proposed dedication authorship and sea bathing easy-living rich and patient poor coming to the end rejected motto for _notes_ home of the _every day book_ scene at a funeral an introductory chapter suppressed chapter first printed - jeffrey's opinion of the _notes_ later page anticipated experience of america in chapter ii. . pages - . first year of martin chuzzlewit. Æt. . a sunset at land's-end a holiday described by c. d. the same described by maclise a landscape and a portrait names first given to _chuzzlewit_ origin of the novel prologue to a play on a tragedy by browning george eliot's first book accompaniments of work miss georgina hogarth three portraits a public benefactor controversy on _notes_ original of mrs. gamp what he will do with her john black macready and america apprehended disservice exertions for elton family seaside life in ordinary public speeches ragged schools and results unitarianism return to church of england language of his will _christmas carol_ birth of third son amusing letter chapter iii. - . pages - . chuzzlewit disappointments and christmas carol. Æt. - . falling-off in _chuzzlewit_ sale publishers and authors premature fears resolve to change his publishers proposal to his printers desire to travel again ways and means objections to the scheme confidence in himself want of confidence in others bent on his plan turning point of his career grounds for course taken on _martin chuzzlewit_ american portions the book's special superiority news from america american consolations why no pecksniffs in france why tartuffes in england a favourite scene of thackeray's process of creation in a novel intended motto for story leading characters a superb masterpiece triumph of humorous art publication of _christmas carol_ unrealized hopes results of _carol_ sale renewed negotiations with printers agreement with bradbury and evans letters about the _carol_ spirit of the book something better than literature chapter iv. . pages - . year of departure for italy. Æt. . gore-house friends sensitive for his calling a troublesome cheque education speeches sufferings from stage-adaptations wrongs from piracy proceedings in chancery a pirate's plea result of chancery experience piracy preferred reliefs to work the tempted and tempter favourite bit of humour criticized without humour taine on dickens macready in new orleans society in england writing in the _chronicle_ conference with its new editor preparations for departure in temporary quarters begging-letter case the farewell dinner-party "evenings of a working-man" greenwich dinner j. m. w. turner and carlyle chapter v. . pages - . idleness at albaro: villa bagnerello. Æt. . the travel to italy a bit of character french thrown away the albaro villa first experiences cloudy weather sunsets and scenery address to maclise the mediterranean colours of sky and sea warning to maclise perishing frescoes french consul at genoa rooms in villa described surrounding scenery church-ruin on the rocks angus fletcher's sketch work in abeyance learning italian domestic news his english servants english residents genoa the superb church splendours and tinsel theatres italian plays dumas' _kean_ religious houses sunday promenade winter residence chosen a lucky arrival dinner at french consul's verses in c. d.'s honour others in prince joinville's rumours of war with england a marquis's reception flight and tumble quiet enjoyments english visitors and news talk with lord robertson a suggestion for jerrold visit of frederick dickens an inn on the alps dangers of sea-bathing a change beginning chapter vi. . pages - . work in genoa: palazzo peschiere. Æt. . palace of the fish-ponds rooms and frescoes view over the city dancing and praying peschiere garden trying to write a difficulty settled craving for streets design for his book governor's levee absence of the poet subject he is working at c. d.'s politics choice of a hero master-passion religious sentiment a dream dialogue in a vision "what is the true religion?" fragments of reality in a vision trying regions of thought reverence for doctor arnold first part of book finished anticipation of its close differences from published tale first outline of the _chimes_ - liking for the subject what the writing cost him realities of fictitious sorrow wild mountain weather banquet at the whistle startling news coming to london secret of the visit eager to try effect of story plans a reading at my rooms the tale finished proposed travel party for the reading chapter vii. . pages - . italian travel. Æt. . cities and people venice rapture of enjoyment aboard the city what he saw and felt solitary thoughts at lodi about paintings and engravings titian and tintoretto conventionalities monks and painters the inns compensation for discomfort brave c of his _pictures_ louis roche of avignon dinner at the peschiere custom-house officers at milan and strasburg passing the simplon in london a reading in lincoln's-inn-fields persons present success of the visit in paris with macready origin of our private play a recognition at marseilles friendly americans on board for genoa information for travellers chapter viii. . pages - . last months in italy. Æt. . birthday gift for eldest son suspicious "characters" jesuit interferences birth of travel southward carrara and pisa a wild journey birds of prey a beggar and his staff "my lord" loses temper and has the worst of it at rome the campagna bay of naples filth of naples and fondi the lazzaroni false picturesque sad english news true friends in calamity at florence wayside memorials and landor's villa death of bobus smith at lord holland's lord palmerston's brother again at the peschiere to publish or not? thoughts of home american friends deaths among english residents scarlet breeches out of place angus fletcher complaint of a meek footman recalling lady holland a touch of portsmouth plans for meeting last letter from genoa closing excitements and troubles italians hard at work returning by switzerland passage of the st. gothard splendours of swiss scenery dangers of it what is left behind the alps a week in flanders chapter ix. - . pages - . again in england. Æt. - . old hopes revived notions for a periodical proposed prospectus chances for and against it swept away by larger venture christmas book of d'orsay and the courier another passage of autobiography more of the story of early years wish to try the stage applies to manager of covent garden sister fanny in the secret stage studies and rehearsings strange news for macready requisites of author and actor play chosen for private performance fanny kelly and her theatre every man in his humour the company of actors enjoying a character troubles of management first and second performances of the acting c. d. as performer c. d. as manager two human mysteries the mysteries explained training for the stage at broadstairs ramsgate entertainments birth of fourth son second raven's death intended daily paper disturbing engagements old ways interrupted my appeal against the enterprise reply and issue interruption and renewal the beginning and the end forming new resolve back to old scenes editorship ceased going to switzerland a happy saying leaves england chapter x. . pages - . a home in switzerland. Æt. . on the rhine german readers of dickens travelling englishmen a hoaxing-match house-hunting tempted by a mansion chooses a cottage earliest impressions lausanne described views from his farm under his windows a sketch of rosemont design as to work the english colony unaccommodating carriage a death in the lake boatman's narrative the theatre the prison the blind institution interesting cases - beginning work first slip of new novel sortes shandyanæ the christmas tale chapter xi. . pages - . swiss people and scenery. Æt. . the mountains and lake the people and their manners a country fête family sketch rifle-shooting a marriage on the farm gunpowder festivities bride and mother first number of _dombey_ christmas book general idea for new story hints for illustration of it haldimands and cerjats visit of henry hallam local news sight-seers from england trip to chamounix mule-travelling mont blanc range mer de glace tête noire pass help in an accident english, french, and prussian second number of _dombey_ castle of chillon described honour to new constitution political celebration malcontents good conduct of the people protestant and catholic cantons a timely word on ireland chapter xii. . pages - . sketches chiefly personal. Æt. . home politics the whigs and peel belief in emigration schemes mark lemon an incident of character hood's _tylney hall_ trait of the duke of wellington mr. watson of rockingham a recollection of reporting days returns to _dombey_ two english travellers party among the hills a smollett and fielding hero milksop youths ogre and lambs sir joseph and his family lord vernon passion for rifle-shooting a wonderful carriage the ladies taylor proposed reading of first _dombey_ a sketch from life two sisters and their books trip to great st. bernard ascent of the mountain the convent scene at the mountain top bodies found in the snow the holy fathers a tavern all but sign the monk and _pickwick_ chapter xiii. . pages - . literary labour at lausanne. Æt. . a picture completed great present want daily life imaginative needs self-judgments the now and the hereafter fancies for christmas books second number of _dombey_ a personal revelation craving for streets food for fancy second _dombey_ done curious wants of the mind success of the reading first thought of public readings two stories in hand unexpected difficulties work under sensitive conditions alarm for _dombey_ doubts and misgivings change of scene to be tried at genoa disquietudes of authorship wanting counsel at the worst report of genoa a new social experience feminine eccentricities a ladies' dinner elephant-quellers "like a manchester cotton mill" again at rosemont visit of the talfourds lodging his friends intentions and hope chapter xiv. . pages - . revolution at geneva. christmas book and last days in switzerland. Æt. . an arrival of manuscript a title large sale of _dombey_ again at geneva rising against the jesuits back to lausanne the fight in geneva rifle against cannon true objection to roman-catholicism genevese "aristocracy" a lesson traces left by revolution abettors of revolution where the shoe pinches _daily news'_ changes my surrender of editorship thoughts for the future letters about _battle of life_ jeffrey's opinion sketch of story a difficulty in plot old characteristics his own comments reply to criticism stanfield illustrations doubts of third part strengthening the close objections invited tendency to blank verse grave mistake by leech how dealt with by c. d. first impulse kindly afterthought lord gobden and free trade needs while at work pleasures of autumn striking tents sadness of leave-taking travelling to paris at paris chapter xv. - . pages - . three months in paris. Æt. - . a greeting from lord brougham french sunday a house taken absurdity of the abode its former tenant sister fanny's illness opinion of elliotson the king of the barricades unhealthy symptoms incident in the streets the parisian population americans and french unsettlement of plans eldest son's education a true friend christmas tale on the stage an alarming neighbour startling blue-devils approach to cannibalism in london cheap edition of works suppressed dedication return to paris begging-letter writers friendly services imaginary dialogue a boulogne reception cautions to a traveller citizen dickens sight-seeing at theatres visits to famous frenchmen evening with victor hugo adventure with a coachman bibliothèque royale premonitory symptoms in london a party at gore-house illness of eldest son snuff-shop readings old charwoman's compliment chapter xvi. - . pages - . dombey and son. Æt. - . drift of the tale why undervalued mistakes of critics adherence to first design plan for paul and his sister for dombey and his daughter proposed course of the story "the stock of the soup" walter gay and his fate decided favourably six pages too much omissions objected to new chapter written portions sacrificed anxiety for the face of his hero a suggested type of city-gentleman artist-fancies for mr. dombey - dickens and his illustrators a silly story repeated why noticed again facsimile of letter to cruikshank - dickens's words at the time cruikshank's thirty-four years after a masterpiece of dickens's writing picture of him at work an experience of ben jonson's how objections are taken shall paul's life be prolonged? a reading of the second number a number to be added to paul's life failure of an illustration what it should have been the mrs. pipchin of his childhood first thought of his autobiography opening his fourth number at doctor blimber's paul's school life paul and florence jeffrey's forecast of the tale beginning his fifth number what he will do with it a damper to the spirits close of paul's life jeffrey on paul's death thoughts for edith florence and little nell judgments and comparisons edith's first destiny doubts suggested an important change diogenes remembered other characters blimber establishment supposed originals surmises entirely wrong chapter xvii. - . pages - . splendid strolling. Æt. - . birth of fifth son death of lieut. sydney dickens proposed benefit for leigh hunt the plays and actors the manager troubles at rehearsals pains rewarded leigh hunt's account receipts and expenses lord lytton's prologue appearance of mrs. gamp fancy for a jeu d'esprit mrs. gamp at the play failure of artists an unfinished fancy mrs. gamp with the strollers alarm of mrs. harris leigh hunt and poole ticklish society mrs. gamp's cabman george cruikshank mr. wilson the barber wig experiences fatigues of a powder ball manager's moustache and whiskers leech, lemon, and jerrold - mrs. gamp's dislike of "dougladge" costello, stone, and egg "only the engine" cruikshank's _bottle_ profits of _dombey_ time come for savings proposed edition of old novels another dropped design the praslin tragedy penalty for seeing before others street-music margate theatre and manager as to christmas book delay found necessary a literary kitely meetings at leeds and glasgow book-friends sheriff alison hospitable welcome scott-monument purchase of shakespeare's house scheme to benefit knowles plays rehearsed _merry wives_ chosen performances and result at knebworth-park guild of literature and art unfortunate omission the farce that was to be written the farce that was substituted _not so bad as we seem_ travelling theatre and scenes success of the comedy an incident at sunderland troubles of a manager acting under difficulties scenery overturned effects of fright mr. wilkie collins chapter xviii. - . pages - . seaside holidays. Æt. - . louis philippe dethroned french missive from c. d. aspirations of citizen dickens at broadstairs by rail to china the junk mariners on deck and in cabin perplexing questions a toy-shop on the seas type of finality a contrast home questions temperance agitations the temptations to gin-shop necessity of dealing with _them_ stages anterior to drunkenness cruikshank's satire realities of his pencil its one-sidedness dickens on hogarth cause as well as effect exit of gin-lane wisdom of the great painter late, but never too late dickens on designs by leech originality of leech superiority of his method the requisites for it excuses for the rising generation intellectual juvenility a dangerous youth what leech will be remembered for odd adventures pony-chaise accident parallel to squeers strenuous idleness french philosophy hint for mr. taine the better for idleness a favourite spot at brighton with mad folks and doctors a name for his new book at broadstairs troubles in his writing a letter in character at bonchurch the rev. james white mirth and melancholy mrs. james white first impressions of undercliff talfourd made a judge dickens's affection for him church-school examination dinners and pic-nics the comedian regnier when acting is genuine doubts as to health arrivals and departures a startling revelation effects of bonchurch climate utter prostration difficulties of existing there distrust of doctors other side of picture what i observed at the time from the _copperfield_ ms. mr. browne's sketch of micawber accident to john leech its consequences depressing influences at broadstairs railway travellers the exhibition year a _copperfield_ banquet c. d. on money values his leisure reading a correction for carlyle good criticism thoughts of a new book the old restlessness beginning on a friday chapter xix. - . pages - . haunted man and household words. Æt. - . maturing book for christmas friendly plea for mr. macrone completion of christmas story dropped motto the "ghost" and the "bargain" the tetterby family teachings of the little tale his own statement of its intention forgive that you may forget _copperfield_ sales a letter from russia translation into russian sympathy of siberia the periodical taking form a design for it described original and selected matter a shadow for everywhere hopes of success doubts respecting it incompatibility of design new design chosen assistant editor appointed titles proposed appearance of first number earliest contributors opinion of mr. sala child's dream of a star a fancy derived from childhood chapter xx. - . pages - . last years in devonshire terrace. Æt. - . sentiment about places confidences personal revelations early memories at his sister's sick-bed last thoughts sister's death book to be written in first person riding over salisbury plain visiting scene of a tragedy first sees yarmouth birth of sixth son notion for a character choosing a title "mag's diversions" "copperfield" chosen varieties of it proposed title finally determined difficulties of opening rogers and benedict wit of fonblanque procter and macready the sheridans lord byron's ada dinner to halévy and scribe brougham and "the _punch_ people" the duke at vauxhall carlyle and thackeray judicious change of a "tag" a fact for a biographer marryat's delight with children bulwer lytton and monckton milnes lords nugent and dudley stuart - kemble, harness, and dyce mrs. siddons and john kemble comparison and good distinction mazzini and edinburgh friends artist-acquaintance visitors at his house friends from america m. van de weyer ambition to see into heaven literature and art in the city doubtful compliment a hint for london citizens letter against public executions american observer in england marvels of english manners a letter from rockingham private theatricals major bentley and general boxall - a family scene doing too much death of francis jeffrey progress of work the child-wife a run to paris banker or proctor doubts as to dora settled of rogers and landor a third daughter born at great malvern macready's farewell experience of a brother author the home at shepherd's-bush father's illness death of john dickens tribute by his son theatrical-fund dinner plea for small actors remembering the forgotten death of his little daughter difficult tasks in life dora's grave advocating sanitary reform lord shaftesbury realities of his books to dickens the life of charles dickens. chapter i. american notes. . return from america--longfellow in england--thirty years ago--at broadstairs--preparing _notes_--fancy for the opening of _chuzzlewit_--reading tennyson--theatricals at margate--a new protégé--proposed dedication--sea-bathing and authorship--emigrants in canada--coming to the end--rejected motto for _notes_--return to london--cheerless visit--the mingled yarn--scene at a funeral--the suppressed introductory chapter to the _notes_, now first printed--jeffrey's opinion of the _notes_--dickens's experience of america in . the reality did not fall short of the anticipation of home. his return was the occasion of unbounded enjoyment; and what he had planned before sailing as the way we should meet, received literal fulfilment. by the sound of his cheery voice i first knew that he was come; and from my house we went together to maclise, also "without a moment's warning." a greenwich dinner in which several friends (talfourd, milnes, procter, maclise, stanfield, marryat, barham, hood, and cruikshank among them) took part, and other immediate greetings, followed; but the most special celebration was reserved for autumn, when, by way of challenge to what he had seen while abroad, a home-journey was arranged with stanfield, maclise, and myself for his companions, into such of the most striking scenes of a picturesque english county as the majority of us might not before have visited: cornwall being ultimately chosen. before our departure he was occupied by his preparation of the _american notes_; and to the same interval belongs the arrival in london of mr. longfellow, who became his guest, and (for both of us i am privileged to add) our attached friend. longfellow's name was not then the pleasant and familiar word it has since been in england; but he had already written several of his most felicitous pieces, and he possessed all the qualities of delightful companionship, the culture and the charm, which have no higher type or example than the accomplished and genial american. he reminded me, when lately again in england, of two experiences out of many we had enjoyed together this quarter of a century before. one of them was a day at rochester, when, met by one of those prohibitions which are the wonder of visitors and the shame of englishmen, we overleapt gates and barriers, and, setting at defiance repeated threats of all the terrors of law coarsely expressed to us by the custodian of the place, explored minutely the castle ruins. the other was a night among those portions of the population which outrage law and defy its terrors all the days of their lives, the tramps and thieves of london; when, under guidance and protection of the most trusted officers of the two great metropolitan prisons afforded to us by mr. chesterton and lieut. tracey, we went over the worst haunts of the most dangerous classes. nor will it be unworthy of remark, in proof that attention is not drawn vainly to such scenes, that, upon dickens going over them a dozen years later when he wrote a paper about them for his _household words_, he found important changes effected whereby these human dens, if not less dangerous, were become certainly more decent. on the night of our earlier visit, maclise, who accompanied us, was struck with such sickness on entering the first of the mint lodging-houses in the borough, that he had to remain, for the time we were in them, under guardianship of the police outside. longfellow returned home by the great western from bristol on the st of october, enjoying as he passed through bath the hospitality of landor; and at the end of the following week we started on our cornish travel. but what before this had occupied dickens in the writing way must now be told. not long after his reappearance amongst us, his house being still in the occupation of sir john wilson, he went to broadstairs, taking with him the letters from which i have quoted so largely to help him in preparing his _american notes_; and one of his first announcements to me ( th of july) shows not only this labour in progress, but the story he was under engagement to begin in november working in his mind. "the subjects at the beginning of the book are of that kind that i can't _dash_ at them, and now and then they fret me in consequence. when i come to washington, i am all right. the solitary prison at philadelphia is a good subject, though; i forgot that for the moment. have you seen the boston chapter yet? . . . i have never been in cornwall either. a mine certainly; and a letter for that purpose shall be got from southwood smith. i have some notion of opening the new book in the lantern of a lighthouse!" a letter a couple of months later ( th of sept.) recurs to that proposed opening of his story which after all he laid aside; and shows how rapidly he was getting his _american notes_ into shape. "at the isle of thanet races yesterday i saw--oh! who shall say what an immense amount of character in the way of inconceivable villainy and blackguardism! i even got some new wrinkles in the way of showmen, conjurors, pea-and-thimblers, and trampers generally. i think of opening my new book on the coast of cornwall, in some terribly dreary iron-bound spot. i hope to have finished the american book before the end of next month; and we will then together fly down into that desolate region." our friends having academy engagements to detain them, we had to delay a little; and i meanwhile turn back to his letters to observe his progress with his _notes_, and other employments or enjoyments of the interval. they require no illustration that they will not themselves supply: but i may remark that the then collected _poems_ of tennyson had become very favourite reading with him; and that while in america mr. mitchell the comedian had given him a small white shaggy terrier, who bore at first the imposing name of timber doodle, and became a great domestic pet and companion. "i have been reading" ( th of august) "tennyson all this morning on the seashore. among other trifling effects, the waters have dried up as they did of old, and shown me all the mermen and mermaids, at the bottom of the ocean; together with millions of queer creatures, half-fish and half-fungus, looking down into all manner of coral caves and seaweed conservatories; and staring in with their great dull eyes at every open nook and loop-hole. who else, too, could conjure up such a close to the extraordinary and as landor would say 'most wonderful' series of pictures in the 'dream of fair women,' as-- "'squadrons and squares of men in brazen plates, scaffolds, still sheets of water, divers woes, ranges of glimmering vaults with iron grates, and hushed seraglios!' "i am getting on pretty well, but it was so glittering and sunshiny yesterday that i was forced to make holiday." four days later: "i have not written a word this blessed day. i got to new york yesterday, and think it goes as it should . . . little doggy improves rapidly, and now jumps over my stick at the word of command. i have changed his name to snittle timbery, as more sonorous and expressive. he unites with the rest of the family in cordial regards and loves. _nota bene_. the margate theatre is open every evening, and the four patagonians (see goldsmith's _essays_) are performing thrice a week at ranelagh . . ." a visit from me was at this time due, to which these were held out as inducements; and there followed what it was supposed i could not resist, a transformation into the broadest farce of a deep tragedy by a dear friend of ours. "now you really must come. seeing only is believing, very often isn't that, and even being the thing falls a long way short of believing it. mrs. nickleby herself once asked me, as you know, if i really believed there ever was such a woman; but there'll be no more belief, either in me or my descriptions, after what i have to tell of our excellent friend's tragedy, if you don't come and have it played again for yourself 'by particular desire.' we saw it last night, and oh! if you had but been with us! young betty, doing what the mind of man without my help never _can_ conceive, with his legs like padded boot-trees wrapped up in faded yellow drawers, was the hero. the comic man of the company enveloped in a white sheet, with his head tied with red tape like a brief and greeted with yells of laughter whenever he appeared, was the venerable priest. a poor toothless old idiot at whom the very gallery roared with contempt when he was called a tyrant, was the remorseless and aged creon. and ismene being arrayed in spangled muslin trowsers very loose in the legs and very tight in the ankles, such as fatima would wear in _blue beard_, was at her appearance immediately called upon for a song. after this, can you longer. . . ?" with the opening of september i had renewed report of his book, and of other matters. "the philadelphia chapter i think very good, but i am sorry to say it has not made as much in print as i hoped . . . in america they have forged a letter with my signature, which they coolly declare appeared in the _chronicle_ with the copyright circular; and in which i express myself in such terms as you may imagine, in reference to the dinners and so forth. it has been widely distributed all over the states; and the felon who invented it is a 'smart man' of course. you are to understand that it is not done as a joke, and is scurrilously reviewed. mr. park benjamin begins a lucubration upon it with these capitals, dickens is a fool, and a liar. . . . i have a new protégé, in the person of a wretched deaf and dumb boy whom i found upon the sands the other day, half dead, and have got (for the present) into the union infirmary at minster. a most deplorable case." on the th he told me: "i have pleased myself very much to-day in the matter of niagara. i have made the description very brief (as it should be), but i fancy it is good. i am beginning to think over the introductory chapter, and it has meanwhile occurred to me that i should like, at the beginning of the volumes, to put what follows on a blank page. _i dedicate this book to those friends of mine in america, who, loving their country, can bear the truth, when it is written good humouredly and in a kind spirit._ what do you think? do you see any objection?" my reply is to be inferred from what he sent back on the th. "i don't quite see my way towards an expression in the dedication of any feeling in reference to the american reception. of course i have always intended to glance at it, gratefully, in the end of the book; and it will have its place in the introductory chapter, if we decide for that. would it do to put in, after 'friends in america,' _who giving me a welcome i must ever gratefully and proudly remember, left my judgment free, and_ who, loving, &c. if so, so be it." before the end of the month he wrote: "for the last two or three days i have been rather slack in point of work; not being in the vein. to-day i had not written twenty lines before i rushed out (the weather being gorgeous) to bathe. and when i have done that, it is all up with me in the way of authorship until to-morrow. the little dog is in the highest spirits; and jumps, as mr. kenwigs would say, perpetivally. i have had letters by the britannia from felton, prescott, mr. q, and others, all very earnest and kind. i think you will like what i have written on the poor emigrants and their ways as i literally and truly saw them on the boat from quebec to montreal." this was a passage, which, besides being in itself as attractive as any in his writings, gives such perfect expression to a feeling that underlies them all, that i subjoin it in a note.[ ] on board this canadian steamboat he encountered crowds of poor emigrants and their children; and such was their patient kindness and cheerful endurance, in circumstances where the easy-living rich could hardly fail to be monsters of impatience and selfishness, that it suggested to him a reflection than which it was not possible to have written anything more worthy of observation, or more absolutely true. jeremy taylor has the same philosophy in his lesson on opportunities, but here it was beautified by the example with all its fine touches. it made us read rich and poor by new translation. the printers were now hard at work, and in the last week of september he wrote: "i send you proofs as far as niagara . . . i am rather holiday-making this week . . . taking principal part in a regatta here yesterday, very pretty and gay indeed. we think of coming up in time for macready's opening, when perhaps you will give us a chop; and of course you and mac will dine with _us_ the next day? i shall leave nothing of the book to do after coming home, please god, but the two chapters on slavery and the people which i could manage easily in a week, if need were . . . the policeman who supposed the duke of brunswick to be one of the swell mob, ought instantly to be made an inspector. the suspicion reflects the highest credit (i seriously think) on his penetration and judgment." three days later: "for the last two days we have had gales blowing from the north-east, and seas rolling on us that drown the pier. to-day it is tremendous. such a sea was never known here at this season, and it is running in at this moment in waves of twelve feet high. you would hardly know the place. but we shall be punctual to your dinner hour on saturday. if the wind should hold in the same quarter, we may be obliged to come up by land; and in that case i should start the caravan at six in the morning. . . . what do you think of this for my title--_american notes for general circulation_; and of this motto? "in reply to a question from the bench, the solicitor for the bank observed, that this kind of notes circulated the most extensively, in those parts of the world where they were stolen and forged. _old bailey report._" the motto was omitted, objection being made to it; and on the last day of the month i had the last of his letters during this broadstairs visit. "strange as it may appear to you" ( th of september), "the sea is running so high that we have no choice but to return by land. no steamer can come out of ramsgate, and the margate boat lay out all night on wednesday with all her passengers on board. you may be sure of us therefore on saturday at , for i have determined to leave here to-morrow, as we could not otherwise manage it in time; and have engaged an omnibus to bring the whole caravan by the overland route. . . . we cannot open a window, or a door; legs are of no use on the terrace; and the margate boats can only take people aboard at herne bay!" he brought with him all that remained to be done of his second volume except the last two chapters, including that to which he has referred as "introductory;" and on the following wednesday ( th of october) he told me that the first of these was done. "i want you very much to come and dine to-day that we may repair to drury-lane together; and let us say half-past four, or there is no time to be comfortable. i am going out to tottenham this morning, on a cheerless mission i would willingly have avoided. hone, of the _every day book_, is dying; and sent cruikshank yesterday to beg me to go and see him, as, having read no books but mine of late, he wanted to see and shake hands with me before (as george said) 'he went.' there is no help for it, of course; so to tottenham i repair, this morning. i worked all day, and till midnight; and finished the slavery chapter yesterday." the cheerless visit had its mournful sequel before the next month closed, when he went with the same companion to poor hone's funeral; and one of his letters written at the time to mr. felton has so vividly recalled to me the tragi-comedy of an incident of that day, as for long after he used to describe it, and as i have heard the other principal actor in it good-naturedly admit to be perfectly true, that two or three sentences may be given here. the wonderful neighbourhood in this life of ours, of serious and humorous things, constitutes in itself very much of the genius of dickens's writing; the laughter close to the pathos, but never touching it with ridicule; and this small occurrence may be taken in farther evidence of its reality. "we went into a little parlour where the funeral party was, and god knows it was miserable enough, for the widow and children were crying bitterly in one corner, and the other mourners (mere people of ceremony, who cared no more for the dead man than the hearse did) were talking quite coolly and carelessly together in another; and the contrast was as painful and distressing as anything i ever saw. there was an independent clergyman present, with his bands on and a bible under his arm, who, as soon as we were seated, addressed c thus, in a loud emphatic voice. 'mr. c, have you seen a paragraph respecting our departed friend, which has gone the round of the morning papers?' 'yes, sir,' says c, 'i have:' looking very hard at me the while, for he had told me with some pride coming down that it was his composition. 'oh!' said the clergyman. 'then you will agree with me, mr. c, that it is not only an insult to me, who am the servant of the almighty, but an insult to the almighty, whose servant i am.' 'how is that, sir?' says c. 'it is stated, mr. c, in that paragraph,' says the minister, 'that when mr. hone failed in business as a bookseller, he was persuaded by _me_ to try the pulpit; which is false, incorrect, unchristian, in a manner blasphemous, and in all respects contemptible. let us pray.' with which, and in the same breath, i give you my word, he knelt down, as we all did, and began a very miserable jumble of an extemporary prayer. i was really penetrated with sorrow for the family" (he exerted himself zealously for them afterwards, as the kind-hearted c also did), "but when c, upon his knees and sobbing for the loss of an old friend, whispered me 'that if that wasn't a clergyman, and it wasn't a funeral, he'd have punched his head,' i felt as if nothing but convulsions could possibly relieve me." on the th of october i heard from him that the chapter intended to be introductory to the _notes_ was written, and waiting our conference whether or not it should be printed. we decided against it; on his part so reluctantly, that i had to undertake for its publication when a more fitting time should come. this in my judgment has arrived, and the chapter first sees the light on this page. there is no danger at present, as there would have been when it was written, that its proper self-assertion should be mistaken for an apprehension of hostile judgments which he was anxious to deprecate or avoid. he is out of reach of all that now; and reveals to us here, as one whom fear or censure can touch no more, his honest purpose in the use of satire even where his humorous temptations were strongest. what he says will on other grounds also be read with unusual interest, for it will be found to connect itself impressively not with his first experiences only, but with his second visit to america at the close of his life. he held always the same high opinion of what was best in that country, and always the same contempt for what was worst in it. "introductory. and necessary to be read. "i have placed the foregoing title at the head of this page, because i challenge and deny the right of any person to pass judgment on this book, or to arrive at any reasonable conclusion in reference to it, without first being at the trouble of becoming acquainted with its design and purpose. "it is not statistical. figures of arithmetic have already been heaped upon america's devoted head, almost as lavishly as figures of speech have been piled above shakespeare's grave. "it comprehends no small talk concerning individuals, and no violation of the social confidences of private life. the very prevalent practice of kidnapping live ladies and gentlemen, forcing them into cabinets, and labelling and ticketing them whether they will or no, for the gratification of the idle and the curious, is not to my taste. therefore i have avoided it. "it has not a grain of any political ingredient in its whole composition. "neither does it contain, nor have i intended that it should contain, any lengthened and minute account of my personal reception in the united states: not because i am, or ever was, insensible to that spontaneous effusion of affection and generosity of heart, in a most affectionate and generous-hearted people; but because i conceive that it would ill become me to flourish matter necessarily involving so much of my own praises, in the eyes of my unhappy readers. "this book is simply what it claims to be--a record of the impressions i received from day to day, during my hasty travels in america, and sometimes (but not always) of the conclusions to which they, and after-reflection on them, have led me; a description of the country i passed through; of the institutions i visited; of the kind of people among whom i journeyed; and of the manners and customs that came within my observation. very many works having just the same scope and range, have been already published, but i think that these two volumes stand in need of no apology on that account. the interest of such productions, if they have any, lies in the varying impressions made by the same novel things on different minds; and not in new discoveries or extraordinary adventures. "i can scarcely be supposed to be ignorant of the hazard i run in writing of america at all. i know perfectly well that there is, in that country, a numerous class of well-intentioned persons prone to be dissatisfied with all accounts of the republic whose citizens they are, which are not couched in terms of exalted and extravagant praise. i know perfectly well that there is in america, as in most other places laid down in maps of the great world, a numerous class of persons so tenderly and delicately constituted, that they cannot bear the truth in any form. and i do not need the gift of prophecy to discern afar off, that they who will be aptest to detect malice, ill will, and all uncharitableness in these pages, and to show, beyond any doubt, that they are perfectly inconsistent with that grateful and enduring recollection which i profess to entertain of the welcome i found awaiting me beyond the atlantic--will be certain native journalists, veracious and gentlemanly, who were at great pains to prove to me, on all occasions during my stay there, that the aforesaid welcome was utterly worthless. "but, venturing to dissent even from these high authorities, i formed my own opinion of its value in the outset, and retain it to this hour; and in asserting (as i invariably did on all public occasions) my liberty and freedom of speech while i was among the americans, and in maintaining it at home, i believe that i best show my sense of the high worth of that welcome, and of the honourable singleness of purpose with which it was extended to me. from first to last i saw, in the friends who crowded round me in america, old readers, over-grateful and over-partial perhaps, to whom i had happily been the means of furnishing pleasure and entertainment; not a vulgar herd who would flatter and cajole a stranger into turning with closed eyes from all the blemishes of the nation, and into chaunting its praises with the discrimination of a street ballad-singer. from first to last i saw, in those hospitable hands, a home-made wreath of laurel; and not an iron muzzle disguised beneath a flower or two. "therefore i take--and hold myself not only justified in taking, but bound to take--the plain course of saying what i think, and noting what i saw; and as it is not my custom to exalt what in my judgment are foibles and abuses at home, so i have no intention of softening down, or glozing over, those that i have observed abroad. "if this book should fall into the hands of any sensitive american who cannot bear to be told that the working of the institutions of his country is far from perfect; that in spite of the advantage she has over all other nations in the elastic freshness and vigour of her youth, she is far from being a model for the earth to copy; and that even in those pictures of the national manners with which he quarrels most, there is still (after the lapse of several years, each of which may be fairly supposed to have had its stride in improvement) much that is just and true at this hour; let him lay it down, now, for i shall not please him. of the intelligent, reflecting, and educated among his countrymen, i have no fear; for i have ample reason to believe, after many delightful conversations not easily to be forgotten, that there are very few topics (if any) on which their sentiments differ materially from mine. "i may be asked--'if you have been in any respect disappointed in america, and are assured beforehand that the expression of your disappointment will give offence to any class, why do you write at all?' my answer is, that i went there expecting greater things than i found, and resolved as far as in me lay to do justice to the country, at the expense of any (in my view) mistaken or prejudiced statements that might have been made to its disparagement. coming home with a corrected and sobered judgment, i consider myself no less bound to do justice to what, according to my best means of judgment, i found to be the truth." of the book for whose opening page this matter introductory was written, it will be enough merely to add that it appeared on the th of october; that before the close of the year four large editions had been sold; and that in my opinion it thoroughly deserved the estimate formed of it by one connected with america by the strongest social affections, and otherwise in all respects an honourable, high-minded, upright judge. "you have been very tender," wrote lord jeffrey, "to our sensitive friends beyond sea, and my whole heart goes along with every word you have written. i think that you have perfectly accomplished all that you profess or undertake to do, and that the world has never yet seen a more faithful, graphic, amusing, kind-hearted narrative." * * * * * i permit myself so far to anticipate a later page as to print here a brief extract from one of the letters of the last american visit. without impairing the interest with which the narrative of that time will be read in its proper place, i shall thus indicate the extent to which present impressions were modified by the experience of twenty-six years later. he is writing from philadelphia on the fourteenth of january, . "i see _great changes_ for the better, socially. politically, no. england governed by the marylebone vestry and the penny papers, and england as she would be after years of such governing; is what i make of _that_. socially, the change in manners is remarkable. there is much greater politeness and forbearance in all ways. . . . on the other hand there are still provincial oddities wonderfully quizzical; and the newspapers are constantly expressing the popular amazement at 'mr. dickens's extraordinary composure.' they seem to take it ill that i don't stagger on to the platform overpowered by the spectacle before me, and the national greatness. they are all so accustomed to do public things with a flourish of trumpets, that the notion of my coming in to read without somebody first flying up and delivering an 'oration' about me, and flying down again and leading me in, is so very unaccountable to them, that sometimes they have no idea until i open my lips that it can possibly be charles dickens." footnotes: [ ] "cant as we may, and as we shall to the end of all things, it is very much harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the rich; and the good that is in them, shines the brighter for it. in many a noble mansion lives a man, the best of husbands and of fathers, whose private worth in both capacities is justly lauded to the skies. but bring him here, upon this crowded deck. strip from his fair young wife her silken dress and jewels, unbind her braided hair, stamp early wrinkles on her brow, pinch her pale cheek with care and much privation, array her faded form in coarsely patched attire, let there be nothing but his love to set her forth or deck her out, and you shall put it to the proof indeed. so change his station in the world that he shall see, in those young things who climb about his knee, not records of his wealth and name, but little wrestlers with him for his daily bread; so many poachers on his scanty meal; so many units to divide his every sum of comfort, and farther to reduce its small amount. in lieu of the endearments of childhood in its sweetest aspect, heap upon him all its pains and wants, its sicknesses and ills, its fretfulness, caprice, and querulous endurance: let its prattle be, not of engaging infant fancies, but of cold, and thirst, and hunger: and if his fatherly affection outlive all this, and he be patient, watchful, tender; careful of his children's lives, and mindful always of their joys and sorrows; then send him back to parliament, and pulpit, and to quarter sessions, and when he hears fine talk of the depravity of those who live from hand to mouth, and labour hard to do it, let him speak up, as one who knows, and tell those holders-forth that they, by parallel with such a class, should be high angels in their daily lives, and lay but humble siege to heaven at last. . . . which of us shall say what he would be, if such realities, with small relief or change all through his days, were his! looking round upon these people: far from home, houseless, indigent, wandering, weary with travel and hard living: and seeing how patiently they nursed and tended their young children: how they consulted ever their wants first, then half supplied their own; what gentle ministers of hope and faith the women were; how the men profited by their example; and how very, very seldom even a moment's petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them: i felt a stronger love and honour of my kind come glowing on my heart, and wished to god there had been many atheists in the better part of human nature there, to read this simple lesson in the book of life." chapter ii. first year of martin chuzzlewit. . a sunset at land's-end--description of the cornish tour--letter from maclise--maclise to j. f.--names first given to _chuzzlewit_--first number of _chuzzlewit_--prologue to a play--a tragedy by browning--accompaniments of work--miss georgina hogarth--american controversy--cottage at finchley--origin of mrs. gamp--change of editorship at _chronicle_--macready bound for america--works of charity and mercy--visit to broadstairs--sea-side life in ordinary--speech at opening of the manchester athenæum--dickens's interest in ragged schools--his sympathy with the church of england--origin of his _christmas carol_--third son born. the cornish trip had come off, meanwhile, with such unexpected and continued attraction for us that we were well into the third week of absence before we turned our faces homeward. railways helped us then not much; but where the roads were inaccessible to post-horses, we walked. tintagel was visited, and no part of mountain or sea consecrated by the legends of arthur was left unexplored. we ascended to the cradle of the highest tower of mount st. michael, and descended into several mines. land and sea yielded each its marvels to us; but of all the impressions brought away, of which some afterwards took forms as lasting as they could receive from the most delightful art, i doubt if any were the source of such deep emotion to us all as a sunset we saw at land's-end. stanfield knew the wonders of the continent, the glories of ireland were native to maclise, i was familiar from boyhood with border and scottish scenery, and dickens was fresh from niagara; but there was something in the sinking of the sun behind the atlantic that autumn afternoon, as we viewed it together from the top of the rock projecting farthest into the sea, which each in his turn declared to have no parallel in memory. but with the varied and overflowing gladness of those three memorable weeks it would be unworthy now to associate only the saddened recollection of the sole survivor. "blessed star of morning!" wrote dickens to felton while yet the glow of its enjoyment was upon him. "such a trip as we had into cornwall just after longfellow went away! . . . sometimes we travelled all night, sometimes all day, sometimes both. . . . heavens! if you could have seen the necks of bottles, distracting in their immense varieties of shape, peering out of the carriage pockets! if you could have witnessed the deep devotion of the post-boys, the wild attachment of the hostlers, the maniac glee of the waiters! if you could have followed us into the earthy old churches we visited, and into the strange caverns on the gloomy sea-shore, and down into the depths of mines, and up to the tops of giddy heights where the unspeakable green water was roaring, i don't know how many hundred feet below! if you could have seen but one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat in the big rooms of ancient inns at night, until long after the small hours had come and gone. . . . i never laughed in my life as i did on this journey. it would have done you good to hear me. i was choking and gasping and bursting the buckle off the back of my stock, all the way. and stanfield got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we could recover him. seriously, i do believe there never was such a trip. and they made such sketches, those two men, in the most romantic of our halting-places, that you would have sworn we had the spirit of beauty with us, as well as the spirit of fun."[ ] the logan stone, by stanfield, was one of them; and it laughingly sketched both the charm of what was seen and the mirth of what was done, for it perched me on the top of the stone. it is historical, however, the ascent having been made; and of this and other examples of steadiness at heights which deterred the rest, as well as of a subject suggested for a painting of which dickens became the unknown purchaser, maclise reminded me in some pleasant allusions many years later, which, notwithstanding their tribute to my athletic achievements, the good-natured reader must forgive my printing. they complete the little picture of our trip. something i had written to him of recent travel among the mountain scenery of the wilder coasts of donegal had touched the chord of these old remembrances. "as to your clambering," he replied, "don't i know what happened of old? don't i still see the logan stone, and you perched on the giddy top, while we, rocking it on its pivot, shrank from all that lay concealed below! should i ever have blundered on the waterfall of st. wighton, if you had not piloted the way? and when we got to land's-end, with the green sea far under us lapping into solitary rocky nooks where the mermaids live, who but you only had the courage to stretch over, to see those diamond jets of brightness that i swore then, and believe still, were the flappings of their tails! and don't i recall you again, sitting on the tip-top stone of the cradle-turret over the highest battlement of the castle of st. michael's mount, with not a ledge or coigne of vantage 'twixt you and the fathomless ocean under you, distant three thousand feet? last, do i forget you clambering up the goat-path to king arthur's castle of tintagel, when, in my vain wish to follow, i grovelled and clung to the soil like a caliban, and you, in the manner of a tricksy spirit and stout ariel, actually danced up and down before me!" the waterfall i led him to was among the records of the famous holiday, celebrated also by thackeray in one of his pen-and-ink pleasantries, which were sent by both painters to the next year's academy; and so eager was dickens to possess this landscape by maclise which included the likeness of a member of his family, yet so anxious that our friend should be spared the sacrifice which he knew would follow an avowal of his wish, that he bought it under a feigned name before the academy opened, and steadily refused to take back the money which on discovery of the artifice maclise pressed upon him.[ ] our friend, who already had munificently given him a charming drawing of his four eldest children to accompany him and his wife to america, had his generous way nevertheless; and as a voluntary offering four years later, painted mrs. dickens on a canvas of the same size as the picture of her husband in . "behold finally the title of the new book," was the first note i had from dickens ( th of november) after our return; "don't lose it, for i have no copy." title and even story had been undetermined while we travelled, from the lingering wish he still had to begin it among those cornish scenes; but this intention had now been finally abandoned, and the reader lost nothing by his substitution for the lighthouse or mine in cornwall, of the wiltshire-village forge on the windy autumn evening which opens the tale of _martin chuzzlewit_. into that name he finally settled, but only after much deliberation, as a mention of his changes will show. martin was the prefix to all, but the surname varied from its first form of sweezleden, sweezleback, and sweezlewag, to those of chuzzletoe, chuzzleboy, chubblewig, and chuzzlewig; nor was chuzzlewit chosen at last until after more hesitation and discussion. what he had sent me in his letter as finally adopted, ran thus: "the life and adventures of martin chuzzlewig, his family, friends, and enemies. comprising all his wills and his ways. with an historical record of what he did and what he didn't. the whole forming a complete key to the house of chuzzlewig." all which latter portion of the title was of course dropped as the work became modified, in its progress, by changes at first not contemplated; but as early as the third number he sent me the plan of "old martin's plot to degrade and punish pecksniff," and the difficulties he encountered in departing from other portions of his scheme were such as to render him, in his subsequent stories, more bent upon constructive care at the outset, and adherence as far as might be to any design he had formed. the first number, which appeared in january , had not been quite finished when he wrote to me on the th of december: "the chuzzlewit copy makes so much more than i supposed, that the number is nearly done. thank god!" beginning so hurriedly as at last he did, altering his course at the opening and seeing little as yet of the main track of his design, perhaps no story was ever begun by him with stronger heart or confidence. illness kept me to my rooms for some days, and he was so eager to try the effect of pecksniff and pinch that he came down with the ink hardly dry on the last slip to read the manuscript to me. well did sydney smith, in writing to say how very much the number had pleased him, foresee the promise there was in those characters. "pecksniff and his daughters, and pinch, are admirable--quite first-rate painting, such as no one but yourself can execute!" and let me here at once remark that the notion of taking pecksniff for a type of character was really the origin of the book; the design being to show, more or less by every person introduced, the number and variety of humours and vices that have their root in selfishness. another piece of his writing that claims mention at the close of was a prologue contributed to the _patrician's daughter_, mr. westland marston's first dramatic effort, which had attracted him by the beauty of its composition less than by the courage with which its subject had been chosen from the actual life of the time. "not light its import, and not poor its mien; yourselves the actors, and your homes the scene." this was the date, too, of mr. browning's tragedy of the _blot on the 'scutcheon_, which i took upon myself, after reading it in the manuscript, privately to impart to dickens; and i was not mistaken in the belief that it would profoundly touch him. "browning's play," he wrote ( th of november), "has thrown me into a perfect passion of sorrow. to say that there is anything in its subject save what is lovely, true, deeply affecting, full of the best emotion, the most earnest feeling, and the most true and tender source of interest, is to say that there is no light in the sun, and no heat in blood. it is full of genius, natural and great thoughts, profound and yet simple and beautiful in its vigour. i know nothing that is so affecting, nothing in any book i have ever read, as mildred's recurrence to that 'i was so young--i had no mother.' i know no love like it, no passion like it, no moulding of a splendid thing after its conception, like it. and i swear it is a tragedy that must be played; and must be played, moreover, by macready. there are some things i would have changed if i could (they are very slight, mostly broken lines); and i assuredly would have the old servant _begin his tale upon the scene_; and be taken by the throat, or drawn upon, by his master, in its commencement. but the tragedy i never shall forget, or less vividly remember than i do now. and if you tell browning that i have seen it, tell him that i believe from my soul there is no man living (and not many dead) who could produce such a work.--macready likes the altered prologue very much.". . . there will come a more convenient time to speak of his general literary likings, or special regard for contemporary books; but i will say now that nothing interested him more than successes won honestly in his own field, and that in his large and open nature there was no hiding-place for little jealousies. an instance occurs to me which may be named at once, when, many years after the present date, he called my attention very earnestly to two tales then in course of publication in _blackwood's magazine_, and afterwards collected under the title of _scenes of clerical life_. "do read them," he wrote. "they are the best things i have seen since i began my course." eighteen hundred and forty-three[ ] opened with the most vigorous prosecution of his _chuzzlewit_ labour. "i hope the number will be very good," he wrote to me of number two ( th of january). "i have been hammering away, and at home all day. ditto yesterday; except for two hours in the afternoon, when i ploughed through snow half a foot deep, round about the wilds of willesden." for the present, however, i shall glance only briefly from time to time at his progress with the earlier portions of the story on which he was thus engaged until the midsummer of . disappointments arose in connection with it, unexpected and strange, which had important influence upon him: but, i reserve the mention of these for awhile, that i may speak of the leading incidents of . "i am in a difficulty," he wrote ( th of february), "and am coming down to you some time to-day or to-night. i couldn't write a line yesterday; not a word, though i really tried hard. in a kind of despair i started off at half-past two with my pair of petticoats to richmond; and dined there!! oh what a lovely day it was in those parts." his pair of petticoats were mrs. dickens and her sister georgina: the latter, since his return from america, having become part of his household, of which she remained a member until his death; and he had just reason to be proud of the steadiness, depth, and devotion of her friendship. in a note-book begun by him in january , where, for the first time in his life, he jotted down hints and fancies proposed to be made available in future writings, i find a character sketched of which, if the whole was not suggested by his sister-in-law, the most part was applicable to her. "she--sacrificed to children, and sufficiently rewarded. from a child herself, always 'the children' (of somebody else) to engross her. and so it comes to pass that she is never married; never herself has a child; is always devoted 'to the children' (of somebody else); and they love her; and she has always youth dependent on her till her death--and dies quite happily." not many days after that holiday at richmond, a slight unstudied outline in pencil was made by maclise of the three who formed the party there, as we all sat together; and never did a touch so light carry with it more truth of observation. the likenesses of all are excellent; and i here preserve the drawing because nothing ever done of dickens himself has conveyed more vividly his look and bearing at this yet youthful time. he is in his most pleasing aspect; flattered, if you will; but nothing that is known to me gives a general impression so life-like and true of the then frank, eager, handsome face. it was a year of much illness with me, which had ever-helpful and active sympathy from him. "send me word how you are," he wrote, two days later. "but not so much for that i now write, as to tell you, peremptorily, that i insist on your wrapping yourself up and coming here in a hackney-coach, with a big portmanteau, to-morrow. it surely is better to be unwell with a quick and cheerful (and co) in the neighbourhood, than in the dreary vastness of lincoln's-inn-fields. here is the snuggest tent-bedstead in the world, and there you are with the drawing-room for your workshop, the q and c for your pal, and 'every-think in a concatenation accordingly.' i begin to have hopes of the regeneration of mankind after the reception of gregory last night, though i have none of the _chronicle_ for not denouncing the villain. have you seen the note touching my _notes_ in the blue and yellow?" the first of these closing allusions was to the editor of the infamous _satirist_ having been hissed from the drury-lane stage, on which he had presented himself in the character of hamlet; and i remember with what infinite pleasure i afterwards heard chief justice tindal in court, charging the jury in an action brought by this malefactor against a publican of st. giles's for having paid men to take part in the hissing of him, avow the pride he felt in "living in the same parish with a man of that humble station of life of the defendant's," who was capable of paying money out of his own pocket to punish what he believed to be an outrage to decency. the second allusion was to a statement of the reviewer of the _american notes_ in the _edinburgh_ to the effect, that, if he had been rightly informed, dickens had gone to america as a kind of missionary in the cause of international copyright; to which a prompt contradiction had been given in the _times_. "i deny it," wrote dickens, "wholly. he is wrongly informed; and reports, without enquiry, a piece of information which i could only characterize by using one of the shortest and strongest words in the language." the disputes that had arisen out of the american book, i may add, stretched over great part of the year. it will quite suffice, however, to say here that the ground taken by him in his letters written on the spot, and printed in my former volume, which in all the more material statements his book invited public judgment upon and which he was moved to reopen in _chuzzlewit_, was so kept by him against all comers, that none of the counter-statements or arguments dislodged him from a square inch of it. but the controversy is dead now; and he took occasion, on his later visit to america, to write its epitaph. though i did not, to revert to his february letter, obey its cordial bidding by immediately taking up quarters with him, i soon after joined him at a cottage he rented in finchley; and here, walking and talking in the green lanes as the midsummer months were coming on, his introduction of mrs. gamp, and the uses to which he should apply that remarkable personage, first occurred to him. in his preface to the book he speaks of her as a fair representation, at the time it was published, of the hired attendant on the poor in sickness: but he might have added that the rich were no better off, for mrs. gamp's original was in reality a person hired by a most distinguished friend of his own, a lady, to take charge of an invalid very dear to her; and the common habit of this nurse in the sick room, among other gampish peculiarities, was to rub her nose along the top of the tall fender. whether or not, on that first mention of her, i had any doubts whether such a character could be made a central figure in his story, i do not now remember; but if there were any at the time, they did not outlive the contents of the packet which introduced her to me in the flesh a few weeks after our return. "tell me," he wrote from yorkshire, where he had been meanwhile passing pleasant holiday with a friend, "what you think of mrs. gamp? you'll not find it easy to get through the hundreds of misprints in her conversation, but i want your opinion at once. i think you know already something of mine. i mean to make a mark with her." the same letter enclosed me a clever and pointed little parable in verse which he had written for an annual edited by lady blessington.[ ] another allusion in the february letter reminds me of the interest which his old work for the _chronicle_ gave him in everything affecting its credit, and that this was the year when mr. john black ceased to be its editor, in circumstances reviving strongly all dickens's sympathies. "i am deeply grieved" ( rd of may, ) "about black. sorry from my heart's core. if i could find him out, i would go and comfort him this moment." he did find him out; and he and a certain number of us did also comfort this excellent man after a fashion extremely english, by giving him a greenwich dinner on the th of may; when dickens had arranged and ordered all to perfection, and the dinner succeeded in its purpose, as in other ways, quite wonderfully. among the entertainers were sheil and thackeray, fonblanque and charles buller, southwood smith and william johnson fox, macready and maclise, as well as myself and dickens. there followed another similar celebration, in which one of these entertainers was the guest and which owed hardly less to dickens's exertions, when, at the star-and-garter at richmond in the autumn, we wished macready good-speed on his way to america. dickens took the chair at that dinner; and with stanfield, maclise, and myself, was in the following week to have accompanied the great actor to liverpool to say good-bye to him on board the cunard ship, and bring his wife back to london after their leave-taking; when a word from our excellent friend captain marryat, startling to all of us except dickens himself, struck him out of our party. marryat thought that macready might suffer in the states by any public mention of his having been attended on his way by the author of the _american notes_ and _martin chuzzlewit_, and our friend at once agreed with him. "your main and foremost reason," he wrote to me, "for doubting marryat's judgment, i can at once destroy. it has occurred to me many times; i have mentioned the thing to kate more than once; and i had intended _not_ to go on board, charging radley to let nothing be said of my being in his house. i have been prevented from giving any expression to my fears by a misgiving that i should seem to attach, if i did so, too much importance to my own doings. but now that i have marryat at my back, i have not the least hesitation in saying that i am certain he is right. i have very great apprehensions that the _nickleby_ dedication will damage macready. marryat is wrong in supposing it is not printed in the american editions, for i have myself seen it in the shop windows of several cities. if i were to go on board with him, i have not the least doubt that the fact would be placarded all over new york, before he had shaved himself in boston. and that there are thousands of men in america who would pick a quarrel with him on the mere statement of his being my friend, i have no more doubt than i have of my existence. you have only doubted marryat because it is impossible for _any man_ to know what they are in their own country, who has not seen them there." this letter was written from broadstairs, whither he had gone in august, after such help as he only could give, and never took such delight as in giving, to a work of practical humanity. earlier in the year he had presided at a dinner for the printers' pension-fund, which thomas hood, douglas jerrold, and myself attended with him; and upon the terrible summer-evening accident at sea by which mr. elton the actor lost his life, it was mainly by dickens's unremitting exertions, seconded admirably by mr. serle and warmly taken up by mr. elton's own profession (the most generous in the world), that ample provision was made for the many children. at the close of august i had news of him from his favourite watering-place, too characteristic to be omitted. the day before had been a day of "terrific heat," yet this had not deterred him from doing what he was too often suddenly prone to do in the midst of his hardest work. "i performed an insane match against time of eighteen miles by the milestones in four hours and a half, under a burning sun the whole way. i could get" (he is writing next morning) "no sleep at night, and really began to be afraid i was going to have a fever. you may judge in what kind of authorship-training i am to-day. i could as soon eat the cliff as write about anything." a few days later, however, all was well again; and another sketch from himself, to his american friend, will show his sea-side life in ordinary. "in a bay-window in a one-pair sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. at one he disappears, presently emerges from a bathing-machine, and may be seen, a kind of salmon-coloured porpoise, splashing about in the ocean. after that he may be viewed in another bay-window on the ground floor, eating a strong lunch; and after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back in the sand reading a book. nobody bothers him unless they know he is disposed to be talked to; and i am told he is very comfortable indeed. he's as brown as a berry, and they _do_ say is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch. but this is mere rumour. sometimes he goes up to london (eighty miles or so away), and then i'm told there is a sound in lincoln's-inn-fields at night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and forks and wine-glasses."[ ] he returned to town "for good" on monday the nd of october, and from the wednesday to the friday of that week was at manchester, presiding at the opening of its great athenæum, when mr. cobden and mr. disraeli also "assisted." here he spoke mainly on a matter always nearest his heart, the education of the very poor. he protested against the danger of calling a little learning dangerous; declared his preference for the very least of the little over none at all; proposed to substitute for the old a new doggerel, though house and lands be never got, learning can give what they can _not_; told his listeners of the real and paramount danger we had lately taken longfellow to see in the nightly refuges of london, "thousands of immortal creatures condemned without alternative or choice to tread, not what our great poet calls the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire, but one of jagged flints and stones laid down by brutal ignorance;" and contrasted this with the unspeakable consolation and blessings that a little knowledge had shed on men of the lowest estate and most hopeless means, "watching the stars with ferguson the shepherd's boy, walking the streets with crabbe, a poor barber here in lancashire with arkwright, a tallow-chandler's son with franklin, shoemaking with bloomfield in his garret, following the plough with burns, and, high above the noise of loom and hammer, whispering courage in the ears of workers i could this day name in sheffield and in manchester." the same spirit impelled him to give eager welcome to the remarkable institution of ragged schools, which, begun by a shoemaker of southampton and a chimney-sweep of windsor and carried on by a peer of the realm, has had results of incalculable importance to society. the year of which i am writing was its first, as this in which i write is its last; and in the interval, out of three hundred thousand children to whom it has given some sort of education, it is computed also to have given to a third of that number the means of honest employment.[ ] "i sent miss coutts," he had written ( th of september), "a sledge hammer account of the ragged schools; and as i saw her name for two hundred pounds in the clergy education subscription-list, took pains to show her that religious mysteries and difficult creeds wouldn't do for such pupils. i told her, too, that it was of immense importance they should be _washed_. she writes back to know what the rent of some large airy premises would be, and what the expense of erecting a regular bathing or purifying place; touching which points i am in correspondence with the authorities. i have no doubt she will do whatever i ask her in the matter. she is a most excellent creature, i protest to god, and i have a most perfect affection and respect for her." one of the last things he did at the close of the year, in the like spirit, was to offer to describe the ragged schools for the _edinburgh review_. "i have told napier," he wrote to me, "i will give a description of them in a paper on education, if the _review_ is not afraid to take ground against the church catechism and other mere formularies and subtleties, in reference to the education of the young and ignorant. i fear it is extremely improbable it will consent to commit itself so far." his fears were well-founded; but the statements then made by him give me opportunity to add that it was his impatience of differences on this point with clergymen of the established church that had led him, for the past year or two, to take sittings in the little portland-street unitarian chapel; for whose officiating minister, mr. edward tagart, he had a friendly regard which continued long after he had ceased to be a member of his congregation. that he did so quit it, after two or three years, i can distinctly state; and of the frequent agitation of his mind and thoughts in connection with this all-important theme, there will be other occasions to speak. but upon essential points he had never any sympathy so strong as with the leading doctrine and discipline of the church of england; to these, as time went on, he found himself able to accommodate all minor differences; and the unswerving faith in christianity itself, apart from sects and schisms, which had never failed him at any period of his life, found expression at its close in the language of his will. twelve months before his death, these words were written. "i direct that my name be inscribed in plain english letters on my tomb . . . i conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. i rest my claim to the remembrance of my country on my published works, and to the remembrance of my friends upon their experience of me in addition thereto. i commit my soul to the mercy of god, through our lord and saviour jesus christ; and i exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the teaching of the new testament in its broad spirit, and to put no faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter here or there." active as he had been in the now ending year, and great as were its varieties of employment; his genius in its highest mood, his energy unwearied in good work, and his capacity for enjoyment without limit; he was able to signalize its closing months by an achievement supremely fortunate, which but for disappointments the year had also brought might never have been thought of. he had not begun until a week after his return from manchester, where the fancy first occurred to him, and before the end of november he had finished, his memorable _christmas carol_. it was the work of such odd moments of leisure as were left him out of the time taken up by two numbers of his _chuzzlewit_; and though begun with but the special design of adding something to the _chuzzlewit_ balance, i can testify to the accuracy of his own account of what befell him in its composition, with what a strange mastery it seized him for itself, how he wept over it, and laughed, and wept again, and excited himself to an extraordinary degree, and how he walked thinking of it fifteen and twenty miles about the black streets of london, many and many a night after all sober folks had gone to bed. and when it was done, as he told our friend mr. felton in america, he let himself loose like a madman. "forster is out again," he added, by way of illustrating our practical comments on his celebration of the jovial old season, "and if he don't go in again after the manner in which we have been keeping christmas, he must be very strong indeed. such dinings, such dancings, such conjurings, such blind-man's-buffings, such theatre-goings, such kissings-out of old years and kissings-in of new ones, never took place in these parts before." yet had it been to him, this closing year, a time also of much anxiety and strange disappointments of which i am now to speak; and before, with that view, we go back for a while to its earlier months, one step into the new year may be taken for what marked it with interest and importance to him. eighteen hundred and forty-four was but fifteen days old when a third son (his fifth child, which received the name of its godfather francis jeffrey) was born; and here is an answer sent by him, two days later, to an invitation from maclise, stanfield, and myself to dine with us at richmond. "devonshire lodge, _seventeenth of january_, . fellow countrymen! the appeal with which you have honoured me, awakens within my breast emotions that are more easily to be imagined than described. heaven bless you. i shall indeed be proud, my friends, to respond to such a requisition. i had withdrawn from public life--i fondly thought forever--to pass the evening of my days in hydropathical pursuits, and the contemplation of virtue. for which latter purpose, i had bought a looking-glass.--but, my friends, private feeling must ever yield to a stern sense of public duty. the man is lost in the invited guest, and i comply. nurses, wet and dry; apothecaries; mothers-in-law; babbies; with all the sweet (and chaste) delights of private life; these, my countrymen, are hard to leave. but you have called me forth, and i will come. fellow countrymen, your friend and faithful servant, charles dickens." footnotes: [ ] printed in the _atlantic monthly_ shortly after his death, and since collected, by mr. james t. fields of boston, with several of later date addressed to himself, and much correspondence having reference to other writers, into a pleasing volume entitled _yesterdays with authors_. [ ] this is mentioned in mr. o. driscoll's agreeable little memoir, but supposed to refer to maclise's portrait of dickens. [ ] in one of the letters to his american friend mr. felton there is a glimpse of christmas sports which had escaped my memory, and for which a corner may be found here, inasmuch as these gambols were characteristic of him at the pleasant old season, and were frequently renewed in future years. "the best of it is" ( dec. ) "that forster and i have purchased between us the entire stock-in-trade of a conjuror, the practice and display whereof is entrusted to me. . . . in those tricks which require a confederate i am assisted (by reason of his imperturbable good humour) by stanfield, who always does his part exactly the wrong way, to the unspeakable delight of all beholders. we come out on a small scale to-night, at forster's, where we see the old year out and the new one in." _atlantic monthly_, july . [ ] "i have heard, as you have, from lady blessington, for whose behoof i have this morning penned the lines i send you herewith. but i have only done so to excuse myself, for i have not the least idea of their suiting her; and i hope she will send them back to you for the _ex._" c. d. to j. f. july . the lines are quite worth preserving. a word in season. they have a superstition in the east, that allah, written on a piece of paper, is better unction than can come of priest, of rolling incense, and of lighted taper: holding, that any scrap which bears that name in any characters its front impress'd on, shall help the finder thro' the purging flame, and give his toasted feet a place to rest on. accordingly, they make a mighty fuss with every wretched tract and fierce oration, and hoard the leaves--for they are not, like us a highly civilized and thinking nation: and, always stooping in the miry ways to look for matter of this earthly leaven, they seldom, in their dust-exploring days, have any leisure to look up to heaven. so have i known a country on the earth where darkness sat upon the living waters, and brutal ignorance, and toil, and dearth were the hard portion of its sons and daughters: and yet, where they who should have oped the door of charity and light, for all men's finding squabbled for words upon the altar-floor, and rent the book, in struggles for the binding. the gentlest man among those pious turks god's living image ruthlessly defaces; their best high-churchman, with no faith in works, bowstrings the virtues in the market-places. the christian pariah, whom both sects curse (they curse all other men, and curse each other), walks thro' the world, not very much the worse, does all the good he can, and loves his brother. [ ] c. d. to professor felton ( st sept. ), in _atlantic monthly_ for july . [ ] "after a period of years, from a single school of five small infants, the work has grown into a cluster of some schools, an aggregate of nearly , children, and a body of voluntary teachers, most of them the sons and daughters of toil. . . . of more than , children which, on the most moderate calculation, we have a right to conclude have passed through these schools since their commencement, i venture to affirm that more than , of both sexes have been placed out in various ways, in emigration, in the marine, in trades, and in domestic service. for many consecutive years i have contributed prizes to thousands of the scholars; and let no one omit to call to mind what these children were, whence they came, and whither they were going without this merciful intervention. they would have been added to the perilous swarm of the wild, the lawless, the wretched, and the ignorant, instead of being, as by god's blessing they are, decent and comfortable, earning an honest livelihood, and adorning the community to which they belong." _letter of lord shaftesbury in the times of the th of november, ._ chapter iii. chuzzlewit disappointments and christmas carol. - . sale of _chuzzlewit_--publishers and authors--unlucky clause in _chuzzlewit_ agreement--resolve to have other publishers--a plan for seeing foreign cities--confidence in himself--preparation of _carol_--turning-point of his career--work and its interruptions--superiority of _martin chuzzlewit_ to former books--news from america--a favourite scene of thackeray's--grand purpose of the satire of _chuzzlewit_--publication of _christmas carol_--unrealized hopes--agreement with bradbury and evans. chuzzlewit had fallen short of all the expectations formed of it in regard to sale. by much the most masterly of his writings hitherto, the public had rallied to it in far less numbers than to any of its predecessors. the primary cause of this, there is little doubt, had been the change to weekly issues in the form of publication of his last two stories; for into everything in this world mere habit enters more largely than we are apt to suppose. nor had the temporary withdrawal to america been favourable to an immediate resumption by his readers of their old and intimate relations. this also is to be added, that the excitement by which a popular reputation is kept up to the highest selling mark, will always be subject to lulls too capricious for explanation. but whatever the causes, here was the undeniable fact of a grave depreciation of sale in his writings, unaccompanied by any falling off either in themselves or in the writer's reputation. it was very temporary; but it was present, and to be dealt with accordingly. the forty and fifty thousand purchasers of _pickwick_ and _nickleby_, the sixty and seventy thousand of the early numbers of the enterprize in which the _old curiosity shop_ and _barnaby rudge_ appeared, had fallen to little over twenty thousand. they rose somewhat on martin's ominous announcement, at the end of the fourth number, that he'd _go to america_; but though it was believed that this resolve, which dickens adopted as suddenly as his hero, might increase the number of his readers, that reason influenced him less than the challenge to make good his _notes_ which every mail had been bringing him from unsparing assailants beyond the atlantic. the substantial effect of the american episode upon the sale was yet by no means great. a couple of thousand additional purchasers were added, but the highest number at any time reached before the story closed was twenty-three thousand. its sale, since, has ranked next after _pickwick_ and _copperfield_. we were now, however, to have a truth brought home to us which few that have had real or varied experience in such matters can have failed to be impressed by--that publishers are bitter bad judges of an author, and are seldom safe persons to consult in regard to the fate or fortunes that may probably await him. describing the agreement for this book in september , i spoke of a provision against the improbable event of its profits proving inadequate to certain necessary repayments. in this unlikely case, which was to be ascertained by the proceeds of the first five numbers, the publishers were to have power to appropriate fifty pounds a month out of the two hundred pounds payable for authorship in the expenses of each number; but though this had been introduced with my knowledge, i knew also too much of the antecedent relations of the parties to regard it as other than a mere form to satisfy the attorneys in the case. the fifth number, which landed martin and mark in america, and the sixth, which described their first experiences, were published; and on the eve of the seventh, in which mrs. gamp was to make her first appearance, i heard with infinite pain that from mr. hall, the younger partner of the firm which had enriched itself by _pickwick_ and _nickleby_, and a very kind well-disposed man, there had dropped an inconsiderate hint to the writer of those books that it might be desirable to put the clause in force. it had escaped him without his thinking of all that it involved; certainly the senior partner, whatever amount of as thoughtless sanction he had at the moment given to it, always much regretted it, and made endeavours to exhibit his regret; but the mischief was done, and for the time was irreparable. "i am so irritated," dickens wrote to me on the th of june, "so rubbed in the tenderest part of my eyelids with bay-salt, by what i told you yesterday, that a wrong kind of fire is burning in my head, and i don't think i _can_ write. nevertheless, i am trying. in case i should succeed, and should not come down to you this morning, shall you be at the club or elsewhere after dinner? i am bent on paying the money. and before going into the matter with anybody i should like you to propound from me the one preliminary question to bradbury and evans. it is more than a year and a half since clowes wrote to urge me to give him a hearing, in case i should ever think of altering my plans. a printer is better than a bookseller, and it is quite as much the interest of one (if not more) to join me. but whoever it is, or whatever, i am bent upon paying chapman and hall _down_. and when i have done that, mr. hall shall have a piece of my mind." what he meant by the proposed repayment will be understood by what formerly was said of his arrangements with these gentlemen on the repurchase of his early copyrights. feeling no surprise at this announcement, i yet prevailed with him to suspend proceedings until his return from broadstairs in october; and what then i had to say led to memorable resolves. the communication he had desired me to make to his printers had taken them too much by surprise to enable them to form a clear judgment respecting it; and they replied by suggestions which were in effect a confession of that want of confidence in themselves. they enlarged upon the great results that would follow a reissue of his writings in a cheap form; they strongly urged such an undertaking; and they offered to invest to any desired amount in the establishment of a magazine or other periodical to be edited by him. the possible dangers, in short, incident to their assuming the position of publishers as well as printers of new works from his pen, seemed at first to be so much greater than on closer examination they were found to be, that at the outset they shrank from encountering them. and hence the remarkable letter i shall now quote ( st of november, ). "don't be startled by the novelty and extent of my project. both startled _me_ at first; but i am well assured of its wisdom and necessity. i am afraid of a magazine--just now. i don't think the time a good one, or the chances favourable. i am afraid of putting myself before the town as writing tooth and nail for bread, headlong, after the close of a book taking so much out of one as _chuzzlewit_. i am afraid i could not do it, with justice to myself. i know that whatever we may say at first, a new magazine, or a new anything, would require so much propping, that i should be _forced_ (as in the _clock_) to put myself into it, in my old shape. i am afraid of bradbury and evans's desire to force on the cheap issue of my books, or any of them, prematurely. i am sure if it took place yet awhile, it would damage me and damage the property, _enormously_. it is very natural in them to want it; but, since they do want it, i have no faith in their regarding me in any other respect than they would regard any other man in a speculation. i see that this is really your opinion as well; and i don't see what i gain, in such a case, by leaving chapman and hall. if i had made money, i should unquestionably fade away from the public eye for a year, and enlarge my stock of description and observation by seeing countries new to me; which it is most necessary to me that i should see, and which with an increasing family i can scarcely hope to see at all, unless i see them now. already for some time i have had this hope and intention before me; and though not having made money yet, i find or fancy that i can put myself in the position to accomplish it. and this is the course i have before me. at the close of _chuzzlewit_ (by which time the debt will have been materially reduced) i purpose drawing from chapman and hall my share of the subscription--bills, or money, will do equally well. i design to tell them that it is not likely i shall do anything for a year; that, in the meantime, i make no arrangement whatever with any one; and our business matters rest _in statu quo_. the same to bradbury and evans. i shall let the house if i can; if not, leave it to be let. i shall take all the family, and two servants--three at most--to some place which i know beforehand to be cheap and in a delightful climate, in normandy or brittany, to which i shall go over, first, and where i shall rent some house for six or eight months. during that time, i shall walk through switzerland, cross the alps, travel through france and italy; take kate perhaps to rome and venice, but not elsewhere; and in short see everything that is to be seen. i shall write my descriptions to you from time to time, exactly as i did in america; and you will be able to judge whether or not a new and attractive book may not be made on such ground. at the same time i shall be able to turn over the story i have in my mind, and which i have a strong notion might be published with great advantage, _first in paris_--but that's another matter to be talked over. and of course i have not yet settled, either, whether any book about the travel, or this, should be the first. 'all very well,' you say, 'if you had money enough.' well, but if i can see my way to what would be necessary without binding myself in any form to anything; without paying interest, or giving any security but one of my eagle five thousand pounds; you would give up that objection. and i stand committed to no bookseller, printer, money-lender, banker, or patron whatever; and decidedly strengthen my position with my readers, instead of weakening it, drop by drop, as i otherwise must. is it not so? and is not the way before me, plainly this? i infer that in reality you do yourself think, that what i first thought of is _not_ the way? i have told you my scheme very badly, as i said i would. i see its great points, against many prepossessions the other way--as, leaving england, home, friends, everything i am fond of--but it seems to me, at a critical time, _the_ step to set me right. a blessing on mr. mariotti my italian master, and his pupil!--if you have any breath left, tell topping how you are." i had certainly not much after reading this letter, written amid all the distractions of his work, with both the _carol_ and _chuzzlewit_ in hand; but such insufficient breath as was left to me i spent against the project, and in favour of far more consideration than he had given to it, before anything should be settled. "i expected you," he wrote next day (the nd of november), "to be startled. if i was startled myself, when i first got this project of foreign travel into my head, months ago, how much more must you be, on whom it comes fresh: numbering only hours! still, i am very resolute upon it--very. i am convinced that my expenses abroad would not be more than half of my expenses here; the influence of change and nature upon me, enormous. you know, as well as i, that i think _chuzzlewit_ in a hundred points immeasurably the best of my stories. that i feel my power now, more than i ever did. that i have a greater confidence in myself than i ever had. that i _know_, if i have health, i could sustain my place in the minds of thinking men, though fifty writers started up to-morrow. but how many readers do _not_ think! how many take it upon trust from knaves and idiots, that one writes too fast, or runs a thing to death! how coldly did this very book go on for months, until it forced itself up in people's opinion, without forcing itself up in sale! if i wrote for forty thousand forsters, or for forty thousand people who know i write because i can't help it, i should have no need to leave the scene. but this very book warns me that if i _can_ leave it for a time, i had better do so, and must do so. apart from that again, i feel that longer rest after this story would do me good. you say two or three months, because you have been used to see me for eight years never leaving off. but it is not rest enough. it is impossible to go on working the brain to that extent for ever. the very spirit of the thing, in doing it, leaves a horrible despondency behind, when it is done; which must be prejudicial to the mind, so soon renewed, and so seldom let alone. what would poor scott have given to have gone abroad, of his own free will, a young man, instead of creeping there, a driveller, in his miserable decay! i said myself in my note to you--anticipating what you put to me--that it was a question _what_ i should come out with, first. the travel-book, if to be done at all, would cost me very little trouble; and surely would go very far to pay charges, whenever published. we have spoken of the baby, and of leaving it here with catherine's mother. moving the children into france could not, in any ordinary course of things, do them anything but good. and the question is, what it would do to that by which they live: not what it would do to them.--i had forgotten that point in the b. and e. negociation; but they certainly suggested instant publication of the reprints, or at all events of some of them; by which of course i know, and as you point out, i could provide of myself what is wanted. i take that as putting the thing distinctly as a matter of trade, and feeling it so. and, as a matter of trade with them or anybody else, as a matter of trade between me and the public, should i not be better off a year hence, with the reputation of having seen so much in the meantime? the reason which induces you to look upon this scheme with dislike--separation for so long a time--surely has equal weight with me. i see very little pleasure in it, beyond the natural desire to have been in those great scenes; i anticipate no enjoyment at the time. i have come to look upon it as a matter of policy and duty. i have a thousand other reasons, but shall very soon myself be with you." there were difficulties, still to be strongly urged, against taking any present step to a final resolve; and he gave way a little. but the pressure was soon renewed. "i have been," he wrote ( th of november), "all day in _chuzzlewit_ agonies--conceiving only. i hope to bring forth to-morrow. will you come here at six? i want to say a word or two about the cover of the _carol_ and the advertising, and to consult you on a nice point in the tale. it will come wonderfully i think. mac will call here soon after, and we can then all three go to bulwer's together. and do, my dear fellow, do for god's sake turn over about chapman and hall, and look upon my project as a _settled thing_. if you object to see them, i must write to them." my reluctance as to the question affecting his old publishers was connected with the little story, which, amid all his perturbations and troubles and "_chuzzlewit_ agonies," he was steadily carrying to its close; and which remains a splendid proof of how thoroughly he was borne out in the assertion just before made, of the sense of his power felt by him, and his confidence that it had never been greater than when his readers were thus falling off from him. he had entrusted the _carol_ for publication on his own account, under the usual terms of commission, to the firm he had been so long associated with; and at such a moment to tell them, short of absolute necessity, his intention to quit them altogether, i thought a needless putting in peril of the little book's chances. he yielded to this argument; but the issue, as will be found, was less fortunate than i hoped. let disappointments or annoyances, however, beset him as they might, once heartily in his work and all was forgotten. his temperament of course coloured everything, cheerful or sad, and his present outlook was disturbed by imaginary fears; but it was very certain that his labours and successes thus far had enriched others more than himself, and while he knew that his mode of living had been scrupulously governed by what he believed to be his means, the first suspicion that these might be inadequate made a change necessary to so upright a nature. it was the turning-point of his career; and the issue, though not immediately, ultimately justified him. much of his present restlessness i was too ready myself to ascribe to that love of change in him which was always arising from his passionate desire to vary and extend his observation; but even as to this the result showed him right in believing that he should obtain decided intellectual advantage from the mere effects of such farther travel. here indeed he spoke from experience, for already he had returned from america with wider views than when he started, and with a larger maturity of mind. the money difficulties on which he dwelt were also, it is now to be admitted, unquestionable. beyond his own domestic expenses necessarily increasing, there were many, never-satisfied, constantly-recurring claims from family quarters, not the more easily avoidable because unreasonable and unjust; and it was after describing to me one such with great bitterness, a few days following the letter last quoted, that he thus replied on the following day ( th of november) to the comment i had made upon it. "i was most horribly put out for a little while; for i had got up early to go at it, and was full of interest in what i had to do. but having eased my mind by that note to you, and taken a turn or two up and down the room, i went at it again, and soon got so interested that i blazed away till last night; only stopping ten minutes for dinner! i suppose i wrote eight printed pages of _chuzzlewit_ yesterday. the consequence is that i _could_ finish to-day, but am taking it easy, and making myself laugh very much." the very next day, unhappily, there came to himself a repetition of precisely similar trouble in exaggerated form, and to me a fresh reminder of what was gradually settling into a fixed resolve. "i am quite serious and sober when i say, that i have very grave thoughts of keeping my whole menagerie in italy, three years." * * * * * of the book which awoke such varied feelings and was the occasion of such vicissitudes of fortune, some notice is now due; and this, following still as yet my former rule, will be not so much critical as biographical. he had left for italy before the completed tale was published, and its reception for a time was exactly what his just-quoted letter prefigures. it had forced itself up in public opinion without forcing itself up in sale. it was felt generally to be an advance upon his previous stories, and his own opinion is not to be questioned that it was in a hundred points immeasurably the best of them thus far; less upon the surface, and going deeper into springs of character. nor would it be difficult to say, in a single word, where the excellence lay that gave it this superiority. it had brought his highest faculty into play: over and above other qualities it had given scope to his imagination; and it first expressed the distinction in this respect between his earlier and his later books. apart wholly from this, too, his letters will have confirmed a remark already made upon the degree to which his mental power had been altogether deepened and enlarged by the effect of his visit to america. in construction and conduct of story _martin chuzzlewit_ is defective, character and description constituting the chief part of its strength. but what it lost as a story by the american episode it gained in the other direction; young martin, by happy use of a bitter experience, casting off his slough of selfishness in the poisonous swamp of eden. dickens often confessed, however, the difficulty it had been to him to have to deal with this gap in the main course of his narrative; and i will give an instance from a letter he wrote to me when engaged upon the number in which jonas brings his wife to her miserable home. "i write in haste" ( th of july ), "for i have been at work all day; and, it being against the grain with me to go back to america when my interest is strong in the other parts of the tale, have got on but slowly. i have a great notion to work out with sydney's favourite,[ ] and long to be at him again." but obstructions of this kind with dickens measured only and always the degree of readiness and resource with which he rose to meet them, and never had his handling of character been so masterly as in _chuzzlewit_. the persons delineated in former books had been more agreeable, but never so interpenetrated with meanings brought out with a grasp so large, easy, and firm. as well in this as in the passionate vividness of its descriptions, the imaginative power makes itself felt. the windy autumn night, with the mad desperation of the hunted leaves and the roaring mirth of the blazing village forge; the market-day at salisbury; the winter walk, and the coach journey to london by night; the ship voyage over the atlantic; the stormy midnight travel before the murder, the stealthy enterprise and cowardly return of the murderer; these are all instances of first-rate description, original in the design, imaginative in all the detail, and very complete in the execution. but the higher power to which i direct attention is even better discerned in the persons and dialogue. with nothing absent or abated in its sharp impressions of reality, there are more of the subtle requisites which satisfy reflection and thought. we have in this book for the most part, not only observation but the outcome of it, the knowledge as well as the fact. while we witness as vividly the life immediately passing, we are more conscious of the permanent life above and beyond it. nothing nearly so effective therefore had yet been achieved by him. he had scrutinised as truly and satirised as keenly; but had never shown the imaginative insight with which he now sent his humour and his art into the core of the vices of the time. sending me the second chapter of his eighth number on the th of august, he gave me the latest tidings from america. "i gather from a letter i have had this morning that martin has made them all stark staring raving mad across the water. i wish you would consider this. don't you think the time has come when i ought to state that such public entertainments as i received in the states were either accepted before i went out, or in the first week after my arrival there; and that as soon as i began to have any acquaintance with the country, i set my face against any public recognition whatever but that which was forced upon me to the destruction of my peace and comfort--and made no secret of my real sentiments." we did not agree as to this, and the notion was abandoned; though his correspondent had not overstated the violence of the outbreak in the states when those chapters exploded upon them. but though an angry they are a good humoured and a very placable people; and, as time moved on a little, the laughter on that side of the atlantic became quite as great as our amusement on this side, at the astonishing fun and comicality of these scenes. with a little reflection the americans had doubtless begun to find out that the advantage was not all with us, nor the laughter wholly against them. they had no pecksniff at any rate. bred in a more poisonous swamp than their eden, of greatly older standing and much harder to be drained, pecksniff was all our own. the confession is not encouraging to national pride, but this character is so far english, that though our countrymen as a rule are by no means pecksniffs, the ruling weakness is to countenance and encourage the race. when people call the character exaggerated, and protest that the lines are too broad to deceive any one, they only refuse, naturally enough, to sanction in a book what half their lives is passed in tolerating if not in worshipping. dickens, illustrating his never-failing experience of being obliged to subdue in his books what he knew to be real for fear it should be deemed impossible, had already made the remark in his preface to _nickleby_, that the world, which is so very credulous in what professes to be true, is most incredulous in what professes to be imaginary. they agree to be deceived in a reality, and reward themselves by refusing to be deceived in a fiction. that a great many people who might have sat for pecksniff, should condemn him for a grotesque impossibility, as dickens averred to be the case, was no more than might be expected. a greater danger he has exposed more usefully in showing the greater numbers, who, desiring secretly to be thought better than they are, support eagerly pretensions that keep their own in countenance, and, without being pecksniffs, render pecksniffs possible. all impostures would have something too suspicious or forbidding in their look if we were not prepared to meet them half way. there is one thing favourable to us however, even in this view, which a french critic has lately suggested. informing us that there are no pecksniffs to be found in france, mr. taine explains this by the fact that his countrymen have ceased to affect virtue, and pretend only to vice; that a charlatan setting up morality would have no sort of following; that religion and the domestic virtues have gone so utterly to rags as not to be worth putting on for a deceitful garment; and that, no principles being left to parade, the only chance for the french modern tartuffe is to confess and exaggerate weaknesses. we seem to have something of an advantage here. we require at least that the respectable homage of vice to virtue should not be omitted. "charity, my dear," says our english tartuffe, upon being bluntly called what he really is, "when i take my chamber-candlestick to-night, remind me to be more than usually particular in praying for mr. anthony chuzzlewit, who has done me an injustice." no amount of self-indulgence weakens or lowers his pious and reflective tone. "those are her daughters," he remarks, making maudlin overtures to mrs. todgers in memory of his deceased wife. "mercy and charity, charity and mercy, not unholy names i hope. she was beautiful. she had a small property." when his condition has fallen into something so much worse than maudlin that his friends have to put him to bed, they have not had time to descend the staircase when he is seen to be "fluttering" on the top landing, desiring to collect their sentiments on the nature of human life. "let us be moral. let us contemplate existence." he turns his old pupil out of doors in the attitude of blessing him, and when he has discharged that social duty retires to shed his personal tribute of a few tears in the back garden. no conceivable position, action, or utterance finds him without the vice in which his being is entirely steeped and saturated. of such consummate consistency is its practice with him, that in his own house with his daughters he continues it to keep his hand in; and from the mere habit of keeping up appearances, even to himself, falls into the trap of jonas. thackeray used to say that there was nothing finer in rascaldom than this ruin of pecksniff by his son-in-law at the very moment when the oily hypocrite believes himself to be achieving his masterpiece of dissembling over the more vulgar avowed ruffian. "'jonas!' cried mr. pecksniff much affected, 'i am not a diplomatical character; my heart is in my hand. by far the greater part of the inconsiderable savings i have accumulated in the course of--i hope--a not dishonourable or useless career, is already given, devised, or bequeathed (correct me, my dear jonas, if i am technically wrong), with expressions of confidence which i will not repeat; and in securities which it is unnecessary to mention; to a person whom i cannot, whom i will not, whom i need not, name.' here he gave the hand of his son-in-law a fervent squeeze, as if he would have added, 'god bless you: be very careful of it when you get it!'" certainly dickens thus far had done nothing of which, as in this novel, the details were filled in with such minute and incomparable skill; where the wealth of comic circumstance was lavished in such overflowing abundance on single types of character; or where generally, as throughout the story, the intensity of his observation of individual humours and vices had taken so many varieties of imaginative form. everything in _chuzzlewit_ indeed had grown under treatment, as will be commonly the case in the handling of a man of genius, who never knows where any given conception may lead him, out of the wealth of resource in development and incident which it has itself created. "as to the way," he wrote to me of its two most prominent figures, as soon as all their capabilities were revealed to him, "as to the way in which these characters have opened out, that is, to me, one of the most surprising processes of the mind in this sort of invention. given what one knows, what one does not know springs up; and i am as absolutely certain of its being true, as i am of the law of gravitation--if such a thing be possible, more so." the remark displays exactly what in all his important characters was the very process of creation with him. nor was it in the treatment only of his present fiction, but also in its subject or design, that he had gone higher than in preceding efforts. broadly what he aimed at, he would have expressed on the title-page if i had not dissuaded him, by printing there as its motto a verse altered from that prologue of his own composition to which i have formerly referred: "your homes the scene. yourselves, the actors, here!" debtors' prisons, parish bumbledoms, yorkshire schools, were vile enough, but something much more pestiferous was now the aim of his satire; and he had not before so decisively shown vigour, daring, or discernment of what lay within reach of his art, as in taking such a person as pecksniff for the central figure in a tale of existing life. setting him up as the glass through which to view the groups around him, we are not the less moved to a hearty detestation of the social vices they exhibit, and pre-eminently of selfishness in all its forms, because we see more plainly than ever that there is but one vice which is quite irremediable. the elder chuzzlewits are bad enough, but they bring their self-inflicted punishments; the jonases and tigg montagues are execrable, but the law has its halter and its penal servitude; the moulds and gamps have plague-bearing breaths, from which sanitary wisdom may clear us; but from the sleek, smiling, crawling abomination of a pecksniff, there is no help but self-help. every man's hand should be against him, for his is against every man; and, as mr. taine very wisely warns us, the virtues have most need to be careful that they do not make themselves panders to his vice. it is an amiable weakness to put the best face on the worst things, but there is none more dangerous. there is nothing so common as the mistake of tom pinch, and nothing so rare as his excuses. the art with which that delightful character is placed at mr. pecksniff's elbow at the beginning of the story, and the help he gives to set fairly afloat the falsehood he innocently believes, contribute to an excellent management of this part of the design; and the same prodigal wealth of invention and circumstance which gives its higher imaginative stamp to the book, appears as vividly in its lesser as in its leading figures. there are wonderful touches of this suggestive kind in the household of mould the undertaker; and in the vivid picture presented to us by one of mrs. gamp's recollections, we are transported to the youthful games of his children. "the sweet creeturs! playing at berryins down in the shop, and follerin' the order-book to its long home in the iron safe!" the american scenes themselves are not more full of life and fun and freshness, and do not contribute more to the general hilarity, than the cockney group at todgers's; which is itself a little world of the qualities and humours that make up the interest of human life, whether it be high or low, vulgar or fine, filled in with a master's hand. here, in a mere byestroke as it were, are the very finest things of the earlier books superadded to the new and higher achievement that distinguished the later productions. no part indeed of the execution of this remarkable novel is inferior. young bailey and sweedlepipes are in the front rank of his humorous creations; and poor mrs. todgers, worn but not depraved by the cares of gravy and solicitudes of her establishment, with calculation shining out of one eye but affection and goodheartedness still beaming in the other, is in her way quite as perfect a picture as even the portentous mrs. gamp with her grim grotesqueness, her filthy habits and foul enjoyments, her thick and damp but most amazing utterances, her moist clammy functions, her pattens, her bonnet, her bundle, and her umbrella. but such prodigious claims must have a special mention. this world-famous personage has passed into and become one with the language, which her own parts of speech have certainly not exalted or refined. to none even of dickens's characters has there been such a run of popularity; and she will remain among the everlasting triumphs of fiction, a superb masterpiece of english humour. what mr. mould says of her in his enthusiasm, that she's the sort of woman one would bury for nothing, and do it neatly too, every one feels to be an appropriate tribute; and this, by a most happy inspiration, is exactly what the genius to whom she owes her existence did, when he called her into life, to the foul original she was taken from. that which enduringly stamped upon his page its most mirth-moving figure, had stamped out of english life for ever one of its disgraces. the mortal mrs. gamp was handsomely put into her grave, and only the immortal mrs. gamp survived. age will not wither this one, nor custom stale her variety. in the latter point she has an advantage over even mr. pecksniff. she has a friend, an alter ego, whose kind of service to her is expressed by her first utterance in the story; and with this, which introduces her, we may leave her most fitly. "'mrs. harris,' i says, at the very last case as ever i acted in, which it was but a young person, 'mrs. harris,' i says, 'leave the bottle on the chimley-piece, and don't ask me to take none, but let me put my lips to it when i am so dispoged.' 'mrs. gamp,' she says in answer, 'if ever there was a sober creetur to be got at eighteen pence a day for working people, and three and six for gentlefolks--night watching,' said mrs. gamp with emphasis, 'being a extra charge--you are that inwallable person.' 'mrs. harris,' i says to her, 'don't name the charge, for if i could afford to lay all my fellow-creeturs out for nothink, i would gladly do it, sich is the love i bears 'em.'" to this there is nothing to be added, except that in the person of that astonishing friend every phase of fun and comedy in the character is repeated, under fresh conditions of increased appreciation and enjoyment. by the exuberance of comic invention which gives his distinction to mr. pecksniff, mrs. gamp profits quite as much; the same wealth of laughable incident which surrounds that worthy man is upon her heaped to overflowing; but over and above this, by the additional invention of mrs. harris, it is all reproduced, acted over with renewed spirit, and doubled and quadrupled in her favour. this on the whole is the happiest stroke of humorous art in all the writings of dickens. * * * * * but this is a chapter of disappointments, and i have now to state, that as _martin chuzzlewit's_ success was to seem to him at first only distant and problematical, so even the prodigious immediate success of the _christmas carol_ itself was not to be an unmitigated pleasure. never had a little book an outset so full of brilliancy of promise. published but a few days before christmas, it was hailed on every side with enthusiastic greeting. the first edition of six thousand copies was sold the first day, and on the third of january he wrote to me that "two thousand of the three printed for second and third editions are already taken by the trade." but a very few weeks were to pass before the darker side of the picture came. "such a night as i have passed!" he wrote to me on saturday morning the th of february. "i really believed i should never get up again, until i had passed through all the horrors of a fever. i found the _carol_ accounts awaiting me, and they were the cause of it. the first six thousand copies show a profit of £ ! and the last four will yield as much more. i had set my heart and soul upon a thousand, clear. what a wonderful thing it is, that such a great success should occasion me such intolerable anxiety and disappointment! my year's bills, unpaid, are so terrific, that all the energy and determination i can possibly exert will be required to clear me before i go abroad; which, if next june come and find me alive, i shall do. good heaven, if i had only taken heart a year ago! do come soon, as i am very anxious to talk with you. we can send round to mac after you arrive, and tell him to join us at hampstead or elsewhere. i was so utterly knocked down last night, that i came up to the contemplation of all these things quite bold this morning. if i can let the house for this season, i will be off to some seaside place as soon as a tenant offers. i am not afraid, if i reduce my expenses; but if i do not, i shall be ruined past all mortal hope of redemption." the ultimate result was that his publishers were changed, and the immediate result that his departure for italy became a settled thing; but a word may be said on these carol accounts before mention is made of his new publishing arrangements.[ ] want of judgment had been shown in not adjusting the expenses of production with a more equable regard to the selling price, but even as it was, before the close of the year, he had received £ from a sale of fifteen thousand copies; and the difference between this and the amount realised by the same proportion of the sale of the successor to the _carol_, undoubtedly justified him in the discontent now expressed. of that second tale, as well as of the third and fourth, more than double the numbers of the _carol_ were at once sold, and of course there was no complaint of any want of success: but the truth really was, as to all the christmas stories issued in this form, that the price charged, while too large for the public addressed by them, was too little to remunerate their outlay; and when in later years he put forth similar fancies for christmas, charging for them fewer pence than the shillings required for these, he counted his purchasers, with fairly corresponding gains to himself, not by tens but by hundreds of thousands.[ ] it was necessary now that negotiations should be resumed with his printers, but before any step was taken messrs. chapman and hall were informed of his intention not to open fresh publishing relations with them after _chuzzlewit_ should have closed. then followed deliberations and discussions, many and grave, which settled themselves at last into the form of an agreement with messrs. bradbury and evans executed on the first of june ; by which, upon advance made to him of £ , he assigned to them a fourth share in whatever he might write during the next ensuing eight years, to which the agreement was to be strictly limited. there were the usual protecting clauses, but no interest was to be paid, and no obligations were imposed as to what works should be written, if any, or the form of them; the only farther stipulation having reference to the event of a periodical being undertaken whereof dickens might be only partially editor or author, in which case his proprietorship of copyright and profits was to be two thirds instead of three fourths. there was an understanding, at the time this agreement was signed, that a successor to the _carol_ would be ready for the christmas of ; but no other promise was asked or made in regard to any other book, nor had he himself decided what form to give to his experiences of italy, if he should even finally determine to publish them at all. between this agreement and his journey six weeks elapsed, and there were one or two characteristic incidents before his departure: but mention must first be interposed of the success quite without alloy that also attended the little book, and carried off in excitement and delight every trace of doubt or misgiving. "blessings on your kind heart!" wrote jeffrey to the author of the _carol_. "you should be happy yourself, for you may be sure you have done more good by this little publication, fostered more kindly feelings, and prompted more positive acts of beneficence, than can be traced to all the pulpits and confessionals in christendom since christmas ." "who can listen," exclaimed thackeray, "to objections regarding such a book as this? it seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness." such praise expressed what men of genius felt and said; but the small volume had other tributes, less usual and not less genuine. there poured upon its author daily, all through that christmas time, letters from complete strangers to him which i remember reading with a wonder of pleasure; not literary at all, but of the simplest domestic kind; of which the general burden was to tell him, amid many confidences about their homes, how the _carol_ had come to be read aloud there, and was to be kept upon a little shelf by itself, and was to do them all no end of good. anything more to be said of it will not add much to this. there was indeed nobody that had not some interest in the message of the _christmas carol_. it told the selfish man to rid himself of selfishness; the just man to make himself generous; and the good-natured man to enlarge the sphere of his good nature. its cheery voice of faith and hope, ringing from one end of the island to the other, carried pleasant warning alike to all, that if the duties of christmas were wanting no good could come of its outward observances; that it must shine upon the cold hearth and warm it, and into the sorrowful heart and comfort it; that it must be kindness, benevolence, charity, mercy, and forbearance, or its plum pudding would turn to bile, and its roast beef be indigestible.[ ] nor could any man have said it with the same appropriateness as dickens. what was marked in him to the last was manifest now. he had identified himself with christmas fancies. its life and spirits, its humour in riotous abundance, of right belonged to him. its imaginations as well as kindly thoughts were his; and its privilege to light up with some sort of comfort the squalidest places, he had made his own. christmas day was not more social or welcome: new year's day not more new: twelfth night not more full of characters. the duty of diffusing enjoyment had never been taught by a more abundant, mirthful, thoughtful, ever-seasonable writer. something also is to be said of the spirit of the book, and of the others that followed it, which will not anticipate special allusions to be made hereafter. no one was more intensely fond than dickens of old nursery tales, and he had a secret delight in feeling that he was here only giving them a higher form. the social and manly virtues he desired to teach, were to him not less the charm of the ghost, the goblin, and the fairy fancies of his childhood; however rudely set forth in those earlier days. what now were to be conquered were the more formidable dragons and giants which had their places at our own hearths, and the weapons to be used were of a finer than the "ice-brook's temper." with brave and strong restraints, what is evil in ourselves was to be subdued; with warm and gentle sympathies, what is bad or unreclaimed in others was to be redeemed; the beauty was to embrace the beast, as in the divinest of all those fables; the star was to rise out of the ashes, as in our much-loved cinderella; and we were to play the valentine with our wilder brothers, and bring them back with brotherly care to civilization and happiness. nor is it to be doubted, i think, that, in that largest sense of benefit, great public and private service was done; positive, earnest, practical good; by the extraordinary popularity, and nearly universal acceptance, which attended these little holiday volumes. they carried to countless firesides, with new enjoyment of the season, better apprehension of its claims and obligations; they mingled grave with glad thoughts, much to the advantage of both; what seemed almost too remote to meddle with they brought within reach of the charities, and what was near they touched with a dearer tenderness; they comforted the generous, rebuked the sordid, cured folly by kindly ridicule and comic humour, and, saying to their readers _thus you have done, but it were better thus_, may for some have realised the philosopher's famous experience, and by a single fortunate thought revised the whole manner of a life. criticism here is a second-rate thing, and the reader may be spared such discoveries as it might have made in regard to the _christmas carol_. footnotes: [ ] chuffey. sydney smith had written to dickens on the appearance of his fourth number (early in april): "chuffey is admirable. . . . i never read a finer piece of writing: it is deeply pathetic and affecting." [ ] it may interest the reader, and be something of a curiosity of literature, if i give the expenses of the first edition of , and of the more which constituted the five following editions, with the profit of the remaining which completed the sale of fifteen thousand: christmas carol. st edition, no. . £ _s._ _d._ dec. printing paper drawings and engravings two steel plates printing plates paper for do colouring plates binding incidents and advertising commission -------------- £ ============== * * * * * nd to the th edition, making copies. . £ _s._ _d._ jan. printing paper printing plates paper colouring plates binding incidents and advertising commission ------------- £ ============= * * * * * two thousand more, represented by the last item in the subjoined balance, were sold before the close of the year, leaving a remainder of copies. . £ _s._ _d._ dec. balance of a/c to mr. dickens's credit . jan. to april. do. do. may to dec. do. do. ------------- amount of profit on the work £ ============= [ ] in november he wrote to me that the sale of his christmas fancy for that year (_dr. marigold's prescriptions_) had gone up, in the first week, to , . [ ] a characteristic letter of this date, which will explain itself, has been kindly sent to me by the gentleman it was written to, mr. james verry staples, of bristol:--"third of april, . i have been very much gratified by the receipt of your interesting letter, and i assure you that it would have given me heartfelt satisfaction to have been in your place when you read my little _carol_ to the poor in your neighbourhood. i have great faith in the poor; to the best of my ability i always endeavour to present them in a favourable light to the rich; and i shall never cease, i hope, until i die, to advocate their being made as happy and as wise as the circumstances of their condition, in its utmost improvement, will admit of their becoming. i mention this to assure you of two things. firstly, that i try to deserve their attention; and secondly, that any such marks of their approval and confidence as you relate to me are most acceptable to my feelings, and go at once to my heart." chapter iv. year of departure for italy. . gore-house--liverpool and birmingham institutes--a troublesome cheque--wrongs from piracy--proceedings in chancery--result of chancery experience--reliefs to work--m. henri taine on dickens--writing in the _chronicle_--preparations for departure--in temporary quarters--the farewell dinner-party--"the evenings of a working-man"--greenwich dinner. and now, before accompanying dickens on his italian travel, one or two parting incidents will receive illustration from his letters. a thoughtful little poem written during the past summer for lady blessington has been quoted on a previous page: and it may remind me to say here what warmth of regard he had for her, and for all the inmates of gore-house; how uninterruptedly joyous and pleasurable were his associations with them; and what valued help they now gave in his preparations for italy. the poem, as we have seen, was written during a visit made in yorkshire to the house of mr. smithson, already named as the partner of his early companion, mr. mitton; and this visit he repeated in sadder circumstances during the present year, when (april ) he attended mr. smithson's funeral. with members or connections of the family of this friend, his intercourse long continued. in the previous february, on the th and th respectively, he had taken the chair at two great meetings, in liverpool of the mechanics' institution, and in birmingham of the polytechnic institution, to which reference is made by him in a letter of the st. i quote the allusion because it shows thus early the sensitive regard to his position as a man of letters, and his scrupulous consideration for the feelings as well as interest of the class, which he manifested in many various and often greatly self-sacrificing ways all through his life. "advise me on the following point. and as i must write to-night, having already lost a post, advise me by bearer. this liverpool institution, which is wealthy and has a high grammar-school the masters of which receive in salaries upwards of £ a year (indeed its extent horrifies me; i am struggling through its papers this morning), writes me yesterday by its secretary a business letter about the order of the proceedings on monday; and it begins thus. 'i beg to send you prefixed, with the best respects of our committee, a bank order for twenty pounds in payment of the expenses contingent on your visit to liverpool.'--and there, sure enough, it is. now my impulse was, _and is_, decidedly to return it. twenty pounds is not of moment to me; and any sacrifice of independence is worth it twenty times' twenty times told. but haggling in my mind is a doubt whether that would be proper, and not boastful (in an inexplicable way); and whether as an author, i have a right to put myself on a basis which the professors of literature in other forms _connected with the institution_ cannot afford to occupy. don't you see? but of course you do. the case stands thus. the manchester institution, being in debt, appeals to me as it were _in formâ pauperis_, and makes no such provision as i have named. the birmingham institution, just struggling into life with great difficulty, applies to me on the same grounds. but the leeds people (thriving) write to me, making the expenses a distinct matter of business; and the liverpool, as a point of delicacy, say nothing about it to the last minute, and then send the money. now, what in the name of goodness ought i to do?--i am as much puzzled with the cheque as colonel jack was with his gold. if it would have settled the matter to put it in the fire yesterday, i should certainly have done it. your opinion is requested. i think i shall have grounds for a very good speech at brummagem; but i am not sure about liverpool: having misgivings of over-gentility." my opinion was clearly for sending the money back, which accordingly was done. both speeches, duly delivered to enthusiastic listeners at the places named, were good, and both, with suitable variations, had the same theme: telling his popular audience in birmingham that the principle of their institute, education comprehensive and unsectarian, was the only safe one, for that without danger no society could go on punishing men for preferring vice to virtue without giving them the means of knowing what virtue was; and reminding his genteeler audience in liverpool, that if happily they had been themselves well taught, so much the more should they seek to extend the benefit to all, since, whatever the precedence due to rank, wealth, or intellect, there was yet a nobility beyond them, expressed unaffectedly by the poet's verse and in the power of education to confer. howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'tis only noble to be good: true hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than norman blood. he underwent some suffering, which he might have spared himself, at his return. "i saw the _carol_ last night," he wrote to me of a dramatic performance of the little story at the adelphi. "better than usual, and wright seems to enjoy bob cratchit, but _heart-breaking_ to me. oh heaven! if any forecast of _this_ was ever in my mind! yet o. smith was drearily better than i expected. it is a great comfort to have that kind of meat under done; and his face is quite perfect." of what he suffered from these adaptations of his books, multiplied remorselessly at every theatre, i have forborne to speak, but it was the subject of complaint with him incessantly; and more or less satisfied as he was with individual performances, such as mr. yates's quilp or mantalini and mrs. keeley's smike or dot, there was only one, that of barnaby rudge by the miss fortescue who became afterwards lady gardner, on which i ever heard him dwell with a thorough liking. it is true that to the dramatizations of his next and other following christmas stories he gave help himself; but, even then, all such efforts to assist special representations were mere attempts to render more tolerable what he had no power to prevent, and, with a few rare exceptions, they were never very successful. another and graver wrong was the piracy of his writings, every one of which had been reproduced with merely such colourable changes of title, incidents, and names of characters, as were believed to be sufficient to evade the law and adapt them to "penny" purchasers. so shamelessly had this been going on ever since the days of _pickwick_, in so many outrageous ways[ ] and with all but impunity, that a course repeatedly urged by talfourd and myself was at last taken in the present year with the _christmas carol_ and the _chuzzlewit_ pirates. upon a case of such peculiar flagrancy, however, that the vice-chancellor would not even hear dickens's counsel; and what it cost our dear friend talfourd to suppress his speech exceeded by very much the labour and pains with which he had prepared it. "the pirates," wrote dickens to me, after leaving the court on the th of january, "are beaten flat. they are bruised, bloody, battered, smashed, squelched, and utterly undone. knight bruce would not hear talfourd, but instantly gave judgment. he had interrupted anderdon constantly by asking him to produce a passage which was not an expanded or contracted idea from my book. and at every successive passage he cried out, 'that is mr. dickens's case. find another!' he said that there was not a shadow of doubt upon the matter. that there was no authority which would bear a construction in their favour; the piracy going beyond all previous instances. they might mention it again in a week, he said, if they liked, and might have an issue if they pleased; but they would probably consider it unnecessary after that strong expression of his opinion. of course i will stand by what we have agreed as to the only terms of compromise with the printers. i am determined that i will have an apology for their affidavits. the other men may pay their costs and get out of it, but i will stick to my friend the author." two days later he wrote: "the farther affidavits put in by way of extenuation by the printing rascals _are_ rather strong, and give one a pretty correct idea of what the men must be who hold on by the heels of literature. oh! the agony of talfourd at knight bruce's not hearing him! he had sat up till three in the morning, he says, preparing his speech; and would have done all kinds of things with the affidavits. it certainly was a splendid subject. we have heard nothing from the vagabonds yet. i once thought of printing the affidavits without a word of comment, and sewing them up with _chuzzlewit_. talfourd is strongly disinclined to compromise with the printers on any terms. in which case it would be referred to the master to ascertain what profits had been made by the piracy, and to order the same to be paid to me. but wear and tear of law is my consideration." the undertaking to which he had at last to submit was, that upon ample public apology, and payment of all costs, the offenders should be let go; but the real result was that, after infinite vexation and trouble, he had himself to pay all the costs incurred on his own behalf; and, a couple of years later, upon repetition of the wrong he had suffered in so gross a form that proceedings were again advised by talfourd and others, he wrote to me from switzerland the condition of mind to which his experience had brought him. "my feeling about the ---- is the feeling common, i suppose, to three fourths of the reflecting part of the community in our happiest of all possible countries; and that is, that it is better to suffer a great wrong than to have recourse to the much greater wrong of the law. i shall not easily forget the expense, and anxiety, and horrible injustice of the _carol_ case, wherein, in asserting the plainest right on earth, i was really treated as if i were the robber instead of the robbed. upon the whole, i certainly would much rather not proceed. what do you think of sending in a grave protest against what has been done in this case, on account of the immense amount of piracy to which i am daily exposed, and because i have been already met in the court of chancery with the legal doctrine that silence under such wrongs barred my remedy: to which talfourd's written opinion might be appended as proof that we stopped under no discouragement. it is useless to affect that i don't know i have a morbid susceptibility of exasperation, to which the meanness and badness of the law in such a matter would be stinging in the last degree. and i know of nothing that _could_ come, even of a successful action, which would be worth the mental trouble and disturbance it would cost."[ ] a few notes of besetting temptations during his busiest days at _chuzzlewit_, one taken from each of the first four months of the year when he was working at its masterly closing scenes, will amusingly exhibit, side by side, his powers of resistance and capacities of enjoyment. "i had written you a line" ( th of january), "pleading jonas and mrs. gamp, but this frosty day tempts me sorely. i am distractingly late; but i look at the sky, think of hampstead, and feel hideously tempted. don't come with mae, and fetch me. i couldn't resist if you did." in the next ( th of february), he is not the tempted, but the tempter. "stanfield and mac have come in, and we are going to hampstead to dinner. i leave betsey prig as you know, so don't you make a scruple about leaving mrs. harris. we shall stroll leisurely up, to give you time to join us, and dinner will be on the table at jack straw's at four. . . . in the very improbable (surely impossible?) case of your not coming, we will call on you at a quarter before eight, to go to the ragged school." the next ( th of march) shows him in yielding mood, and pitying himself for his infirmity of compliance. "sir, i will--he--he--he--he--he--he--i will not eat with you, either at your own house or the club. but the morning looks bright, and a walk to hampstead would suit me marvellously. if you should present yourself at my gate (bringing the r. a.'s along with you) i shall not be sapparized. so no more at this writing from poor mr. dickens." but again the tables are turned, and he is tempter in the last; written on that shakespeare day ( rd of april) which we kept always as a festival, and signed in character expressive of his then present unfitness for any of the practical affairs of life, including the very pressing business which at the moment ought to have occupied him, namely, attention to the long deferred nuptials of miss charity pecksniff. "november blasts! why it's the warmest, most genial, most intensely bland, delicious, growing, springy, songster-of-the-grovy, bursting-forth-of-the-buddy, day as ever was. at half-past four i shall expect you. ever, moddle." moddle, the sentimental noodle hooked by miss pecksniff who flies on his proposed wedding-day from the frightful prospect before him, the reader of course knows; and has perhaps admired for his last supreme outbreak of common sense. it was a rather favourite bit of humour with dickens; and i find it pleasant to think that he never saw the description given of it by a trained and skilful french critic, who has been able to pass under his review the whole of english literature without any apparent sense or understanding of one of its most important as well as richest elements. a man without the perception of humour taking english prose literature in hand, can of course set about it only in one way. accordingly, in mr. taine's decisive judgments of our last great humourist, which proceed upon a principle of psychological analysis which it is only fair to say he applies impartially to everybody, _pickwick_, _oliver twist_, and _the old curiosity shop_ are not in any manner even named or alluded to; mrs. gamp is only once mentioned as always talking of mrs. harris; and mr. micawber also only once as using always the same emphatic phrases; the largest extracts are taken from the two books in all the dickens series that are weakest on the humorous side, _hard times_ and the _chimes_; _nickleby_, with its many laughter-moving figures, is dismissed in a line and a half; mr. toots, captain cuttle, susan nipper, toodles, and the rest have no place in what is said of _dombey_; and, to close with what has caused and must excuse my digression, mr. augustus moddle is introduced as a gloomy maniac who makes us laugh and makes us shudder, and as drawn so truly for a madman that though at first sight agreeable, he is in reality horrible![ ] a month before the letter subscribed by dickens in the character, so happily unknown to himself, of this gloomy maniac, he had written to me from amidst his famous chapter in which the tables are turned on pecksniff; but here i quote the letter chiefly for noticeable words at its close. "i heard from macready by the hibernia. i have been slaving away regularly, but the weather is against rapid progress. i altered the verbal error, and substituted for the action you didn't like some words expressive of the hurry of the scene. macready sums up slavery in new orleans in the way of a gentle doubting on the subject, by a 'but' and a dash. i believe it is in new orleans that the man is lying under sentence of death, who, not having the fear of god before his eyes, did not deliver up a captive slave to the torture? the largest gun in that country has not burst yet--_but it will_. heaven help us, too, from explosions nearer home! i declare i never go into what is called 'society' that i am not aweary of it, despise it, hate it, and reject it. the more i see of its extraordinary conceit, and its stupendous ignorance of what is passing out of doors, the more certain i am that it is approaching the period when, being incapable of reforming itself, it will have to submit to be reformed by others off the face of the earth." thus we see that the old radical leanings were again rather strong in him at present, and i may add that he had found occasional recent vent for them by writing in the _morning chronicle_. some articles thus contributed by him having set people talking, the proprietors of the paper rather eagerly mooted the question what payment he would ask for contributing regularly; and ten guineas an article was named. very sensibly, however, the editor who had succeeded his old friend black pointed out to him, that though even that sum would not be refused in the heat of the successful articles just contributed, yet (i quote his own account in a letter of the th of march ) so much would hardly be paid continuously; and thereupon an understanding, was come to, that he would write as a volunteer and leave his payment to be adjusted to the results. "then said the editor--and this i particularly want you to turn over in your mind, at leisure--supposing me to go abroad, could i contemplate such a thing as the writing of a letter a week under any signature i chose, with such scraps of descriptions and impressions as suggested themselves to my mind? if so, would i do it for the _chronicle_? and if so again, what would i do it for? he thought for such contributions easthope would pay anything. i told him that the idea had never occurred to me; but that i was afraid he did not know what the value of such contributions would be. he repeated what he had said before; and i promised to consider whether i could reconcile it to myself to write such letters at all. the pros and cons need to be very carefully weighed. i will not tell you to which side i incline, but if we should disagree, or waver on the same points, we will call bradbury and evans to the council. i think it more than probable that we shall be of exactly the same mind, but i want you to be in possession of the facts and therefore send you this rigmarole." the rigmarole is not unimportant; because, though we did not differ on the wisdom of saying no to the _chronicle_, the "council" spoken of was nevertheless held, and in it lay the germ of another newspaper enterprise he permitted himself to engage in twelve months later, to which he would have done more wisely to have also answered no. the preparation for departure was now actively going forward, and especially his enquiries for two important adjuncts thereto, a courier and a carriage. as to the latter it occurred to him that he might perhaps get for little money "some good old shabby devil of a coach--one of those vast phantoms that hide themselves in a corner of the pantechnicon;" and exactly such a one he found there; sitting himself inside it, a perfect sentimental traveller, while the managing man told him its history. "as for comfort--let me see--it is about the size of your library; with night-lamps and day-lamps and pockets and imperials and leathern cellars, and the most extraordinary contrivances. joking apart, it is a wonderful machine. and when you see it (if you _do_ see it) you will roar at it first, and will then proclaim it to be 'perfectly brilliant, my dear fellow.'" it was marked sixty pounds; he got it for five-and-forty; and my own emotions respecting it he had described by anticipation quite correctly. in finding a courier he was even more fortunate; and these successes were followed by a third apparently very promising, but in the result less satisfactory. his house was let to not very careful people. the tenant having offered herself for devonshire-terrace unexpectedly, during the last week or two of his stay in england he went into temporary quarters in osnaburgh-terrace; and here a domestic difficulty befell of which the mention may be amusing, when i have disposed of an incident that preceded it too characteristic for omission. the mendicity society's officers had caught a notorious begging-letter writer, had identified him as an old offender against dickens of which proofs were found on his person, and had put matters in train for his proper punishment; when the wretched creature's wife made such appeal before the case was heard at the police-court, that dickens broke down in his character of prosecutor, and at the last moment, finding what was said of the man's distress at the time to be true, relented. "when the mendicity officers themselves told me the man was in distress, i desired them to suppress what they knew about him, and slipped out of the bundle (in the police office) his first letter, which was the greatest lie of all. for he looked wretched, and his wife had been waiting about the street to see me, all the morning. it was an exceedingly bad case however, and the imposition, all through, very great indeed. insomuch that i could not _say_ anything in his favour, even when i saw him. yet i was not sorry that the creature found the loophole for escape. the officers had taken him illegally without any warrant; and really they messed it all through, quite facetiously." he will himself also best relate the small domestic difficulty into which he fell in his temporary dwelling, upon his unexpectedly discovering it to be unequal to the strain of a dinner party for which invitations had gone out just before the sudden "let" of devonshire-terrace. the letter is characteristic in other ways, or i should hardly have gone so far into domesticities here; and it enables me to add that with the last on its list of guests, mr. chapman the chairman of lloyd's, he held much friendly intercourse, and that few things more absurd or unfounded have been invented, even of dickens, than that he found any part of the original of mr. dombey in the nature, the appearance, or the manners of this estimable gentleman. "advise, advise," he wrote ( osnaburgh-terrace, th of may ), "advise with a distracted man. investigation below stairs renders it, as my father would say, 'manifest to any person of ordinary intelligence, if the term may be considered allowable,' that the saturday's dinner cannot come off here with safety. it would be a toss-up, and might come down heads, but it would put us into an agony with that kind of people. . . . now, i feel a difficulty in dropping it altogether, and really fear that this might have an indefinably suspicious and odd appearance. then said i at breakfast this morning, i'll send down to the clarendon. then says kate, have it at richmond. then i say, that might be inconvenient to the people. then she says, how could it be if we dine late enough? then i am very much offended without exactly knowing why; and come up here, in a state of hopeless mystification. . . . what do you think? ellis would be quite as dear as anybody else; and unless the weather changes, the place is objectionable. i must make up my mind to do one thing or other, for we shall meet lord denman at dinner to-day. could it be dropped decently? that, i think very doubtful. could it be done for a couple of guineas apiece at the clarendon? . . . in a matter of more importance i could make up my mind. but in a matter of this kind i bother and bewilder myself, and come to no conclusion whatever. advise! advise! . . . list of the invited. there's lord normanby. and there's lord denman. there's easthope, wife, and sister. there's sydney smith. there's you and mac. there's babbage. there's a lady osborne and her daughter. there's southwood smith. and there's quin. and there are thomas chapman and his wife. so many of these people have never dined with us, that the fix is particularly tight. advise! advise!" my advice was for throwing over the party altogether, but additional help was obtained and the dinner went off very pleasantly. it was the last time we saw sydney smith. of one other characteristic occurrence he wrote before he left; and the very legible epigraph round the seal of his letter, "it is particularly requested that if sir james graham should open this, he will not trouble himself to seal it again," expresses both its date and its writer's opinion of a notorious transaction of the time. "i wish" ( th of june) "you would read this, and give it me again when we meet at stanfield's to-day. newby has written to me to say that he hopes to be able to give overs more money than was agreed on." the enclosure was the proof-sheet of a preface written by him to a small collection of stories by a poor carpenter dying of consumption, who hoped by their publication, under protection of such a name, to leave behind him some small provision for his ailing wife and little children.[ ] the book was dedicated to the kind physician, doctor elliotson, whose name was for nearly thirty years a synonym with us all for unwearied, self-sacrificing, beneficent service to every one in need. the last incident before dickens's departure was a farewell dinner to him at greenwich, which took also the form of a celebration for the completion of _chuzzlewit_, or, as the ballantynes used to call it in scott's case, a christening dinner; when lord normanby took the chair, and i remember sitting next the great painter turner, who had come with stanfield, and had enveloped his throat, that sultry summer day, in a huge red belcher-handkerchief which nothing would induce him to remove. he was not otherwise demonstrative, but enjoyed himself in a quiet silent way, less perhaps at the speeches than at the changing lights on the river. carlyle did not come; telling me in his reply to the invitation that he truly loved dickens, having discerned in the inner man of him a real music of the genuine kind, but that he'd rather testify to this in some other form than that of dining out in the dogdays. footnotes: [ ] in a letter on the subject of copyright published by thomas hood after dickens's return from america, he described what had passed between himself and one of these pirates who had issued a master humphrey's clock edited by bos. "sir," said the man to hood, "if you had observed the name, it was _bos_, not _boz_; s, sir, not z; and, besides, it would have been no piracy, sir, even with the z, because _master humphrey's clock_, you see, sir, was not published as by boz, but by charles dickens!" [ ] the reader may be amused if i add in a note what he said of the pirates in those earlier days when grave matters touched him less gravely. on the eve of the first number of _nickleby_ he had issued a proclamation. "whereas we are the only true and lawful boz. and whereas it hath been reported to us, who are commencing a new work, that some dishonest dullards resident in the by-streets and cellars of this town impose upon the unwary and credulous, by producing cheap and wretched imitations of our delectable works. and whereas we derive but small comfort under this injury from the knowledge that the dishonest dullards aforesaid cannot, by reason of their mental smallness, follow near our heels, but are constrained to creep along by dirty and little-frequented ways, at a most respectful and humble distance behind. and whereas, in like manner, as some other vermin are not worth the killing for the sake of their carcases, so these kennel pirates are not worth the powder and shot of the law, inasmuch as whatever damages they may commit they are in no condition to pay any. this is to give notice, that we have at length devised a mode of execution for them, so summary and terrible, that if any gang or gangs thereof presume to hoist but one shred of the colours of the good ship _nickleby_, we will hang them on gibbets so lofty and enduring that their remains shall be a monument of our just vengeance to all succeeding ages; and it shall not lie in the power of any lord high admiral, on earth, to cause them to be taken down again." the last paragraph of the proclamation informed the potentates of paternoster-row, that from the then ensuing day of the thirtieth of march, until farther notice, "we shall hold our levees, as heretofore, on the last evening but one of every month, between the hours of seven and nine, at our board of trade, number one hundred and eighty-six in the strand, london; where we again request the attendance (in vast crowds) of their accredited agents and ambassadors. gentlemen to wear knots upon their shoulders; and patent cabs to draw up with their doors towards the grand entrance, for the convenience of loading." [ ] this might seem not very credible if i did not give the passage literally, and i therefore quote it from the careful translation of _taine's history of english literature_ by mr. van laun, one of the masters of the edinburgh academy, where i will venture to hope that other authorities on english literature are at the same time admitted. "jonas" (also in _chuzzlewit_) "is on the verge of madness. there are other characters quite mad. dickens has drawn three or four portraits of madmen, very agreeable at first sight, but so true that they are in reality horrible. it needed an imagination like his, irregular, excessive, capable of fixed ideas, to exhibit the derangements of reason. two especially there are, which make us laugh, and which make us shudder. augustus, the gloomy maniac, who is on the point of marrying miss pecksniff; and poor mr. dick, half an idiot, half a monomaniac, who lives with miss trotwood. . . . the play of these shattered reasons is like the creaking of a dislocated door; it makes one sick to hear it." (vol. ii. p. .) the original was published before dickens's death, but he certainly never saw it. [ ] he wrote from marseilles ( th dec. ). "when poor overs was dying he suddenly asked for a pen and ink and some paper, and made up a little parcel for me which it was his last conscious act to direct. she (his wife) told me this and gave it me. i opened it last night. it was a copy of his little book in which he had written my name, 'with his devotion.' i thought it simple and affecting of the poor fellow." from a later letter a few lines may be added. "mrs. overs tells me" (monte vacchi, th march, ) "that miss coutts has sent her, at different times, sixteen pounds, has sent a doctor to her children, and has got one of the girls into the orphan school. when i wrote her a word in the poor woman's behalf, she wrote me back to the effect that it was a kindness to herself to have done so, 'for what is the use of my means but to try and do some good with them?'" chapter v. idleness at albaro: villa bagnerello. . arrival at marseilles--a character--villa at genoa--sirocco--sunsets and scenery--address to maclise--french and italian skies--the mediterranean--the cicala--french consul of genoa--learning italian--trades-people--genoa the superb--theatres--italian plays--religious houses--sunday promenade--winter residence chosen--dinner at french consul's--reception at m. di negri's--a tumble--english visitors and news--visit of his brother--sea-bathing. the travelling party arrived at marseilles on the evening of sunday the th of july. not being able to get vetturino horses in paris, they had come on, post; paying for nine horses but bringing only four, and thereby saving a shilling a mile out of what the four would have cost in england. so great thus far, however, had been the cost of travel, that "what with distance, caravan, sight-seeing, and everything," two hundred pounds would be nearly swallowed up before they were at their destination. the success otherwise had been complete. the children had not cried in their worst troubles, the carriage had gone lightly over abominable roads, and the courier had proved himself a perfect gem. "surrounded by strange and perfectly novel circumstances," dickens wrote to me from marseilles, "i feel as if i had a new head on side by side with my old one." to what shrewd and kindly observation the old one had helped him at every stage of his journey, his published book of travel tells, and of all that there will be nothing here; but a couple of experiences at his outset, of which he told me afterwards, have enough character in them to be worth mention. shortly before there had been some public interest about the captain of a boulogne steamer apprehended on a suspicion of having stolen specie, but reinstated by his owners after a public apology to him on their behalf; and dickens had hardly set foot on the boat that was to carry them across, when he was attracted by the look of its captain, and discovered him after a few minutes' talk to be that very man. "such an honest, simple, good fellow, i never saw," said dickens, as he imitated for me the homely speech in which his confidences were related. the boulogne people, he said, had given him a piece of plate, "but lord bless us! it took a deal more than that to get him round again in his own mind; and for weeks and weeks he was uncommon low to be sure. newgate, you see! what a place for a sea-faring man as had held up his head afore the best on 'em, and had more friends, i mean to say, and i do tell you the daylight truth, than any man on this station--ah! or any other, i don't care where!" his first experience in a foreign tongue he made immediately on landing, when he had gone to the bank for money, and after delivering with most laborious distinctness a rather long address in french to the clerk behind the counter, was disconcerted by that functionary's cool enquiry in the native-born lombard-street manner, "how would you like to take it, sir?" he took it, as everybody must, in five-franc pieces, and a most inconvenient coinage he found it; for he required so much that he had to carry it in a couple of small sacks, and was always "turning hot about suddenly" taking it into his head that he had lost them. the evening of tuesday the th of july saw him in a villa at albaro, the suburb of genoa in which, upon the advice of our gore-house friends, he had resolved to pass the summer months before taking up his quarters in the city. his wish was to have had lord byron's house there, but it had fallen into neglect and become the refuge of a third-rate wine-shop. the matter had then been left to angus fletcher who just now lived near genoa, and he had taken at a rent absurdly above its value[ ] an unpicturesque and uninteresting dwelling, which at once impressed its new tenant with its likeness to a pink jail. "it is," he said to me, "the most perfectly lonely, rusty, stagnant old staggerer of a domain that you can possibly imagine. what would i give if you could only look round the courtyard! _i_ look down into it, whenever i am near that side of the house, for the stable is so full of 'vermin and swarmers' (pardon the quotation from my inimitable friend) that i always expect to see the carriage going out bodily, with legions of industrious fleas harnessed to and drawing it off, on their own account. we have a couple of italian work-people in our establishment; and to hear one or other of them talking away to our servants with the utmost violence and volubility in genoese, and our servants answering with great fluency in english (very loud: as if the others were only deaf, not italian), is one of the most ridiculous things possible. the effect is greatly enhanced by the genoese manner, which is exceedingly animated and pantomimic; so that two friends of the lower class conversing pleasantly in the street, always seem on the eve of stabbing each other forthwith. and a stranger is immensely astonished at their not doing it." the heat tried him less than he expected, excepting always the sirocco, which, near the sea as they were, and right in the course of the wind as it blew against the house, made everything hotter than if there had been no wind. "one feels it most, on first getting up. then, it is really so oppressive that a strong determination is necessary to enable one to go on dressing; one's tendency being to tumble down anywhere and lie there." it seemed to hit him, he said, behind the knee, and made his legs so shake that he could not walk or stand. he had unfortunately a whole week of this without intermission, soon after his arrival; but then came a storm, with wind from the mountains; and he could bear the ordinary heat very well. what at first had been a home-discomfort, the bare walls, lofty ceilings, icy floors, and lattice blinds, soon became agreeable; there were regular afternoon breezes from the sea; in his courtyard was a well of very pure and very cold water; there were new milk and eggs by the bucketful, and, to protect from the summer insects these and other dainties, there were fresh vine-leaves by the thousand; and he satisfied himself, by the experience of a day or two in the city, that he had done well to come first to its suburb by the sea. what startled and disappointed him most were the frequent cloudy days.[ ] he opened his third letter ( rd of august) by telling me there was a thick november fog, that rain was pouring incessantly, and that he did not remember to have seen in his life, at that time of year, such cloudy weather as he had seen beneath italian skies. "the story goes that it is in autumn and winter, when other countries are dark and foggy, that the beauty and clearness of this are most observable. i hope it may prove so; for i have postponed going round the hills which encircle the city, or seeing any of the sights, until the weather is more favourable.[ ] i have never yet seen it so clear, for any longer time of the day together, as on a bright, lark-singing, coast-of-france-discerning day at broadstairs; nor have i ever seen so fine a sunset, _throughout_, as is very common there. but the scenery is exquisite, and at certain periods of the evening and the morning the blue of the mediterranean surpasses all conception or description. it is the most intense and wonderful colour, i do believe, in all nature." in his second letter from albaro there was more of this subject; and an outbreak of whimsical enthusiasm in it, meant especially for maclise, is followed by some capital description. "i address you, my friend," he wrote, "with something of the lofty spirit of an exile, a banished commoner, a sort of anglo-pole. i don't exactly know what i have done for my country in coming away from it, but i feel it is something; something great; something virtuous and heroic. lofty emotions rise within me, when i see the sun set on the blue mediterranean. i am the limpet on the rock. my father's name is turner, and my boots are green. . . . apropos of blue. in a certain picture called the serenade for which browning wrote that verse[ ] in lincoln's-inn-fields, you, o mac, painted a sky. if you ever have occasion to paint the mediterranean, let it be exactly of that colour. it lies before me now, as deeply and intensely blue. but no such colour is above me. nothing like it. in the south of france, at avignon, at aix, at marseilles, i saw deep blue skies; and also in america. but the sky above me is familiar to my sight. is it heresy to say that i have seen its twin brother shining through the window of jack straw's--that down in devonshire-terrace i have seen a better sky? i dare say it is; but like a great many other heresies, it is true. . . . but such green, green, green, as flutters in the vineyard down below the windows, _that_ i never saw; nor yet such lilac and such purple as float between me and the distant hills; nor yet in anything, picture, book, or vestal boredom, such awful, solemn, impenetrable blue, as in that same sea. it has such an absorbing, silent, deep, profound effect, that i can't help thinking it suggested the idea of styx. it looks as if a draught of it, only so much as you could scoop up on the beach in the hollow of your hand, would wash out everything else, and make a great blue blank of your intellect. . . . when the sun sets clearly, then, by heaven, it is majestic. from any one of eleven windows here, or from a terrace overgrown with grapes, you may behold the broad sea, villas, houses, mountains, forts, strewn with rose leaves. strewn with them? steeped in them! dyed, through and through and through. for a moment. no more. the sun is impatient and fierce (like everything else in these parts), and goes down headlong. run to fetch your hat--and it's night. wink at the right time of black night--and it's morning. everything is in extremes. there is an insect here that chirps all day. there is one outside the window now. the chirp is very loud: something like a brobdingnagian grasshopper. the creature is born to chirp; to progress in chirping; to chirp louder, louder, louder; till it gives one tremendous chirp and bursts itself. that is its life and death. everything is 'in a concatenation accordingly.' the day gets brighter, brighter, brighter, till it's night. the summer gets hotter, hotter, hotter, till it explodes. the fruit gets riper, riper, riper, till it tumbles down and rots. . . . ask me a question or two about fresco: will you be so good? all the houses are painted in fresco, hereabout (the outside walls i mean, the fronts, backs, and sides), and all the colour has run into damp and green seediness; and the very design has straggled away into the component atoms of the plaster. beware of fresco! sometimes (but not often) i can make out a virgin with a mildewed glory round her head, holding nothing in an undiscernible lap with invisible arms; and occasionally the leg or arm of a cherub. but it is very melancholy and dim. there are two old fresco-painted vases outside my own gate, one on either hand, which are so faint that i never saw them till last night; and only then, because i was looking over the wall after a lizard who had come upon me while i was smoking a cigar above, and crawled over one of these embellishments in his retreat. . . ." that letter sketched for me the story of his travel through france, and i may at once say that i thus received, from week to week, the "first sprightly runnings" of every description in his _pictures from italy_. but my rule as to the american letters must be here observed yet more strictly; and nothing resembling his printed book, however distantly, can be admitted into these pages. even so my difficulty of rejection will not be less; for as he had not actually decided, until the very last, to publish his present experiences at all, a larger number of the letters were left unrifled by him. he had no settled plan from the first, as in the other case. [illustration] his most valued acquaintance at albaro was the french consul-general, a student of our literature who had written on his books in one of the french reviews, and who with his english wife lived in the very next villa, though so oddly shut away by its vineyard that to get from the one adjoining house to the other was a mile's journey.[ ] describing, in that august letter, his first call from this new friend thus pleasantly self-recommended, he makes the visit his excuse for breaking off from a facetious description of french inns to introduce to me a sketch, from a pencil outline by fletcher, of what bore the imposing name of the villa di bella vista, but which he called by the homelier one of its proprietor, bagnerello. "this, my friend, is quite accurate. allow me to explain it. you are standing, sir, in our vineyard, among the grapes and figs. the mediterranean is at your back as you look at the house: of which two sides, out of four, are here depicted. the lower story (nearly concealed by the vines) consists of the hall, a wine-cellar, and some store-rooms. the three windows on the left of the first floor belong to the sala, lofty and whitewashed, which has two more windows round the corner. the fourth window _did_ belong to the dining-room, but i have changed one of the nurseries for better air; and it now appertains to that branch of the establishment. the fifth and sixth, or two right-hand windows, sir, admit the light to the inimitable's (and uxor's) chamber; to which the first window round the right-hand corner, which you perceive in shadow, also belongs. the next window in shadow, young sir, is the bower of miss h. the next, a nursery window; the same having two more round the corner again. the bowery-looking place stretching out upon the left of the house is the terrace, which opens out from a french window in the drawing-room on the same floor, of which you see nothing: and forms one side of the court-yard. the upper windows belong to some of those uncounted chambers upstairs; the fourth one, longer than the rest, being in f.'s bedroom. there is a kitchen or two up there besides, and my dressing-room; which you can't see from this point of view. the kitchens and other offices in use are down below, under that part of the house where the roof is longest. on your left, beyond the bay of genoa, about two miles off, the alps stretch off into the far horizon; on your right, at three or four miles distance, are mountains crowned with forts. the intervening space on both sides is dotted with villas, some green, some red, some yellow, some blue, some (and ours among the number) pink. at your back, as i have said, sir, is the ocean; with the slim italian tower of the ruined church of st. john the baptist rising up before it, on the top of a pile of savage rocks. you go through the court-yard, and out at the gate, and down a narrow lane to the sea. note. the sala goes sheer up to the top of the house; the ceiling being conical, and the little bedrooms built round the spring of its arch. you will observe that we make no pretension to architectural magnificence, but that we have abundance of room. and here i am, beholding only vines and the sea for days together. . . . good heavens! how i wish you'd come for a week or two, and taste the white wine at a penny farthing the pint. it is excellent.". . . then, after seven days: "i have got my paper and inkstand and figures now (the box from osnaburgh-terrace only came last thursday), and can think--i have begun to do so every morning--with a business-like air, of the christmas book. my paper is arranged, and my pens are spread out in the usual form. i think you know the form--don't you? my books have not passed the custom-house yet, and i tremble for some volumes of voltaire. . . . i write in the best bedroom. the sun is off the corner window at the side of the house by a very little after twelve; and i can then throw the blinds open, and look up from my paper, at the sea, the mountains, the washed-out villas, the vineyards, at the blistering white hot fort with a sentry on the drawbridge standing in a bit of shadow no broader than his own musket, and at the sky, as often as i like. it is a very peaceful view, and yet a very cheerful one. quiet as quiet can be." not yet however had the time for writing come. a sharp attack of illness befell his youngest little daughter, kate, and troubled him much. then, after beginning the italian grammar himself, he had to call in the help of a master; and this learning of the language took up time. but he had an aptitude for it, and after a month's application told me ( th of august) that he could ask in italian for whatever he wanted in any shop or coffee-house, and could read it pretty well. "i wish you could see me" ( th of september), "without my knowing it, walking about alone here. i am now as bold as a lion in the streets. the audacity with which one begins to speak when there is no help for it, is quite astonishing." the blank impossibility at the outset, however, of getting native meanings conveyed to his english servants, he very humorously described to me; and said the spell was first broken by the cook, "being really a clever woman, and not entrenching herself in that astonishing pride of ignorance which induces the rest to oppose themselves to the receipt of any information through any channel, and which made a. careless of looking out of window, in america, even to see the falls of niagara." so that he soon had to report the gain, to all of them, from the fact of this enterprising woman having so primed herself with "the names of all sorts of vegetables, meats, soups, fruits, and kitchen necessaries," that she was able to order whatever was needful of the peasantry that were trotting in and out all day, basketed and barefooted. her example became at once contagious;[ ] and before the end of the second week of september news reached me that "the servants are beginning to pick up scraps of italian; some of them go to a weekly conversazione of servants at the governor's every sunday night, having got over their consternation at the frequent introduction of quadrilles on these occasions; and i think they begin to like their foreigneering life." in the tradespeople they dealt with at albaro he found amusing points of character. sharp as they were after money, their idleness quenched even that propensity. order for immediate delivery two or three pounds of tea, and the tea-dealer would be wretched. "won't it do to-morrow?" "i want it now," you would reply; and he would say, "no, no, there can be no hurry!" he remonstrated against the cruelty. but everywhere there was deference, courtesy, more than civility. "in a café a little tumbler of ice costs something less than threepence, and if you give the waiter in addition what you would not offer to an english beggar, say, the third of a halfpenny, he is profoundly grateful." the attentions received from english residents were unremitting.[ ] in moments of need at the outset, they bestirred themselves ("large merchants and grave men") as if they were the family's salaried purveyors; and there was in especial one gentleman named curry whose untiring kindness was long remembered. the light, eager, active figure soon made itself familiar in the streets of genoa, and he never went into them without bringing some oddity away. i soon heard of the strada nuova and strada balbi; of the broadest of the two as narrower than albany-street, and of the other as less wide than drury-lane or wych-street; but both filled with palaces of noble architecture and of such vast dimensions that as many windows as there are days in the year might be counted in one of them, and this not covering by any means the largest plot of ground. i heard too of the other streets, none with footways, and all varying in degrees of narrowness, but for the most part like field-lane in holborn, with little breathing-places like st. martin's-court; and the widest only in parts wide enough to enable a carriage and pair to turn. "imagine yourself looking down a street of reform clubs cramped after this odd fashion, the lofty roofs almost seeming to meet in the perspective." in the churches nothing struck him so much as the profusion of trash and tinsel in them that contrasted with their real splendours of embellishment. one only, that of the cappucini friars, blazed every inch of it with gold, precious stones, and paintings of priceless art; the principal contrast to its radiance being the dirt of its masters, whose bare legs, corded waists, and coarse brown serge never changed by night or day, proclaimed amid their corporate wealth their personal vows of poverty. he found them less pleasant to meet and look at than the country people of their suburb on festa-days, with the indulgences that gave them the right to make merry stuck in their hats like turnpike-tickets. he did not think the peasant girls in general good-looking, though they carried themselves daintily and walked remarkably well: but the ugliness of the old women, begotten of hard work and a burning sun, with porters' knots of coarse grey hair grubbed up over wrinkled and cadaverous faces, he thought quite stupendous. he was never in a street a hundred yards long without getting up perfectly the witch part of _macbeth_. with the theatres of course he soon became acquainted, and of that of the puppets he wrote to me again and again with humorous rapture. "there are other things," he added, after giving me the account which is published in his book, "too solemnly surprising to dwell upon. they must be seen. they must be seen. the enchanter carrying off the bride is not greater than his men brandishing fiery torches and dropping their lighted spirits of wine at every shake. also the enchanter himself, when, hunted down and overcome, he leaps into the rolling sea, and finds a watery grave. also the second comic man, aged about and like george the third in the face, when he gives out the play for the next night. they must all be seen. they can't be told about. quite impossible." the living performers he did not think so good, a disbelief in italian actors having been always a heresy with him, and the deplorable length of dialogue to the small amount of action in their plays making them sadly tiresome. the first that he saw at the principal theatre was a version of balzac's _père goriot_. "the domestic lear i thought at first was going to be very clever. but he was too pitiful--perhaps the italian reality would be. he was immensely applauded, though." he afterwards saw a version of dumas' preposterous play of _kean_, in which most of the representatives of english actors wore red hats with steeple crowns, and very loose blouses with broad belts and buckles round their waists. "there was a mysterious person called the prince of var-lees" (wales), "the youngest and slimmest man in the company, whose badinage in kean's dressing-room was irresistible; and the dresser wore top-boots, a greek skull-cap, a black velvet jacket, and leather breeches. one or two of the actors looked very hard at me to see how i was touched by these english peculiarities--especially when kean kissed his male friends on both cheeks." the arrangements of the house, which he described as larger than drury-lane, he thought excellent. instead of a ticket for the private box he had taken on the first tier, he received the usual key for admission which let him in as if he lived there; and for the whole set-out, "quite as comfortable and private as a box at our opera," paid only eight and fourpence english. the opera itself had not its regular performers until after christmas, but in the summer there was a good comic company, and he saw the _scaramuccia_ and the _barber of seville_ brightly and pleasantly done. there was also a day theatre, beginning at half past four in the afternoon; but beyond the novelty of looking on at the covered stage as he sat in the fresh pleasant air, he did not find much amusement in the goldoni comedy put before him. there came later a russian circus, which the unusual rains of that summer prematurely extinguished. the religious houses he made early and many enquiries about, and there was one that had stirred and baffled his curiosity much before he discovered what it really was. all that was visible from the street was a great high wall, apparently quite alone, no thicker than a party wall, with grated windows, to which iron screens gave farther protection. at first he supposed there had been a fire; but by degrees came to know that on the other side were galleries, one above another, one above another, and nuns always pacing them to and fro. like the wall of a racket-ground outside, it was inside a very large nunnery; and let the poor sisters walk never so much, neither they nor the passers-by could see anything of each other. it was close upon the acqua sola, too; a little park with still young but very pretty trees, and fresh and cheerful fountains, which the genoese made their sunday promenade; and underneath which was an archway with great public tanks, where, at all ordinary times, washerwomen were washing away, thirty or forty together. at albaro they were worse off in this matter: the clothes there being washed in a pond, beaten with gourds, and whitened with a preparation of lime: "so that," he wrote to me ( th of august), "what between the beating and the burning they fall into holes unexpectedly, and my white trowsers, after six weeks' washing, would make very good fishing-nets. it is such a serious damage that when we get into the peschiere we mean to wash at home." exactly a fortnight before this date, he had hired rooms in the peschiere from the first of the following october; and so ended the house-hunting for his winter residence, that had taken him so often to the city. the peschiere was the largest palace in genoa let on hire, and had the advantage of standing on a height aloof from the town, surrounded by its own gardens. the rooms taken had been occupied by an english colonel, the remainder of whose term was let to dickens for francs a month (£ ); and a few days after ( th of august) he described to me a fellow tenant: "a spanish duke has taken the room under me in the peschiere. the duchess was his mistress many years, and bore him (i think) six daughters. he always promised her that if she gave birth to a son, he would marry her; and when at last the boy arrived, he went into her bedroom, saying--'duchess, i am charmed to "salute you!"' and he married her in good earnest, and legitimatized (as by the spanish law he could) all the other children." the beauty of the new abode will justify a little description when he takes up his quarters there. one or two incidents may be related, meanwhile, of the closing weeks of his residence at albaro. in the middle of august he dined with the french consul-general, and there will now be no impropriety in printing his agreeable sketch of the dinner. "there was present, among other genoese, the marquis di negri: a very fat and much older jerdan, with the same thickness of speech and size of tongue. he was byron's friend, keeps open house here, writes poetry, improvises, and is a very good old blunderbore; just the sort of instrument to make an artesian well with, anywhere. well, sir, after dinner, the consul proposed my health, with a little french conceit to the effect that i had come to italy to have personal experience of its lovely climate, and that there was this similarity between the italian sun and its visitor, that the sun shone into the darkest places and made them bright and happy with its benignant influence, and that my books had done the like with the breasts of men, and so forth. upon which blunderbore gives his bright-buttoned blue coat a great rap on the breast, turns up his fishy eye, stretches out his arm like the living statue defying the lightning at astley's, and delivers four impromptu verses in my honour, at which everybody is enchanted, and i more than anybody--perhaps with the best reason, for i didn't understand a word of them. the consul then takes from his breast a roll of paper, and says, 'i shall read them!' blunderbore then says, 'don't!' but the consul does, and blunderbore beats time to the music of the verse with his knuckles on the table; and perpetually ducks forward to look round the cap of a lady sitting between himself and me, to see what i think of them. i exhibit lively emotion. the verses are in french--short line--on the taking of tangiers by the prince de joinville; and are received with great applause; especially by a nobleman present who is reported to be unable to read and write. they end in my mind (rapidly translating them into prose) thus,-- 'the cannon of france rendering thanks shake the foundation to heaven. of the wondering sea, the king the artillery on the shore and all the royal family is put to silence. are bathed honour to joinville in tears. and the brave! they call upon the name the great intelligence of joinville! is borne france also upon the wings of fame weeps, and echoes it. to paris. joinville is crowned her national citizens with immortality; exchange caresses and peace and joinville, in the streets! and the glory of france, the temples are crowded diffuse themselves with religious patriots conjointly.' if you can figure to yourself the choice absurdity of receiving anything into one's mind in this way, you can imagine the labour i underwent in my attempts to keep the lower part of my face square, and to lift up one eye gently, as with admiring attention. but i am bound to add that this is really pretty literal; for i read them afterwards." this, too, was the year of other uncomfortable glories of france in the last three years of her orleans dynasty; among them the tahiti business, as politicians may remember; and so hot became rumours of war with england at the opening of september that dickens had serious thoughts of at once striking his tent. one of his letters was filled with the conflicting doubts in which they lived for nigh a fortnight, every day's arrival contradicting the arrival of the day before: so that, as he told me, you met a man in the street to-day, who told you there would certainly be war in a week; and you met the same man in the street to-morrow, and he swore he always knew there would be nothing but peace; and you met him again the day after, and he said it all depended _now_ on something perfectly new and unheard of before, which somebody else said had just come to the knowledge of some consul in some dispatch which said something about some telegraph which had been at work somewhere, signalizing some prodigious intelligence. however, it all passed harmlessly away, leaving him undisturbed opportunity to avail himself of a pleasure that arose out of the consul-general's dinner party, and to be present at a great reception given shortly after by the good "old blunderbore" just mentioned, on the occasion of his daughter's birthday. the marquis had a splendid house, but dickens found the grounds so carved into grottoes and fanciful walks as to remind him of nothing so much as our old white-conduit-house, except that he would have been well pleased, on the present occasion, to have discovered a waiter crying, "give your orders, gents!" it being not easy to him at any time to keep up, the whole night through, on ices and variegated lamps merely. but the scene for awhile was amusing enough, and not rendered less so by the delight of the marquis himself, "who was constantly diving out into dark corners and then among the lattice-work and flower pots, rubbing his hands and going round and round with explosive chuckles in his huge satisfaction with the entertainment." with horror it occurred to dickens, however, that four more hours of this kind of entertainment would be too much; that the genoa gates closed at twelve; and that as the carriage had not been ordered till the dancing was expected to be over and the gates to reopen, he must make a sudden bolt if he would himself get back to albaro. "i had barely time," he told me, "to reach the gate before midnight; and was running as hard as i could go, down-hill, over uneven ground, along a new street called the strada sevra, when i came to a pole fastened straight across the street, nearly breast high, without any light or watchman--quite in the italian style. i went over it, headlong, with such force that i rolled myself completely white in the dust; but although i tore my clothes to shreds, i hardly scratched myself except in one place on the knee. i had no time to think of it then, for i was up directly and off again to save the gate: but when i got outside the wall, and saw the state i was in, i wondered i had not broken my neck. i 'took it easy' after this, and walked home, by lonely ways enough, without meeting a single soul. but there is nothing to be feared, i believe, from midnight walks in this part of italy. in other places you incur the danger of being stabbed by mistake; whereas the people here are quiet and good tempered, and very rarely commit any outrage." such adventures, nevertheless, are seldom without consequences, and there followed in this case a short but sharp attack of illness. it came on with the old "unspeakable and agonizing pain in the side," for which bob fagin had prepared and applied the hot bottles in the old warehouse time; and it yielded quickly to powerful remedies. but for a few days he had to content himself with the minor sights of albaro. he sat daily in the shade of the ruined chapel on the seashore. he looked in at the festa in the small country church, consisting mainly of a tenor singer, a seraphine, and four priests sitting gaping in a row on one side of the altar "in flowered satin dresses and little cloth caps, looking exactly like the band at a wild-beast-caravan." he was interested in the wine-making, and in seeing the country tenants preparing their annual presents for their landlords, of baskets of grapes and other fruit prettily dressed with flowers. the season of the grapes, too, brought out after dusk strong parties of rats to eat them as they ripened, and so many shooting parties of peasants to get rid of these despoilers, that as he first listened to the uproar of the firing and the echoes he half fancied it a siege of albaro. the flies mustered strong, too, and the mosquitos;[ ] so that at night he had to lie covered up with gauze, like cold meat in a safe. of course all news from england, and especially visits paid him by english friends who might be travelling in italy, were a great delight. this was the year when o'connell was released from prison by the judgment of the lords on appeal. "i have no faith in o'connell taking the great position he might upon this: being beleaguered by vanity always. denman delights me. i am glad to think i have always liked him so well. i am sure that whenever he makes a mistake, it _is_ a mistake; and that no man lives who has a grander and nobler scorn of every mean and dastard action. i would to heaven it were decorous to pay him some public tribute of respect . . . o'connell's speeches are the old thing: fretty, boastful, frothy, waspish at the voices in the crowd, and all that: but with no true greatness. . . . what a relief to turn to that noble letter of carlyle's" (in which a timely testimony had been borne to the truthfulness and honour of mazzini), "which i think above all praise. my love to him." among his english visitors were mr. tagart's family, on their way from a scientific congress at milan; and peter (now become lord) robertson from rome, of whose talk he wrote very pleasantly. the sons of burns had been entertained during the summer in edinburgh at what was called a burns festival, of which, through jerrold who was present, i had sent him no very favourable account; and this was now confirmed by robertson, whose letters had given him an "awful" narrative of wilson's speech, and of the whole business. "there was one man who spoke a quarter of an hour or so, to the toast of the navy; and could say nothing more than 'the--british--navy--always appreciates--' which remarkable sentiment he repeated over and over again for that space of time; and then sat down. robertson told me also that wilson's allusion to, or i should rather say expatiation upon, the 'vices' of burns, excited but one sentiment of indignation and disgust: and added, very sensibly, 'by god!--i want to know _what burns did_! i never heard of his doing anything that need be strange or unaccountable to the professor's mind. i think he must have mistaken the name, and fancied it a dinner to the sons of _burke_'--meaning of course the murderer. in short he fully confirmed jerrold in all respects." the same letter told me, too, something of his reading. jerrold's _story of a feather_ he had derived much enjoyment from. "gauntwolf's sickness and the career of that snuffbox, masterly.[ ] i have been deep in voyages and travels, and in de foe. tennyson i have also been reading, again and again. what a great creature he is! . . . what about the _goldsmith_? apropos, i am all eagerness to write a story about the length of that most delightful of all stories, the _vicar of wakefield_." in the second week of september he went to meet his brother frederick at marseilles, and bring him back over the cornice road to pass a fortnight's holiday at genoa; and his description of the first inn upon the alps they slept in is too good to be lost. "we lay last night," he wrote ( th of september) "at the first halting-place on this journey, in an inn which is not entitled, as it ought to be, the house of call for fleas and vermin in general, but is entitled the grand hotel of the post! i hardly know what to compare it to. it seemed something like a house in somers-town originally built for a wine-vaults and never finished, but grown very old. there was nothing to eat in it and nothing to drink. they had lost the teapot; and when they found it, they couldn't make out what had become of the lid, which, turning up at last and being fixed on to the teapot, couldn't be got off again for the pouring in of more water. fleas of elephantine dimensions were gambolling boldly in the dirty beds; and the mosquitoes!--but let me here draw a curtain (as i would have done if there had been any). we had scarcely any sleep, and rose up with hands and arms hardly human." in four days they were at albaro, and the morning after their arrival dickens underwent the terrible shock of seeing his brother very nearly drowned in the bay. he swam out into too strong a current,[ ] and was only narrowly saved by the accident of a fishing-boat preparing to leave the harbour at the time. "it was a world of horror and anguish," dickens wrote to me, "crowded into four or five minutes of dreadful agitation; and, to complete the terror of it, georgy, charlotte" (the nurse), "and the children were on a rock in full view of it all, crying, as you may suppose, like mad creatures." his own bathing was from the rock, and, as he had already told me, of the most primitive kind. he went in whenever he pleased, broke his head against sharp stones if he went in with that end foremost, floundered about till he was all over bruises, and then climbed and staggered out again. "everybody wears a dress. mine extremely theatrical: masaniello to the life: shall be preserved for your inspection in devonshire-terrace." i will add another personal touch, also masaniello-like, which marks the beginning of a change which, though confined for the present to his foreign residence and removed when he came to england, was resumed somewhat later, and in a few more years wholly altered the aspect of his face. "the moustaches are glorious, glorious. i have cut them shorter, and trimmed them a little at the ends to improve the shape. they are charming, charming. without them, life would be a blank." footnotes: [ ] he regretted one chance missed by his eccentric friend, which he described to me just before he left italy. "i saw last night an old palazzo of the doria, six miles from here, upon the sea, which de la rue urged fletcher to take for us, when he was bent on that detestable villa bagnerello; which villa the genoese have hired, time out of mind, for one-fourth of what i paid, as they told him again and again before he made the agreement. this is one of the strangest old palaces in italy, surrounded by beautiful _woods_ of great trees (an immense rarity here) some miles in extent: and has upon the terrace a high tower, formerly a prison for offenders against the family, and a defence against the pirates. the present doria lets it as it stands for £ english--for the year. . . . and the grounds are no expense; being proudly maintained by the doria, who spends this rent, when he gets it, in repairing the roof and windows. it is a wonderful house; full of the most unaccountable pictures and most incredible furniture: every room in it like the most quaint and fanciful of cattermole's pictures; and how many rooms i am afraid to say." nd of june, . [ ] "we have had a london sky until to-day," he wrote on the th of july, "gray and cloudy as you please: but i am most disappointed, i think, in the evenings, which are as commonplace as need be; for there is no twilight, and as to the stars giving more light here than elsewhere, that is humbug." the summer of seems to have been, however, an unusually stormy and wet season. he wrote to me on the st of october that they had had, so far, only four really clear days since they came to italy. [ ] "my faith on that-point is decidedly shaken, which reminds me to ask you whether you ever read simond's tour in italy. it is a most charming book, and eminently remarkable for its excellent sense, and determination not to give in to conventional lies." in a later letter he says: "none of the books are unaffected and true but simond's, which charms me more and more by its boldness, and its frank exhibition of that rare and admirable quality which enables a man to form opinions for himself without a miserable and slavish reference to the pretended opinions of other people. his notices of the leading pictures enchant me. they are so perfectly just and faithful, and so whimsically shrewd." rome, th of march, . [ ] i send my heart up to thee, all my heart in this my singing! for the stars help me, and the sea bears part; the very night is clinging closer to venice' streets to leave one space above me, whence thy face may light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place. written to express maclise's subject in the academy catalogue. [ ] "their house is next to ours on the right, with vineyard between; but the place is so oddly contrived that one has to go a full mile round to get to their door." [ ] not however, happily for them, in another important particular, for on the eve of their return to england she declared her intention of staying behind and marrying an italian. "she will have to go to florence, i find" ( th of may ), "to be married in lord holland's house: and even then is only married according to the english law: having no legal rights from such a marriage, either in france or italy. the man hasn't a penny. if there were an opening for a nice clean restaurant in genoa--which i don't believe there is, for the genoese have a natural enjoyment of dirt, garlic, and oil--it would still be a very hazardous venture; as the priests will certainly damage the man, if they can, for marrying a protestant woman. however, the utmost i can do is to take care, if such a crisis should arrive, that she shall not want the means of getting home to england. as my father would observe, she has sown and must reap." [ ] he had carried with him, i may here mention, letters of introduction to residents in all parts of italy, of which i believe he delivered hardly one. writing to me a couple of months before he left the country he congratulated himself on this fact. "we are living very quietly; and i am now more than ever glad that i have kept myself aloof from the 'receiving' natives always, and delivered scarcely any of my letters of introduction. if i had, i should have seen nothing and known less. i have observed that the english women who have married foreigners are invariably the most audacious in the license they assume. think of one lady married to a royal chamberlain (not here) who said at dinner to the master of the house at a place where i was dining--that she had brought back his _satirist_, but didn't think there was quite so much 'fun' in it as there used to be. i looked at the paper afterwards, and found it crammed with such vile obscenity as positively made one's hair stand on end." [ ] what his poor little dog suffered should not be omitted from the troubles of the master who was so fond of him. "timber has had every hair upon his body cut off because of the fleas, and he looks like the ghost of a drowned dog come out of a pond after a week or so. it is very awful to see him slide into a room. he knows the change upon him, and is always turning round and round to look for himself. i think he'll die of grief." three weeks later: "timber's hair is growing again, so that you can dimly perceive him to be a dog. the fleas only keep three of his legs off the ground now, and he sometimes moves of his own accord towards some place where they don't want to go." his improvement was slow, but after this continuous. [ ] a characteristic message for jerrold came in a later letter ( th of may, ): "i wish you would suggest to jerrold for me as a caudle subject (if he pursue that idea). 'mr. caudle has incidentally remarked that the house-maid is good-looking.'" [ ] of the dangers of the bay he had before written to me ( th of august). "a monk was drowned here on saturday evening. he was bathing with two other monks, who bolted when he cried out that he was sinking--in consequence, i suppose, of his certainty of going to heaven." chapter vi. work in genoa: palazzo peschiere. . palace of the fish-ponds--mural paintings--peschiere garden--a peal of chimes--governor's levee--_chimes_ a plea for the poor--dickens's choice of a hero--religious sentiment--dialogue in a vision--hard at work--first outline of the _chimes_--what the writing of it cost him--wild weather--coming to london--secret of the visit--the tale finished--proposed travel. in the last week of september they moved from albaro into genoa, amid a violent storm of wind and wet, "great guns blowing," the lightning incessant, and the rain driving down in a dense thick cloud. but the worst of the storm was over when they reached the peschiere. as they passed into it along the stately old terraces, flanked on either side with antique sculptured figures, all the seven fountains were playing in its gardens, and the sun was shining brightly on its groves of camellias and orange-trees. it was a wonderful place, and i soon became familiar with the several rooms that were to form their home for the rest of their stay in italy. in the centre was the grand sala, fifty feet high, of an area larger than "the dining-room of the academy," and painted, walls and ceiling, with frescoes three hundred years old, "as fresh as if the colours had been laid on yesterday." on the same floor as this great hall were a drawing-room, and a dining-room,[ ] both covered also with frescoes still bright enough to make them thoroughly cheerful, and both so nicely proportioned as to give to their bigness all the effect of snugness.[ ] out of these opened three other chambers that were turned into sleeping-rooms and nurseries. adjoining the sala, right and left, were the two best bedrooms; "in size and shape like those at windsor-castle but greatly higher;" both having altars, a range of three windows with stone balconies, floors tesselated in patterns of black and white stone, and walls painted every inch: on the left, nymphs pursued by satyrs "as large as life and as wicked;" on the right, "phaeton larger than life, with horses bigger than meux and co.'s, tumbling headlong down into the best bed." the right-hand one he occupied with his wife, and of the left took possession as a study; writing behind a big screen he had lugged into it, and placed by one of the windows, from which he could see over the city, as he wrote, as far as the lighthouse in its harbour. distant little over a mile as the crow flew, flashing five times in four minutes, and on dark nights, as if by magic, illuminating brightly the whole palace-front every time it shone, this lighthouse was one of the wonders of genoa. [illustration] when it had all become more familiar to him, he was fond of dilating on its beauties; and even the dreary sound of the chaunting from neighbouring mass-performances, as it floated in at all the open windows, which at first was a sad trouble, came to have its charm for him. i remember a vivid account he gave me of a great festa on the hill behind the house, when the people alternately danced under tents in the open air and rushed to say a prayer or two in an adjoining church bright with red and gold and blue and silver; so many minutes of dancing, and of praying, in regular turns of each. but the view over into genoa, on clear bright days, was a never failing enjoyment. the whole city then, without an atom of smoke, and with every possible variety of tower and steeple pointing up into the sky, lay stretched out below his windows. to the right and left were lofty hills, with every indentation in their rugged sides sharply discernible; and on one side of the harbour stretched away into the dim bright distance the whole of the cornice, its first highest range of mountains hoary with snow. sitting down one spring day to write to me, he thus spoke of the sea and of the garden. "beyond the town is the wide expanse of the mediterranean, as blue, at this moment, as the most pure and vivid prussian blue on mac's palette when it is newly set; and on the horizon there is a red flush, seen nowhere as it is here. immediately below the windows are the gardens of the house, with gold fish swimming and diving in the fountains; and below them, at the foot of a steep slope, the public garden and drive, where the walks are marked out by hedges of pink roses, which blush and shine through the green trees and vines, close up to the balconies of these windows. no custom can impair, and no description enhance, the beauty of the scene." all these and other glories and beauties, however, did not come to him at once. they counted for little indeed when he first set himself seriously to write. "never did i stagger so upon a threshold before. i seem as if i had plucked myself out of my proper soil when i left devonshire-terrace; and could take root no more until i return to it. . . . did i tell you how many fountains we have here? no matter. if they played nectar, they wouldn't please me half so well as the west middlesex water-works at devonshire-terrace." the subject for his new christmas story he had chosen, but he had not found a title for it, or the machinery to work it with; when, at the moment of what seemed to be his greatest trouble, both reliefs came. sitting down one morning resolute for work, though against the grain, his hand being out and everything inviting to idleness, such a peal of chimes arose from the city as he found to be "maddening." all genoa lay beneath him, and up from it, with some sudden set of the wind, came in one fell sound the clang and clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant, jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas "spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead." he had never before so suffered, nor did he again; but this was his description to me next day, and his excuse for having failed in a promise to send me his title. only two days later, however, came a letter in which not a syllable was written but "we have heard the chimes at midnight, master shallow!" and i knew he had discovered what he wanted. other difficulties were still to be got over. he craved for the london streets. he so missed his long night-walks before beginning anything that he seemed, as he said, dumbfounded without them. "i can't help thinking of the boy in the school-class whose button was cut off by walter scott and his friends. put me down on waterloo-bridge at eight o'clock in the evening, with leave to roam about as long as i like, and i would come home, as you know, panting to go on. i am sadly strange as it is, and can't settle. you will have lots of hasty notes from me while i am at work; but you know your man; and whatever strikes me, i shall let off upon you as if i were in devonshire-terrace. it's a great thing to have my title, and see my way how to work the bells. let them clash upon me now from all the churches and convents in genoa, i see nothing but the old london belfry i have set them in. in my mind's eye, horatio. i like more and more my notion of making, in this little book, a great blow for the poor. something powerful, i think i can do, but i want to be tender too, and cheerful; as like the _carol_ in that respect as may be, and as unlike it as such a thing can be. the duration of the action will resemble it a little, but i trust to the novelty of the machinery to carry that off; and if my design be anything at all, it has a grip upon the very throat of the time." ( th of october.) thus bent upon his work, for which he never had been in more earnest mood, he was disturbed by hearing that he must attend the levee of the governor who had unexpectedly arrived in the city, and who would take it as an affront, his eccentric friend fletcher told him, if that courtesy were not immediately paid. "it was the morning on which i was going to begin, so i wrote round to our consul,"--praying, of course, that excuse should be made for him. don't bother yourself, replied that sensible functionary, for all the consuls and governors alive; but shut yourself up by all means. "so," continues dickens, telling me the tale, "he went next morning in great state and full costume, to present two english gentlemen. 'where's the great poet?' said the governor. 'i want to see the great poet.' 'the great poet, your excellency,' said the consul, 'is at work, writing a book, and begged me to make his excuses.' 'excuses!' said the governor, 'i wouldn't interfere with such an occupation for all the world. pray tell him that my house is open to the honour of his presence when it is perfectly convenient for him; but not otherwise. and let no gentleman,' said the governor, a surweyin' of his suite with a majestic eye, 'call upon signor dickens till he is understood to be disengaged.' and he sent somebody with his own cards next day. now i _do_ seriously call this, real politeness and pleasant consideration--not positively american, but still gentlemanly and polished. the same spirit pervades the inferior departments; and i have not been required to observe the usual police regulations, or to put myself to the slightest trouble about anything." ( th of october.) the picture i am now to give of him at work should be prefaced by a word or two that may throw light on the design he was working at. it was a large theme for so small an instrument; and the disproportion was not more characteristic of the man, than the throes of suffering and passion to be presently undergone by him for results that many men would smile at. he was bent, as he says, on striking a blow for the poor. they had always been his clients, they had never been forgotten in any of his books, but here nothing else was to be remembered. he had become, in short, terribly earnest in the matter. several months before he left england, i had noticed in him the habit of more gravely regarding many things before passed lightly enough; the hopelessness of any true solution of either political or social problems by the ordinary downing-street methods had been startlingly impressed on him in carlyle's writings; and in the parliamentary talk of that day he had come to have as little faith for the putting down of any serious evil, as in a then notorious city alderman's gabble for the putting down of suicide. the latter had stirred his indignation to its depths just before he came to italy, and his increased opportunities of solitary reflection since had strengthened and extended it. when he came therefore to think of his new story for christmas time, he resolved to make it a plea for the poor. he did not want it to resemble his _carol_, but the same kind of moral was in his mind. he was to try and convert society, as he had converted scrooge, by showing that its happiness rested on the same foundations as those of the individual, which are mercy and charity not less than justice. whether right or wrong in these assumptions, need not be questioned here, where facts are merely stated to render intelligible what will follow; he had not made politics at any time a study, and they were always an instinct with him rather than a science; but the instinct was wholesome and sound, and to set class against class never ceased to be as odious to him as he thought it righteous at all times to help each to a kindlier knowledge of the other. and so, here in italy, amid the grand surroundings of this palazzo peschiere, the hero of his imagination was to be a sorry old drudge of a london ticket-porter, who in his anxiety not to distrust or think hardly of the rich, has fallen into the opposite extreme of distrusting the poor. from such distrust it is the object of the story to reclaim him; and, to the writer of it, the tale became itself of less moment than what he thus intended it to enforce. far beyond mere vanity in authorship went the passionate zeal with which he began, and the exultation with which he finished, this task. when we met at its close, he was fresh from venice, which had impressed him as "the wonder" and "the new sensation" of the world: but well do i remember how high above it all arose the hope that filled his mind. "ah!" he said to me, "when i saw those places, how i thought that to leave one's hand upon the time, lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for the mass of toiling people that nothing could obliterate, would be to lift oneself above the dust of all the doges in their graves, and stand upon a giant's staircase that sampson couldn't overthrow!" in varying forms this ambition was in all his life. another incident of these days will exhibit aspirations of a more solemn import that were not less part of his nature. it was depth of sentiment rather than clearness of faith which kept safe the belief on which they rested against all doubt or question of its sacredness, but every year seemed to strengthen it in him. this was told me in his second letter after reaching the peschiere; the first having sent me some such commissions in regard to his wife's family as his kindly care for all connected with him frequently led to. "let me tell you," he wrote ( th of september), "of a curious dream i had, last monday night; and of the fragments of reality i can collect; which helped to make it up. i have had a return of rheumatism in my back, and knotted round my waist like a girdle of pain; and had laid awake nearly all that night under the infliction, when i fell asleep and dreamed this dream. observe that throughout i was as real, animated, and full of passion as macready (god bless him!) in the last scene of _macbeth_. in an indistinct place, which was quite sublime in its indistinctness, i was visited by a spirit. i could not make out the face, nor do i recollect that i desired to do so. it wore a blue drapery, as the madonna might in a picture by raphael; and bore no resemblance to any one i have known except in stature. i think (but i am not sure) that i recognized the voice. anyway, i knew it was poor mary's spirit. i was not at all afraid, but in a great delight, so that i wept very much, and stretching out my arms to it called it 'dear.' at this, i thought it recoiled; and i felt immediately, that not being of my gross nature, i ought not to have addressed it so familiarly. 'forgive me!' i said. 'we poor living creatures are only able to express ourselves by looks and words. i have used the word most natural to _our_ affections; and you know my heart.' it was so full of compassion and sorrow for me--which i knew spiritually, for, as i have said, i didn't perceive its emotions by its face--that it cut me to the heart; and i said, sobbing, 'oh! give me some token that you have really visited me!' 'form a wish,' it said. i thought, reasoning with myself: 'if i form a selfish wish, it will vanish.' so i hastily discarded such hopes and anxieties of my own as came into my mind, and said, 'mrs. hogarth is surrounded with great distresses'--observe, i never thought of saying 'your mother' as to a mortal creature--'will you extricate her?' 'yes.' 'and her extrication is to be a certainty to me, that this has really happened?' 'yes.' 'but answer me one other question!' i said, in an agony of entreaty lest it should leave me. 'what is the true religion?' as it paused a moment without replying, i said--good god in such an agony of haste, lest it should go away!--'you think, as i do, that the form of religion does not so greatly matter, if we try to do good? or,' i said, observing that it still hesitated, and was moved with the greatest compassion for me, 'perhaps the roman catholic is the best? perhaps it makes one think of god oftener, and believe in him more steadily?' 'for _you_,' said the spirit, full of such heavenly tenderness for me, that i felt as if my heart would break; 'for _you_, it is the best!' then i awoke, with the tears running down my face, and myself in exactly the condition of the dream. it was just dawn. i called up kate, and repeated it three or four times over, that i might not unconsciously make it plainer or stronger afterwards. it was exactly this. free from all hurry, nonsense, or confusion, whatever. now, the strings i can gather up, leading to this, were three. the first you know, from the main subject of my last letter. the second was, that there is a great altar in our bed-room, at which some family who once inhabited this palace had mass performed in old time: and i had observed within myself, before going to bed, that there was a mark in the wall, above the sanctuary, where a religious picture used to be; and i had wondered within myself what the subject might have been, _and what the face was like_. thirdly, i had been listening to the convent bells (which ring at intervals in the night), and so had thought, no doubt, of roman catholic services. and yet, for all this, put the case of that wish being fulfilled by any agency in which i had no hand; and i wonder whether i should regard it as a dream, or an actual vision!" it was perhaps natural that he should omit, from his own considerations awakened by the dream, the very first that would have risen in any mind to which his was intimately known--that it strengthens other evidences, of which there are many in his life, of his not having escaped those trying regions of reflection which most men of thought and all men of genius have at some time to pass through. in such disturbing fancies during the next year or two, i may add that the book which helped him most was the _life of arnold_. "i respect and reverence his memory," he wrote to me in the middle of october, in reply to my mention of what had most attracted myself in it, "beyond all expression. i must have that book. every sentence that you quote from it is the text-book of my faith." he kept his promise that i should hear from him while writing, and i had frequent letters when he was fairly in his work. "with my steam very much up, i find it a great trial to be so far off from you, and consequently to have no one (always excepting kate and georgy) to whom to expatiate on my day's work. and i want a crowded street to plunge into at night. and i want to be 'on the spot' as it were. but apart from such things, the life i lead is favourable to work." in his next letter: "i am in regular, ferocious excitement with the _chimes_; get up at seven; have a cold bath before breakfast; and blaze away, wrathful and red-hot, until three o'clock or so; when i usually knock off (unless it rains) for the day . . . i am fierce to finish in a spirit bearing some affinity to those of truth and mercy, and to shame the cruel and the canting. i have not forgotten my catechism. 'yes verily, and with god's help, so i will!'" within a week he had completed his first part, or quarter. "i send you to-day" ( th of october), "by mail, the first and longest of the four divisions. this is great for the first week, which is usually up-hill. i have kept a copy in shorthand in case of accidents. i hope to send you a parcel every monday until the whole is done. i do not wish to influence you, but it has a great hold upon me, and has affected me, in the doing, in divers strong ways, deeply, forcibly. to give you better means of judgment i will sketch for you the general idea, but pray don't read it until you have read this first part of the ms." i print it here. it is a good illustration of his method in all his writing. his idea is in it so thoroughly, that, by comparison with the tale as printed, we see the strength of its mastery over his first design. thus always, whether his tale was to be written in one or in twenty numbers, his fancies controlled him. he never, in any of his books, accomplished what he had wholly preconceived, often as he attempted it. few men of genius ever did. once at the sacred heat that opens regions beyond ordinary vision, imagination has its own laws; and where characters are so real as to be treated as existences, their creator himself cannot help them having their own wills and ways. fern the farm-labourer is not here, nor yet his niece the little lilian (at first called jessie) who is to give to the tale its most tragical scene; and there are intimations of poetic fancy at the close of my sketch which the published story fell short of. altogether the comparison is worth observing. "the general notion is this. that what happens to poor trotty in the first part, and what will happen to him in the second (when he takes the letter to a punctual and a great man of business, who is balancing his books and making up his accounts, and complacently expatiating on the necessity of clearing off every liability and obligation, and turning over a new leaf and starting fresh with the new year), so dispirits him, who can't do this, that he comes to the conclusion that his class and order have no business with a new year, and really are 'intruding.' and though he will pluck up for an hour or so, at the christening (i think) of a neighbour's child, that evening: still, when he goes home, mr. filer's precepts will come into his mind, and he will say to himself, 'we are a long way past the proper average of children, and it has no business to be born:' and will be wretched again. and going home, and sitting there alone, he will take that newspaper out of his pocket, and reading of the crimes and offences of the poor, especially of those whom alderman cute is going to put down, will be quite confirmed in his misgiving that they are bad; irredeemably bad. in this state of mind, he will fancy that the chimes are calling, to him; and saying to himself 'god help me. let me go up to 'em. i feel as if i were going to die in despair--of a broken heart; let me die among the bells that have been a comfort to me!'--will grope his way up into the tower; and fall down in a kind of swoon among them. then the third quarter, or in other words the beginning of the second half of the book, will open with the goblin part of the thing: the bells ringing, and innumerable spirits (the sound or vibration of them) flitting and tearing in and out of the church-steeple, and bearing all sorts of missions and commissions and reminders and reproaches, and comfortable recollections and what not, to all sorts of people and places. some bearing scourges; and others flowers, and birds, and music; and others pleasant faces in mirrors, and others ugly ones: the bells haunting people in the night (especially the last of the old year) according to their deeds. and the bells themselves, who have a goblin likeness to humanity in the midst of their proper shapes, and who shine in a light of their own, will say (the great bell being the chief spokesman) who is he that being of the poor doubts the right of poor men to the inheritance which time reserves for them, and echoes an unmeaning cry against his fellows? toby, all aghast, will tell him it is he, and why it is. then the spirits of the bells will bear him through the air to various scenes, charged with this trust: that they show him how the poor and wretched, at the worst--yes, even in the crimes that aldermen put down, and he has thought so horrible--have some deformed and hunchbacked goodness clinging to them; and how they have their right and share in time. following out the history of meg the bells will show her, that marriage broken off and all friends dead, with an infant child; reduced so low, and made so miserable, as to be brought at last to wander out at night. and in toby's sight, her father's, she will resolve to drown herself and the child together. but before she goes down to the water, toby will see how she covers it with a part of her own wretched dress, and adjusts its rags so as to make it pretty in its sleep, and hangs over it, and smooths its little limbs, and loves it with the dearest love that god ever gave to mortal creatures; and when she runs down to the water, toby will cry 'oh spare her! chimes, have mercy on her! stop her!'--and the bells will say, 'why stop her? she is bad at heart--let the bad die.' and toby on his knees will beg and pray for mercy: and in the end the bells will stop her, by their voices, just in time. toby will see, too, what great things the punctual man has left undone on the close of the old year, and what accounts he has left unsettled: punctual as he is. and he will see a great many things about richard, once so near being his son-in-law, and about a great many people. and the moral of it all will be, that he has his portion in the new year no less than any other man, and that the poor require a deal of beating out of shape before their human shape is gone; that even in their frantic wickedness there may be good in their hearts triumphantly asserting itself, though all the aldermen alive say 'no,' as he has learnt from the agony of his own child; and that the truth is trustfulness in them, not doubt, nor putting down, nor filing them away. and when at last a great sea rises, and this sea of time comes sweeping down, bearing the alderman and such mudworms of the earth away to nothing, dashing them to fragments in its fury--toby will climb a rock and hear the bells (now faded from his sight) pealing out upon the waters. and as he hears them, and looks round for help, he will wake up and find himself with the newspaper lying at his foot; and meg sitting opposite to him at the table, making up the ribbons for her wedding to-morrow; and the window open, that the sound of the bells ringing the old year out and the new year in may enter. they will just have broken out, joyfully; and richard will dash in to kiss meg before toby, and have the first kiss of the new year (he'll get it too); and the neighbours will crowd round with good wishes; and a band will strike up gaily (toby knows a drum in private); and the altered circumstances, and the ringing of the bells, and the jolly musick, will so transport the old fellow that he will lead off a country dance forthwith in an entirely new step, consisting of his old familiar trot. then quoth the inimitable--was it a dream of toby's after all? or is toby but a dream? and meg a dream? and all a dream! in reference to which, and the realities of which dreams are born, the inimitable will be wiser than he can be now, writing for dear life, with the post just going, and the brave c booted. . . . ah how i hate myself, my dear fellow, for this lame and halting outline of the vision i have in my mind. but it must go to you. . . . you will say what is best for the frontispiece". . . . with the second part or quarter, after a week's interval, came announcement of the enlargement of his plan, by which he hoped better to carry out the scheme of the story, and to get, for its following part, an effect for his heroine that would increase the tragic interest. "i am still in stout heart with the tale. i think it well-timed and a good thought; and as you know i wouldn't say so to anybody else, i don't mind saying freely thus much. it has great possession of me every moment in the day; and drags me where it will. . . . if you only could have read it all at once!--but you never would have done that, anyway, for i never should have been able to keep it to myself; so that's nonsense. i hope you'll like it. i would give a hundred pounds (and think it cheap) to see you read it. . . . never mind." that was the first hint of an intention of which i was soon to hear more; but meanwhile, after eight more days, the third part came, with the scene from which he expected so much, and with a mention of what the writing of it had cost him. "this book (whether in the hajji baba sense or not i can't say, but certainly in the literal one) has made my face white in a foreign land. my cheeks, which were beginning to fill out, have sunk again; my eyes have grown immensely large; my hair is very lank; and the head inside the hair is hot and giddy. read the scene at the end of the third part, twice. i wouldn't write it twice, for something. . . . you will see that i have substituted the name of lilian for jessie. it is prettier in sound, and suits my music better. i mention this, lest you should wonder who and what i mean by that name. to-morrow i shall begin afresh (starting the next part with a broad grin, and ending it with the very soul of jollity and happiness); and i hope to finish by next monday at latest. perhaps on saturday. i hope you will like the little book. since i conceived, at the beginning of the second part, what must happen in the third, i have undergone as much sorrow and agitation as if the thing were real; and have wakened up with it at night. i was obliged to lock myself in when i finished it yesterday, for my face was swollen for the time to twice its proper size, and was hugely ridiculous.". . . his letter ended abruptly. "i am going for a long walk, to clear my head. i feel that i am very shakey from work, and throw down my pen for the day. there! (that's where it fell.)" a huge blot represented it, and, as hamlet says, the rest was silence. two days later, answering a letter from me that had reached in the interval, he gave sprightlier account of himself, and described a happy change in the weather. up to this time, he protested, they had not had more than four or five clear days. all the time he had been writing they had been wild and stormy. "wind, hail, rain, thunder and lightning. to-day," just before he sent me his last manuscript, "has been november slack-baked, the sirocco having come back; and to-night it blows great guns with a raging storm." "weather worse," he wrote after three mondays, "than any november english weather i have ever beheld, or any weather i have had experience of anywhere. so horrible to-day that all power has been rained and gloomed out of me. yesterday, in pure determination to get the better of it, i walked twelve miles in mountain rain. you never saw it rain. scotland and america are nothing to it." but now all this was over. "the weather changed on saturday night, and has been glorious ever since. i am afraid to say more in its favour, lest it should change again." it did not. i think there were no more complainings. i heard now of autumn days with the mountain wind lovely, enjoyable, exquisite past expression. i heard of mountain walks behind the peschiere, most beautiful and fresh, among which, and along the beds of dry rivers and torrents, he could "pelt away," in any dress, without encountering a soul but the contadini. i heard of his starting off one day after finishing work, "fifteen miles to dinner--oh my stars! at such an inn!!!" on another day, of a party to dinner at their pleasant little banker's at quinto six miles off, to which, while the ladies drove, he was able "to walk in the sun of the middle of the day and to walk home again at night." on another, of an expedition up the mountain on mules. and on another of a memorable tavern-dinner with their merchant friend mr. curry, in which there were such successions of surprising dishes of genuine native cookery that they took two hours in the serving, but of the component parts of not one of which was he able to form the remotest conception: the site of the tavern being on the city wall, its name in italian sounding very romantic and meaning "the whistle," and its bill of fare kept for an experiment to which, before another month should be over, he dared and challenged my cookery in lincoln's-inn. a visit from him to london was to be expected almost immediately! that all remonstrance would be idle, under the restless excitement his work had awakened, i well knew. it was not merely the wish he had, natural enough, to see the last proofs and the woodcuts before the day of publication, which he could not otherwise do; but it was the stronger and more eager wish, before that final launch, to have a vivider sense than letters could give him of the effect of what he had been doing. "if i come, i shall put up at cuttris's" (then the piazza-hotel in covent-garden) "that i may be close to you. don't say to anybody, except our immediate friends, that i am coming. then i shall not be bothered. if i should preserve my present fierce writing humour, in any pass i may run to venice, bologna, and florence, before i turn my face towards lincoln's-inn-fields; and come to england by milan and turin. but this of course depends in a great measure on your reply." my reply, dwelling on the fatigue and cost, had the reception i foresaw. "notwithstanding what you say, i am still in the same mind about coming to london. not because the proofs concern me at all (i should be an ass as well as a thankless vagabond if they did), but because of that unspeakable restless something which would render it almost as impossible for me to remain here and not see the thing complete, as it would be for a full balloon, left to itself, not to go up. i do not intend coming from _here_, but by way of milan and turin (previously going to venice), and so, across the wildest pass of the alps that may be open, to strasburg. . . . as you dislike the young england gentleman i shall knock him out, and replace him by a man (i can dash him in at your rooms in an hour) who recognizes no virtue in anything but the good old times, and talks of them, parrot-like, whatever the matter is. a real good old city tory, in a blue coat and bright buttons and a white cravat, and with a tendency of blood to the head. file away at filer, as you please; but bear in mind that the _westminster review_ considered scrooge's presentation of the turkey to bob cratchit as grossly incompatible with political economy. i don't care at all for the skittle-playing." these were among things i had objected to. but the close of his letter revealed more than its opening of the reason, not at once so frankly confessed, for the long winter-journey he was about to make; and if it be thought that, in printing the passage, i take a liberty with my friend, it will be found that equal liberty is taken with myself, whom it goodnaturedly caricatures; so that the reader can enjoy his laugh at either or both. "shall i confess to you, i particularly want carlyle above all to see it before the rest of the world, when it is done; and i should like to inflict the little story on him and on dear old gallant macready with my own lips, and to have stanny and the other mac sitting by. now, if you was a real gent, you'd get up a little circle for me, one wet evening, when i come to town: and would say, 'my boy (sir, will you have the goodness to leave those books alone and to go downstairs--what the devil are you doing! and mind, sir, i can see nobody--do you hear? nobody. i am particularly engaged with a gentleman from asia)--my boy, would you give us that little christmas book (a little christmas book of dickens's, macready, which i'm anxious you should hear); and don't slur it, now, or be too fast, dickens, please!'--i say, if you was a real gent, something to this effect might happen. i shall be under sailing orders the moment i have finished. and i shall produce myself (please god) in london on the very day you name. for one week: to the hour." the wish was complied with, of course; and that night in lincoln's-inn-fields led to rather memorable issues. his next letter told me the little tale was done. "third of november, . half-past two, afternoon. thank god! i have finished the _chimes_. this moment. i take up my pen again to-day; to say only that much; and to add that i have had what women call 'a real good cry!'" very genuine all this, it is hardly necessary to say. the little book thus completed was not one of his greater successes, and it raised him up some objectors; but there was that in it which more than repaid the suffering its writing cost him, and the enmity its opinions provoked; and in his own heart it had a cherished corner to the last. the intensity of it seemed always best to represent to himself what he hoped to be longest remembered for; and exactly what he felt as to this, his friend jeffrey warmly expressed. "all the tribe of selfishness, and cowardice and cant, will hate you in their hearts, and cavil when they can; will accuse you of wicked exaggeration, and excitement to discontent, and what they pleasantly call disaffection! but never mind. the good and the brave are with you, and the truth also." he resumed his letter on the fourth of november. "here is the brave courier measuring bits of maps with a carving-fork, and going up mountains on a teaspoon. he and i start on wednesday for parma, modena, bologna, venice, verona, brescia, and milan. milan being within a reasonable journey from here, kate and georgy will come to meet me when i arrive there on my way towards england; and will bring me all letters from you. i shall be there on the th. . . . now, you know my punctiwality. frost, ice, flooded rivers, steamers, horses, passports, and custom-houses may damage it. but my design is, to walk into cuttris's coffee-room on sunday the st of december, in good time for dinner. i shall look for you at the farther table by the fire--where we generally go. . . . but the party for the night following? i know you have consented to the party. let me see. don't have any one, this particular night, to dinner, but let it be a summons for the special purpose at half-past . carlyle, indispensable, and i should like his wife of all things: _her_ judgment would be invaluable. you will ask mac, and why not his sister? stanny and jerrold i should particularly wish; edwin landseer; blanchard; perhaps harness; and what say you to fonblanque and fox? i leave it to you. you know the effect i want to try . . . think the _chimes_ a letter, my dear fellow, and forgive this. i will not fail to write to you on my travels. most probably from venice. and when i meet you (in sound health i hope) oh heaven! what a week we will have." footnotes: [ ] "into which we might put your large room--i wish we could!--away in one corner, and dine without knowing it." [ ] "very vast you will say, and very dreary; but it is not so really. the paintings are so fresh, and the proportions so agreeable to the eye, that the effect is not only cheerful but snug. . . . we are a little incommoded by applications from strangers to go over the interior. the paintings were designed by michael angelo, and have a great reputation. . . . certain of these frescoes were reported officially to the fine art commissioners by wilson as the best in italy . . . i allowed a party of priests to be shown the great hall yesterday . . . it is in perfect repair, and the doors almost shut--which is quite a miraculous circumstance. i wish you could see it, my dear f. gracious heavens! if you could only _come back_ with me, wouldn't i soon flash on your astonished sight." ( th of october.) chapter vii. italian travel. . cities and people--venice--proposed travel--at lodi--paintings--the inns--dinner at the peschiere--custom-house officers--at milan--at strasburg--return to london--a macready rehearsal--friendly americans. so it all fell out accordingly. he parted from his disconsolate wife, as he told me in his first letter from ferrara, on wednesday the th of november: left her shut up in her palace like a baron's lady in the time of the crusades; and had his first real experience of the wonders of italy. he saw parma, modena, bologna, ferrara, venice, verona, and mantua. as to all which the impressions conveyed to me in his letters have been more or less given in his published _pictures_. they are charmingly expressed. there is a sketch of a cicerone at bologna which will remain in his books among their many delightful examples of his unerring and loving perception for every gentle, heavenly, and tender soul, under whatever conventional disguise it wanders here on earth, whether as poorhouse orphan or lawyer's clerk, architect's pupil at salisbury or cheerful little guide to graves at bologna; and there is another memorable description in his rembrandt sketch, in form of a dream, of the silent, unearthly, watery wonders of venice. this last, though not written until after his london visit, had been prefigured so vividly in what he wrote at once from the spot, that those passages from his letter[ ] may be read still with a quite undiminished interest. "i must not," he said, "anticipate myself. but, my dear fellow, nothing in the world that ever you have heard of venice, is equal to the magnificent and stupendous reality. the wildest visions of the arabian nights are nothing to the piazza of saint mark, and the first impression of the inside of the church. the gorgeous and wonderful reality of venice is beyond the fancy of the wildest dreamer. opium couldn't build such a place, and enchantment couldn't shadow it forth in a vision. all that i have heard of it, read of it in truth or fiction, fancied of it, is left thousands of miles behind. you know that i am liable to disappointment in such things from over-expectation, but venice is above, beyond, out of all reach of coming near, the imagination of a man. it has never been rated high enough. it is a thing you would shed tears to see. when i came _on board_ here last night (after a five miles' row in a gondola; which somehow or other, i wasn't at all prepared for); when, from seeing the city lying, one light, upon the distant water, like a ship, i came plashing through the silent and deserted streets; i felt as if the houses were reality--the water, fever-madness. but when, in the bright, cold, bracing day, i stood upon the piazza, this morning, by heaven the glory of the place was insupportable! and diving down from that into its wickedness and gloom--its awful prisons, deep below the water; its judgment chambers, secret doors, deadly nooks, where the torches you carry with you blink as if they couldn't bear the air in which the frightful scenes were acted; and coming out again into the radiant, unsubstantial magic of the town; and diving in again, into vast churches, and old tombs--a new sensation, a new memory, a new mind came upon me. venice is a bit of my brain from this time. my dear forster, if you could share my transports (as you would if you were here) what would i not give! i feel cruel not to have brought kate and georgy; positively cruel and base. canaletti and stanny, miraculous in their truth. turner, very noble. but the reality itself, beyond all pen or pencil. i never saw the thing before that i should be afraid to describe. but to tell what venice is, i feel to be an impossibility. and here i sit alone, writing it: with nothing to urge me on, or goad me to that estimate, which, speaking of it to anyone i loved, and being spoken to in return, would lead me to form. in the sober solitude of a famous inn; with the great bell of saint mark ringing twelve at my elbow; with three arched windows in my room (two stories high) looking down upon the grand canal and away, beyond, to where the sun went down to-night in a blaze; and thinking over again those silent speaking faces of titian and tintoretto; i swear (uncooled by any humbug i have seen) that venice is _the_ wonder and the new sensation of the world! if you could be set down in it, never having heard of it, it would still be so. with your foot upon its stones, its pictures before you, and its history in your mind, it is something past all writing of or speaking of--almost past all thinking of. you couldn't talk to me in this room, nor i to you, without shaking hands and saying 'good god my dear fellow, have we lived to see this!'" five days later, sunday the th, he was at lodi, from which he wrote to me that he had been, like leigh hunt's pig, up "all manner of streets" since he left his palazzo; that with one exception he had not on any night given up more than five hours to rest; that all the days except two had been bad ("the last two foggy as blackfriars-bridge on lord mayor's day"); and that the cold had been dismal. but what cheerful, keen, observant eyes he carried everywhere; and, in the midst of new and unaccustomed scenes, and of objects and remains of art for which no previous study had prepared him, with what a delicate play of imagination and fancy the minuteness and accuracy of his ordinary vision was exalted and refined; i think strikingly shown by the few unstudied passages i am preserving from these friendly letters. he saw everything for himself; and from mistakes in judging for himself which not all the learning and study in the world will save ordinary men, the intuition of genius almost always saved him. hence there is hardly anything uttered by him, of this much-trodden and wearisomely-visited, but eternally beautiful and interesting country, that will not be found worth listening to. "i am already brim-full of cant about pictures, and shall be happy to enlighten you on the subject of the different schools, at any length you please. it seems to me that the preposterous exaggeration in which our countrymen delight in reference to this italy, hardly extends to the really good things.[ ] perhaps it is in its nature, that there it should fall short. i have never seen any praise of titian's great picture of the transfiguration of the virgin at venice, which soared half as high as the beautiful and amazing reality. it is perfection. tintoretto's picture too, of the assembly of the blest, at venice also, with all the lines in it (it is of immense size and the figures are countless) tending majestically and dutifully to almighty god in the centre, is grand and noble in the extreme. there are some wonderful portraits there, besides; and some confused, and hurried, and slaughterous battle pieces, in which the surprising art that presents the generals to your eye, so that it is almost impossible you can miss them in a crowd though they are in the thick of it, is very pleasant to dwell upon. i have seen some delightful pictures; and some (at verona and mantua) really too absurd and ridiculous even to laugh at. hampton-court is a fool to 'em--and oh there are some rum 'uns there, my friend. some werry rum 'uns. . . . two things are clear to me already. one is, that the rules of art are much too slavishly followed; making it a pain to you, when you go into galleries day after day, to be so very precisely sure where this figure will be turning round, and that figure will be lying down, and that other will have a great lot of drapery twined about him, and so forth. this becomes a perfect nightmare. the second is, that these great men, who were of necessity very much in the hands of the monks and priests, painted monks and priests a vast deal too often. i constantly see, in pictures of tremendous power, heads quite below the story and the painter; and i invariably observe that those heads are of the convent stamp, and have their counterparts, exactly, in the convent inmates of this hour. i see the portraits of monks i know at genoa, in all the lame parts of strong paintings: so i have settled with myself that in such cases the lameness was not with the painter, but with the vanity and ignorance of his employers, who _would_ be apostles on canvas at all events."[ ] in the same letter he described the inns. "it is a great thing--quite a matter of course--with english travellers, to decry the italian inns. of course you have no comforts that you are used to in england; and travelling alone, you dine in your bedroom always. which is opposed to our habits. but they are immeasurably better than you would suppose. the attendants are very quick; very punctual; and so obliging, if you speak to them politely, that you would be a beast not to look cheerful, and take everything pleasantly. i am writing this in a room like a room on the two-pair front of an unfinished house in eaton-square: the very walls make me feel as if i were a bricklayer distinguished by mr. cubitt with the favour of having it to take care of. the windows won't open, and the doors won't shut; and these latter (a cat could get in, between them and the floor) have a windy command of a colonnade which is open to the night, so that my slippers positively blow off my feet, and make little circuits in the room--like leaves. there is a very ashy wood-fire, burning on an immense hearth which has no fender (there is no such thing in italy); and it only knows two extremes--an agony of heat when wood is put on, and an agony of cold when it has been on two minutes. there is also an uncomfortable stain in the wall, where the fifth door (not being strictly indispensable) was walled up a year or two ago, and never painted over. but the bed is clean; and i have had an excellent dinner; and without being obsequious or servile, which is not at all the characteristic of the people in the north of italy, the waiters are so amiably disposed to invent little attentions which they suppose to be english, and are so lighthearted and goodnatured, that it is a pleasure to have to do with them. but so it is with all the people. vetturino-travelling involves a stoppage of two hours in the middle of the day, to bait the horses. at that time i always walk on. if there are many turns in the road, i necessarily have to ask my way, very often: and the men are such gentlemen, and the women such ladies, that it is quite an interchange of courtesies." of the help his courier continued to be to him i had whimsical instances in almost every letter, but he appears too often in the published book to require such celebration here. he is however an essential figure to two little scenes sketched for me at lodi, and i may preface them by saying that louis roche, a native of avignon, justified to the close his master's high opinion. he was again engaged for nearly a year in switzerland, and soon after, poor fellow, though with a jovial robustness of look and breadth of chest that promised unusual length of days, was killed by heart-disease. "the brave c continues to be a prodigy. he puts out my clothes at every inn as if i were going to stay there twelve months; calls me to the instant every morning; lights the fire before i get up; gets hold of roast fowls and produces them in coaches at a distance from all other help, in hungry moments; and is invaluable to me. he is such a good fellow, too, that little rewards don't spoil him. i always give him, after i have dined, a tumbler of sauterne or hermitage or whatever i may have; sometimes (as yesterday) when we have come to a public-house at about eleven o'clock, very cold, having started before day-break and had nothing, i make him take his breakfast with me; and this renders him only more anxious than ever, by redoubling attentions, to show me that he thinks he has got a good master . . . i didn't tell you that the day before i left genoa, we had a dinner-party--our english consul and his wife; the banker; sir george crawford and his wife; the de la rues; mr. curry; and some others, fourteen in all. at about nine in the morning, two men in immense paper caps enquired at the door for the brave c, who presently introduced them in triumph as the governor's cooks, his private friends, who had come to dress the dinner! jane wouldn't stand this, however; so we were obliged to decline. then there came, at half-hourly intervals, six gentlemen having the appearance of english clergymen; other private friends who had come to wait. . . . we accepted _their_ services; and you never saw anything so nicely and quietly done. he had asked, as a special distinction, to be allowed the supreme control of the dessert; and he had ices made like fruit, had pieces of crockery turned upside down so as to look like other pieces of crockery non-existent in this part of europe, and carried a case of tooth-picks in his pocket. then his delight was, to get behind kate at one end of the table, to look at me at the other, and to say to georgy in a low voice whenever he handed her anything, 'what does master think of datter 'rangement? is he content?'. . . if you could see what these fellows of couriers are when their families are not upon the move, you would feel what a prize he is. i can't make out whether he was ever a smuggler, but nothing will induce him to give the custom-house-officers anything: in consequence of which that portmanteau of mine has been unnecessarily opened twenty times. two of them will come to the coach-door, at the gate of a town. 'is there anything contraband in this carriage, signore?'--'no, no. there's nothing here. i am an englishman, and this is my servant.' 'a buono mano signore?' 'roche,'(in english) 'give him something, and get rid of him.' he sits unmoved. 'a buono mano signore?' 'go along with you!' says the brave c. 'signore, i am a custom-house-officer!' 'well, then, more shame for you!'--he always makes the same answer. and then he turns to me and says in english: while the custom-house-officer's face is a portrait of anguish framed in the coach-window, from his intense desire to know what is being told to his disparagement: 'datter chip,' shaking his fist at him, 'is greatest tief--and you know it you rascal--as never did en-razh me so, that i cannot bear myself!' i suppose chip to mean chap, but it may include the custom-house-officer's father and have some reference to the old block, for anything i distinctly know." he closed his lodi letter next day at milan, whither his wife and her sister had made an eighty miles journey from genoa, to pass a couple of days with him in prospero's old dukedom before he left for london. "we shall go our several ways on thursday morning, and i am still bent on appearing at cuttris's on sunday the first, as if i had walked thither from devonshire-terrace. in the meantime i shall not write to you again . . . to enhance the pleasure (if anything _can_ enhance the pleasure) of our meeting . . . i am opening my arms so wide!" one more letter i had nevertheless; written at strasburg on monday night the th; to tell me i might look for him one day earlier, so rapid had been his progress. he had been in bed only once, at friburg for two or three hours, since he left milan; and he had sledged through the snow on the top of the simplon in the midst of prodigious cold. "i am sitting here _in_ a wood-fire, and drinking brandy and water scalding hot, with a faint idea of coming warm in time. my face is at present tingling with the frost and wind, as i suppose the cymbals may, when that turbaned turk attached to the life guards' band has been newly clashing at them in st. james's-park. i am in hopes it may be the preliminary agony of returning animation." [illustration: at lincoln's-inn-fields, monday the ^{nd} of december .] there was certainly no want of animation when we met. i have but to write the words to bring back the eager face and figure, as they flashed upon me so suddenly this wintry saturday night that almost before i could be conscious of his presence i felt the grasp of his hand. it is almost all i find it possible to remember of the brief, bright, meeting. hardly did he seem to have come when he was gone. but all that the visit proposed he accomplished. he saw his little book in its final form for publication; and, to a select few brought together on monday the nd of december at my house, had the opportunity of reading it aloud. an occasion rather memorable, in which was the germ of those readings to larger audiences by which, as much as by his books, the world knew him in his later life; but of which no detail beyond the fact remains in my memory, and all are now dead who were present at it excepting only mr. carlyle and myself. among those however who have thus passed away was one, our excellent maclise, who, anticipating the advice of captain cuttle, had "made a note of" it in pencil, which i am able here to reproduce. it will tell the reader all he can wish to know. he will see of whom the party consisted; and may be assured (with allowance for a touch of caricature to which i may claim to be considered myself as the chief victim), that in the grave attention of carlyle, the eager interest of stanfield and maclise, the keen look of poor laman blanchard, fox's rapt solemnity, jerrold's skyward gaze, and the tears of harness and dyce, the characteristic points of the scene are sufficiently rendered. all other recollection of it is passed and gone; but that at least its principal actor was made glad and grateful, sufficient farther testimony survives. such was the report made of it, that once more, on the pressing intercession of our friend thomas ingoldsby (mr. barham), there was a second reading to which the presence and enjoyment of fonblanque gave new zest;[ ] and when i expressed to dickens, after he left us, my grief that he had had so tempestuous a journey for such brief enjoyment, he replied that the visit had been one happiness and delight to him. "i would not recall an inch of the way to or from you, if it had been twenty times as long and twenty thousand times as wintry. it was worth any travel--anything! with the soil of the road in the very grain of my cheeks, i swear i wouldn't have missed that week, that first night of our meeting, that one evening of the reading at your rooms, aye, and the second reading too, for any easily stated or conceived consideration." he wrote from paris, at which he had stopped on his way back to see macready, whom an engagement to act there with mr. mitchell's english company had prevented from joining us in lincoln's-inn-fields. there had been no such frost and snow since , and he gave dismal report of the city. with macready he had gone two nights before to the odéon to see alexandre dumas' _christine_ played by madame st. george, "once napoleon's mistress; now of an immense size, from dropsy i suppose; and with little weak legs which she can't stand upon. her age, withal, somewhere about or . i never in my life beheld such a sight. every stage-conventionality she ever picked up (and she has them all) has got the dropsy too, and is swollen and bloated hideously. the other actors never looked at one another, but delivered all their dialogues to the pit, in a manner so egregiously unnatural and preposterous that i couldn't make up my mind whether to take it as a joke or an outrage." and then came allusion to a project we had started on the night of the reading, that a private play should be got up by us on his return from italy. "you and i, sir, will reform this altogether." he had but to wait another night, however, when he saw it all reformed at the italian opera where grisi was singing in _il pirato_, and "the passion and fire of a scene between her, mario, and fornasari, was as good and great as it is possible for anything operatic to be. they drew on one another, the two men--not like stage-players, but like macready himself: and she, rushing in between them; now clinging to this one, now to that, now making a sheath for their naked swords with her arms, now tearing her hair in distraction as they broke away from her and plunged again at each other; was prodigious." this was the theatre at which macready was immediately to act, and where dickens saw him next day rehearse the scene before the doge and council in _othello_, "not as usual facing the float but arranged on one side," with an effect that seemed to him to heighten the reality of the scene. he left paris on the night of the th with the malle poste, which did not reach marseilles till fifteen hours behind its time, after three days and three nights travelling over horrible roads. then, in a confusion between the two rival packets for genoa, he unwillingly detained one of them more than an hour from sailing; and only managed at last to get to her just as she was moving out of harbour. as he went up the side, he saw a strange sensation among the angry travellers whom he had detained so long; heard a voice exclaim "i am blarmed if it ain't dickens!" and stood in the centre of a group of _five americans_! but the pleasantest part of the story is that they were, one and all, glad to see him; that their chief man, or leader, who had met him in new york, at once introduced them all round with the remark, "personally our countrymen, and you, can fix it friendly sir, i do expectuate;" and that, through the stormy passage to genoa which followed, they were excellent friends. for the greater part of the time, it is true, dickens had to keep to his cabin; but he contrived to get enjoyment out of them nevertheless. the member of the party who had the travelling dictionary wouldn't part with it, though he was dead sick in the cabin next to my friend's; and every now and then dickens was conscious of his fellow-travellers coming down to him, crying out in varied tones of anxious bewilderment, "i say, what's french for a pillow?" "is there any italian phrase for a lump of sugar? just look, will you?" "what the devil does echo mean? the garsong says echo to everything!" they were excessively curious to know, too, the population of every little town on the cornice, and all its statistics; "perhaps the very last subjects within the capacity of the human intellect," remarks dickens, "that would ever present themselves to an italian steward's mind. he was a very willing fellow, our steward; and, having some vague idea that they would like a large number, said at hazard fifty thousand, ninety thousand, four hundred thousand, when they asked about the population of a place not larger than lincoln's-inn-fields. and when they said _non possible!_ (which was the leader's invariable reply), he doubled or trebled the amount; to meet what he supposed to be their views, and make it quite satisfactory." footnotes: [ ] "i began this letter, my dear friend" (he wrote it from venice on tuesday night the th of november), "with the intention of describing my travels as i went on. but i have seen so much, and travelled so hard (seldom dining, and being almost always up by candle light), that i must reserve my crayons for the greater leisure of the peschiere after we have met, and i have again returned to it. as soon as i have fixed a place in my mind, i bolt--at such strange seasons and at such unexpected angles, that the brave c stares again. but in this way, and by insisting on having everything shewn to me whether or no, and against all precedents and orders of proceeding, i get on wonderfully." two days before he had written to me from ferrara, after the very pretty description of the vineyards between piacenza and parma which will be found in the _pictures from italy_ (pp. - ): "if you want an antidote to this, i may observe that i got up, this moment, to fasten the window; and the street looked as like some byeway in whitechapel--or--i look again--like wych street, down by the little barber's shop on the same side of the way as holywell street--or--i look again--as like holywell street itself--as ever street was like to street, or ever will be, in this world." [ ] four months later, after he had seen the galleries at rome and the other great cities, he sent me a remark which has since had eloquent reinforcement from critics of undeniable authority. "the most famous of the oil paintings in the vatican you know through the medium of the finest line-engravings in the world; and as to some of them i much doubt, if you had seen them with me, whether you might not think you had lost little in having only known them hitherto in that translation. where the drawing is poor and meagre, or alloyed by time,--it is so, and it must be, often; though no doubt it is a heresy to hint at such a thing--the engraving presents the forms and the idea to you, in a simple majesty which such defects impair. where this is not the case, and all is stately and harmonious, still it is somehow in the very grain and nature of a delicate engraving to suggest to you (i think) the utmost delicacy, finish, and refinement, as belonging to the original. therefore, though the picture in this latter case will greatly charm and interest you, it does not take you by surprise. you are quite prepared beforehand for the fullest excellence of which it is capable." in the same letter he wrote of what remained always a delight in his memory, the charm of the more private collections. he found magnificent portraits and paintings in the private palaces, where he thought them seen to greater advantage than in galleries; because in numbers not so large as to distract attention or confuse the eye. "there are portraits innumerable by titian, rubens, rembrandt and vandyke; heads by guido, and domenichino, and carlo dolci; subjects by raphael, and correggio, and murillo, and paul veronese, and salvator; which it would be difficult indeed to praise too highly, or to praise enough. it is a happiness to me to think that they cannot be felt, as they should be felt, by the profound connoisseurs who fall into fits upon the longest notice and the most unreasonable terms. such tenderness and grace, such noble elevation, purity, and beauty, so shine upon me from some well-remembered spots in the walls of these galleries, as to relieve my tortured memory from legions of whining friars and waxy holy families. i forgive, from the bottom of my soul, whole orchestras of earthy angels, and whole groves of st. sebastians stuck as full of arrows according to pattern as a lying-in pincushion is stuck with pins. and i am in no humour to quarrel even with that priestly infatuation, or priestly doggedness of purpose, which persists in reducing every mystery of our religion to some literal development in paint and canvas, equally repugnant to the reason and the sentiment of any thinking man." [ ] the last two lines he has printed in the _pictures_, p. , "certain of" being inserted before "his employers." [ ] i find the evening mentioned in the diary which mr. barham's son quotes in his memoir. "december , . dined at forster's with charles dickens, stanfield, maclise, and albany fonblanque. dickens read with remarkable effect his christmas story, the _chimes_, from the proofs. . . ." (ii. .) chapter viii. last months in italy. . jesuit interferences--travel southward--carrara and pisa--a wild journey--at radicofani--a beggar and his staff--at rome--terracina--bay of naples--lazzaroni--sad english news--at florence--visit to landor's villa--at lord holland's--return to genoa--italy's best season--a funeral--nautical incident--fireflies at night--returning by switzerland--at lucerne--passage of the st. gothard--splendour of swiss scenery--swiss villages. on the nd of december he had resumed his ordinary genoa life; and of a letter from jeffrey, to whom he had dedicated his little book, he wrote as "most energetic and enthusiastic. filer sticks in his throat rather, but all the rest is quivering in his heart. he is very much struck by the management of lilian's story, and cannot help speaking of that; writing of it all indeed with the freshness and ardour of youth, and not like a man whose blue and yellow has turned grey." some of its words have been already given. "miss coutts has sent charley, with the best of letters to me, a twelfth cake weighing ninety pounds, magnificently decorated; and only think of the characters, fairburn's twelfth night characters, being detained at the custom-house for jesuitical surveillance! but these fellows are---- well! never mind. perhaps you have seen the history of the dutch minister at turin, and of the spiriting away of his daughter by the jesuits? it is all true; though, like the history of our friend's servant,[ ] almost incredible. but their devilry is such that i am assured by our consul that if, while we are in the south, we were to let our children go out with servants on whom we could not implicitly rely, these holy men would trot even their small feet into churches with a view to their ultimate conversion! it is tremendous even to see them in the streets, or slinking about this garden." of his purpose to start for the south of italy in the middle of january, taking his wife with him, his letter the following week told me; dwelling on all he had missed, in that first italian christmas, of our old enjoyments of the season in england; and closing its pleasant talk with a postscript at midnight. "first of january, . many many many happy returns of the day! a life of happy years! the baby is dressed in thunder, lightning, rain, and wind. his birth is most portentous here." it was of ill-omen to me, one of its earliest incidents being my only brother's death; but dickens had a friend's true helpfulness in sorrow, and a portion of what he then wrote to me i permit myself to preserve in a note[ ] for what it relates of his own sad experiences and solemn beliefs and hopes. the journey southward began on the th january, and five days later i had a letter written from la scala, at a little inn, "supported on low brick arches like a british haystack," the bed in their room "like a mangle," the ceiling without lath or plaster, nothing to speak of available for comfort or decency, and nothing particular to eat or drink. "but for all this i have become attached to the country and i don't care who knows it." they had left pisa that morning and carrara the day before: at the latter place an ovation awaiting him, the result of the zeal of our eccentric friend fletcher, who happened to be staying there with an english marble-merchant.[ ] "there is a beautiful little theatre there, built of marble; and they had it illuminated that night, in my honour. there was really a very fair opera: but it is curious that the chorus has been always, time out of mind, made up of labourers in the quarries, who don't know a note of music, and sing entirely by ear. it was crammed to excess, and i had a great reception; a deputation waiting upon us in the box, and the orchestra turning out in a body afterwards and serenading us at mr. walton's." between this and rome they had a somewhat wild journey;[ ] and before radicofani was reached, there were disturbing rumours of bandits and even uncomfortable whispers as to their night's lodging-place. "i really began to think we might have an adventure; and as i had brought (like an ass) a bag of napoleons with me from genoa, i called up all the theatrical ways of letting off pistols that i could call to mind, and was the more disposed to fire them from not having any." it ended in no worse adventure, however, than a somewhat exciting dialogue with an old professional beggar at radicofani itself, in which he was obliged to confess that he came off second-best. it transpired at a little town hanging on a hill side, of which the inhabitants, being all of them beggars, had the habit of swooping down, like so many birds of prey, upon any carriage that approached it. "can you imagine" (he named a first-rate bore, for whose name i shall substitute) "m. f. g. in a very frowsy brown cloak concealing his whole figure, and with very white hair and a very white beard, darting out of this place with a long staff in his hand, and begging? there he was, whether you can or not; out of breath with the rapidity of his dive, and staying with his staff all the radicofani boys, that he might fight it out with me alone. it was very wet, and so was i: for i had kept, according to custom, my box-seat. it was blowing so hard that i could scarcely stand; and there was a custom-house on the spot, besides. over and above all this, i had no small money; and the brave c never has, when i want it for a beggar. when i had excused myself several times, he suddenly drew himself up and said, with a wizard look (fancy the aggravation of m. f. g. as a wizard!) 'do you know what you are doing, my lord? do you mean to go on, to-day?' 'yes,' i said, 'i do.' 'my lord,' he said, 'do you know that your vetturino is unacquainted with this part of the country; that there is a wind raging on the mountain, which will sweep you away; that the courier, the coach, and all the passengers, were blown from the road last year; and that the danger is great and almost certain?' 'no,' i said, 'i don't.' 'my lord, you don't understand me, i think?' 'yes i do, d---- you!' nettled by this (you feel it? i confess it). 'speak to my servant. it's his business. not mine'--for he really was too like m. f. g. to be borne. if you could have seen him!--'santa maria, these english lords! it's not their business, if they're killed! they leave it to their servants!' he drew off the boys; whispered them to keep away from the heretic; and ran up the hill again, almost as fast as he had come down. he stopped at a little distance as we moved on; and pointing to roche with his long staff cried loudly after me, 'it's _his_ business if you're killed, is it, my lord? ha! ha! ha! whose business is it, when the english lords are born! ha! ha! ha!' the boys taking it up in a shrill yell, i left the joke and them at this point. but i must confess that i thought he had the best of it. and he had so far reason for what he urged, that when we got on the mountain pass the wind became terrific, so that we were obliged to take kate out of the carriage lest she should be blown over, carriage and all, and had ourselves to hang on to it, on the windy side, to prevent its going heaven knows where!" the first impression of rome was disappointing. it was the evening of the th of january, and the cloudy sky, dull cold rain, and muddy footways, he was prepared for; but he was not prepared for the long streets of commonplace shops and houses like paris or any other capital, the busy people, the equipages, the ordinary walkers up and down. "it was no more my rome, degraded and fallen and lying asleep in the sun among a heap of ruins, than lincoln's-inn-fields is. so i really went to bed in a very indifferent humour." that all this yielded to later and worthier impressions i need hardly say; and he had never in his life, he told me afterwards, been so moved or overcome by any sight as by that of the coliseum, "except perhaps by the first contemplation of the falls of niagara." he went to naples for the interval before the holy week; and his first letter from it was to say that he had found the wonderful aspects of rome before he left, and that for loneliness and grandeur of ruin nothing could transcend the southern side of the campagna. but farther and farther south the weather had become worse; and for a week before his letter (the th of february), the only bright sky he had seen was just as the sun was coming up across the sea at terracina. "of which place, a beautiful one, you can get a very good idea by imagining something as totally unlike the scenery in _fra diavolo_ as possible." he thought the bay less striking at naples than at genoa, the shape of the latter being more perfect in its beauty, and the smaller size enabling you to see it all at once, and feel it more like an exquisite picture. the city he conceived the greatest dislike to.[ ] "the condition of the common people here is abject and shocking. i am afraid the conventional idea of the picturesque is associated with such misery and degradation that a new picturesque will have to be established as the world goes onward. except fondi, there is nothing on earth that i have seen so dirty as naples. i don't know what to liken the streets to where the mass of the lazzaroni live. you recollect that favourite pigstye of mine near broadstairs? they are more like streets of such apartments heaped up story on story, and tumbled house on house, than anything else i can think of, at this moment." in a later letter he was even less tolerant. "what would i give that you should see the lazzaroni as they really are--mere squalid, abject, miserable animals for vermin to batten on; slouching, slinking, ugly, shabby, scavenging scarecrows! and oh the raffish counts and more than doubtful countesses, the noodles and the blacklegs, the good society! and oh the miles of miserable streets and wretched occupants,[ ] to which saffron-hill or the borough-mint is a kind of small gentility, which are found to be so picturesque by english lords and ladies; to whom the wretchedness left behind at home is lowest of the low, and vilest of the vile, and commonest of all common things. well! well! i have often thought that one of the best chances of immortality for a writer is in the death of his language, when he immediately becomes good company; and i often think here,--what _would_ you say to these people, milady and milord, if they spoke out of the homely dictionary of your own 'lower orders.'" he was again at rome on sunday the second of march. sad news from me as to a common and very dear friend awaited him there; but it is a subject on which i may not dwell farther than to say that there arose from it much to redeem even such a sorrow, and that this i could not indicate better than by these wise and tender words from dickens. "no philosophy will bear these dreadful things, or make a moment's head against them, but the practical one of doing all the good we can, in thought and deed. while we can, god help us! ourselves stray from ourselves so easily; and there are all around us such frightful calamities besetting the world in which we live; nothing else will carry us through it. . . . what a comfort to reflect on what you tell me. bulwer lytton's conduct is that of a generous and noble-minded man, as i have ever thought him. our dear good procter too! and thackeray--how earnest they have all been! i am very glad to find you making special mention of charles lever. i am glad over every name you write. it says something for our pursuit, in the midst of all its miserable disputes and jealousies, that the common impulse of its followers, in such an instance as this, is surely and certainly of the noblest." after the ceremonies of the holy week, of which the descriptions sent to me were reproduced in his book, he went to florence,[ ] which lived always afterwards in his memory with venice, and with genoa. he thought these the three great italian cities. "there are some places here,[ ]--oh heaven how fine! i wish you could see the tower of the palazzo vecchio as it lies before me at this moment, on the opposite bank of the arno! but i will tell you more about it, and about all florence, from my shady arm-chair up among the peschiere oranges. i shall not be sorry to sit down in it again. . . . poor hood, poor hood! i still look for his death, and he still lingers on. and sydney smith's brother gone after poor dear sydney himself! maltby will wither when he reads it; and poor old rogers will contradict some young man at dinner, every day for three weeks." before he left florence (on the th of april) i heard of a "very pleasant and very merry day" at lord holland's; and i ought to have mentioned how much he was gratified, at naples, by the attentions of the english minister there, mr. temple, lord palmerston's brother, whom he described as a man supremely agreeable, with everything about him in perfect taste, and with that truest gentleman-manner which has its root in kindness and generosity of nature. he was back at home in the peschiere on wednesday the ninth of april. here he continued to write to me every week, for as long as he remained, of whatever he had seen: with no definite purpose as yet, but the pleasure of interchanging with myself the impressions and emotions undergone by him. "seriously," he wrote to me on the th of april, "it is a great pleasure to me to find that you are really pleased with these shadows in the water, and think them worth the looking at. writing at such odd places, and in such odd seasons, i have been half savage with myself, very often, for not doing better. but d'orsay, from whom i had a charming letter three days since, seems to think as you do of what he has read in those shown to him, and says they remind him vividly of the real aspect of these scenes. . . . well, if we should determine, after we have sat in council, that the experiences they relate are to be used, we will call b. and e. to their share and voice in the matter." shortly before he left, the subject was again referred to ( th of june). "i am in as great doubt as you about the letters i have written you with these italian experiences. i cannot for the life of me devise any plan of using them to my own satisfaction, and yet think entirely with you that in some form i ought to use them." circumstances not in his contemplation at this time settled the form they ultimately took. two more months were to finish his italian holiday, and i do not think he enjoyed any part of it so much as its close. he had formed a real friendship for genoa, was greatly attached to the social circle he had drawn round him there, and liked rest after his travel all the more for the little excitement of living its activities over again, week by week, in these letters to me. and so, from his "shady arm-chair up among the peschiere oranges," i had at regular intervals what he called his rambling talk; went over with him again all the roads he had taken; and of the more important scenes and cities, such as venice, rome, and naples, received such rich filling-in to the first outlines sent, as fairly justified the title of _pictures_ finally chosen for them. the weather all the time too had been without a flaw. "since our return," he wrote on the th april, "we have had charming spring days. the garden is one grove of roses; we have left off fires; and we breakfast and dine again in the great hall, with the windows open. to-day we have rain, but rain was rather wanted i believe, so it gives offence to nobody. as far as i have had an opportunity of judging yet, the spring is the most delightful time in this country. but for all that i am looking with eagerness to the tenth of june, impatient to renew our happy old walks and old talks in dear old home." of incidents during these remaining weeks there were few, but such as he mentioned had in them points of humour or character still worth remembering.[ ] two men were hanged in the city; and two ladies of quality, he told me, agreed to keep up for a time a prayer for the souls of these two miserable creatures so incessant that heaven should never for a moment be left alone; to which end "they relieved each other" after such wise, that, for the whole of the stated time, one of them was always on her knees in the cathedral church of san lorenzo. from which he inferred that "a morbid sympathy for criminals is not wholly peculiar to england, though it affects more people in that country perhaps than in any other." of italian usages to the dead some notices from his letters have been given, and he had an example before he left of the way in which they affected english residents. a gentleman of his friend fletcher's acquaintance living four miles from genoa had the misfortune to lose his wife; and no attendance on the dead beyond the city gate, nor even any decent conveyance, being practicable, the mourner, to whom fletcher had promised nevertheless the sad satisfaction of an english funeral, which he had meanwhile taken enormous secret pains to arrange with a small genoese upholsterer, was waited upon, on the appointed morning, by a very bright yellow hackney-coach-and-pair driven by a coachman in yet brighter scarlet knee-breeches and waistcoat, who wanted to put the husband and the body inside together. "they were obliged to leave one of the coach-doors open for the accommodation even of the coffin; the widower walked beside the carriage to the protestant cemetery; and fletcher followed on a big grey horse."[ ] scarlet breeches reappear, not less characteristically, in what his next letter told of a couple of english travellers who took possession at this time ( th of may) of a portion of the ground floor of the peschiere. they had with them a meek english footman who immediately confided to dickens's servants, among other personal grievances, the fact that he was made to do everything, even cooking, in crimson breeches; which in a hot climate, he protested, was "a grinding of him down." "he is a poor soft country fellow; and his master locks him up at night, in a basement room with iron bars to the window. between which our servants poke wine in, at midnight. his master and mistress buy old boxes at the curiosity shops, and pass their lives in lining 'em with bits of parti-coloured velvet. a droll existence, is it not? we are lucky to have had the palace to ourselves until now, but it is so large that we never see or hear these people; and i should not have known even, if they had not called upon us, that another portion of the ground floor had been taken by some friends of old lady holland--whom i seem to see again, crying about dear sydney smith, behind that green screen as we last saw her together."[ ] then came a little incident also characteristic. an english ship of war, the phantom, appeared in the harbour; and from her commander, sir henry nicholson, dickens received, among attentions very pleasant to him, an invitation to lunch on board and bring his wife, for whom, at a time appointed, a boat was to be sent to the ponte reale (the royal bridge). but no boat being there at the time, dickens sent off his servant in another boat to the ship to say he feared some mistake. "while we were walking up and down a neighbouring piazza in his absence, a brilliant fellow in a dark blue shirt with a white hem to it all round the collar, regular corkscrew curls, and a face as brown as a berry, comes up to me and says 'beg your pardon sir--mr. dickens?' 'yes.' 'beg your pardon sir, but i'm one of the ship's company of the phantom sir, cox'en of the cap'en's gig sir, she's a lying off the pint sir--been there half an hour.' 'well but my good fellow,' i said, 'you're at the wrong place!' 'beg your pardon sir, i was afeerd it was the wrong place sir, but i've asked them genoese here sir, twenty times, if it was port real; and they knows no more than a dead jackass!'--isn't it a good thing to have made a regular portsmouth name of it?" that was in his letter of the st june, which began by telling me it had been twice begun and twice flung into the basket, so great was his indisposition to write as the time for departure came; and which ended thus. "the fire-flies at night now, are miraculously splendid; making another firmament among the rocks on the seashore, and the vines inland. they get into the bedrooms, and fly about, all night, like beautiful little lamps.[ ]. . . i have surrendered much i had fixed my heart upon, as you know, admitting you have had reason for not coming to us here: but i stand by the hope that you and mac will come and meet us at brussels; it being so very easy. a day or two there, and at antwerp, would be very happy for us; and we could still dine in lincoln's-inn-fields on the day of arrival." i had been unable to join him in genoa, urgently as he had wished it: but what is said here was done, and jerrold was added to the party. his last letter from genoa was written on the th of june, not from the peschiere, but from a neighbouring palace, "brignole rosso," into which he had fled from the miseries of moving. "they are all at sixes and sevens up at the peschiere, as you may suppose; and roche is in a condition of tremendous excitement, engaged in settling the inventory with the house-agent, who has just told me he is the devil himself. i had been appealed to, and had contented myself with this expression of opinion. 'signor noli, you are an old impostor!' 'illustrissimo,' said signor noli in reply, 'your servant is the devil himself: sent on earth to torture me.' i look occasionally towards the peschiere (it is visible from this room), expecting to see one of them flying out of a window. another great cause of commotion is, that they have been paving the lane by which the house is approached, ever since we returned from rome. we have not been able to get the carriage up since that time, in consequence; and unless they finish to-night, it can't be packed in the garden, but the things will have to be brought down in baskets, piecemeal, and packed in the street. to avoid this inconvenient necessity, the brave made proposals of bribery to the paviours last night, and induced them to pledge themselves that the carriage should come up at seven this evening. the manner of doing that sort of paving work here, is to take a pick or two with an axe, and then lie down to sleep for an hour. when i came out, the brave had issued forth to examine the ground; and was standing alone in the sun among a heap of prostrate figures: with a great despair depicted in his face, which it would be hard to surpass. it was like a picture--'after the battle'--napoleon by the brave: bodies by the paviours." he came home by the great st. gothard, and was quite carried away by what he saw of switzerland. the country was so divine that he should have wondered indeed if its sons and daughters had ever been other than a patriotic people. yet, infinitely above the country he had left as he ranked it in its natural splendours, there was something more enchanting than these that he lost in leaving italy; and he expressed this delightfully in the letter from lucerne ( th of june) which closes the narrative of his italian life. "we came over the st. gothard, which has been open only eight days. the road is cut through the snow, and the carriage winds along a narrow path between two massive snow walls, twenty feet high or more. vast plains of snow range up the mountain-sides above the road, itself seven thousand feet above the sea; and tremendous waterfalls, hewing out arches for themselves in the vast drifts, go thundering down from precipices into deep chasms, here and there and everywhere: the blue water tearing through the white snow with an awful beauty that is most sublime. the pass itself, the mere pass over the top, is not so fine, i think, as the simplon; and there is no plain upon the summit, for the moment it is reached the descent begins. so that the loneliness and wildness of the simplon are not equalled _there_. but being much higher, the ascent and the descent range over a much greater space of country; and on both sides there are places of terrible grandeur, unsurpassable, i should imagine, in the world. the devil's bridge, terrific! the whole descent between andermatt (where we slept on friday night) and altdorf, william tell's town, which we passed through yesterday afternoon, is the highest sublimation of all you can imagine in the way of swiss scenery. oh god! what a beautiful country it is! how poor and shrunken, beside it, is italy in its brightest aspect! "i look upon the coming down from the great st. gothard with a carriage and four horses and only one postilion, as the most dangerous thing that a carriage and horses can do. we had two great wooden logs for drags, and snapped them both like matches. the road is like a geometrical staircase, with horrible depths beneath it; and at every turn it is a toss-up, or seems to be, whether the leaders shall go round or over. the lives of the whole party may depend upon a strap in the harness; and if we broke our rotten harness once yesterday, we broke it at least a dozen times. the difficulty of keeping the horses together in the continual and steep circle, is immense. they slip and slide, and get their legs over the traces, and are dragged up against the rocks; carriage, horses, harness, all a confused heap. the brave, and i, and the postilion, were constantly at work, in extricating the whole concern from a tangle, like a skein of thread. we broke two thick iron chains, and crushed the box of a wheel, as it was; and the carriage is now undergoing repair, under the window, on the margin of the lake: where a woman in short petticoats, a stomacher, and two immensely long tails of black hair hanging down her back very nearly to her heels, is looking on--apparently dressed for a melodrama, but in reality a waitress at this establishment. "if the swiss villages look beautiful to me in winter, their summer aspect is most charming: most fascinating: most delicious. shut in by high mountains capped with perpetual snow; and dotting a rich carpet of the softest turf, overshadowed by great trees; they seem so many little havens of refuge from the troubles and miseries of great towns. the cleanliness of the little baby-houses of inns is wonderful to those who come from italy. but the beautiful italian manners, the sweet language, the quick recognition of a pleasant look or cheerful word; the captivating expression of a desire to oblige in everything; are left behind the alps. remembering them, i sigh for the dirt again: the brick floors, bare walls, unplaistered ceilings, and broken windows." we met at brussels; maclise, jerrold, myself, and the travellers; passed a delightful week in flanders together; and were in england at the close of june. footnotes: [ ] in a previous letter he had told me that history. "apropos of servants, i must tell you of a child-bearing handmaiden of some friends of ours, a thorough out and outer, who, by way of expiating her sins, caused herself, the other day, to be received into the bosom of the infallible church. she had two marchionesses for her sponsors; and she is heralded in the genoa newspapers as miss b--, an english lady, who has repented of her errors and saved her soul alive." [ ] "i feel the distance between us now, indeed. i would to heaven, my dearest friend, that i could remind you in a manner more lively and affectionate than this dull sheet of paper can put on, that you have a brother left. one bound to you by ties as strong as ever nature forged. by ties never to be broken, weakened, changed in any way--but to be knotted tighter up, if that be possible, until the same end comes to them as has come to these. that end but the bright beginning of a happier union, i believe; and have never more strongly and religiously believed (and oh! forster, with what a sore heart i have thanked god for it) than when that shadow has fallen on my own hearth, and made it cold and dark as suddenly as in the home of that poor girl you tell me of. . . . when you write to me again, the pain of this will have passed. no consolation can be so certain and so lasting to you as that softened and manly sorrow which springs up from the memory of the dead. i read your heart as easily as if i held it in my hand, this moment. and i know--i _know_, my dear friend--that before the ground is green above him, you will be content that what was capable of death in him, should lie there. . . . i am glad to think it was so easy, and full of peace. what can we hope for more, when our own time comes!--the day when he visited us in our old house is as fresh to me as if it had been yesterday. i remember him as well as i remember you. . . . i have many things to say, but cannot say them now. your attached and loving friend for life, and far, i hope, beyond it. c. d." ( th of january, .) [ ] "a yorkshireman, who talks yorkshire italian with the drollest and pleasantest effect; a jolly, hospitable excellent fellow; as odd yet kindly a mixture of shrewdness and simplicity as i have ever seen. he is the only englishman in these parts who has been able to erect an english household out of italian servants, but he has done it to admiration. it would be a capital country-house at home; and for staying in 'first-rate.' (i find myself inadvertently quoting _tom thumb_.) mr. walton is a man of an extraordinarily kind heart, and has a compassionate regard for fletcher to whom his house is open as a home, which is half affecting and half ludicrous. he paid the other day a hundred pounds for him, which he knows he will never see a penny of again." c. d. to j. f. ( th of january, .) [ ] "do you think," he wrote from ronciglione on the th january, "in your state room, when the fog makes your white blinds yellow, and the wind howls in the brick and mortar gulf behind that square perspective, with a middle distance of two ladder-tops and a background of drury-lane sky--when the wind howls, i say, as if its eldest brother, born in lincoln's-inn-fields, had gone to sea and was making a fortune on the atlantic--at such times do you ever think of houseless dick?" [ ] he makes no mention in his book of the pauper burial-place at naples, to which the reference made in his letters is striking enough for preservation. "in naples, the burying place of the poor people is a great paved yard with three hundred and sixty-five pits in it: every one covered by a square stone which is fastened down. one of these pits is opened every night in the year; the bodies of the pauper dead are collected in the city; brought out in a cart (like that i told you of at rome); and flung in, uncoffined. some lime is then cast down into the pit; and it is sealed up until a year is past, and its turn again comes round. every night there is a pit opened; and every night that same pit is sealed up again, for a twelvemonth. the cart has a red lamp attached, and at about ten o'clock at night you see it glaring through the streets of naples: stopping at the doors of hospitals and prisons, and such places, to increase its freight: and then rattling off again. attached to the new cemetery (a very pretty one, and well kept: immeasurably better in all respects than père-la-chaise) there is another similar yard, but not so large.". . . in connection with the same subject he adds: "about naples, the dead are borne along the street, uncovered, on an open bier; which is sometimes hoisted on a sort of palanquin, covered with a cloth of scarlet and gold. this exposure of the deceased is not peculiar to that part of italy; for about midway between rome and genoa we encountered a funeral procession attendant on the body of a woman, which was presented in its usual dress, to my eyes (looking from my elevated seat on the box of a travelling carriage) as if she were alive, and resting on her bed. an attendant priest was chanting lustily--and as badly as the priests invariably do. their noise is horrible. . . ." [ ] "thackeray praises the people of italy for being kind to brutes. there is probably no country in the world where they are treated with such frightful cruelty. it is universal." (naples, nd. feb. .) emphatic confirmation of this remark has been lately given by the naples correspondent of the _times_, writing under date of february . [ ] the reader will perhaps think with me that what he noticed, on the roads in tuscany more than in any others, of wayside crosses and religious memorials, may be worth preserving. . . . "you know that in the streets and corners of roads, there are all sorts of crosses and similar memorials to be seen in italy. the most curious are, i think, in tuscany. there is very seldom a figure on the cross, though there is sometimes a face; but they are remarkable for being garnished with little models in wood of every possible object that can be connected with the saviour's death. the cock that crowed when peter had denied his master thrice, is generally perched on the tip-top; and an ornithological phenomenon he always is. under him is the inscription. then, hung on to the cross-beam, are the spear, the reed with the sponge of vinegar and water at the end, the coat without seam for which the soldiers cast lots, the dice-box with which they threw for it, the hammer that drove in the nails, the pincers that pulled them out, the ladder which was set against the cross, the crown of thorns, the instrument of flagellation, the lantern with which mary went to the tomb--i suppose; i can think of no other--and the sword with which peter smote the high priest's servant. a perfect toyshop of little objects; repeated at every four or five miles all along the highway." [ ] of his visit to fiesole i have spoken in my life of landor. "ten years after landor had lost this home, an englishman travelling in italy, his friend and mine, visited the neighbourhood for his sake, drove out from florence to fiesole, and asked his coachman which was the villa in which the landor family lived. 'he was a dull dog, and pointed to boccaccio's. i didn't believe him. he was so deuced ready that i knew he lied. i went up to the convent, which is on a height, and was leaning over a dwarf wall basking in the noble view over a vast range of hill and valley, when a little peasant girl came up and began to point out the localities. _ecco la villa landora!_ was one of the first half-dozen sentences she spoke. my heart swelled as landor's would have done when i looked down upon it, nestling among its olive-trees and vines, and with its upper windows (there are five above the door) open to the setting sun. over the centre of these there is another story, set upon the housetop like a tower; and all italy, except its sea, is melted down into the glowing landscape it commands. i plucked a leaf of ivy from the convent-garden as i looked; and here it is. 'for landor. with my love.' so wrote mr. dickens to me from florence on the and of april ; and when i turned over landor's papers in the same month after an interval of exactly twenty years, the ivy-leaf was found carefully enclosed, with the letter in which i had sent it." dickens had asked him before leaving what he would most wish to have in remembrance of italy. "an ivy-leaf from fiesole," said landor. [ ] one message sent me, though all to whom it refers have now passed away, i please myself by thinking may still, where he might most have desired it, be the occasion of pleasure. ". . . give my love to colden, and tell him if he leaves london before i return i will ever more address him and speak of him as _colonel_ colden. kate sends _her_ love to him also, and we both entreat him to say all the affectionate things he can spare for third parties--using so many himself--when he writes to mrs. colden: whom you ought to know, for she, as i have often told you, is brilliant. i would go five hundred miles to see her for five minutes. i am deeply grieved by poor felton's loss. his letter is manly, and of a most rare kind in the dignified composure and silence of his sorrow." (see vol. i. p. ). [ ] "it matters little now," says dickens, after describing this incident in one of his minor writings, "for coaches of all colours are alike to poor kindheart, and he rests far north of the little cemetery with the cypress trees, by the city walls where the mediterranean is so beautiful." what was said on a former page (_ante_, ) may here be completed by a couple of stories told to dickens by mr. walton, suggestive strongly of the comment that it required indeed a kind heart and many attractive qualities (which undoubtedly fletcher possessed) to render tolerable such eccentricities. dickens made one of these stories wonderfully amusing. it related the introduction by fletcher of an unknown englishman to the marble-merchant's house; the stay there of the englishman, unasked, for ten days; and finally the walking off of the englishman in a shirt, pair of stockings, neckcloth, pocket-handkerchief, and other etceteras belonging to mr. walton, which never reappeared after that hour. on another occasion, fletcher confessed to mr. walton his having given a bill to a man in carrara for £ ; and the marble-merchant having asked, "and pray, fletcher, have you arranged to meet it when it falls due?" fletcher at once replied, "yes," and to the marble-merchant's farther enquiry "how?" added, in his politest manner, "i have arranged to blow my brains out the day before!" the poor fellow did afterwards almost as much self-violence without intending it, dying of fever caught in night-wanderings through liverpool half-clothed amid storms of rain. [ ] sydney died on the nd of february (' ), in his th year. [ ] a remark on this, made in my reply, elicited what follows in a letter during his travel home: "odd enough that remark of yours. i had been wondering at rome that juvenal (which i have been always lugging out of a bag, on all occasions) never used the fire-flies for an illustration. but even now, they are only partially seen; and no where i believe in such enormous numbers as on the mediterranean coast-road, between genoa and spezzia. i will ascertain for curiosity's sake, whether there are any at this time in rome, or between it and the country-house of mæcenas--on the ground of horace's journey. i know there is a place on the french side of genoa, where they begin at a particular boundary-line, and are never seen beyond it. . . . all wild to see you at brussels! what a meeting we will have, please god!" chapter ix. again in england. - . proposed weekly paper--christmas book of --stage studies--private theatricals--dickens as performer and as manager--second raven's death--busy with the _cricket_--disturbing engagements--prospectus written by him--new book to be written in switzerland--leaves england. his first letter after again taking possession of devonshire-terrace revived a subject on which opinions had been from time to time interchanged during his absence, and to which there was allusion in the agreement executed before his departure. the desire was still as strong with him as when he started _master humphrey's clock_ to establish a periodical, that, while relieving his own pen by enabling him to receive frequent help from other writers, might yet retain always the popularity of his name. "i really think i have an idea, and not a bad one, for the periodical. i have turned it over, the last two days, very much in my mind: and think it positively good. i incline still to weekly; price three halfpence, if possible; partly original, partly select; notices of books, notices of theatres, notices of all good things, notices of all bad ones; _carol_ philosophy, cheerful views, sharp anatomization of humbug, jolly good temper; papers always in season, pat to the time of year; and a vein of glowing, hearty, generous, mirthful, beaming reference in everything to home, and fireside. and i would call it, sir,-- -------------------------------------------------------- | | | the cricket. | | | | a cheerful creature that chirrups on the hearth. | | | | _natural history._ | | | -------------------------------------------------------- "now, don't decide hastily till you've heard what i would do. i would come out, sir, with a prospectus on the subject of the cricket that should put everybody in a good temper, and make such a dash at people's fenders and arm-chairs as hasn't been made for many a long day. i could approach them in a different mode under this name, and in a more winning and immediate way, than under any other. i would at once sit down upon their very hobs; and take a personal and confidential position with them which should separate me, instantly, from all other periodicals periodically published, and supply a distinct and sufficient reason for my coming into existence. and i would chirp, chirp, chirp away in every number until i chirped it up to----well, you shall say how many hundred thousand! . . . seriously, i feel a capacity in this name and notion which appears to give us a tangible starting-point, and a real, defined, strong, genial drift and purpose. i seem to feel that it is an aim and name which people would readily and pleasantly connect with _me_; and that, for a good course and a clear one, instead of making circles pigeon-like at starting, here we should be safe. i think the general recognition would be likely to leap at it; and of the helpful associations that could be clustered round the idea at starting, and the pleasant tone of which the working of it is susceptible, i have not the smallest doubt. . . . but you shall determine. what do you think? and what do you say? the chances are, that it will either strike you instantly, or not strike you at all. which is it, my dear fellow? you know i am not bigoted to the first suggestions of my own fancy; but you know also exactly how i should use such a lever, and how much power i should find in it. which is it? what do you say?--i have not myself said half enough. indeed i have said next to nothing; but like the parrot in the negro-story, i 'think a dam deal.'" my objection, incident more or less to every such scheme, was the risk of losing its general advantage by making it too specially dependent on individual characteristics; but there was much in favour of the present notion, and its plan had been modified so far, in the discussions that followed, as to involve less absolute personal identification with dickens,--when discussion, project, everything was swept away by a larger scheme, in its extent and its danger more suitable to the wild and hazardous enterprises of that prodigious year ( ) of excitement and disaster. in this more tremendous adventure, already hinted at on a previous page, we all became involved; and the chirp of the cricket, delayed in consequence until christmas, was heard then in circumstances quite other than those that were first intended. the change he thus announced to me about half way through the summer, in the same letter which told me the success of d'orsay's kind exertion to procure a fresh engagement for his courier roche.[ ] "what do you think of a notion that has occurred to me in connection with our abandoned little weekly? it would be a delicate and beautiful fancy for a christmas book, making the cricket a little household god--silent in the wrong and sorrow of the tale, and loud again when all went well and happy." the reader will not need to be told that thus originated the story of the _cricket on the hearth_, a fairy tale of home, which had a great popularity in the christmas days of . its sale at the outset doubled that of both its predecessors. but as yet the larger adventure has not made itself known, and the interval was occupied with the private play of which the notion had been started between us at his visit in december, and which cannot now be better introduced than by a passage of autobiography. this belongs to his early life, but i overlooked it when engaged on that portion of the memoir; and the accident gives it now a more appropriate place. for, though the facts related belong to the interval described in the chapter on his school-days and start in life, when he had to pass nearly two years as a reporter for one of the offices in doctors' commons, the influences and character it illustrates had their strongest expression at this later time. i had asked him, after his return to genoa, whether he continued to think that we should have the play; and this was his reply. it will startle and interest the reader, and i must confess that it took myself by surprise; for i did not thus early know the story of his boyish years, and i thought it strange that he could have concealed from me so much. "are we to have that play??? have i spoken of it, ever since i came home from london, as a settled thing! i do not know if i have ever told you seriously, but i have often thought, that i should certainly have been as successful on the boards as i have been between them. i assure you, when i was on the stage at montreal (not having played for years) i was as much astonished at the reality and ease, to myself, of what i did as if i had been another man. see how oddly things come about! when i was about twenty, and knew three or four successive years of mathews's at homes from sitting in the pit to hear them, i wrote to bartley who was stage manager at covent-garden, and told him how young i was, and exactly what i thought i could do; and that i believed i had a strong perception of character and oddity, and a natural power of reproducing in my own person what i observed in others. there must have been something in the letter that struck the authorities, for bartley wrote to me, almost immediately, to say that they were busy getting up the _hunchback_ (so they were!) but that they would communicate with me again, in a fortnight. punctual to the time, another letter came: with an appointment to do anything of mathews's i pleased, before him and charles kemble, on a certain day at the theatre. my sister fanny was in the secret, and was to go with me to play the songs. i was laid up, when the day came, with a terrible bad cold and an inflammation of the face; the beginning, by the bye, of that annoyance in one ear to which i am subject at this day. i wrote to say so, and added that i would resume my application next season. i made a great splash in the gallery soon afterwards; the _chronicle_ opened to me; i had a distinction in the little world of the newspaper, which made me like it; began to write; didn't want money; had never thought of the stage, but as a means of getting it; gradually left off turning my thoughts that way; and never resumed the idea. i never told you this, did i? see how near i may have been, to another sort of life. "this was at the time when i was at doctors' commons as a shorthand writer for the proctors. and i recollect i wrote the letter from a little office i had there, where the answer came also. it wasn't a very good living (though not a _very_ bad one), and was wearily uncertain; which made me think of the theatre in quite a business-like way. i went to some theatre every night, with a very few exceptions, for at least three years: really studying the bills first, and going to where there was the best acting: and always to see mathews whenever he played. i practised immensely (even such things as walking in and out, and sitting down in a chair): often four, five, six hours a day: shut up in my own room, or walking about in the fields. i prescribed to myself, too, a sort of hamiltonian system for learning parts; and learnt a great number. i haven't even lost the habit now, for i knew my canadian parts immediately, though they were new to me. i must have done a good deal: for, just as macready found me out, they used to challenge me at braham's: and yates, who was knowing enough in those things, wasn't to be parried at all. it was just the same, that day at keeley's, when they were getting up the _chuzzlewit_ last june. "if you think macready would be interested in this strange news from the south, tell it him. fancy bartley or charles kemble _now_! and how little they suspect me!" in the later letter from lucerne written as he was travelling home, he adds: "_did_ i ever tell you the details of my theatrical idea, before? strange, that i should have quite forgotten it. i had an odd fancy, when i was reading the unfortunate little farce at covent-garden, that bartley looked as if some struggling recollection and connection were stirring up within him--but it may only have been his doubts of that humorous composition." the last allusion is to the farce of the _lamplighter_ which he read in the covent-garden green-room, and to which former allusion was made in speaking of his wish to give help to macready's managerial enterprise. _what might have been_ is a history of too little profit to be worth anybody's writing, and here there is no call even to regret how great an actor was in dickens lost. he took to a higher calling, but it included the lower. there was no character created by him into which life and reality were not thrown with such vividness, that the thing written did not seem to his readers the thing actually done, whether the form of disguise put on by the enchanter was mrs. gamp, tom pinch, mr. squeers, or fagin the jew. he had the power of projecting himself into shapes and suggestions of his fancy which is one of the marvels of creative imagination, and what he desired to express he became. the assumptions of the theatre have the same method at a lower pitch, depending greatly on personal accident; but the accident as much as the genius favoured dickens, and another man's conception underwent in his acting the process which in writing he applied to his own. into both he flung himself with the passionate fullness of his nature; and though the theatre had limits for him that may be named hereafter, and he was always greater in quickness of assumption than in steadiness of delineation, there was no limit to his delight and enjoyment in the adventures of our theatrical holiday. in less than three weeks after his return we had selected our play, cast our parts, and all but engaged our theatre; as i find by a note from my friend of the nd of july, in which the good natured laugh can give now no offence, since all who might have objected to it have long gone from us. fanny kelly, the friend of charles lamb, and a genuine successor to the old school of actresses in which the mrs. orgers and miss popes were bred, was not more delightful on the stage than impracticable when off, and the little theatre in dean-street which the duke of devonshire's munificence had enabled her to build, and which with any ordinary good sense might handsomely have realized both its uses, as a private school for young actresses and a place of public amusement, was made useless for both by her mere whims and fancies. "heavens! such a scene as i have had with miss kelly here, this morning! she wanted us put off until the theatre should be cleaned and brushed up a bit, and she would and she would not, for she is eager to have us and alarmed when she thinks of us. by the foot of pharaoh, it was a great scene! especially when she choked, and had the glass of water brought. she exaggerates the importance of our occupation, dreads the least prejudice against the establishment in the minds of any of our company, says the place already has quite ruined her, and with tears in her eyes protests that any jokes at her additional expense in print would drive her mad. by the body of cæsar, the scene was incredible! it's like a preposterous dream." something of our play is disclosed by the oaths à la bobadil, and of our actors by "the jokes" poor miss kelly was afraid of. we had chosen every man in his humour, with special regard to the singleness and individuality of the "humours" portrayed in it; and our company included the leaders of a journal then in its earliest years, but already not more renowned as the most successful joker of jokes yet known in england, than famous for that exclusive use of its laughter and satire for objects the highest or most harmless which makes it still so enjoyable a companion to mirth-loving right-minded men. maclise took earnest part with us, and was to have acted, but fell away on the eve of the rehearsals; and stanfield, who went so far as to rehearse downright twice, then took fright and also ran away:[ ] but jerrold, who played master stephen, brought with him lemon, who took brainworm; leech, to whom master matthew was given; a'beckett, who had condescended to the small part of william; and mr. leigh, who had oliver cob. i played kitely, and bobadil fell to dickens, who took upon him the redoubtable captain long before he stood in his dress at the footlights; humouring the completeness of his assumption by talking and writing bobadil, till the dullest of our party were touched and stirred to something of his own heartiness of enjoyment. one or two hints of these have been given, and i will only add to them his refusal of my wish that he should go and see some special performance of the gamester. "man of the house. _gamester!_ by the foot of pharaoh, i will _not_ see the _gamester_. man shall not force, nor horses drag, this poor gentleman-like carcass into the presence of the _gamester_. i have said it. . . . the player mac hath bidden me to eat and likewise drink with him, thyself, and short-necked fox to-night--an' i go not, i am a hog, and not a soldier. but an' thou goest not--beware citizen! look to it. . . . thine as thou meritest. bobadil (captain). unto master kitely. these." the play was played on the st of september with a success that out-ran the wildest expectation; and turned our little enterprise into one of the small sensations of the day. the applause of the theatre found so loud an echo in the press, that for the time nothing else was talked about in private circles; and after a week or two we had to yield (we did not find it difficult) to a pressure of demand for more public performance in a larger theatre, by which a useful charity received important help, and its committee showed their gratitude by an entertainment to us at the clarendon, a month or two later, when lord lansdowne took the chair. there was also another performance by us at the same theatre, before the close of the year, of a play by beaumont and fletcher. i may not farther indicate the enjoyments that attended the success, and gave always to the first of our series of performances a pre-eminently pleasant place in memory. of the thing itself, however, it is necessary to be said that a modicum of merit goes a long way in all such matters, and it would not be safe now to assume that ours was much above the average of amateur attempts in general. lemon certainly had most of the stuff, conventional as well as otherwise, of a regular actor in him, but this was not of a high kind; and though dickens had the title to be called a born comedian, the turn for it being in his very nature, his strength was rather in the vividness and variety of his assumptions, than in the completeness, finish, or ideality he could give to any part of them. it is expressed exactly by what he says of his youthful preference for the representations of the elder mathews. at the same time this was in itself so thoroughly genuine and enjoyable, and had in it such quickness and keenness of insight, that of its kind it was unrivalled; and it enabled him to present in bobadil, after a richly coloured picture of bombastical extravagance and comic exaltation in the earlier scenes, a contrast in the later of tragical humility and abasement, that had a wonderful effect. but greatly as his acting contributed to the success of the night, this was nothing to the service he had rendered as manager. it would be difficult to describe it. he was the life and soul of the entire affair. i never seemed till then to have known his business capabilities. he took everything on himself, and did the whole of it without an effort. he was stage-director, very often stage-carpenter, scene-arranger, property-man, prompter, and band-master. without offending any one he kept every one in order. for all he had useful suggestions, and the dullest of clays under his potter's hand were transformed into little bits of porcelain. he adjusted scenes, assisted carpenters, invented costumes, devised playbills, wrote out calls, and enforced as well as exhibited in his proper person everything of which he urged the necessity on others. such a chaos of dirt, confusion, and noise, as the little theatre was the day we entered it, and such a cosmos as he made it of cleanliness, order, and silence, before the rehearsals were over! there were only two things left as we found them, bits of humanity both, understood from the first as among the fixtures of the place: a man in a straw hat, tall, and very fitful in his exits and entrances, of whom we never could pierce the mystery, whether he was on guard or in possession, or what he was; and a solitary little girl, who flitted about so silently among our actors and actresses that she might have been deaf and dumb but for sudden small shrieks and starts elicited by the wonders going on, which obtained for her the name of fireworks. there is such humorous allusion to both in a letter of dickens's of a year's later date, on the occasion of the straw-hatted mystery revealing itself as a gentleman in training for the tragic stage, that it may pleasantly close for the present our private theatricals. "our straw-hatted friend from miss kelly's! oh my stars! to think of him, all that time--macbeth in disguise; richard the third grown straight; hamlet as he appeared on his seavoyage to england. what an artful villain he must be, never to have made any sign of the melodrama that was in him! what a wicked-minded and remorseless iago to have seen you doing kitely night after night! raging to murder you and seize the part! oh fancy miss kelly 'getting him up' in macbeth. good heaven! what a mass of absurdity must be shut up sometimes within the walls of that small theatre in dean-street! fireworks will come out shortly, depend upon it, in the dumb line; and will relate her history in profoundly unintelligible motions that will be translated into long and complicated descriptions by a grey-headed father, and a red-wigged countryman, his son. you remember the dumb dodge of relating an escape from captivity? clasping the left wrist with the right hand, and the right wrist with the left hand--alternately (to express chains)--and then going round and round the stage very fast, and coming hand over hand down an imaginary cord; at the end of which there is one stroke on the drum, and a kneeling to the chandelier? if fireworks can't do that--and won't somewhere--i'm a dutchman." graver things now claim a notice which need not be proportioned to their gravity, because, though they had an immediate effect on dickens's fortunes, they do not otherwise form part of his story. but first let me say, he was at broadstairs for three weeks in the autumn;[ ] we had the private play on his return; and a month later, on the th of october, a sixth child and fourth son, named alfred tennyson after his godfathers d'orsay and tennyson, was born in devonshire-terrace. a death in the family followed, the older and more gifted of his ravens having indulged the same illicit taste for putty and paint which had been fatal to his predecessor. voracity killed him, as it killed scott's. he died unexpectedly before the kitchen-fire. "he kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of _cuckoo_!" the letter which told me this ( st of october) announced to me also that he was at a dead lock in his christmas story: "sick, bothered and depressed. visions of brighton come upon me; and i have a great mind to go there to finish my second part, or to hampstead. i have a desperate thought of jack straw's. i never was in such bad writing cue as i am this week, in all my life." the reason was not far to seek. in the preparation for the proposed new daily paper to which reference has been made, he was now actively assisting, and had all but consented to the publication of his name. i entertained at this time, for more than one powerful reason, the greatest misgiving of his intended share in the adventure. it was not fully revealed until later on what difficult terms, physical as well as mental, dickens held the tenure of his imaginative life; but already i knew enough to doubt the wisdom of what he was at present undertaking. in all intellectual labour, his will prevailed so strongly when he fixed it on any object of desire, that what else its attainment might exact was never duly measured; and this led to frequent strain and unconscious waste of what no man could less afford to spare. to the world gladdened by his work, its production might always have seemed quite as easy as its enjoyment; but it may be doubted if ever any man's mental effort cost him more. his habits were robust, but not his health; that secret had been disclosed to me before he went to america; and to the last he refused steadily to admit the enormous price he had paid for his triumphs and successes. the morning after his last note i heard again. "i have been so very unwell this morning, with giddiness, and headache, and botheration of one sort or other, that i didn't get up till noon: and, shunning fleet-street" (the office of the proposed new paper), "am now going for a country walk, in the course of which you will find me, if you feel disposed to come away in the carriage that goes to you with this. it is to call for a pull of the first part of the _cricket_, and will bring you, if you like, by way of hampstead to me, and subsequently to dinner. there is much i should like to discuss, if you can manage it. it's the loss of my walks, i suppose; but i am as giddy as if i were drunk, and can hardly see." i gave far from sufficient importance at the time to the frequency of complaints of this kind, or to the recurrence, at almost regular periods after the year following the present, of those spasms in the side of which he has recorded an instance in the recollections of his childhood, and of which he had an attack in genoa; but though not conscious of it to its full extent, this consideration was among those that influenced me in a determination to endeavour to turn him from what could not but be regarded as full of peril. his health, however, had no real prominence in my letter; and it is strange now to observe that it appears as an argument in his reply. i had simply put before him, in the strongest form, all the considerations drawn from his genius and fame that should deter him from the labour and responsibility of a daily paper, not less than from the party and political involvements incident to it; and here was the material part of the answer made. "many thanks for your affectionate letter, which is full of generous truth. these considerations weigh with me, _heavily_: but i think i descry in these times, greater stimulants to such an effort; greater chance of some fair recognition of it; greater means of persevering in it, or retiring from it unscratched by any weapon one should care for; than at any other period. and most of all i have, sometimes, that possibility of failing health or fading popularity before me, which beckons me to such a venture when it comes within my reach. at the worst, i have written to little purpose, if i cannot _write myself right_ in people's minds, in such a case as this." and so it went on: but it does not fall within my plan to describe more than the issue, which was to be accounted so far at least fortunate that it established a journal which has advocated steadily improvements in the condition of all classes, rich as well as poor, and has been able, during late momentous occurrences, to give wider scope to its influence by its enterprise and liberality. to that result, the great writer whose name gave its earliest attraction to the _daily news_ was not enabled to contribute much; but from him it certainly received the first impress of the opinions it has since consistently maintained. its prospectus is before me in his handwriting, but it bears upon itself sufficiently the character of his hand and mind. the paper would be kept free, it said, from personal influence or party bias; and would be devoted to the advocacy of all rational and honest means by which wrong might be redressed, just rights maintained, and the happiness and welfare of society promoted. the day for the appearance of its first number was that which was to follow peel's speech for the repeal of the corn laws; but, brief as my allusions to the subject are, the remark should be made that even before this day came there were interruptions to the work of preparation, at one time very grave, which threw such "changes of vexation" on dickens's personal relations to the venture as went far to destroy both his faith and his pleasure in it. no opinion need be offered as to where most of the blame lay, and it would be useless now to apportion the share that might possibly have belonged to himself; but, owing to this cause, his editorial work began with such diminished ardour that its brief continuance could not but be looked for. a little note written "before going home" at six o'clock in the morning of wednesday the st of january , to tell me they had "been at press three quarters of an hour, and were out before the _times_," marks the beginning; and a note written in the night of monday the th of february, "tired to death and quite worn out," to say that he had just resigned his editorial functions, describes the end. i had not been unprepared. a week before (friday th of january) he had written: "i want a long talk with you. i was obliged to come down here in a hurry to give out a travelling letter i meant to have given out last night, and could not call upon you. will you dine with us to-morrow at six sharp? i have been revolving plans in my mind this morning for quitting the paper and going abroad again to write a new book in shilling numbers. shall we go to rochester to-morrow week (my birthday) if the weather be, as it surely must be, better?" to rochester accordingly we had gone, he and mrs. dickens and her sister, with maclise and jerrold and myself; going over the old castle, watts's charity, and chatham fortifications on the saturday, passing sunday in cobham church and cobham park; having our quarters both days at the bull inn made famous in _pickwick_; and thus, by indulgence of the desire which was always strangely urgent in him, associating his new resolve in life with those earliest scenes of his youthful time. on one point our feeling had been in thorough agreement. if long continuance with the paper was not likely, the earliest possible departure from it was desirable. but as the letters descriptive of his italian travel (turned afterwards into _pictures from italy_) had begun with its first number, his name could not at once be withdrawn; and for the time during which they were still to appear, he consented to contribute other occasional letters on important social questions. public executions and ragged schools were among the subjects chosen by him, and all were handled with conspicuous ability. but the interval they covered was a short one. to the supreme control which he had quitted, i succeeded, retaining it very reluctantly for the greater part of that weary, anxious, laborious year; but in little more than four months from the day the paper started, the whole of dickens's connection with the _daily news_, even that of contributing letters with his signature, had ceased. as he said in the preface to the republished _pictures_, it was a mistake to have disturbed the old relations between himself and his readers, in so departing from his old pursuits. it had however been "a brief mistake;" the departure had been only "for a moment;" and now those pursuits were "joyfully" to be resumed in switzerland. upon the latter point we had much discussion; but he was bent on again removing himself from london, and his glimpse of the swiss mountains on his coming from italy had given him a passion to visit them again. "i don't think," he wrote to me, "i _could_ shut out the paper sufficiently, here, to write well. no . . . i will write my book in lausanne and in genoa, and forget everything else if i can; and by living in switzerland for the summer, and in italy or france for the winter, i shall be saving money while i write." so therefore it was finally determined. there is not much that calls for mention before he left. the first conceiving of a new book was always a restless time, and other subjects beside the characters that were growing in his mind would persistently intrude themselves into his night-wanderings. with some surprise i heard from him afterwards, for example, of a communication opened with a leading member of the government to ascertain what chances there might be for his appointment, upon due qualification, to the paid magistracy of london: the reply not giving him encouragement to entertain the notion farther. it was of course but an outbreak of momentary discontent; and if the answer had been as hopeful as for others' sake rather than his own one could have wished it to be, the result would have been the same. just upon the eve of his departure, i may add, he took much interest in the establishment of the general theatrical fund, of which he remained a trustee until his death. it had originated in the fact that the funds of the two large theatres, themselves then disused for theatrical performances, were no longer available for the ordinary members of the profession; and on the occasion of his presiding at its first dinner in april he said, very happily, that now the statue of shakespeare outside the door of drury-lane, as emphatically as his bust inside the church of stratford-on-avon, _pointed out his grave_. i am tempted also to mention as felicitous a word which i heard fall from him at one of the many private dinners that were got up in those days of parting to give him friendliest farewell. "nothing is ever so good as it is thought," said lord melbourne. "and nothing so bad," interposed dickens. the last incidents were that he again obtained roche for his travelling servant, and that he let his devonshire-terrace house to sir james duke for twelve months, the entire proposed term of his absence. on the th of may they all dined with me, and on the following day left england. footnotes: [ ] count d'orsay's note about roche, replying to dickens's recommendation of him at his return, has touches of the pleasantry, wit, and kindliness that gave such a wonderful fascination to its writer. "gore house, july, . mon cher dickens, nous sommes enchantés de votre retour. voici, thank god, devonshire place ressuscité. venez luncheoner demain à heure, et amenez notre brave ami forster. j'attends la perle fine des couriers. vous l'immortalisez par ce certificat--la difficulté sera de trouver un maître digne de lui. j'essayerai de tout mon coeur. la reine devroit le prendre pour aller en saxe gotha, car je suis convaincu qu'il est assez intelligent pour pouvoir découvrir ce royaume. gore house vous envoye un cargo d'amitiés des plus sincères. donnez de ma part , kind regards à madame dickens. toujours votre affectionné, ce d'orsay. j'ai vu le courier, c'est le tableau de l'honnêteté, et de la bonne humeur. don't forget to be here at one to-morrow, with forster." [ ] "look here! enclosed are two packets--a large one and a small one. the small one, read first. it contains stanny's renunciation as an actor!!! after receiving it, at dinner time to-day" ( nd of august), "i gave my brains a shake, and thought of george cruikshank. after much shaking, i made up the big packet, wherein i have put the case in the artfullest manner. r-r-r-r-ead it! as a certain captain whom you know observes." the great artist was not for that time procurable, having engagements away from london, and mr. dudley costello was substituted; stanfield taking off the edge of his desertion as an actor by doing valuable work in management and scenery. [ ] characteristic glimpse of this broadstairs holiday is afforded by a letter of the th of august . "perhaps it is a fair specimen of the odd adventures which befall the inimitable, that the cab in which the children and the luggage were (i and my womankind being in the other) got its shafts broken in the city, last friday morning, through the horse stumbling on the greasy pavement; _and was drawn to the wharf (about a mile) by a stout man_, amid such frightful howlings and derisive yellings on the part of an infuriated populace, as i never heard before. conceive the man in the broken shafts with his back towards the cab; all the children looking out of the windows; and the muddy portmanteaus and so forth (which were all tumbled down when the horse fell) tottering and nodding on the box! the best of it was, that _our_ cabman, being an intimate friend of the damaged cabman, insisted on keeping him company; and proceeded at a solemn walk, in front of the procession; thereby securing to me a liberal share of the popular curiosity and congratulation. . . . everything here at broadstairs is the same as of old. i have walked miles a day since i came down, and i went to a circus at ramsgate on saturday night, where _mazeppa_ was played in three long acts without an h in it: as if for a wager. evven, and edds, and errors, and ands, were as plentiful as blackberries; but the letter h was neither whispered in evven, nor muttered in ell, nor permitted to dwell in any form on the confines of the sawdust." with this i will couple another theatrical experience of this holiday, when he saw a giant played by a village comedian with a quite gargantuesque felicity, and singled out for my admiration his fine manner of sitting down to a hot supper (of children), with the self-lauding exalting remark, by way of grace, "how pleasant is a quiet conscience and an approving mind!" chapter x. a home in switzerland. . on the rhine--travelling englishmen--at lausanne--house-hunting--a cottage chosen--first impressions of switzerland--lausanne described--his villa described--design as to work--english neighbours--swiss prison system--blind institution--interesting case--idiot girl--habits in idiot life and savage--begins dombey--the christmas tale. halting only at ostend, verviers, coblentz, and mannheim, they reached strasburg on the seventh of june: the beauty of the weather[ ] showing them the rhine at its best. at mayence there had come aboard their boat a german, who soon after accosted mrs. dickens on deck in excellent english: "your countryman mr. dickens is travelling this way just now, our papers say. do you know him, or have you passed him anywhere?" explanations ensuing, it turned out, by one of the odd chances my friend thought himself always singled out for, that he had with him a letter of introduction to the brother of this gentleman; who then spoke to him of the popularity of his books in germany, and of the many persons he had seen reading them in the steamboats as he came along. dickens remarking at this how great his own vexation was not to be able himself to speak a word of german, "oh dear! that needn't trouble you," rejoined the other; "for even in so small a town as ours, where we are mostly primitive people and have few travellers, i could make a party of at least forty people who understand and speak english as well as i do, and of at least as many more who could manage to read you in the original." his town was worms, which dickens afterwards saw, ". . . a fine old place, though greatly shrunken and decayed in respect of its population; with a picturesque old cathedral standing on the brink of the rhine, and some brave old churches shut up, and so hemmed in and overgrown with vineyards that they look as if they were turning into leaves and grapes." he had no other adventure on the rhine. but, on the same steamer, a not unfamiliar bit of character greeted him in the well-known lineaments, moral and physical, of two travelling englishmen who had got an immense barouche on board with them, and had no plan whatever of going anywhere in it. one of them wanted to have this barouche wheeled ashore at every little town and village they came to. the other was bent upon "seeing it out," as he said--meaning, dickens supposed, the river; though neither of them seemed to have the slightest interest in it. "the locomotive one would have gone ashore without the carriage, and would have been delighted to get rid of it; but they had a joint courier, and neither of them would part with _him_ for a moment; so they went growling and grumbling on together, and seemed to have no satisfaction but in asking for impossible viands on board the boat, and having a grim delight in the steward's excuses." from strasburg they went by rail on the th to bâle, from which they started for lausanne next day, in three coaches, two horses to each, taking three days for the journey: its only enlivening incident being an uproar between the landlord of an inn on the road, and one of the voituriers who had libelled boniface's establishment by complaining of the food. "after various defiances on both sides, the landlord said 'scélérat! mécréant! je vous boaxerai!' to which the voiturier replied, 'aha! comment dites-vous? voulez-vous boaxer? eh? voulez-vous? ah! boaxez-moi donc! boaxez-moi!'--at the same time accompanying these retorts with gestures of violent significance, which explained that this new verb-active was founded on the well-known english verb to boax, or box. if they used it once, they used it at least a hundred times, and goaded each other to madness with it always." the travellers reached the hotel gibbon at lausanne on the evening of thursday the th of june; having been tempted as they came along to rest somewhat short of it, by a delightful glimpse of neuchâtel. "on consideration however i thought it best to come on here, in case i should find, when i begin to write, that i want streets sometimes. in which case, geneva (which i hope would answer the purpose) is only four and twenty miles away." he at once began house-hunting, and had two days' hard work of it. he found the greater part of those let to the english like small villas in the regent's-park, with verandahs, glass-doors opening on lawns, and alcoves overlooking the lake and mountains. one he was tempted by, higher up the hill, "poised above the town like a ship on a high wave;" but the possible fury of its winter winds deterred him. greater still was the temptation to him of "l'elysée," more a mansion than a villa; with splendid grounds overlooking the lake, and in its corridors and staircases as well as furniture like an old fashioned country house in england; which he could have got for twelve months for £ . "but when i came to consider its vastness, i was rather dismayed at the prospect of windy nights in the autumn, with nobody staying in the house to make it gay." and so he again fell back upon the very first place he had seen, rosemont, quite a doll's house; with two pretty little salons, a dining-room, hall, and kitchen, on the ground floor; and with just enough bedrooms upstairs to leave the family one to spare. "it is beautifully situated on the hill that rises from the lake, within ten minutes' walk of this hotel, and furnished, though scantily as all here are, better than others except elysée, on account of its having being built and fitted up (the little salons in the parisian way) by the landlady and her husband for themselves. they lived now in a smaller house like a porter's lodge, just within the gate. a portion of the grounds is farmed by a farmer, and _he_ lives close by; so that, while it is secluded, it is not at all lonely." the rent was to be ten pounds a month for half a year, with reduction to eight for the second half, if he should stay so long; and the rooms and furniture were to be described to me, so that according to custom i should be quite at home there, as soon as, also according to a custom well-known, his own ingenious re-arrangements and improvements in the chairs and tables should be completed. "i shall merely observe at present therefore, that my little study is upstairs, and looks out, from two french windows opening into a balcony, on the lake and mountains; and that there are roses enough to smother the whole establishment of the _daily news_ in. likewise, there is a pavilion in the garden, which has but two rooms in it; in one of which, i think you shall do your work when you come. as to bowers for reading and smoking, there are as many scattered about the grounds, as there are in chalk-farm tea-gardens. but the rosemont bowers are really beautiful. will you come to the bowers. . . ?" very pleasant were the earliest impressions of switzerland with which this first letter closed. "the country is delightful in the extreme--as leafy, green, and shady, as england; full of deep glens, and branchy places (rather a leigh huntish expression), and bright with all sorts of flowers in profusion.[ ] it abounds in singing birds besides--very pleasant after italy; and the moonlight on the lake is noble. prodigious mountains rise up from its opposite shore (it is eight or nine miles across, at this point), and the simplon, the st. gothard, mont blanc, and all the alpine wonders are piled there, in tremendous grandeur. the cultivation is uncommonly rich and profuse. there are all manner of walks, vineyards, green lanes, cornfields, and pastures full of hay. the general neatness is as remarkable as in england. there are no priests or monks in the streets, and the people appear to be industrious and thriving. french (and very intelligible and pleasant french) seems to be the universal language. i never saw so many booksellers' shops crammed within the same space, as in the steep up-and-down streets of lausanne." of the little town he spoke in his next letter as having its natural dulness increased by that fact of its streets going up and down hill abruptly and steeply, like the streets in a dream; and the consequent difficulty of getting about it. "there are some suppressed churches in it, now used as packers' warehouses: with cranes and pulleys growing out of steeple-towers; little doors for lowering goods through, fitted into blocked-up oriel windows; and cart-horses stabled in crypts. these also help to give it a deserted and disused appearance. on the other hand, as it is a perfectly free place subject to no prohibitions or restrictions of any kind, there are all sorts of new french books and publications in it, and all sorts of fresh intelligence from the world beyond the jura mountains. it contains only one roman catholic church, which is mainly for the use of the savoyards and piedmontese who come trading over the alps. as for the country, it cannot be praised too highly, or reported too beautiful. there are no great waterfalls, or walks through mountain-gorges, _close_ at hand, as in some other parts of switzerland; but there is a charming variety of enchanting scenery. there is the shore of the lake, where you may dip your feet, as you walk, in the deep blue water, if you choose. there are the hills to climb up, leading to the great heights above the town; or to stagger down, leading to the lake. there is every possible variety of deep green lanes, vineyard, cornfield, pasture-land, and wood. there are excellent country roads that might be in kent or devonshire: and, closing up every view and vista, is an eternally changing range of prodigious mountains--sometimes red, sometimes grey, sometimes purple, sometimes black; sometimes white with snow; sometimes close at hand; and sometimes very ghosts in the clouds and mist." in the heart of these things he was now to live and work for at least six months; and, as the love of nature was as much a passion with him in his intervals of leisure, as the craving for crowds and streets when he was busy with the creatures of his fancy, no man was better qualified to enjoy what was thus open to him from his little farm. the view from each side of it was different in character, and from one there was visible the liveliest aspect of lausanne itself, close at hand, and seeming, as he said, to be always coming down the hill with its steeples and towers, not able to stop itself. "from a fine long broad balcony on which the windows of my little study on the first floor (where i am now writing) open, the lake is seen to wonderful advantage,--losing itself by degrees in the solemn gorge of mountains leading to the simplon pass. under the balcony is a stone colonnade, on which the six french windows of the drawing-room open; and quantities of plants are clustered about the pillars and seats, very prettily. one of these drawing-rooms is furnished (like a french hotel) with red velvet, and the other with green; in both, plenty of mirrors and nice white muslin curtains; and for the larger one in cold weather there is a carpet, the floors being bare now, but inlaid in squares with different-coloured woods." his description did not close until, in every nook and corner inhabited by the several members of the family, i was made to feel myself at home; but only the final sentence need be added. "walking out into the balcony as i write, i am suddenly reminded, by the sight of the castle of chillon glittering in the sunlight on the lake, that i omitted to mention that object in my catalogue of the rosemont beauties. please to put it in, like george robins, in a line by itself." [illustration] regular evening walks of nine or ten miles were named in the same letter ( nd of june) as having been begun;[ ] and thoughts of his books were already stirring in him. "an odd shadowy undefined idea is at work within me, that i could connect a great battle-field somehow with my little christmas story. shapeless visions of the repose and peace pervading it in after-time; with the corn and grass growing over the slain, and people singing at the plough; are so perpetually floating before me, that i cannot but think there may turn out to be something good in them when i see them more plainly. . . . i want to get four numbers of the monthly book done here, and the christmas book. if all goes well, and nothing changes, and i can accomplish this by the end of november, i shall run over to you in england for a few days with a light heart, and leave roche to move the caravan to paris in the meanwhile. it will be just the very point in the story when the life and crowd of that extraordinary place will come vividly to my assistance in writing." such was his design; and, though difficulties not now seen started up which he had a hard fight to get through, he managed to accomplish it. his letter ended with a promise to tell me, when next he wrote, of the small colony of english who seemed ready to give him even more than the usual welcome. two visits had thus early been paid him by mr. haldimand, formerly a member of the english parliament, an accomplished man, who, with his sister mrs. marcet (the well-known authoress), had long made lausanne his home. he had a very fine seat just below rosemont, and his character and station had made him quite the little sovereign of the place. "he has founded and endowed all sorts of hospitals and institutions here, and he gives a dinner to-morrow to introduce our neighbours, whoever they are." he found them to be happily the kind of people who rendered entirely pleasant those frank and cordial hospitalities which the charm of his personal intercourse made every one so eager to offer him. the dinner at mr. haldimand's was followed by dinners from the guests he met there; from an english lady[ ] married to a swiss, mr. and mrs. cerjat, clever and agreeable both, far beyond the common; from her sister wedded to an englishman, mr. and mrs. goff; and from mr. and mrs. watson of rockingham-castle in northamptonshire, who had taken the elysée on dickens giving it up, and with whom, as with mr. haldimand, his relations continued to be very intimate long after he left lausanne. in his drive to mr. cerjat's dinner a whimsical difficulty presented itself. he had set up, for use of his wife and children, an odd little one-horse-carriage; made to hold three persons sideways, so that they should avoid the wind always blowing up or down the valley; and he found it attended with one of the drollest consequences conceivable. "it can't be easily turned; and as you face to the side, all sorts of evolutions are necessary to bring you 'broad-side to' before the door of the house where you are going. the country houses here are very like those upon the thames between richmond and kingston (this, particularly), with grounds all round. at mr. cerjat's we were obliged to be carried, like the child's riddle, round the house and round the house, without touching the house; and we were presented in the most alarming manner, three of a row, first to all the people in the kitchen, then to the governess who was dressing in her bedroom, then to the drawing-room where the company were waiting for us, then to the dining-room where they were spreading the table, and finally to the hall where we were got out--scraping the windows of each apartment as we glared slowly into it." a dinner party of his own followed of course; and a sad occurrence, of which he and his guests were unconscious, signalised the evening ( th of july). "while we were sitting at dinner, one of the prettiest girls in lausanne was drowned in the lake--in the most peaceful water, reflecting the steep mountains, and crimson with the setting sun. she was bathing in one of the nooks set apart for women, and seems somehow to have entangled her feet in the skirts of her dress. she was an accomplished swimmer, as many of the girls are here, and drifted, suddenly, out of only five feet water. three or four friends who were with her, _ran away_, screaming. our children's governess was on the lake in a boat with m. verdeil (my prison-doctor) and his family. they ran inshore immediately; the body was quickly got out; and m. verdeil, with three or four other doctors, laboured for some hours to restore animation; but she only sighed once. after all that time, she was obliged to be borne, stiff and stark, to her father's house. she was his only child, and but years old. he has been nearly dead since, and all lausanne has been full of the story. i was down by the lake, near the place, last night; and a boatman _acted_ to me the whole scene: depositing himself finally on a heap of stones, to represent the body." with m. verdeil, physician to the prison and vice-president of the council of health, introduced by mr. haldimand, there had already been much communication; and i could give nothing more characteristic of dickens than his reference to this, and other similar matters in which his interest was strongly moved during his first weeks at lausanne.[ ] "some years ago, when they set about reforming the prison at lausanne, they turned their attention, in a correspondence of republican feeling, to america; and taking the philadelphian system for granted, adopted it. terrible fits, new phases of mental affection, and horrible madness, among the prisoners, were very soon the result; and attained to such an alarming height, that m. verdeil, in his public capacity, began to report against the system, and went on reporting and working against it until he formed a party who were determined not to have it, and caused it to be abolished--except in cases where the imprisonment does not exceed ten months in the whole. it is remarkable that in his notes of the different cases, there is _every effect_ i mentioned as having observed myself at philadelphia; even down to those contained in the description of the man who had been there thirteen years, and who _picked his hands_ so much as he talked. he has only recently, he says, read the _american notes_; but he is so much struck by the perfect coincidence that he intends to republish some extracts from his own notes, side by side with these passages of mine translated into french. i went with him over the prison the other day. it is wonderfully well arranged for a continental jail, and in perfect order. the sentences however, or some of them, are very terrible. i saw one man sent there for murder under circumstances of mitigation--for years. upon the silent social system all the time! they weave, and plait straw, and make shoes, small articles of turnery and carpentry, and little common wooden clocks. but the sentences are too long for that monotonous and hopeless life; and, though they are well-fed and cared for, they generally break down utterly after two or three years. one delusion seems to become common to three-fourths of them after a certain time of imprisonment. under the impression that there is something destructive put into their food 'pour les guérir de crime' (says m. verdeil), they refuse to eat!" it was at the blind institution, however, of which mr. haldimand was the president and great benefactor, that dickens's attention was most deeply arrested; and there were two cases in especial of which the detail may be read with as much interest now as when my friend's letters were written, and as to which his own suggestions open up still rather startling trains of thought. the first, which in its attraction for him he found equal even to laura bridgman's, was that of a young man of : "born deaf and dumb, and stricken blind by an accident when he was about five years old. the director of the institution is a young german, of great ability, and most uncommonly prepossessing appearance. he propounded to the scientific bodies of geneva, a year ago (when this young man was under education in the asylum), the possibility of teaching him to speak--in other words, to play with his tongue upon his teeth and palate as if on an instrument, and connect particular performances with particular words conveyed to him in the finger-language. they unanimously agreed that it was quite impossible. the german set to work, and the young man now speaks very plainly and distinctly: without the least modulation, of course, but with comparatively little hesitation; expressing the words aloud as they are struck, so to speak, upon his hands; and showing the most intense and wonderful delight in doing it. this is commonly acquired, as you know, by the deaf and dumb who learn by sight; but it has never before been achieved in the case of a deaf, dumb, and blind subject. he is an extremely lively, intelligent, good-humoured fellow; an excellent carpenter; a first-rate turner; and runs about the building with a certainty and confidence which none of the merely blind pupils acquire. he has a great many ideas, and an instinctive dread of death. he knows of god, as of thought enthroned somewhere; and once told, on nature's prompting (the devil's of course), a lie. he was sitting at dinner, and the director asked him whether he had had anything to drink; to which he instantly replied 'no,' in order that he might get some more, though he had been served in his turn. it was explained to him that this was a wrong thing, and wouldn't do, and that he was to be locked up in a room for it: which was done. soon after this, he had a dream of being bitten in the shoulder by some strange animal. as it left a great impression on his mind, he told m. the director that he had told another lie in the night. in proof of it he related his dream, and added, 'it must be a lie you know, because there is no strange animal here, and i never was bitten.' being informed that this sort of lie was a harmless one, and was called a dream, he asked whether dead people ever dreamed[ ] while they were lying in the ground. he is one of the most curious and interesting studies possible." the second case had come in on the very day that dickens visited the place. "when i was there" ( th of july) "there had come in, that morning, a girl of ten years old, born deaf and dumb and blind, and so perfectly untaught that she has not learnt to have the least control even over the performance of the common natural functions. . . . and yet she _laughs sometimes_ (good god! conceive what at!)--and is dreadfully sensitive from head to foot, and very much alarmed, for some hours before the coming on of a thunder storm. mr. haldimand has been long trying to induce her parents to send her to the asylum. at last they have consented; and when i saw her, some of the little blind girls were trying to make friends with her, and to lead her gently about. she was dressed in just a loose robe from the necessity of changing her frequently, but had been in a bath, and had had her nails cut (which were previously very long and dirty), and was not at all ill-looking--quite the reverse; with a remarkably good and pretty little mouth, but a low and undeveloped head of course. it was pointed out to me, as very singular, that the moment she is left alone, or freed from anybody's touch (which is the same thing to her), she instantly crouches down with her hands up to her ears, in exactly the position of a child before its birth; and so remains. i thought this such a strange coincidence with the utter want of advancement in her moral being, that it made a great impression on me; and conning it over and over, i began to think that this is surely the invariable action of savages too, and that i have seen it over and over again described in books of voyages and travels. not having any of these with me, i turned to _robinson crusoe_; and i find de foe says, describing the savages who came on the island after will atkins began to change for the better and commanded under the grave spaniard for the common defence, 'their posture was generally sitting upon the ground, with their knees up towards their mouth, and the head put between the two hands, leaning down upon the knees'--exactly the same attitude!" in his next week's letter he reported further: "i have not been to the blind asylum again yet, but they tell me that the deaf and dumb and blind child's _face_ is improving obviously, and that she takes great delight in the first effort made by the director to connect himself with an occupation of her time. he gives her, every day, two smooth round pebbles to roll over and over between her two hands. she appears to have an idea that it is to lead to something; distinctly recognizes the hand that gives them to her, as a friendly and protecting one; and sits for hours quite busy." to one part of his very thoughtful suggestion i objected, and would have attributed to a mere desire for warmth, in her as in the savage, what he supposed to be part of an undeveloped or embryo state explaining also the absence of sentient and moral being. to this he replied ( th of july): "i do not think that there is reason for supposing that the savage attitude originates in the desire of warmth, because all naked savages inhabit hot climates; and their instinctive attitude, if it had reference to heat or cold, would probably be the coolest possible; like their delight in water, and swimming. i do not think there is any race of savage men, however low in grade, inhabiting cold climates, who do not kill beasts and wear their skins. the girl decidedly improves in face, and, if one can yet use the word as applied to her, in manner too. no communication by the speech of touch has yet been established with her, but the time has not been long enough." in a later letter he tells me ( th of august): "the deaf, dumb, and blind girl is decidedly improved, and very much improved, in this short time. no communication is yet established with her, but that is not to be expected. they have got her out of that strange, crouching position; dressed her neatly; and accustomed her to have a pleasure in society. she laughs frequently, and also claps her hands and jumps; having, god knows how, some inward satisfaction. i never saw a more tremendous thing in its way, in my life, than when they stood her, t'other day, in the centre of a group of blind children who sang a chorus to the piano; and brought her hand, and kept it, in contact with the instrument. a shudder pervaded her whole being, her breath quickened, her colour deepened,--and i can compare it to nothing but returning animation in a person nearly dead. it was really awful to see how the sensation of the music fluttered and stirred the locked-up soul within her." the same letter spoke again of the youth: "the male subject is well and jolly as possible. he is very fond of smoking. i have arranged to supply him with cigars during our stay here; so he and i are in amazing sympathy. i don't know whether he thinks i grow them, or make them, or produce them by winking, or what. but it gives him a notion that the world in general belongs to me.". . . before his kind friend left lausanne the poor fellow had been taught to say, "monsieur dickens m'a donné les cigares," and at their leave-taking his gratitude was expressed by incessant repetition of these words for a full half-hour. certainly by no man was gratitude more persistently earned, than by dickens, from all to whom nature or the world had been churlish or unfair. not to those only made desolate by poverty or the temptations incident to it, but to those whom natural defects or infirmities had placed at a disadvantage with their kind, he gave his first consideration; helping them personally where he could, sympathising and sorrowing with them always, but above all applying himself to the investigation of such alleviation or cure as philosophy or science might be able to apply to their condition. this was a desire so eager as properly to be called one of the passions of his life, visible in him to the last hour of it. only a couple of weeks, themselves not idle ones, had passed over him at rosemont when he made a dash at the beginning of his real work; from which indeed he had only been detained so long by the non-arrival of a box dispatched from london before his own departure, containing not his proper writing materials only, but certain quaint little bronze figures that thus early stood upon his desk, and were as much needed for the easy flow of his writing as blue ink or quill pens. "i have not been idle" ( th of june) "since i have been here, though at first i was 'kept out' of the big box as you know. i had a good deal to write for lord john about the ragged schools. i set to work and did that. a good deal for miss coutts, in reference to her charitable projects. i set to work and did _that_. half of the children's new testament[ ] to write, or pretty nearly. i set to work and did _that_. next i cleared off the greater part of such correspondence as i had rashly pledged myself to; and then. . . . began dombey! i performed this feat yesterday--only wrote the first slip--but there it is, and it is a plunge straight over head and ears into the story. . . . besides all this, i have really gone with great vigour at the french, where i find myself greatly assisted by the italian; and am subject to two descriptions of mental fits in reference to the christmas book: one, of the suddenest and wildest enthusiasm; one, of solitary and anxious consideration. . . . by the way, as i was unpacking the big box i took hold of a book, and said to 'them,'--'now, whatever passage my thumb rests on, i shall take as having reference to my work.' it was tristram shandy, and opened at these words, 'what a work it is likely to turn out! let us begin it!'" the same letter told me that he still inclined strongly to "the field of battle notion" for his christmas volume, but was not as yet advanced in it; being curious first to see whether its capacity seemed to strike me at all. my only objection was to his adventure of opening two stories at once, of which he did not yet see the full danger; but for the moment the christmas fancy was laid aside, and not resumed, except in passing allusions, until after the close of august, when the first two numbers of _dombey_ were done. the interval supplied fresh illustration of his life in his new home, not without much interest; and as i have shown what a pleasant social circle, "wonderfully friendly and hospitable"[ ] to the last, already had grouped itself round him in lausanne, and how full of "matter to be heard and learn'd" he found such institutions as its prison and blind school, the picture will receive attractive touches if i borrow from his letters written during this outset of _dombey_, some farther notices as well of the general progress of his work, as of what was specially interesting or amusing to him at the time, and of how the country and the people impressed him. in all of these his character will be found strongly marked. footnotes: [ ] "we have hardly seen a cloud in the sky since you and i parted at ramsgate, and the heat has been extraordinary." [ ] "the green woods and green shades about here," he says in another letter, "are more like cobham in kent, than anything we dream of at the foot of the alpine passes." [ ] to these the heat interposed occasional difficulties. "setting off last night" ( th of july) "at six o'clock, in accordance with my usual custom, for a long walk, i was really quite floored when i got to the top of a long steep hill leading out of the town--the same by which we entered it. i believe the great heats, however, seldom last more than a week at a time; there are always very long twilights, and very delicious evenings; and now that there is moonlight, the nights are wonderful. the peacefulness and grandeur of the mountains and the lake are indescribable. there comes a rush of sweet smells with the morning air too, which is quite peculiar to the country." [ ] "one of her brothers by the bye, now dead, had large property in ireland--all nenagh, and the country about; and cerjat told me, as we were talking about one thing and another, that when he went over there for some months to arrange the widow's affairs, he procured a copy of the curse which had been read at the altar by the parish priest of nenagh, against any of the flock who didn't subscribe to the o'connell tribute." [ ] in a note may be preserved another passage from the same letter. "i have been queer and had trembling legs for the last week. but it has been almost impossible to sleep at night. there is a breeze to-day ( th of july) and i hope another storm is coming up. . . . there is a theatre here; and whenever a troop of players pass through the town, they halt for a night and act. on the day of our tremendous dinner party of eight, there was an infant phenomenon; whom i should otherwise have seen. last night there was a vaudeville company; and charley, roche, and anne went. the brave reports the performances to have resembled greenwich fair. . . . there are some promenade concerts in the open air in progress now: but as they are just above one part of our garden we don't go: merely sitting outside the door instead, and hearing it all where we are. . . . mont blanc has been very plain lately. one heap of snow. a frenchman got to the top, the other day." [ ] ". . . ay, there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil. . . ." [ ] this was an abstract, in plain language for the use of his children, of the narrative in the four gospels. allusion was made, shortly after his death, to the existence of such a manuscript, with expression of a wish that it might be published; but nothing would have shocked himself so much as any suggestion of that kind. the little piece was of a peculiarly private character, written for his children, and exclusively and strictly for their use only. [ ] so he described it. "i do not think," he adds, "we could have fallen on better society. it is a small circle certainly, but quite large enough. the watsons improve very much on acquaintance. everybody is very well informed; and we are all as social and friendly as people can be, and very merry. we play whist with great dignity and gravity sometimes, interrupted only by the occasional facetiousness of the inimitable." chapter xi. swiss people and scenery. . the mountains and lake--manners of the people--a country fête--rifle-shooting--a marriage--gunpowder festivities--progress in work--hints to artist for illustrating dombey--henry hallam--sight-seers from england--trip to chamounix--mule travelling--mer de glace--tête noire pass--an accident--castle of chillon described--political celebration--good conduct of the people--protestant and catholic cantons. what at once had struck him as the wonderful feature in the mountain scenery was its everchanging and yet unchanging aspect. it was never twice like the same thing to him. shifting and altering, advancing and retreating, fifty times a day, it was unalterable only in its grandeur. the lake itself too had every kind of varying beauty for him. by moonlight it was indescribably solemn; and before the coming on of a storm had a strange property in it of being disturbed, while yet the sky remained clear and the evening bright, which he found to be mysterious and impressive in an especial degree. such a storm had come among his earliest and most grateful experiences; a degree of heat worse even than in italy[ ] having disabled him at the outset for all exertion until the lightning, thunder, and rain arrived. the letter telling me this ( th july) described the fruit as so abundant in the little farm, that the trees of the orchard in front of his house were bending beneath it; spoke of a field of wheat sloping down to the side window of his dining-room as already cut and carried; and said that the roses, which the hurricane of rain had swept away, were come back lovelier and in greater numbers than ever. of the ordinary swiss people he formed from the first a high opinion which everything during his stay among them confirmed. he thought it the greatest injustice to call them "the americans of the continent." in his first letters he said of the peasantry all about lausanne that they were as pleasant a people as need be. he never passed, on any of the roads, man, woman, or child, without a salutation; and anything churlish or disagreeable he never noticed in them. "they have not," he continued, "the sweetness and grace of the italians, or the agreeable manners of the better specimens of french peasantry, but they are admirably educated (the schools of this canton are extraordinarily good, in every little village), and always prepared to give a civil and pleasant answer. there is no greater mistake. i was talking to my landlord[ ] about it the other day, and he said he could not conceive how it had ever arisen, but that when he returned from his eighteen years' service in the english navy he shunned the people, and had no interest in them until they gradually forced their real character upon his observation. we have a cook and a coachman here, taken at hazard from the people of the town; and i never saw more obliging servants, or people who did their work so truly _with a will_. and in point of cleanliness, order, and punctuality to the moment, they are unrivalled. . . ." the first great gathering of the swiss peasantry which he saw was in the third week after his arrival, when a country fête was held at a place called the signal; a deep green wood, on the sides and summit of a very high hill overlooking the town and all the country round; and he gave me very pleasant account of it. "there were various booths for eating and drinking, and the selling of trinkets and sweetmeats; and in one place there was a great circle cleared, in which the common people waltzed and polka'd, without cessation, to the music of a band. there was a great roundabout for children (oh my stars what a family were proprietors of it! a sunburnt father and mother, a humpbacked boy, a great poodle-dog possessed of all sorts of accomplishments, and a young murderer of seventeen who turned the machinery); and there were some games of chance and skill established under trees. it was very pretty. in some of the drinking booths there were parties of german peasants, twenty together perhaps, singing national drinking-songs, and making a most exhilarating and musical chorus by rattling their cups and glasses on the table and drinking them against each other, to a regular tune. you know it as a stage dodge, but the real thing is splendid. farther down the hill, other peasants were rifle-shooting for prizes, at targets set on the other side of a deep ravine, from two to three hundred yards off. it was quite fearful to see the astonishing accuracy of their aim, and how, every time a rifle awakened the ten thousand echoes of the green glen, some men crouching behind a little wall immediately in front of the targets, sprung up with large numbers in their hands denoting where the ball had struck the bull's eye--and then in a moment disappeared again. standing in a ring near these shooters was another party of germans singing hunting-songs, in parts, most melodiously. and down in the distance was lausanne, with all sorts of haunted-looking old towers rising up before the smooth water of the lake, and an evening sky all red, and gold, and bright green. when it closed in quite dark, all the booths were lighted up; and the twinkling of the lamps among the forest of trees was beautiful. . . ." to this pretty picture, a letter of a little later date, describing a marriage on the farm, added farther comical illustration of the rifle-firing propensities of the swiss, and had otherwise also whimsical touches of character. "one of the farmer's people--a sister, i think--was married from here the other day. it is wonderful to see how naturally the smallest girls are interested in marriages. katey and mamey were as excited as if they were eighteen. the fondness of the swiss for gunpowder on interesting occasions, is one of the drollest things. for three days before, the farmer himself, in the midst of his various agricultural duties, plunged out of a little door near my windows, about once in every hour, and fired off a rifle. i thought he was shooting rats who were spoiling the vines; but he was merely relieving his mind, it seemed, on the subject of the approaching nuptials. all night afterwards, he and a small circle of friends kept perpetually letting off guns under the casement of the bridal chamber. a bride is always drest here, in black silk; but this bride wore merino of that colour, observing to her mother when she bought it (the old lady is , and works on the farm), 'you know, mother, i am sure to want mourning for you, soon; and the same gown will do.'"[ ] meanwhile, day by day, he was steadily moving on with his first number; feeling sometimes the want of streets in an "extraordinary nervousness it would be hardly possible to describe," that would come upon him after he had been writing all day; but at all other times finding the repose of the place very favourable to industry. "i am writing slowly at first, of course" ( th of july), "but i hope i shall have finished the first number in the course of a fortnight at farthest. i have done the first chapter, and begun another. i say nothing of the merits thus far, or of the idea beyond what is known to you; because i prefer that you should come as fresh as may be upon them. i shall certainly have a great surprise for people at the end of the fourth number;[ ] and i think there is a new and peculiar sort of interest, involving the necessity of a little bit of delicate treatment whereof i will expound my idea to you by and by. when i have done this number, i may take a run to chamounix perhaps. . . . my thoughts have necessarily been called away from the christmas book. the first _dombey_ done, i think i should fly off to that, whenever the idea presented itself vividly before me. i still cherish the battle fancy, though it is nothing but a fancy as yet." a week later he told me that he hoped to finish the first number by that day week or thereabouts, when he should then run and look for his christmas book in the glaciers at chamounix. his progress to this point had been pleasing him. "i think _dombey_ very strong--with great capacity in its leading idea; plenty of character that is likely to tell; and some rollicking facetiousness, to say nothing of pathos. i hope you will soon judge of it for yourself, however; and i know you will say what you think. i have been very constantly at work." six days later i heard that he had still eight slips to write, and for a week had put off chamounix. but though the fourth chapter yet was incomplete, he could repress no longer the desire to write to me of what he was doing ( th of july). "i think the general idea of _dombey_ is interesting and new, and has great material in it. but i don't like to discuss it with you till you have read number one, for fear i should spoil its effect. when done--about wednesday or thursday, please god--i will send it in two days' posts, seven letters each day. if you have it set at once (i am afraid you couldn't read it, otherwise than in print) i know you will impress on b. & e. the necessity of the closest secrecy. the very name getting out, would be ruinous. the points for illustration, and the enormous care required, make me excessively anxious. the man for dombey, if browne could see him, the class man to a t, is sir a---- e----, of d----'s. great pains will be necessary with miss tox. the toodle family should not be too much caricatured, because of polly. i should like browne to think of susan nipper, who will not be wanted in the first number. after the second number, they will all be nine or ten years older, but this will not involve much change in the characters, except in the children and miss nipper. what a brilliant thing to be telling you all these names so familiarly, when you know nothing about 'em! i quite enjoy it. by the bye, i hope you may like the introduction of solomon gills.[ ] i think he lives in a good sort of house. . . . one word more. what do you think, as a name for the christmas book, of the battle of life? it is not a name i have conned at all, but has just occurred to me in connection with that foggy idea. if i can see my way, i think i will take it next, and clear it off. if you knew how it hangs about me, i am sure you would say so too. it would be an immense relief to have it done, and nothing standing in the way of _dombey_." within the time left for it the opening number was done, but two little incidents preceded still the trip to chamounix. the first was a visit from hallam to mr. haldimand. "heavens! how hallam did talk yesterday! i don't think i ever saw him so tremendous. very good-natured and pleasant, in his way, but good heavens! how he did talk. that famous day you and i remember was nothing to it. his son was with him, and his daughter (who has an impediment in her speech, as if nature were determined to balance that faculty in the family), and his niece, a pretty woman, the wife of a clergyman and a friend of thackeray's. it strikes me that she must be 'the little woman' he proposed to take us to drink tea with, once, in golden-square. don't you remember? his great favourite? she is quite a charming person anyhow." i hope to be pardoned for preserving an opinion which more familiar later acquaintance confirmed, and which can hardly now give anything but pleasure to the lady of whom it is expressed. to the second incident he alludes more briefly. "as haldimand and mrs. marcet and the cerjats had devised a small mountain expedition for us for to-morrow, i didn't like to allow chamounix to stand in the way. so we go with them first, and start on our own account on tuesday. we are extremely pleasant with these people." the close of the same letter ( th of july), mentioning two pieces of local news, gives intimation of the dangers incident to all swiss travelling, and of such special precautions as were necessary for the holiday among the mountains he was now about to take. "my first news is that a crocodile is said to have escaped from the zoological gardens at geneva, and to be now 'zigzag-zigging' about the lake. but i can't make out whether this is a great fact, or whether it is a pious fraud to prevent too much bathing and liability to accidents. the other piece of news is more serious. an english family whose name i don't know, consisting of a father, mother, and daughter, arrived at the hotel gibbon here last monday, and started off on some mountain expedition in one of the carriages of the country. it was a mere track, the road, and ought to have been travelled only by mules, but the englishman persisted (as englishmen do) in going on in the carriage; and in answer to all the representations of the driver that no carriage had ever gone up there, said he needn't be afraid he wasn't going to be paid for it, and so forth. accordingly, the coachman got down and walked by the horses' heads. it was fiery hot; and, after much tugging and rearing, the horses began to back, and went down bodily, carriage and all, into a deep ravine. the mother was killed on the spot; and the father and daughter are lying at some house hard by, not expected to recover." his next letter (written on the second of august) described his own first real experience of mountain-travel. "i begin my letter to-night, but only begin, for we returned from chamounix in time for dinner just now, and are pretty considerably done up. we went by a mountain pass not often crossed by ladies, called the col de balme, where your imagination may picture kate and georgy on mules _for ten hours at a stretch_, riding up and down the most frightful precipices. we returned by the pass of the tête noire, which talfourd knows, and which is of a different character, but astonishingly fine too. mont blanc, and the valley of chamounix, and the mer de glace, and all the wonders of that most wonderful place, are above and beyond one's wildest expectations. i cannot imagine anything in nature more stupendous or sublime. if i were to write about it now, i should quite rave--such prodigious impressions are rampant within me. . . . you may suppose that the mule-travelling is pretty primitive. each person takes a carpet-bag strapped on the mule behind himself or herself: and that is all the baggage that can be carried. a guide, a thorough-bred mountaineer, walks all the way, leading the lady's mule; i say the lady's par excellence, in compliment to kate; and all the rest struggle on as they please. the cavalcade stops at a lone hut for an hour and a half in the middle of the day, and lunches brilliantly on whatever it can get. going by that col de balme pass, you climb up and up and up for five hours and more, and look--from a mere unguarded ledge of path on the side of the precipice--into such awful valleys, that at last you are firm in the belief that you have got above everything in the world, and that there can be nothing earthly overhead. just as you arrive at this conclusion, a different (and oh heaven! what a free and wonderful) air comes blowing on your face; you cross a ridge of snow; and lying before you (wholly unseen till then), towering up into the distant sky, is the vast range of mont blanc, with attendant mountains diminished by its majestic side into mere dwarfs tapering up into innumerable rude gothic pinnacles; deserts of ice and snow; forests of firs on mountain sides, of no account at all in the enormous scene; villages down in the hollow, that you can shut out with a finger; waterfalls, avalanches, pyramids and towers of ice, torrents, bridges; mountain upon mountain until the very sky is blocked away, and you must look up, overhead, to see it. good god, what a country switzerland is, and what a concentration of it is to be beheld from that one spot! and (think of this in whitefriars and in lincoln's-inn!) at noon on the second day from here, the first day being but half a one by the bye and full of uncommon beauty, you lie down on that ridge and see it all! . . . i think i must go back again (whether you come or not!) and see it again before the bad weather arrives. we have had sunlight, moonlight, a perfectly transparent atmosphere with not a cloud, and the grand plateau on the very summit of mont blanc so clear by day and night that it was difficult to believe in intervening chasms and precipices, and almost impossible to resist the idea that one might sally forth and climb up easily. i went into all sorts of places; armed with a great pole with a spike at the end of it, like a leaping-pole, and with pointed irons buckled on to my shoes; and am all but knocked up. i was very anxious to make the expedition to what is called 'the garden:' a green spot covered with wild flowers, lying across the mer de glace, and among the most awful mountains: but i could find no englishman at the hotels who was similarly disposed, and the brave _wouldn't go_. no sir! he gave in point blank (having been horribly blown in a climbing excursion the day before), and couldn't stand it. he is too heavy for such work, unquestionably.[ ] in all other respects, i think he has exceeded himself on this journey; and if you could have seen him riding a very small mule, up a road exactly like the broken stairs of rochester-castle; with a brandy bottle slung over his shoulder, a small pie in his hat, a roast fowl looking out of his pocket, and a mountain staff of six feet long carried cross-wise on the saddle before him; you'd have said so. he was (next to me) the admiration of chamounix, but he utterly quenched me on the road." on the road as they returned there had been a small adventure, the day before this letter was written. dickens was jingling slowly up the tête noire pass (his mule having thirty-seven bells on its head), riding at the moment quite alone, when--"an englishman came bolting out of a little châlet in a most inaccessible and extraordinary place, and said with great glee 'there has been an accident here sir!' i had been thinking of anything else you please; and, having no reason to suppose him an englishman except his language, which went for nothing in the confusion, stammered out a reply in french and stared at him, in a very damp shirt and trowsers, as he stared at me in a similar costume. on his repeating the announcement, i began to have a glimmering of common sense; and so arrived at a knowledge of the fact that a german lady had been thrown from her mule and had broken her leg, at a short distance off, and had found her way in great pain to that cottage, where the englishman, a prussian, and a frenchman, had presently come up; and the frenchman, by extraordinary good fortune, was a surgeon! they were all from chamounix, and the three latter were walking in company. it was quite charming to see how attentive they were. the lady was from lausanne; where she had come from frankfort to make excursions with her two boys, who are at the college here, during the vacation. she had no other attendants, and the boys were crying and very frightened. the englishman was in the full glee of having just cut up one white dress, two chemises, and three pocket handkerchiefs, for bandages; the frenchman had set the leg skilfully; the prussian had scoured a neighboring wood for some men to carry her forward; and they were all at it, behind the hut, making a sort of handbarrow on which to bear her. when it was constructed, she was strapped upon it; had her poor head covered over with a handkerchief, and was carried away; and we all went on in company: kate and georgy consoling and tending the sufferer, who was very cheerful, but had lost her husband only a year." with the same delightful observation, and missing no touch of kindly character that might give each actor his place in the little scene, the sequel is described; but it does not need to add more. it was hoped that by means of relays of men at martigny the poor lady might have been carried on some twenty miles, in the cooler evening, to the head of the lake, and so have been got into the steamer; but she was too exhausted to be borne beyond the inn, and there she had to remain until joined by relatives from frankfort. a few days' rest after his return were interposed, before he began his second number; and until the latter has been completed, and the christmas story taken in hand, i do not admit the reader to his full confidences about his writing. but there were other subjects that amused and engaged him up to that date, as well when he was idle as when again he was at work, to which expression so full of character is given in his letters that they properly find mention here. between the second and the ninth of august he went down one evening to the lake, five minutes after sunset, when the sky was covered with sullen black clouds reflected in the deep water, and saw the castle of chillon. he thought it the best deserving and least exaggerated in repute, of all the places he had seen. "the insupportable solitude and dreariness of the white walls and towers, the sluggish moat and drawbridge, and the lonely ramparts, i never saw the like of. but there is a court-yard inside; surrounded by prisons, oubliettes, and old chambers of torture; so terrifically sad, that death itself is not more sorrowful. and oh! a wicked old grand duke's bedchamber upstairs in the tower, with a secret staircase down into the chapel, where the bats were wheeling about; and bonnivard's dungeon; and a horrible trap whence prisoners were cast out into the lake; and a stake all burnt and crackled up, that still stands in the torture-ante-chamber to the saloon of justice (!)--what tremendous places! good god, the greatest mystery in all the earth, to me, is how or why the world was tolerated by its creator through the good old times, and wasn't dashed to fragments." on the ninth of august he wrote to me that there was to be a prodigious fête that day in lausanne, in honour of the first anniversary of the proclamation of the new constitution:[ ] "beginning at sunrise with the firing of great guns, and twice two thousand rounds of rifles by two thousand men; proceeding at eleven o'clock with a great service, and some speechifying, in the church; and ending to-night with a great ball in the public promenade, and a general illumination of the town." the authorities had invited him to a place of honour in the ceremony; and though he did not go ("having been up till three o'clock in the morning, and being fast asleep at the appointed time"), the reply that sent his thanks expressed also his sympathy. he was the readier with this from having discovered, in the "old" or "gentlemanly" party of the place ("including of course the sprinkling of english who are always tory, hang 'em!"), so wonderfully sore a feeling about the revolution thus celebrated, that to avoid its fête the majority had gone off by steamer the day before, and those who remained were prophesying assaults on the unilluminated houses, and other excesses. dickens had no faith in such predictions. "the people are as perfectly good tempered and quiet always, as people can be. i don't know what the last government may have been, but they seem to me to do very well with this, and to be rationally and cheaply provided for. if you believed what the discontented assert, you wouldn't believe in one solitary man or woman with a grain of goodness or civility. i find nothing _but_ civility; and i walk about in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, where they live rough lives enough, in solitary cottages." the issue was told in two postscripts to his letter, and showed him to be so far right. "p.s. o'clock afternoon. the fête going on, in great force. not one of 'the old party' to be seen. i went down with one to the ground before dinner, and nothing would induce him to go within the barrier with me. yet what they call a revolution was nothing but a change of government. thirty-six thousand people, in this small canton, petitioned against the jesuits--god knows with good reason. the government chose to call them 'a mob.' so, to prove that they were not, they turned the government out. i honour them for it. they are a genuine people, these swiss. there is better metal in them than in all the stars and stripes of all the fustian banners of the so-called, and falsely called, u-nited states. they are a thorn in the sides of european despots, and a good wholesome people to live near jesuit-ridden kings on the brighter side of the mountains." "p.p.s. august th. . . . the fête went off as quietly as i supposed it would; and they danced all night." these views had forcible illustration in a subsequent letter, where he describes a similar revolution that occurred at geneva before he left the country; and nothing could better show his practical good sense in a matter of this kind. the description will be given shortly; and meanwhile i subjoin a comment made by him, not less worthy of attention, upon my reply to his account of the anti-jesuit celebration at lausanne. "i don't know whether i have mentioned before, that in the valley of the simplon hard by here, where (at the bridge of st. maurice, over the rhone) this protestant canton ends and a catholic canton begins, you might separate two perfectly distinct and different conditions of humanity by drawing a line with your stick in the dust on the ground. on the protestant side, neatness; cheerfulness; industry; education; continual aspiration, at least, after better things. on the catholic side, dirt, disease, ignorance, squalor, and misery. i have so constantly observed the like of this, since i first came abroad, that i have a sad misgiving that the religion of ireland lies as deep at the root of all its sorrows, even as english misgovernment and tory villainy." almost the counterpart of this remark is to be found in one of the later writings of macaulay. footnotes: [ ] "when it is very hot, it is hotter than in italy. the over-hanging roofs of the houses, and the quantity of wood employed in their construction (where they use tile and brick in italy), render them perfect forcing-houses. the walls and floors, hot to the hand all the night through, interfere with sleep; and thunder is almost always booming and rumbling among the mountains." besides this, though there were no mosquitoes as in genoa, there was at first a plague of flies, more distressing even than at albaro. "they cover everything eatable, fall into everything drinkable, stagger into the wet ink of newly-written words and make tracks on the writing paper, clog their legs in the lather on your chin while you are shaving in the morning, and drive you frantic at any time when there is daylight if you fall asleep." [ ] his preceding letter had sketched his landlord for me. . . . "there was an annual child's fête at the signal the other night: given by the town. it was beautiful to see perhaps a hundred couple of children dancing in an immense ring in a green wood. our three eldest were among them, presided over by my landlord, who was years in the english navy, and is the sous prefet of the town--a very good fellow indeed; quite an englishman. our landlady, nearly twice his age, used to keep the inn (a famous one) at zurich: and having made £ , bestowed it on a young husband. she might have done worse." [ ] the close of this letter sent family remembrances in characteristic form. "kate, georgy, mamey, katey, charley, walley, chickenstalker, and sampson brass, commend themselves unto your honour's loving remembrance." the last but one, who continued long to bear the name, was frank; the last, who very soon will be found to have another, was alfred. [ ] the life of paul was nevertheless prolonged to the fifth number. [ ] the mathematical-instrument-maker, who mr. taine describes as a marine store dealer. [ ] poor fellow! he had latent disease of the heart, which developed itself rapidly on dickens's return to england. [ ] out of the excitements consequent on the public festivities arose some domestic inconveniences. i will give one of them. "fanchette the cook, distracted by the forthcoming fête, madly refused to buy a duck yesterday as ordered by the brave, and a battle of life ensued between those two powers. the brave is of opinion that 'datter woman have went mad.' but she seems calm to-day; and i suppose won't poison the family. . . ." chapter xii. sketches chiefly personal. . home politics--malthus philosophy--mark lemon--an incident of character--hood's _tylney hall_--duke of wellington--lord grey--a recollection of his reporting days--returns to _dombey_--two english travellers--party among the hills--lord vernon--a wonderful carriage--reading of first _dombey_--a sketch from life--trip to great st. bernard--ascent of the mountain--the convent--scene at the mountain top--bodies found in the snow--the holy fathers--a holy brother and _pickwick_. some sketches from the life in his pleasantest vein now claim to be taken from the same series of letters; and i will prefix one or two less important notices, for the most part personal also, that have characteristic mention of his opinions in them. home-politics he criticized in what he wrote on the th of august, much in the spirit of his last excellent remark on the protestant and catholic cantons; having no sympathy with the course taken by the whigs in regard to ireland after they had defeated peel on his coercion bill, and resumed the government. "i am perfectly appalled by the hesitation and cowardice of the whigs. to bring in that arms bill, bear the brunt of the attack upon it, take out the obnoxious clauses, still retain the bill, and finally withdraw it, seems to me the meanest and most halting way of going to work that ever was taken. i cannot believe in them. lord john must be helpless among them. they seem somehow or other never to know what cards they hold in their hands, and to play them out blindfold. the contrast with peel (as he was last) is, i agree with you, certainly not favourable. i don't believe now they ever would have carried the repeal of the corn law, if they could." referring in the same letter[ ] to the reluctance of public men of all parties to give the needful help to schemes of emigration, he ascribed it to a secret belief "in the gentle politico-economical principle that a surplus population must and ought to starve;" in which for himself he never could see anything but disaster for all who trusted to it. "i am convinced that its philosophers would sink any government, any cause, any doctrine, even the most righteous. there is a sense and humanity in the mass, in the long run, that will not bear them; and they will wreck their friends always, as they wrecked them in the working of the poor-law-bill. not all the figures that babbage's calculating machine could turn up in twenty generations, would stand in the long run against the general heart." of other topics in his letters, one or two have the additional attractiveness derivable from touches of personal interest when these may with propriety be printed. hardly within the class might have fallen a mention of mark lemon, of whom our recent play, and his dramatic adaptation of the _chimes_, had given him pleasant experiences, if i felt less strongly not only that its publication would have been gladly sanctioned by the subject of it, but that it will not now displease another to whom also it refers, herself the member of a family in various ways distinguished on the stage, and to whom, since her husband's death, well-merited sympathy and respect have been paid. "after turning mrs. lemon's portrait over, in my mind, i am convinced that there is not a grain of bad taste in the matter, and that there is a manly composure and courage in the proceeding deserving of the utmost respect. if lemon were one of your braggart honest men, he would set a taint of bad taste upon that action as upon everything else he might say or do; but being what he is, i admire him for it greatly, and hold it to be a proof of an exalted nature and a true heart. your idea of him, is mine. i am sure he is an excellent fellow. we talk about not liking such and such a man because he doesn't look one in the face,--but how much we should esteem a man who looks the world in the face, composedly, and neither shirks it nor bullies it. between ourselves, i say with shame and self-reproach that i am quite sure if kate had been a columbine her portrait would not be hanging, 'in character,' in devonshire-terrace." he speaks thus of a novel by hood. "i have been reading poor hood's _tylney hall_; the most extraordinary jumble of impossible extravagance, and especial cleverness, i ever saw. the man drawn to the life from the pirate-bookseller, is wonderfully good; and his recommendation to a reduced gentleman from the university, to rise from nothing as he, the pirate, did, and go round to the churches and see whether there's an opening, and begin by being a beadle, is one of the finest things i ever read, in its way." the same letter has a gentle little trait of the great duke, touching in its simplicity, and worth preserving. "i had a letter from tagart the day before yesterday, with a curious little anecdote of the duke of wellington in it. they have had a small cottage at walmer; and one day--the other day only--the old man met their little daughter lucy, a child about mamey's age, near the garden; and having kissed her, and asked her what was her name, and who and what her parents were, tied a small silver medal round her neck with a bit of pink ribbon, and asked the child to keep it in remembrance of him. there is something good, and aged, and odd in it. is there not?" another of his personal references was to lord grey, to whose style of speaking and general character of mind he had always a strongly-expressed dislike, drawn not impartially or quite justly from the days of reaction that followed the reform debates, when the whig leader's least attractive traits were presented to the young reporter. "he is a very intelligent agreeable fellow, the said watson by the bye" (he is speaking of the member of the lausanne circle with whom he established friendliest after-intercourse); "he sat for northamptonshire in the reform bill time, and is high sheriff of his county and all the rest of it; but has not the least nonsense about him, and is a thorough good liberal. he has a charming wife, who draws well, and is making a sketch of rosemont for us that shall be yours in paris." (it is already, by permission of its present possessor, the reader's, and all the world's who may take interest in the little doll's house of lausanne which lodged so illustrious a tenant.) "he was giving me some good recollections of lord grey the other evening when we were playing at battledore (old lord grey i mean), and of the constitutional impossibility he and lord lansdowne and the rest laboured under, of ever personally attaching a single young man, in all the excitement of that exciting time, to the leaders of the party. it was quite a delight to me, as i listened, to recall my own dislike of his style of speaking, his fishy coldness, his uncongenial and unsympathetic politeness, and his insufferable though most gentlemanly artificiality. the shape of his head (i see it now) was misery to me, and weighed down my youth. . . ." it was now the opening of the second week in august; and before he finally addressed himself to the second number of _dombey_, he had again turned a lingering look in the direction of his christmas book. "it would be such a great relief to me to get that small story out of the way." wisely, however, again he refrained, and went on with _dombey_; at which he had been working for a little time when he described to me ( th of august) a visit from two english travellers, of one of whom with the slightest possible touch he gives a speaking likeness.[ ] "not having your letter as usual, i sat down to write to you on speculation yesterday, but lapsed in my uncertainty into _dombey_, and worked at it all day. it was, as it has been since last tuesday morning, incessantly raining regular mountain rain. after dinner, at a little after seven o'clock, i was walking up and down under the little colonnade in the garden, racking my brain about _dombeys_ and _battles of lives_, when two travel-stained-looking men approached, of whom one, in a very limp and melancholy straw hat, ducked, perpetually to me as he came up the walk. i couldn't make them out at all; and it wasn't till i got close up to them that i recognised a. and (in the straw hat) n. they had come from geneva by the steamer, and taken a scrambling dinner on board. i gave them some fine rhine wine, and cigars innumerable. a. enjoyed himself and was quite at home. n. (an odd companion for a man of genius) was snobbish, but pleased and good-natured. a. had a five pound note in his pocket which he had worn down, by careless carrying about, to some two-thirds of its original size, and which was so ragged in its remains that when he took it out bits of it flew about the table. 'oh lor you know--now really--like goldsmith you know--or any of those great men!' said n. with the very 'snatches in his voice and burst of speaking' that reminded leigh hunt of cloten. . . . the clouds were lying, as they do in such weather here, on the earth, and our friends saw no more of lake leman than of battersea. nor had they, it might appear, seen more of the mer de glace, on their way here; their talk about it bearing much resemblance to that of the man who had been to niagara and said it was nothing but water." his next letter described a day's party of the cerjats, watsons, and haldimands, among the neighbouring hills, which, contrary to his custom while at work, he had been unable to resist the temptation of joining. they went to a mountain-lake twelve miles off, had dinner at the public-house on the lake, and returned home by vevay at which they rested for tea; and where pleasant talk with mr. cerjat led to anecdotes of an excellent friend of ours, formerly resident at lausanne, with which the letter closed. our friend was a distinguished writer, and a man of many sterling fine qualities, but with a habit of occasional free indulgence in coarseness of speech, which, though his earlier life had made it as easy to acquire as difficult to drop, did always less than justice to a very manly, honest, and really gentle nature. he had as much genuinely admirable stuff in him as any favourite hero of smollett or fielding, and i never knew anyone who reminded me of those characters so much. "it would seem, mr. cerjat tells me, that he was, when here, infinitely worse in his general style of conversation, than now--sermuchser, as toodles says, that cerjat describes himself as having always been in unspeakable agony when he was at his table, lest he should forget himself (or remember himself, as i suggested) and break out before the ladies. there happened to be living here at that time a stately english baronet and his wife, who had two milksop sons, concerning whom they cherished the idea of accomplishing their education into manhood coexistently with such perfect purity and innocence, that they were hardly to know their own sex. accordingly, they were sent to no school or college, but had masters of all sorts at home, and thus reached eighteen years or so, in what falstaff calls a kind of male green-sickness. at this crisis of their innocent existence, our ogre friend encountered these lambs at dinner, with their father, at cerjat's house; and, as if possessed by a devil, launched out into such frightful and appalling impropriety--ranging over every kind of forbidden topic and every species of forbidden word and every sort of scandalous anecdote--that years of education in newgate would have been as nothing compared with their experience of that one afternoon. after turning paler and paler, and more and more stoney, the baronet, with a half-suppressed cry, rose and fled. but the sons--intent on the ogre--remained behind instead of following him; and are supposed to have been ruined from that hour. isn't that a good story? i can see our friend and his pupils now. . . . poor fellow! he seems to have a hard time of it with his wife. she had no interest whatever in her children; and was such a fury, that, being dressed to go out to dinner, she would sometimes, on no other provocation than a pin out of its place or some such thing, fall upon a little maid she had, beat her till she couldn't stand, then tumble into hysterics, and be carried to bed. he suffered martyrdom with her; and seems to have been himself, in all good-natured easy-going ways, just what we know him now." there were at this time some fresh arrivals of travelling english at lausanne, outside their own little circle, and among them another baronet and his family made amusing appearance. "we have another english family here, one sir joseph and his lady, and ten children. sir joseph, a large baronet something in the graham style, with a little, loquacious, flat-faced, damaged-featured, _old young_ wife. they are fond of society, and couldn't well have less. they delight in a view, and live in a close street at ouchy, down among the drunken boatmen and the drays and omnibuses, where nothing whatever is to be seen but the locked wheels of carts scraping down the uneven, steep, stone pavement. the baronet plays double-dummy all day long, with an unhappy swiss whom he has entrapped for that purpose; the baronet's lady pays visits; and the baronet's daughters play a lausanne piano, which must be heard to be appreciated. . . ." another sketch in the same letter touches little more than the eccentricities (but all in good taste and good humour) of the subject of it, who is still gratefully remembered by english residents in italy for his scholarly munificence, and for very valuable service conferred by it on italian literature. "another curious man is backwards and forwards here--a lord vernon,[ ] who is well-informed, a great italian scholar deep in dante, and a very good-humoured gentleman, but who has fallen into the strange infatuation of attending every rifle-match that takes place in switzerland, accompanied by two men who load rifles for him, one after another, which he has been frequently known to fire off, two a minute, for fourteen hours at a stretch, without once changing his position or leaving the ground. he wins all kinds of prizes; gold watches, flags, teaspoons, tea-boards, and so forth; and is constantly travelling about with them, from place to place, in an extraordinary carriage, where you touch a spring and a chair flies out, touch another spring and a bed appears, touch another spring and a closet of pickles opens, touch another spring and disclose a pantry. while lady vernon (said to be handsome and accomplished) is continually cutting across this or that alpine pass in the night, to meet him on the road, for a minute or two, on one of his excursions; these being the only times at which she can catch him. the last time he saw her, was five or six months ago, when they met and supped together on the st. gothard! it is a monomania with him, of course. he is a man of some note; seconded one of lord melbourne's addresses; and had forty thousand a year, now reduced to ten, but nursing and improving every day. he was with us last monday, and comes back from some out-of-the-way place to join another small picnic next friday. as i have said, he is the very soul of good nature and cheerfulness, but one can't help being melancholy to see a man wasting his life in such a singular delusion. isn't it odd? he knows my books very well, and seems interested in everything concerning them; being indeed accomplished in books generally, and attached to many elegant tastes." but the most agreeable addition to their own special circle was referred to in his first september letter, just when he was coming to the close of his second number of _dombey_. "there are two nice girls here, the ladies taylor, daughters of lord headfort. their mother was daughter (i think) of sir john stevenson, and moore dedicated one part of the irish melodies to her. they inherit the musical taste, and sing very well. a proposal is on foot for our all bundling off on tuesday ( strong) to the top of the great st. bernard. but the weather seems to have broken, and the autumn rains to have set in; which i devoutly hope will break up the party. it would be a most serious hindrance to me, just now; but i have rashly promised. do you know young romilly? he is coming over from geneva when 'the reading' comes off, and is a fine fellow i am told. there is not a bad little theatre here; and by way of an artificial crowd, i should certainly have got it open with an amateur company, if we were not so few that the only thing we want is the audience.". . . the "reading" named by him was that of his first number, which was to "come off" as soon as i could get the proofs out to him; but which the changes needful to be made, and to be mentioned hereafter, still delayed. the st. bernard holiday, which within sight of his christmas-book labour he would fain have thrown over, came off as proposed very fortunately for the reader, who might otherwise have lost one of his pleasantest descriptions. but before giving it, one more little sketch of character may be interposed as delicately done as anything in his writings. steele's observation is in the outline, and charles lamb's humour in its touch of colouring. ". . . there are two old ladies (english) living here who may serve me for a few lines of gossip--as i have intended they should, over and over again, but i have always forgotten it. there were originally four old ladies, sisters, but two of them have faded away in the course of eighteen years, and withered by the side of john kemble in the cemetery. they are very little, and very skinny; and each of them wears a row of false curls, like little rolling-pins, so low upon her brow, that there is no forehead; nothing above the eyebrows but a deep horizontal wrinkle, and then the curls. they live upon some small annuity. for thirteen years they have wanted very much to move to italy, as the eldest old lady says the climate of this part of switzerland doesn't agree with her, and preys upon her spirits; but they have never been able to go, because of the difficulty of moving 'the books.' this tremendous library belonged once upon a time to the father of these old ladies, and comprises about fifty volumes. i have never been able to see what they are, because one of the old ladies always sits before them; but they look, outside, like very old backgammon-boards. the two deceased sisters died in the firm persuasion that this precious property could never be got over the simplon without some gigantic effort to which the united family was unequal. the two remaining sisters live, and will die also, in the same belief. i met the eldest (evidently drooping) yesterday, and recommended her to try genoa. she looked shrewdly at the snow that closes up the mountain prospect just now, and said that when the spring was quite set in, and the avalanches were down, and the passes well open, she would certainly try that place, if they could devise any plan, in the course of the winter, for moving 'the books.' the whole library will be sold by auction here, when they are both dead, for about a napoleon; and some young woman will carry it home in two journeys with a basket." the last letter sent me before he fell upon his self-appointed task for christmas, contained a delightful account of the trip to the great st. bernard. it was dated on the sixth of september. "the weather obstinately clearing, we started off last tuesday for the great st. bernard, returning here on friday afternoon. the party consisted of eleven people and two servants--haldimand, mr. and mrs. cerjat and one daughter, mr. and mrs. watson, two ladies taylor, kate, georgy, and i. we were wonderfully unanimous and cheerful; went away from here by the steamer; found at its destination a whole omnibus provided by the brave (who went on in advance everywhere); rode therein to bex; found two large carriages ready to take us to martigny; slept there; and proceeded up the mountain on mules next day. although the st. bernard convent is, as i dare say you know, the highest inhabited spot but one in the world, the ascent is extremely gradual and uncommonly easy: really presenting no difficulties at all, until within the last league, when the ascent, lying through a place called the valley of desolation, is very awful and tremendous, and the road is rendered toilsome by scattered rocks and melting snow. the convent is a most extraordinary place, full of great vaulted passages, divided from each other with iron gratings; and presenting a series of the most astonishing little dormitories, where the windows are so small (on account of the cold and snow), that it is as much as one can do to get one's head out of them. here we slept: supping, thirty strong, in a rambling room with a great wood-fire in it set apart for that purpose; with a grim monk, in a high black sugar-loaf hat with a great knob at the top of it, carving the dishes. at five o'clock in the morning the chapel bell rang in the dismallest way for matins: and i, lying in bed close to the chapel, and being awakened by the solemn organ and the chaunting, thought for a moment i had died in the night and passed into the unknown world. "i wish to god you could see that place. a great hollow on the top of a range of dreadful mountains, fenced in by riven rocks of every shape and colour: and in the midst, a black lake, with phantom clouds perpetually stalking over it. peaks, and points, and plains of eternal ice and snow, bounding the view, and shutting out the world on every side: the lake reflecting nothing: and no human figure in the scene. the air so fine, that it is difficult to breathe without feeling out of breath; and the cold so exquisitely thin and sharp that it is not to be described. nothing of life or living interest in the picture, but the grey dull walls of the convent. no vegetation of any sort or kind. nothing growing, nothing stirring. everything iron-bound, and frozen up. beside the convent, in a little outhouse with a grated iron door which you may unbolt for yourself, are the bodies of people found in the snow who have never been claimed and are withering away--not laid down, or stretched out, but standing up, in corners and against walls; some erect and horribly human, with distinct expressions on the faces; some sunk down on their knees; some dropping over on one side; some tumbled down altogether, and presenting a heap of skulls and fibrous dust. there is no other decay in that atmosphere; and there they remain during the short days and the long nights, the only human company out of doors, withering away by grains, and holding ghastly possession of the mountain where they died. "it is the most distinct and individual place i have seen, even in this transcendent country. but, for the saint bernard holy fathers and convent in themselves, i am sorry to say that they are a piece of as sheer humbug as we ever learnt to believe in, in our young days. trashy french sentiment and the dogs (of which, by the bye, there are only three remaining) have done it all. they are a lazy set of fellows; not over fond of going out themselves; employing servants to clear the road (which has not been important or much used as a pass these hundred years); rich; and driving a good trade in innkeeping: the convent being a common tavern in everything but the sign. no charge is made for their hospitality, to be sure; but you are shown to a box in the chapel, where everybody puts in more than could, with any show of face, be charged for the entertainment; and from this the establishment derives a right good income. as to the self-sacrifice of living up there, they are obliged to go there young, it is true, to be inured to the climate: but it is an infinitely more exciting and various life than any other convent can offer; with constant change and company through the whole summer; with a hospital for invalids down in the valley, which affords another change; and with an annual begging-journey to geneva and this place and all the places round for one brother or other, which affords farther change. the brother who carved at our supper could speak some english, and had just had _pickwick_ given him!--what a humbug he will think me when he tries to understand it! if i had had any other book of mine with me, i would have given it him, that i might have had some chance of being intelligible. . . ." footnotes: [ ] where he makes remark also on a class of offences which are still most inadequately punished: "i hope you will follow up your idea about the defective state of the law in reference to women, by some remarks on the inadequate punishment of that ruffian flippantly called by the liners the wholesale matrimonial speculator. my opinion is, that in any well-ordered state of society, and advanced spirit of social jurisprudence, he would have been flogged more than once (privately), and certainly sentenced to transportation for no less a term than the rest of his life. surely the man who threw the woman out of window was no worse, if so bad." [ ] ten days before there had been a visit from mr. ainsworth and his daughters on their way to geneva. "i breakfasted with him at the hotel gibbon next morning and they dined here afterwards, and we walked about all day, talking of our old days at kensal-lodge." the same letter told me: "we had a regatta at ouchy the other day, mainly supported by the contributions of the english handfull. it concluded with a rowing-match by women, which was very funny. i wish you could have seen roche appear on the lake, rowing, in an immense boat, cook, anne, two nurses, katey, mamey, walley, chickenstalker, and baby; no boatmen or other degrading assistance; and all sorts of swiss tubs splashing about them . . . senior is coming here to-morrow, i believe, with his wife; and they talk of brunel and his wife as on their way. we dine at haldimand's to meet senior--which solitary and most interesting piece of intelligence is all the news i know of . . . take care you don't back out of your paris engagement; but that we really do have (please god) some happy hours there. kate, georgy, mamey, katey, charley, walley, chickenstalker, and baby, send loves. . . . i am all anxiety and fever to know what we start _dombey_ with!" [ ] this was the fourth baron vernon, who succeeded to the title in , and died seven years after the date of dickens's description, in his th year. chapter xiii. literary labour at lausanne. . a picture completed--self-judgments--christmas fancies--second number of _dombey_--a personal revelation--first thought of public readings--two tales in hand--christmas book given up--goes to geneva--disquietudes of authorship--shadows from _dombey_--a new social experience--eccentricities--feminine smoking party--visit of the talfourds--christmas book resumed--lodging his friends. something of the other side of the medal has now to be presented. his letters enable us to see him amid his troubles and difficulties of writing, as faithfully as in his leisure and enjoyments; and when, to the picture thus given of dickens's home life in switzerland, some account has been added of the vicissitudes of literary labour undergone in the interval, as complete a representation of the man will be afforded as could be taken from any period of his career. of the larger life whereof it is part, the lausanne life is indeed a perfect microcosm, wanting only the london streets. this was his chief present want, as will shortly be perceived: but as yet the reader does not feel it, and he sees otherwise in all respects at his best the great observer and humourist; interested in everything that commended itself to a thoroughly earnest and eagerly enquiring nature; popular beyond measure with all having intercourse with him; the centre, and very soul, of social enjoyment; letting nothing escape a vision that was not more keen than kindly; and even when apparently most idle, never idle in the sense of his art, but adding day by day to experiences that widened its range, and gave freer and healthier play to an imagination always busily at work, alert and active in a singular degree, and that seemed to be quite untiring. at his heart there was a genuine love of nature at all times; and strange as it may seem to connect this with such forms of humorous delineation as are most identified with his genius, it is yet the literal truth that the impressions of this noble swiss scenery were with him during the work of many subsequent years: a present and actual, though it might be seldom a directly conscious, influence. when he said afterwards, that, while writing the book on which he is now engaged, he had not seen less clearly each step of the wooden midshipman's staircase, each pew of the church in which florence was married, or each bed in the dormitory of doctor blimber's establishment, because he was himself at the time by the lake of geneva, he might as truly have said that he saw them all the more clearly even because of that circumstance. he worked his humour to its greatest results by the freedom and force of his imagination; and while the smallest or commonest objects around him were food for the one, the other might have pined or perished without additional higher aliment. dickens had little love for wordsworth, but he was himself an example of the truth the great poet never tired of enforcing, that nature has subtle helps for all who are admitted to become free of her wonders and mysteries. another noticeable thing in him is impressed upon these letters, as upon many also heretofore quoted, for indeed all of them are marvellously exact in the reproduction of his nature. he did not think lightly of his work; and the work that occupied him at the time was for the time paramount with him. but the sense he entertained, whether right or wrong, of the importance of what he had to do, of the degree to which it concerned others that the power he held should be exercised successfully, and of the estimate he was justified in forming as the fair measure of its worth or greatness, does not carry with it of necessity presumption or self-conceit. few men have had less of either. it was part of the intense individuality by which he effected so much, to set the high value which in general he did upon what he was striving to accomplish; he could not otherwise have mastered one half the work he designed; and we are able to form an opinion, more just now for ourselves than it might have seemed to us then from others, of the weight and truth of such self-judgment. the fussy pretension of small men in great places, and the resolute self-assertion of great men in small places, are things essentially different. _respice finem_. the exact relative importance of all our pursuits is to be arrived at by nicer adjustments of the now and the hereafter than are possible to contemporary judgments; and there have been some indications since his death confirmatory of the belief, that the estimate which he thought himself entitled to form of the labours to which his life was devoted, will be strengthened, not lessened, by time. dickens proposed to himself, it will be remembered, to write at lausanne not only the first four numbers of his larger book, but the christmas book suggested to him by his fancy of a battle field; and reserving what is to be said of _dombey_ to a later chapter, this and its successor will deal only with what he finished as well as began in switzerland, and will show at what cost even so much was achieved amid his other and larger engagements. he had restless fancies and misgivings before he settled to his first notion. "i have been thinking this last day or two," he wrote on the th of july, "that good christmas characters might be grown out of the idea of a man imprisoned for ten or fifteen years; his imprisonment being the gap between the people and circumstances of the first part and the altered people and circumstances of the second, and his own changed mind. though i shall probably proceed with the battle idea, i should like to know what you think of this one?" it was afterwards used in a modified shape for the _tale of two cities_. "i shall begin the little story straightway," he wrote a few weeks later; "but i have been dimly conceiving a very ghostly and wild idea, which i suppose i must now reserve for the _next_ christmas book. _nous verrons._ it will mature in the streets of paris by night, as well as in london." this took ultimately the form of the _haunted man_, which was not written until the winter of . at last i knew that his first slip was done, and that even his eager busy fancy would not turn him back again. but other unsatisfied wants and cravings had meanwhile broken out in him, of which i heard near the close of the second number of _dombey_. the first he had finished at the end of july; and the second, which he began on the th of august, he was still at work upon in the first week of september, when this remarkable announcement came to me. it was his first detailed confession of what he felt so continuously, and if that were possible even more strongly, as the years went on, that there is no single passage in any of his letters which throws such a flood of illuminative light into the portions of his life which always awaken the greatest interest. very much that is to follow must be read by it. "you can hardly imagine," he wrote on the th of august, "what infinite pains i take, or what extraordinary difficulty i find in getting on fast. invention, thank god, seems the easiest thing in the world; and i seem to have such a preposterous sense of the ridiculous, after this long rest" (it was now over two years since the close of _chuzzlewit_), "as to be constantly requiring to restrain myself from launching into extravagances in the height of my enjoyment. but the difficulty of going at what i call a rapid pace, is prodigious; it is almost an impossibility. i suppose this is partly the effect of two years' ease, and partly of the absence of streets and numbers of figures. i can't express how much i want these. it seems as if they supplied something to my brain, which it cannot bear, when busy, to lose. for a week or a fortnight i can write prodigiously in a retired place (as at broadstairs), and a day in london sets me up again and starts me. but the toil and labour of writing, day after day, without that magic lantern, is immense!! i don't say this at all in low spirits, for we are perfectly comfortable here, and i like the place very much indeed, and the people are even more friendly and fond of me than they were in genoa. i only mention it as a curious fact, which i have never had an opportunity of finding out before. _my_ figures seem disposed to stagnate without crowds about them. i wrote very little in genoa (only the _chimes_), and fancied myself conscious of some such influence there--but lord! i had two miles of streets at least, lighted at night, to walk about in; and a great theatre to repair to, every night." at the close of the letter he told me that he had pretty well matured the general idea of the christmas book, and was burning to get to work on it. he thought it would be all the better, for a change, to have no fairies or spirits in it, but to make it a simple domestic tale.[ ] in less than a week from this date his second number was finished, his first slip of the little book done, and his confidence greater. they had had wonderful weather,[ ] so clear that he could see from the neuchâtel road the whole of mont blanc, six miles distant, as plainly as if he were standing close under it in the courtyard of the little inn at chamounix; and, though again it was raining when he wrote, his "nailed shoes" were by him and his "great waterproof cloak" in preparation for a "fourteen-mile walk" before dinner. then, after three days more, came something of a sequel to the confession before made, which will be read with equal interest. "the absence of any accessible streets continues to worry me, now that i have so much to do, in a most singular manner. it is quite a little mental phenomenon. i should not walk in them in the day time, if they were here, i dare say: but at night i want them beyond description. i don't seem able to get rid of my spectres unless i can lose them in crowds. however, as you say, there are streets in paris, and good suggestive streets too: and trips to london will be nothing then. when i have finished the christmas book, i shall fly to geneva for a day or two, before taking up with _dombey_ again. i like this place better and better; and never saw, i think, more agreeable people than our little circle is made up of. it is so little, that one is not 'bothered' in the least; and their interest in the inimitable seems to strengthen daily. i read them the first number last night 'was a' week, with unrelateable success; and old mrs. marcet, who is devilish 'cute, guessed directly (but i didn't tell her she was right) that little paul would die. they were all so apprehensive that it was a great pleasure to read it; and i shall leave here, if all goes well, in a brilliant shower of sparks struck out of them by the promised reading of the christmas book." little did either of us then imagine to what these readings were to lead, but even thus early they were taking in his mind the shape of a sort of jest that the smallest opportunity of favour might have turned into earnest. in his very next letter he wrote to me: "i was thinking the other day that in these days of lecturings and readings, a great deal of money might possibly be made (if it were not infra dig) by one's having readings of one's own books. it would be an _odd_ thing. i think it would take immensely. what do you say? will you step to dean-street, and see how miss kelly's engagement-book (it must be an immense volume!) stands? or shall i take the st. james's?" my answer is to be inferred from his rejoinder: but even at this time, while heightening and carrying forward his jest, i suspected him of graver desires than he cared to avow; and the time was to come, after a dozen years, when with earnestness equal to his own i continued to oppose, for reasons to be stated in their place, that which he had set his heart upon too strongly to abandon, and which i still can only wish he had preferred to surrender with all that seemed to be its enormous gains! "i don't think you have exercised your usual judgment in taking covent-garden for me. i doubt it is too large for my purpose. however, i shall stand by whatever you propose to the proprietors." soon came the changes of trouble and vexation i had too surely seen. "you remember," he wrote, "your objection about the two stories. i made over light of it. i ought to have considered that i have never before really tried the opening of two together--having always had one pretty far ahead when i have been driving a pair of them. i know it all now. the apparent impossibility of getting each into its place, coupled with that craving for streets, so thoroughly put me off the track, that, up to wednesday or thursday last, i really contemplated, at times, the total abandonment of the christmas book this year, and the limitation of my labours to _dombey and son_! i cancelled the beginning of a first scene--which i have never done before--and, with a notion in my head, ran wildly about and about it, and could not get the idea into any natural socket. at length, thank heaven, i nailed it all at once; and after going on comfortably up to yesterday, and working yesterday from half-past nine to six, i was last night in such a state of enthusiasm about it that i think i was an inch or two taller. i am a little cooler to-day, with a headache to boot; but i really begin to hope you will think it a pretty story, with some delicate notions in it agreeably presented, and with a good human christmas groundwork. i fancy i see a great domestic effect in the last part." that was written on the th of september; but six days later changed the picture and surprised me not a little. i might grudge the space thus given to one of the least important of his books but that the illustration goes farther than the little tale it refers to, and is a picture of him in his moods of writing, with their weakness as well as strength upon him, of a perfect truth and applicability to every period of his life. movement and change while he was working were not mere restlessness, as we have seen; it was no impatience of labour, or desire of pleasure, that led at such times to his eager craving for the fresh crowds and faces in which he might lose or find the creatures of his fancy; and recollecting this, much hereafter will be understood that might else be very far from clear, in regard to the sensitive conditions under which otherwise he carried on these exertions of his brain. "i am going to write you" ( th of september) "a most startling piece of intelligence. i fear there may be no christmas book! i would give the world to be on the spot to tell you this. indeed i once thought of starting for london to-night. i have written nearly a third of it. it promises to be pretty; quite a new idea in the story, i hope; but to manage it without the supernatural agency now impossible of introduction, and yet to move it naturally within the required space, or with any shorter limit than a _vicar of wakefield_, i find to be a difficulty so perplexing--the past _dombey_ work taken into account--that i am fearful of wearing myself out if i go on, and not being able to come back to the greater undertaking with the necessary freshness and spirit. if i had nothing but the christmas book to do, i would do it; but i get horrified and distressed beyond conception at the prospect of being jaded when i come back to the other, and making it a mere race against time. i have written the first part; i know the end and upshot of the second; and the whole of the third (there are only three in all). i know the purport of each character, and the plain idea that each is to work out; and i have the principal effects sketched on paper. it cannot end _quite_ happily, but will end cheerfully and pleasantly. but my soul sinks before the commencement of the second part--the longest--and the introduction of the under-idea. (the main one already developed, with interest.) i don't know how it is. i suppose it is the having been almost constantly at work in this quiet place; and the dread for the _dombey_; and the not being able to get rid of it, in noise and bustle. the beginning two books together is also, no doubt, a fruitful source of the difficulty; for i am now sure i could not have invented the _carol_ at the commencement of the _chuzzlewit_, or gone to a new book from the _chimes_. but this is certain. i am sick, giddy, and capriciously despondent. i have bad nights; am full of disquietude and anxiety; and am constantly haunted by the idea that i am wasting the marrow of the larger book, and ought to be at rest. one letter that i wrote you before this, i have torn up. in that the christmas book was wholly given up for this year: but i now resolve to make one effort more. i will go to geneva to-morrow, and try on monday and tuesday whether i can get on at all bravely, in the changed scene. if i cannot, i am convinced that i had best hold my hand at once; and not fritter my spirits and hope away, with that long book before me. you may suppose that the matter is very grave when i can so nearly abandon anything in which i am deeply interested, and fourteen or fifteen close ms. pages of which, that have made me laugh and cry, are lying in my desk. writing this letter at all, i have a great misgiving that the letter i shall write you on tuesday night will not make it better. take it, for heaven's sake, as an extremely serious thing, and not a fancy of the moment. last saturday after a very long day's work, and last wednesday after finishing the first part, i was full of eagerness and pleasure. at all other times since i began, i have been brooding and brooding over the idea that it was a wild thing to dream of, ever: and that i ought to be at rest for the _dombey_." the letter came, written on wednesday not tuesday night, and it left the question still unsettled. "when i came here" (geneva, th of september) "i had a bloodshot eye; and my head was so bad, with a pain across the brow, that i thought i must have got cupped. i have become a great deal better, however, and feel quite myself again to-day. . . . i still have not made up my mind as to what i can do with the christmas book. i would give any money that it were possible to consult with you. i have begun the second part this morning, and have done a very fair morning's work at it, but i do not feel it _in hand_ within the necessary space and divisions: and i have a great uneasiness in the prospect of falling behind hand with the other labour, which is so transcendantly important. i feel quite sure that unless i (being in reasonably good state and spirits) like the christmas book myself, i had better not go on with it; but had best keep my strength for _dombey_, and keep my number in advance. on the other hand i am dreadfully averse to abandoning it, and am so torn between the two things that i know not what to do. it is impossible to express the wish i have that i could take counsel with you. having begun the second part i will go on here, to-morrow and friday (saturday, the talfourds come to us at lausanne, leaving on monday morning), unless i see new reason to give it up in the meanwhile. let it stand thus--that my next monday's letter shall finally decide the question. but if you have not already told bradbury and evans of my last letter i think it will now be best to do so. . . . this non-publication of a christmas book, if it must be, i try to think light of with the greater story just begun, and with this _battle of life_ story (of which i really think the leading idea is very pretty) lying by me, for future use. but i would like you to consider, in the event of my not going on, how best, by timely announcement, in november's or december's _dombey_, i may seem to hold the ground prospectively. . . . heaven send me a good deliverance! if i don't do it, it will be the first time i ever abandoned anything i had once taken in hand; and i shall not have abandoned it until after a most desperate fight. i could do it, but for the _dombey_, as easily as i did last year or the year before. but i cannot help falling back on that continually: and this, combined with the peculiar difficulties of the story for a christmas book, and my being out of sorts, discourages me sadly. . . . kate is here, and sends her love.". . . a postscript was added on the following day. "georgy has come over from lausanne, and joins with kate, &c. &c. my head remains greatly better. my eye is recovering its old hue of beautiful white, tinged with celestial blue. if i hadn't come here, i think i should have had some bad low fever. the sight of the rushing rhone seemed to stir my blood again. i don't think i shall want to be cupped, this bout; but it looked, at one time, worse than i have confessed to you. if i have any return, i will have it done immediately." he stayed two days longer at geneva, which he found to be a very good place; pleasantly reporting himself as quite dismayed at first by the sight of gas in it, and as trembling at the noise in its streets, which he pronounced to be fully equal to the uproar of richmond in surrey; but deriving from it some sort of benefit both in health and in writing. so far his trip had been successful, though he had to leave the place hurriedly to welcome his english visitors to rosemont. one social and very novel experience he had in his hotel, however, the night before he left, which may be told before he hastens back to lausanne; for it could hardly now offend any one even if the names were given. "and now sir i will describe, modestly, tamely, literally, the visit to the small select circle which i promised should make your hair stand on end. in our hotel were lady a, and lady b, mother and daughter, who came to the peschiere shortly before we left it, and who have a deep admiration for your humble servant the inimitable b. they are both very clever. lady b, extremely well-informed in languages, living and dead; books, and gossip; very pretty; with two little children, and not yet five and twenty. lady a, plump, fresh, and rosy; matronly, but full of spirits and good looks. nothing would serve them but we _must_ dine with them; and accordingly, on friday at six, we went down to their room. i knew them to be rather odd. for instance, i have known lady a, _full dressed_, walk alone through the streets of genoa, the squalid italian bye streets, to the governor's soirée; and announce herself at the palace of state, by knocking at the door. i have also met lady b, full dressed, without any cap or bonnet, walking a mile to the opera, with all sorts of jingling jewels about her, beside a sedan chair in which sat enthroned her mama. consequently, i was not surprised at such little sparkles in the conversation (from the young lady) as 'oh god what a sermon we had here, last sunday!' 'and did you ever read such infernal trash as mrs. gore's?'--and the like. still, but for kate and georgy (who were decidedly in the way, as we agreed afterwards), i should have thought it all very funny; and, as it was, i threw the ball back again, was mighty free and easy, made some rather broad jokes, and was highly applauded. 'you smoke, don't you?' said the young lady, in a pause of this kind of conversation. 'yes,' i said, 'i generally take a cigar after dinner when i am alone.' 'i'll give you a good 'un,' said she, 'when we go up-stairs.' well sir, in due course we went up stairs, and there we were joined by an american lady residing in the same hotel, who looked like what we call in old england 'a reg'lar bunter'--fluffy face (rouged); considerable development of figure; one groggy eye; blue satin dress made low with short sleeves, and shoes of the same. also a daughter; face likewise fluffy; figure likewise developed; dress likewise low, with short sleeves, and shoes of the same; and one eye not yet actually groggy, but going to be. american lady married at sixteen; daughter sixteen now, often mistaken for sisters, &c. &c. &c. when that was over, lady b brought out a cigar box, and gave me a cigar, made of negrohead she said, which would quell an elephant in six whiffs. the box was full of cigarettes--good large ones, made of pretty strong tobacco; i always smoke them here, and used to smoke them at genoa, and i knew them well. when i lighted my cigar, lady b lighted hers, at mine; leaned against the mantelpiece, in conversation with me; put out her stomach, folded her arms, and with her pretty face cocked up sideways and her cigarette smoking away like a manchester cotton mill, laughed, and talked, and smoked, in the most gentlemanly manner i ever beheld. lady a immediately lighted her cigar; american lady immediately lighted hers; and in five minutes the room was a cloud of smoke, with us four in the centre pulling away bravely, while american lady related stories of her 'hookah' up stairs, and described different kinds of pipes. but even this was not all. for presently two frenchmen came in, with whom, and the american lady, lady b sat down to whist. the frenchmen smoked of course (they were really modest gentlemen, and seemed dismayed), and lady b played for the next hour or two with a cigar continually in her mouth--never out of it. she certainly smoked six or eight. lady a gave in soon--i think she only did it out of vanity. american lady had been smoking all the morning. i took no more; and lady b and the frenchmen had it all to themselves. "conceive this in a great hotel, with not only their own servants, but half a dozen waiters coming constantly in and out! i showed no atom of surprise; but i never _was_ so surprised, so ridiculously taken aback, in my life; for in all my experience of 'ladies' of one kind and another, i never saw a woman--not a basket woman or a gypsy--smoke, before!" he lived to have larger and wider experience, but there was enough to startle as well as amuse him in the scene described. but now saturday is come; he has hurried back for the friends who are on their way to his cottage; and on his arrival, even before they have appeared, he writes to tell me his better news of himself and his work. "in the breathless interval" (rosemont: rd of october) "between our return from geneva and the arrival of the talfourds (expected in an hour or two), i cannot do better than write to you. for i think you will be well pleased if i anticipate my promise, and monday, at the same time. i have been greatly better at geneva, though i still am made uneasy by occasional giddiness and headache: attributable, i have not the least doubt, to the absence of streets. there is an idea here, too, that people are occasionally made despondent and sluggish in their spirits by this great mass of still water, lake leman. at any rate i have been very uncomfortable: at any rate i am, i hope, greatly better: and (lastly) at any rate i hope and trust, _now_, the christmas book will come in due course!! i have had three very good days' work at geneva, and trust i may finish the second part (the third is the shortest) by this day week. whenever i finish it, i will send you the first two together. i do not think they can begin to illustrate it, until the third arrives; for it is a single minded story, as it were, and an artist should know the end: which i don't think very likely, unless he reads it." then, after relating a superhuman effort he was making to lodge his visitors in his doll's house ("i didn't like the idea of turning them out at night. it is so dark in these lanes, and groves, when the moon's not bright"), he sketched for me what he possibly might, and really did, accomplish. he would by great effort finish the small book on the th; would fly to geneva for a week to work a little at _dombey_, if he felt "pretty sound;" in any case would finish his number three by the th of november; and on that day would start for paris: "so that, instead of resting unprofitably here, i shall be using my interval of idleness to make the journey and get into a new house, and shall hope so to put a pinch of salt on the tail of the sliding number in advance. . . . i am horrified at the idea of getting the blues (and bloodshots) again." though i did not then know how gravely ill he had been, i was fain to remind him that it was bad economy to make business out of rest itself; but i received prompt confirmation that all was falling out as he wished. the talfourds stayed two days: "and i think they were very happy. he was in his best aspect; the manner so well known to us, not the less loveable for being laughable; and if you could have seen him going round and round the coach that brought them, as a preliminary to paying the voiturier to whom he couldn't speak, in a currency he didn't understand, you never would have forgotten it." his friends left lausanne on the th; and five days later he sent me two-thirds of the manuscript of his christmas book. footnotes: [ ] writing on sunday he had said: "i hope to finish the second number to-morrow, and to send it off bodily by tuesday's post. on wednesday i purpose, please god, beginning the _battle of life_. i shall peg away at that, without turning aside to _dombey_ again; and _if_ i can only do it within the month!" i had to warn him, on receiving these intimations, that he was trying too much. [ ] the storm of rain formerly mentioned by him had not been repeated, but the weather had become unsettled, and he thus referred to the rainfall which made that summer so disastrous in england. "what a storm that must have been in london! i wish we could get something like it, here. . . . it is thundering while i write, but i fear it don't look black enough for a clearance. the echoes in the mountains are of such a stupendous sort, that a peal of thunder five or ten minutes long, is here the commonest of circumstances. . . ." that was early in august, and at the close of the month he wrote: "i forgot to tell you that yesterday week, at half-past in the morning, we had a smart shock of an earthquake, lasting, perhaps, a quarter of a minute. it awoke me in bed. the sensation was so curious and unlike any other, that i called out at the top of my voice i was sure it was an earthquake." chapter xiv. revolution at geneva, christmas book, and last days in switzerland. . at lausanne--large sale of _dombey_--christmas book done--at geneva--back to _dombey_--rising against the jesuits--the fight in geneva--rifle against cannon--genevese "aristocracy"--swiss "rabble"--traces left by the revolution--smaller revolution in whitefriars--_daily news_ changes--letters about his _battle of life_--sketch of story--difficulty in plot--his own comments--date of story--reply to criticism--stanfield's offer of illustrations--doubts of third part--tendency to blank verse--stanfield's designs--grave mistake by leech--last days in switzerland--mountain winds--a ravine in the hills--sadness of leave-taking--travelling to paris. "i send you in twelve letters, counting this as one, the first two parts (thirty-five slips) of the christmas book. i have two present anxieties respecting it. one to know that you have received it safely; and the second to know how it strikes you. be sure you read the first and second parts together. . . . there seems to me to be interest in it, and a pretty idea; and it is unlike the others. . . . there will be some minor points for consideration: as, the necessity for some slight alterations in one or two of the doctor's speeches in the first part; and whether it should be called 'the battle of life. a love story'--to express both a love story in the common acceptation of the phrase, and also a story of love; with one or two other things of that sort. we can moot these by and by. i made a tremendous day's work of it yesterday and was horribly excited--so i am going to rush out, as fast as i can: being a little used up, and sick. . . . but never say die! i have been to the glass to look at my eye. pretty bright!" i made it brighter next day by telling him that the first number of _dombey_ had outstripped in sale the first of _chuzzlewit_ by more than twelve thousand copies; and his next letter, sending the close of his little tale, showed his need of the comfort my pleasant news had given him. "i really do not know what this story is worth. i am so floored: wanting sleep, and never having had my head free from it for this month past. i think there are some places in this last part which i may bring better together in the proof, and where a touch or two may be of service; particularly in the scene between craggs and michael warden, where, as it stands, the interest seems anticipated. but i shall have the benefit of your suggestions, and my own then cooler head, i hope; and i will be very careful with the proofs, and keep them by me as long as i can. . . . mr. britain must have another christian name, then? 'aunt martha' is the sally of whom the doctor speaks in the first part. martha is a better name. what do you think of the concluding paragraph? would you leave it for happiness' sake? it is merely experimental. . . . i am flying to geneva to-morrow morning." (that was on the th of october; and on the th he wrote from geneva.) "we came here yesterday, and we shall probably remain until katey's birthday, which is next thursday week. i shall fall to work on number three of _dombey_ as soon as i can. at present i am the worse for wear, but nothing like as much so as i expected to be on sunday last. i had not been able to sleep for some time, and had been hammering away, morning, noon, and night. a bottle of hock on monday, when elliotson dined with us (he went away homeward yesterday morning), did me a world of good; the change comes in the very nick of time; and i feel in dombeian spirits already. . . . but i have still rather a damaged head, aching a good deal occasionally, as it is doing now, though i have not been cupped--yet. . . . i dreamed all last week that the _battle of life_ was a series of chambers impossible to be got to rights or got out of, through which i wandered drearily all night. on saturday night i don't think i slept an hour. i was perpetually roaming through the story, and endeavouring to dove-tail the revolution here into the plot. the mental distress, quite horrible." of the "revolution" he had written to me a week before, from lausanne; where the news had just reached them, that, upon the federal diet decreeing the expulsion of the jesuits, the roman catholic cantons had risen against the decree, the result being that the protestants had deposed the grand council and established a provisional government, dissolving the catholic league. his interest in this, and prompt seizure of what really was brought into issue by the conflict, is every way characteristic of dickens. "you will know," he wrote from lausanne on the th of october, "long before you get this, all about the revolution at geneva. there were stories of plots against the government when i was there, but i didn't believe them; for all sorts of lies are always afloat against the radicals, and wherever there is a consul from a catholic power the most monstrous fictions are in perpetual circulation against them: as in this very place, where the sardinian consul was gravely whispering the other day that a society called the homicides had been formed, whereof the president of the council of state, the o'connell of switzerland and a clever fellow, was a member; who were sworn on skulls and cross-bones to exterminate men of property, and so forth. there was a great stir here, on the day of the fight in geneva. we heard the guns (they shook this house) all day; and seven hundred men marched out of this town of lausanne to go and help the radical party--arriving at geneva just after it was all over. there is no doubt they had received secret help from here; for a powder barrel, found by some of the genevese populace with 'canton de vaud' painted on it, was carried on a pole about the streets as a standard, to show that they were sympathized with by friends outside. it was a poor mean fight enough, i am told by lord vernon, who was present and who was with us last night. the government was afraid; having no confidence whatever, i dare say, in its own soldiers; and the cannon were fired everywhere except at the opposite party, who (i mean the revolutionists) had barricaded a bridge with an omnibus only, and certainly in the beginning might have been turned with ease. the precision of the common men with the rifle was especially shown by a small party of _five_, who waited on the ramparts near one of the gates of the town, to turn a body of soldiery who were coming in to the government assistance. they picked out every officer and struck him down instantly, the moment the party appeared; there were three or four of them; upon which the soldiers gravely turned round and walked off. i dare say there are not fifty men in this place who wouldn't click your card off a target a hundred and fifty yards away, at least. i have seen them, time after time, fire across a great ravine as wide as the ornamental ground in st. james's-park, and never miss the bull's-eye. "it is a horribly ungentlemanly thing to say here, though i _do_ say it without the least reserve--but my sympathy is all with the radicals. i don't know any subject on which this indomitable people have so good a right to a strong feeling as catholicity--if not as a religion, clearly as a means of social degradation. they know what it is. they live close to it. they have italy beyond their mountains. they can compare the effect of the two systems at any time in their own valleys; and their dread of it, and their horror of the introduction of catholic priests and emissaries into their towns, seems to me the most rational feeling in the world. apart from this, you have no conception of the preposterous, insolent little aristocracy of geneva: the most ridiculous caricature the fancy can suggest of what we know in england. i was talking to two famous gentlemen (very intelligent men) of that place, not long ago, who came over to invite me to a sort of reception there--which i declined. really their talk about 'the people' and 'the masses,' and the necessity they would shortly be under of shooting a few of them as an example for the rest, was a kind of monstrosity one might have heard at genoa. the audacious insolence and contempt of the people by their newspapers, too, is quite absurd. it is difficult to believe that men of sense can be such donkeys politically. it was precisely such a state of things that brought about the change here. there was a most respectful petition presented on the jesuit question, signed by its tens of thousands of small farmers; the regular peasants of the canton, all splendidly taught in public schools, and intellectually as well as physically a most remarkable body of labouring men. this document is treated by the gentlemanly party with the most sublime contempt, and the signatures are said to be the signatures of 'the rabble.' upon which, each man of the rabble shoulders his rifle, and walks in upon a given day agreed upon among them to lausanne; and the gentlemanly party walk out without striking a blow." such traces of the "revolution" as he found upon his present visit to geneva he described in writing to me from the hotel de l'ecu on the th of october. "you never would suppose from the look of this town that there had been anything revolutionary going on. over the window of my old bedroom there is a great hole made by a cannon-ball in the house-front; and two of the bridges are under repair. but these are small tokens which anything else might have brought about as well. the people are all at work. the little streets are rife with every sight and sound of industry; the place is as quiet by ten o'clock as lincoln's-inn-fields; and the only outward and visible sign of public interest in political events is a little group at every street corner, reading a public announcement from the new government of the forthcoming election of state-officers, in which the people are reminded of their importance as a republican institution, and desired to bear in mind their dignity in all their proceedings. nothing very violent or bad could go on with a community so well educated as this. it is the best antidote to american experiences, conceivable. as to the nonsense 'the gentlemanly interest' talk about, their opposition to property and so forth, there never was such mortal absurdity. one of the principal leaders in the late movement has a stock of watches and jewellery here of immense value--and had, during the disturbance--perfectly unprotected. james fahzey has a rich house and a valuable collection of pictures; and, i will be bound to say, twice as much to lose as half the conservative declaimers put together. this house, the liberal one, is one of the most richly furnished and luxurious hotels on the continent. and if i were a swiss with a hundred thousand pounds, i would be as steady against the catholic cantons and the propagation of jesuitism as any radical among 'em: believing the dissemination of catholicity to be the most horrible means of political and social degradation left in the world. which these people, thoroughly well educated, know perfectly. . . . the boys of geneva were very useful in bringing materials for the construction of the barricades on the bridges; and the enclosed song may amuse you. they sing it to a tune that dates from the great french revolution--a very good one." but revolutions may be small as well as their heroes, and while he thus was sending me his gamin de genève i was sending him news of a sudden change in whitefriars which had quite as vivid interest for him. not much could be told him at first, but his curiosity instantly arose to fever pitch. "in reference to that _daily news_ revolution," he wrote from geneva on the th, "i have been walking and wondering all day through a perfect miss burney's vauxhall of conjectural dark walks. heaven send you enlighten me fully on wednesday, or number three will suffer!" two days later he resumed, as he was beginning his journey back to lausanne. "i am in a great state of excitement on account of your intelligence, and desperately anxious to know all about it. i shall be put out to an unspeakable extent if i don't find your letter awaiting me. god knows there has been small comfort for either of us in the _d. n._'s nine months." there was not much to tell then, and there is less now; but at last the discomfort was over for us both, as i had been unable to reconcile myself to a longer continuance of the service i had given in whitefriars since he quitted it. the subject may be left with the remark made upon it in his first letter after returning to rosemont. "i certainly am very glad of the result of the _daily news_ business, though my gladness is dashed with melancholy to think that you should have toiled there so long, to so little purpose. i escaped more easily. however, it is all past now. . . . as to the undoubted necessity of the course you took, i have not a grain of question in my mind. that, being what you are, you had only one course to take and have taken it, i no more doubt than that the old bailey is not westminster abbey. in the utmost sum at which you value yourself, you were bound to leave; and now you _have_ left, you will come to paris, and there, and at home again, we'll have, please god, the old kind of evenings and the old life again, as it used to be before those daily nooses caught us by the legs and sometimes tripped us up. make a vow (as i have done) never to go down that court with the little news-shop at the corner, any more, and let us swear by jack straw as in the ancient times. . . . i am beginning to get over my sorrow for your nights up aloft in whitefriars, and to feel nothing but happiness in the contemplation of your enfranchisement. god bless you!" the time was now shortening for him at lausanne; but before my sketches of his pleasant days there close, the little story of his christmas book may be made complete by a few extracts from the letters that followed immediately upon the departure of the talfourds. without comment they will explain its closing touches, his own consciousness of the difficulties in working out the tale within limits too confined not to render its proper development imperfect, and his ready tact in dealing with objection and suggestion from without. his condition while writing it did not warrant me in pressing what i might otherwise have thought necessary; but as the little story finally left his hands, it had points not unworthy of him; and a sketch of its design will render the fragments from his letters more intelligible. i read it lately with a sense that its general tone of quiet beauty deserved well the praise which jeffrey in those days had given it. "i like and admire the _battle_ extremely," he said in a letter on its publication, sent me by dickens and not included in lord cockburn's memoir. "it is better than any other man alive could have written, and has passages as fine as anything that ever came from the man himself. the dance of the sisters in that autumn orchard is of itself worth a dozen inferior tales, and their reunion at the close, and indeed all the serious parts, are beautiful, some traits of clemency charming." yet it was probably here the fact, as with the _chimes_, that the serious parts were too much interwoven with the tale to render the subject altogether suitable to the old mirth-bringing season; but this had also some advantages. the story is all about two sisters, the younger of whom, marion, sacrifices her own affection to give happiness to the elder, grace. but grace had already made the same sacrifice for this younger sister; life's first and hardest battle had been won by her before the incidents begin; and when she is first seen, she is busying herself to bring about her sister's marriage with alfred heathfield, whom she has herself loved, and whom she has kept wholly unconscious, by a quiet change in her bearing to him, of what his own still disengaged heart would certainly not have rejected. marion, however, had earlier discovered this, though it is not until her victory over herself that alfred knows it; and meanwhile he is become her betrothed. the sisters thus shown at the opening, one believing her love undiscovered and the other bent for the sake of that love on surrendering her own, each practising concealment and both unselfishly true, form a pretty and tender picture. the second part is intended to give to marion's flight the character of an elopement; and so to manage this as to show her all the time unchanged to the man she is pledged to, yet flying from, was the author's difficulty. one michael warden is the _deus ex machinâ_ by whom it is solved, hardly with the usual skill; but there is much art in rendering his pretensions to the hand of marion, whose husband he becomes after an interval of years, the means of closing against him all hope of success, in the very hour when her own act might seem to be opening it to him. during the same interval grace, believing marion to be gone with warden, becomes alfred's wife; and not until reunion after six years' absence is the truth entirely known to her. the struggle, to all of them, has been filled and chastened with sorrow; but joy revisits them at its close. hearts are not broken by the duties laid upon them; nor is life shown to be such a perishable holiday, that amidst noble sorrow and generous self-denial it must lose its capacity for happiness. the tale thus justifies its place in the christmas series. what jeffrey says of clemency, too, may suggest another word. the story would not be dickens's if we could not discover in it the power peculiar to him of presenting the commonest objects with freshness and beauty, of detecting in the homeliest forms of life much of its rarest loveliness, and of springing easily upward from everyday realities into regions of imaginative thought. to this happiest direction of his art, clemency and her husband render new tribute; and in her more especially, once again, we recognize one of those true souls who fill so large a space in his writings, for whom the lowest seats at life's feasts are commonly kept, but whom he moves and welcomes to a more fitting place among the prized and honoured at the upper tables. "i wonder whether you foresaw the end of the christmas book! there are two or three places in which i can make it prettier, i think, by slight alterations. . . . i trust to heaven you may like it. what an affecting story i could have made of it in one octavo volume. oh to think of the printers transforming my kindly cynical old father into doctor taddler!" ( th of october.) * * * * * "do you think it worth while, in the illustrations, to throw the period back at all for the sake of anything good in the costume? the story may have happened at any time within a hundred years. is it worth having coats and gowns of dear old goldsmith's day? or thereabouts? i really don't know what to say. the probability is, if it has not occurred to you or to the artists, that it is hardly worth considering; but i ease myself of it by throwing it out to you. it may be already too late, or you may see reason to think it best to 'stick to the _last_' (i feel it necessary to italicize the joke), and abide by the ladies' and gentlemen's spring and winter fashions of this time. whatever you think best, in this as in all other things, is best, i am sure. . . . i would go, in the illustrations, for 'beauty' as much as possible; and i should like each part to have a general illustration to it at the beginning, shadowing out its drift and bearing: much as browne goes at that kind of thing on _dombey_ covers. i don't think i should fetter your discretion in the matter farther. the better it is illustrated, the better i shall be pleased of course." ( th of october.) ". . . i only write to say that it is of no use my writing at length, until i have heard from you; and that i will wait until i shall have read your promised communication (as my father would call it) to-morrow. i have glanced over the proofs of the last part and really don't wonder, some of the most extravagant mistakes occurring in clemency's account to warden, that the marriage of grace and alfred should seem rather unsatisfactory to you. whatever is done about that must be done with the lightest hand, for the reader must take something for granted; but i think it next to impossible, without dreadful injury to the effect, to introduce a scene between marion and michael. the introduction must be in the scene between the sisters, and must be put, mainly, into the mouth of grace. rely upon it there is no other way, in keeping with the spirit of the tale. with this amendment, and a touch here and there in the last part (i know exactly where they will come best), i think it may be pretty and affecting, and comfortable too. . . ." ( st of october.) * * * * * ". . . i shall hope to touch upon the christmas book as soon as i get your opinion. i wouldn't do it without. i am delighted to hear of noble old stanny. give my love to him, and tell him i think of turning catholic. it strikes me (it may have struck you perhaps) that another good place for introducing a few lines of dialogue, is at the beginning of the scene between grace and her husband, where he speaks about the messenger at the gate." ( th of november.) "before i reply to your questions i wish to remark generally of the third part that all the passion that can be got into it, through my interpretation at all events, is there. i know that, by what it cost me; and i take it to be, as a question of art and interest, in the very nature of the story that it _should_ move at a swift pace after the sisters are in each other's arms again. anything after that would drag like lead, and must. . . . now for your questions. i don't think any little scene with marion and anybody can prepare the way for the last paragraph of the tale: i don't think anything but a printer's line _can_ go between it and warden's speech. a less period than ten years? yes. i see no objection to six. i have no doubt you are right. any word from alfred in his misery? impossible: you might as well try to speak to somebody in an express train. the preparation for his change is in the first part, and he kneels down beside her in that return scene. he is left alone with her, as it were, in the world. i am quite confident it is wholly impossible for me to alter that. . . . but (keep your eye on me) when marion went away, she left a letter for grace in which she charged her to encourage the love that alfred would conceive for her, and forewarned her that years would pass before they met again, &c. &c. this coming out in the scene between the sisters, and something like it being expressed in the opening of the little scene between grace and her husband before the messenger at the gate, will make (i hope) a prodigious difference; and i will try to put in something with aunt martha and the doctor which shall carry the tale back more distinctly and unmistakeably to the battle-ground. i hope to make these alterations next week, and to send the third part back to you before i leave here. if you think it can still be improved after that, say so to me in paris and i will go at it again. i wouldn't have it limp, if it can fly. i say nothing to you of a great deal of this being already expressed in the sentiment of the beginning, because your delicate perception knows all that already. observe for the artists. grace will now only have _one child_--little marion.". . . (at night, on same day.). . . "you recollect that i asked you to read it all together, for i knew that i was working for that? but i have no doubt of _your_ doubts, and will do what i have said. . . . i had thought of marking the time in the little story, and will do so. . . . think, once more, of the period between the second and third parts. i will do the same." ( th of november.) * * * * * "i hope you will think the third part (when you read it in type with these amendments) very much improved. i think it so. if there should still be anything wanting, in your opinion, pray suggest it to me in paris. i am bent on having it right, if i can. . . . if in going over the proofs you find the tendency to blank verse (i _cannot_ help it, when i am very much in earnest) too strong, knock out a word's brains here and there." ( th of november. sending the proofs back.) * * * * * ". . . your christmas book illustration-news makes me jump for joy. i will write you at length to-morrow. i should like this dedication: this christmas book is cordially inscribed to my english friends in switzerland. just those two lines, and nothing more. when i get the proofs again i think i may manage another word or two about the battle-field, with advantage. i am glad you like the alterations. i feel that they make it complete, and that it would have been incomplete without your suggestions." ( st of november. from paris.) i had managed, as a glad surprise for him, to enlist both stanfield and maclise in the illustration of the story, in addition to the distinguished artists whom the publishers had engaged for it, leech and richard doyle; and among the subjects contributed by stanfield are three morsels of english landscape which had a singular charm for dickens at the time, and seem to me still of their kind quite faultless. i may add a curious fact, never mentioned until now. in the illustration which closes the second part of the story, where the festivities to welcome the bridegroom at the top of the page contrast with the flight of the bride represented below, leech made the mistake of supposing that michael warden had taken part in the elopement, and has introduced his figure with that of marion. we did not discover this until too late for remedy, the publication having then been delayed, for these drawings, to the utmost limit; and it is highly characteristic of dickens, and of the true regard he had for this fine artist, that, knowing the pain he must give in such circumstances by objection or complaint, he preferred to pass it silently. nobody made remark upon it, and there the illustration still stands; but any one who reads the tale carefully will at once perceive what havoc it makes of one of the most delicate turns in it. "when i first saw it, it was with a horror and agony not to be expressed. of course i need not tell _you_, my dear fellow, warden has no business in the elopement scene. _he_ was never there! in the first hot sweat of this surprise and novelty, i was going to implore the printing of that sheet to be stopped, and the figure taken out of the block. but when i thought of the pain this might give to our kind-hearted leech; and that what is such a monstrous enormity to me, as never having entered my brain, may not so present itself to others, i became more composed: though the fact is wonderful to me. no doubt a great number of copies will be printed by the time this reaches you, and therefore i shall take it for granted that it stands as it is. leech otherwise is very good, and the illustrations altogether are by far the best that have been done for any of the christmas books. you know how i build up temples in my mind that are not made with hands (or expressed with pen and ink, i am afraid), and how liable i am to be disappointed in these things. but i really am _not_ disappointed in this case. quietness and beauty are preserved throughout. say everything to mac and stanny, more than everything! it is a delight to look at these little landscapes of the dear old boy. how gentle and elegant, and yet how manly and vigorous, they are! i have a perfect joy in them." of the few days that remained of his lausanne life, before he journeyed to paris, there is not much requiring to be said. his work had continued during the whole of the month before departure to occupy him so entirely as to leave room for little else, and even occasional letters to very dear friends at home were intermitted. here is one example of many. "i will write to landor as soon as i can possibly make time, but i really am so much at my desk perforce, and so full of work, whether i am there or elsewhere, between the christmas book and _dombey_, that it is the most difficult thing in the world for me to make up my mind to write a letter to any one but you. i ought to have written to macready. i wish you would tell him, with my love, how i am situated in respect of pen, ink, and paper. one of the lausanne papers, treating of free trade, has been very copious lately in its mention of lord gobden. fact; and i think it a good name." then, as the inevitable time approached, he cast about him for such comfort as the coming change might bring, to set against the sorrow of it; and began to think of paris, "'in a less romantic and more homely contemplation of the picture,' as not wholly undesirable. i have no doubt that constant change, too, is indispensable to me when i am at work: and at times something more than a doubt will force itself upon me whether there is not something in a swiss valley that disagrees with me. certainly, whenever i live in switzerland again, it shall be on the hill-top. something of the _goître_ and _cretin_ influence seems to settle on my spirits sometimes, on the lower ground.[ ] how sorry, ah yes! how sorry i shall be to leave the little society nevertheless. we have been thoroughly good-humoured and agreeable together, and i'll always give a hurrah for the swiss and switzerland." one or two english travelling by lausanne had meanwhile greeted him as they were passing home, and a few days given him by elliotson had been an enjoyment without a drawback. it was now the later autumn, very high winds were coursing through the valley, and his last letter but one described the change which these approaches of winter were making in the scene. "we have had some tremendous hurricanes at lausanne. it is an extraordinary place now for wind, being peculiarly situated among mountains--between the jura, and the simplon, st. gothard, st. bernard, and mont blanc ranges; and at night you would swear (lying in bed) you were at sea. you cannot imagine wind blowing so, over earth. it is very fine to hear. the weather generally, however, has been excellent. there is snow on the tops of nearly all the hills, but none has fallen in the valley. on a bright day, it is quite hot between eleven and half past two. the nights and mornings are cold. for the last two or three days, it has been thick weather; and i can see no more of mont blanc from where i am writing now than if i were in devonshire terrace, though last week it bounded all the lausanne walks. i would give a great deal that you could take a walk with me about lausanne on a clear cold day. it is impossible to imagine anything more noble and beautiful than the scene; and the autumn colours in the foliage are more brilliant and vivid now than any description could convey to you. i took elliotson, when he was with us, up to a ravine i had found out in the hills eight hundred or a thousand feet deep! its steep sides dyed bright yellow, and deep red, by the changing leaves; a sounding torrent rolling down below; the lake of geneva lying at its foot; one enormous mass and chaos of trees at its upper end; and mountain piled on mountain in the distance, up into the sky! he really was struck silent by its majesty and splendour." he had begun his third number of _dombey_ on the th of october, on the th of the following month he was half through it, on the th he was in the "agonies" of its last chapter, and on the th, one day before that proposed for its completion, all was done. this was marvellously rapid work, after what else he had undergone; but within a week, monday the th being the day for departure, they were to strike their tents, and troubled and sad were the few days thus left him for preparation and farewell. he included in his leave-taking his deaf, dumb, and blind friends; and, to use his own homely phrase, was yet more terribly "down in the mouth" at taking leave of his hearing, speaking, and seeing friends. "i shall see you soon, please god, and that sets all to rights. but i don't believe there are many dots on the map of the world where we shall have left such affectionate remembrances behind us, as in lausanne. it was quite miserable this last night, when we left them at haldimand's." he shall himself describe how they travelled post to paris, occupying five days. "we got through the journey charmingly, though not quite so quickly as we hoped. the children as good as usual, and even skittles jolly to the last. (that name has long superseded sampson brass, by the bye. i call him so, from something skittle-playing and public-housey in his countenance.) we have been up at five every morning, and on the road before seven. we were three carriages: a sort of wagon, with a cabriolet attached, for the luggage; a ramshackle villainous old swing upon wheels (hired at geneva), for the children; and for ourselves, that travelling chariot which i was so kind as to bring here for sale. it was very cold indeed crossing the jura--nothing but fog and frost; but when we were out of switzerland and across the french frontier, it became warmer, and continued so. we stopped at between six and seven each evening; had two rather queer inns, wild french country inns; but the rest good. they were three hours and a half examining the luggage at the frontier custom-house--atop of a mountain, in a hard and biting frost; where anne and roche had sharp work i assure you, and the latter insisted on volunteering the most astonishing and unnecessary lies about my books, for the mere pleasure of deceiving the officials. when we were out of the mountain country, we came at a good pace, but were a day late in getting to our hotel here." they were in paris when that was written; at the hotel brighton; which they had reached in the evening of friday the th of november. footnotes: [ ] "i may tell you," he wrote to me from paris at the end of november, "now it is all over. i don't know whether it was the hot summer, or the anxiety of the two new books coupled with d. n. remembrances and reminders, but i was in that state in switzerland, when my spirits sunk so, i felt myself in serious danger. yet i had little pain in my side; excepting that time at genoa i have hardly had any since poor mary died, when it came on so badly; and i walked my fifteen miles a day constantly, at a great pace." chapter xv. three months in paris. - . lord brougham--french sunday--a house taken--his french abode--a former tenant--sister fanny's illness--the king of the barricades--the morgue--parisian population--americans and french--unsettlement of plans--a true friend--hard frost--alarming neighbour--a fellow-littérateur--london visit--return to paris--begging-letter-writers--a boulogne reception--french-english--citizen dickens--sight-seeing--evening with victor hugo--at the bibliothèque royale--adventure with a coachman--illness of eldest son--visit of his father--the "man that put together dombey." no man enjoyed brief residence in a hotel more than dickens, but "several tons of luggage, other tons of servants, and other tons of children" are not desirable accompaniments to this kind of life; and his first day in paris did not close before he had offered for an "eligible mansion." that same saturday night he took a "colossal" walk about the city, of which the brilliancy and brightness almost frightened him; and among other things that attracted his notice was "rather a good book announced in a bookseller's window as _les mystères de londres par sir trollopp_. do you know him?" a countryman better known had given him earlier greeting. "the first man who took hold of me in the street, immediately outside this door, was bruffum in his check trousers, and without the proper number of buttons on his shirt, who was going away this morning, he told me, but coming back in two months, when we would go and dine--at some place known to him and fame." next day he took another long walk about the streets, and lost himself fifty times. this was sunday, and he hardly knew what to say of it, as he saw it there and then. the bitter observance of that day he always sharply resisted, believing a little rational enjoyment to be not opposed to either rest or religion; but here was another matter. "the dirty churches, and the clattering carts and waggons, and the open shops (i don't think i passed fifty shut up, in all my strollings in and out), and the work-a-day dresses and drudgeries, are not comfortable. open theatres and so forth i am well used to, of course, by this time; but so much toil and sweat on what one would like to see, apart from religious observances, a sensible holiday, is painful." the date of his letter was the nd of november, and it had three postscripts.[ ] the first, "monday afternoon," told me a house was taken; that, unless the agreement should break off on any unforeseen fight between roche and the agent ("a french mrs. gamp"), i was to address him at no. , rue de courcelles, faubourg st. honoré; and that he would merely then advert to the premises as in his belief the "most ridiculous, extraordinary, unparalleled, and preposterous" in the whole world; being something between a baby-house, a "shades," a haunted castle, and a mad kind of clock. "they belong to a marquis castellan, and you will be ready to die of laughing when you go over them." the second p.s. declared that his lips should be sealed till i beheld for myself. "by heaven it is not to be imagined by the mind of man!" the third p.s. closed the letter. "one room is a tent. another room is a grove. another room is a scene at the victoria. the upstairs rooms are like fanlights over street-doors. the nurseries--but no, no, no, no more! . . ." his following letter nevertheless sent more, even in the form of an additional protestation that never till i saw it should the place be described. "i will merely observe that it is fifty yards long, and eighteen feet high, and that the bedrooms are exactly like opera-boxes. it has its little courtyard and garden, and porter's house, and cordon to open the door, and so forth; and is a paris mansion in little. there is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room. being a gentleman's house, and not one furnished to let, it has some very curious things in it; some of the oddest things you ever beheld in your life; and an infinity of easy chairs and sofas. . . . bad weather. it is snowing hard. there is not a door or window here--but that's nothing! there's not a door or window in all paris--that shuts; not a chink in all the billions of trillions of chinks in the city that can he stopped to keep the wind out. and the cold!--but you shall judge for yourself; and also of this preposterous dining-room. the invention, sir, of henry bulwer, who when he had executed it (he used to live here), got frightened at what he had done, as well he might, and went away. . . . the brave called me aside on saturday night, and showed me an improvement he had effected in the decorative way. 'which,' he said, 'will very much s'prize mis'r fors'er when he come.' you are to be deluded into the belief that there is a perspective of chambers twenty miles in length, opening from the drawing-room. . . ." my visit was not yet due, however, and what occupied or interested him in the interval may first be told. he had not been two days in paris when a letter from his father made him very anxious for the health of his eldest sister. "i was going to the play (a melodrama in eight acts, five hours long), but hadn't the heart to leave home after my father's letter," he is writing on the th of november, "and sent georgy and kate by themselves. there seems to be no doubt whatever that fanny is in a consumption." she had broken down in an attempt to sing at a party in manchester; and subsequent examination by sir charles bell's son, who was present and took much interest in her, too sadly revealed the cause. "he advised that neither she nor burnett should be told the truth, and my father has not disclosed it. in worldly circumstances they are very comfortable, and they are very much respected. they seem to be happy together, and burnett has a great deal of teaching. you remember my fears about her when she was in london the time of alfred's marriage, and that i said she looked to me as if she were in a decline? kate took her to elliotson, who said that her lungs were certainly not affected then. and she cried for joy. don't you think it would be better for her to be brought up, if possible, to see elliotson again? i am deeply, deeply grieved about it." this course was taken, and for a time there seemed room for hope; but the result will be seen. in the same letter i heard of poor charles sheridan, well known to us both, dying of the same terrible disease; and his chief, lord normanby, whose many acts of sympathy and kindness had inspired strong regard in dickens, he had already found "as informal and good-natured as ever, but not so gay as usual, and having an anxious, haggard way with him, as if his responsibilities were more than he had bargained for." nor, to account for this, had dickens far to seek, when a little leisure enabled him to see something of what was passing in paris in that last year of louis philippe's reign. what first impressed him most unfavourably was a glimpse in the champs elysées, of the king himself coming in from the country. "there were two carriages. his was surrounded by horseguards. it went at a great pace, and he sat very far back in a corner of it, i promise you. it was strange to an englishman to see the prefet of police riding on horseback some hundreds of yards in advance of the cortége, turning his head incessantly from side to side, like a figure in a dutch clock, and scrutinizing everybody and everything, as if he suspected all the twigs in all the trees in the long avenue." but these and other political indications were only, as they generally prove to be, the outward signs of maladies more deeply-seated. he saw almost everywhere signs of canker eating into the heart of the people themselves. "it is a wicked and detestable place, though wonderfully attractive; and there can be no better summary of it, after all, than hogarth's unmentionable phrase." he sent me no letter that did not contribute something of observation or character. he went at first rather frequently to the morgue, until shocked by something so repulsive that he had not courage for a long time to go back; and on that same occasion he had noticed the keeper smoking a short pipe at his little window, "and giving a bit of fresh turf to a linnet in a cage." of the condition generally of the streets he reported badly; the quays on the other side of the seine were not safe after dark; and here was his own night experience of one of the best quarters of the city. "i took georgy out, the night before last, to show her the palais royal lighted up; and on the boulevard, a street as bright as the brightest part of the strand or regent-street, we saw a man fall upon another, close before us, and try to tear the cloak off his back. it was in a little dark corner near the porte st. denis, which stands out in the middle of the street. after a short struggle, the thief fled (there were thousands of people walking about), and was captured just on the other side of the road." an incident of that kind might mean little or much: but what he proceeded to remark of the ordinary parisian workpeople and smaller shopkeepers, had a more grave complexion; and may be thought perhaps still to yield some illustration, not without value, to the story of the quarter of a century that has passed since, and even to some of the appalling events of its latest year or two. "it is extraordinary what nonsense english people talk, write, and believe, about foreign countries. the swiss (so much decried) will do anything for you, if you are frank and civil; they are attentive and punctual in all their dealings; and may be relied upon as steadily as the english. the parisian workpeople and smaller shopkeepers are more like (and unlike) americans than i could have supposed possible. to the american indifference and carelessness, they add a procrastination and want of the least heed about keeping a promise or being exact, which is certainly not surpassed in naples. they have the american semi-sentimental independence too, and none of the american vigour or purpose. if they ever get free trade in france (as i suppose they will, one day), these parts of the population must, for years and years, be ruined. they couldn't get the means of existence, in competition with the english workmen. their inferior manual dexterity, their lazy habits, perfect unreliability, and habitual insubordination, would ruin them in any such contest, instantly. they are fit for nothing but soldiering--and so far, i believe, the successors in the policy of your friend napoleon have reason on their side. eh bien, mon ami, quand vous venez à paris, nous nous mettrons à quatre épingles, et nous verrons toutes les merveilles de la cité, et vous en jugerez. god bless me, i beg your pardon! it comes so natural." on the th he wrote to me that he had got his papers into order and hoped to begin that day. but the same letter told me of the unsettlement thus early of his half-formed paris plans. three months sooner than he designed he should be due in london for family reasons; should have to keep within the limit of four months abroad; and as his own house would not be free till july, would have to hire one from the end of march. "in these circumstances i think i shall send charley to king's-college after christmas. i am sorry he should lose so much french, but don't you think to break another half-year's schooling would be a pity? of my own will i would not send him to king's-college at all, but to bruce-castle instead. i suppose, however, miss coutts is best. we will talk over all this when i come to london." the offer to take charge of his eldest son's education had been pressed upon dickens by this true friend, to whose delicate and noble consideration for him it would hardly become me to make other allusion here. munificent as the kindness was, however, it was yet only the smallest part of the obligation which dickens felt that he owed this lady; to whose generous schemes for the neglected and uncared-for classes of the population, in all which he deeply sympathised, he did the very utmost to render, through many years, unstinted service of his time and his labour, with sacrifice unselfish as her own. his proposed early visit to london, named in this letter, was to see the rehearsal of his christmas story, dramatised by mr. albert smith for mr. and mrs. keeley at the lyceum; and my own proposed visit to paris was to be in the middle of january. "it will then be the height of the season, and a good time for testing the unaccountable french vanity which really does suppose there are no fogs here, but that they are all in london."[ ] the opening of his next letter, which bore date the th of december, and its amusing sequel, will sufficiently speak for themselves. "cold intense. the water in the bedroom-jugs freezes into solid masses from top to bottom, bursts the jugs with reports like small cannon, and rolls out on the tables and wash-stands, hard as granite. i stick to the shower-bath, but have been most hopelessly out of sorts--writing sorts; that's all. couldn't begin, in the strange place; took a violent dislike to my study, and came down into the drawing-room; couldn't find a corner that would answer my purpose; fell into a black contemplation of the waning month; sat six hours at a stretch, and wrote as many lines, &c. &c. &c. . . . then, you know what arrangements are necessary with the chairs and tables; and then what correspondence had to be cleared off; and then how i tried to settle to my desk, and went about and about it, and dodged at it, like a bird at a lump of sugar. in short i have just begun; five printed pages finished, i should say; and hope i shall be blessed with a better condition this next week, or i shall be behind-hand. i shall try to go at it--hard. i can't do more. . . . there is rather a good man lives in this street, and i have had a correspondence with him which is preserved for your inspection. his name is barthélemy. he wears a prodigious spanish cloak, a slouched hat, an immense beard, and long black hair. he called the other day and left his card. allow me to enclose his card, which has originality and merit. [illustration: =rue de courcelles= _barthélemy_ = .=] roche said i wasn't at home. yesterday, he wrote me to say that he too was a 'littérateur'--that he had called, in compliment to my distinguished reputation--'qu'il n'avait pas été reçu--qu'il n'était pas habitué à cette sorte de procédé--et qu'il pria monsieur dickens d'oublier son nom, sa mémoire, sa carte, et sa visite, et de considérer qu'elle n'avait pas été rendu!' of course i wrote him a very polite reply immediately, telling him good-humouredly that he was quite mistaken, and that there were always two weeks in the beginning of every month when m. dickens ne pouvait rendre visite à personne. he wrote back to say that he was more than satisfied; that it was his case too, at the end of every month; and that when busy himself, he not only can't receive or pay visits, but--'tombe, généralement, aussi, dans des humeurs noires qui approchent de l'anthropophagie!!!' i think that's pretty well." he was in london eight days, from the th to the rd of december;[ ] and among the occupations of his visit, besides launching his little story on the stage, was the settlement of form for a cheap edition of his writings, which began in the following year. it was to be printed in double-columns, and issued weekly in three-halfpenny numbers; there were to be new prefaces, but no illustrations; and for each book something less than a fourth of the original price was to be charged. its success was very good, but did not come even near to the mark of the later issues of his writings. his own feeling as to this, however, though any failure at the moment affected him on other grounds, was always that of a quiet confidence; and he had expressed this in a proposed dedication of this very edition, which for other reasons was ultimately laid aside. it will be worth preserving here. "this cheap edition of my books is dedicated to the english people, in whose approval, if the books be true in spirit, they will live, and out of whose memory, if they be false, they will very soon die." upon his return to paris i had frequent report of his progress with his famous fifth number, on the completion of which i was to join him. the day at one time seemed doubtful. "it would be miserable to have to work while you were here. still, i make such sudden starts, and am so possessed of what i am going to do, that the fear may prove to be quite groundless, and if any alteration would trouble you, let the th stand at all hazards." the cold he described as so intense, and the price of fuel so enormous, that though the house was not half warmed ("as you'll say, when you feel it") it cost him very near a pound a day. begging-letter writers had found out "monsieur dickens, le romancier célèbre," and waylaid him at the door and in the street as numerously as in london: their distinguishing peculiarity being that they were nearly all of them "chevaliers de la garde impériale de sa majesté napoléon le grand," and that their letters bore immense seals with coats of arms as large as five-shilling pieces. his friends the watsons passed new year's day with him on their way to rockingham from lausanne, leaving that country covered with snow and the bise blowing cruelly over it, but describing it as nothing to the cold of paris. on the day that closed the old year he had gone into the morgue and seen an old man with grey head lying there. "it seemed the strangest thing in the world that it should have been necessary to take any trouble to stop such a feeble, spent, exhausted morsel of life. it was just dusk when i went in; the place was empty; and he lay there, all alone, like an impersonation of the wintry eighteen hundred and forty-six. . . . i find i am getting inimitable, so i'll stop." the time for my visit having come, i had grateful proof of the minute and thoughtful provision characteristic of him in everything. my dinner had been ordered to the second at boulogne, my place in the malle-poste taken, and these and other services announced in a letter, which, by way of doing its part also in the kindly work of preparation, broke out into french. he never spoke that language very well, his accent being somehow defective; but he practised himself into writing it with remarkable ease and fluency. "i have written to the hôtel des bains at boulogne to send on to calais and take your place in the malle-poste. . . . of course you know that you'll be assailed with frightful shouts all along the two lines of ropes from all the touters in boulogne, and of course you'll pass on like the princess who went up the mountain after the talking bird; but don't forget quietly to single out the hôtel des bains commissionnaire. the following circumstances will then occur. my experience is more recent than yours, and i will throw them into a dramatic form. . . . you are filtered into the little office, where there are some soldiers; and a gentleman with a black beard and a pen and ink sitting behind a counter. _barbe noire_ (to the lord of l. i. f.). monsieur, votre passeport. _monsieur._ monsieur, le voici! _barbe noire._ où allez-vous, monsieur? _monsieur._ monsieur, je vais à paris. _barbe noire._ quand allez-vous partir, monsieur? _monsieur._ monsieur, je vais partir aujourd'hui. avec la malle-poste. _barbe noire._ c'est bien. (to gendarme.) laissez sortir monsieur! _gendarme._ par ici, monsieur, s'il vous plait. le gendarme ouvert une très petite porte. monsieur se trouve subitement entouré de tous les gamins, agents, commissionnaires, porteurs, et polissons, en général, de boulogne, qui s'élancent sur lui, en poussant des cris épouvantables. monsieur est, pour le moment, tout-à-fait effrayé et bouleversé. mais monsieur reprend ses forces et dit, de haute voix: 'le commissionnaire de l'hôtel des bains!' _un petit homme_ (s'avançant rapidement, et en souriant doucement). me voici, monsieur. monsieur fors tair, n'est-ce pas? . . . alors. . . . alors monsieur se promène _à_ l'hôtel des bains, où monsieur trouvera qu'un petit salon particulier, en haut, est déjà préparé pour sa réception, et que son dîner est déjà commandé, aux soins du brave courier, _à midi et demi_. . . . monsieur mangera son dîner près du feu, avec beaucoup de plaisir, et il boirera de vin rouge à la santé de monsieur de boze, et sa famille intéressante et aimable. la malle-poste arrivera au bureau de la poste aux lettres à deux heures ou peut-être un peu plus tard. mais monsieur chargera le commissionnaire d'y l'accompagner de bonne heure, car c'est beaucoup mieux de l'attendre que de la perdre. la malle-poste arrivé, monsieur s'assiéra, aussi confortablement qu'il le peut, et il y restera jusqu'à son arrivé au bureau de la poste aux lettres à paris. parceque, le convoi (_train_) n'est pas l'affaire de monsieur, qui continuera s'asseoir dans la malle-poste, sur le chemin de fer, et après le chemin de fer, jusqu'il se trouve à la basse-cour du bureau de la poste aux lettres à paris, où il trouvera une voiture qui a été dépêché de la rue de courcelles, quarante-huit. mais monsieur aura la bonté d'observer--si le convoi arriverait à amiens après le départ du convoi à minuit, il faudra y rester jusqu'à l'arrivé d'un autre convoi à trois heures moins un quart. en attendant, monsieur peut rester au buffet (_refreshment room_), où l'on peut toujours trouver un bon feu, et du café chaud, et des très bonnes choses à boire et à manger, pendant toute la nuit.--est-ce que monsieur comprend parfaitement toutes ces règles pour sa guidance?--vive le roi des français! roi de la nation la plus grande, et la plus noble, et la plus extraordinairement merveilleuse, du monde! a bas des anglais! "charles dickens, "français naturalisé, et citoyen de paris." we passed a fortnight together, and crowded into it more than might seem possible to such a narrow space. with a dreadful insatiability we passed through every variety of sight-seeing, prisons, palaces, theatres, hospitals, the morgue and the lazare, as well as the louvre, versailles, st. cloud, and all the spots made memorable by the first revolution. the excellent comedian regnier, known to us through macready and endeared by many kindnesses, incomparable for his knowledge of the city and unwearying in friendly service, made us free of the green-room of the français, where, on the birthday of molière, we saw his "don juan" revived. at the conservatoire we witnessed the masterly teaching of samson; at the odéon saw a new play by ponsard, done but indifferently; at the variétés "gentil-bernard," with four grisettes as if stepped out of a picture by watteau; at the gymnase "clarisse harlowe," with a death-scene of rose cheri which comes back to me, through the distance of time, as the prettiest piece of pure and gentle stage-pathos in my memory; at the porte st. martin "lucretia borgia" by hugo; at the cirque, scenes of the great revolution, and all the battles of napoleon; at the comic opera, "gibby"; and at the palais royal the usual new-year's piece, in which alexandre dumas was shown in his study beside a pile of quarto volumes five feet high, which proved to be the first tableau of the first act of the first piece to be played on the first night of his new theatre. that new theatre, the historique, we also saw verging to a very short-lived completeness; and we supped with dumas himself, and eugène sue, and met théophile gautier and alphonse karr. we saw lamartine also, and had much friendly intercourse with scribe, and with the kind good-natured amedée pichot. one day we visited in the rue du bac the sick and ailing chateaubriand, whom we thought like basil montagu; found ourselves at the other extreme of opinion in the sculpture-room of david d'angers; and closed that day at the house of victor hugo, by whom dickens was received with infinite courtesy and grace. the great writer then occupied a floor in a noble corner-house in the place royale, the old quarter of ninon l'enclos and the people of the regency, of whom the gorgeous tapestries, the painted ceilings, the wonderful carvings and old golden furniture, including a canopy of state out of some palace of the middle age, quaintly and grandly reminded us. he was himself, however, the best thing we saw; and i find it difficult to associate the attitudes and aspect in which the world has lately wondered at him, with the sober grace and self-possessed quiet gravity of that night of twenty-five years ago. just then louis philippe had ennobled him, but the man's nature was written noble. rather under the middle size, of compact close-buttoned-up figure, with ample dark hair falling loosely over his close-shaven face, i never saw upon any features so keenly intellectual such a soft and sweet gentility, and certainly never heard the french language spoken with the picturesque distinctness given to it by victor hugo. he talked of his childhood in spain, and of his father having been governor of the tagus in napoleon's wars; spoke warmly of the english people and their literature; declared his preference for melody and simplicity over the music then fashionable at the conservatoire; referred kindly to ponsard, laughed at the actors who had murdered his tragedy at the odéon, and sympathized with the dramatic venture of dumas. to dickens he addressed very charming flattery, in the best taste; and my friend long remembered the enjoyment of that evening. there is little to add of our paris holiday, if indeed too much has not been said already. we had an adventure with a drunken coachman, of which the sequel showed at least the vigour and decisiveness of the police in regard to hired vehicles[ ] in those last days of the orleans monarchy. at the bibliothèque royale we were much interested by seeing, among many other priceless treasures, gutenberg's types, racine's notes in his copy of sophocles, rousseau's music, and voltaire's note upon frederick of prussia's letter. nor should i omit that in what dickens then told me, of even his small experience of the social aspects of paris, there seemed but the same disease which raged afterwards through the second empire. not many days after i left, all paris was crowding to the sale of a lady of the demi-monde, marie du plessis, who had led the most brilliant and abandoned of lives, and left behind her the most exquisite furniture and the most voluptuous and sumptuous bijouterie. dickens wished at one time to have pointed the moral of this life and death of which there was great talk in paris while we were together. the disease of satiety, which only less often than hunger passes for a broken heart, had killed her. "what do you want?" asked the most famous of the paris physicians, at a loss for her exact complaint. at last she answered: "to see my mother." she was sent for; and there came a simple breton peasant-woman clad in the quaint garb of her province, who prayed by her bed until she died. wonderful was the admiration and sympathy; and it culminated when eugène sue bought her prayer-book at the sale. our last talk before i quitted paris, after dinner at the embassy, was of the danger underlying all this, and of the signs also visible everywhere of the napoleon-worship which the orleanists themselves had most favoured. accident brought dickens to england a fortnight later, when again we met together, at gore-house, the self-contained reticent man whose doubtful inheritance was thus rapidly preparing to fall to him.[ ] the accident was the having underwritten his number of _dombey_ by two pages, which there was not time to supply otherwise than by coming to london to write them.[ ] this was done accordingly; but another greater trouble followed. he had hardly returned to paris when his eldest son, whom i had brought to england with me and placed in the house of doctor major, then head-master of king's-college-school, was attacked by scarlet fever; and this closed prematurely dickens's residence in paris. but though he and his wife at once came over, and were followed after some days by the children and their aunt, the isolation of the little invalid could not so soon be broken through. his father at last saw him, nearly a month before the rest, in a lodging in albany-street, where his grandmother, mrs. hogarth, had devoted herself to the charge of him; and an incident of the visit, which amused us all very much, will not unfitly introduce the subject that waits me in my next chapter. an elderly charwoman employed about the place had shown so much sympathy in the family trouble, that mrs. hogarth specially told her of the approaching visit, and who it was that was coming to the sick-room. "lawk ma'am!" she said. "is the young gentleman upstairs the son of the man that put together _dombey_?" reassured upon this point, she explained her question by declaring that she never thought there was a man that _could_ have put together _dombey_. being pressed farther as to what her notion was of this mystery of a _dombey_ (for it was known she could not read), it turned out that she lodged at a snuff-shop kept by a person named douglas, where there were several other lodgers; and that on the first monday of every month there was a tea, and the landlord read the month's number of _dombey_, those only of the lodgers who subscribed to the tea partaking of that luxury, but all having the benefit of the reading; and the impression produced on the old charwoman revealed itself in the remark with which she closed her account of it. "lawk ma'am! i thought that three or four men must have put together _dombey_!" dickens thought there was something of a compliment in this, and was not ungrateful. [illustration] footnotes: [ ] it had also the mention of another floating fancy for the weekly periodical which was still and always present to his mind, and which settled down at last, as the reader knows, into _household words_. "as to the review, i strongly incline to the notion of a kind of _spectator_ (addison's)--very cheap, and pretty frequent. we must have it thoroughly discussed. it would be a great thing to found something. if the mark between a sort of _spectator_, and a different sort of _athenæum_, could be well hit, my belief is that a deal might be done. but it should be something with a marked and distinctive and obvious difference, in its design, from any other existing periodical." [ ] some smaller items of family news were in the same letter. "mamey and katey have come out in parisian dresses, and look very fine. they are not proud, and send their loves. skittles is cutting teeth, and gets cross towards evening. frankey is smaller than ever, and walter very large. charley in statu quo. everything is enormously dear. fuel, stupendously so. in airing the house, we burnt five pounds' worth of firewood in one week!! we mix it with coal now, as we used to do in italy, and find the fires much warmer. to warm the house thoroughly, this singular habitation requires fires on the ground floor. we burn three. . . ." [ ] "i shall bring the brave, though i have no use for him. he'd die if i didn't." [ ] dickens's first letter after my return described it to me. "do you remember my writing a letter to the prefet of police about that coachman? i heard no more about it until this very day" ( th of february), "when, at the moment of your letter arriving, roche put his head in at the door (i was busy writing in the baronial drawing-room) and said, 'here is datter cocher!'--sir, he had been in prison ever since! and being released this morning, was sent by the police to pay back the franc and a half, and to beg pardon, and to get a certificate that he had done so, or he could not go on the stand again! isn't this admirable? but the culminating point of the story (it could happen with nobody but me) is that he was drunk when he came!! not very, but his eye was fixed, and he swayed in his sabots, and smelt of wine, and told roche incoherently that he wouldn't have done it (committed the offence, that is) if the people hadn't made him. he seemed to be troubled with a phantasmagorial belief that all paris had gathered round us that night in the rue st. honoré, and urged him on with frantic shouts. . . . snow, frost, and cold. . . . the duke of bordeaux is very well, and dines at the tuileries to-morrow. . . . _when_ i have done, i will write you a brilliant letter. . . . loves from all. . . . your blue and golden bed looks desolate." the allusion to the duc de bordeaux was to remind me pleasantly of a slip of his own during our talk with chateaubriand, when, at a loss to say something interesting to the old royalist, he bethought him to enquire with sympathy when he had last seen the representative of the elder branch of bourbons, as if he were resident in the city then and there! [ ] this was on sunday, the st of february, when a party were assembled of whom i think the french emperor, his cousin the prince napoleon, doctor quin, dickens's eldest son, and myself, are now the only survivors. lady blessington had received the day before from her brother major power, who held a military appointment in hobart town, a small oil-painting of a girl's face by the murderer wainewright (mentioned on a former page as having been seen by us together in newgate), who was among the convicts there under sentence of transportation, and who had contrived somehow to put the expression of his own wickedness into the portrait of a nice kind-hearted girl. major power knew nothing of the man's previous history at this time, and had employed him on the painting out of a sort of charity. as soon as the truth went back, wainewright was excluded from houses before open to him, and shortly after died very miserably. what reynolds said of portrait painting, to explain its frequent want of refinement, that a man could only put into a face what he had in himself, was forcibly shown in this incident. the villain's story altogether moved dickens to the same interest as it had excited in another profound student of humanity (sir edward lytton), and, as will be seen, he also introduced him into one of his later writings. [ ] ". . . i am horrified to find that the first chapter makes _at least_ two pages less than i had supposed, and i have a terrible apprehension that there will not be copy enough for the number! as it could not possibly come out short, and as there would be no greater possibility of sending to me, in this short month, to supply what may be wanted, i decide--after the first burst of nervousness is gone--_to follow this letter by diligence to-morrow morning_. the malle poste is full for days and days. i shall hope to be with you some time on friday." c. d. to j. f. paris: wednesday, th february, . the life of charles dickens by john forster. three volumes in two. vol. ii. boston: james r. osgood & company, (late ticknor & fields, and fields, osgood, & co.) . chapter xvi. dombey and son. - . drift of the tale--why undervalued--mistakes of critics--adherence to first design--design as to paul and sister--as to dombey and daughter--real character of hero--walter gay--omissions proposed--anxiety as to face of his hero--passage of original ms. omitted--artist-fancies for mr. dombey--dickens and his illustrators--hints for artist--letter to cruikshank--an experience of ben jonson's--sale of the first number--a reading of the second number--scene at mrs. pipchin's--the mrs. pipchin of his childhood--first thought of his autobiography--paul's school-life--jeffrey's forecast of the tale--a damper to the spirit--a fancy for new zealand--close of paul's life--jeffrey on paul's death--florence and little nell--jeffrey on the edith scenes--edith's first destiny--jack bunsby--dombey household--blimber establishment--supposed originals. though his proposed new "book in shilling numbers" had been mentioned to me three months before he quitted england, he knew little himself at that time or when he left excepting the fact, then also named, that it was to do with pride what its predecessor had done with selfishness. but this limit he soon overpassed; and the succession of independent groups of character, surprising for the variety of their forms and handling, with which he enlarged and enriched his plan, went far beyond the range of the passion of mr. dombey and mr. dombey's second wife. obvious causes have led to grave under-estimates of this novel. its first five numbers forced up interest and expectation so high that the rest of necessity fell short; but it is not therefore true of the general conception that thus the wine of it had been drawn, and only the lees left. in the treatment of acknowledged masterpieces in literature it not seldom occurs that the genius and the art of the master have not pulled together to the close; but if a work of imagination is to forfeit its higher meed of praise because its pace at starting has not been uniformly kept, hard measure would have to be dealt to books of undeniable greatness. among other critical severities it was said here, that paul died at the beginning not for any need of the story, but only to interest its readers somewhat more; and that mr. dombey relented at the end for just the same reason. what is now to be told will show how little ground existed for either imputation. the so-called "violent change" in the hero has more lately been revived in the notices of mr. taine, who says of it that "_it spoils a fine novel_;" but it will be seen that in the apparent change no unnaturalness of change was involved, and certainly the adoption of it was not a sacrifice to "public morality." while every other portion of the tale had to submit to such varieties in development as the characters themselves entailed, the design affecting paul and his father had been planned from the opening, and was carried without alteration to the close. and of the perfect honesty with which dickens himself repelled such charges as those to which i have adverted, when he wrote the preface to his collected edition, remarkable proof appears in the letter to myself which accompanied the manuscript of his proposed first number. no other line of the tale had at this time been placed on paper. when the first chapter only was done, and again when all was finished but eight slips, he had sent me letters formerly quoted. what follows came with the manuscript of the first four chapters on the th of july. "i will now go on to give you an outline of my immediate intentions in reference to _dombey_. i design to show mr. d. with that one idea of the son taking firmer and firmer possession of him, and swelling and bloating his pride to a prodigious extent. as the boy begins to grow up, i shall show him quite impatient for his getting on, and urging his masters to set him great tasks, and the like. but the natural affection of the boy will turn towards the despised sister; and i purpose showing her learning all sorts of things, of her own application and determination, to assist him in his lessons; and helping him always. when the boy is about ten years old (in the fourth number), he will be taken ill, and will die; and when he is ill, and when he is dying, i mean to make him turn always for refuge to the sister still, and keep the stern affection of the father at a distance. so mr. dombey--for all his greatness, and for all his devotion to the child--will find himself at arms' length from him even then; and will see that his love and confidence are all bestowed upon his sister, whom mr. dombey has used--and so has the boy himself too, for that matter--as a mere convenience and handle to him. the death of the boy is a death-blow, of course, to all the father's schemes and cherished hopes; and 'dombey and son,' as miss tox will say at the end of the number, 'is a daughter after all.'. . . from that time, i purpose changing his feeling of indifference and uneasiness towards his daughter into a positive hatred. for he will always remember how the boy had his arm round her neck when he was dying, and whispered to her, and would take things only from her hand, and never thought of him. . . . at the same time i shall change _her_ feeling towards _him_ for one of a greater desire to love him, and to be loved by him; engendered in her compassion for his loss, and her love for the dead boy whom, in his way, he loved so well too. so i mean to carry the story on, through all the branches and offshoots and meanderings that come up; and through the decay and downfall of the house, and the bankruptcy of dombey, and all the rest of it; when his only staff and treasure, and his unknown good genius always, will be this rejected daughter, who will come out better than any son at last, and whose love for him, when discovered and understood, will be his bitterest reproach. for the struggle with himself which goes on in all such obstinate natures, will have ended then; and the sense of his injustice, which you may be sure has never quitted him, will have at last a gentler office than that of only making him more harshly unjust. . . . i rely very much on susan nipper grown up, and acting partly as florence's maid, and partly as a kind of companion to her, for a strong character throughout the book. i also rely on the toodles, and on polly, who, like everybody else, will be found by mr. dombey to have gone over to his daughter and become attached to her. this is what cooks call 'the stock of the soup.' all kinds of things will be added to it, of course." admirable is the illustration thus afforded of his way of working, and very interesting the evidence it gives of the genuine feeling for his art with which this book was begun. the close of the letter put an important question affecting gravely a leading person in the tale. . . . "about the boy, who appears in the last chapter of the first number, i think it would be a good thing to disappoint all the expectations that chapter seems to raise of his happy connection with the story and the heroine, and to show him gradually and naturally trailing away, from that love of adventure and boyish light-heartedness, into negligence, idleness, dissipation, dishonesty, and ruin. to show, in short, that common, every-day, miserable declension of which we know so much in our ordinary life; to exhibit something of the philosophy of it, in great temptations and an easy nature; and to show how the good turns into bad, by degrees. if i kept some little notion of florence always at the bottom of it, i think it might be made very powerful and very useful. what do you think? do you think it may be done, without making people angry? i could bring out solomon gills and captain cuttle well, through such a history; and i descry, anyway, an opportunity for good scenes between captain cuttle and miss tox. this question of the boy is very important. . . . let me hear all you think about it. hear! i wish i could.". . . for reasons that need not be dwelt upon here, but in which dickens ultimately acquiesced, walter was reserved for a happier future; and the idea thrown out took subsequent shape, amid circumstances better suited to its excellent capabilities, in the striking character of richard carstone in the tale of _bleak house_. but another point had risen meanwhile for settlement not admitting of delay. in the first enjoyment of writing after his long rest, to which a former letter has referred, he had over-written his number by nearly a fifth; and upon his proposal to transfer the fourth chapter to his second number, replacing it by another of fewer pages, i had to object that this might damage his interest at starting. thus he wrote on the th of august: ". . . i have received your letter to-day with the greatest delight, and am overjoyed to find that you think so well of the number. i thought well of it myself, and that it was a great plunge into a story; but i did not know how far i might be stimulated by my paternal affection. . . . what should you say, for a notion of the illustrations, to 'miss tox introduces the party?' and 'mr. dombey and family?' meaning polly toodle, the baby, mr. dombey, and little florence: whom i think it would be well to have. walter, his uncle, and captain cuttle, might stand over. it is a great question with me, now, whether i had not better take this last chapter bodily out, and make it the last chapter of the second number; writing some other new one to close the first number. i think it would be impossible to take out six pages without great pangs. do you think such a proceeding as i suggest would weaken number one very much? i wish you would tell me, as soon as you can after receiving this, what your opinion is on the point. if you thought it would weaken the first number, beyond the counterbalancing advantage of strengthening the second, i would cut down somehow or other, and let it go. i shall be anxious to hear your opinion. in the meanwhile i will go on with the second, which i have just begun. i have not been quite myself since we returned from chamounix, owing to the great heat." two days later: "i have begun a little chapter to end the first number, and certainly think it will be well to keep the ten pages of wally and co. entire for number two. but this is still subject to your opinion, which i am very anxious to know. i have not been in writing cue all the week; but really the weather has rendered it next to impossible to work." four days later: "i shall send you with this (on the chance of your being favourable to that view of the subject) a small chapter to close the first number, in lieu of the solomon gills one. i have been hideously idle all the week, and have done nothing but this trifling interloper: but hope to begin again on monday--ding dong. . . . the inkstand is to be cleaned out to-night, and refilled, preparatory to execution. i trust i may shed a good deal of ink in the next fortnight." then, the day following, on arrival of my letter, he submitted to a hard necessity. "i received yours to-day. a decided facer to me! i had been counting, alas! with a miser's greed, upon the gained ten pages. . . . no matter. i have no doubt you are right, and strength is everything. the addition of two lines to each page, or something less,--coupled with the enclosed cuts, will bring it all to bear smoothly. in case more cutting is wanted, i must ask you to try your hand. i shall agree to whatever you propose." these cuttings, absolutely necessary as they were, were not without much disadvantage; and in the course of them he had to sacrifice a passage foreshadowing his final intention as to dombey. it would have shown, thus early, something of the struggle with itself that such pride must always go through; and i think it worth preserving in a note.[ ] [illustration] [illustration] several letters now expressed his anxiety and care about the illustrations. a nervous dread of caricature in the face of his merchant-hero, had led him to indicate by a living person the type of city-gentleman he would have had the artist select; and this is all he meant by his reiterated urgent request, "i do wish he could get a glimpse of a, for he is the very dombey." but as the glimpse of a was not to be had, it was resolved to send for selection by himself glimpses of other letters of the alphabet, actual heads as well as fanciful ones; and the sheetful i sent out, which he returned when the choice was made, i here reproduce in fac-simile. in itself amusing, it has now the important use of showing, once for all, in regard to dickens's intercourse with his artists, that they certainly had not an easy time with him; that, even beyond what is ordinary between author and illustrator, his requirements were exacting; that he was apt, as he has said himself, to build up temples in his mind not always makeable with hands; that in the results he had rarely anything but disappointment; and that of all notions to connect with him the most preposterous would be that which directly reversed these relations, and depicted him as receiving from any artist the inspiration he was always vainly striving to give. an assertion of this kind was contradicted in my first volume; but it has since been repeated so explicitly, that to prevent any possible misconstruction from a silence i would fain have persisted in, the distasteful subject is again reluctantly introduced. it originated with a literary friend of the excellent artist by whom _oliver twist_ was illustrated from month to month, during the earlier part of its monthly issue. this gentleman stated, in a paper written and published in america, that mr. cruikshank, by executing the plates before opportunity was afforded him of seeing the letter press, had suggested to the writer the finest effects in his story; and to this, opposing my clear recollection of all the time the tale was in progress, it became my duty to say that within my own personal knowledge the alleged fact was not true. "dickens," the artist is reported an saying to his admirer, "ferreted out that bundle of drawings, and when he came to the one which represents fagin in the cell, he silently studied it for half an hour, and told me he was tempted to change the whole plot of his story. . . . i consented to let him write up to my designs; and that was the way in which fagin, sikes, and nancy were created." happily i was able to add the complete refutation of this folly by producing a letter of dickens written at the time, which proved incontestably that the closing illustrations, including the two specially named in support of the preposterous charge, sikes and his dog, and fagin in his cell, had not even been seen by dickens until his finished book was on the eve of appearance. as however the distinguished artist, notwithstanding the refreshment of his memory by this letter, has permitted himself again to endorse the statement of his friend, i can only again print, on the same page which contains the strange language used by him, the words with which dickens himself repels its imputation on his memory. to some it may be more satisfactory if i print the latter in fac-simile; and so leave for ever a charge in itself so incredible that nothing would have justified farther allusion to it but the knowledge of my friend's old and true regard for mr. cruikshank, of which evidence will shortly appear, and my own respect for an original genius well able to subsist of itself without taking what belongs to others. [illustration: my dear cruikshank, i returned suddenly to town yesterday afternoon to look at the latter ["last" crossed out] pages of oliver twist before it was delivered to the booksellers, when i saw the majority of the plates in the last volume for the first time. with reference to the last one, rose maylie and oliver. without entering into the question of great haste or [word crossed out] any other cause which may have led to its being what it is. i am quite sure there can be little difference of opinion between us with [word crossed out] respect to the result--may] [illustration: i ask you whether you will object to designing [word crossed out] this plate afresh and doing so ~at once~ in order that as few impressions as possible of the present one may go forth? i feel confident [words crossed out] you know me too well to feel hurt by this enquiry, and with that confidence in you i have lost no time in preparing it.][ ] resuming the _dombey_ letters i find him on the th of august in better heart about his illustrator. "i shall gladly acquiesce in whatever more changes or omissions you propose. browne seems to be getting on well. . . . he will have a good subject in paul's christening. mr. chick is like d, if you'll mention that when you think of it. the little chapter of miss tox and the major, which you alas! (but quite wisely) rejected from the first number, i have altered for the last of the second. i have not quite finished the middle chapter yet--having, i should say, three good days' work to do at it; but i hope it will be all a worthy successor to number one. i will send it as soon as finished." then, a little later: "browne is certainly interesting himself, and taking pains. i think the cover very good: perhaps with a little too much in it, but that is an ungrateful objection." the second week of september brought me the finished ms. of number two; and his letter of the rd of october, noticing objections taken to it, gives additional touches to this picture of him while at work. the matter that engages him is one of his masterpieces. there is nothing in all his writings more perfect, for what it shows of his best qualities, than the life and death of paul dombey. the comedy is admirable; nothing strained, everything hearty and wholesome in the laughter and fun; all who contribute to the mirth, doctor blimber and his pupils, mr. toots, the chicks and the toodles, miss tox and the major, paul and mrs. pipchin, up to his highest mark; and the serious scenes never falling short of it, from the death of paul's mother in the first number, to that of paul himself in the fifth, which, as a writer of genius with hardly exaggeration said, threw a whole nation into mourning. but see how eagerly this fine writer takes every suggestion, how little of self-esteem and self-sufficiency there is, with what a consciousness of the tendency of his humour to exuberance he surrenders what is needful to restrain it, and of what small account to him is any special piece of work in his care and his considerateness for the general design. i think of ben jonson's experience of the greatest of all writers. "he was indeed honest, and of an open and free nature; had an excellent phantasy, brave notions and gentle expressions; wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped." who it was that stopped _him_, and the ease of doing it, no one will doubt. whether he, as well as the writer of later time, might not with more advantage have been left alone, will be the only question. thus ran the letter of the rd of october: "miss tox's colony i will smash. walter's allusion to carker (would you take it _all_ out?) shall be dele'd. of course, you understand the man! i turned that speech over in my mind; but i thought it natural that a boy should run on, with such a subject, under the circumstances: having the matter so presented to him. . . . i thought of the possibility of malice on christening points of faith, and put the drag on as i wrote. where would you make the insertion, and to what effect? _that_ shall be done too. i want you to think the number sufficiently good stoutly to back up the first. it occurs to me--might not your doubt about the christening be a reason for not making the ceremony the subject of an illustration? just turn this over. again: if i could do it (i shall have leisure to consider the possibility before i begin), do you think it would be advisable to make number three a kind of half-way house between paul's infancy, and his being eight or nine years old?--in that case i should probably not kill him until the fifth number. do you think the people so likely to be pleased with florence, and walter, as to relish another number of them at their present age? otherwise, walter will be two or three and twenty, straightway. i wish you would think of this. . . . i am sure you are right about the christening. it shall be artfully and easily amended. . . . eh?" meanwhile, two days before this letter, his first number had been launched with a sale that transcended his hopes and brought back _nickleby_ days. the _dombey_ success "is brilliant!" he wrote to me on the th. "i had put before me thirty thousand as the limit of the most extreme success, saying that if we should reach that, i should be more than satisfied and more than happy; you will judge how happy i am! i read the second number here last night to the most prodigious and uproarious delight of the circle. i never saw or heard people laugh so. you will allow me to observe that my reading of the major has merit." what a valley of the shadow he had just been passing, in his journey through his christmas book, has before been told; but always, and with only too much eagerness, he sprang up under pressure. "a week of perfect idleness," he wrote to me on the th, "has brought me round again--idleness so rusting and devouring, so complete and unbroken, that i am quite glad to write the heading of the first chapter of number three to-day. i shall be slow at first, i fear, in consequence of that change of the plan. but i allow myself nearly three weeks for the number; designing, at present, to start for paris on the th of november. full particulars in future bills. just going to bed. i think i can make a good effect, on the after story, of the feeling created by the additional number before paul's death." . . . five more days confirmed him in this hope. "i am at work at _dombey_ with good speed, thank god. all well here. country stupendously beautiful. mountains covered with snow. rich, crisp weather." there was one drawback. the second number had gone out to him, and the illustrations he found to be so "dreadfully bad" that they made him "curl his legs up." they made him also more than usually anxious in regard to a special illustration on which he set much store, for the part he had in hand. the first chapter of it was sent me only four days later (nearly half the entire part, so freely his fancy was now flowing and overflowing), with intimation for the artist: "the best subject for browne will be at mrs. pipchin's; and if he liked to do a quiet odd thing, paul, mrs. pipchin, and the cat, by the fire, would be very good for the story. i earnestly hope he will think it worth a little extra care. the second subject, in case he shouldn't take a second from that same chapter, i will shortly describe as soon as i have it clearly (to-morrow or next day), and send it to _you_ by post." the result was not satisfactory; but as the artist more than redeemed it in the later course of the tale, and the present disappointment was mainly the incentive to that better success, the mention of the failure here will be excused for what it illustrates of dickens himself. "i am really _distressed_ by the illustration of mrs. pipchin and paul. it is so frightfully and wildly wide of the mark. good heaven! in the commonest and most literal construction of the text, it is all wrong. she is described as an old lady, and paul's 'miniature arm-chair' is mentioned more than once. he ought to be sitting in a little arm-chair down in the corner of the fireplace, staring up at her. i can't say what pain and vexation it is to be so utterly misrepresented. i would cheerfully have given a hundred pounds to have kept this illustration out of the book. he never could have got that idea of mrs. pipchin if he had attended to the text. indeed i think he does better without the text; for then the notion is made easy to him in short description, and he can't help taking it in." he felt the disappointment more keenly, because the conception of the grim old boarding-house keeper had taken back his thoughts to the miseries of his own child-life, and made her, as her prototype in verity was, a part of the terrible reality.[ ] i had forgotten, until i again read this letter of the th of november , that he thus early proposed to tell me that story of his boyish sufferings which a question from myself, of some months later date, so fully elicited. he was now hastening on with the close of his third number, to be ready for departure to paris. ". . . i hope to finish the number by next tuesday or wednesday. it is hard writing under these bird-of-passage circumstances, but i have no reason to complain, god knows, having come to no knot yet. . . . i hope you will like mrs. pipchin's establishment. it is from the life, and i was there--i don't suppose i was eight years old; but i remember it all as well, and certainly understood it as well, as i do now. we should be devilish sharp in what we do to children. i thought of that passage in my small life, at geneva. _shall i leave you my life in ms. when i die? there are some things in it that would touch you very much, and that might go on the same shelf with the first volume of holcroft's._" on the monday week after that was written he left lausanne for paris, and my first letter to him there was to say that he had overwritten his number by three pages. "i have taken out about two pages and a half," he wrote by return from the hotel brighton, "and the rest i must ask you to take out with the assurance that you will satisfy me in whatever you do. the sale, prodigious indeed! i am very thankful." next day he wrote as to walter. "i see it will be best as you advise, to give that idea up; and indeed i don't feel it would be reasonable to carry it out now. i am far from sure it could be wholesomely done, after the interest he has acquired. but when i have disposed of paul (poor boy!) i will consider the subject farther." the subject was never resumed. he was at the opening of his admirable fourth part, when, on the th of december, he wrote from the rue de courcelles: "here am i, writing letters, and delivering opinions, politico-economical and otherwise, as if there were no undone number, and no undone dick! well. cosi va il mondo (god bless me! italian! i beg your pardon)--and one must keep one's spirits up, if possible, even under _dombey_ pressure. paul, i shall slaughter at the end of number five. his school ought to be pretty good, but i haven't been able to dash at it freely, yet. however, i have avoided unnecessary dialogue so far, to avoid overwriting; and all i _have_ written is point." and so, in "point," it went to the close; the rich humour of its picture of doctor blimber and his pupils alternating with the quaint pathos of its picture of little paul; the first a good-natured exposure of the forcing-system and its fruits, as useful as the sterner revelation in _nickleby_ of the atrocities of mr. squeers, and the last even less attractive for the sweetness and sadness of its foreshadowing of a child's death, than for those strange images of a vague, deep thoughtfulness, of a shrewd unconscious intellect, of mysterious small philosophies and questionings, by which the young old-fashioned little creature has a glamour thrown over him as he is passing away. it was wonderfully original, this treatment of the part that thus preceded the close of paul's little life; and of which the first conception, as i have shown, was an afterthought. it quite took the death itself out of the region of pathetic commonplaces, and gave to it the proper relation to the sorrow of the little sister that survives it. it is a fairy vision to a piece of actual suffering; a sorrow with heaven's hues upon it, to a sorrow with all the bitterness of earth. the number had been finished, he had made his visit to london, and was again in the rue de courcelles, when on christmas day he sent me its hearty old wishes, and a letter of jeffrey's on his new story of which the first and second part had reached him. "many merry christmases, many happy new years, unbroken friendship, great accumulation of cheerful recollections, affection on earth, and heaven at last! . . . is it not a strange example of the hazard of writing in parts, that a man like jeffrey should form his notion of dombey and miss tox on three months' knowledge? i have asked him the same question, and advised him to keep his eye on both of them as time rolls on.[ ] i do not at heart, however, lay much real stress on his opinion, though one is naturally proud of awakening such sincere interest in the breast of an old man who has so long worn the blue and yellow. . . . he certainly did some service in his old criticisms, especially to crabbe. and though i don't think so highly of crabbe as i once did (feeling a dreary want of fancy in his poems), i think he deserved the pains-taking and conscientious tracking with which jeffrey followed him". . . . six days later he described himself sitting down to the performance of one of his greatest achievements, his number five, "most abominably dull and stupid. i have only written a slip, but i hope to get to work in strong earnest to-morrow. it occurred to me on special reflection, that the first chapter should be with paul and florence, and that it should leave a pleasant impression of the little fellow being happy, before the reader is called upon to see him die. i mean to have a genteel breaking-up at doctor blimber's therefore, for the midsummer vacation; and to show him in a little quiet light (now dawning through the chinks of my mind), which i hope will create an agreeable impression." then, two days later: ". . . i am working very slowly. you will see in the first two or three lines of the enclosed first subject, with what idea i am ploughing along. it is difficult; but a new way of doing it, it strikes me, and likely to be pretty." and then, after three days more, came something of a damper to his spirits, as he thus toiled along. he saw public allusion made to a review that had appeared in the _times_ of his christmas book, and it momentarily touched what he too truly called his morbid susceptibility to exasperation. "i see that the 'good old times' are again at issue with the inimitable b. another touch of a blunt razor on b.'s nervous system.--friday morning. inimitable very mouldy and dull. hardly able to work. dreamed of _timeses_ all night. disposed to go to new zealand and start a magazine." but soon he sprang up, as usual, more erect for the moment's pressure; and after not many days i heard that the number was as good as done. his letter was very brief, and told me that he had worked so hard the day before (tuesday, the th of january), and so incessantly, night as well as morning, that he had breakfasted and lain in bed till midday. "i hope i have been very successful." there was but one small chapter more to write, in which he and his little friend were to part company for ever; and the greater part of the night of the day on which it was written, thursday the th, he was wandering desolate and sad about the streets of paris. i arrived there the following morning on my visit; and as i alighted from the malle-poste, a little before eight o'clock, found him waiting for me at the gate of the post-office bureau. i left him on the nd of february with his writing-table in readiness for number six; but on the th, enclosing me subjects for illustration, he told me he was "not under weigh yet. can't begin." then, on the th, his birthday, he wrote to warn me he should be late. "could not begin before thursday last, and find it very difficult indeed to fall into the new vein of the story. i see no hope of finishing before the th at the earliest, in which case the steam will have to be put on for this short month. but it can't be helped. perhaps i shall get a rush of inspiration. . . . i will send the chapters as i write them, and you must not wait, of course, for me to read the end in type. to transfer to florence, instantly, all the previous interest, is what i am aiming at. for that, all sorts of other points must be thrown aside in this number. . . . we are going to dine again at the embassy to-day--with a very ill will on my part. all well. i hope when i write next i shall report myself in better cue. . . . i have had a tremendous outpouring from jeffrey about the last part, which he thinks the best thing past, present, or to come."[ ] three more days and i had the ms. of the completed chapter, nearly half the number (in which as printed it stands second, the small middle chapter having been transposed to its place). "i have taken the most prodigious pains with it; the difficulty, immediately after paul's death, being very great. may you like it! my head aches over it now (i write at one o'clock in the morning), and i am strange to it. . . . i think i shall manage dombey's second wife (introduced by the major), and the beginning of that business in his present state of mind, very naturally and well. . . . paul's death has amazed paris. all sorts of people are open-mouthed with admiration. . . . when i have done, i'll write you _such_ a letter! don't cut me short in your letters just now, because i'm working hard. . . . _i_'ll make up. . . . snow--snow--snow--a foot thick." the day after this, came the brief chapter which was printed as the first; and then, on the th, which he had fixed as his limit for completion, the close reached me; but i had meanwhile sent him out so much of the proof as convinced him that he had underwritten his number by at least two pages, and determined him to come to london. the incident has been told which soon after closed his residence abroad, and what remained of his story was written in england. i shall not farther dwell upon it in any detail. it extended over the whole of the year; and the interest and passion of it, when to himself both became centred in florence and in edith dombey, took stronger hold of him, and more powerfully affected him, than had been the case in any of his previous writings, i think, excepting only the close of the _old curiosity shop_. jeffrey compared florence to little nell, but the differences from the outset are very marked, and it is rather in what disunites or separates them that we seem to find the purpose aimed at. if the one, amid much strange and grotesque violence surrounding her, expresses the innocent, unconsciousness of childhood to such rough ways of the world, passing unscathed as una to her home beyond it, the other is this character in action and resistance, a brave young resolute heart that will _not_ be crushed, and neither sinks nor yields, but from earth's roughest trials works out her own redemption even here. of edith from the first jeffrey judged more rightly; and, when the story was nearly half done, expressed his opinion about her, and about the book itself, in language that pleased dickens for the special reason that at the time this part of the book had seemed to many to have fallen greatly short of the splendour of its opening. jeffrey said however quite truly, claiming to be heard with authority as his "critic-laureate," that of all his writings it was perhaps the most finished in diction, and that it equalled the best in the delicacy and fineness of its touches, "while it rises to higher and deeper passions, not resting, like most of the former, in sweet thoughtfulness, and thrilling and attractive tenderness, but boldly wielding all the lofty and terrible elements of tragedy, and bringing before us the appalling struggles of a proud, scornful, and repentant spirit." not that she was exactly this. edith's worst qualities are but the perversion of what should have been her best. a false education in her, and a tyrant passion in her husband, make them other than nature meant; and both show how life may run its evil course against the higher dispensations. as the catastrophe came in view, a nice point in the management of her character and destiny arose. i quote from a letter of the th of november, when he was busy with his fourteenth part. "of course she hates carker in the most deadly degree. i have not elaborated that, now, because (as i was explaining to browne the other day) i have relied on it very much for the effect of her death. but i have no question that what you suggest will be an improvement. the strongest place to put it in, would be the close of the chapter immediately before this last one. i want to make the two first chapters as light as i can, but i will try to do it, solemnly, in that place." then came the effect of this fourteenth number on jeffrey; raising the question of whether the end might not come by other means than her death, and bringing with it a more bitter humiliation for her destroyer. while engaged on the fifteenth ( st december) dickens thus wrote to me: "i am thoroughly delighted that you like what i sent. i enclose designs. shadow-plate, poor. but i think mr. dombey admirable. one of the prettiest things in the book ought to be at the end of the chapter i am writing now. but in florence's marriage, and in her subsequent return to her father, i see a brilliant opportunity. . . . note from jeffrey this morning, who won't believe (positively refuses) that edith is carker's mistress. what do you think of a kind of inverted maid's tragedy, and a tremendous scene of her undeceiving carker, and giving him to know that she never meant that?" so it was done; and when he sent me the chapter in which edith says adieu to florence, i had nothing but praise and pleasure to express. "i need not say," he wrote in reply, "i can't, how delighted and overjoyed i am by what you say and feel of it. i propose to show dombey _twice_ more; and in the end, leave him exactly as you describe." the end came; and, at the last moment when correction was possible, this note arrived. "i suddenly remember that i have forgotten diogenes. will you put him in the last little chapter? after the word 'favourite' in reference to miss tox, you can add, 'except with diogenes, who is growing old and wilful.' or, on the last page of all, after 'and with them two children: boy and girl' (i quote from memory), you might say 'and an old dog is generally in their company,' or to that effect. just what you think best." that was on saturday the th of march, , and may be my last reference to _dombey_ until the book, in its place with the rest, finds critical allusion when i close. but as the confidences revealed in this chapter have dealt wholly with the leading currents of interest, there is yet room for a word on incidental persons in the story, of whom i have seen other so-called confidences alleged which it will be only right to state have really no authority. and first let me say what unquestionable evidence these characters give of the unimpaired freshness, richness, variety, and fitness of dickens's invention at this time. glorious captain cuttle, laying his head to the wind and fighting through everything; his friend jack bunsby,[ ] with a head too ponderous to lay-to, and so falling victim to the inveterate macstinger; good-hearted, modest, considerate toots, whose brains rapidly go as his whiskers come, but who yet gets back from contact with the world, in his shambling way, some fragments of the sense pumped out of him by the forcing blimbers; breathless susan nipper, beaming polly toodle, the plaintive wickham, and the awful pipchin, each with her duty in the starched dombey household so nicely appointed as to seem born for only that; simple thoughtful old gills and his hearty young lad of a nephew; mr. toodle and his children, with the charitable grinder's decline and fall; miss tox, obsequious flatterer from nothing but good-nature; spectacled and analytic, but not unkind miss blimber; and the good droning dull benevolent doctor himself, withering even the fruits of his well-spread dinner-table with his _it is remarkable, mr. feeder, that the romans_--"at the mention of which terrible people, their implacable enemies, every young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the doctor, with an assumption of the deepest interest." so vivid and life-like were all these people, to the very youngest of the young gentlemen, that it became natural eagerly to seek out for them actual prototypes; but i think i can say with some confidence of them all, that, whatever single traits may have been taken from persons known to him (a practice with all writers, and very specially with dickens), only two had living originals. his own experience of mrs. pipchin has been related; i had myself some knowledge of miss blimber; and the little wooden midshipman did actually (perhaps does still) occupy his post of observation in leadenhall-street. the names that have been connected, i doubt not in perfect good faith, with sol gills, perch the messenger, and captain cuttle, have certainly not more foundation than the fancy a courteous correspondent favours me with, that the redoubtable captain must have sat for his portrait to charles lamb's blustering, loud-talking, hook-handed mr. mingay. as to the amiable and excellent city-merchant whose name has been given to mr. dombey, he might with the same amount of justice or probability be supposed to have originated _coriolanus_ or _timon of athens_. footnotes: [ ] "he had already laid his hand upon the bell-rope to convey his usual summons to richards, when his eye fell upon a writing-desk, belonging to his deceased wife, which had been taken, among other things, from a cabinet in her chamber. it was not the first time that his eye had lighted on it. he carried the key in his pocket; and he brought it to his table and opened it now--having previously locked the room door--with a well accustomed hand. "from beneath a heap of torn and cancelled scraps of paper, he took one letter that remained entire. involuntarily holding his breath as he opened this document, and 'bating in the stealthy action something of his arrogant demeanour, he sat down, resting his head upon one hand, and read it through. "he read it slowly and attentively, and with a nice particularity to every syllable. otherwise than as his great deliberation seemed unnatural, and perhaps the result of an effort equally great, he allowed no sign of emotion to escape him. when he had read it through, he folded and refolded it slowly several times, and tore it carefully into fragments. checking his hand in the act of throwing these away, he put them in his pocket, as if unwilling to trust them even to the chances of being reunited and deciphered; and instead of ringing, as usual, for little paul, he sat solitary all the evening in his cheerless room." from the original ms. of _dombey and son_. [ ] "i will now explain that 'oliver twist,' the ----, the ----, etc." (naming books by another writer), "were produced in an entirely different manner from what would be considered as the usual course; _for i, the artist, suggested to the authors of those works the original idea, or subject_, for them to write out--furnishing, at the same time, the principal characters and the scenes. and then, as the tale had to be produced in monthly parts, the _writer_, or _author_, and the artist, had every month to arrange and settle what scenes, or subjects, and characters were to be introduced, and the author had to _weave_ in such scenes as i wished to represent."--_the artist and the author_, by george cruikshank, p. . (bell & daldy: .) the italics are mr. cruikshank's own. [ ] i take, from his paper of notes for the number, the various names, beginning with that of her real prototype, out of which the name selected came to him at last. "mrs. roylance . . . house at the seaside. mrs. wrychin. mrs. tipchin. mrs. alchin. mrs. somching. mrs. pipchin." see vol. i. p. . [ ] some passages may be subjoined from the letter, as it does not appear among those printed by lord cockburn. "edinburgh, _ th december_, ' . my dear, dear dickens!--and dearer every day, as you every day give me more pleasure and do me more good! you do not wonder at this style? for you know that i have been _in love with you_, ever since nelly! and i do not care now who knows it. . . . the dombeys, my dear d! how can i thank you enough for them! the truth, and the delicacy, and the softness and depth of the pathos in that opening death-scene, could only come from one hand; and the exquisite taste which spares all details, and breaks off just when the effect is at its height, is wholly yours. but it is florence on whom my hopes chiefly repose; and in her i see the promise of another nelly! though reserved, i hope, for a happier fate, and destined to let us see what a _grown-up_ female angel is like. i expect great things, too, from walter, who begins charmingly, and will be still better i fancy than young nickleby, to whom as yet he bears most resemblance. i have good hopes too of susan nipper, who i think has great capabilities, and whom i trust you do not mean to drop. dombey is rather too hateful, and strikes me as a mitigated jonas, without his brutal coarseness and ruffian ferocity. i am quite in the dark as to what you mean to make of paul, but shall watch his development with interest. about miss tox, and her major, and the chicks, perhaps i do not care enough. but you know i always grudge the exquisite painting you waste on such portraits. i love the captain, tho', and his hook, as much as you can wish; and look forward to the future appearances of carker junior, with expectations which i know will not be disappointed. . . ." [ ] "edinburgh, _ st january_, . oh, my dear, dear dickens! what a no. you have now given us! i have so cried and sobbed over it last night, and again this morning; and felt my heart purified by those tears, and blessed and loved you for making me shed them; and i never can bless and love you enough. since the divine nelly was found dead on her humble couch, beneath the snow and the ivy, there has been nothing like the actual dying of that sweet paul, in the summer sunshine of that lofty room. and the long vista that leads us so gently and sadly, and yet so gracefully and winningly, to the plain consummation! every trait so true, and so touching--and yet lightened by the fearless innocence which goes _playfully_ to the brink of the grave, and that pure affection which bears the unstained spirit, on its soft and lambent flash, at once to its source in eternity.". . . in the same letter he told him of his having been reading the _battle of life_ again, charmed with its sweet writing and generous sentiments. [ ] "_isn't bunsby good_?" i heard lord denman call out, with unmistakable glee and enjoyment, over talfourd's table--i think to sir edward ryan; one of the few survivors of that pleasant dinner party of may . chapter xvii. splendid strolling. - . birth of fifth son--theatrical benefit for leigh hunt--troubles at rehearsals--leigh hunt's account--receipts and expenses--anecdote of macready--at broadstairs--appearance of mrs. gamp--fancy for a jeu-d'esprit--mrs. gamp at the play--mrs. gamp with the strollers--confidences with mrs. harris--leigh hunt and poole--ticklish society--mrs. gamp's cabman--george cruikshank--mr. wilson the hair-dresser--in the sweedlepipes line--fatigues of a powder ball--c. d.'s moustache and whiskers--john leech--mark lemon--douglas jerrold--dudley costello--frank stone--augustus egg--j. f.--cruikshank's _bottle_--profits of _dombey_--design for edition of old novelists--street-music at broadstairs--margate theatre--public meetings--book friends--friendly reception in glasgow--scott-monument--purchase of shakespeare's house--amateur theatricals--origin of guild of literature and art--travelling theatre and scenes--success of comedy and farce--troubles of a manager--acting under difficulties--scenery overturned--dinner at manchester. devonshire terrace remaining still in possession of sir james duke, a house was taken in chester-place, regent's-park, where, on the th of april, his fifth son, to whom he gave the name of sydney smith haldimand, was born.[ ] exactly a month before, we had attended together the funeral, at highgate, of his publisher mr. william hall, his old regard for whom had survived the recent temporary cloud, and with whom he had the association as well of his first success, as of much kindly intercourse not forgotten at this sad time. of the summer months that followed, the greater part was passed by him at brighton or broadstairs; and the chief employment of his leisure, in the intervals of _dombey_, was the management of an enterprise originating in the success of our private play, of which the design was to benefit a great man of letters. the purpose and the name had hardly been announced, when, with the statesmanlike attention to literature and its followers for which lord john russell has been eccentric among english politicians, a civil-list pension of two hundred a year was granted to leigh hunt; but though this modified our plan so far as to strike out of it performances meant to be given in london, so much was still thought necessary as might clear off past liabilities, and enable one of the most genuine of writers better to enjoy the easier future that had at last been opened to him. reserving therefore anything realized beyond a certain sum for a dramatic author of merit, mr. john poole, to whom help had become also important, it was proposed to give, on leigh hunt's behalf, two representations of ben jonson's comedy, one at manchester and the other at liverpool, to be varied by different farces in each place; and with a prologue of talfourd's which dickens was to deliver in manchester, while a similar address by sir edward bulwer lytton was to be spoken by me in liverpool. among the artists and writers associated in the scheme were mr. frank stone, mr. augustus egg, mr. john leech, and mr. george cruikshank; mr. douglas jerrold, mr. mark lemon, mr. dudley costello, and mr. george henry lewes; the general management and supreme control being given to dickens. leading men in both cities contributed largely to the design, and my friend mr. alexander ireland of manchester has lately sent me some letters not more characteristic of the energy of dickens in regard to it than of the eagerness of every one addressed to give what help they could. making personal mention of his fellow-sharers in the enterprise he describes the troop, in one of those letters, as "the most easily governable company of actors on earth;" and to this he had doubtless brought them, but not very easily. one or two of his managerial troubles at rehearsals remain on record in letters to myself, and may give amusement still. comedy and farces are referred to indiscriminately, but the farces were the most recurring plague. "good heaven! i find that a. hasn't twelve words, and i am in hourly expectation of rebellion!"--"you were right about the green baize, that it would certainly muffle the voices; and some of our actors, by jove, haven't too much of that commodity at the best."--"b. shocked me so much the other night by a restless, stupid movement of his hands in his first scene with you, that i took a turn of an hour with him yesterday morning, and i hope quieted his nerves a little."--"i made a desperate effort to get c. to give up his part. yet in spite of all the trouble he gives me i am sorry for him, he is so evidently hurt by his own sense of not doing well. he clutched the part, however, tenaciously; and three weary times we dragged through it last night."--"that infernal e. forgets everything."--"i plainly see that f. when nervous, which he is sure to be, loses his memory. moreover his asides are inaudible, even at miss kelly's; and as regularly as i stop him to say them again, he exclaims (with a face of agony) that 'he'll speak loud on the night,' as if anybody ever did without doing it always!"--"g. not born for it at all, and too innately conceited, i much fear, to do anything well. i thought him better last night, but i would as soon laugh at a kitchen poker."--"fancy h. ten days after the casting of that farce, wanting f.'s part therein! having himself an excellent old man in it already, and a quite admirable part in the other farce." from which it will appear that my friend's office was not a sinecure, and that he was not, as few amateur-managers have ever been, without the experiences of peter quince. fewer still, i suspect, have fought through them with such perfect success, for the company turned out at last would have done credit to any enterprise. they deserved the term applied to them by maclise, who had invented it first for macready, on his being driven to "star" in the provinces when his managements in london closed. they were "splendid strollers."[ ] on monday the th july we played at manchester, and on wednesday the th at liverpool; the comedy being followed on the first night by _a good night's rest_ and _turning the tables_, and on the second by _comfortable lodgings, or paris in _; and the receipts being, on the first night £ _s._, and on the second, £ _s._ _d._ but though the married members of the company who took their wives defrayed that part of the cost, and every one who acted paid three pounds ten to the benefit-fund for his hotel charges, the expenses were necessarily so great that the profit was reduced to four hundred guineas, and, handsomely as this realised the design, expectations had been raised to five hundred. there was just that shade of disappointment, therefore, when, shortly after we came back and dickens had returned to broadstairs, i was startled by a letter from him. on the rd of august he had written: "all well. children" (who had been going through whooping cough) "immensely improved. business arising out of the late blaze of triumph, worse than ever." then came what startled me, the very next day. as if his business were not enough, it had occurred to him that he might add the much longed-for hundred pounds to the benefit-fund by a little jeu d'esprit in form of a history of the trip, to be published with illustrations from the artists; and his notion was to write it in the character of mrs. gamp. it was to be, in the phraseology of that notorious woman, a new "piljians projiss;" and was to bear upon the title page its description as an account of a late expedition into the north, for an amateur theatrical benefit, written by mrs. gamp (who was an eye-witness), inscribed to mrs. harris, edited by charles dickens, and published, with illustrations on wood by so and so, in aid of the benefit-fund. "what do you think of this idea for it? the argument would be, that mrs. gamp, being on the eve of an excursion to margate as a relief from her professional fatigues, comes to the knowledge of the intended excursion of our party; hears that several of the ladies concerned are in an interesting situation; and decides to accompany the party unbeknown, in a second-class carriage--'in case.' there, she finds a gentleman from the strand in a checked suit, who is going down with the wigs"--the theatrical hair-dresser employed on these occasions, mr. wilson, had eccentric points of character that were a fund of infinite mirth to dickens--"and to his politeness mrs. gamp is indebted for much support and countenance during the excursion. she will describe the whole thing in her own manner: sitting, in each place of performance, in the orchestra, next the gentleman who plays the kettle-drums. she gives her critical opinion of ben jonson as a literary character, and refers to the different members of the party, in the course of her description of the trip: having always an invincible animosity towards jerrold, for caudle reasons. she addresses herself, generally, to mrs. harris, to whom the book is dedicated,--but is discursive. amount of matter, half a sheet of _dombey_: may be a page or so more, but not less." alas! it never arrived at even that small size, but perished prematurely, as i feared it would, from failure of the artists to furnish needful nourishment. of course it could not live alone. without suitable illustration it must have lost its point and pleasantry. "mac will make a little garland of the ladies for the title-page. egg and stone will themselves originate something fanciful, and i will settle with cruikshank and leech. i have no doubt the little thing will be droll and attractive." so it certainly would have been, if the thanes of art had not fallen from him; but on their desertion it had to be abandoned after the first few pages were written. they were placed at my disposal then; and, though the little jest has lost much of its flavour now, i cannot find it in my heart to omit them here. there are so many friends of mrs. gamp who will rejoice at this unexpected visit from her! "i. mrs. gamp's account of her connexion with this affair. "which mrs. harris's own words to me, was these: 'sairey gamp,' she says, 'why not go to margate? srimps,' says that dear creetur, 'is to your liking, sairey; why not go to margate for a week, bring your constitootion up with srimps, and come back to them loving arts as knows and wallies of you, blooming? sairey,' mrs. harris says, 'you are but poorly. don't denige it, mrs. gamp, for books is in your looks. you must have rest. your mind,' she says, 'is too strong for you; it gets you down and treads upon you, sairey. it is useless to disguige the fact--the blade is a wearing out the sheets.' 'mrs. harris,' i says to her, 'i could not undertake to say, and i will not deceive you ma'am, that i am the woman i could wish to be. the time of worrit as i had with mrs. colliber, the baker's lady, which was so bad in her mind with her first, that she would not so much as look at bottled stout, and kept to gruel through the month, has agued me, mrs. harris. but ma'am,' i says to her, 'talk not of margate, for if i do go anywheres, it is elsewheres and not there.' 'sairey,' says mrs. harris, solemn, 'whence this mystery? if i have ever deceived the hardest-working, soberest, and best of women, which her name is well beknown is s. gamp midwife kingsgate street high holborn, mention it. if not,' says mrs. harris, with the tears a standing in her eyes, 'reweal your intentions.' 'yes, mrs. harris,' i says, 'i will. well i knows you mrs. harris; well you knows me; well we both knows wot the characters of one another is. mrs. harris then,' i says, 'i _have_ heerd as there _is_ a expedition going down to manjestir and liverspool, a play-acting. if i goes anywheres for change, it is along with that.' mrs. harris clasps her hands, and drops into a chair, as if her time was come--which i know'd it couldn't be, by rights, for six weeks odd. 'and have i lived to hear,' she says, 'of sairey gamp, as always kept hersef respectable, in company with play-actors!' 'mrs. harris,' i says to her, 'be not alarmed--not reg'lar play-actors--hammertoors.' 'thank evans!' says mrs. harris, and bustiges into a flood of tears. "when the sweet creetur had compoged hersef (which a sip of brandy and water warm, and sugared pleasant, with a little nutmeg did it), i proceeds in these words. 'mrs. harris, i am told as these hammertoors are litter'ry and artistickle.' 'sairey,' says that best of wimmin, with a shiver and a slight relasp, 'go on, it might be worse.' 'i likewise hears,' i says to her, 'that they're agoin play-acting, for the benefit of two litter'ry men; one as has had his wrongs a long time ago, and has got his rights at last, and one as has made a many people merry in his time, but is very dull and sick and lonely his own sef, indeed.' 'sairey,' says mrs. harris, 'you're an inglish woman, and that's no business of you'rn.' "'no, mrs. harris,' i says, 'that's very true; i hope i knows my dooty and my country. but,' i says, 'i am informed as there is ladies in this party, and that half a dozen of 'em, if not more, is in various stages of a interesting state. mrs. harris, you and me well knows what ingeins often does. if i accompanies this expedition, unbeknown and second cladge, may i not combine my calling with change of air, and prove a service to my feller creeturs?' 'sairey,' was mrs. harris's reply, 'you was born to be a blessing to your sex, and bring 'em through it. good go with you! but keep your distance till called in, lord bless you mrs. gamp; for people is known by the company they keeps, and litterary and artistickle society might be the ruin of you before you was aware, with your best customers, both sick and monthly, if they took a pride in themselves.' "ii. mrs. gamp is descriptive. "the number of the cab had a seven in it i think, and a ought i know--and if this should meet his eye (which it was a black 'un, new done, that he saw with; the other was tied up), i give him warning that he'd better take that umbereller and patten to the hackney-coach office before he repents it. he was a young man in a weskit with sleeves to it and strings behind, and needn't flatter himsef with a suppogition of escape, as i gave this description of him to the police the moment i found he had drove off with my property; and if he thinks there an't laws enough he's much mistook--i tell him that: "i do assure you, mrs. harris, when i stood in the railways office that morning with my bundle on my arm and one patten in my hand, you might have knocked me down with a feather, far less porkmangers which was a lumping against me, continual and sewere all round. i was drove about like a brute animal and almost worritted into fits, when a gentleman with a large shirt-collar and a hook nose, and a eye like one of mr. sweedlepipes's hawks, and long locks of hair, and wiskers that i wouldn't have no lady as i was engaged to meet suddenly a turning round a corner, for any sum of money you could offer me, says, laughing, 'halloa, mrs. gamp, what are _you_ up to!' i didn't know him from a man (except by his clothes); but i says faintly, 'if you're a christian man, show me where to get a second-cladge ticket for manjester, and have me put in a carriage, or i shall drop!' which he kindly did, in a cheerful kind of a way, skipping about in the strangest manner as ever i see, making all kinds of actions, and looking and vinking at me from under the brim of his hat (which was a good deal turned up), to that extent, that i should have thought he meant something but for being so flurried as not to have no thoughts at all until i was put in a carriage along with a individgle--the politest as ever i see--in a shepherd's plaid suit with a long gold watch-guard hanging round his neck, and his hand a trembling through nervousness worse than a aspian leaf. "'i'm wery appy, ma'am,' he says--the politest vice as ever i heerd!--'to go down with a lady belonging to our party.' "'our party, sir!' i says. "'yes, m'am,' he says, 'i'm mr. wilson. i'm going down with the wigs.' "mrs. harris, wen he said he was agoing down with the wigs, such was my state of confugion and worrit that i thought he must be connected with the government in some ways or another, but directly moment he explains himsef, for he says: "'there's not a theatre in london worth mentioning that i don't attend punctually. there's five-and-twenty wigs in these boxes, ma'am,' he says, a pinting towards a heap of luggage, 'as was worn at the queen's fancy ball. there's a black wig, ma'am,' he says, 'as was worn by garrick; there's a red one, ma'am,' he says, 'as was worn by kean; there's a brown one, ma'am,' he says, 'as was worn by kemble; there's a yellow one, ma'am,' he says, 'as was made for cooke; there's a grey one, ma'am,' he says, 'as i measured mr. young for, mysef; and there's a white one, ma'am, that mr. macready went mad in. there's a flaxen one as was got up express for jenny lind the night she came out at the italian opera. it was very much applauded was that wig, ma'am, through the evening. it had a great reception. the audience broke out, the moment they see it.' "'are you in mr. sweedlepipes's line, sir?' i says. "'which is that, ma'am?' he says--the softest and genteelest vice i ever heerd, i do declare, mrs. harris! "'hair-dressing,' i says. "'yes, ma'am,' he replies, 'i have that honour. do you see this, ma'am?' he says, holding up his right hand. "'i never see such a trembling,' i says to him. and i never did! "'all along of her majesty's costume ball, ma'am,' he says. 'the excitement did it. two hundred and fifty-seven ladies of the first rank and fashion had their heads got up on that occasion by this hand, and my t'other one. i was at it eight-and-forty hours on my feet, ma'am, without rest. it was a powder ball, ma'am. we have a powder piece at liverpool. have i not the pleasure,' he says, looking at me curious, 'of addressing mrs. gamp?' "'gamp i am, sir,' i replies. 'both by name and natur.' "'would you like to see your beeograffer's moustache and wiskers, ma'am?' he says. 'i've got 'em in this box.' "'drat my beeograffer, sir,' i says, 'he has given me no region to wish to know anythink about him.' "'oh, missus gamp, i ask your parden'--i never see such a polite man, mrs. harris! 'p'raps,' he says, 'if you're not of the party, you don't know who it was that assisted you into this carriage!' "'no, sir,' i says, 'i don't, indeed.' "'why, ma'am,' he says, a wisperin', 'that was george, ma'am.' "'what george, sir? i don't know no george,' says i. "'the great george, ma'am,' says he. 'the crookshanks.' "if you'll believe me, mrs. harris, i turns my head, and see the wery man a making picturs of me on his thumb nail, at the winder! while another of 'em--a tall, slim, melancolly gent, with dark hair and a bage vice--looks over his shoulder, with his head o' one side as if he understood the subject, and cooly says, '_i_'ve draw'd her several times--in punch,' he says too! the owdacious wretch! "'which i never touches, mr. wilson,' i remarks out loud--i couldn't have helped it, mrs. harris, if you had took my life for it!--'which i never touches, mr. wilson, on account of the lemon!' "'hush!' says mr. wilson. 'there he is!' "i only see a fat gentleman with curly black hair and a merry face, a standing on the platform rubbing his two hands over one another, as if he was washing of 'em, and shaking his head and shoulders wery much; and i was a wondering wot mr. wilson meant, wen he says, 'there's dougladge, mrs. gamp!' he says. 'there's him as wrote the life of mrs. caudle!' "mrs. harris, wen i see that little willain bodily before me, it give me such a turn that i was all in a tremble. if i hadn't lost my umbereller in the cab, i must have done him a injury with it! oh the bragian little traitor! right among the ladies, mrs. harris; looking his wickedest and deceitfullest of eyes while he was a talking to 'em; laughing at his own jokes as loud as you please; holding his hat in one hand to cool his-sef, and tossing back his iron-grey mop of a head of hair with the other, as if it was so much shavings--there, mrs. harris, i see him, getting encouragement from the pretty delooded creeturs, which never know'd that sweet saint, mrs. c, as i did, and being treated with as much confidence as if he'd never wiolated none of the domestic ties, and never showed up nothing! oh the aggrawation of that dougladge! mrs. harris, if i hadn't apologiged to mr. wilson, and put a little bottle to my lips which was in my pocket for the journey, and which it is very rare indeed i have about me, i could not have abared the sight of him--there, mrs. harris! i could not!--i must have tore him, or have give way and fainted. "while the bell was a ringing, and the luggage of the hammertoors in great confugion--all a litter'ry indeed--was handled up, mr. wilson demeens his-sef politer than ever. 'that,' he says, 'mrs. gamp,' a pinting to a officer-looking gentleman, that a lady with a little basket was a taking care on, 'is another of our party. he's a author too--continivally going up the walley of the muses, mrs. gamp. there,' he says, alluding to a fine looking, portly gentleman, with a face like a amiable full moon, and a short mild gent, with a pleasant smile, 'is two more of our artists, mrs g, well beknowed at the royal academy, as sure as stones is stones, and eggs is eggs. this resolute gent,' he says, 'a coming along here as is aperrently going to take the railways by storm--him with the tight legs, and his weskit very much buttoned, and his mouth very much shut, and his coat a flying open, and his heels a giving it to the platform, is a cricket and beeograffer, and our principal tragegian.' 'but who,' says i, when the bell had left off, and the train had begun to move, 'who, mr. wilson, is the wild gent in the prespiration, that's been a tearing up and down all this time with a great box of papers under his arm, a talking to everybody wery indistinct, and exciting of himself dreadful?' 'why?' says mr. wilson, with a smile. 'because, sir,' i says, 'he's being left behind.' 'good god!' cries mr. wilson, turning pale and putting out his head, 'it's _your_ beeograffer--the manager--and he has got the money, mrs. gamp!' hous'ever, some one chucked him into the train and we went off. at the first shreek of the whistle, mrs. harris, i turned white, for i had took notice of some of them dear creeturs as was the cause of my being in company, and i know'd the danger that--but mr. wilson, which is a married man, puts his hand on mine, and says, 'mrs. gamp, calm yourself; it's only the ingein.'" of those of the party with whom these humorous liberties were taken there are only two now living to complain of their friendly caricaturist, and mr. cruikshank will perhaps join me in a frank forgiveness not the less heartily for the kind words about himself that reached me from broadstairs not many days after mrs. gamp. "at canterbury yesterday" ( nd of september) "i bought george cruikshank's _bottle_. i think it very powerful indeed: the two last plates most admirable, except that the boy and girl in the very last are too young, and the girl more like a circus-phenomenon than that no-phenomenon she is intended to represent. i question, however, whether anybody else living could have done it so well. there is a woman in the last plate but one, garrulous about the murder, with a child in her arms, that is as good as hogarth. also, the man who is stooping down, looking at the body. the philosophy of the thing, as a great lesson, i think all wrong; because to be striking, and original too, the drinking should have begun in sorrow, or poverty, or ignorance--the three things in which, in its awful aspect, it _does_ begin. the design would then have been a double-handed sword--but too 'radical' for good old george, i suppose." the same letter made mention of other matters of interest. his accounts for the first half-year of _dombey_ were so much in excess of what had been expected from the new publishing arrangements, that from this date all embarrassments connected with money were brought to a close. his future profits varied of course with his varying sales, but there was always enough, and savings were now to begin. "the profits of the half-year are brilliant. deducting the hundred pounds a month paid six times, i have still to receive two thousand two hundred and twenty pounds, which i think is tidy. don't you? . . . stone is still here, and i lamed his foot by walking him seventeen miles the day before yesterday; but otherwise he flourisheth. . . . why don't you bring down a carpet-bag-full of books, and take possession of the drawing-room all the morning? my opinion is that goldsmith would die more easy by the seaside. charley and walley have been taken to school this morning in high spirits, and at london bridge will be folded in the arms of blimber. the government is about to issue a sanitary commission, and lord john, i am right well pleased to say, has appointed henry austin secretary." mr. austin, who afterwards held the same office under the sanitary act, had married his youngest sister letitia; and of his two youngest brothers i may add that alfred, also a civil-engineer, became one of the sanitary inspectors, and that augustus was now placed in a city employment by mr. thomas chapman, which after a little time he surrendered, and then found his way to america. the next broadstairs letter ( th of september) resumed the subject of goldsmith, whose life i was then bringing nearly to completion. "supposing your _goldsmith_ made a general sensation, what should you think of doing a cheap edition of his works? i have an idea that we might do some things of that sort with considerable effect. there is really no edition of the great british novelists in a handy nice form, and would it not be a likely move to do it with some attractive feature that could not be given to it by the teggs and such people? supposing one wrote an essay on fielding for instance, and another on smollett, and another on sterne, recalling how one read them as a child (no one read them younger than i, i think;) and how one gradually grew up into a different knowledge of them, and so forth--would it not be interesting to many people? i should like to know if you descry anything in this. it is one of the dim notions fluctuating within me.[ ]. . . the profits, brave indeed, are four hundred pounds more than the utmost i expected. . . . the same yearnings have been mine, in reference to the praslin business. it is pretty clear to me, for one thing, that the duchess was one of the most uncomfortable women in the world, and that it would have been hard work for anybody to have got on with her. it is strange to see a bloody reflection of our friends eugène sue and dumas in the whole melodrama. don't you think so . . . remembering what we often said of the canker at the root of all that paris life? i dreamed of you, in a wild manner, all last night. . . . a sea fog here, which prevents one's seeing the low-water mark. a circus on the cliff to the right, and of course i have a box to-night! deep slowness in the inimitable's brain. a shipwreck on the goodwin sands last sunday, which wally, with a hawk's eye, saw go down: for which assertion, subsequently confirmed and proved, he was horribly maltreated at the time." devonshire-terrace meanwhile had been left by his tenant; and coming up joyfully himself to take possession, he brought for completion in his old home an important chapter of _dombey_. on the way he lost his portmanteau, but "thank god! the ms. of the chapter wasn't in it. whenever i travel, and have anything of that valuable article, i always carry it in my pocket."[ ] he had begun at this time to find difficulties in writing at broadstairs, of which he told me on his return. "vagrant music is getting to that height here, and is so impossible to be escaped from, that i fear broadstairs and i must part company in time to come. unless it pours of rain, i cannot write half-an-hour without the most excruciating organs, fiddles, bells, or glee-singers. there is a violin of the most torturing kind under the window now (time, ten in the morning) and an italian box of music on the steps--both in full blast." he closed with a mention of improvements in the margate theatre since his memorable last visit. in the past two years it had been managed by a son of the great comedian, dowton, with whose name it is pleasant to connect this note. "we went to the manager's benefit on wednesday" ( th of september): "_as you like it_ really very well done, and a most excellent house. mr. dowton delivered a sensible and modest kind of speech on the occasion, setting forth his conviction that a means of instruction and entertainment possessing such a literature as the stage in england, could not pass away; and, that what inspired great minds, and delighted great men, two thousand years ago, and did the same in shakespeare's day, must have within itself a principle of life superior to the whim and fashion of the hour. and with that, and with cheers, he retired. he really seems a most respectable man, and he has cleared out this dust-hole of a theatre into something like decency." he was to be in london at the end of the month: but i had from him meanwhile his preface[ ] for his first completed book in the popular edition (_pickwick_ being now issued in that form, with an illustration by leslie); and sending me shortly after ( th of sept.) the first few slips of the story of the _haunted man_ proposed for his next christmas book, he told me he must finish it in less than a month if it was to be done at all, _dombey_ having now become very importunate. this prepared me for his letter of a week's later date. "have been at work all day, and am seedy in consequence. _dombey_ takes so much time, and requires to be so carefully done, that i really begin to have serious doubts whether it is wise to go on with the christmas book. your kind help is invoked. what do you think? would there be any distinctly bad effect in holding this idea over for another twelvemonth? saying nothing whatever till november; and then announcing in the _dombey_ that its occupation of my entire time prevents the continuance of the christmas series until next year, when it is proposed to be renewed. there might not be anything in that but a possibility of an extra lift for the little book when it did come--eh? on the other hand, i am very loath to lose the money. and still more so to leave any gap at christmas firesides which i ought to fill. in short i am (forgive the expression) blowed if i know what to do. i am a literary kitely--and you ought to sympathize and help. if i had no _dombey_, i could write and finish the story with the bloom on--but there's the rub. . . . which unfamiliar quotation reminds me of a shakspearian (put an e before the s; i like it much better) speculation of mine. what do you say to 'take arms against a sea of troubles' having been originally written 'make arms,' which is the action of swimming. it would get rid of a horrible grievance in the figure, and make it plain and apt. i think of setting up a claim to live in the house at stratford, rent-free, on the strength of this suggestion. you are not to suppose that i am anything but disconcerted to-day, in the agitation of my soul concerning christmas; but i have been brooding, like dombey himself, over _dombey_ these two days, until i really can't afford to be depressed." to his shakespearian suggestion i replied that it would hardly give him the claim he thought of setting up, for that swimming through your troubles would not be "opposing" them. and upon the other point i had no doubt of the wisdom of delay. the result was that the christmas story was laid aside until the following year. the year's closing incidents were his chairmanship at a meeting of the leeds mechanics' society on the st of december, and his opening of the glasgow athenæum on the th; where, to immense assemblages in both,[ ] he contrasted the obstinacy and cruelty of the power of ignorance with the docility and gentleness of the power of knowledge; pointed the use of popular institutes in supplementing what is learnt first in life, by the later education for its employments and equipment for its domesticities and virtues, which the grown person needs from day to day as much as the child its reading and writing; and he closed at glasgow with allusion to a bazaar set on foot by the ladies of the city, under patronage of the queen, for adding books to its athenæum library. "we never tire of the friendships we form with books," he said, "and here they will possess the added charm of association with their donors. some neighbouring glasgow widow will be mistaken for that remoter one whom sir roger de coverley could not forget; sophia's muff will be seen and loved, by another than tom jones, going down the high-street some winter day; and the grateful students of a library thus filled will be apt, as to the fair ones who have helped to people it, to couple them in their thoughts with principles of the population and additions to the history of europe, by an author of older date than sheriff alison." at which no one laughed so loudly as the sheriff himself, who had cordially received dickens as his guest, and stood with him on the platform. on the last day but one of the old year he wrote to me from edinburgh. "we came over this afternoon, leaving glasgow at one o'clock. alison lives in style in a handsome country house out of glasgow, and is a capital fellow, with an agreeable wife, nice little daughter, cheerful niece, all things pleasant in his household. i went over the prison and lunatic asylum with him yesterday;[ ] at the lord provost's had gorgeous state-lunch with the town council; and was entertained at a great dinner-party at night. unbounded hospitality and enthoozymoozy the order of the day, and i have never been more heartily received anywhere, or enjoyed myself more completely. the great chemist, gregory, who spoke at the meeting, returned with us to edinburgh to-day, and gave me many new lights on the road regarding the extraordinary pains macaulay seems for years to have taken to make himself disagreeable and disliked here. no one else, on that side, would have had the remotest chance of being unseated at the last election; and, though gregory voted for him, i thought he seemed quite as well pleased as anybody else that he didn't come in. . . . i am sorry to report the scott monument a failure. it is like the spire of a gothic church taken off and stuck in the ground." on the first day of , still in edinburgh, he wrote again: "jeffrey, who is obliged to hold a kind of morning court in his own study during the holidays, came up yesterday in great consternation, to tell me that a person had just been to make and sign a declaration of bankruptcy; and that on looking at the signature he saw it was james sheridan knowles. he immediately sent after, and spoke with him; and of what passed i am eager to talk with you." the talk will bring back the main subject of this chapter, from which another kind of strolling has led me away; for its results were other amateur performances, of which the object was to benefit knowles. this was the year when a committee had been formed for the purchase and preservation of shakespeare's house at stratford, and the performances in question took the form of contributions to the endowment of a curatorship to be held by the author of _virginius_ and the _hunchback_. the endowment was abandoned upon the town and council of stratford finally (and very properly) taking charge of the house; but the sum realised was not withdrawn from the object really desired, and one of the finest of dramatists profited yet more largely by it than leigh hunt did by the former enterprise. it may be proper to remark also, that, like leigh hunt, knowles received soon after, through lord john russell, the same liberal pension; and that smaller claims to which attention had been similarly drawn were not forgotten, mr. poole, after much kind help from the bounty fund, being in placed on the civil list for half the amount by the same minister and friend of letters. dickens threw himself into the new scheme with all his old energy;[ ] and prefatory mention may be made of our difficulty in selection of a suitable play to alternate with our old ben jonson. the _alchemist_ had been such a favourite with some of us, that, before finally laying it aside, we went through two or three rehearsals, in which i recollect thinking dickens's sir epicure mammon as good as anything he had done; and now the same trouble, with the same result, arising from a vain desire to please everybody, was taken successively with beaumont and fletcher's _beggar's bush_, and goldsmith's _good natured man_, with jerrold's characteristic drama of the _rent day_, and bulwer's masterly comedy of _money_. choice was at last made of shakespeare's _merry wives_, in which lemon played falstaff, i took again the jealous husband as in jonson's play, and dickens was justice shallow; to which was added a farce, _love, law, and physick_, in which dickens took the part he had acted long ago, before his days of authorship; and, besides the professional actresses engaged, we had for our dame quickly the lady to whom the world owes incomparably the best _concordance_ to shakespeare that has ever been published, mrs. cowden clarke. the success was undoubtedly very great. at manchester, liverpool, and edinburgh there were single representations; but birmingham and glasgow had each two nights, and two were given at the haymarket, on one of which the queen and prince were present. the gross receipts from the nine performances, before the necessary large deductions for london and local charges, were two thousand five hundred and fifty-one pounds and eightpence.[ ] the first representation was in london on the th of april, the last in glasgow on the th of july, and everywhere dickens was the leading figure. in the enjoyment as in the labour he was first. his animal spirits, unresting and supreme, were the attraction of rehearsal at morning, and of the stage at night. at the quiet early dinner, and the more jovial unrestrained supper, where all engaged were assembled daily, his was the brightest face, the lightest step, the pleasantest word. there seemed to be no rest needed for that wonderful vitality. my allusion to the last of these splendid strollings in aid of what we believed to be the interests of men of letters, shall be as brief as i can make it. two winters after the present, at the close of november , in the great hall of lord lytton's old family mansion in knebworth-park, there were three private performances by the original actors in ben jonson's _every man in his humour_. all the circumstances and surroundings were very brilliant; some of the gentlemen of the county played both in the comedy and farces; our generous host was profuse of all noble encouragement; and amid the general pleasure and excitement hopes rose high. recent experience had shown what the public interest in this kind of amusement might place within reach of its providers; and there came to be discussed the possibility of making permanent such help as had been afforded to fellow writers, by means of an endowment that should not be mere charity, but should combine indeed something of both pension-list and college-lectureship, without the drawbacks of either. it was not enough considered that schemes for self-help, to be successful, require from those they are meant to benefit, not only a general assent to their desirability, but zealous and active co-operation. without discussing now, however, what will have to be stated hereafter, it suffices to say that the enterprise was set on foot, and the "guild of literature and art" originated at knebworth. a five-act comedy was to be written by sir edward lytton, and, when a certain sum of money had been obtained by public representations of it, the details of the scheme were to be drawn up, and appeal made to those whom it addressed more especially. in a very few months everything was ready, except a farce which dickens was to have written to follow the comedy, and which unexpected cares of management and preparation were held to absolve him from. there were other reasons. "i have written the first scene," he told me ( rd march, ), "and it has droll points in it, more farcical points than you commonly find in farces,[ ] really better. yet i am constantly striving, for my reputation's sake, to get into it a meaning that is impossible in a farce; constantly thinking of it, therefore, against the grain; and constantly impressed with a conviction that i could never act in it myself with that wild abandonment which can alone carry a farce off. wherefore i have confessed to bulwer lytton and asked for absolution." there was substituted a new farce of lemon's, to which, however, dickens soon contributed so many jokes and so much gampish and other fun of his own, that it came to be in effect a joint piece of authorship; and gabblewig, which the manager took to himself, was one of those personation parts requiring five or six changes of face, voice, and gait in the course of it, from which, as we have seen, he derived all the early theatrical ambition that the elder mathews had awakened in him. "you have no idea," he continued, "of the immensity of the work as the time advances, for the duke even throws the whole of the audience on us, or he would get (he says) into all manner of scrapes." the duke of devonshire had offered his house in piccadilly for the first representations, and in his princely way discharged all the expenses attending them. a moveable theatre was built and set up in the great drawing-room, and the library was turned into a green-room. _not so bad as we seem_ was played for the first time at devonshire-house on the th of may, , before the queen and prince and as large an audience as places could be found for; _mr. nightingale's diary_ being the name given to the farce. the success abundantly realised the expectations formed; and, after many representations at the hanover-square rooms in london, strolling began in the country, and was continued at intervals for considerable portions of this and the following year. from much of it, illness and occupation disabled me, and substitutes had to be found; but to this i owe the opportunity now of closing with a characteristic picture of the course of the play, and of dickens amid the incidents and accidents to which his theatrical career exposed him. the company carried with them, it should be said, the theatre constructed for devonshire-house, as well as the admirable scenes which stanfield, david roberts, thomas grieve, telbin, absolon, and louis haghe had painted as their generous free-offerings to the comedy; of which the representations were thus rendered irrespective of theatres or their managers, and took place in the large halls or concert-rooms of the various towns and cities. "the enclosure forgotten in my last" (dickens writes from sunderland on the th of august ), "was a little printed announcement which i have had distributed at the doors wherever we go, knocking _two o' clock in the morning_ bang out of the bills. funny as it used to be, it is become impossible to get anything out of it after the scream of _mr. nightingale's diary_. the comedy is so far improved by the reductions which your absence and other causes have imposed on us, that it acts now only two hours and twenty-five minutes, all waits included, and goes 'like wildfire,' as mr. tonson[ ] says. we have had prodigious houses, though smaller rooms (as to their actual size) than i had hoped for. the duke was at derby, and no end of minor radiances. into the room at newcastle (where lord carlisle was by the bye) they squeezed six hundred people, at twelve and sixpence, into a space reasonably capable of holding three hundred. last night, in a hall built like a theatre, with pit, boxes, and gallery, we had about twelve hundred--i dare say more. they began with a round of applause when coote's white waistcoat appeared in the orchestra, and wound up the farce with three deafening cheers. i never saw such good fellows. stanny is their fellow-townsman; was born here; and they applauded his scene as if it were himself. but what i suffered from a dreadful anxiety that hung over me all the time, i can never describe. when we got here at noon, it appeared that the hall was a perfectly new one, and had only had the slates put upon the roof by torchlight over night. farther, that the proprietors of some opposition rooms had declared the building to be unsafe, and that there was a panic in the town about it; people having had their money back, and being undecided whether to come or not, and all kinds of such horrors. i didn't know what to do. the horrible responsibility of risking an accident of that awful nature seemed to rest wholly upon me; for i had only to say we wouldn't act, and there would be no chance of danger. i was afraid to take sloman into council lest the panic should infect our men. i asked w. what he thought, and he consolingly observed that his digestion was so bad that death had no terrors for him! i went and looked at the place; at the rafters, walls, pillars, and so forth; and fretted myself into a belief that they really were slight! to crown all, there was an arched iron roof without any brackets or pillars, on a new principle! the only comfort i had was in stumbling at length on the builder, and finding him a plain practical north-countryman with a foot rule in his pocket. i took him aside, and asked him should we, or could we, prop up any weak part of the place: especially the dressing-rooms, which were under our stage, the weight of which must be heavy on a new floor, and dripping wet walls. he told me there wasn't a stronger building in the world; and that, to allay the apprehension, they had opened it, on thursday night, to thousands of the working people, and induced them to sing, and beat with their feet, and make every possible trial of the vibration. accordingly there was nothing for it but to go on. i was in such dread, however, lest a false alarm should spring up among the audience and occasion a rush, that i kept catherine and georgina out of the front. when the curtain went up and i saw the great sea of faces rolling up to the roof, i looked here and looked there, and thought i saw the gallery out of the perpendicular, and fancied the lights in the ceiling were not straight. rounds of applause were perfect agony to me, i was so afraid of their effect upon the building. i was ready all night to rush on in case of an alarm--a false alarm was my main dread--and implore the people for god's sake to sit still. i had our great farce-bell rung to startle sir geoffrey instead of throwing down a piece of wood, which might have raised a sudden-apprehension. i had a palpitation of the heart, if any of our people stumbled up or down a stair. i am sure i never acted better, but the anxiety of my mind was so intense, and the relief at last so great, that i am half-dead to-day, and have not yet been able to eat or drink anything or to stir out of my room. i shall never forget it. as to the short time we had for getting the theatre up; as to the upsetting, by a runaway pair of horses, of one of the vans at the newcastle railway station, _with all the scenery in it, every atom of which was turned over_; as to the fatigue of our carpenters, who have now been up four nights, and who were lying dead asleep in the entrances last night; i say nothing, after the other gigantic nightmare, except that sloman's splendid knowledge of his business, and the good temper and cheerfulness of all the workmen, are capital. i mean to give them a supper at liverpool, and address them in a neat and appropriate speech. we dine at two to-day (it is now one) and go to sheffield at four, arriving there at about ten. i had been as fresh as a daisy; walked from nottingham to derby, and from newcastle here; but seem to have had my nerves crumpled up last night, and have an excruciating headache. that's all at present. i shall never be able to bear the smell of new deal and fresh mortar again as long as i live." manchester and liverpool closed the trip with enormous success at both places; and sir edward lytton was present at a public dinner which was given in the former city, dickens's brief word about it being written as he was setting foot in the train that was to bring him to london. "bulwer spoke brilliantly at the manchester dinner, and his earnestness and determination about the guild was most impressive. it carried everything before it. they are now getting up annual subscriptions, and will give us a revenue to begin with. i swear i believe that people to be the greatest in the world. at liverpool i had a round robin on the stage after the play was over, a place being left for your signature, and as i am going to have it framed, i'll tell green to send it to lincoln's-inn-fields. you have no idea how good tenniel, topham, and collins have been in what they had to do." these names, distinguished in art and letters, represent additions to the company who had joined the enterprise; and the last of them, mr. wilkie collins, became, for all the rest of the life of dickens, one of his dearest and most valued friends. footnotes: [ ] he entered the royal navy, and survived his father only a year and eleven months. he was a lieutenant, at the time of his death from a sharp attack of bronchitis; being then on board the p. and o. steamer "malta," invalided from his ship the topaze, and on his way home. he was buried at sea on the nd of may, . poor fellow! he was the smallest in size of all the children, in his manhood reaching only to a little over five feet; and throughout his childhood was never called by any other name than the "ocean spectre," from a strange little weird yet most attractive look in his large wondering eyes, very happily caught in a sketch in oils by the good frank stone, done at bonchurch in september and remaining in his aunt's possession. "stone has painted," dickens then wrote to me, "the ocean spectre, and made a very pretty little picture of him." it was a strange chance that led his father to invent this playful name for one whom the ocean did indeed take to itself at last. [ ] i think it right to place on record here leigh hunt's own allusion to the incident (_autobiography_, p. ), though it will be thought to have too favourable a tone, and i could have wished that other names had also found mention in it. but i have already (p. ) stated quite unaffectedly my own opinion of the very modest pretensions of the whole affair, and these kind words of hunt may stand _valeant quantum_. "simultaneous with the latest movement about the pension was one on the part of my admirable friend dickens and other distinguished men, forsters and jerrolds, who, combining kindly purpose with an amateur inclination for the stage, had condescended to show to the public what excellent actors they could have been, had they so pleased,--what excellent actors, indeed, some of them were. . . . they proposed . . . a benefit for myself, . . . and the piece performed on the occasion was ben jonson's _every man in his humour_. . . . if anything had been needed to show how men of letters include actors, on the common principle of the greater including the less, these gentlemen would have furnished it. mr. dickens's bobadil had a spirit in it of intellectual apprehension beyond anything the existing stage has shown . . . and mr. forster delivered the verses of ben jonson with a musical flow and a sense of their grace and beauty unknown, i believe, to the recitation of actors at present. at least i have never heard anything like it since edmund kean's.". . . to this may be added some lines from lord lytton's prologue spoken at liverpool, of which i have not been able to find a copy, if indeed it was printed at the time; but the verses come so suddenly and completely back to me, as i am writing after twenty-five years, that in a small way they recall a more interesting effort of memory told me once by macready. on a christmas night at drury lane there came a necessity to put up the _gamester_, which he had not played since he was a youth in his father's theatre thirty years before. he went to rehearsal shrinking from the long and heavy study he should have to undergo, when, with the utterance of the opening sentence, the entire words of the part came back, including even a letter which beverly has to read, and which it is the property-man's business to supply. my lines come back as unexpectedly; but with pleasanter music than any in mr. moore's dreary tragedy, as a few will show. "mild amid foes, within a prison free, he comes . . . our grey-hair'd bard of rimini! comes with the pomp of memories in his train, pathos and wit, sweet pleasure and sweet pain! comes with familiar smile and cordial tone, our hearths' wise cheerer!--let us cheer his own! song links her children with a golden thread, to aid the living bard strides forth the dead. hark the frank music of the elder age-- ben jonson's giant tread sounds ringing up the stage! hail! the large shapes our fathers loved! again wellbred's light ease, and kitely's jealous pain. cob shall have sense, and stephen be polite, brainworm shall preach, and bobadil shall fight-- each, here, a merit not his own shall find, and _every man_ the _humour_ to be kind." [ ] another, which for many reasons we may regret went also into the limbo of unrealized designs, is sketched in the subjoined ( th of january, ). "mac and i think of going to ireland for six weeks in the spring, and seeing whether anything is to be done there, in the way of a book? i fancy it might turn out well." the mac of course is maclise. [ ] "here we are" ( rd of august) "in the noble old premises; and very nice they look, all things considered. . . . trifles happen to me which occur to nobody else. my portmanteau 'fell off' a cab last night somewhere between london-bridge and here. it contained on a moderate calculation £ worth of clothes. i have no shirt to put on, and am obliged to send out to a barber to come and shave me." [ ] "do you see anything to object to in it? i have never had so much difficulty, i think, in setting about any slight thing; for i really didn't know that i had a word to say, and nothing seems to live 'twixt what i _have_ said and silence. the advantage of it is, that the latter part opens an idea for future prefaces all through the series, and may serve perhaps to make a feature of them." ( th of september, .) [ ] from his notes on these matters i may quote. "the leeds appears to be a very important institution, and i am glad to see that george stephenson will be there, besides the local lights, inclusive of all the baineses. they talk at glasgow of , people." ( th of november.) "you have got southey's _holly tree_. i have not. put it in your pocket to-day. it occurs to me (up to the eyes in a mass of glasgow athenæum papers) that i could quote it with good effect in the north." ( th of december.) "a most brilliant demonstration last night, and i think i never did better. newspaper reports bad." ( th of december.) [ ] "tremendous distress at glasgow, and a truly damnable jail, exhibiting the separate system in a most absurd and hideous form. governor practical and intelligent; very anxious for the associated silent system; and much comforted by my fault-finding." ( th of december.) [ ] it would amuse the reader, but occupy too much space, to add to my former illustrations of his managerial troubles; but from an elaborate paper of rules for rehearsals, which i have found in his handwriting, i quote the opening and the close. "remembering the very imperfect condition of all our plays at present, the general expectation in reference to them, the kind of audience before which they will be presented, and the near approach of the nights of performance, i hope everybody concerned will abide by the following regulations, and will aid in strictly carrying them out." elaborate are the regulations set forth, but i take only the three last. "silence, on the stage and in the theatre, to be faithfully observed; the lobbies &c. being always available for conversation. no book to be referred to on the stage; but those who are imperfect to take their words from the prompter. everyone to act, as nearly as possible, as on the night of performance; everyone to speak out, so as to be audible through the house. and every mistake of exit, entrance, or situation, to be corrected _three times_ successively." he closes thus. "all who were concerned in the first getting up of _every man in his humour_, and remember how carefully the stage was always kept then, and who have been engaged in the late rehearsals of the _merry wives_, and have experienced the difficulty of getting on, or off: of being heard, or of hearing anybody else: will, i am sure, acknowledge the indispensable necessity of these regulations." [ ] i give the sums taken at the several theatres. haymarket, £ _s._; manchester, £ _s._ _d._; liverpool, £ _s._ _d._; birmingham, £ _s._, and £ _s._ _d._; edinburgh, £ _s._ _d._; glasgow, £ _s._ _d._, and (at half the prices of the first night) £ _s._ [ ] "those rabbits have more nature in them than you commonly find in rabbits"--the self-commendatory remark of an aspiring animal-painter showing his piece to the most distinguished master in that line--was here in my friend's mind. [ ] mr. tonson was a small part in the comedy entrusted with much appropriateness to mr. charles knight, whose _autobiography_ has this allusion to the first performance, which, as mr. pepys says, is "pretty to observe." "the actors and the audience were so close together that as mr. jacob tonson sat in wills's coffee-house he could have touched with his clouded cane the duke of wellington." (iii. .) chapter xviii. seaside holidays. - . louis philippe dethroned--french missive from c. d.--at broadstairs--a chinese junk--what it was like--perplexing questions--a type of finality--a contrast--dickens's view of temperance agitation--cruikshank's _bottle_: and _drunkard's children_--realities of cruikshank's pencil--dickens on hogarth--exit of gin-lane--wisdom of the great painter--originality of leech--superiority of his method--excuses for the rising generation--what leech will be remembered for--pony-chaise accident--fortunate escape--strenuous idleness--hint for mr. taine--at brighton--a name for his new book--at broadstairs--summoned as special juror--a male mrs. gamp and mrs. harris--at bonchurch--rev. james white--first impressions of the undercliff--talfourd made a judge--touching letter from jeffrey--the comedian regnier--progress in writing--a startling revelation--effects of bonchurch climate--mr. browne's sketch for micawber--accident to leech--its consequences--at broadstairs--a _copperfield_ banquet--thoughts of a new book. the portion of dickens's life over which his adventures of strolling extended was in other respects not without interest; and this chapter will deal with some of his seaside holidays before i pass to the publication in of the story of _the haunted man_, and to the establishment in of the periodical which had been in his thoughts for half a dozen years before, and has had foreshadowings nearly as frequent in my pages. among the incidents of before the holiday season came, were the dethronement of louis philippe, and birth of the second french republic: on which i ventured to predict that a gore-house friend of ours, and _his_ friend, would in three days be on the scene of action. the three days passed, and i had this letter. "mardi, février , . mon cher. vous êtes homme de la plus grande pénétration! ah, mon dieu, que vous êtes absolument magnifique! vous prévoyez presque toutes les choses qui vont arriver; et aux choses qui viennent d'arriver vous êtes merveilleusement au-fait. ah, cher enfant, quelle idée sublime vous vous aviez à la tête quand vous prévîtes si clairement que m. le comte alfred d'orsay se rendrait au pays de sa naissance! quel magicien! mais--c'est tout égal, mais--il n'est pas parti. il reste à gore-house, où, avant-hier, il y avait un grand dîner à tout le monde. mais quel homme, quel ange, néanmoins! mon ami, je trouve que j'aime tant la république, qu'il me faut renoncer ma langue et écrire seulement le langage de la république de france--langage des dieux et des anges--langage, en un mot, des français! hier au soir je rencontrai à l'athenæum monsieur mack leese, qui me dit que mm. les commissionnaires des beaux arts lui avaient écrit, par leur secrétaire, un billet de remerciements à propos de son tableau dans la chambre des députés, et qu'ils lui avaient prié de faire l'autre tableau en fresque, dont on y a besoin. ce qu'il a promis. voici des nouvelles pour les champs de lincoln's inn! vive la gloire de france! vive la république! vive le peuple! plus de royauté! plus des bourbons! plus de guizot! mort aux traîtres! faisons couler le sang pour la liberté, la justice, la cause populaire! jusqu'à cinq heures et demie, adieu, mon brave! recevez l'assurance de ma considération distinguée, et croyez-moi, concitoyen! votre tout dévoué, citoyen charles dickens." i proved to be not quite so wrong, nevertheless, as my friend supposed. somewhat earlier than usual this summer, on the close of the shakespeare-house performances, he tried broadstairs once more, having no important writing in hand: but in the brief interval before leaving he saw a thing of celebrity in those days, the chinese junk; and i had all the details in so good a description that i could not resist the temptation of using some parts of it at the time. "drive down to the blackwall railway," he wrote to me, "and for a matter of eighteen-pence you are at the chinese empire in no time. in half a score of minutes, the tiles and chimney-pots, backs of squalid houses, frowsy pieces of waste ground, narrow courts and streets, swamps, ditches, masts of ships, gardens of dockweed, and unwholesome little bowers of scarlet beans, whirl away in a flying dream, and nothing is left but china. how the flowery region ever came into this latitude and longitude is the first thing one asks; and it is not certainly the least of the marvel. as aladdin's palace was transported hither and thither by the rubbing of a lamp, so the crew of chinamen aboard the keying devoutly believed that their good ship would turn up, quite safe, at the desired port, if they only tied red rags enough upon the mast, rudder, and cable. somehow they did not succeed. perhaps they ran short of rag; at any rate they hadn't enough on board to keep them above water; and to the bottom they would undoubtedly have gone but for the skill and coolness of a dozen english sailors, who brought them over the ocean in safety. well, if there be any one thing in the world that this extraordinary craft is not at all like, that thing is a ship of any kind. so narrow, so long, so grotesque; so low in the middle, so high at each end, like a china pen-tray; with no rigging, with nowhere to go to aloft; with mats for sails, great warped cigars for masts, gaudy dragons and sea-monsters disporting themselves from stem to stern, and _on_ the stern a gigantic cock of impossible aspect, defying the world (as well he may) to produce his equal,--it would look more at home at the top of a public building, or at the top of a mountain, or in an avenue of trees, or down in a mine, than afloat on the water. as for the chinese lounging on the deck, the most extravagant imagination would never dare to suppose them to be mariners. imagine a ship's crew, without a profile among them, in gauze pinafores and plaited hair; wearing stiff clogs a quarter of a foot thick in the sole; and lying at night in little scented boxes, like backgammon men or chess-pieces, or mother-of-pearl counters! but by jove! even this is nothing to your surprise when you go down into the cabin. there you get into a torture of perplexity. as, what became of all those lanterns hanging to the roof when the junk was out at sea? whether they dangled there, banging and beating against each other, like so many jesters' baubles? whether the idol chin tee, of the eighteen arms, enshrined in a celestial punch's show, in the place of honour, ever tumbled out in heavy weather? whether the incense and the joss-stick still burnt before her, with a faint perfume and a little thread of smoke, while the mighty waves were roaring all around? whether that preposterous tissue-paper umbrella in the corner was always spread, as being a convenient maritime instrument for walking about the decks with in a storm? whether all the cool and shiny little chairs and tables were continually sliding about and bruising each other, and if not why not? whether anybody on the voyage ever read those two books printed in characters like bird-cages and fly-traps? whether the mandarin passenger, he sing, who had never been ten miles from home in his life before, lying sick on a bamboo couch in a private china closet of his own (where he is now perpetually writing autographs for inquisitive barbarians), ever began to doubt the potency of the goddess of the sea, whose counterfeit presentment, like a flowery monthly nurse, occupies the sailors' joss-house in the second gallery? whether it is possible that the said mandarin, or the artist of the ship, sam sing, esquire, r.a. of canton, _can_ ever go ashore without a walking-staff of cinnamon, agreeably to the usage of their likenesses in british tea-shops? above all, whether the hoarse old ocean could ever have been seriously in earnest with this floating toy-shop; or had merely played with it in lightness of spirit--roughly, but meaning no harm--as the bull did with another kind of china-shop on st. patrick's day in the morning." the reply made on this brought back comment and sequel not less amusing. "yes, there can be no question that this is finality in perfection; and it is a great advantage to have the doctrine so beautifully worked out, and shut up in a corner of a dock near a fashionable white-bait house for the edification of man. thousands of years have passed away since the first junk was built on this model, and the last junk ever launched was no better for that waste and desert of time. the mimic eye painted on their prows to assist them in finding their way, has opened as wide and seen as far as any actual organ of sight in all the interval through the whole immense extent of that strange country. it has been set in the flowery head to as little purpose for thousands of years. with all their patient and ingenious but never advancing art, and with all their rich and diligent agricultural cultivation, not a new twist or curve has been given to a ball of ivory, and not a blade of experience has been grown. there is a genuine finality in that; and when one comes from behind the wooden screen that encloses the curious sight, to look again upon the river and the mighty signs on its banks of life, enterprise, and progress, the question that comes nearest is beyond doubt a home one. whether _we_ ever by any chance, in storms, trust to red flags; or burn joss-sticks before idols; or grope our way by the help of conventional eyes that have no sight in them; or sacrifice substantial facts for absurd forms? the ignorant crew of the keying refused to enter on the ships' books, until 'a considerable amount of silvered-paper, tin-foil, and joss-stick' had been laid in by the owners for the purposes of their worship. and i wonder whether _our_ seamen, let alone our bishops and deacons, ever stand out upon points of silvered-paper and tin-foil and joss-sticks. to be sure christianity is not chin-teeism, and that i suppose is why we never lose sight of the end in contemptible and insignificant quarrels about the means. there is enough matter for reflection aboard the keying at any rate to last one's voyage home to england again." other letters of the summer from broadstairs will complete what he wrote from the same place last year on mr. cruikshank's efforts in the cause of temperance, and will enable me to say, what i know he wished to be remembered in his story, that there was no subject on which through his whole life he felt more strongly than this. no man advocated temperance, even as far as possible its legislative enforcement, with greater earnestness; but he made important reservations. not thinking drunkenness to be a vice inborn, or incident to the poor more than to other people, he never would agree that the existence of a gin-shop was the alpha and omega of it. believing it to be, _the_ "national horror," he also believed that many operative causes had to do with having made it so; and his objection to the temperance agitation was that these were left out of account altogether. he thought the gin-shop not fairly to be rendered the exclusive object of attack, until, in connection with the classes who mostly made it their resort, the temptations that led to it, physical and moral, should have been more bravely dealt with. among the former he counted foul smells, disgusting habitations, bad workshops and workshop-customs, scarcity of light, air, and water, in short the absence of all easy means of decency and health; and among the latter, the mental weariness and languor so induced, the desire of wholesome relaxation, the craving for _some_ stimulus and excitement, not less needful than the sun itself to lives so passed, and last, and inclusive of all the rest, ignorance, and the want of rational mental training, generally applied. this was consistently dickens's "platform" throughout the years he was known to me; and holding it to be within the reach as well as the scope of legislation, which even our political magnates have been discovering lately, he thought intemperance to be but the one result that, out of all those arising from the absence of legislation, was the most wretched. for him, drunkenness had a teeming and reproachful history anterior to the drunken stage; and he thought it the first duty of the moralist bent upon annihilating the gin-shop, to "strike deep and spare not" at those previous remediable evils. certainly this was not the way of mr. cruikshank, any more than it is that of the many excellent people who take part in temperance agitations. his former tale of the _bottle_, as told by his admirable pencil, was that of a decent working man, father of a boy and a girl, living in comfort and good esteem until near the middle age, when, happening unluckily to have a goose for dinner one day in the bosom of his thriving family, he jocularly sends out for a bottle of gin, persuades his wife, until then a picture of neatness and good housewifery, to take a little drop after the stuffing, and the whole family from that moment drink themselves to destruction. the sequel, of which dickens now wrote to me, traced the lives of the boy and girl after the wretched deaths of their drunken parents, through gin-shop, beer-shop, and dancing-rooms, up to their trial for robbery, when the boy is convicted, dying aboard the hulks; and the girl, desolate and mad after her acquittal, flings herself from london-bridge into the night-darkened river. "i think," said dickens, "the power of that closing scene quite extraordinary. it haunts the remembrance like an awful reality. it is full of passion and terror, and i doubt very much whether any hand but his could so have rendered it. there are other fine things too. the death-bed scene on board the hulks; the convict who is composing the face, and the other who is drawing the screen round the bed's head; seem to me masterpieces worthy of the greatest painter. the reality of the place, and the fidelity with which every minute object illustrative of it is presented, are surprising. i think myself no bad judge of this feature, and it is remarkable throughout. in the trial scene at the old bailey, the eye may wander round the court, and observe everything that is a part of the place. the very light and atmosphere are faithfully reproduced. so, in the gin-shop and the beer-shop. an inferior hand would indicate a fragment of the fact, and slur it over; but here every shred is honestly made out. the man behind the bar in the gin-shop, is as real as the convicts at the hulks, or the barristers round the table in the old bailey. i found it quite curious, as i closed the book, to recall the number of faces i had seen of individual identity, and to think what a chance they have of living, as the spanish friar said to wilkie, when the living have passed away. but it only makes more exasperating to me the obstinate one-sidedness of the thing. when a man shows so forcibly the side of the medal on which the people in their faults and crimes are stamped, he is the more bound to help us to a glance at that other side on which the faults and vices of the governments placed over the people are not less gravely impressed." this led to some remark on hogarth's method in such matters, and i am glad to be able to preserve this fine criticism of that great englishman, by a writer who closely resembled him in genius; as another generation will be probably more apt than our own to discover. "hogarth avoided the drunkard's progress, i conceive, precisely because the causes of drunkenness among the poor were so numerous and widely spread, and lurked so sorrowfully deep and far down in all human misery, neglect, and despair, that even _his_ pencil could not bring them fairly and justly into the light. it was never his plan to be content with only showing the effect. in the death of the miser-father, his shoe new-soled with the binding of his bible, before the young rake begins his career; in the worldly father, listless daughter, impoverished young lord, and crafty lawyer, of the first plate of marriage-à-la mode; in the detestable advances through the stages of cruelty; and in the progress downward of thomas idle; you see the effects indeed, but also the causes. he was never disposed to spare the kind of drunkenness that was of more 'respectable' engenderment, as one sees in his midnight modern conversation, the election plates, and crowds of stupid aldermen and other guzzlers. but after one immortal journey down gin-lane, he turned away in pity and sorrow--perhaps in hope of better things, one day, from better laws and schools and poor men's homes--and went back no more. the scene of gin-lane, you know, is that just cleared away for the extension of oxford-street, which we were looking at the other day; and i think it a remarkable trait of hogarth's picture, that while it exhibits drunkenness in the most appalling forms, it also forces on attention a most neglected wretched neighbourhood, and an unwholesome, indecent, abject condition of life that might be put as frontispiece to our sanitary report of a hundred years later date. i have always myself thought the purpose of this fine piece to be not adequately stated even by charles lamb. 'the very houses seem absolutely reeling' it is true; but beside that wonderful picture of what follows intoxication, we have indication quite as powerful of what leads to it among the neglected classes. there is no evidence that any of the actors in the dreary scene have ever been much better than we see them there. the best are pawning the commonest necessaries, and tools of their trades; and the worst are homeless vagrants who give us no clue to their having been otherwise in bygone days. all are living and dying miserably. nobody is interfering for prevention or for cure, in the generation going out before us, or the generation coming in. the beadle is the only sober man in the composition except the pawnbroker, and he is mightily indifferent to the orphan-child crying beside its parent's coffin. the little charity-girls are not so well taught or looked after, but that they can take to dram-drinking already. the church indeed is very prominent and handsome; but as, quite passive in the picture, it coldly surveys these things in progress under shadow of its tower, i cannot but bethink me that it was not until this year of grace that a bishop of london first came out respecting something wrong in poor men's social accommodations, and i am confirmed in my suspicion that hogarth had many meanings which have not grown obsolete in a century." another art-criticism by dickens should be added. upon a separate publication by leech of some drawings on stone called the rising generation, from designs done for mr. punch's gallery, he wrote at my request a little essay of which a few sentences will find appropriate place with his letter on the other great caricaturist of his time. i use that word, as he did, only for want of a better. dickens was of opinion that, in this particular line of illustration, while he conceded all his fame to the elder and stronger contemporary, mr. leech was the very first englishman who had made beauty a part of his art; and he held, that, by striking out this course, and setting the successful example of introducing always into his most whimsical pieces some beautiful faces or agreeable forms, he had done more than any other man of his generation to refine a branch of art to which the facilities of steam-printing and wood-engraving were giving almost unrivalled diffusion and popularity. his opinion of leech in a word was that he turned caricature into character; and would leave behind him not a little of the history of his time and its follies, sketched with inimitable grace. "if we turn back to a collection of the works of rowlandson or gilray, we shall find, in spite of the great humour displayed in many of them, that they are rendered wearisome and unpleasant by a vast amount of personal ugliness. now, besides that it is a poor device to represent what is satirized as being necessarily ugly, which is but the resource of an angry child or a jealous woman, it serves no purpose but to produce a disagreeable result. there is no reason why the farmer's daughter in the old caricature who is squalling at the harpsichord (to the intense delight, by the bye, of her worthy father, whom it is her duty to please) should be squab and hideous. the satire on the manner of her education, if there be any in the thing at all, would be just as good, if she were pretty. mr. leech would have made her so. the average of farmers' daughters in england are not impossible lumps of fat. one is quite as likely to find a pretty girl in a farm-house, as to find an ugly one; and we think, with mr. leech, that the business of this style of art is with the pretty one. she is not only a pleasanter object, but we have more interest in her. we care more about what does become her, and does not become her. mr. leech represented the other day certain delicate creatures with bewitching countenances encased in several varieties of that amazing garment, the ladies' paletot. formerly those fair creatures would have been made as ugly and ungainly as possible, and then the point would have been lost. the spectator, with a laugh at the absurdity of the whole group, would not have cared how such uncouth creatures disguised themselves, or how ridiculous they became. . . . but to represent female beauty as mr. leech represents it, an artist must have, a most delicate perception of it; and the gift of being able to realise it to us with two or three slight, sure touches of his pencil. this power mr. leech possesses, in an extraordinary degree. . . . for this reason, we enter our protest against those of the rising generation who are precociously in love being made the subject of merriment by a pitiless and unsympathizing world. we never saw a boy more distinctly in the right than the young gentleman kneeling on the chair to beg a lock of hair from his pretty cousin, to take back to school. madness is in her apron, and virgil dog's-eared and defaced is in her ringlets. doubts may suggest themselves of the perfect disinterestedness of the other young gentleman contemplating the fair girl at the piano--doubts engendered by his worldly allusion to 'tin'; though even that may have arisen in his modest consciousness of his own inability to support an establishment--but that he should be 'deucedly inclined to go and cut that fellow out,' appears to us one of the most natural emotions of the human breast. the young gentleman with the dishevelled hair and clasped hands who loves the transcendant beauty with the bouquet, and can't be happy without her, is to us a withering and desolate spectacle. who _could_ be happy without her? . . . the growing youths are not less happily observed and agreeably depicted than the grown women. the languid little creature who 'hasn't danced since he was quite a boy,' is perfect; and the eagerness of the small dancer whom he declines to receive for a partner at the hands of the glorious old lady of the house (the little feet quite ready for the first position, the whole heart projected into the quadrille, and the glance peeping timidly at the desired one out of a flutter of hope and doubt) is quite delightful to look at. the intellectual juvenile who awakens the tremendous wrath of a norma of private life by considering woman an inferior animal, is lecturing at the present moment, we understand, on the concrete in connexion with the will. the legs of the young philosopher who considers shakespeare an over-rated man, were seen by us dangling over the side of an omnibus last tuesday. we have no acquaintance with the scowling young gentleman who is clear that 'if his governor don't like the way he goes on in, why he must have chambers and so much a week;' but if he is not by this time in van diemen's land, he will certainly go to it through newgate. we should exceedingly dislike to have personal property in a strong box, to live in the suburb of camberwell, and to be in the relation of bachelor-uncle to that youth. . . . in all his designs, whatever mr. leech desires to do, he does. his drawing seems to us charming; and the expression indicated, though by the simplest means, is exactly the natural expression, and is recognised as such immediately. some forms of our existing life will never have a better chronicler. his wit is good-natured, and always the wit of a gentleman. he has a becoming sense of responsibility and self-restraint; he delights in agreeable things; he imparts some pleasant air of his own to things not pleasant in themselves; he is suggestive and full of matter; and he is always improving. into the tone as well as into the execution of what he does, he has brought a certain elegance which is altogether new, without involving any compromise of what is true. popular art in england has not had so rich an acquisition." dickens's closing allusion was to a remark made by mr. ford in a review of _oliver twist_ formerly referred to. "it is eight or ten years since a writer in the _quarterly review_, making mention of mr. george cruikshank, commented on the absurdity of excluding such a man from the royal academy, because his works were not produced in certain materials, and did not occupy a certain space in its annual shows. will no associates be found upon its books one of these days, the labours of whose oil and brushes will have sunk into the profoundest obscurity, when many pencil-marks of mr. cruikshank and of mr. leech will be still fresh in half the houses in the land?" of what otherwise occupied him at broadstairs in there is not much to mention until the close of his holiday. he used to say that he never went for more than a couple of days from his own home without something befalling him that never happened to anyone else, and his broadstairs adventure of the present summer verged closer on tragedy than comedy. returning there one day in august after bringing up his boys to school, it had been arranged that his wife should meet him at margate; but he had walked impatiently far beyond the place for meeting when at last he caught sight of her, not in the small chaise but in a large carriage and pair followed by an excited crowd, and with the youth that should have been driving the little pony bruised and bandaged on the box behind the two prancing horses. "you may faintly imagine my amazement at encountering this carriage, and the strange people, and kate, and the crowd, and the bandaged one, and all the rest of it." and then in a line or two i had the story. "at the top of a steep hill on the road, with a ditch on each side, the pony bolted, upon which what does john do but jump out! he says he was thrown out, but it cannot be. the reins immediately became entangled in the wheels, and away went the pony down the hill madly, with kate inside rending the isle of thanet with her screams. the accident might have been a fearful one, if the pony had not, thank heaven, on getting to the bottom, pitched over the side; breaking the shaft and cutting her hind legs, but in the most extraordinary manner smashing her own way apart. she tumbled down, a bundle of legs with her head tucked underneath, and left the chaise standing on the bank! a captain devaynes and his wife were passing in their carriage at the moment, saw the accident with no power of preventing it, got kate out, laid her on the grass, and behaved with infinite kindness. all's well that ends well, and i think she's really none the worse for the fright. john is in bed a good deal bruised, but without any broken bone, and likely soon to come right; though for the present plastered all over, and, like squeers, a brown-paper parcel chock-full of nothing but groans. the women generally have no sympathy for him whatever; and the nurse says, with indignation, how could he go and leave an unprotected female in the shay!" holiday incidents there were many, but none that need detain us. this was really a summer idleness: for it was the interval between two of his important undertakings, there was no periodical yet to make demands on him, and only the task of finishing his _haunted man_ for christmas lay ahead. but he did even his nothings in a strenuous way, and on occasion could make gallant fight against the elements themselves. he reported himself, to my horror, thrice wet through on a single day, "dressed four times," and finding all sorts of great things, brought out by the rains, among the rocks on the sea-beach. he also sketched now and then morsels of character for me, of which i will preserve one. "f is philosophical, from sunrise to bedtime: chiefly in the french line, about french women going mad, and in that state coming to their husbands, and saying, 'mon ami, je vous ai trompé. voici les lettres de mon amant!' whereupon the husbands take the letters and think them waste paper, and become extra-philosophical at finding that they really _were_ the lover's effusions: though what there is of philosophy in it all, or anything but unwholesomeness, it is not easy to see." (a remark that it might not be out of place to offer to mr. taine's notice.) "likewise about dark shades coming over our wedded emmeline's face at parties; and about f handing her to her carriage, and saying, 'may i come in, for a lift homeward?' and she bending over him out of window, and saying in a low voice, i dare not! and then of the carriage driving away like lightning, leaving f more philosophical than ever on the pavement." not till the close of september i heard of work intruding itself, in a letter twitting me for a broken promise in not joining him: "we are reasonably jolly, but rurally so; going to bed o' nights at ten, and bathing o' mornings at half-past seven; and not drugging ourselves with those dirty and spoiled waters of lethe that flow round the base of the great pyramid." then, after mention of the friends who had left him, sheriff gordon, the leeches, lemon, egg and stone: "reflection and pensiveness are coming. i have not '--seen fancy write with a pencil of light on the blotter so solid, commanding the sea!' but i shouldn't wonder if she were to do it, one of these days. dim visions of divers things are floating around me; and i must go to work, head foremost, when i get home. i am glad, after all, that i have not been at it here; for i am all the better for my idleness, no doubt. . . . roche was very ill last night, and looks like one with his face turned to the other world, this morning. when _are_ you coming? oh what days and nights there have been here, this week past!" my consent to a suggestion in his next letter, that i should meet him on his way back, and join him in a walking-excursion home, got me full absolution for broken promises; and the way we took will remind friends of his later life, when he was lord of gadshill, of an object of interest which he delighted in taking them to see. "you will come down booked for maidstone (i will meet you at paddock-wood), and we will go thither in company over a most beautiful little line of railroad. the eight miles walk from maidstone to rochester, and the visit to the druidical altar on the wayside, are charming. this could be accomplished on the tuesday; and wednesday we might look about us at chatham, coming home by cobham on thursday. . . ." his first seaside holiday in was at brighton, where he passed some weeks in february; and not, i am bound to add, without the usual _un_usual adventure to signalize his visit. he had not been a week in his lodgings, where leech and his wife joined him, when both his landlord and the daughter of his landlord went raving mad, and the lodgers were driven away to the bedford hotel. "if you could have heard the cursing and crying of the two; could have seen the physician and nurse quoited out into the passage by the madman at the hazard of their lives; could have seen leech and me flying to the doctor's rescue; could have seen our wives pulling us back; could have seen the m.d. faint with fear; could have seen three other m.d.'s come to his aid; with an atmosphere of mrs. gamps, strait-waistcoats, struggling friends and servants, surrounding the whole; you would have said it was quite worthy of me, and quite in keeping with my usual proceedings." the letter ended with a word on what then his thoughts were full of, but for which no name had yet been found. "a sea-fog to-day, but yesterday inexpressibly delicious. my mind running, like a high sea, on names--not satisfied yet, though." when he next wrote from the seaside, in the beginning of july, he had found the name; had started his book; and was "rushing to broadstairs" to write the fourth number of _david copperfield_. in this came the childish experiences which had left so deep an impression upon him, and over which he had some difficulty in throwing the needful disguises. "fourteen miles to-day in the country," he had written to me on the st of june, "revolving number four!" still he did not quite see his way. three days later he wrote: "on leaving you last night, i found myself summoned on a special jury in the queen's bench to-day. i have taken no notice of the document,[ ] and hourly expect to be dragged forth to a dungeon for contempt of court. i think i should rather like it. it might help me with a new notion or two in my difficulties. meanwhile i shall take a stroll to-night in the green fields from to , if you feel inclined to join." his troubles ended when he got to broadstairs, from which he wrote on the tenth of july to tell me that agreeably to the plan we had discussed he had introduced a great part of his ms. into the number. "i really think i have done it ingeniously, and with a very complicated interweaving of truth and fiction. vous verrez. i am getting on like a house afire in point of health, and ditto ditto in point of number." in the middle of july the number was nearly done, and he was still doubtful where to pass his longer summer holiday. leech wished to join him in it, and both desired a change from broadstairs. at first he thought of folkestone,[ ] but disappointment there led to a sudden change. "i propose" ( th of july) "returning to town to-morrow by the boat from ramsgate, and going off to weymouth or the isle of wight, or both, early the next morning." a few days after, his choice was made. he had taken a house at bonchurch, attracted there by the friend who had made it a place of interest for him during the last few years, the reverend james white, with whose name and its associations my mind connects inseparably many of dickens's happiest hours. to pay him fitting tribute would not be easy, if here it were called for. in the kindly shrewd scotch face, a keen sensitiveness to pleasure and pain was the first thing that struck any common observer. cheerfulness and gloom coursed over it so rapidly that no one could question the tale they told. but the relish of his life had outlived its more than usual share of sorrows; and quaint sly humour, love of jest and merriment, capital knowledge of books, and sagacious quips at men, made his companionship delightful. like his life, his genius was made up of alternations of mirth and melancholy. he would be immersed, at one time, in those darkest scottish annals from which he drew his tragedies; and overflowing, at another, into sir frizzle pumpkin's exuberant farce. the tragic histories may probably perish with the actor's perishable art; but three little abstracts of history written at a later time in prose, with a sunny clearness of narration and a glow of picturesque interest to my knowledge unequalled in books of such small pretension, will find, i hope, a lasting place in literature. they are filled with felicities of phrase, with breadth of understanding and judgment, with manful honesty, quiet sagacity, and a constant cheerful piety, valuable for all and priceless for the young. another word i permit myself to add. with dickens, white was popular supremely for his eager good fellowship; and few men brought him more of what he always liked to receive. but he brought nothing so good as his wife. "he is excellent, but she is better," is the pithy remark of his first bonchurch letter; and the true affection and respect that followed is happily still borne her by his daughters. of course there is something strange to be recorded of the bonchurch holiday, but it does not come till nearer the ending; and, with more attention to mrs. malaprop's advice to begin with a little aversion, might probably not have come at all. he began with an excess of liking. of the undercliff he was full of admiration. "from the top of the highest downs," he wrote in his second letter ( th of july) "there are views which are only to be equalled on the genoese shore of the mediterranean; the variety of walks is extraordinary; things are cheap, and everybody is civil. the waterfall acts wonderfully, and the sea bathing is delicious. best of all, the place is certainly cold rather than hot, in the summer time. the evenings have been even chilly. white very jovial, and emulous of the inimitable in respect of gin-punch. he had made some for our arrival. ha! ha! not bad for a beginner. . . . i have been, and am, trying to work this morning; but i can't make anything of it, and am going out to think. i am invited by a distinguished friend to dine with you on the first of august, but i have pleaded distance and the being resident in a cave on the sea shore; my food, beans; my drink, the water from the rock. . . . i must pluck up heart of grace to write to jeffrey, of whom i had but poor accounts from gordon just before leaving. talfourd delightful, and amuses me mightily. i am really quite enraptured at his success, and think of his happiness with uncommon pleasure." our friend was now on the bench; which he adorned with qualities that are justly the pride of that profession, and with accomplishments that have become more rare in its highest places than they were in former times. his elevation only made those virtues better known. talfourd assumed nothing with the ermine but the privilege of more frequent intercourse with the tastes and friends he loved, and he continued to be the most joyous and least affected of companions. such small oddities or foibles as he had made him secretly only dearer to dickens, who had no friend he was more attached to; and the many happy nights made happier by the voice so affluent in generous words, and the face so bright with ardent sensibility, come back to me sorrowfully now. "deaf the prais'd ear, and mute the tuneful tongue." the poet's line has a double application and sadness. he wrote again on the first of august. "i have just begun to get into work. we are expecting the queen to come by very soon, in grand array, and are going to let off ever so many guns. i had a letter from jeffrey yesterday morning, just as i was going to write to him. he has evidently been very ill, and i begin to have fears for his recovery. it is a very pathetic letter, as to his state of mind; but only in a tranquil contemplation of death, which i think very noble." his next letter, four days later, described himself as continuing still at work; but also taking part in dinners at blackgang, and picnics of "tremendous success" on shanklin down. "two charity sermons for the school are preached to-day, and i go to the afternoon one. the examination of said school t'other day was very funny. all the boys made buckstone's bow in the _rough diamond_, and some in a very wonderful manner recited pieces of poetry, about a clock, and may we be like the clock, which is always a going and a doing of its duty, and always tells the truth (supposing it to be a slap-up chronometer i presume, for the american clock in the school was lying frightfully at that moment); and after being bothered to death by the multiplication table, they were refreshed with a public tea in lady jane swinburne's garden." (there was a reference in one of his letters, but i have lost it, to a golden-haired lad of the swinburnes whom his own boys used to play with, since become more widely known.) "the rain came in with the first tea-pot, and has been active ever since. on friday we had a grand, and what is better, a very good dinner at 'parson' fielden's, with some choice port. on tuesday we are going on another picnic; with the materials for a fire, at my express stipulation; and a great iron pot to boil potatoes in. these things, and the eatables, go to the ground in a cart. last night we had some very good merriment at white's, where pleasant julian young and his wife (who are staying about five miles off) showed some droll new games"--and roused the ambition in my friend to give a "mighty conjuring performance for all the children in bonchurch," for which i sent him the materials and which went off in a tumult of wild delight. to the familiar names in this letter i will add one more, grieving freshly even now to connect it with suffering. "a letter from poole has reached me since i began this letter, with tidings in it that you will be very sorry to hear. poor regnier has lost his only child; the pretty daughter who dined with us that nice day at your house, when we all pleased the poor mother by admiring her so much. she died of a sudden attack of malignant typhus. poole was at the funeral, and writes that he never saw, or could have imagined, such intensity of grief as regnier's at the grave. how one loves him for it. but is it not always true, in comedy and in tragedy, that the more real the man the more genuine the actor?" after a few more days i heard of progress with his writing in spite of all festivities. "i have made it a rule that the inimitable is invisible, until two every day. i shall have half the number done, please god, to-morrow. i have not worked quickly here yet, but i don't know what i _may_ do. divers cogitations have occupied my mind at intervals, respecting the dim design." the design was the weekly periodical so often in his thoughts, of which more will appear in my next chapter. his letter closed with intimations of discomfort in his health; of an obstinate cough; and of a determination he had formed to mount daily to the top of the downs. "it makes a great difference in the climate to get a blow there and come down again." then i heard of the doctor "stethoscoping" him, of his hope that all was right in that quarter, and of rubbings "à la st. john long" being ordered for his chest. but the mirth still went on. "there has been a doctor lankester at sandown, a very good merry fellow, who has made one at the picnics, and whom i went over and dined with, along with danby (i remember your liking for danby, and don't wonder at it), leech, and white." a letter towards the close of august resumed yet more of his ordinary tone. "we had games and forfeits last night at white's. davy roberts's pretty little daughter is there for a week, with her husband, bicknell's son. there was a dinner first to say good-bye to danby, who goes to other clergyman's-duty, and we were very merry. mrs. white unchanging; white comically various in his moods. talfourd comes down next tuesday, and we think of going over to ryde on monday, visiting the play, sleeping there (i don't mean at the play), and bringing the judge back. browne is coming down when he has done his month's work. should you like to go to alum bay while you are here? it would involve a night out, but i think would be very pleasant; and if you think so too, i will arrange it sub rosâ, so that we may not be, like bobadil, 'oppressed by numbers.' i mean to take a fly over from shanklin to meet you at ryde; so that we can walk back from shanklin over the landslip, where the scenery is wonderfully beautiful. stone and egg are coming next month, and we hope to see jerrold before we go." such notices from his letters may be thought hardly worth preserving; but a wonderful vitality in every circumstance, as long as life under any conditions remained to the writer, is the picture they contribute to; nor would it be complete without the addition, that fond as he was, in the intervals of his work, of this abundance and variety of enjoyments, to no man were so essential also those quieter hours of thought, and talk, not obtainable when "oppressed by numbers." my visit was due at the opening of september, but a few days earlier came the full revelation of which only a passing shadow had reached in two or three previous letters. "before i think of beginning my next number, i perhaps cannot do better than give you an imperfect description of the results of the climate of bonchurch after a few weeks' residence. the first salubrious effect of which the patient becomes conscious is an almost continual feeling of sickness, accompanied with great prostration of strength, so that his legs tremble under him, and his arms quiver when he wants to take hold of any object. an extraordinary disposition to sleep (except at night, when his rest, in the event of his having any, is broken by incessant dreams) is always present at the same time; and, if he have anything to do requiring thought and attention, this overpowers him to such a degree that he can only do it in snatches: lying down on beds in the fitful intervals. extreme depression of mind, and a disposition to shed tears from morning to night, developes itself at the same period. if the patient happen to have been a good walker, he finds ten miles an insupportable distance; in the achievement of which his legs are so unsteady, that he goes from side to side of the road, like a drunken man. if he happen to have ever possessed any energy of any kind, he finds it quenched in a dull, stupid languor. he has no purpose, power, or object in existence whatever. when he brushes his hair in the morning, he is so weak that he is obliged to sit upon a chair to do it. he is incapable of reading, at all times. and his bilious system is so utterly overthrown, that a ball of boiling fat appears to be always behind the top of the bridge of his nose, simmering between his haggard eyes. if he should have caught a cold, he will find it impossible to get rid of it, as his system is wholly incapable of making any effort. his cough will be deep, monotonous, and constant. 'the faithful watch-dog's honest bark' will be nothing to it. he will abandon all present idea of overcoming it, and will content himself with keeping an eye upon his blood-vessels to preserve them whole and sound. _patient's name, inimitable b._ . . . it's a mortal mistake!--that's the plain fact. of all the places i ever have been in, i have never been in one so difficult to exist in, pleasantly. naples is hot and dirty, new york feverish, washington bilious, genoa exciting, paris rainy--but bonchurch, smashing. i am quite convinced that i should die here, in a year. it's not hot, it's not close, i don't know what it is, but the prostration of it is _awful_. nobody here has the least idea what i think of it; but i find, from all sorts of hints from kate, georgina, and the leeches, that they are all affected more or less in the same way, and find it very difficult to make head against. i make no sign, and pretend not to know what is going on. but they are right. i believe the leeches will go soon, and small blame to 'em!--for me, when i leave here at the end of this september, i must go down to some cold place; as ramsgate for example, for a week or two; or i seriously believe i shall feel the effects of it for a long time. . . . what do you think of _that_? . . . the longer i live, the more i doubt the doctors. i am perfectly convinced, that, for people suffering under a wasting disease, this undercliff is madness altogether. the doctors, with the old miserable folly of looking at one bit of a subject, take the patient's lungs and the undercliff's air, and settle solemnly that they are fit for each other. but the whole influence of the place, never taken into consideration, is to reduce and overpower vitality. i am quite confident that i should go down under it, as if it were so much lead, slowly crushing me. an american resident in paris many years, who brought me a letter from olliffe, said, the day before yesterday, that he had always had a passion for the sea never to be gratified enough, but that after living here a month, he could not bear to look at it; he couldn't endure the sound of it; he didn't know how it was, but it seemed associated with the decay of his whole powers." these were grave imputations against one of the prettiest places in england; but of the generally depressing influence of that undercliff on particular temperaments, i had already enough experience to abate something of the surprise with which i read the letter. what it too bluntly puts aside are the sufferings other than his own, projected and sheltered by what only aggravated his; but my visit gave me proof that he had really very little overstated the effect upon himself. making allowance, which sometimes he failed to do, for special peculiarities, and for the excitability never absent when he had in hand an undertaking such as _copperfield_, i observed a nervous tendency to misgivings and apprehensions to the last degree unusual with him, which seemed to make the commonest things difficult; and though he stayed out his time, and brought away nothing that his happier associations with the place and its residents did not long survive, he never returned to bonchurch. in the month that remained he completed his fifth number, and with the proof there came the reply to some questions of which i hardly remember more than that they referred to doubts of mine; one being as to the propriety of the kind of delusion he had first given to poor mr. dick,[ ] which i thought a little too farcical for that really touching delineation of character. "your suggestion is perfectly wise and sound," he wrote back ( nd of august). "i have acted on it. i have also, instead of the bull and china-shop delusion, given dick the idea, that, when the head of king charles the first was cut off, some of the trouble was taken out of it, and put into his (dick's)". when he next wrote, there was news very welcome to me for the pleasure to himself it involved. "browne has sketched an uncommonly characteristic and capital mr. micawber for the next number. i hope the present number is a good one. i hear nothing but pleasant accounts of the general satisfaction." the same letter told me of an intention to go to broadstairs, put aside by doubtful reports of its sanitary condition; but it will be seen presently that there was another graver interruption. with his work well off his hands, however, he had been getting on better where he was; and they had all been very merry. "yes," he said, writing after a couple of days ( rd of september), "we have been sufficiently rollicking since i finished the number; and have had great games at rounders every afternoon, with all bonchurch looking on; but i begin to long for a little peace and solitude. and now for my less pleasing piece of news. the sea has been running very high, and leech, while bathing, was knocked over by a bad blow from a great wave on the forehead. he is in bed, and had twenty of his namesakes on his temples this morning. when i heard of him just now, he was asleep--which he had not been all night." he closed his letter hopefully, but next day ( th september) i had less favourable report. "leech has been very ill with congestion of the brain ever since i wrote, and being still in excessive pain has had ice to his head continuously, and been bled in the arm besides. beard and i sat up there, all night." on the th he wrote, "my plans are all unsettled by leech's illness; as of course i do not like to leave this place while i can be of any service to him and his good little wife. but all visitors are gone to-day, and winterbourne once more left to the engaging family of the inimitable b. ever since i wrote to you leech has been seriously worse, and again very heavily bled. the night before last he was in such an alarming state of restlessness, which nothing could relieve, that i proposed to mrs. leech to try magnetism. accordingly, in the middle of the night i fell to; and after a very fatiguing bout of it, put him to sleep for an hour and thirty-five minutes. a change came on in the sleep, and he is decidedly better. i talked to the astounded little mrs. leech across him, when he was asleep, as if he had been a truss of hay. . . . what do you think of my setting up in the magnetic line with a large brass plate? 'terms, twenty-five guineas per nap.'" when he wrote again on the th, he had completed his sixth number; and his friend was so clearly on the way to recovery that he was next day to leave for broadstairs with his wife, her sister, and the two little girls. "i will merely add that i entreat to be kindly remembered to thackeray" (who had a dangerous illness at this time); "that i think i have, without a doubt, _got_ the periodical notion; and that i am writing under the depressing and discomforting influence of paying off the tribe of bills that pour in upon an unfortunate family-young-man on the eve of a residence like this. so no more at present from the disgusted, though still inimitable, and always affectionate b." he stayed at broadstairs till he had finished his number seven, and what else chiefly occupied him were thoughts about the periodical of which account will presently be given. "such a night and day of rain," ran his first letter, "i should think the oldest inhabitant never saw! and yet, in the ould formiliar broadstairs, i somehow or other don't mind it much. the change has done mamey a world of good, and i have begun to sleep again. as for news, you might as well ask me for dolphins. nobody in broadstairs--to speak of. certainly nobody in ballard's. we are in the part, which is the house next door to the hotel itself, that we once had for three years running, and just as quiet and snug now as it was then. i don't think i shall return before the th or so, when the number is done; but i _may_, in some inconstant freak, run up to you before. preliminary despatches and advices shall be forwarded in any case to the fragrant neighbourhood of clare-market and the portugal-street burying-ground." such was his polite designation of my whereabouts: for which nevertheless he had secret likings. "on the portsmouth railway, coming here, encountered kenyon. on the ditto ditto at reigate, encountered young dilke, and took him in tow to canterbury. on the ditto ditto at ditto (meaning reigate), encountered fox, m. p. for oldham, and his daughter. all within an hour. young dilke great about the proposed exposition under the direction of h. r. h. prince albert, and evincing, very pleasantly to me, unbounded faith in our old friend his father." there was one more letter, taking a rather gloomy view of public affairs in connection with an inflated pastoral from doctor wiseman "given out of the flaminian gate," and speaking dolefully of some family matters; which was subscribed, each word forming a separate line, "yours despondently, and disgustedly, wilkins micawber." his visit to the little watering-place in the following year was signalised by his completion of the most famous of his novels, and his letters otherwise were occupied by elaborate managerial preparation for the private performances at knebworth. but again the plague of itinerant music flung him into such fevers of irritation, that he finally resolved against any renewed attempt to carry on important work here; and the summer of , when he was only busy with miscellaneous writing, was the last of his regular residences in the place. he then let his london house for the brief remainder of its term; ran away at the end of may, when some grave family sorrows had befallen him, from the crowds and excitements of the great exhibition; and with intervals of absence, chiefly at the guild representations, stayed in his favourite fort-house by the sea until october, when he took possession of tavistock-house. from his letters may be added a few notices of this last holiday at broadstairs, which he had always afterwards a kindly word for; and to which he said pleasant adieu in the sketch of "our watering-place," written shortly before he left. "it is more delightful here" ( st of june) "than i can express. corn growing, larks singing, garden full of flowers, fresh air on the sea--o it is wonderful! why can't you come down next saturday (bringing work) and go back with me on wednesday for the _copperfield_ banquet? concerning which, of course, i say yes to talfourd's kind proposal. lemon by all means. and--don't you think? browne? whosoever, besides, pleases talfourd will please me." great was the success of that banquet. the scene was the star-and-garter at richmond; thackeray and alfred tennyson joined in the celebration; and the generous giver was in his best vein. i have rarely seen dickens happier than he was amid the sunshine of that day. jerrold and thackeray returned to town with us; and a little argument between them about money and its uses, led to an avowal of dickens about himself to which i may add the confirmation of all our years of intercourse. "no man," he said, "attaches less importance to the possession of money, or less disparagement to the want of it, than i do." vague mention of a "next book" escaped in a letter at the end of july, on which i counselled longer abstinence. "good advice," he replied, "but difficult: i wish you'd come to us and preach another kind of abstinence. fancy the preventive men finding a lot of brandy in barrels on the rocks here, the day before yesterday! nobody knows anything about the barrels, of course. they were intended to have been landed with the next tide, and to have been just covered at low water. but the water being unusually low, the tops of the barrels became revealed to preventive telescopes, and descent was made upon the brandy. they are always at it, hereabouts, i have no doubt. and of course b would not have had any of it. o dear no! certainly not." his reading was considerable and very various at these intervals of labour, and in this particular summer took in all the minor tales as well as the plays of voltaire, several of the novels (old favourites with him) of paul de kock, ruskin's _lamps of architecture_, and a surprising number of books of african and other travel for which he had insatiable relish: but the notices of all this in his letters were few. "by the bye, i observe, reading that wonderful book the _french revolution_ again, for the th time, that carlyle, who knows everything, don't know what mumbo jumbo is. it is not an idol. it is a secret preserved among the men of certain african tribes, and never revealed by any of them, for the punishment of their women. mumbo jumbo comes in hideous form out of the forest, or the mud, or the river, or where not, and flogs some woman who has been backbiting, or scolding, or with some other domestic mischief disturbing the general peace. carlyle seems to confound him with the common fetish; but he is quite another thing. he is a disguised man; and all about him is a freemasons' secret _among the men_."--"i finished the _scarlet letter_ yesterday. it falls off sadly after that fine opening scene. the psychological part of the story is very much over-done, and not truly done i think. their suddenness of meeting and agreeing to go away together, after all those years, is very poor. mr. chillingworth ditto. the child out of nature altogether. and mr. dimmisdale certainly never could have begotten her." in mr. hawthorne's earlier books he had taken especial pleasure; his _mosses from an old manse_ having been the first book he placed in my hands on his return from america, with reiterated injunctions to read it. i will add a word or two of what he wrote of the clever story of another popular writer, because it hits well the sort of ability that has become so common, which escapes the highest point of cleverness, but stops short only at the very verge of it. "the story extremely good indeed; but all the strongest things of which it is capable, missed. it shows just how far that kind of power can go. it is more like a note of the idea than anything else. it seems to me as if it were written by somebody who lived next door to the people, rather than inside of 'em." i joined him for the august regatta and stayed a pleasant fortnight. his paper on "our watering-place" appeared while i was there, and great was the local excitement. his own restlessness with fancies for a new book had now risen beyond bounds, and for the time he was eager to open it in that prettiest quaintest bit of english landscape, strood valley, which reminded him always of a swiss scene. i had not left him many days when these lines followed me. "i very nearly packed up a portmanteau and went away, the day before yesterday, into the mountains of switzerland, alone! still the victim of an intolerable restlessness, i shouldn't be at all surprised if i wrote to you one of these mornings from under mont blanc. i sit down between whiles to think of a new story, and, as it begins to grow, such a torment of a desire to be anywhere but where i am; and to be going i don't know where, i don't know why; takes hold of me, that it is like being _driven away_. if i had had a passport, i sincerely believe i should have gone to switzerland the night before last. i should have remembered our engagement--say, at paris, and have come back for it; but should probably have left by the next express train." at the end of november, when he had settled himself in his new london abode, the book was begun; and as generally happened with the more important incidents of his life, but always accidentally, begun on a friday. footnotes: [ ] my friend mr. shirley brooks sends me a "characteristic" cutting from an autograph catalogue in which these few lines are given from an early letter in the doughty-street days. "i always pay my taxes when they won't call any longer, in order to get a bad name in the parish and so escape all honours." it is a touch of character, certainly; but though his motive in later life was the same, his method was not. he attended to the tax-collector, but of any other parochial or political application took no notice whatever. [ ] even in the modest retirement of a note i fear that i shall offend the dignity of history, and of biography, by printing the lines in which this intention was announced to me. they were written "in character;" and the character was that of the "waterman" at the charing-cross cabstand, first discovered by george cattermole, whose imitations of him were a delight to dickens at this time, and adapted themselves in the exuberance of his admiration to every conceivable variety of subject. the painter of the derby day will have a fullness of satisfaction in remembering this. "sloppy" the hero in question, had a friend "jack" in whom he was supposed to typify his own early and hard experiences before he became a convert to temperance; and dickens used to point to "jack" as the justification of himself and mrs. gamp for their portentous invention of mrs. harris. it is amazing nonsense to repeat; but to hear cattermole, in the gruff hoarse accents of what seemed to be the remains of a deep bass voice wrapped up in wet straw, repeat the wild proceedings of jack, was not to be forgotten. "yes sir, jack went mad sir, just afore he 'stablished hisself by sir robert peel's-s-s, sir. he was allis a callin' for a pint o' beer sir, and they brings him water sir. yes sir. and so sir, i sees him dodgin' about one day sir, yes sir, and at last he gits a hopportunity sir and claps a pitch-plaster on the mouth o' th' pump sir, and says he's done for his wust henemy sir. yes sir. and then they finds him a-sittin' on the top o' the corn-chest sir, yes sir, a crammin' a old pistol with wisps o' hay and horse-beans sir, and swearin' he's a goin' to blow hisself to hattoms, yes sir, but he doesn't, no sir. for i sees him arterwards a lyin' on the straw a manifacktrin' bengal cheroots out o' corn-chaff sir and swearin' he'd make 'em smoke sir, but they hulloxed him off round by the corner of drummins's-s-s-s-s-s sir, just afore i come here sir, yes sir. and so you never see'd us together sir, no sir." this was the remarkable dialect in which dickens wrote from broadstairs on the th of july. "about saturday sir?--why sir, i'm a-going to _folkestone_ a saturday sir!--not on accounts of the manifacktring of bengal cheroots as there is there but for the survayin' o' the coast sir. 'cos you see sir, bein' here sir, and not a finishin' my work sir till to-morrow sir, i couldn't go afore! and if i wos to come home, and not go, and come back agin sir, wy it would be nat'rally a hulloxing of myself sir. yes sir. wy sir, i b'lieve that the gent as is a goin' to 'stablish hisself sir, in the autumn, along with me round the corner sir (by drummins's-s-s-s-s-s bank) is a comin' down to folkestone saturday arternoon--leech by name sir--yes sir--another jack sir--and if you wos to come down along with him sir by the train as gits to folkestone twenty minutes arter five, you'd find me a smoking a bengal cheroot (made of clover-chaff and horse-beans sir) on the platform. you couldn't spend your arternoon better sir. dover, sandgate, herne bay--they're all to be wisited sir, most probable, till such times as a 'ouse is found sir. yes sir. then decide to come sir, and say you will, and do it. i shall be here till arter post time saturday mornin' sir. come on then! "sloppy "his x mark." [ ] it stood originally thus: "'do you recollect the date,' said mr. dick, looking earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, 'when that bull got into the china warehouse and did so much mischief?' i was very much surprised by the inquiry; but remembering a song about such an occurrence that was once popular at salem house, and thinking he might want to quote it, replied that i believed it was on st. patrick's day. 'yes, i know,' said mr. dick--'in the morning; but what year?' i could give no information on this point." original ms. of _copperfield_. chapter xix. haunted man and household words. - . friendly plea for mr. macrone--completion of christmas tale--the "ghost" story and the "bargain"--the tetterby family--moral of the story--_copperfield_ sales--letter from russia--the periodical taking form--hopes of success--doubts respecting it--new design chosen--names proposed--appearance of first number--earliest contributors--his opinion of mr. sala--child's dream of a star--a fancy derived from his childhood. it has been seen that his fancy for his christmas book of first arose to him at lausanne in the summer of , and that, after writing its opening pages in the autumn of the following year, he laid it aside under the pressure of his _dombey_. these lines were in the letter that closed his broadstairs holiday. "at last i am a mentally matooring of the christmas book--or, as poor macrone[ ] used to write, 'booke,' 'boke,' 'buke,' &c." it was the first labour to which he applied himself at his return. in london it soon came to maturity; was published duly as _the haunted man, or the ghost's bargain_; sold largely, beginning with a subscription of twenty thousand; and had a great success on the adelphi stage, to which it was rather cleverly adapted by lemon. he had placed on its title page originally four lines from tennyson's "departure," "and o'er the hills, and far away beyond their utmost purple rim, beyond the night, across the day, thro' all the world it follow'd him;" but they were less applicable to the close than to the opening of the tale, and were dropped before publication. the hero is a great chemist, a lecturer at an old foundation, a man of studious philosophic habits, haunted with recollections of the past "o'er which his melancholy sits on brood," thinking his knowledge of the present a worthier substitute, and at last parting with that portion of himself which he thinks he can safely cast away. the recollections are of a great wrong done him in early life, and of all the sorrow consequent upon it; and the ghost he holds nightly conference with, is the darker presentiment of himself embodied in those bitter recollections. this part is finely managed. out of heaped-up images of gloomy and wintry fancies, the supernatural takes a shape which is not forced or violent; and the dialogue which is no dialogue, but a kind of dreary dreamy echo, is a piece of ghostly imagination better than mrs. radcliffe. the boon desired is granted and the bargain struck. he is not only to lose his own recollection of grief and wrong, but to destroy the like memory in all whom he approaches. by this means the effect is shown in humble as well as higher minds, in the worst poverty as in competence or ease, always with the same result. the over-thinking sage loses his own affections and sympathy, sees them crushed in others, and is brought to the level of the only creature whom he cannot change or influence, an outcast of the streets, a boy whom the mere animal appetites have turned into a small fiend. never having had his mind awakened, evil is this creature's good; avarice, irreverence, and vindictiveness, are his nature; sorrow has no place in his memory; and from his brutish propensities the philosopher can take nothing away. the juxtaposition of two people whom such opposite means have put in the same moral position is a stroke of excellent art. there are plenty of incredibilities and inconsistencies, just as in the pleasant _cricket on the hearth_, which one does not care about, but enjoy rather than otherwise; and, as in that charming little book, there were minor characters as delightful as anything in dickens. the tetterby group, in whose humble, homely, kindly, ungainly figures there is everything that could suggest itself to a clear eye, a piercing wit, and a loving heart, became enormous favourites. tilly slowboy and her little dot of a baby, charging folks with it as if it were an offensive instrument, or handing it about as if it were something to drink, were not more popular than poor johnny tetterby staggering under his moloch of an infant, the juggernaut that crushes all his enjoyments. the story itself consists of nothing more than the effects of the ghost's gift upon the various groups of people introduced, and the way the end is arrived at is very specially in dickens's manner. what the highest exercise of the intellect had missed is found in the simplest form of the affections. the wife of the custodian of the college where the chemist is professor, in whom are all the unselfish virtues that can beautify and endear the humblest condition, is the instrument of the change. such sorrow as she had suffered had made her only zealous to relieve others' sufferings: and the discontented wise man learns from her example that the world is, after all, a much happier compromise than it seems to be, and life easier than wisdom is apt to think it; that grief gives joy its relish, purifying what it touches truly; and that "sweet are the uses of adversity" when its clouds are not the shadow of dishonour. all this can be shown but lightly within such space, it is true; and in the machinery a good deal has to be taken for granted. but dickens was quite justified in turning aside from objections of that kind. "you must suppose," he wrote to me ( st of november), "that the ghost's saving clause gives him those glimpses without which it would be impossible to carry out the idea. of course my point is that bad and good are inextricably linked in remembrance, and that you could not choose the enjoyment of recollecting only the good. to have all the best of it you must remember the worst also. my intention in the other point you mention is, that he should not know himself how he communicates the gift, whether by look or touch; and that it should diffuse itself in its own way in each case. i can make this clearer by a very few lines in the second part. it is not only necessary to be so, for the variety of the story, but i think it makes the thing wilder and stranger." critical niceties are indeed out of place, where wildness and strangeness in the means matter less than that there should be clearness in the drift and intention. dickens leaves no doubt as to this. he thoroughly makes out his fancy, that no man should so far question the mysterious dispensations of evil in this world as to desire to lose the recollection of such injustice or misery as he may suppose it to have done to himself. there may have been sorrow, but there was the kindness that assuaged it; there may have been wrong, but there was the charity that forgave it; and with both are connected inseparably so many thoughts that soften and exalt whatever else is in the sense of memory, that what is good and pleasurable in life would cease to continue so if these were forgotten. the old proverb does not tell you to forget that you may forgive, but to forgive that you may forget. it is forgiveness of wrong, for forgetfulness of the evil that was in it; such as poor old lear begged of cordelia. the design for his much-thought-of new periodical was still "dim," as we have seen, when the first cogitation of it at bonchurch occupied him; but the expediency of making it clearer came soon after with a visit from mr. evans, who brought his half-year's accounts of sales, and some small disappointment for him in those of _copperfield_. "the accounts are rather shy, after _dombey_, and what you said comes true after all. i am not sorry i cannot bring myself to care much for what opinions people may form; and i have a strong belief, that, if any of my books are read years hence, _dombey_ will be remembered as among the best of them: but passing influences are important for the time, and as _chuzzlewit_ with its small sale sent me up, _dombey's_ large sale has tumbled me down. not very much, however, in real truth. these accounts only include the first three numbers, have of course been burdened with all the heavy expenses of number one, and ought not in reason to be complained of. but it is clear to me that the periodical must be set agoing in the spring; and i have already been busy, at odd half-hours, in shadowing forth a name and an idea. evans says they have but one opinion repeated to them of _copperfield_, and they feel very confident about it. a steady twenty-five thousand, which it is now on the verge of, will do very well. the back numbers are always going off. read the enclosed." it was a letter from a russian man of letters, dated from st. petersburg and signed "trinarch ivansvitch wredenskii," sending him a translation of _dombey_ into russian; and informing him that his works, which before had only been translated in the journals, and with certain omissions, had now been translated in their entire form by his correspondent, though even he had found an omission to be necessary in his version of _pickwick_. he adds, with an exquisite courtesy to our national tongue which is yet not forgetful of the claims of his own nationality, that his difficulties (in the sam weller direction and others) had arisen from the "impossibility of portraying faithfully the beauties of the original in the russian language, which, though the richest in europe in its expressiveness, is far from being elaborate enough for literature like other civilized languages." he had however, he assured dickens, been unremitting in his efforts to live with his thoughts; and the exalted opinion he had formed of them was attended by only one wish, that such a writer "could but have expanded under a russian sky!" still, his fate was an enviable one. "for the last eleven years your name has enjoyed a wide celebrity in russia, and from the banks of the neva to the remotest parts of siberia you are read with avidity. your _dombey_ continues to inspire with enthusiasm the whole of the literary russia." much did we delight in the good wredenskii; and for a long time, on anything going "contrairy" in the public or private direction with him, he would tell me he had ordered his portmanteau to be packed for the more sympathizing and congenial climate of "the remotest parts of siberia." the week before he left bonchurch i again had news of the old and often recurring fancy. "the old notion of the periodical, which has been agitating itself in my mind for so long, i really think is at last gradually growing into form." that was on the th of september; and on the th of october, from broadstairs, i had something of the form it had been taking. "i do great injustice to my floating ideas (pretty speedily and comfortably settling down into orderly arrangement) by saying anything about the periodical now: but my notion is a weekly journal, price either three-halfpence or two-pence, matter in part original and in part selected, and always having, if possible, a little good poetry. . . . upon the selected matter, i have particular notions. one is, that it should always be _a subject_. for example, a history of piracy; in connexion with which there is a vast deal of extraordinary, romantic, and almost unknown matter. a history of knight-errantry, and the wild old notion of the sangreal. a history of savages, showing the singular respects in which all savages are like each other; and those in which civilised men, under circumstances of difficulty, soonest become like savages. a history of remarkable characters, good and bad, _in_ history; to assist the reader's judgment in his observation of men, and in his estimates of the truth of many characters in fiction. all these things, and fifty others that i have already thought of, would be compilations; through the whole of which the general intellect and purpose of the paper should run, and in which there would be scarcely less interest than in the original matter. the original matter to be essays, reviews, letters, theatrical criticisms, &c, &c, as amusing as possible, but all distinctly and boldly going to what in one's own view ought to be the spirit of the people and the time. . . . now to bind all this together, and to get a character established as it were which any of the writers may maintain without difficulty, i want to suppose a certain shadow, which may go into any place, by sunlight, moonlight, starlight, firelight, candlelight, and be in all homes, and all nooks and corners, and be supposed to be cognisant of everything, and go everywhere, without the least difficulty. which may be in the theatre, the palace, the house of commons, the prisons, the unions, the churches, on the railroad, on the sea, abroad and at home: a kind of semi-omniscient, omnipresent, intangible creature. i don't think it would do to call the paper the shadow: but i want something tacked to that title, to express the notion of its being a cheerful, useful, and always welcome shadow. i want to open the first number with this shadow's account of himself and his family. i want to have all the correspondence addressed to him. i want him to issue his warnings from time to time, that he is going to fall on such and such a subject; or to expose such and such a piece of humbug; or that he may be expected shortly in such and such a place. i want the compiled part of the paper to express the idea of this shadow's having been in libraries, and among the books referred to. i want him to loom as a fanciful thing all over london; and to get up a general notion of 'what will the shadow say about this, i wonder? what will the shadow say about that? is the shadow here?' and so forth. do you understand? . . . i have an enormous difficulty in expressing what i mean, in this stage of the business; but i think the importance of the idea is, that once stated on paper, there is no difficulty in keeping it up. that it presents an odd, unsubstantial, whimsical, new thing: a sort of previously unthought-of power going about. that it will concentrate into one focus all that is done in the paper. that it sets up a creature which isn't the spectator, and isn't isaac bickerstaff, and isn't anything of that kind: but in which people will be perfectly willing to believe, and which is just mysterious and quaint enough to have a sort of charm for their imagination, while it will represent common-sense and humanity. i want to express in the title, and in the grasp of the idea to express also, that it is the thing at everybody's elbow, and in everybody's footsteps. at the window, by the fire, in the street, in the house, from infancy to old age, everyone's inseparable companion. . . . now do you make anything out of this? which i let off as if i were a bladder full of it, and you had punctured me. i have not breathed the idea to any one; but i have a lively hope that it _is_ an idea, and that out of it the whole scheme may be hammered." excellent the idea doubtless, and so described in his letter that hardly anything more characteristic survives him. but i could not make anything out of it that had a quite feasible look. the ordinary ground of miscellaneous reading, selection, and compilation out of which it was to spring, seemed to me no proper soil for the imaginative produce it was meant to bear. as his fancies grew and gathered round it, they had given it too much of the range and scope of his own exhaustless land of invention and marvel; and the very means proposed for letting in the help of others would only more heavily have weighted himself. not to trouble the reader now with objections given him in detail, my judgment was clear against his plan; less for any doubt of the effect if its parts could be brought to combine, than for my belief that it was not in that view practicable; and though he did not immediately accept my reasons, he acquiesced in them ultimately. "i do not lay much stress on your grave doubts about periodical, but more anon." the more anon resolved itself into conversations out of which the shape given to the project was that which it finally took. it was to be a weekly miscellany of general literature; and its stated objects were to be, to contribute to the entertainment and instruction of all classes of readers, and to help in the discussion of the more important social questions of the time. it was to comprise short stories by others as well as himself; matters of passing interest in the liveliest form that could be given to them; subjects suggested by books that might most be attracting attention; and poetry in every number if possible, but in any case something of romantic fancy. this was to be a cardinal point. there was to be no mere utilitarian spirit; with all familiar things, but especially those repellent on the surface, something was to be connected that should be fanciful or kindly; and the hardest workers were to be taught that their lot is not necessarily excluded from the sympathies and graces of imagination. this was all finally settled by the close of , when a general announcement of the intended adventure was made. there remained only a title and an assistant editor; and i am happy now to remember that for the latter important duty mr. wills was chosen at my suggestion. he discharged his duties with admirable patience and ability for twenty years, and dickens's later life had no more intimate friend. the title took some time and occupied many letters. one of the first thought-of has now the curious interest of having foreshadowed, by the motto proposed to accompany it, the title of the series of _all the year round_ which he was led to substitute for the older series in . "the robin. with this motto from goldsmith. '_the redbreast, celebrated for its affection to mankind, continues with us, the year round._'" that however was rejected. then came: "mankind. this i think very good." it followed the other nevertheless. after it came: "and here a strange idea, but with decided advantages. 'charles dickens. a weekly journal designed for the instruction and entertainment of all classes of readers. conducted by himself.'" still, there was something wanting in that also. next day arrived: "i really think if there _be_ anything wanting in the other name, that this is very pretty, and just supplies it. the household voice. i have thought of many others, as--the household guest. the household face. the comrade. the microscope. the highway of life. the lever. the rolling years. the holly tree (with two lines from southey for a motto). everything, but i rather think the voice is it." it was near indeed; but the following day came, "household words. this is a very pretty name:" and the choice was made. the first number appeared on saturday the th of march , and contained among other things the beginning of a story by a very original writer, mrs. gaskell, for whose powers he had a high admiration, and with whom he had friendly intercourse during many years. other opportunities will arise for mention of those with whom this new labour brought him into personal communication, but i may at once say that of all the writers, before unknown, whom his journal helped to make familiar to a wide world of readers, he had the strongest personal interest in mr. sala, and placed at once in the highest rank his capabilities of help in such an enterprise.[ ] an illustrative trait of what i have named as its cardinal point to him will fitly close my account of its establishment. its first number, still unpublished, had not seemed to him quite to fulfil his promise, "tenderly to cherish the light of fancy inherent in all breasts;" and, as soon as he received the proof of the second, i heard from him. "looking over the suggested contents of number two at breakfast this morning" (brighton: th of march ) "i felt an uneasy sense of there being a want of something tender, which would apply to some universal household knowledge. coming down in the railroad the other night (always a wonderfully suggestive place to me when i am alone) i was looking at the stars, and revolving a little idea about them. putting now these two things together, i wrote the enclosed little paper, straightway; and should like you to read it before you send it to the printers (it will not take you five minutes), and let me have a proof by return." this was the child's "dream of a star," which opened his second number; and, not appearing among his reprinted pieces, may justify a word or two of description. it is of a brother and sister, constant child-companions, who used to make friends of a star, watching it together until they knew when and where it would rise, and always bidding it good-night; so that when the sister dies the lonely brother still connects her with the star, which he then sees opening as a world of light, and its rays making a shining pathway from earth to heaven; and he also sees angels waiting to receive travellers up that sparkling road, his little sister among them; and he thinks ever after that he belongs less to the earth than to the star where his sister is; and he grows up to youth and through manhood and old age, consoled still under the successive domestic bereavements that fall to his earthly lot by renewal of that vision of his childhood; until at last, lying on his own bed of death, he feels that he is moving as a child to his child-sister, and he thanks his heavenly father that the star had so often opened before to receive the dear ones who awaited him. his sister fanny and himself, he told me long before this paper was written, used to wander at night about a churchyard near their house, looking up at the stars; and her early death, of which i am now to speak, had vividly reawakened all the childish associations which made her memory dear to him. footnotes: [ ] the mention of this name may remind me to state that i have received, in reference to the account in my first volume of dickens's repurchase of his _sketches_ from mr. macrone, a letter from the solicitor and friend of that gentleman so expressed that i could have greatly wished to revise my narrative into nearer agreement with its writer's wish. but farther enquiry, and an examination of the books of messrs. chapman and hall, have confirmed the statement given. mr. hansard is in error in supposing that "unsold impressions" of the books were included in the transaction (the necessary requirement being simply that the small remainders on hand should be transferred with a view to being "wasted"): i know myself that it could not have included any supposed right of mr. macrone to have a novel written for him, because upon that whole matter, and his continued unauthorised advertisements of the tale, i decided myself the reference against him: and mr. hansard may be assured that the £ was paid for the copyright alone. for the same copyright, a year before, dickens had received £ , both the first and second series being included in the payment; and he had already had about the same sum as his half share of the profits of sales. i quote the close of mr. hansard's letter. "macrone no doubt was an adventurer, but he was sanguine to the highest degree. he was a dreamer of dreams, putting no restraint on his exultant hopes by the reflection that he was not dealing justly towards others. but reproach has fallen upon him from wrong quarters. he died in poverty, and his creditors received nothing from his estate. but that was because he had paid away all he had, and all he had derived from trust and credit, _to authors_." this may have been so, but dickens was not among the authors so benefited. the _sketches_ repurchased for the high price i have named never afterwards really justified such an outlay. [ ] mr. sala's first paper appeared in september , and in the same month of the following year i had an allusion in a letter from dickens which i shall hope to have mr. sala's forgiveness for printing. "that was very good indeed of sala's" (some essay he had written). "he was twenty guineas in advance, by the bye, and i told wills delicately to make him a present of it. i find him a very conscientious fellow. when he gets money ahead, he is not like the imbecile youth who so often do the like in wellington-street" (the office of _household words_) "and walk off, but only works more industriously. i think he improves with everything he does. he looks sharply at the alterations in his articles, i observe; and takes the hint next time." chapter xx. last years in devonshire terrace. - . sentiment about places--personal revelations--at his sister's sick-bed--sister's death--book to be written in first person--visiting the scene of a tragedy--first sees yarmouth--birth of sixth son--title of _copperfield_ chosen--difficulties of opening--memorable dinner--rogers and benedict--wit of fonblanque--procter and macready--the sheridans--dinner to halévy and scribe--expedition with lord mulgrave--the duke at vauxhall--carlyle and thackeray--marryat's delight with children--monckton milnes and lord lytton--lords dudley, stuart, and nugent--kemble, harness, and dyce--mrs. siddons and john kemble--mazzini and edinburgh friends--artist acquaintance--friends from america--m. van de weyer--doubtful compliment--a hint for london citizens--letter against public executions--an american observer in england--marvels of english manners--letter from rockingham--private theatricals--a family scene--death of francis jeffrey--progress of _copperfield_--a run to paris--third daughter born--at great malvern--macready's farewell--the home at shepherd's-bush--death of john dickens--tribute by his son--theatrical-fund dinner--plea for small actors--death of his little daughter--advocating sanitary reform--lord shaftesbury--realities of his books to dickens. excepting always the haunts and associations of his childhood, dickens had no particular sentiment of locality, and any special regard for houses he had lived in was not a thing noticeable in him. but he cared most for devonshire-terrace, perhaps for the bit of ground attached to it; and it was with regret he suddenly discovered, at the close of , that he should have to resign it "next lady-day three years. i had thought the lease two years more." to that brief remaining time belong some incidents of which i have still to give account; and i connect them with the house in which he lived during the progress of what is generally thought his greatest book, and of what i think were his happiest years. we had never had such intimate confidences as in the interval since his return from paris; but these have been used in my narrative of the childhood and boyish experiences, and what remain are incidental only. of the fragment of autobiography there also given, the origin has been told; but the intention of leaving such a record had been in his mind, we now see, at an earlier date; and it was the very depth of our interest in the opening of his fragment that led to the larger design in which it became absorbed. "i hardly know why i write this," was his own comment on one of his personal revelations, "but the more than friendship which has grown between us seems to force it on me in my present mood. we shall speak of it all, you and i, heaven grant, wisely and wonderingly many and many a time in after years. in the meanwhile i am more at rest for having opened all my heart and mind to you. . . . this day eleven years, poor dear mary died."[ ] that was written on the seventh of may , but another sadness impending at the time was taking his thoughts still farther back; to when he trotted about with his little elder sister in the small garden to the house at portsea. the faint hope for her which elliotson had given him in paris had since completely broken down; and i was to hear, in less than two months after the letter just quoted, how nearly the end was come. "a change took place in poor fanny," he wrote on the th of july, "about the middle of the day yesterday, which took me out there last night. her cough suddenly ceased almost, and, strange to say, she immediately became aware of her hopeless state; to which she resigned herself, after an hour's unrest and struggle, with extraordinary sweetness and constancy. the irritability passed, and all hope faded away; though only two nights before, she had been planning for 'after christmas.' she is greatly changed. i had a long interview with her to-day, alone; and when she had expressed some wishes about the funeral, and her being buried in unconsecrated ground" (mr. burnett's family were dissenters), "i asked her whether she had any care or anxiety in the world. she said no, none. it was hard to die at such a time of life, but she had no alarm whatever in the prospect of the change; felt sure we should meet again in a better world; and although they had said she might rally for a time, did not really wish it. she said she was quite calm and happy, relied upon the mediation of christ, and had no terror at all. she had worked very hard, even when ill; but believed that was in her nature, and neither regretted nor complained of it. burnett had been always very good to her; they had never quarrelled; she was sorry to think of his going back to such a lonely home; and was distressed about her children, but not painfully so. she showed me how thin and worn she was; spoke about an invention she had heard of that she would like to have tried, for the deformed child's back; called to my remembrance all our sister letitia's patience and steadiness; and, though she shed tears sometimes, clearly impressed upon me that her mind was made up, and at rest. i asked her very often, if she could ever recall anything that she could leave to my doing, to put it down, or mention it to somebody if i was not there; and she said she would, but she firmly believed that there was nothing--nothing. her husband being young, she said, and her children infants, she could not help thinking sometimes, that it would be very long in the course of nature before they were reunited; but she knew that was a mere human fancy, and could have no reality after she was dead. such an affecting exhibition of strength and tenderness, in all that early decay, is quite indescribable. i need not tell you how it moved me. i cannot look round upon the dear children here, without some misgiving that this sad disease will not perish out of our blood with her; but i am sure i have no selfishness in the thought, and god knows how small the world looks to one who comes out of such a sick-room on a bright summer day. i don't know why i write this before going to bed. i only know that in the very pity and grief of my heart, i feel as if it were doing something." after not many weeks she died, and the little child who was her last anxiety did not long survive her. in all the latter part of the year dickens's thoughts were turning much to the form his next book should assume. a suggestion that he should write it in the first person, by way of change, had been thrown out by me, which he took at once very gravely; and this, with other things, though as yet not dreaming of any public use of his own personal and private recollections, conspired to bring about that resolve. the determination once taken, with what a singular truthfulness he contrived to blend the fact with the fiction may be shown by a small occurrence of this time. it has been inferred, from the vividness of the boy-impressions of yarmouth in david's earliest experiences, that the place must have been familiar to his own boyhood: but the truth was that at the close of he first saw that celebrated sea-port. one of its earlier months had been signalised by an adventure in which leech, lemon, and myself took part with him, when, obtaining horses from salisbury, we passed the whole of a march day in riding over every part of the plain; visiting stonehenge, and exploring hazlitt's "hut" at winterslow, birthplace of some of his finest essays; altogether with so brilliant a success that now ( th of november) he proposed to "repeat the salisbury plain idea in a new direction in mid-winter, to wit, blackgang chine in the isle of wight, with dark winter cliffs and roaring oceans." but mid-winter brought with it too much dreariness of its own, to render these stormy accompaniments to it very palatable; and on the last day of the year he bethought him "it would be better to make an outburst to some old cathedral city we don't know, and what do you say to norwich and stanfield-hall?" thither accordingly the three friends went, illness at the last disabling me; and of the result i heard ( th of january, ) that stanfield-hall, the scene of a recent frightful tragedy, had nothing attractive unless the term might be applied to "a murderous look that seemed to invite such a crime. we arrived," continued dickens, "between the hall and potass farm, as the search was going on for the pistol in a manner so consummately stupid, that there was nothing on earth to prevent any of rush's labourers from accepting five pounds from rush junior to find the weapon and give it to him. norwich, a disappointment" (one pleasant face "transformeth a city," but he was unable yet to connect it with our delightful friend elwin); "all save its place of execution, which we found fit for a gigantic scoundrel's exit. but the success of the trip, for me, was to come. yarmouth, sir, where we went afterwards, is the strangest place in the wide world: one hundred and forty-six miles of hill-less marsh between it and london. more when we meet. i shall certainly try my hand at it." he made it the home of his "little em'ly." everything now was taking that direction with him; and soon, to give his own account of it, his mind was upon names "running like a high sea." four days after the date of the last-quoted letter ("all over happily, thank god, by four o'clock this morning") there came the birth of his eighth child and sixth son; whom at first he meant to call by oliver goldsmith's name, but settled afterwards into that of henry fielding; and to whom that early friend ainsworth who had first made us known to each other, welcome and pleasant companion always, was asked to be godfather. telling me of the change in the name of the little fellow, which he had made in a kind of homage to the style of work he was now so bent on beginning, he added, "what should you think of this for a notion of a character? 'yes, that is very true: but now, _what's his motive?_' i fancy i could make something like it into a kind of amusing and more innocent pecksniff. 'well now, yes--no doubt that was a fine thing to do! but now, stop a moment, let us see--_what's his motive?_'" here again was but one of the many outward signs of fancy and fertility that accompanied the outset of all his more important books; though, as in their cases also, other moods of the mind incident to such beginnings were less favourable. "deepest despondency, as usual, in commencing, besets me;" is the opening of the letter in which he speaks of what of course was always one of his first anxieties, the selection of a name. in this particular instance he had been undergoing doubts and misgivings to more than the usual degree. it was not until the rd of february he got to anything like the shape of a feasible title. "i should like to know how the enclosed (one of those i have been thinking of) strikes you, on a first acquaintance with it. it is odd, i think, and new; but it may have a's difficulty of being 'too comic, my boy.' i suppose i should have to add, though, by way of motto, 'and in short it led to the very mag's diversions. _old saying._' or would it be better, there being equal authority for either, 'and in short they all played mag's diversions. _old saying?_' _mag's diversions._ being the personal history of mr. thomas mag the younger, of blunderstone house." this was hardly satisfactory, i thought; and it soon became apparent that he thought so too, although within the next three days i had it in three other forms. "_mag's diversions_, being the personal history, adventures, experience and observation of mr. david mag the younger, of blunderstone house." the second omitted adventures, and called his hero mr. david mag the younger, of copperfield house. the third made nearer approach to what the destinies were leading him to, and transformed mr. david mag into mr. david copperfield the younger and his great-aunt margaret; retaining still as his leading title, _mag's diversions_. it is singular that it should never have occurred to him, while the name was thus strangely as by accident bringing itself together, that the initials were but his own reversed; but he was much startled when i pointed this out, and protested it was just in keeping with the fates and chances which were always befalling him. "why else," he said, "should i so obstinately have kept to that name when once it turned up?" it was quite true that he did so, as i had curious proof following close upon the heels of that third proposal. "i wish," he wrote on the th of february, "you would look over carefully the titles now enclosed, and tell me to which you most incline. you will see that they give up _mag_ altogether, and refer exclusively to one name--that which i last sent you. i doubt whether i could, on the whole, get a better name. " . _the copperfield disclosures._ being the personal history, experience, and observation, of mr. david copperfield the younger, of blunderstone house. " . _the copperfield records._ being the personal history, experience, and observation, of mr. david copperfield the younger, of copperfield cottage. " . _the last living speech and confession of david copperfield junior_, of blunderstone lodge, who was never executed at the old bailey. being his personal history found among his papers. " . _the copperfield survey of the world as it rolled._ being the personal history, experience, and observation, of david copperfield the younger, of blunderstone rookery. " . _the last will and testament of mr. david copperfield._ being his personal history left as a legacy. " . _copperfield, complete._ being the whole personal history and experience of mr. david copperfield of blunderstone house, which he never meant to be published on any account. or, the opening words of no. might be _copperfield's entire_; and _the copperfield confessions_ might open nos. and . now, what say you?" what i said is to be inferred from what he wrote back on the th. "the _survey_ has been my favourite from the first. kate picked it out from the rest, without my saying anything about it. georgy too. you hit upon it, on the first glance. therefore i have no doubt that it is indisputably the best title; and i will stick to it." there was a change nevertheless. his completion of the second chapter defined to himself, more clearly than before, the character of the book; and the propriety of rejecting everything not strictly personal from the name given to it. the words proposed, therefore, became ultimately these only: "the personal history, adventures, experience, and observation of david copperfield the younger, of blunderstone rookery, which he never meant to be published on any account." and the letter which told me that with this name it was finally to be launched on the first of may, told me also ( th april) the difficulties that still beset him at the opening. "my hand is out in the matter of _copperfield_. to-day and yesterday i have done nothing. though i know what i want to do, i am lumbering on like a stage-waggon. i can't even dine at the temple to-day, i feel it so important to stick at it this evening, and make some head. i am quite aground; quite a literary benedict, as he appeared when his heels wouldn't stay upon the carpet; and the long copperfieldian perspective looks snowy and thick, this fine morning."[ ] the allusion was to a dinner at his house the night before; when not only rogers had to be borne out, having fallen sick at the table, but, as we rose soon after to quit the dining-room, mr. jules benedict had quite suddenly followed the poet's lead, and fallen prostrate on the carpet in the midst of us. amid the general consternation there seemed a want of proper attendance on the sick: the distinguished musician faring in this respect hardly so well as the famous bard, by whose protracted sufferings in the library, whither he had been removed, the sanitary help available on the establishment was still absorbed; and as dickens had been eloquent during dinner on the atrocities of a pauper-farming case at tooting which was then exciting a fury of indignation, fonblanque now declared him to be no better himself than a second drouet, reducing his guests to a lamentable state by the food he had given them, and aggravating their sad condition by absence of all proper nursing. the joke was well kept up by quin and edwin landseer, lord strangford joining in with a tragic sympathy for his friend the poet; and the banquet so dolefully interrupted ended in uproarious mirth. for nothing really serious had happened. benedict went laughing away with his wife, and i helped rogers on with his overshoes for his usual night-walk home. "do you know how many waistcoats i wear?" asked the poet of me, as i was doing him this service. i professed my inability to guess. "five!" he said: "and here they are!" upon which he opened them, in the manner of the gravedigger in _hamlet_, and showed me every one. that dinner was in the april of , and among others present were mrs. procter and mrs. macready, dear and familiar names always in his house. no swifter or surer perception than dickens's for what was solid and beautiful in character; he rated it higher than intellectual effort; and the same lofty place, first in his affection and respect, would have been macready's and procter's, if the one had not been the greatest of actors, and the other a poet as genuine as old fletcher or beaumont. there were present at this dinner also the american minister and mrs. bancroft (it was the year of that visit of macready to america, which ended in the disastrous forrest riots); and it had among its guests lady graham, the wife of sir james graham, than whom not even the wit and beauty of her nieces, mrs. norton and lady dufferin, better represented the brilliant family of the sheridans; so many of whose members, and these three above all, dickens prized among his friends. the table that day will be "full" if i add the celebrated singer miss catherine hayes, and her homely good-natured irish mother, who startled us all very much by complimenting mrs. dickens on her having had for her father so clever a painter as mr. hogarth. others familiar to devonshire-terrace in these years will be indicated if i name an earlier dinner ( rd of january), for the "christening" of the _haunted man_, when, besides lemons, evanses, leeches, bradburys, and stanfields, there were present tenniel, topham, stone, robert bell, and thomas beard. next month ( th of march) i met at his table, lord and lady lovelace; milner gibson, mowbray morris, horace twiss, and their wives; lady molesworth and her daughter (mrs. ford); john hardwick, charles babbage, and dr. locock. that distinguished physician had attended the poor girl, miss abercrombie, whose death by strychnine led to the exposure of wainewright's murders; and the opinion he had formed of her chances of recovery, the external indications of that poison being then but imperfectly known, was first shaken, he told me, by the gloomy and despairing cries of the old family nurse, that her mother and her uncle had died exactly so! these, it was afterwards proved, had been among the murderer's former victims. the lovelaces were frequent guests after the return from italy, sir george crawford, so friendly in genoa, having married lord lovelace's sister; and few had a greater warmth of admiration for dickens than lord byron's "ada," on whom paul dombey's death laid a strange fascination. they were again at a dinner got up in the following year for scribe and the composer halévy, who had come over to bring out the _tempest_ at her majesty's-theatre, then managed by mr. lumley, who with m. van de weyer, mrs. gore and her daughter, the hogarths, and i think the fine french comedian, samson, were also among those present. earlier that year there were gathered at his dinner-table the john delanes, isambard brunels, thomas longmans (friends since the earliest broadstairs days, and special favourites always), lord mulgrave, and lord carlisle, with all of whom his intercourse was intimate and frequent, and became especially so with delane in later years. lord carlisle amused us that night, i remember, by repeating what the good old brougham had said to him of "those _punch_ people," expressing what was really his fixed belief. "they never get my face, and are obliged" (which, like pope, he always pronounced obleeged), "to put up with my plaid trousers!" of lord mulgrave, pleasantly associated with the first american experiences, let me add that he now went with us to several outlying places of amusement of which he wished to acquire some knowledge, and which dickens knew better than any man; small theatres, saloons, and gardens in city or borough, to which the eagle and britannia were as palaces; and i think he was of the party one famous night in the summer of ( th of june), when with talfourd, edwin landseer, and stanfield, we went to the _battle of waterloo_ at vauxhall, and were astounded to see pass in immediately before us, in a bright white overcoat, the great duke himself, lady douro on his arm, the little ladies ramsay by his side, and everybody cheering and clearing the way before him. that the old hero enjoyed it all, there could be no doubt, and he made no secret of his delight in "young hernandez;" but the "battle" was undeniably tedious, and it was impossible not to sympathize with the repeatedly and very audibly expressed wish of talfourd, that "the prussians would come up!" the preceding month was that of the start of _david copperfield_, and to one more dinner (on the th) i may especially refer for those who were present at it. carlyle and mrs. carlyle came, thackeray and rogers, mrs. gaskell and kenyon, jerrold and hablot browne, with mr. and mrs. tagart; and it was a delight to see the enjoyment of dickens at carlyle's laughing reply to questions about his health, that he was, in the language of mr. peggotty's housekeeper, a lorn lone creature and everything went contrairy with him. things were not likely to go better, i thought, as i saw the great writer,--kindest as well as wisest of men, but not very patient under sentimental philosophies,--seated next the good mr. tagart, who soon was heard launching at him various metaphysical questions in regard to heaven and such like; and the relief was great when thackeray introduced, with quaint whimsicality, a story which he and i had heard macready relate in talking to us about his boyish days, of a country actor who had supported himself for six months on his judicious treatment of the "tag" to the _castle spectre_. in the original it stands that you are to do away with suspicion, banish vile mistrust, and, almost in the words we had just heard from the minister to the philosopher, "believe there is a heaven nor doubt that heaven is just!" in place of which macready's friend, observing that the drop fell for the most part quite coldly, substituted one night the more telling appeal, "and give us your applause, for _that_ is always just!" which brought down the house with rapture. this chapter would far outrun its limits if i spoke of other as pleasant gatherings under dickens's roof during the years which i am now more particularly describing; when, besides the dinners, the musical enjoyments and dancings, as his children became able to take part in them, were incessant. "remember that for my biography!" he said to me gravely on twelfth-day in , after telling me what he had done the night before; and as gravely i now redeem my laughing promise that i would. little mary and her sister kate had taken much pains to teach their father the polka, that he might dance it with them at their brother's birthday festivity (held this year on the th, as the th was a sunday); and in the middle of the previous night as he lay in bed, the fear had fallen on him suddenly that the step was forgotten, and then and there, in that wintry dark cold night, he got out of bed to practise it. anything _more_ characteristic could certainly not be told; unless i could have shown him dancing it afterwards, and far excelling the youngest performer in untiring vigour and vivacity. there was no one who approached him on these occasions excepting only our attached friend captain marryat, who had a frantic delight in dancing, especially with children, of whom and whose enjoyments he was as fond as it became so thoroughly good hearted a man to be. his name would have stood first among those i have been recalling, as he was among the first in dickens's liking; but in the autumn of he had unexpectedly passed away. other names however still reproach me for omission as my memory goes back. with marryat's on the earliest page of this volume stands that of monckton milnes, familiar with dickens over all the time it covers, and still more prominent in tavistock-house days when with lady houghton he brought fresh claims to my friend's admiration and regard. of bulwer lytton's frequent presence in all his houses, and of dickens's admiration for him as one of the supreme masters in his art, so unswerving and so often publicly declared, it would be needless again to speak. nor shall i dwell upon his interchange of hospitalities with distinguished men in the two great professions so closely allied to literature and its followers; denmans, pollocks, campbells, and chittys; watsons, southwood smiths, lococks, and elliotsons. to alfred tennyson, through all the friendly and familiar days i am describing, he gave full allegiance and honoured welcome. tom taylor was often with him; and there was a charm for him i should find it difficult to exaggerate in lord dudley stuart's gentle yet noble character, his refined intelligence and generous public life, expressed so perfectly in his chivalrous face. incomplete indeed would be the list if i did not add to it the frank and hearty lord nugent, who had so much of his grandfather, goldsmith's friend, in his lettered tastes and jovial enjoyments. nor should i forget occasional days with dear old charles kemble and one or other of his daughters; with alexander dyce; and with harness and his sister, or his niece and her husband, mr. and mrs. archdale; made especially pleasant by talk about great days of the stage. it was something to hear kemble on his sister's mrs. beverley; or to see harness and dyce exultant in recollecting her volumnia. the enchantment of the mrs. beverley, her brother would delightfully illustrate by imitation of her manner of restraining beverley's intemperance to their only friend, "you are too busy, sir!" when she quietly came down the stage from a table at which she had seemed to be occupying herself, laid her hand softly on her husband's arm, and in a gentle half-whisper "no, not too busy; mistaken perhaps; but----" not only stayed his temper but reminded him of obligations forgotten in the heat of it. up to where the tragic terror began, our friend told us, there was nothing but this composed domestic sweetness, expressed even in the simplicity and neat arrangement of her dress, her cap with the strait band, and her hair gathered up underneath; but all changing when the passion _did_ begin; one single disordered lock escaping at the first outbreak, and, in the final madness, all of it streaming dishevelled down her beautiful face. kemble made no secret of his belief that his sister had the higher genius of the two; but he spoke with rapture of "john's" macbeth and parts of his othello; comparing his "farewell the tranquil mind" to the running down of a clock, an image which he did not know that hazlitt had applied to the delivery of "to-morrow and to-morrow," in the other tragedy. in all this harness seemed to agree; and i thought a distinction was not ill put by him, on the night of which i speak, in his remark that the nature in kemble's acting only supplemented his magnificent art, whereas, though the artist was not less supreme in his sister, it was on nature she most relied, bringing up the other power only to the aid of it. "it was in another sense like your writing," said harness to dickens, "the commonest natural feelings made great, even when not rendered more refined, by art." her constance would have been fishwify, he declared, if its wonderful truth had not overborne every other feeling; and her volumnia escaped being vulgar only by being so excessively grand. but it was just what was so called "vulgarity" that made its passionate appeal to the vulgar in a better meaning of the word. when she first entered, harness said, swaying and surging from side to side with every movement of the roman crowd itself, as it went out and returned in confusion, she so absorbed her son into herself as she looked at him, so swelled and amplified in her pride and glory for him, that "the people in the pit blubbered all round," and he could no more help it than the rest. there are yet some other names that should have place in these rambling recollections, though i by no means affect to remember all. one sunday evening mazzini made memorable by taking us to see the school he had established in clerkenwell for the italian organ-boys. this was after dining with dickens, who had been brought into personal intercourse with the great italian by having given money to a begging impostor who made unauthorized use of his name. edinburgh friends made him regular visits in the spring time: not jeffrey and his family alone, but sheriff gordon and his, with whom he was not less intimate, lord murray and his wife, sir william allan and his niece, lord robertson with his wonderful scotch mimicries, and peter fraser with his enchanting scotch songs; our excellent friend liston the surgeon, until his fatal illness came in december , being seldom absent from those assembled to bid such visitors welcome. allan's name may remind me of other artists often at his house, eastlakes, leslies, friths, and wards, besides those who have had frequent mention, and among whom i should have included charles as well as edwin landseer, and william boxall. nor should i drop from this section of his friends, than whom none were more attractive to him, such celebrated names in the sister arts as those of miss helen faucit, an actress worthily associated with the brightest days of our friend macready's managements, mr. sims reeves, mr. john parry, mr. phelps, mr. webster, mr. harley, mr. and mrs. keeley, mr. whitworth, and miss dolby. mr. george henry lewes he had an old and great regard for; among other men of letters should not be forgotten the cordial thomas ingoldsby, and many-sided true-hearted charles knight; mr. r. h. horne and his wife were frequent visitors both in london and at seaside holidays; and i have met at his table mr. and mrs. s. c. hall. there were the duff gordons too, the lyells, and, very old friends of us both, the emerson tennents; there was the good george raymond, mr. frank beard and his wife; the porter smiths, valued for macready's sake as well as their own; mr. and mrs. charles black, near connections by marriage of george cattermole, with whom there was intimate intercourse both before and during the residence in italy; mr. thompson, brother of mrs. smithson formerly named, and his wife, whose sister frederick dickens married; mr. mitton, his own early companion; and mrs. torrens, who had played with the amateurs in canada. these are all in my memory so connected with devonshire-terrace, as friends or familiar acquaintance, that they claim this word before leaving it; and visitors from america, i may remark, had always a grateful reception. of the bancrofts mention has been made, and with them should be coupled the abbot lawrences, prescott, hillard, george curtis, and felton's brother. felton himself did not visit england until the tavistock-house time. in there was a delightful day with the coldens and the wilkses, relatives by marriage of jeffrey; in the following year, i think at my rooms because of some accident that closed devonshire-terrace that day ( th of april), dickens, carlyle, and myself foregathered with the admirable emerson; and m. van de weyer will probably remember a dinner where he took joyous part with dickens in running down a phrase which the learned in books, mr. cogswell, on a mission here for the astor library, had startled us by denouncing as an uncouth scotch barbarism--_open up_. you found it constantly in hume, he said, but hardly anywhere else; and he defied us to find it more than once through the whole of the volumes of gibbon. upon this, after brief wonder and doubt, we all thought it best to take part in a general assault upon _open up_, by invention of phrases on the same plan that should show it in exaggerated burlesque, and support mr. cogswell's indictment. then came a struggle who should carry the absurdity farthest; and the victory remained with m. van de weyer until dickens surpassed even him, and "opened up" depths of almost frenzied absurdity that would have delighted the heart of leigh hunt. it will introduce the last and not least honoured name into my list of his acquaintance and friends, if i mention his amusing little interruption one day to professor owen's description of a telescope of huge dimensions built by an enterprising clergyman who had taken to the study of the stars; and who was eager, said owen, to see farther into heaven--he was going to say, than lord rosse; if dickens had not drily interposed, "than his professional studies had enabled him to penetrate." some incidents that belong specially to the three years that closed his residence in the home thus associated with not the least interesting part of his career, will farther show what now were his occupations and ways of life. in the summer of he came up from broadstairs to attend a mansion-house dinner, which the lord mayor of that day had been moved by a laudable ambition to give to "literature and art," which he supposed would be adequately represented by the royal academy, the contributors to _punch_, dickens, and one or two newspaper men. on the whole the result was not cheering; the worthy chief magistrate, no doubt quite undesignedly, expressing too much surprise at the unaccustomed faces around him to be altogether complimentary. in general (this was the tone) we are in the habit of having princes, dukes, ministers, and what not for our guests, but what a delight, all the greater for being unusual, to see gentlemen like you! in other words, what could possibly be pleasanter than for people satiated with greatness to get for a while by way of change into the butler's pantry? this in substance was dickens's account to me next day, and his reason for having been very careful in his acknowledgment of the toast of "the novelists." he was nettled not a little therefore by a jesting allusion to himself in the _daily news_ in connection with the proceedings, and asked me to forward a remonstrance. having a strong dislike to all such displays of sensitiveness, i suppressed the letter; but it is perhaps worth printing now. its date is broadstairs, wednesday th of july . "i have no other interest in, or concern with, a most facetious article on last saturday's dinner at the mansion-house, which appeared in your paper of yesterday, and found its way here to-day, than that it misrepresents me in what i said on the occasion. if you should not think it at all damaging to the wit of that satire to state what i did say, i shall be much obliged to you. it was this. . . . that i considered the compliment of a recognition of literature by the citizens of london the more acceptable to us because it was unusual in that hall, and likely to be an advantage and benefit to them in proportion as it became in future less unusual. that, on behalf of the novelists, i accepted the tribute as an appropriate one; inasmuch as we had sometimes reason to hope that our imaginary worlds afforded an occasional refuge to men busily engaged in the toils of life, from which they came forth none the worse to a renewal of its strivings; and certainly that the chief magistrate of the greatest city in the world might be fitly regarded as the representative of that class of our readers." of an incident towards the close of the year, though it had important practical results, brief mention will here suffice. we saw the mannings executed on the walls of horsemonger-lane gaol; and with the letter which dickens wrote next day to the _times_ descriptive of what we had witnessed on that memorable morning, there began an active agitation against public executions which never ceased until the salutary change was effected which has worked so well. shortly after this he visited rockingham-castle, the seat of mr. and mrs. watson, his lausanne friends; and i must preface by a word or two the amusing letter in which he told me of this visit. it was written in character, and the character was that of an american visitor to england. "i knew him, horatio;" and a very kindly honest man he was, who had come to england authorised to make enquiry into our general agricultural condition, and who discharged his mission by publishing some reports extremely creditable to his good sense and ability, expressed in a plain nervous english that reminded one of the rural writings of cobbett. but in an evil hour he published also a series of private letters to friends written from the various residences his introductions had opened to him; and these were filled with revelations as to the internal economy of english noblemen's country houses, of a highly startling description. as for example, how, on arrival at a house your "name is announced, and your portmanteau immediately taken into your chamber, which the servant shows you, with every convenience." how "you are asked by the servant at breakfast what you will have, or you get up and help yourself." how at dinner you don't dash at the dishes, or contend for the "fixings," but wait till "his portion is handed by servants to every one." how all the wines, fruit, glasses, candlesticks, lamps, and plate are "taken care of" by butlers, who have under-butlers for their "adjuncts;" how ladies never wear "white satin shoes or white gloves more than once;" how dinner napkins are "never left upon the table, but either thrown into your chair or on the floor under the table;" how no end of pains are taken to "empty slops;" and above all what a national propensity there is to brush a man's clothes and polish his boots, whensoever and wheresoever the clothes and boots can be seized without the man.[ ] this was what dickens good-humouredly laughs at. "rockingham castle: friday, thirtieth of november, . picture to yourself, my dear f, a large old castle, approached by an ancient keep, portcullis, &c, &c, filled with company, waited on by six-and-twenty servants; the slops (and wine-glasses) continually being emptied; and my clothes (with myself in them) always being carried off to all sorts of places; and you will have a faint idea of the mansion in which i am at present staying. i should have written to you yesterday, but for having had a very busy day. among the guests is a miss b, sister of the honourable miss b (of salem, mass.), whom we once met at the house of our distinguished literary countryman colonel landor. this lady is renowned as an amateur actress, so last night we got up in the great hall some scenes from the _school for scandal_; the scene with the lunatic on the wall, from the _nicholas nickleby_ of major-general the hon. c. dickens (richmond, va.); some conjuring; and then finished off with country-dances; of which we had two admirably good ones, quite new to me, though really old. getting the words, and making the preparations, occupied (as you may believe) the whole day; and it was three o'clock before i got to bed. it was an excellent entertainment, and we were all uncommonly merry. . . . i had a very polite letter from our enterprising countryman major bentley[ ] (of lexington, ky.), which i shall show you when i come home. we leave here this afternoon, and i shall expect you according to appointment, at a quarter past ten a.m. to-morrow. of all the country-houses and estates i have yet seen in england, i think this is by far the best. everything undertaken eventuates in a most magnificent hospitality; and you will be pleased to hear that our celebrated fellow citizen general boxall (pittsburg, penn.) is engaged in handing down to posterity the face of the owner of the mansion and of his youthful son and daughter. at a future time it will be my duty to report on the turnips, mangel-wurzel, ploughs, and live stock; and for the present i will only say that i regard it as a fortunate circumstance for the neighbouring community that this patrimony should have fallen to my spirited and enlightened host. every one has profited by it, and the labouring people in especial are thoroughly well cared-for and looked after. to see all the household, headed by an enormously fat housekeeper, occupying the back benches last night, laughing and applauding without any restraint; and to see a blushing sleek-headed footman produce, for the watch-trick, a silver watch of the most portentous dimensions, amidst the rapturous delight of his brethren and sisterhood; was a very pleasant spectacle, even to a conscientious republican like yourself or me, who cannot but contemplate the parent country with feelings of pride in our own land, which (as was well observed by the honorable elias deeze, of hertford, conn.) is truly the land of the free. best remembrances from columbia's daughters. ever thine, my dear f,--c.h." dickens, during the too brief time this excellent friend was spared to him, often repeated his visits to rockingham, always a surpassing enjoyment; and in the winter of he accomplished there, with help of the country carpenter, "a very elegant little theatre," of which he constituted himself manager, and had among his actors a brother of the lady referred to in his letter, "a very good comic actor, but loose in words;" poor augustus stafford "more than passable;" and "a son of vernon smith's, really a capital low comedian." it will be one more added to the many examples i have given of his untiring energy both in work and play, if i mention the fact that this theatre was opened at rockingham for their first representation on wednesday the th of january; that after the performance there was a country dance which lasted far into the morning; and that on the next evening, after a railway journey of more than miles, he dined in london with the prime minister, lord john russell. a little earlier in that winter we had together taken his eldest son to eton, and a little later he had a great sorrow. "poor dear jeffrey!" he wrote to me on the th january, . "i bought a _times_ at the station yesterday morning, and was so stunned by the announcement, that i felt it in that wounded part of me, almost directly; and the bad symptoms (modified) returned within a few hours. i had a letter from him in extraordinary good spirits within this week or two--he was better, he said, than he had been for a long time--and i sent him proof-sheets of the number only last wednesday. i say nothing of his wonderful abilities and great career, but he was a most affectionate and devoted friend to me; and though no man could wish to live and die more happily, so old in years and yet so young in faculties and sympathies, i am very very deeply grieved for his loss." he was justly entitled to feel pride in being able so to word his tribute of sorrowing affection. jeffrey had completed with consummate success, if ever man did, the work appointed him in this world; and few, after a life of such activities, have left a memory so unstained and pure. but other and sharper sorrows awaited dickens. the chief occupation of the past and present year, _david copperfield_, will have a chapter to itself, and in this may be touched but lightly. once fairly in it, the story bore him irresistibly along; certainly with less trouble to himself in the composition, beyond that ardent sympathy with the creatures of the fancy which always made so absolutely real to him their sufferings or sorrows; and he was probably never less harassed by interruptions or breaks in his invention. his principal hesitation occurred in connection with the child-wife dora, who had become a great favourite as he went on; and it was shortly after her fate had been decided, in the early autumn of ,[ ] but before she breathed her last, that a third daughter was born to him, to whom he gave his dying little heroine's name. on these and other points, without forestalling what waits to be said of the composition of this fine story, a few illustrative words from his letters will properly find a place here. "_copperfield_ half done," he wrote of the second number on the th of june. "i feel, thank god, quite confident in the story. i have a move in it ready for this month; another for next; and another for the next." "i think it is necessary" ( th of november) "to decide against the special pleader. your reasons quite suffice. i am not sure but that the banking house might do. i will consider it in a walk." "banking business impracticable" ( th of november) "on account of the confinement: which would stop the story, i foresee. i have taken, for the present at all events, the proctor. i am wonderfully in harness, and nothing galls or frets." "_copperfield_ done" ( th of november) "after two days' very hard work indeed; and i think a smashing number. his first dissipation i hope will be found worthy of attention, as a piece of grotesque truth." "i feel a great hope" ( rd of january, ) "that i shall be remembered by little em'ly, a good many years to come." "i begin to have my doubts of being able to join you" ( th of february), "for _copperfield_ runs high, and must be done to-morrow. but i'll do it if possible, and strain every nerve. some beautiful comic love, i hope, in the number." "still undecided about dora" ( th of may), "but must decide to-day."[ ] "i have been" (tuesday, th of august) "very hard at work these three days, and have still dora to kill. but with good luck, i may do it to-morrow. obliged to go to shepherd's-bush to-day, and can consequently do little this morning. am eschewing all sorts of things that present themselves to my fancy--coming in such crowds!" "work in a very decent state of advancement" ( th of august) "domesticity notwithstanding. i hope i shall have a splendid number. i feel the story to its minutest point." "mrs. micawber is still" ( th of august), "i regret to say, in statu quo. ever yours, wilkins micawber." the little girl was born the next day, the th, and received the name of dora annie. the most part of what remained of the year was passed away from home. the year following did not open with favourable omen, both the child and its mother having severe illness. the former rallied however, and "little dora is getting on bravely, thank god!" was his bulletin of the early part of february. soon after, it was resolved to make trial of great malvern for mrs. dickens; and lodgings were taken there in march, dickens and her sister accompanying her, and the children being left in london. "it is a most beautiful place," he wrote to me ( th of march). "o heaven, to meet the cold waterers (as i did this morning when i went out for a shower-bath) dashing down the hills, with severe expressions on their countenances, like men doing matches and not exactly winning! then, a young lady in a grey polka going _up_ the hills, regardless of legs; and meeting a young gentleman (a bad case, i should say) with a light black silk cap on under his hat, and the pimples of i don't know how many douches under that. likewise an old man who ran over a milk-child, rather than stop!--with no neckcloth, on principle; and with his mouth wide open, to catch the morning air." this was the month, as we have seen, when the performances for the guild were in active preparation, and it was also the date of the farewell dinner to our friend macready on his quitting the stage. dickens and myself came up for it from malvern, to which he returned the next day; and from the spirited speech in which he gave the health of the chairman at the dinner, i will add a few words for the sake of the truth expressed in them. "there is a popular prejudice, a kind of superstition, that authors are not a particularly united body, and i am afraid that this may contain half a grain or so of the veracious. but of our chairman i have never in my life made public mention without adding what i can never repress, that in the path we both tread i have uniformly found him to be, from the first, the most generous of men; quick to encourage, slow to disparage, and ever anxious to assert the order of which he is so great an ornament. that we men of letters are, or have been, invariably or inseparably attached to each other, it may not be possible to say, formerly or now; but there cannot now be, and there cannot ever have been, among the followers of literature, a man so entirely without the grudging little jealousies that too often disparage its brightness, as sir edward bulwer lytton." that was as richly merited as it is happily said. dickens had to return to london after the middle of march for business connected with a charitable home established at shepherd's-bush by miss coutts, in the benevolent hope of rescuing fallen women by testing their fitness for emigration, of which future mention will be made, and which largely and regularly occupied his time for several years. on this occasion his stay was prolonged by the illness of his father. his health had been failing latterly, and graver symptoms were now spoken of. "i saw my poor father twice yesterday," he wrote to me on the th, "the second time between ten and eleven at night. in the morning i thought him not so well. at night, as well as any one in such a situation could be." next day he was so much better that his son went back to malvern, and even gave us grounds for hope that we might yet have his presence in hertfordshire to advise on some questions connected with the comedy which sir edward lytton had written for the guild. but the end came suddenly. i returned from knebworth to london, supposing that some accident had detained him at malvern; and at my house this letter waited me. "devonshire-terrace, monday, thirty-first of march . . . . my poor father died this morning at five and twenty minutes to six. they had sent for me to malvern, but i passed john on the railway; for i came up with the intention of hurrying down to bulwer lytton's to-day before you should have left. i arrived at eleven last night, and was in keppel-street at a quarter past eleven. but he did not know me, nor any one. he began to sink at about noon yesterday, and never rallied afterwards. i remained there until he died--o so quietly. . . . i hardly know what to do. i am going up to highgate to get the ground. perhaps you may like to go, and i should like it if you do. i will not leave here before two o'clock. i think i must go down to malvern again, at night, to know what is to be done about the children's mourning; and as you are returning to bulwer's i should like to have gone that way, if _bradshaw_ gave me any hope of doing it. i wish most particularly to see you, i needn't say. i must not let myself be distracted by anything--and god knows i have left a sad sight!--from the scheme on which so much depends. most part of the alterations proposed i think good." mr. john dickens was laid in highgate cemetery on the th of april; and the stone placed over him by the son who has made his name a famous one in england, bore tribute to his "zealous, useful, cheerful spirit." what more is to be said of him will be most becomingly said in speaking of _david copperfield_. while the book was in course of being written, all that had been best in him came more and more vividly back to its author's memory; as time wore on, nothing else was remembered; and five years before his own death, after using in one of his letters to me a phrase rather out of the common with him, this was added: "i find this looks like my poor father, whom i regard as a better man the longer i live." he was at this time under promise to take the chair at the general theatrical fund on the th of april. great efforts were made to relieve him from the promise; but such special importance was attached to his being present, and the fund so sorely then required help, that, no change of day being found possible for the actors who desired to attend, he yielded to the pressure put upon him; of which the result was to throw upon me a sad responsibility. the reader will understand why, even at this distance of time; my allusion to it is brief. the train from malvern brought him up only five minutes short of the hour appointed for the dinner, and we first met that day at the london tavern. i never heard him to greater advantage than in the speech that followed. his liking for this fund was the fact of its not confining its benefits to any special or exclusive body of actors, but opening them generously to all; and he gave a description of the kind of actor, going down to the infinitesimally small, not omitted from such kind help, which had a half-pathetic humour in it that makes it charming still. "in our fund," he said, "the word exclusiveness is not known. we include every actor, whether he be hamlet or benedict: the ghost, the bandit, or the court physician; or, in his one person, the whole king's army. he may do the light business, or the heavy, or the comic, or the eccentric. he may be the captain who courts the young lady, whose uncle still unaccountably persists in dressing himself in a costume one hundred years older than his time. or he may be the young lady's brother in the white gloves and inexpressibles, whose duty in the family appears to be to listen to the female members of it whenever they sing, and to shake hands with everybody between all the verses. or he may be the baron who gives the fête, and who sits uneasily on the sofa under a canopy with the baroness while the fête is going on. or he may be the peasant at the fête who comes on the stage to swell the drinking chorus, and who, it may be observed, always turns his glass upside down before he begins to drink out of it. or he may be the clown who takes away the doorstep of the house where the evening party is going on. or he may be the gentleman who issues out of the house on the false alarm, and is precipitated into the area. or, if an actress, she may be the fairy who resides for ever in a revolving star with an occasional visit to a bower or a palace. or again, if an actor, he may be the armed head of the witch's cauldron; or even that extraordinary witch, concerning whom i have observed in country places, that he is much less like the notion formed from the description of hopkins than the malcolm or donalbain of the previous scenes. this society, in short, says, 'be you what you may, be you actor or actress, be your path in your profession never so high or never so low, never so haughty or never so humble, we offer you the means of doing good to yourselves, and of doing good to your brethren.'" half an hour before he rose to speak i had been called out of the room. it was the servant from devonshire-terrace to tell me his child dora was suddenly dead. she had not been strong from her birth; but there was just at this time no cause for special fear, when unexpected convulsions came, and the frail little life passed away. my decision had to be formed at once; and i satisfied myself that it would be best to permit his part of the proceedings to close before the truth was told to him. but as he went on, after the sentences i have quoted, to speak of actors having to come from scenes of sickness, of suffering, aye, even of death itself, to play their parts before us, my part was very difficult. "yet how often is it with all of us," he proceeded to say, and i remember to this hour with what anguish i listened to words that had for myself alone, in all the crowded room, their full significance: "how often is it with all of us, that in our several spheres we have to do violence to our feelings, and to hide our hearts in carrying on this fight of life, if we would bravely discharge in it our duties and responsibilities." in the disclosure that followed when he left the chair, mr. lemon, who was present, assisted me; and i left this good friend with him next day, when i went myself to malvern and brought back mrs. dickens and her sister. the little child lies in a grave at highgate near that of mr. and mrs. john dickens; and on the stone which covers her is now written also her father's name, and those of two of her brothers. one more public discussion he took part in, before quitting london for the rest of the summer; and what he said (it was a meeting, with lord carlisle in the chair, in aid of sanitary reform) very pregnantly illustrates what was remarked by me on a former page. he declared his belief that neither education nor religion could do anything really useful in social improvement until the way had been paved for their ministrations by cleanliness and decency. he spoke warmly of the services of lord ashley in connection with ragged schools, but he put the case of a miserable child tempted into one of those schools out of the noisome places in which his life was passed, and he asked what a few hours' teaching could effect against the ever-renewed lesson of a whole existence. "but give him, and his, a glimpse of heaven through a little of its light and air; give them water; help them to be clean; lighten the heavy atmosphere in which their spirits flag, and which makes them the callous things they are; take the body of the dead relative from the room where the living live with it, and where such loathsome familiarity deprives death itself of awe; and then, but not before, they will be brought willingly to hear of him whose thoughts were so much with the wretched, and who had compassion for all human sorrow." he closed by proposing lord ashley's health as having preferred the higher ambition of labouring for the poor to that of pursuing the career open to him in the service of the state; and as having also had "the courage on all occasions to face the cant which is the worst and commonest of all, the cant about the cant of philanthropy." lord shaftesbury first dined with him in the following year at tavistock-house. shortly after the sanitary meeting came the first guild performances; and then dickens left devonshire-terrace, never to return to it. what occupied him in the interval before he took possession of his new abode, has before been told; but two letters were overlooked in describing his progress in the labour of the previous year, and brief extracts from them will naturally lead me to the subject of my next chapter. "i have been" ( th of september) "tremendously at work these two days; eight hours at a stretch yesterday, and six hours and a half to-day, with the ham and steerforth chapter, which has completely knocked me over--utterly defeated me!" "i am" ( st of october) "within three pages of the shore; and am strangely divided, as usual in such cases, between sorrow and joy. oh, my dear forster, if i were to say half of what _copperfield_ makes me feel to-night, how strangely, even to you, i should be turned inside out! i seem to be sending some part of myself into the shadowy world." =end of the second volume.= footnotes: [ ] i take the opportunity of saying that there was an omission of three words in the epitaph quoted on a former page (vol. i. p. ). the headstone at the grave in kensal-green bears this inscription: "young, beautiful, and good, god in his mercy numbered her among his angels at the early age of seventeen." [ ] from letters of nearly the same date here is another characteristic word: "pen and ink before me! am i not at work on _copperfield_! nothing else would have kept me here until half-past two on such a day. . . . indian news bad indeed. sad things come of bloody war. if it were not for elihu, i should be a peace and arbitration man." [ ] here is really an only average specimen of the letters as published: "i forgot to say, if you leave your chamber twenty times a day, after using your basin, you would find it clean, and the pitcher replenished on your return, and that you cannot take your clothes off, but they are taken away, brushed, folded, pressed, and placed in the bureau; and at the dressing-hour, before dinner, you find your candles lighted, your clothes laid out, your shoes cleaned, and everything arranged for use; . . . the dress-clothes brushed and folded in the nicest manner, and cold water, and hot water, and clean napkins in the greatest abundance. . . . imagine an elegant chamber, fresh water in basins, in goblets, in tubs, and sheets of the finest linen!" [ ] from this time to his death there was always friendly intercourse with his old publisher mr. bentley. [ ] it may be proper to record the fact that he had made a short run to paris, with maclise, at the end of june, of which sufficient farther note will have been taken if i print the subjoined passages from a letter to me dated th june, , hôtel windsor, rue de rivoli. "there being no room in the hôtel brighton, we are lodged (in a very good apartment) here. the heat is absolutely frightful. i never felt anything like it in italy. sleep is next to impossible, except in the day, when the room is dark, and the patient exhausted. we purpose leaving here on saturday morning and going to rouen, whence we shall proceed either to havre or dieppe, and so arrange our proceedings as to be home, please god, on tuesday evening. we are going to some of the little theatres to-night, and on wednesday to the français, for rachel's last performance before she goes to london. there does not seem to be anything remarkable in progress, in the theatrical way. nor do i observe that out of doors the place is much changed, except in respect of the carriages which are certainly less numerous. i also think the sunday is even much more a day of business than it used to be. as we are going into the country with regnier to-morrow, i write this after letter-time and before going out to dine at the trois frères, that it may come to you by to-morrow's post. the twelve hours' journey here is astounding--marvellously done, except in respect of the means of refreshment, which are absolutely none. mac is very well (extremely loose as to his waistcoat, and otherwise careless in regard of buttons) and sends his love. de fresne proposes a dinner with all the notabilities of paris present, but i won't stand it! i really have undergone so much fatigue from work, that i am resolved not even to see him, but to please myself. i find, my child (as horace walpole would say), that i have written you nothing here, but you will take the will for the deed." [ ] the rest of the letter may be allowed to fill the corner of a note. the allusions to rogers and landor are by way of reply to an invitation i had sent him. "i am extremely sorry to hear about fox. shall call to enquire, as i come by to the temple. and will call on you (taking the chance of finding you) on my way to that seat of boredom. i wrote my paper for _h. w._ yesterday, and have begun _copperfield_ this morning. still undecided about dora, but must decide to-day. la difficulté d'écrire l'anglais m'est extrêmement ennuyeuse. ah, mon dieu! si l'on pourrait toujours écrire cette belle langue de france! monsieur rogere! ah! qu'il est homme d'esprit, homme de génie, homme des lettres! monsieur landore! ah qu'il parle français--pas parfaitement comme un ange--un peu (peut-être) comme un diable! mais il est bon garçon--sérieusement, il est un de la vraie noblesse de la nature. votre tout dévoué, charles. À monsieur monsieur fos-tere." * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired. pages - , word split over two pages was mistyped. word "yester- terday" changed to "yesterday" (ditto yesterday; except) footnote , "inim table" changed to "inimitable" (facetiousness of the inimitable) page , "nove ber" changed to "november" ( st of november) page , "hem" changed to "them" (perfect joy in them) footnote , "edi burgh" changed to "edinburgh" (lord cockburn. "edinburgh) footnote , "l ght" changed to "light" (wellbred's light ease) to retain the integrity of the original text, varied hyphenations, capitalizations, and, at times, spellings were retained. for example: varied hyphenation and capitalization of devonshire terrace was retained. also fac-simile and facsimile. varied spelling of a'beckett/a'becket was retained. ***** transcriber's note: for the reader: italic text is surrounded by _underscores_, bold text is surrounded by =equal signs= and underlined text is surrounded by ~tildes~. two breves above the letter e are indicated by [)e] in the text. the life of [illustration: signature: charles dickens] the life of charles dickens by john forster. vol. iii. - . illustrations. page autograph of charles dickens _fly-leaf_ charles dickens, æt. . from the last photograph taken in america, in . engraved by j. c. armytage _frontispiece_ devonshire terrace. from a drawing by daniel maclise, r.a. tavistock house facsimile of plan prepared for first number of _david copperfield_ facsimile of plan prepared for first number of _little dorrit_ the porch at gadshill the châlet house and conservatory, from the meadow the study at gadshill facsimile from the last page of _edwin drood_, written on the th of june, facsimile of a page of _oliver twist_, written in the grave. from an original water-colour drawing, executed for this work, by s. l. fildes. engraved by j. saddler _to face_ p. table of contents. chapter i. - . pages - . david copperfield and bleak house. Æt. - . page interest of _copperfield_ real people in novels scott, smollett, and fielding complaint and atonement earlier and later methods boythorn and skimpole yielding to temptation changes made in skimpole relatives put into books scott and his father dickens and his father no harm done micawber and skimpole dickens and david dangers of autobiography design of david's character why books continue the storm and shipwreck goethe on the insane the two heroines risks not worth running devonshire terrace _bleak house_ defects of the novel set-offs and successes value of critical judgments the contact of extremes dean ramsay on jo town graves one last friend truth of gridley's case chapter ii. - . pages - . home incidents and hard times. Æt. - . titles proposed for _bleak house_ restlessness tavistock house last child born a young stage aspirant deaths of friends at boulogne publishing agreements at birmingham self-changes employments in boulogne first reading in public argument against paid readings children's theatricals mr. h. in _tom thumb_ dickens in fortunio titles for a new story difficulties of weekly parts mr. ruskin on _hard times_ truths enforced early experiences strike at preston speaking at drury lane stanfield scenes tavistock house theatricals peter cunningham incident of a november night degrees in misery chapter iii. . pages - . switzerland and italy revisited. Æt. . swiss people narrow escape lausanne and genoa the peschiere and its owner on the way to naples a night on board ship a greek potentate going out to dinner the old idle frenchman changes and old friends a "scattering" party the puppets at rome malaria and desolation plague-smitten places again in venice a painter among paintings liking for the sardinians neapolitans in exile travelling police arrangements dickens and the austrian chapter iv. , , and . pages - . three summers at boulogne. Æt. , , . visits to france first summer residence ( ) villa des moulineaux doll's house and offices bon garçon of a landlord making the most of it among putney market-gardeners shakespearian performance pictures at the pig-market english friends change of villa ( ) the northern camp visit of prince albert emperor, prince, and dickens "like boxing" the empress at a review a french conjuror conjuring by dickens making demons of cards conjuror's compliment and vision old residence resumed ( ) last of the camp a household war state of siege death of gilbert a'becket leaving for england chapter v. , . pages - . residence in paris. Æt. - . actors and dramas frédéric lemaitre last scene in _gambler's life_ apartment in champs elysées french translation of dickens ary scheffer and daniel manin english friends acting at the français dumas' _orestes_ _paradise lost_ at the ambigu profane nonsense french _as you like it_ story of a french drama a delightful "tag" auber and queen victoria scribe and his wife at regnier's viardot in _orphée_ meets georges sand banquet at girardin's second banquet bourse and its victims entry of troops from crimea zouaves and their dog streets on new year's day english and french art emperor and edwin landseer sitting to ary scheffer scheffer as to the likeness a duchess murdered truth is stranger than fiction singular scenes described what became of the actors chapter vi. - . pages - . little dorrit, and a lazy tour. Æt. - . watts's rochester charity tablet to dickens in cathedral _nobody's fault_ how the _dorrit_ story grew number-plan of _copperfield_ number-plan of _dorrit_ circumlocution office flora and mr. f---- weak and strong points a scene of boy-trials reception of the novel christmas theatricals theatre-making rush for places douglas jerrold's death exertions and result seeing the serpents fed lazy tour projected up carrick fell accident to mr. wilkie collins at wigton and allonby the yorkshire landlady doncaster in race week a performance of _money_ chapter vii. - . pages - . what happened at this time. Æt. - . disappointments and distastes what we seem and are compensations of art misgivings a defect and a merit reply to a remonstrance dangerous comfort one happiness missed homily on life confidences rejoinder to a reply what the world cannot give an old project revived shakespeare on acting hospital for sick children charities of the very poor unsolved mysteries appeal for sick children reading for child's hospital proposal for paid readings question of the plunge mr. arthur smith separation from mrs. dickens what alone concerned the public chapter viii. - . pages - . gadshill place. Æt. - . first description of it the porch negotiations for purchase becomes his home gadshill a century ago past owners and tenants sinking a well gradual additions gift from mr. fechter dickens's writing-table the châlet much coveted acquisition last improvement visits of friends dickens's dogs a fenian mastiff linda and mrs. bouncer favourite walks the study and chair chapter ix. - . pages - . first paid readings. Æt. - . various managements one day's work impressions of dublin irish audiences young ireland and old england railway ride to belfast brought near his fame a knowing audience greeting in manchester joined by his daughters strange life scotch audiences when most successful in reading at public meetings miss marie wilton as _pippo_ ed. landseer on frith's portrait chapter x. - . pages - . all the year round and the uncommercial traveller. Æt. - . _household words_ discontinued earliest and latest publishers dickens and mr. bentley in search of a title a title found success of new periodical difference from the old at knebworth commercial travellers' schools a traveller for human interests personal references in writing birds and low company bethnal-green fowls an incident of doughty street offers from america chapter xi. - . pages - . second series of readings. Æt. - . daughter kate's marriage charles alston collins sale of tavistock house brother alfred's death metropolitan readings provincial circuit new subjects for readings death of mr. arthur smith death of mr. henry austin readings at brighton at canterbury and dover alarming scene impromptu reading-hall scenes in scotland at torquay death of c. c. felton offers for australia writing or reading? home arguments religious richardson's show exiled ex-potentate chapter xii. - . pages - . hints for books written and unwritten. Æt. - . book of ms. memoranda originals of characters fancies put into books notions for _little dorrit_ suggestions for other books hints for last completed book fancies never used ideas not worked out a touching fancy domestic subjects characters of women other female groups uncle sam sketches of selfishness striking thoughts subjects not accomplished characters laid aside available names titles for books names for girls and boys an undistinguished crowd mr. brobity's snuff-box chapter xiii. - . pages - . third series of readings. Æt. - . death of thackeray mother's death death of second son interest in mr. fechter notes on theatres sorrowful new year c. w. dilke's death staplehurst accident illness and suffering enters on new readings last meeting with mrs. carlyle mrs. carlyle's death offer for more readings grave warnings in scotland exertion and its result self-deception an old malady scene at tynemouth in dublin with the fenians yielding to temptation pressure from america at bay at last warning unheeded discussion useless the case in a nutshell decision to go chapter xiv. - . pages - . dickens as a novelist. Æt. - . see before you oversee m. taine's criticism what is overlooked in it a popularity explained national excuses for dickens comparison with balzac anticipatory reply to m. taine a critic in the _fortnightly review_ blame and praise to be reconciled a plea for objectors "hallucinative" imagination vain critical warnings the critic and the criticised an opinion on the micawbers hallucinative phenomena scott writing _bride of lammermoor_ claim to be fairly judged dickens's leading quality dangers of humour his earlier books mastery of dialogue character-drawing realities of fiction fielding and dickens touching of extremes why the creations of fiction live enjoyment of his own humour unpublished note of lord lytton exaggerations of humour temptations of all great humourists a word for fanciful descriptions _tale of two cities_ difficulties and success specialty of treatment reply to objections care with which dickens worked an american critic _great expectations_ pip and magwitch another boy-child for hero unlikeness in likeness vivid descriptive writing masterly drawing of character a day on the thames homely and shrewd satire incident changed for lytton as originally written christmas sketches _our mutual friend_ writing numbers in advance working slowly death of john leech a fatal anniversary effects on himself and his novel a tale by edmond about first and last _doctor marigold_ minor stories "something from above" purity of dickens's writings substitute for an alleged deficiency true province of humour horace greeley and longfellow letters from an american companions for solitude chapter xv. . pages - . america revisited. november and december, . Æt. . warmth of the greeting same cause as in old and new friends changes since first boston reading scene at new york sales first new york reading an action against dickens a fire at his hotel local and general politics railway arrangements police of new york mistletoe from england as to newspapers nothing lasts long cities chosen for readings scene of a murder visited a dinner at the murderer's illness and abstinence miseries of american travel startling prospect chapter xvi. . pages - . america revisited. january to april, . Æt. . speculators and public an englishman's disadvantage "freedom and independence" mountain-sneezers and eye-openers the work and the gain a scene at brooklyn at philadelphia "looking up the judge" improved social ways result of thirty-four readings shadow to the sunshine readings in a church change of plan baltimore women success in philadelphia objections to coloured people with sumner at washington president lincoln's dream interview with president johnson washington audiences a comical dog incident before a reading the child and the doll north-west tour political excitement struggle for tickets american female beauty sherry to "slop round" with final impression of niagara letter to mr. ouvry "getting along" through water again attacked by lameness illness and exertion seeing prevents believing all but used up last boston readings new york farewells the receipts throughout promise at public dinner the adieu chapter xvii. - . pages - . last readings. Æt. - . health improved what the readings did and undid expenses and gains in america noticeable changes in him _oliver twist_ reading proposed objections to it death of frederick dickens macready at _oliver twist_ reading another attack of illness a doctors' difference at emerson tennent's funeral the illness at preston brought to london sir thomas watson consulted his note of the case guarded sanction to other readings close of career as public reader chapter xviii. - . pages - . last book. Æt. - . the agreement for _edwin drood_ first fancy for it story as planned in his mind what to be its course and end merits of the fragment comparison of early and late mss discovery of an unpublished scene last page of _drood_ in fac-simile page of _oliver twist_ in fac-simile delightful specimen of dickens unpublished scene for _drood_ - chapter xix. - . pages - . personal characteristics. Æt. - . dickens not a bookish man books and their critics design of present book stated dickens made to tell his own story charge of personal obtrusiveness lord russell on dickens's letters shallower judgments absence of self-conceit in dickens letter to youngest son as to religion and prayer letter to a clergyman in letter to a layman in objection to posthumous honours as to patronage of literature vanity of human wishes as to writers and publishers editorship of his weekly serials work for his contributors editorial troubles and pleasures letter to an author help to younger novelists adelaide procter's poetry effect of periodical writing proposed satirical papers political opinions not the man for finsbury the liverpool dinner in reply to lord houghton tribute to lord russell people governing and governed alleged offers from her majesty silly rigmarole the queen sees him act ( ) desires to hear him read ( ) interview at the palace ( ) what passed at the interview dickens's grateful impression a hope at the close of life games in gadshill meadow home enjoyments habits of life everywhere family dependence on him carlyle's opinion of dickens street walks and london haunts christmas eve and christmas day the first attack of lameness effect upon his dogs why right things to be done silent heroisms at social meetings delight in "assumption" humouring a joke unlucky hits ghost stories predominant feeling of his life sermon of the master of balliol chapter xx. - . pages - . the end. Æt. - . last summer and autumn showing london to a visitor his son henry's scholarship twelve more readings medical attendance at them excitement incident to them the farewell last public appearances at royal academy dinner eulogy of daniel maclise return of illness our last meeting a noteworthy incident last letter received from him final days at gadshill wednesday the th of june last piece of writing the th and th of june the general grief the burial unbidden mourners the grave * * * * * appendix. i. the writings of charles dickens ii. the will of charles dickens iii. corrections made in the later editions of the second volume of this work index the life of charles dickens. chapter i. david copperfield and bleak house. - . interest of _copperfield_--scott, smollett, and fielding--too close to the real--earlier and later methods--dickens at hatton-garden ( )--originals of boythorn and skimpole--last glimpse of leigh hunt ( )--changes made in skimpole--self-defence--scott and his father--dickens and his father--sayings of john dickens--skimpole and micawber--dickens and david--self-portraiture not attempted--the autobiographic form--consistent drawing--design of david's character--tone of the novel--the peggottys--miss dartle--mrs. steerforth--betsey trotwood--a country undertaker--the two heroines--contrast of esther and david--plot of the story--incidents and persons interwoven--defects of _bleak house_--success in character--value of critical judgments--pathetic touches--dean ramsay on _bleak house_ and jo--originals of chancery abuses. dickens never stood so high in reputation as at the completion of _copperfield_. the popularity it obtained at the outset increased to a degree not approached by any previous book excepting _pickwick_. "you gratify me more than i can tell you," he wrote to bulwer lytton (july ), "by what you say about _copperfield_, because i hope myself that some heretofore deficient qualities are there." if the power was not greater than in _chuzzlewit_, the subject had more attractiveness; there was more variety of incident, with a freer play of character; and there was withal a suspicion, which though general and vague had sharpened interest not a little, that underneath the fiction lay something of the author's life. how much, was not known by the world until he had passed away. to be acquainted with english literature is to know, that, into its most famous prose fiction, autobiography has entered largely in disguise, and that the characters most familiar to us in the english novel had originals in actual life. smollett never wrote a story that was not in some degree a recollection of his own adventures; and fielding, who put something of his wife into all his heroines, had been as fortunate in finding, not trulliber only, but parson adams himself, among his living experiences. to come later down, there was hardly any one ever known to scott of whom his memory had not treasured up something to give minuter reality to the people of his fancy; and we know exactly whom to look for in dandie dinmont and jonathan oldbuck, in the office of alan fairford and the sick room of crystal croftangry. we are to observe also that it is never anything complete that is thus taken from life by a genuine writer, but only leading traits, or such as may give greater finish; that the fine artist will embody in his portraiture of one person his experiences of fifty; and that this would have been fielding's answer to trulliber if he had objected to the pigstye, and to adams if he had sought to make a case of scandal out of the affair in mrs. slipslop's bedroom. such questioning befell dickens repeatedly in the course of his writings, where he freely followed, as we have seen, the method thus common to the masters in his art; but there was an instance of alleged wrong in the course of _copperfield_ where he felt his vindication to be hardly complete, and what he did thereupon was characteristic. "i have had the queerest adventure this morning," he wrote ( th of december ) on the eve of his tenth number, "the receipt of the enclosed from miss moucher! it is serio-comic, but there is no doubt one is wrong in being tempted to such a use of power." thinking a grotesque little oddity among his acquaintance to be safe from recognition, he had done what smollett did sometimes, but never fielding, and given way, in the first outburst of fun that had broken out around the fancy, to the temptation of copying too closely peculiarities of figure and face amounting in effect to deformity. he was shocked at discovering the pain he had given, and a copy is before me of the assurances by way of reply which he at once sent to the complainant. that he was grieved and surprised beyond measure. that he had not intended her altogether. that all his characters, being made up out of many people, were composite, and never individual. that the chair (for table) and other matters were undoubtedly from her, but that other traits were not hers at all; and that in miss moucher's "ain't i volatile" his friends had quite correctly recognized the favourite utterance of a different person. that he felt nevertheless he had done wrong, and would now do anything to repair it. that he had intended to employ the character in an unpleasant way, but he would, whatever the risk or inconvenience, change it all, so that nothing but an agreeable impression should be left. the reader will remember how this was managed, and that the thirty-second chapter went far to undo what the twenty-second had done. a much earlier instance is the only one known to me where a character in one of his books intended to be odious was copied wholly from a living original. the use of such material, never without danger, might have been justifiable here if anywhere, and he had himself a satisfaction in always admitting the identity of mr. fang in _oliver twist_ with mr. laing of hatton-garden. but the avowal of his purpose in that case, and his mode of setting about it, mark strongly a difference of procedure from that which, following great examples, he adopted in his later books. an allusion to a common friend in one of his letters of the present date--"a dreadful thought occurs to me! how brilliant in a book!"--expresses both the continued strength of his temptations and the dread he had brought himself to feel of immediately yielding to them; but he had no such misgivings in the days of _oliver twist_. wanting an insolent and harsh police-magistrate, he bethought him of an original ready to his hand in one of the london offices; and instead of pursuing his later method of giving a personal appearance that should in some sort render difficult the identification of mental peculiarities, he was only eager to get in the whole man complete upon his page, figure and face as well as manners and mind. he wrote accordingly (from doughty-street on the rd of june ) to mr. haines,[ ] a gentleman who then had general supervision over the police reports for the daily papers. "in my next number of _oliver twist_ i must have a magistrate; and, casting about for a magistrate whose harshness and insolence would render him a fit subject to be _shown up_, i have as a necessary consequence stumbled upon mr. laing of hatton-garden celebrity. i know the man's character perfectly well; but as it would be necessary to describe his personal appearance also, i ought to have seen him, which (fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be) i have never done. in this dilemma it occurred to me that perhaps i might under your auspices be smuggled into the hatton-garden office for a few moments some morning. if you can further my object i shall be really very greatly obliged to you." the opportunity was found; the magistrate was brought up before the novelist; and shortly after, on some fresh outbreak of intolerable temper, the home-secretary found it an easy and popular step to remove mr. laing from the bench. this was a comfort to everybody, saving only the principal person; but the instance was highly exceptional, and it rarely indeed happens that to the individual objection natural in every such case some consideration should not be paid. in the book that followed _copperfield_, two characters appeared having resemblances in manner and speech to two distinguished writers too vivid to be mistaken by their personal friends. to lawrence boythorn, under whom landor figured, no objection was made; but harold skimpole, recognizable for leigh hunt, led to much remark; the difference being, that ludicrous traits were employed in the first to enrich without impairing an attractive person in the tale, whereas to the last was assigned a part in the plot which no fascinating foibles or gaieties of speech could redeem from contempt. though a want of consideration was thus shown to the friend whom the character would be likely to recall to many readers, it is nevertheless very certain that the intention of dickens was not at first, or at any time, an unkind one. he erred from thoughtlessness only. what led him to the subject at all, he has himself stated. hunt's philosophy of moneyed obligations, always, though loudly, half jocosely proclaimed, and his ostentatious wilfulness in the humouring of that or any other theme on which he cared for the time to expatiate,[ ] had so often seemed to dickens to be whimsical and attractive that, wanting an "airy quality" for the man he invented, this of hunt occurred to him; and "partly for that reason, and partly, he has since often grieved to think, for the pleasure it afforded to find a delightful manner reproducing itself under his hand, he yielded to the temptation of too often making the character speak like his old friend." this apology was made[ ] after hunt's death, and mentioned a revision of the first sketch, so as to render it less like, at the suggestion of two other friends of hunt. the friends were procter (barry cornwall) and myself; the feeling having been mine from the first that the likeness was too like. procter did not immediately think so, but a little reflection brought him to that opinion. "you will see from the enclosed," dickens wrote ( th of march ), "that procter is much of my mind. i will nevertheless go through the character again in the course of the afternoon, and soften down words here and there." but before the day closed procter had again written to him, and next morning this was the result. "i have again gone over every part of it very carefully, and i think i have made it much less like. i have also changed leonard to harold. i have no right to give hunt pain, and i am so bent upon not doing it that i wish you would look at all the proof once more, and indicate any particular place in which you feel it particularly like. whereupon i will alter that place." upon the whole the alterations were considerable, but the radical wrong remained. the pleasant sparkling airy talk, which could not be mistaken, identified with odious qualities a friend only known to the writer by attractive ones; and for this there was no excuse. perhaps the only person acquainted with the original who failed to recognize the copy, was the original himself (a common case); but good-natured friends in time told hunt everything, and painful explanations followed, where nothing was possible to dickens but what amounted to a friendly evasion of the points really at issue. the time for redress had gone. i yet well remember with what eager earnestness, on one of these occasions, he strove to set hunt up again in his own esteem. "separate in your own mind," he said to him, "what you see of yourself from what other people tell you that they see. as it has given you so much pain, i take it at its worst, and say i am deeply sorry, and that i feel i did wrong in doing it. i should otherwise have taken it at its best, and ridden off upon what i strongly feel to be the truth, that there is nothing in it that _should_ have given you pain. every one in writing must speak from points of his experience, and so i of mine with you: but when i have felt it was going too close i stopped myself, and the most blotted parts of my ms. are those in which i have been striving hard to make the impression i was writing from, _un_like you. the diary-writing i took from haydon, not from you. i now first learn from yourself that you ever set anything to music, and i could not have copied _that_ from you. the character is not you, for there are traits in it common to fifty thousand people besides, and i did not fancy you would ever recognize it. under similar disguises my own father and mother are in my books, and you might as well see your likeness in micawber." the distinction is that the foibles of mr. micawber and of mrs. nickleby, however laughable, make neither of them in speech or character less loveable; and that this is not to be said of skimpole's. the kindly or unkindly impression makes all the difference where liberties are taken with a friend; and even this entirely favourable condition will not excuse the practice to many, where near relatives are concerned. for what formerly was said of the micawber resemblances, dickens has been sharply criticized; and in like manner it was thought objectionable in scott that for the closing scenes of crystal croftangry he should have found the original of his fretful patient at the death-bed of his own father. lockhart, who tells us this, adds with a sad significance that he himself lived to see the curtain fall at abbotsford upon even such another scene. but to no purpose will such objections still be made. all great novelists will continue to use their experiences of nature and fact, whencesoever derivable; and a remark made to lockhart by scott himself suggests their vindication. "if a man will paint from nature, he will be most likely to interest and amuse those who are daily looking at it." the micawber offence otherwise was not grave. we have seen in what way dickens was moved or inspired by the rough lessons of his boyhood, and the groundwork of the character was then undoubtedly laid; but the rhetorical exuberance impressed itself upon him later, and from this, as it expanded and developed in a thousand amusing ways, the full-length figure took its great charm. better illustration of it could not perhaps be given than by passages from letters of dickens, written long before micawber was thought of, in which this peculiarity of his father found frequent and always agreeable expression. several such have been given in this work from time to time, and one or two more may here be added. it is proper to preface them by saying that no one could know the elder dickens without secretly liking him the better for these flourishes of speech, which adapted themselves so readily to his gloom as well as to his cheerfulness, that it was difficult not to fancy they had helped him considerably in both, and had rendered more tolerable to him, if also more possible, the shade and sunshine of his chequered life. "if you should have an opportunity _pendente lite_, as my father would observe--indeed did on some memorable ancient occasions when he informed me that the ban-dogs would shortly have him at bay"--dickens wrote in december . "i have a letter from my father" (may ) "lamenting the fine weather, invoking congenial tempests, and informing me that it will not be possible for him to stay more than another year in devonshire, as he must then proceed to paris to consolidate augustus's french." "there has arrived," he writes from the peschiere in september , "a characteristic letter for kate from my father. he dates it manchester, and says he has reason to believe that he will be in town with the pheasants, on or about the first of october. he has been with fanny in the isle of man for nearly two months: finding there, as he goes on to observe, troops of friends, and every description of continental luxury at a cheap rate." describing in the same year the departure from genoa of an english physician and acquaintance, he adds: "we are very sorry to lose the benefit of his advice--or, as my father would say, to be deprived, to a certain extent, of the concomitant advantages, whatever they may be, resulting from his medical skill, such as it is, and his professional attendance, in so far as it may be so considered." thus also it delighted dickens to remember that it was of one of his connections his father wrote a celebrated sentence; "and i must express my tendency to believe that his longevity is (to say the least of it) extremely problematical:" and that it was to another, who had been insisting somewhat obtrusively on dissenting and nonconformist superiorities, he addressed words which deserve to be no less celebrated; "the supreme being must be an entirely different individual from what i have every reason to believe him to be, if he would care in the least for the society of your relations." there was a laugh in the enjoyment of all this, no doubt, but with it much personal fondness; and the feeling of the creator of micawber as he thus humoured and remembered the foibles of his original, found its counterpart in that of his readers for the creation itself, as its part was played out in the story. nobody likes micawber less for his follies; and dickens liked his father more, the more he recalled his whimsical qualities. "the longer i live, the better man i think him," he exclaimed afterwards. the fact and the fancy had united whatever was most grateful to him in both. it is a tribute to the generally healthful and manly tone of the story of _copperfield_ that such should be the outcome of the eccentricities of this leading personage in it; and the superiority in this respect of micawber over skimpole is one of many indications of the inferiority of _bleak house_ to its predecessor. with leading resemblances that make it difficult to say which character best represents the principle or no principle of impecuniosity, there cannot be any doubt which has the advantage in moral and intellectual development. it is genuine humour against personal satire. between the worldly circumstances of the two, there is nothing to choose; but as to everything else it is the difference between shabbiness and greatness. skimpole's sunny talk might be expected to please as much as micawber's gorgeous speech, the design of both being to take the edge off poverty. but in the one we have no relief from attendant meanness or distress, and we drop down from the airiest fancies into sordidness and pain; whereas in the other nothing pitiful or merely selfish ever touches us. at its lowest depth of what is worst, we never doubt that something better must turn up; and of a man who sells his bedstead that he may entertain his friend, we altogether refuse to think nothing but badly. this is throughout the free and cheery style of _copperfield_. the masterpieces of dickens's humour are not in it; but he has nowhere given such variety of play to his invention, and the book is unapproached among his writings for its completeness of effect and uniform pleasantness of tone. what has to be said hereafter of those writings generally, will properly restrict what is said here, as in previous instances, mainly to personal illustration. the _copperfield_ disclosures formerly made will for ever connect the book with the author's individual story; but too much has been assumed, from those revelations, of a full identity of dickens with his hero, and of a supposed intention that his own character as well as parts of his career should be expressed in the narrative. it is right to warn the reader as to this. he can judge for himself how far the childish experiences are likely to have given the turn to dickens's genius; whether their bitterness had so burnt into his nature, as, in the hatred of oppression, the revolt against abuse of power, and the war with injustice under every form displayed in his earliest books, to have reproduced itself only; and to what extent mere compassion for his own childhood may account for the strange fascination always exerted over him by child-suffering and sorrow. but, many as are the resemblances in copperfield's adventures to portions of those of dickens, and often as reflections occur to david which no one intimate with dickens could fail to recognize as but the reproduction of his, it would be the greatest mistake to imagine anything like a complete identity of the fictitious novelist with the real one, beyond the hungerford scenes; or to suppose that the youth, who then received his first harsh schooling in life, came out of it as little harmed or hardened as david did. the language of the fiction reflects only faintly the narrative of the actual fact; and the man whose character it helped to form was expressed not less faintly in the impulsive impressionable youth, incapable of resisting the leading of others, and only disciplined into self-control by the later griefs of his entrance into manhood. here was but another proof how thoroughly dickens understood his calling, and that to weave fact with fiction unskilfully would be only to make truth less true. the character of the hero of the novel finds indeed his right place in the story he is supposed to tell, rather by unlikeness than by likeness to dickens, even where intentional resemblance might seem to be prominent. take autobiography as a design to show that any man's life may be as a mirror of existence to all men, and the individual career becomes altogether secondary to the variety of experiences received and rendered back in it. this particular form in imaginative literature has too often led to the indulgence of mental analysis, metaphysics, and sentiment, all in excess: but dickens was carried safely over these allurements by a healthy judgment and sleepless creative fancy; and even the method of his narrative is more simple here than it generally is in his books. his imaginative growths have less luxuriance of underwood, and the crowds of external images always rising so vividly before him are more within control. consider copperfield thus in his proper place in the story, and sequence as well as connection will be given to the varieties of its childish adventure. the first warm nest of love in which his vain fond mother, and her quaint kind servant, cherish him; the quick-following contrast of hard dependence and servile treatment; the escape from that premature and dwarfed maturity by natural relapse into a more perfect childhood; the then leisurely growth of emotions and faculties into manhood; these are component parts of a character consistently drawn. the sum of its achievement is to be a successful cultivation of letters; and often as such imaginary discipline has been the theme of fiction, there are not many happier conceptions of it. the ideal and real parts of the boy's nature receive development in the proportions which contribute best to the end desired; the readiness for impulsive attachments that had put him into the leading of others, has underneath it a base of truthfulness on which at last he rests in safety; the practical man is the outcome of the fanciful youth; and a more than equivalent for the graces of his visionary days, is found in the active sympathies that life has opened to him. many experiences have come within its range, and his heart has had room for all. our interest in him cannot but be increased by knowing how much he expresses of what the author had himself gone through; but david includes far less than this, and infinitely more. that the incidents arise easily, and to the very end connect themselves naturally and unobtrusively with the characters of which they are a part, is to be said perhaps more truly of this than of any other of dickens's novels. there is a profusion of distinct and distinguishable people, and a prodigal wealth of detail; but unity of drift or purpose is apparent always, and the tone is uniformly right. by the course of the events we learn the value of self-denial and patience, quiet endurance of unavoidable ills, strenuous effort against ills remediable; and everything in the fortunes of the actors warns us, to strengthen our generous emotions and to guard the purities of home. it is easy thus to account for the supreme popularity of _copperfield_, without the addition that it can hardly have had a reader, man or lad, who did not discover that he was something of a copperfield himself. childhood and youth live again for all of us in its marvellous boy-experiences. mr. micawber's presence must not prevent my saying that it does not take the lead of the other novels in humorous creation; but in the use of humour to bring out prominently the ludicrous in any object or incident without excluding or weakening its most enchanting sentiment, it stands decidedly first. it is the perfection of english mirth. we are apt to resent the exhibition of too much goodness, but it is here so qualified by oddity as to become not merely palatable but attractive; and even pathos is heightened by what in other hands would only make it comical. that there are also faults in the book is certain, but none that are incompatible with the most masterly qualities; and a book becomes everlasting by the fact, not that faults are not in it, but that genius nevertheless is there. of its method, and its author's generally, in the delineation of character, something will have to be said on a later page. the author's own favourite people in it, i think, were the peggotty group; and perhaps he was not far wrong. it has been their fate, as with all the leading figures of his invention, to pass their names into the language, and become types; and he has nowhere given happier embodiment to that purity of homely goodness, which, by the kindly and all-reconciling influences of humour, may exalt into comeliness and even grandeur the clumsiest forms of humanity. what has been indicated in the style of the book as its greatest charm is here felt most strongly. the ludicrous so helps the pathos, and the humour so uplifts and refines the sentiment, that mere rude affection and simple manliness in these yarmouth boatmen, passed through the fires of unmerited suffering and heroic endurance, take forms half-chivalrous half-sublime. it is one of the cants of critical superiority to make supercilious mention of the serious passages in this great writer; but the storm and shipwreck at the close of _copperfield_, when the body of the seducer is flung dead upon the shore amid the ruins of the home he has wasted and by the side of the man whose heart he has broken, the one as unconscious of what he had failed to reach as the other of what he has perished to save, is a description that may compare with the most impressive in the language. there are other people drawn into this catastrophe who are among the failures of natural delineation in the book. but though miss dartle is curiously unpleasant, there are some natural traits in her (which dickens's least life-like people are never without); and it was from one of his lady friends, very familiar to him indeed, he copied her peculiarity of never saying anything outright, but hinting it merely, and making more of it that way. of mrs. steerforth it may also be worth remembering that thackeray had something of a fondness for her. "i knew how it would be when i began," says a pleasant letter all about himself written immediately after she appeared in the story. "my letters to my mother are like this, but then she likes 'em--like mrs. steerforth: don't you like mrs. steerforth?" turning to another group there is another elderly lady to be liked without a shadow of misgiving; abrupt, angular, extravagant, but the very soul of magnanimity and rectitude; a character thoroughly made out in all its parts; a gnarled and knotted piece of female timber, sound to the core; a woman captain shandy would have loved for her startling oddities, and who is linked to the gentlest of her sex by perfect womanhood. dickens has done nothing better, for solidness and truth all round, than betsey trotwood. it is one of her oddities to have a fool for a companion; but this is one of them that has also most pertinence and wisdom. by a line thrown out in _wilhelm meister_, that the true way of treating the insane was, in all respects possible, to act to them as if they were sane, goethe anticipated what it took a century to apply to the most terrible disorder of humanity; and what mrs. trotwood does for mr. dick goes a step farther, by showing how often asylums might be dispensed with, and how large might be the number of deficient intellects manageable with patience in their own homes. characters hardly less distinguishable for truth as well as oddity are the kind old nurse and her husband the carrier, whose vicissitudes alike of love and of mortality are condensed into the three words since become part of universal speech, _barkis is willin'_. there is wholesome satire of much utility in the conversion of the brutal schoolmaster of the earlier scenes into the tender middlesex magistrate at the close. nor is the humour anywhere more subtle than in the country undertaker, who makes up in fullness of heart for scantness of breath, and has so little of the vampire propensity of the town undertaker in _chuzzlewit_, that he dares not even inquire after friends who are ill for fear of unkindly misconstruction. the test of a master in creative fiction, according to hazlitt, is less in contrasting characters that are unlike than in distinguishing those that are like; and to many examples of the art in dickens, such as the shepherd and chadband, creakle and squeers, charley bates and the dodger, the guppys and the wemmicks, mr. jaggers and mr. vholes, sampson brass and conversation kenge, jack bunsby, captain cuttle, and bill barley, the perkers and pells, the dodsons and fogs, sarah gamp and betsy prig, and a host of others, is to be added the nicety of distinction between those eminent furnishers of funerals, mr. mould and messrs. omer and joram. all the mixed mirth and sadness of the story are skilfully drawn into the handling of this portion of it; and, amid wooings and preparations for weddings and church-ringing bells for baptisms, the steadily-going rat-tat of the hammer on the coffin is heard. of the heroines who divide so equally between them the impulsive, easily swayed, not disloyal but sorely distracted affections of the hero, the spoilt foolishness and tenderness of the loving little child-wife, dora, is more attractive than the too unfailing wisdom and self-sacrificing goodness of the angel-wife, agnes. the scenes of the courtship and housekeeping are matchless; and the glimpses of doctors' commons, opening those views, by mr. spenlow, of man's vanity of expectation and inconsistency of conduct in neglecting the sacred duty of making a will, on which he largely moralizes the day before he dies intestate, form a background highly appropriate to david's domesticities. this was among the reproductions of personal experience in the book; but it was a sadder knowledge that came with the conviction some years later, that david's contrasts in his earliest married life between his happiness enjoyed and his happiness once anticipated, the "vague unhappy loss or want of something" of which he so frequently complains, reflected also a personal experience which had not been supplied in fact so successfully as in fiction. (a closing word may perhaps be allowed, to connect with devonshire-terrace the last book written there. on the page opposite is engraved a drawing by maclise of the house where so many of dickens's masterpieces were composed, done on the first anniversary of the day when his daughter kate was born.) _bleak house_ followed _copperfield_, which in some respects it copied in the autobiographical form by means of extracts from the personal relation of its heroine. but the distinction between the narrative of david and the diary of esther, like that between micawber and skimpole, marks the superiority of the first to its successor. to represent a storyteller as giving the most surprising vividness to manners, motives, and characters of which we are to believe her, all the time, as artlessly unconscious, as she is also entirely ignorant of the good qualities in herself she is naïvely revealing in the story, was a difficult enterprise, full of hazard in any case, not worth success, and certainly not successful. ingenuity is more apparent than freshness, the invention is neither easy nor unstrained, and though the old marvellous power over the real is again abundantly manifest, there is some alloy of the artificial. nor can this be said of esther's relation without some general application to the book of which it forms so large a part. the novel is nevertheless, in the very important particular of construction, perhaps the best thing done by dickens. [illustration: devonshire terrace.] in his later writings he had been assiduously cultivating this essential of his art, and here he brought it very nearly to perfection. of the tendency of composing a story piecemeal to induce greater concern for the part than for the whole, he had been always conscious; but i remember a remark also made by him to the effect that to read a story in parts had no less a tendency to prevent the reader's noticing how thoroughly a work so presented might be calculated for perusal as a whole. look back from the last to the first page of the present novel, and not even in the highest examples of this kind of elaborate care will it be found, that event leads more closely to event, or that the separate incidents have been planned with a more studied consideration of the bearing they are severally to have on the general result. nothing is introduced at random, everything tends to the catastrophe, the various lines of the plot converge and fit to its centre, and to the larger interest all the rest is irresistibly drawn. the heart of the story is a chancery suit. on this the plot hinges, and on incidents connected with it, trivial or important, the passion and suffering turn exclusively. chance words, or the deeds of chance people, to appearance irrelevant, are found everywhere influencing the course taken by a train of incidents of which the issue is life or death, happiness or misery, to men and women perfectly unknown to them, and to whom they are unknown. attorneys of all possible grades, law clerks of every conceivable kind, the copyist, the law stationer, the usurer, all sorts of money lenders, suitors of every description, haunters of the chancery court and their victims, are for ever moving round about the lives of the chief persons in the tale, and drawing them on insensibly, but very certainly, to the issues that await them. even the fits of the little law-stationer's servant help directly in the chain of small things that lead indirectly to lady dedlock's death. one strong chain of interest holds together chesney wold and its inmates, bleak house and the jarndyce group, chancery with its sorry and sordid neighbourhood. the characters multiply as the tale advances, but in each the drift is the same. "there's no great odds betwixt my noble and learned brother and myself," says the grotesque proprietor of the rag and bottle shop under the wall of lincoln's-inn, "they call me lord chancellor and my shop chancery, and we both of us grub on in a muddle." _edax rerum_ the motto of both, but with a difference. out of the lumber of the shop emerge slowly some fragments of evidence by which the chief actors in the story are sensibly affected, and to which chancery itself might have succumbed if its devouring capacities had been less complete. but by the time there is found among the lumber the will which puts all to rights in the jarndyce suit, it is found to be too late to put anything to rights. the costs have swallowed up the estate, and there is an end of the matter. what in one sense is a merit however may in others be a defect, and this book has suffered by the very completeness with which its chancery moral is worked out. the didactic in dickens's earlier novels derived its strength from being merely incidental to interest of a higher and more permanent kind, and not in a small degree from the playful sportiveness and fancy that lighted up its graver illustrations. here it is of sterner stuff, too little relieved, and all-pervading. the fog so marvellously painted in the opening chapter has hardly cleared away when there arises, in _jarndyce_ v. _jarndyce_, as bad an atmosphere to breathe in; and thenceforward to the end, clinging round the people of the story as they come or go, in dreary mist or in heavy cloud, it is rarely absent. dickens has himself described his purpose to have been to dwell on the romantic side of familiar things. but it is the romance of discontent and misery, with a very restless dissatisfied moral, and is too much brought about by agencies disagreeable and sordid. the guppys, weevles, snagsbys, chadbands, krooks, and smallweeds, even the kenges, vholeses, and tulkinghorns, are much too real to be pleasant; and the necessity becomes urgent for the reliefs and contrasts of a finer humanity. these last are not wanting; yet it must be said that we hardly escape, even with them, into the old freedom and freshness of the author's imaginative worlds, and that the too conscious unconsciousness of esther flings something of a shade on the radiant goodness of john jarndyce himself. nevertheless there are very fine delineations in the story. the crazed little chancery lunatic, miss flite; the loud-voiced tender-souled chancery victim, gridley; the poor good-hearted youth richard, broken up in life and character by the suspense of the chancery suit on whose success he is to "begin the world," believing himself to be saving money when he is stopped from squandering it, and thinking that having saved it he is entitled to fling it away; trooper george, with the bagnets and their household, where the most ludicrous points are more forcible for the pathetic touches underlying them; the jellyby interior, and its philanthropic strong-minded mistress, placid and smiling amid a household muddle outmuddling chancery itself; the model of deportment, turveydrop the elder, whose relations to the young people, whom he so superbly patronizes by being dependent on them for everything, touch delightfully some subtle points of truth; the inscrutable tulkinghorn, and the immortal bucket; all these, and especially the last, have been added by this book to the list of people more intimately and permanently known to us than the scores of actual familiar acquaintance whom we see around us living and dying. but how do we know them? there are plenty to tell us that it is by vividness of external observation rather than by depth of imaginative insight, by tricks of manner and phrase rather than by truth of character, by manifestation outwardly rather than by what lies behind. another opportunity will present itself for some remark on this kind of criticism, which has always had a special pride in the subtlety of its differences from what the world may have shown itself prone to admire. "in my father's library," wrote landor to southey's daughter edith, "was the _critical review_ from its commencement; and it would have taught me, if i could not even at a very early age teach myself better, that fielding, sterne, and goldsmith were really worth nothing." it is a style that will never be without cultivators, and its frequent application to dickens will be shown hereafter. but in speaking of a book in which some want of all the freshness of his genius first became apparent, it would be wrong to omit to add that his method of handling a character is as strongly impressed on the better portions of it as on the best of his writings. it is difficult to say when a peculiarity becomes too grotesque, or an extravagance too farcical, to be within the limits of art, for it is the truth of these as of graver things that they exist in the world in just the proportions and degree in which genius can discover them. but no man had ever so surprising a faculty as dickens of becoming himself what he was representing; and of entering into mental phases and processes so absolutely, in conditions of life the most varied, as to reproduce them completely in dialogue without need of an explanatory word. (he only departed from this method once, with a result which will then be pointed out.) in speaking on a former page of the impression of reality thus to a singular degree conveyed by him, it was remarked that where characters so revealed themselves the author's part in them was done; and in the book under notice there is none, not excepting those least attractive which apparently present only prominent or salient qualities, in which it will not be found that the characteristic feature embodied, or the main idea personified, contains as certainly also some human truth universally applicable. to expound or discuss his creations, to lay them psychologically bare, to analyse their organisms, to subject to minute demonstration their fibrous and other tissues, was not at all dickens's way. his genius was his fellow feeling with his race; his mere personality was never the bound or limit to his perceptions, however strongly sometimes it might colour them; he never stopped to dissect or anatomize his own work; but no man could better adjust the outward and visible oddities in a delineation to its inner and unchangeable veracities. the rough estimates we form of character, if we have any truth of perception, are on the whole correct: but men touch and interfere with one another by the contact of their extremes, and it may very often become necessarily the main business of a novelist to display the salient points, the sharp angles, or the prominences merely. the pathetic parts of _bleak house_ do not live largely in remembrance, but the deaths of richard and of gridley, the wandering fancies of miss flite, and the extremely touching way in which the gentleman-nature of the pompous old baronet, dedlock, asserts itself under suffering, belong to a high order of writing. there is another most affecting example, taking the lead of the rest, in the poor street-sweeper jo; which has made perhaps as deep an impression as anything in dickens. "we have been reading _bleak house_ aloud," the good dean ramsay wrote to me very shortly before his death. "surely it is one of his most powerful and successful! what a triumph is jo! uncultured nature is _there_ indeed; the intimations of true heart-feeling, the glimmerings of higher feeling, all are there; but everything still consistent and in harmony. wonderful is the genius that can show all this, yet keep it only and really part of the character itself, low or common as it may be, and use no morbid or fictitious colouring. to my mind, nothing in the field of fiction is to be found in english literature surpassing the death of jo!" what occurs at and after the inquest is as worth remembering. jo's evidence is rejected because he cannot exactly say what will be done to him after he is dead if he should tell a lie;[ ] but he manages to say afterwards very exactly what the deceased while he lived did to him. that one cold winter night, when he was shivering in a doorway near his crossing, a man turned to look at him, and came back, and, having questioned him and found he had not a friend in the world, said, "neither have i. not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a night's lodging. that the man had often spoken to him since, and asked him if he slept of a night, and how he bore cold and hunger, or if he ever wished to die; and would say in passing "i am as poor as you to-day, jo" when he had no money, but when he had any would always give some. "he wos wery good to me," says the boy, wiping his eyes with his wretched sleeve. "wen i see him a-layin' so stritched out just now, i wished he could have heerd me tell him so. he wos werry good to me, he wos!" the inquest over, the body is flung into a pestiferous churchyard in the next street, houses overlooking it on every side, and a reeking little tunnel of a court giving access to its iron gate. "with the night, comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court, to the outside of the iron gate. it holds the gate with its hands, and looks in within the bars; stands looking in, for a little while. it then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step, and makes the archway clean. it does so, very busily, and trimly; looks in again, a little while; and so departs." these are among the things in dickens that cannot be forgotten; and if _bleak house_ had many more faults than have been found in it, such salt and savour as this might freshen it for some generations. the first intention was to have made jo more prominent in the story, and its earliest title was taken from the tumbling tenements in chancery, "tom-all-alone's," where he finds his wretched habitation; but this was abandoned. on the other hand, dickens was encouraged and strengthened in his design of assailing chancery abuses and delays by receiving, a few days after the appearance of his first number, a striking pamphlet on the subject containing details so apposite that he took from them, without change in any material point, the memorable case related in his fifteenth chapter. any one who examines the tract[ ] will see how exactly true is the reference to it made by dickens in his preface. "the case of gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual occurrence, made public by a disinterested person who was professionally acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to end." the suit, of which all particulars are given, affected a single farm, in value not more than £ , but all that its owner possessed in the world, against which a bill had been filed for a £ legacy left in the will bequeathing the farm. in reality there was only one defendant, but in the bill, by the rule of the court, there were seventeen; and, after two years had been occupied over the seventeen answers, everything had to begin over again because an eighteenth had been accidentally omitted. "what a mockery of justice this is," says mr. challinor, "the facts speak for themselves, and i can personally vouch for their accuracy. the costs already incurred in reference to this £ legacy are not less than from £ to £ , and the parties are no forwarder. already near five years have passed by, and the plaintiff would be glad to give up his chance of the legacy if he could escape from his liability to costs, while the defendants who own the little farm left by the testator, have scarce any other prospect before them than ruin." footnotes: [ ] this letter is now in the possession of s. r. goodman esq. of brighton. [ ] here are two passages taken from hunt's writing in the _tatler_ (a charming little paper which it was one of the first ventures of the young firm of chapman and hall to attempt to establish for hunt in ), to which accident had unluckily attracted dickens's notice:--"supposing us to be in want of patronage, and in possession of talent enough to make it an honour to notice us, we would much rather have some great and comparatively private friend, rich enough to assist us, and amiable enough to render obligation delightful, than become the public property of any man, or of any government. . . . if a divinity had given us our choice we should have said--make us la fontaine, who goes and lives twenty years with some rich friend, as innocent of any harm in it as a child, and who writes what he thinks charming verses, sitting all day under a tree." such sayings will not bear to be deliberately read and thought over, but any kind of extravagance or oddity came from hunt's lips with a curious fascination. there was surely never a man of so sunny a nature, who could draw so much pleasure from common things, or to whom books were a world so real, so exhaustless, so delightful. i was only seventeen when i derived from him the tastes which have been the solace of all subsequent years, and i well remember the last time i saw him at hammersmith, not long before his death in , when, with his delicate, worn, but keenly intellectual face, his large luminous eyes, his thick shock of wiry grey hair, and a little cape of faded black silk over his shoulders, he looked like an old french abbé. he was buoyant and pleasant as ever; and was busy upon a vindication of chaucer and spenser from cardinal wiseman, who had attacked them for alleged sensuous and voluptuous qualities. [ ] in a paper in _all the year round_. [ ] "o! here's the boy, gentlemen! here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. now, boy!--but stop a minute. caution. this boy must be put through a few preliminary paces. name, jo. nothing else that he knows on. don't know that everybody has two names. never heerd of sich a think. don't know that jo is short for a longer name. thinks it long enough for _him. he_ don't find no fault with it. spell it? no. _he_ can't spell it. no father, no mother, no friends. never been to school. what's home? knows a broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. don't recollect who told him about the broom, or about the lie, but knows both. can't exactly say what'll be done to him arter he's dead if he tells a lie to the gentleman here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to punish him, and serve him right--and so he'll tell the truth. 'this won't do, gentlemen,' says the coroner, with a melancholy shake of the head. . . . '_can't exactly say_ won't do, you know. . . . it's terrible depravity. put the boy aside.' boy put aside; to the great edification of the audience;--especially of little swills, the comic vocalist." [ ] by w. challinor esq. of leek in staffordshire, by whom it has been obligingly sent to me, with a copy of dickens's letter acknowledging the receipt of it from the author on the th of march . on the first of that month the first number of _bleak house_ had appeared, but two numbers of it were then already written. chapter ii. home incidents and hard times. - - . _bleak house_ sale--proposed titles--restless--tavistock house--last child born--death of friends--liking for boulogne--banquet at birmingham--self-changes--overdoing it--projected trip to italy--first public readings--argument against paid readings--children's theatricals--small actors--henry fielding dickens--dickens and the czar--titles for a new story--"hard times" chosen--difficulties of weekly publication--mr. ruskin on _hard times_--exaggerated rebuke of exaggeration--manufacturing town on strike--dinner to thackeray--peter cunningham--incident of a november night. _david copperfield_ had been written, in devonshire-terrace for the most part, between the opening of and october , its publication covering that time; and its sale, which has since taken the lead of all his books but _pickwick_, never then exceeding twenty-five thousand. but though it remained thus steady for the time, the popularity of the book added largely to the sale of its successor. _bleak house_ was begun in his new abode of tavistock house at the end of november ; was carried on, amid the excitements of the guild performances, through the following year; was finished at boulogne in the august of ; and was dedicated to "his friends and companions in the guild of literature and art." [illustration: tavistock house.] in march the first number appeared,[ ] and its sale was mentioned in the same letter from tavistock house ( th of march) which told of his troubles in the story at its outset, and of other anxieties incident to the common lot and inseparable equally from its joys and sorrows, through which his life was passing at the time. "my highgate journey yesterday was a sad one. sad to think how all journeys tend that way. i went up to the cemetery to look for a piece of ground. in no hope of a government bill,[ ] and in a foolish dislike to leaving the little child shut up in a vault there, i think of pitching a tent under the sky. . . . nothing has taken place here: but i believe, every hour, that it must next hour. wild ideas are upon me of going to paris--rouen--switzerland--somewhere--and writing the remaining two-thirds of the next no. aloft in some queer inn room. i have been hanging over it, and have got restless. want a change i think. stupid. we were at , when i last heard. . . . i am sorry to say that after all kinds of evasions, i am obliged to dine at lansdowne house to-morrow. but maybe the affair will come off to-night and give me an excuse! i enclose proofs of no. . browne has done skimpole, and helped to make him singularly unlike the great original. look it over, and say what occurs to you. . . . don't you think mrs. gaskell charming? with one ill-considered thing that looks like a want of natural perception, i think it masterly." his last allusion is to the story by a delightful writer then appearing in _household words_; and of the others it only needs to say that the family affair which might have excused his absence at the lansdowne dinner did not come off until four days later. on the th of march his last child was born; and the boy, his seventh son, bears his godfather's distinguished name, edward bulwer lytton. the inability to "grind sparks out of his dull blade," as he characterized his present labour at _bleak house_, still fretting him, he struck out a scheme for paris. "i could not get to switzerland very well at this time of year. the jura would be covered with snow. and if i went to geneva i don't know where i might _not_ go to." it ended at last in a flight to dover; but he found time before he left, amid many occupations and some anxieties, for a good-natured journey to walworth to see a youth rehearse who was supposed to have talents for the stage, and he was able to gladden mr. toole's friends by thinking favourably of his chances of success. "i remember what i once myself wanted in that way," he said, "and i should like to serve him." at one of the last dinners in tavistock house before his departure, mr. watson of rockingham was present; and he was hardly settled in camden-crescent, dover, when he had news of the death of that excellent friend. "poor dear watson! it was this day two weeks when you rode with us and he dined with us. we all remarked after he had gone how happy he seemed to have got over his election troubles, and how cheerful he was. he was full of christmas plans for rockingham, and was very anxious that we should get up a little french piece i had been telling him the plot of. he went abroad next day to join mrs. watson and the children at homburg, and then go to lausanne, where they had taken a house for a month. he was seized at homburg with violent internal inflammation, and died--without much pain--in four days. . . . i was so fond of him that i am sorry you didn't know him better. i believe he was as thoroughly good and true a man as ever lived; and i am sure i can have felt no greater affection for him than he felt for me. when i think of that bright house, and his fine simple honest heart, both so open to me, the blank and loss are like a dream." other deaths followed. "poor d'orsay!" he wrote after only seven days ( th of august). "it is a tremendous consideration that friends should fall around us in such awful numbers as we attain middle life. what a field of battle it is!" nor had another month quite passed before he lost, in mrs. macready, a very dear family friend. "ah me! ah me!" he wrote. "this tremendous sickle certainly does cut deep into the surrounding corn, when one's own small blade has ripened. but _this_ is all a dream, may be, and death will wake us." able at last to settle to his work, he stayed in dover three months; and early in october, sending home his family caravan, crossed to boulogne to try it as a resort for seaside holiday. "i never saw a better instance of our countrymen than this place. because it is accessible it is genteel to say it is of no character, quite english, nothing continental about it, and so forth. it is as quaint, picturesque, good a place as i know; the boatmen and fishing-people quite a race apart, and some of their villages as good as the fishing-villages on the mediterranean. the haute ville, with a walk all round it on the ramparts, charming. the country walks, delightful. it is the best mixture of town and country (with sea air into the bargain) i ever saw; everything cheap, everything good; and please god i shall be writing on those said ramparts next july!" before the year closed, the time to which his publishing arrangements with messrs. bradbury and evans were limited had expired, but at his suggestion the fourth share in such books as he might write, which they had now received for eight years, was continued to them on the understanding that the publishers' percentage should no longer be charged in the partnership accounts, and with a power reserved to himself to withdraw when he pleased. in the new year his first adventure was an ovation in birmingham, where a silver-gilt salver and a diamond ring were presented to him, as well for eloquent service specially rendered to the institution, as in general testimony of "varied literary acquirements, genial philosophy, and high moral teaching." a great banquet followed on twelfth night, made memorable by an offer[ ] to give a couple of readings from his books at the following christmas, in aid of the new midland institute. it might seem to have been drawn from him as a grateful return for the enthusiastic greeting of his entertainers, but it was in his mind before he left london. it was his first formal undertaking to read in public. his eldest son had now left eton, and, the boy's wishes pointing at the time to a mercantile career, he was sent to leipzig for completion of his education.[ ] at this date it seemed to me that the overstrain of attempting too much, brought upon him by the necessities of his weekly periodical, became first apparent in dickens. not unfrequently a complaint strange upon his lips fell from him. "hypochondriacal whisperings tell me that i am rather overworked. the spring does not seem to fly back again directly, as it always did when i put my own work aside, and had nothing else to do. yet i have everything to keep me going with a brave heart, heaven knows!" courage and hopefulness he might well derive from the increasing sale of _bleak house_, which had risen to nearly forty thousand; but he could no longer bear easily what he carried so lightly of old, and enjoyments with work were too much for him. "what with _bleak house_, and _household words_, and _child's history_" (he dictated from week to week the papers which formed that little book, and cannot be said to have quite hit the mark with it), "and miss coutts's home, and the invitations to feasts and festivals, i really feel as if my head would split like a fired shell if i remained here." he tried brighton first, but did not find it answer, and returned.[ ] a few days of unalloyed enjoyment were afterwards given to the visit of his excellent american friend felton; and on the th of june he was again in boulogne, thanking heaven for escape from a breakdown. "if i had substituted anybody's knowledge of myself for my own, and lingered in london, i never could have got through." what befell him in boulogne will be given, with the incidents of his second and third summer visits to the place, on a later page. he completed, by the third week of august, his novel of _bleak house_; and it was resolved to celebrate the event by a two months' trip to italy, in company with mr. wilkie collins and mr. augustus egg. the start was to be made from boulogne in the middle of october, when he would send his family home; and he described the intervening weeks as a fearful "reaction and prostration of laziness" only broken by the _child's history_. at the end of september he wrote: "i finished the little _history_ yesterday, and am trying to think of something for the christmas number. after which i shall knock off; having had quite enough to do, small as it would have seemed to me at any other time, since i finished _bleak house_." he added, a week before his departure: "i get letters from genoa and lausanne as if i were going to stay in each place at least a month. if i were to measure my deserts by people's remembrance of me, i should be a prodigy of intolerability. have recovered my italian, which i had all but forgotten, and am one entire and perfect chrysolite of idleness." from this trip, of which the incidents have an interest independent of my ordinary narrative, dickens was home again in the middle of december , and kept his promise to his birmingham friends by reading in their town hall his _christmas carol_ on the th,[ ] and his _cricket on the hearth_ on the th. the enthusiasm was great, and he consented to read his _carol_ a second time, on friday the th, if seats were reserved for working men at prices within their means. the result was an addition of between four and five hundred pounds to the funds for establishment of the new institute; and a prettily worked flower-basket in silver, presented to mrs. dickens, commemorated these first public readings "to nearly six thousand people," and the design they had generously helped. other applications then followed to such extent that limits to compliance had to be put; and a letter of the th of may is one of many that express both the difficulty in which he found himself, and his much desired expedient for solving it. "the objection you suggest to paid public lecturing does not strike me at all. it is worth consideration, but i do not think there is anything in it. on the contrary, if the lecturing would have any motive power at all (like my poor father this, in the sound!) i believe it would tend the other way. in the colchester matter i had already received a letter from a colchester magnate; to whom i had honestly replied that i stood pledged to christmas readings at bradford[ ] and at reading, and could in no kind of reason do more in the public way." the promise to the people of reading was for talfourd's sake; the other was given after the birmingham nights, when an institute in bradford asked similar help, and offered a fee of fifty pounds. at first this was entertained; but was abandoned, with some reluctance, upon the argument that to become publicly a reader must alter without improving his position publicly as a writer, and that it was a change to be justified only when the higher calling should have failed of the old success. thus yielding for the time, he nevertheless soon found the question rising again with the same importunity; his own position to it being always that of a man assenting against his will that it should rest in abeyance. but nothing farther was resolved on yet. the readings mentioned came off as promised, in aid of public objects;[ ] and besides others two years later for the family of a friend, he had given the like liberal help to institutes in folkestone, chatham, and again in birmingham, peterborough, sheffield, coventry, and edinburgh, before the question settled itself finally in the announcement for paid public readings issued by him in . carrying memory back to his home in the first half of , there are few things that rise more pleasantly in connection with it than the children's theatricals. these began with the first twelfth night at tavistock house, and were renewed until the principal actors ceased to be children. the best of the performances were _tom thumb_ and _fortunio_, in ' and ' ; dickens now joining first in the revel, and mr. mark lemon bringing into it his own clever children and a very mountain of child-pleasing fun in himself. dickens had become very intimate with him, and his merry genial ways had given him unbounded popularity with the "young 'uns," who had no such favourite as "uncle mark." in fielding's burlesque he was the giantess glumdalca, and dickens was the ghost of gaffer thumb; the names by which they respectively appeared being the infant phenomenon and the modern garrick. but the younger actors carried off the palm. there was a lord grizzle, at whose ballad of miss villikins, introduced by desire, thackeray rolled off his seat in a burst of laughter that became absurdly contagious. yet even this, with hardly less fun from the noodles, doodles, and king arthurs, was not so good as the pretty, fantastic, comic grace of dollalolla, huncamunca, and tom. the girls wore steadily the grave airs irresistible when put on by little children; and an actor not out of his fourth year, who went through the comic songs and the tragic exploits without a wrong note or a victim unslain, represented the small helmeted hero. he was in the bills as mr. h----, but bore in fact the name of the illustrious author whose conception he embodied; and who certainly would have hugged him for tom's opening song, delivered in the arms of huncamunca, if he could have forgiven the later master in his own craft for having composed it afresh to the air of a ditty then wildly popular at the "coal hole."[ ] the encores were frequent, and for the most part the little fellow responded to them; but the misplaced enthusiasm that took similar form at the heroic intensity with which he stabbed dollalolla, he rebuked by going gravely on to the close. his fortunio, the next twelfth night, was not so great; yet when, as a prelude to getting the better of the dragon, he adulterated his drink (mr. lemon played the dragon) with sherry, the sly relish with which he watched the demoralization, by this means, of his formidable adversary into a helpless imbecility, was perfect. here dickens played the testy old baron, and took advantage of the excitement against the czar raging in to denounce him (in a song) as no other than own cousin to the very bear that fortunio had gone forth to subdue. he depicted him, in his desolation of autocracy, as the robinson crusoe of absolute state, who had at his court many a show-day and many a high-day, but hadn't in all his dominions a friday.[ ] the bill, which attributed these interpolations to "the dramatic poet of the establishment," deserves also mention for the fun of the six large-lettered announcements which stood at the head of it, and could not have been bettered by mr. crummles himself. "re-engagement of that irresistible comedian" (the performer of lord grizzle) "mr. ainger!" "reappearance of mr. h. who created so powerful an impression last year!" "return of mr. charles dickens junior from his german engagements!" "engagement of miss kate, who declined the munificent offers of the management last season!" "mr. passé, mr. mudperiod, mr. measly servile, and mr. wilkini collini!" "first appearance on any stage of mr. plornishmaroontigoonter (who has been kept out of bed at a vast expense)." the last performer mentioned[ ] was yet at some distance from the third year of his age. dickens was mr. passé. gravities were mixed with these gaieties. "i wish you would look" ( th of january ) "at the enclosed titles for the _h. w._ story, between this and two o'clock or so, when i will call. it is my usual day, you observe, on which i have jotted them down--friday! it seems to me that there are three very good ones among them. i should like to know whether you hit upon the same." on the paper enclosed was written: . according to cocker. . prove it. . stubborn things. . mr. gradgrind's facts. . the grindstone. . hard times. . two and two are four. . something tangible. . our hard-headed friend. . rust and dust. . simple arithmetic. . a matter of calculation. . a mere question of figures. . the gradgrind philosophy.[ ] the three selected by me were , , and ; the three that were his own favourites were , , and ; and as had been chosen by both, that title was taken. it was the first story written by him for _household words_; and in the course of it the old troubles of the _clock_ came back, with the difference that the greater brevity of the weekly portions made it easier to write them up to time, but much more difficult to get sufficient interest into each. "the difficulty of the space," he wrote after a few weeks' trial, "is crushing. nobody can have an idea of it who has not had an experience of patient fiction-writing with some elbow-room always, and open places in perspective. in this form, with any kind of regard to the current number, there is absolutely no such thing." he went on, however; and, of the two designs he started with, accomplished one very perfectly and the other at least partially. he more than doubled the circulation of his journal; and he wrote a story which, though not among his best, contains things as characteristic as any he has written. i may not go as far as mr. ruskin in giving it a high place; but to anything falling from that writer, however one may differ from it, great respect is due, and every word here said of dickens's intention is in the most strict sense just.[ ] "the essential value and truth of dickens's writings," he says, "have been unwisely lost sight of by many thoughtful persons, merely because he presents his truth with some colour of caricature. unwisely, because dickens's caricature, though often gross, is never mistaken. allowing for his manner of telling them, the things he tells us are always true. i wish that he could think it right to limit his brilliant exaggeration to works written only for public amusement; and when he takes up a subject of high national importance, such as that which he handled in _hard times_, that he would use severer and more accurate analysis. the usefulness of that work (to my mind, in several respects, the greatest he has written) is with many persons seriously diminished, because mr. bounderby is a dramatic monster, instead of a characteristic example of a worldly master; and stephen blackpool a dramatic perfection, instead of a characteristic example of an honest workman. but let us not lose the use of dickens's wit and insight, because he chooses to speak in a circle of stage fire. he is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially _hard times_, should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions. they will find much that is partial, and, because partial, apparently unjust; but if they examine all the evidence on the other side, which dickens seems to overlook, it will appear, after all their trouble, that his view was the finally right one, grossly and sharply told."[ ] the best points in it, out of the circle of stage fire (an expression of wider application to this part of dickens's life than its inventor supposed it to be), were the sketches of the riding-circus people and the bounderby household; but it is a wise hint of mr. ruskin's that there may be, in the drift of a story, truths of sufficient importance to set against defects of workmanship; and here they challenged wide attention. you cannot train any one properly, unless you cultivate the fancy, and allow fair scope to the affections. you cannot govern men on a principle of averages; and to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market is not the _summum bonum_ of life. you cannot treat the working man fairly unless, in dealing with his wrongs and his delusions, you take equally into account the simplicity and tenacity of his nature, arising partly from limited knowledge, but more from honesty and singleness of intention. fiction cannot prove a case, but it can express forcibly a righteous sentiment; and this is here done unsparingly upon matters of universal concern. the book was finished at boulogne in the middle of july,[ ] and is inscribed to carlyle. an american admirer accounted for the vivacity of the circus-scenes by declaring that dickens had "arranged with the master of astley's circus to spend many hours behind the scenes with the riders and among the horses;" a thing just as likely as that he went into training as a stroller to qualify for mr. crummles in _nickleby_. such successes belonged to the experiences of his youth; he had nothing to add to what his marvellous observation had made familiar from almost childish days; and the glimpses we get of them in the _sketches by boz_ are in these points as perfect as anything his later experience could supply. there was one thing nevertheless which the choice of his subject made him anxious to verify while _hard times_ was in hand; and this was a strike in a manufacturing town. he went to preston to see one at the end of january, and was somewhat disappointed. "i am afraid i shall not be able to get much here. except the crowds at the street-corners reading the placards pro and con; and the cold absence of smoke from the mill-chimneys; there is very little in the streets to make the town remarkable. i am told that the people 'sit at home and mope.' the delegates with the money from the neighbouring places come in to-day to report the amounts they bring; and to-morrow the people are paid. when i have seen both these ceremonies, i shall return. it is a nasty place (i thought it was a model town); and i am in the bull hotel, before which some time ago the people assembled supposing the masters to be here, and on demanding to have them out were remonstrated with by the landlady in person. i saw the account in an italian paper, in which it was stated that 'the populace then environed the palazzo bull, until the padrona of the palazzo heroically appeared at one of the upper windows and addressed them!' one can hardly conceive anything less likely to be represented to an italian mind by this description, than the old, grubby, smoky, mean, intensely formal red brick house with a narrow gateway and a dingy yard, to which it applies. at the theatre last night i saw _hamlet_, and should have done better to 'sit at home and mope' like the idle workmen. in the last scene, laertes on being asked how it was with him replied (verbatim) 'why, like a woodcock--on account of my treachery.'" ( th jan.) the home incidents of the summer and autumn of may be mentioned briefly. it was a year of much unsettled discontent with him, and upon return from a short trip to paris with mr. wilkie collins, he flung himself rather hotly into agitation with the administrative reformers,[ ] and spoke at one of the great meetings in drury-lane theatre. in the following month (april) he took occasion, even from the chair of the general theatrical fund, to give renewed expression to political dissatisfactions.[ ] in the summer he threw open to many friends his tavistock house theatre, having secured for its "lessee and manager mr. crummles;" for its poet mr. wilkie collins, in an "entirely new and original domestic melodrama;" and for its scene-painter "mr. stanfield, r.a."[ ] _the lighthouse_, by mr. wilkie collins, was then produced, its actors being mr. crummles the manager (dickens in other words), the author of the play, mr. lemon and mr. egg, and the manager's sister-in-law and eldest daughter. it was followed by the guild farce of _mr. nightingale's diary_, in which besides the performers named, and dickens in his old personation part, the manager's youngest daughter and mr. frank stone assisted. the success was wonderful; and in the three delighted audiences who crowded to what the bills described as "the smallest theatre in the world," were not a few of the notabilities of london. mr. carlyle compared dickens's wild picturesqueness in the old lighthouse keeper to the famous figure in nicholas poussin's bacchanalian dance in the national gallery; and at one of the joyous suppers that followed on each night of the play, lord campbell told the company that he had much rather have written _pickwick_ than be chief justice of england and a peer of parliament.[ ] then came the beginning of _nobody's fault_, as _little dorrit_ continued to be called by him up to the eve of its publication; a flight to folkestone to help his sluggish fancy; and his return to london in october to preside at a dinner to thackeray on his going to lecture in america. it was a muster of more than sixty admiring entertainers, and dickens's speech gave happy expression to the spirit that animated all, telling thackeray not alone how much his friendship was prized by those present, and how proud they were of his genius, but offering him in the name of the tens of thousands absent who had never touched his hand or seen his face, life-long thanks for the treasures of mirth, wit, and wisdom within the yellow-covered numbers of _pendennis_ and _vanity fair_. peter cunningham, one of the sons of allan, was secretary to the banquet; and for many pleasures given to the subject of this memoir, who had a hearty regard for him, should have a few words to his memory. his presence was always welcome to dickens, and indeed to all who knew him, for his relish of social life was great, and something of his keen enjoyment could not but be shared by his company. his geniality would have carried with it a pleasurable glow even if it had stood alone, and it was invigorated by very considerable acquirements. he had some knowledge of the works of eminent authors and artists; and he had an eager interest in their lives and haunts, which he had made the subject of minute and novel enquiry. this store of knowledge gave substance to his talk, yet never interrupted his buoyancy and pleasantry, because only introduced when called for, and not made matter of parade or display. but the happy combination of qualities that rendered him a favourite companion, and won him many friends, proved in the end injurious to himself. he had done much while young in certain lines of investigation which he had made almost his own, and there was every promise that, in the department of biographical and literary research, he would have produced much weightier works with advancing years. this however was not to be. the fascinations of good fellowship encroached more and more upon literary pursuits, until he nearly abandoned his former favourite studies, and sacrificed all the deeper purposes of his life to the present temptation of a festive hour. then his health gave way, and he became lost to friends as well as to literature. but the impression of the bright and amiable intercourse of his better time survived, and his old associates never ceased to think of peter cunningham with regret and kindness. dickens went to paris early in october, and at its close was brought again to london by the sudden death of a friend, much deplored by himself, and still more so by a distinguished lady who had his loyal service at all times. an incident before his return to france is worth brief relation. he had sallied out for one of his night walks, full of thoughts of his story, one wintery rainy evening (the th of november), and "pulled himself up," outside the door of whitechapel workhouse, at a strange sight which arrested him there. against the dreary enclosure of the house were leaning, in the midst of the downpouring rain and storm, what seemed to be seven heaps of rags: "dumb, wet, silent horrors" he described them, "sphinxes set up against that dead wall, and no one likely to be at the pains of solving them until the general overthrow." he sent in his card to the master. against him there was no ground of complaint; he gave prompt personal attention; but the casual ward was full, and there was no help. the rag-heaps were all girls, and dickens gave each a shilling. one girl, "twenty or so," had been without food a day and night. "look at me," she said, as she clutched the shilling, and without thanks shuffled off. so with the rest. there was not a single "thank you." a crowd meanwhile, only less poor than these objects of misery, had gathered round the scene; but though they saw the seven shillings given away they asked for no relief to themselves, they recognized in their sad wild way the other greater wretchedness, and made room in silence for dickens to walk on. not more tolerant of the way in which laws meant to be most humane are too often administered in england, he left in a day or two to resume his _little dorrit_ in paris. but before his life there is described, some sketches from his holiday trip to italy with mr. wilkie collins and mr. augustus egg, and from his three summer visits to boulogne, claim to themselves two intervening chapters. footnotes: [ ] i subjoin the dozen titles successively proposed for _bleak house_. . "tom-all-alone's. the ruined house;" . "tom-all-alone's. the solitary house that was always shut up;" . "bleak house academy;" . "the east wind;" . "tom-all-alone's. the ruined [house, building, factory, mill] that got into chancery and never got out;" . "tom-all-alone's. the solitary house where the grass grew;" . "tom-all-alone's. the solitary house that was always shut up and never lighted;" . "tom-all-alone's. the ruined mill, that got into chancery and never got out;" . "tom-all-alone's. the solitary house where the wind howled;" . "tom-all-alone's. the ruined house that got into chancery and never got out;" . "bleak house and the east wind. how they both got into chancery and never got out;" . "bleak house." [ ] he was greatly interested in the movement for closing town and city graves (see the close of the th chapter of _bleak house_), and providing places of burial under state supervision. [ ] the promise was formally conveyed next morning in a letter to one who took the lead then and since in all good work for birmingham, mr. arthur ryland. the reading would, he said in this letter ( th of jan. ), "take about two hours, with a pause of ten minutes half way through. there would be some novelty in the thing, as i have never done it in public, though i have in private, and (if i may say so) with a great effect on the hearers." [ ] baron tauchnitz, describing to me his long and uninterrupted friendly intercourse with dickens, has this remark: "i give also a passage from one of his letters written at the time when he sent his son charles, through my mediation, to leipzig. he says in it what he desires for his son. 'i want him to have all interest in, and to acquire a knowledge of, the life around him, and to be treated like a gentleman though pampered in nothing. by punctuality in all things, great or small, i set great store.'" [ ] from one of his letters while there i take a passage of observation full of character. "great excitement here about a wretched woman who has murdered her child. apropos of which i observed a curious thing last night. the newspaper offices (local journals) had placards like this outside: child murder in brighton. inquest. committal of the murderess. i saw so many common people stand profoundly staring at these lines for half-an-hour together--and even go back to stare again--that i feel quite certain they had not the power of thinking about the thing at all connectedly or continuously, without having something about it before their sense of sight. having got that, they were considering the case, wondering how the devil they had come into that power. i saw one man in a smock frock lose the said power the moment he turned away, and bring his hob-nails back again." [ ] the reading occupied nearly three hours: double the time devoted to it in the later years. [ ] "after correspondence with all parts of england, and every kind of refusal and evasion on my part, i am now obliged to decide this question--whether i shall read two nights at bradford for a hundred pounds. if i do, i may take as many hundred pounds as i choose." th of jan. . [ ] on the th of dec. he wrote from bradford: "the hall is enormous, and they expect to seat people to-night! notwithstanding which, it seems to me a tolerably easy place--except that the width of the platform is so very great to the eye at first." from folkestone, on his way to paris, he wrote in the autumn of : " th of sept. i am going to read for them here, on the th of next month, and have answered in the last fortnight thirty applications to do the like all over england, ireland, and scotland. fancy my having to come from paris in december, to do this, at peterborough, birmingham, and sheffield--old promises." again: rd of sept. "i am going to read here, next friday week. there are (as there are everywhere) a literary institution and a working men's institution, which have not the slightest sympathy or connexion. the stalls are five shillings, but i have made them fix the working men's admission at threepence, and i hope it may bring them together. the event comes off in a carpenter's shop, as the biggest place that can be got." in , at paxton's request, he read his _carol_ at coventry for the institute. [ ] my name it is tom thumb, small my size, small my size, my name it is tom thumb, small my size. yet though i am so small, i have killed the giants tall; and now i'm paid for all, small my size, small my size, and now i'm paid for all, small my size. [ ] this finds mention, i observe, in a pleasant description of "mr. dickens's amateur theatricals," which appeared in _macmillan's magazine_ two years ago, by one who had been a member of the juvenile company. i quote a passage, recommending the whole paper as very agreeably written, with some shrewd criticism. "mr. planché had in one portion of the extravaganza put into the mouth of one of the characters for the moment a few lines of burlesque upon macbeth, and we remember mr. dickens's unsuccessful attempts to teach the performer how to imitate macready, whom he (the performer) had never seen! and after the performance, when we were restored to our evening-party costumes, and the school-room was cleared for dancing, still a stray 'property' or two had escaped the vigilant eye of the property-man, for douglas jerrold had picked up the horse's head (fortunio's faithful steed _comrade_), and was holding it up before the greatest living animal painter, who had been one of the audience, with 'looks as if it knew _you_, edwin!'" [ ] he went with the rest to boulogne in the summer, and an anecdote transmitted in one of his father's letters will show that he maintained the reputation as a comedian which his early debut had awakened. "original anecdote of the plornishghenter. this distinguished wit, being at boulogne with his family, made a close acquaintance with his landlord, whose name was m. beaucourt--the only french word with which he was at that time acquainted. it happened that one day he was left unusually long in a bathing-machine when the tide was making, accompanied by his two young brothers and little english nurse, without being drawn to land. the little nurse, being frightened, cried 'm'soo! m'soo!' the two young brothers being frightened, cried 'ici! ici!'. our wit, at once perceiving that his english was of no use to him under the foreign circumstances, immediately fell to bawling 'beau-court!' which he continued to shout at the utmost pitch of his voice and with great gravity, until rescued.--_new boulogne jest book_, page ." [ ] to show the pains he took in such matters i will give other titles also thought of for this tale. . fact; . hard-headed gradgrind; . hard heads and soft hearts; . heads and tales; . black and white. [ ] it is well to remember, too, what he wrote about the story to charles knight. it had no design, he said, to damage the really useful truths of political economy, but was wholly directed against "those who see figures and averages, and nothing else; who would take the average of cold in the crimea during twelve months as a reason for clothing a soldier in nankeen on a night when he would be frozen to death in fur; and who would comfort the labourer in travelling twelve miles a day to and from his work, by telling him that the average distance of one inhabited place from another, on the whole area of england, is not more than four miles." [ ] it is curious that with as strong a view in the opposite direction, and with an equally mistaken exaltation, above the writer's ordinary level, of a book which on the whole was undoubtedly below it, mr. taine speaks of _hard times_ as that one of dickens's romances which is a summary of all the rest: exalting instinct above reason, and the intuitions of the heart above practical knowledge; attacking all education based on statistic figures and facts; heaping sorrow and ridicule on the practical mercantile people; fighting against the pride, hardness, and selfishness of the merchant and noble; cursing the manufacturing towns for imprisoning bodies in smoke and mud, and souls in falsehood and factitiousness;--while it contrasts, with that satire of social oppression, lofty eulogy of the oppressed; and searches out poor workmen, jugglers, foundlings, and circus people, for types of good sense, sweetness of disposition, generosity, delicacy, and courage, to perpetual confusion of the pretended knowledge, pretended happiness, pretended virtue, of the rich and powerful who trample upon them! this is a fair specimen of the exaggerations with which exaggeration is rebuked, in mr. taine's and much similar criticism. [ ] here is a note at the close. "tavistock house. look at that! boulogne, of course. friday, th of july, . i am three parts mad, and the fourth delirious, with perpetual rushing at _hard times_. i have done what i hope is a good thing with stephen, taking his story as a whole; and hope to be over in town with the end of the book on wednesday night. . . . i have been looking forward through so many weeks and sides of paper to this stephen business, that now--as usual--it being over, i feel as if nothing in the world, in the way of intense and violent rushing hither and thither, could quite restore my balance." [ ] "i have hope of mr. morley--whom one cannot see without knowing to be a straightforward, earnest man. travers, too, i think a man of the anti-corn-law-league order. i also think higgins will materially help them. generally i quite agree with you that they hardly know what to be at; but it is an immensely difficult subject to start, and they must have every allowance. at any rate, it is not by leaving them alone and giving them no help, that they can be urged on to success." th of march . [ ] "the government hit took immensely, but i'm afraid to look at the report, these things are so ill done. it came into my head as i was walking about at hampstead yesterday. . . . on coming away i told b. we must have a toastmaster in future less given to constant drinking while the speeches are going on. b. replied 'yes sir, you are quite right sir, he has no head whatever sir, look at him now sir'--toastmaster was weakly contemplating the coats and hats--'do you not find it difficult to keep your hands off him sir, he ought to have his head knocked against the wall sir,--and he should sir, i assure you sir, if he was not in too debased a condition to be aware of it sir.'" april rd . [ ] for the scene of the eddystone lighthouse at this little play, afterwards placed in a frame in the hall at gadshill, a thousand guineas was given at the dickens sale. it occupied the great painter only one or two mornings, and dickens will tell how it originated. walking on hampstead heath to think over his theatrical fund speech, he met mr. lemon, and they went together to stanfield. "he has been very ill, and he told us that large pictures are too much for him, and he must confine himself to small ones. but i would not have this, i declared he must paint bigger ones than ever, and what would he think of beginning upon an act-drop for a proposed vast theatre at tavistock house? he laughed and caught at this, we cheered him up very much, and he said he was quite a man again." april . [ ] sitting at nisi prius not long before, the chief justice, with the same eccentric liking for literature, had committed what was called at the time a breach of judicial decorum. (such indecorums were less uncommon in the great days of the bench.) "the name," he said, "of the illustrious charles dickens has been called on the jury, but he has not answered. if his great chancery suit had been still going on, i certainly would have excused him, but, as that is over, he might have done us the honour of attending here, that he might have seen how we went on at common law." chapter iii. switzerland and italy revisited. . swiss people--narrow escape--berne--lausanne--an old friend--genoa--peschiere revisited--on the way to naples--scene on board steamship--a jaunt to pisa--a greek war-ship--at naples--at rome--time's changes--at the opera--a "scattering" party--performance of puppets--malaria--desolation--at bolsena--at venice--habits of gondoliers--uses of travel--tintoretto--at turin--liking for the sardinians--austrian police--police arrangements--dickens and the austrian--an old dislike. the first news of the three travellers was from chamounix, on the th of october; and in it there was little made of the fatigue, and much of the enjoyment, of their swiss travel. great attention and cleanliness at the inns, very small windows and very bleak passages, doors opening to wintery blasts, overhanging eaves and external galleries, plenty of milk, honey, cows, and goats, much singing towards sunset on mountain sides, mountains almost too solemn to look at--that was the picture of it, with the country everywhere in one of its finest aspects, as winter began to close in. they had started from geneva the previous morning at four, and in their day's travel dickens had again noticed what he spoke of formerly, the ill-favoured look of the people in the valleys owing to their hard and stern climate. "all the women were like used-up men, and all the men like a sort of fagged dogs. but the good, genuine, grateful swiss recognition of the commonest kind word--not too often thrown to them by our countrymen--made them quite radiant. i walked the greater part of the way, which was like going up the monument." on the day the letter was written they had been up to the mer de glace, finding it not so beautiful in colour as in summer, but grander in its desolation; the green ice, like the greater part of the ascent, being covered with snow. "we were alarmingly near to a very dismal accident. we were a train of four mules and two guides, going along an immense height like a chimney-piece, with sheer precipice below, when there came rolling from above, with fearful velocity, a block of stone about the size of one of the fountains in trafalgar-square, which egg, the last of the party, had preceded by not a yard, when it swept over the ledge, breaking away a tree, and rolled and tumbled down into the valley. it had been loosened by the heavy rains, or by some wood-cutters afterwards reported to be above." the only place new to dickens was berne: "a surprisingly picturesque old swiss town, with a view of the alps from the outside of it singularly beautiful in the morning light." everything else was familiar to him: though at that winter season, when the inns were shutting up, and all who could afford it were off to geneva, most things in the valley struck him with a new aspect. from such of his old friends as he found at lausanne, where a day or two's rest was taken, he had the gladdest of greetings; "and the wonderful manner in which they turned out in the wettest morning ever beheld for a godspeed down the lake was really quite pathetic." he had found time to see again the deaf, dumb, and blind youth at mr. haldimand's institution who had aroused so deep an interest in him seven years before, but, in his brief present visit, the old associations would not reawaken. "tremendous efforts were made by hertzel to impress him with an idea of me, and the associations belonging to me; but it seemed in my eyes quite a failure, and i much doubt if he had the least perception of his old acquaintance. according to his custom, he went on muttering strange eager sounds like town and down and mown, but nothing more. i left ten francs to be spent in cigars for my old friend. if i had taken one with me, i think i could, more successfully than his master, have established my identity." the child similarly afflicted, the little girl whom he saw at the same old time, had been after some trial discharged as an idiot. before october closed, the travellers had reached genoa, having been thirty-one consecutive hours on the road from milan. they arrived in somewhat damaged condition, and took up their lodging in the top rooms of the croce di malta, "overlooking the port and sea pleasantly and airily enough, but it was no joke to get so high, and the apartment is rather vast and faded." the warmth of personal greeting that here awaited dickens was given no less to the friends who accompanied him, and though the reader may not share in such private confidences as would show the sensation created by his reappearance, and the jovial hours that were passed among old associates, he will perhaps be interested to know how far the intervening years had changed the aspect of things and places made pleasantly familiar to us in his former letters. he wrote to his sister-in-law that the old walks were pretty much the same as ever except that there had been building behind the peschiere up the san bartolomeo hill, and the whole town towards san pietro d'arena had been quite changed. the bisagno looked just the same, stony just then, having very little water in it; the vicoli were fragrant with the same old flavour of "very rotten cheese kept in very hot blankets;" and everywhere he saw the mezzaro as of yore. the jesuits' college in the strada nuova was become, under the changed government, the hôtel de ville, and a splendid caffè with a terrace-garden had arisen between it and palaviccini's old palace. "pal himself has gone to the dogs." another new and handsome caffè had been built in the piazza carlo felice, between the old one of the bei arti and the strada carlo felice; and the teatro diurno had now stone galleries and seats, like an ancient amphitheatre. "the beastly gate and guardhouse in the albaro road are still in their dear old beastly state; and the whole of that road is just as it was. the man without legs is still in the strada nuova; but the beggars in general are all cleared off, and our old one-arm'd belisario made a sudden evaporation a year or two ago. i am going to the peschiere to-day." to myself he described his former favourite abode as converted into a girls' college; all the paintings of gods and goddesses canvassed over, and the gardens gone to ruin; "but o! what a wonderful place!" he observed an extraordinary increase everywhere else, since he was last in the splendid city, of "life, growth, and enterprise;" and he declared his old conviction to be confirmed that for picturesque beauty and character there was nothing in italy, venice excepted, "near brilliant old genoa." the voyage thence to naples, written from the latter place, is too capital a description to be lost. the steamer in which they embarked was "the new express english ship," but they found her to be already more than full of passengers from marseilles (among them an old friend, sir emerson tennent, with his family), and everything in confusion. there were no places at the captain's table, dinner had to be taken on deck, no berth or sleeping accommodation was available, and heavy first-class fares had to be paid. thus they made their way to leghorn, where worse awaited them. the authorities proved to be not favourable to the "crack" english-officered vessel (she had just been started for the india mail); and her papers not being examined in time, it was too late to steam away again that day, and she had to lie all night long off the lighthouse. "the scene on board beggars description. ladies on the tables; gentlemen under the tables; bed-room appliances not usually beheld in public airing themselves in positions where soup-tureens had been lately developing themselves; and ladies and gentlemen lying indiscriminately on the open deck, arranged like spoons on a sideboard. no mattresses, no blankets, nothing. towards midnight attempts were made, by means of awning and flags, to make this latter scene remotely approach an australian encampment; and we three (collins, egg, and self) lay together on the bare planks covered with our coats. we were all gradually dozing off, when a perfectly tropical rain fell, and in a moment drowned the whole ship. the rest of the night we passed upon the stairs, with an immense jumble of men and women. when anybody came up for any purpose we all fell down, and when anybody came down we all fell up again. still, the good-humour in the english part of the passengers was quite extraordinary. . . . there were excellent officers aboard, and, in the morning, the first mate lent me his cabin to wash in--which i afterwards lent to egg and collins. then we, the emerson tennents, the captain, the doctor, and the second officer, went off on a jaunt together to pisa, as the ship was to lie all day at leghorn. the captain was a capital fellow, but i led him, facetiously, such a life the whole day, that i got most things altered at night. emerson tennent's son, with the greatest amiability, insisted on turning out of his state-room for me, and i got a good bed there. the store-room down by the hold was opened for collins and egg; and they slept with the moist sugar, the cheese in cut, the spices, the cruets, the apples and pears, in a perfect chandler's shop--in company with what a friend of ours would call a hold gent, who had been so horribly wet through over night that his condition frightened the authorities; a cat; and the steward, who dozed in an arm-chair, and all-night-long fell head foremost, once every five minutes, on egg, who slept on the counter or dresser. last night, i had the steward's own cabin, opening on deck, all to myself. it had been previously occupied by some desolate lady who went ashore at civita vecchia. there was little or no sea, thank heaven, all the trip; but the rain was heavier than any i have ever seen, and the lightning very constant and vivid. we were, with the crew, some people--provided with boats, at the utmost stretch, for one hundred perhaps. i could not help thinking what would happen if we met with any accident: the crew being chiefly maltese, and evidently fellows who would cut off alone in the largest boat, on the least alarm; the speed very high; and the running, thro' all the narrow rocky channels. thank god, however, here we are." a whimsical postscript closed the amusing narrative. "we towed from civita vecchia the entire greek navy, i believe; consisting of a little brig of war with no guns, fitted as a steamer, but disabled by having burnt the bottoms of her boilers out, in her first run. she was just big enough to carry the captain and a crew of six or so: but the captain was so covered with buttons and gold that there never would have been room for him on board to put those valuables away, if he hadn't worn them--which he consequently did, all night. whenever anything was wanted to be done, as slackening the tow-rope or anything of that sort, our officers roared at this miserable potentate, in violent english, through a speaking trumpet; of which he couldn't have understood a word in the most favourable circumstances. so he did all the wrong things first, and the right thing always last. the absence of any knowledge of anything but english on the part of the officers and stewards was most ridiculous. i met an italian gentleman on the cabin steps yesterday morning, vainly endeavouring to explain that he wanted a cup of tea for his sick wife. and when we were coming out of the harbour at genoa, and it was necessary to order away that boat of music you remember, the chief officer (called 'aft' for the purpose, as 'knowing something of italian') delivered himself in this explicit and clear italian to the principal performer--'now signora, if you don't sheer off you'll be run down, so you had better trice up that guitar of yours and put about.'" at naples some days were passed very merrily; going up vesuvius and into the buried cities, with layard who had joined them, and with the tennents. here a small adventure befell dickens specially, in itself extremely unimportant; but told by him with delightful humour in a letter to his sister-in-law. the old idle frenchman, to whom all things are possible, with his snuff-box and dusty umbrella, and all the delicate and kindly observation, would have enchanted leigh hunt, and made his way to the heart of charles lamb. after mentioning mr. lowther, then english chargé d'affaires in naples, as a very agreeable fellow who had been at the rockingham play, he alludes to a meeting at his house. "we had an exceedingly pleasant dinner of eight, preparatory to which i was near having the ridiculous adventure of not being able to find the house and coming back dinnerless. i went in an open carriage from the hotel in all state, and the coachman to my surprise pulled up at the end of the chiaja. 'behold the house,' says he, 'of il signor larthoor!'--at the same time pointing with his whip into the seventh heaven where the early stars were shining. 'but the signor larthorr,' says i, 'lives at pausilippo.' 'it is true,' says the coachman (still pointing to the evening star), 'but he lives high up the salita sant' antonio where no carriage ever yet ascended, and that is the house' (evening star as aforesaid), 'and one must go on foot. behold the salita sant' antonio!' i went up it, a mile and a half i should think, i got into the strangest places among the wildest neapolitans; kitchens, washing-places, archways, stables, vineyards; was baited by dogs, and answered, in profoundly unintelligible language, from behind lonely locked doors in cracked female voices, quaking with fear; but could hear of no such englishman, nor any englishman. bye and bye, i came upon a polenta-shop in the clouds, where an old frenchman with an umbrella like a faded tropical leaf (it had not rained in naples for six weeks) was staring at nothing at all, with a snuff-box in his hand. to him i appealed, concerning the signor larthoor. 'sir,' said he, with the sweetest politeness, 'can you speak french?' 'sir,' said i, 'a little.' 'sir,' said he, 'i presume the signer loothere'--you will observe that he changed the name according to the custom of his country--'is an englishman?' i admitted that he was the victim of circumstances and had that misfortune. 'sir,' said he, 'one word more. _has_ he a servant with a wooden leg?' 'great heaven, sir,' said i, 'how do i know? i should think not, but it is possible.' 'it is always,' said the frenchman, 'possible. almost all the things of the world are always possible.' 'sir,' said i--you may imagine my condition and dismal sense of my own absurdity, by this time--'that is true.' he then took an immense pinch of snuff wiped the dust off his umbrella, led me to an arch commanding a wonderful view of the bay of naples, and pointed deep into the earth from which i had mounted. 'below there, near the lamp, one finds an englishman with a servant with a wooden leg. it is always possible that he is the signor loothore.' i had been asked at six o'clock, and it was now getting on for seven. i went back in a state of perspiration and misery not to be described, and without the faintest hope of finding the spot. but as i was going farther down to the lamp, i saw the strangest staircase up a dark corner, with a man in a white waistcoat (evidently hired) standing on the top of it fuming. i dashed in at a venture, found it was the house, made the most of the whole story, and achieved much popularity. the best of it was that as nobody ever did find the place, lowther had put a servant at the bottom of the salita to wait 'for an english gentleman;' but the servant (as he presently pleaded), deceived by the moustache, had allowed the english gentleman to pass unchallenged." from naples they went to rome, where they found lockhart, "fearfully weak and broken, yet hopeful of himself too" (he died the following year); smoked and drank punch with david roberts, then painting everyday with louis haghe in st. peter's; and took the old walks. the coliseum, appian way, and streets of tombs, seemed desolate and grand as ever; but generally, dickens adds, "i discovered the roman antiquities to be _smaller_ than my imagination in nine years had made them. the electric telegraph now goes like a sunbeam through the cruel old heart of the coliseum--a suggestive thing to think about, i fancied. the pantheon i thought even nobler than of yore." the amusements were of course an attraction; and nothing at the opera amused the party of three english more, than another party of four americans who sat behind them in the pit. "all the seats are numbered arm-chairs, and you buy your number at the pay-place, and go to it with the easiest direction on the ticket itself. we were early, and the four places of the americans were on the next row behind us--all together. after looking about them for some time, and seeing the greater part of the seats empty (because the audience generally wait in a caffè which is part of the theatre), one of them said 'waal i dunno--i expect we aint no call to set so nigh to one another neither--will you scatter kernel, will you scatter sir?--' upon this the kernel 'scattered' some twenty benches off; and they distributed themselves (for no earthly reason apparently but to get rid of one another) all over the pit. as soon as the overture began, in came the audience in a mass. then the people who had got the numbers into which they had 'scattered,' had to get them out; and as they understood nothing that was said to them, and could make no reply but 'a-mericani,' you may imagine the number of cocked hats it took to dislodge them. at last they were all got back into their right places, except one. about an hour afterwards when moses (_moses in egypt_ was the opera) was invoking the darkness, and there was a dead silence all over the house, unwonted sounds of disturbance broke out from a distant corner of the pit, and here and there a beard got up to look. 'what is it neow sir?' said one of the americans to another;--'some person seems to be getting along, again streeem.' 'waal sir' he replied 'i dunno. but i xpect 'tis the kernel sir, a holdin on.' so it was. the kernel was ignominiously escorted back to his right place, not in the least disconcerted, and in perfectly good spirits and temper." the opera was excellently done, and the price of the stalls one and threepence english. at milan, on the other hand, the scala was fallen from its old estate, dirty, gloomy, dull, and the performance execrable. another theatre of the smallest pretension dickens sought out with avidity in rome, and eagerly enjoyed. he had heard it said in his old time in genoa that the finest marionetti were here; and now, after great difficulty, he discovered the company in a sort of stable attached to a decayed palace. "it was a wet night, and there was no audience but a party of french officers and ourselves. we all sat together. i never saw anything more amazing than the performance--altogether only an hour long, but managed by as many as ten people, for we saw them all go behind, at the ringing of a bell. the saving of a young lady by a good fairy from the machinations of an enchanter, coupled with the comic business of her servant pulcinella (the roman punch) formed the plot of the first piece. a scolding old peasant woman, who always leaned forward to scold and put her hands in the pockets of her apron, was incredibly natural. pulcinella, so airy, so merry, so life-like, so graceful, he was irresistible. to see him carrying an umbrella over his mistress's head in a storm, talking to a prodigious giant whom he met in the forest, and going to bed with a pony, were things never to be forgotten. and so delicate are the hands of the people who move them, that every puppet was an italian, and did exactly what an italian does. if he pointed at any object, if he saluted anybody, if he laughed, if he cried, he did it as never englishman did it since britain first at heaven's command arose--arose--arose, &c. there was a ballet afterwards, on the same scale, and we really came away quite enchanted with the delicate drollery of the thing. french officers more than ditto." of the great enemy to the health of the now capital of the kingdom of italy, dickens remarked in the same letter. "i have been led into some curious speculations by the existence and progress of the malaria about rome. isn't it very extraordinary to think of its encroaching and encroaching on the eternal city as if it were commissioned to swallow it up. this year it has been extremely bad, and has long outstayed its usual time. rome has been very unhealthy, and is not free now. few people care to be out at the bad times of sunset and sunrise, and the streets are like a desert at night. there is a church, a very little way outside the walls, destroyed by fire some or years ago, and now restored and re-created at an enormous expense. it stands in a wilderness. for any human creature who goes near it, or can sleep near it, after nightfall, it might as well be at the bottom of the uppermost cataract of the nile. along the whole extent of the pontine marshes (which we came across the other day), no creature in adam's likeness lives, except the sallow people at the lonely posting-stations. i walk out from the coliseum through the street of tombs to the ruins of the old appian way--pass no human being, and see no human habitation but ruined houses from which the people have fled, and where it is death to sleep: these houses being three miles outside a gate of rome at its farthest extent. leaving rome by the opposite side, we travel for many many hours over the dreary campagna, shunned and avoided by all but the wretched shepherds. thirteen hours' good posting brings us to bolsena (i slept there once before), on the margin of a stagnant lake whence the workpeople fly as the sun goes down--where it is a risk to go; where from a distance we saw a mist hang on the place; where, in the inconceivably wretched inn, no window can be opened; where our dinner was a pale ghost of a fish with an oily omelette, and we slept in great mouldering rooms tainted with ruined arches and heaps of dung--and coming from which we saw no colour in the cheek of man, woman, or child for another twenty miles. imagine this phantom knocking at the gates of rome; passing them; creeping along the streets; haunting the aisles and pillars of the churches; year by year more encroaching, and more impossible of avoidance." from rome they posted to florence, reaching it in three days and a half, on the morning of the th of november; having then been out six weeks, with only three days' rain; and in another week they were at venice. "the fine weather has accompanied us here," dickens wrote on the th of november, "the place of all others where it is necessary, and the city has been a blaze of sunlight and blue sky (with an extremely clear cold air) ever since we have been in it. if you could see it at this moment you would never forget it. we live in the same house that i lived in nine years ago, and have the same sitting-room--close to the bridge of sighs and the palace of the doges. the room is at the corner of the house, and there is a narrow street of water running round the side: so that we have the grand canal before the two front windows, and this wild little street at the corner window: into which, too, our three bedrooms look. we established a gondola as soon as we arrived, and we slide out of the hall on to the water twenty times a day. the gondoliers have queer old customs that belong to their class, and some are sufficiently disconcerting. . . . it is a point of honour with them, while they are engaged, to be always at your disposal. hence it is no use telling them they may go home for an hour or two--for they won't go. they roll themselves in shaggy capuccins, great coats with hoods, and lie down on the stone or marble pavement until they are wanted again. so that when i come in or go out, on foot--which can be done from this house for some miles, over little bridges and by narrow ways--i usually walk over the principal of my vassals, whose custom it is to snore immediately across the doorway. conceive the oddity of the most familiar things in this place, from one instance: last night we go downstairs at half-past eight, step into the gondola, slide away on the black water, ripple and plash swiftly along for a mile or two, land at a broad flight of steps, and instantly walk into the most brilliant and beautiful theatre conceivable--all silver and blue, and precious little fringes made of glittering prisms of glass. there we sit until half-past eleven, come out again (gondolier asleep outside the box-door), and in a moment are on the black silent water, floating away as if there were no dry building in the world. it stops, and in a moment we are out again, upon the broad solid piazza of st. mark, brilliantly lighted with gas, very like the palais royal at paris, only far more handsome, and shining with no end of caffès. the two old pillars and the enormous bell-tower are as gruff and solid against the exquisite starlight as if they were a thousand miles from the sea or any undermining water: and the front of the cathedral, overlaid with golden mosaics and beautiful colours, is like a thousand rainbows even in the night." his formerly expressed notions as to art and pictures in italy received confirmation at this visit. "i am more than ever confirmed in my conviction that one of the great uses of travelling is to encourage a man to think for himself, to be bold enough always to declare without offence that he _does_ think for himself, and to overcome the villainous meanness of professing what other people have professed when he knows (if he has capacity to originate an opinion) that his profession is untrue. the intolerable nonsense against which genteel taste and subserviency are afraid to rise, in connection with art, is astounding. egg's honest amazement and consternation when he saw some of the most trumpeted things was what the americans call 'a caution.' in the very same hour and minute there were scores of people falling into conventional raptures with that very poor apollo, and passing over the most beautiful little figures and heads in the whole vatican because they were not expressly set up to be worshipped. so in this place. there are pictures by tintoretto in venice, more delightful and masterly than it is possible sufficiently to express. his assembly of the blest i do believe to be, take it all in all, the most wonderful and charming picture ever painted. your guide-book writer, representing the general swarming of humbugs, rather patronizes tintoretto as a man of some sort of merit; and (bound to follow eustace, forsyth, and all the rest of them) directs you, on pain of being broke for want of gentility in appreciation, to go into ecstacies with things that have neither imagination, nature, proportion, possibility, nor anything else in them. you immediately obey, and tell your son to obey. he tells his son, and he tells his, and so the world gets at three-fourths of its frauds and miseries." the last place visited was turin, where the travellers arrived on the th of december, finding it, with a brightly shining sun, intensely cold and freezing hard. "there are double windows to all the rooms, but the alpine air comes down and numbs my feet as i write (in a cap and shawl) within six feet of the fire." there was yet something better than this to report of that bracing alpine air. to dickens's remarks on the sardinian race, and to what he says of the exile of the noblest italians, the momentous events of the few following years gave striking comment; nor could better proof be afforded of the judgment he brought to the observation of what passed before him. the letter had in all respects much interest and attractiveness. "this is a remarkably agreeable place. a beautiful town, prosperous, thriving, growing prodigiously, as genoa is; crowded with busy inhabitants; full of noble streets and squares. the alps, now covered deep with snow, are close upon it, and here and there seem almost ready to tumble into the houses. the contrast this part of italy presents to the rest, is amazing. beautifully made railroads, admirably managed; cheerful, active people; spirit, energy, life, progress. in milan, in every street, the noble palace of some exile is a barrack, and dirty soldiers are lolling out of the magnificent windows--it seems as if the whole place were being gradually absorbed into soldiers. in naples, something like a hundred thousand troops. 'i knew,' i said to a certain neapolitan marchese there whom i had known before, and who came to see me the night after i arrived, 'i knew a very remarkable gentleman when i was last here; who had never been out of his own country, but was perfectly acquainted with english literature, and had taught himself to speak english in that wonderful manner that no one could have known him for a foreigner; i am very anxious to see him again, but i forget his name.'--he named him, and his face fell directly. 'dead?' said i.--'in exile.'--'o dear me!' said i, 'i had looked forward to seeing him again, more than any one i was acquainted with in the country!'--'what would you have!' says the marchese in a low-voice. 'he was a remarkable man--full of knowledge, full of spirit, full of generosity. where should he be but in exile! where could he be!' we said not another word about it, but i shall always remember the short dialogue." on the other hand there were incidents of the austrian occupation as to which dickens thought the ordinary style of comment unfair; and his closing remark on their police is well worth preserving. "i am strongly inclined to think that our countrymen are to blame in the matter of the austrian vexations to travellers that have been complained of. their manner is so very bad, they are so extraordinarily suspicious, so determined to be done by everybody, and give so much offence. now, the austrian police are very strict, but they really know how to do business, and they do it. and if you treat them like gentlemen, they will always respond. when we first crossed the austrian frontier, and were ushered into the police office, i took off my hat. the officer immediately took off his, and was as polite--still doing his duty, without any compromise--as it was possible to be. when we came to venice, the arrangements were very strict, but were so business-like that the smallest possible amount of inconvenience consistent with strictness ensued. here is the scene. a soldier has come into the railway carriage (a saloon on the american plan) some miles off, has touched his hat, and asked for my passport. i have given it. soldier has touched his hat again, and retired as from the presence of superior officer. alighted from carriage, we pass into a place like a banking-house, lighted up with gas. nobody bullies us or drives us there, but we must go, because the road ends there. several soldierly clerks. one very sharp chief. my passport is brought out of an inner room, certified to be en règle. very sharp chief takes it, looks at it (it is rather longer, now, than _hamlet_), calls out--'signor carlo dickens!' 'here i am sir.' 'do you intend remaining long in venice sir?' 'probably four days sir!' 'italian is known to you sir. you have been in venice before?' 'once before sir.' 'perhaps you remained longer then sir?' 'no indeed; i merely came to see, and went as i came.' 'truly sir? do i infer that you are going by trieste?' 'no. i am going to parma, and turin, and by paris home.' 'a cold journey sir, i hope it may be a pleasant one.' 'thank you.'--he gives me one very sharp look all over, and wishes me a very happy night. i wish _him_ a very happy night and it's done. the thing being done at all, could not be better done, or more politely--though i dare say if i had been sucking a gentish cane all the time, or talking in english to my compatriots, it might not unnaturally have been different. at turin and at genoa there are no such stoppages at all; but in any other part of italy, give me an austrian in preference to a native functionary. at naples it is done in a beggarly, shambling, bungling, tardy, vulgar way; but i am strengthened in my old impression that naples is one of the most odious places on the face of the earth. the general degradation oppresses me like foul air." chapter iv. three summers at boulogne. , , and . boulogne--visits to france--his first residence--fishermen's quarter--villa des moulineaux--m. beaucourt--tenant and landlord--french prices--beaucourt's visit to england--preparations for the fair--english friends--northern camp--visit of prince albert--grand review--beaucourt's excitement--emperor, prince, and dickens--jack-tars--legerdemain in perfection--conjuring by dickens--making demons of cards--old residence resumed--last of the camp--a household war--feline foes--state of siege--preparing for christmas--gilbert a'becket. dickens was in boulogne, in , from the middle of june to the end of september, and for the next three months, as we have seen, was in switzerland and italy. in the following year he went again to boulogne in june, and stayed, after finishing _hard times_, until far into october. in february of he was for a fortnight in paris with mr. wilkie collins; not taking up his more prolonged residence there until the winter. from november to the end of april he made the french capital his home, working at _little dorrit_ during all those months. then, after a month's interval in dover and london, he took up his third summer residence in boulogne, whither his younger children had gone direct from paris; and stayed until september, finishing _little dorrit_ in london in the spring of . of the first of these visits, a few lively notes of humour and character out of his letters will tell the story sufficiently. the second and third had points of more attractiveness. those were the years of the french-english alliance, of the great exposition of english paintings, of the return of the troops from the crimea, and of the visit of the prince consort to the emperor; such interest as dickens took in these several matters appearing in his letters with the usual vividness, and the story of his continental life coming out with amusing distinctness in the successive pictures they paint with so much warmth and colour. another chapter will be given to paris. this deals only with boulogne. for his first summer residence, in june , he had taken a house on the high ground near the calais road; an odd french place with the strangest little rooms and halls, but standing in the midst of a large garden, with wood and waterfall, a conservatory opening on a great bank of roses, and paths and gates on one side to the ramparts, on the other to the sea. above all there was a capital proprietor and landlord, by whom the cost of keeping up gardens and wood (which he called a forest) was defrayed, while he gave his tenant the whole range of both and all the flowers for nothing, sold him the garden produce as it was wanted, and kept a cow on the estate to supply the family milk. "if this were but miles farther off," wrote dickens, "how the english would rave about it! i do assure you that there are picturesque people, and town, and country, about this place, that quite fill up the eye and fancy. as to the fishing people (whose dress can have changed neither in colour nor in form for many many years), and their quarter of the town cobweb-hung with great brown nets across the narrow up-hill streets, they are as good as naples, every bit." his description both of house and landlord, of which i tested the exactness when i visited him, was in the old pleasant vein; requiring no connection with himself to give it interest, but, by the charm and ease with which everything picturesque or characteristic was disclosed, placed in the domain of art. "o the rain here yesterday!" ( th of june.) "a great sea-fog rolling in, a strong wind blowing, and the rain coming down in torrents all day long. . . . this house is on a great hill-side, backed up by woods of young trees. it faces the haute ville with the ramparts and the unfinished cathedral--which capital object is exactly opposite the windows. on the slope in front, going steep down to the right, all boulogne is piled and jumbled about in a very picturesque manner. the view is charming--closed in at last by the tops of swelling hills; and the door is within ten minutes of the post-office, and within quarter of an hour of the sea. the garden is made in terraces up the hill-side, like an italian garden; the top walks being in the before-mentioned woods. the best part of it begins at the level of the house, and goes up at the back, a couple of hundred feet perhaps. there are at present thousands of roses all about the house, and no end of other flowers. there are five great summer-houses, and (i think) fifteen fountains--not one of which (according to the invariable french custom) ever plays. the house is a doll's house of many rooms. it is one story high, with eight and thirty steps up and down--tribune wise--to the front door: the noblest french demonstration i have ever seen i think. it is a double house; and as there are only four windows and a pigeon-hole to be beheld in front, you would suppose it to contain about four rooms. being built on the hill-side, the top story of the house at the back--there are two stories there--opens on the level of another garden. on the ground floor there is a very pretty hall, almost all glass; a little dining-room opening on a beautiful conservatory, which is also looked into through a great transparent glass in a mirror-frame over the chimney-piece, just as in paxton's room at chatsworth; a spare bed-room, two little drawing-rooms opening into one another, the family bed-rooms, a bath-room, a glass corridor, an open yard, and a kind of kitchen with a machinery of stoves and boilers. above, there are eight tiny bed-rooms all opening on one great room in the roof, originally intended for a billiard-room. in the basement there is an admirable kitchen with every conceivable requisite in it, a noble cellar, first-rate man's room and pantry; coach-house, stable, coal-store and wood-store; and in the garden is a pavilion, containing an excellent spare bed-room on the ground floor. the getting-up of these places, the looking-glasses, clocks, little stoves, all manner of fittings, must be seen to be appreciated. the conservatory is full of choice flowers and perfectly beautiful." then came the charm of the letter, his description of his landlord, lightly sketched by him in print as m. loyal-devasseur, but here filled in with the most attractive touches his loving hand could give. "but the landlord--m. beaucourt--is wonderful. everybody here has two surnames (i cannot conceive why), and m. beaucourt, as he is always called, is by rights m. beaucourt-mutuel. he is a portly jolly fellow with a fine open face; lives on the hill behind, just outside the top of the garden; and was a linen draper in the town, where he still has a shop, but is supposed to have mortgaged his business and to be in difficulties--all along of this place, which he has planted with his own hands; which he cultivates all day; and which he never on any consideration speaks of but as 'the property.' he is extraordinarily popular in boulogne (the people in the shops invariably brightening up at the mention of his name, and congratulating us on being his tenants), and really seems to deserve it. he is such a liberal fellow that i can't bear to ask him for anything, since he instantly supplies it whatever it is. the things he has done in respect of unreasonable bedsteads and washing-stands, i blush to think of. i observed the other day in one of the side gardens--there are gardens at each side of the house too--a place where i thought the comic countryman" (a name he was giving just then to his youngest boy) "must infallibly trip over, and make a little descent of a dozen feet. so i said, 'm. beaucourt'--who instantly pulled off his cap and stood bareheaded--'there are some spare pieces of wood lying by the cow-house, if you would have the kindness to have one laid across here i think it would be safer.' 'ah, mon dieu sir,' said m. beaucourt, 'it must be iron. this is not a portion of the property where you would like to see wood.' 'but iron is so expensive,' said i, 'and it really is not worth while----' 'sir, pardon me a thousand times,' said m. beaucourt, 'it shall be iron. assuredly and perfectly it shall be iron.' 'then m. beaucourt,' said i, 'i shall be glad to pay a moiety of the cost.' 'sir,' said m. beaucourt, 'never!' then to change the subject, he slided from his firmness and gravity into a graceful conversational tone, and said, 'in the moonlight last night, the flowers on the property appeared, o heaven, to be _bathing themselves in the sky_. you like the property?' 'm. beaucourt,' said i, 'i am enchanted with it; i am more than satisfied with everything.' 'and i sir,' said m. beaucourt, laying his cap upon his breast, and kissing his hand--'i equally!' yesterday two blacksmiths came for a day's work, and put up a good solid handsome bit of iron-railing, morticed into the stone parapet. . . . if the extraordinary things in the house defy description, the amazing phenomena in the gardens never could have been dreamed of by anybody but a frenchman bent upon one idea. besides a portrait of the house in the dining-room, there is a plan of the property in the hall. it looks about the size of ireland; and to every one of the extraordinary objects, there is a reference with some portentous name. there are fifty-one such references, including the cottage of tom thumb, the bridge of austerlitz, the bridge of jena, the hermitage, the bower of the old guard, the labyrinth (i have no idea which is which); and there is guidance to every room in the house, as if it were a place on that stupendous scale that without such a clue you must infallibly lose your way, and perhaps perish of starvation between bedroom and bedroom."[ ] on the rd of july there came a fresh trait of the good fellow of a landlord. "fancy what beaucourt told me last night. when he 'conceived the inspiration' of planting the property ten years ago, he went over to england to buy the trees, took a small cottage in the market-gardens at putney, lived there three months, held a symposium every night attended by the principal gardeners of fulham, putney, kew, and hammersmith (which he calls hamsterdam), and wound up with a supper at which the market-gardeners rose, clinked their glasses, and exclaimed with one accord (i quote him exactly) vive beaucourt! he was a captain in the national guard, and cavaignac his general. brave capitaine beaucourt! said cavaignac, you must receive a decoration. my general, said beaucourt, no! it is enough for me that i have done my duty. i go to lay the first stone of a house upon a property i have--that house shall be my decoration. (regard that house!)" addition to the picture came in a letter of the th of july: with a droll glimpse of shakespeare at the theatre, and of the saturday's pig-market. "i may mention that the great beaucourt daily changes the orthography of this place. he has now fixed it, by having painted up outside the garden gate, 'entrée particulière de la villa des moulineaux.' on another gate a little higher up, he has had painted 'entrée des ecuries de la villa des moulineaux.' on another gate a little lower down (applicable to one of the innumerable buildings in the garden), 'entrée du tom pouce.' on the highest gate of the lot, leading to his own house, 'entrée du château napoléonienne.' all of which inscriptions you will behold in black and white when you come. i see little of him now, as, all things being 'bien arrangées,' he is delicate of appearing. his wife has been making a trip in the country during the last three weeks, but (as he mentioned to me with his hat in his hand) it was necessary that he should remain here, to be continually at the disposition of the tenant of the property. (the better to do this, he has had roaring dinner parties of fifteen daily; and the old woman who milks the cows has been fainting up the hill under vast burdens of champagne.) "we went to the theatre last night, to see the _midsummer night's dream_--of the opera comique. it is a beautiful little theatre now, with a very good company; and the nonsense of the piece was done with a sense quite confounding in that connexion. willy am shay kes peer; sirzhon foll stayffe; lor lattimeer; and that celebrated maid of honour to queen elizabeth, meees oleeveeir--were the principal characters. "outside the old town, an army of workmen are (and have been for a week or so, already) employed upon an immense building which i supposed might be a fort, or a monastery, or a barrack, or other something designed to last for ages. i find it is for the annual fair, which begins on the fifth of august and lasts a fortnight. almost every sunday we have a fête, where there is dancing in the open air, and where immense men with prodigious beards revolve on little wooden horses like italian irons, in what we islanders call a roundabout, by the hour together. but really the good humour and cheerfulness are very delightful. among the other sights of the place, there is a pig-market every saturday, perfectly insupportable in its absurdity. an excited french peasant, male or female, with a determined young pig, is the most amazing spectacle. i saw a little drama enacted yesterday week, the drollery of which was perfect. _dram. pers._ . a pretty young woman with short petticoats and trim blue stockings, riding a donkey with two baskets and a pig in each. . an ancient farmer in a blouse, driving four pigs, his four in hand, with an enormous whip--and being drawn against walls and into smoking shops by any one of the four. . a cart, with an old pig (manacled) looking out of it, and terrifying six hundred and fifty young pigs in the market by his terrific grunts. . collector of octroi in an immense cocked hat, with a stream of young pigs running, night and day, between his military boots and rendering accounts impossible. . inimitable, confronted by a radiation of elderly pigs, fastened each by one leg to a bunch of stakes in the ground. . john edmund reade, poet, expressing eternal devotion to and admiration of landor, unconscious of approaching pig recently escaped from barrow. . priests, peasants, soldiers, &c. &c." he had meanwhile gathered friendly faces round him. frank stone went over with his family to a house taken for him on the st. omer road by dickens, who was joined in the chateau by mr. and mrs. leech and mr. wilkie collins. "leech says that when he stepped from the boat after their stormy passage, he was received by the congregated spectators with a distinct round of applause as by far the most intensely and unutterably miserable looking object that had yet appeared. the laughter was tumultuous, and he wishes his friends to know that altogether he made an immense hit." so passed the summer months: excursions with these friends to amiens and beauvais relieving the work upon his novel, and the trip to italy, already described, following on its completion. in june, , m. beaucourt had again received his famous tenant, but in another cottage or chateau (to him convertible terms) on the much cherished property, placed on the very summit of the hill with a private road leading out to the column, a really pretty place, rooms larger than in the other house, a noble sea view, everywhere nice prospects, good garden, and plenty of sloping turf.[ ] it was called the villa du camp de droite, and here dickens stayed, as i have intimated, until the eve of his winter residence in paris. the formation of the northern camp at boulogne began the week after he had finished _hard times_, and he watched its progress, as it increased and extended itself along the cliffs towards calais, with the liveliest amusement. at first he was startled by the suddenness with which soldiers overran the roads, became billeted in every house, made the bridges red with their trowsers, and "sprang upon the pier like fantastic mustard and cress when boats were expected, many of them never having seen the sea before." but the good behaviour of the men had a reconciling effect, and their ingenuity delighted him. the quickness with which they raised whole streets of mud-huts, less picturesque than the tents,[ ] but (like most unpicturesque things) more comfortable, was like an arabian nights' tale. "each little street holds men, and every corner-door has the number of the street upon it as soon as it is put up; and the postmen can fall to work as easily as in the rue de rivoli at paris." his patience was again a little tried when he found baggage-wagons ploughing up his favourite walks, and trumpeters in twos and threes teaching newly-recruited trumpeters in all the sylvan places, and making the echoes hideous. but this had its amusement too. "i met to-day a weazen sun-burnt youth from the south with such an immense regimental shako on, that he looked like a sort of lucifer match-box, evidently blowing his life rapidly out, under the auspices of two magnificent creatures all hair and lungs, of such breadth across the shoulders that i couldn't see their breast-buttons when i stood in front of them." the interest culminated as the visit of the prince consort approached with its attendant glories of illuminations and reviews. beaucourt's excitement became intense. the villa du camp de droite was to be a blaze of triumph on the night of the arrival; dickens, who had carried over with him the meteor flag of england and set it streaming over a haystack in his field,[ ] now hoisted the french colours over the british jack in honour of the national alliance; the emperor was to subside to the station of a general officer, so that all the rejoicings should be in honour of the prince; and there was to be a review in the open country near wimereux, when "at one stage of the maneuvres (i am too excited to spell the word but you know what i mean)" the whole hundred thousand men in the camp of the north were to be placed before the prince's eyes, to show him what a division of the french army might be. "i believe everything i hear," said dickens. it was the state of mind of hood's country gentleman after the fire at the houses of parliament. "beaucourt, as one of the town council, receives summonses to turn out and debate about something, or receive somebody, every five minutes. whenever i look out of window, or go to the door, i see an immense black object at beaucourt's porch like a boat set up on end in the air with a pair of white trowsers below it. this is the cocked hat of an official huissier, newly arrived with a summons, whose head is thrown back as he is in the act of drinking beaucourt's wine." the day came at last, and all boulogne turned out for its holiday; "but i" dickens wrote, "had by this cooled down a little, and, reserving myself for the illuminations, i abandoned the great men and set off upon my usual country walk. see my reward. coming home by the calais road, covered with dust, i suddenly find myself face to face with albert and napoleon, jogging along in the pleasantest way, a little in front, talking extremely loud about the view, and attended by a brilliant staff of some sixty or seventy horsemen, with a couple of our royal grooms with their red coats riding oddly enough in the midst of the magnates. i took off my wide-awake without stopping to stare, whereupon the emperor pulled off his cocked hat; and albert (seeing, i suppose, that it was an englishman) pulled off his. then we went our several ways. the emperor is broader across the chest than in the old times when we used to see him so often at gore-house, and stoops more in the shoulders. indeed his carriage thereabouts is like fonblanque's."[ ] the town he described as "one great flag" for the rest of the visit; and to the success of the illuminations he contributed largely himself by leading off splendidly with a hundred and twenty wax candles blazing in his seventeen front windows, and visible from that great height over all the place. "on the first eruption beaucourt _danced and screamed_ on the grass before the door; and when he was more composed, set off with madame beaucourt to look at the house from every possible quarter, and, he said, collect the suffrages of his compatriots." their suffrages seem to have gone, however, mainly in another direction. "it was wonderful," dickens wrote, "to behold about the streets the small french soldiers of the line seizing our guards by the hand and embracing them. it was wonderful, too, to behold the english sailors in the town, shaking hands with everybody and generally patronizing everything. when the people could not get hold of either a soldier or a sailor, they rejoiced in the royal grooms, and embraced _them_. i don't think the boulogne people were surprised by anything so much, as by the three cheers the crew of the yacht gave when the emperor went aboard to lunch. the prodigious volume of them, and the precision, and the circumstance that no man was left straggling on his own account either before or afterwards, seemed to strike the general mind with amazement. beaucourt said it was _like boxing_." that was written on the th of september; but in a very few days dickens was unwillingly convinced that whatever the friendly disposition to england might be, the war with russia was decidedly unpopular. he was present when the false report of the taking of sebastopol reached the emperor and empress. "i was at the review" ( th of october) "yesterday week, very near the emperor and empress, when the taking of sebastopol was announced. it was a magnificent show on a magnificent day; and if any circumstance could make it special, the arrival of the telegraphic despatch would be the culminating point one might suppose. it quite disturbed and mortified me to find how faintly, feebly, miserably, the men responded to the call of the officers to cheer, as each regiment passed by. fifty excited englishmen would make a greater sign and sound than a thousand of these men do. . . . the empress was very pretty, and her slight figure sat capitally on her grey horse. when the emperor gave her the despatch to read, she flushed and fired up in a very pleasant way, and kissed it with as natural an impulse as one could desire to see." on the night of that day dickens went up to see a play acted at a café at the camp, and found himself one of an audience composed wholly of officers and men, with only four ladies among them, officers' wives. the steady, working, sensible faces all about him told their own story; "and as to kindness and consideration towards the poor actors, it was real benevolence." another attraction at the camp was a conjuror, who had been called to exhibit twice before the imperial party, and whom dickens always afterwards referred to as the most consummate master of legerdemain he had seen. nor was he a mean authority as to this, being himself, with his tools at hand, a capital conjuror;[ ] but the frenchman scorned help, stood among the company without any sort of apparatus, and, by the mere force of sleight of hand and an astonishing memory, performed feats having no likeness to anything dickens had ever seen done, and totally inexplicable to his most vigilant reflection. "so far as i know, a perfectly original genius, and that puts any sort of knowledge of legerdemain, such as i supposed that i possessed, at utter defiance." the account he gave dealt with two exploits only, the easiest to describe, and, not being with cards, not the most remarkable; for he would also say of this frenchman that he transformed cards into very demons. he never saw a human hand touch them in the same way, fling them about so amazingly, or change them in his, one's own, or another's hand, with a skill so impossible to follow. "you are to observe that he was _with the company_, not in the least removed from them; and that we occupied the front row. he brought in some writing paper with him when he entered, and a black-lead pencil; and he wrote some words on half-sheets of paper. one of these half-sheets he folded into two, and gave to catherine to hold. madame, he says aloud, will you think of any class of objects? i have done so.--of what class, madame? animals.--will you think of a particular animal, madame? i have done so.--of what animal? the lion.--will you think of another class of objects, madame? i have done so.--of what class? flowers.--the particular flower? the rose.--will you open the paper you hold in your hand? she opened it, and there was neatly and plainly written in pencil--_the lion._ _the rose._ nothing whatever had led up to these words, and they were the most distant conceivable from catherine's thoughts when she entered the room. he had several common school-slates about a foot square. he took one of these to a field-officer from the camp, decoré and what not, who sat about six from us, with a grave saturnine friend next him. my general, says he, will you write a name on this slate, after your friend has done so? don't show it to me. the friend wrote a name, and the general wrote a name. the conjuror took the slate rapidly from the officer, threw it violently down on the ground with its written side to the floor, and asked the officer to put his foot upon it and keep it there: which he did. the conjuror considered for about a minute, looking devilish hard at the general.--my general, says he, your friend wrote dagobert, upon the slate under your foot. the friend admits it.--and you, my general, wrote nicholas. general admits it, and everybody laughs and applauds.--my general, will you excuse me, if i change that name into a name expressive of the power of a great nation, which, in happy alliance with the gallantry and spirit of france will shake that name to its centre? certainly i will excuse it.--my general, take up the slate and read. general reads: dagobert, victoria. the first in his friend's writing; the second in a new hand. i never saw anything in the least like this; or at all approaching to the absolute certainty, the familiarity, quickness, absence of all machinery, and actual face-to-face, hand-to-hand fairness between the conjuror and the audience, with which it was done. i have not the slightest idea of the secret.--one more. he was blinded with several table napkins, and then a great cloth was bodily thrown over them and his head too, so that his voice sounded as if he were under a bed. perhaps half a dozen dates were written on a slate. he takes the slate in his hand, and throws it violently down on the floor as before, remains silent a minute, seems to become agitated, and bursts out thus: 'what is this i see? a great city, but of narrow streets and old-fashioned houses, many of which are of wood, resolving itself into ruins! how is it falling into ruins? hark! i hear the crackling of a great conflagration, and, looking up, i behold a vast cloud of flame and smoke. the ground is covered with hot cinders too, and people are flying into the fields and endeavouring to save their goods. this great fire, this great wind, this roaring noise! this is the great fire of london, and the first date upon the slate must be one, six, six, six--the year in which it happened!' and so on with all the other dates. there! now, if you will take a cab and impart these mysteries to rogers, i shall be very glad to have his opinion of them." rogers had taxed our credulity with some wonderful clairvoyant experiences of his own in paris to which here was a parallel at last! when leaving paris for his third visit to boulogne, at the beginning of june , he had not written a word of the ninth number of his new book, and did not expect for another month to "see land from the running sea of _little dorrit_." he had resumed the house he first occupied, the cottage or villa "des moulineaux," and after dawdling about his garden for a few days with surprising industry in a french farmer garb of blue blouse, leathern belt, and military cap, which he had mounted as "the only one for complete comfort," he wrote to me that he was getting "now to work again--to work! the story lies before me, i hope, strong and clear. not to be easily told; but nothing of that sort is to be easily done that _i_ know of." at work it became his habit to sit late, and then, putting off his usual walk until night, to lie down among the roses reading until after tea ("middle-aged love in a blouse and belt"), when he went down to the pier. "the said pier at evening is a phase of the place we never see, and which i hardly knew. but i never did behold such specimens of the youth of my country, male and female, as pervade that place. they are really, in their vulgarity and insolence, quite disheartening. one is so fearfully ashamed of them, and they contrast so very unfavourably with the natives." mr. wilkie collins was again his companion in the summer weeks, and the presence of jerrold for the greater part of the time added much to his enjoyment. the last of the camp was now at hand. it had only a battalion of men in it, and a few days would see them out. at first there was horrible weather, "storms of wind, rushes of rain, heavy squalls, cold airs, sea fogs, banging shutters, flapping doors, and beaten down rose-trees by the hundred; but then came a delightful week among the corn fields and bean fields, and afterwards the end. it looks very singular and very miserable. the soil being sand, and the grass having been trodden away these two years, the wind from the sea carries the sand into the chinks and ledges of all the doors and windows, and chokes them;--just as if they belonged to arab huts in the desert. a number of the non-commissioned officers made turf-couches outside their huts, and there were turf orchestras for the bands to play in; all of which are fast getting sanded over in a most egyptian manner. the fair is on, under the walls of the haute ville over the way. at one popular show, the malakhoff is taken every half-hour between and . bouncing explosions announce every triumph of the french arms (the english have nothing to do with it); and in the intervals a man outside blows a railway whistle--straight into the dining-room. do you know that the french soldiers call the english medal 'the salvage medal'--meaning that they got it for saving the english army? i don't suppose there are a thousand people in all france who believe that we did anything but get rescued by the french. and i am confident that the no-result of our precious chelsea enquiry has wonderfully strengthened this conviction. nobody at home has yet any adequate idea, i am deplorably sure, of what the barnacles and the circumlocution office have done for us. but whenever we get into war again, the people will begin to find out." his own household had got into a small war already, of which the commander-in-chief was his man-servant "french," the bulk of the forces engaged being his children, and the invaders two cats. business brought him to london on the hostilities breaking out, and on his return after a few days the story of the war was told. "dick," it should be said, was a canary very dear both to dickens and his eldest daughter, who had so tamed to her loving hand its wild little heart that it was become the most docile of companions.[ ] "the only thing new in this garden is that war is raging against two particularly tigerish and fearful cats (from the mill, i suppose), which are always glaring in dark corners, after our wonderful little dick. keeping the house open at all points, it is impossible to shut them out, and they hide themselves in the most terrific manner: hanging themselves up behind draperies, like bats, and tumbling out in the dead of night with frightful caterwaulings. hereupon, french borrows beaucourt's gun, loads the same to the muzzle, discharges it twice in vain and throws himself over with the recoil, exactly like a clown. but at last (while i was in town) he aims at the more amiable cat of the two, and shoots that animal dead. insufferably elated by this victory, he is now engaged from morning to night in hiding behind bushes to get aim at the other. he does nothing else whatever. all the boys encourage him and watch for the enemy--on whose appearance they give an alarm which immediately serves as a warning to the creature, who runs away. they are at this moment (ready dressed for church) all lying on their stomachs in various parts of the garden. horrible whistles give notice to the gun what point it is to approach. i am afraid to go out, lest i should be shot. mr. plornish says his prayers at night in a whisper, lest the cat should overhear him and take offence. the tradesmen cry out as they come up the avenue, 'me voici! c'est moi--boulanger--ne tirez pas, monsieur franche!' it is like living in a state of siege; and the wonderful manner in which the cat preserves the character of being the only person not much put out by the intensity of this monomania, is most ridiculous." ( th of july.) . . . "about four pounds of powder and half a ton of shot have been ( th of july) fired off at the cat (and the public in general) during the week. the finest thing is that immediately after i have heard the noble sportsman blazing away at her in the garden in front, i look out of my room door into the drawing-room, and am pretty sure to see her coming in after the birds, in the calmest manner, by the back window. intelligence has been brought to me from a source on which i can rely, that french has newly conceived the atrocious project of tempting her into the coach-house by meat and kindness, and there, from an elevated portmanteau, blowing her head off. this i mean sternly to interdict, and to do so to-day as a work of piety." besides the graver work which mr. wilkie collins and himself were busy with, in these months, and by which _household words_ mainly was to profit, some lighter matters occupied the leisure of both. there were to be, at christmas, theatricals again at tavistock house; in which the children, with the help of their father and other friends, were to follow up the success of the _lighthouse_ by again acquitting themselves as grown-up actors; and mr. collins was busy preparing for them a new drama to be called _the frozen deep_, while dickens was sketching a farce for mr. lemon to fill in. but this pleasant employment had sudden and sad interruption. an epidemic broke out in the town, affecting the children of several families known to dickens, among them that of his friend mr. gilbert a'becket; who, upon arriving from paris, and finding a favourite little son stricken dangerously, sank himself under an illness from which he had been suffering, and died two days after the boy. "he had for three days shown symptoms of rallying, and we had some hope of his recovery; but he sank and died, and never even knew that the child had gone before him. a sad, sad story." dickens meanwhile had sent his own children home with his wife, and the rest soon followed. poor m. beaucourt was inconsolable. "the desolation of the place is wretched. when mamey and katey went, beaucourt came in and wept. he really is almost broken-hearted about it. he had planted all manner of flowers for next month, and has thrown down the spade and left off weeding the garden, so that it looks something like a dreary bird-cage with all manner of grasses and chickweeds sticking through the bars and lying in the sand. 'such a loss too,' he says, 'for monsieur dickens!' then he looks in at the kitchen window (which seems to be his only relief), and sighs himself up the hill home."[ ] the interval of residence in paris between these two last visits to boulogne is now to be described. footnotes: [ ] prices are reported in one of the letters; and, considering what they have been since, the touch of disappointment hinted at may raise a smile. "provisions are scarcely as cheap as i expected, though very different from london: besides which, a pound weight here, is a pound and a quarter english. so that meat at _d._ a pound, is actually a fourth less. a capital dish of asparagus costs us about fivepence; a fowl, one and threepence; a duck, a few halfpence more; a dish of fish, about a shilling. the very best wine at tenpence that i ever drank--i used to get it very good for the same money in genoa, but not so good. the common people very engaging and obliging." [ ] besides the old friends before named, thackeray and his family were here in the early weeks, living "in a melancholy but very good chateau on the paris road, where their landlord (a baron) has supplied them, t. tells me, with one milk-jug as the entire crockery of the establishment." our friend soon tired of this, going off to spa, and on his return, after ascending the hill to smoke a farewell cigar with dickens, left for london and scotland in october. [ ] another of his letters questioned even the picturesqueness a little, for he discovered that on a sunny day the white tents, seen from a distance, looked exactly like an immense washing establishment with all the linen put out to dry. [ ] "whence it can be seen for miles and miles, to the glory of england and the joy of beaucourt." [ ] the picture had changed drearily in less than a year and a half, when ( th of feb. ) dickens thus wrote from paris. "i suppose mortal man out of bed never looked so ill and worn as the emperor does just now. he passed close by me on horseback, as i was coming in at the door on friday, and i never saw so haggard a face. some english saluted him, and he lifted his hand to his hat as slowly, painfully, and laboriously, as if his arm were made of lead. i think he _must_ be in pain." [ ] i permit myself to quote from the bill of one of his entertainments in the old merry days at bonchurch (ii. - ), of course drawn up by himself, whom it describes as "the unparalleled necromancer rhia rhama rhoos, educated cabalistically in the orange groves of salamanca and the ocean caves of alum bay," some of whose proposed wonders it thus prefigures: the leaping card wonder. two cards being drawn from the pack by two of the company, and placed, with the pack, in the necromancer's box, will leap forth at the command of any lady of not less than eight, or more than eighty, years of age. *** _this wonder is the result of nine years' seclusion in the mines of russia._ the pyramid wonder. a shilling being lent to the necromancer by any gentleman of not less than twelve months, or more than one hundred years, of age, and carefully marked by the said gentleman, will disappear from within a brazen box at the word of command, and pass through the hearts of an infinity of boxes, which will afterwards build themselves into pyramids and sink into a small mahogany box, at the necromancer's bidding. *** _five thousand guineas were paid for the acquisition of this wonder, to a chinese mandarin, who died of grief immediately after parting with the secret._ the conflagration wonder. a card being drawn from the pack by any lady, not under a direct and positive promise of marriage, will be immediately named by the necromancer, destroyed by fire, and reproduced from its own ashes. *** _an annuity of one thousand pounds has been offered to the necromancer by the directors of the sun fire office for the secret of this wonder--and refused!!!_ the loaf of bread wonder. the watch of any truly prepossessing lady, of any age, single or married, being locked by the necromancer in a strong box, will fly at the word of command from within that box into the heart of an ordinary half-quartern loaf, whence it shall be cut out in the presence of the whole company, whose cries of astonishment will be audible at a distance of some miles. *** _ten years in the plains of tartary were devoted to the study of this wonder._ the travelling doll wonder. the travelling doll is composed of solid wood throughout, but, by putting on a travelling dress of the simplest construction, becomes invisible, performs enormous journeys in half a minute, and passes from visibility to invisibility with an expedition so astonishing that no eye can follow its transformations. *** _the necromancer's attendant usually faints on beholding this wonder, and is only to be revived by the administration of brandy and water._ the pudding wonder. the company having agreed among themselves to offer to the necromancer, by way of loan, the hat of any gentleman whose head has arrived at maturity of size, the necromancer, without removing that hat for an instant from before the eyes of the delighted company, will light a fire in it, make a plum pudding in his magic saucepan, boil it over the said fire, produce it in two minutes, thoroughly done, cut it, and dispense it in portions to the whole company, for their consumption then and there; returning the hat at last, wholly uninjured by fire, to its lawful owner. *** _the extreme liberality of this wonder awakening the jealousy of the beneficent austrian government, when exhibited in milan, the necromancer had the honour to be seized, and confined for five years in the fortress of that city._ [ ] dick died at gadshill in , in the sixteenth year of his age, and was honoured with a small tomb and epitaph. [ ] i cannot take leave of m. beaucourt without saying that i am necessarily silent as to the most touching traits recorded of him by dickens, because they refer to the generosity shown by him to an english family in occupation of another of his houses, in connection with whom his losses must have been considerable, but for whom he had nothing but help and sympathy. replying to some questions about them, put by dickens one day, he had only enlarged on their sacrifices and self-denials. "ah that family, unfortunate! 'and you, monsieur beaucourt,' i said to him, 'you are unfortunate too, god knows!' upon which he said in the pleasantest way in the world, ah, monsieur dickens, thank you, don't speak of it!--and backed himself down the avenue with his cap in his hand, as if he were going to back himself straight into the evening star, without the ceremony of dying first. i never did see such a gentle, kind heart." chapter v. residence in paris. - . actors and dramas--criticism of frédéric lemaitre--increase of celebrity--french translation of dickens--conventionalities of the théâtre français--_paradise lost_ at the ambigu--profane nonsense--french _as you like it_--story of a french drama--auber and queen victoria--robinson crusoe--a compliment and its result--madame scribe--ristori--viardot in orphée--madame dudevant at the viardots--banquet at girardin's--national and personal compliment--second banquet--the bourse and its victims--entry of troops from crimea--paris illuminated--streets on new year's day--results of imperial improvement--english and french art--french and english nature--sitting to ary scheffer--a reading in scheffer's studio--scheffer's opinion of the likeness--a duchess murdered--a chance encounter, and what came of it. in paris dickens's life was passed among artists, and in the exercise of his own art. his associates were writers, painters, actors, or musicians, and when he wanted relief from any strain of work he found it at the theatre. the years since his last residence in the great city had made him better known, and the increased attentions pleased him. he had to help in preparing for a translation of his books into french; and this, with continued labour at the story he had in hand, occupied him as long as he remained. it will be all best told by extracts from his letters; in which the people he met, the theatres he visited, and the incidents, public or private, that seemed to him worthy of mention, reappear with the old force and liveliness. nor is anything better worth preserving from them than choice bits of description of an actor or a drama, for this perishable enjoyment has only so much as may survive out of such recollections to witness for itself to another generation; and an unusually high place may be challenged for the subtlety and delicacy of what is said in these letters of things theatrical, when the writer was especially attracted by a performer or a play. frédéric lemaitre has never had a higher tribute than dickens paid to him during his few days' earlier stay at paris in the spring. "incomparably the finest acting i ever saw, i saw last night at the ambigu. they have revived that old piece, once immensely popular in london under the name of _thirty years of a gambler's life_. old lemaitre plays his famous character,[ ] and never did i see anything, in art, so exaltedly horrible and awful. in the earlier acts he was so well made up, and so light and active, that he really looked sufficiently young. but in the last two, when he had grown old and miserable, he did the finest things, i really believe, that are within the power of acting. two or three times, a great cry of horror went all round the house. when he met, in the inn yard, the traveller whom he murders, and first saw his money, the manner in which the crime came into his head--and eyes--was as truthful as it was terrific. this traveller, being a good fellow, gives him wine. you should see the dim remembrance of his better days that comes over him as he takes the glass, and in a strange dazed way makes as if he were going to touch the other man's, or do some airy thing with it; and then stops and flings the contents down his hot throat, as if he were pouring it into a lime-kiln. but this was nothing to what follows after he has done the murder, and comes home, with a basket of provisions, a ragged pocket full of money, and a badly-washed bloody right hand--which his little girl finds out. after the child asked him if he had hurt his hand, his going aside, turning himself round, and looking over all his clothes for spots, was so inexpressibly dreadful that it really scared one. he called for wine, and the sickness that came upon him when he saw the colour, was one of the things that brought out the curious cry i have spoken of, from the audience. then he fell into a sort of bloody mist, and went on to the end groping about, with no mind for anything, except making his fortune by staking this money, and a faint dull kind of love for the child. it is quite impossible to satisfy one's-self by saying enough of such a magnificent performance. i have never seen him come near its finest points, in anything else. he said two things in a way that alone would put him far apart from all other actors. one to his wife, when he has exultingly shewn her the money and she has asked him how he got it--'i found it'--and the other to his old companion and tempter, when he charged him with having killed that traveller, and he suddenly went headlong mad and took him by the throat and howled out, 'it wasn't i who murdered him--it was misery!' and such a dress; such a face; and, above all, such an extraordinary guilty wicked thing as he made of a knotted branch of a tree which was his walking-stick, from the moment when the idea of the murder came into his head! i could write pages about him. it is an impression quite ineffaceable. he got half-boastful of that walking-staff to himself, and half-afraid of it; and didn't know whether to be grimly pleased that it had the jagged end, or to hate it and be horrified at it. he sat at a little table in the inn-yard, drinking with the traveller; and this horrible stick got between them like the devil, while he counted on his fingers the uses he could put the money to." that was at the close of february. in october, dickens's longer residence began. he betook himself with his family, after two unsuccessful attempts in the new region of the rue balzac and rue lord byron, to an apartment in the avenue des champs elysées. over him was an english bachelor with an establishment consisting of an english groom and five english horses. "the concierge and his wife told us that his name was _six_, which drove me nearly mad until we discovered it to be _sykes_." the situation was a good one, very cheerful for himself and with amusement for his children. it was a quarter of a mile above franconi's on the other side of the way, and within a door or two of the jardin d'hiver. the exposition was just below; the barrière de l'etoile from a quarter to half a mile below; and all paris, including emperor and empress coming from and returning to st. cloud, thronged past the windows in open carriages or on horseback, all day long. now it was he found himself more of a celebrity than when he had wintered in the city nine years before;[ ] the feuilleton of the _moniteur_ was filled daily with a translation of _chuzzlewit_; and he had soon to consider the proposal i have named, to publish in french his collected novels and tales.[ ] before he had been a week in his new abode, ary scheffer, "a frank and noble fellow," had made his acquaintance; introduced him to several distinguished frenchmen; and expressed the wish to paint him. to scheffer was also due an advantage obtained for my friend's two little daughters of which they may always keep the memory with pride. "mamey and katey are learning italian, and their master is manin of venetian fame, the best and the noblest of those unhappy gentlemen. he came here with a wife and a beloved daughter, and they are both dead. scheffer made him known to me, and has been, i understand, wonderfully generous and good to him." nor may i omit to state the enjoyment afforded him, not only by the presence in paris during the winter of mr. wilkie collins and of mr. and mrs. white of bonchurch, but by the many friends from england whom the art exposition brought over. sir alexander cockburn was one of these; edwin landseer, charles robert leslie, and william boxall, were others. macready left his retreat at sherborne to make him a visit of several days. thackeray went to and fro all the time between london and his mother's house, also in the champs elysées, where his daughters were. and paris for the time was the home of robert lytton, who belonged to the embassy, of the sartorises, of the brownings, and of others whom dickens liked and cared for. at the first play he went to, the performance was stopped while the news of the last crimean engagement, just issued in a supplement to the _moniteur_, was read from the stage. "it made not the faintest effect upon the audience; and even the hired claqueurs, who had been absurdly loud during the piece, seemed to consider the war not at all within their contract, and were as stagnant as ditch-water. the theatre was full. it is quite impossible to see such apathy, and suppose the war to be popular, whatever may be asserted to the contrary." the day before, he had met the emperor and the king of sardinia in the streets, "and, as usual, no man touching his hat, and very very few so much as looking round." the success of a most agreeable little piece by our old friend regnier took him next to the français, where plessy's acting enchanted him. "of course the interest of it turns upon a flawed piece of living china (_that_ seems to be positively essential), but, as in most of these cases, if you will accept the position in which you find the people, you have nothing more to bother your morality about." the theatre in the rue richelieu, however, was not generally his favourite resort. he used to talk of it whimsically as a kind of tomb, where you went, as the eastern people did in the stories, to think of your unsuccessful loves and dead relations. "there is a dreary classicality at that establishment calculated to freeze the marrow. between ourselves, even one's best friends there are at times very aggravating. one tires of seeing a man, through any number of acts, remembering everything by patting his forehead with the flat of his hand, jerking out sentences by shaking himself, and piling them up in pyramids over his head with his right forefinger. and they have a generic small comedy-piece, where you see two sofas and three little tables, to which a man enters with his hat on, to talk to another man--and in respect of which you know exactly when he will get up from one sofa to sit on the other, and take his hat off one table to put it upon the other--which strikes one quite as ludicrously as a good farce.[ ]. . . there seems to be a good piece at the vaudeville, on the idea of the _town and country mouse_. it is too respectable and inoffensive for me to-night, but i hope to see it before i leave . . . i have a horrible idea of making friends with franconi, and sauntering when i am at work into their sawdust green-room." at a theatre of a yet heavier school than the français he had a drearier experience. "on wednesday we went to the odéon to see a new piece, in four acts and in verse, called _michel cervantes_. i suppose such an infernal dose of ditch water never was concocted. but there were certain passages, describing the suppression of public opinion in madrid, which were received with a shout of savage application to france that made one stare again! and once more, here again, at every pause, steady, compact, regular as military drums, the Ça ira!" on another night, even at the porte st. martin, drawn there doubtless by the attraction of repulsion, he supped full with the horrors of classicality at a performance of _orestes_ versified by alexandre dumas. "nothing have i ever seen so weighty and so ridiculous. if i had not already learnt to tremble at the sight of classic drapery on the human form, i should have plumbed the utmost depths of terrified boredom in this achievement. the chorus is not preserved otherwise than that bits of it are taken out for characters to speak. it is really so bad as to be almost good. some of the frenchified classical anguish struck me as so unspeakably ridiculous that it puts me on the broad grin as i write." at the same theatre, in the early spring, he had a somewhat livelier entertainment. "i was at the porte st. martin last night, where there is a rather good melodrama called _sang melé_, in which one of the characters is an english lord--lord william falkland--who is called throughout the piece milor williams fack lorn, and is a hundred times described by others and described by himself as williams. he is admirably played; but two english travelling ladies are beyond expression ridiculous, and there is something positively vicious in their utter want of truth. one 'set,' where the action of a whole act is supposed to take place in the great wooden verandah of a swiss hotel overhanging a mountain ravine, is the best piece of stage carpentering i have seen in france. next week we are to have at the ambigu _paradise lost_, with the murder of abel, and the deluge. the wildest rumours are afloat as to the un-dressing of our first parents." anticipation far outdoes a reality of this kind; and at the fever-pitch to which rumours raised it here, dickens might vainly have attempted to get admission on the first night, if mr. webster, the english manager and comedian, had not obtained a ticket for him. he went with mr. wilkie collins. "we were rung in (out of the café below the ambigu) at , and the play was over at half-past ; the waits between the acts being very much longer than the acts themselves. the house was crammed to excess in every part, and the galleries awful with blouses, who again, during the whole of the waits, beat with the regularity of military drums the revolutionary tune of famous memory--Ça ira! the play is a compound of _paradise lost_ and byron's _cain_; and some of the controversies between the archangel and the devil, when the celestial power argues with the infernal in conversational french, as 'eh bien! satan, crois-tu donc que notre seigneur t'aurait exposé aux tourments que t'endures à présent, sans avoir prévu,' &c. &c. are very ridiculous. all the supernatural personages are alarmingly natural (as theatre nature goes), and walk about in the stupidest way. which has occasioned collins and myself to institute a perquisition whether the french ever have shown any kind of idea of the supernatural; and to decide this rather in the negative. the people are very well dressed, and eve very modestly. all paris and the provinces had been ransacked for a woman who had brown hair that would fall to the calves of her legs--and she was found at last at the odéon. there was nothing attractive until the th act, when there was a pretty good scene of the children of cain dancing in, and desecrating, a temple, while abel and his family were hammering hard at the ark, outside; in all the pauses of the revel. the deluge in the fifth act was up to about the mark of a drowning scene at the adelphi; but it had one new feature. when the rain ceased, and the ark drove in on the great expanse of water, then lying waveless as the mists cleared and the sun broke out, numbers of bodies drifted up and down. these were all real men and boys, each separate, on a new kind of horizontal sloat. they looked horrible and real. altogether, a merely dull business; but i dare say it will go for a long while." a piece of honest farce is a relief from these profane absurdities. "an uncommonly droll piece with an original comic idea in it has been in course of representation here. it is called _les cheveux de ma femme_. a man who is dotingly fond of his wife, and who wishes to know whether she loved anybody else before they were married, cuts off a lock of her hair by stealth, and takes it to a great mesmeriser, who submits it to a clairvoyante who never was wrong. it is discovered that the owner of this hair has been up to the most frightful dissipations, insomuch that the clairvoyante can't mention half of them. the distracted husband goes home to reproach his wife, and she then reveals that she wears a wig, and takes it off." the last piece he went to see before leaving paris was a french version of _as you like it_; but he found two acts of it to be more than enough. "in _comme il vous plaira_ nobody had anything to do but to sit down as often as possible on as many stones and trunks of trees as possible. when i had seen jacques seat himself on roots of trees, and grey stones, which was at the end of the second act, i came away." only one more sketch taken in a theatre, and perhaps the best, i will give from these letters. it simply tells us what is necessary to understand a particular "tag" to a play, but it is related so prettily that the thing it celebrates could not have a nicer effect than is produced by this account of it. the play in question, _mémoires du diable_, and another piece of enchanting interest, the _médecin des enfants_,[ ] were his favourites among all he saw at this time. "as i have no news, i may as well tell you about the tag that i thought so pretty to the _mémoires du diable_; in which piece by the way, there is a most admirable part, most admirably played, in which a man says merely 'yes' or 'no' all through the piece, until the last scene. a certain m. robin has got hold of the papers of a deceased lawyer, concerning a certain estate which has been swindled away from its rightful owner, a baron's widow, into other hands. they disclose so much roguery that he binds them up into a volume lettered 'mémoires du diable.' the knowledge he derives from these papers not only enables him to unmask the hypocrites all through the piece (in an excellent manner), but induces him to propose to the baroness that if he restores to her her estate and good name--for even her marriage to the deceased baron is denied--she shall give him her daughter in marriage. the daughter herself, on hearing the offer, accepts it; and a part of the plot is, her going to a masked ball, to which he goes as the devil, to see how she likes him (when she finds, of course, that she likes him very much). the country people about the château in dispute, suppose him to be really the devil, because of his strange knowledge, and his strange comings and goings; and he, being with this girl in one of its old rooms, in the beginning of the rd act, shews her a little coffer on the table with a bell in it. 'they suppose,' he tells her, 'that whenever this bell is rung, i appear and obey the summons. very ignorant, isn't it? but, if you ever want me particularly--very particularly--ring the little bell and try.' the plot proceeds to its development. the wrong-doers are exposed; the missing document, proving the marriage, is found; everything is finished; they are all on the stage; and m. robin hands the paper to the baroness. 'you are reinstated in your rights, madame; you are happy; i will not hold you to a compact made when you didn't know me; i release you and your fair daughter; the pleasure of doing what i have done, is my sufficient reward; i kiss your hand and take my leave. farewell!' he backs himself courteously out; the piece seems concluded, everybody wonders, the girl (little mdlle. luther) stands amazed; when she suddenly remembers the little bell. in the prettiest way possible, she runs to the coffer on the table, takes out the little bell, rings it, and he comes rushing back and folds her to his heart. i never saw a prettier thing in my life. it made me laugh in that most delightful of ways, with the tears in my eyes; so that i can never forget it, and must go and see it again." but great as was the pleasure thus derived from the theatre, he was, in the matter of social intercourse, even more indebted to distinguished men connected with it by authorship or acting. at scribe's he was entertained frequently; and "very handsome and pleasant" was his account of the dinners, as of all the belongings, of the prolific dramatist--a charming place in paris, a fine estate in the country, capital carriage, handsome pair of horses, "all made, as he says, by his pen." one of the guests the first evening was auber, "a stolid little elderly man, rather petulant in manner," who told dickens he had once lived "at stock noonton" (stoke newington) to study english, but had forgotten it all. "louis philippe had invited him to meet the queen of england, and when l. p. presented him, the queen said, 'we are such old acquaintances through m. auber's works, that an introduction is quite unnecessary.'" they met again a few nights later, with the author of the _history of the girondins_, at the hospitable table of m. pichot, to whom lamartine had expressed a strong desire again to meet dickens as "un des grands amis de son imagination." "he continues to be precisely as we formerly knew him, both in appearance and manner; highly prepossessing, and with a sort of calm passion about him, very taking indeed. we talked of de foe[ ] and richardson, and of that wonderful genius for the minutest details in a narrative, which has given them so much fame in france. i found him frank and unaffected, and full of curious knowledge of the french common people. he informed the company at dinner that he had rarely met a foreigner who spoke french so easily as your inimitable correspondent, whereat your correspondent blushed modestly, and almost immediately afterwards so nearly choked himself with the bone of a fowl (which is still in his throat), that he sat in torture for ten minutes with a strong apprehension that he was going to make the good pichot famous by dying like the little hunchback at his table. scribe and his wife were of the party, but had to go away at the ice-time because it was the first representation at the opéra comique of a new opera by auber and himself, of which very great expectations have been formed. it was very curious to see him--the author of pieces--getting nervous as the time approached, and pulling out his watch every minute. at last he dashed out as if he were going into what a friend of mine calls a plunge-bath. whereat she rose and followed. she is the most extraordinary woman i ever beheld; for her eldest son must be thirty, and she has the figure of five-and-twenty, and is strikingly handsome. so graceful too, that her manner of rising, curtseying, laughing, and going out after him, was pleasanter than the pleasantest thing i have ever seen done on the stage." the opera dickens himself saw a week later, and wrote of it as "most charming. delightful music, an excellent story, immense stage tact, capital scenic arrangements, and the most delightful little prima donna ever seen or heard, in the person of marie cabel. it is called _manon lescaut_--from the old romance--and is charming throughout. she sings a laughing song in it which is received with madness, and which is the only real laughing song that ever was written. auber told me that when it was first rehearsed, it made a great effect upon the orchestra; and that he could not have had a better compliment upon its freshness than the musical director paid him, in coming and clapping him on the shoulder with 'bravo, jeune homme! cela promet bien!'" at dinner at regnier's he met m. legouvet, in whose tragedy rachel, after its acceptance, had refused to act medea; a caprice which had led not only to her condemnation in costs of so much a night until she did act it, but to a quasi rivalry against her by ristori, who was now on her way to paris to play it in italian. to this performance dickens and macready subsequently went together, and pronounced it to be hopelessly bad. "in the day entertainments, and little melodrama theatres, of italy, i have seen the same thing fifty times, only not at once so conventional and so exaggerated. the papers have all been in fits respecting the sublimity of the performance, and the genuineness of the applause--particularly of the bouquets; which were thrown on at the most preposterous times in the midst of agonizing scenes, so that the characters had to pick their way among them, and a certain stout gentleman who played king creon was obliged to keep a wary eye, all night, on the proscenium boxes, and dodge them as they came down. now scribe, who dined here next day (and who follows on the ristori side, being offended, as everybody has been, by the insolence of rachel), could not resist the temptation of telling us, that, going round at the end of the first act to offer his congratulations, he met all the bouquets coming back in men's arms to be thrown on again in the second act. . . . by the bye, i see a fine actor lost in scribe. in all his pieces he has everything done in his own way; and on that same night he was showing what rachel did not do, and wouldn't do, in the last scene of adrienne lecouvreur, with extraordinary force and intensity." at the house of another great artist, madame viardot,[ ] the sister of malibran, dickens dined to meet georges sands, that lady having appointed the day and hour for the interesting festival, which came off duly on the th of january. "i suppose it to be impossible to imagine anybody more unlike my preconceptions than the illustrious sand. just the kind of woman in appearance whom you might suppose to be the queen's monthly nurse. chubby, matronly, swarthy, black-eyed. nothing of the blue-stocking about her, except a little final way of settling all your opinions with hers, which i take to have been acquired in the country where she lives, and in the domination of a small circle. a singularly ordinary woman in appearance and manner. the dinner was very good and remarkably unpretending. ourselves, madame and her son, the scheffers, the sartorises, and some lady somebody (from the crimea last) who wore a species of paletot, and smoked. the viardots have a house away in the new part of paris, which looks exactly as if they had moved into it last week and were going away next. notwithstanding which, they have lived in it eight years. the opera the very last thing on earth you would associate with the family. piano not even opened. her husband is an extremely good fellow, and she is as natural as it is possible to be." dickens was hardly the man to take fair measure of madame dudevant in meeting her thus. he was not familiar with her writings, and had no very special liking for such of them as he knew. but no disappointment, nothing but amazement, awaited him at a dinner that followed soon after. emile de girardin gave a banquet in his honour. his description of it, which he declares to be strictly prosaic, sounds a little oriental, but not inappropriately so. "no man unacquainted with my determination never to embellish or fancify such accounts, could believe in the description i shall let off when we meet of dining at emile girardin's--of the three gorgeous drawing rooms with ten thousand wax candles in golden sconces, terminating in a dining-room of unprecedented magnificence with two enormous transparent plate-glass doors in it, looking (across an ante-chamber full of clean plates) straight into the kitchen, with the cooks in their white paper caps dishing the dinner. from his seat in the midst of the table, the host (like a giant in a fairy story) beholds the kitchen, and the snow-white tables, and the profound order and silence there prevailing. forth from the plate-glass doors issues the banquet--the most wonderful feast ever tasted by mortal: at the present price of truffles, that article alone costing (for eight people) at least five pounds. on the table are ground glass jugs of peculiar construction, laden with the finest growth of champagne and the coolest ice. with the third course is issued port wine (previously unheard of in a good state on this continent), which would fetch two guineas a bottle at any sale. the dinner done, oriental flowers in vases of golden cobweb are placed upon the board. with the ice is issued brandy, buried for years. to that succeeds coffee, brought by the brother of one of the convives from the remotest east, in exchange for an equal quantity of california gold dust. the company being returned to the drawing-room--tables roll in by unseen agency, laden with cigarettes from the hareem of the sultan, and with cool drinks in which the flavour of the lemon arrived yesterday from algeria, struggles voluptuously with the delicate orange arrived this morning from lisbon. that period past, and the guests reposing on divans worked with many-coloured blossoms, big table rolls in, heavy with massive furniture of silver, and breathing incense in the form of a little present of tea direct from china--table and all, i believe; but cannot swear to it, and am resolved to be prosaic. all this time the host perpetually repeats 'ce petit dîner-ci n'est que pour faire la connaissance de monsieur dickens; il ne compte pas; ce n'est rien.' and even now i have forgotten to set down half of it--in particular the item of a far larger plum pudding than ever was seen in england at christmas time, served with a celestial sauce in colour like the orange blossom, and in substance like the blossom powdered and bathed in dew, and called in the carte (carte in a gold frame like a little fish-slice to be handed about) 'hommage à l'illustre écrivain d'angleterre.' that illustrious man staggered out at the last drawing-room door, speechless with wonder, finally; and even at that moment his host, holding to his lips a chalice set with precious stones and containing nectar distilled from the air that blew over the fields of beans in bloom for fifteen summers, remarked 'le dîner que nous avons eu, mon cher, n'est rien--il ne compte pas--il a été tout-à-fait en famille--il faut dîner (en vérité, dîner) bientôt. au plaisir! au revoir! au dîner!'" the second dinner came, wonderful as the first; among the company were regnier, jules sandeau, and the new director of the français; and his host again played lucullus in the same style, with success even more consummate. the only absolutely new incident however was that "after dinner he asked me if i would come into another room and smoke a cigar? and on my saying yes, coolly opened a drawer, containing about inestimable cigars in prodigious bundles--just as the captain of the robbers in _ali baba_ might have gone to a corner of the cave for bales of brocade. a little man dined who was blacking shoes years ago, and is now enormously rich--the richest man in paris--having ascended with rapidity up the usual ladder of the bourse. by merely observing that perhaps he might come down again, i clouded so many faces as to render it very clear to me that _everybody present_ was at the same game for some stake or other!" he returned to that subject in a letter a few days later. "if you were to see the steps of the bourse at about in the afternoon, and the crowd of blouses and patches among the speculators there assembled, all howling and haggard with speculation, you would stand aghast at the consideration of what must be going on. concierges and people like that perpetually blow their brains out, or fly into the seine, 'à cause des pertes sur la bourse.' i hardly ever take up a french paper without lighting on such a paragraph. on the other hand, thoroughbred horses without end, and red velvet carriages with white kid harness on jet black horses, go by here all day long; and the pedestrians who turn to look at them, laugh, and say 'c'est la bourse!' such crashes must be staved off every week as have not been seen since law's time." another picture connects itself with this, and throws light on the speculation thus raging. the french loans connected with the war, so much puffed and praised in england at the time for the supposed spirit in which they were taken up, had in fact only ministered to the commonest and lowest gambling; and the war had never in the least been popular. "emile girardin," wrote dickens on the rd of march, "was here yesterday, and he says that peace is to be formally announced at paris to-morrow amid general apathy." but the french are never wholly apathetic to their own exploits; and a display with a touch of excitement in it had been witnessed a couple of months before on the entry of the troops from the crimea,[ ] when the zouaves, as they marched past, pleased dickens most. "a remarkable body of men," he wrote, "wild, dangerous, and picturesque. close-cropped head, red skull cap, greek jacket, full red petticoat trowsers trimmed with yellow, and high white gaiters--the most sensible things for the purpose i know, and coming into use in the line. a man with such things on his legs is always free there, and ready for a muddy march; and might flounder through roads two feet deep in mud, and, simply by changing his gaiters (he has another pair in his haversack), be clean and comfortable and wholesome again, directly. plenty of beard and moustache, and the musket carried reverse-wise with the stock over the shoulder, make up the sunburnt zouave. he strides like bobadil, smoking as he goes; and when he laughs (they were under my window for half-an-hour or so), plunges backward in the wildest way, as if he were going to throw a sommersault. they have a black dog belonging to the regiment, and, when they now marched along with their medals, this dog marched after the one non-commissioned officer he invariably follows with a profound conviction that he was decorated. i couldn't see whether he had a medal, his hair being long; but he was perfectly up to what had befallen his regiment; and i never saw anything so capital as his way of regarding the public. whatever the regiment does, he is always in his place; and it was impossible to mistake the air of modest triumph which was now upon him. a small dog corporeally, but of a great mind."[ ] on that night there was an illumination in honour of the army, when the "whole of paris, bye streets and lanes and all sorts of out of the way places, was most brilliantly illuminated. it looked in the dark like venice and genoa rolled into one, and split up through the middle by the corso at rome in the carnival time. the french people certainly do know how to honour their own countrymen, in a most marvellous way." it was the festival time of the new year, and dickens was fairly lost in a mystery of amazement at where the money could come from that everybody was spending on the étrennes they were giving to everybody else. all the famous shops on the boulevards had been blockaded for more than a week. "there is now a line of wooden stalls, three miles long, on each side of that immense thoroughfare; and wherever a retiring house or two admits of a double line, there it is. all sorts of objects from shoes and sabots, through porcelain and crystal, up to live fowls and rabbits which are played for at a sort of dwarf skittles (to their immense disturbance, as the ball rolls under them and shakes them off their shelves and perches whenever it is delivered by a vigorous hand), are on sale in this great fair. and what you may get in the way of ornament for two-pence, is astounding." unhappily there came dark and rainy weather, and one of the improvements of the empire ended, as so many others did, in slush and misery.[ ] some sketches connected with the art exposition in the winter of , and with the fulfilment of ary scheffer's design to paint the portrait of dickens, may close these paris pictures. he did not think that english art showed to advantage beside the french. it seemed to him small, shrunken, insignificant, "niggling." he thought the general absence of ideas horribly apparent; "and even when one comes to mulready, and sees two old men talking over a much-too-prominent table-cloth, and reads the french explanation of their proceedings, 'la discussion sur les principes de docteur whiston,' one is dissatisfied. somehow or other they don't tell. even leslie's sancho wants go, and stanny is too much like a set-scene. it is of no use disguising the fact that what we know to be wanting in the men is wanting in their works--character, fire, purpose, and the power of using the vehicle and the model as mere means to an end. there is a horrible respectability about most of the best of them--a little, finite, systematic routine in them, strangely expressive to me of the state of england itself. as a mere fact, frith, ward, and egg, come out the best in such pictures as are here, and attract to the greatest extent. the first, in the picture from the good-natured man; the second, in the royal family in the temple; the third, in the peter the great first seeing catherine--which i always thought a good picture, and in which foreigners evidently descry a sudden dramatic touch that pleases them. there are no end of bad pictures among the french, but, lord! the goodness also!--the fearlessness of them; the bold drawing; the dashing conception; the passion and action in them![ ] the belgian department is full of merit. it has the best landscape in it, the best portrait, and the best scene of homely life, to be found in the building. don't think it a part of my despondency about public affairs, and my fear that our national glory is on the decline, when i say that mere form and conventionalities usurp, in english art, as in english government and social relations, the place of living force and truth. i tried to resist the impression yesterday, and went to the english gallery first, and praised and admired with great diligence; but it was of no use. i could not make anything better of it than what i tell you. of course this is between ourselves. friendship is better than criticism, and i shall steadily hold my tongue. discussion is worse than useless when you cannot agree about what you are going to discuss." french nature is all wrong, said the english artists whom dickens talked to; but surely not because it is french, was his reply. the english point of view is not the only one to take men and women from. the french pictures are "theatrical," was the rejoinder. but the french themselves are a demonstrative and gesticulating people, was dickens's retort; and what thus is rendered by their artists is the truth through an immense part of the world. "i never saw anything so strange. they seem to me to have got a fixed idea that there is no natural manner but the english manner (in itself so exceptional that it is a thing apart, in all countries); and that unless a frenchman--represented as going to the guillotine for example--is as calm as clapham, or as respectable as richmond-hill, he cannot be right." to the sittings at ary scheffer's some troubles as well as many pleasures were incident, and both had mention in his letters. "you may faintly imagine what i have suffered from sitting to scheffer every day since i came back. he is a most noble fellow, and i have the greatest pleasure in his society, and have made all sorts of acquaintances at his house; but i can scarcely express how uneasy and unsettled it makes me to have to sit, sit, sit, with _little dorrit_ on my mind, and the christmas business too--though that is now happily dismissed. on monday afternoon, _and all day on wednesday_, i am going to sit again. and the crowning feature is, that i do not discern the slightest resemblance, either in his portrait or his brother's! they both peg away at me at the same time." the sittings were varied by a special entertainment, when scheffer received some sixty people in his "long atelier"--"including a lot of french who _say_ (but i don't believe it) that they know english"--to whom dickens, by special entreaty, read his _cricket on the hearth_. that was at the close of november. january came, and the end of the sittings was supposed to be at hand. "the nightmare portrait is nearly done; and scheffer promises that an interminable sitting next saturday, beginning at o'clock in the morning, shall finish it. it is a fine spirited head, painted at his very best, and with a very easy and natural appearance in it. but it does not look to me at all like, nor does it strike me that if i saw it in a gallery i should suppose myself to be the original. it is always possible that i don't know my own face. it is going to be engraved here, in two sizes and ways--the mere head and the whole thing." a fortnight later, the interminable sitting came. "imagine me if you please with no. on my head and hands, sitting to scheffer yesterday four hours! at this stage of a story, no one can conceive how it distresses me." still this was not the last. march had come before the portrait was done. "scheffer finished yesterday; and collins, who has a good eye for pictures, says that there is no man living who could do the painting about the eyes. as a work of art i see in it spirit combined with perfect ease, and yet i don't see myself. so i come to the conclusion that i never _do_ see myself. i shall be very curious to know the effect of it upon you." march had then begun; and at its close dickens, who had meanwhile been in england, thus wrote: "i have not seen scheffer since i came back, but he told catherine a few days ago that he was not satisfied with the likeness after all, and thought he must do more to it. my own impression of it, you remember?" in these few words he anticipated the impression made upon myself. i was not satisfied with it. the picture had much merit, but not as a portrait. from its very resemblance in the eyes and mouth one derived the sense of a general unlikeness. but the work of the artist's brother, henri scheffer, painted from the same sittings, was in all ways greatly inferior. before dickens left paris in may he had sent over two descriptions that the reader most anxious to follow him to a new scene would perhaps be sorry to lose. a duchess was murdered in the champs elysées. "the murder over the way (the third or fourth event of that nature in the champs elysées since we have been here) seems to disclose the strangest state of things. the duchess who is murdered lived alone in a great house which was always shut up, and passed her time entirely in the dark. in a little lodge outside lived a coachman (the murderer), and there had been a long succession of coachmen who had been unable to stay there, and upon whom, whenever they asked for their wages, she plunged out with an immense knife, by way of an immediate settlement. the coachman never had anything to do, for the coach hadn't been driven out for years; neither would she ever allow the horses to be taken out for exercise. between the lodge and the house, is a miserable bit of garden, all overgrown with long rank grass, weeds, and nettles; and in this, the horses used to be taken out to swim--in a dead green vegetable sea, up to their haunches. on the day of the murder, there was a great crowd, of course; and in the midst of it up comes the duke her husband (from whom she was separated), and rings at the gate. the police open the grate. 'c'est vrai donc,' says the duke, 'que madame la duchesse n'est plus?'--'c'est trop vrai, monseigneur.'--'tant mieux,' says the duke, and walks off deliberately, to the great satisfaction of the assemblage." the second description relates an occurrence in england of only three years previous date, belonging to that wildly improbable class of realities which dickens always held, with fielding, to be (properly) closed to fiction. only, he would add, critics should not be so eager to assume that what had never happened to themselves could not, by any human possibility, ever be supposed to have happened to anybody else. "b. was with me the other day, and, among other things that he told me, described an extraordinary adventure in his life, at a place not a thousand miles from my 'property' at gadshill, three years ago. he lived at the tavern and was sketching one day when an open carriage came by with a gentleman and lady in it. he was sitting in the same place working at the same sketch, next day, when it came by again. so, another day, when the gentleman got out and introduced himself. fond of art; lived at the great house yonder, which perhaps he knew; was an oxford man and a devonshire squire, but not resident on his estate, for domestic reasons; would be glad to see him to dinner to-morrow. he went, and found among other things a very fine library. 'at your disposition,' said the squire, to whom he had now described himself and his pursuits. 'use it for your writing and drawing. nobody else uses it.' he stayed in the house _six months_. the lady was a mistress, aged five-and-twenty, and very beautiful, drinking her life away. the squire was drunken, and utterly depraved and wicked; but an excellent scholar, an admirable linguist, and a great theologian. two other mad visitors stayed the six months. one, a man well known in paris here, who goes about the world with a crimson silk stocking in his breast pocket, containing a tooth-brush and an immense quantity of ready money. the other, a college chum of the squire's, now ruined; with an insatiate thirst for drink; who constantly got up in the middle of the night, crept down to the dining-room, and emptied all the decanters. . . . b. stayed on in the place, under a sort of devilish fascination to discover what might come of it. . . . tea or coffee never seen in the house, and very seldom water. beer, champagne, and brandy, were the three drinkables. breakfast: leg of mutton, champagne, beer, and brandy. lunch: shoulder of mutton, champagne, beer, and brandy. dinner: every conceivable dish (squire's income, £ , a-year), champagne, beer, and brandy. the squire had married a woman of the town from whom he was now separated, but by whom he had a daughter. the mother, to spite the father, had bred the daughter in every conceivable vice. daughter, then , came from school once a month. intensely coarse in talk, and always drunk. as they drove about the country in two open carriages, the drunken mistress would be perpetually tumbling out of one, and the drunken daughter perpetually tumbling out of the other. at last the drunken mistress drank her stomach away, and began to die on the sofa. got worse and worse, and was always raving about somebody's where she had once been a lodger, and perpetually shrieking that she would cut somebody else's heart out. at last she died on the sofa, and, after the funeral, the party broke up. a few months ago, b. met the man with the crimson silk stocking at brighton, who told him that the squire was dead 'of a broken heart'; that the chum was dead of delirium tremens; and that the daughter was heiress to the fortune. he told me all this, which i fully believe to be true, without any embellishment--just in the off-hand way in which i have told it to you." dickens left paris at the end of april, and, after the summer in boulogne which has been described, passed the winter in london, giving to his theatrical enterprise nearly all the time that _little dorrit_ did not claim from him. his book was finished in the following spring; was inscribed to clarkson stanfield; and now claims to have something said about it. footnotes: [ ] twenty-one years before this date, in this same part, lemaitre had made a deep impression in london; and now, eighteen years later, he is appearing in one of the revivals of victor hugo in paris ( .) [ ] "it is surprising what a change nine years have made in my notoriety here. so many of the rising french generation now read english (and _chuzzlewit_ is now being translated daily in the _moniteur_), that i can't go into a shop and give my card without being acknowledged in the pleasantest way possible. a curiosity-dealer brought home some little knick-knacks i had bought, the other night, and knew all about my books from beginning to end of 'em. there is much of the personal friendliness in my readers, here, that is so delightful at home; and i have been greatly surprised and pleased by the unexpected discovery." to this i may add a line from one of his letters six years later. "i see my books in french at every railway station great and small."-- th of oct. . [ ] "i forget whether" ( th of jan. ) "i have already told you that i have received a proposal from a responsible bookselling house here, for a complete edition, authorized by myself, of a french translation of all my books. the terms involve questions of space and amount of matter; but i should say, at a rough calculation, that i shall get about £ by it--perhaps £ more." "i have arranged" ( th of jan.) "with the french bookselling house to receive, by monthly payments of £ , the sum of £ for the right to translate all my books: that is, what they call my romances, and what i call my stories. this does not include the christmas books, _american notes_, _pictures from italy_, or the _sketches_; but they are to have the right to translate them for extra payments if they choose. in consideration of this venture as to the unprotected property, i cede them the right of translating all future romances at a thousand francs (£ ) each. considering that i get so much for what is otherwise worth nothing, and get my books before so clever and important a people, i think this is not a bad move?" the first friend with whom he advised about it, i should mention, was the famous leipzig publisher, m. tauchnitz, in whose judgment, as well as in his honour and good faith, he had implicit reliance, and who thought the offer fair. on the th of april he wrote: "on monday i am going to dine with all my translators at hachette's, the bookseller who has made the bargain for the complete edition, and who began this week to pay his monthly £ for a year. i don't mean to go out any more. please to imagine me in the midst of my french dressers." he wrote an address for the edition in which he praised the liberality of his publishers and expressed his pride in being so presented to the french people whom he sincerely loved and honoured. another word may be added. "it is rather appropriate that the french translation edition will pay my rent for the whole year, and travelling charges to boot."-- th of feb. . [ ] he wrote a short and very comical account of one of these stock performances at the français in which he brought out into strong relief all their conventionalities and formal habits, their regular surprises surprising nobody, and their mysterious disclosures of immense secrets known to everybody beforehand, which he meant for _household words_; but it occurred to him that it might give pain to regnier, and he destroyed it. [ ] before he saw this he wrote: "that piece you spoke of (the _médecin des enfants_) is one of the very best melodramas i have ever read. situations, admirable. i will send it to you by landseer. i am very curious indeed to go and see it; and it is an instance to me of the powerful emotions from which art is shut out in england by the conventionalities." after seeing it he writes: "the low cry of excitement and expectation that goes round the house when any one of the great situations is felt to be coming is very remarkable indeed. i suppose there has not been so great a success of the genuine and worthy kind (for the authors have really taken the french dramatic bull by the horns, and put the adulterous wife in the right position), for many years. when you come over and see it, you will say you never saw anything so admirably done. there is one actor, bignon (m. delormel), who has a good deal of macready in him; sometimes looks very like him; and who seems to me the perfection of manly good sense." th of april . [ ] i subjoin from another of these french letters of later date a remark on _robinson crusoe_. "you remember my saying to you some time ago how curious i thought it that _robinson crusoe_ should be the only instance of an universally popular book that could make no one laugh and could make no one cry. i have been reading it again just now, in the course of my numerous refreshings at those english wells, and i will venture to say that there is not in literature a more surprising instance of an utter want of tenderness and sentiment, than the death of friday. it is as heartless as _gil blas_, in a very different and far more serious way. but the second part altogether will not bear enquiry. in the second part of _don quixote_ are some of the finest things. but the second part of _robinson crusoe_ is perfectly contemptible, in the glaring defect that it exhibits the man who was years on that desert island with no visible effect made on his character by that experience. de foe's women too--robinson crusoe's wife for instance--are terrible dull commonplace fellows without breeches; and i have no doubt he was a precious dry and disagreeable article himself--i mean de foe: not robinson. poor dear goldsmith (i remember as i write) derived the same impression." [ ] when in paris six years later dickens saw this fine singer in an opera by gluck, and the reader will not be sorry to have his description of it. "last night i saw madame viardot do gluck's orphée. it is a most extraordinary performance--pathetic in the highest degree, and full of quite sublime acting. though it is unapproachably fine from first to last, the beginning of it, at the tomb of eurydice, is a thing that i cannot remember at this moment of writing, without emotion. it is the finest presentation of grief that i can imagine. and when she has received hope from the gods, and encouragement to go into the other world and seek eurydice, viardot's manner of taking the relinquished lyre from the tomb and becoming radiant again, is most noble. also she recognizes eurydice's touch, when at length the hand is put in hers from behind, like a most transcendant genius. and when, yielding to eurydice's entreaties she has turned round and slain her with a look, her despair over the body is grand in the extreme. it is worth a journey to paris to see, for there is no such art to be otherwise looked upon. her husband stumbled over me by mere chance, and took me to her dressing-room. nothing could have happened better as a genuine homage to the performance, for i was disfigured with crying."-- th of november . [ ] here is another picture of regiments in the streets of which the date is the th of january. "it was cold this afternoon, as bright as italy, and these elysian fields crowded with carriages, riders, and foot passengers. all the fountains were playing, all the heavens shining. just as i went out at o'clock, several regiments that had passed out at the barrière in the morning to exercise in the country, came marching back, in the straggling french manner, which is far more picturesque and real than anything you can imagine in that way. alternately great storms of drums played, and then the most delicious and skilful bands, 'trovatore' music, 'barber of seville' music, all sorts of music with well-marked melody and time. all bloused paris (led by the inimitable, and a poor cripple who works himself up and down all day in a big wheeled car) went at quick march down the avenue, in a sort of hilarious dance. if the colours with the golden eagle on the top had only been unfurled, we should have followed them anywhere, in any cause--much as the children follow punches in the better cause of comedy. napoleon on the top of the column seemed up to the whole thing, i thought." [ ] apropos of this, i may mention that the little shaggy white terrier who came with him from america, so long a favourite in his household, had died of old age a few weeks before ( th of oct. ) in boulogne. [ ] "we have wet weather here--and dark too for these latitudes--and oceans of mud. although numbers of men are perpetually scooping and sweeping it away in this thoroughfare, it accumulates under the windows so fast, and in such sludgy masses, that to get across the road is to get half over one's shoes in the first outset of a walk." . . . "it is difficult," he added ( th of jan.) "to picture the change made in this place by the removal of the paving stones (too ready for barricades), and macadamization. it suits neither the climate nor the soil. we are again in a sea of mud. one cannot cross the road of the champs elysées here, without being half over one's boots." a few more days brought a welcome change. "three days ago the weather changed here in an hour, and we have had bright weather and hard frost ever since. all the mud disappeared with marvellous rapidity, and the sky became italian. taking advantage of such a happy change, i started off yesterday morning (for exercise and meditation) on a scheme i have taken into my head, to walk round the walls of paris. it is a very odd walk, and will make a good description. yesterday i turned to the right when i got outside the barrière de l'etoile, walked round the wall till i came to the river, and then entered paris beyond the site of the bastille. to-day i mean to turn to the left when i get outside the barrière, and see what comes of that." [ ] this was much the tone of edwin landseer also, whose praise of horace vernet was nothing short of rapture; and how well i remember the humour of his description of the emperor on the day when the prizes were given, and, as his old friend the great painter came up, the comical expression in his face that said plainly "what a devilish odd thing this is altogether, isn't it?" composing itself to gravity as he took edwin by the hand, and said in cordial english "i am very glad to see you." he stood, landseer told us, in a recess so arranged as to produce a clear echo of every word he said, and this had a startling effect. in the evening of that day dickens, landseer, boxall, leslie "and three others" dined together in the palais royal. chapter vi. little dorrit, and a lazy tour. - . little dorrit--a proposed opening--how the story grew--sale of the book--circumlocution office--flora and her surroundings--weak points in the book--remains of marshalsea visited--reception of the novel--christmas theatricals--theatre-making--at gadshill--last meeting of jerrold and dickens--proposed memorial tribute--at the zoological gardens--lazy tour projected--visit to cumberland--accident to wilkie collins--at allonby--at doncaster--racing prophecy--a performance of _money_. between _hard times_ and _little dorrit_, dickens's principal literary work had been the contribution to _household words_ of two tales for christmas ( and ) which his readings afterwards made widely popular, the story of richard doubledick,[ ] and boots at the holly-tree inn. in the latter was related, with a charming naturalness and spirit, the elopement, to get married at gretna green, of two little children of the mature respective ages of eight and seven. at christmas came out the first number of _little dorrit_, and in april the last. the book took its origin from the notion he had of a leading man for a story who should bring about all the mischief in it, lay it all on providence, and say at every fresh calamity, "well it's a mercy, however, nobody was to blame you know!" the title first chosen, out of many suggested, was _nobody's fault_; and four numbers had been written, of which the first was on the eve of appearance, before this was changed. when about to fall to work he excused himself from an engagement he should have kept because "the story is breaking out all round me, and i am going off down the railroad to humour it." the humouring was a little difficult, however; and such indications of a droop in his invention as presented themselves in portions of _bleak house_, were noticeable again. "as to the story i am in the second number, and last night and this morning had half a mind to begin again, and work in what i have done, afterwards." it had occurred to him, that, by making the fellow-travellers at once known to each other, as the opening of the story stands, he had missed an effect. "it struck me that it would be a new thing to show people coming together, in a chance way, as fellow-travellers, and being in the same place, ignorant of one another, as happens in life; and to connect them afterwards, and to make the waiting for that connection a part of the interest." the change was not made; but the mention of it was one of several intimations to me of the altered conditions under which he was writing, and that the old, unstinted, irrepressible flow of fancy had received temporary check. in this view i have found it very interesting to compare the original notes, which as usual he prepared for each number of the tale, and which with the rest are in my possession, with those of _chuzzlewit_ or _copperfield_; observing in the former the labour and pains, and in the latter the lightness and confidence of handling.[ ] "i am just now getting to work on number three: sometimes enthusiastic, more often dull enough. there is an enormous outlay in the father of the marshalsea chapter, in the way of getting a great lot of matter into a small space. i am not quite resolved, but i have a great idea of overwhelming that family with wealth. their condition would be very curious. i can make dorrit very strong in the story, i hope." the marshalsea part of the tale undoubtedly was excellent, and there was masterly treatment of character in the contrasts of the brothers dorrit; but of the family generally it may be said that its least important members had most of his genius in them. the younger of the brothers, the scapegrace son, and "fanny dear," are perfectly real people in what makes them unattractive; but what is meant for attractiveness in the heroine becomes often tiresome by want of reality. [illustration] [illustration] the first number appeared in december , and on the nd there was an exultant note. "_little dorrit_ has beaten even _bleak house_ out of the field. it is a most tremendous start, and i am overjoyed at it;" to which he added, writing from paris on the th of the month following, "you know that they had sold , of number two on new year's day." he was still in paris on the day of the appearance of that portion of the tale by which it will always be most vividly remembered, and thus wrote on the th of january : "i have a grim pleasure upon me to-night in thinking that the circumlocution office sees the light, and in wondering what effect it will make. but my head really stings with the visions of the book, and i am going, as we french say, to disembarrass it by plunging out into some of the strange places i glide into of nights in these latitudes." the circumlocution heroes led to the society scenes, the hampton-court dowager-sketches, and mr. gowan; all parts of one satire levelled against prevailing political and social vices. aim had been taken, in the course of it, at some living originals, disguised sufficiently from recognition to enable him to make his thrust more sure; but there was one exception self-revealed. "i had the general idea," he wrote while engaged on the sixth number, "of the society business before the sadleir affair, but i shaped mr. merdle himself out of that precious rascality. society, the circumlocution office, and mr. gowan, are of course three parts of one idea and design. mr. merdle's complaint, which you will find in the end to be fraud and forgery, came into my mind as the last drop in the silver cream-jug on hampstead-heath. i shall beg, when you have read the present number, to enquire whether you consider 'bar' an instance, in reference to k f, of a suggested likeness in not many touches!" the likeness no one could mistake; and, though that particular bar has since been moved into a higher and happier sphere, westminster-hall is in no danger of losing "the insinuating jury-droop, and persuasive double-eyeglass," by which this keen observer could express a type of character in half a dozen words. of the other portions of the book that had a strong personal interest for him i have spoken on a former page, and i will now only add an allusion of his own. "there are some things in flora in number seven that seem to me to be extraordinarily droll, with something serious at the bottom of them after all. ah, well! was there _not_ something very serious in it once? i am glad to think of being in the country with the long summer mornings as i approach number ten, where i have finally resolved to make dorrit rich. it should be a very fine point in the story. . . . nothing in flora made me laugh so much as the confusion of ideas between gout flying upwards, and its soaring with mr. f---- to another sphere." he had himself no inconsiderable enjoyment also of mr. f.'s aunt; and in the old rascal of a patriarch, the smooth-surfaced casby, and other surroundings of poor flora, there was fun enough to float an argosy of second-rates, assuming such to have formed the staple of the tale. it would be far from fair to say they did. the defect in the book was less the absence of excellent character or keen observation, than the want of ease and coherence among the figures of the story, and of a central interest in the plan of it. the agencies that bring about its catastrophe, too, are less agreeable even than in _bleak house_; and, most unlike that well-constructed story, some of the most deeply considered things that occur in it have really little to do with the tale itself. the surface-painting of both miss wade and tattycoram, to take an instance, is anything but attractive, yet there is under it a rare force of likeness in the unlikeness between the two which has much subtlety of intention; and they must both have had, as well as mr. gowan himself, a striking effect in the novel, if they had been made to contribute in a more essential way to its interest or development. the failure nevertheless had not been for want of care and study, as well of his own design as of models by masters in his art. a happier hint of apology, for example, could hardly be given for fielding's introduction of such an episode as the man of the hill between the youth and manhood of blifil and tom jones, than is suggested by what dickens wrote of the least interesting part of _little dorrit_. in the mere form, fielding of course was only following the lead of cervantes and le sage; but dickens rightly judged his purpose also to have been, to supply a kind of connection between the episode and the story. "i don't see the practicability of making the history of a self-tormentor, with which i took great pains, a written narrative. but i do see the possibility" (he saw the other practicability before the number was published) "of making it a chapter by itself, which might enable me to dispense with the necessity of the turned commas. do you think that would be better? i have no doubt that a great part of fielding's reason for the introduced story, and smollett's also, was, that it is sometimes really impossible to present, in a full book, the idea it contains (which yet it may be on all accounts desirable to present), without supposing the reader to be possessed of almost as much romantic allowance as would put him on a level with the writer. in miss wade i had an idea, which i thought a new one, of making the introduced story so fit into surroundings impossible of separation from the main story, as to make the blood of the book circulate through both. but i can only suppose, from what you say, that i have not exactly succeeded in this." shortly after the date of his letter he was in london on business connected with the purchase of gadshill place, and he went over to the borough to see what traces were left of the prison of which his first impression was taken in his boyhood, which had played so important a part in this latest novel, and every brick and stone of which he had been able to rebuild in his book by the mere vividness of his marvellous memory. "went to the borough yesterday morning before going to gadshill, to see if i could find any ruins of the marshalsea. found a great part of the original building--now 'marshalsea place.' found the rooms that have been in my mind's eye in the story. found, nursing a very big boy, a very small boy, who, seeing me standing on the marshalsea pavement, looking about, told me how it all used to be. god knows how he learned it (for he was a world too young to know anything about it), but he was right enough. . . . there is a room there--still standing, to my amazement--that i think of taking! it is the room through which the ever-memorable signers of captain porter's petition filed off in my boyhood. the spikes are gone, and the wall is lowered, and anybody can go out now who likes to go, and is not bedridden; and i said to the boy 'who lives there?' and he said, 'jack pithick.' 'who is jack pithick?' i asked him. and he said, 'joe pithick's uncle.'" mention was made of this visit in the preface that appeared with the last number; and all it is necessary to add of the completed book will be, that, though in the humour and satire of its finer parts not unworthy of him, and though it had the clear design, worthy of him in an especial degree, of contrasting, both in private and in public life, and in poverty equally as in wealth, duty done and duty not done, it made no material addition to his reputation. his public, however, showed no falling-off in its enormous numbers; and what is said in one of his letters, noticeable for this touch of character, illustrates his anxiety to avoid any set-off from the disquiet that critical discourtesies might give. "i was ludicrously foiled here the other night in a resolution i have kept for twenty years not to know of any attack upon myself, by stumbling, before i could pick myself up, on a short extract in the _globe_ from _blackwood's magazine_, informing me that _little dorrit_ is 'twaddle.' i was sufficiently put out by it to be angry with myself for being such a fool, and then pleased with myself for having so long been constant to a good resolution." there was a scene that made itself part of history not four months after his death, which, if he could have lived to hear of it, might have more than consoled him. it was the meeting of bismarck and jules favre under the walls of paris. the prussian was waiting to open fire on the city; the frenchman was engaged in the arduous task of showing the wisdom of not doing it; and "we learn," say the papers of the day, "that while the two eminent statesmen were trying to find a basis of negotiation, von moltke was seated in a corner reading _little dorrit_." who will doubt that the chapter on how not to do it was then absorbing the old soldier's attention? * * * * * preparations for the private play had gone on incessantly up to christmas, and, in turning the school-room into a theatre, sawing and hammering worthy of babel continued for weeks. the priceless help of stanfield had again been secured, and i remember finding him one day at tavistock house in the act of upsetting some elaborate arrangements by dickens, with a proscenium before him made up of chairs, and the scenery planned out with walking-sticks. but dickens's art in a matter of this kind was to know how to take advice; and no suggestion came to him that he was not ready to act upon, if it presented the remotest likelihood. in one of his great difficulties of obtaining more space, for audience as well as actors, he was told that mr. cooke of astley's was a man of much resource in that way; and to mr. cooke he applied, with the following result. "one of the finest things" ( th of october ) "i have ever seen in my life of that kind was the arrival of my friend mr. cooke one morning this week, in an open phaeton drawn by two white ponies with black spots all over them (evidently stencilled), who came in at the gate with a little jolt and a rattle, exactly as they come into the ring when they draw anything, and went round and round the centre bed of the front court, apparently looking for the clown. a multitude of boys who felt them to be no common ponies rushed up in a breathless state--twined themselves like ivy about the railings--and were only deterred from storming the enclosure by the glare of the inimitable's eye. some of these boys had evidently followed from astley's. i grieve to add that my friend, being taken to the point of difficulty, had no sort of suggestion in him; no gleam of an idea; and might just as well have been the popular minister from the tabernacle in tottenham court road. all he could say was--answering me, posed in the garden, precisely as if i were the clown asking him a riddle at night--that two of their stable tents would be home in november, and that they were ' foot square,' and i was heartily welcome to 'em. also, he said, 'you might have half a dozen of my trapezes, or my middle-distance-tables, but they're all foot and all too low sir.' since then, i have arranged to do it in my own way, and with my own carpenter. you will be surprised by the look of the place. it is no more like the school-room than it is like the sign of the salutation inn at ambleside in westmoreland. the sounds in the house remind me, as to the present time, of chatham dockyard--as to a remote epoch, of the building of noah's ark. joiners are never out of the house, and the carpenter appears to be unsettled (or settled) for life." of course time did not mend matters, and as christmas approached the house was in a state of siege. "all day long, a labourer heats size over the fire in a great crucible. we eat it, drink it, breathe it, and smell it. seventy paint-pots (which came in a van) adorn the stage; and thereon may be beheld, stanny, and three dansons (from the surrey zoological gardens), all painting at once!! meanwhile, telbin, in a secluded bower in brewer-street, golden-square, plies _his_ part of the little undertaking." how worthily it turned out in the end, the excellence of the performances and the delight of the audiences, became known to all london; and the pressure for admittance at last took the form of a tragi-comedy, composed of ludicrous makeshifts and gloomy disappointments, with which even dickens's resources could not deal. "my audience is now ," he wrote one day in despair, "and at least will neither hear nor see." there was nothing for it but to increase the number of nights; and it was not until the th of january he described "the workmen smashing the last atoms of the theatre." his book was finished soon after at gadshill place, to be presently described, which he had purchased the previous year, and taken possession of in february; subscribing himself, in the letter announcing the fact, as "the kentish freeholder on his native heath, his name protection."[ ] the new abode occupied him in various ways in the early part of the summer; and hans andersen the dane had just arrived upon a visit to him there, when douglas jerrold's unexpected death befell. it was a shock to every one, and an especial grief to dickens. jerrold's wit, and the bright shrewd intellect that had so many triumphs, need no celebration from me; but the keenest of satirists was one of the kindliest of men, and dickens had a fondness for jerrold as genuine as his admiration for him. "i chance to know a good deal about the poor fellow's illness, for i was with him on the last day he was out. it was ten days ago, when we dined at a dinner given by russell at greenwich. he was complaining much when we met, said he had been sick three days, and attributed it to the inhaling of white paint from his study window. i did not think much of it at the moment, as we were very social; but while we walked through leicester-square he suddenly fell into a white, hot, sick perspiration, and had to lean against the railings. then, at my urgent request, he was to let me put him in a cab and send him home; but he rallied a little after that, and, on our meeting russell, determined to come with us. we three went down by steamboat that we might see the great ship, and then got an open fly and rode about blackheath: poor jerrold mightily enjoying the air, and constantly saying that it set him up. he was rather quiet at dinner--sat next delane--but was very humorous and good, and in spirits, though he took hardly anything. we parted with references to coming down here" (gadshill) "and i never saw him again. next morning he was taken very ill when he tried to get up. on the wednesday and thursday he was very bad, but rallied on the friday, and was quite confident of getting well. on the sunday he was very ill again, and on the monday forenoon died; 'at peace with all the world' he said, and asking to be remembered to friends. he had become indistinct and insensible, until for but a few minutes at the end. i knew nothing about it, except that he had been ill and was better, until, going up by railway yesterday morning, i heard a man in the carriage, unfolding his newspaper, say to another 'douglas jerrold is dead.' i immediately went up there, and then to whitefriars . . . i propose that there shall be a night at a theatre when the actors (with old cooke) shall play the _rent day_ and _black-ey'd susan_; another night elsewhere, with a lecture from thackeray; a day reading by me; a night reading by me; a lecture by russell; and a subscription performance of the _frozen deep_, as at tavistock house. i don't mean to do it beggingly; but merely to announce the whole series, the day after the funeral, 'in memory of the late mr. douglas jerrold,' or some such phrase. i have got hold of arthur smith as the best man of business i know, and go to work with him to-morrow morning--inquiries being made in the meantime as to the likeliest places to be had for these various purposes. my confident hope is that we shall get close upon two thousand pounds." the friendly enterprise was carried to the close with a vigour, promptitude, and success, that well corresponded with this opening. in addition to the performances named, there were others in the country also organized by dickens, in which he took active personal part; and the result did not fall short of his expectations. the sum was invested ultimately for our friend's unmarried daughter, who still receives the income from myself, the last surviving trustee. so passed the greater part of the summer,[ ] and when the country performances were over at the end of august i had this intimation. "i have arranged with collins that he and i will start next monday on a ten or twelve days' expedition to out-of-the-way places, to do (in inns and coast-corners) a little tour in search of an article and in avoidance of railroads. i must get a good name for it, and i propose it in five articles, one for the beginning of every number in the october part." next day: "our decision is for a foray upon the fells of cumberland; i having discovered in the books some promising moors and bleak places thereabout." into the lake-country they went accordingly; and the lazy tour of two idle apprentices, contributed to _household words_, was a narrative of the trip. but his letters had descriptive touches, and some whimsical personal experiences, not in the published account. looking over the _beauties of england and wales_ before he left london, his ambition was fired by mention of carrick fell, "a gloomy old mountain feet high," which he secretly resolved to go up. "we came straight to it yesterday" ( th of september). "nobody goes up. guides have forgotten it. master of a little inn, excellent north-countryman, volunteered. went up, in a tremendous rain. c. d. beat mr. porter (name of landlord) in half a mile. mr. p. done up in no time. three nevertheless went on. mr. p. again leading; c. d. and c." (mr. wilkie collins) "following. rain terrific, black mists, darkness of night. mr. p. agitated. c. d. confident. c. (a long way down in perspective) submissive. all wet through. no poles. not so much as a walking-stick in the party. reach the summit, at about one in the day. dead darkness as of night. mr. p. (excellent fellow to the last) uneasy. c. d. produces compass from pocket. mr. p. reassured. farm-house where dog-cart was left, n.n.w. mr. p. complimentary. descent commenced. c. d. with compass triumphant, until compass, with the heat and wet of c. d.'s pocket, breaks. mr. p. (who never had a compass), inconsolable, confesses he has not been on carrick fell for twenty years, and he don't know the way down. darker and darker. nobody discernible, two yards off, by the other two. mr. p. makes suggestions, but no way. it becomes clear to c. d. and to c. that mr. p. is going round and round the mountain, and never coming down. mr. p. sits on angular granite, and says he is 'just fairly doon.' c. d. revives mr. p. with laughter, the only restorative in the company. mr. p. again complimentary. descent tried once more. mr. p. worse and worse. council of war. proposals from c. d. to go 'slap down.' seconded by c. mr. p. objects, on account of precipice called the black arches, and terror of the country-side. more wandering. mr. p. terror-stricken, but game. watercourse, thundering and roaring, reached. c. d. suggests that it must run to the river, and had best be followed, subject to all gymnastic hazards. mr. p. opposes, but gives in. watercourse followed accordingly. leaps, splashes, and tumbles, for two hours. c. lost. c. d. whoops. cries for assistance from behind. c. d. returns. c. with horribly sprained ankle, lying in rivulet!" all the danger was over when dickens sent his description; but great had been the trouble in binding up the sufferer's ankle and getting him painfully on, shoving, shouldering, carrying alternately, till terra firma was reached. "we got down at last in the wildest place, preposterously out of the course; and, propping up c. against stones, sent mr. p. to the other side of cumberland for dog-cart, so got back to his inn, and changed. shoe or stocking on the bad foot, out of the question. foot tumbled up in a flannel waistcoat. c. d. carrying c. melo-dramatically (wardour to the life!)[ ] everywhere; into and out of carriages; up and down stairs; to bed; every step. and so to wigton, got doctor, and here we are!! a pretty business, we flatter ourselves!" wigton, dickens described as a place of little houses all in half-mourning, yellow stone or white stone and black, with the wonderful peculiarity that though it had no population, no business, and no streets to speak of, it had five linendrapers within range of their single window, one linendraper's next door, and five more linendrapers round the corner. "i ordered a night light in my bed-room. a queer little old woman brought me one of the common child's night lights, and, seeming to think that i looked at it with interest, said, 'it's joost a vara keeyourious thing, sir, and joost new coom oop. it'll burn awt hoors a' end, and no gootther, nor no waste, nor ony sike a thing, if you can creedit what i say, seein' the airticle.'" in these primitive quarters there befell a difficulty about letters, which dickens solved in a fashion especially his own. "the day after carrick there was a mess about our letters, through our not going to a place called mayport. so, while the landlord was planning how to get them (they were only twelve miles off), i walked off, to his great astonishment, and brought them over." the night after leaving wigton they were at the ship-hotel in allonby. allonby his letters presented as a small untidy outlandish place; rough stone houses in half mourning, a few coarse yellow-stone lodging houses with black roofs (bills in all the windows), five bathing-machines, five girls in straw hats, five men in straw hats (wishing they had not come); very much what broadstairs would have been if it had been born irish, and had not inherited a cliff. "but this is a capital little homely inn, looking out upon the sea; with the coast of scotland, mountainous and romantic, over against the windows; and though i can just stand upright in my bedroom, we are really well lodged. it is a clean nice place in a rough wild country, and we have a very obliging and comfortable landlady." he had found indeed, in the latter, an acquaintance of old date. "the landlady at the little inn at allonby, lived at greta-bridge in yorkshire when i went down there before _nickleby_; and was smuggled into the room to see me, after i was secretly found out. she is an immensely fat woman now. 'but i could tuck my arm round her waist then, mr. dickens,' the landlord said when she told me the story as i was going to bed the night before last. 'and can't you do it now?' i said. 'you insensible dog! look at me! here's a picture!' accordingly i got round as much of her as i could; and this gallant action was the most successful i have ever performed, on the whole." on their way home the friends were at doncaster, and this was dickens's first experience of the st. leger and its saturnalia. his companion had by this time so far recovered as to be able, doubled-up, to walk with a thick stick; in which condition, "being exactly like the gouty admiral in a comedy i have given him that name." the impressions received from the race-week were not favourable. it was noise and turmoil all day long, and a gathering of vagabonds from all parts of the racing earth. every bad face that had ever caught wickedness from an innocent horse had its representative in the streets; and as dickens, like gulliver looking down upon his fellow-men after coming from the horse-country, looked down into doncaster high-street from his inn-window, he seemed to see everywhere a then notorious personage who had just poisoned his betting-companion. "everywhere i see the late mr. palmer with his betting-book in his hand. mr. palmer sits next me at the theatre; mr. palmer goes before me down the street; mr. palmer follows me into the chemist's shop where i go to buy rose water after breakfast, and says to the chemist 'give us soom sal volatile or soom damned thing o' that soort, in wather--my head's bad!' and i look at the back of his bad head repeated in long, long lines on the race course, and in the betting stand and outside the betting rooms in the town, and i vow to god that i can see nothing in it but cruelty, covetousness, calculation, insensibility, and low wickedness." even a half-appalling kind of luck was not absent from my friend's experiences at the race course, when, what he called a "wonderful, paralysing, coincidence" befell him. he bought the card; facetiously wrote down three names for the winners of the three chief races (never in his life having heard or thought of any of the horses, except that the winner of the derby, who proved to be nowhere, had been mentioned to him); "and, if you can believe it without your hair standing on end, those three races were won, one after another, by those three horses!!!" that was the st. leger-day, of which he also thought it noticeable, that, though the losses were enormous, nobody had won, for there was nothing but grinding of teeth and blaspheming of ill-luck. nor had matters mended on the cup-day, after which celebration "a groaning phantom" lay in the doorway of his bed-room and howled all night. the landlord came up in the morning to apologise, "and said it was a gentleman who had lost £ or £ ; and he had drunk a deal afterwards; and then they put him to bed, and then he--took the 'orrors, and got up, and yelled till morning."[ ] dickens might well believe, as he declared at the end of his letter, that if a boy with any good in him, but with a dawning propensity to sporting and betting, were but brought to the doncaster races soon enough, it would cure him. footnotes: [ ] the framework for this sketch was a graphic description, also done by dickens, of the celebrated charity at rochester founded in the sixteenth century by richard watts, "for six poor travellers, who, not being rogues or proctors, may receive gratis for one night, lodging, entertainment, and fourpence each." a quaint monument to watts is the most prominent object on the wall of the south-west transept of the cathedral, and underneath it is now placed a brass thus inscribed: "charles dickens. born at portsmouth, seventh of february . died at gadshill place by rochester, ninth of june . buried in westminster abbey. to connect his memory with the scenes in which his earliest and his latest years were passed, and with the associations of rochester cathedral and its neighbourhood which extended over all his life, this tablet, with the sanction of the dean and chapter, is placed by his executors." [ ] so curious a contrast, taking _copperfield_ for the purpose, i have thought worth giving in fac-simile; and can assure the reader that the examples taken express very fairly the general character of the notes to the two books respectively. [ ] in the same letter was an illustration of the ruling passion in death, which, even in so undignified a subject, might have interested pope. "you remember little wieland who did grotesque demons so well. did you ever hear how he died? he lay very still in bed with the life fading out of him--suddenly sprung out of it, threw what is professionally called a flip-flap, and fell dead on the floor." [ ] one of its incidents made such an impression on him that it will be worth while to preserve his description of it. "i have been (by mere accident) seeing the serpents fed to-day, with the live birds, rabbits, and guinea pigs--a sight so very horrible that i cannot get rid of the impression, and am, at this present, imagining serpents coming up the legs of the table, with their infernal flat heads, and their tongues like the devil's tail (evidently taken from that model, in the magic lanterns and other such popular representations), elongated for dinner. i saw one small serpent, whose father was asleep, go up to a guinea pig (white and yellow, and with a gentle eye--every hair upon him erect with horror); corkscrew himself on the tip of his tail; open a mouth which couldn't have swallowed the guinea pig's nose; dilate a throat which wouldn't have made him a stocking; and show him what his father meant to do with him when he came out of that ill-looking hookah into which he had resolved himself. the guinea pig backed against the side of the cage--said 'i know it, i know it!'--and his eye glared and his coat turned wiry, as he made the remark. five small sparrows crouching together in a little trench at the back of the cage, peeped over the brim of it, all the time; and when they saw the guinea pig give it up, and the young serpent go away looking at him over about two yards and a quarter of shoulder, struggled which should get into the innermost angle and be seized last. everyone of them then hid his eyes in another's breast, and then they all shook together like dry leaves--as i daresay they may be doing now, for old hookah was as dull as laudanum. . . . please to imagine two small serpents, one beginning on the tail of a white mouse, and one on the head, and each pulling his own way, and the mouse very much alive all the time, with the middle of him madly writhing." [ ] there was a situation in the _frozen deep_ where richard wardour, played by dickens, had thus to carry about frank aldersley in the person of wilkie collins. [ ] the mention of a performance of lord lytton's _money_ at the theatre will supply the farce to this tragedy. "i have rarely seen anything finer than lord glossmore, a chorus-singer in bluchers, drab trowsers, and a brown sack; and dudley smooth, in somebody else's wig, hindside before. stout also, in anything he could lay hold of. the waiter at the club had an immense moustache, white trowsers, and a striped jacket; and he brought everybody who came in, a vinegar-cruet. the man who read the will began thus: 'i so-and-so, being of unsound mind but firm in body . . . ' in spite of all this, however, the real character, humour, wit, and good writing of the comedy, made themselves apparent; and the applause was loud and repeated, and really seemed genuine. its capital things were not lost altogether. it was succeeded by a jockey dance by five ladies, who put their whips in their mouths and worked imaginary winners up to the float--an immense success." chapter vii. what happened at this time. - . disappointments and distastes--compensations of art--misgivings--restlessness and impatience--reply to a remonstrance--visions of places to write books in--fruitless aspirations--what lay behind--sorrowful convictions--no desire for immunity from blame--counteracting influences weakened--old project revived--disadvantages of public reading--speech for children's hospital--unsolved mysteries--hospital described--appeal for sick children--reasons for and against paid readings--a proposal from mr. beale--question of the plunge--mr. arthur smith--change in home--unwise printed statement--a "violated letter." an unsettled feeling greatly in excess of what was usual with dickens, more or less observable since his first residence at boulogne, became at this time almost habitual, and the satisfactions which home should have supplied, and which indeed were essential requirements of his nature, he had failed to find in his home. he had not the alternative that under this disappointment some can discover in what is called society. it did not suit him, and he set no store by it. no man was better fitted to adorn any circle he entered, but beyond that of friends and equals he rarely passed. he would take as much pains to keep out of the houses of the great as others take to get into them. not always wisely, it may be admitted. mere contempt for toadyism and flunkeyism was not at all times the prevailing motive with him which he supposed it to be. beneath his horror of those vices of englishmen in his own rank of life, there was a still stronger resentment at the social inequalities that engender them, of which he was not so conscious and to which he owned less freely. not the less it served secretly to justify what he might otherwise have had no mind to. to say he was not a gentleman would be as true as to say he was not a writer; but if any one should assert his occasional preference for what was even beneath his level over that which was above it, this would be difficult of disproof. it was among those defects of temperament for which his early trials and his early successes were accountable in perhaps equal measure. he was sensitive in a passionate degree to praise and blame, which yet he made it for the most part a point of pride to assume indifference to; the inequalities of rank which he secretly resented took more galling as well as glaring prominence from the contrast of the necessities he had gone through with the fame that had come to him; and when the forces he most affected to despise assumed the form of barriers he could not easily overleap, he was led to appear frequently intolerant (for he very seldom was really so) in opinions and language. his early sufferings brought with them the healing powers of energy, will, and persistence, and taught him the inexpressible value of a determined resolve to live down difficulties; but the habit, in small as in great things, of renunciation and self-sacrifice, they did not teach; and, by his sudden leap into a world-wide popularity and influence, he became master of everything that might seem to be attainable in life, before he had mastered what a man must undergo to be equal to its hardest trials. nothing of all this has yet presented itself to notice, except in occasional forms of restlessness and desire of change of place, which were themselves, when his books were in progress, so incident as well to the active requirements of his fancy as to call, thus far, for no other explanation. up to the date of the completion of _copperfield_ he had felt himself to be in possession of an all-sufficient resource. against whatever might befall he had a set-off in his imaginative creations, a compensation derived from his art that never failed him, because there he was supreme. it was the world he could bend to his will, and make subserve to all his desires. he had otherwise, underneath his exterior of a singular precision, method, and strictly orderly arrangement in all things, and notwithstanding a temperament to which home and home interests were really a necessity, something in common with those eager, impetuous, somewhat overbearing natures, that rush at existence without heeding the cost of it, and are not more ready to accept and make the most of its enjoyments than to be easily and quickly overthrown by its burdens.[ ] but the world he had called into being had thus far borne him safely through these perils. he had his own creations always by his side. they were living, speaking companions. with them only he was everywhere thoroughly identified. he laughed and wept with them; was as much elated by their fun as cast down by their grief; and brought to the consideration of them a belief in their reality as well as in the influences they were meant to exercise, which in every circumstance sustained him. it was during the composition of _little dorrit_ that i think he first felt a certain strain upon his invention which brought with it other misgivings. in a modified form this was present during the latter portions of _bleak house_, of which not a few of the defects might be traced to the acting excitements amid which it was written; but the succeeding book made it plainer to him; and it is remarkable that in the interval between them he resorted for the first and only time in his life to a practice, which he abandoned at the close of his next and last story published in the twenty-number form, of putting down written "memoranda" of suggestions for characters or incidents by way of resource to him in his writing. never before had his teeming fancy seemed to want such help; the need being less to contribute to its fullness than to check its overflowing; but it is another proof that he had been secretly bringing before himself, at least, the possibility that what had ever been his great support might some day desert him. it was strange that he should have had such doubt, and he would hardly have confessed it openly; but apart from that wonderful world of his books, the range of his thoughts was not always proportioned to the width and largeness of his nature. his ordinary circle of activity, whether in likings or thinkings, was full of such surprising animation, that one was apt to believe it more comprehensive than it really was; and again and again, when a wide horizon might seem to be ahead of him, he would pull up suddenly and stop short, as though nothing lay beyond. for the time, though each had its term and change, he was very much a man of one idea, each having its turn of absolute predominance; and this was one of the secrets of the thoroughness with which everything he took in hand was done. as to the matter of his writings, the actual truth was that his creative genius never really failed him. not a few of his inventions of character and humour, up to the very close of his life, his marigolds, lirripers, gargerys, pips, sapseas and many others, were as fresh and fine as in his greatest day. he had however lost the free and fertile method of the earlier time. he could no longer fill a wide-spread canvas with the same facility and certainty as of old; and he had frequently a quite unfounded apprehension of some possible break-down, of which the end might be at any moment beginning. there came accordingly, from time to time, intervals of unusual impatience and restlessness, strange to me in connection with his home; his old pursuits were too often laid aside for other excitements and occupations; he joined a public political agitation, set on foot by administrative reformers; he got up various quasi-public private theatricals, in which he took the leading place; and though it was but part of his always generous devotion in any friendly duty to organize the series of performances on his friend jerrold's death, yet the eagerness with which he flung himself into them, so arranging them as to assume an amount of labour in acting and travelling that might have appalled an experienced comedian, and carrying them on week after week unceasingly in london and the provinces, expressed but the craving which still had possession of him to get by some means at some change that should make existence easier. what was highest in his nature had ceased for the time to be highest in his life, and he had put himself at the mercy of lower accidents and conditions. the mere effect of the strolling wandering ways into which this acting led him could not be other than unfavourable. but remonstrance as yet was unavailing. to one very earnestly made in the early autumn of , in which opportunity was taken to compare his recent rush up carrick fell to his rush into other difficulties, here was the reply. "too late to say, put the curb on, and don't rush at hills--the wrong man to say it to. i have now no relief but in action. i am become incapable of rest. i am quite confident i should rust, break, and die, if i spared myself. much better to die, doing. what i am in that way, nature made me first, and my way of life has of late, alas! confirmed. i must accept the drawback--since it is one--with the powers i have; and i must hold upon the tenure prescribed to me." something of the same sad feeling, it is right to say, had been expressed from time to time, in connection also with home dissatisfactions and misgivings, through the three years preceding; but i attributed it to other causes, and gave little attention to it. during his absences abroad for the greater part of , ' , and ' , while the elder of his children were growing out of childhood, and his books were less easy to him than in his earlier manhood, evidences presented themselves in his letters of the old "unhappy loss or want of something" to which he had given a pervading prominence in _copperfield_. in the first of those years he made express allusion to the kind of experience which had been one of his descriptions in that favourite book, and, mentioning the drawbacks of his present life, had first identified it with his own: "the so happy and yet so unhappy existence which seeks its realities in unrealities, and finds its dangerous comfort in a perpetual escape from the disappointment of heart around it." later in the same year he thus wrote from boulogne: "i have had dreadful thoughts of getting away somewhere altogether by myself. if i could have managed it, i think possibly i might have gone to the pyreennees (you know what i mean that word for, so i won't re-write it) for six months! i have put the idea into the perspective of six months, but have not abandoned it. i have visions of living for half a year or so, in all sorts of inaccessible places, and opening a new book therein. a floating idea of going up above the snow-line in switzerland, and living in some astonishing convent, hovers about me. if _household words_ could be got into a good train, in short, i don't know in what strange place, or at what remote elevation above the level of the sea, i might fall to work next. _restlessness_, you will say. whatever it is, it is always driving me, and i cannot help it. i have rested nine or ten weeks, and sometimes feel as if it had been a year--though i had the strangest nervous miseries before i stopped. if i couldn't walk fast and far, i should just explode and perish." again, four months later he wrote: "you will hear of me in paris, probably next sunday, and i _may_ go on to bordeaux. have general ideas of emigrating in the summer to the mountain-ground between france and spain. am altogether in a dishevelled state of mind--motes of new books in the dirty air, miseries of older growth threatening to close upon me. why is it, that as with poor david, a sense comes always crushing on me now, when i fall into low spirits, as of one happiness i have missed in life, and one friend and companion i have never made?" early in ( th of january) the notion revisited him of writing a book in solitude. "again i am beset by my former notions of a book whereof the whole story shall be on the top of the great st. bernard. as i accept and reject ideas for _little dorrit_, it perpetually comes back to me. two or three years hence, perhaps you'll find me living with the monks and the dogs a whole winter--among the blinding snows that fall about that monastery. i have a serious idea that i shall do it, if i live." he was at this date in paris; and during the visit to him of macready in the following april, the self-revelations were resumed. the great actor was then living in retirement at sherborne, to which he had gone on quitting the stage; and dickens gave favourable report of his enjoyment of the change to his little holiday at paris. then, after recurring to his own old notion of having some slight idea of going to settle in australia, only he could not do it until he should have finished _little dorrit_, he went on to say that perhaps macready, if he could get into harness again, would not be the worse for some such troubles as were worrying himself. "it fills me with pity to think of him away in that lonely sherborne place. i have always felt of myself that i must, please god, die in harness, but i have never felt it more strongly than in looking at, and thinking of, him. however strange it is to be never at rest, and never satisfied, and ever trying after something that is never reached, and to be always laden with plot and plan and care and worry, how clear it is that it must be, and that one is driven by an irresistible might until the journey is worked out! it is much better to go on and fret, than to stop and fret. as to repose--for some men there's no such thing in this life. the foregoing has the appearance of a small sermon; but it is so often in my head in these days that it cannot help coming out. the old days--the old days! shall i ever, i wonder, get the frame of mind back as it used to be then? something of it perhaps--but never quite as it used to be. i find that the skeleton in my domestic closet is becoming a pretty big one." it would be unjust and uncandid not to admit that these and other similar passages in the letters that extended over the years while he lived abroad, had served in some degree as a preparation for what came after his return to england in the following year. it came with a great shock nevertheless; because it told plainly what before had never been avowed, but only hinted at more or less obscurely. the opening reference is to the reply which had been made to a previous expression of his wish for some confidences as in the old time. i give only what is strictly necessary to account for what followed, and even this with deep reluctance. "your letter of yesterday was so kind and hearty, and sounded so gently the many chords we have touched together, that i cannot leave it unanswered, though i have not much (to any purpose) to say. my reference to 'confidences' was merely to the relief of saying a word of what has long been pent up in my mind. poor catherine and i are not made for each other, and there is no help for it. it is not only that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but that i make her so too--and much more so. she is exactly what you know, in the way of being amiable and complying; but we are strangely ill-assorted for the bond there is between us. god knows she would have been a thousand times happier if she had married another kind of man, and that her avoidance of this destiny would have been at least equally good for us both. i am often cut to the heart by thinking what a pity it is, for her own sake, that i ever fell in her way; and if i were sick or disabled to-morrow, i know how sorry she would be, and how deeply grieved myself, to think how we had lost each other. but exactly the same incompatibility would arise, the moment i was well again; and nothing on earth could make her understand me, or suit us to each other. her temperament will not go with mine. it mattered not so much when we had only ourselves to consider, but reasons have been growing since which make it all but hopeless that we should even try to struggle on. what is now befalling me i have seen steadily coming, ever since the days you remember when mary was born; and i know too well that you cannot, and no one can, help me. why i have even written i hardly know; but it is a miserable sort of comfort that you should be clearly aware how matters stand. the mere mention of the fact, without any complaint or blame of any sort, is a relief to my present state of spirits--and i can get this only from you, because i can speak of it to no one else." in the same tone was his rejoinder to my reply. "to the most part of what you say--amen! you are not so tolerant as perhaps you might be of the wayward and unsettled feeling which is part (i suppose) of the tenure on which one holds an imaginative life, and which i have, as you ought to know well, often only kept down by riding over it like a dragoon--but let that go by. i make no maudlin complaint. i agree with you as to the very possible incidents, even not less bearable than mine, that might and must often occur to the married condition when it is entered into very young. i am always deeply sensible of the wonderful exercise i have of life and its highest sensations, and have said to myself for years, and have honestly and truly felt, this is the drawback to such a career, and is not to be complained of. i say it and feel it now as strongly as ever i did; and, as i told you in my last, i do not with that view put all this forward. but the years have not made it easier to bear for either of us; and, for her sake as well as mine, the wish will force itself upon me that something might be done. i know too well it is impossible. there is the fact, and that is all one can say. nor are you to suppose that i disguise from myself what might be urged on the other side. i claim no immunity from blame. there is plenty of fault on my side, i dare say, in the way of a thousand uncertainties, caprices, and difficulties of disposition; but only one thing will alter all that, and that is, the end which alters everything." it will not seem to most people that there was anything here which in happier circumstances might not have been susceptible of considerate adjustment; but all the circumstances were unfavourable, and the moderate middle course which the admissions in that letter might wisely have prompted and wholly justified, was unfortunately not taken. compare what before was said of his temperament, with what is there said by himself of its defects, and the explanation will not be difficult. every counteracting influence against the one idea which now predominated over him had been so weakened as to be almost powerless. his elder children were no longer children; his books had lost for the time the importance they formerly had over every other consideration in his life; and he had not in himself the resource that such a man, judging him from the surface, might be expected to have had. not his genius only, but his whole nature, was too exclusively made up of sympathy for, and with, the real in its most intense form, to be sufficiently provided against failure in the realities around him. there was for him no "city of the mind" against outward ills, for inner consolation and shelter. it was in and from the actual he still stretched forward to find the freedom and satisfactions of an ideal, and by his very attempts to escape the world he was driven back into the thick of it. but what he would have sought there, it supplies to none; and to get the infinite out of anything so finite, has broken many a stout heart. at the close of that last letter from gadshill ( th of september) was this question--"what do you think of my paying for this place, by reviving that old idea of some readings from my books. i am very strongly tempted. think of it." the reasons against it had great force, and took, in my judgment, greater from the time at which it was again proposed. the old ground of opposition remained. it was a substitution of lower for higher aims; a change to commonplace from more elevated pursuits; and it had so much of the character of a public exhibition for money as to raise, in the question of respect for his calling as a writer, a question also of respect for himself as a gentleman. this opinion, now strongly reiterated, was referred ultimately to two distinguished ladies of his acquaintance, who decided against it.[ ] yet not without such momentary misgiving in the direction of "the stage," as pointed strongly to the danger, which, by those who took the opposite view, was most of all thought incident to the particular time of the proposal. it might be a wild exaggeration to fear that he was in danger of being led to adopt the stage as a calling, but he was certainly about to place himself within reach of not a few of its drawbacks and disadvantages. to the full extent he perhaps did not himself know, how much his eager present wish to become a public reader was but the outcome of the restless domestic discontents of the last four years; and that to indulge it, and the unsettled habits inseparable from it, was to abandon every hope of resettling his disordered home. there is nothing, in its application to so divine a genius as shakespeare, more affecting than his expressed dislike to a profession, which, in the jealous self-watchfulness of his noble nature, he feared might hurt his mind.[ ] the long subsequent line of actors admirable in private as in public life, and all the gentle and generous associations of the histrionic art, have not weakened the testimony of its greatest name against its less favourable influences; against the laxity of habits it may encourage; and its public manners, bred of public means, not always compatible with home felicities and duties. but, freely open as dickens was to counsel in regard of his books, he was, for reasons formerly stated,[ ] less accessible to it on points of personal conduct; and when he had neither self-distrust nor self-denial to hold him back, he would push persistently forward to whatever object he had in view. an occurrence of the time hastened the decision in this case. an enterprise had been set on foot for establishment of a hospital for sick children;[ ] a large old-fashioned mansion in great ormond-street, with spacious garden, had been fitted up with more than thirty beds; during the four or five years of its existence, outdoor and indoor relief had been afforded by it to nearly fifty thousand children, of whom thirty thousand were under five years of age; but, want of funds having threatened to arrest the merciful work, it was resolved to try a public dinner by way of charitable appeal, and for president the happy choice was made of one who had enchanted everybody with the joys and sorrows of little children. dickens threw himself into the service heart and soul. there was a simple pathos in his address from the chair quite startling in its effect at such a meeting; and he probably never moved any audience so much as by the strong personal feeling with which he referred to the sacrifices made for the hospital by the very poor themselves: from whom a subscription of fifty pounds, contributed in single pennies, had come to the treasurer during almost every year it had been open. the whole speech, indeed, is the best of the kind spoken by him; and two little pictures from it, one of the misery he had witnessed, the other of the remedy he had found, should not be absent from the picture of his own life. "some years ago, being in scotland, i went with one of the most humane members of the most humane of professions, on a morning tour among some of the worst lodged inhabitants of the old town of edinburgh. in the closes and wynds of that picturesque place (i am sorry to remind you what fast friends picturesqueness and typhus often are), we saw more poverty and sickness in an hour than many people would believe in, in a life. our way lay from one to another of the most wretched dwellings, reeking with horrible odours; shut out from the sky and from the air, mere pits and dens. in a room in one of these places, where there was an empty porridge-pot on the cold hearth, a ragged woman and some ragged children crouching on the bare ground near it,--and, i remember as i speak, where the very light, refracted from a high damp-stained wall outside, came in trembling, as if the fever which had shaken everything else had shaken even it,--there lay, in an old egg-box which the mother had begged from a shop, a little, feeble, wan, sick child. with his little wasted face, and his little hot worn hands folded over his breast, and his little bright attentive eyes, i can see him now, as i have seen him for several years, looking steadily at us. there he lay in his small frail box, which was not at all a bad emblem of the small body from which he was slowly parting--there he lay, quite quiet, quite patient, saying never a word. he seldom cried, the mother said; he seldom complained; 'he lay there, seemin' to woonder what it was a' aboot.' god knows, i thought, as i stood looking at him, he had his reasons for wondering. . . . many a poor child, sick and neglected, i have seen since that time in london; many have i also seen most affectionately tended, in unwholesome houses and hard circumstances where recovery was impossible: but at all such times i have seen my little drooping friend in his egg-box, and he has always addressed his dumb wonder to me what it meant, and why, in the name of a gracious god, such things should be! . . . but, ladies and gentlemen," dickens added, "such things need not be, and will not be, if this company, which is a drop of the life-blood of the great compassionate public heart, will only accept the means of rescue and prevention which it is mine to offer. within a quarter of a mile of this place where i speak, stands a once courtly old house, where blooming children were born, and grew up to be men and women, and married, and brought their own blooming children back to patter up the old oak staircase which stood but the other day, and to wonder at the old oak carvings on the chimney-pieces. in the airy wards into which the old state drawing-rooms and family bedchambers of that house are now converted, are lodged such small patients that the attendant nurses look like reclaimed giantesses, and the kind medical practitioner like an amiable christian ogre. grouped about the little low tables in the centre of the rooms, are such tiny convalescents that they seem to be playing at having been ill. on the doll's beds are such diminutive creatures that each poor sufferer is supplied with its tray of toys: and, looking round, you may see how the little tired flushed cheek has toppled over half the brute creation on its way into the ark; or how one little dimpled arm has mowed down (as i saw myself) the whole tin soldiery of europe. on the walls of these rooms are graceful, pleasant, bright, childish pictures. at the beds' heads, hang representations of the figure which is the universal embodiment of all mercy and compassion, the figure of him who was once a child himself, and a poor one. but alas! reckoning up the number of beds that are there, the visitor to this child's hospital will find himself perforce obliged to stop at very little over thirty; and will learn, with sorrow and surprise, that even that small number, so forlornly, so miserably diminutive compared with this vast london, cannot possibly be maintained unless the hospital be made better known. i limit myself to saying better known, because i will not believe that in a christian community of fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, it can fail, being better known, to be well and richly-endowed." it was a brave and true prediction. the child's hospital has never since known want. that night alone added greatly more than three thousand pounds to its funds, and dickens put the crown to his good work by reading on its behalf, shortly afterwards, his _christmas carol_; when the sum realized, and the urgent demand that followed for a repetition of the pleasure given by the reading, bore down farther opposition to the project of his engaging publicly in such readings for himself. the child's hospital night was the th of february, its reading was appointed for the th of april, and, nearly a month before, renewed efforts at remonstrance had been made. "your view of the reading matter," dickens replied, "i still think is unconsciously taken from your own particular point. you don't seem to me to get out of yourself in considering it. a word more upon it. you are not to think i have made up my mind. if i had, why should i not say so? i find very great difficulty in doing so because of what you urge, because i know the question to be a balance of doubts, and because i most honestly feel in my innermost heart, in this matter (as in all others for years and years), the honour of the calling by which i have always stood most conscientiously. but do you quite consider that the public exhibition of oneself takes place equally, whosoever may get the money? and have you any idea that at this moment--this very time--half the public at least supposes me to be paid? my dear f, out of the twenty or five-and-twenty letters a week that i get about readings, twenty will ask at what price, or on what terms, it can be done. the only exceptions, in truth, are when the correspondent is a clergyman, or a banker, or the member for the place in question. why, at this very time half scotland believes that i am paid for going to edinburgh!--here is greenock writes to me, and asks could it be done for a hundred pounds? there is aberdeen writes, and states the capacity of its hall, and says, though far less profitable than the very large hall in edinburgh, is it not enough to come on for? w. answers such letters continually. (--at this place, enter beale. he called here yesterday morning, and then wrote to ask if i would see him to-day. i replied 'yes,' so here he came in. with long preface called to know whether it was possible to arrange anything in the way of readings for this autumn--say, six months. large capital at command. could produce partners, in such an enterprise, also with large capital. represented such. returns would be enormous. would i name a sum? a minimum sum that i required to have, in any case? would i look at it as a fortune, and in no other point of view? i shook my head, and said, my tongue was tied on the subject for the present; i might be more communicative at another time. exit beale in confusion and disappointment.)--you will be happy to hear that at one on friday, the lord provost, dean of guild, magistrates, and council of the ancient city of edinburgh will wait (in procession) on their brother freeman, at the music hall, to give him hospitable welcome. their brother freeman has been cursing their stars and his own, ever since the receipt of solemn notification to this effect." but very grateful, when it came, was the enthusiasm of the greeting, and welcome the gift of the silver wassail-bowl which followed the reading of the _carol_. "i had no opportunity of asking any one's advice in edinburgh," he wrote on his return. "the crowd was too enormous, and the excitement in it much too great. but my determination is all but taken. i must do _something_, or i shall wear my heart away. i can see no better thing to do that is half so hopeful in itself, or half so well suited to my restless state." what is pointed at in those last words had been taken as a ground of objection, and thus he turned it into an argument the other way. during all these months many sorrowful misunderstandings had continued in his home, and the relief sought from the misery had but the effect of making desperate any hope of a better understanding. "it becomes necessary," he wrote at the end of march, "with a view to the arrangements that would have to be begun next month if i decided on the readings, to consider and settle the question of the plunge. quite dismiss from your mind any reference whatever to present circumstances at home. nothing can put _them_ right, until we are all dead and buried and risen. it is not, with me, a matter of will, or trial, or sufferance, or good humour, or making the best of it, or making the worst of it, any longer. it is all despairingly over. have no lingering hope of, or for, me in this association. a dismal failure has to be borne, and there an end. will you then try to think of this reading project (as i do) apart from all personal likings and dislikings, and solely with a view to its effect on that peculiar relation (personally affectionate, and like no other man's) which subsists between me and the public? i want your most careful consideration. if you would like, when you have gone over it in your mind, to discuss the matter with me and arthur smith (who would manage the whole of the business, which i should never touch); we will make an appointment. but i ought to add that arthur smith plainly says, 'of the immense return in money, i have no doubt. of the dash into the new position, however, i am not so good a judge.' i enclose you a rough note[ ] of my project, as it stands in my mind." mr. arthur smith, a man possessed of many qualities that justified the confidence dickens placed in him, might not have been a good judge of the "dash" into the new position, but no man knew better every disadvantage incident to it, or was less likely to be disconcerted by any. his exact fitness to manage the scheme successfully, made him an unsafe counsellor respecting it. within a week from this time the reading for the charity was to be given. "they have let," dickens wrote on the th of april, "five hundred stalls for the hospital night; and as people come every day for more, and it is out of the question to make more, they cannot be restrained at st. martin's hall from taking down names for other readings." this closed the attempt at further objection. exactly a fortnight after the reading for the children's hospital, on thursday the th april, came the first public reading for his own benefit; and before the next month was over, this launch into a new life had been followed by a change in his old home. thenceforward he and his wife lived apart. the eldest son went with his mother, dickens at once giving effect to her expressed wish in this respect; and the other children remained with himself, their intercourse with mrs. dickens being left entirely to themselves. it was thus far an arrangement of a strictly private nature, and no decent person could have had excuse for regarding it in any other light, if public attention had not been unexpectedly invited to it by a printed statement in _household words_. dickens was stung into this by some miserable gossip at which in ordinary circumstances no man would more determinedly have been silent; but he had now publicly to show himself, at stated times, as a public entertainer, and this, with his name even so aspersed, he found to be impossible. all he would concede to my strenuous resistance against such a publication, was an offer to suppress it, if, upon reference to the opinion of a certain distinguished man (still living), that opinion should prove to be in agreement with mine. unhappily it fell in with his own, and the publication went on. it was followed by another statement, a letter subscribed with his name, which got into print without his sanction; nothing publicly being known of it (i was not among those who had read it privately) until it appeared in the _new york tribune_. it had been addressed and given to mr. arthur smith as an authority for correction of false rumours and scandals, and mr. smith had given a copy of it, with like intention, to the _tribune_ correspondent in london. its writer referred to it always afterwards as his "violated letter." the course taken by the author of this book at the time of these occurrences, will not be departed from here. such illustration of grave defects in dickens's character as the passage in his life affords, i have not shrunk from placing side by side with such excuses in regard to it as he had unquestionable right to claim should be put forward also. how far what remained of his story took tone or colour from it, and especially from the altered career on which at the same time he entered, will thus be sufficiently explained; and with anything else the public have nothing to do. footnotes: [ ] anything more completely opposed to the micawber type could hardly be conceived, and yet there were moments (really and truly only moments) when the fancy would arise that if the conditions of his life had been reversed, something of a vagabond existence (using the word in goldsmith's meaning) might have supervened. it would have been an unspeakable misery to him, but it might have come nevertheless. the question of hereditary transmission had a curious attraction for him, and considerations connected with it were frequently present to his mind. of a youth who had fallen into a father's weaknesses without the possibility of having himself observed them for imitation, he thus wrote on one occasion: "it suggests the strangest consideration as to which of our own failings we are really responsible, and as to which of them we cannot quite reasonably hold ourselves to be so. what a. evidently derived from his father cannot in his case be derived from association and observation, but must be in the very principles of his individuality as a living creature." [ ] "you may as well know" ( th of march ) "that i went on" (i designate the ladies by a and b respectively) "and propounded the matter to a, without any preparation. result.--'i am surprised, and i should have been surprised if i had seen it in the newspaper without previous confidence from you. but nothing more. n--no. certainly not. nothing more. i don't see that there is anything derogatory in it, even now when you ask me that question. i think upon the whole that most people would be glad you should have the money, rather than other people. it might be misunderstood here and there, at first; but i think the thing would very soon express itself, and that your own power of making it express itself would be very great.' as she wished me to ask b, who was in another room, i did so. she was for a moment tremendously disconcerted, '_under the impression that it was to lead to the stage_' (!!). then, without knowing anything of a's opinion, closely followed it. that absurd association had never entered my head or yours; but it might enter some other heads for all that. take these two opinions for whatever they are worth. a (being very much interested and very anxious to help to a right conclusion) proposed to ask a few people of various degrees who know what the readings are, what _they_ think--not compromising me, but suggesting the project afar-off, as an idea in somebody else's mind. i thanked her, and said 'yes,' of course." [ oh! for my sake do you with fortune chide the guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, that did not better for my life provide than public means which public manners breeds. thence comes it that my name receives a brand; and almost thence my nature is subdu'd to what it works in, like the dyer's hand. . . pity me, then, and wish i were renew'd. . . sonnet cxi. and in the preceding sonnet cx. alas, 'tis true i have gone here and there, and made myself a motley to the view, gor'd mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear. . . [ ] vol. i. pp. - . i repeat from that passage one or two sentences, though it is hardly fair to give them without the modifications that accompany them. "a too great confidence in himself, a sense that everything was possible to the will that would make it so, laid occasionally upon him self-imposed burdens greater than might be borne by any one with safety. in that direction there was in him, at such times, something even hard and aggressive; in his determinations a something that had almost the tone of fierceness; something in his nature that made his resolves insuperable, however hasty the opinions on which they had been formed." [ ] the board of health returns, showing that out of every annual thousand of deaths in london, the immense proportion of four hundred were those of children under four years old, had established the necessity for such a scheme. of course the stress of this mortality fell on the children of the poor, "dragged up rather than brought up," as charles lamb expressed it, and perishing unhelped by the way. [ ] here is the rough note: in which the reader will be interested to observe the limits originally placed to the proposal. the first readings were to comprise only the _carol_, and for others a new story was to be written. he had not yet the full confidence in his power or versatility as an actor which subsequent experience gave him. "i propose to announce in a short and plain advertisement (what is quite true) that i cannot so much as answer the numerous applications that are made to me to read, and that compliance with ever so few of them is, in any reason, impossible. that i have therefore resolved upon a course of readings of the _christmas carol_ both in town and country, and that those in london will take place at st. martin's hall on certain evenings. those evenings will be either four or six thursdays, in may and the beginning of june. . . . i propose an autumn tour, for the country, extending through august, september, and october. it would comprise the eastern counties, the west, lancashire, yorkshire, and scotland. i should read from to times in this tour, at the least. at each place where there was a great success, i would myself announce that i should come back, on the turn of christmas, to read a new christmas story written for that purpose. this story i should first read a certain number of times in london. i have the strongest belief that by april in next year, a very large sum of money indeed would be gained by these means. ireland would be still untouched, and i conceive america alone (if i could resolve to go there) to be worth ten thousand pounds. in all these proceedings, the business would be wholly detached from me, and i should never appear in it. i would have an office, belonging to the readings and to nothing else, opened in london; i would have the advertisements emanating from it, and also signed by some one belonging to it; and they should always mention me as a third person--just as the child's hospital, for instance, in addressing the public, mentions me." chapter viii. gadshill place. - . first description of gadshill place--negociations for purchase--becomes his home in --gadshill a century ago--antecedents of dickens's house--exterior and porch--gradual additions--later changes--swiss châlet presented by mr. fechter--dickens's writing-table--making gadshill his home--planting trees--new conservatory--course of daily life--dickens's dogs--a dog with a taste--favourite walks--cooling churchyard. "i was better pleased with gadshill place last saturday," he wrote to me from paris on the th of february , "on going down there, even than i had prepared myself to be. the country, against every disadvantage of season, is beautiful; and the house is so old fashioned, cheerful, and comfortable, that it is really pleasant to look at. the good old rector now there, has lived in it six and twenty years, so i have not the heart to turn him out. he is to remain till lady-day next year, when i shall go in, please god; make my alterations; furnish the house; and keep it for myself that summer." returning to england through the kentish country with mr. wilkie collins in july, other advantages occurred to him. "a railroad opened from rochester to maidstone, which connects gadshill at once with the whole sea coast, is certainly an addition to the place, and an enhancement of its value. bye and bye we shall have the london, chatham and dover, too; and that will bring it within an hour of canterbury and an hour and a half of dover. i am glad to hear of your having been in the neighbourhood. there is no healthier (marshes avoided), and none in my eyes more beautiful. one of these days i shall show you some places up the medway with which you will be charmed." [illustration: the porch at gadshill.] the association with his youthful fancy that first made the place attractive to him has been told; and it was with wonder he had heard one day, from his friend and fellow worker at _household words_, mr. w. h. wills, that not only was the house for sale to which he had so often looked wistfully, but that the lady chiefly interested as its owner had been long known and much esteemed by himself. such curious chances led dickens to his saying about the smallness of the world; but the close relation often found thus existing between things and persons far apart, suggests not so much the smallness of the world as the possible importance of the least things done in it, and is better explained by the grander teaching of carlyle, that causes and effects, connecting every man and thing with every other, extend through all space and time. it was at the close of the negociation for its purchase began. "they wouldn't," he wrote ( th of november), "take £ for the gadshill property, but 'finally' wanted £ . i have finally offered £ . it will require an expenditure of about £ more before yielding £ a year." the usual discovery of course awaited him that this first estimate would have to be increased threefold. "the changes absolutely necessary" ( th of february ) "will take a thousand pounds; which sum i am always resolving to squeeze out of this, grind out of that, and wring out of the other; this, that, and the other generally all three declining to come up to the scratch for the purpose." "this day,"[ ] he wrote on the th of march, "i have paid the purchase money for gadshill place. after drawing the cheque (£ ) i turned round to give it to wills, and said, 'now isn't it an extraordinary thing--look at the day--friday! i have been nearly drawing it half a dozen times when the lawyers have not been ready, and here it comes round upon a friday as a matter of course.'" he had no thought at this time of reserving the place wholly for himself, or of making it his own residence except at intervals of summer. he looked upon it as an investment only. "you will hardly know gadshill again," he wrote in january , "i am improving it so much--yet i have no interest in the place." but continued ownership brought increased liking; he took more and more interest in his own improvements, which were just the kind of occasional occupation and resource his life most wanted in its next seven or eight years; and any farther idea of letting it he soon abandoned altogether. it only once passed out of his possession thus, for four months in ; in the following year, on the sale of tavistock house, he transferred to it his books and pictures and choicer furniture; and thenceforward, varied only by houses taken from time to time for the london season, he made it his permanent family abode. now and then, even during those years, he would talk of selling it; and on his last return from america, when he had sent the last of his sons out into the world, he really might have sold it if he could then have found a house in london suitable to him, and such as he could purchase. but in this he failed; secretly to his own satisfaction, as i believe; and thereupon, in that last autumn of his life, he projected and carried out his most costly addition to gadshill. already of course more money had been spent upon it than his first intention in buying it would have justified. he had so enlarged the accommodation, improved the grounds and offices, and added to the land, that, taking also into account this final outlay, the reserved price placed upon the whole after his death more than quadrupled what he had given in for the house, shrubbery, and twenty years' lease of a meadow field. it was then purchased, and is now inhabited, by his eldest son. its position has been described, and one of the last-century-histories of rochester quaintly mentions the principal interest of the locality. "near the twenty-seventh stone from london is gadshill, supposed to have been the scene of the robbery mentioned by shakespeare in his play of henry iv; there being reason to think also that it was sir john falstaff, of truly comic memory, who under the name of oldcastle inhabited cooling castle of which the ruins are in the neighbourhood. a small distance to the left appears on an eminence the hermitage the seat of the late sir francis head, bart;[ ] and close to the road, on a small ascent, is a neat building lately erected by mr. day. in descending strood-hill is a fine prospect of strood, rochester, and chatham, which three towns form a continued street extending above two miles in length." it had been supposed[ ] that "the neat building lately erected by mr. day" was that which the great novelist made famous; but gadshill place had no existence until eight years after the date of the history. the good rector who so long lived in it told me, in , that it had been built eighty years before by a then well-known character in those parts, one stevens, father-in-law of henslow the cambridge professor of botany. stevens, who could only with much difficulty manage to write his name, had begun life as ostler at an inn; had become husband to the landlord's widow; then a brewer; and finally, as he subscribed himself on one occasion, "mare" of rochester. afterwards the house was inhabited by mr. lynn (from some of the members of whose family dickens made his purchase); and, before the rev. mr. hindle became its tenant, it was inhabited by a macaroni parson named townshend, whose horses the prince regent bought, throwing into the bargain a box of much desired cigars. altogether the place had notable associations even apart from those which have connected it with the masterpieces of english humour. "this house, gadshill place, stands on the summit of shakespeare's gadshill, ever memorable for its association with sir john falstaff in his noble fancy. _but, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four o'clock, early at gadshill! there are pilgrims going to canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to london with fat purses: i have vizards for you all; you have horses for yourselves._" illuminated by mr. owen jones, and placed in a frame on the first-floor landing, these words were the greeting of the new tenant to his visitors. it was his first act of ownership. all his improvements, it should perhaps be remarked, were not exclusively matters of choice; and to illustrate by his letters what befell at the beginning of his changes, will show what attended them to the close. his earliest difficulty was very grave. there was only one spring of water for gentlefolk and villagers, and from some of the houses or cottages it was two miles away. "we are still" ( th of july) "boring for water here, at the rate of two pounds per day for wages. the men seem to like it very much, and to be perfectly comfortable." another of his earliest experiences ( th of september) was thus expressed: "hop-picking is going on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the keyhole of the house door. i have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable lean wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go hop-picking. i find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption. so the poor creatures drag themselves along the roads, and sleep under wet hedges, and get cured soon and finally." towards the close of the same month ( th of september) he wrote: "here are six men perpetually going up and down the well (i know that somebody will be killed), in the course of fitting a pump; which is quite a railway terminus--it is so iron, and so big. the process is much more like putting oxford-street endwise, and laying gas along it, than anything else. by the time it is finished, the cost of this water will be something absolutely frightful. but of course it proportionately increases the value of the property, and that's my only comfort. . . . the horse has gone lame from a sprain, the big dog has run a tenpenny nail into one of his hind feet, the bolts have all flown out of the basket-carriage, and the gardener says all the fruit trees want replacing with new ones." another note came in three days. "i have discovered that the seven miles between maidstone and rochester is one of the most beautiful walks in england. five men have been looking attentively at the pump for a week, and (i should hope) may begin to fit it in the course of october." . . . with even such varying fortune he effected other changes.[ ] the exterior remained to the last much as it was when he used as a boy to see it first; a plain, old-fashioned, two-story, brick-built country house, with a bell-turret on the roof, and over the front door a quaint neat wooden porch with pillars and seats. but, among his additions and alterations, was a new drawing-room built out from the smaller existing one, both being thrown together ultimately; two good bedrooms built on a third floor at the back; and such rearrangement of the ground floor as, besides its handsome drawing-room, and its dining-room which he hung with pictures, transformed its bedroom into a study which he lined with books and sometimes wrote in, and changed its breakfast-parlour into a retreat fitted up for smokers into which he put a small billiard-table. these several rooms opened from a hall having in it a series of hogarth prints, until, after the artist's death, stanfield's noble scenes were placed there, when the hogarths were moved to his bedroom; and in this hall, during his last absence in america, a parquet floor was laid down. nor did he omit such changes as might increase the comfort of his servants. he built entirely new offices and stables, and replaced a very old coach-house by a capital servants' hall, transforming the loft above into a commodious school-room or study for his boys. he made at the same time an excellent croquet-ground out of a waste piece of orchard. belonging to the house, but unfortunately placed on the other side of the high road, was a shrubbery, well wooded though in desolate condition, in which stood two magnificent cedars; and having obtained, in , the consent of the local authorities for the necessary underground work, dickens constructed a passage beneath the road[ ] from his front lawn; and in the shrubbery thus rendered accessible, and which he then laid out very prettily, he placed afterwards a swiss châlet[ ] presented to him by mr. fechter, which arrived from paris in ninety-four pieces fitting like the joints of a puzzle, but which proved to be somewhat costly in setting on its legs by means of a foundation of brickwork. once up, however, it was a great resource in the summer months, and much of dickens's work was done there. "i have put five mirrors in the châlet where i write,"[ ] he told an american friend, "and they reflect and refract, in all kinds of ways, the leaves that are quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river. my room is up among the branches of the trees; and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. the scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious." he used to make great boast, too, not only of his crowds of singing birds all day, but of his nightingales at night. [illustration: the chÂlet.] one or two more extracts from letters having reference to these changes may show something of the interest to him with which gadshill thus grew under his hands. a sun-dial on his back-lawn had a bit of historic interest about it. "one of the balustrades of the destroyed old rochester bridge," he wrote to his daughter in june , "has been (very nicely) presented to me by the contractors for the works, and has been duly stone-masoned and set up on the lawn behind the house. i have ordered a sun-dial for the top of it, and it will be a very good object indeed." "when you come down here next month," he wrote to me, "we have an idea that we shall show you rather a neat house. what terrific adventures have been in action; how many overladen vans were knocked up at gravesend, and had to be dragged out of chalk-turnpike in the dead of the night by the whole equine power of this establishment; shall be revealed at another time." that was in the autumn of , when, on the sale of his london house, its contents were transferred to his country home. "i shall have an alteration or two to show you at gadshill that greatly improve the little property; and when i get the workmen out this time, i think i'll leave off." october had now come, when the new bedrooms were built; but in the same month of he announced his transformation of the old coach-house. "i shall have a small new improvement to show you at gads, which i think you will accept as the crowning ingenuity of the inimitable." but of course it was not over yet. "my small work and planting," he wrote in the spring of , "really, truly, and positively the last, are nearly at an end in these regions, and the result will await summer inspection." no, nor even yet. he afterwards obtained, by exchange of some land with the trustees of watts's charity, the much coveted meadow at the back of the house of which heretofore he had the lease only; and he was then able to plant a number of young limes and chestnuts and other quick-growing trees. he had already planted a row of limes in front. he had no idea, he would say, of planting only for the benefit of posterity, but would put into the ground what he might himself enjoy the sight and shade of. he put them in two or three clumps in the meadow, and in a belt all round. still there were "more last words," for the limit was only to be set by his last year of life. on abandoning his notion, after the american readings, of exchanging gadshill for london, a new staircase was put up from the hall; a parquet floor laid on the first landing; and a conservatory built, opening into both drawing-room and dining-room, "glass and iron," as he described it, "brilliant but expensive, with foundations as of an ancient roman work of horrible solidity." this last addition had long been an object of desire with him; though he would hardly even now have given himself the indulgence but for the golden shower from america. he saw it first in a completed state on the sunday before his death, when his younger daughter was on a visit to him. "well, katey," he said to her, "now you see positively the last improvement at gadshill;" and every one laughed at the joke against himself. the success of the new conservatory was unquestionable. it was the remark of all around him that he was certainly, from this last of his improvements, drawing more enjoyment than from any of its predecessors, when the scene for ever closed. [illustration: house and conservatory: from the meadow.] of the course of his daily life in the country there is not much to be said. perhaps there was never a man who changed places so much and habits so little. he was always methodical and regular; and passed his life from day to day, divided for the most part between working and walking, the same wherever he was. the only exception was when special or infrequent visitors were with him. when such friends as longfellow and his daughters, or charles eliot norton and his wife, came, or when mr. fields brought his wife and professor lowell's daughter, or when he received other americans to whom he owed special courtesy, he would compress into infinitely few days an enormous amount of sight seeing and country enjoyment, castles, cathedrals, and fortified lines, lunches and picnics among cherry orchards and hop-gardens, excursions to canterbury or maidstone and their beautiful neighbourhoods, druid-stone and blue bell hill. "all the neighbouring country that could be shown in so short a time," he wrote of the longfellow visit, "they saw. i turned out a couple of postilions in the old red jackets of the old red royal dover road for our ride, and it was like a holiday ride in england fifty years ago." for lord lytton he did the same, for the emerson tennents, for mr. layard and mr. helps, for lady molesworth and the higginses (jacob omnium), and such other less frequent visitors. excepting on such particular occasions however, and not always even then, his mornings were reserved wholly to himself; and he would generally preface his morning work (such was his love of order in everything around him) by seeing that all was in its place in the several rooms, visiting also the dogs, stables, and kitchen garden, and closing, unless the weather was very bad indeed, with a turn or two round the meadow before settling to his desk. his dogs were a great enjoyment to him;[ ] and, with his high road traversed as frequently as any in england by tramps and wayfarers of a singularly undesirable description, they were also a necessity. there were always two, of the mastiff kind, but latterly the number increased. his own favourite was turk, a noble animal, full of affection and intelligence, whose death by a railway-accident, shortly after the staplehurst catastrophe, caused him great grief. turk's sole companion up to that date was linda, puppy of a great st. bernard brought over by mr. albert smith, and grown into a superbly beautiful creature. after turk there was an interval of an irish dog, sultan, given by mr. percy fitzgerald; a cross between a st. bernard and a bloodhound, built and coloured like a lioness and of splendid proportions, but of such indomitably aggressive propensities, that, after breaking his kennel-chain and nearly devouring a luckless little sister of one of the servants, he had to be killed. dickens always protested that sultan was a fenian, for that no dog, not a secretly sworn member of that body, would ever have made such a point, muzzled as he was, of rushing at and bearing down with fury anything in scarlet with the remotest resemblance to a british uniform. sultan's successor was don, presented by mr. frederic lehmann, a grand newfoundland brought over very young, who with linda became parent to a couple of newfoundlands, that were still gambolling about their master, huge, though hardly out of puppydom, when they lost him. he had given to one of them the name of bumble, from having observed, as he described it, "a peculiarly pompous and overbearing manner he had of appearing to mount guard over the yard when he was an absolute infant." bumble was often in scrapes. describing to mr. fields a drought in the summer of , when their poor supply of ponds and surface wells had become waterless, he wrote: "i do not let the great dogs swim in the canal, because the people have to drink of it. but when they get into the medway, it is hard to get them out again. the other day bumble (the son, newfoundland dog) got into difficulties among some floating timber, and became frightened. don (the father) was standing by me, shaking off the wet and looking on carelessly, when all of a sudden he perceived something amiss, and went in with a bound and brought bumble out by the ear. the scientific way in which he towed him along was charming." the description of his own reception, on his reappearance after america, by bumble and his brother, by the big and beautiful linda, and by his daughter mary's handsome little pomeranian, may be added from his letters to the same correspondent. "the two newfoundland dogs coming to meet me, with the usual carriage and the usual driver, and beholding me coming in my usual dress out at the usual door, it struck me that their recollection of my having been absent for any unusual time was at once cancelled. they behaved (they are both young dogs) exactly in their usual manner; coming behind the basket phaeton as we trotted along, and lifting their heads to have their ears pulled, a special attention which they receive from no one else. but when i drove into the stable-yard, linda (the st. bernard) was greatly excited; weeping profusely, and throwing herself on her back that she might caress my foot with her great fore-paws. mary's little dog too, mrs. bouncer, barked in the greatest agitation on being called down and asked by mary, 'who is this?' and tore round and round me like the dog in the faust outlines." the father and mother and their two sons, four formidable-looking companions, were with him generally in his later walks. round cobham, skirting the park and village and passing the leather bottle famous in the page of _pickwick_, was a favourite walk with dickens. by rochester and the medway, to the chatham lines, was another. he would turn out of rochester high-street through the vines (where some old buildings, from one of which called restoration-house he took satis-house for _great expectations_, had a curious attraction for him), would pass round by fort pitt, and coming back by frindsbury would bring himself by some cross fields again into the high road. or, taking the other side, he would walk through the marshes to gravesend, return by chalk church, and stop always to have greeting with a comical old monk who for some incomprehensible reason sits carved in stone, cross-legged with a jovial pot, over the porch of that sacred edifice. to another drearier churchyard, itself forming part of the marshes beyond the medway, he often took friends to show them the dozen small tombstones of various sizes adapted to the respective ages of a dozen small children of one family which he made part of his story of _great expectations_, though, with the reserves always necessary in copying nature not to overstep her modesty by copying too closely, he makes the number that appalled little pip not more than half the reality. about the whole of this cooling churchyard, indeed, and the neighbouring castle ruins, there was a weird strangeness that made it one of his attractive walks in the late year or winter, when from higham he could get to it across country over the stubble fields; and, for a shorter summer walk, he was not less fond of going round the village of shorne, and sitting on a hot afternoon in its pretty shaded churchyard. but on the whole, though maidstone had also much that attracted him to its neighbourhood, the cobham neighbourhood was certainly that which he had greatest pleasure in; and he would have taken oftener than he did the walk through cobham park and woods, which was the last he enjoyed before life suddenly closed upon him, but that here he did not like his dogs to follow. [illustration: the study at gadshill.] don now has his home there with lord darnley, and linda lies under one of the cedars at gadshill. footnotes: [ ] on new year's day he had written from paris. "when in london coutts's advised me not to sell out the money for gadshill place (the title of my estate sir, my place down in kent) until the conveyance was settled and ready." [ ] two houses now stand on what was sir francis head's estate, the great and little hermitage, occupied respectively by mr. malleson and mr. hulkes, who became intimate with dickens. perry of the _morning chronicle_, whose town house was in that court out of tavistock-square of which tavistock house formed part, had occupied the great hermitage previously. [ ] by the obliging correspondent who sent me this _history of rochester_, vo. (rochester, ), p. . [ ] "as to the carpenters," he wrote to his daughter in september , "they are absolutely maddening. they are always at work yet never seem to do anything, l. was down on friday, and said (with his eye fixed on maidstone and rubbing his hands to conciliate his moody employer) that 'he didn't think there would be very much left to do after saturday the th.' i didn't throw him out of window." [ ] a passage in his paper on tramps embodies very amusingly experience recorded in his letters of this brick-work tunnel and the sinking of the well; but i can only borrow one sentence. "the current of my uncommercial pursuits caused me only last summer to want a little body of workmen for a certain spell of work in a pleasant part of the country; and i was at one time honoured with the attendance of as many as seven-and-twenty, who were looking at six." bits of wonderful observation are in that paper. [ ] this was at the beginning of . "the châlet," he wrote to me on the th of january, "is going on excellently, though the ornamental part is more slowly put together than the substantial. it will really be a very pretty thing; and in the summer (supposing it not to be blown away in the spring), the upper room will make a charming study. it is much higher than we supposed." [ ] as surely, however, as he did any work there, so surely his indispensable little accompaniments of work (ii. ) were carried along with him; and of these i will quote what was written shortly after his death by his son-in-law, mr. charles collins, to illustrate a very touching sketch by mr. fildes of his writing-desk and vacant chair. "ranged in front of, and round about him, were always a variety of objects for his eye to rest on in the intervals of actual writing, and any one of which he would have instantly missed had it been removed. there was a french bronze group representing a duel with swords, fought by a couple of very fat toads, one of them (characterised by that particular buoyancy which belongs to corpulence) in the act of making a prodigious lunge forward, which the other receives in the very middle of his digestive apparatus, and under the influence of which it seems likely that he will satisfy the wounded honour of his opponent by promptly expiring. there was another bronze figure which always stood near the toads, also of french manufacture, and also full of comic suggestion. it was a statuette of a dog-fancier, such a one as you used to see on the bridges or quays of paris, with a profusion of little dogs stuck under his arms and into his pockets, and everywhere where little dogs could possibly be insinuated, all for sale, and all, as even a casual glance at the vendor's exterior would convince the most unsuspicious person, with some screw loose in their physical constitutions or moral natures, to be discovered immediately after purchase. there was the long gilt leaf with the rabbit sitting erect upon its haunches, the huge paper-knife often held in his hand during his public readings, and the little fresh green cup ornamented with the leaves and blossoms of the cowslip, in which a few fresh flowers were always placed every morning--for dickens invariably worked with flowers on his writing-table. there was also the register of the day of the week and of the month, which stood always before him; and when the room in the châlet in which he wrote his last paragraph was opened, some time after his death, the first thing to be noticed by those who entered was this register, set at 'wednesday, june '--the day of his seizure." it remains to this day as it was found. [ ] dickens's interest in dogs (as in the habits and ways of all animals) was inexhaustible, and he welcomed with delight any new trait. the subjoined, told him by a lady friend, was a great acquisition. "i must close" ( th of may ) "with an odd story of a newfoundland dog. an immense black good-humoured newfoundland dog. he came from oxford and had lived all his life at a brewery. instructions were given with him that if he were let out every morning alone, he would immediately find out the river; regularly take a swim; and gravely come home again. this he did with the greatest punctuality, but after a little while was observed to smell of beer. she was so sure that he smelt of beer that she resolved to watch him. accordingly, he was seen to come back from his swim, round the usual corner, and to go up a flight of steps into a beer-shop. being instantly followed, the beer-shop-keeper is seen to take down a pot (pewter pot), and is heard to say: 'well, old chap! come for your beer as usual, have you?' upon which he draws a pint and puts it down, and the dog drinks it. being required to explain how this comes to pass, the man says, 'yes ma'am. i know he's your dog ma'am, but i didn't when he first come. he looked in ma'am--as a brickmaker might--and then he come in--as a brickmaker might--and he wagged his tail at the pots, and he giv' a sniff round, and conveyed to me as he was used to beer. so i draw'd him a drop, and he drunk it up. next morning he come agen by the clock and i drawed him a pint, and ever since he has took his pint reglar.'" chapter ix. first paid readings. - . first series--exeter audience--impressions of dublin--irish car-driver--young ireland and old england--reception in belfast--at harrogate--at york--at manchester--continued successes--scene at edinburgh--at dundee--at aberdeen and perth--at glasgow--glasgow audience--subjects of first readings--first library edition of his books--at coventry--frith's portrait of dickens. dickens gave his paid public readings successively, with not long intervals, at four several dates; in - , in - , in - , and in - ; the first series under mr. arthur smith's management, the second under mr. headland's, and the third and fourth, in america as well as before and after it, under that of mr. george dolby, who, excepting in america, acted for the messrs. chappell. the references in the present chapter are to the first series only. it began with sixteen nights at st. martin's hall, the first on the th of april, the last on the nd of july, ; and there was afterwards a provincial tour of readings, beginning at clifton on the nd of august, ending at brighton on the th of november, and taking in ireland and scotland as well as the principal english cities: to which were added, in london, three christmas readings, three in january, with two in the following month; and, in the provinces in the month of october, fourteen, beginning at ipswich and norwich, taking in cambridge and oxford, and closing with birmingham and cheltenham. the series had comprised altogether readings when it ended on the th of october, ; and without the touches of character and interest afforded by his letters written while thus employed, the picture of the man would not be complete. here was one day's work at the opening which will show something of the fatigue they involved even at their outset. "on friday we came from shrewsbury to chester; saw all right for the evening; and then went to liverpool. came back from liverpool and read at chester. left chester at at night, after the reading, and went to london. got to tavistock house at a.m. on saturday, left it at a quarter past that morning, and came down here" (gadshill: th of august ). the "greatest personal affection and respect" had greeted him everywhere. nothing could have been "more strongly marked or warmly expressed;" and the readings had "gone" quite wonderfully. what in this respect had most impressed him, at the outset of his adventures, was exeter. "i think they were the finest audience i ever read to; i don't think i ever read in some respects so well; and i never beheld anything like the personal affection which they poured out upon me at the end. i shall always look back upon it with pleasure." he often lost his voice in these early days, having still to acquire the art of husbanding it; and in the trial to recover it would again waste its power. "i think i sang half the irish melodies to myself as i walked about, to test it." an audience of two thousand three hundred people (the largest he had had) greeted him at liverpool on his way to dublin, and, besides the tickets sold, more than two hundred pounds in money was taken at the doors. this taxed his business staff a little. "they turned away hundreds, sold all the books, rolled on the ground of my room knee-deep in checks, and made a perfect pantomime of the whole thing." ( th of august.) he had to repeat the reading thrice.[ ] it was the first time he had seen ireland, and dublin greatly surprised him by appearing to be so much larger and more populous than he had supposed. he found it to have altogether an unexpectedly thriving look, being pretty nigh as big, he first thought, as paris; of which some places in it, such as the quays on the river, reminded him. half the first day he was there, he took to explore it; walking till tired, and then taking a car. "power, dressed for the character of teddy the tiler, drove me: in a suit of patches, and with his hat unbrushed for twenty years. wonderfully pleasant, light, intelligent, and careless."[ ] the number of common people he saw in his drive, "also riding about in cars as hard as they could split," brought to his recollection a more distant scene, and but for the dresses he could have thought himself on the toledo at naples. in respect of the number of his audience, and their reception of him, dublin was one of his marked successes. he came to have some doubt of their capacity of receiving the pathetic, but of their quickness as to the humorous there could be no question, any more than of their heartiness. he got on wonderfully well with the dublin people.[ ] the boots at morrison's expressed the general feeling in a patriotic point of view. "he was waiting for me at the hotel door last night. 'whaat sart of a hoose sur?' he asked me. 'capital.' 'the lard be praised fur the 'onor 'o dooblin!'" within the hotel, on getting up next morning, he had a dialogue with a smaller resident, landlord's son he supposed, a little boy of the ripe age of six, which he presented, in his letter to his sister-in-law, as a colloquy between old england and young ireland inadequately reported for want of the "imitation" it required for its full effect. "i am sitting on the sofa, writing, and find him sitting beside me. "_old england._ halloa old chap. "_young ireland._ hal--loo! "_old england_ (in his delightful way). what a nice old fellow you are. i am very fond of little boys. "_young ireland._ air yes? ye'r right. "_old england._ what do you learn, old fellow? "_young ireland_ (very intent on old england, and always childish except in his brogue). i lairn wureds of three sillibils--and wureds of two sillibils--and wureds of one sillibil. "_old england_ (cheerfully). get out, you humbug! you learn only words of one syllable. "_young ireland_ (laughs heartily). you may say that it is mostly wureds of one sillibil. "_old england._ can you write? "_young ireland,_ not yet. things comes by deegrays. "_old england._ can you cipher? "_young ireland_ (very quickly). whaat's that? "_old england._ can you make figures? "_young ireland._ i can make a nought, which is not asy, being roond. "_old england._ i say, old boy! wasn't it you i saw on sunday morning in the hall, in a soldier's cap? you know!--in a soldier's cap? "_young ireland_ (cogitating deeply). was it a very good cap? "_old england._ yes. "_young ireland._ did it fit ankommon? "_old england._ yes. "_young ireland._ dat was me!" the last night in dublin was an extraordinary scene. "you can hardly imagine it. all the way from the hotel to the rotunda (a mile), i had to contend against the stream of people who were turned away. when i got there, they had broken the glass in the pay-boxes, and were offering £ freely for a stall. half of my platform had to be taken down, and people heaped in among the ruins. you never saw such a scene."[ ] but he would not return after his other irish engagements. "i have positively said no. the work is too hard. it is not like doing it in one easy room, and always the same room. with a different place every night, and a different audience with its own peculiarity every night, it is a tremendous strain. . . . i seem to be always either in a railway carriage or reading, or going to bed; and i get so knocked up whenever i have a minute to remember it, that then i go to bed as a matter of course." belfast he liked quite as much as dublin in another way. "a fine place with a rough people; everything looking prosperous; the railway ride from dublin quite amazing in the order, neatness, and cleanness of all you see; every cottage looking as if it had been whitewashed the day before; and many with charming gardens, prettily kept with bright flowers." the success, too, was quite as great. "enormous audiences. we turn away half the town.[ ] i think them a better audience on the whole than dublin; and the personal affection is something overwhelming. i wish you and the dear girls" (he is writing to his sister-in-law) "could have seen the people look at me in the street; or heard them ask me, as i hurried to the hotel after the reading last night, to 'do me the honor to shake hands misther dickens and god bless you sir; not ounly for the light you've been to me this night, but for the light you've been in mee house sir (and god love your face!) this many a year!'"[ ] he had never seen men "go in to cry so undisguisedly," as they did at the belfast _dombey_ reading; and as to the _boots_ and _mrs. gamp_ "it was just one roar with me and them. for they made me laugh so, that sometimes i _could not_ compose my face to go on." his greatest trial in this way however was a little later at harrogate--"the queerest place, with the strangest people in it, leading the oddest lives of dancing, newspaper-reading, and tables d'hôte"--where he noticed, at the same reading, embodiments respectively of the tears and laughter to which he has moved his fellow creatures so largely. "there was one gentleman at the _little dombey_ yesterday morning" (he is still writing to his sister-in-law) "who exhibited--or rather concealed--the profoundest grief. after crying a good deal without hiding it, he covered his face with both his hands, and laid it down on the back of the seat before him, and really shook with emotion. he was not in mourning, but i supposed him to have lost some child in old time. . . . there was a remarkably good fellow too, of thirty or so, who found something so very ludicrous in toots that he _could not_ compose himself at all, but laughed until he sat wiping his eyes with his handkerchief; and whenever he felt toots coming again, he began to laugh and wipe his eyes afresh; and when toots came once more, he gave a kind of cry, as if it were too much for him. it was uncommonly droll, and made me laugh heartily." at harrogate he read twice on one day (a saturday), and had to engage a special engine to take him back that night to york, which, having reached at one o'clock in the morning, he had to leave, because of sunday restrictions on travel, the same morning at half-past four, to enable him to fulfil a monday's reading at scarborough. such fatigues became matters of course; but their effect, not noted at the time, was grave. "at york i had a most magnificent audience, and might have filled the place for a week. . . . i think the audience possessed of a better knowledge of character than any i have seen. but i recollect doctor belcombe to have told me long ago that they first found out charles mathews's father, and to the last understood him (he used to say) better than any other people. . . . the let is enormous for next saturday at manchester, stalls alone four hundred! i shall soon be able to send you the list of places to the th of november, the end. i shall be, o most heartily glad, when that time comes! but i must say that the intelligence and warmth of the audiences are an immense sustainment, and one that always sets me up. sometimes before i go down to read (especially when it is in the day), i am so oppressed by having to do it that i feel perfectly unequal to the task. but the people lift me out of this directly; and i find that i have quite forgotten everything but them and the book, in a quarter of an hour." the reception that awaited him at manchester had very special warmth in it, occasioned by an adverse tone taken in the comment of one of the manchester daily papers on the letter which by a breach of confidence had been then recently printed. "my violated letter" dickens always called it. "when i came to manchester on saturday i found seven hundred stalls taken! when i went into the room at night people had paid, and more were being turned away from every door. the welcome they gave me was astounding in its affectionate recognition of the late trouble, and fairly for once unmanned me. i never saw such a sight or heard such a sound. when they had thoroughly done it, they settled down to enjoy themselves; and certainly did enjoy themselves most heartily to the last minute." nor, for the rest of his english tour, in any of the towns that remained, had he reason to complain of any want of hearty greeting. at sheffield great crowds came in excess of the places. at leeds the hall overflowed in half an hour. at hull the vast concourse had to be addressed by mr. smith on the gallery stairs, and additional readings had to be given, day and night, "for the people out of town and for the people in town." the net profit to himself, thus far, had been upwards of three hundred pounds a week;[ ] but this was nothing to the success in scotland, where his profit in a week, with all expenses paid, was five hundred pounds. the pleasure was enhanced, too, by the presence of his two daughters, who had joined him over the border. at first the look of edinburgh was not promising. "we began with, for us, a poor room. . . . but the effect of that reading (it was the _chimes_) was immense; and on the next night, for _little dombey_, we had a full room. it is our greatest triumph everywhere. next night (_poor traveller_, _boots_, and _gamp_) we turned away hundreds upon hundreds of people; and last night, for the _carol_, in spite of advertisements in the morning that the tickets were gone, the people had to be got in through such a crowd as rendered it a work of the utmost difficulty to keep an alley into the room. they were seated about me on the platform, put into the doorway of the waiting-room, squeezed into every conceivable place, and a multitude turned away once more. i think i am better pleased with what was done in edinburgh than with what has been done anywhere, almost. it was so completely taken by storm, and carried in spite of itself. mary and katey have been infinitely pleased and interested with edinburgh. we are just going to sit down to dinner and therefore i cut my missive short. travelling, dinner, reading, and everything else, come crowding together into this strange life." then came dundee: "an odd place," he wrote, "like wapping with high rugged hills behind it. we had the strangest journey here--bits of sea, and bits of railroad, alternately; which carried my mind back to travelling in america. the room is an immense new one, belonging to lord kinnaird, and lord panmure, and some others of that sort. it looks something between the crystal-palace and westminster-hall (i can't imagine who wants it in this place), and has never been tried yet for speaking in. quite disinterestedly of course, i hope it will succeed." the people he thought, in respect of taste and intelligence, below any other of his scotch audiences; but they woke up surprisingly, and the rest of his caledonian tour was a succession of triumphs. "at aberdeen we were crammed to the street, twice in one day. at perth (where i thought when i arrived, there literally could be nobody to come) the gentlefolk came posting in from thirty miles round, and the whole town came besides, and filled an immense hall. they were as full of perception, fire, and enthusiasm as any people i have seen. at glasgow, where i read three evenings and one morning, we took the prodigiously large sum of six hundred pounds! and this at the manchester prices, which are lower than st. martin's hall. as to the effect--i wish you could have seen them after lilian died in the _chimes_, or when scrooge woke in the _carol_ and talked to the boy outside the window. and at the end of _dombey_ yesterday afternoon, in the cold light of day, they all got up, after a short pause, gentle and simple, and thundered and waved their hats with such astonishing heartiness and fondness that, for the first time in all my public career, they took me completely off my legs, and i saw the whole eighteen hundred of them reel to one side as if a shock from without had shaken the hall. notwithstanding which, i must confess to you, i am very anxious to get to the end of my readings, and to be at home again, and able to sit down and think in my own study. there has been only one thing quite without alloy. the dear girls have enjoyed themselves immensely, and their trip with me has been a great success." the subjects of his readings during this first circuit were the _carol_, the _chimes_, the _trial in pickwick_, the chapters containing _paul dombey_, _boots at the holly tree inn_, the _poor traveller_ (captain doubledick), and _mrs. gamp_: to which he continued to restrict himself through the supplementary nights that closed in the autumn of .[ ] of these the most successful in their uniform effect upon his audiences were undoubtedly the _carol_, the _pickwick_ scene, _mrs. gamp_, and the _dombey_--the quickness, variety, and completeness of his assumption of character, having greatest scope in these. here, i think, more than in the pathos or graver level passages, his strength lay; but this is entitled to no weight other than as an individual opinion, and his audiences gave him many reasons for thinking differently.[ ] the incidents of the period covered by this chapter that had any general interest in them, claim to be mentioned briefly. at the close of he presided at the fourth anniversary of the warehousemen and clerks' schools, describing and discriminating, with keenest wit and kindliest fun, the sort of schools he liked and he disliked. to the spring and summer of belongs the first collection of his writings into a succinct library form, each of the larger novels occupying two volumes. in march he paid warm public tribute to thackeray (who had been induced to take the chair at the general theatrical fund) as one for whose genius he entertained the warmest admiration, who did honour to literature, and in whom literature was honoured. in may he presided at the artists' benevolent fund dinner, and made striking appeal for that excellent charity. in july he took earnest part in the opening efforts on behalf of the royal dramatic college, which he supplemented later by a speech for the establishment of schools for actors' children; in which he took occasion to declare his belief that there were no institutions in england so socially liberal as its public schools, and that there was nowhere in the country so complete an absence of servility to mere rank, position, or riches. "a boy, there, is always what his abilities or his personal qualities make him. we may differ about the curriculum and other matters, but of the frank, free, manly, independent spirit preserved in our public schools, i apprehend there can be no kind of question." in december[ ] he was entertained at a public dinner in coventry on the occasion of receiving, by way of thanks for help rendered to their institute, a gold repeater of special construction by the watchmakers of the town; as to which he kept faithfully his pledge to the givers, that it should be thenceforward the inseparable companion of his workings and wanderings, and reckon off the future labours of his days until he should have done with the measurement of time. within a day from this celebration, he presided at the institutional association of lancashire and cheshire in manchester free trade hall; gave prizes to candidates from a hundred and fourteen local mechanics' institutes affiliated to the association; described in his most attractive language the gallant toiling fellows by whom the prizes had been won; and ended with the monition he never failed to couple with his eulogies of knowledge, that it should follow the teaching of the saviour, and not satisfy the understanding merely. "knowledge has a very limited power when it informs the head only; but when it informs the heart as well, it has a power over life and death, the body and the soul, and dominates the universe." this too was the year when mr. frith completed dickens's portrait, and it appeared upon the walls of the academy in the following spring. "i wish," said edwin landseer as he stood before it, "he looked less eager and busy, and not so much out of himself, or beyond himself. i should like to catch him asleep and quiet now and then." there is something in the objection, and he also would be envious at times of what he too surely knew could never be his lot. on the other hand who would willingly have lost the fruits of an activity on the whole so healthy and beneficent? footnotes: [ ] this was the _carol_ and _pickwick_. "we are reduced sometimes," he adds, "to a ludicrous state of distress by the quantity of silver we have to carry about. arthur smith is always accompanied by an immense black leather-bag full." mr. smith had an illness a couple of days later, and dickens whimsically describes his rapid recovery on discovering the state of their balances. "he is now sitting opposite to me on a bag of £ of silver. it must be dreadfully hard." [ ] a letter to his eldest daughter ( rd of aug.) makes humorous addition. "the man who drove our jaunting car yesterday hadn't a piece in his coat as big as a penny roll, and had had his hat on (apparently without brushing it) ever since he was grown-up. but he was remarkably intelligent and agreeable, with something to say about everything. for instance, when i asked him what a certain building was, he didn't say 'courts of law' and nothing else, but 'av yer plase sir, its the foor coorts o' looyers, where misther o'connell stood his trial wunst, as ye'll remimbir sir, afore i till ye ov it.' when we got into the phoenix park, he looked round him as if it were his own, and said 'that's a park sir, av ye plase!' i complimented it, and he said 'gintlemen tills me as they iv bin, sir, over europe and never see a park aqualling ov it. yander's the vice-regal lodge, sir; in thim two corners lives the two sicretaries, wishing i was thim sir. there's air here sir, av yer plase! there's scenery here sir! there's mountains thim sir! yer coonsider it a park sir? it is that sir!'" [ ] the irish girls outdid the american (i. ) in one particular. he wrote to his sister-in-law: "every night, by the bye, since i have been in ireland, the ladies have beguiled john out of the bouquet from my coat; and yesterday morning, as i had showered the leaves from my geranium in reading _little dombey_, they mounted the platform after i was gone, and picked them all up as a keepsake." a few days earlier he had written to the same correspondent: "the papers are full of remarks upon my white tie, and describe it as being of enormous size, which is a wonderful delusion; because, as you very well know, it is a small tie. generally, i am happy to report, the emerald press is in favour of my appearance, and likes my eyes. but one gentleman comes out with a letter at cork, wherein he says that although only , i look like an old man." [ ] "they had offered frantic prices for stalls. eleven bank-notes were thrust into a paybox at one time for eleven stalls. our men were flattened against walls and squeezed against beams. ladies stood all night with their chins against my platform. other ladies sat all night upon my steps. we turned away people enough to make immense houses for a week." letter to his eldest daughter. [ ] "shillings get into stalls, and half-crowns get into shillings, and stalls get nowhere, and there is immense confusion." letter to his daughter. [ ] "i was brought very near to what i sometimes dream may be my fame," he says in a letter of later date to myself from york, "when a lady whose face i had never seen stopped me yesterday in the street, and said to me, _mr. dickens, will you let me touch the hand that has filled my house with many friends_." october . [ ] "that is no doubt immense, our expenses being necessarily large, and the travelling party being always five." another source of profit was the sale of the copies of the several readings prepared by himself. "our people alone sell eight, ten, and twelve dozen a night." a later letter says: "the men with the reading books were sold out, for about the twentieth time, at manchester. eleven dozen of the _poor traveller_, _boots_, and _gamp_ being sold in about ten minutes, they had no more left; and manchester became green with the little tracts, in every bookshop, outside every omnibus, and passing along every street. the sale of them, apart from us, must be very great." "did i tell you," he writes in another letter, "that the agents for our tickets who are also booksellers, say very generally that the readings decidedly increase the sale of the books they are taken from? we were first told of this by a mr. parke, a wealthy old gentleman in a very large way at wolverhampton, who did all the business for love, and would not take a farthing. since then, we have constantly come upon it; and m'glashin and gill at dublin were very strong about it indeed." [ ] the last of them were given immediately after his completion of the _tale of two cities_: "i am a little tired; but as little, i suspect, as any man could be with the work of the last four days, and perhaps the change of work was better than subsiding into rest and rust. the norwich people were a noble audience. there, and at ipswich and bury, we had the demonstrativeness of the great working-towns, and a much finer perception."-- th of october . [ ] two pleasing little volumes may here be named as devoted to special descriptions of the several readings; by his friend mr. charles kent in england (_charles dickens as a reader_), and by miss kate field in america (_pen photographs_). [ ] let me subjoin his own note of a less important incident of that month which will show his quick and sure eye for any bit of acting out of the common. the lady has since justified its closing prediction. describing an early dinner with chauncy townshend, he adds ( th of december ): "i escaped at half-past seven, and went to the strand theatre: having taken a stall beforehand, for it is always crammed. i really wish you would go, between this and next thursday, to see the _maid and the magpie_ burlesque there. there is the strangest thing in it that ever i have seen on the stage. the boy, pippo, by miss wilton. while it is astonishingly impudent (must be, or it couldn't be done at all), it is so stupendously like a boy, and unlike a woman, that it is perfectly free from offence. i never have seen such a thing. priscilla horton, as a boy, not to be thought of beside it. she does an imitation of the dancing of the christy minstrels--wonderfully clever--which, in the audacity of its thorough-going, is surprising. a thing that you _can not_ imagine a woman's doing at all; and yet the manner, the appearance, the levity, impulse, and spirits of it, are so exactly like a boy that you cannot think of anything like her sex in association with it. it begins at , and is over by a quarter-past . i never have seen such a curious thing, and the girl's talent is unchallengeable. i call her the cleverest girl i have ever seen on the stage in my time, and the most singularly original." chapter x. all the year round and the uncommercial traveller. - . _all the year round_ started--_household words_ discontinued--differences with mr. bentley--in search of a name for new periodical--opening a story--success of new periodical--at knebworth with bulwer lytton--sale of christmas numbers--commercial travellers' schools--personal references--remedy for sleeplessness--"tramp" experiences--reduced bantams--bethnal-green fowls--the goldfinch and his friend--offers from america--visit of mr. fields. in the interval before the close of the first circuit of readings, painful personal disputes arising out of the occurrences of the previous year were settled by the discontinuance of _household words_, and the establishment in its place of _all the year round_. the disputes turned upon matters of feeling exclusively, and involved no charge on either side that would render any detailed reference here other than gravely out of place. the question into which the difference ultimately resolved itself was that of the respective rights of the parties as proprietors of _household words_; and this, upon a bill filed in chancery, was settled by a winding-up order, under which the property was sold. it was bought by dickens, who, even before the sale, exactly fulfilling a previous announcement of the proposed discontinuance of the existing periodical and establishment of another in its place, precisely similar but under a different title, had started _all the year round_. it was to be regretted perhaps that he should have thought it necessary to move at all, but he moved strictly within his rights. to the publishers first associated with his great success in literature, messrs. chapman and hall, he now returned for the issue of the remainder of his books; of which he always in future reserved the copyrights, making each the subject of such arrangement as for the time might seem to him desirable. in this he was met by no difficulty; and indeed it will be only proper to add, that, in any points affecting his relations with those concerned in the production of his books, though his resentments were easily and quickly roused, they were never very lasting. the only fair rule therefore was, in a memoir of his life, to confine the mention of such things to what was strictly necessary to explain its narrative. this accordingly has been done; and, in the several disagreements it has been necessary to advert to, i cannot charge myself with having in a single instance overstepped the rule. objection has been made to my revival of the early differences with mr. bentley. but silence respecting them was incompatible with what absolutely required to be said, if the picture of dickens in his most interesting time, at the outset of his career in letters, was not to be omitted altogether; and, suppressing everything of mere temper that gathered round the dispute, use was made of those letters only containing the young writer's urgent appeal to be absolved, rightly or wrongly, from engagements he had too precipitately entered into. wrongly, some might say, because the law was undoubtedly on mr. bentley's side; but all subsequent reflection has confirmed the view i was led strongly to take at the time, that in the facts there had come to be involved what the law could not afford to overlook, and that the sale of brain-work can never be adjusted by agreement with the same exactness and certainty as that of ordinary goods and chattels. quitting the subject once for all with this remark, it is not less incumbent on me to say that there was no stage of the dispute in which mr. bentley, holding as strongly the other view, might not think it to have sufficient justification; and certainly in later years there was no absence of friendly feeling on the part of dickens to his old publisher. this already has been mentioned; and on the occasion of hans andersen's recent visit to gadshill, mr. bentley was invited to meet the celebrated dane. nor should i omit to say, that, in the year to which this narrative has now arrived, his prompt compliance with an intercession made to him for a common friend pleased dickens greatly. at the opening of , bent upon such a successor to _household words_ as should carry on the associations connected with its name, dickens was deep in search of a title to give expression to them. "my determination to settle the title arises out of my knowledge that i shall never be able to do anything for the work until it has a fixed name; also out of my observation that the same odd feeling affects everybody else." he had proposed to himself a title that, as in _household words_, might be capable of illustration by a line from shakespeare; and alighting upon that wherein poor henry the sixth is fain to solace his captivity by the fancy, that, like birds encaged he might soothe himself for loss of liberty "at last by notes of household harmony," he for the time forgot that this might hardly be accepted as a happy comment on the occurrences out of which the supposed necessity had arisen of replacing the old by a new household friend. "don't you think," he wrote on the th of january, "this is a good name and quotation? i have been quite delighted to get hold of it for our title. "household harmony. "'at last by notes of household harmony.'--_shakespeare._" he was at first reluctant even to admit the objection when stated to him. "i am afraid we must not be too particular about the possibility of personal references and applications: otherwise it is manifest that i never can write another book. i could not invent a story of any sort, it is quite plain, incapable of being twisted into some such nonsensical shape. it would be wholly impossible to turn one through half a dozen chapters." of course he yielded, nevertheless; and much consideration followed over sundry other titles submitted. reviving none of those formerly rejected, here were a few of these now rejected in their turn. the hearth. the forge. the crucible. the anvil of the time. charles dickens's own. seasonable leaves. evergreen leaves. home. home-music. change. time and tide. twopence. english bells. weekly bells. the rocket. good humour. still the great want was the line adaptable from shakespeare, which at last exultingly he sent on the th of january. "i am dining early, before reading, and write literally with my mouth full. but i have just hit upon a name that i think really an admirable one--especially with the quotation _before_ it, in the place where our present _h. w._ quotation stands. "'the story of our lives, from year to year.'--_shakespeare._" "all the year round. "a weekly journal conducted by charles dickens." with the same resolution and energy other things necessary to the adventure were as promptly done. "i have taken the new office," he wrote from tavistock house on the st of february; "have got workmen in; have ordered the paper; settled with the printer; and am getting an immense system of advertising ready. blow to be struck on the th of march. . . . meantime i cannot please myself with the opening of my story" (the _tale of two cities_, which _all the year round_ was to start with), "and cannot in the least settle at it or take to it. . . . i wish you would come and look at what i flatter myself is a rather ingenious account to which i have turned the stanfield scenery here." he had placed the _lighthouse_ scene in a single frame; had divided the scene of the _frozen deep_ into two subjects, a british man-of-war and an arctic sea, which he had also framed; and the school-room that had been the theatre was now hung with sea-pieces by a great painter of the sea. to believe them to have been but the amusement of a few mornings was difficult indeed. seen from the due distance there was nothing wanting to the most masterly and elaborate art. the first number of _all the year round_ appeared on the th of april, and the result of the first quarter's accounts of the sale will tell everything that needs to be said of a success that went on without intermission to the close. "a word before i go back to gadshill," he wrote from tavistock house in july, "which i know you will be glad to receive. so well has _all the year round_ gone that it was yesterday able to repay me, with five per cent. interest, all the money i advanced for its establishment (paper, print &c. all paid, down to the last number), and yet to leave a good £ balance at the banker's!" beside the opening of his _tale of two cities_ its first number had contained another piece of his writing, the "poor man and his beer;" as to which an interesting note has been sent me. the rev. t. b. lawes, of rothamsted, st. alban's, had been associated upon a sanitary commission with mr. henry austin, dickens's brother-in-law and counsellor in regard to all such matters in his own houses, or in the houses of the poor; and this connection led to dickens's knowledge of a club that mr. lawes had established at rothamsted, which he became eager to recommend as an example to other country neighbourhoods. the club had been set on foot[ ] to enable the agricultural labourers of the parish to have their beer and pipes independent of the public-house; and the description of it, says mr. lawes, "was the occupation of a drive between this place (rothamsted) and london, miles, mr. dickens refusing the offer of a bed, and saying that he could arrange his ideas on the journey. in the course of our conversation i mentioned that the labourers were very jealous of the small tradesmen, blacksmiths and others, holding allotment-gardens; but that the latter did so indirectly by paying higher rents to the labourers for a share. this circumstance is not forgotten in the verses on the blacksmith in the same number, composed by mr. dickens and repeated to me while he was walking about, and which close the mention of his gains with allusion to "a share (concealed) in the poor man's field, which adds to the poor man's store." the periodical thus established was in all respects, save one, so exactly the counterpart of what it replaced, that a mention of this point of difference is the only description of it called for. besides his own three-volume stories of _the tale of two cities_ and _great expectations_, dickens admitted into it other stories of the same length by writers of character and name, of which the authorship was avowed. it published tales of varied merit and success by mr. edmund yates, mr. percy fitzgerald, and mr. charles lever. mr. wilkie collins contributed to it his _woman in white_, _no name_, and _moonstone_, the first of which had a pre-eminent success; mr. reade his _hard cash_; and lord lytton his _strange story_. conferring about the latter dickens passed a week at knebworth, accompanied by his daughter and sister-in-law, in the summer of , as soon as he had closed _great expectations_; and there met mr. arthur helps, with whom and lord orford he visited the so-called "hermit" near stevenage, whom he described as mr. mopes in _tom tiddler's ground_. with his great brother-artist he thoroughly enjoyed himself, as he invariably did; and reported him as "in better health and spirits than i have seen him in, in all these years,--a little weird occasionally regarding magic and spirits, but always fair and frank under opposition. he was brilliantly talkative, anecdotical, and droll; looked young and well; laughed heartily; and enjoyed with great zest some games we played. in his artist-character and talk, he was full of interest and matter, saying the subtlest and finest things--but that he never fails in. i enjoyed myself immensely, as we all did."[ ] in _all the year round_, as in its predecessor, the tales for christmas were of course continued, but with a surprisingly increased popularity; and dickens never had such sale for any of his writings as for his christmas pieces in the later periodical. it had reached, before he died, to nearly three hundred thousand. the first was called the _haunted house_, and had a small mention of a true occurrence in his boyhood which is not included in the bitter record on a former page. "i was taken home, and there was debt at home as well as death, and we had a sale there. my own little bed was so superciliously looked upon by a power unknown to me hazily called the trade, that a brass coal-scuttle, a roasting jack, and a bird cage were obliged to be put into it to make a lot of it, and then it went for a song. so i heard mentioned, and i wondered what song, and thought what a dismal song it must have been to sing!" the other subjects will have mention in another chapter. his tales were not his only important work in _all the year round_. the detached papers written by him there had a character and completeness derived from their plan, and from the personal tone, as well as frequent individual confessions, by which their interest is enhanced, and which will always make them specially attractive. their title expressed a personal liking. of all the societies, charitable or self-assisting, which his tact and eloquence in the "chair" so often helped, none had interested him by the character of its service to its members, and the perfection of its management, so much as that of the commercial travellers. his, admiration of their schools introduced him to one who then acted as their treasurer, and whom, of all the men he had known, i think he rated highest for the union of business qualities in an incomparable measure to a nature comprehensive enough to deal with masses of men, however differing in creed or opinion, humanely and justly. he never afterwards wanted support for any good work that he did not think first of mr. george moore,[ ] and appeal was never made to him in vain. "integrity, enterprise, public spirit, and benevolence," he told the commercial travellers on one occasion, "had their synonym in mr. moore's name;" and it was another form of the same liking when he took to himself the character and title of a traveller _un_commercial. "i am both a town traveller and a country traveller, and am always on the road. figuratively speaking, i travel for the great house of human-interest brothers, and have rather a large connection in the fancy goods way. literally speaking, i am always wandering here and there from my rooms in covent-garden, london: now about the city streets; now about the country by-roads: seeing many little things, and some great things, which, because they interest me, i think may interest others." in a few words that was the plan and drift of the papers which he began in , and continued to write from time to time until the last autumn of his life. many of them, such as "travelling abroad," "city churches," "dullborough," "nurses' stories," and "birthday celebrations," have supplied traits, chiefly of his younger days, to portions of this memoir; and parts of his later life receive illustration from others, such as "tramps," "night walks," "shy neighbourhoods," "the italian prisoner," and "chatham dockyard." indeed hardly any is without its personal interest or illustration. one may learn from them, among other things, what kind of treatment he resorted to for the disorder of sleeplessness from which he had often suffered amid his late anxieties. experimenting upon it in bed, he found to be too slow and doubtful a process for him; but he very soon defeated his enemy by the brisker treatment, of getting up directly after lying down, going out, and coming home tired at sunrise. "my last special feat was turning out of bed at two, after a hard day pedestrian and otherwise, and walking thirty miles into the country to breakfast." one description he did not give in his paper, but i recollect his saying that he had seldom seen anything so striking as the way in which the wonders of an equinoctial dawn (it was the th of october ) presented themselves during that walk. he had never before happened to see night so completely at odds with morning, "which was which." another experience of his night ramblings used to be given in vivid sketches of the restlessness of a great city, and the manner in which _it_ also tumbles and tosses before it can get to sleep. nor should anyone curious about his habits and ways omit to accompany him with his tramps into gadshill lanes; or to follow him into his shy neighbourhoods of the hackney-road, waterloo-road, spitalfields, or bethnal-green. for delightful observation both of country and town, for the wit that finds analogies between remote and familiar things, and for humorous personal sketches and experience, these are perfect of their kind. "i have my eye upon a piece of kentish road, bordered on either side by a wood, and having on one hand, between the road-dust and the trees, a skirting patch of grass. wild flowers grow in abundance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with a distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean, like a man's life. to gain the mile-stone here, which the moss, primroses, violets, blue-bells, and wild roses, would soon render illegible but for peering travellers pushing them aside with their sticks, you must come up a steep hill, come which way you may. so, all the tramps with carts or caravans--the gipsy-tramp, the show-tramp, the cheap jack--find it impossible to resist the temptations of the place; and all turn the horse loose when they come to it, and boil the pot. bless the place, i love the ashes of the vagabond fires that have scorched its grass!" it was there he found dr. marigold, and chops the dwarf, and the white-haired lady with the pink eyes eating meat-pie with the giant. so, too, in his shy neighbourhoods, when he relates his experiences of the bad company that birds are fond of, and of the effect upon domestic fowls of living in low districts, his method of handling the subject has all the charm of a discovery. "that anything born of an egg and invested with wings should have got to the pass that it hops contentedly down a ladder into a cellar, and calls _that_ going home, is a circumstance so amazing as to leave one nothing more in this connexion to wonder at." one of his illustrations is a reduced bantam family in the hackney-road deriving their sole enjoyment from crowding together in a pawnbroker's side-entry; but seeming as if only newly come down in the world, and always in a feeble flutter of fear that they may be found out. he contrasts them with others. "i know a low fellow, originally of a good family from dorking, who takes his whole establishment of wives, in single file, in at the door of the jug department of a disorderly tavern near the haymarket, manoeuvres them among the company's legs, emerges with them at the bottle entrance, and so passes his life: seldom, in the season, going to bed before two in the morning. . . . but, the family i am best acquainted with, reside in the densest part of bethnal-green. their abstraction from the objects among which they live, or rather their conviction that those objects have all come into existence in express subservience to fowls, has so enchanted me, that i have made them the subject of many journeys at divers hours. after careful observation of the two lords and the ten ladies of whom this family consists, i have come to the conclusion that their opinions are represented by the leading lord and leading lady: the latter, as i judge, an aged personage, afflicted with a paucity of feather and visibility of quill that gives her the appearance of a bundle of office pens. when a railway goods-van that would crush an elephant comes round the corner, tearing over these fowls, they emerge unharmed from under the horses, perfectly satisfied that the whole rush was a passing property in the air, which may have left something to eat behind it. they look upon old shoes, wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bonnets, as a kind of meteoric discharge, for fowls to peck at. . . . gaslight comes quite as natural to them as any other light; and i have more than a suspicion that, in the minds of the two lords, the early public-house at the corner has superseded the sun. they always begin to crow when the public-house shutters begin to be taken down, and they salute the potboy, the instant he appears to perform that duty, as if he were phoebes in person." for the truth of the personal adventure in the same essay, which he tells in proof of a propensity to bad company in more refined members of the feathered race, i am myself in a position to vouch. walking by a dirty court in spitalfields one day, the quick little busy intelligence of a goldfinch, drawing water for himself in his cage, so attracted him that he bought the bird, which had other accomplishments; but not one of them would the little creature show off in his new abode in doughty-street, and he drew no water but by stealth or under the cloak of night. "after an interval of futile and at length hopeless expectation, the merchant who had educated him was appealed to. the merchant was a bow-legged character, with a flat and cushiony nose, like the last new strawberry. he wore a fur cap, and shorts, and was of the velveteen race, velveteeny. he sent word that he would 'look round.' he looked round, appeared in the doorway of the room, and slightly cocked up his evil eye at the goldfinch. instantly a raging thirst beset that bird; and when it was appeased, he still drew several unnecessary buckets of water, leaping about his perch and sharpening his bill with irrepressible satisfaction." the uncommercial traveller papers, his two serial stories, and his christmas tales, were all the contributions of any importance made by dickens to _all the year round_; but he reprinted in it, on the completion of his first story, a short tale called "hunted down," written for a newspaper in america called the _new york ledger_. its subject had been taken from the life of a notorious criminal already named, and its principal claim to notice was the price paid for it. for a story not longer than half of one of the numbers of _chuzzlewit_ or _copperfield_, he had received a thousand pounds.[ ] it was one of the indications of the eager desire which his entry on the career of a public reader had aroused in america to induce him again to visit that continent; and at the very time he had this magnificent offer from the new york journal, mr. fields of boston, who was then on a visit to europe, was pressing him so much to go that his resolution was almost shaken. "i am now," he wrote to me from gadshill on the th of july , "getting the _tale of two cities_ into that state that if i should decide to go to america late in september, i could turn to, at any time, and write on with great vigour. mr. fields has been down here for a day, and with the strongest intensity urges that there is no drawback, no commercial excitement or crisis, no political agitation; and that so favourable an opportunity, in all respects, might not occur again for years and years. i should be one of the most unhappy of men if i were to go, and yet i cannot help being much stirred and influenced by the golden prospect held before me." he yielded nevertheless to other persuasion, and for that time the visit was not to be. in six months more the civil war began, and america was closed to any such enterprise for nearly five years. footnotes: [ ] it is pleasant to have to state that it was still flourishing when i received mr. lawes's letter, on the th of december . [ ] from the same letter, dated st of july , i take what follows. "poor lord campbell's seems to me as easy and good a death as one could desire. there must be a sweep of these men very soon, and one feels as if it must fall out like the breaking of an arch--one stone goes from a prominent place, and then the rest begin to drop. so, one looks, not without satisfaction (in our sadness) at lives so rounded and complete, towards brougham, and lyndhurst, and pollock" . . . yet, of dickens's own death, pollock lived to write to me as the death of "one of the most distinguished and honoured men england has ever produced; in whose loss every man among us feels that he has lost a friend and an instructor." temple-hatton, th of june . [ ] if space were available here, his letters would supply many proofs of his interest in mr. george moore's admirable projects; but i can only make exception for his characteristic allusion to an incident that tickled his fancy very much at the time. "i hope" ( th of aug. ) "you have been as much amused as i am by the account of the bishop of carlisle at (my very particular friend's) mr. george moore's schools? it strikes me as the funniest piece of weakness i ever saw, his addressing those unfortunate children concerning colenso. i cannot get over the ridiculous image i have erected in my mind, of the shovel-hat and apron holding forth, at that safe distance, to that safe audience. there is nothing so extravagant in rabelais, or so satirically humorous in swift or voltaire." [ ] eight years later he wrote "holiday romance" for a child's magazine published by mr. fields, and "george silverman's explanation"--of the same length, and for the same price. there are no other such instances, i suppose, in the history of literature. chapter xi. second series of readings. - . daughter kate's marriage--wedding party--sale of tavistock house--brother alfred's death--metropolitan readings--proposed provincial readings--good of doing nothing--new subjects for readings--mr. arthur smith's death--eldest son's marriage--audience at brighton--audiences at canterbury and dover--alarming scene at newcastle--impromptu reading hall at berwick-on-tweed--in scotland--at torquay--at liverpool--metropolitan success--offer from australia--writing or reading not always possible--arguments for and against going to australia--readings in paris--a religious richardson's show--exiled ex-potentate. at the end of the first year of residence at gadshill it was the remark of dickens that nothing had gratified him so much as the confidence with which his poorer neighbours treated him. he had tested generally their worth and good conduct, and they had been encouraged in illness or trouble to resort to him for help. there was pleasant indication of the feeling thus awakened, when, in the summer of , his younger daughter kate was married to charles alston collins, brother of the novelist, and younger son of the painter and academician, who might have found, if spared to witness that summer-morning scene, subjects not unworthy of his delightful pencil in many a rustic group near gadshill. all the villagers had turned out in honour of dickens, and the carriages could hardly get to and from the little church for the succession of triumphal arches they had to pass through. it was quite unexpected by him; and when the feu de joie of the blacksmith in the lane, whose enthusiasm had smuggled a couple of small cannon into his forge, exploded upon him at the return, i doubt if the shyest of men was ever so taken aback at an ovation. to name the principal persons present that day will indicate the faces that (with addition of miss mary boyle, miss marguerite power, mr. fechter, mr. charles kent, mr. edmund yates, mr. percy fitzgerald, and members of the family of mr. frank stone, whose sudden death[ ] in the preceding year had been a great grief to dickens) were most familiar at gadshill in these later years. mr. frederic lehmann was there with his wife, whose sister, miss chambers, was one of the bridesmaids; mr. and mrs. wills were there, and dickens's old fast friend mr. thomas beard; the two nearest country neighbours with whom the family had become very intimate, mr. hulkes and mr. malleson, with their wives, joined the party; among the others were henry chorley, chauncy townshend, and wilkie collins; and, for friend special to the occasion, the bridegroom had brought his old fellow-student in art, mr. holman hunt. mr. charles collins had himself been bred as a painter, for success in which line he had some rare gifts; but inclination and capacity led him also to literature, and, after much indecision between the two callings, he took finally to letters. his contributions to _all the year round_ were among the most charming of its detached papers, and two stories published independently showed strength of wing for higher flights. but his health broke down, and his taste was too fastidious for his failing power. it is possible however that he may live by two small books of description, the _new sentimental journey_ and the _cruize on wheels_, which have in them unusual delicacy and refinement of humour; and if those volumes should make any readers in another generation curious about the writer, they will learn, if correct reply is given to their inquiries, that no man disappointed so many reasonable hopes with so little fault or failure of his own, that his difficulty always was to please himself, and that an inferior mind would have been more successful in both the arts he followed. he died in in his forty-fifth year; and until then it was not known, even by those nearest to him, how great must have been the suffering which he had borne, through many trying years, with uncomplaining patience. his daughter's marriage was the chief event that had crossed the even tenor of dickens's life since his first paid readings closed; and it was followed by the sale of tavistock house, with the resolve to make his future home at gadshill. in the brief interval ( th of july) he wrote to me of his brother alfred's death. "i was telegraphed for to manchester on friday night. arrived there at a quarter past ten, but he had been dead three hours, poor fellow! he is to be buried at highgate on wednesday. i brought the poor young widow back with me yesterday." all that this death involved,[ ] the troubles of his change of home, and some difficulties in working out his story, gave him more than sufficient occupation till the following spring; and as the time arrived for the new readings, the change was a not unwelcome one. the first portion of this second series was planned by mr. arthur smith, but he only superintended the six readings in london which opened it. these were the first at st. james's hall (st. martin's hall having been burnt since the last readings there) and were given in march and april . "we are all well here and flourishing," he wrote to me from gadshill on the th of april. "on the th i finished the readings as i purposed. we had between seventy and eighty pounds _in the stalls_, which, at four shillings apiece, is something quite unprecedented in these times. . . . the result of the six was, that, after paying a large staff of men and all other charges, and arthur smith's ten per cent. on the receipts, and replacing everything destroyed in the fire at st. martin's hall (including all our tickets, country-baggage, cheque-boxes, books, and a quantity of gas-fittings and what not), i got upwards of £ . a very great result. we certainly might have gone on through the season, but i am heartily glad to be concentrated on my story." it had been part of his plan that the provincial readings should not begin until a certain interval after the close of his story of _great expectations_. they were delayed accordingly until the th of october, from which date, when they opened at norwich, they went on with the christmas intervals to be presently named to the th of january , when they closed at chester. kept within england and scotland, they took in the border town of berwick, and, besides the scotch cities, comprised the contrasts and varieties of norwich and lancaster, bury st. edmunds and cheltenham, carlisle and hastings, plymouth and birmingham, canterbury and torquay, preston and ipswich, manchester and brighton, colchester and dover, newcastle and chester. they were followed by ten readings at the st. james's hall, between the th of march and the th of june ; and by four at paris in january , given at the embassy in aid of the british charitable fund. the second series had thus in the number of the readings nearly equalled the first, when it closed at london in june with thirteen readings in the hanover square rooms; and it is exclusively the subject of such illustrations or references as this chapter will supply. on _great expectations_ closing in june , bulwer lytton, at dickens's earnest wish, took his place in _all the year round_ with the "strange story;" and he then indulged himself in idleness for a little while. "the subsidence of those distressing pains in my face the moment i had done my work, made me resolve to do nothing in that way for some time if i could help it."[ ] but his "doing nothing" was seldom more than a figure of speech, and what it meant in this case was soon told. "every day for two or three hours, i practise my new readings, and (except in my office work) do nothing else. with great pains i have made a continuous narrative out of _copperfield_, that i think will reward the exertion it is likely to cost me. unless i am much mistaken, it will be very valuable in london. i have also done _nicholas nickleby_ at the yorkshire school, and hope i have got something droll out of squeers, john browdie, & co. also, the bastille prisoner from the _tale of two cities_. also, the dwarf from one of our christmas numbers." only the first two were added to the list for the present circuit. it was in the midst of these active preparations that painful news reached him. an illness under which mr. arthur smith had been some time suffering took unexpectedly a dangerous turn, and there came to be but small chance of his recovery. a distressing interview on the th of september gave dickens little hope. "and yet his wakings and wanderings so perpetually turn on his arrangements for the readings, and he is so desperately unwilling to relinquish the idea of 'going on with the business' to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow, that i had not the heart to press him for the papers. he told me that he believed he had by him ' or letters unanswered.' you may imagine how anxious it makes me, and at what a deadstop i stand." another week passed, and with it the time fixed at the places where his work was to have opened; but he could not bring himself to act as if all hope had gone. "with a sick man who has been so zealous and faithful, i feel bound to be very tender and patient. when i told him the other day about my having engaged headland--'to do all the personally bustling and fatiguing part of your work,' i said--he nodded his heavy head with great satisfaction, and faintly got out of himself the words, 'of course i pay him, and not you.'" the poor fellow died in october; and on the day after attending the funeral,[ ] dickens heard of the death of his brother-in-law and friend, mr. henry austin, whose abilities and character he respected as much as he liked the man. he lost much in losing the judicious and safe counsel which had guided him on many public questions in which he took lively interest, and it was with a heavy heart he set out at last upon his second circuit. "with what difficulty i get myself back to the readings after all this loss and trouble, or with what unwillingness i work myself up to the mark of looking them in the face, i can hardly say. as for poor arthur smith at this time, it is as if my right arm were gone. it is only just now that i am able to open one of the books, and screw the text out of myself in a flat dull way. enclosed is the list of what i have to do. you will see that i have left ten days in november for the christmas number, and also a good christmas margin for our meeting at gadshill. i shall be very glad to have the money that i expect to get; but it will be earned." that november interval was also the date of the marriage of his eldest son to the daughter of mr. evans, so long, in connection with mr. bradbury, his publisher and printer. the start of the readings at norwich was not good, so many changes of vexation having been incident to the opening announcements as to leave some doubt of their fulfilment. but the second night, when trial was made of the _nickleby_ scenes, "we had a splendid hall, and i think _nickleby_ will top all the readings. somehow it seems to have got in it, by accident, exactly the qualities best suited to the purpose; and it went last night, not only with roars, but with a general hilarity and pleasure that i have never seen surpassed."[ ] from this night onward, the success was uninterrupted, and here was his report to me from brighton on the th of november. "we turned away half dover and half hastings and half colchester; and, if you can believe such a thing, i may tell you that in round numbers we find stalls already taken here in brighton! i left colchester in a heavy snow-storm. to-day it is so warm here that i can hardly bear the fire, and am writing with the window open down to the ground. last night i had a most charming audience for _copperfield_, with a delicacy of perception that really made the work delightful. it is very pretty to see the girls and women generally, in the matter of dora; and everywhere i have found that peculiar personal relation between my audience and myself on which i counted most when i entered on this enterprise. _nickleby_ continues to go in the wildest manner." a storm was at this time sweeping round the coast, and while at dover he had written of it to his sister-in-law ( th of november): "the bad weather has not in the least touched us, and the storm was most magnificent at dover. all the great side of the lord warden next the sea had to be emptied, the break of the waves was so prodigious, and the noise so utterly confounding. the sea came in like a great sky of immense clouds, for ever breaking suddenly into furious rain; all kinds of wreck were washed in; among other things, a very pretty brass-bound chest being thrown about like a feather. . . . the unhappy ostend packet, unable to get in or go back, beat about the channel all tuesday night, and until noon yesterday; when i saw her come in, with five men at the wheel, a picture of misery inconceivable. . . . the effect of the readings at hastings and dover really seems to have outdone the best usual impression; and at dover they wouldn't go, but sat applauding like mad. the most delicate audience i have seen in any provincial place, is canterbury" ("an intelligent and delightful response in them," he wrote to his daughter, "like the touch of a beautiful instrument"); "but the audience with the greatest sense of humour certainly is dover. the people in the stalls set the example of laughing, in the most curiously unreserved way; and they laughed with such really cordial enjoyment, when squeers read the boys' letters, that the contagion extended to me. for, one couldn't hear them without laughing too. . . . so, i am thankful to say, all goes well, and the recompense for the trouble is in every way great." from the opposite quarter of berwick-on-tweed he wrote again in the midst of storm. but first his mention of newcastle, which he had also taken on his way to edinburgh, reading two nights there, should be given. "at newcastle, against the very heavy expenses, i made more than a hundred guineas profit. a finer audience there is not in england, and i suppose them to be a specially earnest people; for, while they can laugh till they shake the roof, they have a very unusual sympathy with what is pathetic or passionate. an extraordinary thing occurred on the second night. the room was tremendously crowded and my gas-apparatus fell down. there was a terrible wave among the people for an instant, and god knows what destruction of life a rush to the stairs would have caused. fortunately a lady in the front of the stalls ran out towards me, exactly in a place where i knew that the whole hall could see her. so i addressed her, laughing, and half-asked and half-ordered her to sit down again; and, in a moment, it was all over. but the men in attendance had such a fearful sense of what might have happened (besides the real danger of fire) that they positively shook the boards i stood on, with their trembling, when they came up to put things right. i am proud to record that the gas-man's sentiment, as delivered afterwards, was, 'the more you want of the master, the more you'll find in him.' with which complimentary homage, and with the wind blowing so that i can hardly hear myself write, i conclude."[ ] it was still blowing, in shape of a gale from the sea, when, an hour before the reading, he wrote from the king's arms at berwick-on-tweed. "as odd and out of the way a place to be at, it appears to me, as ever was seen! and such a ridiculous room designed for me to read in! an immense corn exchange, made of glass and iron, round, dome-topp'd, lofty, utterly absurd for any such purpose, and full of thundering echoes; with a little lofty crow's nest of a stone gallery, breast high, deep in the wall, into which it was designed to put----_me_! i instantly struck, of course; and said i would either read in a room attached to this house (a very snug one, capable of holding people), or not at all. terrified local agents glowered, but fell prostrate, and my men took the primitive accommodation in hand. ever since, i am alarmed to add, the people (who besought the honour of the visit) have been coming in numbers quite irreconcileable with the appearance of the place, and what is to be the end i do not know. it was poor arthur smith's principle that a town on the way paid the expenses of a long through-journey, and therefore i came." the reading paid more than those expenses. enthusiastic greeting awaited him in edinburgh. "we had in the hall exactly double what we had on the first night last time. the success of _copperfield_ was perfectly unexampled. four great rounds of applause with a burst of cheering at the end, and every point taken in the finest manner." but this was nothing to what befell on the second night, when, by some mistake of the local agents, the tickets issued were out of proportion to the space available. writing from glasgow next day ( rd of december) he described the scene. "such a pouring of hundreds into a place already full to the throat, such indescribable confusion, such a rending and tearing of dresses, and yet such a scene of good humour on the whole, i never saw the faintest approach to. while i addressed the crowd in the room, g addressed the crowd in the street. fifty frantic men got up in all parts of the hall and addressed me all at once. other frantic men made speeches to the walls. the whole b family were borne in on the top of a wave, and landed with their faces against the front of the platform. i read with the platform crammed with people. i got them to lie down upon it, and it was like some impossible tableau or gigantic pic-nic--one pretty girl in full dress, lying on her side all night, holding on to one of the legs of my table! it was the most extraordinary sight. and yet, from the moment i began to the moment of my leaving off, they never missed a point, and they ended with a burst of cheers. . . . the expenditure of lungs and spirits was (as you may suppose) rather great; and to sleep well was out of the question. i am therefore rather fagged to-day; and as the hall in which i read to-night is a large one, i must make my letter a short one. . . . my people were torn to ribbons last night. they have not a hat among them--and scarcely a coat." he came home for his christmas rest by way of manchester, and thus spoke of the reading there on the th of december. "_copperfield_ in the free trade hall last saturday was really a grand scene." he was in southern latitudes after christmas, and on the th of january wrote from torquay: "we are now in the region of small rooms, and therefore this trip will not be as profitable as the long one. i imagine the room here to be very small. exeter i know, and that is small too. i am very much used up on the whole, for i cannot bear this moist warm climate. it would kill me very soon. and i have now got to the point of taking so much out of myself with _copperfield_ that i might as well do richard wardour. . . . this is a very pretty place--a compound of hastings, tunbridge wells, and little bits of the hills about naples; but i met four respirators as i came up from the station, and three pale curates without them who seemed in a bad way." they had been not bad omens, however. the success was good, at both torquay and exeter; and he closed the month, and this series of the country readings, at the great towns of liverpool and chester. "the beautiful st. george's hall crowded to excess last night" ( th of january ) "and numbers turned away. brilliant to see when lighted up, and for a reading simply perfect. you remember that a liverpool audience is usually dull; but they put me on my mettle last night, for i never saw such an audience--no, not even in edinburgh! the agents (alone, and of course without any reference to ready money at the doors) had taken for the two readings two hundred pounds." but as the end approached the fatigues had told severely on him. he described himself sleeping horribly, and with head dazed and worn by gas and heat. rest, before he could resume at the st. james's hall in march, was become an absolute necessity. two brief extracts from letters of the dates respectively of the th of april[ ] and the th of june will sufficiently describe the london readings. "the money returns have been quite astounding. think of £ a night! the effect of _copperfield_ exceeds all the expectations which its success in the country led me to form. it seems to take people entirely by surprise. if this is not new to you, i have not a word of news. the rain that raineth every day seems to have washed news away or got it under water." that was in april. in june he wrote: "i finished my readings on friday night to an enormous hall--nearly £ . the success has been throughout complete. it seems almost suicidal to leave off with the town so full, but i don't like to depart from my public pledge. a man from australia is in london ready to pay £ , for eight months there. if----" it was an if that troubled him for some time, and led to agitating discussion. the civil war having closed america, an increase made upon the just-named offer tempted him to australia. he tried to familiarize himself with the fancy that he should thus also get new material for observation, and he went so far as to plan an uncommercial traveller upside down.[ ] it is however very doubtful if such a scheme would have been entertained for a moment, but for the unwonted difficulties of invention that were now found to beset a twenty-number story. such a story had lately been in his mind, and he had just chosen the title for it (_our mutual friend_); but still he halted and hesitated sorely. "if it was not," (he wrote on the th of october ) "for the hope of a gain that would make me more independent of the worst, i could not look the travel and absence and exertion in the face. i know perfectly well beforehand how unspeakably wretched i should be. but these renewed and larger offers tempt me. i can force myself to go aboard a ship, and i can force myself to do at that reading-desk what i have done a hundred times; but whether, with all this unsettled fluctuating distress in my mind, i could force an original book out of it, is another question." on the nd, still striving hard to find reasons to cope with the all but irresistible arguments against any such adventure, which indeed, with everything that then surrounded him, would have been little short of madness, he thus stated his experience of his two circuits of public reading. "remember that at home here the thing has never missed fire, but invariably does more the second time than it did the first; and also that i have got so used to it, and have worked so hard at it, as to get out of it more than i ever thought was in it for that purpose. i think all the probabilities for such a country as australia are immense." the terrible difficulty was that the home argument struck both ways. "if i were to go it would be a penance and a misery, and i dread the thought more than i can possibly express. the domestic life of the readings is all but intolerable to me when i am away for a few weeks at a time merely, and what would it be----." on the other hand it was also a thought of home, far beyond the mere personal loss or gain of it, that made him willing still to risk even so much misery and penance; and he had a fancy that it might be possible to take his eldest daughter with him. "it is useless and needless for me to say what the conflict in my own mind is. how painfully unwilling i am to go, and yet how painfully sensible that perhaps i ought to go--with all the hands upon my skirts that i cannot fail to feel and see there, whenever i look round. it is a struggle of no common sort, as you will suppose, you who know the circumstances of the struggler." it closed at once when he clearly saw that to take any of his family with him, and make satisfactory arrangement for the rest during such an absence, would be impossible. by this time also he began to find his way to the new story, and better hopes and spirits had returned. in january he had taken his daughter and his sister-in-law to paris, and he read twice at the embassy in behalf of the british charitable fund, the success being such that he consented to read twice again.[ ] he passed his birthday of that year (the th of the following month) at arras. "you will remember me to-day, i know. thanks for it. an odd birthday, but i am as little out of heart as you would have me be--floored now and then, but coming up again at the call of time. i wanted to see this town, birthplace of our amiable sea green" (robespierre); "and i find a grande place so very remarkable and picturesque that it is astonishing how people miss it. here too i found, in a bye-country place just near, a fair going on, with a religious richardson's in it--thÉatre religieux--'donnant six fois par jour, l'histoire de la croix en tableaux vivants, depuis la naissance de notre seigneur jusqu'à son sepulture. aussi l'immolation d'isaac, par son père abraham.' it was just before nightfall when i came upon it; and one of the three wise men was up to his eyes in lamp oil, hanging the moderators. a woman in blue and fleshings (whether an angel or joseph's wife i don't know) was addressing the crowd through an enormous speaking-trumpet; and a very small boy with a property lamb (i leave you to judge who _he_ was) was standing on his head on a barrel-organ." returning to england by boulogne in the same year, as he stepped into the folkestone boat he encountered a friend, mr. charles manby (for, in recording a trait of character so pleasing and honourable, it is not necessary that i should suppress the name), also passing over to england. "taking leave of manby was a shabby man of whom i had some remembrance, but whom i could not get into his place in my mind. noticing when we stood out of the harbour that he was on the brink of the pier, waving his hat in a desolate manner, i said to manby, 'surely i know that man.'--'i should think you did,' said he: 'hudson!' he is living--just living--at paris, and manby had brought him on. he said to manby at parting, 'i shall not have a good dinner again, till you come back.' i asked manby why he stuck to him? he said, because he (hudson) had so many people in his power, and had held his peace; and because he (manby) saw so many notabilities grand with him now, who were always grovelling for 'shares' in the days of his grandeur." upon dickens's arrival in london the second series of his readings was brought to a close; and opportunity may be taken, before describing the third, to speak of the manuscript volume found among his papers, containing memoranda for use in his writings. footnotes: [ ] "you will be grieved," he wrote (saturday th of nov. ) "to hear of poor stone. on sunday he was not well. on monday, went to dr. todd, who told him he had aneurism of the heart. on tuesday, went to dr. walsh, who told him he hadn't. on wednesday i met him in a cab in the square here, and he got out to talk to me. i walked about with him a little while at a snail's pace, cheering him up; but when i came home, i told them that i thought him much changed, and in danger. yesterday at o'clock he died of spasm of the heart. i am going up to highgate to look for a grave for him." [ ] he was now hard at work on his story; and a note written from gadshill after the funeral shows, what so frequently was incident to his pursuits, the hard conditions under which sorrow, and its claim on his exertion, often came to him. "to-morrow i have to work against time and tide and everything else, to fill up a no. keeping open for me, and the stereotype plates of which must go to america on friday. but indeed the enquiry into poor alfred's affairs; the necessity of putting the widow and children somewhere; the difficulty of knowing what to do for the best; and the need i feel under of being as composed and deliberate as i can be, and yet of not shirking or putting off the occasion that there is for doing a duty; would have brought me back here to be quiet, under any circumstances." [ ] the same letter adds: "the fourth edition of _great expectations_ is now going to press; the third being nearly out. bulwer's story keeps us up bravely. as well as we can make out, we have even risen fifteen hundred." [ ] "there was a very touching thing in the chapel" (at brompton). "when the body was to be taken up and carried to the grave, there stepped out, instead of the undertaker's men with their hideous paraphernalia, the men who had always been with the two brothers at the egyptian hall; and they, in their plain, decent, own mourning clothes, carried the poor fellow away. also, standing about among the gravestones, dressed in black, i noticed every kind of person who had ever had to do with him--from our own gas man and doorkeepers and billstickers, up to johnson the printer and that class of man. the father and albert and he now lie together, and the grave, i suppose, will be no more disturbed i wrote a little inscription for the stone, and it is quite full." [ ] of his former manager he writes in the same letter: "i miss him dreadfully. the sense i used to have of compactness and comfort about me while i was reading, is quite gone; and on my coming out for the ten minutes, when i used to find him always ready for me with something cheerful to say, it is forlorn. . . . besides which, h. and all the rest of them are always somewhere, and he was always everywhere." [ ] the more detailed account of the scene which he wrote to his daughter is also well worth giving. "a most tremendous hall here last night. something almost terrible in the cram. a fearful thing might have happened. suddenly, when they were all very still over smike, my gas batten came down, and it looked as if the room were falling. there were three great galleries crammed to the roof, and a high steep flight of stairs; and a panic must have destroyed numbers of people. a lady in the front row of stalls screamed, and ran out wildly towards me, and for one instant there was a terrible wave in the crowd. i addressed that lady, laughing (for i knew she was in sight of everybody there), and called out as if it happened every night--'there's nothing the matter i assure you; don't be alarmed; pray sit down----' and she sat down directly, and there was a thunder of applause. it took some five minutes to mend, and i looked on with my hands in my pockets; for i think if i had turned my back for a moment, there might still have been a move. my people were dreadfully alarmed--boycott" (the gas-man) "in particular, who i suppose had some notion that the whole place might have taken fire--'but there stood the master,' he did me the honour to say afterwards, in addressing the rest, 'as cool as ever i see him a lounging at a railway station.'" [ ] the letter referred also to the death of his american friend professor felton. "your mention of poor felton's death is a shock of surprise as well as grief to me, for i had not heard a word about it. mr. fields told me when he was here that the effect of that hotel disaster of bad drinking water had not passed away; so i suppose, as you do, that he sank under it. poor dear felton! it is years since i told you of the delight my first knowledge of him gave me, and it is as strongly upon me to this hour. i wish our ways had crossed a little oftener, but that would not have made it better for us now. alas! alas! all ways have the same finger-post at the head of them, and at every turning in them." [ ] i give the letter in which he put the scheme formally before me, after the renewed and larger offers had been submitted. "if there were reasonable hope and promise, i could make up my mind to go to australia and get money. i would not accept the australian people's offer. i would take no money from them; would bind myself to nothing with them; but would merely make them my agents at such and such a per centage, and go and read there. i would take some man of literary pretensions as a secretary (charles collins? what think you?) and with his aid" (he afterwards made the proposal to his old friend mr. thomas beard) "would do, for _all the year round_ while i was away, the uncommercial traveller upside down. if the notion of these speculators be anything like accurate, i should come back rich. i should have seen a great deal of novelty to boot. i should have been very miserable too. . . . of course one cannot possibly count upon the money to be realized by a six months' absence, but, £ , is supposed to be a low estimate. mr. s. brought me letters from members of the legislature, newspaper editors, and the like, exhorting me to come, saying how much the people talk of me, and dwelling on the kind of reception that would await me. no doubt this is so, and of course a great deal of curious experience for after use would be gained over and above the money. being my own master too, i could 'work' myself more delicately than if i bound myself for money beforehand. a few years hence, if all other circumstances were the same, i might not be so well fitted for the excessive wear and tear. this is about the whole case. but pray do not suppose that i am in my own mind favourable to going, or that i have any fancy for going." that was late in october. from paris in november ( ), he wrote: "i mentioned the question to bulwer when he dined with us here last sunday, and he was all for going. he said that not only did he think the whole population would go to the readings, but that the country would strike me in some quite new aspect for a book; and that wonders might be done with such book in the way of profit, over there as well as here." [ ] a person present thus described ( st of february ) the second night to miss dickens. "no one can imagine the scene of last friday night at the embassy . . . a two hours' storm of excitement and pleasure. they actually murmured and applauded right away into their carriages and down the street." chapter xii. hints for books written and unwritten. - . book of ms. memoranda--home of the barnacles--original of mrs. clennam--river and ferryman--notions for _little dorrit_--original of _hunted down_--titles for _tale of two cities_--hints for _mutual friend_--reprobate's notion of duty--proposed opening for a story--england first seen by an englishman--touching fancy--story from state trials--sentimentalist and her fate--female groups--children farming--subjects for description--fancies not worked upon--available names--mr. brobity's snuff-box. dickens began the book of memoranda for possible use in his work, to which occasional reference has been made, in january , six months before the first page of _little dorrit_ was written; and i find no allusion leading me to suppose, except in one very doubtful instance, that he had made addition to its entries, or been in the habit of resorting to them, after the date of _our mutual friend_. it seems to comprise that interval of ten years in his life. in it were put down any hints or suggestions that occurred to him. a mere piece of imagery or fancy, it might be at one time; at another the outline of a subject or a character; then a bit of description or dialogue; no order or sequence being observed in any. titles for stories were set down too, and groups of names for the actors in them; not the least curious of the memoranda belonging to this class. more rarely, entry is made of some oddity of speech; and he has thus preserved in it, _verbatim et literatim_, what he declared to have been as startling a message as he ever received. a confidential servant at tavistock house, having conferred on some proposed changes in his bed-room with the party that was to do the work, delivered this ultimatum to her master. "the gas-fitter says, sir, that he can't alter the fitting of your gas in your bed-room without taking up almost the ole of your bed-room floor, and pulling your room to pieces. he says, of course you can have it done if you wish, and he'll do it for you and make a good job of it, but he would have to destroy your room first, and go entirely under the jistes."[ ] it is very interesting in this book, last legacy as it is of the literary remains of such a writer, to compare the way in which fancies were worked out with their beginnings entered in its pages. those therefore will first be taken that in some form or other appeared afterwards in his writings, with such reference to the latter as may enable the reader to make comparison for himself. "our house. whatever it is, it is in a first-rate situation, and a fashionable neighbourhood. (auctioneer called it 'a gentlemanly residence.') a series of little closets squeezed up into the corner of a dark street--but a duke's mansion round the corner. the whole house just large enough to hold a vile smell. the air breathed in it, at the best of times, a kind of distillation of mews." he made it the home of the barnacles in _little dorrit_. what originally he meant to express by mrs. clennam in the same story has narrower limits, and a character less repellent, in the memoranda than it assumed in the book. "bed-ridden (or room-ridden) twenty--five-and-twenty--years; any length of time. as to most things, kept at a standstill all the while. thinking of altered streets as the old streets--changed things as the unchanged things--the youth or girl i quarrelled with all those years ago, as the same youth or girl now. brought out of doors by an unexpected exercise of my latent strength of character, and then how strange!" one of the people of the same story who becomes a prominent actor in it, henry gowan, a creation on which he prided himself as forcible and new, seems to have risen to his mind in this way. "i affect to believe that i would do anything myself for a ten-pound note, and that anybody else would. i affect to be always book-keeping in every man's case, and posting up a little account of good and evil with every one. thus the greatest rascal becomes 'the dearest old fellow,' and there is much less difference than you would be inclined to suppose between an honest man and a scoundrel. while i affect to be finding good in most men, i am in reality decrying it where it really is, and setting it up where it is not. might not a presentation of this far from uncommon class of character, if i could put it strongly enough, be likely to lead some men to reflect, and change a little? i think it has never been done." in _little dorrit_ also will be found a picture which seems to live with a more touching effect in his first pleasing fancy of it. "the ferryman on a peaceful river, who has been there from youth, who lives, who grows old, who does well, who does ill, who changes, who dies--the river runs six hours up and six hours down, the current sets off that point, the same allowance must be made for the drifting of the boat, the same tune is always played by the rippling water against the prow." here was an entry made when the thought occurred to him of the close of old dorrit's life. "first sign of the father failing and breaking down. cancels long interval. begins to talk about the turnkey who first called him the father of the marshalsea--as if he were still living. 'tell bob i want to speak to him. see if he is on the lock, my dear.'" and here was the first notion of clennam's reverse of fortune. "his falling into difficulty, and himself imprisoned in the marshalsea. then she, out of all her wealth and changed station, comes back in her old dress, and devotes herself in the old way." he seems to have designed, for the sketches of society in the same tale, a "full-length portrait of his lordship, surrounded by worshippers;" of which, beside that brief memorandum, only his first draft of the general outline was worked at. "sensible men enough, agreeable men enough, independent men enough in a certain way;--but the moment they begin to circle round my lord, and to shine with a borrowed light from his lordship, heaven and earth how mean and subservient! what a competition and outbidding of each other in servility." the last of the memoranda hints which were used in the story whose difficulties at its opening seem first to have suggested them, ran thus: "the unwieldy ship taken in tow by the snorting little steam tug"--by which was prefigured the patriarch casby and his agent panks. in a few lines are the germ of the tale called _hunted down_: "devoted to the destruction of a man. revenge built up on love. the secretary in the wainewright case, who had fallen in love (or supposed he had) with the murdered girl."--the hint on which he worked in his description of the villain of that story, is also in the memoranda. "the man with his hair parted straight up the front of his head, like an aggravating gravel-walk. always presenting it to you. 'up here, if you please. neither to the right nor left. take me exactly in this direction. straight up here. come off the grass--'" his first intention as to the _tale of two cities_ was to write it upon a plan proposed in this manuscript book. "how as to a story in two periods--with a lapse of time between, like a french drama? titles for such a notion. time! the leaves of the forest. scattered leaves. the great wheel. round and round. old leaves. long ago. far apart. fallen leaves. five and twenty years. years and years. rolling years. day after day. felled trees. memory carton. rolling stones. two generations." that special title of _memory carton_ shows that what led to the greatest success of the book as written was always in his mind; and another of the memoranda is this rough hint of the character itself. "the drunken?--dissipated?--what?--lion--and his jackall and primer, stealing down to him at unwonted hours." the studies of silas wegg and his patron as they exist in _our mutual friend_, are hardly such good comedy as in the form which the first notion of them seems to have intended. "gibbon's decline and fall. the two characters. one reporting to the other as he reads. both getting confused as to whether it is not all going on now." in the same story may be traced, more or less clearly, other fancies which had found their first expression in the memoranda. a touch for bella wilfer is here. "buying poor shabby--father?--a new hat. so incongruous that it makes him like african king boy, or king george; who is usually full dressed when he has nothing upon him but a cocked hat or a waistcoat." here undoubtedly is the voice of podsnap. "i stand by my friends and acquaintances;--not for their sakes, but because they are _my_ friends and acquaintances. _i_ know them, _i_ have licensed them, they have taken out _my_ certificate. ergo, i champion them as myself." to the same redoubtable person another trait clearly belongs. "and by denying a thing, supposes that he altogether puts it out of existence." a third very perfectly expresses the boy, ready for mischief, who does all the work there is to be done in eugene wrayburn's place of business. "the office boy for ever looking out of window, who never has anything to do." the poor wayward purposeless good-hearted master of the boy, eugene himself, is as evidently in this: "if they were great things, i, the untrustworthy man in little things, would do them earnestly--but o no, i wouldn't!" what follows has a more direct reference; being indeed almost literally copied in the story. "as to the question whether i, eugene, lying ill and sick even unto death, may be consoled by the representation that coming through this illness, i shall begin a new life, and have energy and purpose and all i have yet wanted: 'i _hope_ i should, but i _know_ i shouldn't. let me die, my dear.'" in connection with the same book, the last in that form which he lived to complete, another fancy may be copied from which, though not otherwise worked out in the tale, the relation of lizzie hexam to her brother was taken. "a man, and his wife--or daughter--or niece. the man, a reprobate and ruffian; the woman (or girl) with good in her, and with compunctions. he believes nothing, and defies everything; yet has suspicions always, that she is 'praying against' his evil schemes, and making them go wrong. he is very much opposed to this, and is always angrily harping on it. 'if she _must_ pray, why can't she pray in their favour, instead of going against 'em? she's always ruining me--she always is--and calls that, duty! there's a religious person! calls it duty to fly in my face! calls it duty to go sneaking against me!'" other fancies preserved in his memoranda were left wholly unemployed, receiving from him no more permanent form of any kind than that which they have in this touching record; and what most people would probably think the most attractive and original of all the thoughts he had thus set down for future use, are those that were never used. here were his first rough notes for the opening of a story. "beginning with the breaking up of a large party of guests at a country house: house left lonely with the shrunken family in it: guests spoken of, and introduced to the reader that way.--or, beginning with a house abandoned by a family fallen into reduced circumstances. their old furniture there, and numberless tokens of their old comforts. inscriptions under the bells downstairs--'mr. john's room,' 'miss caroline's room.' great gardens trimly kept to attract a tenant: but no one in them. a landscape without figures. billiard room: table covered up, like a body. great stables without horses, and great coach-houses without carriages. grass growing in the chinks of the stone-paving, this bright cold winter day. _downhills._" another opening had also suggested itself to him. "open a story by bringing two strongly contrasted places and strongly contrasted sets of people, into the connexion necessary for the story, by means of an electric message. describe the message--_be_ the message--flashing along through space, over the earth, and under the sea."[ ] connected with which in some way would seem to be this other notion, following it in the memoranda. "representing london--or paris, or any other great place--in the new light of being actually unknown to all the people in the story, and only taking the colour of their fears and fancies and opinions. so getting a new aspect, and being unlike itself. an _odd_ unlikeness of itself." the subjects for stories are various, and some are striking. there was one he clung to much, and thought of frequently as in a special degree available for a series of papers in his periodical; but when he came to close quarters with it the difficulties were found to be too great. "english landscape. the beautiful prospect, trim fields, clipped hedges, everything so neat and orderly--gardens, houses, roads. where are the people who do all this? there must be a great many of them, to do it. where are they all? and are _they_, too, so well kept and so fair to see? suppose the foregoing to be wrought out by an englishman: say, from china: who knows nothing about his native country." to which may be added a fancy that savours of the same mood of discontent, political and social. "how do i know that i, a man, am to learn from insects--unless it is to learn how little my littlenesses are? all that botheration in the hive about the queen bee, may be, in little, me and the court circular." a domestic story he had met with in the state trials struck him greatly by its capabilities, and i may preface it by mentioning another subject, not entered in the memoranda, which for a long time impressed him as capable of attractive treatment. it was after reading one of the witch-trials that this occurred to him; and the heroine was to be a girl who for a special purpose had taken a witch's disguise, and whose trick was not discovered until she was actually at the stake. here is the state trials story as told by dickens. "there is a case in the state trials, where a certain officer made love to a (supposed) miser's daughter, and ultimately induced her to give her father slow poison, while nursing him in sickness. her father discovered it, told her so, forgave her, and said 'be patient my dear--i shall not live long, even if i recover: and then you shall have all my wealth.' though penitent then, she afterwards poisoned him again (under the same influence), and successfully. whereupon it appeared that the old man had no money at all, and had lived on a small annuity which died with him, though always feigning to be rich. he had loved this daughter with great affection." a theme touching closely on ground that some might think dangerous, is sketched in the following fancy. "the father (married young) who, in perfect innocence, venerates his son's young wife, as the realization of his ideal of woman. (he not happy in his own choice.) the son slights her, and knows nothing of her worth. the father watches her, protects her, labours for her, endures for her,--is for ever divided between his strong natural affection for his son as his son, and his resentment against him as this young creature's husband." here is another, less dangerous, which he took from an actual occurrence made known to him when he was at bonchurch. "the idea of my being brought up by my mother (me the narrator), my father being dead; and growing up in this belief until i find that my father is the gentleman i have sometimes seen, and oftener heard of, who has the handsome young wife, and the dog i once took notice of when i was a little child, and who lives in the great house and drives about." very admirable is this. "the girl separating herself from the lover who has shewn himself unworthy--loving him still--living single for his sake--but never more renewing their old relations. coming to him when they are both grown old, and nursing him in his last illness." nor is the following less so. "two girls _mis-marrying_ two men. the man who has evil in him, dragging the superior woman down. the man who has good in him, raising the inferior woman up." dickens would have been at his best in working out both fancies. in some of the most amusing of his sketches of character, women also take the lead. "the lady un peu passée, who is determined to be interesting. no matter how much i love that person--nay, the more so for that very reason--i must flatter, and bother, and be weak and apprehensive and nervous, and what not. if i were well and strong, agreeable and self-denying, my friend might forget me." another not remotely belonging to the same family is as neatly hit off. "the sentimental woman feels that the comic, undesigning, unconscious man, is 'her fate.'--i her fate? god bless my soul, it puts me into a cold perspiration to think of it. _i_ her fate? how can _i_ be her fate? i don't mean to be. i don't want to have anything to do with her--sentimental woman perceives nevertheless that destiny must be accomplished." other portions of a female group are as humorously sketched and hardly less entertaining. "the enthusiastically complimentary person, who forgets you in her own flowery prosiness: as--'i have no need to say to a person of your genius and feeling, and wide range of experience'--and then, being shortsighted, puts up her glass to remember who you are."--"two sisters" (these were real people known to him). "one going in for being generally beloved (which she is not by any means); and the other for being generally hated (which she needn't be)."--"the bequeathed maid-servant, or friend. left as a legacy. and a devil of a legacy too."--"the woman who is never on any account to hear of anything shocking. for whom the world is to be of barley-sugar."--"the lady who lives on her enthusiasm; and hasn't a jot."--"bright-eyed creature selling jewels. the stones and the eyes." much significance is in the last few words. one may see to what uses dickens would have turned them. a more troubled note is sounded in another of these female characters. "i am a common woman--fallen. is it devilry in me--is it a wicked comfort--what is it--that induces me to be always tempting other women down, while i hate myself!" this next, with as much truth in it, goes deeper than the last. "the prostitute who will not let one certain youth approach her. 'o let there be some one in the world, who having an inclination towards me has not gratified it, and has not known me in my degradation!' she almost loving him.--suppose, too, this touch in her could not be believed in by his mother or mistress: by some handsome and proudly virtuous woman, always revolting from her." a more agreeable sketch than either follows, though it would not please m. taine so well. "the little baby-like married woman--so strange in her new dignity, and talking with tears in her eyes, of her sisters 'and all of them' at home. never from home before, and never going back again." another from the same manuscript volume not less attractive, which was sketched in his own home, i gave upon a former page. the female character in its relations with the opposite sex has lively illustration in the memoranda. "the man who is governed by his wife, and is heartily despised in consequence by all other wives; who still want to govern _their_ husbands, notwithstanding." an alarming family pair follows that. "the playful--and scratching--family. father and daughter." and here is another. "the agreeable (and wicked) young-mature man, and his devoted sister." what next was set down he had himself partly seen; and, by enquiry at the hospital named, had ascertained the truth of the rest. "the two people in the incurable hospital.--the poor incurable girl lying on a water-bed, and the incurable man who has a strange flirtation with her; comes and makes confidences to her; snips and arranges her plants; and rehearses to her the comic songs(!) by writing which he materially helps out his living."[ ] two lighter figures are very pleasantly touched. "set of circumstances which suddenly bring an easy, airy fellow into near relations with people he knows nothing about, and has never even seen. this, through his being thrown in the way of the innocent young personage of the story. 'then there is uncle sam to be considered,' says she. 'aye to be sure,' says he, 'so there is! by jupiter, i forgot uncle sam. he's a rock ahead, is uncle sam. he must be considered, of course; he must be smoothed down; he must be cleared out of the way. to be sure. i never thought of uncle sam.--by the bye, who _is_ uncle sam?'" there are several such sketches as that, to set against the groups of women; and some have dickens's favourite vein of satire in them. "the man whose vista is always stopped up by the image of himself. looks down a long walk, and can't see round himself, or over himself, or beyond himself. is always blocking up his own way. would be such a good thing for him, if he could knock himself down." another picture of selfishness is touched with greater delicacy. "'too good' to be grateful to, or dutiful to, or anything else that ought to be. 'i won't thank you: you are too good.'--'don't ask me to marry you: you are too good.'--in short, i don't particularly mind ill-using you, and being selfish with you: for you are _so_ good. virtue its own reward!" a third, which seems to reverse the dial, is but another face of it: frankly avowing faults, which are virtues. "in effect--i admit i am generous, amiable, gentle, magnanimous. reproach me--i deserve it--i know my faults--i have striven in vain to get the better of them." dickens would have made much, too, of the working out of the next. "the knowing man in distress, who borrows a round sum of a generous friend. comes, in depression and tears, dines, gets the money, and gradually cheers up over his wine, as he obviously entertains himself with the reflection that his friend is an egregious fool to have lent it to him, and that _he_ would have known better." and so of this other. "the man who invariably says apposite things (in the way of reproof or sarcasm) that he don't mean. astonished when they are explained to him." here is a fancy that i remember him to have been more than once bent upon making use of: but the opportunity never came. "the two men to be guarded against, as to their revenge. one, whom i openly hold in some serious animosity, whom i am at the pains to wound and defy, and whom i estimate as worth wounding and defying;--the other, whom i treat as a sort of insect, and contemptuously and pleasantly flick aside with my glove. but, it turns out to be the latter who is the really dangerous man; and, when i expect the blow from the other, it comes from _him_." we have the master hand in the following bit of dialogue, which takes wider application than that for which it appears to have been intended. "'there is some virtue in him too.' "'virtue! yes. so there is in any grain of seed in a seedsman's shop--but you must put it in the ground, before you can get any good out of it.' "'do you mean that _he_ must be put in the ground before any good comes of _him_?' "'indeed i do. you may call it burying him, or you may call it sowing him, as you like. you must set him in the earth, before you get any good of him.'" one of the entries is a list of persons and places meant to have been made subjects for special description, and it will awaken regret that only as to one of them (the mugby refreshments) his intention was fulfilled. "a vestryman. a briber. a station waiting-room. refreshments at mugby. a physician's waiting-room. the royal academy. an antiquary's house. a sale room. a picture gallery (for sale). a waste-paper shop. a post-office. a theatre." all will have been given that have particular interest or value, from this remarkable volume, when the thoughts and fancies i proceed to transcribe have been put before the reader. * * * * * "the man who is incapable of his own happiness. or who is always in pursuit of happiness. result, where is happiness to be found then? surely not everywhere? can that be so, after all? is _this_ my experience?" * * * * * "the people who persist in defining and analysing their (and everybody else's) moral qualities, motives and what not, at once in the narrowest spirit and the most lumbering manner;--as if one should put up an enormous scaffolding for the building of a pigstye." * * * * * "the house-full of toadies and humbugs. they all know and despise one another; but--partly to keep their hands in, and partly to make out their own individual cases--pretend not to detect one another." * * * * * "people realising immense sums of money, imaginatively--speculatively--counting their chickens before hatched. inflaming each other's imaginations about great gains of money, and entering into a sort of intangible, impossible, competition as to who is the richer." * * * * * "the advertising sage, philosopher, and friend: who educates 'for the bar, the pulpit, or the stage.'" * * * * * "the character of the real refugee--not the conventional; the real." * * * * * "the mysterious character, or characters, interchanging confidences. 'necessary to be very careful in that direction.'--'in what direction?'--'b'--'you don't say so. what, do you mean that c----?'--'is aware of d. exactly.'" "the father and boy, as i dramatically see them. opening with the wild dance i have in my mind." * * * * * "the old child. that is to say, born of parents advanced in life, and observing the parents of other children to be young. taking an old tone accordingly." * * * * * "a thoroughly sulky character--perverting everything. making the good, bad--and the bad, good." * * * * * "the people who lay all their sins negligences and ignorances, on providence." * * * * * "the man who marries his cook at last, after being so desperately knowing about the sex." * * * * * "the swell establishment, frightfully mean and miserable in all but the 'reception rooms.' those very showy." * * * * * "b. tells m. what my opinion is of his work, &c. quoting the man you have once spoken to as if he had talked a life's talk in two minutes." * * * * * "a misplaced and mis-married man; always, as it were, playing hide and seek with the world; and never finding what fortune seems to have hidden when he was born." "certain women in africa who have lost children, carry little wooden images of children on their heads, and always put their food to the lips of those images, before tasting it themselves. this is in a part of africa where the mortality among children (judging from the number of these little memorials) is very great." * * * * * two more entries are the last which he made. "available names" introduces a wonderful list in the exact following classes and order; as to which the reader may be left to his own memory for selection of such as found their way into the several stories from _little dorrit_ to the end. the rest, not lifted into that higher notice by such favour of their creator, must remain like any other undistinguished crowd. but among them may perhaps be detected, by those who have special insight for the physiognomy of a name, some few with so great promise in them of fun and character as will make the "mute inglorious" fate which has befallen them a subject for special regret; and much ingenious speculation will probably wait upon all. dickens has generally been thought, by the curious, to display not a few of his most characteristic traits in this particular field of invention. first there are titles for books; and from the list subjoined were taken two for christmas numbers and two for stories, though _nobody's fault_ had ultimately to give way to _little dorrit_. "the lumber room. somebody's luggage. to be left till called for. something wanted. extremes meet. nobody's fault. the grindstone. rokesmith's forge. our mutual friend. the cinder heap. two generations. broken crockery. dust. the home department. the young person. now or never. my neighbours. the children of the fathers. no thoroughfare." then comes a batch of "christian names": girls and boys: which stand thus, with mention of the source from which he obtained them. these therefore can hardly be called pure invention. some would have been reckoned too extravagant for anything but reality. "_girls from privy council education lists._ "lelia. menella. rubina. iris. rebecca. etty. rebinah. seba. persia. aramanda. doris. balzina. pleasant. gentilla. "_boys from privy council education lists._ "doctor. homer. oden. bradley. zerubbabel. maximilian. urbin. samilias. pickles. orange. feather. "_girls and boys from ditto._ "amanda, ethlynida; boetius, boltius." to which he adds supplementary lists that appear to be his own. "_more boys._ "robert ladle. joly stick. bill marigold. stephen marquick. jonathan knotwell. philip browndress. henry ghost. george muzzle. walter ashes. zephaniah ferry (or fury). william why. robert gospel. thomas fatherly. robin scubbam. "_more girls._ "sarah goldsacks. rosetta dust. susan goldring. catherine two. matilda rainbird. miriam denial. sophia doomsday. alice thorneywork. sally gimblet. verity hawkyard. birdie nash. ambrosina events. apaulina vernon. neltie ashford." and then come the mass of his "available names," which stand thus, without other introduction or comment: "towndling. mood. guff. treble. chilby. spessifer. wodder. whelpford. fennerck. gannerson. chinkerble. bintrey. fledson. hirll. brayle. mullender. treslingham. brankle. sittern. dostone. cay-lon. slyant. queedy. besselthur. musty. grout. tertius jobber. amon headston. strayshott. higden. morfit. goldstraw. barrel. inge. jump. jiggins. bones. coy. dawn. tatkin. drowvey. pudsey. pedsey. duncalf. tricklebank. sapsea. readyhuff. dufty. foggy. twinn. brownsword. peartree. sudds. silverman. kimber. laughley. lessock. tippins. minnitt. radlowe. pratchet. mawdett. wozenham. snowell. lottrum. lammle. froser. holblack. mulley. redworth. redfoot. tarbox (b). tinkling. duddle. jebus. powderhill. grimmer. skuse. titcoombe. crabble. swannock. tuzzen. twemlow. squab. jackman. sugg. bremmidge. silas blodget. melvin beal. buttrick. edson. sanlorn. lightword. titbull. bangham. kyle--nyle. pemble. maxey. rokesmith. chivery. wabbler. peex--speex. gannaway. mrs. flinks. flinx. jee. harden. merdle. murden. topwash. pordage. dorret--dorrit. carton. minifie. slingo. joad. kinch. mag. chellyson. blennam--cl. bardock. snigsworth. swenton. casby--peach. lowleigh--lowely. pigrin. yerbury. plornish. maroon. bandy-nandy. stonebury. magwitch. meagles. pancks. haggage. provis. stiltington. stiltwalk. stiltingstalk. stiltstalking. ravender. podsnap. clarriker. compery. striver-stryver. pumblechook. wangler. boffin. bantinck. dibton. wilfer. glibbery. mulvey. horlick. doolge. gannery. gargery. willshard. riderhood. pratterstone. chinkible. wopsell. wopsle. whelpington. whelpford. gayvery. wegg. hubble. urry. kibble. skiffins. wodder. etser. akershem." the last of the memoranda, and the last words written by dickens in the blank paper book containing them, are these. "'then i'll give up snuff.' brobity.--an alarming sacrifice. mr. brobity's snuff-box. the pawnbroker's account of it?" what was proposed by this must be left to conjecture; but "brobity" is the name of one of the people in his unfinished story, and the suggestion may have been meant for some incident in it. if so, it is the only passage in the volume which can be in any way connected with the piece of writing on which he was last engaged. some names were taken for it from the lists, but there is otherwise nothing to recall _edwin drood_. footnotes: [ ] from the same authority proceeded, in answer to a casual question one day, a description of the condition of his wardrobe of which he has also made note in the memoranda. "well, sir, your clothes is all shabby, and your boots is all burst." [ ] the date when this fancy dropped into his memoranda is fixed by the following passage in a letter to me of the th of august . "i am trying to coerce my thoughts into hammering out the christmas number. and i have an idea of opening a book (not the christmas number--a book) by bringing together two strongly contrasted places and two strongly contrasted sets of people, with which and with whom the story is to rest, through the agency of an electric message. i think a fine thing might be made of the message itself shooting over the land and under the sea, and it would be a curious way of sounding the key note." [ ] following this in the "memoranda" is an advertisement cut from the _times_: of a kind that always expressed to dickens a child-farming that deserved the gallows quite as much as the worst kind of starving, by way of farming, babies. the fourteen guineas a-year, "tender" age of the "dear" ones, maternal care, and no vacations or extras, to him had only one meaning. education for little children.--terms to guineas per annum; no extras or vacations. the system of education embraces the wide range of each useful and ornamental study suited to the tender age of the dear children. maternal care and kindness may be relied on.--x., heald's library, fulham-road. chapter xiii. third series of readings. - . death of thackeray--dickens on thackeray--mother's death--death of his second son--_our mutual friend_--revising a play--sorrowful new year--lameness--fatal anniversary--new readings undertaken--offer of messrs. chappell--relieved from management--greater fatigues involved--a memorable evening--mrs. carlyle--offer for more readings--result of the last--grave warnings--at liverpool--at manchester--at birmingham--in scotland--exertion and its result--an old malady--audiences at newcastle--scene at tynemouth--in dublin--at cambridge--close of the third series--desire in america to hear dickens read--sends agent to america--warning unheeded--for and against reading in america--decision to go--departure. the sudden death of thackeray on the christmas eve of was a painful shock to dickens. it would not become me to speak, when he has himself spoken, of his relations with so great a writer and so old a friend. "i saw him first, nearly twenty-eight years ago, when he proposed to become the illustrator of my earliest book. i saw him last,[ ] shortly before christmas, at the athenæum club, when he told me that he had been in bed three days . . . and that he had it in his mind to try a new remedy which he laughingly described. he was cheerful, and looked very bright. in the night of that day week, he died. the long interval between these two periods is marked in my remembrance of him by many occasions when he was extremely humorous, when he was irresistibly extravagant, when he was softened and serious, when he was charming with children. . . . no one can be surer than i, of the greatness and goodness of his heart. . . . in no place should i take it upon myself at this time to discourse of his books, of his refined knowledge of character, of his subtle acquaintance with the weaknesses of human nature, of his delightful playfulness as an essayist, of his quaint and touching ballads, of his mastery over the english language. . . . but before me lies all that he had written of his latest story . . . and the pain i have felt in perusing it has not been deeper than the conviction that he was in the healthiest vigour of his powers when he worked on this last labour. . . . the last words he corrected in print were 'and my heart throbbed with an exquisite bliss.' god grant that on that christmas eve when he laid his head back on his pillow and threw up his arms as he had been wont to do when very weary, some consciousness of duty done, and of christian hope throughout life humbly cherished, may have caused his own heart so to throb, when he passed away to his redeemer's rest. he was found peacefully lying as above described, composed, undisturbed, and to all appearance asleep." other griefs were with dickens at this time, and close upon them came the too certain evidence that his own health was yielding to the overstrain which had been placed upon it by the occurrences and anxieties of the few preceding years. his mother, whose infirm health had been tending for more than two years to the close, died in september ; and on his own birthday in the following february he had tidings of the death of his second son walter, on the last day of the old year in the officers' hospital at calcutta; to which he had been sent up invalided from his station, on his way home. he was a lieutenant in the th native infantry regiment, and had been doing duty with the nd highlanders. in his father had thus written to the youth's godfather, walter savage landor: "walter is a very good boy, and comes home from school with honorable commendation and a prize into the bargain. he never gets into trouble, for he is a great favourite with the whole house and one of the most amiable boys in the boy-world. he comes out on birthdays in a blaze of shirt pin." the pin was a present from landor; to whom three years later, when the boy had obtained his cadetship through the kindness of miss coutts, dickens wrote again. "walter has done extremely well at school; has brought home a prize in triumph; and will be eligible to 'go up' for his india examination soon after next easter. having a direct appointment he will probably be sent out soon after he has passed, and so will fall into that strange life 'up the country' before he well knows he is alive, or what life is--which indeed seems to be rather an advanced state of knowledge." if he had lived another month he would have reached his twenty-third year, and perhaps not then the advanced state of knowledge his father speaks of. but, never forfeiting his claim to those kindly paternal words, he had the goodness and simplicity of boyhood to the last. dickens had at this time begun his last story in twenty numbers, and my next chapter will show through what unwonted troubles, in this and the following year, he had to fight his way. what otherwise during its progress chiefly interested him, was the enterprise of mr. fechter at the lyceum, of which he had become the lessee; and dickens was moved to this quite as much by generous sympathy with the difficulties of such a position to an artist who was not an englishman, as by genuine admiration of mr. fechter's acting. he became his helper in disputes, adviser on literary points, referee in matters of management; and for some years no face was more familiar than the french comedian's at gadshill or in the office of his journal. but theatres and their affairs are things of a season, and even dickens's whim and humour will not revive for us any interest in these. no bad example, however, of the difficulties in which a french actor may find himself with english playwrights, will appear in a few amusing words from one of his letters about a piece played at the princess's before the lyceum management was taken in hand. "i have been cautioning fechter about the play whereof he gave the plot and scenes to b; and out of which i have struck some enormities, my account of which will (i think) amuse you. it has one of the best first acts i ever saw; but if he can do much with the last two, not to say three, there are resources in his art that _i_ know nothing about. when i went over the play this day week, he was at least minutes, _in a boat, in the last scene_, discussing with another gentleman (also in the boat) whether he should kill him or not; after which the gentleman dived overboard and swam for it. also, in the most important and dangerous parts of the play, there was a young person of the name of pickles who was constantly being mentioned by name, in conjunction with the powers of light or darkness; as, 'great heaven! pickles?'--'by hell, 'tis pickles!'--'pickles? a thousand devils!'--'distraction! pickles?'"[ ] the old year ended and the new one opened sadly enough. the death of leech in november affected dickens very much,[ ] and a severe attack of illness in february put a broad mark between his past life and what remained to him of the future. the lameness now began in his left foot which never afterwards wholly left him, which was attended by great suffering, and which baffled experienced physicians. he had persisted in his ordinary exercise during heavy snow-storms, and to the last he had the fancy that his illness was merely local. but that this was an error is now certain; and it is more than probable that if the nervous danger and disturbance it implied had been correctly appreciated at the time, its warning might have been of priceless value to dickens. unhappily he never thought of husbanding his strength except for the purpose of making fresh demands upon it, and it was for this he took a brief holiday in france during the summer. "before i went away," he wrote to his daughter, "i had certainly worked myself into a damaged state. but the moment i got away, i began, thank god, to get well. i hope to profit by this experience, and to make future dashes from my desk before i want them." at his return he was in the terrible railway accident at staplehurst, on a day[ ] which proved afterwards more fatal to him; and it was with shaken nerves but unsubdued energy he resumed the labour to be presently described. his foot troubled him more or less throughout the autumn;[ ] he was beset by nervous apprehensions which the accident had caused to himself, not lessened by his generous anxiety to assuage the severer sufferings inflicted by it on others;[ ] and that he should nevertheless have determined, on the close of his book, to undertake a series of readings involving greater strain and fatigue than any hitherto, was a startling circumstance. he had perhaps become conscious, without owning it even to himself, that for exertion of this kind the time left him was short; but, whatever pressed him on, his task of the next three years, self-imposed, was to make the most money in the shortest time without any regard to the physical labour to be undergone. the very letter announcing his new engagement shows how entirely unfit he was to enter upon it. "for some time," he wrote at the end of february , "i have been very unwell. f. b. wrote me word that with such a pulse as i described, an examination of the heart was absolutely necessary. 'want of muscular power in the heart,' b said. 'only remarkable irritability of the heart,' said doctor brinton of brook-street, who had been called in to consultation. i was not disconcerted; for i knew well beforehand that the effect could not possibly be without the one cause at the bottom of it, of some degeneration of some function of the heart. of course i am not so foolish as to suppose that all my work can have been achieved without _some_ penalty, and i have noticed for some time a decided change in my buoyancy and hopefulness--in other words, in my usual 'tone.' but tonics have already brought me round. so i have accepted an offer, from chappells of bond-street, of £ a night for thirty nights to read 'in england, ireland, scotland, or paris;' they undertaking all the business, paying all personal expenses, travelling and otherwise, of myself, john" (his office servant), "and my gasman; and making what they can of it. i begin, i believe, in liverpool on the thursday in easter week, and then come to london. i am going to read at cheltenham (on my own account) on the rd and th of this month, staying with macready of course." the arrangement of this series of readings differed from those of its predecessors in relieving dickens from every anxiety except of the reading itself; but, by such rapid and repeated change of nights at distant places as kept him almost wholly in a railway carriage when not at the reading-desk or in bed, it added enormously to the physical fatigue. he would read at st. james's hall in london one night, and at bradford the next. he would read in edinburgh, go on to glasgow and to aberdeen, then come back to glasgow, read again in edinburgh, strike off to manchester, come back to st. james's hall once more, and begin the same round again. it was labour that must in time have broken down the strongest man, and what dickens was when he assumed it we have seen. he did not himself admit a shadow of misgiving. "as to the readings" ( th of march), "all i have to do is, to take in my book and read, at the appointed place and hour, and come out again. all the business of every kind, is done by chappells. they take john and my other man, merely for my convenience. i have no more to do with any detail whatever, than you have. they transact all the business at their own cost, and on their own responsibility. i think they are disposed to do it in a very good spirit, because, whereas the original proposition was for thirty readings 'in england, ireland, scotland, or paris,' they wrote out their agreement 'in london, the provinces, or elsewhere, _as you and we may agree_.' for this they pay £ in three sums; £ on beginning, £ on the fifteenth reading, £ at the close. every charge of every kind, they pay besides. i rely for mere curiosity on _doctor marigold_ (i am going to begin with him in liverpool, and at st. james's hall). i have got him up with immense pains, and should like to give you a notion what i am going to do with him." the success everywhere went far beyond even the former successes. a single night at manchester, when eight hundred stalls were let, two thousand five hundred and sixty-five people admitted, and the receipts amounted to more than three hundred pounds, was followed in nearly the same proportion by all the greater towns; and on the th of april the outlay for the entire venture was paid, leaving all that remained, to the middle of the month of june, sheer profit. "i came back last sunday," he wrote on the th of may, "with my last country piece of work for this time done. everywhere the success has been the same. st. james's hall last night was quite a splendid spectacle. two more tuesdays there, and i shall retire into private life. i have only been able to get to gadshill once since i left it, and that was the day before yesterday." one memorable evening he had passed at my house in the interval, when he saw mrs. carlyle for the last time. her sudden death followed shortly after, and near the close of april he had thus written to me from liverpool. "it was a terrible shock to me, and poor dear carlyle has been in my mind ever since. how often i have thought of the unfinished novel. no one now to finish it. none of the writing women come near her at all." this was an allusion to what had passed at their meeting. it was on the second of april, the day when mr. carlyle had delivered his inaugural address as lord rector of edinburgh university, and a couple of ardent words from professor tyndall had told her of the triumph just before dinner. she came to us flourishing the telegram in her hand, and the radiance of her enjoyment of it was upon her all the night. among other things she gave dickens the subject for a novel, from what she had herself observed at the outside of a house in her street; of which the various incidents were drawn from the condition of its blinds and curtains, the costumes visible at its windows, the cabs at its door, its visitors admitted or rejected, its articles of furniture delivered or carried away; and the subtle serious humour of it all, the truth in trifling bits of character, and the gradual progress into a half-romantic interest, had enchanted the skilled novelist. she was well into the second volume of her small romance before she left, being as far as her observation then had taken her; but in a few days exciting incidents were expected, the denouement could not be far off, and dickens was to have it when they met again. yet it was to something far other than this amusing little fancy his thoughts had carried him, when he wrote of no one being capable to finish what she might have begun. in greater things this was still more true. no one could doubt it who had come within the fascinating influence of that sweet and noble nature. with some of the highest gifts of intellect, and the charm of a most varied knowledge of books and things, there was something "beyond, beyond." no one who knew mrs. carlyle could replace her loss when she had passed away. the same letter which told of his uninterrupted success to the last, told me also that he had a heavy cold upon him and was "very tired and depressed." some weeks before the first batch of readings closed, messrs. chappell had already tempted him with an offer for fifty more nights to begin at christmas, for which he meant, as he then said, to ask them seventy pounds a night. "it would be unreasonable to ask anything now on the ground of the extent of the late success, but i am bound to look to myself for the future. the chappells are speculators, though of the worthiest and most honourable kind. they make some bad speculations, and have made a very good one in this case, and will set this against those. i told them when we agreed: 'i offer these thirty readings to you at fifty pounds a night, because i know perfectly well beforehand that no one in your business has the least idea of their real worth, and i wish to prove it.' the sum taken is £ ." the result of the fresh negotiation, though not completed until the beginning of august, may be at once described. "chappell instantly accepts my proposal of forty nights at sixty pounds a night, and every conceivable and inconceivable expense paid. to make an even sum, i have made it forty-two nights for £ . so i shall now try to discover a christmas number" (he means the subject for one), "and shall, please heaven, be quit of the whole series of readings so as to get to work on a new story for the new series of _all the year round_ early in the spring. the readings begin probably with the new year." these were fair designs, but the fairest are the sport of circumstance, and though the subject for christmas was found, the new series of _all the year_ round never had a new story from its founder. with whatever consequence to himself, the strong tide of the readings was to sweep on to its full. the american war had ceased, and the first renewed offers from the states had been made and rejected. hovering over all, too, were other sterner dispositions. "i think," he wrote in september, "there is some strange influence in the atmosphere. twice last week i was seized in a most distressing manner--apparently in the heart; but, i am persuaded, only in the nervous system." in the midst of his ovations such checks had not been wanting. "the police reported officially," he wrote to his daughter from liverpool on the th of april, "that three thousand people were turned away from the hall last night. . . . except that i can _not_ sleep, i really think myself in very much better training than i had anticipated. a dozen oysters and a little champagne between the parts every night, seem to constitute the best restorative i have ever yet tried." "such a prodigious demonstration last night at manchester," he wrote to the same correspondent twelve days later, "that i was obliged (contrary to my principle in such cases) to go back. i am very tired to-day; for it would be of itself very hard work in that immense place, if there were not to be added eighty miles of railway and late hours to boot." "it has been very heavy work," he wrote to his sister-in-law on the th of may from clifton, "getting up at . each morning after a heavy night, and i am not at all well to-day. we had a tremendous hall at birmingham last night, £ odd, people; and i made a most ridiculous mistake. had _nickleby_ on my list to finish with, instead of _trial_. read _nickleby_ with great go, _and the people remained_. went back again at o'clock, and explained the accident: but said if they liked i would give them the _trial_. they _did_ like;--and i had another half hour of it, in that enormous place. . . . i have so severe a pain in the ball of my left eye that it makes it hard for me to do anything after miles shaking since breakfast. my cold is no better, nor my hand either." it was his left eye, it will be noted, as it was his left foot and hand; the irritability or faintness of heart was also of course on the left side; and it was on the same left side he felt most of the effect of the railway accident. everything was done to make easier the labour of travel, but nothing could materially abate either the absolute physical exhaustion, or the nervous strain. "we arrived here," he wrote from aberdeen ( th of may), "safe and sound between and this morning. there was a compartment for the men, and a charming room for ourselves furnished with sofas and easy chairs. we had also a pantry and washing-stand. this carriage is to go about with us." two days later he wrote from glasgow: "we halted at perth yesterday, and got a lovely walk there. until then i had been in a condition the reverse of flourishing; half strangled with my cold, and dyspeptically gloomy and dull; but, as i feel much more like myself this morning, we are going to get some fresh air aboard a steamer on the clyde." the last letter during his country travel was from portsmouth on the th of may, and contained these words: "you need have no fear about america." the readings closed in june. the readings of the new year began with even increased enthusiasm, but not otherwise with happier omen. here was his first outline of plan: "i start on wednesday afternoon (the th of january) for liverpool, and then go on to chester, derby, leicester, and wolverhampton. on tuesday the th i read in london again, and in february i read at manchester and then go on into scotland." from liverpool he wrote on the st: "the enthusiasm has been unbounded. on friday night i quite astonished myself; but i was taken so faint afterwards that they laid me on a sofa, at the hall for half an hour. i attribute it to my distressing inability to sleep at night, and to nothing worse. everything is made as easy to me as it possibly can be. dolby would do anything to lighten the work, and _does_ everything." the weather was sorely against him. "at chester," he wrote on the th from birmingham, "we read in a snow-storm and a fall of ice. i think it was the worst weather i ever saw. . . . at wolverhampton last night the thaw had thoroughly set in, and it rained furiously, and i was again heavily beaten. we came on here after the reading (it is only a ride of forty miles), and it was as much as i could do to hold out the journey. but i was not faint, as at liverpool. i was only exhausted." five days later he had returned for his reading in london, and thus replied to a summons to dine with macready at my house: "i am very tired; cannot sleep; have been severely shaken on an atrocious railway; read to-night, and have to read at leeds on thursday. but i have settled with dolby to put off our going to leeds on wednesday, in the hope of coming to dine with you, and seeing our dear old friend. i say 'in the hope,' because if i should be a little more used-up to-morrow than i am to-day, i should be constrained, in spite of myself, to take to the sofa and stick there." on the th of february he wrote to his sister-in-law from liverpool that they had had "an enormous turnaway" the previous night. "the day has been very fine, and i have turned it to the wholesomest account by walking on the sands at new brighton all the morning. i am not quite right within, but believe it to be an effect of the railway shaking. there is no doubt of the fact that, after the staplehurst experience, it tells more and more (railway shaking, that is) instead of, as one might have expected, less and less." the last remark is a strange one, from a man of his sagacity; but it was part of the too-willing self-deception which he practised, to justify him in his professed belief that these continued excesses of labour and excitement were really doing him no harm. the day after that last letter he pushed on to scotland, and on the th wrote to his daughter from glasgow. the closing night at manchester had been enormous. "they cheered to that extent after it was over that i was obliged to huddle on my clothes (for i was undressing to prepare for the journey) and go back again. after so heavy a week, it _was_ rather stiff to start on this long journey at a quarter to two in the morning; but i got more sleep than i ever got in a railway-carriage before. . . . i have, as i had in the last series of readings, a curious feeling of soreness all round the body--which i suppose to arise from the great exertion of voice . . ." two days later he wrote to his sister-in-law from the bridge of allan, which he had reached from glasgow that morning. "yesterday i was so unwell with an internal malady that occasionally at long intervals troubles me a little, and it was attended with the sudden loss of so much blood, that i wrote to f. b. from whom i shall doubtless hear to-morrow. . . . i felt it a little more exertion to read, afterwards, and i passed a sleepless night after that again; but otherwise i am in good force and spirits to-day: i may say, in the best force. . . . the quiet of this little place is sure to do me good." he rallied again from this attack, and, though he still complained of sleeplessness, wrote cheerfully from glasgow on the st, describing himself indeed as confined to his room, but only because "in close hiding from a local poet who has christened his infant son in my name, and consequently haunts the building." on getting back to edinburgh he wrote to me, with intimation that many troubles had beset him; but that the pleasure of his audiences, and the providence and forethought of messrs. chappell, had borne him through. "everything is done for me with the utmost liberality and consideration. every want i can have on these journeys is anticipated, and not the faintest spark of the tradesman spirit ever peeps out. i have three men in constant attendance on me; besides dolby, who is an agreeable companion, an excellent manager, and a good fellow." on the th of march he wrote from newcastle: "the readings have made an immense effect in this place, and it is remarkable that although the people are individually rough, collectively they are an unusually tender and sympathetic audience; while their comic perception is quite up to the high london standard. the atmosphere is so very heavy that yesterday we escaped to tynemouth for a two hours' sea walk. there was a high north wind blowing, and a magnificent sea running. large vessels were being towed in and out over the stormy bar, with prodigious waves breaking on it; and, spanning the restless uproar of the waters, was a quiet rainbow of transcendent beauty. the scene was quite wonderful. we were in the full enjoyment of it when a heavy sea caught us, knocked us over, and in a moment drenched us and filled even our pockets. we had nothing for it but to shake ourselves together (like dr. marigold), and dry ourselves as well as we could by hard walking in the wind and sunshine. but we were wet through for all that, when we came back here to dinner after half-an-hour's railway drive. i am wonderfully well, and quite fresh and strong." three days later he was at leeds; from which he was to work himself round through the most important neighbouring places to another reading in london, before again visiting ireland. this was the time of the fenian excitements; it was with great reluctance he consented to go;[ ] and he told us all at his first arrival that he should have a complete breakdown. more than stalls were gone at belfast two days before the reading, but on the afternoon of the reading in dublin not were taken. strange to say however a great crowd pressed in at night, he had a tumultuous greeting, and on the nd of march i had this announcement from him: "you will be surprised to be told that we have done wonders! enthusiastic crowds have filled the halls to the roof each night, and hundreds have been turned away. at belfast the night before last we had £ _s._ in dublin to-night everything is sold out, and people are besieging dolby to put chairs anywhere, in doorways, on my platform, in any sort of hole or corner. in short the readings are a perfect rage at a time when everything else is beaten down." he took the eastern counties at his return, and this brought the series to a close. "the reception at cambridge was something to be proud of in such a place. the colleges mustered in full force, from the biggest guns to the smallest; and went beyond even manchester in the roars of welcome and rounds of cheers. the place was crammed, and all through the reading everything was taken with the utmost heartiness of enjoyment." the temptation of offers from america had meanwhile again been presented to him so strongly, and in such unlucky connection with immediate family claims threatening excess of expenditure even beyond the income he was making, that he was fain to write to his sister-in-law: "i begin to feel myself drawn towards america as darnay in the _tale of two cities_ was attracted to paris. it is my loadstone rock." too surely it was to be so; and dickens was not to be saved from the consequence of yielding to the temptation, by any such sacrifice as had rescued darnay. the letter which told me of the close of his english readings had in it no word of the farther enterprise, yet it seemed to be in some sort a preparation for it. "last monday evening" ( th may) "i finished the readings with great success. you have no idea how i have worked at them. feeling it necessary, as their reputation widened, that they should be better than at first, i have _learnt them all_, so as to have no mechanical drawback in looking after the words. i have tested all the serious passion in them by everything i know; made the humorous points much more humorous; corrected my utterance of certain words; cultivated a self-possession not to be disturbed; and made myself master of the situation. finishing with _dombey_ (which i had not read for a long time) i learnt that, like the rest; and did it to myself, often twice a day, with exactly the same pains as at night, over and over and over again." . . . six days later brought his reply to a remark that no degree of excellence to which he might have brought his readings could reconcile me to what there was little doubt would soon be pressed upon him. "it is curious" ( th may) "that you should touch the american subject, because i must confess that my mind is in a most disturbed state about it. that the people there have set themselves on having the readings, there is no question. every mail brings me proposals, and the number of americans at st. james's hall has been surprising. a certain mr. grau, who took ristori out, and is highly responsible, wrote to me by the last mail (for the second time) saying that if i would give him a word of encouragement he would come over immediately and arrange on the boldest terms for any number i chose, and would deposit a large sum of money at coutts's. mr. fields writes to me on behalf of a committee of private gentlemen at boston who wished for the credit of getting me out, who desired to hear the readings and did not want profit, and would put down as a guarantee £ , --also to be banked here. every american speculator who comes to london repairs straight to dolby, with similar proposals. and, thus excited, chappells, the moment this last series was over, proposed to treat for america!" upon the mere question of these various offers he had little difficulty in making up his mind. if he went at all, he would go on his own account, making no compact with any one. whether he should go at all, was what he had to determine. one thing with his usual sagacity he saw clearly enough. he must make up his mind quickly. "the presidential election would be in the autumn of next year. they are a people whom a fancy does not hold long. they are bent upon my reading there, and they believe (on no foundation whatever) that i am going to read there. if i ever go, the time would be when the christmas number goes to press. early in this next november." every sort of enquiry he accordingly set on foot; and so far came to the immediate decision, that, if the answers left him no room to doubt that a certain sum might be realized, he would go. "have no fear that anything will induce me to make the experiment, if i do not see the most forcible reasons for believing that what i could get by it, added to what i have got, would leave me with a sufficient fortune. i should be wretched beyond expression there. my small powers of description cannot describe the state of mind in which i should drag on from day to day." at the end of may he wrote: "poor dear stanfield!" (our excellent friend had passed away the week before). "i cannot think even of him, and of our great loss, for this spectre of doubt and indecision that sits at the board with me and stands at the bedside. i am in a tempest-tossed condition, and can hardly believe that i stand at bay at last on the american question. the difficulty of determining amid the variety of statements made to me is enormous, and you have no idea how heavily the anxiety of it sits upon my soul. but the prize looks so large!" one way at last seemed to open by which it was possible to get at some settled opinion. "dolby sails for america" ( nd of july) "on saturday the rd of august. it is impossible to come to any reasonable conclusion, without sending eyes and ears on the actual ground. he will take out my ms. for the _children's magazine_. i hope it is droll, and very child-like; though the joke is a grown-up one besides. you must try to like the pirate story, for i am very fond of it." the allusion is to his pleasant _holiday romance_ which he had written for mr. fields. hardly had mr. dolby gone when there came that which should have availed to dissuade, far more than any of the arguments which continued to express my objection to the enterprise. "i am laid up," he wrote on the th of august, "with another attack in my foot, and was on the sofa all last night in tortures. i cannot bear to have the fomentations taken off for a moment. i was so ill with it on sunday, and it looked so fierce, that i came up to henry thompson. he has gone into the case heartily, and says that there is no doubt the complaint originates in the action of the shoe, in walking, on an enlargement in the nature of a bunion. erysipelas has supervened upon the injury; and the object is to avoid a gathering, and to stay the erysipelas where it is. meantime i am on my back, and chafing. . . . i didn't improve my foot by going down to liverpool to see dolby off, but i have little doubt of its yielding to treatment, and repose." a few days later he was chafing still; the accomplished physician he consulted having dropped other hints that somewhat troubled him. "i could not walk a quarter of a mile to-night for £ . i make out so many reasons against supposing it to be gouty that i really do not think it is." so momentous in my judgment were the consequences of the american journey to him that it seemed right to preface thus much of the inducements and temptations that led to it. my own part in the discussion was that of steady dissuasion throughout: though this might perhaps have been less persistent if i could have reconciled myself to the belief, which i never at any time did, that public readings were a worthy employment for a man of his genius. but it had by this time become clear to me that nothing could stay the enterprise. the result of mr. dolby's visit to america--drawn up by dickens himself in a paper possessing still the interest of having given to the readings when he crossed the atlantic much of the form they then assumed[ ]--reached me when i was staying at ross; and upon it was founded my last argument against the scheme. this he received in london on the th of september, on which day he thus wrote to his eldest daughter: "as i telegraphed after i saw you, i am off to ross to consult with mr. forster and dolby together. you shall hear, either on monday, or by monday's post from london, how i decide finally." the result he wrote to her three days later: "you will have had my telegram that i go to america. after a long discussion with forster, and consideration of what is to be said on both sides, i have decided to go through with it. we have telegraphed 'yes' to boston." seven days later he wrote to me: "the scotia being full, i do not sail until lord mayor's day; for which glorious anniversary i have engaged an officer's cabin on deck in the cuba. i am not in very brilliant spirits at the prospect before me, and am deeply sensible of your motive and reasons for the line you have taken; but i am not in the least shaken in the conviction that i could never quite have given up the idea." the remaining time was given to preparations; on the nd of november there was a farewell banquet in the freemasons' hall over which lord lytton presided; and on the th dickens sailed for boston. before he left he had contributed his part to the last of his christmas numbers; all the writings he lived to complete were done; and the interval of his voyage may be occupied by a general review of the literary labour of his life. footnotes: [ ] there had been some estrangement between them since the autumn of , hardly now worth mention even in a note. thackeray, justly indignant at a published description of himself by the member of a club to which both he and dickens belonged, referred it to the committee, who decided to expel the writer. dickens, thinking expulsion too harsh a penalty for an offence thoughtlessly given, and, as far as might be, manfully atoned for by withdrawal and regret, interposed to avert that extremity. thackeray resented the interference, and dickens was justly hurt by the manner in which he did so. neither was wholly right, nor was either altogether in the wrong. [ ] as i have thus fallen on theatrical subjects, i may add one or two practical experiences which befell dickens at theatres in the autumn of , when he sallied forth from his office upon these night wanderings to "cool" a boiling head. "i went the other night" ( th of october) "to see the _streets of london_ at the princess's. a piece that is really drawing all the town, and filling the house with nightly overflows. it is the most depressing instance, without exception, of an utterly degraded and debased theatrical taste that has ever come under my writhing notice. for not only do the audiences--of all classes--go, but they are unquestionably delighted. at astley's there has been much puffing at great cost of a certain miss ada isaacs menkin, who is to be seen bound on the horse in _mazeppa_ 'ascending the fearful precipices not as hitherto done by a dummy.' last night, having a boiling head, i went out from here to cool myself on waterloo bridge, and i thought i would go and see this heroine. applied at the box-door for a stall. 'none left sir.' for a box-ticket. 'only standing-room sir.' then the man (busy in counting great heaps of veritable checks) recognizes me and says--'mr. smith will be very much concerned when he hears that you went away sir'--'never mind; i'll come again.' 'you never go behind i think sir, or--?' 'no thank you, i never go behind.' 'mr. smith's box, sir--' 'no thank you, i'll come again.' now who do you think the lady is? if you don't already know, ask that question of the highest irish mountains that look eternal, and they'll never tell you--_mrs. heenan!_" this lady, who turned out to be one of dickens's greatest admirers, addressed him at great length on hearing of this occurrence, and afterwards dedicated a volume of poems to him! there was a pleasanter close to his letter. "contrariwise i assisted another night at the adelphi (where i couldn't, with careful calculation, get the house up to nine pounds), and saw quite an admirable performance of mr. toole and mrs. mellon--she, an old servant, wonderfully like anne--he, showing a power of passion very unusual indeed in a comic actor, as such things go, and of a quite remarkable kind." [ ] writing to me three months before, he spoke of the death of one whom he had known from his boyhood (_ante_, i. - ) and with whom he had fought unsuccessfully for some years against the management of the literary fund. "poor dilke! i am very sorry that the capital old stout-hearted man is dead." sorrow may also be expressed that no adequate record should remain of a career which for steadfast purpose, conscientious maintenance of opinion, and pursuit of public objects with disregard of self, was one of very high example. so averse was mr. dilke to every kind of display that his name appears to none of the literary investigations which were conducted by him with an acuteness wonderful as his industry, and it was in accordance with his express instructions that the literary journal which his energy and self-denial had established kept silence respecting him at his death. [ ] one day before, the th of june , his old friend sir joseph paxton had breathed his last. [ ] here are allusions to it at that time. "i have got a boot on to-day,--made on an otranto scale, but really not very discernible from its ordinary sized companion." after a few days' holiday: "i began to feel my foot stronger the moment i breathed the sea air. still, during the ten days i have been away, i have never been able to wear a boot after four or five in the afternoon, but have passed all the evenings with the foot up, and nothing on it. i am burnt brown and have walked by the sea perpetually, yet i feel certain that if i wore a boot this evening, i should be taken with those torments again before the night was out." this last letter ended thus: "as a relief to my late dismal letters, i send you the newest american story. backwoods doctor is called in to the little boy of a woman-settler. stares at the child some time through a pair of spectacles. ultimately takes them off, and says to the mother: 'wa'al marm, this is small-pox. 'tis marm, small-pox. but i am not posted up in pustuls, and i do not know as i could bring him along slick through it. but i'll tell you wa'at i can do marm:--i can send him a draft as will certainly put him into a most etarnal fit, and i am almighty smart at fits, and we might git round old grisly that way.'" [ ] i give one such instance: "the railway people have offered, in the case of the young man whom i got out of the carriage just alive, all the expenses and a thousand pounds down. the father declines to accept the offer. it seems unlikely that the young man, whose destination is india, would ever be passed for the army now by the medical board. the question is, how far will that contingency tell, under lord campbell's act?" [ ] he wrote to me on the th of march from dublin: "so profoundly discouraging were the accounts from here in london last tuesday that i held several councils with chappell about coming at all; had actually drawn up a bill announcing (indefinitely) the postponement of the readings; and had meant to give him a reading to cover the charges incurred--but yielded at last to his representations the other way. we ran through a snow storm nearly the whole way, and in wales got snowed up, came to a stoppage, and had to dig the engine out. . . . we got to dublin at last, found it snowing and raining, and heard that it had been snowing and raining since the first day of the year. . . . as to outward signs of trouble or preparation, they are very few. at kingstown our boat was waited for by four armed policemen, and some stragglers in various dresses who were clearly detectives. but there was no show of soldiery. my people carry a long heavy box containing gas-fittings. this was immediately laid hold of; but one of the stragglers instantly interposed on seeing my name, and came to me in the carriage and apologised. . . . the worst looking young fellow i ever saw, turned up at holyhead before we went to bed there, and sat glooming and glowering by the coffee-room fire while we warmed ourselves. he said he had been snowed up with us (which we didn't believe), and was horribly disconcerted by some box of his having gone to dublin without him. we said to one another 'fenian:' and certainly he disappeared in the morning, and let his box go where it would." what dickens heard and saw in dublin, during this visit, convinced him that fenianism and disaffection had found their way into several regiments. [ ] this renders it worth preservation in a note. he called it "the case in a nutshell. " . i think it may be taken as proved, that general enthusiasm and excitement are awakened in america on the subject of the readings, and that the people are prepared to give me a great reception. _the new york herald_, indeed, is of opinion that 'dickens must apologise first'; and where a _new york herald_ is possible, anything is possible. but the prevailing tone, both of the press and of people of all conditions, is highly favourable. i have an opinion myself that the irish element in new york is dangerous; for the reason that the fenians would be glad to damage a conspicuous englishman. this is merely an opinion of my own. " . all our original calculations were based on readings. but an unexpected result of careful enquiry on the spot, is the discovery that the month of may is generally considered (in the large cities) bad for such a purpose. admitting that what governs an ordinary case in this wise, governs mine, this reduces the readings to , and consequently at a blow makes a reduction of per cent., in the means of making money within the half year--unless the objection should not apply in my exceptional instance. " . i dismiss the consideration that the great towns of america could not possibly be exhausted--or even visited--within months, and that a large harvest would be left unreaped. because i hold a second series of readings in america is to be set down as out of the question: whether regarded as involving two more voyages across the atlantic, or a vacation of five months in canada. " . the narrowed calculation we have made, is this: what is the largest amount of clear profit derivable, under the most advantageous circumstances possible, as to their public reception, from readings and no more? in making this calculation, the expenses have been throughout taken on the new york scale--which is the dearest; as much as per cent., has been deducted for management, including mr. dolby's commission; and no credit has been taken for any extra payment on reserved seats, though a good deal of money is confidently expected from this source. but on the other hand it is to be observed that four readings (and a fraction over) are supposed to take place every week, and that the estimate of receipts is based on the assumption that the audiences are, on all occasions, as large as the rooms will reasonably hold. " . so considering readings, we bring out the net profit of that number, remaining to me after payment of all charges whatever, as £ , . " . but it yet remains to be noted that the calculation assumes new york city, and the state of new york, to be good for a very large proportion of the readings; and that the calculation also assumes the necessary travelling not to extend beyond boston and adjacent places, new york city and adjacent places, philadelphia, washington, and baltimore. but, if the calculation should prove too sanguine on this head, and if these places should _not_ be good for so many readings, then it may prove impracticable to get through within the time: by reason of other places that would come into the list, lying wide asunder, and necessitating long and fatiguing journeys. " . the loss consequent on the conversion of paper money into gold (with gold at the present ruling premium) is allowed for in the calculation. it counts seven dollars to the pound." chapter xiv. dickens as a novelist. - . the tale of two cities. great expectations. christmas sketches. our mutual friend. dr. marigold and tales for america. m. taine's criticism--what m. taine overlooks--anticipatory reply to m. taine--paper by mr. lewes--plea for objectors to dickens--dickens a "seer of visions"--criticised and critic--an opinion on mr. and mrs. micawber--dickens in a fit of hallucination--dickens's leading quality--dickens's earlier books--mastery of dialogue--realities of fiction--fielding and dickens--universality of micawber experiences--dickens's enjoyment of his own humour--origin of _tale of two cities_--title-hunting--success--method different from his other books--reply to an objection--care with which dickens worked--_tale of two cities_ characterized--opinion of an american critic--_great expectations_--another boy-child for hero--groundwork of the story--masterly drawing of character--christmas sketches--_our mutual friend_--germ of characters for it--writing numbers in advance--death of leech--holiday in france--in the staplehurst accident--on a tale by edmund about--doctor marigold--minor stories--edwin drood--purity of dickens's writings--true province of humour--dickens's death--effect of the news in america--a far-western admirer of dickens. what i have to say generally of dickens's genius as a writer may be made part of the notice, which still remains to be given, of his writings from _the tale of two cities_ to the time at which we have arrived, leaving _edwin drood_ for mention in its place; and this will be accompanied, as in former notices of individual stories, by illustrations drawn from his letters and life. his literary work was so intensely one with his nature that he is not separable from it, and the man and the method throw a singular light on each other. but some allusion to what has been said of these books, by writers assuming to speak with authority, will properly precede what has to be offered by me; and i shall preface this part of my task with the hint of carlyle, that in looking at a man out of the common it is good for common men to make sure that they "see" before they attempt to "oversee" him. of the french writer, m. henri taine, it has before been remarked that his inability to appreciate humour is fatal to his pretensions as a critic of the english novel. but there is much that is noteworthy in his criticism notwithstanding, as well as remarkable in his knowledge of our language; his position entitles him to be heard without a suspicion of partizanship or intentional unfairness; whatever the value of his opinion, the elaboration of its form and expression is itself no common tribute; and what is said in it of dickens's handling in regard to style and character, embodies temperately objections which have since been taken by some english critics without his impartiality and with less than his ability. as to style m. taine does not find that the natural or simple prevails sufficiently. the tone is too passionate. the imaginative or poetic side of allusion is so uniformly dwelt on, that the descriptions cease to be subsidiary, and the minute details of pain or pleasure wrought out by them become active agencies in the tale. so vivid and eager is the display of fancy that everything is borne along with it; imaginary objects take the precision of real ones; living thoughts are controlled by inanimate things; the chimes console the poor old ticket-porter; the cricket steadies the rough carrier's doubts; the sea waves soothe the dying boy; clouds, flowers, leaves, play their several parts; hardly a form of matter without a living quality; no silent thing without its voice. fondling and exaggerating thus what is occasional in the subject of his criticism, into what he has evidently at last persuaded himself is a fixed and universal practice with dickens, m. taine proceeds to explain the exuberance by comparing such imagination in its vividness to that of a monomaniac. he fails altogether to apprehend that property in humour which involves the feeling of subtlest and most affecting analogies, and from which is drawn the rare insight into sympathies between the nature of things and their attributes or opposites, in which dickens's fancy revelled with such delight. taking the famous lines which express the lunatic, the lover, and the poet as "of imagination all compact," in a sense that would have startled not a little the great poet who wrote them, m. taine places on the same level of creative fancy the phantoms of the lunatic and the personages of the artist. he exhibits dickens as from time to time, in the several stages of his successive works of fiction, given up to one idea, possessed by it, seeing nothing else, treating it in a hundred forms, exaggerating it, and so dazzling and overpowering his readers with it that escape is impossible. this he maintains to be equally the effect as mr. mell the usher plays the flute, as tom pinch enjoys or exposes his pecksniff, as the guard blows his bugle while tom rides to london, as ruth pinch crosses fountain court or makes the beefsteak pudding, as jonas chuzzlewit commits and returns from the murder, and as the storm which is steerforth's death-knell beats on the yarmouth shore. to the same kind of power he attributes the extraordinary clearness with which the commonest objects in all his books, the most ordinary interiors, any old house, a parlour, a boat, a school, fifty things that in the ordinary tale-teller would pass unmarked, are made vividly present and indelible; are brought out with a strength of relief, precision, and force, unapproached in any other writer of prose fiction; with everything minute yet nothing cold, "with all the passion and the patience of the painters of his country." and while excitement in the reader is thus maintained to an extent incompatible with a natural style or simple narrative, m. taine yet thinks he has discovered, in this very power of awakening a feverish sensibility and moving laughter or tears at the commonest things, the source of dickens's astonishing popularity. ordinary people, he says, are so tired of what is always around them, and take in so little of the detail that makes up their lives, that when, all of a sudden, there comes a man to make these things interesting, and turn them into objects of admiration, tenderness, or terror, the effect is enchantment. without leaving their arm-chairs or their firesides, they find themselves trembling with emotion, their eyes are filled with tears, their cheeks are broad with laughter, and, in the discovery they have thus made that they too can suffer, love, and feel, their very existence seems doubled to them. it had not occurred to m. taine that to effect so much might seem to leave little not achieved. so far from it, the critic had satisfied himself that such a power of style must be adverse to a just delineation of character. dickens is not calm enough, he says, to penetrate to the bottom of what he is dealing with. he takes sides with it as friend or enemy, laughs or cries over it, makes it odious or touching, repulsive or attractive, and is too vehement and not enough inquisitive to paint a likeness. his imagination is at once too vivid and not sufficiently large. its tenacious quality, and the force and concentration with which his thoughts penetrate into the details he desires to apprehend, form limits to his knowledge, confine him to single traits, and prevent his sounding all the depths of a soul. he seizes on one attitude, trick, expression, or grimace; sees nothing else; and keeps it always unchanged. mercy pecksniff laughs at every word, mark tapley is nothing but jolly, mrs. gamp talks incessantly of mrs. harris, mr. chillip is invariably timid, and mr. micawber is never tired of emphasizing his phrases or passing with ludicrous brusqueness from joy to grief. each is the incarnation of some one vice, virtue, or absurdity; whereof the display is frequent, invariable, and exclusive. the language i am using condenses with strict accuracy what is said by m. taine, and has been repeated _ad nauseam_ by others, professing admirers as well as open detractors. mrs. gamp and mr. micawber, who belong to the first rank of humorous creation, are thus without another word dismissed by the french critic; and he shows no consciousness whatever in doing it, of that very fault in himself for which dickens is condemned, of mistaking lively observation for real insight. he has, however much concession in reserve, being satisfied, by his observation of england, that it is to the people for whom dickens wrote his deficiencies in art are mainly due. the taste of his nation had prohibited him from representing character in a grand style. the english require too much morality and religion for genuine art. they made him treat love, not as holy and sublime in itself, but as subordinate to marriage; forced him to uphold society and the laws, against nature and enthusiasm; and compelled him to display, in painting such a seduction as in _copperfield_, not the progress, ardour, and intoxication of passion, but only the misery, remorse, and despair. the result of such surface religion and morality, combined with the trading spirit, m. taine continues, leads to so many national forms of hypocrisy, and of greed as well as worship for money, as to justify this great writer of the nation in his frequent choice of those vices for illustration in his tales. but his defect of method again comes into play. he does not deal with vices in the manner of a physiologist, feeling a sort of love for them, and delighting in their finer traits as if they were virtues. he gets angry over them. (i do not interrupt m. taine, but surely, to take one instance illustrative of many, dickens's enjoyment in dealing with pecksniff is as manifest as that he never ceases all the time to make him very hateful.) he cannot, like balzac, leave morality out of account, and treat a passion, however loathsome, as that great tale-teller did, from the only safe ground of belief, that it is a force, and that force of whatever kind is good. it is essential to an artist of that superior grade, m. taine holds, no matter how vile his subject, to show its education and temptations, the form of brain or habits of mind that have reinforced the natural tendency, to deduce it from its cause, to place its circumstances around it, and to develop its effects to their extremes. in handling such and such a capital miser, hypocrite, debauchee, or what not, he should never trouble himself about the evil consequences of the vices. he should be too much of a philosopher and artist to remember that he is a respectable citizen. but this is what dickens never forgets, and he renounces all beauties requiring so corrupt a soil. m. taine's conclusion upon the whole nevertheless is, that though those triumphs of art which become the property of all the earth have not been his, much has yet been achieved by him. out of his unequalled observation, his satire, and his sensibility, has proceeded a series of original characters existing nowhere but in england, which will exhibit to future generations not the record of his own genius only, but that of his country and his times. between the judgment thus passed by the distinguished french lecturer, and the later comment to be now given from an english critic, certainly not in arrest of that judgment, may fitly come a passage from one of dickens's letters saying something of the limitations placed upon the artist in england. it may read like a quasi-confession of one of m. taine's charges, though it was not written with reference to his own but to one of scott's later novels. "similarly" ( th of august ) "i have always a fine feeling of the honest state into which we have got, when some smooth gentleman says to me or to some one else when i am by, how odd it is that the hero of an english book is always uninteresting--too good--not natural, &c. i am continually hearing this of scott from english people here, who pass their lives with balzac and sand. but o my smooth friend, what a shining impostor you must think yourself and what an ass you must think me, when you suppose that by putting a brazen face upon it you can blot out of my knowledge the fact that this same unnatural young gentleman (if to be decent is to be necessarily unnatural), whom you meet in those other books and in mine, _must_ be presented to you in that unnatural aspect by reason of your morality, and is not to have, i will not say any of the indecencies you like, but not even any of the experiences, trials, perplexities, and confusions inseparable from the making or unmaking of all men!" m. taine's criticism was written three or four years before dickens's death, and to the same date belong some notices in england which adopted more or less the tone of depreciation; conceding the great effects achieved by the writer, but disputing the quality and value of his art. for it is incident to all such criticism of dickens to be of necessity accompanied by the admission, that no writer has so completely impressed himself on the time in which he lived, that he has made his characters a part of literature, and that his readers are the world. but, a little more than a year after his death, a paper was published of which the object was to reconcile such seeming inconsistency, to expound the inner meanings of "dickens in relation to criticism," and to show that, though he had a splendid genius and a wonderful imagination, yet the objectors were to be excused who called him only a stagy sentimentalist and a clever caricaturist. this critical essay appeared in the _fortnightly review_ for february , with the signature of mr. george henry lewes; and the pretentious airs of the performance, with its prodigious professions of candour, force upon me the painful task of stating what it really is. during dickens's life, especially when any fresh novelist could be found available for strained comparison with him, there were plenty of attempts to write him down: but the trick of studied depreciation was never carried so far or made so odious as in this case, by intolerable assumptions of an indulgent superiority; and to repel it in such a form once for all is due to dickens's memory. the paper begins by the usual concessions--that he was a writer of vast popularity, that he delighted no end of people, that his admirers were in all classes and all countries, that he stirred the sympathy of masses not easily reached through literature and always to healthy emotion, that he impressed a new direction on popular writing, and modified the literature of his age in its spirit no less than its form. the very splendour of these successes, on the other hand, so deepened the shadow of his failures, that to many there was nothing but darkness. was it unnatural? could greatness be properly ascribed, by the fastidious, to a writer whose defects were so glaring, exaggerated, untrue, fantastic, and melodramatic? might they not fairly insist on such defects as outweighing all positive qualities, and speak of him with condescending patronage or sneering irritation? why, very often such men, though their talk would be seasoned with quotations from, and allusions to, his writings, and though they would lay aside their most favourite books to bury themselves in his new "number," had been observed by this critic to be as niggardly in their praise of him as they were lavish in their scorn. he actually heard "_a very distinguished man_," on one occasion, express measureless contempt for dickens, and a few minutes afterwards admit that dickens had "entered into his life." and so the critic betook himself to the task of reconciling this immense popularity and this critical contempt, which he does after the following manner. he says that dickens was so great in "fun" (humour he does not concede to him anywhere) that fielding and smollett are small in comparison, but that this would only have been a passing amusement for the world if he had not been "gifted with an imagination of marvellous vividness, and an emotional sympathetic nature capable of furnishing that imagination with elements of universal power." to people who think that words should carry some meaning it might seem, that, if only a man could be "gifted" with all this, nothing more need be said. with marvellous imagination, and a nature to endow it with elements of universal power, what secrets of creative art could possibly be closed to him? but this is reckoning without your philosophical critic. the vividness of dickens's imagination m. taine found to be simply monomaniacal, and his follower finds it to be merely hallucinative. not the less he heaps upon it epithet after epithet. he talks of its irradiating splendour; calls it glorious as well as imperial and marvellous; and, to make us quite sure he is not with these fine phrases puffing-off an inferior article, he interposes that such imagination is "common to all great writers." luckily for great writers in general, however, their creations are of the old, immortal, commonplace sort; whereas dickens in his creative processes, according to this philosophy of criticism, is tied up hard and fast within hallucinative limits. "he was," we are told, "a seer of visions." amid silence and darkness, we are assured, he heard voices and saw objects; of which the revived impressions to him had the vividness of sensations, and the images his mind created in explanation of them had the coercive force of realities;[ ] so that what he brought into existence in this way, no matter how fantastic and unreal, was (whatever this may mean) universally intelligible. "his types established themselves in the public mind like personal experiences. their falsity was unnoticed in the blaze of their illumination. every humbug seemed a pecksniff, every jovial improvident a micawber, every stinted serving-wench a marchioness." the critic, indeed, saw through it all, but he gave his warnings in vain. "in vain critical reflection showed these figures to be merely masks; not characters, but personified characteristics; caricatures and distortions of human nature. the vividness of their presentation triumphed over reflection; their creator managed to communicate to the public his own unhesitating belief." what, however, is the public? mr lewes goes on to relate. "give a child a wooden horse, with hair for mane and tail, and wafer-spots for colouring, he will never be disturbed by the fact that this horse does not move its legs but runs on wheels; and this wooden horse, which he can handle and draw, is believed in more than a pictured horse by a wouvermanns or an ansdell(!!) it may be said of dickens's human figures that they too are wooden, and run on wheels; but these are details which scarcely disturb the belief of admirers. just as the wooden horse is brought within the range of the child's emotions, and dramatizing tendencies, when he can handle and draw it, so dickens's figures are brought within the range of the reader's interests, and receive from these interests a sudden illumination, when they are the puppets of a drama every incident of which appeals to the sympathies." _risum teneatis?_ but the smile is grim that rises to the face of one to whom the relations of the writer and his critic, while both writer and critic lived, are known; and who sees the drift of now scattering such rubbish as this over an established fame. as it fares with the imagination that is imperial, so with the drama every incident of which appeals to the sympathies. the one being explained by hallucination, and the other by the wooden horse, plenty of fine words are to spare by which contempt may receive the show of candour. when the characters in a play are puppets, and the audiences of the theatre fools or children, no wise man forfeits his wisdom by proceeding to admit that the successful playwright, "with a fine felicity of instinct," seized upon situations, for his wooden figures, having "irresistible hold over the domestic affections;" that, through his puppets, he spoke "in the mother-tongue of the heart;" that, with his spotted horses and so forth, he "painted the life he knew and everyone knew;" that he painted, of course, nothing ideal or heroic, and that the world of thought and passion lay beyond his horizon; but that, with his artificial performers and his feeble-witted audiences, "all the resources of the bourgeois epic were in his grasp; the joys and pains of childhood, the petty tyrannies of ignoble natures, the genial pleasantries of happy natures, the life of the poor, the struggles of the street and back parlour, the insolence of office, the sharp social contrasts, east wind and christmas jollity, hunger, misery, and hot punch"--"so that even critical spectators who complained that these broadly painted pictures were artistic daubs could not wholly resist their effective suggestiveness." since trinculo and caliban were under one cloak, there has surely been no such delicate monster with two voices. "his forward voice, now, is to speak well of his friend; his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract." one other of the foul speeches i may not overlook, since it contains what is alleged to be a personal revelation of dickens made to the critic himself. "when one thinks of micawber always presenting himself in the same situation, moved with the same springs and uttering the same sounds, always confident of something turning up, always crushed and rebounding, always making punch--and his wife always declaring she will never part from him, always referring to his talents and her family--when one thinks of the 'catchwords' personified as characters, one is reminded of the frogs whose brains have been taken out for physiological purposes, and whose actions henceforth want the distinctive peculiarity of organic action, that of fluctuating spontaneity." such was that sheer inability of dickens, indeed, to comprehend this complexity of the organism, that it quite accounted, in the view of this philosopher, for all his unnaturalness, for the whole of his fantastic people, and for the strained dialogues of which his books are made up, painfully resembling in their incongruity "the absurd and eager expositions which insane patients pour into the listener's ear when detailing their wrongs, or their schemes. dickens once declared to me," mr. lewes continues, "that every word said by his characters was distinctly _heard_ by him; i was at first not a little puzzled to account for the fact that he could hear language so utterly unlike the language of real feeling, and not be aware of its preposterousness; but the surprise vanished when i thought of the phenomena of hallucination." wonderful sagacity! to unravel easily such a bewildering "puzzle"! and so to the close. between the uncultivated whom dickens moved, and the cultivated he failed to move; between the power that so worked in delft as to stir the universal heart, and the commonness that could not meddle with porcelain or aspire to any noble clay; the pitiful see-saw is continued up to the final sentence, where, in the impartial critic's eagerness to discredit even the value of the emotion awakened in such men as jeffrey by such creations as little nell, he reverses all he has been saying about the cultivated and uncultivated, and presents to us a cultivated philosopher, in his ignorance of the stage, applauding an actor whom every uncultivated playgoing apprentice despises as stagey. but the bold stroke just exhibited, of bringing forward dickens himself in the actual crisis of one of his fits of hallucination, requires an additional word. to establish the hallucinative theory, he is said on one occasion to have declared to the critic that every word uttered by his characters was distinctly _heard_ by him before it was written down. such an averment, not credible for a moment as thus made, indeed simply untrue to the extent described, may yet be accepted in the limited and quite different sense which a passage in one of dickens's letters gives to it. all writers of genius to whom their art has become as a second nature, will be found capable of doing upon occasion what the vulgar may think to be "hallucination," but hallucination will never account for. after scott began the _bride of lammermoor_ he had one of his terrible seizures of cramp, yet during his torment he dictated[ ] that fine novel; and when he rose from his bed, and the published book was placed in his hands, "he did not," james ballantyne explicitly assured lockhart, "recollect one single incident, character, or conversation it contained." when dickens was under the greatest trial of his life, and illness and sorrow were contending for the mastery over him, he thus wrote to me. "of my distress i will say no more than that it has borne a terrible, frightful, horrible proportion to the quickness of the gifts you remind me of. but may i not be forgiven for thinking it a wonderful testimony to my being made for my art, that when, in the midst of this trouble and pain, i sit down to my book, some beneficent power shows it all to me, and tempts me to be interested, and i don't invent it--really do not--_but see it_, and write it down. . . . it is only when it all fades away and is gone, that i begin to suspect that its momentary relief has cost me something." whatever view may be taken of the man who wrote those words, he had the claim to be judged by reference to the highest models in the art which he studied. in the literature of his time, from to , he held the most conspicuous place, and his claim to the most popular one in the literature of fiction was by common consent admitted. he obtained this rank by the sheer force of his genius, unhelped in any way, and he held it without dispute. as he began he closed. after he had written for only four months, and after he had written incessantly for four and thirty years, he was of all living writers the most widely read. it is of course quite possible that such popularity might imply rather littleness in his contemporaries than greatness in him: but his books are the test to judge by. each thus far, as it appeared, has had notice in these pages for its illustration of his life, or of his method of work, or of the variety and versatility in the manifestations of his power. but his latest books remain still for notice, and will properly suggest what is farther to be said of his general place in literature. his leading quality was humour. it has no mention in either of the criticisms cited, but it was his highest faculty; and it accounts for his magnificent successes, as well as for his not infrequent failures, in characteristic delineation. he was conscious of this himself. five years before he died, a great and generous brother artist, lord lytton, amid much ungrudging praise of a work he was then publishing, asked him to consider, as to one part of it, if the modesties of art were not a little overpassed. "i cannot tell you," he replied, "how highly i prize your letter, or with what pride and pleasure it inspires me. nor do i for a moment question its criticism (if objection so generous and easy may be called by that hard name) otherwise than on this ground--that i work slowly and with great care, and never give way to my invention recklessly, but constantly restrain it; and that i think it is my infirmity to fancy or perceive relations in things which are not apparent generally. also, i have such an inexpressible enjoyment of what i see in a droll light, that i dare say i pet it as if it were a spoilt child. this is all i have to offer in arrest of judgment." to perceive relations in things which are not apparent generally, is one of those exquisite properties of humour by which are discovered the affinities between the high and the low, the attractive and the repulsive, the rarest things and things of every day, which bring us all upon the level of a common humanity. it is this which gives humour an immortal touch that does not belong of necessity to pictures, even the most exquisite, of mere character or manners; the property which in its highest aspects carlyle so subtly described as a sort of inverse sublimity, exalting into our affections what is below us as the other draws down into our affections what is above us. but it has a danger which dickens also hints at, and into which he often fell. all humour has in it, is indeed identical with, what ordinary people are apt to call exaggeration; but there is an excess beyond the allowable even here, and to "pet" or magnify out of proper bounds its sense of what is droll, is to put the merely grotesque in its place. what might have been overlooked in a writer with no uncommon powers of invention, was thrown into overpowering prominence by dickens's wealth of fancy; and a splendid excess of his genius came to be objected to as its integral and essential quality. it cannot be said to have had any place in his earlier books. his powers were not at their highest and the humour was less fine and subtle, but there was no such objection to be taken. no misgiving interrupted the enjoyment of the wonderful freshness of animal spirits in _pickwick_; but beneath its fun, laughter, and light-heartedness were indications of power of the first rank in the delineation of character. some caricature was in the plan; but as the circle of people widened beyond the cockney club, and the delightful oddity of mr. pickwick took more of an independent existence, a different method revealed itself, nothing appeared beyond the exaggerations permissible to humorous comedy, and the art was seen which can combine traits vividly true to particular men or women with propensities common to all mankind. this has its highest expression in fielding: but even the first of dickens's books showed the same kind of mastery; and, by the side of its life-like middle-class people universally familiar, there was one figure before seen by none but at once knowable by all, delightful for the surprise it gave by its singularity and the pleasure it gave by its truth; and, though short of the highest in this form of art, taking rank with the class in which live everlastingly the dozen unique inventions that have immortalized the english novel. the groups in _oliver twist_, fagin and his pupils, sikes and nancy, mr. bumble and his parish-boy, belong to the same period; when dickens also began those pathetic delineations that opened to the neglected, the poor, and the fallen, a world of compassion and tenderness. yet i think it was not until the third book, _nickleby_, that he began to have his place as a writer conceded to him; and that he ceased to be regarded as a mere phenomenon or marvel of fortune, who had achieved success by any other means than that of deserving it, and who challenged no criticism better worth the name than such as he has received from the fortnightly reviewer. it is to be added to what before was said of _nickleby_, that it established beyond dispute his mastery of dialogue, or that power of making characters real existences, not by describing them but by letting them describe themselves, which belongs only to story-tellers of the first rank. dickens never excelled the easy handling of the subordinate groups in this novel, and he never repeated its mistakes in the direction of aristocratic or merely polite and dissipated life. it displayed more than before of his humour on the tragic side; and, in close connection with its affecting scenes of starved and deserted childhood, were placed those contrasts of miser and spendthrift, of greed and generosity, of hypocrisy and simple-heartedness, which he handled in later books with greater power and fullness, but of which the first formal expression was here. it was his first general picture, so to speak, of the character and manners of his time, which it was the design more or less of all his books to exhibit; and it suffers by comparison with his later productions, because the humour is not to the same degree enriched by imagination; but it is free from the not infrequent excess into which that supreme gift also tempted its possessor. none of the tales is more attractive throughout, and on the whole it was a step in advance even of the stride previously taken. nor was the gain lost in the succeeding story of the _old curiosity shop_. the humorous traits of mrs. nickleby could hardly be surpassed: but, in dick swiveller and the marchioness, there was a subtlety and lightness of touch that led to finer issues; and around little nell[ ] and her fortunes, surpassingly touching and beautiful, let criticism object what it will, were gathered some small characters that had a deeper intention and more imaginative insight, than anything yet done. strokes of this kind were also observable in the hunted life of the murderer in _barnaby rudge_; and his next book, _chuzzlewit_, was, as it still remains, one of his greatest achievements. even so brief a retrospect of the six opening years of dickens's literary labour will help to a clearer judgment of the work of the twenty-eight more years that remained to him. to the special observations already made on the series of stories which followed the return from america, _chuzzlewit_, _dombey_, _copperfield_, and _bleak house_, in which attention has been directed to the higher purpose and more imaginative treatment that distinguished them,[ ] a general remark is to be added. though the range of character they traverse is not wide, it is surrounded by a fertility of invention and illustration without example in any previous novelist; and it is represented in these books, so to speak, by a number and variety of existences sufficiently real to have taken places as among the actual people of the world. could half as many known and universally recognisable men and women be selected out of one story, by any other prose writer of the first rank, as at once rise to the mind from one of the masterpieces of dickens? so difficult of dispute is this, that as much perhaps will be admitted; but then it will be added, if the reply is by a critic of the school burlesqued by mr. lewes, that after all they are not individual or special men and women so much as general impersonations of men and women, abstract types made up of telling catchwords or surface traits, though with such accumulation upon them of a wonderful wealth of humorous illustration, itself filled with minute and accurate knowledge of life, that the real nakedness of the land of character is hidden. well, what can be rejoined to this, but that the poverty or richness of any territory worth survey will for the most part lie in the kind of observation brought to it. there was no finer observer than johnson of the manners of his time, and he protested of their greatest delineator that he knew only the shell of life. another of his remarks, after a fashion followed by the criticizers of dickens, places fielding below one of his famous contemporaries; but who will not now be eager to reverse such a comparison, as that fielding tells you correctly enough what o'clock it is by looking at the face of the dial, but that richardson shows you how the watch is made? there never was a subtler or a more sagacious observer than fielding, or who better deserved what is generously said of him by smollett, that he painted the characters and ridiculed the follies of life with equal strength, humour, and propriety. but might it not be said of him, as of dickens, that his range of character was limited; and that his method of proceeding from a central idea in all his leading people, exposed him equally to the charge of now and then putting human nature itself in place of the individual who should only be a small section of it? this is in fact but another shape of what i have expressed on a former page, that what a character, drawn by a master, will roughly present upon its surface, is frequently such as also to satisfy its more subtle requirements; and that when only the salient points or sharper prominences are thus displayed, the great novelist is using his undoubted privilege of showing the large degree to which human intercourse is carried on, not by men's habits or ways at their commonest, but by the touching of their extremes. a definition of fielding's genius has been made with some accuracy in the saying, that he shows common propensities in connection with the identical unvarnished adjuncts which are peculiar to the individual, nor could a more exquisite felicity of handling than this be any man's aim or desire; but it would be just as easy, by employment of the critical rules applied to dickens, to transform it into matter of censure. partridge, adams, trulliber, squire western, and the rest, present themselves often enough under the same aspects, and use with sufficient uniformity the same catchwords, to be brought within the charge of mannerism; and though m. taine cannot fairly say of fielding as of dickens, that he suffers from too much morality, he brings against him precisely the charge so strongly put against the later novelist of "looking upon the passions not as simple forces but as objects of approbation or blame." we must keep in mind all this to understand the worth of the starved fancy, that can find in such a delineation as that of micawber only the man described by mr. lewes as always in the same situation, moved with the same springs and uttering the same sounds, always confident of something turning up, always crushed and rebounding, always making punch, and his wife always declaring she will never part from him. it is not thus that such creations are to be viewed; but by the light which enables us to see why the country squires, village schoolmasters, and hedge parsons of fielding became immortal. the later ones will live, as the earlier do, by the subtle quality of genius that makes their doings and sayings part of those general incentives which pervade mankind. who has not had occasion, however priding himself on his unlikeness to micawber, to think of micawber as he reviewed his own experiences? who has not himself waited, like micawber, for something to turn up? who has not at times discovered, in one or other acquaintance or friend, some one or other of that cluster of sagacious hints and fragments of human life and conduct which the kindly fancy of dickens embodied in this delightful form? if the irrepressible new zealander ever comes over to achieve his long promised sketch of st. paul's, who can doubt that it will be no other than our undying micawber, who had taken to colonisation the last time we saw him, and who will thus again have turned up? there are not many conditions of life or society to which his and his wife's experiences are not applicable; and when, the year after the immortal couple made their first appearance on earth, protection was in one of its then frequent difficulties, declaring it could not live without something widely different from existing circumstances shortly turning up, and imploring its friends to throw down the gauntlet and boldly challenge society to turn up a majority and rescue it from its embarrassments, a distinguished wit seized upon the likeness to micawber, showed how closely it was borne out by the jollity and gin-punch of the banquets at which the bewailings were heard, and asked whether dickens had stolen from the farmer's friends or the farmer's friends had stolen from dickens. "corn, said mr. micawber, may be gentlemanly, but it is not remunerative. . . . i ask myself this question: if corn is not to be relied on, what is? we must live. . . ." loud as the general laughter was, i think the laughter of dickens himself was loudest, at this discovery of so exact and unexpected a likeness.[ ] a readiness in all forms thus to enjoy his own pleasantry was indeed always observable (it is common to great humourists, nor would it be easier to carry it farther than sterne did), and his own confession on the point may receive additional illustration before proceeding to the later books. he accounted by it, as we have seen, for occasional even grotesque extravagances. in another of his letters there is this passage: "i can report that i have finished the job i set myself, and that it has in it something--to me at all events--so extraordinarily droll, that though i have been reading it some hundred times in the course of the working, i have never been able to look at it with the least composure, but have always roared in the most unblushing manner. i leave you to find out what it was." it was the encounter of the major and the tax-collector in the second mrs. lirriper. writing previously of the papers in _household words_ called the lazy tour of two idle apprentices, after saying that he and mr. wilkie collins had written together a story in the second part, "in which i think you would find it very difficult to say where i leave off and he comes in," he had said of the preceding descriptions: "some of my own tickle me very much; but that may be in great part because i know the originals, and delight in their fantastic fidelity." "i have been at work with such a will" he writes later of a piece of humour for the holidays, "that i have done the opening and conclusion of the christmas number. they are done in the character of a waiter, and i think are exceedingly droll. the thread on which the stories are to hang, is spun by this waiter, and is, purposely, very slight; but has, i fancy, a ridiculously comical and unexpected end. the waiter's account of himself includes (i hope) everything you know about waiters, presented humorously." in this last we have a hint of the "fantastic fidelity" with which, when a fancy "tickled" him, he would bring out what corporal nym calls the humour of it under so astonishing a variety of conceivable and inconceivable aspects of subtle exaggeration, that nothing was left to the subject but that special individual illustration of it. in this, however, humour was not his servant but his master; because it reproduced too readily, and carried too far, the grotesque imaginings to which great humourists are prone; which lie indeed deep in their nature; and from which they derive their genial sympathy with eccentric characters that enables them to find motives for what to other men is hopelessly obscure, to exalt into types of humanity what the world turns impatiently aside at, and to enshrine in a form for eternal homage and love such whimsical absurdity as captain toby shandy's. but dickens was too conscious of these excesses from time to time, not zealously to endeavour to keep the leading characters in his more important stories under some strictness of discipline. to confine exaggeration within legitimate limits was an art he laboriously studied; and, in whatever proportions of failure or success, during the vicissitudes of both that attended his later years, he continued to endeavour to practise it. in regard to mere description, it is true, he let himself loose more frequently, and would sometimes defend it even on the ground of art; nor would it be fair to omit his reply, on one occasion, to some such remonstrance as m. taine has embodied in his adverse criticism, against the too great imaginative wealth thrown by him into mere narrative.[ ] "it does not seem to me to be enough to say of any description that it is the exact truth. the exact truth must be there; but the merit or art in the narrator, is the manner of stating the truth. as to which thing in literature, it always seems to me that there is a world to be done. and in these times, when the tendency is to be frightfully literal and catalogue-like--to make the thing, in short, a sort of sum in reduction that any miserable creature can do in that way--i have an idea (really founded on the love of what i profess), that the very holding of popular literature through a kind of popular dark age, may depend on such fanciful treatment." the tale of two cities. dickens's next story to _little dorrit_ was the _tale of two cities_, of which the first notion occurred to him while acting with his friends and his children in the summer of in mr. wilkie collins's drama of _the frozen deep_. but it was only a vague fancy, and the sadness and trouble of the winter of that year were not favourable to it. towards the close ( th) of january , talking of improvements at gadshill in which he took little interest, it was again in his thoughts. "growing inclinations of a fitful and undefined sort are upon me sometimes to fall to work on a new book. then i think i had better not worry my worried mind yet awhile. then i think it would be of no use if i did, for i couldn't settle to one occupation.--and that's all!" "if i can discipline my thoughts," he wrote three days later, "into the channel of a story, i have made up my mind to get to work on one: always supposing that i find myself, on the trial, able to do well. nothing whatever will do me the least 'good' in the way of shaking the one strong possession of change impending over us that every day makes stronger; but if i could work on with some approach to steadiness, through the summer, the anxious toil of a new book would have its neck well broken before beginning to publish, next october or november. sometimes, i think i may continue to work; sometimes, i think not. what do you say to the title, one of these days?" that title held its ground very briefly. "what do you think," he wrote after six weeks, "of _this_ name for my story--buried alive? does it seem too grim? or, the thread of gold? or, the doctor of beauvais?" but not until twelve months later did he fairly buckle himself to the task he had contemplated so long. _all the year round_ had taken the place of _household words_ in the interval; and the tale was then started to give strength to the new weekly periodical for whose pages it was designed. "this is merely to certify," he wrote on the th of march , "that i have got exactly the name for the story that is wanted; exactly what will fit the opening to a t. a tale of two cities. also, that i have struck out a rather original and bold idea. that is, at the end of each month to publish the monthly part in the green cover, with the two illustrations, at the old shilling. this will give _all the year round_ always the interest and precedence of a fresh weekly portion during the month; and will give me my old standing with my old public, and the advantage (very necessary in this story) of having numbers of people who read it in no portions smaller than a monthly part. . . . my american ambassador pays a thousand pounds for the first year, for the privilege of republishing in america one day after we publish here. not bad?" . . . he had to struggle at the opening through a sharp attack of illness, and on the th of july progress was thus reported. "i have been getting on in health very slowly and through irksome botheration enough. but i think i am round the corner. this cause--and the heat--has tended to my doing no more than hold my ground, my old month's advance, with the _tale of two cities_. the small portions thereof, drive me frantic; but i think the tale must have taken a strong hold. the run upon our monthly parts is surprising, and last month we sold , back numbers. a note i have had from carlyle about it has given me especial pleasure." a letter of the following month expresses the intention he had when he began the story, and in what respect it differs as to method from all his other books. sending in proof four numbers ahead of the current publication, he adds: "i hope you will like them. nothing but the interest of the subject, and the pleasure of striving with the difficulty of the form of treatment,--nothing in the way of mere money, i mean,--could else repay the time and trouble of the incessant condensation. but i set myself the little task of making a _picturesque story_, rising in every chapter, with characters true to nature, but whom the story should express more than they should express themselves by dialogue. i mean in other words, that i fancied a story of incident might be written (in place of the odious stuff that is written under that pretence), pounding the characters in its own mortar, and beating their interest out of them. if you could have read the story all at once, i hope you wouldn't have stopped halfway."[ ] another of his letters supplies the last illustration i need to give of the design and meanings in regard to this tale expressed by himself. it was a reply to some objections of which the principal were, a doubt if the feudal cruelties came sufficiently within the date of the action to justify his use of them, and some question as to the manner of disposing of the chief revolutionary agent in the plot. "i had of course full knowledge of the formal surrender of the feudal privileges, but these had been bitterly felt quite as near to the time of the revolution as the doctor's narrative, which you will remember dates long before the terror. with the slang of the new philosophy on the one side, it was surely not unreasonable or unallowable, on the other, to suppose a nobleman wedded to the old cruel ideas, and representing the time going out as his nephew represents the time coming in. if there be anything certain on earth, i take it that the condition of the french peasant generally at that day was intolerable. no later enquiries or provings by figures will hold water against the tremendous testimony of men living at the time. there is a curious book printed at amsterdam, written to make out no case whatever, and tiresome enough in its literal dictionary-like minuteness; scattered up and down the pages of which is full authority for my marquis. this is mercier's _tableau de paris_. rousseau is the authority for the peasant's shutting up his house when he had a bit of meat. the tax-tables are the authority for the wretched creature's impoverishment. . . . i am not clear, and i never have been clear, respecting the canon of fiction which forbids the interposition of accident in such a case as madame defarge's death. where the accident is inseparable from the passion and action of the character; where it is strictly consistent with the entire design, and arises out of some culminating proceeding on the part of the individual which the whole story has led up to; it seems to me to become, as it were, an act of divine justice. and when i use miss pross (though this is quite another question) to bring about such a catastrophe, i have the positive intention of making that half-comic intervention a part of the desperate woman's failure; and of opposing that mean death, instead of a desperate one in the streets which she wouldn't have minded, to the dignity of carton's. wrong or right, this was all design, and seemed to me to be in the fitness of things." these are interesting intimations of the care with which dickens worked; and there is no instance in his novels, excepting this, of a deliberate and planned departure from the method of treatment which had been pre-eminently the source of his popularity as a novelist. to rely less upon character than upon incident, and to resolve that his actors should be expressed by the story more than they should express themselves by dialogue, was for him a hazardous, and can hardly be called an entirely successful, experiment. with singular dramatic vivacity, much constructive art, and with descriptive passages of a high order everywhere (the dawn of the terrible outbreak in the journey of the marquis from paris to his country seat, and the london crowd at the funeral of the spy, may be instanced for their power), there was probably never a book by a great humourist, and an artist so prolific in the conception of character, with so little humour and so few rememberable figures. its merits lie elsewhere. though there are excellent traits and touches all through the revolutionary scenes, the only full-length that stands out prominently is the picture of the wasted life saved at last by heroic sacrifice. dickens speaks of his design to make impressive the dignity of carton's death, and in this he succeeded perhaps even beyond his expectation. carton suffers himself to be mistaken for another, and gives his life that the girl he loves may be happy with that other; the secret being known only to a poor little girl in the tumbril that takes them to the scaffold, who at the moment has discovered it, and whom it strengthens also to die. the incident is beautifully told; and it is at least only fair to set against verdicts not very favourable as to this effort of his invention, what was said of the particular character and scene, and of the book generally, by an american critic whose literary studies had most familiarized him with the rarest forms of imaginative writing.[ ] "its pourtrayal of the noble-natured castaway makes it almost a peerless book in modern literature, and gives it a place among the highest examples of literary art. . . . the conception of this character shows in its author an ideal of magnanimity and of charity unsurpassed. there is not a grander, lovelier figure than the self-wrecked, self-devoted sydney carton, in literature or history; and the story itself is so noble in its spirit, so grand and graphic in its style, and filled with a pathos so profound and simple, that it deserves and will surely take a place among the great serious works of imagination." i should myself prefer to say that its distinctive merit is less in any of its conceptions of character, even carton's, than as a specimen of dickens's power in imaginative story-telling. there is no piece of fiction known to me, in which the domestic life of a few simple private people is in such a manner knitted and interwoven with the outbreak of a terrible public event, that the one seems but part of the other. when made conscious of the first sultry drops of a thunderstorm that fall upon a little group sitting in an obscure english lodging, we are witness to the actual beginning of a tempest which is preparing to sweep away everything in france. and, to the end, the book in this respect is really remarkable. great expectations. the _tale of two cities_ was published in ; the series of papers collected as the _uncommercial traveller_ were occupying dickens in ; and it was while engaged in these, and throwing off in the course of them capital "samples" of fun and enjoyment, he thus replied to a suggestion that he should let himself loose upon some single humorous conception, in the vein of his youthful achievements in that way. "for a little piece i have been writing--or am writing; for i hope to finish it to-day--such a very fine, new, and grotesque idea has opened upon me, that i begin to doubt whether i had not better cancel the little paper, and reserve the notion for a new book. you shall judge as soon as i get it printed. but it so opens out before _me_ that i can see the whole of a serial revolving on it, in a most singular and comic manner." this was the germ of pip and magwitch, which at first he intended to make the groundwork of a tale in the old twenty-number form, but for reasons perhaps fortunate brought afterwards within the limits of a less elaborate novel. "last week," he wrote on the th of october , "i got to work on the new story. i had previously very carefully considered the state and prospects of _all the year round_, and, the more i considered them, the less hope i saw of being able to get back, _now_, to the profit of a separate publication in the old numbers." (a tale, which at the time was appearing in his serial, had disappointed expectation.) "however i worked on, knowing that what i was doing would run into another groove; and i called a council of war at the office on tuesday. it was perfectly clear that the one thing to be done was, for me to strike in. i have therefore decided to begin the story as of the length of the _tale of two cities_ on the first of december--begin publishing, that is. i must make the most i can out of the book. you shall have the first two or three weekly parts to-morrow. the name is great expectations. i think a good name?" two days later he wrote: "the sacrifice of _great expectations_ is really and truly made for myself. the property of _all the year round_ is far too valuable, in every way, to be much endangered. our fall is not large, but we have a considerable advance in hand of the story we are now publishing, and there is no vitality in it, and no chance whatever of stopping the fall; which on the contrary would be certain to increase. now, if i went into a twenty-number serial, i should cut off my power of doing anything serial here for two good years--and that would be a most perilous thing. on the other hand, by dashing in now, i come in when most wanted; and if reade and wilkie follow me, our course will be shaped out handsomely and hopefully for between two and three years. a thousand pounds are to be paid for early proofs of the story to america." a few more days brought the first instalment of the tale, and explanatory mention of it. "the book will be written in the first person throughout, and during these first three weekly numbers you will find the hero to be a boy-child, like david. then he will be an apprentice. you will not have to complain of the want of humour as in the _tale of two cities_. i have made the opening, i hope, in its general effect exceedingly droll. i have put a child and a good-natured foolish man, in relations that seem to me very funny. of course i have got in the pivot on which the story will turn too--and which indeed, as you remember, was the grotesque tragi-comic conception that first encouraged me. to be quite sure i had fallen into no unconscious repetitions, i read _david copperfield_ again the other day, and was affected by it to a degree you would hardly believe." it may be doubted if dickens could better have established his right to the front rank among novelists claimed for him, than by the ease and mastery with which, in these two books of _copperfield_ and _great expectations_, he kept perfectly distinct the two stories of a boy's childhood, both told in the form of autobiography. a subtle penetration into character marks the unlikeness in the likeness; there is enough at once of resemblance and of difference in the position and surroundings of each to account for the divergences of character that arise; both children are good-hearted, and both have the advantage of association with models of tender simplicity and oddity, perfect in their truth and quite distinct from each other; but a sudden tumble into distress steadies peggotty's little friend, and as unexpected a stroke of good fortune turns the head of the small protégé of joe gargery. what a deal of spoiling nevertheless, a nature that is really good at the bottom of it will stand without permanent damage, is nicely shown in pip; and the way he reconciles his determination to act very shabbily to his early friends, with a conceited notion that he is setting them a moral example, is part of the shading of a character drawn with extraordinary skill. his greatest trial comes out of his good luck; and the foundations of both are laid at the opening of the tale, in a churchyard down by the thames, as it winds past desolate marshes twenty miles to the sea, of which a masterly picture in half a dozen lines will give only average example of the descriptive writing that is everywhere one of the charms of the book. it is strange, as i transcribe the words, with what wonderful vividness they bring back the very spot on which we stood when he said he meant to make it the scene of the opening of his story--cooling castle ruins and the desolate church, lying out among the marshes seven miles from gadshill! "my first most vivid and broad impression . . . on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening . . . was . . . that this bleak place, overgrown with nettles, was the churchyard, and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond, was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing, was the sea. . . . on the edge of the river . . . only two black things in all the prospect seemed to be standing upright . . . one, the beacon by which the sailors steered, like an unhooped cask upon a pole, an ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate." here magwitch, an escaped convict from chatham, terrifies the child pip into stealing for him food and a file; and though recaptured and transported, he carries with him to australia such a grateful heart for the small creature's service, that on making a fortune there he resolves to make his little friend a gentleman. this requires circumspection; and is so done, through the old-bailey attorney who has defended magwitch at his trial (a character of surprising novelty and truth), that pip imagines his present gifts and "great expectations" to have come from the supposed rich lady of the story (whose eccentricities are the unattractive part of it, and have yet a weird character that somehow fits in with the kind of wrong she has suffered). when therefore the closing scenes bring back magwitch himself, who risks his life to gratify his longing to see the gentleman he has made, it is an unspeakable horror to the youth to discover his benefactor in the convicted felon. if any one doubts dickens's power of so drawing a character as to get to the heart of it, seeing beyond surface peculiarities into the moving springs of the human being himself, let him narrowly examine those scenes. there is not a grain of substitution of mere sentiment, or circumstance, for the inner and absolute reality of the position in which these two creatures find themselves. pip's loathing of what had built up his fortune, and his horror of the uncouth architect, are apparent in even his most generous efforts to protect him from exposure and sentence. magwitch's convict habits strangely blend themselves with his wild pride in, and love for, the youth whom his money has turned into a gentleman. he has a craving for his good opinion; dreads to offend him by his "heavy grubbing," or by the oaths he lets fall now and then; and pathetically hopes his pip, his dear boy, won't think him "low": but, upon a chum of pip's appearing unexpectedly while they are together, he pulls out a jack-knife by way of hint he can defend himself, and produces afterwards a greasy little clasped black testament on which the startled new-comer, being found to have no hostile intention, is sworn to secrecy. at the opening of the story there had been an exciting scene of the wretched man's chase and recapture among the marshes, and this has its parallel at the close in his chase and recapture on the river while poor pip is helping to get him off. to make himself sure of the actual course of a boat in such circumstances, and what possible incidents the adventure might have, dickens hired a steamer for the day from blackwall to southend. eight or nine friends and three or four members of his family were on board, and he seemed to have no care, the whole of that summer day ( nd of may ), except to enjoy their enjoyment and entertain them with his own in shape of a thousand whims and fancies; but his sleepless observation was at work all the time, and nothing had escaped his keen vision on either side of the river. the fifteenth chapter of the third volume is a masterpiece. the characters generally afford the same evidence as those two that dickens's humour, not less than his creative power, was at its best in this book. the old-bailey attorney jaggers, and his clerk wemmick (both excellent, and the last one of the oddities that live in everybody's liking for the goodheartedness of its humorous surprises), are as good as his earliest efforts in that line; the pumblechooks and wopsles are perfect as bits of _nickleby_ fresh from the mint; and the scene in which pip, and pip's chum herbert, make up their accounts and schedule their debts and obligations, is original and delightful as micawber himself. it is the art of living upon nothing and making the best of it, in the most pleasing form. herbert's intentions to trade east and west, and get himself into business transactions of a magnificent extent and variety, are as perfectly warranted to us, in his way of putting them, by merely "being in a counting-house and looking about you," as pip's means of paying his debts are lightened and made easy by his method of simply adding them up with a margin. "the time comes," says herbert, "when you see your opening. and you go in, and you swoop upon it, and you make your capital, and then there you are! when you have once made your capital you have nothing to do but employ it." in like manner pip tells us "suppose your debts to be one hundred and sixty four pounds four and two-pence, i would say, leave a margin and put them down at two hundred; or suppose them to be four times as much, leave a margin and put them down at seven hundred." he is sufficiently candid to add, that, while he has the highest opinion of the wisdom and prudence of the margin, its dangers are that in the sense of freedom and solvency it imparts there is a tendency to run into new debt. but the satire that thus enforces the old warning against living upon vague hopes, and paying ancient debts by contracting new ones, never presented itself in more amusing or kindly shape. a word should be added of the father of the girl that herbert marries, bill barley, ex-ship's purser, a gouty, bed-ridden, drunken old rascal, who lies on his back in an upper floor on mill pond bank by chinks's basin, where he keeps, weighs, and serves out the family stores or provisions, according to old professional practice, with one eye at a telescope which is fitted on his bed for the convenience of sweeping the river. this is one of those sketches, slight in itself but made rich with a wealth of comic observation, in which dickens's humour took especial delight; and to all this part of the story, there is a quaint riverside flavour that gives it amusing reality and relish. sending the chapters that contain it, which open the third division of the tale, he wrote thus: "it is a pity that the third portion cannot be read all at once, because its purpose would be much more apparent; and the pity is the greater, because the general turn and tone of the working out and winding up, will be away from all such things as they conventionally go. but what must be, must be. as to the planning out from week to week, nobody can imagine what the difficulty is, without trying. but, as in all such cases, when it is overcome the pleasure is proportionate. two months more will see me through it, i trust. all the iron is in the fire, and i have 'only' to beat it out." one other letter throws light upon an objection taken not unfairly to the too great speed with which the heroine, after being married, reclaimed, and widowed, is in a page or two again made love to, and remarried by the hero. this summary proceeding was not originally intended. but, over and above its popular acceptance, the book had interested some whose opinions dickens specially valued (carlyle among them, i remember);[ ] and upon bulwer lytton objecting to a close that should leave pip a solitary man, dickens substituted what now stands. "you will be surprised" he wrote "to hear that i have changed the end of _great expectations_ from and after pip's return to joe's, and finding his little likeness there. bulwer, who has been, as i think you know, extraordinarily taken by the book, so strongly urged it upon me, after reading the proofs, and supported his view with such good reasons, that i resolved to make the change. you shall have it when you come back to town. i have put in as pretty a little piece of writing as i could, and i have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through the alteration." this turned out to be the case; but the first ending nevertheless seems to be more consistent with the drift, as well as natural working out, of the tale, and for this reason it is preserved in a note.[ ] christmas sketches. between that fine novel, which was issued in three volumes in the autumn of , and the completion of his next serial story, were interposed three sketches in his happiest vein at which everyone laughed and cried in the christmas times of , ' , and ' . of the waiter in _somebody's luggage_ dickens has himself spoken; and if any theme is well treated, when, from the point of view taken, nothing more is left to say about it, that bit of fun is perfect. call it exaggeration, grotesqueness, or by what hard name you will, laughter will always intercept any graver criticism. writing from paris of what he was himself responsible for in the articles left by somebody with his wonderful waiter, he said that in one of them he had made the story a camera obscura of certain french places and styles of people; having founded it on something he had noticed in a french soldier. this was the tale of little bebelle, which had a small french corporal for its hero, and became highly popular. but the triumph of the christmas achievements in these days was mrs. lirriper. she took her place at once among people known to everybody; and all the world talked of major jemmy jackman, and his friend the poor elderly lodging-house keeper of the strand, with her miserable cares and rivalries and worries, as if they had both been as long in london and as well known as norfolk-street itself. a dozen volumes could not have told more than those dozen pages did. the _legacy_ followed the _lodgings_ in , and there was no falling off in the fun and laughter. our mutual friend. the publication of _our mutual friend_, in the form of the earliest stories, extended from may to november . four years earlier he had chosen this title as a good one, and he held to it through much objection. between that time and his actual commencement there is mention, in his letters, of the three leading notions on which he founded the story. in his water-side wanderings during his last book, the many handbills he saw posted up, with dreary description of persons drowned in the river, suggested the 'long shore men and their ghastly calling whom he sketched in hexam and riderhood, "i think," he had written, "a man, young and perhaps eccentric, feigning to be dead, and _being_ dead to all intents and purposes external to himself, and for years retaining the singular view of life and character so imparted, would be a good leading incident for a story;" and this he partly did in rokesmith. for other actors in the tale, he had thought of "a poor impostor of a man marrying a woman for her money; she marrying _him_ for _his_ money; after marriage both finding out their mistake, and entering into a league and covenant against folks in general:" with whom he had proposed to connect some perfectly new people. "everything new about them. if they presented a father and mother, it seemed as if they must be bran new, like the furniture and the carriages--shining with varnish, and just home from the manufacturers." these groups took shape in the lammles and the veneerings. "i must use somehow," is the remark of another letter, "the uneducated father in fustian and the educated boy in spectacles whom leech and i saw at chatham;" of which a hint is in charley hexam and his father. the benevolent old jew whom he makes the unconscious agent of a rascal, was meant to wipe out a reproach against his jew in _oliver twist_ as bringing dislike upon the religion of the race he belonged to.[ ] having got his title in ' it was his hope to have begun in ' . "alas!" he wrote in the april of that year, "i have hit upon nothing for a story. again and again i have tried. but this odious little house" (he had at this time for a few weeks exchanged gadshill for a friend's house near kensington) "seems to have stifled and darkened my invention." it was not until the autumn of the following year he saw his way to a beginning. "the christmas number has come round again" ( th of august )--"it seems only yesterday that i did the last--but i am full of notions besides for the new twenty numbers. when i can clear the christmas stone out of the road, i think i can dash into it on the grander journey." he persevered through much difficulty; which he described six weeks later, with characteristic glance at his own ways when writing, in a letter from the office of his journal. "i came here last night, to evade my usual day in the week--in fact to shirk it--and get back to gad's for five or six consecutive days. my reason is, that i am exceedingly anxious to begin my book. i am bent upon getting to work at it. i want to prepare it for the spring; but i am determined not to begin to publish with less than five numbers done. i see my opening perfectly, with the one main line on which the story is to turn; and if i don't strike while the iron (meaning myself) is hot, i shall drift off again, and have to go through all this uneasiness once more." he had written, after four months, very nearly three numbers, when upon a necessary rearrangement of his chapters he had to hit upon a new subject for one of them. "while i was considering" ( th of february) "what it should be, marcus,[ ] who has done an excellent cover, came to tell me of an extraordinary trade he had found out, through one of his painting requirements. i immediately went with him to saint giles's to look at the place, and found--what you will see." it was the establishment of mr. venus, preserver of animals and birds, and articulator of human bones; and it took the place of the last chapter of no. , which was then transferred to the end of no. . but a start with three full numbers done, though more than enough to satisfy the hardest self-conditions formerly, did not satisfy him now. with his previous thought given to the story, with his memoranda to help him, with the people he had in hand to work it with, and ready as he still was to turn his untiring observation to instant use on its behalf, he now moved, with the old large canvas before him, somewhat slowly and painfully. "if i were to lose" ( th of march) "a page of the five numbers i have proposed to myself to be ready by the publication day, i should feel that i had fallen short. i have grown hard to satisfy, and write very slowly. and i have so much--not fiction--that _will_ be thought of, when i don't want to think of it, that i am forced to take more care than i once took." the first number was launched at last, on the first of may; and after two days he wrote: "nothing can be better than _our friend_, now in his thirtieth thousand, and orders flowing in fast." but between the first and second number there was a drop of five thousand, strange to say, for the larger number was again reached, and much exceeded, before the book closed. "this leaves me" ( th of june) "going round and round like a carrier-pigeon before swooping on number seven." thus far he had held his ground; but illness came, with some other anxieties, and on the th of july he wrote sadly enough. "although i have not been wanting in industry, i have been wanting in invention, and have fallen back with the book. looming large before me is the christmas work, and i can hardly hope to do it without losing a number of _our friend_. i have very nearly lost one already, and two would take one half of my whole advance. this week i have been very unwell; am still out of sorts; and, as i know from two days' slow experience, have a very mountain to climb before i shall see the open country of my work." the three following months brought hardly more favourable report. "i have not done my number. this death of poor leech (i suppose) has put me out woefully. yesterday and the day before i could do nothing; seemed for the time to have quite lost the power; and am only by slow degrees getting back into the track to-day." he rallied after this, and satisfied himself for a while; but in february that formidable illness in his foot broke out which, at certain times for the rest of his life, deprived him more or less of his inestimable solace of bodily exercise. in april and may he suffered severely; and after trying the sea went abroad for more complete change. "work and worry, without exercise, would soon make an end of me. if i were not going away now, i should break down. no one knows as i know to-day how near to it i have been." that was the day of his leaving for france, and the day of his return brought these few hurried words. "saturday, tenth of june, . i was in the terrific staplehurst accident yesterday, and worked for hours among the dying and dead. i was in the carriage that did not go over, but went off the line, and hung over the bridge in an inexplicable manner. no words can describe the scene.[ ] i am away to gads." though with characteristic energy he resisted the effects upon himself of that terrible ninth of june, they were for some time evident; and, up to the day of his death on its fatal fifth anniversary, were perhaps never wholly absent. but very few complaints fell from him. "i am curiously weak--weak as if i were recovering from a long illness." "i begin to feel it more in my head. i sleep well and eat well; but i write half a dozen notes, and turn faint and sick." "i am getting right, though still low in pulse and very nervous. driving into rochester yesterday i felt more shaken than i have since the accident." "i cannot bear railway travelling yet. a perfect conviction, against the senses, that the carriage is down on one side (and generally that is the left, and _not_ the side on which the carriage in the accident really went over), comes upon me with anything like speed, and is inexpressibly distressing." these are passages from his letters up to the close of june. upon his book the immediate result was that another lost number was added to the losses of the preceding months, and "alas!" he wrote at the opening of july, "for the two numbers you write of! there is only one in existence. i have but just begun the other." "fancy!" he added next day, "fancy my having under-written number sixteen by two and a half pages--a thing i have not done since _pickwick_!" he did it once with _dombey_, and was to do it yet again. the book thus begun and continued under adverse influences, though with fancy in it, descriptive power, and characters well designed, will never rank with his higher efforts. it has some pictures of a rare veracity of soul amid the lowest forms of social degradation, placed beside others of sheer falsehood and pretence amid unimpeachable social correctness, which lifted the writer to his old place; but the judgment of it on the whole must be, that it wants freshness and natural development. this indeed will be most freely admitted by those who feel most strongly that all the old cunning of the master hand is yet in the wayward loving bella wilfer, in the vulgar canting podsnap, and in the dolls' dressmaker jenny wren, whose keen little quaint weird ways, and precocious wit sharpened by trouble, are fitted into a character as original and delightfully conceived as it is vividly carried through to the last. a dull coarse web her small life seems made of; but even from its taskwork, which is undertaken for childhood itself, there are glittering threads cast across its woof and warp of care. the unconscious philosophy of her tricks and manners has in it more of the subtler vein of the satire aimed at in the book, than even the voices of society which the tale begins and ends with. in her very kindliness there is the touch of malice that shows a childish playfulness familiar with unnatural privations; this gives a depth as well as tenderness to her humours which entitles them to rank with the writer's happiest things; and though the odd little creature's talk is incessant when she is on the scene, it has the individuality that so seldom tires. it is veritably her own small "trick" and "manner," and is never mistakeable for any one else's. "i have been reading," dickens wrote to me from france while he was writing the book, "a capital little story by edmond about--_the notary's nose_. i have been trying other books; but so infernally conversational, that i forget who the people are before they have done talking, and don't in the least remember what they talked about before when they begin talking again!" the extreme contrast to his own art could not be defined more exactly; and other examples from this tale will be found in the differing members of the wilfer family, in the riverside people at the fellowship porters, in such marvellous serio-comic scenes as that of rogue riderhood's restoration from drowning, and in those short and simple annals of betty higden's life and death which might have given saving virtue to a book more likely than this to perish prematurely. it has not the creative power which crowded his earlier page, and transformed into popular realities the shadows of his fancy; but the observation and humour he excelled in are not wanting to it, nor had there been, in his first completed work, more eloquent or generous pleading for the poor and neglected, than this last completed work contains. betty higden finishes what oliver twist began. dr. marigold and tales for america. he had scarcely closed that book in september, wearied somewhat with a labour of invention which had not been so free or self-sustaining as in the old facile and fertile days, when his customary contribution to christmas became due from him; and his fancy, let loose in a narrower field, resumed its old luxury of enjoyment. here are notices of it from his letters. "if people at large understand a cheap jack, my part of the christmas number will do well. it is wonderfully like the real thing, of course a little refined and humoured." "i do hope that in the beginning and end of this christmas number you will find something that will strike you as being fresh, forcible, and full of spirits." he described its mode of composition afterwards. "tired with _our mutual_, i sat down to cast about for an idea, with a depressing notion that i was, for the moment, overworked. suddenly, the little character that you will see, and all belonging to it, came flashing up in the most cheerful manner, and i had only to look on and leisurely describe it." this was _dr. marigold's prescriptions_, one of the most popular of all the pieces selected for his readings, and a splendid example of his humour, pathos, and character. there were three more christmas pieces before he made his last visit to america: _barbox brothers_, _the boy at mugby station_, and _no thoroughfare_: the last a joint piece of work with mr. wilkie collins, who during dickens's absence in the states transformed it into a play for mr. fechter, with a view to which it had been planned originally. there were also two papers written for first publication in america, _george silverman's explanation_, and _holiday romance_, containing about the quantity of half a shilling number of his ordinary serials, and paid for at a rate unexampled in literature. they occupied him not many days in the writing, and he received a thousand pounds for them. * * * * * the year after his return, as the reader knows, saw the commencement of the work which death interrupted. the fragment will hereafter be described; and here meanwhile may close my criticism--itself a fragment left for worthier completion by a stronger hand than mine. but at least i may hope that the ground has been cleared by it from those distinctions and comparisons never safely to be applied to an original writer, and which always more or less intercept his fair appreciation. it was long the fashion to set up wide divergences between novels of incident and manners, and novels of character; the narrower range being left to fielding and smollett, and the larger to richardson; yet there are not many now who will accept such classification. nor is there more truth in other like distinctions alleged between novelists who are assumed to be real, or ideal, in their methods of treatment. to any original novelist of the higher grade there is no meaning in these contrasted phrases. neither mode can exist at all perfectly without the other. no matter how sensitive the mind to external impressions, or how keen the observation to whatever can be seen, without the rarer seeing of imagination nothing will be arrived at that is real in any genuine artist-sense. reverse the proposition, and the result is expressed in an excellent remark of lord lytton's, that the happiest effort of imagination, however lofty it may be, is that which enables it to be cheerfully at home with the real. i have said that dickens felt criticism, of whatever kind, with too sharp a relish for the indifference he assumed to it; but the secret was that he believed himself to be entitled to higher tribute than he was always in the habit of receiving. it was the feeling which suggested a memorable saying of wordsworth. "i am not at all desirous that any one should write a critique on my poems. if they be from above, they will do their own work in course of time; if not, they will perish as they ought." the something "from above" never seems to be absent from dickens, even at his worst. when the strain upon his invention became apparent, and he could only work freely in a more confined space than of old, it was still able to assert itself triumphantly; and his influence over his readers was continued by it to the last day of his life. looking back over the series of his writings, the first reflection that rises to the mind of any thoughtful person, is one of thankfulness that the most popular of writers, who had carried into the lowest scenes and conditions an amount of observation, fun, and humour not approached by any of his contemporaries, should never have sullied that world-wide influence by a hint of impurity or a possibility of harm. nor is there anything more surprising than the freshness and variety of character which those writings include, within the range of the not numerous types of character that were the limit of their author's genius. for, this also appears, upon any review of them collectively, that the teeming life which is in them is that of the time in which his own life was passed; and that with the purpose of showing vividly its form and pressure, was joined the hope and design to leave it better than he found it. it has been objected that humanity receives from him no addition to its best types; that the burlesque humourist is always stronger in him than the reflective moralist; that the light thrown by his genius into out of the way corners of life never steadily shines in its higher beaten ways; and that beside his pictures of what man is or does, there is no attempt to show, by delineation of an exalted purpose or a great career, what man is able to be or to do. in the charge abstractedly there is truth; but the fair remark upon it is that whatever can be regarded as essential in the want implied by it will be found in other forms in his writings, that the perfect innocence of their laughter and tears has been itself a prodigious blessing, and that it is otherwise incident to so great a humourist to work after the fashion most natural to the genius of humour. what kind of work it has been in his case, the attempt is made in preceding pages to show; and on the whole it can be said with some certainty that the best ideals in this sense are obtained, not by presenting with added comeliness or grace the figures which life is ever eager to present as of its best, but by connecting the singularities and eccentricities, which ordinary life is apt to reject or overlook, with the appreciation that is deepest and the laws of insight that are most universal. it is thus that all things human are happily brought within human sympathy. it was at the heart of everything dickens wrote. it was the secret of the hope he had that his books might help to make people better; and it so guarded them from evil, that there is scarcely a page of the thousands he has written which might not be put into the hands of a little child.[ ] it made him the intimate of every english household, and a familiar friend wherever the language is spoken whose stores of harmless pleasure he has so largely increased. "the loss of no single man during the present generation, if we except abraham lincoln alone," said mr. horace greeley, describing the profound and universal grief of america at his death, "has carried mourning into so many families, and been so unaffectedly lamented through all the ranks of society." "the terrible news from england," wrote longfellow to me (cambridge, mass. th of june ), "fills us all with inexpressible sadness. dickens was so full of life that it did not seem possible he could die, and yet he has gone before us, and we are sorrowing for him. . . . i never knew an author's death cause such general mourning. it is no exaggeration to say that this whole country is stricken with grief . . ." nor was evidence then wanting, that far beyond the limits of society on that vast continent the english writer's influence had penetrated. of this, very touching illustration was given in my first volume; and proof even more striking has since been afforded to me, that not merely in wild or rude communities, but in life the most savage and solitary, his genius had helped to while time away. "like all americans who read," writes an american gentleman, "and that takes in nearly all our people, i am an admirer and student of dickens. . . . its perusal" (that of my second volume) "has recalled an incident which may interest you. twelve or thirteen years ago i crossed the sierra nevada mountains as a government surveyor under a famous frontiersman and civil engineer--colonel lander. we were too early by a month, and became snow-bound just on the very summit. under these circumstances it was necessary to abandon the wagons for a time, and drive the stock (mules) down the mountains to the valleys where there was pasturage and running water. this was a long and difficult task, occupying several days. on the second day, in a spot where we expected to find nothing more human than a grizzly bear or an elk, we found a little hut, built of pine boughs and a few rough boards clumsily hewn out of small trees with an axe. the hut was covered with snow many feet deep, excepting only the hole in the roof which served for a chimney, and a small pit-like place in front to permit egress. the occupant came forth to hail us and solicit whisky and tobacco. he was dressed in a suit made entirely of flour-sacks, and was curiously labelled on various parts of his person _best family flour_. _extra._ his head was covered by a wolf's skin drawn from the brute's head--with the ears standing erect in a fierce alert manner. he was a most extraordinary object, and told us he had not seen a human being in four months. he lived on bear and elk meat and flour laid in during his short summer. emigrants in the season paid him a kind of ferry-toll. i asked him how he passed his time, and he went to a barrel and produced _nicholas nickleby_ and _pickwick_. i found he knew them almost by heart. he did not know, or seem to care, about the author; but he gloried in sam weller, despised squeers, and would probably have taken the latter's scalp with great skill and cheerfulness. for mr. winkle he had no feeling but contempt, and in fact regarded a fowling-piece as only a toy for a squaw. he had no bible; and perhaps if he practised in his rude savage way all dickens taught, he might less have felt the want even of that companion." footnotes: [ ] i hope my readers will find themselves able to understand that, as well as this which follows: "what seems preposterous, impossible to us, seemed to him simple fact of observation. when he imagined a street, a house, a room, a figure, he saw it not in the vague schematic way of ordinary imagination, but in the sharp definition of actual perception, all the salient details obtruding themselves on his attention. he, seeing it thus vividly, made us also see it; and believing in its reality however fantastic, he communicated something of his belief to us. he presented it in such relief that we ceased to think of it as a picture. so definite and insistent was the image, that even while knowing it was false we could not help, for a moment, being affected, as it were, by his hallucination." [ ] "though," john ballantyne told lockhart, "he often turned himself on his pillow with a groan of torment, he usually continued the sentence in the same breath. but when dialogue of peculiar animation was in progress, spirit seemed to triumph altogether over matter--he arose from his couch and walked up and down the room, raising and lowering his voice, and as it were acting the parts." _lockhart_, vi. - . the statement of james ballantyne is at p. of the same volume. the original incidents on which scott had founded the tale he remembered, but "not a single character woven by the romancer, not one of the many scenes and points of humour, nor anything with which he was connected as the writer of the work." [ ] "do you know _master humphrey's clock_! i admire nell in the _old curiosity shop_ exceedingly. the whole thing is a good deal borrowed from _wilhelm meister_. but little nell is a far purer, lovelier, more _english_ conception than mignon, treasonable as the saying would seem to some. no doubt it was suggested by mignon."--sara coleridge to aubrey de vere (_memoirs and letters_, ii. - ). expressing no opinion on this comparison, i may state it as within my knowledge that the book referred to was not then known to dickens. [ ] the distinction i then pointed out was remarked by sara coleridge (_memoirs and letters_, ii. ) in writing of her children. "they like to talk to me . . . above all about the productions of dickens, the never-to-be-exhausted fun of _pickwick_, and the capital new strokes of _martin chuzzlewit_. this last work contains, besides all the fun, some very marked and available morals. i scarce know any book in which the evil and odiousness of selfishness are more forcibly brought out, or in a greater variety of exhibitions. in the midst of the merry quotations, or at least on any fair opportunity, i draw the boys' attention to these points." [ ] all the remarks in my text had been some time in type when lord lytton sent me what follows, from one of his father's manuscript (and unpublished) note-books. substantially it agrees with what i have said; and such unconscious testimony of a brother novelist of so high a rank, careful in the study of his art, is of special value. "the greatest masters of the novel of modern manners have generally availed themselves of humour for the illustration of manners; and have, with a deep and true, but perhaps unconscious, knowledge of art, pushed the humour almost to the verge of caricature. for, as the serious ideal requires a certain exaggeration in the proportions of the natural, so also does the ludicrous. thus aristophanes, in painting the humours of his time, resorts to the most poetical extravagance of machinery, and calls the clouds in aid of his ridicule of philosophy, or summons frogs and gods to unite in his satire on euripides. the don quixote of cervantes never lived, nor, despite the vulgar belief, ever could have lived, in spain; but the art of the portrait is in the admirable exaltation of the humorous by means of the exaggerated. with more or less qualification, the same may be said of parson adams, of sir roger de coverley, and even of the vicar of wakefield. . . . it follows therefore that art and correctness are far from identical, and that the one is sometimes proved by the disdain of the other. for the ideal, whether humorous or serious, does not consist in the imitation but in the exaltation of nature. and we must accordingly enquire of art, not how far it resembles what we have seen, so much as how far it embodies what we can imagine." [ ] i cannot refuse myself the satisfaction of quoting, from the best criticism of dickens i have seen since his death, remarks very pertinent to what is said in my text. "dickens possessed an imagination unsurpassed, not only in vividness, but in swiftness. i have intentionally avoided all needless comparisons of his works with those of other writers of his time, some of whom have gone before him to their rest, while others survive to gladden the darkness and relieve the monotony of our daily life. but in the power of his imagination--of this i am convinced--he surpassed them, one and all. that imagination could call up at will those associations which, could we but summon them in their full number, would bind together the human family, and make that expression no longer a name, but a living reality. . . . such associations sympathy alone can warm into life, and imagination alone can at times discern. the great humourist reveals them to every one of us; and his genius is indeed an inspiration from no human source, in that it enables him to render this service to the brotherhood of mankind. but more than this. so marvellously has this earth become the inheritance of mankind, that there is not a thing upon it, animate or inanimate, with which, or with the likeness of which, man's mind has not come into contact; . . . with which human feelings, aspirations, thoughts, have not acquired an endless variety of single or subtle associations. . . . these also, which we imperfectly divine or carelessly pass by, the imagination of genius distinctly reveals to us, and powerfully impresses upon us. when they appeal directly to the emotions of the heart, it is the power of pathos which has awakened them; and when the suddenness, the unexpectedness, the apparent oddity of the one by the side of the other, strike the mind with irresistible force, it is the equally divine gift of humour which has touched the spring of laughter by the side of the spring of tears."--_charles dickens. a lecture by professor ward. delivered in manchester, th november, ._ [ ] the opening of this letter ( th of august ), referring to a conviction for murder, afterwards reversed by a home office pardon against the continued and steadily expressed opinion of the judge who tried the case, is much too characteristic of the writer to be lost. "i cannot easily tell you how much interested i am by what you tell me of our brave and excellent friend. . . . i have often had more than half a mind to write and thank that upright judge. i declare to heaven that i believe such a service one of the greatest that a man of intellect and courage can render to society. . . . of course i have been driving the girls out of their wits here, by incessantly proclaiming that there needed no medical evidence either way, and that the case was plain without it. . . . lastly of course (though a merciful man--because a merciful man, i mean), i would hang any home secretary, whig, tory, radical, or otherwise, who should step in between so black a scoundrel and the gallows. . . . i am reminded of tennyson by thinking that king arthur would have made short work of the amiable man! how fine the idylls are! lord! what a blessed thing it is to read a man who really can write. i thought nothing could be finer than the first poem, till i came to the third; but when i had read the last, it seemed to me to be absolutely unapproachable." other literary likings rose and fell with him, but he never faltered in his allegiance to tennyson. [ ] mr. grant white, whose edition of shakespeare has been received with much respect in england. [ ] a dear friend now gone, used laughingly to relate what outcry there used to be, on the night of the week when a number was due, for "that pip nonsense!" and what roars of laughter followed, though at first it was entirely put aside as not on any account to have time wasted over it. [ ] there was no chapter xx. as now; but the sentence which opens it ("for eleven years" in the original, altered to "eight years") followed the paragraph about his business partnership with herbert, and led to biddy's question whether he is sure he does not fret for estella ("i am sure and certain, biddy" as originally written, altered to "o no--i think not, biddy"): from which point here was the close. "it was two years more, before i saw herself. i had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being separated from her husband who had used her with great cruelty, and who had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, brutality, and meanness. i had heard of the death of her husband (from an accident consequent on ill-treating a horse), and of her being married again to a shropshire doctor, who, against his interest, had once very manfully interposed, on an occasion when he was in professional attendance on mr. drummle, and had witnessed some outrageous treatment of her. i had heard that the shropshire doctor was not rich, and that they lived on her own personal fortune. i was in england again--in london, and walking along piccadilly with little pip--when a servant came running after me to ask would i step back to a lady in a carriage who wished to speak to me. it was a little pony carriage, which the lady was driving; and the lady and i looked sadly enough on one another. 'i am greatly changed, i know; but i thought you would like to shake hands with estella too, pip. lift up that pretty child and let me kiss it!' (she supposed the child, i think, to be my child.) i was very glad afterwards to have had the interview; for, in her face and in her voice, and in her touch, she gave me the assurance, that suffering had been stronger than miss havisham's teaching, and had given her a heart to understand what my heart used to be." [ ] on this reproach, from a jewish lady whom he esteemed, he had written two years before. "fagin, in _oliver twist_, is a jew, because it unfortunately was true, of the time to which that story refers, that that class of criminal almost invariably _was_ a jew. but surely no sensible man or woman of your persuasion can fail to observe--firstly, that all the rest of the wicked _dramatis personæ_ are christians; and, secondly, that he is called 'the jew,' not because of his religion, but because of his race." [ ] mr. marcus stone had, upon the separate issue of the _tale of two cities_, taken the place of mr. hablot browne as his illustrator. _hard times_ and the first edition of _great expectations_ were not illustrated; but when pip's story appeared in one volume, mr. stone contributed designs for it. [ ] he thus spoke of it in his "postscript in lieu of preface" (dated nd of september ), which accompanied the last number of the story under notice. "on friday the ninth of june in the present year, mr. and mrs. boffin (in their manuscript dress of receiving mr. and mrs. lammle at breakfast) were on the south-eastern railway with me, in a terribly destructive accident. when i had done what i could to help others, i climbed back into my carriage--nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon the turn--to extricate the worthy couple. they were much soiled, but otherwise unhurt. the same happy result attended miss bella wilfer on her wedding-day, and mr. riderhood inspecting bradley headstone's red neckerchief as he lay asleep. i remember with devout thankfulness that i can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, than i was then, until there shall be written against my life the two words with which i have this day closed this book--the end." [ ] i borrow this language from the bishop of manchester, who, on the third day after dickens's death, in the abbey where he was so soon to be laid, closed a plea for the toleration of differences of opinion where the foundations of religious truth are accepted, with these words. "it will not be out of harmony with the line of thought we have been pursuing--certainly it will be in keeping with the associations of this place, dear to englishmen, not only as one of the proudest christian temples, but as containing the memorials of so many who by their genius in arts, or arms, or statesmanship, or literature, have made england what she is--if in the simplest and briefest words i allude to that sad and unexpected death which has robbed english literature of one of its highest living ornaments, and the news of which, two mornings ago, must have made every household in england feel as though they had lost a personal friend. he has been called in one notice an apostle of the people. i suppose it is meant that he had a mission, but in a style and fashion of his own; a gospel, a cheery, joyous, gladsome message, which the people understood, and by which they could hardly help being bettered; for it was the gospel of kindliness, of brotherly love, of sympathy in the widest sense of the word. i am sure i have felt in myself the healthful spirit of his teaching. possibly we might not have been able to subscribe to the same creed in relation to god, but i think we should have subscribed to the same creed in relation to man. he who has taught us our duty to our fellow men better than we knew it before, who knew so well to weep with them that wept, and to rejoice with them that rejoiced, who has shown forth in all his knowledge of the dark corners of the earth how much sunshine may rest upon the lowliest lot, who had such evident sympathy with suffering, and such a natural instinct of purity that there is scarcely a page of the thousands he has written which might not be put into the hands of a little child, must be regarded by those who recognise the diversity of the gifts of the spirit as a teacher sent from god. he would have been welcomed as a fellow-labourer in the common interests of humanity by him who asked the question 'if a man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love god whom he hath not seen?'" chapter xv. america revisited: november and december . . in boston--warmth of the greeting--old and new friends--changes since --sale of tickets in new york--first boston reading--profits--scene at first new york sales--a fire at the hotel--increase of new york city--story of _black crook_--local and general politics--railway travelling--police of new york--again in boston--more fires--new york newspapers generally--cities chosen for readings--the webster murder in --again at new york--illness--mr. fields's account of dickens while in america--miseries of american travel. it is the intention of this and the following chapter to narrate the incidents of the visit to america in dickens's own language, and in that only. they will consist almost exclusively of extracts from his letters written home, to members of his family and to myself. on the night of tuesday the th of november he arrived at boston, where he took up his residence at the parker house hotel; and his first letter ( st) stated that the tickets for the first four readings, all to that time issued, had been sold immediately on their becoming saleable. "an immense train of people waited in the freezing street for twelve hours, and passed into the office in their turns, as at a french theatre. the receipts already taken for these nights exceed our calculation by more than £ ." up to the last moment, he had not been able to clear off wholly a shade of misgiving that some of the old grudges might make themselves felt; but from the instant of his setting foot in boston not a vestige of such fear remained. the greeting was to the full as extraordinary as that of twenty-five years before, and was given now, as then, to the man who had made himself the most popular writer in the country. his novels and tales were crowding the shelves of all the dealers in books in all the cities of the union. in every house, in every car, on every steamboat, in every theatre of america, the characters, the fancies, the phraseology of dickens were become familiar beyond those of any other writer of books. "even in england," said one of the new york journals, "dickens is less known than here; and of the millions here who treasure every word he has written, there are tens of thousands who would make a large sacrifice to see and hear the man who has made happy so many hours. whatever sensitiveness there once was to adverse or sneering criticism, the lapse of a quarter of a century, and the profound significance of a great war, have modified or removed." the point was more pithily, and as truly, put by mr. horace greeley in the _tribune_. "the fame as a novelist which mr. dickens had already created in america, and which, at the best, has never yielded him anything particularly munificent or substantial, is become his capital stock in the present enterprise." the first reading was appointed for the second of december, and in the interval he saw some old friends and made some new ones.[ ] boston he was fond of comparing to edinburgh as edinburgh was in the days when several dear friends of his own still lived there. twenty-five years had changed much in the american city; some genial faces were gone, and on ground which he had left a swamp he found now the most princely streets; but there was no abatement of the old warmth of kindness, and, with every attention and consideration shown to him, there was no intrusion. he was not at first completely conscious of the change in this respect, or of the prodigious increase in the size of boston. but the latter grew upon him from day to day, and then there was impressed along with it a contrast to which it was difficult to reconcile himself. nothing enchanted him so much as what he again saw of the delightful domestic life of cambridge, simple, self-respectful, cordial, and affectionate; and it seemed impossible to believe that within half an hour's distance of it should be found what might at any time be witnessed in such hotels as that which he was staying at: crowds of swaggerers, loafers, bar-loungers, and dram-drinkers, that seemed to be making up, from day to day, not the least important-part of the human life of the city. but no great mercantile resort in the states, such as boston had now become, could be without that drawback; and fortunate should we account any place to be, though even so plague-afflicted, that has yet so near it the healthier influence of the other life which our older world has wellnigh lost altogether. "the city has increased prodigiously in twenty-five years," he wrote to his daughter mary. "it has grown more mercantile. it is like leeds mixed with preston, and flavoured with new brighton. only, instead of smoke and fog, there is an exquisitely bright light air." "cambridge is exactly as i left it," he wrote to me. "boston more mercantile, and much larger. the hotel i formerly stayed at, and thought a very big one, is now regarded as a very small affair. i do not yet notice--but a day, you know, is not a long time for observation!--any marked change in character or habits. in this immense hotel i live very high up, and have a hot and cold bath in my bed room, with other comforts not in existence in my former day. the cost of living is enormous." "two of the staff are at new york," he wrote to his sister-in-law on the th of november, "where we are at our wits' end how to keep tickets out of the hands of speculators. we have communications from all parts of the country, but we take no offer whatever. the young under-graduates of cambridge have made a representation to longfellow that they are strong and cannot get one ticket. i don't know what is to be done, but i suppose i must read there, somehow. we are all in the clouds until i shall have broken ground in new york." the sale of tickets, there, had begun two days before the first reading in boston. "at the new york barriers," he wrote to his daughter on the first of december, "where the tickets were on sale and the people ranged as at the paris theatres, speculators went up and down offering twenty dollars for any body's place. the money was in no case accepted. but one man sold two tickets for the second, third, and fourth nights; his payment in exchange being one ticket for the first night, fifty dollars (about £ _s._), and a 'brandy-cocktail.'" on monday the second of december he read for the first time in boston, his subjects being the _carol_ and the _trial from pickwick_; and his reception, from an audience than which perhaps none more remarkable could have been brought together, went beyond all expectations formed. "it is really impossible," he wrote to me next morning, "to exaggerate the magnificence of the reception or the effect of the reading. the whole city will talk of nothing else and hear of nothing else to-day. every ticket for those announced here, and in new york, is sold. all are sold at the highest price, for which in our calculation we made no allowance; and it is impossible to keep out speculators who immediately sell at a premium. at the decreased rate of money even, we had above £ english in the house last night; and the new york hall holds people more. everything looks brilliant beyond the most sanguine hopes, and i was quite as cool last night as though i were reading at chatham." the next night he read again; and also on thursday and friday; on wednesday he had rested; and on saturday he travelled to new york. he had written, the day before he left, that he was making a clear profit of thirteen hundred pounds english a week, even allowing seven dollars to the pound; but words were added having no good omen in them, that the weather was taking a turn of even unusual severity, and that he found the climate, in the suddenness of its changes, "and the wide leaps they take," excessively trying. "the work is of course rather trying too; but the sound position that everything must be subservient to it enables me to keep aloof from invitations. to-morrow," ran the close of the letter, "we move to new york. we cannot beat the speculators in our tickets. we sell no more than six to any one person for the course of four readings; but these speculators, who sell at greatly increased prices and make large profits, will employ any number of men to buy. one of the chief of them--now living in this house, in order that he may move as we move!--can put on people in any place we go to; and thus he gets tickets into his own hands." almost while dickens was writing these words an eye-witness was describing to a philadelphia paper the sale of the new york tickets. the pay-place was to open at nine on a wednesday morning, and at midnight of tuesday a long line of speculators were assembled in _queue_; at two in the morning a few honest buyers had begun to arrive; at five there were, of all classes, two lines of not less than each; at eight there were at least persons in the two lines; at nine each line was more than three-quarters of a mile in length, and neither became sensibly shorter during the whole morning. "the tickets for the course were all sold before noon. members of families relieved each other in the _queues_; waiters flew across the streets and squares from the neighbouring restaurant, to serve parties who were taking their breakfast in the open december air; while excited men offered five and ten dollars for the mere permission to exchange places with other persons standing nearer the head of the line!" the effect of the reading in new york corresponded with this marvellous preparation, and dickens characterised his audience as an unexpected support to him; in its appreciation quick and unfailing, and highly demonstrative in its satisfactions. on the th of december he wrote to his daughter: "amazing success. a very fine audience, far better than at boston. _carol_ and _trial_ on first night, great: still greater, _copperfield_ and _bob sawyer_ on second. for the tickets of the four readings of next week there were, at nine o'clock this morning, people in waiting, and they had begun to assemble in the bitter cold as early as two o'clock in the morning." to myself he wrote on the th, adding touches to the curious picture. "dolby has got into trouble about the manner of issuing the tickets for next week's series. he cannot get four thousand people into a room holding only two thousand, he cannot induce people to pay at the ordinary price for themselves instead of giving thrice as much to speculators, and he is attacked in all directions . . . i don't much like my hall, for it has two large balconies far removed from the platform; but no one ever waylays me as i go into it or come out of it, and it is kept as rigidly quiet as the français at a rehearsal. we have not yet had in it less than £ per night, allowing for the depreciated currency! i send £ to england by this packet. from all parts of the states, applications and offers continually come in. we go to boston next saturday for two more readings, and come back here on christmas day for four more. i am not yet bound to go elsewhere, except three times (each time for two nights) to philadelphia; thinking it wisest to keep free for the largest places. i have had an action brought against me by a man who considered himself injured (and really may have been) in the matter of his tickets. personal service being necessary, i was politely waited on by a marshal for that purpose; whom i received with the greatest courtesy, apparently very much to his amazement. the action was handsomely withdrawn next day, and the plaintiff paid his own costs. . . . dolby hopes you are satisfied with the figures so far; the profit each night exceeding the estimated profit by £ odd. he is anxious i should also tell you that he is the most unpopular and best-abused man in america." next day a letter to his sister-in-law related an incident too common in american cities to disconcert any but strangers. he had lodged himself, i should have said, at the westminster hotel in irving place. "last night i was getting into bed just at o'clock, when dolby came to my door to inform me that the house was on fire. i got scott up directly; told him first to pack the books and clothes for the readings; dressed, and pocketed my jewels and papers; while the manager stuffed himself out with money. meanwhile the police and firemen were in the house tracing the mischief to its source in a certain fire-grate. by this time the hose was laid all through from a great tank on the roof, and everybody turned out to help. it was the oddest sight, and people had put the strangest things on! after chopping and cutting with axes through stairs, and much handing about of water, the fire was confined to a dining-room in which it had originated; and then everybody talked to everybody else, the ladies being particularly loquacious and cheerful. i may remark that the second landlord (from both, but especially the first, i have had untiring attention) no sooner saw me on this agitating occasion, than, with his property blazing, he insisted on taking me down into a room full of hot smoke, to drink brandy and water with him! and so we got to bed again about ." dickens had been a week in new york before he was able to identify the great city which a lapse of twenty-five years had so prodigiously increased. "the only portion that has even now come back to me," he wrote, "is the part of broadway in which the carlton hotel (long since destroyed) used to stand. there is a very fine new park in the outskirts, and the number of grand houses and splendid equipages is quite surprising. there are hotels close here with bedrooms and i don't know how many boarders; but this hotel is quite as quiet as, and not much larger than, mivart's in brook street. my rooms are all en suite, and i come and go by a private door and private staircase communicating with my bed-room. the waiters are french, and one might be living in paris. one of the two proprietors is also proprietor of niblo's theatre, and the greatest care is taken of me. niblo's great attraction, the _black crook_, has now been played every night for months(!), and is the most preposterous peg to hang ballets on that was ever seen. the people who act in it have not the slightest idea of what it is about, and never had; but, after taxing my intellectual powers to the utmost, i fancy that i have discovered black crook to be a malignant hunchback leagued with the powers of darkness to separate two lovers; and that the powers of lightness coming (in no skirts whatever) to the rescue, he is defeated. i am quite serious in saying that i do not suppose there are two pages of _all the year round_ in the whole piece (which acts all night); the whole of the rest of it being ballets of all sorts, perfectly unaccountable processions, and the donkey out of last year's covent garden pantomime! at the other theatres, comic operas, melodramas, and domestic dramas prevail all over the city, and my stories play no inconsiderable part in them. i go nowhere, having laid down the rule that to combine visiting with my work would be absolutely impossible. . . . the fenian explosion at clerkenwell was telegraphed here in a few hours. i do not think there is any sympathy whatever with the fenians on the part of the american people, though political adventurers may make capital out of a show of it. but no doubt large sections of the irish population of this state are themselves fenian; and the local politics of the place are in a most depraved condition, if half of what is said to me be true. i prefer not to talk of these things, but at odd intervals i look round for myself. great social improvements in respect of manners and forbearance have come to pass since i was here before, but in public life i see as yet but little change." he had got through half of his first new york readings when a winter storm came on, and from this time until very near his return the severity of the weather was exceptional even for america. when the first snow fell, the railways were closed for some days; and he described new york crowded with sleighs, and the snow piled up in enormous walls the whole length of the streets. "i turned out in a rather gorgeous sleigh yesterday with any quantity of buffalo robes, and made an imposing appearance." "if you were to behold me driving out," he wrote to his daughter, "furred up to the moustache, with an immense white red-and-yellow-striped rug for a covering, you would suppose me to be of hungarian or polish nationality." these protections nevertheless availed him little; and when the time came for getting back to boston, he found himself at the close of his journey with a cold and cough that never again left him until he had quitted the country, and of which the effects became more and more disastrous. for the present there was little allusion to this, his belief at the first being strong that he should overmaster it; but it soon forced itself into all his letters. his railway journey otherwise had not been agreeable. "the railways are truly alarming. much worse (because more worn i suppose) than when i was here before. we were beaten about yesterday, as if we had been aboard the cuba. two rivers have to be crossed, and each time the whole train is banged aboard a big steamer. the steamer rises and falls with the river, which the railroad don't do; and the train is either banged up hill or banged down hill. in coming off the steamer at one of these crossings yesterday, we were banged up such a height that the rope broke, and one carriage rushed back with a run down-hill into the boat again. i whisked out in a moment, and two or three others after me; but nobody else seemed to care about it. the treatment of the luggage is perfectly outrageous. nearly every case i have is already broken. when we started from boston yesterday, i beheld, to my unspeakable amazement, scott, my dresser, leaning a flushed countenance against the wall of the car, and _weeping bitterly_. it was over my smashed writing-desk. yet the arrangements for luggage are excellent, if the porters would not be beyond description reckless." the same excellence of provision, and flinging away of its advantages, are observed in connection with another subject in the same letter. "the halls are excellent. imagine one holding two thousand people, seated with exact equality for every one of them, and every one seated separately. i have nowhere, at home or abroad, seen so fine a police as the police of new york; and their bearing in the streets is above all praise. on the other hand, the laws for regulation of public vehicles, clearing of streets, and removal of obstructions, are wildly outraged by the people for whose benefit they are intended. yet there is undoubtedly improvement in every direction, and i am taking time to make up my mind on things in general. let me add that i have been tempted out at three in the morning to visit one of the large police station-houses, and was so fascinated by the study of a horrible photograph-book of thieves' portraits that i couldn't shut it up." a letter of the same date ( nd) to his sister-in-law told of personal attentions awaiting him on his return to boston by which he was greatly touched. he found his rooms garnished with flowers and holly, with real red berries, and with festoons of moss; and the homely christmas look of the place quite affected him. "there is a certain captain dolliver belonging to the boston custom-house, who came off in the little steamer that brought me ashore from the cuba; and he took it into his head that he would have a piece of english mistletoe brought out in this week's cunard, which should be laid upon my breakfast-table. and there it was this morning. in such affectionate touches as this, these new england people are especially amiable. . . . as a general rule you may lay it down that whatever you see about me in the papers is not true; but you may generally lend a more believing ear to the philadelphia correspondent of the _times_, a well-informed gentleman. our hotel in new york was on fire again the other night. but fires in this country are quite matters of course. there was a large one in boston at four this morning; and i don't think a single night has passed, since i have been under the protection of the eagle, that i have not heard the fire bells dolefully clanging all over both cities." the violent abuse of his manager by portions of the press is the subject of the rest of the letter, and receives farther illustration in one of the same date to me. "a good specimen of the sort of newspaper you and i know something of, came out in boston here this morning. the editor had applied for our advertisements, saying that 'it was at mr. d's disposal for paragraphs.' the advertisements were not sent; dolby did not enrich its columns paragraphically; and among its news to-day is the item that 'this chap calling himself dolby got drunk down town last night, and was taken to the police station for fighting an irishman!' i am sorry to say that i don't find anybody to be much shocked by this liveliness." it is right to add what was said to me a few days later. "the _tribune_ is an excellent paper. horace greeley is editor in chief, and a considerable shareholder too. all the people connected with it whom i have seen are of the best class. it is also, a very fine property--but here the _new york herald_ beats it hollow, hollow, hollow! another able and well edited paper is the _new york times_. a most respectable journal too is bryant's _evening post_, excellently written. there is generally a much more responsible and respectable tone than prevailed formerly, however small may be the literary merit, among papers pointed out to me as of large circulation. in much of the writing there is certainly improvement, but it might be more widely spread." the time had now come when the course his readings were to take independently of the two leading cities must be settled, and the general tour made out. his agent's original plan was that they should be in new york every week. "but i say no. by the th of january i shall have read to , people in that city alone. put the readings out of the reach of all the people behind them, for the time. it is that one of the popular peculiarities which i most particularly notice, that they must not have a thing too easily. nothing in the country lasts long; and a thing is prized the more, the less easy it is made. reflecting therefore that i shall want to close, in april, with farewell readings here and in new york, i am convinced that the crush and pressure upon these necessary to their adequate success is only to be got by absence; and that the best thing i can do is not to give either city as much reading as it wants now, but to be independent of both while both are most enthusiastic. i have therefore resolved presently to announce in new york so many readings (i mean a certain number) as the last that can be given there, before i travel to promised places; and that we select the best places, with the largest halls, on our list. this will include, east here--the two or three best new england towns; south--baltimore and washington; west--cincinnati, pittsburgh, chicago, and st. louis; and towards niagara--cleveland and buffalo. philadelphia we are already pledged to, for six nights; and the scheme will pretty easily bring us here again twice before the farewells. i feel convinced that this is the sound policy." (it was afterwards a little modified, as will be seen, by public occurrences and his own condition of health; the west, as well as a promise to canada, having to be abandoned; but otherwise it was carried out.) "i read here to-morrow and tuesday; all tickets being sold to the end of the series, even for subjects not announced. i have not read a single time at a lower clear profit per night (all deductions made) than £ . but rely upon it i shall take great care not to read oftener than four times a week--after this next week, when i stand committed to five. the inevitable tendency of the staff, when these great houses excite them, is, in the words of an old friend of ours, to 'hurge the hartist hon;' and a night or two ago i had to cut away five readings from _their_ list." an incident at boston should have mention before he resumes his readings in new york. in the interval since he was first in america, the harvard professor of chemistry, dr. webster, whom he had at that visit met among the honoured men who held chairs in their cambridge university, had been hanged for the murder, committed in his laboratory in the college, of a friend who had lent him money, portions of whose body lay concealed under the lid of the lecture-room table where the murderer continued to meet his students. "being in cambridge," dickens wrote to lord lytton, "i thought i would go over the medical school, and see the exact localities where professor webster did that amazing murder, and worked so hard to rid himself of the body of the murdered man. (i find there is of course no rational doubt that the professor was always a secretly cruel man.) they were horribly grim, private, cold, and quiet; the identical furnace smelling fearfully (some anatomical broth in it i suppose) as if the body were still there; jars of pieces of sour mortality standing about, like the forty robbers in _ali baba_ after being scalded to death; and bodies near us ready to be carried in to next morning's lecture. at the house where i afterwards dined i heard an amazing and fearful story; told by one who had been at a dinner-party of ten or a dozen, at webster's, less than a year before the murder. they began rather uncomfortably, in consequence of one of the guests (the victim of an instinctive antipathy) starting up with the sweat pouring down his face, and crying out, 'o heaven! there's a cat somewhere in the room!' the cat was found and ejected, but they didn't get on very well. left with their wine, they were getting on a little better; when webster suddenly told the servants to turn the gas off and bring in that bowl of burning minerals which he had prepared, in order that the company might see how ghastly they looked by its weird light. all this was done, and every man was looking, horror-stricken, at his neighbour; when webster was seen bending over the bowl with a rope round his neck, holding up the end of the rope, with his head on one side and his tongue lolled out, to represent a hanged man!" dickens read at boston on the rd and the th of december, and on christmas day travelled back to new york where he was to read on the th. the last words written before he left were of illness. "the low action of the heart, or whatever it is, has inconvenienced me greatly this last week. on monday night, after the reading, i was laid upon a bed, in a very faint and shady state; and on the tuesday i did not get up till the afternoon." but what in reality was less grave took outwardly the form of a greater distress; and the effects of the cold which had struck him in travelling to boston, as yet not known to his english friends, appear most to have alarmed those about him. i depart from my rule in this narrative, otherwise strictly observed, in singling out one of those friends for mention by name: but a business connection with the readings, as well as untiring offices of personal kindness and sympathy, threw mr. fields into closer relations with dickens from arrival to departure, than any other person had; and his description of the condition of health in which dickens now quitted boston and went through the rest of the labour he had undertaken, will be a sad though fit prelude to what the following chapter has to tell. "he went from boston to new york carrying with him a severe catarrh contracted in our climate. he was quite ill from the effects of the disease; but he fought courageously against them. . . . his spirit was wonderful, and, although he lost all appetite and could partake of very little food, he was always cheerful and ready for his work when the evening came round. a dinner was tendered to him by some of his literary friends in boston; but he was so ill the day before that the banquet had to be given up. the strain upon his strength and nerves was very great during all the months he remained, and only a man of iron will could have accomplished what he did. he was accustomed to talk and write a good deal about eating and drinking, but i have rarely seen a man eat and drink less. he liked to dilate in imagination over the brewing of a bowl of punch, but when the punch was ready he drank less of it than any one who might be present. it was the sentiment of the thing and not the thing itself that engaged his attention. i scarcely saw him eat a hearty meal during his whole stay. both at parker's hotel in boston, and at the westminster in new york, everything was arranged by the proprietors for his comfort, and tempting dishes to pique his invalid appetite were sent up at different hours of the day; but the influenza had seized him with masterful power, and held the strong man down till he left the country." when he arrived in new york on the evening of christmas day he found a letter from his daughter. answering her next day he told her: "i wanted it much, for i had a frightful cold (english colds are nothing to those of this country) and was very miserable. . . . it is a bad country to be unwell and travelling in. you are one of, say, a hundred people in a heated car with a great stove in it, all the little windows being closed; and the bumping and banging about are indescribable, the atmosphere detestable, the ordinary motion all but intolerable." the following day this addition was made to the letter. "i managed to read last night, but it was as much as i could do. to-day i am so very unwell that i have sent for a doctor. he has just been, and is in doubt whether i shall not have to stop reading for a while." his stronger will prevailed, and he went on without stopping. on the last day of the year he announced to us that though he had been very low he was getting right again; that in a couple of days he should have accomplished a fourth of the entire readings; and that the first month of the new year would see him through philadelphia and baltimore, as well as through two more nights in boston. he also prepared his english friends for the startling intelligence they might shortly expect, of four readings coming off in a church, before an audience of two thousand people accommodated in pews, and with himself emerging from a vestry. footnotes: [ ] among these i think he was most delighted with the great naturalist and philosopher, agassiz, whose death is unhappily announced while i write, and as to whom it will no longer be unbecoming to quote his allusion. "agassiz, who married the last mrs. felton's sister, is not only one of the most accomplished but the most natural and jovial of men." again he says: "i cannot tell you how pleased i was by agassiz, a most charming fellow, or how i have regretted his seclusion for a while by reason of his mother's death." a valued correspondent, mr. grant wilson, sends me a list of famous americans who greeted dickens at his first visit, and in the interval had passed away. "it is melancholy to contemplate the large number of american authors who had, between the first and second visits of mr. dickens, 'gone hence, to be no more seen.' the sturdy cooper, the gentle irving, his friend and kinsman paulding, prescott the historian and percival the poet, the eloquent everett, nathaniel hawthorne, edgar a. poe, n. p. willis, the genial halleck, and many lesser lights, including prof. felton and geo. p. morris, had died during the quarter of a century that elapsed between dickens's visits to this country, leaving a new generation of writers to extend the hand of friendship to him on his second coming."--let me add to this that dickens was pleased, at this second visit, to see his old secretary who had travelled so agreeably with him through his first tour of triumph. "he would have known him anywhere." chapter xvi. america revisited: january to april . . speculators and the public--republican self-help--receipts affected by speculators--again at boston--hit of _marigold_ and of _boots at holly tree_--chapel readings at brooklyn--energy of new york speculators--at philadelphia--irish element in new york--improved social ways--result of thirty-four readings--shadow to the sunshine--arrangements for washington--at baltimore--success in philadelphia--value of a vote--objections to coloured people--at washington--with sumner and stanton--lincoln's last cabinet council--lincoln's dream--interview with president johnson--incident at first reading--one of the audience--a day at the readings--proposed walking-match--in his hotel at philadelphia--providence and new haven--north-west tour--president's impeachment--political excitement--boston audiences--struggle for tickets in remote places--at rochester--at syracuse and buffalo--american female beauty--suspension bridge at niagara--final impression of the falls--at utica--reading at albany--new england engagements--again attacked by lameness--reading at new bedford--"nearly used up"--farewell readings--last boston readings--new york farewells--receipts throughout--public dinner to dickens. the reading on the third of january closed a fourth of the entire series, and on that day dickens wrote of the trouble brought on them by the "speculators," which to some extent had affected unfavourably the three previous nights in new york. when adventurers buy up the best places, the public resent it by refusing the worst; to prevent it by first helping themselves, being the last thing they ever think of doing. "we try to withhold the best seats from the speculators, but the unaccountable thing is that the great mass of the public buy of them (prefer it), and the rest of the public are injured if we have not got those very seats to sell them. we have now a travelling staff of six men, in spite of which dolby, who is leaving me to-day to sell tickets in philadelphia to-morrow morning, will no doubt get into a tempest of difficulties. of course also, in such a matter, as many obstacles as possible are thrown in an englishman's way; and he may himself be a little injudicious into the bargain. last night, for instance, he met one of the 'ushers' (who show people to their seats) coming in with one of our men. it is against orders that any one employed in front should go out during the reading, and he took this man to task in the british manner. instantly, the free and independent usher put on his hat and walked off. seeing which, all the other free and independent ushers (some in number) put on _their_ hats and walked off; leaving us absolutely devoid and destitute of a staff for to-night. one has since been improvised: but it was a small matter to raise a stir and ill-will about, especially as one of our men was equally in fault; and really there is little to be done at night. american people are so accustomed to take care of themselves, that one of these immense audiences will fall into their places with an ease amazing to a frequenter of st. james's hall; and the certainty with which they are all in, before i go on, is a very acceptable mark of respect. our great labour is outside; and we have been obliged to bring our staff up to six, besides a boy or two, by employment of a regular additional clerk, a bostonian. the speculators buying the front-seats (we have found instances of this being done by merchants in good position), the public won't have the back seats; return their tickets; write and print volumes on the subject; and deter others from coming. you are not to suppose that this prevails to any great extent, as our lowest house here has been £ ; but it does hit us. there is no doubt about it. fortunately i saw the danger when the trouble began, and changed the list at the right time. . . . you may get an idea of the staff's work, by what is in hand now. they are preparing, numbering, and stamping, tickets for philadelphia, and tickets for brooklyn. the moment those are done, another tickets will be wanted for baltimore, and probably another for washington; and all this in addition to the correspondence, advertisements, accounts, travelling, and the nightly business of the readings four times a week. . . . i cannot get rid of this intolerable cold! my landlord invented for me a drink of brandy, rum, and snow, called it a 'rocky mountain sneezer,' and said it was to put down all less effectual sneezing; but it has not yet had the effect. did i tell you that the favourite drink before you get up is an eye-opener? there has been another fall of snow, succeeded by a heavy thaw." the day after (the th) he went back to boston, and next day wrote to me: "i am to read here on monday and tuesday, return to new york on wednesday, and finish there (except the farewells in april) on thursday and friday. the new york reading of _doctor marigold_ made really a tremendous hit. the people doubted at first, having evidently not the least idea what could be done with it, and broke out at last into a perfect chorus of delight. at the end they made a great shout, and gave a rush towards the platform as if they were going to carry me off. it puts a strong additional arrow into my quiver. another extraordinary success has been _nickleby_ and _boots at the holly tree_ (appreciated here in boston, by the bye, even more than _copperfield_); and think of our last new york night bringing £ english into the house, after making more than the necessary deduction for the present price of gold! the manager is always going about with an immense bundle that looks like a sofa-cushion, but is in reality paper-money, and it had risen to the proportions of a sofa on the morning he left for philadelphia. well, the work is hard, the climate is hard, the life is hard: but so far the gain is enormous. my cold steadily refuses to stir an inch. it distresses me greatly at times, though it is always good enough to leave me for the needful two hours. i have tried allopathy, homoeopathy, cold things, warm things, sweet things, bitter things, stimulants, narcotics, all with the same result. nothing will touch it." in the same letter, light was thrown on the ecclesiastical mystery. "at brooklyn i am going to read in mr. ward beecher's chapel: the only building there available for the purpose. you must understand that brooklyn is a kind of sleeping-place for new york, and is supposed to be a great place in the money way. we let the seats pew by pew! the pulpit is taken down for my screen and gas! and i appear out of the vestry in canonical form! these ecclesiastical entertainments come off on the evenings of the th, th, th, and st, of the present month." his first letter after returning to new york ( th of january) made additions to the brooklyn picture. "each evening an enormous ferry-boat will convey me and my state-carriage (not to mention half a dozen wagons and any number of people and a few score of horses) across the river to brooklyn, and will bring me back again. the sale of tickets there was an amazing scene. the noble army of speculators are now furnished (this is literally true, and i am quite serious) each man with a straw mattress, a little bag of bread and meat, two blankets, and a bottle of whiskey. with this outfit, _they lie down in line on the pavement_ the whole of the night before the tickets are sold: generally taking up their position at about . it being severely cold at brooklyn, they made an immense bonfire in the street--a narrow street of wooden houses--which the police turned out to extinguish. a general fight then took place; from which the people farthest off in the line rushed bleeding when they saw any chance of ousting others nearer the door, put their mattresses in the spots so gained, and held on by the iron rails. at in the morning dolby appeared with the tickets in a portmanteau. he was immediately saluted with a roar of halloa! dolby! so charley has let you have the carriage, has he, dolby? how is he, dolby? don't drop the tickets, dolby! look alive, dolby! &c. &c. &c. in the midst of which he proceeded to business, and concluded (as usual) by giving universal dissatisfaction. he is now going off upon a little journey to look over the ground and cut back again. this little journey (to chicago) is twelve hundred miles on end, by railway, besides the back again!" it might tax the englishman, but was nothing to the native american. it was part of his new york landlord's ordinary life in a week, dickens told me, to go to chicago and look at his theatre there on a monday; to pelt back to boston and look at his theatre there on a thursday; and to come rushing to new york on a friday, to apostrophize his enormous ballet. three days later, still at new york, he wrote to his sister-in-law. "i am off to philadelphia this evening for the first of three visits of two nights each, tickets for all being sold. my cold steadily refuses to leave me, but otherwise i am as well as i can hope to be under this heavy work. my new york readings are over (except the farewell nights), and i look forward to the relief of being out of my hardest hall. on friday i was again dead beat at the end, and was once more laid upon a sofa. but the faintness went off after a little while. we have now cold bright frosty weather, without snow; the best weather for me." next day from philadelphia he wrote to his daughter that he was lodged in the continental, one of the most immense of american hotels, but that he found himself just as quiet as elsewhere. "everything is very good, my waiter is german, and the greater part of the servants seem to be coloured people. the town is very clean, and the day as blue and bright as a fine italian day. but it freezes very very hard, and my cold is not improved; for the cars were so intolerably hot that i was often obliged to stand upon the brake outside, and then the frosty air bit me indeed. i find it necessary (so oppressed am i with this american catarrh as they call it) to dine at three o'clock instead of four, that i may have more time to get voice; so that the days are cut short and letter-writing not easy." he nevertheless found time in this city to write to me ( th of january) the most interesting mention he had yet made of such opinions as he had been able to form during his present visit, apart from the pursuit that absorbed him. of such of those opinions as were given on a former page, it is only necessary to repeat that while the tone of party politics still impressed him unfavourably, he had thus far seen everywhere great changes for the better socially. i will add other points from the same letter. that he was unfortunate in his time of visiting new york, as far as its politics were concerned, what has since happened conclusively shows. "the irish element is acquiring such enormous influence in new york city, that when i think of it, and see the large roman catholic cathedral rising there, it seems unfair to stigmatise as 'american' other monstrous things that one also sees. but the general corruption in respect of the local funds appears to be stupendous, and there is an alarming thing as to some of the courts of law which i am afraid is native-born. a case came under my notice the other day in which it was perfectly plain, from what was said to me by a person interested in resisting an injunction, that his first proceeding had been to 'look up the judge.'" of such occasional provincial oddity, harmless in itself but strange in large cities, as he noticed in the sort of half disappointment at the small fuss made by himself about the readings, and in the newspaper references to "mr. dickens's extraordinary composure" on the platform, he gives an illustration. "last night here in philadelphia (my first night), a very impressible and responsive audience were so astounded by my simply walking in and opening my book that i wondered what was the matter. they evidently thought that there ought to have been a flourish, and dolby sent in to prepare for me. with them it is the simplicity of the operation that raises wonder. with the newspapers 'mr. dickens's extraordinary composure' is not reasoned out as being necessary to the art of the thing, but is sensitively watched with a lurking doubt whether it may not imply disparagement of the audience. both these things strike me as drolly expressive.". . . his testimony as to improved social habits and ways was expressed very decidedly. "i think it reasonable to expect that as i go westward, i shall find the old manners going on before me, and may tread upon their skirts mayhap. but so far, i have had no more intrusion or boredom than i have when i lead the same life in england. i write this in an immense hotel, but i am as much at peace in my own rooms, and am left as wholly undisturbed, as if i were at the station hotel in york. i have now read in new york city to , people, and am quite as well known in the streets there as i am in london. people will turn back, turn again and face me, and have a look at me, or will say to one another 'look here! dickens coming!' but no one ever stops me or addresses me. sitting reading in the carriage outside the new york post-office while one of the staff was stamping the letters inside, i became conscious that a few people who had been looking at the turn-out had discovered me within. on my peeping out good-humouredly, one of them (i should say a merchant's book-keeper) stepped up to the door, took off his hat, and said in a frank way: 'mr. dickens, i should very much like to have the honour of shaking hands with you'--and, that done, presented two others. nothing could be more quiet or less intrusive. in the railway cars, if i see anybody who clearly wants to speak to me, i usually anticipate the wish by speaking myself. if i am standing on the brake outside (to avoid the intolerable stove), people getting down will say with a smile: 'as i am taking my departure, mr. dickens, and can't trouble you for more than a moment, i should like to take you by the hand sir.' and so we shake hands and go our ways. . . . of course many of my impressions come through the readings. thus i find the people lighter and more humorous than formerly; and there must be a great deal of innocent imagination among every class, or they never could pet with such extraordinary pleasure as they do, the boots' story of the elopement of the two little children. they seem to see the children; and the women set up a shrill undercurrent of half-pity and half-pleasure that is quite affecting. to-night's reading is my th; but as all the philadelphia tickets for four more are sold, as well as four at brooklyn, you must assume that i am at--say--my th reading. i have remitted to coutts's in english gold £ , odd; and i roughly calculate that on this number dolby will have another thousand pounds profit to pay me. these figures are of course between ourselves, at present; but are they not magnificent? the expenses, always recollect, are enormous. on the other hand we never have occasion to print a bill of any sort (bill-printing and posting are great charges at home); and have just now sold off £ worth of bill-paper, provided beforehand, as a wholly useless incumbrance." then came, as ever, the constant shadow that still attended him, the slave in the chariot of his triumph. "the work is very severe. there is now no chance of my being rid of this american catarrh until i embark for england. it is very distressing. it likewise happens, not seldom, that i am so dead beat when i come off that they lay me down on a sofa after i have been washed and dressed, and i lie there, extremely faint, for a quarter of an hour. in that time i rally and come right." one week later from new york, where he had become due on the th for the first of his four brooklyn readings, he wrote to his sister-in-law. "my cold sticks to me, and i can scarcely exaggerate what i undergo from sleeplessness. i rarely take any breakfast but an egg and a cup of tea--not even toast or bread and butter. my small dinner at , and a little quail or some such light thing when i come home at night, is my daily fare; and at the hall i have established the custom of taking an egg beaten up in sherry before going in, and another between the parts, which i think pulls me up. . . . it is snowing hard now, and i begin to move to-morrow. there is so much floating ice in the river, that we are obliged to have a pretty wide margin of time for getting over the ferry to read." the last of the readings over the ferry was on the day when this letter was written. "i finished at my church to-night. it is mrs. stowe's brother's, and a most wonderful place to speak in. we had it enormously full last night (_marigold_ and _trial_), but it scarcely required an effort. mr. ward beecher being present in his pew, i sent to invite him to come round before he left. i found him to be an unostentatious, evidently able, straightforward, and agreeable man; extremely well-informed, and with a good knowledge of art." baltimore and washington were the cities in which he was now, on quitting new york, to read for the first time; and as to the latter some doubts arose. the exceptional course had been taken in regard to it, of selecting a hall with space for not more than and charging everybody five dollars; to which dickens, at first greatly opposed, had yielded upon use of the argument, "you have more people at new york, thanks to the speculators, paying more than five dollars every night." but now other suggestions came. "horace greeley dined with me last saturday," he wrote on the th, "and didn't like my going to washington, now full of the greatest rowdies and worst kind of people in the states. last night at eleven came b. expressing like doubts; and though they may be absurd i thought them worth attention, b. coming so close on greeley." mr. dolby was in consequence sent express to washington with power to withdraw or go on, as enquiry on the spot might dictate; and dickens took the additional resolve so far to modify the last arrangements of his tour as to avoid the distances of chicago, st. louis, and cincinnati, to content himself with smaller places and profits, and thereby to get home nearly a month earlier. he was at philadelphia on the rd of january, when he announced this intention. "the worst of it is, that everybody one advises with has a monomania respecting chicago. 'good heavens sir,' the great philadelphia authority said to me this morning, 'if you don't read in chicago the people will go into fits!' well, i answered, i would rather they went into fits than i did. but he didn't seem to see it at all." from baltimore he wrote to his sister-in-law on the th, in the hour's interval he had to spare before going back to philadelphia. "it has been snowing hard for four and twenty hours--though this place is as far south as valentia in spain; and my manager, being on his way to new york, has a good chance of being snowed up somewhere. this is one of the places where butler carried it with a high hand during the war, and where the ladies used to spit when they passed a northern soldier. they are very handsome women, with an eastern touch in them, and dress brilliantly. i have rarely seen so many fine faces in an audience. they are a bright responsive people likewise, and very pleasant to read to. my hall is a charming little opera house built by a society of germans; quite a delightful place for the purpose. i stand on the stage, with the drop curtain down, and my screen before it. the whole scene is very pretty and complete, and the audience have a 'ring' in them that sounds deeper than the ear. i go from here to philadelphia, to read to-morrow night and friday; come through here again on saturday on my way back to washington; come back here on saturday week for two finishing nights; then go to philadelphia for two farewells--and so turn my back on the southern part of the country. our new plan will give readings in all." (the real number was , six having been dropped on subsequent political excitements.) "of course i afterwards discovered that we had finally settled the list on a friday. i shall be halfway through it at washington; of course on a friday also, and my birthday." to myself he wrote on the following day from philadelphia, beginning with a thank heaven that he had struck off canada and the west, for he found the wear and tear "enormous." "dolby decided that the croakers were wrong about washington, and went on; the rather as his raised prices, which he put finally at three dollars each, gave satisfaction. fields is so confident about boston, that my remaining list includes, in all, more readings there. i don't know how many more we might not have had here (where i have had attentions otherwise that have been very grateful to me), if we had chosen. tickets are now being resold at ten dollars each. at baltimore i had a charming little theatre, and a very apprehensive impulsive audience. it is remarkable to see how the ghost of slavery haunts the town; and how the shambling, untidy, evasive, and postponing irrepressible proceeds about his free work, going round and round it, instead of at it. the melancholy absurdity of giving these people votes, at any rate at present, would glare at one out of every roll of their eyes, chuckle in their mouths, and bump in their heads, if one did not see (as one cannot help seeing in the country) that their enfranchisement is a mere party trick to get votes. being at the penitentiary the other day (this, while we mention votes), and looking over the books, i noticed that almost every man had been 'pardoned' a day or two before his time was up. why? because, if he had served his time out, he would have been _ipso facto_ disfranchised. so, this form of pardon is gone through to save his vote; and as every officer of the prison holds his place only in right of his party, of course his hopeful clients vote for the party that has let them out! when i read in mr. beecher's church at brooklyn, we found the trustees had suppressed the fact that a certain upper gallery holding was 'the coloured gallery,' on the first night not a soul could be induced to enter it; and it was not until it became known next day that i was certainly not going to read there more than four times, that we managed to fill it. one night at new york, on our second or third row, there were two well-dressed women with a tinge of colour--i should say, not even quadroons. but the holder of one ticket who found his seat to be next them, demanded of dolby 'what he meant by fixing him next to those two gord darmed cusses of niggers?' and insisted on being supplied with another good place. dolby firmly replied that he was perfectly certain mr. dickens would not recognize such an objection on any account, but he could have his money back, if he chose. which, after some squabbling, he had. in a comic scene in the new york circus one night, when i was looking on, four white people sat down upon a form in a barber's shop to be shaved. a coloured man came as the fifth customer, and the four immediately ran away. this was much laughed at and applauded. in the baltimore penitentiary, the white prisoners dine on one side of the room, the coloured prisoners on the other; and no one has the slightest idea of mixing them. but it is indubitably the fact that exhalations not the most agreeable arise from a number of coloured people got together, and i was obliged to beat a quick retreat from their dormitory. i strongly believe that they will die out of this country fast. it seems, looking at them, so manifestly absurd to suppose it possible that they can ever hold their own against a restless, shifty, striving, stronger race." on the fourth of february he wrote from washington. "you may like to have a line to let you know that it is all right here, and that the croakers were simply ridiculous. i began last night. a charming audience, no dissatisfaction whatever at the raised prices, nothing missed or lost, cheers at the end of the _carol_, and rounds upon rounds of applause all through. all the foremost men and their families had taken tickets for the series of four. a small place to read in. £ in it." it will be no violation of the rule of avoiding private detail if the very interesting close of this letter is given. its anecdote of president lincoln was repeatedly told by dickens after his return, and i am under no necessity to withhold from it the authority of mr. sumner's name. "i am going to-morrow to see the president, who has sent to me twice. i dined with charles sumner last sunday, against my rule; and as i had stipulated for no party, mr. secretary stanton was the only other guest, besides his own secretary. stanton is a man with a very remarkable memory, and extraordinarily familiar with my books. . . . he and sumner having been the first two public men at the dying president's bedside, and having remained with him until he breathed his last, we fell into a very interesting conversation after dinner, when, each of them giving his own narrative separately, the usual discrepancies about details of time were observable. then mr. stanton told me a curious little story which will form the remainder of this short letter. "on the afternoon of the day on which the president was shot, there was a cabinet council at which he presided. mr. stanton, being at the time commander-in-chief of the northern troops that were concentrated about here, arrived rather late. indeed they were waiting for him, and on his entering the room, the president broke off in something he was saying, and remarked: 'let us proceed to business, gentlemen.' mr. stanton then noticed, with great surprise, that the president sat with an air of dignity in his chair instead of lolling about it in the most ungainly attitudes, as his invariable custom was; and that instead of telling irrelevant or questionable stories, he was grave and calm, and quite a different man. mr. stanton, on leaving the council with the attorney-general, said to him, 'that is the most satisfactory cabinet meeting i have attended for many a long day! what an extraordinary change in mr. lincoln!' the attorney-general replied, 'we all saw it, before you came in. while we were waiting for you, he said, with his chin down on his breast, "gentlemen, something very extraordinary is going to happen, and that very soon."' to which the attorney-general had observed, 'something good, sir, i hope?' when the president answered very gravely: 'i don't know; i don't know. but it will happen, and shortly too!' as they were all impressed by his manner, the attorney-general took him up again: 'have you received any information, sir, not yet disclosed to us?' 'no,' answered the president: 'but i have had a dream. and i have now had the same dream three times. once, on the night preceding the battle of bull run. once, on the night preceding' such another (naming a battle also not favourable to the north). his chin sank on his breast again, and he sat reflecting. 'might one ask the nature of this dream, sir?' said the attorney-general. 'well,' replied the president, without lifting his head or changing his attitude, 'i am on a great broad rolling river--and i am in a boat--and i drift--and i drift!--but this is not business--' suddenly raising his face and looking round the table as mr. stanton entered, 'let us proceed to business, gentlemen.' mr. stanton and the attorney-general said, as they walked on together, it would be curious to notice whether anything ensued on this; and they agreed to notice. he was shot that night." on his birthday, the seventh of february, dickens had his interview with president andrew johnson. "this scrambling scribblement is resumed this morning, because i have just seen the president: who had sent to me very courteously asking me to make my own appointment. he is a man with a remarkable face, indicating courage, watchfulness, and certainly strength of purpose. it is a face of the webster type, but without the 'bounce' of webster's face. i would have picked him out anywhere as a character of mark. figure, rather stoutish for an american; a trifle under the middle size; hands clasped in front of him; manner, suppressed, guarded, anxious. each of us looked at the other very hard. . . . it was in his own cabinet that i saw him. as i came away, thornton drove up in a sleigh--turned out for a state occasion--to deliver his credentials. there was to be a cabinet council at . the room was very like a london club's ante-drawing room. on the walls, two engravings only: one, of his own portrait; one, of lincoln's. . . . in the outer room was sitting a certain sunburnt general blair, with many evidences of the war upon him. he got up to shake hands with me, and then i found that he had been out on the prairie with me five-and-twenty years ago. . . . the papers having referred to my birthday's falling to-day, my room is filled with most exquisite flowers.[ ] they came pouring in from all sorts of people at breakfast time. the audiences here are really very fine. so ready to laugh or cry, and doing both so freely, that you would suppose them to be manchester shillings rather than washington half-sovereigns. alas! alas! my cold worse than ever." so he had written too at the opening of his letter. the first reading had been four days earlier, and was described to his daughter in a letter on the th, with a comical incident that occurred in the course of it. "the gas was very defective indeed last night, and i began with a small speech to the effect that i must trust to the brightness of their faces for the illumination of mine. this was taken greatly. in the _carol_ a most ridiculous incident occurred. all of a sudden, i saw a dog leap out from among the seats in the centre aisle, and look very intently at me. the general attention being fixed on me, i don't think anybody saw this dog; but i felt so sure of his turning up again and barking, that i kept my eye wandering about in search of him. he was a very comic dog, and it was well for me that i was reading a comic part of the book. but when he bounced out into the centre aisle again, in an entirely new place, and (still looking intently at me) tried the effect of a bark upon my proceedings, i was seized with such a paroxysm of laughter that it communicated itself to the audience, and we roared at one another, loud and long." three days later the sequel came, in a letter to his sister-in-law. "i mentioned the dog on the first night here? next night, i thought i heard (in _copperfield_) a suddenly-suppressed bark. it happened in this wise:--one of our people, standing just within the door, felt his leg touched, and looking down beheld the dog, staring intently at me, and evidently just about to bark. in a transport of presence of mind and fury, he instantly caught him up in both hands, and threw him over his own head, out into the entry, where the check-takers received him like a game at ball. last night he came again, _with another dog_; but our people were so sharply on the look-out for him that he didn't get in. he had evidently promised to pass the other dog, free." what is expressed in these letters, of a still active, hopeful, enjoying, energetic spirit, able to assert itself against illness of the body and in some sort to overmaster it, was also so strongly impressed upon those who were with him, that, seeing his sufferings as they did, they yet found it difficult to understand the extent of them. the sadness thus ever underlying his triumph makes it all very tragical. "that afternoon of my birthday," he wrote from baltimore on the th, "my catarrh was in such a state that charles sumner, coming in at five o'clock, and finding me covered with mustard poultice, and apparently voiceless, turned to dolby and said: 'surely, mr. dolby, it is impossible that he can read to-night!' says dolby: 'sir, i have told mr. dickens so, four times to-day, and i have been very anxious. but you have no idea how he will change, when he gets to the little table.' after five minutes of the little table i was not (for the time) even hoarse. the frequent experience of this return of force when it is wanted, saves me a vast amount of anxiety; but i am not at times without the nervous dread that i may some day sink altogether." to the same effect in another letter he adds: "dolby and osgood" (the latter represented the publishing firm of mr. fields and was one of the travelling staff), "who do the most ridiculous things to keep me in spirits[ ] (i am often very heavy, and rarely sleep much), are determined to have a walking match at boston on the last day of february to celebrate the arrival of the day when i can say '_next_ month!' for home." the match ended in the englishman's defeat; which dickens doubly commemorated, by a narrative of the american victory in sporting-newspaper style, and by a dinner in boston to a party of dear friends there. after baltimore he was reading again at philadelphia, from which he wrote to his sister-in-law on the th as to a characteristic trait observed in both places. "nothing will induce the people to believe in the farewells. at baltimore on tuesday night (a very brilliant night indeed), they asked as they came out: 'when will mr. dickens read here again?' 'never.' 'nonsense! not come back, after such houses as these? come. say when he'll read again.' just the same here. we could as soon persuade them that i am the president, as that to-morrow night i am going to read here for the last time. . . . there is a child in this house--a little girl--to whom i presented a black doll when i was here last; and as i have just seen her eye at the keyhole since i began writing this, i think she and the doll must be outside still. 'when you sent it up to me by the coloured boy,' she said after receiving it (coloured boy is the term for black waiter), 'i gave such a cream that ma come running in and creamed too, 'cos she fort i'd hurt myself. but i creamed a cream of joy.' she had a friend to play with her that day, and brought the friend with her--to my infinite confusion. a friend all stockings and much too tall, who sat on the sofa very far back with her stockings sticking stiffly out in front of her, and glared at me, and never spake a word. dolby found us confronted in a sort of fascination, like serpent and bird." on the th he was again at new york, in the thick of more troubles with the speculators. they involved even charges of fraud in ticket-sales at newhaven and providence; indignation meetings having been held by the mayors, and unavailing attempts made by his manager to turn the wrath aside. "i expect him back here presently half bereft of his senses, and i should be wholly bereft of mine if the situation were not comical as well as disagreeable. we can sell at our own box-office to any extent; but we cannot buy back of the speculators, because we have informed the public that all the tickets are gone; and even if we made the sacrifice of buying at their price and selling at ours, we should be accused of treating with them and of making money by it." it ended in providence by his going himself to the town and making a speech; and in newhaven it ended by his sending back the money taken, with intimation that he would not read until there had been a new distribution of the tickets approved by all the town. fresh disturbance broke out upon this; but he stuck to his determination to delay the reading until the heats had cooled down, and what should have been given in the middle of february he did not give until the close of march. the readings he had promised at the smaller outlying places by the canadian frontier and niagara district, including syracuse, rochester, and buffalo, were appointed for that same march month which was to be the interval between the close of the ordinary readings and the farewells in the two leading cities. all that had been promised in new york were closed when he returned to boston on the rd of february, ready for the increase he had promised there; but the check of a sudden political excitement came. it was the month when the vote was taken for impeachment of president johnson. "it is well" ( th of february) "that the money has flowed in hitherto so fast, for i have a misgiving that the great excitement about the president's impeachment will damage our receipts. . . . the vote was taken at last night. at the three large theatres here, all in a rush of good business, were stricken with paralysis. at our long line of outsiders waiting for unoccupied places, was nowhere. to-day you hear all the people in the streets talking of only one thing. i shall suppress my next week's promised readings (by good fortune, not yet announced), and watch the course of events. nothing in this country, as i before said, lasts long; and i think it likely that the public may be heartily tired of the president's name by the th of march, when i read at a considerable distance from here. so behold me with a whole week's holiday in view!" two days later he wrote pleasantly to his sister-in-law of his audiences. "they have come to regard the readings and the reader as their peculiar property; and you would be both amused and pleased if you could see the curious way in which they show this increased interest in both. whenever they laugh or cry, they have taken to applauding as well; and the result is very inspiriting. i shall remain here until saturday the th; but after to-morrow night shall not read here until the st of april, when i begin my farewells--six in number." on the th he wrote: "to-morrow fortnight we purpose being at the falls of niagara, and then we shall come back and really begin to wind up. i have got to know the _carol_ so well that i can't remember it, and occasionally go dodging about in the wildest manner, to pick up lost pieces. they took it so tremendously last night that i was stopped every five minutes. one poor young girl in mourning burst into a passion of grief about tiny tim, and was taken out. we had a fine house, and, in the interval while i was out, they covered the little table with flowers. the cough has taken a fresh start as if it were a novelty, and is even worse than ever to-day. there is a lull in the excitement about the president: but the articles of impeachment are to be produced this afternoon, and then it may set in again. osgood came into camp last night from selling in remote places, and reports that at rochester and buffalo (both places near the frontier), tickets were bought by canada people, who had struggled across the frozen river and clambered over all sorts of obstructions to get them. some of those distant halls turn out to be smaller than represented; but i have no doubt--to use an american expression--that we shall 'get along.' the second half of the receipts cannot reasonably be expected to come up to the first; political circumstances, and all other surroundings, considered." his old ill luck in travel pursued him. on the day his letter was written a snow-storm began, with a heavy gale of wind; and "after all the hard weather gone through," he wrote on the nd of march, "this is the worst day we have seen. it is telegraphed that the storm prevails over an immense extent of country, and is just the same at chicago as here. i hope it may prove a wind up. we are getting sick of the very sound of sleigh-bells even." the roads were so bad and the trains so much out of time, that he had to start a day earlier; and on the th of march his tour north-west began, with the gale still blowing and the snow falling heavily. on the th he wrote to me from buffalo. "we go to the falls of niagara to-morrow for our own pleasure; and i take all the men, as a treat. we found rochester last tuesday in a very curious state. perhaps you know that the great falls of the genessee river (really very fine, even so near niagara) are at that place. in the height of a sudden thaw, an immense bank of ice above the rapids refused to yield; so that the town was threatened (for the second time in four years) with submersion. boats were ready in the streets, all the people were up all night, and none but the children slept. in the dead of the night a thundering noise was heard, the ice gave way, the swollen river came raging and roaring down the falls, and the town was safe. very picturesque! but 'not very good for business,' as the manager says. especially as the hall stands in the centre of danger, and had ten feet of water in it on the last occasion of flood. but i think we had above £ english. on the previous night at syracuse--a most out of the way and unintelligible-looking place, with apparently no people in it--we had £ odd. here, we had last night, and shall have to-night, whatever we can cram into the hall. "this buffalo has become a large and important town, with numbers of german and irish in it. but it is very curious to notice, as we touch the frontier, that the american female beauty dies out; and a woman's face clumsily compounded of german, irish, western america, and canadian, not yet fused together, and not yet moulded, obtains instead. our show of beauty at night is, generally, remarkable; but we had not a dozen pretty women in the whole throng last night, and the faces were all blunt. i have just been walking about, and observing the same thing in the streets. . . . the winter has been so severe, that the hotel on the english side at niagara (which has the best view of the falls, and is for that reason very preferable) is not yet open. so we go, perforce, to the american: which telegraphs back to our telegram: 'all mr. dickens's requirements perfectly understood.' i have not yet been in more than two _very bad_ inns. i have been in some, where a good deal of what is popularly called 'slopping round' has prevailed; but have been able to get on very well. 'slopping round,' so used, means untidyness and disorder. it is a comically expressive phrase, and has many meanings. fields was asking the price of a quarter-cask of sherry the other day. 'wa'al mussr fields,' the merchant replies, 'that varies according to quality, as is but nay'tral. if yer wa'ant a sherry just to slop round with it, i can fix you some at a very low figger.'" his letter was resumed at rochester on the th. "after two most brilliant days at the falls of niagara, we got back here last night. to-morrow morning we turn out at for a long railway journey back to albany. but it is nearly all 'back' now, thank god! i don't know how long, though, before turning, we might have gone on at buffalo. . . . we went everywhere at the falls, and saw them in every aspect. there is a suspension bridge across, now, some two miles or more from the horse shoe; and another, half a mile nearer, is to be opened in july. they are very fine but very ticklish, hanging aloft there, in the continual vibration of the thundering water: nor is one greatly reassured by the printed notice that troops must not cross them at step, that bands of music must not play in crossing, and the like. i shall never forget the last aspect in which we saw niagara yesterday. we had been everywhere, when i thought of struggling (in an open carriage) up some very difficult ground for a good distance, and getting where we could stand above the river, and see it, as it rushes forward to its tremendous leap, coming for miles and miles. all away to the horizon on our right was a wonderful confusion of bright green and white water. as we stood watching it with our faces to the top of the falls, our backs were towards the sun. the majestic valley below the falls, so seen through the vast cloud of spray, was made of rainbow. the high banks, the riven rocks, the forests, the bridge, the buildings, the air, the sky, were all made of rainbow. nothing in turner's finest water-colour drawings, done in his greatest day, is so ethereal, so imaginative, so gorgeous in colour, as what i then beheld. i seemed to be lifted from the earth and to be looking into heaven. what i once said to you, as i witnessed the scene five and twenty years ago, all came back at this most affecting and sublime sight. the 'muddy vesture of our clay' falls from us as we look. . . . i chartered a separate carriage for our men, so that they might see all in their own way, and at their own time. "there is a great deal of water out between rochester and new york, and travelling is very uncertain, as i fear we may find to-morrow. there is again some little alarm here on account of the river rising too fast. but our to-night's house is far ahead of the first. most charming halls in these places; excellent for sight and sound. almost invariably built as theatres, with stage, scenery, and good dressing-rooms. audience seated to perfection (every seat always separate), excellent doorways and passages, and brilliant light. my screen and gas are set up in front of the drop-curtain, and the most delicate touches will tell anywhere. no creature but my own men ever near me." his anticipation of the uncertainty that might beset his travel back had dismal fulfilment. it is described in a letter written on the st from springfield to his valued friend, mr. frederic ouvry, having much interest of its own, and making lively addition to the picture which these chapters give. the unflagging spirit that bears up under all disadvantages is again marvellously shown. "you can hardly imagine what my life is with its present conditions--how hard the work is, and how little time i seem to have at my disposal. it is necessary to the daily recovery of my voice that i should dine at when not travelling; i begin to prepare for the evening at ; and i get back to my hotel, pretty well knocked up, at half-past . add to all this, perpetual railway travelling in one of the severest winters ever known; and you will descry a reason or two for my being an indifferent correspondent. last sunday evening i left the falls of niagara for this and two intervening places. as there was a great thaw, and the melted snow was swelling all the rivers, the whole country for three hundred miles was flooded. on the tuesday afternoon (i had read on the monday) the train gave in, as under circumstances utterly hopeless, and stopped at a place called utica; the greater part of which was under water, while the high and dry part could produce nothing particular to eat. here, some of the wretched passengers passed the night in the train, while others stormed the hotel. i was fortunate enough to get a bed-room, and garnished it with an enormous jug of gin-punch; over which i and the manager played a double-dummy rubber. at six in the morning we were knocked up: 'to come aboard and try it.' at half-past six we were knocked up again with the tidings 'that it was of no use coming aboard or trying it.' at eight all the bells in the town were set agoing, to summon us to 'come aboard' instantly. and so we started, through the water, at four or five miles an hour; seeing nothing but drowned farms, barns adrift like noah's arks, deserted villages, broken bridges, and all manner of ruin. i was to read at albany that night, and all the tickets were sold. a very active superintendent of works assured me that if i could be 'got along' he was the man to get me along: and that if i couldn't be got along, i might conclude that it couldn't possibly be fixed. he then turned on a hundred men in seven-league boots, who went ahead of the train, each armed with a long pole and pushing the blocks of ice away. following this cavalcade, we got to land at last, and arrived in time for me to read the _carol_ and _trial_ triumphantly. my people (i had five of the staff with me) turned to at their work with a will, and did a day's labour in a couple of hours. if we had not come in as we did, i should have lost £ , and albany would have gone distracted. you may conceive what the flood was, when i hint at the two most notable incidents of our journey:-- , we took the passengers out of two trains, who had been in the water, immovable all night and all the previous day. , we released a large quantity of sheep and cattle from trucks that had been in the water i don't know how long, but so long that the creatures in them had begun to eat each other, and presented a most horrible spectacle."[ ] beside springfield, he had engagements at portland, new bedford, and other places in massachusetts, before the boston farewells began; and there wanted but two days to bring him to that time, when he thus described to his daughter the labour which was to occupy them. his letter was from portland on the th of march, and it will be observed that he no longer compromises or glozes over what he was and had been suffering. during his terrible travel to albany his cough had somewhat spared him, but the old illness had broken out in his foot; and, though he persisted in ascribing it to the former supposed origin ("having been lately again wet, from walking in melted snow, which i suppose to be the occasion of its swelling in the old way"), it troubled him sorely, extended now at intervals to the right foot also, and lamed him for all the time he remained in the states. "i should have written to you by the last mail, but i really was too unwell to do it. the writing day was last friday, when i ought to have left boston for new bedford ( miles) before eleven in the morning. but i was so exhausted that i could not be got up, and had to take my chance of an evening train's producing me in time to read--which it just did. with the return of snow, nine days ago, my cough became as bad as ever. i have coughed every morning from two or three till five or six, and have been absolutely sleepless. i have had no appetite besides, and no taste.[ ] last night here, i took some laudanum; and it is the only thing that has done me good, though it made me sick this morning. but the life, in this climate, is so very hard! when i did manage to get to new bedford, i read with my utmost force and vigour. next morning, well or ill, i must turn out at seven, to get back to boston on my way here. i dined at boston at three, and at five had to come on here (a hundred and thirty miles or so) for to-morrow night: there being no sunday train. to-morrow night i read here in a very large place; and tuesday morning at six i must again start, to get back to boston once more. but after to-morrow night i have only the farewells, thank god! even as it is, however, i have had to write to dolby (who is in new york) to see my doctor there, and ask him to send me some composing medicine that i can take at night, inasmuch as without sleep i cannot get through. however sympathetic and devoted the people are about one, they can not be got to comprehend, seeing me able to do the two hours when the time comes round, that it may also involve much misery." to myself on the th he wrote from the same place, making like confession. no comment could deepen the sadness of the story of suffering, revealed in his own simple language. "i write in a town three parts of which were burnt down in a tremendous fire three years ago. the people lived in tents while their city was rebuilding. the charred trunks of the trees with which the streets of the old city were planted, yet stand here and there in the new thoroughfares like black spectres. the rebuilding is still in progress everywhere. yet such is the astonishing energy of the people that the large hall in which i am to read to-night (its predecessor was burnt) would compare very favourably with the free trade hall at manchester! . . . i am nearly used up. climate, distance, catarrh, travelling, and hard work, have begun (i may say so, now they are nearly all over) to tell heavily upon me. sleeplessness besets me; and if i had engaged to go on into may, i think i must have broken down. it was well that i cut off the far west and canada when i did. there would else have been a sad complication. it is impossible to make the people about one understand, however zealous and devoted (it is impossible even to make dolby understand until the pinch comes), that the power of coming up to the mark every night, with spirits and spirit, may coexist with the nearest approach to sinking under it. when i got back to boston on thursday, after a very hard three weeks, i saw that fields was very grave about my going on to new bedford ( miles) next day, and then coming on here ( miles) _next_ day. but the stress is over, and so i can afford to look back upon it, and think about it, and write about it." on the st he closed his letter at boston, and he was at home when i heard of him again. "the latest intelligence, my dear old fellow, is, that i have arrived here safely, and that i am certainly better. i consider my work virtually over, now. my impression is, that the political crisis will damage the farewells by about one half. i cannot yet speak by the card; but my predictions here, as to our proceedings, have thus far been invariably right. we took last night at portland, £ english; where a costly italian troupe, using the same hall to-night, had not booked £ ! it is the same all over the country, and the worst is not seen yet. everything is becoming absorbed in the presidential impeachment, helped by the next presidential election. connecticut is particularly excited. the night after i read at hartford this last week, there were two political meetings in the town; meetings of two parties; and the hotel was full of speakers coming in from outlying places. so at newhaven: the moment i had finished, carpenters came in to prepare for next night's politics. so at buffalo. so everywhere very soon." in the same tone he wrote his last letter to his sister-in-law from boston. "my notion of the farewells is pretty certain now to turn out right. we had £ english here last night. to-day is a fast day, and to-night we shall probably take much less. then it is likely that we shall pull up again, and strike a good reasonable average; but it is not at all probable that we shall do anything enormous. every pulpit in massachusetts will resound with violent politics to-day and to-night." that was on the second of april, and a postscript was added. "friday afternoon the rd. catarrh worse than ever! and we don't know (at four o'clock) whether i can read to-night or must stop. otherwise, all well." dickens's last letter from america was written to his daughter mary from boston on the th of april, the day before his sixth and last farewell night. "i not only read last friday when i was doubtful of being able to do so, but read as i never did before, and astonished the audience quite as much as myself. you never saw or heard such a scene of excitement. longfellow and all the cambridge men have urged me to give in. i have been very near doing so, but feel stronger to-day. i cannot tell whether the catarrh may have done me any lasting injury in the lungs or other breathing organs, until i shall have rested and got home. i hope and believe not. consider the weather! there have been two snow storms since i wrote last, and to-day the town is blotted out in a ceaseless whirl of snow and wind. dolby is as tender as a woman, and as watchful as a doctor. he never leaves me during the reading, now, but sits at the side of the platform, and keeps his eye upon me all the time. ditto george the gasman, steadiest and most reliable man i ever employed. i have _dombey_ to do to-night, and must go through it carefully; so here ends my report. the personal affection of the people in this place is charming to the last. did i tell you that the new york press are going to give me a public dinner on saturday the th?" in new york, where there were five farewell nights, three thousand two hundred and ninety-eight dollars were the receipts of the last, on the th of april; those of the last at boston, on the th, having been three thousand four hundred and fifty-six dollars. but on earlier nights in the same cities respectively, these sums also had been reached; and indeed, making allowance for an exceptional night here and there, the receipts varied so wonderfully little, that a mention of the highest average returns from other places will give no exaggerated impression of the ordinary receipts throughout. excluding fractions of dollars, the lowest were new bedford ($ ), rochester ($ ), springfield ($ ), and providence ($ ). albany and worcester averaged something less than $ ; while hartford, buffalo, baltimore, syracuse, newhaven, and portland rose to $ . washington's last night was $ , no night there having less than $ . philadelphia exceeded washington by $ , and brooklyn went ahead of philadelphia by $ . the amount taken at the four brooklyn readings was , dollars. the new york public dinner was given at delmonico's, the hosts were more than two hundred, and the chair was taken by mr. horace greeley. dickens attended with great difficulty,[ ] and spoke in pain. but he used the occasion to bear his testimony to the changes of twenty-five years; the rise of vast new cities; growth in the graces and amenities of life; much improvement in the press, essential to every other advance; and changes in himself leading to opinions more deliberately formed. he promised his kindly entertainers that no copy of his _notes_, or his _chuzzlewit_, should in future be issued by him without accompanying mention of the changes to which he had referred that night; of the politeness, delicacy, sweet temper, hospitality, and consideration in all ways for which he had to thank them; and of his gratitude for the respect shown, during all his visit, to the privacy enforced upon him by the nature of his work and the condition of his health. he had to leave the room before the proceedings were over. on the following monday he read to his last american audience, telling them at the close that he hoped often to recall them, equally by his winter fire and in the green summer weather, and never as a mere public audience but as a host of personal friends. he sailed two days later in the "russia," and reached england in the first week of may . footnotes: [ ] few days later he described it to his daughter. "i couldn't help laughing at myself on my birthday at washington; it was observed so much as though i were a little boy. flowers and garlands of the most exquisite kind, arranged in all manner of green baskets, bloomed over the room; letters radiant with good wishes poured in; a shirt pin, a handsome silver travelling bottle, a set of gold shirt studs, and a set of gold sleeve links, were on the dinner table. also, by hands unknown, the hall at night was decorated; and after _boots at the holly tree_, the whole audience rose and remained, great people and all, standing and cheering, until i went back to the table and made them a little speech." [ ] mr. dolby unconsciously contributed at this time to the same happy result by sending out some advertisements in these exact words: "the reading will be comprised within _two minutes_, and the audience are earnestly entreated to be seated _ten hours_ before its commencement." he had transposed the minutes and the hours. [ ] what follows is from the close of the letter. "on my return, i have arranged with chappell to take my leave of reading for good and all, in a hundred autumnal and winter farewells _for ever_. i return by the cunard steam-ship 'russia.' i had the second officer's cabin on deck, when i came out; and i am to have the chief steward's going home. cunard was so considerate as to remember that it will be on the sunny side of the vessel." [ ] here was his account of his mode of living for his last ten weeks in america. "i cannot eat (to anything like the necessary extent) and have established this system. at in the morning, in bed, a tumbler of new cream and two tablespoonsful of rum. at , a sherry cobbler and a biscuit. at (dinner time) a pint of champagne. at five minutes to , an egg beaten up with a glass of sherry. between the parts, the strongest beef tea that can be made, drunk hot. at a quarter past , soup, and any little thing to drink that i can fancy. i do not eat more than half a pound of solid food in the whole four-and-twenty hours, if so much." [ ] here is the newspaper account: "at about five o'clock on saturday the hosts began to assemble, but at . news was received that the expected guest had succumbed to a painful affection of the foot. in a short time, however, another bulletin announced mr. dickens's intention to attend the dinner at all hazards. at a little after six, having been assisted up the stairs, he was joined by mr. greeley, and the hosts forming in two lines silently permitted the distinguished gentlemen to pass through. mr. dickens limped perceptibly; his right foot was swathed, and he leaned heavily on the arm of mr. greeley. he evidently suffered great pain." chapter xvii. last readings. - . at home--project for last readings--what the readings did and undid--profit from all the readings--noticeable changes--proposed reading from _oliver twist_--parting from his youngest son--death of his brother frederick--old friends--_sikes and nancy_ reading--reading stopped--mr. syme's opinion of the lameness--emerson tennent's funeral--public dinner in liverpool--his description of his illness--brought to town--sir thomas watson's note of the case--close of career as public reader. favourable weather helped him pleasantly home. he had profited greatly by the sea voyage, perhaps greatly more by its repose; and on the th of may he described himself to his boston friends as brown beyond belief, and causing the greatest disappointment in all quarters by looking so well. "my doctor was quite broken down in spirits on seeing me for the first time last saturday. _good lord! seven years younger!_ said the doctor, recoiling." that he gave all the credit to "those fine days at sea," and none to the rest from such labours as he had passed through, the close of the letter too sadly showed. "we are already settling--think of this!--the details of my farewell course of readings." even on his way out to america that enterprise was in hand. from halifax he had written to me. "i told the chappells that when i got back to england, i would have a series of farewell readings in town and country; and then read no more. they at once offer in writing to pay all expenses whatever, to pay the ten per cent. for management, and to pay me, for a series of , six thousand pounds." the terms were raised and settled before the first boston readings closed. the number was to be a hundred; and the payment, over and above expenses and per centage, eight thousand pounds. such a temptation undoubtedly was great; and though it was a fatal mistake which dickens committed in yielding to it, it was not an ignoble one. he did it under no excitement from the american gains, of which he knew nothing when he pledged himself to the enterprise. no man could care essentially less for mere money than he did. but the necessary provision for many sons was a constant anxiety; he was proud of what the readings had done to abridge this care; and the very strain of them under which it seems certain that his health had first given way, and which he always steadily refused to connect especially with them, had also broken the old confidence of being at all times available for his higher pursuit. what affected his health only he would not regard as part of the question either way. that was to be borne as the lot more or less of all men; and the more thorough he could make his feeling of independence, and of ability to rest, by what was now in hand, the better his final chances of a perfect recovery would be. that was the spirit in which he entered on this last engagement. it was an opportunity offered for making a particular work really complete before he should abandon it for ever. something of it will not be indiscernible even in the summary of his past acquisitions, which with a pardonable exultation he now sent me. "we had great difficulty in getting our american accounts squared to the point of ascertaining what dolby's commission amounted to in english money. after all, we were obliged to call in the aid of a money-changer, to determine what he should pay as his share of the average loss of conversion into gold. with this deduction made, i think his commission (i have not the figures at hand) was £ , ; ticknor and fields had a commission of £ , , besides per cent. on all boston receipts. the expenses in america to the day of our sailing were , dollars;--roughly , dollars, or £ , . the preliminary expenses were £ . the average price of gold was nearly per cent., and yet my profit was within a hundred or so of £ , . supposing me to have got through the present engagement in good health, i shall have made by the readings, _in two years_, £ , : that is to say, £ , received from the chappells, and £ , from america. what i had made by them before, i could only ascertain by a long examination of coutts's books. i should say, certainly not less than £ , : for i remember that i made half that money in the first town and country campaign with poor arthur smith. these figures are of course between ourselves; but don't you think them rather remarkable? the chappell bargain began with £ a night and everything paid; then became £ ; and now rises to £ ." the last readings were appointed to begin with october; and at the request of an old friend, chauncy hare townshend, who died during his absence in the states, he had accepted the trust, which occupied him some part of the summer, of examining and selecting for publication a bequest of some papers on matters of religious belief, which were issued in a small volume the following year. there came also in june a visit from longfellow and his daughters, with later summer visits from the eliot nortons; and at the arrival of friends whom he loved and honoured as he did these, from the great country to which he owed so much, infinite were the rejoicings of gadshill. nothing could quench his old spirit in this way. but in the intervals of my official work i saw him frequently that summer, and never without the impression that america had told heavily upon him. there was manifest abatement of his natural force, the elasticity of bearing was impaired, and the wonderful brightness of eye was dimmed at times. one day, too, as he walked from his office with miss hogarth to dine at our house, he could read only the halves of the letters over the shop doors that were on his right as he looked. he attributed it to medicine. it was an additional unfavourable symptom that his right foot had become affected as well as the left, though not to anything like the same extent, during the journey from the canada frontier to boston. but all this disappeared, upon any special cause for exertion; and he was never unprepared to lavish freely for others the reserved strength that should have been kept for himself. this indeed was the great danger, for it dulled the apprehension of us all to the fact that absolute and pressing danger did positively exist. he had scarcely begun these last readings than he was beset by a misgiving, that, for a success large enough to repay messrs. chappell's liberality, the enterprise would require a new excitement to carry him over the old ground; and it was while engaged in manchester and liverpool at the outset of october that this announcement came. "i have made a short reading of the murder in _oliver twist_. i cannot make up my mind, however, whether to do it or not. i have no doubt that i could perfectly petrify an audience by carrying out the notion i have of the way of rendering it. but whether the impression would not be so horrible as to keep them away another time, is what i cannot satisfy myself upon. what do you think? it is in three short parts: , where fagin sets noah claypole on to watch nancy. , the scene on london bridge. , where fagin rouses claypole from his sleep, to tell his perverted story to sikes. and the murder, and the murderer's sense of being haunted. i have adapted and cut about the text with great care, and it is very powerful. i have to-day referred the book and the question to the chappells as so largely interested." i had a strong dislike to this proposal, less perhaps on the ground which ought to have been taken of the physical exertion it would involve, than because such a subject seemed to be altogether out of the province of reading; and it was resolved, that, before doing it, trial should be made to a limited private audience in st. james's hall. the note announcing this, from liverpool on the th of october, is for other reasons worth printing. "i give you earliest notice that the chappells suggest to me the th of november" (the th was chosen) "for trial of the _oliver twist_ murder, when everything in use for the previous day's reading can be made available. i hope this may suit you? we have been doing well here; and how it was arranged, nobody knows, but we had £ at st. james's hall last tuesday, having advanced from our previous £ . the expenses are such, however, on the princely scale of the chappells, that we never begin at a smaller, often at a larger, cost than £ . . . . i have not been well, and have been heavily tired. however, i have little to complain of--nothing, nothing; though, like mariana, i am aweary. but think of this. if all go well, and (like mr. dennis) i 'work off' this series triumphantly, i shall have made of these readings £ , in a year and a half." this did not better reconcile me to what had been too clearly forced upon him by the supposed necessity of some new excitement to ensure a triumphant result; and even the private rehearsal only led to a painful correspondence between us, of which a few words are all that need now be preserved. "we might have agreed," he wrote, "to differ about it very well, because we only wanted to find out the truth if we could, and because it was quite understood that i wanted to leave behind me the recollection of something very passionate and dramatic, done with simple means, if the art would justify the theme." apart from mere personal considerations, the whole question lay in these last words. it was impossible for me to admit that the effect to be produced was legitimate, or such as it was desirable to associate with the recollection of his readings. mention should not be omitted of two sorrows which affected him at this time. at the close of the month before the readings began his youngest son went forth from home to join an elder brother in australia. "these partings are hard hard things" ( th of september), "but they are the lot of us all, and might have to be done without means or influence, and then would be far harder. god bless him!" hardly a month later, the last of his surviving brothers, frederick, the next to himself, died at darlington. "he had been tended" ( th of october) "with the greatest care and affection by some local friends. it was a wasted life, but god forbid that one should be hard upon it, or upon anything in this world that is not deliberately and coldly wrong." before october closed the renewal of his labour had begun to tell upon him. he wrote to his sister-in-law on the th of sickness and sleepless nights, and of its having become necessary, when he had to read, that he should lie on the sofa all day. after arrival at edinburgh in december he had been making a calculation that the railway travelling over such a distance involved something more than thirty thousand shocks to the nerves; but he went on to christmas, alternating these far-off places with nights regularly intervening in london, without much more complaint than of an inability to sleep. trade reverses at glasgow had checked the success there,[ ] but edinburgh made compensation. "the affectionate regard of the people exceeds all bounds and is shown in every way. the audiences do everything but embrace me, and take as much pains with the readings as i do. . . . the keeper of the edinburgh hall, a fine old soldier, presented me on friday night with the most superb red camellia for my button-hole that ever was seen. nobody can imagine how he came by it, as the florists had had a considerable demand for that colour, from ladies in the stalls, and could get no such thing." the second portion of the enterprise opened with the new year, and the _sikes and nancy_ scenes, everywhere his prominent subject, exacted the most terrible physical exertion from him. in january he was at clifton, where he had given, he told his sister-in-law, "by far the best murder yet done;" while at the same date he wrote to his daughter: "at clifton on monday night we had a contagion of fainting; and yet the place was not hot. i should think we had from a dozen to twenty ladies taken out stiff and rigid, at various times! it became quite ridiculous." he was afterwards at cheltenham. "macready is of opinion that the murder is two macbeths. he declares that he heard every word of the reading, but i doubt it. alas! he is sadly infirm." on the th he wrote to his daughter from torquay that the place into which they had put him to read, and where a pantomime had been played the night before, was something between a methodist chapel, a theatre, a circus, a riding-school, and a cow-house. that day he wrote to me from bath: "landor's ghost goes along the silent streets here before me. . . . the place looks to me like a cemetery which the dead have succeeded in rising and taking. having built streets, of their old gravestones, they wander about scantly trying to 'look alive.' a dead failure." in the second week of february he was in london, under engagement to return to scotland (which he had just left) after the usual weekly reading at st. james's hall, when there was a sudden interruption. "my foot has turned lame again!" was his announcement to me on the th, followed next day by this letter. "henry thompson will not let me read to-night, and will not let me go to scotland to-morrow. tremendous house here, and also in edinburgh. here is the certificate he drew up for himself and beard to sign. 'we the undersigned hereby certify that mr. c. d. is suffering from inflammation of the foot (caused by over-exertion), and that we have forbidden his appearance on the platform this evening, as he must keep his room for a day or two.' i have sent up to the great western hotel for apartments, and, if i can get them, shall move there this evening. heaven knows what engagements this may involve in april! it throws us all back, and will cost me some five hundred pounds." a few days' rest again brought so much relief, that, against the urgent entreaties of members of his family as well as other friends, he was in the railway carriage bound for edinburgh on the morning of the th of february, accompanied by mr. chappell himself. "i came down lazily on a sofa," he wrote to me from edinburgh next day, "hardly changing my position the whole way. the railway authorities had done all sorts of things, and i was more comfortable than on the sofa at the hotel. the foot gave me no uneasiness, and has been quiet and steady all night."[ ] he was nevertheless under the necessity, two days later, of consulting mr. syme; and he told his daughter that this great authority had warned him against over-fatigue in the readings, and given him some slight remedies, but otherwise reported him in "joost pairfactly splendid condition." with care he thought the pain might be got rid of. "'wa'at mad' thompson think it was goot?' he said often, and seemed to take that opinion extremely ill." again before leaving scotland he saw mr. syme, and wrote to me on the second of march of the indignation with which he again treated the gout diagnosis, declaring the disorder to be an affection of the delicate nerves and muscles originating in cold. "i told him that it had shewn itself in america in the other foot as well. 'noo i'll joost swear,' said he, 'that ayond the fatigue o' the readings ye'd been tramping i' th' snaw, within twa or three days.' i certainly had. 'wa'al,' said he triumphantly, 'and hoo did it first begin? i' th' snaw. goot! bah!--thompson knew no other name for it, and just ca'd it goot--boh!' for which he took two guineas." yet the famous pupil, sir henry thompson, went certainly nearer the mark than the distinguished master, mr. syme, in giving to it a more than local character. the whole of that march month he went on with the scenes from _oliver twist_. "the foot goes famously," he wrote to his daughter. "i feel the fatigue in it (four murders in one week[ ]) but not overmuch. it merely aches at night; and so does the other, sympathetically i suppose." at hull on the th he heard of the death of the old and dear friend, emerson tennent, to whom he had inscribed his last book; and on the morning of the th i met him at the funeral. he had read the _oliver twist_ scenes the night before at york; had just been able to get to the express train, after shortening the pauses in the reading, by a violent rush when it was over; and had travelled through the night. he appeared to, me "dazed" and worn. no man could well look more so than he did, that sorrowful morning. the end was near. a public dinner, which will have mention on a later page, had been given him in liverpool on the th of april, with lord dufferin in the chair, and a reading was due from him in preston on the nd of that month. but on sunday the th we had ill report of him from chester, and on the st he wrote from blackpool to his sister-in-law. "i have come to this sea-beach hotel (charming) for a day's rest. i am much better than i was on sunday; but shall want careful looking to, to get through the readings. my weakness and deadness are all on the left side; and if i don't look at anything i try to touch with my left hand, i don't know where it is. i am in (secret) consultation with frank beard, who says that i have given him indisputable evidences of overwork which he could wish to treat immediately; and so i have telegraphed for him. i have had a delicious walk by the sea to-day, and i sleep soundly, and have picked up amazingly in appetite. my foot is greatly better too, and i wear my own boot." next day was appointed for the reading at preston; and from that place he wrote to me, while waiting the arrival of mr. beard. "don't say anything about it, but the tremendously severe nature of this work is a little shaking me. at chester last sunday i found myself extremely giddy, and extremely uncertain of my sense of touch, both in the left leg and the left hand and arms. i had been taking some slight medicine of beard's; and immediately wrote to him describing exactly what i felt, and asking him whether those feelings _could be_ referable to the medicine? he promptly replied: 'there can be no mistaking them from your exact account. the medicine cannot possibly have caused them. i recognise indisputable symptoms of overwork, and i wish to take you in hand without any loss of time.' they have greatly modified since, but he is coming down here this afternoon. to-morrow night at warrington i shall have but more nights to work through. if he can coach me up for them, i do not doubt that i shall get all right again--as i did when i became free in america. the foot has given me very little trouble. yet it is remarkable that it is _the left foot too_; and that i told henry thompson (before i saw his old master syme) that i had an inward conviction that whatever it was, it was not gout. i also told beard, a year after the staplehurst accident, that i was certain that my heart had been fluttered, and wanted a little helping. this the stethoscope confirmed; and considering the immense exertion i am undergoing, and the constant jarring of express trains, the case seems to me quite intelligible. don't say anything in the gad's direction about my being a little out of sorts. i have broached the matter of course; but very lightly. indeed there is no reason for broaching it otherwise." even to the close of that letter he had buoyed himself up with the hope that he might yet be "coached" and that the readings need not be discontinued. but mr. beard stopped them at once, and brought his patient to london. on friday morning the rd, the same envelope brought me a note from himself to say that he was well enough, but tired; in perfectly good spirits, not at all uneasy, and writing this himself that i should have it under his own hand; with a note from his eldest son to say that his father appeared to him to be very ill, and that a consultation had been appointed with sir thomas watson. the statement of that distinguished physician, sent to myself in june , completes for the present the sorrowful narrative. "it was, i think, on the rd of april that i was asked to see charles dickens, in consultation with mr. carr beard. after i got home i jotted down, from their joint account, what follows. "after unusual irritability, c. d. found himself, last saturday or sunday, giddy, with a tendency to go backwards, and to turn round. afterwards, desiring to put something on a small table, he pushed it and the table forwards, undesignedly. he had some odd feeling of insecurity about his left leg, as if there was something unnatural about his heel; but he could lift, and he did not drag, his leg. also he spoke of some strangeness of his left hand and arm; missed the spot on which he wished to lay that hand, unless he carefully looked at it; felt an unreadiness to lift his hands towards his head, especially his left hand--when, for instance, he was brushing his hair. "he had written thus to mr. carr beard. "'is it possible that anything in my medicine can have made me extremely giddy, extremely uncertain of my footing, especially on the left side, and extremely indisposed to raise my hands to my head. these symptoms made me very uncomfortable on saturday (qy. sunday?) night, and all yesterday, &c.' "the state thus described showed plainly that c. d. had been on the brink of an attack of paralysis of his left side, and possibly of apoplexy. it was, no doubt, the result of extreme hurry, overwork, and excitement, incidental to his readings. "on hearing from him mr. carr beard had gone at once to preston, or blackburn (i am not sure which), had forbidden his reading that same evening, and had brought him to london. "when i saw him he _appeared_ to be well. his mind was unclouded, his pulse quiet. his heart was beating with some slight excess of the natural impulse. he told me he had of late sometimes, but rarely, lost or misused a word; that he forgot names, and numbers, but had always done that; and he promised implicit obedience to our injunctions. "we gave him the following certificate. "'the undersigned certify that mr. charles dickens has been seriously unwell, through great exhaustion and fatigue of body and mind consequent upon his public readings and long and frequent railway journeys. in our judgment mr. dickens will not be able with safety to himself to resume his readings for several months to come. "'thos. watson, m.d. "'f. carr beard.' "however, after some weeks, he expressed a wish for my sanction to his endeavours to redeem, in a careful and moderate way, some of the reading engagements to which he had been pledged before those threatenings of brain-mischief in the north of england. "as he had continued uniformly to seem and to feel perfectly well, i did not think myself warranted to refuse that sanction: and in writing to enforce great caution in the trials, i expressed some apprehension that he might fancy we had been too peremptory in our injunctions of mental and bodily repose in april; and i quoted the following remark, which occurs somewhere in one of captain cook's voyages. 'preventive measures are always invidious, for when most successful, the necessity for them is the least apparent.' "i mention this to explain the letter which i send herewith,[ ] and which i must beg you to return to me, as a precious remembrance of the writer with whom i had long enjoyed very friendly and much valued relations. "i scarcely need say that if what i have now written can, _in any way_, be of use to you, it is entirely at your service and disposal--nor need i say with how much interest i have read the first volume of your late friend's life. i cannot help regretting that a great pressure of professional work at the time, prevented my making a fuller record of a case so interesting." the twelve readings to which sir thomas watson consented, with the condition that railway travel was not to accompany them, were farther to be delayed until the opening months of . they were an offering from dickens by way of small compensation to messrs. chappell for the breakdown of the enterprise on which they had staked so much. but here practically he finished his career as a public reader, and what remains will come with the end of what is yet to be told. one effort only intervened, by which he hoped to get happily back to his old pursuits; but to this, as to that which preceded it, sterner fate said also no, and his last book, like his last readings, prematurely closed. footnotes: [ ] "i think i shall be pretty correct in both places as to the run being on the final readings. we had an immense house here" (edinburgh, th of december) "last night, and a very large turnaway. but glasgow being shady and the charges very great, it will be the most we can do, i fancy, on these first scotch readings, to bring the chappells safely home (as to them) without loss." [ ] the close of the letter has an amusing picture which i may be excused for printing in a note. "the only news that will interest you is that the good-natured reverdy johnson, being at an art dinner in glasgow the other night, and falling asleep over the post-prandial speeches (only too naturally), woke suddenly on hearing the name of 'johnson' in a list of scotch painters which one of the orators was enumerating; at once plunged up, under the impression that somebody was drinking his health; and immediately, and with overflowing amiability, began returning thanks. the spectacle was then presented to the astonished company, of the american eagle being restrained by the coat tails from swooping at the moon, while the smaller birds endeavoured to explain to it how the case stood, and the cock robin in possession of the chairman's eye twittered away as hard as he could split. i am told that it was wonderfully droll." [ ] i take from the letter a mention of the effect on a friend. "the night before last, unable to get in, b. had a seat behind the screen, and was nearly frightened off it, by the murder. every vestige of colour had left his face when i came off, and he sat staring over a glass of champagne in the wildest way." [ ] in this letter dickens wrote: "i thank you heartily" ( rd of june ) "for your great kindness and interest. it would really pain me if i thought you could seriously doubt my implicit reliance on your professional skill and advice. i feel as certain now as i felt when you came to see me on my breaking down through over fatigue, that the injunction you laid upon me to stop in my course of readings was necessary and wise. and to its firmness i refer (humanly speaking) my speedy recovery from that moment. i would on no account have resumed, even on the turn of this year, without your sanction. your friendly aid will never be forgotten by me; and again i thank you for it with all my heart." chapter xviii. last book. - . first fancy for _edwin drood_--story as planned in his mind--nothing written of his intentions--merits of the fragment--comparison of his early and his late mss.--discovery of unpublished scene--probable reason for writing it in advance--how mr. sapsea ceased to be a member of the eight club. the last book undertaken by dickens was to be published, in illustrated monthly numbers, of the old form, but to close with the twelfth.[ ] it closed, unfinished, with the sixth number, which was itself underwritten by two pages. his first fancy for the tale was expressed in a letter in the middle of july. "what should you think of the idea of a story beginning in this way?--two people, boy and girl, or very young, going apart from one another, pledged to be married after many years--at the end of the book. the interest to arise out of the tracing of their separate ways, and the impossibility of telling what will be done with that impending fate." this was laid aside; but it left a marked trace on the story as afterwards designed, in the position of edwin drood and his betrothed. i first heard of the later design in a letter dated "friday the th of august ," in which after speaking, with the usual unstinted praise he bestowed always on what moved him in others, of a little tale he had received for his journal,[ ] he spoke of the change that had occurred to him for the new tale by himself. "i laid aside the fancy i told you of, and have a very curious and new idea for my new story. not a communicable idea (or the interest of the book would be gone), but a very strong one, though difficult to work." the story, i learnt immediately afterward, was to be that of the murder of a nephew by his uncle; the originality of which was to consist in the review of the murderer's career by himself at the close, when its temptations were to be dwelt upon as if, not he the culprit, but some other man, were the tempted. the last chapters were to be written in the condemned cell, to which his wickedness, all elaborately elicited from him as if told of another, had brought him. discovery by the murderer of the utter needlessness of the murder for its object, was to follow hard upon commission of the deed; but all discovery of the murderer was to be baffled till towards the close, when, by means of a gold ring which had resisted the corrosive effects of the lime into which he had thrown the body, not only the person murdered was to be identified but the locality of the crime and the man who committed it.[ ] so much was told to me before any of the book was written; and it will be recollected that the ring, taken by drood to be given to his betrothed only if their engagement went on, was brought away with him from their last interview. rosa was to marry tartar, and crisparkle the sister of landless, who was himself, i think, to have perished in assisting tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer. nothing had been written, however, of the main parts of the design excepting what is found in the published numbers; there was no hint or preparation for the sequel in any notes of chapters in advance; and there remained not even what he had himself so sadly written of the book by thackeray also interrupted by death. the evidence of matured designs never to be accomplished, intentions planned never to be executed, roads of thought marked out never to be traversed, goals shining in the distance never to be reached, was wanting here. it was all a blank. enough had been completed nevertheless to give promise of a much greater book than its immediate predecessor. "i hope his book is finished," wrote longfellow when the news of his death was flashed to america. "it is certainly one of his most beautiful works, if not the most beautiful of all. it would be too sad to think the pen had fallen from his hand, and left it incomplete." some of its characters were touched with subtlety, and in its descriptions his imaginative power was at its best. not a line was wanting to the reality, in the most minute local detail, of places the most widely contrasted; and we saw with equal vividness the lazy cathedral town and the lurid opium-eater's den.[ ] something like the old lightness and buoyancy of animal spirits gave a new freshness to the humour; the scenes of the child-heroine and her luckless betrothed had both novelty and nicety of character in them; and mr. grewgious in chambers with his clerk and the two waiters, the conceited fool sapsea, and the blustering philanthropist honeythunder, were first-rate comedy. miss twinkleton was of the family of miss la creevy; and the lodging-house keeper, miss billickin, though she gave miss twinkleton but a sorry account of her blood, had that of mrs. todgers in her veins. "i was put in life to a very genteel boarding-school, the mistress being no less a lady than yourself, of about your own age, or it may be, some years younger, and a poorness of blood flowed from the table which has run through my life." was ever anything better said of a school-fare of starved gentility? the last page of _edwin drood_ was written in the châlet in the afternoon of his last day of consciousness; and i have thought there might be some interest in a facsimile of the greater part of this final page of manuscript that ever came from his hand, at which he had worked unusually late in order to finish the chapter. it has very much the character, in its excessive care of correction and interlineation, of all his later manuscripts; and in order that comparison may be made with his earlier and easier method, i place beside it a portion of a page of the original of _oliver twist_. his greater pains and elaboration of writing, it may be mentioned, become first very obvious in the later parts of _martin chuzzlewit_; but not the least remarkable feature in all his manuscripts, is the accuracy with which the portions of each representing the several numbers are exactly adjusted to the space the printer had to fill. whether without erasure or so interlined as to be illegible, nothing is wanting, and there is nothing in excess. so assured was the habit, that he has himself remarked upon an instance the other way, in _our mutual friend_, as not having happened to him for thirty years. but _edwin drood_ more startlingly showed him how unsettled the habit he most prized had become, in the clashing of old and new pursuits. "when i had written" ( nd of december ) "and, as i thought, disposed of the first two numbers of my story, clowes informed me to my horror that they were, together, _twelve printed pages too short_!!! consequently i had to transpose a chapter from number two to number one, and remodel number two altogether! this was the more unlucky, that it came upon me at the time when i was obliged to leave the book, in order to get up the readings" (the additional twelve for which sir thomas watson's consent had been obtained), "quite gone out of my mind since i left them off. however, i turned to it and got it done, and both numbers are now in type. charles collins has designed an excellent cover." it was his wish that his son-in-law should have illustrated the story; but, this not being practicable, upon an opinion expressed by mr. millais which the result thoroughly justified, choice was made of mr. s. l. fildes. * * * * * [illustration: handwritten notes] [illustration: handwritten notes] this reference to the last effort of dickens's genius had been written as it thus stands, when a discovery of some interest was made by the writer. within the leaves of one of dickens's other manuscripts were found some detached slips of his writing, on paper only half the size of that used for the tale, so cramped, interlined, and blotted as to be nearly illegible, which on close inspection proved to be a scene in which sapsea the auctioneer is introduced as the principal figure, among a group of characters new to the story. the explanation of it perhaps is, that, having become a little nervous about the course of the tale, from a fear that he might have plunged too soon into the incidents leading on to the catastrophe, such as the datchery assumption in the fifth number (a misgiving he had certainly expressed to his sister-in-law), it had occurred to him to open some fresh veins of character incidental to the interest, though not directly part of it, and so to handle them in connection with sapsea as a little to suspend the final development even while assisting to strengthen it. before beginning any number of a serial he used, as we have seen in former instances, to plan briefly what he intended to put into it chapter by chapter; and his first number-plan of _drood_ had the following: "mr. sapsea. old tory jackass. connect jasper with him. (he will want a solemn donkey by and by):" which was effected by bringing together both durdles and jasper, for connection with sapsea, in the matter of the epitaph for mrs. sapsea's tomb. the scene now discovered might in this view have been designed to strengthen and carry forward that element in the tale; and otherwise it very sufficiently expresses itself. it would supply an answer, if such were needed, to those who have asserted that the hopeless decadence of dickens as a writer had set in before his death. among the lines last written by him, these are the very last we can ever hope to receive; and they seem to me a delightful specimen of the power possessed by him in his prime, and the rarest which any novelist can have, of revealing a character by a touch. here are a couple of people, kimber and peartree, not known to us before, whom we read off thoroughly in a dozen words; and as to sapsea himself, auctioneer and mayor of cloisterham, we are face to face with what before we only dimly realised, and we see the solemn jackass, in his business pulpit, playing off the airs of mr. dean in his cathedral pulpit, with cloisterham laughing at the impostor. "how mr. sapsea ceased to be a member of the eight club. "told by himself. "wishing to take the air, i proceeded by a circuitous route to the club, it being our weekly night of meeting. i found that we mustered our full strength. we were enrolled under the denomination of the eight club. we were eight in number; we met at eight o'clock during eight months of the year; we played eight games of four-handed cribbage, at eightpence the game; our frugal supper was composed of eight rolls, eight mutton chops, eight pork sausages, eight baked potatoes, eight marrow-bones, with eight toasts, and eight bottles of ale. there may, or may not, be a certain harmony of colour in the ruling idea of this (to adopt a phrase of our lively neighbours) reunion. it was a little idea of mine. "a somewhat popular member of the eight club, was a member by the name of kimber. by profession, a dancing-master. a commonplace, hopeful sort of man, wholly destitute of dignity or knowledge of the world. "as i entered the club-room, kimber was making the remark: 'and he still half-believes him to be very high in the church.' "in the act of hanging up my hat on the eighth peg by the door, i caught kimber's visual ray. he lowered it, and passed a remark on the next change of the moon. i did not take particular notice of this at the moment, because the world was often pleased to be a little shy of ecclesiastical topics in my presence. for i felt that i was picked out (though perhaps only through a coincidence) to a certain extent to represent what i call our glorious constitution in church and state. the phrase may be objected to by captious minds; but i own to it as mine. i threw it off in argument some little time back. i said: 'our glorious constitution in church and state.' "another member of the eight club was peartree; also member of the royal college of surgeons. mr. peartree is not accountable to me for his opinions, and i say no more of them here than that he attends the poor gratis whenever they want him, and is not the parish doctor. mr. peartree may justify it to the grasp of _his_ mind thus to do his republican utmost to bring an appointed officer into contempt. suffice it that mr. peartree can never justify it to the grasp of _mine_. "between peartree and kimber there was a sickly sort of feeble-minded alliance. it came under my particular notice when i sold off kimber by auction. (goods taken in execution). he was a widower in a white under-waistcoat, and slight shoes with bows, and had two daughters not ill-looking. indeed the reverse. both daughters taught dancing in scholastic establishments for young ladies--had done so at mrs. sapsea's; nay, twinkleton's--and both, in giving lessons, presented the unwomanly spectacle of having little fiddles tucked under their chins. in spite of which, the younger one might, if i am correctly informed--i will raise the veil so far as to say i know she might--have soared for life from this degrading taint, but for having the class of mind allotted to what i call the common herd, and being so incredibly devoid of veneration as to become painfully ludicrous. "when i sold off kimber without reserve, peartree (as poor as he can hold together) had several prime household lots knocked down to him. i am not to be blinded; and of course it was as plain to me what he was going to do with them, as it was that he was a brown hulking sort of revolutionary subject who had been in india with the soldiers, and ought (for the sake of society) to have his neck broke. i saw the lots shortly afterwards in kimber's lodgings--through the window--and i easily made out that there had been a sneaking pretence of lending them till better times. a man with a smaller knowledge of the world than myself might have been led to suspect that kimber had held back money from his creditors, and fraudulently bought the goods. but, besides that i knew for certain he had no money, i knew that this would involve a species of forethought not to be made compatible with the frivolity of a caperer, inoculating other people with capering, for his bread. "as it was the first time i had seen either of those two since the sale, i kept myself in what i call abeyance. when selling him up, i had delivered a few remarks--shall i say a little homely?--concerning kimber, which the world did regard as more than usually worth notice. i had come up into my pulpit;, it was said, uncommonly like--and a murmur of recognition had repeated his (i will not name whose) title, before i spoke. i had then gone on to say that all present would find, in the first page of the catalogue that was lying before them, in the last paragraph before the first lot, the following words: 'sold in pursuance of a writ of execution issued by a creditor.' i had then proceeded to remind my friends, that however frivolous, not to say contemptible, the business by which a man got his goods together, still his goods were as dear to him, and as cheap to society (if sold without reserve), as though his pursuits had been of a character that would bear serious contemplation. i had then divided my text (if i may be allowed so to call it) into three heads: firstly, sold; secondly, in pursuance of a writ of execution; thirdly, issued by a creditor; with a few moral reflections on each, and winding up with, 'now to the first lot' in a manner that was complimented when i afterwards mingled with my hearers. "so, not being certain on what terms i and kimber stood, i was grave, i was chilling. kimber, however, moving to me, i moved to kimber. (i was the creditor who had issued the writ. not that it matters.) "'i was alluding, mr. sapsea,' said kimber, 'to a stranger who entered into conversation with me in the street as i came to the club. he had been speaking to you just before, it seemed, by the churchyard; and though you had told him who you were, i could hardly persuade him that you were not high in the church.' "'idiot!' said peartree. "'ass!' said kimber. "'idiot and ass!" said the other five members. "'idiot and ass, gentlemen,' i remonstrated, looking around me, 'are strong expressions to apply to a young man of good appearance and address.' my generosity was roused; i own it. "'you'll admit that he must be a fool,' said peartree. "'you can't deny that he must be a blockhead, said kimber. "their tone of disgust amounted to being offensive. why should the young man be so calumniated? what had he done? he had only made an innocent and natural mistake. i controlled my generous indignation, and said so. "'natural?' repeated kimber; '_he's_ a natural!' "the remaining six members of the eight club laughed unanimously. it stung me. it was a scornful laugh. my anger was roused in behalf of an absent, friendless stranger. i rose (for i had been sitting down). "'gentlemen,' i said with dignity, 'i will not remain one of this club allowing opprobrium to be cast on an unoffending person in his absence. i will not so violate what i call the sacred rites of hospitality. gentlemen, until you know how to behave yourselves better, i leave you. gentlemen, until then i withdraw, from this place of meeting, whatever personal qualifications i may have brought into it. gentlemen, until then you cease to be the eight club, and must make the best you can of becoming the seven.' "i put on my hat and retired. as i went down stairs i distinctly heard them give a suppressed cheer. such is the power of demeanour and knowledge of mankind. i had forced it out of them. "ii. "whom should i meet in the street, within a few yards of the door of the inn where the club was held, but the self-same young man whose cause i had felt it my duty so warmly--and i will add so disinterestedly--to take up. "is it mr. sapsea,' he said doubtfully, 'or is it----' "'it is mr. sapsea,' i replied. "'pardon me, mr. sapsea; you appear warm, sir,' "'i have been warm,' i said, 'and on your account.' having stated the circumstances at some length (my generosity almost overpowered him), i asked him his name. "'mr. sapsea,' he answered, looking down, 'your penetration is so acute, your glance into the souls of your fellow men is so penetrating, that if i was hardy enough to deny that my name is poker, what would it avail me?' "i don't know that i had quite exactly made out to a fraction that his name _was_ poker, but i daresay i had been pretty near doing it. "'well, well,' said i, trying to put him at his ease by nodding my head in a soothing way. 'your name is poker, and there is no harm in being named poker.' "'oh mr. sapsea!' cried the young man, in a very well-behaved manner. 'bless you for those words!' he then, as if ashamed of having given way to his feelings, looked down again. "'come, poker,' said i, 'let me hear more about you. tell me. where are you going to, poker? and where do you come from?' "'ah mr. sapsea!' exclaimed the young man. 'disguise from you is impossible. you know already that i come from somewhere, and am going somewhere else. if i was to deny it, what would it avail me?' "'then don't deny it,' was my remark. "'or,' pursued poker, in a kind of despondent rapture, 'or if i was to deny that i came to this town to see and hear you sir, what would it avail me? or if i was to deny----'" the fragment ends there, and the hand that could alone have completed it is at rest for ever. * * * * * some personal characteristics remain for illustration before the end is briefly told. footnotes: [ ] in drawing the agreement for the publication, mr. ouvry had, by dickens's wish, inserted a clause thought to be altogether needless, but found to be sadly pertinent. it was the first time such a clause had been inserted in one of his agreements. "that if the said charles dickens shall die during the composition of the said work of the _mystery of edwin drood_, or shall otherwise become incapable of completing the said work for publication in twelve monthly numbers as agreed, it shall be referred to john forster, esq, one of her majesty's commissioners in lunacy, or in the case of his death, incapacity, or refusal to act, then to such person as shall be named by her majesty's attorney-general for the time being, to determine the amount which shall be repaid by the said charles dickens, his executors or administrators, to the said frederic chapman as a fair compensation for so much of the said work as shall not have been completed for publication." the sum to be paid at once for , copies was £ ; publisher and author sharing equally in the profit of all sales beyond that impression; and the number reached, while the author yet lived, was , . the sum paid for early sheets to america was £ ; and baron tauchnitz paid liberally, as he always did, for his leipzig reprint. "all mr. dickens's works," m. tauchnitz writes to me, "have been published under agreement by me. my intercourse with him lasted nearly twenty-seven years. the first of his letters dates in october , and his last at the close of march . our long relations were not only never troubled by the least disagreement, but were the occasion of most hearty personal feeling; and i shall never lose the sense of his kind and friendly nature. on my asking him his terms for _edwin drood_, he replied 'your terms shall be mine.'" [ ] "i have a very remarkable story indeed for you to read. it is in only two chapters. a thing never to melt into other stories in the mind, but always to keep itself apart." the story was published in the th number of the new series of _all the year round_, with the title of "an experience." the "new series" had been started to break up the too great length of volumes in sequence, and the only change it announced was the discontinuance of christmas numbers. he had tired of them himself; and, observing the extent to which they were now copied in all directions (as usual with other examples set by him), he supposed them likely to become tiresome to the public. [ ] the reader curious in such matters will be helped to the clue for much of this portion of the plot by reference to pp. , , and , in chapters xii, xiii, and xiv. [ ] i subjoin what has been written to me by an american correspondent. "i went lately with the same inspector who accompanied dickens to see the room of the opium-smokers, old eliza and her lascar or bengalee friend. there a fancy seized me to buy the bedstead which figures so accurately in _edwin drood_, in narrative and picture. i gave the old woman a pound for it, and have it now packed and ready for shipment to new york. another american bought a pipe. so you see we have heartily forgiven the novelist his pleasantries at our expense. many military men who came to england from america refuse to register their titles, especially if they be colonels; all the result of the basting we got on that score in _martin chuzzlewit_." chapter xix. personal characteristics. - . dickens not a bookish man--character of his talk--dickens made to tell his own story--lord russell on dickens's letters--no self-conceit in dickens--letter to his youngest son--personal prayer--hymn in a christmas tale--objection to posthumous honours--source of quarrel with literary fund--small poets--on "royalty" bargains--editorship--relations with contributors--foreign views of english people--editorial pleasures--adverse influences of periodical writing--anger and satire--no desire to enter the house of commons--reforms he took most interest in--the liverpool dinner in --tribute to lord russell--the people governing and the people governed--tone of last book--alleged offers from the queen--the queen's desire to see dickens act--her majesty's wish to hear dickens read--interview with the queen--dickens's grateful impression from it--"in memoriam" by arthur helps--rural enjoyments--a winner in the games--dickens's habits of life everywhere--centre and soul of his home--daily habits--london haunts--first attack of lameness--how it affected his large dogs--his hatred of indifference--at social meetings--agreeable pleasantries--ghost stories--marvels of coincidence--predominant impression of his life--effects on his career. objection has been taken to this biography as likely to disappoint its readers in not making them "talk to dickens as boswell makes them talk to johnson." but where will the blame lie if a man takes up _pickwick_ and is disappointed to find that he is not reading _rasselas_? a book must be judged for what it aims to be, and not for what it cannot by possibility be. i suppose so remarkable an author as dickens hardly ever lived who carried so little of authorship into ordinary social intercourse. potent as the sway of his writings was over him, it expressed itself in other ways. traces or triumphs of literary labour, displays of conversational or other personal predominance, were no part of the influence he exerted over friends. to them he was only the pleasantest of companions, with whom they forgot that he had ever written anything, and felt only the charm which a nature of such capacity for supreme enjoyment causes every one around it to enjoy. his talk was unaffected and natural, never bookish in the smallest degree. he was quite up to the average of well read men, but as there was no ostentation of it in his writing, so neither was there in his conversation. this was so attractive because so keenly observant, and lighted up with so many touches of humorous fancy; but, with every possible thing to give relish to it, there were not many things to bring away. of course a book must stand or fall by its contents. macaulay said very truly that the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, not by what is written about them, but by what is written in them. i offer no complaint of any remark made upon these volumes, but there have been some misapprehensions. though dickens bore outwardly so little of the impress of his writings, they formed the whole of that inner life which essentially constituted the man; and as in this respect he was actually, i have thought that his biography should endeavour to present him. the story of his books, therefore, at all stages of their progress, and of the hopes or designs connected with them, was my first care. with that view, and to give also to the memoir what was attainable of the value of autobiography, letters to myself, such as were never addressed to any other of his correspondents, and covering all the important incidents in the life to be retraced, were used with few exceptions exclusively; and though the exceptions are much more numerous in the present volume, this general plan has guided me to the end. such were my limits indeed, that half even of those letters had to be put aside; and to have added all such others as were open to me would have doubled the size of my book, not contributed to it a new fact of life or character, and altered materially its design. it would have been so much lively illustration added to the subject, but out of place here. the purpose here was to make dickens the sole central figure in the scenes revived, narrator as well as principal actor; and only by the means employed could consistency or unity be given to the self-revelation, and the picture made definite and clear. it is the peculiarity of few men to be to their most intimate friend neither more nor less than they are to themselves, but this was true of dickens; and what kind or quality of nature such intercourse expressed in him, of what strength, tenderness, and delicacy susceptible, of what steady level warmth, of what daily unresting activity of intellect, of what unbroken continuity of kindly impulse through the change and vicissitude of three-and-thirty years, the letters to myself given in these volumes could alone express. gathered from various and differing sources, their interest could not have been as the interest of these; in which everything comprised in the successive stages of a most attractive career is written with unexampled candour and truthfulness, and set forth in definite pictures of what he saw and stood in the midst of, unblurred by vagueness or reserve. of the charge of obtruding myself to which their publication has exposed me, i can only say that i studied nothing so hard as to suppress my own personality, and have to regret my ill success where i supposed i had even too perfectly succeeded. but we have all of us frequent occasion to say, parodying mrs. peachem's remark, that we are bitter bad judges of ourselves. the other properties of these letters are quite subordinate to this main fact that the man who wrote them is thus perfectly seen in them. but they do not lessen the estimate of his genius. admiration rises higher at the writer's mental forces, who, putting so much of himself into his work for the public, had still so much overflowing for such private intercourse. the sunny health of nature in them is manifest; its largeness, spontaneity, and manliness; but they have also that which highest intellects appreciate best. "i have read them," lord russell wrote to me, "with delight and pain. his heart, his imagination, his qualities of painting what is noble, and finding diamonds hidden far away, are greater here than even his works convey to me. how i lament he was not spared to us longer. i shall have a fresh grief when he dies in your volumes." shallower people are more apt to find other things. if the bonhommie of a man's genius is obvious to all the world, there are plenty of knowing ones ready to take the shine out of the genius, to discover that after all it is not so wonderful, that what is grave in it wants depth, and the humour has something mechanical. but it will be difficult even for these to look over letters so marvellous in the art of reproducing to the sight what has once been seen, so natural and unstudied in their wit and fun, and with such a constant well-spring of sprightly runnings of speech in them, point of epigram, ingenuity of quaint expression, absolute freedom from every touch of affectation, and to believe that the source of this man's humour, or of whatever gave wealth to his genius, was other than habitual, unbounded, and resistless. there is another consideration of some importance. sterne did not more incessantly fall back from his works upon himself than dickens did, and undoubtedly one of the impressions left by the letters is that of the intensity and tenacity with which he recognized, realized, contemplated, cultivated, and thoroughly enjoyed, his own individuality in even its most trivial manifestations. but if any one is led to ascribe this to self-esteem, to a narrow exclusiveness, or to any other invidious form of egotism, let him correct the impression by observing how dickens bore himself amid the universal blazing-up of america, at the beginning and at the end of his career. of his hearty, undisguised, and unmistakeable enjoyment of his astonishing and indeed quite bewildering popularity, there can be as little doubt as that there is not a particle of vanity in it, any more than of false modesty or grimace.[ ] while realizing fully the fact of it, and the worth of the fact, there is not in his whole being a fibre that answers falsely to the charmer's voice. few men in the world, one fancies, could have gone through such grand displays of fireworks, not merely with so marvellous an absence of what the french call _pose_, but unsoiled by the smoke of a cracker. no man's strong individuality was ever so free from conceit. other personal incidents and habits, and especially some matters of opinion of grave importance, will help to make his character better known. much questioning followed a brief former reference to his religious belief, but, inconsistent or illogical as the conduct described may be, there is nothing to correct or to modify in my statement of it;[ ] and, to what otherwise appeared to be in doubt, explicit answer will be afforded by a letter, written upon the youngest of his children leaving home in september to join his brother in australia, than which none worthier appears in his story. "i write this note to-day because your going away is much upon my mind, and because i want you to have a few parting words from me, to think of now and then at quiet times. i need not tell you that i love you dearly, and am very, very sorry in my heart to part with you. but this life is half made up of partings, and these pains must be borne. it is my comfort and my sincere conviction that you are going to try the life for which you are best fitted. i think its freedom and wildness more suited to you than any experiment in a study or office would have been; and without that training, you could have followed no other suitable occupation. what you have always wanted until now, has been a set, steady, constant purpose. i therefore exhort you to persevere in a thorough determination to do whatever you have to do, as well as you can do it. i was not so old as you are now, when i first had to win my food, and to do it out of this determination; and i have never slackened in it since. never take a mean advantage of any one in any transaction, and never be hard upon people who are in your power. try to do to others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. it is much better for you that they should fail in obeying the greatest rule laid down by our saviour than that you should. i put a new testament among your books for the very same reasons, and with the very same hopes, that made me write an easy account of it for you, when you were a little child. because it is the best book that ever was, or will be, known in the world; and because it teaches you the best lessons by which any human creature, who tries to be truthful and faithful to duty, can possibly be guided. as your brothers have gone away, one by one, i have written to each such words as i am now writing to you, and have entreated them all to guide themselves by this book, putting aside the interpretations and inventions of man. you will remember that you have never at home been harassed about religious observances, or mere formalities. i have always been anxious not to weary my children with such things, before they are old enough to form opinions respecting them. you will therefore understand the better that i now most solemnly impress upon you the truth and beauty of the christian religion, as it came from christ himself, and the impossibility of your going far wrong if you humbly but heartily respect it. only one thing more on this head. the more we are in earnest as to feeling it, the less we are disposed to hold forth about it. never abandon the wholesome practice of saying your own private prayers, night and morning. i have never abandoned it myself, and i know the comfort of it. i hope you will always be able to say in after life, that you had a kind father. you cannot show your affection for him so well, or make him so happy, as by doing your duty." they who most intimately knew dickens will know best that every word there is written from his heart, and is radiant with the truth of his nature. to the same effect, in the leading matter, he expressed himself twelve years before, and again the day before his death; replying in both cases to correspondents who had addressed him as a public writer. a clergyman, the rev. r. h. davies, had been struck by the hymn in the christmas tale of the wreck of the golden mary (_household words_, ). "i beg to thank you" dickens answered (christmas eve, ) "for your very acceptable letter--not the less gratifying to me because i am myself the writer you refer to. . . . there cannot be many men, i believe, who have a more humble veneration for the new testament, or a more profound conviction of its all-sufficiency, than i have. if i am ever (as you tell me i am) mistaken on this subject, it is because i discountenance all obtrusive professions of and tradings in religion, as one of the main causes why real christianity has been retarded in this world; and because my observation of life induces me to hold in unspeakable dread and horror, those unseemly squabbles about the letter which drive the spirit out of hundreds of thousands." in precisely similar tone, to a reader of _edwin drood_ (mr. j. m. makeham), who had pointed out to him that his employment as a figure of speech of a line from holy writ in his tenth chapter might be subject to misconstruction, he wrote from gadshill on wednesday the eighth of june, . "it would be quite inconceivable to me, but for your letter, that any reasonable reader could possibly attach a scriptural reference to that passage. . . . i am truly shocked to find that any reader can make the mistake. i have always striven in my writings to express veneration for the life and lessons of our saviour; because i feel it; and because i re-wrote that history for my children--every one of whom knew it, from having it repeated to them, long before they could read, and almost as soon as they could speak. but i have never made proclamation of this from the house tops."[ ] a dislike of all display was rooted in him; and his objection to posthumous honours, illustrated by the instructions in his will, was very strikingly expressed two years before his death, when mr. thomas fairbairn asked his help to a proposed recognition of rajah brooke's services by a memorial in westminster abbey. "i am very strongly impelled" ( th of june ) "to comply with any request of yours. but these posthumous honours of committee, subscriptions, and westminster abbey are so profoundly unsatisfactory in my eyes that--plainly--i would rather have nothing to do with them in any case. my daughter and her aunt unite with me in kindest regards to mrs. fairbairn, and i hope you will believe in the possession of mine until i am quietly buried without any memorial but such as i have set up in my lifetime." asked a year later (august ) to say something on the inauguration of leigh hunt's bust at his grave in kensal-green, he told the committee that he had a very strong objection to speech-making beside graves. "i do not expect or wish my feelings in this wise to guide other men; still, it is so serious with me, and the idea of ever being the subject of such a ceremony myself is so repugnant to my soul, that i must decline to officiate." his aversion to every form of what is called patronage of literature[ ] was part of the same feeling. a few months earlier a manchester gentleman[ ] wrote for his support to such a scheme. "i beg to be excused," was his reply, "from complying with the request you do me the honour to prefer, simply because i hold the opinion that there is a great deal too much patronage in england. the better the design, the less (as i think) should it seek such adventitious aid, and the more composedly should it rest on its own merits." this was the belief southey held; it extended to the support by way of patronage given by such societies as the literary fund, which southey also strongly resisted; and it survived the failure of the guild whereby it was hoped to establish a system of self-help, under which men engaged in literary pursuits might be as proud to receive as to give. though there was no project of his life into which he flung himself with greater eagerness than the guild, it was not taken up by the class it was meant to benefit, and every renewed exertion more largely added to the failure. there is no room in these pages for the story, which will add its chapter some day to the vanity of human wishes; but a passage from a letter to bulwer lytton at its outset will be some measure of the height from which the writer fell, when all hope for what he had so set his heart upon ceased. "i do devoutly believe that this plan, carried by the support which i trust will be given to it, will change the status of the literary man in england, and make a revolution in his position which no government, no power on earth but his own, could ever effect. i have implicit confidence in the scheme--so splendidly begun--if we carry it out with a stedfast energy. i have a strong conviction that we hold in our hands the peace and honour of men of letters for centuries to come, and that you are destined to be their best and most enduring benefactor. . . . oh what a procession of new years may walk out of all this for the class we belong to, after we are dust." these views about patronage did not make him more indulgent to the clamour with which it is so often invoked for the ridiculously small. "you read that life of clare?" he wrote ( th of august ). "did you ever see such preposterous exaggeration of small claims? and isn't it expressive, the perpetual prating of him in the book as _the poet_? so another incompetent used to write to the literary fund when i was on the committee: 'this leaves the poet at his divine mission in a corner of the single room. the poet's father is wiping his spectacles. the poet's mother is weaving'--yah!'" he was equally intolerant of every magnificent proposal that should render the literary man independent of the bookseller, and he sharply criticized even a compromise to replace the half-profits system by one of royalties on copies sold. "what does it come to?" he remarked of an ably-written pamphlet in which this was urged ( th of november ): "what is the worth of the remedy after all? you and i know very well that in nine cases out of ten the author is at a disadvantage with the publisher because the publisher has capital and the author has not. we know perfectly well that in nine cases out of ten money is advanced by the publisher before the book is producible--often, long before. no young or unsuccessful author (unless he were an amateur and an independent gentleman) would make a bargain for having that royalty, to-morrow, if he could have a certain sum of money, or an advance of money. the author who could command that bargain, could command it to-morrow, or command anything else. for the less fortunate or the less able, i make bold to say--with some knowledge of the subject, as a writer who made a publisher's fortune long before he began to share in the real profits of his books--that if the publishers met next week, and resolved henceforth to make this royalty bargain and no other, it would be an enormous hardship and misfortune because the authors could not live while they wrote. the pamphlet seems to me just another example of the old philosophical chess-playing, with human beings for pieces. 'don't want money.' 'be careful to be born with means, and have a banker's account.' 'your publisher will settle with you, at such and such long periods according to the custom of his trade, and you will settle with your butcher and baker weekly, in the meantime, by drawing cheques as i do.' 'you must be sure not to want money, and then i have worked it out for you splendidly.'" less has been said in this work than might perhaps have been wished, of the way in which his editorship of _household words_ and _all the year round_ was discharged. it was distinguished above all by liberality; and a scrupulous consideration and delicacy, evinced by him to all his contributors, was part of the esteem in which he held literature itself. it was said in a newspaper after his death, evidently by one of his contributors, that he always brought the best out of a man by encouragement and appreciation; that he liked his writers to feel unfettered; and that his last reply to a proposition for a series of articles had been: "whatever you see your way to, i will see mine to, and we know and understand each other well enough to make the best of these conditions." yet the strong feeling of personal responsibility was always present in his conduct of both journals; and varied as the contents of a number might be, and widely apart the writers, a certain individuality of his own was never absent. he took immense pains (as indeed was his habit about everything) with numbers in which he had written nothing; would often accept a paper from a young or unhandy contributor, because of some single notion in it which he thought it worth rewriting for; and in this way, or by helping generally to give strength and attractiveness to the work of others, he grudged no trouble.[ ] "i have had a story" he wrote ( nd of june ) "to hack and hew into some form for _household words_ this morning, which has taken me four hours of close attention. and i am perfectly addled by its horrible want of continuity after all, and the dreadful spectacle i have made of the proofs--which look like an inky fishing-net." a few lines from another letter will show the difficulties in which he was often involved by the plan he adopted for christmas numbers, of putting within a framework by himself a number of stories by separate writers to whom the leading notion had before been severally sent. "as yet" ( th of november ), "not a story has come to me in the least belonging to the idea (the simplest in the world; which i myself described in writing, in the most elaborate manner); and everyone of them turns, by a strange fatality, on a criminal trial!" it had all to be set right by him, and editorship on such terms was not a sinecure. it had its pleasures as well as pains, however, and the greatest was when he fancied he could descry unusual merit in any writer. a letter will give one instance for illustration of many; the lady to whom it was addressed, admired under her assumed name of holme lee, having placed it at my disposal. (folkestone: th of august .) "i read your tale with the strongest emotion, and with a very exalted admiration of the great power displayed in it. both in severity and tenderness i thought it masterly. it moved me more than i can express to you. i wrote to mr. wills that it had completely unsettled me for the day, and that by whomsoever it was written, i felt the highest respect for the mind that had produced it. it so happened that i had been for some days at work upon a character externally like the aunt. and it was very strange to me indeed to observe how the two people seemed to be near to one another at first, and then turned off on their own ways so wide asunder. i told mr. wills that i was not sure whether i could have prevailed upon myself to present to a large audience the terrible consideration of hereditary madness, when it was reasonably probable that there must be many--or some--among them whom it would awfully, because personally, address. but i was not obliged to ask myself the question, inasmuch as the length of the story rendered it unavailable for _household words_. i speak of its length in reference to that publication only; relatively to what is told in it, i would not spare a page of your manuscript. experience shows me that a story in four portions is best suited to the peculiar requirements of such a journal, and i assure you it will be an uncommon satisfaction to me if this correspondence should lead to your enrolment among its contributors. but my strong and sincere conviction of the vigour and pathos of this beautiful tale, is quite apart from, and not to be influenced by, any ulterior results. you had no existence to me when i read it. the actions and sufferings of the characters affected me by their own force and truth, and left a profound impression on me."[ ] the experience there mentioned did not prevent him from admitting into his later periodical, _all the year round_, longer serial stories published with the names of known writers; and to his own interference with these he properly placed limits. "when one of my literary brothers does me the honour to undertake such a task, i hold that he executes it on his own personal responsibility, and for the sustainment of his own reputation; and i do not consider myself at liberty to exercise that control over his text which i claim as to other contributions." nor had he any greater pleasure, even in these cases, than to help younger novelists to popularity. "you asked me about new writers last night. if you will read _kissing the rod_, a book i have read to-day, you will not find it hard to take an interest in the author of such a book." that was mr. edmund yates, in whose literary successes he took the greatest interest himself, and with whom he continued to the last an intimate personal intercourse which had dated from kindness shown at a very trying time. "i think" he wrote of another of his contributors, mr. percy fitzgerald, for whom he had also much personal liking, and of whose powers he thought highly, "you will find _fatal zero_ a very curious bit of mental development, deepening as the story goes on into a picture not more startling than true." my mention of these pleasures of editorship shall close with what i think to him was the greatest. he gave to the world, while yet the name of the writer was unknown to him, the pure and pathetic verse of adelaide procter. "in the spring of the year i observed a short poem among the proffered contributions, very different, as i thought, from the shoal of verses perpetually setting through the office of such a periodical."[ ] the contributions had been large and frequent under an assumed name, when at christmas he discovered that miss mary berwick was the daughter of his old and dear friend barry cornwall. but periodical writing is not without its drawbacks, and its effect on dickens, who engaged in it largely from time to time, was observable in the increased impatience of allusion to national institutions and conventional distinctions to be found in his later books. party divisions he cared for less and less as life moved on; but the decisive, peremptory, dogmatic style, into which a habit of rapid remark on topics of the day will betray the most candid and considerate commentator, displayed its influence, perhaps not always consciously to himself, in the underlying tone of bitterness that runs through the books which followed _copperfield_. the resentment against remediable wrongs is as praiseworthy in them as in the earlier tales; but the exposure of chancery abuses, administrative incompetence, politico-economic shortcomings, and social flunkeyism, in _bleak house_, _little dorrit_, _hard times_, and _our mutual friend_, would not have been made less odious by the cheerier tone that had struck with much sharper effect at prison abuses, parish wrongs, yorkshire schools, and hypocritical humbug, in _pickwick_, _oliver twist_, _nickleby_, and _chuzzlewit_. it will be remembered of him always that he desired to set right what was wrong, that he held no abuse to be unimprovable, that he left none of the evils named exactly as he found them, and that to influences drawn from his writings were due not a few of the salutary changes which marked the age in which he lived; but anger does not improve satire, and it gave latterly, from the causes named, too aggressive a form to what, after all, was but a very wholesome hatred of the cant that everything english is perfect, and that to call a thing _un_english is to doom it to abhorred extinction. "i have got an idea for occasional papers in _household words_ called the member for nowhere. they will contain an account of his views, votes, and speeches; and i think of starting with his speeches on the sunday question. he is a member of the government of course. the moment they found such a member in the house, they felt that he must be dragged (by force, if necessary) into the cabinet." "i give it up reluctantly," he wrote afterwards, "and with it my hope to have made every man in england feel something of the contempt for the house of commons that i have. we shall never begin to do anything until the sentiment is universal." that was in august ; and the break-down in the crimea that winter much embittered his radicalism. "i am hourly strengthened in my old belief," he wrote ( rd of february ) "that our political aristocracy and our tuft-hunting are the death of england. in all this business i don't see a gleam of hope. as to the popular spirit, it has come to be so entirely separated from the parliament and government, and so perfectly apathetic about them both, that i seriously think it a most portentous sign." a couple of months later: "i have rather a bright idea, i think, for _household words_ this morning: a fine little bit of satire: an account of an arabic ms. lately discovered very like the _arabian nights_--called the thousand and one humbugs. with new versions of the best known stories." this also had to be given up, and is only mentioned as another illustration of his political discontents and of their connection with his journal-work. the influences from his early life which unconsciously strengthened them in certain social directions has been hinted at, and of his absolute sincerity in the matter there can be no doubt. the mistakes of dickens were never such as to cast a shade on his integrity. what he said with too much bitterness, in his heart he believed; and had, alas! too much ground for believing. "a country," he wrote ( th of april ) "which is discovered to be in this tremendous condition as to its war affairs; with an enormous black cloud of poverty in every town which is spreading and deepening every hour, and not one man in two thousand knowing anything about, or even believing in, its existence; with a non-working aristocracy, and a silent parliament, and everybody for himself and nobody for the rest; this is the prospect, and i think it a very deplorable one." admirably did he say, of a notorious enquiry at that time: "o what a fine aspect of political economy it is, that the noble professors of the science on the adulteration committee should have tried to make adulteration a question of supply and demand! we shall never get to the millennium, sir, by the rounds of that ladder; and i, for one, won't hold by the skirts of that great mogul of impostors, master m'culloch!" again he wrote ( th of september ): "i really am serious in thinking--and i have given as painful consideration to the subject as a man with children to live and suffer after him can honestly give to it--that representative government is become altogether a failure with us, that the english gentilities and subserviences render the people unfit for it, and that the whole thing has broken down since that great seventeenth-century time, and has no hope in it." with the good sense that still overruled all his farthest extremes of opinion he yet never thought of parliament for himself. he could not mend matters, and for him it would have been a false position. the people of the town of reading and others applied to him during the first half of his life, and in the last half some of the metropolitan constituencies. to one of the latter a reply is before me in which he says: "i declare that as to all matters on the face of this teeming earth, it appears to me that the house of commons and parliament altogether is become just the dreariest failure and nuisance that ever bothered this much-bothered world." to a private enquiry of apparently about the same date he replied: "i have thoroughly satisfied myself, having often had occasion to consider the question, that i can be far more usefully and independently employed in my chosen sphere of action than i could hope to be in the house of commons; and i believe that no consideration would induce me to become a member of that extraordinary assembly." finally, upon a reported discussion in finsbury whether or not he should be invited to sit for that borough, he promptly wrote (november ): "it may save some trouble if you will kindly confirm a sensible gentleman who doubted at that meeting whether i was quite the man for finsbury. i am not at all the sort of man; for i believe nothing would induce me to offer myself as a parliamentary representative of that place, or of any other under the sun." the only direct attempt to join a political agitation was his speech at drury-lane for administrative reform, and he never repeated it. but every movement for practical social reforms, to obtain more efficient sanitary legislation, to get the best compulsory education practicable for the poor, and to better the condition of labouring people, he assisted earnestly to his last hour; and the readiness with which he took the chair at meetings having such objects in view, the help he gave to important societies working in beneficent ways for themselves or the community, and the power and attractiveness of his oratory, made him one of the forces of the time. his speeches derived singular charm from the buoyancy of his perfect self-possession, and to this he added the advantages of a person and manner which had become as familiar and as popular as his books. the most miscellaneous assemblages listened to him as to a personal friend. two incidents at the close of his life will show what upon these matters his latest opinions were. at the great liverpool dinner after his country readings in , over which lord dufferin eloquently presided, he replied to a remonstrance from lord houghton against his objection to entering public life,[ ] that when he took literature for his profession he intended it to be his sole profession; that at that time it did not appear to him to be so well understood in england, as in some other countries, that literature was a dignified profession by which any man might stand or fall; and he resolved that in his person at least it should stand "by itself, of itself, and for itself;" a bargain which "no consideration on earth would now induce him to break." here however he probably failed to see the entire meaning of lord houghton's regret, which would seem to have been meant to say, in more polite form, that to have taken some part in public affairs might have shown him the difficulty in a free state of providing remedies very swiftly for evils of long growth. a half reproach from the same quarter for alleged unkindly sentiments to the house of lords, he repelled with vehement warmth; insisting on his great regard for individual members, and declaring that there was no man in england he respected more in his public capacity, loved more in his private capacity, or from whom he had received more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature, than lord russell.[ ] in birmingham shortly after, discoursing on education to the members of the midland institute, he told them they should value self-improvement not because it led to fortune but because it was good and right in itself; counselled them in regard to it that genius was not worth half so much as attention, or the art of taking an immense deal of pains, which he declared to be, in every study and pursuit, the one sole, safe, certain, remunerative quality; and summed up briefly his political belief.--"my faith in the people governing is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the people governed is, on the whole, illimitable." this he afterwards (january ) explained to mean that he had very little confidence in the people who govern us ("with a small p"), and very great confidence in the people whom they govern ("with a large p"). "my confession being shortly and elliptically stated, was, with no evil intention i am absolutely sure, in some quarters inversely explained." he added that his political opinions had already been not obscurely stated in an "idle book or two"; and he reminded his hearers that he was the inventor "of a certain fiction called the circumlocution office, said to be very extravagant, but which i _do_ see rather frequently quoted as if there were grains of truth at the bottom of it." it may nevertheless be suspected, with some confidence, that the construction of his real meaning was not far wrong which assumed it as the condition precedent to his illimitable faith, that the people, even with the big p, should be "governed." it was his constant complaint that, being much in want of government, they had only sham governors; and he had returned from his second american visit, as he came back from his first, indisposed to believe that the political problem had been solved in the land of the free. from the pages of his last book, the bitterness of allusion so frequent in the books just named was absent altogether; and his old unaltered wish to better what was bad in english institutions, carried with it no desire to replace them by new ones. in a memoir published shortly after his death there appeared this statement. "for many years past her majesty the queen has taken the liveliest interest in mr. dickens's literary labours, and has frequently expressed a desire for an interview with him. . . . this interview took place on the th of april, when he received her commands to attend her at buckingham palace, and was introduced by his friend mr. arthur helps, the clerk of the privy council. . . . since our author's decease the journal with which he was formerly connected has said: 'the queen was ready to confer any distinction which mr. dickens's known views and tastes would permit him to accept, and after more than one title of honour had been declined, her majesty desired that he would, at least, accept a place in her privy council.'" as nothing is too absurd[ ] for belief, it will not be superfluous to say that dickens knew of no such desire on her majesty's part; and though all the probabilities are on the side of his unwillingness to accept any title or place of honour, certainly none was offered to him. it had been hoped to obtain her majesty's name for the jerrold performances in , but, being a public effort in behalf of an individual, assent would have involved "either perpetual compliance or the giving of perpetual offence." her majesty however then sent, through colonel phipps, a request to dickens that he would select a room in the palace, do what he would with it, and let her see the play there. "i said to col. phipps thereupon" ( st of june ) "that the idea was not quite new to me; that i did not feel easy as to the social position of my daughters, &c. at a court under those circumstances; and that i would beg her majesty to excuse me, if any other way of her seeing the play could be devised. to this phipps said he had not thought of the objection, but had not the slightest doubt i was right. i then proposed that the queen should come to the gallery of illustration a week before the subscription night, and should have the room entirely at her own disposal, and should invite her own company. this, with the good sense that seems to accompany her good nature on all occasions, she resolved within a few hours to do." the effect of the performance was a great gratification. "my gracious sovereign" ( th of july ) "was so pleased that she sent round begging me to go and see her and accept her thanks. i replied that i was in my farce dress, and must beg to be excused. whereupon she sent again, saying that the dress 'could not be so ridiculous as that,' and repeating the request. i sent my duty in reply, but again hoped her majesty would have the kindness to excuse my presenting myself in a costume and appearance that were not my own. i was mighty glad to think, when i woke this morning, that i had carried the point." the opportunity of presenting himself in his own costume did not arrive till the year of his death, another effort meanwhile made having proved also unsuccessful. "i was put into a state of much perplexity on sunday" ( th of march ). "i don't know who had spoken to my informant, but it seems that the queen is bent upon hearing the _carol_ read, and has expressed her desire to bring it about without offence; hesitating about the manner of it, in consequence of my having begged to be excused from going to her when she sent for me after the _frozen deep_. i parried the thing as well as i could; but being asked to be prepared with a considerate and obliging answer, as it was known the request would be preferred, i said, 'well! i supposed col. phipps would speak to me about it, and if it were he who did so, i should assure him of my desire to meet any wish of her majesty's, and should express my hope that she would indulge me by making one of some audience or other--for i thought an audience necessary to the effect.' thus it stands: but it bothers me." the difficulty was not surmounted, but her majesty's continued interest in the _carol_ was shown by her purchase of a copy of it with dickens's autograph at thackeray's sale;[ ] and at last there came, in the year of his death, the interview with the author whose popularity dated from her accession, whose books had entertained larger numbers of her subjects than those of any other contemporary writer, and whose genius will be counted among the glories of her reign. accident led to it. dickens had brought with him from america some large and striking photographs of the battle fields of the civil war, which the queen, having heard of them through mr. helps, expressed a wish to look at. dickens sent them at once; and went afterwards to buckingham palace with mr. helps, at her majesty's request, that she might see and thank him in person. it was in the middle of march, not april. "come now sir, this is an interesting matter, do favour us with it," was the cry of johnson's friends after his conversation with george the third; and again and again the story was told to listeners ready to make marvels of its commonplaces. but the romance even of the eighteenth century in such a matter is clean gone out of the nineteenth. suffice it that the queen's kindness left a strong impression on dickens. upon her majesty's regret not to have heard his readings, dickens intimated that they were become now a thing of the past, while he acknowledged gratefully her majesty's compliment in regard to them. she spoke to him of the impression made upon her by his acting in the _frozen deep_; and on his stating, in reply to her enquiry, that the little play had not been very successful on the public stage, said this did not surprise her, since it no longer had the advantage of his performance in it. then arose a mention of some alleged discourtesy shown to prince arthur in new york, and he begged her majesty not to confound the true americans of that city with the fenian portion of its irish population; on which she made the quiet comment that she was convinced the people about the prince had made too much of the affair. he related to her the story of president lincoln's dream on the night before his murder. she asked him to give her his writings, and could she have them that afternoon? but he begged to be allowed to send a bound copy. her majesty then took from a table her own book upon the highlands, with an autograph inscription "to charles dickens"; and, saying that "the humblest" of writers would be ashamed to offer it to "one of the greatest" but that mr. helps, being asked to give it, had remarked that it would be valued most from herself, closed the interview by placing it in his hands. "sir," said johnson, "they may say what they like of the young king, but louis the fourteenth could not have shown a more refined courtliness"; and dickens was not disposed to say less of the young king's granddaughter. that the grateful impression sufficed to carry him into new ways, i had immediate proof, coupled with intimation of the still surviving strength of old memories. "as my sovereign desires" ( th of march ) "that i should attend the next levee, don't faint with amazement if you see my name in that unwonted connexion. i have scrupulously kept myself free for the second of april, in case you should be accessible." the name appeared at the levee accordingly, his daughter was at the drawing-room that followed, and lady houghton writes to me "i never saw mr. dickens more agreeable than at a dinner at our house about a fortnight before his death, when he met the king of the belgians and the prince of wales at the special desire of the latter." up to nearly the hour of dinner, it was doubtful if he could go. he was suffering from the distress in his foot; and on arrival at the house, being unable to ascend the stairs, had to be assisted at once into the dining-room. the friend who had accompanied dickens to buckingham palace, writing of him[ ] after his death, briefly but with admirable knowledge and taste, said that he ardently desired, and confidently looked forward to, a time when there would be a more intimate union than exists at present between the different classes in the state, a union that should embrace alike the highest and the lowest. this perhaps expresses, as well as a few words could, what certainly was always at his heart; and he might have come to think it, when his life was closing, more possible of realisation some day than he ever thought it before. the hope of it was on his friend talfourd's lips when he died, and his own most jarring opinions might at last have joined in the effort to bring about such reconcilement. more on this head it needs not to say. whatever may be the objection to special views held by him, he would, wanting even the most objectionable, have been less himself. it was by something of the despot seldom separable from genius, joined to a truthfulness of nature belonging to the highest characters, that men themselves of a rare faculty were attracted to find in dickens what sir arthur helps has described, "a man to confide in, and look up to as a leader, in the midst of any great peril." mr. layard also held that opinion of him. he was at gadshill during the christmas before dickens went for the last time to america, and witnessed one of those scenes, not infrequent there, in which the master of the house was pre-eminently at home. they took generally the form of cricket matches; but this was, to use the phrase of his friend bobadil, more popular and diffused; and of course he rose with the occasion. "the more you want of the master, the more you'll find in him," said the gasman employed about his readings. "foot-races for the villagers," he wrote on christmas day, "come off in my field to-morrow. we have been all hard at work all day, building a course, making countless flags, and i don't know what else. layard is chief commissioner of the domestic police. the country police predict an immense crowd." there were between two and three thousand people; and somehow, by a magical kind of influence, said layard, dickens seemed to have bound every creature present, upon what honour the creature had, to keep order. what was the special means used, or the art employed, it might have been difficult to say; but that was the result. writing on new year's day, dickens himself described it to me. "we had made a very pretty course, and taken great pains. encouraged by the cricket matches experience, i allowed the landlord of the falstaff to have a drinking-booth on the ground. not to seem to dictate or distrust, i gave all the prizes (about ten pounds in the aggregate) in money. the great mass of the crowd were labouring men of all kinds, soldiers, sailors, and navvies. they did not, between half-past ten, when we began, and sunset, displace a rope or a stake; and they left every barrier and flag as neat as they found it. there was not a dispute, and there was no drunkenness whatever. i made them a little speech from the lawn, at the end of the games, saying that please god we would do it again next year. they cheered most lustily and dispersed. the road between this and chatham was like a fair all day; and surely it is a fine thing to get such perfect behaviour out of a reckless seaport town. among other oddities we had a hurdle race for strangers. one man (he came in second) ran yards and leaped over ten hurdles, in twenty seconds, _with a pipe in his mouth, and smoking it all the time_. 'if it hadn't been for your pipe,' i said to him at the winning-post, 'you would have been first.' 'i beg your pardon, sir,' he answered, 'but if it hadn't been for my pipe, i should have been nowhere.'" the close of the letter had this rather memorable announcement. "the sale of the christmas number was, yesterday evening, , ." would it be absurd to say that there is something in such a vast popularity in itself electrical, and, though founded on books, felt where books never reach? it is also very noticeable that what would have constituted the strength of dickens if he had entered public life, the attractive as well as the commanding side of his nature, was that which kept him most within the circle of home pursuits and enjoyments. this "better part" of him had now long survived that sorrowful period of - , when, for reasons which i have not thought myself free to suppress, a vaguely disturbed feeling for the time took possession of him, and occurrences led to his adoption of other pursuits than those to which till then he had given himself exclusively. it was a sad interval in his life; but, though changes incident to the new occupation then taken up remained, and with them many adverse influences which brought his life prematurely to a close, it was, with any reference to that feeling, an interval only; and the dominant impression of the later years, as of the earlier, takes the marvellously domestic home-loving shape in which also the strength of his genius is found. it will not do to draw round any part of such a man too hard a line, and the writer must not be charged with inconsistency who says that dickens's childish sufferings,[ ] and the sense they burnt into him of the misery of loneliness and a craving for joys of home, though they led to what was weakest in him, led also to what was greatest. it was his defect as well as his merit in maturer life not to be able to live alone. when the fancies of his novels were upon him and he was under their restless influence, though he often talked of shutting himself up in out of the way solitary places, he never went anywhere unaccompanied by members of his family. his habits of daily life he carried with him wherever he went. in albaro and genoa, at lausanne and geneva, in paris and boulogne, his ways were as entirely those of home as in london and broadstairs. if it is the property of a domestic nature to be personally interested in every detail, the smallest as the greatest, of the four walls within which one lives, then no man had it so essentially as dickens. no man was so inclined naturally to derive his happiness from home concerns. even the kind of interest in a house which is commonly confined to women, he was full of. not to speak of changes of importance, there was not an additional hook put up wherever he inhabited, without his knowledge, or otherwise than as part of some small ingenuity of his own. nothing was too minute for his personal superintendence. whatever might be in hand, theatricals for the little children, entertainments for those of larger growth, cricket matches, dinners, field sports, from the first new year's eve dance in doughty street to the last musical party in hyde park place, he was the centre and soul of it. he did not care to take measure of its greater or less importance. it was enough that a thing was to do, to be worth his while to do it as if there was nothing else to be done in the world. the cry of laud and wentworth was his, alike in small and great things; and to no man was more applicable the german "echt," which expresses reality as well as thoroughness. the usual result followed, in all his homes, of an absolute reliance on him for everything. under every difficulty, and in every emergency, his was the encouraging influence, the bright and ready help. in illness, whether of the children or any of the servants, he was better than a doctor. he was so full of resource, for which every one eagerly turned to him, that his mere presence in the sick-room was a healing influence, as if nothing could fail if he were only there. so that at last, when, all through the awful night which preceded his departure, he lay senseless in the room where he had fallen, the stricken and bewildered ones who tended him found it impossible to believe that what they saw before them alone was left, or to shut out wholly the strange wild hope that he might again be suddenly among them _like_ himself, and revive what they could not connect, even then, with death's despairing helplessness. it was not a feeling confined to the relatives whom he had thus taught to have such exclusive dependence on him. among the consolations addressed to those mourners came words from one whom in life he had most honoured, and who also found it difficult to connect him with death, or to think that he should never see that blithe face anymore. "it is almost thirty years," mr. carlyle wrote, "since my acquaintance with him began; and on my side, i may say, every new meeting ripened it into more and more clear discernment of his rare and great worth as a brother man: a most cordial, sincere, clear-sighted, quietly decisive, just and loving man: till at length he had grown to such a recognition with me as i have rarely had for any man of my time. this i can tell you three, for it is true and will be welcome to you: to others less concerned i had as soon _not_ speak on such a subject." "i am profoundly sorry, for _you_," mr. carlyle at the same time wrote to me; "and indeed for myself and for us all. it is an event world-wide; a _unique_ of talents suddenly extinct; and has 'eclipsed,' we too may say, 'the harmless gaiety of nations.' no death since has fallen on me with such a stroke. no literary man's hitherto ever did. the good, the gentle, high-gifted, ever-friendly, noble dickens,--every inch of him an honest man." of his ordinary habits of activity i have spoken, and they were doubtless carried too far. in youth it was all well, but he did not make allowance for years. this has had abundant illustration, but will admit of a few words more. to all men who do much, rule and order are essential; method in everything was dickens's peculiarity; and between breakfast and luncheon, with rare exceptions, was his time of work. but his daily walks were less of rule than of enjoyment and necessity. in the midst of his writing they were indispensable, and especially, as it has often been shown, at night. mr. sala is an authority on london streets, and, in the eloquent and generous tribute he was among the first to offer to his memory, has described himself encountering dickens in the oddest places and most inclement weather, in ratcliffe-highway, on haverstock-hill, on camberwell-green, in gray's-inn-lane, in the wandsworth-road, at hammersmith broadway, in norton folgate, and at kensal new town. "a hansom whirled you by the bell and horns at brompton, and there he was striding, as with seven-league boots, seemingly in the direction of north-end, fulham. the metropolitan railway sent you forth at lisson-grove, and you met him plodding speedily towards the yorkshire stingo. he was to be met rapidly skirting the grim brick wall of the prison in coldbath-fields, or trudging along the seven sisters-road at holloway, or bearing, under a steady press of sail, underneath highgate archway, or pursuing the even tenor of his way up the vauxhall-bridge-road." but he was equally at home in the intricate byways of narrow streets and in the lengthy thoroughfares. wherever there was "matter to be heard and learned," in back streets behind holborn, in borough courts and passages, in city wharfs or alleys, about the poorer lodging-houses, in prisons, workhouses, ragged-schools, police-courts, rag-shops, chandlers' shops, and all sorts of markets for the poor, he carried his keen observation and untiring study. "i was among the italian boys from to this morning," says one of his letters. "i am going out to-night in their boat with the thames police," says another. it was the same when he was in italy or switzerland, as we have seen; and when, in later life, he was in french provincial places. "i walk miles away into the country, and you can scarcely imagine by what deserted ramparts and silent little cathedral closes, or how i pass over rusty drawbridges and stagnant ditches out of and into the decaying town." for several consecutive years i accompanied him every christmas eve to see the marketings for christmas down the road from aldgate to bow; and he had a surprising fondness for wandering about in poor neighbourhoods on christmas-day, past the areas of shabby genteel houses in somers or kentish towns, and watching the dinners preparing or coming in. but the temptations of his country life led him on to excesses in walking. "coming in just now," he wrote in his third year at gadshill, "after twelve miles in the rain, i was so wet that i have had to change and get my feet into warm water before i could do anything." again, two years later: "a south-easter blowing, enough to cut one's throat. i am keeping the house for my cold, as i did yesterday. but the remedy is so new to me, that i doubt if it does me half the good of a dozen miles in the snow. so, if this mode of treatment fails to-day, i shall try that to-morrow." he tried it perhaps too often. in the winter of he first had the attack in his left foot which materially disabled his walking-power for the rest of his life. he supposed its cause to be overwalking in the snow, and that this had aggravated the suffering is very likely; but, read by the light of what followed, it may now be presumed to have had more serious origin. it recurred at intervals, before america, without any such provocation; in america it came back, not when he had most been walking in the snow, but when nervous exhaustion was at its worst with him; after america, it became prominent on the eve of the occurrence at preston which first revealed the progress that disease had been making in the vessels of the brain; and in the last year of his life, as will immediately be seen, it was a constant trouble and most intense suffering, extending then gravely to his left hand also, which had before been only slightly affected. it was from a letter of the st of february i first learnt that he was suffering tortures from a "frost-bitten" foot, and ten days later brought more detailed account. "i got frost-bitten by walking continually in the snow, and getting wet in the feet daily. my boots hardened and softened, hardened and softened, my left foot swelled, and i still forced the boot on; sat in it to write, half the day; walked in it through the snow, the other half; forced the boot on again next morning; sat and walked again; and being accustomed to all sorts of changes in my feet, took no heed. at length, going out as usual, i fell lame on the walk, and had to limp home dead lame, through the snow, for the last three miles--to the remarkable terror, by-the-bye, of the two big dogs." the dogs were turk and linda. boisterous companions as they always were, the sudden change in him brought them to a stand-still; and for the rest of the journey they crept by the side of their master as slowly as he did, never turning from him. he was greatly moved by the circumstance, and often referred to it. turk's look upward to his face was one of sympathy as well as fear, he said; but linda was wholly struck down. the saying in his letter to his youngest son that he was to do to others what he would that they should do to him, without being discouraged if they did not do it; and his saying to the birmingham people that they were to attend to self-improvement not because it led to fortune, but because it was right; express a principle that at all times guided himself. capable of strong attachments, he was not what is called an effusive man; but he had no half-heartedness in any of his likings. the one thing entirely hateful to him, was indifference. "i give my heart to very few people; but i would sooner love the most implacable man in the world than a careless one, who, if my place were empty to-morrow, would rub on and never miss me." there was nothing he more repeatedly told his children than that they were not to let indifference in others appear to justify it in themselves. "all kind things," he wrote, "must be done on their own account, and for their own sake, and without the least reference to any gratitude." again he laid it down, while he was making some exertion for the sake of a dead friend that did not seem likely to win proper appreciation from those it was to serve. "as to gratitude from the family--as i have often remarked to you, one does a generous thing because it is right and pleasant, and not for any response it is to awaken in others." the rule in another form frequently appears in his letters; and it was enforced in many ways upon all who were dear to him. it is worth while to add his comment on a regret of a member of his family at an act of self-devotion supposed to have been thrown away: "nothing of what is nobly done can ever be lost." it is also to be noted as in the same spirit, that it was not the loud but the silent heroisms he most admired. of sir john richardson, one of the few who have lived in our days entitled to the name of a hero, he wrote from paris in . "lady franklin sent me the whole of that richardson memoir; and i think richardson's manly friendship, and love of franklin, one of the noblest things i ever knew in my life. it makes one's heart beat high, with a sort of sacred joy." (it is the feeling as strongly awakened by the earlier exploits of the same gallant man to be found at the end of franklin's first voyage, and never to be read without the most exalted emotion.) it was for something higher than mere literature he valued the most original writer and powerful teacher of the age. "i would go at all times farther to see carlyle than any man alive." of his attractive points in society and conversation i have particularized little, because in truth they were himself. such as they were, they were never absent from him. his acute sense of enjoyment gave such relish to his social qualities that probably no man, not a great wit or a professed talker, ever left, in leaving any social gathering, a blank so impossible to fill up. in quick and varied sympathy, in ready adaptation to every whim or humour, in help to any mirth or game, he stood for a dozen men. if one may say such a thing, he seemed to be always the more himself for being somebody else, for continually putting off his personality. his versatility made him unique. what he said once of his own love of acting, applied to him equally when at his happiest among friends he loved; sketching a character, telling a story, acting a charade, taking part in a game; turning into comedy an incident of the day, describing the last good or bad thing he had seen, reproducing in quaint, tragical, or humorous form and figure, some part of the passionate life with which all his being overflowed. "assumption has charms for me so delightful--i hardly know for how many wild reasons--that i feel a loss of oh i can't say what exquisite foolery, when i lose a chance of being some one not in the remotest degree like myself." how it was, that, from one of such boundless resource in contributing to the pleasure of his friends, there was yet, as i have said, so comparatively little to bring away, may be thus explained. but it has been also seen that no one at times said better things, and to happy examples formerly given i will add one or two of a kind he more rarely indulged. "he is below par on the exchange," a friend remarked of a notorious puffing actor; "he doesn't stand well at lloyds." "yet no one stands so well with the under-writers," said dickens; a pun that swift would have envied. "i call him an incubus!" said a non-literary friend, at a loss to express the boredom inflicted on him by a popular author. "pen-and-ink-ubus, you mean," interposed dickens. so, when stanfield said of his mid-shipman son, then absent on his first cruise, "the boy has got his sea-legs on by this time!" "i don't know," remarked dickens, "about his getting his sea-legs on; but if i may judge from his writing, he certainly has not got his a b c legs on." other agreeable pleasantries might be largely cited from his letters. "an old priest" (he wrote from france in ), "the express image of frederic lemaitre got up for the part, and very cross with the toothache, told me in a railway carriage the other day, that we had no antiquities in heretical england. 'none at all?' i said. 'you have some ships however.' 'yes; a few.' 'are they strong?' 'well,' said i, 'your trade is spiritual, my father: ask the ghost of nelson.' a french captain who was in the carriage, was immensely delighted with this small joke. i met him at calais yesterday going somewhere with a detachment; and he said--pardon! but he had been so limited as to suppose an englishman incapable of that bonhommie!" in humouring a joke he was excellent, both in letters and talk; and for this kind of enjoyment his least important little notes are often worth preserving. take one small instance. so freely had he admired a tale told by his friend and solicitor mr. frederic ouvry, that he had to reply to a humorous proposal for publication of it, in his own manner, in his own periodical. "your modesty is equal to your merit. . . . i think your way of describing that rustic courtship in middle life, quite matchless. . . . a cheque for £ is lying with the publisher. we would willingly make it more, but that we find our law charges so exceedingly heavy." his letters have also examples now and then of what he called his conversational triumphs. "i have distinguished myself" ( th of april ) "in two respects lately. i took a young lady, unknown, down to dinner, and, talking to her about the bishop of durham's nepotism in the matter of mr. cheese, i found she was mrs. cheese. and i expatiated to the member for marylebone, lord fermoy, generally conceiving him to be an irish member, on the contemptible character of the marylebone constituency and marylebone representation." among his good things should not be omitted his telling of a ghost story. he had something of a hankering after them, as the readers of his briefer pieces will know; and such was his interest generally in things supernatural that, but for the strong restraining power of his common sense, he might have fallen into the follies of spiritualism. as it was, the fanciful side of his nature stopped short at such pardonable superstitions as those of dreams, and lucky days, or other marvels of natural coincidence; and no man was readier to apply sharp tests to a ghost story or a haunted house, though there was just so much tendency to believe in any such, "well-authenticated," as made perfect his manner of telling one. such a story is related in the th number of _all the year round_, which before its publication both mr. layard and myself saw at gadshill, and identified as one related by lord lytton. it was published in september, and in a day or two led to what dickens will relate. "the artist himself who is the hero of that story" (to lord lytton, th of september ) "has sent me in black and white his own account of the whole experience, so very original, so very extraordinary, so very far beyond the version i have published, that all other like stories turn pale before it." the ghost thus reinforced came out in the number published on the th of october; and the reader who cares to turn to it, and compare what dickens in the interval ( th of september) wrote to myself, will have some measure of his readiness to believe in such things. "upon the publication of the ghost story, up has started the portrait-painter who saw the phantoms! his own written story is out of all distance the most extraordinary that ever was produced; and is as far beyond my version or bulwer's, as scott is beyond james. everything connected with it is amazing; but conceive this--the portrait-painter had been engaged to write it elsewhere as a story for next christmas, and not unnaturally supposed, when he saw himself anticipated in _all the year round_, that there had been treachery at his printer's. 'in particular,' says he, 'how else was it possible that the date, the th of september, could have been got at? for i never told the date, until i wrote it.' now, _my_ story had no date; but seeing, when i looked over the proof, the great importance of having _a_ date, i (c. d.) wrote in, unconsciously, the exact date on the margin of the proof!" the reader will remember the doncaster race story; and to other like illustrations of the subject already given, may be added this dream. "here is a curious case at first-hand" ( th of may ). "on thursday night in last week, being at the office here, i dreamed that i saw a lady in a red shawl with her back towards me (whom i supposed to be e.). on her turning round i found that i didn't know her, and she said 'i am miss napier.' all the time i was dressing next morning, i thought--what a preposterous thing to have so very distinct a dream about nothing! and why miss napier? for i never heard of any miss napier. that same friday night, i read. after the reading, came into my retiring-room, mary boyle and her brother, and _the_ lady in the red shawl whom they present as 'miss napier!' these are all the circumstances, exactly told." another kind of dream has had previous record, with no superstition to build itself upon but the loving devotion to one tender memory. with longer or shorter intervals this was with him all his days. never from his waking thoughts was the recollection altogether absent; and though the dream would leave him for a time, it unfailingly came back. it was the feeling of his life that always had a mastery over him. what he said on the sixth anniversary of the death of his sister-in-law, that friend of his youth whom he had made his ideal of all moral excellence, he might have said as truly after twenty-six years more. in the very year before he died, the influence was potently upon him. "she is so much in my thoughts at all times, especially when i am successful, and have greatly prospered in anything, that the recollection of her is an essential part of my being, and is as inseparable from my existence as the beating of my heart is." through later troubled years, whatever was worthiest in him found in this an ark of safety; and it was the nobler part of his being which had thus become also the essential. it gave to success what success by itself had no power to give; and nothing could consist with it, for any length of time, that was not of good report and pure. what more could i say that was not better said from the pulpit of the abbey where he rests? "he whom we mourn was the friend of mankind, a philanthropist in the true sense; the friend of youth, the friend of the poor, the enemy of every form of meanness and oppression. i am not going to attempt to draw a portrait of him. men of genius are different from what we suppose them to be. they have greater pleasures and greater pains, greater affections and greater temptations, than the generality of mankind, and they can never be altogether understood by their fellow men. . . . but we feel that a light has gone out, that the world is darker to us, when they depart. there are so very few of them that we cannot afford to lose them one by one, and we look vainly round for others who may supply their places. he whose loss we now mourn occupied a greater space than any other writer in the minds of englishmen during the last thirty-three years. we read him, talked about him, acted him; we laughed with him; we were roused by him to a consciousness of the misery of others, and to a pathetic interest in human life. works of fiction, indirectly, are great instructors of this world; and we can hardly exaggerate the debt of gratitude which is due to a writer who has led us to sympathize with these good, true, sincere, honest english characters of ordinary life, and to laugh at the egotism, the hypocrisy, the false respectability of religious professors and others. to another great humourist who lies in this church the words have been applied that his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations. but of him who has been recently taken i would rather say, in humbler language, that no one was ever so much beloved or so much mourned." footnotes: [ ] mr. grant wilson has sent me an extract from a letter by fitz-greene halleck (author of one of the most delightful poems ever written about burns) which exactly expresses dickens as he was, not only in , but, as far as the sense of authorship went, all his life. it was addressed to mrs. rush of philadelphia, and is dated the th of march . "you ask me about mr. boz. i am quite delighted with him. he is a thorough good fellow, with nothing of the author about him but the reputation, and goes through his task as lion with exemplary grace, patience, and good nature. he has the brilliant face of a man of genius. . . . his writings you know. i wish you had listened to his eloquence at the dinner here. it was the only real specimen of eloquence i have ever witnessed. its charm was not in its words, but in the manner of saying them." [ ] in a volume called _home and abroad_, by mr. david macrae, is printed a correspondence with dickens on matters alluded to in the text, held in , which will be found to confirm all that is here said. [ ] this letter is facsimile'd in _a christmas memorial of charles dickens by a. b. hume_ ( ), containing an ode to his memory written with feeling and spirit. [ ] i may quote here from a letter (newcastle-on-tyne, th sept. ) sent me by the editor of the _northern express_. "the view you take of the literary character in the abstract, or of what it might and ought to be, expresses what i have striven for all through my literary life--never to allow it to be patronized, or tolerated, or treated like a good or a bad child. i am always animated by the hope of leaving it a little better understood by the thoughtless than i found it."--to james b. manson, esq. [ ] henry ryder-taylor, esq. ph.d. th sept. . [ ] by way of instance i subjoin an amusing insertion made by him in an otherwise indifferently written paper descriptive of the typical englishman on the foreign stage, which gives in more comic detail experiences of his own already partly submitted to the reader (ii. ). "in a pretty piece at the gymnase in paris, where the prime minister of england unfortunately ruined himself by speculating in railway shares, a thorough-going english servant appeared under that thorough-going english name tom bob--the honest fellow having been christened tom, and born the lawful son of mr. and mrs. bob. in an italian adaptation of dumas' preposterous play of kean, which we once saw at the great theatre of genoa, the curtain rose upon that celebrated tragedian, drunk and fast asleep in a chair, attired in a dark blue blouse fastened round the waist with a broad belt and a most prodigious buckle, and wearing a dark red hat of the sugar-loaf shape, nearly three feet high. he bore in his hand a champagne-bottle, with the label rhum, in large capital letters, carefully turned towards the audience; and two or three dozen of the same popular liquor, which we are nationally accustomed to drink neat as imported, by the half gallon, ornamented the floor of the apartment. every frequenter of the coal hole tavern in the strand, on that occasion, wore a sword and a beard. every english lady, presented on the stage in italy, wears a green veil; and almost every such specimen of our fair countrywomen carries a bright red reticule, made in the form of a monstrous heart. we do not remember to have ever seen an englishman on the italian stage, or in the italian circus, without a stomach like daniel lambert, an immense shirt-frill, and a bunch of watch-seals each several times larger than his watch, though the watch itself was an impossible engine. and we have rarely beheld this mimic englishman, without seeing present, then and there, a score of real englishmen sufficiently characteristic and unlike the rest of the audience, to whom he bore no shadow of resemblance." these views as to english people and society, of which count d'orsay used always to say that an average frenchman knew about as much as he knew of the inhabitants of the moon, may receive amusing addition from one of dickens's letters during his last visit to france; which enclosed a cleverly written paris journal containing essays on english manners. in one of these the writer remarked that he had heard of the venality of english politicians, but could not have supposed it to be so shameless as it is, for, when he went to the house of commons, he heard them call out "places! places!" "give us places!" when the minister entered. [ ] the letter is addressed to miss harriet parr, whose book called _gilbert massenger_ is the tale referred to. [ ] see the introductory memoir from his pen now prefixed to every edition of the popular and delightful _legends and lyrics_. [ ] on this remonstrance and dickens's reply the _times_ had a leading article of which the closing sentences find fitting place in his biography. "if there be anything in lord russell's theory that life peerages are wanted specially to represent those forms of national eminence which cannot otherwise find fitting representation, it might be urged, for the reasons we have before mentioned, that a life peerage is due to the most truly national representative of one important department of modern english literature. something may no doubt be said in favour of this view, but we are inclined to doubt if mr. dickens himself would gain anything by a life peerage. mr. dickens is pre-eminently a writer of the people and for the people. to our thinking, he is far better suited for the part of the 'great commoner' of english fiction than for even a life peerage. to turn charles dickens into lord dickens would be much the same mistake in literature that it was in politics to turn william pitt into lord chatham." [ ] one of the many repetitions of the same opinion in his letters may be given. "lord john's note" (september ) "confirms me in an old impression that he is worth a score of official men; and has more generosity in his little finger than a government usually has in its whole corporation." in another of his public allusions, dickens described him as a statesman of whom opponents and friends alike felt sure that he would rise to the level of every occasion, however exalted; and compared him to the seal of solomon in the old arabian story inclosing in a not very large casket the soul of a giant. [ ] in a memoir by dr. shelton mckenzie which has had circulation in america, there is given the following statement, taken doubtless from publications at the time, of which it will be strictly accurate to say, that, excepting the part of its closing averment which describes dickens sending a copy of his works to her majesty by her own desire, _there is in it not a single word of truth_. "early in the queen presented a copy of her book upon the highlands to mr. dickens, with the modest autographic inscription, 'from the humblest to the most distinguished author of england.' this was meant to be complimentary, and was accepted as such by mr. dickens, who acknowledged it in a manly, courteous letter. soon after, queen victoria wrote to him, requesting that he would do her the favour of paying her a visit at windsor. he accepted, and passed a day, very pleasantly, in his sovereign's society. it is said that they were mutually pleased, that mr. dickens caught the royal lady's particular humour, that they chatted together in a very friendly manner, that the queen was never tired of asking questions about certain characters in his books, that they had almost a _tête-à-tête_ luncheon, and that, ere he departed, the queen pressed him to accept a baronetcy (a title which descends to the eldest son), and that, on his declining, she said, 'at least, mr. dickens, let me have the gratification of making you one of my privy council.' this, which gives the personal title of 'right honourable,' he also declined--nor, indeed, did charles dickens require a title to give him celebrity. the queen and the author parted, well pleased with each other. the newspapers reported that a peerage had been offered and declined--_but even newspapers are not invariably correct_. mr. dickens presented his royal mistress with a handsome set of all his works, and, on the very morning of his death, a letter reached gad's hill, written by mr. arthur helps, by her desire, acknowledging the present, and describing the exact position the books occupied at balmoral--so placed that she could see them before her when occupying the usual seat in her sitting-room. when this letter arrived, mr. dickens was still alive, but wholly unconscious. what to him, at that time, was the courtesy of an earthly sovereign?" i repeat that the only morsel of truth in all this rigmarole is that the books were sent by dickens, and acknowledged by mr. helps at the queen's desire. the letter did not arrive on the day of his death, the th of june, but was dated from balmoral on that day. [ ] the book was thus entered in the catalogue. "dickens (c.), a christmas carol, in prose, ; _presentation copy_, inscribed '_w. m. thackeray, from charles dickens (whom he made very happy once a long way from home_).'" some pleasant verses by his friend had affected him much while abroad. i quote the life of dickens published by mr. hotten. "her majesty expressed the strongest desire to possess this presentation copy, and sent an unlimited commission to buy it. the original published price of the book was _s._ it became her majesty's property for £ _s._, and was at once taken to the palace." [ ] "in memoriam" by arthur helps, in _macmillan's magazine_ for july . [ ] an entry, under the date of july , from a printed but unpublished diary by mr. payne collier, appeared lately in the _athenæum_, having reference to dickens at the time when he first obtained employment as a reporter, and connecting itself with what my opening volume had related of those childish sufferings. "soon afterwards i observed a great difference in c. d.'s dress, for he had bought a new hat and a very handsome blue cloak, which he threw over his shoulder _à l' espagnole_. . . . we walked together through hungerford market, where we followed a coal-heaver, who carried his little rosy but grimy child looking over his shoulder; and c. d. bought a halfpenny-worth of cherries, and as we went along he gave them one by one to the little fellow without the knowledge of the father. . . . he informed me as we walked through it that he knew hungerford market well. . . . he did not affect to conceal the difficulties he and his family had had to contend against." chapter xx. the end. - . visit from mr. and mrs. fields--places shown to visitor--last paper in _all the year round_--son henry's scholarship--a reading of _edwin drood_--medical attendance at readings--excitement after _oliver twist_ scenes--farewell address--results of over excitement--last appearances in public--death of daniel maclise--temptations of london--another attack in the foot--noteworthy incident--tribute of gratitude for his books--last letter from him--last days--thoughts on his last day of consciousness--the close--general mourning--wish to bury him in the abbey--his own wish--the burial--unbidden mourners--the grave. the summer and autumn of were passed quietly at gadshill. he received there, in june, the american friends to whom he had been most indebted for unwearying domestic kindness at his most trying time in the states. in august, he was at the dinner of the international boat-race; and, in a speech that might have gone far to reconcile the victors to changing places with the vanquished, gave the healths of the harvard and the oxford crews. he went to birmingham, in september, to fulfil a promise that he would open the session of the institute; and there, after telling his audience that his invention, such as it was, never would have served him as it had done, but for the habit of commonplace, patient, drudging attention, he declared his political creed to be infinitesimal faith in the people governing and illimitable faith in the people governed. in such engagements as these, with nothing of the kind of strain he had most to dread, there was hardly more movement or change than was necessary to his enjoyment of rest. he had been able to show mr. fields something of the interest of london as well as of his kentish home. he went over its "general post-office" with him, took him among its cheap theatres and poor lodging-houses, and piloted him by night through its most notorious thieves' quarter. its localities that are pleasantest to a lover of books, such as johnson's bolt-court and goldsmith's temple-chambers, he explored with him; and, at his visitor's special request, mounted a staircase he had not ascended for more than thirty years, to show the chambers in furnival's inn where the first page of _pickwick_ was written. one more book, unfinished, was to close what that famous book began; and the original of the scene of its opening chapter, the opium-eater's den, was the last place visited. "in a miserable court at night," says mr. fields, "we found a haggard old woman blowing at a kind of pipe made of an old ink-bottle; and the words which dickens puts into the mouth of this wretched creature in _edwin drood_, we heard her croon as we leaned over the tattered bed in which she was lying." before beginning his novel he had written his last paper for his weekly publication. it was a notice of my _life of landor_, and contained some interesting recollections of that remarkable man. his memory at this time dwelt much, as was only natural, with past pleasant time, as he saw familiar faces leaving us or likely to leave; and, on the death of one of the comedians associated with the old bright days of covent garden, i had intimation of a fancy that had never quitted him since the cheltenham reading. "i see in the paper to-day that meadows is dead. i had a talk with him at coutts's a week or two ago, when he said he was seventy-five, and very weak. except for having a tearful eye, he looked just the same as ever. my mind still constantly misgives me concerning macready. curiously, i don't think he has been ever, for ten minutes together, out of my thoughts since i talked with meadows last. well, the year that brings trouble brings comfort too: i have a great success in the boy-line to announce to you. harry has won the second scholarship at trinity hall, which gives him £ a year as long as he stays there; and i begin to hope that he will get a fellowship." i doubt if anything ever more truly pleased him than this little success of his son henry at cambridge. henry missed the fellowship, but was twenty-ninth wrangler in a fair year, when the wranglers were over forty. he finished his first number of _edwin drood_ in the third week of october, and on the th read it at my house with great spirit. a few nights before we had seen together at the olympic a little drama taken from his _copperfield_, which he sat out with more than patience, even with something of enjoyment; and another pleasure was given him that night by its author, mr. halliday, who brought into the box another dramatist, mr. robertson, to whom dickens, who then first saw him, said that to himself the charm of his little comedies was "their unassuming form," which had so happily shown that "real wit could afford to put off any airs of pretension to it." he was at gadshill till the close of the year; coming up for a few special occasions, such as procter's eighty-second birthday; and at my house on new-year's eve he read to us, again aloud, a fresh number of his book. yet these very last days of december had not been without a reminder of the grave warnings of april. the pains in somewhat modified form had returned in both his left hand and his left foot a few days before we met; and they were troubling him still on that day. but he made so light of them himself; so little thought of connecting them with the uncertainties of touch and tread of which they were really part; and read with such an overflow of humour mr. honeythunder's boisterous philanthropy; that there was no room, then, for anything but enjoyment. his only allusion to an effect from his illness was his mention of a now invincible dislike which he had to railway travel. this had decided him to take a london house for the twelve last readings in the early months of , and he had become mr. milner-gibson's tenant at , hyde park place. st. james's hall was to be the scene of these readings, and they were to occupy the interval from the th of january to the th of march; two being given in each week to the close of january, and the remaining eight on each of the eight tuesdays following. nothing was said of any kind of apprehension as the time approached; but, with a curious absence of the sense of danger, there was certainly both distrust and fear. sufficient precaution was supposed to have been taken[ ] by arrangement for the presence, at each reading, of his friend and medical attendant, mr. carr beard; but this resolved itself, not into any measure of safety, the case admitting of none short of stopping the reading altogether, but simply into ascertainment of the exact amount of strain and pressure, which, with every fresh exertion, he was placing on those vessels of the brain where the preston trouble too surely had revealed that danger lay. no supposed force in reserve, no dominant strength of will, can turn aside the penalties sternly exacted for disregard of such laws of life as were here plainly overlooked; and though no one may say that it was not already too late for any but the fatal issue, there will be no presumption in believing that life might yet have been for some time prolonged if these readings could have been stopped. "i am a little shaken," he wrote on the th of january, "by my journey to birmingham to give away the institution's prizes on twelfth night, but i am in good heart; and, notwithstanding lowe's worrying scheme for collecting a year's taxes in a lump, which they tell me is damaging books, pictures, music, and theatres beyond precedent, our 'let' at st. james's hall is enormous." he opened with _copperfield_ and the _pickwick trial_; and i may briefly mention, from the notes taken by mr. beard and placed at my disposal, at what cost of exertion to himself he gratified the crowded audiences that then and to the close made these evenings memorable. his ordinary pulse on the first night was at ; but never on any subsequent night was lower than , and had risen on the later nights to more than . after _copperfield_ on the first night it went up to , and after _marigold_ on the second to ; but on the first night of the _sikes and nancy_ scenes (friday the st of january) it went from to , and on the second night (the st of february) to . from this, through the six remaining nights, it never was lower than after the first piece read; and after the third and fourth readings of the _oliver twist_ scenes it rose, from to on the th of february, and from to on the th of march; on the former occasion, after twenty minutes' rest, falling to , and on the latter, after fifteen minutes' rest, falling to . his ordinary pulse on entering the room, during these last six nights, was more than once over , and never lower than ; from which it rose, after _nickleby_ on the nd of february, to . on the th of february, when he read _dombey_, it had risen from to ; on the st of march, after _copperfield_, it rose from to ; and when he entered the room on the last night it was at , having risen only two beats more when the reading was done. the pieces on this occasion were the _christmas carol_, followed by the _pickwick trial_; and probably in all his life he never read so well. on his return from the states, where he had to address his effects to audiences composed of immense numbers of people, a certain loss of refinement had been observable; but the old delicacy was now again delightfully manifest, and a subdued tone, as well in the humorous as the serious portions, gave something to all the reading as of a quiet sadness of farewell. the charm of this was at its height when he shut the volume of _pickwick_ and spoke in his own person. he said that for fifteen years he had been reading his own books to audiences whose sensitive and kindly recognition of them had given him instruction and enjoyment in his art such as few men could have had; but that he nevertheless thought it well now to retire upon older associations, and in future to devote himself exclusively to the calling which had first made him known. "in but two short weeks from this time i hope that you may enter, in your own homes, on a new series of readings at which my assistance will be indispensable; but from these garish lights i vanish now for evermore, with a heartfelt, grateful, respectful, affectionate farewell." the brief hush of silence as he moved from the platform; and the prolonged tumult of sound that followed suddenly, stayed him, and again for another moment brought him back; will not be forgotten by any present. little remains to be told that has not in it almost unmixed pain and sorrow. hardly a day passed, while the readings went on or after they closed, unvisited by some effect or other of the disastrous excitement shown by the notes of mr. beard. on the rd of january, when for the last time he met carlyle, he came to us with his left hand in a sling; on the th of february, when he passed with us his last birthday, and on the th, when he read the third number of his novel, the hand was still swollen and painful; and on the st of march, when he read admirably his fourth number, he told us that as he came along, walking up the length of oxford-street, the same incident had recurred as on the day of a former dinner with us, and he had not been able to read, all the way, more than the right-hand half of the names over the shops. yet he had the old fixed persuasion that this was rather the effect of a medicine he had been taking than of any grave cause, and he still strongly believed his other troubles to be exclusively local. eight days later he wrote: "my uneasiness and hemorrhage, after having quite left me, as i supposed, has come back with an aggravated irritability that it has not yet displayed. you have no idea what a state i am in to-day from a sudden violent rush of it; and yet it has not the slightest effect on my general health that i know of." this was a disorder which troubled him in his earlier life; and during the last five years, in his intervals of suffering from other causes, it had from time to time taken aggravated form. his last public appearances were in april. on the th he took the chair for the newsvendors, whom he helped with a genial address in which even his apology for little speaking overflowed with irrepressible humour. he would try, he said, like falstaff, "but with a modification almost as large as himself," less to speak himself than to be the cause of speaking in others. "much in this manner they exhibit at the door of a snuff-shop the effigy of a highlander with an empty mull in his hand, who, apparently having taken all the snuff he can carry, and discharged all the sneezes of which he is capable, politely invites his friends and patrons to step in and try what they can do in the same line." on the th of the same month he returned thanks for "literature" at the royal academy dinner, and i may preface my allusion to what he then said with what he had written to me the day before. three days earlier daniel maclise had passed away. "like you at ely, so i at higham, had the shock of first reading at a railway station of the death of our old dear friend and companion. what the shock would be, you know too well. it has been only after great difficulty, and after hardening and steeling myself to the subject by at once thinking of it and avoiding it in a strange way, that i have been able to get any command over it or over myself. if i feel at the time that i can be sure of the necessary composure, i shall make a little reference to it at the academy to-morrow. i suppose you won't be there."[ ] the reference made was most touching and manly. he told those who listened that since he first entered the public lists, a very young man indeed, it had been his constant fortune to number among his nearest and dearest friends members of that academy who had been its pride; and who had now, one by one, so dropped from his side that he was grown to believe, with the spanish monk of whom wilkie spoke, that the only realities around him were the pictures which he loved, and all the moving life but a shadow and a dream. "for many years i was one of the two most intimate friends and most constant companions of mr. maclise, to whose death the prince of wales has made allusion, and the president has referred with the eloquence of genuine feeling. of his genius in his chosen art, i will venture to say nothing here; but of his fertility of mind and wealth of intellect i may confidently assert that they would have made him, if he had been so minded, at least as great a writer as he was a painter. the gentlest and most modest of men, the freshest as to his generous appreciation of young aspirants and the frankest and largest hearted as to his peers, incapable of a sordid or ignoble thought, gallantly sustaining the true dignity of his vocation, without one grain of self-ambition, wholesomely natural at the last as at the first, 'in wit a man, simplicity a child,'--no artist of whatsoever denomination, i make bold to say, ever went to his rest leaving a golden memory more pure from dross, or having devoted himself with a truer chivalry to the art-goddess whom he worshipped." these were the last public words of dickens, and he could not have spoken any worthier. upon his appearance at the dinner of the academy had followed some invitations he was led to accept; greatly to his own regret, he told me on the night ( th of may) when he read to us the fifth number of _edwin drood_; for he was now very eager to get back to the quiet of gadshill. he dined with mr. motley, then american minister; had met mr. disraeli at a dinner at lord stanhope's; had breakfasted with mr. gladstone; and on the th was to attend the queen's ball with his daughter. but she had to go there without him; for on the th i had intimation of a sudden disablement. "i am sorry to report, that, in the old preposterous endeavour to dine at preposterous hours and preposterous places, i have been pulled up by a sharp attack in my foot. and serve me right. i hope to get the better of it soon, but i fear i must not think of dining with you on friday. i have cancelled everything in the dining way for this week, and that is a very small precaution after the horrible pain i have had and the remedies i have taken." he had to excuse himself also from the general theatrical fund dinner, where the prince of wales was to preside; but at another dinner a week later, where the king of the belgians and the prince were to be present, so much pressure was put upon him that he went, still suffering as he was, to dine with lord houghton. we met for the last time on sunday the nd of may, when i dined with him in hyde park place. the death of mr. lemon, of which he heard that day, had led his thoughts to the crowd of friendly companions in letters and art who had so fallen from the ranks since we played ben jonson together that we were left almost alone. "and none beyond his sixtieth year," he said, "very few even fifty." it is no good to talk of it, i suggested. "we shall not think of it the less" was his reply; and an illustration much to the point was before us, afforded by an incident deserving remembrance in his story. not many weeks before, a correspondent had written to him from liverpool describing himself as a self-raised man, attributing his prosperous career to what dickens's writings had taught him at its outset of the wisdom of kindness, and sympathy for others; and asking pardon for the liberty he took in hoping that he might be permitted to offer some acknowledgment of what not only had cheered and stimulated him through all his life, but had contributed so much to the success of it. the letter enclosed £ . dickens was greatly touched by this; and told the writer, in sending back his cheque, that he would certainly have taken it if he had not been, though not a man of fortune, a prosperous man himself; but that the letter, and the spirit of its offer, had so gratified him, that if the writer pleased to send him any small memorial of it in another form he would gladly receive it. the memorial soon came. a richly worked basket of silver, inscribed "from one who has been cheered and stimulated by mr. dickens's writings, and held the author among his first remembrances when he became prosperous," was accompanied by an extremely handsome silver centrepiece for the table, of which the design was four figures representing the seasons. but the kindly donor shrank from sending winter to one whom he would fain connect with none but the brighter and milder days, and he had struck the fourth figure from the design. "i never look at it," said dickens, "that i don't think most of the winter." a matter discussed that day with mr. ouvry was briefly resumed in a note of the th of may, the last i ever received from him; which followed me to exeter, and closed thus. "you and i can speak of it at gads by and by. foot no worse. but no better." the old trouble was upon him when we parted, and this must have been nearly the last note written before he quitted london. he was at gadshill on the th of may; and i heard no more until the telegram reached me at launceston on the night of the th of june, which told me that the "by and by" was not to come in this world. the few days at gadshill had been given wholly to work on his novel. he had been easier in his foot and hand; and, though he was suffering severely from the local hemorrhage before named, he made no complaint of illness. but there was observed in him a very unusual appearance of fatigue. "he seemed very weary." he was out with his dogs for the last time on monday the th of june, when he walked with his letters into rochester. on tuesday the th, after his daughter mary had left on a visit to her sister kate, not finding himself equal to much fatigue, he drove to cobhamwood with his sister-in-law, there dismissed the carriage, and walked round the park and back. he returned in time to put up in his new conservatory some chinese lanterns sent from london that afternoon; and, the whole of the evening, he sat with miss hogarth in the dining-room that he might see their effect when lighted. more than once he then expressed his satisfaction at having finally abandoned all intention of exchanging gadshill for london; and this he had done more impressively some days before. while he lived, he said, he should like his name to be more and more associated with the place; and he had a notion that when he died he should like to lie in the little graveyard belonging to the cathedral at the foot of the castle wall. on the th of june he passed all the day writing in the châlet. he came over for luncheon; and, much against his usual custom, returned to his desk. of the sentences he was then writing, the last of his long life of literature, a portion has been given in facsimile on a previous page; and the reader will observe with a painful interest, not alone its evidence of minute labour at this fast-closing hour of time with him, but the direction his thoughts had taken. he imagines such a brilliant morning as had risen with that eighth of june shining on the old city of rochester. he sees in surpassing beauty, with the lusty ivy gleaming in the sun, and the rich trees waving in the balmy air, its antiquities and its ruins; its cathedral and castle. but his fancy, then, is not with the stern dead forms of either; but with that which makes warm the cold stone tombs of centuries, and lights them up with flecks of brightness, "fluttering there like wings." to him, on that sunny summer morning, the changes of glorious light from moving boughs, the songs of birds, the scents from garden, woods, and fields, have penetrated into the cathedral, have subdued its earthy odour, and are preaching the resurrection and the life. * * * * * he was late in leaving the châlet; but before dinner, which was ordered at six o'clock with the intention of walking afterwards in the lanes, he wrote some letters, among them one to his friend mr. charles kent appointing to see him in london next day; and dinner was begun before miss hogarth saw, with alarm, a singular expression of trouble and pain in his face. "for an hour," he then told her, "he had been very ill;" but he wished dinner to go on. these were the only really coherent words uttered by him. they were followed by some, that fell from him disconnectedly, of quite other matters; of an approaching sale at a neighbour's house, of whether macready's son was with his father at cheltenham, and of his own intention to go immediately to london; but at these latter he had risen, and his sister-in-law's help alone prevented him from falling where he stood. her effort then was to get him on the sofa, but after a slight struggle he sank heavily on his left side. "on the ground" were the last words he spoke. it was now a little over ten minutes past six o'clock. his two daughters came that night with mr. beard, who had also been telegraphed for, and whom they met at the station. his eldest son arrived early next morning, and was joined in the evening (too late) by his younger son from cambridge. all possible medical aid had been summoned. the surgeon of the neighbourhood was there from the first, and a physician from london was in attendance as well as mr. beard. but all human help was unavailing. there was effusion on the brain; and though stertorous breathing continued all night, and until ten minutes past six o'clock on the evening of thursday the th of june, there had never been a gleam of hope during the twenty-four hours. he had lived four months beyond his th year. * * * * * the excitement and sorrow at his death are within the memory of all. before the news of it even reached the remoter parts of england, it had been flashed across europe; was known in the distant continents of india, australia, and america; and not in english-speaking communities only, but in every country of the civilised earth, had awakened grief and sympathy. in his own land it was as if a personal bereavement had befallen every one. her majesty the queen telegraphed from balmoral "her deepest regret at the sad news of charles dickens's death;" and this was the sentiment alike of all classes of her people. there was not an english journal that did not give it touching and noble utterance; and the _times_ took the lead in suggesting[ ] that the only fit resting-place for the remains of a man so dear to england was the abbey in which the most illustrious englishmen are laid. with the expression thus given to a general wish, the dean of westminster lost no time in showing ready compliance; and on the morning of the day when it appeared was in communication with the family and representatives. the public homage of a burial in the abbey had to be reconciled with his own instructions to be privately buried without previous announcement of time or place, and without monument or memorial. he would himself have preferred to lie in the small graveyard under rochester castle wall, or in the little churches of cobham or shorne; but all these were found to be closed; and the desire of the dean and chapter of rochester to lay him in their cathedral had been entertained, when the dean of westminster's request, and the considerate kindness of his generous assurance that there should be only such ceremonial as would strictly obey all injunctions of privacy, made it a grateful duty to accept that offer. the spot already had been chosen by the dean; and before mid-day on the following morning, tuesday the th of june, with knowledge of those only who took part in the burial, all was done. the solemnity had not lost by the simplicity. nothing so grand or so touching could have accompanied it, as the stillness and the silence of the vast cathedral. then, later in the day and all the following day, came unbidden mourners in such crowds, that the dean had to request permission to keep open the grave until thursday; but after it was closed they did not cease to come, and "all day long," doctor stanley wrote on the th, "there was a constant pressure to the spot, and many flowers were strewn upon it by unknown hands, many tears shed from unknown eyes." he alluded to this in the impressive funeral discourse delivered by him in the abbey on the morning of sunday the th, pointing to the fresh flowers that then had been newly thrown (as they still are thrown, in this fourth year after the death), and saying that "the spot would thenceforward be a sacred one with both the new world and the old, as that of the representative of the literature, not of this island only, but of all who speak our english tongue." the stone placed upon it is inscribed charles dickens. born february the seventh . died june the ninth . [illustration] the highest associations of both the arts he loved surround him where he lies. next to him is richard cumberland. mrs. pritchard's monument looks down upon him, and immediately behind is david garrick's. nor is the actor's delightful art more worthily represented than the nobler genius of the author. facing the grave, and on its left and right, are the monuments of chaucer, shakespeare, and dryden, the three immortals who did most to create and settle the language to which charles dickens has given another undying name. finis. footnotes: [ ] i desire to guard myself against any possible supposition that i think these readings might have been stopped by the exercise of medical authority. i am convinced of the contrary. dickens had pledged himself to them; and the fact that others' interests were engaged rather than his own supplied him with an overpowering motive for being determinedly set on going through with them. at the sorrowful time in the preceding year, when, yielding to the stern sentence passed by sir thomas watson, he had dismissed finally the staff employed on his country readings, he had thus written to me. "i do believe" ( rd of may ) "that such people as the chappells are very rarely to be found in human affairs. to say nothing of their noble and munificent manner of sweeping away into space all the charges incurred uselessly, and all the immense inconvenience and profitless work thrown upon their establishment, comes a note this morning from the senior partner, to the effect that they feel that my overwork has been 'indirectly caused by them, and by my great and kind exertions to make their venture successful to the extreme.' there is something so delicate and fine in this, that i feel it deeply." that feeling led to his resolve to make the additional exertion of these twelve last readings, and nothing would have turned him from it as long as he could stand at the desk. [ ] i preserve also the closing words of the letter. "it is very strange--you remember i suppose?--that the last time we spoke of him together, you said that we should one day hear that the wayward life into which he had fallen was over, and there an end of our knowledge of it." the waywardness, which was merely the having latterly withdrawn himself too much from old friendly intercourse, had its real origin in disappointments connected with the public work on which he was engaged in those later years, and to which he sacrificed every private interest of his own. his was only the common fate of englishmen, so engaged, who do this; and when the real story of the "fresco-painting for the houses of parliament" comes to be written, it will be another chapter added to our national misadventures and reproaches in everything connected with art and its hapless cultivators. [ ] it is a duty to quote these eloquent words. "statesmen, men of science, philanthropists, the acknowledged benefactors of their race, might pass away, and yet not leave the void which will be caused by the death of dickens. they may have earned the esteem of mankind; their days may have been passed in power, honour, and prosperity; they may have been surrounded by troops of friends; but, however pre-eminent in station, ability, or public services, they will not have been, like our great and genial novelist, the intimate of every household. indeed, such a position is attained not even by one man in an age. it needs an extraordinary combination of intellectual and moral qualities . . . before the world will thus consent to enthrone a man as their unassailable and enduring favourite. this is the position which mr. dickens has occupied with the english and also with the american public for the third of a century. . . . westminster abbey is the peculiar resting-place of english literary genius; and among those whose sacred dust lies there, or whose names are recorded on the walls, very few are more worthy than charles dickens of such a home. fewer still, we believe, will be regarded with more honour as time passes and his greatness grows upon us." appendix. i. the writings of charles dickens. . sketches by boz. illustrative of every-day life and every-day people. (the detached papers collected under this title were in course of publication during this year, in the pages of the _monthly magazine_ and the columns of the _morning_ and the _evening chronicle_.) i. ; , ; ; , . . sketches by boz. illustrative of every-day life and every-day people. two volumes: illustrations by george cruikshank. (preface dated from furnival's inn, february .) john macrone. the posthumous papers of the pickwick club. edited by boz. with illustrations by r. seymour and phiz (hablot browne). (nine numbers published monthly from april to december.) chapman and hall. sunday under three heads. as it is; as sabbath bills would make it; as it might be made. by timothy sparks. illustrated by h. k. b. (hablot browne). dedicated (june ) to the bishop of london. chapman & hall. i. . the strange gentleman. a comic burletta, in two acts. by "boz." (performed at the st. james's theatre, th of september , and published with the imprint of .) chapman & hall. i. . the village coquettes. a comic opera, in two acts. by charles dickens. the music by john hullah. (dedication to mr. braham is dated from furnival's inn, th of december .) richard bentley. i. . sketches by boz. illustrated by george cruikshank. second series. one volume. (preface dated from furnival's inn, th of december .) john macrone. . the posthumous papers of the pickwick club. edited by boz. (eleven numbers, the last being a double number, published monthly from january to november. issued complete in the latter month, with dedication to mr. serjeant talfourd dated from doughty-street, th of september, as _the posthumous papers of the pickwick club. by charles dickens._) chapman & hall. i. - ; - . iii. . oliver twist; or the parish boy's progress. by boz. begun in _bentley's miscellany_ for january, and continued throughout the year. richard bentley. . oliver twist. by charles dickens, author of the pickwick papers. with illustrations by george cruikshank. three volumes. (had appeared in monthly portions, in the numbers of _bentley's miscellany_ for and , with the title of _oliver twist; or the parish boy's progress_. by boz. illustrated by george cruikshank. the third edition, with preface dated devonshire-terrace, march , published by messrs. chapman & hall.) richard bentley. i. ; - ; - . iii. , ; . memoirs of joseph grimaldi. edited by "boz." illustrated by george cruikshank. two volumes. (for dickens's small share in the composition of this work, his preface to which is dated from doughty-street, february , see i. - .) richard bentley. sketches of young gentlemen. illustrated by phiz. chapman & hall. i. . life and adventures of nicholas nickleby. by charles dickens. with illustrations by phiz (hablot browne). (nine numbers published monthly from april to december.) chapman & hall. . life and adventures of nicholas nickleby. (eleven numbers, the last being a double number, published monthly from january to october. issued complete in the latter month, with dedication to william charles macready.) chapman & hall. i. ; - . ii. , ; . iii. . sketches by boz. illustrative of every-day life and every-day people. with forty illustrations by george cruikshank. (the first complete edition, issued in monthly parts uniform with _pickwick_ and _nickleby_, from november to june , with preface dated th of may .) chapman & hall. i. - . . sketches of young couples; with an urgent remonstrance to the gentlemen of england, being bachelors or widowers, at the present alarming crisis. by the author of sketches of young gentlemen. illustrated by phiz. chapman & hall, i. . - . master humphrey's clock. by charles dickens. with illustrations by george cattermole and hablot browne. three volumes. (first and second volume, each pp.; third, pp.) for the account of this work, published in weekly numbers, extending over the greater part of these two years, see i. - ; ; , . in addition to occasional detached papers and a series of sketches entitled mr. weller's watch, occupying altogether about pages of the first volume, pages of the second, and pages of the third, which have not yet appeared in any other collected form, this serial comprised the stories of the old curiosity shop and barnaby rudge; each ultimately sold separately in a single volume, from which the pages of the _clock_ were detached. chapman and hall. i. old curiosity shop ( ). began at p. of vol. i.; resumed at intervals up to the appearance of the ninth chapter; from the ninth chapter at p. , continued without interruption to the close of the volume (then issued with dedication to samuel rogers and preface from devonshire-terrace, dated september ); resumed in the second volume, and carried on to the close of the tale at p. . i. - , iii. , . ii. barnaby rudge ( ). introduced by brief paper from master humphrey (pp. - ), and carried to end of chapter xii. in the closing pages of volume ii., which was issued with a preface dated in march . chapter xiii. began the third volume, and the story closed with its nd chapter at p. ; a closing paper from master humphrey (pp. -- ) then winding up the clock, of which the concluding volume was published with a preface dated november . i. , ; - ; - ; - ; - . . the pic-nic papers by various hands. edited by charles dickens. with illustrations by george cruikshank, phiz, &c. three volumes. (to this book, edited for the benefit of mrs. macrone, widow of his old publisher, dickens contributed a preface and the opening story, the _lamplighter_.) henry colburn. i. ; ; , . . american notes for general circulation. by charles dickens. two volumes. chapman and hall. ii. - ; . . the life and adventures of martin chuzzlewit. with illustrations by hablot browne. (begun in january, and, up to the close of the year, twelve monthly numbers published). chapman & hall. a christmas carol in prose. being a ghost story of christmas. by charles dickens. with illustrations by john leech. (preface dated december .) chapman & hall. ii. , ; , ; - . . the life and adventures of martin chuzzlewit. with illustrations by hablot browne. (eight monthly numbers issued; the last being a double number, between january and july; in which latter month the completed work was published, with dedication to miss burdett coutts, and preface dated th of june.) chapman & hall. ii. - ; , ; - ; - ; - . iii. . evenings of a working man. by john overs. with a preface relative to the author, by charles dickens. (dedication to doctor elliotson, and preface dated in june.) t. c. newby. ii. , . the chimes: a goblin story of some bells that rang an old year out and a new year in. by charles dickens. with illustrations by maclise r.a., stanfield r.a., richard doyle, and john leech. chapman & hall. ii. - ; - ; - ; , ; . . the cricket on the hearth. a fairy tale of home. by charles dickens. with illustrations by maclise r.a., stanfield r.a., edwin landseer r.a., richard doyle, and john leech. (dedication to lord jeffrey dated in december .) bradbury & evans (for the author). ii. - ; ; . . pictures from italy. by charles dickens. (published originally in the _daily news_ from january to march , with the title of "travelling letters written on the road.") bradbury & evans (for the author). ii. ; ; - ; ; , . dealings with the firm of dombey and son, wholesale, retail, and for exportation. by charles dickens. with illustrations by hablot browne. (three monthly numbers published, from october to the close of the year.) bradbury & evans. (during this year messrs. bradbury & evans published "for the author," in numbers uniform with the other serials, and afterwards in a single volume, _the adventures of oliver twist, or the parish boy's progress_. by charles dickens. with illustrations by george cruikshank. a new edition, revised and corrected.). the battle of life. a love story. by charles dickens. illustrated by maclise r.a., stanfield r.a., richard doyle, and john leech. (dedicated to his "english friends in switzerland.") bradbury & evans (for the author). ii. ; , ; , ; , ; - ; - ; - . . dealings with the firm of dombey and son. (twelve numbers published monthly during the year.) bradbury & evans. first cheap issue of the works of charles dickens. an edition, printed in double columns, and issued in weekly three-halfpenny numbers. the first number, being the first of _pickwick_, was issued in april ; and the volume containing that book, with preface dated september , was published in october. new prefaces were for the most part prefixed to each story, and each volume had a frontispiece. the first series (issued by messrs. chapman and hall, and closing in september ) comprised pickwick, nickleby, curiosity shop, barnaby rudge, chuzzlewit, oliver twist, american notes, sketches by boz, and christmas books. the second (issued by messrs. bradbury & evans, and closing in ) contained dombey and son, david copperfield, bleak house, and little dorrit. the third, issued by messrs. chapman & hall, has since included great expectations ( ), tale of two cities ( ), hard times and pictures from italy ( ), uncommercial traveller ( ), and our mutual friend ( ). among the illustrators employed for the frontispieces were leslie r.a., webster r.a., stanfield r.a., george cattermole, george cruikshank, frank stone a.r.a., john leech, marcus stone, and hablot browne. see ii. and . . dealings with the firm of dombey & son: wholesale, retail, and for exportation. (five numbers issued monthly, the last being a double number, from january to april; in which latter month the complete work was published with dedication to lady normanby and preface dated devonshire-terrace, th of march.) bradbury & evans, ii. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; - ; - ; - . iii. . the haunted man and the ghost's bargain. a fancy for christmas time. by charles dickens. illustrated by stanfield r.a., john tenniel, frank stone a.r.a., and john leech. bradbury & evans, ii. ; - ; ; - ; . . the personal history of david copperfield. by charles dickens. with illustrations by hablot browne. (eight parts issued monthly from may to december.) bradbury & evans. . the personal history of david copperfield. by charles dickens. illustrated by hablot browne. (twelve numbers issued monthly, the last being a double number, from january to november; in which latter month the completed work was published, with inscription to mr. and mrs. watson of rockingham, and preface dated october.) bradbury & evans. ii. ; , ; , ; ; ; - ; - ; . iii. - ; , . household words. on saturday the th of march in this year the weekly serial of household words was begun, and was carried on uninterruptedly to the th of may , when, its place having been meanwhile taken by the serial in the same form still existing, household words was discontinued. ii. - ; - . iii. ; - . christmas number of _household words_. christmas. to this dickens contributed a christmas tree. . christmas number of _household words_. what christmas is. to this dickens contributed what christmas is as we grow older. . bleak house. by charles dickens. with illustrations by hablot browne. (ten numbers, issued monthly, from march to december.) bradbury & evans. christmas number of _household words_. stories for christmas. to this dickens contributed the poor relation's story, and the child's story. . bleak house. by charles dickens. illustrated by hablot browne. (ten numbers issued monthly, the last being a double number, from january to september, in which latter month, with dedication to his "companions in the guild of literature and art," and preface dated in august, the completed book was published.) bradbury & evans, ii. ; . iii. - ; - ; - ; . a child's history of england. by charles dickens. three vols. with frontispieces from designs by f. w. topham. reprinted from _household words_, where it appeared between the dates of the th of january and the th of december . (it was published first in a complete form with dedication to his own children in .) bradbury & evans, iii. . christmas number of _household words_. christmas stories. to this dickens contributed the school boy's story, and nobody's story. . hard times. for these times. by charles dickens. (this tale appeared in weekly portions in _household words_, between the dates of the st of april and the th of august ; in which latter month it was published complete, with inscription to thomas carlyle.) bradbury & evans, iii. - . christmas number of _household words_: the seven poor travellers. to this dickens contributed three chapters. i. in the old city of rochester; ii. the story of richard doubledick; iii. the road. iii. . . little dorrit. by charles dickens. illustrated by hablot browne. the first number published in december. bradbury & evans. christmas number of _household words_. the holly-tree. to this dickens contributed three branches. i. myself; ii. the boots; iii. the bill. iii. ; . . little dorrit. by charles dickens. illustrated by hablot browne. (twelve numbers issued monthly, between january and december.) bradbury & evans. christmas number of _household words_. the wreck of the golden mary. to this dickens contributed the leading chapter: the wreck. iii. . . little dorrit. by charles dickens. illustrated by hablot browne. (seven numbers issued monthly, the last being a double number, from january to june, in which latter month the tale was published complete, with preface, and dedication to clarkson stanfield.) bradbury & evans, iii. ; ; ; ; - ; - . the lazy tour of two idle apprentices, in _household words_ for october. to the first part of these papers dickens contributed all up to the top of the second column of page ; to the second part, all up to the white line in the second column of page ; to the third part, all except the reflections of mr. idle ( - ); and the whole of the fourth part. all the rest was by mr. wilkie collins, iii. - ; . christmas number of _household words_. the perils of certain english prisoners. to this dickens contributed the chapters entitled the island of silver-store, and the rafts on the river. the first library edition of the works of charles dickens. the first volume, with dedication to john forster, was issued in december , and the volumes appeared monthly up to the th, issued in november . the later books and writings have been added in subsequent volumes, and an addition has also been issued with the illustrations. to the second volume of the old curiosity shop, as issued in this edition, were added "reprinted pieces" taken from dickens's papers in _household words_; which have since appeared also in other collected editions. chapman & hall. iii. . authorized french translation of the works of dickens. translations of dickens exist in every european language; but the only version of his writings in a foreign tongue authorized by him, or for which he received anything, was undertaken in paris. nickleby was the first story published, and to it was prefixed an address from dickens to the french public dated from tavistock-house the th january . hachette. iii. ; . . christmas number of _household words_. a house to let. to this dickens contributed the chapter entitled "going into society." iii. ; . . all the year round, the weekly serial which took the place of household words. began on the th of april in this year, went on uninterruptedly until dickens's death, and is continued under the management of his son. iii. - ; ; - . a tale of two cities. by charles dickens. illustrated by hablot browne. this tale was printed in weekly portions in _all the year round_, between the dates of the th of april and the th of november ; appearing also concurrently in monthly numbers with illustrations, from june to december; when it was published complete with dedication to lord john russell, iii. ; ; - . christmas number of _all the year round_. the haunted house. to which dickens contributed two chapters. i. the mortals in the house. ii. the ghost in master b's room. iii. . . hunted down. a story in two portions. (written for an american newspaper, and reprinted in the numbers of _all the year round_ for the th and the th of august. iii. ; .) the uncommercial traveler. by charles dickens. (seventeen papers, which had appeared under this title between the dates of th of january and th of october in _all the year round_, were published at the close of the year, in a volume, with preface dated december. a later impression was issued in , as a volume of what was called the charles dickens edition; when eleven fresh papers, written in the interval, were added; and promise was given, in a preface dated december , of the uncommercial traveller's intention "to take to the road again before another winter sets in." between that date and the autumn of , when the last of his detached papers were written, _all the year round_ published seven "new uncommercial samples" which have not yet been collected. their title's were, i. aboard ship (which opened, on the th of december , the new series of _all the year round_); ii. a small star in the east; iii. a little dinner in an hour; iv. mr. barlow; v. on an amateur beat; vi. a fly-leaf in a life; vii. a plea for total abstinence. the date of the last was the th of june ; and on the th of july appeared his last piece of writing for the serial he had so long conducted, a paper entitled _landor's life_.) iii. - ; . christmas number of _all the year round_. a message from the sea. to which dickens contributed nearly all the first, and the whole of the second and the last chapter: the village, the money, and the restitution; the two intervening chapters, though also with insertions from his hand, not being his. great expectations. by charles dickens. begun in _all the year round_ on the st of december, and continued weekly to the close of that year. . great expectations. by charles dickens. resumed on the th of january and issued in weekly portions, closing on the rd of august, when the complete story was published in three volumes and inscribed to chauncy hare townshend. in the following year it was published in a single volume, illustrated by mr. marcus stone. chapman & hall. iii. ; ; (the words there used "on great expectations closing in june " refer to the time when the writing of it was closed: it did not close in the publication until august, as above stated); - . christmas number of _all the year round_, tom tiddler's ground. to which dickens contributed three of the seven chapters. i. picking up soot and cinders; ii. picking up miss kimmeens; iii. picking up the tinker. iii. . . christmas number of _all the year round_. somebody's luggage. to which dickens contributed four chapters. i. his leaving it till called for; ii. his boots; iii. his brown-paper parcel; iv. his wonderful end. to the chapter of his umbrella he also contributed a portion. iii. ; . . christmas number of _all the year round_. mrs. lirriper's lodgings. to which dickens contributed the first and the last chapter. i. how mrs. lirriper carried on the business; ii. how the parlours added a few words. iii. , . . our mutual friend. by charles dickens. with illustrations by marcus stone. eight numbers issued monthly between may and december. chapman & hall. christmas number of _all the year round_: mrs. lirriper's legacy: to which dickens contributed the first and the last chapter. i. mrs. lirriper relates how she went on, and went over; ii. mrs. lirriper relates how jemmy topped up. iii. . . our mutual friend. by charles dickens. with illustrations by marcus stone. in two volumes. (two more numbers issued in january and february, when the first volume was published, with dedication to sir james emerson tennent. the remaining ten numbers, the last being a double number, were issued between march and november, when the complete work was published in two volumes.) chapman & hall. iii. ; , ; . christmas number of _all the year round_. doctor marigold's prescriptions. to this dickens contributed three portions. i. to be taken immediately. ii. to be taken for life; iii. the portion with the title of to be taken with a grain of salt, describing a trial for murder, was also his. iii. . . christmas number of _all the year round_. mugby junction. to this dickens contributed four papers. i. barbox brothers; ii. barbox brothers and co.; iii. main line--the boy at mugby. iv. no. i branch line--the signal-man. iii. (where a slight error is made in not treating _barbox_ and the _mugby boy_ as parts of one christmas piece). . the charles dickens edition. this collected edition, which had originated with the american publishing firm of ticknor and fields, was issued here between the dates of and , with dedication to john forster, beginning with pickwick in may , and closing with the child's history in july . the reprinted pieces were with the volume of american notes, and the pictures from italy closed the volume containing hard times. chapman & hall. christmas number of _all the year round_. no thoroughfare. to this dickens contributed, with mr. wilkie collins, in nearly equal portions. with the new series of _all the year round_, which began on the th of december , dickens discontinued the issue of christmas numbers. iii. note. . a holiday romance. george silverman's explanation. written respectively for a child's magazine, and for the atlantic monthly, published in america by messrs. ticknor and fields. republished in _all the year round_ on the th of january and the st and th of february . iii. , . . the mystery of edwin drood. by charles dickens, with twelve illustrations by s. l. fildes. (meant to have comprised twelve monthly numbers, but prematurely closed by the writer's death in june.) issued in six monthly numbers, between april and september. chapman & hall. iii. - . ii. the will of charles dickens. "i, charles dickens, of gadshill place, higham in the county of kent, hereby revoke all my former wills and codicils and declare this to be my last will and testament. i give the sum of £ free of legacy duty to miss ellen lawless ternan, late of houghton place, ampthill square, in the county of middlesex. i give the sum of £ to my faithful servant mrs. anne cornelius. i give the sum of £ to the daughter and only child of the said mrs. anne cornelius. i give the sum of £ to each and every domestic servant, male and female, who shall be in my employment at the time of my decease, and shall have been in my employment for a not less period of time than one year. i give the sum of £ free of legacy duty to my daughter mary dickens. i also give to my said daughter an annuity of £ a year, during her life, if she shall so long continue unmarried; such annuity to be considered as accruing from day to day, but to be payable half yearly, the first of such half-yearly payments to be made at the expiration of six months next after my decease. if my said daughter mary shall marry, such annuity shall cease; and in that case, but in that case only, my said daughter shall share with my other children in the provision hereinafter made for them. i give to my dear sister-in-law georgina hogarth the sum of £ free of legacy duty. i also give to the said georgina hogarth all my personal jewellery not hereinafter mentioned, and all the little familiar objects from my writing-table and my room, and she will know what to do with those things. i also give to the said georgina hogarth all my private papers whatsoever and wheresoever, and i leave her my grateful blessing as the best and truest friend man ever had. i give to my eldest son charles my library of printed books, and my engravings and prints; and i also give to my son charles the silver salver presented to me at birmingham, and the silver cup presented to me at edinburgh, and my shirt studs, shirt pins, and sleeve buttons. and i bequeath unto my said son charles and my son henry fielding dickens, the sum of £ upon trust to invest the same, and from time to time to vary the investments thereof, and to pay the annual income thereof to my wife during her life, and after her decease the said sum of £ and the investments thereof shall be in trust for my children (but subject as to my daughter mary to the proviso hereinbefore contained) who being a son or sons shall have attained or shall attain the age of twenty-one years or being a daughter or daughters shall have attained or shall attain that age or be previously married, in equal shares if more than one. i give my watch (the gold repeater presented to me at coventry), and i give the chains and seals and all appendages i have worn with it, to my dear and trusty friend john forster, of palace gate house, kensington, in the county of middlesex aforesaid; and i also give to the said john forster such manuscripts of my published works as may be in my possession at the time of my decease. and i devise and bequeath all my real and personal estate (except such as is vested in me as a trustee or mortgagee) unto the said georgina hogarth and the said john forster, their heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns respectively, upon trust that they the said georgina hogarth and john forster, or the survivor of them or the executors or administrators of such survivor, do and shall, at their, his, or her uncontrolled and irresponsible direction, either proceed to an immediate sale or conversion into money of the said real and personal estate (including my copyrights), or defer and postpone any sale or conversion into money, till such time or times as they, he, or she shall think fit, and in the meantime may manage and let the said real and personal estate (including my copyrights), in such manner in all respects as i myself could do, if i were living and acting therein; it being my intention that the trustees or trustee for the time being of this my will shall have the fullest power over the said real and personal estate which i can give to them, him, or her. and i declare that, until the said real and personal estate shall be sold and converted into money, the rents and annual income thereof respectively shall be paid and applied to the person or persons in the manner and for the purposes to whom and for which the annual income of the monies to arise from the sale or conversion thereof into money would be payable or applicable under this my will in case the same were sold or converted into money. and i declare that my real estate shall for the purposes of this my will be considered as converted into personalty upon my decease. and i declare that the said trustees or trustee for the time being, do and shall, with and out of the monies which shall come to their, his, or her hands, under or by virtue of this my will and the trusts thereof, pay my just debts, funeral and testamentary expenses, and legacies. and i declare that the said trust funds or so much thereof as shall remain after answering the purposes aforesaid, and the annual income thereof, shall be in trust for all my children (but subject as to my daughter mary to the proviso hereinbefore contained), who being a son or sons shall have attained or shall attain the age of twenty-one years, and being a daughter or daughters shall have attained or shall attain that age or be previously married, in equal shares if more than one. provided always, that, as regards my copyrights and the produce and profits thereof, my said daughter mary, notwithstanding the proviso hereinbefore contained with reference to her, shall share with my other children therein whether she be married or not. and i devise the estates vested in me at my decease as a trustee or mortgagee unto the use of the said georgina hogarth and john forster, their heirs and assigns, upon the trusts and subject to the equities affecting the same respectively. and i appoint the said georgina hogarth and john forster executrix and executor of this my will, and guardians of the persons of my children during their respective minorities. and lastly, as i have now set down the form of words which my legal advisers assure me are necessary to the plain objects of this my will, i solemnly enjoin my dear children always to remember how much they owe to the said georgina hogarth, and never to be wanting in a grateful and affectionate attachment to her, for they know well that she has been, through all the stages of their growth and progress, their ever useful self-denying and devoted friend. and i desire here simply to record the fact that my wife, since our separation by consent, has been in the receipt from me of an annual income of £ , while all the great charges of a numerous and expensive family have devolved wholly upon myself. i emphatically direct that i be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner; that no public announcement be made of the time or place of my burial; that at the utmost not more than three plain mourning coaches be employed; and that those who attend my funeral wear no scarf, cloak, black bow, long hat-band, or other such revolting absurdity. i direct that my name be inscribed in plain english letters on my tomb, without the addition of 'mr.' or 'esquire.' i conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. i rest my claims to the remembrance of my country upon my published works, and to the remembrance of my friends upon their experience of me in addition thereto. i commit my soul to the mercy of god through our lord and saviour jesus christ, and i exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the teaching of the new testament in its broad spirit, and to put no faith in any man's narrow construction of its letter here or there. in witness whereof i the said charles dickens, the testator, have to this my last will and testament set my hand this th day of may in the year of our lord . "signed published and declared by } the above-named charles dickens the } testator as and for his last will and testament } in the presence of us (present together } charles dickens. at the same time) who in his presence } at his request and in the presence of } each other have hereunto subscribed our } names as witnesses. } "g. holsworth, " wellington street, strand. "henry walker, " wellington street, strand. "i, charles dickens of gadshill place near rochester in the county of kent esquire declare this to be a codicil to my last will and testament which will bears date the th day of may . i give to my son charles dickens the younger all my share and interest in the weekly journal called 'all the year round,' which is now conducted under articles of partnership made between me and william henry wills and the said charles dickens the younger, and all my share and interest in the stereotypes stock and other effects belonging to the said partnership, he defraying my share of all debts and liabilities of the said partnership which may be outstanding at the time of my decease, and in all other respects i confirm my said will. in witness whereof i have hereunto set my hand the nd day of june in the year of our lord . "signed and declared by the said } charles dickens, the testator as and } for a codicil to his will in the presence } of us present at the same time who at } charles dickens. his request in his presence and in the } presence of each other hereunto subscribe } our names as witnesses. } "g. holsworth, " wellington street, strand. "henry walker, " wellington street, strand. * * * * * the real and personal estate,--taking the property bequeathed by the last codicil at a valuation of something less than two years' purchase; and of course before payment of the legacies, the (inconsiderable) debts, and the testamentary and other expenses,--amounted, as nearly as may be calculated, to, £ , . iii. corrections made in the later editions of the second volume. i regret to have had no opportunity until now (may, ) of making the corrections which appear in this impression of my second volume. all the early reprints having been called for before the close of , the only change i at that time found possible was amendment of an error at p. , as to the date of the first performance at devonshire house, and of a few others of small importance at pp. , , , , , and . premising that additional corrections, also unimportant, are now made at pp. , , , , , , , and , i proceed to indicate what may seem to require more detailed mention. p. . "covent-garden" is substituted for "drury-lane." the _chronicle_ atoned for its present silence by a severe notice of the man's subsequent appearance at the haymarket; and of this i am glad to be reminded by mr. gruneisen, who wrote the criticism. . the son of the publican referred to (mr. whelpdale of streatham), pointing out my error in not having made the duke of brunswick the defendant, says he was himself a witness in the case, and has had pride in repeating to his own children what the chief justice said of his father. . the "limpet on the rock" and the "green boots" refer to a wonderful piece by turner in the previous year's academy, exhibiting a rock overhanging a magnificent sea, a booted figure appearing on the rock, and at its feet a blotch to represent a limpet: the subject being napoleon at st. helena. . "assumption" is substituted for "transfiguration." . six words are added to the first note. , . an error in my former statement of the circumstances of mr. fletcher's death, which i much regret to have made, is now corrected. . the proper names of the ship and her captain are here given, as the fantôme, commanded by sir frederick (now vice-admiral) nicolson. . a correspondent familiar with lausanne informs me that the castle of chillon is not visible from rosemont, and that dickens in these first days must have mistaken some other object for it. "a long mass of mountain hides chillon from view, and it only becomes visible when you get about six miles from lausanne on the vevay road, when a curve in the road or lake shows it visible behind the bank of mountains." the error at p. , now corrected, was mine. . "clinking," the right word, replaces "drinking." . a passage which stood in the early editions is removed, the portrait which it referred to having been not that of the lady mentioned, but of a relative bearing the same name. , . i quote a letter to myself from one of the baronet's family present at the outbreak goodnaturedly exaggerated in mr. cerjat's account to dickens. "i well remember the dinner at mr. cerjat's alluded to in one of the letters from lausanne in your life of dickens. it was not however our first acquaintance with the 'distinguished writer,' as he came with his family to stay at a pension on the border of the lake of geneva where my father and his family were then living, and notwithstanding the gallant captain's 'habit' the families subsequently became very intimate." . lord vernon is more correctly described as the fifth baron, who succeeded to the title in and died in in his th year. . the distance of mont blanc from the neuchâtel road is now properly given as sixty not six miles. , second line from bottom. not "subsequent" but "modified" is the proper word. . in mentioning the painters who took an interest in the guild scheme i omitted the distinguished name of mr. e. m. ward, r.a., by whom an admirable design, taken from defoe's life, was drawn for the card of membership. , . in supposing that the child's dream of a star was not among dickens's reprinted pieces, i fell into an error, which is here corrected. . i did not mean to imply that lady graham was herself a sheridan. she was only connected with the family she so well "represented" by being the sister of the lady whom tom sheridan married. * * * * * the incident at mr. hone's funeral quoted at pp. - from a letter to mr. felton written by dickens shortly after the occurrence ( nd of march, ), and published, a year before my volume, in mr. field's _yesterdays with authors_ (pp. - ), has elicited from the "independent clergyman" referred to a counter statement of the alleged facts, of which i here present an abridgement, omitting nothing that is in any way material. "though it is thirty years since . . . several who were present survive to this day, and have a distinct recollection of all that occurred. one of these is the writer of this article--another, the rev. joshua harrison. . . . the independent clergyman never wore bands, and had no bible under his arm. . . . an account of mr. hone had appeared in some of the newspapers, containing an offensive paragraph to the effect that one 'speculation' having failed, mr. hone was disposed, and persuaded by the independent clergyman, to try another, that other being 'to try his powers in the pulpit.' this was felt by the family to be an insult alike to the living and the dead. . . . mr. harrison's account is, that the independent clergyman was observed speaking to miss hone about something apparently annoying to both, and that, turning to mr. cruikshank, he said 'have you seen the sketch of mr. hone's life in the _herald_?' mr. c. replied 'yes.' 'don't you think it very discreditable? it is a gross reflection on our poor friend, as if he would use the most sacred things merely for a piece of bread; and it is a libel on me and the denomination i belong to, as if we could be parties to such a proceeding.' mr. c. said in reply, 'i know something of the article, but what you complain of was not in it originally--it was an addition by another hand.' mr. c. afterwards stated that he wrote the article, 'but _not_ the offensive paragraph.' the vulgar nonsense put into the mouth of the clergyman by mr. dickens was wound up, it is said, by 'let us pray' . . . but this _cannot_ be true; and for this reason, the conversation with mr. cruikshank took place before the domestic service, and that service, according to nonconformist custom, is always begun by reading an appropriate passage of scripture. . . . mr. dickens says that while they were kneeling at prayer mr. cruikshank whispered to him what he relates. mr. c. denies it; and i believe him. . . . in addition to the improbability, one of the company remembers that mr. dickens and mr. cruikshank did not sit together, and could not have knelt side by side." the reader must be left to judge between what is said of the incident in the text and these recollections of it after thirty years. * * * * * at the close of the corrections to the first volume, prefixed to the second, the intention was expressed to advert at the end of the work to information, not in correction but in illustration of my text, forwarded by obliging correspondents who had been scholars at the wellington house academy (i. ). but inexorable limits of space prevent, for the present, a fulfilment of this intention. j. f. palace gate house, kensington, _ nd of january _. index. a'beckett (gilbert), at miss kelly's theatre, ii. ; death of, iii. . aberdeen, reading at, iii. . actors and acting, i. , , , ii. , , - , , , ; at miss kelly's theatre, ii. ; french, iii. - . adams (john quincey), i. , . adelphi theatre, _carol_ dramatized at the, ii. . africa, memorials of dead children in, iii. . agassiz (m.), iii. note. agreements, literary, ii. , , iii. . ainsworth (harrison), i. , , . alamode beef-house (johnson's), i. . albany (u. s.), reading at, iii. (and see ). albaro, villa bagnerello at, ii. , ; the sirocco at, ii. ; angus fletcher's sketch of the villa, ii. ; english servants at, ii. ; tradespeople at, ii. , ; dinner at french consul's, ii. - ; reception at the marquis di negri's, ii. . albert (prince), i. note; at boulogne, iii. . alison (dr.), i. , . alison (sheriff), ii. . _all the year round_, titles suggested for, iii. - ; first number of, iii. ; success of, iii. ; difference between _household words_ and, iii. ; tales in, by eminent writers, iii. ; sale of christmas numbers of, iii. ; dickens's detached papers in, iii. - , ; charles collins's papers in, iii. ; projected story for, iii. , ; new series of, iii. note; change of plan in, iii. note; dickens's last paper in, iii. . allan (sir william), i. , ; ii. . allonby (cumberland), iii. ; landlady of inn at, iii. . allston (washington), i. . amateur theatricals, i. - ; ii. ; iii. - . ambigu (paris), _paradise lost_ at the, iii. , . america, visit to, contemplated by dickens, i. ; wide-spread knowledge of dickens's writings in, i. , , iii. - ; eve of visit to, i. - ; visit to, decided, i. ; proposed book about, i. ; arrangements for journey, ; rough passage to, i. - ; first impressions of, i. - ; hotels in, i. , iii. , , , ; inns in, i. , note, , , , , iii. ; dickens's popularity in, i. , iii. ; second impressions of, i. - ; levees in, i. , , , , , ; outcry against dickens in, i. ; slavery in, i. , - , , ii. ; international copyright agitation in, i. , , , ; railway travelling in, i. , , iii. , , , ; trying climate of, i. ; "located" englishmen in, i. ; dickens's dislike of, i. ; canal-boat journeys in, i. - ; dickens's real compliment to, i. ; deference paid to ladies in, i. ; duelling in, i. ; dickens's opinion of country and people of, in , i. , (and see , ); in , ii. , iii. - ; effect of _martin chuzzlewit_ in, ii. , ; desire in, to hear dickens read, iii. ; mr. dolby sent to, iii, ; result of dolby's visit, iii. , note; revisited by dickens, iii. - ; old and new friends in, iii. ; profits of readings in, iii. ; fenianism in, iii. ; newspapers in, iii. ; planning the readings in, iii. ; nothing lasts long in, iii. , ; work of dickens's staff in, iii. ; the result of readings in, iii. ; dickens's way of life in, iii. , , note; value of a vote in, iii. ; objection to coloured people in, iii. ; female beauty in, iii. ; total expenses of reading tour, and profits from readings, iii. (and see , ); dickens's departure from, iii. ; effect of dickens's death in, iii. . americanisms, i. , , , , , , . _american notes_, choicest passages of, i. , ; less satisfactory than dickens's letters, i. , ; in preparation, ii. , ; proposed dedication of, ii. ; rejected motto for, ii. ; suppressed introductory chapter to, ii. - ; jeffrey's opinion of, ii. ; large sale of, , . americans, friendly, ii. ; deaths of famous, since , iii. note; homage to dickens by, iii. note; french contrasted with, ii. . andersen (hans), iii. . anniversary, a birthday, i. , , iii. , ; a fatal, iii. , , . arnold (dr.), dickens's reverence for, ii. . arras (france), a religious richardson's show at, iii. . art, conventionalities of, ii. ; limitations of, in england, iii. ; inferiority of english to french, iii. , . artists' benevolent fund dinner, iii. . ashburton (lord), i. , . ashley (lord) and ragged schools, i. ; ii. , , . astley's, a visit from, iii. , ; _mazeppa_ at, iii. note. _as you like it_, french version of, iii. . atlantic, card-playing on the, i. , . auber and queen victoria, iii. . austin (henry), i. ; iii. ; secretary to the sanitary commission, ii. ; death of, iii. , . australia, idea of settling in, entertained by dickens, iii. ; scheme for readings in, iii. note (idea abandoned, iii. ). austrian police, the, iii. , . authors, american, i. . authorship, disquietudes of, ii. , . babbage (charles) ii. . bagot (sir charles), i. . balloon club at twickenham, i. note. baltimore (u. s.), women of, iii. ; readings at, iii. , , (and see ); white and coloured prisoners in penitentiary at, iii. . bancroft (george), i. , ii. . banquets, emile de girardin's superb, iii. - . bantams, reduced, iii. . barham (rev. mr.), ii. , . _barnaby rudge_, agreement to write, i. (and see , , - , , ); dickens at work on, i. , - , - ; agreement for, transferred to chapman and hall, i. - ; the raven in, i. - ; constraints of weekly publication, i. ; close of, i. ; the story characterised, i. - . bartlett (dr.) on slavery in america, i. . bath, a fancy about, iii. , . bathing, sea, dickens's love of, ii. , , . _battle of life_ title suggested for the, ii. (and see ); contemplated abandonment of, ii. ; writing of, resumed, ii. ; finished, ii. ; points in the story, ; jeffrey's opinion of the, ii. , ; sketch of the story, ii. , ; dickens's own comments on, ii. ; date of the story, ; reply to criticism on, ii. ; doubts as to third part of, ii. ; dedication of, ii. ; illustrated by stanfield and leech, ; grave mistake made by leech, ii. ; dramatized, ii. . bayham-street, camden town, dickens's early life in, i. - . beale (mr.), a proposal from, iii. . beard (mr. carr), ii. ; on dickens's lameness, iii. ; readings stopped by, iii. ; in constant attendance on dickens at his last readings, iii. (and see ). beard (thos.), i. . , , iii. . beaucourt (m.), described by dickens, iii. - ; his "property," iii. ; among the putney market-gardeners, iii. ; goodness of, iii. note. bedrooms, american, i. , . beecher (ward), iii. ; readings in his church at brooklyn, iii. . beer, a dog's fancy for, iii. note. beggars, italian, ii. , . begging-letter writers, i. , ii. , ; in paris, ii. . belfast, reading at, iii. . benedict (jules), illness of, ii. . bentley (mr.), dickens's early relations with, i. , , , , , , , , iii. ; friendly feeling of dickens to, in after life, ii , iii. . _bentley's miscellany_, dickens editor of, i. ; proposal to write _barnaby rudge_ in, i. ; editorship of, transferred to mr. ainsworth, i. , . berwick, mary (adelaide procter), iii. berwick-on-tweed, reading at, iii. . betting-men at doncaster, iii. - . beverley (william), at wellington-house academy, i. . birds and low company, iii. , . birmingham, dickens's promise to read at, iii. ; promise fulfilled (first public readings), iii. ; another reading at, iii. ; dickens's speeches at institute at, ii. , , iii. . birthday associations, i. , , iii. , . black (adam), i. . black (charles), ii. . black (john), i. , ii. ; early appreciation by, of dickens, i. ; dinner to, ii. . blacking-warehouse (at hungerford stairs), dickens employed at, i. ; described, i. (and see iii. note); associates of dickens at, i. ; removed to chandos-street, covent-garden, i. ; dickens leaves, i. ; what became of the business, i. . blackmore (edward), dickens employed as clerk by, i. ; his recollections of dickens, i. . blackpool, dickens at, iii. . _blackwood's magazine and little dorrit_, iii. . blair (general), iii. . blanchard (laman). ii. , (and see ); a literary fund dinner described by, i. note. _bleak house_ begun, ii. ; originals of boythorn and skimpole in, iii. - ; inferior to _copperfield_, iii. ; handling of character in, iii. - ; defects of, iii. ; dean ramsay on, iii. ; originals of chancery abuses in, iii. ; proposed titles for, iii. note; completion of, iii. ; sale of, iii. . blessington (lady), lines written for, ii. note (and see ). blind institution at lausanne, inmates of, ii. , , iii. . bonchurch, dickens at, ii. - ; effect of climate of, ii. - ; entertainment at, iii. , note. books, written and unwritten, hints for, iii. - ; suggested titles in memoranda for new, iii. , ; a complete list of dickens's, iii. - . booksellers, invitation to, ii. note. boots, absurdity of, i. . boots, a gentlemanly, at calais, i. ; a patriotic irish, iii. . _boots at the holly-tree inn_, iii. ; reading of, at boston (u. s.), iii. . bores, american, i. , , , , . boston (u. s.), first visit to, i. - ; enthusiastic reception at, i. ; dinner at, i. ; changes in, since , iii. ; first reading in, iii. ; a remembrance of christmas at, iii. ; walking-match at, iii. ; audiences at, iii. ; last readings at, iii. . _bottle_ (cruikshank's), dickens's opinion of, ii. , . boulogne, an imaginary dialogue at, ii. , ; dickens at, iii. , , , - ; the pier at, iii. ; dickens's liking for, iii. ; m. beaucourt's "property" at, iii. - , - ; sketch of m. beaucourt, iii. - ; prices of provisions at, iii. note; shakespearian performance at, iii. ; pig-market at, iii. ; thackeray at, iii. note; camp at, iii. , , ; prince albert at, iii. , ; illuminations at, iii. ; epidemic at, iii. . _boulogne jest book_, iii. note. bouquets, serviceable, iii. . bourse, victims of the, iii. . boxall (william), ii. , iii. . boxing-match, a, ii. . boyle (mary), ii. , iii. . boys, a list of christian names of, iii. , . boz, origin of the word, i. ; facsimile of autograph signature, i. . bradbury & evans (messrs.), ii. , , , , ; a suggestion by, ii. ; dickens's agreements with, ii. (and see ), iii. . bradford, dickens asked to read at, iii. note. brighton, dickens's first visit to, i. ; other visits, ii. , , ; theatre at, i. ; reading at, iii. . _bride of lammermoor_ (scott's), composition of the, iii. , . british museum reading-room, frequented by dickens, i. . broadstairs, dickens at, i. , , , , - , ii. , note, - , - , - , - ; _nickleby_ completed at, i. ; dickens's house at, i. ; writing _american notes_ at, ii. ; pony-chaise accident, ii. , ; smuggling at, ii. . brobity's (mr.) snuff-box, iii. . brooklyn (new york), scene at, iii. ; readings in mr. ward beecher's chapel, iii. . brougham (lord), in paris, ii. , ; the "_punch_ people" and, ii. . browne (h. k.) chosen to illustrate _pickwick_, i. ; accompanies dickens and his wife to flanders, i. ; failure of, in a _dombey_ illustration, ii. , (but see , ); sketch by, for micawber, ii. ; his sketch of skimpole, iii. . browning's (r. b.) _blot on the 'scutcheon_, dickens's opinion of, ii. . bruce (knight), ii. . brunel (isambard), ii. . buckingham palace, dickens at, iii. . buffalo (u. s.), reading at, iii. . buller (charles), ii. . burdett (sir francis), advocacy of the poor, i. . burns festival, prof. wilson's speech at the, ii. . buss (mr.), _pickwick_ illustrations by, i. . byron's (lord) ada, ii. . Ça ira, the revolutionary tune of, iii. . cambridge, reading at, iii. . cambridge (u. s.) and boston contrasted, iii. ; the webster murder at, iii. , . camden-town, dickens with mrs. roylance at, i. . campbell (lord), i. note; on the writings of dickens, iii. and note; death of, iii. note. canada, emigrants in, ii. , . canal-boat journeys in america, i. - ; a day's routine on, i. , ; disagreeables of, i. ; a pretty scene on board, i. - . cannibalism, an approach to, ii. . cannon-row, westminster, incident at public-house in, i. . canterbury, reading at, iii. . car-driver, an irish, iii. , note. carlyle (lord), ii. . carlisle (bishop of) and colenso, iii. note. carlyle (thomas), ii. , , , , ; a strange profane story, i. ; on international copyright, i. - ; dickens's admiration of, i. (and see ii. ); a correction for, ii. ; on dickens's acting, iii. ; grand teaching of, iii. ; inaugural address of, at edinburgh university, iii. ; hint by, to common men, iii. ; on humour, iii. ; a hero to dickens, iii. ; on dickens's death, iii. , (and see ii. ). carlyle (mrs.), on the expression in dickens's face, i. ; death of, iii. ; dickens's last meeting, iii. . carriage, an unaccommodating, ii. ; a wonderful, ii. . carrick fell (cumberland), ascent of, iii. , ; accident on, iii. . _castle spectre_, a judicious "tag" to the, ii. . catholicism, roman, the true objection to, ii. . cattermole (george), i. , , ii. note; imitation of a cabstand waterman by, ii. note. _caudle lectures_, a suggestion for the, ii. note. cerjat (mr.), ii. (and see iii. ), . chalk (kent), dickens's honeymoon spent at, i. ; revisited, i. . chambers, contemplated chapters on, i. . chamounix, dickens's trip to, ii. - ; revisited, iii. , ; narrow escape of egg at, iii. . chancery, dickens's experience of a suit in, ii. - ; originals of the abuses exposed in _bleak house_, iii. , . channing (dr.) on dickens, i. , , . chapman and hall, overtures to dickens by, i. ; advise purchase of the _sketches_ copyright from mr. macrone, i. ; early relations of dickens with, i. , ; share of copyright in _pickwick_ conceded by, i. ; payments by, for _pickwick_ and _nicholas nickleby_, i. ; outline of _master humphrey's clock_ submitted to, i. - ; purchase of _barnaby rudge_ by, i. ; dickens's earliest and latest publishers, iii. . chapman (mr. thomas), not the original of mr. dombey, ii. (and see ). chappell (messrs.), agreements with, iii. , , ; arrangement with, for course of final readings, iii. note (and see ); amount received from, on account of readings, iii. ; dickens's tribute to, iii. note (and see ). _charles dickens as a reader_ (charles kent's), iii. note. chatham, dickens's early impressions of, i. , ; day-school in rome-lane, i. note; mr. giles's school at, i. , . cheeryble (brothers) in _nickleby_, originals of, i. . chester, readings at, iii. , . chesterton (mr.), i. , ii. . chicago (u. s.), monomania respecting, iii. . chigwell, inn at, i. . children, powers of observation in, i. , ; mortality of young, in london, iii. note, ; old, iii. . children-farming, dickens on, iii. , note. _child's history_, the, finished, iii. . child's night-lights, wonders of, iii. . chillon, castle of, ii. , , . _chimes_, a title found for the, ii. ; design for, ii. ; dickens hard at work on, ii. ; first outline of the, ii. - ; effect of, on dickens's health, ii. , ; objections to, ii. ; finished, ii. ; private readings of, at lincoln's-inn fields, ii. , , ; jeffrey's opinion of the, ii. . chimneys, the smoky, i. . chinese junk, ii. - . chorley (henry), iii. . christmas, dickens's identity with, ii. . christmas-eve and day, dickens's accustomed walk on, iii. . _christmas carol_, origin of, ii. ; preparation of, ii. , ; sale and accounts of, ii. - ; jeffrey and thackeray on, ii. ; message of the, ii. ; the story characterized, ii. ; dramatized at the adelphi, ii. ; reading of, for the hospital for sick children, iii. ; reading of, in boston (u. s.), iii. , ; thackeray's copy of, purchased by her majesty, iii. note. _christmas sketches_, dickens's, iii. , . christmas sports, ii. note. cicala, the, ii. . cincinnati (u. s.), i. ; described, i. , ; temperance festival at, i. ; bores at, i. . circumlocution office, the, iii. . clay (henry), i. , ; on international copyright, i. . clennam (mrs.), in _little dorrit_, original of, iii. . cleveland (u. s.), rude reception of mayor of, i. . coachman, a paris, ii. note. cobham-park, i. , ; dickens's last walk in, iii. . cockburn (sir alexander), iii. . coffee-shops frequented by dickens, i. . cogswell (mr.), ii. , . coincidence, marvels of, iii. , , . col de balme pass, ii. . colden (david), i. , , ii. note, . colenso (bishop) and the bishop of carlisle, iii. note. coleridge (sara) on little nell, iii. note; on _chuzzlewit_, iii. note. collier (payne) and dickens in hungerford market, iii. note. collins (charles alston), marriage of, to kate dickens, iii. ; books by, iii. ; on dickens's accompaniments of work, iii. note; cover designed by, for _edwin drood_, iii. ; death of, iii. . collins (wilkie), dickens's regard for, ii. ; holiday trip of, with dickens and egg, iii. - ; at boulogne, iii. ; in paris, iii. ; in cumberland, iii. - ; accident to, on carrick fell, iii. ; tales by, in _all the year round_, iii. ; at his brother's wedding, iii. . colquhoun (mr.), i. . columbus (u. s.), levee at, i. . commercial travellers' schools, admired by dickens, iii. . commons, house of, dickens's opinion of, i. , iii. . conjuror, a french, iii. - . consumption, hops a supposed cure for, iii. . conversion, a wonderful, ii. note. cooke, mr. (of astley's), iii. , . cooling castle, ruins of, iii. , . cooling churchyard, dickens's partiality for, iii. . copyright, international, dickens's views on, i. , , , , , , ii. ; henry clay on, i. ; petition to american congress on, i. , ; carlyle on, i. - ; two obstacles to, i. , (and see ii. ); result of agitation, i. . corduroy-road, a, i. , . cornwall (barry), ii. , iii. (and see , ). cornwall, dickens's trip to, ii. - . costello (dudley), fancy sketch of, ii. . coutts, miss (baroness burdett-coutts), great regard for, ii. ; true friendship of, ii. ; generosity of, ii. note, , iii. (and see ii. ). covent-garden theatre, macready at, i. , ; farce written by dickens for, i. ; dinner at the close of mr. macready's management, i. ; the editor of the _satirist_ hissed from stage of, ii. ; dickens applies for an engagement at, ii. . coventry, gold repeater presented to dickens by watchmakers of, iii. (and see ). crawford (sir george), ii. . _cricket on the hearth_, origin of the, ii. - ; dickens busy on, ii. ; reading of, in ary scheffer's studio, iii. . crimean war, unpopular in france, iii. , , . cruikshank (george), illustrations by, to _sketches_, i. ; claim by, to the origination of _oliver twist_, i. - , ii. , , , note (and see autograph letter of dickens, ii. , , and p. vii. of vol. ii.); fancy sketch of, ii. , ; dickens's opinion of his _bottle_ and _drunkard's children_, ii. , , . _cruize on wheels_ (charles collins's), iii, . cumberland, dickens's trip in, iii. - . cunningham, peter, character and life, iii. , . curry (mr.), ii. , , . custom-house-officers (continental), ii. , , . _daily news_ projected, ii. ; misgiving as to, ii. - ; first number of, ii. ; dickens's short editorship, ii. - ; succeeded by author of this book, ii. , , . dana (r. h.), i. . danson (dr. henry), recollections by, of dickens at school, i. - ; letter from dickens to, i. note. dansons (the), at work, iii. . _david copperfield_, identity of dickens with hero of, i. - ; iii. - ; characters and incidents in, iii. - ; original of dora in, i. ; name found for, ii. ; dinners in celebration of, ii. , , ; sale of, ii. ; titles proposed for, ii. - ; progress of, ii. - ; lord lytton on, iii. ; popularity of, iii. ; original of miss moucher in, iii. ; original of mr. micawber in, iii. - ; _bleak house_ inferior to, iii. ; a proposed opening of, iii. ; fac-simile of plan prepared for first number of, iii. . de foe (daniel), dickens's opinion of, iii. note; his _history of the devil_, i. . delane (john), ii. . denman (lord), ii. . devonshire (duke of) and the guild of literature and art, ii. . devonshire-terrace, dickens removes from doughty-street into, i. ; maclise's sketch of dickens's house in, iii. . dick, a favourite canary, iii. . dickens (john), family of, i. ; small but good library of, i. ; money embarrassments of, i. , ; character of, described by his son, i. ; arrested for debt, i. ; legacy to, i. ; leaves the marshalsea, i. ; on the education of his son, i. ; becomes a reporter, i. ; devonshire home of, described, i. - ; death of, ii. ; his grave at highgate, ii. ; sayings of, iii. , ; respect entertained by his son for, iii. . dickens (fanny), ii. , , ; elected a pupil to the royal academy of music, i. ; obtains a prize thereat, i. ; illness of, ii. , ; death of, ii. ; her funeral, i. . dickens (alfred), i. , ; death of, iii. . dickens, augustus, (died in america), ii. . dickens (frederick), i. , , (and see ii. ); narrow escape from drowning in the bay at genoa, ii. ; death of, iii. . dickens, charles, birth of, at portsea, i. . reminiscences of childhood at chatham, i. - . relation of david copperfield to, i. , , ; iii. - . his wish that his biography should be written by the author of this book, i. note. first efforts at description, i. . account by himself of his boyhood, i. - (and see ii. - ; iii. ). illnesses of, i. , , , ; ii. , , note; iii. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . clerk in an attorney's office, i. . hopeless love of, i. , . employed as a parliamentary reporter, i. (and see iii. note). his first attempts in literature, i. . his marriage, i. . writes for the stage, i. (and see , ). predominant impression of his life, i. , ; ii. - ; iii. , . personal habits of, i. , , , , , , ; ii. , , ; iii. - , . relations of, with his illustrators, i. - ; ii. , . portraits of, i. note; iii. - , . curious epithets given by, to his children, i. note; ii. note, note, , , note; iii. (and see i. , , , , ). his ravens, i. - ; ii. . adventures in the highlands, i. - . first visit to the united states, i. . domestic griefs of, i. . an old malady of, i. ; iii. , . an admirable stage manager, i. - ; ii. , - , , , note, , . his dogs, ii. , , note; iii. note, - , . his will, ii. , (and see iii. ). his accompaniments of work, ii. , , ; iii. , note. religious views of, ii. , , - ; iii. - . turning-point of his career, ii. . writing in the _chronicle_, ii. . fancy sketch of his biographer, ii. . sea-side holidays of, ii. - ; iii. - . italian travels, ii. - ; iii. - . craving for crowded streets, ii. , , , , . political opinions of, ii. ; iii. - (and see ). wish to become an actor, ii. . his long walks, ii. , note, note; iii. , - . first desire to become a public reader, ii. , ; iii. , . edits the _daily news_, ii. . his home in switzerland, ii. , . residence in paris, ii. - , iii. - . underwriting numbers, ii. note, ; iii. , . overwriting numbers, ii. , , . first public readings, iii. . revisits switzerland and italy, iii. - . his birds, iii. , . home disappointments, iii. - (and see ). separation from his wife, iii. . purchases gadshill-place, iii. . first paid readings, iii. - . second series of readings, iii. - . third series of readings, iii. - . revisits america, iii. - . memoranda for stories first jotted down by, iii. (and see - ). his "violated letter," iii. , . favourite walks of, iii. , - . his mother's death, iii. . his first attack of lameness, iii. (and see , , , , note, , , , , , , ). general review of his literary labours, iii. - , - . effect of his death in america, iii. . last readings of, iii. - . noticeable changes in, iii. , , . comparison of his early and his late mss., iii. , , . personal characteristics of, iii. - . his interview with the queen, iii. , . strain and excitement at the final readings at st. james's hall, iii. . last days at gadshill, iii. , . a tribute of gratitude to, for his books, iii. , . general mourning for, iii. . burial in westminster abbey, iii. . unbidden mourners at grave, iii. . dickens (mrs.), i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , - , ii. , , , , iii. ; reluctance to leave england, i. ; an admirable traveller, i. ; maclise's portrait of, ii. ; the separation, iii. (and see , .) dickens (charles, jun.), i. , , ii. ; birth of, i. ; illness of, ii. ; education of, ii. , iii. note; marriage of, iii. . dickens (mary), birth of, i. (and see ii. , iii. ). dickens (kate), birth of, i. (and see ii. ); illness of, ii. ; marriage of, iii. . dickens (walter landor), death of, i. (and see iii. , ). dickens (francis jeffrey), birth of, ii. . dickens (alfred tennyson), ii. . dickens (lieut. sydney), death of, at sea, ii. note. dickens (henry fielding), birth of, ii. ; acting of, iii. ; scholarship at cambridge won by, iii. (and see iii. ). dickens (edward bulwer lytton), birth of, iii. . dickens (dora annie), birth of, ii. ; death of, ii. ; her grave at highgate, ii. , iii. . _dickens in camp_ (bret harte's), i. , . dilke (charles wentworth), i. , ; death of, iii. note. dilke (sir charles), ii. . disraeli (mr.), iii. . doctors, dickens's distrust of, ii. . doctors' commons, dickens reporting in, i. (and see ii. , iii. ). _doctor marigold's prescriptions_, large sale of, ii. note; dickens's faith in, iii. ; how written, iii. ; success of the reading of, at new york, iii. , . dogs, dickens's, ii. , , note, iii. note, - , ; effect of his sudden lameness upon, iii. . dolby (miss), ii. . dolby, mr. (dickens's manager) sent to america, iii. ; troubles of, iii. , , , , ; the most unpopular man in america, iii. ; care and kindness of, iii. ; commission received by, iii. . _dombey and son_, original of mrs. pipchin in, i. , ii. ; begun at rosemont, ii. ; dickens at work on, ii. , , , , ; general idea for, ii. ; hints to artist, ii. ; a reading of first number of, ii. ; large sale of, ii. , (and see ); a number under written, ii. note; charwoman's opinion of, ii. , ; plan of, ii. - ; progress of, ii. - ; artist-fancies for mr. dombey, ii. , ; passage of original ms. omitted, ii. , note; a reading of second number of, ii. (and see , ); jeffrey on, ii. , and note, ; characters in, and supposed originals of, ii. - (and see ); profits of, ii. ; translated into russian, ii. . doncaster, the race-week at, iii. - ; a "groaning phantom" at, iii. . dora, a real, i. , ; changed to flora in _little dorrit_, i. . d'orsay (count) and roche the courier, ii. note; death of, iii. . doughty-street, dickens removes to, i. ; incident of, iii. . dover, dickens at, iii. , ; reading at, iii. ; storm at, iii. . dowling (vincent), i. . dramatic college, royal, dickens's interest in the, iii. . dream, a vision in a, ii. - (and see iii. - ); president lincoln's, iii. . _drunkard's children_ (cruikshank's), dickens's opinion of, ii. , . drury-lane theatre, opening of, ii. . dublin, dickens's first impressions of, iii. ; humorous colloquies at morrison's hotel in, iii. , ; reading in, iii. (and see note, ). duelling in america, i. . dumas (alexandre), tragedy of _kean_ by, ii. (and see iii. note); his _christine_, ii. ; a supper with, ii. . dundee, reading at, iii. . du plessis (marie), death of, ii. . dyce (alexander), ii. . eden in _martin chuzzlewit_, original of, i. , ; a worse swamp than, ii. . edinburgh, public dinner in, to dickens, i. - ; presentation of freedom of, i. (and see iii. ); wassail-bowl presented after _carol_ reading, iii. ; readings at, iii. , , , and note; scott monument at, ii. . editorial troubles and pleasures, iii. . editors, american, incursion of, i. . education, two kinds of, i. ; dickens's speeches on, ii. . _edwin drood_, clause inserted in agreement for, iii. note; sale of, iii. note; amount paid for, iii. note; first fancy for, iii. ; the story as planned in dickens's mind, iii. , ; longfellow on, iii. ; merits of, iii. , ; facsimile of portion of final page of, iii. (and see ); an unpublished scene for, iii. - ; original of the opium-eater in, iii. ; a reading of a number of, iii. . egg (augustus), fancy sketch of, ii. ; holiday trip of, with dickens and wilkie collins, iii. - ; narrow escape at chamounix, iii. . electric message, uses for an, iii. . eliot (george), dickens's opinion of her first book, ii. . elliotson (dr.), i. , ii. , . elton (mr.), dickens's exertions for family of, ii. . elwin (rev. whitwell), allusion to, ii. . emerson (ralph waldo), ii. . emigrants in canada, ii. , . emigration schemes, dickens's belief in, ii. . emmanuel (victor), visit of, to paris, iii. . englishmen abroad, ii. , , - . engravings, dickens on, ii. , note. _evening chronicle_, sketches contributed by dickens to, i. . _evenings of a working-man_ (john overs'), ii. . _every man in his humour_, private performances of, at miss kelly's theatre, ii. , (and see iii. ). _examiner_, articles by dickens in the, i. . executions, public, letter against, ii. . exeter, reading at, iii. . eye-openers, iii. . facsimiles: of letter written in boyhood by dickens, i. ; of the autograph signature "boz," i. ; of new york invitations to dickens, i. - ; of letter to george cruikshank, ii. , ; of plan prepared for first numbers of _copperfield_ and _little dorrit_, iii. , ; of portion of last page of _edwin drood_, iii. (and see ); of _oliver twist_, iii. . fairbairn (thomas), letter of dickens to, on posthumous honours, iii. . _fatal zero_ (percy fitzgerald's), iii. . faucit (helen), ii. . fechter (mr.), châlet presented by, to dickens, iii. , ; dickens's friendly relations with, iii. . feline foes, iii. , . felton (cornelius c.), i. , , , ii. note; death of, iii. note. fenianism in ireland, iii. , note; in america, iii. (and see ). fermoy (lord), iii. . fêtes at lausanne, ii. , . fiction, realities of, iii. - . field (kate), _pen photographs_ by, iii. note. fielding (henry), real people in novels of, iii. ; episodes introduced by, in his novels, iii. ; dr. johnson's opinion of, iii. ; m. taine's opinion of, iii. . fields (james t.), _yesterdays with authors_ by, ii. note; on dickens's health in america, iii. , ; at gadshill, iii. , . fiesole, landor's villa at, ii. note. fildes (s. l.), chosen to illustrate _edwin drood_, iii. . finality, a type of, ii. . finchley, cottage at, rented by dickens, ii. . _fine old english gentleman_, political squib by dickens, i. , . fireflies in italy, ii. , and note. fires in america, frequency of, iii. , . fitzgerald (percy), iii. ; a contributor in _all the year round_, iii. ; personal liking of dickens for, iii. . "fix," a useful word in america, i. . flanders, dickens's trip to, i. . fletcher, (angus), i. , , ; stay of, with dickens at broadstairs, i. ; anecdotes of, i. , , note, (and see ii. , , , , , note); pencil sketch by, of the villa bagnerello at albaro, ii. ; death of, ii. note. flies, plague of, at lausanne, ii. , note. fonblanque (albany), i. , ii. , ; wit of, ii. , , iii. . footman, a meek, ii. . fortescue (miss), ii. . _fortnightly review_, mr. lewes's critical essay on dickens in, iii. - . fowls, eccentric, iii. , . fox (william johnson), ii. . fox-under-the-hill (strand), reminiscence of, i. . franklin (lady), iii. . fraser (peter), ii. . freemasons' hall, banquet to dickens at, iii. . freemasons' secret, a, ii. . free-trade, lord "gobden" and, ii. . french and americans contrasted, ii. . frescoes, perishing, ii. ; at the palazzo peschiere, ii. note, ; maclise's, for the houses of parliament, iii. note. friday, important incidents of dickens's life connected with, ii. , iii. , , &c. frith (w. p.), portrait of dickens by, iii. . funeral, scene at a, ii. - ; an english, in italy, ii. . furnival's inn, room in, where the first page of _pickwick_ was written, iii, . gadshill place, a vision of boyhood at, i. (and see iii. ); dick's tomb at, iii. note; first description of, iii. ; sketch of porch at, iii. ; purchase of, iii. ; antecedents of, iii. ; improvements and additions at, iii. - ; sketch of châlet at, iii. ; nightingales at, iii. ; dickens's daily life at, iii. - ; sketch of house and conservatory, iii. ; study at, iii. ; games at, for the villagers, iii. , ; dickens's last days at, iii. - . _gambler's life_, lemaitre's acting in the, iii. - . gamp (mrs.), original of, ii. ; a masterpiece of english humour, ii. , ; with the strollers, ii. - . gaskell (mrs.), ii. , , iii. . gasman's compliment to dickens, iii. (and see ). gautier (théophile), ii. . geneva, dickens at, ii. ; revolution at, ii. - ; aristocracy of, ii. . genoa described, ii. - ; theatres at, ii. , (and see iii. note); religious houses at, ii. ; rooms in the palazzo peschiere hired by dickens, ii. ; view over, ii. ; governor's levee at, ii. ; an english funeral at, ii. ; nautical incident at, ii. ; revisited by dickens, iii. - . _george silverman's explanation_, iii. (and see note). gibson (milner), ii. . _gilbert massenger_ (holme lee's) remarks of dickens on, iii. , . giles (william), i. ; dickens at the school kept by, i. , ; snuff box presented to "boz" by, i. . gipsy tracks, iii. . girardin (emile de), iii. ; banquets given by, in honour of dickens, iii. - . girls, american, i. , note; irish, iii. note; list of christian names of, iii. , . gladstone (mr.), and dickens, i. , iii. . glasgow, proposed dinner to dickens at, i. ; reading at, iii. ; dickens at meeting of athenæum, ii. . glencoe, pass of, i. , ; effect of, on dickens, i. . goldfinch, the, and his friend, iii. . gondoliers at venice, habits of, iii. . gordon (lord george), character of, i. . gordon (sheriff), ii. . gore-house, a party at, ii. note. gower-street-north, school in, opened by dickens's mother, i. ; a dreary home, i. , iii. ; home broken up, i. . graham (sir james), ii. . graham (lady), ii. . grant (james), recollections of dickens by, i. (and see ). graves, town, iii. , note; dickens's dislike to speech-making at, iii. . _great expectations_, original of satis-house in, iii. ; germ of, iii. ; the story characterized, iii. - ; close of, changed at bulwer lytton's suggestion, iii. , and note. great malvern, cold-waterers at, ii. . greek war-ship, a, iii. . greeley (horace), iii. , ; on the effect in america of dickens's death, iii. ; on dickens's fame as a novelist, iii. ; a suggestion from, iii. . grey (lord), recollection of, ii. , . _grimaldi, life of_, edited by dickens, i. ; the editor's modest estimate of it, i. ; criticisms on, i. , . grip, dickens's raven, i. ; death of, i. , ; apotheosis, by maclise, i. ; a second grip, i. . grisi (madame), ii. . guild of literature and art, origin of, ii. ; princely help of the duke of devonshire to, ii. (and see iii. , ). hachette (mm.), agreement with, for french translation of dickens's works, iii. note. haghe (louis), iii. . haldimand (mr.), seat of, at lausanne, ii, . halévy (m.), dinner to, ii. . halifax, the "britannia" aground off, i. ; the house of assembly at, i. . hall (mr. and mrs. s. c.), ii. . hall (william), funeral of, ii. . hallam (henry), loquacity of, ii. . halleck (fitz-greene) on dickens, iii. note. halliday (andrew), iii. . _hamlet_, an emendation for, ii. ; performance of, at preston, iii. . hampstead heath, dickens's partiality for, i. , ii. . hampstead-road, mr. jones's school in the, i. . hansard (mr.), letter from, concerning mr. macrone, ii. , note. hardwick (john), ii. . _hard times_, proposed names for, iii. , and note; title chosen, iii. ; written for _household words_, iii. ; ruskin's opinion of, iii. , . harley (mr.), ii. . harness (rev. wm.), ii. , , . harrogate, reading at, iii. . harte (bret), dickens on, i. ; tribute by, to dickens, i. , . hartford (u. s.) levee at, i. . harvard and oxford crews, the, iii. . hastings, reading at, iii. . hatton-garden, dickens at, iii. . _haunted man_, first idea of, ii. ; large sale of, ii. ; dramatized, ii. ; teachings and moral of the story, ii. - ; the christening dinner, ii. . hawthorne (n.), dickens on, ii. . hayes (catherine), ii. . heaven, ambition to see into, ii. . helps (arthur), iii. ; _in memoriam_ by, iii. . hereditary transmission, iii. note (and see ). highgate, dora's grave at, ii. , iii. . highlands, dickens's adventures in the, i. - . hogarth, dickens on, ii. , . hogarth (george), i. ; dickens marries eldest daughter of, i. . hogarth (georgina), ii. , iii. , , , ; sketch taken from, ii. , iii. ; maclise's portrait of, ii. , . hogarth (mary), death of, i. ; epitaph on tomb of, i. note (and see ii. ); dickens's loving memory of, i. , , , , ii. - , , iii. . _holiday romance and george silverman's explanation_, high price paid for, iii. (and see note, and ). holland (lady), a remembrance of, ii. . holland (lord), ii. . holland (captain), the _monthly magazine_ conducted by, i. . holyhead, a fenian at, iii. note. hone of the _every day book_, scene at funeral of, ii. - (but see iii. , ). honesty under a cloud, ii. . hood (thomas), ii. ; his _tylney hall_, ii. . hop-pickers, iii. . horne (r. h.), ii. . hospital for sick children, dickens's exertions on behalf of, iii. - ; a small patient at, iii. ; _carol_ reading for, iii. . hotels american, i. , iii. , , , ; extortion at, i. , . houghton (lord), ii. , iii. , . _household words_ in contemplation, ii. - ; title selected for, ii. ; names proposed for, ii. ; first number of, ii. ; early contributors to, ii. ; mrs. gaskell's story in, iii. ; unwise printed statement in, iii. ; discontinued, iii. (and see ). hudson (george), glimpse of, in exile, iii. . hugo (victor), an evening with, ii. , . hulkes (mr.), iii. note, . hull, reading at, iii. . humour, americans destitute of i. ; a favourite bit of, ii. ; the leading quality of dickens, iii. , ; lord lytton on the employment of, by novelists, iii. note; dickens's enjoyment of his own, iii. - ; the true province of, iii. . hungerford-market, i. (and see iii. note). hunt (holman), iii. . hunt (leigh), saying of, i. ; on _nicholas nickleby_, i. ; civil-list pension given to, ii. ; theatrical benefit for, ii. - ; result of performances, ii. ; last glimpse of, iii. note; letter of dickens to, in self-defence, iii. ; the original of harold skimpole in _bleak house_, iii. - ; inauguration of bust of, at kensal-green, iii. . _hunted down_, high price paid for, iii. ; original of, iii. . imaginative life, tenure of, iii. . improprieties of speech, ii. . incurable hospital, patients in the, iii. . inimitable, as applied to dickens, origin of the term, i. . inn, a log-house, i. . innkeeper, a model, i. . inns, american, miss martineau on, i. (and see note, , , , iii. ); highland, i. , , ; italian, ii. , , , . international boat-race dinner, dickens at, iii. . ireland, a timely word on, ii. . irving (washington), i. , , , , , note; letter from dickens to, i. ; a bad public speaker, i. - ; at literary fund dinner in london, i. ; at richmond (u. s.), i. . italians hard at work, ii. . italy, art and pictures in, ii. - , iii. , ; private galleries in, ii. note; cruelty to brutes in, ii. note; wayside memorials in, ii. , note; best season in, ii. ; fire-flies in, ii. ; dickens's trip to, iii. - ; the noblest men of, in exile, iii. . jack straw's-castle (hampstead-heath), i. , , , ii. , . jackson (sir richard), i. . jeffrey (lord), i. ; praise of little nell by, i. ; presides at edinburgh dinner to dickens, i. ; on the _american notes_, ii. ; praise by, of the _carol_, ii. ; on the _chimes_, ii. ; his opinion of the _battle of life_, ii. , ; forecaste of _dombey_ by, ii. note; on paul's death, ii. note; on the character of edith in dombey, ii. - ; james sheridan knowles and, ii. ; touching letter from, ii. ; death of, ii. . jerrold (douglas), ii. , , , ; at miss kelly's theatre, ii. , ; fancy sketch of, ii. , iii. note; last meeting with dickens, iii. ; death of, iii. ; proposed memorial tribute to, and result, iii. . jesuits at geneva, rising against the, ii. - (and see - ). johnson (president), interview of dickens with, iii. ; impeachment of, iii. . johnson (reverdy), at glasgow art-dinner, iii. note. jonson (ben), an experience of, ii. . jowett (dr.), on dickens, iii. , . karr (alphonse), ii. . keeley (mrs.), ii. ; in _nicholas nickleby_, i. , ii. . kelly (fanny), theatre of, in dean-street, soho, ii. - ; whims and fancies of, ii. . kemble (charles) and his daughters, ii. . kemble (john), ii. . kensal-green, mary hogarth's tomb at, i. note, ii. note. kent (charles), _charles dickens as a reader_ by, iii. note; letter to, iii. . _kissing the rod_ (edmund yates'), iii. . knebworth, private performances at, ii. , ; dickens at, iii. , . knight (charles), ii. . knowles (james sheridan), bankruptcy of, ii. ; civil-list pension granted to, ii. ; performances in aid of, ii. , . ladies, american, i. ; eccentric, ii. - . laing (mr.), of hatton garden, iii. . lamartine (a., de), ii. , iii. . lameness, strange remedy for, i. . lamert (james), private theatricals got up by, i. ; takes young dickens to the theatre, i. ; employs dickens at the blacking-warehouse, i. ; quarrel of john dickens with, i. (and see ). _lamplighter_, dickens's farce of the, i. , ii. ; turned into a tale for the benefit of mrs. macrone, i. . landor (walter savage), dickens's visit to, at bath, i. ; mystification of, i. ; villa at fiesole, ii. , (and see note); the original of boythorn in _bleak house_, iii. ; a fancy respecting, iii. ; forster's _life_ of, ii. note, iii. . landport (portsea), birth of dickens at, i. . landseer (charles), ii. . landseer (edwin), i. , ii. , , , iii. note, ; and napoleon iii., iii. note (and see iii. ). land's-end, a sunset at, ii. . lankester (dr.), ii. . lant-street, borough, dickens's lodgings in, i. ; the landlord's family reproduced in the garlands in _old curiosity shop_, i. . lausanne, dickens's home at, ii. , ; booksellers' shops at, ii. ; the town described, ii. ; view of rosemont, ii. ; girl drowned in lake at, ii. , ; theatre at, ii. , note; fêtes at, ii. , , , ; marriage at, ii. ; revolution at, ii. ; prison at, ii. , ; blind institution at, ii. - , iii. ; english colony at, ii. note; plague of flies at, ii. , note; earthquake at, ii. note; feminine smoking party, ii. ; the town revisited, iii. , . lawes (rev. t. b.), club established by, at rothamsted, iii. . layard (a. h.), iii. ; at gadshill, iii. , . lazy tour projected, iii. (and see ). lazzaroni, what they really are, ii. . leech (john) at miss kelly's theatre, ii. ; grave mistake by, in _battle of life_ illustration, ii. , ; fancy sketch of, ii. ; dickens's opinion of his _rising generation_, ii. - ; what he will be remembered for, ii. ; accident to, at bonchurch, ii. ; at boulogne, iii. ; death of, iii. (and see ). leeds, reading at, iii. . leeds mechanics' society, dickens at meeting of the, ii. , . _legends and lyrics_ (adelaide procter's), iii. note. legerdemain in perfection, iii. - (and see , note). leghorn, dickens at, iii. , . legislatures, local, i. . lehmann (frederic), iii. , . leigh (percival), ii. . lemaitre (frédéric), acting of, iii. - (and see ). lemon (mark), ii. , , ; fancy sketch of, ii. ; acting with children, iii. ; death of, iii. . lemon (mrs.), ii. . leslie (charles robert), iii. . letter-opening at the general post-office, ii. , . levees in the united states, i. , , , , , ; queer customers at, i. ; what they are like, i. . lever (charles), tale by, in _all the year round_, iii. . lewes (george henry), dickens's regard for, ii. ; critical essay on dickens, in the _fortnightly review_, noticed, iii. - . library, a gigantic, ii. , . _life of christ_, written by dickens for his children, ii. note. life-preservers, i. . _lighthouse_, carlyle on dickens's acting in the, iii. . lincoln (president), curious story respecting, iii. , (and see ). lincoln's-inn-fields, a reading of the _chimes_ in, ii. , , . linda, dickens's dog, iii. , ; burial-place of, iii. . liston (robert), ii. . literary fund dinner, i. (and see iii. ). literature, too much "patronage" of, in england, iii. . littérateur, a fellow, ii. . _little dorrit_, fac-simile of plan prepared for first number of, iii. ; sale of, iii. ; general design of, iii. ; weak points in, iii. , ; von moltke and, iii. ; original of mrs. clennam in, iii. ; notions for, iii. . little nell, florence dombey and, ii. ; sara coleridge on, iii. note. liverpool, readings at, iii. , , , ; dickens's speech at mechanics' institution at, ii. , ; leigh hunt's benefit at, ii. , ; public dinner to dickens, iii. , , . loch-earn-head, postal service at, i. . locock (dr.), ii. . lodi, dickens at, ii. - . logan stone, stanfield's sketch of, ii. . london, pictures of, in dickens's books, i. ; readings in, iii. , , , . longfellow (henry wadsworth), i. , , iii. ; among london thieves and tramps, ii. (and see ); at gadshill, iii. ; on dickens's death, iii. . longman (thomas), ii. . louis philippe, a glimpse of, ii. ; dethronement of, ii. . lovelace (lord), ii. . lowther, mr. (chargé d'affaires at naples), difficulty in finding house of, iii. - . lytton (lord), ii. (and see iii. ); prologue written by, for ben jonson's play, ii. , note; dickens's admiration for, ii. , ; his opinion of _copperfield_, iii. , ; _strange story_ contributed to _all the year round_, iii. ; dickens's reply to remonstrance from, iii. , ; defence by, of humourists, iii. note; suggestion as to close of _great expectations_, iii. ; letter of dickens to, from cambridge (u. s.), iii. , . lytton (robert), iii. . mackenzie (dr. shelton) and cruikshank's illustrations to _oliver twist_, i. note; rigmarole by, concerning dickens and her majesty, iii. , note. maclise (daniel), i. , ii. , , ; portrait of dickens by, i. note; social charm of, i. , ; his apotheosis of grip, i. ; his play-scene in _hamlet_, i. ; among london tramps, ii. ; sketches in cornwall by, ii. , ; letter from, on the cornwall trip, , ; his "girl at the waterfall," ii, ; paints mrs. dickens's portrait, ii. ; pencil drawing of charles dickens, his wife, and her sister, ii. ; dickens's address to, ii. - ; sketch of the private reading in lincoln's-inn-fields, ii. ; house in devonshire-terrace sketched by, iii. ; death of, iii. ; tribute of dickens to, iii. . _macmillan's magazine_, paper in, on dickens's amateur theatricals, iii. note. macrae (david), _home and abroad_ by, iii. note. macready (william charles), i. , , , ii. , ; at covent-garden, i. ; dinner to, on his retirement from management, i. ; dinner to, prior to american visit, ii. , ; an apprehended disservice to, ii. ; in new orleans, ii. ; in paris, ii. , , iii. ; strange news for, ii. ; anecdote of, ii. , note; dickens's affection for, ii. ; farewell dinner to, ii. ; at sherborne, iii. ; his opinion of the _sikes and nancy_ scenes, iii. ; misgiving of dickens respecting, iii. , . macready (mrs.), death of, iii. . macrone (mr.), copyright of _sketches by boz_ sold to, i. ; scheme to reissue _sketches_, i. ; exorbitant demand by, i. , ii. , note; close of dealings with, i. ; a friendly plea for, ii. note. magnetic experiments, i. , . malleson (mr.), iii. . malthus philosophy, ii. . managerial troubles, ii. , , - . manby (charles), pleasing trait of, iii. . manchester, dickens's speech at opening of athenæum, ii. (and see iii. ); leigh hunt's benefit at, ii. ; guild dinner at, ii. ; readings at, iii. , , , , . manchester (bishop of) on dickens's writings, iii. , note. manin (daniel), iii. . mannings, execution of the, ii. . _manon lescaut_, auber's opera of, iii. . mansion-house dinner to "literature and art," ii. ; doubtful compliment at, ii. ; suppressed letter of dickens respecting, ii. . marcet (mrs.), ii. , . margate theatre, burlesque of classic tragedy at, ii. (and see ii. ). mario (signor), ii. . marryat (captain) on the effect in america of the _nickleby_ dedication, ii. ; fondness of, for children, ii. (and see ii. , iii. ). marshalsea prison, dickens's first and last visits to the, i. , , iii. ; an incident in, described by dickens, i. - (and see iii. ). marston's (mr. westland) _patrician's daughter_, prologue to, ii. . martineau (harriet) on american inns, i. , note. _martin chuzzlewit_, agreement for, i. (and see ii. , ); original of eden in, i. , ; fancy for opening of, ii. (and see i. , ); first year of, ii. - ; names first given to, ii. ; sydney smith's opinion of first number of, ii. ; origin of, ii. ; original of mrs. gamp in, ii. ; sale of, less than former books, ii. , (and see ); unlucky clause in agreement for, ii. ; dickens's own opinion of, ii. , ; the story characterized, ii. - ; thackeray's favourite scene in, ii. ; intended motto for, ii. ; m. taine on, ii. ; christening dinner, ii. ; sara coleridge on, iii. note. _master humphrey's clock_, projected, i. - ; first sale of, i. ; first number published, i. ; original plan abandoned, i. ; dinner in celebration of, i. ; _clock_ discontents, i. . mazzini (joseph), dickens's interest in his school, ii. . mediterranean, sunset on the, ii. . _mémoires du diable_, a pretty tag to, iii. , . memoranda, extracts from dickens's book of, iii. - ; available names in, iii. - . mendicity society, the, ii. . mesmerism, dickens's interest in, i. , , , ii. . micawber (mr.), in _david copperfield_, original of, iii. - ; comparison between harold skimpole and, iii. ; mr. g. h. lewes on, iii. , ; on corn, iii. . middle temple, dickens entered at, i. , . _midsummer night's dream_ at the opera comique, boulogne, iii. . milnes (monckton), ii. . _mirror of parliament_, dickens reporting for, i. . mississippi, the, i. . mitton (thomas), i. , ii. . moltke (von) and _little dorrit_, iii. . _money_ (lord lytton's), a performance of, at doncaster, iii. note. mont blanc, effect of, on dickens, ii. . montreal, private theatricals in, i. , ; facsimile of play-bill at, i. . moore (george), business qualities and benevolence, iii. . moore (thomas), i. , . morgue at paris, ii. ; a tenant of the, ii. . _morning chronicle_, dickens a reporter for the, i. ; liberality of proprietors, i. ; change of editorship of, ii. , ; articles by dickens in the, ii. , . morris (mowbray), ii. . moulineaux, villa des, iii. - , - . mountain travelling, ii. . _mr. nightingale's diary_, the guild farce of, ii. , iii. . _mrs. lirriper's lodgings_, iii. . _mugby junction_, germ of, in memoranda, iii. . mule-travelling in switzerland, ii. . mulgrave (lord), i. , , , , ii. . mumbo jumbo, ii. . murray (lord), i. , ii. . music, effect of, on a deaf, dumb, and blind girl, ii. ; vagrant, ii. , . names, available, iii. , . naples, burial place at, ii. note; filth of, ii. (and see iii. ); dickens at, iii. - . napoleon iii. at gore-house, ii. note; at boulogne, iii. ; at paris, iii. note; edwin landseer and, iii. note. nautical incident at genoa, ii. . neaves (mr.), i. . negri (marquis di), ii. - . new bedford (u.s.), reading at, iii. . newcastle, readings at, iii. , ; alarming scene at, iii. . newhaven (u. s.), levee at, i. . _new sentimental journey_ (collins's), iii. . newspaper express, a, i. . newspapers, american, iii. . newsvendors' dinner, dickens at, iii. . new-year's day in paris, iii. . new york, fac-similes of invitations to dickens, i. , ; the carlton hotel in, i. (and see iii. ); ball at, i. - ; life in, i. ; hotel bills in, i. (and see ); public institutions ill-managed at, i. ; prisons in, i. - ; capital punishment in, i. ; sale of tickets for the readings, iii. , - ; first reading in, iii. ; fire at the westminster-hotel, iii. , ; prodigious increase since dickens's former visit, iii. ; niblo's theatre at, iii. ; sleigh-driving at, iii. ; police of, iii. (and see i. ); the irish element in, iii. ; farewell readings in, iii. ; public dinner to dickens at, iii. . _new york herald_, i. , iii. . _new york ledger_, high price paid for tale by dickens in, iii. . _new york tribune_, dickens's "violated letter" in the, iii. , . niagara falls, effect of, on dickens, i. , (and see iii. ). _nicholas nickleby_, agreement for, i. ; first number of, i. , ; sale of, i. ; the _saturday review_ on, i. ; characters in, i. - ; opinions of sydney smith and leigh hunt on, i. , ; dickens at work on, i. - ; dinner-celebration of, i. , ; originals of the brothers cheeryble in, i. ; proclamation on the eve of publication, ii. , note; effect of, in establishing dickens, iii. (and see ). nicolson (sir frederick), ii. . nightingales at gadshill, iii. . _nobody's fault_, the title first chosen for _little dorrit_, iii. . no-popery riots, description of the, i. . normanby (lord), ii. , , . norton (charles eliot), iii. , . norwich, reading at, iii. . _no thoroughfare_, i. . novels, real people in, iii. - ; episodes in, iii. . novelists, old, design for cheap edition of, ii. . nugent (lord), ii. . "ocean spectre," the, ii. note. o'connell (daniel), ii. . odéon (paris), dickens at the, iii. , . ohio, on the, i. . _old curiosity shop_, original of the marchioness in, i. ; originals of the garland family, i. ; original of the poet in jarley's wax-work, i. ; the story commenced, i. ; disadvantages of weekly publication, i. ; changes in proofs, i. ; dick swiveller and the marchioness, i. ; effect of story upon the writer, i. ; death of little nell, i. ; close of the tale, i. ; success of, i. ; characterized, i. - ; a tribute by bret harte, i. , ; characters in, iii. . _old monthly magazine_, dickens's first published piece in, i. ; other sketches in, i. . _oliver twist_, commenced in _bentley's miscellany_, i. ; characters in, real to dickens, i. , ; the story characterized, i. , , , ; dickens at work on, i. ; the last chapter of, i. ; the cruikshank illustrations to, - ; reputation of, i. ; reply to attacks against, i. - ; teaching of, i. ; "adapted" for the stage, i. , ; noticed in the _quarterly review_, i. ; copyright of, repurchased, i. ; original of mr. fang, iii. ; character-drawing in, iii. ; proposed reading from, iii. ; facsimile of portion of ms. of, iii. . opium-den, an, iii. (and see note). osnaburgh-terrace, dickens in, ii. . _our mutual friend_, title chosen for, iii. ; hints for, in memoranda, iii. , ; first notion for, iii. ; original of mr. venus in, iii. ; marcus stone chosen as illustrator, iii. ; the story reviewed, iii. - . ouvry (frederic), iii. , ; clause inserted by, in agreement for _edwin drood_, iii. note; humorous letter of dickens to, iii. . overs (john), dickens's interest in, ii. ; death of, ii. note. over-work, remains of, ii. . owen (prof.), ii. . paintings, dickens on, ii. - . _paradise lost_ at the ambigu, paris, iii. , . paris, dickens's first day in, ii. ; sunday in, ii. ; dickens's house in, described, ii. - ; unhealthy political symptoms at, ii. , ; the morgue at, ii. ; incident in streets of, ii. ; hard frost at, ii. ; dickens's alarming neighbour, ii. ; begging-letter writers in, ii. ; sight-seeing at, ii. ; theatres at, ii. ; bibliothèque royale, ii. ; the praslin tragedy in, ii. ; dickens's life in, iii. - ; dickens's house in, iii. ; personal attentions to dickens, iii. ; theatres of, iii. - ; illumination of, iii. ; new-year's day in, iii. , ; results of imperial improvement in, iii. note; art exposition at, iii. - ; a duchess murdered in, iii. , . parliament, old houses of, inconvenience of the, i. . parr (harriet), iii. note. parry (john), ii. . pawnbrokers, dickens's early experience of, i. . peel (sir robert) and his party, i. ; lord ashley and, i. ; the whigs and, ii. . _pen photographs_ (miss field's) iii. note. perth, reading at, iii. . peschiere, palazzo (genoa), rooms in the, hired by dickens, ii. ; a fellow-tenant in, ii. ; described, ii. - ; view of the, ii. ; revisited, iii. ; dinner-party at, ii. ; owner of the, iii. . petersham, athletic sports at, i. . phelps (mr.), ii. . philadelphia, dickens at, i. - ; penitentiary at, i. - ; letters from, iii. - (and see ii. , ). _pickwick papers_, materials for, i. ; first number of, i. ; origin of, i. ; seymour's illustrations to, i. note; thackeray's offer to illustrate, i. , ; the debtor's prison in, i. , ; popularity of, i. (and see iii. , ); reality of characters in, i. , ; inferior to later books, i. ; mr. pickwick an undying character, i. (and see ); piracies of, i. ; completion of, i. ; payments for, i. ; a holy brother of st. bernard and, ii. ; characters in, iii. ; where it was begun, iii. . _pictures from italy_, original of the courier in, ii. - ; publication commenced in the _daily news_, ii. . _pic nic papers_ published, i. . "piljians projiss," a new, ii. - . pig-market at boulogne, iii. . pipchin (mrs.) in _dombey_, original of, i. , ii. , ; various names proposed for, ii. note. pirates, literary, ii. ; proceedings in chancery against, ii. - ; warning to, ii. note. pisa, a jaunt to, iii, . pittsburg (u. s.), description of, i. ; solitary prison at, i. . poets, small, iii. . pollock (chief baron) on the death of dickens, iii. note. poole (john), aid rendered to, by dickens, ii. ; civil-list pension granted to, ii. . poor, dickens's sympathy with the, i. , (and see ), ii. , , . popularity, distresses of, i. . porte st. martin (paris), dickens at the, iii. . portland (u. s.) burnt and rebuilt, iii. . portrait painter, story of a, iii. . portsea, birth of dickens at, i. . prairie, an american, i. , ; pronunciations of the word, i. . praslin tragedy in paris, ii. . prayer, dickens on personal, iii. . preston, a strike at, iii. , ; _hamlet_ at, iii. . primrose (mr.), i. . printers' pension fund dinner, presided over by dickens, ii. . prisons, london, visits to, i. ; american, i. - , - , ; comparison of systems pursued in, ii. . procter (bryan waller), iii. , ; dickens's affection for, ii. . procter (adelaide), dickens's appreciation of poems by, iii. . publishers, hasty compacts with, i. ; dickens's agreements with, ii. , iii. (and see - ). publishers, authors and, ii. , , iii. , . puddings, a choice of, i. , . "_punch_ people," lord brougham and the, ii. ; at mansion-house dinner, ii. . q, dickens's secretary in the united states, i. , , , , , , , , , , , , , ; described, i. - (and see iii. note). _quarterly review_, prophecy in not fulfilled, i. note; notice of _oliver twist_ in, i. ; on cruikshank and leech, ii. . queen (her majesty the) and auber, iii. , ; alleged offers to dickens, iii. , and , note; desire of, to see dickens act, iii. ; thackeray's copy of the _carol_ purchased by, iii. , note; dickens's interview with, iii. , ; grief at dickens's death, iii. . rachel (madame), caprice of, iii. . ragged schools, dickens's interest in, ii. ; results of, ii. note (and see ii. ); proposed paper on, by dickens, declined by _edinburgh review_, ii. . railroads, american, ladies' cars on, i. . railway travelling, effect on dickens, iii. ; in america, i. - , , iii. , , , . ramsay (dean) on _bleak house_ and jo, iii. , . ramsgate, entertainments at, ii. note. raven, death of dickens's first, i. - ; of second, ii. . raymond (george), ii. . reade (charles), _hard cash_ contributed by, to _all the year round_, iii. . readings, gratuitous, iii. note; private, in scheffer's atelier, iii. ; in lincoln's-inn-fields, ii. , , . public, dickens's first thoughts of, ii. , , iii. ; argument against paid, iii. , ; idea of, revived, iii. ; opinions as to, asked and given, iii. , note; disadvantages of, iii. ; proposal from mr. beale respecting, iii. ; first rough notes as to, iii. , note; various managers employed by dickens, iii. ; hard work involved by, iii. , ; study given to, iii. . first series of, iii. - ; sale of books of, iii. note; subjects of, iii. . second series of, iii. - ; what it comprised, iii. ; new subjects for, iii. . third series of, iii. - ; messrs. chappell's connection with, iii. - . american, iii. - ; result of, iii. , . readings given by dickens: australian, contemplated, iii. note (but see ); bulwer's opinion of, iii. note. last series of, iii. - (and see note). readings (alphabetical list of): aberdeen, iii. . albany (u. s.), iii. ; receipts at, iii. . baltimore (u. s.), iii. , , ; receipts at, iii. . belfast, iii. . berwick-on-tweed, iii. . birmingham, iii. . boston (u. s.), iii. , , ; receipts at, iii. . brighton, iii. . brooklyn (new york), iii. ; receipts at, iii. . buffalo (u. s.), iii. ; receipts at, iii. . cambridge, iii. . canterbury, iii. . chester, iii. , . dover, iii. . dublin, iii. - , . dundee, iii. . edinburgh, iii. , , , and note. exeter, iii. , . glasgow, iii. . harrogate, iii. . hartford (u. s.), iii. . liverpool, iii. , , , , . london, iii. , , , . manchester, iii. , , , , . new bedford (u. s.), iii. ; receipts at, iii. . newcastle, iii. , . newhaven (u. s.), iii. ; receipts at, iii. . new york, iii. , , ; receipts at, iii. . norwich, iii. . paris, iii. . perth, iii. . philadelphia (u. s.), iii. , , ; receipts at, iii. . portland (u. s.), iii. ; receipts at, iii. . providence (u. s.), iii. ; receipts at, iii. . rochester (u. s.), iii. ; receipts at, iii. . springfield (u. s.), iii. . syracuse (u. s.), iii. ; receipts at, iii. . torquay, iii. , . washington (u. s.), iii. , , ; receipts at, iii. . worcester (u. s.), iii. . york, iii. , . reeves (sims), ii, . reformers, administrative, iii. , note. regiments in the streets of paris, iii. note. regnier (m.) of the français, ii. , , iii. , . rehearsals, troubles at, ii. . religion, what is the true, ii. . reporters' gallery, dickens enters the, i. ; ceases connection with, i. . reporter's life, dickens's own experience of a, i. - (and see ii. ). revolution at geneva, ii. - ; traces left by, ii. ; abettors of, ii. . rhine, dickens on the, ii. , ; travelling englishmen on the, ii. . _richard doubledick, story of_, iii. . richardson (sir john), iii. . richardson's show, a religious, iii. . richmond (u. s.), levees at, i. . rifle-shooting, lord vernon's passion for, ii. ; at lausanne, ii. , , . _rising generation_ (leech's), dickens on, ii. - . ristori (mad.) in _medea_, iii. . roberts (david), iii. . robertson (peter), i. , ii. , ; sketch of, i. , . robertson (t. w.), iii. , . _robinson crusoe_, dickens's opinion of, iii. note (and see i. note). roche (louis), employed by dickens as his courier in italy, ii. ; resources of, ii. , , (and see , ); count d'orsay and, ii. note; illness of, ii. ; death of, ii. note. rochester, early impressions of, i. (and see iii. ); watts's charity at, iii. note. rochester castle, adventure at, ii. . rochester cathedral, brass tablet in, to dickens's memory, iii. note. rochester (u. s.), alarming incident at, iii. . rockingham-castle, dickens's visit to, ii. - ; private theatricals at, ii. , iii. . rocky mountain sneezer, a, iii. . rogers (samuel), i. , ii. ; sudden illness of, ii. (and see note). rome, dickens's first impressions of, ii. ; dickens at, iii. - ; a "scattering" party at opera at, iii. , ; marionetti at, iii. , ; malaria at, iii. , . rosemont (lausanne), taken by dickens, ii. ; view of, ii. ; dickens's neighbours at, ii. , note, ; _dombey_ begun at, ii. ; the landlord of, ii. note. rothamsted, rev. mr. lawes's club at, iii. . royal academy dinner, dickens's last public words spoken at, iii. . roylance (mrs.), the original of mrs. pipchin in _dombey_, i. , ii. . ruskin (mr.) on _hard times_, iii. , . russell (lord j.), a friend of letters, ii. , ; on dickens's letters, iii. ; dinner with, ii. ; dickens's tribute to, iii. , and note. ryland (arthur), letter of dickens to, iii. note. sala (g. a.), dickens's opinion of, ii. note; tribute by, to dickens's memory, iii. . salisbury plain, superiority of, to an american prairie, i. ; a ride over, ii. . sand (georges), iii. , . sandusky (u. s.), discomforts of inn at, i. . sardinians, dickens's liking for, iii. . _satirist_, editor of, hissed from the covent-garden stage, ii. . _saturday review_ on the realities of dickens's characters, i. . scene-painting, iii. . scheffer (ary), portrait of dickens by, iii. , ; reading of _cricket on the hearth_ in atelier of, iii. . scheffer (henri), iii. . schools, public, dickens on, iii. . scotland, readings in, iii. - . scott (sir w.), real people in novels of, iii. , . scott monument at edinburgh, ii. . scribe (m.), dinner to, ii. ; social intercourse of dickens with, iii. , ; author-anxieties of, iii. ; a fine actor lost in, iii. . scribe (madame), iii. . sea-bathing and authorship, ii. . seaside holidays, dickens's, ii. - , iii. - . sebastopol, reception in france of supposed fall of, iii. . serenades at hartford and newhaven (u. s.), i. . servants, swiss, excellence of, ii. . seven dials, ballad literature of, i. . seymour (mr.) and the _pickwick papers_, i. note; death of, i. . shaftesbury (lord) and ragged schools, i. , ii. , note, , (and see ). shakespeare society, the, i. . shakespeare on the actor's calling, iii. . shakespeare's house, purchase of, ii. . sheffield, reading at, iii. . sheil (richard lalor), ii. . shepherd's-bush, the home for fallen women at, ii. . sheridans (the), ii. . ship news, i. . short-hand, difficulties of, i. . shows, saturday-night, i. . siddons (mrs.), genius of, ii. , . sierra nevada, strange encounter on the, iii. , . _sikes and nancy_ reading, proposed, iii. ; at clifton, iii. ; macready on the, iii. ; at york, iii. , and note; dickens's pulse after, iii. . simplon, passing the, ii. . "six," bachelor, iii. . _sketches by boz_, first collected and published, i. ; characterized, i. . slavery in america, i. , - , - ; the ghost of, iii. . slaves, runaway, i. . sleeplessness, dickens's remedy for, iii. . sleighs in new york, iii. . "slopping round," iii. . "smallness of the world," i. , ii. , iii. . small-pox, american story concerning, iii. note. smith (albert), _battle of life_ dramatized by, ii. . smith (arthur), iii. ; first series of dickens's readings under management of, iii. , (and see note); distresses of, iii. note; first portion of second series planned by, iii. ; serious illness of, iii. , ; death of, iii. ; touching incident at funeral, iii. note. smith (bobus), ii. . smith (o.), acting of, i. , ii. . smith (porter), ii. . smith (southwood), ii. , . smith (sydney), i. , ii. ; on _nicholas nickleby_, i. , note; death of, ii. . smithson (mr.), i. ; death of, ii. . smoking party, a feminine, ii. , . smollett (tobias), a recollection of, i. ; real people in novels of, iii. . snuff-shop readings, ii. . solitary confinement, effects of, i. , , ii. , . _somebody's luggage_, the waiter in, iii. , . sortes shandyanæ, ii. . sparks (jared), i. . speculators, american, iii. , , , , , . spiritual tyranny, ii. note. spittoons in america, i. . _squib annual_, the, i. , . st. bernard, great, proposed trip to, ii. ; ascent of the mountain, ii. ; the convent, ii. ; scene at the top, ii. , ; bodies found in the snow, ii. ; the convent a tavern in all but sign, ii. ; dickens's fancy of writing a book about the, iii. . st. george (madame), ii. . st. giles's, dickens's early attraction of repulsion to, i. ; original of mr. venus found in, iii. . st. gothard, dangers of the, ii. , . st. james's hall, dickens's final readings at, iii. , . st. leger, dickens's prophecy at the, iii. . st. louis (u. s.), levee at, i. ; slavery at, i. ; pretty scene at, i. , ; duelling in, i. . stage-coach, queer american, i. , . stage, training for the, ii. , , (and see iii. ). stanfield (clarkson), i. , ii. note, , , , iii. ; sketches in cornwall by, ii. ; illustrations by, to _battle of life_, ii. ; price realized at the dickens sale for the lighthouse scenes, iii. note (and see ii. , iii. , ); at work, iii. ; death of, iii. . stanfield hall, dickens at, ii. stanley (dr. a. p.), dean of westminster, compliance with general wish, iii. ; letter and sermon iii. . stanton (secretary), curious story told by, iii. , (and see ). staplehurst accident, iii. ; effect on dickens, iii. . staples (j. v.), letter from dickens to, ii. note. statesmen, leading american, i. , . state trials, story from the, iii. , . stealing, carlyle's argument against, i. . steamers, perils of, i. , , , (and see iii. - ). stevenage, visit to the hermit near, iii. . stirling (mr.), a theatrical adapter, i. . stone (frank), ii. . iii. ; sketch of sydney dickens by, ii. , note; fancy sketch of, ii. ; death of, iii. note. stone (marcus), designs supplied by, to _our mutual friend_, iii. note. streets, dickens's craving for crowded, ii. , , , , , , , iii. . _strange gentleman_, a farce written by dickens, i. . stuart (lord dudley), ii. . sue (eugène), ii. . sumner (charles), i. , iii. , . sunday, a french, ii. , note. swinburne (algernon), ii. . switzerland; splendid scenery of, ii. ; villages in, ii. ; dickens resolves to write new book in, ii. ; early impressions of, ii. , ; climate of, ii. note; the people of, ii. , , ; mule-travelling in, ii. ; protestant and catholic cantons in, ii. ; dickens's last days in, ii. - ; pleasures of autumn in, ii. ; revisited, iii. - . syme (mr.), opinion of, as to dickens's lameness, iii. , . syracuse (u. s.), reading at, iii. . tagart (edward), ii. , . taine (m.), on _martin chuzzlewit_, ii. ; criticisms by, on dickens, ii. (and see note, iii. - ); a hint for, ii. ; on hard times, iii. note; fielding criticized by, iii. . _tale of two cities_, titles suggested for, iii. ; first germ of carton in, iii. (and see ); origin of, iii. ; the story reviewed, iii. - ; titles suggested for, iii. , . talfourd (judge), i. , ii. , , , , , (and see iii. ); dickens's affection for, ii. . _tatler_ (hunt's), sayings from, iii. note. tauchnitz (baron), letter from, iii. note; intercourse of, with dickens, iii. note (and see note). tavistock-house, sketch of, iii. ; a scene outside, iii. ; stanfield scenes at, iii. ; sale of, iii. ; startling message from servant at, iii. . taylor (tom), ii. . taylor (the ladies), ii. . telbin (william), at work, iii. . temperance agitation, dickens on the, ii. , . temperature, sudden changes of, in america, i. . temple (hon. mr.), ii. . tennent (sir emerson), ii. , iii. ; death and funeral of, iii. . tennyson (alfred), dickens's allegiance to, ii. , , , iii. note. ternan (ellen lawless), iii. . tête noire pass, ii. ; accident in, ii. , . thackeray (w. m.), ii. ; offers to illustrate _pickwick_, i. , ; on maclise's portrait of dickens, i. note; on the _carol_, ii. (and see ii. , ); dinner to, iii. ; at boulogne, iii. note; in paris, iii. ; tribute to, by dickens, iii. ; death of, iii. - ; estrangement between dickens and, iii. note. thanet races, dickens at the, ii. . théâtre français (paris), conventionalities of the, iii. . theatres, italian, ii. ; french, ii. , . theatrical fund dinner, dickens's speech at, ii. , (and see , iii. ). theatricals, private, at montreal, i. - ; at rockingham, ii. ; at tavistock house, iii. - (and see ii. ). thomas (owen p.), recollections of dickens at school, i. - . thompson (mr. t. i.), ii. . thompson (sir henry), consulted by dickens, iii. ; a reading of dickens's stopped by, iii. ; opinion as to dickens's lameness, iii. , . ticknor (george), i. , . ticknor & fields (messrs.), commission received by, on the american readings, iii. . timber doodle (dickens's dog), ii. , , , ii. note; death of, iii. note. _times_, the, on dickens's death, iii. , note. tintoretto, dickens on the works of, ii. , iii. . titian's assumption, effect of, on dickens, ii. . tobin (daniel), a schoolfellow of dickens, i. ; assists dickens as amanuensis, but finally discarded, i. . toole (j. l.), encouragement given to in early life, by dickens, iii. (and see iii. note). topping (groom), i. , , , , . toronto, toryism of, i. . torquay, readings at, iii. , . torrens (mrs.), ii. . _tour in italy_ (simond's), ii. note. townshend (chauncy hare), iii. ; death and bequest of, iii. . tracey (lieut.), i. , ii. . tramps, ways of, iii. note, , . tremont house (boston, u. s.), dickens at, i. . trossachs, dickens in the, i. . _true sun_, dickens reporting for the, i. . turin, dickens at, iii. , . turner (j. m. w.), ii. . tuscany, wayside memorials in, ii. note. twickenham, cottage at, occupied by dickens, i. - ; visitors at, i. - ; childish enjoyments at, i. note. twiss (horace), ii. . tyler (president), i. . tynemouth, scene at, iii. , . _uncommercial traveller_, dickens's, iii. - . _uncommercial traveller upside down_, contemplated, iii. . undercliff (isle of wight), dickens's first impressions of, ii. ; depressing effect of climate of, ii. - . unitarianism adopted by dickens for a short time, ii. . upholsterer, visit to an, i. ; visit from an, i. . _up the rhine_ (hood's), dickens on, i. . utica (u. s.), hotel at, iii. . vauxhall, the duke and party at, ii. . venice, dickens's impressions of, ii. - , iii. ; habits of gondoliers at, iii. ; theatre at, iii. . verdeil (m.), ii. . vernet (horace), iii. note. vernon (lord), eccentricities of, ii. , , . vesuvius, mount, iii. . viardot (madame) in _orphée_, iii. note. _village coquettes_, the story and songs for, written by dickens, i. . vote, value of a, in america, iii. . wales, prince of, and dickens, iii. . wainewright (the murderer), recognized by macready in newgate, i. (and see ii. note); made the subject of a tale in the _new york ledger_, iii. ; portrait of a girl by, ii. note (and see ii. , iii. ). wales, north, tour in, i. . ward (professor) on dickens, iii. , note. washington (u. s.), hotel extortion at, i. ; climate of, i. ; congress and senate at, i. ; a comical dog at reading at, iii. ; readings at, iii. , . wassail-bowl presented to dickens at edinburgh, iii. . _waterloo, battle of_, at vauxhall, ii. . watson, mr. (of rockingham), ii. , , ; death of, iii. . watson (sir thomas), note by, of dickens's illness in april, , iii. - ; readings stopped by, iii. ; guarded sanction given to additional readings, iii. (and see , note); dickens's letter to, iii. note. watts's charity at rochester, iii. note. webster (daniel), dickens on, i. . webster (mr.), ii. . webster murder at cambridge (u. s.), iii. , . well-boring at gadshill, iii. . weller (sam) a pre-eminent achievement in literature, i. . wellington, duke of, fine trait of, ii. . wellington house academy (hampstead-road), dickens a day-scholar at, i. - ; described in _household words_, i. ; dickens's schoolfellows at, i. - ; beverley painting scenes at, i. ; revisited after five-and-twenty years, i. . weyer (m. van de), ii. . whig jealousies, i. (and see ii. ). whitechapel workhouse, incident at, iii. . white-conduit-house, reminiscence of, ii. . whitefriars, a small revolution in, ii. . white (rev. james), character of, ii. - (and see ii. , iii. ). white (grant) on the character of carton in the _tale of two cities_, iii. , . whitehead (charles), i. . whitworth (mr.), ii. . wieland the clown, death of, iii. note. wig experiences, ii. . wilkie (sir david), on the genius of dickens, i. ; death of, i. . willis (n. p.), fanciful description of dickens by, i. note. wills (w. h.), ii. , iii. , . wilson (professor), i. ; sketch of, i. , ; speeches of, i. note, ii. . wilson (mr.) the hair-dresser, fancy sketch of, ii. - . wilton (marie) as pippo in the _maid and magpie_, iii. , note. women, home for fallen, ii. (and see iii. ). wordsworth, memorable saying of, iii. . worms, the city of, ii. . yarmouth first seen by dickens, ii. . yates (edmund), tales by, in _all the year round_, iii. ; dickens's interest in, iii. . yates (mr.), acting of, i. , ii. . _yesterdays with authors_ (fields'), ii. note. york, readings at, iii. , . yorkshire, materials gathered in, for _nickleby_, i. . _young gentlemen_ and _young couples_, sketches written by dickens for chapman & hall, i. note. zoological gardens, feeding the serpents at, iii. note. zouaves, dickens's opinion of the, iii. , . * * * * * volume iii page xi, "a" changed to "at" (scene at tynemouth) page , "inpressed" changed to "impressed" (impressed on the better) page , "gore-house" changed to "gore-house" to match rest of usage (often at gore-house) page , "ca" changed to "Ça" (the Ça ira!) page , "ca" changed to "Ça" (memory--Ça ira) page , "entertaiments" changed to "entertainments" (the day entertainments) page , "diner" changed to "dîner" (le dîner que) page , "hereon" changed to "thereon" (thereon may be beheld) page , "under aking" changed to "undertaking" (of the little undertaking) page , "th" changed to "the" (the landlord came up) page , "chesnuts" changed to "chestnuts" (limes and chestnuts) footnote , "chalet" changed to "châlet" ("the châlet," he wrote) page , "cap ble" changed to "capable" (might be capable) page , "sha espeare" changed to "shakespeare" (a line from shakespeare) page , "alled" changed to "called" (it called for) illustration entitled the chÂlet, "chalÊt" changed to "chÂlet". page , "hi" changed to "his" (interval of his) footnote , "counils" changed to "councils" (held several councils) footnote , "nett" changed to "net" (out the net profit) page , "delf" changed to "delft" (worked in delft) page , "diner" changed to "dîner" (dîner à tout) page , "for" changed to "four" (four figures representing) page , "iii." inserted into text (storm at, iii. .) page , "duplessis" changed to "du plessis" (du plessis (marie)) page , "iii." inserted into text (amount paid for, iii. note) page , "chalet" changed to "châlet" (châlet presented by) page , "hill" changed to "hill" (fox-under-the-hill) page , "chalet" changed to "châlet" (sketch of châlet at) page , "christian" changed to "christian" (list of christian) page , "halevy" changed to "halévy" (halévy (m.)) the volume number was added to the following entries in the index: the editor's modest estimate of it, i. death of, i. , ; to retain the integrity of the original text, varied hyphenations, capitalizations, and, at times, spellings were retained. for example: varied hyphenation and capitalization of devonshire terrace was retained. also fac-simile and facsimile. varied spelling of a'beckett/a'becket was retained. transcriber's note minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. a printer error has been changed, and it is listed at the end. all other inconsistencies are as in the original. [illustration: chalk, house where dickens spent his honeymoon] dickens-land described by j. a. nicklin pictured by e. w. haslehust [illustration] blackie and son limited london glasgow and bombay beautiful england _volumes ready_ oxford the english lakes canterbury shakespeare-land the thames windsor castle cambridge norwich and the broads the heart of wessex the peak district the cornish riviera dickens-land winchester the isle of wight chester and the dee york _uniform with this series_ beautiful ireland leinster ulster munster connaught list of illustrations page chalk, house where dickens spent his honeymoon _frontispiece_ gadshill place from the gardens rochester from strood restoration house, rochester cobham park cooling church aylesford maidstone, all saints' church and the palace jasper's gateway chalk church shorne church the leather bottle, cobham [illustration] the central shrine of a literary cult is at least as often its hero's home of adoption as his place of birth. to the wordsworthian, cockermouth has but a faint, remote interest in comparison with grasmere and rydal mount. edinburgh, for all its associations with the life and the genius of scott, is not as abbotsford, or as that beloved border country in which his memory has struck its deepest roots. and so it is with dickens. the accident of birth attaches his name but slightly to landport in south-sea. the dickens pilgrim treads in the most palpable footsteps of "boz" amongst the landmarks of a victorian london, too rapidly disappearing, and through the "rich and varied landscape" on either side of the medway, "covered with cornfields and pastures, with here and there a windmill or a distant church", which dickens loved from boyhood, peopled with the creatures of his teeming fancy, and chose for his last and most-cherished habitation. what abbotsford was to scott, that, almost, to dickens in his later years was gadshill place. from his study window in the "grave red-brick house" "on his little kentish freehold"--a house which he had "added to and stuck bits upon in all manner of ways, so that it was as pleasantly irregular and as violently opposed to all architectural ideas as the most hopeful man could possibly desire"--he looked out, so he wrote to a friend, "on as pretty a view as you will find in a long day's english ride.... cobham park and woods are behind the house; the distant thames is in front; the medway, with rochester and its old castle and cathedral, on one side." on every side he could not fail to reach, in those brisk walks with which he sought, too strenuously, perhaps, health and relaxation, some object redolent of childish dreams or mature achievement, of intimate joys and sorrows, of those phantoms of his brain which to him then, as to hundreds of thousands of his readers since, were not less real than the men and women of everyday encounter. on those seven miles between rochester and maidstone, which he discovered to be one of the most beautiful walks in england, he might be tempted to strike off at aylesford for a short stroll to such a pleasant old elizabethan mansion as cobtree hall, the very type, it may be, of manor farm, dingley dell, or for a longer tramp to town malling, from which he may well have borrowed many strokes for the picture of muggleton, that town of sturdy kentish cricket. sometimes he would walk across the marshes to gravesend, and returning through the village of chalk, would pause for a retrospective glance at the house where his honeymoon was spent and a good part of _pickwick_ planned. in the latter end of the year, when he could take a short cut through the stubble fields from higham to the marshes lying further down the thames, he would often visit the desolate churchyard where little pip was so terribly frightened by the convict. or, descending the long slope from gadshill to strood, and crossing rochester bridge--over the balustrades of which mr. pickwick leaned in agreeable reverie when he was accosted by dismal jemmy--the author of _great expectations_ and _edwin drood_ would pass from rochester high street--where mr. pumblechook's seed shop looks across the way at miss twinkleton's establishment--into the vines, to compare once more the impression on his unerring "inward eye" with the actual features of that restoration house which, under another name, he assigned to miss havisham, and so round by fort pitt to the chatham lines. and there--who can doubt?--if he seemed to hear the melancholy wind that whistled through the deserted fields as mr. winkle took his reluctant stand, a wretched and desperate duellist, his thoughts would also stray to the busy dockyard town and "a blessed little room" in a plain-looking plaster-fronted house from which dated all his early readings and imaginings. between the "very small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy" and the strong, self-reliant man whose fame had filled two continents, gadshill place was an immediate link. everyone knows the story which dickens tells of a vision of his former self meeting him on the road to canterbury. "so smooth was the old high road, and so fresh were the horses, and so fast went i, that it was midway between gravesend and rochester, and the widening river was bearing the ships, white-sailed or black-smoked, out to sea, when i noticed by the wayside a very queer small boy. "'halloa!' said i to the very queer small boy, 'where do you live?' "'at chatham,' says he. "'what do you do there?' say i. "'i go to school,' says he. "i took him up in a moment, and we went on. presently, the very queer small boy says, 'this is gadshill we are coming to, where falstaff went out to rob those travellers and ran away.' "'you know something about falstaff, eh?' said i. "'all about him,' said the very queer small boy. 'i am old (i am nine), and i read all sorts of books. but do let us stop at the top of the hill, and look at the house there, if you please!' "'you admire that house?' said i. [illustration: gadshill place from the gardens] "'bless you, sir,' said the very queer small boy, 'when i was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for me to be brought to look at it. and now i am nine i come by myself to look at it. and ever since i can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, if you were to be very persevering, and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it. though that's impossible!' said the very queer small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring at the house out of window with all his might. "i was rather amazed to be told this by the very queer small boy; for that house happens to be _my_ house, and i have reason to believe that what he said was true." as the queer small boy in the _uncommercial traveller_ said, gadshill place is at the very top of falstaff's hill. it stands on the south side of the dover road;--on the north side, but a little lower down, is "a delightfully oldfashioned inn of the old coaching days", the "sir john falstaff";--surrounded by a high wall and screened by a row of limes. the front view, with its wooden and pillared porch, its bays, its dormer windows let into the roof, and its surmounting bell turret and vane, bears much the same appearance as it did to the queer small boy. but amongst the many additions and alterations which dickens was constantly making, the drawing-room had been enlarged from a smaller existing one, and the conservatory into which it opens was, as he laughingly told his younger daughter, "positively the last improvement at gadshill"--a jest to prove sadly prophetic, for it was uttered on the sunday before his death. the little library, too, on the opposite side of the porch from the drawing-room and conservatory, was a converted bedroom. its aspect is familiar to most dickens-lovers from sir luke fildes's famous picture of "the empty chair". in summer, however, dickens used to do his work not in the library but in a swiss chalet, presented to him by fechter, the great actor, which stood in a shrubbery lying on the other side of the highroad, and entered by a subway that dickens had excavated for the purpose. the chalet now must be sought in the terrace garden of cobham hall. when dickens sat at his desk in a room of the chalet, "up among the branches of the trees", the five mirrors which he had put in reflected "the leaves quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river". the birds and butterflies flew in and out, the green branches shot in at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds and the scent of flowers and of everything growing for miles had the same free access. no imaginative artist, whether in words or colour, could have desired a more inspiring environment. the back of the house, looking southward, descends by one flight of steps upon a lawn, where one of the balustrades of the old rochester bridge had, when this was demolished, been fitted up as a sundial. the lawn, in turn, communicates with flower and vegetable gardens by another flight of steps. beyond is "the much-coveted meadow" which dickens obtained, partly by exchange, from the trustees--not of watts's charity, as forster has stated, but of sir joseph williamson's free school at rochester. it was in this field that the villagers from neighbouring higham played cricket matches, and that, just before dickens went to america for the last time, he held those quaint footraces for all and sundry, described in one of his letters to forster. though the landlord of the falstaff, from over the way, was allowed to erect a drinking booth, and all the prizes were given in money; though, too, the road from chatham to gadshill was like a fair all day, and the crowd consisted mainly of rough labouring men, of soldiers, sailors, and navvies, there was no disorder, not a flag, rope, or stake displaced, and no drunkenness whatever. as striking a tribute, if rightly considered, as ever was exacted by a strong and winning personality! one of those oddities in which dickens delighted was elicited by a hurdle race for strangers. the man who came in second ran yards and leaped over ten hurdles with a pipe in his mouth and smoking it all the time. "if it hadn't been for your pipe," said the master of gadshill place, clapping him on the shoulder at the winning-post, "you would have been first." "i beg your pardon, sir," he answered, "but if it hadn't been for my pipe, i should have been nowhere." to the hospitable hearth of gadshill place were drawn, by the fame of the "inimitable boz", a long succession of brilliant men and women, mostly of the anglo-saxon race, whether english or american; and if not in the throngs for which at abbotsford open house was kept, yet with a frequency which would have made literary work almost impossible for the host without remarkable steadiness of purpose and regularity of habits. for longfellow and his daughters he "turned out", that they might see all of the surrounding country which could be seen in a short stay, "a couple of postilions in the old red jackets of the old red royal dover road, and it was like a holiday ride in england fifty years ago". in his study in the late and early months, and his swiss chalet through the summer, dickens would write such novels as _great expectations_, and the unfinished _mystery of edwin drood_, taking his local colour from spots which lay within the compass of a reasonable walk; and others, such as _a tale of two cities_ and _our mutual friend_, to which the circumstances of time and place furnished little or nothing except their influence on his mood. some of the occasional papers which, in the character of "the uncommercial traveller", he furnished to _all the year round_, have as much of the _genius loci_ as any of his romances. even to-day the rushing swarm of motor cars has not yet driven from the more secluded nooks of kent all such idylls of open-air vagabondage as this:-- "i have my eyes upon a piece of kentish road, bordered on either side by a wood, and having on one hand, between the road dust and the trees, a skirting patch of grass. wild flowers grow in abundance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with a distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean, like a man's life. to gain the milestone here, which the moss, primroses, violets, bluebells and wild roses would soon render illegible but for peering travellers pushing them aside with their sticks, you must come up a steep hill, come which way you may. so, all the tramps with carts or caravans--the gipsy tramp, the show tramp, the cheap jack--find it impossible to resist the temptations of the place, and all turn the horse loose when they come to it, and boil the pot. bless the place, i love the ashes of the vagabond fires that have scorched its grass!" the kentish road that dickens thus describes is certainly the dover road at gadshill, from which, of course, there is a steep declivity whether the route is westward to gravesend or eastwards to strood and rochester. in strood itself dickens found little to interest him, though the view of rochester from strood hill is an arresting one, with the stately mediævalism of castle and cathedral emerging from a kind of haze in which it is hard to distinguish what is smoke-wreath and what a mass of crowding roofs. the medway, which divides strood from the almost indistinguishably overlapping towns of rochester, chatham, and brompton, is crossed by an iron bridge, superseding the old stone structure commemorated in _pickwick_. mr. pickwick's notes on "the four towns" do not require very much modification to apply to their present state. "the principal productions", he wrote, "appear to be soldiers, sailors, jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dockyard men. the commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets are marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-fish, and oysters. the streets present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the conviviality of the military.... the consumption of tobacco in these towns must be very great, and the smell which pervades the streets must be exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking. a superficial traveller might object to the dirt, which is their leading characteristic, but to those who view it as an indication of traffic and commercial prosperity, it is truly gratifying." [illustration: rochester from strood] this description is much less true of rochester than of its three neighbours, and does no justice to the aspects which dickens himself presented in the market town of _great expectations_, and the cloisterham of _edwin drood_. amid the rather sordid encroachments of a modern industrialism, rochester still keeps something of the air of an old-world country town, and in the precincts of its cathedral there still broods a cloistral peace. the dominating feature of the town, from whatever side approached, is the massive ruin of the norman keep of bishop gundulf, the architect also of london's white tower. though the blue sky is its only roof, and on the rugged staircase the dark apertures in the walls, where rafters and floors were once, show like gaping sockets from which the ravens and daws have picked out the eyes, it seems to stand with all the immovable strength of some solid rock on which the waves of rebellion or invasion would have dashed and broken. it is easy to believe the saying of lambarde, in his _perambulation of kent_, that "from time to time it had a part in almost every tragedie". but the grimness of its grey walls is relieved by a green mantle of clinging ivy, and though it can no longer be said of the castle that it is "bathed, though in ruins, with a flush of flowers", the beautiful single pink grows wild on its ramparts. from the castle to the "bull" in the high street is a transition which seems almost an anachronism. it is but to follow in the traces of the pickwick club. the covered gateway, the staircase almost wide enough for a coach and four, the ballroom on the first floor landing, with card-room adjoining, and the bedroom which mr. winkle occupied inside mr. tupman's--all are there, just as when the club entertained alfred jingle to a dinner of soles, a broiled fowl and mushrooms, and mr. tupman took him to the ball in mr. winkle's coat, borrowed without leave, and dr. slammer of the th sent his challenge next morning to the owner of the coat. the guildhall, with its gilt ship for a vane, and its old brick front, supported by doric stone columns, is not so memorable because hogarth played hop-scotch in the colonnade during his _five days' peregrination by land and water_, as for the day when pumblechook bundled pip off to be bound apprentice to jo before the justices in the hall, "a queer place, with higher pews in it than a church ... and with some shining black portraits on the walls". this was the town hall, too, which dickens has told us that he had set up in his childish mind "as the model on which the genie of the lamp built the palace for aladdin", only to return and recognize with saddened, grown-up eyes--exaggerating the depreciation a little, for the sake of the contrast--"a mere mean little heap of bricks, like a chapel gone demented". close by the guildhall is the town clock, "supposed to be the finest clock in the world", which, alas! "turned out to be as moon-faced and weak a clock as a man's eyes ever saw". on the north side of the high street, not many yards from the bull, is a tudor two-storied, stone-built house, with latticed windows and gables. this is the charity founded by the will of richard watts in , to give lodging and entertainment for one night, and fourpence each, to "six poor travellers, not being rogues or proctors". it furnished the theme to the christmas cycle of stories, _the seven poor travellers_, the narrator, who treats the waifs and strays harboured one christmas eve at the charity to roast turkey, plum pudding, and "wassail", bringing up the number to seven, "being", as he says, "a traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as i hope to be". farther up the high street towards chatham, about a quarter of a mile from rochester bridge, are two sixteenth-century houses, with fronts of carved oak and gables, facing each other across the street. one has figured in both _great expectations_ and _edwin drood_, for it is the house of mr. pumblechook, the pompous and egregious corn and seedsman, and of mr. sapsea, the auctioneer, still more pompous and egregious. the other--eastgate house, now converted into a museum--is the "nun's house", where miss twinkleton kept school, and had rosa bud and helen landless for pupils. from the hum and traffic of the cheerfully frequented high street to the calm and hush of the cathedral precincts entrance is given by chertsey's or college yard gate, which abuts on the high street about a hundred yards north of the cathedral. it was this gate which sir luke fildes sketched, as he has recorded in an interesting letter published in _a week's tramp in dickens-land_, by w. r. hughes, for the background of his drawing of "durdles cautioning sapsea". there are, however, two other gatehouses, the "prior's", a tower over an archway, containing a single room approached by a "postern stair", and "deanery gate", a quaint old house adjoining the cathedral which has ten rooms, some of them beautifully panelled. its drawing-room on the upper floor bears a strong resemblance to the room--as depicted by sir luke fildes--in which jasper entertained his nephew and neville landless, but the artist believes that he never saw the interior. it is not unlikely that dickens took some details from each of the gatehouses to make a composite picture of "mr. jasper's own gatehouse", which seemed so to stem the tide of life, that while the murmur of the tide was heard beyond, not a wave would pass the archway. rochester cathedral, which overshadows, though in a less insistent and tragic manner, the whole human interest of _edwin drood_ almost as much as notre dame overshadows the human interest in victor hugo's romance, preserves some remains of the original saxon and norman churches on the site of which it was erected. its early english and decorated gothic came off lightly from three restorations, but the tower is nineteenth-century vandalism. the norman west front enshrines in the riches of its sculptured portal, with its five receding arches, figures of the saviour and his twelve apostles, and on two shafts are carved likenesses of henry i and his queen. freeman has pronounced it to be far the finest example of norman architecture of its kind. the chapter house door, a magnificent example of decorated gothic, is adorned with effigies representing the christian and jewish churches, which are surrounded by holy fathers and angels who pray for the soul, emblematically represented as a small nude form above them. but it is about the stone-vaulted crypt, where even by daylight "the heavy pillars which support the roof engender masses of black shade", with "lanes of light" between, and about the winding staircase and belfry of the great tower that the spells of the dickens magic especially cling, and jasper and durdles revisit these haunts by the glimpses of the moon as persistently as quasimodo and the sinister priest beset with their ghostly presences the belfry of the great paris minster. of the historic imagination dickens had little or none. he could not evoke, and never had the faintest desire to evoke, a past that was divided from the present by an unbridgeable chasm. thus rochester castle, though he seldom failed to bring his guests to view it, affected him only with a remote sense of antiquity such as he would have experienced, no more and no less, amongst the pyramids. but he was keenly sensitive to the influences of a past which still survived and, by the continuity of a corporate life, made an integral part in the present. the cathedral life, in which by virtue of their office canons and dean were living relics of antiquity, and as much the contemporaries as the successors of the ecclesiastics who lay crumbling in the crypt, stirred this sense in him as it had been stirred by the ancient inns of london. almost the last words that he wrote were a tribute to the beauty of the venerable fane in which, beneath the monument of the founder of that quaint charity rendered so famous by his story of _the seven poor travellers_, a simple brass records his birth, death, and burial-place, "to connect his memory with the scenes in which his earliest and his latest years were passed, and with the associations of rochester cathedral and its neighbourhood which extended over all his life". [illustration: restoration house, rochester] in the old cemetery of st. nicholas' church, on the north side of the cathedral, it was dickens's desire to be buried, and his family would have carried out his wishes had it not been that the burial-ground had been closed for years and no further interments were allowed. on the south side of the cathedral is the delightfully oldfashioned terrace known as minor canon row--dickens's name for it is minor canon corner--where the reverend septimus crisparkle kept house with the "china shepherdess" mother. the "monks' vineyard" of _edwin drood_ exists as "the vines". here under a group of elms called "the seven sisters" edwin drood and rosa sat when they decided to break their engagement, and opposite "the seven sisters" is the "satis house" of _great expectations_, where the lonely and embittered miss havisham taught estella the cruel lessons of a ruined life. it is really restoration house--satis house is on the site of the mansion of master richard watts, to whose apologies for no better entertainment of his sovereign, queen elizabeth answered "satis"--and it takes its name from having received the restored merry monarch under its roof on his way to london and the throne. pepys, who was terrified by the steepness of the castle cliff and had no time to stay to service at the cathedral, when he had been inspecting the defences at chatham, found something more to his mind in a stroll by restoration house, and into the cherry garden, where he met a silly shopkeeper with a pretty wife, "and did kiss her". dickens would often follow this route of pepys, but in the reverse direction, that is, through the vines to chatham and its lines of fortification, where mr. pickwick, mr. winkle, and mr. snodgrass became so hopelessly entangled in the sham fight which they had gone over from rochester to see. at no. ordnance terrace the little charles dickens lived from to , and at no. st. mary's place from to , the financial troubles, which eventually drove the family into the marshalsea debtors' prison, and charles himself into the sordid drudgery of the blacking-shop by hungerford stairs, having already enforced a migration to a cheaper and meaner house. in clover street (then clover lane) the little dickens went to a school kept by a mr. william giles, who years afterwards sent to him, when he was halfway through with _pickwick_, a silver snuff-box inscribed to the "inimitable boz". to the mitre inn, in the chatham high street, where nelson had many times put up, dickens was often brought by his father to recite or sing, standing on a table, for the amusement of parties of friends. he speaks of it in the "holly tree inn" as "the inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. it had an ecclesiastical sign--the 'mitre'--and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. i loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction--but let that pass. it was in this inn that i was cried over by my little rosy sister, because i had acquired a black eye in a fight." when the little charles dickens was taken away to london inside the stage-coach commodore--his kind master on the night before having come flitting in among the packing-cases to give him goldsmith's _bee_ as a keepsake--he was leaving behind for ever, in the playing-field near clover lane and the grounds of rochester castle and the green drives of cobham park, the untroubled dreams of happy childhood. and though he could not know this, yet, as he sat amongst the damp straw piled up round him in the inside of the coach, he "consumed his sandwiches in solitude and dreariness" and thought life sloppier than he had expected to find it. and in _david copperfield_ he has thrown back into those earlier golden days the shadow of his london privations by bringing the little copperfield, footsore and tired, toiling towards dusk into chatham, "which, in that night's aspect is a mere dream of chalk and drawbridges and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like noah's arks". no doubt the terrible old jew in the marine-stores shop, who rated and frightened david with his "oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want? oh--goroo, goroo!"--until the helpless little fellow was obliged to close with an offer of a few pence instead of half a crown for his waistcoat, is the portrait of some actual jew dealer whom, in one of the back streets of chatham, the keen eyes of the precocious child, seeming to look at nothing, had curiously watched hovering like a hideous spider on the pounce behind his grime-encrusted window. it was old associations that led dickens so often in his walks from gadshill place to chatham. but the neighbourhood which gave him most pleasure, combining as it did with similar associations an exquisite beauty, was, forster tells us, the sylvan scenery of cobham park. the green woods and green shades of cobham would recur to his memory even in far-off lausanne, and the last walk that he ever enjoyed--on the day before his fatal seizure--was through these woods, the charm of which cannot be better defined than in his own description in _pickwick_: "a delightful walk it was; for it was a pleasant afternoon in june, and their way lay through a deep and shady wood, cooled by the light wind which gently rustled the thick foliage, and enlivened by the songs of the birds that perched upon the boughs. the ivy and the moss crept in thick clusters over the old trees, and the soft green turf overspread the ground like a silken mat. they emerged upon an open park, with an ancient hall, displaying the quaint and picturesque architecture of elizabeth's time. long vistas of stately oaks and elm trees appeared on every side; large herds of deer were cropping the fresh grass; and occasionally a startled hare scoured along the ground with the speed of the shadows thrown by the light clouds, which swept across a sunny landscape like a passing breath of summer." the mission on which mr. pickwick and his two disciples were engaged was, it will be remembered, to convert mr. tupman from his resolution to forsake the world in a fit of misanthropy, induced by the faithlessness of rachel wardle. "'if this,' said mr. pickwick, looking about him--'if this were the place to which all who are troubled with our friend's complaint came, i fancy their old attachment to this world would very soon return.'" mr. pickwick was right, for when they arrived at the village, and entered that "clean and commodious village alehouse", the "leather bottle", they found mr. tupman set down at a table "well covered with a roast fowl, bacon, ale, and et ceteras", and "looking as unlike a man who had taken leave of the world as possible". the "ancient hall" of cobham consists of two tudor wings, with a central block designed by inigo jones. it has a splendid collection of old masters, and a music room which the prince regent pronounced to be the finest room in england. in the terrace flower garden at the back of the hall, it may be mentioned again here, is the swiss chalet from gadshill place, which served dickens for a study in the summer months. the circuit of cobham park is about seven miles, and it is crossed by the "long avenue", leading to rochester, and the "grand avenue", which, sloping down from the tenantless mausoleum, opens into cobham village. the inn to which mr. tupman retired, in disgust with life, still retains the title of the "leather bottle", but has mounted for its sign a coloured portrait of mr. pickwick addressing the club in characteristic attitude. it was in cobham village that mr. pickwick made his notable discovery of the stone with the mysterious inscription--an inscription which the envious blotton maintained was nothing more than bil stumps his mark. local tradition suggests that dickens intended the episode for a skit upon archaeological theories about the dolmens known as kit's coty house, and that a strood antiquary keenly resented the satire. however that may be, kit's coty house is not at cobham, but some miles away, near aylesford. in cobham church there is perhaps the finest and most complete series of monumental brasses in this country, most of them commemorating the lords of cobham. [illustration: cobham park] out of the cobham woods it is not a long walk to the little village of shorne, where dickens was fond of sitting on a hot summer afternoon in its pretty, shaded churchyard. this is believed to be the spot which he has described in _pickwick_ as "one of the most peaceful and secluded churchyards in kent, where wild flowers mingle with the grass, and the soft landscape around forms the fairest spot in the garden of england". a picturesque lane leads into the road from rochester to gravesend, on the outskirts of the village of chalk. here, in a corner house on the south side of the road, dickens spent his honeymoon, and many of the earlier chapters of _pickwick_ were written. in february of the following year-- --dickens and his wife returned to the same lodgings, shortly after the birth of his eldest son. chalk church is about a mile from the village. there was formerly above the porch the figure of an old priest in a stooping attitude, holding an upturned jug. dickens took a strange interest in this quaint carving, and it is said that, whenever he passed it, he took off his hat or gave it a nod, as to an old acquaintance. very different to the soft and genial landscapes about cobham is the grey and desolate aspect of another haunt which dickens loved to frequent. this was the "meshes" around cooling. in winter, when it was possible to make a short cut across the stubble fields, he would visit cooling churchyard not less seldom than in summer he would go to sit in the churchyard of shorne. first, however, he would have to pass through the village of higham, where, too, was his nearest railway station, though he often preferred to walk over and entrain at gravesend or greenhithe. but the pleasant tinkle of harness bells was a familiar sound in the night to the higham villagers, as the carriage was sent down from gadshill place to meet the master or his friends returning from london by the ten o'clock train. dickens took a kindly and active interest in the affairs of the village, and the last cheque which he ever drew was for his subscription to the higham cricket club. the flat levels that stretch away from beyond higham towards the estuary of the thames are more akin to the characteristics of essex than of kent. the hop gardens are dwarfed and stunted, and presently hops, corn, and pasture give place to fields of turnips, which show up like masses of jade on the chocolate-coloured soil. the bleak churchyard of cooling, overgrown with nettles, lies amongst these desolate reaches, which resound at evening with the shrill, unearthly notes of sea-gulls, plovers, and herons. beyond the churchyard are the marshes, "a dark, flat wilderness", as dickens has described it in _great expectations_, "intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it"; still farther away is the "low, leaden line" of the river, and the "distant, savage lair", from which the wind comes rushing, is the sea. it was in this churchyard that the conception of the story sprang into life, and there are actually not five but ten little stone lozenges in one row, with three more at the back of them, which suggested to dickens the five little prematurely cut off brothers of pip. the grey ruins of cooling castle attracted him no less than the grey and weather-beaten churchyard. besides some crumbling and broken walls there is a gate tower, with an inscription on fourteen copper plates, the writing in black, the ground of white enamel, with a seal and silk cords in their proper colours, which made known to all and sundry the purpose for which lord cobham--whose granddaughter married, for one of her five husbands, sir john oldcastle, the lollard martyr--had erected this castle. "knoweth that beth and schul be that i am mad in help of the cuntre in knowyng of whych thyng this is chartre and witnessyng." no forge stands now on the site of joe gargery's smithy, where, as the hammer rang on the anvil to the refrain-- "beat it out, beat it out--old clem! with a clink for the stout--old clem! blow the fire, blow the fire--old clem! roaring drier, soaring higher--old clem!"-- pip would see visions of estella's face in the glowing fire or at the wooden window of the forge, looking in from the darkness of the night, and flitting away. but though the smithy has gone, the "three jolly bargemen", where joe would smoke his pipe by the kitchen fire on a saturday night, still survives as the "three horseshoes"--the inn to which the secret-looking man who stirred his rum and water with a file, brought magwitch's two one-pound notes for pip, and the redoubtable jaggers, the autocrat of the old bailey, with his burly form, great head, and huge, cross-examining forefinger announced to pip his great expectations. down the river in the direction of yonder "distant savage lair", from which the wind comes rushing, lie those long reaches, between kent and essex, "where the river is broad and solitary, where the waterside inhabitants are very few, and where lone public-houses are scattered here and there"--the lonely riverside on which pip and herbert sought a hiding-place for magwitch until the steamer for hamburg or the steamer for rotterdam could be boarded, as she dropped down the tide from the port of london. whether on the kent or the essex side, the cast of the scenery corresponds with equal closeness to dickens's description. slimy stakes stick out of the mud, and slimy stones stick out of the mud, and red landmarks and tide-marks stick out of the mud, and old roofless buildings slip into the mud, and all about is stagnation and mud! the desolate flat marshes look still more weird by reason of the tall pollards that lean over them like spectres. far away are the rising grounds, between which and the marshes there appears no sign of life except here and there in the foreground a melancholy gull. the course which the boat bearing the hunted man took from mill pond stairs through the crowded shipping of the pool, past the floating custom house at gravesend, and onwards, skirting the little creeks and mudbanks where the thames widens to the sea--when every sound of the tide flapping heavily at irregular intervals against the shore, and every ripple, were fraught with the terror of pursuit--exemplifies in the most striking way the rapidity and instinctive ease of dickens's observation. forster says:-- "to make himself sure of the actual course of a boat in such circumstances, and what possible incidents the adventure might have, dickens hired a steamer for the day from blackwall to southend. eight or nine friends, and three or four members of his family, were on board, and he seemed to have no care, the whole of that summer day ( nd of may, ), except to enjoy their enjoyment and entertain them with his own in shape of a thousand whims and fancies; but his sleepless observation was at work all the time, and nothing had escaped his keen vision on either side of the river." scattered amongst the deserted reaches along the riverside may be seen such lonely farmhouses or taverns as suggest the aspect of the alehouse, "not unknown to smuggling adventurers"--for the "owling", that is, the smuggling industry had flourished for centuries in these parts--to which the fugitives were led by a twinkling light in the window up a little cobbled causeway, and where dickens placed that amphibious creature, "as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water mark too", who exhibited a bloated pair of shoes "as interesting relics that he had taken from the feet of a drowned seaman washed ashore". this type of the gruesome long-shoremen whom dickens had encountered in his waterside rambles, as he collected the materials for _great expectations_, was afterwards elaborated in the rogue riderhood of _our mutual friend_. "swamp, mist, and mudbank"--if that is the dominant impression made by the view of the thames off the cooling marshes, it is not the only and the invariable impression. even the bleak churchyard, at the foot of the cold, grey tower, is sometimes strewn by the light and flying gust "with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees". and from the old battery, where joe would smoke his pipe with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else, as pip strove to initiate him into the mysteries of reading and writing by the aid of a broken slate and a short piece of slate pencil, it is "pleasant and quiet" to watch the vessels standing out to sea with their white sails spread, and the light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud or sail or green hillside or silvery water line. [illustration: cooling church] to the west of cooling castle, beyond wide fields--turnips or cabbages--of the colour of dark-green jade, the church of cliffe, with its lichgate, standing out boldly from its ridge of chalk, overlooks a straggling village of old and weather-boarded houses. it would be into the road from cliffe to rochester, at a point about half a mile from cooling, that uncle pumblechook's chaise-cart would debouch when he took mrs. joe to rochester market "to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a woman's judgment". between the scenery about cooling and cliffe and the scenery of the valley of the medway from rochester to maidstone there is all the difference between a november fog and a brilliant summer's day. at the foot of rochester castle, from which the long vista of the valley, lying between two chalk ranges of hills that form the watershed of the medway, stretches far away to a distant horizon, the esplanade extends along the east side of the river, and there it was that edwin drood and rosa met for the last time and to speak of their separate plans. for a few miles along the valley the natural beauty of the scene is spoilt by the cement works of borstal, cuxton, and wouldham, and the brickworks of burham. the piles of clay and chalk, the beehive furnaces, and the chimneys vomiting smoke and flame, almost reproduce the characteristics of the black country or of a northern manufacturing district. but, when burham has been left behind, the bright emerald pastures, the tender green of springing corn or the gold of waving harvests, and the orchards, a dazzling sight in may with the snowy clouds of pear and plum and cherry blooms, and the delicate pink-and-white of the apple blossom, more than justify the appellation claimed for kent of the garden of england. opposite to cuxton, on the western bank, the village of snodland stands at the junction of snodland brook with the medway. it has been conjectured that snodland weir, a mile or so up the brook, was in dickens's mind when he described mr. crisparkle's pilgrimages to cloisterham weir in the cold rimy mornings, and his discovery, first of edwin drood's watch in a corner of the weir, and then, after diving again and again, of his shirt-pin "sticking in some mud and ooze" at the bottom. the nearest weir on the medway is at allington, seven or eight miles above rochester, and cloisterham weir was but "full two miles" away. before allington can be reached, in ascending the medway, the river is spanned by an ancient stone bridge, of pointed arches and triangular buttresses, at aylesford. the ancient norman church, and the red roofs and crowding gables of the picturesque and historic village, are set in a circle of elm trees, with a background of rising chalk downs beyond. those who have investigated with perhaps "an excess"--as wordsworth would say--"of scrupulosity" all the details of pickwickian topography are inclined to believe that the wooden bridge, upon which the chaise hired by the club to make the journey from rochester to dingley dell came hopelessly to grief, was aylesford bridge, transmuted for the nonce from kentish ragstone into timber. however that may be, there is a matter of genuine history which has signalized in no common way this old-world village. at this ford, the lowest on the medway, the jutes under hengist and horsa routed the british in a battle which decided the predominating strain of race in future men of kent and kentish men: natives of kent, that is, according as they dwell on the right or left bank of the medway. a farmhouse with the name of horsted, at the point farther back where the rochester to maidstone road is joined by the road from chatham, stands, it is believed, on the grave of horsa. and about a mile and a half north of aylesford, a grey old cairn, set on a green sward in the midst of a cornfield, is also closely associated with the first great victory won by english people on the soil which they were destined to make their own and distinguish with their name. in his _short history of the english people_ j. r. green says of this cromlech:-- "it was from a steep knoll on which the grey weather-beaten stones of this monument are reared that the view of their first battlefield would break on the english warriors; and a lane which still leads down from it through peaceful homesteads, would guide them across the ford which has left its name in the little village of aylesford. the chronicle of the conquering people tells nothing of the rush that may have carried the ford, or of the fight that went straggling up through the village. it only tells that horsa fell in the moment of victory, and the flint heap of horsted, which has long preserved his name, and was held in after-time to mark his grave, is thus the earliest of those monuments of english valour of which westminster is the last and noblest shrine. the victory of aylesford did more than give east kent to the english; it struck the keynote of the whole english conquest of britain." this cromlech, known as kit's coty house, consists of three upright dolmens of sandstone, with a fourth, much larger, crossing them above horizontally. in a neighbouring field there is another group of stones, scattered in disarray amongst the brushwood, to which, as also to stonehenge and other so-called "druidical" remains, there attaches the local superstition that they cannot be counted. it would be pleasanter to believe that the current story, to which reference has already been made, that dickens was poking fun at the antiquarian's reverence for this hoary relic in his narrative of mr. pickwick's "bil stumps" inscription, is altogether erroneous. certainly it is open to anyone who wishes to be incredulous, for there is as much dissimilarity as possible between the massive cromlech near aylesford and the small slab that mr. pickwick discovered at cobham. the most salient feature in the medway valley between rochester and maidstone is the height of blue bell, or upper bell. here dickens, who, as he said, had come to realize that the rochester to maidstone road passed through some of the most beautiful scenery in england, would often picnic with his visitors. undulating slopes of pasture and cornfields, hop gardens, orchards, and woodlands, with many a deep-sunk lane embowered in overarching trees that rise from hedgerow clusters of dog-rose, ivy, and honeysuckle, and with snugly nestling homesteads and quaintly-cowled "oast-houses" sprinkled here and there, sweep across the valley, through which the river winds in sinuous curves, onwards to a long range of hills upon the skyline. somewhere in this district dickens came across the types of the oldfashioned and jovially comfortable home of the english yeoman, represented by his manor farm, dingley dell, and of the little country town, represented by the muggleton of _pickwick_, in which local enthusiasm for cricket was ardent, if the standard of skill was somewhat low. the most plausible identification of the home of mr. wardle is with cobtree hall, which divides the parishes of boxley and allington, and it is probable that the original of muggleton was town malling, which is also known as west malling. in the jubilee edition of _pickwick_ mr. charles dickens the younger introduced a woodcut of high street, town malling, with a note to the following effect:-- "muggleton, perhaps, is only to be taken as a fancy sketch of a small country town; but it is generally supposed, and probably with sufficient accuracy, that, if it is in any degree a portrait of any kentish town, town malling, a great place for cricket in mr. pickwick's time, sat for it." town malling does not correspond with the description of muggleton in its distance from rochester. it is only seven and a half, instead of fifteen miles, from rochester. and it is not a corporate town. but: "everybody whose genius has a topographical bent knows perfectly well that muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor, burgess and freemen, and anybody who has consulted the addresses of the mayor to the freemen, or the freemen to the mayor, or both to the corporation, or all three to parliament, will learn from thence what they ought to have known before, that muggleton is an ancient and loyal borough, mingling a zealous advocacy of christian principles with a devoted attachment to commercial rights; in demonstration whereof, the mayor, corporation, and other inhabitants have presented, at divers times, no fewer than one thousand four hundred and twenty petitions against the continuance of negro slavery abroad, and an equal number against any interference with the factory system at home; sixty-eight in favour of the sale of livings in the church, and eighty-six for abolishing sunday trading in the street." [illustration: aylesford] if town malling has not had so distinguished a political history as that which dickens assigned to muggleton, it has a pretty cricket ground, not far removed from the high street, and the reputation of having in past years distinguished itself in the local cricket of this district of kent. it is not difficult to believe, then, that dumkins and podder here made their gallant stand for all muggleton against the dingley dellers, and that at the swan--otherwise the blue lion--the pickwick fellowship shared the conviviality of the rival teams, until mr. snodgrass's notes of the evening's transactions faded away into a blur in which there was an indistinct reference to "broiled bones" and "cold without". the stately ruins of a benedictine abbey, founded by bishop gundulf, give to the town an attraction of a severer kind. from town malling to cobtree hall, supposing the double identification to be correct, should be a walk of not above two miles "through shady lanes and sequestered footpaths", the delightful scenery of which made mr. pickwick feel regret to arrive in the main street of "muggleton". the distance, however, is in fact something more than two miles as the crow flies. cobtree hall is a green-muffled elizabethan mansion, of red brick, faced with stone, and looks out over an undulating country of orchards and hop fields. it has been altered and enlarged since the days of _pickwick_, but the kitchen is just such another large, oldfashioned kitchen as befits the christmas games and wassail that had been kept up at manor farm, dingley dell, "by old wardle's forefathers from time immemorial". the dining-room, though modernized, has a massive marble mantlepiece not unsuited to that "capacious chimney up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all", and in which a blazing fire used to roar every evening, not only when its warmth was grateful, but for a symbol, as it were, of old wardle's attachment to his fireside. this was the kind of antiquity which made the most direct appeal to dickens's sentiment and imagination--not a remote and historic antiquity, but the furthest extent of a living link between the present and the past. in many an old house of kentish yeoman or squire dickens would have seen some such long, dark-panelled room as the best sitting-room at manor farm, with four-branched, massive silver candlesticks in all sorts of recesses and on all kinds of brackets; with samplers and worsted landscapes of ancient date on the walls; with a very old lady in lofty cap and faded silk gown in the chimney corner, where she had sat on her little stool as a girl more than half a century before, and with a hearty, rubicund host presiding over a mighty bowl of wassail, something smaller than an ordinary washhouse copper, in which the hot apples would "hiss and bubble with a rich look and a jolly sound that were perfectly irresistible". or when the carpet was up, the candles burning brightly, and family, guests, and servants were all ranged in eager lines, longing for the signal to start an oldfashioned country dance as, from a shady bower of holly and evergreens at the upper end of the room, the two best fiddles and only harp of the nearest market town prepared to strike up, it is no wonder that such a lover of unspoilt, natural manners as boz declared, "if any of the old english yeomen had turned into fairies when they died, it was just the place in which they would have held their revels." a triangular piece of ground, with a sprinkling of elms about it, is all that is left of the rookery in which mr. tupman met with an accident from the unskilful marksmanship of winkle. at the back of the house is the pond where mr. winkle's reputation as a sportsman led him into another catastrophe, and his skating exposed itself as of anything but a graceful and "swan-like" style; where, too, mr. pickwick revived the sliding propensities of his boyhood with infinite zest until the ice gave way with a "sharp, smart crack", and mr. pickwick's hat, gloves, and handkerchief, floating on the surface, were all of mr. pickwick that anyone could see. cobtree hall, it has been mentioned, divides the parishes of boxley and allington, the initials of which are carved on a beam in the kitchen that suggests phiz's plate of "christmas eve at mr. wardle's". in aylesford the tomb of the prototype, according to local tradition, of "mr. wardle" bears the inscription, "also to the memory of mr. w. spong, late of cobtree, in the parish of boxley, who died november th, ". boxley village is near the ancient pilgrims' road to canterbury, and here alfred tennyson stayed in . park house, nearer the medway, was the home of edward lushington, who married tennyson's sister cecilia, and in its grounds tennyson found the setting for the prologue to the "princess". the "happy faces" of "the multitude, a thousand heads", by which the "sloping pasture" was "sown", under "broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime", had probably come from maidstone on the annual jaunt of that town's mechanics' institute. the village of allington stands on the other side of the medway, though the boundaries of the parish extend beyond the right bank of the river. allington castle, which the medway half-encircles with a sweeping bend, was one of the seven chief castles of kent. it was here that sir thomas wyatt, the elder, diplomatist, poet, and lover of anne boleyn, who with the gallant and ill-fated surrey "preluded", in a more exact sense than it could be said of chaucer, "those melodious bursts that fill the spacious times of great elizabeth", was able to proclaim, in an epistle to "mine own john poins": [illustration: maidstone, all saints' church and the palace] "i am here in kent and christendome, among the muses where i read and rhyme". hither there comes, in tennyson's "queen mary", to sir thomas wyatt, the younger, his man william, with news of "three thousand men on penenden heath all calling after you, and your worship's name heard into maidstone market, and your worship the first man in kent". and wyatt sets out to lead a rising which will end on tower hill, and setting out, looks back and cries: "ah, grey old castle of allington, green field beside the brimming medway, it may chance that i shall never look upon you more". "the brimming medway."--the epithet is as just as tennyson's descriptive epithet almost invariably proves to be. for at allington the medway, which from aylesford bridge to allington lock has dwindled to a narrow stream, swells out into a broad expanse, where many boats can easily move abreast. if the cloisterham weir of _edwin drood_ were really the nearest weir on the medway to rochester, then allington lock would be the place. but it has been pointed out on an earlier page that the distances do not tally in the novel and in actuality, and dickens may have had in mind the weir on snodland brook. the country round maidstone abounds in the "happy valleys" portrayed in the epilogue to the "princess", with "grey halls alone among their massive groves", and "here and there a rustic tower half lost in belts of hop and breadths of wheat". the gyres and loops of the medway, too, afford through the screen of woodlands and orchards "the shimmering glimpses of a stream". to the credulous enthusiasm of an early eighteenth-century native of strood, that anne pratt who did for english wild flowers what white of selborne did for english wild birds, "travellers who have beheld in other lands the various scenes of culture--the olive grounds of spain or syria, the vineyards of italy, the cotton plantations of india, or the rose fields of the east--have generally agreed that not one of them all equals in beauty our english hop gardens". to dickens himself such a panegyric of the kentish hop gardens would have scarcely seemed exaggeration, but he would have hastened to add the dismal antithesis of the missionary bishop--"only man is vile". he had barely settled-in at gadshill place when he wrote:-- "hop-picking is going on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the keyhole of the house door. i have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable base wretches, hardly able to crawl, who go hop-picking. i find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption. so the poor creatures drag themselves along the roads, and sleep under wet hedges, and get cured soon and finally." the county town of kent is situated not only on the medway, but on the pilgrim road to canterbury, and of a monastic hospital for pilgrims and other poor travellers there still survive some relics. overlooking the river stand some fine old houses, and the conspicuous grey square tower of all saints, built by the proud archbishop courtenay, the enemy of wicliffe, in the fourteenth century. here is the tomb of grocyn, that "lord of splendid lore orient from old hellas' shore", who was appointed master of the collegiate church in . one of the sixteen palaces that the archbishops of canterbury could boast in days gone by is preserved as the local school of science and art, a dedication to public use which commemorates the jubilee of queen victoria in . the corporation museum is an even more interesting and beautiful structure. it was chillington manor house, a seat of the cobham family, and, though it has had a new wing annexed to it, it is an exceptionally well preserved and beautiful example of elizabethan domestic architecture, with its latticed windows, jutting gables, elaborately moulded timber, and pillared chimneys. in the panel of an oak fireplace is a carved head of dickens, by a local carver named hughes, who was employed at gadshill place. to maidstone jail dickens proposed to carry sir luke fildes, in order that he might make a picture of jasper in the condemned cell, and do something which would surpass cruikshank's illustration to _oliver twist_, in which fagin's terror-stricken vigil in the murderer's cell is portrayed. at maidstone the southern limit may be considered to have been reached of the district of kent which can be distinguished as "dickens-land" in the most intimate sense, as lying within the radius of the novelist's habitual walks and drives from his residence at gadshill. it does not enter into the scope of this brief essay to describe topographically other parts of kent. but it will be excusable to glance very slightly at dickens's associations with canterbury--though this is the subject of a separate monograph in this series--broadstairs, deal, dover, and the famous london-to-dover road through rochester, chatham, and canterbury. [illustration: jasper's gateway] no one, perhaps, who has ever read _little dorrit_, whatever else in the novel may slip the memory, fails to recall the oracular utterance of mr. f.'s aunt that "there's milestones on the dover road". to the opening of _a tale of two cities_ the colour and atmosphere of the time in which it is set, and of the drama which is to be developed, are given at once by the alarm of the passengers of the dover coach as they walk up shooter's hill to ease the horses, when the furious galloping of a horseman is heard behind them--the supposed highwayman proving to be, however, jerry cruncher, messenger at tellson's bank by day, and at night an "agricooltural character" of ghoulish avocations. david copperfield trudged the dover road, footsore and hungry, when he left murdstone and grinby's blacking warehouse to throw himself on the compassion of betsy trotwood, "and got through twenty-three miles on the straight road" to rochester and chatham on a certain sunday. afterwards, when he had found a home and a protecting providence with his aunt, he met with his "first fall in life" on the canterbury coach, being asked by the coachman to resign the box seat to a seedy gentleman, who proclaimed that "'orses and dogs is some men's fancy. they're wittles and drink to me." "i have always considered this as the first fall i had in life. when i booked my place at the coach office, i had had 'box seat' written against the entry, and had given the bookkeeper half a crown. i was got up in a special greatcoat and shawl, expressly to do honour to that distinguished eminence; had glorified myself upon it a good deal; and had felt that i was a credit to the coach. and here, in the very first stage, i was supplanted by a shabby man with a squint, who had no other merit than smelling like a livery stables, and being able to walk across me, more like a fly than a human being, while the horses were at a canter." pip, in _great expectations_, makes many expeditions to and fro on the dover road, between rochester and london, and on one of them, riding outside, has the two convicts, bound for the hulks moored off the marshes, as fellow passengers on the back seat. at canterbury it is not possible to establish the identity of dr. strong's house--"a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the cathedral towers, and walked with a clerkly bearing on the grass plot"--but canon benham has asserted his conviction that mr. wickfield's house--where david made the acquaintance of agnes and of uriah heap--is at the corner of broad street and lady wotton's green, though it is another residence, by the west gate, which is represented on the picture postcards. the royal fountain hotel in st. margaret's street (formerly the watling street) is recognized as the county inn at which mr. dick used to sleep when he went over to canterbury to visit david copperfield at dr. strong's school. all the little bills which he contracted there, it will be remembered, were referred to miss trotwood before they were paid; a circumstance which caused david to think "that mr. dick was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it". a less pretentious establishment, the "little inn" where mr. micawber put up on his first visit to canterbury, and "occupied a little room in it partitioned off from the commercial, and strongly flavoured with tobacco smoke", is probably the sun inn in sun street. here mr. and mrs. micawber entertained david to "a beautiful little dinner"-- "quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney end of a loin of veal roasted; fried sausage meat; a partridge and a pudding. there was wine, and there was strong ale; and after dinner mrs. micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands." local tradition at broadstairs used to point to fort house, on the cliff by the coastguard station, as the holiday residence at which dickens wrote most of _bleak house_. but though it has been rechristened from the title of the novel, by an owner who demolished dickens's summer home, and built the existing pseudo-gothic structure on its foundations, no part of _bleak house_ was written at broadstairs. dickens, however, for many summers, visited the little town on the curving bay between margate and ramsgate; the albion hotel, where he notes that "the landlord has delicious hollands", no. (now ) high street, and lawn house, near fort house, receiving him at different times. at broadstairs he wrote a portion of _pickwick_, of _nicholas nickleby_, and _the old curiosity shop_, and he also stayed there while engaged on the _american notes_, _dombey and son_, and _david copperfield_. he forsook it at last, because it had become too noisy, but he has left an agreeable picture of it in _our watering place_; but a passage in a letter to forster invests it with still gayer colours: "it is the brightest day you ever saw. the sun is sparkling on the water so that i can hardly bear to look at it. the tide is in, and the fishing boats are dancing like mad. upon the green-topped cliffs the corn is cut and piled in shocks; and thousands of butterflies are fluttering about, taking the bright little red flags at the mastheads for flowers, and panting with delight accordingly." to the characters and the _mise en scène_ of his novels, however, broadstairs appears to have contributed nothing, except that the lady whose aversion to donkeys furnished so strong an idiosyncrasy to miss betsy trotwood's character was a native, not of dover, as in the novel, but of broadstairs. dover, besides giving a local habitation to david's aunt, is associated with _the tale of two cities_, since it was here that mr. lorry made the startling revelation to miss manette that her father had been "recalled to life". the vignette of eighteenth-century dover is executed with true dickensian verve: [illustration: chalk church] "the little narrow, crooked town of dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs like a marine ostrich. the beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. it thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly. the air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. a little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide made, and was near flood. small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, sometimes unaccountably realized large fortunes, and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter." it was to dover that dickens went when he was labouring with unusual difficulty over _bleak house_, and lamenting his inability to "grind sparks out of this dull anvil". at dover, on his second series of readings, he found "the audience with the greatest sense of humour", and "they laughed with such really cordial enjoyment, when squeers read the boy's letters, that the contagion" was irresistible even to dickens himself. deal, as it was in , is rapidly but vigorously sketched in chapter xlv of _bleak house_. esther summerson arrives from a night journey by coach, eager and anxious to help, if possible, richard carstone, the unhappy victim of the fatal chancery lawsuit: "at last we came into the narrow streets of deal; and very gloomy they were, upon a raw misty morning. the long flat beach, with its little irregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of capstans, and great boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with tackle and blocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and weeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place i ever saw. the sea was heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but a few early rope-makers, who, with the yarn twisted round their bodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of existence, they were twisting themselves into cordage. but when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel, and sat down, comfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it was too late to think of going to bed), deal began to look more cheerful.... then the fog began to rise like a curtain; and numbers of ships, that we had had no idea were near, appeared. i don't know how many sail the waiter told us were then lying in the downs. some of these vessels were of grand size: one was a large indiaman, just come home; and when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in the dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed, and changed, amid a bustle of boats putting off from the shore to them, and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in themselves and everything around them, was most beautiful." that dickens was essentially a "kentish man", in spite of the absence of a birth qualification, in spite, too, of his long residence in london, and of his peculiarly intimate knowledge of the byways and nooks and corners of london, ample proof has by this time been given. to this, however, may be added forster's significant statement that, "excepting always the haunts and associations of his childhood, dickens had no particular sentiment of locality, and any special regard for houses he had lived in was not a thing noticeable in him". this was not surprising. the conditions of life in a modern capital under most circumstances, but especially for anyone who has made many removes, tend to produce the impression that a man's rooftree only represents the transient shelter of a caravanserai, rather than an abiding habitation on which memory has stamped indelible traces. nor can even the most extended associations of maturity take the place of the imperishable links forged in the most susceptible years of fresh and sensitive childhood. for dickens this vital distinction was emphasized both by natural idiosyncrasy and by the pressure of events which shaped his destiny. "if it should appear," he says, speaking of himself under the mask of david copperfield, "from anything i may set down in this narrative, that i was a child of close observation, or that as a man i have a strong memory of my childhood, i undoubtedly lay claim to both of these characteristics." the change from chatham and rochester to london was indissolubly connected in his mind with a change in the family fortunes that deprived him of the ordinary advantages and pleasures open to any average boy of even the lower middle classes. it ushered in a period of misery and degradation that he could never recall without acute suffering. the few years of happiness which he enjoyed before he was carried away to london in the stage coach "commodore", at the age of nine, were divided from a strenuous and successful manhood by so dark a gulf as to concentrate all the powers of recollection upon them with a desperate kind of intensity. it was the realization of a childish ambition conceived in that halcyon era which drew him to gadshill, and he returned again and again to the contemplation of his earliest dreams and imaginings. he wrote from gadshill of his old nurse--the original, it can hardly be doubted, of peggotty:-- "i feel much as i used to do when i was a small child, a few miles off [i.e. at ordnance terrace, chatham], and somebody--_who_, i wonder, and which way did _she_ go when she died?--hummed the evening hymn, and i cried on the pillow--either with the remorseful consciousness of having kicked somebody else, or because still somebody else had hurt my feelings in the course of the day". for the second number of _household words_, when he "felt an uneasy sense of there being a want of something tender, which would apply to some universal household knowledge", he composed a little paper about "a child's dream of a star". it was the story of a brother and sister, constant child companions, who used to make friends of a star, watching it together until they knew when and where it would rise, and always bidding it good-night, so that when the sister dies, the lonely brother still connects her with the star, which he then sees opening as a sea of light, and its rays making a shining pathway from earth to heaven. it was his sister fanny, who had often wandered with him at night in st. mary's churchyard, near their home at chatham, looking up at the stars, and her death, shortly before the paper was written, had revived the fancy of childhood. in _the uncommercial traveller_ he revisits "dullborough", and the first discovery he makes is that the station has swallowed up the playing field of the school to which he went during his last two years at chatham. [illustration: shorne church] "it was gone. the two beautiful hawthorn trees, the hedge, the turf, and all those buttercups and daisies, had given place to the stoniest of jolting roads; while, beyond the station, an ugly dark monster of a tunnel kept its jaws open, as if it had swallowed them and were ravenous for more destruction. the coach that had carried me away, was melodiously called timpson's blue-eyed maid [it was really called the 'commodore'], and belonged to timpson, at the coach office up street; the locomotive engine that had brought me back was called severely no. , and belonged to s.e.r., and was spitting ashes and hot water over the blighted ground.... here, in the haymaking time, had i been delivered from the dungeons of seringapatam, an immense pile (of haycock), by my countrymen, the victorious british (boy next door and his two cousins), and had been recognized with ecstasy by my affianced one (miss green), who had come all the way from england (second house in the terrace) to ransom me and marry me." in playful vein dickens professes to record his disappointment at failing to receive any recognition from a "native", in the person of a phlegmatic greengrocer, when he revisits rochester, and revives the associations of haunts beloved in childhood. "nettled by his phlegmatic conduct, i informed him that i had left the town when i was a child. he slowly returned, quite unsoftened, and not without a sarcastic kind of complacency, had i? ah! and did i find it had got on tolerably well without me? such is the difference (i thought when i had left him a few hundred yards behind, and was by so much in a better temper) between going away from a place and remaining in it. i had no right, i reflected, to be angry with the greengrocer for his want of interest; i was nothing to him; whereas he was the town, the cathedral, the bridge, the river, my childhood, and a large slice of my life, to me." that is one side of the medal, but the other is displayed in _david copperfield_, when little mr. chillip, the doctor, welcomes david back to england: "'we are not ignorant, sir,' said mr. chillip, slowly shaking his little head again, 'down in our part of the country, of your fame. there must be great excitement here, sir,' said mr. chillip, tapping himself on the forehead with his forefinger. 'you must find it a trying occupation, sir!'" a feature of dickens's literary manner, so insistent that the most superficial reader cannot miss it, is the individual and almost human aspect which a street or a landscape, a house or a room, takes on in his description. a typical example may be selected in mr. wickfield's house-- "a very old house bulging out over the road; a house with long, low lattice windows bulging out still farther, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that i fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the narrow pavement below." it was the outcome of an acute nervous sensibility, amounting at times to an almost neurotic irritability, such as peeps out from his confession that the shape of earl grey's head, when he was a parliamentary reporter in the gallery, "was misery to me and weighed down my youth". this peculiarity of temperament had established itself when, a little delicate and highly strung child, he used to transfer the scenes and happenings of the novels to which he stole away from the other boys at their play, into the setting of his own existence, and "every barn in the neighbourhood, every stone in the church, and every foot of the churchyard, had some association of its own connected with these books, and stood for some locality made famous in them". there has seldom, perhaps, been such an absence of complexity in genius of a high order as there was in dickens's character. but though there was no complexity, there were two very different aspects--acute sensibility was not incompatible with a virile and buoyant spirit. and so dickens's associations with the country which he loved best and knew most intimately were, on the one side, those of a dreamy childhood, on the other, of a lusty zest in outdoor life and the rustic jollity of an old-world "merry england". the sports and revels of manor farm, dingley dell, have all the exuberance of lever's irish novels. dickens must have often taken part in merry-makings such as he describes, on flying visits that are not recorded in forster, before he sat down to write about them during his honeymoon at chalk. as the master of gadshill, his lithe, upright figure, clad in loose-fitting garments, and rather dilapidated shoes, was a familiar sight to all the country neighbours, as he swung along the shady lanes, banked high with hedges that were full of violets, purple and white, ferns, and lichens, and mosses. often he would call at the oldfashioned "crispin and crispianus", on the north side of the london road just out of strood, for a glass of ale, or a little cold brandy and water, and sit in the corner of the settle opposite the fireplace, looking at nothing but seeing everything. in the chapter on "tramps" in _the uncommercial traveller_, he imagines himself to be the travelling clockmaker, who sees to something wrong with the bell of the turret stable clock up at cobham hall, and after being regaled in the enormous servants' hall with beef and bread, and powerful ale, sets off through the woods till the town lights appear right in front, and lies for the night at the ancient sign of crispin and crispianus. the floating population of the roads,--the travelling showman, the cheap jack, the harvest and hopping tramps, the young fellows who trudge along barefoot, their boots slung over their shoulders, their shabby bundles under their arms, their sticks newly cut from some roadside wood, and the truculently humorous tramp, who tells the beadle: "why, blow your little town! who wants to be in it? wot does your dirty little town mean by comin' and stickin' itself in the road to anywhere?"--all are closely scanned and noted, as they mount or descend strood hill in perennial procession. dickens was himself a sturdy and inveterate pedestrian. when he suffered from insomnia he would think nothing of rising in the middle of the night and taking a thirty miles' spin before breakfast. [illustration: the leather bottle, cobham] "coming in just now," he wrote in his third year at gadshill, "after twelve miles in the rain, i was so wet that i have had to change and get my feet into warm water before i could do anything." in february, , he wrote: "i got frost-bitten by walking continually in the snow, and getting wet in the feet daily. my boots hardened and softened, hardened and softened, my left foot swelled, and i still forced the boot on; sat in it to write, half the day; walked in it through the snow, the other half; forced the boot on again next morning; sat and walked again; and being accustomed to all sorts of changes in my feet, took no heed. at length, going out as usual, i fell lame on the walk, and had to limp home dead lame, through the snow, for the last three miles--to the remarkable terror, by the way, of the two big dogs." it is hardly necessary to say that dickens never so absorbed the local spirit and genius of that part of rural england which he knew and loved best as the brontës absorbed the spirit of the yorkshire moorlands, or mr. hardy the spirit of wessex, or mr. eden phillpotts the spirit of dartmoor, or sir a. quiller-couch the spirit of the "delectable duchy". he was too busy and preoccupied a man for this, and had too much of his life and work behind him, when he made his permanent home in "dickens-land". and gadshill was too near to the bustle and stir of chatham to furnish a purely idyllic environment or entirely unsophisticated rusticity. but it is not unduly fanciful to discover the influence of kentish scenery, with its bright, clear atmosphere, its undulating slopes of green woodland and green hop fields, pink-and-white orchards, and golden harvests--the prettiest though not the most beautiful scenery in england--upon his conception of a typical "english home--grey twilight pour'd on dewy pastures, dewy trees, softer than sleep--all things in order stored, a haunt of ancient peace". though no local name is attached to it, and no local tradition identifies it with any particular spot, there is no difficulty in fixing in the very heart of "dickens-land" the picture upon which the "battle of life" is opened: the joyous dance of two girls, "quite unconstrained and careless", "in one little orchard attached to an old stone house with a honeysuckle porch", "while some half-dozen peasant women standing on ladders, gathering the apples from the trees, stopped in their work to look down, and share their enjoyment". "as they danced among the orchard trees, and down the groves of stems and back again, and twirled each other lightly round and round, the influence of their airy motion seemed to spread and spread, in the sunlighted scene, like an expanding circle in the water. their streaming hair and fluttering skirts, the elastic grass beneath their feet, the boughs that rustled in the morning air--the flushing leaves, their speckled shadows on the soft green ground--the balmy wind that swept along the landscape, glad to turn the distant windmill, cheerily--everything between the two girls, and the man and team at plough upon the ridge of land, where they showed against the sky as if they were the last things in the world--seemed dancing too." something, too, of the love of good cheer, quaint old christmas customs, of junketings in ancient farmhouse kitchens and the parlours of ancient hostelries, which has made dickens the early victorian apostle of yuletide "wassail", can be derived from his having "powlert up and down" in a county abounding with comfortable manor houses and cosy inns. it is a ripe and mellow tradition of good cheer, that is quite distinct from the bovine stolidity of a harvest home in george eliot's loamshire or the crude animalism of meredith's gaffer gammon. for kent, even from the time of cæsar's commentaries, has been "the civil'st place of all the isle". that is the aspect of dickens's country on the one side--the side which, some years before he established himself at gadshill, he mapped out, already knowing it intimately, to show to forster in a brief excursion: "you will come down booked for maidstone (i will meet you at paddock-wood), and we will go thither in company over a most beautiful little line of railroad. the eight miles walk from maidstone to rochester, and a visit to the druidical altar on the wayside, are charming. this could be accomplished on the tuesday; and wednesday we might look about us at chatham, coming home by cobham on thursday." the other side--the dreary marshes lying between the medway and the thames, a dark, flat wilderness intersected by dykes and mounds and gates--had associations not less intimate. in _david copperfield_ dickens transferred the dreams and the events of his childhood to an alien setting. in _great expectations_ he invents a fictitious story in harmony with scenes in which he delighted to retrace his childish memories. again, the amphibian creatures which he lightly sketches in _great expectations_, and more elaborately in _our mutual friend_, had first impressed themselves on his imagination as he rambled, a tiny, eager-eyed boy, about the dockyards and waterside alleys of chatham, or made trips to sheerness with "mr. micawber", that is to say, his father, in the navy pay yacht, though he long afterwards pursued his studies of them more exhaustively at wapping and the isle of dogs, and in expeditions with the thames police. it was from a walk with leech through chatham by-streets that he gathered the hint of charley hexam and his father, for _our mutual friend_, from the sight of "the uneducated father in fustian and the educated boy in spectacles". but when dickens took rochester once more for the background of a story in _edwin drood_ there seems, to us in our knowledge of the event, something almost ominous. it suggests waller's famous simile of the stag that returns to die where it was roused. dickens's last visit to the town was to stimulate his imagination for the conference between datchery and the princess puffer at the entrance to the "monks' vineyard". on the last day of his life he was busy, in the chalet in the garden at gadshill place, embodying the fancies which he had gathered and fused on that last visit. on the last page which he was to write he endeavoured to record--for the last time--his sense of the atmosphere of the old city. "a brilliant morning shines on the old city. its antiquities and ruins are surpassingly beautiful, with the lusty ivy gleaming in the sun, and the rich trees waving in the balmy air. changes of glorious light from moving boughs, songs of birds, scents from gardens, woods, and fields--or, rather, from the one great garden of the whole of the cultivated island in its yielding time--penetrate into the cathedral, subdue its earthy odour, and preach the resurrection and the life. the cold stone tombs of centuries ago grow warm, and flecks of brightness dart into the sternest marble corners of the building, fluttering there like wings." on the eve of that last day he had more than once expressed his satisfaction at having finally abandoned all intention of exchanging gadshill for london. he had done this still more impressively a few days before. "while he lived, he said, he should wish his name to be more and more associated with the place; and he had a notion that when he died, he should like to lie in the little graveyard belonging to the cathedral at the foot of the castle wall." half of his wish had to go unfulfilled; the other half has been realized in a different but a profounder sense than that in which it is conceived. while he lives, in the creations of his humour and pathos, airy things of fun and frolic, tenderness and tears, his name is more and more associated "with the scenes"--to borrow the words of the memorial tablet in rochester cathedral--"in which his earliest and his latest years were passed", scenes that "from the associations ... which extended over all his life" have the best right to be known as "dickens-land". _printed by blackie & son, ltd., glasgow_ * * * * * transcriber's note the following changes have been made to the text: page : "by an unbridgable chasm" changed to "by an unbridgeable chasm". _uniform volumes_ dickens' london by francis miltoun library mo, cloth, gilt top $ . the same, / levant morocco . milton's england by lucia ames mead library mo, cloth, gilt top . the same, / levant morocco . dumas' paris by francis miltoun library mo, cloth, gilt top _net_ . _postpaid_ . the same, / levant morocco _net_ . _postpaid_ . l. c. page & company new england building boston, mass. [illustration: charles dickens] dickens' london by francis miltoun _author of "dumas' paris," "cathedrals of france," "rambles in normandy," "castles and chateaux of old touraine," etc._ illustrated l. c. page & company boston publishers _copyright, _ by l. c. page & company (incorporated) _all rights reserved_ fourth impression, april, fifth impression, april, _colonial press_ _electrotyped and printed by c. h. simonds & co._ _boston, u. s. a._ _all sublunary things of death partake!_ _what alteration does a cent'ry make!_ _kings and comedians all are mortal found,_ _cæsar and pinkethman are underground._ _what's not destroyed by time's devouring hand?_ _where's troy, and where's the maypole in the strand?_ _pease, cabbages, and turnips once grew where_ _now stands new bond street and a newer square;_ _such piles of buildings now rise up and down,_ _london itself seems going out of town._ james bramston, _the art of politicks_. the attempt is herein made to present in an informal manner such facts of historical, topographical, and literary moment as surrounded the localities especially identified with the life and work of charles dickens in the city of london, with naturally a not infrequent reference to such scenes and incidents as he was wont to incorporate in the results of his literary labours; believing that there are a considerable number of persons, travellers, lovers of dickens, enthusiasts _et als._, who might be glad of a work which should present within a single pair of covers a résumé of the facts concerning the subject matter indicated by the title of this book; to remind them in a way of what already exists to-day of the london dickens knew, as well as of the changes which have taken place since the novelist's time. to all such, then, the present work is offered, not necessarily as the last word or even as an exhaustive résumé, knowing full well the futility for any chronicler to attempt to do such a subject full justice within the confines of a moderate sized volume, where so many correlated facts of history and side lights of contemporary information are thrown upon the screen. the most that can be claimed is that every effort has been made to present a truthful, correct, and not unduly sentimental account of the sights and scenes of london connected with the life of charles dickens. in praise of london "the inhabitants of st. james', notwithstanding they live under the same laws and speak the same language, are as a people distinct from those who live in the 'city.'" _addison._ "if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of the city you must not be satisfied with its streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts." _johnson._ "i have often amused myself with thinking how different a place london is to different people." _boswell._ "i had rather be countess of puddle-dock (in london) than queen of sussex." _shadwell._ "london ... a place where next-door neighbours do not know one another." _fielding._ "london ... where all people under thirty find so much amusement." _gray._ "dull as london is in summer, there is always more company in it than in any other one place." _walpole._ "london! opulent, enlarged, and still--increasing london!" _cowper._ "what is london?" _burke._ "i began to study a map of london ... the river is of no assistance to a stranger in finding his way." _southey._ contents page introduction the london dickens knew dickens' literary life the highway of letters dickens' contemporaries the locale of the novels disappearing london the county of kent the river thames manners and customs past and present the under world london topography a brief chronology index list of illustrations page charles dickens _frontispiece_ no. craven street, strand.--mr. tulkinghorn's house dickens' house in devonshire terrace.--no. doughty street, where dickens lived the reading of "the chimes" at forster's house, in lincoln's inn fields charles dickens, his wife, and sister georgina plan of "the poets' corner" residence of john forster, lincoln's inn fields the (reputed) "old curiosity shop" dickens' study at gad's hill place billingsgate london bridge "going to the pantomime" smithfield market interior of st. paul's cathedral during the duke of wellington's funeral lord mayor's procession, ascending ludgate hill "the city," london london at the time of the great fire the wards of the city whitechapel dickens' london introduction this book is for the lover of dickens and of london, alike. the former without the memory of the latter would indeed be wanting, and likewise the reverse would be the case. london, its life and its stones, has ever been immortalized by authors and artists, but more than all else, the city has been a part of the very life and inspiration of those who have limned its virtues, its joys, and its sorrows,--from the days of blithe dan chaucer to those of the latest west-end society novelist. london, as has been truly said, is a "mighty mingling," and no one has breathed more than dickens the spirit of its constantly shifting and glimmering world of passion and poverty. the typical londoner of to-day--as in the early victorian period of which dickens mostly wrote--is a species quite apart from the resident of any other urban community throughout the world. since the spell which is recorded as first having fallen upon the ear of whittington, the sound of bow bells is the only true and harmonious ring which, to the ears of the real cockney, recalls all that is most loved in the gamut of his sentiments. it is perhaps not possible to arrange the contents of a book of the purport of this volume in true chronological, or even topographical, order. the first, because of the necessitous moving about, hither and then thither,--the second, because of the fact that the very aspect of the features of the city are constantly under a more or less rapid process of evolution, which is altering all things but the points of the compass and the relative position of st. paul's and westminster abbey. between these two guide-posts is a mighty maze of streets, ever changing as to its life and topography. hungerford market and hungerford stairs have disappeared, beside which was the blacking factory, wherein the novelist's first bitter experiences of london life were felt,--amid a wretchedness only too apparent, when one reads of the miserable days which fell upon the lad at this time,--the market itself being replaced by the huge charing cross railway station, in itself no architectural improvement, it may be inferred, while the "crazy old houses and wharves" which fronted the river have likewise been dissipated by the march of improvement, which left in its wake the glorious, though little used, victoria embankment, one of the few really fine modern thoroughfares of a great city. eastward again furnival's inn, where pickwick was written, has fallen at the hands of the house-breaker. the office of the old _monthly magazine_ is no more, its very doorway and letter-box--"wherein was dropped stealthily one night" the precious manuscript of "pickwick"--being now in the possession of an ardent dickens collector, having been removed from its former site in johnson's court in fleet street at the time the former edifice was pulled down. across the river historic and sordid marshalsea, where the elder dickens was incarcerated for debt, has been dissipated in air; even its walls are not visible to-day, if they even exist, and a modern park--though it is mostly made up of flagstones--stands in its place as a moral, healthful, and politic force of the neighbourhood. with the scenes and localities identified with the plots and characters of the novels the same cleaning up process has gone on, one or another shrine being from time to time gutted, pulled to pieces, or removed. on the other hand, doubtless much that existed in the fancy, or real thought, of the author still remains, as the door-knocker of no. craven street, strand, the conjectured original of which is described in the "christmas carol," which appeared to the luckless scrooge as "not a knocker but marley's face;" or the spaniards inn on hampstead heath described in the xlvi. chapter of pickwick, which stands to-day but little, if any, changed since that time. for the literary life of the day which is reflected by the mere memory of the names of such of dickens' contemporaries in art and letters, as mark lemon, w. h. wills, wilkie collins, cruikshank, "phiz," forster, blanchard jerrold, maclise, fox, dyce, and stanfield, one can only resort to a history of mid or early victorian literature to realize the same to the full. such is not the scheme of this book, but that london,--the city,--its surroundings, its lights and shadows, its topography, and its history, rather, is to be followed in a sequence of co-related events presented with as great a degree of cohesion and attractive arrangement as will be thought to be commensurate and pertinent to the subject. formerly, when london was a "snug city," authors more readily confined their incomings and outgoings to a comparatively small area. to-day "the city" is a term only synonymous with a restricted region which gathers around the financial centre, while the cabalistic letters (meaning little or nothing to the stranger within the gates), e. c., safely comprehend a region which not only includes "_the city_," but extends as far westward as temple bar, and thus covers, if we except the lapping over into the streets leading from the strand, practically the whole of the "highway of letters" of doctor johnson's time. [illustration: no. craven street, strand.] [illustration: mr tulkinghorn's house.] a novelist to-day, and even so in dickens' time, did not--nay could not--give birth to a character which could be truly said to represent the complex london type. the environment of the lower classes--the east end and the boro'--is ever redolent of him, and he of it. the lower-middle or upper-lower class is best defined by that individual's predilection for the "good old strand;" while as the scale rises through the petty states of suburbia to the luxuries of mayfair or belgravia,--or to define one locality more precisely, park lane,--we have all the ingredients with which the novelist constructs his stories, be they of the nether world, or the "_hupper suckles_." few have there been who have essayed both. and now the suburbs are breeding their own school of novelists. possibly it is the residents of those communities who demand a special brand of fiction, as they do of coals, paraffine, and boot-polish. at any rate the london that dickens knew clung somewhat to wordsworth's happy description written but a half century before: "silent, bare, ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie, open unto the fields and to the sky," whereas to-day, as some "new zealander" from the back blocks has said: _"these londoners they never seen no sun."_ and thus it is that the scale runs from grave to gay, from poverty to purse full, and ever london,--the london of the past as well as the present, of grub street as well as grosvenor square. the centre of the world's literary activities, where, if somewhat conventional as to the acceptation of the new idea in many of the marts of trade, it is ever prolific in the launching of some new thing in literary fashions. at least it is true that london still merits the eulogistic lines penned not many years gone by by a certain minor poet: _"ah, london! london! our delight,_ _great flower that opens but at night,_ _great city of the midnight sun,_ _whose day begins when day is done."_ it is said of the industrious and ingenious american that he demands to be "shown things," and if his cicerone is not sufficiently painstaking he will play the game after his own fashion, which usually results in his getting into all sorts of unheard-of places, and seeing and learning things which your native has never suspected to previously have existed. all honour then to such an indefatigable species of the _genus homo_. nothing has the peculiar charm of old houses for the seeker after knowledge. to see them, and to know them, is to know their environment,--and so it is with london,--and then, and then only, can one say truly--in the words of johnson--that they have "seen and are astonished." a great mass of the raw material from which english history is written is contained in parochial record books and registers, and if this were the only source available the fund of information concerning the particular section of mid-london with which dickens was mostly identified--the parishes of st. bride's, st. mary's-le-strand, st. dunstan's, st. clement's-danes, and st. giles--would furnish a well-nigh inexhaustible store of old-time lore. for a fact, however, the activities of the nineteenth century alone, to particularize an era, in the "highway of letters" and the contiguous streets lying round about, have formed the subject of many a big book quite by itself. when one comes to still further approximate a date the task is none the less formidable; hence it were hardly possible to more than limn herein a sort of fleeting itinerary among the sights and scenes which once existed, and point out where, if possible, are the differences that exist to-day. doctor johnson's "walk down fleet street"--if taken at the present day--would at least be productive of many surprises, whether pleasant ones or not the reader may adduce for himself, though doubtless the learned doctor would still chant the praises of the city--in that voice which we infer was none too melodious: _"oh, in town let me live, then in town let me die,_ _for in truth i can't relish the country; not i."_ within the last decade certain changes have taken place in this thoroughfare which might be expected to make it unrecognizable to those of a former generation who may have known it well. improvements for the better, or the worse, have rapidly taken place; until now there is, in truth, somewhat of an approach to a wide thoroughfare leading from westminster to the city. but during the process something akin to a holocaust has taken place, to consider only the landmarks and shrines which have disappeared,--the last as these lines are being written, being clifford's inn,--while mr. tulkinghorn's house in lincoln's inn fields, redolent of dickens and forster, his biographer, is doomed, as also the _good words_ offices in wellington street, where dickens spent so much of his time in the later years of his life. the famous "gaiety" is about to be pulled down, and the "old globe" has already gone from this street of taverns, as well as of letters, or, as one picturesque writer has called it, "the nursing mother of english literature." the london dickens knew the father of charles dickens was for a time previous to the birth of the novelist a clerk in the navy pay office, then in somerset house, which stands hard by the present waterloo bridge, in the very heart of london, where charles dickens grew to manhood in later years. from this snug berth dickens, senior, was transferred to portsmouth, where, at no. commercial road, in portsea, on the th february, , charles dickens was born. four years later the family removed to chatham, near rochester, and here the boy charles received his first schooling. from chatham the family again removed, this time to london, where the son, now having arrived at the age of eleven, became a part and parcel of that life which he afterward depicted so naturally and successfully in the novels. here he met with the early struggles with grim poverty and privation,--brought about by the vicissitudes which befell the family,--which proved so good a school for his future career as a historian of the people. his was the one voice which spoke with authoritativeness, and aroused that interest in the nether world which up to that time had slumbered. the miseries of his early struggles with bread-winning in warren's blacking factory,--in association with one fagin, who afterward took on immortalization at the novelist's hands,--for a weekly wage of but six shillings per week, is an old and realistic fact which all biographers and most makers of guide-books have worn nearly threadbare. that the family were sore put in order to keep their home together, first in camden town and later in gower street, north, is only too apparent. the culmination came when the elder dickens was thrown into marshalsea prison for debt, and the family removed thither, to lant street, near by, in order to be near the head of the family. this is a sufficiently harrowing sequence of events to allow it to be left to the biographers to deal with them to the full. here the author glosses it over as a mere detail; one of those indissoluble links which connects the name of dickens with the life of london among the lower and middle classes during the victorian era. an incident in "david copperfield," which dickens has told us was real, so far as he himself was concerned, must have occurred about this period. the reference is to the visit to "ye olde red lion" at the corner of derby street, parliament street, near westminster bridge, which house has only recently disappeared. he has stated that it was an actual experience of his own childhood, and how, being such a little fellow, the landlord, instead of drawing the ale, called his wife, who gave the boy a motherly kiss. the incident as recounted in "david copperfield" called also for a glass of ale, and reads not unlike: "i remember one hot evening i went into the bar of a public-house, and said to the landlord: 'what is your best--your _very best_ ale a glass?' for it was a special occasion. i don't know what. it may have been my birthday. 'twopence-halfpenny,' says the landlord, 'is the price of the genuine stunning ale.' 'then,' says i, producing the money, 'just draw me a glass of the genuine stunning, if you please, with a good head to it.'" after a time his father left the navy pay office and entered journalism. the son was clerking, meanwhile, in a solicitor's office,--that of edward blackmore,--first in lincoln's inn, and subsequently in gray's inn. a diary of the author was recently sold by auction, containing as its first entry, " _s_ _d_ for one week's salary." here dickens acquired that proficiency in making mental memoranda of his environment, and of the manners and customs of lawyers and their clerks, which afterward found so vivid expression in "pickwick." by this time the father's financial worries had ceased, or at least made for the better. he had entered the realms of journalism and became a parliamentary reporter, which it is to be presumed developed a craving on the part of charles for a similar occupation; when following in his father's footsteps, he succeeded, after having learned gurney's system of shorthand, in obtaining an appointment as a reporter in the press gallery of the house of commons (the plans for the new parliament buildings were just then taking shape), where he was afterward acknowledged as being one of the most skilful and accomplished shorthand reporters in the galleries of that unconventional, if deliberate, body, which even in those days, though often counting as members a group of leading statesmen, perhaps ranking above those of the present day, was ever a democratic though "faithful" parliamentary body. in the old houses of parliament were burned, and with the remains of st. stephen's hall the new structure grew up according to the plan presented herein, which is taken from a contemporary print. at the end of the parliamentary session of dickens closed his engagement in the reporters' gallery, a circumstance which he recounts thus in copperfield, which may be presumed to be somewhat of autobiography: "i had been writing in the newspapers and elsewhere so prosperously that when my new success was achieved i considered myself reasonably entitled to escape from the dreary debates. one joyful night, therefore, i noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and i have never heard it since." ("david copperfield," chap. xlviii.) again, in the same work, the novelist gives us some account of the effort which he put into the production of "pickwick." "i laboured hard"--said he--"at my book, without allowing it to interfere with the punctual discharge of my newspaper duties, and it came out and was very successful. i was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that i was keenly alive to it. for this reason i retained my modesty in very self-respect; and the more praise i got the more i tried to deserve." ("david copperfield," chap. xlviii.) from this point onward in the career of charles dickens, he was well into the maelstrom of the life of letters with which he was in the future to be so gloriously identified; and from this point forward, also, the context of these pages is to be more allied with the personality (if one may be permitted to so use the word) of the environment which surrounded the life and works of the novelist, than with the details of that life itself. in reality, it was in , when dickens had just attained his majority, that he first made the plunge into the literary whirlpool. he himself has related how one evening at twilight he "had stealthily entered a dim court" (johnson's court, fleet street, not, as is popularly supposed, named for doctor johnson, though inhabited by him in , from whence he removed in the same year to bolt court, still keeping to his beloved fleet street), and through an oaken doorway, with a yawning letter-box, there fell the ms. of a sketch entitled "a dinner at poplar walk," afterward renamed "mr. minns and his cousin," these were the offices of the old _monthly magazine_ now defunct. here the article duly appeared as one of the "sketches by boz." in the preface to an edition of "pickwick," published in , dickens describes the incident sufficiently graphically for one to realize, to its fullest extent, with what pangs, and hopes, and fears his trembling hand deposited the first of the children of his brain; a foundling upon the doorstep where it is to be feared so many former and later orphans were, if not actually deserted, abandoned to their fate. these were parlous times in grub street; in the days when the art of letters, though undeniably prolific, was not productive of an income which would assure even a practised hand freedom from care and want. within a half-mile on either side of this blind alley leading off fleet street, from ludgate hill on the east--redolent of memories of the fleet, its prison, and its "marriages"--to somerset house on the west, is that unknown land, that _terra incognita_, whereon so many ships of song are stranded, or what is more, lost to oblivion which is blacker than darkness itself. in january, , while still turning out "pickwick" in monthly parts, dickens was offered the editorship of the already famous _bentley's magazine_, which he accepted, and also undertook to write "oliver twist" for the same periodical. in march, of the same year, the three rooms at furnival's inn presumably having become crowded beyond comfort, he removed with his wife to his former lodgings at chalk, where the couple had spent their honeymoon, and where in the following year their son charles was born. what memories are conjured up of the past and, it is to be hoped, of future greatness by those who, in taking their walks abroad, find themselves within the confines of the parish of st. bride's, with its church built by wren shortly after the great fire, and its queer pointed steeple, like a series of superimposed tabourets overtopped with a needle-like spire? here the brazen chimes ring out to all and sundry of the world of journalism and letters, whose vocations are carried on within its sound, the waking and sleeping hours alike. true! there are no sleeping hours in fleet street; night is like unto day, and except for the absence of the omnibuses, and crowds of hurrying throngs of city men and solicitors and barristers, the faces of those you meet at night are in no way unlike the same that are seen during the hours in which the sun is supposed to shine in london, but which--for at least five months of the year--mostly doesn't. old st. bride's, destroyed by the great fire of london in the seventeenth century, sheltered the remains of sackville, who died in , and the printer, wynken de worde, and of lovelace ( ). to-day in the present structure the visitor may see the tomb of richardson, the author of "clarissa harlow," who lived in salisbury square, another near-by centre of literary activity. in the adjacent churchyard formerly stood a house in which milton for a time resided. in later times it has been mostly called to the minds of lion hunters as being the living of the reverend e. c. hawkins, the father of our most successful and famed epigrammatic novelist,--mr. anthony hope hawkins. equally reminiscent, and linked with a literary past in that close binding and indissoluble fashion which is only found in the great world of london, are such place names as bolt court, where johnson spent the last years of his life ( - ), wine office court, in which is still situated the ancient hostelry, "the cheshire cheese," where all good americans repair to sit, if possible, in the chair which was once graced (?) by the presence of the garrulous doctor, or to buy alleged pewter tankards, which it is confidently asserted are a modern "brummagem" product "made to sell." gough square at the top of wine office court is where johnson conceived and completed his famous dictionary. bouverie street (is this, by the way, a corruption or a variant of the dutch word _bouerie_ which new yorkers know so well?), across the way, leads toward the river where once the carmelite friary (white friars) formerly stood, and to a region which scott has made famous in "nigel" as "alsatia." fetter lane, and great and little new streets, leading therefrom, are musty with a literary or at least journalistic atmosphere. here izaak walton, the gentle angler, lived while engaged in the vocation of hosier at the corner of chancery lane. at the corner of bouverie street are the _punch_ offices, to which mirthful publication dickens made but one contribution,--and that was never published. further adown the street is still the building which gave shelter to the famous dinners of the round-table when all the wits of _punch_ met and dined together, frequently during the london season. in mitre court, until recently, stood the old tavern which had, in its palmier if not balmier days, been frequently the meeting-place of johnson, goldsmith, and boswell; while but a short distance away we are well within the confines of the temple which not only sheltered and fostered the law, but literature as well. an incident which shows dickens' sympathy with the literary life of the day was in , when the great-grandson of the man who has given so much to all ages of englishmen,--de foe,--was made happy with a relief of £ a month. dickens was (as might have been expected) amongst the most liberal subscribers to the little fund. if everybody who has derived delight from the perusal of "robinson crusoe" had but contributed a single farthing to his descendant, that descendant would become a wealthy man. when de foe was asked what he knew of his great ancestor's writings, he answered (though doubtless without any intentional comment on his ancestor's reputation) that in his happier days he had several of de foe's works; but that he never could keep a copy of "robinson crusoe;" "there were so many borrowers of the book in hungerford market alone." charles knight, the publisher and antiquarian, instituted the fund, and the money was raised by him chiefly among literary men. the most sentimental and picturesque interest attaches itself to the extensive series of buildings on the south side of fleet street, familiarly known as the temple. here goldsmith is buried beside the curious and interesting temple church. the other of the four great inns of court are lincoln's inn in chancery lane and gray's inn in holborn. allied with the four great inns were the more or less subsidiary inns of chancery, all situated in the immediate neighbourhood, one of which, at least, being intimately associated with dickens' life in london--furnival's inn, which, with thavie's inn, was attached to lincoln's inn. here dickens lived in at no. , and here also he lived subsequent to his marriage with catherine hogarth in the following year. it was at this time that the first number of "pickwick" was written and published. the building itself was pulled down sometime during the past few years. comprising several squares and rows, what is commonly referred to as the temple, belongs to the members of two societies, the inner and middle temple, consisting of "benchers," barristers, and students. this famous old place, taken in its completeness, was, in , the metropolitan residence of the knights templars, who held it until their downfall in ; soon afterward it was occupied by students of the law; and in james i. presented the entire group of structures to the "benchers" of the two societies, who have ever since been the absolute owners. the entrance to inner temple, from fleet street, is nothing more than a mere gateway; the entrance to middle temple is more pretentious, and was designed by sir christopher wren. here in the heart of the great world of london exists, as in no other city on the globe, a quiet and leafy suburb, peopled only by those whose vocation is not of the commonalty. its very environment is inspiring to great thoughts and deeds, and small wonder it is that so many master minds have first received their stimulus amid the shady walks and rather gloomy buildings of the temple. true it is that they are gloomy, on the outside at least,--dull brick rows with gravelled or flagged courtyards, but possessing withal a geniality which many more glaring and modern surroundings utterly lack. the stranger, for sightseeing, and the general public, to take advantage of a short cut to the river, throng its walks during the busy hours around noontime. all sorts and conditions of men hurry busily along in a never-ending stream, but most to be remarked is the staid and earnest jurist, his managing clerk, or the aspiring bencher, as his duties compel him to traverse this truly hallowed ground. by nightfall the atmosphere and associations of the entire temple take on, if possible, a more quiet and somnolescent air than by day. it must, if report be true, be like a long-deserted city in the small hours of the night. a group of chambers, called rather contemptuously paper buildings, is near the river and is a good example of revived elizabethan architecture. a new inner temple hall was formally opened in , by the princess louise. in october, , when the prince of wales was elected a bencher of the middle temple, the new library was formally opened. the temple church, as seen from the river, with its circular termination, like nothing else in the world except charlemagne's church at aix la chapelle, is one of the most interesting churches in london. all the main parts of the structure are as old as the time of the knights templars; but restorations of the middle nineteenth century, when the munificent sum of £ , was spent, are in no small way responsible for its many visible attributes which previously had sadly fallen to decay. there are two portions, the round church and the choir, the one nearly years old and the other more than . the chief distinguishing features of the interior are the monumental effigies, the original sculptured heads in the round church, the triforium, and the fittings of the choir. the north side of the church has been opened out by the removal of the adjoining buildings where, in the churchyard, is the grave of oliver goldsmith, who died in chambers (since pulled down) in brick court. the temple gardens, fronting the river, are laid out as extensive shrub and tree-bordered lawns, which are generously thrown open to the public in the summer. a more charming sylvan retreat, there is not in any city in the world. in the good old times, legal education and hospitality went hand in hand, and the halls of the different inns of court were, for several centuries, a kind of university for the education of advocates, subject to this arrangement. the benchers and readers, being the superiors of each house, occupied, on public occasions of ceremony, the upper end of the hall, which was raised on a daïs, and separated from the rest of the building by a _bar_. the next in degree were the _utter_ barristers, who, after they had attained a certain standing, were called from the body of the hall to the bar (that is, to the first place outside the bar), for the purpose of taking a principal part in the mootings or exercises of the house; and hence they probably derived the name of _utter_ or outer barristers. the other members of the inn, consisting of students of the law under the degree of _utter_ barristers, took their places nearer to the centre of the hall, and farther from the bar, and, from this manner of distribution, appear to have been called inner barristers. the distinction between _utter_ and inner barristers is, at the present day, wholly abolished; the former being called barristers generally, and the latter falling under the denomination of students; but the phrase "called to the bar" still holds and is recognized throughout the english-speaking world. the general rule, as to qualification, in all the inns of court, is, that a person, in order to entitle himself to be called to the bar, must be twenty-one years of age, have kept _twelve terms_, and have been for five, or three years, at least, a member of the society. the keeping of terms includes dining a certain number of times in the hall, and hence the pleasantry of _eating the way to the bar_; the preparatory studies being now private. of the great business of refection, the engraving herewith shows the most dignified scene--the benchers' dinner; the benchers, or "antients," as they were formerly called, being the governors of the inn, at the temple called the parliament. the middle temple hall surpasses the halls of the other societies in size and splendour. begun in , and finished about ten years afterward, it is feet long, feet wide, and upwards of feet in height. the roof and panels are finely decorated, and the screen at the lower end is beautifully carved. there are a few good pictures: amongst others, one of charles i. on horseback, by vandyke; also portraits of charles ii., queen anne, george i., and george ii. lincoln's inn was once the property of henry de lacy, earl of lincoln. it became an inn of court in . the new hall and library, a handsome structure after the tudor style, was opened in . the chapel was built in - , by inigo jones, who laid out the large garden in lincoln's inn fields, close by, in . lord william russell was beheaded here in . in lincoln's inn are the chancery and equity courts. lincoln's inn vied with the temple in the masques and revels of the time of james i. gray's inn, nearly opposite the north end of chancery lane, once belonged to the lords gray of wilton. most of its buildings--except its hall, with its black oak roof--are of comparatively modern date. in gray's inn lived the great lord bacon, a tree planted by whom, in the quaint old garden of the inn, could, in dickens' time, yet be seen--propped up by iron stays. to-day a diligent search and inquiry does not indicate its whereabouts, which is another manifestation of the rapidity of the age in which we live. the nine inns of chancery allied with the four inns of court, the inner and middle temple, lincoln's inn and gray's inn, are clifford's inn, clement's inn, lyons' inn, new inn, furnival's inn, thavie's inn, sergeant's inn, staple inn, and barnard's inn, all of which were standing in dickens' day, but of which only staple inn and sergeant's inn have endured, clement's inn having only recently ( ) succumbed to the house-breaker. staple inn, in holborn, "the fayrest inne of chancerie," is one of the quaintest, quietest, and most interesting corners of mediæval london left to us. nathaniel hawthorne, describing his first wanderings in london, said, "i went astray in holborn through an arched entrance over which was staple inn, and here likewise seemed to be offices; but in a court opening inwards from this, there was a surrounding seclusion of quiet dwelling-houses, with beautiful green shrubbery and grass-plots in the court and a great many sunflowers in full bloom. the windows were open, it was a lovely summer afternoon, and i had a sense that bees were humming in the court." many more years have passed over the old corner since hawthorne's visit, but still it retains its ancient charm, and still the visitor is struck by the rapid change from the hurrying stream of holborn's traffic to this haunt of ancient peace about which mr. worsfold writes with pardonable enthusiasm. with a history traceable backward for many centuries, staple inn was at first associated in the middle ages with the dealing in the "staple commodity" of wool, to use lord chief justice coke's words, but about the fifteenth century the wool merchants gave way to the wearers of woollen "stuff," and their old haunt became one of the inns of chancery--the staple inn of the lawyers--perpetuating its origin in its insignia, a bale of wool. for many years the connection of the inn with the law was little beyond a nominal one, and in the great change came, and the haunt of merchants, the old educational establishment for lawyers, passed from the hands of "the principal, ancients and juniors of the honourable society of staple inn," to those of a big insurance society, while the fine old hall became the headquarters of the institute of actuaries. true it is, that perhaps no area of the earth's surface, of say a mile square, has a tithe of the varied literary association of the neighbourhood lying in the immediate vicinity of the temple, the birthplace of lamb, the home of fielding, and the grave of goldsmith. shoe lane, fleet street, is still haunted by the memory of the boy chatterton, and will's coffee house, the resort of wits and literary lights of former days, vies with royal palaces as an attraction for those who would worship at the shrines of a bygone age,--a process which has been made the easier of late, now that the paternal society of arts has taken upon itself to appropriately mark, by means of a memorial tablet, many of these localities, of which all mention is often omitted from the guide-books. often the actual houses themselves have disappeared, and it may be questioned if it were not better that in some instances a tablet commemorating a home or haunt of some notability were not omitted. still if the accompanying inscription is only sufficiently explicit, the act is a worthy one, and truth to tell, a work that is well performed in london. suburban london, too, in a way, may well come within the scope of the passion of any lover of material things which have at one time or another been a part and parcel of the lives of great men. and so, coupled with literary associations, we have the more or less imaginary "bell" at edmonton to remind us of cowper, of many houses and scenes identified with carlyle, at chelsea; of the poet thompson, of gainsborough, and a round score of celebrities who have been closely identified with richmond,--and yet others as great, reminiscent of pepys, addison, steele, thackeray and the whole noble band of chroniclers, essayists, and diarists of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. the "houses of entertainment"--as the georgian novelist was pleased to refer to inns and taverns--had in dickens' day not departed greatly from their original status. referring solely to those coaching and posting-houses situated at a greater or lesser distance from the centre of town,--on the main roads running therefrom, and those city establishments comprehended strictly under the head of taverns,--which were more particularly places of refreshment for mankind of the genus male. these two classes were, and are, quite distinct from the later-day _caravanserai_ known as hotels, and as such performed vastly different functions. to be sure, all life and movement of the early nineteenth century, and for a couple of hundred years before, had a great deal to do with inns and taverns. from chaucer's famous "tabard," where-- _"in southwark at the tabard as i lay_ _ready to wenden on my pilgrimage,"_ to "the bull," at rochester, whose courtyard is still as described by dickens, and the somewhat mythical "maypole" of "barnaby rudge," is a far cry, though it would appear that the kind of cheer and accommodation varies to a much lesser degree than might be supposed. certainly the demand for brevity and the luxuriousness of the later years of the nineteenth century, and even to some extent during dickens' time, with the innovation of railway travel, gas-lamps, the telegraph, and what not, was making an entirely new set of conditions and demands. the old "tabard" of chaucer's day is no more, though an antiquary of has attempted to construct what it may have been out of the "talbot" of that day, which stood in the ancient high street of southwark, just across london bridge, where, said the annalist stow, "there were so many fair inns for receipt of travellers,"--the rivals of the boar's heads and mermaids of another generation. of the actual dickens' inns, perhaps none is more vividly impressed on the imagination than that of the "maypole," that fantastic structure of "barnaby rudge," the original of which is the "king's head" at chigwell on the borders of epping forest. it was here that mr. willet sat in his accustomed place, "his eyes on the eternal boiler." "before he had got his ideas into focus, he had stared at the plebeian utensil quite twenty minutes,"--all of which indicates the minutiæ and precision of dickens' observations. this actual copper, vouched for by several documents of attestation, with an old chair which formerly stood in the chester room of the "maypole," is to-day in the possession of mr. bransby williams, of london, an ardent enthusiast of all matters in connection with dickens and his stories. of the _pickwickian inns_, the "white horse" at ipswich--"the overgrown tavern" to which mr. pickwick journeyed by the london coach--is something of tangible reality, and doubtless little changed to this day; the same being equally true of "the leather bottle" at cobham. the old "white hart" in the borough high street, the scene of the first meeting of mr. pickwick and weller, was demolished in . not so the "magpie and stump,"--that referred to in "pickwick" as being in the vicinity of the clare market, and "closely approximating to the back of the 'new inn.'" this seems to have been of an imaginary character in nomenclature, at least, though it is like enough that some neighbourhood hostelry--or, as it is further referred to, as being what the ordinary person would call a "low public-house"--was in mind. the old "fountain inn" of the minories, referred to in "oliver twist," and the "little inn" ("the sun") at canterbury, where the micawbers lodged, and the "white hart" at hook,--or more probably its predecessor of the same name,--visited by the pickwickians en route to rochester,--were realities in every sense of the word, and show once again the blending of truth and fiction which was so remarkable in the novels, and which indicates so strongly the tendency of dickens to make every possible use of accessories, sights, and scenes, with which, at one time or another, he had been acquainted. the "saracen's head" at snow hill,--a real thing in dickens' day,--where the impetuous squeers put up during his visits to london, has disappeared. it was pulled down when the holborn viaduct was built in , and the existing house of the same name in no way merits the genial regard which is often bestowed upon it, in that it is but an ordinary london "_pub_" which does not even occupy the same site as its predecessor. "the spaniards," where foregathered the no-popery rioters, on hampstead heath, remains much as of yore; certainly it has not changed to any noticeable degree since mrs. bardell, _et als._, repaired hither in the hampstead stage for their celebrated tea-party, as recounted in "pickwick." the very term _pickwickian inns_ inspires rumination and imagination to a high degree. remembrance is all very well, but there is a sturdy reality about most of the inns of which dickens wrote. thus the enthusiast may, if he so wish, in some cases, become a partaker of the same sort of comfort as did dickens in his own time, or at least, amid the same surroundings; though it is to be feared that new zealand mutton and argentine beef have usurped the place in the larder formerly occupied by the "primest scotch" and the juiciest "southdown." it is said there are twenty-five inns mentioned in "pickwick" alone; the writer has never been able to count up but twenty-two: still the assertion may be correct; he leaves it to the curious to verify. certainly such well revered names as the "golden cross," "the bull," at rochester, which, above all other localities drawn in "pickwick," has the liveliest associations, "the leather bottle," "the magpie and stump," "the marquis of granby," "the blue boar," "the white horse cellars" in piccadilly, and "the great white horse" at ipswich are for ever branded upon the memory. the following half-dozen will perhaps be best recalled: "the old white hart" in the borough high street; "the george and vulture," mr. pickwick's own favourite; "the golden cross," reminiscent of dickens' own personality as well; "the white horse cellars," the starting-place of the ipswich coach; "osborne's hotel" in the adelphi, still occupied as a rather shabby sort of hostelry, though the name has gone; "jack straw's castle," where "boz" and his friend forster so often enjoyed that "shoemaker's holiday;" and lastly, "the spaniards" at hampstead. a description of one, as it is to-day, must suffice here. "the golden cross," which stands opposite charing cross railway station, with its floriated gilt crosses usually brightly burnished, and the entire edifice resplendent in new paint. there is still, however, something of the air of the conservatism of a former day, if only in the manner of building, which in the present case furthers the suggestion that the ways of the modern architect--striving for new and wonderful constructive methods--were unknown when the walls of this old hostelry were put up. its courtyard has disappeared, or rather has been incorporated into a sort of warehouse or stable for a parcels delivery company, and the neighbourhood round about has somewhat changed since the days of "copperfield" and "pickwick." the charing cross railway station has come upon the scene, replacing old hungerford market, and palatial hotels have been built where the gardens of northumberland house once were. st.-martin's-in-the-fields is still in its wonted place, but with a change for the worse, in that the platform with its ascending steps has been curtailed during a recent alleged improvement in the roadway in st. martin's lane. the national gallery remains as of yore, except that it has recently been isolated by pulling down some adjoining structures to the northwest, as a precautionary measure against fire. the nelson monument in trafalgar square, then newly arrived, is as it was in the days of dickens' early life. but there is little suggestion in the hotel or its surroundings of its ever having been a "mouldy sort of an establishment in a close neighbourhood," and it is hard to believe that copperfield's bedroom "smelt like a hackney-coach and was shut up like a family vault." dickens' literary life a brief account is here given of dickens' literary career, which presents chronologically a review of his productions as they appeared. the first of his literary efforts was the tragedy of "the sultan of india," written in his precocious school-days at chatham, when, if we except his parliamentary journalistic work, nothing else was put forth until "the dinner at poplar walk" was published in the _monthly magazine_ ( ). the original "sketches by boz"--the first of which bore no signature--also followed in the _monthly magazine_. other sketches under the same generic title also appeared in the _evening chronicle_, and yet others, under the title of "scenes and characters," were published in "bell's life in london" and the "library of fiction." in a number of these fugitive pieces were collected into a volume, the copyright of which was sold to one macrone for £ , who published them under the first and best known title, "sketches by boz." the familiar story of "pickwick," its early conception and its final publication, is well known. its first publication (in parts) dated from - . about this time dickens had another bad attack of stage-fever, and wrote a farce, "the strange gentleman," the libretto of an opera called "the village coquettes," and a comedy, "is she his wife?" more particularly perhaps for amateur representation, in which he was very fond of taking part. "oliver twist," a courageous attack on the poor laws and bumbledom, followed in , though it was not completed until after "nicholas nickleby" began to appear in . at this time was started _master humphrey's clock_, a sort of miscellany in which it was intended to publish a series of papers written chiefly by dickens himself after the style of addison's _spectator_ of a former day. it was not at first successful, and only upon the commencement therein of the "old curiosity shop" did it take on in any sense. master humphrey's clock ran down with the completion of the novel, though this story, in company with "barnaby rudge," a tale of the riots of ' , was not issued in book form until and . the authorship of "pickwick" was unknown by the great mass of the public until very nearly the completion of the work in serial parts. much conjecture was raised, and a writer in _bentley's miscellany_ published the following lines under the title of: impromptu _"who the_ dickens _'boz' could be_ _puzzled many a learned elf,_ _till time revealed the mystery,_ _and 'boz' appeared as_ dickens' _self."_ the other contributions made by dickens to this periodical were afterward added to his published works under the title of "master humphrey's clock." dickens' first tour to america followed the abandonment of the periodical in . this event called forth the following verses by tom hood, entitled: to charles dickens _on his proposed voyage to america, ._ _"pshaw! away with leaf and berry_ _and the sober-sided cup!_ _bring a goblet and bright sherry!_ _and a bumper fill me up.--_ _tho' i had a pledge to shiver,_ _and the longest ever was,--_ _ere his vessel leaves our river,_ _i will drink a health to 'boz.'_ _"here's success to all his antics,_ _since it pleases him to roam,_ _and to paddle o'er atlantics,_ _after such a sale at home_ _may he shun all rocks whatever,_ _and the shallow sand that lurks,--_ _and his passage be as clever_ _as the best among his works."_ with what favour his visit was received in america is too well known to require detailed mention here. his experiences and observations recounted in "american notes," first published in upon his return to england, has told these vividly and picturesquely, if not exactly consistently. as a reader, dickens stood as preëminently to the fore as when posing as a writer. his phenomenal success on the platform is given in detail in a volume written by george dolby, who accompanied him and managed his american tour. the mental and physical strain was such that in fifteen years of combined editorial, literary, and reading labours, it left him attenuated and finally curtailed his brilliant work. what the readings really did accomplish was to increase and firmly assure the permanence of his already wide-spread fame. "martin chuzzlewit" had begun to appear in shilling parts in , and at that time was considered by the novelist to be by far the best work he had yet written. "dombey and son" followed, and afterward "david copperfield," to which dickens transferred his affections from "chuzzlewit." this new "child of fancy," as he called it, was so largely autobiographical as to be accepted by many as being a recounting of his own early struggles as a poor boy in london, and his early literary labours. he himself said: "i seemed to be sending a part of myself into the shadowy world." while "chuzzlewit" was appearing in serial form, that masterpiece perhaps of all dickens' shorter stories, "a christmas carol,"--the first of the "christmas stories,"--appeared. this earned for its author the sobriquet, "the apostle of christmas." its immediate popularity and success was, perhaps, influenced by the following endorsement from thackeray: "it seems to me a national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal kindness." others under the same generic title followed: "the chimes," ; "the cricket on the hearth," ; "the battle of life," ; and "the haunted man," . in january, , dickens began his short connection with the _daily news_. here his "pictures from italy" appeared, he having just returned from a journey thither. "dombey and son," which dickens had begun at rosemont, lausanne, took him from to to complete. in the idea of _household words_, the periodical with which dickens' fame is best remembered, took shape. his idea was for a low-priced periodical, to be partly original, and in part selected. "i want to suppose," he wrote, "a certain shadow which may go into any place by starlight, moonlight, sunlight, or candle-light, and be in all homes and all nooks and corners." the general outlines and plans were settled, but there appears to have been no end of difficulty in choosing a suitable name. "the highway of life," "the holly tree," "the household voice," "the household guest," and many others were thought of, and finally was hit upon "household words," the first number of which appeared on march , , with the opening chapters of a serial by mrs. gaskell, whose work dickens greatly admired. in number two appeared dickens' own pathetic story, "the child's dream of a star." in , as originally conceived, _household words_ was discontinued, from no want of success, but as an expediency brought about through disagreement among the various proprietors. dickens bought the property in, and started afresh under the title of _all the year round_, among whose contributors were edmund yates, percy fitzgerald, charles lever, wilkie collins, charles reade, and lord lytton. this paper in turn came to its finish, and phoenix-like took shape again as _household words_, which in one form or another has endured to the present day, its present editor ( ) being hall caine, jr., a son of the novelist. apart from the general circulation, the special christmas numbers had an enormous sale. in these appeared other of the shorter pieces which have since become famous,--"mugby junction," "the seven poor travellers," "the haunted house," etc. in the pages of _household words_ "the child's history of england," "the uncommercial traveller" ( ), and "hard times" ( ) first appeared; while _all the year round_ first presented "a tale of two cities" ( ) and "great expectations." "bleak house" was issued in parts in . "little dorrit," originally intended to be called "nobody's fault," was published in . "our mutual friend" dates from in book form. "edwin drood" was left unfinished at the author's death in . in "the uncommercial traveller" was elaborated for the first issue in _all the year round_, and subsequently again given to the world in revised book form. curiously enough, though most of dickens' works were uncompleted before they began to appear serially, they have been universally considered to show absolutely no lack of continuity, or the least semblance of being in any way disjointed. dickens' second visit to america in was, like its predecessor, a stupendous success. a new york paper stated at this time that: "of the millions here who treasure every word he has written, there are tens of thousands who would make a large sacrifice to see and hear a man who has made so many happy hours." dickens' fame had deservedly attracted a large circle of acquaintances around him, who, in truth, became firmly converted into fast friends. his literary life and his daily labours had so identified him with the literary london of the day that all reference to literary events of that time must make due allowance of his movements. the house at doughty street still stands, and at the end of the novelist removed to the "handsome house with a considerable garden" in devonshire terrace, near regent's park, the subject of a sketch by maclise which is here given. his holidays during his early and busy years were spent at broadstairs, twickenham, and petersham on the thames, just above richmond. dickens was always a great traveller, and his journeys often took him far afield. [illustration: dickens' house in devonshire terrace. _from a drawing by maclise._] [illustration: no. doughty street, where dickens lived.] in he visited landor at bath, and in the same year he made an excursion to scotland and was granted the freedom of the city of edinburgh. the first visit to america was undertaken in ; his italian travels in ; residence in switzerland ; three months in paris ; switzerland and italy revisited in . three summers were spent at boulogne in , , ; residence in paris - ; america revisited - . such in brief is a review of the physical activities of the author. he did not go to australia--as he was variously importuned--but enough is given to show that, in spite of his literary associations with old london and its institutions, charles dickens was, for a fact, a very cosmopolitan observer. as for dickens' daily round of london life, it is best represented by the period of the magazines, _master humphrey's clock_, _household words_, and _all the year round_, particularly that of the former. in those days he first met with the severe strain which in after life proved, no doubt, to have shortened his days. considering his abilities and his early vogue, dickens made some astonishingly bad blunders in connection with his agreements with publishers; of these his biographer forster tells in detail. after the publication of "martin chuzzlewit," dickens expressed dissatisfaction with his publishers, messrs. chapman and hall, which resulted in his making an agreement with messrs. bradbury and evans. to conserve his intellectual resources, he resolved to again visit italy, to which country he repaired after a farewell dinner given him at greenwich, where turner, the artist, and many other notables attended. he accordingly settled in a suburb of genoa, where he wrote "the chimes," and came back to london especially to read it to his friends. writing from genoa to forster in november, , he said: "... but the party for the night following? i know you have consented to the party. let me see. don't have any one this particular night for dinner, but let it be a summons for the special purpose, at half-past six. carlyle indispensable, and i should like his wife of all things; _her_ judgment would be invaluable. you will ask mac, and why not his sister? stanny and jerrold i should particularly wish; edwin landseer, blanchard ... and when i meet you, oh! heaven, what a week we will have!" [illustration: the reading of "the chimes" at forster's house in lincoln's inn fields. _from a drawing by d. maclise._] forster further describes the occasion itself as being-- "rather memorable ... the germ of those readings to larger audiences by which, as much as by his books, the world knew him." among those present was maclise, who, says forster, "made a note of it" in pencil, which is reproduced herein. "it will tell the reader all he can wish to know, and he will thus see of whom the party consisted." of dickens' entire literary career nothing was more successful than his famous public readings. from that night at forster's house in lincoln's inn fields (no. , still standing, ), afterward made use of as mr. tulkinghorn's in "bleak house," and later among other friends, at first in a purely informal and private manner and in a semi-public way for charitable objects, these diversions, so powerful and realistic were they, ultimately grew into an out-and-out recognized business enterprise. the first series was inaugurated in - , and absolutely took the country by storm, meeting with the greatest personal affection and respect wherever he went. in dublin there was almost a riot. people broke the pay-box, and freely offered £ for a stall. in belfast he had enormous audiences, being compelled, he said, to turn half the town away. the reading over, the people ran after him to look at him. "do me the honour," said one, "to shake hands, misther dickens, and god bless you, sir; not ounly for the light you've been to me this night, but for the light you've been to me house, sir (and god bless your face!), this many a year." men cried undisguisedly. during the second american tour, in , the public went almost mad. in boston his reception was beyond all expectations; and in new york the speculators assembled the night before the reading in long lines to wait the opening of the doors at nine the next morning for the issue of the tickets. they continued to come all night, and at five o'clock in the morning there were two lines of eight hundred each, whilst at eight there were five thousand. at nine o'clock, each of the two lines reached more than three-quarters of a mile in length, members of the families were relieving each other, waiters from neighbouring restaurants were serving breakfasts in the open december air, and excited applicants for tickets offering five or ten dollars for the mere permission to exchange places with other persons standing nearer the head of the line. excitement and enthusiasm increased wherever he travelled, and it has been freely observed by all who knew him well that this excitement and strain finally culminated, after he had returned to england and undertaken there another series of readings, in an illness which hastened his death. the highway of letters in dickens' time, as in our own, and even at as early a period as that of drayton, fleet street, as it has latterly been known, has been the abode of letters and of literary labours. the diarists, journalists, political and religious writers of every party and creed have adopted it as their own particular province. grub street no longer exists, so that the simile of doctor johnson does not still hold true. the former grub street--"inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems" (_vide_ doctor johnson's dictionary)--has become milton street through the mindful regard of some former sponsor, by reason of the nearness of its location to the former bunhill residence of the great epic poet. but modern fleet street exists to-day as the street of journalists and journalism, from the humble penny-a-liner and his product to the more sedate and verbose political paragrapher whose reputation extends throughout the world. nowhere else is there a long mile of such an atmosphere, redolent of printers' ink and the bustle attendant upon the production and distribution of the printed word. and nowhere else is the power of the press more potent. its historian has described it as "a line of street, with shops and houses on either side, between temple bar and ludgate hill, one of the largest thoroughfares in london, and one of the most famous." its name was derived from the ancient streamlet called the fleet, more commonly "fleet ditch," near whose confluence with the thames, at ludgate hill, was the notorious fleet prison, with its equally notorious "marriages." this reeking abode of mismanagement was pulled down in , when the "marshalsea," "the fleet," and the "queen's bench" (all three reminiscent of dickens, likewise newgate, not far away) were consolidated in a new structure erected elsewhere. the unsavoury reputation of the old prison of the fleet, its "chaplains," and its "marriages," are too well-known to readers of contemporary literature to be more than mentioned here. the memory of the famous persons who were at one time or another confined in this "noisome place with a pestilential atmosphere" are recalled by such names as bishop hooper, the martyr; nash, the poet and satirist; doctor donne, killigrew, the countess of dorset, viscount falkland, william prynne, richard savage, and--of the greatest possible interest to americans--william penn, who lived "within the rules" in . the two churches lying contiguous to this thoroughfare, st. dunstan's-in-the-west and st. bride's, are mentioned elsewhere; also the outlying courts and alleys, such as falcon, mitre, and salisbury courts, crane court, fetter lane, chancery lane, whitefriars, bolt court, bell yard, and shoe lane, the middle and inner temples, and sergeant's inn. the great fire of london of stopped at st. dunstan's-in-the-west and at the easterly confines of the temple opposite. michael drayton, the poet, lived at "a baye-windowed house next the east end of st. dunstan's church," and cowley was born "near unto the corner of chancery lane." the "horn tavern," near which was mrs. salmon's celebrated waxwork exhibition (for which species of entertainment the street had been famous since elizabeth's time), is now anderton's hotel, still a famous house for "pressmen," the name by which the london newspaper writer is known. a mere mention of the sanctity of letters which surrounded the fleet street of a former day, is presumably the excuse for connecting it with the later development of literary affairs, which may be said so far as its modern repute is concerned, to have reached its greatest and most popular height in dickens' own time. the chroniclers, the diarists, and the satirists had come and gone. richardson--the father of the english novel lay buried in st. bride's, and the innovation of the great dailies had passed the stage of novelty. _the gentleman's magazine_ and the reviews had been established three-quarters of a century before. _the times_ had just begun to be printed by steam. each newspaper bore an imprinted government stamp of a penny per copy,--a great source of revenue in that the public paid it, not the newspaper proprietor. (_the times_ then sold for five pence per copy.) the _illustrated london news_, the pioneer of illustrated newspapers, had just come into existence, and _punch_ under blanchard jerrold had just arrived at maturity, so to speak. such, in a brief way, were the beginnings of the journalism of our day; and dickens' connection therewith, as parliamentary reporter of _the true sun_ and _the morning chronicle_, were the beginnings of his days of assured and adequate income, albeit that it came to him at a comparatively early period of his life. the london journalist of dickens' day was different in degree only from the present. _the true sun_, for which dickens essayed his first reportorial work, and later _the morning chronicle_, were both influential journals, and circulated between them perhaps forty thousand copies, each bearing a penny stamp impressed on the margin, as was the law. the newspapers of london, as well as of most great cities, had a localized habitation, yclept newspaper row or printing-house square, and other similar appellations. in london the majority of them were, and are, printed east of temple bar, in, or south of, fleet street, between waterloo and blackfriars bridges. to borrow johnson's phrase, this is the mart "whose staple is news." _the times_--"the thunderer" of old--was housed in a collection of buildings which surrounded printing-house square, just east of blackfriars bridge. in _the times_ had, or was understood to have, three editors, fifteen reporters, with a more or less uncertain and fluctuating number of correspondents, news collectors, and occasional contributors. these by courtesy were commonly referred to as the intellectual workers. for the rest, compositors, pressmen, mechanics, clerks, _et al._, were of a class distinct in themselves. the perfecting press had just come into practical use, and though the process must appear laboriously slow to-day when only , _perfected_ copies of a four-page paper were turned out in an hour, _the times_ was in its day at the head of the list as to organization, equipment, and influence. the other morning and evening papers, _the post_, _the advertiser_, _the globe_, _the standard_, _the morning chronicle_, and _the sun_, all had similar establishments though on a smaller scale. but two exclusively literary papers were issued in --_the literary gazette_ and _the athenæum_, the latter being to-day the almost universal mentor and guide for the old-school lover of literature throughout the world. _the spectator_ was the most vigorous of the weekly political and social papers, now sadly degenerated, and _bell's life in london_, which had printed some of dickens' earlier work, was the only nominal "sporting paper." church papers, trade papers, society papers, and generally informative journals were born, issued for a time, then died in those days as in the present. _punch_ was, and is, the most thoroughly representative british humourous journal, and since its birth in the forties has been domiciled in bouverie street, just off the main thoroughfare of fleet street. the literary production in this vast workshop in point of bulk alone is almost beyond comprehension. in , a year before dickens' death, there were published in london alone three hundred and seventy-two magazines and serials, seventy-two quarterlies, and two hundred and ninety-eight newspapers etc. as for the golden days of the "highway of letters," they were mostly in the glorious past, but, in a way, they have continued to this day. a brief review of some of the more important names and events connected with this famous street will, perhaps, not be out of place here. among the early printers and booksellers were wynken de worde, "at ye signe of ye sonne;" richard pynson, the title-pages or colophons of whose works bore the inscription, "emprynted by me richard pynson at the temple barre of london ( );" rastell, "at the sign of the star;" richard tottel, "within temple-bar, at the signe of the hande and starre," which in dickens' day had become the shop of a low bookseller by the name of butterworth, who it was said still held the original leases. others who printed and published in the vicinity were w. copeland, "at the signe of the rose garland;" bernard lintot, "at the cross keys;" edmund curll, "at the dial and bible," and lawton gulliver, "at homer's head," against st. dunstan's church; and jacob robinson, on the west side of the gateway "leading down the inner temple lane," an establishment which dickens must have known as groom's, the confectioner's. here pope and warburton first met, and cultivated an acquaintanceship which afterward developed into as devoted a friendship as ever existed between man and man. the fruit of this was the publication (in ) of a pamphlet which bore the title, "a vindication of mr. pope's 'essay on man,' by the author of 'the divine legation of moses,' printed for j. robinson." at collins' shop, "at the black boy in fleet street," was published the first "peerage," while other names equally famous were the publishers, t. white, h. lowndes, and john murray. another trade which was firmly established here was the bankers, "child's," at temple bar, being the oldest existing banking-house in london to-day. here richard blanchard and francis child, "at the marygold in fleet street,"--who were goldsmiths with "_running cashes_,"--were first established in the reign of charles ii. "in the hands of mr. blanchard, goldsmith, next door to temple bar," dryden deposited his £ received for the discovery of the "bullies" by whom lord rochester had been barbarously assaulted in covent garden. another distinctive feature of fleet street was the taverns and coffee-houses. "the devil," "the king's head," at the corner of chancery lane, "the bolt-in-tun," "the horn tavern," "the mitre," "the cock," and "the rainbow," with "dick's," "nando's," and "peele's," at the corner of fetter lane--its descendant still existing,--completes the list of the most famous of these houses of entertainment. to go back to a still earlier time, to connect therewith perhaps the most famous name of english literature, bar shakespeare, it is recorded that chaucer "once beat a franciscan friar in fleet street," and was fined two shillings for the privilege by the honourable society of the inner temple. as the chroniclers have it: "so speght heard from master barkly, who had seen the entry in the records of the inner temple." a rather gruesome anecdote is recounted by hughson in his "walks through london" ( ), concerning flower-de-luce court (fleur-de-lis court), just off fetter lane in fleet street. this concerned the notorious mrs. brownrigg, who was executed in for the murder of mary clifford, her apprentice. "the grating from which the cries of the poor child issued" being still existent at the time when hughson wrote and presumably for some time after. canning, in imitation of southey, recounts it thus in verse: "... dost thou ask her crime? she whipp'd two female 'prentices to death, and hid them in the coal-hole. for this act did brownrigg swing. harsh laws! but time shall come, when france shall reign and laws be all repeal'd." which gladsome (?) day has fortunately not yet come. no résumé of the attractions of fleet street can well be made without some mention of whitefriars, that region comprehended between the boundaries of the temple on one side, and where once was the fleet ditch on the other. its present day association with letters mostly has to do with journalism, carmelite street, whitefriars street, and other lanes and alleys of the immediate neighbourhood being given over to the production of the great daily and weekly output of printed sheets. this ancient precinct formerly contained the old church of the white friars, a community known in full as _fratres beatæ mariæ de mont carmeli_. founded by sir richard grey in , the church was surrendered at the reformation, and the hall was made into the first whitefriars theatre, and the precinct newly named alsatia, celebrated in modern literature by scott in the "fortunes of nigel." "the george tavern," mentioned in shadwell's play, "the squire of alsatia," became later the printing shop of one bowyer, and still more recently the printing establishment of messrs. bradbury and evans, the publishers and proprietors of _punch_, which building was still more recently removed for the present commodious structure occupied by this firm. in dickens' time it was in part at least the old "george tavern." it is singular perhaps that dickens' connection with the famous "round table" of _punch_ was not more intimate than it was. it is not known that a single article of his was ever printed in its pages, though it is to be presumed he contributed several, and one at least is definitely acknowledged. ram alley and pye corner were here in alsatia, the former a passage between the temple and sergeant's inn, which existed until recently. mitre court is perhaps the most famous and revered of all the purlieus of fleet street. "the mitre tavern," or rather a reminiscence of it, much frequented by the london journalist of to-day and of dickens' time, still occupies the site of a former structure which has long since disappeared, where johnson used to drink his port, and where he made his famous remark to ogilvie with regard to the noble prospects of scotland: "i believe, sir, you have a great many ... but, sir, let me tell you the noblest prospect which a scotchman ever sees is the highroad that leads him to england." of all the old array of taverns of fleet street, "the cock" most recently retained a semblance, at least, of its former characteristics, which recalls one of tennyson's early poems, "a monologue of will waterproof," which has truly immortalized this house of refreshment: _"thou plump head-waiter at the cock_ _to which i most resort,_ _how goes the time? is't nine o'clock?_ _then fetch a pint of port."_ salisbury court, or salisbury square as it has now become, is another of those literary suburbs of fleet street--if one may so call it--where modern literature was fostered and has prospered. it occupies the courtyard of salisbury or dorset house. betterton, cave, and sandford, the actors, lived here; shadwell, lady davenant, the widow of the laureate; dryden and richardson also. indeed richardson wrote "pamela" here, and goldsmith was his "press corrector." dickens' contemporaries when scott was at the height of his popularity and reputation, cultivated and imaginative prose was but another expression of the older poesy. but within twenty-five years of scott's concluding fictions, dickens and thackeray, and still later, george eliot and kingsley, had come into the mart with an entirely new brand of wares, a development unknown to scott, and of a tendency which was to popularize literature far more than the most sanguine hopes of even scott's own ambition. there was more warmth, geniality, and general good feeling expressed in the printed page, and the people--that vast public which must ever make or mar literary reputations, if they are to be financially successful ones, which, after all, is the standard by which most reputations are valued--were ready and willing to support what was popularly supposed to stand for the spread of culture. biographers and critics have been wont to attribute this wide love for literature to the influence of scott. admirable enough this influence was, to be sure, and the fact is that since his time books have been more pleasingly frank, candid, and generous. but it was not until dickens appeared, with his almost immediate and phenomenal success, that the real rage for the novel took form. the first magazine, _the gentleman's_, and the first review, _the edinburgh_, were contemporary with scott's productions, and grew up quite independently, of course, but their development was supposed, rightly or wrongly, to be coincident with the influences which were set in motion by the publication of scott's novels. certainly they were sent broadcast, and their influence was widespread, likewise scott's devotees, but his books were "hard reading" for the masses nevertheless, and his most ardent champion could hardly claim for him a tithe of the popularity which came so suddenly to charles dickens. "pickwick papers" ( ) appeared only six years later than scott's last works, and but eight years before thackeray's "vanity fair." it was, however, a thing apart from either, with the defects and merits of its author's own peculiar and energetic style. jealousies and bickerings there doubtless were, in those days, as ever, among literary folk, but though there may have been many who were envious, few were impolite or unjust enough not to recognize the new expression which had come among them. one can well infer this by recalling the fact that thackeray himself, at a royal academy banquet, had said that he was fearful of what "pickwick's" reputation might have been had he succeeded in getting the commission, afterward given to seymour, to illustrate the articles. there appears to have been, at one time, some misunderstanding between dickens and his publishers as to who really was responsible for the birth of "pickwick," one claim having been made that dickens was only commissioned to write up seymour's drawings. this dickens disclaimed emphatically in the preface written to a later edition, citing the fact that seymour only contributed the few drawings to the first serial part, unfortunately dying before any others were even put in hand. there is apparently some discrepancy between the varying accounts of this incident, but dickens probably had the right of it, though the idea of some sort of a "nimrod club," which afterward took dickens' form in the "pickwickians," was thought of between his publishers and seymour. in fact, among others, besides dickens, who were considered as being able to do the text, were theodore hook, leigh hunt, and tom hood. as originally planned, it was undoubtedly a piece of what is contemptuously known as hack work. what it afterward became, under dickens' masterful power, all the parties concerned, and the world in general, know full well. the statement that dickens is "out of date," "not read now," or is "too verbose," is by the mark when his work is compared with that of his contemporaries. in a comparative manner he is probably very much read, and very well read, too, for that matter. far more so, doubtless, than most of his contemporaries; certainly before george eliot, wilkie collins, bulwer, or even carlyle or thackeray. the very best evidence of this, if it is needed, is to recall to what great extent familiarity with the works of dickens has crept into the daily life of "the people," who more than ever form the great majority of readers. true, times and tastes have changed from even a quarter of a century ago. fashions come and go with literature, novels in particular, as with all else, and the works of dickens, as a steady fare, would probably pall on the most enthusiastic of his admirers. on the other hand, he would be a dull person indeed who could see no humour in "pickwick," whatever his age, creed, or condition. admirers of the great novelist have been well looked after in respect to editions of his works. new ones follow each other nowadays in an extraordinarily rapid succession, and no series of classics makes its appearance without at least three or four of dickens' works finding places in its list. in england alone there have been twenty-four complete copyright editions, from "the cheap edition," first put upon the market in , to the dainty and charming india paper edition printed at the oxford university press in . "in the athenæum club," says mr. percy fitzgerald, "where many a pleasant tradition is preserved, we may see at a window a table facing the united service club at which dickens was fond of having his lunch.... in the hall by the coats (after their garrick quarrel), dickens and thackeray met, shortly before the latter's death. a moment's hesitation, and thackeray put out his hand ... and they were reconciled." it has been said, and justly, that thackeray--dickens' contemporary, not rival--had little of the topographical instinct which led to no small degree of dickens' fame. it has, too, been further claimed that thackeray was in debt to dickens for having borrowed such expressions as "_the opposite side of goswell street was over the way_." and such suggestions as the "two jackals of lord steyne and mess. wegg and wenham, reminiscent of pike and pluck, and sedley's native servant, who was supposed to have descended from bagstock's menial." much more of the same sort might be recounted, all of which, if it is true, is perhaps no sin, but rather a compliment. the relics and remains of dickens exist to a remarkable degree of numbers. as is well known, the omnific american collector is yearly, nay daily, acquiring many of those treasures of literature and art which the old world has treasured for generations; to the gratification of himself and the pride of his country, though, be it said, to the disconcern of the briton. the american, according to his english cousin, it seems, has a pronounced taste for acquiring the rarest of dickens' books, and the choicest of dickens' holographs, and his most personal relics. the committee of the "dickens fellowship," a newly founded institution to perpetuate the novelist's name and fame, recently sought to bring together in an exhibition held in memorial hall, london, as many of those souvenirs as possible; and a very attractive and interesting show it proved to be. the catalogue of this exhibition, however, had tacked on to it this significant note: "the committee's quest for literary memorabilia of the immortal 'boz' indicates the distressing fact that many of the rarest items are lost to us for ever." all of which goes again to show that the great interest of americans in the subject is, in a way, the excuse for being of this monograph on london during the life and times of dickens. various exhibitions of dickens' manuscripts have been publicly held in london from time to time, at the exhibition of the works of the english humourists in , at the victorian exhibition of , and the british museum has generally on show, in the "king's library," a manuscript or two of the novels; there are many more always to be seen in the "dyce and forster collection" at south kensington. never, before the exhibition held in by the "dickens fellowship," has there been one absolutely restricted to dickens. it is, of course, impossible to enumerate the various items, and it would not be meet that the attempt should be made here. it will be enough to say that among the many interesting numbers was the first portion of an unpublished travesty on "othello," written in , before the first published "boz" sketch, and a hitherto unknown (to experts) page of "pickwick," this one fragment being valued, says the catalogue, at £ sterling. first editions, portraits, oil paintings, miniatures, and what not, and autographs were here in great numbers, presentation copies of dickens' books, given to his friends, and autographs and portraits of his contemporaries, as well as the original sketches of illustrations to the various works by seymour, "phiz," cruikshank, stone, leech, barnard, and pailthorpe, not forgetting a reference to the excellent work of our own darley, and latterly charles dana gibson. among the most interesting items of contemporary interest in this exhibition, which may be classed as unique, were presentation copies of the novels made to friends and acquaintances by dickens himself. among them were "david copperfield," a presentation copy to the hon. mrs. percy fitzgerald; "oliver twist," with the following inscription on the title-page, "from george cruikshank to h. w. brunton, march , ;" "a child's history of england," with an autograph letter to marcus stone, r. a.; "a tale of two cities," presented to mrs. macready, with autograph; "the chimes" (christmas book, ), containing a unique impression of leech's illustration thereto. other interesting and valuable _ana_ were the visitors' book of "watts' charity," at rochester, containing the signatures of "c. d." and mark lemon; the quill pen belonging to charles dickens, and used by him just previous to his death; a paper-knife formerly belonging to "c. d.," and the writing-desk used by "c. d." on his last american tour; silver wassail-bowl and stand presented to "c. d." by members of the philosophical institution of edinburgh in ; walking-stick formerly belonging to "c. d.;" a screen belonging to moses pickwick, of bath--the veritable moses pickwick of chap. xxxv. of "pickwick papers;" the oak balustrade from the old "white hart" (pulled down in ); pewter tankards from various of the pickwickian inns; the entrance door of newgate prison, of which mention is made in "barnaby rudge," chap. lxiv.; warrant officer's staff, formerly in use in the marshalsea prison; original sign of "the little wooden midshipman" ("dombey and son"), formerly over the doorway of messrs. norie and wilson, the nautical publishers in the minories. this varied collection, of which the above is only a mere selection, together with such minor _personalia_ as had been preserved by friends and members of the family, formed a highly interesting collection of dickens' reliques, and one whose like will hardly be got together again. innumerable portraits, photographs, lithographs, and drawings of the novelist were included, as well as of his friends and contemporaries. letters and documents referring to dickens' relations with shirley brooks, richard bentley, hablôt k. browne, frederic chapman, j. p. harley, mark lemon, samuel rogers, newby, john forster, david maclise, and many others, mostly unpublished, were shown, and should form a valuable fund of material for a biographer, should he be inclined to add to dickens' literature of the day, and could he but have access to and the privilege of reprinting them. a word on the beginnings of what is commonly called serial literature is pertinent to the subject. the first publication with which dickens' identity was solely connected was the issue of "pickwick" in monthly parts in - . a literary critic, writing in , had this to say on the matter in general, with a further reference to the appearance of "david copperfield," whose author was the chief and founder of the serial novel: "the small library which issues from the press on the first of every month is a new and increasing fashion in literature, which carves out works into slices and serves them up in fresh portions twelve times in the year. prose and poetry, original and selected, translations and republications, of every class and character, are included. the mere enumeration of titles would require a vast space, and any attempt to analyze the contents, or to estimate the influence which the class exerts upon the literary taste of the day would expand into a volume of itself. as an event of importance must be mentioned the appearance of the first number of a new story, 'david copperfield,' by charles dickens. his rival humourist, mr. thackeray, has finished one and begun another of his domestic histories within the twelve-month, his new story, 'pendennis,' having journeyed seven-twentieths of the way to completion. mr. lever rides double with 'roland cashel' and 'con cregan,' making their punctual appearance upon the appointed days. of another order is mr. jerrold's 'man made of money.' incidents are of little consequence to this author, except by way of pegs to hang reflections and conclusions upon. "passing over the long list of magazines and reviews as belonging to another class of publication, there is a numerous series of reprints, new editions, etc., issued in monthly parts, and generally in a cheap and compendious form. shakespeare and byron among the poets, bulwer, dickens, and james among the novelists, appear pretty regularly,--the poets being enriched with notes and illustrations. other writers and miscellaneous novels find republication in the 'parlour library of fiction,' with so rigid an application of economy that for two shillings we may purchase a guinea and a half's worth of the most popular romances at the original price of publication. besides the works of imagination, and above them in value, stand knight's series of 'monthly volumes,' murray's 'home and colonial library,' and the 'scientific' and 'literary libraries' of mr. bohn. the contents of these collections are very diversified; many volumes are altogether original, and others are new translations of foreign works, or modernized versions of antiquarian authors. a large mass of the most valuable works contained in our literature may be found in mr. bohn's 'library.' the class of publications introduced in them all partakes but little of the serial character. it is only the form of their appearance which gives them a place among the periodicals." in the light of more recent events and tendencies, this appears to have been the first serious attempt to popularize and broaden the sale of literature to any considerable extent, and it may be justly inferred that the cheap "libraries," "series," and "reprints" of the present day are but an outgrowth therefrom. as for dickens' own share in this development, it is only necessary to recall the demand which has for many years existed for the original issues of such of the novels as appeared in parts. the earliest issues were: "the pickwick papers," in parts, - , which contained the two suppressed buss plates; "nicholas nickleby," in parts, - ; "master humphrey's clock," in weekly numbers, - ; "master humphrey's clock," in monthly parts, - ; "martin chuzzlewit," in parts, - ; "oliver twist," in octavo parts, . at the time when "oliver twist" had scarce begun, dickens was already surrounded by a large circle of literary and artistic friends and acquaintances. his head might well have been turned by his financial success, many another might have been so affected. his income at this time ( - ) was supposed to have increased from £ to £ , per annum, surely an independent position, were it an assured one for any litterateur of even the first rank, of dickens' day or of any other. in november of "pickwick" was finished, and the event celebrated by a dinner "at the prince of wales" in leicester place, off leicester square. to this function dickens had invited talfourd, forster, macready, harrison ainsworth, jerdan, edward chapman, and william hall. dickens' letter to macready was in part as follows: "it is to celebrate (that is too great a word, but i can think of no better) the conclusion of my 'pickwick' labours; and so i intend, before you take that roll upon the grass you spoke of, to beg your acceptance of one of the first complete copies of the work. i shall be much delighted if you would join us." of "nicholas nickleby," written in - , sydney smith, one of its many detractors, finally succumbed and admitted: "'nickleby' is very good--i held out against dickens as long as i could, but he has conquered me." shortly after the "pickwick" dinner, and after the death of his wife's sister mary, who lived with them, dickens, his wife, and "phiz,"--hablôt k. browne,--the illustrator of "pickwick," journeyed together abroad for a brief time. on his return, dickens first made acquaintance with the seaside village of broadstairs, where his memory still lives, preserved by an ungainly structure yclept "bleak house." [illustration: charles dickens, his wife, and sister georgina. _from a pencil drawing by d. maclise._] it may be permissible here to make further mention of broadstairs. the town itself formed the subject of a paper which he wrote for _household words_ in , while as to the structure known as "bleak house," it formed, as beforesaid, his residence for a short time in . writing to an american friend, professor felton, at that time, he said: "in a bay-window in a 'one pair' sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. his name is boz.... he is brown as a berry, and they _do_ say is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch...." altogether a unique and impressive pen-portrait, and being from the hand of one who knew his sitter, should be considered a truthful one. in maclise made that remarkable and winsome pencil sketch of dickens, his wife, and her sister georgina, one of those fleeting impressions which, for depicting character and sentiment, is worth square yards of conventional portraiture, and which is reproduced here out of sheer admiration for its beauty and power as a record _intime_. it has been rather coarsely referred to in the past as maclise's sketch of "dickens and his pair of petticoats," but we let that pass by virtue of its own sweeping condemnation,--of its being anything more than a charming and intimate record of a fleeting period in the novelist's life, too soon to go--never to return. dickens' connection with the _daily news_ was but of brief duration; true, his partisans have tried to prove that it was under his leadership that it was launched upon its career. this is true in a measure,--he was its first editor,--but his tenure of office only lasted "_three short weeks_." he was succeeded in the editorial chair by his biographer, forster. the first number came out on january , ,--a copy in the recent "dickens fellowship exhibition" (london. ) bore the following inscription in mrs. dickens' autograph: "brought home by charles at two o'clock in the morning.--catherine dickens. january ." thus it is that each issue of a great newspaper is born, or made, though the use of the midnight oil which was burned on this occasion was no novelty to charles dickens himself. the issue in question contained the first of a series of "travelling sketches--written on the road," which were afterward published in book form as "pictures from italy." a unique circumstance of contemporary interest to americans occurred during dickens' second visit to america ( ) in "the great international walking match." a london bookseller at the present time ( ) has in his possession the original agreement between george dolby (british subject), _alias_ "the man of ross," and james ripley osgood, _alias_ "the boston bantam," wherein charles dickens, described as "the gad's hill gasper," is made umpire. one of the most famous and interesting portraits of dickens was that made in pencil by sir john millais, a. r. a., in . this was the last presentment of the novelist, in fact, a posthumous portrait, and its reproduction was for a long time not permitted. the original hangs in the parlour of "the leather bottle," at cobham, given to the present proprietor by the rev. a. h. berger, m. a., vicar of cobham. among other famous portraits of dickens were those by ary scheffer, ; a miniature on ivory by mrs. barrow, ; a pencil study by "phiz," ; a chalk drawing by samuel lawrence, ; "the captain boabdil" portrait by leslie, ; an oil portrait by w. p. frith, r. a., ; a pastel portrait by j. g. gersterhauer, ; and a chalk drawing by e. g. lewis, . this list forms a chronology of the more important items of dickens portraiture from the earliest to that taken after his death, subsequent to which was made a plaster cast, from which thomas woolner, r. a., modelled the bust portrait. the "boz club," founded in by mr. percy fitzgerald, one of dickens' "bright young men" in association with him in the conduct of _household words_ was originally composed of members of the athenæum club, of whom the following knew dickens personally, lord james of hereford, mr. marcus stone, r. a., and mr. luke fildes, r. a., who, with others, foregathered for the purpose of dining together and keeping green the memory of the novelist. its membership has since been extended to embrace the following gentlemen, who also had the pleasure and gratification of acquaintanceship with dickens: the marquis of dufferin and ava (since died), lord brompton, hamilton aide, alfred austin, sir squire bancroft, arthur à beckett, francesco berger, henry fielding dickens, k. c., edward dicy, c. b., w. p. frith, r. a., william farrow, otto goldschmidt, john hollingshead, the very reverend dean hole, sir henry irving, frederick a. inderwick, k. c., sir herbert jerningham, k. c., m. g., charles kent, fred'k g. kitton, moy thomas, right honourable sir arthur otway, bart., joseph c. parkinson, george storey, a. r. a., j. ashby sterry, and right honourable sir h. drummond wolfe. perhaps the most whole-souled endorsement of the esteem with which dickens was held among his friends and contemporaries was contributed to the special dickens' memorial number of _household words_ by francesco berger, who composed the incidental music which accompanied wilkie collins' play, "the frozen deep," in which dickens himself appeared in : "i saw a great deal of charles dickens personally for many years. he was always most genial and most hearty, a man whose friendship was of the warmest possible character, and who put his whole soul into every pursuit. he was most generous, and his household was conducted on a very liberal scale. "i consider that, if not the first, he was among the first, who went out of the highways into the byways to discover virtue and merit of every kind among the lower classes, and found romance in the lowest ranks of life. "i regard dickens as the greatest social reformer in england i have ever known outside politics. his works have tended to revolutionize for the better our law courts, our prisons, our hospitals, our schools, our workhouses, our government offices, etc. "he was a fearless exposer of cant in every direction,--religious, social, and political." such was the broad-gauge estimate of one who knew dickens well. it may unquestionably be accepted as his greatest eulogy. none of dickens' contemporaries are more remembered and revered than the illustrators of his stories. admitting all that can possibly be said of the types which we have come to recognize as being "dickenesque," he would be rash who would affirm that none of their success was due to their pictorial delineation. dickens himself has said that he would have preferred that his stories were not illustrated, but, on the other hand, he had more than usual concern with regard thereto when the characters were taking form under the pencils of seymour, cruikshank, or "phiz," or even the later barnard, than whom, since dickens' death, has there ever been a more sympathetic illustrator? the greatest of these was undoubtedly george cruikshank, whose drawings for "oliver twist," the last that he did for dickens' writings, were perhaps more in keeping with the spirit of dickens' text than was the work of any of the others, not excepting the immortal character of pickwick, which conception is accredited to seymour, who unfortunately died before he had completed the quartette of drawings for the second number of the serial. in this same connection it is recalled that the idea of recounting the adventures of a "club of cockney sportsmen" was conceived by the senior partner of the firm of chapman and hall, and that dickens was only thought of at first as being the possible author, in connection, among others, with leigh hunt and theodore hook. on the death of seymour, one r. w. buss, a draughtsman on wood, was commissioned to continue the "pickwick" illustrations, and he actually made two etchings, which, in the later issues, were suppressed. "crowquill," leech, and thackeray all hoped to fill the vacancy, but the fortunate applicant was hablôt k. browne, known in connection with his work for the dickens stories as "phiz." this _nom de plume_ was supposed to have been adopted in order to harmonize with "boz." "phiz" in time became known as the artist-in-chief, and he it was who made the majority of illustrations for the tales, either as etchings or wood-blocks. his familiar signature identifies his work to all who are acquainted with dickens. george cattermole supplied the illustrations to "the old curiosity shop" and "barnaby rudge." of these dickens has said "that it was the very first time that any of the designs for which he had written had touched him." marcus stone, r. a., provided the pictures for "our mutual friend." john leech, of _punch_ fame, in one of his illustrations to "the battle of life," one of the shorter pieces, made the mistake of introducing a wrong character into one of the drawings, and a still more pronounced error was in the captain cuttle plates, where the iron hook appears first on the left and then on the right arm of the subject. leech illustrated the "christmas carol" complete, including the coloured plates, and shared in contributing to the other yule-tide stories. of the leading artists who contributed the illustrations to dickens' writings during his lifetime, it is notable that three were "royal academicians,"--stanfield, maclise, and landseer,--one an "associate of the royal academy," and, besides those already mentioned, there were in addition richard (dicky) doyle, john leech, and (now sir) john tenniel, luke fildes, and sir edwin landseer, who did one drawing only, that for "boxer," the carrier-dog, in "the cricket on the hearth." onwyn, crowquill, sibson, kenney meadows, and f. w. pailthorpe complete the list of those artists best known as contemporary with dickens. in creating the characters of his novels, as is well known, dickens often drew upon his friends and acquaintances as models, and seldom did these effigies give offence. on one occasion the reverse was the case, as in "bleak house," which was issued in . boythorne, who was drawn from his friend landor, and skimpole, from leigh hunt, were presumably so pertinent caricatures of the originals that they were subsequently modified in consequence. another incident of more than unusual importance, though not strictly dealing with any of dickens' contemporaries, is a significant incident relating to the living worth of his work. it is related that when bismarck and jules favre met under the walls of paris, the former waiting to open fire upon the city, the latter was seen to be busily engrossed, quite oblivious of the situation, devouring "little dorrit." the story may be taken for what it appears to be worth; it is doubtful if it could be authenticated, but it serves to indicate the wide-spread and absorbing interest of the novels, and serves again to indicate that the power of the novel in general is one that will relax the faculties and provide the stimulus which an active brain often fails to find otherwise. dickens had dedicated to carlyle "hard times," which appeared as early as , and paid a still further tribute to the scotch genius when, in , he had begun "a tale of two cities." in it he hoped to add something to the popular and picturesque means of understanding the terrible time of the french revolution; "though no one," he said, "could hope to add anything to the philosophy of carlyle's wonderful book." to-day it is one of the most popular and most read of all his works. dickens died on the th of june, , leaving "edwin drood" unfinished. what he had written of it appeared in the usual green paper parts and afterward in volume form. in october, , a continuation entitled "john jasper's secret" began to appear, and occupied eight monthly parts, produced uniformly with "drood;" and recently a gentleman in holland sent the publishers--messrs. chapman and hall--a completion written by himself. there were other attempts of this nature, but dickens' book must always remain as he left it. that a reference to the "poets' corner" in westminster abbey might properly be included in a section of this book devoted to the contemporaries of charles dickens, no one perhaps will deny. [illustration: plan of "the poets' corner".] it seems fitting, at least, that it should be mentioned here rather than elsewhere, in that the work does not pretend to be a categorical guide to even the more important sights of london, but merely that it makes mention of those sights and scenes, places and peoples, more or less intimately associated with the great novelist. charles dickens was buried in westminster abbey on the th june, , since which time various other graves have been made, browning and tennyson notably, and monuments and memorials put into place of longfellow and ruskin. the poets' corner occupies about half of the south transept of westminster abbey. this famous place for the busts and monuments of eminent men includes those of chaucer, spencer, shakespeare, drayton, ben jonson, milton, butler, davenant, cowley, dryden, prior, rowe, gay, addison, thomson, goldsmith, gray, mason, sheridan, southey, campbell, etc. lord macaulay and lord palmerston were buried here in and . thackeray is not buried here, but at kensal green, though his bust is placed next to the statue of joseph addison. dickens' grave is situated at the foot of the coffin of handel, and at the head of the coffin of r. b. sheridan. more recently, doctor livingstone, the celebrated african traveller, was buried here. near to england's great humourist, toward his feet, lie doctor johnson and garrick, while near them lies thomas campbell. shakespeare's monument is not far from the foot of the grave. goldsmith's is on the left. the locale of the novels if one may make legitimate use of the term, "the topography of dickens,"--which an english writer coined many years since,--it may well be indiscriminately applied to dickens' own life and that of the characters of his stories as well. the subject has ever been a favourite one which has cropped up from time to time in the "bitty" literature of the last quarter of a century. to treat it exhaustively would be impossible; the changes and progress of the times will not permit of this. nothing would be final, and new shadows would constantly be thrown upon the screen. dickens' observation, as is well known, was most keen, but he mostly saw only those things which, in some degree, actually existed,--towns, villages, streets, localities, and public and private houses. not an unusual method of procedure for many an author of repute, but few have had the finesse to lay on local colour to the extent used by dickens, without tending toward mere description. this no one has ever had the temerity to lay to dickens' door. mention can be made herein of but a few of the localities, many of which had existed to very near the present day. to enumerate or to even attempt to trace them all would be practically impossible, but enough has been authenticated to indicate a more substantial reality than is found in the work of any other modern english author. if one is so minded, he can start out from the very hotel,--"the golden cross" at charing cross,--from which pickwick and jingle started on their coach ride to rochester, and where copperfield and steerforth also stayed. the "dark arches of the adelphi," the temple, and fountain court, remain much as of yore. fleet street was well known to dickens, and has changed but little, and lincoln's inn fields, bloomsbury, and many other localities have in reality changed not at all in their relation to their environment. in matters of detail they have, of course, in many instances undergone a certain remoulding, which is no greater perhaps than the usual liberties taken by the average author. dickens, in the main, changed the surroundings of his scenes--which he may have given another name--but little. "copperfield" is redolent of his own early associations and experiences in london. the neighbourhood of charing cross will be first called to mind. hungerford market and hungerford bridge (as the present charing cross railway bridge is often called by the old resident), and the "adelphi," with its gruesome arches beneath, all give more than a suggestion of the sights and scenes which met dickens' own eye when his personality was closely associated therewith. hence, regardless of whether it is biography or pure fiction, there are to-day substantial reminders throughout london, not only of his life but of the very scenes associated with the characters of his novels. more particularly in the early novels, "pickwick," "nickleby," and "copperfield," are their topographical features to be most readily recognized, because, in the first place, they are, presumably, the more familiar; and secondly, because they are more vividly recalled. it is a fact, however, that in dickens' sketches and tales, and in many of his minor works, as, for instance, in the pages of "master humphrey's clock," there are passages especially concerning persons and places in london, which to-day have, as then, a stern reality, referring to such familiar spots as the site of the marshalsea prison, or "the old white horse," or peggotty's yarmouth home. reality or imagination,--it's all the same,--dickens drew in his pictures, after a veritable fashion, this too, in spite of the precedent of a former generation of authors, who had for ages, one may say centuries, tilled the field over and over. but it was not until dickens "arrived" that the reading world in general, and wherever found, acquired that nodding acquaintance with london which has since so redounded to this author's reputation. no such acquaintance was previously to be had with the contemporary london life of the middle and lower classes, if one may be pardoned for expressing it thus confidently. the marvel is that some ardent spirit has not before now compiled an out-and-out dickens guide-book. one writer, at least, is recalled who is competent to do it, and he, be it said, is an american, doctor benjamin s. martin, who many years ago contributed to an american monthly publication a series of illuminating articles on what might with propriety be called the local colour of dickens. these were the forerunners and foster-parents of most of the "scrappy" articles of a similar purport which appear intermittently in the english and american periodical press. the references and descriptions of certain of the localities connected with the novels which follow are given without attempt at classification or chronological arrangement. no other plan appears possible, where only a selection can be given. as before said, the limitations of the bulk of this book preclude a more extensive résumé. the following references will be found to be fully classified in the index which accompanies the book, and will perhaps prove suggestive, at least, of further research on the part of the individual reader. further west, beyond westminster and the parliament houses, is millbank, where is church street, running from the river to st. john's church, westminster, that atrociously ill-mannered church of queen anne's day, built it is said on the lines of a footstool overturned in one of that lady's fits of petulant wrath. down church street ran martha, followed by copperfield and peggotty, bent on suicide. not the slum it was when described by dickens, it is to-day a sufficiently "mean street" to be suggestive. here too, was jenny wren's house, on the left going toward the church in smith square. vauxhall bridge, also reminiscent of dickens, is near by, though the structure which formerly graced the site has given way to a temporary ungainly thing, which is neither beautiful to look upon nor suitable to its purpose. in the neighbourhood of charing cross, on craven street, at no. , is still the door-knocker which so looked, to scrooge, like a human face. in chandos street, till within the last eight or ten years, were two old-time shops, to which warren's blacking factory removed before the boy dickens left their employ. in chandos street, too, were the "pudding-shop" and "à la mode beef-shop," of which dickens made such emphatic mention to his biographer, forster. at the corner of parliament street and whitehall, in westminster, was, until the beginning of the twentieth century, the "old red lion" public house, which calls to mind the episode of "the very best stunning ale" in "copperfield," but which is reputedly attributed as actually happening to dickens himself. chancery lane is largely identified with the story of "bleak house." the garden of lincoln's inn was fondly referred to by little miss flite as "her garden." law offices, stationers' shops, and eating-houses abound in the purlieus of chancery lane, which, though having undergone considerable change in the last quarter-century, has still, in addition to the majesty which is supposed to surround the law, something of those "disowned relations of the law and hangers-on" of which dickens wrote. [illustration: residence of john forster, lincoln's inn fields.] in this immediate neighbourhood--in lincoln's inn fields--was mr. tulkinghorn's house, of which an illustration is here given, and which is still standing ( ). this house, which is readily found,--it is still no. ,--is now given over to lawyers' offices, though formerly it was the residence of dickens' biographer, forster, where dickens gave what was practically the first of his semi-public readings, on the occasion when he came from italy especially to read the "christmas story," "the chimes," to a few favoured friends. hard by, just off the southwestern corner of the square, is the apocryphal "old curiosity shop," a notable literary shrine, as is mentioned elsewhere, but not the original of the novel which bears the same name, as dickens himself has said. the "clare market," an unsavoury locality which had somewhat to do with "pickwick," was near by, but has practically disappeared from view in a virtuous clearing-up process which has recently been undertaken. in portugal street, leading into lincoln's inn fields, was mr. solomon's headquarters; while further east, toward the city, we find the "george and vulture," mentioned in "pickwick," existing to-day as "a very good old-fashioned and comfortable house." its present nomenclature is "thomas' chop-house," and he who would partake of the "real thing" in good old english fare, served on pewter plates, with the brightest of steel knives and forks, could hardly fare better than in this ancient house in st. michael's alley. by one of those popular and ofttimes sentimental conclusions, "poor jo's crossing" has been located as being on holborn, near where chancery lane comes into that thoroughfare. this may like enough be so, but as all crossings are much alike, and all sweepers of that impoverished class which we recognize in the description of "jo" (now luckily disappearing), it would seem a somewhat doubtful accomplishment in attempting to place such a spot definitely. mrs. jellyby lived in thavie's inn,--"only 'round the corner" from chancery lane, said guppy,--one of the seven inns allied with the four great inns of court, all of which had a particular sentiment for dickens, both in his writings and his life. in fact, he began with "pickwick" to introduce these "curious little nooks" and "queer old places." indeed, he lived in furnival's inn when first married, and there wrote the most of the "boz" sketches as well as "pickwick." clifford's inn, too, now on the eve of departure, is also a reminder of "pickwick." one, "a tenant of a 'top set,' was a bad character--shut himself in his bedroom closet and took a dose of arsenic," as is told in "pickwick," chapter xxi. to "mr. perker's chambers," in gray's inn,--which still endures as one of the four great inns of court,--went mr. pickwick one afternoon, to find no one at home but the laundress. in holborn court, in gray's inn, lived also traddles and his bride. pip was quartered in barnard's inn, called by him a "dingy collection of shabby buildings." the temple has ever been prolific in suggestion to the novelist, and dickens, like most others who have written of london life, has made liberal use of it in "barnaby rudge," in "the tale of two cities," and in many other of his novels. staple inn, at "holborn bars," is perhaps the most quaint and unmodern of any considerable structure in all london. mr. grewgious and mr. tartar lived here; also landless, who occupied "some attic rooms in a corner," and here mr. snagsby was wont to ramble in this old-world retreat. the "little hall," with "a little lantern in its roof," and its weathercock, is still there, and the stroller down that most businesslike thoroughfare, known in its various continuations as "high holborn," "holborn bars," and "holborn viaduct," will find it difficult to resist the allurements of the crazy old timbered frontage of staple inn, with its wooden gateway and tiny shops, looking for all the world like a picture from out of an old book. in bishop's court, leading from chancery lane, was crook's rag and bottle shop, where its owner met so ghastly a death. a court to the back of this shop, known as "chichester rents," harboured a public house called by dickens "sol's arms." to-day it exists as the "old ship," if supposedly authoritative opinion has not erred. took's court is to-day unchanged. dickens was pleased to call it "cook's court." by some it has been called dirty and dingy; it is hardly that, but it may well have been a more sordid looking place in days gone by. at any rate, it was a suitable enough environment for snagsby, identified to-day as the stationer's shop next the imperial chambers. as vivid a reminiscence as any is that of the old debtors' prison of marshalsea. the institution was a court of law and a prison as well, and was first established in for the determination of causes and differences among the king's menials; and was under the control of the knight marshal, hence its name. later this court had particular cognizance of murders and other offences committed within the king's court; and here also were committed persons guilty of piracies. in the kentish rebels "broke down the houses of the marshalsea and the king's bench in southwark," and in "a dangerous insurrection arose in southwark, owing to the attempt of one of the knight marshal's men to serve a warrant upon a feltmaker's apprentice." at this time the inhabitants of southwark complained that "the knight marshal's men were very unneighbourly and disdainful among them," with every indication that a prolonged insurrection would endure. however, the matter was brought to the attention of the lord chamberlain, and such edict went forth as assured the inhabitants of the borough freedom from further annoyance. the old gaol building was purchased in by the government, and at that time refitted as a prison for debtors. "the entrance gate fronts the high street near st. george's church, and a small area leads to the keeper's house. behind it is a brick building, the ground floor of which contains fourteen rooms in a double row, and three upper stories, each with the same number. they are about ten and a half feet square by eight and a half feet high, and are with boarded floors, a glazed window, and fireplace in each, for male debtors. nearly adjoining to this is a detached building called the 'tap,' which has on the ground floor a wine and beer room. the upper story has three rooms for female debtors, similar to those for men. at the extremity of this prison is a small courtyard and building for admiralty prisoners, and a chapel." the above description, taken from allen's "history and antiquities of southwark," must synchronize with the appearance of the marshalsea at the time of which dickens wrote concerning it in "little dorrit," based, of course, upon his personal knowledge of the buildings and their functions when the elder dickens was imprisoned therein in , and the family were living in mean quarters in near-by lant street, whither they had removed from gower street, north, in order to be near the prison. until quite recently it is possible that certain portions of the old marshalsea were still standing, though as a prison it was abolished in , but, with the opening of one of those municipal pleasure grounds,--one cannot call them gardens, being merely a flagged courtyard,--the last vestiges are supposed to have disappeared from general view. indeed, it appears that dickens himself was not aware of any visible portions of the old building still remaining. this assertion is based on the following lines taken from the preface of "little dorrit:" "i found the outer front courtyard metamorphosed into a butter-shop; and then i almost gave up every brick for lost.... i then came to marshalsea place; ... and whoever goes here will find his feet on the very paving-stones of the extinct marshalsea gaol,--will see its narrow yard to the right and to the left but very little altered, if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free." when the elder dickens was carried to prison, like mr. dorrit, he was lodged in the top story but one, in the chamber afterward occupied by the dorrits, when charles, it was said, went often (before the family removed across the river) to visit him, crossing presumably the old picturesque london bridge. in "david copperfield," it is evidently the same edifice which is disguised as the "king's bench prison." in the immediate neighbourhood of the marshalsea was st. george's vestry, where, on the cushions, with the church register for a pillow, slept little dorrit on the night on which she was shut out of the prison. opposite, on high street, stood until recently the little pie-shop, where flora read out her lecture to little dorrit. near by, also, was mr. cripple's dancing academy. (deliciously dickenesque--that name.) guy's--reminiscent of bob sawyer--is but a stone's throw away, as also lant street, where he had his lodgings. said sawyer, as he handed his card to mr. pickwick: "there's my lodgings; it's near guy's, and handy for me, you know,--a little distance after you've passed st. george's church; turns out of high street on right-hand side the way." supposedly the same humble rooms--which looked out upon a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard--in which lived the dickens family during the elder dickens' imprisonment. in horsemonger lane, which runs out of the high street, was the tobacco-shop of mrs. chivery. in the high street, too, was the old "white hart" of sam weller and even jack cade. "the george," "the spur," "the queen's head," and "the king's head"--all reminiscent of dickens--were also here in the immediate neighbourhood. crossing the river northward, one may retrace their steps toward st. paul's, near which, a quarter of a century back, might have been seen the arcaded entrance to doctors' commons, an institution described by sam weller, and which, among other functions, formerly kept guard of all the wills probated in london. the building has since disappeared, and the erstwhile valuable documents removed to somerset house. beyond the "bank" is leadenhall street, where in st. mary axe, dickens had located pubsey and co. the firm was domiciled in an "old, yellow, overhanging, plaster-fronted house," and, if it ever existed out of dickens' imagination, has given way to a more modern and substantial structure. fenchurch street and mincing lane are not far away. in the latter was "chicksey, veneering, and stobbles" counting-house, and still further on trinity house and tower hill to remind one of the locale of certain scenes in "our mutual friend." in the minories, leading from tower hill, was until recently the "little wooden midshipman" of "dombey and son," standing over the door at messrs. norie and wilson's, the nautical publishers. from tower hill, whither would one go but through the ratcliffe highway, now st. george's street, whereby is suggested the nocturnal wanderings of "the uncommercial traveller." wapping, shadwell, and stepney, with its famous waterside church, are all redolent of the odours of the sea and reminiscence of dickens' characters. somewhere between here and limehouse hole was brig place, not discoverable to-day, where lived the genial one-armed "cuttle." limehouse, with its "reach" and "foul and furtive boats," is closely connected with the personality of dickens himself, having been the residence of his godfather, one huffam, a rigger employed in a waterside shipyard. what wonder then that the fascination of riverside london fell early upon the writer of novels? at the gate of limehouse church, rokesmith lay in wait, on murder intent, and all limehouse is odorous with memories of riverside crime and such nefarious deeds as were instigated by hexham and riderhood, an incident suggested, it is said by dickens' biographer forster, by the novelist having seen, in one of his walks in the neighbourhood, a placard on the hoardings announcing that a body of a person had been found drowned. a neighbouring public house, "the two brewers," is supposed to be the original of that referred to by dickens as "the six jolly fellowship porters," "a dropsical old house," as he called it, like so many old-world houses, all but falling down, if judged by appearances, but actually not in the least danger of it. one topic crops up in the notes and queries columns of the literary papers every once and again, viz., the location of the "filthy graveyard" of "bleak house." it has been variously placed in the churchyard of st. dunstan's-in-the-west, st. bartholomew-the-less, and again in drury lane court, now disappeared. most likely it was the latter, if any of these neighbourhoods, though it is all hearsay now, though formerly one of the "stock sights" of the "lady guide association," who undertook to gratify any reasonable whim of the inquisitive american. a recent foregathering of members of the "boz club" at rochester, which celebrated the thirty-first anniversary of the novelist's death on june , , occurred in the homely "bull inn." this little band of devoted "dickensians" contained among them mr. henry dickens, k. c., the son of the novelist; mr. percy fitzgerald, who had the honour of being intimately associated with dickens on _household words_; mr. luke fildes, r. a., among whose many famous paintings is that pathetic story-telling canvas, "the empty chair," being a reproduction of that portion of dickens' study at gad's hill, wherein stood the writer's desk and chair. on such a day as that on which the immortal pickwick "bent over the balustrades of rochester bridge contemplating nature and waiting for breakfast," the club (in june, ) had journeyed to rochester to do homage to the fame of their master. the mediæval, cramped high street, "full of gables, with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces," seems to bask and grow sleepier than ever in the glaring sunlight. it is all practically just as dickens saw it for the last time three days before his death, as he stood against the wooden palings near the restoration house contemplating the old manor house--just the same even to "the queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red-brick building, as if time carried on business there, and hung out his sign." those of the visitors so "dispoged" had lunch in the coffee-room of the "bull," unchanged since the days of the original pickwickians, but it is only in fancy and framed presentments that one now sees the "g. c. m. p. c." and his disciples, messrs. tupman, snodgrass, winkle, and jingle. so closely, however, do we follow in the footsteps of mr. pickwick (wrote a member of the party) that we look through the selfsame coffee-room blinds at the passengers in the high street, in which entertaining occupation we were disturbed, as was mr. pickwick, by the coming of the waiter (perhaps one should say a waiter, not _the_ waiter) to announce that the carriages are ready--"an announcement which the vehicles themselves confirm by forthwith appearing before the coffee-room blinds aforesaid." "'bless my soul!' said mr. pickwick, as they stood upon the pavement while the coats were being put in. 'bless my soul! who's to drive? i never thought of that.' "'oh! you, of course,' said mr. tupman. "'i!' exclaimed mr. pickwick. "'not the slightest fear, sir,' interposed the hostler. "'he don't shy, does he?' inquired mr. pickwick. "'shy, sir?--he wouldn't shy if he was to meet a vaggin-load of monkeys with their tails burnt off.'" the ruined castle and the cathedral are visited, the castle looking more than ever "as if the rooks and daws had picked its eyes out." before the cathedral, as mr. grewgious did before us, we stand for a contemplative five minutes at the great west door of the gray and venerable pile. "'dear me,' said mr. grewgious, peeping in, 'it's like looking down the throat of old time.' "old time heaved a mouldy sigh from tomb and arch and vault; and gloomy shadows began to deepen in corners; and damps began to rise from green patches of stone; and jewels, cast upon the pavement of the nave from stained-glass by the declining sun, began to perish." or, to quote the more genial jingle: "old cathedral, too--earthly smell--pilgrims' feet worn away the old steps--little saxon doors--confessionals like money takers' boxes at theatres--queer customers those monks--popes, and lord treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day--buff jerkins, too--matchlocks--sarcophagus--fine place--old legends too--strange stories, too; capital." disappearing london place names are always of interesting origin, in fact, all proper names have a fascination for the historian and litterateur alike. dickens himself was fond enough of the unusual, and doubtless he made good use of those bygones of a former age, which seemed best to suit his purpose. on the other hand, where would one find in reality such names as quilp, cheeryble, twist, swiveller, heep, tulkinghorn, or snodgrass? where indeed! except in the boston (u. s. a.) directory? here will be found snodgrass and twist and even a heep, though he spells it heap. it would be still further interesting to know the derivation of the names of these individuals; but inasmuch as it would probably throw no additional light on dickens' own personality, it is passed by without further comment. it is not that these names are any more unusual than many that really do exist, and possibly they all may have had a real entity outside of the author's brain; still it does represent a deal of thought that each and every character throughout all of dickens' works should seem so singularly appropriate and in keeping with their names. with place names dickens took another line. occasionally he played upon a word, though often he did not disguise it greatly; nor did he intend to. in many more instances, he presented no counterfeit whatever. for picturesqueness and appropriateness, in conjunction with the lives of the individuals of which his novels abound, one could hardly improve on many actual places of which he wrote. london street names, in general, may be divided into two classes: those named for distinguished, or, for that matter, notorious persons, as duke street, wellington street, george street, berkeley, grosvenor, or bridgewater squares; or secondly, those named for topographical or architectural features, both classes of which, in the earlier times or immediately following the "great fire," underwent no inconsiderable evolution. in a later day this will perhaps not prove equally true; remodelling and rearranging of streets and squares not only changes the topography, but--aside from the main arteries--names as well are often changed or suppressed altogether. since dickens' time many spots, which must have been dearly known and beloved of him, have disappeared, and the process is going on apace, until, with the advent of another century, it will doubtless be difficult to recognize any of the localities of a hundred or more years before. some remarkable corruptions have been recorded from time to time, such as candlewick street into cannon street, cannon row to channel row, and snore hill to snow hill, all of which are easily enough followed. strype's court (after the historian's family) to tripe court, or duck lane into duke street, are not so easy. tavern signs, too, are supposed to have undergone similar perversions, not always with euphonious success, as witness the following: "the bachnals" into "bag of nails," "the god encompasseth us" into "goat and compasses;" both of the former existed in victorian days, as does the latter at the present time. many of these old tavern signs are to be seen to-day in the museum at the guild hall. the actual changes of street names are equally curious, when one attempts to follow the connection, which, for a fact, mostly cannot be done. thus they stand in their modified form, either as an improvement or debasement. hog lane, st. giles, is now crown street; grub street is now gloriously named milton street, and shoreditch lane becomes worship street. the matter of street lighting is ever one which appeals to the visitor to a strange city. curious customs there be, even to-day, in the city of london, which have come down from the age which knew not the gas-jet or the electric globe. in dickens' time, it is confident to say that the "linkman" was not the _rara avis_ that he is to-day, though evidences are still to be noted in residential mayfair and belgravia, and even elsewhere, of the appurtenances of his trade, referring to the torch-extinguishers which were attached outside the doorways of the more pretentious houses. as an established trade, link-carrying has been extinct for nearly a century, but the many extinguishers still to be seen indicate that the custom died but slowly from the days when the sturdy briton,-- _"round as a globe and liquored every chink,_ _goodly and great, sailed behind his link."_ --_dryden._ the first street lighted with gas was pall mall, in , and oil was solely used in many streets and squares as late as . the old london watchman--the progenitor of the modern policeman--used to cry out, "light! light! hang out your light." later came enclosed glass lamps or globes, replacing the candles of a former day. these endured variously, as is noted, until very near the time when electric refulgence was beginning to make itself known. on the whole, until recently, london could not have been an exceedingly well-lighted metropolis, and even now there is many a dark court and alley, which would form in itself a fitting haunt for many a lower-class ruffian of the type dickens was wont to depict. the mortality among the old inns of holborn has been very high of late, and still they vanish. "the black bull," known well to dickens, is the last to come under sentence. its sign, a veritable bull of bashan, sculptured in black and gold, has been familiar to all who go down to the city in omnibuses. until recently the old courtyard of the inn might still have been seen, though the galleried buildings which surrounded it were modern. before holborn viaduct was built, the "black bull" stood just at the top of holborn hill, that difficult ascent which good citizens found too long, and bad ones too short. "sirrah, you'll be hanged; i shall live to see you go up holborn hill," says sir sampson legend to his thriftless son in congreve's "love for love." but the "black bull" has nearer associations for us. it was here that mrs. gamp and betsy prig nursed mr. lewsome through his fever at the expense of john westlock. when mrs. gamp relieved betsy in the sick-room, the following dialogue occurred: "'anything to tell afore you goes, my dear?' asked mrs. gamp, setting her bundle down inside the door, and looking affectionately at her partner. 'the pickled salmon,' mrs. prig replied, 'is quite delicious. i can partick'ler recommend it. don't have nothink to say to the cold meat, for it tastes of the stable. the drinks is all good.'" to-day the cold meat is represented by the noble animal on the façade of the inn, and it will probably adorn the guildhall collection of old shop and tavern signs, where the hideous "bull and mouth" and "goose and gridiron" still look down on the curious. of the matter-of-fact realities of london, which, though still existent, have changed since dickens' day, london bridge is undergoing widening and rebuilding, which will somewhat change its general aspect, though its environment remains much the same. furnival's inn, where dickens lived, has disappeared, and clifford's inn has just been sold ( ) in the public auction mart, to be removed, with some hideous and unquiet modern office building doubtless destined to take its place. new transportation schemes, almost without number, are announced. electric trams, "tubes," and underground subways are being projected in every direction. these perhaps do not change the surface aspect of things very much, but they are working a marvellous change in the life of the times. the old underground "district" and "metropolitan" railways are being "electrified" by the magnanimity (_sic_) of american capital, and st. paul's cathedral has been supplied with a costly electric-light plant at the expense of an american multi-millionaire. the american invasion of typewriters, roll-top desks, and book printing and binding machinery, are marking an era of change and progress in the production of the printed word, and continental-made motors and automobiles are driving the humble cart-horse from the city streets in no small way. it now only remains for the development of the project which is to supplant the ungainly though convenient omnibus with an up-to-date service of motor stages, when, in truth, london will have taken on very much of a new aspect. one of the most recent disappearances is old holywell street, of unsavoury reputation, the whilom booksellers' row of dickens' day, a "narrow, dirty lane" which ran parallel with the strand from st. clement's-danes to st. mary-le-strand, and was occupied chiefly by vendors of books of doubtful morality. wych street, too, in company with holywell street, has gone the same way, in favour of the new thoroughfare which is to connect holborn and the strand, an enterprise which also has made way with the clare market between lincoln's inn fields and the strand, a locality well known to, and made use of by, dickens in "the old curiosity shop." the identical building referred to therein may be in doubt; probably it is, in that dickens himself repudiated or at least passed a qualifying observation upon the "waste paper store," which popular tradition has ever connected therewith. but one critic--be he expert or not--has connected it somewhat closely with the literary life of the day, as being formerly occupied by one tessyman, a bookbinder, who was well acquainted with dickens, thackeray, and cruikshank. the literary pilgrim will give up this most sentimental dickens _relique_ with something of the serious pang that one feels when his favourite idol is shattered, when the little overhanging corner building is finally demolished, as it soon will be, if "improvement" goes on at the pace of the last few years hereabouts. [illustration: the (reputed) "old curiosity shop."] a drawing of this revered building has been included in the present volume, as suggestive of its recorded literary associations. there is no question but what it is _the relique_ of the first rank usually associated with dickens' london, as witness the fact that there appears always to be some numbers of persons gazing fondly at its crazy old walls. the present proprietor appears to have met the demand which undoubtedly exists, and purveys souvenirs, prints, drawings, etc., to the dickens admirers who throng his shop "in season" and out, and from all parts of the globe, with the balance, as usual, in favour of the americans. rumour has it, and it has been said before, that some "collector" (from america, of course) has purchased this humble shrine, and intends to erect it again across the seas, but no verification of this is possible at this writing. whether it had any real being in dickens' story, the enthusiast, in view of the facts, must decide for him or herself. _"and now at length he's brought_ _unto fair london city_ _where, in fleet street,_ _all those many see 't_ _that will not believe my ditty."_ --_butler._ a half-century ago temple bar might have been described as a gateway of stone separating the strand from fleet street--the city from the shire. this particular structure was erected from designs by sir christopher wren in , and from that day until long after dickens' death, through it have passed countless throngs of all classes of society, and it has always figured in such ceremony of state as the comparatively infrequent visits of the sovereign to the city. the invariable custom was to close the gate whenever the sovereign had entered the city, "and at no other time." the ceremony was simple, but formal: a herald sounds a trumpet--another herald knocks--a parley--the gates are thrown open and the lord mayor, _pro tempo._, hands over the sword of the city to the sovereign. it was thus in elizabeth's time, and it had changed but little throughout victoria's reign. the present structure is temple bar only in name, being a mere guide-post standing in the middle of the roadway; not very imposing, but it serves its purpose. the former structure was removed in the eighties, and now graces the private park of an estate at walthamstow. for long before it was taken down, its interior space was leased to "childs," the bankers, as a repository or storage-place for their old ledgers. thus does the pomp of state make way for the sordidness of trade, and even the wealthy corporation of the city of london was not above turning a penny or two as additional revenue. the following details of furnival's inn, which since dickens' time has disappeared, are pertinent at this time. "firnivalles inn, now an inn of chancery, but some time belonging to sir william furnival, knight," is the introduction to the description given by stow in his "annals." the greater part of the old inn was taken down in the time of charles i., and the buildings remaining in dickens' day, principally occupied as lawyers' offices, were of comparatively modern construction. since, these too, have disappeared, and there is little to call it to mind but the location the inn once occupied. the gothic hall, with its timber roof,--part of the original structure (_tempo_ richard ii.),--was standing as late as , when the entire inn was rebuilt by one peto, who it is to be inferred built the row in which were the lodgings occupied by dickens. in the west end of london changes have been none the less rapid than in the east. the cutting through of northumberland avenue, from trafalgar square to the river, laid low the gardens and mansion of northumberland house. of this stately mansion it is said that it looked more like a nobleman's mansion than any other in london. it was built, in about , by the earl of northampton, and came into the hands of the percies in . stafford house is perhaps the most finely situated mansion in the metropolis, occupying the corner of st. james' and the green parks, and presenting four complete fronts, each having its own architectural character. the interior, too, is said to be the first of its kind in london. the mansion was built by the duke of york, with money lent by the marquis of stafford, afterward duke of sutherland; but the stafford family became owners of it, and have spent at least a quarter of a million sterling on the house and its decorations. apsley house, at the corner of piccadilly and hyde park, is the residence of the dukes of wellington, and is closely associated with the memory of _the_ duke. the shell of the house, of brick, is old; but stone frontages, enlargements, and decorations were afterward made. the principal room facing hyde park, with seven windows, is that in which the great duke held the celebrated waterloo banquet, on the th of june in every year, from to . in the seventeenth century the strand was a species of country road, connecting the city with westminster; and on its southern side stood a number of noblemen's residences, with gardens toward the river. the pleasant days are long since past when mansions and personages, political events and holiday festivities, marked the spots now denoted by essex, norfolk, howard, arundel, surrey, cecil, salisbury, buckingham, villiers, craven, and northumberland streets--a very galaxy of aristocratic names. again it is reiterated: the names are, for the most part, actually those now given to great hotels which occupy the former sites of these noble mansions. the residences of the nobility and gentry were chiefly in the western part of the metropolis. in this quarter there have been large additions of handsome streets, squares, and terraces within the last fifty years. first, the district around belgrave square, usually called belgravia. northeast from this, near hyde park, is the older, but still fashionable quarter, comprehending park lane and mayfair. still farther north is the modern district, sometimes called tyburnia, being built on the ground adjacent to what once was "tyburn," the place of public executions. this district, including hyde park square and westbourne terrace, early became a favourite place of residence for city merchants. lying north and northeast from tyburnia are an extensive series of suburban rows of buildings and detached villas, which are ordinarily spoken of under the collective name, st. john's wood, regent's park forming a kind of rural centre to the group. new thoroughfares and the need thereof make a wholly new set of conditions, and such landmarks as have survived the stress of time and weather are thoroughly suggestive and reminiscent of the past, and are often the only guide-posts left by which one may construct the surroundings of a former day. of this the stranger is probably more observant than the londoner born and bred. the gloomy, crowded streets--for they are gloomy, decidedly, most of the time during five months of the year--do not suggest to the native emotions as vivid as to the stranger, who, with a fund of reading for his guide, wanders through hallowed ground which is often neglected or ignored by the londoner himself. as for the general architectural effect of london as a type of a great city, it is heightened or lowered accordingly as one approves or disapproves of the artistic qualities of soot and smoke. fogs are the natural accompaniment of smoke, in the lower thames valley, at least, and the "london particular"--the pea-soup variety--is a thing to be shuddered at when it draws its pall over the city. at such times, the londoner, or such proportion of the species as can do so, hurries abroad, if only to the surrey hills, scarce a dozen miles away, but possessed of an atmosphere as different as day is from night. our own nathaniel hawthorne it was who wrote, "there cannot be anything else in its way so good in the world as this effect" (of fog and smoke) "on st. paul's in the very heart and densest tumult of london. it is much better than staring white; the edifice would not be nearly so grand without this drapery of black." since we are told that the cost of the building was defrayed by a tax on all coals brought into the port of london, it gets its blackness by right. this grime is at all events a well-established fact, which has to be accepted. mr. g. a. sala, a friend and contemporary of dickens, also wrote in favour of the smoky chimneys. he says about st. paul's: "it is really the better for all the incense which all the chimneys since the time of wren have offered at its shrine, and are still flinging up every day from their foul and grimy censers." as a flower of speech, this is good, but as criticism it is equivalent to saying the less seen of it the better. m. taine, the french critic, evidently thought otherwise; he wrote of somerset house: "a frightful thing is the huge palace in the strand which is called somerset house. massive and heavy piece of architecture, of which the hollows are inked, the porticoes blackened with soot, where in the cavity of the empty court is a sham fountain without water, pools of water on the pavement, long rows of closed windows. what can they possibly do in these catacombs? it seems as if the livid and sooty fog had even befouled the verdure of the parks. but what most offends the eyes are the colonnades, peristyles, grecian ornaments, mouldings, and wreaths of the houses, all bathed in soot. poor antique architecture--what is it doing in such a climate?" to decide what style of architecture prevails in the medley of different periods constituting london is indeed difficult. one authority concludes that the "dark house in the long, unlovely street," of which tennyson tells, and mme. de staël vituperates, covers the greater number of acres. the fact is, each of the districts constituting london as it now is, _i. e._, belgravia, tyburnia, bayswater, kensington, chelsea, etc., has the impress and character of the time of its greatest popularity and fashion and of the class by which it was principally inhabited. it has always been the city's fate to have its past overgrown and stifled by the enthralling energy and life of the present. it is as a hive that has never been emptied of its successive swarms. this is more or less the fate of all towns that live. the first map of london was published in by ralph ugga; it shows the same main arteries as exist to-day--the strand, "chepe," and fleet. in a later map of , london and westminster appear as small neighbouring towns with fields around them; totten court, a country village; kensington and marylebone secluded hamlets; clerkenwell and st. gyllis quite isolated from the main city while chelsey was quite in the wilds. even the great devastating fires did not destroy the line of the public highways. after that of sir christopher wren wished to remodel the town and make it regular, symmetrical, and convenient; but, although he was the prevailing spirit in the rebuilding of london city, and no important building during forty years was erected without his judgment, his plan for regulating and straightening the streets did not take effect. much of the picturesque quality of the city is owing to its irregularity and the remains of its past. wren rebuilt no less than sixty churches, all showing great variety of design. st. paul's, the third christian church since early saxon times on the same site, was his masterpiece. of his immediate predecessor, inigo jones, the banqueting house in whitehall, now used as a museum, remains a fragment of the splendid palace designed by him for james i. the classical revival began with gibbs, when he built st. martin's-in-the-fields, whose greek portico is the best and most perfect greek example in london, if we except the caryatides of st. pancras. the brothers adam also flourished at this time, and introduced grace of line and much artistic skill in domestic establishments which they built in "the adelphi" and elsewhere. chambers with somerset house, and sir john soane with the bank of england, continued the classical traditions, but its full force came with nash, "the apostle of plaster," who planned the quadrant and regent street, from carlton house to regent's park, and the terraces in that locality, in the tawdry pseudo-classic stuccoed style, applied indiscriminately to churches, shops, and what not. not till the middle of the nineteenth century did the gothic revival flourish. pugin, britton, and sir john barry then became prominent. the last named built the houses of parliament. the demand for originality in street architecture is to be seen in the tall, important blocks of residential flats and new hotels now rising up in every quarter. not beautiful and in many cases not even intelligible, they are unmistakable signs of the times, showing the process of transformation which is going on rapidly, sweeping away much that is beautiful to meet the requirements of modern life. london is perhaps never to be doomed to the curse of the sky-scraper, as it is known in america; the results of such an innovation would be too dire to contemplate, but like every other large city, it is under the spell of twentieth century ideas of progress, and the results, a score or more years hence, will, beyond doubt, so change the general aspect and conditions of life that the spirit of the victorian era in architecture and art will have been dissipated in air, or so leavened that it will be a glorified london that will be known and loved, even better than the rather depressing atmosphere which has surrounded london and all in it during the thirty-five rapid years which have passed since dickens' death. such, in brief, is a survey of the more noticeable architectural and topographical features of london, which are indicating in no mean fashion the effect of mr. whistler's dictum: "other times, other lines." of no place perhaps more true than of london, yet, on the other hand, in no other place, perhaps, does the tendency make way so slowly. the county of kent the country lying between london and the english channel is one of the most varied and diversified in all england. the "men of kent" and the "kentish men" have gone down in history in legendary fashion. the roman influences and remains are perhaps more vivid here to-day than elsewhere, while chaucer has done perhaps more than all others to give the first impetus to our acquaintanceship with the pleasures of the road. "the pilgrim's way," the old roman watling street, and the "dover road" of later centuries bring one well on toward the coaching days, which had not yet departed ere mr. pickwick and his friends had set out from the present "golden cross" hotel at charing cross for "the bull" at rochester. one should not think of curtailing a pilgrimage to what may, for the want of a more expressive title, be termed "dickens' kent," without journeying from london to gravesend, cobham, strood, rochester, chatham, maidstone, canterbury, and broadstairs. here one is immediately put into direct contact, from the early works of "pickwick," "copperfield," and "chuzzlewit," to the last unfinished tale of "edwin drood." no end of absorbing interest is to be found in the footsteps of pickwick and jingle, and copperfield and his friend steerforth. to-day one journeys, by a not very progressive or up-to-date railway, by much the same route as did mr. pickwick and his friends, and reaches the medway at strood and rochester through a grime and gloom which hardly existed in dickens' time to the same compromising extent that it does to-day. bricks, mortar, belching chimneys, and roaring furnaces line the route far into the land of hops. twenty miles have passed before those quiet scenes of kentish life, which imagination has led one to expect, are in the least apparent. the route _via_ the river towns of woolwich, erith, gravesend, and dartford, or _via_ lee, eltham, and bexley, is much the same, and it is only as the train crosses the medway at strood--the insignificant and uninteresting suburb of rochester--that any environment of a different species from that seen in london itself is to be recognized. the ancient city of rochester, with its overgrown and significantly busy dockyard appendage of chatham, is indicative of an altogether different _raison d'être_ from what one has hitherto connected the scenes of dickens' stories. kent as a whole, even the kent of dickens, would require much time to cover, as was taken by the "canterbury" or even the "pickwickian" pilgrims, but a mere following, more or less rapidly, of the dover road, debouching therefrom to broadstairs, will give a vast and appreciative insight into the personal life of dickens as well as the novels whose scenes are here laid. the first shrine of moment _en route_ would be the house at chalk, where dickens spent his honeymoon, and lived subsequently at the birth of his son, charles dickens, the younger. gad's hill follows closely, thence rochester and chatham. the pond on which the "pickwickians" disported themselves on a certain occasion, when it was frozen, is still pointed out at rochester, and "the leather bottle" at cobham, where mr. pickwick and mr. winkle made inquiries for "a gentleman by the name of tupman," is a very apparent reality; and with this one is well into the midst of the kent country, made famous by charles dickens. aside from dickens' later connection with rochester, or, rather, gad's hill place, there is his early, and erstwhile happy, life at chatham to be reckoned with. here, his father being in employment at the dockyard, the boy first went to school, having been religiously and devotedly put through the early stages of the educative process by his mother. his generally poor health and weakly disposition kept him from joining in the rough games of his schoolmates, and in consequence he found relaxation in the association of books. indeed, it was at this time that the first seeds of literary ambition took root, with the result that a certain weedy thing, called "a tragedy," grew up under the title of "misnar, the sultan of india," which at least gave the young author fame among his immediate juvenile circle. at the age of nine, his father left chatham, and dickens was removed with the rest of the family to london, where his early pitiful struggles began, which are recorded elsewhere. there is a peculiar fascination about both the locality and the old residence of charles dickens--gad's hill place--which few can resist. its lofty situation on a ridge between the thames and the medway gives gad's hill several commanding views, including the busy windings of the latter, where the dutch fleet anchored in elizabeth's reign. the surroundings seem from all times to have been a kind of mecca to tramps and petty showmen. that dickens had an irresistible love for this spot would be clear from the following extract from his works: "i have my eye on a piece of kentish road, bordered on either side by a wood, and having, on one hand, between the road dust and the trees, a skirting patch of grass. wild flowers grow in abundance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with a distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean...." gad's hill place is a comfortable, old-fashioned, creeper-clad house, built about a century since, and is on the spot mentioned in shakespeare's "henry iv." as the scene of the robbery of the travellers. the following extract from a mediæval record book is interesting: " , september th daye, was a thiefe yt was slayne, buried." again " , marche the th daie, was a thiefe yt was at gadshill wounded to deathe, called robert writs, buried." the "falstaff" inn is nearly opposite gad's hill place, and dates probably from queen anne's time. it formerly had an old-fashioned swinging sign, on one side of which was painted falstaff and the merry wives of windsor. in its long sanded room there was a copy of shakespeare's monument in westminster abbey. fifty years ago about ninety coaches passed this inn daily. in the garden at gad's hill place dickens had erected a swiss chalet presented to him by fechter, the actor. here he did his writing "up among the branches of the trees, where the birds and butterflies fly in and out." the occupiers of gad's hill place since the novelist's death have been charles dickens, the younger, major budden, and latterly the honourable f. w. latham, who graciously opens certain of the apartments to visitors. in the immediate neighbourhood of rochester is cobham, with its famous pickwickian inn, "the leather bottle," where mr. tupman sought retirement from the world after the elopement of miss wardle with alfred jingle. dickens himself was very fond of frequenting the inn in company with his friends. the visitor will have no need to be told that the ancient hostelry opposite the village church is the "leather bottle" in question, so beloved of mr. pickwick, since the likeness of that gentleman, painted vividly and in the familiar picturesque attitude, on the sign-board, loudly proclaims the fact. it should be one of the fixed _formulæ_ of the true dickensian faith that all admirers of his immortal hero should turn in at the "leather bottle" at cobham, and do homage to pickwick in the well-known parlour, with its magnificent collection of dickens relics, too numerous to enumerate here, but of great and varied interest, the present proprietor being himself an ardent dickens enthusiast. here is a shrine, at once worthy, and possessed of many votive offerings from all quarters. dickens' personality, as evinced by many of his former belongings, which have found a place here, pervades the bar parlour. so, too, has the very spirit and sentiment of regard for the novelist made the "leather bottle's" genial host a marked man. he will tell you many anecdotes of dickens and his visits here in this very parlour, when he was living at higham. the "mild and bitter," or the "arf and arf," is to-day no less pungent and aromatic than when dickens and his friends regaled themselves amid the same surroundings. it should be a part of the personal experience of every dickens enthusiast to journey to the "unspoilt" village of cobham and spend a half-day beneath the welcoming roof of the celebrated "leather bottle." the great love of dickens for rochester, the sensitive clinging to the scenes of that happy, but all too short childhood at chatham, forms an instance of the magnetic power of early associations. "i have often heard him say," said forster, "that in leaving the neighbourhood of rochester he was leaving everything that had given his early life its picturesqueness or sunshine." what the lake district is to wordsworthians, melrose to lovers of scott, and ayr to burns, rochester and its neighbourhood is to dickens enthusiasts throughout the english-speaking world. the very subtlety of the spell in the former cases holds aloof many an average mortal who grasps at once the home thrusts, the lightly veiled satire, the poor human foibles, fads, and weaknesses in the characters of dickens. the ordinary soul, in whom the "meanest flower that grows" produces no tears, may possibly be conscious of a lump in his throat as he reads of the death of jo or little nell. the deaths of fagin and bill sikes are, after all, a more native topic to the masses than the final exit of marmion. not only so, but the very atmosphere of the human abodes, to say nothing of minute and readily identified descriptions of english scenery, permeates the stories of dickens. gad's hill at higham can, to be sure, hardly be reckoned as a london suburb, but on the other hand it was, in a way, merely a suburban residence near enough thereto to be easily accessible. even in his childhood days dickens had set his heart upon the possession of this house, which was even then known as gad's hill place. his father, who at that time had not fallen upon his unfortunate state, had encouraged him to think that it might be possible, "when he should have grown to a man," did he but work hard. at any rate dickens was able to purchase the estate in , and from that date, until his death in , it was occupied by him and his family. writing to forster at this time, dickens stated that he had just "paid the purchase-money for gad's hill place" (£ , ). how dickens' possession of the house actually came about is told in his own words, in a letter written to his friend, m. de cerjet, as follows: "i happened to be walking past (the house) a year or so ago, with my sub-editor of _household words_ (mr. w. h. wills), when i said to him: 'you see that house? it has always a curious interest for me, because when i was a small boy down in these parts, i thought it the most beautiful house (i suppose because of its famous old cedar-trees) ever seen. and my poor father used to bring me to look at it, and used to say that if ever i grew up to be a clever man perhaps i might own that house, or such another house. in remembrance of which, i have always, in passing, looked to see if it was to be sold or let, and it has never been to me like any other house, and it has never changed at all.' we came back to town and my friend went out to dinner. next morning he came to me in great excitement, and said, 'it is written that you are to have that house at gad's hill. the lady i had allotted to take down to dinner yesterday began to speak of that neighbourhood. "you know it?" i said; "i have been there to-day." "oh, yes," she said, "i know it very well; i was a child there in the house they call gad's hill place. my father was the rector, and lived there many years. he has just died, has left it to me, and i want to sell it." so,' says the sub-editor, 'you must buy it, now or never!' i did, and hope to pass next summer there." it is difficult to regard the numerous passages descriptive of places in dickens' books without reverence and admiration. the very atmosphere appears, by his pen, to have been immortalized. even the incoherences of jingle have cast a new cloak of fame over rochester's norman cathedral and castle! "'ah! fine place, glorious pile--frowning walls--tottering arches--dark nooks--crumbling staircases. old cathedral too--earthy smell--pilgrims' feet wore away the old steps--little saxon doors--confessionals like money-takers' boxes at theatres--queer customers those monks--popes and lord treasurers and all sorts of fellows, with great red faces and broken noses, turning up every day--buff jerkins too--matchlocks--sarcophagus-- fine place--old legends too--strange stories: capital,' and the stranger continued to soliloquize until they reached the bull inn, in the high street, where the coach stopped." [illustration: dickens' study at gad's hill place. _from a painting by luke fildes, r. a._] a further description of the cathedral by dickens is as follows: "a certain awful hush pervades the ancient pile, the cloisters, and the churchyard, after dark, which not many people care to encounter. the cause of this is not to be found in any local superstition that attaches to the precincts, but it is to be sought in the innate shrinking of dust with the breath of life in it from dust out of which the breath of life has passed; also in the ... reflection, 'if the dead do, under any circumstances, become visible to the living, these are such likely surroundings for the purpose that i, the living, will get out of them as soon as i can.'" with durdles and jasper, from the pages of "edwin drood," also, one can descend into the crypt of the earlier norman church, the same they visited by moonlight, when durdles kept tapping the wall "just where he expected to disinter a whole family of 'old 'uns.'" in numerous passages dickens has truly immortalized what perforce would otherwise have been very insignificant and unappealing structures. the bull inn, most interesting of all, is unattractive enough as a hostelry. it would be gloomy and foreboding in appearance indeed, and not at all suggestive of the cheerful house that it is, did it but lack the association of dickens. no. in the inn is the now famous bedroom of mr. pickwick, and the present coffee-room now contains many relics of dickens purchased at the sale held at gad's hill place after the author's death. chatham lines, the meadows, the cathedral and castle, "eastgate house," the nuns' house of "edwin drood," "restoration house," the "satis house" of "great expectations," serve in a way to suggest in unquestionable manner the debt which dickens laid upon rochester and its surroundings. "eastgate house" is said to be the original of the home of mr. sapsea, the auctioneer and estate agent in "edwin drood." the date of eastgate house, , is carved on a beam in one of the upper rooms. dickens, in "edwin drood," alludes to eastgate house as follows: "in the midst of cloisterham [rochester] stands the 'nuns' house,' a venerable brick edifice, whose present appellation is doubtless derived from the legend of its conventual uses. on the trim gate enclosing its old courtyard is a resplendent brass plate, flashing forth the legend: 'seminary for young ladies: miss twinkleton.' the house-front is so old and worn, and the brass plate is so shining and staring, that the general result has reminded imaginative strangers of a battered old beau with a large modern eye-glass stuck in his left eye." to-day there is noticeable but little change, and the charm of rochester in literary association, if only with respect to dickens, is far greater than many another city greater and more comprehensive in its scope. in the opening scenes of the earlier work dickens treated of rochester, but the whole plot of his last novel, "edwin drood," is centred in the same city. "for sufficient reasons, which this narrative ["edwin drood"] will itself unfold as it advances, a fictitious name must be bestowed upon the old cathedral town. let it stand in these pages as cloisterham. it was once possibly known to the druids by another name, and certainly to the romans by another; and a name more or less in the course of many centuries can be of little moment in its dusty chronicles." dickens describes it thus: "an ancient city, cloisterham, and no meet dwelling-place for any one with hankerings after the noisy world. a monotonous, silent city, deriving an earthy flavour throughout from its cathedral crypt, and so abounding in vestiges of monastic graves that the cloisterham children grow small salad in the dust of abbots and abbesses, and make dirt-pies of nuns and friars; while every ploughman in its outlying fields renders to once puissant lord treasurers, archbishops, bishops, and such like, the attention which the ogre in the story-book desired to render to his unbidden visitor, and grinds their bones to make his bread.... in a word, a city of another and a bygone time is cloisterham, with its hoarse cathedral bell, its hoarse rooks hovering about the cathedral tower, its hoarser and less distinct rooks in the stalls far beneath." for the dickens pilgrim, the first landmark that will strike his eye will be the corn exchange, "with its queer old clock that projects over the pavement" ("edwin drood"). watts' charity, a triple-gabled edifice in the high street, has become world-famous through dickens' "christmas story." "strictly speaking," he says, "there were only six poor travellers, but being a traveller myself, and being withal as poor as i hope to be, i brought the number up to seven." the building is to be recognized both by the roof angles and the inscriptions on the walls, the principal one of which runs thus: richard watts esq., _by his will, dated aug. ,_ _founded this charity_ _for six poor travellers,_ _who not being rogues or proctors_ _may receive gratis for one night,_ _lodging, entertainment,_ _and fourpence each._ could good richard watts come forth some morning from his resting-place in the south transept over the way, he would have the pleasure of seeing how efficiently the trustees are carrying on their work. the visitor, too, who desires to see the preparation for the coming evening's guests, may calculate on being no less "curtuoslie intreated" than the guests proper. in the little parlour to the left, as we enter from the street door, is the famous book containing the names and signatures of numerous celebrities whose curiosity has led them hither--dickens, wilkie collins, and j. l. toole amongst the number. from the kitchen is served out the meat for the supper, which consists of half a pound of beef, a pint of coffee, and half a loaf for each poor traveller. in the south transept of rochester cathedral is a plain, almost mean, brass to charles dickens: "charles dickens. born at portsmouth, seventh of february, . "died at gadshill place, by rochester, ninth of june, . "buried in westminster abbey. to connect his memory with the scenes in which his earliest and latest years were passed, and with the associations of rochester cathedral and its neighbourhood, which extended over all his life, this tablet, with the sanction of the dean and chapter, is placed by his executors." this recalls the fact that the great novelist left special instructions in his will: _"i conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. i rest my claims to the remembrance of my country upon my published works."_ it was in this transept that charles dickens was to have been laid to rest. the grave, in fact, had been dug, and all was ready, when a telegram came deciding that westminster abbey, and not rochester, should be the long last home of the author. great interest attaches itself to broadstairs, where dickens lived upon returning from his journey abroad in company with his wife and "phiz," in . "bleak house" is still pointed out here, and is apparently revered with something akin to sentiment if not of awe. as a matter of fact, it is not the original of "bleak house" at all, that particular edifice being situate in hertfordshire, near st. albans. this is an excellent illustration of the manner in which delusive legends grow up on the smallest foundations. on the cliff overlooking the little pier and close to the coast-guard station, stands fort house, a tall and very conspicuous place which charles dickens rented during more than one summer. this is now known as bleak house because, according to a tradition on which the natives positively insist, "bleak house" was written there. unfortunately for the legend, it is the fact that, although "bleak house" was written in many places,--dover, brighton, boulogne, london, and where not,--not a line of it was written at broadstairs. dickens' own description of broadstairs was, in part, as follows: "half awake and half asleep, this idle morning in our sunny window on the edge of a chalk cliff in the old-fashioned watering-place to which we are a faithful resorter, we feel a lazy inclination to sketch its picture. "the place seems to respond. sky, sea, beach, and village, lie as still before us as if they were sitting for the picture. but the ocean lies winking in the sunlight like a drowsy lion--its glassy waters scarcely curve upon the shore--the fishing-boats in the tiny harbour are all stranded in the mud--our two colliers (our watering-place has a maritime trade employing that amount of shipping) have not an inch of water within a quarter of a mile of them, and turn, exhausted, on their sides, like faint fish of an antediluvian species. rusty cables and chains, ropes and rings, undermost parts of posts and piles and confused timber defences against the waves, lie strewn about, in a brown litter of tangled seaweed and fallen cliff. "in truth, our watering-place itself has been left somewhat high and dry by the tide of years. concerned as we are for its honour, we must reluctantly admit that the time when this pretty little semi-circular sweep of houses tapering off at the end of the wooden pier into a point in the sea, was a gay place, and when the lighthouse overlooking it shone at daybreak on company dispersing from public balls, is but dimly traditional now. there is a '_bleak chamber_' in our watering-place which is yet called the assembly 'rooms.'... "... we have a church, by the bye, of course--a hideous temple of flint, like a great petrified haystack.... "other population than we have indicated, our watering-place has none. there are a few old used-up boatmen who creep about in the sunlight with the help of sticks, and there is a poor imbecile shoemaker who wanders his lonely life away among the rocks, as if he were looking for his reason--which he will never find. sojourners in neighbouring watering-places come occasionally in flys to stare at us, and drive away again. "... and since i have been idling at the window here, the tide has risen. the boats are dancing on the bubbling water: the colliers are afloat again; the white-bordered waves rush in; the children-- "'do chase the ebbing neptune, and do fly him when he comes back;' the radiant sails are gliding past the shore, and shining on the far horizon; all the sea is sparkling, heaving, swelling up with life and beauty, this bright morning." ("our watering-place.") another reference of dickens to the kent coast was in one of the _household words_ articles, entitled "out of season." the watering-place "out of season" was dover, and the place without a cliff was deal. writing to his wife of his stay there, he says: "i did nothing at dover (except for _household words_), and have not begun 'little dorrit,' no. , yet. but i took twenty-mile walks in the fresh air, and perhaps in the long run did better than if i had been at work." one can hardly think of deal or dover without calling to mind the french coast opposite, often, of a clear day, in plain view. in spite of dickens' intimacies with the land of his birth, he had also a fondness for foreign shores, as one infers from following the scope of his writings. of boulogne, he writes in "our french watering-place" (_household words_, november , ): "once solely known to us as a town with a very long street, beginning with an abattoir and ending with a steamboat, which it seemed our fate to behold only at daybreak on winter mornings, when (in the days before continental railroads), just sufficiently awake to know that we were most uncomfortably asleep, it was our destiny always to clatter through it, in the coupé of the diligence from paris, with a sea of mud behind, and a sea of tumbling waves before." an apt and true enough description that will be recognized by many. continuing, he says, also truly enough: "but our french watering-place, when it is once got into, is a very enjoyable place." to those to whom these racy descriptions appeal, it is suggested that they familiarize themselves with the "reprinted pieces," edited by charles dickens the younger, and published in new york in , a much more complete edition, with explanatory notes, than that which was issued in london. the river thames glide gently, thus for ever glide, o thames! that other bards may see as lovely visions by thy side as now, fair river! come to me. o glide, fair stream, for ever so, thy quiet soul on all bestowing, till all our minds for ever flow as thy deep waters now are flowing. wordsworth... ever present in the minds and hearts of the true londoner is the "majestic thames;" though, in truth, while it is a noble stream, it is not so all-powerful and mighty a river as romance would have us believe. from its source, down through the shires, past oxford, berks, and bucks, and finally between middlesex, surrey, and essex, it ambles slowly but with dignity. from oxford to henley and cookham, it is at its best and most charming stage. passing maidenhead, windsor, stains, richmond, twickenham, and hammersmith, and reaching putney bridge, it comes into london proper, after having journeyed on its gladsome way through green fields and sylvan banks for a matter of some hundred and thirty miles. at putney bridge and hammersmith is the centre of the fishing section, and this was the background depicted by the artist who drew the wrapper for the first serial issue of "the posthumous papers of the pickwick club." putney church is seen in the distance, with its henry viii. chapel, and in the foreground mr. pickwick is found dozing in his traditional punt,--that curious box, or coffin-like, affair, which, as a pleasure craft, is apparently indigenous to the thames. above this point the river is still: _... "the gentle thames_ _and the green, silent pastures yet remain."_ poets have sung its praises, and painters extolled its charms. to cite richmond alone, as a locality, is to call up memories of sir joshua reynolds, walpole, pope, thomson, and many others whose names are known and famed of letters and art. below, the work-a-day world has left its stains and its ineffaceable marks of industry and grime, though it is none the less a charming and fascinating river, even here in its lower reaches. and here, too, it has ever had its literary champions. was not taylor--"the water poet"--the prince of thames watermen?" if swans are characteristic of the upper reaches, the waterman or the bargeman, assuredly, is of the lower. with the advent of the railway,--which came into general use and effective development during dickens' day,--it was popularly supposed that the traffic of the "silent highway" would be immeasurably curtailed. doubtless it was, though the real fact is, that the interior water-ways of britain, and possibly other lands, are far behind "_la belle france_" in the control and development of this means of intercommunication. there was left on the thames, however, a very considerable traffic which--with due regard for vested rights, archaic by-laws and traditions, "customs of the port," and other limitations without number--gave, until very late years, a livelihood to a vast riverside population. the change in our day from what it was, even in the latter days of dickens' life, is very marked. new bridges--at least a half-dozen--have been built, two or three new tunnels, steam ferries,--of a sort,--and four railway bridges; thus the aspect of the surface of the river has perforce changed considerably, opening up new vistas and _ensembles_ formerly unthought of. coming to london proper, from "westminster" to the "tower," there is practically an inexhaustible store of reminiscence to be called upon, if one would seek to enumerate or picture the sights, scenes, and localities immortalized by even the authors contemporary with dickens. not all have been fictionists,--a word which is used in its well meant sense,--some have been chroniclers, like the late sir walter besant and joseph knight, whose contributions of historical résumé are of the utmost value. others are mere "antiquarians" or, if you prefer, historians, as the author of "london riverside churches." poets there have been, too, who have done their part in limning its charms, from wordsworth's "westminster bridge," on the west, written at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to "a white-bait dinner at greenwich," of peacock, or "the boy at the nore," of tom hood, on the east. when, in the forties, the new parliament houses were approaching their completed form, a new feature came into the prospect. as did wren, the architect of st. paul's, so did barry, the architect of the parliament buildings, come in for many rough attacks at the hands of statesmen or parliamentarians, who set their sails chiefly to catch a passing breath of popular applause, in order that they might provide for themselves a niche or a chapter in the history of this grand building. it was claimed that the flanking towers would mix inextricably with those of st. margaret's and the abbey; that were they omitted, the structure would be dwarfed by the aforesaid churches,--and much more of the same sort. in its present completed form, it is a very satisfying "tudor-gothic," or "gothic-tudor," building, admirably characteristic of the dignity and power which should be possessed by a great national administrative capitol. the worst defect, if such be noticeable among its vast array of excellencies, is the unfinished northerly, or up-river, façade. to recall a reminiscence of dickens' acquaintance with the locality, it may be mentioned that in milbank, hard by the houses of parliament, is church street, running to the river, where copperfield and peggotty followed martha, bent upon throwing herself into the flood. in dickens' time, that glorious thoroughfare, known of all present-day visitors to london, the victoria embankment, was in a way non-existent. in the forties there was some agitation for a new thoroughfare leading between the western and the eastern cities. two there were already, one along holborn, though the later improvement of the holborn viaduct more than trebled its efficiency, and the other, the "royal route,"--since the court gave up its annual state pageant by river,--_via_ the strand, fleet street, and ludgate hill. as originally projected, the "embankment" was to be but a mere causeway, or dyke, running parallel to the shore of the river from westminster bridge to blackfriars, "with ornamental junctions at hungerford and waterloo bridges." whatever the virtues of such a plan may have been, practically or artistically, it was ultimately changed in favour of a solid filling which should extend from the fore-shore to somewhat approximating the original river-banks. this left the famous "stairs" far inland, as stand york stairs and essex stairs to-day. the result has been that, while it has narrowed the river itself, it has made possible an ample roadway through the heart of a great city, the peer of which does not exist elsewhere. it is to be feared, though, that it is hardly appreciated. the london cabby appears to be fascinated with the glare and intricacy of the strand, and mostly the drivers of brewers' drays and parcel delivery vans the same. the result is that, but for a few earnest folk who are really desirous of getting to their destination quickly, it is hardly made use of to anything like the extent which it ought. the thames in london proper was, in , crossed by but six bridges. blackfriars railway bridge, charing cross railway bridge, and the tower bridge did not come into the _ensemble_ till later, though the two former were built during dickens' lifetime. westminster bridge, from whence the embankment starts, was the second erected across the thames. it appears that attempts were made to obtain another bridge over the thames besides that known as "london bridge," in the several reigns of elizabeth, james i., charles i. and ii., and george i.; but it was not until the year that parliament authorized the building of a second bridge, namely, that at westminster. prior to this date, the only communication between lambeth and westminster was by ferry-boat, near palace gate, the property of the archbishop of canterbury, to whom it was granted by patent under a rent of £ , as an equivalent for the loss of which, on the opening of the bridge, the see received the sum of £ , . in , amid great opposition from "the most worshipful company of watermen," the first stone was laid, and in the structure was completed, the plans having been changed _interim_ in favour of an entire stone structure. as it then stood westminster bridge was , feet long, or feet shorter than waterloo bridge; its width is feet, height, feet. the proportions of the bridge were stated by an antiquary, since departed this life, to be "so accurate that, if a person speak against the wall of any of the recesses on one side of the way, he may be distinctly heard on the opposite side; even a whisper is audible during the stillness of the night," a circumstance of itself of little import, one would think, but which is perhaps worth recording, as indicating the preciseness of a certain class of historians of the time. to-day it is to be feared that such details are accepted, if not with credulity, at least with indifference. this fine work not being equal to the demands which were made upon it, it gave way in to the present graceful and larger iron-spanned structure, which, while in no way a grand work of art, does not offend in any way. as the "embankment" passes charing cross railway bridge, we are reminded that this rather ugly structure, with its decidedly ungainly appendage in the form of a huge railway station, did not exist in dickens' day. instead there was a more or less graceful suspension bridge, known as hungerford bridge, which crossed the river from the lower end of hungerford market, now alas replaced by the aforesaid crude railway station, which, in spite of the indication of progress which it suggests, can hardly be an improvement on what existed on the same site some fifty years ago. hungerford market was a structure occupying much the same area as the present railway station; beside it was warren's blacking factory, where dickens, as a boy, tied up the pots of the darksome fluid. just below was "hungerford stairs," another of those riverside landing-places, and one which was perhaps more made use of than any other between blackfriars and westminster, its aristocratic neighbour, "york stairs," being but seldom used at that time. the latter, one of the few existing works of inigo jones, remains to-day, set about with greensward in the "embankment gardens," but hungerford stairs, like the market, and old hungerford bridge, has disappeared for ever. the present railway bridge is often referred to as hungerford bridge, by reason of the fact that a foot-bridge runs along its side, a proviso made when the former structure was permitted to be pulled down. of the old blacking factory, which must have stood on the present villiers street, nothing remains, nor of its "crazy old wharf, abutting on the water when the tide was out, and literally overrun by rats." on the st of may, , hungerford suspension bridge was opened to the public without ceremony, but with much interest and curiosity, for between noon and midnight , persons passed over it. hungerford was at that time the great focus of the thames steam navigation, the embarkation and landing exceeding two millions per annum. the bridge was the work of sir i. k. brunel, and was a fine specimen of engineering skill. there were three spans, the central one between the piers being feet, or feet more than the menai bridge, and second only to the span of the wire suspension bridge at fribourg, which is nearly feet. it was built without any scaffolding, with only a few ropes, and without any impediment to the navigation of the river. the entire cost of the bridge was £ , , raised by a public company. the bridge was taken down in , and the chains were carried to clifton for the suspension bridge erecting there. the bridge of the south eastern railway at charing cross occupies the site of the old hungerford bridge. many novelists, philanthropists, and newspaper writers have dwelt largely upon the horrors of a series of subterranean chambers, extending beneath the adelphi terrace in the west strand, and locally and popularly known as the "adelphi arches." to this day they are a forbidding, cavernous black hole, suggestive of nothing if not the horrors of thievery, or even murder. they are, however, so well guarded by three policemen on "fixed point" duty that at night there is probably no more safe locality in all london than the former unsavoury neighbourhood, a statement that is herein confidently made by the writer, as based on a daily and nightly acquaintance with the locality of some years. coupled in association with dickens' reference to having played round about during his boyhood, while living in lant street, and working in warren's blacking factory, only two blocks away in villiers street, is also the memory of david copperfield's strange liking for these "dark arches." originally these yawning crevices were constructed as a foundation for the "adelphi terrace," the home of the savage club, and of garrick at one time, and now overlooking the "embankment gardens," though formerly overhanging the actual river-bank itself. what wonder that these catacomb-like vaults should have been so ghostly reminiscent and suggestive of the terrors associated with the "jack shepards" and "jonathan wilds," whose successors lived in dickens' day. one very great reality in connection with its unsavoury reputation is the tunnel-like opening leading strandward. through this exit was the back door of a notorious "coffee and gambling house," like enough the "little, dirty, tumble-down public house" hard by hungerford stairs, where the micawbers located just before emigrating, and referred to by dickens in "david copperfield." through this door persons of too confiding a disposition were lured by thieves and blacklegs, drugged, swindled, and thrown out bodily into the darksome tunnel to recover, if they returned to consciousness before discovered by the police, their dazed and befuddled wits as best they might. "the adelphi" itself is one of those lovable backwaters of a london artery, which has only just escaped spoliation at the hands of the improver. a few months since it was proposed to raze and level off the whole neighbourhood as a site for the municipal offices of the corporation of the county council, but wire-pulling, influence, or what not, turned the current in another direction, and to-day there is left in all its original and winsome glory the famous adelphi, planned and built by the brothers adam, as a sort of acropolis as a site for institutions of learning and culture. in dickens' time, though the "embankment" was taking form, it lacked many of those adornments which to-day place it as one of the world's great thoroughfares. immediately opposite on the fore-shore of the river is the egyptian obelisk, one of the trio of which another is in the place de la concord at paris, and the other in central park, new york. here it was transferred to a new environment, and since the seventies this pictured monolith of a former civilization has stood amid its uncontemporary surroundings, battered more sorely by thirty years of london's wind and weather than by its ages of african sunshine. "billingsgate" was one of the earliest water-gates of london, the first on the site having been built in the year b. c., and named after belin, king of the britons. the present "billingsgate market" is a structure completed in . since london's only _entrepot_ for the edible finny tribe has been here, with certain rights vested in the ancient "guild of fishmongers," without cognizance of which it would not be possible to "obtain by purchase any fish for food." [illustration: billingsgate.] a stage floats in the river off the market, beside which float all manner of craft, from the humble wherry to the ostentatious puffy little steamers who collect the cargoes of the north sea fleet and rush them to market against all competitors. the market opens at five a. m., summer and winter. moored to a buoy, a short distance from the shore, are always to be found one or more dutch fishing-boats, certain inalienable rights permitting "no more than three" to be at any or all times tied up here. there is among the native watermen themselves a guarded jealousy and contempt for these "furriners," and should the cable once be slipped, no other dutchman would ever again be allowed to pick it up. hence it is that by traditionary rights one or more of these curious stub-nosed, broad-beamed craft, like the dutch _haus-vrow_ herself, are always to be seen. the londoner found amusement at whitsun-tide in a visit to greenwich fair, then an expedition of far greater importance than in later years, the journey having to be made by road. the typical "fish dinner" of greenwich, as it obtained in the middle of the last century, was an extraordinary affair, perhaps the most curious repast which ever existed in the minds of a culinary genius, or a swindling hotel-keeper,--for that is about what they amounted to in the latter days of this popular function now thankfully past. many and varied courses of fish, beginning with the famous "whitebait," the "little silver stars" of the poet's fancy, more or less skilfully prepared, were followed by such gastronomic unconventions as "duck and peas," "beans and bacon," and "beef and yorkshire," all arranged with due regard for inculcating an insatiable and expensive thirst, which was only allayed at the highest prices known to the _bon vivant_ of a world-wide experience. for many years after dickens' death in , indeed, until quite recent years, with only occasional lapses, the "ministers of the crown" were wont to dine at greenwich, as a fitting _gargantuan_ orgy to the labours of a brain-racking session. as one who knows his london has said, you can get a much better fish dinner, as varied and much more attractive, in the neighbourhood of billingsgate, for the modest sum of two shillings. no mention of london riverside attractions can be made without enlarging somewhat upon the sordid and unsavoury (in more senses than one) limehouse hole and limehouse reach. redolent of much that is of the under world, these localities, with indeed those of all the waterside round about, have something of the fascination and glamour which surrounds a foreign clime itself. here in "brig place," evidently an imaginary neighbourhood, dickens placed the genial hook-armed cuttle, and he must not only have studied these types upon the spot, but must have been enamoured of the salty sentiment which pervades the whole region from the notorious ratcliffe highway on the north, now known by the more respectable name of st. george's street, made famous in the "uncommercial traveller," to the "stairs" near marshalsea on the south, where dickens used to stroll of a morning before he was allowed to visit his father in the prison, and imagine those "astonishing fictions about the wharves and the tower." it was at limehouse, too, that dickens' godfather, huffam, a rigger and sailmaker, lived, and with whom dickens was so fond, when a boy, of making excursions roundabout the "hole" and the "reach" with their "foul and furtive boats." returning westward one finds, adjoining somerset house, the famed waterloo bridge, great as to its utility and convenience, and splendid as to its appointments. "an exquisite combination of all that is most valuable in bridge architecture," wrote knight in ; called also by canova, whom of late it is become the custom to decry, the finest bridge in europe, and worth coming from rome to see. it is the masterwork of one john rennie, a scotch schoolmaster, and was completed in , and named after the decisive event achieved by his majesty's forces two years before. it has ever been the one short cut into south london from all the west central region, and is the continuation of the roadway across the strand--wellington street--intimately associated with dickens by the building which formerly contained the offices of _household words_ and the london chambers of dickens' later years. blackfriars bridge follows immediately after the temple gardens, but, unlike waterloo or the present london bridge, is a work so altered and disfigured from what the architect originally intended, as to be but a slummy perversion of an inanimate thing, which ought really to be essentially beautiful and elegant as useful. at this point was also the _embouchement_ of the "fleet," suggestive of irregular marriages and the fleet prison, wherein mr. pickwick "sat for his picture," and suffered other indignities. as dickens has said in the preface to "pickwick," "legal reforms have pared the claws by which a former public had suffered." the laws of imprisonment for debt have been altered, and the fleet prison pulled down. a little further on, up ludgate hill, though not really in the thames district, is the "old bailey," leading to "newgate," whereon was the attack of the gordon rioters so vividly described in chapter lxiv. of "barnaby rudge." the doorway which was battered down at the time is now in the possession of a london collector, and various other relics are continually finding their way into the salesroom since the entire structure was razed in . [illustration: london bridge.] southwark bridge, an ordinary enough structure of stone piers and iron arches, opened another thoroughfare to south london, between blackfriars and the incongruous and ugly pillar known as the monument, which marks the starting-point of the great fire of , and is situated on the northerly end of the real and only "london bridge" of the nursery rhyme. as recorded, it actually did fall down, as the result of an unusually high tide in . as the historian of london bridge has said, "a magnificent bridge is a durable expression of an ideal in art, whether it be a simple arch across an humble brook, or a mighty structure across a noble river." the history of london bridge is a lengthy account of itself, and the period with which we have to deal carries but a tithe of the lore which surrounds it from its birth. it was said by dion cassius that a bridge stood here in the reign of claudius, but so far into antiquity is this ( a. d.), that historians in general do not confirm it. what is commonly known as "old london bridge," with its houses, its shops, and its chapels, a good idea of which is obtained from the sixth plate of hogarth's "marriage á la mode," was a wonderfully impressive thing in its day, and would be even now, did its like exist. the structures which roofed the bridge over, as it were, were pulled down; and various reparations made from time to time preserved the old structure until, in , was begun the present structure, from the designs of rennie, who, however, died before the work was begun. it was opened by william iv. and queen adelaide in , and occupies a site two hundred or more feet further up the river than the structure which it replaced, the remains of which were left standing until . thus it is likely enough that dickens crossed and recrossed this famous storied bridge, many times and oft, when his family was living in lant street, in southwark, while the father of the family was languishing in the iron-barred marshalsea. as laurence sterne has truly said, "matter grows under one's hands. let no man say, 'come, i'll write a duodecimo.'" and so with such a swift-flowing itinerary as would follow the course of a river, it is difficult to get, within a reasonably small compass, any full résumé of the bordering topography of the thames. all is reminiscent, in one way or another, of any phase of london life in any era, and so having proceeded thus far on the voyage without foundering, one cannot but drop down with the tide, and so to open sea. below the metropolis of docks and moorings the river widens to meet the sea, so that any journey of observation must perforce be made upon its bosom rather than as a ramble along its banks. blackwall, with its iron-works; woolwich, with its arsenal; and greenwich, with its hospital and observatory, are all landmarks by which the traveller to london, by sea, takes his reckoning of _terra firma_. the shipping of the orient, the baltic, the continent, or the mere coaster, with that unique species of floating thing, the thames barge, all combine in an apparently inextricable tangle which only opens out in the estuary below gravesend, which, with its departed glory and general air of decay, is the real casting-off point of seagoing craft. here the "mud-pilot," as the river pilot is locally known, is dropped, and the "channel pilot" takes charge, and here last leave-takings are said and last messages left behind. opposite gravesend, from where dickens first set sail for america, is tilbury fort, a reminder of the glories of england's arms in the days of elizabeth. it may be said to be the real outpost of london. here passing from the "lower hope" into "sea reach," we fairly enter upon the estuary of the thames. here the river has rapidly expanded into an arm of the sea, having widened from two hundred and ninety yards at london bridge to perhaps four and a half miles at the "london stone" by yantlet creek, where the jurisdiction of the corporation of london ends. to the north the essex shore trends rapidly away toward yarmouth; to the south straight to the eastern end of the english channel, past the historic medway, with gad's hill place and higham. beyond is strood, rochester, chatham, maidstone, canterbury, and broadstairs, and with the latter place one takes leave, as it were, of england, dickens, and his personal and literary associations therewith. manners and customs london is not a single city, but rather a sequence or confederation of cities. in its multifarious districts there is not only a division of labour, but a classification of society--grade rising above grade, separate yet blended--"a mighty maze, but not without a plan." says one of her most able and observing historians, "were we not accustomed to the admirable order that prevails, we should wonder how it was preserved." the regular supply of the various food markets alone is a truly wonderful operation, including all the necessaries and, what the londoner himself supposes to be, all the luxuries of life. the method of distribution is truly astonishing, and only becomes less so to the liver in the midst of it all by reason of his varying degree of familiarity therewith. as to the means of sustenance, no less than livelihood, of a great mass of its population, that is equally a mystery. all among the lower classes are not fagins nor yet micawbers. how do the poor live who rise in the morning without a penny in their pockets? how do they manage to sell their labour before they can earn the means of appeasing hunger? what are the contrivances on which they hit to carry on their humble traffic? these and similar questions are those which the economist and the city fathers not only have been obliged to heed, but have got still greater concern awaiting them ahead. poverty and its allied crime, not necessarily brutalized inherent criminal instinct, but crime nevertheless, are the questions which have got to be met broadly, boldly, and on the most liberal lines by those who are responsible for london's welfare. during the first half of the nineteenth century the economists will tell one that england's commercial industries stagnated, but perhaps the prodigious leaps which it was taking in the new competitive forces of the new world made this theory into a condition. in general, however, the tastes of the people were improving, and with the freedom of the newspaper press, and the spread of general literature, there came a desire for many elegancies and refinements hitherto disregarded. the foundation of the british museum in , by the purchase of the library and collection of sir hans sloane, and montagu house, gave an early impetus to the movement, which was again furthered when, in , george iii. presented a collection of egyptian antiquities, and in and were purchased the townley and elgin marbles respectively. the museum continued to increase until, in , when george iv. presented his father's library of sixty-five thousand volumes, montagu house was found to be quite inadequate for its purpose, and the present building, designed by sir robert smirke, and completed in , was erected on its site. in making this gift, the king said, "for the purpose of advancing the literature of his country, and as a just tribute to the memory of a parent whose life was adorned with every public and private virtue." the magnificent reading-room was not constructed until - , but it became a "felt want" from the time when george iv. made his valuable presentation to the museum. the great "reading age" was then only in its infancy. early in george iv. fell ill, and on the th of june he died. during his regency, although he himself had little to do with the matter, his name was associated with many splendid triumphs, by the marvellous progress of intellect, and by remarkable improvements in the liberal arts. with fine abilities and charming manners, england might have been proud of such a king, but he squandered his talents for his own gratification; alienated himself from all right-minded men; lived a disgraceful life, and died the subject of almost universal contempt. his epitaph has been written thus: "he was a bad son, a bad husband, a bad father, a bad subject, a bad monarch, and a bad friend." the memory of old london is in no way kept more lively than by the numerous city companies or guilds. established with a good purpose, they rendered useful enough service in their day, but within the last half-century their power and influence has waned, until to-day but three, of the eighty or more, are actually considered as trading companies,--the goldsmiths', the apothecaries' and the stationers'. the first companies, or fraternities, of anglo-saxon times gradually evolved themselves into the positive forms in which they have endured till to-day. just when this evolution came about is obscure. an extinct "knighten guild" was licensed by edgar, a reminiscence of which is supposed to exist to-day in nightingale lane, where the guild was known to have been located. the oldest of the city companies now existing is the weavers' company, having received its charter from henry ii. though licensed, these trade organizations were not incorporated until the reign of edward iii., who generously enrolled himself as a member of the merchant tailors. at this time it was ordained that all artificers should choose their trade, and, having chosen it, should practise no other; hence it was that these "guilds" grew to such a position of wealth and influence, the ancient prototype, doubtless, of the modern "labour unions." the twelve great city companies, whose governors ride about in the lord mayor's procession of the th of november of each year, are, in order of precedence, ranked as follows: mercers, grocers, drapers, fishmongers, goldsmiths, skinners, merchant tailors, haberdashers, salters, ironmongers, vintners, cloth-workers. allied with these are eighty odd other companies divided into three classes: i. those exercising a control over their trades: goldsmiths, apothecaries. ii. those exercising the right of search or marking of wares: the stationers, at whose "hall" must be entered all books for copyright; the gunmakers, who "prove" all london-made guns; saddlers, pewterers, and plumbers. iii. companies into which persons carrying on certain occupations are compelled to enter: apothecaries, brewers, builders, etc. the "halls," as they are called, are for the most part extensive quadrangular buildings with a courtyard in the centre. the most pretentious, from an architectural point of view, are goldsmiths' hall in foster lane, and ironmongers' hall in fenchurch street. fishmongers' hall, at the northwest angle of london bridge, built in , is a handsome structure after the greek order, with a fine dining-room. the merchant tailors' hall, in threadneedle street, has a wonderful banquet-room, with portraits of most of the kings of england, since henry viii., adorning its walls. stationers' hall will perhaps be of the greatest interest to readers of this book. all who have to do with letters have a certain regard for the mysticism which circles around the words, "entered at stationers' hall." the stationers' company was incorporated in ; it exercised a virtual monopoly of printing almanacs under a charter of james i. until , when the judges of the court of common pleas decided that their professed patent of monopoly was worthless, the crown having no power to grant any such exclusive right. doubtless many another archaic statute is of a like invalidity did but some protestful person choose to take issue therewith. the number of freemen of the company is about , ; that of the livery about . printers were formerly obliged to be apprenticed to a member of the company, and all publications for copyright must be entered at their hall. the register of the works so entered for publication commenced from , and is valuable for the light it throws on many points of literary history. the copyright act imposes on the company the additional duty of registering all assignments of copyrights. the charities of the company are numerous. in dickens' time almanac day (november d) was a busy day at the hall, but the great interest in this species of astrological superstition has waned, and, generally speaking, this day, like all others, is of great quietude and repose in these noble halls, where bewhiskered functionaries amble slowly through the routine in which blue paper documents with bright orange coloured stamps form the only note of liveliness in the entire _ensemble_. the goldsmiths' company assays all the gold and silver plate manufactured in the metropolis, and stamps it with the "hall-mark," which varies each year, so it is thus possible to tell exactly the year in which any piece of london plate was produced. the out-of-door amusements of society were at this time, as now, made much of. the turf, cricket, and riding to hounds being those functions which took the londoner far afield. nearer at home were the charms of richmond, with its river, and the star and garter, and the great regatta at henley, distinctly an affair of the younger element. tea-gardens, once highly popular, had fallen into disrepute so far as "society" was concerned. bagnigge wells, merlin's cave, the london spa, marylebone gardens, cromwell's gardens, jenny's whim, were all tea-gardens, with recesses, and avenues, and alcoves for love-making and tea-drinking, where an orchestra discoursed sweet music or an organ served as a substitute. an intelligent foreigner, who had published an account of his impressions of england, remarked: "the english take a great delight in the public gardens, near the metropolis, where they assemble and drink tea together in the open air. the number of these in the capital is amazing, and the order, regularity, neatness, and even elegance of them are truly admirable. they are, however, very rarely frequented by people of fashion; but the middle and lower ranks go there often, and seem much delighted with the music of an organ, which is usually played in an adjoining building." vauxhall, the _arabia felix_ of the youth of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was still a fashionable resort, "a very pandemonium of society immorality," says a historian. this can well be believed if the many stories current concerning "prince, duke, and noble, and much mob besides," are accepted. "_here the 'prentice from aldgate may ogle a toast!_ _here his worship must elbow the knight of the post!_ _for the wicket is free to the great and the small;--_ _sing_ tantarara--_vauxhall! vauxhall!_" the first authentic notice of vauxhall gardens appears in the record of the duchy of cornwall in , when for two hundred years, through the changes of successive ages, there was conducted a round of gaiety and abandon unlike any other anglo-saxon institution. open, generally, only during the summer months, the entertainment varied from vocal and instrumental music to acrobats, "burlettas," "promenades," and other attractions of a more intellectual nature, and, it is to be feared, likewise of a lesser as well. the exhibition usually wound up with a display of fireworks, set off at midnight. from to the gardens were at the very height of their later festivity, but during the next decade they finally sank into insignificance, and at last flickered out in favour of the more staid and sad amusements of the later victorian period. as for the indoor pleasures of society at this time, there were the theatre, the opera, and the concert-room. dining at a popular restaurant or a gigantic hotel had not been thought of. there were, to be sure, the "assembly-rooms" and the "supper-rooms," but there were many more establishments which catered to the pleasures of the masculine mind and taste than provided a fare of food and amusement which was acceptable to the feminine palate. of the men's clubs, brookes' and white's had long been established, and, though of the proprietary order, were sufficiently attractive and exclusive to have become very popular and highly successful. the other class were those establishments which fulfil the true spirit and province of a club,--where an association of gentlemen join together in the expense of furnishing accommodation of refreshment and reading and lounging rooms. this was the basis on which the most ambitious clubs were founded; what they have degenerated into, in some instances, would defy even a rash man to attempt to diagnose, though many are still run on the conservative lines which do not open their doors to strangers, even on introduction, as with the famous athenæum club. other clubs, whose names were already familiar in the london of dickens' day, were the carleton, conservative, reform, university, and perhaps a score of others. as is well known, dickens was an inordinate lover of the drama, a patron of the theatre himself, and an amateur actor of no mean capabilities. as early as he had written an operetta, "the village coquettes," which he had dedicated to harley. it was performed, for the first time, on december , , at the st. james' theatre. a london collector possesses the original "hand-bill," announcing a performance of "used up" and "mr. nightingale's diary," at the philharmonic hall, liverpool, in , in which dickens, sir john tenniel, and mark lemon took part; also a playbill of the performance of "the frozen deep," at the "gallery of illustration," on regent street, on july , , "by charles dickens and his amateur company before queen victoria and the royal family." the painting ( ) by c. r. leslie, r. a., of dickens as captain boabdil, in ben jonson's play of "every man in his humour," is familiar to all dickens lovers. the theatres of london, during the later years of dickens' life, may be divided into two classes: those which were under "royal patronage," and those more or less independent theatres which, if ever visited by royalty, were favoured with more or less unexpected and infrequent visits. of the first class, where the aristocracy, and the royal family as well, were pretty sure to be found at all important performances, the most notable were "her majesty's," "the royal italian opera house," "the theatre royal, drury lane." of the latter class, the most famous--and who shall not say the most deservedly so--were the "haymarket theatre," "the adelphi," "the lyceum," and the "st. james' theatre." [illustration: "going to the pantomime." _from a drawing by john leech._] "her majesty's theatre," on the western side of the haymarket, was the original of the two italian opera-houses in london; it was built in , on the site of an older theatre, burnt down in , and rebuilt in . the freehold of some of the boxes was sold for as much as £ , each. the opera season was generally from march to august; but the main attractions and the largest audiences were found from may to july. the "royal italian opera house" occupied the site of the former covent garden theatre, as it does to-day, and was built in on the ruins of one destroyed by fire. the building is very remarkable, both within and without. italian opera was produced here with a completeness scarcely paralleled in europe. when not required for italian operas, the building was often occupied by an "english opera company," or occasionally for miscellaneous concerts. the "floral hall" adjoins this theatre on the covent garden side. "drury lane theatre," the fourth on the same site, was built in ; its glories live in the past, for the legitimate drama now alternates there with entertainments of a more spectacular and melodramatic character, and the christmas pantomimes, that purely indigenous english institution. the "haymarket theatre," exactly opposite "her majesty's," was built in ; under mr. buckstone's management, comedy and farce were chiefly performed. the "adelphi theatre," in the strand, near southampton street, was rebuilt in , when it had for a quarter of a century been celebrated for melodramas, and for the attractiveness of its comic actors. the "lyceum theatre," or "english opera house," at the corner of wellington street, strand, was built in as an english opera-house, but its fortunes were fluctuating, and the performances not of a definite kind. this was the house latterly taken over by sir henry irving. the "princess' theatre," on the north side of oxford street, was built in ; after a few years of opera and miscellaneous dramas, it became the scene of mr. charles kean's shakespearian revivals, and now resembles most of the other theatres. "st. james' theatre," in king street, st. james', was built for braham, the celebrated singer. "the olympic" was a small house in wych street, drury lane, now destroyed. "the strand theatre" was famous for its burlesque extravaganzas, a form of theatrical amusement which of late has become exceedingly popular. the "new globe theatre" (destroyed so late as ) and "the gaiety" (at the stage entrance of which are the old offices of _good words_, so frequently made use of by dickens in the later years of his life), and "the vaudeville," were given over to musical comedy and farce. "the adelphi," though newly constructed at that time, was then, as now, the home of melodrama. others still recognized as popular and prosperous houses were "the court theatre," sloane square; "the royalty," in soho; "the queen's," in longacre; "the prince of wales'," in tottenham street, formerly the tottenham theatre. robertson's comedies of "caste," "our boys," etc., were favourite pieces there. "sadler's wells," "marylebone theatre," "the brittania," at hoxton, "the standard," in shoreditch, and "the pavilion," in whitechapel, were all notable for size and popularity, albeit those latterly mentioned were of a cheaper class. south of the river were "astley's," an old amphitheatre, "the surrey theatre," and "the victoria." at this time ( ) it was estimated that four thousand persons were employed in london theatres, supporting twelve thousand persons. the public expenditure thereon was estimated at £ , annually. of "concert rooms," there were "exeter hall," "st. james' hall," "hanover square rooms," "floral hall," connected with the covent garden opera, "willis' rooms," and the "queen's concert rooms," connected with "her majesty's theatre." here were given the performances of such organizations as "the sacred harmonic society," "the philharmonic society," "the musical union," and the "glee and madrigal societies," "the beethoven society," and others. "entertainments," an indefinite and mysterious word, something akin to the _olla podrida_ of sunny spain, abounded. usually they were a sort of musical or sketch entertainment, thoroughly innocuous, and, while attaining a certain amount of popularity and presumably success to their projectors, were of a nature only amusing to the completely ennuied or juvenile temperament. readings by various persons, more or less celebrated, not forgetting the name of dickens, attracted, properly enough, huge crowds, who were willing to pay high prices to hear a popular author interpret his works. a species of lion-taming, which, if not exactly exciting, is harmless and withal edifying. the last two varieties of entertainment usually took place in the "egyptian hall," in piccadilly, "st. james' hall," or "the gallery of illustration" in regent street. of miscellaneous amusements, appealing rather more to the middle class than the actual society element,--if one really knows what species of human being actually makes up that vague body,--were such attractions as were offered by "madame tussaud's waxwork exhibition," which suggests at once to the lover of dickens mrs. jarley's similar establishment, and such industrial exhibitions as took place from time to time, the most important of the period of which this book treats being, of course, the first great international exhibition, held in hyde park in . further down the social scale the amusements were a variation only of degree, not of kind. the lower classes had their coffee-shops and, supposedly, in some degree the gin-palaces, which however, mostly existed in the picturesque vocabulary of the "smug" reformer. the tavern, the chop-house, and the dining-room were variants only of the "assembly-rooms," the "clubs," and the grand establishments of the upper circles, and in a way performed the same function,--provided entertainment for mankind. as for amusements pure and simple, there was the "music-hall," which, quoting a mid-victorian writer, was a place where held forth a "_species of musical performance, a singular compound of poor foreign music, but indifferently executed, and interspersed with comic songs of a most extravagant kind, to which is added or interpolated what the performers please to term 'nigger' dances, athletic and rope-dancing feats, the whole accompanied by much drinking and smoking_." which will pass as a good enough description to apply to certain establishments of this class to-day, but which, in reality, loses considerable of its force by reason of its slurring resentment of what was in a way an invasion of a foreign custom which might be expected, sooner or later, to crowd out the conventional and sad amusements which in the main held forth, and which in a measure has since taken place. the only bearing that the matter has to the subject of this book is that some large numbers of the great public which, between sunset and its sleeping hours, must perforce be amused in some way, is to-day, as in days gone by, none too particular as to what means are taken to accomplish it. there is a definite species of depravity which is supposed to be peculiarly the attribute of the lower classes. if it exists at all to-day, it probably does lie with the lower classes, but contemporary opinion points to the fact that it was not alone in those days the lower classes who sought enjoyment from the cockpit, the dog fight, the prize ring, or the more ancient bull-baiting, all of which existed to some degree in the early nineteenth century. truly the influence of the georges on society, of whatever class, must have been cruelly debasing, and it was not to be expected that the early years of victoria's reign should have been able to eradicate it thoroughly, and though such desires may never be entirely abolished, they are, in the main, not publicly recognized or openly permitted to-day, a fact which is greatly to the credit of the improved taste of the age in which we live. formerly it was said that there was but one class of hotels in and near london of which the charges could be stated with any degree of precision. the _old_ hotels, both at the west end and in the city, kept no printed tariff, and were not accustomed even to be asked beforehand as to their charges. most of the visitors were more or less _recommended_ by guests who had already sojourned at these establishments, and who could give information as to what _they_ had paid. some of the hotels declined even to receive guests except by previous written application, or by direct introduction, and would rather be without those who would regard the bill with economical scrutiny. of these old-fashioned hotels,--barbarous relics of another day,--few are to be found now, and, though existing in reality, are being fast robbed of their _clientièle_, which demand something more in the way of conveniences--with no diminution of comforts--than it were possible to get in the two or three private houses thrown into one, and dubbed by the smugly respectable title of "private hotel." other establishments did exist, it is true, in dickens' time: "the golden cross" and "morley's," "haxell's," and others of such class, from which coaches still ran to near-by towns, and which houses catered principally for the country visitor or the avowed commercially inclined. but aside from these, and the exclusive and presumably extravagant class of smaller houses, represented by such names as "claridge's," "fenton's," "limner's," _et als._, there was no other accommodation except the "taverns" of masculine propensities of fleet street and the city generally. the great joint stock hotels, such as "the metropole," "the savoy," and "the cecil," did not come into being until well toward the end of dickens' life, if we except the excellent and convenient railway hotels, such as made their appearance a few years earlier, as "euston," "king's cross," and "victoria." the first of the really great modern _caravanserais_ are best represented by those now somewhat out-of-date establishments, the "westminster palace," "inns of court," "alexandra," and others of the same ilk, while such as the magnificently appointed group of hotels to be found in the west strand, northumberland avenue, or in pall mall were unthought of. the prevailing customs of an era, with respect to clubs, taverns, coffee-houses, etc., mark signally the spirit of the age. the taverns of london, properly so called, were, in the earliest days of their prime, distinguished, each, for its particular class of visitors. the wits and poets met at "will's" in covent garden, and the politicians at "st. james' coffee-house," from which steele often dated his _tatler_. later, in the forties, there were perhaps five hundred houses of entertainment, as distinguished from the ordinary "public house," or the more ambitious hotel. the "dining-rooms," "à la mode beef shops," and "chop-houses" abounded in the "city," and with unvarying monotony served four, six, or ninepenny "plates" with astonishing rapidity, quite rivalling in a way the modern "quick lunch." the waiter was usually servile, and in such places as the "cheshire cheese," "simpson's," and "thomas'," was and is still active. he was a species of humanity chiefly distinguished for a cryptogrammatic system of reckoning your account, and the possessor of as choice a crop of beneath-the-chin whiskers as ever graced a galway or a county antrim squireen. the london city waiter, as distinguished from his brethren of the west end, who are most teutonic, is a unique character. here is leigh hunt's picture of one: "he has no feeling of noise; even a loaf with him is hardly a loaf; it is so many 'breads.' his longest speech is making out a bill _viva voce_,--'two beefs, one potato, three ales, two wines, six and two pence.'" a unique institution existed during the first quarter of the last century. some of dickens' characters, if not dickens himself, must have known something of the sort. charles knight tells of more than one establishment in the vicinity of the "royal exchange," where a sort of public _gridiron_ was kept always at hand, for broiling a chop or steak which had been bought by the customer himself at a neighbouring butcher's. for this service, the small sum of a penny was charged, the profit to the house probably arising from the sale of potable refreshments. the houses which were famous for "fine old cheese," "baked potatoes," "mutton or pork pies," "sheep's trotters," or "pig's faces," were mostly found, or, at least, were at their best, in the "city," though they formed an humble and non-fastidious method of purveying to the demands of hunger, in that the establishments catered, more particularly, to the economically inclined, or even the poorer element of city workers. the rise from these city eating-houses to the more ambitiously expensive caterers of the "west end" was gradual. prices and the appointments increased as one journeyed westward through fleet street, the strand, to piccadilly and regent street. another institution peculiar to london, in its plan and scope at least, was the "coffee-house" of , evolved from those of an earlier generation, but performing, in a way, similar functions. at this time a "house of commons committee of inquiry into the operation of import duties"--as was its stupendous title--elicited some remarkable facts concerning the fast increasing number of "coffee-houses," which had grown from ten or twelve to eighteen hundred in twenty-five years. one pamphilon, who appears to have been the most successful, catering to five hundred or more persons per day, gave evidence to the effect that his house was frequented mostly by "lawyers, clerks, and commercial men, some of them managing clerks, many solicitors, and highly respectable gentlemen, who take coffee in the middle of the day in preference to a more stimulating drink ... at the present moment, besides a great number of newspapers every day, i am compelled to take in an increasing number of high-class periodicals.... _i find there is an increasing demand for a better class of reading._" and thus we see, at that day, even as before and since, a very intimate relation between good living and good reading. the practical person, the wary pedant, and the supercritical will scoff at this, but let it stand. the "cigar divans" and "chess rooms" were modifications, in a way, of the "coffee-house," though serving mainly evening refreshment, coffee and a "fine havana" being ample for the needs of him who would ponder three or four hours over a game of chess. of the stilly night, there was another class of peripatetic caterers, the "sandwich man," the "baked 'tato man," the old women who served "hot coffee" to coachmen, and the more ambitious "coffee-stall," which must have been the progenitor of the "owl lunch" wagons of the united states. the baked potato man was of victorian growth, and speedily became a recognized and popular functionary of his kind. his apparatus was not cumbrous, and was gaudy with brightly polished copper, and a headlight that flared like that of a modern locomotive. he sprang into being somewhere in the neighbourhood of st. george's fields, near "guy's," lant street, and marshalsea of dickenesque renown, and soon spread his operations to every part of london. the food supply of london and such social and economic problems as arise out of it are usually ignored by the mere guide-book, and, like enough, it will be assumed by many to have little to do with the purport of a volume such as the present. as a matter of fact, in one way or another, it has a great deal to do with the life of the day, using the word in its broadest sense. england, as is well recognized by all, is wholly subservient to the conditions of trade, so far as edible commodities are concerned, throughout the world. its beef, its corn, and its flour mainly come from america. its teas, coffees, and spices mostly from other foreign nations, until latterly, when india and ceylon have come to the fore with regard to the first named of these. its mutton from new zealand or australia, and even potatoes from france, butter and eggs from denmark and brittany, until one is inclined to wonder what species of food product is really indigenous to britain. at any rate, london is a vast _caravanserai_ which has daily to be fed and clothed with supplies brought from the outer world. in spite of the world-wide fame of the great markets of "covent garden," "smithfield," and "billingsgate," london is wofully deficient in those intermediaries between the wholesaler and the consumer, the public market, as it exists in most continental cities and in america. an article in the _quarterly review_, in dickens' day,--and it may be inferred things have only changed to a degree since that time,--illustrated, in a whimsical way, the vastness of the supply system. the following is described as the supply of meat, poultry, bread, and beer, for one year: miles of oxen, abreast; miles of sheep, do.; miles of calves, do.; miles of pigs, do.; acres of poultry, close together; miles of hares and rabbits, abreast; a pyramid of loaves of bread, feet square, and thrice the height of st. paul's; , columns of hogsheads of beer, each mile high. in mere bulk this perhaps does not convey the impression of large figures, but it is certainly very expressive to imagine, for instance, that one has to eat his way through miles of oxen. the _water_ used in the metropolis was chiefly supplied by the thames, and by an artificial channel called the new river, which entered on the north side of the metropolis. the water is naturally good and soft. the spots at which it is raised from the thames used to be within the bounds of the metropolis, at no great distance from the mouths of common sewers; but it is now obtained from parts of the river much higher up, and undergoes a very extensive filtration, with which eight companies are concerned. the returns of the registrar-general showed that the average daily supply of water for all purposes to the london population, during august, , was , , gallons, of which it is estimated the supply for domestic purposes amounted to about , , gallons. the total number of houses fed was , . the metropolis draws its _coal_ supplies principally from the neighbourhood of newcastle, but largely also from certain inland counties, the import from the latter being by railway. newcastle coal is preferred. it arrives in vessels devoted exclusively to the trade; and so many and so excessive are the duties and profits affecting the article, that a ton of coal, which can be purchased at newcastle for _s._ or _s._, costs, to a consumer in london, from _s._ to _s._ the quantity of coal brought to london annually much exceeds , , tons, of which considerably more than , , come by railway. [illustration: smithfield market.] as for the markets themselves, "billingsgate," the great _depot_ for the distribution of fish, is described in that section devoted to the thames. "smithfield," is the great wholesale cattle market, while "leadenhall" market, in the very heart of the business world of london, is headquarters for poultry. a detailed description of "covent garden market," which deals with vegetables, fruits, and flowers only, must here suffice. covent garden market occupies a site which is exceedingly central to the metropolis. it was once the garden to the abbey and convent of westminster: hence the name _convent_ or _covent_. at the suppression of the religious houses in henry viii.'s reign, it devolved to the crown. edward vi. gave it to the duke of somerset; on his attainder it was granted to the earl of bedford, and in the russell family it has since remained. from a design of inigo jones, who built the banqueting-room at whitehall, the york water gate, and other architectural glories of london, it was intended to have surrounded it with a colonnade; but the north and a part of the east sides only were completed. the fruit and vegetable markets were rebuilt in - . the west side is occupied by the parish church of st. paul's, noticeable for its massive roof and portico. butler, author of "hudibras," lies in its graveyard, without a stone to mark the spot. in , however, a cenotaph was erected in his honour in westminster abbey. the election of members to serve in parliament for the city of westminster was formerly held in front of this church, the hustings for receiving the votes being temporary buildings. the south side is occupied by a row of brick dwellings. within this square thus enclosed the finest fruit and vegetables from home and foreign growers are exposed for sale, cabbages and carrots from essex and surrey, tomatoes and asparagus from france and spain, oranges from seville and jaffa, pines from singapore, and bananas from the west indies, not forgetting the humble but necessary potato from jersey, guernsey, or brittany. a large paved space surrounding the interior square is occupied by the market-gardeners, who, as early as four or five in the morning, have carted the produce of their grounds, and wait to dispose of it to dealers in fruit and vegetables residing in different parts of london; any remainder is sold to persons who have standings in the market. within this paved space rows of shops are conveniently arranged for the display of the choicest fruits of the season: the productions of the forcing-house, and the results of horticultural skill, appear in all their beauty. there are also conservatories, in which every beauty of the flower-garden may be obtained, from the rare exotic to the simplest native flower. the floral hall, close to covent garden opera house, has an entrance from the northeast corner of the market, to which it is a sort of appendage, and to the theatre. balls, concerts, etc., are occasionally given here. the farringdon, borough, portman, spitalfields, and other vegetable markets, are small imitations of that at covent garden. the greater part of the _corn_, meaning, in this case, _wheat_, as well as maize, as indian corn is known throughout great britain, used for bread and other purposes in the metropolis, is sold by corn-factors at the corn exchange, mark lane; but the corn itself is not taken to that place. enormous quantities of flour are also brought in, having been ground at mills in the country and in foreign parts. the _beer_ and _ale_ consumed in the metropolis is, of course, vast in quantity, beyond comprehension to the layman. if one could obtain admission to one of the long-standing establishments of messrs. barclay & perkins or truman & hanbury, whose names are more than familiar to all who travel london streets, he would there see vessels and operations astonishing for their magnitude--bins that are filled with , quarters of malt every week; brewing-rooms nearly as large as westminster hall; fermenting vessels holding , barrels each; a beer-tank large enough to float an up-river steamer; vats containing , gallons each; and , casks. past and present the american is keenly alive to all the natural and added beauties of english life, and even more so of london. he does not like to have his ideals dispelled, or to find that some shrine at which he would worship has disappeared for ever, like some "solemn vision and bright silver dream," as becomes a minstrel. for him are the traditions and associations, the sights and sounds, which, as he justly says, have no meaning or no existence for the "fashionable lounger" and the "casual passenger." "the barbican does not to every one summon the austere memory of milton; nor holborn raise the melancholy shade of chatterton; nor tower hill arouse the gloomy ghost of otway; nor hampstead lure forth the sunny figure of steele and the passionate face of keats; nor old northumberland street suggest the burly presence of 'rare ben jonson;' nor opulent kensington revive the stately head of addison; nor a certain window in wellington street reveal in fancy's picture the rugged lineaments and splendid eyes of dickens." but to the true pilgrim london speaks like the diapason of a great organ. "he stands amid achievements that are finished, careers that are consummated, great deeds that are done, great memories that are immortal; he views and comprehends the sum of all that is possible to human thought, passion, and labour, and then--high over mighty london, above the dome of st. paul's cathedral, piercing the clouds, greeting the sun, drawing unto itself all the tremendous life of the great city and all the meaning of its past and present--the golden cross of christ." the regular old-fashioned coaches of london were from the first to third quarters of the nineteenth century supplanted by the ark-like omnibus, which even till to-day rumbles roughly through london streets. most of the places within twenty miles of the metropolis, on every side, were thus supplied with the new means of transportation. the first omnibus was started by mr. shillibeer, from paddington to the bank, july , . from this time to th june, ,--the number of such vehicles licensed in the metropolitan district was , . every omnibus and hackney-carriage within the metropolitan district and the city of london, and the liberties thereof, has to take out a yearly license, in full force for one year, unless revoked or suspended; and all such licenses are to be granted by the commissioners of police, whose officers are constantly inspecting these public vehicles. generally speaking, each omnibus travels over the same route, and exactly the same number of times, day after day, with the exception of some few of the omnibuses which go longer journeys than the rest, and run not quite so often in winter as in summer. hence the former class of omnibus comes to be associated with a particular route. it is known to the passengers by its colour, the name of its owner, the name given to the omnibus itself, or the places to and from which it runs, according to circumstances. the greater portion are now the property of the london general omnibus company. the designations given to the omnibuses are generally given on the front in large letters. at least so it is written in the guide-book. as a matter of fact, the stranger will be fortunate if he can figure out their destination from the mass of hoardings announcing the respective virtues of venus soap and nestlés' milk. to the londoner this is probably obvious, in which case the virtues of this specific form of advertising might be expected to be considerably curtailed. one who was curious of inspecting contrasting elements might have done worse than to take an outside "garden seat" on a stratford and bow omnibus, at oxford circus, and riding--for sixpence all the way--_via_ regent street, pall mall, trafalgar square, strand, fleet street, st. paul's, past the mansion house and the bank, royal exchange, cornhill, leadenhall street, aldgate, whitechapel road, mile end, to stratford. the convenient, if ungraceful, cab had completely superseded the old pair-horse hackney-coaches in london in general use previous to . according to the returns of the day, there were , of the modern single-horse hackney-coaches in the metropolis altogether, of two different kinds, "four-wheelers" and "hansoms," which took their name from the patentee. the "four-wheelers" are the more numerous; they have two seats and two doors; they carry four persons, and are entirely enclosed. the "hansoms" have seating capacity for but two, and, though convenient and handy beyond any other wheeled thing until the coming of the automobile, the gondola of london was undeniably dangerous to the occupant, and ugly withal, two strongly mitigating features. of the great event of dickens' day, which took place in london, none was greater or more characteristic of the devotion of the british people to the memory of a popular hero than the grand military funeral of the right honourable field marshal arthur wellesley, duke of wellington (november, ). certainly no military pageant of former times--save, possibly, the second funeral of napoleon--was so immeasurably of, and for, the people. by this time most of the truly great of england's roll of fame had succumbed, died, and were buried with more or less ostentation or sincere display of emotion, but it remained for wellington--a popular hero of fifty years' standing--to outrival all others in the love of the people for him and his works. he died at walmer castle on the kent coast. [illustration: interior of st. paul's cathedral during the duke of wellington's funeral.] his body lay there in state, at chelsea hospital and in st. paul's cathedral, before it was finally laid to rest in the marble sarcophagus which is seen to-day in the same edifice. with nelson, nay, more than nelson, he shares the fervid admiration of the briton for a great warrior. disraeli's eulogium in the house of commons appears to have been the one false note of sincerity in all the pæan that went forth, and even this might perhaps have survived an explanation had beaconsfield chosen to make one. certainly racial opposition to this great statesman had a great deal to do with the cheap denunciation which was heaped upon his head because he had made use of the words of another eulogist, a frenchman, upon the death of one of his own countrymen; "a second-rate french marshal," the press had called him, one marshal de st. cyr. it was unfortunate that such a forceful expression as this was given second-hand: _"a great general must not only think, but think with the rapidity of lightning, to be able to fulfil the highest duty of a minister of state, and to descend, if need be, to the humble office of a commissary and a clerk; must be able, too, to think with equal vigour, depth, and clearness, in the cabinet or amidst the noise of bullets. this is the loftiest exercise and most complete triumph of human faculties."_ all this, and much more, is absolutely authenticated as having been uttered by m. thiers twenty years before the occasion referred to. it is perhaps true that the great wellington deserved better than this second-hand eulogy, and perhaps right that there should have been resentment, but further comment thereon must be omitted here, save that the incident is recorded as one of those events of an age which may well be included when treating of their contemporary happenings. no account of the london of any past era could ignore mention of those great civic events, occurring on the th november in each year, and locally known as "lord mayor's day," being the occasion on which that functionary enters into his term of office. as a pageant, it is to-day somewhat out of date, and withal, tawdry, but as a memory of much splendour in the past, it is supposedly continued as one of those institutions which the briton is wont to expect through tradition and custom. perhaps the following glowing account of one of these gorgeous ceremonies, when the water pageant was still in vogue, written by an unknown journalist, or "pressman," as he is rather enigmatically called in london, in , will serve to best describe the annually recurring event of pride and glory to your real cockney. lord mayor's day "'oh! such a day so renown'd and victorious, sure such a day was never seen-- city so gay, and cits so uproarious, as tho' such sight had never been! "'all hail! november-- though no _hail_ to-day (at least that we remember), hath pav'd the way his civic majesty hath will'd to go, and swore he'd _go_ it 'spite hail, rain, or snow! he takes to _water_ for an _airing_, before perhaps he dines with baring or sees the waiter, so alert, place the fav'rite _patties-on_ the table near him--knave expert to make the most of "what is on!" by this we mean, what's most in season, to say no more we have a reason!' --_anon._ "since the first mayoralty procession, in the year , probably there have been few finer pageants than that of thursday last, when the november sun even gilded with his beams the somewhat tarnished splendour of the city state. "according to annual custom, the new lord mayor (alderman magnay) was sworn into his office of chief magistrate of the city of london, at the guildhall. "being a member of the stationers' company, the master, wardens, and court of assistants of that company proceeded to mansion house, where they were met by the new lord mayor and his sheriffs. after a sumptuous _déjeûner à la fourchette_, the whole of the civic dignitaries proceeded to the guildhall. "the next day the various officials assembled at the guildhall, and, the procession being formed, proceeded thence through king street, cateaton street, moorgate street, london wall, broad street, threadneedle street, mansion house street, poultry, cheapside, and queen street, to southwark bridge, where his lordship embarked at the floating pier for westminster. this somewhat unusual arrangement arose from the new lord mayor being the alderman of vintry ward, wherein the bridge is situated, and his lordship being desirous that his constituents should witness the progress of the civic procession. the embarkation was a picturesque affair; the lord mayor's state barge, the watermen in their characteristic costume, and the lord mayor and his party were, in civic phrase, 'taking water.' "the novelty of the point of embarkation drew clustering crowds upon the bridge and the adjoining river banks. there were the usual waterside rejoicings, as the firing of guns, streaming flags, and hearty cheers; and the water procession had all the festal gaiety with which we have been wont to associate it in the past. the scene was very animating, the river being thickly covered with boats of various descriptions, as well as with no less than seven state barges, filled inside and outside with the livery belonging to the city companies, and all anxiously awaiting the word of command to proceed onward to westminster. the sun shone resplendently upon the flags and banners studding the tops of the barges, and the wharfs near the spot all exhibited similar emblems. as the new lord mayor entered the city barge, and was recognized, the air was rent with the most deafening shouts of applause, which his lordship gracefully acknowledged by repeatedly bowing to the assembled thousands. the aquatic procession now left the pier, the city barge being accompanied by the stationers, fishmongers, goldsmiths, wax chandlers, and ironmongers' companies, in their respective state barges. "on arrival at westminster, the lord mayor and civic authorities having landed, they walked in procession to the court of exchequer, where a large number of ladies and gentlemen awaited their arrival. having been introduced to the chief baron by the recorder, who briefly stated the qualifications of alderman magnay for his important office of chief magistrate, and the learned baron having eloquently replied, the new lord mayor invited his lordship to the inauguration dinner, and afterward proceeded to the other courts, inviting the judge of each court to the same. "his lordship and the various officials then reëmbarked in the state barge for blackfriars bridge, where the procession was re-formed and joined by the ambassadors, her majesty's ministers, the nobility, judges, members of parliament, and various other persons of distinction. the whole then moved through ludgate hill, st. paul's churchyard, cheapside, and down king street to the guildhall, where the inaugural entertainment was to be given. [illustration: lord mayor's procession, ascending ludgate hill.] "the plate given herein shows the return of the procession, just as the gorgeous state coach is about to wend its way up ludgate hill. the coach is, doubtless, the most imposing feature of the modern show, and has thus played its part for nearly fourscore years and ten. it is a piece of cumbrous magnificence, better assorting with the leisurely progress of other days than the notions of these progressive times. yet it is a sight which may have inspired many a city apprentice, and spurred him onward to become an 'honourable of the land;' it is, moreover, the very type of this 'red-letter day' in the city; and, costly as it is, with its disappearance, even portly aldermen will vanish into thin air. "the foremost group shows the lord mayor seated in the coach, attended by his chaplain, and the sword and mace-bearers, the former carrying--which has to be held outside the coach, be it observed; its stature is too great for it to find shelter inside--the pearl sword presented to the city by queen elizabeth, upon opening the royal exchange; the latter supporting the great gold mace given by charles i. the coach is attended by the lord mayor's beadles in their gold-laced cloaks, and carrying small maces. "onward are seen the other leading features of the procession; the crowd is truly dense, for at this point is the great crush of the day; 'the hill' is thronged, and the city police require all their good temper to 'keep the line.' the scene is exciting, and the good-humoured crowd presents many grotesque points for those who delight in studies of character. altogether, the scene is as joyous, if rather gaudy, picture of a civic holiday as the times could present." perhaps the greatest topographical change in the london of dickens' day was the opening, on november , , of the holborn viaduct. this improvement was nothing short of the actual demolition and reconstruction of a whole district, formerly either squalid, over-blocked, and dilapidated in some parts, or oversteep and dangerous to traffic in others. but a short time before that same holborn valley was one of the most heartbreaking impediments to horse traffic in london, with a gradient on one side of one in eighteen, while opposite it was one in twenty. thus everything on wheels, and every foot-passenger entering the city by the holborn route, had to descend twenty-six feet to the valley of the fleet, and then ascend a like number to newgate. the new viaduct levelled all this, and made the journey far easier than that by ludgate hill. the greatest architectural work which took shape in london during dickens' day was the construction of the new houses of parliament. associated intimately with dickens' first steps to success were the old buildings, which were burned in . here he received his first regular journalistic employment, as reporter for the _true sun_, an event which soon led to the acceptance of his writings elsewhere. some discussion has recently been rife in london concerning the name of the paper with which dickens had his first parliamentary employment. according to forster, dickens was in his twenty-third year when he became a reporter on the _morning chronicle_. at this time the _chronicle_ was edited by john black, who had conducted it ever since perry's death, and the office of the paper from june, , until it died in , was strand, opposite somerset house, a building pulled down under the strand improvement scheme. it had then been for nearly forty years--ever since the _chronicle_ vacated it, in fact--the office of another newspaper, the _weekly times and echo_. it may be worth while to add that dickens first entered "the gallery" at the age of nineteen, as reporter for the _true sun_, and that he afterward reported during two sessions for the _mirror of parliament_ before he joined the staff of the _morning chronicle_. the new houses of parliament form one of the grandest administrative piles of any city in the world, built though, it is feared, of a stone too soon likely to decay, and with a minuteness of gothic ornament which is perhaps somewhat out of keeping with a structure otherwise so massive. the house of peers is feet long, wide, and high. it is so profusely painted and gilt, and the windows are so darkened by deep-tinted stained glass, that it is with difficulty that the details can be observed. at the southern end is the gorgeously gilt and canopied throne; near the centre is the woolsack, on which the lord chancellor sits; at the end and sides are galleries for peeresses, reporters, and strangers; and on the floor of the house are the cushioned benches for the peers. two frescoes by david maclise--"the spirit of justice" and "the spirit of chivalry"--are over the strangers' gallery, as well as a half-dozen others by famous hands elsewhere. in niches between the windows and at the ends are eighteen statues of barons who signed magna charta. the house of commons, feet long, broad, and high, is much less elaborate than the house of peers. the speaker's chair is at the north end, and there are galleries along the sides and ends. in a gallery behind the speaker, the reporters for the newspapers sit. over which is the ladies' gallery, where the view is ungallantly obstructed by a grating. the present ceiling is many feet below the original one, the room having been to this extent spoiled because the former proportions were bad for hearing. [illustration: _plan of the houses of parliament, _] on the side nearest to westminster are st. stephen's porch, st. stephen's corridor, the chancellor's corridor, the victoria tower, the royal staircase, and numerous courts and corridors. at the south end, nearest millbank, are the guard room, the queen's robing-room, the royal gallery, the royal court, and the prince's chamber. the river front is mostly occupied by libraries and committee-rooms. the northern or bridge street end displays the clock tower and the speaker's residence. in the interior of the structure are vast numbers of lobbies, corridors, halls, and courts. the victoria tower, at the southwest angle of the entire structure, is a wonderfully fine and massive tower; it is feet square and feet high. the clock tower, at the north end, is feet square and feet high, profusely gilt near the top. after two attempts made to supply this tower with a bell of fourteen tons weight, and after both failed, one of the so-called "big bens," the weight of which is about eight tons (the official name being "st. stephen"), now tells the hour in deep tones. there are, likewise, eight smaller bells to chime the quarters. the clock is by far the largest and finest in england. there are four dials on the four faces of the tower, each - / feet in diameter; the hour figures are feet high and feet apart; the minute marks are inches apart; the hands weigh more than cwt. the pair; the minute hand is feet long, and the hour hand feet; the pendulum is feet long and weighs lbs. the central tower rises to a height of feet. its rooms and staircases are almost inconceivably numerous. the river front is nine hundred feet in length, with an elaborately decorated façade with carven statues and emblems. by the cost had exceeded by a considerable sum £ , , . the growth of the british museum and its ever increasing store of knowledge is treated elsewhere, but it is worth recording here, as one of the significant events of contemporary times, the opening of the present structure with its remarkable domed reading-room. this great national establishment contains a vast and constantly increasing collection of books, maps, drawings, prints, sculptures, antiquities, and natural curiosities. it occupies a most extensive suite of buildings in great russell street, bloomsbury, commenced in , and only finished during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. it has cost a sum little less than £ , , . sir richard smirke was the architect. the principal, or south front, feet long, presents a range of forty-four columns, with a majestic central portico, with a sculptured pediment. since its commencement, in , the collection has been prodigiously increased by gifts, bequests, and purchases; and now it is, perhaps, the largest of the kind in the world. the library contains more than eight hundred thousand volumes, and is increasing enormously in extent every year. the magnificent reading-room is open only to persons who proceed thither for study, or for consulting authorities. it was opened in , and built at a cost of £ , , and is one of the finest and most novel apartments in the world; it is circular, feet in diameter, and open to a dome-roof feet high, supported entirely without pillars. this beautiful room, and the fire-proof galleries for books which surround it, were planned by mr. panizzi, an italian and a former keeper of the printed books. in connection with the library proper is an equally vast collection of antiquities, etc., of which all guide-books and those publications issued by the museum authorities tell. the building was complete by , and for the last forty years has stood proudly in its commanding situation, the admiration of all who have come in contact therewith. what hampstead heath is to the coster, the crystal palace is to the middle-class londoner, who repairs there, or did in dickens' time, on every possible auspicious occasion. this structure itself, though it can hardly be called beautiful by the most charitably disposed, is in many respects one of the most remarkable in the world, and owes its existence to the great exhibition of in hyde park. the materials of that building, being sold to a new company toward the close of that year, were transferred to an elevated spot near sydenham, seven miles from town, to the south. the intention was to found a palace and park for the exhibition of art and science on a paying basis. the original estimate was £ , , but the expenditure was nearly £ , , , too great to assure a probable profitable return. the palace and grounds were opened in , the towers and fountains some time after. the building itself is , feet long and wide, and at the transept is nearly feet in height. exhibition-rooms, reading-rooms, restaurants, and a vast orchestral auditorium were included under one roof, with bazaars and small shops and stalls innumerable. the parks and garden were laid out to cover some two hundred acres, with terraces and fountains galore, the idea being to produce somewhat the effect as at versailles, with les grande and petite eaux, on "grand days" the fountains consuming over , , gallons. cricket, football, and sports of various kinds used to draw vast throngs to "the palace," and the firework displays at night were, and are to-day, justly celebrated. in short, this "cockney arcadia," if rather a tawdry attraction, has had the benefit of much honest admiration of the londoner, who perforce could not get farther afield for his holiday, and its like can hardly be said to exist elsewhere in europe or america. hence it must perforce rank in a way as something unique in present-day outdoor entertainment, as near as is left to us of those of the days of ranelegh and vauxhall. beloved of the clerk and shopkeeper, and altogether an attraction which few of their class appear to be able to resist for long at a time. london is no more the dread of the visitor who feared the ways that are dark and the tricks that are vain. london tricks are old as london's history, and from the days of chaucer the countryman's fear of london's vastness and the cheats practised by her nimble-witted rogues have passed into literature. in the year john lydgate sang the sorrows of a simple kentish wight, who found that, go where he would in london, he could not speed without money: "to london once, my stepps i bent, where trouth in no wyse shoulf be faynt; to westmynster ward i forthwith went, to a man of law to make complaynt. i sayd, 'for mary's love, that holy saynt! pity the poor that would proceede;' but for lack of mony i cold not spede." after going among the lawyers of king's bench, the flemings of westminster hall with their hats and spectacles, the cloth men and drapers of cheapside, and the butchers of eastcheap, poor lackpenny found that nowhere, without money, could he be sped in london. his final adventure and reflections were these: "then hyed i me to belynsgate; and one cryed 'hoo, go we hence!' i prayd a barge man for god's sake, that he wold spare me my expence. 'thou scapst not here,' quod he, 'under pence, i lyst not yet bestow my almes dede;' thus lacking mony i could not spede. "then i convayed me into kent; for of the law wold i meddle no more because no man to me tooke entent, i dyght me to do as i dyd before. now jesus that in bethlem was bore, save london, and send trew lawyers there mede, for who so wants mony with them shall not spede." again one might quote that old roxburghe ballad, "the great boobee," in which a country yokel is made to tell how he was made to look foolish when he resolved to plough no more, but to see the fashions of london: "now as i went along the street, i carried my hat in my hand, and to every one that i did meet i bravely bent my band. some did laugh, some did scoff, and some did mock at me, and some did say i was a woodcock, and a great boobee. "then i did walk in haste to paul's, the steeple for to view, because i heard some people say it should be builded new. when i got up unto the top, the city for to see, it was so high, it made me cry, like a great boobee. * * * * "next day i through pye-corner past, the roast meat on the stall invited me to take a taste; my money was but small: the meat i pickt, the cook me kickt, as i may tell to thee, he beat me sore, and made me rore, like a great boobee." it should be remembered, however, that the great classic of london every-day life, gay's "trivia," with its warnings against every danger of the street, from chairmen's poles to thimblerigging, from the ingenious thefts of periwigs to the nuisances caused by dustmen and small coalmen, from the reckless horseplay of the mohawks to the bewilderment which may overtake the stranger confronted by the problem of seven dials, was written for the warning of londoners themselves. those were the days when diamond cut diamond. in the last fifty years the roving swindler has become rare in the streets. london now frightens the countryman more by its size than anything else. and yet the bigger london grows the more it must lose even this power to intimidate. its greatest distances, its vast suburban wildernesses, are seen by him only through a railway carriage window. he is shot into the centre, and in the centre he remains, where help and convenience are increased every year. it was different in the old days, when the countryman rolled into london by coach, and was robbed on hounslow heath before he had seen more than the light of london in the sky. no one nowadays is in danger of being driven mad by the mere spectacle of london opening out before him, yet this was the fate of a west country traveller who saw london for the first time from a coach early in the nineteenth century. cyrus redding tells the story in his entertaining "fifty years' recollections." all went well as far as brentford. seeing the lamps of that outlying village, the countryman imagined that he was at his journey's end, but as mile after mile of illumination went on, he asked, in alarm, "are we not yet in london, and so many miles of lamps?" at last, at hyde park corner, he was told that this was london; but still on went the lamps, on and on the streets, until the poor stranger subsided into a coma of astonishment. when at last they entered lad lane, the great cheapside coaching centre, a travelling companion bade the west countryman remain in the coffee-room while he made inquiries. on returning, he found no trace of him, nor heard any more of him for six weeks. he then learned that he was in custody at sherborne, in dorsetshire, as a lunatic. he was taken home, and after a brief return of his reason he died. he was able to explain that he had become more and more bewildered by the lights and by the never-ending streets, from which he thought he should never be able to escape. somehow, he walked blindly westward, and at last emerged into the country, only to lose his memory and his wits. things are different to-day, and yet many people from the remoter parts of england are bewildered, distressed, and crazed by a visit to london. one meets them drifting wearily and anxiously toward king's cross or st. pancras at the end of their stay. they will be happy again when they see the utensils glitter on their old kitchen wall; when they have peeped into their best room and found the shade of stuffed squirrels resting undisturbed on the family bible; and when the steam rises above their big blue teacups more proudly than ever the dome of st. paul's soars above this howling babylon, then they will acquiesce in all that is said in praise of the abbey, the bank of england, and madam tussaud's. the under world as for the people of dickens and the people he knew so well, they were mostly of the lower middle classes, though he himself had, by the time his career was well defined, been able to surround himself with the society of the leading literary lights of his time. surely, though, the cockney _pur sang_ never had so true a delineator as he who produced those pen-pictures ranging all the way from the vulgarities of a sykes to the fastidiousness of a skimpole. it is a question, wide open in the minds of many, as to whether society of any rank is improving or not; surely the world is quite as base as it ever was, and as worthily circumspect too. but while the improvement of the aristocracy in general, since mediæval times, in learning and accomplishments, was having its untold effect on the middle classes, it was long before the immense body of workers, or perhaps one should say skilled labourers, as the economists call them, partook in any degree of the general amendment. certainly we have a right to assume, even with a twentieth-century standpoint to judge from, that there was a constantly increasing dissemination of knowledge, if not of culture, and that sooner or later it might be expected to have its desired, if unconscious, effect on the lower classes. that discerning, if not discreet, american, nathaniel parker willis, was inclined to think not, and compared the english labourer to a tired donkey with no interest in things about him, and with scarce surplus energy enough to draw one leg after the other. he may have been wrong, but the fact is that there is a very large proportion of dickens' characters made up of a shiftless, worthless, and even criminal class, as we all recognize, and these none the less than the other more worthy characters are nowhere to be found as a thoroughly indigenous type but in london itself. there was an unmistakable class in dickens' time, and there is to-day, whose only recourse, in their moments of ease, is to the public house,--great, strong, burly men, with "a good pair of hands," but no brain, or at least no development of it, and it is to this class that your successful middle-victorian novelist turned when he wished to suggest something unknown in polite society. this is the individual who cares little for public improvements, ornamental parks. omnibuses or trams, steamboats or flying-machines, it's all the same to him. he cares not for libraries, reading-rooms, or literature, cheap or otherwise, nothing, in fact, which will elevate or inspire self-respect; nothing but soul-destroying debauchery and vice, living and dying the life of the beast, and as careless of the future. this is a type, mark you, gentle reader, which is not overdrawn, as the writer has reason to know; it existed in london in the days of dickens, and it exists to-day, with the qualification that many who ought, perforce of their instincts, to be classed therewith do just enough work of an incompetent kind to keep them well out from under the shadow of the law; these are the "sykeses" of a former day, not the "fagins", who are possessed of a certain amount of natural wit, if it be of a perverted kind. an event which occurred in , almost unparalleled in the annals of criminal atrocity, is significantly interesting with regard to dickens' absorption of local and timely accessory, mostly of fact as against purely imaginative interpolation merely: a man named burke (an irishman) and a woman named helen m'dougal, coalesced with one hare in edinburgh to murder persons by wholesale, and dispose of their bodies to the teachers of anatomy. according to the confession of the principal actor, sixteen persons, some in their sleep, others after intoxication, and several in a state of infirmity from disease, were suffocated. one of the men generally threw himself on the victim to hold him down, while the other "burked" him by forcibly pressing the nostrils and mouth, or the throat, with his hands. hare being admitted as king's evidence, burke and his other partner in guilt were arraigned on three counts. helen m'dougal was acquitted and burke was executed. this crime gave a new word to our language. to "burke" is given in our dictionaries as "to murder by suffocation so as to produce few signs of violence upon the victim." or to bring it directly home to dickens, the following quotation will serve: "'you don't mean to say he was "burked," sam?' said mr. pickwick." with no class of society did dickens deal more successfully than with the sordidness of crime. he must have been an observer of the most acute perceptions, and while in many cases it was only minor crimes of which he dealt, the vagaries of his assassins are unequalled in fiction. he was generally satisfied with ordinary methods, as with the case of lawyer tulkinghorn's murder in lincoln's inn fields, but even in this scene he does throw into crime something more than the ordinary methods of the english novelist. he had the power, one might almost say the shakespearian power, of not only describing a crime, but also of making you feel the sensation of crime in the air. first and foremost one must place the murder of montague tigg. the grinning carker of "dombey and son" is ground to death under the wheels of a locomotive at a french railway station; quilp, of "the old curiosity shop," is dramatically drowned; bill sykes' neck is broken by the rope meant for his escape; bradley headstone and his enemy go together to the bottom of the canal; while the mysterious krook, of "bleak house" is disposed of by spontaneous combustion. certainly such a gallery of horrors could not be invented purely out of an imaginative mind, and must admittedly have been the product of intimate first-hand knowledge of criminals and their ways. doubtless there was a tendency to improve moral conditions as things went on. britain is not the dying nation which the calamity howlers would have us infer. in the year , there were--notwithstanding the comparative sparseness of population--eighteen prisons in london alone, whereas in , when dickens was in his prime and when population had enormously increased, that number had been reduced one-third. in the early days the jailor in many prisons received no salary, but made his livelihood from the fees he could extort from the prisoners and their friends; and in some cases he paid for the privilege of holding office. not only had a prisoner to pay for his food and for the straw on which he slept, but, if he failed to pay, he would be detained until he did so. in cold bath fields prison, men, women, and children were indiscriminately herded together, without employment or wholesome control; while smoking, gaming, singing, and every species of brutalizing conversation obtained. at the fleet prison there was a grate or iron-barred window facing farringdon street, and above it was inscribed, "pray remember the poor prisoners having no allowance," while a small box was placed on the window-sill to receive the charity of the passers-by, and a man ran to and fro, begging coins "for the poor prisoners in the fleet." at newgate, the women usually numbered from a hundred to one hundred and thirty, and each had only eighteen inches breadth of sleeping-room, and all were "packed like slaves in the hold of a slave-ship." and marshalsea, which dickens incorporated into "david copperfield" and "little dorrit," was quite as sordid, to what extent probably none knew so well as dickens, _père et fils_, for here it was that the father fretfully served out his sentence for debt. of all the prisons of that day it may be stated that they were hotbeds of immorality, where children herded with hoary criminals; where no sanitary laws were recognized; where vermin swarmed and disease held forth, and where robbery, tyranny, and cruelty, if not actually permitted, was at least winked at or ignored. in sir robert peel brought into force his new police establishment, an event which had not a little to do with the betterment of social life of the day. "the whole metropolitan district was formed into five local divisions, each division into eight sections, and each section into eight beats, the limits of all being clearly defined and distinguished by letters and numbers; the force itself was divided into companies, each company having one superintendent, four inspectors, sixteen sergeants, and one hundred and forty-four police constables, being also sub-divided into sixteen parts, each consisting of a sergeant and nine men." incalculable as the boon was in the repression of crime, the corporation of the city of london could not be persuaded, until several years afterward, to follow such an example, and give up their vested interests in the old system of watchmen. the police system, as remodelled by sir robert peel in , was, of course, the foundation of the present admirable body of constabulary, of which the london "bobby" must be admitted by all as ranking at the very head of his contemporaries throughout the civilized world. certainly no more affable and painstaking servants of the public are anywhere to be found; they are truly the "refuge of the inquiring stranger and timid women." the london policeman, then, is essentially a product of our own times; a vast advance over the peripatetic watchman of a former day, and quite unlike his brother on the continent, who has not only to keep the peace, but act as a political spy as well. perhaps it is for this reason that the london policeman is able to exhibit such devotion and affability in the conduct of his duties. surely no writer or observer has ever had the temerity to assail the efficiency of the london "peeler" or "bobby," as he now exists. no consideration or estimate of middle-class london would be complete without mention of that very important factor in its commissariat--beer, or its various species, mild or bitter, pale or stale. your true cockney east-ender, however, likes his 'arf and 'arf, and further admonishes the cheery barmaid to "draw it mild." brewers, it would seem, like their horses and draymen, are of a substantial race; many of the leading brewers of the middle nineteenth-century times, indeed, of our own day, are those who brewed in the reigns of the georges. by those who know, genuine london ale (presumably the "genuine stunning ale" of the "little public house in westminster," mentioned in "copperfield") alone is supposed to rival the ideal "berry-brown" and "nut-brown" ale of the old songs, or at least what passed for it in those days. the increase of brewers has kept pace with london's increase in other respects. twenty-six brewhouses in the age of elizabeth became fifty-five in the middle of the eighteenth century, and one hundred and forty-eight in ; and in quantity from , barrels in to , , in . to-day, in the absence of any statistics to hand, the sum total must be something beyond the grasp of any but the statistician. without attempting to discuss the merits or demerits of temperance in general, or beer in particular, it can be safely said that the brewer's dray is a prominent and picturesque feature of london streets, without which certain names, with which even the stranger soon becomes familiar, would be meaningless; though they are, as it were, on everybody's tongue and on many a sign-board in nearly every thoroughfare. as a historian, who would have made an unexceptionable literary critic, has said: beer overflows in almost every volume of fielding and smollett. goldsmith was not averse to the "_parson's black champagne_;" hogarth immortalized its domestic use, and gilray its political history; and the "pot of porter" and "mug of bitter" will go down in the annals of the literature, art, and history of london, and indeed all britain, along with the more aristocratic port and champagne. london topography from park land to wapping, by day and by night, i've many a year been a roamer, and find that no lawyer can london indite, each street, every lane's a misnomer. i find broad street, st. giles, a poor narrow nook, battle bridge is unconscious of slaughter, duke's place can not muster the ghost of a duke, and brook street is wanting in water. james smith, _comic miscellanies_. it is not easy to delimit the territorial confines of a great and growing city like london. the most that the most sanguine writer could hope to do would be to devote himself to recounting the facts and features, with more or less completeness, of an era, or an epoch, if the word be thought to confine the period of time more definitely. there is no london of to-day; like "unborn to-morrow" and "dead yesterday," it does not exist. some remains there may be of a former condition, and signs there assuredly are of still greater things to come, but the very face of the earth in the great world of london is constantly changing and being improved or disimproved, accordingly as its makers have acted wisely or not. [illustration: _billingsgate and_ _the bank, royal exchange,_ _the custom house._ _and mansion house._ _general post-office._ _king william street and_ _gracechurch street._ _st. paul's, cheapside,_ _fleet street at temple bar._ _and paternoster row._ _"the city"--london._] the london of dickens' time--the middle victorian period--was undergoing, in some degree, at least, the rapid changes which were making themselves felt throughout the civilized world. new streets were being put through, old landmarks were being removed, and new and greater ones rising in their stead; roadways were being levelled, and hills were disappearing where they were previously known. how curious it is that this one topographical detail effects so great a change in the aspect of the buildings which border upon the streets. take for instance the strand as it exists to-day. dickens might have to think twice before he would know which way to turn to reach the _good words_ offices. this former narrow thoroughfare has been straightened, widened, and graded until about the only recognizable feature of a quarter of a century ago is the sky-line. again, st. martin's-in-the-fields, a noble and imposing church, is manifestly made insignificant by the cutting down of the grade, and even removing the broad and gentle rising flight of steps which once graced its façade. generally speaking, the reverse is the case, the level of the roadway being immeasurably raised, so that one actually steps down into a building which formerly was elevated a few steps. all this and much more is a condition which has worked a wondrous change in the topography of london, and doubtless many another great city. as for grandeur and splendour, that can hardly be claimed for any city which does not make use of the natural features to heighten the effect of the embellishments which the hand of man has added to what nature has already given. london possesses these features to a remarkable degree, and she should make the best of them, even if to go so far as to form one of those twentieth-century innovations, known as an "art commission," which she lacks. such an institution might cause an occasional "deadlock," but it would save a vast deal of disfigurement; for london, be it said, has no streets to rank among those of the world which are truly great, such as high street at oxford, and prince's street in edinburgh, to confine the comparison to great britain. the author of this book has never had the least thought of projecting "a new work on london," as the industrious author or compiler of knight's "old and new london" put it in , when he undertook to produce a monumental work which he declared should be neither a "survey nor a history." the fact is, however, that not even the most sanguine of those writers who may hope to say a new word about any subject so vast as that comprehended by the single word, london, could even in a small measure feel sure that he has actually discovered any new or hitherto unknown fact. in short, one may say that this would be impossible. london's written history is very extensive and complete, and it is reasonable to suppose that most everything of moment has at one time or another been written down, but there are constantly varying conditions and aspects which do present an occasional new view of things, even if it be taken from an old standpoint; hence even within the limits of which this section treats it is possible to give something of an impression which once and again may strike even a supercritical reader as being timely and pertinent, at least to the purport of the volume. the latter-day city and county of london, including the metropolitan and suburban area, literally "greater london," has within the last few years grown to huge proportions. from being a city hemmed within a wall, london has expanded in all directions, gradually forming a connection with various clusters of dwellings in the neighbourhood. it has, in fact, absorbed towns and villages to a considerable distance around: the chief of these once detached seats of population being the city of westminster. by means of its bridges, it has also absorbed southwark, bermondsey, lambeth, and vauxhall, besides many hamlets and villages beyond. [illustration: _london at the time of the great fire_] even in dickens' day each centre of urban life, whether it be chelsea, whitechapel, or the borough,--that ill-defined centre south of london bridge,--was closely identified with local conditions which were no part of the life of any other section. aside from the varying conditions of social life, or whether the section was purely residential, or whether it was a manufacturing community, there were other conditions as markedly different. theatres, shops, and even churches varied as to their method of conduct, and, in some measure, of their functions as well. it was but natural that the demand of the ratcliffe highway for the succulent "kipper" should conduce to a vastly different method of purveying the edible necessities of life from that of the west end poulterer who sold only surrey fowl, or, curiously enough, as he really does, scotch salmon. so, too, with the theatres and music-halls; the lower riverside population demand, if not necessarily a short shrift, a cheap fare, and so he gets his two and three performances a night at a price ranging from three pence to two shillings for what in the west brings from one to ten shillings. to vary the simile still farther, but without going into the intricacies of dogma, the church has of necessity to appeal to its constituency in the slums in a vastly different method of procedure from what would be considered dignified or even devout elsewhere; and it is a question if the former is not more efficacious than the latter. and so these various centres, as they may be best described, are each of themselves local communities welded, let us hope, into as near as may be a perfect whole, with a certain leeway of self-government and privilege to deal with local conditions. in , taken as best representative of dickens' time, london was divided into twenty-six wards (and several liberties). the "out parishes" of the "city," the city of westminster, and the five "parliamentary boroughs" of marylebone, lambeth, southwark, finsbury, and tower hamlets, and a region of debatable land lying somewhere between that which is properly called london and its environs, and partaking in a certain measure of the attributes of both. london would seem to be particularly fortunate in its situation, and that a large city should have grown up here was perhaps unavoidable: sufficiently far from the open sea to be well protected therefrom, yet sufficiently near thereto to have early become a powerful city and a great port. [illustration: _the wards of the city (e. c.)_] roman occupation, in spite of historians to the contrary, has with the later norman leavened the teutonic characteristics of the people of britain perhaps more than is commonly credited. cæsar's invasion was something more than a mere excursion, and his influence, at least afterward, developed the possibilities of the "mere collection of huts" with the celtic name into the more magnificent city of londinium. it has been doubted if cæsar really did know the london of the britons, which historians have so assiduously tried to make a great and glorious city even before his time. more likely it was nothing of the sort, but was simply a hamlet, set down in a more or less likely spot, around which naturally gathered a slowly increasing population. in a way, like the celtic hill towns of normandy and brittany, it took roman impulse to develop it into anything more beautiful and influential than the mere stockade or _zareba_ of the aborigine. the first mention of london is supposed to be in the works of tacitus, a century and a half after cæsar's invasion. from this it would appear that by the year , in the reign of nero, _londinium_ was already a place of "great importance." against the roman domination the britons finally rose at the call of the outraged boadicea, who marched directly upon london as the chief centre of power and civilization. though why the latter condition should have been resented it is still difficult to understand. ptolemy, who, however, got much of his information second-hand, refers to london in his geography of the second century as _londinion_, and locates it as being situate somewhere south of the thames. all this is fully recounted in the books of reference, and is only mentioned as having more than a little to do with the modern city of london, which has grown up since the great fire in . as a british town it occupied a site probably co-extensive only with the later billingsgate and the tower on one hand, and dowgate on the other. lombard and fenchurch streets were its northerly limits, with the wall-brook and sher-bourne on the west. these limits, somewhat extended, formed the outlines of the roman wall of the time of theodosius ( ). coming to a considerably later day, a matter of twelve hundred years or so, it is recalled that the period of the great fire is the time from which the building up of the present city dates, and from which all later reckoning is taken. london at that day ( ) was for the most part timber-built, and the flames swept unobstructed over an area very nearly approximating that formerly enclosed by london wall. the tower escaped; so did all-hallows, barking, crosby hall, and austin friars, but the fire was only checked on the west just before it reached the temple church and st. dunstan's-in-the-west. he who would know london well must be a pedestrian. gay, who wrote one of the most exact and lively pictures of the external london of his time, has put it thus: "let others in the jolting coach confide, or in a leaky boat the thames divide, or box'd within the chair, contemn the street, and trust their safety to another's feet: still let me walk." such characteristic features as are properly applicable to the thames have been dealt with in the chapter devoted thereto. with other localities and natural features it is hardly possible to more than make mention of the most remarkable. from tower hill to hampstead heath, and from the heights of sydenham to highgate is embraced the chief of those places which are continually referred to in the written or spoken word on london. the fleet and its ditch, with their unsavoury reputations, have been filled up. the regent's canal, which enters the thames below wapping, winds its way, now above ground and occasionally beneath, as a sort of northern boundary of london proper. of other waterways, there are none on the north, while on the south there are but two minor streams, beverly brook and the river wandle, which flow sluggishly from the surrey downs into the thames near wandsworth. as for elevations, the greatest are the four cardinal points before mentioned. tower hill, with its rather ghastly romance, is first and foremost in the minds of the native and visitor alike. this particular locality has changed but little, if at all, since dickens' day. the minories, the mint, trinity house, the embattled "tower" itself, with the central greensward enclosed by iron railings, and the great warehouses of st. katherine's dock, all remain as they must have been for years. the only new thing which has come into view is the garish and insincere tower bridge, undeniably fine as to its general effect when viewed from a distance down-river, with its historic background and the busy activities of the river at its feet. a sentiment which is speedily dispelled when one realizes that it is but a mere granite shell hung together by invisible iron girders. something of the solidity of the tower and the sincerity of a former day is lacking, which can but result in a natural contempt for the utilitarianism which sacrifices the true art expression in a city's monuments. of the great breathing-places of london, hyde park ranks easily the first, with regent's park, the green park, st. james' park, battersea park, and victoria park in the order named. the famous heath of hampstead and richmond park should be included, but they are treated of elsewhere. hyde park as an institution dates from the sixteenth century, and with kensington gardens--that portion which adjoins kensington palace--has undergone no great changes during the past hundred years. at hyde park corner is the famous apsley house presented by the nation to the duke of wellington. at cumberland gate was tyburn. the "ring" near grosvenor gate was the scene of gallantries of the days of charles ii.; of late it has been devoted to the games of gamins and street urchins. the serpentine is a rather suggestively and incongruously named serpentine body of water, which in a way serves to give a variety to an otherwise somewhat monotonous prospect. the first great international exhibition was held in hyde park in , and rank and fashion, in the mid-victorian era, "church paraded" in a somewhat more exclusive manner than pursued by the participants in the present vulgar show. the green park and st. james's park touch each other at the angles and, in a way, may be considered as a part of one general plan, though for a fact they vary somewhat as to their characteristics and functions, though under the same "ranger," a functionary whose office is one of those sinecures which under a long-suffering, tax-burdened public are still permitted to abound. the history of regent's park, london's other great open space, is brief. in , the year of dickens' birth, a writer called it "one of the most fashionable sunday promenades about town." it certainly appears to have been quite as much the vogue for promenading as hyde park, though the latter retained its supremacy as a driving and riding place. the zoological gardens, founded in , here situated, possess a perennial interest for young and old. the principal founders were sir humphrey davy and sir stamford raffles. the rambler in old london, whether he be on foot or in a cab, or by the more humble and not inconvenient "bus," will, if he be in the proper spirit for that edifying occupation, be duly impressed by the mile-stones with which the main roads are set. along the historic "bath road," the "great north road," the "portsmouth road," or the "dover road," throughout their entire length, are those silent though expressive monuments to the city's greatness. in old coaching days the custom was perhaps more of a consolation than it proves to-day, and whether the londoner was on pleasure bent, to the derby or epsom, or coaching it to ipswich or rochester,--as did pickwick,--the mile-stones were always a cheerful link between two extremes. to-day their functions are no less active; the advent of the bicycle and the motor-car makes it more necessary than ever that they should be there to mark distance and direction. no more humourous aspect has ever been remarked than the anecdote recounted by a nineteenth-century historian of the hunt of one jedediah jones for the imaginary or long since departed "hicks' hall," from which the mile-stones, cryptogrammatically, stated that "this stone was ten (nine, eight, etc.) miles from hicks' hall." the individual in question never was able to find the mythical "hicks' hall," nor the equally vague "standard in cornhill," the latter being referred to by an accommodating 'bus driver in this wise: "put ye down at the 'standard in cornhill?'--that's a good one! i should like to know who ever seed the 'standard in cornhill.' ve knows the 'svan wi' two necks' and the 'vite horse' in piccadilly, but i never heerd of anybody that ever seed the 'standard in cornhill.' ve simply reckons by it." the suburbs of london in dickens' time were full of such puzzling mile-stones. as late as a gate existed at tyburn turnpike, and so, as if marking the distinction between london and the country, the mile-stones read from tyburn. hyde park corner is still used in a similar way. other stones read merely from london, but, as it would be difficult to know what part of london might best be taken to suit the purposes of the majority, the statement seems as vague as was hicks' hall. why not, as a writer of the day expressed it, measure from the g. p. o.? which to the stranger might prove quite as unintelligible, meaning in this case, however, general post-office. the population return of shows a plan with a circle drawn eight miles from the centre, a region which then comprised , , inhabitants. by the circle was reduced to a radius of one-half, and the population was still as great as that contained in the larger circle of a decade before. thus the history of the growth of london shows that its greatest activities came with the beginning of the victorian era. by the census of , the population of the city--the e. c. district--was only , ; while including that with the entire metropolis, the number was , , , or _twenty-five times_ as great as the former. it may here be remarked that the non-resident, or, more properly, "non-sleeping" population of the city is becoming larger every year, on account of the substitution of public buildings, railway stations and viaducts, and large warehouses, in place of ordinary dwelling-houses. fewer and fewer people _live_ in the city. in , the number was , ; it lessened by more than , between that year and ; while the population of the _whole_ metropolis increased by as many as , in the same space of time. in , when dickens was still living, the whole population was computed at , , , and the e. c. population was further reduced to , . in the "city" contained only , inhabited houses, and but , persons composed the night population. the territorial limits or extent of london must vary greatly according as to whether one refers to "the city," "london proper," or "greater london," a phrase which is generally understood of the people as comprehending not only the contiguous suburbs of a city, but those residential communities closely allied thereto, and drawing, as it were, their support from it. if the latter, there seems no reason why london might not well be thought to include pretty much all of kent and surrey,--the home counties lying immediately south of the thames,--though in reality one very soon gets into green fields in this direction, and but for the ominous signs of the builder and the enigmatic references of the native to the "city" or "town," the stranger, at least, might think himself actually far from the madding throng. for a fact this is not so, and local life centres, even now, as it did in days gone by, very much around the happenings of the day in london itself. taking it in its most restricted and confined literal sense, a circuit of london cannot be better expressed than by quoting the following passage from an author who wrote during the early victorian period. "i heard him relate that he had the curiosity to measure the circuit of london by a perambulation thereof. the account he gave was to this effect: he set out from his house in the strand toward chelsea, and, having reached the bridge beyond the water works, battersea, he directed his course to marylebone, from whence, pursuing an eastern direction, he skirted the town and crossed the islington road at the 'angel.' ... passing through hoxton he got to shoreditch, thence to bethnal green, and from thence to stepney, where he recruited his steps with a glass of brandy. from stepney he passed on to limehouse, and took into his route the adjacent hamlet of poplar, when he became sensible that to complete his design he must take in southwark. this put him to a stand, but he soon determined on his course, for, taking a boat, he landed at the red house at deptford and made his way to saye's court, where the wet dock is, and, keeping the houses along rotherhithe to the right, he got to bermondsey, thence by the south end of kent road to newington, and over st. george's fields to lambeth, and crossing over at millbank, continued his way to charing cross and along the strand to norfolk street, from whence he had set out. the whole excursion took him from nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, and, according to his rate of walking, he computed the circuit of london at about twenty miles." since this was written, even these areas have probably extended considerably, until to-day the circuit is more nearly fifty miles than twenty, but in assuming that such an itinerary of twenty miles covers the ground specifically mentioned, it holds equally true to-day that this would be a stroll which would exhibit most of the distinguishing features and characteristics of the city. modes of conveyance have been improved. one finds the plebeian cab or "growler," the more fastidious hansom, and the popular electric tram, which is fast replacing the omnibus in the outlying portions, to say nothing of the underground railways now being "electrified," as the management put it. these improvements have made not only distances seem less great, but have done much toward the speedy getting about from one place to another. it matters not how the visitor enters london; he is bound to be duly impressed by the immensity of it. in olden times the ambassador to st. james' was met at dover, where he first set foot upon english soil, by the governor of the castle and the local mayor. from here he was passed on in state to the great cathedral city of canterbury, sojourned for a space beneath the shadow of rochester castle, crossed the medway, and finally reached gravesend, reckoned the entry to the port of london. here he was received by the lord mayor of london and the lord chamberlain, and "took to water in the royal galley-foist," or barge, when he was rowed toward london by the royal watermen, an institution of sturdy fellows which has survived to this day, even appearing occasionally in their picturesque costumes at some river fête or function at windsor. with a modern visitor it is somewhat different; he usually enters by one of the eight great gateways, london bridge, waterloo, euston, paddington, st. pancras, king's cross, victoria or charing cross, unless by any chance he arrives by sea, which is seldom; the port of london, for the great ocean liner, is mostly a "home port," usually embarking or disembarking passengers at some place on the south or west coast,--southampton, plymouth, liverpool, or glasgow. in either case, he is ushered instantly into a great, seething world, unlike, in many of its features, anything elsewhere, with its seemingly inextricable maze of streets and bustle of carriages, omnibuses, and foot-passengers. he sees the noble dome of st. paul's rising over all, possibly the massiveness of the tower, or the twin towers of westminster, of those of the "new houses of parliament," as they are still referred to. from the south only, however, does the traveller obtain a really pleasing first impression. here in crossing any one of the five central bridges he comes at once upon a prospect which is truly grand. the true pilgrim--he who visits a shrine for the love of its patron--is the one individual who gets the best of life and incidentally of travel. london sightseeing appeals largely to the american, and it is to him that most of the sights and scenes of the london of to-day--and for that matter, of the past fifty years--most appeal. in the reign of james i. sights, of a sort, were even then patronized, presumably by the stranger. "the londoner never goes anywhere or sees anything," as one has put it. in those days it cost two pence to ascend to the top of old st. paul's, and in the georges' time, a penny to ascend the "monument." to-day this latter treat costs three pence, which is probably an indication of the tendency of the times to raise prices. with many it may be said it is merely a rush and a scramble, "personally conducted," or otherwise, to get over as large a space of ground in a given time as legs and lungs will carry one. walpole remarked the same sad state of affairs when he wrote of the houghton visitors. "they come and ask what such a room is called ... write it down; admire a cabbage or a lobster in a market piece (picture?); dispute as to whether the last room was green or purple, and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish should be overdressed." one who knows his london is amused at the disappointment that the visitor often feels when comparing his impression of london, as it really is, with the london of his imagination. as they ride down fleet street they are surprised at the meanness of the buildings as compared with those which had existed in their mind's eye. this might not be the case were but their eyes directed to the right quarter. often and often one has seen the stranger on a bus gazing at the houses in fleet street instead of looking, as he should, right ahead. in this way he misses the most sublime views in london: that of the "highway of letters" in its true relation to st. paul's in the east and the abbey in the west. the long dip of the street and the opposite hill of ludgate give an incomparable majesty to the cathedral, crowning the populous hill, soaring serenely above the vista of houses, gables, chimneys, signals, and telegraph wires,-- "above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, which men call town." coming by one of the existing modern gateways the railway termini, before mentioned, the visitor would be well advised to reënter london the next day _via_ the "uxbridge road," upon an omnibus bound for the bank, securing a front seat. he will then make his triumphal entry along five miles of straight roadway, flanked by magnificent streets, parks, and shops, until, crossing holborn viaduct, he is borne past the general post-office, under the shadow of st. paul's, and along cheapside to the portico of the royal exchange--the hub of the world. as byron well knew, only time reveals london: "the man who has stood on the acropolis and looked down over attica; or he who has sailed where picturesque constantinople is, or seen timbuctoo, or hath taken tea in small-eyed china's crockery-ware metropolis, or sat midst the bricks of nineveh, may not think much of london's first appearance; _but ask him what he thinks of it a year hence!_" as with society, so with certain localities of london; there are some features which need not be described; indeed they are not fit to be, and, while it cannot be said that dickens ever expressed himself in manner aught but proper, there are details of the lives and haunts of the lower classes of which a discussion to any extent should be reserved for those economic works which treat solely of social questions. the "hell's kitchens" and "devil's furnaces," all are found in most every large city of europe and america; and it cannot be said that the state of affairs, with regard thereto, is in any way improving, though an occasional slum is blotted out entirely. not alone from a false, or a prudish, refinement are these questions kept in the background, but more particularly are they diminished in view in order to confine the contents of this book to a résumé of the facts which are the most agreeable. even in those localities where there is little else but crime and ignorance, suffering and sorrow, there is also, in some measure, propriety and elegance, comfort and pleasure. if the old "tabard" of chaucer's day has given way to a garish and execrable modern "public house," some of the sentiment still hangs over the locality, and so, too, with the riverside communities of limehouse and wapping. sentiment as well as other emotions are unmistakably reminiscent, and the enthusiastic admirer of dickens, none the less than the general lover of a historical past, will derive much pleasure from tracing itineraries for himself among the former sites and scenes of the time, not far gone, of which he wrote. eastcheap has lost some of its old-world atmosphere, and is now given over to the coster element. finsbury and islington are covered with long rows of dull-looking houses which have existed for a matter of fifty or seventy-five years, with but little change except an occasional new shop-front and a new street cut through here and there. spring gardens, near trafalgar square, is no longer a garden, and is as dull and gloomy a place as any flagged courtyard in a less aristocratic neighbourhood. the old "fleet ditch" no longer runs its course across holborn and into the thames at blackfriars. churches, palaces, theatres, prisons, and even hospitals have, in a measure, given way to progressive change and improvement. guy's hospital, identified with letters from the very foundation of its patron,--one thomas guy, a bookseller of lombard street,--dates only from the eighteenth century, and has to-day changed little from what it was in dickens' time, when he lived in near-by lant street, and the fictional character of "sawyer" gave his famous party to which "mr. pickwick" was invited. "it's near guy's," said sawyer, "and handy for me, you know." on the whole, london is remarkably well preserved; its great aspects suffer but very little change, and the landmarks and monuments which met dickens' gaze are sufficiently numerous and splendid to still be recognizable by any who possess any degree of familiarity with his life and works. many well-known topographical features are still to be found within the sound of bow bells and westminster. those of the strand and fleet street, of the borough, bermondsey, southwark southward of the river, and bloomsbury in the north, form that debatable ground which is ever busy with hurrying feet. the street-sweeper, though, has mostly disappeared, and the pavements of whitehall are more evenly laid than were the halls of hampton court in wolsey's day. where streets run off from the great thoroughfares, they are often narrow and in a way ill kept, but this is due more to their confined area than to any carelessness or predisposition on the part of the authorities to ignore cleanliness. london possesses a series of topographical divisions peculiar to itself, when one considers the number thereof, referring to the numerous squares which, in a way, correspond to the continental place, platz, or plaza. it is, however, a thing quite different. it may be a residential square, like bedford, bloomsbury, or belgrave squares, or, like covent garden and lincoln's inn fields, given over to business of a certain sedate kind. these latter two are the oldest of london squares. or, like trafalgar square, of a frankly commercial aspect. on the continent they are generally more of architectural pretensions than in london, and their functions are quite different, having more of a public or ceremonial character; whereas here the more exclusive are surrounded with the houses of the nobility or aristocracy, or what passes for it in these days; or, as in the case of trafalgar square,--in itself of splendid architectural value,--little more than a point of crossing or meeting of streets, like piccadilly and oxford circus. in the "city," the open spaces are of great historical association; namely, charterhouse, bridgewater, salisbury, gough, and warwick squares. they show very few signs of life and humanity of a sunday or a holiday, but are active enough at other times. further west are the quiet precincts of the temple and lincoln's inn fields, one of the most ancient and, on the whole, the most attractive of all, with its famous houses and institutions of a storied past. while, if not actually to be counted as city squares, they perform in no small degree many of their functions. red lion square, to the north of fleet street, is gloomy enough, and reminiscent of the old "red lion" inn, for long "the largest and best frequented inn in holborn," and yet more worthily, as being the residence of milton after his pardon from king charles. soho square and golden square are quiet and charming retreats, away from the bustle of the shoppers of regent and oxford streets, though perhaps melancholy enough to the seeker after real architectural charm and beauty. it is to bloomsbury that the heart of the american most fondly turns, whether he takes residence there by reason of its being "so near to the british museum, you know," or for motives of economy, either of which should be sufficient of itself, likewise commendable. the museum itself, with its reading-room and collections, is the great attraction, it cannot be denied, of this section of london, and bloomsbury square, torrington square, queen's square, and mecklenburgh square, where dickens lived and wrote much of "pickwick" in - , are given over largely to "board-residence" establishments for the visitor, or he who for reasons good and true desires to make his abode in historic old bloomsbury. in dickens' time the region had become the haunt of those who affected science, literature, or art, by reason of the proximity of the british museum and the newly founded university of london. the wealthy element, who were not desirous of being classed among the fashionables, were attracted here by its nearness to the open country and regent's park. thus, clustering around bloomsbury is a whole nucleus of squares; "some comely," says a writer, "some elegant," and all with a middle-class air about them. still further west are the aristocratic and exclusive st. james' square, berkley, belgrave, grosvenor, manchester, devonshire, and many more rectangles which are still the possession of the exclusives and pseudo-fashionables. their histories and their goings-on are lengthy chronicles, and are not within the purpose of this book, hence may be dismissed with mere mention. the flow of the thames from west to east through the metropolis has given a general direction to the lines of street; the principal thoroughfares being, in some measure, parallel to the river, with the inferior, or at least shorter, streets branching from them. intersecting the town lengthwise, or from east to west, are two great leading thoroughfares at a short distance from each other, but gradually diverging at their western extremity. one of these routes begins in the eastern environs, near blackwall, and extends along whitechapel, leadenhall street, cornhill, the poultry, cheapside, newgate street, holborn, and oxford street. the other may be considered as starting at london bridge, and passing up king william street into cheapside, at the western end of which it makes a bend round st. paul's churchyard; thence proceeds down ludgate hill, along fleet street and the strand to charing cross, where it sends a branch off to the left to whitehall, and another diagonally to the right, up cockspur street; this leads forward into pall mall, and sends an offshoot up waterloo place into piccadilly, which proceeds westward to hyde park corner. these are the two main lines of the metropolis. of recent years two important new thoroughfares have been made, viz., new cannon street, extending from london bridge to st. paul's churchyard, and queen victoria street, which, leaving the mansion house, crosses cannon street about its centre, and extends to blackfriars bridge. the third main route begins at the bank, and passes through the city road and the new road to paddington and westbourne. the new road here mentioned has been renamed in three sections,--pentonville road, from islington to king's cross; euston road, from king's cross to regent's park; and marylebone road, from regent's park to paddington. the main cross-branches in the metropolis are farringdon street, leading from blackfriars bridge to holborn, and thence to king's cross; the haymarket, leading from cockspur street; and regent street, running northwesterly in the direction of regent's park. others from the north of holborn are tottenham court road, parallel to gower street, where the dickenses first lived when they came to london. gray's inn road, near which is gray's inn, where dickens himself was employed as a lawyer's clerk, and doughty street, where, at no. , can still be seen dickens' house, as a sign-board on the door announces: "dickens lived here in ." aldersgate, continued as goswell road, connects with islington and whitechapel, and mile end road leads to essex. such were the few main arteries of traffic in dickens' day, and even unto the present; the complaint has been that there are not more direct thoroughfares of a suitable width, both lengthwise and crosswise, to cope with the immense and cumbersome traffic of 'bus and dray, to say nothing of carts and cabs. nothing is likely to give the stranger a just estimate of the magnitude of this more than will the observance of the excellent police control of the cross traffic, when, in some measure, its volume will be apparent. it would perhaps be impossible in a work such as this that any one locality could be described with anything like adequate completeness. certainly one would not hope to cover the ground entire, where every division and subdivision partakes severally of widely different characteristics. southwark and the borough, with its high street, st. george's church and fields, the old marshalsea--or the memory of it--"the king's bench" prison, and "guy's," are something quite different with respect to manners and customs from whitechapel or limehouse. so, too, are st. giles' and pimlico in the west, and hampstead and highgate in north london. since all of these are dealt with elsewhere, to a greater or lesser degree, a few comments on the whitechapel of dickens' day must suffice here, and, truth to tell, it has not greatly changed since that time, save for a periodical cleaning up and broadening of the main thoroughfare. it is with more or less contempt and disgust that whitechapel is commonly recalled to mind. still, whitechapel is neither more nor less disreputable than many other localities sustained by a similar strata of society. it serves, however, to illustrate the life of the east end, as contrasted with that of the west of london--the other pole of the social sphere--and is, moreover, peopled by that class which dickens, in a large measure, incorporated into the novels. in ancient times northumberland, throgmorton, and crosby were noble names associated therewith. in dickens' day butchers, it would seem, were the predominate species of humanity, while to-day jewish "sweat-shops" are in the ascendant, a sufficiently fine distinction to render it recognizable to any dweller in a large city, whatever his nationality. the fleur-de-lis and royal blazonings are no longer seen, and such good old anglo-saxon names as stiles, stiggins, and stodges are effectually obliterated from shop signs. how changed this ancient neighbourhood is from what it must once have been! crosby hall, in bishopsgate street, not far distant, the _ci-devant_ palace of richard ii., is now a mere eating-house, albeit a very good one. and as for the other noble houses, they have gone the way of all fanes when once encroached upon by the demands of business progress. baynard castle, where henry vii. received his ambassadors, and in which the crafty cecil plotted against lady jane grey, almost before the ink was dry with which he had solemnly registered his name to serve her, has long ago been numbered amongst the things that were. the archers of mile-end, with their chains of gold, have departed: the spot on which the tent stood, where bluff hal regaled himself after having witnessed their sports, is now covered with mean-looking houses: as one has said, "the poetry of ancient london is well-nigh dead." the voice of the stream is for ever hushed that went murmuring before the dwellings of our forefathers, along aldgate and down fenchurch street, and past the door of sir thomas gresham's house, in lombard street, until it doubled round by the mansion house and emptied itself into the river. there is still the sound of rushing waters by the steam-packet wharf, at london bridge; but how different to the "brawling brook" of former days is the "evil odour" which arises from the poisonous sewers of to-day. and to what have these old-world splendours given place? splendid gin-shops, plate-glass palaces, into which squalor and misery rush and drown the remembrance of their wretchedness in drowsy and poisonous potations of an inferior quality of liquor. such splendour and squalor is the very contrast which makes thinking men pause, and pause again. [illustration: whitechapel.] the whitechapel butcher was of the old school. he delighted in a blue livery, and wore his "steel" with as much satisfaction as a young ensign does his sword. he neither spurned the worsted leggins nor duck apron; but with bare muscular arms, and knife keen enough to sever the hamstring of a bull, took his stand proudly at the front of his shop, and looked "lovingly" on the well-fed joints above his head. the gutters before his door literally ran with blood: pass by whenever you would, there the crimson current constantly flowed; and the smell the passenger inhaled was not that of "araby." a "whitechapel bird" and a "whitechapel butcher" were once synonymous phrases, used to denote a character the very reverse of a gentleman; but, says a writer of the fifties, "in the manners of the latter we believe there is a great improvement, and that more than one 'knight of the cleaver' who here in the daytime manufacture sheep into mutton chops, keeps his country house." the viands offered for sale augur well for the strength of the stomachs of the whitechapel populace. the sheep's trotters look as if they had scarcely had time enough to kick off the dirt before they were potted; and as for the ham, it appears bleached, instead of salted; and to look at the sandwiches, you would think they were anything except what they are called. as for the fried fish, it resembles coarse red sand-paper; and you would sooner think of purchasing a penny-worth to polish the handle of a cricket bat or racket, than of trying its qualities in any other way. the "black puddings" resemble great fossil ammonites, cut up lengthwise. what the "faggots" are made of, which form such a popular dish in this neighbourhood, we have yet to learn. we have heard rumours of chopped lights, liver, suet, and onions as being the components of these dusky dainties; but he must be a daring man who would convince himself by tasting: for our part, it would seem that there was a great mystery to be unravelled before the innumerable strata which form these smoking hillocks will ever be made known. the pork pies which you see in these windows contain no such effeminate morsels as lean meat, but have the appearance of good substantial bladders of lard shoved into a strong crust, and "done brown" in a superheated oven. such, crudely, is an impression of certain aspects of "trade" in whitechapel, but its most characteristic feature outside of the innumerable hawkers of nearly everything under the sun, new or old, which can be sold at a relatively low price, is the famous "rag fair," a sort of "old clo's" mart, whose presiding geniuses are invariably of the jewish persuasion, either male or female. rags which may have clothed the fair person of a duchess have here so fallen as to be fit only for dusting cloths. the insistent vender will assure you that they have been worn but "werry leetle, werry leetle, indeed.... vell, vot of it, look at the pryshe!" dank and fetid boxes and barrows, to say naught of the more ambitious shops, fill the whitechapel road and petticoat lane (now changed to middlesex street, but some measure of the old activities may still be seen of a sunday morning). a rummaging around will bring to light, likely enough, something that may once have been a court dress, a bridal costume, or a ball gown; a pair of small satin slippers, once white; a rusty crêpe, a "topper of a manifestly early vintage, or what not, all may be found here. one might almost fancy that pride, in some material personification, might indeed be found buried beneath the mass of dross, or having shuffled off its last vestiges of respectability, its corse might at least be found to have left its shroud behind; and such these tattered habiliments really are. rag fair to-day is still the great graveyard of fashion; the last cemetery to which cast-off clothes are borne before they enter upon another state of existence, and are spirited into dusters and dish-clouts. of all modern cities, london, perhaps more than any other, is justly celebrated for the number and variety of its suburbs. on the northwest are hampstead, with its noble heath reminiscent of "highwaymen and scoundrels," and its charming variety of landscape scenery; and harrow, with its famous old school, associated with the memory of byron, peel, and many other eminent men, to the churchyard of which byron was a frequent visitor. "there is," he wrote to a friend in after years, "a spot in the churchyard, near the footpath on the brow of the hill looking toward windsor, and a tomb (bearing the name of peachey) under a large tree, where i used to sit for hours and hours when a boy." nearly northward are highgate, with its fringe of woods, and its remarkable series of ponds; finchley, also once celebrated for its highwaymen, but now for its cemeteries; hornsey, with its ivy-clad church, and its pretty winding new river; and barnet, with its great annual fair, still an institution attended largely by costers and horse-traders. on the northeast are edmonton, with its tavern, which the readers of "john gilpin" will of course never forget; enfield, where the government manufactures rifles on a vast scale; waltham, notable for its ancient abbey church; and epping forest, a boon to picnic parties from the east end of london. south of the thames, likewise, there are many pretty spots, quite distinct from those which border upon the river's bank. wimbledon, with its furze-clad common and picturesque windmill; mitcham, with its herb gardens; norwood, a pleasant bit of high ground, from which a view of london from the south can be had; lewisham and bromley, surrounded by many pretty bits of scenery; blackheath, a famous place for golf and other outdoor games; eltham, where a bit of king john's palace is still left to view; the crays, a string of picturesque villages on the banks of the river cray, etc. dulwich is a village about five miles south of london bridge. here edward alleyn, or allen, a distinguished actor in the reign of james i., founded and endowed an hospital or college, called dulwich college, for the residence and support of poor persons, under certain limitations. the end. a brief chronology of some of the more important events in the history of the city of london during the lifetime of charles dickens. oct. . present drury lane theatre opened. nov. . the times newspaper first printed by steam. vauxhall bridge opened. waterloo bridge opened. furnival's inn rebuilt. jan. . george iii. died. cabs came in. bank of england completed by sir john soane. march . first pile of london bridge driven. first stone of new post-office laid. may . national gallery first opened. thames tunnel commenced. toll-house at hyde park corner removed. st. katherine docks opened. birdcage walk made a public way. king's college in the strand commenced. new police service established by sir robert peel. june . george iv. died. omnibuses first introduced by shillibeer; the first ran between paddington and the bank. covent garden market rebuilt. hungerford market commenced. the hay market in pall mall removed to regent's park. exeter hall opened. houses of parliament burned down. duke of york's column completed. william iv. died. accession of queen victoria. buckingham palace first occupied. first royal academy exhibition in trafalgar square. great fire at the tower of london. nelson column placed in trafalgar square. hungerford bridge opened. lincoln's inn new hall opened by queen victoria. covent garden theatre opened as italian opera house. new house of lords opened. new portico and hall of british museum opened. april . great chartist demonstration. great exhibition in hyde park. nov. . duke of wellington's funeral. april . visit of emperor and empress of french. nov. . visit of king of sardinia. jan. . steamship "great eastern" launched. underground railway begun. march . mr. george peabody, the american merchant, gives £ , to ameliorate the condition of london poor. may . second international exhibition opened. jan. . underground railway opened. march . princess alexandra, of denmark, enters london. jan. . new street opened between blackfriars' and london bridge. feb. . first block of peabody buildings opened in spitalfields. april . garibaldi receives the freedom of the city. jan. . mr. peabody adds £ , to his gift to the london poor. may . black friday, commercial panic. july . riots in hyde park. sept. . cannon street railway station opened. jan. . severe frost; forty lives lost by the breaking of the ice in regent's park. june . first stone of holborn viaduct laid. may . the queen lays foundation of st. thomas' hospital. dec. . george peabody gives another £ , to the poor of london. july . statue of george peabody unveiled by the prince of wales. nov. . opening of holborn viaduct by the queen. july . opening of the victoria embankment by the prince of wales. index addison, , . adelphi arches, , , . adelphi terrace, . adelphi, the, . "advertiser, the," . "a la mode beef shops," . "all the year round," , , , . almanac day, . alsatia, . alsatia, the squire of, . america, dickens' first visit to, , ; dickens' second visit to, , , . american notes, . anderton's hotel, . apothecaries company, the, . apsley house, . athenæum club, . "athenæum, the," . australia, . bacon, lord, . "bag of nails, the," . bank of england, , . barbican, the, . "barnaby rudge," , , , , , . barnard (fred), . barnard's inn, , . barrow, mrs., . barry, sir john, . bath road, the, . "battle of life, the," . baynard castle, . bayswater, . beaconsfield (earl of), . bedford, earl of, . beer and ale in london, . belfast, dickens' visit to, . belgrave square, . belgravia, , . "bell's life in london," , . "bell" tavern, . bell yard, . bentley's magazine, , . berger, francesco, . berger, rev. a. h., m. a., . besant, sir walter, . betterton, . "big ben," . billingsgate, . bishop's court, . bishopsgate street, . bismarck, . "black bull, the," . blackfriars bridge, , . blackwall, . blanchard, , , . "bleak house," , , , , , , , , . bloomsbury, . bloomsbury square, . "blue boar, the," . boabdil, captain, , . "bobby," the london (_see_ policemen), . bohn's library, . bolt court, , , . boro' (borough), the, . boston bantam, the, . boston, dickens' visit to, . boswell, . boulogne, , . boulogne, summers in, . bouverie street, , , . "bow bells," . "boy at the nore, the," . boythorne, . "boz," , . "boz" club, list of members who knew dickens personally, , . "boz," first sketch, . bradbury and evans, . brewers in london, . brick court, . bridgewater square, . brig place, , . brighton, . british museum, , , , - . broadstairs, , , , , , . browne, hablôt k. (_see_ "phiz"), , , . brownrigg, mrs., . brunel, sir i. k., . brunton, h. w., . budden, major, . "bull and mouth, the," . "bull inn, the," , , . burke and m'dougal, . buss (engraver), . byron on london, . cabs and coaches in london, . caine, hall, jr., . canning, . cannon street, . canterbury, . canterbury, archbishop of, . canterbury pilgrims, . carlyle (thomas), , , , . carmelite street, . cattermole, george, . cave, . cecil hotel, the, . chalk, lodgings at, , . chancery, inns of, . chancery lane, , , , , . chandos street, . chapman and hall, , , , . chapman, frederick (_see_ chapman and hall), . charing cross railway bridge, , . charing cross railway station, , . charles i., portrait by van dyke, . charles ii., . chatham dock yard, . chatterton, , . chaucer, , , . cheapside, . cheeryble bros., . chelsea, , . chelsea hospital, . "cheshire cheese, the," , . chess rooms, . chichester rents, . "chicksey, veneering, and stobbles," . child's banking house, , . child's dream of a star, the, . "child's history of england, the," , . "chimes, the," , , , . chivery, mrs., . chop-houses, . "christmas carol, a," , , . christmas stories, . the chimes, , , , . cricket on the hearth, . battle of life, . the haunted man, . chronology of london events, . church st., westminster, , . "cigar divans," . city companies, the, , . city eating-houses, . city guilds, . "city, the," . city and county of london, . clare market, , , . claridge's hotel, . clement's inn, . clerkenwell, . clifford's inn, , , . cloisterham, , . clubs. brookes', . white's, . athenæum, . carleton, . conservative, . reform, . university, . cobham, . coffee-houses, , . coffee-stalls, . coke, lord chief justice, . cold bath fields prison, . collins, wilkie, , , . concert rooms. exeter hall, . st. james' hall, . floral hall, , . willis' rooms, . the queen's concert rooms, . egyptian hall, . the gallery of illustrations, . the sacred harmonic society, . the philharmonic society, . cook's court (_see_ took's court). copperfield and steerforth, . "copperfield, david," , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . copyright act, . corporation of the city of london, . covent garden, . cowley (abraham), . cowper, . crane court, . craven st. (charing cross), , . "cricket on the hearth, the," . cripple's dancing academy, . crook's rag and bottle shop, . crosby hall, . "crowquill," . cruikshank, george, , , , . crystal palace, the, . cuttle, captain, , , . daily news, under dickens' editorship, , . davenant, lady, . davy, sir humphrey, . de cerjet, m., . de foe, . de lacy, henry, . de worde, wynken, . devonshire terrace, house in, . dickens, charles, the senior, . clerkship in navy pay office, , . home at portsea, . home at chatham, . home at camdentown, . home at gower st., . home at lant st., . imprisonment in marshalsea, . dickens fellowship, the, , , . dickens, georgina, . dickens, henry, k. c., . "dinner at poplar walk, a," . disraeli (benjamin), . district railway, . doctor's commons, . dolby, george, , . "dombey and son," , , , , . dorset, countess of, . dorset house, . doughty street, house in, . dover, , . dover road, the, , . doyle, dicky, . drayton, michael, . drury lane court, . dryden, , . dublin, visit to, . duck lane, . duke street, . dulwich college, . dyce, . dyce and forster collection, . eastcheap, . eastgate house, . e. c., meaning of, , . edinburgh review, the, . edmonton (john gilpin of), . edward iii., . "edwin drood," , , , , . elgin marbles, . eliot, george, , . elizabeth, queen, . epping forest, , . epsom derby, . essex coast, . essex stairs, . evening chronicle, the, . "every man in his humour," . exhibition of the works of the english humourists, . fagin (fagan), . falcon court, . falkland, viscount, . "falstaff inn, the," . favre, jules, . felton, professor, . fenchurch street, . fenton's hotel, . fetter lane, , . fildes, luke, , . fire of london, , , . fitzgerald, percy, , , . fitzgerald, percy (mrs.), . fleet ditch, , . fleet marriages, , . fleet prison, , , , . fleet street, , , , , , , , , , . fleet street, old booksellers and printers of. wynken de worde, . jacob robinson, . lawton gulliver, . edmund curll, . bernard lintot, . w. copeland, . butterworth, . richard tottel, . rastell, . richard pynson, . j. robinson, . t. white, . h. lowndes, . j. murray, . fleet street, taverns and coffee-houses. "the bolt-in inn," . "the devil," . "the king's head," . "the mitre," . "the cock," , . "the rainbow," . "nando's," . "dick's," . "peele's," . "the horn tavern," . flite, miss, garden of, . floral hall, . flower-de-luce court, . forster and dyce collection, . forster, john, , , , , , . house in lincoln's inn fields, , , . fountain court, . fountain inn, . fox, . frith, w. p., . "frozen deep, the," , . furnival's inn, , , , . furnival's inn, dickens' lodgings in, . "gad's hill gasper, the," . gad's hill place, , , , . gaiety theatre, the, . gainsborough (thomas), . "gallery of illustration, the," . gamp, mrs., . gaskell, mrs., . gay's "trivia," . general post-office, the, . "gentleman's magazine, the," , . george iii., . george iv., . "george and vulture, the," , . george street, . "george tavern, the" (bouverie street), . gersterhauer, j. g., . gibson (charles dana), . gilray, . globe theatre, , . "goat and compasses, the," . "golden cross, the," , , , , . golden square, . goldsmith, , , , . goldsmiths' company, the, , . goldsmiths' hall, . gondola, the, of london, . "good words" offices, , . "goose and gridiron, the," . gordon rioters, . gothic revival, . gough square, . gower street (north), . gravesend, . gray's inn, . gray's inn, dickens' clerkship in, . the hall, . gray's inn, mr. perker's chambers, . "great boobee, the," . greater london, , . great exhibition, the, . "great expectations," , . "great international walking match, the," . "great north road, the," . green park, the, . greenwich, . the fair, . fish dinners at, . greenwich, dickens' dinner at, . gresham, sir thomas, . "grewgious, mr.," . grey, lady jane, . grey, sir richard, . grosvenor square, . grub street, , , . guildhall, the, . the museum, . guild of fishmongers, the, . guilds of the city of london. merchant tailors, . mercers, . grocers, . drapers, . fishmongers, . haberdashers, . salters, . ironmongers, . goldsmiths, . skinners, . vintners, . cloth workers, etc., . guy's hospital, , . guy, thomas (_see_ guy's hospital), . hammersmith, . hampstead, . hampstead heath, , , , . hampton court, . "hard times," , . harley, j. p., . harrow, . "haunted house, the," . hawkins, anthony hope, . hawkins, rev. e. c., . hawthorne, nathaniel. description of staple inn, , . haxell's hotel, . heep (uriah), . henley regatta, . henry ii., . hicks' hall, . higham, . high holborn, . high street (southwark), . "highway of letters, the," , , , , . hogarth, . hogarth, catherine, . hogarth, mary, . hogarth's "marriage _à la mode_," . holborn, , , . holborn bars, , . holborn court, . holborn hill, . holborn viaducts, , , , . holywell street, , . hood, tom, , , . hook, theodore, , . hooper, bishop, . "horn tavern, the," . horsemonger lane (southwark), . hotels of various types, . "houghton visitors, the," . hounslow heath, . house of commons, press gallery, . old buildings burned ( ), . new buildings begun, . charles dickens' engagement in the reporters' gallery, . description of, . house of peers, . houses of entertainment, . houses of parliament, , , . "household words," , , , , , , , , , . huffam, john, . hughson's "walks in london," . hungerford bridge, , , . hungerford market, , , , , . hungerford stairs, , . hunt, leigh, , , , . hyde park, , , . hyde park corner, , , . "illustrated london news, the," . inner temple, . the hall, . temple church, . inns of chancery, . inns of court, . benchers and barristers, . benchers' dinner, . international exhibition, , . ironmongers' hall, . irving, sir henry, . "is she his wife," . italian travels, ; return from, . james i., . jarley's waxworks, mrs., . "jasper's secret," . jellyby, mrs., . jerrold (douglas), , , . john, king, palace at eltham, . johnson's court, , . johnson, doctor, , , . walk down fleet st., . dictionary, . and boswell, . jones, inigo, , , . jonson, ben, . "jo's crossing," . kean, charles, . kensington, , . kent, county of, . kentish rebels, the, . king's bench prison, . king's cross, . "king's head inn, the" (chigwell), . "king's head, the" (southwark), . "king's library, the," . kingsley (charles), . knight, charles, , . knighten guild, . knights templars, , . lad lane, . lady guide association, the, . landor (w. s.), , . landseer, edwin, , . lant street, , , , . lawrence, samuel, . "leather bottle, the" (cobham), , , . leech (john), , . lemon, mark, , , . leslie, c. r. (r. a.), , . lever, charles, , . lewis, e. g., . limehouse, . limehouse church, . limehouse hole, . limehouse reach, . limner's hotel, . lincoln's inn, , . dickens' clerkship in solicitor's office there, . new hall and library, . chapel, . lincoln's inn fields, , , , . linkman, trade of the, . "literary gazette, the," . "little dorrit," , , , , . "little wooden midshipman, the," , . lombard street, . london bridge, , , , . london bridge (old), , . london general omnibus co., . london stone, . lord mayor's day, . lord mayor's procession, route of, - . lovelace, . ludgate hill, , , . lytton, lord, . maclise (david), , , , , , , . macready, . macready (mrs.), . macrone (john), . "magpie and stump," the, , . main thoroughfares of london, , . "man of ross," the, . mansion house, the, . markets of london. covent garden, , . smithfield, , . billingsgate, . leadenhall, . farringdon, . borough, . portman, . spitalfields, . marley's ghost, , . marshalsea prison, , , , , , , , , , , . "martin chuzzlewit," , , , , . martin (dr. benj. s.), . "marquis of granby," the, . "master humphrey's clock," , , , . mayfair, , , . maypole inn, the, , . meadows, kenney, . mecklenburgh square, . medway, the, , . memorial hall, . merchant tailors' hall, . metropolitan railway, . micawbers, the, . middlesex street, . middle temple, . the hall, . milestones in london, . millais, sir john (a. r. a.), . milton (john), , . milton street, . mincing lane, . minories, the, , . "mirror of parliament, the," . misnar, the sultan of india, . mitre court, , , . "mitre tavern, the," . montagu house, . monthly magazine, the, , , . monument, the, , . morley's hotel, . "morning chronicle, the," , , . most worshipful company of watermen, the, . "mr. minns and his cousin," . "mr. nightingale's diary," . "mugby junction," . music halls, . nash (the poet), . national gallery, the, . nelson monument, . "new inn, the," , . newgate prison, , , , . newspaper row, . new york, visit to, . "nicholas nickleby," , , , . nightingale lane, . no popery rioters, , . "nobody's fault," . norie and wilson, . northumberland avenue, . northumberland house, , . norwood, . ogilvie and johnson, . "old and new london," . old bailey, the, . "old curiosity shop, the," , , . site of, . "old ship" tavern, the, . "old white horse inn, the," . "oliver twist," , , , , . omnibus, the first, . osgood, james ripley, . "othello," a travesty, . otway, . "our mutual friend," , , . "our watering place" (_see_ broadstairs), . oxford circus, , . oxford university press, . pailthorpe (f. w.), , . palace gate, . pamela, . pamphilon's coffee-house, . panizzi, librarian, . paper buildings, . paris, three months in, . park lane, , . parks of london. _see_ hyde park, . regent's park, . st. james' park, . battersea park, . hampstead heath, . richmond park, . victoria park, . green park, . parliament houses, , , . parlour library of fiction, the, . peel, sir robert, , . peggotty, . home at yarmouth, . "pendennis," . penn, william, . pepys, . petticoat lane, . philharmonic hall (liverpool), . philosophical institution of edinburgh, . "phiz" (_see_ browne, hablôt k.), , , , , . piccadilly, . piccadilly circus, . pickwick and jingle, . pickwick, moses (of bath), . pickwick, mr., . pickwick papers, unpublished page of, . "pickwick papers, the," , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . pickwickian inns, , , , . "pictures from italy," , . "pilgrim's way, the," . pimlico, . "poet's corner, the," . notables buried there, . policemen, . political divisions of london, . pope, . portsmouth road, the, . portugal street, . prigg, betsy, . prince of wales, . princess louise, . printing house square, . prynne, william, . "pubsey and co.," . "punch," , , . putney bridge, . pye corner, . queen anne, . queen's bench prison, . "queen's head, the" (southwark), . quilp, . raffles, sir stamford, . "rag fair" in whitechapel, . railway hotels, . ram alley, . ratcliffe highway, the, . reade, charles, . red lion square, . redding, cyrus, . regent's canal, the, . regent's park, , . regent street, . rennie, john, . "reprinted pieces," . restaurants and dining-rooms, . restoration house, . reynolds, sir joshua, . richardson (samuel), , , . richmond, , , . riverside churches, . rochester, , , . cathedral and castle, , , . corn exchange, . dickens' tablet, . rogers, samuel, . roman occupation of london, . royal academy, the, . royal exchange, , . sackville, . sala, g. a., . salisbury court, , . salisbury house, . salisbury square, , . sandford, . saracen's head (snow hill), . savage club, the, . savage, richard, . "savoy" hotel, the, . sawyer, bob, . scheffer, ary, . scott (sir walter), , . sergeant's inn, . serpentine, the, . seven dials, . "seven poor travellers, the," . seymour, , , . shadwell, . shillaber, inventor of the omnibus, . shoe lane, , . shoreditch, . simpson's divan tavern, . "six jolly fellowship porters, the," . "sketches by boz" (_see_ boz), , , , . skimpole (harold), , . sloane, sir hans, . smirke, sir robert, , . smith, sydney, . snow hill, . society of arts, the, . soho square, . "sol's arms," . somerset house, , . southey, . southwark, , , . high street, . hist. antiq. of, . st. george's church, , . southwark bridge, . "spaniards inn, the," , . "spectator, the," . spring gardens, . "spur, the" (southwark), . squares of london, - . st. bartholomew-the-less, . st. bride's church, , , . st. clement's danes, . st. cyr, marshal de, . st. dunstan's-in-the-west, , , . st. george's church, southwark, , . st. george's fields, . st. george's street, , . st. giles', , . st. james' coffee house, . st. james' park, . st. james' theatre, the, . st. john's church, westminster, . st. john's wood, . st. katherine's dock, . st. margaret's church, . st. martin's-in-the-fields, , . st. mary axe, . st. mary's-le-strand, . st. michael's alley, . st. pancras, . st. paul's cathedral, , , , , , , , , , , . st. stephen's hall, . staël, mme. de, . stafford house, . "standard, the" (newspaper), . "standard, in cornhill, the," . stanfield, , . staple inn, , , , . "star and garter, the" (richmond), . stationers' company, the, . stationers' hall, , . steele, . steele's "tatler," . sterne, laurence, . steyne, lord, . stone (marcus), , , . strand, the, , , , , . strand improvement scheme, . "strange gentleman, the," . stratford and bow, . streets of london, . strood, , . strype's court, . suburban london, . "sultan of india, the," . "sun" inn, the (canterbury), . surrey downs, . surrey hills, the, . "swan with two necks, the," . switzerland revisited, . swiveller (dick), . sydenham, . sykes (bill), , . tabard inn, the, , , . taine, h., . "talbot, the," . "tale of two cities, a," , , , . taverns, _see also_ under individual names, . tea-gardens of london, . temple, the, , , . temple church, . temple gardens, . temple bar, , , . temple gardens, . tenniel, sir john, , . tennyson, alfred, . tessyman (bookbinder), . thackeray, , , , , , , . thames bridges, in london, . thames, the river, . westminster to the tower, . thames valley, the, . thames watermen, . thavie's inn, , , . theatres in london. her majesty's, . the theatre royal, drury lane, . the haymarket theatre, . the adelphi, , , . the lyceum, . the st. james' theatre, , . covent garden theatre, . royal italian opera house, . floral hall, . the strand theatre, . the olympic, . the "new globe" theatre, . the gaiety, . the vaudeville, . the court theatre, . the royalty, . the prince of wales, . the tottenham theatre, . sadler's wells theatre, . marylebone theatre, . the brittania, . the standard, . the pavilion, . the surrey theatre, . the victoria, . thiers, m., . thomas' chop-house, , . thompson (james), . tilbury fort, . "times, the," , . took's court, . topography of london, . tower bridge, . tower hill, , . tower, the, . trading companies, . trafalgar square, , , . "travelling sketches,"--"written on the road," . trinity house, . tripe court, . true sun, the, , . tulkinghorn's (mr.), , , , , . turner (j. m. w.), . tussaud's, madame, , . twickenham, . twinkleton, . "two brewers, the," . tyburn, . tyburnia, , . ugga, ralph, early map of london, . "uncommercial traveller, the," , , , . united service club, . uxbridge road, . "vanity fair," . vauxhall, . vauxhall bridge, . vauxhall gardens, . victoria embankment, , , , . gardens, , . egyptian obelisk, . victorian exhibition ( ), . "village coquettes, the," , . villiers street, . waiters in london, . walmer castle, . walpole (horace), . waltham abbey, . walton, izaak, . warburton, . warren's blacking factory, , , , . water supply of london, . waterloo bridge, . watling street, . watts, richard, . watts' charity, , . weavers' company, the, . weekly times and echo, . wegg and wenham, . weller, sam, , , . wellington, duke of, , , , . wellington street, , , . west end caterers, . westbourne terrace, . westminster abbey, , , . dickens' grave in, . westminster, city of, . bridge, , . westminster hall, . whistler, j. mcneil, . white bait, . "white bait dinner, a, at greenwich," . whitechapel, , , , . whitechapel, characteristics of, , , . whitehall, . banqueting house, . "white friars," the, . whitefriars, , , . white hart, the (boro'), , , . "white hart inn" (hook), . "white horse cellars," , . "white horse tavern" (ipswich), , . william iv., . williams, bronsby, . willis, nathaniel parker, . will's coffee-house, , . wills, w. h., , . windsor, . wine office court, . woolner, thomas, . woolwich, . wordsworth, on london, . on westminster bridge, . wren, jenny, . wren, sir christopher, , , . yates, edmund, . ye old red lion inn, incident in copperfield, . york stairs, . york water gate (_see also_ york stairs), . zoological gardens, . transcriber's notes: passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_. additional spacing after some of the quotes is intentional to indicate both the end of a quotation and the beginning of a new paragraph as presented in the original text. images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break. the following misprints have been corrected: "peel's" corrected to "peele's" (page ) "milbank" corrected to "millbank" (page ) "snagsbys" corrected to "snagsby" (page ) "thing" corrected to "things" (page ) "huffman" corrected to "huffam" (page and index) "thorugh" corrected to "through" (page ) "sheeps' trotters" standardized to "sheep's trotters" (page ) "shillaber" corrected to "shillibeer" (page ) "tralfagar" corrected to "trafalgar" (page ) "brown, hablot" corrected to "browne, hablôt" (index-twice) "haxall's" corrected to "haxell's" (index) "montague" corrected to "montagu" (index) "pannizi" corrected to "panizzi" (index) "st. dunstans-in-the-west" corrected to "st. dunstan's-in-the-west" (index) "st. martins-in-the-fields" corrected to "st. martin's-in-the-fields" (index) "strypes'" corrected to "strype's" (index) "sadlers'" corrected to "sadler's" (index) duplicate text on page ("i believe, sir, you have a great many; but, sir, let me tell you,) has been removed. the original text contains several instances of unmatched quotation marks. obvious errors have been silently paired, while those requiring interpretation have been left as presented in the original. other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained. the indexer seems to have confused blanchard jerrold and douglas jerrold; thus, the page references noted in the index are incorrect. pages and refer to blanchard jerrold, page to douglas jerrold (blanchard's father), and page to both jerrolds. a week's tramp in dickens-land [illustration: the marshes, cooling.] a week's tramp in dickens-land together with =personal reminiscences of the 'inimitable boz'= therein collected. by william r. hughes, f.l.s. _with more than a hundred illustrations by f. g. kitton and other artists._ london: chapman & hall, limited. boston: estes and lauriat. . richard clay & sons, limited, london & bungay. [_all rights reserved._] to my wife and daughters, emily and edith, i dedicate this record of "a week's tramp," to remind them of the many pleasant readings from dickens we have enjoyed together at home. preface. * * * * * "'i should like to show you a series of eight articles, sir, that have appeared in the eatanswill gazette. i think i may venture to say that you would not be long in establishing your opinions on a firm and solid basis, sir.' "'i dare say i should turn very blue long before i got to the end of them,' responded bob. "mr. pott looked dubiously at bob sawyer for some seconds, and turning to mr. pickwick said:-- "'you have seen the literary articles which have appeared at intervals in the eatanswill gazette in the course of the last three months, and which have excited such general--i may say such universal--attention and admiration?' "'why,' replied mr. pickwick, slightly embarrassed by the question, 'the fact is, i have been so much engaged in other ways, that i really have not had an opportunity of perusing them.' "'you should do so, sir,' said pott with a severe countenance. "'i will,' said mr. pickwick. "'they appeared in the form of a copious review of a work on chinese metaphysics, sir,' said pott. "'oh,' observed mr. pickwick--'from your pen i hope?' "'from the pen of my critic, sir,' rejoined pott with dignity. "'an abstruse subject i should conceive,' said mr. pickwick. "'very, sir,' responded pott, looking intensely sage. 'he _crammed_ for it, to use a technical but expressive term; he read up for the subject, at my desire, in the _encyclopædia britannica_.' "'indeed!' said mr. pickwick; 'i was not aware that that valuable work contained any information respecting chinese metaphysics.' "'he read, sir,' rejoined mr. pott, laying his hand on mr. pickwick's knee, and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority, 'he read for metaphysics under the letter m, and for china under the letter c; and combined his information, sir!' "mr. pott's features assumed so much additional grandeur at the recollection of the power and research displayed in the learned effusions in question, that some minutes elapsed before mr. pickwick felt emboldened to renew the conversation." * * * * * the above perennial extract from the immortal _pickwick papers_ suggests to some extent the nature of the contents of this volume. it is the record of a pilgrimage made by two enthusiastic dickensians during the late summer of , together with "combined information,"--not indeed "crammed" from the ninth edition just completed of the valuable work above referred to, but gathered mostly from original sources,--respecting the places visited, the characters alluded to in some of the novels, personal reminiscences of their author, appropriate passages from his works (for which acknowledgments are due to messrs. chapman and hall), and some little mention of the thoughts developed by the associations of "dickens-land." although the pilgrimage only extended to a week, and every spot referred to (save one) was actually visited during that time, it is but right to state that on three subsequent occasions the author has gone over the greater part of the same ground--once in the early winter, when the blue clematis and the aster had given place to the yellow jasmine and the chrysanthemum; once in the early spring, when those had been succeeded by the almond-blossom and the crocus; and again in the following year, when the beautiful county of kent was rehabilitated in summer clothing, thus enabling him to verify observations, to correct possible errors arising from first impressions, and to gain new experiences. as our head-quarters were at rochester, and most of the city and other parts were taken at odd times, it has not been found practicable to preserve in consecutive chapters a perfect sequence of the records of each day's tramp, although they appear in fairly chronological order throughout the work. "a preliminary tramp in london" will possibly be dull to those familiar with the great metropolis, but it may be useful to foreign tramps in "dickens-land." availing myself of the privilege adopted by most travellers at home and abroad, i have made occasional references to the weather. this is perhaps excusable when it is remembered that the year was a very remarkable one in that respect, so much so indeed, that the writer of a leading article in _the times_ of january th, , in commenting on mr. g. j. symons' report of the british rainfall of the previous year, remarked that "seldom within living memory had there been a twelve-month with more unpleasantness in it and less of genial sunshine." we were specially favoured, however, in getting more "sunshine" than "unpleasantness," thus adding to the enjoyment of our never-to-be-forgotten tramp. upwards of three years have elapsed since this book was commenced, and the limited holiday leisure of a hard-working official life has necessarily prevented its completion for such a lengthened period, that it has come to be pleasantly referred to by my many dickensian friends as the "dictionary," in allusion to the important work of that nature contemplated by dr. strong, respecting which (says david copperfield) "adams, our head-boy, who had a turn for mathematics, had made a calculation, i was informed, of the time this dictionary would take in completing, on the doctor's plan, and at the doctor's rate of going. he considered that it might be done in one thousand six hundred and forty-nine years, counting from the doctor's last, or sixty-second, birthday." my hearty and sincere acknowledgments are due to the publishers, messrs. chapman and hall, not only for the very handsome manner in which they have allowed my book to be got up as regards print, paper, and execution (to follow the model of their victoria edition of _pickwick_ is indeed an honour to me), but especially for their great liberality in the matter of the illustrations, which number more than a hundred. these were selected in conference by mr. fred chapman, mr. kitton, and myself, and include about fifty original drawings by mr. kitton, from sketches specially made by him for this work. of the remainder, six are from forster's _life of dickens_, fifteen from langton's _childhood and youth of charles dickens_, seven from _charles dickens by pen and pencil_, ten from the jubilee edition of _pickwick_, and five from rimmer's _about england with dickens_. a few interesting fac-similes of handwriting, etc., have also been introduced. surely such an eclectic series of dickens illustrations has never before been presented in one volume. to messrs. chapman and hall, mr. robert langton, f.r.h.s., messrs. frank t. sabin and john f. dexter, messrs. macmillan and co., and messrs. chatto and windus (the proprietors of the above-mentioned works), the author's acknowledgments are also due, and are hereby tendered. mr. stephen t. aveling has kindly supplied an illustration of restoration house as it appeared in dickens's time, and mr. william ball, j.p., generously commissioned a local artist to make a sketch of the marshes, which forms the frontispiece to the book, and gives a good idea of the "long stretches of flat lands" on the kent and essex coasts. to those friends whom we then met for the first time, and from whom we subsequently received help, the author's most cordial acknowledgments are due, and are also tendered, for kind information and assistance. they are a goodly number, and include mr. a. a. arnold, mr. stephen t. aveling, mr. william ball, j.p., mr. james baird, mr. charles bird, f.g.s., major and mrs. budden, mr. w. j. budden, mr. r. l. cobb, mr. j. couchman, the misses drage, mrs. easedown, mr. franklin homan, mr. james hulkes, j.p., and mrs. hulkes, mr. apsley kennette, mrs. latter, mr. j. lawrence, mr. c. d. levy, mr. b. lillie, mr. j. e. littlewood, mr. j. n. malleson, rev. j. j. marsham, m.a., mrs. masters, mr. miles, mr. w. millen, mr. geo. payne, f.s.a., mr. william pearce, mr. george robinson, mr. t. b. rosseter, f.r.m.s., dr. sheppard, mr. henry smetham, dr. steele, m.r.c.s., mr. william syms, mrs. taylor, miss taylor, mr. w. s. trood, major trousdell, rev. robert whiston, m.a., mr. w. t. wildish, mr. humphrey wood, mr. c. k. worsfold, and mrs. henry wright. the late mr. roach smith, f.s.a., took much interest in my work and gave valuable assistance. mr. luke fildes, r.a., and mrs. lynn linton generously contributed very interesting information. the right honourable the earl of darnley, mr. henry fielding dickens, mr. w. p. frith, r.a., and lady head, also kindly answered enquiries. miss hogarth has at my request very kindly consented to the publication of the original letters of the novelist--about a dozen--now printed for the first time. my sincere thanks are due to mr. e. w. badger, f.r.h.s., the friend of many years, for valuable help. to my old friend and fellow-tramp, mr. f. g. kitton, with whose memory this delightful excursion will ever be pleasantly connected, my warmest thanks are due for reading proofs and for much kind help in many ways. "he wos werry good to me, he wos." as pip wrote to another "jo," "wot larx" we did have. last, but not least, my cordial thanks are due to mr. charles dickens for much kind information and valuable criticism. so long as readers continue to be, so long will our great english trilogy of cognate authors, shakespeare, scott, and dickens, continue to be read. indeed as regards dickens, a writer in _blackwood_, june, (and _blackwood_ was not always a sympathetic critic), said:--"we may apply to him, without doubt, the surest test to which the maker can be subject: were all his books swept by some intellectual catastrophe out of the world, there would still exist in the world some score at least of people, with all whose ways and sayings we are more intimately acquainted than with those of our brothers and sisters, who would owe to him their being. while we live sam weller and dick swiveller, mr. pecksniff and mrs. gamp, the micawbers and the squeerses, can never die. . . . they are more real than we are ourselves, and will outlive and outlast us, as they have outlived their creator. this is the one proof of genius which no critic, not the most carping or dissatisfied, can gainsay." so long also, the author ventures to think, will pilgrimages continue to be made to the shrines of stratford-on-avon, abbotsford, and gad's hill place, and to their vicinities. the modest aim of this volume is, that it may add a humble unit in helping to keep _his_ memory green, and that it may be a useful and acceptable companion to pilgrims, not only of our own country, but also from that still "greater britain," where "all the year round" the name of charles dickens is almost a dearer "household word" than it is with us. william r. hughes. wood house, handsworth wood, near birmingham. _ th september, ._ contents. chap. page preface vii i. introductory ii. a preliminary tramp in london iii. rochester city iv. rochester castle v. rochester cathedral vi. richard watts's charity, rochester vii. an afternoon at gad's hill place viii. charles dickens and strood ix. chatham:--st. mary's church, ordnance terrace, the house on the brook, the mitre hotel, and fort pitt. landport:--portsea, hants x. aylesford, town malling, and maidstone xi. broadstairs, margate, and canterbury xii. cooling, cliffe, and higham xiii. cobham park and hall, the leather bottle, shorne, chalk, and the dover road xiv. a final tramp in rochester and london index list of illustrations [illustration] [illustration] page the marshes, cooling _frontispiece_ _f. g. kitton_ (from a sketch by _e. l. meadows_) headpiece, "humour" (from two statuettes of "mr. pickwick" and "sam weller" in crown derby ware) engraved by _r. langton_ xvii the golden cross _herbert railton_ young dickens at the blacking warehouse _f. barnard_ fountain court, temple _c. a. vanderhoof_ staple inn, holborn " " barnard's inn _herbert railton_ dickens's house, furnival's inn " " no. , doughty street _j. grego_ tavistock house, tavistock square _j. liddell_ no. , bayham street _f. g. kitton_ no. , devonshire terrace _d. maclise, r.a._ fac-simile of letter, charles dickens apotheosis of "grip" the raven _d. maclise, r.a._ "my magnificent order at the public house" _phiz_ bull inn, rochester--"good house, nice beds" _herbert railton_ staircase at "the bull" _f. g. kitton_ the "elevated den" in the ball-room, "bull inn" _f. g. kitton_ old rochester bridge _herbert railton_ the guildhall, rochester _f. g. kitton_ the "moon-faced" clock in high street " " in high street, rochester " " eastgate house, rochester " " mr. sapsea's house, rochester " " mr. sapsea's father (after sketch by _h. wickham_) restoration house, rochester _f. g. kitton_ old rochester theatre, star hill _w. hull_ the castle from rochester bridge _f. g. kitton_ the keep of rochester castle _herbert railton_ interior of rochester castle _f. g. kitton_ rochester castle and the medway " " rochester cathedral " " rochester cathedral, interior " " the crypt, rochester cathedral _phiz_ minor canon row, rochester _f. g. kitton_ college gate (or "chertsey's" gate), rochester " " prior's gate, rochester " " deanery gate, rochester " " the vines and restoration house, rochester " " restoration house, as it appeared in dickens's time (engraved from a drawing by an amateur) st. nicholas' burying-ground _f. g. kitton_ memorial brass in rochester cathedral the "six poor travellers" _f. g. kitton_ richard watts's almshouses, rochester " " fac-similes of signatures of charles dickens and mark lemon the "six poor travellers" from the rear _f. g. kitton_ a dormitory in the "six poor travellers": gallery leading to the dormitories _f. g. kitton_ satis house (from a photograph) watts's monument in rochester cathedral _r. langton_ rochester from strood hill _c. marshall_ the "sir john falstaff" inn, gad's hill _f. g. kitton_ gad's hill place " " "the empty chair." gad's hill, ninth of june, _f. g. kitton_ (from the drawing by _s. l. fildes, r.a._) counterfeit book-backs on study door _r. langton_ gad's hill place from the rear _j. liddell_ "the grave of dick, the best of birds" _f. g. kitton_ the well at gad's hill place " " the porch, gad's hill place _j. liddell_ the cedars, gad's hill _e. hull_ view from the roof of dickens's house, gad's hill _f. g. kitton_ fac-similes of _gad's hill gazette_ and final notice - temple farm, strood _f. g. kitton_ at temple farm, strood " " crypt, temple farm " " the "crispin and crispianus," strood " " old quarry house, strood " " frindsbury church " " rochester from strood pier " " st. mary's church, chatham _w. dadson_ no. , ordnance terrace, chatham _e. hull_ the house on the brook, chatham " giles's school, chatham " mitre inn, chatham " navy-pay office, chatham " fort pitt, chatham _herbert railton_ birthplace of charles dickens, portsea (from a photograph) st. mary's church, portsea _r. langton_ aylesford _f. g. kitton_ aylesford bridge " " the high street, town malling _herbert railton_ cob tree hall _f. g. kitton_ cricket ground, town malling " " the medway at maidstone " " chillington manor house, maidstone " " kit's coty house " " kit's coty house and "blue bell" " " (from the painting by gegan) hop-picking in kent _f. g. kitton_ "bleak house," broadstairs " " old look-out house, broadstairs " " the "falstaff," westgate, canterbury " " the "dane john" from the city wall, canterbury " " bell harry tower, canterbury cathedral " " scene of the martyrdom, canterbury cathedral " " "bits" of old canterbury _c. a. vanderhoof_ "the little inn," canterbury _f. g. kitton_ graves of the comport family, cooling churchyard " " cooling church _c. a. vanderhoof_ gateway, cooling castle _f. g. kitton_ cliffe church " " cobham hall _herbert railton_ dickens's chÂlet, now in cobham park _j. liddell_ the "leather bottle," cobham _f. g. kitton_ the old parlour of the "leather bottle" _e. hull_ cobham church _herbert railton_ shorne church _f. g. kitton_ curious old figure over the porch, chalk church _f. g. kitton_ "there's milestones on the dover road" " " doorway, rochester cathedral " " fac-similes of charles dickens's handwriting , , , - the grave in westminster abbey _f. g. kitton_ tailpiece, "pathos" (from two plaques of the "old man" and "little nell" in wedgwood ware) engraved by _r. langton_ xx [illustration] [illustration] a week's tramp in dickens-land. chapter i. introductory. "so wishing you well in the way you go, we now conclude with the observation, that perhaps you'll go it."--_our mutual friend._ among the many interesting books that have been published relating to charles dickens since his death, more than twenty years ago (it seems but yesterday to some of his admirers), there are at least half a dozen that describe the "country" peopled by the deathless characters created by his genius. probably the pioneer in this class of literature was that comprehensive work, _dickens's london, or london in the works of charles dickens_, by my friend, that thorough dickensian, mr. t. edgar pemberton, ; this was followed by a very readable volume, _in kent with charles dickens_, by thomas frost, ; then came a dainty tome from boston, u.s.a., entitled, _a pickwickian pilgrimage_, by john r. g. hassard, . afterwards appeared _the childhood and youth of charles dickens_, by robert langton, , beautifully illustrated by the late william hull of manchester, the author, and others--a work developed from the _brochure_ by the same author, _charles dickens and rochester_, , which has passed through five editions. next to forster's _life of dickens_, mr. robert langton's larger work undoubtedly ranks--especially from the richness of the illustrations--as a very valuable original contribution to the biography of the great novelist. another handsome volume, containing the illustrations to a series of papers in _scribner's monthly_--written by b. e. martin--entitled _about england with dickens_, came from the pen of mr. alfred rimmer, , and included additional illustrations drawn by the author, c. a. vanderhoof, and others. yet another little _brochure_ recently appeared, called _london rambles en zigzag with charles dickens_, by robert allbut, . lastly, there was published in the christmas number of _scribner's magazine_, , an article, "in dickens-land," by edward percy whipple, in which this veteran and appreciative critic of the eminent english writer's works points out that, "in addition to the practical life that men and women lead, constantly vexed as it is by obstructive facts, there is an interior life which they _imagine_, in which facts smoothly give way to sentiments, ideas, and aspirations. dickens has, in short, discovered and colonized one of the waste districts of 'imagination,' which we may call 'dickens-land,' or 'dickens-ville,' . . . better known than such geographical countries as canada and australia, . . . and confirming us in the belief of the _reality_ of a population which has no _actual_ existence." it must not be assumed that the above list exhausts the literature on the subject of "dickens-land," many references to which are made in such high-class works as augustus j. c. hare's _walks in london_, and lawrence hutton's _literary landmarks of london_. since the above was written, a very interesting and prettily illustrated article has appeared in the _english illustrated magazine_ for october, , entitled "charles dickens and southwark," by mr. j. ashby-sterry, who is second to none as an enthusiastic admirer and loyal student of dickens. there is also a paper in _longman's magazine_ for the same month, by the delightful essayist a. k. h. b., called "that longest day," in which there are several allusions to dickens and "dickens-land." it, however, lacks the freshness of his earlier writings. surely he must have lost his old love for dickens, or things must have gone wrong at the ecclesiastical conference which took place at gravesend on "that longest day." altogether it is pitched in a minor key. none of these contributions (with the exception of mr. langton's book), interesting as they are, and indispensable to the collector, attempt in any way to give personal reminiscences of charles dickens from friends or others, nor do they in any way help to throw light on his everyday life at home, beyond what was known before. the circumstances narrated in this work do not concern the imaginary "dickens-land" of mr. whipple, but refer to the actual country in which the imaginary characters played their parts, and to that still more interesting actual country in which dickens lived long and loved most--the county of kent. on friday, th august, , two friends met in london--one of them, the writer of these lines, a dickens collector of some years' experience; the other, mr. f. g. kitton, author of that sumptuous work, _charles dickens by pen and pencil_; both ardent admirers of "the inimitable 'boz,'" and lovers of nature and art. we were a sort of self-constituted roving commission, to carry into effect a long-projected intention to make a week's tramp in "dickens-land," for purposes of health and recreation; to visit gad's hill, rochester, chatham, and neighbouring classical ground; to go over and verify some of the most important localities rendered famous in the novels; to identify, if possible, doubtful spots; and to glean, under whatever circumstances naturally developed in the progress of our tramp, additions in any form to the many interesting memorials already published, and still ever growing, relating to the renowned novelist. the idea of recording our reminiscences was not a primary consideration. it grew out of our experiences, generating a desire for others to become acquainted with the results of our enjoyable peregrinations; and the labour therein involved has been somewhat of the kind described by lewis morris:-- "for this of old is sure, that change of toil is toil's sufficient cure." we mixed with representatives of the classes of domestics, labourers, artizans, traders, professional men, and scientists. many of those whom we met were advanced in years,--several were octogenarians,--and there is no doubt that we have been the means of placing on record here and there an interesting item from the past generation (mostly told in the exact words of the narrators) that might otherwise have perished. this is a special feature of this work, which makes it different from all the preceding. in every instance we were received with very great kindness, courtesy, and attention. the replies to our questions were frank and generous, and in several cases permission was accorded us to make copies of original documents not hitherto made public. considering that almost every inch of ground connected with dickens has been so thoroughly explored, we were, on the whole, quite satisfied with our excursion: "the results were equal to the appliances." by a coincidence, the month which we selected (august) was dickens's favourite month, if we may judge from the opening sentences of the sixteenth chapter of _pickwick_:-- "there is no month in the whole year, in which nature wears a more beautiful appearance than in the month of august. spring has many beauties, and may is a fresh and blooming month, but the charms of this time of year are enhanced by their contrast with the winter season. august has no such advantage. it comes when we remember nothing but clear skies, green fields, and sweet-smelling flowers--when the recollection of snow, and ice, and bleak winds, has faded from our minds as completely as they have disappeared from the earth,--and yet what a pleasant time it is. orchards and cornfields ring with the hum of labour; trees bend beneath the thick clusters of rich fruit which bow their branches to the ground; and the corn, piled in graceful sheaves, or waving in every light breath that sweeps above it, as if it wooed the sickle, tinges the landscape with a golden hue. a mellow softness appears to hang over the whole earth; the influence of the season seems to extend itself to the very wagon, whose slow motion across the well-reaped field, is perceptible only to the eye, but strikes with no harsh sound upon the ear." by another coincidence, the day which we selected to commence our tramp was friday--the day upon which most of the important incidents of dickens's life happened, as appears from frequent references in forster's _life_ to the subject. provided with a selection of books inseparably connected with the subject of our tour, including, of course, copies of _pickwick_, _great expectations_, _edwin drood_, _the uncommercial traveller_, bevan's _tourist's guide to kent_, one or two local handbooks, one of bacon's useful cycling maps, with a sketch map of the geology of the district (which greatly helped us to understand many of its picturesque effects, and was kindly furnished by professor lapworth, ll.d., f.r.s., of the mason college, birmingham), and with a pocket aneroid barometer, which every traveller should possess himself with if he wishes to make convenient arrangements as regards weather, we make a preliminary tramp in london. chapter ii. a preliminary tramp in london. "we britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise, while i was scared by the immensity of london, i think i might have had some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and dirty."--_great expectations._ some sixty or seventy years must have elapsed since dickens (through the mouthpiece of pip, as above) recorded his first impressions of london; and although he lived in it many years, and in after life he loved to study its people in every stratum of society and every phase of their existence, it seems doubtful, apart from these studies, whether he ever really liked london itself, for in the _uncommercial traveller_, on "the boiled beef of new england," in describing london as it existed subsequently, he contrasts it unfavourably in some respects, not only with such continental cities as paris, bordeaux, frankfort, milan, geneva, and rome, but also with such british cities as edinburgh, aberdeen, exeter, and liverpool, with such american cities as new york, boston, and philadelphia, and with "a bright little town like bury st. edmunds." nevertheless, it is indubitable that his writings, beyond those of any other author, have done wonders to popularize our knowledge of london,--more particularly the london of the latter half of the last and the first half of the present century,--and that those writings have given it a hold on our affections which it might not otherwise have acquired. in almost all his works we are introduced to a fresh spot in the metropolis, perhaps previously known to us, but to which the fidelity of his descriptions and the reality of the characters peopling it, certainly give a historical value never before understood or appreciated. in _the life of charles dickens_, written by his devoted friend, john forster, may be found a corroboration of this view:-- "there seemed," says this biographer, "to be not much to add to our knowledge of london until his books came upon us, but each in this respect outstripped the other in its marvels. in _nickleby_, the old city reappears under every aspect; and whether warmth and light are playing over what is good and cheerful in it, or the veil is uplifted from its darker scenes, it is at all times our privilege to see and feel it as it absolutely is. its interior hidden life becomes familiar as its commonest outward forms, and we discover that we hardly knew anything of the places we supposed that we knew the best." what scott did for edinburgh and the trossachs, dickens did for london and the county of kent. his fascination for the london streets has been dwelt on by many an author. mr. frank t. marzials says in his interesting _life of charles dickens_:-- "london remained the walking-ground of his heart. as he liked best to walk in london, so he liked best to walk at night. the darkness of the great city had a strange fascination for him. he never grew tired of it." mr. sala records that he had been encountered "in the oddest places and in the most inclement weather: in ratcliff highway, on haverstock hill, on camberwell green, in gray's inn lane, in the wandsworth road, at hammersmith broadway, in norton folgate, and at kensal new town. a hansom whirled you by the 'bell and horns' at brompton, and there was charles dickens striding as with seven-leagued boots, seemingly in the direction of north end, fulham. the metropolitan railway disgorged you at lisson grove, and you met charles dickens plodding sturdily towards the 'yorkshire stingo.' he was to be met rapidly skirting the grim brick wall of the prison in coldbath fields, or trudging along the seven sisters' road at holloway, or bearing under a steady press of sail through highgate archway, or pursuing the even tenor of his way up the vauxhall bridge road." that his feelings were intensely sympathetic with all classes of humanity there is amply evidenced in the following lines, written so far back as , which master humphrey, "from his clock side in the chimney corner," speaks in the last page before the opening of _barnaby rudge_:-- "heart of london, there is a moral in thy every stroke! as i look on at thy indomitable working, which neither death, nor press of life, nor grief, nor gladness out of doors will influence one jot, i seem to hear a voice within thee which sinks into my heart, bidding me, as i elbow my way among the crowd, have some thought for the meanest wretch that passes, and, being a man, to turn away with scorn and pride from none that bear the human shape." on a sultry day, such as this of friday, the th august, , with the thermometer at nearly degrees in the shade, one needs some enthusiasm to undertake a tramp for a few hours over the hot and dusty streets of london, that we may glance at a few of the memorable spots that we have visited over and over again before. this preliminary tramp is therefore necessarily limited to visiting the houses where dickens lived, from the year until he finally left it in , on disposing of tavistock house, and took up his residence at gad's hill place. in our way we shall take a few of the places rendered famous in the novels, but it would require a "knowledge of london" as "extensive and peculiar" as that of mr. weller, and would occupy a week at least, to exhaust the interest of all these associations. [illustration: the golden cross.] our temporary quarters are at our favourite "morley's," in trafalgar square, one of those old-fashioned, comfortable hotels of the last generation, where the guest is still known as "mr. h.," and not as "number ." and what is very relevant to our present purpose, morley's revives associations of the hotels, or "inns," as they were more generally called in charles dickens's early days. strolling from morley's eastward along the strand, to which busy thoroughfare there are numerous references in the works of dickens, we pass on our left the golden cross hotel, a great coaching-house half a century ago, from whence the pickwickians and mr. jingle started, on the th of may, , by the "commodore" coach for rochester. "the low archway," against which mr. jingle thus prudently cautioned the passengers,--"heads! heads! take care of your heads!" with the addition of a very tragic reference to the head of a family, was removed in , and the hotel has the same appearance now that it presented after that alteration. the house was a favourite with david copperfield, who stayed there with his friend steerforth on his arrival "outside the canterbury coach;" and it was in one of the public rooms here, approached by "a side entrance to the stable-yard," that the affecting interview took place with his humble friend mr. peggotty, as touchingly recorded in the fortieth chapter of _david copperfield_. the two famous "pudding shops" in the strand, so minutely described in connection with david's early days, have of course long been removed:-- "one was in a court close to st. martin's church--at the back of the church,--which is now removed altogether. the pudding at that shop was made of currants, and was rather a special pudding, but was dear, two pennyworth not being larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding. a good shop for the latter was in the strand,--somewhere in that part which has been rebuilt since. it was a stout pale pudding, heavy and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it, stuck in whole at wide distances apart. it came up hot at about my time every day, and many a day did i dine off it." [illustration: young dickens at the blacking warehouse.] nearly opposite the golden cross hotel is craven street, where (says mr. allbut), at no. , mr. brownlow in _oliver twist_ resided after removing from pentonville, and where the villain monks was confronted, and made a full confession of his guilt. "ruminating on the strange mutability of human affairs," after the manner of mr. pickwick, we call to mind, on the same side of the way, hungerford stairs, market, and bridge, all well remembered in the days of our youth, but now swept away to make room for the commodious railway terminus at charing cross. here poor david copperfield "served as a labouring hind," and acquired his grim experience with poverty in murdstone and grinby's (_alias_ lamert's) blacking warehouse. hungerford suspension bridge many years ago was removed to clifton, and we never pass by it on the great western line without recalling recollections of poor david's sorrows. next in order comes buckingham street, at the end house of which, on the east side (no. ), lived mrs. crupp, who let apartments to david copperfield in happier days. here he had his "first dissipation," and entertained steerforth and his two friends, mrs. crupp imposing on him frightfully as regards the dinner; "the handy young man" and the "young gal" being equally troublesome as regards the waiting. the description of "my set of chambers" in _david copperfield_ seems to point to the possibility of dickens having resided here, but there is no evidence to prove it. at osborn's hotel, now the adelphi, in john street, mr. wardle and his daughter emily stayed on their visit to london, after mr. pickwick was released from the fleet prison. durham street, a little further to the right, leads to the "dark arches," which had attractions for david copperfield, who "was fond of wandering about the adelphi, because it was a mysterious place with those dark arches." he says:--"i see myself emerging one evening from out of these arches, on a little public-house, close to the river, with a space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing." nearly opposite is the adelphi theatre, notable as having been the stage whereon most of the dramas founded on dickens's works were first produced, from _nicholas nickleby_ in , in which mrs. keeley, john webster, and o. smith took part, down to , when _no thoroughfare_ was performed, "the only story," says mr. forster, "dickens himself ever helped to dramatize," and which was rendered with such fine effect by fechter, benjamin webster, mrs. alfred mellon, and other important actors. he certainly assisted in madame celeste's production of _a tale of two cities_, even if he had no actual part in the writing of the piece. mr. allbut thinks that the residence of miss la creevy, the good-natured miniature painter (whose prototype was miss barrow, dickens's aunt on his mother's side) in _nicholas nickleby_, was probably at no. , strand. it was "a private door about half-way down that crowded thoroughfare." we proceed onwards, passing wellington street north, where at no. , the office of the famous _household words_ formerly stood; _all the year round_, its successor, conducted by mr. charles dickens, the novelist's eldest son, now being at no. in the same street. a little further on, on the same side of the way, and almost facing somerset house, at no. , was the office of the once celebrated _morning chronicle_, on the staff of which dickens in early life worked as a reporter. the _chronicle_ was a great power in its day, when mr. john black ("dear old black!" dickens calls him, "my first hearty out-and-out appreciator, . . . with never-forgotten compliments . . . coming in the broadest of scotch from the broadest of hearts i ever knew,") was editor, and mr. j. campbell, afterwards lord chief-justice campbell, its chief literary critic. the _chronicle_ died in . the west corner of arundel street (no. , strand, where now stand the extensive premises of messrs. w. h. smith and son) was formerly the office of messrs. chapman and hall, the publishers of almost all the original works of charles dickens. after the firm removed to , piccadilly, their present house being at , henrietta street, covent garden. they own the copyright, and publish all dickens's works; and they estimate that two million copies of _pickwick_[ ] have been sold in england alone, exclusive of the almost innumerable popular editions, from one penny upwards, published by other firms, the copyright of this work having expired. the penny edition was sold by hundreds of thousands in the streets of london some years ago. this statement will probably be surprising to the remarkable class of readers thus described by that staunch admirer of dickens, mr. andrew lang, in "phiz," one of his charming _lost leaders_. he says:-- "it is a singular and gloomy feature in the character of young ladies and gentlemen of a particular type, that they have ceased to care for dickens, as they have ceased to care for scott. they say they cannot read dickens. when mr. pickwick's adventures are presented to the modern maid, she behaves like the cambridge freshman. 'euclide viso, cohorruit et evasit.' when he was shown euclid he evinced dismay, and sneaked off. even so do most young people act when they are expected to read _nicholas nickleby_ and _martin chuzzlewit_. they call these master-pieces 'too gutterly gutter'; they cannot sympathize with this honest humour and conscious pathos. consequently the innumerable references to sam weller, and mrs. gamp, and mr. pecksniff, and mr. winkle, which fill our ephemeral literature, are written for these persons in an unknown tongue. the number of people who could take a good pass in mr. calverley's _pickwick_ examination paper is said to be diminishing. pathetic questions are sometimes put. are we not too much cultivated? can this fastidiousness be anything but a casual passing phase of taste? are all people over thirty who cling to their dickens and their scott old fogies? are we wrong in preferring them to _bootles' baby_, and _the quick or the dead_, and the novels of m. paul bourget?" [illustration: fountain court, temple.] but this by the way. turning down essex street, we visit the temple, celebrated in several of dickens's novels--_barnaby rudge_, _a tale of two cities_, _great expectations_, and _our mutual friend_,--but in none more graphically than in _martin chuzzlewit_, in which is described the fountain in fountain court, where ruth pinch goes to meet her lover, "coming briskly up, with the best little laugh upon her face that ever played in opposition to the fountain; and beat it all to nothing." and when john westlock came at last, "merrily the fountain leaped and danced, and merrily the smiling dimples twinkled and expanded more and more, until they broke into a laugh against the basin's rim, and vanished." as we saw the fountain on the bright august morning of our tramp, the few shrubs, flowers, and ferns planted round it gave it quite a rural effect, and we wished long life to the solitary specimen of eucalyptus, whose glaucous-green leaves and tender shoots seemed ill-fitted to bear the nipping frosts of our variable climate. coming out of the temple by middle temple lane, we pass on our left child's bank, the "tellson's bank" of _a tale of two cities_, "which was an old-fashioned place even in the year ," but was replaced in by the handsome building suitable to its imposing neighbours, the law courts. temple bar, which adjoined the old bank, and was one of the relics of dickens's london, has passed away, having since been re-erected on "theobalds," near waltham cross. "a walk down fleet street"--one of dr. johnson's enjoyments--leads us to whitefriars street, on the east side of which, at no. , is the office of _the daily news_, edited by dickens from jany. to feby., , and for which he wrote the original prospectus, and subsequently, in a series of letters descriptive of his italian travel, his delightful _pictures from italy_. st. dunstan's church in fleet street is supposed to have been that immortalized in _the chimes_. it was in this street many years before (in the year , when he was only twenty-one), as recorded in forster's _life_, that dickens describes himself as dropping his first literary sketch, _mrs. joseph porter over the way_, "stealthily one evening at twilight, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box in a dark office up a dark court in fleet street; and he has told his agitation when it appeared in all the glory of print:--'on which occasion i walked down to westminster hall, and turned into it for half an hour, because my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride, that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there.'" the "dark court" referred to was no doubt johnson's court, as the printers of the _monthly magazine_, messrs. baylis and leighton, had their offices here. this contribution appeared in the january number of this magazine, published by messrs. cochrane and macrone of waterloo place. turning up chancery lane, also celebrated in many of charles dickens's novels, we leave on our left bell yard, where lodged the ruined suitor in chancery, poor gridley, "the man from shropshire" in _bleak house_, but the yard has, through part of it being required for the new law courts and other modern improvements, almost lost its identity. on our right is old serjeant's inn, which leads into clifford's inn, where the conference took place between john rokesmith and mr. boffin, when the former, to the latter's amazement, said:--"if you would try me as your secretary." the place is thus referred to in the eighth chapter of _our mutual friend_:-- "not very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, and feeling the more embarrassed because his manner and appearance claimed a delicacy in which the worthy mr. boffin feared he himself might be deficient, that gentleman glanced into the mouldy little plantation or cat preserve, of clifford's inn, as it was that day, in search of a suggestion. sparrows were there, dry-rot and wet-rot were there, but it was not otherwise a suggestive spot." symond's inn, described as "a little, pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn, like a large dust-bin of two compartments and a sifter,"--where mr. vholes had his chambers, and where ada clare came to live after her marriage, there tending lovingly the blighted life of the suitor in jarndyce and jarndyce, poor richard carstone,--exists no more. it formerly stood on the site of nos. , , and , now handsome suites of offices. lincoln's inn, a little higher up on the opposite side of the way, claims our attention, in the hall of which was formerly the lord high chancellor's court, wherein the wire-drawn chancery suit of jarndyce and jarndyce in _bleak house_ dragged its course wearily along. the offices of messrs. kenge and carboy, of old square, solicitors in the famous suit, were visited by esther summerson, who says:--"we passed into sudden quietude, under an old gallery, and drove on through a silent square, until we came to an old nook in a corner, where there was an entrance up a steep broad flight of stairs like an entrance to a church." mr. serjeant snubbin, mr. pickwick's counsel in the notorious cause of bardell _v._ pickwick, also had his chambers in this square. we then enter lincoln's inn fields, and pay a visit to no. , on the furthest or west side near portsmouth street. this ancient mansion was the residence of dickens's friend and biographer, john forster, before he went to live at palace gate. it is minutely described in the tenth chapter of _bleak house_ as the residence of mr. tulkinghorn, "a large house, formerly a house of state, . . . let off in sets of chambers now; and in those shrunken fragments of its greatness lawyers lie like maggots in nuts." the "foreshortened allegory in the person of one impossible roman upside down," who afterwards points to the "new meaning" (_i. e._ the murder of mr. tulkinghorn) has, it is to be regretted, since been whitewashed. on the th november, , here dickens read _the chimes_ to a few intimate friends, an event immortalized by maclise's pencil, and, as appreciative of the feelings of the audience, forster alludes "to the grave attention of carlyle, the eager interest of stanfield and maclise, the keen look of poor laman blanchard, fox's rapt solemnity, jerrold's skyward gaze, and the tears of harness and dyce." that celebrated tavern called the "magpie and stump," referred to in the twenty-first chapter of _pickwick_,--where that hero spent an interesting evening on the invitation of lowten (mr. perker's clerk), and heard "the old man's tale about the queer client,"--is supposed to have been "the old george the ivth" in clare market, close by. retracing our steps through bishop's court (where lived krook the marine-store dealer, and in whose house lodged poor miss flite and captain hawdon, _alias_ nemo) into chancery lane, we arrive at the point from whence we diverged, and turn into cursitor street. like other places adjacent, this street has been subjected to "improvements," and it is scarcely possible to trace "coavinses," so well known to mr. harold skimpole, or indeed the place of business and residence of mr. snagsby, the good-natured law stationer, and his jealous "little woman." it will be remembered that it was here the reverend mr. chadband more than once "improved a tough subject":--"toe your advantage, toe your profit, toe your gain, toe your welfare, toe your enrichment,"--and refreshed his own. thackeray was partial to this neighbourhood, and rawdon crawley had some painful experiences in cursitor street. [illustration: staple inn, holborn.] bearing round by southampton buildings, we reach staple inn,--behind the most ancient part of holborn,--originally a hostelry of the merchants of the wool-staple, who were removed to westminster by richard ii. in . at no. in the first court, opposite the pleasant little garden and picturesque hall, resided the "angular" but kindly mr. grewgious, attended by his "gloomy" clerk, mr. bazzard, and on the front of the house over the door still remains the tablet with the mysterious initials:-- p. j. t. . but our enquiries fail to discover their meaning. dickens humorously suggests "perhaps john thomas," "perhaps joe tyler," and under hilarious circumstances, "pretty jolly too," and "possibly jabbered thus!" they are understood to be the initials of the treasurer of the inn at the date above-mentioned. it is interesting to state that the inn has been most appropriately restored by the enterprising prudential assurance company, who have recently purchased it; and on the seat in the centre of the second court (facing holborn), under the plane trees which adorn it, were resting a few wayfarers, who seemed to enjoy this thoughtful provision made by the present owners. we can picture in one of the rooms on the first floor of p. j. t.'s house (very memorable to the writer of these lines, some brief part of his early life having been passed there), the conference described in the twentieth chapter of _edwin drood_, between mr. grewgious and his charming ward,--so aptly pourtrayed by mr. luke fildes in his beautiful drawing, "mr. grewgious experiences a new sensation,"--as well as all the other scenes which took place here. [illustration: barnard's inn] turning into holborn through the archway of staple inn, and stopping for a minute to admire the fine effect of the recently restored fourteenth-century old-timbered houses of the inn which face that thoroughfare, a few steps lower down take us to barnard's inn, where pip in _great expectations_ lodged with his friend herbert pocket when he came to london. dickens calls it, "the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for tom-cats." simple-minded joe gargery, who visited pip here, persisted for a time in calling it an "hotel," and after his visit thus recorded his impressions of the place:-- "the present may be a werry good inn, and i believe its character do stand i; but i wouldn't keep a pig in it myself--not in the case that i wished him to fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on him." a few plane trees--the glory of all squares and open spaces in london, where they thrive so luxuriantly--give a rural appearance to this crowded place, while the sparrows tenanting them enjoy the sunbeams passing through the scanty branches. our next halting-place, furnival's inn, is one of profound interest to all pious pilgrims in "dickens-land," for there the genius of the young author was first recognized, not only by the novel-reading world, but also by his contemporaries in literature. thackeray generously spoke of him as "the young man who came and took his place calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it." [illustration: dickens house by furnival's inn] furnival's inn in holborn, which stands midway between barnard's inn and staple inn on the opposite side of the way, is famous as having been the residence of charles dickens in his bachelor days, when a reporter for the _morning chronicle_. he removed here from his father's lodgings at no. , bentinck street, and had chambers, first the "three pair back" (rather gloomy rooms) of no. from christmas until christmas , when he removed to the "three pair floor south" (bright little rooms) of no. , the house on the right-hand side of the square having ionic ornamentations, which he occupied from until his removal to no. , doughty street, in march . the brass-bound iron rail still remains, and the sixty stone steps which lead from the ground-floor to the top of each house are no doubt the same over which the eager feet of the youthful "boz" often trod. he was married from furnival's inn on nd april, , to catherine, eldest daughter of mr. george hogarth, his old colleague on the _morning chronicle_, the wedding taking place at st. luke's church, chelsea, and doubtless lived here in his early matrimonial days much in the same way probably as tommy traddles did, as described in _david copperfield_. here the _sketches by boz_ were written, and most of the numbers of the immortal _pickwick papers_, as also the lesser works: _sunday under three heads_, _the strange gentleman_, and _the village coquettes_. the quietude of this retired spot in the midst of a busy thoroughfare, and its accessibility to the _chronicle_ offices in the strand, must have been very attractive to the young author. his eldest son, the present mr. charles dickens, was born here on the th january, . it was in furnival's inn, probably in the year , that thackeray paid a visit to dickens, and thus described the meeting:-- "i can remember, when mr. dickens was a very young man, and had commenced delighting the world with some charming humorous works in covers which were coloured light green and came out once a month, that this young man wanted an artist to illustrate his writings; and i remember walking up to his chambers in furnival's inn, with two or three drawings in my hand, which, strange to say, he did not find suitable." how wonderfully interesting these "two or three drawings" would be now if they could be discovered! of the score or so of "extra illustrations" to _pickwick_ which have appeared, surely these (if they were such) which dickens "did not find suitable," combining as they did the genius of dickens and thackeray, whatever their merits or defects may have been, would be most highly prized. john westlock, in _martin chuzzlewit_, had apartments in furnival's inn, and was there visited by tom pinch. wood's hotel occupies a large portion of the square, and is mentioned in _the mystery of edwin drood_ as having been the inn where mr. grewgious took rooms for his charming ward rosa bud, from whence he ordered for her refreshment, soon after her arrival at staple inn to escape jasper's importunities, "a nice jumble of all meals," to which it is to be feared she did not do justice, and where "at the hotel door he afterwards confided her to the unlimited head chamber-maid." the society of arts have considerately put up on the house no. one of their neat terra-cotta memorial tablets with the following inscription:-- charles dickens, =novelist=, lived here. b. , d. . we proceed along holborn, and go up kingsgate street, where "poll sweedlepipe, barber and bird fancier," lived, "next door but one to the celebrated mutton-pie shop, and directly opposite the original cats'-meat warehouse." the immortal sairey gamp lodged on the first floor, where doubtless she helped herself from the "chimley-piece" whenever she felt "dispoged." here also the quarrel took place between that old lady and her friend betsey prig anent that mythical personage, "mrs. harris." we pass through red lion square and up bedford row, and after proceeding along theobald's road for a short distance, turn up john street, which leads into doughty street, where, at no. , charles dickens lived from to . the house, situated on the east side of the street, has twelve rooms, is single-fronted, three-storied, and not unlike no. , ordnance terrace, chatham. a tiny little room on the ground-floor, with a bolt inside in addition to the usual fastening, is pointed out as having been the novelist's study. it has an outlook into a garden, but of late years this has been much reduced in size. a bill in the front window announces "apartments to let," and they look very comfortable. doughty street, now a somewhat noisy thoroughfare, must have been in charles dickens's time a quiet, retired spot. a large pair of iron gates reach across the street, guarded by a gate-keeper in livery. "it was," says mr. marzials in his _life of dickens_, "while living at doughty street that he seems, in great measure, to have formed those habits of work and relaxation which every artist fashions so as to suit his own special needs and idiosyncrasies. his favourite time for work was the morning between the hours of breakfast and lunch; . . . he was essentially a day worker and not a night worker. . . . and for relaxation and sedative when he had thoroughly worn himself with mental toil, he would have recourse to the hardest bodily exercise. . . . at first riding seems to have contented him, . . . but soon walking took the place of riding, and he became an indefatigable pedestrian. he would think nothing of a walk of twenty or thirty miles, and that not merely in the vigorous hey-day of youth, but afterwards to the very last. . . ." [illustration: no. , doughty street, mecklenburgh square. _dickens's residence_ - .] it was at doughty street that he experienced a bereavement which darkened his life for many years, and to which forster thus alludes:-- "his wife's next younger sister mary, who lived with them, and by sweetness of nature even more than by graces of person had made herself the ideal of his life, died with a terrible suddenness that for a time completely bore him down. his grief and suffering were intense, and affected him . . . through many after years." _pickwick_ was temporarily suspended, and he sought change of scene at hampstead. forster visited him there, and to him he opened his heart. he says:--"i left him as much his friend, and as entirely in his confidence, as if i had known him for years." [illustration: tavistock house, tavistock square. _dickens's residence_ - .] some time afterwards, we find him inviting forster "to join him at a.m. in a fifteen-mile ride out and ditto in, lunch on the road, with a six o'clock dinner in doughty street." charles dickens's residence in doughty street was but of short duration--from to only; but there he completed _pickwick_, and wrote _oliver twist_, _memoirs of grimaldi_, _sketches of young gentlemen_, _sketches of young couples_, and _the life and adventures of nicholas nickleby_. his eldest daughter mary was born here. in proper sequence we ought to proceed to dickens's third london residence, no. , devonshire terrace, but it will be more convenient to take his fourth residence on our way. we therefore retrace our steps into theobald's road, pass through red lion and bloomsbury squares, and along great russell street as far as the british museum, where dickens is still remembered as "a reader" (merely remarking that it of course contains a splendid collection of the original impressions of the novelist's works, and "dickensiana," as is evidenced by the comprehensive bibliography furnished by mr. john p. anderson, one of the librarians, to mr. marzials' _life of dickens_), which we leave on our left, and turn up montague street, go along upper montague street, woburn square, gordon square, and reach tavistock square, at the upper end of which, on the east side, gordon place leads us into a retired spot cut off as it were from communication with the rest of this quiet neighbourhood. three houses adjoin each other--handsome commodious houses, having stone porticos at entrance--and in the first of these, tavistock house, dickens lived from until , with intervals at gad's hill place. this beautiful house, which has eighteen rooms in it, is now the jews' college. the drawing-room on the first floor still contains a dais at one end, and it is said that at a recent public meeting held here, three hundred and fifty people were accommodated in it, which serves to show what ample quarters dickens had to entertain his friends. hans christian andersen, who visited dickens here in , thus describes this fine mansion:-- "in tavistock square stands tavistock house. this and the strip of garden in front are shut out from the thoroughfare by an iron railing. a large garden with a grass-plat and high trees stretches behind the house, and gives it a countrified look, in the midst of this coal and gas steaming london. in the passage from street to garden hung pictures and engravings. here stood a marble bust of dickens, so like him, so youthful and handsome; and over a bedroom door were inserted the bas-reliefs of night and day, after thorwaldsen. on the first floor was a rich library, with a fireplace and a writing-table, looking out on the garden; and here it was that in winter dickens and his friends acted plays to the satisfaction of all parties. the kitchen was underground, and at the top of the house were the bedrooms." it appears that andersen was wrong about the plays being acted in the "rich library," as i am informed by mr. charles dickens that "the stage was in the school-room at the back of the ground-floor, with a platform built outside the window for scenic purposes." with reference to the private theatricals (or "plays," as andersen calls them, including _the frozen deep_, by wilkie collins, in which dickens, the author, mark lemon, and others performed, and for which in the matter of the scenery "the priceless help of stanfield had again been secured"), on a temporary difficulty arising as to the arrangements, dickens applied to mr. cooke of astley's, "who drove up in an open phaeton drawn by two white ponies with black spots all over them (evidently stencilled), who came in at the gate with a little jolt and a rattle exactly as they come into the ring when they draw anything, and went round and round the centre bed (lilacs and evergreens) of the front court, apparently looking for the clown. a multitude of boys, who felt them to be no common ponies, rushed up in a breathless state--twined themselves like ivy about the railings, and were only deterred from storming the enclosure by the inimitable's eye." mr. cooke was not, however, able to render any assistance. mrs. arthur ryland of the linthurst, near bromsgrove, worcestershire, who was present at tavistock house on the occasion of the performance of _the frozen deep_, informs me that when dickens returned to the drawing-room after the play was over, the constrained expression of face which he had assumed in presenting the character of richard wardour remained for some time afterwards, so strongly did he seem to realize the presentment. the other plays performed were _tom thumb_, , and _the lighthouse_ and _fortunus_, . the following copy of a play-bill--in my collection--of one of these performances is certainly worth preserving in a permanent form, for the double reason that it is extremely rare, and contains one of dickens's few poetical contributions, _the song of the wreck_, which was written specially for the occasion. the smallest theatre in the world! tavistock house. _lessee and manager_ -- -- -- mr. crummles. on tuesday evening, june th, , will be presented, at exactly eight o'clock, an entirely new and original domestic melo-drama, in two acts, by mr. wilkie collins, now first performed, called the lighthouse. the scenery painted by mr. stanfield, r.a. aaron gurnock, the head light-keeper mr. crummles. martin gurnock, his son; the second light-keeper mr. wilkie collins. jacob dale, the third light-keeper mr. mark lemon. samuel furley, a pilot mr. augustus egg, a.r.a. the relief of light-keepers, by mr. charles dickens, junior, mr. edward hogarth, mr. alfred ainger, and mr. william webster. the shipwrecked lady miss hogarth. phoebe miss dickens, who will sing a new ballad, the music by mr. linley, the words by mr. crummles, entitled the song of the wreck. i. "the wind blew high, the waters raved, a ship drove on the land, a hundred human creatures saved, kneeled down upon the sand. three-score were drowned, three-score were thrown upon the black rocks wild; and thus among them left alone, they found one helpless child. ii. a seaman rough, to shipwreck bred, stood out from all the rest, and gently laid the lonely head upon his honest breast. and trav'ling o'er the desert wide, it was a solemn joy, to see them, ever side by side, the sailor and the boy. iii. in famine, sickness, hunger, thirst, the two were still but one, until the strong man drooped the first, and felt his labours done. then to a trusty friend he spake: 'across this desert wide, o take the poor boy for my sake!' and kissed the child, and died. iv. toiling along in weary plight, through heavy jungle-mire, these two came later every night to warm them at the fire, until the captain said one day: 'o seaman good and kind, to save thyself now come away and leave the boy behind!' v. the child was slumb'ring near the blaze: 'o captain let him rest until it sinks, when god's own ways shall teach us what is best!' they watched the whiten'd ashey heap, they touched the child in vain, they did not leave him there asleep, he never woke again." half an hour for refreshment. to conclude with the guild amateur company's farce, in one act, by mr. crummles and mr. mark lemon; mr. nightingale's diary. mr. nightingale mr. frank stone, a.r.a. mr. gabblewig, of the middle temple } charley bit, a boots } mr. poulter, a pedestrian and cold } water drinker } mr. crummles. captain blower, an invalid } a respectable female } a deaf sexton } tip, mr. gabblewig's tiger } mr augustus egg, a.r.a. christopher, a charity boy } slap, professionally mr. flormiville, } a country actor } mr. tickle, inventor of the celebrated } compounds } mr. mark lemon. a virtuous young person in the } confidence of maria } lithers, landlord of the water-lily mr. wilkie collins. rosina, mr. nightingale's niece miss kate dickens. susan her maid miss hogarth. composer and director of the music, mr. francesco berger, who will preside at the pianoforte. costume makers, messrs. nathan of titchbourne street, haymarket. perruquier, mr. wilson, of the strand. machinery and properties by mr. ireland, of the theatre royal, adelphi. _doors open at half-past seven. carriages may be ordered at a quarter past eleven._ it was from tavistock house that dickens received this startling message from a confidential servant:-- "the gas-fitter says, sir, that he can't alter the fitting of your gas in your bedroom without taking up almost the ole of your bedroom floor, and pulling your room to pieces. he says of course you can have it done if you wish, and he'll do it for you and make a good job of it, but he would have to destroy your room first, and go entirely under the jistes." the same female, in allusion to dickens's wardrobe, also said, "well, sir, your clothes is all shabby, and your boots is all burst." [illustration: no. , bayham street, camden town, _where the dickens family lived in _.] among the important works of charles dickens which were wholly or partly written at tavistock house are:--_bleak house_, _a child's history of england_, _hard times_, _little dorrit_, _a tale of two cities_, _the uncommercial traveller_, and _great expectations_. _all the year round_ was also determined upon while he lived here, and the first number was dated th april, . tavistock house is the nearest point to camden town, interesting as being the place where, in , at no. (now no. ) bayham street, the dickens family resided for a short time[ ] on leaving chatham. there is an exquisite sketch of the humble little house by mr. kitton in his _charles dickens by pen and pencil_, and it is spoken of as being "in one of the then poorest parts of the london suburbs." we therefore proceed along gordon square, and reach gower street. at no. , gower street, formerly no. , gower street north, on the west side, was once the elder mr. dickens's establishment. the house, now occupied by mr. müller, an artificial human eye-maker ("human eyes warious," says mr. venus), has six rooms, with kitchens in basement. the rooms are rather small, each front room having two windows, which in the case of the first floor reach from floor to ceiling. it seems to be a comfortable house, but has no garden. there is an old-fashioned brass knocker on the front door, probably the original one, and there is a dancing academy next door. (query, mr. turveydrop's?) the family of the novelist, which had removed from bayham street, were at this time ( ) in such indifferent circumstances that poor mrs. dickens had to exert herself in adding to the finances by trying to teach, and a school was opened for young children at this house, which was decorated with a brass-plate on the door, lettered mrs. dickens's establishment, a faint description of which occurs in the fourth chapter of _our mutual friend_, and of its abrupt removal "for the interests of all parties." these facts, and also that of young charles dickens's own efforts to obtain pupils for his mother, are alluded to in a letter written by dickens to forster in later life:-- "i left, at a great many other doors, a great many circulars calling attention to the merits of the establishment. yet nobody ever came to school, nor do i ever recollect that anybody ever proposed to come, or that the least preparation was made to receive anybody. but i know that we got on very badly with the butcher and baker; that very often we had not too much for dinner; and that at last my father was arrested." this period, subsequently most graphically described in _david copperfield_ as the "blacking bottle period," was the darkest in young charles's existence; but happier times and brighter prospects soon came to drown the recollections of that bitter experience. [illustration: no. , devonshire terrace, regent's park.--_dickens's residence_ - .] walking up euston road from gower street, we see st. pancras church (not the old church of "saint pancridge" in the fields, by the bye, situated in the st. pancras road, where mr. jerry cruncher and two friends went "fishing" on a memorable night, as recorded in _a tale of two cities_, when their proceedings, and especially those of his "honoured parent," were watched by young jerry), and proceed westward along the marylebone road, called the new road in dickens's time, past park crescent, regent's park, and do not stop until we reach no. , devonshire terrace. this commodious double-fronted house, in which dickens resided from to , is entered at the side, and the front looks into the marylebone road. maclise's beautiful sketch of the house (made in ), as given in forster's _life_, shows the windows of the lower and first floor rooms as largely bowed, while over the top flat of one of the former is a protective iron-work covering, thus allowing the children to come out of their nursery on the third floor freely to enjoy the air and watch the passers-by. in the sketch maclise has characteristically put in a shuttlecock just over the wall, as though the little ones were playing in the garden. forster calls it "a handsome house with a garden of considerable size, shut out from the new road by a brick wall, facing the york gate into regent's park;" and dickens himself admitted it to be "a house of great promise (and great premium), undeniable situation, and excessive splendour." that he loved it well is shown by the passage in a letter which he addressed to forster, "in full view of genoa's perfect bay," when about to commence _the chimes_ ( ); he says:--"never did i stagger so upon a threshold before. i seem as if i had plucked myself out of my proper soil when i left devonshire terrace, and could take root no more until i return to it. . . . did i tell you how many fountains we have here? no matter. if they played nectar, they wouldn't please me half so well as the west middlesex water-works at devonshire terrace." mr. jonathan clark, who resides here, kindly shows us over the house, which contains thirteen rooms. the polished mahogany doors in the hall, and the chaste italian marble mantel-pieces in the principal rooms, are said to have been put up by the novelist. on the ground floor, the smaller room to the eastward of the house, with window facing north and looking into the pleasant garden where the plane trees and turf are beautifully green, is pointed out as having been his study. mr. benjamin lillie, of , high street, marylebone, plumber and painter, remembers mr. dickens coming to devonshire terrace. he did a good deal of work for him while he lived there, and afterwards, when he removed to tavistock house, including the fitting up of the library shelves and the curious counterfeit book-backs, made to conceal the backs of the doors. he also removed the furniture to tavistock house, and subsequently to gad's hill place. he spoke of the interest which mr. dickens used to take in the work generally, and said he would stand for hours with his back to the fire looking at the workmen. in the summer time he used to lie on the lawn with his pocket-handkerchief over his face, and when thoughts occurred to him, he would go into his study, and after making notes, would resume his position on the lawn. on the next page we give an illustration of the courteous and precise manner--not without a touch of humour--in which he issued his orders. here it was that dickens's favourite ravens were kept, in a stable on the south side of the garden, one of which died in , it was supposed from the effects of paint, or owing to "a malicious butcher," who had been heard to say that he "would do for him." his death is described by dickens in a long passage which thus concludes:-- "on the clock striking twelve he appeared slightly agitated, but he soon recovered, walked twice or thrice along the coach-house, stopped to bark, staggered, exclaimed, '_holloa, old girl!_' (his favourite expression), and died." [illustration: hanover terrace friday tenth may, . mr. lillie please make the alteration in the two windows in wellington street, agreeably to the estimate you have sent me, and to have the work completed with all convenient speed. be so good as to be careful that the bottom sashes are capable of being easily raised and the top sashes of being easily let down---- faithfully yours charles dickens] in an interesting letter addressed to mr. angus fletcher, recently in the possession of mr. arthur hailstone of manchester, dickens further describes the event:--"suspectful of a butcher who had been heard to threaten, i had the body opened. there were no traces of poison, and it appeared he died of influenza. he has left considerable property, chiefly in cheese and halfpence, buried in different parts of the garden. the new raven (i have a new one, but he is comparatively of weak intellect) administered to his effects, and turns up something every day. the last piece of _bijouterie_ was a hammer of considerable size, supposed to have been stolen from a vindictive carpenter, who had been heard to speak darkly of vengeance down the mews." maclise on hearing the news sent to forster a letter, and a pen-and-ink sketch, being the famous "apotheosis." the second raven died in , probably from "having indulged the same illicit taste for putty and paint, which had been fatal to his predecessor." dickens says:-- "voracity killed him, as it did scott's; he died unexpectedly by the kitchen fire. he kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back with a sepulchral cry of '_cuckoo!_'" these ravens were of course the two "great originals" of which grip in _barnaby rudge_ was the "compound." there was a third raven at gad's hill, but he "gave no evidence of ever cultivating his mind." the novelist's remarkable partiality for ravens called forth at the time the preposterous rumour that "dickens had gone raving (raven) mad." here longfellow visited dickens in , and thus referred to his visit:--"i write this from dickens's study, the focus from which so many luminous things have radiated. the raven croaks in the garden, and the ceaseless roar of london fills my ears." [illustration: apotheosis of "grip" the raven. drawn by d. maclise, r.a.] dickens lived longer at devonshire terrace than he did at any other of his london homes, and a great deal of his best work was done here, including _master humphrey's clock_ (i. _the old curiosity shop_, ii. _barnaby rudge_), _american notes_, _martin chuzzlewit_, _a christmas carol_, _the cricket on the hearth_, _dombey and son_, _the haunted man_, and _david copperfield_. _the battle of life_ was written at geneva in . all these were published from his twenty-eighth to his thirty-eighth year; and _household words_, his famous weekly popular serial of varied high-class literature, was determined upon here, the first number being issued on th march, . from devonshire terrace we pass along high street, and turn into devonshire street, which leads into harley street, minutely described in _little dorrit_ as the street wherein resided the great financier and "master-spirit" mr. merdle, who entertained "bar, bishop, and the barnacle family" at the "patriotic conference" recorded in the same work, in his noble mansion there, and he subsequently perishes "in the warm baths, in the neighbouring street"--as one may say--in the luxuriant style in which he had always lived. harley street leads us into oxford street, and a pleasant ride outside an omnibus--which, as everybody knows, is the best way of seeing london--takes us to hyde park place, a row of tall stately houses facing hyde park. here at no. , (formerly mr. milner gibson's town residence) charles dickens temporarily resided during the winter months of , and occasionally until may , during his readings at st. james's hall, and while he was engaged on _edwin drood_, part of which was written here; this being illustrative of dickens's power of concentrating his thoughts even near the rattle of a public thoroughfare. in a letter addressed to mr. james t. fields from this house, under date of th january, , he says:--"we live here (opposite the marble arch) in a charming house until the st of june, and then return to gad's. . . . i have a large room here with three fine windows over-looking the park--unsurpassable for airiness and cheerfulness." a similar public conveyance takes us back to morley's by way of regent street, about the middle of which, on the west side, is new burlington street, containing, at no. , the well-known publishing office of messrs. richard bentley and son, whose once celebrated magazine, _bentley's miscellany_, dickens edited for a period of two years and two months, terminating, , on his resignation of the editorship to mr. w. harrison ainsworth; and we also pass lower down, at the bottom of waterloo place, that most select of clubs, "the athenæum," at the corner of pall mall, of which dickens was elected a member in , and from which, on the th may, , he wrote his last letter to his son, mr. alfred tennyson dickens, in australia; and a tenderly loving letter it is, indicating the harmonious relations between father and son. it expresses the hope that the two (alfred and "plorn") "may become proprietors," and "aspire to the first positions in the colony without casting off the old connection," and thus concludes:--"from mr. bear i had the best accounts of you. i told him that they did not surprise me, for i had unbounded faith in you. for which take my love and blessing." sad to say, a note to this (the last in the series of published letters) states:--"this letter did not reach australia until after these two sons of charles dickens had heard, by telegraph, the news of their father's death."[ ] at morley's we refresh ourselves with mr. sam weller's idea of a nice little dinner, consisting of "pair of fowls and a weal cutlet; french beans, taturs, tart and tidiness;" and then depart for victoria station, to take train by the london, chatham and dover railway to rochester. the weather forecast issued by that most valuable institution, the meteorological office (established since mr. pickwick's days, in which doubtless as a scientist and traveller he would have taken great interest), was verified to the letter, and we had "thunder locally." on our way down parliament street, we pass inigo jones's once splendid whitehall--now looking very insignificant as compared with its grand neighbours the government offices opposite--remembering mr. jingle's joke about whitehall, which seems to have been dickens's first thought of "king charles's head":--"looking at whitehall, sir--fine place--little window--somebody else's head off there, eh, sir?--he didn't keep a sharp look out enough either--eh, sir, eh?" we also pass "the red lion," no. , parliament street, "at the corner of the very short street leading into cannon row," where david copperfield ordered a glass of the very best ale--"the genuine stunning with a good head to it"--at twopence half-penny the glass, but the landlord hesitated to draw it, and gave him a glass of some which he suspected was _not_ the "genuine stunning"; and the landlady coming into the bar returned his money, and gave him a "kiss that was half-admiring and half-compassionate, but all womanly and good [he says], i'm sure." [illustration: "my magnificent order at the public house" (_vide_ "_david copperfield_").] the horse-guards' clock is the last noteworthy object, and reminds us that mark tapley noticed the time there, on the occasion of his last meeting with mary graham in st. james's park, before starting for america. it also reminds us of mr. micawber's maxim, "procrastination is the thief of time--collar him;"--a few minutes afterwards we are comfortably seated in the train, and can defy the storm, which overtakes us precisely in the manner described in _the old curiosity shop_:-- "it had been gradually getting overcast, and now the sky was dark and lowering, save where the glory of the departing sun piled up masses of gold and burning fire, decaying embers of which gleamed here and there through the black veil, and shone redly down upon the earth. the wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down, carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it menaced thunder and lightning. large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they left behind, and spread over all the sky. then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder, then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour seemed to have gathered in an instant." we pass dulwich,--where mr. snodgrass and emily wardle were married,--a fact that recalls kindly recollections of mr. pickwick and his retirement there, as recorded in the closing pages of the _pickwick papers_, where he is described as "employing his leisure hours in arranging the memoranda which he afterwards presented to the secretary of the once famous club, or in hearing sam weller read aloud, with such remarks as suggested themselves to his mind, which never failed to afford mr. pickwick great amusement." he is subsequently described as "somewhat infirm now, but he retains all his former juvenility of spirit, and may still be frequently seen contemplating the pictures in the dulwich gallery, or enjoying a walk about the pleasant neighbourhood on a fine day." although it is but a short distance--under thirty miles--to rochester, the journey seems tedious, as the "iron-horse" does not keep pace with the pleasurable feelings of eager expectation afloat in our minds on this our first visit to "dickens-land"; it is therefore with joyful steps that we leave the train, and, the storm having passed away, find ourselves in the cool of the summer evening on the platform of strood and rochester bridge station. footnotes: [ ] in _the history of pickwick_, a handsome octavo volume of nearly pages, just published ( ), mr. percy fitzgerald, the author, who is one of the few surviving friends of charles dickens, mentions the interesting fact that there are characters, episodes, and inns, described in this wonderful book, written when the author was only twenty-four. [ ] forster (i. ) infers that the family removed to london in , but mr. langton considers (_childhood and youth of charles dickens_, , pp. - ), from the fact of the birth of dickens's brother alfred having been registered at chatham on rd april, , and from the further fact of there being no record of mr. john dickens's recall throughout this year to somerset house, that the family did not remove to london until the winter of - , and i agree with mr. langton. mr. kitton in _charles dickens by pen and pencil_, , also recognizes this period as the date of the removal of the dickens family to london. [ ] mr. edward bulwer lytton dickens, a son of the great novelist, is a member of the new south wales parliament, having been elected in march . "he stood as a protectionist for the representation of wilcannia, an extensive pastoral district in the western portion of the colony. his father, it will be remembered, was an ardent free trader, and could not be prevailed upon to enter the british parliament on any terms, and occasionally said some severe things of our legislative assembly. his two sons, alfred tennyson and edward bulwer lytton, emigrated to australia some years ago, and became successful pastoralists."--_yorkshire daily post_, march . a subsequent account states that mr. edward bulwer lytton dickens is about to retire, having been, he remarks, "out of pocket, out of brains, out of health, and out of temper, by the pursuit of political glory."--_pall mall gazette_, march . i am since informed that alfred is not a pastoralist, but in business, and that edward has not retired up to date. chapter iii. rochester city. "the silent high street of rochester is full of gables, with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces. it is oddly garnished with a queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red brick building, as if time carried on business there, and hung out his sign."--_the seven poor travellers._ "the town was glad with morning light."--_the old curiosity shop._ mudfog, our town, dullborough, the market town, and cloisterham were the varied names that charles dickens bestowed upon the "ancient city" of rochester. every reader of his works knows how well he loved it in early youth, and how he returned to it with increased affection during the years of his ripened wisdom. among the first pages of the first chapter of forster's _life_ we find references to it:--"that childhood exaggerates what it sees, too, has he not tenderly told? how he thought that the rochester high-street must be at least as wide as regent street which he afterwards discovered to be little better than a lane; how the public clock in it, supposed to be the finest clock in the world, turned out to be as moon-faced and weak a clock as a man's eyes ever saw; and how in its town hall, which had appeared to him once so glorious a structure that he had set it up in his mind as the model from which the genie of the lamp built the palace for aladdin, he had painfully to recognize a mere mean little heap of bricks, like a chapel gone demented. yet, not so painfully either when second thoughts wisely came. 'ah! who was i, [he says] that i should quarrel with the town for being changed to me, when i myself had come back, so changed, to it? all my early readings and early imaginations dated from this place, and i took them away so full of innocent construction and guileless belief, and i brought them back so worn and torn, so much the wiser and so much the worse!'" it would occupy too much space in this narrative to adequately give even a brief historical sketch of the city of rochester, which is twenty-nine miles from london, situated on the river medway, and stands on the chalk on the margin of the london basin; but we think lovers of dickens will not object to a recapitulation of a few of the most noteworthy circumstances which have happened here, and which are not touched upon in the chapters relating to the castle and cathedral. according to the eminent local antiquary, mr. roach smith, f.s.a., the name of the city has been thus evolved:--"the ceastre or chester is a saxon affix to the romano-british (du)ro. the first two letters being dropped in sound, it became duro or dro, and then rochester, and it was the roman station durobrovis." the ancient britons called it "dur-brif," and the saxons "hrofe-ceastre"--horf's castle, of which appellation some people think rochester is a corruption. rochester is a place of great antiquity, and so far back as a.d. it seems to have been a walled city. remains of the mediæval wall exist in very perfect condition, at the back of the eagle inn in high street, and in other parts of the city. in rochester was plundered by ethelred, king of mercia; and in the danes sailed up the medway and besieged it, but were effectually repulsed by king alfred. about , when three mints were established there by athelstan, it had grown to be one of the principal ports of the kingdom. william the conqueror gave the town to his half-brother odo, bishop of bayeux. fires in and nearly destroyed it. not a few royal and distinguished personages have visited rochester on various occasions, among others henry viii., who came there in , accompanied by the emperor charles v. queen elizabeth came in , when she stayed five days, and attended the cathedral service on sunday. she came again in , with the duke of anjou, and showed him her "mighty ships of war lying at chatham." king james i. also visited the city in and . on the latter occasion his majesty, who was accompanied by christian iv., king of denmark, attended the cathedral, and afterwards inspected the navy. charles ii. paid it a visit just before the restoration in , and again subsequently. it is believed that on both occasions he stayed at restoration house (the "satis house" of _great expectations_) hereafter referred to. mr. richard head presented his majesty with a silver ewer and basin on the occasion of the restoration. james ii. came down to the quiet old city december th, , and sojourned with sir richard head for a week at a house (now no. high street), from whence he ignominiously escaped to france by a smack moored off sheerness. mr. stephen t. aveling mentioned to us that "it is curious that charles the second 'came to his own' in rochester, and that james the second 'skedaddled' from the same city."[ ] her majesty when princess victoria stayed at the bull inn in for a night with her mother, the duchess of kent, on their way from dover to london. it was a very tempestuous night, some of the balustrades of rochester bridge having been blown into the river, and the royal princess was advised not to attempt to cross the bridge. "on the last day of june (says mr. w. brenchley rye in his pleasant _visits to rochester_), mr. samuel pepys, after examining the defences at chatham shortly after the disastrous expedition by the dutch up the medway, walked into rochester cathedral, but he had no mind to stay to the service, . . . 'afterwards strolled into the fields, a fine walk, and there saw sir f. clarke's house (restoration house), which is a pretty seat, and into the cherry garden, and here met with a young, plain, silly shopkeeper and his wife, a pretty young woman, and i did kiss her!'" david garrick was living at rochester in , for the purpose of receiving instruction in mathematics, etc., from mr. colson. in , hogarth visited the city, in that celebrated peregrination with his four friends, and played hop-scotch in the courtyard of the guildhall. dr. johnson came here in , and "returned to london by water in a common boat, landing at billingsgate." the city formerly possessed many ancient charters and privileges granted to the citizens, but these were superseded by the municipal corporations act of . the guildhall, "marked by a gilt ship aloft,"--"where the mayor and corporation assemble together in solemn council for the public weal,"--is "a substantial and very suitable structure of brick, supported by stone columns in the doric order," and was erected in . it has several fine portraits by sir godfrey kneller and other eminent painters, including those of king william iii., queen anne, sir cloudesley shovell, richard watts, m.p., and others. the corporation also possess many interesting and valuable city regalia, namely, a large silver-gilt mace ( ), silver loving-cup ( ), silver oar and silver-gilt ornaments (typical of the admiralty jurisdiction of the corporation) ( ), two small maces of silver ( ), sword ( --the mayor being constable of the castle), and chain and badges of gold and enamel ( ), the last-mentioned commemorating many historical incidents connected with the city. emerging from the railway station of the london, chatham and dover company at strood, a drive of a few minutes (over the bridge) brings us to the first object of our pilgrimage, the "bull inn,"--we beg pardon, the "royal victoria and bull hotel,"--in high street, rochester, which was visited by mr. pickwick, mr. tupman, mr. snodgrass, mr. winkle, and their newly-made friend, mr. jingle, on the th may, . our cabman is so satisfied with his fare ("only a bob's worth"), that he does not, as one of his predecessors did, on a very remarkable occasion, "fling the money on the pavement, and request in figurative terms to be allowed the pleasure of fighting us for the amount," which circumstance we take to be an improving sign of the times. changed in name, but not in condition, it seems scarcely possible that we stand under the gateway of the charming old inn that we have known from our boyhood, when first we read our _pickwick_, what time the two green leaves of _martin chuzzlewit_ were putting forth monthly, and when the name of charles dickens, although familiar, had not become the "household word" to us, and to the world, that it is now. [illustration: bull inn rochester good house nice beds. vide pickwick.] we look round for evidence--"good house, nice beds"--"(vide _pickwick_)" appear on the two sign-boards fixed on either side of the entrance-gate. only then are we quite sure our driver has not made a mistake and taken us to "wright's next door," which every reader of _pickwick_ knows, on the authority of mr. jingle, "was dear--very dear--half a crown in the bill if you look at the waiter--charge you more if you dine out at a friend's than they would if you dined in the coffee-room--rum fellows--very." haunches of venison, saddles of mutton, ribs of beef, york hams, fowls and ducks, hang over our heads in the capacious covered gateway; cold viands are seen in a glass cupboard opposite, and silently promise that some good fare, like that which regaled mr. pickwick and his friends, is still to be found at the bull. in the distance is seen the large old-fashioned coach-yard, surrounded by odd buildings, which on market days (tuesdays) is crowded with all sorts of vehicles ancient and modern. on our right is the kitchen, "brilliant with glowing coals and rows of shining copper lying well open to view." by the kindness of mr. richard prall, the town-clerk, beds have been secured for us, and the landlord meets us at the door with a hearty welcome. we are conducted to our rooms on the second floor looking front, on reaching which a strange feeling takes possession of us. surely we have been here before? not a bit of it! but the bedrooms are nevertheless familiar to us; we see it all in a minute--the writer's apartment is mr. tupman's, and his friend's is mr. winkle's! "winkle's bedroom is inside mine," said mr. tupman, after that delightful dinner of "soles, broiled fowl, and mushrooms," in the private sitting-room at the bull, when all the other pickwickians had, "after the cosy couple of hours succeeding dinner, more or less succumbed to the somniferous influence which the wine had exerted over them," and he and mr. jingle alone remained wakeful, and were discussing the idea of attending the forthcoming ball in the evening. it is an unexpected and pleasant coincidence that we are located in these two rooms, and altogether a good omen for our tramp generally. they are numbered and , and the reason why the numbers are not consecutive is because (mr. winkle's room) is also approached by a back staircase. mr. pickwick's room, as befitted his years and his dignity as g.c.m.p.c., is a larger room, and is number . they are all comfortable chambers, with "nice beds." [illustration: staircase at "the bull"] the principal staircase of the bull, which is almost wide enough to drive a carriage and four up it, remains exactly as it was in mr. pickwick's days, as described by dickens and delineated by seymour. we could almost fancy we witnessed the memorable scene depicted in the illustration, where the irascible dr. slammer confronts the imperturbable jingle. the staircase has on its walls a large number of pictures and engravings, some curious and valuable, a few of which are of purely local interest. a series of oil paintings represent the costumes of all nations. there is a copy of "the empty chair," from the drawing of mr. luke fildes, r.a., and also one of the scarce proof lithographs of "dickens as captain bobadil," after the painting by c. r. leslie, r.a. mr. lawrence informed us that some years ago "the owl club" held its meetings at the bull--a social club, reminding us strongly of one of the early papers in _bentley's miscellany_, illustrated by george cruikshank, entitled the "harmonious owls," which has recently been reprinted in the collection called _old miscellany days_, in which paper, by the bye, are several names from dickens. in one of the cheerful private sitting-rooms, of which there are many, we find a portrait of dickens that is new to us. never have we seen one that so vividly reproduced the novelist as one of us saw him, and heard him read, in the town hall at birmingham, on the th of may, . it is a vignette photograph by watkins, coloured by mr. j. hopper, a local artist, representing the face of the novelist in full, wearing afternoon dress--black coat, and white shirt-front, with gold studs--the attitude being perfectly natural and unconstrained, and a pleasant calm upon the otherwise firm features. the high forehead is surmounted by the well-remembered single curl of brown hair, the sole survival of those profuse locks which grace maclise's beautiful portrait. the bright blue eyes, with the light reflected on the pupils like diamonds, seem to follow one in every direction. the lines, of course, are marked, but not too strongly; and the faint hectic flush which was apparent in later years--notably when we saw him again in birmingham in --shows signs of development. the beard hides the neck, and the white collar is conspicuous. altogether it is one of the most successful portraits we remember to have seen. as witness of its popularity locally, we may mention that we saw copies of it at major budden's at gad's hill, at the mitre hotel, chatham, and at the leather bottle inn, cobham. we are also informed that mr. henry irving gave a good sum for a copy, in the spring of last year. mr. lawrence, our host, by good fortune, happening to possess a duplicate, kindly allows us the opportunity of purchasing it ("portable property" as mr. wemmick remarks), as an addition to our dickens collection which it adorns. "beautiful!" "splendid!" "dickens to the life!" are the comments of friends to whom we show it, who personally knew, or remembered, the original. here is the ball-room, entered from the first-floor landing of the principal staircase, and the card-room adjoining, precisely as it was in mr. pickwick's days:-- "it was a long room with crimson-covered benches, and wax candles in glass chandeliers. the musicians were confined in an elevated den, and quadrilles were being systematically got through by two or three sets of dancers. two card-tables were made up in the adjoining card-room, and two pair of old ladies, and a corresponding number of old gentlemen, were executing whist therein." a very little stretch of the imagination carries us back sixty years, and, _presto!_ the ball-room stands before us, with the wax candles lighted, and the room filled with the _élite_ of chatham and rochester society, who, acting on the principle of "that general benevolence which was one of the leading features of the pickwickian theory," had given their support to that "ball for the benefit of a charity," then being held there, and which was attended by mr. tracy tupman, in his new dress-coat with the p. c. button and bust of mr. pickwick in the centre, and by mr. jingle, in the borrowed garments of the same nature belonging to mr. winkle. "p. c.," said the stranger.--"queer set out--old fellow's likeness and 'p. c.'--what does 'p. c.' stand for? 'peculiar coat,' eh?" imagine the "rising indignation" and impatience of mr. tupman, as with "great importance" he explains the mystic device! [illustration: the "elevated den" in the ball room: ("bull" inn)] everybody remembers how, declining the usual introduction, the two entered the ball-room _incog._, as "gentlemen from london--distinguished foreigners--anything;" how mr. jingle said in reply to mr. tupman's remark, "wait a minute--fun presently--nobs not come yet--queer place--dock-yard people of upper rank don't know dock-yard people of lower rank--dock-yard people of lower rank don't know small gentry--small gentry don't know tradespeople--commissioner don't know anybody." the "man at the door,"--the local m.c.,--announces the arrivals. "sir thomas clubber, lady clubber, and the miss clubbers!" "commissioner--head of the yard--great man--remarkably great man," whispers the stranger in mr. tupman's ear. "colonel bulder, mrs. colonel bulder, and miss bulder," are announced. "head of the garrison," says mr. jingle. "they exchanged snuff-boxes [how old-fashioned it appears to us who don't take snuff], and looked very much like a pair of alexander selkirks--monarchs of all they surveyed." more arrivals are announced, and dancing begins in earnest; but the most interesting one to us is dr. slammer--"a little fat man, with a ring of upright black hair round his head, and an extensive bald plain on the top of it--dr. slammer, surgeon to the th, who is agreeable to everybody, especially to the widow budger.--'lots of money--old girl--pompous doctor--not a bad idea--good fun,' says the stranger. 'i'll dance with her--cut out the doctor--here goes.'" then comes the flirtation, the dancing, the negus and biscuits, the coquetting, the leading of mrs. budger to her carriage. the volcano bursts with terrific energy. . . . "'you--you're a shuffler, sir,' gasps the furious doctor, 'a poltroon--a coward--a liar--a--a--will nothing induce you to give me your card, sir?'" and in the morning comes the challenge to the duel. it all passes before our delighted mental vision, as we picture the circumstances recorded in the beloved _pickwick_ of our youth upwards. here also is the bar, just opposite the coffee-room, where the "tickets for the ball" were purchased by mr. tupman for himself and mr. jingle at "half a guinea each" (mr. jingle having won the toss), and where dr. slammer's friend subsequently made inquiry for "the owner of the coat, who arrived here, with three gentlemen, yesterday afternoon." we find it to be a very cosy and comfortable bar-room too, wherein we subsequently enjoy many a social pipe and pleasant chat with its friendly frequenters, reminding us of the old tavern-life as described in dr. johnson's days. the coffee-room of the bull, in which we take our supper, remains unaltered since the days of the pickwickians. it is on the left-hand side as we enter the hotel from the covered gateway--not very large, but warm and comfortable, with three windows looking into the high street. many scenes in the novels have taken place in this memorable apartment--in fact, it is quite historical, from a dickensian point of view. here it was that the challenge to the duel from dr. slammer to mr. winkle was delivered; and, when mr. winkle appeared, in response to the call of the boots, that "a gentleman in the coffee-room" wanted to see him, and would not detain him a moment, but would take no denial, "an old woman and a couple of waiters were cleaning the coffee-room, and an officer in undress uniform was looking out of the window." here also the pickwickians assembled on that eventful morning when the party set out, three in a chaise and one on horseback, for dingley dell, and encountered such dire mishaps. "mr. pickwick had made his preliminary arrangements, and was looking over the coffee-room blinds at the passengers in the high street, when the waiter entered, and announced that the chaise was ready--an announcement which the vehicle itself confirmed, by forthwith appearing before the coffee-room blinds aforesaid." subsequently, as they prepare to start, "'wo-o!' cried mr. pickwick, as the tall quadruped evinced a decided inclination to back into the coffee-room window." it is highly probable that the descriptions of "the little town of great winglebury," and "the winglebury arms," in "the great winglebury duel" of the _sketches by boz_, one of the earliest works of the novelist, refer to the city of rochester and the bull inn, for they fit in very well in many respects, although it _is_ stated therein that "the little town of great winglebury is exactly forty-two miles and three-quarters from hyde park corner." the blue boar mentioned in _great expectations_--one of the most original, touching, and dramatic of dickens's novels--is indubitably the bull hotel. although there is an inn in high street, rochester, called the blue boar, its description does not at all correspond with the text. we find several instances like this, where, probably for purposes of concealment, the real identity of places and persons is masked. our first introduction to the blue boar is on the occasion of pip's being bound apprentice to joe gargery, the premium for whom was paid out of the twenty-five guineas given to pip by miss havisham. pip's sister "became so excited by the twenty-five guineas, that nothing would serve but we must have a dinner out of that windfall at the blue boar, and that pumblechook must go over in his chaise cart, and bring the hubbles and mr. wopsle." the dinner is duly disposed of, and although poor pip was frequently enjoined to "enjoy himself," he certainly failed to do so on this occasion. "among the festivities indulged in rather late in the evening," says pip, "mr. wopsle gave us _collins's ode_, and 'threw his blood-stain'd sword in thunder down,' with such effect, that a waiter came in and said 'the commercials underneath sent up their compliments, and it wasn't the tumblers' arms!'" from which we gather that the said dinner took place in a private sitting-room (no. ) over the commercial room, on the opposite side of the gateway to the coffee-room. it will be remembered that on pip's attaining "the second stage of his expectations," pumblechook had grown very obsequious and fawning to him--pressed him to take refreshment, as who should say, "but, my dear young friend, you must be hungry, you must be exhausted. be seated. here is a chicken had round from the boar, here is a tongue had round from the boar, here's one or two little things had round from the boar that i hope you may not despise. 'but do i,' said mr. pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat down, 'see afore me him as i ever sported with in his times of happy infancy? and may i--_may_ i--?' this 'may i?' meant might he shake hands? i consented, and he was fervent, and then sat down again." returning to the coffee-room, we discover it was the identical apartment in which the unexpected and very peculiar meeting took place between pip and "the spider," bentley drummle, "the sulky and red-looking young man, of a heavy order of architecture," both "finches of the grove," and rivals for the hand of estella. each stands shoulder to shoulder against the fire-place, and, but for pip's forbearance, an explosion must have taken place. through the same coffee-room windows, poor pip looks under the reverses of his great expectations in consequence of the discovery and subsequent death of his patron. the "servile pumblechook," who appears here uninvited, again changes his manner and conduct, becoming ostentatiously compassionate and forgiving, as he had been meanly servile in the time of pip's new prosperity, thus:--"'young man, i am sorry to see you brought low, but what else could be expected! what else could be expected! . . . this is him . . . as i have rode in my shay-cart; this is him as i have seen brought up by hand; this is him untoe the sister of which i was uncle by marriage, as her name was georgiana m'ria from her own mother, let him deny it if he can.' . . ." dickens takes leave of the blue boar, in the last chapter of the work, in these words:-- "the tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall, had got down to my native place and its neighbourhood, before i got there. i found the blue boar in possession of the intelligence, and i found that it made a great change in the boar's demeanour. whereas the boar had cultivated my good opinion with warm assiduity when i was coming into property, the boar was exceedingly cool on the subject now that i was going out of property. "it was evening when i arrived, much fatigued by the journey i had so often made so easily. the boar could not put me into my usual bedroom, which was engaged,--probably by some one who had expectations,--and could only assign me a very indifferent chamber among the pigeons and post-chaises up the yard. but, i had as sound a sleep in that lodging as in the most superior accommodation the boar could have given me, and the quality of my dreams was about the same as in the best bedroom." the visitors' book in the coffee-room, at the bull--we never shall call it "the royal victoria and bull hotel"--abounds with complimentary remarks on the hospitable treatment received by its guests; and there are several poetical effusions, inspired by the classic nature of "dickens-land." one of these, under date of the th september, , is worth recording:-- "the man who knows his dickens as he should, enjoys a double pleasure in this place; he loves to walk its ancient streets, and trace the scenes where dickens' characters have stood. he reads _the mystery of edwin drood_ in jasper's gatehouse, and, with tope as guide, explores the old cathedral, durdles' pride; descends into the crypt, and even would ascend the tower by moonlight, thence to see fair cloisterham reposing at his feet, and passing out, he almost hopes to meet crisparkle and the white-haired datchery. the gifted writer 'sleeps among our best and noblest' in our minster of the west; yet still he lives in this, his favourite scene, which for all time shall keep his memory green." [illustration: old rochester bridge] we follow mr. pickwick's example as regards early rising, and, taking a turn before breakfast, find ourselves on rochester bridge. nature has not much changed since the memorable visit of that "truly great man," who in the original announcement of _the pickwick papers_ is stated with his companions to have "fearlessly crossed the turbid medway in an open boat;" but the march of civilization has effaced the old bridge, and lo! three bridges stand in the place thereof. the beautiful stone structure (temp. edward iii.) which mr. pickwick leant over, having become unsuitable, was blown up by the royal engineers in , and a handsome iron bridge erected in its place. the débris was removed by mr. j. h. ball, the contractor, who presented dickens with one of the balustrades, others having been utilized to form the coping of the embankment of the esplanade under the castle walls. the iron bridge was built by messrs. fox and henderson, the foundations being laid in . the machinery constituting "the swing-bridge or open ship canal (fifty feet wide) at the strood end is very beautiful; the entire weight to be moved is two hundred tons, yet the bridge is readily swung by two men at a capstan." so says one of the guide books, but as a matter of fact we find that it is not now used! the other two bridges (useful, but certainly not ornamental) belong to the respective railway companies which have systems through rochester, and absolutely shut out every prospect below stream. what _would_ mr. pickwick say, if his spirit ever visited the ancient city? nevertheless, we realize for the first time, with all its freshness and beauty (although perhaps a little marred by the smoke of the lime-kilns, and by the "medway coal trade," in which it will be remembered mr. micawber was temporarily interested, and which "he came down to see"), the charm of the prospect which dickens describes, and which mr. pickwick saw, in the opening of the fifth chapter of the immortal _posthumous papers_:-- "bright and pleasant was the sky, balmy the air, and beautiful the appearance of every object around, as mr. pickwick leant over the balustrades of rochester bridge, contemplating nature, and waiting for breakfast. the scene was indeed one, which might well have charmed a far less reflective mind, than that to which it was presented. "on the left of the spectator lay the ruined wall, broken in many places, and in some, overhanging the narrow beach below in rude and heavy masses. huge knots of sea-weed hung upon the jagged and pointed stones, trembling in every breath of wind; and the green ivy clung mournfully round the dark and ruined battlements. behind it rose the ancient castle, its towers roofless, and its massive walls crumbling away, but telling us proudly of its old might and strength, as when, seven hundred years ago, it rang with the clash of arms, or resounded with the noise of feasting and revelry. on either side, the banks of the medway, covered with corn-fields and pastures, with here and there a windmill, or a distant church, stretched away as far as the eye could see, presenting a rich and varied landscape, rendered more beautiful by the changing shadows which passed swiftly across it, as the thin and half-formed clouds skimmed away in the light of the morning sun. the river, reflecting the clear blue of the sky, glistened and sparkled as it flowed noiselessly on; and the oars of the fishermen dipped into the water with a clear and liquid sound, as their heavy but picturesque boats glided slowly down the stream." it was over the same old bridge that poor pip was pursued by that "unlimited miscreant" trabb's boy in the days of his "great expectations." he says:-- "words cannot state the amount of aggravation and injury wreaked upon me by trabb's boy, when, passing abreast of me, he pulled up his shirt-collar, twined his side hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked extravagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his attendants: 'don't know yah; don't know yah, 'pon my soul, don't know yah!' the disgrace [continues pip] attendant on his immediately afterwards taking to crowing and pursuing me across the bridge with crows, as from an exceedingly dejected fowl who had known me when i was a blacksmith, culminated the disgrace with which i left the town, and was, so to speak, ejected by it into the open country." there is generally a stiff breeze blowing on the bridge, and the fact may probably have suggested to the artist the positions of the characters in the river scene, one of the plates of _edwin drood_, where mr. crisparkle is holding his hat on with much tenacity. one other reference to the bridge occurs in the _seven poor travellers_, where richard doubledick, in the year , "limped over the bridge here with half a shoe to his dusty foot on his way to chatham." after a pickwickian breakfast in the coffee-room of "broiled ham, eggs, tea, coffee, and sundries," we take a stroll up the high street. we do not know what the feelings of other pilgrims in "dickens-land" may have been on the occasion of a first visit, but we are quite sure that to us it is a perfect revelation to ramble along this quaint street of "the ancient city," returning by way of star hill through the vines, all crowded with associations of charles dickens. _pickwick_, _great expectations_, _edwin drood_, and many of the minor works of the eminent novelist, had never before appeared so clear to us--they acquire new significance. the air is full of dickens. at every corner, and almost at the door of every house, we half expect to be met by one or other of the characters who will claim acquaintance with us as their friends or admirers. we are simply delighted, and never tire of repeating our experience in the pleasant summer days of our week's tramp in "dickens-land." [illustration: the guildhall: rochester] [illustration: the "moonfaced" clock in high street] [illustration: in high street: rochester] [illustration: eastgate house] starting from the bull, and walking along the somewhat narrow but picturesque street towards chatham,--"the streets of cloisterham city are little more than one narrow street by which you get into it and get out of it: the rest being mostly disappointing yards with pumps in them and no thoroughfare--exception made of the cathedral close, and a paved quaker settlement, in color and general conformation very like a quakeress's bonnet, up in a shady corner,"--we pass in succession the guildhall, the city clock, richard watts's charity, the college gate (jasper's gatehouse), eastgate house (the nuns' house), and, nearly opposite it, the residence of mr. sapsea, which, as we ourselves discover, was also the residence of "uncle pumblechook." the latter buildings are about a quarter of a mile from rochester bridge, and are splendid examples of sixteenth-century architecture, with carved oaken-timbered fronts and gables and latticed bay-windows. eastgate house--the "nuns' house" of _edwin drood_, described as "a venerable brick edifice, whose present appellation is doubtless derived from the legend of its conventual uses"--is especially beautiful, and its "resplendent brass plate on the trim gate" is still so "shining and staring." the date, , is on one of the inside beams, and the fine old place abounds with quaint cosy rooms with carved oak mantel-pieces, and plaster enrichments to the ceilings, as well as mysterious back staircases and means of exit by secret passages. charles ii. is said to have been entertained here by colonel gibbons, the then owner, when he visited chatham and inspected the _royal george_; but this has been recently disputed. for many years during this century, the house has been occupied as a ladies' school, and the old pianos used for practice by the pupils are there still, the keys being worn into holes. we wonder whether rosa bud and helena landless ever played on them! looking round, we half expect to witness the famous courting scene in _edwin drood_, and afterwards "the matronly tisher to heave in sight, rustling through the room like the legendary ghost of a dowager in silken skirts, [with her] 'i trust i disturb no one; but there _was_ a paper-knife--oh, thank you, i am sure!'" an excellent local institution, called "the rochester men's institute," has its home here. the house has been immortalized by mr. luke fildes in one of the illustrations to _edwin drood_ ("good-bye, rosebud, darling!"), where, in the front garden, the girls are cordially embracing their charming school-fellow, and miss twinkleton looks on approvingly, but perhaps regretfully, at the possible non-return of some of the young ladies. mrs. tisher is saluting one of the girls. there is a gate opening into the street, with the lamp over it kept in position by an iron bracket, just as it is now, heaps of ladies' luggage are scattered about, which the housemaid and the coachman are removing to the car outside; and one pretty girl stands in the gateway waving a farewell to the others with her handkerchief. we feel morally certain that eastgate house is also the prototype of westgate house in the _pickwick papers_, although, for the purposes of the story, it is therein located at bury st. edmund's. the wall surrounding the garden is about seven feet high, and a drop from it into the garden would be uncommonly suggestive of the scene which took place between sam weller and his master in the sixteenth chapter, on the occasion of the supposed intended elopement of one of the young ladies of miss tomkins's establishment--which also had the "name on a brass plate on a gate"--with mr. charles fitzmarshall, _alias_ mr. alfred jingle. the very tree which mr. pickwick "considered a very dangerous neighbour in a thunderstorm" is there still--a pretty acacia. [illustration: mr. sapsea's house.] [illustration: mr. sapsea's father.] the house opposite eastgate house was of course mr. sapsea's dwelling--"mr. sapsea's premises are in the high street over against the nuns' house. they are of about the period of the nuns' house, irregularly modernized here and there." a carved wooden figure of mr. sapsea's father in his rostrum as an auctioneer, with hammer poised in hand, and a countenance expressive of "going--going--gone!" was many years ago fixed over a house (now the savings bank) in st. margaret's, rochester, and was a regular butt for practical jokes by the young officers of the period, although they never succeeded in their attempts to pull it down. to us the house appears to be an older building than eastgate house, with much carved oak and timber work about it, and in its prime must have been a most delightful residence. the lower part is now used as business premises, and from the fact that it contains the little drawers of a seedsman's shop, it answers very well to the description of mr. pumblechook's "eminently convenient and commodious premises"--indeed there is not a little in common between the two characters. "mr. pumblechook's premises in the high street of the market town [says pip] were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a corn chandler and seedsman should be. it appeared to me that he must be a very happy man indeed to have so many little drawers in his shop; and i wondered when i peeped into one or two of the lower tiers, and saw the tied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the flower seeds and bulbs ever wanted of a fine day to break out of those jails, and bloom." part of these premises is used as a dwelling-house, and mr. apsley kennette, the courteous assistant town-clerk, to whom we were indebted for much kind attention, has apartments on the upper floors of the old mansion, the views from which, looking into the ancient city, are very pretty. there is a good deal of oak panelling and plaster enrichment about the interior, restored by mr. kennette, who in the course of his renovations found an interesting wall fresco. he has had painted most appropriately in gilt letters over the mantel-piece of his charming old panelled chamber of carved and polished oak (with its quaint bay-window looking into the street) the pathetic and sombre lines of dante gabriel rossetti:-- "may not this ancient room thou sitt'st in dwell in separate living souls for joy or pain; nay, all its corners may be painted plain, where heaven shows pictures of some life spent well; and may be stamped a memory all in vain upon the site of lidless eyes in hell." [illustration: restoration house.] the beautiful residence in maidstone road, formerly crow lane, opposite the vines, called restoration house, is the "satis house" of _great expectations_--"miss havisham's up-town." "everybody for miles round had heard of miss havisham up-town as an immensely rich and grim lady, who lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who led a life of seclusion." there is a veritable satis house as well, on the opposite side of the vines alluded to elsewhere. restoration house, now occupied by mr. stephen t. aveling, is a picturesque old elizabethan structure, partly covered with ivy, having fine oak staircases, floors, and wainscoted rooms. charles ii. lodged here in , and he subsequently presented to his host, sir francis clarke, several large tapestries, representing pastoral scenes, which the present owner kindly allowed us to see. the tapestry is said to have been made at mortlake. it was the usual present from royalty in those days--just as her present majesty now gives an indian shawl to a favoured subject. like many houses of its kind, it contains a secret staircase for escape during times of political trouble. mr. aveling very kindly placed at our disposal the manuscript of an interesting and "true ghost story" written by him relating to restoration house, which is introduced at the end of this chapter. many names in dickens's novels and tales appear to us as old friends, over the shops and elsewhere in rochester. looking through the list of mayors of the city from to , we notice nearly twenty of the names as having been given by dickens to his characters, viz. robinson, wade, brooker, clarke, harris, burgess, head, weller, baily, gordon, parsons, pordage, sparks, simmons, batten, saunders, thomson, edwards, and budden. the name of jasper also occurs as a tradesman several times in the city, but we are informed that this is a recent introduction. in the cathedral burying-ground occur the names of fanny dorr_ett_ and richard pordage. dartle, we were informed, is an old rochester name. the population of the "four towns" of rochester, strood, chatham, and new brompton, at the census of , was upwards of , . the principal industries of rochester are lime and cement making, "the medway coal trade," and boat and barge building. rochester is very well off for educational institutions. in addition to the board schools, there is the king's (or cathedral) grammar school founded by henry viii., a handsome building in the vines. the tuition fee commences at £ per annum for boys under , and there is a reduction made when there are brothers. there are two or three annual competitive scholarships tenable for a period of years, and there are also two exhibitions of £ a year to university college, oxford. there is also sir j. williamson's mathematical school in the high street, founded in , having an income of £ a year from endowments, and the teaching, which has a wide range, includes physical science. the fees are very small, commencing at about £ per annum, and there are foundation scholarships and "aveling scholarships" to the value of £ per annum. in addition to the famous richard watts's charity, which is described in another chapter, the city possesses several other important charities, viz.:--st. catherine's charity on star hill, founded by simon potyn in , which provides residences for sixteen aged females, with stipends varying from £ to £ each; st. bartholomew's hospital in new road, which was founded in by bishop gundulph for the benefit of lepers returning from the crusades (the present hospital was erected in , and is supported by voluntary contributions); sir john hawkins's hospital for decayed seamen in chatham, founded in , and provides for twelve inmates with their wives; and sir john hayward's charity on the common, founded in , which provides an asylum for twelve poor and aged females, parishioners of st. nicholas. not least noteworthy among the numerous objects of interest in the "ancient city" are the beautiful gardens belonging to several of the houses in the high street, particularly those of mr. syms and mr. wildish. the fresh green turf, the profusion of flowers, and the rich growth of foliage and fruit, quite surprise and delight the stranger. mr. stephen t. aveling's garden is a marvel of beauty to be seen in a town. "the cloisterham gardens blush with ripening fruit." some of the old-fashioned cries of street hawkers, as "hot rolls," "herrings," "watercresses," and the like, similar to those in the london of charles dickens's early days, still survive at rochester, and are very noticeable and quaint in the quiet morning. as illustrative of the many changes which have been brought about by steam, even in the quiet old city of rochester, mr. syms called attention to the fact that fifty years ago he could count twenty-eight windmills on the surrounding heights, but now there are scarcely a dozen to be seen. in rochester we heard frequent mention of "gavelkind," one of the ancient customs of kent, whereby the lands do not descend to the eldest son alone, but to the whole number of male children equally. lambarde, the eminent lawyer and antiquary (born ), author of _a perambulation of kent_,[ ] says:--"i gather by _cornelius tacitus_, and others, that the ancient germans, (whose offspring we be) suffered their lands to descend, not to their eldest sonne alone, but to the whole number of their male children: and i finde in the th chapter of _canutus_ law (a king of this realm before the conquest), that after the death of the father, his heires should divide both his goods, and his lands amongst them. now, for as much as all the next of the kinred did this inherit together, i conjecture, that therefore the land was called, either _gavelkyn_ in meaning, _give all kyn_, because it was given to all the next in one line of kinred, or _give all kynd_, that is, to all the male children: for _kynd_ in dutch signifieth yet a male childe." the learned historian suggests a second possible origin of this curious custom from the writ called "gavelles," to recover "the rent and service arising out of these lands." the remarkable custom of "borough english," whereby the youngest son inherits the lands, also survives in some parts of the county of kent. mr. robert langton has done good service by giving in his delightful book, _the childhood and youth of charles dickens_, an illustration by mr. w. hull, of the old rochester theatre, which formerly stood at the foot of star hill, and in which jingle and dismal jemmy--"rum fellow--does the heavy business--no actor--strange man--all sorts of miseries--dismal jemmy, we call him on the circuit"--were to play on the morrow after the duel. it exists no more, for the conservative association has its club-house and rooms on the site of the building. the theatre is referred to in _edwin drood:_--"even its drooping and despondent little theatre has its poor strip of garden, receiving the foul fiend, when he ducks from its stage into the infernal regions, among scarlet beans or oyster-shells, according to the season of the year." and again in _the uncommercial traveller_, on "dullborough town," when the beginning of the end had appeared:-- [illustration: old rochester theatre, star hill.] "it was to let, and hopelessly so, for its old purposes; and there had been no entertainment within its walls for a long time, except a panorama; and even that had been announced as 'pleasingly instructive,' and i knew too well the fatal meaning and the leaden import of those terrible expressions. no, there was no comfort in the theatre. it was mysteriously gone, like my own youth. unlike my own youth, it might be coming back some day; but there was little promise of it." we did not stay at the bull during the whole of our visit, comfortable lodgings in victoria street having been secured for us by the courtesy of mr. prall, the landlady of which, from her kindness and consideration for our comfort, we are pleased to recognize as a veritable "mrs. lirriper." * * * * * among many reminiscences of charles dickens obtained at rochester, the following are the most noteworthy:-- we had an interesting chat with mr. franklin homan, auctioneer, cabinet-maker, and upholsterer of high street, rochester. our informant did a good deal of work for charles dickens at gad's hill place, and remarked "he was one of the nicest customers i ever met in my life--so thoroughly precise and methodical. if anything had to be done, he knew exactly what he wanted, and gave his instructions accordingly. he expected every one who served him to be equally exact and punctual." the novelist wrote to mr. homan from america respecting the furnishing of two bedrooms, describing in detail how he wished them fitted up--one was maple, the other white with a red stripe. these rooms are referred to in another chapter. the curtains separating them from the dressing-rooms were ordered to be of indian pattern chintz. when dickens came home and saw them complete, he said, "it strikes me as if the room was about to have its hair cut,--but it's my fault, it must be altered;" so crimson damask curtains were substituted. in the little billiard-room near the dining-room was a one-sided couch standing by the window, which did not seem to please the master of gad's hill place. he said to mr. homan one day, "whenever i see that couch, it makes me think the window is squinting." the result was that mr. homan had to make a window-seat instead. on one occasion, when our informant was waiting in the dining-room for some orders from miss hogarth, he saw dickens walking in the garden with a lady, to whom he was telling the story of how as a boy he longed to live in gad's hill place, and determined to purchase it whenever he had an opportunity. mr. homan mentioned that the act drop painted by clarkson stanfield, r.a., for _the lighthouse_ and the scene from _the frozen deep_, painted by the same artist, which adorned the hall at gad's hill place, and which fetched such enormous sums at the sale, were technically the property of the purchaser of tavistock house, but he said, "perhaps you would like to have them, mr. dickens," and so they continued to be the property of the novelist. the valuation for probate was made by mr. homan, and he subsequently sold for the executors the furniture and other domestic effects at gad's hill place. the art collection was sold by messrs. christie, manson, and woods. there was a very fine cellar of wine, which included some magnums of port of rare vintage. mr. homan purchased a few bottles, and gave one to a friend, dr. tamplin of london, who had been kind to his daughter. at a dinner-party some time afterwards at the doctor's, a connoisseur being present, the magnum in question was placed on the table, the guests being unaware from whence it came. reference was made to the choice quality of the wine. "yes," said the connoisseur, "it _is_ good--very fine. i never tasted the like before, except once at gad's hill place." mr. homan recollects seeing among the plate two oak cases which were not sold, containing the silver figures for dining-table emblematic of spring, summer, and autumn. these were the presents of a liverpool admirer who wished to remain anonymous. the incident is alluded to in forster's _life_, the correspondent being described as "a self-raised man, attributing his prosperous career to what dickens's writings had taught him at its outset of the wisdom of kindness and sympathy for others, and asking pardon for the liberty he took in hoping that he might be permitted to offer some acknowledgment of what not only had cheered and stimulated him through all his life, but had contributed so much to the success of it." the letter enclosed £ , but dickens declined this, intimating to the writer that if he pleased to send him any small memorial in another form, he would be glad to receive it. the funeral was conducted by mr. homan, who mentioned that dickens's instructions in his will were implicitly followed, as regards privacy and unostentation. it was an anxious time to him, in consequence of the changes which were made in the arrangements, the interment being first suggested to take place at st. nicholas's cemetery, then at shorne, then at rochester cathedral, and finally at westminster abbey. the mourners, together with the remains, travelled early in the morning by south eastern railway from higham station to charing cross, where a procession, consisting of three mourning-coaches and a hearse, was quietly formed. there was neither show nor public demonstration of any kind. on reaching westminster abbey, about half-past nine o'clock, the procession was met by dean stanley in the cloisters, who performed the funeral service. a journalist being by accident in the abbey at the time of the funeral, mr. homan remarked that he became almost frantic when he heard who had just been buried, at having missed such an opportunity. mr. homan possesses several souvenirs of gad's hill place, presented to him by the family, including charles dickens's walking-stick, and photographs of the interior and exterior of the house and the châlet. * * * * * we were courteously received by the rev. robert whiston, m.a., who resides at the old palace, a beautiful seventeenth-century house, abounding with oak panelling and carving, on boley hill, bequeathed in , by mr. richard head, after the death of his wife, to the then bishop of rochester and his successors, who were "to hold the same so long as the church was governed by protestant bishops." this residence was sold by permission of the ecclesiastical commissioners, together with the mansion at brinley, in order to help to pay for the new palace of danbury in essex. mr. whiston was a friend of charles dickens, and is one of the oldest inhabitants of rochester. he was formerly head-master of the cathedral grammar, or king's, school of henry viii., an office which he resigned in . many years previously, mr. whiston published _cathedral trusts and their fulfilment_, which ran through several editions, and was immediately followed by his dismissal from his mastership, on the ground that he had published "false, scandalous, and libellous" statements, and had libelled "the chapter of rochester and other chapters, and also the bishop." much litigation followed--appeals to the court of chancery, the court of queen's bench, and doctors' commons, which resulted in his replacement in office; and then a second dismissal, followed by his pleading his own cause for five days at doctors' commons against eminent counsel, and after three years of litigation he was fully reinstated in his office. the result at rochester, for which mr. whiston contended, was "an increase of £ for each of the twenty scholars, and of £ for each of the four students, a total of £ a year, and the restoration of the six bedesmen of the cathedral, with £ _s._ _d._ a year each, who had disappeared since , making altogether £ a year." reforms were effected at other cathedrals, and handsome testimonials--one from australia--were presented to mr. whiston. a characteristic paper, entitled "the history of a certain grammar school," in no. of _household words_, dated th august, , gives a sketch of mr. whiston's labours, and of the reforms which he effected. he is thus referred to:-- "but the reverend adolphus hardhead was not merely a scholar and a schoolmaster. he had fought his way against disadvantages, had gained a moderate independence by the fruits of early exertions and constant but by no means sordid economy; and, while disinterested enough to undervalue abundance, was too wise not to know the value of money. he was an undoubted financialist, and never gave a farthing without doing real good, because he always ascertained the purpose and probable effect of his charity beforehand. while he cautiously shunned the idle and undeserving, he would work like a slave, with and for those who would work for themselves; and he would smooth the way for those who had in the first instance been their own pioneers, and would help a man who had once been successful, to attain a yet greater success." anthony trollope, in _the warden_, also thus refers to this gentleman:--"the struggles of mr. whiston have met with sympathy and support. men are beginning to say that these things must be looked into." _punch_ has also immortalized mr. whiston, for in the issue of th january, , there is a burlesque account with designs of "a stained glass window for rochester cathedral." the design is divided into compartments; each containing a representation in the mediæval fashion of a "fytte" in "ye gestes of maister whyston ye confessour." mr. whiston had dined at gad's hill several times, and said that nothing could be more charming than dickens's powers as a host. some years after his death, by a fortunate circumstance, a large parcel of letters, written by the novelist, came into the hands of mr. whiston, who had the pleasure of handing them to miss hogarth and miss dickens, by whom they were published in the collection of letters of charles dickens. * * * * * thomas millen of rochester informed us that he knew charles dickens. his (millen's) father was a hop-farmer, and about the years - lived at bridgewood house, on the main road from rochester to maidstone. one afternoon in the autumn, dickens, accompanied by miss hogarth and his daughters, mary and kate, drove along the road, and stopped to admire a pear tree which was covered with ripe fruit. millen happened to be in the garden at the time, and while noticing the carriage, dickens spoke to him, and referred to the very fine fruit. millen said, "will you have some, sir?" to which dickens replied, "thank you, you are very good, i will." he gave him some pears and some roses. dickens then said, "you have not the pleasure of knowing me, and i have not the pleasure of knowing you. i am charles dickens; and when you pass gad's hill, i shall take it as a favour if you will look in and see my place." millen replied, "i feel it to be a great honour to speak to you, sir. i have read most of your works, and i think _david copperfield_ is the master-piece. i hope to avail myself of your kind invitation some day." dickens laughed, wished millen "good-day," and the carriage drove on towards maidstone. "some little time after," said millen, "i was going to visit an uncle at gravesend, and drove over with a one-horse trap by way of gad's hill. as i came near the place, i saw mr. dickens in the road. he said, 'so you are here,' and i mentioned where i was going. he took me in, and we went through the tunnel, and by the cedars, to the châlet, which stood in the shrubbery in front of the house. he showed me his work there--a manuscript on the table, and also some proofs. they were part of _our mutual friend_, which was then appearing in monthly numbers; and on that morning a proof of one of the illustrations had arrived from mr. marcus stone. it was the one in which 'miss wren fixes her idea.' i was then about sixteen or seventeen, and dickens said, 'you are setting out in life; mind _you_ always fix your idea.' he asked me what i was going to be, and i said a farmer. he said, 'better be that than an author or poet;' and after i had had two glasses of wine, he bade me 'good-bye.'" * * * * * we were kindly favoured with an interview by the misses drage, of no. minor canon row, daughters of the late rev. w. h. drage, who was curate of st. mary's church, chatham, from to , and lived during that time in apartments at no. ordnance terrace, next door to the dickens family. afterwards their father was vicar of st. margaret's, rochester, for many years, and resided in their present home. about the year , the vicar, being interested in the daughter of one of his parishioners, whom he was anxious to get admitted into a public institution in london--a penitentiary or something of the kind--wrote to miss (now the baroness) burdett coutts, who was a patroness or founder, or who occupied some position of influence in connection therewith. in answer to the reverend gentleman's application, a letter was received from charles dickens, then residing at devonshire terrace, who appeared to be associated with miss burdett coutts in the management of the institution, proposing to call at minor canon row on a certain day and hour. the letter then concluded with these remarkable words:--"i trust to my childish remembrance for putting your initials correctly." the letter was properly addressed "the rev. _w. h._ drage," and it is interesting to record this circumstance as showing dickens's habitual precision and excellent memory. the future novelist was about eleven years old when he left chatham ( ), consequently a period of twenty-seven years or more must have elapsed since he knew his father's neighbour as curate there; yet, notwithstanding the multiplicity and diversity of his occupations during the interim, his recollection after this long period was perfectly accurate. it is scarcely necessary to add that the interview took place (probably dickens came down from london specially), and that the vicar obtained admission for his _protégée_. the younger miss drage, who was in the room at the time of dickens's visit, particularly noticed what a beautiful head the novelist's was, and in her enthusiasm she made a rough sketch of it while he was talking to her father. in conversation with the present mr. charles dickens on a subsequent occasion regarding this circumstance, he informed me that there was an institution of the kind referred to, "a home," at shepherd's bush, in which his father took much interest. forster also says in the _life_ that this home "largely and regularly occupied his time for several years." * * * * * we heard from a trustworthy authority, _y. z._, at rochester, some particulars respecting an interesting custom at gad's hill place. on new year's eve there was always a dinner-party with friends, and a dance, and games afterwards. some of the games were called "buzz," "crambo," "spanish merchant," etc. claret-cup and other refreshments were introduced later, and at twelve o'clock all the servants came into the entrance-hall. charles dickens then went in, shook hands with them all round, wished them a happy new year ("a happy new year, god bless us all"), and gave each half-a-sovereign. this custom was maintained for many years, until a man-servant--who used to travel with dickens--disgracefully betrayed his trust,--robbed his master, in fact,--when it was discontinued, and the name of the man who had thus disgraced himself was never allowed to be mentioned at gad's hill. the same authority spoke of the long walks that dickens regularly took after breakfast--usually six miles,--but he gave these up after the railway accident at staplehurst, which, it will be remembered, occurred, on the "fatal anniversary," the th june, . during one of these walks, he fell in with a man driving a cart loaded with manure, and had a long chat with him, the sort of thing he frequently did (said our informant) in order to become acquainted with the brogue and feelings of the working people. when dickens went on his way, one of the man's fellow-labourers said to him, "do you know that that was charles dickens who spoke to you?" "i don't know who it was," replied the man, "but he was a d----d good fellow, for he gave me a shilling." our informant also referred to a conversation between dickens and some of his friends at gad's hill, respecting the unhappy marriages of actors. twenty such marriages were instanced, and out of these only two turned out happily. he said that charles dickens at home was a quiet, unassuming man. he remembers on one occasion his saying, in relation to a war which was then going on, "what must the feelings of a soldier be, when alone and dying on the battle-field, and leaving his wife and children far away for ever?" * * * * * a true ghost story relating to miss havisham's house. "i live in an old red-brick mansion, nearly covered with ivy--one of those picturesque dwellings with high-pitched roofs and ornamental gables, which were scattered broadcast over england in the days of good queen bess. every stranger looking at it exclaims, 'that house must have a history and a ghost!' many a story has been told of the ghost which has from time to time been seen, or said to have been seen, within its walls; and many a servant has, from fear, refused service in this so-called haunted house. "on the th may, one thousand six hundred and sixty, charles the second sojourned and slept here. this being the eve of 'the restoration,' a new name was given to the then old house, which name it has since retained. charles, having knighted the owner (sir francis clarke), departed early the next morning for london. "there are secret passages _in_ the house, and, under ground, _from_ the house. from the room in which the king slept, a secret passage through one of the lower panels of the wainscot, leads to various parts of the house. this passage is so well concealed that i occupied the house some years before it was discovered. i had occasion to make a plan of the house, and the inside and outside not agreeing, disclosed the space occupied by the unexplored passage. the jackdaws had forestalled me in my discovery, and had had undisturbed possession for two centuries, having got access through a hole under the eaves of the roof. they had deposited _several bushels_ of sticks. they had not been the only tenants, as skeletons and mummies of birds, etc., were also found. "i came into possession of this old house in december , and on the th of april, , slept in it for the first time. at ten o'clock on that night, my family retired to rest; having some letters to write, i sat up later. at a quarter to twelve, i was startled by a loud noise--a sort of rumbling sound, which appeared to proceed from the hall. i left my writing and went to the hall, and found that the noise proceeded from the staircase, but i could see nothing unusual. "the staircase is one of those so often described as being 'wide enough to drive a carriage and pair up,' with massive oak posts and balustrades. the walls are covered with tapestry, given to the house by 'the merry monarch,' after his visit. an oak chest or two, and some high-backed chairs on the landings, picture to one a suitable habitation for a ghost. fortunately, or unfortunately, i had no belief in ghosts, and commenced an investigation of this extraordinary noise. "could it be rats, or mice, or owls? no; the noise was ten times louder than could possibly proceed from these creatures; besides, i knew there were no rats in the house. the clever builder of the house had filled all the space between the ceilings and floors with silver sand, which rendered it impossible for a rat or mouse to make passages. to prick a hole in a ceiling is to have a continuous stream of sand run down, as from an hour-glass. "the noise was repeated, but much louder (two drum-sticks upon a large drum would not have made more noise), and i was able to localize it, still i could see nothing. i thought some one had fallen on the stairs, and i shouted 'who is there?' a reply came 'hush!'--first softly, and then very loud--too loud for a human voice. as no person was visible, i was puzzled, and went up-stairs by a back staircase, and ascertained that none of my family had left their bedrooms, and that certainly no trick was being played me. "the same rumbling, rolling sound was repeated; and as i stood on the top of the great staircase, i felt a little uncomfortable, but not frightened. the noise seemed to proceed from a large carved oak coffer or chest (as old as the house), which stood on a landing, about half-way up the stairs. i approached the chest, and from it appeared to come again the word 'hush!' could it be the wind whistling through a crack? no; it was far too loud for any such explanation. i opened the lid of the chest and found it empty. again the noise, now from _under_ the chest. i was just strong enough to move the chest; i turned it over and slid it down the stairs on to the next landing. again the noise, and again the 'hush!' which now appeared to come from the floor where the coffer had stood. "i felt i would rather have had some one with me to assist in my investigation, and to join me in making the acquaintance of the ghost; but, although my sensations were probably the most uncomfortable i ever experienced, i was determined, if possible, to unearth the mystery. "the light was imperfect, and i went to another part of the house for a candle to enable me to examine the floor. in my absence the noise was repeated louder than ever, and not unlike distant thunder. on my return, i was saluted with 'hush!' which i felt convinced came from a voice immediately under the floor. by the light of the candle i examined the dark oak boards, and discovered what appeared to be a trap door about two feet six inches square. the floor at some time had been varnished, and the cracks, or joints of the trap, had been filled and sealed with the varnish. i now hoped i had found the habitation of my troublesome and noisy guest. i procured a chisel and cut the varnished joint, and found that there was a trap door, as i supposed. by the aid of a long screwdriver i was able to move the door, but at that moment a repetition of the noise, immediately under me, made me hesitate for a moment to try and raise it. with feelings better imagined than described, i raised the lid, and looked into a dark chasm. all was still, and i heard the cathedral bell tolling the hour of midnight. a long african spear was in the corner near me, and i struck this into the opening. i tied a string to the candlestick to lower it into the opening, but at this moment i was startled, and was for the first time nervous, or i may say, frightened; but this had better remain for another chapter. "so far i have not in the smallest degree exaggerated or overdrawn any one of the matters i have recounted. every word has been written with the greatest care to truth and accuracy. "s. t. a." * * * * * to cut our ghost story short, without adding another chapter, mr. aveling, on looking into the dark chasm by the meagre light of the lowered candle, beheld, to his amazement, the reflection of his own face in the water of a large cistern underneath the staircase, the house having formerly been supplied from the "large brewery" a short distance off. the unearthly noise was no doubt caused by air in the pipes, through which the water rushed when suddenly turned on by the brewers, who were working late at night. in _great expectations_ it is stated that:--"the brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it" [the courtyard of satis house], "and the wooden gates of that lane stood open" [at the time of pip's first visit, when estella showed him over the premises], "and all the brewery beyond stood open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. the cold wind seemed to blow colder there, than outside the gate; and it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea." footnotes: [ ] mr. aveling subsequently informed me that the vessel in which the king took his departure continued to be used in the royal navy for many years as a lighter--its name being altered to the "royal escape." afterwards it was used as a watch-vessel in the coastguard service at chatham, and was eventually broken up at sheerness dockyard so recently as . [ ] "a perambulation of kent: conteining the description, hystorie, and customes of that shire. written in the yeere by william lambarde of lincoln's inne gent." chapter iv. rochester castle. "i took up my hat, and went out, climbed to the top of the old castle, and looked over the windy hills that slope down to the medway."--_the seven poor travellers._ to the lover of dickens, both the castle and cathedral of rochester appeal with almost equal interest. the castle, however, which stands on an eminence on the right bank of the river medway, close to the bridge, claims prior attention, and a few lines must therefore be devoted to an epitome of its history in the ante-pickwickian days. tradition says that the first castle was erected by command of julius cæsar, when cassivelaunus was governor of britain, "in order to awe the britons." it was called the "castle of the medway," or "the kentishmen's castle," and it seems, with other antagonisms, to have awed the unfortunate britons pretty effectively, for it lasted until decay and dissolution came to it and to them, as to all things. it was replaced by a new castle built by hrofe ( ), which in its turn succumbed to the ravages of time. [illustration: the castle from rochester bridge] gundulph, bishop of rochester ( ), whose name still survives here and there in connection with charities and in other ways in the "ancient city," appears to be entitled to the credit of having commenced to build the present massive square tower or keep, the surviving portion of a magnificent whole, sometimes called "gundulph's tower," "towards which he was to expend the sum of sixty pounds," and this structure ranks as one of the most perfect examples of norman architecture in existence. other authorities ascribe the erection to odo, bishop of bayeux and earl of kent, half-brother to william the conqueror, who is described by hasted as "a turbulent and ambitious prelate, who aimed at nothing less than the popedom." later, in the reign of william rufus, it was accounted "the strongest and most important castle of england." it was so important that lambarde, in _a perambulation of kent_, says:--"it was much in the eie of such as were authors of troubles following within the realme, so that from time to time it had a part almost in every tragedie." mr. robert collins, in his compact and useful _visitors' handbook of rochester and neighbourhood_, quoting from another ancient historian, says that "in , king henry iii. [who in held a grand tournament in the castle] 'commanded that the shyriffe of kent do set aboute to finish and complete the great tower which gundulph had left imperfect.'" about , edward iv. repaired part of the castle, after which it was allowed to fall into decay. the instructions to the "shyriffe" were no doubt necessary; for although £ would probably go a great way in the time of bishop gundulph, the modern æsthetic builder would do very little indeed for that sum, towards the erection of such an impregnable fortress as rochester castle, the walls of which vary from eight to thirteen feet in thickness, whatever his progenitor may have done in . the keep--the last resort of the garrison when all the outworks were taken--is considered so beautiful that it is selected, under the article "castle" in the last edition of the _encyclopædia britannica_, as an illustration of norman architecture, showing "an embattled parapet often admitting of chambers and staircases being constructed," and showing also "embattled turrets carried one story higher than the parapet." there is also a fine woodcut of the castle at p. of vol. v. of that work. the keep is seventy feet square and a hundred feet high, built of the native kentish ragstone and caen stone; and the adamantine mortar or cement used in its construction was made with sand, evidently procured at the seaside some distance from rochester, for it contains remains of cardium, pecten, solen, and other marine shells, which would not be found in river sand. mr. roach smith suggested that probably the sand may have been procured from "cockle-shell hard," near sheerness. he called our attention to the fact that in norman mortar sand is predominant, and in roman mortar lime or chalk. [illustration: rochester castle] the roof and the chambers are gone,--the keep remains as a mere shell,--and where bishops, kings, and barons came and went, flocks of the common domestic pigeon, in countless numbers, fly about and make their home and multiply. one almost regrets the freedom which these graceful birds possess, although to grudge freedom to a pigeon is like grudging sunshine to a flower. but though the damage to the walls is really trifling, as they will stand for centuries to come, still the litter and mess which the birds naturally make is considerable and unsightly, and decidedly out of keeping in such a magnificent ruin. the pigeons exhibit what takes place when a species becomes dominant to the exclusion of other species, as witness the pest of the rabbits in new zealand. with profound respect to his worship the mayor and the corporation of rochester, to whom the castle and grounds now belong, the writer of these lines, as a naturalist, ventures to suggest that the castle should be left to the jackdaws, its natural and doubtless its original tenants, which, although of higher organization, have been driven out by superior numbers in the "struggle for existence," and for whom it is a much more appropriate habitat in keeping with all traditions; and further, that the said pigeons be forthwith made into pies for the use and behoof of the deserving poor of the ancient city of rochester. mention has been made of the fact that the castle and grounds are the property of the corporation of rochester. they were acquired by purchase in from the earl of jersey for £ , , and the occasion was celebrated by great civic rejoicings.[ ] the corporation are not only to be congratulated on the wisdom of their purchase ("a thing of beauty is a joy for ever"), but also on the excellent manner in which the grounds are maintained--pigeons excepted. the gardens, with closely-cut lawns, abound with euonymus, laurustinus, bay, and other evergreens, together with many choice flowers. the single red, or deptford pink (_dianthus armeria_), grows wild on the walls of the castle. there is a tasteful statuette of her majesty, under a gothic canopy, near the entrance, which records her jubilee in . the inscriptions on three of the four corners are appropriately chosen from lord tennyson's _carmen sæculare_:-- to commemorate the =jubilee of queen victoria=, . l. levy, mayor. "fifty years of ever-broadening commerce!" "fifty years of ever-brightening science!" "fifty years of ever-widening empire!" there is free admission to the grounds through a handsome modern norman gateway, but a trifling charge of a few pence is made for permission to enter the keep, which has convenient steps ascending to the top. from the summit of the keep, there are magnificent views of the valley of the river medway, the adjacent hills, rochester, chatham, and the vicinity. the cathedral, jasper's gatehouse, and restoration house, are also noteworthy objects to the lover of dickens. as mr. philips bevan says, and as we verified, the views inside at midday, when the sun is streaming down, are "very peculiar and beautiful." dickens's first and last great works are both associated with the castle, and it is referred to in several other of his writings. we can fancy, more than sixty years ago, the eager and enthusiastic pickwickians, in company with their newly-made acquaintance, mr. alfred jingle, seated outside the four-horse coach,--the "commodore," driven possibly by "old chumley,"--dashing over old rochester bridge, to "the lively notes of the guard's key-bugle," when the sight of the castle first broke upon them. "'magnificent ruin!' said mr. augustus snodgrass, with all the poetic fervour that distinguished him, when they came in sight of the fine old castle. "'what a study for an antiquarian!' were the very words which fell from mr. pickwick's mouth, as he applied his telescope to his eye. "'ah, fine place!' said the stranger, 'glorious pile--frowning walls--tottering arches--dark nooks--crumbling staircases--'" little did poor mr. winkle think that within twenty-four hours _his_ feeling of admiration for rochester castle would be turned into astonishment, for does not the chronicle say that "if the upper tower of rochester castle had suddenly walked from its foundation and stationed itself opposite the coffee-room window [of the bull hotel], mr. winkle's surprise would have been as nothing compared with the perfect astonishment with which he had heard this address" (referring of course to the insult to dr. slammer, and the challenge in the matter of the duel). it was on the occasion of "a visit to the castle" very soon afterwards that mr. winkle confided in, and sought the good offices of, his friend mr. snodgrass, in the "affair of honour" which was to take place at "sunset, in a lonely field beyond fort pitt." poor fellow! how eagerly he tried, under a mask of the most perfect candour, and how miserably he failed, to arouse the energies of his friend to avert the impending catastrophe. [illustration: interior of rochester castle] "'snodgrass,' he said, stopping suddenly, 'do _not_ let me be baulked in this matter--do _not_ give information to the local authorities--do _not_ obtain the assistance of several peace officers to take either me or doctor slammer of the th regiment, at present quartered in chatham barracks, into custody, and thus prevent this duel;--i say, do _not_.' "mr. snodgrass seized his friend's hand as he enthusiastically replied, 'not for worlds!' "a thrill passed over mr. winkle's frame, as the conviction that he had nothing to hope from his friend's fears, and that he was destined to become an animated target, rushed forcibly upon him." the state of the case having been formally explained to mr. snodgrass, they make arrangements, hire "a case of satisfaction pistols, with the satisfactory accompaniments of powder, ball, and caps," and "the two friends returned to their inn." the next ground which they traversed together to pursue the subject was at fort pitt. we will follow them presently. in _the mystery of edwin drood_ there is no direct reference to the castle itself, but the engraving of it, with the cathedral in the background, after the pretty sketch by mr. luke fildes, r.a., will ever be associated with that beautiful fragment. another reference is contained in the preface to _nicholas nickleby_, where dickens says:--"i cannot call to mind now how i came to hear about yorkshire schools when i was a not very robust child, sitting in by-places near rochester castle, with a head full of 'partridge,' 'strap,' 'tom pipes,' and 'sancho panza.'" a sympathetic notice of the castle is also contained in the _seven poor travellers_. it begins:-- "sooth to say, he [time] did an active stroke of work in rochester in the old days of the romans, and the saxons, and the normans, and down to the times of king john, when the rugged castle--i will not undertake to say how many hundreds of years old then--was abandoned to the centuries of weather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks and daws had picked its eyes out." and this, the most touching reference of all, occurs in "one man in a dockyard," contributed by dickens[ ] to _household words_ in :-- "there was rochester castle, to begin with. i surveyed the massive ruin from the bridge, and thought what a brief little practical joke i seemed to be, in comparison with its solidity, stature, strength, and length of life. i went inside; and, standing in the solemn shadow of its walls, looking up at the blue sky, its only remaining roof, (to the disturbance of the crows and jackdaws who garrison the venerable fortress now,) calculated how much wall of that thickness i, or any other man, could build in his whole life,--say from eight years old to eighty,--and what a ridiculous result would be produced. i climbed the rugged staircase, stopping now and then to peep at great holes where the rafters and floors were once,--bare as toothless gums now,--or to enjoy glimpses of the medway through dreary apertures like sockets without eyes; and, looking from the castle ramparts on the old cathedral, and on the crumbling remains of the old priory, and on the row of staid old red-brick houses where the cathedral dignitaries live, and on the shrunken fragments of one of the old city gates, and on the old trees with their high tops below me, felt quite apologetic to the scene in general for my own juvenility and insignificance. one of the river boatmen had told me on the bridge, (as country folks do tell of such places,) that in the old times, when those buildings were in progress, a labourer's wages 'were a penny a day, and enough too.' even as a solitary penny was to their whole cost, it appeared to me, was the utmost strength and exertion of one man towards the labour of their erection." dickens always took his friends to the keep of rochester castle. he naturally considered it as one of the sights of the old city. it was equally attractive to his friends, for a curious adventure is recorded in forster's _life_, in connection with a visit which the poet longfellow made there in , and which he recollected a quarter of a century afterwards, and recounted to forster during a second visit, together with a curious experience in the slums of london with dickens. the first of these adventures is thus described by forster:--"one of them was a day at rochester, when, met by one of those prohibitions which are the wonder of visitors and the shame of englishmen, we overleapt gates and barriers, and setting at defiance repeated threats of all the terrors of law, coarsely expressed to us by the custodian of the place, explored minutely the castle ruins." happily such a circumstance could not now take place, for, by the present excellent regulations of the corporation of the city of rochester, every visitor can explore the castle and grounds to his heart's content. on arriving at either railway station, strood or rochester bridge, the castle is the first object to claim attention. our attention is constantly directed to it during our stay in the pleasant city; it is a landmark when we are on the tramp; and it is the last object to fade from our view as we regretfully take our departure. * * * * * my fellow-tramp favours me with the following note:-- the dedication of rochester castle to the public. "i well remember the day of public rejoicing in the picturesque city of rochester, on the occasion of the ceremony of formally presenting the old castle and grounds to the inhabitants. i had received instructions from the manager of the _graphic_ newspaper to make sketches of the principal incidents in connection with the day's proceedings, and i reached my destination just in time to obtain from the authorities some idea of the nature of those proceedings. with this object in view, i made my way through the surging crowd to the guildhall, where, in one of the corporation rooms, i found a large assembly of local magnates in official attire, including the mayor, who was vainly endeavouring to properly adjust his sword, an operation in which i had the honour of assisting, much to his worship's satisfaction, i hope. [illustration: rochester castle and the medway] "the streets of rochester were thronged with excited people, and the houses were gaily decked with flags and bunting. when everything was ready, an imposing procession was formed, and proceeded to the castle grounds, preceded by a military band; on arriving there, an address was read from the pagoda to an attentive audience, the subsequent proceedings being enlivened by musical strains. "it had been announced that, in the evening, the old keep would be illuminated by the electric light, and i made a point of being present to witness the unusual sight. the night was very dark, and the ivy-clad ruin could barely be distinguished; presently, a burst of music from the band was immediately followed by a remarkably strong beam of light, which shot into the darkness with such effect as to fairly startle those present. then it rested on the grey walls of the huge pile, bathing in brightness the massive stones and clinging ivy, the respective colours of each being vividly apparent. but the most striking feature was yet to come. the hundreds of pigeons which inhabited the nooks and crannies of the old keep, being considerably alarmed by this sudden illumination of their domain, flew with one accord round and round their ancient tenement, now in the full blaze of light, now lost in the inky darkness beyond, and fluttering about in a state of the utmost bewilderment. methinks even mr. pickwick, had he been present in the flesh, would have been equally amazed at this remarkable spectacle." f. g. k. footnotes: [ ] mr. kitton was, by an interesting coincidence, present at the ceremony above referred to, and he has kindly given his impressions thereon, which appear at the end of this chapter. [ ] this was a joint article; the description of the works of the dockyard being by r. h. horne, and that of the fortifications and country around by charles dickens. chapter v. rochester cathedral. "that same afternoon, the massive grey square tower of an old cathedral rises before the sight of a jaded traveller. the bells are going for daily vesper service, and he must needs attend it, one would say, from his haste to reach the open cathedral door. the choir are getting on their sullied white robes, in a hurry, when he arrives among them, gets on his own robe, and falls into the procession filing in to service. then, the sacristan locks the iron-barred gates that divide the sanctuary from the chancel, and all of the procession having scuttled into their places, hide their faces; and then the intoned words, 'when the wicked man--' rise among the groins of arches and beams of roof, awakening muttered thunder."--_edwin drood._ the readers of dickens are first introduced to rochester cathedral, in the early pages of the immortal _pickwick papers_, by that audacious _raconteur_, mr. alfred jingle:-- "old cathedral too--earthy smell--pilgrims' feet worn away the old steps--little saxon doors--confessionals like money-takers' boxes at theatres--queer customers those monks--popes, and lord treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day--buff jerkins too--matchlocks--sarcophagus--fine place--old legends too--strange stories: capital." but it was through the medium of _edwin drood_, and under the masked name of cloisterham, that all the novel-reading world beyond the "ancient city" first recognized rochester cathedral--and indeed the ancient city too--as having been elevated to a degree of interest and importance far beyond that imparted to it by its own venerable history and ecclesiastical associations, numerous and varied as they are. the early portion of the story introduces us to cloisterham in imperishable language:-- [illustration: rochester cathedral] "an ancient city cloisterham, and no meet dwelling-place for any one with hankerings after the noisy world. . . . a drowsy city cloisterham, whose inhabitants seem to suppose, with an inconsistency more strange than rare, that all its changes lie behind it, and that there are no more to come. . . . in a word, a city of another and a bygone time is cloisterham, with its hoarse cathedral bell, its hoarse rooks hovering about the cathedral tower, its hoarser and less distinct rooks in the stalls far beneath. . . ." the particulars in this chapter mainly relate to _the mystery of edwin drood_, which longfellow thought "certainly one of dickens's most beautiful works, if not the most beautiful of all," but a few words may not be inappropriate respecting some of the principal events connected with the cathedral. it was founded[ ] a.d. , by ethelbert, king of kent, and the first bishop of the see (bishop justus) was ordained by augustine, the archbishop of the britons. the see of rochester is therefore, with the exception of canterbury, at once the most ancient and also the smallest in england. the cathedral, as well as the city, suffered from the attacks of ethelred, king of mercia, and in , "when arnot, a monk of bec, came to the see, it was in a most deplorable condition." bishop gundulph, who succeeded him, and by whose efforts the castle was erected, replaced the old english church by a norman one ( ), and made other improvements. the cathedral suffered from fire in and . its great north transept was built in , and the great south transept in . in , the parish altar of st. nicholas, in the nave, was removed to a new church for the citizens on the north side of the cathedral. in , the great west window was inserted. the norman west front has a richly sculptured door of five receding arches, containing figures of the saviour and the twelve apostles, and statues of henry i. and his queen, matilda. there are monuments in the cathedral to st. william of perth, a baker of that town, who was murdered near here by his servant, on his way to the holy land ( ), and was canonized, to bishop gundulph, bishop john de sheppey, bishop de merton (the founder of merton college, oxford), and to many others. according to mr. phillips bevan, "the chapter-house is remarkable for its magnificent decorated door (about ), of which there is a fac-simile at the crystal palace. the figures represent the christian and the jewish churches, surrounded by fathers and angels. the figure at the top is the pure soul for whom the angels are supposed to be praying." various alterations and additions have been made from time to time, the last of which appears to be the central tower, which is terribly mean and inappropriate, and altogether out of place with the ancient surroundings. it was built by cottingham in . we pass, at various times, several pleasant hours in the cathedral and its precincts, admiring the beautiful norman work, and recalling most delightful memories of charles dickens and his associations therewith. [illustration: rochester cathedral interior] among the many friends we made at rochester, was mr. syms, the respected manager of the gas company, and an old resident in the city. to this gentleman we are indebted for several reminiscences of dickens and his works. he fancies that _the mystery of edwin drood_ owed its origin to the following strange local event that happened many years ago. a well-to-do person, a bachelor (who lived somewhere near the site of the present savings bank in high st., rochester, chatham end), was the guardian and trustee of a nephew (a minor), who was the inheritor of a large property. business, pleasure, or a desire to seek health, took the nephew to the west indies, from whence he returned somewhat unexpectedly. after his return he suddenly disappeared, and was supposed to have gone another voyage, but no one ever saw or heard of him again, and the matter was soon forgotten. when, however, certain excavations were being made for some improvements or additions to the bank, the skeleton of a young man was discovered; and local tradition couples the circumstance with the probability of the murder of the nephew by the uncle. mr. syms thought that the "crozier," which is probably a set off to the "mitre," the orthodox hotel where mr. datchery put up with his "portmanteau," was probably the city coffee-house, an old hotel of the coaching days, which stood on the site now occupied by the london county bank. "it was a hotel of a most retiring disposition," and "business was chronically slack at the 'crozier,'" which probably accounts for its dissolution. another suggestion is that the "crozier" may have been "the old crown," a fifteenth-century house, which was pulled down in . he could not identify the "tilted wagon," the "cool establishment on the top of a hill." it is generally admitted that "mr. thomas sapsea, auctioneer, &c.," was a compound of two originals well known in rochester--a mr. b. and a mr. f., who had many of the characteristics of the quondam mayor of cloisterham. mr. sapsea's house is the fine old timbered building opposite eastgate house, which has been previously alluded to. the "travellers' twopenny" of _edwin drood_, where deputy, _alias_ winks, lodged, mr. syms thought to have been a cheap lodging-house well known in that locality, which stood at the junction of frog alley and crow lane, originally called "the duck," and subsequently "kitt's lodging-house." but, like less interesting and more important relics of the past, this has disappeared, to make way for modern improvements. it had been partly burnt down before. to satisfy ourselves, we go over the ground, which is near mr. franklin homan's furniture establishment. we are reminded, in reference to _edwin drood_, that the chief tenor singer never heads the procession of choristers. that place of honour belongs to the smaller boys of the choir. an enquiry from us, as to what was the opinion of the townsfolk generally respecting dickens, elicited the reply that they thought him at times "rather masterful." we are most attentively shown over the cathedral and its surroundings by mr. miles, the venerable verger. this faithful and devoted official, who began at the bottom of the ladder as a choir boy in the sacred edifice at the commencement of the present century, is much respected, and has recently celebrated his golden wedding. few can therefore be more closely identified with the growth and development of its current history. pleasant and instructive it is to hear him recount the many celebrated incidents which have marked its progress, and to see the beautiful memorials of past munificence or affection erected by friends or relatives, which he lovingly points out. it is in no perfunctory spirit, or as mere matter of routine, that he performs his office: we really feel that he takes a deep interest in his task, which makes it a privilege to walk under his guidance through the historic building, and into its famous crypt, so especially associated with jasper and durdles. [illustration: the crypt, rochester cathedral.] we enter "by a small side door, . . . descend the rugged steps, and are down in the crypt." it is very spacious, and vaulted with stone. even by daylight, here and there, "the heavy pillars which support the roof engender masses of black shade, but between them there are lanes of light," and we walk "up and down these lanes," being strangely reminded of durdles as we notice fragments of old broken stone ornaments carefully laid out on boards in several places. formerly there were altars to st. mary and st. catherine in the crypt or undercroft, but mr. wildish's local guide-book says:--"they seem not to have been much frequented; consequently these saints were not very profitable to the priests." we "go up the winding staircase of the great tower, toilsomely turning and turning, and lowering [our] heads to avoid the stairs above, or the rough stone pivot around which they twist." about ninety steps bring us on to the roof of the cathedral over the choir, and then, keeping along a passage by the parapet, we reach the belfry, and from thence go on by ladder to the bell-chamber, which contains six bells--dark--very--long ladders--trap-doors--very heavy--almost extinguish us when lowering them--more ladders from bell-chamber to roof of tower. the parapet of the tower is very high; we can just see over it when standing on a narrow ledge near the top-coping of the leaded roof. there are a number of curious carved heads on the pinnacles of the tower, and the parapet, to our surprise, appears to be about the same height as the top of the castle keep. a panoramic view of cloisterham presents itself to our view (alas! not by moonlight, as in the story), "its ruined habitations and sanctuaries of the dead at the tower's base; its moss-softened, red-tiled roofs and red-brick houses of the living, clustered beyond." we are anxious to go round the triforium, but there is no passage through the arches; it was closed, we are told, at the time of the restoration, about fifteen years ago, when the walls of the cathedral were pinned for safety. the verger, on being asked, said he did not call to mind that dickens ever went round the triforium or ascended the tower. if this is so, then much of the wonderful description of that "unaccountable sort of expedition," in the twelfth chapter of _edwin drood_, must have been written from imagination. as it is sunday, and as the summer is nearly over, mr. miles, with a feeling akin to that which george eliot has expressed regarding imperfect work:-- "but god be praised, antonio stradivari has an eye that winces at false work and loves the true,"-- apologetically explains that one-half the choir are absent on leave, and perhaps we shall not have the musical portion of the service conducted with that degree of efficiency which, as visitors, we may have expected. nevertheless we attend the afternoon service; and mendelssohn's glorious anthem, "if with all your hearts," appeals to us with enhanced effect, from the exquisite rendering of it by the gifted pure tenor who takes the solo, followed by the delicate harmonies of the choir, as the sound waves carry them upwards through and around the arches, and from the sublime emotions called into being by the impassioned appeal of the hebrew prophet. we study "the fantastic carvings on the under brackets of the stall seats," and examine the lectern described as "the big brass eagle holding the sacred books upon his wings," and in imagination can almost call up the last scene described in _the mystery of edwin drood_, where her royal highness, the princess puffer, "grins," and "shakes both fists at the leader of the choir," and "deputy peeps, sharp-eyed, through the bars, and stares astounded from the threatener to the threatened." upon being interrogated as to whether he knew charles dickens, our guide immediately answers with a smile--"knew him! yes. he came here very often, and i knew him very well. the fact is, they want to make me out to be 'tope.'" and indeed there appears to be such a relevancy in the association, that we frequently find ourselves addressing him as "mr. tope," at which he good-humouredly laughs. he further states that dickens was frequently in rochester, and especially so when writing _edwin drood_, and appeared to be studying the cathedral and its surroundings very attentively. the next question we put is:--"was there ever such a person as durdles?" to which he replies, "of course there was,--a drunken old german stonemason, about thirty years ago, who was always prowling about the cathedral trying to pick up little bits of broken stone ornaments, carved heads, crockets, finials, and such like, which he carried about in a cotton handkerchief, and which may have suggested to dickens the idea of the 'slouching' durdles and his inseparable dinner bundle. he used to work for a certain squire n----." his earnings mostly went to "the fortune of war,"--now called "the life-boat,"--the inn where he lodged. mr. miles does not remember the prototypes of any other "cathedraly" characters--crisparkle and the rest--but he quite agrees with the general opinion previously referred to as to the origin of mr. sapsea. he considers "deputy" (the imp-like satellite of durdles and the "kinfreederel") to be decidedly a street arab, the type of which is more common in london than in rochester. he thinks that the fact of the rooms over the gatehouse having once been occupied by an organ-blower of the cathedral may have prompted dickens to make it the residence of the choir-master. he also throws out the suggestion that the discovery in of the effigy of bishop john de sheppey, who died in , may possibly have given rise to the idea of the "old 'uns" in the crypt, the frequent object of durdles's search, _e.g._ "durdles come upon the old chap (in reference to a buried magnate of ancient time and high degree) by striking right into the coffin with his pick. the old chap gave durdles a look with his open eyes as much as to say, 'is your name durdles? why, my man, i've been waiting for you a devil of a time!' and then he turned to powder. with a two-foot rule always in his pocket, and a mason's hammer all but always in his hand, durdles goes continually sounding and tapping all about and about the cathedral; and whenever he says to tope, 'tope, here's another old 'un in here!' tope announces it to the dean as an established discovery." [illustration: minor canon row: rochester] on the south side of the cathedral is the curious little terrace of old-fashioned houses, about seven in number, called "minor canon row"--"a wonderfully quaint row of red-brick tenements" (dickens's name for it is "minor canon corner"),--chiefly occupied by the officers and others attached to the cathedral. here it was that mr. crisparkle dwelt with his mother, and where the little party was held (after the dinner at which mr. luke honeythunder, with his "curse your souls and bodies--come here and be blessed" philanthropy, was present, and caused "a most doleful breakdown"), which included miss twinkleton, the landlesses, rosa bud, and edwin drood, as shown in the illustration, "at the piano." the reverend septimus crisparkle's mother, who is the hostess (and celebrated for her wonderful closet with stores of pickles, jams, biscuits, and cordials), is beautifully described in the story:-- "what is prettier than an old lady--except a young lady--when her eyes are bright, when her figure is trim and compact, when her face is cheerful and calm, when her dress is as the dress of a china shepherdess: so dainty in its colours, so individually assorted to herself, so neatly moulded on her? nothing is prettier, thought the good minor canon frequently, when taking his seat at table opposite his long-widowed mother. her thought at such times may be condensed into the two words that oftenest did duty together in all her conversations: 'my sept.'" the backs of the houses have very pretty gardens, and, as evidence of the pleasant and healthy atmosphere of the locality, we notice beautiful specimens of the ilex, arbutus, euonymus, and fig, the last-named being in fruit. the wall-rue (_asplenium ruta-muraria_) is found hereabout. there, too, is a virginia creeper, but we do not observe one growing on the cathedral walls, as described in _edwin drood_. jackdaws fly about the tower, but there are no rooks, as also stated. near minor canon row, to the right of boley hill (or "bully hill," as it is sometimes called), is the "paved quaker settlement," a sedate row of about a dozen houses "up in a shady corner." "jasper's gatehouse" of the work above mentioned is certainly an object of great interest to the lover of dickens, as many of the remarkable scenes in _edwin drood_ took place there. it is briefly described as "an old stone gatehouse crossing the close, with an arched thoroughfare passing beneath it. through its latticed window, a fire shines out upon the fast-darkening scene, involving in shadow the pendent masses of ivy and creeper covering the building's front." there are _three_ gatehouses near the cathedral, a fact which proves somewhat embarrassing to those anxious to identify the original of that so carefully described in the story. a short description of these may not be uninteresting. [illustration: college gate--(or chertsey's gate) rochester.] [illustration: prior's gate: rochester] (a) "college yard gate," "cemetery gate," and "chertsey's gate," are the respective names of what we know as "jasper's gatehouse." it is a picturesque stone structure, weather-boarded above the massive archway, and abuts on the high street about a hundred yards north of the cathedral. some of the old houses near have recently been demolished, with the result that the gatehouse now stands out in bold relief against the main thoroughfare of the city. no "pendent masses of ivy" or "creeper" cover it. the gate was named "chertsey" after edward chertsey, a gentleman who lived and owned property near in the time of edward iv., and the cathedral authorities still continue to use the old name, "chertsey's gate." the place was recently the residence of the under-porter of the cathedral, and is now occupied by poor people. there are four rooms, two below and two above. (b) "prior's gate" is a castellated stone structure partly covered with ivy, standing about a hundred yards south of the cathedral, and is not now utilized in any way. there is only one room, approached by a winding staircase or "postern stair." the gate was formerly used as a school for choristers, until the new building of the choir school was opened in minor canon row about three years ago. (c) the "deanery gatehouse" is the name of a quaint and very cosy old house, having ten rooms, some of which, together with the staircase, are beautifully panelled; its position is a little higher up to the eastward of the college yard gate, and adjoining the cathedral, while a gateway passage under it leads to the deanery. the house was formerly the official residence of the hon. and reverend canon hotham, who was appointed a canon in residence in , and lived here at intervals until about , when the canonry was suppressed. of all the gatehouses, this is the only one suitable for the residence of a person in jasper's position, who was enabled to offer befitting hospitality to his nephew and neville landless. formerly there was an entrance into the cathedral from this house, which is now occupied by mr. day and his family, who kindly allowed us to inspect it. we were informed that locally it is sometimes called "jasper's gatehouse." the interior of the drawing-room on the upper floor presents a very strong resemblance to mr. luke fildes's illustration, "on dangerous ground." accordingly, to settle the question of identity, i wrote to mr. fildes, whose interesting and courteous reply to my inquiries is conclusive. before giving it, however, i may mention that my fellow-tramp, mr. kitton, suggested, more particularly with reference to another illustration in _edwin drood_, viz., "durdles cautions mr. sapsea against boasting," that, for the purposes of the story, the prior's gate is placed where the college yard gate actually stands. [illustration: deanery gate. rochester] " , melbury road, kensington, w. "_ th october, ._ "dear sir, "the background of the drawing of 'durdles cautioning sapsea,' i believe i sketched from what you call a., _i. e._ the college gate. i am almost certain it was not taken from b., the prior's. "the room in the drawing, 'on dangerous ground,' is imaginary. "i do not believe i entered any of the gatehouses. "the resemblance you see in the drawing to the room in the deanery gatehouse (c.), might not be gained by actual observation of the _interior_. "in many instances an artist can well judge what the interior may be from studying the _outside_. i only throw this out to show that the artist may not have seen a thing even when a strong resemblance occurs. i am sorry to leave any doubt on the subject, though personally i feel none. "you see i never felt the necessity or propriety of being locally accurate to rochester or its buildings. dickens, of course, meant rochester; yet, at the same time, he chose to be obscure on that point, and i took my cue from him. i always thought it was one of his most artistic pieces of work; the vague, dreamy description of the cathedral in the opening chapter of the book. so definite in one sense, yet so locally vague. "very faithfully yours, "luke fildes. "w. r. hughes, esq." the college yard gate (a) must therefore be regarded as the typical jasper's gatehouse, but, with the usual novelist's license, some points in all three gatehouses have been utilized for effect. so we can imagine the three friends in succession going up the "postern stair;" and, further on in the story, we can picture that mysterious "single buffer, dick datchery, living on his means," as a lodger in the "venerable architectural and inconvenient" official dwelling of mr. tope, minutely described in the eighteenth chapter of _edwin drood_, as "communicating by an upper stair with mr. jasper's," watching the unsuspecting jasper as he goes to and from the cathedral. chapters twelve, fourteen, and twenty-three refer to jasper's gatehouse, and its proximity to the busy hum of human life, in very vivid terms, especially chapter twelve:-- "among these secluded nooks there is little stir or movement after dark. there is little enough in the high tide of the day, but there is next to none at night. besides that, the cheerfully frequented high street lies nearly parallel to the spot (the old cathedral rising between the two), and is the natural channel in which the cloisterham traffic flows, a certain awful hush pervades the ancient pile, the cloisters, and the churchyard after dark, which not many people care to encounter. . . . one might fancy that the tide of life was stemmed by mr. jasper's own gatehouse. the murmur of the tide is heard beyond; but no wave passes the archway, over which his lamp burns red behind the curtain, as if the building were a lighthouse. . . . "the red light burns steadily all the evening in the lighthouse on the margin of the tide of busy life. softened sounds and hum of traffic pass it, and flow on irregularly into the lonely precincts; but very little else goes by save violent rushes of wind. it comes on to blow a boisterous gale. . . . john jasper's lamp is kindled, and his lighthouse is shining, when mr. datchery returns alone towards it. as mariners on a dangerous voyage, approaching an iron-bound coast, may look along the beams of the warning light to the haven lying beyond it that may never be reached, so mr. datchery's wistful gaze is directed to this beacon and beyond. . . ." the sensation of calm in passing suddenly out of the busy high street of rochester into the subdued precincts of the cathedral, as above described, is very marked and peculiar, and must be experienced to be realized. among the many interesting ancient buildings in "the lonely precincts" may be mentioned the old episcopal palace of the bishops of rochester. my friend mr. george payne, f.s.a., hon. sec. of the kent archæological society, who now lives there, writes me that:--"it is impossible to say when it was first built, but it was rebuilt _circa_ , the palace which preceded it having been destroyed by fire. bishop fisher was appointed to the see in , and mainly resided at rochester. the learned prelate here entertained the great erasmus in , and cardinal wolsey in . in bishop fisher left rochester never to return, being beheaded on tower hill, june nd, . the front of the palace has been coated with rough plaster work dusted over with broken tile, but the rear walls are in their original state, being wholly composed of rag, tufa, and here and there roman tiles. the cellars are of the most massive construction, and many of the rooms are panelled." [illustration: the vines and restoration house] the monks' vineyard of _edwin drood_ exists as "the vines," and is one of the "lungs" of rochester, belonging to the dean and chapter, by whom it is liberally leased to the corporation for a nominal consideration. it was a vineyard, or garden, in the days of the monks, and is now a fine open space, planted with trees, and has good walks and well-trimmed lawns and borders. remains of the wall of the city, or abbey, previous to the cathedral, constitute the northern boundary of "the vines." there are commodious seats for the public, and it was doubtless on one of these, as represented in the illustration entitled "under the trees," that edwin drood and rosa sat, during that memorable discussion of their position and prospects, which began so childlike and ended so sadly. "'can't you see a happy future?' for certain, neither of them sees a happy present, as the gate opens and closes, and one goes in and the other goes away." a fine clump of old elms (seven in number), called "the seven sisters," stands at the east end of the vines, nearly opposite restoration house, and it was under these trees that the conversation took place. so curiously exact at times does the description fit in with the places, that we notice opposite eastgate house the "lumps of delight shop," to which it will be remembered that after the discussion rosa bud directed edwin drood to take her. dickens's last visit to rochester was on monday, th june, , when he walked over from gad's hill place with his dogs; and he appears to have been noticed by several persons in the vines, and particularly by mr. john sweet, as he stood leaning against the wooden palings near restoration house, contemplating the beautiful old manor house. these palings have since been removed, and an iron fence substituted. the object of this visit subsequently became apparent, when it was found that, in those pages of _edwin drood_ written a few hours before his death, datchery and the princess puffer held that memorable conference there. "they have arrived at the entrance to the monks' vineyard; an appropriate remembrance, presenting an exemplary model for imitation, is revived in the woman's mind by the sight of the place," in allusion of course to a present of "three shillings and sixpence" which edwin drood gave her royal highness on a previous occasion to buy opium. [illustration: restoration house, rochester, as it appeared in dickens's time. (from a sketch by an amateur.)] the extensive promenade called the esplanade (where in we saw the regatta in which, after a series of annual defeats, rochester maintained its supremacy), on the east side of the river medway, under the castle walls, pleasantly approached from the cathedral close, is memorable as having been the spot described in the thirteenth chapter where edwin and rosa met for the last time, and mutually agreed to terminate their unfortunate and ill-assorted engagement. "they walked on by the river. they began to speak of their separate plans. he would quicken his departure from england, and she would remain where she was, at least as long as helena remained. the poor dear girls should have their disappointment broken to them gently, and, as the first preliminary, miss twinkleton should be confided in by rosa, even in advance of the reappearance of mr. grewgious. it should be made clear in all quarters that she and edwin were the best of friends. there had never been so serene an understanding between them since they were first affianced." we are anxious to identify cloisterham weir, frequently mentioned in _edwin drood_, but more particularly as being the place where minor canon crisparkle found edwin's watch and shirt-pin. the weir, we are told in the novel, "is full two miles above the spot to which the young men [edwin and neville] had repaired [presumably the esplanade] to watch the storm." there is, however, no weir nearer than allington, at which place the tide of the medway stops, and allington is a considerable distance from rochester, probably seven or eight miles. how well the good minor canon's propensity for "perpetually pitching himself headforemost into all the deep water in the surrounding country," and his "pilgrimages to cloisterham weir in the cold rimy mornings," are brought into requisition to enable him to obtain the watch and pin. "he threw off his clothes, he plunged into the icy water, and swam for the spot--a corner of the weir--where something glistened which did not move and come over with the glistening water drops, but remained stationary. . . . he brought the watch to the bank, swam to the weir again, climbed it, and dived off. he knew every hole and corner of all the depths, and dived and dived and dived, until he could bear the cold no more. his notion was that he would find the body; he only found a shirt-pin sticking in some mud and ooze." our failure to identify cloisterham weir exhibits another instance where, for the purposes of the story, an imaginary place is introduced. to mr. william ball is due the credit for subsequently suggesting that snodland brook and snodland weir may have possibly been in dickens's mind in originating cloisterham weir; so we tramped over to inspect them. near the village, the brook (or river, for it is of respectable width) is turbid and shallow, but higher up--a mile or so--we found it clearer and deeper, and we heard from some labourers, whom we saw regaling themselves by the side of a hayrick, that a local gentleman had some years ago been in the habit of bathing in the stream all the year round. [illustration: st. nicholas' burying ground] the ancient church of st. nicholas ( ) is on the north side of the cathedral. in front of it is a narrow strip of ground, enclosed with iron railings, formerly the burial-ground of the church, but now disused, referred to in _edwin drood_ as "a fragment of a burial-ground in which an unhappy sheep was grazing." in this enclosure, which is neatly kept, there are a weeping willow at each end, and in the centre an exquisite specimen of the catalpa tree (_catalpa syringifolia_), the floral ornament of the cathedral precincts. at the time of our visit it is in perfect condition, the large cordate bright green leaves, and the massive trusses of labiate flowers of white, yellow, and purple colours (not unlike those of the _impatiens noli-me-tangere_ balsam, only handsomer) are worth walking miles to see. it is a north american plant, and in its native country sometimes grows to a height of forty feet. the specimen here described is about twenty feet high, and was planted about fifteen years ago.[ ] on the opposite side of the way is the old cemetery of st. nicholas' church, originally part of the castle moat, but which was converted to its present purpose about half a century ago. this quiet resting-place of the dead has intense interest for the lover of dickens, as it was here that he desired to be buried; and his family would certainly have carried his wishes into effect, but that the place had been closed for years and no further interments were allowed. pending other arrangements at shorne, an admirable suggestion was made in the _times_, which speedily found favour with the nation in its great affection for him, namely, that he should rest in westminster abbey; and, the dean of westminster promptly and wisely responding to the suggestion, it was at once carried into effect. as we pause, and look again and again at the sheltered nook in the old cemetery sanctified by his memory, and adorned by rich evergreens and other trees, among which the weeping willow and the almond are conspicuous, we quite understand and sympathize with dickens's love for such a calm and secluded spot. the dean and chapter of rochester, it will be recollected, were anxious that the great novelist's remains should be placed in or near their cathedral, and that wish might have been gratified, except, as just explained, that the public decreed otherwise. however, they sanctioned the erection, by the executors, of a brass, which enriches the wall of the south transept of the edifice, and which has the following inscription:-- [illustration: charles dickens born at portsmouth seventh of february died at gadshill place by rochester ninth of june buried in westminster abbey to connect his memory with the scenes in which his earliest and his latest years were passed and with the associations of rochester cathedral and its neighbourhood which extended over all his life this tablet with the sanction of the dean and chapter is placed by his executors] the unfinished novel of _edwin drood_, which, as we have seen, is so inseparably connected with rochester cathedral, has been _finished_ by at least half a dozen authors, probably to their own satisfaction; but it is a hard matter to the reader to struggle through any one of them. however, there is a little _brochure_ in this direction which we feel may here be appropriately noticed. it is called, _watched by the dead: a loving study of charles dickens's half-told tale_, , and was written by r. a. proctor, f.r.a.s., the astronomer, whose untimely death from fever in america was announced after our return from our week's tramp. the author had evidently studied the matter both lovingly and attentively, and starts with the assumption that it is an example of what he calls "dickens's favourite theme," which more than any other had a fascination for him, and was apparently regarded by him as likely to be most potent in its influence on others. it was that of "a wrong-doer watched at every turn by one of whom he has no suspicion, for whom he even entertains a feeling of contempt," and mr. proctor has certainly evolved a very suggestive and not improbable conclusion to the story. instances of dickens's favourite theme are adduced from _barnaby rudge_, where haredale, unsuspected, steadily waits and watches for rudge, till, after more than twenty years, "at last! at last!" he cries, as he captures his brother's murderer on the very spot where the murder had been committed; from _the old curiosity shop_, where sampson and sally brass are watched by the marchioness--their powerless victim as they supposed, and by whom their detection is brought about; from _nicholas nickleby_, where ralph nickleby is watched by brooker; and from _dombey and son_, where dombey is watched by carker, and he in turn is watched by good mrs. brown and her unhappy daughter. instances of this kind also appear in _david copperfield_, _bleak house_, and _little dorrit_. reasoning from similar data, mr. proctor concludes that jasper was watched by edwin drood in the person of datchery, and thus he was to have been tracked remorselessly "to his death by the man whom he supposed he had slain." the _dénouement_ as regards the other characters seems also not improbable. rosa bud was to have married lieutenant tartar, and crisparkle, helena landless. neville was to have died, but not before he had learned to understand the change which edwin's character had undergone. as to edwin drood himself, "purified by trial, strengthened though saddened by his love for rosa," edwin would have been one of those characters dickens loved to draw--a character entirely changed from a once careless, almost trivial self, to depth and earnestness. "all were to join in changing the ways of dear old grewgious from the sadness and loneliness of the earlier scenes" in the story, "to the warmth and light of that kindly domestic life for which, angular though he thought himself, his true and genial nature fitted him so thoroughly." this attempt to solve _the mystery of edwin drood_ will amply repay perusal. it was probably one of the last works of this very able and versatile author. * * * * * it is right to state that mr. luke fildes, r.a., the illustrator of _the mystery of edwin drood_, with whom we have had the pleasure of an interview, entirely rejects this theory. he does not favour the idea that datchery is edwin drood; his opinion is that the ingenuous and kind-hearted edwin, had he been living, would never have allowed his friend neville to continue so long under the grave suspicion of murder. nay more: he is convinced that dickens intended that edwin drood should be killed by his uncle; and this opinion is supported by the fact of the introduction of a "large black scarf of strong close-woven silk," which jasper wears for the first time in the fourteenth chapter of the story, and which was likely to have been the means of death, _i. e._ by strangulation. mr. fildes said that dickens seemed much surprised when he called his attention to this change of dress--very noticeable and embarrassing to an artist who had studied the character--and appeared as though he had unintentionally disclosed the secret. he further stated that it was dickens's intention to take him to a condemned cell in maidstone or some other gaol, in order "that he might make a drawing," "and," said dickens, "do something better than cruikshank;" in allusion, of course, to the famous drawing of "fagin in the condemned cell." "surely this," remarked our informant, "points to our witnessing the condemned culprit jasper in his cell before he met his fate."[ ] mr. fildes spoke with enthusiasm of the very great kindness and consideration which he received from dickens, and the pains he took to introduce his young friend to the visitors at gad's hill, and in london at hyde park place, who were his seniors. he was under an engagement to visit dickens,--had his portmanteau packed in fact, almost ready to start on his journey--when he saw to his amazement the announcement of his death in the newspapers--and it was a very great shock to him. not long afterwards, mr. fildes said, the family, with much kind thoughtfulness, renewed the invitation to him to stay a few days at gad's hill place, and during that time he made the imperishable drawing of "the empty chair." bearing in mind the above circumstances coming from so high an authority, a missing link has been supplied, but--_the mystery of edwin drood_ is still unsolved! footnotes: [ ] it is interesting to record that the foundations of this church were met with for the first time, in restoring the west front of the cathedral, in . [ ] this was written in ; on a subsequent visit to rochester we were sorry to find that the frost had made sad havoc with this beautiful tree. [ ] mr. charles dickens informs me that mr. fildes is right, and that edwin drood was dead. his (mr. dickens's) father told him so himself. chapter vi. richard watts's charity, rochester. "strictly speaking, there were only _six_ poor travellers; but being a traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as poor as i hope to be, i brought the number up to seven. . . . i, for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that i scarce know which is which."--_the seven poor travellers._ the most unique charity ever described in fiction, or founded on fact, well deserves a few pages to be devoted to a record of its interesting history and present position. we therefore occupy a short time in examining it on thursday morning, before our visit to the marshes. [illustration: the "six poor travellers"] except for _the seven poor travellers_, which was the title of the christmas number of _household words_ issued in , it is possible that few beyond "the ancient city" would ever have heard, or indeed have cared to hear, anything about the worshipful master richard watts or his famous charity; now, as all the world knows, it is a veritable "household word" to readers and admirers of dickens. in the narrative, he, as the first traveller, is supposed to have visited rochester, and passed the evening with the six poor travellers, and thus to have made the seventh. after hearing the story of the charity "from the decent body of a wholesome matronly presence" (this was mrs. cackett, a former matron, who is said to have been very much astonished at her appearance in the drama of _the seven poor travellers_, which she subsequently witnessed at the rochester theatre), he obtains permission to treat the travellers to a hot supper. the inn at which the first traveller stayed was doubtless our old acquaintance, the bull, "where the window of his adjoining bedroom looked down into the inn yard, just where the lights of the kitchen redden a massive fragment of the castle wall." here was brewed the "wassail" contained in the "brown beauty," the "turkey" and "beef" roasted, and the "plum-pudding" boiled. as mr. robert langton says, "the account of the treat to the poor travellers is of course wholly fictitious, although it is accepted as sober truth by many people, both in rochester and elsewhere." it is not our purpose to criticize the seven pretty stories which make up this christmas number, part of the first of which only relates to watts's charity; but we will venture to affirm that the concluding portion of that story, referring to "richard doubledick," "who was a poor traveller with not a farthing in his pocket, and who came limping down on foot to this town of chatham," is one of the most touching instances of christian forgiveness ever recorded, and hardened indeed must he be who reads it with dry eyes. to what extent dickens himself was affected by this beautiful tale, is shown by the following extract from a letter addressed by him, on nd december, , to the late mr. arthur ryland, formerly mayor of birmingham, now treasured by his widow, mrs. arthur ryland, who kindly allowed a copy to be taken:-- "what you write with so much heartiness of my first poor traveller is quite delightful to me. the idea of that little story obtained such strong possession of me when it came into my head, that it cost me more time and tears than most people would consider likely. the response it meets with is payment for anything." it is also interesting to record that many years afterwards mr. ryland read this story at one of the christmas gatherings of the birmingham and midland institute, and subsequently received from an unknown correspondent--sergeant a----, of the th light infantry, then stationed at umballa, east indies, who had noticed an account of the reading in a newspaper--a letter under date of th july, , asking to be favoured with a copy of the story; "for," said the writer, "we have just started a penny reading society (if i may call it so), and i'm sure that story would be the means of reclaiming many men from their vices--i mean drinking and low company." the story was of course sent, and mr. ryland subsequently communicated the circumstances to the present mr. charles dickens, who replied--"i wish my dear father could have seen the sergeant's letter; it would have pleased him, i am sure." as we proceed along the high street, on the north side towards chatham, a walk of only a few yards from the bull brings us to a curious tudor stone-built house of two stories, with latticed windows and three-pointed gables. under a lamp in the centre, which is over the "quaint old door"--the door-sill itself being (as is usual with some old houses) a little below the street, so that we drop by a step or two into the entrance-hall--is a tablet containing the following inscription:-- (centre.) richard watts, esquire, by his will dated nd august, , founded this charity for six poor travellers, who, not being rogues or proctors, may receive gratis for one night lodging, entertainment, and fourpence each. "in testimony of his munificence, in honour of his memory, and inducement to his example, the charitable trustees of this city and borough have caused this stone to be renewed and inscribed, a.d. ." and on the left and right-hand sides respectively of the preceding appear smaller tablets, with the following inscriptions:-- (left.) the charitable trustees of this city and borough appointed by the lord high chancellor, december, , are to see this charity executed. (right.) pagitt _arms._[illustration] somers thomas pagitt, second husband of mary, daughter of thomas somers of halstow, widow of richard watts, deceased a.d. . we enter the old-fashioned little parlour, or office, on the left-hand side, "warm in winter and cool in summer. it has a look of homely welcome and soothing rest. it has a remarkably cosy fireside, the very blink of which, gleaming out into the street upon a winter's night, is enough to warm all rochester's heart." the matron receives us politely, and shows us two large books of foolscap size with ruled columns, one of these containing a record of the visitors to the charity, and the other a list of the recipients thereof. a little pleasantry is caused by one of us entering his name in the wrong book, but this mistake is promptly rectified by the matron, who informs us that we are scarcely objects for relief as "poor travellers." she then kindly repeats to us the two legends respecting the origin of the charity, the first of which is tolerably well known, but the other is less familiar. before recording these, it may be well to give an extract from the will of master richard watts (a very curious and lengthy document), which was industriously hunted up by the late mr. charles bullard, author of the _romance of rochester_, and by him contributed to the _rochester and chatham journal_, of which it fills a whole column. the will (dated, as previously stated, august nd, ) directs, _inter alia_, that "first the alms-house already erected and standing beside the markett crosse, within the citty of rochester aforesaid, which almshouses my will purpose and desire is that there be reedified added and provided with such roomes as be there already provided six severall roomes with chimneys for the comfort placeing and abideing of the poore within the said citty, and alsoe to be made apt and convenient places therein for six good matrices or flock bedds and other good and sufficient furniture to harbour or lodge in poore travellers or wayfareing men being noe common rogues nor proctors, and they the said wayfareing men to harbour and lodge therein noe longer than one night unlesse sickness be the farther cause thereof and those poore folkes there dwelling shall keepe the house sweete make the bedds see to the furniture keepe the same sweete and courteously intreate the said poore travellers and to every of the said poore travellers att their first comeing in to have fourpence and they shall warme them at the fire of the residents within the said house if need be." the reason for the exception in the testator's will as regards rogues is sufficiently obvious, and therefore all the point of this singular bequest lies in the word "proctors." who were they? one of the legends has it that the obsolete word "proctors" referred to certain sturdy mendicants who swarmed in the south of england, and went about extracting money from the charitable public under the pretence of collecting "peter's pence" for the pope; or, as the compiler of murray's _handbook to the county of kent_ suggests, "were probably the bearers of licences to collect alms for hospitals," etc. possibly the worthy master richard watts objected to the levying of this blackmail; or he may in his walks have been subjected to the proctors' importunities, and consequently in his will rigorously debarred them in all futurity from any share in his charity. the other legend is that master watts, being grievously sick and sore to die, sent for his lawyer, who in those days acted as proctor as well,--steerforth in _david copperfield_ calls the proctor "a monkish kind of attorney,"--and bade him prepare his will according to certain instructions. the will was made, but not in the manner directed, and subsequently, on the testator regaining his health, he discovered the fraud which the crafty lawyer or proctor had tried to perpetrate--which was, in fact, to make himself the sole legatee. in his just indignation he made another will, and in it for ever excluded the fraternity of proctors from benefiting thereby. the reader is at liberty to accept whichever of the two legends he chooses. it is right to say that mr. roach smith utterly rejects the second story. he says proctors were simply rogues, although some of them may have been licensed. the following is a foot-note to fisher's _history and antiquities of rochester and its environs_, mdcclxxii. [illustration: watts' almshouses: rochester] "it is generally thought that the reason of mr. watts's excluding proctors from the benefit of the charity, was that a proctor had been employed to make his will, whereby he had given all the estates to himself; but i am inclined to believe that the word proctor is derived from procurator, who was an itinerant priest, and had dispensations from the pope to absolve the subjects of this realm from the oath of allegiance to queen elizabeth, in whose reign there were many such priests." when the identity of miss adelaide anne procter, the gifted author of the pure and pathetic _legends and lyrics_ (who had been an anonymous contributor to _household words_ for some time under the _nom de plume_ of "mary berwick"), became known to charles dickens, he sent her a charming and kindly letter of congratulation and appreciation, dated th december, (just at the time that the christmas stories of the _seven poor travellers_ were published), which thus concludes:-- "you have given me so much pleasure, and have made me shed so many tears, that i can only think of you now in association with the sentiment and grace of your verses. pray accept the blessing and forgiveness of richard watts, _though i am afraid you come under both his conditions of exclusion_." [illustration: signatures: charles dickens mark lemon] we are informed that the original bequest of the testator was only £ _s._ _d._ per annum, being the rent of land; but now, owing to the improved letting of the land, for building and other purposes, the revenues of the charity are upwards of £ , per annum. the "fourpence" of the foundation would be equal to some three shillings and fourpence of our money. the trustees, about sixteen in number,--one of whom has filled the office for fifty years--have very wisely and prudently obtained an extension of their powers; and the court of chancery have twice (in and ) sanctioned schemes for the administration of the funds, which have largely benefited rochester in many ways. as witness of this, there are a series of excellent almshouses on the maidstone road (which cost about £ , ), with appropriate entrance-gates and gardens, endowed for the support and maintenance of townsmen and townswomen. we subsequently go into several of the rooms, all beautifully clean, and in most cases tastefully decorated by the inmates with a few pictures, prints, and flowers, and find that the present occupants are ten almsmen and six women. we have a chat with one of the almsmen,--a hearty old man, once the beadle of st. margaret's church,--who rejoices in the name of peter weller, and whom we find to be well up in his _pickwick_. there are a resident head-nurse and three other resident nurses in the establishment, who occasionally go out to nurse the sick in the city. in addition to these almshouses, a handsome new hospital has been erected in the new road, and partly endowed (£ , a year) out of the funds. contributions are also made annually from the same source towards the support of the public baths, and for apprenticing deserving lads. such is the development of this remarkable charity. the matron calls our attention to many interesting names in the visitors' book. under date of the th may, , are the signatures, in good bold writing, of charles dickens and mark lemon; and in subsequent entries, extending over many years, appear the names of wilkie collins, w. h. wills, w. g. wills, walter besant, thomas adolphus trollope, j. henry shorthouse, augustus j. c. hare, and other well-known _littérateurs_. as usual, there are also numerous names of americans, including those of miss mary anderson and party. there are many curious remarks recorded in this book, such as an entry dated th june, , which says:--"tossed by, and out of the bull with a crumpled horn, as no one would lend me five shillings, therefore obliged to solicit the benefit of this excellent charity." there is an admirable testimony in latin, by the late bishop of lincoln, dr. wordsworth, to the usefulness of the institution, which, dated rd august, , is as follows:--"_esto perpetua obstantibus caritatis commissionariis._" his lordship's remark was probably in allusion to the fact that the charity commissioners were (as we were afterwards informed) inclined, some time ago, to abolish the charity, but this proceeding was stoutly and successfully resisted by the trustees. but the most gratifying records which we see in the book consist of several entries by recipients of the charity themselves, who have subsequently come again after prosperous times in the capacity of visitors, and thus testified to the benefits received. here is one:--"having once enjoyed the charity, i wish it a long life." [illustration: the "six poor travellers" from the rear] [illustration: a dormitory in the "six poor travellers"] [illustration: gallery leading to the dormitories] a clerk has the responsibility of making a careful selection of six from the number of applicants, and this appears to be no light task, inasmuch as the "prescribed number of poor travellers are forthcoming every night from year's end to year's end," and sometimes amount to fifty in a day. in selecting the persons to be admitted, care is taken that, unless under special circumstances, the same person be not admitted for more than one night, and in no case for more than two consecutive nights. a glance over the register shows that the names include almost all trades and occupations; and, as regards the fact of a great many coming from kentish towns, dartford, greenwich, canterbury, maidstone, etc., we are informed, in reply to our enquiry, that this is no criterion of the real residence, because the place where the traveller last lodged is always entered. the matron told us a story of a clever attempt to obtain admission by a poor traveller "with a tin whistle and very gentlemanly hands," who subsequently turned out to be a reporter from the _echo_, in which paper there afterwards appeared an account of the charity, called _on tramp by an amateur_. we are shown over the premises--scrupulously neat and clean--and observe that there are excellent lavatories with foot-pans, and a pair of slippers provided for each recipient. we afterwards see the six poor travellers who have had their supper, and are comfortably smoking their pipes in a snug room, and we have a pleasant and interesting chat with them. they are much above the condition of ordinary tramps, and are lodged in six separate bedrooms, or "dormitories" which open out of a gallery at the back part of the building, a very curious structure, remaining just as it was in the days of queen elizabeth. for supper, each man is allowed half a pound of cooked meat, a pound of bread, and half-a-pint of porter, and receives fourpence in money on leaving. it is right to state that we heard complaints in the city relating to the evil effects of a number of poor travellers being attracted to the charity daily, when but a few can obtain relief. [illustration: satis house.] respecting the worshipful master richard watts himself very little is known, except that he was appointed by queen elizabeth in to be the surveyor and clerk of the works for the building of upnor castle; that he was paymaster to the wardens of rochester bridge for some years previously; that he was recorder of rochester, and represented the city in parliament from to , and that he resided at "satis house," which stood on the site of the modern residence bearing the same name, now occupied by mrs. booth, a little to the south of the cathedral, but which must not, however, be confounded with the satis house of _great expectations_, this latter, as has been previously explained, being identical with restoration house, in crow lane. when queen elizabeth visited rochester in , watts had the honour of entertaining her majesty there, on the last day of her residence in "the ancient city"; and to his expressions of regret at having no better accommodation to offer, the queen was pleased generously to reply, "satis," by which name the house has ever since been known. estella, in _great expectations_, gives another view of the origin of the name. she says:--"its other name was satis; which is greek, or latin, or hebrew, or all three--or all one to me--for enough: but it meant more than it said. it meant, when it was given, that whoever had this house, could want nothing else. they must have been easily satisfied in those days, i should think." archbishop longley was born there in . [illustration: watts's monument in rochester cathedral. _over the memorial brass of charles dickens._] there is a monument to the proctor-hating philanthropist on the wall of the south transept of the cathedral over the brass to charles dickens, surmounted by a very curious painted marble half-figure effigy with flowing beard, of "worthy master richard starting out of it, like a ship's figurehead." underneath is the following epitaph:-- sacred to the memory of =richard watts, esq.=, a principal benefactor to this city, who departed this life sept. , , at his mansion house on bully hill, called satis (so named by q. elizabeth of glorious memory), and lies interr'd near this place, as by his will doth plainly appear. by which will, dated aug. , and proved sep. , , he founded an almshouse for the relief of poor people and for the reception of six poor travelers every night, and for imploying the poor of this city. * * * * * the mayor and citizens of this city, in testimony of their gratitude and his merit, have erected this monument, a.d. . richard watts, esq., then mayor. over and over again, in the various roads and lanes which we traverse, in the county famous for "apples, cherries, hops, and women," we have ample opportunities of verifying the experience of dickens, and indeed of many other observers (including david copperfield, who met numbers of "ferocious-looking ruffians"), as to the prevalence of tramps, not all of whom appear eligible as recipients of watts's charity! our fraternity seems to be ubiquitous, and had we the purse of fortunatus, it would hardly suffice to satisfy their requirements. what a wonderfully thoughtful, descriptive, and exhaustive chapter is that on "tramps" in _the uncommercial traveller!_ we believe rochester and strood hill must have been in dickens's mind when he penned it. every species and every variety of tramp is herein described,--the surly tramp, the slinking tramp, the well-spoken young-man tramp, the john anderson tramp, squire pouncerby's tramp, the show tramp, the educated tramp, the tramping soldier, the tramping sailor, the tramp handicraft man, clock-mending tramps, harvest tramps, hopping tramps and spectator tramps--but perhaps the most amusing of all is the following:-- "the young fellows who trudge along barefoot, five or six together, their boots slung over their shoulders, their shabby bundles under their arms, their sticks newly cut from some roadside wood, are not eminently prepossessing, but are much less objectionable. there is a tramp-fellowship among them. they pick one another up at resting stations, and go on in companies. they always go at a fast swing--though they generally limp too--and there is invariably one of the company who has much ado to keep up with the rest. they generally talk about horses, and any other means of locomotion than walking: or, one of the company relates some recent experiences of the road--which are always disputes and difficulties. as for example. so as i'm a standing at the pump in the market, blest if there don't come up a beadle, and he ses, 'mustn't stand here,' he ses. 'why not?' i ses. 'no beggars allowed in this town,' he ses. 'who's a beggar?' i ses. 'you are,' he ses. 'who ever see _me_ beg? did _you_?' i ses. 'then you're a tramp,' he ses. 'i'd rather be that than a beadle,' i ses. (the company express great approval.) 'would you?' he ses to me. 'yes, i would,' i ses to him. 'well,' he ses, 'anyhow, get out of this town.' 'why, blow your little town!' i ses, 'who wants to be in it? wot does your dirty little town mean by comin' and stickin' itself in the road to anywhere? why don't you get a shovel and a barrer, and clear your town out o' people's way?' (the company expressing the highest approval and laughing aloud, they all go down the hill.)" it is worthy of consideration, and it is probably more than a mere coincidence, to observe that some of the reforms which have been effected in the management of the now munificent revenues of richard watts's charity were instigated as a sequence to the appearance of dickens's imperishable stories, published under the title of _the seven poor travellers_. the rev. robert whiston, with whom we chatted on the subject, is of opinion that the late lord brougham is entitled to the credit for reforms in this and other charities. chapter vii. an afternoon at gad's hill place. "it was just large enough, and no more; was as pretty within as it was without, and was perfectly arranged and comfortable."--_little dorrit._ "this has been a happy home. . . . i love it. . . ."--_the cricket on the hearth._ a never-to-be-forgotten day was saturday, the twenty-fifth of august, , a day remarkable, as were many of the closing days of the summer of that year, for its bright, sunny, and cheerful nature. the sky was a deep blue--usually described as an italian sky--broken only by a few fleecy, cumulus clouds, which served to bring out more clearly the rich colour of the background. there was a fine bracing air coming from the north-west, for which the county of kent is famous. truly an enjoyable day for a holiday! and one that dickens himself would have loved to describe. so after a desultory stroll about the streets of rochester, one of many delightful strolls, we make our first outward tramp, and that of course to gad's hill. by the way, much attention has been devoted to the consideration of the derivation of the name, "gad's hill." it is no doubt a corruption of "god's hill," of which there are two so-called places in the county, and there is also a veritable "god's hill" a little further south, in the isle of wight. [illustration: rochester from strood hill.] crossing rochester bridge, we enter the busy town of strood, pass through its long thoroughfare, go up the dover road,--which was the ancient roman military road afterwards called watling street, until a little above strood it turned slightly to the left, passing through what is now cobham park,--and leave the windmill on broomhill to the right. the ground rises gently, the chalk formation being exposed here and there in disused pits. a portion of the road higher up is cut through the thanet sands, which rest on the chalk. again and again we stop, and turn to admire the winding valley of the medway. as we get more into the country and leave the town behind, we find the roadsides still decked with summer flowers, notably the fine dark blue canterbury bell--the nettle-leaved campanula (_campanula trachelium_)--and the exquisite light-blue chicory (_cichorium intybus_); but the flowers of the latter are so evanescent that, when gathered, they fade in an hour or two. this beautiful starlike-blossomed plant is abundant in many parts of kent. we pass on the right the pretty high-standing grounds of mr. hulkes at the "little hermitage," and notice the obelisk further to the right on still higher land, erected about fifty years ago to the memory of charles larkin (a name very suggestive of "the eldest miss larkins") of rochester,--"a parish orator and borough hampden"--by his grateful fellow-citizens. a walk of less than three miles brings us to the "sir john falstaff"--"a delightfully old-fashioned roadside inn of the coaching days, which stands on the north side of the road a little below 'gad's hill place,' and which no man possessed of a penny was ever known to pass in warm weather." mr. kitton relates in _dickensiana_ the following amusing story of a former waiter at the "falstaff":-- "a few days after dickens's death, an englishman, deeply grieved at the event, made a sort of pilgrimage to gad's hill--to the home of the great novelist. he went into the famous 'sir john falstaff inn' near at hand, and in the effusiveness of his honest emotions, he could not avoid taking the country waiter into his confidence. "'a great loss this of mr. dickens,' said the pilgrim. "'a very great loss to us, sir,' replied the waiter, shaking his head; 'he had all his ale sent in from this house!'" one of the two lime-trees only remains, but the well and bucket--as recorded by the _uncommercial traveller_ in the chapter on "tramps"--are there still, surrounded by a protective fence. [illustration: the "sir john falstaff" inn, gad's hill.] we have but little time to notice the "falstaff," for our admiring gaze is presently fixed on gad's hill place itself, the house in which dickens resided happily--albeit trouble came to him as to most men--from the year till his death in . everybody knows the story of how, as a little boy, he cherished the idea of one day living in this house, and how that idea was gratified in after-life. it is from the _uncommercial traveller_, in the chapter on "travelling abroad," and the repetition is never stale. he says:-- "so smooth was the old high road, and so fresh were the horses, and so fast went i, that it was midway between gravesend and rochester, and the widening river was bearing the ships, white-sailed or black-smoked, out to sea, when i noticed by the wayside a very queer small boy. "'holloa!' said i to the very queer small boy, 'where do you live?' "'at chatham,' says he. "'what do you do there?' says i. "'i go to school,' says he. "i took him up in a moment, and we went on. presently, the very queer small boy says, 'this is gad's hill we are coming to, where falstaff went out to rob those travellers, and ran away.' "'you know something about falstaff, eh?' said i. "'all about him,' said the very queer small boy. 'i am old (i am nine), and i read all sorts of books. but _do_ let us stop at the top of the hill, and look at the house there, if you please!' "'you admire that house?' said i. "'bless you, sir,' said the very queer small boy, 'when i was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for me to be brought to look at it. and now, i am nine, i come by myself to look at it. and ever since i can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, 'if you were to be very persevering, and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it.' though that's impossible!' said the very queer small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring at the house out of window with all his might. "i was rather amazed to be told this by the very queer small boy; for that house happens to be _my_ house, and i have reason to believe that what he said was true." [illustration: gadshill place] mrs. lynn linton, the celebrated novelist, who resided at gad's hill as a child, has very kindly given us her personal recollections of it sixty years ago, and of the interesting circumstances under which charles dickens subsequently purchased the property;--which will be found at the end of this chapter. before seeking permission to enter the grounds of gad's hill place, which are surrounded by a high wall, and screened externally by a row of well-topped lime-trees, we retrace our steps for a few minutes, in order to refresh ourselves with a homely luncheon, and what mr. richard swiveller would call a "modest quencher," at the sir john falstaff. it may be certain that not much time is consumed in this operation. we then take a good look at the remarkable house opposite, the object of our pilgrimage, which has been made well known by countless photographs and engravings. it is a comfortable, but a not very attractive-looking red-brick house of two stories, with porch at entrance, partly covered with ivy. all the front windows, with the exception of the central ones, are bayed, and there are dormer windows in the roof, which is surmounted by a bell-turret and vane. what a strange fascination it has for admirers of dickens when seen for the first time! according to forster, in his _life_ of the novelist, the house was built in by a well-known local character named james stevens, who rose to a good position. he was the father-in-law of the late professor henslow, the botanist, of cambridge. dickens paid for it the sum of £ , , and the purchase was completed on friday, th march, . the present owner is major austin f. budden,[ ] of the th kent artillery volunteers, who, we find, in the course of subsequent conversation, had also done good municipal service, having filled the office of mayor of rochester for two years,--from to ,--and that he was elected at the early age of twenty-eight. we ring the bell at the gate which shuts the house out from view, and are promptly answered by a pleasant-speaking housemaid, who takes our cards on a salver, and ushers us into the library. we are requested to enter our names in the visitors' book, and this is done with alacrity. we are under the impression that we shall only be allowed to see the hall and study, a privilege allowed to any visitor on presentation of a card; but fortunately for us the courteous owner appears, and says that, as he has half an hour to spare, he will show us entirely over the house. he is better than his word, and we, delighted with the prospect, commence our inspection of the late home of the great novelist with feelings of singular pleasure, which are altogether a new sensation. do any readers remember, when perusing the waverley novels in their youth, a certain longing (as the height of their ambition, possibly gratified in after-life) to see abbotsford, the home of the "wizard of the north"? _that_ is a feeling akin to the one which possesses us on the present occasion, a feeling of veneration almost amounting to awe as we recall, and seem to realize, not only the presence of charles dickens himself, but of the many eminent literary, artistic, and histrionic characters--his contemporaries--who assembled here, and shared the hospitality of the distinguished owner. "dickens penetrates here--where does not his genial sunshine penetrate?" turning over the leaves of the visitors' book, major budden calls our attention to the signatures of americans, who constitute by far the majority of visitors. among the more recent appears the name of that accomplished actress, miss mary anderson--herself a great admirer of charles dickens--who came accompanied by a party of friends. we also found her name, with the same party, in the visitors' book at richard watts's charity in rochester. major budden spoke also of the great enthusiasm always exhibited by our american friends in regard to dickens, some of whom had told him more than once that it was the custom to instruct their children in a knowledge of his works: they read them, in fact, in the schools. the library, or study, is a very cosy little room, made famous by mr. luke fildes's picture of "the empty chair." it is situated on the west side of the porch, looking to the front, with the shrubbery in the distance; and among the most conspicuous objects contained in it are the curious counterfeit book-backs devised by dickens and his friends, and arranged as shelves to fit the door of the room. they number nearly eighty, and a selection is given below of a few of the quaintest titles, viz.:-- the quarrelly review. vols. king henry the eighth's evidences of christianity. vols. noah's arkitecture. vols. [illustration: pg from the drawing of s. l. fildes "the empty chair" gad's hill ninth of june .] chickweed. groundsel (by the author of chickweed). cockatoo on perch. history of a short chancery suit. vols. cats' lives. vols. hansard's guide to refreshing sleep (many volumes). the wisdom of our ancestors--i. ignorance. ii. superstition. iii. the block. iv. the stake. v. the rack. vi. dirt. vii. disease. several of the titles were used for a similar purpose at tavistock house, london--dickens's former residence. we cannot help, as we sit down quietly for a few minutes, wondering how much of _little dorrit_, _hunted down_, _a tale of two cities_, _great expectations_, _the uncommercial traveller_, _our mutual friend_, and _the mystery of edwin drood_ (which were all issued between and ) was written in this famous room, to say nothing of those heaps of exquisite letters which so helped, cheered, interested, or amused many a correspondent, and have delighted the public since. in the hall, which has the famous parquet floor laid down by dickens, is still hanging the framed illumination, artistically executed by owen jones, and placed there immediately after dickens became the "kentish freeholder on his native heath" as he called it. it is as follows:-- this house, gad's hill place, stands on the summit of shakespeare's gad's hill, ever memorable for its association with sir john falstaff, in his noble fancy. [illustration: counterfeit book-backs on study door.] "but, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning by four o'clock early at gad's hill. there are pilgrims going to canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to london with fat purses; i have vizards for you all; you have horses for yourselves."[ ] from the hall we enter the dining-room, a cheerful apartment looking on to the beautiful lawn at the back, which has at the end the arched conservatory of lilac-tinted glass at top, in which the novelist took so much interest, and where he hung some chinese lanterns, sent down from london the day before his death. we are informed that in this building he signed the last cheque which he drew, to pay his subscription to the higham cricket club. the door of the dining-room is faced with looking-glass, so that it may reflect the contents of the conservatory. among these are two or three new zealand tree-ferns which dickens himself purchased. in the dining-room major budden pointed out the exact spot where the fatal seizure from effusion on the brain took place, on the afternoon of wednesday, th june, , and where dickens lay: first on the floor to the right of the door on entering, and afterwards to the left, when the couch was brought down (by order of mr. steele, the surgeon of strood, as we subsequently learned), upon which he breathed his last. the drawing-room faces the front, and, like the dining-room, has been lengthened, and opens into the conservatory. in fact, dickens was always improving gad's hill place. there is a memorable reference to the conservatory by forster in the third vol. of the _life_. he says:-- "this last addition had long been an object of desire with him, though he would hardly, even now, have given himself the indulgence but for the golden shower from america. he saw it first in a completed state on the sunday before his death, when his youngest daughter was on a visit to him. "'well, katey,' he said to her, 'now you see positively the last improvement at gad's hill,' and every one laughed at the joke against himself. the success of the new conservatory was unquestionable. it was the remark of all around him, that he was certainly, from this last of his improvements, drawing more enjoyment than from any of its predecessors, when the scene for ever closed!" this room is a long one, and, in common with all the others, gives us, under the auspices of the brilliantly fine day, some idea of the late owner's love of light, air, and cheerfulness. that the situation is also a healthy and bracing one is confirmed by the fact, that in a letter written on board the _russia_, bound for liverpool, on the th april, , after his second american tour, he speaks of having made a "gad's hill breakfast." our most considerate cicerone next takes us into several of the bedrooms, these being of large size, and having a little dressing-room marked off with a partition, head-high, so that no cubic space is lost to the main chamber. as illustrative of charles dickens's care for the comfort of his friends, it is said that in the visitors' bedrooms there was always hot water and a little tea-table set out, so that each one could at any time make for himself a cup of the beverage "that cheers but not inebriates." the views from these rooms are very charming. mr. w. t. wildish afterwards told us, that during the novelist's life-time, mr. trood, the landlord of the sir john falstaff, once took him over gad's hill place, and he was surprised to find dickens's own bath-room covered with cuttings from _punch_ and other comic papers. i have since learned that this was a screen of engravings which had originally been given him. the gardens, both flower and vegetable, are then pointed out--the approach thereto from the back lawn being by means of a flight of steps--as also the rosary, which occupies a portion of the front lawn to the westward. the roses are of course past their best, but the trees look very healthy. in the flower garden we are especially reminded of dickens's love for flowers, the china-asters, single dahlias, and zinnias being of exceptional brightness. as to the violets, which are here in abundance, both the neapolitan and russian varieties, the major shows us a method of cultivating them, first in frames, and then in single rows, so that he can get them in bloom for nearly nine months in the year! adjoining the lawn and vegetable garden is "the much-coveted meadow," which the master of gad's hill obtained by exchange of some land with the trustees of sir joseph williamson's mathematical school at rochester, and in which he planted "a number of limes and chestnuts, and other quick-growing trees." four grass walks meet in the centre of the vegetable garden, where there is a fine old mulberry tree. it is stated in forster's _life_ of the novelist (vol. iii. p. ) that dickens obtained the meadow by exchange of some land "with the trustees of watts's charity." but this is not right. the distinguished historian of the commonwealth, and the faithful friend of the novelist all through his life, is so habitually accurate, that it is an exceptional circumstance for any one to be able to correct him. however, i am indebted to mr. a. a. arnold, of rochester, for the following authentic account of the transaction. dickens was always anxious to obtain this meadow (which consists of about fourteen acres), and, believing that the trustees of sir joseph williamson's mathematical school at rochester were not empowered to sell their land, he purchased a field at the back of his own shrubbery from mr. brooker, of higham, with a view--as appears from the following characteristically courteous and business-like letter--to effect an exchange. "gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent. _monday, thirtieth june, ._ "gentlemen, "reverting to a proposal already made in general terms by my solicitor, mr. ouvry, of lincoln's inn fields, to messrs. essel and co., i beg to submit my application to you in detail. "it is that you will have the kindness to consider the feasibility of exchanging the field at the back of my property here (marked in the accompanying plan), for the plot of land marked in the said plan. [illustration: gad's hill place from the rear.] "i believe it will appear to you, on inquiry, that the land i offer in exchange for the meadow is very advantageously situated, and is of greater extent than the meadow, and would be of greater value to the institution, whose interests you represent. on the other hand, the acquisition of the meadow as a freehold would render my little property more compact and complete. "i have the honor to be, gentlemen, your faithful and obedient servant, charles dickens. "to the governors of sir joseph williamson's free school, rochester." the offer fell through at the time; but it was renewed in in a different form, and eventually the field was sold (by permission of the charity commissioners) to charles dickens at an "accommodation" price--£ , --which really exceeded its actual market value. [illustration: the grave of dick] but to resume our inspection. the whole of the back of the house, looking southward, is covered by a virginia creeper (_ampelopsis quinquefolia_) of profuse growth, which must be an object of singular beauty in the autumn when the crimson tints appear. as it now stands it is beautifully green, and there is scarcely more than a leaf or two here and there marking autumnal decay. the two famous hawthorn trees were blown down in a gale some years ago. in a quiet corner under a rose-tree (_gloire de dijon_), flanked by a _yucca_ in bloom, the bed underneath consisting of deep blue lobelia, is a touching little memorial to a favourite canary. this consists of a narrow little board, made like a head-stone, and set aslant, on which is painted in neat letters the following epitaph:-- this is the grave of dick, the best of birds, born at broadstairs, _midsummer_, , died at gad's hill place, _ th october, _. no one can doubt who was the author of these simple lines. "dick," it should be said, "was very dear both to dickens and his eldest daughter," and he has been immortalized in forster's _life_. there is a very humorous account given of the attacks which the cats in the neighbourhood made upon him, and which were frustrated by an organized defence. the following is the passage:-- "soon after the arrival of dickens and his family at gad's hill place, a household war broke out, in which the commander-in-chief was his man french, the bulk of the forces engaged being his children, and the invaders two cats." writing to forster, dickens says:--"'the only thing new in this garden is that war is raging against two particularly tigerish and fearful cats (from the mill, i suppose), which are always glaring in dark corners after our wonderful little dick. keeping the house open at all points, it is impossible to shut them out, and they hide themselves in the most terrific manner: hanging themselves up behind draperies, like bats, and tumbling out in the dead of night with frightful caterwaulings. hereupon french borrows beaucourt's gun, loads the same to the muzzle, discharges it twice in vain, and throws himself over with the recoil, exactly like a clown. . . . about four pounds of powder and half a ton of shot have been fired off at the cat (and the public in general) during the week. the funniest thing is, that immediately after i have heard the noble sportsman blazing away at her in the garden in front, i look out of my room door into the drawing-room, and am pretty sure to see her coming in after the birds, in the calmest manner possible, by the back window.'" passing on our way the large and well-lighted servants' hall, over which is the bachelors' room,--whence in days gone by that rare literary serial, _the gad's hill gazette_,[ ] issued from a little printing press, presented by a friend to the sixth son of the novelist, who encouraged his boy's literary tastes,--we next see the stables, as usual, like everything else, in excellent order. a small statue of fame blowing her golden trumpet surmounts the bachelors' room, and looks down upon us encouragingly. our attention is then turned to the well, which is stated to be two hundred and seventeen feet deep, in the shed, or pumping-room, over which is the major's mare, "tell-tale," cheerfully doing her daily twenty minutes' task of drawing water, which is pumped up to the cistern on the roof for the supply of the house. there is said to be never less than twenty feet of water in the well. [illustration: the well at gad's hill place] it may be interesting to mention that gad's hill place ("the title of my estate, sir, my place down in kent"), which is in the parish of higham, and about twenty-six miles from london, stands on an elevation two hundred and fifty feet above mean sea-level. the house itself is built on a bed of the thanet sands. the well is bored right through these sands, which mr. w. h. whitaker, f.r.s., of h. m. geological survey (who has kindly given me some valuable information on the subject), states "may be about forty feet thick, and the water is drawn up from the bed of chalk beneath. this bed is of great thickness, probably six hundred or seven hundred feet, and the well simply reaches the level at which the chalk is charged with water, _i. e._ something a little higher than the level of the neighbouring river." the chalk is exposed on the lower bases of gad's hill, such as the railway station at higham, the village of chalk, the town of strood, etc. there are humorous extracts from letters by dickens in forster's _life_ respecting the well, which may appropriately be introduced. he says:-- "we are still ( th of july) boring for water here, at the rate of two pounds per day for wages. the men seem to like it very much, and to be perfectly comfortable." . . . and again, "here are six men perpetually going up and down the well (i know that somebody will be killed), in the course of fitting a pump; which is quite a railway terminus--it is so iron, and so big. the process is much more like putting oxford street endwise, and laying gas along it, than anything else. by the time it is finished, the cost of this water will be something absolutely frightful. but of course it proportionately increases the value of the property, and that's my only comfort. . . . five men have been looking attentively at the pump for a week, and (i should hope) may begin to fit it in the course of october." the depression caused by the prospect of the "absolutely frightful" cost of the water seems to have continued to the end of the letter, for it thus concludes:--"the horse has gone lame from a sprain, the big dog has run a tenpenny nail into one of his hind feet, the bolts have all flown out of the basket carriage, and the gardener says all the fruit trees want replacing with new ones." [illustration: the porch, gad's hill place.] two of the major's dogs are chained in the places formerly occupied by dickens's dogs, "linda" and "turk." the chains are very long, and allow the animals plenty of room for exercise. the space between the two permitted a person to walk past without their being able to come near him; and, as an instance of dickens's thoughtful kindliness even to the lower animals, two holes were made in the wall so that the dogs could get through in hot weather, and lie in the shade of the trees on the other side. on the back gate entering into the lane at the side of the house was painted, "beware of the dogs!" this caution appears to have been very necessary, for we heard more than once the story of an intrusive tramp who trespassed, and going too near the dogs, got sadly mauled. dickens, with characteristic goodness, sent him at once to chatham hospital, and otherwise healed his wounds. we are next conducted round the grounds, and have an opportunity of examining the front of the house more in detail. the porch is flanked by two cosy seats, the pretty little spade-shaped shields, and lateral angular ornamental supports on the back of which, we are informed, were constructed of pieces of wood from shakespeare's furniture given to dickens by a friend. a large variegated holly grows on either side of the porch, and a semi-circular gravel walk leads to the door. there is a closely-cut lawn in front, and opposite the hollies are two fine specimens of _aucuba japonica_--the so-called variegated laurel. [illustration: the cedars, gad's hill.] it will be remembered that the master of gad's hill had a tunnel excavated under the dover road (which runs through the property), so as to approach the "shrubbery" previously referred to, without having to cross the open public road. we did not learn who constructed the tunnel, but it was designed either by his brother, mr. alfred l. dickens, who died at manchester in , or by his brother-in-law, mr. henry austin. the entrance to the tunnel is by a flight of about twenty steps, flanked by two beautifully-grown specimens of _cedrus deodara_, the "deodar," or god-tree of the himalayas. the tunnel itself is cut through the sands, and, being only a little longer than the width of the road, it is not at all dark, but very pleasant and cool on a hot day. a corresponding flight of steps leads us into the shrubbery, which is shut off from the main road by iron railings only. both ends of the tunnel are covered with ivy, which has the effect of partially concealing the openings. readers of forster's _life_ will recollect that the swiss châlet presented to dickens by his friend fechter the actor, and in which he spent his last afternoon, formerly stood in the shrubbery. the châlet now stands in the terrace-garden of cobham hall. before we reach the exact place we have an opportunity of examining the two stately cedar trees (_cedrus libani_) which are the arboreal gems of the place. major budden informs us that they are about one hundred and twenty-eight years old, and were planted in their present position when they had attained about twenty years' growth. some idea of their luxuriance may be formed when it is mentioned that the girth of each tree exceeds sixteen feet, and the longest branch of one of them measures eighty-four feet in length. in consequence of the habit of these trees "fastigiating" at the base, a very numerous series of lateral ramifying branches is the result. these branches spread out in terraces, and the rich green foliage, covered with exudations of resin, seems as though powdered silver had been lightly dusted over it. each tree extends over a circular area of about eighty feet of ground in diameter. under one of the cedars is the grave of "the big and beautiful linda," dickens's favourite st. bernard dog. one of the trees has been injured, a large branch over-weighted with snow having broken off some years ago. two or three noble ash trees also grace this spot, running straight up in a column some thirty-five feet before shooting out a canopy of branches and leaves. there are also a few scotch firs, the trunks well covered with ivy, and a pretty specimen of the variegated sycamore. the undergrowth of laurel, laurustinus, briar, privet, holly, etc., is very luxuriant here, and the vacant ground is closely covered with the wood anemone (_anemone nemorosa_), which must form a continuous mass of pearly white flowers in spring-time. the ground formerly occupied by the châlet is pointed out to us, its site being marked by a bed of rich scarlet nasturtiums. it will be recollected that dickens describes the interior of the building in a letter to an american friend, which is thus recorded in forster's _life_:-- "divers birds sing here all day, and the nightingales all night. the place is lovely and in perfect order. . . . i have put five mirrors in the châlet where i write, and they reflect and refract, in all kinds of ways, the leaves that are quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river. my room is up among the branches of the trees; and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. the scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious." but the glory of gad's hill place is reserved for us until the close of our visit, when major budden very kindly takes us up to the roof, which is approached by a commodious flight of steps; and here, on this exceptionally fine day, we are privileged to behold a prospect of surpassing beauty. right away to the westward is the great metropolis, its presence being marked by the usual pall of greyish smoke. opening from the town, and becoming wider and wider as the noble river approaches its estuary, is the thames, now conspicuous by numerous vessels, showing masts and white and brown sails, and here and there by the smoky track of a steamer. we remember how often the city and the river have been the scene of many and many an exploit in dickens's novels. northward are the dreary marshes, the famous "meshes" of _great expectations_, hereafter to be noticed. then far to the eastward runs the valley of the medway, the picturesque city of rochester thereon being crowned by those conspicuous landmarks, its magnificent castle and ancient cathedral. in the background is the busy town of chatham, its heights being capped by an enormous square and lofty building erected by the sect called "jezreelites," whatever that may be. we were informed that the so-called "immortal" leader had just died, and it has since been reported that the gloomy building is likely to be converted into a huge jam factory. beyond, and nearly seven miles off, is the high land called "blue bell," about three hundred feet above mean sea-level, and all along to the south the undulating grounds and beautiful woodland scenery of cobham park complete the picture. [illustration: view from the roof of dickens's house at gad's hill] as major budden points out in detail these many natural beauties of the district, we can quite understand and sympathize with dickens's love for this exquisite spot; and we heartily congratulate the present owner of gad's hill place on the charming historical property which he possesses, and which, so far as we can perceive (all honour to him), is kept in the same excellent condition that characterized it during the novelist's lifetime. what is particularly striking about it is at once its compactness, completeness, and unpretentiousness. descending to the library, whence we started nearly three hours previously, we refresh ourselves with a glass of water from the celebrated deep well--a draught deliciously cool and clear--which the hospitable major presses us to "dilute" (as professor huxley has somewhere said) in any way we please, but which we prefer to drink, as dickens himself drank it--pure. before we rise to leave the spot we have so long wished to see, and which we have now gone over to our hearts' content, we sadly recall to memory for a moment the "last scene of all that ends this strange, eventful history,"--that tragic incident which occurred on thursday, th june, , when there was an "empty chair" at gad's hill place, and all intelligent english-speaking nations experienced a personal sorrow. and so with many grateful acknowledgments to our kind and courteous host, who gives us some nice flowers and cuttings as a parting souvenir, we take our leave, having derived from our bright sunny visit to gad's hill place that "wave of pleasure" which mr. herbert spencer describes as "raising the rate of respiration,--raised respiration being an index of raised vital activities in general." in fine, the impression left on our minds is such as to induce us to feel that we understand and appreciate more of dickens's old home than any illustration or written description of it, however excellent, had hitherto adequately conveyed to us. we have seen it for ourselves. * * * * * the reminiscences which follow are from mrs. lynn linton and three of charles dickens's nearest neighbours. gad's hill sixty years ago. the early love which charles dickens felt for gad's hill house, and his boyish ambition to be one day its owner, had been already anticipated by my father. as a boy and young man, my father's heart was set on this place; and when my grandfather's death put him in sufficient funds he bought it. being a beneficed clergyman, both of whose livings were in the extreme north of england, he could not live in the house; but he kept it empty for many years, always hoping to get leave of absence from the bishop for a term long enough to justify the removal of his large family from keswick to rochester. in a five years' leave of absence was granted; and we all came up by coach to this mecca of my father's love. we were three days and three nights on the road; and i remember quite distinctly the square courtyard and outside balcony of the old belle sauvage inn, where we put up on our arrival in london. i remember, too, the powerful scent of the portugal laurel and the bay-tree which grew on the right-hand side of gad's hill house as we entered--brought out by the warm damp of the late autumn afternoon. in our time all the outhouses had leaden figures on the top. there was a cupola with an alarm bell, which one night was rung lustily, to the terror of the whole neighbourhood, and the ashamed discovery among ourselves that rats were not burglars. in the shrubbery were two large leaden figures of pomona and vertumnus, standing on each side of the walk leading up to the arbour. we had then two arbours--one opposite the house at the end of the green walk, and another in a dilapidated state further in the shrubbery. they were built of big flint stones, many of which had holes in them, where small birds made their nests. i remember in one was a tomtit which was quite tame, and used to fly in and out while we were watching it. the two cedars, which i believe are still there, were a little choked and overshadowed by a large oak-tree, which my father cut down. between seventy and eighty coaches, "vans," and mail-carts passed our house during the day, besides private carriages, specially those of travellers posting to or from dover. regiments, too, often passed on their way to gravesend, where they embarked for india; and ships' companies, paid off, rowdy and half-tipsy, made the road really dangerous for the time being. we used to lock the two gates when we heard them coming, shouting and singing up the hill; and we had to stand many a mimic siege from the blue-jackets trying to force their way in. sweet-water grapes grew and ripened in the open air over the wash-house; and the back of the house was covered with a singularly fine and luscious jargonelle pear. the garden was rich in apples. we had many kinds, from the sweet and pulpy nonsuch, to the small tight little pearmain and lemon pippin. we had nonpareils, golden pippins, brown and golden russets, ribstone pippins, and what we called a port-wine apple--the flesh red, like that of the "blood-oranges." the small orchard to the right was as rich in cherry-trees, filberts, and cobnuts. in the garden we had a fig-tree, and the mulberry-tree, which is still there, was in full bearing in our time. the garden altogether was wonderfully prolific in flowers as well as fruits--roses as well as strawberries and apples; and the green-house was full of grapes. nightingales sang in the trees near the house, and the shrubbery was full of song birds. we had a grand view from the leads, where we used sometimes to go, and whence i remember seeing a farmyard fire over at higham--which fire they said had been caused by an incendiary. there was a low church clergyman in the neighbourhood who might have been chadband or stiggins. he was fond of some girls we knew, and called them his "lambs." he used to put his arm round their waists, and they sat on his knees quite naturally. i myself heard him preach at shorne against the institution of pancakes on shrove tuesday. he said it was not only superstitious but irreligious; as pancakes meant "pan kakon," all evil. this i, then a girl of thirteen or so, heard and remember. when my father died his property had to be sold, as he did not make an eldest son. mr. w. h. wills, the trusty friend of charles dickens, and editor of _household words_ and _all the year round_, was also a friend of mine. we met at a dinner, and he spoke to me about gad's hill, but as if he wanted to buy it for himself. he was afraid to mention charles dickens's name, lest we should ask too much. so he told me afterwards. i had been left executrix under my father's will, being then the only unmarried daughter; and i took the news to our solicitor and co-executor, mr. loaden. he wrote to mr. wills, and the sale was effected. we scored a little triumph over the "ornamental timber." mr. dickens objected to our price; the case was submitted to an arbitrator, and we got more than we originally asked. but there was never one moment of pique on either side, nor a drop of bad blood as the consequence. it was always a matter for a laugh and a joke between mr. wills and myself. when we first went to gad's hill there was a fish-pond at the back; but my father had it filled up, lest one of his adventurous little ones should tumble in. officers used to come up from chatham to the falstaff, and have pigeon matches in our big field; and one of the sights which used to delight our young eyes, was the gallant bearing and gay uniforms of the commandant at chatham, when he and his staff rode by. we were great walkers in those days, and used to ramble over cobham park, and round by shorne, and down to the dreary marshes beyond higham. but this was not a favourite walk with us, and we girls never went there alone. the banks on the rochester road--past davies's straits--were full of sweet violets, white and purple; and the fungi, lichens, flowers, and ferns about shorne and cobham yet linger in my memory as things of rarest beauty. we always thought that the coachman, "old chumley," as he was called, was old weller. he was a fine, cheery, trustworthy man; and once when my father was in london, he had one of my sisters and myself--girls then about fifteen and thirteen--put under his charge to be delivered to him at the end of the journey. the dear old fellow took as much care of us as if he had been our father himself. i remember my brothers gave him a new whip, and he was very fond of us all. e. l. l. * * * * * * * * we had at a subsequent visit to gad's hill place, on the invitation of our hospitable friends, major and mrs. budden, the pleasure of a long and interesting conversation with mr. james hulkes, j.p., of the little hermitage, frindsbury, a kentish man, who came to live here more than sixty years ago, and who was thus a very near neighbour of charles dickens during the whole of the time that he resided at gad's hill place. we were shown into a delightful room at the back of the house, overlooking the shrubberies of the mansion--in the distance appearing the high ground on which stands the monument to charles larkin. the room is a happy combination of part workshop, with a fine lathe and assortment of tools fitted round it--part study, with a nice collection of books, engravings and pictures (some of hunting scenes) on the walls--and part naturalist's den, with cases of stuffed birds and animals, guns and fishing-rods--the fragrant odour of tobacco breathing friendly welcome to a visitor of smoking proclivities. the varied tastes of the owner were sufficiently apparent, and a long chat of over two hours seemed to us but a few minutes. mr. hulkes said he just remembered the road from strood to gad's hill being cut through the sands down to the chalk. it was for some time afterwards called "davies's straits," after the rev. george davies, the then chairman of the turnpike road board, and the term indicated the difficulty and expense of the operation. before the new road was cut, the old highway constituting this part of the dover road was very hilly and dangerous. reverting to the subject of charles dickens, our relator remarked, "i fear i cannot be of much use to you by giving information about mr. dickens, as i only knew him as a kind friend, a very genial host, and a most charming companion; to the poor he was always kind--a deserving beggar never went from his house unrelieved." what indeed could be said more! these few simple words, spoken so earnestly after a period of nearly twenty years, sufficed to bring before us the lost neighbour whose memory was so warmly cherished by his surviving friend. john forster, in the _life_, speaks of mr. hulkes as being "one of the two nearest country neighbours with whom the [dickens] family had become very intimate," and mentions that both mr. and mrs. hulkes were present at the wedding of the novelist's second daughter, kate, with mr. charles alston collins. mr. hulkes spoke of the pleasant parties at gad's hill place, at which he met mr. forster, mr. wilkie collins, mr. percy fitzgerald, mr. marcus stone, mr. h. f. chorley, and many others; and observed that, on the occasion of charades and private theatricals there, charles dickens was always in fine form. he showed us an original manuscript programme (of which we were allowed to take a copy), written on half-a-sheet of foolscap; and from the fact that "_gads hill gazette_ printing office" appears in the corner it would seem that it was printed on the occasion for the guests. it is as follows:-- _december st, ._ "a night's exploit on gad's hill."--_shakespeare._ =her majesty's servants= will have the honour of presenting three charades!!! each charade is a word of two syllables, arranged in three scenes. the first scene is the first syllable; the second is the second syllable; the third scene is the entire word. (_at the end of each charade the audience is respectfully invited to name the word._) =charade != scene i.--the awful end of the profligate sailor. scene ii.--on the way to foreign parts. scene iii.--miss belinda jane and the faithful policeman (division q). =charade !!= scene i.--archery at castle doodle. scene ii.--fra diavolo a dread reality. scene iii.--the choice of a too lowly youth. =charade !!!= scene i.--the pathetic history of the poor little sweep. scene ii.--mussulman barbarity to christians. scene iii.--merry england. _gad's hill gazette_ printing office. the various parts were taken by dickens and his family, and the entire word of the last charade is supposed to be "may day." in connection with charades, mr. hulkes alluded to dickens's remarkable facility for "guessing a subject fixed on when he was out of the room, in half a dozen questions;" and related the story of how at the young people's game of "yes and no," he found out the proper answer to a random question fixed upon by mr. charles collins, one of the company, in his absence, which was, "the top-boot of the left leg of the head post-boy at newman's yard, london." the squire sometimes took a stroll with his neighbour, but observed "he was too fast a walker for me--i couldn't keep up with him!" mr. hulkes possesses a nearly complete "file" (from to ) of the _gad's hill gazette_, to which he was one of the subscribers, and which was edited by the novelist's son, mr. henry fielding dickens, and, as before stated, printed at gad's hill place. it chronicled the arrivals and departures, the results of cricket matches and billiard games, with interesting gossip of events relating to the family and the neighbourhood. occasionally there was a leading article, and now and then an acrostic appeared. among the subscribers were the novelist and his family, the lord chief justice, the dean of bristol, lady molesworth, mrs. milner gibson, m. stone, a. halliday, j. hulkes, c. kent, w. h. wills, h. f. chorley, edmund yates, etc. the number for january th, , contains a humorous correspondence on the management of the journal between "jabez skinner" and "blackbury jones." mr. h. f. dickens kindly allows a copy of the number for december th, , to be reproduced, which is interesting as giving an account of the staplehurst accident, and also the notice issued when the journal was discontinued. the gad's hill gazette edited by h. f. dickens december th price d * * * * * we are very glad to meet our subscribers again after such a long lapse of time, and we hope that they will patronise us in the same kind and indulgent manner as they did, last season. in the circulars, we announced that some great improvements were to be made in the gazette-- we are sorry that they cannot appear in this number (as our suppliers of type have disappointed us) but we hope that next week, we shall be able to publish this journal in quite a different form. hoping that our subscribers will excuse us this week, we beg to wish them all a merry christmas & a happy new year! * * * * * christmas at gad's hill. during the past week, gad's hill has resounded with the sounds of festivity and merriment. (continued on the next page) as is usually the case, the house has been filled with the guests who have come to taste of mr dickens' hospitality. these consisted of mr mad, and master fechter, mr & mrs c. collins, mr mrs and master c. dickens junr, mr morgan (who suddenly appeared on christmas day, having just returned from america) mr m. stone, mr chorley and mr dickenson. the latter gentleman has not yet entirely recovered from the effects of a most disastrous railway accident in which he was a sufferer, and had it not been for the courage and intrepidity of mr dickens, he would not now be spending his christmas at gad's hill. a short time before the accident occurred, mr dickenson had a dispute with a french gentleman about the opening of the window when the former offered to change places, if the open window was disagreeable to his fellow traveller--this they did.-- then came the accident, accompanied by all its frightful incidents. the french gentleman was killed, mr dickenson was stunned and hurled with great violence under the debris of a carriage. mr dickens, who was in another compartment, managed to crawl out of the window and then, caring little for his own safety, busied himself in helping the wounded. whilst engaged in doing this, he passed by a carriage, underneath which he saw a gentleman (mr dickenson) lying perfectly still, and bleeding from the eyes, ears, nose and mouth. he was immediately taken to the town of staplehurst where he so far recovered as to be able to return to london, that evening. next morning he was suffering from a very severe concussion of the brain and was ill for many weeks--but to our subject. on christmas day, mr, mrs & miss malleson came to dinner. at about , an ex tempore dance began and was kept up till about o'clock tuesday morning. during the week, billiards has been much resorted to. (see next page) all the visitors are still here, except mr fechter and family who left on december th, and mr morgan (who is to return on st. talking of mr fechter, our readers will be glad to hear that he has made a most decided success in his new piece entitled--the master of ravenswood-- * * * * * sporting intelligence. billiards of all the matches that have been played during the past week the most important was a great handicap on christmas day, the prize being a pewter. annexed is an account of it. stone scratch c dickens jun harry fechter dickenson c dickens morgan collins plorn our space will not allow us to enter into the minute details of this match suffice it to say that mr dickenson won but that as regards good play, he was excelled by mr stone (who, however, was so heavily weighted that he could not win. great credit is due to mr ch dickens junr for the way in which he handicapped the men. on saturday th a match is to be played between the earl of darnley and mr m stone. * * * * * gad's hill gazette office. january-- . in a circular issued last august, we announced that a final number of the gad's hill gazette was to be published this xmas. we are grieved however to state, that the shortening of the wimbledon school holidays (in which establishment the editor is a pupil) has rendered this impossible. it is with feelings of the deepest regret that we find ourselves obliged to conclude the publication of our journal in this sudden and unexpected manner, but we feel sure that the great indulgence of the public will overlook this, as it has done many other great errors in the gad's hill gazette. in conclusion, we beg to take leave of our subscribers in our public capacity of editor, thanking them for their kindness in supporting our journal, and wishing them all --"a happy new year."-- [illustration: signature: a. f. dickens] (signed) sole editor mrs. hulkes had a number of pleasant recollections of gad's hill place, and of charles dickens and his family. "as a girl," said this lady, "i was an admiring reader of his works, and i longed to see and know the author; but little did i think that my high ambition would ever be gratified." that a warm friendship existed between his admirer and charles dickens, who subsequently became her near neighbour, is evidenced by the fact that, in reply to her request, he allowed this lady the great privilege of reading the catastrophe of that exquisitely-pathetic and nobly-altruistic story of _a tale of two cities_, some weeks before its publication, as appears from the following letter:-- "gad's hill place, "higham by rochester, kent. "_sunday evening, sixteenth oct., ._ "my dear mrs. hulkes, "my daughter has shown me your note, and it has impressed me with the horrible determination to become a new kind of bluebeard, and lay an awful injunction of secrecy on you for five mortal weeks. "here is the remainder of the _tale of two cities_. not half-a-dozen of my oldest and most trusty literary friends have seen it. it is a real pleasure to me to entrust you with the catastrophe, and to ask you to keep a grim and inflexible silence on the subject until it is published. when you have read the proofs, will you kindly return them to me? "with my regard to mr. hulkes, "believe me always, "faithfully yours, "charles dickens. "mrs. hulkes." mrs. hulkes said that when dickens went to paris in , he jokingly said to her, "i am going to paris; what shall i bring you?" she replied, "a good photograph of yourself, as i do not like the one you gave me; and i hear the french people are more successful than the english, or their climate may help them." and he brought a photograph of himself, of which there were only four printed. it now graces mrs. hulkes' drawing-room, and represents the novelist very life-like in full face, head and bust. the photograph was taken by alphonse maze, and has been exquisitely engraved in mr. kitton's _charles dickens by pen and pencil_. mrs. hulkes mentioned a curious and interesting circumstance. on the night before the funeral of her friend, miss dickens sent down to the little hermitage to ask if she could kindly give her some roses. mrs. hulkes cut a quantity from one of the trees in the garden (lamarque, she believes), and the tree never bloomed again, and soon after died. no doubt, as she observed, it bled to death from the excessive cutting. it was the second case only of the kind in her experience as a rose-grower during very many years. charles dickens also took interest in his friend's son (their only child, who has since finished his university career), and this gentleman prizes as a relic a copy of _a child's history of england_, which was presented to him, with the following inscription written in the characteristic blue ink--"charles dickens. to his little friend, cecil james hulkes. christmas eve, ." in a letter to miss hogarth, written from new york, on friday, rd january, , he says:--"i have a letter from mrs. hulkes by this post, wherein the boy encloses a violet, now lying on the table before me. let her know that it arrived safely and retaining its colour." there are many interesting relics of gad's hill place now in the possession of the family at the little hermitage, notably charles dickens's seal with his crest, and the initials c. d., his pen-tray, his desk, a photograph of the study on th june, (a present from miss hogarth), the portrait above referred to, an arm-chair, a drawing-room settee, a dressing-table, and a library writing-table. * * * * * on another occasion we were favoured with an interview by mr. j. n. malleson, of brighton, who formerly resided at the great hermitage, higham, and who was a neighbour of charles dickens for many years. mr. malleson came to the great hermitage in , and a day or two after christmas day in that year--having previously been a guest at the wedding of dickens's second daughter kate, with mr. charles alston collins--he met the novelist, who, stopping to chat pleasantly, asked his neighbours where they dined at christmas? "oh, darby and joan," said our informant. dickens laughingly replied:--"that shall never happen again"; and the following year, and every year afterwards, except when their friend was in america, mr. and mrs. malleson received and accepted invitations to dine at gad's hill place. on the exception in question, the family of dickens dined at the great hermitage. * * * * * in the autumn of the year we had a most interesting chat with mr. william stocker trood, at his residence, spearcehay farm, pitminster, pleasantly situated in the vale of taunton, for many years landlord of the sir john falstaff at gad's hill. the first noteworthy circumstance to record is that his name is not _edwin_ trood, as commonly supposed, but william stocker, as above stated, stocker being an old family name. this fact disposes of the supposition that the former two names, with the alteration of a single letter, gave rise in dickens's mind to the designation of the principal character in _the mystery of edwin drood_. the name of "trood" is by the substitution of one letter easily converted into drood, and that word is perhaps more euphonious with "edwin" as prefixed to it; but "william stocker" is not by any means easily converted into "edwin." the idea that "edwin drood" is derived from "william stocker trood" may therefore be dismissed as a popular fallacy. it may be mentioned, however, _en passant_, that mr. trood had a brother named edward, who sometimes visited him at the falstaff, and also a son who bore the name of his uncle. we found our informant to be wonderfully genial, hale and hearty, although in his eighty-fifth year. he had a perfect recollection of charles dickens, and remembered his first coming to gad's hill place. before the house was properly furnished and put in order, both mr. and mrs. dickens sometimes slept at the falstaff; and afterwards, when visitors were staying at gad's hill place, and the bedrooms there were full, some of them slept at the inn; in particular, john forster, wilkie collins, and marcus stone. he said mr. dickens was a very nice man to speak to, and mrs. dickens was a very nice lady. they were always kind and pleasant as neighbours, but mr. dickens did not talk much. said mr. trood:--"when i was at higham, mr. dickens used to say no one could put in a word; i had all the talk to myself." the sons were all very pleasant; in fact, he liked the family very much indeed. mr. trood sometimes acted as local banker to charles dickens, and used to cash his cheques for him. only the day before his death, he cashed a cheque for £ , and was subsequently offered £ for it by an admirer of dickens who desired the autograph; but to his credit it should be mentioned that he did not accept the offer. our informant next spoke of the wonderful partiality of dickens to cricket; he would stand out all night if he could watch a cricket match. the matches were always played in mr. dickens's field, and the business meetings of the club were held monthly at the falstaff. mr. trood was treasurer of the club. occasionally there was a dinner. a circumstance was related which made a profound impression on our friend. the family at gad's hill place were very fond of music, and on one occasion there were present as visitors two great violinists, one a german and the other an italian, and it was a debated question among the listeners outside the gates, where the music could be distinctly heard, which played the better. mr. trood had just returned from gravesend in the cool of the summer evening, about ten o'clock, and stood in the road opposite listening, "spellbound," to the delightful music. miss dickens played the accompaniments. mr. trood spoke with a lively and appreciative recollection of the christmas sports that were held in a field at the back of gad's hill place, and of the good order and nice feeling that prevailed at those gatherings, although several thousand people were present. among the games that were played, the wheeling of barrows by blind-folded men seemed to tickle him most. our octogenarian friend also spoke of the great love of dickens for scarlet geraniums. hundreds of the "tom thumb" variety were planted in the beds on the front lawn and in the back garden at gad's hill place. soon after the terrible railway accident at staplehurst, dickens came over to the falstaff and spoke to mr. trood, who congratulated him. said dickens, "i never thought i should be here again." it is a wonderful coincidence to record, that a young gentleman named dickenson, who subsequently became intimate with the novelist, changed places (so as to get the benefit of meeting the fresh air) with a french gentleman in the same carriage who was killed, and mr. dickenson escaped! the accident happened on the th june, , and dickens died on the "fatal anniversary," th june, . mr. trood confirmed his daughter's (mrs. latter's) account of the _fraças_ with the men and performing bears, given in another chapter, adding, "that _was_ a concern." * * * * * the beautiful city of exeter is not far from taunton, and we naturally avail ourselves of the opportunity of stopping there for a few hours, and stroll over to see the village of alphington. it was here, in the year , that charles dickens took and furnished mile end cottage for his father and mother and their youngest son. he thus describes the event in a letter to forster:--"i took a little house for them this morning ( th march, ), and if they are not pleased with it i shall be grievously disappointed. exactly a mile beyond the city on the plymouth road there are two white cottages: one is theirs, and the other belongs to their landlady. i almost forget the number of rooms, but there is an excellent parlour with two other rooms on the ground floor, there is really a beautiful little room over the parlour which i am furnishing as a drawing-room, and there is a splendid garden. the paint and paper throughout is new and fresh and cheerful-looking, the place is clean beyond all description, and the neighbourhood i suppose the most beautiful in this most beautiful of english counties." the negotiations with the landlady and the operation of furnishing the house are most humorously pourtrayed in the same letter. the cottage is also described in _nicholas nickleby_, which he was writing at the time. mrs. nickleby, in allusion to her old home, calls it "the beautiful little thatched white house one storey high, covered all over with ivy and creeping plants, with an exquisite little porch with twining honeysuckles and all sorts of things." fifty years have passed since the parents of the novelist went to live at alphington, which, notwithstanding the subsequent growth of the city, still continues to be a pretty suburb with fine views of the ide hills to the westward, and heavitree to the eastward. our efforts to obtain any reminiscences of the dickens family in the village were quite unsuccessful--so long a time had elapsed since their departure--although, to oblige us, the vicar of the place kindly made enquiries, and took some interest in the matter. footnotes: [ ] since this was written, gad's hill place has been purchased by the hon. f. g. latham. major budden has resigned his commission locally, and now holds a commission in the limerick city artillery militia. it is very pleasant to place on record that in subsequent visits to "dickens-land" i was always received with friendly kindness by major and mrs. budden, whose hospitality i often enjoyed. their enthusiasm for the late owner of gad's hill place, and their willingness to show every part of their beautiful residence to any one specially interested, was most gratifying to a lover of dickens. like the novelist, mrs. budden is fond of private theatricals, and has published a little book on _mrs. farley's wax-works and how to use them_. [ ] it has been suggested that the lines above quoted might give one the impression that they are those of falstaff. this, of course, is not the case. they are spoken by poins, when in company with falstaff, prince henry, and others. they occur in act i. scene ii. of _king henry iv._, part . a note to charles knight's edition of shakespeare, contained in the "illustrations to act i." of the same play, states that gad's hill appears to have been a place notorious for robbers before the time of shakespeare, for stevens discovered an entry of the date of in the books of the stationers' company, of a ballad entitled, "the robbery at gad's hill." and the late sir henry ellis, of the british museum, communicated to mr. boswell, editor of malone's shakespeare, a narrative in the handwriting of sir roger manwood, chief baron of the exchequer, dated th july, , which shows that gad's hill was at that period the resort of a band of well-mounted robbers of more than usual daring, as appears from the following extract:-- "in the course of that michaelmas term, i being at london, many robberies were done in the bye-ways at gad's hill, on the west part of rochester, and at chatham, down on the east part of rochester, by horse thieves, with such fat and lusty horses, as were not like hackney horses nor far-journeying horses; and one of them sometimes wearing a vizard grey beard, he was by common report in the country called 'justice grey beard;' and no man durst travel that way without great company." [ ] at an interview with mr. h. f. dickens some time afterwards, he told me the story of the origin of _the gad's hill gazette_. there was a good deal of sand exposed at the back of the house, and the sons of the novelist--who like other boys were full of energy,--were fond of playing at "burying" each other. their father naturally feared that this kind of play might have some disastrous effects, and develop into burying in earnest. so he said one day to his sons, "why not establish a newspaper, if you want a field for your energies?" _the gad's hill gazette_ was the result. at first the tiny journal was written on a plain sheet and copies made; then a manifold writer was used; and afterwards came the printing press. chapter viii. charles dickens and strood. "so altered was the battle-ground, where thousands upon thousands had been killed in the great fight."--_the battle of life._ "keep me always at it, i'll keep you always at it, you keep somebody else always at it. there you are, with the whole duty of man in a commercial country."--_little dorrit._ the town of strood,--the roman _strata_,--which stands on the left bank of the river medway, has, like the city of rochester, its interesting historical associations. its church, dedicated to st. nicholas, stands high on the north side of the london road leading to gad's hill, and has a brass of t. glover and his three wives. at one time there was a hospital for travellers, founded by bishop glanville (_temp._ richard i.), near the church. the most interesting remains are, however, those of the temple farm, distant about half a mile south, formerly (_temp._ henry ii.) the mansion of the knights templars of the teutonic order, to whom it, together with the lands thereto belonging, was given by that monarch. the gift was confirmed by king john and by henry iii. ( ); but the unfortunate brethren of the order did not retain possession more than a century, for in the reign of edward ii. they were dispossessed of their lands and goods, under pretence of their leading a vicious course of life, but in reality to satisfy the avarice of their dispossessors. the present building dates from about james i., has one fine room overlooking the river, and underneath is a spacious vault called by grose the "preceptory," excavated out of the chalk, and having fine groined stone arches and aisles--the walls are of very great thickness. near frindsbury church--in which are three most interesting wall-paintings of st. william the baker of perth, st. lawrence, and another figure, all three discovered on the jambs of the norman windows only a few years ago--stands the quarry house, a handsome old red-brick mansion, "described as more jacobean than elizabethan," built in the form of a capital e, each storey slightly receding behind the front level of that beneath it, the top tapering into pretty gables, the effect being enhanced by heavy buttresses. there is a dreadful legend of the ancient people of strood common to several other parts of the kingdom, _e.g._ auster in dorsetshire, which the quaint and diligent lambarde, quoting from polydore virgil, evidently regarded as serious, and takes immense pains to confute! it relates to st. thomas à becket and his contention with king henry ii., whereby he began to be looked upon as the king's enemy, and as such began to be "so commonly neglected, contemned, and hated:-- "that when as it happened him upon a time to come to _stroude_, the inhabitants thereabouts (being desirous to dispite that good father) sticked not to cut the tail from the horse on which he road, binding themselves thereby with a perpetuall reproach: for afterward (by the will of god) it so happened, that every one which came of that kinred of men which plaied that naughty prank, were borne with tails, even as brute beasts be." [illustration: temple farm strood] surely had the credulous historian lived in darwinian times, he might have recorded this as a splendid instance of "degeneration"! [illustration: at temple farm strood] in a lecture delivered here some years ago, the rev. canon scott robertson, editor of _archæologia cantiana_, gave a graphic picture of "strood in the olden times." to this we are much indebted for the opportunity of giving an abstract of several of the most interesting details. in the thirteenth century strood and rochester were the scene of a severe struggle between simon de montfort, earl of leicester, the leader of the barons in their war against henry iii. to resist the aggressive encroachments of the king on the liberties of the subject, and the supporters of that monarch. [illustration: crypt temple farm] simon de montfort, who was a strood landowner, and possessed of other large properties in kent, took the lead, followed by several other nobles, in the siege of rochester. their first obstacle was the fortified gate-house at the strood end of rochester bridge, and for some time their efforts were in vain, till at length, by means of small ships filled with inflammable matter, set on fire and driven towards the centre of the wooden bridge, causing "actual or expected ignition of the timbers," the king's soldiers were dismayed and retreated. the earl of gloucester simultaneously reached the south end of the city, and the barons took possession thereof, sacking the town, monastery, and cathedral church. the garrison of the castle shut themselves up in the strong norman keep, and held it till relieved by prince edward, the king's son. the castle was subsequently taken by simon de montfort after the battle of lewes ( ), where henry iii. was taken prisoner and brought to rochester, and a proclamation was issued transferring the custody of the royal castle to the barons. at the battle of evesham ( ) simon de montfort was slain; and the king, on becoming master of the situation, imposed a fine, equivalent to about £ , of our money, on strood, because it was the headquarters of simon during his assault on rochester. the fine caused much ill-feeling between the two towns, which lasted until the reign of edward i. such was strood in the olden times. long years have since passed, and the amenities of an industrial age have succeeded to these turmoils. the town of strood appears to be flourishing, and now possesses large engineering works, cement manufactories, flour mills, and other extensive industries. allusion has been previously made to a very entertaining _brochure_, entitled _charles dickens and rochester_, by mr. robert langton, f. r. hist. soc. of manchester (himself, we believe, a rochester man). in it there is scarcely any reference to strood, although the sister-town, chatham, is freely mentioned. our enquiries at strood, on the tuesday and subsequently, resulted in the discovery of many most interesting memorials of charles dickens in connection with that town, enough almost to fill a small volume. there was a general impression that dickens had no great liking for strood, and yet it was a doctor from that town who was one of his most intimate friends, and who attended him in his last illness; it was a builder in strood who executed most of the alterations and repairs at gad's hill place; it was a strood contractor who gave him the souvenir of old rochester bridge; it was at strood that an eminent local scientist lived, who was incidentally, but very importantly, associated with him in the movement connected with the guild of literature and art; and it was at a quiet roadside inn at strood that he sometimes called to refresh himself after one of those long walks, alone or with friends, for which he was famous. [illustration: the "crispin & crispianus", strood] let us reverse the order of the above, and give a recollection from the last-mentioned. the "crispin and crispianus" is a very old-fashioned inn, which stands on the north side of the london road just out of strood, and was, as we were informed, erected some centuries ago. it is a long building, of brick below, with an overhanging upper floor and weather-boarded front, surmounted by a single dormer window. the sanded floor of the common parlour is, as the saying goes, "as clean as a new pin." round the room is a settle terminating with arms at each side of the door, which is opposite the fireplace. mrs. masters, the cheerful and obliging landlady, who has lived here thirty years, describes dickens to us (as we sit in the seat he used now and then to occupy), when on one of his walks, as habited in low shoes not over-well mended, loose large check-patterned trousers that sometimes got entangled in the shoes when walking, a brown coat thrown open, sometimes without waistcoat, a belt instead of braces, a necktie which now and then got round towards his ear, and a large-brimmed felt hat, similar to an american's, set well at the back of his head. in his hand he carried by the middle an umbrella, which he was in the habit of constantly swinging, and if he had dogs (a not unfrequent occurrence), he had a small whip as well. he walked in the middle of the road at a rapid pace, upright, but with his eyes cast down as if in deep thought. when he called at the crispin for refreshment, usually a glass of ale (mild sixpenny--bitter ale was not drawn in those days), or a little cold brandy and water, he walked straight in, and sat down at the corner of the settle on the right-hand side where the arm is, opposite the fire-place; he rarely spoke to any one, but looked round as though taking in everything at a glance. (in _david copperfield_ he says, "i looked at nothing, that i know of, but i saw everything.") once he and a friend were sheltering there during a thunderstorm (by a coincidence, a storm occurs at the time we are here), and while dickens stood looking out of the window he saw opposite a poor woman with a baby, who appeared very worn, wet, and travel-stained. she too was sheltering from the rain. "call her in here," said dickens. mrs. masters obeyed. "now," said he, "draw her some brandy." "how much?" she asked. "never mind," he answered, "draw her some." the landlady drew her four-pennyworth, the quantity generally served. "now," said dickens to the woman, "drink that up," which she did, and soon seemed refreshed. dickens gave her a shilling, and remarked to mrs. masters that "now she will go on her way rejoicing." the story is a trivial one, but the units make the aggregate, and it sufficiently indicates his kindness of heart and thoughtfulness for others. in some of his walks dickens was accompanied either by his sister-in-law, miss hogarth, or by friends who were staying at "gad's" (or the "place," as it was sometimes called). mrs. masters, whose recollections of dickens are very vivid, said--"lor! we never thought much about him when he was alive; it was only when his death took place that we understood what a great man he was." alas! it is not the first instance that "a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house." the news of his death was a great shock to mrs. masters, who heard of it from edward, son of mr. w. s. trood, the landlord of the sir john falstaff, as he was bearing the intelligence to rochester within half-an-hour after the event. in passing we should mention, that the crispin and crispianus has been immortalized in the chapter on "tramps," in _the uncommercial traveller_, where, in reference to the handicrafts of certain tramps, dickens imagines himself to be a travelling clockmaker, and after adjusting "t'ould clock" in the keeper's kitchen, "he sees to something wrong with the bell of the turret stable clock up at the hall [cobham hall]. . . . our task at length accomplished, we should be taken into an enormous servants'-hall, and there regaled with beef and bread, and powerful ale. then, paid freely, we should be at liberty to go, and should be told by a pointing helper to keep round over yinder by the blasted ash, and so straight through the woods till we should see the town-lights right afore us. . . . so should we lie that night at the ancient sign of the crispin and crispianus [at strood], and rise early next morning to be betimes on tramp again."[ ] we are also indebted to mrs. masters for an introduction to our next informant, mr. j. couchman, master-builder and undertaker of strood, who, though advanced in years and tried by illness, is very free and chatty; and from him and his son we obtained some interesting facts. he had worked for charles dickens at gad's hill place, from the date of his going there ("which," says mr. couchman, "was on whitsun monday, ,") until the th june, , two days after the sad occurrence "which eclipsed the gaiety of nations." from mr. couchman's standpoint as a tradesman, it is interesting to record his experience of dickens in his own words. "mr. dickens," he says, "was always very straightforward, honourable, and kind, and paid his bills most regularly. the first work i did for him was to make a dog-kennel; i also put up the châlet at gad's hill. when it was forwarded from london, which was by water, mr. fechter [whose name he did not at first remember] sent a frenchman to assist in the erection. the châlet consisted of ninety-four pieces, all fitting accurately together like a puzzle. the frenchman did not understand it, and could not make out the fitting of the pieces. so i asked mr. henry [mr. henry fielding dickens, the novelist's sixth son, the present recorder of deal] if he understood french. he said 'yes,' and told me the names of the different pieces, and i managed it without the frenchman, who stayed the night, and went away next day." in conversation, we suggest that the circumstance of the châlet having been made in switzerland may have embarrassed the frenchman, he not having been accustomed to that kind of work. in his letter to forster of the th june, , dickens says:--"the châlet is going on excellently, though the ornamental part is more slowly put together than the substantial. it will really be a very pretty thing; and in the summer (supposing it not to be blown away in the spring), the upper room will make a charming study. it is much higher than we supposed." mr. couchman also took down the châlet after charles dickens's death, and erected it at the crystal palace at sydenham, where it remained for a short time, and was subsequently presented to the earl of darnley by several members of the dickens family. his lordship afterwards ordered him to fit it up at cobham hall, where, as previously stated, it now stands. the woods of which it is constructed he believed to be baltic oak and a kind of pine, the lighter parts being of maple or sycamore. we saw it subsequently. several contracts were entered into by mr. couchman with charles dickens for the extension and modification of gad's hill place, notably during the year . we are favoured with a sight of an original specification signed by both parties, which is as follows:-- "specification of works proposed to be done at gad's hill house, higham, for c. dickens, esq. "_bricklayer._--to take off slates and copings and heighten brick walls and chimneys, and build no. new chimneys with stock and picking bricks laid in cement. no. chimney bars, to cope gable ends with old stone. no. hearthstones. no. plain stone chimney-pieces. no. -- ft. in. register stoves. to lath and plaster ceiling, side walls, and partitions with lime and hair two coats, and set to slate the new roof with good countess slates and metal nails. "_carpenter._--to take off roof, to lay floor joist with × - / in. yellow battens; to fix roof, ceiling, joist and partitions of good fir timber, ft. × ft.; to use old timber that is sound and fit for use; to close board roof, lead flat and gutters; to lay in. × in. white deal floors, to skirt rooms with in. × / in. deal; to fix no. pairs of - / in. sashes and frames for plate-glass as per order. _all the sashes to have weights and pulleys for opening._ to fix no. -- ft. in. × ft. in. - / in., four panel doors, and encase frames with all necessary mouldings; to fix window linings, and - / in. square framings and doors for no. dressing-rooms; to fix no. , in. rim locks. no. box latches, sash fastenings, sash weights, to fix in. o. g. iron eaves, gutter with cistern heads, and in. iron leading pipes. "_plumber, glazier, and painter._--to take up old lead guttering, and lay new gutters and lead flats with lb. lead, ridge and flushings with lb. lead; to paint all wood and iron-work that requires painting coats in oil, the windows to be glazed with good plate glass; to paper rooms and landings when the walls are dry with paper of the value of _s._ _d._ per piece, the old lead to be the property of the plumber. _the two cisterns to be carried up and replaced on new roof, the pipes attached to them to be lengthened as required by the alterations; and a water tap to be fitted in each dressing-room._ "all old materials not used and rubbish to be carted away by the contractor. all the work to be completed in a sound and workman-like manner to the satisfaction of c. dickens, esq., for the sum of £ . the roof to be slated and flat covered with lead in one month from commencing the work. the whole to be completed--paper excepted--and all rubbish cleared away by the th day of november, . "(signed) j. couchman, "builder. "_high street, strood_, "_sep. th, ._" then follows in dickens's own handwriting:-- "_the above contract i accept on the stipulated conditions; the specified _time_, in common with all the other conditions, to be strictly observed._ "(signed) charles dickens. "_gad's hill place,_ "_saturday, st sep., ._" what is most interesting to notice in the above specification, is the careful way in which dickens appears to have mastered all the details, and the very sensible interlineations given in italics which he made, ( ) as to the sashes and weights, ( ) as to the two cisterns, and especially ( ) in the final memorandum as to _time_. it is also worthy of remark, that the work _was_ completed in the specified time, the bill duly sent in, and the next day dickens sent a cheque for the amount. another contract, amounting to £ , was executed by mr. couchman, for extensions at gad's hill. on its completion, mr. dickens paid him by two cheques. he went up to london to the bank (coutts's in the strand) to cash them. the clerk just looked at the cheques, the signature apparently being very familiar to him, and then put the usual question--"how will you have it?" to which he replied, "notes, please." it appears that, as is frequently the case in large establishments, orders were sometimes given by the servants for work which the master knew nothing about until the bill was presented; and to prevent this, dickens issued instructions to the tradesmen that they were not to execute any work for him without his written authority. the following is an illustration of this new arrangement:-- "gad's hill place, "higham by rochester, kent. "_thursday, th nov., ._ "mr. couchman, "please to ease the coach-house doors, and to put up some pegs, agreeably to george belcher's directions. "charles dickens." it should be mentioned that george belcher was the coachman at the time. mr. couchman recalls an interesting custom that was maintained at gad's hill. there were a number of tin check plates, marked respectively _d._ and _d._ each, which enabled the person to whom they were given to obtain an equivalent in refreshment of any kind at the sir john falstaff. the threepenny checks were for the workmen, and the sixpenny ones for the tradesmen. the chief housemaid had the distribution of these checks to persons employed in the house, the head-gardener to those engaged in the gardens, and the coachman to those in the stables. on one occasion, our informant remembers when his men were engaged upon some work at gad's hill, such checks were given out to them, and that he also had one offered to him; but, recollecting that his position as a master scarcely entitled him to the privilege, he stated his objections to the housemaid, who said in reply that it was a pity to break an old custom, he had better have one. "so," says our informant, "i had a sixpenny ticket with the others, and obtained my refreshment." he has in his photographic album a carte-de-visite of charles dickens, by watkins. it is the well-known one in which the novelist is represented in a sitting position, dressed in a grey suit; and the owner considered it a very good likeness. he also showed us a funeral card which he thought had been sent to him by the family of dickens at the time of his death, but judging by its contents, this seems impossible. it is, however, well worth transcribing:-- to the memory of =charles dickens= (england's most popular author), who died at his residence, higham, near rochester, kent, june th, . aged years. he was a sympathizer with the poor, suffering, and oppressed; and by his death one of england's greatest writers is lost to the world. mr. couchman confirms the verbal sketch of dickens as drawn by his neighbour, mrs. masters, and states that dickens used to put up his dogs ("linda" and "turk"), "boisterous companions as they always were," in the stables whenever he came to see him on business. mr. william ball, j.p., of hillside, strood, kindly favoured us with many interviews, and generally took great interest in the subject of our visit to "dickens-land," rendering invaluable assistance in our enquiries. this gentleman is the son of mr. john h. ball, the well-known contractor, who removed old rochester bridge; he is also a brother-in-law of the late gifted tenor, mr. joseph maas, to whom a handsome memorial tablet, consisting of a marble medallion of the deceased, over which is a lyre with one of the strings broken, has since been erected on the east wall of the south transept of rochester cathedral. by mr. ball's considerate courtesy and that of his daughters, we are allowed to see many interesting relics of charles dickens and gad's hill.[ ] when mr. ball's father removed the old bridge in , it will be remembered that he offered to present the novelist with one of the balustrades as a souvenir, the offer being gracefully and promptly accepted, as the following letter testifies:-- "gad's hill place, "higham by rochester, kent. "_thursday, eighth june, ._ "sir, "i feel exceedingly obliged to you for your kind and considerate offer of a remembrance of old rochester bridge; that will interest me very much. i accept the relic with many thanks, and with great pleasure. "do me the favor to let it be delivered to a workman who will receive instructions to bring it away, and once again accept my acknowledgments. "yours faithfully, "charles dickens. "mr. john h. ball." the present mr. william ball, then a young lad, was the bearer of the gift, and on being asked by us why he didn't ask to see the great novelist, replies, "yes, i ought to have done so, but i was afraid of the dogs!" the balustrade, which was placed on the back lawn at gad's hill, was mounted on a square pedestal, on the sides of which were representations of the four seasons, and a sun-dial crowned the capital. something like it, but a little modified, appears in one of mr. luke fildes's beautiful illustrations to the original edition of _edwin drood_, entitled "jasper's sacrifices." three more of the balustrades now ornament mr. ball's garden at hillside. mr. ball the elder was invited to send in a tender for the construction of the tunnel at gad's hill previously mentioned, but it was not accepted, as appears from a letter addressed to him by mr. alfred l. dickens (charles dickens's brother), of which we are allowed to take a copy:-- " , richmond terrace, "whitehall, s.w. "_august th, ._ "dear sir, "i am very sorry that absence from home has prevented my replying to your note as to the tender for the gad's hill tunnel before. "i much regret that the amount of your tender is so much higher than my estimate, that i cannot recommend my brother to accept it. "i am, "dear sir, "yours faithfully, "alfred l. dickens. "mr. ball." among the dickens relics at hillside, we are shown by mr. ball the pretty set of five silver bells presented by his friend mr. f. lehmann, to the novelist, who always used them when driving out in his basket pony-phaeton. they are fastened on to a leather pad, and make a pleasant musical sound when shaken. they are of graduated sizes, the largest being somewhat smaller than a tennis-ball, and appear to be in the key of c: comprising the tonic, third, fifth, octave, and octave of the third. there is also a hall clock with maker's name--"bennett, cheapside, london." this was the "werry identical" clock respecting which dickens wrote the following characteristically humorous letter to sir john bennett:-- "my dear sir, "since my hall clock was sent to your establishment to be cleaned it has gone (as indeed it always had) perfectly well, but has struck the hours with great reluctance, and after enduring internal agonies of a most distressing nature, it has now ceased striking altogether. though a happy release for the clock, this is not convenient to the household. if you can send down any confidential person with whom the clock can confer, i think it may have something on its works that it would be glad to make a clean breast of. "faithfully yours, "charles dickens." included among the relics are a very handsome mahogany fire-screen in three folds, of red morocco, with grecian key-border, a musical canterbury, and a bookcase. but the most interesting object from an art point of view is an india proof copy, "before letters," of sir edwin landseer's beautiful picture of "king charles's spaniels," the original of which is said to have been painted for the late mr. vernon in two days, and is now in the national gallery. the engraving of the picture is by outram. it has the initials in pencil "e. l.," and a little ticket on the frame--"lot ," that being the number in the auctioneer's catalogue. the following is the story as recently told by mr. w. p. frith, r.a., in his most interesting and readable _autobiography and reminiscences_, :-- "his" [sir edwin's] "rapidity of execution was extraordinary. in the national gallery there is a picture of two spaniels, of what is erroneously called the charles ii. breed (the real dog of that time is of a different form and breed altogether, as may be seen in pictures of the period), the size of life, with appropriate accompaniments, painted by him in two days. an empty frame had been sent to the british institution, where it was hung on the wall, waiting for its tenant--a picture of a lady with dogs--till landseer felt the impossibility of finishing the picture satisfactorily. time had passed, till two days only remained before the opening of the exhibition. something must be done; and in the time named those wonderfully life-like little dogs were produced." mr. ball has also an interesting photograph of the "last lot," some bottles of wine, evidently taken on the occasion of the sale at gad's hill place after dickens's death, the auctioneer being represented with his hammer raised ready to fall, and a smile upon his face. among the crowd, consisting principally of london and local dealers, may be seen two local policemen with peaked caps, and auctioneer's porters in shirt-sleeves and aprons. the sale took place in a large tent at the back of the house and close to the well, which can be readily seen through an opening in the tent. the next person whom we meet at strood is mr. charles roach smith, f.s.a., the eminent archæologist, who has achieved a european reputation, and from whom we get many interesting particulars relating to dickens. we heard some idle gossip at rochester to the effect that mr. roach smith always felt a little "touchy" about the satire on archæology in _pickwick_, _in re_ "bill stumps, his mark." that, however, we took _cum grano salis_, because this gentleman, from his delightful conversation and frank manner, is evidently above any such littleness. he is, however, free to confess, that dickens had not much love for strood, but infinitely preferred chatham. there had been but little personal intercourse between dickens and mr. roach smith, though each respected the other. our informant says that, soon after the novelist came to gad's hill place, mrs. dickens called and left her husband's card, which he, whether rightly or not, took as an intimation that the acquaintance was not to be extended. he spoke with all the enthusiasm of a man of science, and rather bitterly too, of a certain reading given by dickens at chatham to an overflowing house, whereas on the same evening a distinguished professor of agriculture (a mr. roberts or robinson, we believe), who came to instruct the people at ashford (one of the neighbouring towns) by means of a lecture, failed to secure an audience, and only got a few pence for admissions. the learned professor subsequently poured forth his troubles to mr. roach smith, from whom he obtained sympathy and hospitality. we venture to remind our good friend that the public in general much prefer amusement to instruction, at which he laughs, and says that in this matter he perfectly agrees with us. he expresses his strong opinion as to dickens's reading of the "murder of nancy" (_oliver twist_), which he characterizes as "repulsive and indecent." the most important communication made to us by mr. roach smith is that contained in volume ii. of his recently published _reminiscences and retrospections, social and archæological_, . as this interesting work may not be generally accessible, it is as well to quote the passage intact. it has reference to the guild of literature and art, for the promotion of which dickens, lord lytton, john forster, mark lemon, john leech, and others, gave so much valuable time and energy, in addition to liberal pecuniary support. the following is the extract:-- "of mr. dodd i knew much. he was one of my earliest friends when i lived in liverpool street--i may say, one of my earliest patrons; and the intimacy continued up to his death, a few years since. the story of his connection with the movement for a dramatic college, and of his rapid separation from it, a deposition by order of the projectors and directors, forms a curious episode in the history of our friendship; and especially so, as i had an important, though unseen, part to sustain. "in the summer of i was summoned to mr. dodd's residence at the city wharf, new north road, hoxton, to give consent to be a trustee, with messrs. cobden and bright, for five acres of land, which mr. dodd was about to give for the building of a dramatic college, which had been resolved on at a public meeting, held on the st of july in this year, in the princess's theatre, mr. charles kean acting as chairman. 'i give this most freely,' said mr. dodd to me, 'for it is to the stage i am indebted for my education; to it i owe whatsoever may be good in me.' that there was much good in him, thousands can testify; and thousands yet to come will be evidence to his benevolence. of course, i felt pleased in being selected to act as a trustee for this gift. i conceived, and i suppose i was correct, that mr. dodd intended that his gift was strictly for a dramatic college, and for no other purpose, then or thereafter. having expressed my willingness and resolution to be faithful to the trust, i said, 'i presume, mr. dodd, you stipulate for a presentation?' he looked rather surprised; and asked his solicitor, who sat by him, how they came to overlook this? both of them directly agreed that this simple return should be required. "i must leave such of my readers as feel inclined, to search in the public journals for the correspondence between the directors and mr. dodd up to the th of january, , when, at a meeting held in the adelphi theatre, lord tenterden in the chair, it was stated that mr. dodd evinced, through his solicitor, a disposition to fence round his gift with legal restrictions and stipulations, which apprised the committee of coming difficulty; and the meeting unanimously agreed to decline mr. dodd's offer of land. previously and subsequently to this, mr. dodd was most discourteously commented on and attacked in the newspapers, the editors of which, however, sided with him. i was told that the stipulation for a presentation was the great offence; but i should think that the provision made against the improper use of the land must have been the real grievance. in the very last letter i received from mr. dodd, not very long anterior to his death, he says that mark lemon told him that charles dickens had said he had never occasion to repent but of two things, one being his conduct to mr. dodd. that dickens, thackeray, and others sincerely believed they were taking the best steps for accomplishing their benevolent object, there can be no doubt; their judgment, not their heart, was wrong. the scheme was based upon a wrong principle, as was shown by its collapse in less than twenty years, after the expenditure of very large subscriptions, and the patronage of the queen. articles in _the era_ of the nd july, , leave no doubt, while they clearly reveal the causes of failure." it may be mentioned that the mr. henry dodd above referred to, appears to have been a large city contractor, or something of that kind. according to mr. roach smith, what with him led on to fortune was a long and heavy fall of snow, which had filled the streets of the city of london, and rendered traffic impossible. the city was blocked by snow, and there was no remedy at hand. mr. dodd boldly undertook a contract to remove the mighty obstruction in a given time. this he did thoroughly and within the limited number of days. afterwards he appears to have undertaken brick-making and other works on a very large scale. in the opinion of mr. roach smith, mr. dodd was the origin of the "golden dustman" in _our mutual friend_, whom every reader of dickens remembers as mr. nicodemus, _alias_ noddy boffin. speaking of dickens's readings, our informant relates a conversation with charles dickens's sixth son, mr. henry fielding dickens. the former gentleman asked the latter whose model he took? "oh, my father's," said mr. henry dickens. "i would not take any man's model," said mr. roach smith, "i would take my own." and judging from the perfect intonation and thoroughly musical rhythm of his voice, there is no doubt whatever that his model, whoever it may have been, was one of very high standard. we have since learnt that mr. roach smith is the president of the strood elocution society, an almost unique institution of its kind. it has been established upwards of thirteen years; and at the weekly meetings "the various readers are subjected to an exhaustive and salutary criticism by the members present." mr. roach smith has always taken immense interest in the progress of this society. miss dickens occasionally helped at the above meetings. mr. roach smith kindly favours us with the following extract from the third and forthcoming volume of his _retrospections_ with reference to the late mr. j. h. ball, of strood, which may appropriately be here introduced:-- "although i have said that i was the gainer by our acquaintance, yet now and then i had a chance of serving him. soon after the death of the great novelist, charles dickens, and when people were speculating as to what would become of his residence at gad's hill, mr. ball, wishing to purchase it, commissioned me to call on the executrix, miss hogarth, and offer ten thousand pounds, for which he had written a cheque. i accordingly went, and sent in my card. miss hogarth, fortunately, could not see me; she was hastening to catch the train for london, the carriage being at the door, and not a moment to be lost; but she would be happy to see me on her return in a day or two. i then wrote to mr. forster, the other executor; and received a reply that the place was not for sale. i kept him ignorant of the sum that mr. ball was willing to give, and thus saved my friend some thousands of pounds, . . . for the house and land were not worth half the money." [illustration: old quarry house strood] after some further conversation with our kind octogenarian friend, who insists on showing us hospitality notwithstanding his sufferings from a trying illness, we take our departure with many pleasant memories of our visit.[ ] we have, after one or two unsuccessful attempts, the good fortune to meet with mr. stephen steele, m.r.c.s. and l.s.a., of bridge house, esplanade, strood, who was admitted a member of the medical profession so far back as the year , and has therefore been in practice nearly sixty years. it will be remembered that this experienced surgeon was sent for by miss hogarth, to see dickens in his last illness. he is good enough to go over and describe to us in graphic and sympathetic language the whole of the circumstances attending that sorrowful event. previously to doing so, he gives us some interesting details of his recollections of charles dickens. dr. steele had occupied the onerous post of chairman of the liberal association at rochester for thirty years, and believes that in politics dickens was a liberal, for he frequently prefaced his remarks in conversation with him on any subject of passing interest by the expression, "we liberals, you know--" [illustration: frindsbury church] as a matter of fact, dickens discharged his conscience of his political creed in the remarks which followed his address as president of the birmingham and midland institute,[ ] delivered th september, , when he said--"my political creed is contained in two articles, and has no reference to any party or persons. my faith in the 'people governing' is, on the whole, infinitesimal; my faith in the 'people governed' is, on the whole, illimitable." at a subsequent visit to birmingham on the th january, , when giving out the prizes at the institute, he further emphasized his political faith in these words:--"when i was here last autumn, i made a short confession of my political faith--or perhaps, i should better say, want of faith. it imported that i have very little confidence in the people who govern us--please to observe 'people' with a small 'p,'--but i have very great confidence in the people whom they govern--please to observe 'people' with a large 'p.'" a few days after charles dickens's first visit, my friend mr. howard s. pearson, lecturer on english literature at the institute, addressed a letter to him on the subject of the remarks at the conclusion of his presidential address, and promptly received in reply the following communication, which mr. pearson kindly allows me to print, emphasizing his (dickens's) observations:-- "gad's hill place, "higham by rochester, kent. "_wednesday, th october, ._ "sir, "you are perfectly right in your construction of my meaning at birmingham. if a capital p be put to the word people in its second use in the sentence, and not in its first, i should suppose the passage next to impossible to be mistaken, even if it were read without any reference to the whole spirit of my speech and the whole tenor of my writings. "faithfully yours, "charles dickens. "h. s. pearson, esquire." dr. steele had dined several times at gad's hill place, and was impressed with dickens's wonderful powers as a host. he never absorbed the whole of the conversation to himself, but listened attentively when his guests were speaking, and endeavoured, as it were, to draw out any friends who were not generally talkative. he liked each one to chat about his own hobby in which he took most interest. our informant was also present at gad's hill place at several theatrical entertainments, and especially remembers some charades being given. after the performance of the latter was over, dickens walked round among his guests in the drawing-room, and enquired if any one could guess the "word." says the doctor, "we never seemed to do so, but there was always a hearty laugh when we were told what it was. there was a good deal of company at gad's hill at christmas time." _À propos_ of private theatricals at gad's hill place, mr. t. edgar pemberton, in _charles dickens and the stage_, calls attention to the fact that "mr. clarkson stanfield's _lighthouse_ act drop subsequently decorated the walls of gad's hill place; and although it took the painter less than a couple of days to execute, fetched a thousand guineas at the famous dickens sale in ." a cloth painted for _the frozen deep_, which was the next and last of these productions, also had a foremost place in the gad's hill picture-gallery. dr. steele mentions a conversation once with dickens about gad's hill and shakespeare's description of it. he (the doctor) considers that shakespeare could not have described it so accurately if he had not been there, and dickens agreed with him in this opinion. possibly he may have stayed at the "plough," which was an inn on the same spot as, or close to, the "falstaff." the place must have been much wooded at that time, and shakespeare might have been there on his way to dover. a note in the _rochester and chatham journal_, , states that "shakespeare's company made a tour in sussex and kent in the summer of ." dr. steele, in common with his friend charles dickens, strongly deprecated the action of certain parties in rochester, by voting at a public meeting something to this effect:--"that the theatre was an irreligious kind of institution, and, in the opinion of the meeting, it ought to be closed." the doctor observes that dickens was not much of a church-goer. he went occasionally to higham, and used to give the vicar assistance for the poor and distressed. dickens and miss hogarth asked dr. steele to point out objects of charity worthy of relief, and they gave him money for distribution. he remarks that dickens did not care much about associating with the local residents, going out to dinners, &c. most of the principal people of rochester would have been glad of the honour of his presence as a guest, but he rarely accepted invitations, preferring the quietude of home.[ ] as regards readings, our informant says he is under the impression that dickens must have had some lessons or hints from some one of experience (possibly his friend fechter, the actor), as he noticed from time to time a regular improvement, which was permanently maintained. on the subject of the american war, he thinks dickens's sympathies were decidedly with the south. with respect to the american readings, dr. steele expresses his opinion that the excitement, fatigue, and worry consequent thereon had considerably shortened dickens's life, if it had not pretty well killed him. he considered him a most genial sort of man; "he always looked you straight in the face when speaking." before referring to the closing chapter in dickens's life, we have some interesting talk respecting venesection,--_à propos_ of that memorable occasion on the ice at dingley dell, when "mr. benjamin allen was holding a hurried consultation with mr. bob sawyer on the advisability of bleeding the company generally, as an improving little bit of professional practice,"--and dr. steele gives us his opinion thereon, and on some points connected with the medical profession. he was a student of guy's and st. thomas's hospitals, and was under the distinguished physicians drs. addison and elliotson. he considered the characters of bob sawyer and ben allen not at all overdrawn. they were good representations of the medical students of those days. he believed the practice of venesection commenced to be general about the year , for his father was a medical practitioner before him, and he does not remember his (the father's) telling him that he practised it before that time. says our friend, "we used to bleed regularly in my young days, and in cases of pneumonia and convulsions we never thought of omitting to bleed. we should have considered that to have done so would have been a grave instance of irregular practice. and," he adds, "i bleed in cases of convulsions now." the doctor did not think well of the change at the time, but, speaking generally, he says venesection had had its turn, and has now given place to other treatment. the events in connection with the fatal illness of dickens are then touchingly related as follows:-- "i was sent for on wednesday, the eighth of june, , to attend at gad's hill place, and arrived about . p.m. i found dickens lying on the floor of the dining-room in a fit. he was unconscious, and never moved. the servants brought a couch down, on which he was placed. i applied clysters and other remedies to the patient without effect. miss hogarth, his sister-in-law, had already sent a telegram (by the same messenger on horseback who summoned me) to his old friend and family doctor, mr. frank beard, who arrived about midnight. he relieved me in attendance at that time, and i came again in the morning. there was unhappily no change in the symptoms, and stertorous breathing, which had commenced before, now continued. in conversation miss hogarth and the family expressed themselves perfectly satisfied with the attendance of mr. beard and myself. i said, 'that may be so, and we are much obliged for your kind opinion; but we have a duty to perform, not only to you, my dear madam, and the family of mr. dickens, but also to the public. what will the public say if we allow charles dickens to pass away without further medical assistance? our advice is to send for dr. russell reynolds.' mr. beard first made the suggestion. "the family reiterated their expression of perfect satisfaction with the treatment of mr. beard and myself, but immediately gave way, dr. russell reynolds was sent for, and came in the course of the day. this eminent physician without hesitation pronounced the case to be hopeless. he said at once on seeing him, 'he cannot live.' and so it proved. at a little past o'clock on thursday, the th of june, , charles dickens passed quietly away without a word--about twenty-four hours after the seizure." [illustration: rochester: from strood pier:] such is the simple narrative which the kind-hearted octogenarian surgeon, whom it is a delightful pleasure to meet and converse with, communicates to us, and then cordially wishes us "good-bye." * * * * * there is an annual pleasure fair at strood, instituted, it is said, so far back as the reign of edward iii. it takes place during three days in the last week of august, and as it is going on while we are on our tramp, we just look in for a few minutes, the more especially as we were informed by mr. william ball, and others who had seen him, that dickens used to be very fond of going there at times in an appropriate disguise, where perhaps he may have seen the prototype of the famous "doctor marigold." the fair is now held on a large piece of waste ground near the railway station. there are the usual set-out of booths, "aunt sallies," shooting-galleries, "try your weight and strength, gentlemen" machines, a theatre, with a tragedy and comedy both performed in about an hour, and hot-sausage and gingerbread stalls in abundance. but the deafening martial music poured forth from a barrel-organ by means of a steam-engine, belonging to the proprietor of a huge "merry-go-round," and the wet and muddy condition of the ground from the effects of the recent thunderstorm, make us glad to get away. a mysterious dickens-item. mr. c. d. levy, auctioneer, etc., of strood, was good enough to lend me what at first sight, and indeed for some time afterwards, was supposed to be a most unique dickens-item. it came into his possession in this way. at the sale of charles dickens's furniture and effects, which took place at gad's hill in , mr. levy was authorized by a customer to purchase dickens's writing-desk, which, however, he was unable to secure. in transferring the desk to the purchaser at the time of the sale, a few old and torn papers tumbled out, and being considered of no value, were disregarded and scattered. one of these scraps was picked up by mr. levy, and proved on further examination to be a sheet of headed note-paper having the stamp of "gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent."--on the first page were a few rough sketches drawn with pen and ink, which greatly resembled some of the characters in _the mystery of edwin drood_--durdles, jasper, and edwin drood. at the side was a curious row of capital letters looking like a puzzle. on the second and third pages were short-hand notes, and on the fourth page a few lines written in long-hand, continued on the next page,--wonderfully like charles dickens's own handwriting,--being the commencement of a speech with reference to a cricket match. the sheet of paper had evidently been made to do double duty, for after the sketches had been drawn on the front page, the sheet was put aside, and when used again was turned over, so that what ordinarily would have been page became page for the second object. no "daniel" in strood or rochester had ever been able to decipher the mysterious hieroglyphics, or make known the interpretation thereof, during twenty years, or give any explanation of the sketches. but everybody thought that in some way or other they related to _the mystery of edwin drood_--and possibly contained a clue to the solution of that exquisite fragment. so, as a student and admirer of dickens, mr. levy kindly left the matter in my hands to make out what i could of it. reference was accordingly had to several learned pundits in the short-hand systems of "pitman," "odell," and "harding," but without avail; and eventually mr. gurney archer, of , abingdon street, westminster (successor to the old-established and eminent firm of messrs. w. b. gurney and sons, who have been the short-hand writers to the house of lords from time immemorial), kindly transcribed the short-hand notes, which referred to a speech relating to a cricket match, a portion of which had already been written out in long-hand, as above stated,--but there was not a word in the short-hand about edwin drood! so far, one portion of the mystery had been explained--not so the sketches, which were still believed to contain the key to _the mystery of edwin drood_. as a _dernier ressort_, application was made to the fountain-head--to mr. luke fildes, r.a., the famous illustrator of that beautiful work. he received me most courteously, scrutinized the document closely; we had a long chat about edwin drood generally, the substance of which has been given in a previous chapter--but he admitted that the sketches failed to give any solution of the mystery. the document was subsequently sent by mr. kitton to mrs. perugini, who at once replied that it had caused some merriment when she saw it again, as she remembered it very well. it had been done by her brother, mr. henry fielding dickens, when a young man living at home at gad's hill--that the short-hand notes referred to his speech at a dinner after one of the numerous cricket matches held there, and that the sketches were rough portraits of some of the cricketers. the capital letters at the side referred to a double acrostic. the heads of the speech had been suggested by his father as being desirable to be brought before the cricket club, which at that time was in a rather drooping condition. now although the original theory about this curious document entirely broke down, and not an atom has been added to what was already known about _the mystery of edwin drood_, still there is one subject of much interest which the document has brought to light. the short-hand is the same system, "gurney's," as that which charles dickens wrote as a reporter in his early newspaper days--a system not generally used now, but which he subsequently taught his son to write. of the many sheets which dickens covered with notes in days gone by not one remains. but there are two manuscripts by dickens in gurney's system of short-hand, now in the dyce and forster collection at south kensington, which relate to some private matters in connection with publishing arrangements. the document is certainly interesting from this point of view (_i. e._ the system which dickens used), and from its reference to life at gad's hill, and especially to cricket, the favourite game mentioned many times in this book, in which the novelist took so much interest. mr. henry fielding dickens, with whom i had on another occasion some conversation on the subject of this souvenir of his youth at gad's hill, remarked that many more important issues had hung upon much more slender evidence. it was done about the year - , before he went to college. at our interview mr. h. f. dickens told me the details of the following touching incident which happened at one of the cricket matches at gad's hill. his father was as usual attired in flannels, acting as umpire and energetically taking the score of the game, when there came out from among the bystanders a tall, grizzled, and sun-burnt sergeant of the guards. the sergeant walked straight up to mr. dickens, saying, "may i look at you, sir?" "oh, yes!" said the novelist, blushing up to the eyes. the sergeant gazed intently at him for a minute or so, then stood at attention, gave the military salute, and said, "god bless you, sir." he then walked off and was seen no more. in recounting this anecdote, mr. h. f. dickens agreed with me that, reading between the lines, one can almost fancy some lingering reminiscences similar to those in the early experience of private richard doubledick. footnotes: [ ] since our tramp in dickens-land, messrs. winch and sons have, with liberality and good taste, restored the old sign at this historic hostelry with which the memory of charles dickens is associated. it has been suggested that the sign may possibly have had its origin from the battle of agincourt fought on the day of "saints crispin-crispian," th october, . victories in more recent times have been thus commemorated on sign-boards, such as the _vigo_ expedition, and the fights at portobello, trafalgar, waterloo, alma, and elsewhere, and the heroes who won them thus celebrated. the sign, which is very well painted, represents the patron saints of the shoe-making fraternity, the holy brothers, crispin and crispian, at work on their cobbler's bench. the legend runs that it was at soissons, in the year , while they were so employed "labouring with their hands," that they were seized by the emissaries of the emperor maximinian, and led away to torture and to death. the sign is understood to have been faithfully copied from a well-known work preserved to this day, at the church of st. pantaléon at troyes.--abstract of a note in the _rochester and chatham journal_, october th, . [ ] enthusiastic admirers of dickens will doubtless envy me the possession of some remarkable memorials of the great writer. my friend mr. ball is kind enough to present me with a very curious souvenir of the novelist: his old garden hat! mr. ball's father obtained it from the gardener at gad's hill place, to whom it had been given after his master's death. the hat is a "grey-bowler," size - / , maker's name "hillhouse," bond street, and is the same hat that he is seen to wear in the photograph of him leaning against the entrance-porch, an engraving of which appears on page . many hats from shakespeare and gesler have become historical, and there is no reason why dickens's should not in the future be an equally interesting personal relic. the gift was accompanied by a couple of collars belonging to the novelist, with the initials "c. d." very neatly marked in red cotton. the collar is technically known as a "persigny," and its size is . last, not least, a small bottle of "very rare old madeira" from gad's hill, which calls to mind pleasant recollections of "the last bottle of the old madeira," opened by dear old sol. gills in the final chapter of _dombey and son_. needless to say, the consumption of the valued contents of dickens's bottle is reserved for a very special and appropriate occasion. [ ] this was written soon after our first visit to strood at the end of august, . within little more than two years afterwards, on thursday, th august, , i had the mournful pleasure of being present at the funeral of my friend, which took place at frindsbury church on that day, in the presence of the sorrowing relatives and of a large concourse of admirers, both local and from a distance. there were also present many representatives of distinguished scientific societies, including dr. john evans, f.r.s., treasurer of the royal society, and president of the society of antiquaries. the kindness which i received from mr. roach smith, to whom i presented myself in the first instance as a perfect stranger, and which was extended during the period of two years that i was privileged to enjoy his friendship, and at times his hospitality, would be ill requited if i did not here place on record my humble tribute of appreciation. born about the commencement of the present century at landguard manor house, near shanklin, isle of wight, after a somewhat diversified education and experience, he finally settled in london as a wholesale druggist, from which business he retired in , and came to live at temple place, strood. the bent of his mind was, however, distinctly in favour of archæology, and in this science, which he commenced in the early years of his business, his work has been enormous. in the matter of the identification of roman remains he was _facile princeps_, and for many years stood without a rival, his investigations and explorations extending over england and europe. his principal works are _collectanea antiqua_, seven volumes; _illustrations of roman london_; _catalogue of london antiquities_; _richborough, reculver, and lymne_, and numberless contributions scattered over the journal of the society of antiquaries, the _archæologia cantiana_, and other publications. he was an enthusiastic shakespearean, the author of the _rural life of shakespeare_, and of a little work on _the scarcity of home-grown fruits_. he also published two volumes of _retrospections: social and archæological_, and was engaged at his death in completing the third volume. he contributed many articles to dr. william smith's _classical dictionaries_, and other similar works. he was elected a fellow of the society of antiquaries so far back as , and at the time of his death was an honorary member or fellow of at least thirty learned societies of a kindred nature in great britain and on the continent, and had been honoured by his colleagues and admirers in having his medal struck on two occasions. "he was," says one of the highest of living scientists and writers, "one of the chief representatives of the _science_ of archæology as understood in its broadest and widest sense. he has never been a mere collector of remains of ancient art, regarded only as curiosities, but has always had in view their use as exponents of the great unwritten history--the history of the people--which is not to be obtained from other sources; his writings have tended to the same end. hence he stands as one of the foremost amongst those few of the present day who understand the science in its best and widest sense, his works being referred to as _the_ authority at home and abroad." speaking with his friend and companion for many years, mr. george payne, f.s.a., hon. sec. to the kent archæological society, on my last visit, about several personal characteristics of our mutual friend, such as his persistent energy and his indomitable disposition to stoically resist the infirmities of approaching age, and decline any assistance in helplessness, and especially as to the _quæstio vexata_, "bill stumps, his mark," mr. payne expressed his opinion, that at the bottom of his heart mr. roach smith may probably have had a feeling that dickens in some way (however unintentionally) slighted the science of archæology, which he (mr. roach smith) had all his life tried to elevate. a most distinguished antiquarian, a thoroughly honourable man, a versatile and accomplished gentleman, and a kind-hearted and liberal friend, the town of strood, to which he was for so many years endeared, will long and deservedly mourn his loss. [ ] it is interesting to place on record here, that the germ of charles dickens's "readings," which afterwards developed so marvellously both in england and america, originated in birmingham. on the th of december, , he read his _christmas carol_ in the town hall in aid of the funds of the institute. on the th he read _the cricket on the hearth_, and on the th he repeated the _carol_ to an audience principally composed of working men. the success was overwhelming. [ ] miss hogarth informs me that her brother-in-law frequently dined out in the neighbourhood, accompanied by his daughter and herself. chapter ix. chatham:--st. mary's church, ordnance terrace, the house on the brook, the mitre hotel, and fort pitt. landport:--portsea, hants. "the home of his infancy, to which his heart had yearned with an intensity of affection not to be described."--_the pickwick papers._ "i believe the power of observation in numbers of very young children to be quite wonderful for its closeness and accuracy. indeed, i think that most grown men who are remarkable in this respect, may, with greater propriety, be said not to have lost the faculty than to have acquired it; the rather, as i generally observe such men to retain a certain freshness, and gentleness, and capacity of being pleased, which are also an inheritance they have preserved from their childhood."--_david copperfield._ the naval and military town of chatham, unlike the cathedral city of rochester, has, at first sight, few attractions for the lover of dickens. mr. phillips bevan calls it "a dirty, unpleasant town devoted to the interests of soldiers, sailors, and marines." we are not disposed to agree entirely with him; but we must admit that it has little of the picturesque to recommend it--no venerable castle or cathedral to attract attention, no scenes in the novels of much importance to visit, no characters therein of much interest to identify. mr. pickwick's own description of the four towns of strood, rochester, chatham, and brompton, certainly applies more nearly to chatham than to the others; but things have improved in many ways since the days of that veracious chronicler, as we are glad to testify:-- "the principal productions of these towns," says mr. pickwick, "appear to be soldiers, sailors, jews, chalk, shrimps, officers, and dockyard men. the commodities chiefly exposed for sale in the public streets are marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-fish, and oysters. the streets present a lively and animated appearance, occasioned chiefly by the conviviality of the military. . . . "the consumption of tobacco in these towns," continues mr. pickwick, "must be very great; and the smell which pervades the streets must be exceedingly delicious to those who are extremely fond of smoking. a superficial traveller might object to the dirt, which is their leading characteristic; but to those who view it as an indication of traffic and commercial prosperity, it is truly gratifying." and yet for all this, there are circumstances to be noticed of the deepest possible interest connected with chatham, and spots therein to be visited, which every pilgrim to "dickens-land" must recognize. at chatham,--"my boyhood's home," as he affectionately calls it,--many of the earlier years of charles dickens (probably from his fourth to his eleventh) were passed; here it was "that the most durable of his earlier impressions were received; and the associations around him when he died were those which at the outset of his life had affected him most strongly." admirers of the great novelist are much indebted to mr. robert langton, f. r. hist. soc., for his _childhood and youth of charles dickens_, a book quite indispensable to a tramp in this neighbourhood, the charming illustrations by the late mr. william hull, the author, and others rendering the identification of places perfectly easy. dickens says, "if anybody knows to a nicety where rochester ends and chatham begins, it is more than i do." "it's of no consequence," as mr. toots would say, for the high street is one continuous thoroughfare, but as a matter of fact, a narrow street called boundary lane on the north side of high street separates the two places. a few words of recapitulation as to early family history[ ] may be useful here. john dickens, who is represented as "a fine portly man," was a navy pay-clerk, and elizabeth his wife (_née_ barrow), who is described as "a dear good mother and a fine woman," the parents of the future genius, resided in the beginning of this century at , mile end terrace, commercial road, landport, portsea,[ ] "and is so far in portsea as being in the island of that name." here charles dickens was born, at twelve o'clock at night, on friday, th february, . he was the second child and eldest son of a rather numerous family consisting of eight sons and daughters, and was baptized at st. mary's, kingston (the parish church of portsea), under the names of charles john huff_h_am; the last of these is no doubt a misspelling, as the name of his grandfather, from whom he took it, was huffam, but dickens himself scarcely ever used it. in the old family bible now in possession of mr. charles dickens it is huffam in his father's own handwriting. the dickens family left mile end terrace on th june, , and went to live in hawke street, portsea, from whence, in consequence of a change in official duties of the elder dickens, they removed to chatham in or , and resided there for six or seven years, until they went to live in london. bearing these circumstances in mind, it is very natural that we should determine on an early pilgrimage to chatham, and sunday morning sees us at the old church--st. mary's--where dickens himself must often have been taken as a child, and where he saw the marriage of his aunt fanny with james lamert, a staff doctor in the army,--the doctor slammer of _pickwick_,--of whom mr. langton says:--"the regimental surgeon's kindly manner, and his short odd way of expressing himself, still survive in the recollections of a few old people." dr. lamert's son james, by a former wife, was a great crony of young charles dickens, taking him to the rochester theatre, and getting up private theatricals in which they both acted. surely there is a faint description of those times in the second chapter of _david copperfield_:-- [illustration: st. mary's church, chatham.] "here is our pew in the church. what a high-backed pew! with a window near it, out of which our house can be seen, and _is_ seen many times during the morning's service by peggotty, who likes to make herself as sure as she can that it's not being robbed, or is not in flames. but though peggotty's eye wanders, she is much offended if mine does, and frowns to me, as i stand upon the seat, that i am to look at the clergyman. but i can't always look at him--i know him without that white thing on, and i am afraid of his wondering why i stare so, and perhaps stopping the service to enquire--and what am i to do? it's a dreadful thing to gape, but i must do something. i look at my mother, but _she_ pretends not to see me. i look at a boy in the aisle, and _he_ makes faces at me. i look at the sunlight coming in at the open door through the porch, and there i see a stray sheep--i don't mean a sinner, but mutton--half making up his mind to come into the church. i feel that if i looked at him any longer, i might be tempted to say something out loud; and what would become of me then!" the church, now undergoing reconstruction, is not a very presentable structure, and has little of interest to recommend it, except a brass to a famous navigator named stephen borough, the discoverer of the northern passage to russia ( ), and a monument to sir john cox, who was killed in an action with the dutch ( ). the name of weller occurs on a gravestone near the church door. we cross the high street, proceed along railway street, formerly rome lane, pass the chatham railway station (near which is a statue of lieutenant waghorn, r.n., "pioneer and founder of the overland route," born at chatham, , and died ),[ ] and find ourselves at ordnance terrace, a conspicuous row of two-storied houses, prominently situated on the higher ground facing us, beyond the station. in one of these houses (no. --formerly no. ) the dickens family resided from to . the present occupier is a mr. roberts, who kindly allows us to inspect the interior. it has the dining-room on the left-hand side of the entrance and the drawing-room on the first floor, and is altogether a pleasantly-situated, comfortable, and respectable dwelling. no. , "the second house in the terrace," is overgrown with a virginia creeper, which, from its possible association with dickens's earliest years, may have induced him to plant the now magnificent one which exists at gad's hill. "here it was," says forster, "that his first desire for knowledge, and his greatest passion for reading, were awakened by his mother, who taught him the first rudiments, not only of english, but also, a little later, of latin. she taught him regularly every day for a long time, and taught him, he was convinced, thoroughly well." mr. langton also says that "it was during his residence here that some of the happiest hours of the childhood of little charles were passed, as his father was in a fairly good position in the navy pay office, and they were a most genial, lovable family." here it was that the theatrical entertainments and the genial parties took place, when, in addition to his brothers and sisters and his cousin, james lamert, there were also present his friends and neighbours, george stroughill, and master and miss tribe. mr. langton further states that "ordnance terrace is known to have formed the locality and characters for some of the earlier _sketches by boz_." "the old lady" was a miss newnham, who lived at no. , and who was, by all accounts, very kind to the dickens children. the "half-pay captain" was also a near neighbour, and he is supposed to have supplied one of the earliest characters to dickens as a mere child. some of the neighbours at the corner house next door (formerly no. ) were named stroughill,--pronounced stro'hill (there was, it will be remembered, a _struggles_ at the famous cricket-match at all-muggleton)--and the son, george, is said to have had some of the characteristics of steerforth in _david copperfield_. he had a sister named lucy, probably the "golden lucy," from her beautiful locks, and who, according to mr. langton, "was the special favourite and little sweetheart of charles dickens." she was possibly the prototype of her namesake, in the beautiful story of the _wreck of the golden mary_. [illustration: no. , ordnance terrace, chatham. _where the dickens family lived - ._] about the year pecuniary embarrassments beset and tormented the dickens family, which were afterwards to be "ascribed in fiction" in the histories of the micawbers and the dorrits, and the family removed to the house on the brook. in order to follow their steps in perfect sequence, we have to return by the way we came from the church, cross the high street, and proceed along military road, so as to visit the obscure dwelling, no. , st. mary's place, situated in the valley through which a brook, now covered over, flows from the higher lands adjacent, into the medway. [illustration: the house on the brook, chatham. _where the dickens family lived - ._] the house on the brook--"plain-looking, whitewashed plaster front, and a small garden before and behind"--next door to the former providence (baptist) chapel, now the drill hall of the salvation army, is a very humble and unpretentious six-roomed dwelling, and of a style very different to the one in ordnance terrace. here the dickens family lived from to . the reverend william giles, the baptist minister, father of mr. william giles, the schoolmaster, formerly officiated at the chapel. this was the mr. giles who, when dickens was half-way through _pickwick_, sent him a silver snuff-box, with an admiring inscription to the "inimitable boz." dickens went to school at mr. giles's academy in clover lane (now clover street), chatham, and boys of this and neighbouring schools were thus nicknamed:-- "baker's bull-dogs, "giles's cats, "new road scrubbers, "troy town rats." [illustration: giles's school, chatham.] it was in the house on the brook that he acquired those "readings and imaginings" which in "boyish recollections" he describes as having been brought away from chatham:--"my father had left a small collection of books in a little room up-stairs, to which i had access (for it adjoined my own), and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. from that blessed little room _roderick random_, _peregrine pickle_, _humphry clinker_, _tom jones_, _the vicar of wakefield_, _don quixote_, _gil blas_, and _robinson crusoe_, came out, a glorious host to keep me company. they kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time,--they and the _arabian nights_, and the _tales of the genii_,--and did me no harm; for whatever harm was in some of them was not there for me. _i_ knew nothing of it." it is very probable that his first literary effort, _the tragedy of misnar, the sultan of india_, "founded" (says forster), "and very literally founded, no doubt, on the _tales of the genii_," was composed after perusal of some of the works above referred to, but it is to be feared that it was never even rehearsed. the circumstances of the family had so changed for the worse, that here were neither juvenile parties nor theatrical entertainments. a view from one of the upper windows of the house in st. mary's place gives the parish church and churchyard precisely as described in that pathetic little story, _a child's dream of a star_. charles dickens was the child who "strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things," and his little sister fanny--or his younger sister harriet ellen--was doubtless "his constant companion" referred to in the story. [illustration: mitre inn, chatham.] we leave with feelings of respect the humble but famous little tenement, its condition now sadly degraded; proceed along the high street, and soon reach "the mitre inn and clarence hotel," a solid-looking and comfortable house of entertainment, at which lord nelson and king william iv., when duke of clarence, frequently stayed, and (what is more to our purpose) where we find associations of charles dickens. there are a beautiful bowling-green and grounds at the back, approached by a series of terraces well planted with flowers, and the green is surrounded by fine elms which constitute quite an oasis in the desert of the somewhat prosaic chatham. the mitre is thus immortalized in the "guest's story" of the _holly tree inn_:-- "there was an inn in the cathedral town where i went to school, which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. i took it next. it was the inn where friends used to put up, and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and be tipped. it had an ecclesiastical sign--the 'mitre'--and a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. i loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction--but let that pass. it was in this inn that i was cried over by my rosy little sister, because i had acquired a black-eye in a fight. and though she had been, that holly-tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the mitre softened me yet." about the year the landlord of the mitre was mr. john tribe, and his family being intimate with the dickenses, young charles spent many pleasant evenings at the "genial parties" given at this fine old inn. mr. langton mentions that the late mr. alderman william tribe, son of mr. john tribe, the former proprietor, perfectly recollected charles dickens and his sister fanny coming to the mitre, and on one occasion their being mounted on a dining-table for a stage, and singing what was then a popular duet, _i. e._-- "long time i've courted you, miss, and now i've come from sea; we'll make no more ado, miss, but quickly married be. sing fal-de-ral," &c. the worthy alderman is also stated to have had in his possession a card of invitation to spend the evening at ordnance terrace, addressed from master and miss dickens to master and miss tribe, which was dated about this time. in consequence of the elder dickens being recalled from chatham to somerset house, to comply with official requirements, the family removed to london in ,[ ] "and took up its abode in a house in bayham street, camden town." dickens thus describes his journey to london in "dullborough town," one of the sketches in _the uncommercial traveller_:-- "as i left dullborough in the days when there were no railroads in the land, i left it in a stage-coach. through all the years that have since passed, have i ever lost the smell of the damp straw in which i was packed--like game--and forwarded, carriage paid, to the cross keys, wood street, cheapside, london? there was no other inside passenger, and i consumed my sandwiches in solitude and dreariness, and it rained hard all the way, and i thought life sloppier than i had expected to find it. . . ." mr. w. t. wildish, the proprietor of the _rochester and chatham journal_, kindly favours us with some interesting information which has recently appeared in his journal, relating to charles dickens's nurse--the mary weller of his boyhood (and perhaps the peggotty as well), but known to later generations as mrs. mary gibson of front row, ordnance place, chatham, who died in the spring of the year , at the advanced age of eighty-four. very touchingly, but unknowingly, did dickens write from gad's hill, th september, , being unaware that she was still living:-- "i feel much as i used to do when i was a small child, a few miles off, and somebody--_who_, i wonder, and which way did _she_ go when she died?--hummed the evening hymn, and i cried on the pillow--either with the remorseful consciousness of having kicked somebody else, or because still somebody else had hurt my feelings in the course of the day." mrs. gibson, when mary weller (what a host of pleasant recollections does the married name of the "pretty housemaid" bring up of the pickwickian days!), lived with the family of mr. john dickens, at no. , ordnance terrace, chatham, and afterwards when they moved to the house on the brook. her recollections were most vivid and interesting. according to the testimony of her son, communicated to mr. wildish, mrs. gibson "used to be very fond of talking of the time she passed with the dickens family, and one of her highest satisfactions in her later years was to hear charles dickens's works read by her son robert; and while listening to the descriptions of characters read to her, his mother would detect likenesses unsuspected by other persons whom dickens must have known when a boy; and she also agreed in thinking, with dickens's biographer, that in mr. micawber's troubles were related some of the experiences of the elder dickens, who is believed for a time to have occupied a debtor's prison. she, however, would never bring herself to believe that her hero was himself ever reduced to such great hardships as the blacking-bottle period in _david copperfield_ would suggest if taken literally. she used to speak of the future author as always fond of reading, and said he was wont to retire to the top room of the house on the brook, and spend what should have been his play-hours in poring over his books, or in acting to the furniture of the room the creatures that he had read about." mr. langton, who had a personal interview with mrs. gibson herself, has recorded the fact that she well remembered singing the evening hymn to the children of john dickens, and seemed very much surprised at being asked such a question. she lived with the family when dickens's little sister, harriet ellen, died--a circumstance that no doubt in after years inspired the _child's dream of a star_ already referred to. when the family removed to london, mary weller was pressed to accompany them, but was not in a position to accept the offer, in consequence of her promise to marry mr. thomas gibson, a shipwright of the chatham dockyard, with whom she lived happily until his death, in , at the age of eighty-two. mrs. gibson modestly declined, on her son robert's suggestion, to seek an introduction to charles dickens, when he read some of his works at the old mechanics' institute at chatham, fearing that he had forgotten her. it is certain, however, that, from the reproduction of her name as the pretty housemaid at mr. nupkins's at ipswich, and from the extract from the letter above referred to, she had a kindly place in his recollections. poor david copperfield, on his way to his aunt's at dover, stopped at chatham--"footsore and tired," he says, "and eating bread that i had bought for supper." he is afraid "because of the vicious looks of the trampers;" and even if he could have spared the few pence he possessed for a bed at the "one or two little houses" with the notice "lodgings for travellers," he would have hardly cared to go in, on account of the company he would have been thrown into. and so he says, "i sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and toiling into chatham--which, in that night's aspect, is a mere dream of chalk, and draw-bridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like noah's arks,--crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. here" [he continues] "i lay down near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps, . . . slept soundly until morning." of course it is not possible for us to identify this spot. "very stiff and sore of foot," he says, "i was in the morning, and quite dazed by the beating of drums and marching of troops, which seemed to hem me in on every side when i went down towards the long narrow street." however, he has to reserve his strength for getting to his journey's end, and to this effect he resolves upon selling his jacket. there are plenty of marine-store dealers at chatham, whom we notice on our tramp, but none of them would, we believe, now answer to the description of "an ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all covered with a stubbly grey beard, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum," such as he who assailed little david, in reply to his offer to sell the jacket, with, "oh, what do you want? oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want? oh--goroo, goroo!" after losing his time, and being rated at and frightened by this "dreadful old man to look at," who in every way tries to avoid giving him the money asked for,--half-a-crown,--offering him in exchange such useless things to a hungry boy as "a fishing-rod, a fiddle, a cocked hat, and a flute," the poor lad is obliged to close with the offer of a few pence, "with which [he says] i soon refreshed myself completely; and, being in better spirits then, limped seven miles upon my road." the convict prison at chatham is said to have been built on a piece of ground which, in the middle of the last century, belonged to one thomas clark, a singular character, who lived on the spot for many years by himself in a small cottage, and who used every night, as he went home, to sing or shout, "tom's all alone! tom's all alone!" this, according to the opinion of some, may have given rise to the "tom all alone's" of _bleak house_, more especially considering the fact that military operations were frequently going on at chatham, which dickens would notice in his early days. the circumstance is thus referred to in the novel:--"twice lately there has been a crash, and a crowd of dust, like the springing of a mine, in tom all alone's, and each time a house has fallen." mr. george robinson of strood directs our attention to the fact that a "child's caul," such as that described in the first chapter of _david copperfield_, which he was born with, and which was advertised "at the low price of fifteen guineas," would be a likely object to be sought after in a sea-faring town like chatham, in dickens's early days, when the schoolmaster was less abroad than he is now. in after years, memories of chatham dockyard appear in many of the sketches in the _uncommercial traveller_ and other stories. "one man in a dockyard" describes it as having "a gravity upon its red brick offices and houses, a staid pretence of having nothing to do, an avoidance of display, which i never saw out of england." "nurse's stories" says that "nails and copper are shipwrights' sweethearts, and shipwrights will run away with them whenever they can." in _great expectations_ the refrain, "beat it out, beat it out--old clem! with a clink for the stout--old clem!" which pip and his friends sang, is from a song which the blacksmiths in the dockyard used to sing in procession on st. clement's day. by accident we make the acquaintance of mr. william james budden of chatham, who informs us that charles dickens was better known there in his latter years for his efforts, by readings and otherwise, to place the mechanics' institute on a sound basis and free from debt. dickens, as the _uncommercial traveller_, thus describes the mechanics' institute and its early efforts to succeed:-- "as the town was placarded with references to the dullborough mechanics' institution, i thought i would go and look at that establishment next. there had been no such thing in the town in my young days, and it occurred to me that its extreme prosperity might have brought adversity upon the drama. i found the institution with some difficulty, and should scarcely have known that i had found it if i had judged from its external appearance only; but this was attributable to its never having been finished, and having no front: consequently, it led a modest and retired existence up a stable-yard. it was (as i learnt, on enquiry) a most flourishing institution, and of the highest benefit to the town: two triumphs which i was glad to understand were not at all impaired by the seeming drawbacks that no mechanics belonged to it, and that it was steeped in debt to the chimney-pots. it had a large room, which was approached by an infirm step-ladder: the builder having declined to construct the intended staircase, without a present payment in cash, which dullborough (though profoundly appreciative of the institution) seemed unaccountably bashful about subscribing." mr. budden is of opinion that the origin of the "fat boy" in _pickwick_ was mr. james budden, late of the red lion inn in military road, who afterwards acquired a competence, and who had the honour of entertaining dickens at a subsequent period of his life. mr. budden is under the impression, from local hearsay, that dingley dell formerly existed somewhere in the neighbourhood of burham. * * * * * we are obligingly favoured with an interview by mr. john baird of new brompton, chairman of the chatham waterworks company, although he is suffering from serious indisposition at the time of our visit. this gentleman was born in (two years before charles dickens), and recollects reading with delight the famous _sketches by boz_, as they appeared in the _morning chronicle_. the most curious coincidence about mr. baird is, that in stature and facial appearance he is the very counterpart of the late charles dickens in the flesh--his double, so to speak. this remarkable resemblance, our informant says, is "something to be proud of, to be mistaken for so great a man, but it was very inconvenient at times." on one occasion, as mr. baird was hastening to catch a train at rochester bridge station, a stout elderly lady, handsomely dressed, supposed to be dean scott's wife,--but to whom he was unknown,--bowed very politely to him, and in slackening his pace to return the compliment, which he naturally did not understand, he very nearly missed his train. sir arthur otway told mr. baird that the rev. mr. webster, late vicar of chatham, had always mistaken him for charles dickens. at one of the readings given by dickens on behalf of the mechanics' institute at chatham, mr. charles collins, his son-in-law, and his wife and her sister being present in the reserved seats in the gallery, mr. baird noticed that they looked very eagerly at him, and this pointed notice naturally made him feel very uncomfortable. dickens himself, accompanied by his son and daughter, once passed our friend in the street, and scanned him very closely, and he fancies that dickens called attention to the resemblance. at the last reading which the novelist gave at chatham, mr. baird being present as one of the audience, the policeman at the door mistook him for dickens, and shouted to those in attendance outside, "mr. dickens's carriage!" it is interesting to add, that after the reading a cordial vote of thanks to dickens was proposed by mr. h. g. adams, the naturalist, at one time editor of _the kentish coronal_, who recounted the well-known story of the novelist's father taking him, when a little boy, to see gad's hill place, and of the strong impression it made upon his mind. our informant had the honour of meeting dickens at dinner at mr. james budden's, and states that he was standing against the mantel-piece in the drawing-room when the novelist arrived, and that he walked up to him and shook hands cordially, without the usual ceremony of introduction. dickens was no doubt too polite to refer to the curious resemblance. but the most remarkable case remains to be told, illustrating the converse of the old proverb--"it is a wise father that knows his own child." this is given in mr. baird's own words:-- "my daughter, when a little girl about six years old, was with her mother and some friends in a railway carriage at strood station (next rochester), and one of them called the child's attention to a gentleman standing on the platform, asking if she knew who he was. with surprised delight she at once exclaimed, 'that's my papa!' that same gentleman was mr. charles dickens!" mr. baird speaks of the great appreciation which the people of chatham had of dickens's services at the readings, and says it was very good and kind of him to give those services gratuitously. he confirms the general opinion as to the origin of the "fat boy," and the "very fussy little man" at fort pitt, who was the prototype of dr. slammer. it struck us both forcibly that mr. baird's appearance at the time of our visit was very like the last american photograph of dickens, taken by gurney in . * * * * * mr. j. e. littlewood[ ] of high street, chatham, knew charles dickens about the year or at the royalty (miss kelly's) theatre in dean street, soho, our informant having been in times past a bit of an amateur actor, and played bob acres in _the rivals_. he subsequently heard dickens read at the chatham mechanics' institute about , and said that the facial display in the trial scene from _pickwick_ (one of the pieces read) was wonderful. he had the honour of dining at the late mr. budden's in high street, opposite military road, to meet dickens. there was a large company present. in acknowledging the toast of his health, which had been proposed at the dinner--either by sir arthur otway or captain fanshawe--dickens said he was very pleased to read "in memory of the old place," meaning chatham, but that he might be reading "all the year round" for charities. mr. littlewood also heard dickens say, that "he had passed many happy hours in the house on the brook" looking at "the lines" opposite. "at that time" (said our informant) "the place was more rural--considered a decent spot--not so crowded up as now--nor so vulgar--many respectable people lived there in dickens's boyhood. the place has sadly changed since for the worse." * * * * * mr. humphrey wood, solicitor, of chatham, was, about the year , local hon. secretary to the royal society for the prevention of cruelty to animals, and, having applied to charles dickens to give a reading on behalf of the society, received the following polite answer to his application. if only a few words had to be said, they were well said and to the purpose. "gad's hill place, "higham by rochester, kent. "_thursday, th september, ._ "sir, "in reply to your letter, i beg to express my regret that my compliance with the request it communicates to me, is removed from within the bounds of reasonable possibility by the nature of my engagements, present and prospective. "your faithful servant, "charles dickens. "humphrey wood, esq." like other towns in kent, chatham contains many names which are suggestive of some of dickens's characters, _viz._ dowler, whiffen, kimmins, wyles, arkcoll, perse, winch, wildish, hockaday, mowatt, hunnisett, and others. it is, of course, scarcely necessary to mention, in passing, that chatham is one of the most important centres of ship-building for the royal navy; the dockyards--often referred to in dickens's minor works--cover more than seventy acres, and are most interesting. here, at the navy pay-office, the elder dickens was employed during his residence at chatham. fort pitt next claims our attention. it stands on the high ground above the railway station at chatham, just beyond ordnance terrace. in charles dickens's early days, and indeed long after, until the establishment of the magnificent institution at netley, fort pitt was the principal military hospital in england, and was visited by her majesty during the crimean war. it is still used as a hospital, and contains about two hundred and fifty beds. the interesting museum which previously existed there has been removed to netley. from fort pitt we see the famous "chatham lines," which constitute the elaborate and almost impregnable fortifications of this important military and ship-building town. the "lines" were commenced as far back as , and stretch from gillingham to brompton, a distance of several miles, enclosing the peninsula formed by the bend of the river medway. forster says:-- [illustration: navy pay-office, chatham.] "by rochester and the medway to the chatham lines was a favourite walk with charles dickens. he would turn out of rochester high street through the vines, . . . would pass round by fort pitt, and coming back by frindsbury would bring himself by some cross-fields again into the high-road." the chatham lines are locally understood as referring to a piece of ground about three or four hundred yards square, near fort pitt, used as an exercising-ground for the military. chapter iv. of _pickwick_, "describing a field day and bivouac," refers to the chatham lines as the place where the review was held, on the third day of the visit of the pickwickians to this neighbourhood, and which (having been relieved of the company of their quondam friend, mr. jingle, who had caused at least one of the party so much anxiety) they all attended, possibly at mr. pickwick's suggestion, as he is stated to have been "an enthusiastic admirer of the army." the programme is thus referred to:-- "the whole population of rochester and the adjoining towns, rose from their beds at an early hour of the following morning, in a state of the utmost bustle and excitement. a grand review was to take place upon the lines. the manoeuvres of half a dozen regiments were to be inspected by the eagle eye of the commander-in-chief; temporary fortifications had been erected, the citadel was to be attacked and taken, and a mine was to be sprung." the evolutions of this "ceremony of the utmost grandeur and importance" proceed. mr. pickwick and his two friends (mr. tupman "had suddenly disappeared, and was nowhere to be found"), who are told to keep back, get hustled and pushed by the crowd, and the unoffending mr. snodgrass, who is in "the very extreme of human torture," is derided and asked "vere he vos a shovin' to." subsequently they get hemmed in by the crowd, "are exposed to a galling fire of blank cartridges, and harassed by the operations of the military." mr. pickwick loses his hat, and not only regains that useful article of dress, but finds the lost mr. tupman, and the pickwickians make the acquaintance of old wardle and his hospitable family from dingley dell, by whom they are heartily entertained, and from whom they receive a warm invitation to visit manor farm on the morrow. there is a fine view of chatham and rochester from the fields round fort pitt, and on a bright sunny morning the air coming over from the kentish hills is most refreshing, very different indeed to what it was on a certain evening in mr. winkle's life, when "a melancholy wind sounded through the deserted fields like a giant whistling for his house-dog." we ramble about for an hour or more, and in imagination call up the pleasant times which charles dickens, as a boy, spent here. [illustration: fort pitt, chatham.] almost every inch of the ground must have been gone over by him. what a delightful "playing-field" this and the neighbouring meadows must have been to him and his young companions, before the railway and the builder took possession of some of the lower portions of the hill which forms the base of fort pitt. "here," says mr. langton, "is the place where the schools of rochester and chatham used to meet to settle their differences, and to contend in the more friendly rivalry of cricket," and no doubt dickens frequently played when "joe specks" in dullborough "kept wicket." in after life the memory of the past came back to dickens with all its freshness, when he again visited the neighbourhood as the _uncommercial traveller_ in "dullborough":-- "with this tender remembrance upon me" [that of leaving chatham as a boy], "i was cavalierly shunted back into dullborough the other day, by train. my ticket had been previously collected, like my taxes, and my shining new portmanteau had had a great plaster stuck upon it, and i had been defied by act of parliament to offer an objection to anything that was done to it, or me, under a penalty of not less than forty shillings or more than five pounds, compoundable for a term of imprisonment. when i had sent my disfigured property on to the hotel, i began to look about me; and the first discovery i made, was, that the station had swallowed up the playing-field. "it was gone. the two beautiful hawthorn-trees, the hedge, the turf, and all those buttercups and daisies, had given place to the stoniest of jolting roads; while, beyond the station, an ugly dark monster of a tunnel kept its jaws open, as if it had swallowed them and were ravenous for more destruction. the coach that had carried me away, was melodiously called timpson's blue-eyed maid, and belonged to timpson, at the coach-office up street; the locomotive engine that had brought me back was called severely no. , and belonged to s.e.r., and was spitting ashes and hot-water over the blighted ground. "when i had been let out at the platform-door, like a prisoner whom his turnkey grudgingly released, i looked in again over the low wall, at the scene of departed glories. here, in the haymaking time, had i been delivered from the dungeons of seringapatam, an immense pile (of haycock), by my countrymen, the victorious british (boy next door and his two cousins), and had been recognized with ecstasy by my affianced one (miss green), who had come all the way from england (second house in the terrace) to ransom me, and marry me." fort pitt must have had considerable attractions in mr. pickwick's time, as it would appear that it was visited by him and his friends on the first day of their arrival at rochester. lieutenant tappleton (dr. slammer's second), when presenting the challenge for the duel, thus speaks to mr. winkle in the second chapter of _pickwick_:-- "'you know fort pitt?' "'yes; i saw it yesterday.' "'if you will take the trouble to turn into the field which borders the trench, take the foot-path to the left, when you arrive at an angle of the fortification; and keep straight on till you see me; i will precede you to a secluded place, where the affair can be conducted without fear of interruption.' "'_fear_ of interruption!' thought mr. winkle." everybody remembers how the meeting took place on fort pitt. mr. winkle, attended by his friend mr. snodgrass, as second, is punctuality itself. "'we are in excellent time,' said mr. snodgrass, as they climbed the fence of the first field; 'the sun is just going down.' mr. winkle looked up at the declining orb, and painfully thought of the probability of his 'going down' himself, before long." presently the officer appears, "the gentleman in the blue cloak," and "slightly beckoning with his hand to the two friends, they follow him for a little distance," and after climbing a paling and scaling a hedge, enter a secluded field. dr. slammer is already there with his friend dr. payne,--dr. payne of the rd, "the man with the camp-stool." the arrangements proceed, when suddenly a check is experienced. "'what's all this?' said dr. slammer, as his friend and mr. snodgrass came running up.--'that's not the man.' "'not the man!' said dr. slammer's second. "'not the man!' said mr. snodgrass. "'not the man!' said the gentleman with the camp-stool in his hand. "'certainly not,' replied the little doctor. 'that's not the person who insulted me last night.' "'very extraordinary!' exclaimed the officer. "'very,' said the gentleman with the camp-stool." mutual explanations follow, and, notwithstanding the temporary dissatisfaction of dr. payne, mr. winkle comes out like a trump--defends the honour of the pickwick club and its uniform, and wins the admiration of dr. slammer. "'my dear sir,' said the good-humoured little doctor, advancing with extended hand, 'i honour your gallantry. permit me to say, sir, that i highly admire your conduct, and extremely regret having caused you the inconvenience of this meeting, to no purpose.' "'i beg you won't mention it, sir,' said mr. winkle. "'i shall feel proud of your acquaintance, sir,' said the little doctor. "'it will afford me the greatest pleasure to know you, sir,' replied mr. winkle. "thereupon the doctor and mr. winkle shook hands, and then mr. winkle and lieutenant tappleton (the doctor's second), and then mr. winkle and the man with the camp-stool, and finally mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass: the last-named gentleman in an excess of admiration at the noble conduct of his heroic friend. "'i think we may adjourn,' said lieutenant tappleton. "'certainly,' added the doctor." we ourselves also adjourn, taking with us many pleasant memories of chatham and fort pitt, and of the period relating to "the childhood and youth of charles dickens." [illustration: birthplace of charles dickens, mile end terrace, commercial road, landport.] * * * * * no tramp in "dickens-land" can possibly be complete without a visit to the birthplace of the great novelist, and on another occasion we therefore devote a day to portsea, hants. a fast train from victoria by the london, brighton, and south coast railway takes us to portsmouth town, the nearest station, which is about half a mile from commercial road, and a tram-car puts us down at the door. we immediately recognize the house from the picture in mr. langton's book, but the first impression is that the illustration scarcely does justice to it. from the picture it appears to us to be a very ordinary house in a row, and to be situated rather low in a crowded and not over respectable neighbourhood. nothing of the kind. the house, no. , mile end terrace, commercial road, landport, where the parents of charles dickens resided before they removed to another part of portsea, and subsequently went to live at chatham, and where the future genius first saw light, was eighty years ago quite in a rural neighbourhood; and in those days must have been considered rather a genteel residence for a family of moderate means in the middle class. even now, with the pressure which always attends the development of large towns, and their extension on the border-land of green country by the frequent conversion of dwelling-houses into shops, or the intrusion of shops where dwelling-houses are, this residence has escaped and remains unchanged to this day. there is another point of real importance to notice. mr. langton, referring to this house, says:--"the engraving shows the little fore-court or front garden, with the low kitchen window of the house, whence the movements of charles [who is presumably represented in the engraving by the figure of a boy about two or three years old, with curly locks, dressed in a smart frock, and having a large ball in his right hand], attended by his dear little sister fanny, could be overlooked."[ ] very pretty indeed, but alas! i am afraid, purely imaginary, considering, as will hereafter appear, that charles was a baby in arms, aged about four months and sixteen days, when his parents quitted the house in which he was born. the house is now, and has been for many years, occupied by miss sarah pearce, the surviving daughter of mr. john dickens's landlord, her sisters, who formerly lived with her, being all dead. it stands high on the west side of a good broad road, opposite an old-fashioned villa called angus house, in the midst of well-trimmed grounds, and the situation is very open, pleasant, and cheerful. it is red-brick built, has a railing in front, and is approached by a little entrance-gate opening on to a lawn, whereon there are a few flower-beds; a hedge divides the fore-court from the next house,[ ] and a few steps guarded by a handrail lead to the front door. it is a single-fronted, eight-roomed house, having two underground kitchens, two floors above, and a single dormer window high up in the sloping red-tiled roof. as is usual with old-fashioned houses of this type, the shutters to the lower windows are outside. both the front and back parlours on the ground floor are very cheerful, cosy little rooms (in one of them we are glad to see a portrait of the novelist), and the view from the back parlour looking down into the well-kept garden, which abuts on other gardens, is very pretty, marred only by a large gasometer in the distance, which could hardly have been erected in young charles dickens's earliest days. in the garden we notice a lovely specimen of the _lavatera arborea_, or tree-mallow, covered with hundreds of white and purple blossoms. it is a rarity to see such a handsome, well-grown tree, standing nearly eight feet high, and it is not unlikely, from the luxuriance of its growth, that it existed in charles dickens's infancy. from the pleasant surroundings of the place generally, and from the fact that flowers are much grown in the neighbourhood (especially roses), it is more than probable that dickens's love for flowers was early developed by these associations. the road leads to cosham, and to the picturesque old ruin of porchester castle, a nice walk from the town of portsmouth, and probably often traversed by dickens, his sister, and his nurse. mr. langton states that "it is said in after years charles dickens could remember places and things at portsmouth that he had not seen since he was an infant of little more than two years old (he left portsmouth when he was only four or five), and there is no doubt whatever that many of the earliest reminiscences of _david copperfield_ were also tender childish memories of his own infancy at this place." mr. william pearce, solicitor of portsea, son of the former landlord, and brother of miss sarah pearce, the present occupant, has been kind enough to supply the following interesting information respecting no. , mile end terrace:-- "the celebrated novelist was born in the front bedroom of the above house, which my sisters many years ago converted into a drawing-room, and it is still used as such. "mr. john dickens, the father of the novelist, and his wife came to reside in the house directly after they were married. mr. john dickens rented the house of my father at £ a-year, from the th june, , until the th june, , when he quitted, and moved into hawke street, in the town of portsea. miss fanny dickens, the novelist's sister, was the first child born in the house, and then the novelist. "i was born on the nd february, , and have often heard my mother say that mr. gardner, the surgeon, and mrs. purkis, the monthly nurse (both of whom attended my mother with me and her six other children), attended mrs. dickens with her two children, fanny and charles, who were both born in the above house; besides this, mrs. purkis has often called on my sisters at the house in question, and alluded to the above circumstances. [illustration: st. mary's church, portsea.] "mr. cobb (whom i recollect), a fellow-clerk of mr. john dickens in the pay-office in the portsmouth dockyard, rented the same house of my father after mr. john dickens left, and often alluded to the many happy hours he spent in it while mr. dickens resided there." we next visit the site of old kingston parish church,--st. mary's, portsea--where charles dickens was baptized on th march, . a very handsome and large new church, costing nearly forty thousand pounds, and capable of seating over two thousand persons, has been erected, and occupies the place of the old church, where the ceremony took place. mr. langton has given a very pretty little drawing of the old church in his book, so that its associations are preserved to lovers of dickens. the old church itself was the second edifice erected on the same spot, and thus the present one is the third parish church which has been built here. there is a large and crowded burial-ground attached to it; but a cursory examination does not disclose any names on the gravestones to indicate characters in the novels. it is right to note here, that the kind people of portsmouth were desirous of inserting a stained-glass window in their beautiful new church to the memory of one of their most famous sons (the eminent novelist, mr. walter besant, was born at portsmouth, as also were isambard k. brunel, the engineer, and messrs. george and vicat cole, royal academicians), but they were debarred by the conditions of dickens's will, which expressly interdicted anything of the kind. it states:-- "i conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. i rest my claim to the remembrance of my country upon my published works, and to the remembrance of my friends upon their experience of me in addition thereto." before leaving portsmouth, we just take a hasty glance at the theatre royal, which remains much as it was during the days of mr. vincent crummles and his company, as graphically described in the twenty-second and following chapters of _nicholas nickleby_. of that genial manager, mr. t. edgar pemberton, in his _charles dickens and the stage_, observes:-- "every line that is written about mr. crummles and his followers is instinct with good-natured humour, and from the moment when, in the road-side inn 'yet twelve miles short of portsmouth,' the reader comes into contact with the kindly old circuit manager, he finds himself in the best of good company." mr. rimmer, in his _about england with dickens_, referring to the "common hard" at portsmouth, says that the "people there point out in a narrow lane leading to the wharf, the house where nicholas is supposed to have sojourned." footnotes: [ ] so far as i am aware, nothing has been done to trace the genealogy of the dickens family, and it may therefore be of interest to place on record the title of, and an extract from, a very scarce and curious thin quarto volume (pp. - ) in my collection. sir walter scott was immensely proud of his lineage and historical associations, but it would be a wonderful thing if we could trace the descent of charles dickens from king edward iii. in the _rambler in worcestershire_ (longmans, ), mr. john noake, the author, in alluding to the parish of churchill, worcestershire, says:--"the dickens family of bobbington were lords of this manor from to , and it is said that from this family mr. dickens, the author, is descended." [title.] a posthumous poem of the late thomas dickens, esq., lieut.-colonel in the first regiment of foot guards, dedicated, by permission, to his royal highness, the duke of gloucester, to which is added the genealogy of the author from king edward iii.; also a few grateful stanzas to the deity, three months previous to his death, _sep. st, _. cambridge: printed by j. archdeacon, printer to the university. and may be had of the editor, c. dickens, ll.d., near huntingdon, and of t. payne and son, booksellers, london. mdccxc. above the title is written in ink: "peter cowling to charles robert dickens, rd son to sam. trevor dickens, this th august, , and from said chas. r. dickens to his loved father, on the th june, ." [extract.] genealogy of the late thomas dickens, esq. king edward iii. lionel, duke of clarence his son philippa, married to edmund mortimer, earl of march his daughter roger, earl of march her son ann, who married richard, duke of york and earl of cambridge his daughter richard, duke of york her son george, duke of clarence, brother to edward iv. his son countess of salisbury his daughter viscount montague her son lady barrington his daughter sir francis barrington her son lady masham his daughter william masham, esq. her son sir francis masham her son johanna masham, who married counsellor hildesley his daughter john hildesley, esq. her son mary hildesley, who married the reverend samuel dickens his daughter thomas dickens, esq., the author her son opposite george, duke of clarence, is written in ink, "drown'd in a butt of malmsey madeira," and following thomas dickens, esq., the author, also written in ink-- "lieut.-gen. sir saml. t. dickens, k.c.h. his son capt. saml. t. dickens, r.n. his son" and following the last-mentioned names written in pencil-- "admiral samuel trevor dickens, r.n. my son" also written in pencil underneath the above-- "qy. charles dickens the novelist." [ ] in a copy--in my collection--of the second edition vo of "_the history and antiquities of rochester and its environs_, embellished with engravings (pp. i-xvii, - ), printed and sold by w. wildash, rochester, ," there occurs in the list of subscribers--about four hundred in number--the name:--dickens mr. john, chatham. [ ] a most interesting paper entitled "the life and labours of lieutenant waghorn," appeared in _household words_ (no. ), august th, . [ ] see note to chapter ii. p. . [ ] since this was written, mr. littlewood has passed over to the great majority. he was found drowned near chatham pier in march, . [ ] this was taken from the first edition of mr. langton's book, published in . in the new edition, --a beautiful volume--this passage has been eliminated, but the engraving is untouched. [ ] this house is appropriately named "highland house," and was also the property of john dickens's landlord, in which the family then and for many years after resided. at the time referred to mr. pearce owned not only the above-mentioned houses, but all the surrounding property. chapter x. aylesford, town malling, and maidstone. "its river winding down from the mist on the horizon, as though that were its source, and already heaving with a restless knowledge of its approach towards the sea."--_edwin drood._ "oh, the solemn woods over which the light and shadow travelled swiftly, as if heavenly wings were sweeping on benignant errands through the summer air; the smooth green slopes, the glittering water, the garden where the flowers were symmetrically arranged in clusters of the richest colours, how beautiful they looked!"--_bleak house._ another delightful morning, fine but overcast, favours our tramp in this neighbourhood. we are up betimes on monday, and take the train by the south-eastern railway from strood station to aylesford. it is a distance of nearly eight miles between these places; and the intermediate stations of any note which we pass on the way are cuxton (about three miles) and snodland (about two miles further on), which are two large villages. as the railway winds, we obtain excellent views of the chalk escarpments on the series of hills opposite, these being the result of centuries of quarrying. the land on either side of the river is marshy and intersected by numerous water-courses. these grounds are locally termed "saltings," caused by the overflow of the medway at certain times, and are used as sanitaria for horses which require bracing. [illustration: aylesford] cuxton is at the entrance of the valley between the two chalk ranges of hills which form the water-parting of the river medway. as mr phillips bevan rightly observes--"this valley is utilized for quarrying and lime-burning to such an extent, that it has almost the appearance of a northern manufacturing district," but it is a consolation, on the authority of sir a. c. ramsay, to know that "man cannot permanently disfigure nature!" at snodland the river becomes narrower, and the scenery of the valley is more picturesque. early british and roman remains have been found in the district, and according to the authority previously quoted--"in one of the quarries, which are abundant, dr. mantell discovered some of the most interesting and rarest chalk fossils with which we are acquainted, including the fossil turtle (_chelonia benstedi_)." alighting from the train at aylesford station, we have but a few minutes to ramble by the river, the banks of which are brightened by the handsome flowers of the purple loosestrife. we notice the charming position of the norman church, which stands on an eminence on the right bank of the medway, overlooking the main street, and is surrounded by fine old elm trees--the bells were chiming "home, sweet home," a name very dear to dickens. the medway ceases to be a tidal river at allington beyond aylesford, and one or other of the weirs at allington or farleigh (further on) may have suggested the idea of "cloisterham weir" in _edwin drood_; but they are too far distant (as shown in chapter v.) to fit in with the story. the ancient stone bridge which spans the medway at aylesford is seven-arched; a large central one, and three smaller ones on either side. one or two of the arches on the left bank are filled up, as though the river had silted on that side. mr. roach smith considers the bridge to be a very fine specimen of mediæval architecture. it is somewhat narrow, but there are large abutments which afford shelter to foot passengers. [illustration: aylesford bridge] we are much inclined to think that aylesford bridge was in the mind of dickens when he makes the pickwickians cross the medway, only a wooden bridge is mentioned in the text for the purpose perhaps of concealing identity. the place is certainly worth visiting, and the approach to it by the river is exceedingly picturesque. aylesford is supposed to be the place where the great battle between hengist and vortigern took place. near to it, at a place called horsted, is the tomb of horsa, who fell in the battle between the britons and saxons, a.d. . names of dickens's characters, brooks, joy, etc., occur at aylesford. there is a very fine quarry here, from whence the famous kentish rag-stone--"a concretionary limestone"--is obtained. it forms the base, and is overlaid by the hassock sands and the river drift. in the distance is seen the bold series of chalk rocks constituting the ridge of the valley. just outside aylesford we pass preston hall, a fine modern tudor mansion standing in very pretty grounds, and belonging to mr. h. brassey. we now resume our tramp towards the principal point of our destination, town malling,[ ] or west malling, as it is indifferently called (the "a" in malling being pronounced long, as in "calling"). the walk from aylesford lies through the village of larkview, and is rather pretty, but there is nothing remarkable to notice until we approach town malling. here it becomes beautifully wooded, especially in the neighbourhood of clare house park, the spanish or edible chestnut, with its handsome dark green lanceolate serrate leaves, and clumps of scotch firs, with their light red trunks and large cones, the result of healthy growth, which would have delighted the heart of mr. ruskin, being conspicuous. on the road we pass a field sown with maize, a novelty to one accustomed to the midlands. the farmer to whom it belongs says that it is a poor crop this year, owing to the excess of wet and late summer, but in a good season it gives a fine yield. we are informed that it is used in the green state as food for cattle and chickens. [illustration: the high st town malling] a pleasant tramp of about three miles brings us to town malling, which stands on the kentish rag. the approach to town malling is by a waterfall, and there are the ruins of the old nunnery, founded by bishop gundulph in , in the place. east malling is a smaller town, and lies nearer to maidstone. our object in visiting this pretty, old-fashioned kentish country town, is to verify its identity with that of muggleton of the _pickwick papers_. great weight must be attached to the fact that the present mr. charles dickens, in his annotated jubilee edition of the above work, introduces a very pretty woodcut of "high street, town malling," with a note to the effect that-- "muggleton, perhaps, is only to be taken as a fancy sketch of a small country town; but it is generally supposed, and probably with sufficient accuracy, that, if it is in any degree a portrait of any kentish town, town malling, a great place for cricket in mr. pickwick's time, sat for it." the reader will remember that when at the hospitable mr. wardle's residence at manor farm in dingley dell (by the bye, there is a veritable "manor farm" at frindsbury, near strood, with ponds adjacent, which may perhaps have suggested the episode of mr. pickwick on the ice), an excursion was determined on by the pickwickians to witness a grand cricket match about to be played between the "all muggleton" and the "dingley dellers," a conference first took place as to whether the invalid, mr. tupman, should remain or go with them. "'shall we be justified,' asked mr. pickwick, 'in leaving our wounded friend to the care of the ladies?' "'you cannot leave me in better hands,' said mr. tupman. "'quite impossible,' said mr. snodgrass." the result of the conference was satisfactory. "it was therefore settled that mr. tupman should be left at home in charge of the females, and that the remainder of the guests under the guidance of mr. wardle should proceed to the spot, where was to be held that trial of skill, which had roused all muggleton from its torpor, and inoculated dingley dell with a fever of excitement. "as their walk, _which was not above two miles long_,[ ] lay through shady lanes and sequestered footpaths, and as their conversation turned upon the delightful scenery by which they were on every side surrounded, mr. pickwick was almost inclined to regret the expedition they had used, when he found himself in the main street of the town of muggleton." the chronicle of _pickwick_ then proceeds to state that-- "muggleton is a corporate town, with a mayor, burgesses, and freemen; . . . an ancient and loyal borough, mingling a zealous advocacy of christian principles with a devoted attachment to commercial rights; in demonstration whereof, the mayor, corporation, and other inhabitants, have presented at divers times, no fewer than one thousand four hundred and twenty petitions, against the continuance of negro slavery abroad, and an equal number against any interference with the factory system at home; sixty-eight in favour of the sales of livings in the church, and eighty-six for abolishing sunday trading in the streets." on the occasion of their second visit to manor farm to spend christmas, the pickwickians came by the "muggleton telegraph," which stopped at the "blue lion," and they walked over to dingley dell. assuming, as has been suggested by mr. frost in his _in kent with charles dickens_, that dingley dell is somewhere on the eastern side of the river medway, within fifteen miles of rochester,--mr. william james budden (a gentleman whom we met at chatham) gave as his opinion that it was near burham,[ ]--then it would require a much greater walk than that ("which was not above two miles long") to reach town malling (leaving out of the question the fact that burham is only about six miles from rochester instead of fifteen miles, as the waiter at the bull told mr. pickwick in reply to his enquiry), whereby we reluctantly for the time arrive at the conclusion,--as mr. frost did before us--that dingley dell as such near town malling cannot be identified. on another visit to "dickens-land" mr. r. l. cobb suggested that cobtree hall, near aylesford, was the prototype of dingley dell. it may have been; but except one goes as the crow flies, it is more than two miles distant from town malling. but as captain cuttle would say--we "make a note of it." after all, dingley dell is no doubt a type of an english yeoman's hospitable home. there are numbers of such in kent, warwickshire, worcestershire, devonshire, and other counties, and the one in question may have been seen by dickens almost anywhere. there is, at any rate, one objection to muggleton being town malling--the latter is not, as mentioned in the text, "a corporate town." the neighbouring corporate towns which might be taken for it are faversham, tunbridge wells, and seven oaks; but, as mr. rimmer, in his _about england with dickens_, points out--"these have no feature in common with the enterprising borough which had so distinguished itself in the matter of petitions." on the other hand, there is _one_ very strong reason in favour of town malling, and that is its devotion to the noble old english game of cricket. so far as we could make out, no town in kent has done better service in this respect. but more of this presently. * * * * * [illustration: cob tree hall] so many friends recommended us to see cobtree hall that, after the foregoing was written, we determined to follow their advice, and on a subsequent occasion we take the train to aylesford and walk over, the distance being a pleasant stroll of about a mile. we were well repaid. the mansion, formerly called coptray friars, belonging to the aylesford friary, is an elizabethan structure of red brick with stone facings prettily covered with creeping plants, standing on an elevated position in a beautifully wooded and undulating country overlooking the medway and surrounded by cherry orchards and hop gardens. major trousdell was so courteous as to show us over the building, which has been altered and much enlarged during the last half century. internally there is something to favour the hypothesis of its being the type of manor farm, dingley dell. such portions of the old building remaining, as the kitchen, are highly suggestive of the gathering described in that good-humoured christmas chapter of _pickwick_ (xxviii.), and there is a veritable beam to correspond with phiz's plate of "christmas eve at mr. wardle's." "the best sitting-room, [described as] a good long, dark-panelled room with a high chimney-piece, and a capacious chimney up which you could have driven one of the new patent cabs, wheels and all," may still be discerned in the handsome modern dining-room, with carved marble mantel-piece of massive size formerly supplied with old-fashioned "dogs." the views from the bay-window are very extensive and picturesque. the mansion divides the two parishes of boxley and allington, the initials of which are carved on the beam in the kitchen. externally, there is much more to commend it to our acceptance. remains of a triangular piece of ground, with a few elm-trees, still survive as "the rookery," where mr. tupman met with his mishap, and to our delight there is "the pond," not indeed covered with ice, as on mr. pickwick's memorable adventure, but crowded with water-lilies on its surface; its banks surrounded by the fragrant meadow-sweet and the brilliant rose-coloured willow herb. furthermore we were informed, by mr. franklin of maidstone, that the "red lion," which formerly stood on the spot now occupied by mercer's stables, is locally considered to be the original of "a little roadside public-house, with two elm-trees, a horse-trough, and a sign-post in front;" where the pickwickians sought assistance after the breakdown of the "four-wheeled chaise" which "separated the wheels from the body and the bin from the perch," but were inhospitably repulsed by the "red-headed man and the tall bony woman," who suggested that they had stolen the "immense horse" which had recently played mr. winkle such pranks. finally, in a pleasant chat with the rev. cyril grant, vicar of aylesford, and his curate, the rev. h. b. boyd (a son of a. k. h. b.), we elicited the fact that cobtree hall is locally recognized as the original of manor farm. nay more, in aylesford churchyard a tomb was pointed out on the west side with the inscription:--"also to the memory of mr. w. spong, late of cobtree, in the parish of boxley, who died nov. th, ," who is said to have been the prototype of the genial and hospitable "old wardle." true, neither the distance to rochester nor to town malling fits in with the narrative, but this is not material. dickens, with the usual "novelist's licence," found it convenient often-times to take a nucleus of fact, and surround it with a halo of fiction, and this may have been one of many similar instances. his wonderfully-gifted and ever-facile imagination was never at fault. so on our return journey we console ourselves by reading the following description, in chapter vi. of _pickwick_, of the first gathering of the pickwickians at their host's, one of the most delightful bits in the whole book, and "make-believe," as the marchioness would say, that we have actually seen manor farm, dingley dell. "several guests who were assembled in the old parlour, rose to greet mr. pickwick and his friends upon their entrance; and during the performance of the ceremony of introduction, with all due formalities, mr. pickwick had leisure to observe the appearance, and speculate upon the characters and pursuits, of the persons by whom he was surrounded--a habit in which he in common with many other great men delighted to indulge. "a very old lady, in a lofty cap and faded silk gown,--no less a personage than mr. wardle's mother,--occupied the post of honour on the right-hand corner of the chimney-piece; and various certificates of her having been brought up in the way she should go when young, and of her not having departed from it when old, ornamented the walls, in the form of samplers of ancient date, worsted landscapes of equal antiquity, and crimson silk tea-kettle holders of a more modern period. the aunt, the two young ladies, and mr. wardle, each vying with the other in paying zealous and unremitting attentions to the old lady, crowded round her easy-chair, one holding her ear-trumpet, another an orange, and a third a smelling-bottle, while a fourth was busily engaged in patting and punching the pillows, which were arranged for her support. on the opposite side sat a bald-headed old gentleman, with a good-humoured benevolent face,--the clergyman of dingley dell; and next him sat his wife, a stout, blooming old lady, who looked as if she were well skilled, not only in the art and mystery of manufacturing home-made cordials, greatly to other people's satisfaction, but of tasting them occasionally, very much to her own. a little hard-headed, ripstone pippin-faced man, was conversing with a fat old gentleman in one corner; and two or three more old gentlemen, and two or three more old ladies, sat bolt upright and motionless on their chairs, staring very hard at mr. pickwick and his fellow-voyagers. "'mr. pickwick, mother,' said mr. wardle, at the very top of his voice. "'ah!' said the old lady, shaking her head; 'i can't hear you.' "'mr. pickwick, grandma!' screamed both the young ladies together. "'ah!' exclaimed the old lady. 'well; it don't much matter. he don't care for an old 'ooman like me, i dare say.' "'i assure you, madam,' said mr. pickwick, grasping the old lady's hand, and speaking so loud that the exertion imparted a crimson hue to his benevolent countenance; 'i assure you, ma'am, that nothing delights me more, than to see a lady of your time of life heading so fine a family, and looking so young and well.' "'ah!' said the old lady, after a short pause; 'it's all very fine, i dare say; but i can't hear him.' "'grandma's rather put out now,' said miss isabella wardle, in a low tone; 'but she'll talk to you presently.' "mr. pickwick nodded his readiness to humour the infirmities of age, and entered into a general conversation with the other members of the circle. "'delightful situation this,' said mr. pickwick. "'delightful!' echoed messrs. snodgrass, tupman, and winkle. "'well, i think it is,' said mr. wardle. "'there ain't a better spot o' ground in all kent, sir,' said the hard-headed man with the pippin-face; 'there ain't indeed, sir--i'm sure there ain't, sir,' and the hard-headed man looked triumphantly round, as if he had been very much contradicted by somebody, but had got the better of him at last. 'there ain't a better spot o' ground in all kent,' said the hard-headed man again after a pause. "''cept mullins' meadows!' observed the fat man, solemnly. "'mullins' meadows!' ejaculated the other, with profound contempt. "'ah, mullins' meadows,' repeated the fat man. "'reg'lar good land that,' interposed another fat man. "'and so it is, sure-ly,' said a third fat man. "'everybody knows that,' said the corpulent host. "the hard-headed man looked dubiously round, but finding himself in a minority, assumed a compassionate air, and said no more. "'what are they talking about?' inquired the old lady of one of her grand-daughters, in a very audible voice; for, like many deaf people, she never seemed to calculate on the possibility of other persons hearing what she said herself. "'about the land, grandma.' "'what about the land? nothing the matter, is there?' "'no, no. mr. miller was saying our land was better than mullins' meadows.' "'how should he know anything about it?' inquired the old lady indignantly. 'miller's a conceited coxcomb, and you may tell him i said so.' saying which, the old lady, quite unconscious that she had spoken above a whisper, drew herself up, and looked carving-knives at the hard-headed delinquent." * * * * * in the course of our tramp we fall in with "a very queer small boy," rejoicing in the christian names of "spencer ray," upon which we congratulate him, and express a hope that he will do honour to the noble names which he bears, one being that of the great english philosopher, and the other that of the famous english naturalist. this boy, who is just such a bright intelligent lad as dickens himself would have been at his age (twelve and a half years), gives us some interesting particulars respecting town malling and its proclivities for cricket, upon which he is very eloquent. it appears that in the year the cricketers of town malling won eleven matches out of twelve; but during this year they have not been so successful. he directed us to the cricket-ground, which we visit, and find to be but a few minutes' walk from the centre of the town, bearing to the westward. it is a very fine field, nearly seven acres in extent, in splendid order, as level as a die, and as green as an emerald. it lies well open, and is flanked by the western range of hills of the medway valley. [illustration: cricket ground--town malling.] the marquee into which mr. pickwick and his friends were invited, first by "one very stout gentleman, whose body and legs looked like half a gigantic roll of flannel, elevated on a couple of inflated pillow-cases," and then by the irrepressible jingle with--"this way--this way--capital fun--lots of beer--hogsheads; rounds of beef--bullocks; mustard--cart-loads; glorious day--down with you--make yourself at home--glad to see you--very," has been replaced by a handsome pavilion. there is no cricket-playing going on at the time, but there are several cricketers in the field, and from them we learn confirmatory evidence of the long existence of the ground in its present condition, and the enthusiasm of the inhabitants for the old english game. another proof of the long-established love of the people of town malling for cricket we subsequently find in the fact that the parlour of the swan hotel, which is an old cricketing house, and probably represents the "blue lion of muggleton," has in it many very fine lithographic portraits of all the great cricketers of the middle of the nineteenth century, including:--pilch, lillywhite, box, cobbett, hillyer (a native of town malling), a. mynn, taylor, langdon, kynaston, felix (_felix on the bat_), ward, kingscote, and others. several of these names will be recognized as those of eminent kentish cricketers. about a quarter of a century ago--my friend and colleague mr. e. orford smith (himself a kentish man and a cricketer) informs me that--the kentish eleven stood against all england, and retained their position for some years. as we stand on the warm day in the centre of the ground, and admire the lights and shadows passing over the surrounding scenery, we can almost conjure up the scene of the famous contest, when, on the occasion of the first innings of the all-muggleton club, "mr. dumkins and mr. podder, two of the most renowned members of that most distinguished club, walked, bat in hand, to their respective wickets. mr. luffey, the highest ornament of dingley dell, was pitched to bowl against the redoubtable dumkins, and mr. struggles was selected to do the same kind office for the hitherto unconquered podder." everybody remembers how the game proceeded under circumstances of the greatest excitement, in which batters, bowlers, scouts, and umpires, all did their best under the encouraging shouts of the members:--"run--run--another.--now, then, throw her up--up with her--stop there--another--no--yes--no--throw her up! throw her up!" mr. jingle himself being as usual very profuse in his remarks, as--"'ah, ah!--stupid'--'now, butter-fingers'--'muff'--'humbug'--and so forth." "in short, when dumkins was caught out, and podder stumped out, all-muggleton had notched some fifty-four, while the score of the dingley dellers was as blank as their faces." so "dingley dell gave in, and allowed the superior prowess of all-muggleton," mr. jingle again expressing his views of the winners:--"'capital game--well played--some strokes admirable,' as both sides crowded into the tent at the conclusion of the game." yes! we are convinced that muggleton and town malling (except for the mayor and corporation) are one. at any rate we feel quite safe in assuming that town malling was the type from which muggleton was taken; and we confidently recommend all admirers of _pickwick_ to include that pleasant kentish country-town in their pilgrimage. having exhausted, so far as our examination is concerned, the cricket-ground, by the kindness of our young friend who acts as guide, we see a little more of the town. it consists of a long wide street, with a few lateral approaches. the houses are well built, and the church, which is partly norman, and, like most of the village churches in kent, is but a little way from the village, stands on an eminence from whence a good view may be obtained. we observe, as indicative of the fine air and mild climate of the place, many beautiful specimens of magnolia, and wistaria (in second flower) in front of the better class of houses. one of these is named "boley house," and as we are told that sir joseph hawley resided near, our memories immediately revert to the cognomen of a well-known character in _the chimes_. other names in the place are suggestive of dickens's worthies, _e.g._ rudge, styles, briggs, saunders, brooker, and john harman. the last-mentioned is the second instance in which dickens has varied a local name by the alteration of a single letter. there is also the not uncommon name of "brown," who, it will be remembered, was the maker of the shoes of the spinster aunt when she eloped with the faithless jingle; "in a po-chay from the 'blue lion' at muggleton," as one of mr. wardle's men said; and the discovery of the said shoes led to the identification of the errant pair at the "white hart" in the borough. after sam weller had described nearly all the visitors staying in the hotel from an examination of their boots:-- "'stop a bit,' replied sam, suddenly recollecting himself. 'yes; there's a pair of vellingtons a good deal vorn, and a pair o' lady's shoes, in number five.' 'country make.' "'any maker's name?' "'brown.' "'where of?' "'muggleton.' "'it _is_ them,' exclaimed wardle. 'by heavens, we've found them.'" what happened afterwards every reader of _pickwick_ very well knows. near town malling there is a curious monument erected to the memory of beadsman, the horse, belonging to sir joseph hawley, which won the derby in , and which was bred in the place. the monument (an exceedingly practical one) consists of a useful pump for the supply of water. [illustration: the medway at maidstone] after some luncheon at the boar inn, we are sorry to terminate our visit to this pleasant place; but time flies, and trains, like tides, "wait for no man." so we hurry to the railway station, passing on our way a fine hop-garden, and take tickets by the london, chatham, and dover railway for maidstone. we have a few minutes to spare, and our notice is attracted to a curious group in the waiting-room. it consists of a rural policeman, and what afterwards turned out, to be his prisoner, a slouching but good-humoured-looking labourer, with a "fur cap" like rogue riderhood. the officer leans against the mantelpiece, pleasantly chatting with his charge, who is seated on the bench, leisurely eating some bread and cheese with a large clasp-knife, in the intervals of which proceeding he recounts some experiences for the edification of the officer and bystanders. these are occasionally received with roars of laughter. one of his stories relates to a house-breaker who, being "caught in the act" by a policeman, and being asked what he was doing, coolly replied, "attending to my business, of course!" (this must surely be taken "in a pickwickian sense.") after finishing his bread and cheese, the charge eats an apple, and then regales himself with something from a large bottle. the unconcernedness of the man, whatever his offence may be (poaching perhaps), is in painful contrast to the careworn and anxious faces of his wife and little daughter (both decently dressed), the latter about seven years old, and made too familiar with crime at such an age. after we arrive at maidstone (only a few minutes' run by railway), it is a wretched sight to witness the leave-taking at the gaol. first the man shakes hands with his wife, all his forced humour having left him, and then affectionately kisses the little girl, draws a cuff over his eyes, and walks heavily into the gaol after the officer. we are glad to notice that he is not degraded as a wild beast by being handcuffed. it was an episode that dickens himself perhaps would have witnessed with interest, and possibly stored up for future use. what particularly strikes us is the difference in the relations between these people and what would be the case under similar circumstances in a large town. there is not that feature of hardness, that familiarity with crime which breeds contempt, in the rural incident. poor man! let us hope his punishment will soon be finished, and that he may return to his family, and not become an old offender; but for the present, as mr. bagnet says, "discipline must be maintained." maidstone, the county and assize town of kent, appears to be a thriving and solid-looking place, as there are several paper-mills, saw-mills, stone quarries, and other indications of prosperity. there are but few historical associations connected with it, as maidstone "has lived a quiet life." sir thomas wyatt's rebellion, and the attack on the town by fairfax in , are among the principal incidents. dickens frequently walked or drove over to this town from gad's hill. many of the names which we notice over the shops in the principal street are very suggestive of, if not actually used for, some of the characters in his novels, _e.g._ pell, boozer, hibling, fowle, stuffins, bunyard, edmed, gregsbey, dunmill, and pobgee. it has been said that maidstone possesses a gaol; it also has large barracks, and, what is better still, a museum, free library, and public gardens. chillington manor house,--a highly picturesque and well-preserved elizabethan structure, formerly the residence of the cobhams,--contains the museum and library. standing in a quiet nook in the brenchley gardens, the lines of george macdonald, quoted in the local _guide book_, well describe its beauties:-- "its windows were aërial and latticed, lovely and wide and fair, and its chimneys like clustered pillars stood up in the thin blue air." the museum--the new wing of which was built as a memorial of his brother, by mr. samuel bentlif--is the property of the corporation, and owes much of its contents to the liberality of mr. pretty, the first curator, and to the naturalist and traveller, mr. j. l. brenchley. it contains excellent fine art, archæological, ethnological, natural history, and geological collections. among the last-named, in addition to other interesting local specimens, are some fossil remains of the mammoth (_elephas primigenius_) from the drift at aylesford, obtained by its present able curator, mr. edward bartlett, to whom we are indebted for a most pleasant ramble through the various rooms. we notice an original "dickens-item" in the shape of a very good carved head of the novelist, forming the right top panel of an oak fire-place, the opposite side being one of tennyson, by a local carver named w. hughes, who was formerly employed at gad's hill place. no pilgrim in "dickens-land" should omit visiting maidstone and its treasures in chillington manor house; nor of seeing the splendid view of the medway from the churchyard, looking towards tovil. [illustration: chillingham manor house maidstone] we are particularly anxious to verify dickens's experience of the walk from maidstone to rochester. in a letter to forster, written soon after he came to reside at gad's hill place, he says:--"i have discovered that the seven miles between maidstone and rochester is one of the most beautiful walks in england," and so indeed we find it to be. it is, however, a rather long seven miles; so, cheerfully leaving the gloomy-looking gaol to our right and proceeding along the raised terrace by the side of the turn-pike road, we pass through the little village of sandling, and soon after commence the ascent of the great chalk range of hills which form the eastern water-parting of the medway. the most noticeable object before we reach "upper bell" is "kit's coty (or coity) house," about one and a half miles north-east from aylesford, and not very far from the bell inn. according to mr. phillips bevan, the peculiar name is derived from the celtic "ked," and "coity" or "coed" (welsh), and means the tomb in the wood. seymour considers the words a corruption of "catigern's house." below kit's coty house, mr. wright, the archæologist, found the remains of a roman villa, with quantities of samian ware, coins, and other articles. there are many excavations in the chalk above kit's coty house, apparently for interments; and the whole district appears in remote ages to have been a huge cemetery. tradition states that "the hero catigern was buried here, after the battle fought at aylesford between hengist and vortigern." the cromlech, which is now included in the provisions of the ancient monuments protection act, , lies under the hillside, a few yards from the main road, and is fenced in with iron railings, and beautifully surrounded by woods, the yew,[ ] said to have been one of the sacred trees of the druids, being conspicuous here and there. that somewhat rare plant the juniper is also found in this neighbourhood. the "dolmens" which have been "set on end by a vanished people" are four in number, and consist of sandstone, three of them, measuring about eight feet each, forming the uprights, and the fourth, which is much larger, serving as the covering stone. in a field which we visit, not very far from kit's coty house, is another group of stones, called the "countless stones." as we pass some boys are trying to solve the arithmetical problem, which cannot be readily accomplished, as the stones lie intermingled in a very strange and irregular manner, and are overgrown with brushwood. the belief that these stones cannot be counted is one constantly found connected with similar remains, _e.g._ stonehenge, avebury, etc. we heard a local story of a baker, who once tried to effect the operation by placing a loaf on the top of each stone as a kind of check or tally; but a dog running away with one of his loaves, upset his calculations. [illustration: kit's coty house] both the "coty house" and the "countless stones" consist of a silicious sandstone of the eocene period, overlying the chalk, and are identical with the "sarsens," or "grey wethers," which occur at the pre-historic town of avebury, and at stonehenge; the smaller stones of the latter are, however, of igneous origin, and "are believed by mr. fergusson to have been votive offerings." these masses, of what sir a. c. ramsay calls "tough and intractable silicious stone," have been, he says, "left on the ground, after the removal by denudation of other and softer parts of the eocene strata." we subsequently saw several of these "grey wethers" in the grounds of cobham hall, and we noticed small masses of the same stone _in situ_ in pear tree lane, near gad's hill place. speaking of kit's coty house in his _short history of the english people_, the late mr. j. r. green, in describing the english conquest and referring to this neighbourhood, says:--"it was from a steep knoll on which the grey weather-beaten stones of this monument are reared that the view of their first battle-field would break on the english warriors; and a lane which still leads down from it through peaceful homesteads would guide them across the ford which has left its name in the little village of aylesford. the chronicle of the conquering people tells nothing of the rush that may have carried the ford, or of the fight that went struggling up through the village. it only tells that horsa fell in the moment of victory, and the flint heap of horsted, which has long preserved his name, and was held in after-time to mark his grave, is thus the earliest of those monuments of english valour of which westminster is the last and noblest shrine. the victory of aylesford did more than give east kent to the english; it struck the keynote of the whole english conquest of britain." dickens's visits to this locality in his early days may have suggested the discovery of the stone with the inscription:-- [illustration: + b i l s t u m p s h i s. m. a r k] in later life he was fond of bringing his friends here "by a couple of postilions in the old red jackets of the old red royal dover road" to enjoy a picnic. describing a visit here with longfellow he says:--"it was like a holiday ride in england fifty years ago." returning to the main road, we reach the high land of blue bell--"upper bell," as it is marked on the ordnance map. we are not quite on the highest range, but sufficiently high (about three hundred feet) to enable us to appreciate the splendid view that presents itself. in the valley below winds the medway, broadening as it approaches rochester.[ ] the opposite heights consist of the western range of hills, the width of the valley from point to point being about ten miles. the "sky-line" of hills running from north to south cannot be less than sixty miles, extending to the famous weald of kent (weald, wald, or wolde, being literally "a wooded region, an open country"); all the intervening space of undulating slope and valley (river excepted) is filled up by hamlets, grass, root, and cornfields, hop-gardens, orchards and woodlands, the whole forming a picture of matchless beauty. no wonder dickens was very fond of this delightful walk; it must be gone over to be appreciated.[ ] [illustration: kits coty house and "blue bell" from the painting by gegan] we tramp on through boxley and bridge woods, down the hill, and pass borstal convict prison and fort clarence, where there are guns which we were informed would carry a ball from this elevated ground right over the thames into the county of essex (a distance of seven miles); and so we get back again to rochester. footnotes: [ ] lambarde says, "malling, in saxon mealing, or mealuing, that is, the low place flourishing with meal or corne, for so it is everywhere accepted." [ ] the italics are interpolated. [ ] burham, although now enshrouded in the smoke of lime-making, was probably sixty years ago a delightfully rural spot. [ ] mr. roach smith reminded us that the yew was in times past planted for its wood to be used as bows. [ ] professor huxley, in his _physiography_, has estimated that "at the present rate of wear and tear, denudation can have lowered the surface of the thames basin by hardly more than an inch since the norman conquest; and nearly a million years must elapse before the whole basin of the thames will be worn down to the sea-level"; and dr. a. geikie, after a series of elaborate calculations, has postulated "as probably a fair average, a valley of feet deep may be excavated in , , years." taking these estimates as a basis, and allowing for an average height of three hundred feet, we roughly arrive at a period of about four hundred thousand years as the possible length of time which it has taken to form this beautiful valley. professor huxley may well say that "the geologist has thoughts of time and space to which the ordinary mind is a stranger." [ ] mr. kitton's illustration (from the painting by gegan, a local artist, executed many years since) gives a good idea of the scenery of this beautiful district. it also reproduces the profile of a huge chalk cliff not now visible, but which existed about half a century ago, having a curious resemblance to the head of a lion, and forming at the time a conspicuous landmark to travellers. chapter xi. broadstairs, margate, and canterbury. "we have a fine sea, wholesome for all people; profitable for the body, profitable for the mind."--_our english watering-place._ "all is going on as it was wont. the waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds go forth upon their trackless flight; the white arms beckon in the moonlight to the invisible country far away."--_dombey and son._ "a moment, and i occupy my place in the cathedral, where we all went together every sunday morning, assembling first at school for that purpose. the earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black and white arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back and hold me hovering above those days in a half-sleeping and half-waking dream."--_david copperfield._ taking advantage of an excursion train (for tramps usually go on the cheap), we start early on wednesday by the south-eastern railway from chatham station for broadstairs. as usual the weather favours us--it is a glorious day. passing the stations of new brompton, rainham, newington, and sittingbourne, we soon get into open country, in the midst of hop gardens with their verdant aisles of the fragrant and tonic, tendril-like plants reaching in some instances perhaps to several hundred yards, and crowned with yellowish-green fruit-masses, which have a special charm for those unaccustomed to such scenery. the odd-looking "oast-houses,"[ ] or drying-houses for the hops, are a noticeable feature of the neighbourhood, dotting it about here and there in pairs. they are mostly red-brick and cone-shaped, somewhat smaller than the familiar glass-houses of the midland districts, and have a wooden cowl, painted white, at the apex for ventilation. we are rather too early for the hop-picking, and thus--but for a time only--miss an interesting sight. dickens, in one of his letters to forster, gives a dreary picture of this annual harvest:-- "hop-picking is going on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the key-hole of the house door. i have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable lean wretches, hardly able to crawl, who come hop-picking. i find it is a superstition that the dust of the newly-picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption. so the poor creatures drag themselves along the roads, and sleep under wet hedges, and get cured soon and finally." on the whole it is said to be a very indifferent season, but many plantations look promising. "if," as a grower remarks to us in the train, "we could have a little more of this fine weather! there has been too much rain, and too little sun this year." the apples also are a poor crop. [illustration: hop-picking in kent] on a second visit to this pleasant neighbourhood, we see at mear's barr farm, near rainham, the whole process of hop-picking. true, it is not executed by that ragamuffinly crowd of strangers which dickens had in his "mind's eye" when he wrote the words just quoted, and which usually takes possession of most of the hop-growing districts of kent during the picking season, but by an assemblage of native villagers, mostly women, girls, and boys,--neat, clean, and homely,--together with a few men who do the heavier part of the work. they are of all ages, from the tottering old grandmother, careworn wife, and buxom maiden, to the child in perambulator and baby in arms; and in the bright sunlight, amid the groves of festooning green columns, form a most orderly, varied, and picturesque gathering--a regular picnic in fact, judging from the cheerful look on most of the faces, and the merry laugh that is occasionally heard. mr. fred scott, tenant of the farm, of which lord hothfield is owner, is kind enough to go over the hop-garden with us, and describe all the details. when the hops are ripe (_i. e._ when the seeds are hard) and ready to be gathered, the pickers swarm on the ground, and a man divides the "bine" at the bottom of the "pole" by means of a bill-hook--not cutting it too close for fear of bleeding--leaving the root to sprout next year, and then draws out the pole, to which is attached the long, creeping bine, trailing over at top. if the pole sticks too fast in the ground, he eases it by means of a lever, or "hop-dog" (a long, stout wooden implement, having a toothed iron projection). "mind my dog don't bite you, sir," says one of the men facetiously, as we step over this rough-looking tool. women then carry the poles to, and lay them across, the "bin," a receptacle formed by four upright poles stuck in the ground and placed at an angle, supporting a framework from which depends the "bin-cloth," made of jute or hemp, holding from ten to twenty bushels of green hops, weighing about - / lbs. per bushel when dry. the picking then commences, and nimble fingers of all sizes very soon strip the poles of the aromatically-smelling ripe hops, the poles being cast aside in heaps, to be afterwards cleared of the old bines and put into "stacks" of three hundred each, and used again next season. the bins, which vary in number according to the size of the hop-garden, are placed in rows on the margin of the plantation, and usually have ten "hop-hills" (_i. e._ plants) on each side, and are moved inside the plantation as the poles are pulled up. each bin belongs to a "sett" (_i. e._ family or companionship), consisting of from five to seven persons, and is taken charge of by a "binman." when the bin is full, a "measurer" (either the farmer himself or his deputy) takes account of the quantity of hops picked, and records it in a book to the credit of each working family. then the green hops are carted off in "pokes" or sacks to the "oast-houses" to be dried. for this purpose, anthracite coal and charcoal are used in the kiln, a shovelful or two of sulphur being added to the fire when the hops are put on. the process of drying takes eleven hours, and afterwards the dried hops are packed in pockets which, when full, weigh about a hundredweight and a half each, the packing being effected by hydraulic pressure. they are then sent to market, the earliest arrivals fetching very high prices. as much as £ per cwt. was paid in , but the ordinary price averages from £ to £ per cwt. _humulus lupulus_, the hop, belongs to the natural order _urticaceæ_--a plant of rather wide distribution, but said to be absent in scotland--and is a herbaceous, dioecious perennial, usually propagated by removal of the young shoots or by cuttings. according to sowerby, the genus is derived from _humus_, the ground, as, unless supported or trained, the plant falls to the earth; and the common name "hop" from the saxon _hoppan_, to climb. william king, in his _art of cookery_, says that "heresy and hops came in together"; while an old popular rhyme records that:-- "hops, carp, pickerel, and beer, came into england all in one year." tusser in his _hondreth good points of husbandrie_, published in , gives sundry directions for the cultivation of hops, and quaintly advocates their use as follows:-- "the hop for his profit i thus do exalt, it strengtheneth drink, and it savoureth malt; and being well brewed, long kept it will last, and drawing abide--if you draw not too fast." the hop has many varieties--thirty or more--among which may be mentioned prolifics, bramblings, goldings, common goldings, old goldings, canterbury goldings, meopham goldings, etc. when once planted they last for a hundred years, but some growers replace them every ten years or sooner. the principal enemies of the hop are "mould" caused by the fungus _sphærotheca castagnei_, and several kinds of insects, especially the "green fly," _aphis humuli_, but the high wind is most to be dreaded. it tears the hop-bines from the poles and throws the poles down, which in falling crush other bines, and thus bruise the hops and prevent their growth, besides obstructing the passage of air and sunlight, and causing the development of mould or mildew. the remedy for mould is dusting with sulphur, and for the green fly, syringing with tobacco or quassia water and soap, "hop-wash," as it is called. sometimes the lady-bird (_coccinella septempunctata_) is present in sufficient numbers to consume the green fly. very little can be done to obviate the effects of the wind, but a protective fence of the wild hop--called a "lee" or "loo"--is sometimes put up round very choice plantations. the hop-poles, the preparation of which constitutes a distinct industry, are either of larch, spanish chestnut, ash, willow, birch, or beech--larch or chestnut being preferred. women clear the poles of the bark, and men sharpen them at one end, which is dipped in creosote before being used. the ground is cleared, and the poles are stuck in against the old plants in february or march. we are informed that the hop-picking is much looked forward to by the villagers with pleasure as the means of supplying them with a little purse for clothing, etc., against winter-time. each family or companionship earns from thirty shillings to two pounds per week during the season. we proceed on our excursion, and pass faversham, which stands in a rather picturesque bit of country some way up faversham creek, and is sheltered on the west by a ridge of wooded hills where the hop country ceases, as the railway bends north-easterly for margate and ramsgate. whitstable, the next station passed, is famous for the most delicate oysters in the market, the fishery of which is regulated by an annual court; and it is said that one grower alone sends fifty thousand barrels a year to london from this district. we speculate whether these delicious molluscs were supplied at that famous supper described in the thirty-ninth chapter of _the old curiosity shop_, at which were present kit, his mother, the baby, little jacob, and barbara, after the night at the play, when kit told the waiter "to bring three dozen of his largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp about it," and fulfilled his promise "to let little jacob know what oysters meant." all along, as the railway winds from whitstable to margate, glimpses of the sea are visible, and vary our excursion pleasantly. the next noteworthy place we pass is reculver--the ancient regulbium--which, according to mr. phillips bevan, is "mentioned in the itinerary of antoninus as being garrisoned by the first cohort of brabantois belgians. after the romans, it was occupied by the saxon ethelbert, who is said to have occupied it as a palace, and to have been buried there." "the two picturesque towers" (quoting bevan again), "which form so conspicuous a land and sea mark, are called 'the sisters,' and are in reality modern-built by the trinity board in place of two erected traditionally by an abbess of faversham, who was wrecked here with her sister on their way to broadstairs." the sea is fast encroaching on the land here, notwithstanding the erection of a large sea-wall and piles. passing margate, we reach broadstairs, about thirty-seven miles from chatham. broadstairs, immortalized in _our english watering place_ (which paper, says forster, "appeared while i was there, and great was the local excitement"), is so inseparably associated with the earlier years of charles dickens's holiday-life, that it becomes most interesting to his admirers. forster also says, "his later seaside holiday, september , was passed at broadstairs, as were those of many subsequent years; and the little watering-place has been made memorable by his pleasant sketch of it." at the time of his first visit ( ) he was writing a portion of _pickwick_ (part ); in part of _nicholas nickleby_; and in part of _the old curiosity shop_. he was also there in , , and , when writing the _american notes_; in and , when writing _dombey and son_; in and , when engaged on _david copperfield_; and in , when he was drafting the outlines of _bleak house_. at the end of november of that year, when he had settled himself in his new london abode (tavistock house), the book was begun, "and, as so generally happened with the more important incidents of his life, but always accidentally, begun on a friday." after , he returned not again to broadstairs until , when he paid his last visit to the place, and stayed a week there. the reason for his forsaking it was that it had become too noisy for him. broadstairs stands midway between the north foreland and ramsgate, and owes its name to the breadth of the sea-gate or "stair," which was originally defended by a gate or archway. an archway still survives on the road to the sea, and bears on it two inscriptions, ( ) "built by george culenier about "; ( ) "repaired by sir john henniker, bart., ." broadstairs has good sands, precipitous chalk cliffs, and a very fine sea-view. the railway station is about a mile from the pier, and the town is approached by a well-kept road ("the main street of our watering-place. . . . you may know it by its being always stopped up with donkey chaises. whenever you come here and see the harnessed donkeys eating clover out of barrows drawn completely across a narrow thoroughfare, you may be quite sure you are in our high street"), with villas standing in their own gardens, most of which are brightened by summer flowers, notably the blue clematis (_clematis jackmani_) and by those charming seaside evergreens the _escallonia_ and the _euonymus_. as we near the sea, the shops become more numerous, and, on the right-hand side, we have no difficulty in finding (although we heard it had been altered considerably) the house "no. , high street," in which dickens lived when he first visited broadstairs. it is a plain little dwelling of single front, with a small parlour looking into the street, and has one story over--just the place that seems suited to the financial position of the novelist when he was commencing life. the house is now occupied by mr. bean, plumber and glazier, whose wife courteously shows us over it, and into the back yard and little garden, kindly giving us some pears from an old tree growing there, whereon we speculate as to whether dickens himself had ever enjoyed the fruit from the same old tree. he appears to have lived in this house during his visits in and . we ask the good lady if she is aware that charles dickens had formerly stayed in her house, and she replies in the negative, so we recommend her to get her husband to put up a tablet outside to the effect "charles dickens lived here, ," in imitation of the example of the society of arts in furnival's inn. there can be no doubt as to the identity of the house, for we take the precaution of ascertaining that the numbers have not been altered. our efforts to discover "lawn house," where dickens stayed on his visits from to , are attended with some difficulty. first we are told it lay this way, then that, and then the other; a smart villa in a new road is pointed out to us as the object of our search, which we at once reject, as being too recent. but we are patient and persevering, feeling, with mr. f.'s aunt, that "you can't make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in it. you couldn't do it when your uncle george was living; much less when he's dead!" finally, we appeal to some one who looks like the "oldest inhabitant," and obtain something like a clue. we are eventually directed to a veritable "lawn house," which is the last house on the left as you approach "fort house." it must have changed in respect of its surroundings since forty years have passed, and although there is nothing outside to indicate it as such, it seems fair to assume that this was the house described in the _life_ as "a small villa between the hill and the cornfield." the present occupier, who has no recollection of dickens ever having been there, courteously allows us to see the hall and dining-room. the house is of course a great improvement upon "no , high street." a few steps from "lawn house" lead us to the drive approaching "fort house," pleasantly surrounded by a sloping lawn and shrubbery. john forster, alluding to it in the _life_, says:-- "the residence he most desired there, 'fort house,' stood prominently at the top of a breezy hill on the road to kingsgate, with a cornfield between it and the sea, and this in many subsequent years he always occupied." alas! the cornfield is no more, but "fort house," or "bleak house," as it is indifferently termed locally, remains intact. it is the most striking object of the place, standing on a cliff overlooking the sea, the harbour, and the town (made familiar by several photographs and engravings), with its curious verandahs and blinds, as seen in the vignette of j. c. hotten's interesting book, _charles dickens: the story of his life_. an excellent photograph is published in the town, of which we are glad to secure a copy. [illustration: "bleak house" broadstairs] in the sixth chapter of _bleak house_ it is called "an old-fashioned house with three peaks in the roof in front, and a severe sweep leading to the porch." in the same chapter there is a minute account of the interior, too lengthy to be quoted; but the description does not resemble fort house. we are kindly permitted by the occupier to see the study in which the novelist worked, a privilege long to be remembered. this room is approached by "a little staircase of shallow steps" from the first floor, as described in _bleak house_; but it will be borne in mind that the "bleak house" of the novel is placed in hertfordshire, near st. albans, and _not_ at broadstairs, although many persons still believe that fort house is the original of the story. from the study we have a lovely view of the sea--the balmy breeze of a summer's day lightly fanning the waves, and just sufficing to move the delicate filamentous foliage of the tamarisk trees now standing in the place where the cornfield was. even at the time we see it, changed as all its surroundings are, we can imagine the enjoyment which dickens had in this healthy spot on the north downs. in that interesting "book for an idle hour" called _the shuttlecock papers_, mr. j. ashby-sterry thus sympathetically alludes to "bleak house":--"what a romantic place this is to write in, is it not? what a glorious study to work in! indeed, both from situation and association, it would be impossible to find a better place for writing, were it not that one feels that so much superb work has been done on this very spot by so great an artist, that the mere craftsman is inclined to question whether it is worth while for him to write at all." how well dickens loved broadstairs is told in his letter of the st september, , addressed to professor felton, of cambridge, u. s. a., as follows:-- "this is a little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff, whereon--in the centre of a tiny semi-circular bay--our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. seven miles out are the goodwin sands (you've heard of the goodwin sands?), whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. also there is a lighthouse called the north foreland on a hill behind the village, a severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. under the cliff are rare good sands, where all the children assemble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications, which the sea throws down again at high-water. old gentlemen and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner in two reading-rooms, and on a great many scattered seats in the open air. other old gentlemen look all day long through telescopes and never see anything. "in a bay-window in a one-pair sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. his name is boz. at one he disappears, and presently emerges from a bathing machine, and may be seen--a kind of salmon-coloured porpoise--splashing about in the ocean. after that he may be seen in another bay-window on the ground-floor, eating a strong lunch; after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back in the sand reading a book. nobody bothers him unless they know he is disposed to be talked to; and i am told he is very comfortable indeed. he's as brown as a berry, and they _do_ say is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch. but this is mere rumour. sometimes he goes up to london (eighty miles or so away), and then i'm told there is a sound in lincoln's inn fields at night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and forks, and wine-glasses." and further in a letter to another correspondent recently made public:-- "when you come to london, to assist at miss liston's sacrifice, don't forget to remind your uncle of our broadstairs engagement to which i hold you bound. a good sea--fresh breezes--fine sands--and pleasant walks--with all manner of fishing-boats, lighthouses, piers, bathing-machines, are its only attractions, but it's one of the freshest little places in the world, consequently the proper place for you." in the year , in a letter dated th september, addressed to mr. henry austin, he thus alludes to a wreck which took place at broadstairs:-- "a great to-do here. a steamer lost on the goodwins yesterday, and our men bringing in no end of dead cattle and sheep. i stood supper for them last night, to the unbounded gratification of broadstairs. they came in from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the nature of their prize--which, i suppose after all, will have to be recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. one lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminating over the bodies as they lay on the pier: 'couldn't sassages be made on it?' but retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations of the bystanders." dickens got tired of broadstairs in , for reasons given in the following letter to forster, though he did not forsake it till some years after:-- "vagrant music is getting to that height here, and is so impossible to be escaped from, that i fear broadstairs and i must part company in time to come. unless it pours of rain, i cannot write half an hour without the most excruciating organs, fiddles, bells, or glee singers. there is a violin of the most torturing kind under the window now (time, ten in the morning), and an italian box of music on the steps--both in full blast." by good luck we fall in with an "old salt," formerly one of the boatmen of _our english watering place_ who are therein immortalized by much kindly mention, with whom we have a pleasant chat about charles dickens. harry ford (the name of our friend) well remembers the great novelist, when in early days he used to come on his annual excursions with his family to broadstairs. "bless your soul," he says, "i can see 'old charley,' as we used to call him among ourselves here, a-coming flying down from the cliff with a hop, step, and jump, with his hair all flying about. he used to sit sometimes on that rail" (pointing to the one surrounding the harbour), "with his legs lolling about, and sometimes on the seat that you're a-sitting on now" (adjoining the old look-out house opposite the tartar frigate inn), "and he was very fond of talking to us fellows and hearing our tales--he was very good-natured, and nobody was liked better. and if you'll read" (continues our informant) "that story that he wrote and printed about _our watering place_, _i_ was the man who's mentioned there as mending a little ship for a boy. _i_ held that child between my knees. and what's more, sir, _i_ took 'old charley,' on the very last time that he came over to broadstairs (he wasn't living here at the time), round the foreland to margate, with a party of four friends. i took 'em in my boat, the _irene_," pointing to a clinker-built strong boat lying in the harbour, capable of holding twenty people. "the wind was easterly--the weather was rather rough, and it took me three or four hours to get round. there was a good deal of chaffing going on, i can tell you." [illustration: old look-out house broadstairs] mrs. long, of zion place, broadstairs, the wife of an old coastguardman, who was stationed at the preventive station when dickens lodged at fort house, also remembered the novelist. the coastguard men are also immortalized in _our english watering place_, as "a steady, trusty, well-conditioned, well-conducted set of men, with no misgiving about looking you full in the face, and with a quiet, thorough-going way of passing along to their duty at night, carrying huge sou'wester clothing in reserve, that is fraught with all good prepossession. they are handy fellows--neat about their houses, industrious at gardening, would get on with their wives, one thinks, in a desert island--and people it too soon." mrs. long says "mr. dickens was a very nice sort of gentleman, but he didn't like a noise." the windows of fort house, she reminds us, overlooked the coastguard station, and whenever the children playing about made more noise than usual, he used to tell her husband gently "to take the children away," or "to keep the people quiet." this little story fully confirms dickens's often-expressed feeling of dislike, which subsequently grew intolerable, to broadstairs as a watering-place. after taking a turn or two on the lively promenade,--made bright by the rich masses of flesh-coloured flowers of the valerian which fringe its margin,--to enjoy the sunshine and air, and watch the holiday folks, we bid adieu to broadstairs, and proceed to margate. of margate there is not much to say. we reach it by an early afternoon train of the london, chatham, and dover railway, to get the quickest service by the south-eastern railway on to canterbury. our stay at margate is consequently very limited. to some minds this popular cockney watering-place has great attractions; its broad sands, its beautiful air, and its boisterous amusements, negro-melodies, merry-go-rounds, and the like; but it was a place seldom visited by dickens, although he was so often near it. only twice in the _life_ is it recorded that he came here; once being in , when he wrote to forster respecting the theatre as follows:-- "'_nota bene._--the margate theatre is open every evening, and the four patagonians (see goldsmith's _essays_) are performing thrice a week at ranelagh.' a visit from me"--forster goes on to say--"was at this time due, to which these were held out as inducements; and there followed what it was supposed i could not resist, a transformation into the broadest farce of a deep tragedy by a dear friend of ours. 'now you really must come. seeing only is believing, very often isn't that, and even being the thing falls a long way short of believing it. mrs. nickleby herself once asked me, as you know, if i really believed there ever was such a woman; but there will be no more belief, either in me or my descriptions, after what i have to tell of our excellent friend's tragedy, if you don't come and have it played again for yourself, 'by particular desire.' we saw it last night, and oh! if you had but been with us! young betty, doing what the mind of man without my help never _can_ conceive, with his legs like padded boot-trees wrapped up in faded yellow drawers, was the hero. the comic man of the company, enveloped in a white sheet, with his head tied with red tape like a brief, and greeted with yells of laughter whenever he appeared, was the venerable priest. a poor toothless old idiot, at whom the very gallery roared with contempt when he was called a tyrant, was the remorseless and aged creon. and ismene, being arrayed in spangled muslin trousers very loose in the legs and very tight in the ankles, such as fatima would wear in _blue beard_, was at her appearance immediately called upon for a song! after this can you longer--?'" [illustration: the "falstaff": westgate canterbury] he speaks in a letter to forster, dated september, , of "improvements in the margate theatre since his memorable first visit." it had been managed by a son of the great comedian dowton, and the piece which dickens then saw was _as you like it_, "really very well done, and a most excellent house." it was mr. dowton's benefit, and "he made a sensible and modest kind of speech," which impressed dickens, who thus concludes his letter:--"he really seems a most respectable man, and he has cleaned out this dusthole of a theatre into something like decency." there is also the following significant mention of margate in chapter nineteen of _bleak house_:-- "it is the hottest long vacation known for many years. all the young clerks are madly in love, and according to their various degrees, pant for bliss with the beloved object at margate, ramsgate, or gravesend." if broadstairs was noisy, margate must have been intensely so. we leave the crowded holiday-making place without much feeling of regret, and passing ramsgate--of which there is but one mention in the _life_--on our way, reach canterbury in the afternoon. we are delighted with this exquisitely beautiful old city, our only regret being that our time is very limited, and our means of ascertaining places situated in "dickens-land" more so. taking up our temporary quarters at the "sir john falstaff" hotel, in remembrance of its namesake at gad's hill, after the refreshment of a meal, we commence our tramp through canterbury, where david copperfield passed some of his happiest days. of the falstaff here there is an excellent picture in mr. rimmer's _about england with dickens_; a very quaint old inn with double front, and bay-windows top and bottom, possibly of the sixteenth century, and with a long swinging sign extending over the pavement, on which is painted a life-like presentment of the portly knight, the pretty ornamental ironwork supporting it reminding one of washington irving's description in _bracebridge hall_, "fancifully wrought at top into flourishes and flowers." [illustration: the "dane john" from the city wall canterbury] a few steps further on is the west gate, "standing between two lofty and spacious round towers erected in the river," built by archbishop sudbury, who was barbarously murdered by wat tyler in the reign of richard ii., which is the sole remaining one of six gates formerly constituting the approaches to the city. from this gate, looking eastward, with the river stour on either side, banked by neatly-trimmed private gardens, a beautiful view of the city is obtained. the high street, crowded with gables of the sixteenth century and later timbered houses, slightly bends and rises as well, until the perspective seems to lose itself in a distant grove of trees, locally called the "dane john," a corruption of "donjon." this view, especially when seen on a summer afternoon, is most picturesque. the present appearance of the quiet street is decidedly unlike that which it presented on that busy market-day when miss betsey trotwood drove her nephew along it, for david says, "my aunt had a good opportunity of insinuating the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables, and hucksters' goods. the hair-breadth turns and twists we made drew down upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference." we notice in the windows and in many of the shops an abundance of brightly-coloured cut-flowers, a notable feature of the county of kent; but we have little time to spare, and hasten on to the cathedral precincts. "what a magnificent edifice!" is our first thought on beholding the cathedral, a noble pile so well befitting the metropolitan see of england, from which the christianity of the kingdom first flowed. dating from ethelbert, at the close of the sixth century, three structures have successively occupied the site, culminating in the present one, which, according to mr. phillips bevan, was erected at different times between and ; and he goes on to say:--"no wonder that it exhibits so many styles and peculiarities of detail, although the two most prominent architectural eras are those of 'transition-norman' and 'perpendicular.'" the appropriate stone figures in niches of distinguished royal and ecclesiastical personages associated with the cathedral (which at the suggestion of dean alford in replaced those of the murderers of the martyr, thomas à becket), from king ethelbert to queen victoria, and from archbishop lanfranc to archbishop longley; the lofty groined arches and stately towers, the beautiful carved screen, the noble monuments, the splendid choir (a hundred and eighty feet in length) approached by many steps, the rich stained-glass windows, all attract our admiring attention, and confirm our impression that a modern pilgrimage to canterbury is a thing to be highly appreciated; and on no account would we have missed this part of our excursion. the murder of thomas à becket ( ) took place between the nave and the choir in a transept or cross aisle called "the martyrdom." [illustration: bell harry tower: canterbury cathedral:] there is an interesting sidney cooper gallery of art, and also a museum in the city, the latter containing some rare old roman mosaic pavement discovered in burgate street at a depth of ten feet. but our object is to identify spots made memorable in _david copperfield_, and we walk round the spacious cathedral close and "make an effort" (as mrs. chick said) in trying to find the simple-minded and good dr. strong's house. it is described as "a grave building in a courtyard, with a learned air about it that seemed very well suited to the stray rooks and jackdaws who came down from the cathedral towers, and walked with a clerkly bearing on the grass-plat." alas! it is not here, although there are many such houses that correspond with it in some particulars. so we try several of the "dear old tranquil streets," but fail to discover the identical building. the next object of our search is mr. wickfield's residence, "a very old house bulging out over the road; a house with low latticed windows, bulging out still further, and beams with carved heads on the ends, bulging out too." how strongly the description in many parts tallies with the houses in rochester opposite "eastgate house"; but here again we are baffled, as other modern pilgrims have been before, and we cannot associate any particular building with either of the two houses. the house in burgate street now occupied as offices by messrs. plummer and fielding, diocesan registrars, who obligingly permit an examination of it, is suggested to us as being mr. wickfield's house, but, after an inspection, on several grounds we are obliged to reject this suggestion. [illustration: scene of the martyrdom canterbury cathedral] [illustration: "bits" of old canterbury.] there was many a "low old-fashioned room, walked straight into from the street," which would have served for the "umble" dwelling of uriah heep and his mother, but none can be pointed out with absolute certainty as being the veritable one. by the kindness of dr. sheppard and mr. t. b. rosseter, f.r.m.s., we are, however, enabled to identify two houses in canterbury alluded to in _david copperfield_. the "county inn," where mr. dick slept on his visits to david "every alternate wednesday," was no doubt the royal fountain hotel in st. margaret's street (formerly the watling street), which is still recognized as such. a passage in the seventeenth chapter thus refers to these visits:-- "mr. dick was very partial to ginger-bread. to render his visits the more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake-shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be served with more than one shilling's-worth in the course of any one day. this, and the reference of all his little bills at the county inn, where he slept, to my aunt before they were paid, induced me to think that mr. dick was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it." the "little inn" (as recorded in the same chapter) where mr. micawber "put up" on his first visit to canterbury, and where he "occupied a little room in it partitioned off from the commercial, and strongly flavoured with tobacco smoke," is doubtless the "sun inn" in sun street, which is at the opposite corner of the square where the ancient "chequers" in mercery lane--the pilgrim's inn of chaucer--stood. it was a place of resort from afar, and was altered in the seventeenth century. dr. sheppard calls attention to the interesting fact that the omnibus from herne bay stopped at the sun; and probably, in his visits to broadstairs, dickens would often run over for a day's trip to canterbury. on their first visit to the "little inn," mr. and mrs. micawber--notwithstanding their chronic impecuniosity--thus entertained david copperfield:-- "we had a beautiful little dinner. quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney end of a loin of veal roasted; fried sausage-meat; a partridge and a pudding. there was wine, and there was strong ale; and after dinner mrs. micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands." they spent a jolly evening, and ended with singing _auld lang syne_. the "little inn" is again alluded to later in the story, where mr. micawber announces his full determination to abstain from everything until he has exposed the machinations of, and blown to pieces, "the--a--detestable serpent--heep;" and finally, where david copperfield "assisted at an explosion," and mr. micawber is triumphant, and the "transcendent and immortal hypocrite and perjurer, heep," is forced to succumb. speaking of the "little inn" for the last time, david says:--"i looked at the old house from the corner of the street. . . . the early sun was striking edgewise on its gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold; and some beams of its old peace seemed to touch my heart." dr. sheppard subsequently told us that, when he was beginning to turn his attention to the deciphering and utilizing of ancient mss., he was much impressed, when perusing some articles in _household words_, or some other papers written by dickens, relating to the neglected state of public records, more particularly at canterbury; and when many years after the very records of which he wrote came under his (dr. sheppard's) care, he was surprised to find the names of snodgrass, sam weller, and others therein. the records to which dr. sheppard referred were those in charge of the archbishop's registrar at canterbury. if time permits it would be pleasant to go on to dover,[ ] to see "miss betsey trotwood's house," but this is impossible; and indeed, all that can be said about a tramp in search of "that very neat little cottage with cheerful bow windows in front of it, a small square gravelled court or garden full of flowers carefully tended, and smelling deliciously," has been well said by mr. ashby-sterry in his delightful little volume, _cucumber chronicles_. [illustration: "the little inn" canterbury] after much perseverance, and in spite of almost as many difficulties as beset poor little david copperfield himself in his search for his aunt (who, as the dover boatmen told him, "lived in the south foreland light, and had singed her whiskers by doing so"--"that she was made fast to the great buoy outside the harbour, and could only be visited at half-tide"--"that she was locked up in maidstone jail for child-stealing"--and that "she was seen to mount a broom in the last high wind and make direct for calais"), mr. ashby-sterry succeeded, although his greatest embarrassment arose from that irrepressible nuisance, "buggins the builder," who cannot be controlled even in the neighbourhood of dover, so "hugely does he delight to mar those spots that have been hallowed by antiquity, seclusion, or the pen of the novelist. hence the abode of betsey trotwood is not so pleasant as it must have been formerly, for other houses have clustered about the back and the front." but mr. ashby-sterry quite satisfied himself as to the identity on dover heights of the very neat little cottage, and assures us that "the house, however, still stands high, the fresh breezes from over the sea and across the down smite it. it still has a view of the sea, though perhaps not so uninterrupted as it was in the days of david copperfield." he further states that it is, perhaps, not quite so neat as it was in miss betsey trotwood's time, though there are no donkeys about. here are the bow windows, with the room above, where mr. dick alarmed poor david by nodding and laughing at him on his first arrival. the window on the right must have belonged to the neat room "with the drugget-covered carpet," and the old-fashioned furniture brightly polished, where might be found "the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries, the old china, the punch-bowl full of dried rose leaves, the tall press guarding all sorts of bottles and pots, and wonderfully out of keeping with the rest." on the strength of this description by an ardent lover of dickens, we fully make up our minds to visit dover at no distant date to see miss betsey trotwood's house for ourselves. _À propos_ of miss trotwood's domicile, we have been favoured by mr. c. k. worsfold, an old resident of dover, with a letter containing some interesting particulars, from which we extract the following:-- "dickens's description of the local habitation of betsey trotwood is not consistent with the surroundings. the hills on either side of the town belong to the war department, and are occupied as fortifications; on the eastern side is the castle, and on the western side barracks and forts. on the western heights there is a house somewhat answering to dickens's description, having a garden in front of it, and a small plot of grass in front of the garden; and about forty years ago there lived in this house a lady of rather masculine character, who always resented any intrusion of boys, and perhaps donkeys, on the grass in front of her house and garden, and i believe she was occasionally rather rough with the boys; but there the likeness to betsey trotwood ends. this was a married lady living with her husband. "i know it was a matter of conversation forty years ago that dickens must have found his original in the lady in question, but i think he was rather in the habit of selecting his characters without reference to locality, and then adapting them to his requirements. "dickens was a frequent visitor to dover, and he may possibly have been a witness of some encounter between this lady and the boys, and on that occasion donkeys may have been present.[ ] i do not know of any relative of the lady answering to miss trotwood's worthy nephew." "a moderate stroke," as mr. datchery said, "is all i am justified in scoring up"; and we reluctantly leave the "sunny street of canterbury, dozing, as it were, in the hot light," and take our places in the train for chatham, distant about twenty-seven miles. the only new parts of interest which we go over, on our return journey by rail, are the green fields surrounding the ancient city, wherein are numbers of those beautiful and quiet-feeding cattle, which the eminent artist, mr. t. sidney cooper, r.a. (who resides in the neighbourhood), loves to paint, and paints so well; and in due time we pass the chalk-topped hills called harbledown, overlooking canterbury, from whence the best view of the city is obtained, and safely reach our headquarters at rochester. footnotes: [ ] according to a "note" in the _rochester and chatham journal_, the derivation of this curious term is from _uro_ to burn (ustus). [ ] one of the "five cinque ports, and two ancient towns" often referred to, but not always remembered--hastings, sandwich, dover, new romney, hythe, winchelsea and rye. [ ] mr. charles dickens kindly writes to me:--"the lady who objected to the donkeys lived at broadstairs. i knew her when i was a boy." chapter xii. cooling, cliffe, and higham. "and now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the ships on the river growing out of it; and we went into the churchyard . . . and the light wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees." * * * * * "what might have been your opinion of the place?" "a most beastly place. mudbank, mist, swamp and work; work, swamp, mist, and mudbank."--_great expectations._ * * * * * "they were now in the open country; the houses were very few and scattered at long intervals, often miles apart. occasionally they came upon a cluster of poor cottages, some with a chair or low board put across the open door, to keep the scrambling children from the road; others shut up close, while all the family were working in the fields. these were often the commencement of a little village; and after an interval came a wheelwright's shed, or perhaps a blacksmith's forge; then a thriving farm, with sleepy cows lying about the yard, and horses peering over the low wall, and scampering away when harnessed horses passed upon the road, as though in triumph at their freedom."--_the old curiosity shop._ now for a long tramp in the country of the marshes--the famous "meshes" of _great expectations_. the air is sultry on this thursday afternoon, and there is thunder in the distance. the storm, however, does not pass over rochester, but further on we find traces of it where the roadways have been washed up. afterwards the air becomes deliciously cool, and that hum of all nature which succeeds the quiet preceding the storm is distinctly perceptible. crossing rochester bridge, keeping to the right along strood and frindsbury--the churchyard of which affords a splendid view of rochester, chatham, and the medway--passing up four elms hill and through the little village of wainscot, nothing of interest calls for notice until we have travelled some miles from strood. after crossing a tramway belonging to government, and utilized by the royal engineers as a means of communication between the powder-magazine and chatham barracks, we observe that vegetation, which is so rich in other parts of kent, here appears to be dwarfed and stunted. a hop-garden presents a very miserable contrast, in its struggle for existence, to others we have seen in the more central parts of the county, and even some of these were far from being luxuriant, owing to such a peculiarly wet and cold season. the hedges in places are diversified with the small gold and violet star-like flowers and the green and scarlet berries of the climbing woody nightshade, or bitter-sweet (_solanum dulcamara_), often mistaken for the deadly nightshade (_atropa belladonna_--a fine bushy herbaceous perennial, with large ovate-shaped leaves, and lurid, purple bell-shaped flowers), quite a different plant, and happily somewhat rare in england. the delicate light-blue flowers of the chicory are very abundant here. a tramp of upwards of six miles from rochester, by way of hoo,[ ] brings us to lodge hill, overlooking perry hill, which affords a magnificent view of the mouth of the thames beyond the low-lying marshes, and of canvey island, off the coast of essex, on the opposite side. by the kindness of a farmer's wife we are allowed to take a short cut through the farm-garden and grounds, which leads direct to cooling (or cowling) church, a cheerless, grey-stone structure, the tower standing out as a beacon long before we reach it. those unacquainted with this part of kent may be interested in knowing that the marshes, which stretch out over a considerable distance on either side of the thames, on both the kent and the essex coasts, consist entirely of alluvial soil reclaimed at some time from the river. they are intersected by ditches and water-courses, and covered with rank vegetation, chiefly of grass, rushes, and flags, where not cultivated. higher up the land is rich, and large tracts of it are planted with vegetables as market gardens. sea-gulls, plovers, and herons are numerous; their call-notes in the still evening sounding shrill and uncanny over the long stretches of flat lands. dear old michael drayton, the warwickshire poet, who touched upon almost everything, has not omitted to describe the marshes in a somewhat similar locality, for in the _polyolbion_ (song xviii.) he gracefully compares them to a female enamoured of the beauties of the river rother, thus:-- "appearing to the flood, most bravely like a queen, clad all from head to foot, in gaudy summer's green, her mantle richly wrought with sundry flow'rs and weeds; her moistful temples bound with wreaths of quiv'ring reeds; and on her loins a frock, with many a swelling plait, emboss'd with well-spread horse, large sheep, and full-fed neat; with villages amongst, oft powthered here and there; and (that the same more like to landscape should appear) with lakes and lesser fords, to mitigate the heat in summer, when the fly doth prick the gadding neat." readers of _great expectations_ will remember that the scene in the first chapter between pip and the convict, magwitch, is laid in cooling churchyard, and on reaching this spot we are instantly reminded of what doubtless gave origin to the idea of the five dead little brothers of poor philip pirrip, for there, on the left of the principal pathway, are indeed, not five stone lozenges, but _ten_ in one row and three more at the back of them, such peculiarly-shaped and curiously-arranged little monuments as we never before beheld. they consist of a grey stone (kentish-rag, probably, but lichen-encrusted by time) of cylindrical shape, widening at the shoulders, coffin-like, and about a yard in length, the diameter being about eight inches, including the portion buried in the earth. four little foot-stones are placed in front, and separating the ten little memorials from the three at the back is a large head-stone, bearing the name--"comport of cowling court, ." cooling church, which has the date on one of the bells, has an example of a hagioscope, a curious, small, square, angular, tunnel-like opening through the wall, which divides the nave from the chancel. it is said to have been the place through which those members of the church, who were unworthy or unable to receive the sacred elements, might get a look at their more acceptable companions during the administration of the sacrament. the rev. w. h. a. leaver, the rector, who kindly shows us over his church, in reply to our question as to whether he could give any information about charles dickens, said that he was a new-comer in the district, and that all he remembers is, that when his sister was a little baby in arms, her mother happened once to be travelling in the same train with the great novelist, who, with his usual kindness, gave the child an orange, which she acknowledged very ungratefully by scratching his face! the following is a picture of the neighbourhood, given in the opening sentences of the story:-- "ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. my first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. at such a time, i found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that philip pirrip, late of this parish, and also georgiana, wife of above, were dead and buried; and that alexander, bartholomew, abraham, tobias, and roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes, and mounds, and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair, from which the wind was rushing, was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all, and beginning to cry, was pip." [illustration: graves of the comport family: in cooling churchyard] here follows the appearance of the awful convict, and the terrible threats by which he induces pip to bring him "that file and them wittles" on the morrow; to enforce obedience the convict tilts pip two or three times, "and then" [says pip] "he gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weathercock." then he held him by the arms in an upright position on the top of the stone, finally threatening him "with having his heart and liver torn out," in case of non-compliance. all the characters described in _great expectations_, and all the scenes wherein they played their parts--pip, with and without his "great expectations"; his sister mrs. joe gargery, "on the rampage with tickler;" joe gargery, "ever the best of friends, dear pip;" mr. and mrs. hubble, the former fond of "a bit of savoury pork pie as would lay atop of anything you could mention and do no harm;" the stage-struck wopsle, _alias_ "mr. waldengarver"; "the servile pumblechook;" the two convicts, "pip's convict," magwitch, with "the great iron on his leg," and the "other convict," compeyson, also ironed; "slouching old" orlick; biddy, simple-hearted and loving; "the serjeant" and "party of soldiers"; mr. jaggers, "the old bailey lawyer"; estella, miss havisham, herbert pocket, and bentley drummle at "the market town"; joe's forge (now converted into a dwelling-house); "the three jolly bargemen" (obviously taken from "the three horse-shoes," the present village inn); the "old battery," "the little sluice-house by the lime-kiln;"--all centre round cooling churchyard, and appear before us as though traced on a map. forster says in the _life_:--"it is strange as i transcribe the words, with what wonderful vividness they bring back the very spot on which we stood when he said he meant to make it the scene of the opening of this story--cooling castle ruins and the desolate church, lying out among the marshes seven miles from gad's hill!" [illustration: cooling church.] beyond where the river runs to the sea, we conjure up the chase and recapture of pip's convict, while poor pip himself, assisted by his friend herbert pocket, is straining every nerve to get him away. as illustrative of the wonderfully careful way in which dickens did all his work, we also read in forster's _life_:-- "to make himself sure of the actual course of a boat in such circumstances, and what possible incidents the adventure might have, dickens hired a steamer for the day from blackwall to southend. eight or nine friends, and three or four members of his family, were on board, and he seemed to have no care, the whole of that summer day ( nd of may, ), except to enjoy their enjoyment and entertain them with his own in shape of a thousand whims and fancies; but his sleepless observation was at work all the time, and nothing had escaped his keen vision on either side of the river. the fifteenth chapter of the third volume is a masterpiece." speaking generally of this fascinating story, which possesses a thousand-fold greater interest to us now we visit the country there described (not formerly very accessible, but now readily approached by the railway from gravesend to sheerness, alighting at cliffe, the nearest station to cooling), forster says:-- "it may be doubted if dickens could better have established his right to the front rank among novelists claimed for him, than by the ease and mastery with which, in these two books of _copperfield_ and _great expectations_, he kept perfectly distinct the two stories of a boy's childhood, both told in the form of autobiography." the marshes are also alluded to twice in _bleak house_--first, in chapter one--"fog on the essex marshes, fog on the kentish heights;" and secondly, in the twenty-sixth chapter, in the dialogue between trooper george and his odd but kind-hearted attendant phil squod, the original of which, by the bye, was a chatham character. "'and so, phil,' says george of the shooting gallery, after several turns in silence; 'you were dreaming of the country last night.' "phil, by the bye, said as much, in a tone of surprise, as he scrambled out of bed. "'yes, guv'ner.' "'what was it like?' "'i hardly know what it was like, guv'ner,' said phil, considering. "'how did you know it was the country?' "'on accounts of the grass, i think. and the swans upon it,' says phil, after further consideration. "'what were the swans doing on the grass?' "'they was a eating of it, i expect,' says phil. . . . "'the country,' says mr. george, applying his knife and fork, 'why i suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, phil?' "'i see the marshes once,' says phil, contentedly eating his breakfast. "'what marshes?' "'_the_ marshes, commander,' returns phil. "'where are they?' "'i don't know where they are,' says phil, 'but i see 'em, guv'ner. they was flat. and miste.'" forster says:--"about the whole of this cooling churchyard, indeed, and the neighbouring castle ruins, there was a weird strangeness that made it one of his [dickens's] attractive walks in the late year or winter, when from higham he could get to it across country, over the stubble fields; and, for a shorter summer walk, he was not less fond of going round the village of shorne, and sitting on a hot afternoon in its pretty shady churchyard." altogether, the place has a dreary and lonesome appearance in the close of the summer evening, and we can picture with wonderful vividness the remarkable scenes described in _great expectations_, as the lurid purple reflection from the setting sun spreads over the thames valley, and lights up the marshes; the tall pollards standing out like spectres contribute to the weirdness and beauty of the scene. dickens was not the only admirer of the marshes. turner also visited them, and painted some of his most famous pictures from observation there, namely "stangate creek," "shrimping sands," and "off sheerness." a few paces from the church brings us to cooling castle, built by sir john de cobham, the third baron cobham, in the reign of richard ii., whose arms appear on the gatehouse, together with a very curious motto in early english characters. we extract the following interesting account of the tower from the _archæologia cantiana_ (vol. xi.):-- [illustration: gateway cooling castle] "on the south face of the eastern outer gate tower, we see the well-known inscription, which takes the form of a charter, with lord cobham's seal appended to it. this is formed of fourteen copper plates exquisitely enamelled. the writing is in black, while the ground is of white enamel; the seal and silk cords are of the proper colours. the whole work is an exquisite example of enamel, which after five hundred years' exposure to the weather remains nearly as good as when it was put up. the inscription states very clearly why lord cobham erected a castle here, viz. for the safety of the country. the french invasion had shewn the need, and the inscription was perhaps intended to disarm the suspicions and hostility of the serfs by reminding them of that need. it runs thus, in four lines, each enamelled upon three plates of copper:-- "'knoweth that beth and schul be that i am mad in help of the cuntre in knowyng of whyche thyng thys is chartre and witnessyng.'" "(seal, 'gules', on a chevron 'or' three lions rampant 'sable'.) "inscriptions are rare on gothic buildings, especially on castles. this at coulyng is remarkable from being in english, at a time when latin was employed in all charters; it contains that early form of the plural 'beth' instead of 'are.' the inscription measures thirty-two inches by fourteen, and the diameter of the seal is no less than seven and a quarter inches long." after stopping a short time to admire the imposing entrance gate and the remains of the ancient moat, we wend our way for two or three miles, by lanes and "over the stubble-fields," to the straggling village of cliffe,[ ] the houses of which are very old and mostly weather-boarded. the approach to the church is by a rare example of a lich-gate, having a room over it for muniments, and the church itself (which is very large, and seems to be out of proportion to the size of the village) stands in a commanding position on a ridge of chalk, overlooking the marshes, from whence the views of the river in the distance are very fine. it is supposed to be the place where the saxon church held its councils, and there is a local tradition of a ferry having once existed near here. evidence of this seems to survive in the fact that all the roads both on the kent and essex shores appear to converge to this point. the church has some interesting _miserere_ stalls and brasses to the faunce family ( th century). on the walls we find specimens of that somewhat rare fern, the scaly spleenwort (_ceterach officinarum_). [illustration: cliffe church] time does not permit us to go on to gravesend, which like this place was one of dickens's favourite spots ("we come, you see" [says mr. peggotty, speaking of himself and ham to david copperfield, when they visited him at salem house], "the wind and tide making in our favor, in one of our yarmouth lugs to gravesen'"), so we defer our visit to that popular resort until another occasion. we notice in places where the harvest has been cleared (which, alas! owing to excess of wet and absence of sun, has not been an abundant one), preparations for cultivation next year, exhibiting that peculiar effect from ploughing which that gifted writer and born naturalist, the late richard jeffreys, described in his book _wild life in a southern county_, with that love for common things which was so characteristic of him:-- "the ploughmen usually take special care with their work near public roads, so that the furrows end on to the base of the highway shall be mathematically straight. they often succeed so well that the furrows look as if traced with a ruler, and exhibit curious effects of vanishing perspective. along the furrow, just as it is turned, there runs a shimmering light as the eye traces it up. the ploughshare, heavy and drawn with great force, smooths the earth as it cleaves it, giving it for a time a 'face,' as it were, the moisture on which reflects the light. if you watch the farmers driving to market, you will see that they glance up the furrows to note the workmanship and look for game; you may tell from a distance if they espy a hare, by the check of the rein and the extended hand pointing." our destination is now higham--"higham by rochester, kent,"--dickens's nearest village, in which, from his first coming to gad's hill, he took the deepest interest, and after a further long tramp of nearly four miles steadily maintained, we reach lower higham towards dusk; and in a lane we ask an old labourer (who looks as though he would be all the better for "three acres and a cow") if we are on the right road to higham station. curtly but civilly the man answers, "keep straight on," when an incident occurs which brightens up matters considerably. the questioner says to the labourer, "do you remember the late charles dickens?" (we always spoke, when in the district, of "the _late_ charles dickens," to distinguish him from his eldest son, who lived at gad's hill for some years after his father's death. frequently the great novelist was spoken of by residents as "old mr. dickens!") "do i remember muster dickens?" responds the venerable rustic, and his eyes sparkle, and his face beams with such animation that he becomes a different being. "of course i do; he used to have games--running, jumping, and such-like--for us working people, and i've often won a prize. he used to come among us and give us refreshments, and make himself very pleasant." "how long have you lived in this parish?" says the questioner. "sixty-seven year," is the answer. time prevents further inquiries, so we bid our friend "good-evening." in referring to the sports at gad's hill, mr. langton has recorded how a friend sent him a broadside of a portion of one day's amusements, which from its amateurish appearance was probably printed by dickens's sons at the private printing-press before alluded to. the occasion was the th december, , and the christmas sports were held in a field at the back of gad's hill place. mr. trood, a former landlord of the "sir john falstaff" (whose name has been previously mentioned), had, by permission of charles dickens, a booth erected for the refreshment of persons contesting. the attendance was between two and three thousand, and there was not a single case of misconduct or damage. mr. a. h. layard, m.p. (afterwards sir austin layard), was present, and took great interest in the proceedings, dickens having appointed him "chief commissioner of the domestic police." sir austin layard said of the sports, "dickens seemed to have bound every creature present upon what honour the creature had to keep order. what was the special means used, or the art employed, it might have been difficult to say, but that was the result." we made every effort to obtain one of the bills of these sports, but without success, and therefore take the liberty of quoting from mr. langton's copy:-- =christmas sports.= the all-comers' race. distance--once round the field. first prize _s._; second, _s._; third, _s._ _d._ entries to be made in mr. trood's tent before o'clock. to start at . . starter--m. stone, esq. judge and referee--c. dickens, esq. clerk of the course--c. dickens, junr., esq. stewards and keepers of the course--messrs. a. h. layard, m.p., h. chorley, j. hulkes, and h. dickens. in a letter written to mr. forster next day, dickens said, "the road between this and chatham was like a fair all day, and surely it is a fine thing to get such perfect behaviour out of a reckless sea-port town." we presently meet with another representative of the class of village labourer at upper higham, a cheery old man, although, as is sadly too often the case in his class, he was suffering from "the rheumatiz." "those are nice chrysanthemums in your garden," we observe. "yes, they are, sir," he replies; "but if they had been better attended to when they was young, they'd have been nicer." "well, i suppose both of us would," is the rejoinder. we are in touch on the instant. our new acquaintance laughs, and so a question or two is put to him, and the following is the substance of his answers, rendered _à la_ jingle but very feelingly:-- "mr. dickens was a nice sort of man--very much liked--missed a great deal when he died--poor people and the like felt the miss of him. he was a man as shifted a good deal of money in the place. you see, he had a lot of friends--kept a good many horses,--and then there was the men to attend to 'em, and the corn-chandler, the blacksmith, the wheelwright, and others to be paid--the poor--and such-like--felt the miss of him when he died." "how long have you lived here?" "well, i come in ' , eleven years before mr. dickens." "and i suppose you are over sixty." "well, sir, i shall never see seventy again." wishing our friend "good-night," we continue our tramp. on another occasion we met, in the same place, a third specimen of village labourer, "a mender of roads," who knew charles dickens, and so we walked and chatted pleasantly with him for some distance. said our informant, "you see, mr. dickens was a very liberal man; he held his head high up when he walked, and went at great strides." the "mender of roads" was some years ago a candidate for a vacant place as under-gardener at gad's hill, but the situation was filled up just an hour before he applied for it. he said mr. dickens gave him half-a-crown, and afterwards always recognized him when he met him with a pleasant nod, or cheerfully "passed the time of day." we heard in many places that dickens was "always kindly" in this way to his own domestics, and to the villagers in a like station of life to our intelligent friend "the mender of roads." a fourth villager, a groom, who had been in his present situation for twenty years, said:--"both the old gentleman and young mr. charles were very much liked in higham. there wasn't a single person in the place, i believe, but what had a good word for them." it may be interesting to mention that higham--the old name of which was lillechurch--is an extensive parish divided into several hamlets. in a useful little book published in , called _a handbook of higham_, the rev. c. h. fielding, m.a., the author, says:--"there are few parishes more interesting than higham, as it provides food for the antiquarian and the student of nature; while its position near the 'medway smooth, and the royal-masted thame,' affords to the artist many an opportunity for a picture, while the idler has the privilege of lovely views." mr. roach smith was of opinion that higham was the seat of "a great roman pottery." a monastery of importance existed here for several centuries, mary, daughter of king stephen, being one of the prioresses; but it was dissolved by henry viii. the list of flowering plants given in mr. fielding's book is extensive and interesting, and contains many rarities. a "cheap jack," a veritable doctor marigold, had taken up his quarters at higham, and we loiter among the bystanders to hear his patter. we feel quite sure that had dickens been present he would have listened and been as amused with him as ourselves. we heard a few days previously the public crier going round in his cart, announcing the arrival of this worthy by ringing his bell and proclaiming in a stentorian voice something to this effect:-- "the public is respectfully informed that the cheap jack has arrived, bringing with him a large assortment of london, birmingham, and sheffield goods, together with a choice collection of glass and earthenware, which he will sell every evening at the most reasonable prices." on our arrival here we find him on his rostrum surrounded by some flaring naphtha lamps, and thus disposing of some penny books of songs: "now, ladies and gentlemen, what shall we have the pleasure of saying for this handsome book, containing over a hundred songs sung by all the great singers of the day--macdermott, madam langtry, sims reeves, and other eminent vocalists--besides numerous toasts and readings. well, i won't ask sixpence, and i won't take fivepence, fourpence, threepence, twopence--no, i only ask a penny. sold again, and got the money. take care of the ha'pence" (to his assistant), "for we gives them to the blind when they can see to pick 'em up." we of course bought a copy of the famous collection as a "dickens-item." before returning to rochester we are anxious to identify the blacksmith's shop where the _feu de joie_ was fired from "two smuggled cannons," in honour of the marriage of miss kate dickens to mr. charles collins. alterations have taken place which render identification impossible; but a local blacksmith, who has established himself here, gives us some interesting particulars of the games in which he took part. he mentions also a circumstance relating to dickens's favourite horse, toby. it appears that it was an express wish of the novelist that when he died this horse should be shot; and according to our informant the horse was shod on the tuesday before the th of june (the day of dickens's death), and shot on the following monday. the gun was loaded with small shot, and poor toby died immediately it was fired. the blacksmith thoroughly confirms the opinion of the old labourers as to the kindness of charles dickens to his poorer neighbours. a curious episode occurs in our conference with this man: he seems under the impression, which no amount of assertion on our part can overcome, that my friend and fellow tramp, mr. kitton, is mr. henry fielding dickens. whether there was any facial resemblance or likeness of manner did not transpire, but again and again he kept saying, "now ain't you harry dickens?" among the names at higham we notice that of a well-remembered dickens character--mr. stiggins! on arriving at higham railway station, we chat a bit with the station-master and porter there, but both are comparatively fresh comers and knew not charles dickens. after an enjoyable but somewhat fatiguing tramp, we are glad to take a late evening train from higham to strood, and thus ends our inspection of the land of "the meshes." * * * * * by the kindness of mr. henry smetham (locally famed as the "laureate of strood"), we subsequently had an introduction to mrs. taylor, formerly school-mistress at higham, who came there in , and remained until some years after the death of charles dickens. she knew the novelist well, and used to see him almost every day when he was at home. she said, "if i had met him and did not know who he was, i should have set him down as a good-hearted english gentleman." he was very popular and much liked in the neighbourhood. on his return from america, in the first week of may, , garlands of flowers were put by the villagers across the road from the railway station to gad's hill. there was a flag at gad's (a union jack, she thinks), which was always hoisted when dickens was at home. he never read at higham, and never came to the school; but he always allowed the use of the meadow at the back of gad's hill place for the school treats, either of church or chapel, and contributed to such treats sweets and what not. mrs. taylor remembers that the carriage was sent down from gad's hill place to the higham railway station nearly every night at ten o'clock to meet either charles dickens or his friends. it passed the school, and she well recollects the pleasant sound made by the bells. she heard dickens read _sairey gamp_ in london once, and did not like the dress he wore, but thought the reading very wonderful. this lady says she was in london at the time of the death of charles dickens, the announcement of which she saw on a newspaper placard, and was ill the whole of the day afterwards. it was a sorrowful day for her. * * * * * we are much indebted to mrs. budden of gad's hill place for the following interesting particulars which she obtained from mrs. easedown, of higham, "who was parlour-maid to mr. dickens, and left to be married on the th of june, the day he was seized with the fit. she says it was her duty to hoist the flag on the top of the house directly mr. dickens arrived at gad's hill. it was a small flag, not more than fourteen inches square, and was kept in the billiard-room. she says he was the dearest and best gentleman that ever lived, and the kindest of masters. he asked her to stay and wait at table the night he was taken ill; she said if he wished it she would, and then he said, 'never mind; i don't feel well.' she saw him after he was dead, laid out in the dining-room, when his coffin was covered with scarlet geraniums--his favourite flower. the flower-beds on the lawns at gad's hill in his time were always filled with scarlet geraniums; they have since been done away with. over the head of the coffin was the oil painting of himself as a young man (probably maclise's portrait)--on one side a picture of 'dolly varden,' and on the other 'kate nickleby.' he gave mrs. easedown, on the day she left his service, a photograph of himself with his name written on the back. each of the other servants at gad's hill place was presented with a similar photograph. she said he was unusually busy at the time of his death, as on the monday morning he ordered breakfast to be ready during the week at . ('sharp, mind') instead of his usual time, o'clock, as he said 'he had so much to do before friday.' but--'such a thing was never to be,' for on the thursday he breathed his last!" * * * * * mrs. wright, the wife of mr. henry wright, surveyor of higham, lived four years at gad's hill place as parlour-maid. she is the proud possessor of some interesting relics of her late master. these include his soup-plate, a meerschaum pipe (presented to him, but he chiefly smoked cigars--he was not a great smoker), a wool-worked kettle-holder (which he constantly used), and a pair of small bellows. when she was married mr. dickens presented her with a china tea service, "not a single piece of which," said mrs. wright proudly, "has been broken." she remembers, at the time of her engagement as parlour-maid, that the servants told her to let a gentleman in at the front door who was approaching. she didn't know who it was, as she had never seen mr. dickens before. she opened the door, and the gentleman entered in a very upright manner, and after thanking her, looked hard at her, and then walked up-stairs. on returning to the kitchen the servants asked who it was that had just come in. she replied, "i don't know, but i think it was the master." "did he speak?" they asked. "no," said she, "but he looked at me in a very determined way." said they, "he was reading your character, and he now knows you thoroughly," or words to that effect. as parlour-maid, it was part of her duty to carve and wait on her master specially. the dinner serviettes were wrapped up in a peculiar manner, and mrs. wright remembers that lord darnley's servants were always anxious to learn how the folding was done, but they never discovered the secret. at dinner-parties, it was the custom to place a little "button-hole" for each guest. this was mostly made up of scarlet geranium (dickens's favourite flower), with a bit of the leaf and a frond of maidenhair fern. on one occasion in her early days, the dinner-lift (to the use of which she was unaccustomed) broke and ran down quickly, smashing the crockery and bruising her arm. mr. dickens jumped up quickly and said, "never mind the breakage; is your arm hurt?" as it was painful, he immediately applied arnica to the bruise, and gave her a glass of port wine, "treating me," mrs. wright remarked, "more like a child of his own than a servant." when she was married, and left gad's hill, she brought her first child to show her former master. he took notice of it, and asked her what he could buy as a present. she thanked him, and said she did not want anything. on leaving he gently put a sovereign into the baby's little hand, and said, "buy something with that." mrs. wright spoke of the great interest which dickens took in the children's treats at higham, lending his meadow for them, providing sweets and cakes for the little ones, and apples to be scrambled for. he took great delight in seeing the scrambles. she also referred to the cricket club, and said that when the matches were going on it was a regular holiday at higham. dickens used to take the scores, and at the end of the game he gave prizes and made little speeches. her husband, mr. henry wright, acted as secretary to the club, and is the possessor of a letter written by mr. dickens, in reply to an address which had been presented to him, of which letter the following is a copy:-- "gad's hill place, "higham by rochester, kent. "_tuesday, th july, ._ "dear sir, "as your name is the first on the list of signatures to the little address i have had the pleasure of receiving--on my return from a short absence--from the greater part of the players in the match the other day, i address my reply to you. "i beg you to assure the rest that it will always give me great pleasure to lend my meadow for any such good purpose, and that i feel a sincere desire to be a good friend to the working men in this neighbourhood. i am always interested in their welfare, and am always heartily glad to see them enjoying rational and healthful recreation. "it did not escape my notice that some expressions were used the other day which would have been better avoided, but i dismiss them from my mind as being probably unintentional, and certainly opposed to the general good feeling and good sense. "faithfully yours, "charles dickens. "mr. h. wright." both mrs. easedown and mrs. wright informed us (through mrs. budden) that "mr. dickens was the best of masters, and a dear good man; that he gave a great deal away in the parish, and was very much missed; that he frequently went to church and sat in the chancel. . . . when he lived in higham there used to be a great deal of ague, and he gave away an immense quantity of port wine and quinine. since the cement works have been at cliffe there has been very little ague at higham." * * * * * mr. robert lake cobb, of mockbeggar house, higham, a land agent of high position and a county councillor, told us that he took in the _pickwick papers_ as they appeared in numbers, and he recollected how eagerly he read them, and how tiresome it was to have to wait month by month until the story was finished. the book made a tremendous sensation at the time. many years afterwards charles dickens came to reside at gad's hill place, and the families became intimate. "mr. dickens," observed our informant, "was a very pleasant neighbour, and had always got something nice to say. he was a dreadful man to walk--very few could keep up with him." mr. cobb had one son, herbert, who was a playfellow of dickens's boys; and as illustrative of the interest he took in his neighbours, on one occasion the novelist and our informant were talking over matters, when the former said, "what are you going to bring your boy up to?" "a land agent," replied mr. cobb. "ah," said the novelist, "whatever you do, make him self-reliant." he thought that of all the sons mr. henry fielding dickens most resembled his father. among the notable people mr. cobb met at gad's hill place were mr. forster, mr. wilkie collins, mr. fechter the actor, and others. when hans christian andersen was visiting there, dickens took him to higham church. mr. cobb spoke of the pleasant picnic parties which dickens gave on blue bell hill. he was of opinion that cob-tree hall in that neighbourhood, about one and a half miles from aylesford, nearly parallel with the river, suggested the original of manor farm, dingley dell. it formerly belonged to mr. franklin, and is now occupied by major trousdell. mr. cobb believed that dickens took the title of _no thoroughfare_--which he and wilkie collins contributed to the number of _all the year round_, and in the dramatizing of which dickens subsequently was so interested--from the notice-boards which were put up by lord darnley in many parts of cobham park. on one occasion our informant remembers a stoppage of the train in higham tunnel, which caused some consternation to the passengers, as no explanation of the delay was forthcoming from any of the railway officials. the station-master coming up at the time, dickens remarked--"ah! an unwilling witness, mr. wood." mr. cobb mentioned that miss hogarth, dickens's sister-in-law, was a great favourite in the neighbourhood, from her kindness and thoughtfulness for all with whom she came in contact, and especially the poor of higham. footnotes: [ ] speaking of hoo, lambarde says ( )--"hoh in the old english signifieth sorrow or sickness, wherewith the inhabitants of that unwholesome hundred be very much exercised[!]." [ ] lambarde says, "the town [of cliffe at hoo] is large, and hath hitherto a great parish church: and (as i have been told) many of the houses were casually burned (about the same time that the emperor _charles_ came into this realme to visite king _henry_ the eight), of which hurt it was never thorowly cured." chapter xiii. cobham park and hall, the leather bottle, shorne, chalk, and the dover road. "it's a place you may well be fond of and attached to, for it's the prettiest spot in all the country round."--_the village coquettes._ "the last soft light of the setting sun had fallen on the earth, casting a rich glow on the yellow corn sheaves, and lengthening the shadows of the orchard trees."--_the pickwick papers._ we reserve this, our last long tramp in "dickens-land," for the friday before our departure. mrs. perugini, the novelist's second daughter, had recently told us that this was the most beautiful of all the beautiful parts of kent, and so indeed it proves to be. its sylvan scenery is truly unique. mr. charles dickens the younger, in his valuable annotated jubilee edition of _pickwick_, has included this note relating to cobham:-- "as all the world knows, the neighbourhood of rochester was dear to charles dickens. there it is that gad's hill place stands, the house to which, as 'a queer, small boy,' he looked forward as the possible reward of an industrious career, and in which he passed the later years of his life; and near rochester, still approached by the 'delightful walk' here described, is cobham, one of the most charming villages in that part of kent. down the lanes, and through the park to cobham, was always a favourite walk with charles dickens; and he never wearied of acting as _cicerone_ to his guests to its fine church and the quaint almshouses with the disused refectory behind it." happily the weather again favours us on this delightful excursion. it is just such a day as that on which we made our visit to gad's hill. as we have had much tramping about rochester during the morning, we prudently take an early afternoon train to higham, to save our legs. the short distance of about four miles consists almost entirely of tunnels cut through the chalk. alighting at higham station, we make our way for the dover road and reach pear tree lane, which turns out of it for cobham. we notice in passing through higham by daylight that the lanes are much closed in by banks, in fact, the tertiary and chalk systems have been cut through to form the roads; but here and there one gets glimpses of the thames, its course being marked by the white or brown wings of sailing-boats. the lane above alluded to, a little above gad's hill, is the direct road to cobham, and on entering it we are immediately struck with the different scene presented, as compared with any part of the county we have previously gone over. it is cut through the thanet sands, which at first are of ashy gray colour, but after some distance are of a bright red hue, probably owing to infiltration, and the road rises gently until the woods are reached. the vegetation growing on the high banks consists of oak, hazel, beech, sycamore, and spanish chestnut, in many places intermingled with wild clematis. the branches of the trees are not allowed to grow over into the road, but are kept well cut back so as practically to form a wall on either side, extending in some places to twelve feet high. the effect is to present an almost unbroken surface of various shades of green, deliciously cool and shady in the heat of summer, and brightened here and there in autumn by the rich orange-coloured fruit of the arum, the scarlet berries of the white bryony, and--deeper in the woods--by the pinky-waxen berries of the spindle-tree, described by lord tennyson as "the fruit which in our winter woodland looks a flower." as the road continually winds in its upward progress, and as no part within view extends beyond a few hundred yards before it turns again, the limit of perspective is frequently arrested by a number of evergreen arches. it was a devonshire lane, so to speak, in a state of cultivation. of course in the early spring, the delicacy of the fresh green foliage would give another picture; and again the autumnal tints would present a totally different effect under the influence of the rich colouring of decaying vegetation. no wonder dickens and his friends had such admiration for this walk, the last, by the way, that he ever enjoyed, on tuesday, th june, , with his sister-in-law, miss hogarth, the day before the fatal seizure. in a letter written from lausanne, so far back as the year , he says:-- "green woods and green shades about here are more like cobham, in kent, than anything we dream of at the foot of alpine passes." when we reach an elevation and are able to get an extended view of the country we have traversed, a magnificent prospect of the thames valley on the west side, and of the medway valley on the east, discloses itself. on a bank in this lane we find a rather rare plant, the long-stalked crane's-bill (_geranium columbinum_), its rose-pink flowers standing out like rubies among the green foliage. _pteris aquilina_, the common brake or bracken, is very luxuriant here; but we have met with few ferns in the part of kent which we visited. we were afterwards informed that _asplenium_, _lastrea_, _scolopendrium_, and others are to be found in the neighbourhood. we pass at shorne ridgway a village inn with a curious sign, "ye olde see ho taverne." on inquiry, we learn that "see ho" is the sportsman's cry in coursing, when a hare appears in sight. the woods surrounding the entrance to the park are presently reached, and here the vegetation, which in the lanes had been kept under, is allowed to grow unchecked. at intervals walks (or "rides," as they are called in some counties) are cut through the woods, the grass being well mown underneath, and each of these walks is a shaded grove, losing itself in the distance. the deep silence of the place is only broken by the cooing of the wood-pigeon, and the occasional piercing note of the green woodpecker. it is said that the nightingales appear here about the th of april and continue singing until june, and that the best time for seeing this neighbourhood is during the blossoming season in may. the temptation to quote dickens's own description of cobham park from _pickwick_ cannot be resisted:-- "a delightful walk it was; for it was a pleasant afternoon in june, and their way lay through a deep and shady wood, cooled by the light wind which gently rustled the thick foliage, and enlivened by the songs of the birds that perched upon the boughs. the ivy and the moss crept in thick clusters over the old trees, and the soft green turf overspread the ground like a silken mat. they emerged upon an open park, with an ancient hall, displaying the quaint and picturesque architecture of elizabeth's time. long vistas of stately oaks and elm trees appeared on every side: large herds of deer were cropping the fresh grass; and occasionally a startled hare scoured along the ground with the speed of the shadows thrown by the light clouds, which swept across a sunny landscape like a passing breath of summer." another description of cobham at another time of the year is found in the _seven poor travellers_:-- "as for me, i was going to walk, by cobham woods, as far upon my way to london as i fancied. . . . and now the mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner, and the sun to shine; and as i went on through the bracing air, seeing the hoar-frost sparkle everywhere, i felt as if all nature shared in the joy of the great birthday. . . . by cobham hall i came to the village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly buried 'in the sure and certain hope' which christmastide inspired." we notice in our quiet tramp here a peculiarity in the foliage of the oaks which is worth recording. it will be remembered that in the late spring of , anxiety was expressed by certain newspaper correspondents that the english oak would suffer extermination in consequence of caterpillars denuding it of its leaves. but naturalists who had studied the question knew better. the caterpillar, which is no doubt the larva of the green tortrix moth (_tortrix viridana_), spins its cocoon at the end of june or the beginning of july, and the effect of the heavy rains and warm sunny days since that time was to encourage the energy of the tree in putting forth its second growth of leaves. this second growth of delicate green almost covered the oaks in cobham park, and effectually concealed the devastation of the caterpillars on the old leaves. the effect was quite spring-like. truly, as george eliot says, "nature repairs her ravages." [illustration: cobham hall.] cobham park is nearly seven miles round, and its exquisitely varied scenery of wood and glade is conspicuous at the spot where the chestnut tree called "the four sisters" is placed. there is a lovely walk from cobham hall to rochester through the "long avenue," so named in contradistinction to the "grand avenue," which opens into cobham village. this walk, which slopes all the way down from the mausoleum, leads to a seat placed midway in an open spot where charming views of the medway valley are obtained. for rich sylvan scenery in the county of kent, this is surely unrivalled. admission to cobham hall, the seat of the earl of darnley (whose ancestors have resided here since the time of king john), is on fridays only, and such admission is obtained by ticket, procurable from mr. wildish, bookseller, of rochester. a nominal charge is made, the proceeds being devoted towards maintaining cobham schools. the hall is a red-brick edifice (temp. elizabeth, ), consisting of two tudor wings, connected by a central block designed by inigo jones. the most noticeable objects in the entrance corridor are a fine pair of columns of cornish serpentine, nearly ten feet high, tapering from a base some two feet square. the white veining of the steatite (soapstone) is in beautiful contrast to the rich red and black colours of the marble. these columns were purchased at the great exhibition of . an enormous bath, hewn out of a solid block of granite said to have been brought from egypt, is also a very noticeable object in this corridor. the housekeeper--a chatty, intelligent, and portly personage--shows visitors over the rooms and picture-galleries. there is a superb collection of pictures by the old masters, about which dickens had always something facetious to say to his friends. they illustrate the schools of venice, florence, rome, netherlands, spain, france, and england, and were formed mainly by purchases from the orleans gallery, and the vetturi gallery from florence, and include titian's 'rape of europa,' rubens's 'queen tomyris dipping cyrus's head into blood,' salvator rosa's 'death of regulus,' vandyck's 'duke of lennox,' sir joshua reynolds's 'the call of samuel,' and others. but the pictures in which we are most interested are the portraits of literary, scientific, and other worthies--an excellent collection, including shakespeare, john locke, hobbes, sir richard steele, sir william temple, dean swift, dryden, betterton, pope, gay, thomson, sir hugh middleton, martin luther, and the ill-fated lord george gordon. there is also an ornithological museum, with some very fine specimens of the order of grallatores (or waders). in reply to a letter of inquiry, the earl of darnley kindly informs us that the examples of ostrich (_struthio camelus_), cassowary (_casuarius galeatus_), and common emu (_dromaius ater_), were once alive in the menagerie attached to the hall, which was broken up about fifty years ago. we are shown the music-room (which, by the bye, his late majesty king george iv., is said to have remarked was the finest room in england), a very handsome apartment facing the west, with a large organ, and capable of containing several hundred persons. the decorations are very chaste, being in white and gold; and, as the brilliant sun was setting in the summer evening, a delicate rose-coloured hue was diffused over everything in the room through the medium of the tinted blinds attached to the windows. it had a most peculiar and pretty effect, strongly recalling mrs. skewton and her "rose-coloured curtains for doctors." [illustration: dickens's châlet, now in cobham park.] by the special permission of his lordship, we see the famous swiss châlet, which is now erected in the terrace flower-garden at the back of cobham hall, having been removed to its present position some years ago from another part of the grounds. it stands on an elevated open space surrounded by beautiful trees--the rare salisburia, tulip, cedar, chestnut and others--and makes a handsome addition to the garden, irrespective of its historical associations. the châlet is of dark wood varnished, and has in the centre a large carving of dickens's crest, which in heraldic terms is described as: "a lion couchant 'or,' holding in the gamb a cross patonce 'sable.'" there are two rooms in the châlet, each about sixteen feet square, the one below having four windows and a door, and the one above (approached in the usual swiss fashion by an external staircase), which is much the prettier, having six windows and a door. there are shutters outside, and the overhanging roof at first sight gives the building somewhat of a top-heavy appearance, but this impression wears off after a time, and it is found to be effective and well-proportioned. "the five mirrors" which dickens placed in the châlet have been removed from the upper room, but they are scarcely necessary, the views of rich and varied foliage and flowers seen from the open windows, through which the balmy air passes, forming a series of pictures in the bright sunlight of the august afternoon delightfully fresh and beautiful. we sit down quietly for a few minutes and enjoy the privilege; we ponder on the many happy and industrious hours spent by its late owner in this now classic building; and we leave it sadly, with the recollection that here were penned the last lines which the "vanished hand" was destined to give to the world. the earl of darnley generously allows his neighbours to have a key of his park, and dickens had one of such keys, a privilege greatly appreciated by him and his friends. recently his lordship has erected a staircase round one of the highest trees in the park, called the "crow's nest," from whence a very pretty peep at the surrounding country is obtained. during our visit we venture to ask the portly housekeeper if she remembers charles dickens? the ray of delight that illumines her good-natured countenance is simply magical. "oh," she says, "i liked mr. dickens very much. he was always so full of fun. oh! oh! oh!" the recollection of which causes a fit of suppressed laughter, which "communicates a blancmange-like motion to her fat cheeks," and she adds: "he used to dine here, and was always very popular with the family, and in the neighbourhood." we cannot help thinking that such delightful places as cobham hall were in dickens's mind when, in _bleak house_ (_à propos_ of chesney wold), he makes the volatile harold skimpole say to sir leicester dedlock--"the owners of such places are public benefactors. they are good enough to maintain a number of delightful objects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men, and not to reap all the admiration and pleasure that they yield, is to be ungrateful to our benefactors." leaving the park by a pretty undulating walk, and passing on our way a large herd of deer, their brown and fawn-coloured coats contrasting prettily with the green-sward, we come upon the picturesque village of cobham, where mr. tupman sought consolation after his little affair with the amatory spinster aunt. of course the principal object of interest is the leather bottle, or "dickens's old pickwick leather bottle," as the sign of the present landlord now calls it, wherein dickens slept a night in , and visited it many times subsequently. there is a coloured portrait of the president of the pickwick club on the sign, as he appeared addressing the members. a fire occurred at the leather bottle a few years ago, but it was confined to a back portion of the building; unfortunately its restoration and so-called "improvements" have destroyed many of the picturesque features which characterized this quiet old inn when dickens wrote the famous papers. here is his description of it after mr. pickwick, mr. snodgrass, and mr. winkle had walked through cobham park to seek their lost friend:-- [illustration: the "leather bottle" cobham] "'if this,' said mr. pickwick, looking about him; 'if this were the place to which all who are troubled with our friend's complaint came, i fancy their old attachment to this world would very soon return.' "'i think so too,' said mr. winkle. "'and really,' added mr. pickwick, after half an hour's walking had brought them to the village, 'really for a misanthrope's choice, this is one of the prettiest and most desirable places of residence i ever met with.' "in this opinion also, both mr. winkle and mr. snodgrass expressed their concurrence; and having been directed to the leather bottle, a clean and commodious village ale-house, the three travellers entered, and at once inquired for a gentleman of the name of tupman. "'show the gentlemen into the parlour, tom,' said the landlady. "a stout country lad opened a door at the end of the passage, and the three friends entered a long, low-roofed room, furnished with a large number of high-backed leather-cushioned chairs, of fantastic shapes, and embellished with a great variety of old portraits, and roughly-coloured prints of some antiquity. at the upper end of the room was a table, with a white cloth upon it, well covered with a roast fowl, bacon, ale, and etceteras; and at the table sat mr. tupman, looking as unlike a man who had taken his leave of the world, as possible. "on the entrance of his friends, that gentleman laid down his knife and fork, and with a mournful air advanced to meet them. "'i did not expect to see you here,' he said, as he grasped mr. pickwick's hand. 'it's very kind.' "'ah!' said mr. pickwick, sitting down, and wiping from his forehead the perspiration which the walk had engendered. 'finish your dinner, and walk out with me. i wish to speak to you alone.' "mr. tupman did as he was desired; and mr. pickwick having refreshed himself with a copious draught of ale, waited his friend's leisure. the dinner was quickly despatched, and they walked out together. "for half an hour, their forms might have been seen pacing the churchyard to and fro, while mr. pickwick was engaged in combating his companion's resolution. any repetition of his arguments would be useless; for what language could convey to them that energy and force which their great originator's manner communicated? whether mr. tupman was already tired of retirement, or whether he was wholly unable to resist the eloquent appeal which was made to him, matters not; he did _not_ resist it at last. "'it mattered little to him,' he said, 'where he dragged out the miserable remainder of his days: and since his friend laid so much stress upon his humble companionship, he was willing to share his adventures.' "mr. pickwick smiled; they shook hands; and walked back to rejoin their companions." [illustration: the old parlour of the "leather bottle."] [illustration: cobham church] in order to preserve the historical associations of the place, the landlord of the leather bottle has added to the art collection in the fine old parlour (that still contains "the high-backed leather-cushioned chairs of fantastic shapes") many portraits of dickens and illustrations from his works, including a copy of the life-like coloured watkins photograph previously referred to. it has been already suggested that the neighbourhood of kit's coty house probably gave rise to the famous archæological episode of the stone with the inscription--"bill stumps, his mark," in _pickwick_, which occurred near here, rivalling the "a. d. l. l." discovery of the sage monkbarns in scott's _antiquary_. time presses with us, so, after a refreshing cup of tea, we just have a hasty glance at the beautiful old church, which contains some splendid examples of monumental brasses, which for number and preservation are said to be unique. they are erected to the memory of john cobham, constable of rochester, , his ancestors and others.[ ] there are also some fine old almshouses which accommodate twenty pensioners. these almshouses are a survival of the ancient college. we then take our departure, returning through cobham woods. turning off at some distance on the left, and passing through the little village of shorne, with its pretty churchyard, a very favourite spot of charles dickens, and probably described by him in _pickwick_ as "one of the most peaceful and secluded churchyards in kent, where wild flowers mingle with the grass, and the soft landscape around, forms the fairest spot in the garden of england"--we make for chalk church. it will be remembered, that the first number of _pickwick_ appeared on the st march, , and on the nd of april following charles dickens was married, and came to spend his honeymoon at chalk, and he visited it again in , when doubtless the descriptions of cobham and its vicinity were written. to this neighbourhood, "at all times of his life, he returned, with a strange recurring fondness." [illustration: shorne church] mr. kitton has favoured me with permission to quote the following extract from his supplement to _charles dickens by pen and pencil_, being the late mr. e. laman blanchard's recollections of this pleasant neighbourhood:-- "in the year charles dickens came to reside at gad's hill, i took possession of a country house at rosherville, which i occupied for some seventeen years. during that period a favourite morning walk was along the high road, of many memories, leading from gravesend to rochester, and on repeated occasions i had the good fortune to encounter the great novelist making one of his pedestrian excursions towards the gravesend or greenhithe railway station, where he would take the train to travel up to town. generally, by a curious coincidence, we passed each other, with an interchange of salutations, at about the same spot. this was on the outskirts of the village of chalk, where a picturesque lane branched off towards shorne and cobham. here the brisk walk of charles dickens was always slackened, and he never failed to glance meditatively for a few moments at the windows of a corner house on the southern side of the road, advantageously situated for commanding views of the river and the far-stretching landscape beyond. it was in that house he had lived immediately after his marriage, and there many of the earlier chapters of _pickwick_ were written." it is a long walk from cobham to chalk church,--the church, by the bye, being about a mile from the village, as is usual in many places in kent,--and as the shades of evening are coming upon us, and as we are desirous of having a sketch of the curious stone-carved figure over the entrance porch, we hurry on, and succeed in effecting our object, though under the difficulty of approaching darkness. [illustration: curious old figure over the porch, chalk church.] this figure represents an old priest in a stooping position, with an upturned vessel (probably a jug), about which we were informed there is probably a legend. dickens used to be a great admirer of this quaint carving, and it is said that whenever he passed it, he always took off his hat to it, or gave it a friendly nod, as to an old acquaintance. [we regretfully record the fact that since our visit, both porch and figure have been demolished.] amid the many strange sounds peculiar to summer night in the country, a very weird and startling effect is produced in this lonely spot, in the dusk of the evening, by the shrill whistle of the common redshank (_totanus calidris_), so called from the colour of its legs, which are of a crimson-red. this bird, as monotonous in its call-note as the corn-crake, to which it is closely allied, doubtless has its home in the marshes hereabout, in which, and in fen countries, it greatly delights. the peculiar whistle is almost ventriloquial in its ubiquity, and must be heard to be properly appreciated. we retrace our steps to the dover road, and by the light of a match applied to our pipes, see that our pedometer marks upwards of fifteen miles for this tramp--"a rather busy afternoon," as mr. datchery once said. since these lines were written, the third volume of the _autobiography and reminiscences_ of w. p. frith, r.a., has been published, in which there is a most interesting reminiscence of dickens; indeed, there are many scattered throughout the three volumes, but the one in question refers to "a stroll" which dickens took with mr. frith and other friends in july . mr. cartwright, the celebrated dentist, was one of the party, and the "stroll" was in reality, as the genial r. a. describes it, "a fearfully long walk" such as he shall never forget; nor the night he passed, without once closing his eyes in sleep, after it. "dickens," continues mr. frith, "was a great pedestrian. his strolling was at the rate of perhaps a little under four miles an hour. he was used to the place,--i was not, and suffered accordingly." having a shrewd suspicion that this referred to one of the long walks taken in our tramp, the present writer communicated with mr. frith on the subject, and he was favoured with the following reply:-- "the stroll i mentioned in my third volume was through lord darnley's park, but after that i remember nothing. as the time spent in walking was four hours at least, we must have covered ground far beyond the length of the park. "on another occasion,--dickens, miss hogarth, and i went to rochester to see the castle, and the famous pickwickian inn. on another day we went to the leather bottle at cobham, where dickens was eloquent on the subject of the dadd parricide, showing us the place where the body was found, with many startling and interesting details of the discovery." the subject of the dadd parricide alluded to by mr. frith was a very horrible case; the son--an artist--was a lunatic, and was subsequently confined in bethlehem hospital, london. there are two curious pictures by him in the dyce and forster collection at south kensington; one is inscribed "sketches to illustrate the passions--patriotism. by richard dadd, bethlehem hospital, london, may , , st. george's-in-the-fields." it has much minute writing on it. the other is "leonidas with the wood-cutters," and illustrates glover's poem, _leonidas_. it is inscribed, "rd. dadd, ." he died in bethlehem hospital in . the dover road! what a magic influence it has over us, as we tramp along it in the quiet summer evening, and recall an incident that happened nearly a hundred years ago, what time the dover mail struggled up shooter's hill on that memorable friday night, and jerry cruncher, who had temporarily suspended his "fishing" operations, and being free from the annoyances of the "aggerawayter," caused consternation to the minds of coachman, guard, and passengers of the said mail, by riding abruptly up, _à la_ highwayman, and demanding to speak to a passenger named mr. jarvis lorry, then on his way to paris,--as faithfully chronicled in _a tale of two cities_. again, in the early part of the present century, when a certain friendless but dear and artless boy, named david copperfield,--who having been first robbed by a "long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart, which was nothing but a large wooden-tray on wheels," of "half a guinea and his box," under pretence of "driving him to the pollis," and subsequently defrauded by an unscrupulous tailor named one mr. dolloby ("dolloby was the name over the shop-door at least") of the proper price of "a little weskit," for which he, dolloby, gave poor david only ninepence,--trudged along that same dover road footsore and hungry, "and got through twenty-three miles on the straight road" to rochester and chatham on a certain sunday; all of which is duly recorded in _the personal history of david copperfield_. in after years, when happier times came to him, david made many journeys over the dover road, between canterbury and london, on the canterbury coach. respecting the earliest of these (readers will remember phiz's illustration, "my first fall in life"), he says:-- "the main object on my mind, i remember, when we got fairly on the road, was to appear as old as possible to the coachman, and to speak extremely gruff. the latter point i achieved at great personal inconvenience; but i stuck to it, because i felt it was a grown-up sort of thing." in spite of this assumption, he is impudently chaffed by "william the coachman" on his "shooting"--on his "county" (suffolk), its "dumplings," and its "punches," and finally, at william's suggestion, actually resigns his box-seat in favour of his (william's) friend, "the gentleman with a very unpromising squint and a prominent chin, who had a tall white hat on with a narrow flat brim, and whose close-fitting drab trousers seemed to button all the way up outside his legs from his boots to his hips." in reply to a remark of the coachman this worthy says:--"there ain't no sort of 'orse that i 'ain't bred, and no sort of dorg. 'orses and dorgs is some men's fancy. they're wittles and drink to me--lodging, wife, and children--reading, writing, and 'rithmetic--snuff, tobacker, and sleep." "that ain't a sort of man to see sitting behind a coach-box, is it, though?" says william in david's ear. david construes this remark into an indication of a wish that "the gentleman" should have his place, so he blushingly offers to resign it. "well, if you don't mind," says william, "i think it would be more correct." poor david, "so very young!" gives up his box-seat, and thus moralizes on his action:-- "i have always considered this as the first fall i had in life. when i booked my place at the coach-office, i had had 'box seat' written against the entry, and had given the book-keeper half-a-crown. i was got up in a special great coat and shawl, expressly to do honour to that distinguished eminence; had glorified myself upon it a good deal; and had felt that i was a credit to the coach. and here, in the very first stage, i was supplanted by a shabby man with a squint, who had no other merit than smelling like a livery-stables, and being able to walk across me, more like a fly than a human being, while the horses were at a canter." pip, in _great expectations_, also made very many journeys to and from london, along the dover road (the london road it is called in the novel), but the two most notable were, firstly, the occasion of his ride outside the coach with the two convicts as fellow-passengers on the back-seat--"bringing with them that curious flavour of bread-poultice, baize, rope-yarn, and hearth-stone, which attends the convict presence;" and secondly, that in which he walked all the way to london, after the sad interview at miss havisham's house, where he learns that estella is to become the wife of bentley drummle:-- "all done, all gone! so much was done and gone, that when i went out at the gate the light of day seemed of a darker colour than when i went in. for awhile i hid myself among some lanes and bypaths, and then started off to walk all the way to london. . . . it was past midnight when i crossed london bridge." one more reference is made to the dover road in _bleak house_, where that most lovable of the many lovable characters in dickens's novels, esther summerson, makes her journey, with her faithful little maid charley, to deal, in order to comfort richard carstone:-- "it was a night's journey in those coach times; but we had the mail to ourselves, and did not find the night very tedious. it passed with me as i suppose it would with most people under such circumstances. at one while, my journey looked hopeful, and at another hopeless. now, i thought that i should do some good, and now i wondered how i could ever have supposed so." when speaking of dickens's characters, some critics have said that "he never drew a gentleman." one ventures to ask, where is there a more chivalrous, honourable, or kind-hearted gentleman than mr. john jarndyce? sir leicester dedlock in the same novel too, with some few peculiarities, is a thoroughly high-minded and noble gentleman of the old school. this by the way. [illustration: "there's milestones on the dover road"] after walking some distance, we are able to verify one of those sage experiences of mr. f.'s aunt:--"there's milestones on the dover road!" for, by the light of another match, the darkness closing in, and there being no moon, we read " miles to rochester." however, we tramp merrily on, with "the town lights right afore us," our minds being full of pleasant reminiscences of the scenes we have passed through, and this expedition, like many a weightier matter, "comes to an end for the time." * * * * * we had on another occasion the pleasure of a long chat with mrs. latter of shorne, one of the daughters of mr. w. s. trood, for many years landlord of the sir john falstaff. she said her family came from somersetshire to reside at gad's mill in the year , and left in . the falstaff was then a little homely place, but it has been much altered since. she knew charles dickens very well, and saw him constantly during his residence at gad's hill place. mrs. latter lost two sisters while she lived at the falstaff--one died at the age of eleven, and the other at nineteen. the last-mentioned was named jane, and died in of brain fever. dickens was very kind to the family at the time, took great interest in the poor girl, and offered help of "anything that his house could afford." she remembers her mother asking dickens if it would be well to have the windows of the bedroom open. at those times people were fond of keeping invalids closed up from the air. dickens said--"certainly: give her plenty of air." he liked fresh air himself. mrs. latter said in proof of this that the curtains were always blowing about the open windows at gad's hill place. when her sister jane died, the funeral took place at higham church, and was very quiet, there being no show, only a little black pall trimmed with white placed over the coffin, which was carried by young men to the grave. dickens afterwards commended what had been done, saying: "it showed good sense," and adding--"not like an army of black beetles." it will be remembered that in _great expectations_ and elsewhere the ostentation, mummery, and extravagance of the "undertaking ceremony" are severely criticised. the same feeling, and a desire for funeral reform, no doubt prompted dickens to insert the following clause in his will:-- "i emphatically direct that i be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner; that no public announcement be made of the time or place of my burial; that at the utmost not more than three plain mourning-coaches be employed; and that those who attend my funeral wear no scarf, cloak, black bow, long hatband, or other such revolting absurdity." mrs. latter then told us the story of the two men with performing bears:-- it appears that soon after dickens came to gad's hill a lot of labourers from strood--some thirty or forty in number--had been for an outing in breaks to cobham to a "bean-feast," or something of the kind, and some of them had got "rather fresh." on the return journey they stopped at the falstaff, and at the time two men, who were foreigners, were there with performing bears, a very large one and a smaller one. the labourers began to lark with the bears, teased them, and made them savage, "becalled" the two men to whom they belonged, and a regular row followed. the owners of the bears became exasperated, and were proceeding to unmuzzle the animals, when dickens (hearing the noise) came out of his gate holding one of his st. bernard dogs by a chain. he told mrs. latter's father to take the bears up a back lane, said a few words to the crowd, and remonstrated with the strood men on their conduct. the effect was magical; the whole affair was stilled in a minute or two. * * * * * on a subsequent occasion we called upon the rev. john joseph marsham of overblow, near shorne. this venerable clergyman, a bachelor, and in his eighty-fifth year, is totally blind, but in other respects is in the full possession of all his faculties, and remarked that he was much interested to hear anybody talk about old friends and times. he was inducted as vicar of shorne in the year , came to live there in , and resigned his cure in , after completing his jubilee. he is a "kentish man," having been born at rochester. in our tramp the question of "kentish man," or "man of kent," often cropped up, and we had an opportunity of having the difference explained to us. a "kentish man" is one born on the east side of the river medway, and a "man of kent" is one born on the west side. the position of the residence "overblow" is delightful. it stands on a little hill, the front having a fine view of the thames valley and the marshes, the side looking on to the pretty hollow, in the centre of which stands shorne church, and the back being flanked in the distance by the beautiful cobham woods. the reverend gentleman told us that he was a schoolfellow of the right honourable w. e. gladstone and sir thomas gladstone, his brother, at eton, and had dined with the former at hawarden on the occasion of his being thrice premier, although he helped to turn his old friend out at oxford in , when he was succeeded by the right honourable gathorne hardy, now lord cranbrook. mr. marsham was a neighbour of charles dickens, occasionally dined with him at gad's hill, and also met him at dinner sometimes at mr. hulkes's at the little hermitage. he spoke of him as a nice neighbour and a charming host, but he rarely talked except to his old friends. he frequently met dickens in his walks, and had many a stroll with him, and always found him very interesting and amusing in his conversation. once they were coming down from london together in a saloon carriage which contained about twelve or fourteen people. dickens was sitting quietly in a corner. it was at the time that one of his serial novels was appearing, and most of the passengers were reading the current monthly number. no one noticed dickens, and when the train stopped at strood, he said--"we did not have much talk." "no," said mr. marsham, "the people were much better engaged," at which dickens laughed. charles dickens did mr. marsham the kindness to send him early proofs of his christmas stories before they were published. after dickens's death (which he heard of in london, and never felt so grieved in his life) mr. charles dickens the younger, and mr. charles collins, his brother-in-law, came to select a piece of ground on the east side of shorne churchyard, which was one of dickens's favourite spots, but in consequence of the arrangements for the burial in westminster abbey this was of course given up. mr. marsham was staying in london, at lord penrhyn's, at the time of dickens's death, and lady louisa penrhyn told him that by accident she was in westminster abbey at about ten o'clock on the morning of th june, the day of the funeral, and noticing some persons standing round an open grave, her ladyship went to see it, and was greatly impressed on looking in to read the name of charles dickens on the coffin, on which were numerous wreaths of flowers. our venerable friend possesses a souvenir of the novelist in the two exquisite plaster statuettes, about eighteen inches high, of "night" and "morning," which he purchased at the gad's hill sale. the reverend gentleman spoke of the great improvements in travelling as compared with times within his recollection. he said that before the railways were constructed he went to london by boat from gravesend, and the river was so bad that he had to keep his handkerchief to his nose all the way to avoid the stench. this was long before the days of thames embankments and other improvements in travelling by river and road. footnote: [ ] "cobham church [says a writer in the _archæologia cantiana_, ] is distinguished above all others as possessing the finest and most complete series of brasses in the kingdom. it contains some of the earliest and some of the latest, as well as some of the most beautiful in design. the inscriptions are also remarkable, and the heraldry for its intelligence is in itself a study. there is an interest also in the fact that for the most part they refer to one great family--the lords of cobham." chapter xiv. a final tramp in rochester and london. "you have been in every line i have ever read, since i first came here, . . . you have been in every prospect i have ever seen since--on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets."--_great expectations._ "the magic reel, which, rolling on before, has led the chronicler thus far, now slackens in its pace, and stops. it lies before the goal; the pursuit is at an end. . . . good-night, and heaven send our journey may have a prosperous ending."--_the old curiosity shop._ it is the morning of saturday, the first of september, , when our wonderfully pleasant week's tramp in "dickens-land" comes to an end. we have carried out every detail of our programme, without a single _contretemps_ to mar the enjoyment of our delightful holiday; we have visited not only the spots where the childhood and youth of charles dickens were passed, and where the influence of the environment is specially traceable in the tone of both his earlier and later writings, but we have gone over and identified (as we proposed to do) a number of places in which he delighted, and often described in those writings, peopling them with airy characters (but to us most real), in whose footsteps we have walked. we have seen the place where he was born; we have seen nearly all the houses in which he lived in after life; and we have been over the charming home occupied by him for fourteen years, where his last moments passed away under the affectionate and reverential solicitude of his sons and daughters, and of miss hogarth, his sister-in-law, "the ever-useful, self-denying, and devoted friend." and now we linger lovingly about a few of the streets and places in "the ancient city," and especially in the precincts of the venerable cathedral, all sanctified by the memory of the mighty dead. we fain would prolong our visit, but the "stern mandate of duty," as immanuel kant called it, prevails, and we bow to the inevitable; or as mr. herbert spencer better puts it, "our duty is our pleasure, and our greatest happiness consists in achieving the happiness of others." we feel our departure to-day the more keenly, as everything tempts us to stay. listening for a moment at the open door--the beautiful west door--of the cathedral, in this glorious morning in early autumn, we hear the harmonies of the organ and choir softly wafted to us from within; we feel the delicious morning air, which comes over the old castle and burial-ground from the kentish hills; we see the bright and beautiful flowers and foliage of the lovely catalpa tree, through which the sunlight glints; a solemn calm pervades the spot as the hum of the city is hushed; and, although we have read them over and over again, now, for the first time, do we adequately realize the exquisitely touching lines on the last page of _edwin drood_, written by the master-hand that was so soon to be stilled for ever:-- [illustration: doorway rochester cathedral] "a brilliant morning shines on the old city. its antiquities and ruins are surpassingly beautiful, with the lusty ivy gleaming in the sun, and the rich trees waving in the balmy air. changes of glorious light from moving boughs, songs of birds, scents from gardens, woods and fields--or, rather, from the one great garden of the whole of the cultivated island in its yielding time--penetrate into the cathedral, subdue its earthy odour, and preach the resurrection and the life. the cold stone tombs of centuries ago grow warm; and flecks of brightness dart into the sternest marble corners of the building, fluttering there like wings." having time to reflect on our experiences, we are able to understand how greatly our feelings and ideas have been influenced for good, both regarding the personality of the novelist and his writings. in the course of our rambles we have interviewed many people in various walks of life who knew dickens well, and their interesting replies, mostly given in their own words, vividly bring before our mental vision the _man_ as he actually lived and moved among his neighbours, apart from any glamour with which we, as hero-worshippers, naturally invest him. we see him in his home, beloved by his family, taking kindly interest, as a country gentleman, in the poor of the district, entering into and personally encouraging their sports, and helping them in their distress. to his dependents and tradesmen he was kind, just, and honourable; to his friends genial, hospitable, and true; in himself eager, enthusiastic, and thorough. no man of his day had more friends, and he kept them as long as he lived. his favourite motto, "courage--persevere," comes before us constantly. all that we heard on the other side was contained in the expression--"rather masterful!" rather masterful? of course he was rather masterful--otherwise he would never have been charles dickens. what does he say in that unconscious description of himself, which he puts into the mouth of boots at _the holly-tree inn_, when referring to the father of master harry walmers, junior? "he was a gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held his head up when he walked, and had what you may call fire about him. he wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all equally beautiful. . . . he was a gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and that would be minded." perfectly true do we find the summing up of his character, in his home at gad's hill, as given by professor minto in the last edition of the _encyclopædia britannica_ (one of the most faithful, just, and appreciative articles ever written about dickens):--"here he worked, and walked, and saw his friends, and was loved and almost worshipped by his poorer neighbours, for miles around." although tolerably familiar with most of the writings of dickens from our youth, and, like many readers, having our favourites which may have absorbed our attention to the exclusion of others, we are bound to say that our little visit to rochester and its neighbourhood--our "dickens-land"--rendered famous all the world over in the novels and minor works, gives a freshness, a brightness, and a reality to our conceptions scarcely expected, and never before experienced. the faithful descriptions of scenery witnessed by us for the first time in and about the "quaint city" of rochester, the delightful neighbourhood of cobham, the glorious old city of canterbury, the dreary marshes and other localities: the more detailed pictures of particular places, like the castle, the cathedral, its crypt and tower, the bull inn, the vines, richard watts's charity, and others--the point of the situation in many of these cannot be realized without personal inspection and verification. and further, as by a sort of reflex action, another feeling comes uppermost in our minds, apart from the mere amusement and enjoyment of dickens's works: we mean the actual benefits to humanity which, directly or indirectly, arise out of his writings; and we endorse the noble lines of dedication which his friend, walter savage landor, addressed to him in his _imaginary conversations of greeks and romans_ ( ):-- "friends as we are, have long been, and ever shall be, i doubt whether i should have prefaced these pages with your name, were it not to register my judgment that, in breaking up and cultivating the unreclaimed wastes of humanity, no labours have been so strenuous, so continuous, or half so successful, as yours. while the world admires in you an unlimited knowledge of mankind, deep thought, vivid imagination, and bursts of eloquence from unclouded heights, no less am i delighted when i see you at the school-room you have liberated from cruelty, and at the cottage you have purified from disease." we have before us--its edges browned by age--a reprint of a letter largely circulated at the time, addressed by dickens to _the times_, dated "devonshire terrace, th novr., ," in which he describes, in graphic and powerful language, the ribald and disgusting scenes which he witnessed at horsemonger lane gaol on the occasion of the execution of the mannings. the letter is too long to quote in its entirety, but the following extract will suffice:--"i have seen habitually some of the worst sources of general contamination and corruption in this country, and i think there are not many phases of london life that could surprise me. i am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city in the same compass of time could work such ruin as one public execution, and i stand astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits." the letter contains an urgent appeal to the then home secretary, sir george grey, "as a solemn duty which he owes to society, and a responsibility which he cannot for ever put away," to originate an immediate legislative change in this respect. forster says in allusion to the above-mentioned letter:--"there began an active agitation against public executions, which never ceased until the salutary change was effected which has worked so well." dickens happily lived to see the fruition of his labours, for the private execution act was passed in , and the last public execution took place at newgate on th may of that year. as indicative of the new state of feeling at that time, it may be mentioned that the number of spectators was not large, and they were observed to conduct themselves with unusual decorum. it is valuable to record this as one of many public reforms which dickens by his writings and influence certainly helped to accomplish. in his standard work on _popular government_ ( ), sir henry sumner maine says:-"dickens, who spent his early manhood among the politicians of , trained in bentham's school, [bentham, by the bye, being quoted in _edwin drood_,] hardly ever wrote a novel without attacking an abuse. the procedure of the court of chancery and of the ecclesiastical courts, the delays of the public offices, the costliness of divorce, the state of the dwellings of the poor, and the condition of the cheap schools in the north of england, furnished him with what he seemed to consider, in all sincerity, the true moral of a series of fictions." * * * * * we bid a kindly adieu to the "dear old city" where so many genial friends have been made, so many happy hours have been passed, so many pleasant memories have been stored, and for the time leave "the pensive glory, that fills the kentish hills," to take our seats in the train for london, with the intention of paying a brief visit to south kensington, where, in the forster collection of the museum, are treasured the greater portion of the manuscripts which constitute the principal works of charles dickens. it will be remembered that the will of the great novelist contained the following simple but important clause:--"i also give to the said john forster (whom he previously referred to as 'my dear and trusty friend') such manuscripts of my published works as may be in my possession at the time of my decease;" and that mr. forster by his will bequeathed these priceless treasures to his wife for her life, in trust to pass over to the nation at her decease. mrs. forster, who survives her husband, generously relinquished her life interest, in order to give immediate effect to his wishes; and thus in , soon after mr. forster's death, they came into the undisturbed possession of the nation for ever. besides the manuscripts there are numbers of holograph letters, original sketches (including "the apotheosis of grip the raven") by d. maclise, r.a., and other interesting memorials relating to charles dickens. _the handbook to the dyce and forster collections_ rightly says that:--"this is a gift which will ever have the highest value, and be regarded with the deepest interest by people of every english-speaking nation, as long as the english language exists. not only our own countrymen, but travellers from every country and colony into which englishmen have spread, may here examine the original manuscripts of books which have been more widely read than any other uninspired writings throughout the world. thousands, it cannot be doubted, who have been indebted for many an hour of pleasurable enjoyment when in health, for many an hour of solace when in weariness and pain, to these novels, will be glad to look upon them as each sheet was sent last to the printer, full of innumerable corrections from the hand of charles dickens." the manuscripts are fifteen in number, bound up into large quarto volumes, and comprise:-- . _oliver twist_--two volumes, with preface to the _pickwick papers_, and matter relating to _master humphrey's clock_. . _sketches of young couples._ . _the lamplighter_, a farce. this ms. is not in the handwriting of dickens. . _the old curiosity shop_--two volumes, with letter to mr. forster of th january, , and hints for some chapters. . _barnaby rudge_--two volumes. . _american notes._ . _martin chuzzlewit_--two volumes, with various title-pages, notes as to the names, &c., and dedication to miss burdett coutts. . _the chimes._ . _dombey and son_--two volumes, with title-pages, headings of chapters, and memoranda. . _david copperfield_--two volumes, with various title-pages, and memoranda as to names. . _bleak house_--two volumes, with suggestions for title-pages and other memoranda. . _hard times_--with memoranda. . _little dorrit_--two volumes, with memoranda, dedication to clarkson stanfield, and preface. . _a tale of two cities_--with dedication to lord john russell, and preface. . _edwin drood_--unfinished, with memoranda, and headings for chapters. john forster says:--"the last page of _edwin drood_ was written in the châlet in the afternoon of his last day of consciousness." of the above-mentioned, the calligraphy of nos. , , and , is seen at a glance to be larger, bolder, and to have fewer corrections. in nos. to it is smaller, and more confused by numerous alterations. according to forster--"his greater pains and elaboration of writing became first very obvious in the later parts of _martin chuzzlewit_." the manuscripts of the earliest works of the author, _sketches by boz_, _pickwick_, _nicholas nickleby_, &c., were evidently not considered at the time worth preserving. the manuscript of _our mutual friend_, given by dickens to mr. e. s. dallas--in grateful acknowledgment of an appreciative review which (according to an article in _scribner_, entitled "our mutual friend in manuscript") mr. dallas wrote of the novel for _the times_, which largely increased the sale of the book, and fully established its success,--is in the library of mr. g. w. childs of philadelphia; and that of _a christmas carol_--given by dickens to his old friend and school-fellow, tom mitton--was for sale in birmingham a few years ago, and might have been purchased for two hundred and fifty guineas! it is now owned by mr. stuart m. samuel, and has since been beautifully reproduced in fac-simile, with an introduction by my friend and fellow-tramp, mr. f. g. kitton. mr. wright, of paris, is the fortunate possessor of _the battle of life_. the proof-sheets of _great expectations_ are in the museum at wisbech. messrs. jarvis and son, of king william street, strand, sold some time since four of the mss. of minor articles contributed by dickens to _household words_ in - , viz. _the friend of the lions_, _demeanour of murderers_, _that other public_, and _our commission_, for £ each. at the sale of the late mr. wilkie collins's manuscripts and library by messrs. sotheby, wilkinson, and hodge, th june, , the manuscript of _the frozen deep_, by wilkie collins and charles dickens, (first performed at tavistock house, th january, ), together with the narrative written for _temple bar_, , and prompt book of the same play, was sold for £ . a poem written by charles dickens, as a prologue to the same play, and _the song of the wreck_, also written by charles dickens, were sold for £ _s._ each. _the perils of certain english prisoners_, a joint production of wilkie collins and charles dickens, for the christmas number of _household words_, , realized £ ; and the drama of _no thoroughfare_ (imperfect), also a joint production, fetched £ . the manuscripts now belonging to the nation at south kensington are placed in a glazed cabinet, standing in the middle of the room, on the right of which looks down the life-like portrait of the great novelist, painted by w. p. frith, r.a., in . the manuscript volumes are laid open in an appropriate manner, so that we have an opportunity of examining and comparing them with one another, and of observing how the precious thoughts which flowed from the fertile brain took shape and became realities. where corrections have been made, the original ideas are so obscured that it is scarcely possible to decipher them. this is effected, not by the simple method of an obliteration of the words, as is common with some authors, by means of a line or two run through them at one stroke of the pen, but by a series of connected circles, or scroll-work flourishes, thus, [illustration] which must have caused greater muscular labour in execution. let any one try the two methods for himself. dickens was fond of flourishes, as witness his first published autograph, under the portrait which was issued with _nicholas nickleby_ ( ). some evidence of "writer's cramp," as it is termed, appears where the c in charles becomes almost a g, and where the line-like flourishes to the signature thirty years later, under the portrait forming the frontispiece to _edwin drood_, are much shorter and less elaborate. all the earlier manuscripts are in black ink--the characteristic _blue_ ink, which he was so fond of using in later years, not appearing until _hard times_ was written ( ), and this continued to be (with one exception, _little dorrit_) his favourite writing medium, for the reason, it is said, that it was fluent to write with and dried quickly. from a valuable collection of letters (more than a dozen--recently in the possession of messrs. noel conway and co., of martineau street, birmingham, and kindly shown to me by mr. charles fendelow), written by the novelist between and to a friend of his earlier years--mr. w. h. kolle--and not hitherto published, it appears that he had not then acquired that precise habit of inscribing the place, day of the week, month, and the year which marked his later correspondence (as has been pointed out by miss hogarth and miss dickens in the preface to the _letters of charles dickens_), very few of the letters to mr. kolle bearing any record whatever except the day of the week, occasionally preceded by fitzroy street or bentinck street, where he resided at the time. it would be extremely interesting to ascertain the reason which subsequently led him to adopt the extraordinarily precise method which almost invariably marked his correspondence from the year until the close of his life. possibly arrangements with publishers and others may have given him the exact habit which afterwards became automatic. in addition to the manuscripts in the forster collection in the museum there are corrected proofs of a portion of the _pickwick papers_, _dombey and son_, _david copperfield_, _bleak house_, and _little dorrit_. some of the corrections in _dombey and son_ are said to be in the handwriting of mr. forster. all these proofs show marvellous attention to detail--one of the most conspicuous of dickens's characteristics. nothing with him was worth doing unless it was done well. as an illustration of work in this direction, it may be mentioned that a proof copy of the speech delivered at the meeting of the administrative reform association at drury lane theatre on wednesday, june th, , in the possession of the writer of these lines, has over a hundred corrections on the nine pages of which it consists, and many of these occur in punctuation. on careful examination, the alterations show that the correction in every case is a decided improvement on the original. the following _fac-similes_ from the _hand-book_ to the _dyce and forster collection_, and from forster's _life_, illustrate the earlier, later, and latest handwritings of charles dickens as shown in the mss. of _oliver twist_, , _hard times_, , and _edwin drood_, . [illustration: "oliver twist," , vol. i. ch. xii.] [illustration: "hard times," , vol. i. ch. i.] [illustration: "david copperfield," (corrected proof), ch. xiv.] [illustration: "edwin drood," , ch. xxiii. p. (_last ms. page_).] a proof of the fourteenth chapter of _david copperfield_, , shows that the allusion to "king charles the first's head"--about which mr. dick was so much troubled--was _not_ contained in the first draft of the story, for the passage originally had reference to "the date when that bull got into the china warehouse and did so much mischief." the subsequent reference to king charles's head was a happy thought of dickens, and furthered mr. dick's idea of the mistake "of putting some of the trouble out of king charles's head" into his own. mr. r. f. sketchley, the able and courteous custodian of the collection, allows us to see some of the other rarities in the museum not displayed in the cabinet--prefaces, dedications, and memoranda relating to the novels; letters addressed by dickens to forster, maclise, and others; rare play-bills; and the originals of invitations to the public dinner and ball at new york, which dickens received on the occasion of his first visit to america in . after turning these over with reverential care, we regretfully leave behind us one of the most interesting and important literary collections ever presented to the nation. we next visit the prerogative registry of the united kingdom at somerset house, wherein is filed the original will of charles dickens. the search for this interesting document pursued by a stranger under pressure of time, strongly reminds one of the "circumlocution office" so graphically described in _bleak house_. but we are enthusiastic, and at length obtain a clue to it in a folio volume (letter d), containing the names of testators who died in the year , where the will is briefly recorded (at number ) as that of "dickens, charles, otherwise charles john huffham, esquire." we pay our fees, and take our seats in the reading-room, when the original is presently placed in our hands. it is one of a series of three documents fastened together by a bit of green silk cord, and secured by the seal of the office, as is customary when there are two or more papers filed. the first document is the will itself, dated th may, , written throughout by the novelist very plainly and closely in the characteristic blue ink on a medium sheet of faint blue quarto letter paper, having the usual legal folded margin, and exactly covering the four pages. it is free from corrections, and is signed, "charles dickens," under which is the never-to-be-mistaken flourish. the testatum is signed by g. holsworth, wellington street, strand, and henry walker, wellington street, strand, which points to the fact that the will was written and executed at the office of _all the year round_. he appoints "georgina hogarth and john forster executrix and executor, and guardians of the persons of my children during their respective minorities." the second document is the oath of john forster, testifying that charles dickens, otherwise charles john huffham dickens, is one and the same person. the third document is a codicil dated nd june, (only a week before his death), in which the novelist bequeaths "to my son charles dickens, the younger, all my share and interest in the weekly journal called _all the year round_." the codicil is witnessed by the same persons. the will and codicil are both given in extenso in vol. iii. of forster's _life_--the gross amount of the real and personal estate being calculated at £ , .[ ] * * * * * avery short tramp from somerset house brings us to the last object of our pilgrimage--the grave of charles dickens in westminster abbey. surely no admirer of his genius can omit this final mark of honour to the memory of the mighty dead. many years have rolled by since "the good, the gentle, highly gifted, ever friendly, noble dickens" passed away; and we stand by the grave in the calm september evening, with "jewels cast upon the pavement of the nave from stained glass by the declining sun," and look down at the dark flat stone lying at our feet, on which is inscribed "in plain english letters," the simple record:-- charles dickens, born february the seventh, . died june the ninth, . we recall with profoundly sympathetic interest that quietly impressive ceremony as recorded by forster in the final pages of his able biography. "before mid-day on tuesday, the th june, , with knowledge of those only who took part in the burial, all was done. the solemnity had not lost by the simplicity. nothing so grand or so touching could have accompanied it, as the stillness and the silence of the vast cathedral." and he further describes the wonderful gathering subsequently:--"then later in the day, and all the following day, came unbidden mourners in such crowds that the dean had to request permission to keep open the grave until thursday; but after it was closed they did not cease to come, and all day long." dean stanley wrote:--"on the th there was a constant pressure to the spot, and many flowers were strewn upon it by unknown hands, many tears shed from unknown eyes." what poet, what philosopher, what monarch even, might not envy this loving tribute to the influence of the great writer, to the personal respect for the man, and to the affection for the friend who, by the sterling nature of his work for nearly thirty-five years, had the power to create and sustain such sympathy? forster thus admiringly concludes the memoir of his hero: "the highest associations of both the arts he loved surround him where he lies. next to him is richard cumberland. mrs. pritchard's monument looks down upon him, and immediately behind is david garrick's. nor is the actor's delightful art more worthily represented than the nobler genius of the author. facing the grave, and on its left and right, are the monuments of chaucer, shakespeare, and dryden, the three immortals who did most to create and settle the language to which charles dickens has given another undying name." "of making many books there is no end," said the wise man of old; and certainly, if we may estimate the popularity of charles dickens by the works of all kinds relating to him, written since his death, the number may be counted by hundreds. it may also be said that probably no other english writer save shakespeare has been the cause of so much posthumous literature. the sayings of his characters permeate our everyday life, and they continue to be as fresh as when they were first recorded. the original editions of his writings in some cases realize high prices which are simply amazing, and--judging by statistics--his readers are as numerous as ever they were. higher testimony to the worth "of the most popular novelist of the century, and one of the greatest humourists that england has produced," and to the continued interest which the reading public still evince in the minutest detail relating to him and to his books, can scarcely be uttered; but what is better still--"his sympathies were generally on the right side;"--he has left an example that all may follow;--he did his utmost to leave the world a little better than he found it;--as he said by one of his characters, "the best of men can do no more"--and now he peacefully rests as one "of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence." [illustration] footnote: [ ] mr. dolby, in his _charles dickens as i knew him_, estimates that £ , was realized by dickens's readings. l'envoi. we--my fellow-tramp and i--naturally feel a pang of regret now that our pleasant visit to "dickens-land" is terminated. with a parting grasp of the hand i express to the companion of my travels a cordial wish that ere long we may, "please god," renew our delightful experience, and again go over the ground hallowed by dickens associations; to which my friend, as cordially assenting, replies "surely, surely!" with these two favourite expressions of charles dickens (quoted above) i conclude the book, trusting that it will prove worthy of some kindly appreciation at the hands of my readers. index. chiefly of names. À becket thomas adams h. g. allington - _all the year round_ alphington _american notes_ andersen h. c. anderson mary athenæum austin h. aveling s. t. - - aylesford ; battle of ; church ; churchyard ; bridge ; friary baird j. - - ball j. h. - ; william - - _barnaby rudge_ - barnard's inn _battle of life_ bayham street bell yard bentinck street _bentley's miscellany_ bevan p. birmingham ; town hall ; and midland institute bishop's court blanchard e. l. _bleak house_ - - bleak house (or fort house) broadstairs - - bloomsbury square blue bell or upper bell boley (or "bully") hill "borough english" boundary lane british museum broadstairs - - ; dickens's residence in high street ; fort house (or "bleak house") - - ; lawn house - ; look-out house brompton (new) - brooker mr. budden major - - - - - ; mrs. ; james - - ; william j. burgate street burham camden town canterbury - burgate street cathedral "chequers" dane john "fountain" harbledown high street museum "sir john falstaff" "sun" - west gate - canvey island chalk - ; church - chancery lane chatham - - - barracks convict prison dockyard - fort pitt - - giles's academy high street - - house on the brook - - - lines - - mechanics' institute - - - "mitre" - - navy pay office ordnance place ; terrace - st. mary's church ; place - chelsea--st. luke's church cherry garden _child's dream of a star_ - _child's history of england_ chillington manor house - _chimes_ chorley h. f. _christmas carol_ cinque ports cliffe ; church clifford's inn cobb r. l. - - cobham - - - châlet - church hall - - "leather bottle" - park - - - schools woods cobham lord cobtree hall - college gate - collins w. - - ; sale of mss. ; charles a. - - - ; mrs. c. a. ; _and see_ dickens kate _and_ perugini mrs. cooling - ; castle - ; church - ; churchyard - cooper t. sidney cosham couchman j. - countless stones - _cricket on the hearth_ "crispin and crispianus" - crow lane "crown old" "crozier" cruikshank g. cursitor street - cuxton - dadd r. _daily news_ "dane john" darnley earl of - _david copperfield_ - - - - - - ; _fac-simile_ davies rev. g. - ; straits - deal deanery gatehouse - devonshire terrace - - - ; street dickens a. l. ; a. t. dickens charles:-- birth birthplace - baptism first literary effort short-hand marriage and the serjeant and the bears and public executions - genealogy (?) - dogs - - - châlet - crest ravens readings - politics illness - death funeral - - ; card grave - will - manuscripts - handwriting _fac-similes_ ( ) - corrected proofs memorial brass memorials - portraits - letters - mysterious dickens-item - dickens mrs. c. dickens c. junr. - - - ; edward b. l. dickens fanny - - ; harriet e. - dickens h. f. - - dickens j. - - - - ; mrs. - dickens kate (_and see_ perugini mrs. _and_ collins mrs. c. a.) dickens miss - dickenson mr. - - - dodd h. - - _dombey and son_ doughty street - - dover - ; castle ; heights ; road - drage rev. w. h. ; misses - "duck" easedown mrs. - eastgate house - east malling _edwin drood_ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ; _fac-simile_ exeter "falstaff sir john" (at gad's hill) - - - - ; (at canterbury) farleigh faversham - fechter mr. fildes luke - - fisher bishop fitzroy street fleet street ford h. forster j. - - - - - - - - - - - - - ; bequest - fort clarence fort pitt - - _fortunus_ fountain court fox frindsbury ; church frith w. p. - frog alley _frozen deep_ - furnival's inn - gad's hill - - _et seq._ - - sixty years ago - "falstaff sir john" - - - - gad's hill place - - - - - - - - - - - - - cedars at châlet - - charades at clock cricket at - - dick's grave at _gazette_ - - "plough" porch at sale of - - sale photograph of shrubbery at specification for alterations at - sports at - sun-dial theatricals at tunnel at - well at - "gavelkind" gibson mary - - ; (_and see_ weller mary) robert - ; thomas giles rev. w. ; academy gillingham gordon square - ; place gower street - gravesend - _great expectations_ - - - - _grimaldi memoirs of_ grip the raven harbledown hard times ; _fac-simile_ hastings _haunted man_ hawke street head r. higham - - hogarth g. ; catherine ; (_and see_ dickens mrs. charles) e. ; mary ; georgina - - - - - ; william holborn - - _holly tree inn_ homan f. - hoo hop-picking and cultivation - horse guards horsted _household words_ house on the brook - - hulkes j. - ; mrs. - ; c. j. _hunted down_ hyde park ; corner ; place hythe johnson's court john street kennette a. kingsgate street kit's coty house - kitton f. g. kolle w. h. - lamert dr. ; j. - landport - ; commercial road - lang andrew langton r. - - - - - - lapworth prof. larkin c. latter mrs. - - lawn house - lawrence j. "leather bottle" - lemon mark - - - - levy c. d. - _lighthouse_ lincoln's inn ; fields linton mrs. lynn - _little dorrit_ littlewood j. e. - long mrs. "look-out house" maclise d. - maidstone - - ; road ; chillington manor house - ; brenchley gardens malleson j. n. - margate - - ; theatre - marsham rev j. j. - - marshes - - - - _martin chuzzlewit_ marzials f. t. _master humphrey's clock_ masters mrs. - mechanics' institute - - - medway river - - - - - - - ; valley _memoirs of grimaldi_ middle temple lane mile end cottage miles mr. millen t. - minor canon row - - minto prof. "mitre" - - mitton t. montague street _monthly magazine_ morgan mr. - - _morning chronicle_ _mr. nightingale's diary_ _mrs. joseph porter over the way_ mysterious dickens-item - navy pay office chatham new brompton - new romney _nicholas nickleby_ _no thoroughfare_ _old curiosity shop_ - old sergeants' inn _oliver twist_ ; _fac-simile_ ordnance terrace - ; place _our english watering-place_ - _our mutual friend_ overblow - owl club ; harmonious owls parliament street payne g. pearce sarah - ; mr. ; william pear tree lane - pemberton t. edgar perugini mrs. ; (_and see_ dickens kate _and_ collins mrs. c. a.) _pickwick papers_ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - _pictures from italy_ "plorn" porchester castle portsea - ; st. mary's church - ; hawke street portsmouth - - - ; common hard ; dockyard ; theatre portsmouth street prall r. prior's gate - proctor r. a. - proctors _punch_ purkis mrs. quarry house rainham - ; mear's barr farm ramsgate reculver ; the sisters red lion square regent's park ; street restoration house - - robertson rev. canon robinson g. rochester - - "blue boar" boley (or bully) hill boundary lane bridge - - - "bull inn" - _et seq._ - castle - - cathedral - - - cherry garden college (or jasper's) gate - crow lane "crozier" deanery gatehouse - "duck" eastgate house - episcopal palace - esplanade frog alley grammar school - guildhall - high street - - - london and county bank maidstone road mathematical school - men's institute minor canon row - - new road "old crown" prior's gate - restoration house - ; ghost story - sapsea's house - - satis house - savings bank sir j. hawkins's hospital sir j. hayward's charity star hill st. bartholomew's hospital st. catherine's charity st. margaret's ; church st. nicholas' cemetery - church - theatre vines (or monks' vineyard) - - - watts's almshouses " charity - rye ryland mr. arthur - ; mrs. sandling sandwich sapsea's house - - satis house - _seven poor travellers_ - seymour r. sheerness ; cockle-shell hard sheppard dr. - - shorne - - ; church - ; ridgway sisters reculver _sketches by boz_ _sketches of young gentlemen_ ; _of young couples_ smetham henry smith c. roach - smith e. orford snodland ; brook ; weir somerset house - _song of the wreck_ - - south kensington museum spencer herbert stanfield c. - stanley dean staplehurst ; accident - - staple inn - - star hill steele dr. - sterry j. ashby - stone f. ; m. - - _strange gentleman_ st. luke's church chelsea st. margaret's ; church st. mary's church chatham ; place - st. mary's church portsea - st. nicholas' church rochester - ; cemetery - st. nicholas' church strood st. pancras' road ; church strood - - "crispin and crispianus" - elocution society st. nicholas' church preceptory quarry house temple farm _sunday under three heads_ symond's inn syms mr. - _tale of two cities_ - tavistock square ; house - - - taylor mrs. - temple ; bar ; middle temple lane ; fountain court temple farm thackeray w. m. - - thames river ; valley _times_ - tom-all-alone's _tom thumb_ town malling - - - tribe ald. ; master and miss ; john trood w. s. - ; edward _uncommercial traveller_ - - upnor castle _village coquettes_ vines the - - - waghorn lieut. watts richard ; almshouses ; charity - ; memorial - weald of kent weller mary - ; (_and see_ gibson mary) westminster abbey - - whiston rev. r. - whitefriars street whitehall whitstable wildish w. t. wills w. h. ; w. g. - winchelsea woburn square wood h. - worsfold c. k. _wreck of the golden mary_ wright mr. - ; mrs. - the end. * * * * * _richard clay & sons, limited, london & bungay._ * * * * * transcriber's notes: obvious punctuation errors repaired with the exception of the rounded brackets on pages and as those were replicas of printings. these two instances were left open but not closed. page xiv, "round" changed to "round" (where "all the year round") page , "entited" changed to "entitled" (the illustration entitled) page , "caligraphy" changed to "calligraphy" (the calligraphy of) [illustration] tom pinch at the organ. _frontispiece._ charles dickens and music by james t. lightwood author of 'hymn-tunes and their story' london charles h. kelly - city road, and paternoster row, e.c. _first edition, _ in pleasant memory of many happy years at pembroke house, lytham preface for many years i have been interested in the various musical references in dickens' works, and have had the impression that a careful examination of his writings would reveal an aspect of his character hitherto unknown, and, i may add, unsuspected. the centenary of his birth hastened a work long contemplated, and a first reading (after many years) brought to light an amount of material far in excess of what i anticipated, while a second examination convinced me that there is, perhaps, no great writer who has made a more extensive use of music to illustrate character and create incident than charles dickens. from an historical point of view these references are of the utmost importance, for they reflect to a nicety the general condition of ordinary musical life in england during the middle of the last century. we do not, of course, look to dickens for a history of classical music during the period--those who want this will find it in the newspapers and magazines; but for the story of music in the ordinary english home, for the popular songs of the period, for the average musical attainments of the middle and lower classes (music was not the correct thing amongst the 'upper ten'), we must turn to the pages of dickens' novels. it is certainly strange that no one has hitherto thought of tapping this source of information. in and about the papers teemed with articles that outlined the history of music during the first fifty years of victoria's reign; but i have not seen one that attempted to derive first-hand information from the sources referred to, nor indeed does the subject of 'dickens and music' ever appear to have received the attention which, in my opinion, it deserves. i do not profess to have chronicled _all_ the musical references, nor has it been possible to identify every one of the numerous quotations from songs, although i have consulted such excellent authorities as dr. cummings, mr. worden (preston), and mr. j. allanson benson (bromley). i have to thank mr. frank kidson, who, i understand, had already planned a work of this description, for his kind advice and assistance. there is no living writer who has such a wonderful knowledge of old songs as mr. kidson, a knowledge which he is ever ready to put at the disposal of others. even now there are some half-dozen songs which every attempt to run to earth has failed, though i have tried to 'mole 'em out' (as mr. pancks would say) by searching through some hundreds of song-books and some thousands of separate songs. should any of my readers be able to throw light on dark places i shall be very glad to hear from them, with a view to making the information here presented as complete and correct as possible if another edition should be called for. may i suggest to the secretaries of our literary societies, guilds, and similar organizations that a pleasant evening might be spent in rendering some of the music referred to by dickens. the proceedings might be varied by readings from his works or by historical notes on the music. many of the pieces are still in print, and i shall be glad to render assistance in tracing them. perhaps this idea will also commend itself to the members of the dickens fellowship, an organization with which all lovers of the great novelist ought to associate themselves. james t. lightwood. lytham, _october, ._ i truly love dickens; and discern in the inner man of him a tone of real music which struggles to express itself, as it may in these bewildered, stupefied and, indeed, very crusty and distracted days--better or worse! thomas carlyle. contents chap. page i. dickens as a musician ii. instrumental combinations iii. various instruments: flute, organ, guitar (and some hummers) iv. various instruments (_continued_) v. church music vi. songs and some singers vii. some noted singers list of songs, &c., mentioned by dickens index of musical instruments index of characters general index list of music titles, &c., founded on dickens' characters list of works referred to _with abbreviations used_ _american notes_ _a.n._ _barnaby rudge_ _b.r._ _battle of life_ _b.l._ _bleak house_ - _b.h._ _chimes_ _ch._ _christmas carol_ _c.c._ _christmas stories_ -- _c.s._ _christmas stories_-- dr. marigold's prescription _dr. m._ going into society _g.s._ holly tree _h.t._ mugby junction _m.j._ mrs. lirriper's lodgings -- no thoroughfare _n.t._ somebody's luggage _s.l._ wreck of the golden mary _g.m._ _collected papers_ -- _c.p._ _cricket on the hearth_ _c.h._ _dombey & son_ - _d. & s._ _david copperfield_ - _d.c._ _edwin drood_ _e.d._ _great expectations_ - _g.e._ _hard times_ _h.t._ _haunted house_ -- _haunted man_ _h.m._ _holiday romance_ -- _h.r._ _little dorrit_ - _l.d._ _martin chuzzlewit_ - _m.c._ _master humphrey's clock_ - _m.h.c._ _mystery of edwin drood_ _e.d._ _nicholas nickleby_ - _n.n._ _old curiosity shop_ _o.c.s._ _oliver twist_ - _o.t._ _our mutual friend_ _o.m.f._ _pickwick papers_ - _p.p._ _pictures from italy_ _it._ _reprinted pieces_-- our bore -- our english watering-place -- our french watering-place -- our school -- out of the season -- _sketches by boz_ - _s.b._ characters -- _s.b.c._ our parish -- -- scenes -- _s.b.s._ tales -- _s.b.t._ _sunday under three heads_ -- _sketches of young people_ -- _sketches of young gentlemen_ -- _tale of two cities, a_ -- _uncommercial traveller_ - _u.t._ charles dickens and music chapter i dickens as a musician the attempts to instil the elements of music into charles dickens when he was a small boy do not appear to have been attended with success. mr. kitton tells us that he learnt the piano during his school days, but his master gave him up in despair. mr. bowden, an old schoolfellow of the novelist's when he was at wellington house academy, in hampstead road, says that music used to be taught there, and that dickens received lessons on the violin, but he made no progress, and soon relinquished it. it was not until many years after that he made his third and last attempt to become an instrumentalist. during his first transatlantic voyage he wrote to forster telling him that he had bought an accordion. the steward lent me one on the passage out, and i regaled the ladies' cabin with my performances. you can't think with what feelings i play 'home, sweet home' every night, or how pleasantly sad it makes us. on the voyage back he gives the following description of the musical talents of his fellow passengers: one played the accordion, another the violin, and another (who usually began at six o'clock a.m.) the key bugle: the combined effect of which instruments, when they all played different tunes, in different parts of the ship, at the same time, and within hearing of each other, as they sometimes did (everybody being intensely satisfied with his own performance), was sublimely hideous. he does not tell us whether he was one of the performers on these occasions. but although he failed as an instrumentalist he took delight in hearing music, and was always an appreciative yet critical listener to what was good and tuneful. his favourite composers were mendelssohn--whose _lieder_ he was specially fond of[ ]--chopin, and mozart. he heard gounod's _faust_ whilst he was in paris, and confesses to having been quite overcome with the beauty of the music. 'i couldn't bear it,' he says, in one of his letters, 'and gave in completely. the composer must be a very remarkable man indeed.' at the same time he became acquainted with offenbach's music, and heard _orphée aux enfers_. this was in february, . here also he made the acquaintance of auber, 'a stolid little elderly man, rather petulant in manner.' he told dickens that he had lived for a time at 'stock noonton' (stoke newington) in order to study english, but he had forgotten it all. in the description of a dinner in the _sketches_ we read that the knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to auber's music, and auber's music would form a pleasing accompaniment to the dinner, if you could hear anything besides the cymbals. he met meyerbeer on one occasion at lord john russell's. the musician congratulated him on his outspoken language on sunday observance, a subject in which dickens was deeply interested, and on which he advocated his views at length in the papers entitled _sunday under three heads_. dickens was acquainted with jenny lind, and he gives the following amusing story in a letter to douglas jerrold, dated paris, february , : i am somehow reminded of a good story i heard the other night from a man who was a witness of it and an actor in it. at a certain german town last autumn there was a tremendous _furore_ about jenny lind, who, after driving the whole place mad, left it, on her travels, early one morning. the moment her carriage was outside the gates, a party of rampant students who had escorted it rushed back to the inn, demanded to be shown to her bedroom, swept like a whirlwind upstairs into the room indicated to them, tore up the sheets, and wore them in strips as decorations. an hour or two afterwards a bald old gentleman of amiable appearance, an englishman, who was staying in the hotel, came to breakfast at the _table d'hôte_, and was observed to be much disturbed in his mind, and to show great terror whenever a student came near him. at last he said, in a low voice, to some people who were near him at the table, 'you are english gentlemen, i observe. most extraordinary people, these germans. students, as a body, raving mad, gentlemen!' 'oh, no,' said somebody else: 'excitable, but very good fellows, and very sensible.' 'by god, sir!' returned the old gentleman, still more disturbed, 'then there's something political in it, and i'm a marked man. i went out for a little walk this morning after shaving, and while i was gone'--he fell into a terrible perspiration as he told it--'they burst into my bedroom, tore up my sheets, and are now patrolling the town in all directions with bits of 'em in their button-holes.' i needn't wind up by adding that they had gone to the wrong chamber. it was dickens' habit wherever he went on his continental travels to avail himself of any opportunity of visiting the opera; and his criticisms, though brief, are always to the point. he tells us this interesting fact about carrara: there is a beautiful little theatre there, built of marble, and they had it illuminated that night in my honour. there was really a very fair opera, but it is curious that the chorus has been always, time out of mind, made up of labourers in the quarries, who don't know a note of music, and sing entirely by ear. but much as he loved music, dickens could never bear the least sound or noise while he was studying or writing, and he ever waged a fierce war against church bells and itinerant musicians. even when in scotland his troubles did not cease, for he writes about 'a most infernal piper practising under the window for a competition of pipers which is to come off shortly.' elsewhere he says that he found dover 'too bandy' for him (he carefully explains he does not refer to its legs), while in a letter to forster he complains bitterly of the vagrant musicians at broadstairs, where he 'cannot write half an hour without the most excruciating organs, fiddles, bells, or glee singers.' the barrel-organ, which he somewhere calls an 'italian box of music,' was one source of annoyance, but bells were his special aversion. 'if you know anybody at st. paul's,' he wrote to forster, 'i wish you'd send round and ask them not to ring the bell so. i can hardly hear my own ideas as they come into my head, and say what they mean.' his bell experiences at genoa are referred to elsewhere (p. ). how marvellously observant he was is manifest in the numerous references in his letters and works to the music he heard in the streets and squares of london and other places. here is a description of golden square, london, w. (_n.n._): two or three violins and a wind instrument from the opera band reside within its precincts. its boarding-houses are musical, and the notes of pianos and harps float in the evening time round the head of the mournful statue, the guardian genius of the little wilderness of shrubs, in the centre of the square.... sounds of gruff voices practising vocal music invade the evening's silence, and the fumes of choice tobacco scent the air. there, snuff and cigars and german pipes and flutes, and violins and violoncellos, divide the supremacy between them. it is the region of song and smoke. street bands are on their mettle in golden square, and itinerant glee singers quaver involuntarily as they raise their voices within its boundaries. we have another picture in the description of dombey's house, where-- the summer sun was never on the street but in the morning, about breakfast-time.... it was soon gone again, to return no more that day, and the bands of music and the straggling punch's shows going after it left it a prey to the most dismal of organs and white mice. _as a singer_ most of the writers about dickens, and especially his personal friends, bear testimony both to his vocal power and his love of songs and singing. as a small boy we read of him and his sister fanny standing on a table singing songs, and acting them as they sang. one of his favourite recitations was dr. watts' 'the voice of the sluggard,' which he used to give with great effect. the memory of these words lingered long in his mind, and both captain cuttle and mr. pecksniff quote them with excellent appropriateness. when he grew up he retained his love of vocal music, and showed a strong predilection for national airs and old songs. moore's _irish melodies_ had also a special attraction for him. in the early days of his readings his voice frequently used to fail him, and mr. kitton tells us that in trying to recover the lost power he would test it by singing these melodies to himself as he walked about. it is not surprising, therefore, to find numerous references to these songs, as well as to other works by moore, in his writings. from a humorous account of a concert on board ship we gather that dickens possessed a tenor voice. writing to his daughter from boston in , he says: we had speech-making and singing in the saloon of the _cuba_ after the last dinner of the voyage. i think i have acquired a higher reputation from drawing out the captain, and getting him to take the second in 'all's well' and likewise in 'there's not in the wide world'[ ] (your parent taking the first), than from anything previously known of me on these shores.... we also sang (with a chicago lady, and a strong-minded woman from i don't know where) 'auld lang syne,' with a tender melancholy expressive of having all four been united from our cradles. the more dismal we were, the more delighted the company were. once (when we paddled i' the burn) the captain took a little cruise round the compass on his own account, touching at the canadian boat song,[ ] and taking in supplies at jubilate, 'seas between us braid ha' roared,' and roared like ourselves. j.t. field, in his _yesterdays with authors_, says: 'to hear him sing an old-time stage song, such as he used to enjoy in his youth at a cheap london theatre ... was to become acquainted with one of the most delightful and original companions in the world.' when at home he was fond of having music in the evening. his daughter tells us that on one occasion a member of his family was singing a song while he was apparently deep in his book, when he suddenly got up and saying 'you don't make enough of that word,' he sat down by the piano and showed how it should be sung. on another occasion his criticism was more pointed. one night a gentleman visitor insisted on singing 'by the sad sea waves,' which he did vilely, and he wound up his performance by a most unexpected and misplaced embellishment, or 'turn.' dickens found the whole ordeal very trying, but managed to preserve a decorous silence till this sound fell on his ear, when his neighbour said to him, 'whatever did he mean by that extraneous effort of melody?' 'oh,' said dickens, 'that's quite in accordance with rule. when things are at their worst they always take a _turn_.' forster relates that while he was at work on the _old curiosity shop_ he used to discover specimens of old ballads in his country walks between broadstairs and ramsgate, which so aroused his interest that when he returned to town towards the end of he thoroughly explored the ballad literature of seven dials,[ ] and would occasionally sing not a few of these wonderful discoveries with an effect that justified his reputation for comic singing in his childhood. we get a glimpse of his investigations in _out of the season_, where he tells us about that 'wonderful mystery, the music-shop,' with its assortment of polkas with coloured frontispieces, and also the book-shop, with its 'little warblers and fairburn's comic songsters.' here too were ballads on the old ballad paper and in the old confusion of types, with an old man in a cocked hat, and an armchair, for the illustration to will watch the bold smuggler, and the friar of orders grey, represented by a little girl in a hoop, with a ship in the distance. all these as of yore, when they were infinite delights to me. on one of his explorations he met a landsman who told him about the running down of an emigrant ship, and how he heard a sound coming over the sea 'like a great sorrowful flute or aeolian harp.' he makes another and very humorous reference to this instrument in a letter to landor, in which he calls to mind that steady snore of yours, which i once heard piercing the door of your bedroom ... reverberating along the bell-wire in the hall, so getting outside into the street, playing aeolian harps among the area railings, and going down the new road like the blast of a trumpet. the deserted watering-place referred to in _out of the season_ is broadstairs, and he gives us a further insight into its musical resources in a letter to miss power written on july , , in which he says that a little tinkling box of music that stops at 'come' in the melody of the buffalo gals, and can't play 'out to-night,' and a white mouse, are the only amusements left at broadstairs. 'buffalo gals' was a very popular song 'sung with great applause by the original female american serenaders.' (_c._ .) the first verse will explain the above allusion: as i went lum'rin' down de street, down de street, a 'ansom gal i chanc'd to meet, oh, she was fair to view. buffalo gals, can't ye come out to-night, come out to-night, come out to-night; buffalo gals, can't ye come out to-night, and dance by the light of the moon. we find some interesting musical references and memories in the novelist's letters. writing to wilkie collins in reference to his proposed sea voyage, he quotes campbell's lines from 'ye mariners of england': as i sweep through the deep when the stormy winds do blow. there are other references to this song in the novels. i have pointed out elsewhere that the last line also belongs to a seventeenth-century song. writing to mark lemon (june, ) he gives an amusing parody of lesbia hath a beaming eye, beginning lemon is a little hipped. in a letter to maclise he says: my foot is in the house, my bath is on the sea, and before i take a souse, here's a single note to thee. these lines are a reminiscence of byron's ode to tom moore, written from venice on july , : my boat is on the shore, and my bark is on the sea, but before i go, tom moore, here's a double health to thee! the words were set to music by bishop. this first verse had a special attraction for dickens, and he gives us two or three variations of it, including a very apt one from dick swiveller (see p. ). henry f. chorley, the musical critic, was an intimate friend of dickens. on one occasion he went to hear chorley lecture on 'the national music of the world,' and subsequently wrote him a very friendly letter criticizing his delivery, but speaking in high terms of the way he treated his subject. in one of his letters he makes special reference to the singing of the hutchinson family.[ ] writing to the countess of blessington, he says: i must have some talk with you about these american singers. they must never go back to their own country without your having heard them sing hood's 'bridge of sighs.' amongst the distinguished visitors at gad's hill was joachim, who was always a welcome guest, and of whom dickens once said 'he is a noble fellow.' his daughter writes in reference to this visit: i never remember seeing him so wrapt and absorbed as he was then, on hearing him play; and the wonderful simplicity and _un_-self-consciousness of the genius went straight to my father's heart, and made a fast bond of sympathy between those two great men. _in music drama_ much has been written about dickens' undoubted powers as an actor, as well as his ability as a stage manager, and it is well known that it was little more than an accident that kept him from adopting the dramatic profession. he ever took a keen interest in all that pertained to the stage, and when he was superintending the production of a play he was always particular about the musical arrangements. there is in existence a play-bill of showing that he superintended a private performance of _clari_. this was an opera by bishop, and contains the first appearance of the celebrated 'home, sweet home,' a melody which, as we have already said, he reproduced on the accordion some years after. he took the part of rolano, but had no opportunity of showing off his singing abilities, unless he took a part in the famous glee 'sleep, gentle lady,' which appears in the work as a quartet for alto, two tenors, and bass, though it is now arranged in other forms. in his dealings with the drama dickens was frequently his own bandmaster and director of the music. for instance, in _no thoroughfare_ we find this direction: 'boys enter and sing "god save the queen" (or any school devotional hymn).' at obenreizer's entrance a 'mysterious theme is directed to be played,' that gentleman being 'well informed, clever, and a good musician.' dickens was concerned in the production of one operetta--_the village coquettes_--for which he wrote the words, and john hullah composed the music. it consists of songs, duets, and concerted pieces, and was first produced at st. james's theatre, london, on december , . the following year it was being performed at edinburgh when a fire broke out in the theatre, and the instrumental scores together with the music of the concerted pieces were destroyed. no fresh copy was ever made, but the songs are still to be obtained. mr. kitton, in his biography of the novelist, says, 'the play was well received, and duly praised by prominent musical journals.' the same writer gives us to understand that hullah originally composed the music for an opera called _the gondolier_, but used the material for _the village coquettes_. braham, the celebrated tenor, had a part in it. dickens says in a letter to hullah that he had had some conversation with braham about the work. the singer thought very highly of it, and dickens adds: his only remaining suggestion is that miss rainforth[ ] will want another song when the piece is in rehearsal--'a bravura--something in "the soldier tired" way.' we have here a reference to a song which had a long run of popularity. it is one of the airs in arne's _artaxerxes_, an opera which was produced in , and which held the stage for many years. there is a reference to this song in _sketches by boz_, when miss evans and her friends visited the eagle. during the concert 'miss somebody in white satin' sang this air, much to the satisfaction of her audience. dickens wrote a few songs and ballads, and in most cases he fell in with the custom of his time, and suggested the tune (if any) to which they were to be sung. in addition to those that appear in the various novels, there are others which deserve mention here. in he contributed three political squibs in verse to the _examiner_, one being the 'quack doctor's proclamation,' to the tune of 'a cobbler there was,' and another called 'the fine old english gentleman.' for the _daily news_ (of which he was the first editor) he wrote 'the british lion, a new song but an old story,' which was to be sung to the tune of the 'great sea snake.' this was a very popular comic song of the period, which described a sea monster of wondrous size: one morning from his head we bore with every stitch of sail, and going at ten knots an hour in six months came to his tail. three of the songs in the _pickwick papers_ (referred to elsewhere) are original, while blandois' song in _little dorrit_, 'who passes by this road so late,' is a translation from the french. this was set to music by r.s. dalton. in addition to these we find here and there impromptu lines which have no connexion with any song. perhaps the best known are those which 'my lady bowley' quotes in _the chimes_, and which she had 'set to music on the new system': oh let us love our occupations, bless the squire and his relations, live upon our daily rations, and always know our proper stations. the reference to the 'new system' is not quite obvious. dickens may have been thinking of the 'wilhem' method of teaching singing which his friend hullah introduced into england, or it may be a reference to the tonic sol-fa system, which had already begun to make progress when _the chimes_ was written in .[ ] there are some well-known lines which owners of books were fond of writing on the fly-leaf in order that there might be no mistake as to the name of the possessor. the general form was something like this: john wigglesworth is my name, and england is my nation; london is my dwelling-place, and christ is my salvation. (see _choir_, jan., , p. .) dickens gives us at least two variants of this. in _edwin drood_, durdles says of the mayor of cloisterham: mister sapsea is his name, england is his nation, cloisterham's his dwelling-place, aukshneer's his occupation. and captain cuttle thus describes himself, ascribing the authorship of the words to job--but then literary accuracy was not the captain's strong point: cap'en cuttle is my name, and england is my nation, this here is my dwelling-place, and blessed be creation. it is said that there appeared in the _london singer's magazine_ for 'the teetotal excursion, an original comic song by boz, sung at the london concerts,' but it is not in my copy of this song-book, nor have i ever seen it. dickens was always very careful in his choice of names and titles, and the evolution of some of the latter is very interesting. one of the many he conceived for the magazine which was to succeed _household words_ was _household harmony_, while another was _home music_. considering his dislike of bells in general, it is rather surprising that two other suggestions were _english bells_ and _weekly bells_, but the final choice was _all the year round_. only once does he make use of a musician's name in his novels, and that is in _great expectations_. philip, otherwise known as pip, the hero, becomes friendly with herbert pocket. the latter objects to the name philip, 'it sounds like a moral boy out of a spelling-book,' and as pip had been a blacksmith and the two youngsters were 'harmonious,' pocket asks him: 'would you mind handel for a familiar name? there's a charming piece of music, by handel, called the "harmonious blacksmith."' 'i should like it very much.' dickens' only contribution to hymnology appeared in the _daily news_ february , , with the title 'hymn of the wiltshire labourers.' it was written after reading a speech at one of the night meetings of the wives of agricultural labourers in wiltshire, held with the object of petitioning for free trade. this is the first verse: o god, who by thy prophet's hand did'st smite the rocky brake, whence water came at thy command thy people's thirst to slake, strike, now, upon this granite wall, stern, obdurate, and high; and let some drop of pity fall for us who starve and die! we find the fondness for italian names shown by vocalists and pianists humorously parodied in such self-evident forms as jacksonini, signora marra boni, and billsmethi. banjo bones is a self-evident _nom d'occasion_, and the high-sounding name of rinaldo di velasco ill befits the giant pickleson (_dr. m._), who had a little head and less in it. as it was essential that the miss crumptons of minerva house should have an italian master for their pupils, we find signer lobskini introduced, while the modern rage for russian musicians is to some extent anticipated in major tpschoffki of the imperial bulgraderian brigade (_g.s._). his real name, if he ever had one, is said to have been stakes. dickens has little to say about the music of his time, but in the reprinted paper called _old lamps for new ones_ (written in ), which is a strong condemnation of pre-raphaelism in art, he attacks a similar movement in regard to music, and makes much fun of the brotherhood. he detects their influence in things musical, and writes thus: in music a retrogressive step in which there is much hope, has been taken. the p.a.b., or pre-agincourt brotherhood, has arisen, nobly devoted to consign to oblivion mozart, beethoven, handel, and every other such ridiculous reputation, and to fix its millennium (as its name implies) before the date of the first regular musical composition known to have been achieved in england. as this institution has not yet commenced active operations, it remains to be seen whether the royal academy of music will be a worthy sister of the royal academy of art, and admit this enterprising body to its orchestra. we have it, on the best authority, that its compositions will be quite as rough and discordant as the real old original. fourteen years later he makes use of a well-known phrase in writing to his friend wills (october , ) in reference to the proofs of an article. i have gone through the number carefully, and have been down upon chorley's paper in particular, which was a 'little bit' too personal. it is all right now and good, and them's my sentiments too of the music of the future.[ ] although there was little movement in this direction when dickens wrote this, the paragraph makes interesting reading nowadays in view of some musical tendencies in certain quarters. [ ] in his speech at birmingham on 'literature and art' ( ) he makes special reference to the 'great music of mendelssohn.' [ ] moore's _irish melodies_. [ ] moore. [ ] 'seven dials! the region of song and poetry--first effusions and last dying speeches: hallowed by the names of catnac and of pitts, names that will entwine themselves with costermongers and barrel-organs, when penny magazines shall have superseded penny yards of song, and capital punishment be unknown!' (_s.b.s._ .) [ ] the 'hutchinson family' was a musical troupe composed of three sons and two daughters selected from the 'tribe of jesse,' a name given to the sixteen children of jesse and mary hutchinson, of milford, n.h. they toured in england in and , and were received with great enthusiasm. their songs were on subjects connected with temperance and anti-slavery. on one occasion judson, one of the number, was singing the 'humbugged husband,' which he used to accompany with the fiddle, and he had just sung the line 'i'm sadly taken in,' when the stage where he was standing gave way and he nearly disappeared from view. the audience at first took this as part of the performance. [ ] miss rainforth was the soloist at the first production of mendelssohn's 'hear my prayer.' (see _the choir_, march, .) [ ] john curwen published his _grammar of vocal music_ in . [ ] quoted in mr. r.c. lehmann's _dickens as an editor_ ( ). chapter ii instrumental combinations violin, violoncello, harp, piano dickens' orchestras are limited, both in resources and in the number of performers; in fact, it would be more correct to call them combinations of instruments. some of them are of a kind not found in modern works on instrumentation, as, for instance, at the party at trotty veck's (_ch._) when a 'band of music' burst into the good man's room, consisting of a drum, marrow-bones and cleavers, and bells, 'not _the_ bells but a portable collection on a frame.' we gather from leech's picture that other instrumentalists were also present. sad to relate, the drummer was not quite sober, an unfortunate state of things, certainly, but not always confined to the drumming fraternity, since in the account of the party at minerva house (_s.b.t._) we read that amongst the numerous arrivals were 'the pianoforte player and the violins: the harp in a state of intoxication.' we have an occasional mention of a theatre orchestra, as, for instance, when the phenomenon was performing at portsmouth (_n.n._): 'ring in the orchestra, grudden.' that useful lady did as she was requested, and shortly afterwards the tuning of three fiddles was heard, which process, having been protracted as long as it was supposed that the patience of the orchestra could possibly bear it, was put a stop to by another jerk of the bell, which, being the signal to begin in earnest, set the orchestra playing a variety of popular airs with involuntary variations. on one occasion dickens visited vauxhall gardens by day, where 'a small party of dismal men in cocked hats were "executing" the overture to _tancredi_,' but he does not, unfortunately, give us any details about the number or kind of instruments employed. this would be in , when the experiment of day entertainments was given a trial, and a series of balloon ascents became the principal attraction. forster tells us that dickens was a frequent visitor at the numerous gardens and places of entertainment which abounded in london, and which he knew better than any other man. references will be found elsewhere to the music at the eagle (p. ) and the white conduit gardens (p. ). _violin and kit._ we meet with but few players on the violin, and it is usually mentioned in connexion with other instruments, though it was to the strains of a solitary fiddle that simon tappertit danced a hornpipe for the delectation of his followers, while the same instrument supplied the music at the fezziwig's ball. in came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. the orchestra at the 'singing-house' provided for jack's amusement when ashore (_u.t._ ) consisted of a fiddle and tambourine; while at dances the instruments were fiddles and harps. it was the harps that first aroused mr. jingle's curiosity, as he met them being carried up the staircase of the bull at rochester, while, shortly after, the tuning of both harps and fiddles inspired mr. tupman with a strong desire to go to the ball. sometimes the orchestra is a little more varied. at the private theatricals which took place at mrs. gattleton's (_s.b.t._ ), the selected instruments were a piano, flute, and violoncello, but there seems to have been a want of proper rehearsal. ting, ting, ting! went the prompter's bell at eight o'clock precisely, and dash went the orchestra into the overture to the _men of prometheus_. the pianoforte player hammered away with laudable perseverance, and the violoncello, which struck in at intervals, sounded very well, considering. the unfortunate individual, however, who had undertaken to play the flute accompaniment 'at sight' found, from fatal experience, the perfect truth of the old adage, 'out of sight, out of mind'; for being very near-sighted, and being placed at a considerable distance from his music-book, all he had an opportunity of doing was to play a bar now and then in the wrong place, and put the other performers out. it is, however, but justice to mr. brown to say that he did this to admiration. the overture, in fact, was not unlike a race between the different instruments; the piano came in first by several bars, and the violoncello next, quite distancing the poor flute; for the deaf gentleman _too-too'd_ away, quite unconscious that he was at all wrong, until apprised, by the applause of the audience, that the overture was concluded. it was probably after this that the pianoforte player fainted away, owing to the heat, and left the music of _masaniello_ to the other two. there were differences between these remaining musicians and mr. harleigh, who played the title rôle, the orchestra complaining that 'mr. harleigh put them out, while the hero declared that the orchestra prevented his singing a note.' it was to the strains of a wandering harp and fiddle that marion and grace jeddler danced 'a trifle in the spanish style,' much to their father's astonishment as he came bustling out to see who 'played music on his property before breakfast.' the little fiddle commonly known as a 'kit' that dancing-masters used to carry in their capacious tail coat pockets was much more in evidence in the middle of last century than it is now. caddy jellyby (_b.h._), after her marriage to a dancing-master, found a knowledge of the piano and the kit essential, and so she used to practise them assiduously. when sampson brass hears kit's name for the first time he says to swiveller: 'strange name--name of a dancing-master's fiddle, eh, mr. richard?' we must not forget the story of a fine young irish gentleman, as told by the one-eyed bagman to mr. pickwick and his friends, who, being asked if he could play the fiddle, replied he had no doubt he could, but he couldn't exactly say for certain, because he had never tried. _violoncello_ mr. morfin (_d. & s._), 'a cheerful-looking, hazel-eyed elderly bachelor,' was a great musical amateur--in his way--after business, and had a paternal affection for his violoncello, which was once in every week transported from islington, his place of abode, to a certain club-room hard by the bank, where quartets of the most tormenting and excruciating nature were executed every wednesday evening by a private party. his habit of humming his musical recollections of these evenings was a source of great annoyance to mr. james carker, who devoutly wished 'that he would make a bonfire of his violoncello, and burn his books with it.' there was only a thin partition between the rooms which these two gentlemen occupied, and on another occasion mr. morfin performed an extraordinary feat in order to warn the manager of his presence. i have whistled, hummed tunes, gone accurately through the whole of beethoven's sonata in b, to let him know that i was within hearing, but he never heeded me. this particular sonata has not hitherto been identified. it is comforting to know that the fall of the house of dombey made no difference to mr. morfin, who continued to solace himself by producing 'the most dismal and forlorn sounds out of his violoncello before going to bed,' a proceeding which had no effect on his deaf landlady, beyond producing 'a sensation of something rumbling in her bones.' nor were the quartet parties interfered with. they came round regularly, his violoncello was in good tune, and there was nothing wrong in _his_ world. happy mr. morfin! another 'cellist was the rev. charles timson, who, when practising his instrument in his bedroom, used to give strict orders that he was on no account to be disturbed. it was under the pretence of buying 'a second-hand wiolinceller' that bucket visited the house of the dealer in musical instruments in order to effect the arrest of mr. george (_b.h._). _harp_ the harp was a fashionable drawing-room instrument in the early victorian period, although the re-introduction of the guitar temporarily detracted from its glory. it was also indispensable in providing music for dancing-parties and concerts. when esther summerson went to call on the turveydrops (_b.h._) she found the hall blocked up with a grand piano, a harp, and various other instruments which had been used at a concert. as already stated, it was the sight of these instruments being carried up the stairs at the bull in rochester that aroused mr. jingle's curiosity (_p.p._) and led to the discovery that a ball was in prospect. we must not forget the eldest miss larkins, one of david copperfield's early, fleeting loves. he used to wander up and down outside the home of his beloved and watch the officers going in to hear miss l. play the harp. on hearing of her engagement to one of these he mourned for a very brief period, and then went forth and gloriously defeated his old enemy the butcher boy. what a contrast between this humour and the strange scene in the drawing-room at james steerforth's home after rosa dartle had sung the strange weird irish song to the accompaniment of her harp! and how different, again, the scene in the home of scrooge's nephew (_c.c._) when, after tea, 'they had some music.' scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played, among other things, a simple little air. it reminded scrooge of a time long past. he softened more and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hand. little paul dombey told lady skettles at the breaking-up party that he was very fond of music, and he was very, very proud of his sister's accomplishments both as player and singer. did they inherit this love from their father? 'you are fond of music,' said the hon. mrs. skewton to mr. dombey during an interval in a game of picquet. 'eminently so,' was the reply. but the reader must not take him at his word. when edith (the future mrs. dombey) entered the room and sat down to her harp, mr. dombey rose and stood beside her, listening. he had little taste for music, and no knowledge of the strain she played; but he saw her bending over it, and perhaps he heard among the sounding strings some distant music of his own. yet when she went to the piano and commenced to sing mr. dombey did not know that it was 'the air that his neglected daughter sang to his dead son'! _piano_ lady musicians are numerous, and of very varied degrees of excellence. amongst the pianists is miss teresa malderton, who nearly fell a prey to that gay deceiver mr. horatio sparkins (_s.b.t._ ). her contribution to a musical evening was 'the fall of paris,' played, as mr. sparkins declared, in a masterly manner. there was a song called 'the fall of paris,' but it is most probable that dickens was thinking of a very popular piece which he must have often heard in his young days, of which the full title was the surrender of paris. a characteristic divertimento for the pianoforte, including the events from the duke of wellington and prince blucher's marching to that capital to the evacuation by the french troops and taking possession by the allies, composed by louis jansen, . not the least curious section of this piece of early programme music is a _moderato_ recording the various articles of the capitulation. these are eighteen in number, and each has its own 'theme.' the interspersion of some discords seems to imply serious differences of opinion between the parties to the treaty. there was also a song called 'the downfall of paris,' the first verse of which was great news i have to tell you all, of bonaparte and a' that; how paris it has got a fall, he's lost his plans and a' that. _chorus._ rise up, john bull, rise up and sing, your chanter loudly blaw that; lang live our auld and worthy king, success to britain, a' that. the instrument beloved of miss tox (_d. & s._) was the harpsichord, and her favourite piece was the 'bird waltz,' while the 'copenhagen waltz' was also in her repertoire. two notes of the instrument were dumb from disuse, but their silence did not impoverish the rendering. caddy jellyby found it necessary to know something of the piano, in order that she might instruct the 'apprentices' at her husband's dancing-school. another performer was mrs. namby, who entertained mr. pickwick with solos on a square piano while breakfast was being prepared. when questioned by david copperfield as to the gifts of miss sophy crewler, traddles explained that she knew enough of the piano to teach it to her little sisters, and she also sang ballads to freshen up her family a little when they were out of spirits, but 'nothing scientific.' the guitar was quite beyond her. david noted with much satisfaction (though he did not say so) that his dora was much more gifted musically. when dickens wrote his earlier works it was not considered the correct thing for a gentleman to play the piano, though it might be all very well for the lower classes and the music teacher. consequently we read of few male performers on the instrument. mr. skimpole could play the piano, and of course jasper had a 'grand' in his room at cloisterham. at one time, if we may believe the turnkey at the marshalsea prison, william dorrit had been a pianist, a fact which raised him greatly in the turnkey's opinion. brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a man was. educated at no end of expense. went into the marshal's house once to try a new piano for him. played it, i understand, like one o'clock--beautiful. in the _collected papers_ we have a picture of the 'throwing off young gentleman,' who strikes a note or two upon the piano, and accompanies it correctly (by dint of laborious practice) with his voice. he assures a circle of wondering listeners that so acute was his ear that he was wholly unable to sing out of tune, let him try as he would. mr. weller senior laid a deep plot in which a piano was to take a prominent part. his object was to effect mr. pickwick's escape from the fleet. me and a cab'net-maker has dewised a plan for gettin' him out. 'a pianner, samivel, a pianner,' said mr. weller, striking his son on the chest with the back of his hand, and falling back a step or two. 'wot do you mean?' said sam. 'a pianner-forty, samivel,' rejoined mr. weller, in a still more mysterious manner, 'as he can have on hire; vun as von't play, sammy.' 'and wot 'ud be the good of that?' said sam. 'there ain't no vurks in it,' whispered his father. 'it 'ull hold him easy, vith his hat and shoes on; and breathe through the legs, vich is holler.' but the usually dutiful sam showed so little enthusiasm for his father's scheme that nothing more was heard of it. chapter iii various instruments flute, organ, guitar (and some hummers) _flute_ we find several references to the flute, and dickens contrives to get much innocent fun out of it. first comes mr. mell, who used to carry his instrument about with him and who, in response to his mother's invitation to 'have a blow at it' while david copperfield was having his breakfast, made, said david, 'the most dismal sounds i have ever heard produced by any means, natural or artificial.' after he had finished he unscrewed his flute into three pieces, and deposited them underneath the skirts of his coat. dickens' schoolmasters seem to have been partial to the flute. mr. squeers, it is true, was not a flautist, but mr. feeder, b.a., was, or rather he was going to be. when little paul dombey visited his tutor's room he saw 'a flute which mr. feeder couldn't play yet, but was going to make a point of learning, he said, hanging up over the fireplace.' he also had a beautiful little curly second-hand 'key bugle,' which was also on the list of things to be accomplished on some future occasion, in fact he has unlimited confidence in the power and influence of music. here is his advice to the love-stricken mr. toots, whom he recommends to learn the guitar, or at least the flute; for women like music when you are paying your addresses to 'em, and he has found the advantage of it himself. the flute was the instrument that mr. richard swiveller took to when he heard that sophy wackles was lost to him for ever, thinking that it was a good, sound, dismal occupation, not only in unison with his own sad thoughts, but calculated to awaken a fellow feeling in the bosoms of his neighbours. so he got out his flute, arranged the light and a small oblong music-book to the best advantage, and began to play 'most mournfully.' the air was 'away with melancholy,' a composition which, when it is played very slowly on the flute, in bed, with the further disadvantage of being performed by a gentleman but imperfectly acquainted with the instrument, who repeats one note a great many times before he can find the next, has not a lively effect. so mr. swiveller spent half the night or more over this pleasing exercise, merely stopping now and then to take breath and soliloquize about the marchioness; and it was only after he 'had nearly maddened the people of the house, and at both the next doors, and over the way,' that he shut up the book and went to sleep. the result of this was that the next morning he got a notice to quit from his landlady, who had been in waiting on the stairs for that purpose since the dawn of day. jack redburn, too (_m.h.c._), seems to have found consolation in this instrument, spending his wet sundays in 'blowing a very slow tune on the flute.' there is one, and only one, recorded instance of this very meek instrument suddenly asserting itself by going on strike, and that is in the sketch entitled _private theatres_ (_s.b.s._ ), where the amateurs take so long to dress for their parts that 'the flute says he'll be blowed if he plays any more.' we must on no account forget the serenade with which the gentlemen boarders proposed to honour the miss pecksniffs. the performance was both vocal and instrumental, and the description of the flute-player is delightful. it was very affecting, very. nothing more dismal could have been desired by the most fastidious taste.... the youngest gentleman blew his melancholy into a flute. he didn't blow much out of it, but that was all the better. after a description of the singing we have more about the flute. the flute of the youngest gentleman was wild and fitful. it came and went in gusts, like the wind. for a long time together he seemed to have left off, and when it was quite settled by mrs. todgers and the young ladies that, overcome by his feelings, he had retired in tears, he unexpectedly turned up again at the very top of the tune, gasping for breath. he was a tremendous performer. there was no knowing where to have him; and exactly when you thought he was doing nothing at all, then was he doing the very thing that ought to astonish you most. yet another performer is the domestic young gentleman (_c.p._) who holds skeins of silk for the ladies to wind, and who then brings down his flute in compliance with a request from the youngest miss gray, and plays divers tunes out of a very small book till supper-time. when nancy went to the prison to look for oliver twist, she found nobody in durance vile except a man who had been taken up for playing the flute, and who was bewailing the loss of the same, which had been confiscated for the use of the county. the gentleman who played the violoncello at mrs. gattleton's party has already been referred to, and it only remains to mention mr. evans, who 'had such lovely whiskers' and who played the flute on the same occasion, to bring the list of players to an end. _hummers_ we meet with a remarkable musician in _dombey and son_ in the person of harriet carker's visitor, a scientific one, according to the description: a certain skilful action of his fingers as he hummed some bars, and beat time on the seat beside him, seemed to denote the musician; and the extraordinary satisfaction he derived from humming something very slow and long, which had no recognizable tune, seemed to denote that he was a scientific one. a less capable performer was sampson brass, who hummed in a voice that was anything but musical certain vocal snatches which appeared to have reference to the union between church and state, inasmuch as they were compounded of the evening hymn and 'god save the king.' musicians of various degrees abound in the _sketches_. here is mr. wisbottle, whistling 'the light guitar' at five o'clock in the morning, to the intense disgust of mr. john evenson, a fellow boarder at mrs. tibbs'. subsequently he came down to breakfast in blue slippers and a shawl dressing-gown, whistling 'di piacer.' mr. evenson can no longer control his feelings, and threatens to start the triangle if his enemy will not stop his early matutinal music. a suggested name for this whistler is the 'humming-top,' from his habit of describing semi-circles on the piano stool, and 'humming most melodiously.' there are a number of characters who indulge in the humming habit either to cover their confusion, or as a sign of light-heartedness and contentment. prominent amongst these are pecksniff, who, like morfin, hums melodiously, and micawber, who can both sing and hum. nor must we omit to mention miss petowker, who 'hummed a tune' as her contribution to the entertainment at mrs. kenwigs' party. many of the characters resort to humming to conceal their temporary discomfiture, and perhaps no one ever hummed under more harassing circumstances than when mr. pecksniff had to go to the door to let in some very unwelcome guests, who had already knocked several times. but he was a past master in the art of dissimulation. he is particularly anxious to conceal from his visitors the fact that jonas chuzzlewit is in the house. so he says to the latter-- 'this may be a professional call. indeed i am pretty sure it is. thank you.' then mr. pecksniff, gently warbling a rustic stave, put on his garden hat, seized a spade, and opened the street door; calmly appearing on the threshold as if he thought he had, from his vineyard, heard a modest rap, but was not quite certain. then he tells his visitors 'i do a little bit of adam still.' he certainly had a good deal of the old adam in him. _clarionet_ the clarionet is associated with the fortunes of mr. frederick dorrit, who played the instrument at the theatre where his elder niece was a dancer, and where little dorrit sought an engagement. after the rehearsal was over she and her sister went to take him home. he had been in that place six nights a week for many years, but had never been observed to raise his eyes above his music-book.... the carpenters had a joke that he was dead without being aware of it. at the theatre he had no part in what was going on except the part written for the clarionet. in his young days his house had been the resort of singers and players. when the fortunes of the family changed his clarionet was taken away from him, on the ground that it was a 'low instrument.' it was subsequently restored to him, but he never played it again. of quite a different stamp was one of the characters in _going into society_, who played the clarionet in a band at a wild beast show, and played it all wrong. he was somewhat eccentric in dress, as he had on 'a white roman shirt and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard skin.' we are told nothing about him, except that he refused to know his old friends. in his story of the _seven poor travellers_ dickens found the clarionet-player of the rochester waits so communicative that he accompanied the party across an open green called the vines, and assisted--in the french sense--at the performance of two waltzes, two polkas, and three irish melodies. _bassoon_ a notable bassoon player was mr. bagnet, who had a voice somewhat resembling his instrument. the ex-artilleryman kept a little music shop in a street near the elephant and castle. there were a few fiddles in the window, and some pan's pipes and a tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music. it was to this shop that bucket the detective came under the pretence of wanting a second-hand 'wiolinceller' (see p. ). in the course of conversation it turns out that master bagnet (otherwise 'woolwich') 'plays the fife beautiful,' and he performs some popular airs for the benefit of his audience. mr. bucket also claims to have played the fife himself when a boy, 'not in a scientific way, but by ear.' _bagpipes_ two references to the bagpipes deserve notice. one is in _david copperfield_, where the novelist refers to his own early experiences as a shorthand reporter. he has no high opinion of the speeches he used to take down. one joyful night, therefore, i noted down the music of the parliamentary bagpipes for the last time, and i have never heard it since; though i still recognize the old drone in the newspapers. in _o.m.f._ (ii.) we read of charley hexam's fellow pupils keeping themselves awake by maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. the peculiar subdued noise caused by a lot of children in a school is certainly suggestive of the instrument. _trombone_ little is said about the trombone. we are told, in reference to the party at dr. strong's (_d.c._), that the good doctor knew as much about playing cards as he did about 'playing the trombone.' in 'our school' (_r.p._) we are told a good deal about the usher who 'made out the bills, mended the pens, and did all sorts of things.' he was rather musical, and on some remote quarter-day had bought an old trombone; but a bit of it was lost, and it made the most extraordinary sounds when he sometimes tried to play it of an evening. in a similarly dismembered state was the flute which dickens once saw in a broker's shop. it was 'complete with the exception of the middle joint.' this naturally calls to mind the story of the choir librarian who was putting away the vocal parts of a certain funeral anthem. after searching in vain for two missing numbers he was obliged to label the parcel 'his body is buried in peace.' two parts missing. _organ_ the references to the organ are both numerous and interesting, and it is pretty evident that this instrument had a great attraction for dickens. the gentle tom pinch (_m.c._), whom gissing calls 'a gentleman who derives his patent of gentility direct from god almighty,' first claims our attention. he used to play the organ at the village church 'for nothing.' it was a simple instrument, 'the sweetest little organ you ever heard,' provided with wind by the action of the musician's feet, and thus tom was independent of a blower, though he was so beloved that there was not a man or boy in all the village and away to the turnpike (tollman included) but would have blown away for him till he was black in the face. what a delight it must have been to him to avail himself of the opportunity to play the organ in the cathedral when he went to meet martin! as the grand tones resounded through the church they seemed, to tom, to find an echo in the depth of every ancient tomb, no less than in the deep mystery of his own heart. and he would have gone on playing till midnight 'but for a very earthy verger,' who insisted on locking up the cathedral and turning him out. on one occasion, while he was practising at the church, the miserable pecksniff entered the building and, hiding behind a pew, heard the conversation between tom and mary that led to the former being dismissed from the architect's office, so he had to leave his beloved organ, and mightily did the poor fellow miss it when he went to london! being an early riser, he had been accustomed to practise every morning, and now he was reduced to taking long walks about london, a poor substitute indeed! nor was the organ the only instrument that he could play, for we read how he would spend half his nights poring over the 'jingling anatomy of that inscrutable old harpsichord in the back parlour,' and amongst the household treasures that he took to london were his music and an old fiddle. the picture which forms our frontispiece shows tom pinch playing his favourite instrument. at the sale of the original drawings executed by 'phiz' for _martin chuzzlewit_ this frontispiece, which is an epitome of the salient characters and scenes in the novel, was sold for £ . we read in _christmas stories_ that silas jorgan played the organ, but we are not told the name of the artist who at the concert at the eagle (_s.b.c._ ) accompanied a comic song on the organ--and such an organ! miss j'mima ivins's friend's young man whispered it had cost 'four hundred pound,' which mr. samuel wilkins said was 'not dear neither.' the singer was probably either howell or glindon. dickens appears to have visited the eagle tavern in or . it was then a notable place of entertainment consisting of gardens with an orchestra, and the 'grecian saloon,' which was furnished with an organ and a 'self-acting piano.' here concerts were given every evening, which in lent took a sacred turn, and consisted of selections from handel and mozart. in the organ was removed, and a new one erected by parsons. the eagle gained a wide reputation through its being introduced into a once popular song. up and down the city road, in and out the eagle, that's the way the money goes, pop goes the weasel. this verse was subsequently modified (for nursery purposes) thus: half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle, that's the way the money goes,[ ] pop goes the weasel. many explanations have been given of 'weasel.' some say it was a purse made of weasel skin; others that it was a tailor's flat-iron which used to be pawned (or 'popped') to procure the needful for admission to the tavern. a third (and more intelligible) suggestion is that the line is simply a catch phrase, without any meaning. there is a notable reference to the organ in _little dorrit_. arthur clennam goes to call on old frederick dorrit, the clarionet player, and is directed to the house where he lived. 'there were so many lodgers in this house that the door-post seemed to be as full of bell handles as a cathedral organ is of stops,' and clennam hesitates for a time, 'doubtful which might be the clarionet stop.' further on in the same novel we are told that it was the organ that mrs. finching was desirous of learning. i have said ever since i began to recover the blow of mr. f's death that i would learn the organ of which i am extremely fond but of which i am ashamed to say i do not yet know a note. the following fine description of the tones of an organ occurs in _the chimes_: the organ sounded faintly in the church below. swelling by degrees the melody ascended to the roof, and filled the choir and nave. expanding more and more, it rose up, up; up, up; higher, higher, higher up; awakening agitated hearts within the burly piles of oak, the hollow bells, the iron-bound doors, the stairs of solid stone; until the tower walls were insufficient to contain it, and it soared into the sky. the effect of this on trotty veck was very different from that which another organ had on the benevolent old lady we read of in _our parish_. she subscribed £ towards a new instrument for the parish church, and was so overcome when she first heard it that she had to be carried out by the pew-opener. there are various references to the organs in the city churches, and probably the description of one of them given in _dombey and son_ would suit most instruments of the period. the organ rumbled and rolled as if it had got the colic, for want of a congregation to keep the wind and damp out. _barrel-organ_ in real life the barrel-organ was a frequent source of annoyance to dickens, who found its ceaseless strains very trying when he was busy writing, and who had as much trouble in evicting the grinders as david copperfield's aunt had with the donkeys. however, he takes a very mild revenge on this deservedly maligned instrument in his works, and the references are, as usual, of a humorous character. a barrel-organ formed a part of the procession to celebrate the election of mr. tulrumble[ ] as mayor of mudfog, but the player put on the wrong stop, and played one tune while the band played another. this instrument had an extraordinary effect on major tpschoffki, familiarly and more easily known as 'chops,' the dwarf, 'spirited but not proud,' who was desirous of 'going into society' (_g.s._), and who had got it into his head that he was entitled to property: his ideas respectin' his property never come upon him so strong as when he sat upon a barrel-organ, and had the handle turned. arter the wibration had run through him a little time he would screech out, 'toby, i feel my property coming--grind away! i'm counting my guineas by thousands, toby--grind away! toby, i shall be a man of fortun! i feel the mint a-jingling in me, toby, and i'm swelling out into the bank of england.' such is the influence of music on a poetic mind. dickens found the streets in new york very different from those in london, and specially remarks how quiet they were--no itinerant musicians or showmen of any kind. he could only remember hearing one barrel-organ with a dancing-monkey. 'beyond that, nothing lively, no, not so much as a white mouse in a twirling cage.' we must not forget that he has two references to pipe organs in his _american notes_. when he visited the blind school at boston he heard a voluntary played on the organ by one of the pupils, while at st. louis he was informed that the jesuit college was to be supplied with an organ sent from belgium. the barrel-organ brings to mind jerry and his troupe of dancing-dogs (_o.c.s._), especially the unfortunate animal who had lost a halfpenny during the day, and consequently had to go without his supper. in fact, his master made the punishment fit the crime; for, having set the stop, he made the dog play the organ while the rest had their evening meal. when the knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got an unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a short howl; but he immediately checked it on his master looking round and applied himself with increased diligence to the old hundredth. in _dombey and son_ there is a very apt comparison of mr. feeder, b.a., to this instrument. he was doctor blimber's assistant master, and was entrusted with the education of little paul. mr. feeder, b.a. ... was a kind of human barrel-organ with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working, over and over again, without any variation. he might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny had been favourable, but it had not been. so he had only one barrel, his sole occupation being to 'bewilder the young ideas of dr. blimber's young gentlemen.' sometimes he had his virgil stop on, and at other times his herodotus stop. in trying to keep up the comparison, however, dickens makes a curious mistake. in the above quotation feeder is assigned one barrel only, while in chapter xli we are told that he had 'his other barrels on a shelf behind him.' we find another comparison in _little dorrit_, when the long-suffering pancks turns round on casby, his employer, and exposes his hypocrisy. pancks, who has had much difficulty in getting his master's rents from the tenants, makes up his mind to leave him; and before doing so he tells the whole truth about casby to the inhabitants of bleeding heart yard. 'here's the stop,' said pancks, 'that sets the tune to be ground. and there is but one tune, and its name is "grind! grind! grind!"' _guitar_ although the guitar was a fashionable instrument sixty years ago, there are but few references to it. this was the instrument that enabled the three miss briggses, each of them performers, to eclipse the glory of the miss tauntons, who could only manage a harp. on the eventful day of 'the steam excursion' (_s.b._) the three sisters brought their instruments, carefully packed up in dark green cases, which were carefully stowed away in the bottom of the boat, accompanied by two immense portfolios of music, which it would take at least a week's incessant playing to get through. at a subsequent stage of the proceedings they were asked to play, and after replacing a broken string, and a vast deal of screwing and tightening, they gave 'a new spanish composition, for three voices and three guitars,' and secured an encore, thus completely overwhelming their rivals. in the account of the _french watering-place_ (_r.p._) we read about a guitar on the pier, 'to which a boy or woman sings without any voice little songs without any tune.' on one of his night excursions in the guise of an 'uncommercial traveller' dickens discovered a stranded spaniard, named antonio. in response to a general invitation 'the swarthy youth' takes up his cracked guitar and gives them the 'feeblest ghost of a tune,' while the inmates of the miserable den kept time with their heads. dora used to delight david copperfield by singing enchanting ballads in the french language and accompanying herself 'on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar,' though subsequent references show it was that instrument and none other. we read in _little dorrit_ that young john chivery wore 'pantaloons so highly decorated with side stripes, that each leg was a three-stringed lute.' this appears to be the only reference to this instrument, and a lute of three strings is the novelist's own conception, the usual number being about nine. [ ] or, 'mix it up and make it nice.' [ ] _the public life of mr. tulrumble_, . chapter iv various instruments (continued) many musical instruments and terms are mentioned by way of illustration. blathers, the bow street officer (_o.t._), plays carelessly with his handcuffs as if they were a pair of castanets. miss miggs (_b.r._) clanks her pattens as if they were a pair of cymbals. mr. bounderby (_h.t._), during his conversation with harthouse, with his hat in his hand, gave a beat upon the crown at every division of his sentences, as if it were a tambourine; and in the same work the electric wires rule 'a colossal strip of music-paper out of the evening sky.' perhaps the most extraordinary comparison is that instituted by mrs. lirriper in reference to her late husband. my poor lirriper was a handsome figure of a man, with a beaming eye and a voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel. what a vivid imagination the good woman had! her descriptive powers remind us of those possessed by mrs. gamp in speaking of the father of the mysterious mrs. harris. as pleasant a singer, mr. chuzzlewit, as ever you heerd, with a voice like a jew's-harp in the bass notes. there are many humorous references to remarkable performances on various instruments more or less musical in their nature. during the election at eatanswill the crier performed two concertos on his bell, and shortly afterwards followed them up with a fantasia on the same instrument. dickens suffered much from church bells, and gives vent to his feelings about them in _little dorrit_, where he says that maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous. in his _pictures from italy_ he wrote thus: at genoa the bells of the church ring incessantly, not in peals, or any known form of sound, but in horrible, irregular, jerking dingle, dingle, dingle; with a sudden stop at every fifteenth dingle or so, which is maddening.... the noise is supposed to be particularly obnoxious to evil spirits. but it was these same bells, which he found so maddening, that inspired him with the title of a well-known story. he had chosen a subject, but was at a loss for a name. as he sat working one morning there suddenly rose up from genoa the clang and clash of all its steeples, pouring into his ears, again and again, in a tuneless, grating, discordant jerking, hideous vibration that made his ideas spin round and round till they lost themselves in a whirl of vexation and giddiness, and dropped down dead.... only two days later came a letter in which not a syllable was written but 'we have heard the chimes at midnight, master shallow,' and i knew he had discovered what he wanted.[ ] yet, in spite of all this, dickens shows--through his characters--a deep interest in bells and bell-lore. little paul dombey finds a man mending the clocks at dr. blimber's academy, and asks a multitude of questions about chimes and clocks; as, whether people watched up in the lonely church steeples by night to make them strike, and how the bells were rung when people died, and whether those were different bells from wedding-bells, or only sounded dismal in the fancies of the living; and then the precocious small boy proceeds to give the astonished clockmaker some useful information about king alfred's candles and curfew-bells. as smike and nicholas tramp their long journey to portsmouth they hear the sheep-bells tinkling on the downs. to tom pinch journeying londonwards 'the brass work on the harness was a complete orchestra of little bells.' what a terror the bells are to jonas chuzzlewit just before he starts on his evil journey! he hears the ringers practising in a neighbouring church, and the clashing of their bells was almost maddening. curse the clamouring bells! they seemed to know that he was listening at the door, and to proclaim it in a crowd of voices to all the town! would they never be still? they ceased at last, and then the silence was so new and terrible that it seemed the prelude to some dreadful noise. the boom of the bell is associated with many of the villains of the novels. fagin hears it when under sentence of death. blackpool and carker hear the accusing bells when in the midst of planning their evil deeds. we can read the characters of some by the way they ring a bell. the important little mr. bailey, when he goes to see his friend poll sweedlepipe (_m.c._) 'came in at the door with a lunge, to get as much sound out of the bell as possible,' while bob sawyer gives a pull as if he would bring it up by the roots. mr. clennam pulls the rope with a hasty jerk, and mr. watkins tottle with a faltering jerk, while tom pinch gives a gentle pull. and how angry mr. mantalini is with newman noggs because he keeps him 'ringing at this confounded old cracked tea-kettle of a bell, every tinkle of which is enough to throw a strong man into convulsions, upon my life and soul,--oh demmit.' the introduction of electric bells has been a great trial to those who used to vent their wrath on the wire-pulled article or the earlier bell-rope, which used not infrequently to add unnecessary fuel by coming incontinently down on the head of the aggrieved one. what a pull the fierce gentleman must have given whose acquaintance mr. pickwick made when he was going to bath! he had been kept waiting for his buttered toast, so he (captain dowler) rang the bell with great violence, and told the waiter he'd better bring the toast in five seconds, or he'd know the reason why. dickens rang far more changes on the bells than there is space to enumerate; but i have shown to what extent he makes their sound a commentary on innumerable phases of life. a slight technical knowledge of bell phraseology is found in _barnaby rudge_ ( ), where he mentions the variations known as a 'triple bob major.' finally there is an interesting reference in _master humphrey's clock_ to a use of the bell which has now passed into history. belinda says in a postscript to a letter to master humphrey, 'the bellman, rendered impatient by delay, is ringing dreadfully in the passage'; while in a second ps. she says, 'i open this to say the bellman is gone, and that you must not expect it till the next post.' in the old days it was the custom for the letter-carriers to collect letters by ringing a bell. there is no doubt that a most extraordinary, certainly a most original, musical effect is that secured by mr. george (_b.h._), who had just finished smoking. 'do you know what that tune is, mr. smallweed?' he adds, after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the empty pipe. 'tune,' replies the old man. 'no, we never have tunes here.' 'that's the "dead march" in _saul_. they bury soldiers to it, so it's the natural end of the subject.' surely a highly original way of bringing a conversation to a close! this march is referred to in _our mutual friend_, where mr. wilfer suggests that going through life with mrs. wilfer is like keeping time to the 'dead march' in _saul_, from which singular simile we may gather that this lady was not the liveliest of companions. several other instruments are casually mentioned. mr. hardy (_s.b.t._ ) was a master of many accomplishments. he could sing comic songs, imitate hackney coachmen and fowls, play airs on his chin, and execute concertos on the jew's harp. the champion 'chin' performer of the early victorian period was michael boai, 'the celebrated chin melodist,' who was announced to perform 'some of his admired pieces' at many of the places of entertainment. there is another reference to this extraordinary way of producing music in _sketches by boz_, where mrs. tippin performed an air with variations on the guitar, 'accompanied on the chin by master tippin.' to return to mr. hardy, this gentleman was evidently deeply interested in all sorts and degrees of music, but he got out of his depth in a conversation with the much-travelled captain helves. after the three miss briggses had finished their guitar performances, mr. hardy approached the captain with the question, 'did you ever hear a portuguese tambourine?' 'did _you_ ever hear a tom-tom, sir?' sternly inquired the captain, who lost no opportunity of showing off his travels, real or pretended. 'a what?' asked hardy, rather taken aback. 'a tom-tom.' 'never.' 'nor a gum-gum?' 'never.' 'what _is_ a gum-gum?' eagerly inquired several young ladies. the question is unanswered to this day, though hardy afterwards suggests it is another name for a humbug. when dickens visited the school where the half-time system was in force, he found the boys undergoing military and naval drill. a small boy played the fife while the others went through their exercises. after that a boys' band appeared, the youngsters being dressed in a neat uniform. then came a choral class, who sang 'the praises of a summer's day to a harmonium.' in the arithmetical exercises the small piper excels (_u.t._ ). wise as the serpent is the four feet of performer on the nearest approach to that instrument. this was written when the serpent was practically extinct, but dickens would be very familiar with the name of the instrument, and may have seen and heard it in churches in his younger days. in referring to another boy's attempt at solving the arithmetical puzzles, he mentions the cymbals, combined with a faint memory of st. paul. i observe the player of the cymbals to dash at a sounding answer now and then rather than not cut in at all; but i take that to be in the way of his instrument. in _great expectations_ mr. wopsle, who is a parish clerk by profession, had an ambition not only to tread the boards, but to start off as hamlet. his appearance was not a success, and the audience was derisive. on his taking the recorders--very like a little black flute that had just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door--he was called upon unanimously for 'rule britannia.' reference has already been made to bucket's music-shop, so we must not forget to visit caleb plummer's little room, where there were scores of melancholy little carts which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture. the old man made a rude kind of harp specially for his poor blind daughter, and on which dot used to play when she visited the toy-maker's. caleb's musical contribution would be 'a bacchanalian song, something about a sparkling bowl,' which much annoyed his grumpy employer. 'what! you're singing, are you?' said tackleton, putting his head in at the door. 'go it, _i_ can't sing.' nobody would have suspected him of it. he hadn't what is generally termed a singing face, by any means. the wonderful duet between the cricket and the kettle at the commencement of _the cricket on the hearth_ certainly deserves mention, though it is rather difficult to know whether to class the performers as instrumentalists or singers. the kettle began it with a series of short vocal snorts, which at first it checked in the bud, but finally it burst into a stream of song, 'while the lid performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother.' then the cricket came in with its chirp, chirp, chirp, and at it they went in fierce rivalry until 'the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was taken off the fire.' dickens was certainly partial to the cricket, for elsewhere (_m.h.c._) we read of the clock that makes cheerful music, like one of those chirping insects who delight in the warm hearth. there are two or three references to the key bugle, which also used to be known as the kent bugle. it was a popular instrument half a century ago, as the addition of keys gave it a much greater range of notes than the ordinary bugle possessed. a notable though inefficient performer was the driver who took martin chuzzlewit up to london. he was musical, besides, and had a little key bugle in his pocket on which, whenever the conversation flagged, he played the first part of a great many tunes, and regularly broke down in the second. this instrument was on mr. feeder's _agenda_. two more instruments demand our attention. at the marriage of tackleton and may fielding (_c.h._) there were to be marrow-bones and cleavers, while to celebrate the union of trotty veck's daughter meg and richard they had a band including the aforesaid instruments and also the drum and the bells. it was formerly the custom for butchers' assistants to provide themselves with marrow-bones and cleavers for musical effects. each cleaver was ground so that when it was struck with the bone it emitted a certain note.[ ] a complete band would consist of eight men, with their cleavers so tuned as to give an octave of notes. after more or less practice they would offer their services as bandsmen on the occasion of marriage ceremonies, which they had a wonderful faculty for locating, and they would provide music (of a kind) _ad libitum_ until the requisite fee was forthcoming. if their services were declined the butchers would turn up all the same, and make things very unpleasant for the marriage party. the custom dates from the eighteenth century, and though it has gradually fallen into disuse a marrow-bone and cleaver band is still available in london for those who want it. a band took part in a wedding ceremony at clapham as recently as the autumn of . the following extract, referring to the second marriage of mr. dombey, shows what bridal parties had to put up with in the good old days: the men who play the bells have got scent of the marriage; and the marrow-bones and cleavers too; and a brass band too. the first are practising in a back settlement near battle-bridge[ ]; the second put themselves in communication, through their chief, with mr. tomlinson, to whom they offer terms to be bought off; and the third, in the person of an artful trombone, lurks and dodges round the corner, waiting for some traitor-tradesman to reveal the place and hour of breakfast, for a bribe. other instruments casually referred to are the pan's pipes, which in one place is also called a mouth-organ (_s.b.s._ ), the flageolet, and the triangle. it is difficult to classify the walking-stick on which mr. jennings rudolph played tunes before he went behind the parlour door and gave his celebrated imitations of actors, edgetools, and animals (_s.b.c._ ). [ ] forster, _life of charles dickens._ [ ] this is rather a modern development. [ ] near king's cross station (g.n.r.). chapter v church music dickens has not much to say about church music as such, but the references are interesting, inasmuch as they throw some light upon it during the earlier years of his life. in _our parish_ (_s.b._) we read about the old naval officer who finds fault with the sermon every sunday, says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself, and offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put together. this reminds us that during the first half of last century, and indeed later in many places, the church choir as we know it did not exist, and the leading of the singing was entrusted to the children of the charity school under the direction of the clerk, a custom which had existed since the seventeenth century. the chancel was never used for the choir, and the children sat up in the gallery at the west end, on either side of the organ. in a city church that dickens attended the choir was limited to two girls. the organ was so out of order that he could 'hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music.' when the service began he was so depressed that, as he says, i gave but little heed to our dull manner of ambling through the service; to the brisk clerk's manner of encouraging us to try a note or two at psalm time; to the gallery congregation's manner of enjoying a shrill duet, without a notion of time or tune; to the whity-brown man's manner of shutting the minister into the pulpit, and being very particular with the lock of the door, as if he were a dangerous animal. elsewhere he found in the choir gallery an 'exhausted charity school' of four boys and two girls. the congregations were small, a state of things which at any rate satisfied mrs. lirriper, who had a pew at st. clement danes and was 'partial to the evening service not too crowded.' in _sunday under three heads_ we have a vivid picture of the state of things at a fashionable church. carriages roll up, richly dressed people take their places and inspect each other through their glasses. the organ peals forth, the hired singers commence a short hymn, and the congregation condescendingly rise, stare about them and converse in whispers. dickens passes from church to chapel. here, he says, the hymn is sung--not by paid singers, but by the whole assembly at the loudest pitch of their voices, unaccompanied by any musical instrument, the words being given out, two lines at a time, by the clerk. it cannot be said that, as far as the music is concerned, either of these descriptions is exaggerated when we remember the time at which they were written ( ). very few chapels in london had organs, or indeed instruments of any kind, and there is no doubt that the congregations, as a rule, _did_ sing at the tops of their voices, a proceeding known under the more euphonious title of 'hearty congregational singing.' he gives a far more favourable account of the music in the village church. in the essay just referred to he mentions the fact that he attended a service in a west of england church where the service 'was spoken--not merely read--by a grey-headed minister.' the psalms were accompanied by a few instrumental performers, who were stationed in a small gallery extending across the church at the lower end; and the voices were led by the clerk, who, it was evident, derived no slight pride and gratification from this portion of the service. but if the church music in england was not of a very high quality when dickens wrote the above, it was, according to his own account, far superior to what he heard in certain churches in italy. when in rome he visited st. peter's, where he was quite unimpressed by the music. i have been infinitely more affected in many english cathedrals when the organ has been playing, and in many english country churches when the congregation have been singing. on another occasion he attended church at genoa on a feast day, and he writes thus about the music: the organ played away lustily, and a full band did the like; while a conductor, in a little gallery opposite the band, hammered away on the desk before him, with a scroll, and a tenor, without any voice, sang. the band played one way, the organ played another, the singer went a third, and the unfortunate conductor banged and banged, and flourished his scroll on some principle of his own; apparently well satisfied with the whole performance. i never did hear such a discordant din. _parish clerks_ we have but few references to parish clerks in the novels. mr. wopsle (_g.e._)--whom mr. andrew lang calls 'one of the best of dickens' minor characters'--'punished the amens tremendously,'[ ] and when he gave out the psalms--always giving the whole verse--he looked all round the congregation first, as much as to say 'you have heard our friend overhead; oblige me with your opinion of this style.' this gentleman subsequently became a 'play-actor,' but failed to achieve the success he desired. solomon daisy (_b.r._) is bell-ringer and parish clerk of chigwell, though we hear nothing of his exploits in these capacities. however, he must have been a familiar figure to the villagers as he stood in his little desk on the sunday, giving out the psalms and leading the singing, because when in the rifled and dismantled maypole he appeals to the poor witless old willet as to whether he did not know him-- 'you know us, don't you, johnny?' said the little clerk, rapping himself on the breast. 'daisy, you know--chigwell church--bell-ringer--little desk on sundays--eh, johnny?' mr. willet reflected for a few moments, and then muttered as it were mechanically: 'let us sing to the praise and glory of--' 'yes, to be sure,' cried the little man hastily, 'that's it, that's me, johnny.' besides the numerous body of more or less distinguished artists whom the novelist introduces to us and whose achievements are duly set forth in these pages, there are two others whose connexion with cloisterham gives them a prominent position in our list. one of these is the rev. mr. crisparkle (_e.d._), minor canon of cloisterham: early riser, musical, classical, cheerful, kind, good-natured, social, contented, and boy-like. what a contrast to the stiggins and chadband type! he is a member of the 'alternate musical wednesdays' society, and amongst his lesser duties is that of corrector-in-chief of the un-dean-like english of the cathedral verger. it is mr. crisparkle's custom to sit up last of the early household, very softly touching his piano and practising his parts in concerted vocal music. over a closet in his dining-room, where occasional refreshments were kept, a portrait of handel in a flowing wig beamed down at the spectator, with a knowing air of being up to the contents of the closet, and a musical air of intending to combine all its harmonies in one delicious fugue. the minor canon is a warm admirer of jasper's musical talents, and on one occasion in particular is much impressed with his singing. i must thank you, jasper, for the pleasure with which i have heard you to-day. beautiful! delightful! and thus we are introduced to the other musician, whose position at cloisterham cathedral is almost as much a mystery as that of edwin drood himself. he was the lay precentor or lay clerk, and he was also a good choirmaster. it is unnecessary to criticize or examine too closely the exact position that jasper held. in answer to a question on this subject, mr. b. luard-selby, the present organist of rochester cathedral, writes thus: we have never had in the choir of rochester cathedral such a musical functionary as dickens describes in _the mystery of edwin drood_. the only person approaching jasper in the choir is one of the lay clerks who looks after the music, but who of course has nothing to do with _setting_ the music for the month. i don't think dickens had much idea of church order or of cathedral worship, though he may have gone over the cathedral with a verger on occasions. the music of a cathedral is always in the hands of the precentor, assisted by the organist. it is edwin drood himself who says that jasper was lay precentor or lay clerk at the cathedral. he had a great reputation as a choir-trainer and teacher of music, but he is already weary of his position and takes little notice of words of eulogy. he was well acquainted with the old melodies, and on one occasion we find him sitting at the piano singing brave songs to mr. sapsea. no kickshaw ditties, favourites with national enemies, but ... genuine george the third home brewed, exhorting him (as 'my brave boys') to reduce to a smashed condition all other islands but this island, and all continents, peninsulas, isthmuses, promontories, and other geographical forms of land soever, besides sweeping the sea in all directions. in short he rendered it pretty clear that providence made a distinct mistake in originating so small a nation of hearts of oak, and so many other verminous peoples. we have a different picture of him on another occasion, as he sits 'chanting choir music in a low and beautiful voice, for two or three hours'--a somewhat unusual exercise even for the most enthusiastic choirmaster. but this was before the strange journey with durdles, and we can only guess at the weird thoughts which were passing through the musician's mind as he sat in his lonely room. we have only a brief reference to the choir of cloisterham cathedral. towards the end we read of them 'struggling into their nightgowns' before the service, while they subsequently are 'as much in a hurry to get their bedgowns off as they were but now to get them on'--and these were almost the last words that came from the master's pen. _anthems_ there is an interesting reference to anthems in connexion with the foundling hospital,[ ] an institution which dickens mentions several times. mr. wilding (_n.t._), after he had been pumped on by his lawyer in order to clear his head, names the composers of the anthems he had been accustomed to sing at the foundling. handel, mozart, haydn, kent, purcell, doctor arne, greene, mendelssohn. i know the choruses to those anthems by heart. foundling chapel collection. mr. wilding had a scheme of forming his household retainers and dependents into a singing-class in the warehouse, and a choir in the neighbouring church. only one member, joey ladle, refused to join, for fear he should 'muddle the 'armony,' and his remark that handel must have been down in some of them foreign cellars pretty much for to go and say the same thing so many times over is certainly not lacking in originality. _hymns and hymn-tunes_ there are many purists in church music who object to adaptations of any kind, and we do not know what their feelings are on reading the account of the meeting of the brick lane branch of the united grand junction ebenezer temperance association. in order to vary the proceedings mr. anthony humm announced that brother mordlin had adapted the beautiful words of 'who hasn't heard of a jolly young waterman' to the tune of the old hundredth, which he would request them to join in singing. (great applause.) and so the song commenced, the chairman giving out two lines at a time, in proper orthodox fashion. it was this air that mr. jerry's dog, as already related, ground out of the barrel-organ, but, besides this particular melody, we do not find that dickens mentions any other hymn-tune. the hymns referred to are rather more in number. in _the wreck of the golden mary_ mrs. atherfield sang little lucy to sleep with the evening hymn. there is a veiled reference to ken's morning hymn in _o.c.s._, where sampson brass says: 'here we are, mr. richard, rising with the sun to run our little course--our course of duty, sir.' dr. watts makes several appearances, dickens made the acquaintance of this noted hymnist in early youth (see p. ), and makes good use of his knowledge. in _the cricket on the hearth_ mrs. peerybingle asks john if he ever learnt 'how doth the little' when he went to school. 'not to quite know it,' john returned. 'i was very near it once.' another of the doctor's hymns is suggested by the behaviour of the young tetterbys (_h.m._). the contentions between the tetterbys' children for the milk and water jug, common to all, which stood upon the table, presented so lamentable an instance of angry passions risen very high indeed, that it was an outrage on the memory of dr. watts. the pages of history abound with instances of misguided amateurs who have amended the hymns (and tunes) of others in order to bring them into their way of thinking, and a prominent place in their ranks must be assigned to miss monflathers (_o.c.s._), who managed to parody the good doctor's meaning to an alarming extent and to insist that in books, or work or healthful play[ ] is only applicable to _genteel_ children, while all poor people's children, such as little nell, should spend their time. in work, work, work. in work alway, let my first years be passed, that i may give for ev'ry day some good account at last, which is far from the good doctor's meaning. dr. strong, david copperfield's second schoolmaster, was fond of quoting this great authority on mischief, but mr. wickfield suggests that dr. watts, had he known mankind well, would also have written 'satan finds some mischief still for busy hands to do.' some years ago a question was raised in _notes and queries_ as to the identity of the 'no. collection' of hymns which appeared to afford consolation to job trotter. no answer was vouchsafed, the fact being that the title is a pure invention, and no such collection has ever existed. it is scarcely necessary to add that history is silent as to the identity of the hymn-book which uriah heep was reading when david copperfield and others visited him in prison. we are indebted to dickens for the introduction to the literary world of adelaide procter, many of whose sacred verses have found their way into our hymnals. the novelist wrote an introduction to her _legends and lyrics_, in which he tells the story of how, as editor of _household words_, he accepted verses sent him from time to time by a miss mary berwick, and only discovered, some months later, that his contributor was the daughter of his friend procter, who was known under the _nom de plume_ of barry cornwall. there seems to be some difficulty in regard to the authorship of the hymn hear my prayer, o heavenly father, ere i lay me down to sleep; bid thy angels, pure and holy, round my bed their vigil keep. it has already been pointed out (see _choir_, february, ) that this hymn appeared in the christmas number of _household words_ for , in a story entitled _the wreck of the golden mary_. the chief authorities on the works of dickens claim it as his composition, and include it in his collected works. on the other hand, miller, in his _our hymns_ ( ), states that miss harriet parr informed him that the hymn, and the story of _poor dick_, in which it occurs, were both her own. we may add that when dr. allon applied for permission to include it in his new hymn-book dickens referred him to the authoress. dr. julian takes this as authoritative, and has no hesitation in ascribing the hymn to miss parr. on the other hand, forster records in his _life of dickens_ that a clergyman, the rev. r.h. davies, had been struck by this hymn when it appeared in _household words_, and wrote to thank him for it. 'i beg to thank you,' dickens answered (christmas eve, ), 'for your very acceptable letter, not the less because i am myself the writer you refer to.' here dickens seems to claim the authorship, but it is possible he was referring to something else in the magazine when he wrote these words, and not to the hymn. [ ] dickens frequently uses the word in this sense. tom pinch says, 'i shall punish the boar's head tremendously.' it is also interesting to note that dickens uses the phrase 'i don't think' in its modern slang meaning on at least two occasions. tom pinch remarks 'i'm a nice man, i don't think, as john used to say' (_m.c._ ), and sam weller (_p.p._ ) says to mr. winkle 'you're a amiably-disposed young man, sir, i don't think.' mark tapley uses the expression 'a pious fraud' (_m.c._ ). [ ] 'pet' (_l.d._ ) was a frequent visitor to the hospital. [ ] from the poem on _industry_. chapter vi songs and some singers the numerous songs and vocal works referred to by dickens in his novels and other writings furnish perhaps the most interesting, certainly the most instructive, branch of this subject. his knowledge of song and ballad literature was extraordinary, and he did not fail to make good use of it. not only are the quotations always well chosen and to the point, but the use of them has greatly added to the interest of such characters as swiveller, micawber, cuttle, and many others, all of whom are of a very musical turn of mind. these songs may be conveniently divided into three classes, the first containing the national and popular airs of the eighteenth century, of which 'rule britannia' and 'sally in our alley' are notable examples. many of these are referred to in the following pages, while a full list will be found on pp. - . i.--_national songs_ there are numerous references to 'rule britannia.' besides those mentioned elsewhere we have the picture of little david copperfield in his dismal home. what evenings when the candles came, and i was expected to employ myself, but not daring to read an entertaining book, pored over some hard-headed, harder-hearted treatise on arithmetic; when the tables of weights and measures set themselves to tunes as 'rule britannia,' or 'away with melancholy'! no wonder he finally went to sleep over them! in _dombey and son_ old sol has a wonderful story of the _charming sally_ being wrecked in the baltic, while the crew sang 'rule britannia' as the ship went down, 'ending with one awful scream in chorus.' walter gives the date of the tragedy as . (the song was written in .) captain cuttle had a theory that 'rule britannia,' 'which the garden angels sang about so many times over,' embodied the outlines of the british constitution. it is perhaps unnecessary to explain that the captain's 'garden angels' appear in the song as 'guardian angels.' mark tapley, when in america, entertained a grey-haired black man by whistling this tune with all his might and main. the entry of martin chuzzlewit caused him to stop the tune at that point where britons generally are supposed to declare (when it is whistled) that they never, never, never-- in the article on 'wapping workhouse' (_u.t._) dickens introduces the first verse of the song in criticizing the workhouse system and its treatment of old people, and in the _american notes_ he tells us that he left canada with 'rule britannia' sounding in his ears. 'british grenadiers,' said mr. bucket to mr. bagnet, 'there's a tune to warm an englishman up! _could_ you give us "british grenadiers," my fine fellow?' and the 'fine fellow,' who was none other than bagnet junior (also known as 'woolwich'), promptly fetches his fife and performs the stirring melody, during which performance mr. bucket, much enlivened, beats time, and never fails to come in sharp with the burden 'brit ish gra-a-anadeers.' our national anthem is frequently referred to. in the description of the public dinner (_s.b.s._ )-- 'god save the queen' is sung by the professional gentlemen, the unprofessional gentlemen joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which the newspapers, with great justice, describe as 'perfectly electrical.' on another occasion we are told the company, sang the national anthem with national independence, each one singing it according to his own ideas of time and tune. this is the usual way of singing it at the present day. in addition to those above mentioned we find references to 'the marseillaise' and 'Ça ira,' both of which dickens says he heard in paris. in _little dorrit_ mr. meagles says: as to marseilles, we know what marseilles is. it sent the most insurrectionary tune into the world that was ever composed. without disputing the decided opinion expressed by the speaker, there is no doubt that some would give the palm to 'Ça ira,' which the novelist refers to in one of his letters. the words of this song were adapted in to the tune of 'carillon national.' this was a favourite air of marie antoinette, and she frequently played it on the harpsichord. after her downfall she heard it as a cry of hatred against herself--it followed her from versailles to the capital, and she would hear it from her prison and even when going to her death. when martin chuzzlewit and mark tapley were on their way to america, one of their fellow travellers was an english gentleman who was strongly suspected of having run away from a bank, with something in his possession belonging to its strong-box besides the key [and who] grew eloquent upon the subject of the rights of man, and hummed the marseillaise hymn constantly. in an article on this tune in the _choir_ (nov., ) it is stated that it was composed in at strasburg, but received its name from the fact that a band of soldiers going from marseilles to paris made the new melody their marching tune. a casual note about it appears to be the only musical reference in _a tale of two cities_. from america we have 'hail columbia' and 'yankee doodle.' in _martin chuzzlewit_ we meet the musical coach-driver who played snatches of tunes on the key bugle. a friend of his went to america, and wrote home saying he was always singing 'ale columbia.' in his _american notes_ dickens tells about a cleveland newspaper which announced that america had 'whipped england twice, and that soon they would sing "yankee doodle" in hyde park and "hail columbia" in the scarlet courts of westminster.' ii.--_songs from - _ we then come to a group of songs dating, roughly, from . this includes several popular sea songs by charles dibdin and others, some ballad opera airs, the _irish melodies_ and other songs by thomas moore, and a few sentimental ditties. following these we have the songs of the early victorian period, consisting of more sentimental ditties of a somewhat feebler type, with a few comic and nigger minstrel songs. the task of identifying the numerous songs referred to has been interesting, but by no means easy. no one who has not had occasion to refer to them can have any idea of the hundreds, nay, of the thousands, of song-books that were turned out from the various presses under an infinitude of titles during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. there is nothing like them at the present day, and the reasons for their publication have long ceased to exist. it should be explained that the great majority of these books contained the words only, very few of them being furnished with the musical notes. dickens has made use of considerably over a hundred different songs. in some cases the references are somewhat obscure, but their elucidation is necessary to a proper understanding of the text. an example of this occurs in chapter ix of _martin chuzzlewit_, where we are told the history of the various names given to the young red-haired boy at mrs. todgers' commercial boarding-house. when the pecksniffs visited the house he was generally known among the gentlemen as bailey junior, a name bestowed upon him in contradistinction perhaps to old bailey, and possibly as involving the recollection of an unfortunate lady of the same name, who perished by her own hand early in life and has been immortalized in a ballad. the song referred to here is 'unfortunate miss bailey,' by george colman, and sung by mr. mathews in the comic opera of _love laughs at locksmiths_. it tells the story of a maid who hung herself, while her persecutor took to drinking ratafia. dickens often refers to these old song-books, either under real or imaginary names. captain cuttle gives 'stanfell's budget' as the authority for one of his songs, and this was probably the song-book that formed one of the ornaments which he placed in the room he was preparing for florence dombey. other common titles are the 'prentice's warbler,' which simon tappertit used, 'fairburn's comic songster,' and the 'little warbler,' which is mentioned two or three times. of the songs belonging to this second period, some are embedded in ballad operas and plays, popular enough in their day, but long since forgotten. an example is mr. jingle's quotation when he tells the blushing rachel that he is going in hurry, post haste for a licence, in hurry, ding dong i come back, though he omitted the last two lines: for that you shan't need bid me twice hence, i'll be here and there in a crack. this verse is sung by lord grizzle in fielding's _tom thumb_, as arranged by kane o'hara. _paul and virginia_ is mentioned by mrs. flora finching (_l.d._) as being one of the things that ought to have been returned to arthur clennam when their engagement was broken off. this was a ballad opera by reeve and mazzinghi, and the opening number is the popular duet 'see from ocean rising,' concerning which there is a humorous passage in 'the steam excursion' (_s.b._), where it is sung by one of the miss tauntons and captain helves. the last-named, 'after a great deal of preparatory crowing and humming,' began in that grunting tone in which a man gets down, heaven knows where, without the remotest chance of ever getting up again. this in private circles is frequently designated a 'bass voice.' [figure ] see from ocean rising bright flame, the orb of day; from yon grove the varied song shall slumber from virginia chase, chase away, slumber from virginia chase, chase away. dickens is not quite correct in this description, as the part of paul was created by incledon, the celebrated tenor, but there are still to be found basses who insist on singing tenor when they think that part wants their assistance. iii.--_contemporary comic songs_ when dickens visited vauxhall (_s.b.s._ ) in , he heard a variety entertainment, to which some reference has already been made. amongst the performers was a comic singer who bore the name of one of the english counties, and who sang a very good song about the seven ages, the first half hour of which afforded the assembly the purest delight. the name of this singer was mr. bedford, though there was also a mr. buckingham in the vauxhall programmes of those days. there are at least four songs, all of them lengthy, though not to the extent dickens suggests, which bear on the subject. they are: .--'all the world's a stage,' a popular medley written by mr. l. rede, and sung by mrs. kelley in the _frolic of the fairies_. .--'paddy mcshane's seven ages,' sung by mr. johnstone at drury lane. .--'the seven ages,' as sung by mr. fuller (eight very long verses). .--'the seven ages of woman,' as sung by mr. harley. you've heard the seven ages of great mister man, and now mistress woman's i'll chaunt, if i can. this was also a very long song, each verse being sung to a different tune. some of these songs are found in a scarce book called _london oddities_ ( ), which also contains 'time of day,' probably the comic duet referred to in _the mistaken milliner_ (_s.b._). this sketch was written in for _bell's life in london_, the original title being _the vocal dressmaker_, and contains an account of a concert (real or imaginary) at the white conduit house. this place of entertainment was situated in penton street, islington, near the top of pentonville road, and when dickens wrote his sketch the place had been in existence nearly a hundred years. early in the nineteenth century it became a place of varied amusements, from balloon ascents to comic songs. dickens visited the place about . the titles of some of the pieces he mentions as having been sung there are real, while others (such as 'red ruffian, retire') appear to be invented. of a different kind is the one sung by the giant pickleson, known in the profession as rinaldo di vasco, a character introduced to us by dr. marigold. i gave him sixpence (for he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out on two three penn'orths of gin-and-water, which so brisked him up that he sang the favourite comic of 'shivery shakey, ain't it cold?' perhaps in no direction does the taste of the british public change so rapidly and so completely as in their idea of humour as depicted in the comic song, and it is unlikely that what passed for humour sixty years ago would appeal to an audience of the present day. the song here referred to had a great though brief popularity. this is the first verse: the man that couldn't get warm. _words by j. beuler._ _accompaniment by j. clinton._ all you who're fond in spite of price of pastry, cream and jellies nice be cautious how you take an ice whenever you're overwarm. a merchant who from india came, and shiverand shakey was his name, a pastrycook's did once entice to take a cooling, luscious ice, the weather, hot enough to kill, kept tempting him to eat, until it gave his corpus such a chill he never again felt warm. shiverand shakey o, o, o, criminy crikey! isn't it cold, woo, woo, woo, oo, oo, behold the man that couldn't get warm. some people affect to despise a comic song, but there are instances where a good specimen has helped to make history, or has added a popular phrase to our language. an instance of the latter is macdermott's 'jingo' song 'we don't want to fight but by jingo if we do.' an illustration of the former comes from the coal strike of march, , during which period the price of that commodity only once passed the figure it reached in , as we gather from the old song 'look at the price of coals.' we don't know what's to be done, they're forty-two shillings a ton. there are two interesting references in a song which mrs. jarley's poet adapted to the purposes of the waxwork exhibition, 'if i'd a donkey as wouldn't go.' the first verse of the song is as follows: if i'd a donkey wot wouldn't go, d'ye think i'd wollop him? no, no, no; but gentle means i'd try, d'ye see, because i hate all cruelty. if all had been like me in fact, there'd ha' been no occasion for martin's act dumb animals to prevent getting crackt on the head, for-- if i had a donkey wot wouldn't go, i never would wollop him, no, no, no; i'd give him some hay, and cry gee o, and come up neddy. the singer then meets 'bill burns,' who, 'while crying out his greens,' is ill-treating his donkey. on being interfered with, bill burns says, 'you're one of these mr. martin chaps.' then there was a fight, when the 'new police' came up and 'hiked' them off before the magistrate. there is a satisfactory ending, and 'bill got fin'd.' here is a reminder that we are indebted to mr. martin, m.p., for initiating the movement which resulted in the 'royal society for the prevention of cruelty to animals' being established in . two years previously parliament had passed what is known as martin's act ( ), which was the first step taken by this or any other country for the protection of animals. in scene of _sketches by boz_ there is a mention of 'the renowned mr. martin, of costermonger notoriety.' the reference to the new police act reminds us that the london police force was remodelled by mr. (afterwards sir robert) peel in . hence the date of the song will be within a year or two of this. mr. reginald wilfer (_o.m.f._) owed his nickname to the conventional chorus of some of the comic songs of the period. being a modest man, he felt unable to live up to the grandeur of his christian name, so he always signed himself 'r. wilfer.' hence his neighbours provided him with all sorts of fancy names beginning with r, but his popular name was rumty, which a 'gentleman of convivial habits connected with the drug market' had bestowed upon him, and which was derived from the burden-- rumty iddity, row dow dow, sing toodlely teedlely, bow wow wow. the third decade of the nineteenth century saw the coming of the christy minstrels. one of the earliest of the so-called 'negro' impersonators was t.d. rice, whose song 'jim crow' (_a.n._) took england by storm. it is useless to attempt to account for the remarkable popularity of this and many another favourite, but the fact remains that the song sold by thousands. in this case it may have been due to the extraordinary antics of the singer, for the words certainly do not carry weight (see p. ). rice made his first appearance at the surrey theatre in , when he played in a sketch entitled _bone squash diabolo_, in which he took the part of 'jim crow.' the song soon went all over england, and 'jim crow' hats and pipes were all the rage, while _punch_ caricatured a statesman who changed his opinions on some question of the day as the political 'jim crow.' to this class also belongs the song 'buffalo gals' (see p. ). amongst the contents of the shop window at the watering-place referred to in _out of the season_ was every polka with a coloured frontispiece that ever was published; from the original one, where a smooth male or female pole of high rank are coming at the observer with their arms akimbo, to the 'ratcatcher's daughter.' this last piece is of some slight interest from the fact that certain people have claimed that the hymn-tune 'belmont' is derived therefrom. we give the first four lines, and leave our readers to draw their own conclusions. it is worth while stating that the first appearance of the hymn-tune took place soon after the song became popular.[ ] [figure ] in westminster, not long ago, there lived a ratcatcher's daughter; she was not born in westminster but on t'other side of the water. _some singers_ in the _pickwick papers_ we have at least three original poems. wardle's carol-- i care not for spring; on his fickle wing let the blossoms and buds be borne-- has been set to music, but dickens always preferred that it should be sung to the tune of 'old king cole,' though a little ingenuity is required to make it fit in. the 'wild and beautiful legend,' bold turpin vunce, on hounslow heath his bold mare bess bestrode--er, with which sam weller favoured a small but select company on a memorable occasion appears to have been overlooked by composers until sir frederick bridge set it to excellent music. it will be remembered that sam intimated that he was not wery much in the habit o' singin' without the instrument; but anythin' for a quiet life, as the man said wen he took the sitivation at the lighthouse. sam was certainly more obliging than another member of the company, the 'mottled-faced' gentleman, who, when asked to sing, sturdily and somewhat offensively declined to do so. we also find references to other crusty individuals who flatly refuse to exercise their talents, as, for instance, after the accident to the coach which was conveying nicholas nickleby and squeers to yorkshire. in response to the call for a song to pass the time away, some protest they cannot, others wish they could, others can do nothing without the book, while the 'very fastidious lady entirely ignored the invitation to give them some little italian thing out of the last opera.' a somewhat original plea for refusing to sing when asked is given by the chairman of the musical gathering at the magpie and stump (_p.p._). when asked why he won't enliven the company he replies, 'i only know one song, and i have sung it already, and it's a fine of glasses round to sing the same song twice in one night.' doubtless he was deeply thankful to mr. pickwick for changing the subject. at another gathering of a similar nature, we are told about a man who knew a song of seven verses, but he couldn't recall them at the moment, so he sang the first verse seven times. there is no record as to what the comic duets were that sam weller and bob sawyer sang in the dickey of the coach that was taking the party to birmingham, and this suggests what a number of singers of all kinds are referred to, though no mention is made of their songs. what was little nell's repertoire? it must have been an extensive one according to the man in the boat (_o.c.s._ ). 'you've got a very pretty voice' ... said this gentleman ... 'let me hear a song this minute.' 'i don't think i know one, sir,' returned nell. 'you know forty-seven songs,' said the man, with a gravity which admitted of no altercation on the subject. 'forty-seven's your number.' and so the poor little maid had to keep her rough companions in good humour all through the night. then tiny tim had a song about a lost child travelling in the snow; the miner sang a christmas song--'it had been a very old song when he was a boy,' while the man in the lighthouse (_c.c._) consoled himself in his solitude with a 'sturdy' ditty. what was john browdie's north-country song? (_n.n._). all we are told is that he took some time to consider the words, in which operation his wife assisted him, and then began to roar a meek sentiment (supposed to be uttered by a gentle swain fast pining away with love and despair) in a voice of thunder. the miss pecksniffs used to come singing into the room, but their songs are unrecorded, as well as those that florence dombey used to sing to paul, to his great delight. what was the song miss mills sang to david copperfield and dora about the slumbering echoes in the cavern of memory; as if she was a hundred years old. when we first meet mark tapley he is singing merrily, and there are dozens of others who sing either for their own delight or to please others. even old fips, of austin friars, the dry-as-dust lawyer, sang songs to the delight of the company gathered round the festive board in martin chuzzlewit's rooms in the temple. truly dickens must have loved music greatly himself to have distributed such a love of it amongst his characters. it is not to be expected that sampson brass would be musical, and we are not surprised when on an occasion already referred to we find him humming in a voice that was anything but musical certain vocal snatches which appeared to have reference to the union between church and state, inasmuch as they were compounded of the evening hymn and 'god save the king.' whatever music he had in him must have been of a sub-conscious nature, for shortly afterwards he affirms that the still small voice is a-singing comic songs within me, and all is happiness and joy. his sister sally is not a songster, nor is quilp, though he quotes 'sally in our alley' in reference to the former. all we know about his musical attainments is that he occasionally entertained himself with a melodious howl, intended for a song but bearing not the faintest resemblance to any scrap of any piece of music, vocal or instrumental, ever invented by man. bass singers, and especially the basso profundos, will be glad to know that dickens pays more attention to them than to the other voices, though it must be acknowledged that the references are of a humorous nature. 'bass!' as the young gentleman in one of the _sketches_ remarks to his companion about the little man in the chair, 'bass! i believe you. he can go down lower than any man; so low sometimes that you can't hear him.' and so he does. to hear him growling away, gradually lower and lower down, till he can't get back again, is the most delightful thing in the world. of similar calibre is the voice of captain helves, already referred to on p. . topper, who had his eye on one of scrooge's niece's sisters (_c.c._), could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead or get red in the face over it. dickens must certainly have had much experience of basses, as he seems to know their habits and eccentricities so thoroughly. in fact it seems to suggest that at some unknown period of his career, hitherto unchronicled by his biographers, he must have been a choirmaster. he also shows a knowledge of the style of song the basses delighted in at the harmony meetings in which the collegians at the marshalsea[ ] used to indulge. occasionally a vocal strain more sonorous than the generality informed the listener that some boastful bass was in blue water or the hunting field, or with the reindeer, or on the mountain, or among the heather, but the marshal of the marshalsea knew better, and had got him hard and fast. we are not told what the duet was that dickens heard at vauxhall, but the description is certainly vivid enough: it was a beautiful duet; first the small gentleman asked a question and then the tall lady answered it; then the small gentleman and the tall lady sang together most melodiously; then the small gentleman went through a little piece of vehemence by himself, and got very tenor indeed, in the excitement of his feelings, to which the tall lady responded in a similar manner; then the small gentleman had a shake or two, after which the tall lady had the same, and then they both merged imperceptibly into the original air. our author is quite impartial in his distribution of his voices. in _p.p._ we read of a boy of fourteen who was a tenor (not the fat boy), while the quality of the female voices is usually left to the imagination. if mrs. plornish (_l.d._) is to be believed, her father, mr. john edward nandy, was a remarkable singer. he was a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, like a worn-out bird, who had been in what he called the music-binding business. but mrs. p. was very proud of her father's talents, and in response to her invitation, 'sing us a song, father,' then would he give them chloe, and if he were in pretty good spirits, phyllis also--strephon he had hardly been up to since he went into retirement--and then would mrs. plornish declare she did believe there never was such a singer as father, and wipe her eyes. old nandy evidently favoured the eighteenth-century songs, in which the characters here referred to were constantly occurring. at a subsequent period of his history nandy's vocal efforts surprised even his daughter. 'you never heard father in such voice as he is at present,' said mrs. plornish, her own voice quavering, she was so proud and pleased. 'he gave us strephon last night, to that degree that plornish gets up and makes him this speech across the table, "john edward nandy," says plornish to father, "i never heard you come the warbles as i have heard you come the warbles this night." ain't it gratifying, mr. pancks, though; really.' the mr. pancks here referred to did not mind taking his part in a bit of singing. he says, in reference to a 'harmony evening' at the marshalsea: 'i am spending the evening with the rest of 'em,' said pancks. 'i've been singing. i've been taking a part in "white sand and grey sand." i don't know anything about it. never mind. i'll take part in anything, it's all the same, if you're loud enough.' here we have a round of considerable antiquity, though the date and author are alike unknown. [figure ] or [figure ] white sand and grey sand: who'll buy my white sand? who'll buy my grey sand? _glee-singing_ a feature of the harmonic meetings at the 'sol' (_b.h._) was the performance of little swills, who, after entertaining the company with comic songs, took the 'gruff line' in a concerted piece, and adjured 'his friends to listen, listen, listen to the wa-ter-fall!' little swills was also an adept at 'patter and gags.' glee and catch singing was a feature at the christmas party given by scrooge's nephew, for 'they were a musical family, and knew what they were about.' this remark can scarcely be applied to the malderton family, who, assisted by the redoubtable mr. horatio sparkins, tried over glees and trios without number; they having made the pleasing discovery that their voices harmonized beautifully. to be sure, they all sang the first part; and horatio, in addition to the slight drawback of having no ear, was perfectly innocent of knowing a note of music; still, they passed the time very agreeably. glee-singing seems to have been a feature in the social life of cloisterham (_e.d._). 'we shall miss you, jasper' (said mr. crisparkle), 'at the "alternate musical wednesdays" to-night; but no doubt you are best at home. good-night, god bless you. "tell me shepherds te-e-ell me: tell me-e-e have you seen (have you seen, have you seen, have you seen) my-y-y flo-o-ora-a pass this way!"' it was a different kind of glee party that left the blue boar after the festivities in connexion with pip's indentures (_g.e._). they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang 'o lady fair,' mr. wopsle taking the bass, and assisting with a tremendously strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece of music in a most impertinent manner by wanting to know all about everybody's private affairs) that _he_ was the man with his white locks flowing, and that he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going. perhaps the most remarkable glee party that dickens gives us is the one organized by the male boarders at mrs. todgers', with a view to serenading the two miss pecksniffs. it was very affecting, very. nothing more dismal could have been desired by the most fastidious taste. the gentleman of a vocal turn was head mute, or chief mourner; jinkins took the bass, and the rest took anything they could get.... if the two miss pecksniffs and mrs. todgers had perished by spontaneous combustion, and the serenade had been in honour of their ashes, it would have been impossible to surpass the unutterable despair expressed in that one chorus: 'go where glory waits thee.' it was a requiem, a dirge, a moan, a howl, a wail, a lament, an abstract of everything that is sorrowful and hideous in sound. the song which the literary boarder had written for the occasion, 'all hail to the vessel of pecksniff, the sire,' is a parody of scott's 'all hail to the chief who in triumph advances,' from the _lady of the lake_. two words that by themselves have a musical meaning are 'chaunter' and 'drums'; but the chaunter referred to is one of edward dorrit's creditors, and the word means 'not a singer of anthems, but a seller of horses.' to this profession also simpson belonged, on whom mr. pickwick was 'chummed' in the fleet prison. a 'drum' is referred to in the description of the london streets at night in _barnaby rudge_, and signifies a rout or evening party for cards; while one where stakes ran high and much noise accompanied the play was known as a 'drum major.' in _our bore_ (_r.p._) this sentence occurs: he was at the norwich musical festival when the extraordinary echo, for which science has been wholly unable to account, was heard for the first and last time. he and the bishop heard it at the same moment, and caught each other's eye. dr. a.h. mann, who knows as much about norwich and its festivals as any one, is quite unable to throw any light on this mystic remark. there were complaints about the acoustics of the st. andrew's hall many years ago, but there appears to be no historic foundation for dickens' reference. it would certainly be interesting to know what suggested the idea to him. there is a curious incident connected with uncle dick, whose great ambition was 'to beat the drum.' it was only by a mere chance that his celebrated reference to king charles's head got into the story. dickens originally wrote as follows (in chapter , _d.c._): 'do you recollect the date,' said mr. dick, looking earnestly at me, and taking up his pen to note it down, 'when the bull got into the china warehouse and did so much mischief?' in the proof dickens struck out all the words after 'when,' and inserted in their place the following: 'king charles the first had his head cut off?' i said i believed it happened in the year sixteen hundred and forty-nine. 'well,' returned mr. dick, scratching his ear with his pen and looking dubiously at me, 'so the books say, but i don't see how that can be. because if it was so long ago, how could the people about him have made that mistake of putting some of the trouble out of his head, after it was taken off, into mine?' the whole of the substituted passage is inserted in the margin at the bottom of the page. again, when mr. dick shows david copperfield his kite covered with manuscript, david was made to say in the proof: 'i thought i saw some allusion to the bull again in one or two places.' here dickens has struck through the words, 'the bull,' and replaced them with 'king charles the first's head.' the original reference was to a very popular song of the period called 'the bull in the china shop,' words by c. dibdin, junior, and music by w. reeve. produced about , it was popularized by the celebrated clown grimaldi. the first verse is: you've heard of a frog in an opera hat, 'tis a very old tale of a mouse and a rat, i could sing you another as pleasant, mayhap, of a kitten that wore a high caul cap; but my muse on a far nobler subject shall drop, of a bull who got into a china shop, with his right leg, left leg, upper leg, under leg, st. patrick's day in the morning. [ ] mr. alfred payne writes thus: 'some time ago an old friend told me that he had heard from a hertfordshire organist that dr. w.h. monk (editor of _hymns ancient and modern_) adapted "belmont" from the highly classical melody of which a few bars are given above. monk showed this gentleman the notes, being the actual arrangement he had made from this once popular song, back in the fifties. this certainly coincides with its appearance in severn's _islington collection_, .'--see _hymn-tunes and their story_, p. . [ ] the marshalsea was a debtors' prison formerly situated in southwark. it was closed about the middle of the last century, and demolished in . chapter vii some noted singers _the micawbers_ dickens presents us with such an array of characters who reckon singing amongst their various accomplishments that it is difficult to know where to begin. perhaps the marvellous talents of the micawber family entitle them to first place. mrs. micawber was famous for her interpretation of 'the dashing white sergeant' and 'little taffline' when she lived at home with her papa and mamma, and it was her rendering of these songs that gained her a spouse, for, as mr. micawber told copperfield, when he heard her sing the first one, on the first occasion of his seeing her beneath the parental roof, she had attracted his attention in an extraordinary degree, but that when it came to 'little tafflin,' he had resolved to win that woman or perish in the attempt. it will be remembered that mr. bucket (_b.h._) gained a wife by a similar display of vocal talent. after singing 'believe me, if all those endearing young charms,' he informs his friend mrs. bagnet that this ballad was his most powerful ally in moving the heart of mrs. bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach the altar. mr. bucket's own words are 'to come up to the scratch.' mrs. micawber's 'little taffline' was a song in storace's ballad opera _three and the deuce_, words by prince hoare. it will be interesting to see what the song which helped to mould micawber's fate was like. little taffline. [figure ] should e'er the fortune be my lot to be made a wealthy bride, i'll glad my parents' lowly cot, all their pleasure and their pride: and when i'm drest all in my best, i'll trip away like lady gay, i'll trip, i'll trip away. and the lads will say, dear heart, what a flash! look at little taffline with a silken sash, and the lads will say, dear heart, what a flash! and the lads will say, dear heart, what a flash! look at little taffline, look at little taffline, oh, look at little taffline with the silken sash! there was also a character called little taffline in t. dibdin's _st. david's day_, the music for which was compiled and composed by thomas attwood, organist of st. paul's cathedral. her other song, 'the dashing white sergeant,' was a martial and very popular setting of some words by general burgoyne. micawber could both sing and hum, and when music failed him he fell back on quotations. as he was subject to extremes of depression and elevation it was nothing unusual for him to commence a saturday evening in tears and finish up with singing 'about jack's delight being his lovely nan' towards the end of it. here we gather that one of his favourite songs was c. dibdin's 'lovely nan,' containing these two lines: but oh, much sweeter than all these is jack's delight, his lovely nan. his musical powers made him useful at the club-room in the king's bench, where david discovered him leading the chorus of 'gee up, dobbin.' this would be 'mr. doggett's comicall song' in the farce _the stage coach_, containing the lines-- with a hey gee up, gee up, hay ho; with a hay gee, dobbin, hey ho! 'auld lang syne' was another of mr. micawber's favourites, and when david joined the worthy pair in their lodgings at canterbury they sang it with much energy. to use micawber's words-- when we came to 'here's a hand, my trusty frere' we all joined hands round the table; and when we declared we would 'take a right gude willie waught,' and hadn't the least idea what it meant, we were really affected. the memory of this joyous evening recurred to mr. m. at a later date, after the feast in david's rooms, and he calls to mind how they had sung we twa had run about the braes and pu'd the gowans fine. he confesses his ignorance as to what gowans are, but i have no doubt that copperfield and myself would frequently have taken a pull at them, if it had been feasible. in the last letter he writes he makes a further quotation from the song. on another occasion, however, under the stress of adverse circumstances he finds consolation in a verse from 'scots, wha hae',' while at the end of the long epistle in which he disclosed the infamy of uriah heep, he claims to have it said of him, 'as of a gallant and eminent naval hero,' that what he has done, he did for england, home, and beauty. 'the death of nelson,' from which this line comes, had a long run of popularity. braham, the composer, was one of the leading tenors of the day, and thus had the advantage of being able to introduce his own songs to the public. the novelist's dictum that 'composers can very seldom sing their own music or anybody else's either' (_p.p._ ) may be true in the main, but scarcely applies to braham, who holds very high rank amongst english tenors. another song which he wrote with the title 'the victory and death of lord viscount nelson' met with no success. the one quoted by micawber was naturally one of captain cuttle's favourites, and it is also made use of by silas wegg. the musical gifts of mr. and mrs. micawber descended to their son wilkins, who had 'a remarkable head voice,' but having failed to get into the cathedral choir at canterbury, he had to take to singing in public-houses instead of in sacred edifices. his great song appears to have been 'the woodpecker tapping.' when the family emigrated mr. m. expressed the hope that 'the melody of my son will be acceptable at the galley fire' on board ship. the final glimpse we get of him is at port middlebay, where he delights a large assembly by his rendering of 'non nobis' (see p. ), and by his dancing with the fourth daughter of mr. mell. the 'woodpecker' song is referred to in an illustrative way by mrs. finching (_l.d._), who says that her papa is sitting prosily breaking his new-laid egg in the back parlour like the woodpecker tapping. _captain cuttle_ captain cuttle is almost as full of melody as micawber, though his repertoire is chiefly confined to naval ditties. his great song is 'lovely peg,' and his admiration for florence dombey induces him to substitute her name in the song, though the best he can accomplish is 'lovely fleg.' there are at least three eighteenth-century ballads with peg, or lovely peg, for the subject, and it is not certain which of these the captain favoured. this is one of them: once more i'll tune the vocal shell, to hills and dales my passion tell, a flame which time can never quell, that burns for lovely peggy. then comes this tuneful refrain: [figure ] lovely peggy, lovely peggy, lovely, lovely, lovely peggy; the heav'ns should sound with echoes rung in praise of lovely peggy. the two others of this period that i have seen are called 'peggy' and 'lovely peggy, an imitation.' however, it is most probable that the one that the captain favoured--in spite of the mixture of names--was c. dibdin's 'lovely polly.' lovely polly [figure ] a seaman's love is void of art, plain sailing to his port the heart; he knows no jealous folly, he knows no jealous folly. 'tis hard enough at sea to war with boist'rous elements that jar-- all's peace with lovely polly, all's peace with lovely polly, with lovely polly, lovely polly, all's peace with lovely polly. dickens was very familiar with dibdin's songs, while the eighteenth-century ones referred to he probably never heard of, as they are very rarely found. the worthy captain enjoys a good rollicking song, preferably of a patriotic turn, but is very unreliable as to the sources of his ditties. 'wal'r, my boy,' replied the captain, 'in the proverbs of solomon you will find the following words, "may we never want a friend in need, nor a bottle to give him!" when found, made a note of.' this is taken from a song by j. davy, known as 'since the first dawn of reason,' and was sung by incledon. since the first dawn of reason that beam'd on my mind, and taught me how favoured by fortune my lot, to share that good fortune i still am inclined, and impart to who wanted what i wanted not. it's a maxim entitled to every one's praise, when a man feels distress, like a man to relieve him; and my motto, though simple, means more than it says, 'may we ne'er want a friend or a bottle to give him.' he is equally unreliable as to the source of a still more famous song. when florence dombey goes to see him the captain intimates his intention of standing by old sol gills, 'and not desert until death do us part, and when the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow--overhaul the catechism,' said the captain parenthetically, 'and there you'll find these expressions.' i have not heard of any church that has found it necessary to include this old refrain in its catechism, nor even to mix it up with the wedding service. a further mixture of quotations occurs when he is talking of florence on another occasion. speaking of the supposed death of walter he says, though lost to sight, to memory dear, and england, home, and beauty. the first part--which is one of cuttle's favourite quotations--is the first line of a song by g. linley. he composed a large number of operas and songs, many of which were very popular. the second part of the quotation is from braham's 'death of nelson' (see p. ). in conversation with his friend bunsby, cuttle says-- give me the lad with the tarry trousers as shines to me like di'monds bright, for which you'll overhaul the 'stanfell's budget,' and when found make a note. elsewhere he mentions fairburn's 'comic songster' and the 'little warbler' as his song authorities. the song referred to here is classed by dr. vaughan williams amongst essex folk-songs, but it is by no means confined to that county. it tells of a mother who wants her daughter to marry a tailor, and not wait for her sailor bold. my mother wants me to wed with a tailor and not give me my heart's delight; but give me the man with the tarry trousers, that shines to me like diamonds bright. after the firm of dombey has decided to send walter to barbados, the boy discusses his prospects with his friend the captain, and finally bursts into song-- how does that tune go that the sailors sing? for the port of barbados, boys! cheerily! leaving old england behind us, boys! cheerily! here the captain roared in chorus, oh cheerily, cheerily! oh cheer-i-ly! all efforts to trace this song have failed, and for various reasons i am inclined to think that dickens made up the lines to fit the occasion; while the words 'oh cheerily, cheerily' are a variant of a refrain common in sea songs, and the captain teaches rob the grinder to sing it at a later period of the story. the arguments against the existence of such a song are: first, that the dombey firm have already decided to send the boy to barbados, and as there is no song suitable, the novelist invents one; and in the second place there has never been a time in the history of barbados to give rise to such a song as this, and no naval expedition of any consequence has ever been sent there. it is perhaps unnecessary to urge that there is no such place as the 'port of barbados.' _dick swiveller_ none of dickens' characters has such a wealth of poetical illustration at command as mr. richard swiveller. he lights up the brass office 'with scraps of song and merriment,' and when he is taking kit's mother home in a depressed state after the trial he does his best to entertain her with 'astonishing absurdities in the way of quotation from song and poem.' from the time of his introduction, when he 'obliged the company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air,' to when he expresses his gratitude to the marchioness-- and she shall walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare-- there is scarcely a scene in which he is present when he does not illumine his remarks by quotations of some kind or other, though there are certainly a few occasions when his listeners are not always able to appreciate their aptness. for instance in the scene between swiveller and the single gentleman, after the latter has been aroused from his slumbers, and has intimated he is not to be disturbed again. 'i beg your pardon,' said dick, halting in his passage to the door, which the lodger prepared to open, 'when he who adores thee has left but the name--' 'what do you mean?' 'but the name,' said dick, 'has left but the name--in case of letters or parcels--' 'i never have any,' said the lodger. 'or in case anybody should call.' 'nobody ever calls on me.' 'if any mistake should arise from not having the name, don't say it was my fault, sir,' added dick, still lingering; 'oh, blame not the bard--' 'i'll blame nobody,' said the lodger. but that mr. swiveller's knowledge of songs should be both 'extensive and peculiar' is only to be expected from one who held the distinguished office of 'perpetual grand master of the glorious apollers,' although he seems to have been more in the habit of quoting extracts from them than of giving vocal illustrations. on one occasion, however, we find him associated with mr. chuckster 'in a fragment of the popular duet of "all's well" with a long shake at the end.' the following extract illustrates the 'shake': all's well (duet). _sung by mr. braham and mr. charles braham._ _music by mr. braham._ [figure ] all's well, all's well; above, below, all, all's well. although most of swiveller's quotations are from songs, he does not always confine himself to them, as for instance, when he sticks his fork into a large carbuncular potato and reflects that 'man wants but little here below,' which seems to show that in his quieter moments he had studied goldsmith's _hermit_. mr. swiveller's quotations are largely connected with his love-passages with sophy wackles, and they are so carefully and delicately graded that they practically cover the whole ground in the rise and decline of his affections. he begins by suggesting that 'she's all my fancy painted her.' from this he passes to she's like the red, red rose, that's newly sprung in june. she's also like a melody, that's sweetly played in tune. then when the heart of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when miss wackles appears, which is his own variant of if the heart of a man is depressed with care, the mist is dispelled when a woman appears. but at the party given by the wackleses dick finds he is cut out by mr. cheggs, and so makes his escape saying, as he goes-- my boat is on the shore, and my bark is on the sea; but before i pass this door, i will say farewell to thee, and he subsequently adds-- miss wackles, i believed you true, and i was blessed in so believing; but now i mourn that e'er i knew a girl so fair, yet so deceiving. the _dénouement_ occurs some time after, when, in the course of an interview with quilp, he takes from his pocket a small and very greasy parcel, slowly unfolding it, and displaying a little slab of plum cake, extremely indigestible in appearance and bordered with a paste of sugar an inch and a half deep. 'what should you say this was?' demanded mr. swiveller. 'it looks like bride-cake,' replied the dwarf, grinning. 'and whose should you say it was?' inquired mr. swiveller, rubbing the pastry against his nose with dreadful calmness. 'whose?' 'not--' 'yes,' said dick, 'the same. you needn't mention her name. there's no such name now. her name is cheggs now, sophy cheggs. yet loved i as man never loved that hadn't wooden legs, and my heart, my heart is breaking for the love of sophy cheggs.' with this extemporary adaptation of a popular ballad to the distressing circumstances of his own case, mr. swiveller folded up the parcel again, beat it very flat upon the palms of his hands, thrust it into his breast, buttoned his coat over it, and folded his arms upon the whole. and then he signifies his grief by pinning a piece of crape on his hat, saying as he did so, 'twas ever thus: from childhood's hour i've seen my fondest hopes decay; i never loved a tree or flower but 'twas the first to fade away; i never nursed a dear gazelle, to glad me with its soft black eye, but when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to marry a market gardener. he is full of song when entertaining the marchioness. 'do they often go where glory waits 'em?' he asks, on hearing that sampson and sally brass have gone out for the evening. he accepts the statement that miss brass thinks him a 'funny chap' by affirming that 'old king cole was a merry old soul'; and on taking his leave of the little slavey he says, 'good night, marchioness. fare thee well, and if for ever then for ever fare thee well--and put up the chain, marchioness, in case of accidents. since life like a river is flowing, i care not how fast it rolls on, ma'am, while such purl on the bank still is growing, and such eyes light the waves as they run.' on a later occasion, after enjoying some games of cards he retires to rest in a deeply contemplative mood. 'these rubbers,' said mr. swiveller, putting on his nightcap in exactly the same style as he wore his hat, 'remind me of the matrimonial fireside. cheggs's wife plays cribbage; all-fours likewise. she rings the changes on 'em now. from sport to sport they hurry her, to banish her regrets; and when they win a smile from her they think that she forgets--but she don't.' many of mr. swiveller's quotations are from moore's _irish melodies_, though he has certainly omitted one which, coming from him, would not have been out of place, viz. 'the time i've lost in wooing'! on another occasion swiveller recalls some well-known lines when talking to kit. 'an excellent woman, that mother of yours, christopher,' said mr. swiveller; '"who ran to catch me when i fell, and kissed the place to make it well? my mother."' this is from ann taylor's nursery song, which has probably been more parodied than any other poem in existence. there is a french version by madame à taslie, and it has most likely been translated into other languages. dick gives us another touching reference to his mother. he is overcome with curiosity to know in what part of the brass establishment the marchioness has her abode. my mother must have been a very inquisitive woman; i have no doubt i'm marked with a note of interrogation somewhere. my feelings i smother, but thou hast been the cause of this anguish, my-- this last remark is a memory of t.h. bayly's celebrated song 'we met,' which tells in somewhat incoherent language the story of a maiden who left her true love at the command of her mother, and married for money. the world may think me gay, for my feelings i smother; oh _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish--my mother. t. haynes bayly was a prominent song-writer some seventy years ago ( - ). his most popular ballad was 'i'd be a butterfly.' it came out with a coloured title-page, and at once became the rage, in fact, as john hullah said, 'half musical england was smitten with an overpowering, resistless rage for metempsychosis.' there were many imitations, such as 'i'd be a nightingale' and 'i'd be an antelope.' _teachers and composers_ although we read so much about singers, the singing-master is rarely introduced, in fact mr. m'choakumchild (_h.t._), who 'could teach everything from vocal music to general cosmography,' almost stands alone. however, in view of the complaints of certain adjudicators about the facial distortions they beheld at musical competitions, it may be well to record mrs. general's recipe for giving 'a pretty form to the lips' (_l.d._). papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very good words for the lips, especially prunes and prism. you will find it serviceable in the formation of a demeanour. nor do composers receive much attention, but amongst the characters we may mention mr. skimpole (_b.h._), who composed half an opera, and the lamp porter at mugby junction, who composed 'little comic songs-like.' in this category we can scarcely include mrs. kenwigs, who 'invented and composed' her eldest daughter's name, the result being 'morleena.' mr. skimpole, however, has a further claim upon our attention, as he 'played what he composed with taste,' and was also a performer on the violoncello. he had his lighter moments, too, as when he went to the piano one evening at p.m. and rattled hilariously that the best of all ways to lengthen our days was to steal a few hours from night, my dear! it is evident that his song was 'the young may moon,' one of moore's _irish melodies_. the young may moon is beaming, love, the glow-worm's lamp is gleaming, love, how sweet to rove through morna's grove while the drowsy world is dreaming, love! then awake--the heavens look bright, my dear! 'tis never too late for delight, my dear! and the best of all ways to lengthen our days is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear! _silas wegg's effusions_ we first meet silas wegg in the fifth chapter of _our mutual friend_, where he is introduced to us as a ballad-monger. his intercourse with his employer, mr. boffin, is a frequent cause of his dropping into poetry, and most of his efforts are adaptations of popular songs. his character is not one that arouses any sympathetic enthusiasm, and probably no one is sorry when towards the end of the story sloppy seizes hold of the mean little creature, carries him out of the house, and deposits him in a scavenger's cart 'with a prodigious splash.' the following are wegg's poetical effusions, with their sources and original forms. book i, ch. . 'beside that cottage door, mr. boffin,' from 'the soldier's tear' _alexander lee_ beside that cottage porch a girl was on her knees; she held aloft a snowy scarf which fluttered in the breeze. she breath'd a prayer for him, a prayer he could not hear; but he paused to bless her as she knelt, and wip'd away a tear. book i, ch. . the gay, the gay and festive scene, i'll tell thee how the maiden wept, mrs. boffin. from 'the light guitar.' (see index of songs.) book i, ch. . 'thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam.' from 'the peasant boy' _j. parry_ thrown on the wide world, doom'd to wander and roam, bereft of his parents, bereft of his home, a stranger to pleasure, to comfort and joy, behold little edmund, the poor peasant boy. book i, ch. . 'weep for the hour.' from 'eveleen's bower' _t. moore_ oh! weep for the hour when to eveleen's bower the lord of the valley with false vows came. book i, ch . 'then farewell, my trim-built wherry.' from 'the waterman' _c. dibdin_ book ii, ch. . 'helm a-weather, now lay her close.' from 'the tar for all weathers' _unknown_ book iii, ch. . 'no malice to dread, sir.' from verse of 'my ain fireside.' words by _mrs. e. hamilton_ nae falsehood to dread, nae malice to fear, but truth to delight me, and kindness to cheer; o' a' roads to pleasure that ever were tried, there's nane half so sure as one's own fireside. my ain fireside, my ain fireside, oh sweet is the blink o' my ain fireside. book iii, ch. . and you needn't, mr. venus, be your black bottle, for surely i'll be mine, and we'll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it, to which you're partial, for auld lang syne. a much altered version of verse of burns' celebrated song. book iii, ch. . charge, chester, charge, on mr. venus, on. from scott's _marmion_. book iv, ch. . 'if you'll come to the bower i've shaded for you.' from 'will you come to the bower' _t. moore_ will you come to the bower i've shaded for you, our bed shall be roses, all spangled with dew. will you, will you, will you, will you come to the bower? will you, will you, will you, will you come to the bower? a list of songs and instrumental music mentioned by dickens with historical notes _the figures in brackets denote the chapter in the novel referred to_ a cobbler there was (_d. & s._ ) a cobbler there was, and he lived in a stall, which serv'd him for parlour, for kitchen and hall, no coin in his pocket, nor care in his pate, no ambition had he, nor no duns at his gate, derry down, down, down, derry down. the melody appeared in _beggar's opera_, , and _fashionable lady_, . a frog he would (_p.p._ ) the theme of the ballad belongs to the late sixteenth century. a frog he would a-wooing go, heigho! said rowley, whether his mother would let him or no, with his rowly powly, gammon and spinnage, o heigh! said anthony rowley. we are told that jack hopkins sang 'the king, god bless him,' to a novel air, compounded of 'the bay of biscay' and 'a frog he would.' the latter was evidently the modern setting by c.e. horn. alice gray see 'yet lov'd i.' all hail to the vessel of pecksniff the sire (_m.c._ ) perhaps a parody on 'all hail to the chief.' all in the downs (_p.p._ ) see 'black-eyed susan.' all's well (_o.c.s._ ). see p. . duet in _the english fleet_. (_t. dibdin_) _j. braham._ deserted by the waning moon, when skies proclaim night's cheerless gloom, on tower, fort, or tented ground, the sentry walks his lonely round; and should a footstep haply stray where caution marks the guarded way, who goes there? stranger, quickly tell, a friend. the word? good-night. all's well. and she shall walk (_o.c.s._ ) words by _susan blamire_. and ye shall walk in silk attire, and siller ha'e to spare, gin ye'll consent to be my bride, nor think on donald mair. susan blamire was born at carden hall, near carlisle. very few of her poems were published under her own name, as well-born ladies of those days disliked seeing their names published as authors. 'the siller crown,' from which this verse is taken, is in the cumberland dialect. it first appeared anonymously in the _scots musical museum_, , and the authorship was subsequently settled by members of the family. and you needn't, mr. venus, be your black bottle (_o.m.f._). see p. . a stiff nor'-wester's blowing, bill (_d. & s._ ) from 'the sailor's consolation.' one night came on a hurricane, the seas were mountains rolling, when barney buntline turned his quid, and said to billy bowling, a stiff nor'-wester's blowing, bill, hark, don't you hear it roar now? lord help 'em! how i pity's all unhappy folk ashore now. mr. kidson says in reference to this: 'i do not know that it was ever written to music, though i fancy more than one popular tune has been set to the words, which are by a person named pitt.' auld lang syne ('holly tree,' _d.c._ , ) words by _burns_. a version of the melody occurs at the end of the overture to shield's _rosina_, , and is either his own composition or an imitation of some scotch melody. as, however, such melody has not hitherto been discovered, no great importance can be attached to this theory. _rosina_ was performed in edinburgh. some maintain that the tune is taken from a scotch reel known as the 'miller's wedding,' found in bremner's _reels_ ( - ). away with melancholy (_o.c.s._ , _o.m.f._ ii. , _p.p._ , _d.c._ ) the melody is from mozart's _magic flute_, 'das klinget so herrlich'--a chorus with glockenspiel accompaniment. the writer of the words is unknown. the air was introduced into an arrangement of shakespeare's _tempest_, and set to the words 'to moments so delighting!' sung by miss stephens. also found as a duet 'composed by sigr. mozart, arranged by f.a. hyde.' bay of biscay (_u.t._ , _d. & s._ , _p.p._ ) words by _andrew cherry_. _j. davy._ also see under 'a frog he would.' beethoven's sonata in b. see p. . begone, dull care (_o.c.s._ , _e.d._ ) author unknown. the words occur in various song-books of the eighteenth century. the tune is seventeenth century, possibly derived from the 'queen's jigg' in the _dancing master_. begone, dull care, i prithee begone from me; begone, dull care, you and i can never agree. the words were set as a glee by john sale, and this may be the music that dickens knew. believe me, if all jarley's waxworks so rare (_o.c.s._ ) a parody on the following. believe me, if all those endearing young charms (_b.h._ ) words by _t. moore_. set to the old melody 'my lodging is on the cold ground.' this appears to have come into existence about the middle of the eighteenth century. it is found in _vocal music, or the songster's companion_, , and it was claimed by moore to be an irish melody, but some authorities deny this. it has also been claimed as scotch, but the balance of opinion is in favour of its english origin (f. kidson). beside that cottage door, mr. boffin (_o.m.f._) see p. . bid me discourse (_s.b.t._ ) words adapted from shakespeare's _venus and adonis_. _h.r. bishop._ bird waltz (_d. & s._ , ) _panormo._ a very popular piano piece of the pre-victorian period. black-eyed susan (_a.n._), or all in the downs (_p.p._ ) words by _john gay_. _r. leveridge._ this song was printed in sheet form previous to , in which year it appeared in watts' _musical miscellany_, vol. iv., and was also inserted about that time in several ballad operas. bold turpin vunce (_p.p._ ) mr. frank kidson has pointed out that sam weller's song is founded upon a ballad entitled 'turpin and the bishop,' which appears in _gaieties and gravities_, by one of the authors of _rejected addresses_. the author is said to be horatio smith. there is a good four-part setting of the words by sir f. bridge. brave lodgings for one (_p.p._ ) original. british grenadiers (_b.h._ ) the tune as we know it now is the growth of centuries, the foundation probably being a tune in _the fitzwilliam virginal book_. the grenadiers were founded in . the second verse refers to 'hand grenades,' and the regiment ceased to use these in the reign of queen anne. the author is unknown. britons, strike home (_s.l._) the well-known song in purcell's _bonduca_ gave its name to an opera by charles dibdin, published in . this work probably suggested the phrase to dickens. it was written with a view to arousing a patriotic feeling. the following verse occurs in the work: when dryden wrote and purcell sung britons, strike home, the patriot-sounds re-echoing rung the vaulted dome. buffalo gals (_letters_) see p. . by the sad sea waves (_letters_) _julius benedict._ a once popular song from the opera _the brides of venice_. cheer, boys, cheer (_u.t._ ) words by _charles mackay_. _henry russell._ cheer! boys, cheer! no more of idle sorrow-- courage! true hearts shall bear us on our way, hope points before, and shows the bright to-morrow, let us forget the darkness of to-day. one of russell's most popular songs. he sold the copyright for £ , and shortly afterwards learnt that the publisher had to keep thirty-nine presses at work on it night and day to meet the demand. copenhagen waltz (_d. & s._ ) also known as the _danish waltz_. dead march. from the oratorio _saul_. _handel._ see p. . death of nelson (_d.c._ , _d. & s._ , _o.m.f._ iv. ) see p. . _j. braham._ too well the gallant hero fought, for england, home, and beauty. di piacer (_s.b.t._ ) _rossini._ a favourite air from the opera _la gazza ladra_. downfall of paris see p. . dragon of wantley (_d.c._ ) an eighteenth-century popular burlesque opera. words by _h. carey_, music by _lampe_. drink to me only with thine eyes (_o.m.f._ iii. ) words by _ben jonson_. the composer is unknown. the air was originally issued as a glee for three voices. dumbledumdeary (_s.b.s._ ) a refrain rarely found in old songs. it occurs in 'richard of taunton dean.' also (as in the reference) the name of a dance. evening bells (_d.c._ ) duet by _g. alexander lee_. come away, come away, evening bells are ringing, sweetly, sweetly; 'tis the vesper hour. fare thee well, and if for ever (_o.c.s._ ) words by _byron_. included in 'domestic pieces.' fare thee well, and if for ever, still for ever, fare thee well; even though unforgiving, never 'gainst thee shall my heart rebel. about the words were set to an air from mozart's _la clemenza di tito_. there are original settings by parke, s. webbe, and six other composers. fill the bumper fair (_n.t._) moore's _irish melodies_, air 'bob and joan.' flow on, thou shining river (_s.b.t._ ) moore's _national melodies_. said to be a 'portuguese air.' the melody has been utilized as a hymn-tune. fly, fly from the world, my bessy, with me (_s.b.s._ ) words and music by _t. moore_. for england see 'death of nelson.' for england, home, and beauty see 'death of nelson.' for the port of barbados, boys (_d. & s._ ) original (?) see p. . from sport to sport (_o.c.s._ ) from 'oh no, we never mention her.' words by _t.h. bayly_. _h.r. bishop._ from sport to sport they hurry me, to banish my regret; and when they win a smile from me, they think that i forget. gee up, dobbin (_d.c._ ) in the burney collection is a tune 'gee ho, dobbin.' also in _apollo's cabinet_, , vol. ii, and _love in a village_, . the tune was frequently used for ephemeral songs. it is doubtful if dickens would know this song, the title of which has passed into a common phrase. glorious apollo (_o.c.s._ , ) _s. webbe._ the title of this glee probably suggested the name of the 'glorious apollers.' see p. . go where glory waits thee (_m.c._ ) ('do they often go where glory waits 'em?' _o.c.s._ ) moore's _irish melodies_, set to the air 'maid of the valley.' god bless the prince of wales (_u.t._ ) words by _j. ceiriog hughes_. trans, by g. linley. _h. brinley richards_, . god bless you, merry gentlemen (_c.c._) origin unknown. the second word should be 'rest,' and the correct reading is god rest you merry, gentlemen. god save the king (_s.b.s._ , &c.) god save the queen (_m.c._ ) it is unnecessary here to discuss the origin and sources of this air. the form in which we know it is probably due to henry carey, and the first recorded public performance was on september , . had i a heart for falsehood framed (_d. & s._ ) words by _r.b. sheridan_. sung by mr. leoni (see _choir_, may, ). in the _duenna_, . set to the air now known as 'the harp that once through tara's halls.' moore, in his _irish melodies_, calls the melody 'gramachree.' hail columbia (_m.c._ , _a.n._) mr. elson (_national music of america_) says that the music was originally known as the 'president's march,' probably by a german composer. the words were subsequently adapted to the air by dr. joseph hopkinson. harmonious blacksmith (_g.e._ ) from handel's _suite de pieces pour le clavecin_, set i. see p. . has she then failed in her truth (_n.n._ ) _anon._ _h.r. bishop._ and has she then failed in her truth, the beautiful maid i adore? shall i never again hear her voice, nor see her lov'd form any more? heart of oak (_b.r._ , _e.d._ , _u.t._ , parody) words by _d. garrick_. _w. boyce._ it is important to notice that the correct title is as given, and not '_hearts_ of oak.' helm a weather, now lay her close (_o.m.f._) see p. . how doth the little-- (_ch._) _dr. watts._ see p. . i am a friar of orders grey (_s.b.s._ ) (_out of season_) words by _john o'keefe_. _wm. reeve._ appeared in _merry sherwood_, . i care not for spring see p. . i'd crowns resign, to call her mine (_d.c._ ) 'lass of richmond hill.' words by _l. macnally_. _j. hook._ i'd crowns resign, to call her mine, sweet lass of richmond hill. for a long time there was a dispute between the partisans of surrey and yorkshire as to which 'richmond hill' was referred to. the former county was the favourite for a long time, till a communication in _notes and queries_ ( th series iii. p. ) pulverized its hopes and definitely placed the locality in yorkshire. if i had a donkey (_o.c.s._ ) see p. . if you'll come to the bower (_o.m.f._) see p. . i'll tell thee how the maiden wept (_o.m.f._) see p. . in hurry, post haste for a licence (_p.p._ ) see p. . i saw her at the fancy fair (_s.b.t._ ) i saw thy show in youthful prime (_o.c.s._ ) moore's _irish melodies_, air 'domhnall.' i saw thy form in youthful prime, nor thought that pale decay would steal before the steps of time, and waste its bloom away, mary. isle of the brave and land of the free (_m.j._) original. it may lighten and storm (_m.c._ ) possibly from some old ballad opera, but more probably original. jack's delight (to) his lovely nan (_d.c._ ) words and music by _c. dibdin_. from 'lovely nan.' last two lines: but oh, much sweeter than all these, is jack's delight, his lovely nan. jim crow (_a.n._) _unknown._ see p. . i come from old kentucky, a long time ago, where i first larn to wheel about, and jump jim crow; wheel about and turn about, and do jis so, eb'ry time i wheel about, i jump jim crow. jolly young waterman (_it._, _p.p._ ) words and music by _c. dibdin_ in _the waterman_. king death (_b.h._ ) words by _barry cornwall_. _neukomm._ king death was a rare old fellow, he sat where no sun could shine, and he lifted his hand so yellow, and pour'd out his coal-black wine. hurrah for the coal-black wine! john leech used to sing 'king death,' and it was of his voice that jerrold once remarked, 'i say, leech, if you had the same opportunity of exercising your voice as you have of using your pencil, how it would _draw_!' lesbia hath a beaming eye (_letter to lemon_) words by _moore_. set to the delightfully gay air 'nora creina.' lesbia hath a beaming eye, but no one knows for whom it beameth, right and left its arrows fly, but what they aim at no one dreameth! listen to the waterfall (_b.h._ ) _lord mornington._ from the glee 'here in cool grot.' little taffline (_d.c._ ) words by _prince hoare_. _s. storace._ in the opera _three and the deuce_, produced in . see pp. , . there is a character 'little taffline' in t. dibdin's _st. david's day_, music composed and compiled by attwood. there is another setting said to be 'composed by j. parry,' but it is merely an altered form of the original. lovely peg (_d. & s._ ) see pp. - . marseillaise (_m.c._ , _e.d._ , _l.d._ ) _rouget de lisle._ for brief history see _the choir_ (nov., ) masaniello (_s.b.t._ ) opera by _auber_. see p. . may we ne'er want a friend (_d. & s._ ) see 'when the first dawn of reason.' men of prometheus (_s.b.t._ ) see p. . this was the name given to the first edition of beethoven's ballet music to _prometheus_, composed in . miss wackles, i believed you true (_o.c.s._ ) 'mary, i believed thee true,' _moore_ (one of his 'juvenile poems'). mary, i believed thee true, and i was blest in so believing, but now i mourn that e'er i knew a girl so fair and so deceiving! it has been suggested that these words were adapted and sung to the scotch air 'gala water.' my boat is on the shore (_g.s._) (_d.c._ , _letters_) words by _lord byron_. _bishop._ see p. . also set by w. cratherne. my feelings i smother (_o.c.s._ ) see 'we met.' my heart's in the highlands (_o.c.s._ , _s.b.s._ ) words partly by _burns_. in captain fraser's _airs peculiar to the scottish highlands_, . there is a parody by dickens (see forster's _life_, ch. ). never leave off dancing (_d.c._ ) said to be the subject of a french song. no malice to dread, sir (_o.m.f._) see p. . non nobis (_s.b.s._ ) this celebrated canon, by byrd, has been performed at public dinners from time immemorial. it also used to be performed at the theatre royal, covent garden. now's the day, and now's the hour (_d.c._ ) verse of 'scots, wha hae' (_burns_). now's the day, and now's the hour, see the front o' battle lour, see approach proud edward's power, chains and slaverie. of all the girls that are so smart (_o.c.s._ ) words and music by _henry carey_. carey composed his melody in . it soon became popular, but owing to the similarity of certain phrases to those of an older tune known as 'the country lass,' the two gradually got mixed up, with the result that the latter became the recognized setting. off she goes (_s.b.t._ ) a once popular dance air. oft in the stilly night (_s.b.s._ ) from t. moore's _national airs_, set to an air possibly of scotch origin. there are also settings by stevenson and hullah. oh blame not the bard (_o.c.s._ ) words by _t. moore_. in _irish melodies_. set to the tune 'kitty tyrrel.' oh give me but my arab steed (_o.c.s._ ) words by _t.h. bayly_. _g.a. hodson._ written in . sung by braham. oh give me but my arab steed, my prince defends his right, and i will to the battle speed, to guard him in the fight. oh cheerily, cheerily (_d. & s._ ) original, but a refrain similar to this is not uncommon in old sea songs. oh lady fair (_g.e._ ) trio by _moore_. see 'strew then, o strew.' oh let us love our occupations (_ch._) original lines by dickens. 'set to music on the new system,' probably refers to hullah's method (c. ), or possibly the tonic sol-fa (c. ), see p. . oh landsmen are folly (_h.r._) original. old clem (_g.e._ , ) a custom prevailed at chatham of holding a procession on st. clement's day, and the saint, who was irreverently designated 'old clem,' was personated by a young smith disguised for the occasion. dickens frequently writes a verse in the form of prose, and this is an example. written out properly, it reads thus: hammer boys round--old clem, with a thump and a sound--old clem, beat it out, beat it out--old clem, with a cluck for the stout--old clem, blow the fire, blow the fire--old clem, roaring drier, soaring higher--old clem. old king cole (_o.c.s._ , _p.p._ ) the personality of this gentleman has never been settled. chappell suggests he was 'old cole,' a cloth-maker of reading _temp._ henry i. wardle's carol 'i care not for spring' (_p.p._ ) was adapted to this air, and printed in how's _illustrated book of british song_. over the hills and far away (_dr. m._, _m.c._ ) an old saying, both in song and as a phrase. it occurs in two songs in d'urfey's _pills to purge melancholy_, , one of which is, tom he was a piper's son, he learned to play when he was young; but all the tune that he could play was over the hills and far away. (vol. iv.) doctor marigold's version is probably original: north and south and west and east, winds liked best and winds liked least, here and there and gone astray, over the hills and far away. over the water to charlie (_o.c.s._ ) tune in johnson's _musical museum_, vol. ii, . come boat me o'er, come row me o'er, come boat me o'er to charlie, i'll gie john brown another half-crown, to boat me o'er to charlie; we'll o'er the water, we'll o'er the sea, we'll o'er the water to charlie, come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, and live or die wi' charlie. another jacobite song was the cause of an amusing incident at edinburgh. on the occasion of one of his visits there dickens went to the theatre, and he and his friends were much amazed and amused by the orchestra playing 'charlie is my darling' amid tumultuous shouts of delight. paul and virginia (_s.b.t._ , _l.d._ ) _j. mazzinghi._ the popular duet from this opera 'see from ocean rising' was sung by mr. johnstone and mr. incledon. see p. . polly put the kettle on (_b.r._ ) an old country dance. red ruffian, retire! (_s.b.c._ ) probably an imaginary title, invented by dickens. rule britannia (_d. & s._ , , _u.t._ , _m.c._ , , _a.n._, _d.c._ ) words by _thomson_ or _mallet_. _arne._ first appeared in print at the end of the masque _the judgement of paris_, but it was composed for the masque of _alfred_, which was first performed on august , . see _musical times_, april, . sally in our alley see 'of all the girls.' satan finds some mischief still (_d.c._ ) see p. . _dr. watts._ see from ocean rising (_s.b.t._ ) see _paul and virginia_. she's all my fancy painted her (_o.c.s._ ) ('alice gray.') see 'yet lov'd i.' she's like the red, red rose (_o.c.s._ ) burns revised the words from an old song. the music is in _caledonian pocket companion_, bk. vii, , under the name 'low down in the broom.' shivery shakey, ain't it cold (_dr. m._) see p. . since laws were made for every degree (_o.c.s._ , _l.d._ ii. ) tyburn tree. since laws were made for ev'ry degree to curb vice in others as well as me, i wonder we han't better company upon tyburn tree. from _beggar's opera_. words by _gay_. set to the tune of 'greensleeves,' which dates from . this tune is twice mentioned by shakespeare in _the merry wives of windsor_. an earlier 'tyburn' version is a song entitled 'a warning to false traitors,' which refers to the execution of six people at 'tyborne' on august , . since the first dawn of reason _j. davy._ see p. . song about a sparkling bowl (_ch._) there are several songs of this nature, such as 'the flowing bowl' ('fill the bowl with sparkling nectar'). another began 'fill, fill the bowl with sparkling wine.' song about the slumbering echoes in the cavern of memory (_d.c._ ) not at present traced. strew then, oh strew a bed of rushes (_o.c.s._ ) words and music by _moore_. from the glee 'holy be the pilgrim's sleep,' which is a sequel to 'oh lady fair' (q.v.). moore wrote two inane songs, entitled 'holy be the pilgrim's sleep' and 'oh lady fair.' for both pilgrim and lady arrangements are made for spending the night somewhere, and in each song occur the words strew then, oh strew his [our] bed of rushes, here he shall [we must] rest till morning blushes. tamaroo (_m.c._ ) said to be taken from an english ballad in which it is supposed to express the bold and fiery nature of a certain hackney coachman. according to _notes and queries_ (x. ), this was sung at winchester school some seventy or eighty years ago. the following is quoted as the first verse: ben he was a coachman rare ('jarvey! jarvey!' 'here i am, yer honour'), crikey! how he used to swear! how he'd swear, and how he'd drive, number two hundred and sixty-five. tamaroo! tamaroo! tamaroo! dr. sweeting, the present music-master at winchester, says, 'the song "tamaroo" is quite unknown here now, and if it was sung here seventy or eighty years ago, i should imagine that that was only because it was generally well known. dickens' allusion to it seems to suggest that it was a song he had heard, and he utilized its character to label one of his characters in his own fanciful way.' tarry trousers (_d. & s._ ) an old folk-song. a mother wants her daughter to marry a tailor, and not wait for her sailor bold, telling her that it is quite time she was a bride. the daughter says: my mother wants me to wed with a tailor, and not give me my heart's delight, but give me the man with the tarry trousers, that shine to me like diamonds bright. tell me, shepherds (_e.d._ ) _mazzinghi._ glee. 'ye shepherds, tell me' (or 'the wreath'). the brave old oak (_s.b.s._ .) words by _h.f. chorley_. _e.j. loder._ a song for the oak, the brave old oak, who hath ruled in the greenwood long; here's health and renown to his broad green crown, and his fifty arms so strong! the bull in the china shop see p. . the cherub that sits up aloft (_u.t._ ) from 'poor jack.' _c. dibdin._ for d'ye see, there's a cherub sits smiling aloft to keep watch for the life of poor jack. (_last two lines of verse ._) the cordial that sparkled for helen (_o.c.s._ ) moore's _irish melodies_. the dashing white sergeant (_d.c._ ) words by _general burgoyne_. _h.r. bishop._ if i had a beau, for a soldier who'd go, do you think i'd say no? no, no, not i. the gay, the gay and festive season (_o.m.f._) see 'the light guitar.' the great sea snake set to the air 'rampant moll.' perhaps you have all of you heard of a yarn of a famous large sea snake, that once was seen off the isle pitcairn and caught by admiral blake. see p. . the ivy green (_p.p._ .) words by _dickens_. the most popular musical setting is that by _henry russell_. the light guitar (_s.b.t._ , _o.c.s._) _barnett._ oh leave the gay and festive scene, the halls of dazzling light, and rove with me through forests green beneath the silent night. the miller of the dee (_o.m.f._ ii. ) words, c. . tune, . referring to a disused boiler and a great iron wheel, dickens says they are like the miller of questionable jollity in the song. they cared for nobody, no not they, and nobody cared for them. the air is found in _the quaker's opera_, . the ratcatcher's daughter (_out of season_) see p. . the seven ages (_s.b.s._ ) see pp. , . the soldier, tired (_s.b.c._ ) _arne._ dr. arne translated the words from the _artaserse_ of metastasio. this song was the great 'show song' for sopranos for many years. it was originally sung by miss brent. the soldier, tired of war's alarms, forswears the clang of hostile arms, and scorns the spear and shield; but if the brazen trumpet sound, he burns with conquest to be crowned, and dares again the field. the woodpecker tapping (_d.c._ , _l.d._ , _s.b.t._ , _m.c._ ) words by _moore_. _m. kelly._ every leaf was at rest, and i heard not a sound but the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree. the young may moon see p. . then farewell, my trim-built wherry (_o.m.f._) see p. . there let 'em be, merry and free, toor-rul-lal-la (_o.c.s._ ) probably original. though lost to sight, to memory dear (_d. & s._ ) words and music by _g. linley_. tho' lost to sight, to mem'ry dear thou ever wilt remain, one only hope my heart can cheer: the hope to meet again. thrown on the wide world (_o.m.f._) see p. . time of day (_s.b.c._ ) see p. . 'tis the voice of the sluggard (_m.c._ ) _dr. watts._ 'twas ever thus from childhood's hour (_o.c.s._ , _d.c._ ) ('oh ever,' &c.) words by _moore_. from 'lalla rookh.' has been set to music by s. glover, e. souper, and verini. villikens and his dinah sung by mr. robson and by s. cowell. composer unknown. a very popular song - . it's of a liquor merchant who in london did dwell, he had but one darter, a beautiful gal. her name it was dinah, just sixteen years old, and she had a large fortune in silver and gold. to my too-ral-lal loo-ral-li loo-ral-li-day. wapping old stairs (_u.t._ ) _j. percy._ weep for the hour (_o.m.f._) see p. . we met (_o.c.s._ , _s.b.t._ ) _t.h. bayly._ the story of a girl who was compelled by her mother to jilt her true love and marry some one else. the story ends with the words misquoted by swiveller: the world may think me gay, for my feelings i smother-- oh! _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my mother! we're a'noddin' (_b.h._ ) _anonymous._ a once popular scotch song. o we're a' noddin, nid nid noddin, o we're a' noddin at our house at home; how's o' wi' ye, kimmer? and how do ye thrive, and how many bairns hae ye now? bairns i hae five. we won't go home till morning (_p.p._ ) said in the _london singer's magazine_ (c. ) to be written and composed by c. blondel ('adapted and arranged' might be more correct). the tune is founded on an air known as malbrough, or malbrook, which originated during the duke of marlborough's campaign, - , known as 'the war of the spanish succession.' what are the wild waves saying? words by _j.e. carpenter_. _stephen glover._ this duet was founded upon the question little paul dombey asks his sister: i want to know what it says--the sea, floy, what is it that it keeps on saying? when he who adores thee (_o.c.s._ ) words by _moore_. in _irish melodies_ to the air 'the fox's sleep.' when i went to lunnon town, sirs (_g.e._ ) probably original. the nearest i have found to it is-- the astonished countryman, or, a bustling picture of london. when first i came to london town, how great was my surprise, thought i, the world's turned upside down, such wonders met my eyes. and in _the universal songster_-- when i arrived in london town, i got my lesson pat, &c. when in death i shall calm recline moore's _irish melodies_. in dickens wrote a travesty called _o' thello_, in which is a humorous solo of eight lines, to be sung to the air to which the above is set. when lovely woman stoops to folly (_o.c.s._ ) 'do my pretty olivia,' cried she, 'let us have that little melancholy air your papa was so fond of; your sister sophy has already obliged us. do, child, it will please your old father.' she complied in a manner so exquisitely pathetic, as moved me. when lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds, too late, that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy? what art can wash her guilt away? (goldsmith's _vicar of wakefield_, ch. xxiv.) when the heart of a man (_d.c._ , _o.m.f._ iii. ) words by _gay_ (_beggar's opera_). set to a seventeenth-century air. if the heart of a man is depressed with care, the mist is dispelled when a woman appears, like the notes of a fiddle she sweetly, sweetly raises our spirits and charms our ears. when the stormy winds (_d.c._ , _d. & s._ ) words by _campbell_, who may have taken them from an earlier source. see 'you gentlemen of england.' white sand (_l.d._ i. ) an old glee. see p. . who passes by this road so late (_l.d._ i. ) (blandois' song.) words by _c. dickens_. _h.r.s. dalton._ an old french children's singing game. dickens' words are a literal translation. see _eighty singing games_ (kidson and moffat). who ran to catch me when i fell (_o.c.s._ ) from ann taylor's nursery song 'my mother.' wife shall dance and i will sing, so merrily pass the day from 'begone, dull care' (q.v.). will watch, the bold smuggler (_out of season_) _john davy._ yankee doodle (_u.t._, _a.n._) mr. f. kidson has traced this to 'a selection of scotch, english, irish, and foreign airs,' published in glasgow by james aird, c. or . yet lov'd i as man ne'er loved (_o.c.s._ ) words by _william mee_. _millard._ from 'alice gray.' she's all my fancy painted her, she's lovely, she's divine, but her heart it is another's, it never can be mine. yet lov'd i as ne'er man loved, a love without decay, oh my heart, my heart is breaking, for the love of _alice gray_! 'alice gray.' a ballad, sung by miss stephens, miss palon, and miss grant. composed and inscribed to mr. a. pettet by mrs. philip millard. published by a. pettet, hanway street. you gentlemen of england (_d. & s._ ) old english ballad. a seventeenth-century song, the last line of each verse being 'when the stormy winds do blow.' young love lived once (_s.b.s._ ) in _sketches by boz_ this sentence occurs: 'when we say a "shed" we do not mean the conservatory kind of building which, according to the old song, love frequented when a young man.' the song referred to is by t. moore. young love lived once in a humble shed, where roses breathing, and woodbines wreathing, around the lattice their tendrils spread, as wild and sweet as the life he led. it is one of the songs in _m.p., or the blue-stocking_, a comic opera in three acts. index of musical instruments accordion, , aeolian harp, bagpipes, , banjo, [ ] barrel-organ, , , , , , bassoon, bells (church) , bells (various), , , , castanets, 'chaunter,' chin-playing, clarionet, , cymbals, , , drum, , , , 'drums,' fiddle, see violin fife, , , flageolet, flute, , , , , - , guitar, , , , 'gum-gum,' harmonium, harp, , , , , , , , harpsichord, , jew's-harp, key bugle (or kent bugle), , , , , kit, lute, marrowbones and cleaver, , , mouth-organ, organ, - , , - pan's pipes, , piano, , , - , - , , piano ('self acting'), recorders, serpent, tambourine, , , , tom-tom, triangle, , , trombone, , violin, , , , , - , , violoncello, , , , index of characters antonio (_u.t._), atherfield, mrs. (_g.m._), bagnet, mrs. (_b.h._), bagnet (_b.h._), , bagnet, master (_b.h._), , bailey, jr. (_m.c._), , banjo bones (_u.t._ ), belinda (_m.h.c._), billsmethi (_s.b.c._ ), blackpool, s. (_h.t._), blandois (_l.d._), blathers (_o.t._), blimber, dr. (_d.c._), , boffin (_o.m.f._), bounderby (_h.t._), brass, sally (_o.c.s._), , brass, sampson (_o.c.s._), , , , , briggses, miss (_s.b.t._ ), , browdie, john (_n.n._), brown, mr. (_s.b.t._ ), [ ] bucket (_b.h._), , , , , , bunsby (_l.d._), carker, harriet (_d. & s._), carker, james (_d. & s._), , casby (_l.d._), chadband, rev. (_b.h._), cheggs (_o.c.s._), chivery, young (_l.d._), chuckster (_o.c.s._), chuzzlewit, jonas (_m.c._), , chuzzlewit, martin (_m.c._), chuzzlewit, m., jr., , , , clennam, arthur (_l.d._), , , copperfield, david (_d.c._), , , , , , , , , crewler, sophy (_d.c._), crisparkle, rev. (_e.d._), , crumptons, miss (_s.b.t._ ), cuttle, capt. (_d. & s._), , , , , , - daisy, solomon (_b.r._), dartle, rosa (_d.c._), dick, mr. (_d.c._), dombey, mr. (_d. & s._), , , dombey, florence (_d. & s._), , , , , dombey, paul (_d. & s._), , , , , dorrit, e. (_l.d._), dorrit, f. (_l.d._), , dorrit, w. (_l.d._), dorrit, miss (_l.d._), dorrit, little (_l.d._), dowler (_p.p._), drood, e. (_e.d._), durdles (_e.d._), , evans, jemima (_s.b.c._ ), , evans, mr. (_s.b.t._ ), evenson (_s.b.t._ ), fagin (_o.t._), feeder (_d. & s._), , , , fezziwig, mrs. (_c.c._), fielding, may (_c.h._), finching, flora (_l.d._), , , fips (_m.c._), gamp, mrs. (_m.c._), gattleton, mrs. (_s.b.t._ ), , gay, walter (_d. & s._), , , general, mrs. (_l.d._), george, mr. (_b.h._), , , gills ('old sol') (_d. & s._), graham, mary (_m.c._), handel (_g.e._), see pirrip hardy (_s.b.t._ ), , harleigh (_s.b.t._ ), harris, mrs. (_m.c._), heep (_d.c._), , helves, capt. (_s.b.t._ ), , , hexham (_o.m.f._), hopkins, humm (_p.p._), humphrey, master (_m.h.c._), hunter, mrs. (_p.p._) jacksonini (_letters_), jarley, mrs. (_o.c.s._), jasper (_e.d._), , , , jeddler (_b.l._), jellyby, caddy (_b.h._), , jerry (_o.c.s._), , jingle (_p.p._), , , jorgan (_p.p._), kenwigs, mrs. (_n.n._), , kit, see nubbles ladle, joey (_n.t._), larkins, miss (_d.c._), lirriper, mrs. (_l.l._), , lobskini (_s.b.t._ ), m'choakumchild (_h.t._), malderton, miss (_s.b.t._ ), , maldon, jack (_d.c._) mantalini (_n.n._), marchioness, the (_o.c.s._), , , , marigold, dr., marra boni (_s.b.c._ ), meagles (_l.d._), meagles, miss ('pet'), mell (_d.c._), , micawber (_d.c._), , , - micawber, mrs. (_d.c._), , , micawber, w. (_d.c._), miggs, miss (_b.r._), mills, miss (_d.c._), monflathers, mrs. (_o.c.s._), mordlin, brother (_p.p._), morfin (_d. & s._), , , , namby, mrs. (_p.p._), nancy (_o.t._), nandy (_l.d._), , nell, little (_o.c.s._), , nickleby (_n.n._), , noggs (_n.n._), nubbles ('kit') (_o.c.s._), , obenreizer (_n.t._), 'old clem,' 'old sol,' see gills pancks (_l.d._), vii, , pecksniff (_m.c._), , , pecksniffs, miss (_m.c._), , , , peerybingle, mrs. (_c.h._), 'pet,' see meagles, miss petowker, miss (_n.n._), phenomenon, the (_n.n._), pickleson (_dr. m._), , pickwick, mr. (_p.p._), , , , , pinch, tom (_m.c._), , , , , (&c.) pirrip ('pip' or 'handel'), , pip (_g.e._), see pirrip plornish, mrs. (_l.d._), , plornish, mr. (_l.d._), plummer (_c.h._), pocket, herbert (_g.e._), quilp (_o.c.s._), , redburn, jack (_m.h.c._), rob the grinder (_d. & s._), rudolph, jennings (_s.b.c._ ), sapsea, mr. (_e.d._), , sawyer, bob (_p.p._), , scrooge (_c.c._), scrooge's nephew (_c.c._), , simpson (_p.p._), skettles, lady (_d. & s._), skewton, hon. mrs. (_d. & s._), skimpole (_b.h._), , smike (_n.n._), sparkins (_s.b.t._ ), , spenlow, dora (_d.c._) , , squeers (_n.n._), , steerforth (_d.c._) stiggins (_p.p._), strong, dr. (_d.c._) , summerson, esther (_b.h._), sweedlepipe (_m.c._), swills, little (_b.h._), swiveller, dick (_o.c.s._), , , , , , - tackleton (_c.h._), , tapley, mark (_m.c._), , , , tappertit (_b.r._), tauntons, miss (_s.b.t._ ), , tetterby family (_h.m._), tibbs, mrs. (_s.b.t._ ), timson, rev. (_s.b.t._ ), tiny tim (_c.c._), tippin, mrs. (_s.b.t._ ), tippin, master (_s.b.t._ ), todgers, mrs. (_m.c._), , tomlinson (_d. & s._), toots (_d.c._), topper (_c.c._), tottle, watkins (_s.b.t._ ), tox, miss (_d. & s._), tpschoffki (_g.s._), , traddles (_d.c._), trotter, job (_p.p._), trotwood, miss (_d.c._), tulrumble (_m.p._), tupman (_p.p._), turveydrop (_b.h._), twist, oliver (_o.t._), varden, mrs. (_b.r._) veck, toby ('trotty') (_ch._), , , velasco, rinaldo di, see pickleson wackles, sophy (_o.c.s._), , - wardle (_p.p._), wegg, silas (_o.m.f._), - weller, mr. (_p.p._), weller, sam (_p.p._), , (&c.), , wickfield (_d.c._), wilding (_n.t._), wilfer (_o.m.f._), , wilkins (_s.b.c._), willet, joe (_b.r._), wisbottle (_s.b.t._ ), wopsle (_g.e._), , , general index allon, dr., arne, dr., , , , attwood, t., auber, barnett, j., bath, bayly, t.h., , bedford (singer), beethoven, , _beggar's opera_, , , _bell's life in london_, 'belmont' (hymn-tune), benedict, sir j., bishop, sir h., , , , , , , blamire, s., blondel, c., boai, m., boston (u.s.a.), , bowden, boyce, w., braham (singer), , , , bridge, sir f., , broadstairs, , , buckingham (singer), burgoyne, burns, , , byrd, byron, , campbell, , carey, h., , , carpenter, j.e., carrara, chappell, w., 'chaunter,' cherry, andrew, _choir_, the, , chopin, chorley, h., , clapham, _clari_, collins, wilkie, cowell (singer), curwen, john, _daily news_, the, , dalton, h.r.s., , davies, rev. r., davy, j., , , , dibdin, c., , , , , , , dibdin, c., jr., dibdin, t., , dover, 'drums,' d'urfey, 'eagle,' the, , , , 'elephant and castle,' the, elson, c., fairburn (song publisher), , , field, j.t., forster, j., , , , , , foundling hospital, garrick, d., gay, , genoa, , gissing, glindon, glover, s., , golden square, goldsmith, gounod, greene, m., grimaldi, hamilton, mrs. e., handel, , , , , , , haydn, hoare, prince, hodson, g.a., hook, j., horn, c.e., _household words_, , - howell, hughes, j.c., hullah, , , , hutchinson family, incledon, , _irish melodies_, , , , , , et seq. jonson, ben, jerrold, d., joachim, julian, dr., kelly, m., kent (composer), kidson, mr. f., , , , kitton, f.g., , , lampe, j.f., landor, lang, a., lee, g.a., , leech, j., lemon, mark, leveridge, r., lind, jenny, linley, g., , , lisle, rouget de, _little warbler_, , , loder, e.j., _london oddities_, _london singer's magazine_, , luard-selby, b., macdermott, maclise, mallet, mann, dr. a.h., marseilles, marshalsea, martin's act, mazzinghi, , mendelssohn, , meyerbeer, millard, mrs., miller, rev. j., moffat, j., moore, t., , , , , et seq. mornington, lord, mozart, , , , , , _musical times_, the, neukomm, norwich festival, 'number four collection,' offenbach, panormo, parke, parr, miss, parry, j., parsons, peel, sir r., percy, j., 'phiz,' power, miss, _prentice's warbler_, procter, a., purcell, , rainforth, miss, reeve, w., , rice, t.d., richards, brinley, robson (singer), rochester, , rossini, royal academy of music, russell, henry, , russell, lord john, st. clement danes, st. peter's, rome, seven dials, shakespeare, sheridan, r.b., shield, stanfell's budget, storace, s., , souper, e., sweeting, dr., thomson, tonic sol-fa, , vauxhall gardens, , , verini, vicar of wakefield, watts, dr., , , , , , , webbe, s., , wellington house academy, white conduit gardens, , williams, dr. v., wills, a list of vocal and instrumental music associated with dickens and with the characters in his novels _all these pieces are in the possession of mr. w. miller, librarian of the dickens fellowship_ songs in the village coquettes. words by _charles dickens_. music by _hullah_. the ivy green. song. words by _charles dickens_. music by _mrs. henry dale_. the ivy green. song. music by _a. de belfer_. the ivy green. song. music by w. _lovell phillips_. the ivy green. song. music by _henry russell_. (this song has been published by almost every music publisher in london and america.) introduction and familiar variations on the ivy green arranged for the pianoforte by _ricardo linter_. russell's song the ivy green, with introduction and variations for the pianoforte by _stephen glover_. the ivy green as a vocal duet. music by _henry russell_. a christmas carol. words by _charles dickens_. music by _henry russell_. a christmas carol. words by _charles dickens_. music by _henry russell_ to the tune of old king cole. bold turpin. words by _charles dickens_. music by _sir j.f. bridge_. pickwick. set to music by _george l. jeune_. words by _george soane_. the wery last observations of weller senior to boz on his departure from london. written and sung by _j.m. field, esq._ adapted to an old air. boston, . the original set of pickwick quadrilles. edited by _'boz' junior_. sam weller's adventures. reprinted in _the life and times of james catnach_. gabriel grub. cantata seria buffa. adapted by _frederick wood_. music by _george fox_. pickwick tarantelle. mr. stiggins. song. maliciously written and composed by '_tony weller_.' the pickwick quadrille. composed by _fred revallin_. the pickwick lancers. composed by _camille d'aubert_. pickwick. songs and dances by _edward solomon_. words of songs by _sir f.c. burnand_. oliver twist. written by _h. copeland_ from a song by _w.t. townsend_. the artful dodger. written by _charles sloman_ and _sam cowell_. music by _fred bridgeman_. sung by _sam cowell_. nicholas nickleby quadrille and nickleby galop. by _sydney vernon_. master humphrey's clock, 'did you hear anything knock?' song by _beuler_. master humphrey's quadrilles. music by _'boz' junior_. the chimes of master humphrey's clock. arranged for the pianoforte by _charles arnold_. the ghost of the baron of grog-swig. written by _john major_. arranged by _j. monro_. little nell. words by _miss charlotte young_. music by _george linley_. little nell. composed by _george linley_. arranged for the pianoforte by _carlo totti_. nell. song. composed by _h.l. winter_. little nell. by _miss hawley_. little nell. waltz by _dan godfrey_. nell. words by _edward oxenford_. music by _alfred j. caldicott_. little nellie's polka. composed by _j. pridham_. barnaby rudge tarantelle. by _clementine ward_. dolly varden. ballad. words and music by _cotsford dick_. _g.w. hunt's_ popular song dolly varden. dolly varden. comic song. words by _frank w. green_. music _alfred lee_. _vance's_ dolly varden. written, composed, and sung by _alfred g. vance_. _g.w. moore's_ great song dressed as a dolly varden. written, composed, and sung by _g.w. moore_. dolly varden's wedding. comic song. written, composed, and arranged by _t.r. tebley_. dolly varden waltz. by _henry parker_. dolly varden valse. composed by _sara leumas_. the dolly varden polka. by _brinley richards_. the dolly varden polka. by _w.c. levey_. dolly varden polka. by _henry parker_. the dolly varden polka. arranged by _t.c. lewis_. composed by _g. discongi_. dolly varden polka. by _george gough_. dolly varden galop. by _charles coote, jun._ dolly varden schottische. by _helene_. the dolly varden schottische. by _h. king_. dolly varden gavotte. by _clementine ward_. dolly varden quadrille. by _henry parker_. dolly varden quadrille, on old english tunes. by _c.h.r. marriott_. maypole hugh. song. words by _charles bradberry_. music by _george fox_. yankee notes for english circulation; or boz in a-merry-key. comic song. written by _james briton_. music arranged to an american air by _geo. loder_. the christmas carol quadrilles. by _edwin merriott_. tiny tim. words by _edward oxenford_. music by _alfred j. caldicott_. tiny tim. words by _harry lynn_. music by _w. knowles_. the song of christmas. song sung in _a christmas carol_ at the theatre royal, adelphi. composed by _c. herbert rodwell_. tiny tim. written and composed by _arthur wingham_. 'god bless us every one.' words by _geo. cooper_. music by _herbert foster_. the chimes. song. written by _j.e. carpenter_. music composed by _f. nicholls crouch_. the chimes. by _jullien_. the chimes quadrilles. by _henry oakey_. the chimes quadrilles. by _lancelott_. the chimes gavotte. for the pianoforte, with bell accompaniment (ad lib.). composed by _wm. west_, organist and choirmaster of st. margaret pattens (rood lane, e.c.). lillian. ballad from _the chimes_. the poetry by _fanny e. lacey_. music by _edward l. hime_. the spirit of the chimes. written and composed by _fanny e. lacey_. the cricket on the hearth. song. by _james e. stewart_, cincinnati, u.s.a. the cricket on the hearth. a domestic ballad. written by _edward j. gill_. music by _j. blewitt_. the cricket polka. the cricket polka. composed by _jullien_. the cricket on the hearth quadrilles. composed by _s.d. saunders_. the cricket on the hearth. a set of quadrilles. by _t.l. rowbotham_. the cricket on the hearth. a new christmas quadrille. by _f. lancelott_. the new cricket polka. composed by _johann lupeski_. the battle of life. song. words by _o.c. lynn_. music by _r. graylott_. published in _the illustrated london news_, march , . the fruit gatherers' song ('the battle of life'). written by _fanny e. lacey_. composed by _edwin flood_. the haunted man quadrilles. by _wm. west_. what are the wild waves saying? written by _j.e. carpenter_. music by _stephen glover_. what are the wild waves saying? (_stephen glover_). arranged for the pianoforte by _brinley richards_. a voice from the waves (an answer to the above). words by _r. ryan_. music by _stephen glover_. little paul ballad. poetry by _miss c. young_. music by _w.t. wrighton_. paul. song. words by _edward oxenford_. music by _alfred j. caldicott_. florence. song. written by _charles jeffrey_. poor florence. song. music composed by _w.t. wrighton_. walter and florence. song. written by _johanna chandler_. music by _stephen glover_. dombey and son quadrille. by _miss harriet frances brown_. the david copperfield polka. composed by _w. wilson_. the micawber quadrille (played in the drama of _little em'ly_, at the olympic theatre, in ). composed by _j. winterbottom_. little em'ly valses. by _john winterbottom_. (played in the drama of _little em'ly_, at the olympic theatre, in .) the little em'ly polka. composed by _w.g. severn_. agnes; or i have loved you all my life. ballad. written by _ger vere irving_. composed by _gerald stanley_. dora; or the child-wife's farewell. ballad. written by _george linley_. composed by _gerald stanley_. peggotty the wanderer. ballad. written by _william martin_. music by _james william etherington_. dora to agnes. song. words by _charles jeffrey_. music by _j.h. tully_. little blossom. ballad by _stephen glover_. words by _charlotte young_. household words. duet. written by _charlotte young_. composed by _john blockley_. songs and ballads from _bleak house_: ( ) the song of esther summerson, 'farewell to the old home.' written by _charles jeffrey_. music by _charles w. glover_. ( ) ada clare. written by _charles jeffrey_. set to music by _charles w. glover_. poor jo! ballad. written by _h.b. farnie_. composed by _c.f.r. marriott_. poor jo! song and chorus. written by _w.r. gordon_. composed by _alfred lee_. 'jo.' galop for the pianoforte upon airs from the celebrated drama, by _edward solomon_. 'he was wery good to me.' poor jo's song. written and composed by _alfred allen_. the token flowers. song founded on 'caddy's flowers' in _bleak house_. written by _joseph edward carpenter_. music by _b. moligne_. hard times. polka. by _c.w._ little dorrit. ballad. written and composed by _john caulfield_. little dorrit. song. written by _henry abrahams_. music by _c. stanley_. little dorrit's polka. composed by _jules norman_. as you like it; or little dorrit's polka. by _w.h. montgomery_. little dorrit's vigil. by the composer of little nell. little dorrit's schottische. composed by _w.m. parker_. little dorrit serenade. by _clementine ward_. 'my dear old home.' ballad. written by _j.e. carpenter_. composed by _john blockley_. who passes by this road so late? blandois' song from _little dorrit_. words by _charles dickens_. music by _h.r.s. dalton_. (this song was suggested to dickens by the french song entitled 'le chevalier du guet.') floating away ballad. written by _j.e. carpenter_. music by _john blockley_. all the year round; or the search for happiness. song. written by _w.s. passmore_. composed by _john blockley_. all the year round quadrilles. by _e. frewin_. all the year round varsoviana. by _w.h. montgomery_. the two cities quadrilles. by _w.h. montgomery_. tom tiddler's polka. composed by _w. wilson_. great expectations. ballad. _coote's_ lancers, 'somebody's luggage.' mrs. lirriper's quadrille. written by _adrian victor_. jenny wren (the doll's dressmaker). song. words by _edward oxenford_. music by _alfred j. caldicott_. jenny wren quadrilles. arranged by _rosabel_. mugby junction galop. by _charles coote, jun._ no thoroughfare galop. composed by _charles coote, jun._ [from an edition:] printed by the 'southampton times' co., ltd., above bar, southampton transcriber's notes the musical extracts are marked [figure ]-[figure ]. these are available as midi files. italic text is marked _thus_ with underscores. alterations: page "and can't play 'out to-night,'" hyphen not inked in original. page "and tuned like fifty stomach-aches." corrected typo: "tuned liked" page "which had no recognizable tune" corrected typo: "recognizable time" page "given to the young red-haired boy" corrected typo: "young red-haired boots" page "penn'orths" page "hunting field," letter 't' not inked in original. page "his musical powers made him useful at the club-room" hyphen at line-end: could be "clubroom". page "'as of a gallant and eminent naval hero,'" closing quote missing in original. page "(_o.c.s._ )" corrected typo: "_d.c.s._" page "see 'since the first dawn of reason.'" original had "when the first dawn of reason." page "see 'strew then, oh strew.'" original had "strew then, o strew." page "come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go," line indented in original. page "banjo" page "brown, mr." page numbers missing in original. pages , , , "cadby" corrected to "caddy" [illustration: charles dickens, circa from an oil painting by r. j. lane.] appreciations and criticisms of the works of charles dickens by g. k. chesterton [illustration] london: j. m. dent & sons, ltd. new york: e. p. dutton & co. _all rights reserved_ contents chapter page i. introduction vii ii. sketches by boz iii. pickwick papers iv. nicholas nickleby v. oliver twist vi. old curiosity shop vii. barnaby rudge viii. american notes ix. pictures from italy x. martin chuzzlewit xi. christmas books xii. dombey and son xiii. david copperfield xiv. christmas stories xv. bleak house xvi. child's history of england xvii. hard times xviii. little dorrit xix. a tale of two cities xx. great expectations xxi. our mutual friend xxii. edwin drood xxiii. master humphrey's clock xxiv. reprinted pieces illustrations page charles dickens, circa _frontispiece_ from an oil painting by r. j. lane. charles dickens, from a bust by h. dexter, executed during dickens's first visit to america. charles dickens, from a miniature by margaret gillies. charles dickens, from a daguerreotype by mayall. charles dickens, from a black and white drawing by baughiet. charles dickens, from an oil painting by w. p. frith, r.a. charles dickens, circa photograph by j. & c. watkins. charles dickens, from a photograph by gurney. introduction these papers were originally published as prefaces to the separate books of dickens in one of the most extensive of those cheap libraries of the classics which are one of the real improvements of recent times. thus they were harmless, being diluted by, or rather drowned in dickens. my scrap of theory was a mere dry biscuit to be taken with the grand tawny port of great english comedy; and by most people it was not taken at all--like the biscuit. nevertheless the essays were not in intention so aimless as they appear in fact. i had a general notion of what needed saying about dickens to the new generation, though probably i did not say it. i will make another attempt to do so in this prologue, and, possibly fail again. there was a painful moment (somewhere about the eighties) when we watched anxiously to see whether dickens was fading from the modern world. we have watched a little longer, and with great relief we begin to realise that it is the modern world that is fading. all that universe of ranks and respectabilities in comparison with which dickens was called a caricaturist, all that victorian universe in which he seemed vulgar--all that is itself breaking up like a cloudland. and only the caricatures of dickens remain like things carved in stone. this, of course, is an old story in the case of a man reproached with any excess of the poetic. again and again when the man of visions was pinned by the sly dog who knows the world, "the man recovered of the bite, the dog it was that died." to call thackeray a cynic, which means a sly dog, was indeed absurd; but it is fair to say that in comparison with dickens he felt himself a man of the world. nevertheless, that world of which he was a man is coming to an end before our eyes; its aristocracy has grown corrupt, its middle class insecure, and things that he never thought of are walking about the drawing-rooms of both. thackeray has described for ever the anglo-indian colonel; but what on earth would he have done with an australian colonel? what can it matter whether dickens's clerks talked cockney now that half the duchesses talk american? what would thackeray have made of an age in which a man in the position of lord kew may actually be the born brother of mr. moss of wardour street? nor does this apply merely to thackeray, but to all those victorians who prided themselves on the realism or sobriety of their descriptions; it applies to anthony trollope and, as much as any one, to george eliot. for we have not only survived that present which thackeray described: we have even survived that future to which george eliot looked forward. it is no longer adequate to say that dickens did not understand that old world of gentility, of parliamentary politeness and the balance of the constitution. that world is rapidly ceasing to understand itself. it is vain to repeat the complaint of the old quarterly reviewers, that dickens had not enjoyed a university education. what would the old quarterly reviewers themselves have thought of the rhodes scholarships? it is useless to repeat the old tag that dickens could not describe a gentleman. a gentleman in our time has become something quite indescribable. now the interesting fact is this: that dickens, whom so many considered to be at the best a vulgar enthusiast, saw the coming change in our society much more soberly and scientifically than did his better educated and more pretentious contemporaries. i give but one example out of many. thackeray was a good victorian radical, who seems to have gone to his grave quite contented with the early victorian radical theory--the theory which macaulay preached with unparalleled luminosity and completeness; the theory that true progress goes on so steadily through human history, that while reaction is indefensible, revolution is unnecessary. thackeray seems to have been quite content to think that the world would grow more and more liberal in the limited sense; that free trade would get freer; that ballot boxes would grow more and more secret; that at last (as some satirist of liberalism puts it) every man would have two votes instead of one. there is no trace in thackeray of the slightest consciousness that progress could ever change its direction. there is in dickens. the whole of _hard times_ is the expression of just such a realisation. it is not true to say that dickens was a socialist, but it is not absurd to say so. and it would be simply absurd to say it of any of the great individualist novelists of the victorian time. dickens saw far enough ahead to know that the time was coming when the people would be imploring the state to save them from mere freedom, as from some frightful foreign oppressor. he felt the society changing; and thackeray never did. as talking about socialism and individualism is one of the greatest bores ever endured among men, i will take another instance to illustrate my meaning, even though the instance be a queer and even a delicate one. even if the reader does not agree with my deduction, i ask his attention to the fact itself, which i think a curiosity of literature. in the last important work of dickens, that excellent book _our mutual friend_, there is an odd thing about which i cannot make up my mind; i do not know whether it is unconscious observation or fiendish irony. but it is this. in _our mutual friend_ is an old patriarch named aaron, who is a saintly jew made to do the dirty work of an abominable christian usurer. in an artistic sense i think the patriarch aaron as much of a humbug as the patriarch casby. in a moral sense there is no doubt at all that dickens introduced the jew with a philanthropic idea of doing justice to judaism, which he was told he had affronted by the great gargoyle of fagin. if this was his motive, it was morally a most worthy one. but it is certainly unfortunate for the hebrew cause that the bad jew should be so very much more convincing than the good one. old aaron is not an exaggeration of jewish virtues; he is simply not jewish, because he is not human. there is nothing about him that in any way suggests the nobler sort of jew, such a man as spinoza or mr. zangwill. he is simply a public apology, and like most public apologies, he is very stiff and not very convincing. so far so good. now we come to the funny part. to describe the high visionary and mystic jew like spinoza or zangwill is a great and delicate task in which even dickens might have failed. but most of us know something of the make and manners of the low jew, who is generally the successful one. most of us know the jew who calls himself de valancourt. now to any one who knows a low jew by sight or hearing, the story called _our mutual friend_ is literally full of jews. like all dickens's best characters they are vivid; we know them. and we know them to be hebrew. mr. veneering, the man from nowhere, dark, sphinx-like, smiling, with black curling hair, and a taste in florid vulgar furniture--of what stock was he? mr. lammle, with "too much nose in his face, too much ginger in his whiskers, too much sparkle in his studs and manners"--of what blood was he? mr. lammle's friends, coarse and thick-lipped, with fingers so covered with rings that they could hardly hold their gold pencils--do they remind us of anybody? mr. fledgeby, with his little ugly eyes and social flashiness and craven bodily servility--might not some fanatic like m. drumont make interesting conjectures about him? the particular types that people hate in jewry, the types that are the shame of all good jews, absolutely run riot in this book, which is supposed to contain an apology to them. it looks at first sight as if dickens's apology were one hideous sneer. it looks as if he put in one good jew whom nobody could believe in, and then balanced him with ten bad jews whom nobody could fail to recognise. it seems as if he had avenged himself for the doubt about fagin by introducing five or six fagins--triumphant fagins, fashionable fagins, fagins who had changed their names. the impeccable old aaron stands up in the middle of this ironic carnival with a peculiar solemnity and silliness. he looks like one particularly stupid englishman pretending to be a jew, amidst all that crowd of clever jews who are pretending to be englishmen. but this notion of a sneer is not admissible. dickens was far too frank and generous a writer to employ such an elaborate plot of silence. his satire was always intended to attack, never to entrap; moreover, he was far too vain a man not to wish the crowd to see all his jokes. vanity is more divine than pride, because it is more democratic than pride. third, and most important, dickens was a good liberal, and would have been horrified at the notion of making so venomous a vendetta against one race or creed. nevertheless the fact is there, as i say, if only as a curiosity of literature. i defy any man to read through _our mutual friend_ after hearing this suggestion, and to get out of his head the conviction that lammle is the wrong kind of jew. the explanation lies, i think, in this, that dickens was so wonderfully sensitive to that change that has come over our society, that he noticed the type of the oriental and cosmopolitan financier without even knowing that it was oriental or cosmopolitan. he had, in fact, fallen a victim to a very simple fallacy affecting this problem. somebody said, with great wit and truth, that treason cannot prosper, because when it prospers it cannot be called treason. the same argument soothed all possible anti-semitism in men like dickens. jews cannot be sneaks and snobs, because when they are sneaks and snobs they do not admit that they are jews. i have taken this case of the growth of the cosmopolitan financier, because it is not so stale in discussion as its parallel, the growth of socialism. but as regards dickens, the same criticism applies to both. dickens knew that socialism was coming, though he did not know its name. similarly, dickens knew that the south african millionaire was coming, though he did not know the millionaire's name. nobody does. his was not a type of mind to disentangle either the abstract truths touching the socialist, nor the highly personal truth about the millionaire. he was a man of impressions; he has never been equalled in the art of conveying what a man looks like at first sight--and he simply felt the two things as atmospheric facts. he felt that the mercantile power was oppressive, past all bearing by christian men; and he felt that this power was no longer wholly in the hands even of heavy english merchants like podsnap. it was largely in the hands of a feverish and unfamiliar type, like lammle and veneering. the fact that he felt these things is almost more impressive because he did not understand them. now for this reason dickens must definitely be considered in the light of the changes which his soul foresaw. thackeray has become classical; but dickens has done more: he has remained modern. the grand retrospective spirit of thackeray is by its nature attached to places and times; he belongs to queen victoria as much as addison belongs to queen anne, and it is not only queen anne who is dead. but dickens, in a dark prophetic kind of way, belongs to the developments. he belongs to the times since his death when hard times grew harder, and when veneering became not only a member of parliament, but a cabinet minister; the times when the very soul and spirit of fledgeby carried war into africa. dickens can be criticised as a contemporary of bernard shaw or anatole france or c. f. g. masterman. in talking of him one need no longer talk merely of the manchester school or puseyism or the charge of the light brigade; his name comes to the tongue when we are talking of christian socialists or mr. roosevelt or county council steam boats or guilds of play. he can be considered under new lights, some larger and some meaner than his own; and it is a very rough effort so to consider him which is the excuse of these pages. of the essays in this book i desire to say as little as possible; i will discuss any other subject in preference with a readiness which reaches to avidity. but i may very curtly apply the explanation used above to the cases of two or three of them. thus in the article on _david copperfield_ i have done far less than justice to that fine book considered in its relation to eternal literature; but i have dwelt at some length upon a particular element in it which has grown enormous in england after dickens's death. thus again, in introducing the _sketches by boz_ i have felt chiefly that i am introducing them to a new generation insufficiently in sympathy with such palpable and unsophisticated fun. a board school education, evolved since dickens's day, has given to our people a queer and inadequate sort of refinement, one which prevents them from enjoying the raw jests of the _sketches by boz_, but leaves them easily open to that slight but poisonous sentimentalism which i note amid all the merits of david copperfield. in the same way i shall speak of _little dorrit_, with reference to a school of pessimistic fiction which did not exist when it was written, of _hard times_ in the light of the most modern crises of economics, and of _the child's history of england_ in the light of the most matured authority of history. in short, these criticisms are an intrinsically ephemeral comment from one generation upon work that will delight many more. dickens was a very great man, and there are many ways of testing and stating the fact. but one permissible way is to say this, that he was an ignorant man, ill-read in the past, and often confused about the present. yet he remains great and true, and even essentially reliable, if we suppose him to have known not only all that went before his lifetime, but also all that was to come after. from this vanishing of the victorian compromise (i might say the victorian illusion) there begins to emerge a menacing and even monstrous thing--we may begin again to behold the english people. if that strange dawn ever comes, it will be the final vindication of dickens. it will be proved that he is hardly even a caricaturist; that he is something very like a realist. those comic monstrosities which the critics found incredible will be found to be the immense majority of the citizens of this country. we shall find that sweedlepipe cuts our hair and pumblechook sells our cereals; that sam weller blacks our boots and tony weller drives our omnibus. for the exaggerated notion of the exaggerations of dickens (as was admirably pointed out by my old friend and enemy mr. blatchford in a _clarion_ review) is very largely due to our mixing with only one social class, whose conventions are very strict, and to whose affectations we are accustomed. in cabmen, in cobblers, in charwomen, individuality is often pushed to the edge of insanity. but as long as the thackerayan platform of gentility stood firm all this was, comparatively speaking, concealed. for the english, of all nations, have the most uniform upper class and the most varied democracy. in france it is the peasants who are solid to uniformity; it is the marquises who are a little mad. but in england, while good form restrains and levels the universities and the army, the poor people are the most motley and amusing creatures in the world, full of humorous affections and prejudices and twists of irony. frenchmen tend to be alike, because they are all soldiers; prussians because they are all something else, probably policemen; even americans are all something, though it is not easy to say what it is; it goes with hawk-like eyes and an irrational eagerness. perhaps it is savages. but two english cabmen will be as grotesquely different as mr. weller and mr. wegg. nor is it true to say that i see this variety because it is in my own people. for i do not see the same degree of variety in my own class or in the class above it; there is more superficial resemblance between two kensington doctors or two highland dukes. no; the democracy is really composed of dickens characters, for the simple reason that dickens was himself one of the democracy. there remains one thing to be added to this attempt to exhibit dickens in the growing and changing lights of our time. god forbid that any one (especially any dickensian) should dilute or discourage the great efforts towards social improvement. but i wish that social reformers would more often remember that they are imposing their rules not on dots and numbers, but on bob sawyer and tim linkinwater, on mrs. lirriper and dr. marigold. i wish mr. sidney webb would shut his eyes until he _sees_ sam weller. a great many circumstances have led to the neglect in literature of these exuberant types which do actually exist in the ruder classes of society. perhaps the principal cause is that since dickens's time the study of the poor has ceased to be an art and become a sort of sham science. dickens took the poor individually: all modern writing tends to take them collectively. it is said that the modern realist produces a photograph rather than a picture. but this is an inadequate objection. the real trouble with the realist is not that he produces a photograph, but that he produces a composite photograph. it is like all composite photographs, blurred; like all composite photographs, hideous; and like all composite photographs, unlike anything or anybody. the new sociological novels, which attempt to describe the abstract type of the working-classes, sin in practice against the first canon of literature, true when all others are subject to exception. literature must always be a pointing out of what is interesting in life; but these books are duller than the life they represent. even supposing that dickens did exaggerate the degree to which one man differs from another--that was at least an exaggeration upon the side of literature; it was better than a mere attempt to reduce what is actually vivid and unmistakable to what is in comparison colourless or unnoticeable. even the creditable and necessary efforts of our time in certain matters of social reform have discouraged the old distinctive dickens treatment. people are so anxious to do something for the poor man that they have a sort of subconscious desire to think that there is only one kind of man to do it for. thus while the old accounts were sometimes too steep and crazy, the new became too sweeping and flat. people write about the problem of drink, for instance, as if it were one problem. dickens could have told them that there is the abyss between heaven and hell between the incongruous excesses of mr. pickwick and the fatalistic soaking of mr. wickfield. he could have shown that there was nothing in common between the brandy and water of bob sawyer and the rum and water of mr. stiggins. people talk of imprudent marriages among the poor, as if it were all one question. dickens could have told them that it is one thing to marry without much money, like stephen blackpool, and quite another to marry without the smallest intention of ever trying to get any, like harold skimpole. people talk about husbands in the working-classes being kind or brutal to their wives, as if that was the one permanent problem and no other possibility need be considered. dickens could have told them that there was the case (the by no means uncommon case) of the husband of mrs. gargery as well as of the wife of mr. quilp. in short, dickens saw the problem of the poor not as a dead and definite business, but as a living and very complex one. in some ways he would be called much more conservative than the modern sociologists, in some ways much more revolutionary. little dorrit in the time of the decline and death of dickens, and even more strongly after it, there arose a school of criticism which substantially maintained that a man wrote better when he was ill. it was some such sentiment as this that made mr. george gissing, that able writer, come near to contending that _little dorrit_ is dickens's best book. it was the principle of his philosophy to maintain (i know not why) that a man was more likely to perceive the truth when in low spirits than when in high spirits. reprinted pieces the three articles on sunday of which i speak are almost the last expression of an articulate sort in english literature of the ancient and existing morality of the english people. it is always asserted that puritanism came in with the seventeenth century and thoroughly soaked and absorbed the english. we are now, it is constantly said, an incurably puritanic people. personally, i have my doubts about this. i shall not refuse to admit to the puritans that they conquered and crushed the english people; but i do not think that they ever transformed it. my doubt is chiefly derived from three historical facts. first, that england was never so richly and recognisably english as in the shakespearian age before the puritan had appeared. second, that ever since he did appear there has been a long unbroken line of brilliant and typical englishmen who belonged to the shakespearian and not the puritanic tradition; dryden, johnson, wilkes, fox, nelson, were hardly puritans. and third, that the real rise of a new, cold, and illiberal morality in these matters seems to me to have occurred in the time of queen victoria, and not of queen elizabeth. all things considered, it is likely that future historians will say that the puritans first really triumphed in the twentieth century, and that dickens was the last cry of merry england. and about these additional, miscellaneous, and even inferior works of dickens there is, moreover, another use and fascination which all dickensians will understand; which, after a manner, is not for the profane. all who love dickens have a strange sense that he is really inexhaustible. it is this fantastic infinity that divides him even from the strongest and healthiest romantic artists of a later day--from stevenson, for example. i have read _treasure island_ twenty times; nevertheless i know it. but i do not really feel as if i knew all _pickwick_; i have not so much read it twenty times as read in it a million times; and it almost seemed as if i always read something new. we of the true faith look at each other and understand; yes, our master was a magician. i believe the books are alive; i believe that leaves still grow in them, as leaves grow on the trees. i believe that this fairy library flourishes and increases like a fairy forest: but the world is listening to us, and we will put our hand upon our mouth. our mutual friend one thing at least seems certain. dickens may or may not have been socialist in his tendencies; one might quote on the affirmative side his satire against mr. podsnap, who thought centralisation "un-english"; one might quote in reply the fact that he satirised quite as unmercifully state and municipal officials of the most modern type. but there is one condition of affairs which dickens would certainly have detested and denounced, and that is the condition in which we actually stand to-day. at this moment it is vain to discuss whether socialism will be a selling of men's liberty for bread. the men have already sold the liberty; only they have not yet got the bread. a most incessant and exacting interference with the poor is already in operation; they are already ruled like slaves, only they are not fed like slaves. the children are forcibly provided with a school; only they are not provided with a house. officials give the most detailed domestic directions about the fireguard; only they do not give the fireguard. officials bring round the most stringent directions about the milk; only they do not bring round the milk. the situation is perhaps the most humorous in the whole history of oppression. we force the nigger to dig; but as a concession to him we do not give him a spade. we compel sambo to cook; but we consult his dignity so far as to refuse him a fire. this state of things at least cannot conceivably endure. we must either give the workers more property and liberty, or we must feed them properly as we work them properly. if we insist on sending the menu into them, they will naturally send the bill into us. this may possibly result (it is not my purpose here to prove that it will) in the drilling of the english people into hordes of humanely herded serfs; and this again may mean the fading from our consciousness of all those elves and giants, monsters and fantastics whom we are faintly beginning to feel and remember in the land. if this be so, the work of dickens may be considered as a great vision--a vision, as swinburne said, between a sleep and a sleep. it can be said that between the grey past of territorial depression and the grey future of economic routine the strange clouds lifted, and we beheld the land of the living. lastly, dickens is even astonishingly right about eugene wrayburne. so far from reproaching him with not understanding a gentleman, the critic will be astonished at the accuracy with which he has really observed the worth and the weakness of the aristocrat. he is quite right when he suggests that such a man has intelligence enough to despise the invitations which he has not the energy to refuse. he is quite right when he makes eugene (like mr. balfour) constantly right in argument even when he is obviously wrong in fact. dickens is quite right when he describes eugene as capable of cultivating a sort of secondary and false industry about anything that is not profitable; or pursuing with passion anything that is not his business. he is quite right in making eugene honestly appreciative of essential goodness--in other people. he is quite right in making him really good at the graceful combination of satire and sentiment, both perfectly sincere. he is also right in indicating that the only cure for this intellectual condition is a violent blow on the head. david copperfield the real achievement of the earlier part of _david copperfield_ lies in a certain impression of the little copperfield living in a land of giants. it is at once gargantuan in its fancy and grossly vivid in its facts; like gulliver in the land of brobdingnag when he describes mountainous hands and faces filling the sky, bristles as big as hedges, or moles as big as molehills. to him parents and guardians are not olympians (as in mr. kenneth grahame's clever book), mysterious and dignified, dwelling upon a cloudy hill. rather they are all the more visible for being large. they come all the closer because they are colossal. their queer features and weaknesses stand out large in a sort of gigantic domesticity, like the hairs and freckles of a brobdingnagian. we feel the sombre murdstone coming upon the house like a tall storm striding through the sky. we watch every pucker of peggotty's peasant face in its moods of flinty prejudice or whimsical hesitation. we look up and feel that aunt betsey in her garden gloves was really terrible--especially her garden gloves. but one cannot avoid the impression that as the boy grows larger these figures grow smaller, and are not perhaps so completely satisfactory. christmas books and there is doubtless a certain poetic unity and irony in gathering together three or four of the crudest and most cocksure of the modern theorists, with their shrill voices and metallic virtues, under the fulness and the sonorous sanity of christian bells. but the figures satirised in _the chimes_ cross each other's path and spoil each other in some degree. the main purpose of the book was a protest against that impudent and hard-hearted utilitarianism which arranges the people only in rows of men or even in rows of figures. it is a flaming denunciation of that strange mathematical morality which was twisted often unfairly out of bentham and mill: a morality by which each citizen must regard himself as a fraction, and a very vulgar fraction. though the particular form of this insolent patronage has changed, this revolt and rebuke is still of value, and may be wholesome for those who are teaching the poor to be provident. doubtless it is a good idea to be provident, in the sense that providence is provident, but that should mean being kind, and certainly not merely being cold. _the cricket on the hearth_, though popular, i think, with many sections of the great army of dickensians, cannot be spoken of in any such abstract or serious terms. it is a brief domestic glimpse; it is an interior. it must be remembered that dickens was fond of interiors as such; he was like a romantic tramp who should go from window to window looking in at the parlours. he had that solid, indescribable delight in the mere solidity and neatness of funny little humanity in its funny little houses, like doll's houses. to him every house was a box, a christmas box, in which a dancing human doll was tied up in bricks and slates instead of string and brown paper. he went from one gleaming window to another, looking in at the lamp-lit parlours. thus he stood for a little while looking in at this cosy if commonplace interior of the carrier and his wife; but he did not stand there very long. he was on his way to quainter towns and villages. already the plants were sprouting upon the balcony of miss tox; and the great wind was rising that flung mr. pecksniff against his own front door. tale of two cities it was well for him, at any rate, that the people rose in france. it was well for him, at any rate, that the guillotine was set up in the place de la concorde. unconsciously, but not accidentally, dickens was here working out the whole true comparison between swift revolutionism in paris and slow evolutionism in london. sidney carton is one of those sublime ascetics whose head offends them, and who cut it off. for him at least it was better that the blood should flow in paris than that the wine should flow any longer in london. and if i say that even now the guillotine might be the best cure for many a london lawyer, i ask you to believe that i am not merely flippant. but you will not believe it. barnaby rudge it may be said that there is no comparison between that explosive opening of the intellect in paris and an antiquated madman leading a knot of provincial protestants. the man of the hill, says victor hugo somewhere, fights for an idea; the man of the forest for a prejudice. nevertheless it remains true that the enemies of the red cap long attempted to represent it as a sham decoration in the style of sim tappertit. long after the revolutionists had shown more than the qualities of men, it was common among lords and lacqueys to attribute to them the stagey and piratical pretentiousness of urchins. the kings called napoleon's pistol a toy pistol even while it was holding up their coach and mastering their money or their lives; they called his sword a stage sword even while they ran away from it. something of the same senile inconsistency can be found in an english and american habit common until recently: that of painting the south americans at once as ruffians wading in carnage, and also as poltroons playing at war. they blame them first for the cruelty of having a fight; and then for the weakness of having a sham fight. such, however, since the french revolution and before it, has been the fatuous attitude of certain anglo-saxons towards the whole revolutionary tradition. sim tappertit was a sort of answer to everything; and the young men were mocked as 'prentices long after they were masters. the rising fortune of the south american republics to-day is symbolical and even menacing of many things; and it may be that the romance of riot will not be so much extinguished as extended; and nearer home we may have boys being boys again, and in london the cry of "clubs." the uncommercial traveller _the uncommercial traveller_ is a collection of dickens's memories rather than of his literary purposes; but it is due to him to say that memory is often more startling in him than prophecy in anybody else. they have the character which belongs to all his vivid incidental writing: that they attach themselves always to some text which is a fact rather than an idea. he was one of those sons of eve who are fonder of the tree of life than of the tree of knowledge--even of the knowledge of good and of evil. he was in this profoundest sense a realist. critics have talked of an artist with his eye on the object. dickens as an essayist always had his eye on an object before he had the faintest notion of a subject. all these works of his can best be considered as letters; they are notes of personal travel, scribbles in a diary about this or that that really happened. but dickens was one of the few men who have the two talents that are the whole of literature--and have them both together. first, he could make a thing happen over again; and second, he could make it happen better. he can be called exaggerative; but mere exaggeration conveys nothing of his typical talent. mere whirlwinds of words, mere melodramas of earth and heaven do not affect us as dickens affects us, because they are exaggerations of nothing. if asked for an exaggeration of something, their inventors would be entirely dumb. they would not know how to exaggerate a broom-stick; for the life of them they could not exaggerate a tenpenny nail. dickens always began with the nail or the broom-stick. he always began with a fact even when he was most fanciful; and even when he drew the long bow he was careful to hit the white. this riotous realism of dickens has its disadvantage--a disadvantage that comes out more clearly in these casual sketches than in his constructed romances. one grave defect in his greatness is that he was altogether too indifferent to theories. on large matters he went right by the very largeness of his mind; but in small matters he suffered from the lack of any logical test and ready reckoner. hence his comment upon the details of civilisation or reform are sometimes apt to be jerky and jarring, and even grossly inconsistent. so long as a thing was heroic enough to admire, dickens admired it; whenever it was absurd enough to laugh at he laughed at it: so far he was on sure ground. but about all the small human projects that lie between the extremes of the sublime and the ridiculous, his criticism was apt to have an accidental quality. as matthew arnold said of the remarks of the young man from the country about the perambulator, they are felt not to be at the heart of the situation. on a great many occasions the uncommercial traveller seems, like other hasty travellers, to be criticising elements and institutions which he has quite inadequately understood; and once or twice the uncommercial traveller might almost as well be a commercial traveller for all he knows of the countryside. an instance of what i mean may be found in the amusing article about the nightmares of the nursery. superficially read it might almost be taken to mean that dickens disapproved of ghost stories--disapproved of that old and genial horror which nurses can hardly supply fast enough for the children who want it. dickens, one would have thought, should have been the last man in the world to object to horrible stories, having himself written some of the most horrible that exist in the world. the author of the madman's manuscript, of the disease of monk and the death of krook, cannot be considered fastidious in the matter of revolting realism or of revolting mysticism. if artistic horror is to be kept from the young, it is at least as necessary to keep little boys from reading _pickwick_ or _bleak house_ as to refrain from telling them the story of captain murderer or the terrible tale of chips. if there was something appalling in the rhyme of chips and pips and ships, it was nothing compared to that infernal refrain of "mudstains, bloodstains" which dickens himself, in one of his highest moments of hellish art, put into _oliver twist_. i take this one instance of the excellent article called "nurse's stories" because it is quite typical of all the rest. dickens (accused of superficiality by those who cannot grasp that there is foam upon deep seas) was really deep about human beings; that is, he was original and creative about them. but about ideas he did tend to be a little superficial. he judged them by whether they hit him, and not by what they were trying to hit. thus in this book the great wizard of the christmas ghosts seems almost the enemy of ghost stories; thus the almost melodramatic moralist who created ralph nickleby and jonas chuzzlewit cannot see the point in original sin; thus the great denouncer of official oppression in england may be found far too indulgent to the basest aspects of the modern police. his theories were less important than his creations, because he was a man of genius. but he himself thought his theories the more important, because he was a man. sketches by boz the greatest mystery about almost any great writer is why he was ever allowed to write at all. the first efforts of eminent men are always imitations; and very often they are bad imitations. the only question is whether the publisher had (as his name would seem to imply) some subconscious connection or sympathy with the public, and thus felt instinctively the presence of something that might ultimately tell; or whether the choice was merely a matter of chance and one dickens was chosen and another dickens left. the fact is almost unquestionable: most authors made their reputation by bad books and afterwards supported it by good ones. this is in some degree true even in the case of dickens. the public continued to call him "boz" long after the public had forgotten the _sketches by boz_. numberless writers of the time speak of "boz" as having written _martin chuzzlewit_ and "boz" as having written _david copperfield_. yet if they had gone back to the original book signed "boz" they might even have felt that it was vulgar and flippant. this is indeed the chief tragedy of publishers: that they may easily refuse at the same moment the wrong manuscript and the right man. it is easy to see of dickens now that he was the right man; but a man might have been very well excused if he had not realised that the _sketches_ was the right book. dickens, i say, is a case for this primary query: whether there was in the first work any clear sign of his higher creative spirit. but dickens is much less a case for this query than almost all the other great men of his period. the very earliest works of thackeray are much more unimpressive than those of dickens. nay, they are much more vulgar than those of dickens. and worst of all, they are much more numerous than those of dickens. thackeray came much nearer to being the ordinary literary failure than dickens ever came. read some of the earliest criticisms of mr. yellowplush or michael angelo titmarsh and you will realise that at the very beginning there was more potential clumsiness and silliness in thackeray than there ever was in dickens. nevertheless there was some potential clumsiness and silliness in dickens; and what there is of it appears here and there in the admirable _sketches by boz_. perhaps we may put the matter this way: this is the only one of dickens's works of which it is ordinarily necessary to know the date. to a close and delicate comprehension it is indeed very important that _nicholas nickleby_ was written at the beginning of dickens's life, and _our mutual friend_ towards the end of it. nevertheless anybody could understand or enjoy these books, whenever they were written. if _our mutual friend_ was written in the latin of the dark ages we should still want it translated. if we thought that _nicholas nickleby_ would not be written until thirty years hence we should all wait for it eagerly. the general impression produced by dickens's work is the same as that produced by miraculous visions; it is the destruction of time. thomas aquinas said that there was no time in the sight of god; however this may be, there was no time in the sight of dickens. as a general rule dickens can be read in any order; not only in any order of books, but even in any order of chapters. in an average dickens book every part is so amusing and alive that you can read the parts backwards; you can read the quarrel first and then the cause of the quarrel; you can fall in love with a woman in the tenth chapter and then turn back to the first chapter to find out who she is. this is not chaos; it is eternity. it means merely that dickens instinctively felt all his figures to be immortal souls who existed whether he wrote of them or not, and whether the reader read of them or not. there is a peculiar quality as of celestial pre-existence about the dickens characters. not only did they exist before we heard of them, they existed also before dickens heard of them. as a rule this unchangeable air in dickens deprives any discussion about date of its point. but as i have said, this is the one dickens work of which the date _is_ essential. it is really an important part of the criticism of this book to say that it is his first book. certain elements of clumsiness, of obviousness, of evident blunder, actually require the chronological explanation. it is biographically important that this is his first book, almost exactly in the same way that it is biographically important that _the mystery of edwin drood_ was his last book. change or no change, _edwin drood_ has this plain point of a last story about it: that it is not finished. but if the last book is unfinished, the first book is more unfinished still. the _sketches_ divide themselves, of course, into two broad classes. one half consists of sketches that are truly and in the strict sense sketches. that is, they are things that have no story and in their outline none of the character of creation; they are merely facts from the street or the tavern or the town hall, noted down as they occurred by an intelligence of quite exceptional vivacity. the second class consists of purely creative things: farces, romances, stories in any case with a non-natural perfection, or a poetical justice, to round them off. one class is admirably represented, for instance, by the sketch describing the charity dinner, the other by such a story as that of _horatio sparkins_. these things were almost certainly written by dickens at very various periods of his youth; and early as the harvest is, no doubt it is a harvest and had ripened during a reasonably long time. nevertheless it is with these two types of narrative that the young charles dickens first enters english literature; he enters it with a number of journalistic notes of such things as he has seen happen in streets or offices, and with a number of short stories which err on the side of the extravagant and even the superficial. journalism had not then, indeed, sunk to the low level which it has since reached. his sketches of dirty london would not have been dirty enough for the modern imperialist press. still these first efforts of his are journalism, and sometimes vulgar journalism. it was as a journalist that he attacked the world, as a journalist that he conquered it. the biographical circumstances will not, of course, be forgotten. the life of dickens had been a curious one. brought up in a family just poor enough to be painfully conscious of its prosperity and its respectability, he had been suddenly flung by a financial calamity into a social condition far below his own. for men on that exact edge of the educated class such a transition is really tragic. a duke may become a navvy for a joke, but a clerk cannot become a navvy for a joke. dickens's parents went to a debtors' prison; dickens himself went to a far more unpleasant place. the debtors' prison had about it at least that element of amiable compromise and kindly decay which belonged (and belongs still) to all the official institutions of england. but dickens was doomed to see the very blackest aspect of nineteenth-century england, something far blacker than any mere bad government. he went not to a prison but to a factory. in the musty traditionalism of the marshalsea old john dickens could easily remain optimistic. in the ferocious efficiency of the modern factory young charles dickens narrowly escaped being a pessimist. he did escape this danger; finally he even escaped the factory itself. his next step in life was, if possible, even more eccentric. he was sent to school; he was sent off like an innocent little boy in eton collars to learn the rudiments of latin grammar, without any reference to the fact that he had already taken his part in the horrible competition and actuality of the age of manufactures. it was like giving a sacked bank manager a satchel and sending him to a dame's school. nor was the third stage of this career unconnected with the oddity of the others. on leaving the school he was made a clerk in a lawyer's office, as if henceforward this child of ridiculous changes was to settle down into a silent assistant for a quiet solicitor. it was exactly at this moment that his fundamental rebellion began to seethe; it seethed more against the quiet finality of his legal occupation than it had seethed against the squalor and slavery of his days of poverty. there must have been in his mind, i think, a dim feeling: "did all my dark crises mean only this; was i crucified only that i might become a solicitor's clerk?" whatever be the truth about this conjecture there can be no question about the facts themselves. it was about this time that he began to burst and bubble over, to insist upon his own intellect, to claim a career. it was about this time that he put together a loose pile of papers, satires on institutions, pictures of private persons, fairy tales of the vulgarity of his world, odds and ends such as come out of the facility and the fierce vanity of youth. it was about this time at any rate that he decided to publish them, and gave them the name of _sketches by boz_. they must, i think, be read in the light of this youthful explosion. in some psychological sense he had really been wronged. but he had only become conscious of his wrongs as his wrongs had been gradually righted. similarly, it has often been found that a man who can patiently endure penal servitude through a judicial blunder will nevertheless, when once his cause is well asserted, quarrel about the amount of compensation or complain of small slights in his professional existence. these are the marks of the first literary action of dickens. it has in it all the peculiar hardness of youth; a hardness which in those who have in any way been unfairly treated reaches even to impudence. it is a terrible thing for any man to find out that his elders are wrong. and this almost unkindly courage of youth must partly be held responsible for the smartness of dickens, that almost offensive smartness which in these earlier books of his sometimes irritates us like the showy gibes in the tall talk of a school-boy. these first pages bear witness both to the energy of his genius and also to its unenlightenment; he seems more ignorant and more cocksure than so great a man should be. dickens was never stupid, but he was sometimes silly; and he is occasionally silly here. all this must be said to prepare the more fastidious modern for these papers, if he has never read them before. but when all this has been said there remains in them exactly what always remains in dickens when you have taken away everything that can be taken away by the most fastidious modern who ever dissected his grandmother. there remains that _primum mobile_ of which all the mystics have spoken: energy, the power to create. i will not call it "the will to live," for that is a priggish phrase of german professors. even german professors, i suppose, have the will to live. but dickens had exactly what german professors have not: he had the power to live. and indeed it is most valuable to have these early specimens of the dickens work if only because they are specimens of his spirit apart from his matured intelligence. it is well to be able to realise that contact with the dickens world is almost like a physical contact; it is like stepping suddenly into the hot smells of a greenhouse, or into the bleak smell of the sea. we know that we are there. let any one read, for instance, one of the foolish but amusing farces in dickens's first volume. let him read, for instance, such a story as that of _horatio sparkins_ or that of _the tuggses at ramsgate_. he will not find very much of that verbal felicity or fantastic irony that dickens afterwards developed; the incidents are upon the plain lines of the stock comedy of the day: sharpers who entrap simpletons, spinsters who angle for husbands, youths who try to look byronic and only look foolish. yet there is something in these stories which there is not in the ordinary stock comedies of that day: an indefinable flavour of emphasis and richness, a hint as of infinity of fun. doubtless, for instance, a million comic writers of that epoch had made game of the dark, romantic young man who pretended to abysses of philosophy and despair. and it is not easy to say exactly why we feel that the few metaphysical remarks of mr. horatio sparkins are in some way really much funnier than any of those old stock jokes. it is in a certain quality of deep enjoyment in the writer as well as the reader; as if the few words written had been dipped in dark nonsense and were, as it were, reeking with derision. "because if effect be the result of cause and cause be the precursor of effect," said mr. horatio sparkins, "i apprehend that you are wrong." nobody can get at the real secret of sentences like that; sentences which were afterwards strewed with reckless liberality over the conversation of dick swiveller or mr. mantalini, sim tappertit or mr. pecksniff. though the joke seems most superficial one has only to read it a certain number of times to see that it is most subtle. the joke does not lie in mr. sparkins merely using long words, any more than the joke lies merely in mr. swiveller drinking, or in mr. mantalini deceiving his wife. it is something in the arrangement of the words; something in a last inspired turn of absurdity given to a sentence. in spite of everything horatio sparkins is funny. we cannot tell why he is funny. when we know why he is funny we shall know why dickens is great. standing as we do here upon the threshold, as it were, of the work of dickens, it may be well perhaps to state this truth as being, after all, the most important one. this first work had, as i have said, the faults of first work and the special faults that arose from its author's accidental history; he was deprived of education, and therefore it was in some ways uneducated; he was confronted with the folly and failure of his natural superiors and guardians, and therefore it was in some ways pert and insolent. nevertheless the main fact about the work is worth stating here for any reader who should follow the chronological order and read the _sketches by boz_ before embarking on the stormy and splendid sea of _pickwick_. for the sea of _pickwick_, though splendid, does make some people seasick. the great point to be emphasised at such an initiation is this: that people, especially refined people, are not to judge of dickens by what they would call the coarseness or commonplaceness of his subject. it is quite true that his jokes are often on the same _subjects_ as the jokes in a halfpenny comic paper. only they happen to be good jokes. he does make jokes about drunkenness, jokes about mothers-in-law, jokes about henpecked husbands, jokes (which is much more really unpardonable) about spinsters, jokes about physical cowardice, jokes about fatness, jokes about sitting down on one's hat. he does make fun of all these things; and the reason is not very far to seek. he makes fun of all these things because all these things, or nearly all of them, are really very funny. but a large number of those who might otherwise read and enjoy dickens are undoubtedly "put off" (as the phrase goes) by the fact that he seems to be echoing a poor kind of claptrap in his choice of incidents and images. partly, of course, he suffers from the very fact of his success; his play with these topics was so good that every one else has played with them increasingly since; he may indeed have copied the old jokes, but he certainly renewed them. for instance, "ally sloper" was certainly copied from wilkins micawber. to this day you may see (in the front page of that fine periodical) the bald head and the high shirt collar that betray the high original from which "ally sloper" is derived. but exactly because "sloper" was stolen from micawber, for that very reason the new generation feels as if micawber were stolen from "sloper." many modern readers feel as if dickens were copying the comic papers, whereas in truth the comic papers are still copying dickens. dickens showed himself to be an original man by always accepting old and established topics. there is no clearer sign of the absence of originality among modern poets than their disposition to find new themes. really original poets write poems about the spring. they are always fresh, just as the spring is always fresh. men wholly without originality write poems about torture, or new religions, of some perversion of obscenity, hoping that the mere sting of the subject may speak for them. but we do not sufficiently realise that what is true of the classic ode is also true of the classic joke. a true poet writes about the spring being beautiful because (after a thousand springs) the spring really is beautiful. in the same way the true humourist writes about a man sitting down on his hat, because the act of sitting down on one's hat (however often and however admirably performed) really is extremely funny. we must not dismiss a new poet because his poem is called _to a skylark_; nor must we dismiss a humourist because his new farce is called _my mother-in-law_. he may really have splendid and inspiring things to say upon an eternal problem. the whole question is whether he has. now this is exactly where dickens, and the possible mistake about dickens, both come in. numbers of sensitive ladies, numbers of simple æsthetes, have had a vague shrinking from that element in dickens which begins vaguely in _the tuggses at ramsgate_ and culminates in _pickwick_. they have a vague shrinking from the mere subject matter; from the mere fact that so much of the fun is about drinking or fighting, or falling down, or eloping with old ladies. it is to these that the first appeal must be made upon the threshold of dickens criticism. let them really read the thing and really see whether the humour is the gross and half-witted jeering which they imagine it to be. it is exactly here that the whole genius of dickens is concerned. his subjects are indeed stock subjects; like the skylark of shelley, or the autumn of keats. but all the more because they are stock subjects the reader realises what a magician is at work. the notion of a clumsy fellow who falls off his horse is indeed a stock and stale subject. but mr. winkle is not a stock and stale subject. nor is his horse a stock and stale subject; it is as immortal as the horses of achilles. the notion of a fat old gentleman proud of his legs might easily be vulgar. but mr. pickwick proud of his legs is not vulgar; somehow we feel that they were legs to be proud of. and it is exactly this that we must look for in these _sketches_. we must not leap to any cheap fancy that they are low farces. rather we must see that they are not low farces; and see that nobody but dickens could have prevented them from being so. pickwick papers there are those who deny with enthusiasm the existence of a god and are happy in a hobby which they call the mistakes of moses. i have not studied their labours in detail, but it seems that the chief mistake of moses was that he neglected to write the pentateuch. the lesser errors, apparently, were not made by moses, but by another person equally unknown. these controversialists cover the very widest field, and their attacks upon scripture are varied to the point of wildness. they range from the proposition that the unexpurgated bible is almost as unfit for an american girls' school as is an unexpurgated shakespeare; they descend to the proposition that kissing the book is almost as hygienically dangerous as kissing the babies of the poor. a superficial critic might well imagine that there was not one single sentence left of the hebrew or christian scriptures which this school had not marked with some ingenious and uneducated comment. but there is one passage at least upon which they have never pounced, at least to my knowledge; and in pointing it out to them i feel that i am, or ought to be, providing material for quite a multitude of hyde park orations. i mean that singular arrangement in the mystical account of the creation by which light is created first and all the luminous bodies afterwards. one could not imagine a process more open to the elephantine logic of the bible-smasher than this: that the sun should be created after the sunlight. the conception that lies at the back of the phrase is indeed profoundly antagonistic to much of the modern point of view. to many modern people it would sound like saying that foliage existed before the first leaf; it would sound like saying that childhood existed before a baby was born. the idea is, as i have said, alien to most modern thought, and like many other ideas which are alien to most modern thought, it is a very subtle and a very sound idea. whatever be the meaning of the passage in the actual primeval poem, there is a very real metaphysical meaning in the idea that light existed before the sun and stars. it is not barbaric; it is rather platonic. the idea existed before any of the machinery which made manifest the idea. justice existed when there was no need of judges, and mercy existed before any man was oppressed. however this may be in the matter of religion and philosophy, it can be said with little exaggeration that this truth is the very key of literature. the whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists, as the mother can love the unborn child. in creative art the essence of a book exists before the book or before even the details or main features of the book; the author enjoys it and lives in it with a kind of prophetic rapture. he wishes to write a comic story before he has thought of a single comic incident. he desires to write a sad story before he has thought of anything sad. he knows the atmosphere before he knows anything. there is a low priggish maxim sometimes uttered by men so frivolous as to take humour seriously--a maxim that a man should not laugh at his own jokes. but the great artist not only laughs at his own jokes; he laughs at his own jokes before he has made them. in the case of a man really humorous we can see humour in his eye before he has thought of any amusing words at all. so the creative writer laughs at his comedy before he creates it, and he has tears for his tragedy before he knows what it is. when the symbols and the fulfilling facts do come to him, they come generally in a manner very fragmentary and inverted, mostly in irrational glimpses of crisis or consummation. the last page comes before the first; before his romance has begun, he knows that it has ended well. he sees the wedding before the wooing; he sees the death before the duel. but most of all he sees the colour and character of the whole story prior to any possible events in it. this is the real argument for art and style, only that the artists and the stylists have not the sense to use it. in one very real sense style is far more important than either character or narrative. for a man knows what style of book he wants to write when he knows nothing else about it. _pickwick_ is in dickens's career the mere mass of light before the creation of sun or moon. it is the splendid, shapeless substance of which all his stars were ultimately made. you might split up _pickwick_ into innumerable novels as you could split up that primeval light into innumerable solar systems. the _pickwick papers_ constitute first and foremost a kind of wild promise, a pre-natal vision of all the children of dickens. he had not yet settled down into the plain, professional habit of picking out a plot and characters, of attending to one thing at a time, of writing a separate, sensible novel and sending it off to his publishers. he is still in the youthful whirl of the kind of world that he would like to create. he has not yet really settled what story he will write, but only what sort of story he will write. he tries to tell ten stories at once; he pours into the pot all the chaotic fancies and crude experiences of his boyhood; he sticks in irrelevant short stories shamelessly, as into a scrap-book; he adopts designs and abandons them, begins episodes and leaves them unfinished; but from the first page to the last there is a nameless and elemental ecstasy--that of the man who is doing the kind of thing that he can do. dickens, like every other honest and effective writer, came at last to some degree of care and self-restraint. he learned how to make his _dramatis personæ_ assist his drama; he learned how to write stories which were full of rambling and perversity, but which were stories. but before he wrote a single real story, he had a kind of vision. it was a vision of the dickens world--a maze of white roads, a map full of fantastic towns, thundering coaches, clamorous market-places, uproarious inns, strange and swaggering figures. that vision was _pickwick_. it must be remembered that this is true even in connection with the man's contemporaneous biography. apart from anything else about it, _pickwick_ was his first great chance. it was a big commission given in some sense to an untried man, that he might show what he could do. it was in a strict sense a sample. and just as a sample of leather can be only a piece of leather, or a sample of coal a lump of coal, so this book may most properly be regarded as simply a lump of dickens. he was anxious to show all that was in him. he was more concerned to prove that he could write well than to prove that he could write this particular book well. and he did prove this, at any rate. no one ever sent such a sample as the sample of dickens. his roll of leather blocked up the street; his lump of coal set the thames on fire. the book originated in the suggestion of a publisher; as many more good books have done than the arrogance of the man of letters is commonly inclined to admit. very much is said in our time about apollo and admetus, and the impossibility of asking genius to work within prescribed limits or assist an alien design. but after all, as a matter of fact, some of the greatest geniuses have done it, from shakespeare botching up bad comedies and dramatising bad novels down to dickens writing a masterpiece as the mere framework for a mr. seymour's sketches. nor is the true explanation irrelevant to the spirit and power of dickens. very delicate, slender, and _bizarre_ talents are indeed incapable of being used for an outside purpose, whether of public good or of private gain. but about very great and rich talent there goes a certain disdainful generosity which can turn its hand to anything. minor poets cannot write to order; but very great poets can write to order. the larger the man's mind, the wider his scope of vision, the more likely it will be that anything suggested to him will seem significant and promising; the more he has a grasp of everything the more ready he will be to write anything. it is very hard (if that is the question) to throw a brick at a man and ask him to write an epic; but the more he is a great man the more able he will be to write about the brick. it is very unjust (if that is all) to point to a hoarding of colman's mustard and demand a flood of philosophical eloquence; but the greater the man is the more likely he will be to give it to you. so it was proved, not for the first time, in this great experiment of the early employment of dickens. messrs. chapman and hall came to him with a scheme for a string of sporting stories to serve as the context, and one might almost say the excuse, for a string of sketches by seymour, the sporting artist. dickens made some modifications in the plan, but he adopted its main feature; and its main feature was mr. winkle. to think of what mr. winkle might have been in the hands of a dull _farceur_, and then to think of what he is, is to experience the feeling that dickens made a man out of rags and refuse. dickens was to work splendidly and successfully in many fields, and to send forth many brilliant books and brave figures. he was destined to have the applause of continents like a statesman, and to dictate to his publishers like a despot; but perhaps he never worked again so supremely well as here, where he worked in chains. it may well be questioned whether his one hack book is not his masterpiece. of course it is true that as he went on his independence increased, and he kicked quite free of the influences that had suggested his story. so shakespeare declared his independence of the original chronicle of hamlet, prince of denmark, eliminating altogether (with some wisdom) another uncle called wiglerus. at the start the nimrod club of chapman and hall may have even had equal chances with the pickwick club of young mr. dickens; but the pickwick club became something much better than any publisher had dared to dream of. some of the old links were indeed severed by accident or extraneous trouble; seymour, for whose sake the whole had perhaps been planned, blew his brains out before he had drawn ten pictures. but such things were trifles compared to _pickwick_ itself. it mattered little now whether seymour blew his brains out, so long as charles dickens blew his brains in. the work became systematically and progressively more powerful and masterly. many critics have commented on the somewhat discordant and inartistic change between the earlier part of _pickwick_ and the later; they have pointed out, not without good sense, that the character of mr. pickwick changes from that of a silly buffoon to that of a solid merchant. but the case, if these critics had noticed it, is much stronger in the minor characters of the great company. mr. winkle, who has been an idiot (even, perhaps, as mr. pickwick says, "an impostor"), suddenly becomes a romantic and even reckless lover, scaling a forbidden wall and planning a bold elopement. mr. snodgrass, who has behaved in a ridiculous manner in all serious positions, suddenly finds himself in a ridiculous position--that of a gentleman surprised in a secret love affair--and behaves in a manner perfectly manly, serious, and honourable. mr. tupman alone has no serious emotional development, and for this reason it is, presumably, that we hear less and less of mr. tupman towards the end of the book. dickens has by this time got into a thoroughly serious mood--a mood expressed indeed by extravagant incidents, but none the less serious for that; and into this winkle and snodgrass, in the character of romantic lovers, could be made to fit. mr. tupman had to be left out of the love affairs; therefore mr. tupman is left out of the book. much of the change was due to the entrance of the greatest character in the story. it may seem strange at the first glance to say that sam weller helped to make the story serious. nevertheless, this is strictly true. the introduction of sam weller had, to begin with, some merely accidental and superficial effects. when samuel weller had appeared, samuel pickwick was no longer the chief farcical character. weller became the joker and pickwick in some sense the butt of his jokes. thus it was obvious that the more simple, solemn, and really respectable this butt could be made the better. mr. pickwick had been the figure capering before the footlights. but with the advent of sam, mr. pickwick had become a sort of black background and had to behave as such. but this explanation, though true as far as it goes, is a mean and unsatisfactory one, leaving the great elements unexplained. for a much deeper and more righteous reason sam weller introduces the more serious tone of pickwick. he introduces it because he introduces something which it was the chief business of dickens to preach throughout his life--something which he never preached so well as when he preached it unconsciously. sam weller introduces the english people. sam weller is the great symbol in english literature of the populace peculiar to england. his incessant stream of sane nonsense is a wonderful achievement of dickens: but it is no great falsification of the incessant stream of sane nonsense as it really exists among the english poor. the english poor live in an atmosphere of humour; they think in humour. irony is the very air that they breathe. a joke comes suddenly from time to time into the head of a politician or a gentleman, and then as a rule he makes the most of it; but when a serious word comes into the mind of a coster it is almost as startling as a joke. the word "chaff" was, i suppose, originally applied to badinage to express its barren and unsustaining character; but to the english poor chaff is as sustaining as grain. the phrase that leaps to their lips is the ironical phrase. i remember once being driven in a hansom cab down a street that turned out to be a _cul de sac_, and brought us bang up against a wall. the driver and i simultaneously said something. but i said: "this'll never do!" and he said: "this is all right!" even in the act of pulling back his horse's nose from a brick wall, that confirmed satirist thought in terms of his highly-trained and traditional satire; while i, belonging to a duller and simpler class, expressed my feelings in words as innocent and literal as those of a rustic or a child. this eternal output of divine derision has never been so truly typified as by the character of sam; he is a grotesque fountain which gushes the living waters for ever. dickens is accused of exaggeration and he is often guilty of exaggeration; but here he does not exaggerate: he merely symbolises and sublimates like any other great artist. sam weller does not exaggerate the wit of the london street arab one atom more than colonel newcome, let us say, exaggerates the stateliness of an ordinary soldier and gentleman, or than mr. collins exaggerates the fatuity of a certain kind of country clergyman. and this breath from the boisterous brotherhood of the poor lent a special seriousness and smell of reality to the whole story. the unconscious follies of winkle and tupman are blown away like leaves before the solid and conscious folly of sam weller. moreover, the relations between pickwick and his servant sam are in some ways new and valuable in literature. many comic writers had described the clever rascal and his ridiculous dupe; but here, in a fresh and very human atmosphere, we have a clever servant who was not a rascal and a dupe who was not ridiculous. sam weller stands in some ways for a cheerful knowledge of the world; mr. pickwick stands for a still more cheerful ignorance of the world. and dickens responded to a profound human sentiment (the sentiment that has made saints and the sanctity of children) when he made the gentler and less-travelled type--the type which moderates and controls. knowledge and innocence are both excellent things, and they are both very funny. but it is right that knowledge should be the servant and innocence the master. the sincerity of this study of sam weller has produced one particular effect in the book which i wonder that critics of dickens have never noticed or discussed. because it has no dickens "pathos," certain parts of it are truly pathetic. dickens, realising rightly that the whole tone of the book was fun, felt that he ought to keep out of it any great experiments in sadness and keep within limits those that he put in. he used this restraint in order not to spoil the humour; but (if he had known himself better) he might well have used it in order not to spoil the pathos. this is the one book in which dickens was, as it were, forced to trample down his tender feelings; and for that very reason it is the one book where all the tenderness there is is quite unquestionably true. an admirable example of what i mean may be found in the scene in which sam weller goes down to see his bereaved father after the death of his step-mother. the most loyal admirer of dickens can hardly prevent himself from giving a slight shudder when he thinks of what dickens might have made of that scene in some of his more expansive and maudlin moments. for all i know old mrs. weller might have asked what the wild waves were saying; and for all i know old mr. weller might have told her. as it is, dickens, being forced to keep the tale taut and humorous, gives a picture of humble respect and decency which is manly, dignified, and really sad. there is no attempt made by these simple and honest men, the father and son, to pretend that the dead woman was anything greatly other than she was; their respect is for death, and for the human weakness and mystery which it must finally cover. old tony weller does not tell his shrewish wife that she is already a white-winged angel; he speaks to her with an admirable good nature and good sense: "'susan,' i says, 'you've been a wery good vife to me altogether: keep a good heart, my dear, and you'll live to see me punch that 'ere stiggins's 'ead yet.' she smiled at this, samivel ... but she died arter all." that is perhaps the first and the last time that dickens ever touched the extreme dignity of pathos. he is restraining his compassion, and afterwards he let it go. now laughter is a thing that can be let go; laughter has in it a quality of liberty. but sorrow has in it by its very nature a quality of confinement; pathos by its very nature fights with itself. humour is expansive; it bursts outwards; the fact is attested by the common expression, "holding one's sides." but sorrow is not expansive; and it was afterwards the mistake of dickens that he tried to make it expansive. it is the one great weakness of dickens as a great writer, that he did try to make that sudden sadness, that abrupt pity, which we call pathos, a thing quite obvious, infectious, public, as if it were journalism or the measles. it is pleasant to think that in this supreme masterpiece, done in the dawn of his career, there is not even this faint fleck upon the sun of his just splendour. pickwick will always be remembered as the great example of everything that made dickens great; of the solemn conviviality of great friendships, of the erratic adventures of old english roads, of the hospitality of old english inns, of the great fundamental kindliness and honour of old english manners. first of all, however, it will always be remembered for its laughter, or, if you will, for its folly. a good joke is the one ultimate and sacred thing which cannot be criticised. our relations with a good joke are direct and even divine relations. we speak of "seeing" a joke just as we speak of "seeing" a ghost or a vision. if we have seen it, it is futile to argue with us; and we have seen the vision of _pickwick_. _pickwick_ may be the top of dickens's humour; i think upon the whole it is. but the broad humour of _pickwick_ he broadened over many wonderful kingdoms; the narrow pathos of _pickwick_ he never found again. nicholas nickleby romance is perhaps the highest point of human expression, except indeed religion, to which it is closely allied. romance resembles religion especially in this, that it is not only a simplification but a shortening of existence. both romance and religion see everything as it were foreshortened; they see everything in an abrupt and fantastic perspective, coming to an apex. it is the whole essence of perspective that it comes to a point. similarly, religion comes to a point--to the point. thus religion is always insisting on the shortness of human life. but it does not insist on the shortness of human life as the pessimists insist on it. pessimism insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is valueless. religion insists on the shortness of human life in order to show that life is frightfully valuable--is almost horribly valuable. pessimism says that life is so short that it gives nobody a chance; religion says that life is so short that it gives everybody his final chance. in the first case the word brevity means futility; in the second case, opportunity. but the case is even stronger than this. religion shortens everything. religion shortens even eternity. where science, submitting to the false standard of time, sees evolution, which is slow, religion sees creation, which is sudden. philosophically speaking, the process is neither slow nor quick since we have nothing to compare it with. religion prefers to think of it as quick. for religion the flowers shoot up suddenly like rockets. for religion the mountains are lifted up suddenly like waves. those who quote that fine passage which says that in god's sight a thousand years are as yesterday that is passed as a watch in the night, do not realise the full force of the meaning. to god a thousand years are not only a watch but an exciting watch. for god time goes at a gallop, as it does to a man reading a good tale. all this is, in a humble manner, true for romance. romance is a shortening and sharpening of the human difficulty. where you and i have to vote against a man, or write (rather feebly) against a man, or sign illegible petitions against a man, romance does for him what we should really like to see done. it knocks him down; it shortens the slow process of historical justice. all romances consist of three characters. other characters may be introduced; but those other characters are certainly mere scenery as far as the romance is concerned. they are bushes that wave rather excitedly; they are posts that stand up with a certain pride; they are correctly painted rocks that frown very correctly; but they are all landscape--they are all a background. in every pure romance there are three living and moving characters. for the sake of argument they may be called st. george and the dragon and the princess. in every romance there must be the twin elements of loving and fighting. in every romance there must be the three characters: there must be the princess, who is a thing to be loved; there must be the dragon, who is a thing to be fought; and there must be st. george, who is a thing that both loves and fights. there have been many symptoms of cynicism and decay in our modern civilisation. but of all the signs of modern feebleness, of lack of grasp on morals as they actually must be, there has been none quite so silly or so dangerous as this: that the philosophers of to-day have started to divide loving from fighting and to put them into opposite camps. there could be no worse sign than that a man, even nietzsche, can be found to say that we should go in for fighting instead of loving. there can be no worse sign than that a man, even tolstoi, can be found to tell us that we should go in for loving instead of fighting. the two things imply each other; they implied each other in the old romance and in the old religion, which were the two permanent things of humanity. you cannot love a thing without wanting to fight for it. you cannot fight without something to fight for. to love a thing without wishing to fight for it is not love at all; it is lust. it may be an airy, philosophical, and disinterested lust; it may be, so to speak, a virgin lust; but it is lust, because it is wholly self-indulgent and invites no attack. on the other hand, fighting for a thing without loving it is not even fighting; it can only be called a kind of horse-play that is occasionally fatal. wherever human nature is human and unspoilt by any special sophistry, there exists this natural kinship between war and wooing, and that natural kinship is called romance. it comes upon a man especially in the great hour of youth; and every man who has ever been young at all has felt, if only for a moment, this ultimate and poetic paradox. he knows that loving the world is the same thing as fighting the world. it was at the very moment when he offered to like everybody he also offered to hit everybody. to almost every man that can be called a man this especial moment of the romantic culmination has come. in the first resort the man wished to live a romance. in the second resort, in the last and worst resort, he was content to write one. now there is a certain moment when this element enters independently into the life of dickens. there is a particular time when we can see him suddenly realise that he wants to write a romance and nothing else. in reading his letters, in appreciating his character, this point emerges clearly enough. he was full of the afterglow of his marriage; he was still young and psychologically ignorant; above all, he was now, really for the first time, sure that he was going to be at least some kind of success. there is, i repeat, a certain point at which one feels that dickens will either begin to write romances or go off on something different altogether. this crucial point in his life is marked by _nicholas nickleby_. it must be remembered that before this issue of _nicholas nickleby_ his work, successful as it was, had not been such as to dedicate him seriously or irrevocably to the writing of novels. he had already written three books; and at least two of them are classed among the novels under his name. but if we look at the actual origin and formation of these books we see that they came from another source and were really designed upon another plan. the three books were, of course, the _sketches by boz_, _the pickwick papers_, and _oliver twist_. it is, i suppose, sufficiently well understood that the _sketches by boz_ are, as their name implies, only sketches. but surely it is quite equally clear that the _pickwick papers_ are, as their name implies, merely papers. nor is the case at all different in spirit and essence when we come to _oliver twist_. there is indeed a sort of romance in _oliver twist_, but it is such an uncommonly bad one that it can hardly be regarded as greatly interrupting the previous process; and if the reader chooses to pay very little attention to it, he cannot pay less attention to it than the author did. but in fact the case lies far deeper. _oliver twist_ is so much apart from the ordinary track of dickens, it is so gloomy, it is so much all in one atmosphere, that it can best be considered as an exception or a solitary excursus in his work. perhaps it can best be considered as the extension of one of his old sketches, of some sketch that happened to be about a visit to a workhouse or a gaol. in the _sketches by boz_ he might well have visited a workhouse where he saw bumble; in the _sketches by boz_ he might well have visited a prison where he saw fagin. we are still in the realm of sketches and sketchiness. _the pickwick papers_ may be called an extension of one of his bright sketches. _oliver twist_ may be called an extension of one of his gloomy ones. had he continued along this line all his books might very well have been note-books. it would be very easy to split up all his subsequent books into scraps and episodes, such as those which make up the _sketches by boz_. it would be easy enough for dickens, instead of publishing _nicholas nickleby_, to have published a book of sketches, one of which was called "a yorkshire school," another called "a provincial theatre," and another called "sir mulberry hawk or high life revealed," another called "mrs. nickleby or a lady's monologue." it would have been very easy to have thrown over the rather chaotic plan of the _old curiosity shop_. he might have merely written short stories called "the glorious apollos," "mrs. quilp's tea-party," "mrs. jarley's waxwork," "the little servant," and "the death of a dwarf." _martin chuzzlewit_ might have been twenty stories instead of one story. _dombey and son_ might have been twenty stories instead of one story. we might have lost all dickens's novels; we might have lost altogether dickens the novelist. we might have lost that steady love of a seminal and growing romance which grew on him steadily as the years advanced, and which gave us towards the end some of his greatest triumphs. all his books might have been _sketches by boz_. but he did turn away from this, and the turning-point is _nicholas nickleby_. everything has a supreme moment and is crucial; that is where our friends the evolutionists go wrong. i suppose that there is an instant of midsummer as there is an instant of midnight. if in the same way there is a supreme point of spring, _nicholas nickleby_ is the supreme point of dickens's spring. i do not mean that it is the best book that he wrote in his youth. _pickwick_ is a better book. i do not mean that it contains more striking characters than any of the other books in his youth. the _old curiosity shop_ contains at least two more striking characters. but i mean that this book coincided with his resolution to be a great novelist and his final belief that he could be one. henceforward his books are novels, very commonly bad novels. previously they have not really been novels at all. there are many indications of the change i mean. here is one, for instance, which is more or less final. _nicholas nickleby_ is dickens's first romantic novel because it is his first novel with a proper and dignified romantic hero; which means, of course, a somewhat chivalrous young donkey. the hero of _pickwick_ is an old man. the hero of _oliver twist_ is a child. even after _nicholas nickleby_ this non-romantic custom continued. the _old curiosity shop_ has no hero in particular. the hero of _barnaby rudge_ is a lunatic. but nicholas nickleby is a proper, formal, and ceremonial hero. he has no psychology; he has not even any particular character; but he is made deliberately a hero--young, poor, brave, unimpeachable, and ultimately triumphant. he is, in short, the hero. mr. vincent crummles had a colossal intellect; and i always have a fancy that under all his pomposity he saw things more keenly than he allowed others to see. the moment he saw nicholas nickleby, almost in rags and limping along the high road, he engaged him (you will remember) as first walking gentleman. he was right. nobody could possibly be more of a first walking gentleman than nicholas nickleby was. he was the first walking gentleman before he went on to the boards of mr. vincent crummles's theatre, and he remained the first walking gentleman after he had come off. now this romantic method involves a certain element of climax which to us appears crudity. nicholas nickleby, for instance, wanders through the world; he takes a situation as assistant to a yorkshire schoolmaster; he sees an act of tyranny of which he strongly disapproves; he cries out "stop!" in a voice that makes the rafters ring; he thrashes the schoolmaster within an inch of his life; he throws the schoolmaster away like an old cigar, and he goes away. the modern intellect is positively prostrated and flattened by this rapid and romantic way of righting wrongs. if a modern philanthropist came to dotheboys hall i fear he would not employ the simple, sacred, and truly christian solution of beating mr. squeers with a stick. i fancy he would petition the government to appoint a royal commission to inquire into mr. squeers. i think he would every now and then write letters to newspapers reminding people that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, there was a royal commission to inquire into mr. squeers. i agree that he might even go the length of calling a crowded meeting in st. james's hall on the subject of the best policy with regard to mr. squeers. at this meeting some very heated and daring speakers might even go the length of alluding sternly to mr. squeers. occasionally even hoarse voices from the back of the hall might ask (in vain) what was going to be done with mr. squeers. the royal commission would report about three years afterwards and would say that many things had happened which were certainly most regrettable; that mr. squeers was the victim of a bad system; that mrs. squeers was also the victim of a bad system; but that the man who sold squeers his cane had really acted with great indiscretion and ought to be spoken to kindly. something like this would be what, after four years, the royal commission would have said; but it would not matter in the least what the royal commission had said, for by that time the philanthropists would be off on a new tack and the world would have forgotten all about dotheboys hall and everything connected with it. by that time the philanthropists would be petitioning parliament for another royal commission; perhaps a royal commission to inquire into whether mr. mantalini was extravagant with his wife's money; perhaps a commission to inquire into whether mr. vincent crummles kept the infant phenomenon short by means of gin. if we wish to understand the spirit and the period of _nicholas nickleby_ we must endeavour to comprehend and to appreciate the old more decisive remedies, or, if we prefer to put it so, the old more desperate remedies. our fathers had a plain sort of pity; if you will, a gross and coarse pity. they had their own sort of sentimentalism. they were quite willing to weep over smike. but it certainly never occurred to them to weep over squeers. even those who opposed the french war opposed it exactly in the same way as their enemies opposed the french soldiers. they fought with fighting. charles fox was full of horror at the bitterness and the useless bloodshed; but if any one had insulted him over the matter, he would have gone out and shot him in a duel as coolly as any of his contemporaries. all their interference was heroic interference. all their legislation was heroic legislation. all their remedies were heroic remedies. no doubt they were often narrow and often visionary. no doubt they often looked at a political formula when they should have looked at an elemental fact. no doubt they were pedantic in some of their principles and clumsy in some of their solutions. no doubt, in short, they were all very wrong; and no doubt we are the people, and wisdom shall die with us. but when they saw something which in their eyes, such as they were, really violated their morality, such as it was, then they did not cry "investigate!" they did not cry "educate!" they did not cry "improve!" they did not cry "evolve!" like nicholas nickleby they cried "stop!" and it did stop. this is the first mark of the purely romantic method: the swiftness and simplicity with which st. george kills the dragon. the second mark of it is exhibited here as one of the weaknesses of _nicholas nickleby_. i mean the tendency in the purely romantic story to regard the heroine merely as something to be won; to regard the princess solely as something to be saved from the dragon. the father of madeline bray is really a very respectable dragon. his selfishness is suggested with much more psychological tact and truth than that of any other of the villains that dickens described about this time. but his daughter is merely the young woman with whom nicholas is in love. we do not care a rap about madeline bray. personally i should have preferred cecilia bobster. here is one real point where the victorian romance falls below the elizabethan romantic drama. shakespeare always made his heroines heroic as well as his heroes. in dickens's actual literary career it is this romantic quality in _nicholas nickleby_ that is most important. it is his first definite attempt to write a young and chivalrous novel. in this sense the comic characters and the comic scenes are secondary; and indeed the comic characters and the comic scenes, admirable as they are, could never be considered as in themselves superior to such characters and such scenes in many of the other books. but in themselves how unforgettable they are. mr. crummles and the whole of his theatrical business is an admirable case of that first and most splendid quality in dickens--i mean the art of making something which in life we call pompous and dull, becoming in literature pompous and delightful. i have remarked before that nearly every one of the amusing characters of dickens is in reality a great fool. but i might go further. almost every one of his amusing characters is in reality a great bore. the very people that we fly to in dickens are the very people that we fly from in life. and there is more in crummles than the mere entertainment of his solemnity and his tedium. the enormous seriousness with which he takes his art is always an exact touch in regard to the unsuccessful artist. if an artist is successful, everything then depends upon a dilemma of his moral character. if he is a mean artist success will make him a society man. if he is a magnanimous artist, success will make him an ordinary man. but only as long as he is unsuccessful will he be an unfathomable and serious artist, like mr. crummles. dickens was always particularly good at expressing thus the treasures that belong to those who do not succeed in this world. there are vast prospects and splendid songs in the point of view of the typically unsuccessful man; if all the used-up actors and spoilt journalists and broken clerks could give a chorus, it would be a wonderful chorus in praise of the world. but these unsuccessful men commonly cannot even speak. dickens is the voice of them, and a very ringing voice; because he was perhaps the only one of these unsuccessful men that was ever successful. oliver twist in considering dickens, as we almost always must consider him, as a man of rich originality, we may possibly miss the forces from which he drew even his original energy. it is not well for man to be alone. we, in the modern world, are ready enough to admit that when it is applied to some problem of monasticism or of an ecstatic life. but we will not admit that our modern artistic claim to absolute originality is really a claim to absolute unsociability; a claim to absolute loneliness. the anarchist is at least as solitary as the ascetic. and the men of very vivid vigour in literature, the men such as dickens, have generally displayed a large sociability towards the society of letters, always expressed in the happy pursuit of pre-existent themes, sometimes expressed, as in the case of molière or sterne, in downright plagiarism. for even theft is a confession of our dependence on society. in dickens, however, this element of the original foundations on which he worked is quite especially difficult to determine. this is partly due to the fact that for the present reading public he is practically the only one of his long line that is read at all. he sums up smollett and goldsmith, but he also destroys them. this one giant, being closest to us, cuts off from our view even the giants that begat him. but much more is this difficulty due to the fact that dickens mixed up with the old material, materials so subtly modern, so made of the french revolution, that the whole is transformed. if we want the best example of this, the best example is _oliver twist_. relatively to the other works of dickens _oliver twist_ is not of great value, but it is of great importance. some parts of it are so crude and of so clumsy a melodrama, that one is almost tempted to say that dickens would have been greater without it. but even if he had been greater without it he would still have been incomplete without it. with the exception of some gorgeous passages, both of humour and horror, the interest of the book lies not so much in its revelation of dickens's literary genius as in its revelation of those moral, personal, and political instincts which were the make-up of his character and the permanent support of that literary genius. it is by far the most depressing of all his books; it is in some ways the most irritating; yet its ugliness gives the last touch of honesty to all that spontaneous and splendid output. without this one discordant note all his merriment might have seemed like levity. dickens had just appeared upon the stage and set the whole world laughing with his first great story _pickwick_. _oliver twist_ was his encore. it was the second opportunity given to him by those who had rolled about with laughter over tupman and jingle, weller and dowler. under such circumstances a stagey reciter will sometimes take care to give a pathetic piece after his humorous one; and with all his many moral merits, there was much that was stagey about dickens. but this explanation alone is altogether inadequate and unworthy. there was in dickens this other kind of energy, horrible, uncanny, barbaric, capable in another age of coarseness, greedy for the emblems of established ugliness, the coffin, the gibbet, the bones, the bloody knife. dickens liked these things and he was all the more of a man for liking them; especially he was all the more of a boy. we can all recall with pleasure the fact that miss petowker (afterwards mrs. lillyvick) was in the habit of reciting a poem called "the blood drinker's burial." i cannot express my regret that the words of this poem are not given; for dickens would have been quite as capable of writing "the blood drinker's burial" as miss petowker was of reciting it. this strain existed in dickens alongside of his happy laughter; both were allied to the same robust romance. here as elsewhere dickens is close to all the permanent human things. he is close to religion, which has never allowed the thousand devils on its churches to stop the dancing of its bells. he is allied to the people, to the real poor, who love nothing so much as to take a cheerful glass and to talk about funerals. the extremes of his gloom and gaiety are the mark of religion and democracy; they mark him off from the moderate happiness of philosophers, and from that stoicism which is the virtue and the creed of aristocrats. there is nothing odd in the fact that the same man who conceived the humane hospitalities of pickwick should also have imagined the inhuman laughter of fagin's den. they are both genuine and they are both exaggerated. and the whole human tradition has tied up together in a strange knot these strands of festivity and fear. it is over the cups of christmas eve that men have always competed in telling ghost stories. this first element was present in dickens, and it is very powerfully present in _oliver twist_. it had not been present with sufficient consistency or continuity in _pickwick_ to make it remain on the reader's memory at all, for the tale of "gabriel grubb" is grotesque rather than horrible, and the two gloomy stories of the "madman" and the "queer client" are so utterly irrelevant to the tale, that even if the reader remember them he probably does not remember that they occur in _pickwick_. critics have complained of shakespeare and others for putting comic episodes into a tragedy. it required a man with the courage and coarseness of dickens actually to put tragic episodes into a farce. but they are not caught up into the story at all. in _oliver twist_, however, the thing broke out with an almost brutal inspiration, and those who had fallen in love with dickens for his generous buffoonery may very likely have been startled at receiving such very different fare at the next helping. when you have bought a man's book because you like his writing about mr. wardle's punch-bowl and mr. winkle's skates, it may very well be surprising to open it and read about the sickening thuds that beat out the life of nancy, or that mysterious villain whose face was blasted with disease. as a nightmare, the work is really admirable. characters which are not very clearly conceived as regards their own psychology are yet, at certain moments, managed so as to shake to its foundations our own psychology. bill sikes is not exactly a real man, but for all that he is a real murderer. nancy is not really impressive as a living woman; but (as the phrase goes) she makes a lovely corpse. something quite childish and eternal in us, something which is shocked with the mere simplicity of death, quivers when we read of those repeated blows or see sikes cursing the tell-tale cur who will follow his bloody foot-prints. and this strange, sublime, vulgar melodrama, which is melodrama and yet is painfully real, reaches its hideous height in that fine scene of the death of sikes, the besieged house, the boy screaming within, the crowd screaming without, the murderer turned almost a maniac and dragging his victim uselessly up and down the room, the escape over the roof, the rope swiftly running taut, and death sudden, startling and symbolic; a man hanged. there is in this and similar scenes something of the quality of hogarth and many other english moralists of the early eighteenth century. it is not easy to define this hogarthian quality in words, beyond saying that it is a sort of alphabetical realism, like the cruel candour of children. but it has about it these two special principles which separate it from all that we call realism in our time. first, that with us a moral story means a story about moral people; with them a moral story meant more often a story about immoral people. second, that with us realism is always associated with some subtle view of morals; with them realism was always associated with some simple view of morals. the end of bill sikes exactly in the way that the law would have killed him--this is a hogarthian incident; it carries on that tradition of startling and shocking platitude. all this element in the book was a sincere thing in the author, but none the less it came from old soils, from the graveyard and the gallows, and the lane where the ghost walked. dickens was always attracted to such things, and (as forster says with inimitable simplicity) "but for his strong sense might have fallen into the follies of spiritualism." as a matter of fact, like most of the men of strong sense in his tradition, dickens was left with a half belief in spirits which became in practice a belief in bad spirits. the great disadvantage of those who have too much strong sense to believe in supernaturalism is that they keep last the low and little forms of the supernatural, such as omens, curses, spectres, and retributions, but find a high and happy supernaturalism quite incredible. thus the puritans denied the sacraments, but went on burning witches. this shadow does rest, to some extent, upon the rational english writers like dickens; supernaturalism was dying, but its ugliest roots died last. dickens would have found it easier to believe in a ghost than in a vision of the virgin with angels. there, for good or evil, however, was the root of the old _diablerie_ in dickens, and there it is in _oliver twist_. but this was only the first of the new dickens elements, which must have surprised those dickensians who eagerly bought his second book. the second of the new dickens elements is equally indisputable and separate. it swelled afterwards to enormous proportions in dickens's work; but it really has its rise here. again, as in the case of the element of _diablerie_, it would be possible to make technical exceptions in favour of _pickwick_. just as there were quite inappropriate scraps of the gruesome element in _pickwick_, so there are quite inappropriate allusions to this other topic in _pickwick_. but nobody by merely reading _pickwick_ would even remember this topic; no one by merely reading _pickwick_ would know what this topic is; this third great subject of dickens; this second great subject of the dickens of _oliver twist_. this subject is social oppression. it is surely fair to say that no one could have gathered from _pickwick_ how this question boiled in the blood of the author of _pickwick_. there are, indeed, passages, particularly in connection with mr. pickwick in the debtor's prison, which prove to us, looking back on a whole public career, that dickens had been from the beginning bitter and inquisitive about the problem of our civilisation. no one could have imagined at the time that this bitterness ran in an unbroken river under all the surges of that superb gaiety and exuberance. with _oliver twist_ this sterner side of dickens was suddenly revealed. for the very first pages of _oliver twist_ are stern even when they are funny. they amuse, but they cannot be enjoyed, as can the passages about the follies of mr. snodgrass or the humiliations of mr. winkle. the difference between the old easy humour and this new harsh humour is a difference not of degree but of kind. dickens makes game of mr. bumble because he wants to kill mr. bumble; he made game of mr. winkle because he wanted him to live for ever. dickens has taken the sword in hand; against what is he declaring war? it is just here that the greatness of dickens comes in; it is just here that the difference lies between the pedant and the poet. dickens enters the social and political war, and the first stroke he deals is not only significant but even startling. fully to see this we must appreciate the national situation. it was an age of reform, and even of radical reform; the world was full of radicals and reformers; but only too many of them took the line of attacking everything and anything that was opposed to some particular theory among the many political theories that possessed the end of the eighteenth century. some had so much perfected the perfect theory of republicanism that they almost lay awake at night because queen victoria had a crown on her head. others were so certain that mankind had hitherto been merely strangled in the bonds of the state that they saw truth only in the destruction of tariffs or of by-laws. the greater part of that generation held that clearness, economy, and a hard common-sense, would soon destroy the errors that had been erected by the superstitions and sentimentalities of the past. in pursuance of this idea many of the new men of the new century, quite confident that they were invigorating the new age, sought to destroy the old sentimental clericalism, the old sentimental feudalism, the old-world belief in priests, the old-world belief in patrons, and among other things the old-world belief in beggars. they sought among other things to clear away the old visionary kindliness on the subject of vagrants. hence those reformers enacted not only a new reform bill but also a new poor law. in creating many other modern things they created the modern workhouse, and when dickens came out to fight it was the first thing that he broke with his battle-axe. this is where dickens's social revolt is of more value than mere politics and avoids the vulgarity of the novel with a purpose. his revolt is not a revolt of the commercialist against the feudalist, of the nonconformist against the churchman, of the free-trader against the protectionist, of the liberal against the tory. if he were among us now his revolt would not be the revolt of the socialist against the individualist, or of the anarchist against the socialist. his revolt was simply and solely the eternal revolt; it was the revolt of the weak against the strong. he did not dislike this or that argument for oppression; he disliked oppression. he disliked a certain look on the face of a man when he looks down on another man. and that look on the face is, indeed, the only thing in the world that we have really to fight between here and the fires of hell. that which pedants of that time and this time would have called the sentimentalism of dickens was really simply the detached sanity of dickens. he cared nothing for the fugitive explanations of the constitutional conservatives; he cared nothing for the fugitive explanations of the manchester school. he would have cared quite as little for the fugitive explanations of the fabian society or of the modern scientific socialist. he saw that under many forms there was one fact, the tyranny of man over man; and he struck at it when he saw it, whether it was old or new. when he found that footmen and rustics were too much afraid of sir leicester dedlock, he attacked sir leicester dedlock; he did not care whether sir leicester dedlock said he was attacking england or whether mr. rouncewell, the ironmaster, said he was attacking an effete oligarchy. in that case he pleased mr. rouncewell, the iron-master, and displeased sir leicester dedlock, the aristocrat. but when he found that mr. rouncewell's workmen were much too frightened of mr. rouncewell, then he displeased mr. rouncewell in turn; he displeased mr. rouncewell very much by calling him mr. bounderby. when he imagined himself to be fighting old laws he gave a sort of vague and general approval to new laws. but when he came to the new laws they had a bad time. when dickens found that after a hundred economic arguments and granting a hundred economic considerations, the fact remained that paupers in modern workhouses were much too afraid of the beadle, just as vassals in ancient castles were much too afraid of the dedlocks, then he struck suddenly and at once. this is what makes the opening chapters of _oliver twist_ so curious and important. the very fact of dickens's distance from, and independence of, the elaborate financial arguments of his time, makes more definite and dazzling his sudden assertion that he sees the old human tyranny in front of him as plain as the sun at noon-day. dickens attacks the modern workhouse with a sort of inspired simplicity as of a boy in a fairy tale who had wandered about, sword in hand, looking for ogres and who had found an indisputable ogre. all the other people of his time are attacking things because they are bad economics or because they are bad politics, or because they are bad science; he alone is attacking things because they are bad. all the others are radicals with a large r; he alone is radical with a small one. he encounters evil with that beautiful surprise which, as it is the beginning of all real pleasure, is also the beginning of all righteous indignation. he enters the workhouse just as oliver twist enters it, as a little child. this is the real power and pathos of that celebrated passage in the book which has passed into a proverb; but which has not lost its terrible humour even in being hackneyed. i mean, of course, the everlasting quotation about oliver twist asking for more. the real poignancy that there is in this idea is a very good study in that strong school of social criticism which dickens represented. a modern realist describing the dreary workhouse would have made all the children utterly crushed, not daring to speak at all, not expecting anything, not hoping anything, past all possibility of affording even an ironical contrast or a protest of despair. a modern, in short, would have made all the boys in the workhouse pathetic by making them all pessimists. but oliver twist is not pathetic because he is a pessimist. oliver twist is pathetic because he is an optimist. the whole tragedy of that incident is in the fact that he does expect the universe to be kind to him, that he does believe that he is living in a just world. he comes before the guardians as the ragged peasants of the french revolution came before the kings and parliaments of europe. that is to say, he comes, indeed, with gloomy experiences, but he comes with a happy philosophy. he knows that there are wrongs of man to be reviled; but he believes also that there are rights of man to be demanded. it has often been remarked as a singular fact that the french poor, who stand in historic tradition as typical of all the desperate men who have dragged down tyranny, were, as a matter of fact, by no means worse off than the poor of many other european countries before the revolution. the truth is that the french were tragic because they were better off. the others had known the sorrowful experiences; but they alone had known the splendid expectation and the original claims. it was just here that dickens was so true a child of them and of that happy theory so bitterly applied. they were the one oppressed people that simply asked for justice; they were the one parish boy who innocently asked for more. old curiosity shop nothing is important except the fate of the soul; and literature is only redeemed from an utter triviality, surpassing that of naughts and crosses, by the fact that it describes not the world around us or the things on the retina of the eye or the enormous irrelevancy of encyclopædias, but some condition to which the human spirit can come. all good writers express the state of their souls, even (as occurs in some cases of very good writers) if it is a state of damnation. the first thing that has to be realised about dickens is this ultimate spiritual condition of the man, which lay behind all his creations. this dickens state of mind is difficult to pick out in words as are all elementary states of mind; they cannot be described, not because they are too subtle for words, but because they are too simple for words. perhaps the nearest approach to a statement of it would be this: that dickens expresses an eager anticipation of everything that will happen in the motley affairs of men; he looks at the quiet crowd waiting for it to be picturesque and to play the fool; he expects everything; he is torn with a happy hunger. thackeray is always looking back to yesterday; dickens is always looking forward to to-morrow. both are profoundly humorous, for there is a humour of the morning and a humour of the evening; but the first guesses at what it will get, at all the grotesqueness and variety which a day may bring forth; the second looks back on what the day has been and sees even its solemnities as slightly ironical. nothing can be too extravagant for the laughter that looks forward; and nothing can be too dignified for the laughter that looks back. it is an idle but obvious thing, which many must have noticed, that we often find in the title of one of an author's books what might very well stand for a general description of all of them. thus all spenser's works might be called _a hymn to heavenly beauty_; or all mr. bernard shaw's bound books might be called _you never can tell_. in the same way the whole substance and spirit of thackeray might be gathered under the general title _vanity fair_. in the same way too the whole substance and spirit of dickens might be gathered under the general title _great expectations_. in a recent criticism on this position i saw it remarked that all this is reading into dickens something that he did not mean; and i have been told that it would have greatly surprised dickens to be informed that he "went down the broad road of the revolution." of course it would. criticism does not exist to say about authors the things that they knew themselves. it exists to say the things about them which they did not know themselves. if a critic says that the _iliad_ has a pagan rather than a christian pity, or that it is full of pictures made by one epithet, of course he does not mean that homer could have said that. if homer could have said that the critic would leave homer to say it. the function of criticism, if it has a legitimate function at all, can only be one function--that of dealing with the subconscious part of the author's mind which only the critic can express, and not with the conscious part of the author's mind, which the author himself can express. either criticism is no good at all (a very defensible position) or else criticism means saying about an author the very things that would have made him jump out of his boots. doubtless the name in this case _great expectations_ is an empty coincidence; and indeed it is not in the books of the later dickens period (the period of _great expectations_) that we should look for the best examples of this sanguine and expectant spirit which is the essential of the man's genius. there are plenty of good examples of it especially in the earlier works. but even in the earlier works there is no example of it more striking or more satisfactory than _the old curiosity shop_. it is particularly noticeable in the fact that its opening and original framework express the idea of a random experience, a thing come across in the street; a single face in the crowd, followed until it tells its story. though the thing ends in a novel it begins in a sketch; it begins as one of the _sketches by boz_. there is something unconsciously artistic in the very clumsiness of this opening. master humphrey starts to keep a scrap-book of all his adventures, and he finds that he can fill the whole scrap-book with the sequels and developments of one adventure; he goes out to notice everybody and he finds himself busily and variedly occupied only in watching somebody. in this there is a very profound truth about the true excitement and inexhaustible poetry of life. the truth is not so much that eternity is full of souls as that one soul can fill eternity. in strict art there is something quite lame and lumbering about the way in which the benevolent old story-teller starts to tell many stories and then drops away altogether, while one of his stories takes his place. but in a larger art, his collision with little nell and his complete eclipse by her personality and narrative have a real significance. they suggest the random richness of such meetings, and their uncalculated results. it makes the whole book a sort of splendid accident. it is not true, as is commonly said, that the dickens pathos as pathos is bad. it is not true, as is still more commonly said, that the whole business about little nell is bad. the case is more complex than that. yet complex as it is it admits of one sufficiently clear distinction. those who have written about the death of little nell, have generally noticed the crudities of the character itself; the little girl's unnatural and staring innocence, her constrained and awkward piety. but they have nearly all of them entirely failed to notice that there is in the death of little nell one quite definite and really artistic idea. it is not an artistic idea that a little child should die rhetorically on the stage like paul dombey; and little nell does not die rhetorically upon the stage like paul dombey. but it is an artistic idea that all the good powers and personalities in the story should set out in pursuit of one insignificant child, to repair an injustice to her, should track her from town to town over england with all the resources of wealth, intelligence, and travel, and should all--arrive too late. all the good fairies and all the kind magicians, all the just kings and all the gallant princes, with chariots and flying dragons and armies and navies go after one little child who had strayed into a wood, and find her dead. that is the conception which dickens's artistic instinct was really aiming at when he finally condemned little nell to death, after keeping her, so to speak, so long with the rope round her neck. the death of little nell is open certainly to the particular denial which its enemies make about it. the death of little nell is not pathetic. it is perhaps tragic; it is in reality ironic. here is a very good case of the injustice to dickens on his purely literary side. it is not that i say that dickens achieved what he designed; it is that the critics will not see what the design was. they go on talking of the death of little nell as if it were a mere example of maudlin description like the death of little paul. as a fact it is not described at all; so it cannot be objectionable. it is not the death of little nell, but the life of little nell, that i object to. in this, in the actual picture of her personality, if you can call it a personality, dickens did fall into some of his facile vices. the real objection to much of his pathos belongs really to another part of his character. it is connected with his vanity, his voracity for all kinds of praise, his restive experimentalism and even perhaps his envy. he strained himself to achieve pathos. his humour was inspiration; but his pathos was ambition. his laughter was lonely; he would have laughed on a desert island. but his grief was gregarious. he liked to move great masses of men, to melt them into tenderness, to play on the people as a great pianist plays on them; to make them mad or sad. his pathos was to him a way of showing his power; and for that reason it was really powerless. he could not help making people laugh; but he tried to make them cry. we come in this novel, as we often do come in his novels, upon hard lumps of unreality, upon a phrase that suddenly sickens. that is always due to his conscious despotism over the delicate feelings; that is always due to his love of fame as distinct from his love of fun. but it is not true that all dickens's pathos is like this; it is not even true that all the passages about little nell are like this; there are two strands almost everywhere and they can be differentiated as the sincere and the deliberate. there is a great difference between dickens thinking about the tears of his characters and dickens thinking about the tears of his audience. when all this is allowed, however, and the exaggerated contempt for the dickens pathos is properly corrected, the broad fact remains: that to pass from the solemn characters in this book to the comic characters in this book, is to be like some ulysses who should pass suddenly from the land of shadows to the mountain of the gods. little nell has her own position in careful and reasonable criticism: even that wobbling old ass, her grandfather, has his position in it; perhaps even the dissipated fred (whom long acquaintance with mr. dick swiveller has not made any less dismal in his dissipation) has a place in it also. but when we come to swiveller and sampson brass and quilp and mrs. jarley, then fred and nell and the grandfather simply do not exist. there are no such people in the story. the real hero and heroine of _the old curiosity shop_ are of course dick swiveller and the marchioness. it is significant in a sense that these two sane, strong, living, and lovable human beings are the only two, or almost the only two, people in the story who do not run after little nell. they have something better to do than to go on that shadowy chase after that cheerless phantom. they have to build up between them a true romance; perhaps the one true romance in the whole of dickens. dick swiveller really has all the half-heroic characteristics which make a man respected by a woman and which are the male contribution to virtue. he is brave, magnanimous, sincere about himself, amusing, absurdly hopeful; above all, he is both strong and weak. on the other hand the marchioness really has all the characteristics, the entirely heroic characteristics which make a woman respected by a man. she is female: that is, she is at once incurably candid and incurably loyal, she is full of terrible common-sense, she expects little pleasure for herself and yet she can enjoy bursts of it; above all, she is physically timid and yet she can face anything. all this solid rocky romanticism is really implied in the speech and action of these two characters and can be felt behind them all the time. because they are the two most absurd people in the book they are also the most vivid, human, and imaginable. there are two really fine love affairs in dickens; and i almost think only two. one is the happy courtship of swiveller and the marchioness; the other is the tragic courtship of toots and florence dombey. when dick swiveller wakes up in bed and sees the marchioness playing cribbage he thinks that he and she are a prince and princess in a fairy tale. he thinks right. i speak thus seriously of such characters with a deliberate purpose; for the frivolous characters of dickens are taken much too frivolously. it has been quite insufficiently pointed out that all the serious moral ideas that dickens did contrive to express he expressed altogether through this fantastic medium, in such figures as swiveller and the little servant. the warmest upholder of dickens would not go to the solemn or sentimental passages for anything fresh or suggestive in faith or philosophy. no one would pretend that the death of little dombey (with its "what are the wild waves saying?") told us anything new or real about death. a good christian dying, one would imagine, not only would not know what the wild waves were saying, but would not care. no one would pretend that the repentance of old paul dombey throws any light on the psychology or philosophy of repentance. no doubt old dombey, white-haired and amiable, was a great improvement on old dombey brown-haired and unpleasant. but in his case the softening of the heart seems to bear too close a resemblance to softening of the brain. whether these serious passages are as bad as the critical people or as good as the sentimental people find them, at least they do not convey anything in the way of an illuminating glimpse or a bold suggestion about men's moral nature. the serious figures do not tell one anything about the human soul. the comic figures do. take anything almost at random out of these admirable speeches of dick swiveller. notice, for instance, how exquisitely dickens has caught a certain very deep and delicate quality at the bottom of this idle kind of man. i mean that odd impersonal sort of intellectual justice, by which the frivolous fellow sees things as they are and even himself as he is; and is above irritation. mr. swiveller, you remember, asks the marchioness whether the brass family ever talk about him; she nods her head with vivacity. "'complimentary?' inquired mr. swiveller. the motion of the little servant's head altered.... 'but she says,' continued the little servant, 'that you ain't to be trusted.' 'well, do you know, marchioness,' said mr. swiveller thoughtfully, 'many people, not exactly professional people, but tradesmen, have had the same idea. the excellent citizen from whom i ordered this beer inclines strongly to that opinion.'" this philosophical freedom from all resentment, this strange love of truth which seems actually to come through carelessness, is a very real piece of spiritual observation. even among liars there are two classes, one immeasurably better than another. the honest liar is the man who tells the truth about his old lies; who says on wednesday, "i told a magnificent lie on monday." he keeps the truth in circulation; no one version of things stagnates in him and becomes an evil secret. he does not have to live with old lies; a horrible domesticity. mr. swiveller may mislead the waiter about whether he has the money to pay; but he does not mislead his friend, and he does not mislead himself on the point. he is quite as well aware as any one can be of the accumulating falsity of the position of a gentleman who by his various debts has closed up all the streets into the strand except one, and who is going to close that to-night with a pair of gloves. he shuts up the street with a pair of gloves, but he does not shut up his mind with a secret. the traffic of truth is still kept open through his soul. it is exactly in these absurd characters, then, that we can find a mass of psychological and ethical suggestion. this cannot be found in the serious characters except indeed in some of the later experiments: there is a little of such psychological and ethical suggestion in figures like gridley, like jasper, like bradley headstone. but in these earlier books at least, such as _the old curiosity shop_, the grave or moral figures throw no light upon morals. i should maintain this generalisation even in the presence of that apparent exception _the christmas carol_ with its trio of didactic ghosts. charity is certainly splendid, at once a luxury and a necessity; but dickens is not most effective when he is preaching charity seriously; he is most effective when he is preaching it uproariously; when he is preaching it by means of massive personalities and vivid scenes. one might say that he is best not when he is preaching his human love, but when he is practising it. in his grave pages he tells us to love men; but in his wild pages he creates men whom we can love. by his solemnity he commands us to love our neighbours. by his caricature he makes us love them. there is an odd literary question which i wonder is not put more often in literature. how far can an author tell a truth without seeing it himself? perhaps an actual example will express my meaning. i was once talking to a highly intelligent lady about thackeray's _newcomes_. we were speaking of the character of mrs. mackenzie, the campaigner, and in the middle of the conversation the lady leaned across to me and said in a low, hoarse, but emphatic voice, "she drank. thackeray didn't know it; but she drank." and it is really astonishing what a shaft of white light this sheds on the campaigner, on her terrible temperament, on her agonised abusiveness and her almost more agonised urbanity, on her clamour which is nevertheless not open or explicable, on her temper which is not so much bad temper as insatiable, bloodthirsty, man-eating temper. how far can a writer thus indicate by accident a truth of which he is himself ignorant? if truth is a plan or pattern of things that really are, or in other words, if truth truly exists outside ourselves, or in other words, if truth exists at all, it must be often possible for a writer to uncover a corner of it which he happens not to understand, but which his reader does happen to understand. the author sees only two lines; the reader sees where they meet and what is the angle. the author sees only an arc or fragment of a curve; the reader sees the size of the circle. the last thing to say about dickens, and especially about books like _the old curiosity shop_, is that they are full of these unconscious truths. the careless reader may miss them. the careless author almost certainly did miss them. but from them can be gathered an impression of real truth to life which is for the grave critics of dickens an almost unknown benefit, buried treasure. here for instance is one of them out of _the old curiosity shop_. i mean the passage in which (by a blazing stroke of genius) the dashing mr. chuckster, one of the glorious apollos of whom mr. swiveller was the perpetual grand, is made to entertain a hatred bordering upon frenzy for the stolid, patient, respectful, and laborious kit. now in the formal plan of the story mr. chuckster is a fool, and kit is almost a hero; at least he is a noble boy. yet unconsciously dickens made the idiot chuckster say something profoundly suggestive on the subject. in speaking of kit mr. chuckster makes use of these two remarkable phrases; that kit is "meek" and that he is "a snob." now kit is really a very fresh and manly picture of a boy, firm, sane, chivalrous, reasonable, full of those three great roman virtues which mr. belloc has so often celebrated, _virtus_ and _verecundia_ and _pietas_. he is a sympathetic but still a straightforward study of the best type of that most respectable of all human classes, the respectable poor. all this is true; all that dickens utters in praise of kit is true; nevertheless the awful words of chuckster remain written on the eternal skies. kit is meek and kit is a snob. his natural dignity does include and is partly marred by that instinctive subservience to the employing class which has been the comfortable weakness of the whole english democracy, which has prevented their making any revolution for the last two hundred years. kit would not serve any wicked man for money, but he would serve any moderately good man and the money would give a certain dignity and decisiveness to the goodness. all this is the english popular evil which goes along with the english popular virtues of geniality, of homeliness, tolerance and strong humour, hope and an enormous appetite for a hand-to-mouth happiness. the scene in which kit takes his family to the theatre is a monument of the massive qualities of old english enjoyment. if what we want is merry england, our antiquarians ought not to revive the maypole or the morris dancers; they ought to revive astley's and sadler's wells and the old solemn circus and the old stupid pantomime, and all the sawdust and all the oranges. of all this strength and joy in the poor, kit is a splendid and final symbol. but amid all his masculine and english virtue, he has this weak touch of meekness, or acceptance of the powers that be. it is a sound touch; it is a real truth about kit. but dickens did not know it. mr. chuckster did. dickens's stories taken as a whole have more artistic unity than appears at the first glance. it is the immediate impulse of a modern critic to dismiss them as mere disorderly scrap-books with very brilliant scraps. but this is not quite so true as it looks. in one of dickens's novels there is generally no particular unity of construction; but there is often a considerable unity of sentiment and atmosphere. things are irrelevant, but not somehow inappropriate. the whole book is written carelessly; but the whole book is generally written in one mood. to take a rude parallel from the other arts, we may say that there is not much unity of form, but there is much unity of colour. in most of the novels this can be seen. _nicholas nickleby_, as i have remarked, is full of a certain freshness, a certain light and open-air curiosity, which irradiates from the image of the young man swinging along the yorkshire roads in the sun. hence the comic characters with whom he falls in are comic characters in the same key; they are a band of strolling players, charlatans and poseurs, but too humane to be called humbugs. in the same way, the central story of _oliver twist_ is sombre; and hence even its comic character is almost sombre; at least he is too ugly to be merely amusing. mr. bumble is in some ways a terrible grotesque; his apoplectic visage recalls the "fire-red cherubimme's face," which added such horror to the height and stature of chaucer's sompnour. in both these cases even the riotous and absurd characters are a little touched with the tint of the whole story. but this neglected merit of dickens can certainly be seen best in _the old curiosity shop_. the curiosity shop itself was a lumber of grotesque and sinister things, outlandish weapons, twisted and diabolic decorations. the comic characters in the book are all like images bought in an old curiosity shop. quilp might be a gargoyle. he might be some sort of devilish door-knocker, dropped down and crawling about the pavement. the same applies to the sinister and really terrifying stiffness of sally brass. she is like some old staring figure cut out of wood. sampson brass, her brother, again is a grotesque in the same rather inhuman manner; he is especially himself when he comes in with the green shade over his eye. about all this group of bad figures in _the old curiosity shop_ there is a sort of _diablerie_. there is also within this atmosphere an extraordinary energy of irony and laughter. the scene in which sampson brass draws up the description of quilp, supposing him to be dead, reaches a point of fiendish fun. "we will not say very bandy, mrs. jiniwin," he says of his friend's legs, "we will confine ourselves to bandy. he is gone, my friends, where his legs would never be called in question." they go on to the discussion of his nose, and mrs. jiniwin inclines to the view that it is flat. "aquiline, you hag! aquiline," cries mr. quilp, pushing in his head and striking his nose with his fist. there is nothing better in the whole brutal exuberance of the character than that gesture with which quilp punches his own face with his own fist. it is indeed a perfect symbol; for quilp is always fighting himself for want of anybody else. he is energy, and energy by itself is always suicidal; he is that primordial energy which tears and which destroys itself. barnaby rudge _barnaby rudge_ was written by dickens in the spring and first flowing tide of his popularity; it came immediately after _the old curiosity shop_, and only a short time after _pickwick_. dickens was one of those rare but often very sincere men in whom the high moment of success almost coincides with the high moment of youth. the calls upon him at this time were insistent and overwhelming; this necessarily happens at a certain stage of a successful writer's career. he was just successful enough to invite offers and not successful enough to reject them. at the beginning of his career he could throw himself into _pickwick_ because there was nothing else to throw himself into. at the end of his life he could throw himself into _a tale of two cities_, because he refused to throw himself into anything else. but there was an intervening period, early in his life, when there was almost too much work for his imagination, and yet not quite enough work for his housekeeping. to this period _barnaby rudge_ belongs. and it is a curious tribute to the quite curious greatness of dickens that in this period of youthful strain we do not feel the strain but feel only the youth. his own amazing wish to write equalled or outstripped even his readers' amazing wish to read. working too hard did not cure him of his abstract love of work. unreasonable publishers asked him to write ten novels at once; but he wanted to write twenty novels at once. all this period is strangely full of his own sense at once of fertility and of futility; he did work which no one else could have done, and yet he could not be certain as yet that he was anybody. _barnaby rudge_ marks this epoch because it marks the fact that he is still confused about what kind of person he is going to be. he has already struck the note of the normal romance in _nicholas nickleby_; he has already created some of his highest comic characters in _pickwick_ and _the old curiosity shop_, but here he betrays the fact that it is still a question what ultimate guide he shall follow. _barnaby rudge_ is a romantic, historical novel. its design reminds us of scott; some parts of its fulfilment remind us, alas! of harrison ainsworth. it is a very fine romantic historical novel; scott would have been proud of it. but it is still so far different from the general work of dickens that it is permissible to wonder how far dickens was proud of it. the book, effective as it is, is almost entirely devoted to dealings with a certain artistic element, which (in its mere isolation) dickens did not commonly affect; an element which many men of infinitely less genius have often seemed to affect more successfully; i mean the element of the picturesque. it is the custom in many quarters to speak somewhat sneeringly of that element which is broadly called the picturesque. it is always felt to be an inferior, a vulgar, and even an artificial form of art. yet two things may be remarked about it. the first is that, with few exceptions, the greatest literary artists have been not only particularly clever at the picturesque, but particularly fond of it. shakespeare, for instance, delighted in certain merely pictorial contrasts which are quite distinct from, even when they are akin to, the spiritual view involved. for instance, there is admirable satire in the idea of touchstone teaching worldly wisdom and worldly honour to the woodland yokels. there is excellent philosophy in the idea of the fool being the representative of civilisation in the forest. but quite apart from this deeper meaning in the incident, the mere figure of the jester, in his bright motley and his cap and bells, against the green background of the forest and the rude forms of the shepherds, is a strong example of the purely picturesque. there is excellent tragic irony in the confrontation of the melancholy philosopher among the tombs with the cheerful digger of the graves. it sums up the essential point, that dead bodies can be comic; it is only dead souls that can be tragic. but quite apart from such irony, the mere picture of the grotesque gravedigger, the black-clad prince, and the skull is a picture in the strongest sense picturesque. caliban and the two shipwrecked drunkards are an admirable symbol; but they are also an admirable scene. bottom, with the ass's head, sitting in a ring of elves, is excellent moving comedy, but also excellent still life. falstaff with his huge body, bardolph with his burning nose, are masterpieces of the pen; but they would be fine sketches even for the pencil. king lear, in the storm, is a landscape as well as a character study. there is something decorative even about the insistence on the swarthiness of othello, or the deformity of richard iii. shakespeare's work is much more than picturesque; but it is picturesque. and the same which is said here of him by way of example is largely true of the highest class of literature. dante's _divine comedy_ is supremely important as a philosophy; but it is important merely as a panorama. spenser's _faery queen_ pleases us as an allegory; but it would please us even as a wall-paper. stronger still is the case of chaucer who loved the pure picturesque, which always includes something of what we commonly call the ugly. the huge stature and startling scarlet face of the sompnour is in just the same spirit as shakespeare's skulls and motley; the same spirit gave chaucer's miller bagpipes, and clad his doctor in crimson. it is the spirit which, while making many other things, loves to make a picture. now the second thing to be remarked in apology for the picturesque is, that the very thing which makes it seem trivial ought really to make it seem important; i mean the fact that it consists necessarily of contrasts. it brings together types that stand out from their background, but are abruptly different from each other, like the clown among the fairies or the fool in the forest. and his audacious reconciliation is a mark not of frivolity but of extreme seriousness. a man who deals in harmonies, who only matches stars with angels or lambs with spring flowers, he indeed may be frivolous; for he is taking one mood at a time, and perhaps forgetting each mood as it passes. but a man who ventures to combine an angel and an octopus must have some serious view of the universe. the man who should write a dialogue between two early christians might be a mere writer of dialogues. but a man who should write a dialogue between an early christian and the missing link would have to be a philosopher. the more widely different the types talked of, the more serious and universal must be the philosophy which talks of them. the mark of the light and thoughtless writer is the harmony of his subject matter; the mark of the thoughtful writer is its apparent diversity. the most flippant lyric poet might write a pretty poem about lambs; but it requires something bolder and graver than a poet, it requires an ecstatic prophet, to talk about the lion lying down with the lamb. dickens, at any rate, strongly supports this conception: that great literary men as such do not despise the purely pictorial. no man's works have so much the quality of illustrating themselves. few men's works have been more thoroughly and eagerly illustrated; few men's works can it have been better fun to illustrate. as a rule this fascinating quality in the mere fantastic figures of the tale was inseparable from their farcical quality in the tale. stiggins's red nose is distinctly connected with the fact that he is a member of the ebenezer temperance association; quilp is little, because a little of him goes a long way. mr. carker smiles and smiles and is a villain; mr. chadband is fat because in his case to be fat is to be hated. the story is immeasurably more important than the picture; it is not mere indulgence in the picturesque. generally it is an intellectual love of the comic; not a pure love of the grotesque. but in one book dickens suddenly confesses that he likes the grotesque even without the comic. in one case he makes clear that he enjoys pure pictures with a pure love of the picturesque. that place is _barnaby rudge_. there had indeed been hints of it in many episodes in his books; notably, for example, in that fine scene of the death of quilp--a scene in which the dwarf remains fantastic long after he has ceased to be in any way funny. still, the dwarf was meant to be funny. humour of a horrible kind, but still humour, is the purpose of quilp's existence and position in the book. laughter is the object of all his oddities. but laughter is not the object of barnaby rudge's oddities. his idiot costume and his ugly raven are used for the purpose of the pure grotesque; solely to make a certain kind of gothic sketch. it is commonly this love of pictures that drives men back upon the historical novel. but it is very typical of dickens's living interest in his own time, that though he wrote two historical novels they were neither of them of very ancient history. they were both, indeed, of very recent history; only they were those parts of recent history which were specially picturesque. i do not think that this was due to any mere consciousness on his part that he knew no history. undoubtedly he knew no history; and he may or may not have been conscious of the fact. but the consciousness did not prevent him from writing a _history of england_. nor did it prevent him from interlarding all or any of his works with tales of the pictorial past, such as the tale of the broken swords in _master humphrey's clock_, or the indefensibly delightful nightmare of the lady in the stage-coach, which helps to soften the amiable end of pickwick. neither, worst of all, did it prevent him from dogmatising anywhere and everywhere about the past, of which he knew nothing; it did not prevent him from telling the bells to tell trotty veck that the middle ages were a failure, nor from solemnly declaring that the best thing that the mediæval monks ever did was to create the mean and snobbish quietude of a modern cathedral city. no, it was not historical reverence that held him back from dealing with the remote past; but rather something much better--a living interest in the living century in which he was born. he would have thought himself quite intellectually capable of writing a novel about the council of trent or the first crusade. he would have thought himself quite equal to analysing the psychology of abelard or giving a bright, satiric sketch of st. augustine. it must frankly be confessed that it was not a sense of his own unworthiness that held him back; i fear it was rather a sense of st. augustine's unworthiness. he could not see the point of any history before the first slow swell of the french revolution. he could understand the revolutions of the eighteenth century; all the other revolutions of history (so many and so splendid) were unmeaning to him. but the revolutions of the eighteenth century he did understand; and to them therefore he went back, as all historical novelists go back, in search of the picturesque. and from this fact an important result follows. the result that follows is this: that his only two historical novels are both tales of revolutions--of eighteenth-century revolutions. these two eighteenth-century revolutions may seem to differ, and perhaps do differ in everything except in being revolutions and of the eighteenth century. the french revolution, which is the theme of _a tale of two cities_, was a revolt in favour of all that is now called enlightenment and liberation. the great gordon riot, which is the theme of _barnaby rudge_, was a revolt in favour of something which would now be called mere ignorant and obscurantist protestantism. nevertheless both belonged more typically to the age out of which dickens came--the great sceptical and yet creative eighteenth century of europe. whether the mob rose on the right side or the wrong they both belonged to the time in which a mob could rise, in which a mob could conquer. no growth of intellectual science or of moral cowardice had made it impossible to fight in the streets, whether for the republic or for the bible. if we wish to know what was the real link, existing actually in ultimate truth, existing unconsciously in dickens's mind, which connected the gordon riots with the french revolution, the link may be defined though not with any great adequacy. the nearest and truest way of stating it is that neither of the two could possibly happen in fleet street to-morrow evening. another point of resemblance between the two books might be found in the fact that they both contain the sketch of the same kind of eighteenth-century aristocrat, if indeed that kind of aristocrat really existed in the eighteenth century. the diabolical dandy with the rapier and the sneer is at any rate a necessity of all normal plays and romances; hence mr. chester has a right to exist in this romance, and foulon a right to exist in a page of history almost as cloudy and disputable as a romance. what dickens and other romancers do probably omit from the picture of the eighteenth-century oligarch is probably his liberality. it must never be forgotten that even when he was a despot in practice he was generally a liberal in theory. dickens and romancers make the pre-revolution tyrant a sincere believer in tyranny; generally he was not. he was a sceptic about everything, even about his own position. the romantic foulon says of the people, "let them eat grass," with bitter and deliberate contempt. the real foulon (if he ever said it at all) probably said it as a sort of dreary joke because he couldn't think of any other way out of the problem. similarly mr. chester, a cynic as he is, believes seriously in the beauty of being a gentleman; a real man of that type probably disbelieved in that as in everything else. dickens was too bracing, one may say too bouncing himself to understand the psychology of fatigue in a protected and leisured class. he could understand a tyrant like quilp, a tyrant who is on his throne because he has climbed up into it, like a monkey. he could not understand a tyrant who is on his throne because he is too weary to get out of it. the old aristocrats were in a dead way quite good-natured. they were even humanitarians; which perhaps accounts for the extent to which they roused against themselves the healthy hatred of humanity. but they were tired humanitarians; tired with doing nothing. figures like that of mr. chester, therefore, fail somewhat to give the true sense of something hopeless and helpless which led men to despair of the upper class. he has a boyish pleasure in play-acting; he has an interest in life; being a villain is his hobby. but the true man of that type had found all hobbies fail him. he had wearied of himself as he had wearied of a hundred women. he was graceful and could not even admire himself in the glass. he was witty and could not even laugh at his own jokes. dickens could never understand tedium. there is no mark more strange and perhaps sinister of the interesting and not very sane condition of our modern literature, than the fact that tedium has been admirably described in it. our best modern writers are never so exciting as they are about dulness. mr. rudyard kipling is never so powerful as when he is painting yawning deserts, aching silences, sleepless nights, or infernal isolation. the excitement in one of the stories of mr. henry james becomes tense, thrilling, and almost intolerable in all the half hours during which nothing whatever is said or done. we are entering again into the mind, into the real mind of foulon and mr. chester. we begin to understand the deep despair of those tyrants whom our fathers pulled down. but dickens could never have understood that despair; it was not in his soul. and it is an interesting coincidence that here, in this book of _barnaby rudge_, there is a character meant to be wholly grotesque, who, nevertheless, expresses much of that element in dickens which prevented him from being a true interpreter of the tired and sceptical aristocrat. sim tappertit is a fool, but a perfectly honourable fool. it requires some sincerity to pose. posing means that one has not dried up in oneself all the youthful and innocent vanities with the slow paralysis of mere pride. posing means that one is still fresh enough to enjoy the good opinion of one's fellows. on the other hand, the true cynic has not enough truth in him to attempt affectation; he has never even seen the truth, far less tried to imitate it. now we might very well take the type of mr. chester on the one hand, and of sim tappertit on the other, as marking the issue, the conflict, and the victory which really ushered in the nineteenth century. dickens was very like sim tappertit. the liberal revolution was very like a sim tappertit revolution. it was vulgar, it was overdone, it was absurd, but it was alive. dickens was vulgar, was absurd, overdid everything, but he was alive. the aristocrats were perfectly correct, but quite dead; dead long before they were guillotined. the classics and critics who lamented that dickens was no gentleman were quite right, but quite dead. the revolution thought itself rational; but so did sim tappertit. it was really a huge revolt of romanticism against a reason which had grown sick even of itself. sim tappertit rose against mr. chester; and, thank god! he put his foot upon his neck. [illustration: charles dickens, from a bust by h. dexter, executed during dickens's first visit to america.] american notes _american notes_ was written soon after dickens had returned from his first visit to america. that visit had, of course, been a great epoch in his life; but how much of an epoch men did not truly realise until, some time after, in the middle of a quiet story about salisbury and a ridiculous architect, his feelings flamed out and flared up to the stars in _martin chuzzlewit_. the _american notes_ are, however, interesting, because in them he betrays his feelings when he does not know that he is betraying them. dickens's first visit to america was, from his own point of view, and at the beginning, a happy and festive experiment. it is very characteristic of him that he went among the americans, enjoyed them, even admired them, and then had a quarrel with them. nothing was ever so unmistakable as his good-will, except his ill-will; and they were never far apart. and this was not, as some bloodless moderns have sneeringly insinuated, a mere repetition of the proximity between the benevolent stage and the quarrelsome stage of drink. it was a piece of pure optimism; he believed so readily that men were going to be good to him that an injury to him was something more than an injury: it was a shock. what was the exact nature of the american shock must, however, be more carefully stated. the famous quarrel between dickens and america, which finds its most elaborate expression in _american notes_, though its most brilliant expression in _martin chuzzlewit_, is an incident about which a great deal remains to be said. but the thing which most specially remains to be said is this. this old anglo-american quarrel was much more fundamentally friendly than most anglo-american alliances. in dickens's day each nation understood the other enough to argue. in our time neither nation understands itself even enough to quarrel. there was an english tradition, from fox and eighteenth-century england; there was an american tradition from franklin and eighteenth-century america; and they were still close enough together to discuss their differences with acrimony, perhaps, but with certain fundamental understandings. the eighteenth-century belief in a liberal civilisation was still a dogma; for dogma is the only thing that makes argument or reasoning possible. america, under all its swagger, did still really believe that europe was its fountain and its mother, because europe was more fully civilised. dickens, under all his disgust, did still believe that america was in advance of europe, because it was more democratic. it was an age, in short, in which the word "progress" could still be used reasonably; because the whole world looked to one way of escape and there was only one kind of progress under discussion. now, of course, "progress" is a useless word; for progress takes for granted an already defined direction; and it is exactly about the direction that we disagree. do not let us therefore be misled into any mistaken optimism or special self-congratulation upon what many people would call the improved relations between england and america. the relations are improved because america has finally become a foreign country. and with foreign countries all sane men take care to exchange a certain consideration and courtesy. but even as late as the time of dickens's first visit to the united states, we english still felt america as a colony; an insolent, offensive, and even unintelligible colony sometimes, but still a colony; a part of our civilisation, a limb of our life. and america itself, as i have said, under all its bounce and independence, really regarded us as a mother country. this being the case it was possible for us to quarrel, like kinsmen. now we only bow and smile, like strangers. this tone, as a sort of family responsibility, can be felt quite specially all through the satires or suggestions of these _american notes_. dickens is cross with america because he is worried about america; as if he were its father. he explores its industrial, legal, and educational arrangements like a mother looking at the housekeeping of a married son; he makes suggestions with a certain acidity; he takes a strange pleasure in being pessimistic. he advises them to take note of how much better certain things are done in england. all this is very different from dickens's characteristic way of dealing with a foreign country. in countries really foreign, such as france, switzerland, and italy, he had two attitudes, neither of them in the least worried or paternal. when he found a thing in europe which he did not understand, such as the roman catholic church, he simply called it an old-world superstition, and sat looking at it like a moonlit ruin. when he found something that he did understand, such as luncheon baskets, he burst into carols of praise over the superior sense in our civilisation and good management to continental methods. an example of the first attitude may be found in one of his letters, in which he describes the backwardness and idleness of catholics who would not build a birmingham in italy. he seems quite unconscious of the obvious truth, that the backwardness of catholics was simply the refusal of bob cratchit to enter the house of gradgrind. an example of the second attitude can be found in the purple patches of fun in _mugby junction_; in which the english waitress denounces the profligate french habit of providing new bread and clean food for people travelling by rail. the point is, however, that in neither case has he the air of one suggesting improvements or sharing a problem with the people engaged on it. he does not go carefully with a notebook through jesuit schools nor offer friendly suggestions to the governors of parisian prisons. or if he does, it is in a different spirit; it is in the spirit of an ordinary tourist being shown over the coliseum or the pyramids. but he visited america in the spirit of a government inspector dealing with something it was his duty to inspect. this is never felt either in his praise or blame of continental countries. when he did not leave a foreign country to decay like a dead dog, he merely watched it at play like a kitten. france he mistook for a kitten. italy he mistook for a dead dog. but with america he could feel--and fear. there he could hate, because he could love. there he could feel not the past alone nor the present, but the future also; and, like all brave men, when he saw the future he was a little afraid of it. for of all tests by which the good citizen and strong reformer can be distinguished from the vague faddist or the inhuman sceptic, i know no better test than this--that the unreal reformer sees in front of him one certain future, the future of his fad; while the real reformer sees before him ten or twenty futures among which his country must choose, and may, in some dreadful hour, choose the wrong one. the true patriot is always doubtful of victory; because he knows that he is dealing with a living thing; a thing with free will. to be certain of free will is to be uncertain of success. the subject matter of the real difference of opinion between dickens and the public of america can only be understood if it is thus treated as a dispute between brothers about the destiny of a common heritage. the point at issue might be stated like this. dickens, on his side, did not in his heart doubt for a moment that england would eventually follow america along the road towards real political equality and purely republican institutions. he lived, it must be remembered, before the revival of aristocracy, which has since overwhelmed us--the revival of aristocracy worked through popular science and commercial dictatorship, and which has nowhere been more manifest than in america itself. he knew nothing of this; in his heart he conceded to the yankees that not only was their revolution right but would ultimately be completed everywhere. but on the other hand, his whole point against the american experiment was this--that if it ignored certain ancient english contributions it would go to pieces for lack of them. of these the first was good manners and the second individual liberty--liberty, that is, to speak and write against the trend of the majority. in these things he was much more serious and much more sensible than it is the fashion to think he was; he was indeed one of the most serious and sensible critics england ever had of current and present problems, though his criticism is useless to the point of nonentity about all things remote from him in style of civilisation or in time. his point about good manners is really important. all his grumblings through this book of _american notes_, all his shrieking satire in _martin chuzzlewit_ are expressions of a grave and reasonable fear he had touching the future of democracy. and remember again what has been already remarked--instinctively he paid america the compliment of looking at her as the future of democracy. the mistake which he attacked still exists. i cannot imagine why it is that social equality is somehow supposed to mean social familiarity. why should equality mean that all men are equally rude? should it not rather mean that all men are equally polite? might it not quite reasonably mean that all men should be equally ceremonious and stately and pontifical? what is there specially equalitarian, for instance, in calling your political friends and even your political enemies by their christian names in public? there is something very futile in the way in which certain socialist leaders call each other tom, dick, and harry; especially when tom is accusing harry of having basely imposed upon the well-known imbecility of dick. there is something quite undemocratic in all men calling each other by the special and affectionate term "comrade"; especially when they say it with a sneer and smart inquiry about the funds. democracy would be quite satisfied if every man called every other man "sir." democracy would have no conceivable reason to complain if every man called every other man "your excellency" or "your holiness" or "brother of the sun and moon." the only democratic essential is that it should be a term of dignity and that it should be given to all. to abolish all terms of dignity is no more specially democratic than the roman emperor's wish to cut off everybody's head at once was specially democratic. that involved equality certainly, but it was lacking in respect. dickens saw america as markedly the seat of this danger. he saw that there was a perilous possibility that republican ideals might be allied to a social anarchy good neither for them nor for any other ideals. republican simplicity, which is difficult, might be quickly turned into bohemian brutality, which is easy. cincinnatus, instead of putting his hand to the plough, might put his feet on the tablecloth, and an impression prevail that it was all a part of the same rugged equality and freedom. insolence might become a tradition. bad manners might have all the sanctity of good manners. "there you are!" cries martin chuzzlewit indignantly, when the american has befouled the butter. "a man deliberately makes a hog of himself and _that_ is an institution." but the thread of thought which we must always keep in hand in this matter is that he would not thus have worried about the degradation of republican simplicity into general rudeness if he had not from first to last instinctively felt that america held human democracy in her hand, to exalt it or to let it fall. in one of his gloomier moments he wrote down his fear that the greatest blow ever struck at liberty would be struck by america in the failure of her mission upon the earth. this brings us to the other ground of his alarm--the matter of liberty of speech. here also he was much more reasonable and philosophic than has commonly been realised. the truth is that the lurid individualism of carlyle has, with its violent colours, "killed" the tones of most criticism of his time; and just as we can often see a scheme of decoration better if we cover some flaming picture, so you can judge nineteenth-century england much better if you leave carlyle out. he is important to moderns because he led that return to toryism which has been the chief feature of modernity, but his judgments were often not only spiritually false, but really quite superficial. dickens understood the danger of democracy far better than carlyle; just as he understood the merits of democracy far better than carlyle. and of this fact we can produce one plain evidence in the matter of which we speak. carlyle, in his general dislike of the revolutionary movement, lumped liberty and democracy together and said that the chief objection to democracy was that it involved the excess and misuse of liberty; he called democracy "anarchy or no-rule." dickens, with far more philosophical insight and spiritual delicacy, saw that the real danger of democracy is that it tends to the very opposite of anarchy; even to the very opposite of liberty. he lamented in america the freedom of manners. but he lamented even more the absence of freedom of opinion. "i believe there is no country on the face of the earth," he says, "where there is less freedom of opinion on any subject in reference to which there is a broad difference of opinion than in this. there! i write the words with reluctance, disappointment, and sorrow; but i believe it from the bottom of my soul. the notion that i, a man alone by myself in america, should venture to suggest to the americans that there was one point on which they were neither just to their own countrymen nor to us, actually struck the boldest dumb! washington irving, prescott, hoffman, bryant, halleck, dana, washington allston--every man who writes in this country is devoted to the question, and not one of them _dares_ to raise his voice and complain of the atrocious state of the law. the wonder is that a breathing man can be found with temerity enough to suggest to the americans the possibility of their having done wrong. i wish you could have seen the faces that i saw down both sides of the table at hartford when i began to talk about scott. i wish you could have heard how i gave it out. my blood so boiled when i thought of the monstrous injustice that i felt as if i were twelve feet high when i thrust it down their throats." dickens knew no history, but he had all history behind him in feeling that a pure democracy does tend, when it goes wrong, to be too traditional and absolute. the truth is indeed a singular example of the unfair attack upon democracy in our own time. everybody can repeat the platitude that the mob can be the greatest of all tyrants. but few realise or remember the corresponding truth which goes along with it--that the mob is the only permanent and unassailable high priest. democracy drives its traditions too hard; but democracy is the only thing that keeps any traditions. an aristocracy must always be going after some new thing. the severity of democracy is far more of a virtue than its liberty. the decorum of a democracy is far more of a danger than its lawlessness. dickens discovered this in his great quarrels about the copyright, when a whole nation acted on a small point of opinion as if it were going to lynch him. but, fortunately for the purpose of this argument, there is no need to go back to the forties for such a case. another great literary man has of late visited america; and it is possible that maxim gorky may be in a position to state how far democracy is likely to err on the side of mere liberty and laxity. he may have found, like dickens, some freedom of manners; he did not find much freedom of morals. along with such american criticism should really go his very characteristic summary of the question of the red indian. it marks the combination between the mental narrowness and the moral justice of the old liberal. dickens can see nothing in the red indian except that he is barbaric, retrograde, bellicose, uncleanly, and superstitious--in short, that he is not a member of the special civilisation of birmingham or brighton. it is curious to note the contrast between the cheery, nay cockney, contempt with which dickens speaks of the american indian and that chivalrous and pathetic essay in which washington irving celebrates the virtues of the vanishing race. between washington irving and his friend charles dickens there was always indeed this ironical comedy of inversion. it is amusing that the englishman should have been the pushing and even pert modernist, and the american the stately antiquarian and lover of lost causes. but while a man of more mellow sympathies may well dislike dickens's dislike of savages, and even disdain his disdain, he ought to sharply remind himself of the admirable ethical fairness and equity which meet with that restricted outlook. in the very act of describing red indians as devils who, like so much dirt, it would pay us to sweep away, he pauses to deny emphatically that we have any right to sweep them away. we have no right to wrong the man, he means to say, even if he himself be a kind of wrong. here we strike the ringing iron of the old conscience and sense of honour which marked the best men of his party and of his epoch. this rigid and even reluctant justice towers, at any rate, far above modern views of savages, above the sentimentalism of the mere humanitarian and the far weaker sentimentalism that pleads for brutality and a race war. dickens was at least more of a man than the brutalitarian who claims to wrong people because they are nasty, or the humanitarian who cannot be just to them without pretending that they are nice. pictures from italy the _pictures from italy_ are excellent in themselves and excellent as a foil to the _american notes_. here we have none of that air of giving a decision like a judge or sending in a report like an inspector; here we have only glimpses, light and even fantastic glimpses, of a world that is really alien to dickens. it is so alien that he can almost entirely enjoy it. for no man can entirely enjoy that which he loves; contentment is always unpatriotic. the difference can indeed be put with approximate perfection in one phrase. in italy he was on a holiday; in america he was on a tour. but indeed dickens himself has quite sufficiently conveyed the difference in the two phrases that he did actually use for the titles of the two books. dickens often told unconscious truths, especially in small matters. the _american notes_ really are notes, like the notes of a student or a professional witness. the _pictures from italy_ are only pictures from italy, like the miscellaneous pictures that all tourists bring from italy. to take another and perhaps closer figure of speech, almost all dickens's works such as these may best be regarded as private letters addressed to the public. his private correspondence was quite as brilliant as his public works; and many of his public works are almost as formless and casual as his private correspondence. if he had been struck insensible for a year, i really think that his friends and family could have brought out one of his best books by themselves if they had happened to keep his letters. the homogeneity of his public and private work was indeed strange in many ways. on the one hand, there was little that was pompously and unmistakably public in the publications; on the other hand, there was very little that was private in the private letters. his hilarity had almost a kind of hardness about it; no man's letters, i should think, ever needed less expurgation on the ground of weakness or undue confession. the main part, and certainly the best part, of such a book as _pictures from italy_ can certainly be criticised best as part of that perpetual torrent of entertaining autobiography which he flung at his children as if they were his readers and his readers as if they were his children. there are some brilliant patches of sense and nonsense in this book; but there is always something accidental in them; as if they might have occurred somewhere else. perhaps the most attractive of them is the incomparable description of the italian marionette theatre in which they acted a play about the death of napoleon in st. helena. the description is better than that of codlin and short's punch and judy, and almost as good as that of mrs. jarley's wax works. indeed the humour is similar; for punch is supposed to be funny, but napoleon (as mrs. jarley said when asked if her show was funnier than punch) was not funny at all. the idea of a really tragic scene being enacted between tiny wooden dolls with large heads is delightfully dealt with by dickens. we can almost imagine the scene in which the wooden napoleon haughtily rebukes his wooden jailor for calling him general bonaparte--"sir hudson low, call me not thus; i am napoleon, emperor of the french." there is also something singularly gratifying about the scene of napoleon's death, in which he lay in bed with his little wooden hands outside the counterpane and the doctor (who was hung on wires too short) "delivered medical opinions in the air." it may seem flippant to dwell on such flippancies in connection with a book which contains many romantic descriptions and many moral generalisations which dickens probably valued highly. but it is not for such things that he is valued. in all his writings, from his most reasoned and sustained novel to his maddest private note, it is always this obstreperous instinct for farce which stands out as his in the highest sense. his wisdom is at the best talent, his foolishness is genius. just that exuberant levity which we associate with a moment we associate in his case with immortality. it is said of certain old masonry that the mortar was so hard that it has survived the stones. so if dickens could revisit the thing he built, he would be surprised to see all the work he thought solid and responsible wasted almost utterly away, but the shortest frivolities and the most momentary jokes remaining like colossal rocks for ever. [illustration: charles dickens, from a miniature by margaret gillies.] martin chuzzlewit there is a certain quality or element which broods over the whole of _martin chuzzlewit_ to which it is difficult for either friends or foes to put a name. i think the reader who enjoys dickens's other books has an impression that it is a kind of melancholy. there are grotesque figures of the most gorgeous kind; there are scenes that are farcical even by the standard of the farcical license of dickens; there is humour both of the heaviest and of the lightest kind; there are two great comic personalities who run like a rich vein through the whole story, pecksniff and mrs. gamp; there is one blinding patch of brilliancy, the satire on american cant; there is todgers's boarding-house; there is bailey; there is mr. mould, the incomparable undertaker. but yet in spite of everything, in spite even of the undertaker, the book is sad. no one i think ever went to it in that mixed mood of a tired tenderness and a readiness to believe and laugh in which most of dickens's novels are most enjoyed. we go for a particular novel to dickens as we go for a particular inn. we go to the sign of the pickwick papers. we go to the sign of the rudge and raven. we go to the sign of the old curiosities. we go to the sign of the two cities. we go to each or all of them according to what kind of hospitality and what kind of happiness we require. but it is always some kind of hospitality and some kind of happiness that we require. and as in the case of inns we also remember that while there was shelter in all and food in all and some kind of fire and some kind of wine in all, yet one has left upon us an indescribable and unaccountable memory of mortality and decay, of dreariness in the rooms and even of tastelessness in the banquet. so any one who has enjoyed the stories of dickens as they should be enjoyed has a nameless feeling that this one story is sad and almost sodden. dickens himself had this feeling, though his breezy vanity forbade him to express it in so many words. in spite of pecksniff, in spite of mrs. gamp, in spite of the yet greater bailey, the story went lumberingly and even lifelessly; he found the sales falling off; he fancied his popularity waning, and by a sudden impulse most inartistic and yet most artistic, he dragged in the episode of martin's visit to america, which is the blazing jewel and the sudden redemption of the book. he wrote it at an uneasy and unhappy period of his life; when he had ceased wandering in america, but could not cease wandering altogether; when he had lost his original routine of work which was violent but regular, and had not yet settled down to the full enjoyment of his success and his later years. he poured into this book genius that might make the mountains laugh, invention that juggled with the stars. but the book was sad; and he knew it. the just reason for this is really interesting. yet it is one that is not easy to state without guarding one's self on the one side or the other against great misunderstandings; and these stipulations or preliminary allowances must in such a case as this of necessity be made first. dickens was among other things a satirist, a pure satirist. i have never been able to understand why this title is always specially and sacredly reserved for thackeray. thackeray was a novelist; in the strict and narrow sense at any rate, thackeray was a far greater novelist than dickens. but dickens certainly was the satirist. the essence of satire is that it perceives some absurdity inherent in the logic of some position, and that it draws that absurdity out and isolates it, so that all can see it. thus for instance when dickens says, "lord coodle would go out; sir thomas doodle wouldn't come in; and there being no people to speak of in england except coodle and doodle the country has been without a government"; when dickens says this he suddenly pounces on and plucks out the one inherent absurdity in the english party system which is hidden behind all its paraphernalia of parliaments and statutes, elections and ballot papers. when all the dignity and all the patriotism and all the public interest of the english constitutional party conflict have been fully allowed for, there does remain the bold, bleak question which dickens in substance asks, "suppose i want somebody else who is neither coodle nor doodle." this is the great quality called satire; it is a kind of taunting reasonableness; and it is inseparable from a certain insane logic which is often called exaggeration. dickens was more of a satirist than thackeray for this simple reason: that thackeray carried a man's principles as far as that man carried them; dickens carried a man's principles as far as a man's principles would go. dickens in short (as people put it) exaggerated the man and his principles; that is to say he emphasised them. dickens drew a man's absurdity out of him; thackeray left a man's absurdity in him. of this last fact we can take any example we like; take for instance the comparison between the city man as treated by thackeray in the most satiric of his novels, with the city man as treated by dickens in one of the mildest and maturest of his. compare the character of old mr. osborne in _vanity fair_ with the character of mr. podsnap in _our mutual friend_. in the case of mr. osborne there is nothing except the solid blocking in of a brutal dull convincing character. _vanity fair_ is not a satire on the city except in so far as it happens to be true. _vanity fair_ is not a satire on the city, in short, except in so far as the city is a satire on the city. but mr. podsnap is a pure satire; he is an extracting out of the city man of those purely intellectual qualities which happen to make that kind of city man a particularly exasperating fool. one might almost say that mr. podsnap is all mr. osborne's opinions separated from mr. osborne and turned into a character. in short the satirist is more purely philosophical than the novelist. the novelist may be only an observer; the satirist must be a thinker. he must be a thinker, he must be a philosophical thinker for this simple reason; that he exercises his philosophical thought in deciding what part of his subject he is to satirise. you may have the dullest possible intelligence and be a portrait painter; but a man must have a serious intellect in order to be a caricaturist. he has to select what thing he will caricature. true satire is always of this intellectual kind; true satire is always, so to speak, a variation or fantasia upon the air of pure logic. the satirist is the man who carries men's enthusiasm further than they carry it themselves. he outstrips the most extravagant fanatic. he is years ahead of the most audacious prophet. he sees where men's detached intellect will eventually lead them, and he tells them the name of the place--which is generally hell. now of this detached and rational use of satire there is one great example in this book. even _gulliver's travels_ is hardly more reasonable than martin chuzzlewit's travels in the incredible land of the americans. before considering the humour of this description in its more exhaustive and liberal aspects, it may be first remarked that in this american part of _martin chuzzlewit_, dickens quite specially sharpens up his own more controversial and political intelligence. there are more things here than anywhere else in dickens that partake of the nature of pamphleteering, of positive challenge, of sudden repartee, of pugnacious and exasperating query, in a word of everything that belongs to the pure art of controversy as distinct not only from the pure art of fiction but even also from the pure art of satire. i am inclined to think (to put the matter not only shortly but clumsily) that dickens was never in all his life so strictly clever as he is in the american part of _martin chuzzlewit_. there are places where he was more inspired, almost in the sense of being intoxicated, as, for instance, in the micawber feasts of _david copperfield_; there are places where he wrote more carefully and cunningly, as, for instance, in the mystery of _the mystery of edwin drood_; there are places where he wrote very much more humanly, more close to the ground and to growing things, as in the whole of that admirable book _great expectations_. but i do not think that his mere abstract acuteness and rapidity of thought were ever exercised with such startling exactitude as they are in this place in _martin chuzzlewit_. it is to be noted, for instance, that his american experience had actually worked him up to a heat and habit of argument. a slave-owner in the southern states tells dickens that slave-owners do not ill-treat their slaves, that it is not to the interest of slave-owners to ill-treat their slaves. dickens flashes back that it is not to the interest of a man to get drunk, but he does get drunk. this pugnacious atmosphere of parry and riposte must first of all be allowed for and understood in all the satiric excursus of martin in america. dickens is arguing all the time; and, to do him justice, arguing very well. these chapters are full not merely of exuberant satire on america in the sense that dotheboys hall or mr. bumble's workhouse are exuberant satires on england. they are full also of sharp argument with america as if the man who wrote expected retort and was prepared with rejoinder. the rest of the book, like the rest of dickens's books, possesses humour. this part of the book, like hardly any of dickens's books, possesses wit. the republican gentleman who receives martin on landing is horrified on hearing an english servant speak of the employer as "the master." "there are no masters in america," says the gentleman. "all owners are they?" says martin. this sort of verbal promptitude is out of the ordinary scope of dickens; but we find it frequently in this particular part of _martin chuzzlewit_. martin himself is constantly breaking out into a controversial lucidity, which is elsewhere not at all a part of his character. when they talk to him about the institutions of america he asks sarcastically whether bowie knives and swordsticks and revolvers are the institutions of america. all this (if i may summarise) is expressive of one main fact. being a satirist means being a philosopher. dickens was not always very philosophical; but he had this permanent quality of the philosopher about him, that he always remembered people by their opinions. elijah pogram was to him the man who said that "his boastful answer to the tyrant and the despot was that his bright home was the land of the settin' sun." mr. scadder and mr. jefferson brick were to him the men who said (in cooperation) that "the libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood." and in these chapters more than anywhere else he falls into the extreme habit of satire, that of treating people as if there were nothing about them except their opinions. it is therefore difficult to accept these pages as pages in a novel, splendid as they are considered as pages in a parody. i do not dispute that men have said and do say that "the libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood," that "their bright homes are the land of the settin' sun," that "they taunt that lion," that "alone they dare him," or "that softly sleeps the calm ideal in the whispering chambers of imagination." i have read too much american journalism to deny that any of these sentences and any of these opinions may at some time or other have been uttered. i do not deny that there are such opinions. but i do deny that there are such people. elijah pogram had some other business in life besides defending defaulting postmasters; he must have been a son or a father or a husband or at least (admirable thought) a lover. mr. chollop had some moments in his existence when he was not threatening his fellow-creatures with his sword-stick and his revolver. of all this human side of such american types dickens does not really give any hint at all. he does not suggest that the bully chollop had even such coarse good-humour as bullies almost always have. he does not suggest that the humbug elijah pogram had even as much greasy amiability as humbugs almost invariably have. he is not studying them as human beings, even as bad human beings; he is studying them as conceptions, as points of view, as symbols of a state of mind with which he is in violent disagreement. to put it roughly, he is not describing characters, he is satirising fads. to put it more exactly, he is not describing characters; he is persecuting heresies. there is one thing really to be said against his american satire; it is a serious thing to be said: it is an argument, and it is true. this can be said of martin's wanderings in america, that from the time he lands in america to the time he sets sail from it he never meets a living man. he has travelled in the land of laputa. all the people he has met have been absurd opinions walking about. the whole art of dickens in such passages as these consisted in one thing. it consisted in finding an opinion that had not a leg to stand on, and then giving it two legs to stand on. so much may be allowed; it may be admitted that dickens is in this sense the great satirist, in that he can imagine absurd opinions walking by themselves about the street. it may be admitted that thackeray would not have allowed an absurd opinion to walk about the street without at least tying a man on to it for the sake of safety. but while this first truth may be evident, the second truth which is the complement of it may easily be forgotten. on the one hand there was no man who could so much enjoy mere intellectual satire apart from humanity as dickens. on the other hand there was no man who, with another and more turbulent part of his nature, demanded humanity, and demanded its supremacy over intellect, more than dickens. to put it shortly: there never was a man so much fitted for saying that everything was wrong; and there never was a man who was so desirous of saying that everything was right. thus, when he met men with whom he violently disagreed, he described them as devils or lunatics; he could not bear to describe them as men. if they could not think with him on essentials he could not stand the idea that they were human souls; he cast them out; he forgot them; and if he could not forget them he caricatured them. he was too emotional to regard them as anything but enemies, if they were not friends. he was too humane not to hate them. charles lamb said with his inimitable sleek pungency that he could read all the books there were; he excluded books that obviously were not books, as cookery books, chessboards bound so as to look like books, and all the works of modern historians and philosophers. one might say in much the same style that dickens loved all the men in the world; that is he loved all the men whom he was able to recognise as men; the rest he turned into griffins and chimeras without any serious semblance to humanity. even in his books he never hates a human being. if he wishes to hate him he adopts the simple expedient of making him an inhuman being. now of these two strands almost the whole of dickens is made up; they are not only different strands, they are even antagonistic strands. i mean that the whole of dickens is made up of the strand of satire and the strand of sentimentalism; and the strand of satire is quite unnecessarily merciless and hostile, and the strand of sentimentalism is quite unnecessarily humanitarian and even maudlin. on the proper interweaving of these two things depends the great part of dickens's success in a novel. and by the consideration of them we can probably best arrive at the solution of the particular emotional enigma of the novel called _martin chuzzlewit_. _martin chuzzlewit_ is, i think, vaguely unsatisfactory to the reader, vaguely sad and heavy even to the reader who loves dickens, because in _martin chuzzlewit_ more than anywhere else in dickens's works, more even than in _oliver twist_, there is a predominance of the harsh and hostile sort of humour over the hilarious and the humane. it is absurd to lay down any such little rules for the testing of literature. but this may be broadly said and yet with confidence: that dickens is always at his best when he is laughing at the people whom he really admires. he is at his most humorous in writing of mr. pickwick, who represents passive virtue. he is at his most humorous in writing of mr. sam weller, who represents active virtue. he is never so funny as when he is speaking of people in whom fun itself is a virtue, like the poor people in the fleet or the marshalsea. and in the stories that had immediately preceded _martin chuzzlewit_ he had consistently concerned himself in the majority of cases with the study of such genial and honourable eccentrics; if they are lunatics they are amiable lunatics. in the last important novel before _martin chuzzlewit_, _barnaby rudge_, the hero himself is an amiable lunatic. in the novel before that, _the old curiosity shop_, the two comic figures, dick swiveller and the marchioness, are not only the most really entertaining, but also the most really sympathetic characters in the book. before that came _oliver twist_ (which is, i have said, an exception), and before that _pickwick_, where the hero is, as mr. weller says, "an angel in gaiters." hitherto, then, on the whole, the central dickens character had been the man who gave to the poor many things, gold and wine and feasting and good advice; but among other things gave them a good laugh at himself. the jolly old english merchant of the pickwick type was popular on both counts. people liked to see him throw his money in the gutter. they also liked to see him throw himself there occasionally. in both acts they recognised a common quality of virtue. now i think it is certainly the disadvantage of _martin chuzzlewit_ that none of its absurd characters are thus sympathetic. there are in the book two celebrated characters who are both especially exuberant and amusing even for dickens, and who are both especially heartless and abominable even for dickens--i mean of course mr. pecksniff on the one hand and mrs. gamp on the other. the humour of both of them is gigantesque. nobody will ever forget the first time he read the words "now i should be very glad to see mrs. todgers's idea of a wooden leg." it is like remembering first love: there is still some sort of ancient sweetness and sting. i am afraid that, in spite of many criticisms to the contrary, i am still unable to take mr. pecksniff's hypocrisy seriously. he does not seem to me so much a hypocrite as a rhetorician; he reminds me of serjeant buzfuz. a very capable critic, mr. noyes, said that i was wrong when i suggested in another place that dickens must have loved pecksniff. mr. noyes thinks it clear that dickens hated pecksniff. i cannot believe it. hatred does indeed linger round its object as much as love; but not in that way. dickens is always making pecksniff say things which have a wild poetical truth about them. hatred allows no such outbursts of original innocence. but however that may be the broad fact remains--dickens may or may not have loved pecksniff comically, but he did not love him seriously; he did not respect him as he certainly respected sam weller. the same of course is true of mrs. gamp. to any one who appreciates her unctuous and sumptuous conversation it is difficult indeed not to feel that it would be almost better to be killed by mrs. gamp than to be saved by a better nurse. but the fact remains. in this book dickens has not allowed us to love the most absurd people seriously, and absurd people ought to be loved seriously. pecksniff has to be amusing all the time; the instant he ceases to be laughable he becomes detestable. pickwick can take his ease at his inn; he can be leisurely, he can be spacious; he can fall into moods of gravity and even of dulness; he is not bound to be always funny or to forfeit the reader's concern, for he is a good man, and therefore even his dulness is beautiful, just as is the dulness of the animal. we can leave pickwick a little while by the fire to think; for the thoughts of pickwick, even if they were to go slowly, would be full of all the things that all men care for--old friends and old inns and memory and the goodness of god. but we dare not leave pecksniff alone for a moment. we dare not leave him thinking by the fire, for the thoughts of pecksniff would be too frightful. christmas books the mystery of christmas is in a manner identical with the mystery of dickens. if ever we adequately explain the one we may adequately explain the other. and indeed, in the treatment of the two, the chronological or historical order must in some degree be remembered. before we come to the question of what dickens did for christmas we must consider the question of what christmas did for dickens. how did it happen that this bustling, nineteenth-century man, full of the almost cock-sure common-sense of the utilitarian and liberal epoch, came to associate his name chiefly in literary history with the perpetuation of a half pagan and half catholic festival which he would certainly have called an antiquity and might easily have called a superstition? christmas has indeed been celebrated before in english literature; but it had, in the most noticeable cases, been celebrated in connection with that kind of feudalism with which dickens would have severed his connection with an ignorant and even excessive scorn. sir roger de coverley kept christmas; but it was a feudal christmas. sir walter scott sang in praise of christmas; but it was a feudal christmas. and dickens was not only indifferent to the dignity of the old country gentleman or to the genial archæology of scott; he was even harshly and insolently hostile to it. if dickens had lived in the neighbourhood of sir roger de coverley he would undoubtedly, like tom touchy, have been always "having the law of him." if dickens had stumbled in among the old armour and quaint folios of scott's study he would certainly have read his brother novelist a lesson in no measured terms about the futility of thus fumbling in the dust-bins of old oppression and error. so far from dickens being one of those who like a thing because it is old, he was one of those cruder kind of reformers, in theory at least, who actually dislike a thing because it is old. he was not merely the more righteous kind of radical who tries to uproot abuses; he was partly also that more suicidal kind of radical who tries to uproot himself. in theory at any rate, he had no adequate conception of the importance of human tradition; in his time it had been twisted and falsified into the form of an opposition to democracy. in truth, of course, tradition is the most democratic of all things, for tradition is merely a democracy of the dead as well as the living. but dickens and his special group or generation had no grasp of this permanent position; they had been called to a special war for the righting of special wrongs. in so far as such an institution as christmas was old, dickens would even have tended to despise it. he could never have put the matter to himself in the correct way--that while there are some things whose antiquity does prove that they are dying, there are some other things whose antiquity only proves that they cannot die. if some radical contemporary and friend of dickens had happened to say to him that in defending the mince-pies and the mummeries of christmas he was defending a piece of barbaric and brutal ritualism, doomed to disappear in the light of reason along with the boy-bishop and the lord of misrule, i am not sure that dickens (though he was one of the readiest and most rapid masters of reply in history) would have found it very easy upon his own principles to answer. it was by a great ancestral instinct that he defended christmas; by that sacred sub-consciousness which is called tradition, which some have called a dead thing, but which is really a thing far more living than the intellect. there is a dark kinship and brotherhood of all mankind which is much too deep to be called heredity or to be in any way explained in scientific formulæ; blood is thicker than water and is especially very much thicker than water on the brain. but this unconscious and even automatic quality in dickens's defence of the christmas feast, this fact that his defence might almost be called animal rather than mental, though in proper language it should be called merely virile; all this brings us back to the fact that we must begin with the atmosphere of the subject itself. we must not ask dickens what christmas is, for with all his heat and eloquence he does not know. rather we must ask christmas what dickens is--ask how this strange child of christmas came to be born out of due time. dickens devoted his genius in a somewhat special sense to the description of happiness. no other literary man of his eminence has made this central human aim so specially his subject matter. happiness is a mystery--generally a momentary mystery--which seldom stops long enough to submit itself to artistic observation, and which, even when it is habitual, has something about it which renders artistic description almost impossible. there are twenty tiny minor poets who can describe fairly impressively an eternity of agony; there are very few even of the eternal poets who can describe ten minutes of satisfaction. nevertheless, mankind being half divine is always in love with the impossible, and numberless attempts have been made from the beginning of human literature to describe a real state of felicity. upon the whole, i think, the most successful have been the most frankly physical and symbolic; the flowers of eden or the jewels of the new jerusalem. many writers, for instance, have called the gold and chrysolite of the holy city a vulgar lump of jewellery. but when these critics themselves attempt to describe their conceptions of future happiness, it is always some priggish nonsense about "planes," about "cycles of fulfilment," or "spirals of spiritual evolution." now a cycle is just as much a physical metaphor as a flower of eden; a spiral is just as much a physical metaphor as a precious stone. but, after all, a garden is a beautiful thing; whereas this is by no means necessarily true of a cycle, as can be seen in the case of a bicycle. a jewel, after all, is a beautiful thing; but this is not necessarily so of a spiral, as can be seen in the case of a corkscrew. nothing is gained by dropping the old material metaphors, which did hint at heavenly beauty, and adopting other material metaphors which do not even give a hint of earthly beauty. this modern or spiral method of describing indescribable happiness may, i think, be dismissed. then there has been another method which has been adopted by many men of a very real poetical genius. it was the method of the old pastoral poets like theocritus. it was in another way that adopted by the elegance and piety of spenser. it was certainly expressed in the pictures of watteau; and it had a very sympathetic and even manly expression in modern england in the decorative poetry of william morris. these men of genius, from theocritus to morris, occupied themselves in endeavouring to describe happiness as a state of certain human beings, the atmosphere of a commonwealth, the enduring climate of certain cities or islands. they poured forth treasures of the truest kind of imagination upon describing the happy lives and landscapes of utopia or atlantis or the earthly paradise. they traced with the most tender accuracy the tracery of its fruit-trees or the glimmering garments of its women; they used every ingenuity of colour or intricate shape to suggest its infinite delight. and what they succeeded in suggesting was always its infinite melancholy. william morris described the earthly paradise in such a way that the only strong emotional note left on the mind was the feeling of how homeless his travellers felt in that alien elysium; and the reader sympathised with them, feeling that he would prefer not only elizabethan england but even twentieth-century camberwell to such a land of shining shadows. thus literature has almost always failed in endeavouring to describe happiness as a state. human tradition, human custom and folk-lore (though far more true and reliable than literature as a rule) have not often succeeded in giving quite the correct symbols for a real atmosphere of _camaraderie_ and joy. but here and there the note has been struck with the sudden vibration of the _vox humana_. in human tradition it has been struck chiefly in the old celebrations of christmas. in literature it has been struck chiefly in dickens's christmas tales. in the historic celebration of christmas as it remains from catholic times in certain northern countries (and it is to be remembered that in catholic times the northern countries were, if possible, more catholic than anybody else), there are three qualities which explain, i think, its hold upon the human sense of happiness, especially in such men as dickens. there are three notes of christmas, so to speak, which are also notes of happiness, and which the pagans and the utopians forget. if we state what they are in the case of christmas, it will be quite sufficiently obvious how important they are in the case of dickens. the first quality is what may be called the dramatic quality. the happiness is not a state; it is a crisis. all the old customs surrounding the celebration of the birth of christ are made by human instinct so as to insist and re-insist upon this crucial quality. everything is so arranged that the whole household may feel, if possible, as a household does when a child is actually being born in it. the thing is a vigil and a vigil with a definite limit. people sit up at night until they hear the bells ring. or they try to sleep at night in order to see their presents the next morning. everywhere there is a limitation, a restraint; at one moment the door is shut, at the moment after it is opened. the hour has come or it has not come; the parcels are undone or they are not undone; there is no evolution of christmas presents. this sharp and theatrical quality in pleasure, which human instinct and the mother wit of the world has wisely put into the popular celebrations of christmas, is also a quality which is essential in such romantic literature as dickens wrote. in romantic literature the hero and heroine must indeed be happy, but they must also be unexpectedly happy. this is the first connecting link between literature and the old religious feast; this is the first connecting link between dickens and christmas. the second element to be found in all such festivity and all such romance is the element which is represented as well as it could be represented by the mere fact that christmas occurs in the winter. it is the element not merely of contrast, but actually of antagonism. it preserves everything that was best in the merely primitive or pagan view of such ceremonies or such banquets. if we are carousing, at least we are warriors carousing. we hang above us, as it were, the shields and battle-axes with which we must do battle with the giants of the snow and hail. all comfort must be based on discomfort. man chooses when he wishes to be most joyful the very moment when the whole material universe is most sad. it is this contradiction and mystical defiance which gives a quality of manliness and reality to the old winter feasts which is not characteristic of the sunny felicities of the earthly paradise. and this curious element has been carried out even in all the trivial jokes and tasks that have always surrounded such occasions as these. the object of the jovial customs was not to make everything artificially easy: on the contrary, it was rather to make everything artificially difficult. idealism is not only expressed by shooting an arrow at the stars; the fundamental principle of idealism is also expressed by putting a leg of mutton at the top of a greasy pole. there is in all such observances a quality which can be called only the quality of divine obstruction. for instance, in the game of snapdragon (that admirable occupation) the conception is that raisins taste much nicer if they are brands saved from the burning. about all christmas things there is something a little nobler, if only nobler in form and theory, than mere comfort; even holly is prickly. it is not hard to see the connection of this kind of historic instinct with a romantic writer like dickens. the healthy novelist must always play snapdragon with his principal characters; he must always be snatching the hero and heroine like raisins out of the fire. the third great christmas element is the element of the grotesque. the grotesque is the natural expression of joy; and all the utopias and new edens of the poets fail to give a real impression of enjoyment, very largely because they leave out the grotesque. a man in most modern utopias cannot really be happy; he is too dignified. a man in morris's earthly paradise cannot really be enjoying himself; he is too decorative. when real human beings have real delights they tend to express them entirely in grotesques--i might almost say entirely in goblins. on christmas eve one may talk about ghosts so long as they are turnip ghosts. but one would not be allowed (i hope, in any decent family) to talk on christmas eve about astral bodies. the boar's head of old yule-time was as grotesque as the donkey's head of bottom the weaver. but there is only one set of goblins quite wild enough to express the wild goodwill of christmas. those goblins are the characters of dickens. arcadian poets and arcadian painters have striven to express happiness by means of beautiful figures. dickens understood that happiness is best expressed by ugly figures. in beauty, perhaps, there is something allied to sadness; certainly there is something akin to joy in the grotesque, nay, in the uncouth. there is something mysteriously associated with happiness not only in the corpulence of falstaff and the corpulence of tony weller, but even in the red nose of bardolph or the red nose of mr. stiggins. a thing of beauty is an inspiration for ever--a matter of meditation for ever. it is rather a thing of ugliness that is strictly a joy for ever. all dickens's books are christmas books. but this is still truest of his two or three famous yuletide tales--the _christmas carol_ and _the chimes_ and _the cricket on the hearth_. of these _the christmas carol_ is beyond comparison the best as well as the most popular. indeed, dickens is in so profound and spiritual a sense a popular author that in his case, unlike most others, it can generally be said that the best work is the most popular. it is for _pickwick_ that he is best known; and upon the whole it is for pickwick that he is best worth knowing. in any case this superiority of _the christmas carol_ makes it convenient for us to take it as an example of the generalisations already made. if we study the very real atmosphere of rejoicing and of riotous charity in _the christmas carol_ we shall find that all the three marks i have mentioned are unmistakably visible. _the christmas carol_ is a happy story first, because it describes an abrupt and dramatic change. it is not only the story of a conversion, but of a sudden conversion; as sudden as the conversion of a man at a salvation army meeting. popular religion is quite right in insisting on the fact of a crisis in most things. it is true that the man at the salvation army meeting would probably be converted from the punch bowl; whereas scrooge was converted to it. that only means that scrooge and dickens represented a higher and more historic christianity. again, _the christmas carol_ owes much of its hilarity to our second source--the fact of its being a tale of winter and of a very wintry winter. there is much about comfort in the story; yet the comfort is never enervating: it is saved from that by a tingle of something bitter and bracing in the weather. lastly, the story exemplifies throughout the power of the third principle--the kinship between gaiety and the grotesque. everybody is happy because nobody is dignified. we have a feeling somehow that scrooge looked even uglier when he was kind than he had looked when he was cruel. the turkey that scrooge bought was so fat, says dickens, that it could never have stood upright. that top-heavy and monstrous bird is a good symbol of the top-heavy happiness of the stories. it is less profitable to criticise the other two tales in detail because they represent variations on the theme in two directions; and variations that were not, upon the whole, improvements. _the chimes_ is a monument of dickens's honourable quality of pugnacity. he could not admire anything, even peace, without wanting to be warlike about it. that was all as it should be. dombey and son in dickens's literary life _dombey and son_ represents a break so important as to necessitate our casting back to a summary and a generalisation. in order fully to understand what this break is, we must say something of the previous character of dickens's novels, and even something of the general character of novels in themselves. how essential this is we shall see shortly. it must first be remembered that the novel is the most typical of modern forms. it is typical of modern forms especially in this, that it is essentially formless. all the ancient modes or structures of literature were definite and severe. any one composing them had to abide by their rules; they were what their name implied. thus a tragedy might be a bad tragedy, but it was always a tragedy. thus an epic might be a bad epic, but it was always an epic. now in the sense in which there is such a thing as an epic, in that sense there is no such thing as a novel. we call any long fictitious narrative in prose a novel, just as we call any short piece of prose without any narrative an essay. both these forms are really quite formless, and both of them are really quite new. the difference between a good epic by mr. john milton and a bad epic by mr. john smith was simply the difference between the same thing done well and the same thing done badly. but it was not (for instance) like the difference between _clarissa harlowe_ and _the time machine_. if we class richardson's book with mr. wells's book it is really only for convenience; if we say that they are both novels we shall certainly be puzzled in that case to say what on earth a novel is. but the note of our age, both for good and evil, is a highly poetical and largely illogical faith in liberty. liberty is not a negation or a piece of nonsense, as the cheap reactionaries say; it is a belief in variety and growth. but it is a purely poetic and even a merely romantic belief. the nineteenth century was an age of romance as certainly as the middle ages was an age of reason. mediævals liked to have everything defined and defensible; the modern world prefers to run some risks for the sake of spontaneity and diversity. consequently the modern world is full of a phenomenon peculiar to itself--i mean the spectacle of small or originally small things swollen to enormous size and power. the modern world is like a world in which toadstools should be as big as trees, and insects should walk about in the sun as large as elephants. thus, for instance, the shopkeeper, almost an unimportant figure in carefully ordered states, has in our time become the millionaire, and has more power than ten kings. thus again a practical knowledge of nature, of the habits of animals or the properties of fire and water, was in the old ordered state either an almost servile labour or a sort of joke; it was left to old women and gamekeepers and boys who went birds'-nesting. in our time this commonplace daily knowledge has swollen into the enormous miracle of physical size, weighing the stars and talking under the sea. in short, our age is a sort of splendid jungle in which some of the most towering weeds and blossoms have come from the smallest seed. and this is, generally speaking, the explanation of the novel. the novel is not so much the filling up of an artistic plan, however new or fantastic. it is a thing that has grown from some germ of suggestion, and has often turned out much larger than the author intended. and this, lastly, is the final result of these facts, that the critic can generally trace in a novel what was the original artistic type or shape of thought from which the whole matter started, and he will generally find that this is different in every case. in one novel he will find that the first impulse is a character. in another novel he will find that the first impulse is a landscape, the atmosphere of some special countryside. in another novel he will find that the first impulse is the last chapter. or it may be a thrust with sword or dagger, it may be a theology, it may be a song. somewhere embedded in every ordinary book are the five or six words for which really all the rest will be written. some of our enterprising editors who set their readers to hunt for banknotes and missing ladies might start a competition for finding those words in every novel. but whether or no this is possible, there is no doubt that the principle in question is of great importance in the case of dickens, and especially in the case of _dombey and son_. in all the dickens novels can be seen, so to speak, the original thing that they were before they were novels. the same may be observed, for the matter of that, in the great novels of most of the great modern novelists. for example, sir walter scott wrote poetical romances before he wrote prose romances. hence it follows that, with all their much greater merit, his novels may still be described as poetical romances in prose. while adding a new and powerful element of popular humours and observation, scott still retains a certain purely poetical right--a right to make his heroes and outlaws and great kings speak at the great moments with a rhetoric so rhythmical that it partakes of the nature of song, the same quite metrical rhetoric which is used in the metrical speeches of marmion or roderick dhu. in the same way, although _don quixote_ is a modern novel in its irony and subtlety, we can see that it comes from the old long romances of chivalry. in the same way, although _clarissa_ is a modern novel in its intimacy and actuality, we can see that it comes from the old polite letter-writing and polite essays of the period of the _spectator_. any one can see that scott formed in _the lay of the last minstrel_ the style that he applied again and again afterwards, like the reappearances of a star taking leave of the stage. all his other romances were positively last appearances of the positively last minstrel. any one can see that thackeray formed in fragmentary satires like _the book of snobs_ or _the yellowplush papers_ the style, the rather fragmentary style, in which he was to write _vanity fair_. in most modern cases, in short (until very lately, at any rate), the novel is an enormous outgrowth from something that was not a novel. and in dickens this is very important. all his novels are outgrowths of the original notion of taking notes, splendid and inspired notes, of what happens in the street. those in the modern world who cannot reconcile themselves to his method--those who feel that there is about his books something intolerably clumsy or superficial--have either no natural taste for strong literature at all, or else have fallen into their error by too persistently regarding dickens as a modern novelist and expecting all his books to be modern novels. dickens did not know at what exact point he really turned into a novelist. nor do we. dickens did not know, in his deepest soul, whether he ever really did turn into a novelist. nor do we. the novel being a modern product is one of the few things to which we really can apply that disgusting method of thought--the method of evolution. but even in evolution there are great gaps, there are great breaks, there are great crises. i have said that the first of these breaks in dickens may be placed at the point when he wrote _nicholas nickleby_. this was his first serious decision to be a novelist in any sense at all, to be anything except a maker of momentary farces. the second break, and that a far more important break, is in _dombey and son_. this marks his final resolution to be a novelist and nothing else, to be a serious constructor of fiction in the serious sense. before _dombey and son_ even his pathos had been really frivolous. after _dombey and son_ even his absurdity was intentional and grave. in case this transition is not understood, one or two tests may be taken at random. the episodes in _dombey and son_, the episodes in _david copperfield_, which came after it, are no longer episodes merely stuck into the middle of the story without any connection with it, like most of the episodes in _nicholas nickleby_, or most of the episodes even in _martin chuzzlewit_. take, for instance, by way of a mere coincidence, the fact that three schools for boys are described successively in _nicholas nickleby_, in _dombey and son_, and in _david copperfield_. but the difference is enormous. dotheboys hall does not exist to tell us anything about nicholas nickleby. rather nicholas nickleby exists entirely in order to tell us about dotheboys hall. it does not in any way affect his history or psychology; he enters mr. squeers's school and leaves mr. squeers's school with the same character, or rather absence of character. it is a mere episode, existing for itself. but when little paul dombey goes to an old-fashioned but kindly school, it is in a very different sense and for a very different reason from that for which nicholas nickleby goes to an old-fashioned and cruel school. the sending of little paul to dr. blimber's is a real part of the history of little paul, such as it is. dickens deliberately invents all that elderly pedantry in order to show up paul's childishness. dickens deliberately invents all that rather heavy kindness in order to show up paul's predestination and tragedy. dotheboys hall is not meant to show up anything except dotheboys hall. but although dickens doubtless enjoyed dr. blimber quite as much as mr. squeers, it remains true that dr. blimber is really a very good foil to paul; whereas squeers is not a foil to nicholas; nicholas is merely a lame excuse for squeers. the change can be seen continued in the school, or rather the two schools, to which david copperfield goes. the whole idea of david copperfield's life is that he had the dregs of life before the wine of it. he knew the worst of the world before he knew the best of it. his childhood at dr. strong's is a second childhood. now for this purpose the two schools are perfectly well adapted. mr. creakle's school is not only, like mr. squeers's school, a bad school, it is a bad influence upon david copperfield. dr. strong's school is not only a good school, it is a good influence upon david copperfield. i have taken this case of the schools as a case casual but concrete. the same, however, can be seen in any of the groups or incidents of the novels on both sides of the boundary. mr. crummles's theatrical company is only a society that nicholas happens to fall into. america is only a place to which martin chuzzlewit happens to go. these things are isolated sketches, and nothing else. even todgers's boarding-house is only a place where mr. pecksniff can be delightfully hypocritical. it is not a place which throws any new light on mr. pecksniff's hypocrisy. but the case is different with that more subtle hypocrite in _dombey and son_--i mean major bagstock. dickens does mean it as a deliberate light on mr. dombey's character that he basks with a fatuous calm in the blazing sun of major bagstock's tropical and offensive flattery. here, then, is the essence of the change. he not only wishes to write a novel; this he did as early as _nicholas nickleby_. he wishes to have as little as possible in the novel that does not really assist it as a novel. previously he had asked with the assistance of what incidents could his hero wander farther and farther from the pathway. now he has really begun to ask with the assistance of what incidents his hero can get nearer and nearer to the goal. the change made dickens a greater novelist. i am not sure that it made him a greater man. one good character by dickens requires all eternity to stretch its legs in; and the characters in his later books are always being tripped up by some tiresome nonsense about the story. for instance, in _dombey and son_, mrs. skewton is really very funny. but nobody with a love of the real smell of dickens would compare her for a moment, for instance, with mrs. nickleby. and the reason of mrs. skewton's inferiority is simply this, that she has something to do in the plot; she has to entrap or assist to entrap mr. dombey into marrying edith. mrs. nickleby, on the other hand, has nothing at all to do in the story, except to get in everybody's way. the consequence is that we complain not of her for getting in everyone's way, but of everyone for getting in hers. what are suns and stars, what are times and seasons, what is the mere universe, that it should presume to interrupt mrs. nickleby? mrs. skewton (though supposed, of course, to be a much viler sort of woman) has something of the same quality of splendid and startling irrelevancy. in her also there is the same feeling of wild threads hung from world to world like the webs of gigantic spiders; of things connected that seem to have no connection save by this one adventurous filament of frail and daring folly. nothing could be better than mrs. skewton when she finds herself, after convolutions of speech, somehow on the subject of henry viii., and pauses to mention with approval "his dear little peepy eyes and his benevolent chin." nothing could be better than her attempt at mahomedan resignation when she feels almost inclined to say "that there is no what's-his-name but thingummy, and what-you-may-call-it is his prophet!" but she has not so much time as mrs. nickleby to say these good things; also she has not sufficient human virtue to say them constantly. she is always intent upon her worldly plans, among other things upon the worldly plan of assisting charles dickens to get a story finished. she is always "advancing her shrivelled ear" to listen to what dombey is saying to edith. worldliness is the most solemn thing in the world; it is far more solemn than other-worldliness. mrs. nickleby can afford to ramble as a child does in a field, or as a child does to laugh at nothing, for she is like a child, innocent. it is only the good who can afford to be frivolous. broadly speaking, what is said here of mrs. skewton applies to the great part of _dombey and son_, even to the comic part of it. it shows an advance in art and unity; it does not show an advance in genius and creation. in some cases, in fact, i cannot help feeling that it shows a falling off. it may be a personal idiosyncrasy, but there is only one comic character really prominent in dickens, upon whom dickens has really lavished the wealth of his invention, and who does not amuse me at all, and that character is captain cuttle. but three great exceptions must be made to any such disparagement of _dombey and son_. they are all three of that royal order in dickens's creation which can no more be described or criticised than strong wine. the first is major bagstock, the second is cousin feenix, the third is toots. in bagstock dickens has blasted for ever that type which pretends to be sincere by the simple operation of being explosively obvious. he tells about a quarter of the truth, and then poses as truthful because a quarter of the truth is much simpler than the whole of it. he is the kind of man who goes about with posers for bishops or for socialists, with plain questions to which he wants a plain answer. his questions are plain only in the same sense that he himself is plain--in the sense of being uncommonly ugly. he is the man who always bursts with satisfaction because he can call a spade a spade, as if there were any kind of logical or philosophical use in merely saying the same word twice over. he is the man who wants things down in black and white, as if black and white were the only two colours; as if blue and green and red and gold were not facts of the universe. he is too selfish to tell the truth and too impatient even to hear it. he cannot endure the truth, because it is subtle. this man is almost always like bagstock--a sycophant and a toad-eater. a man is not any the less a toad-eater because he eats his toads with a huge appetite and gobbles them up, as bagstock did his breakfast, with the eyes starting out of his purple face. he flatters brutally. he cringes with a swagger. and men of the world like dombey are always taken in by him, because men of the world are probably the simplest of all the children of adam. cousin feenix again is an exquisite suggestion, with his rickety chivalry and rambling compliments. it was about the period of _dombey and son_ that dickens began to be taken up by good society. (one can use only vulgar terms for an essentially vulgar process.) and his sketches of the man of good family in the books of this period show that he had had glimpses of what that singular world is like. the aristocrats in his earliest books are simply dragons and griffins for his heroes to fight with--monsters like sir mulberry hawk or lord verisopht. they are merely created upon the old principle, that your scoundrel must be polite and powerful--a very sound principle. the villain must be not only a villain, but a tyrant. the giant must be larger than jack. but in the books of the dombey period we have many shrewd glimpses of the queer realities of english aristocracy. of these cousin feenix is one of the best. cousin feenix is a much better sketch of the essentially decent and chivalrous aristocrat than sir leicester dedlock. both of the men are, if you will, fools, as both are honourable gentlemen. but if one may attempt a classification among fools, sir leicester dedlock is a stupid fool, while cousin feenix is a silly fool--which is much better. the difference is that the silly fool has a folly which is always on the borderland of wit, and even of wisdom; his wandering wits come often upon undiscovered truths. the stupid fool is as consistent and as homogeneous as wood; he is as invincible as the ancestral darkness. cousin feenix is a good sketch of the sort of well-bred old ass who is so fundamentally genuine that he is always saying very true things by accident. his whole tone also, though exaggerated like everything in dickens, is very true to the bewildered good nature which marks english aristocratic life. the statement that dickens could not describe a gentleman is, like most popular animadversions against dickens, so very thin and one-sided a truth as to be for serious purposes a falsehood. when people say that dickens could not describe a gentleman, what they mean is this, and so far what they mean is true. they mean that dickens could not describe a gentleman as gentlemen feel a gentleman. they mean that he could not take that atmosphere easily, accept it as the normal atmosphere, or describe that world from the inside. this is true. in dickens's time there was such a thing as the english people, and dickens belonged to it. because there is no such thing as an english people now, almost all literary men drift towards what is called society; almost all literary men either are gentlemen or pretend to be. hence, as i say, when we talk of describing a gentleman, we always mean describing a gentleman from the point of view of one who either belongs to, or is interested in perpetuating, that type. dickens did not describe gentlemen in the way that gentlemen describe gentlemen. he described them in the way in which he described waiters, or railway guards, or men drawing with chalk on the pavement. he described them, in short (and this we may freely concede), from the outside, as he described any other oddity or special trade. but when it comes to saying that he did not describe them well, then that is quite another matter, and that i should emphatically deny. the things that are really odd about the english upper class he saw with startling promptitude and penetration, and if the english upper class does not see these odd things in itself, it is not because they are not there, but because we are all blind to our own oddities; it is for the same reason that tramps do not feel dirty, or that niggers do not feel black. i have often heard a dear old english oligarch say that dickens could not describe a gentleman, while every note of his own voice and turn of his own hand recalled sir leicester dedlock. i have often been told by some old buck that dickens could not describe a gentleman, and been told so in the shaky voice and with all the vague allusiveness of cousin feenix. cousin feenix has really many of the main points of the class that governs england. take, for an instance, his hazy notion that he is in a world where everybody knows everybody; whenever he mentions a man, it is a man "with whom my friend dombey is no doubt acquainted." that pierces to the very helpless soul of aristocracy. take again the stupendous gravity with which he leads up to a joke. that is the very soul of the house of commons and the cabinet, of the high-class english politics, where a joke is always enjoyed solemnly. take his insistence upon the technique of parliament, his regrets for the time when the rules of debate were perhaps better observed than they are now. take that wonderful mixture in him (which is the real human virtue of our aristocracy) of a fair amount of personal modesty with an innocent assumption of rank. of a man who saw all these genteel foibles so clearly it is absurd merely to say without further explanation that he could not describe a gentleman. let us confine ourselves to saying that he did not describe a gentleman as gentlemen like to be described. lastly, there is the admirable study of toots, who may be considered as being in some ways the masterpiece of dickens. nowhere else did dickens express with such astonishing insight and truth his main contention, which is that to be good and idiotic is not a poor fate, but, on the contrary, an experience of primeval innocence, which wonders at all things. dickens did not know, anymore than any great man ever knows, what was the particular thing that he had to preach. he did not know it; he only preached it. but the particular thing that he had to preach was this: that humility is the only possible basis of enjoyment; that if one has no other way of being humble except being poor, then it is better to be poor, and to enjoy; that if one has no other way of being humble except being imbecile, then it is better to be imbecile, and to enjoy. that is the deep unconscious truth in the character of toots--that all his externals are flashy and false; all his internals unconscious, obscure, and true. he wears loud clothes, and he is silent inside them. his shirts and waistcoats are covered with bright spots of pink and purple, while his soul is always covered with the sacred shame. he always gets all the outside things of life wrong, and all the inside things right. he always admires the right christian people, and gives them the wrong christian names. dimly connecting captain cuttle with the shop of mr. solomon gills, he always addresses the astonished mariner as "captain gills." he turns mr. walter gay, by a most improving transformation, into "lieutenant walters." but he always knows which people upon his own principles to admire. he forgets who they are, but he remembers what they are. with the clear eyes of humility he perceives the whole world as it is. he respects the game chicken for being strong, as even the game chicken ought to be respected for being strong. he respects florence for being good, as even florence ought to be respected for being good. and he has no doubt about which he admires most; he prefers goodness to strength, as do all masculine men. it is through the eyes of such characters as toots that dickens really sees the whole of his tales. for even if one calls him a half-wit, it still makes a difference that he keeps the right half of his wits. when we think of the unclean and craven spirit in which toots might be treated in a psychological novel of to-day; how he might walk with a mooncalf face, and a brain of bestial darkness, the soul rises in real homage to dickens for showing how much simple gratitude and happiness can remain in the lopped roots of the most simplified intelligence. if scientists must treat a man as a dog, it need not be always as a mad dog. they might grant him, like toots, a little of the dog's loyalty and the dog's reward. [illustration: charles dickens, from a daguerreotype by mayall.] david copperfield in this book dickens is really trying to write a new kind of book, and the enterprise is almost as chivalrous as a cavalry charge. he is making a romantic attempt to be realistic. that is almost the definition of _david copperfield_. in his last book, _dombey and son_, we see a certain maturity and even a certain mild exhaustion in his earlier farcical method. he never failed to have fine things in any of his books, and toots is a very fine thing. still, i could never find captain cuttle and mr. sol gills very funny, and the whole wooden midshipman seems to me very wooden. in _david copperfield_ he suddenly unseals a new torrent of truth, the truth out of his own life. the impulse of the thing is autobiography; he is trying to tell all the absurd things that have happened to himself, and not the least absurd thing is himself. yet though it is dickens's ablest and clearest book, there is in it a falling away of a somewhat singular kind. generally speaking there was astonishingly little of fatigue in dickens's books. he sometimes wrote bad work; he sometimes wrote even unimportant work; but he wrote hardly a line which is not full of his own fierce vitality and fancy. if he is dull it is hardly ever because he cannot think of anything; it is because, by some silly excitement or momentary lapse of judgment, he has thought of something that was not worth thinking of. if his joke is feeble, it is as an impromptu joke at an uproarious dinner-table may be feeble; it is no indication of any lack of vitality. the joke is feeble, but it is not a sign of feebleness. broadly speaking, this is true of dickens. if his writing is not amusing us, at least it is amusing him. even when he is tiring he is not tired. but in the case of _david copperfield_ there is a real reason for noting an air of fatigue. for although this is the best of all dickens's books, it constantly disappoints the critical and intelligent reader. the reason is that dickens began it under his sudden emotional impulse of telling the whole truth about himself and gradually allowed the whole truth to be more and more diluted, until towards the end of the book we are back in the old pedantic and decorative art of dickens, an art which we justly admired in its own place and on its own terms, but which we resent when we feel it gradually returning through a tale pitched originally in a more practical and piercing key. here, i say, is the one real example of the fatigue of dickens. he begins his story in a new style and then slips back into an old one. the earlier part is in his later manner. the later part is in his earlier manner. there are many marks of something weak and shadowy in the end of _david copperfield_. here, for instance, is one of them which is not without its bearing on many tendencies of modern england. why did dickens at the end of this book give way to that typically english optimism about emigration? he seems to think that he can cure the souls of a whole cartload, or rather boatload, of his characters by sending them all to the colonies. peggotty is a desolate and insulted parent whose house has been desecrated and his pride laid low; therefore let him go to australia. emily is a woman whose heart is broken and whose honour is blasted; but she will be quite happy if she goes to australia. mr. micawber is a man whose soul cannot be made to understand the tyranny of time or the limits of human hope; but he will understand all these things if he goes to australia. for it must be noted that dickens does not use this emigration merely as a mode of exit. he does not send these characters away on a ship merely as a symbol suggesting that they pass wholly out of his hearer's life. he does definitely suggest that australia is a sort of island valley of avalon, where the soul may heal it of its grievous wound. it is seriously suggested that peggotty finds peace in australia. it is really indicated that emily regains her dignity in australia. it is positively explained of mr. micawber not that he was happy in australia (for he would be that anywhere), but that he was definitely prosperous and practically successful in australia; and that he would certainly be nowhere. colonising is not talked of merely as a coarse, economic expedient for going to a new market. it is really offered as something that will cure the hopeless tragedy of peggotty; as something that will cure the still more hopeless comedy of micawber. i will not dwell here on the subsequent adventures of this very sentimental and extremely english illusion. it would be an exaggeration to say that dickens in this matter is something of a forerunner of much modern imperialism. his political views were such that he would have regarded modern imperialism with horror and contempt. nevertheless there is here something of that hazy sentimentalism which makes some imperialists prefer to talk of the fringe of the empire of which they know nothing, rather than of the heart of the empire which they know is diseased. it is said that in the twilight and decline of rome, close to the dark ages, the people in gaul believed that britain was a land of ghosts (perhaps it was foggy), and that the dead were ferried across to it from the northern coast of france. if (as is not entirely impossible) our own century appears to future ages as a time of temporary decay and twilight, it may be said that there was attached to england a blessed island called australia to which the souls of the socially dead were ferried across to remain in bliss for ever. this element which is represented by the colonial optimism at the end of _david copperfield_ is a moral element. the truth is that there is something a little mean about this sort of optimism. i do not like the notion of david copperfield sitting down comfortably to his tea-table with agnes, having got rid of all the inconvenient or distressing characters of the story by sending them to the other side of the world. the whole thing has too much about it of the selfishness of a family which sends a scapegrace to the colonies to starve with its blessing. there is too much in the whole thing of that element which was satirised by an ironic interpretation of the epitaph "peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away." we should have thought more of david copperfield (and also of charles dickens) if he had endeavoured for the rest of his life, by conversation and comfort, to bind up the wounds of his old friends from the seaside. we should have thought more of david copperfield (and also of charles dickens) if he had faced the possibility of going on till his dying day lending money to mr. wilkins micawber. we should have thought more of david copperfield (and also of charles dickens) if he had not looked upon the marriage with dora merely as a flirtation, an episode which he survived and ought to survive. and yet the truth is that there is nowhere in fiction where we feel so keenly the primary human instinct and principle that a marriage is a marriage and irrevocable, that such things do leave a wound and also a bond as in this case of david's short connection with his silly little wife. when all is said and done, when dickens has done his best and his worst, when he has sentimentalised for pages and tried to tie up everything in the pink tape of optimism, the fact, in the psychology of the reader, still remains. the reader does still feel that david's marriage to dora was a real marriage; and that his marriage to agnes was nothing, a middle-aged compromise, a taking of the second best, a sort of spiritualised and sublimated marriage of convenience. for all the readers of dickens dora is thoroughly avenged. the modern world (intent on anarchy in everything, even in government) refuses to perceive the permanent element of tragic constancy which inheres in all passion, and which is the origin of marriage. marriage rests upon the fact that you cannot have your cake and eat it; that you cannot lose your heart and have it. but, as i have said, there is perhaps no place in literature where we feel more vividly the sense of this monogamous instinct in man than in david copperfield. a man is monogamous even if he is only monogamous for a month; love is eternal even if it is only eternal for a month. it always leaves behind it the sense of something broken and betrayed. but i have mentioned dora in this connection only because she illustrates the same fact which micawber illustrates; the fact that there is at the end of this book too much tendency to bless people and get rid of them. micawber is a nuisance. dickens the despot condemns him to exile. dora is a nuisance. dickens the despot condemns her to death. but it is the whole business of dickens in the world to express the fact that such people are the spice and interest of life. it is the whole point of dickens that there is nobody more worth living with than a strong, splendid, entertaining, immortal nuisance. micawber interrupts practical life; but what is practical life that it should venture to interrupt micawber? dora confuses the housekeeping; but we are not angry with dora because she confuses the housekeeping. we are angry with the housekeeping because it confuses dora. i repeat, and it cannot be too much repeated that the whole lesson of dickens is here. it is better to know micawber than not to know the minor worries that arise out of knowing micawber. it is better to have a bad debt and a good friend. in the same way it is better to marry a human and healthy personality which happens to attract you than to marry a mere housewife; for a mere housewife is a mere housekeeper. all this was what dickens stood for; that the very people who are most irritating in small business circumstances are often the people who are most delightful in long stretches of experience of life. it is just the man who is maddening when he is ordering a cutlet or arranging an appointment who is probably the man in whose company it is worth while to journey steadily towards the grave. distribute the dignified people and the capable people and the highly business-like people among all the situations which their ambition or their innate corruption may demand; but keep close to your heart, keep deep in your inner councils the absurd people. let the clever people pretend to govern you, let the unimpeachable people pretend to advise you, but let the fools alone influence you; let the laughable people whose faults you see and understand be the only people who are really inside your life, who really come near you or accompany you on your lonely march towards the last impossibility. that is the whole meaning of dickens; that we should keep the absurd people for our friends. and here at the end of _david copperfield_ he seems in some dim way to deny it. he seems to want to get rid of the preposterous people simply because they will always continue to be preposterous. i have a horrible feeling that david copperfield will send even his aunt to australia if she worries him too much about donkeys. i repeat, then, that this wrong ending of _david copperfield_ is one of the very few examples in dickens of a real symptom of fatigue. having created splendid beings for whom alone life might be worth living, he cannot endure the thought of his hero living with them. having given his hero superb and terrible friends, he is afraid of the awful and tempestuous vista of their friendship. he slips back into a more superficial kind of story and ends it in a more superficial way. he is afraid of the things he has made; of that terrible figure micawber; of that yet more terrible figure dora. he cannot make up his mind to see his hero perpetually entangled in the splendid tortures and sacred surprises that come from living with really individual and unmanageable people. he cannot endure the idea that his fairy prince will not have henceforward a perfectly peaceful time. but the wise old fairy tales (which are the wisest things in the world, at any rate the wisest things of worldly origin), the wise old fairy tales never were so silly as to say that the prince and the princess lived peacefully ever afterwards. the fairy tales said that the prince and princess lived happily ever afterwards: and so they did. they lived happily, although it is very likely that from time to time they threw the furniture at each other. most marriages, i think, are happy marriages; but there is no such thing as a contented marriage. the whole pleasure of marriage is that it is a perpetual crisis. david copperfield and dora quarrelled over the cold mutton; and if they had gone on quarrelling to the end of their lives, they would have gone on loving each other to the end of their lives; it would have been a human marriage. but david copperfield and agnes would agree about the cold mutton. and that cold mutton would be very cold. i have here endeavoured to suggest some of the main merits of dickens within the framework of one of his faults. i have said that _david copperfield_ represents a rather sad transition from his strongest method to his weakest. nobody would ever complain of charles dickens going on writing his own kind of novels, his old kind of novels. if there be anywhere a man who loves good books, that man wishes that there were four _oliver twists_ and at least forty-four _pickwicks_. if there be any one who loves laughter and creation, he would be glad to read a hundred of _nicholas nickleby_ and two hundred of _the old curiosity shop_. but while any one would have welcomed one of dickens's own ordered and conventional novels, it was not in this spirit that they welcomed _david copperfield_. _david copperfield_ begins as if it were going to be a new kind of dickens novel; then it gradually turns into an old kind of dickens novel. it is here that many readers of this splendid book have been subtly and secretly irritated. nicholas nickleby is all very well; we accept him as something which is required to tie the whole affair together. nicholas is a sort of string or clothes-line on which are hung the limp figure of smike, the jumping-jack of mr. squeers and the twin dolls named cheeryble. if we do not accept nicholas nickleby as the hero of the story, at least we accept him as the title of the story. but in _david copperfield_ dickens begins something which looks for the moment fresh and startling. in the earlier chapters (the amazing earlier chapters of this book) he does seem to be going to tell the living truth about a living boy and man. it is melancholy to see that sudden fire fading. it is sad to see david copperfield gradually turning into nicholas nickleby. nicholas nickleby does not exist at all; he is a quite colourless primary condition of the story. we look through nicholas nickleby at the story just as we look through a plain pane of glass at the street. but david copperfield does begin by existing; it is only gradually that he gives up that exhausting habit. any fair critical account of dickens must always make him out much smaller than he is. for any fair criticism of dickens must take account of his evident errors, as i have taken account of one of the most evident of them during the last two or three pages. it would not even be loyal to conceal them. but no honest criticism, no criticism, though it spoke with the tongues of men and angels, could ever really talk about dickens. in all this that i have said i have not been talking about dickens at all. i say it with equanimity; i say it even with arrogance. i have been talking about the gaps of dickens. i have been talking about the omissions of dickens. i have been talking about the slumber of dickens and the forgetfulness and unconsciousness of dickens. in one word, i have been talking not about dickens, but about the absence of dickens. but when we come to him and his work itself, what is there to be said? what is there to be said about earthquake and the dawn? he has created, especially in this book of _david copperfield_, he has created, creatures who cling to us and tyrannise over us, creatures whom we would not forget if we could, creatures whom we could not forget if we would, creatures who are more actual than the man who made them. this is the excuse for all that indeterminate and rambling and sometimes sentimental criticism of which dickens, more than any one else, is the victim, of which i fear that i for one have made him the victim in this place. when i was a boy i could not understand why the dickensians worried so wearily about dickens, about where he went to school and where he ate his dinners, about how he wore his trousers and when he cut his hair. i used to wonder why they did not write something that i could read about a man like micawber. but i have come to the conclusion that this almost hysterical worship of the man, combined with a comparatively feeble criticism on his works, is just and natural. dickens was a man like ourselves; we can see where he went wrong, and study him without being stunned or getting the sunstroke. but micawber is not a man; micawber is the superman. we can only walk round and round him wondering what we shall say. all the critics of dickens, when all is said and done, have only walked round and round micawber wondering what they should say. i am myself at this moment walking round and round micawber wondering what i shall say. and i have not found out yet. christmas stories the power of dickens is shown even in the scraps of dickens, just as the virtue of a saint is said to be shown in fragments of his property or rags from his robe. it is with such fragments that we are chiefly concerned in the _christmas stories_. many of them are fragments in the literal sense; dickens began them and then allowed some one else to carry them on; they are almost rejected notes. in all the other cases we have been considering the books that he wrote; here we have rather to consider the books that he might have written. and here we find the final evidence and the unconscious stamp of greatness, as we might find it in some broken bust or some rejected moulding in the studio of michael angelo. these sketches or parts of sketches all belong to that period in his later life when he had undertaken the duties of an editor, the very heavy duties of a very popular editor. he was not by any means naturally fitted for that position. he was the best man in the world for founding papers; but many people wished that he could have been buried under the foundations, like the first builder in some pagan and prehistoric pile. he called the _daily news_ into existence, but when once it existed, it objected to him strongly. it is not easy, and perhaps it is not important, to state truly the cause of this incapacity. it was not in the least what is called the ordinary fault or weakness of the artist. it was not that he was careless; rather it was that he was too conscientious. it was not that he had the irresponsibility of genius; rather it was that he had the irritating responsibility of genius; he wanted everybody to see things as he saw them. but in spite of all this he certainly ran two great popular periodicals--_household words_ and _all the year round_--with enormous popular success. and he certainly so far succeeded in throwing himself into the communism of journalism, into the nameless brotherhood of a big paper, that many earnest dickensians are still engaged in picking out pieces of dickens from the anonymous pages of _household words_ and _all the year round_, and those parts which have been already beyond question picked out and proved are often fragmentary. the genuine writing of dickens breaks off at a certain point, and the writing of some one else begins. but when the writing of dickens breaks off, i fancy that we know it. the singular thing is that some of the best work that dickens ever did, better than the work in his best novels, can be found in these slight and composite scraps of journalism. for instance, the solemn and self-satisfied account of the duty and dignity of a waiter given in the opening chapter of _somebody's luggage_ is quite as full and fine as anything done anywhere by its author in the same vein of sumptuous satire. it is as good as the account which mr. bumble gives of out-door relief, which, "properly understood, is the parochial safeguard. the great thing is to give the paupers what they don't want, and then they never come again." it is as good as mr. podsnap's description of the british constitution, which was bestowed on him by providence. none of these celebrated passages is more obviously dickens at his best than this, the admirable description of "the true principles of waitering," or the account of how the waiter's father came back to his mother in broad daylight, "in itself an act of madness on the part of a waiter," and how he expired repeating continually "two and six is three and four is nine." that waiter's explanatory soliloquy might easily have opened an excellent novel, as _martin chuzzlewit_ is opened by the clever nonsense about the genealogy of the chuzzlewits, or as _bleak house_ is opened by a satiric account of the damp, dim life of a law court. yet dickens practically abandoned the scheme of _somebody's luggage_; he only wrote two sketches out of those obviously intended. he may almost be said to have only written a brilliant introduction to another man's book. yet it is exactly in such broken outbreaks that his greatness appears. if a man has flung away bad ideas he has shown his sense, but if he has flung away good ideas he has shown his genius. he has proved that he actually has that over-pressure of pure creativeness which we see in nature itself, "that of a hundred seeds, she often brings but one to bear." dickens had to be malthusian about his spiritual children. critics have called keats and others who died young "the great might-have-beens of literary history." dickens certainly was not merely a great might-have-been. dickens, to say the least of him, was a great was. yet this fails fully to express the richness of his talent; for the truth is that he was a great was and also a great might-have-been. he said what he had to say, and yet not all he had to say. wild pictures, possible stories, tantalising and attractive trains of thought, perspectives of adventure, crowded so continually upon his mind that at the end there was a vast mass of them left over, ideas that he literally had not the opportunity to develop, tales that he literally had not the time to tell. this is shown clearly in his private notes and letters, which are full of schemes singularly striking and suggestive, schemes which he never carried out. it is indicated even more clearly by these _christmas stories_, collected out of the chaotic opulence of _household words_ and _all the year round_. he wrote short stories actually because he had not time to write long stories. he often put into the short story a deep and branching idea which would have done very well for a long story; many of his long stories, so to speak, broke off short. this is where he differs from most who are called the might-have-beens of literature. marlowe and chatterton failed because of their weakness. dickens failed because of his force. examine for example this case of the waiter in _somebody's luggage_. dickens obviously knew enough about that waiter to have made him a running spring of joy throughout a whole novel; as the beadle is in _oliver twist_, or the undertaker in _martin chuzzlewit_. every touch of him tingles with truth, from the vague gallantry with which he asks, "would'st thou know, fair reader (if of the adorable female sex)" to the official severity with which he takes the chambermaid down, "as many pegs as is desirable for the future comfort of all parties." if dickens had developed this character at full length in a book he would have preserved for ever in literature a type of great humour and great value, and a type which may only too soon be disappearing from english history. he would have eternalised the english waiter. he still exists in some sound old taverns and decent country inns, but there is no one left really capable of singing his praises. i know that mr. bernard shaw has done something of the sort in the delightfully whimsical account of william in _you never can tell_. but nothing will persuade me that mr. bernard shaw can really understand the english waiter. he can never have ordered wine from him for instance. and though the english waiter is by the nature of things solemn about everything, he can never reach the true height and ecstasy of his solemnity except about wine. what the real english waiter would do or say if mr. shaw asked him for a vegetarian meal i cannot dare to predict. i rather think that for the first time in his life he would laugh--a horrible sight. dickens's waiter is described by one who is not merely witty, truthful, and observant, like mr. bernard shaw, but one who really knew the atmosphere of inns, one who knew and even liked the smell of beef, and beer, and brandy. hence there is a richness in dickens's portrait which does not exist in mr. shaw's. mr. shaw's waiter is merely a man of tact; dickens's is a man of principle. mr. shaw's waiter is an opportunist, just as mr. shaw is an opportunist in politics. dickens's waiter is ready to stand up seriously for "the true principles of waitering," just as dickens was ready to stand up for the true principles of liberalism. mr. shaw's waiter is agnostic; his motto is "you never can tell." dickens's waiter is a dogmatist; his motto is "you can tell; i will tell you." and the true old-fashioned english waiter had really this grave and even moral attitude; he was the servant of the customers as a priest is the servant of the faithful, but scarcely in any less dignified sense. surely it is not mere patriotic partiality that makes one lament the disappearance of this careful and honourable figure crowded out by meaner men at meaner wages, by the german waiter who has learnt five languages in the course of running away from his own, or the italian waiter who regards those he serves with a darkling contempt which must certainly be that either of a dynamiter or an exiled prince. the human and hospitable english waiter is vanishing. and dickens might perhaps have saved him, as he saved christmas. i have taken this case of the waiter in dickens and his equally important counterpart in england as an example of the sincere and genial sketches scattered about these short stories. but there are many others, and one at least demands special mention; i mean mrs. lirriper, the london landlady. not only did dickens never do anything better in a literary sense, but he never performed more perfectly his main moral function, that of insisting through laughter and flippancy upon the virtue of christian charity. there has been much broad farce against the lodging-house keeper: he alone could have written broad farce in her favour. it is fashionable to represent the landlady as a tyrant; it is too much forgotten that if she is one of the oppressors she is at least as much one of the oppressed. if she is bad-tempered it is often for the same reasons that make all women bad-tempered (i suppose the exasperating qualities of the other sex); if she is grasping it is often because when a husband makes generosity a vice it is often necessary that a wife should make avarice a virtue. all this dickens suggested very soundly and in a few strokes in the more remote character of miss wozenham. but in mrs. lirriper he went further and did not fare worse. in mrs. lirriper he suggested quite truly how huge a mass of real good humour, of grand unconscious patience, of unfailing courtesy and constant and difficult benevolence is concealed behind many a lodging-house door and compact in the red-faced person of many a preposterous landlady. any one could easily excuse the ill-humour of the poor. but great masses of the poor have not even any ill-humour to be excused. their cheeriness is startling enough to be the foundation of a miracle play; and certainly is startling enough to be the foundation of a romance. yet i do not know of any romance in which it is expressed except this one. of the landlady as of the waiter it may be said that dickens left in a slight sketch what he might have developed through a long and strong novel. for dickens had hold of one great truth, the neglect of which has, as it were, truncated and made meagre the work of many brilliant modern novelists. modern novelists try to make long novels out of subtle characters. but a subtle character soon comes to an end, because it works in and in to its own centre and dies there. but a simple character goes on for ever in a fresh interest and energy, because it works out and out into the infinite universe. mr. george moore in france is not by any means so interesting as mrs. lirriper in france; for she is trying to find france and he is only trying to find george moore. mrs. lirriper is the female equivalent of mr. pickwick. unlike mrs. bardell (another and lesser landlady) she was fully worthy to be mrs. pickwick. for in both cases the essential truth is the same; that original innocence which alone deserves adventures and because it alone can appreciate them. we have had mr. pickwick in england and we can imagine him in france. we have had mrs. lirriper in france and we can imagine her in mesopotamia or in heaven. the subtle character in the modern novels we cannot really imagine anywhere except in the suburbs or in limbo. bleak house _bleak house_ is not certainly dickens's best book; but perhaps it is his best novel. such a distinction is not a mere verbal trick; it has to be remembered rather constantly in connection with his work. this particular story represents the highest point of his intellectual maturity. maturity does not necessarily mean perfection. it is idle to say that a mature potato is perfect; some people like new potatoes. a mature potato is not perfect, but it is a mature potato; the mind of an intelligent epicure may find it less adapted to his particular purpose; but the mind of an intelligent potato would at once admit it as being, beyond all doubt, a genuine, fully developed specimen of his own particular species. the same is in some degree true even of literature. we can say more or less when a human being has come to his full mental growth, even if we go so far as to wish that he had never come to it. children are very much nicer than grown-up people; but there is such a thing as growing up. when dickens wrote _bleak house_ he had grown up. like napoleon, he had made his army on the march. he had walked in front of his mob of aggressive characters as napoleon did in front of the half-baked battalions of the revolution. and, like napoleon, he won battle after battle before he knew his own plan of campaign; like napoleon, he put the enemies' forces to rout before he had put his own force into order. like napoleon, he had a victorious army almost before he had an army. after his decisive victories napoleon began to put his house in order; after his decisive victories dickens also began to put his house in order. the house, when he had put it in order, was _bleak house_. there was one thing common to nearly all the other dickens tales, with the possible exception of _dombey and son_. they were all rambling tales; and they all had a perfect right to be. they were all rambling tales for the very simple reason that they were all about rambling people. they were novels of adventure; they were even diaries of travel. since the hero strayed from place to place, it did not seem unreasonable that the story should stray from subject to subject. this is true of the bulk of the novels up to and including _david copperfield_, up to the very brink or threshold of _bleak house_. mr. pickwick wanders about on the white english roads, always looking for antiquities and always finding novelties. poor oliver twist wanders along the same white roads to seek his fortune and to find his misfortune. nicholas nickleby goes walking across england because he is young and hopeful; little nell's grandfather does the same thing because he is old and silly. there is not much in common between samuel pickwick and oliver twist; there is not much in common between oliver twist and nicholas nickleby; there is not much in common (let us hope) between little nell's grandfather and any other human being. but they all have this in common, that they may actually all have trodden in each other's footprints. they were all wanderers on the face of the same fair english land. _martin chuzzlewit_ was only made popular by the travels of the hero in america. when we come to _dombey and son_ we find, as i have said, an exception; but even here it is odd to note the fact that it was an exception almost by accident. in dickens's original scheme of the story, much greater prominence was to have been given to the travels and trials of walter gay; in fact, the young man was to have had a deterioration of character which could only have been adequately detailed in him in his character of a vagabond and a wastrel. the most important point, however, is that when we come to _david copperfield_, in some sense the summit of his serious literature, we find the thing still there. the hero still wanders from place to place, his genius is still gipsy. the adventures in the book are less violent and less improbable than those which wait for pickwick and nicholas nickleby; but they are still adventures and not merely events; they are still things met on a road. the facts of the story fall away from david as such facts do fall away from a traveller walking fast. we are more likely perhaps, to pass by mr. creakle's school than to pass by mrs. jarley's wax-works. the only point is that we should pass by both of them. up to this point in dickens's development, his novel, however true, is still picaresque; his hero never really rests anywhere in the story. no one seems really to know where mr. pickwick lived. here he has no abiding city. when we come to _bleak house_, we come to a change in artistic structure. the thing is no longer a string of incidents; it is a cycle of incidents. it returns upon itself; it has recurrent melody and poetic justice; it has artistic constancy and artistic revenge. it preserves the unities; even to some extent it preserves the unities of time and place. the story circles round two or three symbolic places; it does not go straggling irregularly all over england like one of mr. pickwick's coaches. people go from one place to another place; but not from one place to another place on the road to everywhere else. mr. jarndyce goes from bleak house to visit mr. boythorn; but he comes back to bleak house. miss clare and miss summerson go from bleak house to visit mr. and mrs. bayham badger; but they come back to bleak house. the whole story strays from bleak house and plunges into the foul fogs of chancery and the autumn mists of chesney wold; but the whole story comes back to bleak house. the domestic title is appropriate; it is a permanent address. dickens's openings are almost always good; but the opening of _bleak house_ is good in a quite new and striking sense. nothing could be better, for instance, than the first foolish chapter about the genealogy of the chuzzlewits; but it has nothing to do with the chuzzlewits. nothing could be better than the first chapter of _david copperfield_; the breezy entrance and banging exit of miss betsy trotwood. but if there is ultimately any crisis or serious subject-matter of _david copperfield_, it is the marred marriage with dora, the final return to agnes; and all this is in no way involved in the highly-amusing fact that his aunt expected him to be a girl. we may repeat that the matter is picaresque. the story begins in one place and ends in another place, and there is no real connection between the beginning and the end except a biographical connection. a picaresque novel is only a very eventful biography; but the opening of _bleak house_ is quite another business altogether. it is admirable in quite another way. the description of the fog in the first chapter of _bleak house_ is good in itself; but it is not merely good in itself, like the description of the wind in the opening of _martin chuzzlewit_; it is also good in the sense that maeterlinck is good; it is what the modern people call an atmosphere. dickens begins in the chancery fog because he means to end in the chancery fog. he did not begin in the chuzzlewit wind because he meant to end in it; he began in it because it was a good beginning. this is perhaps the best short way of stating the peculiarity of the position of _bleak house_. in this _bleak house_ beginning we have the feeling that it is not only a beginning; we have the feeling that the author sees the conclusion and the whole. the beginning is alpha and omega: the beginning and the end. he means that all the characters and all the events shall be read through the smoky colours of that sinister and unnatural vapour. the same is true throughout the whole tale; the whole tale is symbolic and crowded with symbols. miss flite is a funny character, like miss la creevy, but miss la creevy means only miss la creevy. miss flite means chancery. the rag-and-bone man, krook, is a powerful grotesque; so is quilp; but in the story quilp only means quilp; krook means chancery. rick carstone is a kind and tragic figure, like sidney carton; but sidney carton only means the tragedy of human nature; rick carstone means the tragedy of chancery. little jo dies pathetically like little paul; but for the death of little paul we can only blame dickens; for the death of little jo we blame chancery. thus the artistic unity of the book, compared to all the author's earlier novels, is satisfying, almost suffocating. there is the _motif_, and again the _motif_. almost everything is calculated to assert and re-assert the savage morality of dickens's protest against a particular social evil. the whole theme is that which another englishman as jovial as dickens defined shortly and finally as the law's delay. the fog of the first chapter never lifts. in this twilight he traced wonderful shapes. those people who fancy that dickens was a mere clown; that he could not describe anything delicate or deadly in the human character,--those who fancy this are mostly people whose position is explicable in many easy ways. the vast majority of the fastidious critics have, in the quite strict and solid sense of the words, never read dickens at all; hence their opposition is due to and inspired by a hearty innocence which will certainly make them enthusiastic dickensians if they ever, by some accident, happen to read him. in other cases it is due to a certain habit of reading books under the eye of a conventional critic, admiring what we expect to admire, regretting what we are told to regret, waiting for mr. bumble to admire him, waiting for little nell to despise her. yet again, of course, it is sometimes due to that basest of all artistic indulgences (certainly far baser than the pleasure of absinthe or the pleasure of opium), the pleasure of appreciating works of art which ordinary men cannot appreciate. surely the vilest point of human vanity is exactly that; to ask to be admired for admiring what your admirers do not admire. but whatever be the reason, whether rude or subtle, which has prevented any particular man from personally admiring dickens, there is in connection with a book like _bleak house_ something that may be called a solid and impressive challenge. let anyone who thinks that dickens could not describe the semi-tones and the abrupt instincts of real human nature simply take the trouble to read the stretch of chapters which detail the way in which carstone's mind grew gradually morbid about his chances in chancery. let him note the manner in which the mere masculinity of carstone is caught; how as he grows more mad he grows more logical, nay, more rational. good women who love him come to him, and point out the fact that jarndyce is a good man, a fact to them solid like an object of the senses. in answer he asks them to understand his position. he does not say this; he does not say that. he only urges that jarndyce may have become cynical in the affair in the same sense that he himself may have become cynical in the affair. he is always a man; that is to say, he is always unanswerable, always wrong. the passionate certainty of the woman beats itself like battering waves against the thin smooth wall of his insane consistency. i repeat: let any one who thinks that dickens was a gross and indelicate artist read that part of the book. if dickens had been the clumsy journalist that such people represent, he never could have written such an episode at all. a clumsy journalist would have made rick carstone in his mad career cast off esther and ada and the others. the great artist knew better. he knew that even if all the good in a man is dying, the last sense that dies is the sense that knows a good woman from a bad; it is like the scent of a noble hound. the clumsy journalist would have made rick carstone turn on john jarndyce with an explosion of hatred, as of one who had made an exposure--who had found out what low people call "a false friend" in what they call "his true colours." the great artist knew better; he knew that a good man going wrong tries to salve his soul to the last with the sense of generosity and intellectual justice. he will try to love his enemy if only out of mere love of himself. as the wolf dies fighting, the good man gone wrong dies arguing. this is what constitutes the true and real tragedy of richard carstone. it is strictly the one and only great tragedy that dickens wrote. it is like the tragedy of hamlet. the others are not tragedies because they deal almost with dead men. the tragedy of old dorrit is merely the sad spectacle of a dotard dragged about europe in his last childhood. the tragedy of steerforth is only that of one who dies suddenly; the tragedy of old dombey only that of one who was dead all the time. but rick is a real tragedy, for he is still alive when the quicksand sucks him down. it is impossible to avoid putting in the first place this pall of smoke which dickens has deliberately spread over the story. it is quite true that the country underneath is clear enough to contain any number of unconscious comedians or of merry monsters such as he was in the custom of introducing into the carnival of his tales. but he meant us to take the smoky atmosphere seriously. charles dickens, who was, like all men who are really funny about funny things, horribly serious about serious things, certainly meant us to read this story in terms of his protest and his insurrection against the emptiness and arrogance of law, against the folly and the pride of judges. everything else that there is in this story entered into it through the unconscious or accidental energy of his genius, which broke in at every gap. but it was the tragedy of richard carstone that he meant, not the comedy of harold skimpole. he could not help being amusing; but he meant to be depressing. another case might be taken as testing the greater seriousness of this tale. the passages about mrs. jellyby and her philanthropic schemes show dickens at his best in his old and more familiar satiric manner. but in the midst of the jellyby pandemonium, which is in itself described with the same _abandon_ and irrelevance as the boarding-house of mrs. todgers or the travelling theatre of mr. crummles, the elder dickens introduced another piece of pure truth and even tenderness. i mean the account of caddy jellyby. if carstone is a truly masculine study of how a man goes wrong, caddy is a perfectly feminine study of how a girl goes right. nowhere else perhaps in fiction, and certainly nowhere else in dickens, is the mere female paradox so well epitomised, the unjust use of words covering so much capacity for a justice of ultimate estimate; the seeming irresponsibility in language concealing such a fixed and pitiless sense of responsibility about things; the air of being always at daggers-drawn with her own kindred, yet the confession of incurable kinship implied in pride and shame; and, above all, that thirst for order and beauty as for something physical; that strange female power of hating ugliness and waste as good men can only hate sin and bad men virtue. every touch in her is true, from her first bewildering outbursts of hating people because she likes them, down to the sudden quietude and good sense which announces that she has slipped into her natural place as a woman. miss clare is a figure-head, miss summerson in some ways a failure; but miss caddy jellyby is by far the greatest, the most human, and the most really dignified of all the heroines of dickens. with one or two exceptions, all the effects in this story are of this somewhat quieter kind, though none of them are so subtly successful as rick carstone and caddy. harold skimpole begins as a sketch drawn with a pencil almost as airy and fanciful as his own. the humour of the earlier scenes is delightful--the scenes in which skimpole looks on at other people paying his debts with the air of a kindly outsider, and suggests in formless legal phraseology that they might "sign something" or "make over something," or the scene in which he tries to explain the advantages of accepting everything to the apoplectic mr. boythorn. but it was one of the defects of dickens as a novelist that his characters always became coarser and clumsier as they passed through the practical events of a story, and this would necessarily be so with skimpole, whose position was conceivable even to himself only on the assumption that he was a mere spectator of life. poor skimpole only asked to be kept out of the business of this world, and dickens ought to have kept him out of the business of _bleak house_. by the end of the tale he has brought skimpole to doing acts of mere low villainy. this altogether spoils the ironical daintiness of the original notion. skimpole was meant to end with a note of interrogation. as it is, he ends with a big, black, unmistakable blot. speaking purely artistically, we may say that this is as great a collapse or vulgarisation as if richard carstone had turned into a common blackguard and wife-beater, or caddy jellyby into a comic and illiterate landlady. upon the whole it may, i think, be said that the character of skimpole is rather a piece of brilliant moralising than of pure observation or creation. dickens had a singularly just mind. he was wild in his caricatures, but very sane in his impressions. many of his books were devoted, and this book is partly devoted, to a denunciation of aristocracy--of the idle class that lives easily upon the toil of nations. but he was fairer than many modern revolutionists, and he insisted on satirising also those who prey on society not in the name of rank or law, but in the name of intellect and beauty. sir leicester dedlock and mr. harold skimpole are alike in accepting with a royal unconsciousness the anomaly and evil of their position. but the idleness and insolence of the aristocrat is human and humble compared to the idleness and insolence of the artist. with the exception of a few fine freaks, such as turveydrop and chadband, all the figures in this book are touched more delicately, even more faintly, than is common with dickens. but if the figures are touched more faintly, it is partly because they are figures in a fog--the fog of chancery. dickens meant that twilight to be oppressive; for it was the symbol of oppression. deliberately he did not dispel the darkness at the end of this book, as he does dispel it at the end of most of his books. pickwick gets out of the fleet prison; carstone never gets out of chancery but by death. this tyranny, dickens said, shall not be lifted by the light subterfuge of a fiction. this tyranny shall never be lifted till all englishmen lift it together. child's history of england there are works of great authors manifestly inferior to their typical work which are yet necessary to their fame and their figure in the world. it is not difficult to recall examples of them. no one, for instance, would talk of scott's _tales of a grandfather_ as indicating the power that produced _kenilworth_ and _guy mannering_. nevertheless, without this chance minor compilation we should not really have the key of scott. without this one insignificant book we should not see his significance. for the truth was that scott loved history more than romance, because he was so constituted as to find it more romantic than romance. he preferred the deeds of wallace and douglas to those of marmion and ivanhoe. therefore his garrulous gossip of old times, his rambles in dead centuries, give us the real material and impulse of all his work; they represent the quarry in which he dug and the food on which he fed. almost alone among novelists scott actually preferred those parts of his historical novels which he had not invented himself. he exults when he can boast in an eager note that he has stolen some saying from history. thus _the tales of a grandfather_, though small, is in some sense the frame of all the waverley novels. we realise that all scott's novels are tales of a grandfather. what has been said here about scott might be said in a less degree about thackeray's _four georges_. though standing higher among his works than _the tales of a grandfather_ among scott's they are not his works of genius; yet they seem in some way to surround, supplement, and explain such works. without the _four georges_ we should know less of the link that bound thackeray to the beginning and to the end of the eighteenth century; thence we should have known less of colonel esmond and also less of lord steyne. to these two examples i have given of the slight historical experiments of two novelists a third has to be added. the third great master of english fiction whose glory fills the nineteenth century also produced a small experiment in the popularisation of history. it is separated from the other two partly by a great difference of merit but partly also by an utter difference of tone and outlook. we seem to hear it suddenly as in the first words spoken by a new voice, a voice gay, colloquial, and impatient. scott and thackeray were tenderly attached to the past; dickens (in his consciousness at any rate) was impatient with everything, but especially impatient with the past. a collection of the works of dickens would be incomplete in an essential as well as a literal sense without his _child's history of england_. it may not be important as a contribution to history, but it is important as a contribution to biography; as a contribution to the character and the career of the man who wrote it, a typical man of his time. that he had made no personal historical researches, that he had no special historical learning, that he had not had, in truth, even anything that could be called a good education, all this only accentuates not the merit but at least the importance of the book. for here we may read in plain popular language, written by a man whose genius for popular exposition has never been surpassed among men, a brief account of the origin and meaning of england as it seemed to the average englishman of that age. when subtler views of our history, some more false and some more true than his, have become popular, or at least well known, when in the near future carlylean or catholic or marxian views of history have spread themselves among the reading public, this book will always remain as a bright and brisk summary of the cock-sure, healthy-minded, essentially manly and essentially ungentlemanly view of history which characterised the radicals of that particular radical era. the history tells us nothing about the periods that it talks about; but it tells us a great deal about the period that it does not talk about; the period in which it was written. it is in no sense a history of england from the roman invasion; but it is certainly one of the documents which will contribute to a history of england in the nineteenth century. of the actual nature of its philosophical and technical limitations it is, i suppose, unnecessary to speak. they all resolve themselves into one fault common in the modern world, and certainly characteristic of historians much more learned and pretentious than dickens. that fault consists simply in ignoring or underrating the variety of strange evils and unique dangers in the world. the radicals of the nineteenth century were engaged, and most righteously engaged, in dealing with one particular problem of human civilisation; they were shifting and apportioning more equally a load of custom that had really become unmeaning, often accidental, and nearly always unfair. thus, for instance, a fierce and fighting penal code, which had been perfectly natural when the robbers were as strong as the government, had become in more ordered times nothing but a base and bloody habit. thus again church powers and dues, which had been human when every man felt the church as the best part of himself, were mere mean privileges when the nation was full of sects and full of freethinkers. this clearing away of external symbols that no longer symbolised anything was an honourable and needful work; but it was so difficult that to the men engaged in it it blocked up the perspective and filled the sky, so that they slid into a very natural mental mistake which coloured all their views of history. they supposed that this particular problem on which they were engaged was the one problem upon which all mankind had always been engaged. they got it into their heads that breaking away from a dead past was the perpetual process of humanity. the truth is obviously that humanity has found itself in many difficulties very different from that. sometimes the best business of an age is to resist some alien invasion; sometimes to preach practical self-control in a world too self-indulgent and diffused; sometimes to prevent the growth in the state of great new private enterprises that would poison or oppress it. above all it may sometimes happen that the highest task of a thinking citizen may be to do the exact opposite of the work which the radicals had to do. it may be his highest duty to cling on to every scrap of the past that he can find, if he feels that the ground is giving way beneath him and sinking into mere savagery and forgetfulness of all human culture. this was exactly the position of all thinking men in what we call the dark ages, say from the sixth to the tenth century. the cheap progressive view of history can never make head or tail of that epoch; it was an epoch upside down. we think of the old things as barbaric and the new things as enlightened. in that age all the enlightened things were old; all the barbaric and brutally ignorant things were new and up to date. republicanism was a fading legend; despotism was a new and successful experiment. christianity was not only better than the clans that rebelled against it; christianity was more rationalistic than they were. when men looked back they saw progress and reason; when they looked forward they saw shapeless tradition and tribal terror. touching such an age it is obvious that all our modern terms describing reform or conservation are foolish and beside the mark. the conservative was then the only possible reformer. if a man did not strengthen the remains of roman order and the root of roman christianity, he was simply helping the world to roll downhill into ruin and idiotcy. remember all these evident historical truths and then turn to the account given by charles dickens of that great man, st. dunstan. it is not that the pert cockney tone of the abuse is irritating to the nerves: it is that he has got the whole hang of the thing wrong. his head is full of the nineteenth-century situation; that a priest imposing discipline is a person somehow blocking the way to equality and light. whereas the point about such a man as dunstan was that nobody in the place except he cared a button about equality or light: and that he was defending what was left of them against the young and growing power of darkness and division and caste. nevertheless the case against such books as this is commonly stated wrong. the fault of dickens is not (as is often said) that he "applies the same moral standard to all ages." every sane man must do that: a moral standard must remain the same or it is not a moral standard. if we call st. anthony of padua a good man, we must mean what we mean when we call huxley a good man, or else there is no sense in using the word "good." the fault of the dickens school of popular history lies, not in the application of a plain rule of right and wrong to all circumstances, but in ignorance of the circumstances to which it was applied. it is not that they wrongly enforce the fixed principle that life should be saved; it is that they take a fire-engine to a shipwreck and a lifeboat to a house on fire. the business of a good man in dickens's time was to bring justice up to date. the business of a good man in dunstan's time was to toil to ensure the survival of any justice at all. and dickens, through being a living and fighting man of his own time, kept the health of his own heart, and so saw many truths with a single eye: truths that were spoilt for subtler eyes. he was much more really right than carlyle; immeasurably more right than froude. he was more right precisely because he applied plain human morals to all facts as he saw them. carlyle really had a vague idea that in coarse and cruel times it was right to be coarse and cruel; that tyranny was excusable in the twelfth century: as if the twelfth century did not denounce tyrants as much or more than any other. carlyle, in fact, fancied that rufus was the right sort of man; a view which was not only not shared by anselm, but was probably not shared by rufus. in this connection, or rather in connection with the other case of froude, it is worth while to take another figure from dickens's history, which illustrates the other and better side of the facile and popular method. sheer ignorance of the environment made him wrong about dunstan. but sheer instinct and good moral tradition made him right, for instance, about henry viii.; right where froude is wildly wrong. dickens's imagination could not re-picture an age where learning and liberty were dying rather than being born: but henry viii. lived in a time of expanding knowledge and unrest; a time therefore somewhat like the victorian. and dickens in his childish but robust way does perceive the main point about him: that he was a wicked man. he misses all the fine shades, of course; he makes him every kind of wicked man at once. he leaves out the serious interests of the man: his strange but real concern for theology; his love of certain legal and moral forms; his half-unconscious patriotism. but he sees the solid bulk of definite badness simply because it was there; and froude cannot see it at all; because froude followed carlyle and played tricks with the eternal conscience. henry viii. _was_ "a blot of blood and grease upon the history of england." for he was the embodiment of the devil in the renascence, that wild worship of mere pleasure and scorn, which with its pictures and its palaces has enriched and ruined the world. the time will soon come when the mere common-sense of dickens, like the mere common-sense of macaulay (though his was poisoned by learning and whig politics), will appear to give a plainer and therefore truer picture of the mass of history than the mystical perversity of a man of genius writing only out of his own temperament, like carlyle or taine. if a man has a new theory of ethics there is one thing he must not be allowed to do. let him give laws on sinai, let him dictate a bible, let him fill the world with cathedrals if he can. but he must not be allowed to write a history of england; or a history of any country. all history was conducted on ordinary morality: with his extraordinary morality he is certain to read it all askew. thus carlyle tries to write of the middle ages with a bias against humility and mercy; that is, with a bias against the whole theoretic morality of the middle ages. the result is that he turns into a mere turmoil of arrogant german savages what was really the most complete and logical, if not the highest, of human civilisations. historically speaking, it is better to be dickens than to be this; better to be ignorant, provincial, slap-dash, seeing only the passing moment, but in that moment, to be true to eternal things. it must be remembered, of course, that dickens deliberately offers this only as a "child's" history of england. that is, he only professes to be able to teach history as any father of a little boy of five professes to be able to teach him history. and although the history of england would certainly be taught very differently (as regards the actual criticism of events and men) in a family with a wider culture or with another religion, the general method would be the same. for the general method is quite right. this black-and-white history of heroes and villains; this history full of pugnacious ethics and of nothing else, is the right kind of history for children. i have often wondered how the scientific marxians and the believers in "the materialist view of history" will ever manage to teach their dreary economic generalisations to children: but i suppose they will have no children. dickens's history will always be popular with the young; almost as popular as dickens's novels, and for the same reason: because it is full of moralising. science and art without morality are not dangerous in the sense commonly supposed. they are not dangerous like a fire, but dangerous like a fog. a fire is dangerous in its brightness; a fog in its dulness; and thought without morals is merely dull, like a fog. the fog seems to be creeping up the street; putting out lamp after lamp. but this cockney lamp-post which the children love is still crowned with its flame; and when the fathers have forgotten ethics, their babies will turn and teach them. hard times i have heard that in some debating clubs there is a rule that the members may discuss anything except religion and politics. i cannot imagine what they do discuss; but it is quite evident that they have ruled out the only two subjects which are either important or amusing. the thing is a part of a certain modern tendency to avoid things because they lead to warmth; whereas, obviously, we ought, even in a social sense, to seek those things specially. the warmth of the discussion is as much a part of hospitality as the warmth of the fire. and it is singularly suggestive that in english literature the two things have died together. the very people who would blame dickens for his sentimental hospitality are the very people who would also blame him for his narrow political conviction. the very people who would mock him for his narrow radicalism are those who would mock him for his broad fireside. real conviction and real charity are much nearer than people suppose. dickens was capable of loving all men; but he refused to love all opinions. the modern humanitarian can love all opinions, but he cannot love all men; he seems, sometimes, in the ecstasy of his humanitarianism, even to hate them all. he can love all opinions, including the opinion that men are unlovable. in feeling dickens as a lover we must never forget him as a fighter, and a fighter for a creed; but indeed there is no other kind of fighter. the geniality which he spread over all his creations was geniality spread from one centre, from one flaming peak. he was willing to excuse mr. micawber for being extravagant; but dickens and dickens's doctrine were strictly to decide how far he was to be excused. he was willing to like mr. twemlow in spite of his snobbishness, but dickens and dickens's doctrine were alone to be judges of how far he was snobbish. there was never a more didactic writer: hence there was never one more amusing. he had no mean modern notion of keeping the moral doubtful. he would have regarded this as a mere piece of slovenliness, like leaving the last page illegible. everywhere in dickens's work these angles of his absolute opinion stood up out of the confusion of his general kindness, just as sharp and splintered peaks stand up out of the soft confusion of the forests. dickens is always generous, he is generally kind-hearted, he is often sentimental, he is sometimes intolerably maudlin; but you never know when you will not come upon one of the convictions of dickens; and when you do come upon it you do know it. it is as hard and as high as any precipice or peak of the mountains. the highest and hardest of these peaks is _hard times_. it is here more than anywhere else that the sternness of dickens emerges as separate from his softness; it is here, most obviously, so to speak, that his bones stick out. there are indeed many other books of his which are written better and written in a sadder tone. _great expectations_ is melancholy in a sense; but it is doubtful of everything, even of its own melancholy. _the tale of two cities_ is a great tragedy, but it is still a sentimental tragedy. it is a great drama, but it is still a melodrama. but this tale of _hard times_ is in some way harsher than all these. for it is the expression of a righteous indignation which cannot condescend to humour and which cannot even condescend to pathos. twenty times we have taken dickens's hand and it has been sometimes hot with revelry and sometimes weak with weariness; but this time we start a little, for it is inhumanly cold; and then we realise that we have touched his gauntlet of steel. one cannot express the real value of this book without being irrelevant. it is true that one cannot express the real value of anything without being irrelevant. if we take a thing frivolously we can take it separately, but the moment we take a thing seriously, if it were only an old umbrella, it is obvious that that umbrella opens above us into the immensity of the whole universe. but there are rather particular reasons why the value of the book called _hard times_ should be referred back to great historic and theoretic matters with which it may appear superficially to have little or nothing to do. the chief reason can perhaps be stated thus--that english politics had for more than a hundred years been getting into more and more of a hopeless tangle (a tangle which, of course, has since become even worse) and that dickens did in some extraordinary way see what was wrong, even if he did not see what was right. the liberalism which dickens and nearly all of his contemporaries professed had begun in the american and the french revolutions. almost all modern english criticism upon those revolutions has been vitiated by the assumption that those revolutions burst upon a world which was unprepared for their ideas--a world ignorant of the possibility of such ideas. somewhat the same mistake is made by those who suggest that christianity was adopted by a world incapable of criticising it; whereas obviously it was adopted by a world that was tired of criticising everything. the vital mistake that is made about the french revolution is merely this--that everyone talks about it as the introduction of a new idea. it was not the introduction of a new idea; there are no new ideas. or if there are new ideas, they would not cause the least irritation if they were introduced into political society; because the world having never got used to them there would be no mass of men ready to fight for them at a moment's notice. that which was irritating about the french revolution was this--that it was not the introduction of a new ideal, but the practical fulfilment of an old one. from the time of the first fairy tales men had always believed ideally in equality; they had always thought that something ought to be done, if anything could be done, to redress the balance between cinderella and the ugly sisters. the irritating thing about the french was not that they said this ought to be done; everybody said that. the irritating thing about the french was that they did it. they proposed to carry out into a positive scheme what had been the vision of humanity; and humanity was naturally annoyed. the kings of europe did not make war upon the revolution because it was a blasphemy, but because it was a copy-book maxim which had been just too accurately copied. it was a platitude which they had always held in theory unexpectedly put into practice. the tyrants did not hate democracy because it was a paradox; they hated it because it was a truism which seemed in some danger of coming true. now it happens to be hugely important to have this right view of the revolution in considering its political effects upon england. for the english, being a deeply and indeed excessively romantic people, could never be quite content with this quality of cold and bald obviousness about the republican formula. the republican formula was merely this--that the state must consist of its citizens ruling equally, however unequally they may do anything else. in their capacity of members of the state they are all equally interested in its preservation. but the english soon began to be romantically restless about this eternal truism; they were perpetually trying to turn it into something else, into something more picturesque--progress perhaps, or anarchy. at last they turned it into the highly exciting and highly unsound system of politics, which was known as the manchester school, and which was expressed with a sort of logical flightiness, more excusable in literature, by mr. herbert spencer. of course danton or washington or any of the original republicans would have thought these people were mad. they would never have admitted for a moment that the state must not interfere with commerce or competition; they would merely have insisted that if the state did interfere, it must really be the state--that is, the whole people. but the distance between the common sense of danton and the mere ecstasy of herbert spencer marks the english way of colouring and altering the revolutionary idea. the english people as a body went blind, as the saying is, for interpreting democracy entirely in terms of liberty. they said in substance that if they had more and more liberty it did not matter whether they had any equality or any fraternity. but this was violating the sacred trinity of true politics; they confounded the persons and they divided the substance. now the really odd thing about england in the nineteenth century is this--that there was one englishman who happened to keep his head. the men who lost their heads lost highly scientific and philosophical heads; they were great cosmic systematisers like spencer, great social philosophers like bentham, great practical politicians like bright, great political economists like mill. the man who kept his head kept a head full of fantastic nonsense; he was a writer of rowdy farces, a demagogue of fiction, a man without education in any serious sense whatever, a man whose whole business was to turn ordinary cockneys into extraordinary caricatures. yet when all these other children of the revolution went wrong he, by a mystical something in his bones, went right. he knew nothing of the revolution; yet he struck the note of it. he returned to the original sentimental commonplace upon which it is forever founded, as the church is founded on a rock. in an england gone mad about a minor theory he reasserted the original idea--the idea that no one in the state must be too weak to influence the state. this man was dickens. he did this work much more genuinely than it was done by carlyle or ruskin; for they were simply tories making out a romantic case for the return of toryism. but dickens was a real liberal demanding the return of real liberalism. dickens was there to remind people that england had rubbed out two words of the revolutionary motto, had left only liberty and destroyed equality and fraternity. in this book, _hard times_, he specially champions equality. in all his books he champions fraternity. the atmosphere of this book and what it stands for can be very adequately conveyed in the note on the book by lord macaulay, who may stand as a very good example of the spirit of england in those years of eager emancipation and expanding wealth--the years in which liberalism was turned from an omnipotent truth to a weak scientific system. macaulay's private comment on _hard times_ runs, "one or two passages of exquisite pathos and the rest sullen socialism." that is not an unfair and certainly not a specially hostile criticism, but it exactly shows how the book struck those people who were mad on political liberty and dead about everything else. macaulay mistook for a new formula called socialism what was, in truth, only the old formula called political democracy. he and his whigs had so thoroughly mauled and modified the original idea of rousseau or jefferson that when they saw it again they positively thought that it was something quite new and eccentric. but the truth was that dickens was not a socialist, but an unspoilt liberal; he was not sullen; nay, rather, he had remained strangely hopeful. they called him a sullen socialist only to disguise their astonishment at finding still loose about the london streets a happy republican. dickens is the one living link between the old kindness and the new, between the good will of the past and the good works of the future. he links may day with bank holiday, and he does it almost alone. all the men around him, great and good as they were, were in comparison puritanical, and never so puritanical as when they were also atheistic. he is a sort of solitary pipe down which pours to the twentieth century the original river of merry england. and although this _hard times_ is, as its name implies, the hardest of his works, although there is less in it perhaps than in any of the others of the _abandon_ and the buffoonery of dickens, this only emphasises the more clearly the fact that he stood almost alone for a more humane and hilarious view of democracy. none of his great and much more highly-educated contemporaries could help him in this. carlyle was as gloomy on the one side as herbert spencer on the other. he protested against the commercial oppression simply and solely because it was not only an oppression but a depression. and this protest of his was made specially in the case of the book before us. it may be bitter, but it was a protest against bitterness. it may be dark, but it is the darkness of the subject and not of the author. he is by his own account dealing with hard times, but not with a hard eternity, not with a hard philosophy of the universe. nevertheless, this is the one place in his work where he does not make us remember human happiness by example as well as by precept. this is, as i have said, not the saddest, but certainly the harshest of his stories. it is perhaps the only place where dickens, in defending happiness, for a moment forgets to be happy. he describes bounderby and gradgrind with a degree of grimness and sombre hatred very different from the half affectionate derision which he directed against the old tyrants or humbugs of the earlier nineteenth century--the pompous dedlock or the fatuous nupkins, the grotesque bumble or the inane tigg. in those old books his very abuse was benignant; in _hard times_ even his sympathy is hard. and the reason is again to be found in the political facts of the century. dickens could be half genial with the older generation of oppressors because it was a dying generation. it was evident, or at least it seemed evident then, that nupkins could not go on much longer making up the law of england to suit himself; that sir leicester dedlock could not go on much longer being kind to his tenants as if they were dogs and cats. and some of these evils the nineteenth century did really eliminate or improve. for the first half of the century dickens and all his friends were justified in feeling that the chains were falling from mankind. at any rate, the chains did fall from mr. rouncewell the iron-master. and when they fell from him he picked them up and put them upon the poor. [illustration: charles dickens, from a black and white drawing by baughiet.] little dorrit _little dorrit_ stands in dickens's life chiefly as a signal of how far he went down the road of realism, of sadness, and of what is called modernity. true, it was by no means the best of the books of his later period; some even think it the worst. _great expectations_ is certainly the best of the later novels; some even think it the best of all the novels. nor is it the novel most concerned with strictly recent problems; that title must be given to _hard times_. nor again is it the most finely finished or well constructed of the later books; that claim can be probably made for _edwin drood_. by a queer verbal paradox the most carefully finished of his later tales is the tale that is not finished at all. in form, indeed, the book bears a superficial resemblance to those earlier works by which the young dickens had set the whole world laughing long ago. much of the story refers to a remote time early in the nineteenth century; much of it was actually recalled and copied from the life of dickens's father in the old marshalsea prison. also the narrative has something of the form, or rather absence of form, which belonged to _nicholas nickleby_ or _martin chuzzlewit_. it has something of the old air of being a string of disconnected adventures, like a boy's book about bears and indians. the dorrits go wandering for no particular reason on the continent of europe, just as young martin chuzzlewit went wandering for no particular reason on the continent of america. the story of _little dorrit_ stops and lingers at the doors of the circumlocution office much in the same way that the story of samuel pickwick stops and lingers in the political excitement of eatanswill. the villain, blandois, is a very stagey villain indeed; quite as stagey as ralph nickleby or the mysterious monk. the secret of the dark house of clennam is a very silly secret; quite as silly as the secret of ralph nickleby or the secret of monk. yet all these external similarities between _little dorrit_ and the earliest books, all this loose, melodramatic quality, only serves to make more obvious and startling the fact that some change has come over the soul of dickens. _hard times_ is harsh; but then _hard times_ is a social pamphlet; perhaps it is only harsh as a social pamphlet must be harsh. _bleak house_ is a little sombre; but then _bleak house_ is almost a detective story; perhaps it is only sombre in the sense that a detective story must be sombre. _a tale of two cities_ is a tragedy; but then _a tale of two cities_ is a tale of the french revolution; perhaps it is only a tragedy because the french revolution was a tragedy. _the mystery of edwin drood_ is dark; but then the mystery of anybody must be dark. in all these other cases of the later books an artistic reason can be given--a reason of theme or of construction for the slight sadness that seems to cling to them. but exactly because _little dorrit_ is a mere dickens novel, it shows that something must somehow have happened to dickens himself. even in resuming his old liberty, he cannot resume his old hilarity. he can re-create the anarchy, but not the revelry. it so happens that this strange difference between the new and the old mode of dickens can be symbolised and stated in one separate and simple contrast. dickens's father had been a prisoner in a debtors' prison, and dickens's works contain two pictures partly suggested by the personality of that prisoner. mr. micawber is one picture of him. mr. dorrit is another. this truth is almost incredible, but it is the truth. the joyful micawber, whose very despair was exultant, and the desolate dorrit, whose very pride was pitiful, were the same man. the valiant micawber and the nervous, shaking dorrit were the same man. the defiant micawber and the snobbish, essentially obsequious dorrit were the same man. i do not mean of course that either of the pictures was an exact copy of anybody. the whole dickens genius consisted of taking hints and turning them into human beings. as he took twenty real persons and turned them into one fictitious person, so he took one real person and turned him into twenty fictitious persons. this quality would suggest one character, that quality would suggest another. but in this case, at any rate, he did take one real person and turn him into two. and what is more, he turned him into two persons who seem to be quite opposite persons. to ordinary readers of dickens, to say that micawber and dorrit had in any sense the same original, will appear unexpected and wild. no conceivable connection between the two would ever have occurred to anybody who had read dickens with simple and superficial enjoyment, as all good literature ought to be read. it will seem to them just as silly as saying that the fat boy and mr. alfred jingle were both copied from the same character. it will seem as insane as saying that the character of smike and the character of major bagstock were both copied from dickens's father. yet it is an unquestionable historical fact that micawber and dorrit were both copied from dickens's father, in the only sense that any figures in good literature are ever copied from anything or anybody. dickens did get the main idea of micawber from his father; and that idea is that a poor man is not conquered by the world. and dickens did get the main idea of dorrit from his father; and that idea is that a poor man may be conquered by the world. i shall take the opportunity of discussing, in a moment, which of these ideas is true. doubtless old john dickens included both the gay and the sad moral; most men do. my only purpose here is to point out that dickens drew the gay moral in , and the sad moral in . there must have been some real sadness at this time creeping like a cloud over dickens himself. it is nothing that a man dwells on the darkness of dark things; all healthy men do that. it is when he dwells on the darkness of bright things that we have reason to fear some disease of the emotions. there must really have been some depression when a man can only see the sad side of flowers or the sad side of holidays or the sad side of wine. and there must be some depression of an uncommonly dark and genuine character when a man has reached such a point that he can see only the sad side of mr. wilkins micawber. yet this is in reality what had happened to dickens about this time. staring at wilkins micawber he could see only the weakness and the tragedy that was made possible by his indifference, his indulgence, and his bravado. he had already indeed been slightly moved towards this study of the feebleness and ruin of the old epicurean type with which he had once sympathised, the type of bob sawyer or dick swiveller. he had already attacked the evil of it in _bleak house_ in the character of harold skimpole, with its essentially cowardly carelessness and its highly selfish communism. nevertheless, as i have said before, it must have been no small degree of actual melancholia which led dickens to look for a lesson of disaster and slavery in the very same career from which he had once taught lessons of continual recuperation and a kind of fantastic freedom. there must have been at this time some melancholy behind the writings. there must have existed on this earth at the time that portent and paradox--a somewhat depressed dickens. perhaps it was a reminiscence of that metaphorical proverb which tells us that "truth lies at the bottom of a well." perhaps these people thought that the only way to find truth in the well was to drown oneself. but on whatever thin theoretic basis, the type and period of george gissing did certainly consider that dickens, so far as he went, was all the worse for the optimism of the story of micawber; hence it is not unnatural that they should think him all the better for the comparative pessimism of the story of _little dorrit_. the very things in the tale that would naturally displease the ordinary admirers of dickens, are the things which would naturally please a man like george gissing. there are many of these things, but one of them emerges pre-eminent and unmistakable. this is the fact that when all is said and done the main business of the story of _little dorrit_ is to describe the victory of circumstances over a soul. the circumstances are the financial ruin and long imprisonment of edward dorrit; the soul is edward dorrit himself. let it be granted that the circumstances are exceptional and oppressive, are denounced as exceptional and oppressive, are finally exploded and overthrown; still, they are circumstances. let it be granted that the soul is that of a man perhaps weak in any case and retaining many merits to the last, still it is a soul. let it be granted, above all, that the admission that such spiritual tragedies do occur does not decrease by so much as an iota our faith in the validity of any spiritual struggle. for example, stevenson has made a study of the breakdown of a good man's character under a burden for which he is not to blame, in the tragedy of henry durie in _the master of ballantrae_. yet he has added, in the mouth of mackellar, the exact common sense and good theology of the matter, saying "it matters not a jot; for he that is to pass judgment upon the records of our life is the same that formed us in frailty." let us concede then all this, and the fact remains that the study of the slow demoralisation of a man through mere misfortune was not a study congenial to dickens, not in accordance with his original inspiration, not connected in any manner with the special thing that he had to say. in a word, the thing is not quite a part of himself; and he was not quite himself when he did it. he was still quite a young man; his depression did not come from age. in fact, as far as i know, mere depression never does come from mere age. age can pass into a beautiful reverie. age can pass into a sort of beautiful idiocy. but i do not think that the actual decline and close of our ordinary vitality brings with it any particular heaviness of the spirits. the spirits of the old do not as a rule seem to become more and more ponderous until they sink into the earth. rather the spirits of the old seem to grow lighter and lighter until they float away like thistledown. wherever there is the definite phenomenon called depression, it commonly means that something else has been closer to us than so normal a thing as death. there has been disease, bodily or mental, or there has been sin, or there has been some struggle or effort, breaking past the ordinary boundaries of human custom. in the case of dickens there had been two things that are not of the routine of a wholesome human life; there had been the quarrel with his wife, and there had been the strain of incessant and exaggerated intellectual labour. he had not an easy time; and on top of that (or perhaps rather at the bottom of it) he had not an easy nature. not only did his life necessitate work, but his character necessitated worry about work; and that combination is always one which is very dangerous to the temperament which is exposed to it. the only people who ought to be allowed to work are the people who are able to shirk. the only people who ought to be allowed to worry are the people who have nothing to worry about. when the two are combined, as they were in dickens, you are very likely to have at least one collapse. _little dorrit_ is a very interesting, sincere, and fascinating book. but for all that, i fancy it is the one collapse. the complete proof of this depression may be difficult to advance; because it will be urged, and entirely with reason, that the actual examples of it are artistic and appropriate. dickens, the gissing school will say, was here pointing out certain sad truths of psychology; can any one say that he ought not to point them out? that may be; in any case, to explain depression is not to remove it. but the instances of this more sombre quality of which i have spoken are not very hard to find. the thing can easily be seen by comparing a book like _little dorrit_ with a book like _david copperfield_. david copperfield and arthur clennam have both been brought up in unhappy homes, under bitter guardians and a black, disheartening religion. it is the whole point of david copperfield that he has broken out of a calvinistic tyranny which he cannot forgive. but it is the whole point of arthur clennam that he has not broken out of the calvinistic tyranny, but is still under its shadow. copperfield has come from a gloomy childhood; clennam, though forty years old, is still in a gloomy childhood. when david meets the murdstones again it is to defy them with the health and hilarious anger that go with his happy delirium about dora. but when clennam re-enters his sepulchral house there is a weight upon his soul which makes it impossible for him to answer, with any spirit, the morbidities of his mother, or even the grotesque interferences of mr. flintwinch. this is only another example of the same quality which makes the dickens of _little dorrit_ insist on the degradation of the debtor, while the dickens of _david copperfield_ insisted on his splendid irresponsibility, his essential emancipation. imprisonments passed over micawber like summer clouds. but the imprisonment in _little dorrit_ is like a complete natural climate and environment; it has positively modified the shapes and functions of the animals that dwell in it. a horrible thing has happened to dickens; he has almost become an evolutionist. worse still, in studying the calvinism of mrs. clennam's house, he has almost become a calvinist. he half believes (as do some of the modern scientists) that there is really such a thing as "a child of wrath," that a man on whom such an early shadow had fallen could never shake it off. for ancient calvinism and modern evolutionism are essentially the same things. they are both ingenious logical blasphemies against the dignity and liberty of the human soul. the workmanship of the book in detail is often extremely good. the one passage in the older and heartier dickens manner (i mean the description of the circumlocution office) is beyond praise. it is a complete picture of the way england is actually governed at this moment. the very core of our politics is expressed in the light and easy young barnacle who told clennam with a kindly frankness that he, clennam, would "never go on with it." dickens hit the mark so that the bell rang when he made all the lower officials, who were cads, tell clennam coldly that his claim was absurd, until the last official, who is a gentleman, tells him genially that the whole business is absurd. even here, perhaps, there is something more than the old exuberant derision of dickens; there is a touch of experience that verges on scepticism. everywhere else, certainly, there is the note which i have called calvinistic; especially in the predestined passion of tattycoram or the incurable cruelty of miss wade. even little dorrit herself had, we are told, one stain from her prison experience; and it is spoken of like a bodily stain; like something that cannot be washed away. there is no denying that this is dickens's dark moment. it adds enormously to the value of his general view of life that such a dark moment came. he did what all the heroes and all the really happy men have done; he descended into hell. nor is it irreverent to continue the quotation from the creed, for in the next book he was to write he was to break out of all these dreams of fate and failure, and with his highest voice to speak of the triumph of the weak of this world. his next book was to leave us saying, as sydney carton mounted the scaffold, words which, splendid in themselves, have never been so splendidly quoted--"i am the resurrection and the life; whoso believeth in me though he be dead yet he shall live." in sydney carton at least, dickens shows none of that dreary submission to the environment of the irrevocable that had for an instant lain on him like a cloud. on this occasion he sees with the old heroic clearness that to be a failure may be one step to being a saint. on the third day he rose again from the dead. [illustration: charles dickens, from an oil painting by w. p. frith, r.a.] a tale of two cities as an example of dickens's literary work, _a tale of two cities_ is not wrongly named. it is his most typical contact with the civic ideals of europe. all his other tales have been tales of one city. he was in spirit a cockney; though that title has been quite unreasonably twisted to mean a cad. by the old sound and proverbial test a cockney was a man born within the sound of bow bells. that is, he was a man born within the immediate appeal of high civilisation and of eternal religion. shakespeare, in the heart of his fantastic forest, turns with a splendid suddenness to the cockney ideal as being the true one after all. for a jest, for a reaction, for an idle summer love or still idler summer hatred, it is well to wander away into the bewildering forest of arden. it is well that those who are sick with love or sick with the absence of love, those who weary of the folly of courts or weary yet more of their wisdom, it is natural that these should trail away into the twinkling twilight of the woods. yet it is here that shakespeare makes one of his most arresting and startling assertions of the truth. here is one of those rare and tremendous moments of which one may say that there is a stage direction, "enter shakespeare." he has admitted that for men weary of courts, for men sick of cities, the wood is the wisest place, and he has praised it with his purest lyric ecstasy. but when a man enters suddenly upon that celestial picnic, a man who is not sick of cities, but sick of hunger, a man who is not weary of courts, but weary of walking, then shakespeare lets through his own voice with a shattering sincerity and cries the praise of practical human civilisation: if ever you have looked on better days, if ever you have sat at good men's feasts, if ever been where bells have knolled to church, if ever from your eyelids wiped a tear or know what 'tis to pity and be pitied. there is nothing finer even in shakespeare than that conception of the circle of rich men all pretending to rough it in the country, and the one really hungry man entering, sword in hand, and praising the city. "if ever been where bells have knolled to church"; if you have ever been within sound of bow bells; if you have ever been happy and haughty enough to call yourself a cockney. we must remember this distinction always in the case of dickens. dickens is the great cockney, at once tragic and comic, who enters abruptly upon the arcadian banquet of the æsthetics and says, "forbear and eat no more," and tells them that they shall not eat "until necessity be served." if there was one thing he would have favoured instinctively it would have been the spreading of the town as meaning the spreading of civilisation. and we should (i hope) all favour the spreading of the town if it did mean the spreading of civilisation. the objection to the spreading of the modern manchester or birmingham suburb is simply that such a suburb is much more barbaric than any village in europe could ever conceivably be. and again, if there is anything that dickens would have definitely hated it is that general treatment of nature as a dramatic spectacle, a piece of scene-painting which has become the common mark of the culture of our wealthier classes. despite many fine pictures of natural scenery, especially along the english roadsides, he was upon the whole emphatically on the side of the town. he was on the side of bricks and mortar. he was a citizen; and, after all, a citizen means a man of the city. his strength was, after all, in the fact that he was a man of the city. but, after all, his weakness, his calamitous weakness, was that he was a man of one city. for all practical purposes he had never been outside such places as chatham and london. he did indeed travel on the continent; but surely no man's travel was ever so superficial as his. he was more superficial than the smallest and commonest tourist. he went about europe on stilts; he never touched the ground. there is one good test and one only of whether a man has travelled to any profit in europe. an englishman is, as such, a european, and as he approaches the central splendours of europe he ought to feel that he is coming home. if he does not feel at home he had much better have stopped at home. england is a real home; london is a real home; and all the essential feelings of adventure or the picturesque can easily be gained by going out at night upon the flats of essex or the cloven hills of surrey. your visit to europe is useless unless it gives you the sense of an exile returning. your first sight of rome is futile unless you feel that you have seen it before. thus useless and thus futile were the foreign experiments and the continental raids of dickens. he enjoyed them as he would have enjoyed, as a boy, a scamper out of chatham into some strange meadows, as he would have enjoyed, when a grown man, a steam in a police boat out into the fens to the far east of london. but he was the cockney venturing far; he was not the european coming home. he is still the splendid cockney orlando of whom i spoke above; he cannot but suppose that any strange men, being happy in some pastoral way, are mysterious foreign scoundrels. dickens's real speech to the lazy and laughing civilisation of southern europe would really have run in the shakespearian words: but whoe'er you be who in this desert inaccessible, under the shade of melancholy boughs lose and neglect the creeping hours of time. if ever you have looked on better things, if ever been where bells have knolled to church. if, in short, you have ever had the advantage of being born within the sound of bow bells. dickens could not really conceive that there was any other city but his own. it is necessary thus to insist that dickens never understood the continent, because only thus can we appreciate the really remarkable thing he did in _a tale of two cities_. it is necessary to feel, first of all, the fact that to him london was the centre of the universe. he did not understand at all the real sense in which paris is the capital of europe. he had never realised that all roads lead to rome. he had never felt (as an englishman can feel) that he was an athenian before he was a londoner. yet with everything against him he did this astonishing thing. he wrote a book about two cities, one of which he understood; the other he did not understand. and his description of the city he did not know is almost better than his description of the city he did know. this is the entrance of the unquestionable thing about dickens; the thing called genius; the thing which every one has to talk about directly and distinctly because no one knows what it is. for a plain word (as for instance the word fool) always covers an infinite mystery. _a tale of two cities_ is one of the more tragic tints of the later life of dickens. it might be said that he grew sadder as he grew older; but this would be false, for two reasons. first, a man never or hardly ever does grow sad as he grows old; on the contrary, the most melancholy young lovers can be found forty years afterwards chuckling over their port wine. and second, dickens never did grow old, even in a physical sense. what weariness did appear in him appeared in the prime of life; it was due not to age but to overwork, and his exaggerative way of doing everything. to call dickens a victim of elderly disenchantment would be as absurd as to say the same of keats. such fatigue as there was, was due not to the slowing down of his blood, but rather to its unremitting rapidity. he was not wearied by his age; rather he was wearied by his youth. and though _a tale of two cities_ is full of sadness, it is full also of enthusiasm; that pathos is a young pathos rather than an old one. yet there is one circumstance which does render important the fact that _a tale of two cities_ is one of the later works of dickens. this fact is the fact of his dependence upon another of the great writers of the victorian era. and it is in connection with this that we can best see the truth of which i have been speaking; the truth that his actual ignorance of france went with amazing intuitive perception of the truth about it. it is here that he has most clearly the plain mark of the man of genius; that he can understand what he does not understand. dickens was inspired to the study of the french revolution and to the writing of a romance about it by the example and influence of carlyle. thomas carlyle undoubtedly rediscovered for englishmen the revolution that was at the back of all their policies and reforms. it is an entertaining side joke that the french revolution should have been discovered for britons by the only british writer who did not really believe in it. nevertheless, the most authoritative and the most recent critics on that great renaissance agree in considering carlyle's work one of the most searching and detailed power. carlyle had read a great deal about the french revolution. dickens had read nothing at all, except carlyle. carlyle was a man who collected his ideas by the careful collation of documents and the verification of references. dickens was a man who collected his ideas from loose hints in the streets, and those always the same streets; as i have said, he was the citizen of one city. carlyle was in his way learned; dickens was in every way ignorant. dickens was an englishman cut off from france; carlyle was a scotsman, historically connected with france. and yet, when all this is said and certified, dickens is more right than carlyle. dickens's french revolution is probably more like the real french revolution than carlyle's. it is difficult, if not impossible, to state the grounds of this strong conviction. one can only talk of it by employing that excellent method which cardinal newman employed when he spoke of the "notes" of catholicism. there were certain "notes" of the revolution. one note of the revolution was the thing which silly people call optimism, and sensible people call high spirits. carlyle could never quite get it, because with all his spiritual energy he had no high spirits. that is why he preferred prose to poetry. he could understand rhetoric; for rhetoric means singing with an object. but he could not understand lyrics; for the lyric means singing without an object; as every one does when he is happy. now for all its blood and its black guillotines, the french revolution was full of mere high spirits. nay, it was full of happiness. this actual lilt and levity carlyle never really found in the revolution, because he could not find it in himself. dickens knew less of the revolution, but he had more of it. when dickens attacked abuses, he battered them down with exactly that sort of cheery and quite one-sided satisfaction with which the french mob battered down the bastille. dickens utterly and innocently believed in certain things; he would, i think, have drawn the sword for them. carlyle half believed in half a hundred things; he was at once more of a mystic and more of a sceptic. carlyle was the perfect type of the grumbling servant; the old grumbling servant of the aristocratic comedies. he followed the aristocracy, but he growled as he followed. he was obedient without being servile, just as caleb balderstone was obedient without being servile. but dickens was the type of the man who might really have rebelled instead of grumbling. he might have gone out into the street and fought, like the man who took the bastille. it is somewhat nationally significant that when we talk of the man in the street it means a figure silent, slouching, and even feeble. when the french speak of the man in the street, it means danger in the street. no one can fail to notice this deep difference between dickens and the carlyle whom he avowedly copied. splendid and symbolic as are carlyle's scenes of the french revolution, we have in reading them a curious sense that everything is happening at night. in dickens even massacre happens by daylight. carlyle always assumes that because things were tragedies therefore the men who did them felt tragic. dickens knows that the man who works the worst tragedies is the man who feels comic; as for example, mr. quilp. the french revolution was a much simpler world than carlyle could understand; for carlyle was subtle and not simple. dickens could understand it, for he was simple and not subtle. he understood that plain rage against plain political injustice; he understood again that obvious vindictiveness and that obvious brutality which followed. "cruelty and the abuse of absolute power," he told an american slave-owner, "are two of the bad passions of human nature." carlyle was quite incapable of rising to the height of that uplifted common-sense. he must always find something mystical about the cruelty of the french revolution. the effect was equally bad whether he found it mystically bad and called the thing anarchy, or whether he found it mystically good and called it the rule of the strong. in both cases he could not understand the common-sense justice or the common-sense vengeance of dickens and the french revolution. yet dickens has in this book given a perfect and final touch to this whole conception of mere rebellion and mere human nature. carlyle had written the story of the french revolution and had made the story a mere tragedy. dickens writes the story about the french revolution, and does not make the revolution itself the tragedy at all. dickens knows that an outbreak is seldom a tragedy; generally it is the avoidance of a tragedy. all the real tragedies are silent. men fight each other with furious cries, because men fight each other with chivalry and an unchangeable sense of brotherhood. but trees fight each other in utter stillness; because they fight each other cruelly and without quarter. in this book, as in history, the guillotine is not the calamity, but rather the solution of the calamity. the sin of sydney carton is a sin of habit, not of revolution. his gloom is the gloom of london, not the gloom of paris. [illustration: charles dickens, circa photograph by j. & c. watkins.] great expectations _great expectations_, which was written in the afternoon of dickens's life and fame, has a quality of serene irony and even sadness, which puts it quite alone among his other works. at no time could dickens possibly be called cynical, he had too much vitality; but relatively to the other books this book is cynical; but it has the soft and gentle cynicism of old age, not the hard cynicism of youth. to be a young cynic is to be a young brute; but dickens, who had been so perfectly romantic and sentimental in his youth, could afford to admit this touch of doubt into the mixed experience of his middle age. at no time could any books by dickens have been called thackerayan. both of the two men were too great for that. but relatively to the other dickensian productions this book may be called thackerayan. it is a study in human weakness and the slow human surrender. it describes how easily a free lad of fresh and decent instincts can be made to care more for rank and pride and the degrees of our stratified society than for old affection and for honour. it is an extra chapter to _the book of snobs_. the best way of stating the change which this book marks in dickens can be put in one phrase. in this book for the first time the hero disappears. the hero had descended to dickens by a long line which begins with the gods, nay, perhaps if one may say so, which begins with god. first comes deity and then the image of deity; first comes the god and then the demi-god, the hercules who labours and conquers before he receives his heavenly crown. that idea, with continual mystery and modification, has continued behind all romantic tales; the demi-god became the hero of paganism; the hero of paganism became the knight-errant of christianity; the knight-errant who wandered and was foiled before he triumphed became the hero of the later prose romance, the romance in which the hero had to fight a duel with the villain but always survived, in which the hero drove desperate horses through the night in order to rescue the heroine, but always rescued her. this heroic modern hero, this demi-god in a top-hat, may be said to reach his supreme moment and typical example about the time when dickens was writing that thundering and thrilling and highly unlikely scene in _nicholas nickleby_, the scene where nicholas hopelessly denounces the atrocious gride in his hour of grinning triumph, and a thud upon the floor above tells them that the heroine's tyrannical father has died just in time to set her free. that is the apotheosis of the pure heroic as dickens found it, and as dickens in some sense continued it. it may be that it does not appear with quite so much unmistakable youth, beauty, valour, and virtue as it does in nicholas nickleby. walter gay is a simpler and more careless hero, but when he is doing any of the business of the story he is purely heroic. kit nubbles is a humbler hero, but he is a hero; when he is good he is very good. even david copperfield, who confesses to boyish tremors and boyish evasions in his account of his boyhood, acts the strict stiff part of the chivalrous gentleman in all the active and determining scenes of the tale. but _great expectations_ may be called, like _vanity fair_, a novel without a hero. almost all thackeray's novels except esmond are novels without a hero, but only one of dickens's novels can be so described. i do not mean that it is a novel without a _jeune premier_, a young man to make love; _pickwick_ is that and _oliver twist_, and, perhaps, _the old curiosity shop_. i mean that it is a novel without a hero in the same far deeper and more deadly sense in which _pendennis_ is also a novel without a hero. i mean that it is a novel which aims chiefly at showing that the hero is unheroic. all such phrases as these must appear of course to overstate the case. pip is a much more delightful person than nicholas nickleby. or to take a stronger case for the purpose of our argument, pip is a much more delightful person than sydney carton. still the fact remains. most of nicholas nickleby's personal actions are meant to show that he is heroic. most of pip's actions are meant to show that he is not heroic. the study of sydney carton is meant to indicate that with all his vices sydney carton was a hero. the study of pip is meant to indicate that with all his virtues pip was a snob. the motive of the literary explanation is different. pip and pendennis are meant to show how circumstances can corrupt men. sam weller and hercules are meant to show how heroes can subdue circumstances. this is the preliminary view of the book which is necessary if we are to regard it as a real and separate fact in the life of dickens. dickens had many moods because he was an artist; but he had one great mood, because he was a great artist. any real difference therefore from the general drift, or rather (i apologise to dickens) the general drive of his creation is very important. this is the one place in his work in which he does, i will not say feel like thackeray, far less think like thackeray, less still write like thackeray, but this is the one of his works in which he understands thackeray. he puts himself in some sense in the same place; he considers mankind at somewhat the same angle as mankind is considered in one of the sociable and sarcastic novels of thackeray. when he deals with pip he sets out not to show his strength like the strength of hercules, but to show his weakness like the weakness of pendennis. when he sets out to describe pip's great expectation he does not set out, as in a fairytale, with the idea that these great expectations will be fulfilled; he sets out from the first with the idea that these great expectations will be disappointing. we might very well, as i have remarked elsewhere, apply to all dickens's books the title _great expectations_. all his books are full of an airy and yet ardent expectation of everything; of the next person who shall happen to speak, of the next chimney that shall happen to smoke, of the next event, of the next ecstasy; of the next fulfilment of any eager human fancy. all his books might be called _great expectations_. but the only book to which he gave the name of _great expectations_ was the only book in which the expectation was never realised. it was so with the whole of that splendid and unconscious generation to which he belonged. the whole glory of that old english middle class was that it was unconscious; its excellence was entirely in that, that it was the culture of the nation, and that it did not know it. if dickens had ever known that he was optimistic, he would have ceased to be happy. it is necessary to make this first point clear: that in _great expectations_ dickens was really trying to be a quiet, a detached, and even a cynical observer of human life. dickens was trying to be thackeray. and the final and startling triumph of dickens is this: that even to this moderate and modern story, he gives an incomparable energy which is not moderate and which is not modern. he is trying to be reasonable; but in spite of himself he is inspired. he is trying to be detailed, but in spite of himself he is gigantic. compared to the rest of dickens this is thackeray; but compared to the whole of thackeray we can only say in supreme praise of it that it is dickens. take, for example, the one question of snobbishness. dickens has achieved admirably the description of the doubts and vanities of the wretched pip as he walks down the street in his new gentlemanly clothes, the clothes of which he is so proud and so ashamed. nothing could be so exquisitely human, nothing especially could be so exquisitely masculine as that combination of self-love and self-assertion and even insolence with a naked and helpless sensibility to the slightest breath of ridicule. pip thinks himself better than every one else, and yet anybody can snub him; that is the everlasting male, and perhaps the everlasting gentleman. dickens has described perfectly this quivering and defenceless dignity. dickens has described perfectly how ill-armed it is against the coarse humour of real humanity--the real humanity which dickens loved, but which idealists and philanthropists do not love, the humanity of cabmen and costermongers and men singing in a third-class carriage; the humanity of trabb's boy. in describing pip's weakness dickens is as true and as delicate as thackeray. but thackeray might have been easily as true and as delicate as dickens. this quick and quiet eye for the tremors of mankind is a thing which dickens possessed, but which others possessed also. george eliot or thackeray could have described the weakness of pip. exactly what george eliot and thackeray could not have described was the vigour of trabb's boy. there would have been admirable humour and observation in their accounts of that intolerable urchin. thackeray would have given us little light touches of trabb's boy, absolutely true to the quality and colour of the humour, just as in his novels of the eighteenth century, the glimpses of steele or bolingbroke or doctor johnson are exactly and perfectly true to the colour and quality of their humour. george eliot in her earlier books would have given us shrewd authentic scraps of the real dialect of trabb's boy, just as she gave us shrewd and authentic scraps of the real talk in a midland country town. in her later books she would have given us highly rationalistic explanations of trabb's boy; which we should not have read. but exactly what they could never have given, and exactly what dickens does give, is the _bounce_ of trabb's boy. it is the real unconquerable rush and energy in a character which was the supreme and quite indescribable greatness of dickens. he conquered by rushes; he attacked in masses; he carried things at the spear point in a charge of spears; he was the rupert of fiction. the thing about any figure of dickens, about sam weller or dick swiveller, or micawber, or bagstock, or trabb's boy,--the thing about each one of these persons is that he cannot be exhausted. a dickens character hits you first on the nose and then in the waistcoat, and then in the eye and then in the waistcoat again, with the blinding rapidity of some battering engine. the scene in which trabb's boy continually overtakes pip in order to reel and stagger as at a first encounter is a thing quite within the real competence of such a character; it might have been suggested by thackeray, or george eliot, or any realist. but the point with dickens is that there is a rush in the boy's rushings; the writer and the reader rush with him. they start with him, they stare with him, they stagger with him, they share an inexpressible vitality in the air which emanates from this violent and capering satirist. trabb's boy is among other things a boy; he has a physical rapture in hurling himself like a boomerang and in bouncing to the sky like a ball. it is just exactly in describing this quality that dickens is dickens and that no one else comes near him. no one feels in his bones that felix holt was strong as he feels in his bones that little quilp was strong. no one can feel that even rawdon crawley's splendid smack across the face of lord steyne is quite so living and life-giving as the "kick after kick" which old mr. weller dealt the dancing and quivering stiggins as he drove him towards the trough. this quality, whether expressed intellectually or physically, is the profoundly popular and eternal quality in dickens; it is the thing that no one else could do. this quality is the quality which has always given its continuous power and poetry to the common people everywhere. it is life; it is the joy of life felt by those who have nothing else but life. it is the thing that all aristocrats have always hated and dreaded in the people. and it is the thing which poor pip really hates and dreads in trabb's boy. a great man of letters or any great artist is symbolic without knowing it. the things he describes are types because they are truths. shakespeare may, or may not, have ever put it to himself that richard the second was a philosophical symbol; but all good criticism must necessarily see him so. it may be a reasonable question whether the artist should be allegorical. there can be no doubt among sane men that the critic should be allegorical. spenser may have lost by being less realistic than fielding. but any good criticism of _tom jones_ must be as mystical as the _faery queen_. hence it is unavoidable in speaking of a fine book like _great expectations_ that we should give even to its unpretentious and realistic figures a certain massive mysticism. pip is pip, but he is also the well-meaning snob. and this is even more true of those two great figures in the tale which stand for the english democracy. for, indeed, the first and last word upon the english democracy is said in joe gargery and trabb's boy. the actual english populace, as distinct from the french populace or the scotch or irish populace, may be said to lie between those two types. the first is the poor man who does not assert himself at all, and the second is the poor man who asserts himself entirely with the weapon of sarcasm. the only way in which the english now ever rise in revolution is under the symbol and leadership of trabb's boy. what pikes and shillelahs were to the irish populace, what guns and barricades were to the french populace, that chaff is to the english populace. it is their weapon, the use of which they really understand. it is the one way in which they can make a rich man feel uncomfortable, and they use it very justifiably for all it is worth. if they do not cut off the heads of tyrants at least they sometimes do their best to make the tyrants lose their heads. the gutter boys of the great towns carry the art of personal criticism to so rich and delicate a degree that some well-dressed persons when they walk past a file of them feel as if they were walking past a row of omniscient critics or judges with a power of life and death. here and there only is some ordinary human custom, some natural human pleasure suppressed in deference to the fastidiousness of the rich. but all the rich tremble before the fastidiousness of the poor. of the other type of democracy it is far more difficult to speak. it is always hard to speak of good things or good people, for in satisfying the soul they take away a certain spur to speech. dickens was often called a sentimentalist. in one sense he sometimes was a sentimentalist. but if sentimentalism be held to mean something artificial or theatrical, then in the core and reality of his character dickens was the very reverse of a sentimentalist. he seriously and definitely loved goodness. to see sincerity and charity satisfied him like a meal. what some critics call his love of sweet stuff is really his love of plain beef and bread. sometimes one is tempted to wish that in the long dickens dinner the sweet courses could be left out; but this does not make the whole banquet other than a banquet singularly solid and simple. the critics complain of the sweet things, but not because they are so strong as to like simple things. they complain of the sweet things because they are so sophisticated as to like sour things; their tongues are tainted with the bitterness of absinthe. yet because of the very simplicity of dickens's moral tastes it is impossible to speak adequately of them; and joe gargery must stand as he stands in the book, a thing too obvious to be understood. but this may be said of him in one of his minor aspects, that he stands for a certain long-suffering in the english poor, a certain weary patience and politeness which almost breaks the heart. one cannot help wondering whether that great mass of silent virtue will ever achieve anything on this earth. our mutual friend _our mutual friend_ marks a happy return to the earlier manner of dickens at the end of dickens's life. one might call it a sort of indian summer of his farce. those who most truly love dickens love the earlier dickens; and any return to his farce must be welcomed, like a young man come back from the dead. in this book indeed he does not merely return to his farce; he returns in a manner to his vulgarity. it is the old democratic and even uneducated dickens who is writing here. the very title is illiterate. any priggish pupil teacher could tell dickens that there is no such phrase in english as "our mutual friend." any one could tell dickens that "our mutual friend" means "our reciprocal friend," and that "our reciprocal friend" means nothing. if he had only had all the solemn advantages of academic learning (the absence of which in him was lamented by the _quarterly review_), he would have known better. he would have known that the correct phrase for a man known to two people is "our common friend." but if one calls one's friend a common friend, even that phrase is open to misunderstanding. i dwell with a gloomy pleasure on this mistake in the very title of the book because i, for one, am not pleased to see dickens gradually absorbed by modern culture and good manners. dickens, by class and genius, belonged to the kind of people who do talk about a "mutual friend"; and for that class there is a very great deal to be said. these two things can at least be said--that this class does understand the meaning of the word "friend" and the meaning of the word "mutual." i know that for some long time before he had been slowly and subtly sucked into the whirlpool of the fashionable views of later england. i know that in _bleak house_ he treats the aristocracy far more tenderly than he treats them in _david copperfield_. i know that in _a tale of two cities_, having come under the influence of carlyle, he treats revolution as strange and weird, whereas under the influence of cobbett he would have treated it as obvious and reasonable. i know that in _the mystery of edwin drood_ he not only praised the minor canon of cloisterham at the expense of the dissenting demagogue, honeythunder; i know that he even took the last and most disastrous step in the modern english reaction. while blaming the old cloisterham monks (who were democratic), he praised the old-world peace that they had left behind them--an old-world peace which is simply one of the last amusements of aristocracy. the modern rich feel quite at home with the dead monks. they would have felt anything but comfortable with the live ones. i know, in short, how the simple democracy of dickens was gradually dimmed by the decay and reaction of the middle of the nineteenth century. i know that he fell into some of the bad habits of aristocratic sentimentalism. i know that he used the word "gentleman" as meaning good man. but all this only adds to the unholy joy with which i realise that the very title of one of his best books was a vulgarism. it is pleasant to contemplate this last unconscious knock in the eye for the gentility with which dickens was half impressed. dickens is the old self-made man; you may take him or leave him. he has its disadvantages and its merits. no university man would have written the title; no university man could have written the book. if it were a mere matter of the accident of a name it would not be worth while thus to dwell on it, even as a preface. but the title is in this respect typical of the tale. the novel called _our mutual friend_ is in many ways a real reaction towards the earlier dickens manner. i have remarked that _little dorrit_ was a reversion to the form of the first books, but not to their spirit; _our mutual friend_ is a reversion to the spirit as well as the form. compare, for instance, the public figures that make a background in each book. mr. merdle is a commercial man having no great connection with the plot; similarly mr. podsnap is a commercial man having no great connection with the plot. this is altogether in the spirit of the earlier books; the whole point of an early dickens novel was to have as many people as possible entirely unconnected with the plot. but exactly because both studies are irrelevant, the contrast between them can be more clearly perceived. dickens goes out of his way to describe merdle; and it is a gloomy description. but dickens goes out of his way to describe podsnap, and it is a happy and hilarious description. it recalls the days when he hunted great game; when he went out of his way to entrap such adorable monsters as mr. pecksniff or mr. vincent crummles. with these wild beings we never bother about the cause of their coming. such guests in a story may be uninvited, but they are never _de trop_. they earn their night's lodging in any tale by being so uproariously amusing; like little tommy tucker in the legend, they sing for their supper. this is really the marked truth about _our mutual friend_, as a stage in the singular latter career of dickens. it is like the leaping up and flaming of a slowly dying fire. the best things in the book are in the old best manner of the author. they have that great dickens quality of being something which is pure farce and yet which is not superficial; an unfathomable farce--a farce that goes down to the roots of the universe. the highest compliment that can ever be paid to the humour of dickens is paid when some lady says, with the sudden sincerity of her sex, that it is "too silly." the phrase is really a perfectly sound and acute criticism. humour does consist in being too silly, in passing the borderland, in breaking through the floor of sense and falling into some starry abyss of nonsense far below our ordinary human life. this "too silly" quality is really present in _our mutual friend_. it is present in _our mutual friend_ just as it is present in _pickwick_, or _martin chuzzlewit_; just as it is not present in _little dorrit_ or in _hard times_. many tests might be employed. one is the pleasure in purely physical jokes--jokes about the body. the general dislike which every one felt for mr. stiggins's nose is of the same kind as the ardent desire which mr. lammle felt for mr. fledgeby's nose. "give me your nose, sir," said mr. lammle. that sentence alone would be enough to show that the young dickens had never died. the opening of a book goes for a great deal. the opening of _our mutual friend_ is much more instinctively energetic and light-hearted than that of any of the other novels of his concluding period. dickens had always enough optimism to make his stories end well. he had not, in his later years, always enough optimism to make them begin well. even _great expectations_, the saddest of his later books, ends well; it ends well in spite of himself, who had intended it to end badly. but if we leave the evident case of good endings and take the case of good beginnings, we see how much _our mutual friend_ stands out from among the other novels of the evening or the end of dickens. the tale of _little dorrit_ begins in a prison. one of the prisoners is a villain, and his villainy is as dreary as the prison; that might matter nothing. but the other prisoner is vivacious, and even his vivacity is dreary. the first note struck is sad. in the tale of _edwin drood_ the first scene is in an opium den, suffocated with every sort of phantasy and falsehood. nor is it true that these openings are merely accidental; they really cast their shadow over the tales. the people of _little dorrit_ begin in prison; and it is the whole point of the book that people never get out of prison. the story of _edwin drood_ begins amid the fumes of opium, and it never gets out of the fumes of opium. the darkness of that strange and horrible smoke is deliberately rolled over the whole story. dickens, in his later years, permitted more and more his story to take the cue from its inception. all the more remarkable, therefore, is the real jerk and spurt of good spirits with which he opens _our mutual friend_. it begins with a good piece of rowdy satire, wildly exaggerated and extremely true. it belongs to the same class as the first chapter of _martin chuzzlewit_, with its preposterous pedigree of the chuzzlewit family, or even the first chapter of _pickwick_, with its immortal imbecilities about the theory of tittlebats and mr. blotton of aldgate. doubtless the early satiric chapter in _our mutual friend_ is of a more strategic and ingenious kind of satire than can be found in these early and explosive parodies. still, there is a quality common to both, and that quality is the whole of dickens. it is a quality difficult to define--hence the whole difficulty of criticising dickens. perhaps it can be best stated in two separate statements or as two separate symptoms. the first is the mere fact that the reader rushes to read it. the second is the mere fact that the writer rushed to write it. this beginning, which is like a burst of the old exuberant dickens, is, of course, the veneering dinner-party. in its own way it is as good as anything that dickens ever did. there is the old faculty of managing a crowd, of making character clash with character, that had made dickens not only the democrat but even the demagogue of fiction. for if it is hard to manage a mob, it is hardest of all to manage a swell mob. the particular kind of chaos that is created by the hospitality of a rich upstart has perhaps never been so accurately and outrageously described. every touch about the thing is true; to this day any one can test it if he goes to a dinner of this particular kind. how admirable, for instance, is the description of the way in which all the guests ignored the host; how the host and hostess peered and gaped for some stray attention as if they had been a pair of poor relations. again, how well, as a matter of social colour, the distinctions between the type and tone of the guests are made even in the matter of this unguestlike insolence. how well dickens distinguishes the ill-bred indifference of podsnap from the well-bred indifference of mortimer lightwood and eugene wrayburn. how well he distinguishes the bad manners of the merchant from the equally typical bad manners of the gentleman. above all, how well he catches the character of the creature who is really the master of all these: the impenetrable male servant. nowhere in literature is the truth about servants better told. for that truth is simply this: that the secret of aristocracy is hidden even from aristocrats. servants, butlers, footmen, are the high priests who have the real dispensation; and even gentlemen are afraid of them. dickens was never more right than when he made the new people, the veneerings, employ a butler who despised not only them but all their guests and acquaintances. the admirable person called the analytical chemist shows his perfection particularly in the fact that he regards all the sham gentlemen and all the real gentlemen with the same gloomy and incurable contempt. he offers wine to the offensive podsnap or the shrieking tippins with a melancholy sincerity and silence; but he offers his letter to the aristocratic and unconscious mortimer with the same sincerity and with the same silence. it is a great pity that the analytical chemist only occurs in two or three scenes of this excellent story. as far as i know, he never really says a word from one end of the book to the other; but he is one of the best characters in dickens. round the veneering dinner-table are collected not indeed the best characters in dickens, but certainly the best characters in _our mutual friend_. certainly one exception must be made. fledgeby is unaccountably absent. there was really no reason why he should not have been present at a dinner-party given by the veneerings and including the lammles. his money was at least more genuine than theirs. if he had been present the party would really have included all that is important in _our mutual friend_. for indeed, outside mr. fledgeby and the people at the dinner-party, there is something a little heavy and careless about the story. mr. silas wegg is really funny; and he serves the purpose of a necessary villain in the plot. but his humour and his villainy seem to have no particular connection with each other; when he is not scheming he seems the last man likely to scheme. he is rather like one of dickens's agreeable bohemians, a pleasant companion, a quoter of fine verses. his villainy seems an artificial thing attached to him, like his wooden leg. for while his villainy is supposed to be of a dull, mean, and bitter sort (quite unlike, for instance, the uproarious villainy of quilp), his humour is of the sincere, flowing and lyric character, like that of dick swiveller or mr. micawber. he tells mr. boffin that he will drop into poetry in a friendly way. he does drop into it in a friendly way; in much too really a friendly way to make him convincing as a mere calculating knave. he and mr. venus are such natural and genuine companions that one does not see why if venus repents wegg should not repent too. in short, wegg is a convenience for a plot and not a very good plot at that. but if he is one of the blots on the business, he is not the principal one. if the real degradation of wegg is not very convincing, it is at least immeasurably more convincing than the pretended degradation of boffin. the passage in which boffin appears as a sort of miser, and then afterwards explains that he only assumed the character for reasons of his own, has something about it highly jerky and unsatisfactory. the truth of the whole matter i think, almost certainly, is that dickens did not originally mean boffin's lapse to be fictitious. he originally meant boffin really to be corrupted by wealth, slowly to degenerate and as slowly to repent. but the story went too quickly for this long, double, and difficult process; therefore dickens at the last moment made a sudden recovery possible by representing that the whole business had been a trick. consequently, this episode is not an error merely in the sense that we may find many errors in a great writer like dickens; it is a mistake patched up with another mistake. it is a case of that ossification which occurs round the healing of an actual fracture; the story had broken down and been mended. if dickens had fulfilled what was probably his original design, and described the slow freezing of boffin's soul in prosperity, i do not say that he would have done the thing well. he was not good at describing change in anybody, especially not good at describing a change for the worse. the tendency of all his characters is upwards, like bubbles, never downwards, like stones. but at least it would probably have been more credible than the story as it stands; for the story as it stands is actually less credible than any conceivable kind of moral ruin for boffin. such a character as his--rough, simple and lumberingly unconscious--might be more easily conceived as really sinking in self-respect and honour than as keeping up, month after month, so strained and inhuman a theatrical performance. to a good man (of that particular type) it would be easier to be bad than to pretend to be bad. it might have taken years to turn noddy boffin into a miser; but it would have taken centuries to turn him into an actor. this unreality in the later boffin scenes makes the end of the story of john harmon somewhat more unimpressive perhaps than it might otherwise have been. upon no hypothesis, however, can he be made one of the more impressive figures of dickens. it is true that it is an unfair criticism to object, as some have done, that dickens does not succeed in disguising the identity of john harmon with john rokesmith. dickens never intended to disguise it; the whole story would be mainly unintelligible and largely uninteresting if it had been successfully disguised. but though john harmon or rokesmith was never intended to be merely a man of mystery, it is not quite so easy to say what he was intended to be. bella is a possible and pretty sketch. mrs. wilfer, her mother, is an entirely impossible and entirely delightful one. miss podsnap is not only excellent, she is to a healthy taste positively attractive; there is a real suggestion in her of the fact that humility is akin to truth, even when humility takes its more comic form of shyness. there is not in all literature a more human _cri de coeur_ than that with which georgiana podsnap receives the information that a young man has professed himself to be attracted by her--"oh what a fool he must be!" two other figures require praise, though they are in the more tragic manner which dickens touched from time to time in his later period. bradley headstone is really a successful villain; so successful that he fully captures our sympathies. also there is something original in the very conception. it was a new notion to add to the villains of fiction, whose thoughts go quickly, this villain whose thoughts go slow but sure; and it was a new notion to combine a deadly criminality not with high life or the slums (the usual haunts for villains) but with the laborious respectability of the lower, middle classes. the other good conception is the boy, bradley headstone's pupil, with his dull, inexhaustible egoism, his pert, unconscious cruelty, and the strict decorum and incredible baseness of his views of life. it is singular that dickens, who was not only a radical and a social reformer, but one who would have been particularly concerned to maintain the principle of modern popular education, should nevertheless have seen so clearly this potential evil in the mere educationalism of our time--the fact that merely educating the democracy may easily mean setting to work to despoil it of all the democratic virtues. it is better to be lizzie hexam and not know how to read and write than to be charlie hexam and not know how to appreciate lizzie hexam. it is not only necessary that the democracy should be taught; it is also necessary that the democracy should be taught democracy. otherwise it will certainly fall a victim to that snobbishness and system of worldly standards which is the most natural and easy of all the forms of human corruption. this is one of the many dangers which dickens saw before it existed. dickens was really a prophet; far more of a prophet than carlyle. [illustration: charles dickens, from a photograph by gurney.] edwin drood _pickwick_ was a work partly designed by others, but ultimately filled up by dickens. _edwin drood_, the last book, was a book designed by dickens, but ultimately filled up by others. the _pickwick papers_ showed how much dickens could make out of other people's suggestions; _the mystery of edwin drood_ shows how very little other people can make out of dickens's suggestions. dickens was meant by heaven to be the great melodramatist; so that even his literary end was melodramatic. something more seems hinted at in the cutting short of _edwin drood_ by dickens than the mere cutting short of a good novel by a great man. it seems rather like the last taunt of some elf, leaving the world, that it should be this story which is not ended, this story which is only a story. the only one of dickens's novels which he did not finish was the only one that really needed finishing. he never had but one thoroughly good plot to tell; and that he has only told in heaven. this is what separates the case in question from any parallel cases of novelists cut off in the act of creation. that great novelist, for instance, with whom dickens is constantly compared, died also in the middle of _denis duval_. but any one can see in _denis duval_ the qualities of the later work of thackeray; the increasing discursiveness, the increasing retrospective poetry, which had been in part the charm and in part the failure of _philip_ and _the virginians_. but to dickens it was permitted to die at a dramatic moment and to leave a dramatic mystery. any thackerayan could have completed the plot of _denis duval_; except indeed that a really sympathetic thackerayan might have had some doubt as to whether there was any plot to complete. but dickens, having had far too little plot in his stories previously, had far too much plot in the story he never told. dickens dies in the act of telling, not his tenth novel, but his first news of murder. he drops down dead as he is in the act of denouncing the assassin. it is permitted to dickens, in short, to come to a literary end as strange as his literary beginning. he began by completing the old romance of travel. he ended by inventing the new detective story. it is as a detective story first and last that we have to consider _the mystery of edwin drood_. this does not mean, of course, that the details are not often admirable in their swift and penetrating humour; to say that of the book would be to say that dickens did not write it. nothing could be truer, for instance, than the manner in which the dazed and drunken dignity of durdles illustrates a certain bitterness at the bottom of the bewilderment of the poor. nothing could be better than the way in which the haughty and allusive conversation between miss twinkleton and the landlady illustrates the maddening preference of some females for skating upon thin social ice. there is an even better example than these of the original humorous insight of dickens; and one not very often remarked, because of its brevity and its unimportance in the narrative. but dickens never did anything better than the short account of mr. grewgious's dinner being brought from the tavern by two waiters: "a stationary waiter," and "a flying waiter." the "flying waiter" brought the food and the "stationary waiter" quarrelled with him; the "flying waiter" brought glasses and the "stationary waiter" looked through them. finally, it will be remembered the "stationary waiter" left the room, casting a glance which indicated "let it be understood that all emoluments are mine, and that nil is the reward of this slave." still, dickens wrote the book as a detective story; he wrote it as _the mystery of edwin drood_. and alone, perhaps, among detective-story writers, he never lived to destroy his mystery. here alone then among the dickens novels it is necessary to speak of the plot and of the plot alone. and when we speak of the plot it becomes immediately necessary to speak of the two or three standing explanations which celebrated critics have given of the plot. the story, so far as it was written by dickens, can be read here. it describes, as will be seen, the disappearance of the young architect edwin drood after a night of festivity which was supposed to celebrate his reconciliation with a temporary enemy, neville landless, and was held at the house of his uncle john jasper. dickens continued the tale long enough to explain or explode the first and most obvious of his riddles. long before the existing part terminates it has become evident that drood has been put away, not by his obvious opponent, landless, but by his uncle who professes for him an almost painful affection. the fact that we all know this, however, ought not in fairness to blind us to the fact that, considered as the first fraud in a detective story, it has been, with great skill, at once suggested and concealed. nothing, for instance, could be cleverer as a piece of artistic mystery than the fact that jasper, the uncle, always kept his eyes fixed on drood's face with a dark and watchful tenderness; the thing is so told that at first we really take it as only indicating something morbid in the affection; it is only afterwards that the frightful fancy breaks upon us that it is not morbid affection but morbid antagonism. this first mystery (which is no longer a mystery) of jasper's guilt, is only worth remarking because it shows that dickens meant and felt himself able to mask all his batteries with real artistic strategy and artistic caution. the manner of the unmasking of jasper marks the manner and tone in which the whole tale was to be told. here we have not got to do with dickens simply giving himself away, as he gave himself away in _pickwick_ or _the christmas carol_. not that one complains of his giving himself away; there was no better gift. what was the mystery of edwin drood from dickens's point of view we shall never know, except perhaps from dickens in heaven, and then he will very likely have forgotten. but the mystery of edwin drood from our point of view, from that of his critics, and those who have with some courage (after his death) attempted to be his collaborators, is simply this. there is no doubt that jasper either murdered drood or supposed that he had murdered him. this certainty we have from the fact that it is the whole point of a scene between jasper and drood's lawyer grewgious in which jasper is struck down with remorse when he realises that drood has been killed (from his point of view) needlessly and without profit. the only question is whether jasper's remorse was as needless as his murder. in other words the only question is whether, while he certainly thought he had murdered drood, he had really done it. it need hardly be said that such a doubt would not have been raised for nothing; gentlemen like jasper do not as a rule waste good remorse except upon successful crime. the origin of the doubt about the real death of drood is this. towards the latter end of the existing chapters there appears very abruptly, and with a quite ostentatious air of mystery, a character called datchery. he appears for the purpose of spying upon jasper and getting up some case against him; at any rate, if he has not this purpose in the story he has no other earthly purpose in it. he is an old gentleman of juvenile energy, with a habit of carrying his hat in his hand even in the open air; which some have interpreted as meaning that he feels the unaccustomed weight of a wig. now there are one or two people in the story who this person might possibly be. notably there is one person in the story who seems as if he were meant to be something, but who hitherto has certainly been nothing; i mean bazzard, mr. grewgious's clerk, a sulky fellow interested in theatricals, of whom an unnecessary fuss is made. there is also mr. grewgious himself, and there is also another suggestion, so much more startling that i shall have to deal with it later. for the moment, however, the point is this: that ingenious writer, mr. proctor, started the highly plausible theory that this datchery was drood himself, who had not really been killed. he adduced a most complex and complete scheme covering nearly all the details; but the strongest argument he had was rather one of general artistic effect. this argument has been quite perfectly summed up by mr. andrew lang in one sentence: "if edwin drood is dead, there is not much mystery about him." this is quite true; dickens, when writing in so deliberate, nay, dark and conspiratorial a manner, would surely have kept the death of drood and the guilt of jasper hidden a little longer if the only real mystery had been the guilt of jasper and the death of drood. it certainly seems artistically more likely that there was a further mystery of edwin drood; not the mystery that he was murdered, but the mystery that he was not murdered. it is true indeed that mr. cumming walters has a theory of datchery (to which i have already darkly alluded) a theory which is wild enough to be the centre not only of any novel but of any harlequinade. but the point is that even mr. cumming walters's theory, though it makes the mystery more extraordinary, does not make it any more of a mystery of edwin drood. it should not have been called _the mystery of drood_, but _the mystery of datchery_. this is the strongest case for proctor; if the story tells of drood coming back as datchery, the story does at any rate fulfil the title upon its title-page. the principal objection to proctor's theory is that there seems no adequate reason why jasper should not have murdered his nephew if he wanted to. and there seems even less reason why drood, if unsuccessfully murdered, should not have raised the alarm. happy young architects, when nearly strangled by elderly organists, do not generally stroll away and come back some time afterwards in a wig and with a false name. superficially it would seem almost as odd to find the murderer investigating the origin of the murder, as to find the corpse investigating it. to this problem two of the ablest literary critics of our time, mr. andrew lang and mr. william archer (both of them persuaded generally of the proctor theory) have especially addressed themselves. both have come to the same substantial conclusion; and i suspect that they are right. they hold that jasper (whose mania for opium is much insisted on in the tale) had some sort of fit, or trance, or other physical seizure as he was committing the crime so that he left it unfinished; and they also hold that he had drugged drood, so that drood, when he recovered from the attack, was doubtful about who had been his assailant. this might really explain, if a little fancifully, his coming back to the town in the character of a detective. he might think it due to his uncle (whom he last remembered in a kind of murderous vision) to make an independent investigation as to whether he was really guilty or not. he might say, as hamlet said of a vision equally terrifying, "i'll have grounds more relative than this." in fairness it must be said that there is something vaguely shaky about this theory; chiefly, i think, in this respect; that there is a sort of farcical cheerfulness about datchery which does not seem altogether appropriate to a lad who ought to be in an agony of doubt as to whether his best friend was or was not his assassin. still there are many such incongruities in dickens; and the explanation of mr. archer and mr. lang is an explanation. i do not believe that any explanation as good can be given to account for the tale being called _the mystery of edwin drood_, if the tale practically starts with his corpse. if drood is really dead one cannot help feeling the story ought to end where it does end, not by accident but by design. the murder is explained. jasper is ready to be hanged, and every one else in a decent novel ought to be ready to be married. if there was to be much more of anything, it must have been of anticlimax. nevertheless there are degrees of anticlimax. some of the more obvious explanations of datchery are quite reasonable, but they are distinctly tame. for instance, datchery may be bazzard; but it is not very exciting if he is; for we know nothing about bazzard and care less. again, he might be grewgious; but there is something pointless about one grotesque character dressing up as another grotesque character actually less amusing than himself. now, mr. cumming walters has at least had the distinction of inventing a theory which makes the story at least an interesting story, even if it is not exactly the story that is promised on the cover of the book. the obvious enemy of drood, on whom suspicion first falls, the swarthy and sulky landless, has a sister even swarthier and, except for her queenly dignity, even sulkier than he. this barbaric princess is evidently meant to be (in a sombre way) in love with crisparkle, the clergyman and muscular christian who represents the breezy element in the emotions of the tale. mr. cumming walters seriously maintains that it is this barbaric princess who puts on a wig and dresses up as mr. datchery. he urges his case with much ingenuity of detail. helena landless certainly had a motive; to save her brother, who was accused falsely, by accusing jasper justly. she certainly had some of the faculties; it is elaborately stated in the earlier part of her story that she was accustomed as a child to dress up in male costume and run into the wildest adventures. there may be something in mr. cumming walters's argument that the very flippancy of datchery is the self-conscious flippancy of a strong woman in such an odd situation; certainly there is the same flippancy in portia and in rosalind. nevertheless, i think, there is one final objection to the theory; and that is simply this, that it is comic. it is generally wrong to represent a great master of the grotesque as being grotesque exactly where he does not intend to be. and i am persuaded that if dickens had really meant helena to turn into datchery, he would have made her from the first in some way more light, eccentric, and laughable; he would have made her at least as light and laughable as rosa. as it is, there is something strangely stiff and incredible about the idea of a lady so dark and dignified dressing up as a swaggering old gentleman in a blue coat and grey trousers. we might almost as easily imagine edith dombey dressing up as major bagstock. we might almost as easily imagine rebecca in _ivanhoe_ dressing up as isaac of york. of course such a question can never really be settled precisely, because it is the question not merely of a mystery but of a puzzle. for here the detective novel differs from every other kind of novel. the ordinary novelist desires to keep his readers to the point; the detective novelist actually desires to keep his readers off the point. in the first case, every touch must help to tell the reader what he means; in the second case, most of the touches must conceal or even contradict what he means. you are supposed to see and appreciate the smallest gestures of a good actor; but you do not see all the gestures of a conjuror, if he is a good conjuror. hence, into the critical estimate of such works as this, there is introduced a problem, an extra perplexity, which does not exist in other cases. i mean the problem of the things commonly called blinds. some of the points which we pick out as suggestive may have been put in as deceptive. thus the whole conflict between a critic with one theory, like mr. lang, and a critic with another theory, like mr. cumming walters, becomes eternal and a trifle farcical. mr. walters says that all mr. lang's clues were blinds; mr. lang says that all mr. walters's clues were blinds. mr. walters can say that some passages seemed to show that helena was datchery; mr. lang can reply that those passages were only meant to deceive simple people like mr. walters into supposing that she was datchery. similarly mr. lang can say that the return of drood is foreshadowed; and mr. walters can reply that it was foreshadowed because it was never meant to come off. there seems no end to this insane process; anything that dickens wrote may or may not mean the opposite of what it says. upon this principle i should be very ready for one to declare that all the suggested datcherys were really blinds; merely because they can naturally be suggested. i would undertake to maintain that mr. datchery is really miss twinkleton, who has a mercenary interest in keeping rosa budd at her school. this suggestion does not seem to me to be really much more humorous than mr. cumming walters's theory. yet either may certainly be true. dickens is dead, and a number of splendid scenes and startling adventures have died with him. even if we get the right solution we shall not know that it is right. the tale might have been, and yet it has not been. and i think there is no thought so much calculated to make one doubt death itself, to feel that sublime doubt which has created all religion--the doubt that found death incredible. edwin drood may or may not have really died; but surely dickens did not really die. surely our real detective liveth and shall appear in the latter days of the earth. for a finished tale may give a man immortality in the light and literary sense; but an unfinished tale suggests another immortality, more essential and more strange. master humphrey's clock it is quite indispensable to include a criticism of _master humphrey's clock_ in any survey of dickens, although it is not one of the books of which his admirers would chiefly boast; although perhaps it is almost the only one of which he would not have boasted himself. as a triumph of dickens, at least, it is not of great importance. but as a sample of dickens it happens to be of quite remarkable importance. the very fact that it is for the most part somewhat more level and even monotonous than most of his creations, makes us realise, as it were, against what level and monotony those creations commonly stand out. this book is the background of his mind. it is the basis and minimum of him which was always there. alone, of all written things, this shows how he felt when he was not writing. dickens might have written it in his sleep. that is to say, it is written by a sluggish dickens, a half automatic dickens, a dreaming and drifting dickens; but still by the enduring dickens. but this truth can only be made evident by beginning nearer to the root of the matter. _nicholas nickleby_ had just completed, or, to speak more strictly, confirmed, the popularity of the young author; wonderful as _pickwick_ was it might have been a nine days' wonder; _oliver twist_ had been powerful but painful; it was _nicholas nickleby_ that proved the man to be a great productive force of which one could ask more, of which one could ask all things. his publishers, chapman and hall, seem to have taken at about this point that step which sooner or later most publishers do take with regard to a half successful man who is becoming wholly successful. instead of asking him for something, they asked him for anything. they made him, so to speak, the editor of his own works. and indeed it is literally as the editor of his own works that he next appears; for the next thing to which he proposes to put his name is not a novel, but for all practical purposes a magazine. yet although it is a magazine, it is a magazine entirely written by himself; the publishers, in point of fact, wanted to create a kind of dickens miscellany, in a much more literal sense than that in which we speak of a bentley miscellany. dickens was in no way disposed to dislike such a job; for the more miscellaneous he was the more he enjoyed himself. and indeed this early experiment of his bears a great deal of resemblance to those later experiences in which he was the editor of two popular periodicals. the editor of _master humphrey's clock_ was a kind of type or precursor of the editor of _household words_ and _all the year round_. there was the same sense of absolute ease in an atmosphere of infinite gossip. there was the same great advantage gained by a man of genius who wrote best scrappily and by episodes. the omnipotence of the editor helped the eccentricities of the author. he could excuse himself for all his own shortcomings. he could begin a novel, get tired of it, and turn it into a short story. he could begin a short story, get fond of it, and turn it into a novel. thus in the days of _household words_ he could begin a big scheme of stories, such as _somebody's luggage_, or _seven poor travellers_, and after writing a tale or two toss the rest to his colleagues. thus, on the other hand, in the time of _master humphrey's clock_, he could begin one small adventure of master humphrey and find himself unable to stop it. it is quite clear i think (though only from moral evidence, which some call reading between the lines) that he originally meant to tell many separate tales of master humphrey's wanderings in london, only one of which, and that a short one, was to have been concerned with a little girl going home. fortunately for us that little girl had a grandfather, and that grandfather had a curiosity shop and also a nephew, and that nephew had an entirely irrelevant friend whom men and angels called richard swiveller. once having come into the society of swiveller it is not unnatural that dickens stayed there for a whole book. the essential point for us here, however, is that _master humphrey's clock_ was stopped by the size and energy of the thing that had come of it. it died in childbirth. there is, however, another circumstance which, even in ordinary public opinion, makes this miscellany important, besides the great novel that came out of it. i mean that the ordinary reader can remember one great thing about _master humphrey's clock_, besides the fact that it was the frame-work of _the old curiosity shop_. he remembers that mr. pickwick and the wellers rise again from the dead. dickens makes samuel pickwick become a member of master humphrey's clock society; and he institutes a parallel society in the kitchen under the name of mr. weller's watch. before we consider the question of whether dickens was wise when he did this, it is worth remarking how really odd it is that this is the only place where he did it. dickens, one would have thought, was the one man who might naturally have introduced old characters into new stories. dickens, as a matter of fact, was almost the one man who never did it. it would have seemed natural in him for a double reason; first, that his characters were very valuable to him, and second that they were not very valuable to his particular stories. they were dear to him, and they are dear to us; but they really might as well have turned up (within reason) in one environment as well as in another. we, i am sure, should be delighted to meet mr. mantalini in the story of _dombey and son_. and he certainly would not be much missed from the plot of nicholas nickleby. "i am an affectionate father," said dickens, "to all the children of my fancy; but like many other parents i have in my heart of hearts a favourite child; and his name is david copperfield." yet although his heart must often have yearned backwards to the children of his fancy whose tale was already told, yet he never touched one of them again even with the point of his pen. the characters in _david copperfield_, as in all the others, were dead for him after he had done the book; if he loved them as children, it was as dead and sanctified children. it is a curious test of the strength and even reticence that underlay the seeming exuberance of dickens, that he never did yield at all to exactly that indiscretion or act of sentimentalism which would seem most natural to his emotions and his art. or rather he never did yield to it except here in this one case; the case of _master humphrey's clock_. and it must be remembered that nearly everybody else did yield to it. especially did those writers who are commonly counted dickens's superiors in art and exactitude and closeness to connected reality. thackeray wallowed in it; anthony trollope lived on it. those modern artists who pride themselves most on the separation and unity of a work of art have indulged in it often; thus, for instance, stevenson gave a glimpse of alan breck in _the master of ballantrae_, and meant to give a glimpse of the master of ballantrae in another unwritten tale called _the rising sun_. the habit of revising old characters is so strong in thackeray that _vanity fair_, _pendennis_, _the newcomes_, and _philip_ are in one sense all one novel. certainly the reader sometimes forgets which one of them he is reading. afterwards he cannot remember whether the best description of lord steyne's red whiskers or mr. wagg's rude jokes occurred in _vanity fair_, or _pendennis_; he cannot remember whether his favourite dialogue between mr. and mrs. pendennis occurred in _the newcomes_, or in _philip_. whenever two thackeray characters in two thackeray novels could by any possibility have been contemporary, thackeray delights to connect them. he makes major pendennis nod to dr. firmin, and colonel newcome ask major dobbin to dinner. whenever two characters could not possibly have been contemporary he goes out of his way to make one the remote ancestor of the other. thus he created the great house of warrington solely to connect a "blue-bearded" bohemian journalist with the blood of henry esmond. it is quite impossible to conceive dickens keeping up this elaborate connection between all his characters and all his books, especially across the ages. it would give us a kind of shock if we learnt from dickens that major bagstock was the nephew of mr. chester. still less can we imagine dickens carrying on an almost systematic family chronicle as was in some sense done by trollope. there must be some reason for such a paradox; for in itself it is a very curious one. the writers who wrote carefully were always putting, as it were, after-words and appendices to their already finished portraits; the man who did splendid and flamboyant but faulty portraits never attempted to touch them up. or rather (we may say again) he attempted it once, and then he failed. the reason lay, i think, in the very genius of dickens's creation. the child he bore of his soul quitted him when his term was passed like a veritable child born of the body. it was independent of him, as a child is of its parents. it had become dead to him even in becoming alive. when thackeray studied pendennis or lord steyne he was studying something outside himself, and therefore something that might come nearer and nearer. but when dickens brought forth sam weller or pickwick he was creating something that had once been inside himself and therefore when once created could only go further and further away. it may seem a strange thing to say of such laughable characters and of so lively an author, yet i say it quite seriously; i think it possible that there arose between dickens and his characters that strange and almost supernatural shyness that arises often between parents and children; because they are too close to each other to be open with each other. too much hot and high emotion had gone to the creation of one of his great figures for it to be possible for him without embarrassment ever to speak with it again. this is the thing which some fools call fickleness; but which is not the death of feeling, but rather its dreadful perpetuation; this shyness is the final seal of strong sentiment; this coldness is an eternal constancy. this one case where dickens broke through his rule was not such a success as to tempt him in any case to try the thing again. there is weakness in the strict sense of the word in this particular reappearance of samuel pickwick and samuel weller. in the original _pickwick papers_ dickens had with quite remarkable delicacy and vividness contrived to suggest a certain fundamental sturdiness and spirit in that corpulent and complacent old gentleman. mr. pickwick was a mild man, a respectable man, a placid man; but he was very decidedly a man. he could denounce his enemies and fight for his nightcap. he was fat; but he had a backbone. in _master humphrey's clock_ the backbone seems somehow to be broken; his good nature seems limp instead of alert. he gushes out of his good heart; instead of taking a good heart for granted as a part of any decent gentleman's furniture as did the older and stronger pickwick. the truth is, i think, that mr. pickwick in complete repose loses some part of the whole point of his existence. the quality which makes the _pickwick papers_ one of the greatest of human fairy tales is a quality which all the great fairy tales possess, and which marks them out from most modern writing. a modern novelist generally endeavours to make his story interesting, by making his hero odd. the most typical modern books are those in which the central figure is himself or herself an exception, a cripple, a courtesan, a lunatic, a swindler, or a person of the most perverse temperament. such stories, for instance, are _sir richard calmady_, _dodo_, _quisante_, _la bête humaine_, even the _egoist_. but in a fairy tale the boy sees all the wonders of fairyland because he is an ordinary boy. in the same way mr. samuel pickwick sees an extraordinary england because he is an ordinary old gentleman. he does not see things through the rosy spectacles of the modern optimist or the green-smoked spectacles of the pessimist; he sees it through the crystal glasses of his own innocence. one must see the world clearly even in order to see its wildest poetry. one must see it sanely even in order to see that it is insane. mr. pickwick, then, relieved against a background of heavy kindliness and quiet club life does not seem to be quite the same heroic figure as mr. pickwick relieved against a background of the fighting police constables at ipswich or the roaring mobs of eatanswill. of the degeneration of the wellers, though it has been commonly assumed by critics, i am not so sure. some of the things said in the humorous assembly round mr. weller's watch are really human and laughable and altogether in the old manner. especially, i think, the vague and awful allusiveness of old mr. weller when he reminds his little grandson of his delinquencies under the trope or figure of their being those of another little boy, is really in the style both of the irony and the domesticity of the poorer classes. sam also says one or two things really worthy of himself. we feel almost as if sam were a living man, and could not appear for an instant without being amusing. the other elements in the make-up of _master humphrey's clock_ come under the same paradox which i have applied to the whole work. though not very important in literature they are somehow quite important in criticism. they show us better than anything else the whole unconscious trend of dickens, the stuff of which his very dreams were made. if he had made up tales to amuse himself when half-awake (as i have no doubt he did) they would be just such tales as these. they would have been ghostly legends of the nooks and holes of london, echoes of old love and laughter from the taverns or the inns of court. in a sense also one may say that these tales are the great might-have-beens of dickens. they are chiefly designs which he fills up here slightly and unsatisfactorily, but which he might have filled up with his own brightest and most incredible colours. nothing, for instance, could have been nearer to the heart of dickens than his great gargantuan conception of gog and magog telling london legends to each other all through the night. those two giants might have stood on either side of some new great city of his invention, swarming with fanciful figures and noisy with new events. but as it is, the two giants stand alone in a wilderness, guarding either side of a gate that leads nowhere. reprinted pieces those abuses which are supposed to belong specially to religion belong to all human institutions. they are not the sins of supernaturalism, but the sins of nature. in this respect it is interesting to observe that all the evils which our rationalist or protestant tradition associates with the idolatrous veneration of sacred figures arises in the merely human atmosphere of literature and history. every extravagance of hagiology can be found in hero-worship. every folly alleged in the worship of saints can be found in the worship of poets. there are those who are honourably and intensely opposed to the atmosphere of religious symbolism or religious archæology. there are people who have a vague idea that the worship of saints is worse than the imitation of sinners. there are some, like a lady i once knew, who think that hagiology is the scientific study of hags. but these slightly prejudiced persons generally have idolatries and superstitions of their own, particularly idolatries and superstitions in connection with celebrated people. mr. stead preserves a pistol belonging to oliver cromwell in the office of the _review of reviews_; and i am sure he worships it in his rare moments of solitude and leisure. a man, who could not be induced to believe in god by all the arguments of all the philosophers, professed himself ready to believe if he could see it stated on a postcard in the handwriting of mr. gladstone. persons not otherwise noted for their religious exercise have been known to procure and preserve portions of the hair of paderewski. nay, by this time blasphemy itself is a sacred tradition, and almost as much respect would be paid to the alleged relics of an atheist as to the alleged relics of a god. if any one has a fork that belonged to voltaire, he could probably exchange it in the open market for a knife that belonged to st. theresa. of all the instances of this there is none stranger than the case of dickens. it should be pondered very carefully by those who reproach christianity with having been easily corrupted into a system of superstitions. if ever there was a message full of what modern people call true christianity, the direct appeal to the common heart, a faith that was simple, a hope that was infinite, and a charity that was omnivorous, if ever there came among men what they call the christianity of christ, it was in the message of dickens. christianity has been in the world nearly two thousand years, and it has not yet quite lost, its enemies being judges, its first fire and charity; but friends and enemies would agree that it was from the very first more detailed and doctrinal than the spirit of dickens. the spirit of dickens has been in the world about sixty years; and already it is a superstition. already it is loaded with relics. already it is stiff with antiquity. everything that can be said about the perversion of christianity can be said about the perversion of dickens. it is said that christ's words are repeated by the very high priests and scribes whom he meant to denounce. it is just as true that the jokes in _pickwick_ are quoted with delight by the very bigwigs of bench and bar whom dickens wished to make absurd and impossible. it is said that texts from scripture are constantly taken in vain by judas and herod, by caiaphas and annas. it is just as true that texts from dickens are rapturously quoted on all our platforms by podsnap and honeythunder, by pardiggle and veneering, by tigg when he is forming a company, or pott when he is founding a newspaper. people joke about bumble in defence of bumbledom; people allude playfully to mrs. jellyby while agitating for borrioboola gha. the very things which dickens tried to destroy are preserved as relics of him. the very houses he wished to pull down are propped up as monuments of dickens. we wish to preserve everything of him, except his perilous public spirit. this antiquarian attitude towards dickens has many manifestations, some of them somewhat ridiculous. i give one startling instance out of a hundred of the irony remarked upon above. in his first important book, dickens lashed the loathsome corruption of our oligarchical politics, their blaring servility and dirty diplomacy of bribes, under the name of an imaginary town called eatanswill. if eatanswill, wherever it was, had been burned to the ground by its indignant neighbours the day after the exposure, it would have been not inappropriate. if it had been entirely deserted by its inhabitants, if they had fled to hide themselves in holes and caverns, one could have understood it. if it had been struck by a thunderbolt out of heaven or outlawed by the whole human race, all that would seem quite natural. what has really happened is this: that two respectable towns in suffolk are still disputing for the honour of having been the original eatanswill; as if two innocent hamlets each claimed to be gomorrah. i make no comment; the thing is beyond speech. but this strange sentimental and relic-hunting worship of dickens has many more innocent manifestations. one of them is that which takes advantage of the fact that dickens happened to be a journalist by trade. it occupies itself therefore with hunting through papers and magazines for unsigned articles which may possibly be proved to be his. only a little time ago one of these enthusiasts ran up to me, rubbing his hands, and told me that he was sure he had found two and a half short paragraphs in _all the year round_ which were certainly written by dickens, whom he called (i regret to say) the master. something of this archæological weakness must cling to all mere reprints of his minor work. he was a great novelist; but he was also, among other things, a good journalist and a good man. it is often necessary for a good journalist to write bad literature. it is sometimes the first duty of a good man to write it. pot-boilers to my feeling are sacred things; but they may well be secret as well as sacred, like the holy pot which it is their purpose to boil. in the collection called _reprinted pieces_ there are some, i think, which demand or deserve this apology. there are many which fall below the level of his recognised books of fragments, such as _the sketches by boz_, and _the uncommercial traveller_. two or three elements in the compilation, however, make it quite essential to any solid appreciation of the author. of these the first in importance is that which comes last in order. i mean the three remarkable pamphlets upon the english sunday, called _sunday under three heads_. here, at least, we find the eternal dickens, though not the eternal dickens of fiction. his other political and sociological suggestions in this volume are so far unimportant that they are incidental, and even personal. any man might have formed dickens's opinion about flogging for garrotters, and altered it afterwards. any one might have come to dickens's conclusion about model prisons, or to any other conclusion equally reasonable and unimportant. these things have no colour of the great man's character. but on the subject of the english sunday he does stand for his own philosophy. he stands for a particular view, remote at present both from liberals and conservatives. he was, in a conscious sense, the first of its spokesmen. he was in every sense the last. in his appeal for the pleasures of the people, dickens has remained alone. the pleasures of the people have now no defender, radical or tory. the tories despise the people. the radicals despise the pleasures. the end +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | transcriber's notes and errata | | | | the illustrations have been moved to between chapters. | | | | the following typographical errors have been corrected: | | | | |error |correction | | | |a dupe and who was |a dupe who was | | | |pyschology |psychology | | | |similiarly |smilarly | | | | | the following words were found in both hyphenated and | | un-hyphenated forms in the text. the numbers in parentheses | | show the number of times each form occurred. | | | | |framework ( ) |frame-work ( ) | | | |cocksure ( ) |cock-sure ( ) | | | |ironmaster ( ) |iron-master ( ) | | | |footprints ( ) |foot-prints ( ) | | | |goodwill ( ) |good-will ( ) | | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ transcribed from the burns & oates edition by david price, email ccx @coventry.ac.uk hearts of controversy contents: some thoughts of a reader of tennyson dickens as a man of letters swinburne's lyrical poetry charlotte and emily bronte charmian the century of moderation some thoughts of a reader of tennyson fifty years after tennyson's birth he was saluted a great poet by that unanimous acclamation which includes mere clamour. fifty further years, and his centenary was marked by a new detraction. it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the obscure but not unmajestic law of change from the sorry custom of reaction. change hastes not and rests not, reaction beats to and fro, flickering about the moving mind of the world. reaction--the paltry precipitancy of the multitude--rather than the novelty of change, has brought about a ferment and corruption of opinion on tennyson's poetry. it may be said that opinion is the same now as it was in the middle of the nineteenth century--the same, but turned. all that was not worth having of admiration then has soured into detraction now. it is of no more significance, acrid, than it was, sweet. what the herding of opinion gave yesterday it is able to take away to-day, that and no more. but besides the common favour-disfavour of the day, there is the tendency of educated opinion, once disposed to accept the whole of tennyson's poetry as though he could not be "parted from himself," and now disposed to reject the whole, on the same plea. but if ever there was a poet who needed to be thus "parted"--the word is his own--it is he who wrote both narrowly for his time and liberally for all time, and who--this is the more important character of his poetry--had both a style and a manner: a masterly style, a magical style, a too dainty manner, nearly a trick; a noble landscape and in it figures something ready-made. he is a subject for our alternatives of feeling, nay, our conflicts, as is hardly another poet. we may deeply admire and wonder, and, in another line or hemistich, grow indifferent or slightly averse. he sheds the luminous suns of dreams upon men & women who would do well with footlights; waters their way with rushing streams of paradise and cataracts from visionary hills; laps them in divine darkness; leads them into those touching landscapes, "the lovely that are not beloved;" long grey fields, cool sombre summers, and meadows thronged with unnoticeable flowers; speeds his carpet knight--or is that hardly a just name for one whose sword "smites" so well?--upon a carpet of authentic wild flowers; pushes his rovers, in costume, from off blossoming shores, on the keels of old romance. the style and the manner, i have said, run side by side. if we may take one poet's too violent phrase, and consider poets to be "damned to poetry," why, then, tennyson is condemned by a couple of sentences, "to run concurrently." we have the style and the manner locked together at times in a single stanza, locked and yet not mingled. there should be no danger for the more judicious reader lest impatience at the peculiar tennyson trick should involve the great tennyson style in a sweep of protest. yet the danger has in fact proved real within the present and recent years, and seems about to threaten still more among the less judicious. but it will not long prevail. the vigorous little nation of lovers of poetry, alive one by one within the vague multitude of the nation of england, cannot remain finally insensible to what is at once majestic and magical in tennyson. for those are not qualities they neglect in their other masters. how, valuing singleness of heart in the sixteenth century, splendour in the seventeenth, composure in the eighteenth; how, with a spiritual ear for the note--commonly called celtic, albeit it is the most english thing in the world--the wild wood note of the remoter song; how, with the educated sense of style, the liberal sense of ease; how, in a word, fostering letters and loving nature, shall that choice nation within england long disregard these virtues in the nineteenth-century master? how disregard him, for more than the few years of reaction, for the insignificant reasons of his bygone taste, his insipid courtliness, his prettiness, or what not? it is no dishonour to tennyson, for it is a dishonour to our education, to disparage a poet who wrote but the two--had he written no more of their kind--lines of "the passing of arthur," of which, before i quote them, i will permit myself the personal remembrance of a great contemporary author's opinion. mr. meredith, speaking to me of the high-water mark of english style in poetry and prose, cited those lines as topmost in poetry:- on one side lay the ocean, and on one lay a great water, and the moon was full. here is no taint of manner, no pretty posture or habit, but the simplicity of poetry and the simplicity of nature, something on the yonder side of imagery. it is to be noted that this noble passage is from tennyson's generally weakest kind of work--blank verse; and should thus be a sign that the laxity of so many parts of the "idylls" and other blank verse poems was a quite unnecessary fault. lax this form of poetry undoubtedly is with tennyson. his blank verse is often too easy; it cannot be said to fly, for the paradoxical reason that it has no weight; it slips by, without halting or tripping indeed, but also without the friction of the movement of vitality. this quality, which is so near to a fault, this quality of ease, has come to be disregarded in our day. that horace walpole overpraised this virtue is not good reason that we should hold it for a vice. yet we do more than undervalue it; and several of our authors, in prose and poetry, seem to find much merit in the manifest difficulty; they will not have a key to turn, though closely and tightly, in oiled wards; let the reluctant iron catch and grind, or they would even prefer to pick you the lock. but though we may think it time that the quality once over-prized should be restored to a more proportionate honour, our great poet tennyson shows us that of all merits ease is, unexpectedly enough, the most dangerous. it is not only, with him, that the wards are oiled, it is also that the key turns loosely. this is true of much of the beautiful "idylls," but not of their best passages, nor of such magnificent heroic verse as that of the close of "a vision of sin," or of "lucretius." as to the question of ease, we cannot have a better maxim than coventry patmore's saying that poetry "should confess, but not suffer from, its difficulties." and we could hardly find a more curious example of the present love of verse that not only confesses but brags of difficulties, and not only suffers from them but cries out under the suffering, and shows us the grimace of the pain of it, than i have lighted upon in the critical article of a recent quarterly. reviewing the book of a "poet" who manifestly has an insuperable difficulty in hacking his work into ten-syllable blocks, and keeping at the same time any show of respect for the national grammar, the critic gravely invites his reader to "note" the phrase "neath cliffs" (apparently for "beneath the cliffs") as "characteristic." shall the reader indeed "note" such a matter? truly he has other things to do. this is by the way. tennyson is always an artist, and the finish of his work is one of the principal notes of his versification. how this finish comports with the excessive ease of his prosody remains his own peculiar secret. ease, in him, does not mean that he has any unhandsome slovenly ways. on the contrary, he resembles rather the warrior with the pouncet box. it is the man of "neath cliffs" who will not be at the trouble of making a place for so much as a definite article. tennyson certainly _worked_, and the exceeding ease of his blank verse comes perhaps of this little paradox--that he makes somewhat too much show of the hiding of his art. in the first place the poet with the great welcome style and the little unwelcome manner, tennyson is, in the second place, the modern poet who withstood france. (that is, of course, modern france--france since the renaissance. from medieval provence there is not an english poet who does not own inheritance.) it was some time about the date of the restoration that modern france began to be modish in england. a ruffle at the court of charles, a couplet in the ear of pope, a _tour de phrase_ from mme. de sevigne much to the taste of walpole, later the good example of french painting--rich interest paid for the loan of our constable's initiative--later still a scattering of french taste, french critical business, over all the shallow places of our literature--these have all been phases of a national vanity of ours, an eager and anxious fluttering or jostling to be foremost and french. matthew arnold's essay on criticism fostered this anxiety, and yet i find in this work of his a lack of easy french knowledge, such as his misunderstanding of the word _brutalite_, which means no more, or little more, than roughness. matthew arnold, by the way, knew so little of the french character as to be altogether ignorant of french provincialism, french practical sense, and french "convenience." "convenience" is his dearest word of contempt, "practical sense" his next dearest, and he throws them a score of times in the teeth of the english. strange is the irony of the truth. for he bestows those withering words on the nation that has the fifty religions, and attributes "ideas"--as the antithesis of "convenience" and "practical sense"--to the nation that has the fifty sauces. and not for a moment does he suspect himself of this blunder, so manifest as to be disconcerting to his reader. one seems to hear an incurably english accent in all this, which indeed is reported, by his acquaintance, of matthew arnold's actual speaking of french. it is certain that he has not the interest of familiarity with the language, but only the interest of strangeness. now, while we meet the effect of the french coat in our seventeenth century, of the french light verse in our earlier eighteenth century, and of french philosophy in our later, of the french revolution in our wordsworth, of the french painting in our nineteenth-century studios, of french fiction--and the dregs are still running--in our libraries, of french poetry in our swinburne, of french criticism in our arnold, tennyson shows the effect of nothing french whatever. not the elizabethans, not shakespeare, not jeremy taylor, not milton, not shelley were (in their art, not in their matter) more insular in their time. france, by the way, has more than appreciated the homage of tennyson's contemporaries; victor hugo avers, in _les miserables_, that our people imitate his people in all things, and in particular he rouses in us a delighted laughter of surprise by asserting that the london street-boy imitates the parisian street-boy. there is, in fact, something of a street-boy in some of our late more literary mimicries. we are apt to judge a poet too exclusively by his imagery. tennyson is hardly a great master of imagery. he has more imagination than imagery. he sees the thing, with so luminous a mind's eye, that it is sufficient to him; he needs not to see it more beautifully by a similitude. "a clear-walled city" is enough; "meadows" are enough--indeed tennyson reigns for ever over all meadows; "the happy birds that change their sky"; "bright phosphor, fresher for the night"; "twilight and evening bell"; "the stillness of the central sea"; "that friend of mine who lives in god"; "the solitary morning"; "four grey walls and four grey towers"; "watched by weeping queens"; these are enough, illustrious, and needing not illustration. if we do not see tennyson to be the lonely, the first, the _one_ that he is, this is because of the throng of his following, though a number that are of that throng hardly know, or else would deny, their flocking. but he added to our literature not only in the way of cumulation, but by the advent of his single genius. he is one of the few fountain-head poets of the world. the new landscape which was his--the lovely unbeloved--is, it need hardly be said, the matter of his poetry and not its inspiration. it may have seemed to some readers that it is the novelty, in poetry, of this homely unscenic scenery--this lincolnshire quality--that accounts for tennyson's freshness of vision. but it is not so. tennyson is fresh also in scenic scenery; he is fresh with the things that others have outworn; mountains, desert islands, castles, elves, what you will that is conventional. where are there more divinely poetic lines than those, which will never be wearied with quotation, beginning, "a splendour falls"? what castle walls have stood in such a light of old romance, where in all poetry is there a sound wilder than that of those faint "horns of elfland"? here is the remoteness, the beyond, the light delirium, not of disease but of more rapturous and delicate health, the closer secret of poetry. this most english of modern poets has been taunted with his mere gardens. he loved, indeed, the "lazy lilies," of the exquisite garden of "the gardener's daughter," but he betook his ecstatic english spirit also far afield and overseas; to the winter places of his familiar nightingale:- when first the liquid note beloved of men comes flying over many a windy wave; to the lotus-eaters' shore; to the outland landscapes of "the palace of art"--the "clear-walled city by the sea," the "pillared town," the "full- fed river"; to the "pencilled valleys" of monte rosa; to the "vale in ida"; to that tremendous upland in the "vision of sin":- at last i heard a voice upon the slope cry to the summit, is there any hope? to which an answer pealed from that high land, but in a tongue no man could understand. the cleopatra of "the dream of fair women" is but a ready-made cleopatra, but when in the shades of her forest she remembers the sun of the world, she leaves the page of tennyson's poorest manner and becomes one with shakespeare's queen:- we drank the libyan sun to sleep. nay, there is never a passage of manner but a great passage of style rebukes our dislike and recalls our heart again. the dramas, less than the lyrics, and even less than the "idylls," are matter for the true tennysonian. their action is, at its liveliest rather vivacious than vital, and the sentiment, whether in "becket" or in "harold," is not only modern, it is fixed within tennyson's own peculiar score or so of years. but that he might have answered, in drama, to a stronger stimulus, a sharper spur, than his time administered, may be guessed from a few passages of "queen mary," and from the dramatic terror of the arrow in "harold." the line has appeared in prophetic fragments in earlier scenes, and at the moment of doom it is the outcry of unquestionable tragedy:- sanguelac--sanguelac--the arrow--the arrow!--away! tennyson is also an eminently all-intelligible poet. those whom he puzzles or confounds must be a flock with an incalculable liability to go wide of any road--"down all manner of streets," as the desperate drover cries in the anecdote. but what are streets, however various, to the ways of error that a great flock will take in open country--minutely, individually wrong, making mistakes upon hardly perceptible occasions, or none--"minute fortuitous variations in any possible direction," as used to be said in exposition of the darwinian theory? a vast outlying public, like that of tennyson, may make you as many blunders as it has heads; but the accurate clear poet proved his meaning to all accurate perceptions. where he hesitates, his is the sincere pause of process and uncertainty. it has been said that tennyson, midway between the student of material science and the mystic, wrote and thought according to an age that wavered, with him, between the two minds, and that men have now taken one way or the other. is this indeed true, and are men so divided and so sure? or have they not rather already turned, in numbers, back to the parting, or meeting, of eternal roads? the religious question that arises upon experience of death has never been asked with more sincerity and attention than by him. if "in memoriam" represents the mind of yesterday it represents no less the mind of to-morrow. it is true that pessimism and insurrection in their ignobler forms--nay, in the ignoblest form of a fashion--have, or had but yesterday, the control of the popular pen. trivial pessimism or trivial optimism, it matters little which prevails. for those who follow the one habit to-day would have followed the other in a past generation. fleeting as they are, it cannot be within their competence to neglect or reject the philosophy of "in memoriam." to the dainty stanzas of that poem, it is true, no great struggle of reasoning was to be committed, nor would any such dispute be judiciously entrusted to the rhymes of a song of sorrow. tennyson here proposes, rather than closes with, the ultimate question of our destiny. the conflict, for which he proves himself strong enough, is in that magnificent poem of a thinker, "lucretius." but so far as "in memoriam" attempts, weighs, falters, and confides, it is true to the experience of human anguish and intellect. i say intellect advisedly. not for him such blunders of thought as coleridge's in "the ancient mariner" or wordsworth's in "hartleap well." coleridge names the sun, moon, and stars as when, in a dream, the sleeping imagination is threatened with some significant illness. we see them in his great poem as apparitions. coleridge's senses are infinitely and transcendently spiritual. but a candid reader must be permitted to think the mere story silly. the wedding-guest might rise the morrow morn a sadder but he assuredly did not rise a wiser man. as for wordsworth, the most beautiful stanzas of "hartleap well" are fatally rebuked by the truths of nature. he shows us the ruins of an aspen wood, a blighted hollow, a dreary place, forlorn because an innocent stag, hunted, had there broken his heart in a leap from the rocks above; grass would not grow there. this beast not unobserved by nature fell, his death was mourned by sympathy divine. and the signs of that sympathy are cruelly asserted by the poet to be these woodland ruins--cruelly, because the daily sight of the world blossoming over the agonies of beast and bird is made less tolerable to us by such a fiction. the being that is in the clouds and air . . . maintains a deep and reverential care for the unoffending creature whom he loves. the poet offers us as a proof of that "reverential care," the visible alteration of nature at the scene of suffering--an alteration we have to dispense with every day we pass in the woods. we are tempted to ask whether wordsworth himself believed in a sympathy he asks us--on such grounds!--to believe in? did he think his faith to be worthy of no more than a fictitious sign and a false proof? nowhere in the whole of tennyson's thought is there such an attack upon our reason and our heart. he is more serious than the solemn wordsworth. _in memoriam_, with all else that tennyson wrote, tutors, with here and there a subtle word, this nature-loving nation to perceive land, light, sky, and ocean, as he perceived. to this we return, upon this we dwell. he has been to us, firstly, the poet of two geniuses--a small and an immense; secondly, the modern poet who answered in the negative that most significant modern question, french or not french? but he was, before the outset of all our study of him, of all our love of him, the poet of landscape, and this he is more dearly than pen can describe him. this eternal character of his is keen in the verse that is winged to meet a homeward ship with her "dewy decks," and in the sudden island landscape, the clover sod, that takes the sunshine and the rains, or where the kneeling hamlet drains the chalice of the grapes of god. it is poignant in the garden-night:- a breeze began to tremble o'er the large leaves of the sycamore, . . . and gathering freshlier overhead, rocked the full-foliaged elm, and swung the heavy-folded rose, and flung the lilies to and fro, and said "the dawn, the dawn," and died away. his are the exalted senses that sensual poets know nothing of. i think the sense of hearing as well as the sense of sight, has never been more greatly exalted than by tennyson:- as from beyond the limit of the world, like the last echo born of a great cry. as to this garden-character so much decried i confess that the "lawn" does not generally delight me, the word nor the thing. but in tennyson's page the word is wonderful, as though it had never been dull: "the mountain lawn was dewy-dark." it is not that he brings the mountains too near or ranks them in his own peculiar garden-plot, but that the word withdraws, withdraws to summits, withdraws into dreams; the lawn is aloft, alone, and as wild as ancient snow. it is the same with many another word or phrase changed, by passing into his vocabulary, into something rich and strange. his own especially is the march month--his "roaring moon." his is the spirit of the dawning month of flowers and storms; the golden, soft names of daffodil and crocus are caught by the gale as you speak them in his verse, in a fine disproportion with the energy and gloom. his was a new apprehension of nature, an increase in the number, and not only in the sum, of our national apprehensions of poetry in nature. unaware of a separate angel of modern poetry is he who is insensible to the tennyson note--the new note that we reaffirm even with the notes of vaughan, traherne, wordsworth, coleridge, blake well in our ears--the tennyson note of splendour, all-distinct. he showed the perpetually transfigured landscape in transfiguring words. he is the captain of our dreams. others have lighted a candle in england, he lit a sun. through him our daily suns, and also the backward and historic suns long since set, which he did not sing, are magnified; and he bestows upon us an exalted retrospection. through him napoleon's sun of austerlitz rises, for us, with a more brilliant menace upon arms and the plain; through him fielding's "most melancholy sun" lights the dying man to the setting-forth on that last voyage of his with such an immortal gleam, denying hope, as would not have lighted, for us, the memory of that seaward morning, had our poetry not undergone the illumination, the transcendent vision, of tennyson's genius. emerson knew that the poet speaks adequately then only when he speaks "a little wildly, or with the flower of the mind." tennyson, the clearest- headed of poets, is our wild poet; wild, notwithstanding that little foppery we know of in him--that walking delicately, like agag; wild, notwithstanding the work, the ease, the neatness, the finish; notwithstanding the assertion of manliness which, in asserting, somewhat misses that mark; a wilder poet than the rough, than the sensual, than the defiant, than the accuser, than the denouncer. wild flowers are his--great poet--wild winds, wild lights, wild heart, wild eyes! dickens as a man of letters it was said for many years, until the reversal that now befalls the sayings of many years had happened to this also, that thackeray was the unkind satirist and dickens the kind humourist. the truth seems to be that dickens imagined more evil people than did thackeray, but that he had an eager faith in good ones. nothing places him so entirely out of date as his trust in human sanctity, his love of it, his hope for it, his leap at it. he saw it in a woman's face first met, and drew it to himself in a man's hand first grasped. he looked keenly for it. and if he associated minor degrees of goodness with any kind of folly or mental ineptitude, he did not so relate sanctity; though he gave it, for companion, ignorance; and joined the two, in joe gargery, most tenderly. we might paraphrase, in regard to these two great authors, dr. johnson's famous sentence: "marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no joys." dickens has many scoundrels, but thackeray has no saints. helen pendennis is not holy, for she is unjust and cruel; amelia is not holy, for she is an egoist in love; lady castlewood is not holy, for she too is cruel; and even lady jane is not holy, for she is jealous; nor is colonel newcome holy, for he is haughty; nor dobbin, for he turns with a taunt upon a plain sister; nor esmond, for he squanders his best years in love for a material beauty; and these are the best of his good people. and readers have been taught to praise the work of him who makes none perfect; one does not meet perfect people in trains or at dinner, and this seemed good cause that the novelist should be praised for his moderation; it seemed to imitate the usual measure and moderation of nature. but charles dickens closed with a divine purpose divinely different. he consented to the counsels of perfection. and thus he made joe gargery, not a man one might easily find in a forge; and esther summerson, not a girl one may easily meet at a dance; and little dorrit, who does not come to do a day's sewing; not that the man and the women are inconceivable, but that they are unfortunately improbable. they are creatures created through a creating mind that worked its six days for the love of good, and never rested until the seventh, the final sabbath. but granting that they are the counterpart, the heavenly side, of caricature, this is not to condemn them. since when has caricature ceased to be an art good for man--an honest game between him and nature? it is a tenable opinion that frank caricature is a better incident of art than the mere exaggeration which is the more modern practice. the words mean the same thing in their origin--an overloading. but, as we now generally delimit the words, they differ. caricature, when it has the grotesque inspiration, makes for laughter, and when it has the celestial, makes for admiration; in either case there is a good understanding between the author and the reader, or between the draughtsman and the spectator. we need not, for example, suppose that ibsen sat in a room surrounded by a repeating pattern of his hair and whiskers on the wallpaper, but it makes us most exceedingly mirthful and joyous to see him thus seated in mr. max beerbohm's drawing; and perhaps no girl ever went through life without harbouring a thought of self, but it is very good for us all to know that such a girl was thought of by dickens, that he loved his thought, and that she is ultimately to be traced, through dickens, to god. but exaggeration establishes no good understanding between the reader and the author. it is a solemn appeal to our credulity, and we are right to resent it. it is the violence of a weakling hand--the worst manner of violence. exaggeration is conspicuous in the newer poetry, and is so far, therefore, successful, conspicuousness being its aim. but it was also the vice of swinburne, and was the bad example he set to the generation that thought his tunings to be the finest "music." for instance, in an early poem he intends to tell us how a man who loved a woman welcomed the sentence that condemned him to drown with her, bound, his impassioned breast against hers, abhorring. he might have convinced us of that welcome by one phrase of the profound exactitude of genius. but he makes his man cry out for the greatest bliss and the greatest imaginable glory to be bestowed upon the judge who pronounces the sentence. and this is merely exaggeration. one takes pleasure in rebuking the false ecstasy by a word thus prim and prosaic. the poet intended to impose upon us, and he fails; we "withdraw our attention," as dr. johnson did when the conversation became foolish. in truth we do more, for we resent exaggeration if we care for our english language. for exaggeration writes relaxed, and not elastic, words and verses; and it is possible that the language suffers something, at least temporarily--during the life of a couple of generations, let us say--from the loss of elasticity and rebound brought about by such strain. moreover, exaggeration has always to outdo itself progressively. there should have been a durdles to tell this swinburne that the habit of exaggerating, like that of boasting, "grows upon you." it may be added that later poetry shows us an instance of exaggeration in the work of that major poet, mr. lascelles abercrombie. his violence and vehemence, his extremity, are generally signs not of weakness but of power; and yet once he reaches a breaking-point that power should never know. this is where his judith holds herself to be so smirched and degraded by the proffer of a reverent love (she being devoted to one only, a dead man who had her heart) that thenceforth no bar is left to her entire self-sacrifice to the loathed enemy holofernes. to this, too, the prim rebuke is the just one, a word for the mouth of governesses: "my dear, you exaggerate." it may be briefly said that exaggeration takes for granted some degree of imbecility in the reader, whereas caricature takes for granted a high degree of intelligence. dickens appeals to our intelligence in all his caricature, whether heavenly, as in joe gargery, or impish, as in mrs. micawber. the word "caricature" that is used a thousand times to reproach him is the word that does him singular honour. if i may define my own devotion to dickens, it may be stated as chiefly, though not wholly, admiration of his humour, his dramatic tragedy, and his watchfulness over inanimate things and landscape. passages of his books that are ranged otherwise than under those characters often leave me out of the range of their appeal or else definitely offend me. and this is not for the customary reason--that dickens could not draw a gentleman, that dickens could not draw a lady. it matters little whether he could or not. but as a fact he did draw a gentleman, and drew him excellently well, in cousin feenix, as mr. chesterton has decided. the question of the lady we may waive; if it is difficult to prove a negative, it is difficult also to present one; and to the making, or producing, or liberating, or detaching, or exalting, of the character of a lady there enter many negatives; and dickens was an obvious and a positive man. esther summerson is a lady, but she is so much besides that her ladyhood does not detach itself from her sainthood and her angelhood, so as to be conspicuous--if, indeed, conspicuousness may be properly predicated of the quality of a lady. it is a conventional saying that sainthood and angelhood include the quality of a lady, but that saying is not true; a lady has a great number of negatives all her own, and also some things positive that are not at all included in goodness. however this may be--and it is not important--dickens, the genial dickens, makes savage sport of women. such a company of envious dames and damsels cannot be found among the persons of the satirist thackeray. kate nickleby's beauty brings upon her at first sight the enmity of her workshop companions; in the innocent pages of "pickwick" the aunt is jealous of the niece, and the niece retorts by wounding the vanity of the aunt as keenly as she may; and so forth through early books and late. he takes for granted that the women, old and young, who are not his heroines, wage this war within the sex, being disappointed by defect of nature and fortune. dickens is master of wit, humour, and derision; and it must be confessed that his derision is abundant, and is cast upon an artificially exposed and helpless people; that is, he, a man, derides the women who miss what a man declared to be their "whole existence." the advice which m. rodin received in his youth from constant--"learn to see the other side; never look at forms only in extent; learn to see them always in relief"--is the contrary of the counsel proper for a reader of dickens. that counsel should be, "do not insist upon seeing the immortal figures of comedy 'in the round.' you are to be satisfied with their face value, the face of two dimensions. it is not necessary that you should seize mr. pecksniff from beyond, and grasp the whole man and his destinies." the hypocrite is a figure dreadful and tragic, a shape of horror; and mr. pecksniff is a hypocrite, and a bright image of heart- easing comedy. for comic fiction cannot exist without some such paradox. without it, where would our laugh be in response to the generous genius which gives us mr. pecksniff's parenthesis to the mention of sirens ("pagan, i regret to say"); and the scene in which mr. pecksniff, after a stormy domestic scene within, goes as it were accidentally to the door to admit the rich kinsman he wishes to propitiate? "then mr. pecksniff, gently warbling a rustic stave, put on his garden hat, seized a spade, and opened the street door, as if he thought he had, from his vineyard, heard a modest rap, but was not quite certain." the visitor had thundered at the door while outcries of family strife had been rising in the house. "'it is an ancient pursuit, gardening. primitive, my dear sir; for, if i am not mistaken, adam was the first of the calling. my eve, i grieve to say, is no more, sir; but' (and here he pointed to his spade, and shook his head, as if he were not cheerful without an effort) 'but i do a little bit of adam still.' he had by this time got them into the best parlour, where the portrait by spiller and the bust by spoker were." and again, mr. pecksniff, hospitable at the supper table: "'this,' he said, in allusion to the party, not the wine, 'is a mingling that repays one for much disappointment and vexation. let us be merry.' here he took a captain's biscuit. 'it is a poor heart that never rejoices; and our hearts are not poor. no!' with such stimulants to merriment did he beguile the time and do the honours of the table." moreover it is a mournful thing and an inexplicable, that a man should be as mad as mr. dick. none the less is it a happy thing for any reader to watch mr. dick while david explains his difficulty to traddles. mr. dick was to be employed in copying, but king charles the first could not be kept out of the manuscripts; "mr. dick in the meantime looking very deferentially and seriously at traddles, and sucking his thumb." and the amours of the gentleman in gaiters who threw the vegetable-marrows over the garden wall. mr. f.'s aunt, again! and augustus moddle, our own moddle, whom a great french critic most justly and accurately brooded over. "augustus, the gloomy maniac," says taine, "makes us shudder." a good medical diagnosis. long live the logical french intellect! truly, humour talks in his own language, nay, his own dialect, whereas passion and pity speak the universal tongue. it is strange--it seems to me deplorable--that dickens himself was not content to leave his wonderful hypocrite--one who should stand imperishable in comedy--in the two dimensions of his own admirable art. after he had enjoyed his own pecksniff, tasting him with the "strenuous tongue" of keats's voluptuary bursting "joy's grapes against his palate fine," dickens most unfairly gives himself the other and incompatible joy of grasping his pecksniff in the third dimension, seizes him "in the round," horsewhips him out of all keeping, and finally kicks him out of a splendid art of fiction into a sorry art of "poetical justice," a pecksniff not only defeated but undone. and yet dickens's retribution upon sinners is a less fault than his reforming them. it is truly an act denoting excessive simplicity of mind in him. he never veritably allows his responsibility as a man to lapse. men ought to be good, or else to become good, and he does violence to his own excellent art, and yields it up to his sense of morality. ah, can we measure by years the time between that day and this? is the fastidious, the impartial, the non-moral novelist only the grandchild, and not the remote posterity, of dickens, who would not leave scrooge to his egoism, or gradgrind to his facts, or mercy pecksniff to her absurdity, or dombey to his pride? nay, who makes micawber finally to prosper? truly, the most unpardonable thing dickens did in those deplorable last chapters of his was the prosperity of mr. micawber. "of a son, in difficulties"--the perfect micawber nature is respected as to his origin, and then perverted as to his end. it is a pity that mr. peggotty ever came back to england with such tidings. and our last glimpse of the emigrants had been made joyous by the sight of the young micawbers on the eve of emigration; "every child had its own wooden spoon attached to its body by a strong line," in preparation for colonial life. and then dickens must needs go behind the gay scenes, and tell us that the long and untiring delight of the book was over. mr. micawber, in the colonies, was never again to make punch with lemons, in a crisis of his fortunes, and "resume his peeling with a desperate air"; nor to observe the expression of his friends' faces during mrs. micawber's masterly exposition of the financial situation or of the possibilities of the coal trade; nor to eat walnuts out of a paper bag what time the die was cast and all was over. alas! nothing was over until mr. micawber's pecuniary liabilities were over, and the perfect comedy turned into dulness, the joyous impossibility of a figure of immortal fun into cold improbability. there are several such late or last chapters that one would gladly cut away: that of mercy pecksniff's pathos, for example; that of mr. dombey's installation in his daughter's home; that which undeceives us as to mr. boffin's antic disposition. but how true and how whole a heart it was that urged these unlucky conclusions! how shall we venture to complain? the hand that made its pecksniff in pure wit, has it not the right to belabour him in earnest--albeit a kind of earnest that disappoints us? and mr. dombey is dickens's own dombey, and he must do what he will with that finely wrought figure of pride. but there is a little irony in the fact that dickens leaves more than one villain to his orderly fate for whom we care little either way; it is nothing to us, whom carker never convinced, that the train should catch him, nor that the man with the moustache and the nose, who did but weary us, should be crushed by the falling house. here the end holds good in art, but the art was not good from the first. but then, again, neither does bill sikes experience a change of heart, nor jonas chuzzlewit; and the end of each is most excellently told. george meredith said that the most difficult thing to write in fiction was dialogue. but there is surely one thing at least as difficult--a thing so rarely well done that a mere reader might think it to be more difficult than dialogue; and that is the telling _what happened_. something of the fatal languor and preoccupation that persist beneath all the violence of our stage--our national undramatic character--is perceptible in the narrative of our literature. the things the usual modern author says are proportionately more energetically produced than those he tells. but dickens, being simple and dramatic and capable of one thing at a time, and that thing whole, tells us what happened with a perfect speed which has neither hurry nor delays. those who saw him act found him a fine actor, and this we might know by reading the murder in _oliver twist_, the murder in _martin chuzzlewit_, the coming of the train upon carker, the long moment of recognition when pip sees his guest, the convict, reveal himself in his chambers at night. the swift spirit, the hammering blow of his narrative, drive the great storm in _david copperfield_ through the poorest part of the book--steerforth's story. there is surely no greater gale to be read of than this: from the first words, "'don't you think that,' i said to the coachman, 'a very remarkable sky?'" to the end of a magnificent chapter. "flying clouds tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them. . . there had been a wind all day; and it was rising then with an extraordinary great sound . . . long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips . . . the water was out over the flat country, and every sheet and puddle lashed its banks, and had its stress of little breakers. when we came within sight of the sea, the waves on the horizon, caught at intervals above the boiling abyss, were like glimpses of another shore, with towers and buildings. . . the people came to their doors all aslant, and with streaming hair." david dreams of a cannonade, when at last he "fell--off a tower and down a precipice--into the depths of sleep." in the morning, "the wind might have lulled a little, though not more sensibly than if the cannonading i had dreamed of had been diminished by the silencing of half a dozen guns out of hundreds." "it went from me with a shock, like a ball from a rifle," says david in another place, after the visit of a delirious impulse; here is the volley of departure, the shock of passion vanishing more perceptibly than it came. the tempest in _david copperfield_ combines dickens's dramatic tragedy of narrative with his wonderful sense of sea and land. but here are landscapes in quietness: "there has been rain this afternoon, and a wintry shudder goes among the little pools in the cracked, uneven flag- stones. . . some of the leaves, in a timid rush, seek sanctuary within the low-arched cathedral door; but two men coming out resist them, and cast them out with their feet:" the autumn leaves fall thick, "but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness." again, "now the woods settle into great masses as if they were one profound tree." and yet again, "i held my mother in my embrace, and she held me in hers; and among the still woods in the silence of the summer day there seemed to be nothing but our two troubled minds that was not at peace." yet, with a thousand great felicities of diction, dickens had no _body_ of style. dickens, having the single and simple heart of a moralist, had also the simple eyes of a free intelligence, and the light heart. he gave his senses their way, and well did they serve him. thus his eyes--and no more modern man in anxious search of "impressions" was ever so simple and so masterly: "mr. vholes gauntly stalked to the fire, and warmed his funereal gloves." "'i thank you,' said mr. vholes, putting out his long black sleeve, to check the ringing of the bell, 'not any.'" mr. and mrs. tope "are daintily sticking sprigs of holly into the carvings and sconces of the cathedral stalls, as if they were sticking them into the button- holes of the dean & chapter." the two young eurasians, brother and sister, "had a certain air upon them of hunter and huntress; yet withal a certain air of being the objects of the chase rather than the followers." this phrase lacks elegance--and dickens is not often inelegant, as those who do not read him may be surprised to learn--but the impression is admirable; so is that which follows: "an indefinable kind of pause coming and going on their whole expression, both of face and form." here is pure, mere impression again: "miss murdstone, who was busy at her writing- desk, gave me her cold finger-nails." lady tippins's hand is "rich in knuckles." and here is vision with great dignity: "all beyond his figure was a vast dark curtain, in solemn movement towards one quarter of the heavens." with that singleness of sight--and his whole body was full of the light of it--he had also the single hearing; the scene is in the court of chancery on a london november day: "leaving this address ringing in the rafters of the roof, the very little counsel drops, and the fog knows him no more." "mr. vholes emerged into the silence he could scarcely be said to have broken, so stifled was his tone." "within the grill-gate of the chancel, up the steps surmounted loomingly by the fast-darkening organ, white robes could be dimly seen, and one feeble voice, rising and falling in a cracked monotonous mutter, could at intervals be faintly heard . . . until the organ and the choir burst forth and drowned it in a sea of music. then the sea fell, and the dying voice made another feeble effort; and then the sea rose high and beat its life out, and lashed the roof, and surged among the arches, and pierced the heights of the great tower; and then the sea was dry and all was still." and this is how a listener overheard men talking in the cathedral hollows: "the word 'confidence,' shattered by the echoes, but still capable of being pieced together, is uttered." wit, humour, derision--to each of these words we assign by custom a part in the comedy of literature; and (again) those who do not read dickens--perhaps even those who read him a little--may acclaim him as a humourist and not know him as a wit. but that writer is a wit, whatever his humour, who tells us of a member of the tite barnacle family who had held a sinecure office against all protest, that "he died with his drawn salary in his hand." but let it be granted that dickens the humourist is foremost and most precious. for we might well spare the phrase of wit just quoted rather than the one describing traddles (whose hair stood up), as one who looked "as though he had seen a cheerful ghost." or rather than this:- he was so wooden a man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and rather suggested to the fanciful observer that he might be expected--if his development received no untimely check--to be completely set up with a pair of wooden legs in about six months. or rather than the incident of the butcher and the beef-steak. he gently presses it, in a cabbage leaf, into tom pinch's pocket. "'for meat,' he said with some emotion, 'must be humoured, not drove.'" a generation, between his own and the present, thought dickens to be vulgar; if the cause of that judgement was that he wrote about people in shops, the cause is discredited now that shops are the scenes of the novelist's research. "high life" and most wretched life have now given place to the little shop and its parlour, during a year or two. but dr. brown, the author of _rab and his friends_, thought that dickens committed vulgarities in his diction. "a good man was robin" is right enough; but "he was a good man, was robin" is not so well, and we must own that it is dickensian; but assuredly dickens writes such phrases as it were dramatically, playing the cockney. i know of but two words that dickens habitually misuses, and charles lamb misuses one of them precisely in dickens's manner; it is not worth while to quote them. but for these his english is admirable; he chooses what is good and knows what is not. a little representative collection of the bad or foolish english of his day might be made by gathering up what dickens forbore and what he derided; for instance, mr. micawber's portly phrase, "gratifying emotions of no common description," and littimer's report that "the young woman was partial to the sea." this was the polite language of that time, as we conclude when we find it to be the language that charlotte bronte shook off; but before she shook it off she used it. dickens, too, had something to throw off; in his earlier books there is an inflation--rounded words fill the inappropriate mouth of bill sikes himself--but he discarded them with a splendid laugh. they are charged upon mr. micawber in his own character as author. see him as he sits by to hear captain hopkins read the petition in the debtors' prison "from his most gracious majesty's unfortunate subjects." mr. micawber listened, we read, "with a little of an author's vanity, contemplating (not severely) the spikes upon the opposite wall." it should be remembered that when dickens shook himself free of everything that hampered his genius he was not so much beloved or so much applauded as when he gave to his cordial readers matter for facile sentiment and for humour of the second order. his public were eager to be moved and to laugh, and he gave them little nell and sam weller; he loved to please them, and it is evident that he pleased himself also. mr. micawber, mr. pecksniff, mrs. nickleby, mrs. chick, mrs. pipchin, mr. augustus moddle, mrs. jellyby, mrs. plornish, are not so famous as sam weller and little nell, nor is traddles, whose hair looked as though he had seen a cheerful ghost. we are told of the delight of the japanese man in a chance finding of something strange-shaped, an asymmetry that has an accidental felicity, an interest. if he finds such a grace or disproportion--whatever the interest may be--in a stone or a twig that has caught his ambiguous eye at the roadside, he carries it to his home to place it in its irregularly happy place. dickens seems to have had a like joy in things misshapen or strangely shapen, uncommon or grotesque. he saddled even his heroes--those heroes are, perhaps, his worst work, young men at once conventional and improbable--with whimsically ugly names; while his invented names are whimsically perfect: that of vholes for the predatory silent man in black, and that of tope for the cathedral verger. a suggestion of dark and vague flight in vholes; something of old floors, something respectably furtive and musty, in tope. in dickens, the love of lurking, unusual things, human and inanimate--he wrote of his discoveries delightedly in his letters--was hypertrophied; and it has its part in the simplest and the most fantastic of his humours, especially those that are due to his child-like eyesight; let us read, for example, of the rooks that seemed to attend upon dr. strong (late of canterbury) in his highgate garden, "as if they had been written to about him by the canterbury rooks and were observing him closely in consequence"; and of master micawber, who had a remarkable head voice--"on looking at master micawber again i saw that he had a certain expression of face as if his voice were behind his eyebrows"; and of joe in his sunday clothes, "a scarecrow in good circumstances"; and of the cook's cousin in the life guards, with such long legs that "he looked like the afternoon shadow of somebody else"; and of mrs. markleham, "who stared more like a figure- head intended for a ship to be called the astonishment, than anything else i can think of." but there is no reader who has not a thousand such exhilarating little sights in his memory of these pages. from the gently grotesque to the fantastic run dickens's enchanted eyes, and in quilp and miss mowcher he takes his joy in the extreme of deformity; and a spontaneous combustion was an accident much to his mind. dickens wrote for a world that either was exceedingly excitable and sentimental, or had the convention or tradition of great sentimental excitability. all his people, suddenly surprised, lose their presence of mind. even when the surprise is not extraordinary their actions are wild. when tom pinch calls upon john westlock in london, after no very long separation, john, welcoming him at breakfast, puts the rolls into his boots, and so forth. and this kind of distraction comes upon men and women everywhere in his books--distractions of laughter as well. all this seems artificial to-day, whereas dickens in his best moments is the simplest, as he is the most vigilant, of men. but his public was as present to him as an actor's audience is to the actor, and i cannot think that this immediate response was good for his art. assuredly he is not solitary. we should not wish him to be solitary as a poet is, but we may wish that now and again, even while standing applauded and acclaimed, he had appraised the applause more coolly and more justly, and within his inner mind. those critics who find what they call vulgarisms think they may safely go on to accuse dickens of bad grammar. the truth is that his grammar is not only good but strong; it is far better in construction than thackeray's, the ease of whose phrase sometimes exceeds and is slack. lately, during the recent centenary time, a writer averred that dickens "might not always be parsed," but that we loved him for his, etc., etc. dickens's page is to be parsed as strictly as any man's. it is, apart from the matter of grammar, a wonderful thing that he, with his little education, should have so excellent a diction. in a letter that records his reluctance to work during a holiday, the word "wave" seems to me perfect: "imaginary butchers and bakers wave me to my desk." in his exquisite use of the word "establishment" in the following phrase, we find his own perfect sense of the use of words in his own day; but in the second quotation given there is a most beautiful sign of education. "under the weight of my wicked secret" (the little boy pip had succoured his convict with his brother-in-law's provisions) "i pondered whether the church would be powerful enough to shield me . . if i divulged to that establishment." and this is the phrase that may remind us of the eighteenth-century writers of prose, and among those writers of none so readily as of bolingbroke: it occurs in that passage of esther's life in which, having lost her beauty, she resolves to forego a love unavowed. "there was nothing to be undone; no chain for him to drag or for me to break." if dickens had had the education which he had not, his english could not have been better; but if he had had the _usage du monde_ which as a young man he had not, there would have been a difference. he would not, for instance, have given us the preposterous scenes in _nicholas_ _nickleby_ in which parts are played by lord frederick verisopht, sir mulberry hawke, and their friends; the scene of the hero's luncheon at a restaurant and the dreadful description of the mirrors and other splendours would not have been written. it is a very little thing to forgive to him whom we have to thank for--well, not perhaps for the "housefull of friends" for the gift of whom a stranger, often quoted, once blessed him in the street; we may not wish for mr. feeder, or major bagstock, or mrs. chick, or mrs. pipchin, or mr. augustus moddle, or mr. f.'s aunt, or mr. wopsle, or mr. pumblechook, as an inmate of our homes. lack of knowledge of the polite world is, i say, a very little thing to forgive to him whom we thank most chiefly for showing us these interesting people just named as inmates of the comedy homes that are not ours. we thank him because they are comedy homes, and could not be ours or any man's; that is, we thank him for his admirable art. swinburne's lyrical poetry the makers of epigrams, of phrases, of pages--of all more or less brief judgements--assuredly waste their time when they sum up any one of all mankind; and how do they squander it when their matter is a poet! they may hardly describe him; nor shall any student's care, or psychologist's formula, or man-of-letters' summary, or wit's sentence define him. definitions, because they must not be inexact or incomprehensive, sweep too wide, and the poet is not held within them; and out of the mere describer's range and capture he may escape by as many doors as there are outlets from a forest. but much ready-made platitude brings about the world's guesses at a poet, and false and flat thought lies behind its epigrams. it is not long since the general guess-work assigned melancholy, without authority, to a poet lately deceased. real poets, it was said, are unhappy, and this was one exceptionally real. how unhappy must he, then, certainly have been! and the blessed blake himself was incidentally cited as one of the company of depression and despair! it is, perhaps, a liking for symmetry that prompts these futile syllogisms; perhaps, also, it is the fear of human mystery. the biographer used to see "the finger of god" pat in the history of a man; he insists now that he shall at any rate see the finger of a law, or rather of a rule, a custom, a generality. law i will not call it; there is no intelligible law that, for example, a true poet should be an unhappy man; but the observer thinks he has noticed a custom or habit to that effect, and blake, who lived and died in bliss, is named at ignorant random, rather than that an example of the custom should be lost. but it is not only such a platitude of observation, such a cheap generality, that is silenced in the presence of the poet whose name is at the head of these pages. for if ever nature showed us a poet in whom our phrases, and the judgements they record, should be denied, defeated, and confused, swinburne is he. we predicate of a poet a great sincerity, a great imagination, a great passion, a great intellect; these are the master qualities, and yet we are compelled to see here--if we would not wilfully be blind or blindfold--a poet, yes, a true poet, with a perfervid fancy rather than an imagination, a poet with puny passions, a poet with no more than the momentary and impulsive sincerity of an infirm soul, a poet with small intellect--and thrice a poet. and, assuredly, if the creative arts are duly humbled in the universal contemplation of nature, if they are accused, if they are weighed, if they are found wanting; if they are excused by nothing but our intimate human sympathy with dear and interesting imperfection; if poetry stands outdone by the passion and experience of an inarticulate soul, and painting by the splendour of the day, and building by the forest and the cloud, there is another art also that has to be humiliated, and this is the art and science of criticism, confounded by its contemplation of such a poet. poor little art of examination and formula! the miracle of day and night and immortality are needed to rebuke the nobler arts; but our art, the critic's, mine to-day, is brought to book, and its heart is broken, and its sincerity disgraced, by the paradoxes of the truth. not in the heavens nor in the sub-celestial landscape does this minor art find its refutation, but in the puzzle between a man and his gift; and in part the man is ignoble and leads us by distasteful paths, and compels us to a reluctant work of literary detection. useful is the critical spirit, but it loses heart when (to take a very definite instance) it has to ask what literary sincerity--what value for art and letters--lived in swinburne, who hailed a certain old friend, in a dedication, as "poet and painter" when he was pleased with him, and declared him "poetaster and dauber" when something in that dead man's posthumous autobiography offended his own self-love; when, i say, criticism finds itself called upon, amid its admiration, to do such scavenger work, it loses heart as well as the clue, and would gladly go out into the free air of greater arts, and, with them, take exterior nature's nobler reprobation. i have to cite this instance of a change of mind, or of terms and titles, in swinburne's estimate of art and letters, because it is all-important to my argument. it is a change he makes in published print, and, therefore, no private matter. and i cite it, not as a sign of moral fault, with which i have no business, but as a sign of a most significant literary insensibility--insensibility, whether to the quality of a poetaster when he wrote "poet," or to that of a poet when he wrote "poetaster," is of no matter. rather than justify the things i have ventured to affirm as to swinburne's little intellect, and paltry degree of sincerity, and rachitic passion, and tumid fancy--judgement-confounding things to predicate of a poet--i turn to the happier task of praise. a vivid writer of english was he, and would have been one of the recurring renewers of our often-renewed and incomparable language, had his words not become habitual to himself, so that they quickly lost the light, the breeze, the breath; one whose fondness for beauty deserved the serious name of love; one whom beauty at times favoured and filled so visibly, by such obvious visits and possessions, favours so manifest, that inevitably we forget we are speaking fictions and allegories, and imagine her a visiting power exterior to her poet; a man, moreover, of a less, not more, than manly receptiveness and appreciation, so that he was entirely and easily possessed by admirations. less than manly we must call his extraordinary recklessness of appreciation; it is, as it were, ideally feminine; it is possible, however, that no woman has yet been capable of so entire an emotional impulse and impetus; more than manly it might have been but for the lack of a responsible intellect in that impulse; had it possessed such an intellectual sanction, swinburne's admiration of victor hugo, mazzini, dickens, baudelaire, and theophile gautier might have added one to the great generosities of the world. we are inclined to complain of such an objection to swinburne's poetry as was prevalent at his earlier appearance and may be found in criticisms of the time, before the later fashion of praise set in--the obvious objection that it was as indigent in thought as affluent in words; for, though a truth, it is an inadequate truth. it might be affirmed of many a verse-writer of not unusual talent and insignificance, whose affluence of words was inselective and merely abundant, and whose poverty of thought was something less than a national disaster. swinburne's failure of intellect was, in the fullest and most serious sense, a national disaster, and his instinct for words was a national surprise. it is in their beauty that swinburne's art finds its absolution from the obligations of meaning, according to the vulgar judgement; and we can hardly wonder. i wish it were not customary to write of one art in the terms of another, and i use the words "music" and "musical" under protest, because the world has been so delighted to call any verse pleasant to the ear "musical," that it has not supplied us with another and more specialised and appropriate word. swinburne is a complete master of the rhythm and rhyme, the time and accent, the pause, the balance, the flow of vowel and clash of consonant, that make the "music" for which verse is popular and prized. we need not complain that it is for the tune rather than for the melody--if we must use those alien terms--that he is chiefly admired, and even for the jingle rather than for the tune: he gave his readers all three, and all three in perfection. nineteen out of twenty who take pleasure in this art of his will quote you first when the hounds of spring are on winter's traces the mother of months, in meadow and plain, and the rest of the buoyant familiar lines. i confess there is something too obvious, insistent, emphatic, too dapper, to give me more than a slight pleasure; but it is possible that i am prejudiced by a dislike of english anapaests (i am aware that the classic terms are not really applicable to our english metres, but the reader will underhand that i mean the metre of the lines just quoted.) i do not find these anapaests in the elizabethan or in the seventeenth-century poets, or most rarely. they were dear to the eighteenth century, and, much more than the heroic couplet, are the distinctive metre of that age. they swagger--or, worse, they strut--in its lighter verse, from its first year to its last. swinburne's anapaests are far too delicate for swagger or strut; but for all their dance, all their spring, all their flight, all their flutter, we are compelled to perceive that, as it were, they _perform_. i love to see english poetry move to many measures, to many numbers, but chiefly with the simple iambic and the simple trochaic foot. those two are enough for the infinite variety, the epic, the drama, the lyric, of our poetry. it is, accordingly, in these old traditional and proved metres that swinburne's music seems to me most worthy, most controlled, and most lovely. _there_ is his best dignity, and therefore his best beauty. for even beauty is not to be thrust upon us; she is not to solicit us or offer herself thus to the first comer; and in the most admired of those flying lyrics she is thus immoderately lavish of herself. "he lays himself out," wrote francis thompson in an anonymous criticism, "to delight and seduce. the great poets entice by a glorious accident . . . but allurement, in mr. swinburne's poetry, is the alpha and omega." this is true of all that he has written, but it is true, in a more fatal sense, of these famous tunes of his "music." nay, delicate as they are, we are convinced that it is the less delicate ear that most surely takes much pleasure in them, the dull ear that chiefly they delight. compare with such luxurious canterings the graver movement of this "vision of spring in winter": sunrise it sees not, neither set of star, large nightfall, nor imperial plenilune, nor strong sweet shape of the full-breasted noon; but where the silver-sandalled shadows are, too soft for arrows of the sun to mar, moves with the mild gait of an ungrown moon. even more valuable than this exquisite rhymed stanza is the blank verse which swinburne released into new energies, new liberties, and new movements. milton, it need hardly be said, is the master of those who know how to place and displace the stress and accent of the english heroic line in epic poetry. his most majestic hand undid the mechanical bonds of the national line and made it obey the unwritten laws of his genius. his blank verse marches, pauses, lingers, and charges. it feels the strain, it yields, it resists; it is all-expressive. but if the practice of some of the poets succeeding him had tended to make it rigid and tame again, swinburne was a new liberator. he writes, when he ought, with a finely appropriate regularity, as in the lovely line on the forest glades that fear the faun's and know the dryad's foot, in which the rule is completely kept, every step of the five stepping from the unaccented place to the accented without a tremor. (i must again protest that i use the word "accent" in a sense that has come to be adapted to english prosody, because it is so used by all writers on english metre, and is therefore understood by the reader, but i think "stress" the better word.) but having written this perfect english-iambic line so wonderfully fit for the sensitive quiet of the woods, he turns the page to the onslaught of such lines--heroic lines with a difference--as report the short-breathed messenger's reply to althea's question by whose hands the boar of calydon had died: a maiden's and a prophet's and thy son's. it is lamentable that in his latest blank verse swinburne should have made a trick and a manner of that most energetic device of his by which he leads the line at a rush from the first syllable to the tenth, and on to the first of the line succeeding, with a great recoil to follow, as though a rider brought a horse to his haunches. it is in the same boar hunt: and fiery with invasive eyes, and bristling with intolerable hair, plunged;-- sometimes we may be troubled with a misgiving that swinburne's fine narrative, as well as his descriptive writing of other kinds, has a counterpart in the programme-music of some now bygone composers. it is even too descriptive, too imitative of things, and seems to out-run the province of words, somewhat as that did the province of notes. but, though this hunting, and checking, and floating, and flying in metre may be to strain the arts of prosody and diction, with how masterly a hand is the straining accomplished! the spear, the arrow, the attack, the charge, the footfall, the pinion, nay, the very stepping of the moon, the walk of the wind, are mimicked in this enchanting verse. like to programme-music we must call it, but i wish the concert-platform had ever justified this slight perversion of aim, this excess--almost corruption--of one kind of skill, thus miraculously well. now, if swinburne's exceptional faculty of diction led him to immoderate expressiveness, to immodest sweetness, to a jugglery, and prestidigitation, and conjuring of words, to transformations and transmutations of sound--if, i say, his extraordinary gift of diction brought him to this exaggeration of the manner, what a part does it not play in the matter of his poetry! so overweening a place does it take in this man's art that i believe the words to hold and use his meaning, rather than the meaning to compass and grasp and use the word. i believe that swinburne's thoughts have their source, their home, their origin, their authority and mission in those two places--his own vocabulary and the passion of other men. this is a grave charge. first, then, in regard to the passion of other men. i have given to his own emotion the puniest name i could find for it; i have no nobler name for his intellect. but other men had thoughts, other men had passions; political, sexual, natural, noble, vile, ideal, gross, rebellious, agonising, imperial, republican, cruel, compassionate; and with these he fed his verses. upon these and their life he sustained, he fattened, he enriched his poetry. mazzini in italy, gautier and baudelaire in france, shelley in england, made for him a base of passionate and intellectual supplies. with them he kept the all-necessary line of communication. we cease, as we see their active hearts possess his active art, to think a question as to his sincerity seriously worth asking; what sincerity he has is so absorbed in the one excited act of receptivity. that, indeed, he performs with all the will, all the precipitation, all the rush, all the surrender, all the wholehearted weakness of his subservient and impetuous nature. i have not named the greeks, nor the english bible, nor milton, as his inspirers. these he would claim; they are not his. he received too partial, too fragmentary, too arbitrary an inheritance of the greek spirit, too illusory an idea of milton, of the english bible little more than a tone;--this poet of eager, open capacity, this poet who is little more, intellectually, than a too-ready, too-vacant capacity, for those three august seventies has not room enough. charged, then, with other men's purposes--this man's italian patriotism; this man's love of sin (by that name, for sin has been denied, as a fiction, but swinburne, following baudelaire, acknowledges it to love it); this man's despite against the third empire or what not; this man's cry for a political liberty granted or gained long ago--a cry grown vain; this man's contempt for the boers--nay, was it so much as a man, with a man's evil to answer for, that furnished him here; was it not rather that less guilty judge, the crowd?--this man's--nay, this boy's--erotic sickness, or his cruelty--charged with all these, swinburne's poetry is primed; it explodes with thunder and fire. but such sharing is somewhat too familiar for dignity; such community of goods parodies the franciscans. as one friar goes darned for another's rending, having no property in cassock or cowl, so does many a poet, not in humility, but in a paradox of pride, boast of the past of others. and yet one might rather choose to make use of one's fellow-men's old shoes than to put their old secrets to usufruct, and dress poetry in a motley of shed passions, twice corrupt. promiscuity of love we have heard of; pope was accused, by lord hervey's indignation and wit, of promiscuity of hatred, and of scattering his disfavours in the stews of an indiscriminate malignity; and here is another promiscuity--that of memories, and of a licence partaken. but by the unanimous poets' splendid love of the landscape and the skies, by this also was swinburne possessed, and in this he triumphed. by this, indeed, he profited; here he joined an innumerable company of that heavenly host of earth. let us acknowledge then his honourable alacrity here, his quick fellowship, his agile adoption, and his filial tenderness--nay, his fraternal union with his poets. no tourist's admiration for all things french, no tourist's politics in italy--and swinburne's french and italian admirations have the tourist manner of enthusiasm--prompts him here. here he aspires to brotherhood with the supreme poets of supreme england, with the sixteenth century, the seventeenth, and the nineteenth, the impassioned centuries of song. happy is he to be admitted among these, happy is he to merit by his wonderful voice to sing their raptures. here is no humiliation in ready-made lendings; their ecstasy becomes him. he is glorious with them, and we can imagine this benign and indulgent nature confounding together the sons she embraces, and making her poets--the primary and the secondary, the greater and the lesser--all equals in her arms. let us see him in that company where he looks noble amongst the noble; let us not look upon him in the company of the ignoble, where he looks ignobler still, being servile to them; let us look upon him with the lyrical shakespeare, with vaughan, blake, wordsworth, patmore, meredith; not with baudelaire and gautier; with the poets of the forest and the sun, and not with those of the alcove. we can make peace with him for love of them; we can imagine them thankful to him who, poor and perverse in thought in so many pages, could yet join them in such a song as this: and her heart sprang in iseult, and she drew with all her spirit and life the sunrise through, and through her lips the keen triumphant air sea-scented, sweeter than land-roses were, and through her eyes the whole rejoicing east sun-satisfied, and all the heaven at feast spread for the morning; and the imperious mirth of wind and light that moved upon the earth, making the spring, and all the fruitful might and strong regeneration of delight that swells the seedling leaf and sapling man. he, nevertheless, who was able, in high company, to hail the sea with such fine verse, was not ashamed, in low company, to sing the famous absurdities about "the lilies and languors of virtue and the roses and raptures of vice," with many and many a passage of like character. i think it more generous, seeing i have differed so much from the nineteenth century's chorus of excessive praise, to quote little from the vacant, the paltry, the silly--no word is so fit as that last little word--among his pages. therefore, i have justified my praise, but not my blame. it is for the reader to turn to the justifying pages: to "a song of italy," "les noyades," "hermaphroditus," "satia te sanguine," "kissing her hair," "an interlude," "in a garden," or such a stanza as the one beginning o thought illimitable and infinite heart whose blood is life in limbs indissolute that all keep heartless thine invisible part and inextirpable thy viewless root whence all sweet shafts of green and each thy dart of sharpening leaf and bud resundering shoot. it is for the reader who has preserved rectitude of intellect, sincerity of heart, dignity of nerves, unhurried thoughts, an unexcited heart, and an ardour for poetry, to judge between such poems and an authentic passion, between such poems and truth, i will add between such poems and beauty. imagery is a great part of poetry; but out, alas! vocabulary has here too the upper hand. for in what is still sometimes called the magnificent chorus in "atalanta" the words have swallowed not the thought only but the imagery. the poet's grievance is that the pleasant streams flow into the sea. what would he have? the streams turned loose all over the unfortunate country? there is, it is true, the river mole in surrey. but i am not sure that some foolish imagery against the peace of the burrowing river might not be due from a poet of facility. i am not censuring any insincerity of thought; i am complaining of the insincerity of a paltry, shaky, and unvisionary image. having had recourse to the passion of stronger minds for his provision of emotions, swinburne had direct recourse to his own vocabulary as a kind of "safe" wherein he stored what he needed for a song. claudius stole the precious diadem of the kingdom from a shelf and put it in his pocket; swinburne took from the shelf of literature--took with what art, what touch, what cunning, what complete skill!--the treasure of the language, and put it in his pocket. he is urgent with his booty of words, for he has no other treasure. into his pocket he thrusts a hand groping for hatred, and draws forth "blood" or "hell"--generally "hell," for i have counted many "hells" in a quite short poem. in search of wrath he takes hold of "fire"; anxious for wildness he takes "foam," for sweetness he brings out "flower," much linked, so that "flower-soft" has almost become his, and not shakespeare's. for in that compound he labours to exaggerate shakespeare, and by his insistence and iteration goes about to spoil for us the "flower-soft hands" of cleopatra's rudder-maiden; but he shall not spoil shakespeare's phrase for us. and behold, in all this fundamental fumbling swinburne's critics saw only a "mannerism," if they saw even thus much offence. one of the chief pocket-words was "liberty." o liberty! what verse is committed in thy name! or, to cite madame roland more accurately, o liberty, how have they "run" thee! who, it has been well asked by a citizen of a modern free country, is thoroughly free except a fish? _et encore_--even the "silent and footless herds" may have more inter-accommodation than we are aware. but in the pocket of the secondary poet how easy and how ready a word is this, a word implying old and true heroisms, but significant here of an excitable poet's economies. yes, economies of thought and passion. this poet, who is conspicuously the poet of excess, is in deeper truth the poet of penury and defect. and here is a pocket-word which might have astonished us had we not known how little anyway it signified. it occurs in something customary about italy: hearest thou, italia? tho' deaf sloth hath sealed thine ears, the world has heard thy children--and god hears. was ever thought so pouched, so produced, so surely a handful of loot, as the last thought of this verse? what, finally, is his influence upon the language he has ransacked? a temporary laying-waste, undoubtedly. that is, the contemporary use of his vocabulary is spoilt, his beautiful words are wasted, spent, squandered, _gaspilles_. the contemporary use--i will not say the future use, for no critic should prophesy. but the past he has not been able to violate. he has had no power to rob of their freshness the sixteenth- century flower, the seventeenth-century fruit, or by his violence to shake from either a drop of their dews. at the outset i warned the judges and the pronouncers of sentences how this poet, with other poets of quite different character, would escape their summaries, and he has indeed refuted that maxim which i had learned at illustrious knees, "you may not dissociate the matter and manner of any of the greatest poets; the two are so fused by integrity of fire, whether in tragedy or epic or in the simplest song, that the sundering is the vainest task of criticism." but i cannot read swinburne and not be compelled to divide his secondhand and enfeebled and excited matter from the successful art of his word. of that word francis thompson has said again, "it imposes a law on the sense." therefore, he too perceived that fatal division. is, then, the wisdom of the maxim confounded? or is swinburne's a "single and excepted case"? excepted by a thousand degrees of talent from any generality fitting the obviously lesser poets, but, possibly, also excepted by an essential inferiority from this great maxim fitting only the greatest? charlotte and emily bronte the controversy here is with those who admire charlotte bronte throughout her career. she altered greatly. she did, in fact, inherit a manner of english that had been strained beyond restoration, fatigued beyond recovery, by the "corrupt following" of gibbon; and there was within her a sense of propriety that caused her to conform. straitened and serious elder daughter of her time, she kept the house of literature. she practised those verbs, to evince, to reside, to intimate, to peruse. she wrote "communicating instruction" for teaching; "an extensive and eligible connexion"; "a small competency"; "an establishment on the continent"; "it operated as a barrier to further intercourse"; and of a child (with a singular unfitness with childhood) "for the toys he possesses he seems to have contracted a partiality amounting to affection." i have been already reproached for a word on gibbon written by way of parenthesis in the course of an appreciation of some other author. let me, therefore, repeat that i am writing of the corrupt following of that apostle and not of his own style. gibbon's grammar is frequently weak, but the corrupt followers have something worse than poor grammar. gibbon set the fashion of "the latter" and "the former." our literature was for at least half a century strewn with the wreckage of gibbon. "after suppressing a competitor who had assumed the purple at mentz, he refused to gratify his troops with the plunder of the rebellious city," writes the great historian. when mr. micawber confesses "gratifying emotions of no common description" he conforms to a lofty and a distant gibbon. so does mr. pecksniff when he says of the copper-founder's daughter that she "has shed a vision on my path refulgent in its nature." and when an author, in a work on "the divine comedy," recently told us that paolo and francesca were to receive from dante "such alleviation as circumstances would allow," that also is a shattered, a waste gibbon, a waif of gibbon. for johnson less than gibbon inflated the english our fathers inherited; because johnson did not habitually or often use imagery, whereas gibbon did use habitual imagery, and such use is what deprives a language of elasticity, and leaves it either rigid or languid, oftener languid. encumbered by this drift and refuse of english, charlotte bronte yet achieved the miracle of her vocabulary. it is less wonderful that she should have appeared out of such a parsonage than that she should have arisen out of such a language. a re-reading of her works is always a new amazing of her reader who turns back to review the harvest of her english. it must have been with rapture that she claimed her own simplicity. and with what a moderation, how temperately, and how seldom she used her mastery! to the last she has an occasional attachment to her bonds; for she was not only fire and air. in one passage of her life she may remind us of the little colourless and thrifty hen-bird that lowell watched nest-building with her mate, and cutting short the flutterings and billings wherewith he would joyously interrupt the business; charlotte's nesting bird was a clergyman. he came, lately affianced, for a week's visit to her parsonage, and she wrote to her friend before his arrival: "my little plans have been disarranged by an intimation that mr.--is coming on monday"; and afterwards, in reference to her sewing, "he hindered me for a full week." in alternate pages _villette_ is a book of spirit and fire, and a novel of illiberal rancour, of ungenerous, uneducated anger, ungentle, ignoble. in order to forgive its offences, we have to remember in its author's favour not her pure style set free, not her splendour in literature, but rather the immeasurable sorrow of her life. to read of that sorrow again is to open once more a wound which most men perhaps, certainly most women, received into their hearts in childhood. for the life of charlotte bronte is one of the first books of biography put into the hands of a child, to whom _jane eyre_ is allowed only in passages. we are young when we first hear in what narrow beds "the three are laid"--the two sisters and the brother--and in what a bed of living insufferable memories the one left lay alone, reviewing the hours of their death--alone in the sealed house that was only less narrow than their graves. the rich may set apart and dedicate a room, the poor change their street, but charlotte bronte, in the close captivity of the fortunes of mediocrity, rested in the chair that had been her dying sister's, and held her melancholy bridals in the dining room that had been the scene of terrible and reluctant death. but closer than the conscious house was the conscious mind. locked with intricate wards within the unrelaxing and unlapsing thoughts of this lonely sister, dwelt a sorrow inconsolable. it is well for the perpetual fellowship of mankind that no child should read this life and not take therefrom a perdurable scar, albeit her heart was somewhat frigid towards childhood, and she died before her motherhood could be born. mistress of some of the best prose of her century, charlotte bronte was subject to a lewes, a chorley, a miss martineau: that is, she suffered what in italian is called _soggezione_ in their presence. when she had met six minor contemporary writers--by-products of literature--at dinner, she had a headache and a sleepless night. she writes to her friend that these contributors to the quarterly press are greatly feared in literary london, and there is in her letter a sense of tremor and exhaustion. and what nights did the heads of the critics undergo after the meeting? lewes, whose own romances are all condoned, all forgiven by time and oblivion, who gave her lessons, who told her to study jane austen? the others, whose reviews doubtless did their proportionate part in still further hunting and harrying the tired english of their day? and before harriet martineau she bore herself reverently. harriet martineau, albeit a woman of masculine understanding (we may imagine we hear her contemporaries give her the title), could not thread her way safely in and out of two or three negatives, but wrote--about this very charlotte bronte: "i did not consider the book a coarse one, though i could not answer for it that there were no traits which, on a second leisurely reading, i might not dislike." mrs. gaskell quotes the passage with no consciousness of anything amiss. as for lewes's vanished lesson upon the methods of jane austen, it served one only sufficient purpose. itself is not quoted by anyone alive, but charlotte bronte's rejoinder adds one to our little treasury of her incomparable pages. if they were twenty, they are twenty-one by the addition of this, written in a long-neglected letter and saved for us by mr. shorter's research, for i believe his is the only record: "what sees keenly, speaks aptly, moves flexibly, it suits her to study; but what throbs fast and full, though hidden, what blood rushes through, what is the unseen seat of life and the sentient target of death--that miss austen ignores." when the author of _jane eyre_ faltered before six authors, more or less, at dinner in london, was it the writer of her second-class english who was shy? or was it the author of the passages here to follow?--and therefore one for whom the national tongue was much the better? there can be little doubt. the charlotte bronte who used the english of a world long corrupted by "one good custom"--the good custom of gibbon's latinity grown fatally popular--could at any time hold up her head amongst her reviewers; for her there was no sensitive interior solitude in that society. she who cowered was the charlotte who made rochester recall "the simple yet sagacious grace" of jane's first smile; she who wrote: "i looked at my love; it shivered in my heart like a suffering child in a cold cradle"; who wrote: "to see what a heavy lid day slowly lifted, what a wan glance she flung upon the hills, you would have thought the sun's fire quenched in last night's floods." this new genius was solitary and afraid, and touched to the quick by the eyes and voice of judges. in her worse style there was no "quick." latin-english, whether scholarly or unscholarly, is the mediate tongue. an unscholarly latin-english is proof against the world. the scholarly latin-english wherefrom it is disastrously derived is, in its own nobler measure, a defence against more august assaults than those of criticism. in the strength of it did johnson hold parley with his profounder sorrows--hold parley (by his phrase), make terms (by his definition), give them at last lodging and entertainment after sentence and treaty. and the meaner office of protection against reviewers and the world was doubtless done by the meaner latinity. the author of the phrase "the child contracted a partiality for his toys" had no need to fear any authors she might meet at dinner. against charlotte bronte's sorrows her worse manner of english never stands for a moment. those vain phrases fall from before her face and her bared heart. to the heart, to the heart she took the shafts of her griefs. she tells them therefore as she suffered them, vitally and mortally. "a great change approached. affliction came in that shape which to anticipate is dread; to look back on, grief. my sister emily first declined. never in all her life had she lingered over any task that lay before her, and she did not linger now. she made haste to leave us." "i remembered where the three were laid--in what narrow, dark dwellings." "do you know this place? no, you never saw it; but you recognize the nature of these trees, this foliage--the cypress, the willow, the yew. stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor are these dim garlands of everlasting flowers. here is the place." "then the watcher approaches the patient's pillow, and sees a new and strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the insufferable moment draws nigh." in the same passage comes another single word of genius, "the sound that so wastes our strength." and, fine as "wastes," is the "wronged" of another sentence--"some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird." it is easy to gather such words, more difficult to separate the best from such a mingled page as that on "imagination": "a spirit, softer and better than human reason, had descended with quiet flight to the waste"; and "my hunger has this good angel appeased with food sweet and strange"; and "this daughter of heaven remembered me to-night; she saw me weep, and she came with comfort; 'sleep,' she said, 'sleep sweetly--i gild thy dreams.'" "was this feeling dead? i do not know, but it was buried. sometimes i thought the tomb unquiet." perhaps the most "eloquent" pages are unluckily those wherein we miss the friction--friction of water to the oar, friction of air to the pinion--friction that sensibly proves the use, the buoyancy, the act of language. sometimes an easy eloquence resembles the easy labours of the daughters of danaus. to draw water in a sieve is an easy art, rapid and relaxed. but no laxity is ever, i think, to be found in her brief passages of landscape. "the keen, still cold of the morning was succeeded, later in the day, by a sharp breathing from the russian wastes; the cold zone sighed over the temperate zone and froze it fast." "not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder, the tremor of whose plumes was storm." "the night is not calm: the equinox still struggles in its storms. the wild rains of the day are abated: the great single cloud disappears and rolls away from heaven, not passing and leaving a sea all sapphire, but tossed buoyant before a continued, long-sounding, high-rushing moonlight tempest. . . no endymion will watch for his goddess to-night: there are no flocks on the mountains." see, too, this ocean: "the sway of the whole great deep above a herd of whales rushing through the livid and liquid thunder down from the frozen zone." and this promise of the visionary shirley: "i am to be walking by myself on deck, rather late of an august evening, watching and being watched by a full harvest moon: something is to rise white on the surface of the sea, over which that moon mounts silent, and hangs glorious. . . i think i hear it cry with an articulate voice. . . i show you an image fair as alabaster emerging from the dim wave." charlotte bronte knew well the experience of dreams. she seems to have undergone the inevitable dream of mourners--the human dream of the labyrinth, shall i call it? the uncertain spiritual journey in search of the waiting and sequestered dead, which is the obscure subject of the "eurydice" of coventry patmore's odes. there is the lately dead, in exile, remote, betrayed, foreign, indifferent, sad, forsaken by some vague malice or neglect, sought by troubled love astray. in charlotte bronte's page there is an autumnal and tempestuous dream. "a nameless experience that had the hue, the mien, the terror, the very tone of a visitation from eternity. . . suffering brewed in temporal or calculable measure tastes not as this suffering tasted." finally, is there any need to cite the passage of _jane eyre_ that contains the avowal, the vigil in the garden? those are not words to be forgotten. some tell you that a fine style will give you the memory of a scene and not of the recording words that are the author's means. and others again would have the phrase to be remembered foremost. here, then, in _jane_ _eyre_, are both memories equal. the night is perceived, the phrase is an experience; both have their place in the reader's irrevocable past. "custom intervened between me and what i naturally and inevitably loved." "jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood?" "a waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel walk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut; it wandered away to an infinite distance. . . the nightingale's voice was then the only voice of the hour; in listening i again wept." * * * * * whereas charlotte bronte walked, with exultation and enterprise, upon the road of symbols, under the guidance of her own visiting genius, emily seldom went out upon those far avenues. she was one who practised imagery sparingly. her style had the key of an inner prose which seems to leave imagery behind in the way of approaches--the apparelled and arrayed approaches and ritual of literature--and so to go further and to be admitted among simple realities and antitypes. charlotte bronte also knew that simple goal, but she loved her imagery. in the passage of _jane eyre_ that tells of the return to thornfield hall, in ruins by fire, she bespeaks her reader's romantic attention to an image which in truth is not all golden. she has moments, on the other hand, of pure narrative, whereof each word is such a key as i spoke of but now, and unlocks an inner and an inner plain door of spiritual realities. there is, perhaps, no author who, simply telling what happened, tells it with so great a significance: "jane, did you hear that nightingale singing in the wood?" and "she made haste to leave us." but her characteristic calling is to images, those avenues and temples oracular, and to the vision of symbols. you may hear the poet of great imagery praised as a great mystic. nevertheless, although a great mystical poet makes images, he does not do so in his greatest moments. he is a great mystic, because he has a full vision of the mystery of realities, not because he has a clear invention of similitudes. of many thousand kisses the poor last, and now with his love, now in the colde grave are lines on the yonder side of imagery. so is this line also: sad with the promise of a different sun, and piteous passion keen at having found, after exceeding ill, a little good. shakespeare, chaucer and patmore yield us these great examples. imagery is for the time when, as in these lines, the shock of feeling (which must needs pass, as the heart beats and pauses) is gone by: thy heart with dead winged innocence filled, even as a nest with birds, after the old ones by the hawk are killed. i cite these lines of patmore's because of their imagery in a poem that without them would be insupportably close to spiritual facts; and because it seems to prove with what a yielding hand at play the poet of realities holds his symbols for a while. a great writer is both a major and a minor mystic, in the self-same poem; now suddenly close to his mystery (which is his greater moment) and anon making it mysterious with imagery (which is the moment of his most beautiful lines). the student passes delighted through the several courts of poetry, from the outer to the inner, from riches to more imaginative riches, and from decoration to more complex decoration; and prepares himself for the greater opulence of the innermost chamber. but when he crosses the last threshold he finds this mid-most sanctuary to be a hypaethral temple, and in its custody and care a simple earth and a space of sky. emily bronte seems to have a nearly unparalleled unconsciousness of the delays, the charms, the pauses and preparations of imagery. her strength does not dally with the parenthesis, and her simplicity is ignorant of those rites. her lesser work, therefore, is plain narrative, and her greater work is no more. on the hither side--the daily side--of imagery she is still a strong and solitary writer; on the yonder side she has written some of the most mysterious passages in all plain prose. and with what direct and incommunicable art! "'let me alone, let me alone,' said catherine. 'if i've done wrong, i'm dying for it. you left me too . . . i forgive you. forgive me!' 'it is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes and feel those wasted hands,' he answered. 'kiss me again, and don't let me see your eyes! i forgive what you have done to me. i love my murderer--but _yours_! how can i?' they were silent, their faces hid against each other, and washed by each other's tears." "so much the worse for me that i am strong," cries heathcliff in the same scene. "do i want to live? what kind of living will it be when you--oh god, would you like to live with your soul in the grave?" charlotte bronte's noblest passages are her own speech or the speech of one like herself acting the central part in the dreams and dramas of emotion that she had kept from her girlhood--the unavowed custom of the ordinary girl by her so splendidly avowed in a confidence that comprised the world. emily had no such confessions to publish. she contrived--but the word does not befit her singular spirit of liberty, that knew nothing of stealth--to remove herself from the world; as her person left no pen- portrait, so her "i" is not heard here. she lends her voice in disguise to her men and women; the first narrator of her great romance is a young man, the second a servant woman; this one or that among the actors takes up the story, and her great words sound at times in paltry mouths. it is then that for a moment her reader seems about to come into her immediate presence, but by a fiction she denies herself to him. to a somewhat trivial girl (or a girl who would be trivial in any other book, but emily bronte seems unable to create anything consistently meagre)--to isabella linton she commits one of her most memorable passages, and one which has the rare image, one of a terrifying little company of visions amid terrifying facts: "his attention was roused, i saw, for his eyes rained down tears among the ashes. . . the clouded windows of hell flashed for a moment towards me; the fiend which usually looked out was so dimmed and drowned." but in heathcliff's own speech there is no veil or circumstance. "i'm too happy; and yet i'm not happy enough. my soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself." "i have to remind myself to breathe, and almost to remind my heart to beat." "being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole barrier between us, i said to myself: 'i'll have her in my arms again.' if she be cold, i'll think it is this north wind that chills me; and if she be motionless, it is sleep." what art, moreover, what knowledge, what a fresh ear for the clash of repetition; what a chime in that phrase: "i dreamt i was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper, with my heart stopped, and my cheek frozen against hers." emily bronte was no student of books. it was not from among the fruits of any other author's labour that she gathered these eminent words. but i think i have found the suggestion of this action of heathcliff's--the disinterment. not in any inspiring ancient irish legend, as has been suggested, did emily bronte find her incident; she found it (but she made, and did not find, its beauty) in a mere costume romance of bulwer lytton, whom charlotte bronte, as we know, did not admire. and emily showed no sign at all of admiration when she did him so much honour as to borrow the action of his studio-bravo. heathcliff's love for catherine's past childhood is one of the profound surprises of this unparalleled book; it is to call her childish ghost--the ghost of the little girl--when she has been a dead adult woman twenty years that the inhuman lover opens the window of the house on the heights. something is this that the reader knew not how to look for. another thing known to genius and beyond a reader's hope is the tempestuous purity of those passions. this wild quality of purity has a counterpart in the brief passages of nature that make the summers, the waters, the woods, and the windy heights of that murderous story seem so sweet. the "beck" that was audible beyond the hills after rain, the "heath on the top of wuthering heights" whereon, in her dream of heaven, catherine, flung out by angry angels, awoke sobbing for joy; the bird whose feathers she--delirious creature--plucks from the pillow of her deathbed ("this--i should know it among a thousand--it's a lapwing's. bonny bird; wheeling over our heads in the middle of the moor. it wanted to get to its nest, for the clouds had touched the swells and it felt rain coming"); the only two white spots of snow left on all the moors, and the brooks brim-full; the old apple-trees, the smell of stocks and wallflowers in the brief summer, the few fir-trees by catherine's window- bars, the early moon--i know not where are landscapes more exquisite and natural. and among the signs of death where is any fresher than the window seen from the garden to be swinging open in the morning, when heathcliff lay within, dead and drenched with rain? none of these things are presented by images. nor is that signal passage wherewith the book comes to a close. be it permitted to cite it here again. it has taken its place, it is among the paragons of our literature. our language will not lapse or derogate while this prose stands for appeal: "i lingered . . . under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth." finally, of emily bronte's face the world holds only an obviously unskilled reflection, and of her aspect no record worth having. wild fugitive, she vanished, she escaped, she broke away, exiled by the neglect of her contemporaries, banished by their disrespect outlawed by their contempt, dismissed by their indifference. and such an one was she as might rather have pronounced upon these the sentence passed by coriolanus under sentence of expulsion; she might have driven the world from before her face and cast it out from her presence as he condemned his romans: "_i_ banish you." charmian "she is not cleopatra, but she is at least charmian," wrote keats, conscious that his damsel was not in the vanward of the pageant of ladies. one may divine that he counted the ways wherein she was not cleopatra, the touches whereby she fell short of and differed from, nay, in which she mimicked, the queen. in like manner many of us have for some years past boasted of our appreciation of the inferior beauty, the substitute, the waiting gentlewoman of corrupt or corruptible heart; keats confessed, but did not boast. it is a vaunt now, an emulation, who shall discover her beauty, who shall discern her. she is most conspicuous in the atmosphere in smoke "effects," in the "lurid," the "mystery"; such are the perfervid words. but let us take the natural and authentic light as our symbol of cleopatra, her sprightly port, her infinite jest, her bluest vein, her variety, her laugh. "o eastern star!" men in cities look upward not much more than animals, and these--except the dog when he bays the moon--look skyward not at all. the events of the sky do not come and go for the citizens, do not visibly approach and withdraw, threaten and pardon; they merely happen. and even when the sun so condescends as to face them at the level of their own horizon (say from the western end of the bayswater road), when he searches out the eyes that have neglected him all day, finds a way between their narrowing lids, looks straight into their unwelcoming pupils, explores the careful wrinkles, singles and numbers the dull hairs, even, i say, to sudden sunset in our dim climate, the londoner makes no reply; he would rather look into puddles than into the pools of light among clouds. yet the light is as characteristic of a country as is its landscape. so that i would travel for the sake of a character of early morning, for a quality of noonday, or a tone of afternoon, or an accident of moonrise, or a colour of dusk, at least as far as for a mountain, a cathedral, rivers, or men. the light is more important than what it illuminates. when mr. tomkins--a person of dickens's earliest invention--calls his fellow-boarders from the breakfast-table to the window, and with emotion shows them the effect of sunshine upon the left side of a neighbouring chimney-pot, he is far from cutting the grotesque figure that the humourist intended to point out to banter. i am not sure that the chimney-pot with the pure light upon it was not more beautiful than a whole black greek or a whole black gothic building in the adulterated light of a customary london day. nor is the pleasure that many writers, and a certain number of painters, tell us they owe to such adulteration anything other than a sign of derogation--in a word, a pleasure in the secondary thing. are we the better artists for our preference of the waiting-woman? it is a strange claim. the search for the beauty of the less-beautiful is a modern enterprise, ingenious in its minor pranks, insolent in its greater. and its chief ignobility is the love of marred, defiled, disordered, dulled, and imperfect skies, the skies of cities. some will tell us that the unveiled light is too clear or sharp for art. so much the worse for art; but even on that plea the limitations of art are better respected by natural mist, cloudy gloom of natural rain, natural twilight before night, or natural twilight--corot's--before day, than by the artificial dimness of our unlovely towns. those, too, who praise the "mystery" of smoke are praising rather a mystification than a mystery; and must be unaware of the profounder mysteries of light. light is all mystery when you face the sun, and every particle of the innumerable atmosphere carries its infinitesimal shadow. moreover, it is only in some parts of the world that we should ask for even natural veils. in california we may, not because the light is too luminous, but because it is not tender. clear and not tender in california, tender and not clear in england; light in italy and in greece is both tender and clear. when one complains of the ill-luck of modern utilities, the sympathetic listener is apt to agree, but to agree wrongly by denouncing the electric light as something modern to be deplored. but the electric light is the one success of the last century. it is never out of harmony with natural things--villages, ancient streets of cities, where it makes the most beautiful of all street-lighting, swung from house to opposite house in genoa or rome. with no shock, except a shock of pleasure, does the judicious traveller, entering some small sub-alpine hamlet, find the electric light, fairly, sparingly spaced, slung from tree to tree over the little road, and note it again in the frugal wine-shop, and solitary and clear over the church portal. yet, forsooth, if yielding to the suggestions of your restless hobby, you denounce, in any company, the spoiling of your italy, the hearer, calling up a "mumping visnomy," thinks he echoes your complaint by his sigh, "ah, yes--the electric light; you meet it everywhere now; so modern, so disenchanting." it is, on the contrary, enchanting. it is as natural as lightning. by all means let all the waterfalls in all the alps be "harnessed," as the lamentation runs, if their servitude gives us electric light. for thus the power of the waterfall kindles a lovely lamp. all this to be done by the simple force of gravitation--the powerful fall of water. "wonderful, all that water coming down!" cried the tourist at niagara, and the irishman said, "why wouldn't it?" he recognised the simplicity of that power. it is a second-rate passion--that for the waterfall, and often exacting in regard to visitors from town. "i trudged unwillingly," says dr. johnson, "and was not sorry to find it dry." it was very, very second-rate of an american admirer of scenery to name a waterfall in the yosemite valley (and it bears the name to-day) the "bridal veil." his indian predecessor had called it, because it was most audible in menacing weather, "the voice of the evil wind." in fact, your cascade is dearer to every sentimentalist than the sky. standing near the folding-over place of niagara, at the top of the fall, i looked across the perpetual rainbow of the foam, and saw the whole further sky deflowered by the formless, edgeless, languid, abhorrent murk of smoke from the nearest town. much rather would i see that water put to use than the sky so outraged. as it is, only by picking one's way between cities can one walk under, or as it were in, a pure sky. the horizon in venice is thick and ochreous, and no one cares; the sky of milan is defiled all round. in england i must choose a path alertly; and so does now and then a wary, fortunate, fastidious wind that has so found his exact, uncharted way, between this smoke and that, as to clear me a clean moonrise, and heavenly heavens. there was an ominous prophecy to charmian. "you shall outlive the lady whom you serve." she has outlived her in every city in europe; but only for the time of setting straight her crown--the last servility. she could not live but by comparison with the queen. the century of moderation after a long literary revolt--one of the recurrences of imperishable romance--against the eighteenth-century authors, a reaction was due, and it has come about roundly. we are guided back to admiration of the measure and moderation and shapeliness of the augustan age. and indeed it is well enough that we should compare--not necessarily check--some of our habits of thought and verse by the mediocrity of thought and perfect propriety of diction of pope's best contemporaries. if this were all! but the eighteenth century was not content with its sure and certain genius. suddenly and repeatedly it aspired to a "noble rage." it is not to the wild light hearts of the seventeenth century that we must look for extreme conceits and for extravagance, but to the later age, to the faultless, to the frigid, dissatisfied with their own propriety. there were straws, i confess, in the hair of the older poets; the eighteenth- century men stuck straws in their periwigs. that time--surpassing and correcting the century then just past in "taste"--was resolved to make a low leg to no age, antique or modern, in the chapter of the passions--nay, to show the way, to fire the nations. addison taught himself, as his hero "taught the doubtful battle," "where to rage." and in the later years of the same literary century johnson himself summoned the lapsed and alien and reluctant fury. take such a word as "madded"--"the madded land"; there indeed is a word created for the noble rage, as the eighteenth century understood it. look you, johnson himself could lodge the fury in his responsible breast: and dubious title shakes the madded land. there is no author of that time of moderation and good sense who does not thus more or less eat a crocodile. it is not necessary to go to the bad poets; we need go no lower than the good. and gasping furies thirst for blood in vain, says pope seriously (but the sense of burlesque never leaves the reader). also there purple vengeance bath'd in gore retires. in the only passage of the _dunciad_ meant to be poetic and not ironic and spiteful, he has "the panting gales" of a garden he describes. match me such an absurdity among the "conceits" of the age preceding! a noble and ingenious author, so called by high authority but left anonymous, pretends (it is always pretending with these people, never fine fiction or a frank lie) that on the tomb of virgil he had had a vision of that deceased poet: crowned with eternal bays my ravished eyes beheld the poet's awful form arise. virgil tells the noble and ingenious one that if pope will but write upon some graver themes, envy to black cocytus shall retire and howl with furies in tormenting fire. "genius," says another authoritative writer in prose, "is caused by a furious joy and pride of soul." if, leaving the great names, we pass in review the worse poets we find, in pope's essay "on the art of sinking in poetry," things like these, gathered from the grave writings of his contemporaries: in flaming heaps the raging ocean rolls, whose livid waves involve despairing souls; the liquid burnings dreadful colours shew, some deeply red, and others faintly blue. and a war-horse! his eye-balls burn, he wounds the smoking plain, and knots of scarlet ribbon deck his mane. and a demon! provoking demons all restraint remove. here is more eighteenth-century "propriety": the hills forget they're fixed, and in their fright cast off their weight, and ease themselves for flight. the woods, with terror winged, out-fly the wind, and leave the heavy, panting hills behind. again, from nat lee's _alexander the great_: when glory, like the dazzling eagle, stood perched on my beaver in the granic flood; when fortune's self my standard trembling bore, and the pale fates stood 'frighted on the shore. of these lines, with another couplet, dr. warburton said that they "contain not only the most sublime but the most judicious imagery that poetry could conceive or paint." and here are lines from a tragedy, for me anonymous: should the fierce north, upon his frozen wings, bear him aloft above the wondering clouds, and seat him in the pleiads' golden chariot, thence should my fury drag him down to tortures. again: kiss, while i watch thy swimming eye-balls roll, watch thy last gasp, and catch thy springing soul. it was the age of common-sense, we are told, and truly; but of common- sense now and then dissatisfied, common-sense here and there ambitious, common-sense of a distinctively adult kind taking on an innocent tone. i find this little affectation in pope's word "sky" where a simpler poet would have "skies" or "heavens." pope has "sky" more than once, and always with a little false air of simplicity. and one instance occurs in that masterly and most beautiful poem, the "elegy on an unfortunate lady": is there no bright reversion in the sky? "yes, my boy, we may hope so," is the reader's implicit mental aside, if the reader be a man of humour. let me, however, suggest no disrespect towards this lovely elegy, of which the last eight lines have an inimitable greatness, a tenderness and passion which the "epistle of eloisa" makes convulsive movements to attain but never attains. and yet how could one, by an example, place the splendid seventeenth century in closer--in slighter yet more significant--comparison with the eighteenth than thus? here is ben jonson: what beckoning ghost, besprent with april dew, hails me so solemnly to yonder yew? and this is pope's improvement: what beckoning ghost along the moonlight shade invites my steps, and points to yonder glade? but pope follows this insipid couplet with two lines as exquisitely and nobly modulated as anything i know in that national metre: 'tis she! but why that bleeding bosom gored, why dimly gleams the visionary sword? that indeed is "music" in english verse--the counterpart of a great melody, not of a tune. the eighteenth century matched its desire for wildness in poetry with a like craving in gardens. the symmetrical and architectural garden, so magnificent in italy, and stately though more rigid and less glorious in france, was scorned by the eighteenth-century poet-gardeners. why? because it was "artificial," and the eighteenth century must have "nature"--nay passion. there seems to be some plan of passion in pope's grotto, stuck with spar and little shells. truly the age of the "rape of the lock" and the "elegy" was an age of great wit and great poetry. yet it was untrue to itself. i think no other century has cherished so persistent a self-conscious incongruity. as the century of good sense and good couplets it might have kept uncompromised the dignity we honour. but such inappropriate pranks have come to pass in history now and again. the bishop of hereford, in merry barnsdale, "danced in his boots"; but he was coerced by robin hood. ten boys from dickens by kate dickinson sweetser illustrated by george alfred williams preface in this small volume there are presented as complete stories the boy-lives portrayed in the works of charles dickens. the boys are followed only to the threshold of manhood, and in all cases the original text of the story has been kept, except where of necessity a phrase or paragraph has been inserted to connect passages;--while the net-work of characters with which the boys are surrounded in the books from which they are taken, has been eliminated, except where such characters seem necessary to the development of the story in hand. charles dickens was a loyal champion of all boys, and underlying his pen pictures of them was an earnest desire to remedy evils which he had found existing in london and its suburbs. poor jo, who was always being "moved on," david copperfield, whose early life was a picture of dickens' own childhood, workhouse-reared oliver, and the miserable wretches at dotheboy hall were no mere creations of an author's vivid imagination. they were descriptions of living boys, the victims of tyranny and oppression which dickens felt he must in some way alleviate. and so he wrote his novels with the histories in them which affected the london public far more deeply, of course, than they affect us, and awakened a storm of indignation and protest. schools, work-houses, and other public institutions were subjected to a rigorous examination, and in consequence several were closed, while all were greatly improved. thus, in his sketches of boy-life, dickens accomplished his object. my aim is to bring these sketches, with all their beauty and pathos, to the notice of the young people of to-day. if through this volume any boy or girl should be aroused to a keener interest in the great writer, and should learn to love him and his work, my labour will be richly repaid. kate dickinson sweetser contents tiny tim oliver twist tommy traddles "deputy" dotheboys hall david copperfield kit nubbles jo, the crossing sweeper paul dombey pip tiny tim [illustration: tiny tim and his father.] charles dickens has given us no picture of tiny tim, but at the thought of him comes a vision of a delicate figure, less boy than spirit. we seem to see a face oval in shape and fair in colouring. we see eyes deep-set and grey, shaded by lashes as dark as the hair parted from the middle of his low forehead. we see a sunny, patient smile which from time to time lights up his whole face, and a mouth whose firm, strong lines reveal clearly the beauty of character, and the happiness of disposition, which were tiny tim's. he was a rare little chap indeed, and a prime favourite as well. ask the crachits old and young, whose smile they most desired, whose applause they most coveted, whose errands they almost fought with one another to run, whose sadness or pain could most affect the family happiness, and with one voice they would answer, "tim's!" it was christmas day, and in all the suburbs of london there was to be no merrier celebration than at the crachits. to be sure, bob crachit had but fifteen "bob" himself a week on which to clothe and feed all the little crachits, but what they lacked in luxuries they made up in affection and contentment, and would not have changed places, one of them, with any king or queen. while bob took tiny tim to church, preparations for the feast were going on at home. mrs. crachit was dressed in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by belinda, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons, while master peter crachit plunged a fork into a saucepan full of potatoes, getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (bob's private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day) into his mouth, but rejoiced to find himself so finely dressed, and yearning to show his linen in the fashionable parks. two smaller crachits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onions, these young crachits danced about the table, and exalted master peter crachit to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collar almost choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and peeled. "what has ever got your precious father, then?" said mrs. crachit. "and your brother, tiny tim! and martha warn't as late last christmas day by half an hour!" "here's martha, mother!" cried the two young crachits. "_hurrah_! there's _such_ a goose, martha!" "why, bless your heart alive, dear, how late you are!" said mrs. crachit, kissing the daughter, who lived away from home, a dozen times. "well, never mind as long as you are come!" "there's father coming!" cried the two young crachits, who were everywhere at once. "_hide_, martha, _hide_!" so martha hid herself, and in came little bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter hanging down before him, and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look seasonable; and tiny tim upon his shoulder. why was the child thus carried? alas for tiny tim, he bore a little crutch and had his limbs supported by an iron frame! patient little tim,--never was he heard to utter a fretful or complaining word. no wonder they cherished him so tenderly! "why, where's our martha?" cried bob crachit looking round. "not coming!" said mrs. crachit. "not coming?" said bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been tim's blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. "not coming upon christmas day!" martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she ran out from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young crachits hustled tiny tim, and bore him off into the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. "and how did little tim behave?" asked mrs. crachit; when she had rallied bob on his credulity, and bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content. "as good as gold," said bob, "and better. somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. he told me, coming home, that 'he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon christmas day, who made lame beggars walk and blind men see.'" bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and it trembled more when he said that tiny tim was growing strong and hearty. his active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came tiny tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while bob compounded some hot mixture in a jug and put it on the hob to simmer, master peter and the two young crachits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. such a bustle ensued that you might have thought the goose the rarest of all birds, and in truth it _was_ something very like it in that house. mrs. crachit made the gravy hissing hot; master peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; miss belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; martha dusted the hot plates; bob took tiny tim beside him in a corner at the table; the two young crachits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. at last the dishes were set on and grace was said. it was succeeded by a breathless pause, as mrs. crachit, looking slowly along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast. when she did one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even tiny tim, excited by the two young crachits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried "hurrah!" there never was such a goose! its tenderness and size, flavour and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, every one had enough, and the youngest crachits were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! but now, the plates being changed, mrs. crachit left the room alone--too nervous to bear witnesses--to take the pudding up, and bring it in. suppose it should not be done enough! suppose it should break in turning out! all sorts of horrors were supposed. hallo! a great deal of steam! the pudding was out of the copper, and in half a minute mrs. crachit entered, flushed, but smiling proudly, with the pudding blazing in ignited brandy, and with christmas holly stuck into the top. its appearance was hailed with cheers and with exclamations of joyous admiration. then, when it was safely landed upon the table, what a racket and clatter there was! such stories and songs and jokes, and such riotous applause no one can imagine who was not there to see and hear! at last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. the compound in the jug being tasted and pronounced perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. then all the crachit family drew round the hearth, tiny tim very close to his father's side, upon his little stool, while he gave them a song in his plaintive little voice, about a lost child, and sang it very well indeed. at bob crachit's elbow stood the family display of glass; two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. these held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done, and bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts sputtered and cracked noisily. then bob proposed: "_a merry christmas to us all, my dears,--god bless us_!" which was just what was needed to bring the joy and enthusiasm to a climax. cheer after cheer went up, over and over the toast was re-echoed, and then one was added for the family ogre, bob's hard employer, mr. scrooge, and one for old and for young, for sick and for well, for father christmas and for father crachit and for all the little crachits;--for everyone everywhere who had heard the holiday bells, there was a toast given. then when the uproar ceased for a moment, low and sweet spoke tiny tim alone: "_god bless us every one!"_ clearly it rang out in the earnest childish voice. there was a sudden hush of the merriment, while bob's arm stole round his son with a firmer grasp and for a moment the shadow of a coming christmas fell upon him, when the little stool would be vacant and the little crutch unused. spirit of tiny tim, thy childish essence was from god! thou didst not know that in the benediction of lives like thine, is given the answer to such prayers. much did thy loved ones learn from thee; much can the world learn of the nobility of patience from thy sweet child life. unawares thou wert thyself an answer to thy christmas prayer: "_god bless us every one!"_ oliver twist [illustration: oliver twist.] oliver twist was the child of an unknown woman who died in the workhouse of an english village, almost as soon as her babe drew his first breath. the mother's name being unknown, the workhouse officials called the child oliver twist, under which title he grew up. for nine years he was farmed out at a branch poorhouse, where with twenty or thirty other children he bore all the miseries consequent on neglect, abuse, and starvation. he was then removed to the workhouse proper to be taught a useful trade. his ninth birthday found him a pale, thin child, diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference, but possessed of a good sturdy spirit, which was not broken by the policy of the officials who tried to get as much work out of the paupers as possible, and to keep them on as scant a supply of food as would sustain life. the boys were fed in a large stone hall, with a copper at one end, out of which the gruel was ladled at meal-times. of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more--except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides. the bowls never wanted washing. the boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation, they would sit staring at the copper, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; sucking their fingers, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. boys have generally excellent appetites. oliver twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild that one boy hinted darkly that unless he had another basin of gruel a day, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next him. he had a wild, hungry, eye; and they implicitly believed him. a council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master, and ask for more, and it fell to oliver twist. the evening arrived; the boys took their places. the gruel was served out, and a long grace was said. the gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. he rose and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: "please, sir, i want some more!" the master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. he gazed in stupified astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. the assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear. "what?" said the master at length, in a faint voice. "please, sir," replied oliver, "i want some more." the master aimed a blow at oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked for the beadle, and when that gentleman appeared, an animated discussion took place. oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to any body who would take oliver twist off the hands of the parish. in other words, five pounds, and oliver twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling. mr. sowerberry, the parish undertaker, finally applied for the prize, and carried oliver away with him, which, for the poor boy, was a matter of falling from the frying pan into the fire, and in his short career as undertaker's assistant he even sighed for the workhouse,--miserable as his life there had been. at the undertaker's, oliver's bed was in the shop. the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. the recess behind the counter in which his mattress was thrust, looked like a grave. his food was broken bits left from the meals of others, and his constant companion was an older boy, noah claypole, who, although a charity boy himself, was not a workhouse orphan, and therefore considered himself in a position above oliver. he made oliver's days hideous with his abuse, which the younger boy bore as quietly as he could, until the day when noah made a sneering remark about oliver's dead mother. that was too much. crimson with fury, oliver started up, seized noah by the throat, shook him till his teeth chattered, and then with one heavy blow, felled him to the ground. this brought about a violent scene, for noah accused oliver of attempting to murder him, and mrs. sowerberry, the maid, and the beadle,--who had been hastily summoned,--agreed that oliver was a hardened wretch, only fit for confinement, and he was accordingly placed in the cellar, till the undertaker came in, when he was dragged out again to have the story retold. to do mr. sowerberry justice, he would have been kindly disposed towards oliver, but for the prejudice of his wife against the boy. however, to satisfy her, he gave oliver a sound beating, and shut him up in the back kitchen until night, when, amidst the jeers and pointings of noah and mrs. sowerberry, he was ordered up-stairs to his dismal bed. it was then, alone, in the silence of the gloomy workshop, that oliver gave way to his feelings, wept bitterly, and resolved no longer to bear such treatment. softly he undid the fastenings of the door, and looked abroad. it was a cold night. the stars seemed, to the boy's eyes, farther from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no wind; and the sombre shadows looked sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. he softly reclosed the door, and having availed himself of the expiring light of the candle to tie up in a handkerchief the few articles of wearing apparel he had, sat himself down to wait for morning. with the first ray of light, oliver arose, and again unbarred the door. one timid look around,--one minute's pause of hesitation,--he had closed it behind him. he looked to the right, and to the left, uncertain whither to fly. he remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up the hill, so he took the same route; and arriving at a footpath which he knew led out into the road, struck into it, and walked quickly on. for seven long days he tramped in the direction of london, tasting nothing but such scraps of meals as he could beg from the occasional cottages by the roadside. on the seventh morning he limped slowly into the little town of barnet, and as he was resting for a few moments on the steps of a public-house, a boy crossed over, and walking close to him, said, "hullo! my covey! what's the row?" the boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer, was about his own age: but one of the queerest looking boys that oliver had ever seen. he was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a man. he was short, with bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly, eyes. his hat was stuck on the top of his head, and he wore a man's coat that reached nearly to his heels. "hullo, my covey! what's the row?" said this strange young gentleman to oliver. "i am very hungry and tired," replied oliver; the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. "i have walked a long way. i have been walking these seven days." "going to london?" inquired the strange boy. "yes." "got any lodgings?" "no." "money?" "no." the strange boy whistled; and put his arms into his pockets. "do you live in london?" inquired oliver. "yes, i do when i'm at home," replied the boy. "i suppose you want some place to sleep in to-night, don't you?" upon oliver answering in the affirmative, the strange boy, whose name was jack dawkins, said, "i've got to be in london to-night; and i know a 'spectable old genelman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and never ask for the change--that is, if any genelman he knows interduces you." this offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted, and oliver trudged off with his new friend. into the city they passed, and through the worst and darkest streets, the sight of which filled oliver with alarm. at length they reached the door of a house, which jack entered, drawing oliver after him, into its dark passage-way, and closing the door after them. oliver, groping his way with one hand, and having the other firmly grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty the dark and broken stairs, which his conductor mounted with an expedition that showed he was well acquainted with them. he threw open the door of a back-room and drew oliver in after him. the walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt. there was a clothes-horse, over which a great number of silk handkerchiefs were hanging; and a deal table before the fire; upon which were a candle, stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, two or three pewter pots, a loaf and butter, and a plate. in a frying pan, which was on the fire, some sausages were cooking, and standing over them, with a toasting-fork in his hand, was a very old shrivelled jew, whose villanous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair. several rough beds, made of old sacks, were huddled side by side on the floor. seated round the table were four or five boys, none older than jack dawkins, familiarly called the dodger. the boys all crowded about their associate, as he whispered a few words to the jew; and then they turned round and grinned at oliver. so did the jew himself, toasting-fork in hand. "this is him, fagin," said jack dawkins; "my friend oliver twist." the jew, making a low bow to oliver, took him by the hand, and hoped he should have the honour of his intimate acquaintance. upon this the young gentlemen came round him, and shook his hand very hard, especially the one in which he held his little bundle. "we are very glad to see you, oliver, very," said the jew. "dodger take off the sausages; and draw a tub near the fire for oliver. ah, you're a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs! eh, my dear? there are a good many of 'em, ain't there? we've just looked 'em out ready for the wash; that's all, oliver, that's all. ha! ha! ha!" the latter part of this speech was hailed by a boisterous shout from the boys, who, oliver found, were all pupils of the merry old gentleman. in the midst of which they went to supper. oliver ate his share, and the jew then mixed him a glass of hot gin and water, telling him he must drink it off directly because another gentleman wanted the tumbler. oliver did as he was desired. immediately afterwards, he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the sacks; and then he sunk into a deep sleep. it was late next morning when oliver awoke, from a sound, long sleep. there was no other person in the room but the old jew, who was boiling some coffee in a saucepan for breakfast, and whistling softly to himself as he stirred it. he would stop every now and then to listen when there was the least noise below; and, when he had satisfied himself, he would go on, whistling and stirring again, as before. when the coffee was done, the jew drew the saucepan to the hob, then he turned and looked at oliver, and called him by name, but the boy did not answer, and was to all appearances asleep. after satisfying himself upon this head, the jew stepped gently to the door, which he fastened. he then drew forth as it seemed to oliver, from some trap in the floor a small box, which he placed carefully on the table. his eyes glistened as he raised the lid, and looked in. dragging an old chair to the table, he sat down, and took from it a magnificent gold watch, sparkling with jewels. at least half a dozen more were severally drawn forth from the same box, besides rings, brooches, bracelets, and other articles of jewellery, of such magnificent materials, and costly workmanship, that oliver had no idea, even of their names. at length the bright, dark eyes of the jew, which had been staring vacantly before him, fell on oliver's face; the boy's eyes were fixed on his in mute curiosity; and, although the recognition was only for an instant,--it was enough to show the man that he had been observed. he closed the lid of the box with a loud crash; and, laying his hand on a bread knife which was on the table, started furiously up. "what's that?" said the jew. "what do you watch me for? why are you awake? what have you seen? speak out, boy! quick--quick! for your life!" "i wasn't able to sleep any longer, sir," replied oliver meekly. "i am very sorry if i have disturbed you, sir." "you were not awake an hour ago?" said the jew, scowling fiercely. "no! no indeed!" replied oliver. "are you sure?" cried the jew, with a still fiercer look than before, and a threatening attitude. "upon my word i was not, sir," replied oliver, earnestly. "i was not, indeed, sir." "tush, tush, my dear!" said the jew, abruptly resuming his old manner. "of course i know that, my dear, i only tried to frighten you. you're a brave boy. ha! ha! you're a brave boy, oliver!" the jew rubbed his hands with a chuckle, but glanced uneasily at the box, notwithstanding. "did you see any of these pretty things, my dear?" said the jew. "yes, sir," replied oliver. "ah!" said fagin, turning rather pale. "they--they're mine, oliver; my little property. all i have to live upon in my old age. the folks call me a miser, my dear. only a miser; that's all." oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in such a dirty place, with so many watches; but thinking that perhaps his fondness for the dodger and the other boys, cost him a good deal of money, he only cast a deferential look at the jew, and asked if he might get up. permission being granted him, he got up, walked across the room, and stooped for an instant to raise the water-pitcher. when he turned his head, the box was gone. presently the dodger returned with a friend, charley bates, and the four sat down to a breakfast of coffee, and some hot rolls, and ham, which the dodger had brought home in the crown of his hat. "well," said the jew, "i hope you've been at work this morning, my dears?" "hard," replied the dodger. "as nails," added charley bates. "good boys, good boys!" said the jew. "what have _you_ got, dodger?" "a couple of pocket-books," replied the young gentleman. "lined?" inquired the jew, with eagerness. "pretty well," replied the dodger, producing two pocket-books. "and what have you got, my dear?" said fagin to charley bates. "wipes," replied master bates; at the same time producing four pocket-handkerchiefs. "well," said the jew, inspecting them closely; "they 're very good ones, very. you haven't marked them well, though, charley; so the marks shall be picked out with a needle, and we'll teach oliver how to do it. shall us, oliver, eh?" "if you please, sir," said oliver. "you'd like to be able to make pocket-handkerchiefs as easy as charley bates, wouldn't you, my dear?" said the jew. "very much indeed, if you'll teach me, sir," replied oliver. master bates saw something so exquisitely ludicrous in this reply, that he burst into a laugh; which laugh, meeting the coffee he was drinking, and carrying it down some wrong channel, very nearly terminated in his suffocation. "he is so jolly green!" said charley, when he recovered, as an apology to the company for his unpolite behaviour. when the breakfast was cleared away, the merry old gentleman and the two boys played at a very curious and uncommon game, which was performed in this way. fagin, placing a snuff-box in one pocket of his trousers, a notecase in the other, and a watch in his waistcoat pocket, with a guard-chain round his neck, and sticking a mock diamond pin in his shirt, buttoned his coat tight round him, and putting his spectacle-case and handkerchief in his pockets, trotted up and down with a stick, in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen walk about the streets. sometimes he stopped at the fire-place, and sometimes at the door, making believe that he was staring with all his might into shop windows. at such times he would look constantly round him, for fear of thieves, and would keep slapping all his pockets in turn, to see that he hadn't lost anything, in such a very funny and natural manner, that oliver laughed till the tears ran down his face. all this time, the two boys followed him closely about; getting out of his sight so nimbly, that it was impossible to follow their motions. at last, the dodger trod upon his toes accidentally, while charley bates stumbled up against him behind; and in that one moment they took from him, with the most extraordinary rapidity, snuff-box, note-case, watch-guard, chain, shirt-pin, pocket-handkerchief--even the spectacle-case. if the old gentleman felt a hand in one of his pockets, he cried out where it was; and then the game began all over again. when this game had been played a great many times, a couple of young women came in; one of whom was named bet, and the other nancy, and afterwards oliver discovered that they also were pupils of fagin's as well as the boys. later the young people went out, leaving oliver alone with the jew, who was pacing up and down the room. "is my handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear?" said the jew, stopping short, in front of oliver. "yes sir," said oliver. "see if you can take it out, without my feeling it: as you saw them do when we were at play." oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand, as he had seen the dodger hold it, and drew the handkerchief lightly out of it with the other. "is it gone?" cried the jew. "here it is, sir," said oliver, showing it in his hand. "you're a clever boy, my dear," said the playful old gentleman, patting oliver on the head approvingly. "i never saw a sharper lad. here's a shilling for you. if you go on in this way, you'll be the greatest man of the time. and now come here, and i'll show you how to take the marks out of the handkerchiefs." oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman's pocket in play, had to do with his chances of being a great man. but, thinking that the jew, being so much his senior, must know best, he followed him quietly to the table, and was soon deeply involved in his new study. for many days oliver remained in the jew's room, picking marks out of the pocket-handkerchiefs. but at length, he began to languish, and entreated fagin to allow him to go out to work with his two companions. so, one morning, he obtained permission to go out, under the guardianship of charley bates and the dodger. the three boys sallied out; the dodger with his coat-sleeves tucked up, and his hat cocked as usual; master bates sauntering along with his hands in his pockets; and oliver between them, wondering where they were going, and what branch of manufacture he would be instructed in, first. they were just emerging from a narrow court, when the dodger made a sudden stop; and, laying his finger on his lip, drew his companions back again with the greatest caution. "what's the matter?" demanded oliver. "hush!" replied the dodger. "do you see that old cove at the book-stall?" "the old gentleman over the way?" said oliver. "yes, i see him." "he'll do," said the dodger. "a prime plant," observed master charley bates. oliver looked from one to the other, with the greatest surprise; but could not ask any questions, for the two boys walked stealthily across the road, and slunk close behind the old gentleman. oliver walked a few paces behind them, looking on in silent amazement. the old gentleman had taken up a book from the stall; and there he stood: reading away, perfectly absorbed, and saw not the book-stall, nor the street, nor the boys, nor anything but the book itself. what was oliver's horror and alarm to see the dodger plunge his hand into the old gentleman's pocket, and draw from thence a handkerchief! to see him hand the same to charley bates; and finally to behold them, both, running away round the corner at full speed! in an instant the whole mystery of the handkerchiefs, and the watches, and the jewels, and the jew, rushed upon the boy's mind. he stood, for a moment, with the blood tingling through all his veins from terror; then, confused and frightened, he took to his heels. in the very instant when oliver began to run, the old gentleman, putting his hand to his pocket, and missing his handkerchief, turned sharp round. seeing the boy scudding away at such a rapid pace, he very naturally concluded him to be the depredator, and, shouting "stop thief!" with all his might, made off after him, book in hand. the dodger and master bates, who had merely retired into the first doorway round the corner, no sooner heard the cry, and saw oliver running, than they issued forth with great promptitude; and, shouting, "stop thief! stop thief!" too, joined in the pursuit like good citizens. "stop thief!" the cry is taken up by a hundred voices, the tradesman, the carman, the butcher, the baker, the milkman, the school-boy, follow in hot pursuit. away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter, slap-dash: tearing, yelling: screaming, knocking down the passengers as they turn the corners, splashing through the mud, and rattling along the pavements, following after the wretched, breathless, panting child, gaining upon him every instant. stopped at last! a clever blow! he is down upon the pavement, covered with mud and dust, looking wildly round upon the heap of faces that surround him. "yes," said the old gentleman, "i am afraid that is the boy. poor fellow! he has hurt himself!" just then a police officer appeared and dragged the half fainting boy off, the old gentleman walking beside him, oliver protesting his innocence as they went. at the police station oliver was searched in vain, and then locked in a cell for a time, while the old gentleman sat outside waiting, and read his book. presently the boy was brought out before the magistrate; and the policeman and the old gentleman preferred their charges against him. while the case was proceeding, oliver fell to the floor in a fainting fit, and as he lay there the magistrate uttered his penance, "he stands committed for three months of hard labour. clear the office!" a couple of men were about to carry the insensible boy to his cell, when an elderly man rushed hastily into the office. "stop, stop!" he said. "don't take him away! i saw it all. i keep the book-stall. i saw three boys loitering on the opposite side of the way when this gentleman was reading. the robbery was committed by another boy. i saw it done; and i saw that this boy was perfectly amazed and stupified by it!" having by this time recovered a little breath, the bookstall keeper proceeded to relate in a more coherent manner the exact circumstances of the robbery, in consequence of which explanation oliver twist was discharged, and carried off, still white and faint, in a coach, by the kind-hearted old gentleman whose name was brownlow, who seemed to feel himself responsible for the boy's condition, and resolved to have him cared for in his own home. after charley bates and the dodger had seen oliver dragged away by the police officer, they scoured off with great rapidity. coming to a halt master bates burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. "what's the matter?" inquired the dodger. "i can't help it," said charley, "i can't help it! to see him splitting away at that pace, and cutting round the corners, and knocking up against the posts, and starting on again as if he was made of iron, and me with the wipe in my pocket, singing out arter him--oh, my eye!" the vivid imagination of master bates presented the scene before him in too strong colours, and he rolled upon a door-step and laughed louder than before. "what'll fagin say?" inquired the dodger, and the question sobered master bates at once, as both boys stood in great dread of the jew. and their worst fears were realised. fagin was livid with rage at the loss of his promising pupil, as well as fearful of the disclosures he might make. after long consultation on the subject, it was agreed by the band that nancy was to go to the police station in a disguised dress, to find out what had been done with oliver, for whom she was to search as her "dear little lost brother." meanwhile oliver lay for many days burning with fever and unconscious of his surroundings, in the quietly comfortable home of mr. brownlow at pentonville. at length, weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke from what seemed a dream, and found himself being nursed by mrs. bedwin, mr. brownlow's motherly old house-keeper, and visited constantly by the doctor. gradually he grew stronger, and soon could sit up a little. those were happy, peaceful days of his recovery, the only happy ones he had ever known. everybody was so kind and gentle that it seemed like heaven itself, as he sat by the fireside in the house-keeper's room. on the wall hung a portrait of a beautiful, mild, lady with sorrowful eyes, of which oliver was the living copy. every feature was the same--to mr. brownlow's intense astonishment, as he gazed from it to oliver. later, oliver heard the history of the portrait and his own connection with it. when he was strong enough to put his clothes on, mr. brownlow caused a complete new suit, and a new cap, and a new pair of shoes, to be provided for him. oliver gave his old clothes to one of the servants who had been kind to him, and she sold them to a jew who came to the house. one evening mr. brownlow sent up word to have oliver come down into his study and see him for a little while,--so mrs. bedwin helped him to prepare himself, and although there was not even time to crimp the little frill that bordered his shirt-collar, he looked so delicate and handsome, that she surveyed him with great complacency. mr. brownlow was reading, but when he saw oliver, he pushed the book away, and told him to come near, and sit down, which oliver did. then the old gentleman began to talk kindly of what oliver's future was to be. instantly the boy became pallid with fright, and implored mr. brownlow to let him stay with him, as a servant, as anything, only not to send him out into the streets again, and the old gentleman, touched by the appeal, assured the boy that unless he should deceive him, he would be his faithful friend. he then asked oliver to relate the whole story of his life, which he was beginning to do when an old friend of mr. brownlow's--a mr. grimwig,--entered. he was an eccentric old man, and was loud in his exclamations of distrust in this boy whom mr. brownlow was harbouring. "i'll answer for that boy's truth with my life!" said mr. brownlow, knocking the table. "and i for his falsehood with my head!" rejoined mr. grimwig, knocking the table also. "we shall see!" said mr. brownlow, checking his rising anger. "we will!" said mr. grimwig, with a provoking smile; "we will." just then mrs. bedwin brought in some books which had been bought of the identical book stall-keeper who has already figured in this history. mr. brownlow was greatly disturbed that the boy who brought them had not waited, as there were some other books to be returned. "send oliver with them," suggested mr. grimwig, "he will be sure to deliver them safely, you know!" "yes; do let me take them, if you please, sir," said oliver "i'll run all the way, sir." mr. brownlow was about to refuse to have oliver go out, when mr. grimwig's malicious cough made him change his mind, and let the boy go. "you are to say," said mr. brownlow, "that you have brought those books back; and that you have come to pay the four pound ten i owe him. this is a five-pound note, so you will have to bring me back ten shilling change." "i won't be ten minutes, sir," replied oliver, eagerly, as with a respectful bow he left the room. mrs. bedwin watched him out of sight exclaiming, "bless his sweet face!"--while oliver looked gaily round, and nodded before he turned the corner. then mr. brownlow drew out his watch and waited, while mr. grimwig asserted that the boy would never be back. "he has a new suit of clothes on his back; a set of valuable books under his arm; and a five-pound note in his pocket. he'll join his old friends the thieves, and laugh at you. if ever that boy returns to this house, sir," said mr. grimwig, "i'll eat my head!" it grew so dark that the figures on the dial-plate were scarcely discernible. the gas lamps were lighted; mrs. bedwin was waiting anxiously at the open door; the servant had run up the street twenty times to see if there were any traces of oliver; and still the two old gentlemen sat, perseveringly, in the dark parlour, with the watch between them, waiting--but oliver did not come. he meanwhile, had walked along, on his way to the bookstall, thinking how happy and contented he ought to feel, when he was startled by a young woman screaming out very loud, "oh, my dear brother!"--and then he was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight round his neck. "don't!" cried oliver, struggling. "let go of who is it? what are you stopping me for?" "oh my gracious!" said the young woman, "i've found him! oh you naughty boy, to make me suffer sich distress on your account! come home, dear, come!" with these and more incoherent exclamations, the young woman burst out crying, and told the onlookers that oliver was her brother, who had run away from his respectable parents a month ago, joined a gang of thieves and almost broke his mother's heart,--to which oliver, greatly alarmed, replied that he was an orphan, had no sister, and lived at pentonville. then, catching sight of the woman's face for the first time, he cried,--"why, it's nancy!" "you see he knows me!" cried nancy. "make him come home, there's good people, or he'll kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!" with this a man who was nancy's accomplice, bill sikes by name, came to the rescue, tore the volumes from oliver's grasp, and struck him on the head. weak still, and stupified by the suddenness of the attack, overpowered and helpless, what could one poor child do? darkness had set in; it was a low neighbourhood; no help was near--resistance was useless. in another moment he was dragged into a labyrinth of dark narrow courts: and was forced along them, at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared to give utterance to, unintelligible. at length they turned into a very filthy street, and stopped at an apparently untenanted house into which bill sikes and nancy led oliver, and there, were his old friends, charley bates, the dodger, and fagin. they greeted oliver with cheers, and at once rifled his pockets of the five-pound note, and relieved him of the books,--although oliver pleaded that the books and money be sent back to mr. brownlow. when he found that all pleading and resistance were useless, he jumped suddenly to his feet and tore wildly from the room, uttering shrieks for help which made the bare old house echo to the roof, and then attempted to dart through the door, opened for a moment, but he was instantly caught, while sikes' dog would have sprung upon him, except for nancy's intervention. she was struck with oliver's pallor and great grief and tried to shield him from violence. but it was of little avail. he was beaten by the jew, and then led off by master bates into an adjacent kitchen to go to bed. his new clothes were taken from him and he was given the identical old suit which he had so congratulated himself upon leaving off at mr. brownlow's, and the accidental display of which to fagin, by the jew who purchased them, had been the first clue to oliver's whereabouts. for a week or so the boy was kept locked up, but after that the jew left him at liberty to wander about the house; which was a weird, ghostlike place, with the mouldering shutters fast closed, and no evidence from outside that it sheltered human creatures. oliver was constantly with charley bates and the dodger, who played the old game with the jew every day. at times fagin entertained the boys with stories of robberies he had committed in his younger days, which made oliver laugh heartily, and show that he was amused in spite of his better feelings. in short, the wily old jew had the boy in his toils, and hoped gradually to instil into his soul the poison which would blacken it and change its hue forever. meanwhile fagin, bill sikes, and nancy were arranging a plot in which poor oliver was to play a notable part. one morning he found to his surprise, a pair of stout new shoes by his bedside, and at breakfast fagin told him that he was to be taken to the residence of bill sikes that night, but no reason for this was given. fagin then left him and presently nancy came in, looking pale and ill. she came from sikes to take oliver to him. her countenance was agitated and she trembled. "i have saved you from being ill-used once, and i will again; and i do now," she said, "for those who would have fetched you if i had not, would have been far more rough than me. remember this, and don't let me suffer more for you just now. if i could help you, i would; but i have not the power. i have promised for your being quiet; if you are not, you will harm youself and perhaps be my death. hush! give me your hand! make haste!" blowing out the light, she drew oliver hastily after her, out, and into a hackney-cabriolet. the driver wanted no directions, but lashed his horse into full speed, and presently they were in a strange house. there, with nancy and sikes, oliver remained until an early hour the next morning, when the three set out, whither or for what oliver did not know, but before they started sikes drew out a pistol, and holding it close to oliver's temple said, "if you speak a word while you're out of doors, with me, except when i speak to you, that loading will be in your head without notice!" and oliver did not doubt the statement. in the gray dawn of a cheerless morning the trio started off, and by continual tramping, and an occasional lift from a carter reached a public house where they lingered for some hours, and then went on again until the next night. they turned into no house at shepperton, as the weary boy had expected; but still kept walking on, in mud and darkness, until they came in sight of the lights of a town. then they stopped for a time at a solitary, dilapidated house, where they were met by other men. the party then crossed a bridge and were soon in the little town of chertsey. there was nobody abroad. they had cleared the town as the church-bell struck two. after walking about a quarter of a mile, they stopped before a detached house surrounded by a wall: to the top of which one of the men, toby crackit, climbed in a twinkling. "the boy next!" said toby. "hoist him up; i'll catch hold of him." before oliver had time to look round, sikes had caught him under the arms; and he and toby were lying on the grass, on the other side of the wall. sikes followed, and they stole towards the house. now, for the first time oliver realised that robbery, if not murder, was the object of the expedition. in vain he pleaded that they let him go,--he was answered only by oaths, while the robbers were busy opening a little window not far from the ground at the back of the house, which was just large enough to admit oliver. toby planted himself firmly with his head against the wall beneath the window, then sikes, mounting upon him, put oliver through the window with his feet first, and without leaving hold of his collar, planted him safely on the floor inside. "take this lantern," whispered sikes, looking into the room, "you see the stairs afore you; go up softly and unfasten the street door." oliver, more dead than alive gasped out, "yes." sikes then advised him to take notice that he was within shot all the way; and that if he faltered, he would fall dead that instant. "it's done in a minute," said sikes. "directly i leave go of you, do your work. hark!" "what's that?" whispered the other man. "nothing," said sikes,--"_now_!" in the short time he had to collect his senses, oliver had resolved that, whether he died in the attempt or not, he would make one effort to dart up stairs and to alarm the family. filled with this idea, he advanced at once, but stealthily. "come back!" suddenly cried sikes aloud. "_back! back!"_ scared by the sudden breaking of the stillness and by a loud cry which followed it, oliver let his lantern fall and knew not whether to advance or fly. the cry was repeated--a light appeared--a vision of two terrified half-dressed men at the top of the stairs swam before his eyes--a flash--a smoke--a crash somewhere,--and he staggered back. sikes had disappeared for an instant; but he was up again, and had oliver by the collar before the smoke had cleared away. he fired his pistol after the men, and dragged the boy up. "clasp your arm tighter," said sikes, as he drew him through the window. "give me a shawl here. they've hit him. quick! how the boy bleeds!" then came the loud ringing of a bell, mingled with the noise of fire-arms, the shouts of men, and the sensation of being carried over uneven ground at a rapid pace. then the noises grew confused in the distance; and the boy saw or heard no more. bill sikes had him on his back scudding like the wind. oliver's head hung down, and he was deadly cold. the pursuers were close upon sikes' heels. he dropped the boy in a ditch and fled. hours afterwards oliver came to himself, and found his left arm rudely bandaged hung useless at his side. he was so weak that he could scarcely move. trembling from cold and exhaustion he made an effort to stand upright, but fell back, groaning with pain. then a creeping stupor came over him, warning him that if he lay there he must surely die. so he got upon his feet, and stumbling on, dizzy and half unconscious, drew near to the very house which caused him to shudder with horror at the memory of last night's dreadful scene. within, in the kitchen all the servants were gathered round the fire discussing the attempted burglary. while mr. giles, the butler, was giving his version of the affair, there came a timid knock. they opened the door cautiously and beheld poor little oliver twist, speechless and exhausted, who raised his heavy eyes and mutely solicited their compassion. instantly there was an outcry, and oliver was seized by one leg and one arm, lugged into the hall, and laid on the floor. "here he is!" bawled giles up the staircase; "here's one of the thieves, ma'am! here's a thief, miss! wounded, miss. i shot him, miss; and brittles held the light!" there was great confusion then, all the servants talking at once, but the sound of a sweet voice from above quelled the commotion. on learning that a wounded thief was lying in the house, the voice directed that he be instantly carried up-stairs to the room of mr. giles, and a doctor be summoned; and so for the second time in his short, tragic existence, oliver fell into kind hands at a moment when all hope had left his breast. he was now in the home of mrs. maylie, a finely preserved, bright-eyed, elderly lady, and her fair young adopted niece, rose. the attempted burglary had greatly shocked them both, and the fact that one of the robbers was in the house added to their nervousness. so when dr. losberne came, and begged them to accompany him to the patient's room, they dreaded to comply with the request, but finally yielded to his demand. what was their astonishment when the bed-curtains were drawn aside, instead of a black-visaged ruffian, to see a mere child, worn with pain, and sunk into a deep sleep. his wounded arm bound and splintered up, was crossed upon his breast. his head reclined upon the other arm, which was half hidden by his long hair, as it streamed over the pillow. the boy smiled in his sleep as at a pleasant dream, when rose bent tenderly over him, while the older lady and the doctor discussed the probability of the child's having been the tool of robbers. fearing that the doctor might influence her aunt to send the boy away, rose pleaded that he be kept and cared for; it was finally decided that when oliver awoke he should be examined as to his past life, and if the result seemed satisfactory, he should remain. but not until evening was he able to be questioned. he then told them all his simple history. it was a solemn thing to hear the feeble voice of the sick child recounting a weary catalogue of evils and calamities which hard men had brought upon him, and his hearers were profoundly moved by the recital. his pillow was smoothed by gentle hands that night and he slept as sleep the calm and happy. on the following day, officers who had heard of the burglary, and that a thief was prisoner in the maylie house, came from london to arrest him, but dr. losberne and mrs. maylie shielded him, and their joint bail was accepted for the boy's appearance in court if it should ever be required. with the maylies oliver remained, and thanks to their tender care, gradually throve and prospered, although it was long weeks before he was quite himself again. many times he spoke to the two sweet ladies of his gratitude to them, saying that he only desired to serve them always. to this they responded that he should go with them to the country, and there could serve them in a hundred ways. only one cloud was on oliver's sky. he longed to go to mr. brownlow and tell him the true story of his seeming ingratitude. so as soon as he was sufficiently recovered, dr. losberne drove him out to the place where he said mr. brownlow resided. they hastened to the house, but alas! it was empty. there was a bill in the window, "to let" and upon inquiring, they found that mr. brownlow, mr. grimwig, and mrs. bedwin had gone to the west indies. the disappointment was a cruel one, for all through his sickness oliver had anticipated the delight of seeing his first benefactor, and clearing himself of guilt, but now that was impossible. in a fortnight the maylies went to the country, and oliver, whose life had been spent in squalid crowds, seemed to enter on a new existence there. the sky and the balmy air, the woods and glistening water, the rose and honeysuckle, were each a daily joy to him. every morning he went to a white-haired old gentleman who taught him to read better and to write, then he would walk and talk with rose and mrs. maylie, and so three happy months glided away. in the summer rose was taken down with a terrible fever, and anxiety hung like a cloud over the cottage where she was so dear, but at length the danger passed and the loving hearts grew lighter again. meanwhile a man named monks,--a friend of fagin's--had by chance seen oliver, had been strangely excited and angered at sight of him, and after carefully learning some details of the boy's history, had gone to the beadle at the workhouse where oliver began life, and by dint of bribes, had extorted information concerning oliver's mother, which only one person knew. satisfied with what he learned, monks conferred with fagin, telling some facts about oliver which caused nancy, who happened to overhear them, to become terror-stricken. as soon as she could, she stole away from her companions, out towards the west end of london, to a hotel where the maylies were then boarding, and which she had heard monks mention. nancy was such a ragged object that she found it difficult to have her name carried up to rose maylie, but at length she succeeded, and was ushered into the sweet young lady's presence, where she quickly related what she had come to tell. that monks had accidentally seen oliver, and found out where he was living, and with whom;--that a bargain had been struck with fagin that he should have a certain sum of money if oliver were brought back, and a still larger amount if the boy could be made a thief. nancy then went on to tell that monks spoke of oliver as his young brother, and boasted that the proofs of the boy's identity lay at the bottom of the river--that he, monks, had money which by right should have been shared with oliver, and that his one desire was to take the boy's life. these disclosures made rose maylie turn pale, and ask many questions, from which she discovered that nancy's confession was actuated by a real liking for oliver and a fierce hatred for the man monks. her tale finished, and refusing money, or help of any kind, nancy went as swiftly as she had come, and when she left, rose sank into a chair completely overcome by what she had heard. of course the matter was too serious to pass over, and the next day, as rose was trying to decide upon a course of action, oliver settled it for her, by rushing in with breathless haste, and exclaiming, "i have seen the gentleman--the gentleman who was so good to me--mr. brownlow!" "where?" asked rose. "going into a house," replied oliver. "and giles asked, for me, whether he lived there, and they said he did. look here," producing a scrap of paper, "here it is; here's where he lives--i'm going there directly! oh, dear me! dear me! what shall i do when i come to hear him speak again!" with her attention not a little distracted by these exclamations of joy, an idea came to rose, and she determined upon turning this discovery to account. "quick!" she said, "tell them to fetch a hackney-coach, and be ready to go with me. i will take you to see mr. brownlow directly." oliver needed no urging and they were soon on their way to craven street. when they arrived, rose left oliver in the coach, and sending up her card, requested to see mr. brownlow on business. she was shown up stairs, and presented to mr. brownlow, an elderly gentleman of benevolent appearance, in a bottle-green coat, and with him was his friend, mr. grimwig. rose began at once upon her errand, to the great amazement of the two old gentlemen. she related in a few natural words all that had befallen oliver since he left mr. brownlow's house, concluding with the assurance that his only sorrow for many months had been the not being able to meet with his former benefactor and friend. "thank god!" said mr. brownlow. "this is great happiness to me; great happiness! but why not have brought him?" "he is waiting in a coach at the door," replied rose. "at this door!" cried mr. brownlow. with which he hurried down the stairs, without another word, and came back with oliver. then mrs. bedwin was sent for. "god be good to me!" she cried, embracing him; "it is my innocent boy! he would come back--i knew he would! how well he looks, and how like a gentleman's son he is dressed again! where have you been, this long, long while?" running on thus,--now holding oliver from her, now clasping him to her and passing her fingers through his hair, the good soul laughed and wept upon his neck by turns. leaving oliver with her, mr. brownlow led rose into another room, by her request, and she narrated her interview with nancy, which occasioned mr. brownlow no small amount of perplexity and surprise. after a long consultation they decided to take mrs. maylie and dr. losberne into their confidence, also mr. grimwig, thus forming a committee for the purpose of guarding the young lad from further entanglement in the plots of villains. through nancy, with whom rose had another interview, the man monks was tracked, and finally captured by mr. brownlow, who to his sorrow, found that the villain was the erring son of his oldest friend, and his name of monks only an assumed one. facing him in a room of his own house, to which monks had been brought,--mr. brownlow charged the man with one crime after another. the father of monks had two children who were half brothers, monks and oliver twist. the father died suddenly, leaving in mr. brownlow's home the portrait of oliver's mother, which was hanging in the house-keeper's room. the striking likeness between this portrait and oliver had led mr. brownlow to recognise the boy as the child of his dear old friend. then, just when he had determined to adopt oliver, the boy had disappeared, and all efforts to find him had proved unavailing. mr. brownlow knew that, although the mother and father were dead, the elder brother was alive, and at once commenced a search for him. now he had discovered him in the man monks, the friend of thieves and murderers, and by a chance clue he found also that there had been a will, dividing the property between the two brothers. that will had been destroyed, together with all proofs of oliver's parentage, so that monks might have the entire property. fearing discovery, monks had bargained with fagin to keep the child a thief or to kill him outright. this revelation of his crime in all its terrible details, told in clear cutting tones by mr. brownlow, while his eyes never left the man's face, overwhelmed the coward monks. he stood convicted, and confessed his guilt. then, because the man was son of his old friend, mr. brownlow was merciful. "will you set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat it before witnesses?" he asked. "that i promise," said monks. "remain quietly here until such a document is drawn up, and proceed with me to such a place as i may deem advisable, to attest it?" to this also monks agreed. "you must do more than that," said mr. brownlow; "make restitution to oliver. you have not forgotten the provisions of the will. carry them into execution so far as your brother is concerned, and then go where you please. in this world you need meet no more." to this also, at length monks gave fearing assent. a few days later oliver found himself in a travelling carriage rolling fast towards his native town, with the maylies, mrs. bedwin, dr. losberne, and mr. grimwig, while mr. brownlow followed in a post-chaise with monks. oliver was much excited, for he had been told of the disclosures of monks, which, together with journeying over a road which he had last travelled on foot, a poor houseless, wandering boy, without a friend, or a roof to shelter his head, caused his heart to beat violently and his breath to come in quick gasps. "see there, there!" he cried, "that's the stile i came over; there are the hedges i crept behind, for fear anyone should overtake me and force me back!" as they approached the town, and drove through its narrow streets, it became matter of no small difficulty to restrain the boy within reasonable bounds. there was the undertaker's just as it used to be, only less imposing in appearance than he remembered it. there was the workhouse, the dreary prison of his youthful days; there was the same lean porter standing at the gate. there was nearly everything as if he had left it but yesterday, and all his recent life had been a happy dream. they drove at once to the hotel where mr. brownlow joined them with monks, and there in the presence of the whole party, the wretched man made his full confession of guilt, and surrendered one half of the property--about three thousand pounds--to his half-brother, upon whom even as he spoke, he cast looks of hatred so violent that oliver trembled. from some details of his confession it was also discovered that rose maylie, who was only an adopted niece of mrs. maylie, had been the sister of oliver's mother, and was therefore the boy's aunt, the first blood relation, except monks, that he had ever possessed. "not aunt," cried oliver, throwing his arms about her neck, "i'll never call her _aunt_. sister, my own, dear sister, that something taught my heart to love so dearly from the first, rose! dear, darling rose!" and in rose's close embrace, the boy found compensation for all his past sadness. the only link to his old life which remained was soon broken. fagin had been captured too, sentenced to death, and was in prison awaiting the fulfilment of his doom. in his possession he had papers relating to oliver's parentage, and the boy went with mr. brownlow to the prison to try to recover them. with mr. brownlow, fagin was obstinately silent, but to oliver he whispered where they could be found, and then begged and prayed the boy to help him escape justice, and sent up cry after cry that rang in oliver's ears for months afterwards. but youth and sorrow are seldom companions for long, and our last glimpse of oliver is of a boy as thoroughly happy as one often is. he is now the adopted son of the good mr. brownlow. removing with him and mrs. bedwin to within a mile of the maylies' home, mr. brownlow gratified the only remaining wish of oliver's warm and earnest heart, and as the happy days go swiftly by, the past becomes the shadow of a dream. several times a year mr. grimwig visits in the neighbourhood, and it is a favourite joke for mr. brownlow to rally him on his old prophecy concerning oliver, and to remind him of the night on which they sat with the watch between them awaiting his return. but mr. grimwig contends that he was right in the main, and in proof thereof remarks that oliver _did not come back after all_,--which always calls forth a laugh on his side, and increases his good humour. tommy traddles [illustration: tommy traddles.] poor traddles! in a tight sky-blue suit that made his arms and legs like german sausages, or roly-poly puddings, and with his hair standing upright, giving him the expression of a fretful porcupine, he was the merriest and most miserable of all the boys at mr. creakle's school, called salem house. i never think of him without a strange disposition to laugh, and yet with tears in my eyes. he was always being caned--i think he was caned every day in the half-year i spent at salem house, except one holiday monday when he was only ruler'd on both hands--and was always going to write to his uncle about it, and never did. after laying his head on the desk for a little while, he would cheer up somehow, begin to laugh again, and draw skeletons all over his slate, before his eyes were dry. i used at first to wonder what comfort traddles found in drawing skeletons; and for some time looked upon him as a sort of a hermit, who reminded himself by those symbols of mortality that caning couldn't last for ever. but i believe he only did it because they were easy, and didn't want any features. he was very honourable, traddles was; and held it as a solemn duty in the boys to stand by one another. he suffered for this code of honour on several occasions. one evening we had a great spread up in our room after time for lights to be down, and we all got happily out of it but traddles. he was too unfortunate even to come through a supper like anybody else. he was taken ill in the night--quite prostrate he was--in consequence of crab; and after being drugged to an extent which demple (whose father was a doctor) said was enough to undermine a horse's constitution, received a caning and six chapters of greek testament for refusing to confess. at another time, when steerforth (who was the only parlour-boarder and the lion of the school) laughed in church, the beadle, who thought the offender was traddles, took _him_ out. i see him now, going away in custody, despised by the congregation. he never said who was the real offender, although he smarted for it next day, and was imprisoned so many hours that he came forth with a whole churchyardful of skeletons swarming all over his latin dictionary. but he had his reward. steerforth said there was nothing of the sneak in traddles, and we all felt that to be the highest praise. on still a third occasion during my half-year at salem house i have a vivid recollection of traddles in distress; that time for siding with the down-trodden under-teacher, mr. mell, in a heated discussion between that gentleman and steerforth. the discussion took place on a saturday which should have properly been a half-holiday, but as mr. creakle was indisposed, and the noise in the playground would have disturbed him; and the weather was not favourable for going out walking, we were ordered into school in the afternoon, and set some lighter tasks than usual; and mr. mell, a pale, delicately-built, little man, was detailed to keep us in order, which he tried in vain to accomplish. boys started in and out of their places, playing at puss-in-the-corner with other boys; there were laughing boys, singing boys, talking boys, dancing boys, howling boys; boys shuffled with their feet, boys whirled about him, grinning, making faces, mimicking him behind his back and before his eyes: mimicking his poverty, his boots, his coat, his mother, every thing belonging to him that they should have had consideration for. "silence!" cried mr. mell, suddenly rising up, and striking his desk with the book. "what does this mean! it's impossible to bear it. it's maddening. how can you do it to me, boys?" the boys all stopped, some suddenly surprised, some half afraid, and some sorry perhaps. steerforth alone remained in his lounging position, hands in his pockets, and looked at mr. mell with his mouth shut up as if he were whistling, when mr. mell looked at him. "silence, mr. steerforth!" said mr. mell. "silence yourself," said steerforth, turning red. "whom are you talking to?" "sit down!" said mr. mell. "sit down yourself!" said steerforth, "and mind your business." there was a titter and some applause; but mr. mell was so white, that silence immediately succeeded. "when you make use of your position of favouritism, here, sir," pursued mr. mell, with his lip trembling very much, "to insult a gentleman----" "a what?--where is he?" said steerforth. here somebody cried out, "shame, j. steerforth! too bad!" it was traddles; whom mr. mell instantly discomfited by bidding him to hold his tongue,---- "--to insult one who is not fortunate in life, sir, and who never gave you the least offence, and the many reasons for not insulting whom you are old enough and wise enough to understand," said mr. mell, with his lip trembling more and more, "you commit a mean and base action. you can sit down or stand up as you please, sir." "i tell you what, mr. mell," said steerforth, coming forward, "once for all. when you take the liberty of calling me mean or base, or anything of that sort, you are an impudent beggar. you are always a beggar, you know; but when you do that, you are an impudent beggar." had mr. creakle not entered the room at that moment, there is no knowing what might have happened, for the highest pitch of excitement had been reached by combatants and lookers-on. both steerforth and the under-teacher at once turned to mr. creakle, pouring out in his attentive ear the story of the burning wrong to which each had subjected the other, and the end of the whole affair was that mr. mell--having discovered that mr. creakle's veneration for money, and fear of offending his head-pupil, far outweighed any consideration for the teacher's feelings,--taking his flute and a few books from his desk, and leaving the key in it for his successor, went out of the school, with his property under his arm. mr. creakle then made a speech, in which he thanked steerforth for asserting (though perhaps too warmly) the independence and respectability of salem house; and which he wound up by shaking hands with steerforth; while we gave three cheers--i did not quite know what for, but i supposed for steerforth, and joined in them, though i felt miserable. mr. creakle then caned tommy traddles for being discovered in tears, instead of cheers, and went away leaving us to ourselves. steerforth was very angry with traddles, and said he was glad he had caught it. poor traddles, who had passed the stage of lying with his head upon the desk, and was relieving himself as usual with a burst of skeletons, said he didn't care. mr. mell was ill-used. "who has ill-used him, you girl?" said steerforth. "why, you have," returned traddles. "what have i done?" said steerforth. "what have you done?" retorted traddles. "hurt his feelings and lost him his situation." "his feelings!" repeated steerforth, disdainfully. "his feelings will soon get the better of it, i'll be bound. his feelings are not like yours, miss traddles! as to his situation--which was a precious one, wasn't it?--do you suppose i am not going to write home and take care that he gets some money?" we all thought this intention very noble in steerforth, whose mother was a rich widow, and, it was said, would do anything he asked her. we were all very glad to see traddles so put down, and exalted steerforth to the skies, and none of us appreciated at that time that our hero, j. steerforth was very, very small indeed, as to character, in comparison to funny, unfortunate tommy traddles. years later, when salem house was only a memory, and we were both men, traddles and i met again. he had the same simple character and good temper as of old, and had, too, some of his old unlucky fortune, which clung to him always; yet notwithstanding that--as all of his trouble came from good-natured meddling with other people's affairs, for their benefit, i am not at all certain that i would not risk my chance of success--in the broadest meaning of that word--in the next world surely, if not in this, against all the steerforths living, if i were tommy traddles. poor traddles?--no, happy traddles! "deputy" [illustration: "deputy".] they were certainly the very oddest pair that ever the moon shone on,--stony durdles and the boy "deputy." durdles was a stone-mason, from which occupation, undoubtedly, came his nickname "stony," and deputy was a hideous small boy hired by durdles to pelt him home if he found him out too late at night, which duty the boy faithfully performed. in all the length and breadth of cloisterham there was no more noted man than the stone-mason, durdles, not, i regret to say, on account of his virtues, but rather because of his talent for remaining out late at night, and not being able to guide his steps homeward. there is a coarser term which might have been applied to this talent of durdles, but we have nothing to do with that, here and now; what we desire is an introduction to the small boy who is durdles's shadow. one night, john jasper, choir-master in cloisterham cathedral, on his way home through the close, is brought to a standstill by the spectacle of stony durdles, dinner-bundle and all, leaning against the iron railing of the burial-ground, while a hideous small boy in rags flings stones at him, in the moonlight. sometimes the stones hit him, and sometimes they miss him, but durdles seems indifferent to either fortune. the hideous small boy, on the contrary, whenever he hits durdles, blows a whistle of triumph through a jagged gap in the front of his mouth, where half his teeth are wanting; and whenever he misses him, yelps out, "mulled agin!" and tries to atone for the failure by taking a more correct and vicious aim. "what are you doing to the man?" demands jasper. "makin' a cock-shy of him," replies the hideous small boy. "give me those stones in your hand." "yes, i'll give 'em you down your throat, if you come a ketchin' hold of me," says the small boy, shaking himself loose from jasper's touch, and backing. "i'll smash your eye if you don't look out!" "what has the man done to you?" "he won't go home." "what is that to you?" "he gives me a 'apenny to pelt him home if i ketches him out too late," says the boy. and then chants, like a little savage, half stumbling, and half dancing, among the rags and laces of his dilapidated boots,---- _widdy widdy wen! i--ke--ches--'im out--ar--ter ten, widdy widdy wy! then--'e--don't--go--then--i shy, widdy widdy wakecock warning!_ --with a sweeping emphasis on the last word, and one more shot at durdles. the bit of doggerel is evidently a sign which durdles understands to mean either that he must prove himself able to stand clear of the shots, or betake himself immediately homeward, but he does not stir. john jasper crosses over to the railing where the stony one is still profoundly meditating. "do you know this thing, this child?" he asks. "deputy," says durdles, with a nod. "is that its--his--name?" "deputy," assents durdles, whereupon the small boy feels called upon to speak for himself. "i'm man-servant up at the travellers twopenny in gas works garding," he explains. "all us man-servants at travellers lodgings is named deputy, but i never pleads to no name, mind yer. when they says to me in the lockup, 'what's your name?' i says to 'em 'find out.' likewise when they says, 'what's your religion?' i says, 'find out'!" after delivering himself of this speech, he withdraws into the road and taking aim, he resumes:---- _widdy widdy wen! i--ket--ches--'im--out--ar--ter--_ "hold your hand!" cries jasper, "and don't throw while i stand so near him, or i'll kill you! come durdles, let me walk home with you to-night. shall i carry your bundle?" "not on any account," replies durdles, adjusting it, and continuing to talk in a rambling way, as he and jasper walk on together. "this creature, deputy, is behind us," says jasper, looking back. "is he to follow us?" the relations between durdles and deputy seem to be of a capricious kind, for on durdles turning to look at the boy, deputy makes a wide circuit into the road and stands on the defensive. "you never cried widdy warning before you begun tonight," cries durdles, unexpectedly reminded of, or imagining an injury. "yer lie; i did," says deputy, in his only polite form of contradiction, whereupon durdles turns back again and forgets the offence as unexpectedly as he had recalled it, and says to jasper, in reference to deputy. "own brother, sir, to peter, the wild boy! but i gave him an object in life." "at which he takes aim?" mr. jasper suggests. "that is it, sir," returns durdles; "at which he takes aim. i took him in hand and gave him an object. what was he before? a destroyer. what work did he do? nothing but destruction. what did he earn by it? short terms in cloisterham jail. not a person, not a piece of property, not a winder, not a horse, nor a dog, nor a cat, nor a bird, nor a fowl, nor a pig, but that he stoned for want of an enlightened object. i put that enlightened object before him, and now he can turn his honest halfpenny by the three pennorth a week." "i wonder he has no competitors." "he has plenty, mr. jasper, but he stones 'em all away." "he still keeps behind us," repeats jasper, looking back, "is he to follow us?" "we can't help going round by the travellers twopenny, if we go the short way, which is the back way," durdles answers, "and we'll drop him there." so they go on; deputy attentive to every movement of the stony one, until at length nearly at their destination durdles whistles, and calls--"holloa, you deputy!" "widdy!" is deputy's shrill response, standing off again. "catch that ha'penny. and don't let me see any more of you to-night, after we come to the travellers twopenny." "warning!" returns deputy, having caught the halfpenny, and appearing by this mystic word to express his assent to the arrangement, then off he darts. such was the occupation of the small boy, deputy, night after night, week after week, month after month, during the year when we catch a glimpse of him, and it is reasonable to suppose that the remainder of his life, after we lose sight of him was spent, in making a cock-shy of everything that came in his way, whether durdles or inanimate objects. when he had nothing living to stone, i believe that he used to stone the dead, through the railing of the churchyard. he found this a relishing and piquing pursuit; firstly, because their resting place is supposed to be sacred, and, secondly, because the tall headstones are sufficiently like themselves to justify the delicious fancy that they are hurt when hit. we have nothing told us to support the theory that deputy's life ever changed in its routine of work, and i am sure you agree with me that there were never an odder pair than the two: durdles, the stone-mason, and deputy, his servant. perhaps you will be in cloisterham at some not far distant time; if so, wander out at night in the old graveyard, when the moon is up, and in among the cathedral crypts, if you can gain access to them; and see if from some shadowy corner of lane or building does not start out before you the wraith of the hideous small boy, deputy, eluding your touch, and chanting as he dances in front of you the old song which was the badge of his office as the keeper of durdles,---- _widdy widdy wen! i--ket--ches--'im--out--ar--ter--ten, widdy widdy wy! then--'e--don't--go--then--i--shy, widdy widdy wakecock warning!_ dotheboys hall [illustration: dotheboys hall.] "education.--at mr. wackford squeers's academy, dotheboys hall, at the delightful village of dotheboys, near greta bridge in yorkshire, youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, single stick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. terms, twenty guineas per annum. no extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. mr. squeers is in town, and attends daily from one till four, at the saracen's head, snow hill. n.b. an able assistant wanted. annual salary £ . a master of arts would be preferred." when this advertisement in the "london herald" came to the notice of mr. nicholas nickleby, then in search of a position as teacher, it seemed to be the opening for which he was looking, and the next day he hastened to the saracen's head, snow hill, to have an interview with mr. wackford squeers. mr. squeers's appearance was not prepossessing. he had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favour of two. the blank side of his face was much wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a very sinister appearance, especially when he smiled. his hair was very flat and shiny, save at the ends, where it was brushed stiffly up from a low protruding forehead, which assorted well with his harsh voice and coarse manner. he was about two or three and fifty, and a trifle below the middle size; he wore a white neckerchief and a suit of scholastic black; but his coat sleeves being a great deal too long, and his trousers a great deal too short, he appeared ill at ease in his clothes. in the corner of the room with mr. squeers was a very small deal trunk, tied round with a scanty piece of cord, and on the trunk was perched--his lace-up half-boots and corduroy trousers dangling in the air--a diminutive boy, with his shoulders drawn up to his ears, and his hands planted on his knees, who glanced timidly at the schoolmaster from time to time, with evident dread and apprehension, and at last gave a violent sneeze. "halloa, sir!" growled the schoolmaster, turning round. "what's that, sir?" "nothing, please sir," said the little boy. "nothing, sir!" exclaimed mr. squeers. "please, sir, i sneezed," rejoined the boy, trembling till the little trunk shook under him. "oh! sneezed, did you?" retorted mr. squeers. "then what did you say 'nothing' for, sir?" in default of a better answer to this question, the little boy screwed a couple of knuckles into each of his eyes and began to cry; wherefore mr. squeers knocked him off the trunk with a blow on one side of his face, and knocked him on again with a blow on the other. "wait till i get you down into yorkshire, my young gentleman," said mr. squeers, "and then i'll give you the rest. will you hold that noise, sir?" "ye-ye-yes," sobbed the little boy, rubbing his face very hard. "then do so at once, sir," said squeers. "do you hear?" as this admonition was accompanied with a threatening gesture, and uttered with a savage aspect, the little boy rubbed his face harder, and between alternately sniffing and choking, gave no further vent to his emotions. "mr. squeers," said the waiter, at this juncture; "here's a gentleman asking for you." "show the gentleman in, richard," replied mr. squeers, in a soft voice. "put your handkerchief in your pocket, you little scoundrel, or i'll murder you when the gentleman goes." the schoolmaster had scarcely uttered these words in a fierce whisper, when the stranger entered. affecting not to see him, mr. squeers feigned to be intent upon mending a pen, and offering benevolent advice to his youthful pupil. "my dear child," said mr. squeers, "all people have their trials. this early trial of yours that is fit to make your little heart burst, and your very eyes come out of your head with crying, what is it? less than nothing. you are leaving your friends, but you will have a father in me, my dear, and a mother in mrs. squeers. at the delightful village of dotheboys, near greta bridge in yorkshire, where youth are boarded, clothed, booked, washed, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries----" here the waiting stranger interrupted with inquiries about sending his boys to mr. squeers, and before he and mr. squeers had finished their talk, nicholas nickleby entered. he briefly stated his desire for a position, his having seen mr. squeers's "herald" advertisement, and, after more or less questioning and examination from the schoolmaster, nicholas was engaged as assistant master for dotheboys hall, and it was settled that he was to go by coach with mr. squeers at eight o'clock the next morning. when he arrived, punctually at the appointed hour, he found that learned gentleman sitting at breakfast, with five little boys, whom he was to take down with him, ranged in a row on the opposite seat. mr. squeers had before him a small measure of coffee, a plate of hot toast, and a cold round of beef, but he was at that moment intent on preparing breakfast for the little boys. "this is twopenn'orth of milk, is it waiter?" said mr. squeers. "that's twopenn'orth, sir," replied the waiter. "what a rare article milk is, to be sure, in london!" said mr. squeers, with a sigh. "just fill that mug up with lukewarm water, william, will you?" "to the wery top, sir?" inquired the waiter. "why, the milk will be drownded." "never you mind that," replied mr. squeers. "serve it right for being so dear. you ordered that thick bread and butter for three, did you?" "coming directly, sir." "you needn't hurry yourself," said squeers, "there's plenty of time. conquer your passions, boys, and don't be eager after vittles." as he uttered this moral precept, mr. squeers took a large bite out of the cold beef, and recognised nicholas. "sit down, mr. nickleby," said squeers. "here we are, a breakfasting, you see." nicholas did _not_ see that anybody was breakfasting, except mr. squeers; but he bowed with all becoming reverence, and looked as cheerful as he could. "oh, that's the milk and water, is it, william?" said mr. squeers. "very good; don't forget the bread and butter presently." at this fresh mention of the bread and butter, the five little boys looked very eager, and followed the waiter out, with their eyes; meanwhile mr. squeers tasted the milk and water. "ah," said that gentleman, smacking his lips, "here's richness! think of the many beggars and orphans in the streets that would be glad of this, little boys. a shocking thing hunger is, isn't it, mr. nickleby?" "very shocking, sir," said nicholas. "when i say number one," pursued mr. squeers, putting the mug before the children, "the boy on the left hand nearest the window may take a drink; and when i say number two, the boy next him will go in, and so till we come to number five, which is the last boy. are you ready?" "yes, sir," cried all the little boys with great eagerness. "that's right," said squeers, calmly getting on with his breakfast; "keep ready till i tell you to begin. subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human natur. this is the way we inculcate strength of mind, mr. nickleby," said the schoolmaster, turning to nicholas. nicholas murmured something--he knew not what--in reply; and the little boys, dividing their gaze between the mug, the bread and butter (which by this time had arrived) and every morsel which mr. squeers took into his mouth, remained with strained eyes in torments of expectation. "thank god for a good breakfast," said squeers when he had finished. "number one may take a drink." number one seized the mug ravenously, and had just drunk enough to make him wish for more, when mr. squeers gave the signal for number two, who gave up at the same interesting moment to number three; and the process was repeated until the milk and water terminated with number five. "and now," said the schoolmaster, dividing the bread and butter for three into as many portions as there were children, "you had better look sharp with your breakfast, for the horn will blow in a minute or two, and then every boy leaves off." permission being thus given to fall to, the boys began to eat voraciously, and in desperate haste; while the schoolmaster (who was in high good humour after his meal) looked smilingly on. in a very short time the horn was heard. "i thought it wouldn't be long," said squeers, jumping up and producing a little basket from under the seat; "put what you haven't had time to eat, in here, boys. you'll want it on the road!" nicholas was considerably startled by these very economical arrangements; but he had no time to reflect upon them, for the little boys had to be got up to the top of the coach, and their boxes had to be brought out and put in, and mr. squeers's luggage was to be seen carefully deposited in the boot, and all these offices were in his department. presently, however, the coach was off, and they had started on their long trip, made doubly long by the severity of the weather, which caused them to be detained several times; so it was not until six o'clock the following night, that he and mr. squeers, and the little boys, were all put down together at the george and new inn, greta bridge. "is it much farther to dotheboys hall, sir?" asked nicholas, when they had started off, the little boys in one vehicle, he and mr. squeers in another. "about three mile from here," replied squeers. "but you needn't call it a hall down here. the fact is, it ain't a hall," observed squeers, drily. "oh, indeed!" said nicholas, whom this piece of intelligence much astonished. "no," replied squeers. "we call it a hall up in london, because it sounds better, but they don't know it by that name in these parts. a man may call his house an island if he likes; there's no act of parliament against that, i believe?" "i believe not, sir," rejoined nicholas. squeers eyed his companion slily at the conclusion of this little dialogue, and finding that he had grown thoughtful and appeared in nowise disposed to volunteer any observations, contented himself with lashing the pony until they reached their journey's end. "jump out," said squeers. "hallo there! come and put this horse up. be quick, will you!" while the schoolmaster was uttering these and other impatient cries, nicholas had time to observe that the school was a long, cold-looking house, one story high, with a few straggling outbuildings behind, and a barn and stable adjoining. mr. squeers had dismounted, and after ordering the boy, whom he called smike, to see to the pony, and to take care that he hadn't any more corn that night, he told nicholas to wait at the front door a minute, while he went round and let him in. a host of unpleasant misgivings, which had been crowding upon nicholas during the whole journey, thronged into his mind. his great distance from home, and the impossibility of reaching it, except on foot, should he feel ever so anxious, presented itself to him in most alarming colours; and as he looked up at the dreary house and dark windows, and upon the wild country round, covered with snow, he felt a depression of heart and spirit which he never had experienced before. "now, then!" cried squeers, poking his head out at the front door, "where are you, nickleby?" "here, sir," replied nicholas. "come in, then," said squeers, "the wind blows in, at this door, fit to knock a man off his legs." nicholas sighed, and hurried in. mr. squeers ushered him into a small parlour scantily furnished with a few chairs, a yellow map hung against the wall, and a couple of tables; one of which bore some preparations for supper. mrs. squeers then came in, and was duly made acquainted with nicholas, and after some conversation between mr. and mrs. squeers, a young servant girl brought in a yorkshire pie, which being set upon the table, the boy smike appeared with a jug of ale. mr. squeers meanwhile was emptying his great-coat pockets of letters to different boys, which he had brought down. smike glanced, with an anxious and timid expression, at the papers, as if with a sickly hope that one among them might relate to him. the look was a very painful one, and went to nicholas's heart at once; for it told a sad history. he considered the boy more attentively, and was surprised to observe the extraordinary mixture of garments which formed his dress. although he could not have been less than eighteen or nineteen years old, and was tall for that age, he wore a skeleton suit, which, though most absurdly short in the arms and legs, was quite wide enough for his attenuated frame. in order that the lower part of his legs might be in keeping with this singular dress, he had a very large pair of boots, originally made for tops, but now too patched and tattered for a beggar. he was lame, and as he feigned to be busy arranging the table, glanced at the letters with a look so keen, and yet so dispirited and hopeless that nicholas could hardly bear to watch him. "what are you bothering about there, smike?" cried mrs. squeers; "let the things alone, can't you?" "eh," said squeers, looking up. "oh, it's you, is it?" "yes, sir," replied the youth, pressing his hands together, as though to control, by force, the nervous wandering of his fingers. "is there----" "well!" said squeers. "have you--did anybody--has nothing been heard--about me?" "not a word," resumed squeers, "and never will be. now, this is a pretty sort of thing, isn't it, that you should have been left here, all these years, and no money paid after the first six--nor no notice taken, nor no clue to be got who you belong to? it's a pretty sort of thing that i should have to feed a great fellow like you, and never hope to get one penny for it, isn't it?" the boy put his hand to his head as if he were making an effort to recollect something, and then, looking vacantly at his questioner, gradually broke into a smile, and limped away. the following morning, when nicholas appeared downstairs, mrs. squeers was in a state of great excitement. "i can't find the school spoon anywhere," she said anxiously. "never mind it, my dear," observed squeers in a soothing manner; "it's of no consequence." "no consequence? why, how you talk!" retorted mrs. squeers sharply, "isn't it brimstone morning?" "i forgot, my dear," rejoined squeers; "yes, it certainly is. we purify the boys' bloods now and then, nickleby." "oh! nonsense," rejoined mrs. squeers. "if the young man comes to be a teacher here, let him understand, at once, that we don't want any foolery about the boys. they have the brimstone and treacle, partly because if they hadn't something or other in the way of medicine they 'd be always ailing and giving a world of trouble, and partly because it spoils their appetites and comes cheaper than breakfast and dinner. so, it does them good and us good at the same time, and that's fair enough, i'm sure!" "but come," said squeers, "let's go to the schoolroom; and lend me a hand with my school-coat, will you?" nicholas assisted his master to put on an old fustian shooting jacket, and squeers, arming himself with his cane, led the way across a yard, to a door in the rear of the house. "there," said the schoolmaster, as they stepped in together; "this is our shop, nickleby!" the "shop" was a bare and dirty room, with a couple of windows, whereof a tenth part might be of glass, the remainder being stopped up with old copybooks and paper. there were a couple of long, old rickety desks, cut and notched, and inked, and damaged, in every possible way; two or three forms; a detached desk for squeers; and another for his assistant. the ceiling was supported, like that of a barn, by cross beams and rafters; and the walls were so stained and discoloured, that it was impossible to tell whether they had ever been touched with paint or whitewash. but the pupils! how the last faint traces of hope faded from the mind of nicholas as he looked in dismay around! there were pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, boys of stunted growth; little faces which should have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged suffering; vicious-faced boys, brooding with leaden eyes, with every kindly sympathy and affection blasted in its birth, with every young and healthy feeling flogged and starved down. and yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features. mrs. squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious compound she administered a large instalment to each boy in succession: using for the purpose a common wooden spoon, which widened every young gentleman's mouth considerably: they being all obliged, under heavy corporal penalties, to take in the whole of the bowl at a gasp. in another corner, huddled together for companionship, were the little boys who had arrived on the preceding night: at no great distance from these was seated the juvenile son and heir of mr. squeers, wackford by name--a striking likeness of his father--kicking, with great vigour, under the hands of smike, who was fitting upon him a pair of new boots that bore a most suspicious resemblance to those which the least of the little boys had worn on the journey down--as the little boy himself seemed to think, for he was regarding the appropriation with a look of rueful amazement. "now," said squeers, giving the desk a great rap with his cane, which made half the little boys nearly jump out of their boots, "is that physicking over?" "just over," said mrs. squeers, choking the last boy in her hurry, and tapping the crown of his head with the spoon to restore him. "here, you smike; take away now. look sharp!" smike shuffled out with the basin, and mrs. squeers, hurried out after him into a wash-house where there were a number of little wooden bowls which were arranged upon a board. into these bowls, mrs. squeers poured a brown composition, which was called porridge. a minute wedge of brown bread was inserted in each bowl, and when they had eaten their porridge by means of it, the boys ate the bread itself, and had finished their breakfast; whereupon mr. squeers said in a solemn voice, "for what we have received, may the lord make us truly thankful!"--and went away to his own. after eating his share of porridge, and having further disposed of a slice of bread and butter, allotted to him in virtue of his office, nicholas sat himself down, to wait for school-time. he could not but observe how silent and sad the boys seemed to be. there was none of the noise and clamour of a school-room; none of its boisterous play, or hearty mirth. the only pupil who evinced the slightest tendency towards locomotion or playfulness was master squeers, and as his chief amusement was to tread upon the other boys' toes in his new boots, his flow of spirits was rather disagreeable than otherwise. after some half-hour's delay, mr. squeers reappeared, and the boys took their places and their books, and ranged themselves in front of the schoolmaster's desk. "this is the class in english spelling, and philosophy, nickleby," said squeers, beckoning nicholas to stand beside him. "we'll get up a latin one, and hand that over to you. now, then, where's the first boy?" "please, sir, he's cleaning the back parlour window," answered one of the class. "so he is, to be sure," rejoined squeers. "we go upon the practical mode of teaching, nickleby; the regular education system. c-l-e-a-n, clean, verb active, to make bright, to scour. when the boy knows this out of book, he goes and does it. where's the second boy?" "please, sir, he's weeding the garden," replied a small voice. "to be sure," said squeers. "so he is. b-o-t, bot, t-i-n, tin, n-e-y, ney, bottinney, noun substantive, a knowledge of plants. third boy, what's a horse?" "a beast, sir," replied the boy. "so it is," said squeers. "ain't it, nickleby?" "i believe there is no doubt of that, sir," answered nicholas. "of course there isn't," said squeers. "a horse is a quadruped, and quadruped's latin for beast, as every body that's gone through the grammar knows. as you're perfect in that," resumed squeers, turning to the boy, "go and look after _my_ horse, and rub him down well, or i'll rub you down. the rest of the class go and draw water up till somebody tells you to leave off, for it's washing day to-morrow." so saying, he dismissed the class, and eyed nicholas with a look, half cunning and half doubtful, as if he were not altogether certain what he might think of him by this time. "that's the way we do it, nickleby," he said, after a pause. nicholas shrugged his shoulders, and said he saw it was. "and a very good way it is, too," said squeers. "now just take them fourteen little boys and hear them some reading, because, you know, you must begin to be useful." mr. squeers said this as if it had suddenly occurred to him, either that he must not say too much to his assistant, or that his assistant did not say enough to him in praise of the establishment. the children were arranged in a semi-circle round the new master, and he was soon listening to their dull, drawling, hesitating recital of stories to be found in the old spelling books. in this exciting occupation the morning lagged heavily on. at one o'clock, the boys sat down in the kitchen to some hard salt beef. after this, there was another hour of crouching in the schoolroom and shivering with cold, and then school began again. it was mr. squeers's custom to call the boys together, and make a sort of report, after every half-yearly visit to the metropolis, regarding the relations and friends he had seen, the news he had heard, the letters he had brought down, and so forth. this solemn proceeding took place on the afternoon of the day succeeding his return. the boys were recalled from house-window, garden and stable, and cow-yard, when mr. squeers with a small bundle of papers in his hand, and mrs. squeers following with a pair of canes, entered the room, and proclaimed silence. "let any boy speak without leave," said mr. squeers mildly, "and i'll take the skin off his back." this special proclamation had the desired effect, and a death-like silence immediately prevailed, in the midst of which mr. squeers went on to say: "boys, i've been to london, and have returned as strong and well as ever." according to half-yearly custom, the boys gave three feeble cheers at this refreshing intelligence. such cheers! sighs of extra strength with the chill on. squeers then proceeded to give several messages of various degrees of unpleasantness to sundry of the boys, followed up by vigorous canings where he had any grudge to pay off. one by one the boys answered to their names. "now let us see," said squeers. "a letter for cobbey. stand up, cobbey." another boy stood up and eyed the letter very hard, while squeers made a mental abstract of the same. "oh," said squeers; "cobbey's grandmother is dead, which is all the news his sister sends, except eighteenpence, which will just pay for that broken square of glass. mrs. squeers, my dear, will you take the money?" the worthy lady pocketed the eighteenpence with a most business-like air, and squeers passed on to the next boy, as coolly as possible. "mobbs's step-mother," said squeers, "took to her bed on hearing that he wouldn't eat fat, and has been very ill ever since. she wishes to know, by an early post, where he expects to go to if he quarrels with his vittles; and with what feelings he could turn up his nose at the cow's liver broth, after his good master had asked a blessing on it. this was told her in the london newspapers--not by mr. squeers, for he is too kind and good to set anybody against anybody--and it has vexed her so much, mobbs can't think. she is sorry to find he is discontented, which is sinful and horrid, and hopes mr. squeers will flog him into a happier state of mind; and with this view, she has also stopped his halfpenny a week pocket-money, and given a double-bladed knife with a corkscrew in it to the missionaries, which she had bought on purpose for him." [illustration: bolder, cobbey, graymarsh, mobb's.] "a sulky state of feeling," said squeers, after a terrible pause. "cheerfulness and contentment must be kept up. mobbs, come to me." mobbs moved slowly towards the desk, rubbing his eyes in anticipation of good cause for doing so; and he soon afterwards retired by the side door, with as good a cause as a boy need have. mr. squeers then proceeded to open a miscellaneous collection of letters; some enclosing money, which mrs. squeers "took care of;" and others referring to small articles of apparel, all of which the same lady stated to be too large, or too small, and calculated for nobody but young squeers, who would appear indeed to have had most accommodating limbs, since everything that came into the school fitted him to a nicety. his head, in particular, must have been singularly elastic, for hats and caps of all dimensions were alike to him. this business despatched, a few slovenly lessons were performed, and squeers retired to his fireside, leaving nicholas to take care of the boys in the schoolroom. there was a small stove at that corner of the room which was nearest to the master's desk, and by it nicholas sat down, depressed and degraded by the consciousness of his position. but for the present his resolve was taken. he had written to his mother and sister, announcing the safe conclusion of his journey, and saying as little about dotheboys hall, and saying that little as cheerfully, as he could. he hoped that by remaining where he was, he might do some good, even there; at all events, others depended too much on him to admit of his complaining just then. from the moment of making that resolve, nicholas got on in his place as well as he could, doing his best to improve matters. he arranged a few regular lessons for the boys, and saw that they were well attended; but his heart sank more and more, for besides the dull, unvarying round of misery there was another system of annoyance which nearly drove him wild by its injustice and cruelty. upon the wretched creature smike, all the spleen and ill-humour that could not be vented on nicholas, were unceasingly bestowed. drudgery would have been nothing--smike was well used to that. buffetings inflicted without cause would have been equally a matter of course, for to them also he had served a long and weary apprenticeship; but it was no sooner observed that he had become attached to nicholas, than stripes and blows, morning, noon, and night, were his only portion. squeers was jealous of the influence which his new teacher had so soon acquired; and his family hated him, and smike paid for both. nicholas saw this, and ground his teeth at every repetition of the savage and cowardly attack. not many weeks later, on a cold january morning, when nicholas awoke he found the entire school agog with quivering excitement. smike had run away, and squeers's anger was at white heat against him and every one else. "he is off," said mrs. squeers, angrily. "the cowhouse and stable are locked up, so he can't be there; and he's not down stairs anywhere. he must have gone york way, and by a public road too. then of course," continued mrs. squeers, "as he had no money he must beg his way, and he could do that nowhere, but on the public road." "that's true," exclaimed squeers, clapping his hands. "true! yes; but you would never have thought of it, if i hadn't said so," replied his wife. "now, if you take the chaise and go one road, and i borrow swallow's chaise and go the other, one or other of us is pretty certain to lay hold of him!" this plan was adopted and put in execution without a moment's delay. after a very hasty breakfast, squeers started forth in the pony-chaise, intent upon discovery and vengeance. shortly afterwards, mrs. squeers issued forth in another chaise and another direction, taking with her a good-sized bludgeon, several odd pieces of strong cord, and a stout labouring man. nicholas remained behind, in a tumult of feeling, sensible that whatever might be the upshot of the boy's flight, nothing but painful and deplorable consequences were likely to ensue from it. the unhappy being had established a hold upon his sympathy and compassion, which made his heart ache at the prospect of the suffering he was destined to undergo. the next evening squeers returned alone and unsuccessful. another day came, and nicholas was scarcely awake when he heard the wheels of a chaise approaching the house. it stopped. the voice of mrs. squeers was heard in exultation. nicholas hardly dared to look out of the window; but he did so, and the very first object that met his eyes was the wretched smike: so bedabbled with mud and rain, so haggard, and worn, and wild, that, but for his garments being such as no scarecrow was ever seen to wear, he might have been doubtful, even then, of his identity. "lift him out," said squeers, after he had literally feasted his eyes upon the culprit. "bring him in; bring him in!" "take care!" cried mrs. squeers. "we tied his legs under the apron and made 'em fast to the chaise, to prevent his giving us the slip again." with hands trembling with delight, squeers unloosened the cord; and smike, more dead than alive, was brought into the house and securely locked up in a cellar. it may be a matter of surprise to some persons that mr. and mrs. squeers should have taken so much trouble to repossess themselves of an incumbrance of which it was their wont to complain so loudly; but the services of the drudge, if performed by any one else, would have cost some ten or twelve shillings per week in the shape of wages; and furthermore, all runaways were, as a matter of policy, made severe examples of, at dotheboys hall, as in consequence of the limited extent of its attractions, there was but little inducement, beyond the powerful impulse of fear, for any pupil, provided with the usual number of legs and the power of using them, to remain. the news that smike had been caught and brought back in triumph, ran like wild-fire through the hungry community, and expectation was on tiptoe all the morning. on tiptoe it was destined to remain, however, until afternoon; when squeers called the school together, and dragged smike by the collar to the front of the room before them all. "have you anything to say?" demanded squeers, giving his right arm two or three flourishes to try its power and suppleness. "stand a little out of the way, mrs. squeers, my dear; i've hardly got room enough." "spare me, sir!" cried smike. "oh! that's all, is it?" said squeers. "yes, i'll flog you within an inch of your life, and spare you that." "i was driven to do it," said smike faintly; and casting an imploring look about him. "driven to do it, were you?" said squeers. "oh! it wasn't your fault; it was mine, i suppose--eh?" squeers caught the boy firmly in his grip; one desperate cut had fallen on his body--he was wincing from the lash and uttering a scream of pain--it was raised again, and again about to fall--when nicholas nickleby, suddenly starting up, cried "stop!" in a voice that made the rafters ring. "who cried stop?" said squeers, turning savagely round. "i," said nicholas, stepping forward. "this must not go on!" "must not go on!" cried squeers, almost in a shriek. "no!" thundered nicholas. aghast and stupified by the boldness of the interference, squeers released his hold of smike, and, falling back a pace or two, gazed upon nicholas with looks that were positively frightful. "i say must not," repeated nicholas, nothing daunted; "shall not. i will prevent it." squeers continued to gaze upon him, with his eyes starting out of his head; but astonishment had actually, for the moment, bereft him of speech. "you have disregarded all my quiet interference in the miserable lad's behalf," said nicholas; "you have returned no answer to the letter in which i begged forgiveness for him, and offered to be responsible that he would remain quietly here. don't blame me for this public interference. you have brought it upon yourself; not i." "sit down, beggar!" screamed squeers, almost beside himself with rage, and seizing smike as he spoke. "wretch," rejoined nicholas, fiercely, "touch him at your peril! i will not stand by and see it done. my blood is up, and i have the strength of ten such men as you. look to yourself, for by heaven i will not spare you, if you drive me on!" "stand back," cried squeers, brandishing his weapon. "i have a long series of insults to avenge," said nicholas, flushed with passion; "and my indignation is aggravated by the dastardly cruelties practised on helpless infancy in this foul den. have a care; for if you do rouse the devil within me, the consequences shall fall heavily upon your own head!" he had scarcely spoken, when squeers, in a violent outbreak of wrath, and with a cry like the howl of a wild beast, struck him a blow across the face with his instrument of torture, which raised up a bar of livid flesh as it was inflicted. smarting with the agony of the blow, and concentrating into that one moment all his feelings of rage, scorn, and indignation, nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian till he roared for mercy. then he hastily retired from the fray, leaving squeers's family to restore him as best they might. seeking his room with all possible haste, nicholas considered seriously what course of action was best for him to adopt. after a brief consideration, he packed up a few clothes in a small leathern valise, and, finding that nobody offered to oppose his progress, marched boldly out by the front door, and struck into the road which led to greta bridge. when he had cooled, sufficiently to be enabled to give his present circumstances some little reflection, they did not appear in a very encouraging light; he had only four shillings and a few pence in his pocket, and was something more than two hundred and fifty miles from london, whither he resolved to direct his steps. he lay, that night, at a cottage where beds were let at a cheap rate to the more humble class of travellers; and, rising betimes next morning, made his way before night to boroughbridge. passing through that town in search of some cheap resting-place, he stumbled upon an empty barn within a couple of hundred yards of the road side; in a warm corner of which he stretched his weary limbs, and soon fell asleep. when he awoke next morning, and tried to recollect his dreams, which had been all connected with his recent sojourn at dotheboys hall, he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and stared--not with the most composed countenance possible--at some motionless object which seemed to be stationed within a few yards in front of him. "strange!" cried nicholas, "can this be some lingering creation of the visions that have scarcely left me? it cannot be real--and yet i--i am awake! smike!" the form moved, rose, advanced, and dropped upon its knees at his feet. it was smike indeed. "why do you kneel to me?" said nicholas, hastily raising him. "to go with you--anywhere--everywhere--to the world's end--to the churchyard grave," replied smike, clinging to his hand. "let me, oh, do let me. you are my home--my kind friend--take me with you, pray." i am a friend who can do "little for you," said nicholas, kindly. "how came you here?" he had followed him, it seemed; had never lost sight of him all the way; had watched while he slept, and when he halted for refreshment; and had feared to appear before, lest he should be sent back. he had not intended to appear now, but nicholas had awakened more suddenly than he looked for, and he had had no time to conceal himself. "poor fellow!" said nicholas, "your hard fate denies you any friend but one, and he is nearly as poor and helpless as yourself." "may i--may i go with you?" asked smike timidly. "i will be your faithful hard-working servant, i will, indeed. i want no clothes," added the poor creature, drawing his rags together; "these will do very well. i only want to be near you." "and you shall!" cried nicholas. "the world shall deal by you as it does by me, till one or both of us shall quit it for a better. come!" with these words, he strapped his burden on his shoulders, and, taking his stick in one hand, extended the other to his delighted charge; and so they passed out of the old barn together, out from the nightmare of life at dotheboys hall, into the busy world outside. * * * * * some years later, when mr. squeers was making one of his customary semi-annual visits to london, he was arrested and sent to jail by persons who had discovered his system of fraud and cruelty, as well as the fact that he had in his possession a stolen will. upon john browdie, a burly scotchman, devolved the duty of carrying the painful news to mrs. squeers, and of dismissing the school. so, arriving at dotheboys hall, he tied his horse to a gate, and made his way to the schoolroom door, which he found locked on the inside. a tremendous noise and riot arose from within, and, applying his eye to a convenient crevice in the wall, he did not remain long in ignorance of its meaning. the news of mr. squeers's downfall had reached dotheboys; that was quite clear. to all appearance, it had very recently become known to the young gentlemen; for rebellion had just broken out. it was one of the brimstone-and-treacle mornings, and mrs. squeers had entered school according to custom with the large bowl and spoon, followed by miss squeers and the amiable wackford: who, during his father's absence, had taken upon himself such minor branches of the executive as kicking the pupils with his nailed boots, pulling the hair of some of the smaller boys, pinching the others in aggravating places, and rendering himself in various similar ways a great comfort and happiness to his mother. their entrance, whether by premeditation or a simultaneous impulse, was the signal of revolt for the boys. while one detachment rushed to the door and locked it, and another mounted the desks and forms, the stoutest (and consequently the newest) boy seized the cane, and, confronting mrs. squeers with a stern countenance, snatched off her cap and beaver bonnet, put it on his own head, armed himself with the wooden spoon, and bade her, on pain of death, go down upon her knees and take a dose directly. before that estimable lady could recover herself, or offer the slightest retaliation, she was forced into a kneeling posture by a crowd of shouting tormentors, and compelled to swallow a spoonful of the odious mixture, rendered more than usually savoury by the immersion in the bowl of master wackford's head, whose ducking was entrusted to another rebel. the success of this first achievement prompted the malicious crowd, whose faces were clustered together in every variety of lank and half-starved ugliness, to further acts of outrage. the leader was insisting upon mrs. squeers repeating her dose, master squeers was undergoing another dip in the treacle, when john browdie, bursting open the door with a vigorous kick, rushed to the rescue. the shouts, screams, groans, hoots, and clapping of hands, suddenly ceased, and a dead silence ensued. "ye be noice chaps," said john, looking steadily round. "what's to do here, thou yoong dogs?" "squeers is in prison, and we are going to run away!" cried a score of shrill voices. "we won't stop, we won't stop!" "weel then, dinnot stop," replied john; "who waants thee to stop? roon awa' loike men, but dinnot hurt the women. "hurrah!" cried the shrill voices, more shrilly still. "hurrah?" repeated john. "weel, hurrah loike men too. noo then, look out. hip--hip--hip--hurrah!" "hurrah!" cried the voices. "hurrah! agean," said john. "looder still." the boys obeyed. "anoother!" said john. "dinnot be afeared on it let's have a good un!" "hurrah!" "noo then," said john, "let's have yan more to end wi', and then coot off as quick as you loike. tak' a good breath noo--squeers be in jail--the school's brokken oop--it's all ower--past and gane--think o' thot, and let it be a hearty 'un! hurrah!" such a cheer arose as the walls of dotheboys hall had never echoed before, and were destined never to respond to again. when the sound had died away, the school was empty; and of the busy noisy crowd which had peopled it but five minutes before, not one remained. for some days afterwards, the neighbouring country was overrun with boys, who, the report went, had been secretly furnished by mr. and mrs. browdie, not only with a hearty meal of bread and meat, but with sundry shillings and sixpences to help them on their way. there were a few timid young children, who, miserable as they had been, and many as were the tears they had shed in the wretched school, still knew no other home, and had formed for it a sort of attachment which made them weep when the bolder spirits fled, and cling to it as a refuge. of these, some were found crying under hedges and in such places, frightened at the solitude. one had a dead bird in a little cage; he had wandered nearly twenty miles, and when his poor favourite died, lost courage, and lay down beside him. another was discovered in a yard hard by the school, sleeping with a dog, who bit at those who came to remove him, and licked the sleeping child's pale face. they were taken back, and some other stragglers were recovered, but by degrees they were all claimed, and, in course of time, dotheboys hall and its last breaking up began to be forgotten by the neighbours, or to be only spoken of as among things that had been. david copperfield [illustration: little em'ly and david copperfield.] the first things that assume shape and form in the recollections of my childhood are my mother, with her pretty hair and youthful shape, and peggotty, our faithful serving maid, with no shape at all, and eyes so dark that they seemed to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, and cheeks and arms so hard and red that i wonder the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples. what else do i remember?--let me see. there comes to me a vision of our home, blunderstone rookery, with its ground-floor kitchen, and long passage leading from it to the front door. a dark store-room opens out of the kitchen, and in it there is the smell of soap, pickles, pepper, candles, and coffee, all at one whiff. then there are the two parlours;--the one in which we sit of an evening, my mother and i and peggotty,--for peggotty is quite our companion,--and the best parlour where we sit on a sunday; grandly, but not so comfortably, while my mother reads the old familiar bible stories to us. and now i see the outside of our house, with the latticed bedroom windows, and the ragged old rooks' nests dangling in the elm-trees. i see the garden--a very preserve of butterflies, where the pigeon house and dog-kennel are, and the fruit trees. and i see again my mother winding her bright curls around her fingers, and nobody is as proud of her beauty as i am. one night when peggotty and i had been sitting cosily by the parlour fire, my mother came home from spending the evening at a neighbour's, and with her was a gentleman with beautiful black hair and whiskers. as my mother stooped to kiss me, the gentleman said i was a more highly privileged little fellow than a monarch. "what does that mean?" i asked him. he smiled and patted me on the head in reply, but somehow i didn't like him, and i shrank away, jealous that his hand should touch my mother's in touching me--although my mother's gentle chiding made me ashamed of the involuntary motion, and of my dislike for this new friend of hers, but from chance words which i heard peggotty utter, i knew that she too felt as i did. from that time the gentleman with black whiskers, mr. murdstone by name, was at our house constantly, and gradually i became used to seeing him, but i liked him no better than at first. the sight of him filled me with a fear that something was going to happen, and time proved that i was right in my apprehension. one night when my mother, as usual, was out, peggotty asked me, "master davy, how should you like to go along with me and spend a fortnight at my brother's at yarmouth? wouldn't _that_ be a treat?" "is your brother an agreeable man, peggotty?" i inquired, provisionally. "oh what an agreeable man he is!" cried peggotty, holding up her hands. "then there's the sea; and the boats; and the fishermen; and the beach; and 'am to play with----" peggotty meant her nephew ham, but she spoke of him as a morsel of english grammar. i was flushed with her summary of delights, and replied that it would indeed be a treat, but what would my mother say? but peggotty was sure that i would be allowed to go, and so it proved. my mother did not seem nearly so much surprised as i expected, and arranged at once for my visit. the day soon came for our going. i was in a fever of expectation, and half afraid that an earthquake might stop the expedition, but soon after breakfast we set off, in a carrier's cart, and the carrier's lazy horse shuffled along, carrying us towards yarmouth. we had a fine basket of refreshments, and we ate a good deal, and slept a good deal, and finally arrived in yarmouth, where at the public-house we found ham waiting for us. he was a huge, strong fellow of six feet, with a simpering boy's face and curly light hair, and he insisted on carrying me on his back, as well as a small box of ours under his arm. we turned down lanes, and went past gas-works, boat-builders' yards, and riggers' lofts, and presently ham said, "yon's our house, mas'r davy!" i looked over the wilderness, and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could _i_ make out. there was a black barge not far off, high and dry on the ground, with an iron funnel for a chimney, and smoking very cosily. "that's not it?" said i. "that ship-looking thing?" "that's it, mas'r davy," returned ham. if it had been aladdin's palace, i could not have been more charmed with the romantic idea of living in it. there was a delightful door cut in the side, and it was roofed in, and there were little windows in it. it was beautifully clean inside and as tidy as possible. there was a table, and a dutch clock, and a chest of drawers. on the walls were some coloured pictures of biblical subjects. abraham in red, going to sacrifice isaac in blue, and daniel in yellow, cast into a den of green lions, were most prominent. also, there was a mantel-shelf, and some lockers and boxes which served for seats. then peggotty showed me the completest little bedroom ever seen, in the stern of the vessel, with a tiny bed, a little looking-glass framed in oyster-shells, and a nosegay of seaweed in a blue mug on the table. the walls were white-washed, and the patchwork counterpane made my eyes quite ache with its brightness. when i took out my pocket-handkerchief, it smelt as if it had wrapped up a lobster. when i confided this to peggotty, she told me that her brother dealt in lobsters, crabs, and crawfish, which accounted for the sea smells in the delightful house. the inmates of the boat were its master, mr. peggotty and his orphan nephew and niece, ham and little em'ly, which latter was a beautiful little girl, who wore a necklace of blue beads. there was also mrs. gummidge, an old lady who sat continually by the fire and knitted, and who was the widow of a former partner of mr. peggotty's. with little em'ly i at once fell violently in love, and we used to walk upon the beach in a loving manner, hours and hours. i am sure i loved that baby quite as truly and with more purity than can enter into the best love of a later time of life; and when the time came for going home, our agony of mind at parting was intense. during my visit i had been completely absorbed in my new companions, but no sooner were we turned homeward than my heart began to throb at thought of again seeing my mother,--my comforter and friend. to my surprise, when we reached the dear old rookery, not my mother, but a strange servant opened the door. "why, peggotty," i said, ruefully, "isn't she come home?" "yes, yes, master davy," said peggotty, "she's come home. wait a bit, master davy, and i'll--i'll tell you something." intensely agitated, peggotty led me into the kitchen and closed the door, then, as she untied her bonnet with a shaking hand, she said breathlessly; "master davy, what do you think? you have got a pa!" i trembled and turned white, and thought of my father's grave in the churchyard, which i knew so well. "a new one," said peggotty. "a new one?" i repeated. peggotty gasped, as if she were swallowing something very hard, and, putting out her hand, said, "come and see him." "i don't want to see him." "and your mama," said peggotty. i ceased to draw back, and we went straight to the best parlour. on one side of the fire, sat my mother; on the other, mr. murdstone. my mother dropped her work, and arose hurriedly, but timidly, i thought. "now, clara, my dear," said mr. murdstone. "recollect! control yourself! davy boy, how do you do?" i gave him my hand. then i went over to my mother. she kissed me, patted me gently on the shoulder, and sat down again to her work, while mr. murdstone watched us both. i turned to look out of the window, and as soon as i could, i crept up-stairs. my old dear bedroom was changed, and i was to sleep a long way off, and there on my bed, thinking miserable thoughts, i cried myself to sleep. i was awakened by somebody saying, "here he is!" and there beside me were my mother and peggotty, asking what was the matter. i answered, "nothing," and turned over, to hide my trembling lip. "davy," said my mother. "davy, my child!" then when she would have caressed me in the old fashion, mr. murdstone came up and sent the others away. "david," he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, "if i have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think i do?" "i don't know." "i beat him. i make him wince and smart. i say to myself, 'i'll conquer that fellow;' and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, i should do it. what is that upon your face?" "dirt," i said. he knew it was the mark of tears as well as i. but if he had asked the question twenty times, with twenty blows, i believe my baby heart would have burst before i would have told him so. "you have a good deal of intelligence for a little fellow," he said, "and you understood me very well, i see. wash that face, sir, and come down with me." he pointed to the washstand, and motioned me to obey him directly, and i have little doubt that he would have knocked me down, had i hesitated. as he walked me into the parlour, he said to my mother, "clara, my dear, you will not be made uncomfortable any more, i hope. we shall soon improve our youthful humours." i might have been made another creature for life, by a kind word just then. a word of welcome home, of reassurance that it _was_ home, might have made me dutiful to my new father, and made me respect instead of hate him; but the word was not spoken, and the time for it was gone. after that my life was a lonely one. mr. murdstone seemed to be very fond of my mother, and she of him, but also she seemed to stand in great awe of him, and dared not do what he might not approve. soon miss murdstone came to live with us. she was a gloomy-looking lady, dark like her brother, and much like him in character. she assumed the care of the house, and mother had nothing more to do with it. meanwhile, i learnt lessons at home. shall i ever forget those lessons! they were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by mr. murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and the very sight of the murdstones had such an effect upon me, that every word i had tried to learn would glide away, and go i know not where. i was treated to so much systematic cruelty that after six months, i became sullen, dull, and dogged, and this feeling was not lessened by the fact that i was more and more shut out from my mother. i believe i should have been almost stupified but for the small collection of books which had belonged to my own father, and to which i had access. from that blessed little room, came forth "roderick random," "peregrine pickle," "tom jones," "the vicar of wakefield," "robinson crusoe," "gil blas," and "don quixote,"--a glorious company to sustain me. they kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time--they, and the "arabian nights" and "tales of the genii,"--and were my only comfort. one morning, when i went into the parlour with my books, i found mr. murdstone poising a cane in the air, which he had obtained, it seemed, for the purpose of flogging me for any mistake i might make. my apprehension was so great, that the words of my lessons slipped off by the entire page,--i made mistake after mistake, failure upon failure,--and presently mr. murdstone rose, taking up the cane, and telling me to follow him. as he took me out at the door, my mother ran towards us. miss murdstone said, "clara! are you a perfect fool?" and interfered. i saw my mother stop her ears then, and i heard her crying. mr. murdstone walked me up to my room, and when we got there suddenly twisted my head under his arm. "mr. murdstone! sir!" i cried, "don't. pray don't beat me! i have tried to learn, sir, but i can't learn while you and miss murdstone are by. i can't indeed!" "can't you, indeed, david?" he said. "we'll try that." he had my head as in a vise, but i twined round him somehow, and stopped him for a moment, entreating him again not to beat me. it was only for a moment though, for he cut me heavily an instant afterwards, and in the same instant i caught the hand with which he held me in my mouth and bit it through. it sets my teeth on edge to think of it. he beat me then, as if he would have beaten me to death. above all the noise we made, i heard them running up the stairs and crying out--my mother and peggotty. then he was gone; and the door was locked outside; and i was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor. how well i recollect, when i became quiet, what an unnatural stillness seemed to reign through the house! when my passion began to cool, how wicked i began to feel! my stripes were sore and stiff, and made me cry afresh when i moved, but they were nothing to the guilt i felt. it lay like lead upon my breast. for five days i was imprisoned, and of the length of those days i can convey no idea to any one. they occupy the place of years in my remembrance. on the fifth night peggotty came to my door and whispered my name through the keyhole. "what is going to be done with me, peggotty dear?" i asked. "school. near london," was peggotty's answer. "when, peggotty?" "to-morrow." "is that the reason why miss murdstone took the clothes out of my drawers?" "yes," said peggotty. "box." "shan't i see mama?" "yes," said peggotty. "morning." then followed some assurances of affection, which peggotty sobbed through the keyhole, and from that night i had an affection for her greater than for any one, except my mother. in the morning miss murdstone appeared and told me what i already knew, and said that i was to come down into the parlour, and have my breakfast. my mother was there, very pale, and with red eyes, into whose arms i ran, and begged her pardon from my suffering soul. "oh, davy," she said. "that you could hurt any one i love! try to be better, pray to be better! i forgive you, but i am so grieved, davy, that you should have such bad passions in your heart!" they had persuaded her that i was a wicked fellow, and she was more sorry for that, than for my going away. i felt it sorely. i tried to eat, but tears dropped upon my bread-and-butter, and trickled into my tea, and i could not swallow. presently the carrier was at the door, my box was in the cart, and before i could realise it, my mother was holding me in a farewell embrace, and then i got into the cart, and the lazy horse started off. about half a mile away from home the carrier stopped, and peggotty burst from a hedge and climbed into the cart. she squeezed me until i could scarcely speak, and crammed some bags of cakes into my pockets, and a purse into my hand, but not a word did she speak. then with a final hug, she climbed down and ran away again, and we started on once more. having by this time cried as much as i possibly could, i began to think it was of no use crying any more. the carrier agreed with me, and proposed that my pocket handkerchief should be spread upon the horse's back to dry, to which i assented, and then turned my attention to the purse. it had three bright shillings in it, which peggotty had evidently polished up with whitening,--but more precious yet,--were two half-crowns in a bit of paper on which my mother had written, "for davy. with my love." i was so overcome by this that i asked the carrier to reach me my pocket handkerchief again, but he thought i had better do without it, so i wiped my eyes on my sleeve and stopped myself--and on we jogged. at yarmouth we drove to the inn-yard, where i dismounted, and was given dinner, after which i mounted the coach for london, and at three o'clock we started off on a trip which was not unpleasant to me, with its many novel sights and experiences. in london, at an inn in whitechapel, i was met by a mr. mell, one of the teachers at salem house, the school to which i was going. we journeyed on together, and by the next day were at salem house, which was a square brick building with wings, enclosed with a high brick wall. i was astonished at the perfect quiet there, until mr. mell told me that the boys were at their homes on account of it being holiday-time, and that even the proprietor was away. and he added that i was sent in vacation as a punishment for my misdoing. i can see the schoolroom now, into which he took me, with its long rows of desks and forms, and bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates. scraps of old copy-books and exercises littered the dirty floor, ink had been splashed everywhere, and the air of the place was indescribably dreary. my companion left me there alone for a while, and as i roamed round, i came upon a pasteboard placard, beautifully written, lying on a desk, bearing these words, "_take care of him. he bites_." i got upon the desk immediately, apprehensive of at least a great dog underneath, but i could see nothing of him. i was still peering about, when mr. mell came back, and asked what i did up there. "i beg your pardon, sir," said i, "i'm looking for the dog." "dog," said he, "what dog?" "the one that's to be taken care of, sir; that bites." "copperfield," said he, gravely, "that's not a dog. that's a boy. my instructions are, copperfield, to put this placard on your back. i am sorry to make such a beginning with you, but i must do it." with that he took me down, and tied the placard on my shoulders, and wherever i went afterwards i carried it. what i suffered from that placard, nobody can imagine. i always fancied that somebody was reading it, and i began to have a dread of myself, as a kind of wild boy who _did_ bite. above and beyond all, i dreaded the coming back of the boys and what they might think of me, and my days and nights were filled with gloomy forebodings. in a month mr. creakle, the proprietor of salem house arrived. he was stout, with a bald head, a fiery face, small, deep-set eyes, thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin. his face always looked angry, but what impressed me most about him was that he spoke always in a whisper. he inquired at once about my behaviour, and seemed disappointed to find that there was nothing against me so far. he then told me that he knew my stepfather as a man of strong character, and that he should carry out his wishes concerning me. he pinched my ear with ferocious playfulness, and i was very much frightened by his manner and words; but before i was ordered away, i ventured to ask if the placard might not be removed. whether mr. creakle was in earnest, or only meant to frighten me, i don't know, but he made a burst out of his chair, before which i precipitately retreated, and never once stopped until i reached my own bedroom, where, finding i was not pursued, i went to bed, and lay quaking for a couple of hours. the next day the other masters and the scholars began to arrive. jolly tommy traddles was the first boy back, and it was a happy circumstance for me. he enjoyed my placard so much that he saved me from the embarrassment of either disclosure or concealment, by presenting me to the other boys in this way; "look here! here's a game!" happily, too, most of the boys came back low-spirited, and were not as boisterous at my expense as i expected. some of them did dance about me like wild indians and pretended i was a dog, patting me and saying, "lie down, sir!" and calling me towzer, which of course was trying, but, on the whole, much better than i had anticipated. i was not considered as formally received into the school until i had met j. steerforth. he was one of the older scholars, reputed to be brilliant and clever, and quite the lion of the school. he inquired, under a shed in the playground, into the particulars of my punishment, and said it was "a jolly shame," which opinion bound me to him ever afterwards. then he asked me what money i had, and when i answered seven shillings, he suggested that i spend a couple of shillings or so in a bottle of currant wine, and a couple or so in almond cakes, and another in fruit, and another in biscuit, for a little celebration that night in our bedroom, in honour of my arrival, and of course i said i should be glad to do so. i was a little uneasy about wasting my mother's half-crowns, but i did not dare to say so, and steerforth procured the feast and laid it out on my bed, saying, "there you are, young copperfield, and a royal spread you've got." i couldn't think of doing the honours of the feast, and begged him to preside. so he sat upon my pillow, handing round the viands, and dispensing the wine. as to me, i sat next to him, and the rest grouped about us on the nearest beds and on the floor; and there we sat in the dim moonlight, talking in whispers, while i heard all the school gossip, about mr. creakle and his cruelty, and about the other masters, and that the only boy on whom mr. creakle never dared to lay a hand was steerforth. all this and much more i heard before we at last betook ourselves to bed. the next day school began in earnest, and so far as the boys were concerned, steerforth continued his protection of me, and was always a very firm and useful friend, as no one dared annoy any one whom he liked. one night he discovered that my head was filled with stories of my favourite heroes, which i could relate with some measure of graphic talent, and after that i was obliged to reel off stories by the yard, making myself into a regular sultana scheherezade for his benefit. i was much flattered by his interest in my tales, and the only drawback to telling them was that i was often very sleepy at night, and it was sometimes very hard work to be roused and forced into a long recital before the rising bell rang, but steerforth was resolute, and as in return he explained sums and exercises to me, i was no loser by the transaction. also, i honestly admired and loved the handsome fellow, and desired to please him. and so from week to week the story-telling in the dark went on, and whatever i had within me that was romantic or dreamy was encouraged by it. by degrees the other boys joined the circle of listeners. traddles was always overcome with mirth at the comic parts of the stories. he used to pretend that he couldn't keep his teeth from chattering when an alguazil was mentioned in connection with the adventures of gil blas, and i remember when gil blas met the captain of the robbers in madrid, traddles counterfeited such an ague of terror, that mr. creakle who was prowling about the passage, overheard him, and flogged him for disorderly conduct. there was little of especial moment in my first half-term at salem house, except the quarrel which took place between steerforth and mr. mell; and an unexpected visit from ham and mr. peggotty when i had the delight of introducing those rollicking fellows to steerforth, whose bright, easy manner charmed them, as it did most persons. the rest of the half-year is a jumble in my recollection; and then came the holidays, which were spent at home. i found my mother as tender as of old. she hugged me and kissed me, and on that first blessed night, as mr. and miss murdstone were away on a visit, mother and peggotty and i dined together by the fireside in the old fashion. my mother spoke of herself as a weak, ignorant young thing whom the murdstones were endeavouring to make as strong in character as themselves. then we talked about salem house and my experiences and friends there, and were very happy. that evening as the last of its race will never pass out of my memory. i was at home for a month, but after that first night i felt in the way, for the murdstones were always with my mother. on the evening after my return i made a very humble apology to mr. murdstone, which he received with cold dignity. i tried to spend my evenings in the kitchen with peggotty, but of this mr. murdstone did not approve, so i sat wearily in the parlour, waiting for the hours to wear themselves away. what walks i took alone! what meals i had in silence and embarrassment! what dull evenings, poring over tables of weights and measures, and what yawns and dozes i lapsed into in spite of all my care! thus the holidays lagged away, until the morning came when miss murdstone gave me the closing cup of tea of the vacation. i was not sorry to go. i had lapsed into a stupid state; but i was recovering a little and looking foward to steerforth. i kissed my mother, and had climbed into the carrier's cart when i heard her calling me. i looked back, and she stood at the garden-gate, looking intently at me. so i lost her. so i saw her afterwards, in my sleep at school,--a silent presence near my bed--looking at me with the same intent face,--and the vision is still a constant blessing to me. from then i pass over all that happened at salem house until my birthday in march. on the morning of that day i was summoned into mr. creakle's august presence. mrs. creakle was in the room too, and somehow they broke it to me that my mother was very ill. i knew all now! "she is dead," they said. there was no need to tell me so. i had already broken out into a desolate cry, and felt an orphan in the wide world. if ever child were stricken with sincere grief, i was. but i remember even so, that my sorrow was a kind of satisfaction to me, when i walked in the playground, while the boys were in school, and saw them glancing at me out of the windows, and because of my grief i felt distinguished, and of vast importance. we had no story-telling that night, and traddles insisted on lending me his pillow as a guarantee of his sympathy, which i understood and accepted. i left salem house upon noon the next day, stopping in yarmouth to be measured for my suit of black. then all too soon i was at home again, only it was home no longer, for my mother was not there. mr. murdstone, who was weeping, took no notice of me. miss murdstone gave me her cold fingers, and asked if i had been measured for my mourning, and if i had brought home my shirts. there was no sign that they thought of my suffering, and--alone--except for dear faithful peggotty, i remained there, motherless, and worse than fatherless, still stunned and giddy with the shock. as soon as the funeral was over, peggotty obtained permission to take me home with her for a visit, and i was thankful for the change, even though i knew that peggotty was leaving the rookery forever. we found the old boat the same pleasant place as ever, only little em'ly and i seldom wandered on the beach now. she had tasks to learn, and needlework to do. during the visit i had a great surprise, which was no less than peggotty's marriage to the carrier who had taken me on so many trips, and whose affections it seemed, had long been fastened upon peggotty. he took her to a nice little home, and there she showed me a room which she said would be mine whenever i chose to occupy it. i felt the constancy of my dear old nurse, and thanked her as well as i could, but the next day i was obliged to go back to the murdstones. peggotty made the journey with me, and no words can express my forlorn and desolate feelings when the cart took her away again, and i was left alone in the place where i used to be so happy. and now i fell into a state of neglect, apart from other boys of my own age, and apart from all friendly faces. what would i not have given to have been sent to school! i think mr. murdstone's means were straightened at that time, and there was no mention of salem house or of any other school. i was not beaten or starved, only coldly neglected. peggotty i was seldom allowed to visit, but once a week she either came to see me or met me somewhere, and that, and the dear old books were my only comfort. one day mr. quinion, a visitor at the house, took pains to ask me some questions about myself, and afterwards mr. murdstone called me to him, and said: "i suppose you know, david, that i am not rich. you have received some considerable education already. education is costly; and even if i could afford it, i am of opinion that it would not be at all advantageous to you to be kept at a school. there is before you a fight with the world; and the sooner you begin it the better. you may have heard of the counting house of murdstone and grinby, in the wine trade? mr. quinion manages the business, and he suggests thit it gives employment to some other boys, and that he sees no reason why it shouldn't give employment to you. you will earn enough to provide for your eating, and drinking, and pocket money. your lodging will be paid by me. so will your washing. your clothes will be looked after for you, too," said mr. murdstone, "as you will not be able, yet awhile, to get them for yourself. so you are now going to london, david, to begin the world on your own account." behold me, on the morrow, in a much-worn little white hat, with a crape band round it, a black jacket, and stiff corduroy trousers! behold me so attired, and with my little worldly all in a small trunk, sitting, a lone, lorn child, in the post-chaise, journeying to london with mr. quinion! behold me at ten years old, a little labouring hind in murdstone and grinby's warehouse on the waterside at blackfriars! it was a crazy old house with a wharf of its own, but rotting with dirt and age. their trade was among many kinds of people, chiefly supplying wines and spirits to certain packet ships. my work was pasting labels on full bottles, or fitting corks to them, or sealing the corks, and the work was not half so distasteful as were my companions, far below me in birth and education. the oldest of the regular boys was named mick walker, and another boy in my department, on account of his complexion, was called mealy potatoes. no words can express the secret agony of my soul as i sunk into this companionship, and thought sadly of traddles, steerforth, and those other boys, whom i felt sure would grow up to be great men. i lodged with a mr. micawber who lived in windsor terrace. my pay at the warehouse was six shillings a week. i provided my own breakfast and kept bread and cheese to eat at night. also, child that i was,--sometimes i could not resist pastry cakes and puddings in the shop windows, all of which made a large hole in my six shillings. from monday to saturday i had no advice, no encouragement or help of any kind. i worked with common men and boys, a shabby child. i lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. but for the mercy of god, i might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond. yet they were kind to me at the warehouse and that i suffered and was miserably unhappy, no one noticed. i concealed the fact even from peggotty (partly for love of her, and partly for shame). i did my work not unskilfully, and though perfectly familiar with my companions, my conduct and manner placed a space between us and i was usually spoken of as the "little gent." in my desolate condition, i became really attached to the micawbers, and when they experienced reverses of fortune, and mr. micawber was carried off to the debtors' prison, i did all that i could for them, and remained with mrs. micawber in lodgings near the prison. but i plainly saw that a parting was near at hand, as it was the micawbers' intention to leave london as soon as mr. micawber could free himself. so keen was my dread of lodging with new people, added to the misery of my daily life at the warehouse, that i could not endure the thought, and finally i made a resolution. i would run away! many times in the old days, my mother had told me the story of my one relative, aunt betsey, who had been present at the time of my birth, confident in her hopes of a niece who should be named for her, betsey trotwood, and for whom she proposed to provide liberally. when i, david copperfield, came in place of the longed-for niece, aunt betsey shook the dust of the place off her feet, and my mother never saw her afterwards. my idea now was to find aunt betsey. not knowing where she lived, i wrote a long letter to peggotty, and asked in it incidentally if she knew the address, and also if she could lend me half a guinea for a short time. she answered promptly and enclosed the half guinea, saying that miss betsey lived just outside of dover, which place i at once resolved to set out for. however, i considered myself bound to remain at the warehouse until saturday night; and as when i first came there i had been paid for a week in advance, not to present myself as usual to receive my wages. for this reason i had borrowed the half guinea, that i might have a fund for my travelling expenses. accordingly, when saturday night came, i shook mick walker's hand, bade good-night to mealy potatoes--and ran away. my box was at my old lodging, and i had a card ready for it, addressed to "master david, to be left till called for at the coach office, dover." i found a young man with a donkey-cart whom i engaged for sixpence, to remove my box, and in pulling the card for it out of my pocket, i tumbled my half guinea out too. i put it in my mouth for safety, and had just tied the card on, when i felt myself violently chucked under the chin by the young man, and saw my half guinea fly out of my mouth into his hand. "you give me my money back, if you please," said i, very much frightened. "and leave me alone!" "come to the pollis," said he; "you shall prove it yourn to the pollis!" "give me my box and money, will you?" i cried, bursting into tears. the young man still replied, "come to the pollis!" then suddenly changed his mind, jumped into the cart, sat upon my box, and exclaiming that he would drive to the pollis straight, rattled away. i ran after him as fast as i could, narrowly escaping being run over some twenty times in a mile, until i had no breath left to call out with. now i lost him, now i saw him, but at length, confused and exhausted, i left him to go where he would with my box and money, and, panting and crying, but never stopping, i faced about for greenwich, and had some wild idea of running straight to dover. however, my scattered senses were soon collected and i sat down on a doorstep, quite spent. fortunately, it was a fine summer night, and when i had recovered my breath, i went on again. but i had only three-halfpence in the world, and as i trudged on, i pictured to myself how i should be found dead in a day or two, under some hedge. passing a little pawnshop, i left my waistcoat, and went on, richer by ninepence, and i foresaw that my jacket would go next, in fact that i should be lucky if i got to dover in a shirt and a pair of trousers. it had occurred to me to go on as fast as i could towards salem house, and spend the night behind the wall at the back of my old school, where there used to be a haystack. i imagined it would be a kind of company to have the boys and the bedroom where i used to tell the stories, so near me. i had a hard day's walk, and with great trouble found salem house, and the haystack, and lay down outside the dark and silent house. never shall i forget the lonely sensation of first lying down, without a roof above my head! but at last i slept, and dreamed of old school-days, until the warm beams of the sun, and the rising bell at salem house awoke me. as none of my old companions could still be there, i had no wish to linger, so i crept away from the wall and struck out into the dusty dover road. that day i got through three and twenty miles, and at night i passed over the bridge at rochester, footsore and tired, eating bread as i walked. there were plenty of signs, "lodgings for travellers," but i sought no shelter, fearing to spend the few pence i had. very stiff and sore of foot i was in the morning, and i felt that i could go only a short distance that day. i took off my jacket, and went into a shop, where i exchanged it finally for one and fourpence. for threepence i refreshed myself completely, and limped seven miles further. i slept under another haystack, after washing my blistered feet in a stream, and went on in rather better spirits, coming at last to the bare wide downs near dover. i then began to inquire of everyone i met, about my aunt, but no one knew her, and finally, when the morning was far spent, in despair i went into a little shop to ask once more. i spoke to the clerk, but a young woman on whom he was waiting, took the inquiry to herself. "my mistress?" she said. "what do you want with her, boy?" on my replying that i wished to see miss trotwood, the young woman told me to follow her. i needed no second permission, though by this time my legs shook under me. soon we came to a neat little cottage with cheerful bow-windows, in front of it a gravelled court, full of flowers. "this is miss trotwood's," said the young woman, and then she hurried in, and left me standing at the gate. my shoes were by this time in a woeful condition, my hat was crushed and bent, my shirt and trousers stained and torn, my hair had known no comb or brush since i left london, my face, neck, and hands, from unaccustomed exposure, were burnt to a berry-brown. from head to foot i was powdered with dust. in this plight i waited to introduce myself to my formidable aunt. as i waited, there came out of the house a lady with a handkerchief tied over her cap, a pair of gardening gloves on her hands, and carrying a great knife. i knew her immediately, for she stalked out of the house exactly as my mother had so often described her stalking up our garden at home. "go away!" said miss betsey, shaking her head, and waving her knife. "go along! no boys here!" i watched her, with my heart at my lips, as she stopped to dig up a root. then i went up and touched her. "if you please, ma'am," i began. she started, and looked up. "if you please, aunt." "eh?" exclaimed miss betsey, in a tone of amazement i have never heard approached. "if you please, aunt, i am your nephew." "oh, lord!" said my aunt. and sat down flat in the garden-path. "i am david copperfield, of blunderstone, in suffolk--where you came, on the night when i was born, and saw my dear mama. i have been very unhappy since she died. i have been slighted and taught nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. it made me run away to you. i was robbed at first setting out, and have walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since i began the journey." here my self-support gave way all at once, and i broke into a passion of crying. my aunt sat on the gravel, staring at me, until i began to cry, when she got up in a great hurry, collared me, and took me into the parlour. her first proceeding there was to unlock a tall press, bring out several bottles, and pour some of the contents of each into my mouth. i think they must have been taken out at random, for i am sure i tasted aniseed water, anchovy sauce, and salad dressing. then she put me on a sofa with a shawl under my head, and a handkerchief under my feet, lest i should soil the cover, and then, sitting down so i could not see her face, she ejaculated "mercy on us!" at regular intervals. after a time she rang a bell, and a grey-headed, florid old gentleman, called mr. dick, who had the appearance of a grown-up boy, and who lived with my aunt, appeared. when my aunt asked his opinion about what to do with me, his advice was to wash me. this janet, the maid, was preparing to do, when suddenly my aunt became, in one moment, rigid with indignation, and cried out, "janet! donkeys!" upon which, janet came running as if the house were in flames, and darted out on a little piece of green in front, to warn off two donkeys, lady ridden, while my aunt seized the bridle of a third animal, laden with a child, led him from the sacred spot, and boxed the ears of the unlucky urchin in attendance. to this hour i do not know whether my aunt had any lawful right of way over that patch of green, but she had settled it in her own mind that she had, and it was all the same to her. the passage of a donkey over that spot was the one great outrage of her life. in whatever occupation or conversation she was engaged, a donkey turned the current of her ideas, and she was upon him straight. jugs of water were kept in secret places ready to be discharged on the offenders, sticks were laid in ambush behind the doors; sallies were made at all hours, and incessant war prevailed, which was perhaps an agreeable excitement to the donkey boys. the bath was a great comfort, for i began to feel acute pains in my limbs, and was so tired that i could scarcely keep awake for five minutes together. enrobed in clothes belonging to mr. dick, and tied up in great shawls, i fell asleep, on the sofa, and only awoke in time to dine off a roast fowl and pudding, while my aunt asked me a number of questions, and spoke of my mother and peggotty, and in the afternoon we talked again and there was another alarm of donkeys. after tea we sat at the window until dusk, and shortly afterwards i was escorted up to a pleasant room at the top of the house. when i had said my prayers, and the candle had burnt out, i lay there yielding to a sensation of profound gratitude and rest, nestling in the snow white sheets, and i prayed that i might never be houseless any more, and might never forget the houseless. at breakfast the following day, i found myself the object of my aunt's most rigid scrutiny. "hallo!" she said, after a time to attract my attention, and when i looked up she told me that she had written mr. murdstone in regard to me, under which information i became heavy of heart, for i felt that some efforts would be made to force me to return to the warehouse, while the more i saw of my aunt, the more sure i felt that she was the one with whom i wished to stay; that with all her eccentricities and humours, she was one to be honoured and trusted in. on the second day after my arrival, my aunt gave a sudden alarm of donkeys, and to my consternation i beheld miss murdstone ride over the sacred piece of green, and stop in front of the house. "go along with you!" cried my aunt, shaking her head and her fist at the window. "you have no business there. how dare you trespass? oh! you bold-faced thing!" i hurriedly told her who the offender was, and that mr. murdstone was behind her, but aunt betsey was frantic, and cried, "i don't care who it is--i won't allow it! go away! janet, lead him off!" and from behind my aunt, i saw the donkey pulled round by the bridle, while mr. murdstone tried to lead him on, and miss murdstone struck at janet with a parasol, and several boys shouted vigorously. but my aunt suddenly discovering the donkey's guardian to be one of the most inveterate offenders against her, rushed out and pounced upon him, while the murdstones waited until she should be at leisure to receive them. she marched past them into the house, a little ruffled by the combat, and took no notice of them until they were announced by janet. "shall i go away, aunt?" i asked trembling. "no, sir," said she. "certainly not!" with which she pushed me into a corner, and fenced me in with a chair, as if it were a prison, and there i stayed. there were several sharp passages at arms between my aunt and the murdstones, when my past, and my mother's life came up for discussion. finally mr. murdstone said: "i am here to take david back, miss trotwood; to dispose of him as i think proper, and to deal with him as i think right. i am not here to make any promise to anybody. you may possibly have some idea, miss trotwood, of abetting him in his running away, and in his complaints to you. now, i must caution you, that if you abet him once, you abet him for good and all. i cannot trifle, or be trifled with. i am here, for the first and last time, to take him away. is he ready to go? if you tell me he is not, it is indifferent to me on what pretence,--my doors are shut against him henceforth, and yours, i take it for granted are open to him." my aunt had listened with the closest attention, her hands folded on her knee, and looking grimly at the speaker. when he had finished, she turned to miss murdstone, and said: "well, ma'am, have _you_ got anything to remark?" as she had not, my aunt turned to me. "and what does the boy say?" she said. "are you ready to go, david?" i answered no, and entreated her not to let me go. i begged and prayed my aunt to befriend and protect me, for my father's sake. my aunt consulted for a moment with mr. dick, and then she pulled me towards her, and said to mr. murdstone: "you can go when you like; i'll take my chance with the boy. if he's all you say he is, at least i can do as much for him then, as you have done. but i don't believe a word of it." there were some additional words on both sides, and then the murdstones stood ready to leave. "good day, sir," said my aunt "and good-bye! good day to you too, ma'am,"--turning suddenly upon his sister. "let me see you ride a donkey over my green again, and as sure as you have a head upon your shoulders, i'll knock your bonnet off, and tread upon it!" the manner and matter of this speech were so fiery, that miss murdstone without a word in answer, discreetly put her arm through her brother's, and walked hastily out of the cottage, my aunt remaining at the window, prepared in case of the donkey's re-appearance, to carry her threat into execution. no attempt at defiance being made, however, her face gradually relaxed, and became so pleasant, that i was emboldened to kiss and thank her; which i did with great heartiness. she then told me that she wished my name to be changed to trotwood copperfield, and this notion so pleased her, that some ready-made clothes purchased for me that very day, were marked "trotwood copperfield," in indelible ink before i put them on, and it was settled that all my clothes thereafter should be marked in the same way. thus i began my new life in a new name, and with everything new about me. for many days i felt that it was all a dream, and then the truth came over me in waves of joy that it was no dream, but blessed, blessed reality! aunt betsey soon sent me to doctor strong's excellent school at canterbury. it was decorously ordered on a sound system, with an appeal in everything to the honour and good faith of the boys. we all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and learnt with a good will, desiring to do it credit. we had noble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty, and the whole plan of the school was as superior to that of salem house as can be imagined. i soon became warmly attached to the place, the teachers, and the boys, and in a little while the murdstone and grinsby life became so strange that i hardly believed in it. of course i wrote to peggotty, relating my experiences, and how my aunt had taken me under her care, and returning the half guinea i had borrowed, and peggotty answered promptly, but although she expressed herself as glad in my gladness, i could see that she did not take quite kindly to my aunt as yet. the days glide swiftly on. i am higher in the school,--i am growing great in latin verse, think dancing school a tiresome affair, and neglect the laces of my boots. doctor strong refers to me publicly as a promising young scholar, at which my aunt remits me a guinea by the next post. the shade of a young butcher crosses my path. he is the terror of doctor strong's young gentlemen, whom he publicly disparages. he names individuals (myself included) whom he could undertake to settle with one hand, and the other tied behind him. he waylays the smaller boys to punch their unprotected heads, and calls challenges after me in the streets. for these reasons, i resolve to fight the butcher. we meet by appointment with a select audience. soon, i don't know where the wall is, or where i am, or where anybody is, but after a bloody tangle and tussle in the trodden grass, feeling very queer about the head, i awake, and augur justly that the victory is not mine. i am taken home in a sad plight, to have beef-steaks put to my eyes, and am rubbed with vinegar and brandy, and find a great white puffy place on my upper lip, and for several days i remain in the house with a green shade over my eyes, and yet feeling that i did right to fight the butcher. i change more and more, and now i am the head boy. i wear a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat. i am seventeen, and am smitten with a violent passion for the eldest miss larkins, who is about thirty. she amuses herself with me as with a new toy, wears my ring for a season, and then announces her engagement to a mr. chestle. i am terribly dejected for a week or two, then i rally, become a boy once more, fight the butcher again, gloriously defeat him, and feel better,--and soon my school days draw to a close. my aunt and i had many grave deliberations on the calling to which i should devote myself, but could come to no conclusion, as i had no particular liking that i could discover, for any profession. so my aunt proposed that while i was thinking the matter over, i take a little trip, a breathing spell, as it were. "what i want you to be, trot," said my aunt,--"i don't mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically--is, a firm fellow, a fine, firm fellow, with a will of your own, with determination. with character, trot, with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. that's what i want you to be." i intimated that i hoped i should be what she described, and she added that it was best for me to go on my trip alone, to learn to rely upon myself. so i was fitted out with a handsome purse of money, and tenderly dismissed upon my expedition, promising to write three times a week, and to be back in a month's time. i went first to say farewell to doctor strong, and then took my seat on the box of the london coach. it was interesting to be sitting up there, behind four horses; well educated, well dressed, with plenty of money, and to look out for the places where i had slept on my weary journey. i stretched my neck eagerly, looking for old landmarks, and when we passed salem house i fairly tingled with emotion. at charing cross i stopped at the golden cross, and as soon as i had taken a room, ordered my dinner, trying to appear as old and dignified as possible. in the evening i went to the covent garden theatre, and saw julius caesar and a pantomime. it was new to me, and the mingled reality and mystery of the whole show, lights, music, company, and glittering scenery, were so dazzling that when i went out at midnight into the rain, i felt as if i had been for a time an inmate of another world, and was so excited that instead of going to my room in the hotel i ordered some porter and oysters, and sat revolving the glorious visions in my mind until past one o'clock. presently, i began to watch a young man near me whose face was very familiar. finally, i rose, and with a fast-beating heart said, "steerforth, won't you speak to me?" he quickly glanced up, but there was no recognition in his face. "my god," he suddenly exclaimed, "it's little copperfield!" then ensued a violent shaking of hands, and a volley of questions on both sides. he was studying at oxford, but was on his way to visit his mother, who lived just out of london. he was as handsome, and fascinating, and gay, as ever, in fact quite bewilderingly so to me; and all those things which i enjoyed, he pronounced dreadful bores, quite like a man of the world. however, we got on famously, and when he invited me to go with him to his home at highgate, i accepted with pleasure, and spent a delightful week there in the genteel, old-fashioned, quiet home. at the end of the week, steerforth decided to go with me to yarmouth, so we travelled on together to the inn there, and took rooms. as early as possible the next day, i visited peggotty. she did not recognise me after our seven years' separation, but when at last it dawned on her who i was, she cried, "my darling boy!" and we both burst into tears, and were locked in one another's arms as though i were a child again. that evening steerforth and i went to see mr. peggotty and my other friends in the boat, and we were so warmly received that it was nearly midnight when we took our leave. we stayed in yarmouth for more than a fortnight, and i made many pilgrimages to the dear haunts of my childhood, particularly to that place where my mother and father lay, and mingled with my sad thoughts were brighter ones, about my future--and of how in it i was to become a man of whom they might have been proud. at the end of the fortnight came a letter from aunt betsey, saying that she had taken lodgings for a week in london, and that if i would join her, we could discuss her latest plan for me, which was that i become a proctor in doctors' commons. i mentioned the plan to steerforth, and he advised me to take kindly to it, and by the time that i reached london i had made up my mind to do so. my aunt was greatly pleased when i told her this, whereupon i proceeded to add that my only objection to the plan lay in the great expense it would be to article me,--a thousand pounds at least. i spoke of her past liberality to me, and asked her whether i had not better choose some work which required less expensive preliminaries. for a time my aunt was deep in thought. then she replied: "trot, my child, if i have any object in life, it is to provide for your being a good, sensible, and happy man. i am bent upon it. it's in vain, trot, to recall the past, unless it has some influence upon the present. perhaps i might have been better friends with your father and mother. when you came to me, a little runaway boy, perhaps i thought so. from that time until now, trot, you have ever been a credit to me, and a pride and pleasure. i have no other claim upon my means,--and you are my adopted child. only be a loving child to me in my old age, and bear with my whims and fancies, and you will do more for an old woman whose prime of life was not so happy as it might have been, than ever that old woman did for you." it was the first time i had heard my aunt refer to her past history. her quiet way of doing it would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if anything could. "all is agreed and understood between us now, trot," she said, "and we need talk of this no more. give me a kiss, and we'll go to the commons in the morning." and accordingly at noon the next day we made our way to doctors' commons, interviewed mr. spenlow, of the firm of spenlow and jorkins, and i was accepted on a month's probation as an articled clerk. mr. spenlow then conducted me through the court, that i might see what sort of a place it was. then my aunt and i set off in search of lodgings for me, and before night i was the proud and happy owner of the key to a little set of chambers in the adelphi, conveniently situated near the court, and to my taste in all ways. seeing how enraptured i was with them, my aunt took them for a month, with the privilege of a year, made arrangements with the landlady about meals and linen, and i was to take possession in two days; during which time i saw aunt betsey safely started on her homeward journey towards dover, dreading to leave me, but exulting in the coming discomfiture of the vagrant donkeys. it was a wonderfully fine thing to have that lofty castle to myself, and when i had taken possession and shut my outer door, i felt like robinson crusoe, when he had got within his fortification, and pulled his ladder up after him. i felt rich, powerful, old, and important, and when i walked out about town, with the keys of my house in my pocket, and able to ask any fellow to come home with me, without giving anybody any inconvenience, i became a quite different personage than ever heretofore. whatever there was of happiness or of sorrow, of success or of failure, in my later life, does not belong on these pages. the identity of the child, and of the boy, david copperfield is now forever merged in the personality of--trotwood copperfield, esquire, householder and man. kit nubbles [illustration: kit nubbles.] christopher, or kit nubbles, as he was commonly called, was not handsome in the estimation of anyone except his mother, and mothers are apt to be partial. he was a shock-headed, shambling, awkward lad, with an uncommonly wide mouth, very red cheeks, a turned-up nose, and certainly the most comical expression of face i ever saw. he was errand-boy at the old curiosity shop, and deeply attached to both little nell trent and her grandfather, his employer. and just here let me explain that nell's grandfather led a curious sort of double life; his days were spent in the shop, but when night fell, he invariably took his cloak, his hat, and his stick, and kissing the child, passed out, leaving her alone through the long hours of the night, and nell had no knowledge that in those nightly absences he was haunting the gaming table; risking large sums, and ever watching with feverish anticipation for the time when he should win a vast fortune to lay by for the child, his pet and darling, to keep her from want if death should take him away. but of this little nell knew nothing, or she would have implored him to give up the wicked and dangerous pastime. nor did she know that it was from quilp, a strange, rich, little dwarf, who had many trades and callings, that her grandfather was borrowing the money which he staked nightly in hopes of winning more, pledging his little stock as security for the debt. it was a lonely life that nell led, with only the old man for companion, so she had a genuine affection for the awkward errand-boy, christopher, who was one of the few bits of comedy in her days, and his devotion to her verged on worship. one morning nell's grandfather sent her with a note to the little dwarf, quilp; and kit, who escorted her, while he waited for her, got into a tussle with quilp's boy, who asserted that nell was ugly, and that she and her grandfather were entirely in quilp's power. that was too much for kit to bear in silence, and he retorted that quilp was the ugliest dwarf that could be seen anywheres for a penny. this enraged quilp's boy, who sprang upon kit, and the two were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight, when quilp appeared and separated them, asking the cause of the quarrel, and was told that kit had called him, "the ugliest dwarf that could be seen anywheres for a penny." poor kit never dreamed that his unguarded remark was to be treasured up against him in the mind of the jealous, vindictive, little dwarf, and used to separate him from his idolised mistress and her grandfather, but it was even so, for there was a power of revenge, a hatred, in the tiny body of the dwarf, entirely out of proportion to his size. quilp at this time desired to injure the old man and his grandchild, and soon made several discoveries in a secret way, which, added to what he found out from little nell's own artless words about her home life, and her grandfather's habits, enabled him to put two and two together, and guess correctly for what purpose the old man borrowed such large sums from him, and he refused him further loans. more than this, he told the old man that he (quilp) held a bill of sale on his stock and property, and that he and little nell would be henceforth homeless and penniless. the old man pleaded, with agony in his face and voice for one more advance,--one more trial,--but quilp was firm. "who is it?" retorted the old man, desperately, "that, notwithstanding all my caution, told you? come, let me know the name,--the person." the crafty dwarf stopped short in his answer, and said,---- "now, who do you think?" "it was kit. it must have been the boy. he played the spy, and you tampered with him." "how came you to think of him?" said the dwarf. "yes, it was kit. poor kit!" so saying, he nodded in a friendly manner, and took his leave; stopping when he passed the outer door a little distance, and grinning with extraordinary delight. "poor kit!" muttered quilp. "i think it was kit who said i was an uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn't it? ha, ha, ha! poor kit!" and with that he went his way, still chuckling as he went. that evening kit spent in his own home. the room in which he sat down, was an extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it, nevertheless, which cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. late as the dutch clock showed it to be, kit's mother was still hard at work at an ironing-table; a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire; and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very wide awake, was sitting bolt upright in a clothes-basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes. it was rather a queer-looking family; kit, his mother, and the children, being all strongly alike. kit was disposed to be out of temper, but he looked at the youngest child, and from him to his other brother in the clothes-basket, and from him to his mother, who had been at work without complaint since morning, and thought it would be a better and kinder thing to be good-humoured. so he rocked the cradle with his foot, made a face at the rebel in the clothes-basket, which put him in high good-humour directly, and stoutly determined to be talkative, and make himself agreeable. "did you tell me just now, that your master hadn't gone out to-night?" inquired mrs. nubbles. "yes," said kit, "worse luck!" "you should say better luck, i think," returned his mother, "because miss nelly won't have been left alone." "ah!" said kit, "i forgot that. i said worse luck, because i've been watching ever since eight o'clock, and seen nothing of her. hark, what's that?" "it's only somebody outside." "it's somebody crossing over here," said kit, standing up to listen, "and coming very fast too. he can't have gone out after i left, and the house caught fire, mother!" the boy stood for a moment, really bereft, by the apprehension he had conjured up, of the power to move. the footsteps drew nearer, the door was opened with a hasty hand, and the child herself, pale and breathless, hurried into the room. "miss nelly! what is the matter?" cried mother and son together. "i must not stay a moment," she returned, "grandfather has been taken very ill. i found him in a fit upon the floor." "i'll run for a doctor----" said kit, seizing his brimless hat. "i'll be there directly, i'll----" "no, no," cried nell, "there is one there, you're not wanted, you--you--must never come near us any more!" "what!" roared kit. "never again," said the child. "don't ask me why, for i don't know. pray don't ask me why, pray don't be sorry, pray don't be vexed with me! i have nothing to do with it indeed! "he complains of you and raves of you," added the child, "i don't know what you have done, but i hope it's nothing very bad." "_i_ done!" roared kit. "he cries that you're the cause of all his misery," returned the child, with tearful eyes. "he screamed and called for you; they say you must not come near him, or he will die. you must not return to us any more. i came to tell you. i thought it would be better that i should. oh, kit, what _have_ you done? you, in whom i trusted so much, and who were almost the only friend i had!" the unfortunate kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and still. "i have brought his money for the week," said the child, looking to the woman, and laying it on the table,--"and--and--a little more, for he was always good and kind to me. i hope he will be sorry and do well somewhere else and not take this to heart too much. it grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no help. it must be done. good-night!" with the tears streaming down her face, and her slight figure trembling with intense agitation, the child hastened to the door, and disappeared as rapidly as she had come. the poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by his not having advanced one word in his own defence. visions of gallantry, knavery, robbery, flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question him. she rocked herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly. the baby in the cradle woke up and cried; the boy in the clothes-basket fell over on his back with the basket on him, and was seen no more; the mother wept louder yet and rocked faster; but kit, insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction. of course, after that there was nothing for him to do but to keep as far away as possible from the shop, which he did, except in the evenings, when he often stole beneath nell's window on a chance of merely seeing her. one night he was rewarded by a scrap of whispered conversation with her from her window. she told him how sick her grandfather had been, and over and over kit reiterated all there was for him to say--that he had done nothing to cause that sickness. "he'll be sure to get better now," said the boy, anxiously, "when he does, say a good word--say a kind word for me, miss nell!" "they tell me i must not even mention your name to him for a long, long time," rejoined the child. "i dare not; and even if i might, what good would a kind word do you, kit? we shall be very poor they say. we shall scarcely have bread to eat, for everything has been taken from us." "it's not that i may be taken back," said the boy. "no, it's not that. it isn't for the sake of food and wages that i've been waiting about in hopes of seeing you. don't think that i'd come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them. it's something very different from that. perhaps he might think it over-venturesome of me to say--well then,--to say this," said kit, with sudden boldness. "this home is gone from you and him. mother and i have got a poor one, and why not come there, till he's had time to look about and find a better? you think," said the boy, "that it's very small and inconvenient. so it is, but it's very clean. do try, miss nell, do try. the little front room upstairs is very pleasant. mother says it would be just the thing for you, and so it would; and you'd have her to wait upon you both, and me to run errands. we don't mean money, bless you; you're not to think of that! will you try him, miss nell? only say you'll try him. do try to make old master come, and ask him first what i have done. will you only promise that, miss nell?" the street door opened suddenly just then, and, conscious that they were overheard, nell closed her window quickly, and kit stole away. and that was his last view of his beloved mistress, for shortly afterwards the old curiosity shop was vacant of its tenants. little nell and her grandfather had quietly slipped away, under cover of night, to face their poverty in a new place; where, no one knew or could find out; and all that remained to kit to remind him of his past, was nell's bird, which he rescued from the shop, (now in quilp's hands), took home, and hung in his window, to the immeasurable delight of his whole family. it now remained for kit to find a new situation, and he roamed the city in search of one daily. he was quite tired out with pacing the streets, to say nothing of repeated disappointments, and was sitting down upon a step to rest, one day, when there approached towards him a little clattering, jingling, four-wheeled chaise, drawn by a little obstinate-looking, rough-coated pony, and driven by a little placid-faced old gentleman. beside the little old gentleman sat a little old lady, plump and placid like himself. as they passed where he sat, kit looked so wistfully at the little turnout, that the old gentleman looked at him. kit rising and putting his hand to his hat, the old gentleman intimated to the pony that he wished to stop, to which proposal the pony graciously acceded. "i beg your pardon, sir," said kit. "i'm sorry you stopped, sir, i only meant, did you want your horse minded." "i'm going to get down in the next street," returned the old gentleman. "if you like to come on after us, you may have the job." kit thanked him, and joyfully obeyed, and held the refractory little beast until the little old lady and little old gentleman came out, and the old gentleman, taking his seat and the reins again, put his hand in his pocket to find a sixpence for kit. not a sixpence could he find, and he thought a shilling too much, but there was no shop in the street to get change at, so he gave it to the boy. "there," he said jokingly, "i'm coming here again next monday at the same time, and mind you're here, my lad, to work it out!" "thank you, sir," said kit. "i'll be sure to be here." he was quite serious, but they laughed heartily at his saying so, and then the pony started off on a brisk trot, and kit was left alone. having expended his treasure in such purchases as he knew would be most acceptable at home, not forgetting some seed for the bird, he hastened back as fast as he could. day after day, as he bent his steps homeward, returning from some new effort to procure employment, kit raised his eyes to the window of the little room he had so much commended to the child nell, and hoped to see some indication of her presence. "i think they must certainly come to-morrow, eh, mother?" said kit, laying aside his hat with a weary air, and sighing as he spoke. "they have been gone a week. they surely couldn't stop away more than a week, could they now?" the mother shook her head, and reminded him how often he had been disappointed already, and kit, looking very mournful, clambered up to the nail, took down the cage, and set himself to clean it, and to feed the bird. his thoughts reverting from this occupation to the little old gentleman who had given him the shilling, he suddenly recollected that that was the very day--nay, nearly the very hour--at which the old gentleman had said he should be at the notary's office again. he no sooner remembered this, than hastily explaining the nature of his errand, he went off at full speed to the appointed place, and although when he arrived there it was full two minutes after the time set, there was as yet no pony-chaise to be seen. greatly relieved, kit leaned against a lamp-post to take breath, and waited. before long the pony came trotting round the corner of the street, and behind him sat the little old gentleman, and the little old lady. upon the pony's refusing to stand at the proper place, the old gentleman alighted to lead him; whereupon the pony darted off with the old lady, and stopped at the right house, leaving the old gentleman to come panting on behind. it was then that kit presented himself at the pony's head, and touched his hat with a smile. "why, bless me," cried the old gentleman, "the lad _is_ here! my dear, do you see?" "i said i'd be here, sir," said kit, patting whisker's neck. "i hope you've had a pleasant ride, sir. he's a very nice little pony." "my dear," said the old gentleman. "this is an uncommon lad; a good lad, i'm sure." "i'm sure he is," rejoined the old lady, "a very good lad, and i am sure he is a good son." kit acknowledged these expressions of confidence by touching his hat again and blushing very much. then the old gentleman helped the old lady out, and they went into the office--talking about him as they went, kit could not help feeling, and a few minutes later he was called in. kit entered in a great tremor, for he was not used to going among strange ladies and gentlemen, and the tin boxes and bundles of dusty papers had in his eyes an awful and a venerable air. mr. witherden, the notary, was a bustling gentleman, who talked loud and fast. "well, boy," said mr. witherden, "you came to work out that shilling,--not to get another, hey?" "no indeed, sir," replied kit, taking courage to look up. "i never thought of such a thing." "now," said the old gentleman, mr. garland, when they had asked some further questions of kit, "i am not going to give you anything." "but," he added, "perhaps i may want to know something more about you, so tell me where you live." kit told him, and the old gentleman wrote down the address with his pencil. he had scarcely done so, than there was a great uproar in the street, and the old lady, hurrying to the window, cried that whisker had run away, upon which kit darted out to the rescue, and the others followed. even in running away, however, whisker was perverse, for he had not gone far when he suddenly stopped. the old lady then stepped into her seat, and mr. abel, her son, whom they had come to fetch, into his. the old gentleman took his place also, and they drove away, more than once turning to nod kindly to kit, as he watched them from the road. when kit reached home, to his amazement he found the pony and his owners there too. "we are here before you, you see, christopher," said mr. garland, smiling. "yes, sir," said kit, and as he said it, he looked towards his mother for an explanation of the visit. "the gentleman's been kind enough, my dear," said she, "to ask me whether you were in a good place, or in any place at all, and when i told him no, he was so good as to say that----" "that we wanted a good lad in our house," said the old lady and the old gentleman both together, "and that perhaps we might think of it, if we found everything as we would wish it to be." as this thinking of it plainly meant the thinking of engaging kit, he immediately fell into a great flutter; for the little old couple were very methodical and cautious, and asked so many questions that he began to be afraid there was no chance of his success; but to his surprise at last he found himself formally hired at an annual income of six pounds, over and above his board and lodging, by mr. and mrs. garland, of abel cottage, finchley; and it was settled that he should repair to his new abode on the next day but one. "well, mother," said kit, hurrying back into the house, after he had seen the old people to their carriage, "i think my fortune's about made now." "i should think it was indeed, kit!" rejoined his mother. "six pound a year! only think!" "ah!" said kit, trying to maintain the gravity which the consideration of such a sum demanded, but grinning with delight in spite of himself. "there's a property! please god, we'll make such a lady of you for sundays, mother! such a scholar of jacob, such a child of the baby, such a room of the one upstairs! six pound a year!" the remainder of that day, and the whole of the next, were a busy time for the nubbles family, to whom everything connected with kit's outfit and departure was matter of as great moment as if he had been about to penetrate into the interior of africa, or to take a cruise round the world. it would be difficult to suppose that there ever was a box which was opened and shut so many times within four-and-twenty hours as that which contained his wardrobe and necessaries; and certainly there never was one which to two small eyes presented such a mine of clothing as this mighty chest, with its three shirts, and proportionate allowance of stockings and pocket-handkerchiefs, disclosed to the astonished vision of little jacob. at last, after many kisses and hugs and tears, kit left the house on the next morning, and set out to walk to finchley. he wore no livery, but was dressed in a coat of pepper-and-salt, with waistcoat of canary colour, and nether garments of iron-grey; besides these glories, he shone in the lustre of a new pair of boots and an extremely stiff and shiny hat. and in this attire, rather wondering that he attracted so little attention, he made his way towards abel cottage. it was a beautiful little cottage, with a thatched roof and little spires at the gable-ends, and pieces of stained glass in some of the windows. on one side of the house was a little stable, just the size for the pony, with a little room over it, just the size for kit. white curtains were fluttering, and birds in cages were singing at the windows; plants were arranged on either side of the path, and clustered about the door; and the garden was bright with flowers in full bloom, which shed a sweet odour all around. everything within the house and without seemed to be the perfection of neatness and order. kit looked about him, and admired, and looked again, before he could make up his mind to turn his head and ring the bell. he rung the bell a great many times, and yet nobody came. but at last, as he was sitting upon the box thinking about giants' castles, and princesses tied up to pegs by the hair of their heads, and dragons bursting out from behind gates, and other incidents of a like nature, common in story-books to youths on their first visit to strange houses, the door was gently opened, and a little servant-girl, very tidy, modest, and pretty, appeared. "i suppose you're christopher, sir?" said the servant-girl. kit got off the box, and said yes, he was, and was ushered in. the old gentleman received him very kindly, and so did the old lady, whose previous good opinion of him was greatly enhanced by his wiping his boots on the mat. he was then taken into the parlour to be inspected in his new clothes; and then was shown the garden and his little room, and when the old gentleman had said all he had to say in the way of promise and advice, and kit had said all he had to say in the way of assurance and thankfulness, he was handed over again to the old lady, who, summoning the little servant-girl (whose name was barbara), instructed her to take him downstairs and give him something to eat and drink after his walk. from that time kit's was a useful, pleasant life, moving on in a peaceful routine of duties and innocent joys from day to day, and from week to week,--until the great, longed-for epoch of his life arrived--the day of receiving, for the first time, one-fourth part of his annual income of six pounds. it was to be a half-holiday, devoted to a whirl of entertainments, and little jacob was to know what oysters meant, and to see a play. the day arrived, and wasn't mr. garland kind when he said to him,--"christopher, here's your money, and you have earned it well;"--which praise in itself was worth as much as his wages. then the play itself! the horses which little jacob believed from the first to be alive,--and the ladies and gentlemen, of whose reality he could be by no means persuaded, having never seen or heard anything at all like them--the firing, which made barbara (who had a holiday too) wink--the forlorn lady who made her cry--the tyrant who made her tremble--the clown who ventured on such familiarities with the military man in boots--the lady who jumped over the nine-and-twenty ribbons and came down safe upon the horse's back--everything was delightful, splendid, and surprising! little jacob applauded until his hands were sore; kit cried "an-kor" at the end of everything; and barbara's mother beat her umbrella on the floor, in her ecstasies, until it was nearly worn down to the gingham. what was all this though--even all this--to the extraordinary dissipation that ensued, when kit, walking into an oyster-shop, as bold as if he lived there, led his party into a box--a private box, fitted up with red curtains, white tablecloth, and cruet-stand complete--and ordered a fierce gentleman with whiskers, who acted as waiter, and called him "christopher nubbles, sir," to bring three dozen of his largest-size oysters, and look sharp about it! then they fell to work upon the supper in earnest; and ate and laughed and enjoyed themselves so thoroughly that it did kit good to see them, and made him laugh and eat likewise, from strong sympathy. but the greatest miracle of the night was little jacob, who ate oysters as if he had been born and bred to the business. there was the baby, too, who sat as good as gold, trying to force a large orange into his mouth, and gazing intently at the lights in the chandelier,--there he was, sitting in his mother's lap, and making indentations in his soft visage with an oyster-shell, so contentedly that a heart of iron must have loved him! in short, there never was a more successful supper; and when kit proposed the health of mrs. and mr. garland, there were not six happier people in the world. but all happiness has an end, and as it was now growing late, they agreed that it was time to turn their faces homeward--and the great day was at an end. one morning just before this, when kit was out exercising the pony, he was called into the office where he had first seen mr. and mrs. garland, to be examined by a strange gentleman concerning what he knew of little nell and her grandfather. the gentleman told kit that he was trying by every means in his power to discover their hiding-place; and, finally, after kit had repeated all that he could remember of the life and words of his beloved miss nelly and the old man, the stranger slipped a half-crown into his hand and dismissed him. the strange gentleman liked kit so much that he desired to have him in his own service, but the boy stoutly refused to leave his kind employer. at mr. garland's suggestion, however, he offered his services to the stranger for an hour or two every day, and from that came trouble to kit. each day, going up and down, to and from the stranger's room, he had to pass through the office of one sampson brass, attorney; who, through the agency of quilp, who was sampson brass's best client, was prejudiced against kit, and pledged to the little dwarf to do him all the injury that he could, for venomous little quilp had never forgiven the boy who had been connected with his ruined client, and had called him "the ugliest dwarf to be seen for a penny"; and he desired vengeance at any cost. every time that kit passed through the office, mr. brass spoke kindly to him, and not seldom gave him half-crowns, which made kit, who from the first had disliked the man, think that he had misjudged him. then one day when kit had been minding the office a few moments for mr. brass, and was running towards home, in haste to do his work there, mr. brass and his clerk, dick swiveller, rushed out after him. "stop!" cried sampson, laying his hand on one shoulder, while mr. swiveller pounced upon the other. "not so fast, sir. you're in a hurry?" "yes, i am," said kit, looking from one to the other in great surprise. "i--i--can hardly believe it," panted sampson, "but something of value is missing from the office. i hope you don't know what." "know what! good heaven, mr. brass!" cried kit, trembling from head to foot; "you don't suppose----" "no, no," rejoined brass, quickly, "i don't suppose anything. you will come back quietly, i hope?" "of course i will," returned kit. "why not?" kit did turn from white to red, and from red to white again, when they secured him, each by an arm, and for a moment he seemed disposed to resist. but, quickly recollecting himself, and remembering that if he made any struggle, he would perhaps be dragged by the collar through the public streets, he suffered them to lead him off. "now, you know," said brass, when they had entered the office, and locked the door, "if this is a case of innocence, christopher, the fullest disclosure is the best satisfaction for everybody. therefore, if you'll consent to an examination, it will be a comfortable and pleasant thing for all parties." "_search me_" said kit, proudly, holding up his arms. "but mind, sir,--i know you'll be sorry for this to the last day of your life." "it is certainly a very painful occurrence," said brass, with a sigh, but commencing the search with vigour. all at once an exclamation from dick swiveller and miss brass, sampson's sister, who was also present, cut the lawyer short he turned his head, and saw dick, who had been holding kit's hat, standing with the missing bank-note in his hand. "in the hat?" cried brass, in a sort of shriek, "_under the handkerchief, and tucked beneath the lining_," said mr. swiveller, aghast, at the discovery. mr. brass looked at him, at his sister, at the walls, at the ceiling, at the floor, everywhere but at kit, who stood quite stupefied and motionless. like one entranced, he stood, eyes wide opened, and fixed upon the ground, until the constable came, and he found himself being driven away in a coach, to the jail, where he was lodged for the night--still dazed by the terrible change in his affairs. it was a long night, but kit slept, and dreamed too--always of being at liberty. at last the morning dawned, and the turnkey who came to unlock his cell, and show him where to wash, told him that there was a regular time for visiting every day, and that if any of his friends came to see him, he would be fetched down to the grate, and that he was lodged apart from the mass of prisoners, because he was not supposed to be utterly depraved and irreclaimable. kit was thankful for this indulgence, and sat reading the church catechism, until the man entered again. "now then," he said. "come on!" "where to, sir?" asked kit. the man contented himself by briefly replying "wisitors," and led kit down behind a grating, outside which, and beyond a railing, kit saw with a palpitating heart, his mother with the baby in her arms; and poor little jacob, who, when he saw his brother, and thrusting his arms between the rails to hug him, found that he came no nearer, began to cry most piteously, whereupon kit's mother burst out sobbing and weeping afresh. poor kit could not help joining them, and not a word was spoken for some time. "oh, my darling kit!" said his mother at last "that i should see my poor boy here!" "you don't believe that i did what they accuse me of, mother, dear?" cried kit, in a choking voice. "i, believe it!" exclaimed the poor woman. "i, that never knew you tell a lie or do a bad action from your cradle. i believe it of the son that's been a comfort to me from the hour of his birth until this time! _i_ believe it of _you_, kit!" "why then, thank god!" said kit. "come what may, i shall always have one drop of happiness in my heart when i think that you said that." at this the poor woman fell a-crying again, and soon, all too soon, the turnkey cried "time's up!" and kit was taken off in an instant, with a blessing from his mother and a scream from little jacob ringing in his ears. eight weary days dragged themselves along, and on the ninth the case of christopher nubbles came up in court; and the aforesaid christopher was called upon to plead guilty or not guilty to an indictment for that he, the aforesaid christopher, did feloniously abstract and steal from the dwelling-house and office of one sampson brass, gentleman, one bank-note for five pounds, issued for governor and company of the bank of england. by a cleverly worked-up case on his opponent's side, kit is so cross-examined as to be found guilty by the jury, and is sentenced to be transported for a term of years. kit's mother, poor woman, is waiting, and when the news is told a sad interview ensues. "_he never did it_!" she cries. "well," says the turnkey, "i won't contradict you. it's all one now, whether he did it or not." "some friend will rise up for us, mother," cried kit. "i am sure. if not now, before long. my innocence will come out, mother, and i shall be brought back again, i feel confident of that. you must teach little jacob and the baby how all this was, for if they thought i had ever been dishonest, when they grew old enough to understand, it would break my heart to know it, if i was thousands of miles away. oh, is there no good gentleman here who will take care of her!" in all kit's life that was the darkest moment, when he saw his mother led away, half fainting, and heard the grating of his cell door as he entered--entangled in a network of false evidence and treachery from which there seemed no way of escape. meanwhile, however, while kit was being found guilty, a young servant in the employ of the brasses was also guilty of listening at keyholes, listening to a conversation which was not intended for her ears, in which she heard the entire plot by which mr. brass had entrapped and condemned kit. how he had himself placed the money in kit's hat while it lay upon the office table; and how the whole plan had been successful. the small servant, friendly to kit, and hating her employers, lost no time in repeating what she had heard to mr. garland, and he, the notary, and the strange gentleman, after carefully arranging their plan, confronted the brasses with evidence of their guilt so overwhelmingly true, that they could do nothing but confess their crime, and kit's innocence, while mr. garland hastened to him with the glad news of his freedom. lighted rooms, bright fires, cheerful faces, the music of glad voices, words of love and welcome, warm hearts and tears of happiness--what a change is this! but it is to such delights that kit is hastening. they are awaiting him, he knows. he fears he will die of joy before he gets among them. when they are drawing near their journey's end he begs they may go more slowly, and when the house appears in sight that they may stop,--only for a minute or two, to give him time to breathe. but there is no stopping then, for they are already at the garden gate. next minute they are at the door. there is a noise of tongues and a tread of feet inside. it opens. kit rushes in and finds his mother clinging round his neck. and there is mrs. garland, neater and nicer than ever, fainting away stone dead with nobody to help her; and there is mr. abel violently blowing his nose and wanting to embrace everybody; and there is the strange gentleman hovering round them all, and there is that good, dear little jacob sitting all alone by himself on the bottom stair, with his hands on his knees, like an old man, roaring fearfully without giving any trouble to anybody; and each and all of them are for the time clean out of their wits. well! in the next room there are decanters of wine, and all that sort of thing set out as grand as if kit and his friends were first-rate company; and there is little jacob walking, as the popular phrase is, into a home-made plum cake at a most surprising rate, and keeping his eye on the figs and oranges which are to follow. kit no sooner comes in than the strange gentleman drinks his health, and tells him he shall never want a friend as long as he lives, and so does mr. garland, and so does mrs. garland, and so does mr. abel. but even this honour and distinction is not all, for the strange gentleman forthwith pulls out of his pocket a massive silver watch--and upon the back of this watch is engraved kit's name with flourishes all over--and in short it is kit's watch, bought expressly for him. mr. and mrs. garland can't help hinting about their present, in store, and mr. abel tells outright that he has his; and kit is the happiest of the happy. there is one friend that kit has not seen yet, and he takes the first opportunity of slipping away and hurrying to the stable, and when kit goes up to caress and pat him, the pony rubs his nose against his coat and fondles him more lovingly than ever pony fondled man. it is the crowning circumstance of his earnest, heartfelt reception; and kit fairly puts his arm round whisker's neck and hugs him. happy christopher!--the darkest days of his life are past--the brightest are yet to be. let us wish him all joy and prosperity and leave him on the threshold of manhood! jo, the crossing sweeper [illustration: jo, the crossing sweeper.] jo lives in a ruinous place, known to the likes of him by the name of tom-all-alone's. it is a black dilapidated street, avoided by all decent people; where the crazy houses were seized upon when their decay was far advanced, by some bold vagrants, who, after establishing their possession, took to letting them out in lodgings. jo sweeps his crossing all day long, and if he is asked a question he replies that he "don't know nothink." he knows that it's hard to keep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to live by doing it. nobody taught him that much--he found it out. indeed, everything poor jo knows he has had to find out for himself, for no one has even taken the trouble to tell him his real name. it must be a strange state to be like jo, not to know the feeling of a whole suit of clothes--to wear even in summer the same queer remnant of a fur cap; to be always dirty and ragged; to shuffle through the streets, unfamiliar with the shapes, and in utter darkness as to the meaning, of those mysterious symbols so abundant over the doors and at corners of the streets, and on the doors and in the windows. to see people read, and to see people write, and to see the postman deliver letters, and not to have the least idea of all that language,--to be to all of it stone blind and dumb. it must be very puzzling to be hustled and jostled, and moved on, and to really feel that i have no business here or there or anywhere; and yet to be perplexed by the consideration that i _am_ here somehow, too, and everybody overlooked me until i became the creature that i am. one cold winter night when jo was shivering near his crossing, a stranger passed him; turned, looked at him intently, then came back and began to ask him questions from which he found out that jo had not a friend in the world. "neither have i, not one," added the man, and gave him the price of a supper and lodging. and from that day jo was no longer friendless, for the stranger often spoke to him, and asked him whether he slept sound at night, and how he bore cold and hunger; and whether he ever wished to die; and other strange questions. then when the man had no money he would say, "i am as poor as you to-day, jo," but when he had any he always shared it with jo. but there came a time not long after this, when the stranger was found dead in his bed, in the house of crook, the rag-and-bottle merchant, where he had lodgings; and nothing could be found out about his life or the reason for his sudden death. so a jury had to be brought together to ferret out the mystery, if possible, and to discover whether the man's death was accidental or whether he died by his own hand. no one knew him, and he had never been seen talking to a human soul except the boy that swept the crossing, down the lane over the way, round the corner,--otherwise jo. so jo was called in as a witness at the inquest. says the coroner, "is that boy here?" says the beadle, "no, sir, he is not here." says the coroner, "go and fetch him then." "oh, here's the boy, gentlemen!" here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. now, boy! but stop a minute. caution. this boy must be put through a few preliminary paces. name jo. nothink else that he knows on. don't know that everybody has two names. don't know that jo is short for a longer name. thinks it long enough for him. spell it? no. he can't spell it. no father, no mother, no friends. never been to school. what's home? knows a broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. don't recollect who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. can't exactly say what'll be done to him after he's dead if he tells a lie to the gentleman here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to punish him, and so he'll tell the truth. "he wos wery good to me, he wos," added the boy, wiping his eyes with his wretched sleeves. "when i see him a-laying so stritched out just now, i wished he could have heerd me tell him so. he wos wery good to me, he wos." the jury award their verdict of accidental death, and the stranger is hurried into a pine box and into an obscure corner of that great home for the friendless and unmourned,--the potter's field,--and night falls, hiding from sight the new-made grave. with the night comes a slouching figure through the tunnel court, to the outside of the iron gate of the potter's field. it holds the gate with its hands, and looks in between the bars. stands looking in for a little while. it then takes an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step, and makes the archway clean. it does so very busily and trimly; looks in again a little while, and so departs. jo, is it thou? well, well? though thou art neither a gentleman nor the son of a gentleman, there is an expression of gratitude and of loyalty, worthy of gentle blood, indicative of noble character, in thy muttered reason for this:---- "he wos wery good to me, he wos." once more without a friend, jo sweeps his crossing day after day. before the stranger came into his life, he had drifted along in his accustomed place, more unreasoning than an intelligent dog; but the hand of a human comrade had been laid in his, and it had awakened his humanity; and now as he sweeps he thinks--about the stranger--wonders where he has gone to, and how he died. as it seemed to jo that the world was bounded on all sides by the events in tom-all-alone's, he was not at all surprised one day to have another stranger come to his crossing and ask him many questions concerning the dead man. he was glad to talk of him, to tell again all that he knew of his life and death, and to show where they had buried him. the interview over, jo is overwhelmed to find his hand closed over a piece of money larger than he has ever owned before. his first proceeding is to hold the piece of money to the gas-light, and to be overpowered at finding that it is yellow gold. his next is to give it a one-sided bite at the edge, as a test of its quality. his next, to put it in his mouth for safety, and to sweep the step and passage with great care. his job done, he sets off for tom-all-alone's, stopping in the light of innumerable gas-lamps to produce the piece of gold, and give it another one-sided bite as a reassurance of its being genuine; and then shuffles off, back to his crossing; little dreaming--poor jo!--that because of his presence at the inquest, and because of this interview, the rest of his existence is to be even more wretched than his past has been. he little dreams that persons great and powerful in the outer world were connected with the secret of his friend's life and death; but it is even so, and those who fear to have anything brought to light concerning him, hire officers to hunt jo away from tom-all-alone's,--the only home he has ever known,--to keep him as far out of reach as possible, because he knew more about the stranger than any one else. he does not understand it at all, but from that minute there seems always to be an officer in sight telling him to "move on." at a summons to his shop one day, mr. snagsby, the law-stationer (in whose employ the dead man was, and who has always been kind to jo when chance has thrown him in his way), descends to find a police constable holding a ragged boy by the arm. "why, bless my heart," says mr. snagsby, "what's the matter?" "this boy," says the constable, calmly, "although he's repeatedly told to, won't move on." "i'm always a-moving on, sir," cries the boy, wiping away his grimy tears with his arm. "where can i possibly move to more nor i do?" "don't you come none of that, or i shall make blessed short work of you," says the constable, giving him a passionless shake. "my instructions are that you are to move on." "but where?" cries the boy. "well, really, constable, you know," says mr. snagsby, "really that _does_ seem a question. where, you know?" "my instructions don't go to that," replies the constable. "my instructions are that this boy is to move on, and the sooner you're five miles away the better for all parties." jo shuffles away from the spot where he has been standing, picking bits of fur from his cap and putting them in his mouth; but before he goes mr. snagsby loads him with some broken meats from the table, which he carries away hugging in his arms. jo goes on, down to blackfriars bridge, where he finds a baking stony corner wherein to settle his repast. there he sits munching and gnawing--the sun going down, the river running fast, the crowd flowing by him in two streams--everything passing on to some purpose, and to one end, until he is stirred up, and told to move on again. desperate with being moved on so many times, jo tramps out of london down to st. albans, where, exhausted from hunger and from exposure to extreme cold, he takes refuge in the cottage of a bricklayer's wife. a young lady who happens to be making a charity call on the woman in the cottage--sees his feverish, excited condition, and questions him. "i am a-being froze," said the boy hoarsely, with his haggard gaze wandering about. "and then burnt up, and then froze, and then burnt up, ever so many times in an hour, and my head's all sleepy, and all a-going mad like--i'm so dry--and my bones isn't half as much bones as pains." "when did he come from london?" the young lady asked. "i come from london yesterday," said the boy himself, now flushed and hot. "i'm a-going somewheres. somewheres," he repeated in a louder tone. "i have been moved on and moved on, more nor i wos afore. mrs. snagsby, she's allus a-watching and a-driving of me. what have i done to her? and they're all a-watching and a-driving of me. everyone of them's doing of it from the time when i don't get up to the time when i don't go to bed. and i'm a-going somewheres, that's where i'm a-going!" so in an oblivious half-insensible way he shuffled out of the house. the young lady hurried after him, and presently came up with him. he must have begun his journey with some small bundle under his arm, and must have lost it or had it stolen, for he still carried his wretched fragment of a fur cap like a bundle, though he went bareheaded through the rain, which now fell fast. he stopped when she called him, standing with his lustrous eyes fixed on her, and even arrested in his shivering fit. she urged him to go with her, and though at first he shook his head, at last he turned and followed her. she led the way to her home, where the servants, sorry for his pitiable condition, made a bed for him in a warm loft-room by the stable, where he was safely housed for the night and cared for. the next morning the young lady was awakened at an early hour by an unusual noise outside her window, and called out to one of the men to know the meaning of it. "it's the boy, miss," said he. "is he worse?" she asked. "gone, miss!" "dead?" "dead, miss? no. gone clean off!" at what time of the night he had gone, or how or why, it seemed hopeless ever to divine. every possible inquiry was made, and every place searched. the brick-kilns were examined, the cottages were visited, the woman was particularly questioned, but she knew nothing of him; the weather had been for some time too wet, and the night itself had been too wet, to admit of any tracing of footsteps. hedge and ditch, and wall and rick, and stack were examined for a long distance round, lest the boy should be lying in such a place insensible or dead; but nothing was seen to indicate that he had ever been near. from the time when he left the loft-room he vanished, and after five days the search was given up as hopeless. where had poor jo moved on to now? for some time it seemed that no one would ever know, but at last, not so very long after this, a physician, allan woodcourt by name--who had known something of jo and his story--was wandering at night in the miserable streets of tom-all-alone's, impelled by curiosity to see its haunts by gas-light. after stopping to offer assistance to a woman sitting on a doorstep, who had evidently come a long distance, he walks away, and as he does so he sees a ragged figure coming very cautiously along, crouching close to the walls. it is the figure of a youth whose face is hollow, and whose eyes have an emaciated glare. he is so intent on getting along unseen, that even the apparition of a stranger in whole garments does not tempt him to look back. allan woodcourt pauses to look after him, with a shadowy belief that he has seen the boy before. he cannot recall how or where, but there is some association in his mind with such a form. he is gradually emerging from tom-all-alone's in the morning light, thinking about it, when he hears running feet behind him, and, looking around, sees the boy scouring toward him at a great speed, followed by the woman. "stop him! stop him!" cries the woman; "stop him, sir!" allan, not knowing but that he has just robbed her of her money, follows in chase, and runs so hard that he runs the boy down a dozen times; but each time the boy makes a curve, ducks, dives under his hands, and scours away again. at last the fugitive, hard pressed, takes to a narrow passage which has no thoroughfare. here he is brought to bay, and tumbles down, lying down gasping at his pursuer until the woman comes up. "oh you jo," cries the woman, "what, i have found you at last!" "jo?" repeats allan, looking at him with attention,--"jo? stay--to be sure, i recollect this lad, some time ago, being brought before the coroner!" "yes, i see you once afore at the inkwich," whimpered the boy. "what of that? can't you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? an't i unfortnet enough for you yet? how unfortnet do you want me for to be? i've been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by another on you, till i'm worritted to skins and bones. the inkwich warn't my fault; i done nothink. he wos very good to me he wos; he wos the only one i knowed to speak to me as ever come across my crossing. it ain't very likely i should want him to be inkwich'd. i only wish i wos myself!" he says it with such a pitiable air that allan woodcourt is softened toward him. he says to the woman, "what has he done?"--to which she only replies, shaking her head,---- "oh you jo! you jo! i have found you at last!" "what has he done?" says allan. "has he robbed you?" "no, sir, no. robbed me? he did nothing but what was kind-hearted by me, and that's the wonder of it. but he was along with me, sir, down at st. albans, ill, and a young lady--lord bless her for a good friend to me!--took pity on him and took him home--took him home and made him comfortable; and like a thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or heard from since, till i set eyes on him just now. and the young lady, that was such a pretty dear, caught his illness, lost her beautiful looks, and wouldn't hardly be known for the same young lady now. do you know it? you ungrateful wretch, do you know that this is all along of her goodness to you?" demands the woman. the boy, stunned by what he hears, falls to smearing his dirty forehead with his dirty palm, and to staring at the ground, and to shaking from head to foot. "you hear what she says!" allan says to joe. "you hear what she says, and i know it's true. have you been here ever since?" "wishermaydie if i seen tom-all-alone's till this blessed morning," replies jo, hoarsely. "why have you come here now?" jo looks all around and finally answers, "i don't know how to do nothink and i can't get nothink to do. i'm very poor and ill and i thought i'd come back here when there warn't nobody about and lay down and hide somewheres as i knows on till arter dark, and then go and beg a trifle of mr. snagsby. he wos allus willing fur to give me something, he wos, though mrs. snagsby, she wos allus a-chivying me--like everybody everywheres." "now, tell me," proceeds allan, "tell me how it came about that you left that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to pity you and take you home?" jo suddenly came out of his resignation, and excitedly declares that he never known about the young lady; that he would sooner have hurt his own self, and that he'd sooner have had his unfortnet head chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her; and that she wos wery good to him she wos. allan woodcourt sees that this is not a sham. "come, jo, tell me," he urged. "no, i durstn't," says jo. "i durstn't or i would." "but i must know," returns allan, "all the same. come, jo!" after two or three such adjurations, jo lifts up his head again, and says in a low voice, "well, i'll tell you something. i was took away. there!" "taken away?--in the night?" ah! very apprehensive of being overheard, jo looks about him, and even glances up some ten feet at the top of the boarding, and through the cracks in it, lest the object of his distrust should be looking over, or hidden on the other side. "who took you away?" "i durstn't name him," says jo. "i durstn't do it, sir." "but i want, in the young lady's name, to know. you may trust me. no one else shall hear." "ah, but i don't know," replies jo, shaking his head fearfully, "as he don't hear. he's in all manner of places all at wunst." allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning at the bottom of this bewildering reply. he patiently awaits an explicit answer, and jo, more baffled by his patience than by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear. "aye," says allan. "why, what had you been doing?" "nothink, sir. never done nothink to get myself into no trouble 'cept in not moving on, and the inkwich. but i'm moving on now. i'm moving on to the berryin'-ground--that's the move as i'm up to." "no, no. we will try to prevent that. but what did he do with you?" "put me in a horspittle," replies jo, whispering, "till i wor discharged, then gave me a little money. 'nobody wants you here,' he ses. 'you go and tramp,' he ses. 'you move on,' he ses. 'don't let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of london, or you'll repent it.' so i shall if ever he does see me, and he'll see me if i'm above ground," concludes jo. allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman, "he is not so ungrateful as you supposed. he had a reason for going away, though it was an insufficient one." "thank 'ee, sir, thank 'ee!" exclaims jo. "there, now, see how hard you was on me. but on'y you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and it's all right. for you wos wery good to me, too, and i knows it." "now, jo," says allan, "come with me and i will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in." and jo, repeating, "on'y you tell the young lady as i never went for to hurt her, and what the genlmn ses," nods and shambles and shivers and smears and blinks, and half-laughs and half-cries a farewell to the woman, and takes his creeping way after allan woodcourt. in a quiet, decent place, among people whom he knows will only treat the boy with kindness, allan finds jo a room. "look here, jo," says allan, "this is mr. george. he is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you a lodging here. you are quite safe here. all you have to do at present is to be obedient, and to get strong; and mind you tell us the truth here, whatever you do, jo." "wishermaydie if i don't, sir," says jo, reverting to his favourite declaration. "i never done nothink yet but wot you knows on to get myself into no trouble. i never wos in no other trouble at all, sir, 'cept not knowing nothink and starwation." "i believe it," said allan; "and now you must lie down and rest." "let me lay here quiet, and not be chivied any more," falters jo, after he has been assisted to his bed and given medicine; "and be so kind any person as is a-passing nigh where i used fur to sweep, as to say to mr. snagsby that jo, wot he knowed wunst, is a-movin' on right forards with his duty, and i'll be wery thankful!" at the boy's request, later, mr. snagsby is sent for, and jo is very glad to see his old friend, and says when they are alone that he "takes it uncommon kind as mr. snagsby should come so far out of his way on account of sich as him." "mr. snagsby," says jo, "i went and give an illness to a lady, and none of 'em never says nothink to me for having done it, on account of their being so good and my having been so unfortnet. the lady come herself and see me yes'day, and she ses, 'jo,' she ses, 'we thought we'd lost you, jo,' she ses; and she sits down a-smilin' so quiet, and don't pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don't; and i turns agin the wall, i doos, mr. snagsby. and mr. woodcot, he come to give me somethink to ease me, wot he's allus a-doing on day and night, and wen he come over me and a-speakin' up so bold, i see his tears a-fallin', mr. snagsby." after this, jo lies in a stupor most of the time, and allan woodcourt, coming in a little later, stands looking down on the wasted form, thinking of the thousands of strong, merry boys to whom the story of jo's life would sound incredible. as he stands there, jo rouses with a start. "well, jo, what is the matter? don't be frightened." "i thought," says jo, who had stared and is looking around, "i thought i wos in tom-all-alone's again. ain't there nobody here but you, mr. woodcot?" "nobody." "and i ain't took back to tom-all-alone's. am i, sir?" "no." jo closes his eyes, muttering, "i'm wery thankful!" after watching him closely for a little while, allan puts his mouth very near his ear, and says to him in a low, distinct voice: "jo, did you ever know a prayer?" "never knowed no think, sir!" "not so much as one short prayer?" "no, sir. nothink at all, sir. mr. chadbands he wos a-praying wunst at mr. snagsby's, and i heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speaking to hisself and not to me. he prayed a lot, but i couldn't make out nothink on it. i never knowed wot it wos all about." it takes him a long time to say this, and few but an experienced and attentive listener could hear, or hearing understand him. after a short relapse into sleep or a stupor he makes of a sudden a strong effort to get out of bed. "stay, jo, what now?" "it's time for me to go to that there berrying-ground, sir," he returned with a wild look. "lie down and tell me what burying-ground, jo." "where they laid him as wos wery good to me; wery good to me indeed he wos! it's time for me to go down to that there berrying-ground and ask to be put along with him. i wants to go there and be berried. he used fur to say to me, 'i am as poor as you to-day, jo,' he says. i wants to tell him that i am as poor as him now, and have come there to be laid along with him." "by-and-by, jo, by-and-by." "ah! p'raps they wouldn't do it if i wos to go myself. but will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?" "i will, indeed!" "thank 'ee, sir. thank 'ee, sir. they'll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it's always locked. and there 's a step there as i used fur to clean with my broom. it's turned very dark, sir. is there any light a-coming?" "it is coming fast, jo, my poor fellow." "i hear you, sir, in the dark, but i'm a-gropin'--a-gropin'--let me catch hold of your hand!" "jo, can you say what i say?" "i'll say anythink as you say, sir, fur i knows it's good." "our father," "our father--yes, that's wery good, sir." "which art in heaven," "art in heaven--is the light a-coming, sir?" "it is close at hand--hallowed be thy name." "hallowed be--thy----" the light is come upon the dark benighted way. the bewildering path is cleared of shadows at last. jo has moved on to a home prepared by eternal love for such as he. paul dombey [illustration: paul dombey and his sister.] as mrs. dombey died when little paul was born, upon mr. dombey--the pompous head of the great firm dombey and son--fell the entire responsibility of bringing up his two children, florence, then eight years of age, and the tiny boy, paul. of florence he took little notice; girls never seemed to him to be of any special use in the world, but paul was the light of his eyes, his pride and joy, and in the delicate child with his refined features and dreamy eyes, mr. dombey saw the future representative of the firm, and his heir as well; and he could not do enough for the boy who was to perpetuate the name of dombey after him. it seemed to mr. dombey that any one so fortunate as to be born his son could not but thrive in return for so great a favour. so it was a blow to him that paul did not grow into a burly, hearty fellow. all their vigilance and care could not make him a sturdy boy. he was a pretty little fellow, though there was something wan and wistful in his small face. his temper gave abundant promise of being imperious in after life; and he had as hopeful an apprehension of his own importance, and the rightful subservience of all other things and persons to it as heart could wish. he was childish and sportive enough at times, and not of a sullen disposition; but he had a strange, old-fashioned, thoughtful way, at other times of sitting brooding in his miniature arm-chair. at no time did he fall into it so surely as when after dinner he sat with his father by the fire. they were the strangest pair at such a time that ever fire-light shone upon. dombey so erect and solemn, gazing at the blaze; paul with an old, old face peering into the red perspective with the fixed and rapt attention of a sage, the two so much alike and yet so monstrously contrasted. on one of these occasions, when they had both been perfectly quiet for a long time, little paul broke the silence thus: "papa, what's money?" the abrupt question took mr. dombey by surprise. "what is money, paul?" he answered, "money?" "yes," said the child, laying his hands upon the elbows of his little chair, and turning his face up towards mr. dombey. "what is money?" mr. dombey was in a difficulty. he would have liked to give him some explanation, involving the terms, currency, bullion, rates of exchange, etc., but he feared he might not be understood, so he answered: "gold and silver and copper. guineas, shillings, halfpence. you know what they are?" "oh yes, i know what they are," said paul. "i don't mean that, papa. i mean what is money after all?" "what is money after all!"--said mr. dombey, backing his chair a little, that he might the better gaze at the presumptuous atom who propounded such an inquiry. "i mean, papa, what can it do?" returned paul. mr. dombey patted him on the head. "you'll know better by-and-by, my man," he said. "money, paul, can do anything." "anything, papa?" "yes, anything--almost," said mr. dombey. "why didn't money save me my mama?" returned the child. "it isn't cruel, is it?" "cruel?" said mr. dombey. "no. a good thing can't be cruel." "if it's a good thing and can do anything," said the little fellow, thoughtfully, as he looked back at the fire, "i wonder why it didn't save me my mama." he didn't ask the question of his father this time. perhaps he had seen, with a child's quickness, that it had already made his father uncomfortable. but he repeated the thought aloud, as if it was quite an old one to him, and had troubled him very much. "it can't make me strong and quite well, either, papa; can it?" asked paul, after a short silence; rubbing his tiny hands. "you are as strong and well as such little people usually are? eh?" said mr. dombey. "florence is older than i am, but i'm not as strong and well as florence, i know," returned the child; "i am so tired sometimes," said little paul, "and my bones ache so that i don't know what to do." the unusual tone of that conversation so alarmed mr. dombey that the very next day he began to inquire into the real state of paul's health; and as the doctor suggested that sea-air might be of benefit to the child, to brighton he was promptly sent, to remain until he should seem benefited. he refused to go without florence to whom he clung with a passion of devotion which made mr. dombey both irritated and jealous to see, wishing himself to absorb the boy's entire affection. so to brighton paul and florence went, in charge of paul's nurse, wickam. they found board in the house of an old lady, mrs. pipchin by name, whose temper was not of the best and whose methods of managing children were rather peculiar. at this exemplary old lady, paul would sit staring in his little armchair for any length of time. he never seemed to know what weariness was when he was looking fixedly at mrs. pipchin. he was not fond of her, he was not afraid of her, but she seemed to have a grotesque attraction for him. once she asked him, when they were alone, what he was thinking about. "you," said paul, without the least reserve. "and what are you thinking about me?" asked mrs. pipchin. "i'm thinking how old you must be," said paul. "you mustn't say such things as that, young gentleman," returned the dame. "why not?" asked paul. "because it's not polite," said mrs. pipchin, snappishly. "not polite?" said paul. "no." "it's not polite," said paul innocently, "to eat all the mutton-chops and toast, wickam says." "wickam," retorted mrs. pipchin colouring, "is a wicked, impudent, bold-faced hussy." "what's that?" inquired paul. "never you mind, sir," retorted mrs. pipchin. "remember the story of the little boy that was gored to death by a mad bull for asking questions." "if the bull was mad," said paul, "how did he know that the boy had asked questions? nobody can go and whisper secrets to a mad bull. i don't believe that story." "you don't believe it, sir?" repeated mrs. pipchin, amazed. "no," said paul. "not if it should happen to have been a tame bull, you little infidel?" said mrs. pipchin. as paul had not considered the subject in that light, he allowed himself to be put down for the present. but he sat turning it over in his mind with such an obvious intention of fixing mrs. pipchin presently, that even that hardy old lady deemed it prudent to retreat until he should have forgotten the subject. from that time mrs. pipchin appeared to have something of the same odd kind of an attraction towards paul as paul had towards her. she would make him move his chair to her side of the fire, instead of sitting opposite, and there he would remain studying every line of mrs. pipchin's face, while the old black cat lay coiled up on the fender purring and winking at the fire, and paul went on studying mrs, pipchin and the cat and the fire, night after night, as if they were a history of necromancy in three volumes. at the end of a week, as paul was no stronger, though he looked much healthier in the face, a little carriage was got for him, in which he could be wheeled down to the seaside. consistent in his odd tastes, the child set aside a ruddy faced lad, who was proposed as the drawer of this carriage, and selected instead, his grandfather, glubb by name, a weazen, old, crab-faced man, in a suit of battered oilskins, who smelt like a weedy sea-beach when the tide is out. with this notable attendant to pull him along and florence always by his side, he went down to the margin of the ocean every day; and there he would sit or lie in his carriage for hours together, never so distressed as at the company of children. he had even a dislike at such times to the company of nurse wickham, and was well pleased when she strolled away. his favourite spot was quite a lonely one, far away from most loungers, and with florence sitting by his side at work, or reading to him, and the wind blowing on his face, and the water coming up among the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing more. for a year the children stayed at brighton, going home but twice during that time for a few days, but every sunday mr. dombey spent with them at the brighton hotel. during the year paul had grown strong enough to give up his carriage, though he still looked thin and delicate, and still remained the same dreamy, quiet child that he had been when consigned to mrs. pipchin's care. at length, on a saturday afternoon, mr. dombey appeared with the news that he was thinking of removing paul to the school of one doctor blimber, also at brighton. "i have had some communication with the doctor, mrs. pipchin," said mr. dombey, "and he does not think paul at all too young for his purposes. my son is getting on, mrs. pipchin, really he is getting on." "six years old!" said mr. dombey, settling his neckcloth. "dear me! six will be changed to sixteen before we have time to look about us; and there is no doubt, i fear, that in his studies he is behind many children of his age--or his youth," said mr. dombey--"his youth is a more appropriate expression. "now, mrs. pipchin, instead of being behind his peers, my son ought to be before them, far before them. there is an eminence ready for him to mount on. there is nothing of chance or doubt before my son. the education of such a young gentleman must not be delayed. it must not be left imperfect. it must be very steadily and seriously undertaken, mrs. pipchin." "well, sir," said mrs. pipchin, "i can say nothing to the contrary." and so to doctor blimber's paul was sent. the doctor's was a mighty fine house fronting the sea. upon its doorstep one day paul stood with a fluttering heart, and with his small right hand in his father's. his other hand was locked in that of florence. the doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each knee, books all round him, homer over the door and minerva on the mantel-shelf. paul being somewhat too small to be seen from where the doctor sat, over the books on his table, the doctor made several futile attempts to get a view of him round the legs; which mr. dombey perceiving, relieved the doctor from his embarrassment by taking paul up in his arms, and sitting him on another little table in the middle of the room. "ha!" said the doctor, leaning back in his chair. "now i see my little friend. how do you do, my little friend?" "v-ery well, i thank you, sir," returned paul. "ha!" said doctor blimber. "shall we make a man of him?" "do you hear, paul?" added mr. dombey, paul being silent. "i had rather be a child," replied paul. "indeed!" said the doctor. "why?" the child made no audible answer, and doctor blimber continued, "you would wish my little friend to acquire----?" "_everything_, if you please, doctor," returned mr. dombey, firmly. "yes," said the doctor. "yes, exactly. ha! we shall impart a great variety of information to our little friend, and bring him quickly forward." at this moment mrs. blimber entered, followed by her daughter, and they were duly presented to the dombeys. there was no light nonsense about miss blimber. she kept her hair short and crisp and wore spectacles. mrs. blimber, her mama, was not learned herself, but she pretended to be, and that did quite as well. she said at evening parties, that if she could have known cicero, she thought she could have died content. it was the steady joy of her life to see the doctor's young gentlemen go out walking, in the largest possible shirt-collars and the stiffest possible cravats. it was so classical, she said. after the introductions were accomplished, mrs. blimber took mr. dombey upstairs to inspect the dormitories. while they were gone paul sat upon the table, holding florence by the hand, and glancing timidly from the doctor round and round the room, while the doctor held a book from him at arm's length and read. presently mr. dombey and mrs. blimber returned. "i hope, mr. dombey," said the doctor laying down his book, "that the arrangements meet with your approval?" "they are excellent, sir," said mr. dombey, and added, "i think i have given all the trouble i need, and may now take my leave. paul my child, good-bye." "good-bye, papa." the limp and careless little hand, that mr. dombey took in his, was singularly out of keeping with the wistful little face. but he had no part in its sorrowful expression. it was not addressed to him. no, no! to florence, all to florence. "i shall see you soon, paul," said mr. dombey, bending over to kiss the child. "you are free on saturdays and sundays, you know." "yes, papa," returned paul, looking at his sister. "on saturdays and sundays." "and you'll try and learn a great deal here and be a clever man," said mr. dombey; "won't you?" "i'll try," said the boy, wearily, and then after his father had patted him on the head, and pressed his small hand again, and after he had one last long hug from florence, he was left with the globes, the books, blind homer and minerva, while doctor blimber saw mr. dombey to the door. after the lapse of some minutes, doctor blimber came back, and the doctor lifting his new pupil off the table delivered him over to miss blimber's care. miss blimber received his young ward from the doctor's hands; and paul, feeling that the spectacles were surveying him, cast down his eyes. "how much of your latin grammar do you know, dombey?" said miss blimber. "none of it," answered paul. feeling that the answer was a shock to miss blimber's sensibility he added: "i haven't been well. i have been a weak child. i couldn't learn a latin grammar when i was out every day with old glubb. i wish you would tell old glubb to come and see me, if you please." "what a dreadful low name," said mrs. blimber. "unclassical to a degree! who is the monster, child?" "what monster!" inquired paul. "glubb," said mrs. blimber. "he's no more a monster than you are," returned paul. "what!" cried the doctor, in a terrible voice. "aye, aye, aye? aha! what's that?" paul was dreadfully frightened, but still he made a stand for the absent glubb, though he did it trembling. "he's a very nice old man, ma'am," he said. "he used to draw my couch; he knows all about the deep sea and the fish that are in it, and though old glubb don't know why the sea should make me think of my mama that's dead, or what it is that it is always saying,--always saying, he knows a great deal about it." "ha!" said the doctor, shaking his head: "this is bad, but study will do much. take him round the house, cornelia, and familiarise him with his new sphere. go with that young lady, dombey." dombey obeyed, giving his hand to cornelia, who took him first to the school-room. here were eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very hard at work and very grave indeed. toots, the oldest boy in the school, to whom paul had previously been introduced, had a desk to himself in one corner, and a magnificent man of immense age, he looked in paul's eyes behind it. the appearance of a new boy did not create the sensation that might have been expected. mr. feeder, b.a., gave him a bony hand and told him he was glad to see him, and then paul, instructed by miss blimber shook hands with all the eight young gentlemen, at work against time. then cornelia led paul upstairs to the top of the house: and there, in a front room looking over the wild sea, cornelia showed him a nice little white bed with white hangings, close to the window, on which there was already written on a card in round text dombey; while two other little bedsteads in the same room, were announced through the same means as belonging to briggs and tozer. then miss blimber said to dombey that dinner would be ready in a quarter of an hour, and perhaps he had better go into the school-room among his "friends." so dombey opened the school-room door a very little way and strayed in like a lost boy. his "friends," were all dispersed about the room. all the boys (toots excepted) were getting ready for dinner--some newly tying their neckcloths, and others washing their hands or brushing their hair in an adjoining room. young toots, who was ready beforehand, and had therefore leisure to bestow upon dombey, said with heavy good-nature,---- "sit down, dombey." "thank you, sir," said paul. his endeavouring to hoist himself on to a very high window-seat, and his slipping down again, prepared toots' mind for the reception of a discovery. "you're a very small chap," said mr. toots. "yes, sir, i'm small," returned paul. "thank you, sir." for toots had lifted him into the seat, and done it kindly too. "who's your tailor?" inquired toots, after looking at him for some moments. "it's a woman that has made my clothes as yet," said paul "my sister's dressmaker." "my tailor's burgess and co.," said toots. "fash'nable but very dear." paul had wit enough to shake his head, as if he would have said it was easy to see that. "your father's regularly rich, ain't he?" inquired mr. toots. "yes, sir," said paul. "he's dombey and son." "and which?" demanded toots. "and son, sir," replied paul. by this time the other pupils had gathered round, and after a few minutes of general conversation the gong sounded, which caused a general move towards the dining-room. paul's chair at the table was next to miss blimber, but it being found, when he sat in it, that his eyebrows were not much above the level of the table-cloth, some books were brought, on which he was elevated, and on which he always sat from that time, carrying them in and out himself on after occasions, like a little elephant and castle. grace having been said by the doctor, dinner began. there was some nice soup, also roast meat, boiled meat, vegetables, pie, and cheese. every young gentleman had a massive silver fork and a napkin, and all the arrangements were stately and handsome. there was a butler too, in a blue coat and brass buttons. nobody spoke unless spoken to, except doctor blimber, mrs. blimber, and miss blimber. only once during dinner was there any conversation that included the young gentlemen. it happened when the doctor, having hemmed twice or thrice; said:---- "it is remarkable, mr. feeder, that the romans----" at this mention of this terrible people, their implacable enemies, every young gentleman fastened his gaze upon the doctor, with an assumption of the deepest interest. one of the number happened to be drinking, and when he caught the doctor's eye glaring at him through the side of his tumbler, he left off so hastily that he was convulsed for some moments, and in the sequel ruined doctor blimber's point, for at the critical part of the roman tale, johnson, unable to suppress it any longer, burst into such an overwhelming fit of coughing that, although both his immediate neighbours thumped him on the back, and mr. feeder himself held a glass of water to his lips, and the butler walked him up and down several times between his own chair and the sideboard, like a sentry, it was full five minutes before he was moderately composed, and then there was a profound silence. "gentlemen," said doctor blimber, "rise for grace! cornelia, lift dombey down. johnson will repeat to me to-morrow morning before breakfast, without book, and from the greek testament, the first chapter of saint paul to the ephesians. we will resume our studies, mr. feeder, in half-an-hour." the young gentlemen bowed and withdrew. through the rest of the day's routine of work paul sat in a corner wondering whether florence was thinking of him and what they were about at mrs. pipchin's. in the confidence of their own room that night briggs said his head ached ready to split. tozer didn't say much, but he sighed a good deal, and told paul to look out for his turn would come to-morrow. and tozer was right. the next morning miss blimber called dombey to her and gave him a great pile of books. "these are yours, dombey," said miss blimber. "all of 'em, ma'am?" said paul. "yes," returned miss blimber; "and mr. feeder will look you out some more very soon if you are as studious as i expect you will be, dombey." "thank you, ma'am," said paul. "now, don't lose time, dombey," continued miss blimber, "for you have none to spare, but take them downstairs and begin directly." "yes, ma'am," answered paul. there were so many of them that, although paul put one hand under the bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book and hugged them all closely, the middle book slipped out before he reached the door, and then they all tumbled down on the floor. miss blimber said, "oh, dombey, dombey, this is really very careless," and piled them up afresh for him; and this time by dint of balancing them with great nicety, paul got out of the room and down a few stairs before two of them escaped again. but he held the rest so tight that he only left one more on the first floor and one in the passage; and when he had got the main body down into the school-room, he set off upstairs again to collect the stragglers. having at last amassed the whole library and climbed into his place he fell to work, encouraged by a remark from tozer to the effect that he was in for it now; which was the only interruption he received until breakfast time, for which meal he had no appetite, and when it was finished, he followed miss blimber upstairs. "now, dombey, how have you got on with those books?" asked miss blimber. they comprised a little english, and a deal of latin, names of things, declensions of articles and nouns, exercises thereon, and preliminary rules; a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three weights and measures, and a little general information. when poor paul had spelt out number two, he found he had no idea of number one, fragments whereof obtruded themselves into number three, which slided into number four, which grafted itself on to number two. so that whether twenty romuluses made a remus, or hic, haec, hoc, was troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient briton, or three times four was taurus, a bull, were open questions with him. "oh, dombey, dombey!" said miss blimber, "this is very shocking!" "if you please," said paul, "i think if i might sometimes talk a little with old glubb, i should be able to do better." "nonsense, dombey," said miss blimber, "i couldn't hear of it; and now take away the top book, if you please, dombey, and return when you are master of the theme." from that time paul gave his whole mind to the pursuit of knowledge and acquitted himself very well, but it was hard work, and only on saturdays did he have time to draw a free breath. oh saturdays, happy saturdays, when florence, still at mrs. pipchin's, came at noon; they made up for all the other days! it did not take long for the loving sister to discover that paul needed help with the lessons over which he plodded so patiently, and so, procuring the books which he used, she kept pace with him in his studies, and every saturday was able to assist him with his next week's work, and thus he was kept from sinking underneath the burden which cornelia blimber piled upon his back. it was not that miss blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that doctor blimber meant to bear too heavily upon the young gentlemen in general, but comforted by the applause of the young gentlemen's nearest relatives, and urged on by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would have been strange if doctor blimber had discovered his mistake. thus in the case of paul. when doctor blimber said he made great progress and was naturally clever, mr. dombey was more bent than ever on his being forced and crammed. such spirits as he had in the outset paul soon lost. but he retained all that was strange and old and thoughtful in his character. the only difference was that he kept his character to himself. he grew more thoughtful and reserved every day. he loved to be alone; and in those short intervals when he was not occupied with his books, he liked nothing so well as wandering about the house by himself, or sitting on the stairs listening to the great clock in the hall. they were within some two or three weeks of the holidays when one day cornelia called dombey to her to hear the analysis of his character that she was about to send to his father. "_analysis_," said miss blimber, "of the character of p. dombey. it may be generally observed of dombey," said miss blimber, reading in a loud voice, and at every second word directing her spectacles towards the little figure before her, "that his abilities and inclinations are good, and that he has made as much progress as under the circumstances could have been expected. but it is to be lamented of this young gentleman that he is singular (what is usually termed old-fashioned) in his character and conduct, and that he is often very unlike other young gentlemen of his age and social position. now, dombey," said miss blimber, laying down the paper, "do you understand? this analysis, you see, dombey," miss blimber continued, "is going to be sent home to your respected parent. it will naturally be very painful to him to find that you are singular in your character and conduct. it is naturally very painful to us, for we can't like you, you know, dombey, as well as we could wish." she touched the child upon a tender point. he had secretly become more solicitous from day to day that all the house should like him. he could not bear to think that they would be quite indifferent to him when he was gone, and he had even made it his business to conciliate a great, hoarse, shaggy dog, who had previously been the terror of his life, that even he might miss him. this poor tiny paul set forth to miss blimber as well as he could and begged her, in spite of the official analysis, to have the goodness to try to like him. to mrs. blimber, who had joined them, he preferred the same petition; and when she gave her oft-repeated opinion that he was an odd child, paul told her that he was sure that she was quite right; that he thought it must be his bones, but he didn't know, and he hoped she would overlook it, for he was fond of them all. "not so fond," said paul, with a mixture of frankness and timidity which was one of the most peculiar and engaging qualities of his, "not so fond as i am of florence, of course; that could never be. you couldn't expect that, could you, ma'am?" "oh, the old-fashioned little soul!" cried mrs. blimber, in a whisper. "but i like everybody here very much," pursued paul, "and i should grieve to go away and think that any one was glad i had gone, or didn't care." mrs. blimber was now sure that paul was the oddest child in the world, and when she told the doctor what had passed, he did not controvert his wife's opinion. and paul's wish was gratified. his purpose was to be a gentle, helpful, quiet little fellow, and though he was often to be seen at his old post on the stairs, or watching the waves or the clouds from his solitary window, he was oftener found too, among the other boys, modestly rendering them some little voluntary service. thus it came to pass that paul was an object of general interest: a fragile little plaything that they all liked, and that no one would have thought of treating roughly. but he could not change his nature, and so they all agreed that dombey was old-fashioned. there were some immunities, however, attaching to the character enjoyed by no one else. they could have better spared a newer-fashioned child, and that alone was much. when the others only bowed to doctor blimber and family when retiring, paul would stretch his morsel of a hand, and boldly shake the doctor's, also mrs. blimber's, also cornelia's; and if any one was to be begged off from impending punishment, paul was always the delegate. one evening, when the holidays were very near, paul was in toots' room watching mr. feeder and toots fold, seal, and direct, the invitations for the evening party with which the term was to close. paul's head, which had long been ailing more or less, and was sometimes very heavy and painful, felt so uneasy that night that he was obliged to support it on his hand. and it dropped so that by little and little it sunk on mr. toots' knee, and rested there. that was no reason why he should be deaf; but he must have been, he thought, for by and by he heard mr. feeder calling in his ear, and gently shaking him to rouse his attention. and when he raised his head, quite scared, he found that doctor blimber had come into the room, and that the window was open, and that his forehead was wet with sprinkled water. "ah! come, come, that's well. how is my little friend now?" said doctor blimber. "oh, quite well, thank you, sir," said paul. but there seemed to be something the matter with the floor, for he couldn't stand upon it steadily; and with the walls too, for they were inclined to turn round and round. it was very kind of mr. toots to carry him to the top of the house so tenderly, and paul told him that it was. but mr. toots said he would do a great deal more than that if he could; and, indeed, he did more as it was, for he helped paul to undress and helped him to bed in the kindest manner possible, and then sat down by the bedside and chuckled very much, while mr. feeder leaning over the bottom of the bedstead set all the little bristles on his head, bolt upright with his bony hands, and then made believe to spar at paul, with great science, on account of his being all right again, which was so funny and kind, too, in mr. feeder, that paul, not being able to make up his mind whether to laugh or cry, did both at once. everything that could minister to paul's comfort was done for him, and in those days just before the holidays when the other young gentlemen were labouring for dear life, paul was such a privileged pupil as had never been seen in that house before. he could hardly believe it himself, but his liberty lasted from hour to hour, from day to day; and little dombey was caressed by every one. at last, the great night of the reception arrived. when paul was dressed, which was very soon done, for he felt unwell and drowsy and not able to stand about it very long, he went down into the drawing-room. shortly afterwards mrs. blimber appeared, looking lovely, paul thought, and miss blimber came down soon after her mama. mr. toots and mr. feeder were the next arrivals. each of these gentlemen brought his hat in his hand as if he lived somewhere else; and when they were announced by the butler. doctor blimber said, "aye, aye, aye! god bless my soul!" and seemed extremely glad to see them. mr. toots was one blaze of jewellery and buttons, and all the other young gentlemen were tightly cravatted, curled, and pumped, and all came in with their hats in their hands at separate times and were announced and introduced. soon paul slipped down from the cushioned corner of a sofa, and went downstairs into the tearoom to be ready for florence. presently she came; looking so beautiful in her simple ball-dress, with her fresh flowers in her hand, that when she knelt down, to take paul round the neck and kiss him, he could hardly make up his mind to let her go again, or to take away her bright and loving eyes from his face. "but what is the matter, floy?" asked paul, almost sure that he saw a tear there. "nothing, darling, nothing," returned florence. paul touched her cheek gently with his finger, and it _was_ a tear. "we'll go home together, and i'll nurse you, love," said florence. "nurse me?" echoed paul. "floy," said paul, holding a ringlet of her dark hair in his hand. "tell me, dear. do you think i have grown old-fashioned?" his sister laughed, and fondled him and told him, "no." through the evening paul sat in his corner watching the dancing and beaming with pride as he heard praise showered on dombey's sister. they all loved her--how could they help it, paul had known beforehand that they must and would, and few would have thought with what triumph and delight he watched her. thus little paul sat musing, listening, looking on and dreaming; and was very happy. until the time came for taking leave, and then indeed there was a sensation in the party. every one took the heartiest sort of leave of him. "good-bye, doctor blimber," said paul, stretching out his hand. "good-bye, my little friend," returned the doctor. "i'm very much obliged to you, sir," said paul, looking innocently up into his awful face. "ask them to take care of diogenes, if you please." diogenes was the dog who had never received a friend into his confidence, before paul. the doctor promised that every attention should be paid to diogenes in paul's absence, and paul having again thanked him, and shaken hands with him, bade adieu to mrs. blimber and cornelia. cornelia, taking both paul's hands in hers said,--"dombey, dombey, you have always been my favourite pupil. god bless you!" and it showed, paul thought, how easily one might do injustice to a person; for miss blimber meant it--although she was a forcer. a buzz then went round among the young gentlemen, of "dombey's going! little dombey's going!" and there was a general move after paul and florence down the staircase and into the hall, in which the whole blimber family were included. the servants with the butler at their head had all an interest in seeing little dombey go, and even the young man taking out his books and trunks to the coach melted visibly. nothing could restrain them from taking quite a noisy leave of paul; waving hats after him, pressing downstairs to shake hands with him, crying individually "dombey! don't forget me!" paul whispered to florence, as she wrapped him up before the door was opened. did she hear them? would she ever forget it? was she glad to know it? and a lively delight was in his eyes as he spoke to her. once for a last look he turned and gazed upon the faces thus addressed to him, surprised to see how shining and how bright and how numerous they were. they swam before him, as he looked, and next moment he was in the dark coach outside holding close to florence. from that time, whenever he thought of doctor blimber's it came back as he had seen it in this last view; and it never seemed a real place again, but always a dream, full of eyes. and so ended little paul's school days at doctor blimber's, for once at home again he never rose from his little bed. he lay there (listening to the noises in the street), quite tranquilly, not caring much how the time went, but watching it and everything about him with observing eyes. when the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on, and that the sky was red and beautiful. as the reflection died away, and a gloom went creeping up the wall, he watched it deepen--deepen, into night. then he thought how the long streets were dotted with lamps, and how the peaceful stars were shining overhead. his fancy had a strange tendency to wander to the river, which he knew was flowing through the great city; and now he thought how black it was and how deep it would look reflecting the hosts of stars--and more than all, how steadily it rolled away to meet the sea. as it grew later in the night, and footsteps in the street became so rare that he could hear their coming, count them as they passed, and lose them in the hollow distance, he would lie and watch the many-coloured ring about the candle, and wait patiently for day. when day began to dawn again, he watched for the sun and when its cheerful light began to sparkle in the room, he pictured to himself--pictured! he saw--the high church towers rising up into the morning sky, the town reviving, waking, starting into life once more, the river glistening as it rolled (but rolling fast as ever), and the country bright with dew. familiar sounds came by degrees into the street below; the servants in the house were roused and busy; faces looked in at the door, and voices asked his attendants softly how he was. paul always answered for himself, "i am better. i am a great deal better, thank you. tell papa so." by little and little he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of carriages and carts, and people passing and re-passing; and would fall asleep, or be troubled with a restless, and uneasy sense again--the child could hardly tell whether this were in his sleeping or his waking moments--of that rushing river. "why will it never stop, floy?" he would sometimes ask her. "it is bearing me away i think." but floy could always soothe and reassure him: and it was his daily delight to make her lay her head down on his pillow, and take some rest. "you are always watching me, floy, let me watch you now." they would prop him up with cushions in a corner of his bed, and there he would recline the while she lay beside him, bending forwards oftentimes to kiss her. thus the flush of the day in its heat and light, would gradually decline; and again the golden water would be dancing on the wall. he was visited by as many as three grave doctors--they used to assemble downstairs and come up together--and the room was so quiet and paul was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody what they said) that he even knew the difference in the sound of their watches. the people round him changed as unaccountably as on that first night at doctor blimber's--except florence; florence never changed. old mrs. pipchin dozing in an easy chair, often changed to someone else and paul was quite content to shut his eyes again and see what happened next, without emotion. but one figure with its head upon its hand returned so often and remained so long, and sat so still and solemn, never speaking, never being spoken to, and rarely lifting up its face, that paul began to wonder languidly if it were real. "floy," he said, "what is that?" "where, dearest?" "there, at the bottom of the bed." "there's nothing there except papa." the figure lifted up its head, and rose, and coming to the bedside said: "my own boy! don't you know me?" paul looked it in the face and thought, was this his father? but the face so altered to his thinking, thrilled while he gazed, as if it were in pain; and before he could reach out both his hands to take it between them and draw it towards him, the figure turned away quickly from the little bed, and went out at the door. the next time he observed the figure sitting at the bottom of the bed, he called to it: "don't be so sorry for me, dear papa. indeed, i am quite happy." his father coming and bending down to him, which he did quickly, paul held him round the neck and repeated those words to him several times and very earnestly. this was the beginning of his always saying in the morning that he was a great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so. how many times the golden water danced on the wall; how many nights the dark, dark river rolled away towards the sea in spite of him, paul never counted, never sought to know. if their kindness could have increased, or his sense of it, they were more kind, and he more grateful every day; but whether they were many days or few appeared of little moment now to the gentle boy. one night he had been thinking of his mother and her picture in the drawing-room downstairs. the train of thought suggested to him to inquire if he had ever seen his mother; for he could not remember whether they had told him yes or no, the river running very fast and confusing his mind. "floy, did i ever see mama?" "no, darling; why?" "did i ever see any kind face like mama's looking at me when i was a baby, floy?" "oh yes, dear." "whose, floy?" "your old nurse's, often." "and where is my old nurse?" said paul. "is she dead, too? floy are we all dead except you?" there was a hurry in the room for an instant--longer perhaps--then all was still again, and florence, with her face quite colourless but smiling, held his head upon her arm. her arm trembled very much. "show me that old nurse, floy, if you please." "she is not here, darling; she shall come to-morrow." "thank you, floy." paul closed his eyes with these words and fell asleep. when he awoke the sun was high and the broad day was clear and warm. he lay a little, looking at the windows, which were open, and the curtains rustling in the air, and waving to and fro, then he said, "floy, is it to-morrow? is she come?" the next thing that happened was a noise of footsteps on the stairs, and then paul woke--woke mind and body--and sat upright in his bed. he saw them now about him. there was no gray mist before them as there had been some time in the night. he knew them every one and called them by their names. "and who is this? is this my old nurse?" said the child, regarding with a radiant smile a figure coming in. yes, yes. no other stranger would have shed those tears at sight of him, and called him her dear boy, her pretty boy, her own poor blighted child. no other woman would have stooped down by his bed, and taken up his wasted hand, and put it to her lips and breast, as one who had some right to fondle it. "floy, this is a kind, good face," said paul. "i am glad to see it again. don't go away, old nurse. stay here." "good-bye, my child," cried mrs. pipchin, hurrying to his bed's head. "not good-bye?" for an instant paul looked at her with the wistful face with which he had so often gazed upon her in his corner by the fire. "ah, yes," he said, placidly, "good-bye. where is papa?" he felt his father's breath upon his cheek before the words had parted from his lips. "now lay me down," he said, "and, floy, come close to me, and let me see you." sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them, locked together. "how fast the river runs, between its green banks and the rushes, floy. but it's very near the sea. i hear the waves." presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest. how near the banks were now. how bright the flowers growing on them, and how tall the rushes. now the boat was out at sea but gliding smoothly on. and now there was a shore before him. who stood on the bank? he put his hands together as he had been used to do at his prayers. he did not remove his arms to do it, but they saw him fold them so, behind her neck, "mama is like you, floy. i know her by the face. but tell them that the print upon the stairs at school is not divine enough. the light about the head is shining on me as i go." the golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. the old, old fashion. the fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. the old, old fashion--death. oh, thank god for that older fashion yet,--of immortality! pip [illustration: pip and miss havisham.] my father's family name being pirrip, and my christian name philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing more explicit than pip. so i called myself pip, and came to be called pip. my mother and father both being dead, i was brought up by my sister, mrs. joe gargery, who was more than twenty years older than i, and a veritable shrew by nature. she had acquired a great reputation among the neighbours because she had brought me up by hand. not understanding this expression, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, i supposed that joe gargery and i were both brought up by hand. joe, her husband, was a mild, good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow, with light curly hair and blue eyes, and he and i were great chums, as well as fellow-sufferers under the rule of my sharp-tongued sister. one afternoon i was wandering in the church-yard where my mother and father were buried, when i was accosted by a fearful man all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. he wore no hat and had broken shoes, and an old rag tied round his head. he limped and shivered, and glared and growled, his teeth chattering, as he seized me by the chin. "o don't cut my throat, sir!" i pleaded in terror. "pray don't do it, sir!" "tell us your name," said the man, "quick!" "pip, sir," "show us where you live," he said. "point out the place!" i pointed to where our village lay, and then the man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down and emptied my pockets, but there was nothing in them except a piece of bread. when the church came to itself, for he was so sudden and strong that he made it go head over heels before me,--i was seated on a high tombstone trembling, while he ate the bread ravenously. then he came nearer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me, looking into my eyes. "now lookee here," he said, "you get me a file and you get me wittles; you bring both to me to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. you bring the lot to me at that old battery yonder. you do it, and you never dare to say a word concerning your having seen such a person as me, and you shall be let live. you fail in any partickler and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted and ate! now i ain't alone, as you may think. there is a young man hid with me who hears the words i speak. it is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. a boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may draw the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will soon creep and creep his way to him and tear him open. i am a-keeping the young man from harming of you at the present moment with great difficulty. now what do you say?" i said i would get him the file and what food i could, and would come to him early in the morning. "say, lord strike me dead, if you don't!" i said so and he took me down. i faltered a good night, and he turned to go, walking as if he were numb and stiff. when i saw him turn to look once more at me, i made the best use of my legs, having a terrible fear of him, and of the young man, and i ran home without once stopping. i found the forge shut up and joe alone in the kitchen. the minute i raised the latch, he said: "mrs. joe has been out a dozen times looking for you, pip, and she's out now, and what's more, she's got tickler with her." at this dismal intelligence i looked with great depression at the fire. tickler was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by contact with my tickled frame. "she sot down," said joe, "and she got up, and she made a grab at tickler, and she rampaged out. now she's a-coming! go behind the door, old chap!" i took the advice, but my sister, throwing the door wide open, and finding an obstruction behind it, guessed the cause, and applied tickler to its further investigation. "where have you been, you young monkey?" she asked, stamping her foot; "tell me directly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit?" "i have only been in the church-yard," said i, crying and rubbing myself, but my answer did not satisfy my sister, who kept on scolding and applying tickler to my person until she was obliged to see to the tea things. though i was very hungry, i dared not eat my bread and butter, for i felt that i must have something in reserve to take my dreadful acquaintance in case i could find nothing else. therefore, at a moment when no one was looking, i put a hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my trousers. joe thought i had eaten it in one gulp, which greatly distressed him, and i was borne off and dosed with tar water. conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy. the guilty knowledge that i was going to rob mrs. joe, united to the necessity of keeping one hand on my bread and butter as i sat or moved about, almost drove me out of my mind, but as it was christmas eve, i was obliged to stir the pudding for next day for one whole hour. i tried to do it with the load on my leg, and found the tendency of exercise was to bring the bread out at my ankle, so i managed to slip away and deposit it in my garret room. later there was a sound of firing in the distance. "ah," said joe, "there's another convict off!" "what does that mean, joe," said i. mrs. joe answered, "escaped, escaped," and joe added,--"there was one off last night, and they fired warning of him. and now it appears they're firing warning of another." "who's firing?" said i. "drat that boy," said my sister, frowning. "what a questioner he is! ask no questions and you'll be told no lies!" i waited a while, and then as a last resort, i said,--"mrs. joe, i should like to know--if you wouldn't much mind--where the firing comes from?" "lord bless the boy!" she exclaimed, "from the hulks!" "oh-h," said i, looking at joe, "hulks! and please what's hulks?" "that's the way with this boy," exclaimed my sister, "answer him one question, and he'll ask you a dozen directly. hulks are prison ships right 'cross the meshes." (we always used that name for marshes in our country.) "i wonder who's put in prison ships, and why they're put there," said i. this was too much for mrs. joe, who immediately rose. "i tell ye what, young fellow," said she, "i didn't bring you up by hand to badger people's lives out. people are put in the hulks because they murder and rob and forge and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking questions. now you get along to bed!" i was never allowed a candle and as i crept up in the dark i felt fearfully sensible that the hulks were handy for me. i was clearly on the way there. i had begun by asking questions and i was going to rob mrs. joe. i was also in mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver, and of my acquaintance with the iron on his leg, and if i slept at all that night it was only to imagine myself drifting down the river on a strong spring tide to the hulks, a ghostly pirate calling out to me through a speaking trumpet that i had better come ashore and be hanged there at once. i was afraid to sleep even if i could have, for i knew that at the first dawn of morning i must rob the pantry and be off. so as early as possible i crept downstairs to the pantry and secured some bread, some rind of cheese, half a jar of mincemeat, some brandy from a stone bottle which i poured into a bottle of my own and then filled the stone one up with water. i also took a meat bone and a beautiful pork pie. then i got a file from among joe's tools, and with this and my other plunder made my way with all dispatch along the river-side. presently i came upon what i supposed was the man i was searching for, for he too was dressed in coarse gray and had a great iron on his leg, but his face was different. "it's the young man," i thought, feeling my heart beat fast at the idea. he swore at me as i passed, and tried in a weak way to hit me, but then he ran away and i continued my trip to the battery, and there was the right man in a ravenous condition. he was gobbling mincemeat, meat-bone, bread, cheese, and pork pie all at once, when he turned suddenly and said: "you're not a deceiving imp? you brought no one with you?" i answered no, and he resumed his meal, snapping at the food as a dog would do. while he was eating, i ventured to remark that i had met the young man he spoke of, at which the man showed the greatest surprise, and became so violently excited that i was very much afraid of him. i was also afraid of remaining away from home any longer. i told him i must go, but he took no notice, so i thought the best thing i could do was to slip off, which i did. "and where the deuce ha' you been?" was mrs. joe's christmas salutation. i said i had been down to hear the carols. "ah well," observed mrs. joe, "you might ha' done worse," and then went on with her work as we were to have company for dinner, and the feast was to be one that occasioned extensive arrangements. my sister had too much to do to go to church, but joe and i went, arrayed in our sunday best. when we reached home we found the table laid, mrs. joe dressed and the front door unlocked--(it never was at any other time) and everything most splendid. and still not a word about the robbery. the company arrived; mr. wopsle, mr. and mrs. hubble, and uncle pumblechook, joe's uncle, who lived in the nearest town and drove his own chaise cart. dinner was a brilliant success, but so rich that uncle pumblechook was entirely overcome, and was obliged to call for brandy. oh heavens! he would say it was weak, and i should be lost! i held tight to the leg of the table and awaited my fate. the brandy was poured out and uncle pumblechook drank it off. instantly he sprang to his feet, turned round several times in an appalling, spasmodic whooping-cough dance, and rushed out at the door to the great consternation of the company. mrs. joe and joe ran out and brought him back, and as he sank into his chair he gasped the one word, "tar!" i had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug! oh misery! i knew he would be worse by and by! "tar?" cried my sister. "why how ever could tar come there?" fortunately at that moment. uncle pumblechook called for hot gin and water, and my sister had to employ herself actively in getting it. for the time at least, i was saved. by degrees i became calmer and able to partake of pudding, and was beginning to think i should get over the day, when my sister said, "you must finish with such a delicious present of uncle pumblechook's, a savoury pork pie!" she went out to the pantry to get it. i am not certain whether i uttered a shrill yell of terror merely in spirit or in the hearing of the company. i felt that i must run away, so i released the leg of the table and ran for my life. but at the door, i ran head foremost into a party of soldiers ringing down the butt-ends of their muskets on our doorstep. this apparition caused the dinner party to rise hastily, while mrs. joe who was re-entering the kitchen, empty-handed, stopped short in her lament of "gracious goodness, gracious me, what's gone--with the--pie!" and stared at the visitors. further acquaintance with the military gentlemen proved that they had not come for me, as i fully expected, but merely to have a pair of hand-cuffs mended, which joe at once proceeded to do, and while the soldiers waited they stood about the kitchen, and piled their arms in the corner, telling us that they were on the search for the two convicts who had escaped from the prison ships. when joe's job was done, he proposed that some of us go with them to see the hunt. only mr. wopsle cared to go, and then joe said he would take me. to this mrs. joe merely remarked: "if you bring the boy back, with his head blown to bits with a musket, don't look to me to put it together again!" the soldiers took a polite leave of the ladies and then we started off, joe whispering to me, "i'd give a shilling if they'd cut and run, pip!" there was no doubt in my mind that the man i had succoured and the other one i had seen, were the convicts in question, and as we went on and on, my heart thumped violently. the man had asked me if i was a deceiving imp. would he believe now that i had betrayed him? on we went, and on and on, down banks and up banks, and over gates, hearing the sound of shouting in the distance. as we came nearer to the sound, the soldiers ran like deer. water was splashing, mud was flying, and oaths were being sworn, and then, "here are both men!" panted the sergeant, struggling in a ditch. "surrender, you two! come asunder!" other soldiers ran to help, and dragged up from the ditch my convict and the other one. both were bleeding and panting and struggling, but of course i knew them both directly. while the manacles were being put on their hands, my convict saw me for the first time. i looked at him eagerly, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head, trying to assure him of my innocence, but he did not in any way show me that he understood my gestures. we soon set off, the convicts kept apart, and each surrounded by a separate guard. mr. wopsle would have liked to turn back, but joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with the party, carrying torches which flared up and lighted our way. we could not go fast because of the lameness of the prisoners, and they were so spent that we had to halt two or three times while they rested. after an hour or two of this travelling, we came to a hut where there was a guard. here the sergeant made some sort of a report, and an entry in a book, and then the other convict was drafted to go on board the hulks first. my convict only looked at me once. while we stood in the hut, he looked thoughtfully into the fire. suddenly he turned to the sergeant and remarked that he wished to say something about his escape, adding that it might prevent some persons being laid under suspicions. "you can say what you like," returned the sergeant, and the convict continued: "a man can't starve, at least i can't. i took some wittles up at the village yonder--where the church stands a'most out on the marshes, and i'll tell you where from. from the blacksmith's." "halloa, pip!" said joe, staring at me. "it was some broken wittles--and a dram of liquor--and a pie." "have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?" asked the sergeant. "my wife did, at the very moment when you came in. don't you know, pip?" "so," said my convict, looking at joe, "so you're the blacksmith, are you? then i'm sorry to say, i've eat your pie." "god knows you're welcome to it, so far as it was ever mine," returned joe. "we don't know what you've done, but we wouldn't have you starve to death for it, poor miserable fellow-creature, would we, pip?" something that i had noticed before, clicked in the man's throat, and he turned his back. the boat was ready for him, and we saw him rowed off by a crew of convicts like himself. we saw the boat go alongside of the hulks, and we saw the prisoner taken up the side and disappear, and then the excitement was all over. i was so tired and sleepy by that time that joe took me on his back and carried me home, and when we arrived there i was fast asleep. when at last i was roused by the heat and noise and lights, joe was relating the story of our expedition and of the convict's confession of his theft from our pantry. this was all i heard that night, for my sister clutched me, as a slumbrous offence to the company's eyesight, and assisted me very forcefully up to bed, and after that the subject of the convict and the robbery was only mentioned on a few occasions when something brought it to mind. in regard to my part of it, i do not recall any tenderness of conscience in reference to mrs. joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. but i dearly loved joe, and it was on my mind that i ought to tell him the whole truth. and yet i did not, fearing that i might lose his love and confidence, and that he would think me worse than i really was. and so he never heard the truth of the matter. at this time i was only odd-boy about the forge, or errand boy for any neighbour who wanted a job done, and in the evenings i went to a school kept by mr. wopsle's great-aunt, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth who paid twopence per week each for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it. with her assistance, and the help of her granddaughter, biddy, i struggled through the alphabet, as if it had been a bramble bush, getting considerably worried and scratched by each letter. after that, the nine figures began to add to my misery, but at last i began to read, write, and cipher on the smallest scale. one night, about a year after our hunt for the convicts, joe and i sat together in the chimney corner while i struggled with a letter which i was writing on my slate to joe, for practice. as we sat there, joe made the fire and swept the hearth, for we were momentarily expecting mrs. joe. it was market day, and she had gone to market with uncle pumblechook to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a woman's judgment. just as we had completed our preparations, she and uncle pumblechook drove up, and came in wrapped up to the eyes, for it was a bitter night. "now," said mrs. joe, unwrapping herself in haste and excitement, "if this boy ain't grateful to-night, he never will be!" i looked as grateful as any boy could who had no idea what he was to be grateful about, and after many side remarks addressed to the others, mrs. joe informed me that miss havisham wished me to go and play at her house for her amusement. "and of course, he's going," added my sister severely, "and he had better play there, or i'll work him!" i had heard of miss havisham, everybody for miles round had heard of her, as an immensely rich and grim old lady, who lived a life of seclusion in a large and dismal house, barricaded against robbers. "well, to be sure," said joe, astounded, "i wonder how she comes to know pip!" "noodle," said my sister, "who said she knew him? couldn't she ask uncle pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? and couldn't uncle pumblechook, being always thoughtful for us, then mention this boy, that i have forever been a willing slave to?" after this she added, "for anything we can tell, the boy's fortune is made by this. uncle pumblechook has offered to take him into town to-night and keep him over night, and to take him with his own hands to miss havisham's to-morrow morning, and lor-a-mussy me!" cried my sister. "here i stand talking, with uncle pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, and the boy grimed with dirt from the hair of his head to the sole of his foot!" with that she pounced on me and i was scraped and kneaded, and towelled and thumped, and harrowed and reaped, until i was really quite beside myself. when at last my ablutions were completed, i was put into clean linen of the stiffest character, and in my tightest and fearfullest suit, i was then delivered over to mr. pumblechook, who said dramatically: "boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but especially unto them which brought you up by hand!" "good-bye, joe." "god bless you, pip, old chap!" i had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings, and what with soap-suds, i could at first see no stars from the chaise cart. but they twinkled out one by one without throwing any light on the question why on earth i was going to play at miss havisham's, and what on earth i was expected to play at. i spent the night with uncle pumblechook, and the next morning we started off for miss havisham's, and within a quarter hour had reached the house, which looked dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. some of the windows had been walled up, and the others were rustily barred. there was a court-yard in front which was also barred, so after ringing the bell we had to wait until some one should open it. presently a window was raised and a voice asked "what name?" to which my conductor replied, "pumblechook." then the window was shut, and a very pretty, proud-appearing young lady came down with keys in her hand. she opened the gate to let me in, and uncle pumblechook was about to follow, when the young lady remarked that miss havisham did not wish to see him. she said it in such an undiscussible way that uncle pumblechook dared not protest, and so i followed my young guide in alone and crossed the court-yard. we entered the house by a side door--the great front entrance had chains across it--and we went through many passages, and up a staircase, in the dark except for a single candle. at last we came to the door of a room, and she said, "go in." i answered, more in shyness than politeness, "after you, miss." but she answered, "don't be ridiculous, boy; i am not going in," and scornfully walked away, and what was worse, took the candle with her. this was most uncomfortable, and i was half afraid. however, there was only one thing to be done, so i knocked at the door, and was told from within to enter. i entered and found myself in a pretty, large room, well lighted with wax candles. no glimpse of daylight was to be seen in it. it was a dressing-room, as i supposed from the furniture, though much of it was of forms and uses quite unknown to me then. but prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and that i made out to be a fine lady's dressing-table. in an arm chair sat the strangest lady i have ever seen or shall ever see. she was dressed in rich white--in satin and lace and silks--all of white. even her shoes were white, and she had a long white veil dependent from her hair, and bridal flowers in her hair,--and the hair, too, was white. some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and hands and others lay sparkling on the table. dresses, less splendid than the one she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. she had but one shoe on and the other was on the table near by--her veil was but half arranged; her watch and chain were not put on; and there were lace, trinkets, handkerchief, gloves, some flowers, and a prayer-book in a heap before the looking-glass. then she spoke, "who is it?" "pip, ma'am." "pip?" "mr. pumblechook's boy, ma'am. come--to play." "come nearer; let me look at you. come close." when i stood before her, avoiding her eyes, i took in all the details of the room and saw that her watch and clock had both stopped. "look at me," said miss havisham. "you are not afraid of a woman who has not seen the sun since you were born?" i regret to say that i was not afraid of telling the enormous lie comprehended in the answer, "no." "do you know what i touch here?" she said, laying her hands on her left side. "yes, ma'am." "what do i touch?" "your heart." "broken." she said the word eagerly, and with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. "i am tired," said miss havisham. "i have a sick fancy that i want to see some play. i want diversion, and i have done with men and women. there, there," with an impatient movement of the fingers of her right hand, "play, play, play!" for a moment, with the fear of my sister "working me" before my eyes, i had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character of mr. pumblechook's chaise cart. but i felt so unequal to the performance that i gave it up, and stood looking at miss havisham in what i suppose she took for a dogged manner, and presently she said: "are you sullen and obstinate?" "no, ma'am," i said. "i am very sorry for you and very sorry i can't play just now. if you complain of me, i shall get into trouble with my sister, so i would do it, if i could, but it's new here, and so strange and so fine, and--melancholy." i stopped, fearing i might have said too much, and we took another look at each other. before she spoke again, she looked at herself in the glass, then she turned, and flashing a look at me, said, "call estella. you can do that. call estella. at the door." to stand in the dark in the mysterious passage of an unknown house, bawling "estella" to a scornful young lady neither visible nor responsive, and feeling it a dreadful liberty to roar out her name, was almost as bad as playing to order. but she answered at last, and her light came trembling along the dark passage, like a star. miss havisham beckoned her to come close to her, took up a jewel, and tried its effect against the pretty brown hair. "your own, one day, my dear," she said, "and you will use it well. let me see you play cards with this boy." "with this boy! why, he is a common labouring boy!" then she asked, with greatest disdain, "what do you play, boy?" "nothing but 'beggar my neighbour,' miss." "beggar him," said miss havisham to estella. so we sat down to cards, and miss havisham sat, corpse-like, watching as we played. "he calls the knaves jacks, this boy," said estella, with disdain, before the first game was out. "and what coarse hands he has, and what thick boots!" i had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before, but now i began to notice them. her contempt for me was so strong that i caught it. she won the game, and i dealt. i misdealt, as was only natural, when i knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong, and she denounced me for a clumsy, stupid, labouring boy. "you say nothing of her," remarked miss havisham to me. "she says many hard things of you, yet you say nothing of her. what do you think of her?" "i don't like to say," i stammered. "tell me in my ear," said miss havisham, bending down. "i think she is very proud," i replied in a whisper--"and very pretty--and very insulting." "anything else?" "i think i should like to go home." "you shall go soon," said miss havisham aloud. "play the game out!" i played the game to an end, and estella beggared me. "when shall i have you here again?" said miss havisham. "i know nothing of the days of the week or of the weeks of the year. come again after six days. you hear?" "yes, ma'am." "estella, take him down. let him have something to eat, and let him roam about and look about him while he eats. go, pip." i followed estella down as i had followed her up, and at last i stood again in the glare of daylight which quite confounded me, for i felt as if i had been in the candle-light of the strange room many hours. "you are to wait here, you boy, you," said estella, and disappeared in the house. while she was gone i looked at my coarse hands and my common boots, and they troubled me greatly. i determined to ask joe why he had taught me to call the picture-cards jacks. i wished joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then i should have been so too. estella came back with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer which she set down as insolently as if i were a dog in disgrace. i was so humiliated and hurt that tears sprang to my eyes. when she saw them she looked at me with a quick delight. this gave me the power to keep them back and to look at her; then she gave a contemptuous toss of her head, and left me to my meal. at first, so bitter were my feelings that, after she was gone, i hid behind one of the gates to the brewery and cried. as i cried i kicked the wall and took a hard twist at my hair. however, i came out from behind the gate, the bread and meat were acceptable and the beer was warm and tingling, and i was soon in spirits to look about me. i had surveyed the rank old garden when estella came back with the keys to let me out. she gave me a triumphant look as she opened the gate. i was passing out without looking at her, when she touched me with a taunting cry,---- "why don't you cry?" "because i don't want to." "you do," she said; "you have been crying and you are near crying now!" as she spoke she laughed, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me, and i set off on the four-mile walk home, pondering as i went along, on what i had seen and heard. of course, when i reached home they were very curious to know all about miss havisham's, and asked many questions that i was not in a mood to answer. the worst of it was that uncle pumblechook, devoured by curiosity, came gaping over too at tea-time to have the details divulged to him. i was not in a good humour anyway that night, so the sight of my tormentors made me vicious in my reticence. after asking a number of questions with no satisfaction, uncle pumblechook began again. "now, boy," he said, "what was miss havisham a-doing of when you went in to-day?" "she was sitting," i answered, "in a black velvet coach." my hearers stared at one another--as they well might--and repeated, "in a black velvet coach?" "yes," said i, "and miss estella, that's her niece, i think, handed her in cake and wine at the coach window on a gold plate. and we all had cake and wine on gold plates. and i got up behind the coach to eat mine because she told me to." "was anybody else there?" asked mr. pumblechook. "four dogs," said i. "large or small?" "immense," said i. "and they fought for veal cutlets out of a silver basket." my hearers stared at one another again in utter amazement. i was perfectly frantic and would have told them anything. "where was this coach, in the name of gracious?" asked my sister. "in miss havisham's room." they stared again. "but there weren't any horses to it." i added this saving clause in the moment of rejecting four richly caparisoned coursers, which i had had wild thoughts of harnessing. "can this be possible, uncle?" asked mrs. joe. "what can the boy mean?" "i'll tell you, mum," said mr. pumblechook. "my opinion is it is a sedan-chair. well, boy, and what did you play at?" "we played with flags," i said. "flags!" echoed my sister. "yes," said i. "estella waved a blue flag, and i waved a red one, and miss havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out at the coach window. and then we all waved our swords and hurrahed." "swords!" repeated my sister. "where did you get swords from?" "out of the cupboard," said i. "and i saw pistols in it--and jam--and pills. and there was only candlelight in the room." if they had asked me any more questions i should undoubtedly have betrayed myself for i was just on the point of mentioning that there was a balloon in the yard and should have hazarded the statement, but that my invention was divided between that phenomenon and a bear in the brewery. my hearers were so much occupied, however, in discussing the marvels i had already presented to them, that i escaped. the subject still held them when joe came in, and my experiences were at once related to him. now, when i saw his big blue eyes open in helpless amazement, i became penitent, but only in regard to him. and so, after mr. pumblechook had driven off, and my sister was busy, i stole into the forge and confessed my guilt. "you remember all that about miss havisham's?" i said. "remember!" said joe. "i believe you! wonderful!" "it's a terrible thing, joe. it ain't true." "what are you a-telling of, pip?" cried joe. "you don't mean to say it!" "yes, i do;--it's lies, joe." "but not all of it? why, sure you don't mean to say, pip, that there was no black welvet co-ch?" for i stood there shaking my head. "but at least there was dogs, pip? come, pip, if there warn't no weal cutlets, at least there was dogs? a puppy, come." "no, joe," i said. "there was nothing of the kind." as i fixed my eyes hopelessly on him, he looked at me in dismay. "pip, old chap," he said, "this won't do, i say. where do you expect to go to? what possessed you?" "i don't know what possessed me," i replied, hanging my head, "but i wish you hadn't taught me to call knaves at cards jacks, and i wish my boots weren't so thick, nor my hands so coarse." then i told joe that i felt very miserable, but i hadn't liked to tell mrs. joe and uncle pumblechook about the beautiful young lady at miss havisham's who was so proud, and that she had said i was common, and that i wished i was not common, and that the lies had come out of it somehow, though i didn't know how. "well," said joe after a good deal of thought, "there's one thing you may be sure of, pip, namely, that lies is lies. howsoever they come, they didn't ought to come, and they come from the father of lies and work round to the same. don't you tell no more of 'em, pip. they ain't the way to get out of being common, old chap. and as to being common, i don't make it out at all clear. you're sure an uncommon scholar." this i denied in the face of joe's most forcible arguments, and at the end of our talk, i said, "you are not angry with me, joe?" "no, old chap, but if you can't get to being uncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through going crooked. so don't tell no more on 'em, pip. don't never do it no more." when i got up to my little room and said my prayers, i thought over joe's advice and knew that it was right, and yet my mind was in such a disturbed and unthankful state, that for a long time i lay awake, not thinking over my sins, but still mourning that joe and mrs. joe and i were all common. that was a memorable day for me, and it wrought great changes in me. i began to see things and people from a new point of view, and from that day dates the beginning of my great expectations. one night, a little later, i was at the village public house with joe, who was smoking his pipe with friends. in the room there was a stranger, who, when he heard me addressed as pip, turned and looked at me. he kept looking hard at me, and nodding at me, and i returned his nods as politely as possible. presently, after seeing that joe was not looking, he nodded again and then rubbed his leg--in a very odd way, it struck me--and later, he stirred his rum and water pointedly at me, and he tasted it pointedly at me. and he did both, not with the spoon but with a file. he did this so that nobody but i saw the file, and then he wiped it and put it in his pocket i knew it to be joe's file, and i knew that he was my convict the minute i saw the instrument. i sat gazing at him, spell-bound, but he took very little more notice of me; only when joe and i started to go, he stopped us. "stop half a minute, mr. gargery," he said; "i think i've got a bright shilling somewhere in my pocket; if i have, the boy shall have it." he took it out, folded it in some crumpled paper and gave it to me. "yours," said he. "mind--your own!" i thanked him, staring at him beyond the bounds of good manners, and holding tight to joe, and then we went towards home, i in a manner stupefied, and thinking only of this turning up of my old misdeed and old acquaintance. we found my sister was not in a very bad temper, and joe was encouraged to tell her about the shilling. i took it out of the paper to show her. "but what's this?" she said, catching up the paper. it was nothing less than two one-pound notes! joe caught up his hat and ran with them to the public house to restore them to their owner, only to find that he had gone. then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them on the top of a press in the state parlour, and there they remained. on the appointed day i returned to miss havisham, and as before, was admitted by estella. as we went up stairs we met a gentleman groping his way down. he was bald, with a large head and bushy black eyebrows. his eyes were deep set and disagreeably keen. he was nothing to me, but i observed him well as he passed. estella led me this time into another part of the house, and into a gloomy room where there were some other people, saying,---- "you are to go and stand there, boy, till you are wanted." "there" being the window, i crossed to it and stood looking out, at a deserted house and old garden, in a very uncomfortable state of mind. there were three ladies and one gentleman in the room, who all stopped talking and looked at me. later i found out that they were particular friends of miss havisham. the ringing of a distant bell caused estella to say, "now, boy!" and to conduct me to miss havisham's room, leaving me near the door, where i stood until miss havisham cast her eyes upon me. "are you ready to play?" she asked. i answered, in some confusion, "i don't think i am, ma'am, except at cards; i could do that if i was wanted." she looked searchingly at me and then asked, "if you are unwilling to play, boy, are you willing to work?" as i answered this in the affirmative, she presently laid a hand on my shoulder. in the other she had a stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the witch of the place. she looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said, "come, come, come! walk me, walk me!" from this i made out that my work was to walk miss havisham round and round the room. accordingly i started at once and she leaned on my shoulder. she was not strong, and soon she said, "slower!" still she went at a fitful, impatient speed, and the hand on my shoulder twitched. after a while she bade me call estella, and on we started again round the room. if she had been alone i should have been sufficiently embarrassed, but as she brought with her the visitors, i didn't know what to do. i would have stopped, but miss havisham twitched my shoulder, and we posted on,--i feeling shamefaced embarrassment. the visitors remained for some time, and after they left miss havisham directed us to play cards as before, and as before, estella treated me with cold scorn. after half a dozen games, a day was set for my return, and i was taken into the yard to be fed in the former dog-like manner. prowling about, i scrambled over the wall into the deserted garden that i had seen from the window. i supposed the house belonging to it was empty, and to my surprise i was confronted by the vision of a pale young gentleman with red eyelids and light hair, in a window, who speedily came down and stood beside me. "halloa!" said he; "young fellow, who let you in?" "miss estella." "who gave you leave to prowl about? come and fight," said the pale young gentleman. what could i do but follow him? his manner was so final and i was so astonished that i followed where he led, as if under a spell. "stop a minute, though," he said, "i ought to give you a reason for fighting too. there it is!" in a most irritating manner he slapped his hands against one another, flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair, dipped his head and butted it into my stomach. this bull-like proceeding, besides that it was unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, was particularly disagreeable just after bread and meat. i therefore hit out at him and was going to hit out again, when he said, "aha! would you?" and began dancing backwards and forwards in a manner quite unparalleled within my limited experience. "laws of the game!" said he. here he skipped from his left leg on to his right. "regular rules!" here he skipped from his right leg on to his left. "come to the ground and go through the preliminaries!" here he dodged backwards and forwards, and did all sorts of things, while i looked helplessly at him. i was secretly afraid of him, but i felt convinced that his light head of hair could have had no business in the pit of my stomach. therefore i followed him without a word, to a retired nook of the garden. on his asking me if i was satisfied with the ground, and on my replying "yes," he fetched a bottle of water and a sponge dipped in vinegar, and then fell to pulling off, not only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner at once light-hearted, business-like, and bloodthirsty. my heart failed me when i saw him squaring at me with every demonstration of mechanical nicety, and eyeing my anatomy as if he were minutely choosing his bone. i never have been so surprised in my life as i was when i let out the first blow and saw him lying on his back, with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly foreshortened. but he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself began squaring again. the second greatest surprise i have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again, looking up at me out of a black eye. his spirit inspired me with great respect. he was always knocked down, but he would be up again in a moment, sponging himself or drinking out of the water bottle, and then came at me with an air and a show that made me believe he really was going to do for me at last. he got heavily bruised, for i am sorry to record that the more i hit him, the harder i hit him, but he came up again, and again, and again, until at last he got a bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. even after that he got up and turned round and round confusedly a few times, not knowing where i was, but finally went on his knees to his sponge and threw it up, panting out, "that means you have won!" he seemed so brave and innocent, that although i had not proposed the contest, i felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. indeed, i go so far as to hope that i regarded myself as a species of savage young wolf or other wild beast. however, i got dressed, and i said, "can i help you?" and he said, "no, thankee," and i said, "good afternoon," and he said, "same to you!" when i got into the courtyard i found estella waiting with the keys to let me out. what with the visitors, and what with the cards, and what with the fight, my stay had lasted so long that when i neared home the light on the spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against a black night-sky, and joe's furnace was flinging a path of fire across the road. when the day came for my return to the scene of my fight with the pale young gentleman, i became very much afraid as i recalled him on his back in various stages of misery, and the more i thought about it, the more certain i felt that his blood would be on my head and that the law would avenge it, and i felt that i never could go back. however, go to miss havisham's i must, and go i did. and behold, nothing came of the late struggle! the pale young gentleman was nowhere to be seen, and only in the corner where the combat had taken place could i detect any evidences of his existence. there were traces of his gore in that spot, and i covered them with garden-mould from the eye of men, and breathed more quietly again. that same day i began on a regular occupation of pushing miss havisham in a light garden chair (when she was tired of walking with her hand on my shoulder) round through the rooms. over and over and over again we made these journeys, sometimes lasting for three hours at a stretch, and from that time i returned to her every alternate day at noon for that purpose, and kept returning through a period of eight or ten months. as we began to be more used to one another, miss havisham talked more to me, and asked me many questions about myself. i told her i believed i was to be apprenticed to joe, and enlarged on knowing nothing, and wanting to know everything, hoping that she might offer me some help. but she did not, on the contrary she seemed to prefer my being ignorant. nor did she give me any money, nor anything but my daily dinner. estella always let me in and out. sometimes she would coldly tolerate me, sometimes condescend to me, sometimes be quite familiar with me, and at other times she would tell me that she hated me; and all the time my admiration for her grew apace. there was a song joe used to hum at the forge, of which the burden was "old clem." the song imitated the beating upon iron. thus you were to hammer;--boys round--old clem! with a thump and a sound--old clem! beat it out, beat it out--old clem! with a clink for the stout--old clem! blow the fire, blow the fire--old clem! roaring dryer, soaring higher--old clem! one day i was crooning this ditty as i pushed miss havisham about. it happened to catch her fancy and she took it up in a low brooding voice. after that it became customary with us to sing it as we moved about, and often estella joined in, though the whole strain was so subdued that it made less noise in the grim old house than the lightest breath of wind. how could my character fail to be influenced by such surroundings? is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were, when i came out into the natural light from the misty yellow rooms? we went on this way for a long time, but one day miss havisham stopped short as she and i were walking and said, with displeasure: "you are growing tall, pip!" in answer i suggested that this might be a thing over which i had no control, and she said no more at that time, but on the following day she said: "tell me the name again of the blacksmith of yours to whom you were to be apprenticed?" "joe gargery, ma'am," "you had better be apprenticed at once. would gargery come here with you, and bring your indentures, do you think?" i signified that i thought he would consider it an honour to be asked. "then let him come!" "at any particular time, miss havisham?" "there, there, i know nothing about time. let him come soon, and come alone with you!" in consequence, two days later, joe, arrayed in his sunday clothes, set out with me to visit miss havisham, and as he thought his court dress necessary to the occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his working dress. we arrived at miss havisham's, and as usual estella opened the door, and led the way to miss havisham's room. she immediately addressed joe, asking him questions about himself and about having me for apprentice and finally she asked to see my indentures, which joe produced; i am afraid i was ashamed of the dear good fellow--i know i was when i saw estella's eyes were laughing mischievously. miss havisham then took a little bag from the table and handed it to me. "pip has earned a premium here," she said, "and here it is. there are five and twenty guineas in the bag. give it to your master, pip." i handed it to joe, who said a few embarrassed words of gratitude to miss havisham. "good-bye, pip," she said. "let them out, estella." "am i to come again, miss havisham?" i asked. "no--gargery is your master now. gargery! one word!" joe stepped back and she added, "the boy has been a good boy here, and that is his reward. of course, as an honest man, you will expect no other." then we went down, and in a moment we were outside of the gate, and it was locked and estella was gone. when we stood in the daylight alone, joe backed up against a wall, breathless with amazement, and repeated at intervals, "astonishing! pip, i do assure you this is as-ton-ishing!" then we walked away, back to mr. pumblechook's, where we found my sister, and told her the great news of my earnings, and she was as much pleased as was possible for her to be. it is a miserable thing to feel ashamed of home, i assure you. to me home had never been a very pleasant place on account of sister's temper, but joe had sanctified it, and i believed in it. i had believed in the best parlour, as a most elegant place, i had believed in the front door as a mysterious portal of the temple of state, i had believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; i had believed in the forge, as the glowing road to manhood and independence. within a single year all this was changed. now it was all coarse and common to me, and i would not have had miss havisham and estella see it for the world. once it had seemed to me that as joe's apprentice i should be distinguished and happy. now i regret to say that i was as dejected and miserable as was possible to be, and in my ungracious breast there was a shame of all that surrounded me. toward the end of my first year as joe's apprentice i suggested that i go and call on miss havisham. he thought well of it, and so i went. everything was unchanged, except that a strange young woman came to the door, and i found that estella was abroad being educated, and miss havisham was alone. "well," said she. "i hope you want nothing; you'll get nothing!" "no, indeed," i replied, "i only want you to know that i am doing very well and am always much obliged to you." we had little other conversation, and soon she dismissed me, and as the gate closed on me, i felt more than ever dissatisfied with my home, and my trade, and with everything! when i reached home, some one hastened out to tell me that the house had been entered during my absence, and that my sister had been attacked and badly injured. nothing had been taken from the house, but my sister had been struck a terrible blow, and lay very ill in bed for months, and when at last she could come down stairs again her mind was never quite clear, and she was unable to speak. so it was necessary to have biddy come and take up the house-keeping, and meanwhile i kept up the routine of my apprenticeship-life, varied only by the arrival of my several birthdays, on each of which i paid another visit to miss havisham. on a saturday night, in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to joe, he and i sat by a fire at the inn--the three jolly bargemen, with a group of men. one of them was a strange gentleman who entered into the discussion on hand with zest, and then, rising, stood before the fire. "from information i have received," said he, looking round, "i have reason to believe there is a blacksmith among you, by name joseph gargery. which is the man?" "here is the man," said joe. the gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and said: "you have an apprentice called pip. is he here?" to this i responded in the affirmative. the stranger did not recognise me, but i recognised him as the gentleman i had met on the stairs on my second visit to miss havisham. i had known him from the moment i had first been confronted with his bushy eyebrows and black eyes. "i wish to have a private conference with you both," he said. "perhaps we had better go to your house to have it." so, in a wondering silence, we walked away with him towards home, and when we got there joe let us in by the front door, and our conference was held in the state parlour. the stranger proceeded to tell us that he was a lawyer, jaggers by name, and that he was the bearer of an offer to joe, which was, that he should cancel my indentures, at my request, and for my good. he went on to say that his communication was to the effect that i had great expectations. joe and i gasped and looked at one another as mr. jaggers continued: "i am instructed to tell pip that he will come into a handsome property, and that it is the desire of the present owner of that property that he be at once removed from here, and be brought up as befits a young gentleman of great expectations." my dream was out! my wild fancy was realised; miss havisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale. i listened breathlessly while mr. jaggers added that my benefactor wished me to keep always the name of pip, and also that the name of the benefactor was to remain a secret until such time as the person chose to reveal it. after stating these conditions, mr. jaggers paused, and asked if i had any objections to complying with them, to which i stammered that i had not, and mr. jaggers continued that he had been made my guardian, that he would provide me with a sum of money ample for my education and maintenance, and that he should advise my residing in london, and having as tutor one matthew pocket, whom i had heard mentioned by miss havisham. "first," continued mr. jaggers, "you should have some new clothes. you will want some money. i will leave you twenty guineas, and will expect you in london on this day week." he produced a purse and counted out the money, then eyeing joe, he said, "well, joe gargery, you look dumbfounded?" "i am!" said joe, with decision. "well," said mr. jaggers, "what if i were to make you a present as compensation?" "for what?" said joe. "for the loss of the boy's services." joe laid a hand on my shoulder with the touch of a woman, saying: "pip is that hearty welcome to go free with his services, to honour and fortune, as no words can tell him! but if you think as money can make compensation to me for the loss of the little child what come to the forge,--and ever the best of friends---" o dear, good joe, whom i was so ready to leave, and so unthankful to--i see you again to-day, and in a very different light. i feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm as solemnly to-day as if it had been the rustle of an angel's wing. but, at the time, i was lost in the mazes of my good fortune, and thought of nothing else, and as joe remained firm on the money question, mr. jaggers rose to go, giving me a few last instructions for reaching london. then he left and we vacated the state parlour at once for the kitchen, where my sister and biddy were sitting. i told the news of my great expectations and received congratulations, which had in them a touch of sadness which i rather resented. that night joe stayed out on the doorstep, smoking a pipe much later than usual, which seemed to hint to me that he wanted comforting, for some reason, but in my arrogant happiness, i could not understand his feelings. during the next week i was very busy making my preparations to leave. with some assistance i selected a suit, and went also to the hatter's and boot-maker's and hosier's, and also engaged my place on the saturday morning coach. then i went to make my farewells to uncle pumblechook, whom i found awaiting me with pride and impatience, for the news had reached him. he shook hands with me at least a hundred times, and blessed me, and stood waving his hand at me until i passed out of sight. it was now friday, and i dressed up in my new clothes to make a farewell visit to miss havisham. i felt awkward and self-conscious, and rang the bell constrainedly on account of the still long fingers of my new gloves. miss havisham received me as usual, and i explained to her that i was to start for london on the morrow, and that i had come into a fortune, for which i was more grateful than i could express. she asked me a number of questions, and then said: "well, you have a promising career before you. be good, deserve it, and abide by mr. jagger's instructions. good-bye, pip." she stretched out her hand, and i knelt down and kissed it,--and so i left my fairy god-mother, with both her hands on her crutch-stick, standing in the middle of the dimly-lighted room. i little dreamed then that it was not to her that i owed my great expectations, but to my older acquaintance, the convict, for whom i had robbed my sister's larder long ago. but of this i little dreamed, and knew nothing until years later. and now the six days had gone, and to-morrow looked me in the face. as my departure drew near i became more appreciative of the society of my family. on this last evening i dressed myself in my new clothes for their delight, and sat in my splendour until bedtime. we had a hot supper on the occasion, and pretended to be in high spirits, although none of us were. all night my broken sleep was filled with fantastic visions, and i arose early and sat by my window, taking a last look at the familiar view. then came an early, hurried breakfast, and then i kissed my sister and biddy, and threw my arms around joe's neck, took up my little portmanteau, and walked out. presently i heard a scuffle behind me, and there was joe, throwing an old shoe after me. i waved my hat, and dear old joe waved his arm over his head, crying huskily, "hooroar!" i walked away rapidly then, thinking it was not so hard to go, after all. but then came a thought of the peaceful village where i had been so care-free and innocent, and beyond was the great unknown world,--and in a moment, i broke into tears, sobbing: "good-bye, oh my dear, dear friend!" i was better after that, more sorry, more aware of my ingratitude to joe, more gentle. so subdued was i by my tears that when i was on the coach, i deliberated, with an aching heart, whether i should not get down when we changed horses, and walk back for one more evening at home and a better parting, but while i was still deliberating, we went on, and changed again, and then it was too late and too far for me to go back, and i must go on. and the mists had all solemnly risen about me now, and the world lay spread before me, and i must go on. and so my boyhood came to an end, and the first stage of my great expectations was over. ten girls from dickens by kate dickinson sweetser author of "ten boys from dickens" "ten great adventurers" "book of indian braves" etc. illustrated by george alfred williams [illustration: little nell and her grandfather] preface as a companion volume to ten boys from dickens, this book of girl-life, portrayed by the great author, is offered. the sketches have the same underlying motive as those of boy-life, and have been compiled in the same manner, with the same purpose in view. among them will be found several of the most popular of the creations of dickens, notably, the marchioness, little nell, jenny wren, and florence dombey, and it is hoped that in this presentation as simple stories of girlhood, their classic form and beauty may arouse in the young people of our day a new interest in the novels from which they are taken. this volume and its companion will have accomplished their purpose when they have won fresh laurels and a wider audience for the famous writer to whom they are indebted for their existence. k.d.s. _april, _. contents the marchioness. morleena kenwigs. little nell. the infant phenomenon. jenny wren. sissy jupe. florence dombey. charley. tilly slowboy. agnes wickfield. the marchioness [illustration: the marchioness and dick swiveller] the marchioness the marchioness was a small servant employed by sampson brass and his sister sally, as general house-worker and drudge, in which capacity she was discovered by mr. richard swiveller, upon the very first day of his entering the brass establishment as clerk. the brasses' house was a small one in bevis marks, london, having upon its door a plate, "brass, solicitor," and a bill tied to the knocker, "first floor to let to a single gentleman," and served not only as habitation, but likewise as office for sampson brass,--of none too good legal repute,--and his sister; a gaunt, bony copy of her red-haired brother, who was his housekeeper, as well as his business partner. when the brasses decided to keep a clerk, richard swiveller was chosen to fill the place; and be it known to whom it may concern, that the said richard was the merriest, laziest, weakest, most kind-hearted fellow who ever sowed a large crop of wild oats, and by a sudden stroke of good-luck found himself raised to a salaried position. clad in a blue jacket with a double row of gilt buttons, bought for acquatic expeditions, but now dedicated to office purposes, richard entered upon his new duties, and during that first afternoon, while mr. brass and his sister were temporarily absent from the office, he began a minute examination of its contents. then, after assuaging his thirst with a pint of mild porter, and receiving and dismissing three or four small boys who dropped in on legal errands from other attorneys, with about as correct an understanding of their business as would have been shown by a clown in a pantomime under similar circumstances, he tried his hand at a pen-and-ink caricature of miss brass, in which work he was busily engaged, when there came a rapping at the office-door. "come in!" said dick. "don't stand on ceremony. the business will get rather complicated if i have many more customers. come in!" "oh, please," said a little voice very low down in the doorway, "will you come and show the lodgings?" dick leaned over the table, and descried a small slipshod girl in a dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but her face and feet. she might as well have been dressed in a violin case. "why, who are you?" said dick. to which the only reply was, "oh, please, will you come and show the lodgings?" there never was such an old-fashioned child in her looks and manner. she must have been at work from her cradle. she seemed as much afraid of dick, as dick was amazed at her. "i haven't got anything to do with the lodgings," said dick. "tell 'em to call again." "oh, but please will you come and show the lodgings?" returned the girl; "it's eighteen shillings a week, and us finding plate and linen. boots and clothes is extra, and fires in winter-time is eightpence a day." "why don't you show 'em yourself? you seem to know all about 'em," said dick. "miss sally said i wasn't to, because people wouldn't believe the attendance was good if they saw how small i was, first." "well, but they'll see how small you are afterwards, won't they?" said dick. "ah! but then they'll have taken 'em for a fortnight certain," replied the child, with a shrewd look; "and people don't like moving when they're once settled." "this is a queer sort of thing," muttered dick, rising. "what do you mean to say you are--the cook?" "yes; i do plain cooking," replied the child. "i'm housemaid too. i do all the work of the house." just then certain sounds on the passage and staircase seemed to denote the applicant's impatience. richard swiveller, therefore, hurried out to meet and treat with the single gentleman. he was a little surprised to perceive that the sounds were occasioned by the progress upstairs of a trunk, which the single gentleman and his coachman were endeavoring to convey up the steep ascent. mr. swiveller followed slowly behind, entering a new protest on every stair against the house of mr. sampson brass being thus taken by storm. to these remonstrances the single gentleman answered not a word, but when the trunk was at last got into the bedroom, sat down upon it, and wiped his bald head with his handkerchief. he then announced abruptly that he would take the room for two years, whereupon, handing a ten-pound note to the astonished mr. swiveller, he began to make ready to retire, as if it were night instead of day, and mr. swiveller walked downstairs into the office again, filled with wonderment concerning both the strange new lodger and the small servant who had appeared to answer the bell. after that day, one circumstance troubled mr. swiveller's mind very much, and that was, that the small servant always remained somewhere in the bowels of the earth under bevis marks, and never came to the surface unless a bell rang, when she would answer it, and immediately disappear again. she never went out, or came into the office, or had a clean face, or took off the coarse apron, or looked out of any of the windows, or stood at the street door for a breath of air, or had any rest or enjoyment whatever. nobody ever came to see her, nobody spoke of her, nobody cared about her. "now," said dick, one day, walking up and down with his hands in his pockets; "i'd give something--if i had it--to know how they use that child, and where they keep her. i _should_ like to know how they use her!" at that moment he caught a glimpse of miss brass flitting down the kitchen stairs. "and, by jove!" thought dick, "she's going to feed the small servant. now or never!" first peeping over the handrail, he groped his way down, and arrived at the kitchen door immediately after miss brass had entered the same, bearing in her hand a cold leg of mutton. it was a very dark, miserable place, very low and very damp; the walls disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches. the water was trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation. the grate was screwed up so tight as to hold no more than a thin sandwich of fire. everything was locked up; the coal-cellar, the candle-box, the salt-box, the meat-safe, were all padlocked. there was nothing that a beetle could have lunched on. the small servant stood with humility in presence of miss sally, and hung her head. "are you there?" said miss sally. "yes ma'am," was the answer, in a weak voice. "go further away from the leg of mutton, or you'll be picking it, i know," said miss sally. the girl withdrew into a corner, while miss brass opened the safe, and brought from it a dreary waste of cold potatoes, looking as eatable as stonehenge. this she placed before the small servant, and then, taking up a great carving-knife, made a mighty show of sharpening it. "do you see this?" she said, slicing off about two square inches of cold mutton, and holding it out on the point of a fork. the small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to see every shred of it and answered, "yes." "then don't you ever go and say," retorted miss sally, "that you hadn't meat here. there, eat it up." this was soon done. "now, do you want any more?" said miss sally. the hungry creature answered with a faint "no." they were evidently going through an established form. "you've been helped once to meat," said miss brass, summing up the facts; "you have had as much as you can eat: you're asked if you want any more, and you answer 'no.' then don't you ever go and say you were allowanced,--mind that!" with those words, miss sally put the meat away, locked the meat-safe, and then overlooked the small servant while she finished the potatoes. after that, without the smallest cause, she rapped the child with the blade of the knife, now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her back. then, after walking slowly backward towards the door, she darted suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant again, gave her some hard blows with her clenched fists. the victim cried, but in a subdued manner, as if she feared to raise her voice; and miss sally ascended the stairs just as richard had safely reached the office, fairly beside himself with anger over the poor child's misery and ill-treatment. during the following weeks, when he had become accustomed to the routine of work which he was expected to accomplish, and being often left alone in the office, richard swiveller began to find time hang heavy on his hands. for the better preservation of his cheerfulness, therefore, he accustomed himself to play at cribbage with a dummy. while he was silently conducting one of these games mr. swiveller began to think that he heard a kind of hard breathing sound, in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some reflection, must proceed from the small servant, who always had a cold from damp living. looking intently that way, he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole; and having now no doubt that his suspicions were correct he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon her before she was aware of his approach. "oh! i didn't mean any harm, indeed, upon my word i didn't," cried the small servant; "it's so very dull downstairs. please don't you tell upon me, please don't." "tell upon you!" said dick. "do you mean to say you were looking through the keyhole for company?" "yes, upon my word i was," replied the small servant. "how long have you been cooling your eye there?" said dick. "oh, ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before." "well--come in," said mr. swiveller, after a little consideration. "here--sit down, and i'll teach you how to play." "oh! i durstn't do it," rejoined the small servant; "miss sally 'ud kill me if she knowed i come up here." "have you got a fire downstairs?" said dick. "a very little one," replied the small servant. "miss sally couldn't kill me if she knowed i went down there, so i'll come," said richard, putting the cards into his pocket. "why, how thin you are! what do you mean by it?" "it an't my fault." "could you eat any bread and meat?" said dick, taking down his hat "yes? ah! i thought so. did you ever taste beer?" "i had a sip of it once," said the small servant. "here's a state of things!" cried mr. swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "she never tasted it--it can't be tasted in a sip! why, how old are you?" "i don't know." mr. swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for a moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back, vanished straightway. presently he returned, followed by a boy from the public-house, who bore a plate of bread and beef, and a great pot filled with choice purl. relieving the boy of his burden, and charging his little companion to fasten the door to prevent surprise, mr. swiveller followed her into the kitchen. "there!" said richard, putting the plate before her. "first of all, clear that off, and then you'll see what's next." the small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon empty. "next," said dick, handing the purl, "take a pull at that, but moderate your transports, for you're not used to it. well, is it good?" "oh, _isn't_ it!" said the small servant. mr. swiveller appeared immensely gratified over her enjoyment, and when she had satisfied her hunger, applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learned tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning. "now," said mr. swiveller, "to make it seem more real and pleasant, i shall call you the marchioness, do you hear?" the small servant nodded. "then, marchioness," said mr. swiveller, "fire away!" the marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered which to play, and mr. swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air which such society required, waited for her lead. they had played several rubbers, when the striking of ten o'clock rendered mr. swiveller mindful of the flight of time, and of the expediency of withdrawing before mr. sampson and miss sally brass returned. "with which object in view, marchioness," said mr. swiveller gravely. "i shall ask your ladyship's permission to put the board in my pocket, and to retire. the baron sampsono brasso and his fair sister are, you tell me, at the play?" added mr. swiveller, leaning his left arm heavily upon the table, and raising his voice and his right leg after the manner of a theatrical bandit. the marchioness nodded. "ha!" said mr. swiveller, with a portentous frown. "'tis well. marchioness!--but no matter. some wine there, ho! marchioness, your health." the small servant, who was not so well acquainted with theatrical conventionalities as mr. swiveller, was rather alarmed by his manner, and showed it so plainly that he felt it necessary to discharge his brigand bearing for one more suitable to private life. "i suppose," said dick, "that they consult together a good deal, and talk about a great many people--about me, for instance, sometimes, eh, marchioness?" the marchioness nodded amazingly. "complimentary?" asked mr. swiveller. the marchioness shook her head violently. "h'm!" dick muttered. "would it be any breach of confidence, marchioness, to relate what they say of the humble individual who has now the honor to--?" "miss sally says you are a funny chap," replied his friend. "well, marchioness," said mr. swiveller, "that's not uncomplimentary. merriment, marchioness, is not a bad of a degrading quality. old king cole was himself a merry old soul, if we may put any faith in the pages of history." "but she says," pursued his companion, "that you aren't to be trusted." "why, really, marchioness," said mr. swiveller thoughtfully, "it's a popular prejudice, and yet i'm sure i don't know why, for i've been trusted in my time to a considerable amount, and i can safely say that i never forsook my trust, until it deserted me--never. mr. brass is of the same opinion, i suppose?" his friend nodded again, adding imploringly, "but don't you ever tell upon me, or i shall be beat to death." "marchioness," said mr. swiveller, rising, "the word of a gentleman is as good as his bond--sometimes better, as in the present case, where his bond might prove but a doubtful sort of security. i'm your friend, and i hope we shall play many more rubbers together. but, marchioness," added richard, "it occurs to me that you must be in the constant habit of airing your eye at keyholes to know this." "i only wanted," replied the trembling marchioness, "to know where the key of the meat-safe was hid--that was all; and i wouldn't have taken much if i had found it--only enough to squench my hunger." "you didn't find it, then?" said dick, "but, of course, you didn't, or of course you'd be plumper. good-night, marchioness, fare thee well, and if forever, then forever fare thee well. and put up the chain, marchioness, in case of accidents!" upon repairing to bevis marks on the following morning, he found miss brass much agitated over the disappearance from the office of several small articles, as well as three half crowns, and richard felt much troubled over the matter, saying to himself, "then, by jove, i'm afraid the marchioness is done for!" the more he discussed the subject in his thoughts, the more probable it appeared to dick that the miserable little servant was the culprit. when he considered on what a spare allowance of food she lived, how neglected and untaught she was, and how her natural cunning had been sharpened by necessity and privation, he scarcely doubted it. and yet he pitied her so much, and felt so unwilling to have a matter of such gravity disturbing the oddity of their acquaintance, that he thought, rather than receive fifty pounds down, he would have the marchioness proved innocent. while the subject of the thefts was under discussion, kit nubbles, a lad in the employ of a mr. garland, passed through the office, on his way upstairs to the room of the brasses' lodger, the single gentleman, who was an intimate friend of kit's employer. the single gentleman having been confined to his room for some time by a slight illness, it had become kit's daily custom to convey to him messages and notes from mr. garland, and not infrequently sampson brass would detain the lad in the office for a few words of pleasant conversation. having discharged his errand, kit came downstairs again, finding no one in the office except mr. brass, who, after greeting him affably, requested him to mind the office for one minute while he ran upstairs. mr. brass returned almost immediately, mr. swiveller came in too, at the same instant, likewise miss sally, and kit, released, at once set off on a run towards home, eager to make up for lost time. as he was running, he was suddenly arrested and held in restraint, by no less a person than sampson brass himself, accompanied by mr. swiveller. a five-pound note was missing from the office. kit had been alone there for some minutes. who could have taken it but kit? pleased to have suspicion diverted from the marchioness, but loath to help in so unpleasant an affair, mr. swiveller reluctantly assisted in bearing the captive back to the office, kit protesting his innocence at every step. they searched him, and there under the lining of his hat was the missing bank-note! still protesting his innocence, and completely stunned by the calamity which had come upon him, the lad was borne off to prison, where, after eleven weary days had dragged away, he was brought to trial. richard swiveller was called as a witness against kit, and told his tale with reluctance, and an evident desire to make the best of it, for the lad's sake. his kind heart was also touched with pity for kit's poor widowed mother, who sobbed out again and again, that she had never had cause to doubt her son's honesty, and she never would. when the trial was ended, and kit found guilty, richard bore the lad's fainting mother swiftly off in a coach he had ready for the purpose, and on the way comforted her in his own peculiar fashion, perpetrating the most astounding absurdities of quotation from song and poem that ever were heard. reaching her home, he stayed till she was recovered; then returned to bevis marks, where mr. brass met him with the news that his services would be no longer required in the establishment. feeling sure that this verdict was in consequence of his defence of kit, mr. swiveller took his dismissal in profound silence, and turned his back upon bevis marks, big with designs for the comforting of kit's mother, and the aid of kit himself. his only regret in regard to the matter was in having to leave the marchioness alone and unprotected in the hands of the brasses, and little did he dream that to the small servant herself, to the marchioness, rather than to him, kit and his mother were to owe their heaviest debt of gratitude--but it was so to be. that very night mr. richard was seized with an alarming illness, and in twenty-four hours was stricken with a raging fever, and lay tossing upon his hot, uneasy bed, unconscious of anything but weariness and worry and pain, until at length he sank into a deep sleep. he awoke, and with a sensation of blissful rest better than sleep itself, began to dimly remember, and to think what a long night it had been, and to wonder whether he had not been delirious once or twice. still, he felt indifferent and happy, and having no curiosity to pursue the subject, remained in a waking slumber until his attention was attracted by a cough. this made him doubt whether he had locked his door last night, and feel a little surprised at having a companion in the room. but he lacked energy to follow up this train of thought, and in a luxury of repose, lay staring at some green stripes on the bed furniture, and associating them strangely, with patches of fresh turf, while the yellow ground between made gravel walks, and so helped out a long perspective of trim gardens. he was rambling in imagination on these terraces, when he heard the cough once more. raising himself a little in the bed, he looked about him. the same room, certainly, but with what unbounded astonishment did he see bottles, and basins, and articles of linen airing by the fire--all very clean and neat, but quite different from anything he had left there when he went to bed! the atmosphere too filled with a cool smell of herbs and vinegar; the floor newly sprinkled; the--the what?--the marchioness! yes; playing cribbage with herself at the table. there she sat, intent upon her game, coughing now and then in a subdued manner, as if she feared to disturb him, going through all the mysteries of cribbage as if she had been in full practice from her cradle! mr. swiveller contemplated these things for a short time, then laid his head on the pillow again. "i'm dreaming," thought richard, "that's clear. when i went to bed my hands were not made of egg-shells, and now i can almost see through 'em. if this is not a dream, i have woke up, by mistake, in an arabian night instead of a london one. but i have no doubt i'm asleep. not the least." here the small servant had another cough. "very remarkable!" thought mr. swiveller. "i never dreamed such a real cough as that before. there's another--and another--i say!--i'm dreaming rather fast! "it's an arabian night; that's what it is," said richard. "i'm in damascus or grand cairo. the marchioness is a genie and having had a wager with another genie about who is the handsomest young man alive, and the worthiest to be the husband of the princess of china, has brought me away, room and all, to compare us together." not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, mr. swiveller determined to take the first opportunity of addressing his companion. an occasion soon presented itself. the marchioness dealt, turned up a knave, and omitted to take the usual advantage, upon which mr. swiveller called out as loud as he could--"two for his heels!" the marchioness jumped up quickly, and clapped her hands. "arabian night certainly," thought mr. swiveller; "they always clap their hands, instead of ringing the bell. now for the two thousand black slaves with jars and jewels on their heads!" it appeared however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy, as directly afterward she began to laugh, and then to cry, declaring, not in choice arabic, but in familiar english, that she was "so glad she didn't know what to do." "marchioness," said mr. swiveller, "will you have the goodness to inform me where i shall find my voice; and what has become of my flesh?" the marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again, whereupon mr. swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected likewise. "i begin to infer, marchioness," said richard, after a pause, "that i have been ill." "you just have!" replied the small servant, wiping her eyes. "haven't you been a-talking nonsense!" "oh!", said dick. "very ill, marchioness, have i been?" "dead, all but," replied the small servant. "i never thought you'd get better." mr. swiveller was silent for a long period. by and by he inquired how long he had been there. "three weeks to-morrow." replied the small servant, "three long slow weeks." the bare thought of having been in such extremity caused richard to fall into another silence. the marchioness, having arranged the bedclothes more comfortably, and felt that his hands and forehead were quite cool, cried a little more, and then applied herself to getting tea ready, and making some thin dry toast. while she was thus engaged mr. swiveller looked on with a grateful heart, very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made herself. she propped him up with pillows, and looked on with unutterable satisfaction, while he took his poor meal with a relish which the greatest dainties of the earth might have failed to provoke. having cleared away, and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down to take her own tea. "marchioness," said mr. swiveller, "have you seen sally lately?" "seen her!" cried the small servant. "bless you, i've run away!" mr. swiveller immediately laid himself down again, and so remained for about five minutes. after that lapse of time he resumed his sitting posture, and inquired,-- "and where do you live, marchioness?" "live!" cried the small servant. "here!" "oh!" said mr. swiveller. with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had been shot. thus he remained until she had finished her meal, when being propped up again he opened a further conversation. "and so," said dick, "you have run away?" "yes," said the marchioness; "and they've been a 'tising of me." "been--i beg your pardon," said dick. "what have they been doing?" "been a 'tising of me--'tising, you know, in the newspapers," rejoined the marchioness. "aye, aye," said dick, "advertising?" the small servant nodded and winked. "tell me," continued richard, "how it was that you thought of coming here?" "why, you see," returned the marchioness, "when you was gone, i hadn't any friend at all, and i didn't know where you was to be found, you know. but one morning, when i was near the office keyhole i heard somebody saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged at, and that you was took very bad, and wouldn't nobody come and take care of you. mr. brass, he says, 'it's no business of mine,' he says; and miss sally she says, 'he's a funny chap, but it's no business of mine;' and the lady went away. so i run away that night, and come here, and told 'em you was my brother, and i've been here ever since." "this poor little marchioness has been wearing herself to death!" cried dick. "no, i haven't," she replied, "not a bit of it. don't you mind about me. i like sitting up, and i've often had a sleep, bless you, in one of them chairs. but if you could have seen how you tried to jump out o' winder, and if you could have heard how you used to keep on singing and making speeches, you wouldn't have believed it--i'm so glad you're better, mr. liverer." "liverer, indeed!" said dick thoughtfully. "it's well i am a liverer. i strongly suspect i should have died, marchioness, but for you." at this point, mr. swiveller took the small servant's hand in his, struggling to express his thanks, but she quickly changed the theme, urging him to shut his eyes and take a little rest. being indeed fatigued, he needed but little urging, and fell into a slumber, from which he waked in about half an hour, after which his small friend helped him to sit up again. "marchioness," said richard suddenly, "what has become of kit?" "he has been sentenced to transportation for a great many years," she said. "has he gone?" asked dick, "his mother, what has become of her?" his nurse shook her head, and answered that she knew nothing about them. "but if i thought," said she presently, "that you'd not put yourself into another fever, i could tell you something--but i won't, now. wait till you're better, then i'll tell you." dick looked very earnestly at his little friend, and urged her to tell him the worst at once. unable to resist his fervent adjurations, the marchioness spoke thus: "well! before i run away, i used to sleep in the kitchen. miss sally used to keep the key of the door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to take away the candle and rake out the fire. then she left me to go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the outside, and kept me locked up till she came down in the morning and let me out. i was terrible afraid of being kept like this, because if there was a fire, i thought they might forget me, you know. so, whenever i see an old key, i picked it up and tried if it would fit the door, and at last i found a key that did fit it. they kept me very short," said the small servant, "so i used to come out at night after they'd gone to bed, and feel about in the dark, for bits of biscuit, or sangwitches, or even pieces of orange-peel to put into cold water, and make believe it was wine. if you make believe very much, it's quite nice," continued the small servant; "but if you don't, you know, it seems as if it would bear a little more seasoning! well, one or two nights before the young man was took, i come upstairs while mr. brass and miss sally was a-sittin by the office fire and talking softly together. they whispered and laughed for a long time, about there being no danger if it was well done; that they must do what their best client, quilp, desired, and that for his own reasons, he hated kit, and wanted to have his reputation ruined. then mr. brass pulls out his pocket-book, and says, 'well, here it is--quilp's own five-pound note. kit is coming to-morrow morning, i know. i'll hold him in conversation, and put this property in his hat, and then convict him of theft. and if that don't get kit out of mr. quilp's way, and satisfy his grudge against the lad,' he said, 'the devil's in it,' then they seemed to be moving away, and i was afraid to stop any longer. there!" the small servant was so much agitated herself that she made no effort to restrain mr. swiveller when he sat up in bed, and hastily demanded whether this story had been told to anybody. "how could it be?" replied his nurse. "when i heard 'em say that you was gone, and so was the lodger, and ever since i come here, you've been out of your senses, so what would have been the good of telling you then?" "marchioness," said mr. swiveller, "if you'll do me the favor to retire for a few minutes, and see what sort of a night it is, i'll get up," "you mustn't think of such a thing," cried his nurse. "i must indeed," said the patient. "whereabouts are my clothes?" "oh, i'm so glad--you haven't got any," replied the marchioness. "ma'am!" said mr. swiveller, in great astonishment. "i've been obliged to sell them, every one, to get the things that was ordered for you. but don't take on about that," urged the marchioness, as dick fell back upon his pillow, "you're too weak to stand indeed." "i'm afraid," said richard dolefully, "that you're right. now, what is to be done?" it occurred to him, on very little reflection, that the first step to take would be to communicate with kit's employer, mr. garland, or with his son mr. abel, at once. it was possible that mr. abel had not yet left his office. in as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant had the address on a piece of paper, and a description of father and son, which would enable her to recognize either without difficulty. armed with these slender powers, she hurried away, commissioned to bring either mr. garland or mr. abel bodily to mr. swiveller's apartment. "i suppose," said dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, "i suppose there's nothing left--not so much as a waistcoat?" "no, nothing." "its embarrassing," said mr. swiveller, "in case of fire--even an umbrella would be something--but you did quite right, dear marchioness. i should have died without you." the small servant went swiftly on her way, towards the office of the notary, mr. witherden, where mr. garland was to be found. she had no bonnet, only a great cap on her head, which in some old time had been worn by sally brass;--and her shoes being extremely large and slipshod, flew off every now and then, and were difficult to find. indeed the poor little creature experienced so much trouble and delay from having to grope for them in the mud, and suffered so much jostling, pushing, and squeezing in these researches, that between it, and her fear of being recognized by some one, and carried back by force to the brasses, when she at last reached the notary's office, she was fairly worn out, and could not refrain from tears. but to have got there was a comfort, and she found mr. abel in the act of entering his pony-chaise and driving away. there was nothing for her to do but to run after the chaise and call to mr. abel to stop. being out of breath, she was unable to make him hear. the case was desperate, for the pony was quickening his pace. the marchioness hung on behind for a few moments, and feeling she could go no farther, clambered by a vigorous effort into the hinder seat, where she remained in silence, until she had to some degree recovered her breath, and become accustomed to the novelty of her position, when she uttered close into mr. abel's ear the words,-- "i say, sir." he turned his head quickly enough then, and stopping the pony, cried with some trepidation, "god bless me! what is this?" "don't be frightened, sir," replied the still panting messenger. "oh, i've run such a way after you!" "what do you want with me?" said mr. abel. "how did you come here?" "i got in behind," replied the marchioness. "oh, please drive on, sir--don't stop--and go towards the city, will you? and oh--do please make haste, because it is of consequence. there's somebody wants to see you there. he sent me to say, would you come directly, and that he knows all about kit, and could save him yet, and prove his innocence." "what do you tell me, child?" "the truth, upon my word and honor, i do. but please to drive on--quick, please! i've been such a time gone, he'll think i'm lost" mr. abel urged the pony forward, and at last they arrived at the door of mr. swiveller's lodgings. "see! it's that room up there," said the marchioness, pointing to one where there was a faint light. "come!" mr. abel who was naturally timid, hesitated; for he had heard of people being decoyed into strange places, to be robbed and murdered, under circumstances very like the present, by guides very like the marchioness. his regard for kit, however, overcame every other consideration. so he suffered his companion to lead him up the dark and narrow stair, into a dimly lighted sick-chamber, where a man was lying tranquilly in bed, in whose wasted face he recognized the features of richard swiveller. "why, how is this?" said mr. abel, kindly, "you have been ill?" "very," replied dick, "nearly dead. you might have chanced to hear of your richard on his bier, but for the friend i sent to fetch you. another shake of the hand, marchioness, if you please. sit down, sir." mr. abel seemed rather astonished to hear of the quality of his guide, and took a chair by the bedside. "i have sent for you, sir," said dick--"but she told you on what account?" "she did. i am quite bewildered by all this. i really don't know what to say or think," replied mr. abel. "you'll say that presently," retorted dick. "marchioness, take a seat on the bed, will you? now, tell this gentleman all that you told me, and be particular." the story was repeated, without any deviation or omission, after which richard swiveller took the word again; "you have heard it all," said richard. "i'm too giddy and queer to suggest anything, but you and your friends will know what to do. after this long delay, every minute is an age. don't stop to say one word to me, but go! if you lose another minute in looking at me, sir, i'll never forgive you!" mr. abel needed no more persuasion. to dick's unbounded delight he was gone in an instant, and mr. swiveller, exhausted by the interview, was soon asleep, murmuring 'strew, then, oh strew a bed of rushes. here will we stay till morning blushes.' "good-night, marchioness!" on awaking in the morning, he became conscious of whispering voices in his room, and espied mr. garland, mr. abel, and two other gentlemen talking earnestly with the marchioness. upon perceiving the invalid to be awake, mr. garland stretched out his hand, and inquired how mr. swiveller felt; adding "and what can we do for you?" "if you could make the marchioness yonder, a marchioness in real, sober earnest," returned dick, "i'd thank you to get it done offhand. but as you can't, the question is, what is it best to do for kit?" gathering around mr. swiveller's bedside, the group of gentlemen then proceeded to discuss in detail all the evidence against sampson brass, as contained in the confession of the marchioness, and what course was wisest to pursue in the matter. after which the gentlemen took their leaves for a time, or richard swiveller must assuredly have been driven into another fever, in consequence of having entered into such an exciting discussion. mr. abel alone remained behind, very often looking at his watch and the room-door, until the reason of his watchfulness was disclosed when mr. swiveller was roused from a short nap by the delivery at his door of a mighty hamper, which, being opened, disgorged such treasures of tea, and coffee, and wine, and rusk, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls, and calvesfoot jelly, and other delicate restoratives, that the small servant stood rooted to the spot, with her mouth and eyes watering in unison, and her power of speech quite gone. with the hamper appeared also a nice old lady, who bustled about on tiptoe, began to make chicken-broth, and peel oranges for the sick man, and to ply the small servant with glasses of wine, and choice bits of everything. the whole of which was so bewildering that mr. swiveller, when he had taken two oranges and a little jelly, was fain to lie down and fall asleep again, from sheer inability to entertain such wonders in his mind. meanwhile the other gentlemen, who had left richard swiveller's room, had retired to a coffee-house near by, from whence they sent a peremptory and mysterious summons to miss sally brass to favor them with her company there as soon as possible. to this she replied by an almost immediate appearance, whereupon, without any loss of time, she was confronted with the tale of the small servant. while it was being related for her benefit, sampson brass himself suddenly opened the door of the coffee-house and joined the astonished group. hearing the certain proofs of his guilt so clearly related, he saw that evasion was useless, and made a full confession of the scheme whereby kit was to have been doomed, but laying the entire blame, however, upon the rich little dwarf, quilp, saying that he could not afford to lose his rich client, nor the large bribe he offered for the arrest of the lad, kit. having secured the desired confession, the gentlemen hastened back to mr. swiveller's room with the glad tidings, adding that it would now be possible to accomplish the lad's immediate release, after making which joyful statement, they took their departure for the night, leaving the invalid with the small servant and one of their number, mr. witherden, the notary, who remained behind to be the bearer of good news to the invalid. "i have been making some inquiries about you," said mr. witherden, "little thinking that i should find you under such circumstances as those which have brought us together. you are the nephew of rebecca swiveller, spinster, deceased, of cheselbourne, in dorsetshire." "deceased!" cried dick. "deceased. and by the terms of her will, you have fallen into an annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; i think i may congratulate you upon that." "sir," said dick, sobbing and laughing together, "you may. for, please god, we'll make a scholar of the poor marchioness yet. and she shall walk in silk attire, and siller have to spare, or may i never rise from this bed again!" mr. swiveller, recovering very slowly from his illness, even with the strong tonic of his good fortune, and entering into the receipt of his annuity, bought for the marchioness a handsome stock of clothes, and put her to school forthwith, in redemption of the vow he had made upon his fevered bed. after casting about for some time for a name which should be worthy of her, he decided in favor of sophronia sphynx, as being euphonious and genteel, and, furthermore, indicative of mystery. under this title the marchioness repaired in tears to the school of his selection, from which, as she soon distanced all competitors, she was removed before the lapse of many quarters to one of a higher grade. it is but bare justice to mr. swiveller to say that although the expense of her education kept him in straightened circumstances for half-a-dozen years, he never slackened in his zeal, and always held himself sufficiently repaid by the accounts he heard of her advancement. in a word, mr. swiveller kept the marchioness at this establishment until she was, at a moderate guess, full nineteen years of age, at which time, thanks to her earliest friend and most loyal champion, richard swiveller, the shadows of a bitter past had been chased from her memory by a happy present, and she was as good-looking, clever, and good-humored a young woman as ever a real marchioness might have been. morleena kenwigs [illustration: the kenwigses] morleena kenwigs the family who went by the designation of "the kenwigses" were the wife and olive branches of one mr. kenwigs, a turner in ivory, who was looked upon as a person of some consideration where he lodged, inasmuch as he occupied the whole of the first floor, comprising a suite of two rooms. mrs. kenwigs too, was quite a lady in her manners, and of a very genteel family, having an uncle, mr. lillyvick, who collected a water-rate, and who she fondly hoped, would make her children his heirs. besides which distinction, the two eldest of her little girls went twice a week to a dancing-school in the neighborhood, and had flaxen hair tied with blue ribbons, hanging in luxuriant pigtails down their backs, and wore little white trousers with frills round the ankles;--for all of which reasons mr. and mrs. kenwigs, and the four olive kenwigses, and the baby, were considered quite important persons to know. upon the eighth anniversary of mrs. kenwigs' marriage to mr. kenwigs, they entertained a select party of friends, and on that occasion, after supper had been served, the group gathered by the fireside; mr. lillyvick being stationed in a large arm-chair, and the four little kenwigses disposed on a small form in front of the company, with their flaxen tails towards them, and their faces to the fire; an arrangement which was no sooner perfected than mrs. kenwigs was overpowered by the feelings of a mother, and fell upon mr. kenwigs' shoulder, dissolved in tears. "they are so beautiful!" she said, sobbing. "i can--not help it, and it don't signify! oh, they're too beautiful to live--much too beautiful!" on hearing this alarming presentiment of their early death, all four little girls raised a hideous cry, and, burying their faces in their mother's lap simultaneously, screamed until the eight flaxen tails vibrated; mrs. kenwigs meanwhile clasping them alternately to her bosom, with attitudes expressive of distraction. at length, however, she permitted herself to be soothed, and the little kenwigses were distributed among the company, to prevent the possibility of mrs. kenwigs being again overcome by the blaze of their united beauty, after which, morleena, the eldest olive branch--whose name had been composed by mrs. kenwigs herself for the especial benefit of her daughter--danced a dance. it was a very beautiful figure, comprising a great deal of work for the arms, and was received with unbounded applause, as were the various accomplishments displayed by others of the party. the affair was proceeding most successfully when mr. lillyvick took offence at a remark made by mr. kenwigs, and sat swelling and fuming in offended dignity for some minutes, then burst out in words of indignation. here was an untoward event! the great man,--the rich relation--who had it in his power to make morleena an heiress, and the very baby a legatee--was offended. gracious powers, where would this end! "i am very sorry, sir," said mr. kenwigs humbly, but the apology was not accepted, and mr. lillyvick continued to repeat; "morleena, child, my hat! morleena, my hat!" until mrs. kenwigs sunk back in her chair, overcome with grief, while the four little girls (privately instructed to that effect) clasped their uncle's drab shorts in their arms, and prayed him to remain. "mr. lillyvick," said kenwigs, "i hope for the sake of your niece that you won't object to being reconciled." the collector's face relaxed, as the company added their entreaties to those of their host. he gave up his hat and held out his hand. "there, kenwigs," he said. "and let me tell you at the same time, to show you how much out of temper i was, that if i had gone away without another word, it would have made no difference respecting that pound or two which i shall leave among your children when i die." "morleena kenwigs," cried her mother, in a torrent of affection; "go down upon your knees to your dear uncle and beg him to love you all his life through, for he's more an angel than a man, and i've always said so." miss morleena, approaching to do homage, was summarily caught up and kissed by mr. lillyvick, and thereupon mrs. kenwigs herself darted forward and kissed the collector, and all was forgiven and forgotten. no further wave of trouble ruffled the feelings of the party until suddenly there came shrill and piercing screams from an upper room in which the infant kenwigs was enshrined, guarded by a small girl hired for the purpose. rushing to the door, mrs. kenwigs began to wring her hands and shriek dismally, amid which cries, and the wails of the four little girls, a stranger ran downstairs with the baby in his arms, explaining hastily that, visiting a friend in a room above, he had heard the cries, and found the baby's guardian asleep with her hair on fire. this explanation over, the baby, who was unhurt, and who rejoiced in the name of lillyvick kenwigs, was instantly almost suffocated under the caresses of the audience, and squeezed to his mother's bosom until he roared again. then, after drinking the health of the child's preserver, the company made the discovery that it was nigh two o'clock, whereat they took their leave, with flattering expressions of the pleasure they had enjoyed, to which mr. and mrs. kenwigs replied by thanking them, and hoping they had enjoyed themselves only half as well as they said they had. the young man, nicholas nickleby by name, who had rescued the baby, made such an impression upon mrs. kenwigs that she felt impelled to propose through the friend whom he had been visiting, that he should instruct the four little kenwigses in the french language at the weekly stipend of five shillings; being at the rate of one shilling per week, per each miss kenwigs, and one shilling over until such time as the baby might be able to take it out in grammar. this proposition was accepted with alacrity by nicholas, who betook himself to the kenwigs' apartment with all speed. here he found the four miss kenwigses on their form of audience, and the baby in a dwarf porter's chair, with a deal tray before it, amusing himself with a toy horse, while mrs. kenwigs spoke to the little girls of the superior advantages they enjoyed above other children. "but i hope," she said, "that that will not make them proud; but that they will bless their own good fortune which has born them superior to common people's children. and when you go out in the streets, or elsewhere, i desire that you don't boast of it to the other children," continued mrs. kenwigs, "and that if you must say anything about it, you don't say no more than 'we've got a private master comes to teach us at home, but we ain't proud, because ma says its sinful,' do you hear, morleena?" upon the eldest miss kenwigs replying meekly that she did, permission was conceded for the lesson to commence, and accordingly the four miss kenwigses again arranged themselves upon their form, in a row, with their tails all one way, while nicholas nickleby began his preliminary explanations. some months after this, the kenwigses were thrown into a fever of rage and disappointment, by receiving the cruel news of their uncle lillyvick's marriage, which blow was a terrible one to mrs. kenwigs, blighting her hopes for her children's future. after weeping and wailing in the most agonized fashion, mrs. kenwigs drew herself up in proud defiance, and denounced her uncle in terms direct and plain, stating that he should never again darken her doors. in this terrible state of affairs, it remained for morleena of the flaxen tails, to bring about a family re-union, and in this way: it had come to pass that she had received an invitation to repair next day, per steamer from westminster bridge, unto the eel-pie island at twickenham, there to make merry upon a cold collation, and to dance in the open air to the music of a locomotive band; the steamer having been engaged by a dancing-master for his numerous pupils, one of whom had extended an invitation to miss morleena, and mrs. kenwigs rightly deemed the honor of the family was involved in her daughter making the most splendid appearance possible. now, between the italian-ironing of frills, the flouncing of trousers, the trimming of frocks, the faintings from overwork and the comings-to again, incidental to the occasion, mrs. kenwigs had been so entirely occupied, that she had not observed, until within half an hour before, that the flaxen tails of miss morleena were in a manner, run to seed; and that unless she were put under the hands of a skilful hairdresser she never could achieve that signal triumph over the daughters of all other people, anything less than which would be tantamount to defeat. this discovery drove mrs. kenwigs to despair, for the hairdresser lived three streets and eight dangerous crossings off, and there was nobody to take her. so mrs. kenwigs first slapped miss kenwigs for being the cause of her vexation, and then shed tears. "i can't help it, ma," replied morleena, also in tears, "my hair _will_ grow!" while they were both still bemoaning and weeping, a fellow lodger in the house came upon them, and hearing of their difficulty, offered to escort miss morleena to the barber-shop, and at once led her in safety to that establishment. the proprietor, knowing she had three sisters, each with two flaxen tails, and all good for sixpence apiece a month at least, promptly deserted an old gentleman whom he had just lathered for shaving, and waited on the young lady himself. the old gentleman raising his head, miss kenwigs noticed his face and uttered a shrill little scream,--it was her uncle lillyvick! hearing his name pronounced, mr. lillyvick groaned, then coughed to hide it, and consigning himself to the hands of an assistant, commenced a colloquy with miss morleena's escort, rather striving to escape the notice of miss morleena herself, and so remarkable did this behavior seem to her, that at the imminent hazard of having her ear sliced off, she could not forbear looking round at him some score of times. the cutting and curling being at last concluded, the old gentleman, who had been finished some time, and simply waiting, rose to go also, and walked out of the establishment with miss morleena and her escort, proceeding with them, in profound silence until they had nearly reached miss morleena's home, when he asked if her family had been very much overpowered by the news of his marriage. "it made ma cry when she knew it," answered miss morleena, "and pa was very low in his spirits, but he is better now, and i was very ill, but i am better too." "would you give your great-uncle lillyvick a kiss, if he was to ask you, morleena?" said the collector, with some hesitation. "yes, uncle lillyvick, i would," returned miss morleena with no hesitation whatsoever, whereupon mr. lillyvick caught her in his arms and kissed her, and being by this time at the door of the house, he walked straight up into the kenwigses' sitting-room and put her down in their midst. the surprise and delight that reigned in the bosom of the kenwigses at the unexpected sight, was only heightened by the joyful intelligence that their uncle's married life had been both brief and unsatisfactory, and by his further statement: "out of regard for you, susan and kenwigs, i shall to-morrow morning settle upon your children, and make payable to their survivors when they come of age, or marry, that money which i once meant to leave 'em in my will. the deed shall be executed to-morrow!" overcome by this noble and generous offer, and by their emotion, mr. kenwigs, mrs. kenwigs, and miss morleena kenwigs all began to sob together, and the noise communicating itself to the next room where the other children lay a-bed, and causing them to cry too, mr. kenwigs rushed wildly in, and bringing them out in his arms, by two and two, tumbled them down in their night-caps and gowns at the feet of mr. lillyvick, and called upon them to thank and bless him. and this wonderful domestic scene,--this family reconciliation was brought about by miss morleena, eldest of the four little kenwigses, with the flaxen tails! little nell [illustration: little nell and her grandfather] little nell there was once an old man, whose daughter dying, left in his care two orphan children, a son twelve years old, and little nell, a younger girl. the grandfather was now an old and feeble man, but gathering himself together as best he could, he began to trade;--in pictures first--and then in curious ancient things, and from the old curiosity shop, as it was called, he was able to obtain a slender income. the boy grew into a wayward youth, and soon quitted his grandfather's home for companions more suited to his taste, but sweet little nell remained, and grew so like her mother, that when the old man had her on his knee, and looked into her mild blue eyes, he felt as if his daughter had come back, a child again. the old man and little nell dwelt alone,--he loving her with a passionate devotion, and haunted with a fearful dread lest she should be left to a life of poverty and want, when he should be called to leave her. this fear so overmastered him that it led him to the gaming-table, and--for her sake--he became a professional gambler, hoping to lay by a vast fortune for her future use. but he lost heavily and constantly, until his slender resources were exhausted, and he was obliged to borrow money from the rich little dwarf money-lender, quilp, pledging his stock as security for the loans. but of all this little nell knew nothing, or she would have implored him to give up the dangerous practice. she only knew that, after her monotonous days, uncheckered by variety and uncheered by pleasant companionship, the old man, who seemed always agitated by some hidden care, and weak and wandering in his mind, taking his cloak and hat and stick, would pass from the house, leaving her alone through the dreary evenings and long solitary nights. it was not the absence of such pleasures as make young hearts beat high, that brought tears to nell's eyes. it was the sight of the old man's feeble state of mind and body, and the fear that some night he should fail to come home, having been overtaken by illness or sudden death. such fears as these drove the roses from her smooth young cheeks, and stilled the songs which before had rung through the dim old shop, while the gay, lightsome step passed among the dusty treasures. now she seldom smiled or sang, and among the few bits of comedy in her sad days, were the visits of kit nubbles, her grandfather's errand boy, a shock-headed, shambling, comical lad, whose devotion to the beautiful child verged on worship. appreciating nell's loneliness, kit visited the shop as often as possible, and the exquisite oddity and awkwardness of his manner so amused her that at sight of him she would give way to genuine merriment. kit himself, being always flattered by the sensation he produced, would often burst into a loud roar, and stand with his mouth wide open, and his eyes nearly shut, laughing violently. twice every week nell gave the lad a writing lesson, to the great mirth and enjoyment of them both, and each time kit tucked up his sleeves, squared his elbows, and put his face very close to the copy-book, squinting horribly at the lines, fairly wallowing in blots, and daubing himself with ink up to the roots of his hair,--and if he did by accident form a letter properly, he immediately smeared it out again with his arm--and at every fresh mistake there was a fresh burst of merriment from the child and from poor kit himself. but of such happy times sweet nell had few, and she became more anxious about her grandfather's health, as he became daily more worried over the secret which he would not share with her, and which preyed upon his mind and body with increasing ravages. fortune did not favor his ventures, and quilp, having discovered for what purpose he borrowed such large sums, refused him further loans. in an agony of apprehension for the future, the old man told nell that he had had heavy losses, that they would soon be beggars. "what if we are?" said the child boldly. "let us be beggars, and be happy." "beggars--and happy!" said the old man. "poor child!" "dear grandfather," cried the girl, with an energy which shone in her flushed face, trembling voice, and impassioned, gestures, "o, hear me pray that we may beg, or work in open roads or fields, to earn a scanty living, rather than live as we do now." "nelly!" said the old man. "yes, yes, rather than live as we do now," the child repeated, "do not let me see such change in you, and not know why, or i shall break my heart and die. dear grandfather, let us leave this sad place to-morrow, and beg our way from door to door." the old man covered his face with his hands, as the child added, "let us be beggars. i have no fear but we shall have enough: i'm sure we shall. let us walk through country places, and never think of money again, or anything that can make you sad, but rest at nights, and have the sun and wind on our faces in the day, and thank god together! let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy houses any more, but wander up and down wherever we like to go, and when you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest places we can find, and i will go and beg for both." the child's voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old man's neck; nor did she weep alone. that very day news came that the old curiosity shop and its contents would at once pass into quilp's hands, in payment of the old man's debts. in vain he pleaded for one more chance to redeem himself--for one more loan--quilp was firm in his refusal of further help, and little nell found the old man, overcome by the news, lying upon the floor of his room, alarmingly ill. for weeks he lay raving in the delirium of fever, little nell alone beside him, nursing him with a single-hearted devotion. the house was no longer theirs; even the sick chamber they retained by special favor until such time as the old man could be removed. meanwhile, mr. quilp had taken formal possession of the premises, and to make sure that no more business was transacted in the shop, was encamped in the back parlor. so keen was nell's dread of even the sound of the dwarfs voice, that she lived in continual apprehension of meeting him on the stairs, or in the passage, and seldom stirred from her grandfather's room. at length the old man began to mend--he was patient and quiet, easily amused, and made no complaint, but his mind was forever weakened, and he seemed to have only a dazed recollection of what had happened. even when quilp told him that in two days he must be moved out of the shop, he seemed not to take it to heart, wandering around the house, a very child in act and thought. but a change came over him on the second evening; as he and little nell sat silently together. he was moved--shed tears--begged nell's forgiveness for what he had made her suffer--seemed like one coming out of a dream--and urged her to help him in acting upon what they had talked of doing long before. "we will not stop here another day," he said, "we will go far away from here. we will travel afoot through the fields and woods, and by the side of rivers, and trust ourselves to god in the places where he dwells. it is far better to lie down at night beneath an open sky than to rest in close rooms, which are always full of care and weary dreams. thou and i together, nell, may be cheerful and happy yet, and learn to forget this time, as if it had never been." "we will be happy," cried the child. "we never can be, here!" "no, we never can again--never again--that's truly said," rejoined the old man. "let us steal away to-morrow morning, early and softly, that we may not be seen or heard--and leave no trace or track for them to follow by. poor nell! thy cheek is pale, and thy eyes are heavy with watching and weeping for me; but thou wilt be well again, and merry too, when we are far away. to-morrow morning, dear, we will turn our faces from this scene of sorrow, and be as free and happy as the birds." the child's heart beat high with hope and confidence. she had no thought of hunger or cold, or thirst, or suffering. she saw in this a relief from the gloomy solitude in which she had lived, an escape from the heartless people by whom she had been surrounded in her late time of trial, the restoration of the old man's health and peace, and a life of tranquil happiness. sun, and stream, and meadow, and summer days shone brightly in her view, and there was no dark tint in all the sparkling picture. the old man had slept for some hours soundly, and she was yet busily engaged in preparing for their flight. there were a few articles of clothing for herself to carry, and a few for him, and a staff to support his feeble steps. but this was not all her task, for now she must say farewell to her own little room, where she had so often knelt down and prayed at night--prayed for the time which she hoped was dawning now! there were some trifles there, which she would have liked to take away, but that was impossible. she wept bitterly to leave her poor bird behind, until the idea occurred to her that it might fall into the hands of kit, who would keep and cherish it for her sake. she was calmed and comforted by this thought, and went to rest with a lighter heart. at length the day began to glimmer, when she arose and dressed herself for the journey, and with the old man, trod lightly down the stairs. at last they reached the ground-floor, got the door open without noise, and passing into the street, stood still. "which way?" said the child. the old man looked irresolutely and helplessly to the right and left, then at her, and shook his head. it was plain that she was henceforth his guide and leader. the child felt it, but had no doubts or misgivings, and putting her hand in his, led him gently away. it was the beginning of a day in june; the deep blue sky unsullied by a cloud, and teeming with brilliant light. the streets were as yet free of passengers, the houses and shops were closed, and the healthy air of morning fell like breath from angels on the sleeping town. the old man and the child passed on through the glad silence, elate with hope and pleasure. every object was bright and fresh; nothing reminded them, otherwise than by contrast, of the monotony and restraint they had left behind. forth from the city, while it yet slumbered, went the two poor adventurers, wandering they knew not whither, often pressing each other's hands, or exchanging a smile, as they pursued their way through the city streets, through the haunts of traffic and great commerce, where business was already rife. the old man looked about him with a bewildered gaze, for these were places that he hoped to shun, nor did he seem at ease until at last they felt that they were clear of london, and sat down to rest, and eat their frugal breakfast from little nell's basket. the freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of the waving grass, the wild flowers, and the thousand exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air, sunk into their breasts, and made them very glad. the child had repeated her artless prayers once that morning, more earnestly, perhaps, than she had ever done in her life; but as she felt all this, they rose to her lips again. the old man took off his hat--he had no memory for the words--but he said amen, and that they were very good. "are you tired?" asked the child. "are you sure you don't feel ill from this long walk?" "i shall never feel ill again, now that we are once away," was his reply. "let us be stirring, nell. we are too near to stop and be at rest. come!" they were now in the open country, through which they walked all day, and slept that night at a cottage where beds were let to travellers. next morning they were afoot again, and still kept on until nearly five o'clock in the afternoon, when they stopped at a laborer's hut, asking permission to rest awhile and buy a draught of milk. the request was granted, and after having some refreshments and rest, nell yielded to the old man's fretful demand to travel on again, and they trudged forward for another mile, thankful for a lift given them by a kindly driver going their way, for they could scarcely crawl along. to them the jolting cart was a luxurious carriage, and the ride the most delicious in the world. nell had scarcely settled herself in one corner of the cart when she fell fast asleep, and was only awakened by its stopping when their ways parted. the driver pointing out the town in the near distance, directed them to take the path leading through the churchyard. accordingly, to this spot they directed their weary steps, and presently came upon two men who were seated upon the grass. it was not difficult to divine that they were itinerant showmen--exhibitors of the freaks of punch--for, perched cross-legged upon a tombstone behind them, was a figure of that hero himself, his nose and chin as hooked, and his face as beaming as usual; while scattered upon the ground, and jumbled together in a long box, were the other persons of the drama. the hero's wife and one child, the hobby-horse, the doctor, the foreign gentleman, the executioner, and the devil, all were here. their owners had evidently come to that spot to make some needful repairs in their stock, for one of them was engaged in binding together a small gallows with thread, while the other was intent upon fixing a new black wig. they greeted the strangers with a nod, and the old man sitting down beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight, began to talk. while they chatted, mr. short, a little merry, red-faced man with twinkling eyes, turning over the figures in the box, drew one forth, saying ruefully to his companion, codlin by name: "look here, here's all this judy's clothes falling to pieces again. you haven't got needle and thread, i suppose?" the little man shook his head, and seeing that they were at a loss, nell said timidly: "i have a needle, sir, in my basket, and thread too. will you let me try to mend it for you? i think i could do it neater than you could." as mr. codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable, nelly was soon busily engaged in her task, and accomplishing it to a miracle. while she was thus engaged, the merry little man looked at her with an interest which did not appear to be diminished when he glanced at her helpless companion. when she had finished her work, he thanked her, and inquired whither they were travelling. "n-no further to-night, i think," said the child, looking toward her grandfather. "if you're wanting a place to stop at," the man remarked, "i should advise you to take up at the same house with us. the long, low, white house there. it's very cheap." the old man, who would have remained in the churchyard all night if his new acquaintances had stayed there too, yielded to this suggestion a ready and rapturous assent, and they all rose and walked away together to the public house, where, after witnessing an exhibition of the show, they had a good supper, but nell was too tired to eat, and was grateful when they retired to the loft where they were to rest. the old man was uneasy when he had lain down, and begged that nell would come and sit at his bedside as she had done for so many nights. she sat there till he slept, then went to her own room and sat thinking of the life that was before them. she had a little money, but it was very little, and when that was gone, they must begin to beg. there was one piece of gold among it, and an emergency might come when its worth to them might be increased a hundredfold. it would be best to hide this coin, and never produce it unless their case was absolutely desperate. her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress, and going to bed with a lighter heart, sunk into a deep slumber. on the following morning, mr. short asked nell, "and where are you going to-day?" "indeed i hardly know," replied the child. "we're going on to the races," said the little man. "if you'd like to have us for company, let us travel together." "well go with you," said the old man eagerly. "nell--with them, with them." the child considered for a moment, and reflecting that she must soon beg, and could scarcely do so at a better place, thanked the little man for his offer, and said they would accompany him. presently they started off and made a long day's journey, and were yet upon the road when night came on. threatening clouds soon gave place to a heavy rain, and the party took refuge for the night in a roadside inn, where they found a mighty fire blazing upon the hearth, and savory smells coming from iron pots. furnished with slippers and dry garments, and overpowered by the warmth and comfort of the room and the fatigue they had undergone, nelly and the old man had not long taken seats in the warm chimney-corner when they fell asleep. "who are they?" whispered the landlord. short and codlin shook their heads. "they're no harm," said short. "depend upon that i tell you what--it's plain that the old man aren't in his right mind--i believe that he's given his friends the slip and persuaded this delicate young creature, all along of her fondness for him, to be his guide and travelling companion--where to, he knows no more than the man in the moon. now i'm not a-goin' to stand that. i'm not a-goin' to see this fair young child a-falling into bad hands, and getting among people that she's no more fit for, than they are to get among angels as their ordinary chums. therefore when they dewelop an intention of parting company from us, i shall take measures for detainin' of 'em and restoring them to their friends, who, i dare say, have had their disconsolation pasted up on every wall in london by this time. "short," said mr. codlin, "it's possible there may be uncommon good sense in what you've said. if there is, and there should be a reward, short, remember that we are partners in everything!" his companion had only time to nod a brief assent to this proposition, for the child awoke at the instant, as strange footsteps were heard without, and fresh company entered. these were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering in, headed by an old bandy dog, who erected himself upon his hind legs, and looked around at his companions, who immediately stood upon their hind legs in a grave and melancholy row. these dogs each wore a kind of little coat of some gaudy color, trimmed with tarnished spangles, and one of them had a cap upon his head, tied under his chin, which had fallen down upon his nose, and completely obscured one eye. add to this, that the gaudy coats were all wet through with rain, and that the wearers were all splashed and dirty, and some idea may be formed of the unusual appearance of the new visitors to the inn. jerry, the manager of these dancing dogs, disencumbering himself of a barrel-organ, and retaining in his hand a small whip, came up to the fire and entered into conversation. the landlord then busied himself in laying the cloth for supper, which, being at length ready to serve, little nell ventured to say grace, and supper began. at this juncture the poor dogs were standing upon their hind legs quite surprisingly. the child, having pity on them, was about to cast some morsels of food to them before she tasted it herself, hungry though she was, when their master interposed. "no, my dear, no, not an atom from anybody's hand but mine, please. that dog," said jerry, pointing out the old leader of the troop, and speaking in a terrible voice, "lost a half-penny to-day. he goes without his supper." the unfortunate creature dropped upon his forelegs directly, wagged his tail, and looked imploringly at his master. "you must be more careful, sir," said jerry, walking coolly to the chair where he had placed the organ, and setting the stop. "come here. now, sir, you play away at that while we have supper, and leave off if you dare." the dog immediately began to grind most mournful music. his master, having shown him the whip, called up the others, who, at his directions, formed in a row, standing upright as a file of soldiers. "now, gentlemen," said jerry, looking at them attentively, "the dog whose name is called, eats. carlo!" the lucky individual whose name was called, snapped up the morsel thrown towards him, but none of the others moved a muscle. meanwhile the dog in disgrace ground hard at the organ, sometimes in quick time, sometimes in slow, but never leaving off for an instant. when the knives and forks rattled very much, or any of his fellows got an unusually large piece of fat, he accompanied the music with a short howl; but he immediately checked it on his master looking around, and applied himself with increased diligence to the old hundredth. that night, from various conversations in which codlin and short took pains to engage her, little nell began to have misgivings concerning their protestations of friendship, and to suspect their motives. these misgivings made the child anxious and uneasy, as the party travelled on towards the town where the races were to begin next day. it was dark when they reached the town, and there all was tumult and confusion. the streets were filled with throngs of people, the church-bells rang out their noisy peals, and flags streamed from windows and house-tops, while shrill flageolets and deafening drums added to the uproar. through this delirious scene, the child, frightened and repelled by all she saw, led on her bewildered charge, clinging close to her conductor, and trembling lest she should be separated from him, and left to find her way alone. quickening their steps they made for the racecourse, which was upon an open heath. there were many people here, none of the best-favored or best clad, busily erecting tents, but the child felt it an escape from the town, and drew her breath more freely. after a scanty supper, she and the old man lay down to rest in a corner of a tent, and slept, despite the busy preparations that were going on around them all night long. and now they had come to the time when they must beg their bread. soon after sunrise in the morning nell stole out, and plucked a few wild roses and such humble flowers, to make into little nosegays and offer to the ladies in the carriages when the company arrived. her thoughts were not idle while she was thus employed. when she returned and was seated beside the old man, tying her flowers together, while codlin and short lay dozing in another corner, she said in a low voice: "grandfather, don't look at those i talk of, and don't seem as if i spoke of anything but what i'm about. what was that you told me before we left the old house?--that if they knew what we were going to do, they would say that you were mad, and part us?" the old man turned to her with an aspect of wild terror; but she checked him by a look, adding, "grandfather, these men suspect that we have secretly left our friends, and mean to carry us before some gentlemen, and have us taken care of, and sent back. if you let your hand tremble so, we can never get away from them, but if you're only quiet now, we shall do so easily." "how?" muttered the old man. "dear nelly, how? they will shut me up in a stone room, dark and cold, and chain me to the wall, nell--flog me with whips, and never let me see thee more!" "you're trembling again!" said the child. "keep close to me all day. i shall find a time when we can steal away. when i do, mind you come with me, and do not stop or speak a word. hush! that's all." "halloa! what are you up to, my dear?" said mr. codlin, raising his head and yawning. "making some nosegays," the child replied; "i'm going to try to sell some. will you have one?--as a present, i mean." mr. codlin stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency, and laid himself down again. as the morning wore on, the tents assumed a more brilliant appearance. men, who had lounged about in smock frocks and leather leggings, came out in silken vests and hats and plumes, as jugglers or mountebanks. black-eyed gypsy girls, hooded in showy handkerchiefs, sallied forth to tell fortunes. the dancing dogs, the stilts, the little lady and the tall man and all the other attractions, with organs out of number, and bands innumerable, emerged from the corners in which they had passed the night, and flourished boldly in the sun. along the uncleared course, short led his party, sounding the brazen trumpet, and at his heels went thomas codlin, bearing the show, and keeping his eyes on nelly and her grandfather, as they rather lingered in the rear. the child bore upon her arm the little basket with her flowers, and sometimes stopped, with timid looks, to offer them at some gay carriage, but, alas! there were many bolder beggars there, adepts at their trade, and although some ladies smiled gently as they shook their heads, and others cried: "see, what a pretty face!" they let the pretty face pass on, and never thought that it looked tired or hungry, and among all that gay throng, there was but one lady, who, taking her flowers, put money in the child's trembling hand. at length, late in the day, mr. codlin pitched the show in a convenient spot, and the spectators were soon in the very triumph of the scene. the child, sitting down with the old man close behind it, was roused from her meditation by a loud laugh at some witticism of mr. short. if they were ever to get away unseen, that was the very moment. short and codlin were absorbed in giving the show, and in coaxing sixpences from the people's pockets, and the spectators were looking on with laughing faces. that was the moment for escape. they seized it and fled. they made a path through booths, and carriages, and throngs of people, and never once stopped to look behind, but creeping under the brow of the hill at a quick pace, made for the open fields, and not until they were quite exhausted ventured to sit down to rest upon the borders of a little wood, and some time elapsed before the child could reassure her trembling companion, or restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity. his terrors affected her. separation from her grandfather was the greatest evil she could dread; and feeling for the time, as though, go where they would, they were to be hunted down, and could never be safe in hiding, her heart failed her, and her courage drooped. then, remembering how weak her companion was, and how destitute and helpless he would be if she failed him, she was animated with new strength and fortitude, and assured him that they had nothing to fear. luring him onward through the woods with happy looks and smiles, the serenity which she had at first assumed, stole into her breast in earnest. the old man cast no longer fearful looks behind, but felt at ease and cheerful, for the further they passed into the deep green shade of the woods, the more they felt that the tranquil mind of god was there, and shed its peace on them. at length the path brought them to a public road which to their great joy at last led into the centre of a small village. uncertain where to seek a lodging, they approached an old man sitting in a garden before his cottage. he was the schoolmaster, and had "school" written over his window in black letters. he was a pale, simple-looking man, and sat among his flowers and beehives, taking no notice of the travellers, until nell approached him, dropping a curtsey, and asking if he could direct them anywhere to obtain a shelter for the night. "you have been walking a long way?" said the schoolmaster. "a long way, sir," the child replied. "you're a young traveller, my child," he said, laying his hand gently on her head. "your grandchild, friend?" "aye, sir," cried the old man, "and the stay and comfort of my life." "come in," said the schoolmaster. without further preface, he conducted them into his little schoolroom, which was parlor and kitchen likewise, and told them they were welcome to remain till morning. before they had done thanking him, he spread the table, and besought them to eat and drink. after a sound night's rest in the little cottage, nell rose early, and was attempting to make the room in which she had supped last night neat and comfortable, when their kind host came in. she asked leave to prepare breakfast, and the three soon partook of it together. while the meal was in progress, their host remarked that the old man stood in need of rest, and that he should be glad of their company for another night. it required no great persuasion to induce the child to answer that they would remain. she was happy to show her gratitude to the kind schoolmaster by performing such household duties as his little cottage stood in need of. when these were done, she took some needlework from her basket, and sat down beside the lattice, where the honeysuckle and woodbine filled the room with their delicious breath. her grandfather was basking in the sun outside, breathing the perfume of the flowers, and idly watching the clouds as they floated on before the light summer wind. presently the schoolmaster took his seat behind his desk, and as he seemed pleased to have little nell beside him, she busied herself with her work, entering into conversation with the schoolmaster while the scholars conned their lessons, and watching the boys with eager and attentive interest. upon the following morning there remained for the travellers only to take leave of the poor schoolmaster, and wander forth once more. with a trembling and reluctant hand, the child held out to their kind host the money which the lady had given her at the races for her flowers, faltering in her thanks, and blushing as she offered it. but he bade her put it up, and kissing her cheek, wished her good fortune and happiness, adding, "if you ever pass this way again, you will not forget the little village school?" "we shall never forget it, sir," rejoined nell, "nor ever forget to be grateful to you for your kindness to us." they bade him farewell very many times, often looking back, until they could see him no more. they trudged onward now at a quicker pace, resolving to keep the main road, and go wherever it might lead them. the afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening when the road struck across a common. on the border of this common, a caravan was drawn up to rest. it was not a shabby, dingy cart, but a smart little house upon wheels, with white dimity curtains festooning the windows, and window-shutters of green picked out with panels of a staring red. neither was it a poor caravan drawn by a single donkey or emaciated horse, for a pair of horses in pretty good condition were released from the shafts, and grazing upon the frowzy grass. neither was it a gypsy caravan, for at the open door (graced with a bright brass knocker) sat a christian lady, stout and comfortable to look upon, who wore a large bonnet, trembling with bows. and that it was not an unprovided or destitute caravan, was clear from this lady's occupation, which was the very refreshing one of drinking tea. the tea things were set forth upon a drum covered with a napkin; and there sat this roving lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect. as she was in the act of setting down her cup, she beheld an old man and a young child walking slowly by, and glancing at her proceedings with eyes of modest but hungry admiration. "hey!" cried the lady of the caravan, "yes, to be sure--who won the helter-skelter plate?" "won what, ma'am?" asked nell. "the helter-skelter plate at the races, child. can't you say who won the helter-skelter plate when you're asked a question civilly?" "i don't know, ma'am." "don't know!" repeated the lady of the caravan; "why, you were there. i saw you with my own eyes." nell was not a little alarmed to hear this, supposing that the lady might be intimately acquainted with the firm of short and codlin; but what followed tended to reassure her. "and very sorry i was," said the lady of the caravan, "to see you in company with a punch--a low practical, wulgar wretch, that people should scorn to look at." "i was not there by choice," rejoined the child; "we didn't know our way, and the two men were very kind to us, and let us travel with them. do you--do you know them, ma'am?" "know 'em, child!" cried the lady of the caravan in a sort of shriek. "know them! but you're young and inexperienced, and that's your excuse for asking sich a question. do i look as if i know'd them? does this caravan look as if it know'd 'em?" "no, ma'am, no," said the child, fearing that she had committed some grievous fault, "i beg your pardon." it was granted immediately, and the child then explained that they had left the races on the first day, and were travelling to the next town, and ventured to inquire how far it was. the stout lady's reply was rather discouraging, and nell could scarcely repress a tear at hearing that it was eight miles off. her grandfather made no complaint, and the two were about to pass on, when the lady of the caravan called to the child to return. beckoning to her to ascend the steps, she asked,--"are you hungry?" "not very, but we are tired, and it's--it is a long way." "well, hungry or not, you had better have some tea," rejoined her new acquaintance. "i suppose you're agreeable to that, old gentleman?" the grandfather humbly pulled off his hat, and thanked her, and sitting down, they made a hearty meal, enjoying it to the utmost. while they were thus engaged, the lady of the caravan held a short conversation with her driver, after which she informed nell that she and her grandfather were to go forward in the caravan with her, for which kindness nell thanked the lady with unaffected earnestness. she helped with great alacrity to put away the tea-things, and mounted into the vehicle, followed by her delighted grandfather. their patroness then shut the door, and away they went, with a great noise of flapping, and creaking, and straining, and the bright brass knocker, knocking one perpetual double knock of its own accord as they jolted heavily along. when they had travelled slowly forward for some short distance, nell looked around the caravan, and observed it more closely. one half of it was carpeted, with a sleeping place, after the fashion of a berth on board ship, partitioned off at the farther end, which was shaded with fair, white curtains, and looked comfortable enough,--though by what kind of gymnastic exercise the lady of the caravan ever contrived to get into it,--was an unfathomable mystery. the other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove, whose small chimney passed through the roof. it held, also, a closet or larder, and the necessary cooking utensils, which latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which in the other portion of the establishment were decorated with a number of well-thumbed musical instruments. presently the old man fell asleep, and the lady of the caravan invited nell to come and sit beside her. "well, child," she said, "how do you like this way of travelling?" nell replied that she thought that it was very pleasant indeed. instead of speaking again, the lady of the caravan sat looking at the child for a long time in silence, then getting up, brought out a roll of canvas about a yard in width, which she laid upon the floor, and spread open with her foot until it nearly reached from one end of the caravan to the other. "there, child," she said, "read that." nell walked down it, and read aloud, in enormous black letters, the inscription, "jarley's wax-work." "read it again," said the lady complacently. "jarley's wax-work," repeated nell. "that's me," said the lady. "i am mrs. jarley." the lady of the caravan then unfolded another scroll, whereon was the inscription, "one hundred figures the full size of life," then several smaller ones with such inscriptions as, "the genuine and only jarley," "jarley is the delight of the nobility and gentry," "the royal family are the patrons of jarley." when she had exhibited these to the astonished child, she brought forth hand-bills, some of which were couched in the form of parodies on popular melodies, as, "believe me, if all jarley's wax-work so rare," "i saw thy show in youthful prime," "over the water to jarley." while others were composed with a view to the lighter and more facetious spirits, as a parody on the favorite air of "if i had a donkey," beginning: "if i know'd a donkey what wouldn't go to see mrs. jarley's wax-work show, do you think i'd acknowledge him? oh, no, no! then run to jarley's"-- besides other compositions in prose, all having the same moral--namely, that the reader must make haste to jarley's, and that children and servants were admitted at half price, mrs. jarley then rolled these testimonials up, and having put them carefully away, sat down and looked at the child in triumph. "i never saw any wax-work, ma'am," said nell. "is it funnier than punch?" "funnier!" said mrs. jarley, in a shrill voice. "it is not funny at all." "oh!" said nell, with all possible humility. "it isn't funny at all," repeated mrs. jarley. "it's calm and classical. no low beatings and knockings about, no jokings and squeakings, like your precious punches, but always the same, with a constantly unchanging air of coldness and gentility; and so life-like, that if wax-work only spoke and walked about, you'd hardly know the difference." "is it here, ma'am?" asked nell, whose curiosity was awakened by this description. "is what here, child?" "the wax-work, ma'am." "why, bless you, child, what are you thinking of? how could such a collection be here? it's gone on in the other wans to the room where it'll be exhibited the day after to-morrow. you're going to the same town, and you'll see it, i dare say." "i shall not be in the town, i think, ma'am," said the child. this answer appeared to greatly astonish mrs. jarley, who asked so many questions that nell was led to tell her some of the details concerning their poverty and wanderings, after which the lady of the caravan relapsed into a thoughtful silence. at length she shook off her fit of meditation, and held a long conversation with the driver, which conference being concluded, she beckoned nell to approach. "and the old gentleman, too," said mrs. jarley. "i want to have a word with him. do you want a good situation for your granddaughter, master? if you do, i can put her in the way of getting one. what do you say?" "i can't leave her, ma'am," answered the old man. "what would become of me without her?" "i should have thought you were old enough to take care of yourself, if you ever will be," retorted mrs. jarley sharply. "but he never will be," whispered the child. "pray do not speak harshly to him. we are very thankful to you," she added aloud. "but neither of us could part from the other, if all the wealth of the world were halved between us." mrs. jarley was a little disconcerted by this reception of her proposal, but presently she addressed the grandfather again: "if you're really disposed to employ yourself," she said, "you could help to dust the figures, and take the checks, and so forth. what i want your granddaughter for is to point 'em out to the company. it's not a common offer, bear in mind," said the lady. "it's jarley's wax-work, remember. the duties very light and genteel, the company particularly select. there is none of your open-air wagrancy at jarley's, recollect; there is no tarpaulin and saw-dust at jarley's, remember. every expectation held out in the hand-bills is realized to the utmost, and the whole forms an effect of imposing brilliancy hitherto unrivalled in this kingdom. remember that the price of admission is only sixpence, and that this is an opportunity which may never occur again!" descending from the sublime to the details of common life, when she had reached this point, mrs. jarley remarked that she could pledge herself to no specific salary until she had tested nell's ability, but that she could promise both good board and lodging for the child and her grandfather. her offer was thankfully accepted. "and you'll never be sorry for it," said mrs. jarley. "i'm pretty sure of that. so, as that's all settled, let us have a bit of supper." in the mean while the caravan blundered on, and came at last upon a town, near midnight. as it was too late to repair to the exhibition rooms, they drew up near to another caravan bearing the great name of jarley, which being empty, was assigned to the old man as his sleeping-place. as for nell herself, she was to sleep in mrs. jarley's own travelling-carriage as a signal mark of that lady's favor. on the following morning nell was put to work at once, helping to unpack the chests and arrange the draperies in the exhibition rooms. when this was accomplished, the stupendous collection of figures was uncovered, standing more or less unsteadily upon their legs, and all their countenances expressing great surprise. all the gentlemen were very pigeon-breasted and very blue about the beards, and all the ladies were miraculous figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary earnestness at nothing. when nell had exhausted her first raptures at this glorious sight, mrs. jarley ordered the room to be cleared of all but herself and the child, and was at great pains to instruct nell in her duty. "that," said mrs. jarley, in her exhibition tones, as nell touched a figure, "is an unfortunate maid-of-honor in the time of queen elizabeth, who died from pricking her finger in consequence of working upon a sunday. observe the blood which is trickling from her finger; also the gold-eyed needle of the period, with which she is at work." all this nell repeated twice or thrice, pointing to the finger and the needle at the right times, and then passed on to the next. "that, ladies and gentlemen," said mrs. jarley, "is jasper packlemerton, who courted and married fourteen wives, and destroyed them all by tickling the soles of their feet when they were sleeping in the consciousness of innocence and virtue. on being brought to the scaffold, and asked if he was sorry for what he had done, he replied yes, he was sorry for having let 'em off so easy, and hoped all christian husbands would pardon him the offence. let this be a warning to all young ladies to be particular in the character of the gentlemen of their choice. observe that his fingers are curved, as if in the act of tickling, and that his face is represented with a wink, as he appeared when committing his barbarous murders." when nell knew all about mr. packlemerton, and could say it without faltering, mrs. jarley passed on to the fat man, and then to the thin man, the tall man, the short man, the old lady who died of dancing at a hundred and thirty-two, the wild boy of the woods, the woman who poisoned fourteen families with pickled walnuts, and other historical characters, and interesting but misguided individuals. so well did nell profit by her instructions, that at the end of a couple of hours, she was in full possession of the history of the whole establishment, and perfectly competent to the enlightenment of visitors, and mrs. jarley was not slow to express her admiration at this happy result. in the midst of the various devices used later for attracting visitors to the exhibition, little nell was not forgotten. the cart in which the brigand usually made his perambulations, being gayly dressed with flags and streamers, and the brigand placed therein, nell sat beside him, decorated with artificial flowers, and rode slowly through the town every morning, dispersing hand-bills from a basket to the sound of drum and trumpet. the beauty of the child, coupled with her gentle and timid bearing, produced quite a sensation in the little country place: the brigand, became a mere secondary consideration, and important only as part of the show of which she was the chief attraction, grown-up folks began to be interested in the bright-eyed girl, and some score of little boys fell desperately in love, and constantly left inclosures of nuts and apples at the wax-work door. this desirable impression was not lost on mrs. jarley, who, lest nell should become too cheap, sent the brigand out alone again, and kept her in the exhibition room, where she described the figures every half-hour, to the great satisfaction of admiring audiences. although her duties were sufficiently laborious, nell found the lady of the caravan a very kind and considerate person indeed. as her popularity procured her various little fees from the visitors, on which her patroness never demanded any toll, and as her grandfather too was well-treated and useful, nell had no cause for anxiety until one holiday evening, when they went out together for a walk. they had been closely confined for some days, and the weather being warm, had strolled a long distance, when they were caught in a most terrific thunder-shower, from which they sought refuge in a roadside tavern, where some men sat playing cards with a pile of silver money between them. when the old man's eye lighted upon them, the child saw with alarm that his whole appearance underwent a complete change. his face was flushed and eager, his breath came short and quick, and the hand he laid upon her arm trembled so violently, that she shook beneath its grasp. to his frenzied appeal for money, nell repeated a firm refusal, but he was insistent. "give me the money," he exclaimed--"i must have it. there there--that's my dear nell. i'll right thee one day, child, never fear!" she took from her pocket a little purse. he seized it, and hastened to the other side of the screen where the two men were playing. almost immediately they invited him to join their game, whereupon, throwing nell's purse down upon the table, he gathered up the cards as a miser would clutch at gold. the child sat by and watched the game in a perfect agony of fear, regardless of the run of luck; and mindful only of the desperate passion which had its hold upon her grandfather, losses and gains were to her alike. the storm had raged for full three hours, when at length the play came to an end. nell's little purse lay empty, and still the old man sat poring over the cards until the child laid her arm upon his shoulder, telling him that it was near midnight. now nell had still the piece of gold, and considering the lateness of the hour, and into what a state of consternation they would throw mrs. jarley by knocking her up at that hour, proposed to her grandfather that they stay where they were for the night. as they would leave very early in the morning, the child was anxious to pay for their entertainment before they retired, but as she felt the necessity of concealing her little hoard from her grandfather, and had to change the piece of gold, she took it out secretly, and following the landlord into the bar, tendered it to him there. she was returning, when she fancied she saw a figure gliding in at the door. there was only a dark passage between this door and the place where she had changed the money, and being very certain that no person had passed in or out while she stood there, she felt that she had been watched. she was still thinking of this, when a girl came to light her to bed. it was a great gloomy house, which the flaring candles seemed to make yet more gloomy, and the child did not feel comfortable when she was left alone. she could not help thinking of the figure stealing through the passage downstairs. at last a broken and fitful sleep stole upon her. a deeper slumber followed this--and then--what! that figure in the room! a figure was there, it crouched and slunk along, stealing round the bed. she had no voice to cry for help, no power to move,--on it came--silently and stealthily to the bed's head. there it remained, motionless as she. at length, it busied its hands in something, and she heard the chink of money. then it dropped upon its hands and knees, and crawled away. it reached the door at last, the steps creaked beneath its noiseless tread, and it was gone. the first impulse of the child was not to be alone--and with no consciousness of having moved, she gained the door. once in her grandfather's room, she would be safe. an idea flashed suddenly upon her--what if the figure should enter there, and have a design upon the old man's life? she turned faint and sick. she saw it creeping in front of her. it went in. not knowing what she meant to do, but meaning to preserve him, or be killed herself, she staggered forward and looked in. what sight was that which met her view? the bed was smooth and empty. and at a table sat the old man himself--the only living creature there--his white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright--counting the money of which his hands had robbed her. with steps more unsteady than those with which she had approached the room, the child groped her way back into her own chamber. the terror which she had lately felt was nothing compared with that which now oppressed her. the grey-haired old man, gliding like a ghost into her room, and acting the thief, while he supposed her fast asleep, then bearing off his prize, and hanging over it with the ghastly exultation she had witnessed, was far more dreadful than anything her wildest fancy could have suggested. the feeling which beset her was one of uncertain horror. she had no fear of the dear old grandfather, but the man she had seen that night seemed like another creature in his shape. she could scarcely connect her own affectionate companion, save by his loss, with this old man, so like yet so unlike him. she had wept to see him dull and quiet. how much greater cause she had for weeping now! she sat thinking of these things, until she felt it would be a relief to hear his voice, or if he were asleep, even to see him, and so she stole down the passage again. looking into the room, she saw him lying calmly on his bed, fast asleep. she had no fear as she looked upon his slumbering features, but she had a deep and weighty sorrow, and it found its relief in tears. "god bless him," said the child, softly kissing his placid cheek. "i see too well now that they would indeed part us if they found us out, and shut him up from the light of the sun and sky. he has only me. god bless us both!" lighting her candle, she retreated as silently as she had come, and gaining her own room once more, sat up during the remainder of that long, long miserable night. upon searching her pocket on the following morning she found her money was all gone--not a sixpence remained. "grandfather," she said in a tremulous voice, after they had walked about a mile on their road in silence, "do you think they are honest people at the house yonder? i ask because i lost some money last night--out of my bedroom, i am sure. unless it was taken by some one in jest--only in jest, dear grandfather, which would make me laugh heartily if i could but know it--" "who would take money in jest?" returned the old man in a hurried manner. "those who take money, take it to keep. don't talk of jest." "then it was stolen out of my room, dear," said the child, whose last hope was destroyed by the manner of this reply. "but is there no more, nell," said the old man--"no more anywhere? was it all taken--was there nothing left?" "nothing," replied the child. "we must get more," said the old man, "we must earn it, nell--hoard it up, scrape it together, come by it somehow. never mind this loss. tell nobody of it, and perhaps we may regain it. don't ask how--we may regain it, and a great deal more, but tell nobody, or trouble may come of it. and so they took it out of thy room, when thou wert asleep!" he added in a compassionate tone, very different from the secret, cunning way in which he had spoken until now. "poor nell, poor little nell!" the child hung down her head and wept. it was not the lightest part of her sorrow that this was done for her. "let me persuade you, dear grandfather," she said earnestly, "oh, do let me persuade you to think no more of gains or losses, and to try no fortune but the fortune we pursue together. only remember what we have been since that bright morning when we turned our backs upon that unhappy house for the last time," continued nell. "think what beautiful things we have seen, and how contented we have felt, and why was this blessed change?" he stopped her with a motion of his hand, and bade her talk to him no more just then, for he was busy. after a time he kissed her cheek, and walked on, looking as if he were painfully trying to collect his thoughts. once she saw tears in his eyes. when they had gone on thus for some time, he took her hand in his, as he was accustomed to do, with nothing of the violence or animation of his late manner; and by degrees settled down into his usual quiet way, and suffered her to lead him where she would. as nell had anticipated, they found mrs. jarley was not yet out of bed, and that although she had suffered some uneasiness on their account, she had felt sure that being overtaken by the storm, they had sought the nearest shelter for the night. and as they sat down to breakfast, she requested nell to go that morning to miss monflather's boarding and day school to present its principal with a parcel of new bills, as her establishment had yet sent but half-a-dozen representatives to see the stupendous wax-work collection. nell's expedition met with no success, to mrs. jarley's great indignation, and nell would have been disappointed herself at its failure, had she not had anxieties of a deeper kind to occupy her thoughts. that evening, as she had dreaded, her grandfather stole away, and did not come back until the night was far spent. worn out as she was, she sat up alone until he returned--penniless, broken spirited, and wretched, but still hotly bent upon his infatuation. "give me money," he said wildly, "i must have money, nell. it shall be paid thee back with gallant interest one day, but all the money which comes into thy hands must be mine--not for myself, but to use for thee. remember, nell, to use for thee!" what could the child do, with the knowledge she had, but give him every penny that came into her hands, lest he should be tempted on to rob their benefactress? if she told the truth (so thought the child) he would be treated as a madman; if she did not supply him with money, he would supply himself; supplying him, she fed the fire that burned him, and put him perhaps beyond recovery. distracted by these thoughts, tortured by a crowd of apprehensions whenever he was absent, and dreading alike his stay and his return, the color forsook her cheek, her eyes grew dim, and her heart was oppressed and heavy. one evening, wandering alone not far from home, the child came suddenly upon a gypsy camp, and looking at the group of men around the fire saw to her horror and dismay that one was her grandfather. the others she recognized as the card-players at the public-house on the eventful night of the storm. drawing near, where she could listen unseen, she heard their conversation; heard them obtain her grandfather's promise to rob mrs. jarley of the tin box in which she kept her savings--and to play a game of cards with them, with its contents for stakes. "god be merciful to us!" cried the child, "and help us in this trying hour! what shall i do to save him?" the remainder of the conversation related merely to the execution of their project, after which the old man shook hands with his tempters, and withdrew. then nell crept away, fled home as quickly as she could, and threw herself upon her bed, distracted. the first idea that flashed upon her mind was instant flight. then she remembered that the crime was not to be committed until next night, and there was time for resolving what to do. then she was distracted with a horrible fear that he might be committing it at that moment. she stole to the room where the money was, and looked in. god be praised! he was not there, and mrs. jarley was sleeping soundly. she went back to her own room, and tried to prepare herself for bed, but who could sleep--sleep! distracted by such terrors? they came upon her more and more strongly yet. half-undressed, and with her hair in wild disorder, she flew to the old man's bedside, and roused him from his sleep. "what's this?" he cried, starting up in bed, and fixing his eyes upon her spectral face. "i have had a dreadful dream," said the child. "a dreadful, horrible dream! i have had it once before. it is a dream of gray-haired men like you, in darkened rooms by night, robbing the sleepers of their gold. up, up!" the old man shook in every joint, and folded his hands like one who prays. "not to me," said the child, "not to me--to heaven, to save us from such deeds! this dream is too real. i cannot sleep--i cannot stay here--i cannot leave you alone under the roof where such dreams come. we must fly. there is no time to lose;" said the child. "up! and away with me!" "to-night?" murmured the old man. "yes, to-night," replied the child. "to-morrow night will be too late. nothing but flight can save us. up!" the old man arose, his forehead bedewed with the cold sweat of fear, and bending before the child, as if she had been an angel messenger sent to lead him where she would, made ready to follow her. she took him by the hand and led him on. she took him to her own chamber, and, still holding him by the hand, as if she feared to lose him for an instant, gathered together the little stock she had, and hung her basket on her arm. the old man took his wallet from her hands, his staff too, and then she led him forth. through the streets their trembling feet passed quickly, and at last the child looked back upon the sleeping town, on the far-off river, on the distant hills; and as she did so, she clasped the hand she held less firmly, and bursting into tears, fell upon the old man's neck. her momentary weakness passed, she again summoned the resolution to keep steadily in view the one idea that they were flying from disgrace and crime, and that her grandfather's preservation depended solely on her firmness. while he, subdued and abashed, seemed to shrink and cower down before her, the child herself was sensible of a new feeling within her which elevated her nature, and inspired her with an energy and confidence she had never known. "i have saved him," she thought, "in all distresses and dangers i will remember that." at any other time the recollection of having deserted the friend who had shown them so much homely kindness, without a word of justification, would have filled her with sorrow and regret. but now, all other considerations were lost in the new uncertainties and anxieties, and in the desperation of their condition. in the pale moonlight, which lent a wanness of its own to the delicate face where thoughtful care already mingled with a winning grace and loveliness of youth, the too bright eye, the spiritual head, the lips that pressed each other with such high resolve and courage of the heart, the slight figure, firm in its bearing, and yet so very weak, told their silent tale; but told it only to the wind that rustled by. the night crept on apace, the moon went down and when the sun had climbed into the sky, and there was warmth in its cheerful beams, they laid them down to sleep upon a bank hard by some water. but nell retained her grasp upon the old man's arm, and long after he was slumbering soundly, watched him with untiring eyes. fatigue stole over her at last; her grasp relaxed, and they slept side by side. a confusion of voices, mingling with her dreams, awoke her, and she discovered a man of rough appearance standing over her, while his companions were looking on from a canal-boat which had come close to the bank while she was sleeping. the man spoke to nell, asking what was the matter, and where she and her grandfather were going. nell faltered, pointing at hazard toward the west--and upon the man inquiring if she meant a certain town which he named, nell, to avoid more questioning, said "yes, that was the place." after asking some other questions, he mounted one of the horses towing the boat, which at once went on. presently it stopped again, and the man beckoned to nell: "you may go with us if you like," he said. "we're going to the same place." the child hesitated for one moment. thinking that the men whom she had seen with her grandfather might perhaps in their eagerness for the booty, follow them, and regain their influence over him, and that if they went on the canal-boat all traces of them must be surely lost--accepted the offer. before she had any more time for consideration, she and her grandfather were on board, gliding smoothly down the canal, through the bright water. they did not reach their destination until the following morning, and nell was glad indeed when the trip was ended, for the noisy rugged fellows on the boat were rough enough to make her heart palpitate for fear, but though they quarrelled among themselves, they were civil enough to their two passengers; and at length the boat floated into its destination. the men were occupied directly, and the child and her grandfather, after waiting in vain to thank them, or ask whither they should go, passed out into a crowded noisy street of a manufacturing village, and stood, in the pouring rain, distressed and confused. evening came on. they were still wandering up and down, bewildered by the hurry they beheld, but had no part in. shivering with the cold and damp, ill in body, and sick to death at heart, the child needed her utmost resolution to creep along. no prospect of relief appearing, they retraced their steps to the wharf, hoping to be allowed to sleep on board the boat that night. but here again they were disappointed, for the gate was closed. "why did you bring me here?" asked the old man fiercely, "i cannot bear these close eternal streets. we came from a quiet part. why did you force me to leave it?" "because i must have that dream i told you of, no more," said the child, "and we must live among poor people or it will come again. dear grandfather, you are old and weak, i know; but look at me. i never will complain if you will not, but i have some suffering indeed." "ah! poor, houseless, wandering, motherless child!" cried the old man, gazing as if for the first time upon her anxious face, her travel-stained dress, and bruised and swollen feet. "has all my agony of care brought her to this at last? was i a happy man once, and have i lost happiness and all i had, for this?" wandering on, they took shelter in an old doorway from which the figure of a man came forth, who, touched with the misery of their situation, and with nell's drenched condition, offered them such lodging as he had at his command, in the great foundry where he was employed. he led them through the bewildering sights and deafening sounds of the huge building, to his furnace, and there spread nell's little cloak upon a heap of ashes, and showing her where to hang her outer clothes to dry, signed to her and the old man to lie down and sleep. the warmth of her bed, combined with her great fatigue, caused the tumult of the place to lull the child to sleep, and the old man was stretched beside her, as she lay and dreamed. on the following morning her friend shared his breakfast with the child and her grandfather, and parting with them left in nell's hand two battered smoke-encrusted penny pieces. who knows but they shone as brightly in the eyes of angels as golden gifts that have been chronicled on tombs? with an intense longing for pure air and open country, they toiled slowly on, the child walking with extreme difficulty, for the pains that racked her joints were of no common severity, and every exertion increased them. but they wrung from her no complaint, as the two proceeded slowly on, clearing the town in course of time. they slept that night with nothing between them and the sky, amid the horrors of a manufacturing suburb, and who shall tell the terrors of that night to the young wandering child. and yet she had no fear for herself, for she was past it, but put up a prayer for the old man. a penny loaf was all that they had had that day. it was very little, but even hunger was forgotten in the strange tranquillity that crept over her senses. so very weak and spent she felt as she lay down, so very calm and unresisting, that she had no thought of any wants of her own, but prayed that god would raise up some friend for him. morning came--much weaker, yet the child made no complaint--she felt a hopelessness of their ever being extricated together from that forlorn place; a dull conviction that she was very ill, perhaps dying; but no fear or anxiety. objects appeared more dim, the noise less, the path more uneven, for sometimes she stumbled, and became roused, as it were, in the effort to prevent herself from falling. poor child! the cause was in her tottering feet. they were dragging themselves along toward evening and the child felt that the time was close at hand when she could bear no more. before them she saw a traveller reading from a book which he carried. it was not an easy matter to come up with him, and beseech his aid, for he walked fast. at length he stopped, to look more attentively at some passage in his book. animated with a ray of hope, the child shot on before her grandfather, and going close to the stranger without rousing him by the sound of her footsteps, began faintly to implore his help. he turned his head. nell clapped her hands together, uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet. it was no other than the poor schoolmaster. scarcely less moved and surprised than the child herself, he stood for a moment, silent and confounded by the unexpected apparition, without even presence of mind to raise her from the ground. but, quickly recovering his self-possession, and dropping on one knee beside her, he endeavored to restore her to herself. "she is quite exhausted," he said, glancing upward into the old man's face. "you have taxed her powers too far, friend." "she is perishing of want," rejoined the old man. "i never thought how weak and ill she was, till now." casting a look upon him, half-reproachful and half-compassionate, the schoolmaster took the child in his arms, and bore her away at his utmost speed to a small inn within sight. the landlady came running in, with hot brandy and water, with which and other restoratives, the child was so far recovered as to be able to thank them in a faint voice. without suffering her to speak another word, the woman carried her off to bed, and after having been made warm and comfortable, she had a visit from the doctor himself, who ordered rest and nourishment. as nell evinced extraordinary uneasiness on being apart from her grandfather, he took his supper with her. finding her still restless on this head, they made him up a bed in an inner room, to which he presently retired. the key of this chamber happening to be on that side of the door which was in nell's room; she turned it on him, when the landlady had withdrawn, and crept to bed again with a thankful heart. in the morning the child was better, but so weak that she would at least require a day's rest and careful nursing before she could proceed upon her journey. the schoolmaster decided to remain also, and that evening visited nell in her room. his frank kindness, and the affectionate earnestness of his speech and manner, gave the child a confidence in him. she told him all--that they had no friend or relative--and that she sought a home in some remote place, where the temptation before which her grandfather had fallen would never enter, and her late sorrows and distresses could have no place. the schoolmaster heard her with astonishment, and with admiration for the heroism and patience of one so young. he then told her that he had been appointed clerk and schoolmaster to a village a long way off, at five-and-thirty pounds a year, and that he was on his way there now. he concluded by saying that she and her grandfather must accompany him, and that he would endeavor to find them some occupation by which they could subsist. accordingly next evening they travelled on, with nell comfortably bestowed in a stage-wagon among the softer packages, her grandfather and the schoolmaster walking on beside the driver, and the landlady and all the good folks of the inn screaming out their good wishes and farewells. it was a fine clear autumn morning, when they came upon the village of their destination, and every bit of scenery, and stick and stone looked beautiful to the child who had passed through such scenes of poverty and horror. leaving nell and her grandfather upon the church porch, the schoolmaster hurried off to present a letter, and to make inquiries concerning his new position. after a long time he appeared, jingling a bundle of rusty keys, and quite breathless with pleasure and haste. as a result of his exertions on their behalf, nell and her grandfather were to occupy a small house next to the one apportioned to him. having disburdened himself of this great surprise, the schoolmaster then told nell that the house which was henceforth to be hers, had been occupied by an old person who kept the keys of the church, opened and closed it for the services, and showed it to strangers; that she had died not many weeks ago, and nobody having yet been found to fill the office, he had made bold to ask for it for her and her grandfather. as a result of his testimony to their ability and honesty, they were already appointed to the vacant post. "there's a small allowance of money," said the schoolmaster. "it is not much, but enough to live upon in this retired spot. by clubbing our funds together, we shall do bravely; no fear of that." "heaven bless and prosper you!" sobbed the child. "amen, my dear," returned her friend cheerfully, "and all of us, as it will, and has, in leading us through sorrow and trouble, to this tranquil life. but we must look at my house now. come!" to make their dwellings habitable, and as full of comfort as they could, was now their pleasant care, and in a short time each had a cheerful fire crackling on the hearth. nell, busily plying her needle, repaired the tattered window-hangings, and made them whole and decent. the schoolmaster swept the ground before the door, trimmed the long grass, trained the ivy and creeping plants, and gave to the outer walls a cheery air of home. the old man lent his aid to both, went here and there on little patient services and was happy. neighbors too, proffered their help, or sent their children with such small presents or loans as the strangers needed most. it was a busy day, and night came on all too soon. they took their supper together, and when they had finished it, drew round the fire and discussed their future plans. before they separated, the schoolmaster read some prayers aloud; and then, full of gratitude and happiness, they parted for the night. when every sound was hushed, and her grandfather sleeping, the child lingered before the dying embers, and thought of her past fortunes as if they had been a dream, and the deep and thoughtful feelings which absorbed her, gave her no sensation of terror or alarm. a change had been gradually stealing over her, in the time of her loneliness and sorrow. with failing strength and heightened resolution, there had sprung up a purified and altered mind; there had grown in her bosom those blessed hopes and thoughts which are the portion of few but the weak and drooping. there were none to see the frail figure as it glided from the fire and leaned pensively at the casement; none but the stars to look into the upturned face and read its history. it was long before the child closed the window, and approached her bed--but when she did--it was to sink into a sleep filled with sweet and happy dreams. with the morning came the renewal of yesterday's labors, the revival of its pleasant thoughts, the restoration of its energies, cheerfulness and hope. they worked gayly until noon, and then visited the clergyman, who received them kindly, and at once showed an interest in nell. the schoolmaster had already told her story. they had no other friends or home to leave, he said, and had come to share his fortunes. he loved the child as though she were his own. "well, well," said the clergyman. "let it be as you desire, she is very young." "old in adversity and trial, sir," replied the schoolmaster. "god help her. let her rest and forget them," said the old gentleman. "but an old church is a gloomy place for one so young as you, my child." "oh no, sir," returned nell, "i have no such thoughts, indeed." "i would rather see her dancing on the green at night," said the old gentleman, laying his hand upon her head, "than have her sitting in the shadow of our mouldering arches. you must look to this, and see that her heart does not grow heavy among the solemn ruins." after more kind words, they withdrew, and from that time nell's heart was filled with a serene and peaceful joy, and she occupied herself with such light tasks as were hers to accomplish, and the peace of the simple village moved her deeply, while more and more she grew to love the old and silent chapel. she sat down one day in this old and silent place, among the stark figures on the tombs and gazing round with a feeling of awe tempered with calm delight, felt that now she was happy and at rest. she took a bible and read; then laying it down, thought of the summer days and bright springtime that would come--of the rays of sun that would fall in aslant upon the sleeping forms--of the song of birds, and growth of buds and blossoms out of doors--what if the spot awakened thoughts of death? die who would, these sights and sounds would still go on, as happily as ever. it would be no pain to sleep amidst them. she left the chapel, and climbed to its turret-top. oh! the glory of the sudden burst of light; the freshness of the fields and woods, meeting the bright blue sky; everything so beautiful and happy! it was like passing from death to life; it was drawing nearer heaven. and yet the dim old chapel had for her a depth of fascination which the outer world did not possess. again that day, twice, she stole back to the chapel, and read from the same book, or indulged in the same quiet train of thought. even when night fell, she sat like one rooted to the spot until they found her there and took her home. she looked pale but very happy, but as the schoolmaster stooped down to kiss her cheek, he thought he felt a tear upon his face. from a village bachelor, who took great interest in the beautiful child, nell soon learned the histories connected with every tomb and gravestone, with every gallery, wall, and crypt in the dim old church. these she treasured in her mind, dwelling on them often in her thoughts and repeating them to those sightseers who cared to hear them. her duties were not arduous, but she did not regain her strength, and in her grandfather's mind sprang up a solicitude about her which never left him. from the time of his awakening to her weakness, never did he have any care for himself, any thought of his own comfort, which could distract his attention from the gentle object of his love and care, he would follow her up and down, waiting till she should tire, and lean upon his arm--he would sit opposite to her, content to watch and look, until she raised her head and smiled upon him as of old--he would discharge by stealth those household duties which tasked her powers too heavily--he would rise in the night to listen to her breathing in her sleep. he who knows all, can only know what hopes and fears and thoughts of deep affection were in that one disordered brain, and what a change had fallen upon the poor old man. weeks crept on--sometimes the child, exhausted, would pass whole evenings on a couch beside the fire. at such times, the schoolmaster would read aloud to her, and seldom an evening passed but the bachelor came in and took his turn at reading. during the daytime the child was mostly out of doors, and all the strangers who came to see the church, praised the child's beauty and sense, and all the neighbors, and all the villagers, and the very schoolboys grew to have a fondness for poor nell. meanwhile, in that busy world which nell and her grandfather had left behind them so many months before, there had appeared a stranger, who gave up all his time and energy to endeavoring to trace the wanderers. he was nell's grandfather's younger brother, who had for many years been a traveller in distant lands, with almost no information of his brother. his thoughts began to revert constantly to the days when they were boys together, and obeying the impulse which impelled him, he hastened home, arriving one evening at his brother's door, only to find the wanderers gone. by dint of ceaseless watchfulness and vigilance, at last he gained a clue to their retreat, and lost no time in following it up, taking with him kit nubbles, the errand-boy at the shop in old days, who, though now in the employ of kind mr. garland, was still loyal to the memory of his beloved miss nelly--and only too grateful to be allowed to go in search of her, with the stranger whom she would not recognize. so together they journeyed to the peaceful village, where nell and her grandfather were hidden, kit carrying with him nell's bird in his own cage. she would be glad to see it, he knew, but alas for kit--they found sweet nell in the sleep that knows no waking on this our earth. there, upon her little bed, she lay at rest. the solemn stillness was no marvel now. she was dead. no sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so fair to look upon. she seemed a creature fresh from the hand of god, and waiting for the breath of life; not one who had lived and suffered death. her couch was dressed with here and there some winter berries and green leaves, gathered in a spot she had been used to favor. "when i die, put near me something that has loved the light, and had the sky above it always." those were her words. she was dead. dear, gentle, patient, noble nell was dead. her little bird--a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed--was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless forever. where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues? all gone. sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born--imaged in her tranquil beauty and profound repose. and still her former self lay there, unaltered in this change. yes. the old fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed, like a dream, through haunts of misery and care; at the door of the poor schoolmaster on the summer evening, before the furnace fire upon the cold wet night, there had been the same mild lovely look. so shall we know the angels in their majesty, after death. the old man had the small hand tight folded to his breast for warmth. it was the hand she had stretched out to him with her last smile--the hand that had led him on through all their wanderings. ever and anon he pressed it to his lips; then hugged it to his breast again, murmuring that it was warmer now; and as he said it, he looked in agony to those who stood around, as if imploring them to help her. she was dead, and past all help, or need of it the ancient rooms she had seemed to fill with life, even while her own was waning fast--the garden she had tended--the eyes she had gladdened--the paths she had trodden, as it were, but yesterday--could know her never more. she had been dead two days. she died soon after daybreak. they had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night, but as the hours crept on she sunk to sleep. they could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her dreams, that they were of her journeyings with the old man; they were of no painful scenes but of people who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said, "god bless you!" with great fervor. waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and that was of beautiful music which she said was in the air. god knows. it may have been. opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would kiss her once again. that done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her face--such, they said, as they had never seen, and never could forget--and clung with both arms about his neck. they did not know that she was dead, at first. she would like to see poor kit, she had often said of late. she wished there was somebody to take her love to kit. and even then, she never thought or spoke about him but with something of her old clear merry laugh. for the rest, she had never murmured or complained, but with a quiet mind, and manner quite unaltered--save that she every day became more earnest and more grateful to them--faded like the light upon a summer's evening. they carried her to an old nook, where she had many and many a time sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. the light streamed on it through the colored window--a window where the boughs of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang sweetly all day long. with every breath of air that stirred among those branches in the sunshine, some trembling changing light would fall upon her grave. one called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and she was gazing with a pensive face upon the sky. another told how she had loved to linger in the church when all was quiet, and even to climb the tower stair with no more light than that of the moon's rays stealing through the loopholes in the thick old wall. a whisper went about among the oldest that she had seen and talked with angels. then, when the dusk of evening had come on, with tranquil and submissive hearts they turned away, and left the child with god. oh, it is hard to take to heart the lesson that such deaths will teach; but let no man reject it, for it is a mighty, universal truth. when death strikes down the innocent and young, for every fragile form from which he lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it. of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves some good is born, some gentler nature comes. in the destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations to defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of light to heaven. the infant phenomenon [illustration: the infant phenomenon] the infant phenomenon mr. vincent crummles was manager of a theatrical company, and also the head of a most remarkable family indeed, each member of which was gifted with an extraordinary combination of talent and attractiveness, and most remarkable of all the family was the infant phenomenon. after nicholas nickleby, teacher at dotheboys hall, quitted that wretched institution in disgrace, because he had resented injuries inflicted upon the scholars in general, and upon the poor half-starved, ill-used drudge, smike, in particular, smike stole away from the place where he had been so cruelly used, to follow his defender, and the two journeyed on together towards portsmouth, resting for the night at a roadside inn some miles from their destination. at the inn they met mr. crummles who, upon discovering them to be destitute of money, and desirous of obtaining employment as soon as possible, offered them both engagements in his company, which offer, after a brief deliberation, nicholas decided to accept, until something more to his liking should be available. accordingly they journeyed to portsmouth, together with mr. crummles and the master crummleses, and accompanied the manager through the town on his way to the theatre. they passed a great many bills pasted against the wall, and displayed in windows, wherein the names of mr. vincent crummles, mrs. vincent crummles, master crummles, master peter crummles, and miss crummles, were printed in large letters, and everything else in very small letters; and turning at length into an entry in which was a strong smell of orange-peel and lamp-oil, with an under-current of saw-dust, groping their way through a dark passage, and descending a step or two, emerged upon the stage of the portsmouth theatre. it was not very light, and as nicholas looked about him, ceiling, pit, boxes, gallery, orchestra, fittings, and decorations of every kind,--all looked coarse, cold, gloomy and wretched. "is this a theatre?" whispered smike, in amazement; "i thought it was a blaze of light and finery." "why, so it is," replied nicholas, hardly less surprised; "but not by day, smike,--not by day." at this moment the manager's voice was heard, introducing the new-comers, under the stage names of johnson and digby, to mrs. crummles, a portly lady in a tarnished silk cloak, with her bonnet dangling by the strings, and with a quantity of hair braided in a large festoon over each temple; who greeted them with great cordiality. while they were chatting with her, there suddenly bounded on to the stage from some mysterious inlet, a little girl in a dirty white frock, with tucks up to the knees, short trousers, sandalled shoes, white spencer, pink gauze bonnet, green veil and curl papers, who turned a pirouette, then looking off in the opposite wing, shrieked, bounded forward to within six inches of the footlights, and fell into a beautiful attitude of terror, as a shabby gentleman in an old pair of buff slippers came in at one powerful slide, and chattering his teeth fiercely, brandished a walking-stick. "they are going through, 'the indian savage and the maiden,'" said mrs. crummles. "oh!" said the manager, "the little ballet interlude. very good. go on. a little this way, if you please, mr. johnson. that'll do. now!" the manager clapped his hands as a signal to proceed, and the savage, becoming ferocious, made a slide towards the maiden; but the maiden avoided him in six twirls, and came down, at the end of the last one, upon the very points of her toes. this seemed to make some impression upon the savage, for after a little more ferocity and chasing of the maiden into corners, he began to relent, and stroked his face several times with his right thumb and forefingers, thereby intimating that he was struck with admiration of the maiden's beauty. acting upon the impulse of this passion, he began to hit himself severe thumps in the chest, and to exhibit other indications of being desperately in love, which, being rather a prosy proceeding, was very likely the cause of the maiden's falling asleep; whether it was or no, asleep she did fall, sound as a church, on a sloping bank, and the savage, perceiving it, leant his left ear on his left hand, and nodded sideways, to intimate to all whom it might concern that she _was_ asleep, and no shamming. being left to himself, the savage had a dance all alone. just as he left off, the maiden woke up, rubbed her eyes, got off the bank, and had a dance all alone too--such a dance that the savage looked on in ecstacy all the while, and when it was done, plucked from a neighboring tree some botanical curiosity, resembling a small pickled cabbage, and offered it to the maiden, who at first wouldn't have it, but on the savage shedding tears, relented. then the savage jumped for joy; then the maiden jumped for rapture at the sweet smell of the pickled cabbage; then the savage and the maiden danced violently together, and finally the savage dropped down on one knee, and the maiden stood on one leg upon his other knee; thus concluding the ballet, and leaving the spectators in a state of pleasing uncertainty whether she would ultimately marry the savage, or return to her friends. "bravo!" cried nicholas, resolved to make the best of everything. "beautiful!" "this, sir," said mr. vincent crummles, bringing the maiden forward, "this is the infant phenomenon--miss ninetta crummles." "your daughter?" inquired nicholas. "my daughter--my daughter," replied mr. crummles; "the idol of every place we go into, sir. we have had complimentary letters about this girl, sir, from the nobility and gentry of almost every town in england." "i am not surprised at that," said nicholas; "she must be quite a natural genius." "quite a--!" mr. crummles stopped: language was not powerful enough to describe the infant phenomenon. "i'll tell you what, sir," he said; "the talent of this child is not to be imagined. she must be seen, sir--seen--to be ever so faintly appreciated. there; go to your mother, my dear." "may i ask how old she is?" inquired nicholas. "you may, sir," replied mr. crummles, "she is ten years of age, sir," "not more?" "not a day." "dear me," said nicholas, "it's extraordinary." it was; for the infant phenomenon certainly looked older, and had moreover, been precisely the same age for certainly five years. but she had been kept up late every night, and put upon an unlimited allowance of gin and water from infancy, to prevent her growing tall, and perhaps this system of training had produced in the infant phenomenon these additional phenomena. when this dialogue was concluded, another member of the company, mr. folair, joined nicholas, and confided to him the contempt of the entire troupe for the infant phenomenon. "infant humbug sir!" he said. "there isn't a female child of common sharpness in a charity school that couldn't do better than that. she may thank her stars she was born a manager's daughter." "you seem to take it to heart," observed nicholas with a smile. "yes, by jove, and well i may," said mr. folair testily "isn't it enough to make a man crusty, to see the little sprawler put up in the best business every night, and actually keeping money out of the house by being forced down the people's throats while other people are passed over? why, i know of fifteen-and-sixpence that came to southampton last month to see me dance the highland fling, and what's the consequence? i've never been put up at it since--never once--while the 'infant phenomenon' has been grinning through artificial flowers at five people and a baby in the pit, and two boys in the gallery, every night." from these bitter remarks, it may be inferred that there were two ways of looking at the performances of the infant phenomenon, but as jealousy is well known to be unjust in its criticism, and as the infant was too highly praised by her own band of admirers to be much affected by such remarks, if any of them reached her ears, there is no evidence that her joy was diminished by reason of the complaints of captious fault-finders. at the first evening performance which nicholas witnessed, he found the various members of the company very much changed; by reason of false hair, false color, false calves, false muscles, they had become different beings; the stage also was set in the most elaborate fashion,--in short everything was on a scale of the utmost splendor and preparation. nicholas was standing contemplating the first scene when the manager accosted him. "been in front to-night?" said mr. crummles. "no," replied nicholas, "not yet. i am going to see the play." "we've had a pretty good let," said mr. crummles. "four front places in the centre, and the whole of the stage box." "oh, indeed!" said nicholas; "a family, i suppose?" "yes," replied mr. crummles. "it's an affecting thing. there are six children, and they never come unless the phenomenon plays." it would have been difficult for any party to have visited the theatre on a night when the phenomenon did _not_ play, inasmuch as she always sustained one, and not uncommonly two or three characters, every night; but nicholas, sympathizing with the feelings of a father, refrained from hinting at this trifling circumstance, and mr. crummies continued: "six,--pa and ma eight,--aunt nine,--governess ten,--grandfather and grandmother, twelve. then, there's the footman who stands outside with a bag of oranges and a jug of toast-and-water, and sees the play for nothing through the little pane of glass in the box-door--it's cheap at a guinea; they gain by taking a box." "i wonder you allow so many," observed nicholas. "there's no help for it," replied mr. crummles; "it's always expected in the country. if there are six children, six people come to hold them in their laps. ring in the orchestra, grudden!" it was mr. crummles' habit to give a benefit performance, commonly called a "bespeak," to any member of his company fortunate enough to have either a birthday or any other anniversary of sufficient importance to challenge attention on the posters, and not long after nicholas entered the company, this honor fell to the lot of one of the prominent actresses, miss snevellicci. mr. crummles then informed nicholas that there was some work for him to do before that event took place. "there's a little canvassing takes place on these occasions," said mr. crummles, "among the patrons, and the fact is, snevellicci has had so many bespeaks in this place that she wants an attraction. she had one when her stepmother died, and when her uncle died; and mrs. crummles and myself have had them on the anniversary of the phenomenon's birthday, and our wedding-day, and occasions of that description; so that, in fact, it is hard to get a good one. now, won't you help this poor girl, mr. johnson, by calling with her to-morrow morning upon one or two of the principal people?"--asked the manager in a persuasive tone, adding, "the infant will accompany her. there will not be the smallest impropriety, sir. it would be of material service--the gentleman from london--author of the new piece--actor in the new piece--first appearance on any boards--it would lead to a great bespeak, mr. johnson." the idea was extremely distasteful to nicholas; but out of kindness to miss snevellicci, he reluctantly consented to be one of the canvassing party, and accordingly the next morning, sallied forth with miss snevellicci and the infant phenomenon. the phenomenon was rather a troublesome companion, for first the right sandal came down, and then the left, and these mischances being repaired, one leg of the little white trousers was discovered to be longer than the other; then the little green parasol with a broad fringe border and no handle, which she bore in her hand, was dropped down an iron grating, and only fished up again by dint of much exertion. however, it was impossible to scold her, as she was the manager's daughter, so nicholas took it all in perfect good humor and walked on, with miss snevellicci, arm in arm, on one side, and the offending infant on the other. at the first house they visited, after having a long conversation concerning the stage, and its relation to life, they at length disposed of two boxes, and retired, glad that the conference was at an end. at the next house they were in great glory, for there resided the six children who had been enraptured with the phenomenon, and who, being called down from the nursery to be treated with a private view of that young lady, proceeded to poke their fingers into her eyes, and tread upon her toes, and show her many other little attentions peculiar to their time of life. "i shall certainly persuade mr. borum to take a private box," said the lady of the house, after a most gracious reception; "augustus, you naughty boy, leave the little girl alone." this was addressed to a young gentleman who was pinching the phenomenon from behind, apparently with a view to ascertaining whether she was real. "i am sure you must be very tired," said the mamma, turning to miss snevellicci. "i cannot think of allowing you to go without first taking a glass of wine. fie, charlotte, i am ashamed of you: miss lane, my dear, pray see to the children." this entreaty addressed to the governess, was rendered necessary by the behavior of the youngest miss borum, who, having filched the phenomenon's little green parasol, was now carrying it bodily off, while the distracted infant looked helplessly on, and presently the poor child was really in a fair way to be torn limb from limb, for two strong little boys, one holding on by each of her hands, were dragging her in different directions as a trial of strength. however, at this juncture miss lane rescued the unhappy victim, who was presently taken away, after sustaining no more serious damage than a flattening of the pink gauze bonnet, and a rather extensive creasing of the white frock and trousers. her companions were thankful not only when the call was ended, but when the whole trying morning, with its series of visits, was over. the benefit performance was a great success, and the new actor made such a decided hit on that night and the succeeding ones, that mr. crummies prolonged his stay in portsmouth for a fortnight beyond the days allotted to it, during which time nicholas attracted so many people to the theatre that the manager finally decided upon giving him a benefit, calculating that it would be a promising speculation. from it nicholas realized no less a sum than twenty pounds, which, added to what he had earned before, made him feel quite rich and comfortable. at that time he received a letter containing news of his sister in london, and a danger that menaced her, which made him prepare to leave portsmouth without an hour's delay, if he should be summoned. accordingly he decided to acquaint his manager with the possibility of his withdrawal from the company, and hastened to the green-room for that purpose, where he found mrs. crummies in full regal costume, with the phenomenon as the maiden, in her maternal arms. he broke the news to the group as gently as possible, but it was received with great dismay, and there were both protestations and tears, while the phenomenon, being of an affectionate nature and moreover excitable, raised a loud cry, and was soothed with extreme difficulty, showing that the child's heart was in the right place, notwithstanding the constant strain upon her emotions from being so often obliged to simulate unnatural ones. mr. crummles was no sooner acquainted with the news than he evinced many tokens of grief, but finding nicholas determined in his purpose, at once suggested a grand farewell performance, to be advertised as a brilliant display of fireworks. "that would be rather expensive," suggested nicholas dryly. "eighteen-pence would do it," said mr. crummles; "you on the top of a pair of steps with the phenomenon in an attitude; 'farewell,' on a transparency behind; and nine people at the wings with a squib in each hand--all the dozen and a half going off at once--it would be very grand--awful from the front, quite awful." as nicholas appeared by no means impressed with the idea, but laughed heartily at it, mr. crummles abandoned the project, and gloomily observed that they must make up the best bill they could, with combats and hornpipes, and so stick to the legitimate drama. next day the posters appeared, and the public were informed that mr. johnson would have the honor of making his last appearance that evening, and that an early application for places was requested, in consequence of the extraordinary overflow attendant on his performances. upon entering the theatre that night, nicholas found all the company in a state of extreme excitement, and mr. crummles at once informed him in an agitated voice that there was a london manager in one of the boxes. "it's the phenomenon, depend upon it, sir," said crummies. "i have not the smallest doubt it's the fame of the phenomenon. she shall have ten pound a week, johnson; she shall not appear on the london boards for a farthing less. they shan't engage her either, unless they engage mrs. crummles too; twenty pound a week for the pair, or i'll throw in myself and the two boys, and they shall have the family for thirty. thirty pound a week. it's too cheap, johnson. it's dirt cheap." every individual member of the company had in the same manner decided that it was his or her attractions that had drawn the great man's attention to the portsmouth theatre, and each one secretly decided upon the amount of inducement necessary to persuade him or her to make a new engagement. everybody played to the stranger, everybody sang to him, everything was done for his exclusive benefit, and it was a cruel blow to the general expectations when he was discovered to be asleep, and shortly after that he woke up and went away: in consequence of which, the feelings of the company, collectively and severally, underwent a severe reaction. nicholas alone, had no feeling whatsoever on the subject, except of amusement. he went through his part as briskly as he could, then took smike's arm and walked home to bed. with the post next morning came the letter he had been expecting, calling him instantly to london, and he at once hurried off to say farewell to mr. crummles. his news was received with keen regret by that gentleman, who, always mindful of theatrical effects followed nicholas even to the coach itself. as that vehicle stood in the open street, ready to start, and nicholas was about to enter it, he was not a little astonished to find himself suddenly clutched in a violent embrace which nearly took him off his legs; while mr. crummles' voice exclaimed, "it is he--my friend, my friend!" "bless my heart," cried nicholas, struggling in the manager's arms, "what are you about?" the manager made no reply, but strained him to his breast again, exclaiming, "farewell, my noble, my lion-hearted boy!" in fact mr. crummles, who could never lose any opportunity for professional display, had turned out for the express purpose of taking a public farewell of nicholas, and to render it the more imposing, the elder master crummles was going through a similar ceremony with smike; while master percy crummles, with a second-hand cloak worn theatrically over his left shoulder, stood by, in attitude of an attendant officer waiting to convey two victims to the scaffold. the lookers-on laughed very heartily, and as it was well to put a good face upon the matter, nicholas laughed too, when he had succeeded in disengaging himself; and rescuing the astonished smike, climbed up to the coach-roof after him, waving farewell, as they rolled away. some years later, when nicholas was residing in london, under very different circumstances from those of his portsmouth experience, and with a very different occupation; walking home one evening, he stood outside a minor theatre which he had to pass, and found himself poring over a huge play-bill which announced in large letters; _positively the last appearance of mr. vincent crummles, of provincial celebrity!!!_ "nonsense!" said nicholas, preparing to resume his walk, then turning back again, "it can't be,"--but adding on second thoughts--"surely it _must_ be the same man. there can't be two vincent crummleses." the better to settle the question he referred to the bill again, and finding there was a baron in the first piece, whose son was enacted by one master crummles, and his nephew by one master percy crummles, and that, incidental to the piece was a castanet _pas seul_ by the infant phenomenon, he no longer entertained any doubt; and presenting himself at the stage door at once, sent in a scrap of paper with "mr. johnson" written thereon in pencil, and was presently conducted into the presence of his former manager. mr. crummles was unfeignedly glad to see him, and in the course of a long conversation informed nicholas that the next morning he and his were to sail for america, that he had made up his mind to settle there permanently, in the hope of acquiring some land of his own, which would support them in their old age, and which they could afterward bequeath to their children. nicholas, having highly commended this resolution, mr. crummles imparted such further intelligence relative to their mutual friends as he thought might prove interesting, and added a hearty invitation to nicholas to attend that night a farewell supper, to be given in their honor at a neighboring tavern. this invitation nicholas instantly accepted, promising to return at the conclusion of the performances, and availed himself of this interval to go out and buy a silver snuff-box as a token of remembrance for mr. crummles, also a pair of ear-rings for mrs. crummles, a necklace for the phenomenon, and a flaming shirt-pin for each of the young gentlemen, after making which purchases he returned to the theatre, and repaired to the tavern with mr. crummles. he was received with great cordiality by those of the party whom he knew, and with particular joy by mrs. crummles, who at once said: "here is one whom you know,"--thrusting forward the phenomenon, in a blue gauze frock, extensively flounced, and trousers of the same. nicholas stooped down to salute the phenomenon, and then, supper being on table, mrs. crummles gave her hand to nicholas and repaired with a stately step to the repast, followed by the other guests. the board being at length cleared of food; and punch, wine, and spirits being placed upon it, and handed about, speeches were made, and health drunk to mr. and mrs. vincent crummles and the young crummleses, after which ceremony, with many adieus and embraces, the company dispersed. nicholas waited until he was alone with the family, to give his little presents, and then with honest warmth of feeling said farewell to mr. and mrs. crummles, the master crummleses, and the infant phenomenon,--and history has not chronicled their further career, nor recorded to what greater heights of popularity the infant phenomenon has since attained. jenny wren [illustration: jenny wren] jenny wren her real name was fanny cleaver, but she had long ago dropped it, and chosen to bestow upon herself the fanciful appellation of miss jenny wren, by which title she was known to the entire circle of her friends and business acquaintances. miss wren's home was in a certain little street called church street, running out from a certain square called smith square, at millbank, and there the little lady plied her trade, early and late, having for companions her father and a lodger, lizzie hexam. her father had once been a good workman at his own trade, but unfortunately for poor little jenny wren, was so weak in character and so confirmed in bad habits that she could place no trust in him, and had come to consider herself the head of the family, and to speak of him as "my child," or "my bad boy," ordering him about as if he were in truth, a child. when lizzie hexam's brother and a friend, bradley headstone, paid their first visit to the house on church street, they knocked at the door, which promptly opened and disclosed a child--a dwarf, a girl--sitting on a little, low, old-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of little working-bench before it. "i can't get up," said the child, "because my back's bad and my legs are queer. but i'm the person of the house." "who else is at home?" asked charley hexam, staring? "nobody's at home at present," returned the child, with a glib assertion of her dignity, "except the person of the house." the queer little figure, and the queer, but not ugly little face, with its bright grey eyes, was so sharp that the sharpness of the manner seemed unavoidable. the person of the house continued the conversation: "your sister will be in," she said, "in about a quarter of an hour. i'm very fond of your sister. take a seat. and would you please to shut the street door first? i can't very well do it myself, because my back's so bad and my legs are so queer." they complied, and the little figure went on with its work of gumming or gluing together pieces of cardboard and thin wood, cut into various shapes. the scissors and knives upon the bench, showed that the child herself had cut them; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon also strewn upon the bench showed that when duly stuffed, she was to cover them smartly. the dexterity of her nimble fingers was remarkable, and as she brought two thin edges accurately together by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors out of the corners of her grey eyes with a look that out-sharpened all her other sharpness. "you can't tell me the name of my trade, i'll be bound," she said. "you make pincushions," said charley. "what else do i make?" "penwipers," said his friend. "ha, ha! what else do i make?" "you do something," he returned, pointing to a corner of the little bench, "with straw; but i don't know what." "well done, you!" cried the person of the house. "i only make pincushions and penwipers, to use up my waste. but my straw really does belong to my business. try again. what do i make with my straw?" "dinner-mats?" "dinner-mats! i'll give you a clue to my trade in a game of forfeits. i love my love with a b because she's beautiful; i hate my love with a b because she is brazen; i took her to the sign of the blue boar; and i treated her with bonnets; her name's bouncer and she lives in bedlam--now, what do i make with my straw?" "ladies' bonnets?" "fine ladies'," said the person of the house, nodding assent. "dolls'. i'm a doll's dressmaker." "i hope it's a good business?" the person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "no. poorly paid. and i'm often so pressed for time. i had a doll married last week, and was obliged to work all night. and they take no care of their clothes, and they never keep to the same fashions a month. i work for a doll with three daughters. bless you, she's enough to ruin her husband!" the person of the house gave a weird little laugh, and gave them another look but of the corners of her eyes. she had an elfin chin that was capable of great expression; and whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chin up, as if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires. "are you always as busy as you are now?" "busier. i'm slack just now. i finished a large mourning order the day before yesterday. doll i work for lost a canary bird." "are you alone all day?" asked bradley headstone. "don't any of the neighboring children--?" "ah," cried the person of the house, with a little scream as if the word had pricked her. "don't talk of children. i can't bear children. i know their tricks and their manners!" she said this with an angry little shake of her right fist, adding: "always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting, always skip--skip--skipping on the pavement, and chalking it for their games! oh--i know their tricks and their manners!" shaking the little fist as before. "and that's not all. ever so often calling names in through a person's keyhole, and imitating a person's back and legs. oh! _i_ know their tricks and their manners. and i tell you what i'd do to punish 'em. there's doors under the church in the square--black doors leading into black vaults. well! i'd open one of those doors, and i'd cram 'em all in, and then i'd lock the door and through the keyhole i'd blow in pepper." "what would be the good of blowing in pepper?" asked charley hexam. "to set 'em sneezing," said the person of the house, "and make their eyes water. and when they were all sneezing and inflamed, i'd mock 'em through the keyhole. just as they, with their tricks and their manners, mock a person through a person's keyhole!" an emphatic shake of her little fist, seemed to ease the mind of the person of the house; for she added with recovered composure, "no, no, no. no children for me. give me grown-ups." it was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, for her poor figure furnished no clue to it, and her face was at once so young and so old. twelve, or at the most thirteen, might be near the mark. "i always did like grown-ups," she went on, "and always kept company with them. so sensible. sit so quiet. don't go prancing and capering about! and i mean always to keep among none but grown-ups till i marry. i suppose i must make up my mind to marry, one of these days!" at that moment lizzie hexam entered, and the visitors after saying farewell to the dolls' dressmaker, took lizzie out with them for a short walk. the person of the house, dolls' dressmaker, and manufacturer of ornamental pincushions and penwipers, sat in her quaint little low arm-chair, singing in the dark, until lizzie came back. "well, lizzie--mizzie--wizzie," said she, breaking off in her song. "what's the news out of doors?" "what's the news indoors?" returned lizzie playfully, smoothing the bright long fair hair, which grew very luxuriant and beautiful on the head of the dolls' dressmaker. it being lizzie's regular occupation when they were alone of an evening to brush out and smooth the long fair hair, she unfastened a ribbon that kept it back while the little creature was at work, and it fell in a beautiful shower over the poor shoulders that were much in need of such adorning rain. lizzie then lighted a candle, put the room door and the house door open, and turned the little low chair and its occupant toward the outer air. it was a sultry night, and this was a fine weather arrangement when the day's work was done. to complete it, she seated herself by the side of the little chair, and protectingly drew under her arm the spare hand that crept up to her. "this is what your loving jenny wren calls the best time of the day and night," said the person of the house; adding, "i have been thinking to-day what a thing it would be, if i should be able to have your company till i am married, or at least courted. because when i'm courted, i shall make _him_ do some of the things that you do for me. he couldn't brush my hair like you do, or help me up and downstairs like you do, and he couldn't do anything like you do; but he could take my work home, and he could call for orders in his clumsy way. and he shall too. _i'll_ trot him about, i can tell him!" jenny wren had her personal vanities--happily for her--and no intentions were stronger in her breast than the various trials and torments that were, in the fulness of time, to be inflicted upon "him." "wherever he may happen to be just at present, or whoever he may happen to be," said miss wren, "_i_ know his tricks and his manners, and i give him warning to look out." "don't you think you're rather hard upon him?" asked her friend smiling, and smoothing her hair. "not a bit," replied the sage miss wren, with an air of vast experience. "my dear, they don't care for you, those fellows, if you're not hard upon 'em?" in such light and playful conversation, which was the dear delight of jenny wren, they continued until interrupted by mr. wrayburn, a friend of lizzie's, who fell to talking playfully with jenny wren. "i think of setting up a doll, miss jenny," he said. "you had better not," replied the dressmaker. "why not?" "you are sure to break it. all you children do." "but that makes good for trade, you know, miss wren," he returned. "i don't know about that," miss wren retorted; "but you'd better by half set up a pen-wiper, and turn industrious, and use it." "why, if we were all as industrious as you, little busy body, we should begin to work as soon as we could crawl, and there would be a bad thing!" "do you mean," returned the little creature with a flush suffusing her face, "bad for your backs and your legs?" "no, no," said the visitor, shocked at the thought of trifling with her infirmity. "bad for business. if we all set to work as soon as we could use our hands, it would be all over with the dolls' dressmakers. "there's something in that," replied miss wren, "you have a sort of an idea in your noddle sometimes!" then, resting one arm upon the elbow of her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly before her, she said in a changed tone: "talking of ideas, my lizzie, i wonder how it happens that when i am working here all alone in the summer-time, i smell flowers. this is not a flowery neighborhood. it's anything but that. and yet as i sit at work, i smell miles of flowers; i smell rose-leaves till i think i see the rose-leaves lying in heaps, bushels, on the floor; i smell fallen leaves, till i put down my hand--so--and expect to make them rustle; i smell the white and the pink may in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that i never was among. for i have seen very few flowers indeed in my life." "pleasant fancies to have, jenny dear!" said her friend with a glance toward their visitor, as if she would have asked him whether they were given the child in compensation for her losses. "so i think, lizzie, when they come to me. and the birds i hear! oh!" cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, "how they sing!" there was something in the face and action for the moment quite inspired and beautiful. then the chin dropped musingly upon the hand again. "i dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smell better than other flowers. for when i was a little child," in a tone as though it were ages ago, "the children that i used to see early in the morning were very different from any others i ever saw. they were not like me; they were not chilled, anxious, ragged, or beaten; they were never in pain. they were not like the children of the neighbors; they never made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises; and they never mocked me. such numbers of them too! all in white dresses, and with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that i have never been able to imitate with my work, though i know it so well. they used to come down in long, bright, slanting rows, and say all together, 'who is this in pain! who is this in pain!' when i told them who it was, they answered, 'come and play with us!' when i said 'i never play! i can't play,' they swept about me and took me up, and made me light. then it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid me down, and said all together, 'have patience, and we will come again.' whenever they came back, i used to know they were coming before i saw the long bright rows, by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, 'who is this in pain! who is this in pain!' and i used to cry out, 'oh my blessed children, it's poor me. have pity on me. take me up and make me light!'" by degrees as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised, the last ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful again. having so paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her face, she looked round and recalled herself. "what poor fun you think me, don't you," she said to the visitor. "you may well look tired of me. but it's saturday night, and i won't detain you." "that is to say, miss wren," observed the visitor, rather weary of the person of the house, and quite ready to profit by her hint, "you wish me to go?" "well, it's saturday night," she returned, "and my child's coming home. and my child is a troublesome, bad child, and costs me a world of scolding. i would rather you didn't see my child." "a doll?" said the visitor, not understanding, and looking for an explanation. but lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, "_her father_," he took his leave immediately, and presently the weak and shambling figure of the child's father stumbled in, to be expostulated with, and scolded, and treated as the person of the house always treated him, when he came home in such a pitiable condition. while they ate their supper, lizzie tried to bring the child round again to that prettier and better state. but the charm was broken. the dolls' dressmaker had become a little quaint shrew, of the world, worldly; of the earth, earthy. poor dolls' dressmaker! how often so dragged down by hands that should have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road and asking guidance! poor, poor little dolls' dressmaker. one of miss jenny's firmest friends was an aged jew, mr. riah, by name; of venerable aspect, and a generous and noble nature. he was supposedly the head of the firm of pubsey and co., at saint-mary-axe, but really only the agent of one mr. fledgeby, a miserly young dandy who directed all the aged jew's transactions, and forced him into sharp, unfair dealings with those whom mr. riah himself would gladly have befriended; shielding his own meanness and dishonesty behind the venerable figure of the jew, and keeping his own connection with the firm a profound secret. mr. riah suffered himself to remain in such a position only because once when he had had sickness and misfortune, and owed mr. fledgeby's father both principal and interest, the son inheriting, had been merciful and placed him there; and little did the guileless old man realize that he had long since, richly repaid the debt; his age and serene respectability, added to the characteristics ascribed to his race, making a valuable screen to hide his employer's misdeeds. the aged jew often befriended the dolls' dressmaker, and she called him, in her fanciful way, "godmother." on his roof-top garden, jenny wren and her friend lizzie were sitting one day, together, when mr. fledgeby came up and joined the party, interrupting their conversation. for the girls, perhaps with some old instinct of his race, the gentle jew had spread a carpet. seated on it, against no more romantic object than a blackened chimney-stack, over which some humble creeper had been trained, they both pored over one book, while a basket of common fruit, and another basket of strings of beads and tinsel scraps were lying near. "this, sir," explained the old jew, "is a little dressmaker for little people. explain to the master, jenny." "dolls; that's all," said jenny shortly. "very difficult to fit too, because their figures are so uncertain. you never know where to expect their waists." "i made acquaintance with my guests, sir," pursued the old jew, with an evident purpose of drawing out the dressmaker, "through their coming here to buy our damage and waste for miss jenny's millinery. they wear it in their hair, and on their ball-dresses, and even (so she tells me) are presented at court with it." "ah!" said fledgeby, "she's been buying that basketful to-day, i suppose." "i suppose she has," miss jenny interposed, "and paying for it too, most likely," adding, "we are thankful to come up here for rest, sir; for the quiet and the air, and because it's so high. and you see the clouds rushing on above the narrow streets, not minding them, and you see the golden arrows pointing at the mountains in the sky, from which the wind comes, and, you feel as if you were dead." "how do you feel when you are dead?" asked the practical mr. fledgeby, much perplexed. "oh so tranquil!" cried the little creature smiling. "oh so peaceful and so thankful! and you hear the people, who are alive, crying and working and calling to one another in the close dark streets and you seem to pity them so! and such a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange, good, sorrowful happiness comes upon you!" her eyes fell upon the old man, who, with his hands folded, quietly looked on. "why, it was only just now," said the little creature, pointing at him, "that i fancied i saw him come out of his grave! he toiled out at that low door, so bent and worn, and then he took his breath, and stood upright and looked all around him at the sky, and the wind blew upon him, and his life down in the dark was over!--till he was called back to life," she added, looking round at fledgeby with that lower look of sharpness, "why did you call him back? but you are not dead, you know," said jenny wren. "get down to life!" mr. fledgeby seemed to think it a rather good suggestion, and with a nod turned round and took his leave. as mr. riah followed him down the stairs, the little creature called out to the jew in a silvery tone, "don't be gone long. come back and be dead!" and still as they went down, they heard the little sweet voice, more and more faintly, half calling and half singing, "come back and be dead. come back and be dead!" and as the old man again mounted, the call or song began to sound in his ears again, and looking above, he saw the face of the little creature looking down out of the glory of her long, bright, radiant hair, and musically repeating to him like a vision: "come up and be dead! come up and be dead!" not long after this, there came a heavy trial to the dolls' dressmaker in the loss from her home of her friend and lodger, lizzie hexam. lizzie, having disagreed with her brother upon a subject of vital interest to herself, and having an intense desire to escape from persons whom she knew would pursue her so long as she remained in london, felt it wisest to quietly disappear from the city, leaving no trace of her whereabouts. with the help of mr. riah she accomplished this, and found occupation in a paper-mill in the country, leaving poor jenny wren with only the slight consolation of her letters, and with the aged jew for her sole counsellor and friend. he was frequently with jenny wren, often escorting her upon her necessary trips, in returning her fine ladies to their homes in various parts of the city, and sometimes the little creature accompanied him upon his own business trips, as well. one foggy evening as usual, he set out for church street, and, wading through the fog, waded to the doorstep of the dolls' dressmaker. miss wren expected him. he could see her through the window, by the light of her low fire--carefully banked up with damp cinders, that it might last the longer, and waste the less when she went out--sitting waiting for him, in her bonnet. his tap at the glass roused her from the musing solitude in which she sat, and she opened the door, aiding her steps with a little crutch-stick. "good evening, godmother!" said miss jenny wren. the old man laughed, and gave her his arm to lean on. "won't you come in and warm yourself, godmother?" she asked. "not if you are ready, cinderella, my dear." "well!" exclaimed miss wren, delighted. "now you are a clever old boy! if we only gave prizes at this establishment you should have the first silver medal for taking me up so quick." as she spake thus, miss wren removed the key of the house-door from the keyhole, and put it in her pocket. satisfied that her dwelling was safe, she drew one hand through the old man's arm, and prepared to ply her crutch-stick with the other. but the key was of such gigantic proportions that before they started, riah proposed to carry it. "no, no, no! i'll carry it myself," returned miss wren. "i'm awfully lop-sided, you know, and stowed down in my pocket, it'll trim the ship. to let you into a secret, godmother, i wear my pocket on my high side o' purpose." with that they began their plodding through the fog. "yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother," returned miss wren, with great approbation, "to understand me. but, you see, you _are_ so like the fairy godmother in the bright little books! you look so unlike the rest of the people, and so much as if you had changed yourself into that shape, just this moment, with some benevolent object. bah!" cried miss jenny, putting her face close to the old man's, "i can see your features, godmother, behind the beard." "does the fancy go to my changing other objects, too, jenny?" "ah! that it does! if you'd only borrow my stick, and tap this piece of pavement, it would start up a coach and six. i say,--let's believe so!" "with all my heart," replied the good old man. "and i'll tell you what i must ask you to do, godmother. i must ask you to be so kind as to give my child a tap, and change him altogether. oh, my child has been such a bad, bad child of late! it worries me almost out of my wits. not done a stroke of work these ten days." "what shall be changed after him?" asked riah, in a compassionately playful voice. "upon my word, godmother, i am afraid i must be selfish next, and get you to set me right in the back and legs. it's a little thing to you with your power, godmother, but it's a great deal to poor, weak, aching me." there was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not the less touching for that. "and then?" "yes, and then--_you_ know, godmother. well both jump into the coach and six, and go to lizzie. this reminds me, godmother, to ask you a serious question. you are as wise as wise can be (having been brought up by the fairies), and you can tell me this,--is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have had it?" "explain, goddaughter." "i feel so much more solitary and helpless without lizzie now than i used to feel before i knew her." (tears were in her eyes as she said so.) "some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my dear," said the jew, "that of a wife, and a fair daughter, and a son of promise, has faded out of my own life--but the happiness _was_" "ah!" said miss wren thoughtfully, by no means convinced. "then i tell you what change i think you had better begin with, godmother. you had better change is into was, and was into is, and keep them so." "would that suit your case? would you not be always in pain then?" asked the old man tenderly. "right!" exclaimed miss wren. "you have changed me wiser, godmother. not," she added, with a quaint hitch of her chin and eyes, "that you need to be a very wonderful godmother to do that, indeed!" thus conversing, they pursued their way over london bridge, and struck down the river, and held their still foggier course that way. as they were going along, jennie twisted her venerable friend aside to a brilliantly lighted toy-shop window, and said: "now, look at 'em! all my work!" this referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colors of the rainbow, who were dressed for all the gay events of life. "pretty, pretty, pretty!" said the old man with a clap of his hands. "most elegant taste!" "glad you like 'em," returned miss wren loftily. "but the fun is, godmother, how i make the great ladies try my dresses on. though it's the hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were not bad and my legs queer." he looked at her as not understanding what she said. "bless you, godmother," said miss wren, "i have to scud about town at all hours. if it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing, it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great ladies that takes it out of me." "how the trying-on?" asked riah. "what a moony godmother you are, after all!" returned miss wren. "look here. there's a drawing-room, or a grand day in the park, or a show or a fete, or what you like. very well. i squeeze among the crowd, and i look about me. when i see a great lady very suitable for my business, i say, 'you'll do, my dear!' and i take particular notice of her again, and run home and cut her out, and baste her. then another day i come scudding back again to try on. sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'how that little creature _is_ staring!' all the time i am only saying to myself, 'i must hollow out a bit here; i must slope away there'; and i am making a perfect slave of her, making her try on my doll's dress. evening parties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway for full view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages and the legs of the horses, i fully expect to be run over some night. whenever they go bobbing into the hall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomy poked out from behind a policeman's cape in the rain, i daresay they think i am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but they little think they're only working for my dolls! there was lady belinda whitrose. i said one night when she came out of the carriage. 'you'll do, my dear!' and i ran straight home, and cut her out, and basted her. back i came again, and waited behind the men that called the carriages. very bad night too. at last, 'lady belinda's whitrose's carriage!' lady belinda whitrose coming down! and i made her try on--oh! and take pains about it too--before she got seated. that's lady belinda hanging up by the waist, much too near the gas-light for a wax one, with her toes turned in." when they had plodded on for some time, they reached a certain tavern, where mr. riah had some business to transact with its proprietress, miss abbey potterson, to whom he presented himself, and was about to introduce his young companion when miss wren interrupted him: "stop a bit," she said, "i'll give the lady my card." she produced it from her pocket with an air, and miss abbey took the diminutive document, and found it to run thus: miss jenny wren. _dolls' dressmaker._. _dolls attended at their own residences_. so great were her amusement and astonishment, and so interested was she in the odd little creature that she at once asked: "did you ever taste shrub, child?" miss wren shook her head. "should you like to?" "should if it's good," returned miss wren. "you shall try. put your little feet on the fender. it's a cold, cold night, and the fog clings so." as miss abbey helped her to turn her chair, her loosened bonnet fell on the floor. "why, what lovely hair!" cried miss abbey. "and enough to make wigs: for all the dolls in the world. what a quantity!" "call _that_ a quantity?" returned miss wren. "_poof_! what do you say to the rest of it?" as she spoke, she untied a band, and the golden stream fell over herself, and over the chair, and flowed down to the ground. miss abbey's admiration seemed to increase her perplexity. she beckoned the jew towards her, and whispered: "child or woman?" "child in years," was the answer; "woman in self-reliance and trial." "you are talking about me, good people," thought miss jenny, sitting in her golden bower, warming her feet. "i can't hear what you say, but i know your tricks and your manners!" the shrub, mixed by miss potterson's skilful hands, was perfectly satisfactory to miss jenny's palate, and she sat and sipped it leisurely while the interview between mr. riah and miss potterson proceeded, keenly regretting when the bottom of the glass was reached, and the interview at an end. there was at this time much curiosity among lizzie hexam's acquaintances to discover her hiding-place, and many of them paid visits to the dolls' dressmaker in hopes of obtaining from her the desired address. among these was mr. wrayburn, whom we find calling upon miss wren one evening: "and so, miss jenny," he said, "i cannot persuade you to dress me a doll?" "no," replied miss wren snappishly; "if you want one, go and buy it at the shop." "and my charming young goddaughter," said mr. wrayburn plaintively, "down in hertfordshire--" ("humbugshire, you mean, i think," interposed miss wren)--"is to be put upon the cold footing of the general public, and is to derive no advantage from my private acquaintance with the court dressmaker?" "if it's any advantage to your charming godchild, and oh, a precious godfather she has got!" replied miss wren, pricking at him in the air with her needle, "to be informed that the court dressmaker knows your tricks and your manners, you may tell her so, by post, with my compliments." miss wren was busy with her work, by candlelight, and mr. wrayburn, half amused and half vexed, stood by her bench looking on, while her troublesome child was in the corner, in deep disgrace on account of his bad behavior, and as miss jenny worked, she rated him severely, accompanying each reproach with a stamp of her foot. "pay five shillings for you indeed!" she exclaimed in response to his appeal for money. "how many hours do you suppose it costs me to earn five shillings, you infamous boy? don't cry like that, or i'll throw a doll at you. pay five shillings fine for you, indeed! fine in more ways than one, i think! i'd give the dustman five shillings to carry you off in the dust-cart." the figure in the corner continuing to whine and whimper, miss wren covered her face with her hand. "there!" she said, "i can't bear to look at you. go upstairs and get me my bonnet and shawl. make yourself useful in some way, bad boy, and let me have your room instead of your company, for one half minute." obeying her, he shambled out, and mr. wrayburn, pitying, saw the tears exude between the little creature's fingers, as she kept her hand before her eyes. "i am going to the italian opera to try on," said miss wren, taking away her hand, and laughing satirically to hide that she had been crying. "but let me first tell you, mr. wrayburn, once for all, that it's no use your paying visits to me. you wouldn't get what you want of me, no, not if you brought pincers with you to tear it out." with which statement, and a further admonition to her father, who had come back, she blew her candles out, and taking her big door-key in her pocket, and her crutch-stick in her hand, marched off. not many months later, one day while miss wren was waiting in the office of pubsey and co., for mr. riah to come in and sell her the waste she was accustomed to buy, she overheard a conversation between mr. fledgeby, who had apparently happened in, and a friend who was also waiting for mr. riah. this conversation led her to infer that her old friend was both a treacherous and dishonest man, and entirely unworthy to be trusted in any capacity. seemingly the conversation was not meant for her ears, but mr. fledgeby had planned that she should hear it, and that it should have the very effect upon her which it had. this was mr. fledgeby's retort upon miss wren for the over-sharpness with which she always treated him, and also a pleasant instance of his humor as regarded the old jew. "he has got a bad name as an old jew, and he is paid for the use of it, and i'll have my money's worth out of him." thus ran mr. fledgeby's reflections on the subject, and miss wren sat listening to the conversation with a fallen countenance, until mr. riah came in, when mr. fledgeby led the old man to make statements which seemed further to emphasize his hard-heartedness and dishonesty. then mr. riah filled miss wren's little basket with such scraps as she could buy, saying: "there, my cinderella dear, the basket's full now. bless you, and get you gone!" "don't call me your cinderella dear," returned miss wren, "oh, you cruel godmother!" she shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his face at parting, and as he did not attempt to vindicate himself, went on her way, to return no more to saint mary axe; chance having disclosed to her (as she supposed) the flinty and hypocritical character of mr. riah. she often moralized over her work on the tricks and the manners of that venerable cheat, but made her little purchases elsewhere, and lived a secluded life. but during several interviews which she chanced to have later with mr. fledgeby, the clever little creature made him by his own words, disclose his system of treachery and trickery, and prove that the aged jew had been screening his employer at his own expense. thereupon miss jenny lost no time in once again proceeding to the place of business of pubsey and co., where she found the old man sitting at his desk. in less time than it takes to tell it, she had folded her arms about his neck, and kissed him, imploring his forgiveness for her lack of faith in him, adding: "it did look bad, now, didn't it?" "it looked so bad, jenny," responded the old man with gravity, "that i was hateful in mine own eyes. i perceived that the obligation was upon me to leave this service. whereupon i indited a letter to my master to that effect, but he held me to certain months of servitude, which were his lawful term of notice. they expire to-morrow. upon their expiration--not before--i had meant to set myself right with my cinderella." while they were thus conversing, the aged jew received an angry communication from mr. fledgeby, releasing mr. riah at once from his service, to the great satisfaction of the old man, who then got his few goods together in a black bag, closed the shutters, pulled down the office blind, and issued forth upon the steps. there, while miss jenny held the bag, the old man locked the house door, and handed the key over to the messenger who had brought the note of dismissal. "well, godmother," said miss wren, "and so you're thrown upon the world!" "it would appear so, jenny, and rather suddenly." "where are you going to seek your fortune?" asked miss wren. the old man smiled, but gazed about him with a look of having lost his way in life, which did not escape the dolls' dressmaker. "the best thing you can do," said jenny, "for the time being, at all events, is to come home with me, godmother. nobody's there but my bad child, and lizzie's lodging stands empty." the old man, when satisfied that no inconvenience could be entailed on any one by this move, readily complied, and the singularly assorted couple once more went through the streets together. and it was a kindly providence which placed the child's hand in the aged jew's protecting one that night. before they reached home, they met a sad party, bearing in their arms an inanimate form, at which the dolls' dressmaker needed but to take one look. "oh gentlemen, gentlemen," she cried, "he belongs to me!" "belongs to you!" said the head of the party, stopping;--"oh yes, dear gentlemen, he's my child, out without leave. my poor, bad, bad boy! and he don't know me, he don't know me! oh, what _shall_ i do?" cried the little creature, wildly beating her hands together, "when my own child don't know me!" the head of the party looked to the old jew for explanation. he whispered, as the dolls' dressmaker bent over the still form, and vainly tried to extract some sign of recognition from it; "it's her drunken father." then the sad party with their lifeless burden went through the streets. after it, went the dolls' dressmaker, hiding her face in the jewish skirts, and clinging to them with one hand, while with the other she plied her stick, and at last the little home in church street was reached. many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money was in the dressmaker's pocket to get mourning for her father. as mr. riah sat by, helping her in such small ways as he could, he found it difficult to make out whether she realized that the deceased had really been her father. "if my poor boy," she would say, "had been brought up better, he might have done better. not that i reproach myself. i hope i have no cause for that." "none, indeed, jenny, i am very certain." "thank you, godmother. it cheers me to hear you say so. but you see it is so hard to bring up a child well, when you work, work, work, all day. when he was out of employment, i couldn't always keep him near me. he got fractious and nervous, and i was obliged to let him go into the streets. and he never did well in the streets, he never did well out of sight. how often it happens with children! how can i say what i might have turned out myself, but for my back having been so bad and my legs so queer, when i was young!" the dressmaker would go on. "i had nothing to do but work, so i worked. i couldn't play. but my poor, unfortunate child could play, and it turned out worse for him." "and not for him alone, jenny." "well, i don't know, godmother. he suffered heavily, did my unfortunate boy. he was very, very ill sometimes. and i called him a quantity of names;" shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears. "you are a good girl, you are a patient girl." "as for patience," she would reply with a shrug, "not much of that, godmother. if i had been patient, i should never have called him names. but i hope i did it for his good. and besides, i felt my responsibility as a mother so much. i tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. i tried coaxing, and coaxing failed. i tried scolding, and scolding failed. but i was bound to try everything, with such a charge on my hands. where would have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if i had not tried everything?" with such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the industrious little creature, the day work and the night work were beguiled, until enough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring in the sombre stuff that the occasion required, and to bring into the house the other sombre preparations. "and now," said miss jenny, "having knocked off my rosy-cheeked young friends, i'll knock off my white-cheeked self." this referred to her making her own dress which at last was done, in time for the simple service, the arrangements for which were of her own planning. the service ended, and the solitary dressmaker having returned to her home, she said: "i must have a very short cry, godmother, before i cheer up for good. because after all, a child is a child, you know." it was a longer cry than might have been expected. howbeit, it wore itself out in a shadowy corner, and then the dressmaker came forth, and washed her face, and made the tea. "you wouldn't mind my cutting out something while we are at tea, would you?" she asked with a coaxing air. "cinderella, dear child," the old man expostulated. "will you never rest?" "oh! it's not work, cutting out a pattern isn't," said miss jenny, with her busy little scissors already snipping at some paper; "the truth is, godmother, i want to fix it, while i have it correct in my mind." "have you seen it to-day, then?" asked riah. "yes, godmother. saw it just now. it's a surplice, that's what it is. thing our clergymen wear, you know," explained miss jenny, in consideration of his professing another faith. "and what have you to do with that, jenny?" "why, godmother," replied the dressmaker, "you must know that we professors, who live upon our taste and invention, are obliged to keep our eyes always open. and you know already that i have many extra expenses to meet. so it came into my head, while i was weeping at my poor boy's grave, that something in my way might be done with a clergyman. not a funeral, never fear;" said miss jenny. "the public don't like to be made melancholy, i know very well. but a doll clergyman, my dear,--glossy black curls and whiskers--uniting two of my young friends in matrimony," said miss jenny shaking her forefinger, "is quite another affair. if you don't see those three at the altar in bond street, in a jiffy, my name's jack robinson!" with her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got a doll into whitey-brown paper orders, before the meal was over, and displayed it for the edification of the jewish mind, and mr. riah was lost in admiration for the brave, resolute little soul, who could so put aside her sadness to meet and face her pressing need. and many times thereafter was he likewise lost in admiration of his little friend, who continued her business as of old, only without the burden of responsibility by which her life had heretofore been clouded, and more able to give her imagination free play along the lines of her interests, without the pressure of home care resting upon her poor shoulders. our last glimpse of her, is as usual, before her little workbench, at work upon a full-dressed, large sized doll, when there comes a knock upon the door. when it is opened there is disclosed a young fellow known to his friends and employer, as sloppy. sloppy was full private no in the awkward squad of the rank and file of life, and yet had his glimmering notions of standing true to his colors, and in instinctive refinement of feeling was much above others who outranked him in birth and education. "come in, sir," said miss wren, "and who may you be?" mr. sloppy introduced himself by name and buttons. "oh, indeed," cried jenny, "i have heard of you." sloppy, grinning, was so glad to hear it that he threw back his head and laughed. "bless us!" exclaimed miss wren, with a start, "don't open your mouth as wide as that, young man, or it'll catch so, and not shut again, some day." mr. sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open, until his laugh was out. "why, you're like the giant," said miss wren, "when he came home in the land of beanstalk, and wanted jack for supper." "was he good looking, miss?" asked sloppy. "no," said miss wren. "ugly." her visitor glanced round the room--which had many comforts in it now, that it had not had before--and said: "this is a pretty place, miss. "glad you think so, sir," returned miss wren. "and what do you think of me?" the honesty of mr. sloppy being severely taxed by the question, he twisted a button, grinned, and faltered. "out with it," said miss wren, with an arch look. "don't you think me a queer little comicality?" in shaking her head at him after asking the question, she shook her hair down. "oh!" cried sloppy in a burst of admiration. "what a lot, and what a color!" miss wren with her usual expressive hitch, went on with her work. but left her hair as it was, not displeased by the effect it had made. "you don't live here alone, do you, miss?" asked sloppy. "no," said miss wren with a chop. "live here with my fairy godmother." "with;" mr. sloppy couldn't make it out; "with, who did you say, miss?" "well!" replied miss wren more seriously. "with my second father. or with my first, for that matter." and she shook her head and drew a sigh. "if you had known a poor child i used to have here," she added, "you'd have understood me. but you didn't and you can't. all the better!" "you must have been taught a long time, miss," said sloppy, glancing at the array of dolls on hand, "before you came to work so neatly, miss, and with such a pretty taste." "never was taught a stitch, young man!" returned the dressmaker, tossing her head. "just gobbled and gobbled, till i found out how to do it. badly enough at first, but better now." "and here have i," said sloppy, in a self-reproachful tone, "been a-learning and a-learning at cabinet-making, ever so long! i'll tell you what, miss, i should like to make you something." "much obliged, but what?" "i could make you," said sloppy, surveying the room, "a handy set of nests to lay the dolls in. or a little set of drawers to keep your silks and threads and scraps in. or i could turn you a rare handle for that crutch-stick, if it belongs to him you call your father." "it belongs to me," said the little creature, with a quick flush of her face and neck. "i am lame." poor sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behind his buttons. he said perhaps, the best thing in the way of amends that could be said. "i am very glad it's yours, because i'd rather ornament it for you than for any one else. please, may i look at it?" miss wren was in the act of handing it over to him when she paused. "but you had better see me use it," she said sharply. "this is the way. hoppetty, kicketty, peg-peg-peg. not pretty, is it?" "it seems to me that you hardly want it at all," said sloppy. the little dressmaker sat down again, and gave it into his hand, saying with that better look upon her, and with a smile: "thank you! you are a very kind young man, a really kind young man. i accept your offer--i suppose _he_ won't mind," she added as an afterthought, shrugging her shoulders; "and if he does, he may!" "meaning him you call your father, miss?" said sloppy. "no, no," replied miss wren. "him, _him_, him!" "_him_, him, him?" repeated sloppy, staring about, as if for him. "him who is coming to court and marry me," returned miss wren. "dear me, how slow you are!" "oh! him!" said sloppy, "i never thought of him. when is he coming, miss?" "what a question!" cried miss wren. "how should i know?" "where is he coming from, miss?" "why, good gracious, how can i tell! he is coming from somewhere or other, i suppose, and he is coming some day or other, i suppose. i don't know any more about him, at present." this tickled mr. sloppy as an extraordinarily good joke, and he threw back his head and laughed with measureless enjoyment. at the sight of him laughing in that absurd way, the dolls' dressmaker laughed very heartily indeed. so they both laughed till they were tired. "there, there, there!" said miss wren. "for goodness sake, stop, giant, or i shall be swallowed up alive, before i know it. and to this minute you haven't said what you've come for?" "i have come for little miss harmonses' doll," said sloppy. "i thought as much," remarked miss wren, "and here is little miss harmonses' doll waiting for you. she's folded up in silver paper, you see, as if she was wrapped from head to foot in new banknotes. take care of her--and there's my hand--and thank you again." "i'll take more care of her than if she was a gold image," said sloppy, "and there's _both_ my hands, miss, and i'll soon come back again!" here we leave the little dolls' dressmaker, under the protecting care of her "godmother," the first real guardian she has ever known, and with a new friendship to supply her life with that youthful intercourse which has never been hers. and so in leaving her our hearts are light, for miss jenny wren is brighter now, and happier now, and younger now, than ever before. sissy jupe [illustration: sissy jupe and her father] sissy jupe "now, what i want is, facts. teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. facts alone are wanted in life. plant nothing else, and root out everything else. you can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts: nothing else will be of any service to them. this is the principle on which i bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which i bring up these children. stick to facts, sir!" the scene was a bare, plain, monotonous vault of a schoolroom, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observation. the emphasis was helped by his square wall of a forehead, by his thin and hardset mouth, by his inflexible and dictatorial voice, and by the hair which bristled on the skirts of his bald head, as if the head had scarcely warehouse room for the hard facts stowed inside. the speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders,--nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was,--all helped the emphasis. "in this life, we want nothing but facts, sir! nothing but facts!" the speaker, mr. thomas gradgrind, and the schoolmaster, mr. m'choakumchild, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim. "girl number twenty," said mr. gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger, "i don't know that girl. who is that girl?" "sissy jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and curtseying. "sissy is not a name," said mr. gradgrind. "call yourself cecilia." "it's father as calls me sissy, sir," returned the young girl with another curtsey. "then he has no business to do it," said mr. gradgrind. "tell him he mustn't. cecilia jupe. let me see. what is your father?" "he belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir." mr. gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand. "we don't want to know anything about that here. your father breaks horses, don't he?" "if you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring." "you mustn't tell us about the ring here. very well, then. describe your father as a horse-breaker. he doctors sick horses, i dare say?" "oh, yes, sir." "very well, then. he is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier and horse-breaker. give me your definition of a horse." (sissy jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand). "girl number twenty unable to define a horse!" said mr. gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. "girl number twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one of the commonest of animals! some boy's definition of a horse. bitzer, yours!" "quadruped. graminivorous. forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs too. hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. age known by marks in mouth." thus (and much more) bitzer. "now, girl number twenty," said mr. gradgrind, "you know what a horse is." she curtsied again, blushed, and sat down, and the third gentleman present stepped forth, briskly smiling and folding his arms. "that's a horse," he said. "now, let me ask you, boys and girls, would you paper a room with representations of horses?" after a pause, one-half of the children cried in chorus, "yes, sir!" upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face that yes was wrong, cried out in chorus, "no, sir!" "of course, no. why wouldn't you?" a pause. one boy ventured the answer, because he wouldn't paper a room at all, but would paint it. "you must paper it," said thomas gradgrind, "whether you like it or not. don't tell us you wouldn't paper it. what do you mean, boy?" "i'll explain to you then," said the gentleman, after another pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with a representation of horses. do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality--in fact? of course, no. why then, you are not to see anywhere what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere what you don't have in fact. this is a new principle, a great discovery," said the gentleman. "now i'll try you again. would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?" "there being a general conviction by this time that, 'no sir!' was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of no was very strong. only a few feeble stragglers said yes; among them sissy jupe." "girl number twenty," said the gentleman, "why would you carpet your room with representations of flowers?" "if you please, sir, i'm very fond of flowers," returned the girl. "and is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?" "it wouldn't hurt them, sir. they wouldn't crush and wither, please sir. they would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, sir, and i would fancy--" "ay, ay, ay! but you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. "you are never to fancy." "you are not, cecilia jupe," thomas gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do anything of that kind. you don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. you don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. you never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. you must use," said the gentleman, "for all these purposes, combinations and modifications in primary colors of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. this is the new discovery. this is fact. this is taste." the girl curtseyed and sat down. she was very young, and she looked as if she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world afforded; while the teacher proceeded to give a lesson based upon hard fact for the benefit of his visitors. mr. gradgrind walked homeward from the school, in a state of considerable satisfaction. it was his school, and he intended it to be a model. he intended every child in it to be a model, just as the five young gradgrinds were all models. no little gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; no little gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, "twinkle, twinkle, little star, how i wonder what you are"; each little gradgrind having at five years old dissected the great bear, and driven charles's wain like a locomotive engine-driver. no little gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with a crumpled horn who tossed the dog, who worried the cat, who killed the rat, who ate the malt, or with that more famous cow who swallowed tom thumb. it had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous, ruminating quadruped with several stomachs. to his matter-of-fact home, which was called stone lodge, mr. gradgrind directed his steps, walking on in a hopeful and satisfied frame of mind. he was an affectionate father, after his manner; but allowed no foolish sentiment to interfere with the practical basis of his childrens' education and bringing-up. he had reached the outskirts of the town, when his ears were invaded by the sound of the band attached to the horse-riding establishment, which had there set up its rest in a wooden pavilion. a flag floating from the summit of the temple, proclaimed to mankind that it was sleary's horse-riding which claimed their suffrages. among the many pleasing wonders which must be seen to be believed, signor jupe was that afternoon to "elucidate the diverting accomplishments of his highly trained performing dog, merrylegs," he was also to exhibit "his astounding feat of throwing seventy-five hundred weight in rapid succession back-handed over his head, thus forming a fountain of solid iron in midair, a feat never before attempted in this or any other country, and which having elicited such rapturous plaudits from enthusiastic throngs it cannot be withdrawn." the same signor jupe was to "enliven the varied performances at frequent intervals with his chaste shakesperean quips and retorts." lastly, he was to wind them up by appearing in his favorite character of mr. william button, of tooley street, in "the highly novel and laughable hippo comedietta of the tailor's journey to brentford." thomas gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities, but passed on, as a practical man ought to pass on. but, at the back of the booth he saw a number of children congregated in a number of stealthy attitudes, striving to peep in at the hidden glories of the place. what did he then behold but his own louisa peeping with all her might through a hole in a deal board, and his own thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but a hoof of the graceful tyrolean flower-act! dumb with amazement, mr. gradgrind crossed to the spot where his family was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring child, and said: "louisa!! thomas!!" both rose, red and disconcerted. "in the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!" said mr. gradgrind, leading each away by a hand; "what do you do here?" "wanted to see what it was like," returned louisa shortly. "you!" exclaimed mr. gradgrind. "thomas and you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open; who may be said to be replete with fact; who have been trained to mathematical exactness; thomas and you, here! in this degraded position! i am amazed." "i was tired, father," said louisa. "tired? of what?" asked the astonished father. "i don't know of what--of everything, i think." "say not another word," returned mr. gradgrind. "you are childish. i will hear no more." with which remark he led the culprits to their home in silence, into the presence of their fretful invalid mother, who was much annoyed at the disturbance they had created. while she was peevishly expressing her mind on the subject, mr. gradgrind was gravely pondering upon the matter. "whether," he said, "whether any instructor or servant can have suggested anything? whether, in spite of all precautions, any idle story-book can have got into the house for louisa or thomas to read? because in minds that have been practically formed by rule and line, from the cradle upwards, this is incomprehensible." "stop a bit!" cried his friend bounderby. "you have one of those stroller's children in the school, cecilia jupe by name! i tell you what, gradgrind, turn this girl to the right-about, and there is an end of it." "i am much of your opinion." "do it at once," said bounderby, "has always been my motto. do you the same. do this at once!" "i have the father's address," said his friend. "perhaps you would not mind walking to town with me?" "not the least in the world," said mr. bounderby, "as long as you do it at once!" so mr. gradgrind and his friend immediately set out to find cecilia jupe, and to order her from henceforth to remain away from school. on the way there they met her. "now, girl," said mr. gradgrind, "take this gentleman and me to your father's; we are going there. what have you got in that bottle you are carrying?" "it's the nine oils." "the what?" cried mr. bounderby. "the nine oils, sir, to rub father with. it is what our people always use, sir, when they get any hurts in the ring," replied the girl, "they bruise themselves very bad sometimes." "serves them right," said mr. bounderby, "for being idle." the girl glanced up at his face with mingled astonishment and dread as he said this, but she led them on down a narrow road, until they stopped at the door of a little public house. "this is it, sir," she said. "it's only crossing the bar, sir, and up the stairs, if you wouldn't mind; and waiting there for a moment till i get a candle. if you should hear a dog, sir, it's only merrylegs, and he only barks." they followed the girl up some steep stairs, and stopped while she went on for a candle. reappearing, with a face of great surprise, she said, "father is not in our room, sir. if you wouldn't mind walking in, sir? i'll find him directly." they walked in; and sissy having set two chairs for them, sped away with a quick, light step. they heard the doors of rooms above opening and shutting, as sissy went from one to another in quest of her father. she came bounding down again in a great hurry, opened an old hair trunk, found it empty, and looked around with her face full of terror. "father must have gone down to the booth, sir. i'll bring him in a minute!" she was gone directly, without her bonnet; with her long, dark, childish hair streaming behind her. "what does she mean!" said mr. gradgrind. "back in a minute? it's more than a mile off." before mr. bounderby could reply, a young man mentioned in the bills of the day as mr. e.w.b. childers,--justly celebrated for his daring vaulting act as the wild huntsman of the north american prairies, appeared. upon entering into conversation with mr. gradgrind he informed that gentleman of his opinion that jupe was off. "do you mean that he has deserted his daughter?" asked mr. gradgrind. "i mean," said mr. childers with a nod, "that he has cut. he has been short in his leaps and bad in his tumbling lately, missed his tip several times, too. he was goosed last night, he was goosed the night before last, he was goosed to-day. he has lately got in the way of being always goosed, and he can't stand it." "why has he been--so very much--goosed?" asked mr. gradgrind, forcing the word out of himself, with great solemnity and reluctance. "his joints are turning stiff, and he is getting used up," said childers. "he has his points as a cackler still, a speaker, if the gentleman likes it better--but he can't get a living out of _that_. now it's a remarkable fact, sir, that it cut that man deeper to know that his daughter knew of his being goosed than to go through with it. jupe sent her out on an errand not an hour ago, and then was seen to slip out himself, with his dog behind him and a bundle under his arm. she will never believe it of her father, but he has cut away and left her. "poor sissy! he had better have apprenticed her," added mr. childers, "now, he leaves her without anything to take to. her father always had it in his head, that she was to be taught the deuce-and-all of education. he has been picking up a bit of reading for her, here--and a bit of writing for her, there--and a bit of ciphering for her, somewhere else--these seven years. when sissy got into the school here," he pursued, "he was as pleased as punch. i suppose he had this move in his mind--he was always half cracked--and then considered her provided for. if you should have happened to have looked in to-night to tell him that you were going to do her any little service," added mr. childers, "it would be very fortunate and well-timed." "on the contrary," returned mr. gradgrind, "i came to tell her that she could not attend our school any more. still, if her father really has left her without any connivance on her part!--bounderby, let me have a word with you." upon this, mr. childers politely betook himself outside the door, and there stood while the two gentlemen were engaged in conversation. meanwhile the various members of sleary's company gathered together in the room. last of all appeared mr. sleary himself, who was stout, and troubled with asthma, and whose breath came far too thick and heavy for the letter s. bowing to mr. gradgrind, he asked: "ith it your intention to do anything for the poor girl, thquire?" "i shall have something to propose to her when she comes back," said mr. gradgrind. "glad to hear it, thquire. not that i want to get rid of the child, any more than i want to thtand in her way. i'm willing to take her prenthith, though at her age ith late." here his daughter josephine--a pretty, fair-haired girl of eighteen, who had been tied on a horse at two years old, and had made a will at twelve, which she always carried about with her, expressive of her dying desire to be drawn to the grave by two piebald ponies--cried "father, hush! she has come back!" then came sissy jupe, running into the room as she had run out of it. and when she saw them all assembled, and saw their looks, and saw no father there, she broke into a most deplorable cry, and took refuge on the bosom of the most accomplished tight-rope lady, who knelt down on the floor to nurse her, and to weep over her. "ith an infernal shame, upon my thoul it ith," said sleary. "o my dear father, my good, kind father, where are you gone? you are gone to try to do me some good, i know! you are gone away for my sake, i am sure. and how miserable and helpless you will be without me, poor, poor father, until you come back!" it was so pathetic to hear her saying many things of this kind, with her face turned upward, and her arms stretched out as if she were trying to stop his departing shadow and embrace it, that no one spoke a word until mr. bounderby (growing impatient) took the case in hand. "now, good people all," said he, "this is wanton waste of time. let the girl understand the fact. here, what's your name! your father has absconded, deserted you--and you mustn't expect to see him again as long as you live." they cared so little for plain fact, these people, that instead of being impressed by the speaker's strong common sense, they took it in extraordinary dudgeon. the men muttered "shame!" and the women, "brute!" whereupon mr. gradgrind found an opening for his eminently practical exposition of the subject. "it is of no moment," said he, "whether this person is to be expected back at any time, or the contrary. he is gone away, and there is no present expectation of his return. that, i believe, is agreed on all hands." "thath agreed, thquire. thtick to that!" from sleary. "well, then. i, who came here to inform the father of the poor girl, jupe, that she could not be received at the school any more, in consequence of there being practical objections, into which i need not enter, to the reception there of the children of persons so employed, am prepared in these altered circumstances to make a proposal. i am willing to take charge of you, jupe, and to educate you, and provide for you. the only condition (over and above your good behavior) i make is, that you decide now, at once, whether to accompany me or remain here. also, that if you accompany me now, it is understood that you communicate no more with any of your friends who are here present. these observations comprise the whole of the case." "at the thame time," said sleary, "i muth put in my word, thquire, tho that both thides of the banner may be equally theen. if you like, thethillia, to be prentitht, you know the natur' of the work, and you know your companionth. emma gordon, in whothe lap you're a lying at prethent, would be a mother to you, and joth'phine would be a thithther to you. i don't pretend to be of the angel breed myself, and i don't thay but what, when you mith'd your tip, you'd find me cut up rough, and thwear a oath or two at you. but what i thay, thquire, ith, that good tempered or bad tempered, i never did a horthe a injury yet, no more than thwearing at him went, and that i don't expect i thall begin otherwithe at my time of life, with a rider. i never wath much of a cackler, thquire, and i have thed my thay." the latter part of this speech was addressed to mr. gradgrind, who received it with a grave inclination of his head, and then remarked: "the only observation i will make to you, jupe, in the way of influencing your decision, is, that it is highly desirable to have a sound practical education, and that even your father himself (from what i understand) appears, on your behalf, to have known and felt that much." the last words had a visible effect upon her. she stopped in her wild crying, and turned her face full upon her patron. the whole company perceived the force of the change, and drew a long breath, together, that plainly said, "she will go!" "be sure you know your own mind, jupe," mr. gradgrind cautioned her; "i say no more. be sure you know your own mind!" "when father comes back," cried the girl, bursting into tears again after a minute's silence, "how will he ever find me if i go away!" "you may be quite at ease," said mr. gradgrind calmly; he worked out the whole matter like a sum; "you may be quite at ease, jupe, on that score. in such a case, your father, i apprehend, must find out mr. sleary, who would then let him know where you went. i should have no power of keeping you against his wish." there was another silence; and then sissy exclaimed sobbing, "oh, give me my clothes, give me my clothes, and let me go away before i break my heart!" the women sadly bestirred themselves to get the clothes together, and to pack them. they then brought sissy's bonnet to her and put it on. then they pressed about her, kissing and embracing her: and brought the children to take leave of her; and were a tender-hearted, simple, foolish, set of women altogether. then she had to take her farewell of the male part of the company, and last of all of mr. sleary. "farewell, thethilia!" he said, "my latht wordth to you ith thith: thtick to the termth of your engagement, be obedient to the thquire, and forget uth. but if, when you're grown up and married and well off, you come upon any horthe-riding ever, don't be hard upon it, don't be croth with it, give it a bethpeak if you can, and think you might do worth. people must be amuthed, thquire, thomehow," continued sleary, "they can't be alwayth a working, nor yet they can't be alwayth a learning. make the betht of uth; not the wurtht. i've got my living out of horthe-riding all my life, i know, but i conthider that i lay down the philothophy of the thubject when i thay to you, thquire, make the betht of uth; not the wurtht!" the sleary philosophy was propounded as they went downstairs; and the fixed eye of philosophy--and its rolling eye, too,--soon lost the three figures, and the basket in the darkness of the street. to mr. bounderby's house the weeping sissy was conducted, and remained there while mr. gradgrind returned to stone lodge to mature his plans for the clown's daughter. he soon came back to mr. bounderby's, bringing his daughter louisa with him, and sissy jupe stood before them, with downcast eyes, while mr. gradgrind thus addressed her: "jupe, i have made up my mind to take you into my house; and when you are not at school, to employ you about mrs. gradgrind, who is rather an invalid. i have explained to miss louisa--this is miss louisa--the miserable but natural end of your late career; and you are to understand that the subject is not to be referred to any more. from this time you begin your history. you are at present ignorant, i know." "yes, sir, very," she answered curtseying. "i shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be strictly educated; and you will be a living proof of the advantages of the training you will receive. you will be reclaimed and formed. you have been in the habit now of reading to your father, and those people i found you among, i dare say?" said mr. gradgrind. "only to father and to merrylegs, sir. at least i mean to father, when merrylegs was always there." "never mind merrylegs, jupe," said mr. gradgrind with a frown. "i don't ask about him. i understand you have been in the habit of reading to your father, and what did you read to him, jupe?" "about the fairies, sir, and the dwarf, and the hunchback, and the genies," she sobbed out: "and about--" "hush!" exclaimed mr. gradgrind, "that is enough. never breathe a word of such destructive nonsense any more." then mr. gradgrind and his daughter took cecilia jupe off with them to stone lodge, where she speedily grew as pale as wax, and as heavy-eyed as all the other victims of mr. gradgrind's practical system of training. she had not an easy time of it, between mr. m'choakumchild and mrs. gradgrind, and was not without strong impulses, in the first months of her probation, to run away. it hailed facts all day long, so very hard, and life in general was opened to her as such a closely ruled ciphering book, that assuredly she would have run away, but for only one restraint. she believed that her father had not deserted her; she lived in the hope that he would come back, and in the faith that he would be made the happier by her remaining where she was. the wretched ignorance with which jupe clung to this consolation, rejecting the superior comfort of knowing on a sound arithmetical basis that her father was an unnatural vagabond, filled mr. gradgrind with pity. yet, what was to be done? mr. m'choakumchild reported that she had a very dense head for figures; that, once possessed with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact measurements; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of political economy, she had only yesterday returned to the question, "what is the first principle of this science?" the absurd answer, "to do unto others as i would that they should do unto me." mr. gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of knowledge, and that jupe must be "kept to it." so jupe was kept to it, and became low spirited, but no wiser. "it would be a fine thing to be you, miss louisa!" she said one night, when louisa had endeavored to make her perplexities for next day something clearer to her, to which louisa answered, "i don't know that, sissy. you are more useful to my mother. you are pleasanter to yourself, than _i_ am to _myself._" "but, if you please, miss louisa," sissy pleaded, "i am--oh so stupid! all through school hours i make mistakes. to-day for instance, mr. m'choakumchild was explaining to us about natural prosperity." "national, i think it must have been," observed louisa. "national prosperity," corrected sissy, "and he said, now, this schoolroom is a nation, and in this nation there are fifty millions of money. isn't this a prosperous nation? girl number twenty. isn't this a prosperous nation, and a'n't you in a thriving state? miss louisa, i said i didn't know. i thought i couldn't know whether it was a prosperous nation or not, and whether i was in a thriving state or not, unless i knew who had got the money, and whether any of it was mine. but that had nothing to do with it. it was not in the figures at all," said sissy, wiping her eyes. "that was a great mistake of yours," observed louisa. "yes, miss louisa, i know it was now. then mr. m'choakumchild said he would try me again. and he said, this schoolroom is an immense town, and in it there are a million inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are starved to death in the streets, in the course of a year. what is your remark on that proportion? and my remark was, that i thought it must be just as hard upon those who were starved, whether the others were a million or a million million. and that was wrong too. then mr. m'choakumchild said he would try me once more. and he said that in a given time a hundred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and only five hundred of them were drowned or burned to death. what is the percentage? and i said, miss;" here sissy fairly sobbed in confessing to her great error; "i said it was nothing, miss--to the relations and friends of the people who were killed--i shall never learn," said sissy. "and the worst of all is, that although my poor father wished me so much to learn, and although i am so anxious to learn, because he wished me to, i am afraid i don't like it." louisa stood looking at the pretty, modest head, as it drooped abashed before her, until it was raised again to glance at her face. then she asked: "did your father know so much himself, that he wished you to be well taught too?" sissy hesitated before replying, for this was forbidden ground, but louisa insisted upon continuing the conversation. "no, miss louisa," answered sissy, "father knows very little indeed. but he said mother was quite a scholar. she died when i was born. she was"--sissy made the terrible communication, nervously--"she was a dancer. we travelled about the country. father's a"--sissy whispered the awful word--"a clown." "to make the people laugh?" said louisa with a nod of intelligence. "yes." but they wouldn't laugh sometimes. lately they very often wouldn't, and he used to come home despairing. i tried to comfort him the best i could, and father said i did. i used to read to him to cheer up his courage, and he was very fond of that. often and often of a night, he used to forget all his troubles in wondering whether the sultan would let the lady go on with her story, or would have her head cut off before it was finished." "and your father was always kind?" asked louisa. "always, always!" returned sissy, clasping her hands. "kinder and kinder than i can tell. he was angry only one night, and that was not at me, but merrylegs, his performing dog. after he beat the dog, he lay down crying on the floor with him in his arms, and the dog licked his face." louisa saw that she was sobbing, and going to her, kissed her, took her hand, and sat down beside her. "finish by telling me how your father left you, sissy. the blame of telling the story, if there is any blame, is mine, not yours." "dear miss louisa," said sissy, sobbing yet; "i came home from the school that afternoon, and found poor father just come home too, from the booth. and he sat rocking himself over the fire, as if he was in pain. and i said, 'have you hurt yourself father?' and he said, 'a little, my darling.' then i saw that he was crying. the more i spoke to him, the more he hid his face; and shook all over, and said nothing but 'my darling'; and 'my love!' then he said he never gave any satisfaction now, that he was a shame and disgrace, and i should have done better without him all along. i said all the affectionate things to him that came into my heart, and presently he was quiet, and put his arms around my neck, and kissed me a great many times. then he asked me to fetch some of the stuff he used, for the little hurt he had had, and to get it at the best place, which was at the other end of town. then after kissing me again, he let me go. there is no more to tell, miss louisa. i keep the nine oils ready for him, and i know he will come back. every letter that i see in mr. gradgrind's hand takes my breath away, and blinds my eyes, for i think it comes from father, or from mr. sleary about father." after this whenever sissy dropped a curtsey to mr. gradgrind in the presence of his family, and asked if he had had any letter yet about her, louisa would suspend the occupation of the moment, and look for the reply as earnestly as sissy did. and when mr. gradgrind answered, "no, jupe, nothing of the sort," the trembling of sissy's lips would be repeated in louisa's face, and her eyes would follow sissy with compassion to the door. thus a warm friendship sprang up between the girls, and a similar one between the mathematical thomas and the clown's daughter. time with his innumerable horse-power presently turned out young thomas gradgrind a young man and louisa a young woman. the same great manufacturer passed sissy onward in his mill, and worked her up into a very pretty article, indeed. "i fear, jupe," said mr. gradgrind, "that your continuance at the school any longer would be useless." "i am afraid it would, sir," sissy answered with a curtsey. "i cannot disguise from you, jupe," said mr. gradgrind, "that the result of your probation there has greatly disappointed me. you are extremely deficient in your facts. your acquaintance with figures is very limited. you are altogether backward, and below the mark, yet i believe you have tried hard. i have observed you, and i can find no fault with you in that respect." "thank you, sir. i have thought sometimes;" sissy faltered, "that perhaps i tried to learn too much, and that if i had asked to be allowed to try a little less, i might have--" "no, jupe, no," said mr. gradgrind, shaking his head. "no. the course you pursued, you pursued according to the system, and there is no more to be said about it. i can only suppose that the circumstances of your early life were too unfavorable to the development of your reasoning powers, and that we began too late. still, as i have said already, i am disappointed." "i wish i could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of your protection of her." said sissy, weeping. "don't shed tears," added mr. gradgrind, "i don't complain of you. you are an affectionate, earnest, good young woman, and we must make that do." "thank you, sir, very much," said sissy, with a grateful curtsey. "you are useful to mrs. gradgrind, and you are serviceable in the family also; so i understand from miss louisa, and indeed, so i have observed myself. i therefore hope," said mr. gradgrind, "that you can make yourself happy in those relations." "i should have nothing to wish, sir, if--" "i understand you," said mr. gradgrind; "you refer to your father. i have heard from miss louisa that you still preserve that bottle. well! if your training in the science of arriving at exact results had been more successful, you would have been wiser on these points. i will say no more." he really liked sissy too well to have contempt for her. somehow or other, he had become possessed by an idea that there was something in this girl which could hardly be set forth in a tabular form; that there was something in her composition which defied the cold analysis of fact; that there was some great virtue in her loving-kindness which more than compensated for her deficiencies of mind. from that time sissy lived at stone lodge on equal terms with the rest of the family, and after louisa's marriage, cared for fretful mrs. gradgrind in her invalidism, with a sweet patience that endeared her to the poor woman. indeed the entire household were deeply attached to sissy, and, seeing the unselfishness of her daily life, even mr. gradgrind himself was forced to acknowledge that there was a greater teacher than m'choakumchild, with a system of education superior to the gradgrind system, and that the same great teacher had educated the clown's daughter to a higher degree of usefulness and courage than the gradgrind system had yet been able to produce. in fact, as time went on, mr. gradgrind was slowly discovering the flaws in his mathematical theories; finding out that laws and logic can never take the place of love in the development of a nature, and the discovery was a bitter one to him. despite their careful bringing-up by rule and measure, neither louisa nor thomas gradgrind, in their maturity, did any credit to their father's system, and when his mistakes with them became evident to the cold, proud man, and he realized how nearly he had wrecked their lives by those errors, the weight of his suffering was heavy upon him. then, realizing that all the facts in his storehouse of learning, could not teach him how to save his children, and win their love, it was to sissy that he turned for the information that he needed. when young thomas gradgrind robbed the bank with which he was connected, and was obliged to flee from justice, it was sissy who saved him from ruin. she sent him, with a note of explanation, to her old friend, mr. sleary,--whose whereabouts she happened to know at the time, and asked him to hide young thomas until he should have further advice from her. then she and louisa and mr. gradgrind journeyed hurriedly to the town, where they found the circus. a performance was just beginning when they arrived, and they found the culprit in the ring, disguised as a black servant. when the performance was over, mr. sleary came out and greeted them with great heartiness, exclaiming; "thethilia, it doth me good to thee you. you wath always a favorite with uth, and you've done uth credit thinth the old timeth, i'm thure." he then suggested that such members of his troupe as would remember her be called to see her, and presently sissy found herself amid the familiar scenes of her childhood, surrounded by an eager and affectionate group of her old comrades. while she was busily talking with them, mr. sleary entered into a consultation with mr. gradgrind upon the subject of his erring son's future. he then told the poor, distressed father that for sissy's sake, and because mr. gradgrind had been so kind to her, he would help the culprit to escape from the country, secretly, by night then, growing confidential, he added: "thquire, you don't need to be told that dogth ith wonderful animalth." "their instinct," said mr. gradgrind, "is surprising." "whatever you call it--and i'm bletht if i know what to call it"--said sleary, "it ith athtonithing. ith fourteen month ago, thquire, thinthe we wath at chethter. one morning there cometh into our ring, by the thage door, a dog. he had travelled a long way, he wath in very bad condition, he wath lame and pretty well blind. he went round as if he wath a theeking for a child he know'd; and then he comed to me, and thood on hith two fore-legth, weak ath he wath, and then he wagged hith tail and died. thquire, that dog wath merrylegth." "sissy's father's dog!" "thethilia's fatherth old dog. now, thquire, i can take my oath, from my knowledge of that dog, that that man wath dead--and buried--afore that dog came back to me. we talked it over a long time, whether i thould write or not, but we agreed, no. there'th nothing comfortable to tell; why unthettle her mind, and make her unhappy? tho, whether her father bathely detherted her; or whether he broke his own heart alone, rather than pull her down along with him, never will be known, now, thquire, till we know how the dogth findth uth out!" "she keeps the bottle that he sent her for, to this hour, and she will believe in his affection to the last moment of her life," said mr. gradgrind. "it theemth to prethent two things to a perthon, don't it?" said mr. sleary musingly, "one, that there ith a love in the world, not all thelf-interest, after all, but thomething very different; t'other, that it hath a way of its own of calculating with ith as hard to give a name to, ath the wayth of the dogth ith!" mr. gradgrind looked out of the window, and made no reply. he was deep in thought, and the result of his meditation became evident from that day in a gradual broadening of his nature and purposes. he never again attempted to replace nature's instincts and affections by his own system of education, and as the years went by he made no further attempt to destroy sissy's loving faith in that father who had left her long ago; he only tried to compensate her for that loss as best he could;--and for the education which led to the softening of his hard, cold nature, the credit belongs to the daughter of a clown, to whom love meant more than logic. florence dombey [illustration: florence dombey] florence dombey there never was a child more loving or more lovable than florence dombey. there never was a child more ready to respond to loving ministrations than she, more eager to yield herself in docile obedience to a parent's wish; and to her mother she clung with a desperate affection at variance with her years. but the sad day came when, clasped in her mother's arms, the little creature, with her perfectly colorless face, and deep, dark eyes, never moved her soft cheek from her mother's face, nor looked on those who stood around, nor shed a tear, understanding that soon she would be bereft of that mother's care and love. "mamma!" cried the child at last, sobbing aloud; "oh, dear mamma! oh, dear mamma!" then, clinging fast to that slight spar within her arms, the mother drifted out upon the dark and unknown sea that rolls round all the world, leaving florence and the new-born baby brother in the father's care. alas for florence! to that father,--the pompous head of the great firm of dombey and son--girls never showed a sufficient justification for their existence, and this one of his own was an object of supreme indifference to him; while upon the tiny boy, his heir and future partner in the firm, he lavished all his interest, centred all his hopes and affection. after her mother's death, florence was taken away by an aunt; and a nurse, named polly richards, was secured for baby paul. a few weeks later, as polly was sitting in her own room with her young charge, the door was quietly opened, and a dark-eyed little girl looked in. "it's miss florence, come home from her aunt's, no doubt," thought richards, who had never seen the child before. "hope i see you well, miss." "is that my brother?" asked the child, pointing to the baby. "yes, my pretty," answered richards, "come and kiss him." but the child, instead of advancing, looked her earnestly in the face, and said: "what have you done with my mamma?" "lord bless the little creetur!" cried richards. "what a sad question! _i_ done? nothing, miss." "what have they done with my mamma?" cried the child. "i never saw such a melting thing in all my life!" said richards. "come nearer here; come, my dear miss! don't be afraid of me." "i'm not afraid of you," said the child, drawing nearer, "but i want to know what they have done with my mamma." "my darling," said richards, "come and sit down by me, and i'll tell you a story." with a quick perception that it was intended to relate to what she had asked, little florence sat down on a stool at the nurse's feet, looking up into her face. "once upon a time," said richards, "there was a lady--a very good lady, and her little daughter dearly loved her--who, when god thought it right that it should be so, was taken ill, and died. died, never to be seen again by anyone on earth, and was buried in the ground where the trees grow." "the cold ground," said the child, shuddering. "no, the warm ground," returned polly, seizing her advantage, "where the ugly little seeds turn into beautiful flowers, and into grass, and into corn, and i don't know what all besides. where good people turn into bright angels, and fly away to heaven!" the child who had drooped her head, raised it again, and sat looking at her intently. "so; let me see," said polly, not a little flurried between this earnest scrutiny, her desire to comfort the child, her sudden success, and her very slight confidence in her own powers. "so, when this lady died, she went to god! and she prayed to him, this lady did," said polly, affecting herself beyond measure, being heartily in earnest, "to teach her little daughter to be sure of that in her heart; and to know that she was happy there, and loved her still; and to hope and try--oh, all her life--to meet her there one day, never, never, never to part any more." "it was my mamma!" exclaimed the child, springing up, and clasping her around the neck. "and the child's heart," said polly, drawing her to her breast, "the little daughter's heart was so full of the truth of this, that even when she heard it from a strange nurse that couldn't tell it right, but was a poor mother herself, and that was all, she found a comfort in it--didn't feel so lonely--sobbed and cried upon her bosom--took kindly to the baby lying in her lap--and--there, there, there!" said polly, smoothing the child's curls, and dropping tears upon her. "there, poor dear!" "oh, well, miss floy! and won't your pa be angry neither?" cried a quick voice at the door, proceeding from a short, brown womanly girl of fourteen, with little snub nose, and black eyes like jet beads, "when it was tickerlerly given out that you wasn't to go and worrit the nurse." "she don't worry me," was the surprised rejoinder of polly. "i'm very fond of children. miss florence has just come home, hasn't she?" "yes, mrs. richards, and here, miss floy, before you've been in the house a quarter of an hour, you go a-smearing your wet face against the expensive mourning that mrs. richards is a-wearing for your ma!" with this remonstrance, young spitfire, whose real name was susan nipper, detached the child from her new friend by a wrench--as if she were a tooth. but she seemed to do it more in the sharp exercise of her official functions, than with any deliberate unkindness. "she'll be quite happy, now that she's come home again," said polly, nodding to her with a smile, "and will be so pleased to see her dear papa to-night." "lork, mrs. richards!" cried miss nipper, taking up her words with a jerk, "don't! see her dear papa, indeed! i should like to see her do it! her pa's a deal too wrapped up in somebody else; and before there was somebody else to be wrapped up in, she never was a favorite. girls are thrown away in this house, i assure you." "you surprise me," cried polly. "hasn't mr. dombey seen her since--" "no," interrupted miss nipper. "not once since. and he hadn't hardly set his eyes upon her before that, for months and months, and i don't think he would know her for his own child if he was to meet her in the streets to-morrow. oh, there's a tartar within a hundred miles of here, i can tell you, mrs. richards!" said susan nipper; "wish you good morning, mrs. richards. now miss floy, you come along with me, and don't go hanging back like a naughty wicked child, that judgments is no example to, don't." in spite of being thus adjured, and in spite also of some hauling on the part of susan nipper, little florence broke away, and kissed her new friend affectionately, but susan nipper made a charge at her, and swept her out of the room. when polly richards was left alone, her heart was sore for the motherless little girl, and she determined to devise some means of having florence beside her lawfully and without rebellion. an opening happened to present itself that very night. she had been rung down into the conservatory, as usual, and was walking about with the baby in her arms, when mr. dombey came up and stopped her. "he looks thriving," said mr. dombey, glancing with great interest at paul's tiny face, which she uncovered for his observation. "they give you everything that you want, i hope?" "oh, yes, thank you, sir;" she hesitated so, however, that mr. dombey stopped again and looked at her inquiringly. "i believe nothing is so good for making children lively, sir, as seeing other children playing about them," observed polly, taking courage. "i think i mentioned to you, richards, when you came here," said mr. dombey, with a frown; "that i wished you to see as little of your family as possible. you can continue your walk, if you please." with that he disappeared into an inner room, and polly felt that she had fallen into disgrace without the least advancement of her purpose; but next night when she came down, he called her to him. "if you really think that kind of society is good for the child," he said sharply, as if there had been no interval since she proposed it, "where's miss florence?" "nothing could be better than miss florence, sir," said polly eagerly, "but i understood from her little maid that they were not to--" but mr. dombey rang the bell, and gave his orders before she had a chance to finish the sentence. "tell them always to let miss florence be with richards when she chooses," he commanded; and, the iron being hot, richards striking on it boldly, requested that the child might be sent down at once to make friends with her little brother. when florence timidly presented herself, had mr. dombey looked towards her with a father's eye, he might have read in her keen glance the passionate desire to run to him, crying, "oh, father, try to love me,--there is no one else"; the dread of a repulse; the fear of being too bold and of offending him. but he saw nothing of this. he saw her pause at the door and look towards him, and he saw no more. "come here, florence," said her father coldly. "have you nothing to say to me?" the tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his face, were frozen by the expression it wore. she looked down again, and put out her trembling hand, which mr. dombey took loosely in his own. "there! be a good girl," he said, patting her on the head, and regarding her with a disturbed and doubtful look, "go to richards! go!" his little daughter hesitated for another instant, as though she would have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he might raise her in his arms and kiss her. but he dropped her hand and turned away. still polly persevered, and managed so well with little paul as to make it very plain that he was all the livelier for his sister's company. when it was time for florence to go to bed, the nurse urged her to say good night to her father, but the child hesitated, and mr. dombey called from the inner room; "it doesn't matter. you can let her come and go without regarding me." the child shrunk as she listened, and was gone before her humble friend looked around again. * * * * * just around the corner from mr. dombey's office was the little shop of a nautical-instrument maker whose name was solomon gills. the stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers, barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, and every kind of an instrument used in the working of a ship's course, or the keeping of a ship's reckoning, or the prosecuting of a ship's discovery. old prints of ships hung in frames upon the walls; outlandish shells, seaweeds and mosses decorated the chimney-piece; the little wainscoted parlor was lighted by a skylight, like a cabin, the shop itself seemed almost to become a sea-going ship-shape concern, wanting only good sea room, in the event of an unexpected launch, to work its way securely to any desert island in the world. here solomon gills lived, in skipper-like state, all alone with his nephew, walter; a boy of fourteen, who looked quite enough like a midshipman to carry out the prevailing idea. it is half past five o'clock, and an autumn afternoon. solomon gills is wondering where walter is, when a voice exclaims, "halloa, uncle sol!" and the instrument-maker, turning briskly around, sees a cheerful-looking, merry boy fresh with running home in the rain; fair-faced, bright-eyed and curly-haired. "well, uncle, how have you got on without me all day? is dinner ready? i'm so hungry." "as to getting on," said solomon, good-naturedly, "it would be odd if i couldn't get on without a young dog like you a great deal better than with you. as to dinner being ready, it's been waiting for you this half-hour. as to being hungry, i am!" "come along, then, uncle!" cried the boy, and uncle sol and his nephew were speedily engaged on a fried sole, with a prospect of steak to follow. "now," said the old man eagerly, "let's hear something about the firm." "oh! there's not much to be told, uncle," said the boy, plying his knife and fork. "when mr. dombey came in, he walked up to my seat--i wish he wasn't so solemn and stiff, uncle--and told me you had spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in the house accordingly, and that i was expected to be attentive and punctual, and then he went away. i thought he didn't seem to like me much." "you mean, i suppose." observed the instrument-maker, "that you didn't seem to like him much." "well, uncle," returned the boy laughing, "perhaps so; i never thought of that." solomon looked a little graver as he finished his dinner, and glanced from time to time at the boy's bright face. when dinner was done, he went down into a little cellar, and returned with a bottle covered with dust and dirt. "why, uncle sol!" said the boy, "what are you about? that's the wonderful madeira--there's only one more bottle!" uncle sol nodded his head, and having drawn the cork in solemn silence, filled two glasses, and set the bottle and a third clean glass on the table. "you shall drink the other bottle, wally," he said, "when you come to good fortune; when you are a thriving, respected, happy man; when the start in life you have made to-day shall have brought you--as i pray heaven it may!--to a smooth part of the course you have to run, my child. my love to you!" they clinked their glasses together, and were deep in conversation, when an addition to the little party made its appearance, in the shape of a gentleman with a hook instead of a hand attached to his right wrist; very bushy black eyebrows; and a thick stick in his left hand, covered all over (like his nose) with knobs. he wore a loose black silk handkerchief round his neck, and such a very large shirt-collar that it looked like a small sail over his wide suit of blue. he was evidently the person for whom the spare wineglass was intended, and evidently knew it; for having taken off his coat, and hung up his hard glazed hat, he brought a chair to where the clean glass was, and sat himself down behind it. he was usually addressed as captain, this visitor; and had been a pilot, or a skipper, or a privateer's man, or all three perhaps; and was a very salt looking man indeed. his face brightened as he shook hands with uncle and nephew; but he seemed to be of a laconic disposition, and merely said: "how goes it?" "all well," said mr. gills, pushing the bottle towards the new-comer, captain cuttle, who thereupon proceeded to fill his glass, and the wonderful madeira loosened his tongue to the extent of giving utterance to a prodigous oration for walter's benefit. "come," cried solomon gills, "we must finish the bottle." "stand by!" said captain cuttle, filling his glass again. "give the boy some more." "yes," said sol, "a little more. we'll finish the bottle to the house,--walter's house. why, it may be his house one of these days, in part. who knows? sir richard whittington married his master's daughter." "turn again, whittington, lord mayor of london, and when you are old, you will never depart from it," interposed the captain. "wal'r, overhaul the book, my lad!" "and although mr. dombey hasn't a daughter--" sol began. "yes, yes, he has, uncle," said the boy, reddening and laughing. "i know he has. some of them were talking about it in the office to-day. and they do say that he's taken a dislike to her, and that she's left unnoticed among the servants, while he thinks of no one but his son. that's what they say. of course i don't know." "he knows all about her already, you see," said the instrument-maker. "nonsense, uncle," cried the boy reddening again; "how can i help hearing what they tell me?" "the son's a little in our way at present, i'm afraid," added the old man, humoring the joke. "nevertheless, we'll drink to him," pursued sol. "so, here's to dombey and son." "oh, very well, uncle," said the boy merrily. "since you have introduced the mention of her, and have said that i know all about her, i shall make bold to amend the toast. so,--here's to dombey--and son--and daughter!" meanwhile, in mr. dombey's mansion, baby paul was thriving under the watchful care of polly richards, mr. dombey, and mr. dombey's friends, and the day of his christening arrived. on that important occasion, the baby's excitement was so great that no one could soothe him until florence was summoned. as she hid behind her nurse, he followed her with his eyes; and when she peeped out with a merry cry to him, he sprang up and crowed lustily--laughing outright when she ran in upon him, and seeming to fondle her curls with his tiny hands while she smothered him with kisses. was mr. dombey pleased to see this? he did not show it. if any sunbeam stole into the room to light the children at their play, it never reached his face. he looked on so coldly that the warm light vanished, even from the laughing eyes of little florence when, at last, they happened to meet his. the contemplation of paul in his christening robe made his nurse yearn for a sight of her own first-born, although this was a pleasure strictly forbidden by mr. dombey's orders. but the longing so overpowered her that she consulted miss nipper as to the possibility of gratifying it, and that young woman, eager herself for an expedition, urged polly to visit her home. so, the next morning the two nurses set out together: richards carrying paul, and susan leading little florence by the hand, and giving her such jerks and pokes as she considered it wholesome to administer. then for a brief half-hour, polly enjoyed the longed-for pleasure of being again in the bosom of her family, but the visit had a sad ending, for on the way back, passing through a crowded thoroughfare the little party became separated. a thundering alarm of mad bull! was raised. with a wild confusion of people running up and down, and shouting, and wheels running over them, and boys fighting, and mad bulls coming up, and the nurse in the midst of all these dangers, being torn to pieces, florence screamed and ran. she ran until she was exhausted, then found with a sensation of terror not to be described, that she was quite alone. "susan! susan!" cried florence. "oh, where are they?" "where are they?" said an old woman, hobbling across from the opposite side of the road. "why did you run away from 'em?" "i was frightened," answered florence. "i didn't know what i did. i thought they were with me. where are they?" the old woman took her by the wrist, and said, "i'll show you." she was a very ugly old woman indeed, miserably dressed, and carried some skins over her arm. florence was afraid of her, and looked, hesitating, up the street. it was a solitary place, and there was no one in it but herself and the old woman. "you needn't be frightened now," said the old woman, still holding her tight "come along with me." "i--don't know you. what's your name?" asked florence. "mrs. brown," said the old woman, "good mrs. brown. susan ain't far off," said good mrs. brown, "and the others are close to her, and nobody's hurt." the child shed tears of delight on hearing this, and accompanied the old woman willingly. they had not gone far, when they stopped before a shabby little house in a dirty little lane. opening the door with a key she took out of her pocket, mrs. brown pushed the child into a back room, where there was a great heap of rags lying on the floor, a heap of bones, and a heap of sifted dust. but there was no furniture at all, and the walls and ceiling were quite black. the child became so terrified, that she was stricken speechless, and looked as though about to swoon. "now, don't be a young mule," said good mrs. brown, reviving her with a shake. "i'm not a' going to keep you, even above an hour. don't vex me. if you don't, i tell you, i won't hurt you. but if you do, i'll kill you. i could have you killed at any time--even if you was in your own bed at home. now let's know who you are, and what you are, and all about it." the old woman's threats and promises, and florence's habit of being quiet, and repressing what she felt, enabled her to tell her little history. mrs. brown listened attentively until she had finished. "i want that pretty frock, miss dombey," said good mrs. brown, "and that little bonnet, and a petticoat or two, and those shoes, miss dombey, and anything else you can spare. come! take 'em off." florence obeyed as fast as her trembling hands could allow, keeping all the while, a frightened eye on mrs. brown, who examined each article of apparel at leisure, and seemed tolerably well satisfied with their quality and value; she then produced a worn-out girl's cloak, and the crushed remnants of a girl's bonnet, as well as other tattered things. in this dainty raiment she instructed florence to dress herself, and as this seemed a prelude to her release, the child complied as fast as possible. mrs. brown then resumed her seat on the bones, and smoked a very short, black pipe, after which she gave the child a rabbit-skin to carry, that she might appear like her ordinary companion, and led her forth into the streets; but she cautioned her, with threats of deadly vengeance in case of disobedience, to go directly to her father's office in the city, also to wait at the street corner where she would be left, until the clock struck three, and these directions florence promised faithfully to observe. at length mrs. brown left her changed and ragged little friend at a corner, where, true to her promise, she remained until the steeple rang out three o'clock, when after often looking over her shoulder, lest the all-powerful spies of mrs. brown should take offence at that, she hurried off as fast as she could in her slipshod shoes, holding the rabbit-skin tight in her hand. tired of walking, stunned by the noise and confusion, anxious for her brother and the nurses, terrified by what she had undergone, and what was yet before her, florence once or twice could not help stopping and crying bitterly, but few people noticed her, in the garb she wore, or if they did, believed that she was tutored to excite compassion, and passed on. it was late in the afternoon when she peeped into a kind of wharf, and asked a stout man there if he could tell her the way to dombey & son's. the man looked attentively at her, then called another man, who ran up an archway, and very soon returned with a blithe-looking boy who he said was in mr. dombey's employ. hearing this, florence felt re-assured; ran eagerly up to him, and caught his hand in both of hers. "i'm lost, if you please!" said florence. "i was lost this morning, a long way from here--and i have had my own clothes taken away since--and my name is florence dombey, and, oh dear, take care of me, if you please!" sobbed florence, giving full vent to her childish feelings. "don't cry, miss dombey," said young walter gay, the nephew of solomon gills, in a transport of enthusiasm. "what a wonderful thing for me that i am here. you are as safe now as if you were guarded by a whole boat's crew of picked men from a man-of-war. oh, don't cry!" "i won't cry any more," said florence. "i'm only crying for joy." "crying for joy!" thought walter, "and i'm the cause of it. come along, miss dombey, let me see the villain who will molest you now!" so walter, looking immensely fierce, led off florence looking very happy; and as mr. dombey's office was closed for the night, he led her to his uncle's, to leave her there while he should go and tell mr. dombey that she was safe, and bring her back some clothes. "halloa, uncle sol," cried walter, bursting into the shop; "here's a wonderful adventure! here's mr. dombey's daughter lost in the streets, and robbed of her clothes by an old witch of a woman--found by me--brought home to our parlor to rest--here--just help me lift the little sofa near the fire, will you, uncle sol?--cut some dinner for her, will you, uncle; throw those shoes under the grate, miss florence--put your feet on the fender to dry--how damp they are!--here's an adventure, uncle, eh?--god bless my soul, how hot i am!" solomon gills was quite as hot, by sympathy; and in excessive bewilderment, he patted florence's head, pressed her to eat, pressed her to drink, rubbed the soles of her feet with his pocket-handkerchief, heated at the fire, followed his locomotive nephew with his eyes and ears, and had no clear perception of anything except that he was being constantly knocked against, and tumbled over by that excited young gentleman, as he darted about the room, attempting to accomplish twenty things at once, and doing nothing at all. "here, wait a minute, uncle," he continued, "till i run upstairs and get another jacket on, and then i'll be off. i say, uncle, isn't this an adventure?" "my dear boy," said solomon, "it is the most extraordinary--" "no, but do, uncle, please--do, miss florence--dinner, you know, uncle." "yes, yes, yes," cutting instantly into a leg of mutton, as if he were catering for a giant. "i'll take care of her, wally! pretty dear! famished, of course. you go and get ready. lord bless me! sir richard whittington, thrice mayor of london!" while walter was preparing to leave, florence, overcome by fatigue, had sunk into a doze before the fire and when the boy returned, she was sleeping peacefully. "that's capital!" he whispered, "don't wake her, uncle sol!" "no, no," answered solomon, "pretty child!" "_pretty_, indeed!" cried walter, "i never saw such a face! now i'm off." arriving at mr. dombey's house, and breathlessly announcing his errand to the servant, walter was shown into the library, where he confronted mr. dombey. "oh! beg your pardon, sir," said walter, rushing up to him; "but i'm happy to say, it's all right, sir. miss dombey's found!" "i told you she would certainly be found," said mr. dombey calmly, to the others in the room. "let the servants know that no further steps are necessary. this boy who brings the information is young gay from the office. how was my daughter found, sir? i know how she was lost." here he looked majestically at richards. "but how was she found? who found her?" it was quite out of walter's power to be coherent, but he rendered himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and told why he had come alone. "you hear this, girl?" said mr. dombey sternly, to susan nipper. "take what is necessary and return immediately with this young man to fetch miss florence home. gay, you will be rewarded to-morrow." "oh! thank you, sir," said walter. "you are very kind. i'm sure i was not thinking of any reward sir." "you are a boy," said mr. dombey, almost fiercely; "and what you think of, or what you affect to think of, is of little consequence. you have done well, sir. don't undo it." returning to his uncle's with miss nipper, walter found that florence, much refreshed by sleep, had dined and come to be on terms of perfect confidence and ease with old sol. miss nipper caught her in her arms, and made a very hysterical meeting of it. then, converting the parlor into a private tiring-room, she dressed her in proper clothes, and presently led her forth to say farewell. "good-night," said florence to the elder man, "you have been very good to me." uncle sol was quite delighted, and kissed her like her grandfather. "good-night, walter," she said, "i'll never forget you, no! indeed i never will. good-by!" the entrance of the lost child at home made a slight sensation, but not much. mr. dombey kissed her once upon the forehead, and cautioned her not to wander anywhere again with treacherous attendants. he then dismissed the culprit polly richards, from his service, telling her to leave immediately, and it was a dagger in the haughty father's heart to see florence holding to her dress, and crying to her not to go. not that he cared to whom his daughter turned, or from whom turned away. the swift, sharp agony struck through him as he thought of what his son might do. his son cried lustily that night, at all events; and the next day a new nurse, wickam by name, took polly's place. she lavished every care upon little paul, yet all her vigilance could not make him a thriving boy. when he was nearly five years old, he was a pretty little fellow, but so very delicate that mr. dombey became alarmed about him, and decided to send him at once to the seashore. so to brighton, paul and florence and nurse wickam went, and boarded with a certain mrs. pipchin there. on saturdays mr. dombey came down to a hotel near by, and paul and florence would go and have tea with him, and every day they spent their time upon the sands, and florence was always content when paul was happy. while the children were thus living at brighton, a warrant was served upon old solomon gills, by a broker, because of a payment overdue upon a bond debt. old sol was overcome by the extent of this calamity, which he could not avert, and walter hurried out to fetch captain cuttle to discuss the situation. to the lad's dismay, the captain insisted upon applying to mr. dombey at once for the necessary loan which would help old sol out of his difficulty. so walter proceeded with him to brighton as fast as coach horses could carry them, and on a sunday morning while mr. dombey was at breakfast, florence came running in, her face suffused with a bright color, and her eyes sparkling joyfully, and cried: "papa! papa! here's walter, and he won't come in!" "who?" cried mr. dombey, "what does she mean,--what is this?" "walter, papa," said florence timidly; "who found me when i was lost!" "tell the boy to come in," said mr. dombey. "now, gay, what is the matter?" tremblingly walter gay stood in the presence of his proud employer, and made known his uncle's distress, and when he ceased speaking, captain cuttle stepped forward, and clearing a space among the breakfast cups at mr. dombey's elbow, produced a silver watch, ready money to the amount of thirteen pounds and half a crown, two teaspoons and a pair of battered sugar-tongs, and piling them up into a heap, that they might look as precious as possible, said: "half a loaf is better than no bread, and the same remark holds good with crumbs. there's a few. annuity of one hundred pounds p'rannum also ready to be made over!" florence had listened tearfully to walter's sad tale and to the captain's offer of his valuables, and little paul now tried to comfort her; but mr. dombey, watching them, saw only his son's wistful expression, thought only of his pleasure, and after taking the child on his knee, and having a brief consulation with him, he announced pompously that master paul would lend the money to walter's uncle. young gay tried to express his gratitude for this favor, but mr. dombey stopped him short. then, sweeping the captain's property from him, he added, "have the goodness to take these things away, sir!" captain cuttle was so much struck by the magnanimity of mr. dombey, in refusing treasures lying heaped up to his hand, that when he had deposited them in his pockets again, he could not refrain from grasping that gentleman's right hand in his own solitary left, before following walter out of the room, and mr. dombey shivered at his touch. florence was running after them, to send some message to old sol, when mr. dombey called her back, bidding her stay where she was, and so the episode ended. when the children had been nearly twelve months at mrs. pipchin's, mr. dombey decided to send paul to dr. blimber's boarding-school where his education would be properly begun. accordingly, paul began his studies in that hot-bed of learning, where the dreamy, delicate child with his quaint ways soon became a favorite with teachers and pupils. the process of being educated was difficult for one so young and frail, and he might have sunk beneath the burden of his tasks but for looking forward to the weekly visit to his sister at mrs. pipchin's. oh, saturdays! oh, happy saturdays! when florence always came for him at noon, and never would in any weather stay away: these saturdays were sabbaths for at least two little christians among all the jews, and did the holy sabbath work of strengthening and knitting up a brother's and a sister's love. seeing her brother's difficulty with his lessons, florence procured books similar to his, and sat down at night to track his footsteps through the thorny ways of learning; and being naturally quick, and taught by that most wonderful of masters, love, it was not long before she gained upon paul's heels, and caught, and passed him. and high was her reward, when one saturday evening she sat down by his side and made all that was so dark, clear and plain before him. it was nothing but a startled look in paul's wan face--a flush--a smile--and then a close embrace--but god knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment for her trouble. "oh, floy!" he cried, "how i love you!" he said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her, very quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room, three or four times, that he loved her. regularly after that florence sat down with him on saturday night, and assisted him through so much as they could anticipate together of his next week's work. and so the months went by, until the midsummer vacation was near at hand, and the great party which was to celebrate the breaking up of school, was about to come off. some weeks before this, paul had had a fainting turn, and had not recovered his strength, in consequence of which, he was enjoying complete rest from lessons, and it was clear to every one, that, once at home, he would never come back to dr. blimber's or to any school again, and to no one was the sad truth more evident than to florence. on the evening of the great party florence came, looking so beautiful in her simple ball dress, with her fresh flowers in her hand, that she was the admiration of all the young gentlemen of the school, and particularly of mr. toots, the head boy; a simple youth with an engaging manner, and the habit of blushing and chuckling when addressed. mr. toots had made paul his especial favorite and charge, and was well repaid for his devotion to the boy by the gracious appreciation which florence showed him for it, and it was to the care of mr. toots that paul, when leaving, intrusted the dog diogenes, who had never received a friend into his confidence before paul had become his companion. the brother and sister remained together for a time at mrs. pipchin's, then went back to their home in london, where little paul's life ebbed away, and his father's hopes were crushed by the blow. there was a hush through mr. dombey's great mansion when the child was gone, and florence;--was she so alone in the bleak world that nothing else remained to her except her little maid? nothing. at first, when the house subsided into its accustomed course she could do nothing but weep, and wander up and down, and sometimes, in a sudden pang of desolate remembrance, fly to her own chamber, lay her face down on her bed, and know no consolation. but it is not in the nature of pure love to burn so fiercely and unkindly long. soon, in the midst of the dismal house, her low voice in the twilight slowly touched an old air to which she had so often listened with paul's head upon her arm. and after that, and when it was quite dark, a little strain of music trembled in the room, repeated often, in the shadowy solitude; and broken murmurs of the strain still trembled on the keys when the sweet voice was hushed in tears. one day florence was amazed at receiving a visit from mr. toots, who entered the room with much hesitation, and, with a series of chuckles, laughs, and blushes, informed her that he had brought her little paul's pet, the dog diogenes, as a companion in her loneliness. "he ain't a lady's dog, you know," said mr. toots, "but i hope you won't mind that. if you would like to have him, he's at the door." in fact, diogenes was at that moment staring through the window of a hackney cabriolet, into which he had been ensnared on a false pretence of rats among the straw. sooth to say, he was as unlike a lady's dog as dog might be; and in his gruff anxiety to get out, gave short yelps, and overbalancing himself by the intensity of his efforts, tumbled down into the straw, and then sprung up panting again, putting out his tongue, as if he had come express to a dispensary to be examined for his health. but though diogenes was as ridiculous a dog as one would meet with on a summer's day; a blundering, ill-favored, clumsy, bullet-headed dog, continually acting on the wrong idea that there was an enemy in the neighborhood whom it was meritorious to bark at; and though he was far from good-tempered, and certainly was not clever, and had hair all over his eyes, and a comical nose, and an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice,--he was dearer to florence, in virtue of paul's parting remembrance of him, and that request that he might be taken care of, than the most valuable and beautiful of his kind. so dear, indeed, was this same ugly diogenes, and so welcome to her, that she kissed the hand of mr. toots in her gratitude. and when diogenes, released, came tearing up the stairs and, bouncing into the room, dived under all the furniture, and wound a long iron chain that dangled from his neck round legs of chairs and tables, and then tugged at it until his eyes nearly started out of his head; and when he growled at mr. toots, who affected familiarity, florence was as pleased with him as if he had been a miracle of discretion. mr. toots was so overjoyed by the success of his present, and so delighted to see florence bending over diogenes, smoothing his coarse back with her little delicate hand--diogenes graciously allowing it from the first moment of their acquaintance--that he felt it difficult to take leave, and would, no doubt have been a much longer time in making up his mind to do so, if he had not been assisted by diogenes himself, who suddenly took it into his head to bay at mr. toots, and to make short runs at him with his mouth open. not exactly seeing his way to the end of these demonstrations, mr. toot with chuckles, lapsed out of the door, and got away. "come, then, di! dear di! make friends with your new mistress. let us love each other, di!" said florence, fondling his shaggy head. and di, the rough and gruff, as if his hairy hide were pervious to the tear that dropped upon it, and his dog's heart melted as it fell, put his nose up to her face and swore fidelity. a banquet was immediately provided for him, and when he had eaten and drunk his fill, he went to florence, rose up on his hind legs, with his awkward fore-paws on her shoulders, licked her face and hands, nestled his great head against her heart, and wagged his tail till he was tired finally, he coiled himself up at her feet, and went to sleep. that same night susan nipper told her mistress that mr. dombey was to leave home the next day for a trip,--which piece of news filled florence with dismay, and she sat musing sadly until midnight. she was little more than a child in years,--not yet fourteen--and the loneliness and gloom of such an hour in the great house might have set an older fancy brooding on vague terrors. but her innocent imagination was too full of one theme to admit them. nothing wandered in her thought but love; a wandering love indeed, and cast away, but turning always to her father. she could not go to bed, without making her nightly pilgrimage to his door. the moment she touched it she found that it was open, and there was a light within. the first impulse of the timid child--and she yielded to it--was to retire swiftly. a next, to go back, and to enter. she turned back, urged on by the love within her, and glided in. her father sat at his old table, in the middle of the room. his face was turned towards her. it looked worn and dejected, and in the loneliness surrounding him, there was an appeal to florence that struck home, but when she spoke to him, the sternness of his glance and words so overcame her that she shrank away,--and sobbing, silently ascended to her room again. diogenes was broad awake, and waiting for his little mistress. "oh, di! oh, dear di! love me for his sake!" diogenes already loved her for his own, and did not care how much he showed it. so he made himself vastly ridiculous by performing a variety of uncouth bounces, and concluded, when poor florence was at last asleep, by scratching open her bedroom door; rolling up his bed into a pillow; lying down on the boards at the full length of his tether with his head toward her; and looking lazily at her, upside down, out of the tops of his eyes, until, from winking and blinking, he fell asleep himself, and dreamed with gruff barks, of his enemy. about this time walter gay was informed by mr. dombey of his appointment to a junior position in the firm's counting house in the barbadoes. the boy ever since he first saw florence had thought of her with admiration and compassion, pitying her loneliness; and now when he was about to cross the ocean, his first thought was to seek audience with her little maid, to tell her of his going, to say to her that his uncle had had an interest in miss dombey ever since the night when she was lost, and always wished her well and happy, and always would be proud and glad to serve her, if she should need that service. upon receiving the message, florence hastened with susan nipper to the old instrument-maker's shop, and they passed into the parlor so suddenly that uncle sol, in surprise at seeing them, sprang out of his own chair and nearly tumbled over another, as he exclaimed, "miss dombey!" "is it possible!" cried walter, starting up in his turn. "here!" "yes," said florence, advancing to him. "i was afraid you might be going away, and hardly thinking of me. and, walter, there is something i wish to say to you before you go, and you must call me florence, if you please, and not speak like a stranger. my dear brother before he died said that he was very fond of you, and said, 'remember walter'; and if you will be a brother to me, walter, now that i have none on earth, i'll be your sister all my life, and think of you like one, wherever we may be!" in her sweet simplicity, she held out both her hands, and walter, taking them, stooped down and touched the tearful face; and it seemed to him in doing so, that he responded to her innocent appeal beside the dead child's bed. after walter's departure, florence lived alone as before, in the great dreary house, and the blank walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare, as if they had a gorgon-like mind to stare her youth and beauty into stone. no magic dwelling-place in magic story, shut up in the heart of a thick wood, was ever more solitary and deserted to the fancy than was her father's mansion in its grim reality. the spell upon it was more wasting than the spell which used to set enchanted houses sleeping once upon a time, but left their waking freshness unimpaired. but florence bloomed there, like the king's fair daughter in the story. her books, her music, and her daily teachers were her only real companions, except susan nipper and diogenes, and she lived within the circle of her innocent pursuits and thoughts, and nothing harmed her. she could go down to her father's rooms now without fear of repulse. she could put everything in order for him, binding little nosegays for his table, changing them as they withered, and he did not come back, preparing something for him every day, and leaving some timid mark of her presence near his usual seat. waking in the night, perhaps, she would tremble at the thought of his coming home and angrily rejecting it, and would hurry down and bring it away. at another time she would only lay her face upon his desk, and leave a kiss there, and a tear. still no one knew of this. her father did not know--she held it from that time--how much she loved him. she was very young, and had no mother, and had never learned, by some fault or misfortune, how to express to him that she loved him. she would try to gain that art in time, and win him to a better knowledge of his only child. thus florence lived alone in the deserted house, and day succeeded day in a monotony of loneliness until yielding to susan nipper's constant request florence consented to pay a visit to some friends who lived at fulham on the thames. just at this time she learned that walter's ship was overdue, and no news had been received of her, and, her mind filled with sad forebodings, she went to see old sol, she found him tearful and desolate, broken down by the weight of his anxiety, refusing to be comforted even by the hopeful words of captain cuttle. so it was with a heavy heart that she went to pay her visit, accompanied by her little maid. there were some other children staying at the skettleses. children who were frank and happy, with fathers and mothers. children who had no restraint upon their love, and showed it freely. florence thoughtfully observed them, sought to find out from them what simple art they knew, and she knew not; how she could be taught by them to show her father how she loved him, and to win his love again. but all her efforts failed to give her the secret of the nameless grace she sought, among the youthful company who were assembled in the house, or among the children of the poor, whom she often visited. of walter she thought constantly. her tears fell often for his sufferings, but rarely for his supposed death, and never long. thus matters stood with florence on the day she went home, gladly, to her old secluded life. "you'll be glad to go through the old rooms, won't you, susan," said florence as they turned into the familiar street. "well, miss," returned the nipper, "i wont deny but what i shall, though i shall hate them again to-morrow, very likely!"--adding breathlessly--"why gracious me, _where's our house_?"-- there was a labyrinth of scaffolding raised all around the house. loads of bricks and stones, and heaps of mortar, and piles of wood, blocked up half of the broad street. ladders were raised against the walls; men were at work upon the scaffolding; painters and decorators were busy inside; great rolls of paper were being delivered from a cart at the door; an upholsterer's wagon also stopped the way; nothing was to be seen but workmen, swarming from the kitchens to the garret. inside and outside alike; bricklayers, painters, carpenters, masons; hammer, hod, brush, pickaxe, saw, trowel: all at work together, in full chorus. florence descended from the coach, half doubting if it could be the right house, until she recognized towlinson, the butler, standing at the door to receive her. she passed him as if she were in a dream, and hurried upstairs. her own room was not yet touched within, but there were beams and boards raised against it without. she went up swiftly to that other bedroom, where her brother's little bed was; and a dark giant of a man, with a pipe in his mouth, and his head tied up in a pocket handkerchief, was staring in at the window. it was here that susan nipper found her, and said would she go downstairs to her papa, who wished to speak to her? "at home! and wishing to speak to me!" cried florence, pale and agitated, hurrying down without a moment's hesitation. she thought upon the way down, would she dare to kiss him? her father might have heard her heart beat when she came into his presence. he was not alone. there were two ladies there. one was old, and the other was young and very beautiful, and of an elegant figure. "edith," said mr. dombey, "this is my daughter. florence, this lady will soon be your mamma." the girl started, and looked up at the beautiful face in a conflict of emotions, among which the tears that name awakened struggled for a moment with surprise, interest, admiration, and an indefinable sort of fear. then she cried out, "oh, papa, may you be happy! may you be very, very happy all your life!" then fell weeping on the lady's bosom. the beautiful lady held her to her breast, and pressed the hand with which she clasped her, as if to reassure and comfort her, and bent her head down over florence and kissed her on the cheek. and now florence began to hope that she would learn from her new and beautiful mamma how to gain her father's love. and in her sleep that night her own mother smiled radiantly upon the hope, and blessed it. even in the busy weeks before the wedding-day, the bride-elect had time to win the heart of the lonely girl, and florence responded to her advances with trustful love, and was happy and hopeful, while the new mother's affection deepened daily. but it soon became evident that the affection aroused mr. dombey's keen jealousy, and his wife thought it best to repress her feelings for florence. the girl soon became aware that there was no real sympathy between her father and his second wife, and that the happiness in their home, of which she had dreamed, would never be a reality. in truth the cold, proud man with all his wealth and power, could not win from his wife one smile such as she had often bestowed upon florence in his presence, and this added to his dislike for the girl. once only, as mr. dombey sat and watched his daughter, the sight of her in her beauty, now almost changed into a woman, roused within him a fleeting feeling of regret at having had a household spirit bending at his feet, and of having overlooked it in his stiff-necked pride. he felt inclined to call her to him; the words were rising to his lips, when they were checked by the entrance of his wife, whose haughty bearing and indifference to him caused the gentle impulse to flee from him, and it never returned. the breach between husband and wife was daily growing wider, when one morning, riding to the city, mr. dombey was thrown from his horse, and being brought home, he gloomily retired to his own rooms, where he was attended by servants, not approached by his wife. late that night there arose in florence's mind the image of her father, wounded and in pain, alone, in his own home. with the same child's heart within her as of old, even as with the child's sweet, timid eyes and clustering hair, florence, as strange to her father in her early maiden bloom as in her nursery days, crept down to his room and looked in. the housekeeper was fast asleep in an easy-chair before the fire. all was so very still that she knew he was asleep. there was a cut upon his forehead. one of his arms, resting outside of the bed, was bandaged up, and he was very white. after the first assurance of his sleeping quietly, florence stole close to the bed, and softly kissed him and put the arm with which she dared not touch him, waking, round about him on the pillow, praying to god to bless her father, and to soften him towards her, if it might be so. on the following day susan nipper braced herself for a great feat which she had long been contemplating; forced an entrance into mr. dombey's room, and told him in most emphatic language what she thought of his treatment of the motherless little girl who had so long been her charge. speechless with rage and amazement, mr. dombey attempted to summon some one to protect him from her flow of language, but there was no bell-rope near, and he could not move, so he was forced to listen to her tirade until the entrance of the housekeeper cut it short. susan nipper was then instantly discharged, and bestirred herself to get her trunks in order, sobbing heartily as she thought of florence, but exulting at the memory of mr. dombey's discomfiture. florence dared not interfere with her father's commands, and took a sad farewell of the faithful little maid, who had for so long been her companion. now florence was quite alone. she had grown to be seventeen; timid and retiring as her solitary life had made her, it had not embittered her. a child in innocent simplicity: a woman in her modest self-reliance and her deep intensity of feeling, both child and woman seemed at once expressed in her fair face and fragile delicacy of shape; in her thrilling voice, her calm eyes, and sometimes in a strange ethereal light that seemed to rest upon her head. mrs. dombey she seldom saw, and the day soon came when she lost her entirely. the wife's supreme indifference to himself and his wishes, stung mr. dombey more than any other kind of treatment could have done, and he determined to bend her to his will. she was the first person who had ever ventured to oppose him in the slightest particular;--their pride, however different in kind, was equal in degree, and their flinty opposition struck out fire which consumed the tie between them--and soon the final separation came. one evening after a dispute with her husband, mrs. dombey went out to dinner, and did not return. in the confusion of that dreadful night, compassion for her father was the first distinct emotion that overwhelmed florence. at daybreak she hastened to him with her arms stretched out, crying, "oh, dear, dear papa!" as if she would have clasped him around the neck. but in his frenzy he answered her with brutal words, and lifted up his cruel arm and struck her, with that heaviness, that she tottered on the marble floor. she did not sink down at his feet; she did not shut out the sight of him with her trembling hands; she did not utter one word of reproach. but she looked at him, and a cry of desolation issued from her heart. she saw she had no father upon earth, and ran out, orphaned, from his house. another moment and florence, with her head bent down to hide her agony of tears, was in the street. in the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl hurried through the sunshine of a bright morning as if it were the darkness of a winter night. wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, she fled without a thought, without a hope, without a purpose, but to fly somewhere--anywhere. suddenly she thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wide wilderness of london--and went that way. to the home of walter's uncle. checking her sobs and endeavoring to calm the agitation of her manner, so as to avoid attracting notice, florence was going more quietly when diogenes, panting for breath, and making the street ring with his glad bark, was at her feet. she bent down on the pavement, and laid his rough loving foolish head against her breast, and they went on together. at length the little shop came into view. she ran in and found captain cuttle, in his glazed hat, standing over the fire, making his morning's cocoa. hearing a footstep and the rustle of a dress, the captain turned at the instant when florence reeled and fell upon the floor. the captain, pale as florence, calling her by his childhood's name for her, raised her like a baby, and laid her upon the same old sofa upon which she had slumbered long ago. "it's heart's delight!" he exclaimed; "it's the sweet creetur grow'd a woman!" but florence did not stir, and the captain moistened her lips and forehead, put back her hair, covered her feet with his own coat, patted her hand--so small in his, that he was struck with wonder when he touched it--and seeing that her eyelids quivered and that her lips began to move, continued these restorative applications with a better heart. at last she opened her eyes, and spoke: "captain cuttle! is it you? is walter's uncle here?" "here, pretty?" returned the captain. "he a'n't been here this many a long day. he a'n't been heer'd on since he sheered off arter poor wal'r. but," said the captain, as a quotation, "though lost to sight, to memory dear, and england, home, and beauty!" "do you live here?" asked florence. "yes, my lady lass," returned the captain. "oh, captain cuttle!" cried florence, "save me! keep me here! let no one know where i am! i will tell you what has happened by and by, when i can. i have no one in the world to go to. do not send me away!" "send you away, my lady lass!" exclaimed the captain; "you, my heart's delight!--stay a bit! we'll put up this dead-light, and take a double turn on the key." with these words the captain got out the shutter of the door, put it up, made it all fast, and locked the door itself. "and now," said he, "you must take some breakfast, lady lass, and the dog shall have some too, and after that you shall go aloft to old sol gill's room, and fall asleep there, like an angel." the room to which the captain presently carried florence was very clean, and being an orderly man, and accustomed to make things ship-shape, he converted the bed into a couch by covering it with a clean white drapery. by a similar contrivance he converted the little dressing-table into a species of altar, on which he set forth two silver teaspoons, a flower-pot, a telescope, his celebrated watch, a pocket-comb and a song-book, as a small collection of rareties that made a choice appearance. having darkened the window, the captain walked on tiptoe out of the room, and from sheer exhaustion florence soon fell asleep. when she awoke the sun was getting low in the west, and after cooling her aching head and burning face in fresh water, she made ready to go downstairs again. what to do or where to live, she--poor, inexperienced girl!--could not yet consider. all was dim and clouded to her mind. she only knew that she had no father upon earth, and she said so many times, with her suppliant head hidden from all but her father who was in heaven. then she tried to calm her thoughts and stay her tears, and went down to her kind protector. the captain had cooked the evening meal and spread the cloth with great care, and when florence appeared he dressed for dinner, by taking off his glazed hat and putting on his coat. that done, he wheeled the table against her on the sofa, said grace, and did the honors of the table. "my lady lass," said he, "cheer up, and try to eat a bit. stand by, dearie! liver wing it is. sarse it is. sassage it is. and potato!" all of these delicacies the captain ranged symetrically on the plate, pouring hot gravy on the whole and adding: "try and pick a bit, my pretty. if wal'r was here--" "ah! if i had him for my brother now!" cried florence. "don't take on, my pretty," said the captain: "awast, to obleege me. he was your nat'r'l born friend like, wa'n't he, pet? well, well! if our poor wal'r was here, my lady lass--or if he could be--for he's drowned, a'n't he?--as i was saying, if he could be here, he'd beg and pray of you, my precious, to pick a leetle bit, with a look-out for your own sweet health. whereby, hold your own, my lady lass, as if it was for wal'r's sake, and lay your pretty head to the wind!" florence essayed to eat a morsel for the captain's pleasure, but she was so tired and so sad that she could do scant justice to the meal, and was glad indeed when the time came to retire. she slept that night in the same little room, and the next day sat in the small parlor, busy with her needle, and more calm and tranquil than she had been on the day preceding. the captain, looking at her, often hitched his arm chair close to her, as if he were going to say something very confidential, and hitched it away again, as not being able to make up his mind how to begin. in the course of the day he cruised completely around the parlor in that frail bark, and more than once went ashore against the wainscot, or the closet door, in a very distressed condition. it was not until deep twilight that he fairly dropped anchor at last by the side of florence, and began to talk connectedly. he spoke in such a trembling voice, and looked at florence with a face so pale and agitated that she clung to his hand in affright, and her color came and went as she listened. "there's perils and dangers on the deep, my beauty," said the captain; "and over many a brave ship, and many and many a bold heart the secret waters has closed up, and never told no tales. but there's escapes upon the deep, too, and sometimes one man out of a score--ah! maybe out of a hundred, pretty, has been saved by the mercy of god, and come home, after being given over for dead, and told of all hands lost, i--i know a story, heart's delight," stammered the captain, "o' this natur', as was told to me once; and being on this here tack, and you and me sitting by the fire, maybe you'd like to hear me tell it. would you, deary?" florence, trembling with an agitation which she could not control or understand, involuntarily followed his glance, which went behind her into the shop where a lamp was burning. the instant that she turned her head, the captain sprung out of his chair, and interposed his hand. "there's nothing there, my beauty," said the captain. "don't look there!" then he murmured something about its being dull that way, and about the fire being cheerful. he drew the door ajar, which had been standing open until now, and resumed his seat. florence looked intently in his face. "the story was about a ship, my lady lass," began the captain, "as sailed out of the port of london, with a fair wind and in fair weather, bound for--don't be took aback my lady lass, she was only out'ard. pretty, only out'ard bound!" the expression on florence's face alarmed the captain, who was himself very hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than she did. "shall i go on, beauty?" said the captain. "yes, yes, pray!" cried florence. the captain made a gulp as if to get down something that was stuck in his throat, and nervously proceeded: "that there unfortunate ship met with such foul weather, out at sea, as don't blow once in twenty year, my darling. there was hurricanes ashore as tore up forests and blowed down towns, and there was gales at sea, even in them latitudes, as not the stoutest wessel ever launched could live in. day arter day, that there unfort'nate ship behaved noble, i'm told, and did her duty brave, my pretty, but at one blow a'most her bulwarks was stove in, her masts and rudder carried away, her best men swept overboard, and she left in the mercy of the storm as had no mercy, but blowed harder and harder yet, while the waves dashed over her, and beat her in, and every time they come a thundering at her, broke her like a shell. every black spot in every mountain of water that rolled away was a bit of the ship's life, or a living man, and so she went to pieces, beauty, and no grass will never grow upon the graves of them as manned that ship." "they were not all lost!" cried florence. "some were saved! was one?" "aboard o' that there unfortunate wessel," said the captain, rising from his chair, and clenching his hand with prodigious energy and exultation, "was a lad, a gallant lad--as i've heard tell--that had loved when he was a boy to read and talk about brave actions in shipwrecks--i've heerd him!--i've heerd him!--and he remembered of 'em in his hour of need; for when the stoutest hearts and oldest hands was hove down, he was firm and cheery. it wa'n't the want of objects to like and love ashore that gave him courage; it was his nat'ral mind. i've seen it in his face when he was no more than a child--ah, many a time!--and when i thought it nothing but his good looks, bless him!" "and was he saved?" cried florence. "was he saved?" "that brave lad," said the captain,--"look at me, pretty! don't look round--" florence had hardly power to repeat, "why not?" "because there's nothing there, my deary," said the captain. "don't be took aback, pretty creetur! don't for the sake of wal'r as was dear to all on us! that there lad," said the captain, "arter working with the best, and standing by the fainthearted, and never making no complaint nor sign of fear, and keeping up a spirit in all hands that made 'em honor him as if he'd been a admiral--that lad, alone with the second mate and one seaman, was left, of all the beatin' hearts that went aboard that ship, the only living creeturs--lashed to a fragment of the wreck, and drifting on the stormy sea." "were they saved?" cried florence. "days and nights they drifted on them endless waters," said the captain, "until at last--no! don't look that way, pretty!--a sail bore down upon 'em, and they was, by the lord's mercy, took aboard, two living, and one dead." "which of them was dead?" cried florence. "not the lad i speak on," said the captain. "thank god! oh, thank god!" "amen!" returned the captain hurriedly. "don't be took aback! a minute more, my lady lass! with a good heart!--aboard that ship, they went a long voyage, right away across the chart (for there wa'n't no touching nowhere), and on that voyage the seaman as was picked up with him died. but he was spared, and--." the captain, without knowing what he did, had cut a slice of bread from the loaf, and put it on his hook (which was his usual toasting fork), on which he now held it to the fire; looking behind florence with great emotions in his face, and suffering the bread to blaze and burn like fuel. "was spared," repeated florence, "and--" "and come home in that ship," said the captain, still looking in the same direction, "and--don't be frightened, pretty!--and landed; and one morning come cautiously to his own door to take a observation, knowing that his friends would think him drowned, when he sheered off at the unexpected--" "at the unexpected barking of a dog?" cried florence quickly. "yes!" roared the captain. "steady, darling! courage! don't look round yet. see there! upon the wall!" there was the shadow of a man upon the wall close to her. she started up, looked round, and, with a piercing cry, saw walter gay behind her! she had no thought of him but as a brother, a brother rescued from the grave; a shipwrecked brother, saved, and at her side,--and rushed into his arms. in all the world he seemed to be her hope, her comfort, refuge, natural protector. in his home-coming,--her champion and knight-errant from childhood's early days,--there came to florence a compensation for all that she had suffered. on that night within the little shop a light arose for her that never ceased to shed its brilliance on her path. young, strong, and powerful, walter gay in his chivalrous reverence and love for her, would henceforth protect her life from sadness. except from that one great sorrow that he could not lift;--she was estranged from her father's love and care;--but in sweet submission she bent her shoulders to the burden of that loss, and accepted the new joy of walter's return with a lightened heart. years later, when mr. dombey by a turn of fortune's wheel, was left alone in his dreary mansion, broken in mind and body, bereft of all his wealth; deserted alike by friends and servants;--it was florence, the neglected, spurned, exiled daughter, who came like a good household angel and clung to him, caressing him, forgetting all but love, and love that outlasts injuries. as she clung close to him, he kissed her on the lips and lifting up his eyes, said, "oh, my god, _forgive me_, for i need it very much!" with that he dropped his head again, lamenting over her and caressing her, and there was not a sound in all the house for a long, long, time; they remaining clasped in one another's arms, in the glorious sunshine that had crept in with florence. and so we leave them--father and daughter--united at last in an undying affection. charley [illustration: charley] charley when i, esther summerson, was taken from the school where the early years of my childhood had been spent; having no home or parents, as had the other girls in the school, my guardian, mr. jarndyce, gave me a home with him, where i was companion to his young and lovely ward, ada clare. i soon grew deeply attached to ada, the dearest girl in the world; to my guardian, the kindest and most thoughtful of men; and to bleak house, my happy home. one day, upon hearing of the death of a poor man whom we had known, and learning that he had left three motherless children in great poverty, my guardian and i set out to discover for ourselves the extent of their need. we were directed to a chandler's shop in bell yard, a narrow, dark alley, where we found an old woman, who replied to my inquiry for neckett's children: "yes, surely, miss. three pair, if you please. door right opposite the stairs." and she handed me a key across the counter. as she seemed to take it for granted i knew what to do with the key, i inferred it must be intended for the children's door, so without any more questions i led the way up a dark stair. reaching the top room designated, i tapped at the door, and a little shrill voice inside said, "we are locked in. mrs. blinder's got the key!" i applied the key, and opened the door. in a poor room, with a sloping ceiling, and containing very little furniture, was a mite of a boy, some five or six years old, nursing and hushing a heavy child of eighteen months. there was no fire, though the weather was cold; both children were wrapped in some poor shawls and tippets, as a substitute. their clothing was not so warm, however, but that their noses looked red and pinched, and their small figures shrunken, as the boy walked up and down, nursing and hushing the child with its head on his shoulder. "who has locked you up here alone?" we naturally asked. "charley," said the boy. "is charley your brother?" "no, she's my sister, charlotte. father called her charley." "are there any more of you besides charley?" "me," said the boy, "and emma," patting the child he was nursing, "and charley." "where is charley now?" "out a-washing," said the boy, beginning to walk up and down again, and even as he spoke there came into the room a very little girl, childish in figure, but shrewd and older looking in the face--pretty faced, too--wearing a womanly sort of a bonnet, much too large for her, and drying her bare arms on a womanly sort of apron. her fingers were white and wrinkled with washing, and the soap-suds were yet smoking, which she wiped off her arms. but for this, she might have been a child, playing at washing, and imitating a poor working woman with a quick observation of the truth. she had come running from some place in the neighborhood. consequently, though she was very light, she was out of breath, and could not speak at first, as she stood panting and wiping her arms. "o, here's charley!" said the boy. the child he was nursing stretched forward its arms and cried out to be taken by charley. the little girl took it, in a womanly sort of manner belonging to the apron and the bonnet, and stood looking at us over the burden that clung to her most affectionately. "is it possible," whispered my guardian, as he put a chair for the little creature, and got her to sit down with her load, the boy holding to her apron, "that this child works for the rest? "charley, charley!" he questioned. "how old are you?" "over thirteen, sir," replied the child. "o, what a great age!" said my guardian. "and do you live here alone with these babies, charley?" "yes, sir," returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect confidence, "since father died." "and how do you live, charley," said my guardian, "how do you live?" "since father died, sir, i've gone out to work. i'm out washing to-day." "god help you, charley!" said my guardian. "you're not tall enough to reach the tub!" "in pattens i am, sir," she said quickly. "i've got a high pair as belonged to mother. mother died just after emma was born," said the child, glancing at the face upon her bosom. "then father said i was to be as good a mother to her as i could. and so i tried. and so i worked at home, and did cleaning, and nursing, and washing, for a long time before i began to go out. and that's how i know how, don't you see, sir?" "and do you often go out?" "as often as i can, sir," said charley, opening her eyes and smiling, "because of earning sixpences and shillings!" "and do you always lock the babies up when you go out?" "to keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said charley. "mrs. blinder comes up now and then, and mr. gridley comes up sometimes, and perhaps i can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and tom ain't afraid of being locked up, are you, tom?" "no--o," said tom stoutly. "when it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the courts, and they show up here quite bright--almost quite bright. don't they, tom?" "yes, charley," said tom, "almost quite bright." "then he's as good as gold," said the little creature, oh, in such a motherly, womanly way. "and when emma's tired, he puts her to bed. and when he's tired he goes to bed himself. and when i come home and light the candle, and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it with me. don't you, tom?" "o yes, charley!" said tom. "that i do!" and either in this glimpse of the great pleasure of his life, or in gratitude and love for charley, he laid his face among the scanty folds of her frock, and passed from laughing into crying. it was the first time since our entry, that a tear had been shed among these children. the little orphan girl had spoken of their father and their mother, as if all that sorrow was subdued by the necessity of taking courage, and by her childish importance in being able to work, and by her bustling busy way. but now, when tom cried; although she sat quite tranquil, looking quietly at us, and did not by any movement disturb a hair of the head of either of her little charges, i saw two silent tears fall down her face. i stood at the window pretending to look out, when i found that mrs. blinder, from the shop below, had come in, and was talking to my guardian. "it's not much to forgive 'em the rent, sir,---who could take it from them!" "well, well!" said my guardian to us two. "it is enough that the time will come when this good woman will find that it _was_ much, and that forasmuch as she did it to one of the least of these--! this child," he added after a few moments, "could she possibly continue this?" "really, sir, i think she might," said mrs. blinder. "she's as handy as it's possible to be. bless you sir, the way she tended them two children, after the mother died, was the talk of the yard! and it was a wonder to see her with him, after he was took ill, it really was!--'mrs. blinder,' he said to me, the very last he spoke--'mrs. blinder, whatever my calling may have been, i see a angel sitting in this room last night along with my child, and i trust her to our father!'" from all that we had heard and seen, we felt a deep interest in the bright, self-reliant little creature, with her womanly ways and burden of family cares, and my thoughts turned towards her many times, after we had kissed her, and taken her downstairs with us, and stopped to see her run away to her work. we saw her run, such a little, little creature, in her womanly bonnet and apron, through a covered way at the bottom of the court, and melt into the city's strife and sound, like a dewdrop in an ocean. some weeks later, at the close of a happy evening spent at bleak house with my guardian and my dearest girl, i went at last to my own room, and presently heard a soft tap at the door, so i said, "come in!" and there came in a pretty little girl, neatly dressed in mourning, who dropped a curtsey. "if you please, miss," said the little girl in a soft voice, "i am charley." "why so you are," said i, stooping down in astonishment, and giving her a kiss. "how glad am i to see you, charley!" "if you please, miss," pursued charley, "i'm your maid!" "charley?" "if you please, miss, i'm a present to you, with mr. jarndyce's love. and o, miss," says charley, clapping her hands, with the tears starting down her dimpled cheeks, "tom's at school, if you please, and learning so good, and little emma, she's with mrs. blinder, miss, a-being took such care of! and tom, he would have been at school--and emma she would have been left with mrs. blinder--and me, i should have been here--all a deal sooner, miss; only mr. jarndyce thought tom and emma and me had better get a little used to parting, we was so small. don't cry, if you please, miss." "i can't help it, charley." "no, miss, nor i can't help it," said charley. "and if you please, miss," said charley, "mr. jarndyce's love, and he thinks you'll like to teach me now and then. and if you please, tom and emma and me is to see each other once a month. and i'm so happy and so thankful, miss," cried charley with a heaving heart,--"and i'll try to be such a good maid!" charley dried her eyes, and entered on her functions: going in her matronly little way about and about the room, and folding up everything she could lay her hands upon. presently she came creeping back to my side, and said: "o don't cry, if you please, miss." and i said again, "i can't help it." and charley said again, "no, miss, nor i can't help it." and so, after all, i did cry for joy indeed, and so did she--and from that night my little maid shared in all the cares and duties, joys and sorrows of her mistress, and i grew to lean heavily upon the womanly, loving, little creature. according to my guardian's suggestion, i gave considerable time to charley's education, but i regret to say the results never reflected much credit upon my educational powers. as for writing--it was a trying business to charley, in whose hand every pen appeared to become perversely animated, and to go wrong and crooked, and to stop and splash, and sidle into corners, like a saddle donkey. it was very odd to see what old letters charley's young hands had made. they, so shrivelled and tottering; it, so plump and round. yet charley was uncommonly expert at other things, and had as nimble little fingers as i ever watched. "well, charley," said i, looking over a copy of the letter o in which it was represented as square, triangular, pear-shaped, and collapsed in all kinds of ways, "we are improving. if we only get to make it round, we shall be perfect, charley." then i made one, and charley made one, and the pen wouldn't join charley's neatly, but twisted it up into a knot. "never mind, charley. we shall do it in time." charley laid down her pen, opened and shut her cramped little hand; and thanking me, got up and dropped me a curtsey, asking me if i knew a poor person by the name of jenny. i answered that i did, but thought she had left the neighborhood altogether, "so she had, miss," said charley, "but she's come back again, and she came about the house three or four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss, but you were away. she saw me a-goin' about, miss," said charley, with a short laugh of the greatest delight and pride, "and she thought i looked like your maid!" "did she though, really, charley?" "yes, miss!" said charley, "really and truly." and charley, with another short laugh of the purest glee, made her eyes very round again, and looked as serious as became my maid. i was never tired of seeing charley in the full enjoyment of that great dignity, standing before me with her youthful face and figure, and her steady manner, and her childish exultation breaking through it now and then in the pleasantest way. and so long as she lived, the dignity of having been in my service was the greatest crown of glory to my little maid. although my efforts to make a scholar of charley were never crowned with success, she had her own tastes and accomplishments, and dearly loved to bustle about the house, in her own particularly womanly way. to surround herself with great heaps of needlework--baskets-full and tables full--and do a little,--and spend a great deal of time in staring with her round eyes at what there was to do, and persuade herself that she was going to do it, were charley's great dignities and delights. when we went to see the woman, jenny, we found her in her poor little cottage, nursing a vagrant boy called jo, a crossing-sweeper, who had tramped down from london, and was tramping he didn't know where. jenny, who had known him in london, had found him in a corner of the town, burning with fever, and taken him home to care for, seeing that he was very ill, and fearing her husband's anger at her having harbored him, when it was time for her husband to return home, she put a few half-pence together in his hand, and thrust him out of the house. we followed the wretched boy, and pitying his forlorn condition led him home with us, where he was made comfortable for the night in a loft-room by the stable. charley's last report was, that the boy was quiet. i went to bed very happy to think that he was sheltered, and was much shocked and grieved the next morning, when upon visiting his room we found him gone. at what time he had left, or how, or why, it seemed hopeless ever to divine, and after a thorough search of the country around, which lasted for five days, we abandoned all thought of ever clearing up the mystery surrounding the boy's departure, nor was it until some time later that the secret was discovered. meanwhile, poor jo left behind him a dread and infectious disease which charley caught from him, and in twelve hours after his escape she was very, very ill. i nursed her myself, with tenderest care, bringing her back to her old childish likeness again. then the disease came upon me, and in my weeks of mortal sickness, it was charley's love and care, and unending devotion that saved my life. it was charley's hand which removed every looking-glass from my rooms, that in my convalescence i might not be shocked by the alteration which the disease had wrought in the face she loved so dearly. when i was able, charley and i went away together, to the most friendly of villages, and in the home which my guardian's care had provided, we enjoyed the hours of returning strength. there was a kindly housekeeper to trot after me with restoratives and strengthening delicacies, and a pony expressly for my use, and soon there were friendly faces of greeting in every cottage as we passed by. thus with being much in the open air, playing with the village children, gossiping in many cottages, going on with charley's education, and writing long letters to my dearest girl, time slipped away, and i found myself quite strong again. and to charley,--now as well, and rosy, and pretty as one of flora's attendants, i give due credit, and the bond which binds me to my little maid is one which will only be severed when the days of charley's happy life are over. tilly slowboy [illustration: tilly slowboy] tilly slowboy although still in her earliest teens, tilly slowboy was a nursery-maid for little mrs. peerybingle's baby, and despite her extreme youth, was a most enthusiastic and unusual nursery-maid indeed. it may be noted of miss slowboy that she had a rare and surprising talent for getting the baby into difficulties; and had several times imperilled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly her own. she was of a spare and straight shape, this young lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to be in constant danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which they were loosely hung. her costume was remarkable for the partial development on all possible occasions, of some flannel vestment of a singular structure; also affording glimpses, in the region of the back, of a pair of stays, in color a dead green. being always in a state of gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed besides, in the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's perfections, and the baby's, miss slowboy, in her little errors of judgment may be said to have done equal honor to her head and to her heart; and though these did less honor to the baby's head, which they were the occasional means of bringing into contact with deal doors, dressers, stair-rails, bed-posts, and other foreign substances, still they were the honest results of tilly slowboy's constant astonishment at finding herself so kindly treated and installed in such a comfortable home. for the maternal and paternal slowboy were alike unknown to fame, and tilly had been bred by public charity, a foundling; which word, though only differing from fondling by one vowel's length, is very different in meaning, and expresses quite another thing. it was a singularly happy and united family in which tilly's lot was cast. honest john peerybingle, carrier; his pretty little wife, whom he called dot; the very remarkable doll of a baby; the dog boxer; and the cricket on the hearth, whose cheerful chirp, chirp, chirp, was a continual family blessing and good-omen;--were collectively and severally the objects of tilly's unbounded admiration. if ever a person or thing alarmed tilly, she would hastily seek protection near the skirts of her pretty little mistress; or, failing that, would make a charge or butt at the object of her fright with the only offensive instrument within her reach--which usually happened to be the baby. tilly's bump of good fortune being extraordinarily well developed, the baby usually managed to come out from the siege unharmed, to be soothed and comforted in tilly's own peculiar fashion; her most common method of amusement being to reproduce for its entertainment scraps of conversation current in the house, with all the sense left out of them, and all the nouns changed to the plural number, as--"did its mothers make it up a beds then! and did its hair grow brown and curly when its cap was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious pets, a-sitting by the fire!" it was a notable and exciting event to miss slowboy when she set out one day in the carrier's cart, with her little mistress and the remarkable baby, to have dinner with caleb plummer's blind daughter, bertha, who was mrs. dot's devoted friend. in consequence of the departure, there was a pretty sharp commotion at john peerybingle's, for to get the baby under weigh took time. not that there was much of the baby, speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure, but there was a vast deal to do about it, and all had to be done by easy stages. when the baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you might have supposed that another touch or two would finish him off, he was unexpectedly extinguished, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour, while mrs. peerybingle took advantage of the interval to make herself smart for the trip, and during the same short truce, miss slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer, of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself, or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. by this time, the baby, being all alive again, was invested by the united efforts of mrs. peerybingle and miss slowboy, with a cream-colored mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head, and in course of time they all three got down to the door, where the old horse was waiting to convey them on their trip. in reference to miss slowboy's ascent into the cart, if i might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs, on any terms, i would observe of her that there was a fatality about hers which rendered them singularly liable to be grazed; and that she never effected the smallest ascent or descent without recording the circumstance upon them with a notch, as robinson crusoe marked the days upon his wooden calendar. but as this might be considered ungenteel, i'll think of it--merely observing that when the three were all safely settled in the cart, and the basket containing the veal-and-ham pie and other delicacies, which mrs. peerybingle always carried when she visited the blind girl, was stowed away, they jogged on for some little time in silence. but not for long, for everybody on the road had something to say to the occupants of john peerybingle's cart, and sometimes passengers on foot, or horseback, plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the express purpose of having a chat. then, too, the packages and parcels for the errand cart were numerous, and there were many stoppages to take them in and give them out, which was not the least interesting part of the journey. of all the little incidents of the day, dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her chair in the cart; making a charming little portrait as she sat there, looking on. and this delighted john the carrier beyond measure. the trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the january weather, and was raw and cold. but who cared for such trifles! not dot, decidedly. not tilly slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart on any terms, to be the highest point of human joy; the crowning circumstance of earthly hopes. not the baby, i'll be sworn; for it's not in baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep than that blessed young peerybingle was all the way. in one place there was a mound of weeds burning, and they watched the fire until, in consequence, as she observed, of the smoke "getting up her nose," miss slowboy choked--she could do anything of that sort on the smallest provocation--and woke the baby, who wouldn't go to sleep again. but, at that moment they came in sight of the blind girl's home, where she was waiting with keen anticipation to receive them. bertha had other visitors as well that day, and the picnic dinner proceeded in a very stately and dignified manner. miss slowboy was isolated, for the time being, from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that she might have nothing else to knock the baby's head against, and sat staring about her in unspeakable delight. to her the day was all too short, and when that evening john peerybingle making his return trip, called to take them home, miss slowboy's regret was intense. as long as her little mistress smiled, tilly's face too was wreathed in smiles; but when a hidden shadow darkened the perrybingle sky, overclouding the happiness of the little home, and dot cried all night, tilly's eyes were red and swollen too, the next morning. it happened in this way. pretty little dot gave good john perrybingle cause for anxiety by her actions, and the honest carrier, disturbed and misled, felt that he had reason to doubt her love for him, which almost broke his honest, faithful heart. while he was worrying over this, and over her, his little wife was merely shielding a secret belonging to edward plummer, bertha's brother, who had just come back, after many year's absence in the golden south americas. so unaccustomed was dot to keeping a secret that it caused her to act very strangely, and give her husband reason to misjudge her, which almost broke her loving little heart. all of which trouble tilly slowboy did not understand, but was deeply affected by it, and when she found her mistress alone, sobbing piteously, was quite horrified, exclaiming: "ow, if you please, don't! it's enough to dead and bury the baby, so it is, if you please!" "will you bring him sometimes, to see his father, tilly?" inquired her mistress, drying her eyes; "when i can't live here, and have gone to my old home?" "ow, if you please, _don't!_" cried tilly, throwing back her head and bursting out into a howl--she looked at the moment uncommonly like boxer--"ow, if you please, don't! ow, what has everybody been and gone and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched. ow-w-w-w!" the soft-hearted slowboy trailed off at this juncture, into such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, that she must infallibly have wakened the baby and frightened him into something serious (probably convulsions) if her attention had not been forcibly diverted from her misery for a moment, after which she stood for some time silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to the bed on which the baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, saint vitus manner, on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary operations. fortunately for all concerned in the little domestic drama, before a crisis had been reached, edward plummer revealed his secret, and his reasons for having been obliged to keep it. this cleared up the mystery concerning mrs. dot's conduct, proving her to be the same loyal, loving little wife she always was: to the exquisite satisfaction of the honest carrier, his family and friends, and last but not least, miss slowboy, who wept copiously for joy, and wishing to include her young charge in the general interchange of congratulations, handed round the baby to everybody in succession, as if it were something to eat or drink. of course it became a serious duty now, to make such a day of it as should mark these events for a high feast and festival in the peerybingle calendar forevermore. accordingly, dot went to work to produce such an entertainment as should reflect undying honor on the house and on every one concerned, and in a very short space of time everybody in the house was in a state of flutter and domestic turmoil and during the flurry of preparation, everybody tumbled over tilly slowboy and the baby everywhere. tilly never came out in such force before. her ubiquity was the theme of universal admiration. she was a stumbling-block in the passage at five-and-twenty minutes past two; a man-trap in the kitchen at half-past two precisely; and a pitfall in the garret at five-and-twenty minutes to three. the baby's head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every description of matter,--animal, vegetable, and mineral. nothing was in use that day that didn't come, at some time or other, into close acquaintance with it. that was a great celebration indeed, with dot doing the honors in her wedding-gown, her eyes sparkling with happiness, and the good carrier, so jovial and so ruddy at the bottom of the table, and all their guests aiding to make the occasion a memorable and happy one. there was a dance in the evening, for which bertha played her liveliest tune. inspired by infectious joy, old and young get up and join the whirling throng. suddenly caleb plummer clutches tilly slowboy by both hands and goes off at score, miss slowboy firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the couples, and effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only principle of footing it, and ecstatically glad to abandon herself to the delights of the occasion, so long as she sees joy written again on the pretty face of her beloved little mistress, and feels that happiness has been restored to honest john peerybingle and his family. hark! how the cricket on the hearth joins in the music, with its chirp, chirp, chirp, and how the kettle hums! agnes wickfield [illustration: agnes wickfield] agnes wickfield when i became the adopted son of my aunt, miss betsy trotwood, my new clothes were marked trotwood copperfield, instead of the old familiar david of my childhood; and i began my new life, not only in the new name, but with everything new about me, and felt for many days like one in a dream, until i had proved the happy reality to be a fact. my aunt's first desire was to place me in a good school at canterbury, and, lack of education having been my chief source of anxiety, this resolve gave me unbounded delight. so it was with a flutter of joyful anticipation that i accompanied her to canterbury to call upon her agent and friend mr. wickfield, and to confer with him upon the all-important subject of schools and boarding places. arriving at canterbury, we stopped before a very old house, bulging out over the road, with long low latticed windows bulging out still further, and beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too; so that i fancied the whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the pavement below. it was quite spotless in its cleanliness. the old-fashioned brass knocker on the low arched door, ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star; the two stone steps descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair linen, and all the angles, and corners, and carvings, and mouldings, and quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills. when the pony chaise stopped at the door, we alighted and had a long conference with mr. wickfield, an elderly gentleman with grey hair and black eyebrows. he approved of my aunt's selection of dr. strong's school, and in regard to a home for me, made the following proposal: "leave your nephew here for the present. he's a quiet fellow. he won't disturb me at all. it's a capital house for study. as quiet as a monastery, and almost as roomy. leave him here." my aunt evidently liked the offer, but was delicate of accepting it, until mr. wickfield cried, "come! i know how you feel, you shall not be oppressed by the receipt of favors, miss trotwood. you may pay for him if you like." "on that understanding," said my aunt, "though it doesn't lessen the real obligation, i shall be very glad to leave him." "then come and see my little housekeeper," said mr. wickfield. we accordingly went up a wonderful old staircase, with a balustrade so broad that we might have gone up that, almost as easily, and into a shady old drawing-room, lighted by three or four quaint windows which had old oak seats in them, that seemed to have come of the same trees as the shining oak floor, and the great beams in the ceiling. it was a prettily furnished room, with a piano, and some lively furniture in red and green, and some flowers. it seemed to be all odd nooks and corners; and in every nook and corner there was some queer little table, or cupboard, or bookcase, or seat, or something or other, that made me think there was not such another corner in the room, until i looked at the next one and found it equal to it if not better. on everything there was the same air of refinement and cleanliness that marked the house outside. mr. wickfield tapped at a door in a corner of the panelled wall, and a girl of about my own age came quickly out and kissed him. on her face, i saw immediately the placid and sweet expression of a lady whose portrait i had seen downstairs. it seemed to my imagination as if the portrait had grown womanly, and the original had remained a child. although her face was quite bright and happy, there was a tranquillity about it, and about her--a quiet, good, calm, spirit--that i never have forgotten; that i never shall forget. this was his little housekeeper, his daughter agnes, mr. wickfield said. when i heard how he said it, and saw how he held her hand, i guessed what the one motive of his life was. she had a little basket-trifle hanging at her side with keys in it; and she looked as staid and discreet a housekeeper as the old house could have. she listened to her father as he told her about me, with a pleasant face; and when he had concluded, proposed to my aunt that we should go upstairs, and see my room. we all went together, she before us. a glorious old room it was, with more oak beams, and diamond panes; and the broad balustrade going all the way up to it. i cannot call to mind where or when, in my childhood, i had seen a stained-glass window in a church. nor do i recollect its subject. but i know that when i saw her turn round, in the grave light of the old staircase, and wait for us above, i thought of that window; and i associated something of its tranquil brightness with agnes wickfield ever afterwards. my aunt was as happy as i was, in the arrangement made for me, and we went down to the drawing-room again, well pleased and gratified, and shortly after this my aunt took her departure, in consequence of which for some hours i was very much dejected. but by five o'clock, which was mr. wickfield's dinner hour, i had mustered up my spirits again, and was ready for my knife and fork. the cloth was only laid for us two; but agnes was waiting in the drawing-room before dinner, and went down with her father, and sat opposite to him at table. i doubted whether he could have dined without her. we did not stay there after dinner, but came upstairs into the drawing-room again, in one snug corner of which agnes set glasses for her father, and a decanter of port wine. there he sat, taking his wine, while agnes played on the piano, worked, and talked to him and me. later agnes made the tea, and presided over it; and the time passed away after it as after dinner, until she went to bed; when her father took her in his arms and kissed her, and, she being gone, ordered candles in his office. then i went to bed too. next morning i entered on my new school life at dr. strong's, and began a happy existence in an excellent establishment, the character and dignity of which we each felt it our duty to maintain. we felt that we had a part in the management of the school, and learned with a good will, desiring to do it credit. we had noble games out of hours, and plenty of liberty; but were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of dr. strong or dr. strong's boys, and the doctor himself was the idol of the whole school. on that first day when i returned home from school, agnes was in the drawing-room, waiting for her father. she met me with her pleasant smile, and asked me how i liked the school. i told her i should like it very much, i hoped; but i was a little strange to it at first. "you have never been to school," i said, "have you?" "oh yes! every day." "ah, but you mean here, at your own home?" "papa couldn't spare me to go anywhere else," she answered smiling and shaking her head, "his housekeeper must be in his house, you know." "he's very fond of you, i am sure," i said. she nodded, "yes," and went to the door to listen for his coming up, that she might meet him on the stairs. but as he was not there, she came back again. "mamma has been dead ever since i was born," she said in her quiet way. "i only know her picture, downstairs. i saw you looking at it yesterday. did you think whose it was?" i told her yes, because it was so like herself. "papa says so, too," said agnes, pleased. "hark! that's papa now!" her bright calm face lighted up with pleasure as she went to meet him, and as they came in, hand in hand; and from that time as i watched her day by day, i saw no trace in agnes of anything but single-hearted devotion to that father, whose wants she cared for so untiringly in her beautiful quiet way. when we had dined that night, we went upstairs again, where everything went on exactly as on the previous day. agnes set the glasses and decanters in the same corner, and mr. wickfield sat down to drink. agnes played the piano to him, sat by him, and worked and talked, and played some games at dominoes with me. in good time she made tea; and afterwards, when i brought down my books, looked into them, and showed me what she knew of them (which was no slight matter, though she said it was), and what was the best way to learn and understand them. i see her, with her modest, orderly, placid, manner, and i hear her beautiful, calm voice, as i write these words. the influence for all good, which she came to exercise over me at a later time begins already to descend upon my breast. i love little emily, and i don't love agnes--no, not at all in that way--but i feel that there are goodness, peace, and truth wherever agnes is; and that the soft light of the colored window in the church, seen long ago, falls on her always, and on me when i am near her, and on everything around. the time having come for her withdrawal for the night, as i gave mr. wickfield my hand, preparatory to going away myself, he checked me and said; "should you like to stay with us, trotwood, or go elsewhere?" "to stay," i answered quickly. "you are sure?" "if you please. if i may." "why, it's but a dull life that we lead here, boy, i'm afraid," he said. "not more dull for me than agnes, sir. not dull at all!" "than agnes," he repeated, walking slowly to the great chimney-piece, and leaning against it. "than agnes! now i wonder," he muttered, "whether my agnes tires of me. when should i ever tire of her? but that's different, that's quite different." he was musing, not speaking to me; so i remained quiet. "a dull, old house," he said, "and a monotonous life, stay with us, trotwood, eh?" he added in his usual manner, and as if he were answering something i had just said. "i'm glad of it. you are company to us both. it is wholesome to have you here. wholesome for me, wholesome for agnes wholesome perhaps for all of us." "i'm sure it is for me, sir," i said, "i'm so glad to be here." "that's a fine fellow!" said mr. wickfield. "as long as you are glad to be here, you shall stay here." and so i lived at mr. wickfield's through the remainder of my schooldays, and to agnes, as the months went by, i turned more and more often for advice and counsel. we saw a good deal of dr. strong's wife, both because she had taken a liking to me, and because she was very fond of agnes, and was often backwards and forwards at our house, and we had pleasant evenings at the doctor's too, with other guests, when we had merry round games of cards, or music--for both mrs. strong and agnes sang sweetly--and so, with weekly visits from my aunt, and walks and talks with agnes, and the events and phases of feeling too numerous to chronicle, which make up a boy's existence, my schooldays glided all too swiftly by. time has stolen on unobserved. i am higher in the school and no one breaks my peace. dr. strong refers to me in public as a promising young scholar, and my aunt remits me a guinea by next post. and what comes now? i am the head boy! i look down on the line of boys below me, with a condescending interest in such of them as bring to my mind the boy i was myself, when i first came there. that little fellow seems to be no part of me; i remember him as something left behind upon the road of life--and almost think of him as of some one else. what other changes have come upon me, beside the changes in my growth and looks, and in the knowledge i have garnered all this while? i wear a gold watch and chain, a ring upon my little finger, and a long-tailed coat; and twice have i been desperately in love with a fair damsel, and have twice recovered. and the little girl i saw on that first day at mr. wickfield's, where is she? gone also. in her stead, the perfect likeness of the picture, a child's likeness no more, moves about the house; and agnes, my sweet sister, as i call her in my thoughts, my counsellor and friend, the better angel of the lives of all who come within her calm, good, self-denying influence--is quite a woman. when the time came to take leave of agnes and her father, though it saddened me, my mind was so filled with thoughts of self that i paid little heed to agnes and her brave farewell, nor did i realize what her loneliness would be when the old and silent house was made doubly silent by the removal of a boy's presence. i did not then understand what her devotion to the elderly father and his interests held of sacrifice for one so young, nor of what fine clay the girl was moulded. but in later years i realized it fully, and looking back, i always saw her as when on that first day, in the grave light of the old staircase, i thought of the stained-glass window, associating something of its tranquil brightness with her ever afterwards. with agnes the woman, and the influence for all good which she came to exercise over me at a later time, this story does not deal. it need only record the simple details of the girl's quiet life,--of the girl's calm strong nature,--that there were goodness, peace and truth wherever agnes was,--agnes, my boyhood's sister, counsellor and friend. dickens in camp _by bret harte_ with a foreword by _frederick s. myrtle_ [illustration] _san francisco_ john howell . [illustration] foreword * * * * * "dickens in camp" is held by many admirers of bret harte to be his masterpiece of verse. the poem is so held for the evident sincerity and depth of feeling it displays as well as for the unusual quality of its poetic expression. bret hart has been generally accepted as the one american writer who possessed above all others the faculty of what may be called heart appeal, the power to give to his work that quality of human interest which enables the writer and his writings to live in the memory of the reading public for all time. by reason of that gift of his bret harte has been popularly compared with his great contemporary beyond the seas, greatest of all sentimentalists among writers of fiction, charles dickens. just how far the younger author selected the elder for his ideal, built upon him, so to speak, & held his example constantly before his mental vision, may be always a matter of debate amongst students of literature. there can be no question of the genuineness of the californian writer's admiration of him who made the whole world laugh or weep with him at will. it is recorded harte that at seven years of age he had read "dombey & son," and so, as one of his biographers, henry childs merwin, observes, "began his acquaintance with that author who was to influence him far more than any other." merwin further declares that "the reading of dickens stimulated his boyish imagination and quickened that sympathy with the weak and suffering, with the downtrodden, with the waifs and strays, with the outcasts of society, which is remarkable in both writers. the spirit of dickens breathes through the poems and stories of bret harte just as the spirit of bret harte breathes through the poems and stories of kipling. bret harte had a very pretty satirical vein which might easily have developed, have made him an author of satire rather than of sentiment. who can say that the influence of dickens, coming at the early, plastic period of his life, may not have turned the scale?" another of his biographers, t. edgar pemberton, says his admiration for charles dickens never waned, but on the contrary, increased as the years rolled by. harte himself, referring in later years to his childhood days, to his father's library and the books to which he had access, spoke of "the irresistible dickens." mr. pemberton states, also, that bret harte always felt that he owed a deep debt of gratitude to charles dickens. small wonder, then, that, bret harte no matter how unconsciously, should have adopted here and there something of the style and some of the mannerisms of dickens. this is directly traceable in his writings, even to the extent of his resorting, here and there, to oddities of expression which were peculiarly dickensian. the english writer, on his part, reciprocated in no small degree the feeling of admiration which his works had aroused in the young american. his biographer, john forster, relates that dickens called his attention to two sketches by bret harte, "the luck of roaring camp" and "the outcasts of poker flat," in which, writes the biographer, "he had found such subtle strokes of character as he had not anywhere else in later years discovered; the manner resembling himself but the matter fresh to a degree that had surprised him; the painting in all respects masterly and the wild rude thing painted a quite wonderful reality. i have rarely known him more honestly moved." dickens gave evidence of this feeling of appreciation in a letter addressed to harte in california, commending his literary efforts, inviting him to write a story for "all the year round" and bidding him sojourn with him at gad's hill upon his first visit to england. this letter was written shortly before dickens' death and, unfortunately, did not reach bret harte until sometime after that sad event. when word of the passing of "the master," as he reverently styled him, reached bret harte he was in san rafael. he immediately sent a dispatch across the bay to san francisco to hold back the forthcoming publication of his "overland monthly" for twenty-four hours, and ere that time had elapsed the poetic tribute to which the title was given of "dickens in camp" had been composed and sent on its way to magazine headquarters in the western metropolis. that was in july, . late in the ' s, while on his way to a consulship in germany, bret harte visited london for the first time. there he was taken in charge by joaquin miller, the poet of the sierras, who in his reminiscences relates: "he could not rest until he stood by the grave of dickens. at last one twilight i led him by the hand to where some plain letters in a broad, flat stone just below the bust of thackeray read 'charles dickens.' bret harte is dead now and it will not hurt him in politics, where they seem to want the hard and heartless for high places, it will not hurt him in politics nor in anything anywhere to tell the plain truth, how he tried to speak but choked up, how tears ran down and fell on the stone as he bowed his bare head very low, how his hand trembled as i led him away." many years later, in may, , bret harte, in response to a request for a facsimile of the original manuscript of "dickens in camp" replied in part: "i hurriedly sent the first and only draft of the verses to the office at san francisco, and i suppose after passing the printer's and proof-reader's hands it lapsed into the usual oblivion of all editorial 'copy'. "i remember that it was very hastily but very honestly written, and it is fair to add that it was not until later that i knew for the first time that those gentle and wonderful eyes, which i was thinking of as being closed forever, had ever rested kindly upon a line of mine." the poem itself breathes reverence for "the master" throughout. to residents of california, who revel in the outdoor life of her mountains & valleys, the poem has a particular attraction for its camp-fire spirit which to us seems part and parcel of that outdoor life. it is a far cry, perhaps, from the camp-fires of to the camp-fires of , but surely the camp-fire spirit is the same with us in our western wonderland today as it was with those rough old miners who sat around the logs under the pines after a day of arduous and oft disappointing toil. surely the visions we see, the lessons we read in the camp-fire glow, are much the same as they were then. surely we build the same castles in the air, draw the same inspirations from it. biographer forster pays the poem this tribute: "it embodies the same kind of incident which had so affected the master himself in the papers to which i have referred; it shows the gentler influences which, in even those california wilds, can restore outlawed 'roaring campers' to silence and humanity; and there is hardly any form of posthumous tribute which i can imagine likely to have better satisfied his desire of fame than one which should thus connect with the special favorite among all his heroines the restraints and authority exerted by his genius over the rudest and least civilized of competitors in that far, fierce race for wealth." in the twining of english holly and western pine upon the great english novelist's grave the poet expresses a happy thought. he calls east and west together in common appreciation of one whose influence was not merely local but worldwide. he invites the old world and the new to kneel together at the altar of sentiment, an appeal to the emotions which never fails to touch a responsive chord in the heart of humanity. frederick s. myrtle san francisco, california april, * * * * * [illustration] dickens in camp * * * * * above the pines the moon was slowly drifting, the river sang below; the dim sierras, far beyond, uplifting their minarets of snow. the roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted the ruddy tints of health on haggard face and form that drooped and fainted in the fierce race for wealth; till one arose, and from his pack's scant treasure a hoarded volume drew, and cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure to hear the tale anew; and then, while round them shadows gathered faster, and as the firelight fell, he read aloud the book wherein the master had writ of "little nell." perhaps 'twas boyish fancy,--for the reader was youngest of them all,-- but, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar a silence seemed to fall; the fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, listened in every spray, while the whole camp, with "nell" on english meadows, wandered and lost their way. and so in mountain solitudes--o'ertaken as by some spell divine-- their cares dropped from them like the needles shaken from out the gusty pine. lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire: and he who wrought that spell?-- ah, towering pine and stately kentish spire, ye have one tale to tell! lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story blend with the breath that thrills with hop-vines' incense all the pensive glory that fills the kentish hills. and on that grave where english oak and holly and laurel wreaths intwine, deem it not all a too presumptuous folly,-- this spray of western pine! * * * * * three hundred and fifty copies of this book printed by edwin grabhorn for john howell. title page and decorations by joseph sinel. this is copy no. [handwritten: ] yesterdays with authors by james t. fields. "was it not yesterday we spoke together?"--shakespeare seventeenth edition boston: houghton, osgood and company the riverside press, cambridge * * * * * entered according to act of congress, in the year , by james t. fields, in the office of the librarian of congress, at washington university press: welch, bigelow, & co., cambridge. * * * * * inscribed to my fellow-members of the saturday club. * * * * * preface to the project gutenberg edition. james fields ( - ) at age became a clerk in a bookstore in boston, and in a few years became a partner in the bookselling firm of ticknor, reed and fields. fields's firm became the publisher for most of the great american writers of the nineteenth century. in this book, fields tells how he persuaded a jobless, despondent nathaniel hawthorne to let him print "the scarlet letter." fields made frequent visits to england to land the american publishing rights to the works of important british writers, including the great superstar of the time, charles dickens. dickens accepted fields as a personal friend, entertained him at his retreat, gad's hill, and wrote him many amusing notes that are included here. fields also socialized with the cream of london literary society, and the book includes his personal anecdotes of meeting wordsworth, thackeray, and others. he formed a friendship with mary russell mitford (a successful dramatist and novelist of the day; two of her works are available in project gutenberg editions) and she wrote him long, gossipy letters, reproduced here. the firm of ticknor and fields, after many mergers and acquisitions, continues to exist today as houghton mifflin books. the firm's original store, the old corner bookstore, still exists as a bookstore at the corner of school and washington streets in boston. * * * * * contents. i. introductory ii. thackeray iii. hawthorne iv. dickens v. wordsworth vi. miss mitford vii. "barry cornwall" and some of his friends introductory. * * * * * "_some there are, by their good works exalted, lofty minds and meditative, authors of delight and happiness, which to the end of time will live, and spread, and kindle_." wordsworth. i. introductory. surrounded by the portraits of those i have long counted my friends, i like to chat with the people about me concerning these pictures, my companions on the wall, and the men and women they represent. these are my assembled guests, who dropped in years ago and stayed with me, without the form of invitation or demand on my time or thought. they are my eloquent silent partners for life, and i trust they will dwell here as long as i do. some of them i have known intimately; several of them lived in other times; but they are all my friends and associates in a certain sense. to converse with them and of them-- "when to the sessions of sweet silent thought i summon up remembrance of things past"-- is one of the delights of existence, and i am never tired of answering questions about them, or gossiping of my own free will as to their every-day life and manners. if i were to call the little collection in this diminutive house a _gallery of pictures_, in the usual sense of that title, many would smile and remind me of what foote said with his characteristic sharpness of david garrick, when he joined his brother peter in the wine trade: "davy lived with three quarts of vinegar in the cellar, calling himself a wine merchant." my friends have often heard me in my "garrulous old age" discourse of things past and gone, and know what they bring down on their heads when they request me "to run over," as they call it, the faces looking out upon us from these plain unvarnished frames. let us begin, then, with the little man of twickenham, for that is his portrait which hangs over the front fireplace. an original portrait of alexander pope i certainly never expected to possess, and i must relate how i came by it. only a year ago i was strolling in my vagabond way up and down the london streets, and dropped in to see an old picture-shop,--kept by a man so thoroughly instructed in his calling that it is always a pleasure to talk with him and examine his collection of valuables, albeit his treasures are of such preciousness as to make the humble purse of a commoner seem to shrink into a still smaller compass from sheer inability to respond when prices are named. at no. pall mall one is apt to find mr. graves "clipp'd round about" by first-rate canvas. when i dropped in upon him that summer morning he had just returned from the sale of the marquis of hastings's effects. the marquis, it will be remembered, went wrong, and his debts swallowed up everything. it was a wretched stormy day when the pictures were sold, and mr. graves secured, at very moderate prices, five original portraits. all the paintings had suffered more or less decay, and some of them, with their frames, had fallen to the floor. one of the best preserved pictures inherited by the late marquis was a portrait of pope, painted from life by richardson for the earl of burlington, and even that had been allowed to drop out of its oaken frame. horace walpole says, jonathan richardson was undoubtedly one of the best painters of a head that had appeared in england. he was pupil of the celebrated riley, the master of hudson, of whom sir joshua took lessons in his art, and it was richardson's "treatise on painting" which inflamed the mind of young reynolds, and stimulated his ambition to become a great painter. pope seems to have had a real affection for richardson, and probably sat to him for this picture some time during the year . in pope's correspondence there is a letter addressed to the painter making an engagement with him for a several days' sitting, and it is quite probable that the portrait before us was finished at that time. one can imagine the painter and the poet chatting together day after day, in presence of that canvas. during the same year pope's mother died, at the great age of ninety-three; and on the evening of june th, while she lay dead in the house, pope sent off the following heart-touching letter from twickenham to his friend the painter:-- "as you know you and i mutually desire to see one another, i hoped that this day our wishes would have met, and brought you hither. and this for the very reason which possibly might hinder your coming, that my poor mother is dead. i thank god, her death was as easy as her life was innocent; and as it cost her not a groan, or even a sigh, there is yet upon her countenance such an expression of tranquillity, nay, almost of pleasure, that it is even amiable to behold it. it would afford the finest image of a saint expired that ever painting drew; and it would be the greatest obligation which even that obliging art could ever bestow on a friend, if you could come and sketch it for me. i am sure, if there be no very prevalent obstacle, you will leave any common business to do this; and i hope to see you this evening, as late as you will, or to-morrow morning as early, before this winter flower is faded. i will defer her interment till to-morrow night. i know you love me, or i could not have written this; i could not (at this time) have written at all. adieu! may you die as happily!" several eminent artists of that day painted the likeness of pope, and among them sir godfrey kneller and jervas, but i like the expression of this one by richardson best of all. the mouth, it will be observed, is very sensitive and the eyes almost painfully so. it is told of the poet, that when he was a boy "there was great sweetness in his look," and that his face was plump and pretty, and that he had a very fresh complexion. continual study ruined his constitution and changed his form, it is said. richardson has skilfully kept out of sight the poor little decrepit figure, and gives us only the beautiful head of a man of genius. i scarcely know a face on canvas that expresses the poetical sense in a higher degree than this one. the likeness must be perfect, and i can imagine the delight of the rev. joseph spence hobbling into his presence on the th of september, , after "a ragged boy of an ostler came in with a little scrap of paper not half an inch broad, which contained the following words: 'mr. pope would be very glad to see mr. spence at the cross inn just now.'" english literature is full of eulogistic mention of pope. thackeray is one of the last great authors who has spoken golden words about the poet. "let us always take into account," he says, "that constant tenderness and fidelity of affection which pervaded and sanctified his life." what pluck and dauntless courage possessed the "gallant little cripple" of twickenham! when all the dunces of england were aiming their poisonous barbs at him, he said, "i had rather die at once, than live in fear of those rascals." a vast deal that has been written about him is untrue. no author has been more elaborately slandered on principle, or more studiously abused through envy. smarting dullards went about for years, with an ever-ready microscope, hunting for flaws in his character that might be injuriously exposed; but to-day his defamers are in bad repute. excellence in a fellow-mortal is to many men worse than death; and great suffering fell upon a host of mediocre writers when pope uplifted his sceptre and sat supreme above them all. pope's latest champion is john ruskin. open his lectures on art, recently delivered before the university of oxford, and read passage number seventy. let us read it together, as we sit here in the presence of the sensitive poet. "i want you to think over the relation of expression to character in two great masters of the absolute art of language, virgil and pope. you are perhaps surprised at the last named; and indeed you have in english much higher grasp and melody of language from more passionate minds, but you have nothing else, in its range, so perfect. i name, therefore, these two men, because they are the two most accomplished _artists_, merely as such, whom i know, in literature; and because i think you will be afterwards interested in investigating how the infinite grace in the words of the one, the severity in those of the other, and the precision in those of both, arise wholly out of the moral elements of their minds,--out of the deep tenderness in virgil which enabled him to write the stories of nisus and lausus, and the serene and just benevolence which placed pope, in his theology, two centuries in advance of his time, and enabled him to sum the law of noble life in two lines which, so far as i know, are the most complete, the most concise, and the most lofty expression of moral temper existing in english words:-- 'never elated, while one man's oppressed; never dejected, while another's blessed.' i wish you also to remember these lines of pope, and to make yourselves entirely masters of his system of ethics; because, putting shakespeare aside as rather the world's than ours, i hold pope to be the most perfect representative we have, since chaucer, of the true english mind; and i think the dunciad is the most absolutely chiselled and monumental work 'exacted' in our country. you will find, as you study pope, that he has expressed for you, in the strictest language and within the briefest limits, every law of art, of criticism, of economy, of policy, and, finally, of a benevolence, humble, rational, and resigned, contented with its allotted share of life, and trusting the problem of its salvation to him in whose hands lies that of the universe." glance up at the tender eyes of the poet, who seems to have been eagerly listening while we have been reading ruskin's beautiful tribute. as he is so intent upon us, let me gratify still further the honest pride of "the little nightingale," as they used to call him when he was a child, and read to you from the "causeries du lundi" what that wise french critic, sainte-beuve, has written of his favorite english poet:-- "the natural history of pope is very simple: delicate persons, it has been said, are unhappy, and he was doubly delicate, delicate of mind, delicate and infirm of body; he was doubly irritable. but what grace, what taste, what swiftness to feel, what justness and perfection in expressing his feeling!... his first masters were insignificant; he educated himself: at twelve years old he learned latin and greek together, and almost without a master; at fifteen he resolved to go to london, in order to learn french and italian there, by reading the authors. his family, retired from trade, and catholic, lived at this time upon an estate in the forest of windsor. this desire of his was considered as an odd caprice, for his health from that time hardly permitted him to move about. he persisted, and accomplished his project; he learned nearly everything thus by himself, making his own choice among authors, getting the grammar quite alone, and his pleasure was to translate into verse the finest passages he met with among the latin and greek poets. when he was about sixteen years old, he said, his taste was formed as much as it was later.... if such a thing as literary temperament exist, it never discovered itself in a manner more clearly defined and more decided than with pope. men ordinarily become classic by means of the fact and discipline of education; he was so by vocation, so to speak, and by a natural originality. at the same time with the poets, he read the best among the critics, and prepared himself to speak after them. * * * * * "pope had the characteristic sign of literary natures, the faithful worship of genius.... he said one day to a friend: 'i have always been particularly struck with this passage of homer where he represents to us priam transported with grief for the loss of hector, on the point of breaking out into reproaches and invectives against the servants who surrounded him and against his sons. it would be impossible for me to read this passage without weeping over the disasters of the unfortunate old king.' and then he took the book, and tried to read aloud the passage, 'go, wretches, curse of my life,' but he was interrupted by tears. * * * * * "no example could prove to us better than his to what degree the faculty of tender, sensitive criticism is an active faculty. we neither feel nor perceive in this way when there is nothing to give in return. this taste, this sensibility, so swift and alert, justly supposes imagination behind it. it is said that shelley, the first time he heard the poem of 'christabel' recited, at a certain magnificent and terrible passage, took fright and suddenly fainted. the whole poem of 'alastor' was to be foreseen in that fainting. pope, not less sensitive in his way, could not read through that passage of the iliad without bursting into tears. to be a critic to that degree, is to be a poet." thanks, eloquent and judicious scholar, so lately gone from the world of letters! a love of what is best in art was the habit of sainte-beuve's life, and so he too will be remembered as one who has kept the best company in literature,--a man who cheerfully did homage to genius, wherever and whenever it might be found. i intend to leave as a legacy to a dear friend of mine an old faded book, which i hope he will always prize as it deserves. it is a well-worn, well-read volume, of no value whatever as an _edition_,--but _it belonged to abraham lincoln_. it is his copy of "the poetical works of alexander pope, esq., to which is prefixed the life of the author by dr. johnson." it bears the imprint on the title-page of j.j. woodward, philadelphia, and was published in . our president wrote his own name in it, and chronicles the fact that it was presented to him "by his friend n.w. edwards." in january, , mr. lincoln gave the book to a very dear friend of his, who honored me with it in january, , as a new-year's present. as long as i live it will remain among my books, specially treasured as having been owned and read by one of the noblest and most sorely tried of men, a hero comparable with any of plutarch's,-- "the kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, new birth of our new soil, the first american." thackeray * * * * * _what emerson has said in his fine subtle way of shakespeare may well be applied to the author of "vanity fair." "one can discern in his ample pictures what forms and humanities pleased him; his delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful giving._ * * * * * _"he read the hearts of men and women, their probity, and their second thought, and wiles; the wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which virtues and vices slide into their contraries."_ ii. thackeray. dear old thackeray!--as everybody who knew him intimately calls him, now he is gone. that is his face, looking out upon us, next to pope's. what a contrast in bodily appearance those two english men of genius present! thackeray's great burly figure, broad-chested, and ample as the day, seems to overshadow and quite blot out of existence the author of "the essay on man." but what friends they would have been had they lived as contemporaries under queen anne or queen victoria! one can imagine the author of "pendennis" gently lifting poor little alexander out of his "chariot" into the club, and revelling in talk with him all night long. pope's high-bred and gentlemanly manner, combined with his extraordinary sensibility and dread of ridicule, would have modified thackeray's usual gigantic fun and sometimes boisterous sarcasm into a rich and strange adaptability to his little guest. we can imagine them talking together now, with even a nobler wisdom and ampler charity than were ever vouchsafed to them when they were busy amid the turmoils of their crowded literary lives. as a reader and lover of all that thackeray has written and published, as well as a personal friend, i will relate briefly something of his literary habits as i can recall them. it is now nearly twenty years since i first saw him and came to know him familiarly in london. i was very much in earnest to have him come to america, and read his series of lectures on "the english humorists of the eighteenth century," and when i talked the matter over with some of his friends at the little garrick club, they all said he could never be induced to leave london long enough for such an expedition. next morning, after this talk at the garrick, the elderly damsel of all work announced to me, as i was taking breakfast at my lodgings, that mr. _sackville_ had called to see me, and was then waiting below. very soon i heard a heavy tread on the stairs, and then entered a tall, white-haired stranger, who held out his hand, bowed profoundly, and with a most comical expression announced himself as mr. sackville. recognizing at once the face from published portraits, i knew that my visitor was none other than thackeray himself, who, having heard the servant give the wrong name, determined to assume it on this occasion. for years afterwards, when he would drop in unexpectedly, both at home and abroad, he delighted to call himself mr. sackville, until a certain milesian waiter at the tremont house addressed him as mr. thack_uary_, when he adopted that name in preference to the other. questions are frequently asked as to the habits of thought and composition of authors one has happened to know, as if an author's friends were commonly invited to observe the growth of works he was by and by to launch from the press. it is not customary for the doors of the writer's work-shop to be thrown open, and for this reason it is all the more interesting to notice, when it is possible, how an essay, a history, a novel, or a poem is conceived, grows up, and is corrected for publication. one would like very much to be informed how shakespeare put together the scenes of hamlet or macbeth, whether the subtile thought accumulated easily on the page before him, or whether he struggled for it with anxiety and distrust. we know that milton troubled himself about little matters of punctuation, and obliged the printer to take special note of his requirements, scolding him roundly when he neglected his instructions. we also know that melanchthon was in his library hard at work by two or three o'clock in the morning both in summer and winter, and that sir william jones began his studies with the dawn. the most popular female writer of america, whose great novel struck a chord of universal sympathy throughout the civilized world, has habits of composition peculiarly her own, and unlike those belonging to any author of whom we have record. she _croons_, so to speak, over her writings, and it makes very little difference to her whether there is a crowd of people about her or whether she is alone during the composition of her books. "uncle tom's cabin" was wholly prepared for the press in a little wooden house in maine, from week to week, while the story was coming out in a washington newspaper. most of it was written by the evening lamp, on a pine table, about which the children of the family were gathered together conning their various lessons for the next day. amid the busy hum of earnest voices, constantly asking questions of the mother, intent on her world-renowned task, mrs. stowe wove together those thrilling chapters which were destined to find readers in so many languages throughout the globe. no work of similar importance, so far as we know, was ever written amid so much that seemed hostile to literary composition. i had the opportunity, both in england and america, of observing the literary habits of thackeray, and it always seemed to me that he did his work with comparative ease, but was somewhat influenced by a custom of procrastination. nearly all his stories were written in monthly instalments for magazines, with the press at his heels. he told me that when he began a novel he rarely knew how many people were to figure in it, and, to use his own words, he was always very shaky about their moral conduct. he said that sometimes, especially if he had been dining late and did not feel in remarkably good-humor next morning, he was inclined to make his characters villanously wicked; but if he rose serene with an unclouded brain, there was no end to the lovely actions he was willing to make his men and women perform. when he had written a passage that pleased him very much he could not resist clapping on his hat and rushing forth to find an acquaintance to whom he might instantly read his successful composition. gilbert wakefield, universally acknowledged to have been the best greek scholar of his time, said he would have turned out a much better one, if he had begun earlier to study that language; but unfortunately he did not begin till he was fifteen years of age. thackeray, in quoting to me this saying of wakefield, remarked: "my english would have been very much better if i had read fielding before i was ten." this observation was a valuable hint, on the part of thackeray, as to whom he considered his master in art. james hannay paid thackeray a beautiful compliment when he said: "if he had had his choice he would rather have been famous as an artist than as a writer; but it was destined that he should paint in colors which will never crack and never need restoration." thackeray's characters are, indeed, not so much _inventions_ as _existences_, and we know them as we know our best friends or our most intimate enemies. when i was asked, the other day, which of his books i like best, i gave the old answer to a similar question. "_the last one i read_." if i could possess only _one_ of his works, i think i should choose "henry esmond." to my thinking, it is a marvel in literature, and i have read it oftener than any of the other works. perhaps the reason of my partiality lies somewhat in this little incident. one day, in the snowy winter of , i met thackeray sturdily ploughing his way down beacon street with a copy of "henry esmond" (the english edition, then just issued) under his arm. seeing me some way off, he held aloft the volumes and began to shout in great glee. when i came up to him he cried out, "here is the _very_ best i can do, and i am carrying it to prescott as a reward of merit for having given me my first dinner in america. i stand by this book, and am willing to leave it, when i go, as my card." as he wrote from month to month, and liked to put off the inevitable chapters till the last moment, he was often in great tribulation. i happened to be one of a large company whom he had invited to a six-o'clock dinner at greenwich one summer afternoon, several years ago. we were all to go down from london, assemble in a particular room at the hotel, where he was to meet us at six o'clock, _sharp_. accordingly we took steamer and gathered ourselves together in the reception-room at the appointed time. when the clock struck six, our host had not fulfilled his part of the contract. his burly figure was yet wanting among the company assembled. as the guests were nearly all strangers to each other, and as there was no one present to introduce us, a profound silence fell upon the room, and we anxiously looked out of the windows, hoping every moment that thackeray would arrive. this untoward state of things went on for one hour, still no thackeray and no dinner. english reticence would not allow any remark as to the absence of our host. everybody felt serious and a gloom fell upon the assembled party. still no thackeray. the landlord, the butler, and the waiters rushed in and out the room, shrieking for the master of the feast, who as yet had not arrived. it was confidentially whispered by a fat gentleman, with a hungry look, that the dinner was utterly spoiled twenty minutes ago, when we heard a merry shout in the entry and thackeray bounced into the room. he had not changed his morning dress, and ink was still visible upon his fingers. clapping his hands and pirouetting briskly on one leg, he cried out, "thank heaven, the last sheet of the virginians has just gone to the printer." he made no apology for his late appearance, introduced nobody, shook hands heartily with everybody, and begged us all to be seated as quickly as possible. his exquisite delight at completing his book swept away every other feeling, and we all shared his pleasure, albeit the dinner was overdone throughout. the most finished and elegant of all _lecturers_, thackeray often made a very poor appearance when he attempted to deliver a set speech to a public assembly. he frequently broke down after the first two or three sentences. he prepared what he intended to say with great exactness, and his favorite delusion was that he was about to astonish everybody with a remarkable effort. it never disturbed him that he commonly made a woful failure when he attempted speech-making, but he sat down with such cool serenity if he found that he could not recall what he wished to say, that his audience could not help joining in and smiling with him when he came to a stand-still. once he asked me to travel with him from london to manchester to hear a great speech he was going to make at the founding of the free library institution in that city. all the way down he was discoursing of certain effects he intended to produce on the manchester dons by his eloquent appeals to their pockets. this passage was to have great influence with the rich merchants, this one with the clergy, and so on. he said that although dickens and bulwer and sir james stephen, all eloquent speakers, were to precede him, he intended to beat each of them on this special occasion. he insisted that i should be seated directly in front of him, so that i should have the full force of his magic eloquence. the occasion was a most brilliant one; tickets had been in demand at unheard-of prices several weeks before the day appointed; the great hall, then opened for the first time to the public, was filled by an audience such as is seldom convened, even in england. the three speeches which came before thackeray was called upon were admirably suited to the occasion, and most eloquently spoken. sir john potter, who presided, then rose, and after some complimentary allusions to the author of "vanity fair," introduced him to the crowd, who welcomed him with ringing plaudits. as he rose, he gave me a half-wink from under his spectacles, as if to say: "now for it; the others have done very well, but i will show 'em a grace beyond the reach of their art." he began in a clear and charming manner, and was absolutely perfect for three minutes. in the middle of a most earnest and elaborate sentence he suddenly stopped, gave a look of comic despair at the ceiling, crammed both hands into his trousers' pockets, and deliberately sat down. everybody seemed to understand that it was one of thackeray's unfinished speeches and there were no signs of surprise or discontent among his audience. he continued to sit on the platform in a perfectly composed manner; and when the meeting was over he said to me, without a sign of discomfiture, "my boy, you have my profoundest sympathy; this day you have accidentally missed hearing one of the finest speeches ever composed for delivery by a great british orator." and i never heard him mention the subject again. thackeray rarely took any exercise, thus living in striking contrast to the other celebrated novelist of our time, who was remarkable for the number of hours he daily spent in the open air. it seems to be almost certain now, from concurrent testimony, gathered from physicians and those who knew him best in england, that thackeray's premature death was hastened by an utter disregard of the natural laws. his vigorous frame gave ample promise of longevity, but he drew too largely on his brain and not enough on his legs. _high_ living and high _thinking_, he used to say, was the correct reading of the proverb. he was a man of the tenderest feelings, very apt to be cajoled into doing what the world calls foolish things, and constantly performing feats of unwisdom, which performances he was immoderately laughing at all the while in his books. no man has impaled snobbery with such a stinging rapier, but he always accused himself of being a snob, past all cure. this i make no doubt was one of his exaggerations, but there was a grain of truth in the remark, which so sharp an observer as himself could not fail to notice, even though the victim was so near home. thackeray announced to me by letter in the early autumn of that he had determined to visit america, and would sail for boston by the canada on the th of october. all the necessary arrangements for his lecturing tour had been made without troubling him with any of the details. he arrived on a frosty november evening, and went directly to the tremont house, where rooms had been engaged for him. i remember his delight in getting off the sea, and the enthusiasm with which he hailed the announcement that dinner would be ready shortly. a few friends were ready to sit down with him, and he seemed greatly to enjoy the novelty of an american repast. in london he had been very curious in his inquiries about american oysters, as marvellous stories, which he did not believe, had been told him of their great size. we apologized--although we had taken care that the largest specimens to be procured should startle his unwonted vision when he came to the table--for what we called the extreme _smallness_ of the oysters, promising that we would do better next time. six bloated falstaffian bivalves lay before him in their shells. i noticed that he gazed at them anxiously with fork upraised; then he whispered to me, with a look of anguish, "how shall i do it?" i described to him the simple process by which the free-born citizens of america were accustomed to accomplish such a task. he seemed satisfied that the thing was feasible, selected the smallest one in the half-dozen (rejecting a large one, "because," he said, "it resembled the high priest's servant's ear that peter cut off") and then bowed his head as if he were saying grace. all eyes were upon him to watch the effect of a new sensation in the person of a great british author. opening his mouth very wide, he struggled for a moment, and then all was over. i shall never forget the comic look of despair he cast upon the other five over-occupied shells. i broke the perfect stillness by asking him how he felt. "profoundly grateful," he gasped, "and as if i had swallowed a little baby." it was many years ago since we gathered about him on that occasion, but, if my memory serves me, we had what might be called _a pleasant evening_. indeed, i remember much hilarity, and sounds as of men laughing and singing far into midnight. i could not deny, if called upon to testify in court, that we had a _good time_ on that frosty november evening. we had many happy days and nights together both in england and america, but i remember none happier than that evening we passed with him when the punch people came to dine at his own table with the silver statuette of mr. punch in full dress looking down upon the hospitable board from the head of the table. this silver figure always stood in a conspicuous place when tom taylor, mark lemon, shirley brooks, and the rest of his jolly companions and life-long cronies were gathered together. if i were to say here that there were any dull moments on _that_ occasion, i should not expect to be strictly believed. thackeray's playfulness was a marked peculiarity; a great deal of the time he seemed like a school-boy, just released from his task. in the midst of the most serious topic under discussion he was fond of asking permission to sing a comic song, or he would beg to be allowed to enliven the occasion by the instant introduction of a brief double-shuffle. barry cornwall told me that when he and charles lamb were once making up a dinner-party together, charles asked him not to invite a certain lugubrious friend of theirs. "because," said lamb, "he would cast a damper even over a funeral." i have often contrasted the habitual qualities of that gloomy friend of theirs with the astounding spirits of both thackeray and dickens. they always seemed to me to be standing in the sunshine, and to be constantly warning other people out of cloudland. during thackeray's first visit to america his jollity knew no bounds, and it became necessary often to repress him when he was walking in the street. i well remember his uproarious shouting and dancing when he was told that the tickets to his first course of readings were all sold, and when we rode together from his hotel to the lecture-hall he insisted on thrusting both his long legs out of the carriage window, in deference, as he said, to his magnanimous ticket-holders. an instance of his procrastination occurred the evening of his first public appearance in america. his lecture was advertised to take place at half past seven, and when he was informed of the hour, he said he would try and be ready at eight o'clock, but thought it very doubtful. horrified at this assertion, i tried to impress upon him the importance of punctuality on this, the night of his first bow to an american audience. at a quarter past seven i called for him, and found him not only unshaved and undressed for the evening, but rapturously absorbed in making a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a passage in goethe's sorrows of werther, for a lady, which illustration,--a charming one, by the way, for he was greatly skilled in drawing,--he vowed he would finish before he would budge an inch in the direction of the (i omit the adjective) melodeon. a comical incident occurred just as he was about leaving the hall, after his first lecture in boston. a shabby, ungainly looking man stepped briskly up to him in the anteroom, seized his hand and announced himself as "proprietor of the mammoth rat," and proposed to exchange season tickets. thackeray, with the utmost gravity, exchanged cards and promised to call on the wonderful quadruped next day. thackeray's motto was 'avoid performing to-day, if possible, what can be postponed till to-morrow.' although he received large sums for his writings, he managed without much difficulty to keep his expenditures fully abreast, and often in advance of, his receipts. his pecuniary object in visiting america the second time was to lay up, as he said, a "pot of money" for his two daughters, and he left the country with more than half his lecture engagements unfulfilled. he was to have visited various cities in the middle and western states; but he took up a newspaper one night, in his hotel in new york, before retiring, saw a steamer advertised to sail the next morning for england, was seized with a sudden fit of homesickness, rang the bell for his servant, who packed up his luggage that night, and the next day he sailed. the first intimation i had of his departure was a card which he sent by the pilot of the steamer, with these words upon it: "good by, fields; good by, mrs. fields; god bless everybody, says w.m.t." of course he did not avail himself of the opportunity afforded him for receiving a very large sum in america, and he afterwards told me in london, that if mr. astor had offered him half his fortune if he would allow that particular steamer to sail without him, he should have declined the well-intentioned but impossible favor, and gone on board. no man has left behind him a tenderer regard for his genius and foibles among his friends than thackeray. he had a natural love of good which nothing could wholly blur or destroy. he was a most generous critic of the writings of his contemporaries, and no one has printed or spoken warmer praise of dickens, in one sense his great rival, than he. thackeray was not a voluminous correspondent, but what exquisite letters he has left in the hands of many of his friends! "should any letters arrive," he says in a little missive from philadelphia, "addressed to the care of j.t.f. for the ridiculous author of this, that, and the other, f. is requested to send them to mercantile library, baltimore. my ghostly enemy will be delighted (or will gnash his teeth with rage) to hear that the lectures in the capital of pa. have been very well attended. no less than people paid at the door on friday night, and though last night there was a storm of snow so furious that no reasonable mortal could face it, (at least) amiable maniacs were in the lecture-room, and wept over the fate of the last king of these colonies." almost every day, while he was lecturing in america, he would send off little notes exquisitely written in point of penmanship, and sometimes embellished with characteristic pen-drawings. having attended an extemporaneous supper festival at "porter's," he was never tired of "going again." here is a scrap of paper holding these few words, written in . "nine o'clock, p.m. tremont. "arrangements have just been concluded for a meeting _somewhere_ to-night, which we much desire you should attend. are you equal to two nights running of good time?" then follows a pen portrait of a friend of his with a cloven foot and a devil's tail just visible under his cloak sometimes, to puzzle his correspondent, he would write in so small a hand that the note could not be read without the aid of a magnifying-glass. calligraphy was to him one of the fine arts, and he once told dr. john brown of edinburgh, that if all trades failed, he would earn sixpences by writing the lord's prayer and the creed (not the athanasian) in the size of that coin. he greatly delighted in rhyming and lisping notes and billets. here is one of them, dated from baltimore without signature:-- "dear f----th! the thanguinary fateth (i don't know what their anger meanth) brought me your letter of the eighth, yethterday, only the fifteenth! what blunder cauthed by chill delay (thee doctor johnthon'th noble verthe) thuth kept my longing thoul away, from all that motht i love on earth? thankth for the happy contenth!--thothe dithpatched to j.g.k. and thonth, and that thmall letter you inclothe from parith, from my dearetht oneth! i pray each month may tho increathe my thmall account with j.g. king, that all the thipth which croth the theath, good tidingth of my girlth may bring!--that every blething fortune yieldth, i altho pray, may come to path on mithter and mrth. j.t. f----th, and all good friendth in bothton, math.!" while he was staying at the clarendon hotel, in new york, every morning's mail brought a few lines, sometimes only one line, sometimes only two words, from him, reporting progress. one day he tells me: "immense hawdience last night." another day he says: "our shares look very much up this morning." on the th of november, , he writes: "i find i have a much bigger voice than i knew of, and am not afraid of anybody." at another time he writes: "i make no doubt you have seen that admirable paper, the new york herald, and are aware of the excellent reception my lectures are having in this city. it was a lucky friday when first i set foot in this country. i have nearly saved the fifty dollars you lent me in boston." in a letter from savannah, dated the th of march, , in answer to one i had written to him, telling him that a charming epistle, which accompanied the gift of a silver mug he had sent to me some time before, had been stolen from me, he says:-- "my dear fellow, i remember i asked you in that letter to accept a silver mug in token of our pleasant days together, and to drink a health sometimes in it to a sincere friend.... smith and elder write me word they have sent by a cunard to boston a packet of paper, stamped etc. in london. i want it to be taken from the custom-house, dooties paid etc., and dispatched to miss ----, new york. hold your tongue, and don't laugh, you rogue. why shouldn't she have her paper, and i my pleasure, without your wicked, wicked sneers and imperence? i'm only a cipher in the young lady's estimation, and why shouldn't i sigh for her if i like. i hope i shall see you all at boston before very long. i always consider boston as my native place, you know." i wish i could recall half the incidents connected with the dear, dear old thackeray days, when i saw him so constantly and enjoyed him so hugely; but, alas! many of them are gone, with much more that is lovely and would have been of _good report_, could they be now remembered;--they are dead as--(holmes always puts your simile quite right for you),-- "dead as the bulrushes round little moses, on the old banks of the nile." but while i sit here quietly, and have no fear of any bad, unsympathizing listeners who might, if some other subject were up, frown upon my levity, let me walk through the dusky chambers of my memory and report what i find there, just as the records turn up, without regard to method. i once made a pilgrimage with thackeray (at my request, of course, the visits were planned) to the various houses where his books had been written; and i remember when we came to young street, kensington, he said, with mock gravity, "down on your knees, you rogue, for here 'vanity fair' was penned! and i will go down with you, for i have a high opinion of that little production myself." he was always perfectly honest in his expressions about his own writings, and it was delightful to hear him praise them when he could depend on his listeners. a friend congratulated him once on that touch in "vanity fair" in which becky "_admires_" her husband when he is giving steyne the punishment which ruins _her_ for life. "well," he said, "when i wrote the sentence, i slapped my fist on the table and said, _'that_ is a touch of genius!'" he told me he was nearly forty years old before he was recognized in literature as belonging to a class of writers at all above the ordinary magazinists of his day. "i turned off far better things then than i do now," said he, "and i wanted money sadly, (my parents were rich but respectable, and i had spent my guineas in my youth,) but how little i got for my work! it makes me laugh," he continued, "at what the times pays me now, when i think of the old days, and how much better i wrote for them then, and got a shilling where i now get ten." one day he wanted a little service done for a friend, and i remember his very quizzical expression, as he said, "please say the favor asked will greatly oblige a man of the name of thackeray, whose only recommendation is, that he has seen napoleon and goethe, and is the owner of schiller's sword." i think he told me he and tennyson were at one time intimate; but i distinctly remember a description he gave me of having heard the poet, when a young man, storming about in the first rapture of composing his poem of "ulysses." one line of it tennyson greatly revelled in,-- "and see the great achilles, whom we knew." "he went through the streets," said thackeray, "screaming about his great achilles, whom we knew," as if we had all made the acquaintance of that gentleman, and were very proud of it. one of the most comical and interesting occasions i remember, in connection with thackeray, was going with him to a grand concert given fifteen or twenty years ago by madame sontag. we sat near an entrance door in the hall, and every one who came in, male and female, thackeray pretended to know, and gave each one a name and brief chronicle, as the presence flitted by. it was in boston, and as he had been in town only a day or two, and knew only half a dozen people in it, the biographies were most amusing. as i happened to know several people who passed, it was droll enough to hear this great master of character give them their dues. mr. choate moved along in his regal, affluent manner. the large style of the man, so magnificent and yet so modest, at once arrested thackeray's attention, and he forbore to place him in his extemporaneous catalogue. i remember a pallid, sharp-faced girl fluttering past, and how thackeray exulted in the history of this "frail little bit of porcelain," as he called her. there was something in her manner that made him hate her, and he insisted she had murdered somebody on her way to the hall. altogether this marvellous prelude to the concert made a deep impression on thackeray's one listener, into whose ear he whispered his fatal insinuations. there is one man still living and moving about the streets i walk in occasionally, whom i never encounter without almost a shudder, remembering as i do the unerring shaft which thackeray sent that night into the unknown man's character. one day, many years ago, i saw him chaffing on the sidewalk in london, in front of the athenaeum club, with a monstrous-sized, "copiously ebriose" cabman, and i judged from the driver's ludicrously careful way of landing the coin deep down in his breeches-pocket, that thackeray had given him a very unusual fare. "who is your fat friend?" i asked, crossing over to shake hands with him. "o, that indomitable youth is an old crony of mine," he replied; and then, quoting falstaff, "a goodly, portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble _carriage_." it was the _manner_ of saying this, then, and there in the london street, the cabman moving slowly off on his sorry vehicle, with one eye (an eye dewy with gin and water, and a tear of gratitude, perhaps) on thackeray, and the great man himself so jovial and so full of kindness! it was a treat to hear him, as i once did, discourse of shakespeare's probable life in stratford among his neighbors. he painted, as he alone could paint, the great poet sauntering about the lanes without the slightest show of greatness, having a crack with the farmers, and in very earnest talk about the crops. "i don't believe," said thackeray, "that these village cronies of his ever looked upon him as the mighty poet, 'sailing with supreme dominion through the azure deep of air,' but simply as a wholesome, good-natured citizen, with whom it was always pleasant to have a chat. i can see him now," continued thackeray, "leaning over a cottage gate, and tasting good master such-a-one's home-brewed, and inquiring with a real interest after the mistress and her children." long before he put it into his lecture, i heard him say in words to the same effect: "i should like to have been shakespeare's shoe-black, just to have lived in his house, just to have worshipped him, to have run on his errands, and seen that sweet, serene face." to have heard thackeray depict, in his own charming manner, and at considerable length, the imaginary walks and talks of shakespeare, when he would return to his home from occasional visits to london, pouring into the ready ears of his unsophisticated friends and neighbors the gossip from town which he thought would be likely to interest them, is something to remember all one's days. the enormous circulation achieved by the cornhill magazine, when it was first started with thackeray for its editor in chief, is a matter of literary history. the announcement by his publishers that a sale of a hundred and ten thousand of the first number had been reached made the editor half delirious with joy, and he ran away to paris to be rid of the excitement for a few days. i met him by appointment at his hotel in the rue de la paix, and found him wild with exultation and full of enthusiasm for excellent george smith, his publisher. "london," he exclaimed, "is not big enough to contain me now, and i am obliged to add paris to my residence! great heavens," said he, throwing up his long arms, "where will this tremendous circulation stop! who knows but that i shall have to add vienna and rome to my whereabouts? if the worst comes to the worst, new york, also, may fall into my clutches, and only the rocky mountains may be able to stop my progress!" those days in paris with him were simply tremendous. we dined at all possible and impossible places together. we walked round and round the glittering court of the palais royal, gazing in at the windows of the jewellers' shops, and all my efforts were necessary to restrain him from rushing in and ordering a pocketful of diamonds and "other trifles," as he called them; "for," said he, "how can i spend the princely income which smith allows me for editing the cornhill, unless i begin instantly somewhere?" if he saw a group of three or four persons talking together in an excited way, after the manner of that then riant parisian people, he would whisper to me with immense gesticulation: "there, there, you see the news has reached paris, and perhaps the number has gone up since my last accounts from london." his spirits during those few days were colossal, and he told me that he found it impossible to sleep, "for counting up his subscribers." i happened to know personally (and let me modestly add, with some degree of sympathy) what he suffered editorially, when he had the charge and responsibility of a magazine. with first-class contributors he got on very well, he said, but the extortioners and revilers bothered the very life out of him. he gave me some amusing accounts of his misunderstandings with the "fair" (as he loved to call them), some of whom followed him up so closely with their poetical compositions, that his house (he was then living in onslow square) was never free of interruption. "the darlings demanded," said he, "that i should re-write, if i could not understand their ---- nonsense and put their halting lines into proper form." "i was so appalled," said he, "when they set upon me with their 'ipics and their ipecacs,' that you might have knocked me down with a feather, sir. it was insupportable, and i fled away into france." as he went on, waxing drolly furious at the recollection of various editorial scenes, i could not help remembering mr. yellowplush's recommendation, thus characteristically expressed: "take my advice, honrabble sir,--listen to a humble footmin: it's genrally best in poatry to understand puffickly what you mean yourself, and to igspress your meaning clearly afterwoods,--in the simpler words the better, p'r'aps." he took very great delight in his young daughter's first contributions to the cornhill, and i shall always remember how he made me get into a cab, one day in london, that i might hear, as we rode along, the joyful news he had to impart, that he had just been reading his daughter's first paper, which was entitled "little scholars." "when i read it," said he, "i blubbered like a child, it is so good, so simple, and so honest; and my little girl wrote it, every word of it." during his second visit to boston i was asked to invite him to attend an evening meeting of a scientific club, which was to be held at the house of a distinguished member. i was very reluctant to ask him to be present, for i knew he could be easily bored, and i was fearful that a prosy essay or geological speech might ensue, and i knew he would be exasperated with me, even although i were the _innocent_ cause of his affliction. my worst fears were realized. we had hardly got seated, before a dull, bilious-looking old gentleman rose, and applied his auger with such pertinacity that we were all bored nearly to distraction. i dared not look at thackeray, but i felt that his eye was upon me. my distress may be imagined, when he got up quite deliberately from the prominent place where a chair had been set for him, and made his exit very noiselessly into a small anteroom leading into the larger room, and in which no one was sitting. the small apartment was dimly lighted, but he knew that i knew _he_ was there. then commenced a series of pantomimic feats impossible to describe adequately. he threw an imaginary person (myself, of course) upon the floor, and proceeded to stab him several times with a paper-folder, which he caught up for the purpose. after disposing of his victim in this way, he was not satisfied, for the dull lecture still went on in the other room, and he fired an imaginary revolver several times at an imaginary head. still, the droning speaker proceeded with his frozen subject (it was something about the arctic regions, if i remember rightly), and now began the greatest pantomimic scene of all, namely, murder by poison, after the manner in which the player king is disposed of in hamlet. thackeray had found a small vial on the mantel-shelf, and out of that he proceeded to pour the imaginary "juice of cursed hebenon" into the imaginary porches of somebody's ears. the whole thing was inimitably done, and i hoped nobody saw it but myself; but years afterwards, a ponderous, fat-witted young man put the question squarely to me: "what _was_ the matter with mr. thackeray, that night the club met at mr ----'s house?" overhearing me say one morning something about the vast attractions of london to a greenhorn like myself, he broke in with, "yes, but you have not seen the grandest one yet! go with me to-day to st. paul's and hear the charity children sing." so we went, and i saw the "head cynic of literature," the "hater of humanity," as a critical dunce in the times once called him, hiding his bowed face, wet with tears, while his whole frame shook with emotion, as the children of poverty rose to pour out their anthems of praise. afterwards he wrote in one of his books this passage, which seems to me perfect in its feeling and tone:-- "and yet there is one day in the year when i think st. paul's presents the noblest sight in the whole world; when five thousand charity children, with cheeks like nosegays, and sweet, fresh voices, sing the hymn which makes every heart thrill with praise and happiness. i have seen a hundred grand sights in the world,--coronations, parisian splendors, crystal palace openings, pope's chapels with their processions of long-tailed cardinals and quavering choirs of fat soprani,--but think in all christendom there is no such sight as charity children's day. _non anglei, sed angeli_. as one looks at that beautiful multitude of innocents; as the first note strikes; indeed one may almost fancy that cherubs are singing." i parted with thackeray for the last time in the street, at midnight, in london, a few months before his death. the cornhill magazine, under his editorship, having proved a very great success, grand dinners were given every month in honor of the new venture. we had been sitting late at one of these festivals, and, as it was getting toward morning, i thought it wise, as far as i was concerned, to be moving homeward before the sun rose. seeing my intention to withdraw, he insisted on driving me in his brougham to my lodgings. when we reached the outside door of our host, thackeray's servant, seeing a stranger with his master, touched his hat and asked where he should drive us. it was then between one and two o'clock,--time certainly for all decent diners out to be at rest. thackeray put on one of his most quizzical expressions, and said to john, in answer to his question, "i think we will make a morning call on the lord bishop of london." john knew his master's quips and cranks too well to suppose he was in earnest, so i gave him my address, and we went on. when we reached my lodgings the clocks were striking two, and the early morning air was raw and piercing. opposing all my entreaties for leave-taking in the carriage, he insisted upon getting out on the sidewalk and escorting me up to my door, saying, with a mock heroic protest to the heavens above us, "that it would be shameful for a full-blooded britisher to leave an unprotected yankee friend exposed to ruffians, who prowl about the streets with an eye to plunder." then giving me a gigantic embrace, he sang a verse of which he knew me to be very fond; and so vanished out of my sight the great-hearted author of "pendennis" and "vanity fair." but i think of him still as moving, in his own stately way, up and down the crowded thoroughfares of london, dropping in at the garrick, or sitting at the window of the athenaeum club, and watching the stupendous tide of life that is ever moving past in that wonderful city. thackeray was a _master_ in every sense, having as it were, in himself, a double quantity of being. robust humor and lofty sentiment alternated so strangely in him, that sometimes he seemed like the natural son of rabelais, and at others he rose up a very twin brother of the stratford seer. there was nothing in him amorphous and unconsidered. whatever he chose to do was always perfectly done. there was a genuine thackeray flavor in everything he was willing to say or to write. he detected with unfailing skill the good or the vile wherever it existed. he had an unerring eye, a firm understanding, and abounding truth. "two of his great master powers," said the chairman at a dinner given to him many years ago in edinburgh, "are _satire_ and _sympathy_." george brimley remarked, "that he could not have painted vanity fair as he has, unless eden had been shining in his inner eye." he had, indeed, an awful insight, with a world of solemn tenderness and simplicity, in his composition. those who heard the same voice that withered the memory of king george the fourth repeat "the spacious firmament on high" have a recollection not easily to be blotted from the mind, and i have a kind of pity for all who were born so recently as not to have heard and understood thackeray's lectures. but they can read him, and i beg of them to try and appreciate the tenderer phase of his genius, as well as the sarcastic one. he teaches many lessons to young men, and here is one of them, which i quote _memoriter_ from "barry lyndon": "do you not, as a boy, remember waking of bright summer mornings and finding your mother looking over you? had not the gaze of her tender eyes stolen into your senses long before you woke, and cast over your slumbering spirit a sweet spell of peace, and love, and fresh-springing joy?" my dear friend, john brown, of edinburgh (whom may god long preserve to both countries where he is so loved and honored), chronicles this touching incident. "we cannot resist here recalling one sunday evening in december, when thackeray was walking with two friends along the dean road, to the west of edinburgh,--one of the noblest outlets to any city. it was a lovely evening; such a sunset as one never forgets; a rich dark bar of cloud hovered over the sun, going down behind the highland hills, lying bathed in amethystine bloom; between this cloud and the hills there was a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender cowslip color, lucid, and as if it were the very body of heaven in its clearness; every object standing out as if etched upon the sky. the northwest end of corstorphine hill, with its trees and rocks, lay in the heart of this pure radiance; and there a wooden crane, used in the granary below, was so placed as to assume the figure of a cross; there it was, unmistakable, lifted up against the crystalline sky. all three gazed at it silently. as they gazed, thackeray gave utterance in a tremulous, gentle, and rapid voice to what all were feeling, in the word, 'calvary!' the friends walked on in silence, and then turned to other things. all that evening he was very gentle and serious, speaking, as he seldom did, of divine things,--of death, of sin, of eternity, of salvation, expressing his simple faith in god and in his saviour." thackeray was found dead in his bed on christmas morning, and he probably died without pain. his mother and his daughters were sleeping under the same roof when he passed away alone. dickens told me that, looking on him as he lay in his coffin, he wondered that the figure he had known in life as one of such noble presence could seem so shrunken and wasted; but there had been years of sorrow, years of labor, years of pain, in that now exhausted life. it was his happiest christmas morning when he heard the voice calling him homeward to unbroken rest. hawthorne. * * * * * _a hundred years ago henry vaughan seems almost to have anticipated hawthorne's appearance when he wrote that beautiful line,_ "_feed on the vocal silence of his eye_." iii. hawthorne. i am sitting to-day opposite the likeness of the rarest genius america has given to literature,--a man who lately sojourned in this busy world of ours, but during many years of his life "wandered lonely as a cloud,"-- a man who had, so to speak, a physical affinity with solitude. the writings of this author have never soiled the public mind with one unlovely image. his men and women have a magic of their own, and we shall wait a long time before another arises among us to take his place. indeed, it seems probable no one will ever walk precisely the same round of fiction which he traversed with so free and firm a step. the portrait i am looking at was made by rowse (an exquisite drawing), and is a very truthful representation of the head of nathaniel hawthorne. he was several times painted and photographed, but it was impossible for art to give the light and beauty of his wonderful eyes. i remember to have heard, in the literary circles of great britain, that, since burns, no author had appeared there with a finer face than hawthorne's. old mrs. basil montagu told me, many years ago, that she sat next to burns at dinner, when he appeared in society in the first flush of his fame, after the edinburgh edition of his poems had been published. she said, among other things, that, although the company consisted of some of the best bred men of england, burns seemed to her the most perfect gentleman among them. she noticed, particularly, his genuine grace and deferential manner toward women, and i was interested to hear mrs. montagu's brilliant daughter, when speaking of hawthorne's advent in english society, describe him in almost the same terms as i had heard her mother, years before, describe the scottish poet. i happened to be in london with hawthorne during his consular residence in england, and was always greatly delighted at the rustle of admiration his personal appearance excited when he entered a room. his bearing was modestly grand, and his voice touched the ear like a melody. here is a golden curl which adorned the head of nathaniel hawthorne when he lay a little child in his cradle. it was given to me many years ago by one near and dear to him. i have two other similar "blossoms," which i keep pressed in the same book of remembrance. one is from the head of john keats, and was given to me by charles cowden clarke, and the other graced the head of mary mitford, and was sent to me after her death by her friendly physician, who watched over her last hours. leigh hunt says with a fine poetic emphasis, "there seems a love in hair, though it be dead. it is the gentlest, yet the strongest thread of our frail plant,--a blossom from the tree surviving the proud trunk;--as though it said, patience and gentleness is power. in me behold affectionate eternity." there is a charming old lady, now living two doors from me, who dwelt in salem when hawthorne was born, and, being his mother's neighbor at that time (mrs. hawthorne then lived in union street), there came a message to her intimating that the baby could be seen by calling. so my friend tells me she went in, and saw the little winking thing in its mother's arms. she is very clear as to the beauty of the infant, even when only a week old, and remembers that "he was a pleasant child, quite handsome, with golden curls." she also tells me that hawthorne's mother was a beautiful woman, with remarkable eyes, full of sensibility and expression, and that she was a person of singular purity of mind. hawthorne's father, whom my friend knew well, she describes as a warm-hearted and kindly man, very fond of children. he was somewhat inclined to melancholy, and of a reticent disposition. he was a great reader, employing all his leisure time at sea over books. hawthorne's father died when nathaniel was four years old, and from that time his uncle robert manning took charge of his education, sending him to the best schools and afterwards to college. when the lad was about nine years old, while playing bat and ball at school, he lamed his foot so badly that he used two crutches for more than a year. his foot ceased to grow like the other, and the doctors of the town were called in to examine the little lame boy. he was not perfectly restored till he was twelve years old. his kind-hearted schoolmaster, joseph worcester, the author of the dictionary, came every day to the house to hear the boy's lessons, so that he did not fall behind in his studies. [there is a tradition in the manning family that mr. worcester was very much interested in maria manning (a sister of mrs. hawthorne), who died in , and that this was one reason of his attention to nathaniel.] the boy used to lie flat upon the carpet, and read and study the long days through. some time after he had recovered from this lameness he had an illness causing him to lose the use of his limbs, and he was obliged to seek again the aid of his old crutches, which were then pieced out at the ends to make them longer. while a little child, and as soon almost as he began to read, the authors he most delighted in were shakespeare, milton, pope, and thomson. the "castle of indolence" was an especial favorite with him during boyhood. the first book he bought with his own money was a copy of spenser's "faery queen." one who watched him during his childhood tells me, that "when he was six years old his favorite book was bunyan's 'pilgrim's progress': and that whenever he went to visit his grandmother hawthorne, he used to take the old family copy to a large chair in a corner of the room near a window, and read it by the hour, without once speaking. no one ever thought of asking how much of it he understood. i think it one of the happiest circumstances of his training, that nothing was ever explained to him, and that there was no professedly intellectual person in the family to usurp the place of providence and supplement its shortcomings, in order to make him what he was never intended to be. his mind developed itself; intentional cultivation might have spoiled it.... he used to invent long stories, wild and fanciful, and tell where he was going when he grew up, and of the wonderful adventures he was to meet with, always ending with, 'and i'm never coming back again,' in quite a solemn tone, that enjoined upon us the advice to value him the more while he stayed with us." when he could scarcely speak plain, it is recalled by members of the family that the little fellow would go about the house, repeating with vehement emphasis and gestures certain stagy lines from shakespeare's richard iii., which he had overheard from older persons about him. one line, in particular, made a great impression upon him, and he would start up on the most unexpected occasions and fire off in his loudest tone, "stand back, my lord, and let the coffin pass." on the st of august, , no. of "the spectator, edited by n. hathorne," neatly written in printed letters by the editor's own hand, appeared. a prospectus was issued the week before, setting forth that the paper would be published on wednesdays, "price cents per annum, payment to be made at the end of the year." among the advertisements is the following:-- "nathaniel hathorne proposes to publish by subscription a new edition of the miseries of authors, to which will be added a sequel, containing facts and remarks drawn from his own experience." six numbers only were published. the following subjects were discussed by young "hathorne" in the spectator,--"on solitude," "the end of the year," "on industry," "on benevolence," "on autumn," "on wealth," "on hope," "on courage." the poetry on the last page of each number was evidently written by the editor, except in one instance, when an address to the sun is signed by one of his sisters. in one of the numbers he apologizes that no deaths of any importance have taken place in the town. under the head of births, he gives the following news, "the lady of dr. winthrop brown, a son and heir. mrs. hathorne's cat, seven kittens. we hear that both of the above ladies are in a state of convalescence." one of the literary advertisements reads:-- "blank books made and for sale by n. hathorne." while hawthorne was yet a little fellow the family moved to raymond in the state of maine; here his out-of-door life did him great service, for he grew tall and strong, and became a good shot and an excellent fisherman. here also his imagination was first stimulated, the wild scenery and the primitive manners of the people contributing greatly to awaken his thought. at seventeen he entered bowdoin college, and after his graduation returned again to live in salem. during his youth he had an impression that he would die before the age of twenty-five; but the mannings, his ever-watchful and kind relations, did everything possible for the care of his health, and he was tided safely over the period when he was most delicate. professor packard told me that when hawthorne was a student at bowdoin in his freshman year, his latin compositions showed such facility that they attracted the special attention of those who examined them. the professor also remembers that hawthorne's english compositions elicited from professor newman (author of the work on rhetoric) high commendations. when a youth hawthorne made a journey into new hampshire with his uncle, samuel manning. they travelled in a two-wheeled chaise, and met with many adventures which the young man chronicled in his home letters, some of the touches in these epistles were very characteristic and amusing, and showed in those early years his quick observation and descriptive power. the travellers "put up" at farmington, in order to rest over sunday. hawthorne writes to a member of the family in salem: "as we were wearied with rapid travelling, we found it impossible to attend divine service, which was, of course, very grievous to us both. in the evening, however, i went to a bible class, with a very polite and agreeable gentleman, whom i afterwards discovered to be a strolling tailor, of very questionable habits." when the travellers arrived in the shaker village of canterbury, hawthorne at once made the acquaintance of the community there, and the account which he sent home was to the effect that the brothers and sisters led a good and comfortable life, and he wrote: "if it were not for the ridiculous ceremonies, a man might do a worse thing than to join them." indeed, he spoke to them about becoming a member of the society, and was evidently much impressed with the thrift and peace of the establishment. this visit in early life to the shakers is interesting as suggesting to hawthorne his beautiful story of "the canterbury pilgrims," which is in his volume of "the snow-image, and other twice-told tales." a lady of my acquaintance (the identical "little annie" of the "ramble" in "twice-told tales") recalls the young man "when he returned home after his collegiate studies." "he was even then," she says, "a most noticeable person, never going into society, and deeply engaged in reading everything he could lay his hands on. it was said in those days that he had read every book in the athenaeum library in salem." this lady remembers that when she was a child, and before hawthorne had printed any of his stories, she used to sit on his knee and lean her head on his shoulder, while by the hour he would fascinate her with delightful legends, much more wonderful and beautiful than any she has ever read since in printed books. the traits of the hawthorne character were stern probity and truthfulness. hawthorne's mother had many characteristics in common with her distinguished son, she also being a reserved and thoughtful person. those who knew the family describe the son's affection for her as of the deepest and tenderest nature, and they remember that when she died his grief was almost insupportable. the anguish he suffered from her loss is distinctly recalled by many persons still living, who visited the family at that time in salem. i first saw hawthorne when he was about thirty-five years old. he had then published a collection of his sketches, the now famous "twice-told tales." longfellow, ever alert for what is excellent, and eager to do a brother author opportune and substantial service, at once came before the public with a generous estimate of the work in the north american review; but the choice little volume, the most promising addition to american literature that had appeared for many years, made little impression on the public mind. discerning readers, however, recognized the supreme beauty in this new writer, and they never afterwards lost sight of him. in hawthorne published a short anonymous romance called fanshawe. i once asked him about this disowned publication, and he spoke of it with great disgust, and afterwards he thus referred to the subject in a letter written to me in : "you make an inquiry about some supposed former publication of mine. i cannot be sworn to make correct answers as to all the literary or other follies of my nonage; and i earnestly recommend you not to brush away the dust that may have gathered over them. whatever might do me credit you may be pretty sure i should be ready enough to bring forward. anything else it is our mutual interest to conceal; and so far from assisting your researches in that direction, i especially enjoin it on you, my dear friend, not to read any unacknowledged page that you may suppose to be mine." when mr. george bancroft, then collector of the port of boston, appointed hawthorne weigher and gauger in the custom-house, he did a wise thing, for no public officer ever performed his disagreeable duties better than our romancer. here is a tattered little official document signed by hawthorne when he was watching over the interests of the country: it certifies his attendance at the unlading of a brig, then lying at long wharf in boston. i keep this precious relic side by side with one of a similar custom-house character, signed _robert burns_. i came to know hawthorne very intimately after the whigs displaced the democratic romancer from office. in my ardent desire to have him retained in the public service, his salary at that time being his sole dependence,--not foreseeing that his withdrawal from that sort of employment would be the best thing for american letters that could possibly happen,--i called, in his behalf, on several influential politicians of the day, and well remember the rebuffs i received in my enthusiasm for the author of the "twice-told tales." one pompous little gentleman in authority, after hearing my appeal, quite astounded me by his ignorance of the claims of a literary man on his country. "yes, yes," he sarcastically croaked down his public turtle-fed throat, "i see through it all, i see through it; this hawthorne is one of them 'ere visionists, and we don't want no such a man as him round." so the "visionist" was not allowed to remain in office, and the country was better served by him in another way. in the winter of , after he had been ejected from the custom-house, i went down to salem to see him and inquire after his health, for we heard he had been suffering from illness. he was then living in a modest wooden house in mall street, if i remember rightly the location. i found him alone in a chamber over the sitting-room of the dwelling; and as the day was cold, he was hovering near a stove. we fell into talk about his future prospects, and he was, as i feared i should find him, in a very desponding mood. "now," said i, "is the time for you to publish, for i know during these years in salem you must have got something ready for the press." "nonsense," said he; "what heart had i to write anything, when my publishers (m. and company) have been so many years trying to sell a small edition of the 'twice-told tales'?" i still pressed upon him the good chances he would have now with something new. "who would risk publishing a book for _me_, the most unpopular writer in america?" "i would," said i, "and would start with an edition of two thousand copies of anything you write." "what madness!" he exclaimed; "your friendship for me gets the better of your judgment. no, no," he continued; "i have no money to indemnify a publisher's losses on my account." i looked at my watch and found that the train would soon be starting for boston, and i knew there was not much time to lose in trying to discover what had been his literary work during these last few years in salem. i remember that i pressed him to reveal to me what he had been writing. he shook his head and gave me to understand he had produced nothing. at that moment i caught sight of a bureau or set of drawers near where we were sitting; and immediately it occurred to me that hidden away somewhere in that article of furniture was a story or stories by the author of the "twice-told tales," and i became so positive of it that i charged him vehemently with the fact. he seemed surprised, i thought, but shook his head again; and i rose to take my leave, begging him not to come into the cold entry, saying i would come back and see him again in a few days. i was hurrying down the stairs when he called after me from the chamber, asking me to stop a moment. then quickly stepping into the entry with a roll of manuscript in his hands, he said: "how in heaven's name did you know this thing was there? as you have found me out, take what i have written, and tell me, after you get home and have time to read it, if it is good for anything. it is either very good or very bad,--i don't know which." on my way up to boston i read the germ of "the scarlet letter"; before i slept that night i wrote him a note all aglow with admiration of the marvellous story he had put into my hands, and told him that i would come again to salem the next day and arrange for its publication. i went on in such an amazing state of excitement when we met again in the little house, that he would not believe i was really in earnest. he seemed to think i was beside myself, and laughed sadly at my enthusiasm. however, we soon arranged for his appearance again before the public with a book. this quarto volume before me contains numerous letters, written by him from down to the month of his death. the first one refers to "the scarlet letter," and is dated in january, . at my suggestion he had altered the plan of that story. it was his intention to make "the scarlet letter" one of several short stories, all to be included in one volume, and to be called old-time legends: together with sketches, experimental and ideal. his first design was to make "the scarlet letter" occupy about two hundred pages in his new book; but i persuaded him, after reading the first chapters of the story, to elaborate it, and publish it as a separate work. after it was settled that "the scarlet letter" should be enlarged and printed by itself in a volume he wrote to me:-- "i am truly glad that you like the introduction, for i was rather afraid that it might appear absurd and impertinent to be talking about myself, when nobody, that i know of, has requested any information on that subject. "as regards the size of the book, i have been thinking a good deal about it. considered merely as a matter of taste and beauty, the form of publication which you recommend seems to me much preferable to that of the 'mosses.' "in the present case, however, i have some doubts of the expediency, because, if the book is made up entirely of 'the scarlet letter,' it will be too sombre. i found it impossible to relieve the shadows of the story with so much light as i would gladly have thrown in. keeping so close to its point as the tale does, and no otherwise than by turning different sides of the same to the reader's eye, it will weary very many people and disgust some. is it safe, then, to stake the fate of the book entirely on this one chance? a hunter loads his gun with a bullet and several buckshot; and, following his sagacious example, it was my purpose to conjoin the one long story with half a dozen shorter ones, so that, failing to kill the public outright with my biggest and heaviest lump of lead, i might have other chances with the smaller bits, individually and in the aggregate. however, i am willing to leave these considerations to your judgment, and should not be sorry to have you decide for the separate publication. "in this latter event it appears to me that the only proper title for the book would be 'the scarlet letter,' for 'the custom-house' is merely introductory,--an entrance-hall to the magnificent edifice which i throw open to my guests. it would be funny if, seeing the further passages so dark and dismal, they should all choose to stop there! if 'the scarlet letter' is to be the title, would it not be well to print it on the title-page in red ink? i am not quite sure about the good taste of so doing, but it would certainly be piquant and appropriate, and, i think, attractive to the great gull whom we are endeavoring to circumvent." one beautiful summer day, twenty years ago, i found hawthorne in his little red cottage at lenox, surrounded by his happy young family. he had the look, as somebody said, of a banished lord, and his grand figure among the hills of berkshire seemed finer than ever. his boy and girl were swinging on the gate as we drove up to his door, and with their sunny curls formed an attractive feature in the landscape. as the afternoon was cool and delightful, we proposed a drive over to pittsfield to see holmes, who was then living on his ancestral farm. hawthorne was in a cheerful condition, and seemed to enjoy the beauty of the day to the utmost. next morning we were all invited by mr. dudley field, then living at stockbridge, to ascend monument mountain. holmes, hawthorne, duyckinck, herman melville, headley, sedgwick, matthews, and several ladies, were of the party. we scrambled to the top with great spirit, and when we arrived, melville, i remember, bestrode a peaked rock, which ran out like a bowsprit, and pulled and hauled imaginary ropes for our delectation. then we all assembled in a shady spot, and one of the party read to us bryant's beautiful poem commemorating monument mountain. then we lunched among the rocks, and somebody proposed bryant's health, and "long life to the dear old poet." this was the most popular toast of the day, and it took, i remember, a considerable quantity of heidsieck to do it justice. in the afternoon, pioneered by headley, we made our way, with merry shouts and laughter, through the ice-glen. hawthorne was among the most enterprising of the merry-makers; and being in the dark much of the time, he ventured to call out lustily and pretend that certain destruction was inevitable to all of us. after this extemporaneous jollity, we dined together at mr. dudley field's in stockbridge, and hawthorne rayed out in a sparkling and unwonted manner. i remember the conversation at table chiefly ran on the physical differences between the present american and english men, hawthorne stoutly taking part in favor of the american. this th of august was a happy day throughout, and i never saw hawthorne in better spirits. often and often i have seen him sitting in the chair i am now occupying by the window, looking out into the twilight. he liked to watch the vessels dropping down the stream, and nothing pleased him more than to go on board a newly arrived bark from down east, as she was just moored at the wharf. one night we made the acquaintance of a cabin-boy on board a brig, whom we found off duty and reading a large subscription volume, which proved, on inquiry, to be a commentary on the bible. when hawthorne questioned him why he was reading, then and there, that particular book, he replied with a knowing wink at both of us, "there's consider'ble her'sy in our place, and i'm a studying up for 'em." he liked on sunday to mouse about among the books, and there are few volumes in this room that he has not handled or read. he knew he could have unmolested habitation here, whenever he chose to come, and he was never allowed to be annoyed by intrusion of any kind. he always slept in the same room,--the one looking on the water; and many a night i have heard his solemn footsteps over my head, long after the rest of the house had gone to sleep. like many other nervous men of genius, he was a light sleeper, and he liked to be up and about early; but it was only for a ramble among the books again. one summer morning i found him as early as four o'clock reading a favorite poem, on solitude, a piece he very much admired. that morning i shall not soon forget, for he was in the vein for autobiographical talk, and he gave me a most interesting account of his father, the sea-captain, who died of the yellow-fever in surinam in , and of his beautiful mother, who dwelt a secluded mourner ever after the death of her husband. then he told stories of his college life, and of his one sole intimate, franklin pierce, whom he loved devotedly his life long. in the early period of our acquaintance he much affected the old boston exchange coffee-house in devonshire street, and once i remember to have found him shut up there before a blazing coal-fire, in the "tumultuous privacy" of a great snow-storm, reading with apparent interest an obsolete copy of the "old farmer's almanac," which he had picked up about the house. he also delighted in the old province house, at that time an inn, kept by one thomas waite, whom he has immortalized. after he was chosen a member of the saturday club he came frequently to dinner with felton, longfellow, holmes, and the rest of his friends, who assembled once a month to dine together. at the table, on these occasions, he was rather reticent than conversational, but when he chose to talk it was observed that the best things said that day came from him. as i turn over his letters, the old days, delightful to recall, come back again with added interest. "i sha'n't have the new story," he says in one of them, dated from lenox on the st of october, , "ready by november, for i am never good for anything in the literary way till after the first autumnal frost, which has somewhat such an effect on my imagination that it does on the foliage here about me,--multiplying and brightening its hues; though they are likely to be sober and shabby enough after all. "i am beginning to puzzle myself about a title for the book. the scene of it is in one of those old projecting-stoned houses, familiar to my eye in salem; and the story, horrible to say, is a little less than two hundred years long; though all but thirty or forty pages of it refer to the present time. i think of such titles as 'the house of the seven gables,' there being that number of gable-ends to the old shanty; or 'the seven-gabled house'; or simply 'the seven gables.' tell me how these strike you. it appears to me that the latter is rather the best, and has the great advantage that it would puzzle the devil to tell what it means." a month afterwards he writes further with regard to "the house of the seven gables," concerning the title to which he was still in a quandary:-- "'the old pyncheon house: a romance'; 'the old pyncheon family; or the house of the seven gables: a romance';--choose between them. i have rather a distaste to a double title? otherwise, i think i should prefer the second. is it any matter under which title it is announced? if a better should occur hereafter, we can substitute. of these two, on the whole, i judge the first to be the better. "i write diligently, but not so rapidly as i had hoped. i find the book requires more care and thought than 'the scarlet letter'; also i have to wait oftener for a mood. 'the scarlet letter' being all in one tone, i had only to get my pitch, and could then go on interminably. many passages of this book ought to be finished with the minuteness of a dutch picture, in order to give them their proper effect. sometimes, when tired of it, it strikes me that the whole is an absurdity, from beginning to end; but the fact is, in writing a romance, a man is always, or always ought to be, careering on the utmost verge of a precipitous absurdity, and the skill lies in coming as close as possible, without actually tumbling over. my prevailing idea is, that the book ought to succeed better than 'the scarlet letter,' though i have no idea that it will." on the th of december he was still at work on the new romance, and writes:-- "my desire and prayer is to get through with the business in hand. i have been in a slough of despond for some days past, having written so fiercely that i came to a stand-still. there are points where a writer gets bewildered and cannot form any judgment of what he has done, or tell what to do next. in these cases it is best to keep quiet." on the th of january, , he is still busy over his new book, and writes: "my 'house of the seven gables' is, so to speak, finished; only i am hammering away a little on the roof, and doing up a few odd jobs, that were left incomplete." at the end of the month the manuscript of his second great romance was put into the hands of the expressman at lenox, by hawthorne himself, to be delivered to me. on the th he writes:-- "if you do not soon receive it, you may conclude that it has miscarried; in which case, i shall not consent to the universe existing a moment longer. i have no copy of it, except the wildest scribble of a first draught, so that it could never be restored. "it has met with extraordinary success from that portion of the public to whose judgment it has been submitted, viz. from my wife. i likewise prefer it to 'the scarlet letter'; but an author's opinion of his book just after completing it is worth little or nothing, he being then in the hot or cold fit of a fever, and certain to rate it too high or too low. "it has undoubtedly one disadvantage in being brought so close to the present time; whereby its romantic improbabilities become more glaring. "i deem it indispensable that the proof-sheets should be sent me for correction. it will cause some delay, no doubt, but probably not much more than if i lived in salem. at all events, i don't see how it can be helped. my autography is sometimes villanously blind; and it is odd enough that whenever the printers do mistake a word, it is just the very jewel of a word, worth all the rest of the dictionary." i well remember with what anxiety i awaited the arrival of the expressman with the precious parcel, and with what keen delight i read every word of the new story before i slept. here is the original manuscript, just as it came that day, twenty years ago, fresh from the author's hand. the printers carefully preserved it for me; and hawthorne once made a formal presentation of it, with great mock solemnity, in this very room where i am now sitting. after the book came out he wrote:-- "i have by no means an inconvenient multitude of friends; but if they ever do appear a little too numerous, it is when i am making a list of those to whom presentation copies are to be sent. please send one to general pierce, horatio bridge, r.w. emerson, w.e. channing, longfellow, hillard, sumner, holmes, lowell, and thompson the artist. you will yourself give one to whipple, whereby i shall make a saving. i presume you won't put the portrait into the book. it appears to me an improper accompaniment to a new work. nevertheless, if it be ready, i should be glad to have each of these presentation copies accompanied by a copy of the engraving put loosely between the leaves. good by. i must now trudge two miles to the village, through rain and mud knee-deep, after that accursed proof-sheet. the book reads very well in proofs, but i don't believe it will take like the former one. the preliminary chapter was what gave 'the scarlet letter' its vogue." the engraving he refers to in this letter was made from a portrait by mr. c.g. thompson, and at that time, , was an admirable likeness. on the th of march he writes:-- "the package, with my five heads, arrived yesterday afternoon, and we are truly obliged to you for putting so many at our disposal. they are admirably done. the children recognized their venerable sire with great delight. my wife complains somewhat of a want of cheerfulness in the face; and, to say the truth, it does appear to be with a bedevilled melancholy; but it will do all the better for the author of 'the scarlet letter.' in the expression there is a singular resemblance (which i do not remember in thompson's picture) to a miniature of my father." his letters to me, during the summer of , were frequent and sometimes quite long. "the house of the seven gables" was warmly welcomed, both at home and abroad. on the d of may he writes:-- "whipple's notices have done more than pleased me, for they have helped me to see my book. much of the censure i recognize as just; i wish i could feel the praise to be so fully deserved. being better (which i insist it is) than 'the scarlet letter,' i have never expected it to be so popular (this steel pen makes me write awfully). ---- ---- esq., of boston, has written to me, complaining that i have made his grandfather infamous! it seems there was actually a pyncheon (or pynchon, as he spells it) family resident in salem, and that their representative, at the period of the revolution, was a certain judge pynchon, a tory and a refugee. this was mr. ----'s grandfather, and (at least, so he dutifully describes him) the most exemplary old gentleman in the world. there are several touches in my account of the pyncheons which, he says, make it probable that i had this actual family in my eye, and he considers himself infinitely wronged and aggrieved, and thinks it monstrous that the 'virtuous dead' cannot be suffered to rest quietly in their graves. he further complains that i speak disrespectfully of the ----'s in grandfather's chair. he writes more in sorrow than in anger, though there is quite enough of the latter quality to give piquancy to his epistle. the joke of the matter is, that i never heard of his grandfather, nor knew that any pyncheons had ever lived in salem, but took the name because it suited the tone of my book, and was as much my property, for fictitious purposes, as that of smith. i have pacified him by a very polite and gentlemanly letter, and if ever you publish any more of the seven gables, i should like to write a brief preface, expressive of my anguish for this unintentional wrong, and making the best reparation possible else these wretched old pyncheons will have no peace in the other world, nor in this. furthermore, there is a rev. mr. ----, resident within four miles of me, and a cousin of mr. ----, who states that he likewise is highly indignant. who would have dreamed of claimants starting up for such an inheritance as the house of the seven gables! "i mean, to write, within six weeks or two months next ensuing, a book of stories made up of classical myths. the subjects are: the story of midas, with his golden touch, pandora's box, the adventure of hercules in quest of the golden apples, bellerophon and the chimera, baucis and philemon, perseus and medusa; these, i think, will be enough to make up a volume. as a framework, i shall have a young college student telling these stories to his cousins and brothers and sisters, during his vacations, sometimes at the fireside, sometimes in the woods and dells. unless i greatly mistake, these old fictions will work up admirably for the purpose; and i shall aim at substituting a tone in some degree gothic or romantic, or any such tone as may best please myself, instead of the classic coldness, which is as repellant as the touch of marble. "i give you these hints of my plan, because you will perhaps think it advisable to employ billings to prepare some illustrations. there is a good scope in the above subjects for fanciful designs. bellerophon and the chimera, for instance: the chimera a fantastic monster with three heads, and bellerophon fighting him, mounted on pegasus; pandora opening the box; hercules talking with atlas, an enormous giant who holds the sky on his shoulders, or sailing across the sea in an immense bowl; perseus transforming a king and all his subjects to stone, by exhibiting the gorgon's head. no particular accuracy in costume need be aimed at. my stories will bear out the artist in any liberties he may be inclined to take. billings would do these things well enough, though his characteristics are grace and delicacy rather than wildness of fancy. the book, if it comes out of my mind as i see it now, ought to have pretty wide success amongst young people; and, of course, i shall purge out all the old heathen wickedness, and put in a moral wherever practicable. for a title how would this do: 'a wonder-book for girls and boys'; or, 'the wonder-book of old stories'? i prefer the former. or 'myths modernized for my children'; that won't do. "i need a little change of scene, and meant to have come to boston and elsewhere before writing this book; but i cannot leave home at present." throughout the summer hawthorne was constantly worried by people who insisted that they, or their families in the present or past generations, had been deeply wronged in "the house of the seven gables." in a note, received from him on the th of june, he says:-- "i have just received a letter from still another claimant of the pyncheon estate. i wonder if ever, and how soon, i shall get a just estimate of how many jackasses there are in this ridiculous world. my correspondent, by the way, estimates the number of these pyncheon jackasses at about twenty; i am doubtless to by remonstrated with by each individual. after exchanging shots with all of them, i shall get you to publish the whole correspondence, in a style to match that of my other works, and i anticipate a great run for the volume. "p.s. my last correspondent demands that another name be substituted, instead of that of the family; to which i assent, in case the publishers can be prevailed on to cancel the stereotype plates. of course you will consent! pray do!" praise now poured in upon him from all quarters. hosts of critics, both in england and america, gallantly came forward to do him service, and his fame was assured. on the th of july he sends me a jubilant letter from lenox, from which i will copy several passages:-- "mrs. kemble writes very good accounts from london of the reception my two romances have met with there. she says they have made a greater sensation than any book since 'jane eyre'; but probably she is a little or a good deal too emphatic in her representation of the matter. at any rate, she advises that the sheets of any future book be sent to moxon, and such an arrangement made that a copyright may be secured in england as well as here. could this be done with the wonder-book? and do you think it would be worth while? i must see the proof-sheets of this book. it is a cursed bore; for i want to be done with it from this moment. can't you arrange it so that two or three or more sheets may be sent at once, on stated days, and so my journeys to the village be fewer? "that review which you sent me is a remarkable production. there is praise enough to satisfy a greedier author than myself. i set it aside, as not being able to estimate how far it is deserved. i can better judge of the censure, much of which is undoubtedly just; and i shall profit by it if i can. but, after all, there would be no great use in attempting it. there are weeds enough in my mind, to be sure, and i might pluck them up by the handful; but in so doing i should root up the few flowers along with them. it is also to be considered, that what one man calls weeds another classifies among the choicest flowers in the garden. but this reviewer is certainly a man of sense, and sometimes tickles me under the fifth rib. i beg you to observe, however, that i do not acknowledge his justice in cutting and slashing among the characters of the two books at the rate he does; sparing nobody, i think, except pearl and phoebe. yet i think he is right as to my tendency as respects individual character. "i am going to begin to enjoy the summer now, and to read foolish novels, if i can get any, and smoke cigars, and think of nothing at all; which is equivalent to thinking of all manner of things." the composition of the "tanglewood tales" gave him pleasant employment, and all his letters, during the period he was writing them, overflow with evidences of his felicitous mood. he requests that billings should pay especial attention to the drawings, and is anxious that the porch of tanglewood should be "well supplied with shrubbery." he seemed greatly pleased that mary russell mitford had fallen in with his books and had written to me about them. "her sketches," he said, "long ago as i read them, are as sweet in my memory as the scent of new hay." on the th of august he writes:-- "you are going to publish another thousand of the seven gables. i promised those pyncheons a preface. what if you insert the following? "(the author is pained to learn that, in selecting a name for the fictitious inhabitants of a castle in the air, he has wounded the feelings of more than one respectable descendant of an old pyncheon family. he begs leave to say that he intended no reference to any individual of the name, now or heretofore extant; and further, that, at the time of writing his book, he was wholly unaware of the existence of such a family in new england for two hundred years back, and that whatever he may have since learned of them is altogether to their credit.) "insert it or not, as you like. i have done with the matter." i advised him to let the pyncheons rest as they were, and omit any addition, either as note or preface, to the romance. near the close of his health seemed unsettled, and he asked me to look over certain proofs "carefully," for he did not feel well enough to manage them himself. in one of his notes, written from lenox at that time, he says:-- "please god, i mean to look you in the face towards the end of next week; at all events, within ten days. i have stayed here too long and too constantly. to tell you a secret, i am sick to death of berkshire, and hate to think of spending another winter here. but i must. the air and climate do not agree with my health at all; and, for the first time since i was a boy, i have felt languid and dispirited during almost my whole residence here. o that providence would build me the merest little shanty, and mark me out a rood or two of garden-ground, near the sea-coast. i thank you for the two volumes of de quincey. if it were not for your kindness in supplying me with books now and then, i should quite forget how to read." hawthorne was a hearty devourer of books, and in certain moods of mind it made very little difference what the volume before him happened to be. an old play or an old newspaper sometimes gave him wondrous great content, and he would ponder the sleepy, uninteresting sentences as if they contained immortal mental aliment. he once told me he found such delight in old advertisements in the newspapers at the boston athenaeum, that he had passed delicious hours among them. at other times he was very fastidious, and threw aside book after book until he found the right one. de quincey was a special favorite with him, and the sermons of laurence sterne he once commended to me as the best sermons ever written. in his library was an early copy of sir philip sidney's "arcadia," which had floated down to him from a remote ancestry, and which he had read so industriously for forty years that it was nearly worn out of its thick leathern cover. hearing him say once that the old english state trials were enchanting reading, and knowing that he did not possess a copy of those heavy folios, i picked up a set one day in a bookshop and sent them to him. he often told me that he spent more hours over them and got more delectation out of them than tongue could tell, and he said, if five lives were vouchsafed to him, he could employ them all in writing stories out of those books. he had sketched, in his mind, several romances founded on the remarkable trials reported in the ancient volumes; and one day, i remember, he made my blood tingle by relating some of the situations he intended, if his life was spared, to weave into future romances. sir walter scott's novels he continued almost to worship, and was accustomed to read them aloud in his family. the novels of g.p.r. james, both the early and the later ones, he insisted were admirable stories, admirably told, and he had high praise to bestow on the works of anthony trollope. "have you ever read these novels?" he wrote to me in a letter from england, some time before trollope began to be much known in america. "they precisely suit my taste; solid and substantial, written on the strength of beef and through the inspiration of ale, and just as real as if some giant had hewn a great lump out of the earth and put it under a glass case, with all its inhabitants going about their daily business and not suspecting that they were made a show of. and these books are as english as a beefsteak. have they ever been tried in america? it needs an english residence to make them thoroughly comprehensible; but still i should think that the human nature in them would give them success anywhere." i have often been asked if all his moods were sombre, and if he was never jolly sometimes like other people. indeed he was; and although the humorous side of hawthorne was not easily or often discoverable, yet have i seen him marvellously moved to fun, and no man laughed more heartily in his way over a good story. wise and witty h----, in whom wisdom and wit are so ingrained that age only increases his subtile spirit, and greatly enhances the power of his cheerful temperament, always had the talismanic faculty of breaking up that thoughtfully sad face into mirthful waves; and i remember how hawthorne writhed with hilarious delight over professor l----'s account of a butcher who remarked that "idees had got afloat in the public mind with respect to sassingers." i once told him of a young woman who brought in a manuscript, and said, as she placed it in my hands, "i don't know what to do with myself sometimes, i'm so filled with _mammoth thoughts_." a series of convulsive efforts to suppress explosive laughter followed, which i remember to this day. he had an inexhaustible store of amusing anecdotes to relate of people and things he had observed on the road. one day he described to me, in his inimitable and quietly ludicrous manner, being _watched_, while on a visit to a distant city, by a friend who called, and thought he needed a protector, his health being at that time not so good as usual. "he stuck by me," said hawthorne, "as if he were afraid to leave me alone; he stayed past the dinner hour, and when i began to wonder if he never took meals himself, he departed and set another man to _watch_ me till he should return. that man _watched_ me so, in his unwearying kindness, that when i left the house i forgot half my luggage, and left behind, among other things, a beautiful pair of slippers. they _watched_ me so, among them, i swear to you i forgot nearly everything i owned." * * * * * hawthorne is still looking at me in his far-seeing way, as if he were pondering what was next to be said about him. it would not displease him, i know, if i were to begin my discursive talk to-day by telling a little incident connected with a famous american poem. hawthorne dined one day with longfellow, and brought with him a friend from salem. after dinner the friend said: "i have been trying to persuade hawthorne to write a story, based upon a legend of acadie, and still current there; a legend of a girl who, in the dispersion of the acadians, was separated from her lover, and passed her life in waiting and seeking for him, and only found him dying in a hospital, when both were old." longfellow wondered that this legend did not strike the fancy of hawthorne, and said to him: "if you have really made up your mind not to use it for a story, will you give it to me for a poem?" to this hawthorne assented, and moreover promised not to treat the subject in prose till longfellow had seen what he could do with it in verse. and so we have "evangeline" in beautiful hexameters, --a poem that will hold its place in literature while true affection lasts. hawthorne rejoiced in this great success of longfellow, and loved to count up the editions, both foreign and american, of this now world-renowned poem. i have lately met an early friend of hawthorne's, older than himself, who knew him intimately all his life long, and i have learned some additional facts about his youthful days. soon after he left college he wrote some stories which he called "seven tales of my native land." the motto which he chose for the title-page was "we are seven," from wordsworth. my informant read the tales in manuscript, and says some of them were very striking, particularly one or two witch stories. as soon as the little book was well prepared for the press he deliberately threw it into the fire, and sat by to see its destruction. when about fourteen he wrote out for a member of his family a list of the books he had at that time been reading. the catalogue was a long one, but my informant remembers that the waverley novels, rousseau's works, and the newgate calender were among them. serious remonstrances were made by the family touching the perusal of this last work, but he persisted in going through it to the end. he had an objection in his boyhood to reading much that was called "true and useful." of history in general he was not very fond, but he read froissart with interest, and clarendon's history of the rebellion. he is remembered to have said at that time "he cared very little for the history of the world before the fourteenth century." after he left college he read a great deal of french literature, especially the works of voltaire and his contemporaries. he rarely went into the streets during the daytime, unless there was to be a gathering of the people for some public purpose, such as a political meeting, a military muster, or a fire. a great conflagration attracted him in a peculiar manner, and he is remembered, while a young man in salem, to have been often seen looking on, from some dark corner, while the fire was raging. when general jackson, of whom he professed himself a partisan, visited salem in , he walked out to the boundary of the town to meet him,--not to speak to him, but only to look at him. when he came home at night he said he found only a few men and boys collected, not enough people, without the assistance he rendered, to welcome the general with a good cheer. it is said that susan, in the "village uncle," one of the "twice-told tales," is not altogether a creation of his fancy. her father was a fisherman living in salem, and hawthorne was constantly telling the members of his family how charming she was, and he always spoke of her as his "mermaid." he said she had a great deal of what the french call _espièglerie_. there was another young beauty, living at that time in his native town, quite captivating to him, though in a different style from the mermaid. but if his head and heart were turned in his youth by these two nymphs in his native town, there was soon a transfer of his affections to quite another direction. his new passion was a much more permanent one, for now there dawned upon him so perfect a creature that he fell in love irrevocably; all his thoughts and all his delights centred in her, who suddenly became indeed the mistress of his soul. she filled the measure of his being, and became a part and parcel of his life. who was this mysterious young person that had crossed his boyhood's path and made him hers forever? whose daughter was she that could thus enthrall the ardent young man in salem, who knew as yet so little of the world and its sirens? she is described by one who met her long before hawthorne made her acquaintance as "the prettiest low-born lass that ever ran on the greensward," and she must have been a radiant child of beauty, indeed, that girl! she danced like a fairy, she sang exquisitely, so that every one who knew her seemed amazed at her perfect way of doing everything she attempted. who was it that thus summoned all this witchery, making such a tumult in young hawthorne's bosom? she was "daughter to leontes and hermione," king and queen of sicilia, and her name was perdita! it was shakespeare who introduced hawthorne to his first real love, and the lover never forgot his mistress. he was constant ever, and worshipped her through life. beauty always captivated him. where there was beauty he fancied other good gifts must naturally be in possession. during his childhood homeliness was always repulsive to him. when a little boy he is remembered to have said to a woman who wished to be kind to him, "take her away! she is ugly and fat, and has a loud voice." when quite a young man he applied for a situation under commodore wilkes on the exploring expedition, but did not succeed in obtaining an appointment. he thought this a great misfortune, as he was fond of travel, and he promised to do all sorts of wonderful things, should he be allowed to join the voyagers. one very odd but characteristic notion of his, when a youth, was, that he should like a competent income which should neither increase nor diminish, for then, he said, it would not engross too much of his attention. surrey's little poem, "the means to obtain a happy life," expressed exactly what his idea of happiness was when a lad. when a school-boy he wrote verses for the newspapers, but he ignored their existence in after years with a smile of droll disgust. one of his quatrains lives in the memory of a friend, who repeated it to me recently:-- "the ocean hath its silent caves, deep, quiet, and alone; above them there are troubled waves, beneath them there are none." when the atlantic cable was first laid, somebody, not knowing the author of the lines, quoted them to hawthorne as applicable to the calmness said to exist in the depths of the ocean. he listened to the verse, and then laughingly observed, "i know something of the deep sea myself." in he went to boston, i am told, to edit the "american magazine of useful knowledge," for which he was to be paid a salary of six hundred dollars a year. the proprietors soon became insolvent, so that he received nothing, but he kept on just the same as if he had been paid regularly. the plan of the work proposed by the publishers of the magazine admitted no fiction into its pages. the magazine was printed on coarse paper and was illustrated by engravings painful to look at. there were no contributors except the editor, and he wrote the whole of every number. short biographical sketches of eminent men and historical narratives filled up its pages. i have examined the columns of this deceased magazine, and read hawthorne's narrative of mrs. dustan's captivity. mrs. dustan was carried off by the indians from haverhill, and hawthorne does not much commiserate the hardships she endured, but reserves his sympathy for her husband, who was _not_ carried into captivity, and suffered nothing from the indians, but who, he says, was a tenderhearted man, and took care of the children during mrs. d.'s absence from home, and probably knew that his wife would be more than a match for a whole tribe of savages. when the rev. mr. cheever was knocked down and flogged in the streets of salem and then imprisoned, hawthorne came out of his retreat and visited him regularly in jail, showing strong sympathy for the man and great indignation for those who had maltreated him. those early days in salem,--how interesting the memory of them must be to the friends who knew and followed the gentle dreamer in his budding career! when the whisper first came to the timid boy, in that "dismal chamber in union street," that he too possessed the soul of an artist, there were not many about him to share the divine rapture that must have filled his proud young heart. outside of his own little family circle, doubting and desponding eyes looked upon him, and many a stupid head wagged in derision as he passed by. but there was always waiting for him a sweet and honest welcome by the pleasant hearth where his mother and sisters sat and listened to the beautiful creations of his fresh and glowing fancy. we can imagine the happy group gathered around the evening lamp! "well, my son," says the fond mother, looking up from her knitting-work, "what have you got for us to-night? it is some time since you read us a story, and your sisters are as impatient as i am to have a new one." and then we can hear, or think we hear, the young man begin in a low and modest tone the story of "edward fane's rosebud," or "the seven vagabonds," or perchance (o tearful, happy evening!) that tender idyl of "the gentle boy!" what a privilege to hear for the first time a "twice-told tale," before it was even _once_ told to the public! and i know with what rapture the delighted little audience must have hailed the advent of every fresh indication that genius, so seldom a visitant at any fireside, had come down so noiselessly to bless their quiet hearthstone in the sombre old town. in striking contrast to hawthorne's audience nightly convened to listen while he read his charming tales and essays, i think of poor bernardin de saint-pierre, facing those hard-eyed critics at the house of madame neckar, when as a young man and entirely unknown he essayed to read his then unpublished story of "paul and virginia." the story was simple and the voice of the poor and nameless reader trembled. everybody was unsympathetic and gaped, and at the end of a quarter of an hour monsieur de buffon, who always had a loud way with him, cried out to madame neckar's servant, "let the horses be put to my carriage!" hawthorne seems never to have known that raw period in authorship which is common to most growing writers, when the style is "overlanguaged," and when it plunges wildly through the "sandy deserts of rhetoric," or struggles as if it were having a personal difficulty with ignorance and his brother platitude. it was capitally said of chateaubriand that "he lived on the summits of syllables," and of another young author that "he was so dully good, that he made even virtue disreputable." hawthorne had no such literary vices to contend with. his looks seemed from the start to be "commercing with the skies," and he marching upward to the goal without impediment. i was struck a few days ago with the untruth, so far as hawthorne is concerned, of a passage in the preface to endymion. keats says: "the imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted." hawthorne's imagination had no middle period of decadence or doubt, but continued, as it began, in full vigor to the end. * * * * * in i went to europe, and while absent had frequent most welcome letters from the delightful dreamer. he had finished the "blithedale romance" during my wanderings, and i was fortunate enough to arrange for its publication in london simultaneously with its appearance in boston. one of his letters (dated from his new residence in concord, june , ) runs thus:-- "you have succeeded admirably in regard to the 'blithedale romance,' and have got £ more than i expected to receive. it will come in good time, too; for my drafts have been pretty heavy of late, in consequence of buying an estate!!! and fitting up my house. what a truant you are from the corner! i wish, before leaving london, you would obtain for me copies of any english editions of my writings not already in my possession. i have routledge's edition of 'the scarlet letter,' the 'mosses,' and 'twice-told tales'; bohn's editions of 'the house of the seven gables,' the 'snow-image' and the 'wonder-book,' and bogue's edition of 'the scarlet letter';--these are all, and i should be glad of the rest. i meant to have written another 'wonder-book' this summer, but another task has unexpectedly intervened. general pierce of new hampshire, the democratic nominee for the presidency, was a college friend of mine, as you know, and we have been intimate through life. he wishes me to write his biography, and i have consented to do so; somewhat reluctantly, however, for pierce has now reached that altitude when a man, careful of his personal dignity, will begin to think of cutting his acquaintance. but i seek nothing from him, and therefore need not be ashamed to tell the truth of an old friend.... i have written to barry cornwall, and shall probably enclose the letter along with this. i don't more than half believe what you tell me of my reputation in england, and am only so far credulous on the strength of the £ , and shall have a somewhat stronger sense of this latter reality when i finger the cash. do come home in season to preside over the publication of the romance." he had christened his estate the wayside, and in a postscript to the above letter he begs me to consider the name and tell him how i like it. another letter, evidently foreshadowing a foreign appointment from the newly elected president, contains this passage:-- "do make some inquiries about portugal; as, for instance, in what part of the world it lies, and whether it is an empire, a kingdom, or a republic. also, and more particularly, the expenses of living there, and whether the minister would be likely to be much pestered with his own countrymen. also, any other information about foreign countries would be acceptable to an inquiring mind." when i returned from abroad i found him getting matters in readiness to leave the country for a consulship in liverpool. he seemed happy at the thought of flitting, but i wondered if he could possibly be as contented across the water as he was in concord. i remember walking with him to the old manse, a mile or so distant from the wayside, his new residence, and talking over england and his proposed absence of several years. we strolled round the house, where he spent the first years of his married life, and he pointed from the outside to the windows, out of which he had looked and seen supernatural and other visions. we walked up and down the avenue, the memory of which he has embalmed in the "mosses," and he discoursed most pleasantly of all that had befallen him since he led a lonely, secluded life in salem. it was a sleepy, warm afternoon, and he proposed that we should wander up the banks of the river and lie down and watch the clouds float above and in the quiet stream. i recall his lounging, easy air as he tolled me along until we came to a spot secluded, and ofttimes sacred to his wayward thoughts. he bade me lie down on the grass and hear the birds sing. as we steeped ourselves in the delicious idleness, he began to murmur some half-forgotten lines from thomson's "seasons," which he said had been favorites of his from boyhood. while we lay there, hidden in the grass, we heard approaching footsteps, and hawthorne hurriedly whispered, "duck! or we shall be interrupted by somebody." the solemnity of his manner, and the thought of the down-flat position in which we had both placed ourselves to avoid being seen, threw me into a foolish, semi-hysterical fit of laughter, and when he nudged me, and again whispered more lugubriously than ever, "heaven help me, mr. ---- is close upon us!" i felt convinced that if the thing went further, suffocation, in my case at least, must ensue. he kept me constantly informed, after he went to liverpool, of how he was passing his time; and his charming "english note-books" reveal the fact that he was never idle. there were touches, however, in his private letters which escaped daily record in his journal, and i remember how delightful it was, after he landed in europe, to get his frequent missives. in one of the first he gives me an account of a dinner where he was obliged to make a speech. he says:-- "i tickled up john bull's self-conceit (which is very easily done) with a few sentences of most outrageous flattery, and sat down in a general puddle of good feeling." in another he says: "i have taken a house in rock park, on the cheshire side of the mersey, and am as snug as a bug in a rug. next year you must come and see how i live. give my regards to everybody, and my love to half a dozen.... i wish you would call on mr. savage, the antiquarian, if you know him, and ask whether he can inform me what part of england the original william hawthorne came from. he came over, i think in .... it would really be a great obligation if he could answer the above query. or, if the fact is not within his own knowledge, he might perhaps indicate some place where such information might be obtained here in england. i presume there are records still extant somewhere of all the passengers by those early ships, with their english localities annexed to their names. of all things, i should like to find a gravestone in one of these old churchyards with my own name upon it, although, for myself, i should wish to be buried in america. the graves are too horribly damp here." the hedgerows of england, the grassy meadows, and the picturesque old cottages delighted him, and he was never tired of writing to me about them. while wandering over the country, he was often deeply touched by meeting among the wild-flowers many of his old new england favorites,--bluebells, crocuses, primroses, foxglove, and other flowers which are cultivated in out gardens, and which had long been familiar to him in america. i can imagine him, in his quiet, musing way, strolling through the daisied fields on a sunday morning and hearing the distant church-bells chiming to service. his religion was deep and broad, but it was irksome for him to be fastened in by a pew-door, and i doubt if he often heard an english sermon. he very rarely described himself as _inside_ a church, but he liked to wander among the graves in the churchyards and read the epitaphs on the moss-grown slabs. he liked better to meet and have a talk with the _sexton_ than with the _rector_. he was constantly demanding longer letters from home; and nothing gave him more pleasure than, monthly news from "the saturday club," and detailed accounts of what was going forward in literature. one of his letters dated in january, , starts off thus:-- "i wish your epistolary propensities were stronger than they are. all your letters to me since i left america might be squeezed into one.... i send ticknor a big cheese, which i long ago promised him, and my advice is, that he keep it in the shop, and daily, between eleven and one o'clock, distribute slices of it to your half-starved authors, together with crackers and something to drink.... i thank you for the books you send me, and more especially for mrs. mowatt's autobiography, which seems to me an admirable book. of all things i delight in autobiographies; and i hardly ever read one that interested me so much. she must be a remarkable woman, and i cannot but lament my ill fortune in never having seen her on the stage or elsewhere.... i count strongly upon your promise to be with us in may. can't you bring whipple with you?" one of his favorite resorts in liverpool was the boarding-house of good mrs. blodgett, in duke street, a house where many americans have found delectable quarters, after being tossed on the stormy atlantic. "i have never known a better woman," hawthorne used to say, "and her motherly kindness to me and mine i can never forget." hundreds of american travellers will bear witness to the excellence of that beautiful old lady, who presided with such dignity and sweetness over her hospitable mansion. on the th of april, , hawthorne wrote to me this characteristic letter from the consular office in liverpool:-- "i am very glad that the 'mosses' have come into the hands of our firm; and i return the copy sent me, after a careful revision. when i wrote those dreamy sketches, i little thought that i should ever preface an edition for the press amidst the bustling life of a liverpool consulate. upon my honor, i am not quite sure that i entirely comprehend my own meaning, in some of these blasted allegories; but i remember that i always had a meaning, or at least thought i had. i am a good deal changed since those times; and, to tell you the truth, my past self is not very much to my taste, as i see myself in this book. yet certainly there is more in it than the public generally gave me credit for at the time it was written. "but i don't think myself worthy of very much more credit than i got. it has been a very disagreeable task to read the book. the story of 'rappacini's daughter' was published in the democratic review, about the year ; and it was prefaced by some remarks on the celebrated french author (a certain m. de l'aubépine), from whose works it was translated. i left out this preface when the story was republished; but i wish you would turn to it in the democratic, and see whether it is worth while to insert it in the new edition. i leave it altogether to your judgment. "a young poet named ---- has called on me, and has sent me some copies of his works to be transmitted to america. it seems to me there is good in him; and he is recognized by tennyson, by carlyle, by kingsley, and others of the best people here. he writes me that this edition of his poems is nearly exhausted, and that routledge is going to publish another enlarged and in better style. "perhaps it might be well for you to take him up in america. at all events, try to bring him into notice; and some day or other you may be glad to have helped a famous poet in his obscurity. the poor fellow has left a good post in the customs to cultivate literature in london! "we shall begin to look for you now by every steamer from boston. you must make up your mind to spend a good while with us before going to see your london friends. "did you read the article on your friend de quincey in the last westminster? it was written by mr. ---- of this city, who was in america a year or two ago. the article is pretty well, but does nothing like adequate justice to de quincey; and in fact no englishman cares a pin for him. we are ten times as good readers and critics as they. "is not whipple coming here soon?" hawthorne's first visit to london afforded him great pleasure, but he kept out of the way of literary people as much as possible. he introduced himself to nobody, except mr. ----, whose assistance he needed, in order to be identified at the bank. he wrote to me from george street, hanover square, and told me he delighted in london, and wished he could spend a year there. he enjoyed floating about, in a sort of unknown way, among the rotund and rubicund figures made jolly with ale and port-wine. he was greatly amused at being told (his informants meaning to be complimentary) "that he would never be taken for anything but an englishman." he called tennyson's "charge of the light brigade," just printed at that time, "a broken-kneed gallop of a poem." he writes:-- "john bull is in high spirits just now at the taking of sebastopol. what an absurd personage john is! i find that my liking for him grows stronger the more i see of him, but that my admiration and respect have constantly decreased." one of his most intimate friends (a man unlike that individual of whom it was said that he was the friend of everybody that did not need a friend) was francis bennoch, a merchant of wood street, cheapside, london, the gentleman to whom mrs. hawthorne dedicated the english note-books. hawthorne's letters abounded in warm expressions of affection for the man whose noble hospitality and deep interest made his residence in england full of happiness. bennoch was indeed like a brother to him, sympathizing warmly in all his literary projects, and giving him the benefit of his excellent judgment while he was sojourning among strangers. bennoch's record may be found in tom taylor's admirable life of poor haydon, the artist. all literary and artistic people who have had the good fortune to enjoy his friendship have loved him. i happen to know of his bountiful kindness to miss mitford and hawthorne and poor old jerdan, for these hospitalities happened in my time; but he began to befriend all who needed friendship long before i knew him. his name ought never to be omitted from the literary annals of england; nor that of his wife either, for she has always made her delightful fireside warm and comforting to her husband's friends. many and many a happy time bennoch, hawthorne, and myself have had together on british soil. i remember we went once to dine at a great house in the country, years ago, where it was understood there would be no dinner speeches. the banquet was in honor of some society,--i have quite forgotten what,--but it was a jocose and not a serious club. the gentleman who gave it, sir ----, was a most kind and genial person, and gathered about him on this occasion some of the brightest and best from london. all the way down in the train hawthorne was rejoicing that this was to be a dinner without speech-making; "for," said he, "nothing would tempt me to go if toasts and such confounded deviltry were to be the order of the day." so we rattled along, without a fear of any impending cloud of oratory. the entertainment was a most exquisite one, about twenty gentlemen sitting down at the beautifully ornamented table. hawthorne was in uncommonly good spirits, and, having the seat of honor at the right of his host, was pretty keenly scrutinized by his british brethren of the quill. he had, of course, banished all thought of speech-making, and his knees never smote together once, as he told me afterwards. but it became evident to my mind that hawthorne's health was to be proposed with all the honors. i glanced at him across the table, and saw that he was unsuspicious of any movement against his quiet serenity. suddenly and without warning our host rapped the mahogany, and began a set speech of welcome to the "distinguished american romancer." it was a very honest and a very hearty speech, but i dared not look at hawthorne. i expected every moment to see him glide out of the room, or sink down out of sight from his chair. the tortures i suffered on hawthorne's account, on that occasion, i will not attempt to describe now. i knew nothing would have induced the shy man of letters to go down to brighton, if he had known he was to be spoken at in that manner. i imagined his face a deep crimson, and his hands trembling with nervous horror; but judge of my surprise, when he rose to reply with so calm a voice and so composed a manner, that, in all my experience of dinner-speaking, i never witnessed such a case of apparent ease. (easy-chair c ---- himself, one of the best makers of after-dinner or any other speeches of our day, according to charles dickens,--no inadequate judge, all will allow,--never surpassed in eloquent effect this speech by hawthorne.) there was no hesitation, no sign of lack of preparation, but he went on for about ten minutes in such a masterly manner, that i declare it was one of the most successful efforts of the kind ever made. everybody was delighted, and, when he sat down, a wild and unanimous shout of applause rattled the glasses on the table. the meaning of his singular composure on that occasion i could never get him satisfactorily to explain, and the only remark i ever heard him make, in any way connected with this marvellous exhibition of coolness, was simply, "what a confounded fool i was to go down to that speech-making dinner!" during all those long years, while hawthorne was absent in europe, he was anything but an idle man. on the contrary, he was an eminently busy one, in the best sense of that term; and if his life had been prolonged, the public would have been a rich gainer for his residence abroad. his brain teemed with romances, and once i remember he told me he had no less than five stories, well thought out, any one of which he could finish and publish whenever he chose to. there was one subject for a work of imagination that seems to have haunted him for years, and he has mentioned it twice in his journal. this was the subsequent life of the young man whom jesus, looking on, "loved," and whom he bade to sell all that he had and give to the poor, and take up his cross and follow him. "something very deep and beautiful might be made out of this," hawthorne said, "for the young man went away sorrowful, and is not recorded to have done what he was bidden to do." one of the most difficult matters he had to manage while in england was the publication of miss bacon's singular book on shakespeare. the poor lady, after he had agreed to see the work through the press, broke off all correspondence with him in a storm of wrath, accusing him of pusillanimity in not avowing full faith in her theory; so that, as he told me, so far as her good-will was concerned, he had not gained much by taking the responsibility of her book upon his shoulders. it was a heavy weight for him to bear in more senses than one, for he paid out of his own pocket the expenses of publication. i find in his letters constant references to the kindness with which he was treated in london. he spoke of mrs. s.c. hall as "one of the best and warmest-hearted women in the world." leigh hunt, in his way, pleased and satisfied him more than almost any man he had seen in england. "as for other literary men," he says in one of his letters, "i doubt whether london can muster so good a dinner-party as that which assembles every month at the marble palace in school street." all sorts of adventures befell him during his stay in europe, even to that of having his house robbed, and his causing the thieves to be tried and sentenced to transportation. in the summer-time he travelled about the country in england and pitched his tent wherever fancy prompted. one autumn afternoon in september he writes to me from leamington:-- "i received your letter only this morning, at this cleanest and prettiest of english towns, where we are going to spend a week or two before taking our departure for paris. we are acquainted with leamington already, having resided here two summers ago; and the country round about is unadulterated england, rich in old castles, manor-houses, churches, and thatched cottages, and as green as paradise itself. i only wish i had a house here, and that you could come and be my guest in it; but i am a poor wayside vagabond, and only find shelter for a night or so, and then trudge onward again. my wife and children and myself are familiar with all kinds of lodgement and modes of living, but we have forgotten what home is,--at least the children have, poor things! i doubt whether they will ever feel inclined to live long in one place. the worst of it is, i have outgrown my house in concord, and feel no inclination to return to it. "we spent seven weeks in manchester, and went most diligently to the art exhibition; and i really begin to be sensible of the rudiments of a taste in pictures." it was during one of his rambles with alexander ireland through the manchester exhibition rooms that hawthorne saw tennyson wandering about. i have always thought it unfortunate that these two men of genius could not have been introduced on that occasion. hawthorne was too shy to seek an introduction, and tennyson was not aware that the american author was present. hawthorne records in his journal that he gazed at tennyson with all his eyes, "and rejoiced more in him than in all the other wonders of the exhibition." when i afterwards told tennyson that the author whose "twice-told tales" he happened to be then reading at farringford had met him at manchester, but did not make himself known, the laureate said in his frank and hearty manner: "why didn't he come up and let me shake hands with him? i am sure i should have been glad to meet a man like hawthorne anywhere." at the close of hawthorne writes to me that he hears nothing of the appointment of his successor in the consulate, since he had sent in his resignation. "somebody may turn up any day," he says, "with a new commission in his pocket." he was meanwhile getting ready for italy, and he writes, "i expect shortly to be released from durance." in his last letter before leaving england for the continent he says:-- "i made up a huge package the other day, consisting of seven closely written volumes of journal, kept by me since my arrival in england, and filled with sketches of places and men and manners, many of which would doubtless be very delightful to the public. i think i shall seal them up, with directions in my will to have them opened and published a century hence; and your firm shall have the refusal of them then. "remember me to everybody, for i love all my friends at least as well as ever." released from the cares of office, and having nothing to distract his attention, his life on the continent opened full of delightful excitement. his pecuniary situation was such as to enable him to live very comfortably in a country where, at that time, prices were moderate. in a letter dated from a villa near florence on the d of september, , he thus describes in a charming manner his way of life in italy:-- "i am afraid i have stayed away too long, and am forgotten by everybody. you have piled up the dusty remnants of my editions, i suppose, in that chamber over the shop, where you once took me to smoke a cigar, and have crossed my name out of your list of authors, without so much as asking whether i am dead or alive. but i like it well enough, nevertheless. it is pleasant to feel at last that i am really away from america,--a satisfaction that i never enjoyed as long as i stayed in liverpool, where it seemed to me that the quintessence of nasal and hand-shaking yankeedom was continually filtered and sublimated through my consulate, on the way outward and homeward. i first got acquainted with my own countrymen there. at rome, too, it was not much better. but here in florence, and in the summer-time, and in this secluded villa, i have escaped out of all my old tracks, and am really remote. "i like my present residence immensely. the house stands on a hill, overlooking florence, and is big enough to quarter a regiment; insomuch that each member of the family, including servants, has a separate suite of apartments, and there are vast wildernesses of upper rooms into which we have never yet sent exploring expeditions. "at one end of the house there is a moss-grown tower, haunted by owls and by the ghost of a monk, who was confined there in the thirteenth century, previous to being burned at the stake in the principal square of florence. i hire this villa, tower and all, at twenty-eight dollars a month; but i mean to take it away bodily and clap it into a romance, which i have in my head ready to be written out. "speaking of romances, i have planned two, one or both of which i could have ready for the press in a few months if i were either in england or america. but i find this italian atmosphere not favorable to the close toil of composition, although it is a very good air to dream in. i must breathe the fogs of old england or the east-winds of massachusetts, in order to put me into working trim. nevertheless, i shall endeavor to be busy during the coming winter at rome, but there will be so much to distract my thoughts that i have little hope of seriously accomplishing anything. it is a pity; for i have really a plethora of ideas, and should feel relieved by discharging some of them upon the public. "we shall continue here till the end of this month, and shall then return to rome, where i have already taken a house for six months. in the middle of april we intend to start for home by the way of geneva and paris; and, after spending a few weeks in england, shall embark for boston in july or the beginning of august. after so long an absence (more than five years already, which will be six before you see me at the old corner), it is not altogether delightful to think of returning. everybody will be changed, and i myself, no doubt, as much as anybody. ticknor and you, i suppose, were both upset in the late religious earthquake, and when i inquire for you the clerks will direct me to the 'business men's conference.' it won't do. i shall be forced to come back again and take refuge in a london lodging. london is like the grave in one respect,--any man can make himself at home there; and whenever a man finds himself homeless elsewhere, he had better either die or go to london. "speaking of the grave reminds me of old age and other disagreeable matters; and i would remark that one grows old in italy twice or three times as fast as in other countries. i have three gray hairs now for one that i brought from england, and i shall look venerable indeed by next summer, when i return. "remember me affectionately to all my friends. whoever has a kindness for me may be assured that i have twice as much for him." hawthorne's second visit to rome, in the winter of , was not a fortunate one. his own health was excellent during his sojourn there, but several members of his family fell ill, and he became very nervous and longed to get away. in one of his letters he says:-- "i bitterly detest rome, and shall rejoice to bid it farewell forever; and i fully acquiesce in all the mischief and ruin that has happened to it, from nero's conflagration downward. in fact, i wish the very site had been obliterated before i ever saw it." he found solace, however, during the series of domestic troubles (continued illness in his family) that befell, in writing memoranda for "the marble faun." he thus announces to me the beginning of the new romance:-- "i take some credit to myself for having sternly shut myself up for an hour or two almost every day, and come to close grips with a romance which i have been trying to tear out of my mind. as for my success, i can't say much; indeed, i don't know what to say at all. i only know that i have produced what seems to be a larger amount of scribble than either of my former romances, and that portions of it interested me a good deal while i was writing them; but i have had so many interruptions, from things to see and things to suffer, that the story has developed itself in a very imperfect way, and will have to be revised hereafter. i could finish it for the press in the time that i am to remain here (till the th of april), but my brain is tired of it just now; and, besides, there are many objects that i shall regret not seeing hereafter, though i care very little about seeing them now; so i shall throw aside the romance, and take it up again next august at the wayside." he decided to be back in england early in the summer, and to sail for home in july. he writes to me from rome:-- "i shall go home, i fear, with a heavy heart, not expecting to be very well contented there.... if i were but a hundred times richer than i am, how very comfortable i could be! i consider it a great piece of good fortune that i have had experience of the discomforts and miseries of italy, and did not go directly home from england. anything will seem like paradise after a roman winter. "if i had but a house fit to live in, i should be greatly more reconciled to coming home; but i am really at a loss to imagine how we are to squeeze ourselves into that little old cottage of mine. we had outgrown it before we came away, and most of us are twice as big now as we were then. "i have an attachment to the place, and should be sorry to give it up; but i shall half ruin myself if i try to enlarge the house, and quite if i build another. so what is to be done? pray have some plan for me before i get back; not that i think you can possibly hit on anything that will suit me.... i shall return by way of venice and geneva, spend two or three weeks or more in paris, and sail for home, as i said, in july. it would be an exceeding delight to me to meet you or ticknor in england, or anywhere else. at any rate, it will cheer my heart to see you all and the old corner itself, when i touch my dear native soil again." i went abroad again in , and found hawthorne back in england, working away diligently at "the marble faun." while travelling on the continent, during the autumn i had constant letters from him, giving accounts of his progress on the new romance. he says: "i get along more slowly than i expected.... if i mistake not, it will have some good chapters." writing on the th of october he tells me:-- "the romance is almost finished, a great heap of manuscript being already accumulated, and only a few concluding chapters remaining behind. if hard pushed, i could have it ready for the press in a fortnight; but unless the publishers [smith and elder were to bring out the work in england] are in a hurry, i shall be somewhat longer about it. i have found far more work to do upon it than i anticipated. to confess the truth, i admire it exceedingly at intervals, but am liable to cold fits, during which i think it the most infernal nonsense. you ask for the title. i have not yet fixed upon one, but here are some that have occurred to me; neither of them exactly meets my idea: 'monte beni; or, the faun. a romance.' 'the romance of a faun.' 'the faun of monte beni.' 'monte beni: a romance.' 'miriam: a romance.' 'hilda: a romance.' 'donatello: a romance.' 'the faun: a romance.' 'marble and man: a romance.' when you have read the work (which i especially wish you to do before it goes to press), you will be able to select one of them, or imagine something better. there is an objection in my mind to an italian name, though perhaps monte beni might do. neither do i wish, if i can help it, to make the fantastic aspect of the book too prominent by putting the faun into the title-page." hawthorne wrote so intensely on his new story, that he was quite worn down before he finished it. to recruit his strength he went to redcar, where the bracing air of the german ocean soon counteracted the ill effect of overwork. "the marble faun" was in the london printing-office in november, and he seemed very glad to have it off his hands. his letters to me at this time (i was still on the continent) were jubilant with hope. he was living in leamington, and was constantly writing to me that i should find the next two months more comfortable in england than anywhere else. on the th he writes:-- "the italian spring commences in february, which is certainly an advantage, especially as from february to may is the most disagreeable portion of the english year. but it is always summer by a bright coal-fire. we find nothing to complain of in the climate of leamington. to be sure, we cannot always see our hands before us for fog; but i like fog, and do not care about seeing my hand before me. we have thought of staying here till after christmas and then going somewhere else,--perhaps to bath, perhaps to devonshire. but all this is uncertain. leamington is not so desirable a residence in winter as in summer; its great charm consisting in the many delightful walks and drives, and in its neighborhood to interesting places. i have quite finished the book (some time ago) and have sent it to smith and elder, who tell me it is in the printer's hands, but i have received no proof-sheets. they wrote to request another title instead of the 'romance of monte beni,' and i sent them their choice of a dozen. i don't know what they have chosen; neither do i understand their objection to the above. perhaps they don't like the book at all; but i shall not trouble myself about that, as long as they publish it and pay me my £ . for my part, i think it much my best romance; but i can see some points where it is open to assault. if it could have appeared first in america, it would have been a safe thing.... "i mean to spend the rest of my abode in england in blessed idleness: and as for my journal, in the first place i have not got it here; secondly, there is nothing in it that will do to publish." * * * * * hawthorne was, indeed, a consummate artist, and i do not remember a single slovenly passage in all his acknowledged writings. it was a privilege, and one that i can never sufficiently estimate, to have known him personally through so many years. he was unlike any other author i have met, and there were qualities in his nature so sweet and commendable, that, through all his shy reserve, they sometimes asserted themselves in a marked and conspicuous manner. i have known rude people, who were jostling him in a crowd, give way at the sound of his low and almost irresolute voice, so potent was the gentle spell of command that seemed born of his genius. although he was apt to keep aloof from his kind, and did not hesitate frequently to announce by his manner that "solitude to him was blithe society, who filled the air with gladness and involuntary songs," i ever found him, like milton's raphael, an "affable" angel, and inclined to converse on whatever was human and good in life. here are some more extracts from the letters he wrote to me while he was engaged on "the marble faun." on the th of february, , he writes from leamington in england (i was then in italy):-- "i received your letter from florence, and conclude that you are now in rome, and probably enjoying the carnival,--a tame description of which, by the by, i have introduced into my romance. "i thank you most heartily for your kind wishes in favor of the forthcoming work, and sincerely join my own prayers to yours in its behalf, but without much confidence of a good result. my own opinion is, that i am not really a popular writer, and that what popularity i have gained is chiefly accidental, and owing to other causes than my own kind or degree of merit. possibly i may (or may not) deserve something better than popularity; but looking at all my productions, and especially this latter one, with a cold or critical eye, i can see that they do not make their appeal to the popular mind. it is odd enough, moreover, that my own individual taste is for quite another class of works than those which i myself am able to write. if i were to meet with such books as mine, by another writer, i don't believe i should be able to get through them. * * * * * "to return to my own moonshiny romance; its fate will soon be settled, for smith and elder mean to publish on the th of this month. poor ticknor will have a tight scratch to get his edition out contemporaneously; they having sent him the third volume only a week ago. i think, however, there will be no danger of piracy in america. perhaps nobody will think it worth stealing. give my best regards to william story, and look well at his cleopatra, for you will meet her again in one of the chapters which i wrote with most pleasure. if he does not find himself famous henceforth, the fault will be none of mine. i, at least, have done my duty by him, whatever delinquency there may be on the part of other critics. "smith and elder persist in calling the book 'transformation,' which gives one the idea of harlequin in a pantomime; but i have strictly enjoined upon ticknor to call it 'the marble faun; a romance of monte beni.'" in one of his letters written at this period, referring to his design of going home, he says:-- "i shall not have been absent seven years till the th of july next, and i scorn to touch yankee soil sooner than that.... as regards going home i alternate between a longing and a dread." returning to london from the continent, in april, i found this letter, written from bath, awaiting my arrival:-- "you are welcome back. i really began to fear that you had been assassinated among the apennines or killed in that outbreak at rome. i have taken passages for all of us in the steamer which sails the th of june. your berths are nos. and . i engaged them with the understanding that you might go earlier or later, if you chose; but i would advise you to go on the th; in the first place, because the state-rooms for our party are the most eligible in the ship; secondly, because we shall otherwise mutually lose the pleasure of each other's company. besides, i consider it my duty, towards ticknor and towards boston, and america at large, to take you into custody and bring you home; for i know you will never come except upon compulsion. let me know at once whether i am to use force. "the book (the marble faun) has done better than i thought it would; for you will have discovered, by this time, that it is an audacious attempt to impose a tissue of absurdities upon the public by the mere art of style of narrative. i hardly hoped that it would go down with john bull; but then it is always my best point of writing, to undertake such a task, and i really put what strength i have into many parts of this book. "the english critics generally (with two or three unimportant exceptions) have been sufficiently favorable, and the review in the times awarded the highest praise of all. at home, too, the notices have been very kind, so far as they have come under my eye. lowell had a good one in the atlantic monthly, and hillard an excellent one in the courier; and yesterday i received a sheet of the may number of the atlantic containing a really keen and profound article by whipple, in which he goes over all my works, and recognizes that element of unpopularity which (as nobody knows better than myself) pervades them all. i agree with almost all he says, except that i am conscious of not deserving nearly so much praise. when i get home, i will try to write a more genial book; but the devil himself always seems to get into my inkstand, and i can only exorcise him by pensful at a time. "i am coming to london very soon, and mean to spend a fortnight of next month there. i have been quite homesick through this past dreary winter. did you ever spend a winter in england? if not, reserve your ultimate conclusion about the country until you have done so." we met in london early in may, and, as our lodgings were not far apart, we were frequently together. i recall many pleasant dinners with him and mutual friends in various charming seaside and country-side places. we used to take a run down to greenwich or blackwall once or twice a week, and a trip to richmond was always grateful to him. bennoch was constantly planning a day's happiness for his friend, and the hours at that pleasant season of the year were not long enough for our delights. in london we strolled along the strand, day after day, now diving into bolt court, in pursuit of johnson's whereabouts, and now stumbling around the temple, where goldsmith at one time had his quarters. hawthorne was never weary of standing on london bridge, and watching the steamers plying up and down the thames. i was much amused by his manner towards importunate and sometimes impudent beggars, scores of whom would attack us even in the shortest walk. he had a mild way of making a severe and cutting remark, which used to remind me of a little incident which charlotte cushman once related to me. she said a man in the gallery of a theatre (i think she was on the stage at the time) made such a disturbance that the play could not proceed. cries of "throw him over" arose from all parts of the house, and the noise became furious. all was tumultuous chaos until a sweet and gentle female voice was heard in the pit, exclaiming, "no! i pray you don't throw him over! i beg of you, dear friends, don't throw him over, but--_kill him where he is_." one of our most royal times was at a parting dinner at the house of barry cornwall. among the notables present were kinglake and leigh hunt. our kind-hearted host and his admirable wife greatly delighted in hawthorne, and they made this occasion a most grateful one to him. i remember when we went up to the drawing-room to join the ladies after dinner, the two dear old poets, leigh hunt and barry cornwall, mounted the stairs with their arms round each other in a very tender and loving way. hawthorne often referred to this scene as one he would not have missed for a great deal. his renewed intercourse with motley in england gave him peculiar pleasure, and his genius found an ardent admirer in the eminent historian. he did not go much, into society at that time, but there were a few houses in london where he always seemed happy. i met him one night at a great evening-party, looking on from a nook a little removed from the full glare of the _soirée_. soon, however, it was whispered about that the famous american romance-writer was in the room, and an enthusiastic english lady, a genuine admirer and intelligent reader of his books, ran for her album and attacked him for "a few words and his name at the end." he looked dismally perplexed, and turning to me said imploringly in a whisper, "for pity's sake, what shall i write? i can't think of a word to add to my name. help me to something." thinking him partly in fun, i said, "write an original couplet,--this one, for instance,-- 'when this you see, remember me,'" and to my amazement he stepped forward at once to the table, wrote the foolish lines i had suggested, and, shutting the book, handed it very contentedly to the happy lady. we sailed from england together in the month of june, as we had previously arranged, and our voyage home was, to say the least, an unusual one. we had calm summer, moonlight weather, with no storms. mrs. stowe was on board, and in her own cheery and delightful way she enlivened the passage with some capital stories of her early life. when we arrived at queenstown, the captain announced to us that, as the ship would wait there six hours, we might go ashore and see something of our irish friends. so we chartered several jaunting-cars, after much tribulation and delay in arranging terms with the drivers thereof, and started off on a merry exploring expedition. i remember there was a good deal of racing up and down the hills of queenstown, much shouting and laughing, and crowds of beggars howling after us for pence and beer. the irish jaunting-car is a peculiar institution, and we all sat with our legs dangling over the road in a "dim and perilous way." occasionally a horse would give out, for the animals were sad specimens, poorly fed and wofully driven. we were almost devoured by the ragamuffins that ran beside our wheels, and i remember the "sad civility" with which hawthorne regarded their clamors. we had provided ourselves before starting with much small coin, which, however, gave out during our first mile. hawthorne attempted to explain our inability further to supply their demands, having, as he said to them, nothing less than a sovereign in his pocket, when a voice from the crowd shouted, "bedad, your honor, i can change that for ye"; and the knave actually did it on the spot. hawthorne's love for the sea amounted to a passionate worship; and while i (the worst sailor probably on this planet) was longing, spite of the good company on board, to reach land as soon as possible, hawthorne was constantly saying in his quiet, earnest way, "i should like to sail on and on forever, and never touch the shore again." he liked to stand alone in the bows of the ship and see the sun go down, and he was never tired of walking the deck at midnight. i used to watch his dark, solitary figure under the stars, pacing up and down some unfrequented part of the vessel, musing and half melancholy. sometimes he would lie down beside me and commiserate my unquiet condition. seasickness, he declared, he could not understand, and was constantly recommending most extraordinary dishes and drinks, "all made out of the _artist's_ brain," which he said were sovereign remedies for nautical illness. i remember to this day some of the preparations which, in his revelry of fancy, he would advise me to take, a farrago of good things almost rivalling "oberon's feast," spread out so daintily in herrick's "hesperides." he thought, at first, if i could bear a few roc's eggs beaten up by a mermaid on a dolphin's back, i might be benefited. he decided that a gruel made from a sheaf of robin hood's arrows would be strengthening. when suffering pain, "a right gude willie-waught," or a stiff cup of hemlock of the socrates brand, before retiring, he considered very good. he said he had heard recommended a dose of salts distilled from the tears of niobe, but he didn't approve of that remedy. he observed that he had a high opinion of hearty food, such as potted owl with minerva sauce, airy tongues of sirens, stewed ibis, livers of roman capitol geese, the wings of a phoenix not too much done, love-lorn nightingales cooked briskly over aladdin's lamp, chicken-pies made of fowls raised by mrs. carey, nautilus chowder, and the like. fruit, by all means, should always be taken by an uneasy victim at sea, especially atalanta pippins and purple grapes raised by bacchus & co. examining my garments one day as i lay on deck, he thought i was not warmly enough clad, and he recommended, before i took another voyage, that i should fit myself out in liverpool with a good warm shirt from the shop of nessus & co. in bold street, where i could also find stout seven-league boots to keep out the damp. he knew another shop, he said, where i could buy raven-down stockings, and sable clouds with a silver lining, most warm and comfortable for a sea voyage. his own appetite was excellent, and day after day he used to come on deck after dinner and describe to me what he had eaten. of course his accounts were always exaggerations, for my amusement. i remember one night he gave me a running catalogue of what food he had partaken during the day, and the sum total was convulsing from its absurdity. among the viands he had consumed, i remember he stated there were "several yards of steak," and a "whole warrenful of welsh rabbits." the "divine spirit of humor" was upon him during many of those days at sea, and he revelled in it like a careless child. that was a voyage, indeed, long to be remembered, and i shall ever look back upon it as the most satisfactory "sea turn" i ever happened to experience. i have sailed many a weary, watery mile since then, but _hawthorne_ was not on board! the summer after his arrival home he spent quietly in concord, at the wayside, and illness in his family made him at times unusually sad. in one of his notes to me he says:-- "i am continually reminded nowadays of a response which i once heard a drunken sailor make to a pious gentleman, who asked him how he felt, 'pretty d--d miserable, thank god!' it very well expresses my thorough discomfort and forced acquiescence." occasionally he wrote requesting me to make a change, here and there, in the new edition of his works then passing through the press. on the d of september, , he writes:-- "please to append the following note to the foot of the page, at the commencement of the story called 'dr. heidegger's experiment,' in the 'twice-told tales': 'in an english review, not long since, i have been accused of plagiarizing the idea of this story from a chapter in one of the novels of alexandra dumas. there has undoubtedly been a plagiarism, on one side or the other; but as my story was written a good deal more than twenty years ago, and as the novel is of considerably more recent date, i take pleasure in thinking that m. dumas has done me the honor to appropriate one of the fanciful conceptions of my earlier days. he is heartily welcome to it; nor is it the only instance, by many, in which the great french romancer has exercised the privilege of commanding genius by confiscating the intellectual property of less famous people to his own use and behoof.'" hawthorne was a diligent reader of the bible, and when sometimes, in my ignorant way, i would question, in a proof-sheet, his use of a word, he would almost always refer me to the bible as his authority. it was a great pleasure to hear him talk about the book of job, and his voice would be tremulous with feeling, as he sometimes quoted a touching passage from the new testament. in one of his letters he says to me:-- "did not i suggest to you, last summer, the publication of the bible in ten or twelve mo volumes? i think it would have great success, and, at least (but, as a publisher, i suppose this is the very smallest of your cares), it would result in the salvation of a great many souls, who will never find their way to heaven, if left to learn it from the inconvenient editions of the scriptures now in use. it is very singular that this form of publishing the bible in a single bulky or closely printed volume should be so long continued. it was first adopted, i suppose, as being the universal mode of publication at the time when the bible was translated. shakespeare, and the other old dramatists and poets, were first published in the same form; but all of them have long since been broken into dozens and scores of portable and readable volumes; and why not the bible?" during this period, after his return from europe, i saw him frequently at the wayside, in concord. he now seemed happy in the dwelling he had put in order for the calm and comfort of his middle and later life. he had added a tower to his house, in which he could be safe from intrusion, and where he could muse and write. never was poet or romancer more fitly shrined. drummond at hawthornden, scott at abbotsford, dickens at gad's hill, irving at sunnyside, were not more appropriately sheltered. shut up in his tower, he could escape from the tumult of life, and be alone with only the birds and the bees in concert outside his casement. the view from this apartment, on every side, was lovely, and hawthorne enjoyed the charming prospect as i have known, few men to enjoy nature. his favorite walk lay near his house,--indeed it was part of his own grounds,--a little hillside, where he had worn a foot-path, and where he might be found in good weather, when not employed in the tower. while walking to and fro on this bit of rising ground he meditated and composed innumerable romances that were never written, as well as some that were. here he, first announced to me his plan of "the dolliver romance," and, from what he told me of his design of the story as it existed in his mind, i thought it would have been the greatest of his books. an enchanting memory is left of that morning when he laid out the whole story before me as he intended to write it. the plot was a grand one, and i tried to tell him how much i was impressed by it. very soon after our interview, he wrote to me:-- "in compliance with your exhortations, i have begun to think seriously of that story, not, as yet, with a pen in my hand, but trudging to and fro on my hilltop.... i don't mean to let you see the first chapters till i have written the final sentence of the story. indeed, the first chapters of a story ought always to be the last written.... if you want me to write a good book, send me a good pen; not a gold one, for they seldom suit me; but a pen flexible and capacious of ink, and that will not grow stiff and rheumatic the moment i get attached to it. i never met with a good pen in my life." time went on, the war broke out, and he had not the heart to go on with his new romance. during the month of april, , he made a visit to washington with his friend ticknor, to whom he was greatly attached. while on this visit to the capital he sat to leutze for a portrait. he took a special fancy to the artist, and, while he was sitting to him, wrote a long letter to me. here is an extract from it:-- "i stay here only while leutze finishes a portrait, which i think will be the best ever painted of the same unworthy subject. one charm it must needs have,--an aspect of immortal jollity and well-to-doness; for leutze, when the sitting begins, gives me a first-rate cigar, and when he sees me getting tired, he brings out a bottle of splendid champagne; and we quaffed and smoked yesterday, in a blessed state of mutual good-will, for three hours and a half, during which the picture made a really miraculous progress. leutze is the best of fellows." in the same letter he thus describes the sinking of the cumberland, and i know of nothing finer in its way:-- "i see in a newspaper that holmes is going to write a song on the sinking of the cumberland; and feeling it to be a subject of national importance, it occurs to me that he might like to know her present condition. she lies with her three masts sticking up out of the water, and careened over, the water being nearly on a level with her maintop,--i mean that first landing-place from the deck of the vessel, after climbing the shrouds. the rigging does not appear at all damaged. there is a tattered bit of a pennant, about a foot and a half long, fluttering from the tip-top of one of the masts; but the flag, the ensign of the ship (which never was struck, thank god), is under water, so as to be quite invisible, being attached to the gaff, i think they call it, of the mizzen-mast; and though this bald description makes nothing of it, i never saw anything so gloriously forlorn as those three masts. i did not think it was in me to be so moved by any spectacle of the kind. bodies still occasionally float up from it. the secretary of the navy says she shall lie there till she goes to pieces, but i suppose by and by they will sell her to some yankee for the value of her old iron. "p.s. my hair really is not so white as this photograph, which i enclose, makes me. the sun seems to take an infernal pleasure in making me venerable,--as if i were as old as himself." hawthorne has rested so long in the twilight of impersonality, that i hesitate sometimes to reveal the man even to his warmest admirers. this very day sainte-beuve has made me feel a fresh reluctance in unveiling my friend, and there seems almost a reproof in these words, from the eloquent french author:-- "we know nothing or nearly nothing of the life of la bruyère, and this obscurity adds, it has been remarked, to the effect of his work, and, it may be said, to the piquant happiness of his destiny. if there was not a single line of his unique book, which from the first instant of its publication did not appear and remain in the clear light, so, on the other hand, there was not one individual detail regarding the author which was well known. every ray of the century fell upon each page of the book and the face of the man who held it open in his hand was veiled from our sight." beautifully said, as usual with sainte-beuve, but i venture, notwithstanding such eloquent warning, to proceed. after his return home from washington hawthorne sent to me, during the month of may, an article for the atlantic monthly, which he entitled "chiefly about war-matters." the paper, excellently well done throughout, of course, contained a personal description of president lincoln, which i thought, considered as a portrait of a living man, and drawn by hawthorne, it would not be wise or tasteful to print. the office of an editor is a disagreeable one sometimes, and the case of hawthorne on lincoln disturbed me not a little. after reading the manuscript, i wrote to the author, and asked his permission to omit his description of the president's personal appearance. as usual,--for he was the kindest and sweetest of contributors, the most good-natured and the most amenable man to advise i ever knew,--he consented to my proposal, and allowed me to print the article with the alterations. if any one will turn to the paper in the atlantic monthly (it is in the number for july, ), it will be observed there are several notes; all of these were written by hawthorne himself. he complied with my request without a murmur, but he always thought i was wrong in my decision. he said the whole description of the interview and the president's personal appearance were, to his mind, the only parts of the article worth publishing. "what a terrible thing," he complained, "it is to try to let off a little bit of truth into this miserable humbug of a world!" president lincoln is dead, and as hawthorne once wrote to me, "upon my honor, it seems to me the passage omitted has an historical value," i will copy here verbatim what i advised my friend, both on his own account and the president's, not to print nine years ago. hawthorne and his party had gone into the president's room, annexed, as he says, as supernumeraries to a deputation from a massachusetts whip-factory, with a present of a splendid whip to the chief magistrate:-- "by and by there was a little stir on the staircase and in the passage way, and in lounged a tall, loose-jointed figure, of an exaggerated yankee port and demeanor, whom (as being about the homeliest man i ever saw, yet by no means repulsive or disagreeable) it was impossible not to recognize as uncle abe. "unquestionably, western man though he be, and kentuckian by birth, president lincoln is the essential representative of all yankees, and the veritable specimen, physically, of what the world seems determined to regard as our characteristic qualities. it is the strangest and yet the fittest thing in the jumble of human vicissitudes, that he, out of so many millions, unlooked for, unselected by any intelligible process that could be based upon his genuine qualities, unknown to those who chose him, and unsuspected of what endowments may adapt him for his tremendous responsibility, should have found the way open for him to fling his lank personality into the chair of state,--where, i presume, it was his first impulse to throw his legs on the council-table, and tell the cabinet ministers a story. there is no describing his lengthy awkwardness, nor the uncouthness of his movement; and yet it seemed as if i had been in the habit of seeing him daily, and had shaken hands with him a thousand times in some village street; so true was he to the aspect of the pattern american, though with a certain extravagance which, possibly, i exaggerated still further by the delighted eagerness with which i took it in. if put to guess his calling and livelihood, i should have taken him for a country schoolmaster as soon as anything else. he was dressed in a rusty black frock-coat and pantaloons, unbrushed, and worn so faithfully that the suit had adapted itself to the curves and angularities of his figure, and had grown to be an outer skin of the man. he had shabby slippers on his feet. his hair was black, still unmixed with gray, stiff, somewhat bushy, and had apparently been acquainted with neither brush nor comb that morning, after the disarrangement of the pillow; and as to a nightcap, uncle abe probably knows nothing of such effeminacies. his complexion is dark and sallow, betokening, i fear, an insalubrious atmosphere around the white house; he has thick black eyebrows and an impending brow; his nose is large, and the lines about his mouth are very strongly defined. "the whole physiognomy is as coarse a one as you would meet anywhere in the length and breadth of the states; but, withal, it is redeemed, illuminated, softened, and brightened by a kindly though serious look out of his eyes, and an expression of homely sagacity, that seems weighted with rich results of village experience. a great deal of native sense; no bookish cultivation, no refinement; honest at heart, and thoroughly so, and yet, in some sort, sly,--at least, endowed with a sort of tact and wisdom that are akin to craft, and would impel him, i think, to take an antagonist in flank, rather than to make a bull-run at him right in front. but, on the whole, i liked this sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the homely human sympathies that warmed it; and, for my small share in the matter, would as lief have uncle abe for a ruler as any man whom it would have been practicable to put in his place. "immediately on his entrance the president accosted our member of congress, who had us in charge, and, with a comical twist of his face, made some jocular remark about the length of his breakfast. he then greeted us all round, not waiting for an introduction, but shaking and squeezing everybody's hand with the utmost cordiality, whether the individual's name was announced to him or not. his manner towards us was wholly without pretence, but yet had a kind of natural dignity, quite sufficient to keep the forwardest of us from clapping him on the shoulder and asking for a story. a mutual acquaintance being established, our leader took the whip out of its case, and began to read the address of presentation. the whip was an exceedingly long one, its handle wrought in ivory (by some artist in the massachusetts state prison, i believe), and ornamented with a medallion of the president, and other equally beautiful devices; and along its whole length there was a succession of golden bands and ferrules. the address was shorter than the whip, but equally well made, consisting chiefly of an explanatory description of these artistic designs, and closing with a hint that the gift was a suggestive and emblematic one, and that the president would recognize the use to which such an instrument should be put. "this suggestion gave uncle abe rather a delicate task in his reply, because, slight as the matter seemed, it apparently called for some declaration, or intimation, or faint foreshadowing of policy in reference to the conduct of the war, and the final treatment of the rebels. but the president's yankee aptness and not-to-be-caughtness stood him in good stead, and he jerked or wiggled himself out of the dilemma with an uncouth dexterity that was entirely in character; although, without his gesticulation of eye and mouth,--and especially the flourish of the whip, with which he imagined himself touching up a pair of fat horses,--i doubt whether his words would be worth recording, even if i could remember them. the gist of the reply was, that he accepted the whip as an emblem of peace, not punishment; and, this great affair over, we retired out of the presence in high good-humor, only regretting that we could not have seen the president sit down and fold up his legs (which is said to be a most extraordinary spectacle), or have heard him tell one of those delectable stories for which he is so celebrated. a good many of them are afloat upon the common talk of washington, and are certainly the aptest, pithiest, and funniest little things imaginable; though, to be sure, they smack of the frontier freedom, and would not always bear repetition in a drawing-room, or on the immaculate page of the atlantic." so runs the passage which caused some good-natured discussion nine years ago, between the contributor and the editor. perhaps i was squeamish not to have been, willing to print this matter at that time. some persons, no doubt, will adopt that opinion, but as both president and author have long ago met on the other side of criticism and magazines, we will leave the subject to their decision, they being most interested in the transaction. i did what seemed best in . in "circumstances have changed" with both parties, and i venture to-day what i hardly dared then. * * * * * whenever i look at hawthorne's portrait, and that is pretty often, some new trait or anecdote or reminiscence comes up and clamors to be made known to those who feel an interest in it. but time and eternity call loudly for mortal gossip to be brief, and i must hasten to my last session over that child of genius, who first saw the light on the th of july, . one of his favorite books was lockhart's life of sir walter scott, and in i dedicated to him the household edition of that work. when he received the first volume, he wrote to me a letter of which i am so proud that i keep it among my best treasures. "i am exceedingly gratified by the dedication. i do not deserve so high an honor; but if you think me worthy, it is enough to make the compliment in the highest degree acceptable, no matter who may dispute my title to it. i care more for your good opinion than for that of a host of critics, and have an excellent reason for so doing; inasmuch as my literary success, whatever it has been or may be, is the result of my connection with you. somehow or other you smote the rock of public sympathy on my behalf, and a stream gushed forth in sufficient quantity to quench my thirst though not to drown me. i think no author can ever have had publisher that he valued so much as i do mine." he began in to send me some articles from his english journal for the atlantic magazine, which he afterwards collected into a volume and called "our old home." on forwarding one for december of that year he says:-- "i hope you will like it, for the subject seemed interesting to me when i was on the spot, but i always feel a singular despondency and heaviness of heart in reopening those old journals now. however, if i can make readable sketches out of them, it is no matter." in the same letter he tells me he has been re-reading scott's life, and he suggests some additions to the concluding volume. he says:-- "if the last volume is not already printed and stereotyped, i think you ought to insert in it an explanation of all that is left mysterious in the former volumes,--the name and family of the lady he was in love with, etc. it is desirable, too, to know what have been the fortunes and final catastrophes of his family and intimate friends since his death, down to as recent a period as the death of lockhart. all such matter would make your edition more valuable; and i see no reason why you should be bound by the deference to living connections of the family that may prevent the english publishers from inserting these particulars. we stand in the light of posterity to them, and have the privileges of posterity.... i should be glad to know something of the personal character and life of his eldest son, and whether (as i have heard) he was ashamed of his father for being a literary man. in short, fifty pages devoted to such elucidation would make the edition unique. do come and see us before the leaves fall." while he was engaged in copying out and rewriting his papers on england for the magazine he was despondent about their reception by the public. speaking of them, one day, to me, he said: "we must remember that there is a good deal of intellectual ice mingled with this wine of memory." he was sometimes so dispirited during the war that he was obliged to postpone his contributions for sheer lack of spirit to go on. near the close of the year he writes:-- "i am delighted at what you tell me about the kind appreciation of my articles, for i feel rather gloomy about them myself. i am really much encouraged by what you say; not but what i am sensible that you mollify me with a good deal of soft soap, but it is skilfully applied and effects all you intend it should.... i cannot come to boston to spend more than a day, just at present. it would suit me better to come for a visit when the spring of next year is a little advanced, and if you renew your hospitable proposition then, i shall probably be glad to accept it; though i have now been a hermit so long, that the thought affects me somewhat as it would to invite a lobster or a crab to step out of his shell." he continued, during the early months of , to send now and then an article for the magazine from his english note-books. on the d of february he writes:-- "here is another article. i wish it would not be so wretchedly long, but there are many things which i shall find no opportunity to say unless i say them now; so the article grows under my hand, and one part of it seems just about as well worth printing as another. heaven sees fit to visit me with an unshakable conviction that all this series of articles is good for nothing; but that is none of my business, provided the public and you are of a different opinion. if you think any part of it can be left out with advantage, you are quite at liberty to do so. probably i have not put leigh hunt quite high enough for your sentiments respecting him; but no more genuine characterization and criticism (so far as the writer's purpose to be true goes) was ever done. it is very slight. i might have made more of it, but should not have improved it. "i mean to write two more of these articles, and then hold my hand. i intend to come to boston before the end of this week, if the weather is good. it must be nearly or quite six months since i was there! i wonder how many people there are in the world who would keep their nerves in tolerably good order through such a length of nearly solitary imprisonment?" i advised him to begin to put the series in order for a volume, and to preface the book with his "consular experiences." on the th of april he writes:-- "i don't think the public will bear any more of this sort of thing.... i had a letter from ----, the other day, in which he sends me the enclosed verses, and i think he would like to have them published in the atlantic. do it if you like, i pretend to no judgment in poetry. he also sent this epithalamium by mrs. ----, and i doubt not the good lady will be pleased to see it copied into one of our american newspapers with a few laudatory remarks. can't you do it in the transcript, and send her a copy? you cannot imagine how a little praise jollifies us poor authors to the marrow of our bones. consider, if you had not been a publisher, you would certainly have been one of our wretched tribe, and therefore ought to have a fellow-feeling for us. let michael angelo write the remarks, if you have not the time." ("michael angelo" was a clever little irish-boy who had the care of my room. hawthorne conceived a fancy for the lad, and liked to hear stories of his smart replies to persistent authors who called during my absence with unpromising-looking manuscripts.) on the th of april he writes:-- "i send the article with which the volume is to commence, and you can begin printing it whenever you like. i can think of no better title than this, 'our old home; a series of english sketches, by,' etc. i submit to your judgment whether it would not be well to print these 'consular experiences' in the volume without depriving them of any freshness they may have by previous publication in the magazine? "the article has some of the features that attract the curiosity of the foolish public, being made up of personal narrative and gossip, with a few pungencies of personal satire, which will not be the less effective because the reader can scarcely find out who was the individual meant. i am not without hope of drawing down upon myself a good deal of critical severity on this score, and would gladly incur more of it if i could do so without seriously deserving censure. "the story of the doctor of divinity, i think, will prove a good card in this way. it is every bit true (like the other anecdotes), only not told so darkly as it might have been for the reverend gentleman. i do not believe there is any danger of his identity being ascertained, and do not care whether it is or no, as it could only be done by the impertinent researches of other people. it seems to me quite essential to have some novelty in the collected volume, and, if possible, something that may excite a little discussion and remark. but decide for yourself and me; and if you conclude not to publish it in the magazine, i think i can concoct another article in season for the august number, if you wish. after the publication of the volume, it seems to me the public had better have no more of them. "j---- has been telling us a mythical story of your intending to walk with him from cambridge to concord. we should be delighted to see you, though more for our own sakes than yours, for our aspect here is still a little winterish. when you come, let it be on saturday, and stay till monday. i am hungry to talk with you." i was enchanted, of course, with the "consular experiences," and find from his letters, written at that time, that he was made specially happy by the encomiums i could not help sending upon that inimitable sketch. when the "old home" was nearly all in type, he began to think about a dedication to the book. on the d of may he writes:-- "i am of three minds about dedicating the volume. first, it seems due to frank pierce (as he put me into the position where i made all those profound observations of english scenery, life, and character) to inscribe it to him with a few pages of friendly and explanatory talk, which also would be very gratifying to my own lifelong affection for him. "secondly, i want to say something to bennoch to show him that i am thoroughly mindful of all his hospitality and kindness; and i suppose he might be pleased to see his name at the head of a book of mine. "thirdly, i am not convinced that it is worth while to inscribe it to anybody. we will see hereafter." the book moved on slowly through the press, and he seemed more than commonly nervous about the proof-sheets. on the th of may he says in a note to me:-- "in a proof-sheet of 'our old home' which i sent you to-day (page , or , or or thereabout) i corrected a line thus, 'possessing a happy faculty of seeing my own interest.' now as the public interest was my sole and individual object while i held office, i think that as a matter of scanty justice to myself, the line ought to stand thus, 'possessing a happy faculty of seeing my own interest and the public's.' even then, you see, i only give myself credit for half the disinterestedness i really felt. pray, by all means, have it altered as above, even if the page is stereotyped; which it can't have been, as the proof is now in the concord post-office, and you will have it at the same time with this. "we are getting into full leaf here, and your walk with j---might come off any time." an arrangement was made with the liberal house of smith and elder, of london, to bring out "our old home" on the same day of its publication in boston. on the st of july hawthorne wrote to me from the wayside as follows:-- "i am delighted with smith and elder, or rather with you; for it is you that squeeze the english sovereigns out of the poor devils. on my own behalf i never could have thought of asking more than £ , and should hardly have expected to get £ ; i look upon the £ as the only trustworthy funds i have, our own money being of such a gaseous consistency. by the time i can draw for it, i expect it will be worth at least fifteen hundred dollars. "i shall think over the prefatory matter for 'our old home' to-day, and will write it to-morrow. it requires some little thought and policy in order to say nothing amiss at this time; for i intend to dedicate the book to frank pierce, come what may. it shall reach you on friday morning. "we find ---- a comfortable and desirable guest to have in the house. my wife likes her hugely, and for my part, i had no idea that there was such a sensible woman of letters in the world. she is just as healthy-minded as if she had never touched a pen. i am glad she had a pleasant time, and hope she will come back. "i mean to come to boston whenever i can be sure of a cool day. "what a prodigious length of time you stayed among the mountains! "you ought not to assume such liberties of absence without the consent of your friends, which i hardly think you would get. i, at least, want you always within attainable distance, even though i never see you. why can't you come and stay a day or two with us, and drink some spruce beer?" those were troublous days, full of war gloom and general despondency. the north was naturally suspicious of all public men, who did not bear a conspicuous part in helping to put down the rebellion. general pierce had been president of the united states, and was not identified, to say the least, with the great party which favored the vigorous prosecution of the war. hawthorne proposed to dedicate his new book to a very dear friend, indeed, but in doing so he would draw public attention in a marked way to an unpopular name. several of hawthorne's friends, on learning that he intended to inscribe his book to franklin pierce, came to me and begged that i would, if possible, help hawthorne to see that he ought not to do anything to jeopardize the currency of his new volume. accordingly i wrote to him, just what many of his friends had said to me, and this is his reply to my letter, which bears date the th of july, :-- "i thank you for your note of the th instant, and have delayed my reply thus long in order to ponder deeply on your advice, smoke cigars over it, and see what it might be possible for me to do towards taking it. i find that it would be a piece of poltroonery in me to withdraw either the dedication or the dedicatory letter. my long and intimate personal relations with pierce render the dedication altogether proper, especially as regards this book, which would have had no existence without his kindness; and if he is so exceedingly unpopular that his name is enough to sink the volume, there is so much the more need that an old friend should stand by him. i cannot, merely on account of pecuniary profit or literary reputation, go back from what i have deliberately felt and thought it right to do; and if i were to tear out the dedication, i should never look at the volume again without remorse and shame. as for the literary public, it must accept my book precisely as i think fit to give it, or let it alone. "nevertheless, i have no fancy for making myself a martyr when it is honorably and conscientiously possible to avoid it; and i always measure out my heroism very accurately according to the exigencies of the occasion, and should be the last man in the world to throw away a bit of it needlessly. so i have looked over the concluding paragraph and have amended it in such a way that, while doing what i know to be justice to my friend, it contains not a word that ought to be objectionable to any set of readers. if the public of the north see fit to ostracize me for this, i can only say that i would gladly sacrifice a thousand or two of dollars rather than retain the good-will of such a herd of dolts and mean-spirited scoundrels. i enclose the rewritten paragraph, and shall wish to see a proof of that and the whole dedication. "i had a call from an englishman yesterday, and kept him to dinner; not the threatened ----, but a mr. ----, introduced by ----. he says he knows you, and he seems to be a very good fellow. i have strong hopes that he will never come back here again, for j---- took him on a walk of several miles, whereby they both caught a most tremendous ducking, and the poor englishman was frightened half to death by the thunder.... on the other page is the list of presentation people, and it amounts to twenty-four, which your liberality and kindness allow me. as likely as not i have forgotten two or three, and i held my pen suspended over one or two of the names, doubting whether they deserved of me so especial a favor as a portion of my heart and brain. i have few friends. some authors, i should think, would require half the edition for private distribution." "our old home" was published in the autumn of , and although it was everywhere welcomed, in england the strictures were applied with a liberal hand. on the th of october he writes to me:-- "you sent me the 'reader' with a notice of the book, and i have received one or two others, one of them from bennoch. the english critics seem to think me very bitter against their countrymen, and it is, perhaps, natural that they should, because their self-conceit can accept nothing short of indiscriminate adulation; but i really think that americans have more cause than they to complain of me. looking over the volume, i am rather surprised to find that whenever i draw a comparison between the two people, i almost invariably cast the balance against ourselves. it is not a good nor a weighty book, nor does it deserve any great amount either of praise or censure. i don't care about seeing any more notices of it." meantime the "dolliver romance," which had been laid aside on account of the exciting scenes through which we were then passing, and which unfitted him for the composition of a work of the imagination, made little progress. in a note written to me at this time he says:-- "i can't tell you when to expect an instalment of the romance, if ever. there is something preternatural in my reluctance to begin. i linger at the threshold, and have a perception of very disagreeable phantasms to be encountered if i enter. i wish god had given me the faculty of writing a sunshiny book." i invited him to come to boston and have a cheerful week among his old friends, and threw in as an inducement a hint that he should hear the great organ in the music hall. i also suggested that we could talk over the new romance together, if he would gladden us all by coming to the city. instead of coming, he sent this reply:-- "i thank you for your kind invitation to hear the grand instrument; but it offers me no inducement additional to what i should always have for a visit to your abode. i have no ear for an organ or a jewsharp, nor for any instrument between the two; so you had better invite a worthier guest, and i will come another time. "i don't see much probability of my having the first chapter of the romance ready so soon as you want it. there are two or three chapters ready to be written, but i am not yet robust enough to begin, and i feel as if i should never carry it through. "besides, i want to prefix a little sketch of thoreau to it, because, from a tradition which he told me about this house of mine, i got the idea of a deathless man, which is now taking a shape very different from the original one. it seems the duty of a live literary man to perpetuate the memory of a dead one, when there is such fair opportunity as in this case: but how thoreau would scorn me for thinking that _i_ could perpetuate him! and i don't think so. "i can think of no title for the unborn romance. always heretofore i have waited till it was quite complete before attempting to name it, and i fear i shall have to do so now. i wish you or mrs. fields would suggest one. perhaps you may snatch a title out of the infinite void that will miraculously suit the book, and give me a needful impetus to write it. "i want a great deal of money..... i wonder how people manage to live economically. i seem to spend little or nothing, and yet it will get very far beyond the second thousand, for the present year.... if it were not for these troublesome necessities, i doubt whether you would ever see so much as the first chapter of the new romance. "those verses entitled 'weariness,' in the last magazine, seem to me profoundly touching. i too am weary, and begin to look ahead for the wayside inn." i had frequent accounts of his ill health and changed appearance, but i supposed he would rally again soon, and become hale and strong before the winter fairly set in. but the shadows even then were about his pathway, and allan cunningham's lines, which he once quoted to me, must often have occurred to him,-- "cauld's the snaw at my head, and cauld at my feet, and the finger o' death's at my een, closing them to sleep." we had arranged together that the "dolliver romance" should be first published in the magazine, in monthly instalments, and we decided to begin in the january number of . on the th of november came a long letter from him:-- "i foresee that there is little probability of my getting the first chapter ready by the th, although i have a resolute purpose to write it by the end of the month. it will be in time for the february number, if it turns out fit for publication at all. as to the title, we must defer settling that till the book is fully written, and meanwhile i see nothing better than to call the series of articles 'fragments of a romance.' this will leave me to exercise greater freedom as to the mechanism of the story than i otherwise can, and without which i shall probably get entangled in my own plot. when the work is completed in the magazine, i can fill up the gaps and make straight the crookednesses, and christen it with a fresh title. in this untried experiment of a serial work i desire not to pledge myself, or promise the public more than i may confidently expect to achieve. as regards the sketch of thoreau, i am not ready to write it yet, but will mix him up with the life of the wayside, and produce an autobiographical preface for the finished romance. if the public like that sort of stuff, i too find it pleasant and easy writing, and can supply a new chapter of it for every new volume, and that, moreover, without infringing upon my proper privacy. an old quaker wrote me, the other day, that he had been reading my introduction to the 'mosses' and the 'scarlet letter,' and felt as if he knew me better than his best friend; but i think he considerably overestimates the extent of his intimacy with me. "i received several private letters and printed notices of 'our old home' from england. it is laughable to see the innocent wonder with which they regard my criticisms, accounting for them by jaundice, insanity, jealousy, hatred, on my part, and never admitting the least suspicion that there may be a particle of truth in them. the monstrosity of their self-conceit is such that anything short of unlimited admiration impresses them as malicious caricature. but they do me great injustice in supposing that i hate them. i would as soon hate my own people. "tell ticknor that i want a hundred dollars more, and i suppose i shall keep on wanting more and more till the end of my days. if i subside into the almshouse before my intellectual faculties are quite extinguished, it strikes me that i would make a very pretty book out of it; and, seriously, if i alone were concerned, i should not have any great objection to winding up there." on the th of november came a pleasant little note from him, which seemed to have been written in better spirits than he had shown of late. photographs of himself always amused him greatly, and in the little note i refer to there is this pleasant passage:-- "here is the photograph,--a grandfatherly old figure enough; and i suppose that is the reason why you select it. "i am much in want of _cartes de visite_ to distribute on my own account, and am tired and disgusted with all the undesirable likenesses as yet presented of me. don't you think i might sell my head to some photographer who would be willing to return me the value in small change; that is to say, in a dozen or two of cards?" the first part of chapter i. of "the dolliver romance" came to me from the wayside on the st of december. hawthorne was very anxious to see it in type as soon as possible, in order that he might compose the rest in a similar strain, and so conclude the preliminary phase of dr. dolliver. he was constantly imploring me to send him a good pen, complaining all the while that everything had failed him in that line. in one of his notes begging me to hunt him up something that he could write with, he says:-- "nobody ever suffered more from pens than i have, and i am glad that my labor with the abominable little tool is drawing to a close." in the month of december hawthorne attended the funeral of mrs. franklin pierce, and, after the ceremony, came to stay with us. he seemed ill and more nervous than usual. he said he found general pierce greatly needing his companionship, for he was overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his wife. i well remember the sadness of hawthorne's face when he told us he felt obliged to look on the dead. "it was," said he, "like a carven image laid in its richly embossed enclosure, and there was a remote expression about it as if the whole had nothing to do with things present." he told us, as an instance of the ever-constant courtesy of his friend general pierce, that while they were standing at the grave, the general, though completely overcome with his own sorrow, turned and drew up the collar of hawthorne's coat to shield him from the bitter cold. the same day, as the sunset deepened and we sat together, hawthorne began to talk in an autobiographical vein, and gave us the story of his early life, of which i have already written somewhat. he said at an early age he accompanied his mother and sister to the township in maine, which his grandfather had purchased. that, he continued, was the happiest period of his life, and it lasted through several years, when he was sent to school in salem. "i lived in maine," he said, "like a bird of the air, so perfect was the freedom i enjoyed. but it was there i first got my cursed habits of solitude." during the moonlight nights of winter he would skate until midnight all alone upon sebago lake, with the deep shadows of the icy hills on either hand. when he found himself far away from his home and weary with the exertion of skating, he would sometimes take refuge in a log-cabin, where half a tree would be burning on the broad hearth. he would sit in the ample chimney and look at the stars through the great aperture through which the flames went roaring up. "ah," he said, "how well i recall the summer days also, when, with my gun, i roamed at will through the woods of maine. how sad middle life looks to people of erratic temperaments. everything is beautiful in youth, for all things are allowed to it then." the early home of the hawthornes in maine must have been a lonely dwelling-place indeed. a year ago (may , ) the old place was visited by one who had a true feeling for hawthorne's genius, and who thus graphically described the spot. "a little way off the main-travelled road in the town of raymond there stood an old house which has much in common with houses of its day, but which is distinguished from them by the more evident marks of neglect and decay. its unpainted walls are deeply stained by time. cornice and window-ledge and threshold are fast falling with the weight of years. the fences were long since removed from all the enclosures, the garden-wall is broken down, and the garden itself is now grown up to pines whose shadows fall dark and heavy upon the old and mossy roof; fitting roof-trees for such a mansion, planted there by the hands of nature herself, as if she could not realize that her darling child was ever to go out from his early home. the highway once passed its door, but the location of the road has been changed; and now the old house stands solitarily apart from the busy world. longer than i can remember, and i have never learned how long, this house has stood untenanted and wholly unused, except, for a few years, as a place of public worship; but, for myself, and for all who know its earlier history, it will ever have the deepest interest, for it was _the early home of nathaniel hawthorne_. "often have i, when passing through that town, turned aside to study the features of that landscape, and to reflect upon the influence which his surroundings had upon the development of this author's genius. a few rods to the north runs a little mill-stream, its sloping bank once covered with grass, now so worn and washed by the rains as to show but little except yellow sand. less than half a mile to the west, this stream empties into an arm of sebago lake. doubtless, at the time the house was built, the forest was so much cut away in that direction as to bring into view the waters of the lake, for a mill was built upon the brook about half-way down the valley, and it is reasonable to suppose that a clearing was made from the mill to the landing upon the shore of the pond; but the pines have so far regained their old dominion as completely to shut out the whole prospect in that direction. indeed, the site affords but a limited survey, except to the northwest. across a narrow valley in that direction lie open fields and dark pine-covered slopes. beyond these rise long ranges of forest-crowned hills, while in the far distance every hue of rock and tree, of field and grove, melts into the soft blue of mount washington. the spot must ever have had the utter loneliness of the pine forests upon the borders of our northern lakes. the deep silence and dark shadows of the old woods must have filled the imagination of a youth possessing hawthorne's sensibility with images which later years could not dispel. "to this place came the widowed mother of hawthorne in company with her brother, an original proprietor and one of the early settlers of the town of raymond. this house was built for her, and here she lived with her son for several years in the most complete seclusion. perhaps she strove to conceal here a grief which she could not forget. in what way, and to what extent, the surroundings of his boyhood operated in moulding the character and developing the genius of that gifted author, i leave to the reader to determine. i have tried simply to draw a faithful picture of his early home." on the th of december hawthorne wrote to me:-- "i have not yet had courage to read the dolliver proof-sheet, but will set about it soon, though with terrible reluctance, such as i never felt before.... i am most grateful to you for protecting me from that visitation of the elephant and his cub. if you happen to see mr. ---- of l----, a young man who was here last summer, pray tell him anything that your conscience will let you, to induce him to spare me another visit, which i know he intended. i really am not well and cannot be disturbed by strangers without more suffering than it is worth while to endure. i thank mrs. p---- and yourself for your kind hospitality, past and prospective. i never come to see you without feeling the better for it, but i must not test so precious a remedy too often." the new year found him incapacitated from writing much on the romance. on the th of january, , he says:-- "i am not quite up to writing yet, but shall make an effort as soon as i see any hope of success. you ought to be thankful that (like most other broken-down authors) i do not pester you with decrepit pages, and insist upon your accepting them as full of the old spirit and vigor. that trouble, perhaps, still awaits you, after i shall have reached a further stage of decay. seriously, my mind has, for the present, lost its temper and its fine edge, and i have an instinct that i had better keep quiet. perhaps i shall have a new spirit of vigor, if i wait quietly for it; perhaps not." the end of february found him in a mood which is best indicated in this letter, which he addressed to me on the th of the month:-- "i hardly know what to say to the public about this abortive romance, though i know pretty well what the case will be. i shall never finish it. yet it is not quite pleasant for an author to announce himself, or to be announced, as finally broken down as to his literary faculty. it is a pity that i let you put this work in your programme for the year, for i had always a presentiment that it would fail us at the pinch. say to the public what you think best, and as little as possible; for example: 'we regret that mr. hawthorne's romance, announced for this magazine some months ago, still lies upon the author's writing-table, he having been interrupted in his labor upon it by an impaired state of health'; or, 'we are sorry to hear (but know not whether the public will share our grief) that mr. hawthorne is out of health and is thereby prevented, for the present, from proceeding with another of his promised (or threatened) romances, intended for this magazine'; or, 'mr. hawthorne's brain is addled at last, and, much to our satisfaction, he tells us that he cannot possibly go on with the romance announced on the cover of the january magazine. we consider him finally shelved, and shall take early occasion to bury him under a heavy article, carefully summing up his merits (such as they were) and his demerits, what few of them can be touched upon in our limited space'; or, 'we shall commence the publication of mr. hawthorne's romance as soon as that gentleman chooses to forward it. we are quite at a loss how to account for this delay in the fulfilment of his contract; especially as he has already been most liberally paid for the first number.' say anything you like, in short, though i really don't believe that the public will care what you say or whether you say anything. if you choose, you may publish the first chapter as an insulated fragment, and charge me with the overpayment. i cannot finish it unless a great change comes over me; and if i make too great an effort to do so, it will be my death; not that i should care much for that, if i could fight the battle through and win it, thus ending a life of much smoulder and scanty fire in a blaze of glory. but i should smother myself in mud of my own making. i mean to come to boston soon, not for a week but for a single day, and then i can talk about my sanitary prospects more freely than i choose to write. i am not low-spirited, nor fanciful, nor freakish, but look what seem to be realities in the face, and am ready to take whatever may come. if i could but go to england now, i think that the sea voyage and the 'old home' might set me all right. "this letter is for your own eye, and i wish especially that no echo of it may come back in your notes to me. "p.s. give my kindest regards to mrs. f----, and tell her that one of my choicest ideal places is her drawing-room, and therefore i seldom visit it." on monday, the th of march, hawthorne came to town and made my house his first station on a journey to the south for health. i was greatly shocked at his invalid appearance, and he seemed quite deaf. the light in his eye was beautiful as ever, but his limbs seemed shrunken and his usual stalwart vigor utterly gone. he said to me with a pathetic voice, "why does nature treat us like little children! i think we could bear it all if we knew our fate; at least it would not make much difference to me now what became of me." toward night he brightened up a little, and his delicious wit flashed out, at intervals, as of old; but he was evidently broken and dispirited about his health. looking out on the bay that was sparkling in the moonlight, he said he thought the moon rather lost something of its charm for him as he grew older. he spoke with great delight of a little story, called "pet marjorie," and said he had read it carefully through twice, every word of it. he had much to say about england, and observed, among other things, that "the extent over which her dominions are spread leads her to fancy herself stronger than she really is; but she is not to-day a powerful empire; she is much like a squash-vine, which runs over a whole garden, but, if you cut it at the root, it is at once destroyed." at breakfast, next morning, he spoke of his kind neighbors in concord, and said alcott was one of the most excellent men he had ever known. "it is impossible to quarrel with him, for he would take all your harsh words like a saint." he left us shortly after this for a journey to washington, with his friend mr. ticknor. the travellers spent several days in new york, and then proceeded to philadelphia. hawthorne wrote to me from the continental hotel, dating his letter "saturday evening," announcing the severe illness of his companion. he did not seem to anticipate a fatal result, but on sunday morning the news came that mr. ticknor was dead. hawthorne returned at once to boston, and stayed here over night. he was in a very excited and nervous state, and talked incessantly of the sad scenes he had just been passing through. we sat late together, conversing of the friend we had lost, and i am sure he hardly closed his eyes that night. in the morning he went back to his own home in concord. his health, from that time, seemed to give way rapidly, and in the middle of may his friend, general pierce, proposed that they should go among the new hampshire hills together and meet the spring there. the first letter we received from mrs. hawthorne[*] after her husband's return to concord in april gave us great anxiety. it was dated "monday eve," and here are some extracts from it:-- "i have just sent mr. hawthorne to bed, and so have a moment to speak to you. generally it has been late and i have not liked to disturb him by sitting up after him, and so i could not write since he returned, though i wished very much to tell you about him, ever since he came home. he came back unlooked for that day; and when i heard a step on the piazza, i was lying on a couch and feeling quite indisposed. but as soon as i saw him i was frightened out of all knowledge of myself,--so haggard, so white, so deeply scored with pain and fatigue was the face, so much more ill he looked than i ever saw him before. he had walked from the station because he saw no carriage there, and his brow was streaming with a perfect rain, so great had been the effort to walk so far.... he needed much to get home to me, where he could fling off all care of himself and give way to his feelings, pent up and kept back for so long, especially since his watch and ward of most excellent, kind mr. ticknor. it relieved him somewhat to break down as he spoke of that scene.... but he was so weak and weary he could not sit up much, and lay on the couch nearly all the time in a kind of uneasy somnolency, not wishing to be read to even, not able to attend or fix his thoughts at all. on saturday he unfortunately took cold, and, after a most restless night, was seized early in the morning with a very bad stiff neck, which was acutely painful all sunday. sunday night, however, a compress of linen wrung in cold water cured him, with belladonna. but he slept also most of this morning.... he could as easily build london as go to the shakespeare dinner. it tires him so much to get entirely through his toilet in the morning, that he has to lie down a long time after it. to-day he walked out on the grounds, and could not stay ten minutes, because i would not let him sit down in the wind, and he could not bear any longer exercise. he has more than lost all he gained by the journey, by the sad event. from being the nursed and cared for,--early to bed and late to rise,--led, as it were, by the ever-ready hand of kind mr. ticknor, to become the nurse and night-watcher with all the responsibilities, with his mighty power of sympathy and his vast apprehension of suffering in others, and to see death for the first time in a state so weak as his,--the death also of so valued a friend,--as mr. hawthorne says himself, 'it told upon him' fearfully. there are lines ploughed on his brow which never were there before.... i have been up and alert ever since his return, but one day i was obliged, when he was busy, to run off and lie down for fear i should drop before his eyes. my head was in such an agony i could not endure it another moment. but i am well now. i have wrestled and won, and now i think i shall not fail again. your most generous kindness of hospitality i heartily thank you for, but mr. hawthorne says he cannot leave home. he wants rest, and he says when the wind is _warm_ he shall feel well. this cold wind ruins him. i wish he were in cuba or on some isle in the gulf stream. but i must say i could not think him able to go anywhere, unless i could go with him. he is too weak to take care of himself. i do not like to have him go up and down stairs alone. i have read to him all the afternoon and evening and after he walked in the morning to-day. i do nothing but sit with him, ready to do or not to do, just as he wishes. the wheels of my small _ménage_ are all stopped. he is my world and all the business of it. he has not smiled since he came home till to-day, and i made him laugh with thackeray's humor in reading to him; but a smile looks strange on a face that once shone like a thousand suns with smiles. the light for the time has gone out of his eyes, entirely. an infinite weariness films them quite. i thank heaven that summer and not winter approaches." [footnote *: as i write this paragraph, my friend, the reverend james freeman clarke, puts into my hand the following note, which hawthorne sent to him nearly thirty years ago:-- pinckney street, friday, july , . my dear sir,--though personally a stranger to you, i am about to request of you the greatest favor which i can receive from any man. i am to be married to miss sophia peabody; and it is our mutual desire that you should perform the ceremony. unless it should be decidedly a rainy day, a carriage will call for you at half past eleven o'clock in the forenoon. very respectfully yours, nath. hawthorne. rev. james f. clarke, chestnut street.] on friday evening of the same week mrs. hawthorne sent off another despatch to us:-- "mr. hawthorne has been miserably ill for two or three days, so that i could not find a moment to speak to you. i am most anxious to have him leave concord again, and general pierce's plan is admirable, now that the general is well himself. i think the serene jog-trot in a private carriage into country places, by trout-streams and to old farm-houses, away from care and news, will be very restorative. the boy associations with the general will refresh him. they will fish, and muse, and rest, and saunter upon horses' feet, and be in the air all the time in fine weather. i am quite content, though i wish i could go for a few _petits sions_. but general pierce has been a most tender, constant nurse for many years, and knows how to take care of the sick. and his love for mr. hawthorne is the strongest passion of his soul, now his wife is departed. they will go to the isles of shoals together probably, before their return. "mr. hawthorne cannot walk ten minutes now without wishing to sit down, as i think i told you, so that he cannot take sufficient air except in a carriage. and his horror of hotels and rail-cars is immense, and human beings beset him in cities. he is indeed very weak. i hardly know what takes away his strength. i now am obliged to superintend my workman, who is arranging the grounds. whenever my husband lies down (which is sadly often) i rush out of doors to see what the gardener is about. "i cannot feel rested till mr. hawthorne is better, but i get along. i shall go to town when he is safe in the care of general pierce." on saturday this communication from mrs. hawthorne reached us:-- "general pierce wrote yesterday to say he wished to meet mr. hawthorne in boston on wednesday, and go from thence on their way. "mr. hawthorne is much weaker. i find, than he has been before at any time, and i shall go down with him, having a great many things to do in boston; but i am sure he is not fit to be left by himself, for his steps are so uncertain, and his eyes are very uncertain too. dear mr. fields, i am very anxious about him, and i write now to say that he absolutely refuses to see a physician officially, and so i wish to know whether dr. holmes could not see him in some ingenious way on wednesday as a friend; but with his experienced, acute observation, to look at him also as a physician, to note how he is and what he judges of him comparatively since he last saw him. it almost deprives me of my wits to see him growing weaker with no aid. he seems quite bilious, and has a restlessness that is infinite. his look is more distressed and harassed than before; and he has so little rest, that he is getting worn out. i hope immensely in regard of this sauntering journey with general pierce. "i feel as if i ought not to speak to you of anything when you are so busy and weary and bereaved. but yet in such a sad emergency as this, i am sure your generous, kind heart will not refuse me any help you can render.... i wish dr. holmes would feel his pulse; i do not know how to judge of it, but it seems to me irregular." his friend, dr. o.w. holmes, in compliance with mrs. hawthorne's desire, expressed in this letter to me, saw the invalid, and thus describes his appearance in an article full of tenderness and feeling which was published in the "atlantic monthly" for july, :-- "late in the afternoon of the day before he left boston on his last journey i called upon him at the hotel where he was staying. he had gone out but a moment before. looking along the street, i saw a form at some distance in advance which could only be his,--but how changed from his former port and figure! there was no mistaking the long iron-gray locks, the carriage of the head, and the general look of the natural outlines and movement; but he seemed to have shrunken in all his dimensions, and faltered along with an uncertain, feeble step, as if every movement were an effort. i joined him, and we walked together half an hour, during which time i learned so much of his state of mind and body as could be got at without worrying him with suggestive questions,--my object being to form an opinion of his condition, as i had been requested to do, and to give him some hints that might be useful to him on his journey. "his aspect, medically considered, was very unfavorable. there were persistent local symptoms, referred especially to the stomach,--'boring pain,' distension, difficult digestion, with great wasting of flesh and strength. he was very gentle, very willing to answer questions, very docile to such counsel as i offered him, but evidently had no hope of recovering his health. he spoke as if his work were done, and he should write no more. "with all his obvious depression, there was no failing noticeable in his conversational powers. there was the same backwardness and hesitancy which in his best days it was hard for him to overcome, so that talking with him was almost like love-making, and his shy, beautiful soul had to be wooed from its bashful prudency like an unschooled maiden. the calm despondency with which he spoke about himself confirmed the unfavorable opinion suggested by his look and history." i saw hawthorne alive, for the last time, the day he started on this his last mortal journey. his speech and his gait indicated severe illness, and i had great misgivings about the jaunt he was proposing to take so early in the season. his tones were more subdued than ever, and he scarcely spoke above a whisper. he was very affectionate in parting, and i followed him to the door, looking after him as he went up school street. i noticed that he faltered from weakness, and i should have taken my hat and joined him to offer my arm, but i knew he did not wish to _seem_ ill, and i feared he might be troubled at my anxiety. fearing to disturb him, i followed him with my eyes only, and watched him till he turned the corner and passed out of sight. on the morning of the th of may, , a telegram, signed by franklin pierce, stunned us all. it announced the death of hawthorne. in the afternoon of the same day came this letter to me:-- "pemigewasset house, plymouth, n.h., thursday morning, o'clock "my dear sir,--the telegraph has communicated to you the fact of our dear friend hawthorne's death. my friend colonel hibbard, who bears this note, was a friend of h----, and will tell you more than i am able to write. "i enclose herewith a note which i commenced last evening to dear mrs. hawthorne. o, how will she bear this shock! dear mother--dear children-- "when i met hawthorne in boston a week ago, it was apparent that he was much more feeble and more seriously diseased than i had supposed him to be. we came from centre harbor yesterday afternoon, and i thought he was on the whole brighter than he was the day before. through the week he had been inclined to somnolency during the day, but restless at night. he retired last night soon after nine o'clock, and soon fell into a quiet slumber. in less than half an hour changed his position, but continued to sleep. i left the door open between his bedroom and mine,--our beds being opposite to each other,--and was asleep myself before eleven o'clock. the light continued to burn in my room. at two o'clock, i went to h----'s bedside; he was apparently in a sound sleep, and i did not place my hand upon him. at four o'clock i went into his room again, and, as his position was unchanged, i placed my hand upon him and found that life was extinct. i sent, however, immediately for a physician, and called judge bell and colonel hibbard, who occupied rooms upon the same floor and near me. he lies upon his side, his position so perfectly natural and easy, his eyes closed, that it is difficult to realize, while looking upon his noble face, that this is death. he must have passed from natural slumber to that from which there is no waking without the slightest movement. "i cannot write to dear mrs. hawthorne, and you must exercise your judgment with regard to sending this and the unfinished note, enclosed, to her. "your friend, "franklin pierce." hawthorne's lifelong desire that the end might be a sudden one was gratified. often and often he has said to me, "what a blessing to go quickly!" so the same swift angel that came as a messenger to allston, irving, prescott, macaulay, thackeray, and dickens was commissioned to touch his forehead, also, and beckon him away. the room in which death fell upon him, "like a shadow thrown softly and lightly from a passing cloud," looks toward the east; and standing in it, as i have frequently done, since he passed out silently into the skies, it is easy to imagine the scene on that spring morning which president pierce so feelingly describes in his letter. on the th of may we carried hawthorne through the blossoming orchards of concord, and laid him down under a group of pines, on a hillside, overlooking historic fields. all the way from the village church to the grave the birds kept up a perpetual melody. the sun shone brightly, and the air was sweet and pleasant, as if death had never entered the world. longfellow and emerson, channing and hoar, agassiz and lowell, greene and whipple, alcott and clarke, holmes and hillard, and other friends whom he loved, walked slowly by his side that beautiful spring morning. the companion of his youth and his manhood, for whom he would willingly, at any time, have given up his own life, franklin pierce, was there among the rest, and scattered flowers into the grave. the unfinished romance, which had cost him so much anxiety, the last literary work on which he had ever been engaged, was laid on his coffin. "ah! who shall lift that wand of magic power, and the lost clew regain? the unfinished window in aladdin's tower unfinished must remain." longfellow's beautiful poem will always be associated with the memory of hawthorne, and most fitting was it that his fellow-student, whom he so loved and honored, should sing his requiem. dickens * * * * * "_o friend with heart as gentle for distress, as resolute with wise true thoughts to bind the happiest with the unhappiest of our kind_" john forster. _"all men are to an unspeakable degree brothers, each man's life a strange emblem of every man's; and human portraits, faithfully drawn, are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls."_--carlyle. iv. dickens. i observe my favorite chair is placed to-day where the portraits of charles dickens are easiest seen, and i take the hint accordingly. those are likenesses of him from the age of twenty-eight down to the year when he passed through "the golden gate," as that wise mystic william blake calls death. one would hardly believe these pictures represented the same man! see what a beautiful young person maclise represents in this early likeness of the great author, and then contrast the face with that worn one in the photograph of . the same man, but how different in aspect! i sometimes think, while looking at those two portraits, i must have known two individuals bearing the same name, at various periods of my own life. let me speak to-day of the younger dickens. how well i recall the bleak winter evening in when i first saw the handsome, glowing face of the young man who was even then famous over half the globe! he came bounding into the tremont house, fresh from the steamer that had brought him to our shores, and his cheery voice rang through the hall, as he gave a quick glance at the new scenes opening upon him in a strange land on first arriving at a transatlantic hotel. "here we are!" he shouted, as the lights burst upon the merry party just entering the house, and several gentlemen came forward to greet him. ah, how happy and buoyant he was then! young, handsome, almost worshipped for his genius, belted round by such troops of friends as rarely ever man had, coming to a new country to make new conquests of fame and honor,--surely it was a sight long to be remembered and never wholly to be forgotten. the splendor of his endowments and the personal interest he had won to himself called forth all the enthusiasm of old and young america, and i am glad to have been among the first to witness his arrival. you ask me what was his appearance as he ran, or rather flew, up the steps of the hotel, and sprang into the hall. he seemed all on fire with curiosity, and alive as i never saw mortal before. from top to toe every fibre of his body was unrestrained and alert. what vigor, what keenness, what freshness of spirit, possessed him! he laughed all over, and did not care who heard him! he seemed like the emperor of cheerfulness on a cruise of pleasure, determined to conquer a realm or two of fun every hour of his overflowing existence. that night impressed itself on my memory for all time, so far as i am concerned with things sublunary. it was dickens, the true "boz," in flesh and blood, who stood before us at last, and with my companions, three or four lads of my own age, i determined to sit up late that night. none of us then, of course, had the honor of an acquaintance with the delightful stranger, and i little thought that i should afterwards come to know him in the beaten way of friendship, and live with him day after day in years far distant; that i should ever be so near to him that he would reveal to me his joys and his sorrows, and thus that i should learn the story of his life from his own lips. about midnight on that eventful landing, "boz,"--everybody called him "boz" in those days,--having finished his supper, came down into the office of the hotel, and, joining the young earl of m----, his fellow-voyager, sallied out for a first look at boston streets. it was a stinging night, and the moon was at the full. every object stood out sharp and glittering, and "boz," muffled up in a shaggy fur coat, ran over the shining frozen snow, wisely keeping the middle of the street for the most part. we boys followed cautiously behind, but near enough not to lose any of the fun. of course the two gentlemen soon lost their way on emerging into washington from tremont street. dickens kept up one continual shout of uproarious laughter as he went rapidly forward, reading the signs on the shops, and observing the "architecture" of the new country into which he had dropped as if from the clouds. when the two arrived opposite the "old south church" dickens screamed. to this day i could never tell why. was it because of its fancied resemblance to st. paul's or the abbey? i declare firmly, the mystery of that shout is still a mystery to me! the great event of boz's first visit to boston was the dinner of welcome tendered to him by the young men of the city. it is idle to attempt much talk about the banquet given on that monday night in february, twenty-nine years ago. papanti's hall (where many of us learned to dance, under the guidance of that master of legs, now happily still among us and pursuing the same highly useful calling which he practised in ) was the scene of that festivity. it was a glorious episode in all our lives, and whoever was not there has suffered a loss not easy to estimate. we younger members of that dinner-party sat in the seventh heaven of happiness, and were translated into other spheres. accidentally, of course, i had a seat just in front of the honored guest; saw him take a pinch of snuff out of washington allston's box, and heard him joke with old president quincy. was there ever such a night before in our staid city? did ever mortal preside with such felicitous success as did mr. quincy? how he went on with his delicious compliments to our guest! how he revelled in quotations from "pickwick" and "oliver twist" and "the curiosity shop"! and how admirably he closed his speech of welcome, calling up the young author amid a perfect volley of applause! "health, happiness, and a hearty welcome to charles dickens." i can see and hear mr. quincy now, as he spoke the words. were ever heard such cheers before? and when dickens stood up at last to answer for himself, so fresh and so handsome, with his beautiful eyes moist with feeling, and his whole frame aglow with excitement, how we did hurrah, we young fellows! trust me, it _was_ a great night; and we must have made a mighty noise at our end of the table, for i remember frequent messages came down to us from the "chair," begging that we would hold up a little and moderate if possible the rapture of our applause. after dickens left boston he went on his american travels, gathering up materials, as he journeyed, for his "american notes." he was accompanied as far as new york by a very dear friend, to whom he afterwards addressed several most interesting letters. for that friend he always had the warmest enthusiasm; and when he came the second time to america, there was no one of his old companions whom he missed more. let us read some of these letters written by dickens nearly thirty years ago. the friend to whom they were addressed was also an intimate and dear associate of mine, and his children have kindly placed at my disposal the whole correspondence. here is the first letter, time-stained, but preserved with religious care. fuller's hotel, washington, monday, march , . my dear felton: i was more delighted than i can possibly tell you to receive (last saturday night) your welcome letter. we and the oysters missed you terribly in new york. you carried away with you more than half the delight and pleasure of my new world; and i heartily wish you could bring it back again. there are very interesting men in this place,--highly interesting, of course,--but it's not a comfortable place; is it? if spittle could wait at table we should be nobly attended, but as that property has not been imparted to it in the present state of mechanical science, we are rather lonely and orphan-like, in respect of "being looked arter." a blithe black was introduced on our arrival, as our peculiar and especial attendant. he is the only gentleman in the town who has a peculiar delicacy in intruding upon my valuable time. it usually takes seven rings and a threatening message from ---- to produce him; and when he comes he goes to fetch something, and, forgetting it by the way, comes back no more. we have been in great distress, really in distress, at the non-arrival of the caledonia. you may conceive what our joy was, when, while we were dining out yesterday, h. arrived with the joyful intelligence of her safety. the very news of her having really arrived seemed to diminish the distance between ourselves and home, by one half at least. and this morning (though we have not yet received our heap of despatches, for which we are looking eagerly forward to this night's mail),--this morning there reached us unexpectedly, through the government bag (heaven knows how they came there), two of our many and long-looked-for letters, wherein was a circumstantial account of the whole conduct and behavior of our pets; with marvellous narrations of charley's precocity at a twelfth night juvenile party at macready's; and tremendous predictions of the governess, dimly suggesting his having got out of pot-hooks and hangers, and darkly insinuating the possibility of his writing us a letter before long; and many other workings of the same prophetic spirit, in reference to him and his sisters, very gladdening to their mother's heart, and not at all depressing to their father's. there was, also, the doctor's report, which was a clean bill; and the nurse's report, which was perfectly electrifying; showing as it did how master walter had been weaned, and had cut a double tooth, and done many other extraordinary things, quite worthy of his high descent. in short, we were made very happy and grateful; and felt as if the prodigal father and mother had got home again. what do you think of this incendiary card being left at my door last night? "general g. sends compliments to mr. dickens, and called with two literary ladies. as the two l.l.'s are ambitious of the honor of a personal introduction to mr. d., general g requests the honor of an appointment for to-morrow." i draw a veil over my sufferings. they are sacred. we have altered our route, and don't mean to go to charleston, for i want to see the west, and have taken it into my head that as i am not obliged to go to charleston, and don't exactly know why i should go there, i need do no violence to my own inclinations. my route is of mr. clay's designing, and i think it a very good one. we go on wednesday night to richmond in virginia. on monday we return to baltimore for two days. on thursday morning we start for pittsburg, and so go by the ohio to cincinnati, louisville, kentucky, lexington, st. louis; and either down the lakes to buffalo, or back to philadelphia, and by new york to that place, where we shall stay a week, and then make a hasty trip into canada. we shall be in buffalo, please heaven, on the th of april. if i don't find a letter from you in the care of the postmaster at that place, i'll never write to you from england. but if i _do_ find one, my right hand shall forget its cunning, before i forget to be your truthful and constant correspondent; not, dear felton, because i promised it, nor because i have a natural tendency to correspond (which is far from being the case), nor because i am truly grateful to you for, and have been made truly proud by, that affectionate and elegant tribute which ---- sent me, but because you are a man after my own heart, and i love you _well_. and for the love i bear you, and the pleasure with which i shall always think of you, and the glow i shall feel when i see your handwriting in my own home, i hereby enter into a solemn league, and covenant to write as many letters to you as you write to me, at least. amen. come to england! come to england! our oysters are small i know; they are said by americans to be coppery, but our hearts are of the largest size. we are thought to excel in shrimps, to be far from despicable in point of lobsters, and in periwinkles are considered to challenge the universe. our oysters, small though they be, are not devoid of the refreshing influence which that species of fish is supposed to exercise in these latitudes. try them and compare. affectionately yours, charles dickens. his next letter is dated from niagara, and i know every one will relish his allusion to oysters with wet feet, and his reference to the squeezing of a quaker. clifton house, niagara falls, th april, . my dear felton: before i go any farther, let me explain to you what these great enclosures portend, lest--supposing them part and parcel of my letter, and asking to be read--you shall fall into fits, from which recovery might be doubtful. they are, as you will see, four copies of the same thing. the nature of the document you will discover at a glance. as i hoped and believed, the best of the british brotherhood took fire at my being attacked because i spoke my mind and theirs on the subject of an international copyright; and with all good speed, and hearty private letters, transmitted to me this small parcel of gauntlets for immediate casting down. now my first idea was, publicity being the object, to send one copy to you for a boston newspaper, another to bryant for his paper, a third to the new york herald (because of its large circulation), and a fourth to a highly respectable journal at washington (the property of a gentleman, and a fine fellow named seaton, whom i knew there), which i think is called the intelligencer. then the knickerbocker stepped into my mind, and then it occurred to me that possibly the north american review might be the best organ after all, because indisputably the most respectable and honorable, and the most concerned in the rights of literature. whether to limit its publication to one journal, or to extend it to several, is a question so very difficult of decision to a stranger, that i have finally resolved to send these papers to you, and ask you (mindful of the conversation we had on this head one day, in that renowned oyster-cellar) to resolve the point for me. you need feel no weighty sense of responsibility, my dear felton, for whatever you do is _sure_ to please me. if you see sumner, take him into our councils. the only two things to be borne in mind are, first, that if they be published in several quarters, they must be published in all _simultaneously_; secondly, that i hold them in trust, to put them before the people. i fear this is imposing a heavy tax upon your friendship; and i don't fear it the less, by reason of being well assured that it is one you will most readily pay. i shall be in montreal about the th of may. will you write to me there, to the care of the earl of mulgrave, and tell me what you have done? so much for that. bisness first, pleasure artervards, as king richard the third said ven he stabbed the tother king in the tower, afore he murdered the babbies. i have long suspected that oysters have a rheumatic tendency. their feet are always wet; and so much damp company in a man's inside cannot contribute to his peace. but whatever the cause of your indisposition, we are truly grieved and pained to hear of it, and should be more so, but that we hope from your account of that farewell dinner, that you are all right again. i _did_ receive longfellow's note. sumner i have not yet heard from; for which reason i am constantly bringing telescopes to bear on the ferryboat, in hopes to see him coming over, accompanied by a modest portmanteau. to say anything about this wonderful place would be sheer nonsense. it far exceeds my most sanguine expectations, though the impression on my mind has been, from the first, nothing but beauty and peace. i haven't drunk the water. bearing in mind your caution, i have devoted myself to beer, whereof there is an exceedingly pretty fall in this house. one of the noble hearts who sat for the cheeryble brothers is dead. if i had been in england, i would certainly have gone into mourning for the loss of such a glorious life. his brother is not expected to survive him. i am told that it appears from a memorandum found among the papers of the deceased, that in his lifetime he gave away in charity £ , , or three millions of dollars! what do you say to my _acting_ at the montreal theatre? i am an old hand at such matters, and am going to join the officers of the garrison in a public representation for the benefit of a local charity. we shall have a good house, they say. i am going to enact one mr. snobbington in a funny farce called a good night's rest. i shall want a flaxen wig and eyebrows; and my nightly rest is broken by visions of there being no such commodities in canada. i wake in the dead of night in a cold perspiration, surrounded by imaginary barbers, all denying the existence or possibility of obtaining such articles. if ---- had a flaxen head, i would certainly have it shaved and get a wig and eyebrows out of him, for a small pecuniary compensation. by the by, if you could only have seen the man at harrisburg, crushing a friendly quaker in the parlor door! it was the greatest sight i ever saw. i had told him not to admit anybody whatever, forgetting that i had previously given this honest quaker a special invitation to come. the quaker would not be denied, and h. was stanch. when i came upon them, the quaker was black in the face, and h. was administering the final squeeze. the quaker was still rubbing his waistcoat with an expression of acute inward suffering, when i left the town. i have been looking for his death in the newspapers almost daily. do you know one general g.? he is a weazen-faced warrior, and in his dotage. i had him for a fellow-passenger on board a steamboat. i had also a statistical colonel with me, outside the coach from cincinnati to columbus. a new england poet buzzed about me on the ohio, like a gigantic bee. a mesmeric doctor, of an impossibly great age, gave me pamphlets at louisville. i have suffered much, very much. if i could get beyond new york to see anybody, it would be (as you know) to see _you_. but i do not expect to reach the "carlton" until the last day of may, and then we are going with the coldens somewhere on the banks of the north river for a couple of days. so you see we shall not have much leisure for our voyaging preparations. you and dr. howe (to whom my love) must come to new york. on the th of june, you must engage yourselves to dine with us at the "carlton"; and if we don't make a merry evening of it, the fault shall not be in us. mrs. dickens unites with me in best regards to mrs. felton and your little daughter, and i am always, my dear felton, affectionately your friend, charles dickens. p.s. i saw a good deal of walker at cincinnati. i like him very much. we took to him mightily at first, because he resembled you in face and figure, we thought. you will be glad to hear that our news from home is cheering from first to last, all well, happy, and loving. my friend forster says in his last letter that he "wants to know you," and looks forward to longfellow. when dickens arrived in montreal he had, it seems, a busy time of it, and i have often heard of his capital acting in private theatricals while in that city. montreal, saturday, st may, . my dear felton: i was delighted to receive your letter yesterday, and was well pleased with its contents. i anticipated objection to carlyle's letter. i called particular attention to it for three reasons. firstly, because he boldly _said_ what all the others _think_, and therefore deserved to be manfully supported. secondly, because it is my deliberate opinion that i have been assailed on this subject in a manner in which no man with any pretensions to public respect or with the remotest right to express an opinion on a subject of universal literary interest would be assailed in any other country..... i really cannot sufficiently thank you, dear felton, for your warm and hearty interest in these proceedings. but it would be idle to pursue that theme, so let it pass. the wig and whiskers are in a state of the highest preservation. the play comes off next wednesday night, the th. what would i give to see you in the front row of the centre box, your spectacles gleaming not unlike those of my dear friend pickwick, your face radiant with as broad a grin as a staid professor may indulge in, and your very coat, waistcoat, and shoulders expressive of what we should take together when the performance was over! i would give something (not so much, but still a good round sum) if you could only stumble into that very dark and dusty theatre in the daytime (at any minute between twelve and three), and see me with my coat off, the stage manager and universal director, urging impracticable ladies and impossible gentlemen on to the very confines of insanity, shouting and driving about, in my own person, to an extent which would justify any philanthropic stranger in clapping me into a strait-waistcoat without further inquiry, endeavoring to goad h. into some dim and faint understanding of a prompter's duties, and struggling in such a vortex of noise, dirt, bustle, confusion, and inextricable entanglement of speech and action as you would grow giddy in contemplating. we perform a roland for an oliver, a good night's rest, and deaf as a post. this kind of voluntary hard labor used to be my great delight. the _furor_ has come strong upon me again, and i begin to be once more of opinion that nature intended me for the lessee of a national theatre, and that pen, ink, and paper have spoiled a manager. o, how i look forward across that rolling water to home and its small tenantry! how i busy myself in thinking how my books look, and where the tables are, and in what positions the chairs stand relatively to the other furniture; and whether we shall get there in the night, or in the morning, or in the afternoon; and whether we shall be able to surprise them, or whether they will be too sharply looking out for us; and what our pets will say; and how they'll look, and who will be the first to come and shake hands, and so forth! if i could but tell you how i have set my heart on rushing into forster's study (he is my great friend, and writes at the bottom of all his letters, "my love to felton"), and into maclise's painting-room, and into macready's managerial ditto, without a moment's warning, and how i picture every little trait and circumstance of our arrival to myself, down to the very color of the bow on the cook's cap, you would almost think i had changed places with my eldest son, and was still in pantaloons of the thinnest texture. i left all these things--god only knows what a love i have for them--as coolly and calmly as any animated cucumber; but when i come upon them again i shall have lost all power of self-restraint, and shall as certainly make a fool of myself (in the popular meaning of that expression) as ever grimaldi did in his way, or george iii. in his. and not the less so, dear felton, for having found some warm hearts, and left some instalments of earnest and sincere affection, behind me on this continent. and whenever i turn my mental telescope hitherward, trust me that one of the first figures it will descry will wear spectacles so like yours that the maker couldn't tell the difference, and shall address a greek class in such an exact imitation of your voice, that the very students hearing it should cry, "that's he! three cheers. hoo-ray-ay-ay-ay-ay!" about those joints of yours, i think you are mistaken. they _can't_ be stiff. at the worst they merely want the air of new york, which, being impregnated with the flavor of last year's oysters, has a surprising effect in rendering the human frame supple and flexible in all cases of rust. a terrible idea occurred to me as i wrote those words. the oyster-cellars,--what do they do when oysters are not in season? is pickled salmon vended there? do they sell crabs, shrimps, winkles, herrings? the oyster-openers,--what do _they_ do? do they commit suicide in despair, or wrench open tight drawers and cupboards and hermetically sealed bottles for practice? perhaps they are dentists out of the oyster season. who knows? affectionately yours, charles dickens. dickens always greatly rejoiced in the theatre; and, having seen him act with the amateur company of the guild of literature and art, i can well imagine the delight his impersonations in montreal must have occasioned. i have seen him play sir charles coldstream, in the comedy of used up, with such perfection that all other performers in the same part have seemed dull by comparison. even matthews, superb artist as he is, could not rival dickens in the character of sir charles. once i saw dickens, mark lemon, and wilkie collins on the stage together. the play was called mrs. nightingale's diary (a farce in one act, the joint production of dickens and mark lemon), and dickens played six characters in the piece. never have i seen such wonderful changes of face and form as he gave us that night. he was alternately a rattling lawyer of the middle temple, a boots, an eccentric pedestrian and cold-water drinker, a deaf sexton, an invalid captain, and an old woman. what fun it was, to be sure, and how we roared over the performance! here is the playbill which i held in my hand nineteen years ago, while the great writer was proving himself to be as pre-eminent an actor as he was an author. one can see by reading the bill that dickens was manager of the company, and that it was under his direction that the plays were produced. observe the clear evidence of his hand in the very wording of the bill:-- "on wednesday evening, september , . "the amateur company of the guild of literature and art; to encourage life assurance and other provident habits among authors and artists; to render such assistance to both as shall never compromise their independence; and to found a new institution where honorable rest from arduous labors shall still be associated with the discharge of congenial duties; "will have the honor of presenting," etc., etc., but let us go on with the letters. here is the first one to his friend after dickens arrived home again in england. it is delightful, through and through. london, devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, sunday, july , . my dear felton: of all the monstrous and incalculable amount of occupation that ever beset one unfortunate man, mine has been the most stupendous since i came home. the dinners i have had to eat, the places i have had to go to, the letters i have had to answer, the sea of business and of pleasure in which i have been plunged, not even the genius of an ---- or the pen of a ---- could describe. wherefore i indite a monstrously short and wildly uninteresting epistle to the american dando, but perhaps you don't know who dando was. he was an oyster-eater, my dear felton. he used to go into oyster-shops, without a farthing of money, and stand at the counter eating natives, until the man who opened them grew pale, cast down his knife, staggered backward, struck his white forehead with his open hand, and cried, "you are dando!!!" he has been known to eat twenty dozen at one sitting, and would have eaten forty, if the truth had not flashed upon the shopkeeper. for these offences he was constantly committed to the house of correction. during his last imprisonment he was taken ill, got worse and worse, and at last began knocking violent double-knocks at death's door. the doctor stood beside his bed, with his fingers on his pulse. "he is going," says the doctor. "i see it in his eye. there is only one thing that would keep life in him for another hour, and that is--oysters." they were immediately brought. dando swallowed eight, and feebly took a ninth. he held it in his mouth and looked round the bed strangely. "not a bad one, is it?" says the doctor. the patient shook his head, rubbed his trembling hand upon his stomach, bolted the oyster, and fell back--dead. they buried him in the prison yard, and paved his grave with oyster-shells. we are all well and hearty, and have already begun to wonder what time next year you and mrs. felton and dr. howe will come across the briny sea together. to-morrow we go to the seaside for two months. i am looking out for news of longfellow, and shall be delighted when i know that he is on his way to london and this house. i am bent upon striking at the piratical newspapers with the sharpest edge i can put upon my small axe, and hope in the next session of parliament to stop their entrance into canada. for the first time within the memory of man, the professors of english literature seem disposed to act together on this question. it is a good thing to aggravate a scoundrel, if one can do nothing else, and i think we can make them smart a little in this way.... i wish you had been at greenwich the other day, where a party of friends gave me a private dinner; public ones i have refused. c. was perfectly wild at the reunion, and, after singing all manner of marine songs, wound up the entertainment by coming home (six miles) in a little open phaeton of mine, _on his head_, to the mingled delight and indignation of the metropolitan police. we were very jovial indeed; and i assure you that i drank your health with fearful vigor and energy. on board that ship coming home i established a club, called the united vagabonds, to the large amusement of the rest of the passengers. this holy brotherhood committed all kinds of absurdities, and dined always, with a variety of solemn forms, at one end of the table, below the mast, away from all the rest. the captain being ill when we were three or four days out, i produced my medicine-chest and recovered him. we had a few more sick men after that, and i went round "the wards" every day in great state, accompanied by two vagabonds, habited as ben allen and bob sawyer, bearing enormous rolls of plaster and huge pairs of scissors. we were really very merry all the way, breakfasted in one party at liverpool, shook hands, and parted most cordially.... affectionately your faithful friend, c.d. p.s. i have looked over my journal, and have decided to produce my american trip in two volumes. i have written about half the first since i came home, and hope to be out in october. this is "exclusive news," to be communicated to any friends to whom you may like to intrust it, my dear f. what a capital epistolary pen dickens held! he seems never to have written the shortest note without something piquant in it; and when he attempted a _letter_, he always made it entertaining from sheer force of habit. when i think of this man, and all the lasting good and abounding pleasure he has brought into the world, i wonder at the superstition that dares to arraign him. a sound philosopher once said: "he that thinks any innocent pastime foolish has either to grow wiser, or is past the ability to do so"; and i have always counted it an impudent fiction that playfulness is inconsistent with greatness. many men and women have died of dignity, but the disease which sent them to the tomb was not contracted from charles dickens. not long ago, i met in the street a bleak old character, full of dogmatism, egotism, and rheumatism, who complained that dickens had "too much exuberant sociality" in his books for _him_, and he wondered how any one could get through pickwick. my solemn friend evidently preferred the dropping-down-deadness of manner, which he had been accustomed to find in hervey's "meditations," and other kindred authors, where it always seems to be urged that life would be endurable but for its pleasures. a person once commended to my acquaintance an individual whom he described as "a fine, pompous, gentlemanly man," and i thought it prudent, under the circumstances, to decline the proffered introduction. but i will proceed with those outbursts of bright-heartedness vouchsafed to us in dickens's letters. to me these epistles are good as fresh "uncommercials," or unpublished "sketches by boz." devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, st september, . my dear felton: of course that letter in the papers was as foul a forgery as ever felon swung for.... i have not contradicted it publicly, nor shall i. when i tilt at such wringings out of the dirtiest mortality, i shall be another man--indeed, almost the creature they would make me. i gave your message to forster, who sends a despatch-box full of kind remembrances in return. he is in a great state of delight with the first volume of my american book (which i have just finished), and swears loudly by it. it is _true_, and honorable i know, and i shall hope to send it you, complete, by the first steamer in november. your description of the porter and the carpet-bags prepares me for a first-rate facetious novel, brimful of the richest humor, on which i have no doubt you are engaged. what is it called? sometimes i imagine the title-page thus:-- oysters in every style or openings of life by young dando. as to the man putting the luggage on his head, as a sort of sign, i adopt it from this hour. i date this from london, where i have come, as a good, profligate, graceless bachelor, for a day or two; leaving my wife and babbies at the seaside.... heavens! if you were but here at this minute! a piece of salmon and a steak are cooking in the kitchen; it's a very wet day, and i have had a fire lighted; the wine sparkles on a side-table; the room looks the more snug from being the only undismantled one in the house; plates are warming for forster and maclise, whose knock i am momentarily expecting; that groom i told you of, who never comes into the house, except when we are all out of town, is walking about in his shirt-sleeves without the smallest consciousness of impropriety; a great mound of proofs are waiting to be read aloud, after dinner. with what a shout i would clap you down into the easiest chair, my genial felton, if you would but appear, and order you a pair of slippers instantly! since i have written this, the aforesaid groom--a very small man (as the fashion is) with fiery-red hair (as the fashion is _not_)--has looked very hard at me and fluttered about me at the same time, like a giant butterfly. after a pause, he says, in a sam wellerish kind of way: "i vent to the club this mornin', sir. there vorn't no letters, sir." "very good. topping." "how's missis, sir?" "pretty well, topping." "glad to hear it, sir. my missis ain't wery well, sir." "no!" "no, sir, she's a goin', sir, to have a hincrease wery soon, and it makes her rather nervous, sir; and ven a young voman gets at all down at sich a time, sir, she goes down wery deep, sir." to this sentiment i reply affirmatively, and then he adds, as he stirs the fire (as if he were thinking out loud), "wot a mystery it is! wot a go is natur'!" with which scrap of philosophy, he gradually gets nearer to the door, and so fades out of the room. this same man asked me one day, soon after i came home, what sir john wilson was. this is a friend of mine, who took our house and servants, and everything as it stood, during our absence in america. i told him an officer. "a wot, sir?" "an officer." and then, for fear he should think i meant a police-officer, i added, "an officer in the army." "i beg your pardon, sir," he said, touching his hat, "but the club as i always drove him to wos the united servants." the real name of this club is the united service, but i have no doubt he thought it was a high-life-below-stairs kind of resort, and that this gentleman was a retired butler or superannuated footman. there's the knock, and the great western sails, or steams rather, to-morrow. write soon again, dear felton, and ever believe me, ... your affectionate friend, charles dickens. p.s. all good angels prosper dr. howe. he, at least, will not like me the less, i hope, for what i shall say of laura. london, devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, st december, . my dear felton: many and many happy new years to you and yours! as many happy children as may be quite convenient (no more)! and as many happy meetings between them and our children, and between you and us, as the kind fates in their utmost kindness shall favorably decree! the american book (to begin with that) has been a most complete and thorough-going success. four large editions have now been sold _and paid for_, and it has won golden opinions from all sorts of men, except our friend in f----, who is a miserable creature; a disappointed man in great poverty, to whom i have ever been most kind and considerate (i need scarcely say that); and another friend in b----, no less a person than an illustrious gentleman named ----, who wrote a story called ----. they have done no harm, and have fallen short of their mark, which, of course, was to annoy me. now i am perfectly free from any diseased curiosity in such respects, and whenever i hear of a notice of this kind, i never read it; whereby i always conceive (don't you?) that i get the victory. with regard to your slave-owners, they may cry, till they are as black in the face as their own slaves, that dickens lies. dickens does not write for their satisfaction, and dickens will not explain for their comfort. dickens has the name and date of every newspaper in which every one of those advertisements appeared, as they know perfectly well; but dickens does not choose to give them, and will not at any time between this and the day of judgment.... i have been hard at work on my new book, of which the first number has just appeared. the paul joneses who pursue happiness and profit at other men's cost will no doubt enable you to read it, almost as soon as you receive this. i hope you will like it. and i particularly commend, my dear felton, one mr. pecksniff and his daughters to your tender regards. i have a kind of liking for them myself. blessed star of morning, such a trip as we had into cornwall, just after longfellow went away! the "we" means forster, maclise, stanfield (the renowned marine painter), and the inimitable boz. we went down into devonshire by the railroad, and there we hired an open carriage from an innkeeper, patriotic in all pickwick matters, and went on with post horses. sometimes we travelled all night, sometimes all day, sometimes both. i kept the joint-stock purse, ordered all the dinners, paid all the turnpikes, conducted facetious conversations with the post boys, and regulated the pace at which we travelled. stanfield (an old sailor) consulted an enormous map on all disputed points of wayfaring; and referred, moreover, to a pocket-compass and other scientific instruments. the luggage was in forster's department; and maclise, having nothing particular to do, sang songs. heavens! if you could have seen the necks of bottles--distracting in their immense varieties of shape--peering out of the carriage pockets! if you could have witnessed the deep devotion of the post-boys, the wild attachment of the hostlers, the maniac glee of the waiters. if you could have followed us into the earthy old churches we visited, and into the strange caverns on the gloomy sea-shore, and down into the depths of mines, and up to the tops of giddy heights where the unspeakably green water was roaring, i don't know how many hundred feet below! if you could have seen but one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat in the big rooms of ancient inns at night, until long after the small hours had come and gone, or smelt but one steam of the hot punch (not white, dear felton, like that amazing compound i sent you a taste of, but a rich, genial, glowing brown) which came in every evening in a huge broad china bowl! i never laughed in my life as i did on this journey. it would have done you good to hear me. i was choking and gasping and bursting the buckle off the back of my stock, all the way. and stanfield (who is very much of your figure and temperament, but fifteen years older) got into such apoplectic entanglements that we were often obliged to beat him on the back with portmanteaus before we could recover him. seriously, i do believe there never was such a trip. and they made such sketches, those two men, in the most romantic of our halting-places, that you would have sworn we had the spirit of beauty with us, as well as the spirit of fun. but stop till you come to england,--i say no more. the actuary of the national debt couldn't calculate the number of children who are coming here on twelfth night, in honor of charley's birthday, for which occasion i have provided a magic lantern and divers other tremendous engines of that nature. but the best of it is that forster and i have purchased between us the entire stock in trade of a conjurer, the practice and display whereof is intrusted to me. and o my dear eyes, felton, if you could see me conjuring the company's watches into impossible tea-caddies, and causing pieces of money to fly, and burning pocket-handkerchiefs without hurting 'em, and practising in my own room, without anybody to admire, you would never forget as long as you live. in those tricks which require a confederate, i am assisted (by reason of his imperturbable good-humor) by stanfield, who always does his part exactly the wrong way, to the unspeakable delight of all beholders. we come out on a small scale, to-night, at forster's, where we see the old year out and the new one in. particulars of shall be forwarded in my next. i have quite made up my mind that f---- really believes he _does_ know you personally, and has all his life. he talks to me about you with such gravity that i am afraid to grin, and feel it necessary to look quite serious. sometimes he _tells_ me things about you, doesn't ask me, you know, so that i am occasionally perplexed beyond all telling, and begin to think it was he, and not i, who went to america. it's the queerest thing in the world. the book i was to have given longfellow for you is not worth sending by itself, being only a barnaby. but i will look up some manuscript for you (i think i have that of the american notes complete), and will try to make the parcel better worth its long conveyance. with regard to maclise's pictures, you certainly are quite right in your impression of them; but he is "such a discursive devil" (as he says about himself), and flies off at such odd tangents, that i feel it difficult to convey to you any general notion of his purpose. i will try to do so when i write again. i want very much to know about ---- and that charming girl..... give me full particulars. will you remember me cordially to sumner, and say i thank him for his welcome letter? the like to hillard, with many regards to himself and his wife, with whom i had one night a little conversation which i shall not readily forget. the like to washington allston, and all friends who care for me and have outlived my book.... always, my dear felton, with true regard and affection, yours, charles dickens. here is a letter that seems to me something tremendous in its fun and pathos:-- devonshire terrace, york gate, regent's park, london, d march, . my dear felton: i don't know where to begin, but plunge headlong with a terrible splash into this letter, on the chance of turning up somewhere. hurrah! up like a cork again, with the "north american review" in my hand. like you, my dear ----, and i can say no more in praise of it, though i go on to the end of the sheet. you cannot think how much notice it has attracted here. brougham called the other day, with the number (thinking i might not have seen it), and i being out at the time, he left a note, speaking of it, and of the writer, in terms that warmed my heart. lord ashburton (one of whose people wrote a notice in the "edinburgh," which they have since publicly contradicted) also wrote to me about it in just the same strain. and many others have done the like. i am in great health and spirits and powdering away at chuzzlewit, with all manner of facetiousness rising up before me as i go on. as to news, i have really none, saving that ---- (who never took any exercise in his life) has been laid up with rheumatism for weeks past, but is now, i hope, getting better. my little captain, as i call him,--he who took me out, i mean, and with whom i had that adventure of the cork soles,--has been in london too, and seeing all the lions under my escort. good heavens! i wish you could have seen certain other mahogany-faced men (also captains) who used to call here for him in the morning, and bear him off to docks and rivers and all sorts of queer places, whence he always returned late at night, with rum-and-water tear-drops in his eyes, and a complication of punchy smells in his mouth! he was better than a comedy to us, having marvellous ways of tying his pocket-handkerchief round his neck at dinner-time in a kind of jolly embarrassment, and then forgetting what he had done with it; also of singing songs to wrong tunes, and calling land objects by sea names, and never knowing what o'clock it was, but taking midnight for seven in the evening; with many other sailor oddities, all full of honesty, manliness, and good temper. we took him to drury lane theatre to see much ado about nothing. but i never could find out what he meant by turning round, after he had watched the first two scenes with great attention, and inquiring "whether it was a polish piece." ... on the th of april i am going to preside at a public dinner for the benefit of the printers; and if you were a guest at that table, wouldn't i smite you on the shoulder, harder than ever i rapped the well-beloved back of washington irving at the city hotel in new york! you were asking me--i love to say asking, as if we could talk together--about maclise. he is such a discursive fellow, and so eccentric in his might, that on a mental review of his pictures i can hardly tell you of them as leading to any one strong purpose. but the annual exhibition of the royal academy comes off in may, and then i will endeavor to give you some notion of him. he is a tremendous creature, and might do anything. but, like all tremendous creatures, he takes his own way, and flies off at unexpected breaches in the conventional wall. you know h----'s book, i daresay. ah! i saw a scene of mingled comicality and seriousness at his funeral some weeks ago, which has choked me at dinner-time ever since. c---- and i went as mourners; and as he lived, poor fellow, five miles out of town, i drove c---- down. it was such a day as i hope, for the credit of nature, is seldom seen in any parts but these,--muddy, foggy, wet, dark, cold, and unutterably wretched in every possible respect. now, c---- has enormous whiskers, which straggle all down his throat in such weather, and stick out in front of him, like a partially unravelled bird's-nest; so that he looks queer enough at the best, but when he is very wet, and in a state between jollity (he is always very jolly with me) and the deepest gravity (going to a funeral, you know), it is utterly impossible to resist him; especially as he makes the strangest remarks the mind of man can conceive, without any intention of being funny, but rather meaning to be philosophical. i really cried with an irresistible sense of his comicality all the way; but when he was dressed out in a black cloak and a very long black hat-band by an undertaker (who, as he whispered me with tears in his eyes--for he had known h---- many years--was "a character, and he would like to sketch him"), i thought i should have been obliged to go away. however, we went into a little parlor where the funeral party was, and god knows it was miserable enough, for the widow and children were crying bitterly in one corner, and the other mourners--mere people of ceremony, who cared no more for the dead man than the hearse did--were talking quite coolly and carelessly together in another; and the contrast was as painful and distressing as anything i ever saw. there was an independent clergyman present, with his bands on and a bible under his arm, who, as soon as we were seated, addressed ---- thus, in a loud, emphatic voice: "mr. c----, have you seen a paragraph respecting our departed friend, which has gone the round of the morning papers?" "yes, sir," says c----, "i have," looking very hard at me the while, for he had told me with some pride coming down that it was his composition. "oh!" said the clergyman. "then you will agree with me, mr. c----, that it is not only an insult to me, who am the servant of the almighty, but an insult to the almighty, whose servant i am." "how is that, sir?" said c----. "it is stated, mr. c----, in that paragraph," says the minister, "that when mr. h---- failed in business as a bookseller, he was persuaded by _me_ to try the pulpit, which is false, incorrect, unchristian, in a manner blasphemous, and in all respects contemptible. let us pray." with which, my dear felton, and in the same breath, i give you my word, he knelt down, as we all did, and began a very miserable jumble of an extemporary prayer. i was really penetrated with sorrow for the family, but when c---- (upon his knees, and sobbing for the loss of an old friend) whispered me, "that if that wasn't a clergyman, and it wasn't a funeral, he'd have punched his head," i felt as if nothing but convulsions could possibly relieve me..... faithfully always, my dear felton, c.d. was there ever such a genial, jovial creature as this master of humor! when we read his friendly epistles, we cannot help wishing he had written letters only, as when we read his novels we grudge the time he employed on anything else. broadstairs, kent, st september, . my dear felton: if i thought it in the nature of things that you and i could ever agree on paper, touching a certain chuzzlewitian question whereupon f---- tells me you have remarks to make, i should immediately walk into the same, tooth and nail. but as i don't, i won't. contenting myself with this prediction, that one of these years and days, you will write or say to me, "my dear dickens, you were right, though rough, and did a world of good, though you got most thoroughly hated for it." to which i shall reply, "my dear felton, i looked a long way off and not immediately under my nose." ... at which sentiment you will laugh, and i shall laugh; and then (for i foresee this will all happen in my land) we shall call for another pot of porter and two or three dozen of oysters. now don't you in your own heart and soul quarrel with me for this long silence? not half so much as i quarrel with myself, i know; but if you could read half the letters i write to you in imagination, you would swear by me for the best of correspondents. the truth is, that when i have done my morning's work, down goes my pen, and from that minute i feel it a positive impossibility to take it up again, until imaginary butchers and bakers wave me to my desk. i walk about brimful of letters, facetious descriptions, touching morsels, and pathetic friendships, but can't for the soul of me uncork myself. the post-office is my rock ahead. my average number of letters that _must_ be written every day is, at the least, a dozen. and you could no more know what i was writing to you spiritually, from the perusal of the bodily thirteenth, than you could tell from my hat what was going on in my head, or could read my heart on the surface of my flannel waistcoat. this is a little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff whereon--in the centre of a tiny semicircular bay--our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. seven miles out are the goodwin sands, (you've heard of the goodwin sands?) whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. also there is a big lighthouse called the north foreland on a hill behind the village, a severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. under the cliff are rare good sands, where all the children assemble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications, which the sea throws down again at high water. old gentlemen and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner in two reading-rooms and on a great many scattered seats in the open air. other old gentlemen look all day through telescopes and never see anything. in a bay-window in a one pair sits from nine o'clock to one a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. his name is boz. at one he disappears, and presently emerges from a bathing-machine, and may be seen--a kind of salmon-colored porpoise--splashing about in the ocean. after that he may be seen in another bay-window on the ground-floor, eating a strong lunch; after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back in the sand reading a book. nobody bothers him unless they know he is disposed to be talked to; and i am told he is very comfortable indeed. he's as brown as a berry, and they _do_ say is a small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch. but this is mere rumor. sometimes he goes up to london (eighty miles, or so, away), and then i'm told there is a sound in lincoln inn fields at night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and forks and wine-glasses. i never shall have been so near you since we parted aboard the george washington as next tuesday. forster, maclise, and i, and perhaps stanfield, are then going aboard the cunard steamer at liverpool, to bid macready good by, and bring his wife away. it will be a very hard parting. you will see and know him of course. we gave him a splendid dinner last saturday at richmond, whereat i presided with my accustomed grace. he is one of the noblest fellows in the world, and i would give a great deal that you and i should sit beside each other to see him play virginius, lear, or werner, which i take to be, every way, the greatest piece of exquisite perfection that his lofty art is capable of attaining. his macbeth, especially the last act, is a tremendous reality; but so indeed is almost everything he does. you recollect, perhaps, that he was the guardian of our children while we were away. i love him dearly.... you asked me, long ago, about maclise. he is such a wayward fellow in his subjects, that it would be next to impossible to write such an article as you were thinking of about him. i wish you could form an idea of his genius. one of these days a book will come out, "moore's irish melodies," entirely illustrated by him, on every page. _when_ it comes, i'll send it to you. you will have some notion of him then. he is in great favor with the queen, and paints secret pictures for her to put upon her husband's table on the morning of his birthday, and the like. but if he has a care, he will leave his mark on more enduring things than palace walls. and so l---- is married. i remember _her_ well, and could draw her portrait, in words, to the life. a very beautiful and gentle creature, and a proper love for a poet. my cordial remembrances and congratulations. do they live in the house where we breakfasted?.... i very often dream i am in america again; but, strange to say, i never dream of you. i am always endeavoring to get home in disguise, and have a dreary sense of the distance. _apropos_ of dreams, is it not a strange thing if writers of fiction never dream of their own creations; recollecting, i suppose, even in their dreams, that they have no real existence? _i_ never dreamed of any of my own characters, and i feel it so impossible that i would wager scott never did of his, real as they are. i had a good piece of absurdity in my head a night or two ago. i dreamed that somebody was dead. i don't know who, but it's not to the purpose. it was a private gentleman, and a particular friend; and i was greatly overcome when the news was broken to me (very delicately) by a gentleman in a cocked hat, top boots, and a sheet. nothing else. "good god!" i said, "is he dead?" "he is as dead, sir," rejoined the gentleman, "as a door-nail. but we must all die, mr. dickens; sooner or later, my dear sir." "ah!" i said. "yes, to be sure. very true. but what did he die of?" the gentleman burst into a flood of tears, and said, in a voice broken by emotion: "he christened his youngest child, sir, with a toasting-fork." i never in my life was so affected as at his having fallen a victim to this complaint. it carried a conviction to my mind that he never could have recovered. i knew that it was the most interesting and fatal malady in the world; and i wrung the gentleman's hand in a convulsion of respectful admiration, for i felt that this explanation did equal honor to his head and heart! what do you think of mrs. gamp? and how do you like the undertaker? i have a fancy that they are in your way. o heaven! such green woods as i was rambling among down in yorkshire, when i was getting that done last july! for days and weeks we never saw the sky but through green boughs; and all day long i cantered over such soft moss and turf, that the horse's feet scarcely made a sound upon it. we have some friends in that part of the country (close to castle howard, where lord morpeth's father dwells in state, _in_ his park indeed), who are the jolliest of the jolly, keeping a big old country house, with an ale cellar something larger than a reasonable church, and everything like goldsmith's bear dances, "in a concatenation accordingly." just the place for you, felton! we performed some madnesses there in the way of forfeits, picnics, rustic games, inspections of ancient monasteries at midnight, when the moon was shining, that would have gone to your heart, and, as mr. weller says, "come out on the other side." ... write soon, my dear felton; and if i write to you less often than i would, believe that my affectionate heart is with you always. loves and regards to all friends, from yours ever and ever, charles dickens. these letters grow better and better as we get on. ah me! and to think we shall have no more from that delightful pen! devonshire terrace, london, january , . my very dear felton: you are a prophet, and had best retire from business straightway. yesterday morning, new year's day, when i walked into my little workroom after breakfast, and was looking out of window at the snow in the garden,--not seeing it particularly well in consequence of some staggering suggestions of last night, whereby i was beset,--the postman came to the door with a knock, for which i denounced him from my heart. seeing your hand upon the cover of a letter which he brought, i immediately blessed him, presented him with a glass of whiskey, inquired after his family (they are all well), and opened the despatch with a moist and oystery twinkle in my eye. and on the very day from which the new year dates, i read your new year congratulations as punctually as if you lived in the next house. why don't you? now, if instantly on the receipt of this you will send a free and independent citizen down to the cunard wharf at boston, you will find that captain hewett, of the britannia steamship (my ship), has a small parcel for professor felton of cambridge; and in that parcel you will find a christmas carol in prose; being a short story of christmas by charles dickens. over which christmas carol charles dickens wept and laughed and wept again, and excited himself in a most extraordinary manner in the composition; and thinking whereof he walked about the black streets of london, fifteen and twenty miles, many a night when all the sober folks had gone to bed.... its success is most prodigious. and by every post all manner of strangers write all manner of letters to him about their homes and hearths, and how this same carol is read aloud there, and kept on a little shelf by itself. indeed, it is the greatest success, as i am told, that this ruffian and rascal has ever achieved. forster is out again; and if he don't go in again, after the manner in which we have been keeping christmas, he must be very strong indeed. such dinings, such dancings, such conjurings, such blindman's-buffings, such theatre-goings, such kissings-out of old years and kissings-in of new ones, never took place in these parts before. to keep the chuzzlewit going, and do this little book, the carol, in the odd times between two parts of it, was, as you may suppose, pretty tight work. but when it was done i broke out like a madman. and if you could have seen me at a children's party at macready's the other night, going down a country dance with mrs. m., you would have thought i was a country gentleman of independent property, residing on a tiptop farm, with the wind blowing straight in my face every day.... your friend, mr. p----, dined with us one day (i don't know whether i told you this before), and pleased us very much. mr. c---- has dined here once, and spent an evening here. i have not seen him lately, though he has called twice or thrice; for k----being unwell and i busy, we have not been visible at our accustomed seasons. i wonder whether h---- has fallen in your way. poor h----! he was a good fellow, and has the most grateful heart i ever met with. our journeyings seem to be a dream now. talking of dreams, strange thoughts of italy and france, and maybe germany, are springing up within me as the chuzzlewit clears off. it's a secret i have hardly breathed to any one, but i "think" of leaving england for a year, next midsummer, bag and baggage, little ones and all,--then coming out with _such_ a story, felton, all at once, no parts, sledge-hammer blow. i send you a manchester paper, as you desire. the report is not exactly done, but very well done, notwithstanding. it was a very splendid sight, i assure you, and an awful-looking audience. i am going to preside at a similar meeting at liverpool on the th of next month, and on my way home i may be obliged to preside at another at birmingham. i will send you papers, if the reports be at all like the real thing. i wrote to prescott about his book, with which i was perfectly charmed. i think his descriptions masterly, his style brilliant, his purpose manly and gallant always. the introductory account of aztec civilization impressed me exactly as it impressed you. from beginning to end, the whole history is enchanting and full of genius. i only wonder that, having such an opportunity of illustrating the doctrine of visible judgments, he never remarks, when cortes and his men tumble the idols down the temple steps and call upon the people to take notice that their gods are powerless to help themselves, that possibly if some intelligent native had tumbled down the image of the virgin or patron saint after them nothing very remarkable might have ensued in consequence. of course you like macready. your name's felton. i wish you could see him play lear. it is stupendously terrible. but i suppose he would be slow to act it with the boston company. hearty remembrances to sumner, longfellow, prescott, and all whom you know i love to remember. countless happy years to you and yours, my dear felton, and some instalment of them, however slight, in england, in the loving company of the proscribed one. o, breathe not his name. * * * * * here is a portfolio of dickens's letters, written to me from time to time during the past ten years. as long ago as the spring of i began to press him very hard to come to america and give us a course of readings from his works. at that time i had never heard him read in public, but the fame of his wonderful performances rendered me eager to have my own country share in the enjoyment of them. being in london in the summer of , and dining with him one day in his town residence, tavistock house, tavistock square, we had much talk in a corner of his library about coming to america. i thought him over-sensitive with regard to his reception here, and i tried to remove any obstructions that might exist in his mind at that time against a second visit across the atlantic. i followed up our conversation with a note setting forth the certainty of his success among his transatlantic friends, and urging him to decide on a visit during the year. he replied to me, dating from "gad's hill place, higham by rochester, kent." "i write to you from my little kentish country house, on the very spot where falstaff ran away. "i cannot tell you how very much obliged to you i feel for your kind suggestion, and for the perfectly frank and unaffected manner in which it is conveyed to me. "it touches, i will admit to you frankly, a chord that has several times sounded in my breast, since i began my readings. i should very much like to read in america. but the idea is a mere dream as yet. several strong reasons would make the journey difficult to me, and--even were they overcome--i would never make it, unless i had great general reason to believe that the american people really wanted to hear me. "through the whole of this autumn i shall be reading in various parts of england, ireland, and scotland. i mention this, in reference to the closing paragraph of your esteemed favor. "allow me once again to thank you most heartily, and to remain, "gratefully and faithfully yours, "charles dickens." early in the month of july, , i spent a day with him in his beautiful country retreat in kent. he drove me about the leafy lanes in his basket wagon, pointing out the lovely spots belonging to his friends, and ending with a visit to the ruins of rochester castle. we climbed up the time-worn walls and leaned out of the ivied windows, looking into the various apartments below. i remember how vividly he reproduced a probable scene in the great old banqueting-room, and how graphically he imagined the life of _ennui_ and every-day tediousness that went on in those lazy old times. i recall his fancy picture of the dogs stretched out before the fire, sleeping and snoring with their masters. that day he seemed to revel in the past, and i stood by, listening almost with awe to his impressive voice, as he spoke out whole chapters of a romance destined never to be written. on our way back to gad's hill place, he stopped in the road, i remember, to have a crack with a gentleman who he told me was a son of sydney smith. the only other guest at his table that day was wilkie collins; and after dinner we three went out and lay down on the grass, while dickens showed off a raven that was hopping about, and told anecdotes of the bird and of his many predecessors. we also talked about his visiting america, i putting as many spokes as possible into that favorite wheel of mine. a day or two after i returned to london i received this note from him:-- "...only to say that i heartily enjoyed our day, and shall long remember it. also that i have been perpetually repeating the ---- experience (of a more tremendous sort in the way of ghastly comicality, experience there is none) on the grass, on my back. also, that i have not forgotten cobbett. also, that i shall trouble you at greater length when the mysterious oracle, of new york, pronounces. "wilkie collins begs me to report that he declines pale horse, and all other horse exercise--and all exercise, except eating, drinking, smoking, and sleeping--in the dog days. "with united kind regards, believe me always cordially yours, "charles dickens." an agent had come out from new york with offers to induce him to arrange for a speedy visit to america, and dickens was then waiting to see the man who had been announced as on his way to him. he was evidently giving the subject serious consideration, for on the th of july he sends me this note:-- "as i have not yet heard from mr. ---- of new york, i begin to think it likely (or, rather, i begin to think it more likely than i thought it before) that he has not backers good and sufficient, and that his 'mission' will go off. it is possible that i may hear from him before the month is out, and i shall not make any reading arrangements until it has come to a close; but i do not regard it as being very probable that the said ---- will appear satisfactorily, either in the flesh or the spirit. "now, considering that it would be august before i could move in the matter, that it would be indispensably necessary to choose some business connection and have some business arrangements made in america, and that i am inclined to think it would not be easy to originate and complete all the necessary preparations for beginning in october, i want your kind advice on the following points:-- " . suppose i postponed the idea for a year. " . suppose i postponed it until after christmas. " . suppose i sent some trusty person out to america _now_, to negotiate with some sound, responsible, trustworthy man of business in new york, accustomed to public undertakings of such a nature; my negotiator being fully empowered to conclude any arrangements with him that might appear, on consultation, best. "have you any idea of any such person to whom you could recommend me? or of any such agent here? i only want to see my way distinctly, and to have it prepared before me, out in the states. now, i will make no apology for troubling you, because i thoroughly rely on your interest and kindness. "i am at gad's hill, except on tuesdays and the greater part of wednesdays. "with kind regards, very faithfully yours, "charles dickens." various notes passed between us after this, during my stay in london in . on the th of august he writes:-- "i have considered the subject in every way, and have consulted with the few friends to whom i ever refer my doubts, and whose judgment is in the main excellent. i have (this is between ourselves) come to the conclusion _that i will not go now_. "a year hence i may revive the matter, and your presence in america will then be a great encouragement and assistance to me. i shall see you (at least i count upon doing so) at my house in town before you turn your face towards the locked-up house; and we will then, reversing macbeth, 'proceed further in this business.' ... "believe me always (and here i forever renounce 'mr.,' as having anything whatever to do with our communication, and as being a mere preposterous interloper), "faithfully yours, "charles dickens." when i arrived in rome, early in , one of the first letters i received from london was from him. the project of coming to america was constantly before him, and he wrote to me that he should have a great deal to say when i came back to england in the spring; but the plan fell through, and he gave up all hope of crossing the water again. however, i did not let the matter rest; and when i returned home i did not cease, year after year, to keep the subject open in my communications with him. he kept a watchful eye on what was going forward in america, both in literature and politics. during the war, of course, both of us gave up our correspondence about the readings. he was actively engaged all over great britain in giving his marvellous entertainments, and there certainly was no occasion for his travelling elsewhere. in october, , i sent him the proof-sheets of an article, that was soon to appear in the atlantic monthly, on "blind tom," and on receipt of it he sent me a letter, from which this is an extract:-- "i have read that affecting paper you have had the kindness to send me, with strong interest and emotion. you may readily suppose that i have been most glad and ready to avail myself of your permission to print it. i have placed it in our number made up to-day, which will be published on the th of this month,--well before you,--as you desire. "think of reading in america? lord bless you, i think of reading in the deepest depth of the lowest crater in the moon, on my way there! "there is no sun-picture of my falstaff house as yet; but it shall be done, and you shall have it. it has been much improved internally since you saw it.... "i expect macready at gad's hill on saturday. you know that his second wife (an excellent one) presented him lately with a little boy? i was staying with him for a day or two last winter, and, seizing an umbrella when he had the audacity to tell me he was growing old, made at him with macduff's defiance. upon which he fell into the old fierce guard, with the desperation of thirty years ago. "kind remembrances to all friends who kindly remember me. "ever heartily yours, "charles dickens." every time i had occasion to write to him after the war, i stirred up the subject of the readings. on the d of may, , he says:-- "your letter is an excessively difficult one to answer, because i really do not know that any sum of money that could be laid down would induce me to cross the atlantic to read. nor do i think it likely that any one on your side of the great water can be prepared to understand the state of the case. for example, i am now just finishing a series of thirty readings. the crowds attending them have been so astounding, and the relish for them has so far outgone all previous experience, that if i were to set myself the task, 'i will make such or such a sum of money by devoting myself to readings for a certain time,' i should have to go no further than bond street or regent street, to have it secured to me in a day. therefore, if a specific offer, and a very large one indeed, were made to me from america, i should naturally ask myself, 'why go through this wear and tear, merely to pluck fruit that grows on every bough at home?' it is a delightful sensation to move a new people; but i have but to go to paris, and i find the brightest people in the world quite ready for me. i say thus much in a sort of desperate endeavor to explain myself to you. i can put no price upon fifty readings in america, because i do not know that any possible price could pay me for them. and i really cannot say to any one disposed towards the enterprise, 'tempt me,' because i have too strong a misgiving that he cannot in the nature of things do it. "this is the plain truth. if any distinct proposal be submitted to me, i will give it a distinct answer. but the chances are a round thousand to one that the answer will be no, and therefore i feel bound to make the declaration beforehand. "....this place has been greatly improved since you were here, and we should be heartily glad if you and she could see it. "faithfully yours ever, "charles dickens." on the th of october he writes:-- "although i perpetually see in the papers that i am coming out with a new serial, i assure you i know no more of it at present. i am _not_ writing (except for christmas number of 'all the year round'), and am going to begin, in the middle of january, a series of forty-two readings. those will probably occupy me until easter. early in the summer i hope to get to work upon a story that i have in my mind. but in what form it will appear i do not yet know, because when the time comes i shall have to take many circumstances into consideration..... "a faint outline of a castle in the air always dimly hovers between me and rochester, in the great hall of which i see myself reading to american audiences. but my domestic surroundings must change before the castle takes tangible form. and perhaps _i_ may change first, and establish a castle in the other world. so no more at present. "believe me ever faithfully yours, "charles dickens." in june, , things begin to look more promising, and i find in one of his letters, dated the d of that month, some good news, as follows:-- "i cannot receive your pleasantest of notes, without assuring you of the interest and gratification that _i_ feel on _my_ side in our alliance. and now i am going to add a piece of intelligence that i hope may not be disagreeable. "i am trying hard so to free myself, as to be able to come over to read this next winter! whether i may succeed in this endeavor or no i cannot yet say, but i am trying hard. so in the mean time don't contradict the rumor. in the course of a few mails i hope to be able to give you positive and definite information on the subject. "my daughter (whom i shall not bring if i come) will answer for herself by and by. understand that i am really endeavoring tooth and nail to make my way personally to the american public, and that no light obstacles will turn me aside, now that my hand is in. "my dear fields, faithfully yours always, "charles dickens." this was followed up by another letter, dated the th, in which he says:-- "i have this morning resolved to send out to boston, in the first week in august, mr. dolby, the secretary and manager of my readings. he is profoundly versed in the business of those delightful intellectual feasts (!), and will come straight to ticknor and fields, and will hold solemn council with them, and will then go to new york, philadelphia, hartford, washington, etc., etc., and see the rooms for himself, and make his estimates. he will then telegraph to me: 'i see my way to such and such results. shall i go on?' if i reply, 'yes,' i shall stand committed to begin reading in america with the month of december. if i reply, 'no,' it will be because i do not clearly see the game to be worth so large a candle. in either case he will come back to me. "he is the brother of madame sainton dolby, the celebrated singer. i have absolute trust in him and a great regard for him. he goes with me everywhere when i read, and manages for me to perfection. "we mean to keep all this strictly secret, as i beg of you to do, until i finally decide for or against. i am beleaguered by every kind of speculator in such things on your side of the water; and it is very likely that they would take the rooms over our heads,--to charge me heavily for them,--or would set on foot unheard-of devices for buying up the tickets, etc., etc., if the probabilities oozed out. this is exactly how the case stands now, and i confide it to you within a couple of hours after having so far resolved. dolby quite understands that _he_ is to confide in you, similarly, without a particle of reserve. "ever faithfully yours, "charles dickens." on the th of july he says:-- "our letters will be crossing one another rarely! i have received your cordial answer to my first notion of coming out; but there has not yet been time for me to hear again.... "with kindest regard to 'both your houses,' public and private, "ever faithfully yours, "charles dickens." he had engaged to write for "our young folks" "a holiday romance," and the following note, dated the th of july, refers to the story:-- "your note of the th is like a cordial of the best sort. i have taken it accordingly. "dolby sails in the java on saturday, the d of next month, and will come direct to you. you will find him a frank and capital fellow. he is perfectly acquainted with his business and with his chief, and may be trusted without a grain of reserve. "i hope the americans will see the joke of 'holiday romance.' the writing seems to me so like children's, that dull folks (on _any_ side of _any_ water) might perhaps rate it accordingly! i should like to be beside you when you read it, and particularly when you read the pirate's story. it made me laugh to that extent that my people here thought i was out of my wits, until i gave it to them to read, when they did likewise. "ever cordially yours, "charles dickens." on the d of september he breaks out in this wise, dolby having arrived out and made all arrangements for the readings:-- "your cheering letter of the st of august arrived here this morning. a thousand thanks for it. i begin to think (nautically) that i 'head west'ard.' you shall hear from me fully and finally as soon as dolby shall have reported personally. "the other day i received a letter from mr. ---- of new york (who came over in the winning yacht, and described the voyage in the times), saying he would much like to see me. i made an appointment in london, and observed that when he _did_ see me he was obviously astonished. while i was sensible that the magnificence of my appearance would fully account for his being overcome, i nevertheless angled for the cause of his surprise. he then told me that there was a paragraph going round the papers, to the effect that i was 'in a critical state of health.' i asked him if he was sure it wasn't 'cricketing' state of health? to which he replied, quite. i then asked him down here to dinner, and he was again staggered by finding me in sporting training; also much amused. "yesterday's and to-day's post bring me this unaccountable paragraph from hosts of uneasy friends, with the enormous and wonderful addition that 'eminent surgeons' are sending me to america for 'cessation from literary labor'!!! so i have written a quiet line to the times, certifying to my own state of health, and have also begged dixon to do the like in the athenaeum. i mention the matter to you, in order that you may contradict, from me, if the nonsense should reach america unaccompanied by the truth. but i suppose that the new york herald will probably have got the latter from mr. ---- aforesaid..... "charles reade and wilkie collins are here; and the joke of the time is to feel my pulse when i appear at table, and also to inveigle innocent messengers to come over to the summer-house, where i write (the place is quite changed since you were here, and a tunnel under the high road connects this shrubbery with the front garden), to ask, with their compliments, how i find myself _now_. "if i come to america this next november, even you can hardly imagine with what interest i shall try copperfield on an american audience, or, if they give me their heart, how freely and fully i shall give them mine. we will ask dolby then whether he ever heard it before. "i cannot thank you enough for your invaluable help to dolby. he writes that at every turn and moment the sense and knowledge and tact of mr. osgood are inestimable to him. "ever, my dear fields, faithfully yours, "charles dickens." here is a little note dated the d of october:-- "i cannot tell you how much i thank you for your kind little letter, which is like a pleasant voice coming across the atlantic, with that domestic welcome in it which has no substitute on earth. if you knew how strongly i am inclined to allow myself the pleasure of staying at your house, you would look upon me as a kind of ancient roman (which, i trust in heaven, i am not) for having the courage to say no. but if i gave myself that gratification in the beginning, i could scarcely hope to get on in the hard 'reading' life, without offending some kindly disposed and hospitable american friend afterwards; whereas if i observe my english principle on such occasions, of having no abiding-place but an hotel, and stick to it from the first, i may perhaps count on being consistently uncomfortable. "the nightly exertion necessitates meals at odd hours, silence and rest at impossible times of the day, a general spartan behavior so utterly inconsistent with my nature, that if you were to give me a happy inch, i should take an ell, and frightfully disappoint you in public. i don't want to do that, if i can help it, and so i will be good in spite of myself. "ever your affectionate friend, "charles dickens." a ridiculous paragraph in the papers following close on the public announcement that dickens was coming to america in november, drew from him this letter to me, dated also early in october:-- "i hope the telegraph clerks did not mutilate out of recognition or reasonable guess the words i added to dolby's last telegram to boston. 'tribune london correspondent totally false.' not only is there not a word of truth in the pretended conversation, but it is so absurdly unlike me that i cannot suppose it to be even invented by any one who ever heard me exchange a word with mortal creature. for twenty years i am perfectly certain that i have never made any other allusion to the republication of my books in america than the good-humored remark, 'that if there had been international copyright between england and the states, i should have been a man of very large fortune, instead of a man of moderate savings, always supporting a very expensive public position.' nor have i ever been such a fool as to charge the absence of international copyright upon individuals. nor have i ever been so ungenerous as to disguise or suppress the fact that i have received handsome sums for advance sheets. when i was in the states, i said what i had to say on the question, and there an end. i am absolutely certain that i have never since expressed myself, even with soreness, on the subject. reverting to the preposterous fabrication of the london correspondent, the statement that i ever talked about 'these fellows' who republished my books, or pretended to know (what i don't know at this instant) who made how much out of them, or ever talked of their sending me 'conscience money,' is as grossly and completely false as the statement that i ever said anything to the effect that i could not be expected to have an interest in the american people. and nothing can by any possibility be falser than that. again and again in these pages (all the year round) i have expressed my interest in them. you will see it in the 'child's history of england.' you will see it in the last preface to 'american notes.' every american who has ever spoken with me in london, paris, or where not, knows whether i have frankly said, 'you could have no better introduction to me than your country.' and for years and years when i have been asked about reading in america, my invariable reply has been, 'i have so many friends there, and constantly receive so many earnest letters from personally unknown readers there, that, but for domestic reasons, i would go to-morrow.' i think i must, in the confidential intercourse between you and me, have written you to this effect more than once. "the statement of the london correspondent from beginning to end is false. it is false in the letter and false in the spirit. he may have been misinformed, and the statement may not have originated with him. with whomsoever it originated, it never originated with me, and consequently is false. more than enough about it. "as i hope to see you so soon, my dear fields, and as i am busily at work on the christmas number, i will not make this a longer letter than i can help. i thank you most heartily for your proffered hospitality, and need not tell you that if i went to any friend's house in america, i would go to yours. but the readings are very hard work, and i think i cannot do better than observe the rule on that side of the atlantic which i observe on this,--of never, under such circumstances, going to a friend's house, but always staying at a hotel. i am able to observe it here, by being consistent and never breaking it. if i am equally consistent there, i can (i hope) offend no one. "dolby sends his love to you and all his friends (as i do), and is girding up his loins vigorously. "ever, my dear fields, heartily and affectionately yours, "charles dickens." before sailing in november he sent off this note to me from the office of all the year round:-- "i received your more than acceptable letter yesterday morning, and consequently am able to send you this line of acknowledgment by the next mail. please god we will have that walk among the autumn leaves, before the readings set in. "you may have heard from dolby that a gorgeous repast is to be given to me to-morrow, and that it is expected to be a notable demonstration. i shall try, in what i say, to state my american case exactly. i have a strong hope and belief that within the compass of a couple of minutes or so i can put it, with perfect truthfulness, in the light that my american friends would be best pleased to see me place it in. either so, or my instinct is at fault. "my daughters and their aunt unite with me in kindest loves. as i write, a shrill prolongation of the message comes in from the next room, 'tell them to take care of you-u-u!' "tell longfellow, with my love, that i am charged by forster (who has been very ill of diffused gout and bronchitis) with a copy of his sir john eliot. "i will bring you out the early proof of the christmas number. we publish it here on the th of december. i am planning it (no thoroughfare) out into a play for wilkie collins to manipulate after i sail, and have arranged for fechter to go to the adelphi theatre and play a swiss in it. it will be brought out the day after christmas day. "here, at boston wharf, and everywhere else, "yours heartily and affectionately, "c.d." on a blustering evening in november, , dickens arrived in boston harbor, on his second visit to america. a few of his friends, under the guidance of the collector of the port, steamed down in the custom-house boat to welcome him. it was pitch dark before we sighted the cuba and ran alongside. the great steamer stopped for a few minutes to take us on board, and dickens's cheery voice greeted me before i had time to distinguish him on the deck of the vessel. the news of the excitement the sale of the tickets to his readings had occasioned had been earned to him by the pilot, twenty miles out. he was in capital spirits over the cheerful account that all was going on so well, and i thought he never looked in better health. the voyage had been a good one, and the ten days' rest on shipboard had strengthened him amazingly he said. as we were told that a crowd had assembled in east boston, we took him in our little tug and landed him safely at long wharf in boston, where carriages were in waiting. rooms had been taken for him at the parker house, and in half an hour after he had reached the hotel he was sitting down to dinner with half a dozen friends, quite prepared, he said, to give the first reading in america that very night, if desirable. assurances that the kindest feelings towards him existed everywhere put him in great spirits, and he seemed happy to be among us. on sunday he visited the school ship and said a few words of encouragement and counsel to the boys. he began his long walks at once, and girded himself up for the hard winter's work before him. steadily refusing all invitations to go out during the weeks he was reading, he only went into one other house besides the parker, habitually, during his stay in boston. every one who was present remembers the delighted crowds that assembled nightly in the tremont temple, and no one who heard dickens, during that eventful month of december, will forget the sensation produced by the great author, actor, and reader. hazlitt says of kean's othello, "the tone of voice in which he delivered the beautiful apostrophe 'then, o, farewell,' struck on the heart like the swelling notes of some divine music, like the sound of years of departed happiness." there were thrills of pathos in dickens's readings (of david copperfield, for instance) which kean himself never surpassed in dramatic effect. he went from boston to new york, carrying with him a severe catarrh contracted in our climate. in reality much of the time during his reading in boston he was quite ill from the effects of the disease, but he fought courageously against its effects, and always came up, on the night of the reading, all right. several times i feared he would be obliged to postpone the readings, and i am sure almost any one else would have felt compelled to do so; but he declared no man had a right to break an engagement with the public, if he were able to be out of bed. his spirit was wonderful, and, although he lost all appetite and could partake of very little food, he was always cheerful and ready for his work when the evening came round. every morning his table was covered with invitations to dinners and all sorts of entertainments, but he said, "i came for hard work, and i must try to fulfil the expectations of the american public." he did accept a dinner which was tendered to him by some of his literary friends in boston; but the day before it was to come off he was so ill he felt obliged to ask that the banquet might be given up. the strain upon his strength and nerves was very great during all the months he remained in the country, and only a man of iron will could have accomplished all he did. and here let me say, that although he was accustomed to talk and write a great deal about eating and drinking, i have rarely seen a man eat and drink less. he liked to dilate in imagination over the brewing of a bowl of punch, but i always noticed that when the punch was ready, he drank less of it than any one who might be present. it was the sentiment of the thing and not the thing itself that engaged his attention. he liked to have a little supper every night after a reading, and have three or four friends round the table with him, but he only pecked at the viands as a bird might do, and i scarcely saw him eat a hearty meal during his whole stay in the country. both at parker's hotel in boston, and at the westminster in new york, everything was arranged by the proprietors for his comfort and happiness, and tempting dishes to pique his invalid appetite were sent up at different hours of the day, with the hope that he might be induced to try unwonted things and get up again the habit of eating more; but the influenza, that seized him with such masterful powder, held the strong man down till he left the country. one of the first letters i had from him, after he had begun his reading tour, was dated from the westminster hotel in new york, on the th of january, . my dear fields: on coming back from philadelphia just now (three o'clock) i was welcomed by your cordial letter. it was a delightful welcome and did me a world of good. the cold remains just as it was (beastly), and where it was (in my head). we have left off referring to the hateful subject, except in emphatic sniffs on my part, convulsive wheezes, and resounding sneezes. the philadelphia audience ready and bright. i think they understood the carol better than copperfield, but they were bright and responsive as to both.--they also highly appreciated your friend mr. jack hopkins. a most excellent hotel there, and everything satisfactory. while on the subject of satisfaction, i know you will be pleased to hear that a long run is confidently expected for the no thoroughfare drama. although the piece is well cast and well played, my letters tell me that fechter is so remarkably fine as to play down the whole company. the times, in its account of it, said that "mr. fechter" (in the swiss mountain scene, and in the swiss hotel) "was practically alone upon the stage." it is splendidly got up, and the mountain pass (i planned it with the scene-painter) was loudly cheered by the whole house. of course i knew that fechter would tear himself to pieces rather than fall short, but i was not prepared for his contriving to get the pity and sympathy of the audience out of his passionate love for marguerite. my dear fellow, you cannot miss me more than i miss you and yours. and heaven knows how gladly i would substitute boston for chicago, detroit, and co.! but the tour is fast shaping itself out into its last details, and we must remember that there is a clear fortnight in boston, not counting the four farewells. i look forward to that fortnight as a radiant landing-place in the series.... rash youth! no presumptuous hand should try to make the punch, except in the presence of the hoary sage who pens these lines. with _him_ on the spot to perceive and avert impending failure, with timely words of wisdom to arrest the erring hand and curb the straying judgment, and, with such gentle expressions of encouragement as his stern experience may justify, to cheer the aspirant with faint hopes of future excellence,--with these conditions observed, the daring mind may scale the heights of sugar and contemplate the depths of lemon. otherwise not. dolby is at washington, and will return in the night. ---- is on guard. he made a most brilliant appearance before the philadelphia public, and looked hard at them. the mastery of his eye diverted their attention from his boots: charming in themselves, but (unfortunately) two left ones. i send my hearty and enduring love. your kindness to the british wanderer is deeply inscribed in his heart. when i think of l----'s story about dr. webster, i feel like the lady in nickleby who "has had a sensation of alternate cold and biling water running down her back ever since." ever, my dear fields, your affectionate friend, c.d. his birthday, th of february, was spent in washington, and on the th of the month he sent this little note from baltimore:-- baltimore, sunday, february , . my dear fields: i thank you heartily for your pleasant note (i can scarcely tell you _how_ pleasant it was to receive the same) and for the beautiful flowers that you sent me on my birthday. for which--and much more--my loving thanks to both. in consequence of the washington papers having referred to the august th of this month, my room was on that day a blooming garden. nor were flowers alone represented there. the silversmith, the goldsmith, the landscape-painter, all sent in their contributions. after the reading was done at night, the whole audience rose; and it was spontaneous, hearty, and affecting. i was very much surprised by the president's face and manner. it is, in its way, one of the most remarkable faces i have ever seen. not imaginative, but very powerful in its firmness (or perhaps obstinacy), strength of will, and steadiness of purpose. there is a reticence in it too, curiously at variance with that first unfortunate speech of his. a man not to be turned or trifled with. a man (i should say) who must be killed to be got out of the way. his manners, perfectly composed. we looked at one another pretty hard. there was an air of chronic anxiety upon him. but not a crease or a ruffle in his dress, and his papers were as composed as himself. (mr. thornton was going in to deliver his credentials, immediately afterwards.) this day fortnight will find me, please god, in my "native boston." i wish i were there to-day. ever, my dear fields, your affectionate friend, charles dickens, _chairman missionary society._ when he returned to boston in the latter part of the month, after his fatiguing campaign in new york, philadelphia, baltimore, and washington, he seemed far from well, and one afternoon sent round from the parker house to me this little note, explaining why he could not go out on our accustomed walk. i have been terrifying dolby out of his wits, by setting in for a paroxysm of sneezing, and it would be madness in me, with such a cold, and on such a night, and with to-morrow's reading before me, to go out. i need not add that i shall be heartily glad to see you if you have time. many thanks for the life and letters of wilder dwight. i shall "save up" that book, to read on the passage home. after turning over the leaves, i have shut it up and put it away; for i am a great reader at sea, and wish to reserve the interest that i find awaiting me in the personal following of the sad war. good god, when one stands among the hearths that war has broken, what an awful consideration it is that such a tremendous evil _must_ be sometimes! ever affectionately yours, charles dickens. * * * * * i will dispose here of the question often asked me by correspondents, and lately renewed in many epistles, _"was charles dickens a believer in our saviour's life and teachings?"_ persons addressing to me such inquiries must be profoundly ignorant of the works of the great author, whom they endeavor by implication to place among the "unbelievers." if anywhere, out of the bible, god's goodness and mercy are solemnly commended to the world's attention, it is in the pages of dickens. i had supposed that these written words of his, which have been so extensively copied both in europe and america, from his last will and testament, dated the th of may, , would forever remain an emphatic testimony to his christian faith:-- "i commit my soul to the mercy of god, through our lord and saviour jesus christ, and i exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the teachings of the new testament." i wish it were in my power to bring to the knowledge of all who doubt the christian character of charles dickens certain other memorable words of his, written years ago, with reference to christmas. they are not as familiar as many beautiful things from the same pen on the same subject, for the paper which enshrines them has not as yet been collected among his authorized works. listen to these loving words in which the christian writer has embodied the life of his saviour:-- "hark! the waits are playing, and they break my childish sleep! what images do i associate with the christmas music as i see them set forth on the christmas tree? known before all others, keeping far apart from all the others, they gather round my little bed. an angel, speaking to a group of shepherds in a field; some travellers, with eyes uplifted, following a star; a baby in a manger; a child in a spacious temple, talking with grave men; a solemn figure with a mild and beautiful face, raising a dead girl by the hand; again, near a city gate, calling back the son of a widow, on his bier, to life; a crowd of people looking through the opened roof of a chamber where he site, and letting down a sick person on a bed, with ropes; the same in a tempest, walking on the water to a ship; again, on a sea-shore, teaching a great multitude; again, with a child upon his knee, and other children round; again, restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick, strength to the lame, knowledge to the ignorant; again, dying upon a cross, watched by armed soldiers, a thick darkness coming on, the earth beginning to shake, and only one voice heard,--'forgive them, for they know not what they do!'" the writer of these pages begs to say here, most respectfully and emphatically, that he will not feel himself bound, in future, to reply to any inquiries, from however well-meaning correspondents, as to whether charles dickens was an "unbeliever," or a "unitarian," or an "episcopalian," or whether "he ever went to church in his life," or "used improper language," or "drank enough to hurt him." he was human, very human, but he was no scoffer or doubter. his religion was of the heart, and his faith beyond questioning. he taught the world, said dean stanley over his new-made grave in westminster abbey, great lessons of "the eternal value of generosity, of purity, of kindness, and of unselfishness," and by his fruits he shall be known of all men. let me commend to the attention of my numerous nameless correspondents, who have attempted to soil the moral character of dickens, the following little incident, related to me by himself, during a summer-evening walk among the kentish meadows, a few months before he died. i will try to tell the story, if possible, as simply and naturally as he told it to me. "i chanced to be travelling some years ago," he said, "in a railroad carriage between liverpool and london. beside myself there were two ladies and a gentleman occupying the carriage. we happened to be all strangers to each other, but i noticed at once that a clergyman was of the party. i was occupied with a ponderous article in the 'times,' when the sound of my own name drew my attention to the fact that a conversation was going forward among the three other persons in the carriage with reference to myself and my books. one of the ladies was perusing 'bleak house,' then lately published, and the clergyman had commenced a conversation with the ladies by asking what book they were reading. on being told the author's name and the title of the book, he expressed himself greatly grieved that any lady in england should be willing to take up the writings of so vile a character as charles dickens. both the ladies showed great surprise at the low estimate the clergyman put upon an author whom they had been accustomed to read, to say the least, with a certain degree of pleasure. they were evidently much shocked at what the man said of the immoral tendency of these books, which they seemed never before to have suspected; but when he attacked the author's private character, and told monstrous stories of his immoralities in every direction, the volume was shut up and consigned to the dark pockets of a travelling bag. i listened in wonder and astonishment, behind my newspaper, to stories of myself, which if they had been true would have consigned any man to a prison for life. after my fictitious biographer had occupied himself for nearly an hour with the eloquent recital of my delinquencies and crimes, i very quietly joined in the conversation. of course i began by modestly doubting some statements which i had just heard, touching the author of 'bleak house,' and other unimportant works of a similar character. the man stared at me, and evidently considered my appearance on the conversational stage an intrusion and an impertinence. 'you seem to speak,' i said, 'from personal knowledge of mr. dickens. are you acquainted with him?' he rather evaded the question, but, following him up closely, i compelled him to say that he had been talking, not from his own knowledge of the author in question; but he said he knew for a certainty that every statement he had made was a true one. i then became more earnest in my inquiries for proofs, which he arrogantly declined giving. the ladies sat by in silence, listening intently to what was going forward. an author they had been accustomed to read for amusement had been traduced for the first time in their hearing, and they were waiting to learn what i had to say in refutation of the clergyman's charges. i was taking up his vile stories, one by one, and stamping them as false in every particular, when the man grew furious, and asked me if i knew dickens personally. i replied, 'perfectly well; no man knows him better than i do; and all your stories about him from beginning to end, to these ladies, are unmitigated lies.' the man became livid with rage, and asked for my card. 'you shall have it,' i said, and, coolly taking out one, i presented it to him without bowing. we were just then nearing the station in london, so that i was spared a longer interview with my _truthful_ companion; but, if i were to live a hundred years, i should not forget the abject condition into which the narrator of my crimes was instantly plunged. his face turned white as his cravat, and his lips refused to utter words. he seemed like a wilted vegetable, and as if his legs belonged to somebody else. the ladies became aware of the situation at once, and, bidding them 'good day,' i stepped smilingly out of the carriage. before i could get away from the station the man had mustered up strength sufficient to follow me, and his apologies were so nauseous and craven, that i pitied him from my soul. i left him with this caution, 'before you make charges against the character of any man again, about whom you know nothing, and of whose works you are utterly ignorant, study to be a seeker after truth, and avoid lying as you would eternal perdition.'" i never ceased to wonder at dickens's indomitable cheerfulness, even when he was suffering from ill health, and could not sleep more than two or three hours out of the twenty-four. he made it a point never to inflict on another what he might be painfully enduring himself, and i have seen him, with what must have been a great effort, arrange a merry meeting for some friends, when i knew that almost any one else under similar circumstances would have sought relief in bed. one evening at a little dinner given by himself to half a dozen friends in boston, he came out very strong. his influenza lifted a little, as he said afterwards, and he took advantage of the lull. only his own pen could possibly give an idea of that hilarious night, and i will merely attempt a brief reference to it. as soon as we were seated at the table, i read in his lustrous eye, and heard in his jovial voice, that all solemn forms were to be dispensed with on that occasion, and that merriment might be confidently expected. to the end of the feast there was no let up to his magnificent cheerfulness and humor. j---- b----, ex-minister plenipotentiary as he was, went in for nonsense, and he, i am sure, will not soon forget how undignified we all were, and what screams of laughter went up from his own uncontrollable throat. among other tomfooleries, we had an imitation of scenes at an english hustings, dickens bringing on his candidate (his friend d----), and i opposing him with mine (the ex-minister). of course there was nothing spoken in the speeches worth remembering, but it was dickens's _manner_ that carried off the whole thing. d---- necessarily now wears his hair so widely parted in the middle that only two little capillary scraps are left, just over his ears, to show what kind of thatch once covered his jolly cranium. dickens pretended that _his_ candidate was superior to the other, _because_ he had no hair; and that mine, being profusely supplied with that commodity was in consequence disqualified in a marked degree for an election. his speech, for volubility and nonsense, was nearly fatal to us all. we roared and writhed in agonies of laughter, and the candidates themselves were literally choking and crying with the humor of the thing. but the fun culminated when i tried to get a hearing in behalf of my man, and dickens drowned all my attempts to be heard with imitative jeers of a boisterous election mob. he seemed to have as many voices that night as the human throat is capable of, and the repeated interrupting shouts, among others, of a pretended husky old man bawling out at intervals, "three cheers for the bald 'un!" "down vith the hairy aristocracy!" "up vith the little shiny chap on top!" and other similar outbursts, i can never forget. at last, in sheer exhaustion, we all gave in, and agreed to break up and thus save our lives, if it were not already too late to make the attempt. the extent and variety of dickens's tones were wonderful. once he described to me in an inimitable way a scene he witnessed many years ago at a london theatre, and i am certain no professional ventriloquist could have reproduced it better. i could never persuade him to repeat the description in presence of others; but he did it for me several times during our walks into the country, where he was, of course, unobserved. his recital of the incident was irresistibly droll, and no words of mine can give the _situation_ even, as he gave it. he said he was once sitting in the pit of a london theatre, when two men came in and took places directly in front of him. both were evidently strangers from the country, and not very familiar with the stage. one of them was stone deaf, and relied entirely upon his friend to keep him informed of the dialogue and story of the play as it went on, by having bawled into his ear, word for word, as near as possible what the actors and actresses were saying. the man who could hear became intensely interested in the play, and kept close watch of the stage. the deaf man also shared in the progressive action of the drama, and rated his friend soundly, in a loud voice, if a stitch in the story of the play were inadvertently dropped. dickens gave the two voices of these two spectators with his best comic and dramatic power. notwithstanding the roars of the audience, for the scene in the pit grew immensely funny to them as it went on, the deaf man and his friend were too much interested in the main business of the evening to observe that they were noticed. one bawled louder, and the other, with his elevated ear-trumpet, listened more intently than ever. at length the scene culminated in a most unexpected manner. "now," screamed the hearing man to the deaf one, "they are going to elope!" "_who_ is going to elope?" asked the deaf man, in a loud, vehement tone. "why, them two, the young man in the red coat and the girl in a white gown, that's a talking together now, and just going off the stage!" "well, then, you must have missed telling me something they've said before," roared the other in an enraged and stentorian voice; "for there was nothing in their conduct all the evening, as you have been representing it to me, that would warrant them in such a proceeding!" at which the audience could not bear it any longer, and screamed their delight till the curtain fell. dickens was always planning something to interest and amuse his friends, and when in america he taught us several games arranged by himself, which we played again and again, he taking part as our instructor. while he was travelling from point to point, he was cogitating fresh charades to be acted when we should again meet. it was at baltimore that he first conceived the idea of a walking-match, which should take place on his return to boston, and he drew up a set of humorous "articles," which he sent to me with this injunction, "keep them in a place of profound safety, for attested execution, until my arrival in boston." he went into this matter of the walking-match with as much earnest directness as if he were planning a new novel. the articles, as prepared by himself, are thus drawn up:-- "articles of agreement entered into at baltimore, in the united states of america, this third day of february in the year of our lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight, between ----, british subject, _alias_ the man of ross, and ----, american citizen, _alias_ the boston bantam. "whereas, some bounce having arisen between the above men in reference to feats of pedestrianism and agility, they have agreed to settle their differences and prove who is the better man, by means of a walking-match for two hats a side and the glory of their respective countries; and whereas they agree that the said match shall come off, whatsoever the weather, on the mill dam road outside boston, on saturday, the th day of this present month; and whereas they agree that the personal attendants on themselves during the whole walk, and also the umpires and starters and declarers of victory in the match shall be ---- of boston, known in sporting circles as massachusetts jemmy, and charles dickens of falstaff's gad's hill, whose surprising performances (without the least variation) on that truly national instrument, the american catarrh, have won for him the well-merited title of the gad's hill gasper:-- " . the men are to be started, on the day appointed, by massachusetts jemmy and the gasper. " . jemmy and the gasper are, on some previous day, to walk out at the rate of not less than four miles an hour by the gasper's watch, for one hour and a half. at the expiration of that one hour and a half they are to carefully note the place at which they halt. on the match's coming off they are to station themselves in the middle of the road, at that precise point, and the men (keeping clear of them and of each other) are to turn round them, right shoulder inward, and walk back to the starting-point. the man declared by them to pass the starting-point first is to be the victor and the winner of the match. " . no jostling or fouling allowed. " . all cautions or orders issued to the men by the umpires, starters, and declarers of victory to be considered final and admitting of no appeal. " . a sporting narrative of the match to be written by the gasper within one week after its coming off, and the same to be duly printed (at the expense of the subscribers to these articles) on a broadside. the said broadside to be framed and glazed, and one copy of the same to be carefully preserved by each of the subscribers to these articles. " . the men to show on the evening of the day of walking, at six o'clock precisely, at the parker house, boston, when and where a dinner will be given them by the gasper. the gasper to occupy the chair, faced by massachusetts jemmy. the latter promptly and formally to invite, as soon as may be after the date of these presents, the following guests to honor the said dinner with their presence; that is to say [here follow the names of a few of his friends, whom he wished to be invited]. "now, lastly. in token of their accepting the trusts and offices by these articles conferred upon them, these articles are solemnly and formally signed by massachusetts jemmy and by the gad's hill gasper, as well as by the men themselves. "signed by the man of ross, otherwise ----. "signed by the boston bantam, otherwise ----. "signed by massachusetts jemmy, otherwise ----. "signed by the gad's hill gasper, otherwise charles dickens. "witness to the signatures, ----." when he returned to boston from baltimore, he proposed that i should accompany him over the walking-ground "at the rate of not less than four miles an hour, for one hour and a half." i shall not soon forget the tremendous pace at which he travelled that day. i have seen a great many walkers, but never one with whom i found it such hard work to keep up. of course his object was to stretch out the space as far as possible for our friends to travel on the appointed day. with watch in hand, dickens strode on over the mill dam toward newton centre. when we reached the turning-point, and had established the extreme limit, we both felt that we had given the men who were to walk in the match excellent good measure. all along the road people had stared at us, wondering, i suppose, why two men on such a blustering day should be pegging away in the middle of the road as if life depended on the speed they were getting over the ground. we had walked together many a mile before this, but never at such a rate as on this day. i had never seen his full power tested before, and i could not but feel great admiration for his walking pluck. we were both greatly heated, and, seeing a little shop by the roadside, we went in for refreshments. a few sickly-looking oranges were all we could obtain to quench our thirst, and we seized those and sat down on the shop door-steps, tired and panting. after a few minutes' rest we started again and walked back to town. thirteen miles' stretch on a brisk winter day did neither of us any harm, and dickens was in great spirits over the match that was so soon to come off. we agreed to walk over the ground again on the appointed day, keeping company with our respective men. here is the account that dickens himself drew up, of that day's achievement, for the broadside. the sporting narrative. the men. "the boston bantam (_alias_ bright chanticleer) is a young bird, though too old to be caught with chaff. he comes of a thorough game breed, and has a clear though modest crow. he pulls down the scale at ten stone and a half and add a pound or two. his previous performances in the pedestrian line have not been numerous. he once achieved a neat little match against time in two left boots at philadelphia; but this must be considered as a pedestrian eccentricity, and cannot be accepted by the rigid chronicler as high art. the old mower with the scythe and hour-glass has not yet laid his mauley heavily on the bantam's frontispiece, but he has had a grip at the bantam's top feathers, and in plucking out a handful was very near making him like the great napoleon bonaparte (with the exception of the victualling department), when the ancient one found himself too much occupied to carry out the idea, and gave it up. the man of ross (_alias_ old alick pope, _alias_ allourpraises-whyshouldlords, etc.) is a thought and a half too fleshy, and, if he accidentally sat down upon his baby, would do it to the tune of fourteen stone. this popular codger is of the rubicund and jovial sort, and has long been known as a piscatorial pedestrian on the banks of the wye. but izaak walton hadn't pace,--look at his book and you'll find it slow,--and when that article comes in question, the fishing-rod may prove to some of his disciples a rod in pickle. howbeit, the man of ross is a lively ambler, and has a smart stride of his own. the training. "if vigorous attention to diet could have brought both men up to the post in tip-top feather, their condition would have left nothing to be desired. but both might have had more daily practice in the poetry of motion. their breathings were confined to an occasional baltimore burst under the guidance of the gasper, and to an amicable toddle between themselves at washington. the course. "six miles and a half, good measure, from the first tree on the mill dam road, lies the little village (with no refreshments in it but five oranges and a bottle of blacking) of newton centre. here massachusetts jemmy and the gasper had established the turning-point. the road comprehended every variety of inconvenience to test the mettle of the men, and nearly the whole of it was covered with snow. the start was effected beautifully. the men taking their stand in exact line at the starting-post, the first tree aforesaid, received from the gasper the warning, "are you ready?" and then the signal, "one, two, three. go!" they got away exactly together, and at a spinning speed, waited on by massachusetts jemmy and the gasper. the race. "in the teeth of an intensely cold and bitter wind, before which the snow flew fast and furious across the road from right to left, the bantam slightly led. but the man responded to the challenge, and soon breasted him. for the first three miles each led by a yard or so alternately; but the walking was very even. on four miles being called by the gasper the men were side by side; and then ensued one of the best periods of the race, the same splitting pace being held by both through a heavy snow-wreath and up a dragging hill. at this point it was anybody's game, a dollar on rossius and two half-dollars on the member of the feathery tribe. when five miles were called, the men were still shoulder to shoulder. at about six miles the gasper put on a tremendous spirt to leave the men behind and establish himself at the turning-point at the entrance of the village. he afterwards declared that he received a mental knock-downer on taking his station and facing about, to find bright chanticleer close in upon him, and rossius steaming up like a locomotive. the bantam rounded first; rossius rounded wide; and from that moment the bantam steadily shot ahead. though both were breathed at the town, the bantam quickly got his bellows into obedient condition, and blew away like an orderly blacksmith in full work. the forcing-pumps of rossius likewise proved themselves tough and true, and warranted first-rate, but he fell off in pace; whereas the bantam pegged away with his little drumsticks, as if he saw his wives and a peck of barley waiting for him at the family perch. continually gaining upon him of ross, chanticleer gradually drew ahead within a very few yards of half a mile, finally doing the whole distance in two hours and forty-eight minutes. ross had ceased to compete three miles short of the winning-post, but bravely walked it out and came in seven minutes later. remarks. "the difficulties under which this plucky match was walked can only be appreciated by those who were on the ground. to the excessive rigor of the icy blast and the depth and state of the snow must be added the constant scattering of the latter into the air and into the eyes of the men, while heads of hair, beards, eyelashes, and eyebrows were frozen into icicles. to breathe at all, in such a rarefied and disturbed atmosphere, was not easy; but to breathe up to the required mark was genuine, slogging, ding-dong, hard labor. that both competitors were game to the backbone, doing what they did under such conditions, was evident to all; but to his gameness the courageous bantam added unexpected endurance and (like the sailor's watch that did three hours to the cathedral clock's one) unexpected powers of going when wound up. the knowing eye could not fail to detect considerable disparity between the lads; chanticleer being, as mrs. cratchit said of tiny tim, 'very light to carry,' and rossius promising fair to attain the rotundity of the anonymous cove in the epigram:-- and when he walks the streets the paviors cry, "god bless you, sir!"--and lay their rammers by. the dinner at the parker house, after the fatigues of the day, was a brilliant success. the great international walking-match was over; america had won, and england was nowhere. the victor and the vanquished were the heroes of the occasion, for both had shown great powers of endurance and done their work in capital time. we had no set speeches at the table, for we had voted eloquence a bore before we sat down. david copperfield, hyperion, hosea biglow, the autocrat, and the bad boy were present, and there was no need of set speeches. the ladies present, being all daughters of america, smiled upon the champion, and we had a great, good time. the banquet provided by dickens was profusely decorated with flowers, arranged by himself. the master of the feast was in his best mood, albeit his country had lost; and we all declared, when we bade him good night, that none of us had ever enjoyed a festival more. soon after this dickens started on his reading travels again, and i received from him frequent letters from various parts of the country. on the th of march, , he writes from a western city:-- sunday, th march, . my dear fields: we came here yesterday most comfortably in a "drawing-room car," of which (rule britannia!) we bought exclusive possession. ---- is rather a depressing feather in the eagle's wing, when considered on a sunday and in a thaw. its hotel is likewise a dreary institution. but i have an impression that we must be in the wrong one, and buoy myself up with a devout belief in the other, over the way. the awakening to consciousness this morning on a lop-sided bedstead facing nowhere, in a room holding nothing but sour dust, was more terrible than the being afraid to go to bed last night. to keep ourselves up we played whist (double dummy) until neither of us could bear to speak to the other any more. we had previously supped on a tough old nightmare named buffalo. what do you think of a "fowl de poulet"? or a "paettie de shay"? or "celary"? or "murange with cream"? because all these delicacies are in the printed bill of fare! if mrs. fields would like the recipe, how to make a "paettie de shay," telegraph instantly, and the recipe shall be purchased. we asked the irish waiter what this dish was, and he said it was "the frinch name the steward giv' to oyster pattie." it is usually washed down, i believe, with "movseaux," or "table madeira," or "abasinthe," or "curraco," all of which drinks are on the wine list. i mean to drink my love to ---- after dinner in movseaux. your ruggeder nature shall be pledged in abasinthe. ever affectionately, charles dickens. on the th of march he writes from albany:-- albany, th march, . my dear ----: i should have answered your kind and welcome note before now, but that we have been in difficulties. after creeping through water for miles upon miles, our train gave it up as a bad job between rochester and this place, and stranded us, early on tuesday afternoon, at utica. there we remained all night, and at six o'clock yesterday morning were ordered up to get ready for starting again. then we were countermanded. then we were once more told to get ready. then we were told to stay where we were. at last we got off at eight o'clock, and after paddling through the flood until half past three, got landed here,--to the great relief of our minds as well as bodies, for the tickets were all sold out for last night. we had all sorts of adventures by the way, among which two of the most notable were:-- . picking up two trains out of the water, in which the passengers had been composedly sitting all night, until relief should arrive. . unpacking and releasing into the open country a great train of cattle and sheep that had been in the water i don't know how long, and that had begun in their imprisonment to eat each other. i never could have realized the strong and dismal expressions of which the faces of sheep are capable, had i not seen the haggard countenances of this unfortunate flock as they were tumbled out of their dens and picked themselves up and made off, leaping wildly (many with broken legs) over a great mound of thawing snow, and over the worried body of a deceased companion. their misery was so very human that i was sorry to recognize several intimate acquaintances conducting themselves in this forlornly gymnastic manner. as there is no question that our friendship began in some previous state of existence many years ago, i am now going to make bold to mention a discovery we have made concerning springfield. we find that by remaining there next saturday and sunday, instead of coming on to boston, we shall save several hours' travel, and much wear and tear of our baggage and camp-followers. ticknor reports the springfield hotel excellent. now will you and fields come and pass sunday with us there? it will be delightful, if you can. if you cannot, will you defer our boston dinner until the following sunday? send me a hopeful word to springfield (massasoit house) in reply, please. lowell's delightful note enclosed with thanks. _do_ make a trial for springfield. we saw professor white at syracuse, and went out for a ride with him. queer quarters at utica, and nothing particular to eat; but the people so very anxious to please, that it was better than the best cuisine. i made a jug of punch (in the bedroom pitcher), and we drank our love to you and fields. dolby had more than his share, under pretence of devoted enthusiasm. ever affectionately yours, charles dickens. his readings everywhere were crowned with enthusiastic success, and if his strength had been equal to his will, he could have stayed in america another year, and occupied every night of it with his wonderful impersonations. i regretted extremely that he felt obliged to give up visiting the west. invitations which greatly pleased him came day after day from the principal cities and towns, but his friends soon discovered that his health would not allow him to extend his travels beyond washington. he sailed for home on the th of april, , and we shook hands with him on the deck of the russia as the good ship turned her prow toward england. he was in great spirits at the thought of so soon again seeing gad's hill, and the prospect of a rest after all his toilsome days and nights in america. while at sea he wrote the following letter to me:-- aboard the russia, bound for liverpool, sunday, th april, . my dear fields: in order that you may have the earliest intelligence of me, i begin this note to-day in my small cabin, purposing (if it should prove practicable) to post it at queenstown for the return steamer. we are already past the banks of newfoundland, although our course was seventy miles to the south, with the view of avoiding ice seen by judkins in the scotia on his passage out to new york. the russia is a magnificent ship, and has dashed along bravely. we had made more than thirteen hundred and odd miles at, noon to-day. the wind, after being a little capricious, rather threatens at the present time to turn against us, but our run is already eighty miles ahead of the russia's last run in this direction,--a very fast one. ...to all whom it may concern, report the russia in the highest terms. she rolls more easily than the other cunard screws, is kept in perfect order, and is most carefully looked after in all departments. we have had nothing approaching to heavy weather; still, one can speak to the trim of the ship. her captain, a gentleman; bright, polite, good-natured, and vigilant..... as to me, i am greatly better, i hope. i have got on my right boot to-day for the first time; the "true american" seems to be turning faithless at last; and i made a gad's hill breakfast this morning, as a further advance on having otherwise eaten and drunk all day ever since wednesday. you will see anthony trollope, i dare say. what was my amazement to see him with these eyes come aboard in the mail tender just before we started! he had come out in the scotia just in time to dash off again in said tender to shake hands with me, knowing me to be aboard here. it was most heartily done. he is on a special mission of convention with the united states post-office. we have been picturing your movements, and have duly checked off your journey home, and have talked about you continually. but i have thought about, you both, even much, much more. you will never know how i love you both; or what you have been to me in america, and will always be to me everywhere; or how fervently i thank you. all the working of the ship seems to be done on my forehead. it is scrubbed and holystoned (my head--not the deck) at three every morning. it is scraped and swabbed all day. eight pairs of heavy boots are now clattering on it, getting the ship under sail again. legions of ropes'-ends are flopped upon it as i write, and i must leave off with dolby's love. thursday, th. soon after i left off as above we had a gale of wind, which blew all night. for a few hours on the evening side of midnight there was no getting from this cabin of mine to the saloon, or _vice versa,_ so heavily did the sea break over the decks. the ship, however, made nothing of it, and we were all right again by monday afternoon. except for a few hours yesterday (when we had a very light head wind), the weather has been constantly favorable, and we are now bowling away at a great rate, with a fresh breeze filling all our sails. we expect to be at queenstown between midnight and three in the morning. i hope, my dear fields, you may find this legible, but i rather doubt it; for there is motion enough on the ship to render writing to a landsman, however accustomed to pen and ink, rather a difficult achievement. besides which, i slide away gracefully from the paper, whenever i want to be particularly expressive..... ----, sitting opposite to me at breakfast, always has the following items: a large dish of porridge, into which he casts slices of butter and a quantity of sugar. two cups of tea. a steak. irish stew. chutnee, and marmalade. another deputation of two has solicited a reading to-night. illustrious novelist has unconditionally and absolutely declined. more love, and more to that, from your ever affectionate friend, c.d. his first letter from home gave us all great pleasure, for it announced his complete recovery from the severe influenza that had fastened itself upon him so many months before. among his earliest notes i find these paragraphs:-- "i have found it so extremely difficult to write about america (though never so briefly) without appearing to blow trumpets on the one hand, or to be inconsistent with my avowed determination _not_ to write about it on the other, that i have taken the simple course enclosed. the number will be published on the th of june. it appears to me to be the most modest and manly course, and to derive some graceful significance from its title..... "thank my dear ---- for me for her delightful letter received on the th. i will write to her very soon, and tell her about the dogs. i would write by this post, but that wills's absence (in sussex, and getting no better there as yet) so overwhelms me with business that i can scarcely get through it. "miss me? ah, my dear fellow, but how do i miss _you!_ we talk about you both at gad's hill every day of our lives. and i never see the place looking very pretty indeed, or hear the birds sing all day long and the nightingales all night, without restlessly wishing that you were both there. "with best love, and truest and most enduring regard, ever, my dear fields, "your most affectionate, "c.d." ".... i hope you will receive by saturday's cunard a case containing: . a trifling supply of the pen-knibs that suited your hand. . a do. of unfailing medicine for cockroaches. . mrs. gamp, for ----. "the case is addressed to you at bleecker street, new york. if it should be delayed for the knibs (or nibs) promised to-morrow, and should be too late for the cunard packet, it will in that case come by the next following inman steamer. "everything here looks lovely, and i find it (you will be surprised to hear) really a pretty place! i have seen no thoroughfare twice. excellent things in it; but it drags, to my thinking. it is, however, a great success in the country, and is now getting up with great force in paris. fechter is ill, and was ordered off to brighton yesterday. wills is ill too, and banished into sussex for perfect rest. otherwise, thank god, i find everything well and thriving. you and my dear mrs. f---- are constantly in my mind. procter greatly better...." on the th of may he sent off the following from gad's hill:-- my dear ----: as you ask me about the dogs, i begin with them. when i came down first, i came to gravesend, five miles off. the two newfoundland dogs coming to meet me, with the usual carriage and the usual driver, and beholding me coming in my usual dress out at the usual door, it struck me that their recollection of my having been absent for any unusual time was at once cancelled. they behaved (they are both young dogs) exactly in their usual manner; coming behind the basket phaeton as we trotted along, and lifting their heads to have their ears pulled,--a special attention which they receive from no one else. but when i drove into the stable-yard, linda (the st. bernard) was greatly excited; weeping profusely, and throwing herself on her back that she might caress my foot with her great fore-paws. m----'s little dog too, mrs. bouncer, barked in the greatest agitation on being called down and asked by m----, "who is this?" and tore round and round me, like the dog in the faust outlines. you must know that all the farmers turned out on the road in their market-chaises to say, "welcome home, sir!" that all the houses along the road were dressed with flags; and that our servants, to cut out the rest, had dressed this house so, that every brick of it was hidden. they had asked m----'s permission to "ring the alarm-bell (!) when master drove up"; but m----, having some slight idea that that compliment might awaken master's sense of the ludicrous, had recommended bell abstinence. but on sunday, the village choir (which includes the bell-ringers) made amends. after some unusually brief pious reflection in the crowns of their hats at the end of the sermon, the ringers bolted out and rang like mad until i got home. (there had been a conspiracy among the villagers to take the horse out, if i had come to our own station, and draw me here. m---- and g---- had got wind of it and warned me.) divers birds sing here all day, and the nightingales all night. the place is lovely, and in perfect order. i have put five mirrors in the swiss chalet (where i write), and they reflect and refract in all kinds of ways the leaves that are quivering at the windows, and he great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river. my room is up among the branches of the trees; and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in, at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. the scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious. dolby (who sends a world of messages) found his wife much better than he expected, and the children (wonderful to relate!) perfect. the little girl winds up her prayers every night with a special commendation to heaven of me and the pony,--as if i must mount him to get there! i dine with dolby (i was going to write "him," but found it would look as if i were going to dine with the pony) at greenwich this very day, and if your ears do not burn from six to nine this evening, then the atlantic is a non-conductor. we are already settling--think of this!--the details of my farewell course of readings. i am brown beyond relief, and cause the greatest disappointment in all quarters by looking so well. it is really wonderful what those fine days at sea did for me! my doctor was quite broken down in spirits when he saw me, for the first time since my return, last saturday. "good lord!" he said, recoiling; "seven years younger!" it is time i should explain the otherwise inexplicable enclosure. will you tell fields, with my love, (i suppose he hasn't used _all_ the pens yet?) that i think there is in tremont street a set of my books, sent out by chapman, not arrived when i departed. such set of the immortal works of our illustrious, etc., is designed for the gentleman to whom the enclosure is addressed. if t., f., & co. will kindly forward the set (carriage paid) with the enclosure to ----'s address, i will invoke new blessings on their heads, and will get dolby's little daughter to mention them nightly. "no thoroughfare" is very shortly coming out in paris, where it is now in active rehearsal. it is still playing here, but without fechter, who has been very ill. the doctor's dismissal of him to paris, however, and his getting better there, enables him to get up the play there. he and wilkie missed so many pieces of stage effect here, that, unless i am quite satisfied with his report, i shall go over and try my stage-managerial hand at the vaudeville theatre. i particularly want the drugging and attempted robbing in the bedroom scene at the swiss inn to be done to the sound of a waterfall rising and falling with the wind. although in the very opening of that scene they speak of the waterfall and listen to it, nobody thought of its mysterious music. i could make it, with a good stage carpenter, in an hour. is it not a curious thing that they want to make me a governor of the foundling hospital, because, since the christmas number, they have had such an amazing access of visitors and money? my dear love to fields once again. same to you and him from m---- and g----. i cannot tell you both how i miss you, or how overjoyed i should be to see you here. ever, my dear ----, your most affectionate friend, c.d. excellent accounts of his health and spirits continued to come from gad's hill, and his letters were full of plans for the future. on the th of july he writes from gad's hill as usual:-- gad's hill place, tuesday, th july, . my dear fields: i have delayed writing to you (and ----, to whom my love) until i should have seen longfellow. when he was in london the first time he came and went without reporting himself, and left me in a state of unspeakable discomfiture. indeed, i should not have believed in his having been here at all, if mrs. procter had not told me of his calling to see procter. however, on his return he wrote to me from the langham hotel, and i went up to town to see him, and to make an appointment for his coming here. he, the girls, and ---- came down last saturday night, and stayed until monday forenoon. i showed them all the neighboring country that could be shown in so short a time, and they finished off with a tour of inspection of the kitchens, pantry, wine-cellar, pickles, sauces, servants' sitting-room, general household stores, and even the cellar book, of this illustrious establishment. forster and kent (the latter wrote certain verses to longfellow, which have been published in the "times," and which i sent to d----) came down for a day, and i hope we all had a really "good time." i turned out a couple of postilions in the old red jacket of the old red royal dover road, for our ride; and it was like a holiday ride in england fifty years ago. of course we went to look at the old houses in rochester, and the old cathedral, and the old castle, and the house for the six poor travellers who, "not being rogues or proctors, shall have lodging, entertainment, and four pence each." nothing can surpass the respect paid to longfellow here, from the queen downward. he is everywhere received and courted, and finds (as i told him he would, when we talked of it in boston) the workingmen at least as well acquainted with his books as the classes socially above them..... last thursday i attended, as sponsor, the christening of dolby's son and heir,--a most jolly baby, who held on tight by the rector's left whisker while the service was performed. what time, too, his little sister, connecting me with the pony, trotted up and down the centre isle, noisily driving herself as that celebrated animal, so that it went very hard with the sponsorial dignity. ---- is not yet recovered from that concussion of the brain, and i have all his work to do. this may account for my not being able to devise a christmas number, but i seem to have left my invention in america. in case you should find it, please send it over. i am going up to town to-day to dine with longfellow. and now, my dear fields, you know all about me and mine. you are enjoying your holiday? and are still thinking sometimes of our boston days, as i do? and are maturing schemes for coming here next summer? a satisfactory reply to the last question is particularly entreated. i am delighted to find you both so well pleased with the blind book scheme. i said nothing of it to you when we were together, though i had made up my mind, because i wanted to come upon you with that little burst from a distance. it seemed something like meeting again when i remitted the money and thought of your talking of it. the dryness of the weather is amazing. all the ponds and surface wells about here are waterless, and the poor people suffer greatly. the people of this village have only one spring to resort to, and it is a couple of miles from many cottages. i do not let the great dogs swim in the canal, because the people have to drink of it. but when they get into the medway, it is hard to get them out again. the other day bumble (the son, newfoundland dog) got into difficulties among some floating timber, and became frightened. don (the father) was standing by me, shaking off the wet and looking on carelessly, when all of a sudden he perceived something amiss, and went in with a bound and brought bumble out by the ear. the scientific way in which he towed him along was charming. ever your loving c.d. * * * * * during the summer of constant messages and letters came from dickens across the seas, containing pleasant references to his visit in america, and giving charming accounts of his way of life at home. here is a letter announcing the fact that he had decided to close forever his appearance in the reading-desk:-- liverpool, friday, october , . my dear ----: i ought to have written to you long ago. but i have begun my one hundred and third farewell readings, and have been so busy and so fatigued that my hands have been quite full. here are dolby and i again leading the kind of life that you know so well. we stop next week (except in london) for the month of november, on account of the elections, and then go on again, with a short holiday at christmas. we have been doing wonders, and the crowds that pour in upon us in london are beyond all precedent or means of providing for. i have serious thoughts of doing the murder from oliver twist; but it is so horrible, that i am going to try it on a dozen people in my london hall one night next month, privately, and see what effect it makes. my reason for abandoning the christmas number was, that i became weary of having my own writing swamped by that of other people. this reminds me of the ghost story. i don't think so well of it my dear fields, as you do. it seems to me to be too obviously founded on bill jones (in monk lewis's tales of terror), and there is also a remembrance in it of another sea-ghost story entitled, i think, "stand from under," and written by i don't know whom. _stand from under_ is the cry from aloft when anything is going to be sent down on deck, and the ghost is aloft on a yard.... you know all about public affairs, irish churches, and party squabbles. a vast amount of electioneering is going on about here; but it has not hurt us; though gladstone has been making speeches, north, east, south, and west of us. i hear that c----is on his way here in the russia. gad's hill must be thrown open..... your most affectionate charles dickens. we had often talked together of the addition to his _répertoire_ of some scenes from "oliver twist," and the following letter explains itself:-- glasgow, wednesday, december , . mr dear ----: ...and first, as you are curious about the oliver murder, i will tell you about that trial of the same at which you _ought_ to have assisted. there were about a hundred people present in all. i have changed my stage. besides that back screen which you know so well, there are two large screens of the same color, set off, one on either side, like the "wings" at a theatre. and besides those again, we have a quantity of curtains of the same color, with which to close in any width of room from wall to wall. consequently, the figure is now completely isolated, and the slightest action becomes much more important. this was used for the first time on the occasion. but behind the stage--the orchestra being very large and built for the accommodation of a numerous chorus--there was ready, on the level of the platform, a very long table, beautifully lighted, with a large staff of men ready to open oysters and set champagne corks flying. directly i had done, the screens being whisked off by my people, there was disclosed one of the prettiest banquets you can imagine; and when all the people came up, and the gay dresses of the ladies were lighted by those powerful lights of mine, the scene was exquisitely pretty; the hall being newly decorated, and very elegantly; and the whole looking like a great bed of flowers and diamonds. now, you must know that all this company were, before the wine went round, unmistakably pale, and had horror-stricken faces. next morning, harness (fields knows--rev. william--did an edition of shakespeare--old friend of the kembles and mrs. siddons), writing to me about it, and saying it was "a most amazing and terrific thing," added, "but i am bound to tell you that i had an almost irresistible impulse upon me to _scream_, and that, if any one had cried out, i am certain i should have followed." he had no idea that on the night p----, the great ladies' doctor, had taken me aside and said, "my dear dickens, you may rely upon it that if only one woman cries out when you murder the girl, there will be a contagion of hysteria all over this place." it is impossible to soften it without spoiling it, and you may suppose that i am rather anxious to discover how it goes on the th of january!!! we are afraid to announce it elsewhere, without knowing, except that i have thought it pretty safe to put it up once in dublin. i asked mrs. k----, the famous actress, who was at the experiment: "what do _you_ say? do it, or not?" "why, of course, do it," she replied. "having got at such an effect as that, it must be done. but," rolling her large black eyes very slowly, and speaking very distinctly, "the public have been looking out for a sensation these last fifty years or so, and by heaven they have got it!" with which words, and a long breath and a long stare, she became speechless. again, you may suppose that i am a little anxious! i had previously tried it, merely sitting over the fire in a chair, upon two ladies separately, one of whom was g----. they had both said, "o, good gracious! if you are going to do _that_, it ought to be seen; but it's awful." so once again you may suppose i am a little anxious!... not a day passes but dolby and i talk about you both, and recall where we were at the corresponding time of last year. my old likening of boston to edinburgh has been constantly revived within these last ten days. there is a certain remarkable similarity of tone between the two places. the audiences are curiously alike, except that the edinburgh audience has a quicker sense of humor and is a little more genial. no disparagement to boston in this, because i consider an edinburgh audience perfect. i trust, my dear eugenius, that you have recognized yourself in a certain uncommercial, and also some small reference to a name rather dear to you? as an instance of how strangely something comic springs up in the midst of the direst misery, look to a succeeding uncommercial, called "a small star in the east," published to-day, by the by. i have described, with _exactness_, the poor places into which i went, and how the people behaved, and what they said. i was wretched, looking on; and yet the boiler-maker and the poor man with the legs filled me with a sense of drollery not to be kept down by any pressure. the atmosphere of this place, compounded of mists from the highlands and smoke from the town factories, is crushing my eyebrows as i write, and it rains as it never does rain anywhere else, and always does rain here. it is a dreadful place, though much improved and possessing a deal of public spirit. improvement is beginning to knock the old town of edinburgh about, here and there; but the canongate and the most picturesque of the horrible courts and wynds are not to be easily spoiled, or made fit for the poor wretches who people them to live in. edinburgh is so changed as to its notabilities, that i had the only three men left of the wilson and jeffrey time to dine with me there, last saturday. i read here to-night and to-morrow, go back to edinburgh on friday morning, read there on saturday morning, and start southward by the mail that same night. after the great experiment of the th,--that is to say, on the morning of the th,--we are off to belfast and dublin. on every alternate tuesday i am due in london, from wheresoever i may be, to read at st. james's hall. i think you will find "fatal zero" (by percy fitzgerald) a very curious analysis of a mind, as the story advances. a new beginner in a.y.r. (hon. mrs. clifford, kinglake's sister), who wrote a story in the series just finished, called "the abbot's pool," has just sent me another story. i have a strong impression that, with care, she will step into mrs. graskell's vacant place. w---- is no better, and i have work enough even in that direction. god bless the woman with the black mittens, for making me laugh so this morning! i take her to be a kind of public-spirited mrs. sparsit, and as such take her to my bosom. god bless you both, my dear friends, in this christmas and new year time, and in all times, seasons, and places, and send you to gad's hill with the next flowers! ever your most affectionate c.d. all who witnessed the reading of dickens in the "oliver twist" murder scene unite in testifying to the wonderful effect he produced in it. old theatrical _habitués_ have told me that, since the days of edmund kean and cooper, no mimetic representation had been superior to it. i became so much interested in all i heard about it, that i resolved early in the year to step across the water (it is only a stride of three thousand miles) and see it done. the following is dickens's reply to my announcement of the intended voyage:-- a.y.r. office, london, monday, february , . my dear fields: hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! it is a remarkable instance of magnetic sympathy that before i received your joyfully welcomed announcement of your probable visit to england, i was waiting for the enclosed card to be printed, that i might send you a clear statement of my readings. i felt almost convinced that you would arrive before the farewells were over. what do you say to _that_? the final course of four readings in a week, mentioned in the enclosed card, is arranged to come off, on monday, june th; tuesday, june th; thursday, june th; and friday, june th: last night of all. we hoped to have finished in may, but cannot clear the country off in sufficient time. i shall probably be about the lancashire towns in that month. there are to be three morning murders in london not yet announced, but they will be extra the london nights i send you, and will in no wise interfere with them. we are doing most amazingly. in the country the people usually collapse with the murder, and don't fully revive in time for the final piece; in london, where they are much quicker, they are equal to both. it is very hard work; but i have never for a moment lost voice or been unwell; except that my foot occasionally gives me a twinge. we shall have in london on the d of march, for the second murder night, probably the greatest assemblage of notabilities of all sorts ever packed together. d---- continues steady in his allegiance to the stars and stripes, sends his kindest regard, and is immensely excited by the prospect of seeing you. gad's hill is all ablaze on the subject. we are having such wonderfully warm weather that i fear we shall have a backward spring there. you'll excuse east-winds, won't you, if they shake the flowers roughly when you first set foot on the lawn? i have only seen it once since christmas, and that was from last saturday to monday, when i went there for my birthday, and had the forsters and wilkie to keep it. i had had ----'s letter four days before, and drank to you both most heartily and lovingly. i was with m---- a week or two ago. he is quite surprisingly infirm and aged. could not possibly get on without his second wife to take care of him, which she does to perfection. i went to cheltenham expressly to do the murder for him, and we put him in the front row, where he sat grimly staring at me. after it was over, he thus delivered himself, on my laughing it off and giving him some wine: "no, dickens--er--er--i will not," with sudden emphasis, --"er--have it--er--put aside. in my--er--best times--er--you remember them, my dear boy--er--gone, gone! --no,"--with great emphasis again,--"it comes to this--er --two macbeths!" with extraordinary energy. after which he stood (with his glass in his hand and his old square jaw of its old fierce form) looking defiantly at dolby as if dolby had contradicted him; and then trailed off into a weak pale likeness of himself as if his whole appearance had been some clever optical illusion. i am away to scotland on wednesday next, the th, to finish there. ireland is already disposed of, and manchester and liverpool will follow within six weeks. "like lights in a theatre, they are being snuffed out fast," as carlyle says of the guillotined in his revolution. i suppose i shall be glad when they are all snuffed out. anyhow, i think so now. the n----s have a very pretty house at kensington. he has quite recovered, and is positively getting fat. i dined with them last friday at f----'s, having (marvellous to relate!) a spare day in london. the warm weather has greatly spared f----'s bronchitis; but i fear that he is quite unable to bear cold, or even changes of temperature, and that he will suffer exceedingly if east-winds obtain. one would say they must at last, for it has been blowing a tempest from the south and southwest for weeks and weeks. the safe arrival of my boy's ship in australia has been telegraphed home, but i have not yet heard from him. his post will be due a week or so hence in london. my next boy is doing very well, i hope, at trinity hall, cambridge. of my seafaring boy's luck in getting a death-vacancy of first lieutenant, aboard a new ship-of-war on the south american station, i heard from a friend, a captain in the navy, when i was at bath the other day; though we have not yet heard it from himself. bath (setting aside remembrances of roderick random and humphrey clinker) looked, i fancied, just as if a cemetery-full of old people had somehow made a successful rise against death, carried the place by assault, and built a city with their gravestones; in which they were trying to look alive, but with very indifferent success. c---- is no better, and no worse. m---- and g---- send all manner of loves, and have already represented to me that the red-jacketed post-boys must be turned out for a summer expedition to canterbury, and that there must be lunches among the cornfields, walks in cobham park, and a thousand other expeditions. pray give our pretty m---- to understand that a great deal will be expected of her, and that she will have to look her very best, to look as i have drawn her. if your irish people turn up at gad's at the same time, as they probably will, they shall be entertained in the yard, with muzzled dogs. i foresee that they will come over, haymaking and hopping, and will recognize their beautiful vagabonds at a glance. i wish reverdy johnson would dine in private and hold his tongue. he overdoes the thing. c---- is trying to get the pope to subscribe, and to run over to take the chair at his next dinner, on which occasion victor emmanuel is to propose c----'s health, and may all differences among friends be referred to him. with much love always, and in high rapture at the thought of seeing you both here, ever your most affectionate c.d. a few weeks later, while on his reading tour, he sent off the following:-- adelphi hotel, liverpool, friday, april , . my dear fields: the faithful russia will bring this out to you, as a sort of warrant to take you into loving custody and bring you back on her return trip. i have been "reading" here all this week, and finish here for good to-night. to-morrow the mayor, corporation, and citizens give me a farewell dinner in st. george's hall. six hundred and fifty are to dine, and a mighty show of beauty is to be mustered besides. n---- had a great desire to see the sight, and so i suggested him as a friend to be invited. he is over at manchester now on a visit, and will come here at midday to-morrow, and go back to london with us on sunday afternoon. on tuesday i read in london, and on wednesday start off again. to-night is no. out of one hundred. i am very tired of it, but i could have no such good fillip as you among the audience, and that will carry me on gayly to the end. so please to look sharp in the matter of landing on the bosom of the used-up, worn-out, and rotten old parient. i rather think that when the th of june shall have shaken off these shackles, there _will_ be borage on the lawn at gad's. your heart's desire in that matter, and in the minor particulars of cobham park, rochester castle, and canterbury shall be fulfilled, please god! the red jackets shall turn out again upon the turnpike road, and picnics among the cherry-orchards and hop-gardens shall be heard of in kent. then, too, shall the uncommercial resuscitate (being at present nightly murdered by mr. w. sikes) and uplift his voice again. the chief officer of the russia (a capital fellow) was at the reading last night, and dolby specially charged him with the care of you and yours. we shall be on the borders of wales, and probably about hereford, when you arrive. dolby has insane projects of getting over here to meet you; so amiably hopeful and obviously impracticable, that i encourage him to the utmost. the regular little captain of the russia, cook, is just now changed into the cuba, whence arise disputes of seniority, etc. i wish he had been with you, for i liked him very much when i was his passenger. i like to think of your being in _my_ ship! ---- and ---- have been taking it by turns to be "on the point of death," and have been complimenting one another greatly on the fineness of the point attained. my people got a very good impression of ----, and thought her a sincere and earnest little woman. the russia hauls out into the stream to-day, and i fear her people may be too busy to come to us to-night. but if any of them do, they shall have the warmest of welcomes for your sake. (by the by, a very good party of seamen from the queen's ship donegal, lying in the mersey, have been told off to decorate st. george's hall with the ship's bunting. they were all hanging on aloft upside down, holding to the gigantically high roof by nothing, this morning, in the most wonderfully cheerful manner.) my son charley has come for the dinner, and chappell (my proprietor, as--isn't it wemmick?--says) is coming to-day, and lord dufferin (mrs. norton's nephew) is to come and make _the_ speech. i don't envy the feelings of my noble friend when he sees the hall. seriously, it is less adapted to speaking than westminster abbey, and is as large.... i hope you will see fechter in a really clever piece by wilkie. also you will see the academy exhibition, which will be a very good one; and also we will, please god, see everything and more, and everything else after that. i begin to doubt and fear on the subject of your having a horror of me after seeing the murder. i don't think a hand moved while i was doing it last night, or an eye looked away. and there was a fixed expression of horror of me, all over the theatre, which could not have been surpassed if i had been going to be hanged to that red velvet table. it is quite a new sensation to be execrated with that unanimity; and i hope it will remain so! [is it lawful--would that woman in the black gaiters, green veil, and spectacles, hold it so--to send my love to the pretty m----?] pack up, my dear fields, and be quick. ever your most affectionate c.d. it will be remembered that dickens broke down entirely during the month of april, being completely worn out with hard work in the readings. he described to me with graphic earnestness, when we met in may, all the incidents connected with the final crisis, and i shall never forget how he imitated himself during that last reading, when he nearly fell before the audience. it was a terrible blow to his constitution, and only a man of the greatest strength and will could have survived it. when we arrived in queenstown, this note was sent on board our steamer. loving welcome to england. hurrah! office of all the year round, wednesday, may , . my dear ----: i fear you will have been uneasy about me, and will have heard distorted accounts of the stoppage of my readings. it is a measure of precaution, and not of cure. i was too tired and too jarred by the railway fast express, travelling night and day. no half-measure could be taken; and rest being medically considered essential, we stopped. i became, thank god, myself again, almost as soon as i could rest! i am good for all country pleasures with you, and am looking forward to gad's, rochester castle, cobham park, red jackets, and canterbury. when you come to london we shall probably be staying at our hotel. you will learn, here, where to find us. i yearn to be with you both again! love to m----. ever your affectionate c.d. i hope this will be put into your hands on board, in queenstown harbor. we met in london a few days after this, and i found him in capital spirits, with such a protracted list of things we were to do together, that, had i followed out the prescribed programme, it would have taken many more months of absence from home than i had proposed to myself. we began our long rambles among the thoroughfares that had undergone important changes since i was last in london, taking in the noble thames embankments, which i had never seen, and the improvements in the city markets. dickens had moved up to london for the purpose of showing us about, and had taken rooms only a few streets off from our hotel. here are two specimens of the welcome little notes which i constantly found on my breakfast-table:-- office of all the year round, london, wednesday, may , . my dear fields: suppose we give the weather a longer chance, and say monday instead of friday. i think we must be safer with that precaution. if monday will suit you, i propose that we meet here that day,--your ladies and you and i,--and cast ourselves on the stony-hearted streets. if it be bright for st. paul's, good; if not, we can take some other lion that roars in dull weather. we will dine here at six, and meet here at half past two. so if you should want to go elsewhere after dinner, it can be done, notwithstanding. let me know in a line what you say. o the delight of a cold bath this morning, after those lodging-houses! and a mild sniffler of punch, on getting into the hotel last night, i found what my friend mr. wegg calls, "mellering, sir, very mellering." with kindest regards, ever affectionately, charles dickens. office of all the year round, london, tuesday, may , . my dear fields: first, you leave charing cross station, by north kent railway, on wednesday, june d, at . for higham station, the next station beyond gravesend. now, bring your lofty mind back to the previous saturday, next saturday. there is only one way of combining windsor and richmond. that way will leave us but two hours and a half at windsor. this would not be long enough to enable us to see the inside of the castle, but would admit of our seeing the outside, the long walk, etc. i will assume that such a survey will suffice. that taken for granted, meet me at waterloo terminus (loop line for windsor) at . , on saturday morning. the rendezvous for monday evening will be _here at half past eight_. as i don't know mr. eytinge's number in guildford street, will you kindly undertake to let him know that we are going out with the great detective? and will you also give him the time and place for gad's? i shall be here on friday for a few hours; meantime at gad's aforesaid. with love to the ladies, ever faithfully, c.d. during my stay in england in that summer of , i made many excursions with dickens both around the city and into the country. among the most memorable of these london rambles was a visit to the general post-office, by arrangement with the authorities there, a stroll among the cheap theatres and lodging-houses for the poor, a visit to furnival's inn and the very room in it where "pickwick" was written, and a walk through the thieves' quarter. two of these expeditions were made on two consecutive nights, under the protection of police detailed for the service. on one of these nights we also visited the lock-up houses, watch-houses, and opium-eating establishments. it was in one of the horrid opium-dens that he gathered the incidents which he has related in the opening pages of "edwin drood." in a miserable court we found the haggard old woman blowing at a kind of pipe made of an old penny ink-bottle. the identical words which dickens puts into the mouth of this wretched creature in "edwin drood" we heard her croon as we leaned over the tattered bed on which she was lying. there was something hideous in the way this woman kept repeating, "ye'll pay up according, deary, won't ye?" and the chinamen and lascars made never-to-be-forgotten pictures in the scene. i watched dickens intently as he went among these outcasts of london, and saw with what deep sympathy he encountered the sad and suffering in their horrid abodes. at the door of one of the penny lodging-houses (it was growing toward morning, and the raw air almost cut one to the bone), i saw him snatch a little child out of its poor drunken mother's arms, and bear it in, filthy as it was, that it might be warmed and cared for. i noticed that whenever he entered one of these wretched rooms he had a word of cheer for its inmates, and that when he left the apartment he always had a pleasant "good night" or "god bless you" to bestow upon them. i do not think his person was ever recognized in any of these haunts, except in one instance. as we entered a low room in the worst alley we had yet visited, in which were huddled together some forty or fifty half-starved-looking wretches, i noticed a man among the crowd whispering to another and pointing out dickens. both men regarded him with marked interest all the time he remained in the room, and tried to get as near him, without observation, as possible. as he turned to go out, one of these men pressed forward and said, "good night, sir," with much feeling, in reply to dickens's parting word. among other places, we went, a little past midnight, into one of the casual wards, which were so graphically described, some years ago, in an english magazine, by a gentleman who, as a pretended tramp, went in on a reporting expedition. we walked through an avenue of poor tired sleeping forms, all lying flat on the floor, and not one of them raised a head to look at us as we moved thoughtfully up the aisle of sorrowful humanity. i think we counted sixty or seventy prostrate beings, who had come in for a night's shelter, and had lain down worn out with fatigue and hunger. there was one pale young face to which i whispered dickens's attention, and he stood over it with a look of sympathizing interest not to be easily forgotten. there was much ghastly comicality mingled with the horror in several of the places we visited on those two nights. we were standing in a room half filled with people of both sexes, whom the police accompanying us knew to be thieves. many of these abandoned persons had served out their terms in jail or prison, and would probably be again sentenced under the law. they were all silent and sullen as we entered the room, until an old woman spoke up with a strong, beery voice: "good evening, gentlemen. we are all wery poor, but strictly honest." at which cheerful apocryphal statement, all the inmates of the room burst into boisterous laughter, and began pelting the imaginative female with epithets uncomplimentary and unsavory. dickens's quick eye never for a moment ceased to study all these scenes of vice and gloom, and he told me afterwards that, bad as the whole thing was, it had improved infinitely since he first began to study character in those regions of crime and woe. between eleven and twelve o'clock on one of the evenings i have mentioned we were taken by dickens's favorite detective w---- into a sort of lock-up house, where persons are brought from the streets who have been engaged in brawls, or detected in the act of thieving, or who have, in short, committed any offence against the laws. here they are examined for commitment by a sort of presiding officer, who sits all night for that purpose. we looked into some of the cells, and found them nearly filled with wretched-looking objects who had been brought in that night. to this establishment are also brought lost children who are picked up in the streets by the police,--children who have wandered away from their homes, and are not old enough to tell the magistrate where they live. it was well on toward morning, and we were sitting in conversation with one of the officers, when the ponderous door opened and one of these small wanderers was brought in. she was the queerest little figure i ever beheld, and she walked in, holding the police officer by the hand as solemnly and as quietly if she were attending her own obsequies. she was between four and five years old, and had on what was evidently her mother's bonnet,--an enormous production, resembling a sort of coal-scuttle, manufactured after the fashion of ten or fifteen years ago. the child had, no doubt, caught up this wonderful head-gear in the absence of her parent, and had gone forth in quest of adventure. the officer reported that he had discovered her in the middle of the street, moving ponderingly along, without any regard to the horses and vehicles all about her. when asked where she lived, she mentioned a street which only existed in her own imagination, and she knew only her christian name. when she was interrogated by the proper authorities, without the slightest apparent discomposure she replied in a steady voice, as she thought proper, to their questions. the magistrate inadvertently repeated a question as to the number of her brothers and sisters, and the child snapped out, "i told ye wunst; can't ye hear?" when asked if she would like anything, she gayly answered, "candy, cake and _candy_." a messenger was sent out to procure these commodities, which she instantly seized on their arrival and began to devour. she showed no signs of fear, until one of the officers untied the huge bonnet and took it off, when she tearfully insisted upon being put into it again. i was greatly impressed by the ingenious efforts of the excellent men in the room to learn from the child where she lived, and who her parents were. dickens sat looking at the little figure with profound interest, and soon came forward and asked permission to speak with the child. of course his request was granted, and i don't know when i have enjoyed a conversation more. she made some very smart answers, which convulsed us all with laughter as we stood looking on; and the creator of "little nell" and "paul dombey" gave her up in despair. he was so much interested in the little vagrant, that he sent a messenger next morning to learn if the rightful owner of the bonnet had been found. report came back, on a duly printed form, setting forth that the anxious father and mother had applied for the child at three o'clock in the morning, and had borne her away in triumph to her home. it was a warm summer afternoon towards the close of the day, when dickens went with us to visit the london post-office. he said: "i know nothing which could give a stranger a better idea of the size of london than that great institution. the hurry and rush of letters! men up to their chin in letters! nothing but letters everywhere! the air full of letters!--suddenly the clock strikes; not a person is to be seen, _nor_ a letter: only one man with a lantern peering about and putting one drop-letter into a box." for two hours we went from room to room, with him as our guide, up stairs and down stairs, observing the myriad clerks at their various avocations, with letters for the north pole, for the south pole, for egypt and alaska, darien and the next street. the "blind man," as he was called, appeared to afford dickens as much amusement as if he saw his work then for the first time; but this was one of the qualities of his genius; there was inexhaustibility and freshness in everything to which he turned his attention. the ingenuity and loving care shown by the "blind man" in deciphering or guessing at the apparently inexplicable addresses on letters and parcels excited his admiration. "what a lesson to all of us," he could not help saying, "to be careful in preparing our letters for the mail!" his own were always directed with such exquisite care, however, that had he been brother to the "blind man," and considered it his special work in life to teach others how to save that officer trouble, he could hardly have done better. leaving the hurry and bustle of the post-office behind us, we strolled out into the streets of london. it was past eight o'clock, but the beauty of the soft june sunset was only then overspreading the misty heavens. every sound of traffic had died out of those turbulent thoroughfares; now and then a belated figure would hurry past us and disappear, or perhaps in turning the corner would linger to "take a good look" at charles dickens. but even these stragglers soon dispersed, leaving us alone in the light of day and the sweet living air to heighten the sensation of a dream. we came through white friars to the temple, and thence into the temple garden, where our very voices echoed. dickens pointed up to talfourd's room, and recalled with tenderness the merry hours they had passed together in the old place. of course we hunted out goldsmith's abode, and dr. johnson's, saw the site of the earl of essex's palace, and the steps by which he was wont to descend to the river, now so far removed. but most interesting of all to us there was "pip's" room, to which dickens led us, and the staircase where the convict stumbled up in the dark, and the chimney nearest the river where, although less exposed than in "pip's" days, we could well understand how "the wind shook the house that night like discharges of cannon, or breakings of a sea." we looked in at the dark old staircase, so dark on that night when "the lamps were blown out, and the lamps on the bridges and the shore were shuddering," then went on to take a peep, half shuddering ourselves, at the narrow street where "pip" by and by found a lodging for the convict. nothing dark could long survive in our minds on that june night, when the whole scene was so like the airy work of imagination. past the temple, past the garden to the river, mistily fair, with a few boats moving upon its surface, the convict's story was forgotten, and we only knew this was dickens's home, where he had lived and written, lying in the calm light of its fairest mood. * * * * * dickens had timed our visit to his country house in kent, and arranged that we should appear at gad's hill with the nightingales. arriving at the higham station on a bright june day in , we found his stout little pony ready to take us up the hill; and before we had proceeded far on the road, the master himself came out to welcome us on the way. he looked brown and hearty, and told us he had passed a breezy morning writing in the châlet. we had parted from him only a few days before in london, but i thought the country air had already begun to exert its strengthening influence,--a process he said which commonly set in the moment he reached his garden gate. it was ten years since i had seen gad's hill place, and i observed at once what extensive improvements had been made during that period. dickens had increased his estate by adding quite a large tract of land on the opposite side of the road, and a beautiful meadow at the back of the house. he had connected the front lawn, by a passageway running under the road, with beautifully wooded grounds, on which was erected the swiss châlet, a present from fechter. the old house, too, had been greatly improved, and there was an air of assured comfort and ease about the charming establishment. no one could surpass dickens as a host; and as there were certain household rules (hours for meals, recreation, etc.), he at once announced them, so that visitors never lost any time "wondering" when this or that was to happen. lunch over, we were taken round to see the dogs, and dickens gave us a rapid biographical account of each as we made acquaintance with the whole colony. one old fellow, who had grown superannuated and nearly blind, raised himself up and laid his great black head against dickens's breast as if he loved him. all were spoken to with pleasant words of greeting, and the whole troop seemed wild with joy over the master's visit. "linda" put up her shaggy paw to be shaken at parting; and as we left the dog-houses, our host told us some amusing anecdotes of his favorite friends. dickens's admiration of hogarth was unbounded, and he had hung the staircase leading up from the hall of his house with fine old impressions of the great master's best works. observing our immediate interest in these pictures, he seemed greatly pleased, and proceeded at once to point out in his graphic way what had struck his own fancy most in hogarth's genius. he had made a study of the painter's _thought_ as displayed in these works, and his talk about the artist was delightful. he used to say he never came down the stairs without pausing with new wonder over the fertility of the mind that had conceived and the hand that had executed these powerful pictures of human life; and i cannot forget with what fervid energy and feeling he repeated one day, as we were standing together on the stairs in front of the hogarth pictures, dr. johnson's epitaph, on the painter:-- "the hand of him here torpid lies, that drew the essential form of grace; here closed in death the attentive eyes that saw the manners in the face." every day we had out-of-door games, such as "bowls," "aunt sally," and the like, dickens leading off with great spirit and fun. billiards came after dinner, and during the evening we had charades and dancing. there was no end to the new divertisements our kind host was in the habit of proposing, so that constant cheerfulness reigned at gad's hill. he went into his work-room, as he called it, soon after breakfast, and wrote till twelve o'clock; then he came out, ready for a long walk. the country about gad's hill is admirably adapted for pedestrian exercise, and we went forth every day, rain or shine, for a stretcher. twelve, fifteen, even twenty miles were not too much for dickens, and many a long tramp we have had over the hop-country together. chatham, rochester, cobham park, maidstone,--anywhere, out under the open sky and into the free air! then dickens was at his best, and talked. swinging his blackthorn stick, his lithe figure sprang forward over the ground, and it took a practised pair of legs to keep alongside of his voice. in these expeditions i heard from his own lips delightful reminiscences of his early days in the region we were then traversing, and charming narratives of incidents connected with the writing of his books. dickens's association with gad's hill, the city of rochester, the road to canterbury, and the old cathedral town itself, dates back to his earliest years. in "david copperfield," the most autobiographic of all his books, we find him, a little boy, (so small, that the landlady is called to peer over the counter and catch a glimpse of the tiny lad who possesses such "a spirit,") trudging over the old kent road to dover. "i see myself," he writes, "as evening closes in, coming over the bridge at rochester, footsore and tired, and eating bread that i had bought for supper. one or two little houses, with the notice, 'lodgings for travellers' hanging out, had tempted me; but i was afraid of spending the few pence i had, and was even more afraid of the vicious looks of the trampers i had met or overtaken. i sought no shelter, therefore, but the sky; and toiling into chatham,--which in that night's aspect is a mere dream of chalk, and drawbridges, and mastless ships in a muddy river, roofed like noah's arks,--crept, at last, upon a sort of grass-grown battery overhanging a lane, where a sentry was walking to and fro. here i lay down near a cannon; and, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps, though he knew no more of my being above him than the boys at salem house had known of my lying by the wall, slept soundly until morning," thus early he noticed "the trampers" which infest the old dover road, and observed them in their numberless gypsy-like variety; thus early he looked lovingly on gad's hill place, and wished it might be his own, if he ever grew up to be a man. his earliest memories were filled with pictures of the endless hop-grounds and orchards, and the little child "thought it all extremely beautiful!" through the long years of his short life he was always consistent in his love for kent and the old surroundings. when the after days came and while travelling abroad, how vividly the childish love returned! as he passed rapidly over the road on his way to france he once wrote: "midway between gravesend and rochester the widening river was bearing the ships, white-sailed or black-smoked, out to sea, when i noticed by the wayside a very queer small boy. "'halloa!' said i to the very queer small boy, 'where do you live?' "'at chatham,' says he. "'what do you do there?' said i. "'i go to school,' says he. "i took him up in a moment, and we went on. presently the very queer small boy says, 'this is gad's hill we are coming to, where falstaff went out to rob those travellers, and ran away.' "'you know something about falstaff, eh?' said i. "'all about him,' said the very queer small boy. 'i am old (i am nine) and i read all sorts of books. but _do_ let us stop at the top of the hill, and look at the house there, if you please!' "'you admire that house,' said i. "'bless you, sir,' said the very queer small boy, 'when i was not more than half as old as nine, it used to be a treat for me to be brought to look at it. and now i am nine, i come by myself to look at it. and ever since i can recollect, my father, seeing me so fond of it, has often said to me, "if you were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you might some day come to live in it." though that's impossible!' said the very queer small boy, drawing a low breath, and now staring at the house out of window with all his might. i was rather annoyed to be told this by the very queer small boy; for that house happens to be _my_ house, and i have reason to believe that what he said was true." what stay-at-home is there who does not know the bull inn at rochester, from which mr. tupman and mr. jingle attended the ball, mr. jingle wearing mr. winkle's coat? or who has not seen in fancy the "gypsy-tramp," the "show-tramp," the "cheap jack," the "tramp-children," and the "irish hoppers" all passing over "the kentish road, bordered" in their favorite resting-place "on either side by a wood, and having on one hand, between the road-dust and the trees, a skirting patch of grass? wild-flowers grow in abundance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with the distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean, like a man's life." sitting in the beautiful châlet during his later years and watching this same river stealing away like his own life, he never could find a harsh word for the tramps, and many and many a one has gone over the road rejoicing because of some kindness received from his hands. every precaution was taken to protect a house exposed as his was to these wild rovers, several dogs being kept in the stable-yard, and the large outer gates locked. but he seldom made an excursion in any direction without finding some opportunity to benefit them. one of these many kindnesses came to the public ear during the last summer of his life. he was dressing in his own bedroom in the morning, when he saw two savoyards and two bears come up to the falstaff inn opposite. while he was watching the odd company, two english bullies joined the little party and insisted upon taking the muzzles off the bears in order to have a dance with them. "at once," said dickens, "i saw there would be trouble, and i watched the scene with the greatest anxiety. in a moment i saw how things were going, and without delay i found myself at the gate. i called the gardener by the way, but he managed to hold himself at safe distance behind the fence. i put the savoyards instantly in a secure position, asked the bullies what they were at, forced them to muzzle the bears again, under threat of sending for the police, and ended the whole affair in so short a time that i was not missed from the house. unfortunately, while i was covered with dust and blood, for the bears had already attacked one of the men when i arrived, i heard a carriage roll by. i thought nothing of it at the time, but the report in the foreign journals which startled and shocked my friends so much came probably from the occupants of that vehicle. unhappily, in my desire to save the men, i entirely forgot the dogs, and ordered the bears to be carried into the stable-yard until the scuffle should be over, when a tremendous tumult arose between the bears and the dogs. fortunately we were able to separate them without injury, and the whole was so soon over that it was hard to make the family believe, when i came in to breakfast, that anything of the kind had gone forward." it was the newspaper report, causing anxiety to some absent friends, which led, on inquiry, to this rehearsal of the incident. who does not know cobham park? has dickens not invited us there in the old days to meet mr. pickwick, who pronounced it "delightful!--thoroughly delightful," while "the skin of his expressive countenance was rapidly peeling off with exposure to the sun"? has he not invited the world to enjoy the loveliness of its solitudes with him, and peopled its haunts for us again and again? our first _real_ visit to cobham park was on a summer morning when dickens walked out with us from his own gate, and, strolling quietly along the road, turned at length into what seemed a rural wooded pathway. at first we did not associate the spot in its spring freshness with that morning after christmas when he had supped with the "seven poor travellers," and lain awake all night with thinking of them; and after parting in the morning with a kindly shake of the hand all round, started to walk through cobham woods on his way towards london. then on his lonely road, "the mists began to rise in the most beautiful manner and the sun to shine; and as i went on," he writes, "through the bracing air, seeing the hoar frost sparkle everywhere, i felt as if all nature shared in the joy of the great birthday. going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the mossy ground and among the brown leaves enhanced the christmas sacredness by which i felt surrounded. as the whitened stems environed me, i thought how the founder of the time had never raised his benignant hand, save to bless and heal, except in the case of one unconscious tree." now we found ourselves on the same ground, surrounded by the full beauty of the summer-time. the hand of art conspiring with nature had planted rhododendrons, as if in their native soil beneath the forest-trees. they were in one universal flame of blossoms, as far as the eye could see. lord and lady d----, the kindest and most hospitable of neighbors, were absent; there was not a living figure beside ourselves to break the solitude, and we wandered on and on with the wild birds for companions as in our native wildernesses. by and by we came near cobham hall, with its fine lawns and far-sweeping landscape, and workmen and gardeners and a general air of summer luxury. but to-day we were to go past the hall and lunch on a green slope under the trees, (was it _just_ the spot where mr. pickwick tried the cold punch and found it satisfactory? i never liked to ask!) and after making the old woods ring with the clatter and clink of our noontide meal, mingled with floods of laughter, were to come to the village, and to the very inn from which the disconsolate mr. tupman wrote to mr. pickwick, after his adventure with miss wardle. there is the old sign, and here we are at the leather bottle, cobham, kent. "there's no doubt whatever about that." dickens's modesty would not allow him to go in, so we made the most of an outside study of the quaint old place as we strolled by; also of the cottages whose inmates were evidently no strangers to our party, but were cared for by them as english cottagers are so often looked after by the kindly ladies in their neighborhood. and there was the old churchyard, "where the dead had been quietly buried 'in the sure and certain hope' which christmas-time inspired." there too were the children, whom, seeing at their play, he could not but be loving, remembering who had loved them! one party of urchins swinging on a gate reminded us vividly of collins, the painter. here was his composition to the life. every lover of rural scenery must recall the little fellow on the top of a five-barred gate in the picture collins painted, known widely by the fine engraving made of it at the time. and there too were the blossoming gardens, which now shone in their new garments of resurrection. the stillness of midsummer noon crept over everything as we lingered in the sun and shadow of the old village. slowly circling the hall, we came upon an avenue of lime-trees leading up to a stately doorway in the distance. the path was overgrown, birds and squirrels were hopping unconcernedly over the ground, and the gates and chains were rusty with disuse. "this avenue," said dickens, as we leaned upon the wall and looked into its cool shadows, "is never crossed except to bear the dead body of the lord of the hall to its last resting-place; a remnant of superstition, and one which lord and lady d---- would be glad to do away with, but the villagers would never hear of such a thing, and would consider it certain death to any person who should go or come through this entrance. it would be a highly unpopular movement for the present occupants to attempt to uproot this absurd idea, and they have given up all thoughts of it for the time." it was on a subsequent visit to cobham village that we explored the "college," an old foundation of the reign of edward iii. for the aged poor of both sexes. each occupant of the various small apartments was sitting at his or her door, which opened on a grassy enclosure with arches like an abandoned cloister of some old cathedral. such a motley society, brought together under such unnatural circumstances, would of course interest dickens. he seemed to take a profound pleasure in wandering about the place, which was evidently filled with the associations of former visits in his own mind. he was usually possessed by a childlike eagerness to go to any spot which he had made up his mind it was best to visit, and quick to come away, but he lingered long about this leafy old haunt on that sunday afternoon. of cobham hall itself much might be written without conveying an adequate idea of its peculiar interest to this generation. the terraces, and lawns, and cedar-trees, and deer-park, the names of edward iii. and elizabeth, the famous old cobhams and their long line of distinguished descendants, their invaluable pictures and historic chapel, have all been the common property of the past and of the present. but the air of comfort and hospitality diffused about the place by the present owners belongs exclusively to our time, and a little swiss châlet removed from gad's hill, standing not far from the great house, will always connect the name of charles dickens with the place he loved so well. the châlet has been transferred thither as a tribute from the dickens family to the kindness of their friends and former neighbors. we could not fail, during our visit, to think of the connection his name would always have with cobham hall, though he was then still by our side, and the little châlet yet remained embowered in its own green trees overlooking the sail-dotted medway as it flowed towards the thames. the old city of rochester, to which we have already referred as being particularly well known to all mr. pickwick's admirers, is within walking distance from gad's hill place, and was the object of daily visits from its occupants. the ancient castle, one of the best ruins in england, as dickens loved to say, because less has been done to it, rises with rugged walls precipitously from the river. it is wholly unrestored; just enough care has been bestowed to prevent its utter destruction, but otherwise it stands as it has stood and crumbled from year to year. we climbed painfully up to the highest steep of its loftiest tower, and looked down on the wonderful scene spread out in the glory of a summer sunset. below, a clear trickling stream flowed and tinkled as it has done since the rope was first lowered in the year to bring the bucket up over the worn stones which still remain to attest the fact. how happy dickens was in the beauty of that scene! what delight he took in rebuilding the old place, with every legend of which he proved himself familiar, and repeopling it out of the storehouse of his fancy. "here was the kitchen, and there the dining-hall! how frightfully dark they must have been in those days, with such small slits for windows, and the fireplaces without chimneys! there were the galleries; this is one of the four towers; the others, you will understand, corresponded with this; and now, if you're not dizzy, we will come out on the battlements for the view!" up we went, of course, following our cheery leader until we stood among the topmost wall-flowers, which were waving yellow and sweet in the sunset air. east and west, north and south, our eyes traversed the beautiful garden land of kent, the land beloved of poets through the centuries. below lay the city of rochester on one hand, and in the heart of it an old inn where a carrier was even then getting out, or putting in, horses and wagon for the night. a procession, with banners and music, was moving slowly by the tavern, and the quaint costumes in which the men were dressed suggested days long past, when far other scenes were going forward in this locality. it was almost like a pageant marching out of antiquity for our delectation. our master of ceremonies revelled that day in repeopling the queer old streets down into which we were looking from our charming elevation. his delightful fancy seemed especially alert on that occasion, and we lived over again with him many a chapter in the history of rochester, full of interest to those of us who had come from a land where all is new and comparatively barren of romance. below, on the other side, was the river medway, from whose depths the castle once rose steeply. now the _débris_ and perhaps also a slight swerving of the river from its old course have left a rough margin, over which it would not be difficult to make an ascent. rochester bridge, too, is here, and the "windy hills" in the distance; and again, on the other hand, chatham, and beyond, the thames, with the sunset tingeing the many-colored sails. we were not easily persuaded to descend from our picturesque vantage-ground; but the master's hand led us gently on from point to point, until we found ourselves, before we were aware, on the grassy slope outside the castle wall. besides, there was the cathedral to be visited, and the tomb of richard watts, "with the effigy of worthy master richard starting out of it like a ship's figurehead." after seeing the cathedral, we went along the silent high street, past queer elizabethan houses with endless gables and fences and lattice-windows, until we came to watts's charity, the house of entertainment for six poor travellers. the establishment is so familiar to all lovers of dickens through his description of it in the article entitled "seven poor travellers" among his "uncommercial" papers, that little is left to be said on that subject; except perhaps that no autobiographic sketch ever gave a more faithful picture, a closer portrait, than is there conveyed. dickens's fancy for rochester, and his numberless associations with it, have left traces of that city in almost everything he wrote. from the time when mr. snodgrass first discovered the castle ruin from rochester bridge, to the last chapter of edwin drood, we observe hints of the city's quaintness or silence; the unending pavements, which go on and on till the wisest head would be puzzled to know where rochester ends and where chatham begins, the disposition of father time to have his own unimpeded way therein, and of the gray cathedral towers which loom up in the background of many a sketch and tale. rochester, too, is on the way to canterbury, dickens's best loved cathedral, the home of agnes wickfield, the sunny spot in the life and memory of david copperfield. david was particularly small, as we are told, when he first saw canterbury, but he was already familiar with roderick random, peregrine pickle, humphrey clinker, tom jones, the vicar of wakefield, don quixote, gil blas, and robinson crusoe, who came out, as he says, a glorious host, to keep him company. naturally, the calm old place, the green nooks, the beauty of the cathedral, possessed a better chance with him than with many others, and surely no one could have loved them more. in the later years of his life the crowning-point of the summer holidays was "a pilgrimage to canterbury." the sun shone merrily through the day when he chose to carry us thither. early in the morning the whole house was astir; large hampers were packed, ladies and gentlemen were clad in gay midsummer attire, and, soon after breakfast, huge carriages with four horses, and postilions with red coats and top-boots, after the fashion of the olden time, were drawn up before the door. presently we were moving lightly over the road, the hop-vines dancing on the poles on either side, the orchards looking invitingly cool, the oast-houses fanning with their wide arms, the river glowing from time to time through the landscape. we made such a clatter passing through rochester, that all the main street turned out to see the carriages, and, being obliged to stop the horses a moment, a shopkeeper, desirous of discovering dickens among the party, hit upon the wrong man, and confused an humble individual among the company by calling a crowd, pointing him out as dickens, and making him the mark of eager eyes. this incident seemed very odd to us in a place he knew so well. on we clattered, leaving the echoing street behind us, on and on for many a mile, until noon, when, finding a green wood and clear stream by the roadside, we encamped under the shadow of the trees in a retired spot for lunch. again we went on, through quaint towns and lonely roads, until we came to canterbury, in the yellow afternoon. the bells for service were ringing as we drove under the stone archway into the soundless streets. the whole town seemed to be enjoying a simultaneous nap, from which it was aroused by our horses' hoofs. out the people ran, at this signal, into the highway, and we were glad to descend at some distance from the centre of the city, thus leaving the excitement behind us. we had been exposed to the hot rays of the sun all day, and the change into the shadow of the cathedral was refreshing. service was going forward as we entered; we sat down, therefore, and joined our voices with those of the choristers. dickens, with tireless observation, noted how sleepy and inane were the faces of many of the singers, to whom this beautiful service was but a sickening monotony of repetition. the words, too, were gabbled over in a manner anything but impressive. he was such a downright enemy to form, as substituted for religion, that any dash of untruth or unreality was abhorrent to him. when the last sounds died away in the cathedral we came out again into the cloisters, and sauntered about until the shadows fell over the beautiful enclosure. we were hospitably entreated, and listened to many an historical tale of tomb and stone and grassy nook; but under all we were listening to the heart of our companion, who had so often wandered thither in his solitude, and was now rereading the stories these urns had prepared for him. during one of his winter visits, he says (in "copperfield"):-- "coming into canterbury, i loitered through the old streets with a sober pleasure that calmed my spirits and eased my heart. there were the old signs, the old names over the shops, the old people serving in them. it appeared so long since i had been a school-boy there, that i wondered the place was so little changed, until i reflected how little i was changed myself. strange to say, that quiet influence which was inseparable in my mind from agnes seemed to pervade even the city where she dwelt. the venerable cathedral towers, and the old jackdaws and rooks, whose airy voices made them more retired than perfect silence would have done; the battered gateways, once stuck full with statues, long thrown down and crumbled away, like the reverential pilgrims who had gazed upon them; the still nooks, where the ivied growth of centuries crept over gabled ends and ruined walls; the ancient houses; the pastoral landscape of field, orchard, and garden;--everywhere, in everything, i felt the same serene air, the same calm, thoughtful, softening spirit." walking away and leaving canterbury behind us forever, we came again into the voiceless streets, past a "very old house bulging out over the road, ... quite spotless in its cleanliness, the old-fashioned brass knocker on the low, arched door ornamented with carved garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkling like a star," the very house, perhaps, "with angles and corners and carvings and mouldings," where david copperfield was sent to school. we were turned off with a laughing reply, when we ventured to accuse this particular house of being _the one_, and were told there were several that "would do"; which was quite true, for nothing could be more quaint, more satisfactory to all, from the lovers of chaucer to the lovers of dickens, than this same city of canterbury. the sun had set as we rattled noisily out of the ancient place that afternoon, and along the high road, which was quite novel in its evening aspect. there was no lingering now; on and on we went, the postilions flying up and down on the backs of their huge horses, their red coats glancing in the occasional gleams of wayside lamps, fire-flies making the orchards shine, the sunset lighting up vast clouds that lay across the western sky, and the whole scene filled with evening stillness. when we stopped to change horses, the quiet was almost oppressive. soon after nine we espied the welcome lantern of gad's hill place and the open gates. and so ended dickens's last pilgrimage to canterbury. there was another interesting spot near gad's hill which was one of dickens's haunts, and this was the "druid-stone," as it is called, at maidstone. this is within walking distance of his house, along the breezy hillside road, which we remember blossomy and wavy in the summer season, with open spaces in the hedges where one may look over wide hilly slopes, and at times come upon strange cuts down into the chalk which pervades this district. we turned into a lane from the dusty road, and, following our leader over a barred gate, came into wide grassy fields full of summer's bloom and glory. a short walk farther brought us to the druid-stone, which dickens thought to be, from the fitness of its position, simply a vantage-ground chosen by priests,--whether druid or christian of course it would be impossible to say,--from which to address a multitude. the rock served as a kind of background and sounding-board, while the beautiful sloping of the sward upward from the speaker made it an excellent position for out-of-door discourses. on this day it was only a blooming solitude, the birds had done all the talking, until we arrived. it was a fine afternoon haunt, and one worthy of a visit, apart from the associations which make the place dear. one of the weirdest neighborhoods to gad's hill, and one of those most closely associated with dickens, is the village of cooling. a cloudy day proved well enough for cooling; indeed, was undoubtedly chosen by the adroit master of hospitalities as being a fitting sky to show the dark landscape of "great expectations." the pony-carriage went thither to accompany the walking party and carry the baskets; the whole way, as we remember, leading on among narrow lanes, where heavy carriages were seldom seen. we are told in the novel, "on every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village--a direction which they never accepted, for they never came there--was invisible to me until i was close under it." the lanes certainly wore that aspect of never being accepted as a way of travel; but this was a delightful recommendation to our walk, for summer kept her own way there, and grass and wild-flowers were abundant. it was already noon, and low clouds and mists were lying about the earth and sky as we approached a forlorn little village on the edge of the wide marshes described in the opening of the novel. this was cooling, and passing by the few cottages, the decayed rectory, and straggling buildings, we came at length to the churchyard. it took but a short time to make us feel at home there, with the marshes on one hand, the low wall over which pip saw the convict climb before he dared to run away; "the five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, ... sacred to the memory of five little brothers, ...to which i had been indebted for a belief that they all had been born on their backs, with their hands in their trousers pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence";--all these points, combined with the general dreariness of the landscape, the far-stretching marshes, and the distant sea-line, soon revealed to us that this was pip's country, and we might momently expect to see the convict's head, or to hear the clank of his chain, over that low wall. we were in the churchyard now, having left the pony within eye-shot, and taken the baskets along with us, and were standing on one of those very lozenges, somewhat grass-grown by this time, and deciphering the inscriptions. on tiptoe we could get a wide view of the marsh, with, the wind sweeping in a lonely limitless way through the tall grasses. presently hearing dickens's cheery call, we turned to see what he was doing. he had chosen a good flat gravestone in one corner (the corner farthest from the marsh and pip's little brothers and the expected convict), had spread a wide napkin thereupon after the fashion of a domestic dinner-table, and was rapidly transferring the contents of the hampers to that point. the horrible whimsicality of trying to eat and make merry under these deplorable circumstances, the tragic-comic character of the scene, appeared to take him by surprise. he at once threw himself into it (as he says in "copperfield" he was wont to do with anything to which he had laid his hand) with fantastic eagerness. having spread the table after the most approved style, he suddenly disappeared behind the wall for a moment, transformed himself by the aid of a towel and napkin into a first-class head-waiter, reappeared, laid a row of plates along the top of the wall, as at a bar-room or eating-house, again retreated to the other side with some provisions, and, making the gentlemen of the party stand up to the wall, went through the whole play with most entire gravity. when we had wound up with a good laugh, and were again seated together on the grass around the table, we espied two wretched figures, not the convicts this time, although we might have easily persuaded ourselves so, but only tramps gazing at us over the wall from the marsh side as they approached, and finally sitting down, just outside the churchyard gate. they looked wretchedly hungry and miserable, and dickens said at once, starting up, "come, let us offer them a glass of wine and something good for lunch." he was about to carry them himself, when what he considered a happy thought seemed to strike him. "_you_ shall carry it to them," he cried, turning to one of the ladies; "it will be less like a charity and more like a kindness if one of you should speak to the poor souls!" this was so much in character for him, who stopped always to choose the most delicate way of doing a kind deed, that the memory of this little incident remains, while much, alas! of his wit and wisdom have vanished beyond the power of reproducing. we feasted on the satisfaction the tramps took in their lunch, long after our own was concluded; and, seeing them well off on their road again, took up our own way to gad's hill place. how comfortable it looked on our return; how beautifully the afternoon gleams of sunshine shone upon the holly-trees by the porch; how we turned away from the door and went into the playground, where we bowled on the green turf, until the tall maid in her spotless cap was seen bringing the five-o'clock tea thitherward; how the dews and the setting sun warned us at last we must prepare for dinner; and how dickens played longer and harder than any one of the company, scorning the idea of going in to tea at that hour, and beating his ball instead, quite the youngest of the company up to the last moment!--all this returns with vivid distinctness as i write these inadequate words. many days and weeks passed over after those june days were ended before we were to see dickens again. our meeting then was at the station in london, on our way to gad's hill once more. he was always early at a railway station, he said, if only to save himself the unnecessary and wasteful excitement hurry commonly produces; and so he came to meet us with a cheery manner, as if care were shut up in some desk or closet he had left behind, and he were ready to make the day a gay one, whatever the sun might say to it. a small roll of manuscript in his hand led him soon to confess that a new story was already begun; but this communication was made in the utmost confidence, as if to account for any otherwise unexplainable absences, physically or mentally, from our society, which might occur. but there were no gaps during that autumn afternoon of return to gad's hill. he told us how summer had brought him no vacation this year, and only two days of recreation. one of those, he said, was spent with his family at "rosherville gardens," "the place," as a huge advertisement informed us, "to spend a happy day." his curiosity with regard to all entertainments for the people, he said to us, carried him thither, and he seemed to have been amused and rewarded by his visit. the previous sunday had found him in london; he was anxious to reach gad's hill before the afternoon, but in order to accomplish this he must walk nine miles to a way station, which he did. coming to the little village, he inquired where the station was, and, being shown in the wrong direction, walked calmly down a narrow road which did not lead there at all. "on i went," he said, "in the perfect sunshine, over yellow leaves, without even a wandering breeze to break the silence, when suddenly i came upon three or four antique wooden houses standing under trees on the borders of a lovely stream, and, a little farther, upon an ancient doorway to a grand hall, perhaps the home of some bishop of the olden time. the road came to an end there, and i was obliged to retrace my steps; but anything more entirely peaceful and beautiful in its aspect on that autumnal day than this retreat, forgotten by the world, i almost never saw." he was eager, too, to describe for our entertainment one of the yearly cricket-matches among the villagers at gad's hill which had just come off. some of the toasts at the supper afterward were as old as the time of queen anne. for instance,-- "more pigs, fewer parsons"; delivered with all seriousness; a later one was, "may the walls of old england never be covered with french polish!" once more we recall a morning at gad's hill, a soft white haze over everything, and the yellow sun burning through. the birds were singing, and beauty and calm pervaded the whole scene. we strayed through cobham park and saw the lovely vistas through the autumnal haze; once more we reclined in the cool châlet in the afternoon, and watched the vessels going and coming upon the ever-moving river. suddenly all has vanished; and now, neither spring nor autumn, nor flowers nor birds, nor dawn nor sunset, nor the ever-moving river, can be the same to any of us again. we have all drifted down upon the river of time, and one has already sailed out into the illimitable ocean. * * * * * on a pleasant sunday morning in october, , as i sat looking out on the beautiful landscape from my chamber window at gad's hill, a servant tapped at my door and gave me a summons from dickens, written in his drollest manner on a sheet of paper, bidding me descend into his study on business of great importance. that day i heard from the author's lips the first chapters of "edwin drood" the concluding lines of which initial pages were then scarcely dry from the pen. the story is unfinished, and he who read that autumn morning with such vigor of voice and dramatic power is in his grave. this private reading took place in the little room where the great novelist for many years had been accustomed to write, and in the house where on a pleasant evening in the following june he died. the spot is one of the loveliest in kent, and must always be remembered as the last residence of charles dickens. he used to declare his firm belief that shakespeare was specially fond of kent, and that the poet chose gad's hill and rochester for the scenery of his plays from intimate personal knowledge of their localities. he said he had no manner of doubt but that one of shakespeare's haunts was the old inn at rochester, and that this conviction came forcibly upon him one night as he was walking that way, and discovered charles's wain over the chimney just as shakespeare has described it, in words put into the mouth of the carrier in king henry iv. there is no prettier place than gad's hill in all england for the earliest and latest flowers, and dickens chose it, when he had arrived at the fulness of his fame and prosperity, as the home in which he most wished to spend the remainder of his days. when a boy, he would often pass the house with his father and frequently said to him, "if ever i have a dwelling of my own, gad's hill place is the house i mean to buy." in that beautiful retreat he had for many years been accustomed to welcome his friends, and find relaxation from the crowded life of london. on the lawn playing at bowls, in the swiss summer-house charmingly shaded by green leaves, he always seemed the best part of summer, beautiful as the season is in the delightful region where he lived. there he could be most thoroughly enjoyed, for he never seemed so cheerfully at home anywhere else. at his own table, surrounded by his family, and a few guests, old acquaintances from town,--among them sometimes forster, carlyle, reade, collins, layard, maclise, stone, macready, talfourd,--he was always the choicest and liveliest companion. he was not what is called in society a professed talker, but he was something far better and rarer. in his own inimitable manner he would frequently relate to me, if prompted, stories of his youthful days, when he was toiling on the london morning chronicle, passing sleepless hours as a reporter on the road in a post-chaise, driving day and night from point to point to take down the speeches of shiel or o'connell. he liked to describe the post-boys, who were accustomed to hurry him over the road that he might reach london in advance of his rival reporters, while, by the aid of a lantern, he was writing out for the press, as he flew over the ground, the words he had taken down in short-hand. those were his days of severe training, when in rain and sleet and cold he dashed along, scarcely able to keep the blinding mud out of his tired eyes; and he imputed much of his ability for steady hard work to his practice as a reporter, kept at his grinding business, and determined if possible to earn seven guineas a week. a large sheet was started at this period of his life, in which all the important speeches of parliament were to be reported _verbatim_ for future reference. dickens was engaged on this gigantic journal. mr. stanley (afterwards lord derby) had spoken at great length on the condition of ireland. it was a long and eloquent speech, occupying many hours in the delivery. eight reporters were sent in to do the work. each one was required to report three quarters of an hour, then to retire, write out his portion, and to be succeeded by the next. young dickens was detailed to lead off with the first part. it also fell to his lot, when the time came round, to report the closing portions of the speech. on saturday the whole was given to the press, and dickens ran down to the country for a sunday's rest. sunday morning had scarcely dawned, when his father, who was a man of immense energy, made his appearance in his son's sleeping-room. mr. stanley was so dissatisfied with what he found in print, except the beginning and ending of his speech (just what dickens had reported) that he sent immediately to the office and obtained the sheets of those parts of the report. he there found the name of the reporter, which, according to custom, was written on the margin. then he requested that the young man bearing the name of dickens should be immediately sent for. dickens's father, all aglow with the prospect of probable promotion in the office, went immediately to his son's stopping-place in the country and brought him back to london. in telling the story, dickens said: "i remember perfectly to this day the aspect of the room i was shown into, and the two persons in it, mr. stanley and his father. both gentlemen were extremely courteous to me, but i noted their evident surprise at the appearance of so young a man. while we spoke together, i had taken a seat extended to me in the middle of the room. mr. stanley told me he wished to go over the whole speech and have it written out by me, and if i were ready he would begin now. where would i like to sit? i told him i was very well where i was, and we could begin immediately. he tried to induce me to sit at a desk, but at that time in the house of commons there was nothing but one's knees to write upon, and i had formed the habit of doing my work in that way. without further pause he began and went rapidly on, hour after hour, to the end, often becoming very much excited and frequently bringing down his hand with great violence upon the desk near which he stood." i have before me, as i write, an unpublished autograph letter of young dickens, which he sent off to his employer in november, , while he was on a reporting expedition for the morning chronicle. at that early stage of his career he seems to have had that unfailing accuracy of statement so marked in after years when he became famous. the letter was given to me several years ago by one of dickens's brother reporters. thus it runs:-- george and pelican, newbury, sunday morning. dear fraser: in conjunction with the herald we have arranged for a horse express from marlborough to london on tuesday night, to go the whole distance at the rate of thirteen miles an hour, for six guineas: half has been paid, but, to insure despatch, the remainder is withheld until the boy arrives at the office, when he will produce a paper with a copy of the agreement on one side, and an order for three guineas (signed by myself) on the other. will you take care that it is duly honored? a boy from the herald will be in waiting at our office for their copy; and lyons begs me to remind you most strongly that it is an indispensable part of our agreement _that he should not be detained one instant_. we go to bristol to-day, and if we are equally fortunate in laying the chaise-horses, i hope the packet will reach town by seven. as all the papers have arranged to leave bristol the moment russell is down, we have determined on adopting the same plan,--one of us will go to marlborough in the chaise with one herald man, and the other remain at bristol with the second herald man to conclude the account for the next day. the times has ordered a chaise and four the whole distance, so there is every probability of our beating them hollow. from all we hear, we think the herald, relying on the packet reaching town early, intends publishing the report in their first edition. this is however, of course, mere speculation on our parts, as we have no direct means of ascertaining their intention. i think i have now given you all needful information. i have only in conclusion to impress upon you the necessity of having all the compositors ready, at a very early hour, for if russell be down by half past eight, we hope to have his speech in town at six. believe me (for self and beard) very truly yours, charles dickens. nov., . thomas fraser, esq., morning chronicle office. no writer ever lived whose method was more exact, whose industry was more constant, and whose punctuality was more marked, than those of charles dickens. he never shirked labor, mental or bodily. he rarely declined, if the object were a good one, taking the chair at a public meeting, or accepting a charitable trust. many widows and orphans of deceased literary men have for years been benefited by his wise trusteeship or counsel, and he spent a great portion of his time personally looking after the property of the poor whose interests were under his control. he was, as has been intimated, one of the most industrious of men, and marvellous stories are told (not by himself) of what he has accomplished in a given time in literary and social matters. his studies were all from nature and life, and his habits of observation were untiring. if he contemplated writing "hard times," he arranged with the master of astley's circus to spend many hours behind the scenes with the riders and among the horses; and if the composition of the "tale of two cities" were occupying his thoughts, he could banish himself to france for two years to prepare for that great work. hogarth pencilled on his thumb-nail a striking face in a crowd that he wished to preserve; dickens with his transcendent memory chronicled in his mind whatever of interest met his eye or reached his ear, any time or anywhere. speaking of memory one day, he said the memory of children was prodigious; it was a mistake to fancy children ever forgot anything. when he was delineating the character of mrs. pipchin, he had in his mind an old lodging-house keeper in an english watering-place where he was living with his father and mother when he was but two years old. after the book was written he sent it to his sister, who wrote back at once: "good heavens! what does this mean? you have painted our lodging-house keeper, and you were but two years old at that time!" characters and incidents crowded the chambers of his brain, all ready for use when occasion required. no subject of human interest was ever indifferent to him, and never a day went by that did not afford him some suggestion to be utilized in the future. his favorite mode of exercise was walking; and when in america, scarcely a day passed, no matter what the weather, that he did not accomplish his eight or ten miles. it was on these expeditions that he liked to recount to the companion of his rambles stories and incidents of his early life; and when he was in the mood, his fun and humor knew no bounds. he would then frequently discuss the numerous characters in his delightful books, and would act out, on the road, dramatic situations, where nickleby or copperfield or swiveller would play distinguished parts. i remember he said, on one of these occasions, that during the composition of his first stories he could never entirely dismiss the characters about whom he happened to be writing; that while the "old curiosity shop" was in process of composition little nell followed him about everywhere; that while he was writing "oliver twist" fagin the jew would never let him rest, even in his most retired moments; that at midnight and in the morning, on the sea and on the land, tiny tim and little bob cratchit were ever tugging at his coat-sleeve, as if impatient for him to get back to his desk and continue the story of their lives. but he said after he had published several books, and saw what serious demands his characters were accustomed to make for the constant attention of his already overtasked brain, he resolved that the phantom individuals should no longer intrude on his hours of recreation and rest, but that when he closed the door of his study he would shut them all in, and only meet them again when he came back to resume his task. that force of will with which he was so pre-eminently endowed enabled him to ignore these manifold existences till he chose to renew their acquaintance. he said, also, that when the children of his brain had once been launched, free and clear of him, into the world, they would sometimes turn up in the most unexpected manner to look their father in the face. sometimes he would pull my arm while we were walking together and whisper, "let us avoid mr. pumblechook, who is crossing the street to meet us"; or, "mr. micawber is coming; let us turn down this alley to get out of his way." he always seemed to enjoy the fun of his comic people, and had unceasing mirth over mr. pickwick's misadventures. in answer one day to a question, prompted by psychological curiosity, if he ever dreamed of any of his characters, his reply was, "never; and i am convinced that no writer (judging from my own experience, which cannot be altogether singular, but must be a type of the experience of others) has ever dreamed of the creatures of his own imagination. it would," he went on to say, "be like a man's dreaming of meeting himself, which is clearly an impossibility. things exterior to one's self must always be the basis of dreams." the growing up of characters in his mind never lost for him a sense of the marvellous. "what an unfathomable mystery there is in it all!" he said one day. taking up a wineglass, he continued: "suppose i choose to call this a _character_, fancy it a man, endue it with certain qualities; and soon the fine filmy webs of thought, almost impalpable, coming from every direction, we know not whence, spin and weave about it, until it assumes form and beauty, and becomes instinct with life." in society dickens rarely referred to the traits and characteristics of people he had known; but during a long walk in the country he delighted to recall and describe the peculiarities, eccentric and otherwise, of dead and gone as well as living friends. then sydney smith and jeffrey and christopher north and talfourd and hood and rogers seemed to live over again in his vivid reproductions, made so impressive by his marvellous memory and imagination. as he walked rapidly along the road, he appeared to enjoy the keen zest of his companion in the numerous impersonations with which he was indulging him. he always had much to say of animals as well as of men, and there were certain dogs and horses he had met and known intimately which it was specially interesting to him to remember and picture. there was a particular dog in washington which he was never tired of delineating. the first night dickens read in the capital this dog attracted his attention. "he came into the hall by himself," said he, "got a good place before the reading began, and paid strict attention throughout. he came the second night, and was ignominiously shown out by one of the check-takers. on the third night he appeared again with another dog, which he had evidently promised to pass in free; but you see," continued dickens, "upon the imposition being unmasked, the other dog apologized by a howl and withdrew. his intentions, no doubt, were of the best, but he afterwards rose to explain outside, with such inconvenient eloquence to the reader and his audience, that they were obliged to put him down stairs." he was such a firm believer in the mental faculties of animals, that it would have gone hard with a companion with whom he was talking, if a doubt were thrown, however inadvertently, on the mental intelligence of any four-footed friend that chanced to be at the time the subject of conversation. all animals which he took under his especial patronage seemed to have a marked affection for him. quite a colony of dogs has always been a feature at gad's hill. in many walks and talks with dickens, his conversation, now, alas! so imperfectly recalled, frequently ran on the habits of birds, the raven, of course, interesting him particularly. he always liked to have a raven hopping about his grounds, and whoever has read the new preface to "barnaby rudge" must remember several of his old friends in that line. he had quite a fund of canary-bird anecdotes, and the pert ways of birds that picked up worms for a living afforded him infinite amusement. he would give a capital imitation of the way a robin-redbreast cocks his head on one side preliminary to a dash forward in the direction of a wriggling victim. there is a small grave at gad's hill to which dickens would occasionally take a friend, and it was quite a privilege to stand with him beside the burial-place of little dick, the family's favorite canary. what a treat it was to go with him to the london zoölogical gardens, a place he greatly delighted in at all times! he knew the zoölogical address of every animal, bird, and fish of any distinction; and he could, without the slightest hesitation, on entering the grounds, proceed straightway to the celebrities of claw or foot or fin. the delight he took in the hippopotamus family was most exhilarating. he entered familiarly into conversation with the huge, unwieldy creatures, and they seemed to understand him. indeed, he spoke to all the unphilological inhabitants with a directness and tact which went home to them at once. he chaffed with the monkeys, coaxed the tigers, and bamboozled the snakes, with a dexterity unapproachable. all the keepers knew him, he was such a loyal visitor, and i noticed they came up to him in a friendly way, with the feeling that they had a sympathetic listener always in charles dickens. there were certain books of which dickens liked to talk during his walks among his especial favorites were the writings of cobbett, dequincey, the lectures on moral philosophy by sydney smith, and carlyle's french revolution. of this latter dickens said it was the book of all others which he read perpetually and of which he never tired,--the book which always appeared more imaginative in proportion to the fresh imagination he brought to it, a book for inexhaustibleness to be placed before every other book. when writing the "tale of two cities," he asked carlyle if he might see one of the works to which he referred in his history; whereupon carlyle packed up and sent down to gad's hill _all_ his reference volumes, and dickens read them faithfully. but the more he read the more he was astonished to find how the facts had passed through the alembic of carlyle's brain and had come out and fitted themselves, each as a part of one great whole, making a compact result, indestructible and unrivalled; and he always found himself turning away from the books of reference, and re-reading with increased wonder this marvellous new growth. there were certain books particularly hateful to him, and of which he never spoke except in terms of most ludicrous raillery. mr. barlow, in "sandford and merton," he said was the favorite enemy of his boyhood and his first experience of a bore. he had an almost supernatural hatred for barlow, "because he was so very _instructive_, and always hinting doubts with regard to the veracity of 'sindbad the sailor,' and had no belief whatever in 'the wonderful lamp' or 'the enchanted horse.'" dickens rattling his mental cane over the head of mr. barlow was as much better than any play as can be well imagined. he gloried in many of hood's poems, especially in that biting ode to rae wilson, and he would gesticulate with a fine fervor the lines, "...the hypocrites who ope heaven's door obsequious to the sinful man of riches,-- but put the wicked, naked, bare-legged poor in parish _stocks_ instead of _breeches_." one of his favorite books was pepys's diary, the curious discovery of the key to which, and the odd characteristics of its writer, were a never-failing source of interest and amusement to him. the vision of pepys hanging round the door of the theatre, hoping for an invitation to go in, not being able to keep away in spite of a promise he had made to himself that he would spend no more money foolishly, delighted him. speaking one day of gray, the author of the elegy, he said: "no poet ever came walking down to posterity with so _small_ a book under his arm." he preferred smollett to fielding, putting "peregrine pickle" above "tom jones." of the best novels by his contemporaries he always spoke with warm commendation, and "griffith gaunt" he thought a production of very high merit. he was "hospitable to the thought" of all writers who were really in earnest, but at the first exhibition of floundering or inexactness he became an unbeliever. people with dislocated understandings he had no tolerance for. he was passionately fond of the theatre, loved the lights and music and flowers, and the happy faces of the audience; he was accustomed to say that his love of the theatre never failed, and, no matter how dull the play, he was always careful while he sat in the box to make no sound which could hurt the feelings of the actors, or show any lack of attention. his genuine enthusiasm for mr. fechter's acting was most interesting. he loved to describe seeing him first, quite by accident, in paris, having strolled into a little theatre there one night. "he was making love to a woman," dickens said, "and he so elevated her as well as himself by the sentiment in which he enveloped her, that they trod in a purer ether, and in another sphere, quite lifted out of the present. 'by heavens!' i said to myself, 'a man who can do this can do anything.' i never saw two people more purely and instantly elevated by the power of love. the manner, also," he continued, "in which he presses the hem of the dress of lucy in the bride of lammermoor is something wonderful. the man has genius in him which is unmistakable." life behind the scenes was always a fascinating study to dickens. "one of the oddest sights a green-room can present," he said one day, "is when they are collecting children for a pantomime. for this purpose the prompter calls together all the women in the ballet, and begins giving out their names in order, while they press about him eager for the chance of increasing their poor pay by the extra pittance their children will receive. 'mrs. johnson, how many?' 'two, sir.' 'what ages?' 'seven and ten.' 'mrs. b., how many?' and so on, until the required number is made up. the people who go upon the stage, however poor their pay or hard their lot, love it too well ever to adopt another vocation of their free-will. a mother will frequently be in the wardrobe, children in the pantomime, elder sisters in the ballet, etc." * * * * * dickens's habits as a speaker differed from those of most orators. he gave no thought to the composition of the speech he was to make till the day before he was to deliver it. no matter whether the effort was to be a long or a short one, he never wrote down a word of what he was going to say; but when the proper time arrived for him to consider his subject, he took a walk into the country and the thing was done. when he returned he was all ready for his task. he liked to talk about the audiences that came to hear him read, and he gave the palm to his parisian one, saying it was the quickest to catch his meaning. although he said there were many always present in his room in paris who did not fully understand english, yet the french eye is so quick to detect expression that it never failed instantly to understand what he meant by a look or an act. "thus, for instance," he said, "when i was impersonating steerforth in 'david copperfield,' and gave that peculiar grip of the hand to emily's lover, the french audience burst into cheers and rounds of applause." he said with reference to the preparation of his readings, that it was three months' hard labor to get up one of his own stories for public recitation, and he thought he had greatly improved his presentation of the "christmas carol" while in this country. he considered the storm scene in "david copperfield" one of the most effective of his readings. the character of jack hopkins in "bob sawyer's party" he took great delight in representing, and as jack was a prime favorite of mine, he brought him forward whenever the occasion prompted. he always spoke of hopkins as my particular friend, and he was constantly quoting him, taking on the peculiar voice and turn of the head which he gave jack in the public reading. it gave him a natural pleasure when he heard quotations from his own books introduced without effort into conversation. he did not always remember, when his own words were quoted, that he was himself the author of them, and appeared astounded at the memory of others in this regard. he said mr. secretary stanton had a most extraordinary knowledge of his books and a power of taking the text up at any point, which he supposed to belong to only one person, and that person not himself. it was said of garrick that he was the _cheerfullest_ man of his age. this can be as truly said of charles dickens. in his presence there was perpetual sunshine, and gloom was banished as having no sort of relationship with him. no man suffered more keenly or sympathized more fully than he did with want and misery; but his motto was, "don't stand and cry; press forward and help remove the difficulty." the speed with which he was accustomed to make the deed follow his yet speedier sympathy was seen pleasantly on the day of his visit to the school-ship in boston harbor. he said, previously to going on board that ship, nothing would tempt him to make a speech, for he should always be obliged to do it on similar occasions, if he broke through his rule so early in his reading tour. but judge russell had no sooner finished his simple talk, to which the boys listened, as they always do, with eager faces, than dickens rose as if he could not help it, and with a few words so magnetized them that they wore their hearts in their eyes as if they meant to keep the words forever. an enthusiastic critic once said of john ruskin, "that he could discover the apocalypse in a daisy." as noble a discovery may be claimed for dickens. he found all the fair humanities blooming in the lowliest hovel. he never _put on_ the good samaritan: that character was native to him. once while in this country, on a bitter, freezing afternoon,--night coming down in a drifting snow-storm,--he was returning with me from a long walk in the country. the wind and baffling sleet were so furious that the street in which we happened to be fighting our way was quite deserted; it was almost impossible to see across it, the air was so thick with the tempest; all conversation between us had ceased, for it was only possible to breast the storm by devoting our whole energies to keeping on our feet; we seemed to be walking in a different atmosphere from any we had ever before encountered. all at once i missed dickens from my side. what had become of him? had he gone down in the drift, utterly exhausted, and was the snow burying him out of sight? very soon the sound of his cheery voice was heard on the other side of the way. with great difficulty, over the piled-up snow, i struggled across the street, and there found him lifting up, almost by main force, a blind old man who had got bewildered by the storm, and had fallen down unnoticed, quite unable to proceed. dickens, a long distance away from him, with that tender, sensitive, and penetrating vision, ever on the alert for suffering in any form, had rushed at once to the rescue, comprehending at a glance the situation of the sightless man. to help him to his feet and aid him homeward in the most natural and simple way afforded dickens such a pleasure as only the benevolent by intuition can understand. throughout his life dickens was continually receiving tributes from those he had benefited, either by his books or by his friendship. there is an odd and very pretty story (vouched for here as true) connected with the influence he so widely exerted. in the winter of , soon after he came up to london to reside for a few months, he received a letter from a man telling him that he had begun life in the most humble way possible, and that he considered he owed his subsequent great success and such education as he had given himself entirely to the encouragement and cheering influence he had derived from dickens's books, of which he had been a constant reader from his childhood. he had been made a partner in his master's business, and when the head of the house died, the other day, it was found he had left the whole of his large property to this man. as soon as he came into possession of this fortune, his mind turned to dickens, whom he looked upon as his benefactor and teacher, and his first desire was to tender him some testimonial of gratitude and veneration. he then begged dickens to accept a large sum of money. dickens declined to receive the money, but his unknown friend sent him instead two silver table ornaments of great intrinsic value bearing this inscription: "to charles dickens, from one who has been cheered and stimulated by his writings, and held the author amongst his first remembrances when he became prosperous." one of these silver ornaments was supported by three figures, representing three seasons. in the original design there were, of course, four, but the donor was so averse to associating the idea of winter in any sense with dickens that he caused the workman to alter the design and leave only the _cheerful_ seasons. no event in the great author's career was ever more gratifying and pleasant to him. his friendly notes were exquisitely turned, and are among his most charming compositions. they abound in felicities only like himself. in he wrote to me while i was sojourning in italy: "i should like to have a walk through rome with you this bright morning (for it really _is_ bright in london), and convey you over some favorite ground of mine. i used to go up the street of tombs, past the tomb of cecilia metella, away out upon the wild campagna, and by the old appian road (easily tracked out among the ruins and primroses), to albano. there, at a very dirty inn, i used to have a very dirty lunch, generally with the family's dirty linen lying in a corner, and inveigle some very dirty vetturino in sheep-skin to take me back to rome." in a little note in answer to one i had written consulting him about the purchase of some old furniture in london he wrote: "there is a chair (without a bottom) at a shop near the office, which i think would suit you. it cannot stand of itself, but will almost seat somebody, if you put it in a corner, and prop one leg up with two wedges and cut another leg off, the proprietor asks £ , but says he admires literature and would take £ . he is of republican principles and i think would take £ _s_. _d_. from a cousin; shall i secure this prize? it is very ugly and wormy, and it is related, but without proof, that on one occasion washington declined to sit down in it." here are the last two missives i ever received from his dear, kind hand:-- hyde park place, london, w., friday, january , . my dear fields: we live here (opposite the marble arch) in a charming house until the st of june, and then return to gad's. the conservatory is completed, and is a brilliant success;--but an expensive one! i read this afternoon at three,--a beastly proceeding which i particularly hate,--and again this day week at three. these morning readings particularly disturb me at my book-work; nevertheless i hope, please god, to lose no way on their account. an evening reading once a week is nothing. by the by, i recommenced last tuesday evening with the greatest brilliancy. i should be quite ashamed of not having written to you and my dear mrs. fields before now, if i didn't know that you will both understand how occupied i am, and how naturally, when i put my papers away for the day, i get up and fly. i have a large room here, with three fine windows, overlooking the park,--unsurpassable for airiness and cheerfulness. you saw the announcement of the death of poor dear harness. the circumstances are curious. he wrote to his old friend the dean of battle saying he would come to visit him on that day (the day of his death). the dean wrote back: "come next day, instead, as we are obliged to go out to dinner, and you will be alone." harness told his sister a little impatiently that he _must_ go on the first-named day,--that he had made up his mind to go, and must. he had been getting himself ready for dinner, and came to a part of the staircase whence two doors opened,--one, upon another level passage; one, upon a flight of stone steps. he opened the wrong door, fell down the steps, injured himself very severely, and died in a few hours. you will know--_i_ don't--what fechter's success is in america at the time of this present writing. in his farewell performances at the princess's he acted very finely. i thought the three first acts of his hamlet very much better than i had ever thought them before,--and i always thought very highly of them. we gave him a foaming stirrup cup at gad's hill. forster (who has been ill with his bronchitis again) thinks no. of the new book (edwin drood) a clincher,--i mean that word (as his own expression) for _clincher_. there is a curious interest steadily working up to no. , which requires a great deal of art and self-denial. i think also, apart from character and picturesqueness, that the young people are placed in a very novel situation. so i hope--at nos. and the story will turn upon an interest suspended until the end. i can't believe it, and don't, and won't, but they say harry's twenty-first birthday is next sunday. i have entered him at the temple just now; and if he don't get a fellowship at trinity hall when his time comes, i shall be disappointed, if in the present disappointed state of existence. i hope you may have met with the little touch of radicalism i gave them at birmingham in the words of buckle? with pride i observe that it makes the regular political traders, of all sorts, perfectly mad. sich was my intentions, as a grateful acknowledgment of having been misrepresented. i think mrs. ----'s prose very admirable, but i don't believe it! no, i do _not_. my conviction is that those islanders get frightfully bored by the islands, and wish they had never set eyes upon them! charley collins has done a charming cover for the monthly part of the new book. at the very earnest representations of millais (and after having seen a great number of his drawings) i am going to engage with a new man; retaining, of course, c.c.'s cover aforesaid. k---- has made some more capital portraits, and is always improving. my dear mrs. fields, if "he" (made proud by chairs and bloated by pictures) does not give you my dear love, let us conspire against him when you find him out, and exclude him from all future confidences. until then ever affectionately yours and his, c.d. hyde park place, london, w., monday, april , . my dear fields: i have been hard at work all day until post time, and have only leisure to acknowledge the receipt, the day before yesterday, of your note containing such good news of fechter; and to assure you of my undiminished regard and affection. we have been doing wonders with no. of edwin drood. _it has very, very far outstripped every one of its predecessors._ ever your affectionate friend, charles dickens bright colors were a constant delight to him; and the gay hues of flowers were those most welcome to his eye. when the rhododendrons were in bloom in cobham park, the seat of his friend and neighbor, lord darnley, he always counted on taking his guests there to enjoy the magnificent show. he delighted to turn out for the delectation of his transatlantic cousins a couple of postilions in the old red jackets of the old red royal dover road, making the ride as much as possible like a holiday drive in england fifty years ago. when in the mood for humorous characterization, dickens's hilarity was most amazing. to hear him tell a ghost story with a very florid imitation of a very pallid ghost, or hear him sing an old-time stage song, such as he used to enjoy in his youth at a cheap london theatre, to see him imitate a lion in a menagerie-cage, or the clown in a pantomime when he flops and folds himself up like a jack-knife, or to join with him in some mirthful game of his own composing, was to become acquainted with one of the most delightful and original companions in the world. on one occasion, during a walk with me, he chose to run into the wildest of vagaries about _conversation_. the ludicrous vein he indulged in during that two hours' stretch can never be forgotten. among other things, he said he had often thought how restricted one's conversation must become when one was visiting a man who was to be hanged in half an hour. he went on in a most surprising manner to imagine all sorts of difficulties in the way of becoming interesting to the poor fellow. "suppose," said he, "it should be a rainy morning while you are making the call, you could not possibly indulge in the remark, 'we shall have fine weather to-morrow, sir,' for what would that be to him? for my part, i think," said he, "i should confine my observations to the days of julius caesar or king alfred." at another time when speaking of what was constantly said about him in certain newspapers, he observed: "i notice that about once in every seven years i become the victim of a paragraph disease. it breaks out in england, travels to india by the overland route, gets to america per cunard line, strikes the base of the rocky mountains, and, rebounding back to europe, mostly perishes on the steppes of russia from inanition and extreme cold." when he felt he was not under observation, and that tomfoolery would not be frowned upon or gazed at with astonishment, he gave himself up without reserve to healthy amusement and strengthening mirth. it was his mission to make people happy. words of good cheer were native to his lips, and he was always doing what he could to lighten the lot of all who came into his beautiful presence. his talk was simple, natural, and direct, never dropping into circumlocution nor elocution. now that he is gone, whoever has known him intimately for any considerable period of time will linger over his tender regard for, and his engaging manner with, children; his cheery "good day" to poor people he happened to be passing in the road; his trustful and earnest "please god," when he was promising himself any special pleasure, like rejoining an old friend or returning again to scenes he loved. at such times his voice had an irresistible pathos in it, and his smile diffused a sensation like music. when he came into the presence of squalid or degraded persons, such as one sometimes encounters in almshouses or prisons, he had such soothing words to scatter here and there, that those who had been "most hurt by the archers" listened gladly, and loved him without knowing who it was that found it in his heart to speak so kindly to them. oftentimes during long walks in the streets and by-ways of london, or through the pleasant kentish lanes, or among the localities he has rendered forever famous in his books, i have recalled the sweet words in which shakespeare has embalmed one of the characters in love's labor's lost:-- "a merrier man, within the limit of becoming mirth, i never spent an hour's talk withal: his eye begets occasion for his wit; for every object that the one doth catch the other turns to a mirth-moving jest, which his fair tongue, conceit's expositor, delivers in such apt and gracious words that aged ears play truant at his tales, and younger hearings are quite ravished; so sweet and voluble is his discourse." twenty years ago daniel webster said that dickens had already done more to ameliorate the condition of the english poor than all the statesmen great britain had sent into parliament. during the unceasing demands upon his time and thought, he found opportunities of visiting personally those haunts of suffering in london which needed the keen eye and sympathetic heart to bring them before the public for relief. whoever has accompanied him, as i have, on his midnight walks into the cheap lodging-houses provided for london's lowest poor, cannot have failed to learn lessons never to be forgotten. newgate and smithfield were lifted out of their abominations by his eloquent pen, and many a hospital is to-day all the better charity for having been visited and watched by charles dickens. to use his own words, through his whole life he did what he could "to lighten the lot of those rejected ones whom the world has too long forgotten and too often misused." these inadequate, and, of necessity, hastily written, records must stand for what they are worth as personal recollections of the great author who has made so many millions happy by his inestimable genius and sympathy. his life will no doubt be written out in full by some competent hand in england; but however numerous the volumes of his biography, the half can hardly be told of the good deeds he has accomplished for his fellow-men. and who could ever tell, if those volumes were written, of the subtle qualities of insight and sympathy which rendered him capable of friendship above most men,--which enabled him to reinstate its ideal, and made his presence a perpetual joy, and separation from him an ineffaceable sorrow? wordsworth. _"his mind is, as it were, coeval with the primary forms of things; his imagination holds immediately from nature, and 'owes no allegiance' but 'to the elements.' ....he sees all things in himself."_--hazlitt. v. wordsworth. that portrait looking down so calmly from the wall is an original picture of the poet wordsworth, drawn in crayon a few years before he died. he went up to london on purpose to sit for it, at the request of moxon, his publisher, and his friends in england always considered it a perfect likeness of the poet. after the head was engraved, the artist's family disposed of the drawing, and through the watchful kindness of my dear old friend, mary russell mitford, the portrait came across the atlantic to this house. miss mitford said america ought to have on view such a perfect representation of the great poet, and she used all her successful influence in my behalf. so there the picture hangs for anybody's inspection at any hour of the day. i once made a pilgrimage to the small market-town of hawkshead, in the valley of esthwaite, where wordsworth went to school in his ninth year. the thoughtful boy was lodged in the house of dame anne tyson in ; and i had the good fortune to meet a lady in the village street who conducted me at once to the room which the lad occupied while he was a scholar under the rev. william taylor, whom he loved and venerated so much. i went into the chamber which he afterwards described in the prelude, where he "had lain awake on summer nights to watch the moon in splendor couched among the leaves of a tall ash, that near our cottage stood"; and i visited many of the beautiful spots which tradition points out as the favorite haunts of his childhood. it was true lake-country weather when i knocked at wordsworth's cottage door, three years before he died, and found myself shaking hands with the poet at the threshold. his daughter dora had been dead only a few months, and the sorrow that had so recently fallen upon the house was still dominant there. i thought there was something prophet-like in the tones of his voice, as well as in his whole appearance, and there was a noble tranquillity about him that almost awed one, at first, into silence. as the day was cold and wet, he proposed we should sit down together in the only room in the house where there was a fire, and he led the way to what seemed a common sitting or dining room. it was a plain apartment, the rafters visible, and no attempt at decoration noticeable. mrs. wordsworth sat knitting at the fireside, and she rose with a sweet expression of courtesy and welcome as we entered the apartment. as i had just left paris, which was in a state of commotion, wordsworth was eager in his inquiries about the state of things on the other side of the channel. as our talk ran in the direction of french revolutions, he soon became eloquent and vehement, as one can easily imagine, on such a theme. there was a deep and solemn meaning in all he had to say about france, which i recall now with added interest. the subject deeply moved him, of course, and he sat looking into the fire, discoursing in a low monotone, sometimes quite forgetful that he was not alone and soliloquizing. i noticed that mrs. wordsworth listened as if she were hearing him speak for the first time in her life, and the work on which she was engaged lay idle in her lap, while she watched intently every movement of her husband's face. i also was absorbed in the man and in his speech. i thought of the long years he had lived in communion with nature in that lonely but lovely region. the story of his life was familiar to me, and i sat as if under the influence of a spell. soon he turned and plied me with questions about the prominent men in paris whom i had recently seen and heard in the chamber of deputies. "how did guizot bear himself? what part was de tocqueville taking in the fray? had i noticed george lafayette especially?" america did not seem to concern him much, and i waited for him to introduce the subject, if he chose to do so. he seemed pleased that a youth from a far-away country should find his way to rydal cottage to worship at the shrine of an old poet. by and by we fell into talk about those who had been his friends and neighbors among the hills in former years. "and so," he said, "you read charles lamb in america?" "yes," i replied, "and _love_ him too." "do you hear that, mary?" he eagerly inquired, turning round to mrs. wordsworth. "yes, william, and no wonder, for he was one to be loved everywhere," she quickly answered. then we spoke of hazlitt, whom he ranked very high as a prose-writer; and when i quoted a fine passage from hazlitt's essay on jeremy taylor, he seemed pleased at my remembrance of it. he asked about inman, the american artist, who had painted his portrait, having been sent on a special mission to rydal by professor henry reed of philadelphia, to procure the likeness. the painter's daughter, who accompanied her father, made a marked impression on wordsworth, and both he and his wife joined in the question, "are all the girls in america as pretty as she?" i thought it an honor mary inman might well be proud of to be so complimented by the old bard. in speaking of henry reed, his manner was affectionate and tender. now and then i stole a glance at the gentle lady, the poet's wife, as she sat knitting silently by the fireside. this, then, was the mary whom in he had brought home to be his loving companion through so many years. i could not help remembering too, as we all sat there together, that when children they had "practised reading and spelling under the same old dame at penrith," and that they had always been lovers. there sat the woman, now gray-haired and bent, to whom the poet had addressed those undying poems, "she was a phantom of delight," "let other bards of angels sing," "yes, thou art fair," and "o, dearer far than life and light are dear." i recalled, too, the "lines written after thirty-six years of wedded life," commemorating her whose "morn into noon did pass, noon into eve, and the old day was welcome as the young, as welcome, and as beautiful,--in sooth more beautiful, as being a thing more holy." when she raised her eyes to his, which i noticed she did frequently, they seemed overflowing with tenderness. when i rose to go, for i felt that i must not intrude longer on one for whom i had such reverence, wordsworth said, "i must show you my library, and some tributes that have been sent to me from the friends of my verse." his son john now came in, and we all proceeded to a large room in front of the house, containing his books. seeing that i had an interest in such things, he seemed to take a real pleasure in showing me the presentation copies of works by distinguished authors. we read together, from many a well-worn old volume, notes in the handwriting of coleridge and charles lamb. i thought he did not praise easily those whose names are indissolubly connected with his own in the history of literature. it was languid praise, at least, and i observed he hesitated for mild terms which he could apply to names almost as great as his own. i believe a duplicate of the portrait which inman had painted for reed hung in the room; at any rate a picture of himself was there, and he seemed to regard it with veneration as we stood before it. as we moved about the apartment, mrs. wordsworth quietly followed us, and listened as eagerly as i did to everything her husband had to say. her spare little figure flitted about noiselessly, pausing as we paused, and always walking slowly behind us as we went from object to object in the room. john wordsworth, too, seemed deeply interested to watch and listen to his father. "and now," said wordsworth, "i must show you one of my latest presents." leading us up to a corner of the room, we all stood before a beautiful statuette which a young sculptor had just sent to him, illustrating a passage in "the excursion." turning to me, wordsworth asked, "do you know the meaning of this figure?" i saw at a glance that it was "a curious child, who dwelt upon a tract of inland ground, applying to his ear the convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell," and i quoted the lines. my recollection of the words pleased the old man; and as we stood there in front of the figure he began to recite the whole passage from "the excursion," and it sounded very grand from the poet's own lips. he repeated some fifty lines, and i could not help thinking afterwards, when i came to hear tennyson read his own poetry, that the younger laureate had caught something of the strange, mysterious tone of the elder bard. it was a sort of chant, deep and earnest, which conveyed the impression that the reciter had the highest opinion of the poetry. although it was raining still, wordsworth proposed to show me lady fleming's grounds, and some other spots of interest near his cottage. our walk was a wet one; but as he did not seem incommoded by it, i was only too glad to hold the umbrella over his venerable head. as we went on, he added now and then a sonnet to the scenery, telling me precisely the circumstances under which it had been composed. it is many years since my memorable walk with the author of "the excursion," but i can call up his figure and the very tones of his voice so vividly that i enjoy my interview over again any time i choose. he was then nearly eighty, but he seemed hale and quite as able to walk up and down the hills as ever. he always led back the conversation that day to his own writings, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to do so. all his most celebrated poems seemed to live in his memory, and it was easy to start him off by quoting the first line of any of his pieces. speaking of the vastness of london, he quoted the whole of his sonnet describing the great city, as seen in the morning from westminster bridge. when i parted with him at the foot of rydal hill, he gave me messages to rogers and other friends of his whom i was to see in london. as we were shaking hands i said, "how glad your many readers in america would be to see you on our side of the water!" "ah," he replied, "i shall never see your country,--that is impossible now; but" (laying his hand on his son's shoulder) "john shall go, please god, some day." i watched the aged man as he went slowly up the hill, and saw him disappear through the little gate that led to his cottage door. the ode on "intimations of immortality" kept sounding in my brain as i came down the road, long after he had left me. since i sat, a little child, in "a woman's school," wordsworth's poems had been familiar to me. here is my first school-book, with a name written on the cover by dear old "marm sloper," setting forth that the owner thereof is "aged ." as i went musing along in westmoreland that rainy morning, so many years ago, little figures seemed to accompany me, and childish voices filled the air as i trudged through the wet grass. my small ghostly companions seemed to carry in their little hands quaint-looking dog's-eared books, some of them covered with cloth of various colors. none of these phantom children looked to be over six years old, and all were bareheaded, and some of the girls wore old-fashioned pinafores. they were the schoolmates of my childhood, and many of them must have come out of their graves to run by my side that morning in rydal. i had not thought of them for years. little emily r---- read from her book with a chirping lisp:-- "o, what's the matter? what's the matter? what is't that ails young harry gill?" mary b---- began:-- "oft i had heard of lucy grey"; nancy c---- piped up:-- "'how many are you, then,' said i, 'if there are two in heaven?' the little maiden did reply, 'o master! we are seven.'" among the group i seemed to recognize poor pale little charley f----, who they told me years ago was laid in st. john's churchyard after they took him out of the pond, near the mill-stream, that terrible saturday afternoon. he too read from his well-worn, green-baize-covered book,-- "the dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink." other white-headed little urchins trotted along _very near_ me all the way, and kept saying over and over their "spirit ditties of no tone" till i reached the village inn, and sat down as if in a dream of long-past years. two years ago i stood by wordsworth's grave in the churchyard at grasmere, and my companion wove a chaplet of flowers and placed it on the headstone. afterwards we went into the old church and sat down in the poet's pew. "they are all dead and gone now," sighed the gray-headed sexton; "but i can remember when the seats used to be filled by the family from rydal mount. now they are all outside there in yon grass." miss mitford. _"i care not, fortune, what you me deny: you cannot rob me of free nature's grace; you cannot shut the windows of the sky, through which aurora shows her brightening face; you cannot bar my constant feet to trace the woods and lawns, by living streams at eve: let health my nerves and finer fibres brace, and i their toys to the great children leave: of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave."_ thomson. vi. miss mitford. that portrait hanging near wordsworth's is next to seeing mary russell mitford herself as i first saw her, twenty-three years ago, in her geranium-planted cottage at three-mile cross. she sat to john lucas for the picture in her serene old age, and the likeness is faultless. she had proposed to herself to leave the portrait, as it was her own property, to me in her will; but as i happened to be in england during the latter part of her life, she altered her determination, and gave it to me from her own hands. sydney smith said of a certain quarrelsome person, that his very face was a breach of the peace. the face of that portrait opposite to us is a very different one from sydney's fighter. everything that belongs to the beauty of old age one will find recorded in that charming countenance. serene cheerfulness most abounds, and that is a quality as rare as it is commendable. it will be observed that the dress of miss mitford in the picture before us is quaint and somewhat antiquated even for the time when it was painted, but a pleasant face is never out of fashion. an observer of how old age is neglected in america said to me the other day, "it seems an impertinence to be alive after sixty on this side of the globe"; and i have often thought how much we lose by not cultivating fine old-fashioned ladies and gentlemen. our aged relatives and friends seem to be tucked away, nowadays, into neglected corners, as though it were the correct thing to give them a long preparation for still narrower quarters. for my own part, comely and debonair old age is most attractive; and when i see the "thick silver-white hair lying on a serious and weather-worn face, like moonlight on a stout old tower," i have a strong tendency to lift my hat, whether i know the person or not. "no spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as i have seen in an autumnal face." it was a fortunate hour for me when kind-hearted john kenyon said, as i was leaving his hospitable door in london one summer midnight in , "you must know my friend, miss mitford. she lives directly on the line of your route to oxford, and you must call with my card and make her acquaintance." i had lately been talking with wordsworth and christopher north and old samuel rogers, but my hunger at that time to stand face to face with the distinguished persons in english literature was not satisfied. so it was during my first "tourification" in england that i came to know miss mitford. the day selected for my call at her cottage door happened to be a perfect one on which to begin an acquaintance with the lady of "our village." she was then living at three-mile cross, having removed there from bertram house in . the cottage where i found her was situated on the high road between basingstoke and reading; and the village street on which she was then living contained the public-house and several small shops near by. there was also close at hand the village pond full of ducks and geese, and i noticed several young rogues on their way to school were occupied in worrying their feathered friends. the windows of the cottage were filled with flowers, and cowslips and violets were plentifully scattered about the little garden. miss mitford liked to have one dog, at least, at her heels, and this day her pet seemed to be constantly under foot. i remember the room into which i was shown was sanded, and a quaint old clock behind the door was marking off the hour in small but very loud pieces. the cheerful old lady called to me from the head of the stairs to come up into her sitting-room. i sat down by the open window to converse with her, and it was pleasant to see how the village children, as they went by, stopped to bow and curtsey. one curly-headed urchin made bold to take off his well-worn cap, and wait to be recognized as "little johnny". "no great scholar," said the kind-hearted old lady to me, "but a sad rogue among our flock of geese. only yesterday the young marauder was detected by my maid with a plump gosling stuffed half-way into his pocket!" while she was thus discoursing of johnny's peccadilloes, the little fellow looked up with a knowing expression, and very soon caught in his cap a gingerbread dog, which the old lady threw to him from the window. "i wish he loved his book as well as he relishes sweetcake," sighed she, as the boy kicked up his heels and disappeared down the lane. her conversation that afternoon, full of anecdote, ran on in a perpetual flow of good-humor, and i was shocked, on looking at my watch, to find i had stayed so long, and had barely time to reach the railway-station in season to arrive at oxford that night. we parted with the mutual determination and understanding to keep our friendship warm by correspondence, and i promised never to come to england again without finding my way to three-mile cross. during the conversation that day, miss mitford had many inquiries to make concerning her american friends, miss catherine sedgwick, daniel webster, and dr. chancing. her voice had a peculiar ringing sweetness in it, rippling out sometimes like a beautiful chime of silver bells; and when she told a comic story, hitting off some one of her acquaintances, she joined in with the laugh at the end with great heartiness and _naïveté_. when listening to anything that interested her, she had a way of coming into the narrative with "dear me, dear me, dear me," three times repeated, which it was very pleasant to hear. from that summer day our friendship continued, and during other visits to england i saw her frequently, driving about the country with her in her pony-chaise, and spending many happy hours in the new cottage which she afterwards occupied at swallowfield. her health had broken down years before, from too constant attendance on her invalid parents, and she was never certain of a well day. when her father died, in , shamefully in debt (for he had squandered two fortunes not exactly his own, and was always one of the most improvident of men, belonging to that class of impecunious individuals who seem to have been born insolvent), she said, "everybody shall be paid, if i sell the gown off my back or pledge my little pension." and putting her shoulder to the domestic wheel, she never nagged for an instant, or gave way to despondency. she was always cheerful, and her talk is delightful to remember. from girlhood she had known and had been intimate with most of the prominent writers of her time, and her observations and reminiscences were so shrewd and pertinent that i have scarcely known her equal. carlyle tells us "nothing so lifts a man from all his mean imprisonments, were it but for moments, as true admiration"; and miss mitford admired to such an extent that she must have been lifted in this way nearly all her lifetime. indeed she erred, if she erred at all, on this side, and overpraised and over-admired everything and everybody whom she regarded. when she spoke of beranger or dumas or hazlitt or holmes, she exhausted every term of worship and panegyric. louis napoleon was one of her most potent crazes, and i fully believe, if she had been alive during the days of his downfall, she would have died of grief. when she talked of munden and bannister and fawcett and emery, those delightful old actors for whom she had had such an exquisite relish, she said they had made comedy to her a living art full of laughter and tears. how often have i heard her describe john kemble, mrs. siddons, miss o'neil, and edmund kean, as they were wont to electrify the town in her girlhood! with what gusto she reproduced elliston, who was one of her prime favorites, and tried to make me, through her representation of him, feel what a spirit there was in the man. although she had been prostrated by the hard work and increasing anxieties of forty years of authorship, when i saw her she was as fresh and independent as a skylark. she was a good hater as well as a good praiser, and she left nothing worth saving in an obnoxious reputation. i well remember, one autumn evening, when half a dozen friends were sitting in her library after dinner, talking with her of tom taylor's life of haydon, then lately published, how graphically she described to us the eccentric painter, whose genius she was among the foremost to recognize. the flavor of her discourse i cannot reproduce; but i was too much interested in what she was saying to forget the main incidents she drew for our edification, during those pleasant hours now far away in the past. "i am a terrible forgetter of dates," she used to say, when any one asked her of the _time when_; but for the _manner how_ she was never at a loss. "poor haydon!" she began. "he was an old friend of mine, and i am indebted to sir william elford, one of my dear father's correspondents during my girlhood, for a suggestion which sent me to look at a picture then on exhibition in london, and thus was brought about my knowledge of the painter's existence. he, sir william, had taken a fancy to me, and i became his child-correspondent. few things contribute more to that indirect after-education, which is worth all the formal lessons of the school-room a thousand times told, than such good-humored condescension from a clever man of the world to a girl almost young enough to be his granddaughter. i owe much to that correspondence, and, amongst other debts, the acquaintance of haydon. sir william's own letters were most charming,--full of old-fashioned courtesy, of quaint humor, and of pleasant and genial criticism on literature and on art. an amateur-painter himself, painting interested him particularly, and he often spoke much and warmly of the young man from plymouth, whose picture of the 'judgment of solomon' was then on exhibition in london. 'you must see it,' said he, 'even if you come to town on purpose.'"--the reader of haydon's life will remember that sir william elford, in conjunction with a plymouth banker named tingecombe, ultimately purchased the picture. the poor artist was overwhelmed with astonishment and joy when he walked into the exhibition-room and read the label, "sold," which had been attached to his picture that morning before he arrived. "my first impulse," he says in his autobiography, "was gratitude to god." "it so happened," continued miss mitford, "that i merely passed through london that season, and, being detained by some of the thousand and one nothings which are so apt to detain women in the great city, i arrived at the exhibition, in company with a still younger friend, so near the period of closing, that more punctual visitors were moving out, and the doorkeeper actually turned us and our money back. i persisted, however, assuring him that i only wished to look at one picture, and promising not to detain him long. whether my entreaties would have carried the point or not, i cannot tell; but half a crown did; so we stood admiringly before the 'judgment of solomon.' i am no great judge of painting; but that picture impressed me then, as it does now, as excellent in composition, in color, and in that great quality of telling a story which appeals at once to every mind. our delight was sincerely felt, and most enthusiastically expressed, as we kept gazing at the picture, and seemed, unaccountably to us at first, to give much pleasure to the only gentleman who had remained in the room,--a young and very distinguished-looking person, who had watched with evident amusement our negotiation with the doorkeeper. beyond indicating the best position to look at the picture, he had no conversation with us; but i soon surmised that we were seeing the painter, as well as his painting; and when, two or three years afterwards, a friend took me by appointment to view the 'entry into jerusalem,' haydon's next great picture, then near its completion, i found i had not been mistaken. "haydon was, at that period, a remarkable person to look at and listen to. perhaps your american word _bright_ expresses better than any other his appearance and manner. his figure, short, slight, elastic, and vigorous, looked still more light and youthful from the little sailor's-jacket and snowy trousers which formed his painting costume. his complexion was clear and healthful. his forehead, broad and high, out of all proportion to the lower part of his face, gave an unmistakable character of intellect to the finely placed head. indeed, he liked to observe that the gods of the greek sculptors owed much of their elevation to being similarly out of drawing! the lower features were terse, succinct, and powerful,--from the bold, decided jaw, to the large, firm, ugly, good-humored mouth. his very spectacles aided the general expression; they had a look of the man. but how shall i attempt to tell you of his brilliant conversation, of his rapid, energetic manner, of his quick turns of thought, as he flew on from topic to topic, dashing his brush here and there upon the canvas? slow and quiet persons were a good deal startled by this suddenness and mobility. he left such people far behind, mentally and bodily. but his talk was so rich and varied, so earnest and glowing, his anecdotes so racy, his perception of character so shrewd, and the whole tone so spontaneous and natural, that the want of repose was rather recalled afterwards than felt at the time. the alloy to this charm was a slight coarseness of voice and accent, which contrasted somewhat strangely with his constant courtesy and high breeding. perhaps this was characteristic. a defect of some sort pervades his pictures. their great want is equality and congruity,--that perfect union of qualities which we call _taste_. his apartment, especially at that period when he lived in his painting-room, was in itself a study of the most picturesque kind. besides the great picture itself, for which there seemed hardly space between the walls, it was crowded with casts, lay figures, arms, tripods, vases, draperies, and costumes of all ages, weapons of all nations, books in all tongues. these cumbered the floor; whilst around hung smaller pictures, sketches, and drawings, replete with originality and force. with chalk he could do what he chose. i remember he once drew for me a head of hair with nine of his sweeping, vigorous strokes! among the studies i remarked that day in his apartment was one of a mother who had just lost her only child,--a most masterly rendering of an unspeakable grief. a sonnet, which i could not help writing on this sketch, gave rise to our long correspondence, and to a friendship which never flagged. everybody feels that his life, as told by mr. taylor, with its terrible catastrophe, is a stern lesson to young artists, an awful warning that cannot be set aside. let us not forget that amongst his many faults are qualities which hold out a bright example. his devotion to his noble art, his conscientious pursuit of every study connected with it, his unwearied industry, his love of beauty and of excellence, his warm family affection, his patriotism, his courage, and his piety, will not easily be surpassed. thinking of them, let us speak tenderly of the ardent spirit whose violence would have been softened by better fortune, and who, if more successful, would have been more gentle and more humble." and so with her vigilant and appreciative eye she saw, and thus in her own charming way she talked of, the man whose name, says taylor, as a popularizer of art, stands without a rival among his brethren. she loathed mere dandies, and there were no epithets too hot for her contempts in that direction. old beaux she heartily despised, and, speaking of one whom she had known, i remember she quoted with a fine scorn this appropriate passage from dickens: "ancient, dandified men, those crippled _invalides_ from the campaign of vanity, where the only powder was hair-powder, and the only bullets fancy balls." there was no half-way with her, and she never could have said with m---- s----, when a certain visitor left the room one day after a call, "if we did not _love_ our dear friend mr. ---- so much, shouldn't we hate him tremendously!" her neighbor, john ruskin, she thought as eloquent a prose-writer as jeremy taylor, and i have heard her go on in her fine way, giving preferences to certain modern poems far above the works of the great masters of song. pascal says that "the heart has reasons that reason does not know"; and miss mitford was a charming exemplification of this wise saying. her dogs and her geraniums were her great glories. she used to write me long letters about fanchon, a dog whose personal acquaintance i had made some time before, while on a visit to her cottage. every virtue under heaven she attributed to that canine individual; and i was obliged to allow in my return letters, that, since our planet began to spin, nothing comparable to fanchon had ever run on four legs. i had also known flush, the ancestor of fanchon, intimately, and had been accustomed to hear wonderful things of that dog; but fanchon had graces and genius unique. miss mitford would have joined with hamerton in his gratitude for canine companionship, when he says, "i humbly thank divine providence for having invented dogs, and i regard that man with wondering pity who can lead a dogless life." her fondness for rural life, one may well imagine, was almost unparalleled. i have often been with her among the wooded lanes of her pretty country, listening for the nightingales, and on such occasions she would discourse so eloquently of the sights and sounds about us, that her talk seemed to me "far above singing." she had fallen in love with nature when a little child, and had studied the landscape till she knew familiarly every flower and leaf which grows on english soil. she delighted in rural vagabonds of every sort, especially in gypsies; and as they flourished in her part of the country, she knew all their ways, and had charming stories to tell of their pranks and thievings. she called them "the commoners of nature"; and once i remember she pointed out to me on the road a villanous-looking youth on whom she smiled as we passed, as if he had been virtue itself in footpad disguise. she knew all the literature of rural life, and her memory was stored with delightful eulogies of forests and meadows. when she repeated or read aloud the poetry she loved, her accents were "like flowers' voices, if they could but speak." she _understood_ how to enjoy rural occupations and rural existence, and she had no patience with her friend charles lamb, who preferred the town. walter savage landor addressed these lines to her a few months before she died, and they seem to me very perfect and lovely in their application:-- "the hay is carried; and the hours snatch, as they pass, the linden flow'rs; and children leap to pluck a spray bent earthward, and then run away. park-keeper! catch me those grave thieves about whose frocks the fragrant leaves, sticking and fluttering here and there, no false nor faltering witness bear. "i never view such scenes as these in grassy meadow girt with trees, but comes a thought of her who now sits with serenely patient brow amid deep sufferings: none hath told more pleasant tales to young and old. fondest was she of father thames, but rambled to hellenic streams; nor even there could any tell the country's purer charms so well as mary mitford. verse! go forth and breathe o'er gentle breasts her worth. needless the task ... but should she see one hearty wish from you and me, a moment's pain it may assuage,-- a rose-leaf on the couch of age." and harriet martineau pays her respects to my friend in this wise: "miss mitford's descriptions of scenery, brutes, and human beings have such singular merit, that she may be regarded as the founder of a new style; and if the freshness wore off with time, there was much more than a compensation in the fine spirit of resignation and cheerfulness which breathed through everything she wrote, and endeared her as a suffering friend to thousands who formerly regarded her only as a most entertaining stranger." what lovely drives about england i have enjoyed with miss mitford as my companion and guide! we used to arrange with her trusty sam for a day now and then in the open air. he would have everything in readiness at the appointed hour, and be at his post with that careful, kind-hearted little maid, the "hemmer of flounces," all prepared to give the old lady a fair start on her day's expedition. both those excellent servants delighted to make their mistress happy, and she greatly rejoiced in their devotion and care. perhaps we had made our plans to visit upton court, a charming old house where pope's arabella fermor had passed many years of her married life. on the way thither we would talk over "the rape of the lock" and the heroine, belinda, who was no other than arabella herself. arriving on the lawn in front of the decaying mansion, we would stop in the shade of a gigantic oak, and gossip about the times of queen elizabeth, for it was then the old house was built, no doubt. once i remember miss mitford carried me on a pilgrimage to a grand old village church with a tower half covered with ivy. we came to it through laurel hedges, and passed on the way a magnificent cedar of lebanon. it was a superb pile, rich in painted glass windows and carved oak ornaments. here miss mitford ordered the man to stop, and, turning to me with great enthusiasm, said, "this is shiplake church, where alfred tennyson was married!" then we rode on a little farther, and she called my attention to some of the finest wych-elms i had ever seen. another day we drove along the valley of the loddon, and she pointed out the duke of wellington's seat of strathfieldsaye. as our pony trotted leisurely over the charming road, she told many amusing stories of the duke's economical habits, and she rated him soundly for his money-saving propensities. the furniture in the house she said was a disgrace to the great man, and she described a certain old carpet that had done service so many years in the establishment that no one could tell what the original colors were. but the mansion most dear to her in that neighborhood was the residence of her kind friends the russells of swallowfield park. it is indeed a beautiful old place, full of historical and literary associations, for there lord clarendon wrote his story of the great rebellion. miss mitford never ceased to be thankful that her declining years were passing in the society of such neighbors as the russells. if she were unusually ill, they were the first to know of it and come at once to her aid. little attentions, so grateful to old age, they were always on the alert to offer; and she frequently told me that their affectionate kindness had helped her over the dark places of life more than once, where without their succor she must have dropped by the way. as a letter-writer, miss mitford has rarely been surpassed. her "life, as told by herself in letters to her friends," is admirably done in every particular. few letters in the english language are superior to hers, and i think they, will come to be regarded as among the choicest specimens of epistolary literature. when her friend, the rev. william harness, was about to collect from miss mitford's correspondents, for publication, the letters she had written to them, he applied to me among others. i was obliged to withhold the correspondence for a reason that existed then; but i am no longer restrained from printing it now. miss mitford's first letter to me was written in , and her last one came only a few weeks before she died, in . i am inclined to think that her correspondence, so full of point in allusions, so full of anecdote and recollections, will be considered among her finest writings. her criticisms, not always the wisest, were always piquant and readable. she had such a charming humor, and her style was so delightful, that her friendly notes had a relish about them quite their own. in reading some of them here collected one will see that she overrated my little services as she did those of many of her personal friends. i shall have hard work to place the dates properly, for the good lady rarely took the trouble to put either month or year at the head of her paper. she began her correspondence with me before i left england after making her acquaintance, and, true to the instincts of her kind heart, the object of her first letter was to press upon my notice the poems of a young friend of hers, and she was constantly saying good words for unfledged authors who were struggling forward to gain recognition. no one ever lent such a helping hand as she did to the young writers of her country. the recognition which america, very early in the career of miss mitford, awarded her, she never forgot, and she used to say, "it takes ten years to make a literary reputation in england, but america is wiser and bolder, and dares say at once, 'this is fine.'" sweetness of temper and brightness of mind, her never-failing characteristics, accompanied her to the last; and she passed on in her usual cheerful and affectionate mood, her sympathies uncontracted by age, narrow fortune, and pain. a plain substantial cross marks the spot in the old churchyard at swallowfield, where, according to her own wish, mary mitford lies sleeping. it is proposed to erect a memorial in the old parish church to her memory, and her admirers in england have determined, if a sufficient sum can be raised, to build what shall be known as "the mitford aisle," to afford accommodation for the poor people who are not able to pay for seats. several of miss mitford's american friends will join in this beautiful object, and a tablet will be put up in the old church commemorating the fact that england and america united in the tribute. letters, - . three-mile cross, december , . dear mr. fields: my silence has been caused by severe illness. for more than a twelvemonth my health has been so impaired as to leave me a very poor creature, almost incapable of any exertion at all times, and frequently suffering severe pain besides. so that i have to entreat the friends who are good enough to care for me never to be displeased if a long time elapses between my letters. my correspondents being so numerous, and i myself so utterly alone, without any one even to fold or seal a letter, that the very physical part of the task sometimes becomes more fatiguing than i can bear. i am not, generally speaking, confined to my room, or even to the house; but the loss of power is so great that after the short drive or shorter walk which my very skilful medical adviser orders, i am too often compelled to retire immediately to bed, and i have not once been well enough to go out of an evening during the year . before its expiration i shall have completed my sixty-first year; but it is not age that has so prostrated me, but the hard work and increasing anxiety of thirty years of authorship, during which my poor labors were all that my dear father and mother had to look to, besides which for the greater part of that time i was constantly called upon to attend to the sick-bed, first of one aged parent and then of another. few women could stand this, and i have only to be intensely thankful that the power of exertion did not fail until the necessity of such exertion was removed. now my poor life is (beyond mere friendly feeling) of value to no one. i have, too, many alleviations,--in the general kindness of the neighborhood, the particular goodness of many admirable friends, the affectionate attention of a most attached and intelligent old servant, and above all in my continued interest in books and delight in reading. i love poetry and people as well at sixty as i did at sixteen, and can never be sufficiently grateful to god for having permitted me to retain the two joy-giving faculties of admiration and sympathy, by which we are enabled to escape from the consciousness of our own infirmities into the great works of all ages and the joys and sorrows of our immediate friends. among the books which i have been reading with the greatest interest is the life of dr. channing, and i can hardly tell you the glow of gratification with which i found my own name mentioned, as one of the writers in whose works that great man had taken pleasure. the approbation of dr. channing is something worth toiling for. i know no individual suffrage that could have given me more delight. besides this selfish pleasure and the intense interest with which i followed that admirable thinker through the whole course of his pure and blameless life, i have derived another and a different satisfaction from that work,--i mean from its reception in england. i know nothing that shows a greater improvement in liberality in the least liberal part of the english public, a greater sweeping away of prejudice whether national or sectarian, than the manner in which even the high church and tory party have spoken of dr. channing. they really seem to cast aside their usual intolerance in his case, and to look upon a unitarian with feelings of christian fellowship. god grant that this spirit may continue! is american literature rich in native biography? just have the goodness to mention to me any lives of americans, whether illustrious or not, that are graphic, minute, and outspoken. i delight in french memoirs and english lives, especially such as are either autobiography or made out by diaries and letters; and america, a young country with manners as picturesque and unhackneyed as the scenery, ought to be full of such works. we have had two volumes lately that will interest your countrymen: mr. milnes's life of john keats, that wonderful youth whose early death was, i think, the greatest loss that english poetry ever experienced. some of the letters are very striking as developments on character, and the richness of diction in the poetical fragments is exquisite. mrs. browning is still at florence with her husband. she sees more americans than english. books here are sadly depreciated. mr. dyce's admirable edition of beaumont and fletcher, brought out two years ago at £ _s._ is now offered at £ _s._ adieu, dear mr. fields; forgive my seeming neglect, and believe me always most faithfully yours, m.r. mitford. (no date, .) dear mr. fields: i cannot tell you how vexed i am at this mistake about letters, which must have made you think me careless of your correspondence and ungrateful for your kindness. the same thing has happened to me before, i may say often, with american letters,--with professor norton, mrs. sigourney, the sedgwicks,--in short i always feel an insecurity in writing to america which i never experience in corresponding with friends on the continent; france, germany, italy, even poland and russia, are comparatively certain. whether it be the agents in london who lose letters, or some fault in the post-office, i cannot tell, but i have twenty times experienced the vexation, and it casts a certain discouragement over one's communications. however, i hope that this letter will reach you, and that you will be assured that the fault does not lie at my door. during the last year or two my health has been declining much, and i am just now thinking of taking a journey to paris. my friend, henry chorley of the athenaeum, the first musical critic of europe, is going thither next month to assist at the production of meyerbeer's prophète at the french opera, and another friend will accompany me and my little maid to take care of us; so that i have just hopes that the excursion, erenow much facilitated by railways, may do me good. i have always been a great admirer of the great emperor, and to see the heir of napoleon at the elysée seems to me a real piece of poetical justice. i know many of his friends in england, who all speak of him most highly; one of them says, "he is the very impersonation of calm and simple honesty." i hope the nation will be true to him, but, as mirabeau says, "there are no such words as 'jamais' or 'toujours' with the french public." th of june, . i have been waiting to answer your most kind and interesting letter, dear mr. fields, until i could announce to you a publication that mr. colburn has been meditating and pressing me for, but which, chiefly i believe from my own fault in not going to town, and not liking to give him or mr. shoberl the trouble of coming here, is now probably adjourned to the autumn. the fact is that i have been and still am very poorly. we are stricken in our vanities, and the only things that i recollect having ever been immoderately proud of--my garden and my personal activity--have both now turned into causes of shame and pity; the garden, declining from one bad gardener to worse, has become a ploughed field,--and i myself, from a severe attack of rheumatism, and since then a terrible fright in a pony-chaise, am now little better than a cripple. however, if there be punishment here below, there are likewise consolations,--everybody is kind to me; i retain the vivid love of reading, which is one of the highest pleasures of life; and very interesting persons come to see me sometimes, from both sides of the water,--witness, dear mr. fields, our present correspondence. one such person arrived yesterday in the shape of doctor ----, who has been working musical miracles in scotland, (think of making singing teachers of children of four or five years of age!) and is now on his way to paris, where, having been during seven years one of the editors of the national, he will find most of his colleagues of the newspaper filling the highest posts in the government. what is the american opinion of that great experiment; or, rather, what is yours? i wish it success from the bottom of my heart, but i am a, little afraid, from their total want of political economy (we have not a school-girl so ignorant of the commonest principles of demand and supply as the whole of the countrymen of turgot from the executive government downwards), and from a certain warlike tendency which seems to me to pierce through all their declarations of peace. we hear the flourish of trumpets through all the fine phrases of the orators, and indeed it is difficult to imagine what they will do with their _soi-disant ouvriers_,--workmen who have lost the habit of labor,--unless they make soldiers of them. in the mean time some friends of mine are about to accompany your countryman mr. elihu burritt as a deputation, and doubtless m. de lamartine will give them as eloquent an answer as heart can desire,--no doubt he will keep peace if he can,--but the government have certainly not hitherto shown firmness or vigor enough to make one rely upon them, if the question becomes pressing and personal. in italy matters seem to be very promising. we have here one of the silvio pellico exiles,--count carpinetta,--whose story is quite a romance. he is just returned from turin, where he was received with enthusiasm, might have been returned as deputy for two places, and did recover some of his property, confiscated years ago by the austrians. it does one's heart good to see a piece of poetical justice transferred to real life. _apropos_ of public events, all london is talking of the prediction of an old theological writer of the name of fleming, who in or about the year prophesied a revolution in france in (only one year wrong), and the fall of papacy in at all events. ever yours, m.r.m. (no date, ) dear mr. fields: i must have seemed very ungrateful in being so long silent. but your magnificent present of books, beautiful in every sense of the word, has come dropping in volume by volume, and only arrived complete (mr. longfellow's striking book being the last) about a fortnight ago, and then it found me keeping my room, as i am still doing, with a tremendous attack of neuralgia on the left side of the face. i am getting better now by dint of blisters and tonic medicine; but i can answer for that disease well deserving its bad eminence of "painful." it is however, blessed be god! more manageable than it used to be; and my medical friend, a man of singular skill, promises me a cure. i have seen things of longfellow's as fine as anything in campbell or coleridge or tennyson or hood. after all, our great lyrical poets are great only for half a volume. look at gray and collins, at your own edition of the man whom one song immortalized, at gerald griffin, whom you perhaps do not know, and at wordsworth, who, greatest of the great for about a hundred pages, is drowned in the flood of his own wordiness in his longer works. to be sure, there are giants who are rich to overflowing through a whole shelf of books,--shakespeare, the mutual ancestor of englishmen and americans, above all,--and i think the much that they did, and did well, will be the great hold on posterity of scott and of byron. have you happened to see bulwer's king arthur? it astonished me very much. i had a full persuasion that, with great merit in a certain way, he would never be a poet. indeed, he is beginning poetry just at the age when scott, southey, and a host of others, left it off. but he is a strange person, full of the powerful quality called _will_, and has produced a work which, although it is not at all in the fashionable vein and has made little noise, has yet extraordinary merit. when i say that it is more like ariosto than any other english poem that i know, i certainly give it no mean praise. everybody is impatient for mr. george ticknor's work. the subject seems to me full of interest. lord holland made a charming book of lope de vega years ago, and mr. ticknor, with equal qualifications and a much wider field, will hardly fail of delighting england and america. will you remember me to him most gratefully and respectfully? he is a man whom no one can forget. as to mr. prescott, i know no author now, except perhaps mr. macaulay, whose works command so much attention and give so much delight. i am ashamed to send you so little news, but i live in the country and see few people. the day i caught my terrible tic i spent with the great capitalist, mr. goldsmidt, and mr. cobden and his pretty wife. he is a very different person from what one expects,--graceful, tasteful, playful, simple, and refined, and looking absolutely young. i suspect that much of his power springs from his genial character. i heard last week from mrs. browning; she and her husband are at the baths of lucca. mr. kenyon's graceful book is out, and i must not forget to tell you that "our village" has been printed by mr. bohn in two volumes, which include the whole five. it is beautifully got up and very cheap, that is to say, for _s._ _d._ a volume. did mr. whittier send his works, or do i owe them wholly to your kindness? if he sent them, i will write by the first opportunity. say everything for me to your young friend, and believe me ever, dear mr. f---- most faithfully and gratefully yours, m.r.m. . (no date.) i have to thank you very earnestly, dear mr. fields, for two very interesting books. the "leaves from margaret smith's journal" are, i suppose, a sort of lady willoughby's diary, so well executed that they read like one of the imitations of defoe,--his "memoirs of a cavalier," for instance, which always seemed to me quite as true as if they had been actually written seventy years before. thank you over and over again for these admirable books and for your great kindness and attention. what a perfectly american name peabody is! and how strange it is that there should be in the united states so many persons of english descent whose names have entirely disappeared from the land of their fathers. did you get my last unworthy letter? i hope you did. it would at all events show that there was on my part no intentional neglect, that i certainly had written in reply to the last letter that i received, although doubtless a letter had been lost on one side or the other. i live so entirely in the quiet country that i have little to tell you that can be interesting. two things indeed, not generally known, i may mention: that stanfield hall, the scene of the horrible murder of which you have doubtless read, was the actual birthplace of amy robsart,--of whose tragic end, by the way, there is at last an authentic account, both in the new edition of pepys and the first volume of the "romance of the peerage"; and that a friend of mine saw the other day in the window of a london bookseller a copy of hume, ticketed "an excellent introduction to macaulay." the great man was much amused at this practical compliment, as well he might be. i have been reading the autobiographies of lamartine and chateaubriand, as well as raphael, which, although not avowed, is of course and most certainly a continuation of "les confiances." what strange beings these frenchmen are! here is m. de lamartine at sixty, poet, orator, historian, and statesman, writing the stories of two ladies--one of them married--who died for love of him! think if mr. macaulay should announce himself as a lady-killer, and put the details not merely into a book, but into a feuilleton! the brownings are living quite quietly at florence, seeing, i suspect, more americans than english. mrs. trollope has lost her only remaining daughter; arrived in england only time enough to see her die. adieu, dear mr. fields; say everything for me to mr. and mrs. ticknor, and mr. and mrs. norton. how much i should like to see you! ever faithfully yours, m.r.m. (february, .) you will have thought me either dead or dying, my dear mr. fields, for ungrateful i hope you could not think me to such a friend as yourself, but in truth i have been in too much trouble and anxiety to write. this is the story: i live alone, and my servants become, as they are in france, and ought, i think, always to be, really and truly part of my family. a most sensible young woman, my own maid, who waits upon me and walks out with me, (we have another to do the drudgery of our cottage,) has a little fatherless boy who is the pet of the house. i wonder whether you saw him during the glimpse we had of you! he is a fair-haired child of six years old, singularly quick in intellect, and as bright in mind and heart and temper as a fountain in the sun. he is at school in reading, and, the small-pox raging there like a pestilence, they sent him home to us to be out of the way. the very next week my man-servant was seized with it, after vaccination of course. our medical friend advised me to send him away, but that was, in my view of things, out of the question; so we did the best we could,--my own maid, who is a perfect sister of charity in all cases of illness, sitting up with him for seven nights following, for one or two were requisite during the delirium, and we could not get a nurse for love or money, and when he became better, then, as we had dreaded, our poor little boy was struck down. however, it has pleased god to spare him, and, after a long struggle, he is safe from the disorder and almost restored to his former health. but we are still under a sort of quarantine, for, although people pretend to believe in vaccination, they avoid the house as if the plague were in it, and stop their carriages at the end of the village and send inquiries and cards, and in my mind they are right. to say nothing of reading, there have been above thirty severe cases, after vaccination, in our immediate neighborhood, five of them fatal. i had been inoculated after the old style, my maid had had the small-pox the natural way and the only one who escaped was a young girl who had been vaccinated three times, the last two years ago. forgive this long story; it was necessary to excuse my most unthankful silence, and may serve as an illustration of the way a disease, supposed to be all but exterminated, is making head again in england. thank you a thousand and a thousand times for your most delightful books. mr. whipple's lectures are magnificent, and your own boston book could not, i think, be beaten by a london book, certainly not approached by the collected works of any other british city,--edinburgh, for example. mr. bennett is most grateful for your kindness, and mrs. browning will be no less enchanted at the honor done her husband. it is most creditable to america that they think more of our thoughtful poets than the english do themselves. two female friends of mine--mrs. acton tindal, a young beauty as well as a woman of genius, and a miss julia day, whom i have never seen, but whose verses show extraordinary purity of thought, feeling, and expression--have been putting forth books. julia day's second series she has done me the honor to inscribe to me, notwithstanding which i venture to say how very much i admire it, and so i think would you. henry chorley is going to be a happy man. all his life long he has been dying to have a play acted, and now he has one coming out at the surrey theatre, over blackfriars bridge. he lives much among fine people, and likes the notion of a faubourg audience. perhaps he is right. i am not at all afraid of the play, which is very beautiful,--a blank-verse comedy full of truth and feeling. i don't know if you know henry chorley. he is the friend of robert browning, and the especial favorite of john kenyon, and has always been a sort of adopted nephew of mine. poor mrs. hemans loved him well; so did a very different person, lady blessington,--so that altogether you may fancy him a very likeable person; but he is much more,--generous, unselfish, loyal, and as true as steel, worth all his writings a thousand times over. if my house be in such condition as to allow of my getting to london to see "old love and new fortune," i shall consult with mr. lucas about the time of sitting to him for a portrait, as i have promised to do; for, although there be several extant, not one is passably like. john lucas is a man of so much taste that he will make a real old woman's picture of it, just with my every-day look and dress. will you make my most grateful thanks to mr. whipple, and also to the author of "greenwood leaves," which i read with great pleasure, and say all that is kindest and most respectful for me to mr. and mrs. george ticknor. i shall indeed expect great delight from his book. ever, dear mr. fields, most gratefully yours, m.r.m. we have had a mr. richmond here, lecturing and so forth. do you know him? i can fancy what mr. webster would be on the hungarian question. to hear mr. cobden talk of it was like the sound of a trumpet. three-mile cross, november , . i have been waiting day after day, dear mr. fields, to send you two books,--one new, the other old,--one by my friend, mr. bennett; the other a volume [her dramatic poems] long out of print in england, and never, i think, known in america. i had great difficulty in procuring the shabby copy which i send you, but i think you will like it because it is mine, and comes to you from friend to friend, and because there is more of myself, that is, of my own inner feelings and fancies, than one ever ventures to put into prose. mr. bennett's volume, which is from himself as well as from me, i am sure you will like; most thoroughly would like each other if ever you met. he has the poet's heart and the poet's mind, large, truthful, generous, and full of true refinement, delightful as a companion, and invaluable as a man. after eight years' absolute cessation of composition, henry chorley, of the athenaeum, coaxed me last summer into writing for a lady's journal, which he was editing for messrs. bradbury and evans, certain readings of poetry, old and new, which will, i suppose, form two or three separate volumes when collected, buried as they now are amongst all the trash and crochet-work and millinery. they will be quite as good as ms., and, indeed, every paper will be enlarged and above as many again added. one pleasure will be the doing what justice i can to certain american poets,--mr. whittier, for instance, whose "massachusetts to virginia" is amongst the finest things ever written. i gave one copy to a most intelligent quaker lady, and have another in the house at this moment for mrs. walter, widow and mother of the two john walters, father and son, so well known as proprietors of the times. i shall cause my book to be immediately forwarded to you, but i don't think it will be ready for a twelvemonth. there is a good deal in it of my own prose, and it takes a wider range than usual of poetry, including much that has never appeared in any of the specimen books. of course, dear friend, this is strictly between you and me, because it would greatly damage the work to have the few fragments that have appeared as yet brought forward without revision and completion in their present detached and crude form. this england of ours is all alight and aflame with protestant indignation against popery; the church of england being likely to rekindle the fires of , by way of vindicating the right of private judgment. i, who hold perfect freedom of thought and of conscience the most precious of all possessions, have of course my own hatred to these things. cardinal wiseman has taken advantage of the attack to put forth one of the most brilliant appeals that has appeared in my time; of course you will see it in america. professor longfellow has won a station in england such as no american poet ever held before, and assuredly he deserves it. except beranger and tennyson, i do not know any living man who has written things so beautiful. i think i like his nuremburg best of all. mr. ticknor's great work, too, has won golden opinions, especially from those whose applause is fame; and i foresee that day by day our literature will become more mingled with rich, bright novelties from america, not reflections of european brightness, but gems all colored with your own skies and woods and waters. lord carlisle, the most accomplished of our ministers and the most amiable of our nobles, is giving this very week to the leeds mechanics' institute a lecture on his travels in the united states, and another on the poetry of pope. may i ask you to transmit the accompanying letter to mrs. h----? she has sent to me for titles and dates, and fifty things in which i can give her little help; but what i do know about my works i have sent her. only, as, except that i believe her to live in philadelphia, i really am as ignorant of her address as i am of the year which brought forth the first volume of "our village," i am compelled to go to you for help in forwarding my reply. ever, my dear mr. fields, most gratefully and faithfully yours, m.r. mitford. is not louis napoleon the most graceful of our european chiefs? i have always had a weakness for the emperor, and am delighted to find the heir of his name turning out so well. . february , i cannot tell you, my dear mr. fields, how much i thank you for your most kind letter and parcel, which, after sending three or four emissaries all over london to seek, (mr. ---- having ignored the matter to my first messenger,) was at last sent to me by the great western railway,--i suspect by the aforesaid mr. ----, because, although the name of the london bookseller was dashed out, a _long-tailed_ letter was left just where the "p" would come in ----, and as neither bonn's nor whittaker's name boasts such a grace, i suspect that, in spite of his assurance, the packet was in the strand, and neither in ave maria lane nor in henrietta street, to both houses i sent. thank you a thousand times for all your kindness. the orations are very striking. but i was delighted with dr. holmes's poems for their individuality. how charming a person he must be! and how truly the portrait represents the mind, the lofty brow full of thought, and the wrinkle of humor in the eye! (between ourselves, i always have a little doubt of genius where there is no humor; certainly in the very highest poetry the two go together,--scott, shakespeare, fletcher, burns.) another charming thing in dr. holmes is, that every succeeding poem is better than the last. is he a widower, or a bachelor, or a married man? at all events, he is a true poet, and i like him all the better for being a physician,--the one truly noble profession. there are noble men in all professions, but in medicine only are the great mass, almost the whole, generous, liberal, self-denying, living to advance science and to help mankind. if i had been a man i should certainly have followed that profession. i rejoice to hear of another romance by the author of "the scarlet letter." that is a real work of genius. have you seen "alton locke"? no novel has made so much noise for a long time; but it is, like "the saint's tragedy," inconclusive. between ourselves, i suspect that the latter part was written with the fear of the bishop before his eyes (the author, mr. kingsley, is a clergyman of the church of england), which makes the one volume almost a contradiction of the others. mrs. browning is still at florence, where she sees scarcely any english, a few italians, and many americans. ever most gratefully yours. m.r.m. (no date.) dear mr. fields: i sent you a packet last week, but i have just received your two charming books, and i cannot suffer a post to pass without thanking you for them. mr. whittier's volume is quite what might have been expected from the greatest of quaker writers, the worthy compeer of longfellow, and will give me other extracts to go with "from massachusetts to virginia" and "cassandra southwick" in my own book, where one of my pleasures will be trying to do justice to american poetry, and dr. holmes's fine "astraea." we have nothing like that nowadays in england. nobody writes now in the glorious resonant metre of dryden, and very few ever did write as dr. holmes does. i see there is another volume of his poetry, but the name was new to me. how much i owe to you, my dear mr. fields! that great romance, "the scarlet letter," and these fine poets,--for true poetry, not at all imitative, is rare in england, common as elegant imitative verse may be,--and that charming edition of robert browning. shall you republish his wife's new edition? i cannot tell you how much i thank you. i read an extract from the times, containing a report of lord carlisle's lecture on america, chiefly because he and dr. holmes say the same thing touching the slavish regard to opinion which prevails in america. lord carlisle is by many degrees the most accomplished of our nobles. another accomplished and cultivated nobleman, a friend of my own, we have just lost,--lord nugent,--liberal, too, against the views of his family. you must make my earnest and very sincere congratulations to your friend. in publishing gray, he shows the refinement of taste to be expected in your companion. i went over all his haunts two years ago, and have commemorated them in the book you will see by and by,--the book that is to be,--and there i have put on record the bride-cake, and the finding by you on my table your own edition of motherwell. you are not angry, are you? if your father and mother in law ever come again to england, i shall rejoice to see them, and shall be sure to do so, if they will drop me a line. god bless you, dear mr. fields. ever faithfully and gratefully yours, m.r.m. three-mile cross, july , . you will have thought me most ungrateful, dear mr. fields, in being so long your debtor for a most kind and charming letter; but first i waited for the "house of the seven gables," and then when it arrived, only a week ago; i waited to read it a second time. at sixty-four life gets too short to allow us to read every book once and again; but it is not so with mr. hawthorne's. the first time one sketches them (to borrow dr. holmes's excellent word), and cannot put them down for the vivid interest; the next, one lingers over the beauty with a calmer enjoyment. very beautiful this book is! i thank you for it again and again. the legendary part is all the better for being vague and dim and shadowy, all pervading, yet never tangible; and the living people have a charm about them which is as lifelike and real as the legendary folks are ghostly and remote. phoebe, for instance, is a creation which, not to speak it profanely, is almost shakespearian. i know no modern heroine to compare with her, except it be eugene sue's rigolette, who shines forth amidst the iniquities of "les mystères de paris" like some rich, bright, fresh cottage rose thrown by evil chance upon a dunghill. tell me, please, about mr. hawthorne, as you were so good as to do about that charming person, dr. holmes. is he young? i think he is, and i hope so for the sake of books to come. and is he of any profession? does he depend altogether upon literature, as too many writers do here? at all events, he is one of the glories of your most glorious part of great america. tell me, too, what is become of mr. cooper, that other great novelist? i think i heard from you, or from some other transatlantic friend, that he was less genial and less beloved than so many other of your notabilities have been. indeed, one sees that in many of his recent works; but i have been reading many of his earlier books again, with ever-increased admiration, especially i should say "the pioneers"; and one cannot help hoping that the mind that has given so much pleasure to so many readers will adjust itself so as to admit of its own happiness,--for very clearly the discomfort was his own fault, and he is too clever a person for one not to wish him well. i think that the most distinguished of our own _young_ writers are, the one a dear friend of mine, john ruskin; the other, one who will shortly be so near a neighbor that we must know each other. it is quite wonderful that we don't now, for we are only twelve miles apart, and have scores of friends in common. this last is the rev. charles kingsley, author of "alton locke" and "yeast" and "the saint's tragedy." all these books are full of world-wide truths, and yet, taken as a whole, they are unsatisfactory and inconclusive, knocking down without building up. perhaps that is the fault of the social system that he lays bare, perhaps of the organization of the man, perhaps a little of both. you will have heard probably that he, with other benevolent persons, established a sort of socialist community (christian socialism) for journeymen tailors, he himself being their chaplain. the evil was very great, for of twenty-one thousand of that class in london, fifteen thousand were ill-paid and only half-employed. for a while, that is, as long as the subscription lasted, all went well; but i fear this week that the money has come to an end, and so very likely will the experiment. have you republished "alton locke" in america? it has one character, an old scotchman, equal to anything in scott. the writer is still quite a young man, but out of health. i have heard (but this is between ourselves) that ----'s brain is suffering,--the terrible malady by which so many of our great mental laborers (scott and southey, above all) have fallen. dr. buckland is now dying of it. i am afraid ---- may be so lost to the world and his friends, not merely because his health is going, but because certain peculiarities have come to my knowledge which look like it. a brother clergyman saw him the other day, upon a common near his own house, spouting, singing, and reciting verse at the top of his voice at one o'clock in the morning. upon inquiring what was the matter, the poet said that he never went to bed till two or three o'clock, and frequently went out in that way to exercise his lungs. my informant, an orderly person of a very different stamp, set him down for mad at once; but he is much beloved among his parishioners, and if the escapade above mentioned do not indicate disease of the brain, i can only say it would be good for the country if we had more madmen of the same sort. as to john ruskin, i would not answer for quiet people not taking him for crazy too. he is an enthusiast in art, often right, often wrong,--"in the right very stark, in the wrong very sturdy,"--bigoted, perverse, provoking, as ever man was; but good and kind and charming beyond the common lot of mortals. there are some pages of his prose that seem to me more eloquent than anything out of jeremy taylor, and i should think a selection of his works would answer to reprint. their sale here is something wonderful, considering their dearness, in this age of cheap literature, and the want of attraction in the subject, although the illustrations of the "stones of venice," executed by himself from his own drawings, are almost as exquisite as the writings. by the way, he does not say what i heard the other day from another friend, just returned from the city of the sea, that taglioni has purchased four of the finest palaces, and is restoring them with great taste, by way of investment, intending to let them to russian and english noblemen. she was a very graceful dancer once, was taglioni; but still it rather depoetizes the place, which of all others was richest in associations. mrs. browning has got as near to england as paris, and holds out enough of hope of coming to london to keep me from visiting it until i know her decision. i have not seen the great exhibition, and, unless she arrives, most probably shall not see it. my lameness, which has now lasted five months, is the reason i give to myself for not going, chairs being only admitted for an hour or two on saturday mornings. but i suspect that my curiosity has hardly reached the fever-heat needful to encounter the crowd and the fatigue. it is amusing to find how people are cooling down about it. we always were a nation of idolaters, and always had the trick of avenging ourselves upon our poor idols for the sin of our own idolatry. many an overrated, and then underrated, poet can bear witness to this. i remember when my friend mr. milnes was called _the_ poet, although scott and byron were in their glory, and wordsworth had written all of his works that will live. we make gods of wood and stone, and then we knock them to pieces; and so figuratively, if not literally, shall we do by the exhibition. next month i am going to move to a cottage at swallowfield,--so called, i suppose, because those migratory birds meet by millions every autumn in the park there, now belonging to some friends of mine, and still famous as the place where lord clarendon wrote his history. that place is still almost a palace; mine an humble but very prettily placed cottage. o, how proud and glad i should be, if ever i could receive mr. and mrs. fields within its walls for more than a poor hour! i shall have tired you with this long letter, but you have made me reckon you among my friends,--ay, one of the best and kindest,--and must take the consequence. ever yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, saturday night. i write you two notes at once, my dear friend, whilst the recollection of your conversation is still in my head and the feeling of your kindness warm on my heart. to write, to thank you for a visit which has given me so much pleasure, is an impulse not to be resisted. pray tell mr. and mrs. bennoch how delighted i am to make their acquaintance and how earnestly i hope we may meet often. they are charming people. another motive that i had for writing at once is to tell you that the more i think of the title of the forthcoming book, the less i like it; and i care more for it, now that you are concerned in the matter, than i did before. "personal reminiscences" sounds like a bad title for an autobiography. now this is nothing of the sort. it is literally a book made up of favorite scraps of poetry and prose; the bits of my own writing are partly critical, and partly have been interwoven to please henry chorley and give something of novelty, and as it were individuality, to a mere selection, to take off the dryness and triteness of extracts, and give the pen something to say in the work as well as the scissors. still, it is a book founded on other books, and since it pleased mr. bentley to object to "readings of poetry," because he said nobody in england bought poetry, why "recollections of books," as suggested by mr. bennett, approved by me, and as i believed (till this very day) adopted by mr. bentley, seemed to meet exactly the truth of the case, and to be quite concession enough to the exigencies of the trade. by the other title we exposed ourselves, in my mind, to all manner of danger. i shall write this by this same post to mr. bennett, and get the announcement changed, if possible; for it seems to me a trick of the worst sort. i shall write a list of the subjects, and i only wish that i had duplicates, and i would send you the articles, for i am most uncomfortable at the notion of your being taken in to purchase a book that may, through this misnomer, lose its reputation in england; for of course it will be attacked as an unworthy attempt to make it pass for what it is not.... now if you dislike it, or if mr. bentley keep that odious title, why, give it up at once. don't pray, pray lose money by me. it would grieve me far more than it would you. a good many of these are about books quite forgotten, as the "pleader's guide" (an exquisite pleasantry), "holcroft's memoirs," and "richardson's correspondence." much on darley and the irish poets, unknown in england; and i think myself that the book will contain, as in the last article, much exquisite poetry and curious prose, as in the forgotten murder (of toole, the author's uncle) in the state trials. but it should be called by its right name, as everything should in this world. god bless you! ever faithfully yours, m.r.m. p.s. first will come the preface, then the story of the book (without henry chorley's name; it is to be dedicated to him), noticing the coincidence of "our village" having first appeared in the lady's magazine, and saying something like what i wrote to you last night. i think this will take off the danger of provoking apprehension on one side and disappointment on the other; because after all, although anecdote be not the style of the book, it does contain some. may i put in the story of washington's ghost? without your name, of course; it would be very interesting, and i am ten times more desirous of making the book as good as i can, since i have reason to believe you will be interested in it. pray, forgive me for having worried you last night and now again. i am a terribly nervous person, and hate and dread literary scrapes, or indeed disputes of any sort. but i ought not to have worried you. just tell me if you think this sort of preface will take the sting from the title, for i dare say mr. bentley won't change it. adieu, dear friend. all peace and comfort to you in your journey; amusement you are sure of. i write also to dear mr. bennett, whom i fear i have also worried. ever most faithfully yours, m.r.m. . january . mr. bennoch has just had the very great kindness, dear mr. fields, to let me know of your safe arrival at genoa, and of your enjoyment of your journey. thank god for it! we heard so much about commotions in the south of france that i had become fidgety about you, the rather that it is the best who go, and that i for one cannot afford to lose you. now let me thank you for all your munificence,--that beautiful longfellow with the hundred illustrations, and that other book of professor longfellow's, beautiful in another way, the "golden legend." i hope i shall be only one among the multitude who think this the greatest and best thing he has done yet, so racy, so full of character, of what the french call local color, so, in its best and highest sense, original. moreover, i like the happy ending. then those charming volumes of de quincey and sprague and grace greenwood. (is that her real name?) and dear mr. hawthorne, and the two new poets, who, if also young poets, will be fresh glories for america. how can i thank you enough for all these enjoyments? and you must come back to england, and add to my obligations by giving me as much as you can of your company in the merry month of may. i have fallen in with mr. kingsley, and a most charming person he is, certainly the least like an englishman of letters, and the most like an accomplished, high-toned english gentleman, that i have ever met with. you must know mr. kingsley. he is very young too, really young, for it is characteristic of our "young poets" that they generally turn out middle-aged and very often elderly. my book is out at last, hurried through the press in a fortnight,--a process which half killed me, and has left the volumes, no doubt, full of errata,--and you, i mean your house, have not got it. i am keeping a copy for you personally. people say that they like it. i think you will, because it will remind you of this pretty country, and of an old englishwoman who loves you well. mrs. browning was delighted with your visit. she is a bonapartiste; so am i. i always adored the emperor, and i think his nephew is a great man, full of ability, energy, and courage, who put an end to an untenable situation and got quit of a set of unrepresenting representatives. the times newspaper, right as it seems to me about kossuth, is dangerously wrong about louis napoleon, since it is trying to stimulate the nation to a war for which france is more than prepared, is ready, and england is not. london might be taken with far less trouble and fewer men than it took to accomplish the _coup d'état_. ah! i suspect very different politics will enclose this wee bit notie, if dear mr. bennoch contrives to fold it up in a letter of his own; but to agree to differ is part of the privileges of friendship; besides, i think you and i generally agree. ever yours, m.r.m. p.s. all this time i have not said a word of "the wonder book." thanks again and again. who was the mr. blackstone mentioned in "the scarlet letter" as riding like a myth in new england history, and what his arms? a grandson of judge blackstone, a friend of mine, wishes to know. (march, .) i can never enough thank you, dearest mr. fields, for your kind recollection of me in such a place as the eternal city. but you never forget any whom you make happy in your friendship, for that is the word; and therefore here in europe or across the atlantic, you will always remain.... your anecdote of the ---- is most characteristic. i am very much afraid that he is only a poet, and although i fear the last person in the world to deny that that is much, i think that to be a really great man needs something more. i am sure that you would not have sympathized with wordsworth. i do hope that you will see beranger when in paris. he is the one man in france (always excepting louis napoleon, to whom i confess the interest that all women feel in strength and courage) whom i should earnestly desire to know well. in the first place, i think him by far the greatest of living poets, the one who unites most completely those two rare things, impulse and finish. in the next, i admire his admirable independence and consistency, and his generous feeling for fallen greatness. ah, what a truth he told, when he said that napoleon was the greatest poet of modern days! i should like to have the description of beranger from your lips. mrs. browning ... has made acquaintance with madame sand, of whom her account is most striking and interesting. but george sand is george sand, and beranger is beranger. thank you, dear friend, for your kind interest in my book. it has found far more favor than i expected, and i think, ever since the week after its publication, i have received a dozen of letters daily about it, from friends and strangers,--mostly strangers,--some of very high accomplishments, who will certainly be friends. this is encouragement to write again, and we will have a talk about it when you come. i should like your advice. one thing is certain, that this work has succeeded, and that the people who like it best are precisely those whom one wishes to like it best, the lovers of literature. amongst other things, i have received countless volumes of poetry and prose,--one little volume of poetry written under the name of mary maynard, of the greatest beauty, with the vividness and picturesqueness of the new school, combined with infinite correctness and clearness, that rarest of all merits nowadays. her real name i don't know, she has only thought it right to tell me that mary maynard was not the true appellation (this is between ourselves). her own family know nothing of the publication, which seems to have been suggested by her and my friend, john ruskin. of course, she must have her probation, but i know of no young writer so likely to rival your new american school. i sent your gift-books of hawthorne, yesterday, to the walters of bearwood, who had never heard of them! tell him that i have had the honor of poking him into the den of the times, the only civilized place in england where they were barbarous enough not to be acquainted with "the scarlet letter." i wonder what they'll think of it. it will make them stare. they come to see me, for it is full two months since i have been in the pony-chaise. i was low, if you remember, when you were here, but thought myself getting better, was getting better. about christmas, very damp weather came on, or rather very wet weather, and the damp seized my knee and ankles and brought back such an attack of rheumatism that i cannot stand upright, walk quite double, and am often obliged to be lifted from step to step up stairs. my medical adviser (a very clever man) says that i shall get much better when warm weather comes, but for weeks and weeks we have had east-winds and frost. no violets, no primroses, no token of spring. a little flock of ewes and lambs, with a pretty boy commonly holding a lamb in his arms, who drives his flock to water at the pond opposite my window, is the only thing that gives token of the season. i am quite mortified at this on your account, for april, in general a month of great beauty here, will be as desolate as winter. nevertheless you must come and see me, you and mr. and mrs. bennoch, and perhaps you can continue to stay a day or two, or to come more than once. i want to see as much of you as i can, and i must change much, if i be in any condition to go to london, even upon the only condition on which i ever do go, that is, into lodgings, for i never stay anywhere; and if i were to go, even to one dear and warm-hearted friend, i should affront the very many other friends whose invitations i have refused for so many years. i hope to get at mr. kingsley; but i have seen little of him this winter. we are five miles asunder; his wife has been ill; and my fear of an open carriage, or rather the medical injunction not to enter one, has been a most insuperable objection. we are, as we both said, summer neighbors. however, i will try that you should see him. he is well worth knowing. thank you about mr. blackstone. he is worth knowing too, in a different way, a very learned and very clever man (you will find half dr. arnold's letters addressed to him), as full of crotchets as an egg is full of meat, fond of disputing and contradicting, a clergyman living in the house where mrs. trollope _was raised_, and very kind after his own fashion. one thing that i should especially like would be that you should see your first nightingale amongst our woody lanes. to be sure, these winds can never last till then. mr. ---- is coming here on sunday. he always brings rain or snow, and that will change the weather. you are a person who ought to bring sunshine, and i suppose you do more than metaphorically; for i remember that both times i have had the happiness to see you--a summer day and a winter day--were glorious. heaven bless you, dear friend! may all the pleasure ... return upon your own head! even my little world is charmed at the prospect of seeing you again. if you come to reading by the great western you could return later and make a longer day, and yet be no longer from home. ever faithfully yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, april , . how can i thank you half enough, dearest mr. fields, for all your goodness! to write to me the very day after reaching paris, to think of me so kindly! it is what i never can repay. i write now not to trouble you for another letter, but to remind you that, as soon as possible after your return to england, i hope to see you and mr. and mrs. bennoch here. heaven grant the spring may come to meet you! at present i am writing in an east-wind, which has continued two months and gives no sign of cessation. professor airy says it will continue five weeks longer. not a drop of rain has fallen in all that time. we have frosts every night, the hedges are as bare as at christmas, flowers forget to blow, or if they put forth miserable, infrequent, reluctant blossoms, have no heart, and i have only once heard the nightingale in this place where they abound, and not yet seen a swallow in the spot which takes name from their gatherings. it follows, of course, that the rheumatism, covered by a glut of wet weather, just upon the coming in of the new year, is fifty times increased by the bitter season,--a season which has no parallel in my recollection. i can hardly sit down when standing, or rise from my chair without assistance, walk quite double, and am lifted up stairs step by step by my man-servant. i thought, two years ago, i could walk fifteen or sixteen miles a day! o, i was too proud of my activity! i am sure we are smitten in our vanities. however, you will bring the summer, which is, they say, to do me good; and even if that should fail, it will do me some good to see you, that is quite certain. thank you for telling me about the galignani, and about the kind american reception of my book; some one sent me a new york paper (the tribune, i think), full of kindness, and i do assure you that to be so heartily greeted by my kinsmen across the atlantic is very precious to me. from the first american has there come nothing but good-will. however, the general kindness here has taken me quite by surprise. the only fault found was with the title, which, as you know, was no doing of mine; and the number of private letters, books, verses, (commendatory verses, as the old poets have it), and tributes of all sorts, and from all manner of persons, that i receive every day is something quite astonishing. our great portrait-painter, john lucas, certainly the first painter of female portraits now alive, has been down here to take a portrait for engraving. he has been most successful. it is looking better, i suppose, than i ever do look; but not better than under certain circumstances--listening to a favorite friend, for example--i perhaps might look. the picture is to go to-morrow into the engraver's hands, and i hope the print will be completed before your departure; also they are engraving, or are about to engrave, a miniature taken of me when i was a little girl between three and four years old. they are to be placed side by side, the young child and the old withered woman, ---- a skull and cross-bones could hardly be a more significant _memento mori_! i have lost my near neighbor and most accomplished friend, sir henry russell, and many other friends, for death has been very busy this winter, and mr. ware is gone! he had sent me his "zenobia," "from the author," and for that very reason, i suppose, some one had stolen it; but i had replaced both that and the letters from rome, and sent them to mr. kingsley as models for his "hypatia." he has them still. he had never heard of them till i named them to him. they seem to me very fine and classical, just like the best translations from some great latin writer. and i have been most struck with edgar poe, who has been republished, prose and poetry, in a shilling volume called "readable books." what a deplorable history it was!--i mean his own,--the most unredeemed vice that i have met with in the annals of genius. but he was a very remarkable writer, and must have a niche if i write again; so must your two poets, stoddard and taylor. i am very sorry you missed mrs. trollope; she is a most remarkable woman, and you would have liked her, i am sure, for her warm heart and her many accomplishments. i had a sure way to beranger, one of my dear friends being a dear friend of his; but on inquiring for him last week, that friend also is gone to heaven. do pick up for me all you can about louis napoleon, my one real abiding enthusiasm,--the enthusiasm of my whole life,--for it began with the emperor and has passed quite undiminished to the present great, bold, and able ruler of france. mrs. browning shares it, i think; only she calls herself cool, which i don't; and another still more remarkable co-religionist in the l.n. faith is old lady shirley (of alderley), the writer of that most interesting letter to gibbon, dated , published by her father, lord sheffield, in his edition of the great historian's posthumous works. she is eighty-two now, and as active and vigorous in body and mind, as sixty years ago. make my most affectionate love to my friend in the avenue des champs elysées, and believe me ever, my dear mr. fields, most gratefully and affectionately yours, m.r.m. (no date) ah, my dearest mr. fields, how inimitably good and kind you are to me! your account of rachel is most delightful, the rather that it confirms a preconceived notion which two of my friends had taken pains to change. henry chorley, not only by his own opinion, but by that of scribe, who told him that there was no comparison between her and viardot. now if viardot, even in that one famous part of fides, excels rachel, she must be much the finer actress, having the horrible drawback of the music to get over. my other friend told me a story of her, in the modern play of virginie; she declared that when in her father's arms she pointed to the butcher's knife, telling him what to do, and completely reversing that loveliest story; but i hold to your version of her genius, even admitting that she did commit the virginie iniquity, which would be intensely characteristic of her calling,--all actors and actresses having a desire to play the whole play themselves, speaking every speech, producing every effect in their own person. no doubt she is a great actress, and still more assuredly is louis napoleon a great man, a man of genius, which includes in my mind both sensibility and charm. there are little bits of his writing from ham, one where he speaks of "le repos de ma prison," another long and most eloquent passage on exile, which ends (i forget the exact words) with a sentiment full of truth and sensibility. he is speaking of the treatment shown to an exile in a foreign land, of the mistiness and coldness of some, of the blandness and smoothness of others, and he goes on to say, "he must be a man of ten thousand who behaves to an exile just as he would behave to another person." if i could trust you to perform a commission for me, and let me pay you the money you spent upon it, i would ask you to bring me a cheap but comprehensive life of him, with his works and speeches, and a portrait as like him as possible. i asked an english friend to do this for me, and fancy his sending me a book dated on the outside !!!! did i ever tell you a pretty story of him, when he was in england after strasburg and before boulogne, and which i know to be true? he spent a twelvemonth at leamington, living in the quietest manner. one of the principal persons there is mr. hampden, a descendant of john hampden, and the elder brother of the bishop. mr. hampden, himself a very liberal and accomplished man, made a point of showing every attention in his power to the prince, and they soon became very intimate. there was in the town an old officer of the emperor's polish legion who, compelled to leave france after waterloo, had taken refuge in england, and, having the national talent for languages, maintained himself by teaching french, italian, and german in different families. the old exile and the young one found each other out, and the language master was soon an habitual guest at the prince's table, and treated by him with the most affectionate attention. at last louis napoleon wearied of a country town and repaired to london; but before he went he called on mr. hampden to take leave. after warm thanks for all the pleasure he had experienced in his society, he said: "i am about to prove to you my entire reliance upon your unfailing kindness by leaving you a legacy. i want to ask you to transfer to my poor old friend the goodness you have lavished upon me. his health is failing, his means are small. will you call upon him sometimes? and will you see that those lodging-house people do not neglect him? and will you, above all, do for him what he will not do for himself, draw upon me for what may be wanting for his needs or for his comforts?" mr. hampden promised. the prophecy proved true; the poor old man grew worse and worse, and finally died. mr. hampden, as he had promised, replaced the prince in his kind attentions to his old friend, and finally defrayed the charges of his illness and of his funeral. "i would willingly have paid them myself," said he, "but i knew that that would have offended and grieved the prince, so i honestly divided the expenses with him, and i found that full provision had been made at his banker's to answer my drafts to a much larger amount." now i have full faith in such a nature. let me add that he never forgot mr. hampden's kindness, sending him his different brochures and the kindest messages, both from ham and the elysée. if one did not not admire louis napoleon, i should like to know upon whom one could, as a public man, fix one's admiration! just look at our english statesmen! and see the state to which self-government brings everything! look at london with all its sanitary questions just in the same state as ten years ago; look at all our acts of parliament, one half of a session passed in amending the mismanagement of the other. for my own part, i really believe that there is nothing like one mind, one wise and good ruler; and i verily believe that the president of france is that man. my only doubt being whether the people are worthy of him, fickle as they are, like all great masses,--the french people, in particular. by the way, if a most vilely translated book, called the "prisoner of ham," be extant in french, i should like to possess it. the account of the escape looks true, and is most interesting. i have been exceedingly struck, since i last wrote to you, by some extracts from edgar poe's writings; i mean a book called "the readable library," composed of selections from his works, prose and verse. the famous ones are, i find, the maelstrom and the raven; without denying their high merits, i prefer that fine poem on the bells, quite as fine as schiller's, and those remarkable bits of stories on circumstantial evidence. i am lower, dear friend, than ever, and what is worse, in supporting myself on my hand i have strained my right side and can hardly turn in bed. but if we cannot walk round swallowfield, we can drive, and the very sight of you will do me good. if mr. bentley send me only one copy of that engraving, it shall be for you. you know i have a copy for you of the book. there are no words to tell the letters and books i receive about it, so i suppose it is popular. i have lost, as you know, my most accomplished and admirable neighbor, sir henry russell, the worthy successor of the great lord clarendon. his eldest daughter is my favorite young friend, a most lovely creature, the ideal of a poet. i hope you will see beranger. heaven bless you! ever yours, m.r.m. saturday night. ah, my very dear friend, how can i ever thank you? but i don't want to thank you. there are some persons (very few, though) to whom it is a happiness to be indebted, and you are one of them. the books and the busts are arrived. poor dear louis napoleon with his head off--heaven avert the omen! of course _that_ head can be replaced, i mean stuck on again upon its proper shoulders. beranger is a beautiful old man, just what one fancies him and loves to fancy him. i hope you saw him. to my mind, he is the very greatest poet now alive, perhaps the greatest man, the truest and best type of perfect independence. thanks a thousand and a thousand times for those charming busts and for the books. mrs. browning had mentioned to me mr. read. if i live to write another book, i shall put him and mr. taylor and mr. stoddard together, and try to do justice to poe. i have a good right to love america and the americans. my mr. lucas tells me to go, and says he has a mind to go. i want you to know john lucas, not only the finest portrait-painter, but about the very finest mind that i know in the world. he might be.... for talent and manner and heart; and, if you like, you shall, when i am dead, have the portrait he has just taken of me. i make the reserve, instead of giving it to you now, because it is possible that he might wish (i know he does) to paint one for himself, and if i be dead before sitting to him again, the present one would serve him to copy. mr. bentley wanted to purchase it, and many have wanted it, but it shall be for you. now, my very dear friend, i am afraid that mr. ---- has said or done something that would make you rather come here alone. his last letter to me, after a month's silence, was _odd_. there was no fixing upon line or word; still it was not like his other letters, and i suppose the air of ---- is not genial, and yet dear mr. bennoch breathes it often! you must know that i never could have meant for one instant to impose him upon you as a companion. only in the autumn there had been a talk of his joining your party. he knows mr. bennoch.... he has been very kind and attentive to me, and is, i verily believe, an excellent and true-hearted person; and so i was willing that, if all fell out well, he should have the pleasure of your society here,--the rather that i am sometimes so poorly, and always so helpless now, that one who knows the place might be of use. but to think that for one moment i would make your time or your wishes bend to his is out of the question. come at your own time, as soon and as often as you can. i should say this to any one going away three thousand miles off, much more to you, and forgive my having even hinted at his coming too. i only did it thinking it might fix you and suit you. in this view i wrote to him yesterday, to tell him that on wednesday next there would be a cricket-match at bramshill, one of the finest old mansions in england, a tudor manor house, altered by inigo jones, and formerly the residence of prince henry, the elder son of james the first. in the grand old park belonging to that grand old place, there will be on that afternoon a cricket-match. i thought you would like to see our national game in a scene so perfectly well adapted to show it to advantage. being in mr. kingsley's parish, and he very intimate with the owner, it is most likely, too, that he will be there; so that altogether it seemed to me something that you and dear mr. and mrs. bennoch might like to see. my poor little pony could take you from hence; but not to fetch or carry you, and if the dear bennochs come, it would be advisable to let the flymen know the place of destination, because, sir william cope being a new-comer, i am not sure whether he (like his predecessor, whom i knew) allows horses and carriages to be put up there. i should like you to look on for half an hour at a cricket-match in bramshill park, and to be with you at a scene so english and so beautiful. we could dine here afterwards, the great western allowing till a quarter before nine in the evening. contrive this if you can, and let me know by return of post, and forgive my _mal addresse_ about mr. ----. there certainly has something come across him,--not about you, but about me; one thing is, i think, his extreme politics. i always find these violent radicals very unwilling to allow in others the unlimited freedom of thought that they claim for themselves. he can't forgive my love for the president. now i must tell you a story i know to be true. a lady of rank was placed next the prince a year or two ago. he was very gentle and courteous, but very silent, and she wanted to make him talk. at last she remembered that, having been in switzerland twenty years before, she had received some kindness from the queen hortense, and had spent a day at arenenburg. she told him so, speaking with warm admiration of the queen. "ah, madame, vous avez connu ma mère!" exclaimed louis napoleon, turning to her eagerly and talking of the place and the people as a school-boy talks of home. she spent some months in paris, receiving from the prince every attention which his position enabled him to show; and when she thanked him for such kindness, his answer was always: "ah, madame, vous avez connu ma mère!" is it in woman's heart not to love such a man? and then look at the purchase of the murillo the other day, and the thousand really great things that he is doing. mr. ---- is a goose. i send this letter to the post to-morrow, when i send other letters,--a vile, puritanical post-office arrangement not permitting us to send letters in the afternoon, unless we send straight to reading (six miles) on purpose,--so perhaps this may cross an answer from mr. ---- or from you about bramshill; perhaps, on the other hand, i may have to write again. at all events, you will understand that this is written on saturday night. god bless you, my very dear and kind friend. ever faithfully yours, m.r.m. may , . ah, dearest mr. fields, how much too good and kind you are to me always! ... i wish i were better, that i might go to town and see more of you; but i am more lame than ever, and having, in my weight and my shortness and my extreme helplessness, caught at tables and chairs and dragged myself along that fashion, i have now so strained the upper part of the body that i cannot turn in bed, and am full of muscular pains which are worse than the rheumatism and more disabling, so that i seem to cumber the earth. they say that summer, when it comes, will do me good. how much more sure that the sight of you will do me good, and i trust that, when your business will let you, you will give me that happiness. in the mean while will you take the trouble to send the enclosed and my answer, if it be fit and proper and properly addressed? i give you this office, because really the kindness seems so large and unlimited, that, if the letter had not come enclosed in one from mr. kenyon, one could hardly have believed it to be serious, and yet i am well used to kindness, too. i thank over and over again your glorious poets for their kindness, and tell mr. hawthorne i shall prize a letter from him beyond all the worlds one has to give. i rejoice to hear of the new work, and can answer for its excellence. i trust that the english edition of dr. holmes will contain the "astraea," and the "morning visit," and the "cambridge address." i am not sure, in my secret soul, that i do not prefer him to any american poet. besides his inimitable word-painting, the charity is so large and the scale so fine. how kind in you to like my book,--some people do like it. i am afraid to tell you what john ruskin says of it from venice, and i get letters, from ten to twenty a day. you know how little i dreamt of this! mrs. trollope has sent me a most affectionate letter, bemoaning her ill-fortune in missing you. i thank you for the galignani edition, and the presidential kindness, and all your goodness of every sort. i have nothing to give you but as large a share of my poor affection as i think any human being has. you know a copy of the book from me has been waiting for you these three months. adieu, my dear friend. ever yours, m.r.m. (july , .) monday night, or, rather, o'clock tuesday morning. having just finished mr. hawthorne's book, dear mr. fields, i shall get k---- to put it up and direct it so that it may be ready the first time sam has occasion to go to reading, at which time this letter will be put in the post; so that when you read this, you may be assured that the precious volumes are arrived at the paddington station, whence i hope they may be immediately transmitted to you. if not, send for them. they will have your full direction, carriage paid. i say this, because the much vaunted great western is like all other railways, most uncertain and irregular, and we have lost a packet of plants this very week, sent to us, announced by letter and never arrived. thank you heartily for the perusal of the book. i shall not name it in a letter which i mean to enclose to mr. hawthorne, not knowing that you mean to tell him, and having plenty of other things to say to him besides. to you, and only to you, i shall speak quite frankly what i think. it is full of beauty and of power, but i agree with ---- that it would not have made a reputation as the other two books did, and i have some doubts whether it will not be a disappointment, but one that will soon be redeemed by a fresh and happier effort. it seems to me too long, too slow, and the personages are to my mind ill chosen. zenobia puts one in mind of fanny wright and margaret fuller and other unsexed authorities, and hollingsworth will, i fear, recall, to english people at least, a most horrible man who went about preaching peace. i heard him lecture once, and shall never forget his presumption, his ignorance, or his vulgarity. he is said to know many languages. i can answer for his not knowing his own, for i never, even upon the platform, the native home of bad english, heard so much in so short a time. the mesmeric lecturer and the sickly girl are almost equally disagreeable. in short, the only likeable person in the book is honest silas foster, who alone gives one the notion of a man of flesh and blood. in my mind, dear mr. hawthorne mistakes exceedingly when he thinks that fiction should be based upon, or rather seen through, some ideal medium. the greatest fictions of the world are the truest. look at the "vicar of wakefield," look at the "simple story," look at scott, look at jane austen, greater because truer than all, look at the best works of your own cooper. it is precisely the want of reality in his smaller stories which has delayed mr. hawthorne's fame so long, and will prevent its extension if he do not resolutely throw himself into truth, which is as great a thing in my mind in art as in morals, the foundation of all excellence in both. the fine parts of this book, at least the finest, are the truest,--that magnificent search for the body, which is as perfect as the search for the exciseman in guy mannering, and the burst of passion in eliot's pulpit. the plot, too, is very finely constructed, and doubtless i have been a too critical reader, because, from the moment you and i parted, i have been suffering from fever, and have never left the bed, in which i am now writing. don't fancy, dear friend, that you had anything to do with this. the complaint had fixed itself and would have run its course, even although your ... society has not roused and excited the good spirits, which will, i think, fail only with my life. i think i am going to get better. love to all. ever most affectionately yours, m.r.m. tuesday. (no date.) my dear friend: being fit for nothing but lying in bed and reading novels, i have just finished mr. field's and mr. jones's "adrien," and as you certainly will not have time to look at it, and may like to hear my opinion, i will tell it to you. mr. field, from the preface, is of new york. the thing that has diverted me most is the love-plot of the book. a young gentleman, whose father came and settled in america and made a competence there, is third or fourth cousin to an english lord. he falls in love with a fisherman's daughter (the story appears to be about fifty years back). this fisherman's daughter is a most ethereal personage, speaking and reading italian, and possessing in the fishing-cottage a pianoforte and a collection of books; nevertheless, she one day hears her husband say something about a person being "well born and well bred," and forthwith goes away from him, in order to set him free from the misery entailed upon him, as she supposes, by a disproportionate marriage. is not this curious in your republic? we in england certainly should not play such pranks. a man having married a wife, his wife stays by him. this dilemma is got over by the fisherman's turning out to be himself fifth or sixth cousin of another english lord. but, having lived really as a fisherman ever since his daughter's birth, he knew nothing of his aristocratic descent. i think this is the most remarkable thing in the book. there are certain flings at the new england character (the scene is laid beside the waters of your bay) which seem to foretell a not very remote migration on the part of mr. jones, though they may come from his partner; nothing very bad, only such hits as this: "he was simple, humble, affectionate, three qualities rare anywhere, but perhaps more rare in that part of the world than anywhere else." for the rest the book is far inferior to the best even of mr. james's recent productions, such as "henry smeaton." these two authors speak of the corpse of a drowned man as beautified by death, and retaining all the look of life. you remember what mr. hawthorne says of the appearance of his drowned heroine,--which is right? i have had the most delightful letter possible (you shall see it when you come) from dear dr. holmes, and venture to trouble you with the enclosed answer. yesterday, mr. harness, who had heard a bad account of me (for i have been very ill, and, although much better now, i gather from everybody that i am thought to be breaking down fast), so like the dear kind old friend that he is, came to see me. it was a great pleasure. we talked much of you, and i think he will call upon you. whether he call or not, do go to see him. he is fully prepared for you as mr. dyce's friend and mr. rogers's friend, and my very dear friend. do go; you will find him charming, so different from the author people that mr. kenyon collects. i am sure of your liking each other. surely by next week i may be well enough to see you. you and mrs. w---- would do me nothing but good. say everything to her, and to our dear kind friends, the bennochs. i ought to have written to them, but i get as much scolded for writing as talking. ever yours, m.r.m. (no date.) how good and kind you are to me, dearest mr. fields! kindest of all, i think, in writing me those.... one comfort is, that if london lose you this year i do think you will not suffer many to elapse before revisiting it. ah, you will hardly find your poor old friend next time! not that i expect to die just now, but there is such a want of strength, of the power that shakes off disease, which is no good sign for the constitution. yesterday i got up for a little while, for the first time since i saw you; but, having let in too many people, the fever came on again at night, and i am only just now shaking off the attack, and feel that i must submit to perfect quietness for the present. still the attack was less violent than the last, and unattended by sickness, so that i am really better and hope in a week or so to be able to get out with you under the trees, perhaps as far as upton. one of my yesterday's visitors was a glorious old lady of seventy-six, who has lived in paris for the last thirty years, and i do believe came to england very much for the purpose of seeing me. she had known my father before his marriage. he had taken her in his hand (he was always fond of children) one day to see my mother; she had been present at their wedding, and remembered the old housekeeper and the pretty nursery-maid and the great dog too, and had won with great difficulty (she being then eleven years old) the privilege of having the baby to hold. her descriptions of all these things and places were most graphic, and you may imagine how much she must have been struck with my book when it met her eye in paris, and how much i (knowing all about her family) was struck on my part by all these details, given with the spirit and fire of an enthusiastic woman of twenty. we had certainly never met. i left alresford at three years old. she made an appointment to spend a day here next year, having with her a daughter, apparently by a first husband. also she had the same host of recollections of louis napoleon, remembered the emperor, as premier consul, and la reine hortense as mlle. de beauharnais. her account of the prince is favorable. she says that it is a most real popularity, and that, if anything like durability can ever be predicated of the french, it will prove a lasting one. i had a letter from mrs. browning to-day, talking of the "facts of the times," of which she said some gentlemen were speaking with the same supreme contempt and disbelief that i profess for every paragraph in that collection of falsehoods. for my own part, i hold a wise despotism, like the prince president's, the only rule to live under. only look at the figure our _soi-disant_ statesmen cut,--whig and tory,--and then glance your eye across the atlantic to your "own dear people," as dr. holmes says, and their doings in the presidential line. apropos to dr. holmes you'll see him read and quoted when--and his doings are as dead as henry the eighth.--has no feeling for finish or polish or delicacy, and doubtless dismisses pope and goldsmith with supreme contempt. she never mentions that horrid trial, to my great comfort. did i tell you that i had been reading louis napoleon's most charming three volumes full? among my visitors yesterday was miss percy, the heiress of guy's cliff, one of the richest in england, and, what is odd, the translator of "emilie carlen's birthright," the only swedish novel i have ever got fairly through, because miss percy really does her work well, and i can't read ----'s english. miss percy, who, besides being very clever and agreeable, is also pretty, has refused some scores of offers, and declares she'll never marry; she has a dread of being sought for her money..... god bless you, dearest, kindest friend. say everything for me to your companions. ever most faithfully yours, m.r.m. (no date) yes, dearest mr. fields, i continue to get better and better, and shall be delighted to see you and mr. and mrs. w---- on friday. i even went in to surprise mr. may on saturday, so, weather permitting, we shall get up to upton together. i want you to see that relique of protestant bigotry. no doubt many of my dear countrymen would play just the same pranks now, if the spirit of the age would permit; the will is not wanting, witness our courts of law. i have been reading the "life of margaret fuller." what a tragedy from first to last! she must have been odious in boston in spite of her power and her strong sense of duty, with which i always sympathize; but at new york, where she dwindled from a sibyl to a "lionne," one begins to like her better, and in england and paris, where she was not even that, better still; so that one is prepared for the deep interest of the last half-volume. of course her example must have done much injury to the girls of her train. of course, also, she is the zenobia of dear mr hawthorne. one wonders what her book would have been like. mr. bennett has sent me the "nile notes." we must talk about that, which i have not read yet, not delighting much in eastern travels, or, rather, being tired of them. ah, how sad it will be when i cannot say "we will talk"! surely mr. webster does not mean to get up a dispute with england! that would be an affliction; for what nations should be friends if ours should not? what our ministers mean, nobody can tell,--hardly, i suppose, themselves. my hope was in mr. webster. well, this is for talking. god bless you, dear friend. ever most affectionately yours, m.r.m. august , . hurrah! dear and kind friend, i have found the line without any other person's aid or suggestion. last night it occurred to me that it was in some prologue or epilogue, and my little book-room being very rich in the drama, i have looked through many hundreds of those bits of rhyme, and at last made a discovery which, if it have no other good effect, will at least have "emptied my head of corsica," as johnson said to boswell; for never was the great biographer more haunted by the thought of paoli than i by that line. it occurs in an epilogue by garrick on quitting the stage, june, , when the performance was for the benefit of sick and aged actors. a veteran see! whose last act on the stage entreats your smiles for sickness and for age; their cause i plead, plead it in heart and mind, _a fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind_. not finding it quoted in johnson convinced me that it would probably have been written after the publication of the dictionary, and ultimately guided me to the right place. it is singular that epilogues were just dismissed at the first representation of one of my plays, "foscari," and prologues at another, "rienzi." i have but a moment to answer your most kind letter, because i have been engaged with company, or rather interrupted by company, ever since i got up, but you will pardon me. nothing ever did me so much good as your visit. my only comfort is the hope of your return in the spring. then i hope to be well enough to show mr hawthorne all the holes and corners my own self. tell him so. i am already about to study the state trials, and make myself perfect in all that can assist the romance. it will be a labor of love to do for him the small and humble part of collecting facts and books, and making ready the palette for the great painter. talking of _artists_, one was here on sunday who was going to upton yesterday. his object was to sketch every place mentioned in my book. many of the places (as those round taplow) he had taken, and k---- says he took this house and the stick and fanchon and probably herself. i was unluckily gone to take home the dear visitors who cheer me daily and whom i so wish you to see. god bless you all, dear friends. ever most affectionately yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, september , my very dear mr. fields: i am beginning to get very fidgety about you, and thinking rather too often, not only of the breadth of the atlantic, but of its dangers. however i must hear soon, and i write now because i am expecting a fellow-townsman of yours, mr. thompson, an american artist, who expected to find you still in england, and who is welcomed, as i suppose all boston would be ... people do not love you the less, dear friend, for missing you. i write to you this morning, because i have something to say and something to ask. in the first place, i am better. mr. harness, who, god bless him, left that temple of art, the deepdene, and mr. hope's delightful conversation, to come and take care of me, stayed at swallowfield three weeks. he found out a tidy lodging, which he has retained, and he promises to come back in november; at present he is again at the deepdene. nothing could be so judicious as his way of going on; he came at two o'clock to my cottage and we drove out together; then he went to his lodgings to dinner, to give me three hours of perfect quiet; at eight he and the russells met here to tea, and he read shakespeare (there is no such reader in the world) till bedtime. under his treatment no wonder that i improved, but the low-fever is not far off; doing a little too much, i fell back even before his departure, and have been worse since. however, on the whole, i am much better. now to my request. you perhaps remember my speaking to you of a copy of my "recollections," which was in course of illustration in the winter. mr. holloway, a great print-seller of bedford street, covent garden, has been engaged upon it ever since, and brought me the first volume to look at on tuesday. it would have rejoiced the soul of dear dr. holmes. my book is to be set into six or seven or eight volumes, quarto, as the case may be; and although not unfamiliar with the luxuries of the library, i could not have believed in the number and richness of the pearls which have been strung upon so slender a thread. the rarest and finest portraits, often many of one person and always the choicest and the best,--ranging from magnificent heads of the great old poets, from the charleses and cromwells, to sprat and george faulkner of dublin, of whom it was thought none existed, until this print turned up unexpectedly in a supplementary volume of lord chesterfield; nothing is too odd for mr. holloway. there is a colored print of george the third,--a full length which really brings the old king to life again, so striking is the resemblance, and quantities of theatrical people, munden and elliston and the kembles. there are two portraits of "glorious john" in penruddock. then the curious old prints of old houses. they have not only one two hundred years old of dorrington castle, but the actual drawing from which that engraving was made; and they are rich beyond anything in exquisite drawings of scenery by modern artists sent on purpose to the different spots mentioned. besides which there are all sorts of characteristic autographs (a capital one of pope); in short, nothing is wanting that the most unlimited expense (mr. holloway told me that his employer, a great city merchant of unbounded riches, constantly urged him to spare no expense to procure everything that money would buy), added to taste, skill, and experience, could accomplish. of course the number of proper names and names of places have been one motive for conferring upon my book an honor of which i never dreamt; but there is, besides, an enthusiasm for my writings on the part of mrs. dillon, the lady of the possessor, for whom it is destined as a birthday gift. now what i have to ask of you is to procure for mr. holloway as many autographs and portraits as you can of the american writers whom i have named,--dear dr. holmes, hawthorne, longfellow, whittier, prescott, ticknor. if any of them would add a line or two of their writing to their names, it would be a favor, and if; being about it, they would send two other plain autographs, for i have heard of two other copies in course of illustration, and expect to be applied to by their proprietors every day. mr. holloway wrote to some trade connection in philadelphia, but probably because he applied to the wrong place and the wrong person, and because he limited his correspondent to time, obtained no results. if there be a print of professor longfellow's house, so much the better, or any other autographs of americans named in my book. forgive this trouble, dear friend. you will probably see the work when you come to london in the spring, and then you will understand the interest that i take in it as a great book of art. also my dear old friend, lady morley (gibbon's correspondent), who at the age of eighty-three is caught by new books and is as enthusiastic as a girl, has commissioned me to inquire about your new authoress, the writer of ----, who she is and all about her. for my part, i have not finished the book yet, and never shall. besides my own utter dislike to its painfulness, its one-sidedness, and its exaggeration, i observe that the sort of popularity which it has obtained in england, and probably in america, is decidedly _bad_, of the sort which cannot and does not last,--a cry which is always essentially one-sided and commonly wrong.... ever most faithfully and affectionately yours, m.r.m. october , . dearest mr. fields: you will think that i persecute you, but i find that mr. dillon, for whom mr. holloway is illustrating my recollections so splendidly, means to send the volumes to the binder on the st of november. i write therefore to beg, in case of your not having yet sent off the american autographs and portraits, that they may be forwarded direct to mr. holloway, bedford street, covent garden, london. it is very foolish not to wait until all the materials are collected, but it is meant as an offering to mrs. dillon, and i suppose there is some anniversary in the way. mr. dillon is a great lover and preserver of fine engravings; his collection, one of the finest private collections in the world, is estimated at sixty thousand pounds. he is a friend of dear mr. bennoch's, who, when i told him the compliment that had been paid to my work by a great city man, immediately said it could be nobody but mr. dillon. i have twice seen mr. bennoch within the last ten days, once with mr. johnson and mr. thompson, your own boston artist, whom i liked much, and who gave me the great pleasure of talking of you and of dear mr. and mrs. w----, last time with his own good and charming wife and ----. only think of ----'s saying that shakespeare, if he had lived now, would have been thought nothing of, and this rather as a compliment to the age than not! but, if you remember, he printed amended words to the air of "drink to me only." ah, dear me, i suspect that both william shakespeare and ben jonson will survive him; don't you? nevertheless he is better than might be predicated from that observation. all my domestic news is bad enough. my poor pretty pony keeps his bed in the stable, with a violent attack of influenza, and sam and fanchon spend three parts of their time in nursing him. moreover we have had such rains here that the lodden has overflowed its banks, and is now covering the water meadows, and almost covering the lower parts of the lanes. adieu, dearest friend. ever most faithfully yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, october , . more than one letter of mine, dearest friend, crossed yours, for which i cannot sufficiently thank you. nobody can better understand than i do, how very, very glad your own people, and all the good city, must feel to get you back again,--i trust not to keep; for in spite of sea-sickness, that misery which during the summer i have contrived to feel on land, i still hope that we shall have you here again in the spring. i am impatiently waiting the arrival of portraits and autographs, and if they do not come in time to bind, i shall charge mr. holloway to contrive that they may be pasted with the copy of my recollections to which mr. dillon is paying so high and so costly a compliment. now i must tell you some news. first let me say that there is an admirable criticism in one of the numbers of the nonconformist, edited by edward miall, one of the new members of parliament, and certainly the most able of the dissenting organs, on our favorite poet, dr. holmes. also i have a letter from dr. robert dickson, of hertford street, may fair, one of the highest and most fashionable london physicians, respecting my book, liking dr. holmes better than anybody for the very qualities for which he would himself choose to be preferred, originality and justness of thought, admirable fineness and propriety of diction, and a power of painting by words, very rare in any age, and rarest of the rare in _this_, when vagueness and obscurity mar so much that is high and pure. i shall keep this letter to _show_ dr. holmes, tell him with my affectionate love. if it were not written on the thickest paper ever seen, and as huge as it is thick, i would send it; but i'll keep it for him against he comes to claim it. the description of spring is, dr. dickson says, remarkable for originality and truth. he thanks me for those poems of dr. holmes as if i had written them. now be free to tell him all this. of course you have told mr. hawthorne of the highly eulogistic critique on the "blithedale romance" in the times, written, i believe, by mr. willmott, to whom i lent the veritable copy received from the author. another thing let me say, that i have been reading with the greatest pleasure some letters on african trees copied from the new york tribune into bentley's miscellany, and no doubt by mr. bayard taylor. our chief london news is that mrs. browning's cough came on so violently, in consequence of the sudden setting in of cold weather, that they are off for a week or two to paris, then to florence, rome, and naples, and back here in the summer. her father still refuses to open a letter or to hear her name. mrs. southey, suffering also from chest-complaint, has shut herself up till june. poor anne hatton, who was betrothed to thomas davis, and was supposed to be in a consumption, is recovering, they say, under the advice of a clairvoyante. most likely a broken vessel has healed on the lungs, or perhaps an abscess. be what it may, the consequence is happy, for she is a lovely creature and the only joy of a fond mother. alfred tennyson's boy was christened the other day by the name of hallam tennyson, mr. hallam standing to it in person. this is just as it should be on all sides, only that arthur hallam would have been a prettier name. you know that arthur hallam was the lost friend of the "in memoriam," and engaged to tennyson's sister, and that after his death, and even after her marrying another man, mr. hallam makes her a large allowance. we have just escaped a signal misfortune; my dear pretty pony has been upon the point of death with influenza. would not you have been sorry if that pony had died? he has, however, recovered under sam's care and skill, and the first symptom of convalescence was his neighing to sam through the window. you will have found out that i too am better. i trust to be stronger when you come again, well enough to introduce you to mr. harness, whom we are expecting here next month. god bless you, my dear and kind friend. i send this through dear mr bennoch, whom i like better and better; so i do mrs. bennoch, and everybody who knows and loves you. ever, my dear mr. fields, your faithful and affectionate friend, m.r.m. p.s.--october . i have kept this letter open till now, and i am glad i did so. acting upon the hint you gave of mr. de quincey's kind feeling, i wrote to him, and yesterday i had a charming letter from his daughter, saying how much her father was gratified by mine, that he had already written an answer, amounting to a good-sized pamphlet, but that when it would be finished was doubtful, so she sent hers as a precursor. swallowfield, november , . i write, dearest friend, and although the packet which you had the infinite goodness to send, has not reached me yet, and may not possibly before my letter goes,--so uncertain is our railway,--yet i will write because our excellent friend, mr. bennoch, says that he has sent it off.... you will understand that i am even more obliged by your goodness about mr. dillon's book than by any of the thousand obligations to myself only. besides my personal interest, as so great a compliment to my own work, mr. dillon appears to be a most interesting person. he is a friend of mr. bennoch's, from whom i had his history, one most honorable to him, and he has written to me since i wrote to you and proposes to come and see me. _you_ must see him when you come to england, and must see his collection of engravings. would not dear dr. holmes have a sympathy with mr. dillon? have you such fancies in america? they are not common even here; but miss skerrett (the queen's factotum) tells me that the most remarkable book in windsor castle is a de grammont most richly and expensively illustrated by george the fourth, who, with all his sins as a monarch, was the only sovereign since the stuarts of any literary taste. here is your packet! o my dear, dear friend, how shall i thank you half enough! i shall send the parcels to-morrow morning, the very first thing, to mr. holloway. the work is at the binder's, but fly-leaves have been left for the american packet of which i felt so sure, although even i could hardly foresee its value. one or two duplicates i have kept. tell mr. hawthorne that i shall make a dozen people rich and happy by his autograph, and tell dr. holmes i could not find it in my heart to part with the "mary" stanza. never was a writer who possessed more perfectly the art of doing great things greatly and small things gracefully. love to mr. hawthorne and to him. poor daniel webster! or rather poor america! rich as she is, she cannot afford the loss, the greatest the world has known since our sir robert. but what a death-bed, and what a funeral! how noble an end of that noble life! i feel it the more, hearing and reading so much about the duke's funeral, which by dint of the delay will not cause the slightest real feeling, but will be attended just like every show, and yet as a show will be gloomy and poor. how much better to have laid him simply here at strathfieldsaye, and left it as a place of pilgrimage,--as strathfield will be,--although between the two men, in my mind, there was no comparison; the one was a genius, the other mere soldier,--pure physical force measured with intellect the richest and the proudest. i have twenty letters speaking of him as one of the greatest among the statesmen of the age. the times only refuses to do him justice. but when did the times do justice to any one? look how it talks of our emperor. your friend bayard taylor came to see me a fortnight ago, just before he sailed on his tour round the world. i told him the first of bentley's reprinting his letters from the new york tribune; he had not heard a word of it. he seemed an admirable person, and it is good to have such travellers to follow with one's heart and one's earnest good wishes. also i have had two packets,--one from mrs. sparks, with a nice letter, and some fresh and glorious autumnal flowers, and a collection of autumn leaves from your glorious forests. i have written to thank her. she seems full of heart, and she says that she drove into boston on purpose to see you, but missed you. when you do meet, tell me about her. also, i have through you, dear friend, a most interesting book from mr. ware. to him, also, i have written, but tell him how much i feel and prize his kindness, all the more welcome for coming from a kinsman of dear mrs. w----. tell her and her excellent husband that they cannot think of us oftener or more warmly than we think of them. o, how i should like to visit you at boston! but i should have your malady by the way, and not your strength to stand it.... god bless you, my dear and excellent friend! i seem to have a thousand things to say to you, but the post is going, and a whole sheet of paper would not hold my thanks. ever yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, november , . my dear friend: your most kind and welcome letter arrived to-day, two days after the papers, for which i thank you much. still more do i thank you for that kind and charming letter, and for its enclosures. the anonymous poem [it was by dr. t.w. parsons] is far finer than anything that has been written on the death of the duke of wellington, as indeed it was a far finer subject. may i inquire the name of the writer? mr. everett's speech also is superb, and how very much i prefer the marshfield funeral in its sublime simplicity to the tawdry pageantry here! i have had fifty letters from persons who saw the funeral in st. paul's, and seen as many who saw that or the procession, and it is strange that the papers have omitted alike the great successes and the great failures. my young neighbor, a captain in the grenadier guards (the duke's regiment), saw the uncovering the car which had been hidden by the drapery, and was to have been a great effect, and he says it was exactly what is sometimes seen in a theatre when one scene is drawn up too soon and the other is not ready. carpenters and undertaker's men were on all parts of the car, and the draperies and ornaments were everywhere but in their places. again, the procession waited upwards of an hour at the cathedral door, because the same people had made no provision for taking the coffin from the car; again, the sunlight was let into st. paul's, mingling most discordantly with the gas, and the naked wood of screens and benches and board beams disfigured the grand entrance. in three months' interval they had not time! on the other hand, the strong points were the music, the effect of which is said to have been unrivalled; the actual performance of the service,--my friend dean milman is renowned for his manner of reading the funeral service, he officiated at the burial of mrs. lockhart (sir walter's favorite daughter),--and none who were present could speak of it without tears; the clerical part of the procession, which was a real and visible mourning pageant in its flowing robes of white with black bands and sashes; the living branches of laurel and cypress amongst the mere finery; and, above all, the hushed silence of the people, always most and best impressed by anything that appeals to the imagination or the heart. i suppose you will have seen how england is flooded, and you will like to hear that this tiny speck has escaped. the lodden is over the park, and turns the beautiful water meadows down to strathfieldsaye into a no less beautiful lake, two or three times a week; but then it subsides as quickly as it rises, so there is none of the lying under water which results in all sorts of pestilential exhalations, and this cottage is lifted out of every bad influence, nay, a kind neighbor having had my lane scraped, i walk dry-shod every afternoon a mile and a half, which is more than i ever expected to compass again, and for which i am most thankful. but we have had our own troubles. k---- has lost her father. he was seized with paralysis and knew nobody, so they desired her not to come, and sam went alone to the funeral. after all, _this_ is her home, and she has pretty well got over her affliction, and the pony is well again, and strong enough to draw you and me in the spring,--for i am looking forward to good and happy days again when you shall return to england. your magnificent present for mr. dillon's book was quite in time, dear friend. i had warned them to leave room, and mr. holloway and the binders contrived it admirably. they are most grateful for your kindness, and most gratefully shall i receive the promised volumes. i have not yet got "the pamphlet," and am much afraid it is buried in what miss de quincey calls her "father's chaos"; but i have charming letters from her, and am heartily glad that i wrote. you have the way (like mr. bennoch) of making friends still better friends, and bringing together those who, without you, would have had no intercourse. it is the very finest of all the fine arts. tell dear dr. holmes that the more i hear of him, the more i feel how inadequate has been all that i have said to express my own feelings; and tell president sparks that his charming wife ought to have received a long letter from me at the same moment with yourself. mr. hawthorne's new work will be a real treat. tell me if mr. bennoch has sent you some stanzas on ireland, which have more of the very highest qualities of beranger than i have ever seen in english verse. we who love him shall have to be very proud of dear mr. bennoch. tell me, too, if our solution of the line, "a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind," was the first; and why the new president is at once called general and talked of as a civilian. the other president goes on nobly, does he not? say everything for me to dear mr. and mrs. w---- and all friends. ever yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, december , . o my very dear friend, how much too kind you are to me, who have nothing to give you in return but affection and gratitude! mr. bennett brought me your beautiful book on saturday, and you may think how heartily we wished that you had been here also. but you will come this spring, will you not? i earnestly hope nothing will come in the way of that happiness. before leaving the subject of our good little friend, let me say that, talking over our own best authors and your de quincey (n.b. the pamphlet has not arrived yet, i fear it is forever buried in de quincey's "chaos"),--talking of these things, we both agreed that there was another author, probably little known in america, who would be quite worthy of a reprint, william hazlitt. is there any complete edition of his lectures and essays? i should think they would come out well, now that thackeray is giving his lectures. i know that charles lamb and talfourd thought hazlitt not only the most brilliant, but the soundest of all critics. then his life of napoleon is capital, that is, capital for an english life; the only way really to know the great man is to read him in the _mémoires_ of his own ministers, lieutenants, and servants; for _he was_ a hero to his _valet de chambre_, the greatness was so real that it would bear close looking into. and our emperor, i have just had a letter from osborne, from marianne skerrett, describing the arrival of count walewski under a royal salute to receive the queen's recognition of napoleon iii. she, marianne, says, "how great a man that, is, and how like a fairy tale the whole story!" she adds, that, seeing much of louis philippe, she never could abide him, he was so cunning and so false, not cunning enough to hide the falseness! were not you charmed with the bits of sentiment and feeling that come out all through our hero's southern progress? always one finds in him traits of a gracious and graceful nature, far too frequent and too spontaneous to be the effect of calculation. it is a comfort to find, in spite of our delectable press, ministers are wise enough to understand that our policy is peace, and not only peace but cordiality. to quarrel with france would be almost as great a sin as to quarrel with america. what a set of fools our great ladies are! i had hoped better things of lord carlisle, but to find that long list at stafford house in female parliament assembled, echoing the absurdities of exeter hall, leaving their own duties and the reserve which is the happy privilege of our sex to dictate to a great nation on a point which all the world knows to be its chief difficulty, is enough to make one ashamed of the title of englishwoman. i know a great many of these committee ladies, and in most of them i trace that desire to follow the fashion, and concert with duchesses, which is one of the besetting sins of the literary circles in london. one name did surprise me, ----, considering that one of her husband's happiest bits, in the book of his that will live, was the subscription for sending flannel waistcoats to the negroes in the west indies; and that in this present book a certain mrs. jellyby is doing just what his wife is doing at stafford house! even if i had not had my earnest thanks to send you, i should have written this week to beg you to convey a message to mr. hawthorne. mr. chorley writes to me, "you will be interested to hear that a russian literary man of eminence was so much attracted to the 'house of the seven gables' by the review in the athenaeum, as to have translated it into russian and published it feuilletonwise in a newspaper." i know you will have the goodness to tell mr. hawthorne this, with my love. mr. chorley saw the entrance of the empereur into the tuileries. he looked radiant. the more i read that elegy on the death of daniel webster, the more i find to admire. it is as grand as a dirge upon an organ. love to the dear w----s and to dr. holmes. ever, dearest mr. fields, most gratefully yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, january , . your most welcome letter, my very dear friend, arrived to-day, and i write not only to acknowledge that, and your constant kindness, but because, if, as i believe, mr. bennoch has told you of my mischance, you will be glad to hear from my own hand that i am going on well. last monday fortnight i was thrown violently from my own pony-chaise upon the hard road in lady russell's park. no bones were broken, but the nerves of one side were so terribly bruised and lacerated, and the shock to the system was so great, that even at the end of ten days mr. may could not satisfy himself, without a most minute re-examination, that neither fracture nor dislocation had taken place, and i am writing to you at this moment with my left arm bound tightly to my body and no power whatever of raising either foot from the ground. the only parts of me that have escaped uninjured are my head and my right hand, and this is much. moreover mr. may says that, although the cure will be tedious, he sees no cause to doubt my recovering altogether my former condition, so that we may still hope to drive about together when you come back to england.... i wrote i think, dearest friend, to thank you heartily for the beautiful and interesting book called "the homes of american authors." how comfortably they are housed, and how glad i am to find that, owing to mr. hawthorne's being so near the new president, and therefore keeping up the habit of friendship and intercourse, the want of which habit so frequently brings college friendship to an end, he is likely to enter into public life. it will be an excellent thing for his future books,--the fault of all his writings, in spite of their great beauty, being a want of reality, of the actual, healthy, every-day life which is a necessary element in literature. all the great poets have it,--homer, shakespeare, scott. it will be the very best school for our pet poet. nobody under the sun has so much right as you have to see mr. dillon's book, which is in six quarto volumes, not one. our dear friend mr. bennoch knows him, and tells me to-day that mr. dillon has invited him to go and look at it. he has just received it from the binders. of course mr. bennoch will introduce you. i was so glad to read what looked like a renewed pledge of your return to england. mr. bentley has sent me three several applications for a second series. at present mr. may forbids all composition, but i suppose the thing will be done. i shall introduce some chapters on french poetry and literature. at this moment i am in full chase of casimer delavigne's _ballads_. he thought so little of them that he published very few in his poésies,--one in a note,--and several of the very finest not at all. they are scattered about here and there. ---- has reproduced two (which i had) in his memories; but i want all that can be found, especially one of which the refrain is, "chez l'ambassadere de france." i was such a fool, when i read it six or seven years ago, as not to take a copy. do you think mr. hector bossange could help me to that, or to any others not printed in the memories? ...of course i shall devote one chapter to _our_ emperor. ah, how much better is such a government as his than one which every four years causes a sort of moral earthquake; or one like ours, where whole sessions are passed in squabbling! the loss of his place has saved disraeli's life, for everybody said he could not have survived three months' badgering in the house. a very intimate friend of his (mr. henry drummond, the very odd, very clever member for surrey) says that he had certainly broken a bloodvessel. one piece of news i have heard to-day from miss goldsmid, that the jews are certain now to gain their point and be admitted to the house of commons; for my part, i hold that every one has a claim to his civil rights, were he mahometan or hindoo, and i rejoice that poor old sir isaac, the real author of the movement, will probably live to see it accomplished. the thought of succeeding at last in the pursuit to which he has devoted half his life has quite revived him. and now heaven bless you, my very dear friend. none of the poems on wellington are to be compared to that dirge on webster. i rejoice that my article should have pleased his family. the only bit of my new book that i have written is a paper on taylor and stoddard. say everything for me to the ticknors and nortons and your own people, the w----s. ever most faithfully and affectionately yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, february , . ah, my dear friend! ask dr. holmes what these severe bruises and lacerations of the nerves of the principal joints are, and he will tell you that they are much more slow and difficult of cure, as well as more painful, than half a dozen broken bones. it is now above six weeks since that accident, and although the shoulder is going on favorably, there is still a total loss of muscular power in the lower limbs. i am just lifted out of bed and wheeled to the fireside, and then at night wheeled back and lifted into bed,--without the power of standing for a moment, or of putting one foot before the other, or of turning in bed. mr. may says that warm weather will probably do much for me, but that till then i must be a prisoner to my room, for that if rheumatism supervenes upon my present inability, there will be no chance of getting rid of it. so "patience and shuffle the cards," as a good man, much in my state, the contented marquess, says in don quixote.... i assure you i am not out of spirits; indeed, people are so kind to me that it would be the basest of all ingratitude if i were not cheerful as well as thankful. i think that in a letter which you must have received by this time, i told you how it came about, and thanked you for the comely book which shows how cosily america lodges my brethren of the quill. dr. holmes ought to have been there, and dr. parsons, but their time will come and must. nothing gratifies me more than to find how many strangers, writing to me of my recollections, mention dr. holmes, classing him sometimes with thomas davis, sometimes with praed. if i write another series of recollections, as, when mr. may will let me, i suppose i must, i shall certainly include dr. parsons.... has anybody told you the terrible story of that boy, lord ockham, lord byron's grandson? i had it from mr. noel, lady byron's cousin-german and intimate friend. while his poor mother was dying her death of martyrdom from an inward cancer,--mrs. sartoris (adelaide kemble), who went to sing to her, saw her through the door, which was left open, crouching on a floor covered with mattresses, on her hands and knees, the only posture she could bear,--whilst she with the patience of an angel was enduring her long agony, her husband, engrossed by her, left this lad of seventeen to his sister and the governess. it was a dull life, and he ran away. mr. noel (my friend's brother, from whom he had the story) knew most of the youth, who had been for a long time staying at his house, and they begged him to undertake the search. lord ockham had sent a carpet-bag containing his gentleman's clothes to his father, lord lovelace, in london; he was therefore disguised, and from certain things he had said mr. noel suspected that he intended to go to america. accordingly he went first to bristol, then to liverpool, leaving his description, a sort of written portrait of him, with the police at both places. at liverpool he was found before long, and when mr. noel, summoned by the electric telegraph, reached that town, he found him dressed as a sailor-boy at a low public-house, surrounded by seamen of both nations, and enjoying, as much as possible, their sailor yarns. he had given his money, £ , to the landlord to keep; had desired him to inquire for a ship where he might be received as cabin-boy; and had entered into a shrewd bargain for his board, stipulating that he should have over and above his ordinary rations a pint of beer with his sunday dinner. the landlord did not cheat him, but he postponed all engagements under the expectation--seeing that he was clearly a gentleman's son--that money would be offered for his recovery. the worst is that he (lord ockham) showed no regret for the sorrow and disgrace that he had brought upon his family at such a time. he has two tastes not often seen combined,--the love of money and of low company. one wonders how he will turn out. he is now in paris, after which he is to re-enter in green's ship (he had served in one before) for a twelvemonth, and to leave the service or remain in it as he may decide then. this is perfectly true; mr. noel had it from his brother the very day before he wrote it to me. he says that lady lovelace's funeral was too ostentatious. escutcheons and silver coronals everywhere. lord lovelace's taste that, and not lady byron's, which is perfectly simple. you know that she was buried in the same vault with her father, whose coffin and the box containing his heart were in perfect preservation. scott's only grandson, too, is just dead of sheer debauchery. strange! as if one generation paid in vice and folly for the genius of the past. by the way, are you not charmed at the emperor's marriage? to restore to princes honest love and healthy preference, instead of the conventional intermarriages which have brought epilepsy and idiotism and madness into half the royal families of christendom! and then the beauty of that speech, with its fine appeals to the best sympathies of our common nature! i am proud of him. what a sad, sad catastrophe was that of young pierce! i won't call his father general, and i hope he will leave it off. with us it is a real offence to give any man a higher rank than belongs to him,--to say captain, for instance, to a lieutenant,--and that is one of our usages which it would be well to copy. but we have follies enough, god knows; that duchess address, with all its tuft-hunting signatures, is a thing to make englishwomen ashamed. well, they caught it deservedly in an address from american women, written probably by some very clever american man. no, i have not seen longfellow's lines on the duke. one gets sick of the very name. henry is exceedingly fond of his little sister. i remember that when he first saw the snow fall in large flakes, he would have it that it was a shower of white feathers. love to all my dear friends, the w----s, mrs. sparks, dr. holmes, mr. hawthorne. ever, dearest friend, most affectionately yours, m.r.m. ( st march, .) the numbers for the election of president of france in favor of louis napoleon were for against look through the back of this against the candle, or the fire, or any light. my very dear friend: having a note to send to mrs. sparks, who has sent me, or rather whose husband has sent me, two answers to lord mahon, which, coming through a country bookseller, have, i suspect, been some months on the way, i cannot help sending it enclosed to you, that i may have a chat with you _en passant_,--the last, i hope, before your arrival. if you have not seen the above curious instance of figures forming into a word, and that word into a prophecy, i think it will amuse you, and i want besides to tell you some of the _on-dits_ about the empress. a mr. huddlestone, the head of one of our great catholic houses, is in despair at the marriage. he had been desperately in love with her for two years in spain,--had followed her to paris,--was called back to england by his father's illness, and was on the point of crossing the channel, after that father's death, to lay himself and £ , or £ , a year at her feet, when the emperor stepped in and carried off the prize. to comfort himself he has got a portrait of her on horseback, which a friend of mine saw the other day at his house. mrs. browning writes me from florence: "i wonder if the empress pleases you as well as the emperor. for my part, i approve altogether, and none the less that he has offended austria by the mode of announcement. every cut of the whip on the face of austria is an especial compliment to me, or so i feel it. let him heed the democracy, and do his duty to the world, and use to the utmost his great opportunities. mr. cobden and the peace societies are pleasing me infinitely just now in making head against the immorality--that's the word--of the english press. the tone taken up towards france is immoral in the highest degree, and the invasion cry would be idiotic if it were not something worse. the empress, i heard the other day from high authority, is charming and good at heart. she was brought up at a respectable school at clifton, and is very english, which does not prevent her from shooting with pistols, leaping gates, driving four in hand, and upsetting the carriage if the frolic requires it,--as brave as a lion and as true as a dog. her complexion is like marble, white, pale, and pure,--the hair light, rather sandy, they say, and she powders it with gold dust for effect; but there is less physical and more intellectual beauty than is generally attributed to her. she is a woman of very decided opinions. i like all that, don't you? and i like her letter to the press, as everybody must." besides this, i have to-day a letter from a friend in paris, who says that "everybody feels her charm," and that "the emperor, when presenting her at the balcony on the wedding-day, looked radiant with happiness." my parisian friend says that young alexandre dumas is amongst the people arrested for libel,--a thorough _mauvais sujet_. lamartine is quite ruined, and forced to sell his estates. he was always, i believe, expensive, like all those french _littérateurs_. you don't happen to have in boston--have you?--a copy of "les mémoires de lally tollendal"? i think they are different publications in defence of his father, published, some in london during the emigration, some in paris after the restoration. what i want is an account of the retreat from pondicherie. i'll tell you why some day here. mrs. browning is most curious about your rappings,--of which i suppose you believe as much as i do of the cock lane ghost, whose doings, by the way, they much resemble. i liked mrs. tyler's letter; at least i liked it much better than the one to which it was an answer, although i hold it one of our best female privileges to have no act or part in such matters. now you will be sorry to have a very bad account of me. three weeks ago frost and snow set in here, and ever since i have been unable to rise or stand, or put one foot before another, and the pain is much worse than at first. i suppose rheumatism has supervened upon the injured nerve. god bless you. love to all. ever faithfully yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, march , my dear friend: i cannot enough thank you for your most kind and charming letter. your letters, and the thoughts of you, and the hope that you will coax your partners into the hazardous experiment of letting you come to england, help to console me under this long confinement; for here i am at near easter still a close prisoner from the consequences of the accident that took place before christmas. i have only once left my room, and that only to the opposite chamber to have this cleaned, and i got such a chill that it brought back all the pain and increased all the weakness. but when fine weather--warm, genial, sunny weather--comes, i will get down in some way or other, and trust myself to that which never hurts any one, the honest open air. spring, and even the approach of spring, has upon me something the effect that england has upon you. it sets me dreaming,--i see leafy hedges in my dreams, and flowery banks, and then i long to make the vision a reality. i remember that fanchon's father, flush, who was a famous sporting dog, used, at the approach of the covering season, to quest in his sleep, doubtless by the same instinct that works in me. so, as soon as the sun tells the same story with the primroses i shall make a descent after some fashion, and no doubt, aided by sam's stalwart arm, successfully. in the mean while i have one great pleasure in store, be the weather what it may; for next saturday or the saturday after i shall see dear mr. bennoch. we have not met since november, although he has written to me again and again. he will take this letter, and i trouble you with a note to kind mrs. sparks, who is about to send me, or rather who has sent me, some american cracknels, which have not yet arrived. to-day, too, i had a charming letter from lasswade,--not _the_ letter, the pamphlet one, but one full of kindness from father and daughter, written by miss margaret to ask after me with a reality of interest which one feels at once. it gave me pleasure in another way too; mr. de quincey is of my faith and delight in the emperor! is not that delightful? also he holds in great abomination that blackest of iniquities ----, my heresy as to which nearly cost me an idolator t'other day, a lady from essex, who came here to take a house in my neighborhood to be near me. she was so shocked that, if we had not met afterwards, when i regained my ground a little by certain congenialities she certainly would have abjured me forever. well! no offence to mrs. ----. i had rather in a literary question agree with thomas de quincey than with her and queen victoria, who, always fond of strong not to say coarse excitements, is amongst ----'s warm admirers. i knew you would like the emperor's marriage. i heard last week from a stiff english lady, who had been visiting one of the empress's ladies of honor, that one day at st. cloud she shot thirteen brace of partridges; "but," added the narrator, "she is so sweet and charming a creature that any man might fall in love with her notwithstanding." to be sure mr. thackeray liked you. how could he help it? did not he also like dr. holmes? i hope so. how glad i should be to see him in england, and how glad i shall be to see mr. hawthorne! he will find all the best judges of english writing admiring him to his heart's content, warmly and discriminatingly; and a consulship in a bustling town will give him the cheerful reality, the healthy air of every-day life, which is his only want. will you tell all these dear friends, especially mr. and mrs. w----, how deeply i feel their affectionate sympathy, and thank mr. whittier and professor longfellow over and over again for their kind condolence? tell mr. whittier how much i shall prize his book. he has an earnest admirer in buckingham palace, marianne skerrett, known as the queen's miss skerrett, the lady chiefly about her, and the only one to whom she talks of books. miss skerrett is herself a very clever woman, and holds mr. whittier to be not only the greatest, but the _one_ poet of america; which last assertion the poet himself would, i suspect, be the very first to deny. your promise of dr. parsons's poem is very delightful to me. i hold firm to my admiration of those stanzas on webster. nothing written on the duke came within miles of it, and i have no doubt that the poem on dante's bust is equally fine.... mr. justice talfourd has just printed a new tragedy. he sent it to me from oxford, not from reading, where he had passed four days and never gave a copy to any mortal, and told me, in a very affectionate letter which accompanied it, that "it was at present a very private sin, he having only given eight or ten copies in all." i suppose that it will be published, for i observe that the "not published" is written, not printed, and that moxon's name is on the title-page. it is called "the castilian,"--is on the story of a revolt headed by don john de padilla in the early part of charles the fifth's reign, and is more like ion than either of his other tragedies. i have just been reading a most interesting little book in manuscript, called "the heart of montrose." it is a versification in three ballads of a very striking letter in napier's "life and times of montrose," by the young lady who calls herself mary maynard. it is really a little book that ought to make a noise, not too long, full of grace and of interest, and she has adhered to the true story with excellent taste, that story being a very remarkable union of the romantic and the domestic. i am afraid that my other young poet, ----, is dying of consumption; those fine spirits often fall in that way. i have just corrected my book for a cheaper edition. mr. bentley is very urgent for a second series, and i suppose i must try. i shall get you to write for me to mr. hector bossange when you come, for come you must. my eyes begin to feel the effects of this long confinement to one smoky and dusty room. so far had i written, dearest friend, when this day (march ) brought me your most kind and welcome letter enclosed in another from dear mr. bennoch. am i to return dr. parsons's? or shall i keep it till you come to fetch it? tell the writer how very much i prize his kindness, none the less that he likes (as i do) my tragedies, that is, one of them, the best of my poor doings. the lines on the duchess are capital, and quite what she deserves; but i think those the worst who, in so true a spirit of what carlyle would call flunkeyism, consent to sign any nonsense that their names may figure side by side with that of a duchess, and they themselves find (for once) an admittance to the gilded saloons of stafford house. for my part, i well-nigh lost an admirer the other day by taking a common-sense view of the question. a lady (whose name i never heard till a week ago) came here to take a house to be near me. (n.b. there was none to be had.) well, she was so provoked to find that i had stopped short of the one hundredth page of ----, and never intended to read another, that i do think, if we had not discovered some sympathies to counterbalance that grand difference--as i live, i have told you that story before! ah! i am sixty-six, and i get older every day! so does little henry, who is at home just now, and longing to put the clock forward that he may go to america. he is a boy of great promise, full of sound sense, and as good as good can be. i suppose that he never in his life told an untruth, or broke a promise, or disobeyed a command. he is very fond of his little sister; and not at all jealous either--to the great praise of that four-footed lady be it said--is fanchon, who watches over the cradle, and is as fond of the baby in her way as henry in his. so far from paying me copyright money, all that i ever received from mr. b---- was two copies of his edition of "our village," one of which i gave away, and of the other some chance visitor has taken one of the volumes. i really do think i shall ask him for a copy or two. how can i ever thank you enough for your infinite kindness in sending me books! thank you again and again. dear mr. bennoch has been making an admirable speech, in moving to present the thanks of the city to mr. layard. how one likes to feel proud of one's friends! god bless you! ever most faithfully yours, m.r.m. kind mrs. sparks's biscuits arrived quite safe. how droll some of the cookery is in "the wide, wide world"! it would try english stomachs by its over-richness. i wonder you are not all dead, if such be your _cuisine_. swallowfield, may , . how shall i thank you enough, dear and kind friend, for the copy of ---- that arrived here yesterday! very like; only it wanted what that great painter, the sun, will never arrive at giving, the actual look of life which is the one great charm of the human countenance. strange that the very source of light should fail in giving that light of the face, the smile. however, all that can be given by that branch of art has been given. i never before saw so good a photographic portrait, and for one that gives more i must wait until john lucas, or some american john lucas, shall coax you into sitting. i sent you, ten days ago, a batch of notes, and a most unworthy letter of thanks for one of your parcels of gift-books; and i write the rather now to tell you i am better than then, and hope to be in a still better plight before july or august, when a most welcome letter from mr. tuckerman has bidden us to expect you to officiate as master of the ceremonies to mr. hawthorne, who, welcome for himself, will be trebly welcome for such an introducer. now let me say how much i like de quincey's new volumes. the "wreck of a household" shows great power of narrative, if he would but take the trouble to be right as to details; the least and lowest part of the art, that of interesting you in his people, he has. and those "last days of kant," how affecting they are, and how thoroughly in every line and in every thought, agree with him or not, (and in all that relates to napoleon i differ from him, as in his overestimate of wordsworth and of coleridge), one always feels how thoroughly and completely he is a gentleman as well as a great writer; and so much has _that_ to do with my admiration, that i have come to tracing personal character in books almost as a test of literary merit: charles boner's "chamois-hunting," for instance, owes a great part of its charm to the resolute truth of the writer, and a great drawback from the attraction of "my novel" seems to me to be derived from the _blasé_ feeling, the unclean mind from whence it springs, felt most when trying after moralities. amongst your bounties i was much amused with the new york magazines, the curious turning up of a new claimant to the louis-the-seventeenth pretension amongst the red indians, and the rappings and pencil-writings of the new spiritualists. one should wonder most at the believers in these two branches of faith, if that particular class did not always seem to be provided most abundantly whenever a demand occurs. only think of mrs. browning giving the most unlimited credence to every "rapping" story which anybody can tell her! did i tell you that the work on which she is engaged is a fictitious autobiography in blank verse, the heroine a woman artist (i suppose singer or actress), and the tone intensely modern? you will see that "colombe's birthday" has been brought out at the haymarket. mr. chorley (robert browning's most intimate friend) writes me word that mrs. martin (helen faucit, at whose persuasion it was acted) told him that it had gone off "better than she expected." have you seen alexander smith's book, which is all the rage just now? i saw some extracts from his poems a year and a half ago, and the whole book is like a quantity of extracts put together without any sort of connection, a mass of powerful metaphor with scarce any lattice-work for the honeysuckles to climb upon. keats was too much like this; but then keats was the first. now this book, admitting its merit in a certain way, is but the imitation of a school, and, in my mind, a bad school. one such poem as that on the bust of dante is worth a whole wilderness of these new writers, the very best of them. certainly nothing better than those two pages ever crossed the atlantic. god bless you, dear friend. say everything for me to dear mr. and mrs. w----, to dr. holmes, to dr. parsons, to mr. whittier, (how powerful his new volume is!) to mr. stoddard, to mrs. sparks, to all my friends. ever most affectionately yours, m.r.m. i am writing on the th of may, but where is the may of the poets? half the morning yesterday it snowed, at night there was ice as thick as a shilling, and to-day it is absolutely as cold as christmas. of course the leaves refuse to unfold, the nightingales can hardly be said to sing, even the hateful cuckoo holds his peace. i am hoping to see dear mr. bennoch soon to supply some glow and warmth. swallowfield, june , . i write at once, dearest friend, to acknowledge your most kind and welcome letter. i am better than when i wrote last, and get out almost every day for a very slow and quiet drive round our lovely lanes; far more lovely than last year, since the foliage is quite as thick again, and all the flowery trees, aloes, laburnums, horse-chestnuts, acacias, honeysuckles, azalias, rhododendrons, hawthorns, are one mass of blossoms,--literally the leaves are hardly visible, so that the color, whenever we come upon park, shrubbery, or plantation, is such as should be seen to be imagined. in my long life i never knew such a season of flowers; so the wet winter and the cold spring have their compensation. i get out in this way with sam and k---- and the baby, and it gives me exquisite pleasure, and if you were here the pleasure would be multiplied a thousand fold by your society; but i do not gain strength in the least. attempting to do a little more and take some young people to the gates of whiteknights, which, without my presence, would be closed, proved too far and too rapid a movement, and for two days i could not stir for excessive soreness all over the body. i am still lifted down stairs step by step, and it is an operation of such time (it takes half an hour to get me down that one flight of cottage stairs), such pain, such fatigue, and such difficulty, that, unless to get out in the pony-chaise, i do not attempt to leave my room. i am still lifted into bed, and can neither turn nor move in any way when there, am wheeled from the stairs to the pony-carriage, cannot walk three steps, can hardly stand a moment, and in rising from my chair am sometimes ten minutes, often longer. so you see that i am very, very feeble and infirm. still i feel sound at heart and clear in head, am quite as cheerful as ever, and, except that i get very much sooner exhausted, enjoy society as much as ever, so you must come if only to make me well. i do verily believe your coming would do me more good than anything. i was much interested by your account of the poor english stage coachman. ah, these are bad days for stage coachmen on both sides the atlantic! do you remember his name? and do you know whether he drove between london and reading, or between reading and basingstoke?--a most useless branch railroad between the two latter places, constructed by the great western simply out of spite to the southwestern, which i am happy to state has never yet paid its daily expenses, to say nothing of the cost of construction, and has taken everything off our road, which before abounded in coaches, carriers, and conveyances of all sorts. the vile railway does us no earthly good, we being above four miles from the nearest station, and you may imagine how much inconvenience the absence of stated communication with a market town causes to our small family, especially now that i can neither spare sam nor the pony to go twelve miles. you must come to england and come often to see me, just to prove that there is any good whatever in railways,--a fact i am often inclined to doubt. i shall send this letter to be forwarded to mr. bennett, and desire him to write to you himself. he is, as you say, an "excellent youth," although it is very generous in me to say so, for i do believe that you came to see me since he has been. dear mr. bennoch, with all his multifarious business, has been again and again. god bless him! ...to return to mr bennett. he has been engaged in a grand battle with the trustees of an old charity school, principally the vicar. his two brothers helped in the fight. they won a notable victory. they were quite right in the matter in dispute and the "excellent youth" came out well in various letters. his opponent, the vicar, was senior wrangler at our cambridge, the very highest university honor in england, and tutor to the present lord grey. by the way, mr. ---- wrote to me the other day to ask that i would let him be here when mr. hawthorne comes to see me. i only answered this request by asking whether he did not intend to come to see _me_ before that time, for certainly he might come to visit an old friend, especially a sick one, for her own sake, and not merely to meet a notability, and i am by no means sure that mr. hawthorne might not prefer to come alone or with dear mr. bennoch; at all events it ought to be left to _his_ choice, and besides i have not lost the hope of your being the introducer of the great romancer, and then how little should i want anybody to come between us. begin as they may, all my paragraphs slide into that refrain of pray, pray come! i have written to you about other kindnesses since that note full of hopes, but i do not think that i did write to thank you for dear dr. holmes's "lecture on english poetesses," or rather the analysis of a lecture which sins only by over-gallantry. ah, there is a difference between the sexes, and the difference is the reverse way to that in which he puts it! tell him i sent his charming stanzas on moore to a leading member of the irish committee for raising a monument to his memory, and that they were received with enthusiasm by the irish friends of the poet. i have sent them to many persons in england worthy to be so honored, and the very cleverest woman whom i have ever known (miss goldsmid) wrote to me only yesterday to thank me for sending her that exquisite poem, adding, "i think the stanza 'if on his cheek, etc.,' contains one of the most beautiful similes to be found in the whole domain of poetry." i also told mrs. browning what dear dr. holmes said of her. the american poets whom she prefers are lowell and emerson. now i know something of lowell and of emerson, but i hold that those lines on dante's bust are amongst the finest ever written in the language, whether by american or englishman; don't you? and what a grand dead march is the poem on webster! ...also mrs. browning believes in spirit-rapping stories,--all,--and tells me that robert owen has been converted by them to a belief in a future state. everybody everywhere is turning tables. the young russells, who are surcharged with electricity, set them spinning in ten minutes. in general, you know, it is usual to take off all articles of metal. they, the other night, took a fancy to remove their rings and bracelets, and, having done so, the table, which had paused for a moment, began whirling again as fast as ever the contrary way. this is a fact, and a curious one. i have lent three volumes of your "de quincey" to my young friend, james payn, a poet of very high promise, who has verified the green story, and taken the books with him to the lakes. god grant, my dear friend, that you may not lose by "our village"; that is what i care for. ever faithfully yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, june , . ah, my very dear friend, we shall not see you this summer, i am sure. for the first time i clearly perceive the obstacle, and i feel that unless some chance should detain mr. ticknor, we must give up the great happiness of seeing you till next year. i wonder whether your poor old friend will be alive to greet you then! well, that is as god pleases; in the mean time be assured that you have been one of the chief comforts and blessings of these latter years of my life, not only in your own friendship and your thousand kindnesses, but in the kindness and friendship of dear mr. bennoch, which, in the first instance, i mainly owe to you. i am in somewhat better trim, although the getting out of doors and into the pony-carriage, from which mr. may hoped such great things, has hardly answered his expectations. i am not stronger, and i am so nervous that i can only bear to be driven, or more ignominiously still to be led, at a foot's pace through the lanes. i am still unable to stand or walk, unless supported by sam's strong hands lifting me up on each side, still obliged to be lifted into bed, and unable to turn or move when there, the worst grievance of all. however, i am in as good spirits as ever, and just at this moment most comfortably seated under the acacia-tree at the corner of my house,--the beautiful acacia literally loaded with its snowy chains (the flowering trees this summer, lilacs, laburnums, rhododendrons, azalias, have been one mass of blossoms, and none are so graceful as this waving acacia); on one side a syringa, smelling and looking like an orange-tree; a jar of roses on the table before me,--fresh-gathered roses, the pride of sam's heart; and little fanchon at my feet, too idle to eat the biscuits with which i am trying to tempt her,--biscuits from boston, sent to me by mrs. sparks, whose kindness is really indefatigable, and which fanchon ought to like upon that principle if upon no other, but you know her laziness of old, and she improves in it every day. well that is a picture of the swallowfield cottage at this moment, and i wish that you and the bennochs and the w----s and mr. whipple were here to add to its life and comfort. you must come next year and come in may, that you and dear mr. bennoch may hear the nightingales together. he has never heard them, and this year they have been faint and feeble (as indeed they were last) compared with their usual song. now they are over, and although i expect him next week, it will be too late. precious fooling that has been at stafford house! and our ---- who delights in strong, not to say worse, emotions, whose chief pleasure it was to see the lions fed in van amburgh's time, who went seven times to see the ghost in the "corsican brothers," and has every sort of natural curiosity (not to say wonder) brought to her at buckingham palace, was in a state of exceeding misery because she could not, consistently with her amicable relations with the united states, receive mrs. ---- there. (ah! our dear emperor has better taste. heaven bless him!) from lord shaftesbury one looks for unmitigated cant, but i did expect better things of lord carlisle. how many names that both you and i know went there merely because the owner of the house was a fashionable duchess,--the wilmers ("though they are my friends"), the p----s and ----! for my part, i have never read beyond the first one hundred pages, and have a certain malicious pleasure in so saying. let me add that almost all the clever men whom i have seen are of the same faction; they took up the book and laid it down again. do you ever reprint french books, or ever get them translated? by very far the most delightful work that i have read for many years is sainte-beuve's "causeries du lundi," or his weekly feuilletons in the "constitutionnel." i am sure they would sell if there be any taste for french literature. it is so curious, so various, so healthy, so catholic in its biography and criticism; but it must be well done by some one who writes good english prose and knows well the literary history of france. don't trust women; they, especially the authoresses, are as ignorant as dirt. just as i had got to this point, mr. willmot came to spend the evening, and very singularly consulted me about undertaking a series of english portraits littéraires, like sainte-beuve's former works. he will do it well, and i commended him to the charming "causeries," and advised him to make that a weekly article, as no doubt he could. it would only tell the better for the wide diffusion. he does, you know, the best criticism of the times. i have most charming letters from dr. parsons and dear mr. whittier. his cordiality is delightful. god bless you. ever yours, m.r.m. (no date.) never, my dear friend, did i expect to like so well a man who came in your place, as i do like mr. ticknor. he is an admirable person, very like his cousin in mind and manners, unmistakably good. it is delightful to hear him talk of you, and to feel that the sort of elder brotherhood which a senior partner must exercise in a firm is in such hands. he was very kind to little harry, and harry likes him _next_ to you. you know he had been stanch in resisting all the advances of dear mr ----, who had asked him if he would not come to him, to which he had responded by a sturdy "no!" he (mr. ticknor) came here on saturday with the dear bennochs (n.b. i love him better than ever), and the kingsleys met him. mr. hawthorne was to have come, but could not leave liverpool so soon, so that is a pleasure to come. he will tell you that all is arranged for printing with colburn's successors, hurst and blackett, two separate works, the plays and dramatic scenes forming one, the stories to be headed by a long tale, of which i have always had the idea in my head, to form almost a novel. god grant me strength to do myself and my publishers justice in that story! this whole affair springs from the fancy which mr. bennoch has taken to have the plays printed in a collected form during my lifetime, for i had always felt that they would be so printed after my death, so that their coming out now seems to me a sort of anachronism. the one certain pleasure that i shall derive from this arrangement will be, having my name and yours joined together in the american edition, for we reserve the early sheets. nothing ever vexed me so much as the other book not being in your hands. that was mr. ----'s fault, for, stiff as bentley is, mr. bennoch would have managed him..... of a certainty my first strong interest in american poetry sprang from dear dr. holmes's exquisite little piece of scenery painting, which he delivered where his father had been educated. you sent me that, and thus made the friendship between dr. holmes and me; and now you are yourself--you, my dearest american friend--delivering an address at the greatest american university. it is a great honor, and one.... i suppose mr. ticknor tells you the book-news? the most striking work for years is "haydon's life." i hope you have reprinted it, for it is sure, not only of a run, but of a durable success. you know that the family wanted me to edit the book. i shrank from a task that required so much knowledge which could only be possessed by one living in the artist world _now_, to know who was dead and who alive, and mr. tom taylor has done it admirably. i read the book twice over, so profound was my interest in it. in his early days, i used to be a sort of safety-valve to that ardent spirit most like benvenuto cellini both in pen and tongue and person. our dear mr. bennoch was the providence of his later years. they tell me that that powerful work has entirely stopped the sale of moore's life, which, all tinsel and tawdry rags, might have been written by a court newsman or a court milliner. i wonder whether they will print the other six volumes; for the four out they have given mrs. moore three thousand pounds. a bad account mr. tupper gives of ----. fancy his conceit! when mr. tupper praised a passage in one of his poems, he said, "if i had known you liked it, i would have omitted that passage in my new edition," and he has done so by passages praised by persons of taste, cut them out bodily and left the sentences before and after to join themselves how they could. what a bad figure your president and mr. ---- cut at the opening of your exhibition! i am sorry for ----, for, although he has quite forgotten me since his aunt's book came out, he once stayed three weeks with us, and i liked him. well, so many of his countrymen are over-good to me, that i may well forgive one solitary instance of forgetfulness! make my love to all my dear friends at boston and cambridge. tell mrs. sparks how dearly i should have liked to have been at her side on _the_ thursday. tell dr. holmes that his kind approbation of rienzi is one of my encouragements in this new edition. i had a long talk about him with mr. ticknor, and rejoice to find him so young. thank mr. whipple again and again for his kindness. ever yours, m.r.m. (no date.) my very dear friend: mr. hillard (whom i shall be delighted to see if he come to england and will let me know when he can get here)--mr. hillard has just put into verse my own feelings about you. it is the one comfort belonging to the hard work of these _two_ books (for besides the dramatic works in two thick volumes, there are prose stories in two also, and i have one long tale, almost a novel, to write),--it is the one comfort of this labor that _i_ shall see our names together on one page. i have just finished a long gossiping preface of thirty or forty pages to the dramatic works, which is much more an autobiography than the recollections, and which i have tried to make as amusing as if it were ill-natured. _that_ work is dedicated to our dear mr. bennoch, another consolation. i sent the dedication to dear mr. ticknor, but as his letter of adieu did not reach me till two or three days after it was written, and i am not quite sure that i recollected the number in paternoster row, i shall send it to you here. "to francis bennoch, esq., who blends in his life great public services with the most genial private hospitality; who, munificent patron of poet and of painter, is the first to recognize every talent except his own, content to be beloved where others claim to be admired; to him, equally valued as companion and as friend, these volumes are most respectfully and affectionately inscribed by the author." i write from memory, but if this be not it, it is very like it, (and i beg you to believe that my preface is a little better english than this agglomeration of "its.") mr. kingsley says that alfred tennyson says that alexander smith's poems show fancy, but not imagination; and on my repeating this to mrs. browning, she said it was exactly her impression. for my part i am struck by the extravagance and the total want of finish and of constructive power, and i am in hopes that ultimately good will come out of evil, for mr. kingsley has written, he tells me, a paper called "alexander pope and alexander smith," and mr. willmott, the powerful critic of the times, takes the same view, he tells me, and will doubtless put it into print some day or other, so that the carrying this bad school to excess will work for good. by the way, mr. ----, whose imogen is so beautiful, sent me the other day a terrible wild affair in that style, and i wrote him a frank letter, which my sincere admiration for what he does well gives me some right to do. he has in him the making of a great poet; but, if he once take to these obscurities, he is lost. i hope i have not offended him, for i think it is a real talent, and i feel the strongest interest in him. my young friend, james payn, went a fortnight or three weeks ago to lasswade and spent an evening with mr. de quincey. he speaks of him just as you do, marvellously fine in point of conversation, looking like an old beggar, but with the manners of a prince, "if," adds james payn, "we may understand by that all that is intelligent and courteous and charming." (i suppose he means such manners as our emperor's.) he began by saying that his life was a mere misery to him from nerves, and that he could only render it endurable by a semi-inebriation with opium. (i always thought he had not left opium off.).... on his return, james payn again visited harriet martineau, who talked frankly about _the_ book, exculpating mr. atkinson and taking all the blame to herself. she asked if i had read it, and on finding that i had not, said, "it was better so." there are fine points about harriet martineau. mrs. browning is positively crazy about the spirit-rappings. she believes every story, european or american, and says our emperor consults the mediums, which i disbelieve. the above was written yesterday. to-day has brought me a charming letter from miss de quincey. she has been very ill, but is now back at lasswade, and longing most earnestly to persuade her father to return to grasmere. will she succeed? she sends me a charming message from a brother francis, a young physician settled in india. she says that her sister told her her father was in bad spirits when talking to mr. payn, which perhaps accounts for his confessing to the continuing the opium-eating. mr. ---- brought me some proofs of his new volume of poems. i think that if he will take pains he will be a real poet. but it is so difficult to get young men to believe that correcting and re-correcting is necessary, and he is a most charming person, and so gets spoiled. i spoil him myself, god forgive me! although i advise him to the best of my power. no signs of mr. hawthorne yet! heaven bless you, my dear friend. ever faithfully yours, m.r.m. october, . my very dear friend: i cannot thank you enough for the two charming books which you have sent me. i enclose a letter for the author of this very remarkable book of italian travel, and i have written to dear mr. hawthorne myself. since i wrote to you, dear mr. bennoch sent to me to look out what letters i could find of poor haydon's. i was half killed by the operation, all my sins came upon me; for, lulling my conscience by carelessness about bills and receipts, and by answering almost every letter the day it comes, i am in other respects utterly careless, and my great mass of correspondence goes where fate and k---- decree. we had five great chests and boxes, two huge hampers, fifteen or sixteen baskets, and more drawers than you would believe the house could hold, to look over, and at last disinterred sixty-five. i did not dare read them for fear of the dust, but i have no doubt they will be most valuable, for his letters were matchless for talent and spirit. i hope you have reprinted the life; if so, of course you will publish the correspondence. by the way, it is a curious specimen of the little care our highest people have for poetry of the ---- school, that vice-chancellor wood, one of the most accomplished men whom i have ever known, a bosom friend of macaulay, was with me last week, and had never heard of alexander smith. i continue terribly lame, and with no chance of amendment till the spring, when you will come and do me good. besides the lameness, i am also miserably feeble, ten years older than when you saw me last. i am working as well as i can, but very slowly. i send you a proof of the preface to the dramatic works (not knowing whether they have sent you the sheets, or when they mean to bring it out). the few who have seen this introduction like it. it tells the truth about myself and says no ill of other people. god bless you, dear friend. say everything for me to all friends, not forgetting mr. ticknor. ever yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, november , . my very dear friend; your letters are always delightful to me, even when they are dated boston; think what they will be when they are dated london. in my last i sent you a very rough proof of my preface (i think mr. hurst means to call it introduction), which you will find autobiographical to your heart's content; i hope you will like it. to-day i enclose the first rough draft of an account of my first impression of haydon. don't print it, please, because i suppose they mean it for a part of the correspondence when it shall be published. i looked out for those sixty-five long letters of haydon's,--as long, perhaps, each, as half a dozen of mine to you,--and doubtless i have many more, but i was almost blinded by the dust in hunting up those, my eyes having been very tender since i was shut up in a smoky room for twenty-two weeks last winter. i find now that messrs. longman have postponed the publication of the correspondence in the fear that it would injure the sale of the memoirs, the book having had a great success here. by the enclosed, which is as true and as like as i could make it, you will see that he was a very brilliant and charming person. i believe that next to having been heart-broken by the committee and the heartlessness of his pupil ----, and enraged by the passion for that miserable little wretch, tom thumb, that the real cause of his suicide was to get his family provided for. it succeeded. by one way and another they had £ a year between the four; but although the poor father never complained, you will see by his book what a selfish wretch that ---- was..... my tragedies are printed, and the dramatic scenes, forming, with the preface, two volumes of above four hundred pages each. but i don't think they are to come out till the prose work, and that is not a quarter finished. i am always a most slow and laborious writer (that preface was written three times over throughout, and many parts of it five or six), and of course my ill health does not improve my powers of composition. this wet summer and autumn have been terribly against me. i am lamer even than when mr. ticknor saw me, and sometimes cannot even dip the pen in the ink without holding it in my left hand. thank god my head is spared, and my heart is, i think, as young as ever. i had a letter to-day from mr. chorley; he has been staying all the autumn with sir william molesworth, now a cabinet minister, but he complains terribly about his own health, notwithstanding he has a play coming out at the olympic, which mr. wigan has taken. mrs. kingsley, a most sweet person, has a cough which has forced them to send her to the sea. you shall be sure to see both him and mr. willmott if i can compass it; but we live, each of us, seven miles apart, and these country clergymen are so tied to their parish that they are difficult to catch. however, they both come to see me whenever they can, and we must contrive it. you will like both in different ways. mr. willmott is one of the most agreeable men in the world, and mr. kingsley is charming. i have another dear friend, not an author, whom i prefer to either,--hugh pearson. he made for himself a collection of de quincey, when a lad at oxford. you would like him, i think, better than anybody; but he too is a country clergyman, living eight miles off. poor mr. norton! his letters were charming. he is connected in my mind with mrs. hemans, too, to whom he was so kind. you must say everything for me to dear mrs. sparks. i seem most ungrateful to her, but i really have little power of writing letters just now. did i tell you that mr. ---- sent me a poem called ----, which i am very sorry that he ever wrote. it has shocked mr. bennoch even more than it did me. you must get him to write more poems like ----. a young friend of mine has brought out a little volume in which there is striking evidence of talent; but none of these young writers take pains. how very pretty is that scrap on a country church! mrs. browning is at florence, but is going to rome. she says that your countryman, mr. story, has made a charming statuette, i think of beethoven, or else of mendelssohn, which ought to make his reputation. she is crazy about mediums. she says (but i have not heard it elsewhere) that thackeray and dickens are to winter at rome, and alfred tennyson at florence. mrs. trollope has quite recovered, and receives as usual. how full of beauty mr. hillard's book is! thank him for it again and again. did i tell you that they are going to engrave a portrait of me by haydon, now belonging to mr. bennoch, for the dramatic works? god bless you, my very dear friend. say everything for me to mr. ticknor and dr. holmes and dr. parsons, and all my friends in boston. little henry grows a very sensible, intelligent boy, and is a great favorite at his school. he is getting on with french. once more, ever yours, m.r.m. . (january, .) my beloved friend: they who correspond with sick people must be content to receive such letters as are sent from hospitals. for many weeks i have been wholly shut up in my own room, getting with exceeding difficulty from the bed to the fireside, quite unable to stir either in the chair or in the bed, but much less miserable up than when in bed. the terrible cold of last summer did not allow me to gain any strength, so that although the fire in my room is kept up night and day, yet a severe attack of influenza came on and would have carried me off, had not mr. may been so much alarmed at the state of the pulse and the general feebleness as to order me two tablespoonfuls of champagne in water once a day, and a teaspoonful of brandy also in water, at night, which undoubtedly saved my life. it is the only good argument for what is called teetotalism that it keeps more admirable medicines as medicine; for undoubtedly a wine-drinker, however moderate, would not have been brought round by the remedy which did me so much good. miserably feeble i still am, and shall continue till may or june (if it please god to spare my life till then), when, if it be fine weather, sam will lift me down stairs and into the pony-chaise, and i may get stronger. well, in the midst of the terrible cough, which did not allow me to lie down in bed, and a weakness difficult to describe, i finished "atherton." i did it against orders and against warning, because i had an impression that i should not live to complete it, and i sent it yesterday to london to dear mr. bennoch, so i suppose you will soon receive the sheets. almost every line has been written three times over, and it is certainly the most cheerful and sunshiny story that was ever composed in such a state of helplessness, feebleness, and suffering; for the rheumatic pain in the chest not only rendered the cough terrible (that, thank god, is nearly gone now), but makes the position of writing one of misery. god grant you may like this story! i shall at least say in the preface that it will give me one pleasure, that of having in the american title-page the names of dear friends united with mine. mind i don't know whether the story be good or bad. i only answer for its having the youthfulness which you liked in the preface to the plays. well, dearest friend, just when i was at the worst came your letter about the ducks and the ducks themselves. never were birds so welcome. my friend, mr. may, the cleverest and most admirable person whom i know in this neighborhood, refuses all fees of any sort, and comes twelve miles to see me, when torn to pieces by all the great folk round, from pure friendship. think how glad i was to have such a dainty to offer him just when he had all his family gathered about him at christmas. i thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me this great pleasure, infinitely greater than eating it myself would have been. they were delicious. how very, very good you are to me! has mrs. craig written to you to tell you of her marriage? i will run the risk of repetition and tell you that it is the charming margaret de quincey, who has married the son of a scotch neighbor. he has purchased land in ireland, and they are about to live in tipperary,--a district which irish people tell me is losing its reputation for being the most disturbed in ireland, but keeping that for superior fertility. they are trying to regain a reputation for literature in edinburgh. john ruskin has been giving a series of lectures on art there, and mr. kingsley four lectures on the schools of alexandria. nothing out of parliament has for very long made so strong a sensation as our dear mr. bennoch's evidence on the london corporation. three leading articles in the times paid him the highest compliments, and you know what that implies. i have myself had several letters congratulating me on having such a friend. ah! the public qualities make but a part of that fine and genial character, although i firmly believe that the strength is essential to the tenderness. i always put you and him together, and it is one of the compensations of my old age to have acquired such friends. have you seen matthew arnold's poems? they have fine bits. the author is a son of dr. arnold. god bless you! say everything for me to my dear american friends, drs. holmes and parsons, mr. longfellow, mr. whittier, mrs. sparks, mr. taylor, mr. whipple, mr. and mrs. willard, and mr. ticknor. many, very many happy years to them and to you. always most affectionately yours, m.r.m. p.s. i enclose some slips to be pasted into books for my different american friends. if i have sent too many, you will know which to omit. i must add to the american preface a line expressive of my pleasure in joining my name to yours. i will send one line here for fear of its not going. mr. may says that those ducks were amongst the few things thoroughly deserving their reputation, holding the same place, as compared with our wild ducks, that the finest venison does to common mutton. i cannot tell you how much i thank you for enabling me to send such a treat to such a friend. you will send a copy of the prose book or the dramas, according to your own pleasure, only i should like the two dear doctors to have the plays. swallowfield, january , . i have always to thank you for some kindness, dearest mr. fields, generally for many. how clever those magazines are, especially mr. lowell's article, and mr. bayard taylor's graceful stanzas! just now i have to ask you to forward the enclosed to mr. whittier. he sent me a charming poem on burns, full of tenderness and humanity, and the indulgence which the wise and good can so well afford, and which only the wisest and best can show to their erring brethren. i rejoice to hear that he is getting well again. i myself am weaker and more helpless every day, and the rheumatic pain in the chest increases so rapidly, and makes writing so difficult, even the writing such a note as this, that i cannot be thankful enough for having finished "atherton," for i am sure i could not write it now. there is some chance of my getting better in the summer, if i can be got into the air, and that must be by being let down in a chair through a trap-door, like so much railway luggage, for there is not the slightest power of helping myself left in me,--nothing, indeed, but the good spirits which shakespeare gave to horatio, and hamlet envied him. dearest mr. bennoch has made me a superb present,--two portraits of our emperor and his fair wife. he all intellect,--never was a brow so full of thought; she all sweetness,--such a mouth was never seen, it seems waiting to smile. the beauty is rather of expression than of feature, which is exactly what it ought to be.... m.r.m. swallowfield, may , . my dear friend: long before this time, you will, i hope, have received the sheets of "atherton." it has met with an enthusiastic reception from the english press, and certainly the friends who have written to me on the subject seem to prefer the tale which fills the first volume to anything that i have done. i hope you will like it,--i am sure you will not detect in it the gloom of a sick-chamber. mr. may holds out hopes that the summer may do me good. as yet the spring has been most unfavorable to invalids, being one combined series of east-wind, so that instead of getting better i am every day weaker than the last, unable to see more than one person a day, and quite exhausted by half an hour's conversation. i hope to be a little better before your arrival, dearest friend, because i must see you; but any stranger--even mr. hawthorne--is quite out of the question. you may imagine how kind dear mr. bennoch has been all through this long trial, next after john ruskin and his admirable father the kindest of all my friends, and that is saying much. god bless you. love to all my friends, poets, prosers, and the dear ----, who are that most excellent thing, readers. i wonder if you ever received a list of people to whom to send one or other of my works? i wrote such with little words in my own hand, but writing is so painful and difficult, and i am always so uncertain of your getting my letters, that i cannot attempt to send another. there was one for mrs. sparks. i am sure of liking dr. parsons's book,--quite sure. once again, god bless you! little henry grows a nice boy. ever most affectionately yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, july , . dearest mr. fields: our excellent friend mr. bennoch will have told you from how painful a state of anxiety your most welcome letter relieved us. you have done quite right, my beloved friend, in returning to boston. the voyage, always so trying to you, would, with your health so deranged, have been most dangerous, and next year you will find all your friends, except one, as happy to see and to welcome you. even if you had arrived now our meeting would have been limited to minutes. dr. parsons will tell you that fresh feebleness in a person so long tried and so aged (sixty-seven) must have a speedy termination. may heaven prolong your valuable life, dear friend, and grant that you may be as happy yourself as you have always tried to render others! i rejoice to hear what you tell me of "atherton." here the reception has been most warm and cordial. every page of it was written three times over, so that i spared no pains, but i was nearly killed by the terrible haste in which it was finished, and i do believe that many of the sheets were sent to me without ever being read in the office. i have corrected one copy for the third english edition, but i cannot undertake such an effort again, so, if (as i venture to believe) it be destined to be often reprinted by you, you must correct it from _that_ edition. i hope you sent a copy to mr. whittier from me. i had hoped you would bring one to mr. hawthorne and mr. de quincey, but i must try what i can do with mr. hurst, and must depend on you for assuring these valued friends that it was not neglect or ingratitude on my part. mr. boner, my dear and valued friend, wishes you and dear mr. ticknor to print his "chamois-hunting" from a second edition which chapman and hall are bringing out. i sent my copy of the work to mr. bennoch when we were expecting you, that you might see it. it is a really excellent book, full of interest, with admirable plates, which you could have, and, speaking in your interest, as much as in his, i firmly believe that it would answer to you in money as well as in credit to bring it out in america. also mrs. browning (while in italy) wrote to me to inquire if you would like to bring out a new poem by her, and a new work by her husband. i told her that i could not doubt it, but that she had better write duplicate letters to london and to boston. our poor little boy is here for his holidays. his excellent mother and step-father have nursed me rather as if they had been my children than my servants. everybody has been most kind. the champagne, which i believe keeps me alive, is dear mr. bennoch's present; but you will understand how ill i am when i tell you that my breath is so much affected by the slightest exertion that i cannot bear even to be lifted into bed, but have spent the last eight nights sitting up, with my feet supported on a leg-rest. this from exhaustion, not from disease of the lungs. give the enclosed to dr. parsons. you know what i have always thought of his genius. in my mind no poems ever crossed the atlantic which approached his stanzas on dante and on the death of webster, and yet you have great poets too. think how glad and proud i am to hear of the honor he has done me. i wish you had transcribed the verses. god bless you, my beloved friend! say everything for me to all my dear friends, to dr. parsons, to dr. holmes, to mr. whittier, to professor longfellow, to mr. taylor, to mr. stoddard, to mrs. sparks, and above all to the excellent mr. ticknor and the dear w----s. ever yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, july , . my very dear friend: this is a sort of postscript to my last, written instantly on the receipt of yours and sent through mr. ----. i hope you received it, for he is so impetuous that i always a little doubt his care; at least it was when sent through him that the loss of letters to and fro took place. however, i enjoined him to be careful this time, and he assured me that he was so. the purport of this is to add the name of my friend, mr. willmott, to the authors who wish for the advantage of your firm as their american publishers. i have begged him to write to you himself, and i hope he has done so, or that he will do so. but he is staying at richmond with sick relatives, and i am not sure. you know his works, of course. they are becoming more and more popular in england, and he is writing better and better. the best critical articles in the times are by him. he is eminently a scholar, and yet full of anecdote of the most amusing sort, with a memory like scott, and a charming habit of applying his knowledge. his writings become more and more like his talk, and i am confident that you would find his works not only most creditable, but most profitable. i would not recommend you to each other if it were not for your mutual advantage, so far as my poor judgment goes. on the th my dramatic works are to be published here. i hope they have sent you the sheets. i have not heard yet from any american friend, except your delightful letter and one from grace greenwood, but i hope i shall. i prize the good word of such persons as drs. parsons and holmes and professor longfellow and john whittier and many others. i am still very ill. the brownings remain this year in italy. if it be very hot, they will go for a month or two to the baths of lucca, but their home is florence. she has taken a fancy to an american female sculptor,--a girl of twenty-two,--a pupil of gibson's, who goes with the rest of the fraternity of the studio to breakfast and dine at a _café_, and yet keeps her character. also she believes in all your rappings. god be with you, my very dear friend. i trust you are quite recovered. always affectionately yours, m.r.m. swallowfield, august , . my dear mr. fields: mr. bayard taylor having sent me a most interesting letter, but no address, i trouble you with my reply. read it, and you will perhaps understand that i am declining day by day, and that, humanly speaking, the end is very near. perhaps there may yet be time for an answer to this.... i believe that one reason for your not quite understanding my illness is, that you, if you have seen long and great sickness at all, which is doubtful, have seen it with an utter prostration of the mind and the spirits,--that your women are languid and querulous, and never dream of bearing up against bodily evils by an effort of the mind. even now, when half an hour's visit is utterly forbidden, and half that time leaves me panting and exhausted, i never mention (except forced into it by your evident disbelief) my own illness either in speaking or writing,--never, except to answer mr. may's questions, or to join my beloved friend, mr. pearson, in thanking god for the visitation which i humbly hope was sent in his mercy to draw me nearer to him; may he grant me grace to use it!--for the rest, whilst the intelligence and the sympathy are vouchsafed to me, i will write of others, and give to my friends, as far as in me lies, the thoughts which would hardly be more worthily bestowed on my own miserable body. you will be sorry to find that the poor talfourds are likely to be very poor. a reading attorney has run away, cheating half the town. he has carried off £ , belonging to lady talfourd, and she herself tells my friend, william harness (one of her kindest friends), that that formed the principal part of the judge's small savings, and, together with the sum for which he had insured his life (only £ , ), was all which they had. now there are five young people,--his children,--the widow and an adopted niece, seven in all, accustomed to every sort of luxury and indulgence. the only glimpse of hope is, that the eldest son held a few briefs on circuit and went through them creditably; but it takes many years in england to win a barrister's reputation, and the poorer our young men are the more sure they are to marry. add the strange fact that since the father's death (he having reserved his copyrights) not a single copy of any of his books has been sold! a fortnight ago i had a great fright respecting miss martineau, which still continues. james payn, who is living at the lakes, and to whom she has been most kind, says he fears she will be a great pecuniary sufferer by ----. i only hope that it is a definite sum, and no general security or partnership,--even that will be bad enough for a woman of her age, and so hard a worker, who intended to give herself rest; but observe these are only _fears_. i _know_ nothing. the brownings are detained in italy, she tells me, for want of money, and cannot even get to lucca. this is my bad news,--o, and it is very bad that sweet mrs. kingsley must stay two years in devonshire and cannot come home. i expect to see him this week. john ruskin is with his father and mother in switzerland, constantly sending me tokens of friendship. everybody writes or sends or comes; never was such kindness. the bennochs are in scotland. he sends me charming letters, having, i believe, at last discovered what every one else has known long. remember me to mr. ticknor. say everything to my athenian friends all, especially to dr. holmes and dr. parsons. ever, dear friend, your affectionate m.r.m. september , . my very dear friend: your most kind and interesting letter has just arrived, with one from our good friend, mr. bennoch, announcing the receipt of the £ bill for "atherton." more welcome even as a sign of the prosperity of the book in a country where i have so many friends and which i have always loved so well, than as money, although in that way it is a far greater comfort than you probably guess, this very long and very severe illness obliging me to keep a third maid-servant. i get no sleep,--not on an average an hour a night,--and require perpetual change of posture to prevent the skin giving way still more than it does, and forming what we emphatically call bed-sores, although i sit up night and day, and have no other relief than the being, to a slight extent, shifted from one position to another in the chair that i never quit. besides this, there are many other expenses. i tell you this, dear friend, that mr. ticknor and yourself may have the satisfaction of knowing that, besides all that you have done for many years for my gratification, you have been of substantial use in this emergency. in spite of all this illness, after being so entirely given over that dear mr. pearson, leaving me a month ago to travel with arthur stanley for a month, took a final leave of me, i have yet revived greatly during these last three weeks. i owe this, under providence, to my admirable friend, mr. may, who, instead of abandoning the stranded ship, as is common in these cases, has continued, although six miles off, and driving four pair of horses a day, ay, and while himself hopeless of my case, to visit me constantly and to watch every symptom, and exhaust every resource of his great art, as if his own fame and fortune depended on the result. one kind but too sanguine friend, mr. bennoch, is rather over-hopeful about this amendment, for i am still in a state in which the slightest falling back would carry me off, and in which i can hardly think it possible to weather the winter. if that incredible contingency should arise, what a happiness it would be to see you in april! but i must content myself with the charming little portrait you have sent me, which is your very self. thank you for it over and over. thank you, too, for the batch of notices on "atherton.".... dr. parsons's address is very fine, and makes me still more desire to see his volume; and the letter from dr. holmes is charming, so clear, so kind, and so good. if i had been a boy, i would have followed their noble profession. three such men as mr. may, dr. parsons, and dr. holmes are enough to confirm the predilection that i have always had for the art of healing. i have no good news to tell you of dear mr. k----. his sweet wife (mr. ticknor will remember her) has been three times at death's door since he saw her here, and must spend at least two winters more at torquay. but i don't believe that he could stay here even if she were well. bramshill has fallen into the hands of a puseyite parson, who, besides that craze, which is so flagrant as to have made dear mr. k---- forbid him his pulpit, is subject to fits of raving madness,--one of those most dangerous lunatics whom an age (in which there is a great deal of false humanity) never shuts up until some terrible crime has been committed. (a celebrated mad-doctor said the other day of this very man, that he had "homicidal madness.") you may fancy what such a squire, opposing him in every way, is to the rector of the parish. mr. k---- told me last winter that he was driving him mad, and i am fully persuaded that he would make a large sacrifice of income to exchange his parish. to make up for this, he is working himself to death, and i greatly fear that his excess of tobacco is almost equal to the opium of mr. de quincey. with his temperament this is full of danger. he was only here for two or three days to settle a new curate, but he walked over to see me, and i will take care that he receives your message. his regard for me is, i really believe, sincere and very warm. remember that all this is in strict confidence. the kindness that people show to me is something surprising. i have not deserved it, but i receive it most gratefully. it touches one's very heart. will you say everything for me to my many kind friends, too many to name? i had a kind letter from mrs. sparks the other day. the poets i cling to while i can hold a pen. god bless you. ever yours, m.r.m. can you contrive to send a copy of your edition of "atherton" to mr. hawthorne? pray, dear friend, do if you can. october , my very dear friend: i can hardly give you a greater proof of affection, than in telling you that your letter of yesterday affected me to tears, and that i thanked god for it last night in my prayers; so much a mercy does it seem to me to be still beloved by one whom i have always loved so much. i thank you a thousand times for that letter and for the book. i enclose you my own letter to dear dr. parsons. read it before giving it to him. i could not help being amused at his having appended my name to a poem in some sort derogating from the fame of the only frenchman who is worthy to be named after the present great monarch. i hope i have not done wrong in confessing my faith. holding back an opinion is often as much a falsehood as the actual untruth itself, and so i think it would be here. now we have the book, do you remember through whom you sent the notices? if you do, let me know. you will see by my letter to dr. parsons that ---- dined here yesterday, under k----'s auspices. he invited himself for three days,--luckily i have mr. pearson to take care of him,--and still more luckily i told him frankly yesterday that three days would be too much, for i had nearly died last night of fatigue and exhaustion and their consequences. to-night i shall leave all to my charming friend. there is nobody like john ruskin for refinement and eloquence. you will be glad to hear that he has asked me for a letter to dear mr. bennoch to help him in his schools of art,--i mean with advice. this will, i hope, bring our dear friend out of the set he is in, and into that where i wish to see him, for john ruskin must always fill the very highest position. god bless you all, dear friends! ever most affectionately yours, m.r.m. love to all my friends. you have given me a new motive for clinging to life by coming to england in april. till this pull-back yesterday, i was better, although still afraid of being lifted into bed, and with small hope of getting alive through the winter. god bless you! october , . my very dear friend: another copy of dear dr. parsons's book has arrived, with a charming, most charming letter from him, and a copy of your edition of "atherton." it is very nicely got up indeed, the portrait the best of any engraving that has been made of me, at least, any recent engraving. may i have a few copies of that engraving when you come to england? and if i should be gone, will you let poor k---- have one? the only thing i lament in the american "atherton" is that a passage that i wrote to add to that edition has been omitted. it was to the purport of my having a peculiar pleasure in the prospect of that reprint, because few things could be so gratifying to me as to find my poor name conjoined with those of the great and liberal publishers, for one of whom i entertain so much respect and esteem, and for the other so true and so lively an affection. the little sentence was better turned much, but that was the meaning. no doubt it was in one of my many missing letters. i even think i sent it twice,--i should greatly have liked that little paragraph to be there. may i ask you to give the enclosed to dear dr. parsons? there are noble lines in his book, which gains much by being known. dear john ruskin was here when it arrived, and much pleased with it on turning over the leaves, and he is the most fastidious of men. i must give him the copy. his praise is indeed worth having. i am as when i wrote last. god bless you, beloved friend. ever yours, m.r.m. december , . your dear affectionate letter, dearest and kindest friend, would have given me unmingled pleasure had it conveyed a better account of your business prospects. here, from what i can gather, and from the sure sign of all works of importance being postponed, the trade is in a similar state of depression, caused, they say, by this war, which but for the wretched imbecility of our ministers could never have assumed so alarming an appearance. whether we shall recover from it, god only knows. my hope is in louis napoleon; but that america will rally seems certain enough. she has elbow-room, and, moreover, she is not unused to rapid transitions from high prosperity to temporary difficulty, and so back again. moreover, dear friend, i have faith in you..... god bless you, my dear friend! may he send to both of you health and happiness and length of days, and so much of this world's goods as is needful to prevent anxiety and insure comfort. i have known many rich people in my time, and the result has convinced me that with great wealth some deep black shadow is as sure to walk, as it is to follow the bright sunshine. so i never pray for more than the blessed enough for those whom i love best. and very dearly do i love my american friends,--you best of all,--but all very dearly, as i have cause. say this, please, to dr. parsons and dr. holmes (admiring their poems is a sort of touchstone of taste with me, and very, very many stand the test well) and dear bayard taylor, a man soundest and sweetest the nearer one gets to the kernel, and good, kind john whittier, who has the fervor of the poet ingrafted into the tough old quaker stock, and mr. stoddard, and mrs. lippincott, and mrs. sparks, and the philadelphia poetess, and dear mr. and mrs. w----, and your capital critics and orators. remember me to all who think of me; but keep the choicest tenderness for yourself and your wife. do you know those books which pretend to have been written from one hundred to two hundred years ago,--"mary powell" (milton's courtship), "cherry and violet," and the rest? their fault is that they are too much alike. the authoress (a miss manning) sent me some of them last winter, with some most interesting letters. then for many months i ceased to hear from her, but a few weeks ago she sent me her new christmas book,--"the old chelsea bun house,"--and told me she was dying of a frightful internal complaint. she suffers martyrdom, but bears it like a saint, and her letters are better than all the sermons in the world. may god grant me the same cheerful submission! i try for it and pray that it be granted, but i have none of the enthusiastic glow of devotion, so real and so beautiful in miss manning. my faith is humble and lowly,--not that i have the slightest doubt,--but i cannot get her rapturous assurance of acceptance. my friend, william harness, got me to employ our kind little friend, mr. ----, to procure for him judge edmonds's "spiritualism." what an odious book it is! there is neither respect for the dead nor the living. mrs. browning believes it all; so does bulwer, who is surrounded by mediums who summon his dead daughter. it is too frightful to talk about. mr. may and mr. pearson both asked me to send it away, for fear of its seizing upon my nerves. i get weaker and weaker, and am become a mere skeleton. ah, dear friend, come when you may, you will find only a grave at swallowfield. once again, god bless you and yours! ever yours, m, r.m. "_barry cornwall_" _and some of his friends_. * * * * * "_all, all are gone, the old familiar faces_." charles lamb. "_old acquaintance, shall the nights you and i once talked together, be forgot like common things?_" * * * * * "_his thoughts half hid in golden dreams, which make thrice fair the songs and streams of air and earth_." * * * * * "_song should breathe of scents and flowers; song should like a river flow; song should bring back scenes and hours that we loved,--ah, long ago!_" barry cornwall. vii. "barry cornwall" and some of his friends. there is no portrait in my possession more satisfactory than the small one of barry cornwall, made purposely for me in england, from life. it is a thoroughly honest resemblance. i first saw the poet five-and-twenty years ago, in his own house in london, at no. upper harley street, cavendish square. he was then declining into the vale of years, but his mind was still vigorous and young. my letter of introduction to him was written by charles sumner, and it proved sufficient for the beginning of a friendship which existed through a quarter of a century. my last interview with him occurred in . i found him then quite feeble, but full of his old kindness and geniality. his speech was somewhat difficult to follow, for he had been slightly paralyzed not long before; but after listening to him for half an hour, it was easy to understand nearly every word he uttered. he spoke with warm feeling of longfellow, who had been in london during that season, and had called to see his venerable friend before proceeding to the continent. "wasn't it good of him," said the old man, in his tremulous voice, "to think of _me_ before he had been in town twenty-four hours?" he also spoke of his dear companion, john kenyon, at whose house we had often met in years past, and he called to mind a breakfast party there, saying with deep feeling, "and you and i are the only ones now alive of all who came together that happy morning!" a few months ago,[*] at the great age of eighty-seven, bryan waller procter, familiarly and honorably known in english literature for sixty years past as "barry cornwall," calmly "fell on sleep." the schoolmate of lord byron and sir robert peel at harrow, the friend and companion of keats, lamb, shelley, coleridge, landor, hunt, talfourd, and rogers, the man to whom thackeray "affectionately dedicated" his "vanity fair," one of the kindest souls that ever gladdened earth, has now joined the great majority of england's hallowed sons of song. no poet ever left behind him more fragrant memories, and he will always be thought of as one whom his contemporaries loved and honored. no harsh word will ever be spoken by those who have known him of the author of "marcian colonna," "mirandola," "the broken heart," and those charming lyrics which rank the poet among the first of his class. his songs will be sung so long as music wedded to beautiful poetry is a requisition anywhere. his verses have gone into the book of fame, and such pieces as "touch us gently, time," "send down thy winged angel, god," "king death," "the sea," and "belshazzar is king," will long keep his memory green. who that ever came habitually into his presence can forget the tones of his voice, the tenderness in his gray retrospective eyes, or the touch of his sympathetic hand laid on the shoulder of a friend! the elements were indeed so kindly mixed in him that no bitterness or rancor or jealousy had part or lot in his composition. no distinguished person was ever more ready to help forward the rising and as yet nameless literary man or woman who asked his counsel and warm-hearted suffrage. his mere presence was sunshine to a new-comer into the world of letters and criticism, for he was always quick to encourage, and slow to disparage anybody. indeed, to be _human_ only entitled any one who came near him to receive the gracious bounty of his goodness and courtesy. he made it the happiness of his life never to miss, whenever opportunity occurred, the chance of conferring pleasure and gladness on those who needed kind words and substantial aid. [footnote *: october, .] his equals in literature venerated and loved him. dickens and thackeray never ceased to regard him with the deepest feeling, and such men as browning and tennyson and carlyle and forster rallied about him to the last. he was the delight of all those interesting men and women who habitually gathered around rogers's famous table in the olden time, for his manner had in it all the courtesy of genius, without any of that chance asperity so common in some literary circles. the shyness of a scholar brooded continually over him and made him reticent, but he was never silent from ill-humor. his was that true modesty so excellent in ability, and so rare in celebrities petted for a long time in society. his was also that happy alchemy of mind which transmutes disagreeable things into golden and ruby colors like the dawn. his temperament was the exact reverse of fuseli's, who complained that "_nature_ put him out." a beautiful spirit has indeed passed away, and the name of "barry cornwall," beloved in both hemispheres, is now sanctified afresh by the seal of eternity so recently stamped upon it. it was indeed a privilege for a young american, on his first travels abroad, to have "barry cornwall" for his host in london. as i recall the memorable days and nights of that long-ago period, i wonder at the good fortune which brought me into such relations with him, and i linger with profound gratitude over his many acts of unmerited kindness. one of the most intimate rambles i ever took with him was in , when we started one morning from a book-shop in piccadilly, where we met accidentally. i had been in london only a couple of days, and had not yet called upon him for lack of time. several years had elapsed since we had met, but he began to talk as if we had parted only a few hours before. at first i thought his mind was impaired by age, and that he had forgotten how long it was since we had spoken together. i imagined it possible that he mistook me for some one else; but very soon i found that his memory was not at fault, for in a few minutes he began to question me about old friends in america, and to ask for information concerning the probable sea-sick horrors of an atlantic voyage. "i suppose," said he, "knowing your infirmity, you found it hard work to stand on your immaterial legs, as hood used to call lamb's quivering limbs." sauntering out into the street, he went on in a quaintly humorous way to imagine what a rough voyage must be to a real sufferer, and thus walking gayly along, we came into leadenhall street. there he pointed out the office where his old friend and fellow-magazinist, "elia," spent so many years of hard work from ten until four o'clock of every day. being in a mood for reminiscence, he described the wednesday evenings he used to spend with "charles and mary" and their friends around the old "mahogany-tree" in russell street. i remember he tried to give me an idea of how lamb looked and dressed, and how he stood bending forward to welcome his guests as they arrived in his humble lodgings. procter thought nothing unimportant that might serve in any way to illustrate character, and so he seemed to wish that i might get an exact idea of the charming person both of us prized so ardently and he had known so intimately. speaking of lamb's habits, he said he had never known his friend to drink immoderately except upon one occasion, and he observed that "elia," like dickens, was a small and delicate eater. with faltering voice he told me of lamb's "givings away" to needy, impoverished friends whose necessities were yet greater than his own. his secret charities were constant and unfailing, and no one ever suffered hunger when he was by. he could not endure to see a fellow-creature in want if he had the means to feed him. thinking, from a depression of spirits which procter in his young manhood was once laboring under, that perhaps he was in want of money, lamb looked him earnestly in the face as they were walking one day in the country together, and blurted out, in his stammering way, "my dear boy, i have a hundred-pound note in my desk that i really don't know what to do with: oblige me by taking it and getting the confounded thing out of my keeping." "i was in no need of money," said procter, "and i declined the gift; but it was hard work to make lamb believe that i was not in an impecunious condition." speaking of lamb's sister mary, procter quoted hazlitt's saying that "mary lamb was the most rational and wisest woman he had ever been acquainted with." as we went along some of the more retired streets in the old city, we had also, i remember, much gossip about coleridge and his manner of reciting his poetry, especially when "elia" happened to be among the listeners, for the philosopher put a high estimate upon lamb's critical judgment. the author of "the ancient mariner" always had an excuse for any bad habit to which he was himself addicted, and he told procter one day that perhaps snuff was the final cause of the human nose. in connection with coleridge we had much reminiscence of such interesting persons as the novellos, martin burney, talfourd, and crabb robinson, and a store of anecdotes in which haydon, manning, dyer, and godwin figured at full length. in course of conversation i asked my companion if he thought lamb had ever been really in love, and he told me interesting things of hester savory, a young quaker girl of pentonville, who inspired the poem embalming the name of hester forever, and of fanny kelly, the actress with "the divine plain face," who will always live in one of "elia's" most exquisite essays. "he had a _reverence_ for the sex," said procter, "and there were tender spots in his heart that time could never entirely cover up or conceal." during our walk we stepped into christ's hospital, and turned to the page on its record book where together we read this entry: "october , , charles lamb, aged seven years, son of john lamb, scrivener, and elizabeth his wife." it was a lucky morning when i dropped in to bid "good morrow" to the poet as i was passing his house one day, for it was then he took from among his treasures and gave to me an autograph letter addressed to himself by charles lamb in . i found the dear old man alone and in his library, sitting at his books, with the windows wide open, letting in the spring odors. quoting, as i entered, some lines from wordsworth embalming may mornings, he began to talk of the older poets who had worshipped nature with the ardor of lovers, and his eyes lighted up with pleasure when i happened to remember some almost forgotten stanza from england's "helicon." it was an easy transition from the old bards to "elia," and he soon went on in his fine enthusiastic way to relate several anecdotes of his eccentric friend. as i rose to take leave he said,-- "have i ever given you one of lamb's letters to carry home to america?" "no," i replied, "and you must not part with the least scrap of a note in 'elia's' handwriting. such things are too precious to be risked on a sea-voyage to another hemisphere." "america ought to share with england in these things," he rejoined; and leading me up to a sort of cabinet in the library, he unlocked a drawer and got out a package of time-stained papers. "ah," said he, as he turned over the golden leaves, "here is something you will like to handle." i unfolded the sheet, and lo! it was in keats's handwriting, the sonnet on first looking into chapman's homer. "keats gave it to me," said procter, "many, many years ago," and then he proceeded to read, in tones tremulous with delight, these undying lines:-- "much have i travelled in the realms of gold, and many goodly states and kingdoms seen; round many western islands have i been which bards in fealty to apollo hold. oft of one wide expanse had i been told that deep-browed homer ruled as his demesne; yet did i never breathe its pure serene till i heard chapman speak out loud and bold: then felt i like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken, or like stout cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at the pacific--and all his men looked at each other with a wild surmise-- silent, upon a peak in darien." i sat gazing at the man who had looked on keats in the flush of his young genius, and wondered at my good fortune. as the living poet folded up again the faded manuscript of the illustrious dead one, and laid it reverently in its place, i felt grateful for the honor thus vouchsafed to a wandering stranger in a foreign land, and wished that other and worthier votaries of english letters might have been present to share with me the boon of such an interview. presently my hospitable friend, still rummaging among the past, drew out a letter, which was the one, he said, he had been looking after. "cram it into your pocket," he cried, "for i hear ---- coming down stairs, and perhaps she won't let you carry it off!" the letter is addressed to b.w. procter, esq., lincoln's inn, new square. i give the entire epistle here just as it stands in the original which procter handed me that memorable may morning. he told me that the law question raised in this epistle was a sheer fabrication of lamb's, gotten up by him to puzzle his young correspondent, the conveyancer. the coolness referred to between himself and robinson and talfourd, procter said, was also a fiction invented by lamb to carry out his legal mystification. "_jan'y_ , . "my dear procter,--i am ashamed to have not taken the drift of your pleasant letter, which i find to have been pure invention. but jokes are not suspected in boeotian enfield. we are plain people, and our talk is of corn, and cattle, and waltham markets. besides i was a little out of sorts when i received it. the fact is, i am involved in a case which has fretted me to death, and i have no reliance except on you to extricate me. i am sure you will give me your best legal advice, having no professional friend besides but robinson and talfourd, with neither of whom at present i am on the best terms. my brother's widow left a will, made during the lifetime of my brother, in which i am named sole executor, by which she bequeaths forty acres of arable property, which it seems she held under covert baron, unknown to my brother, to the heirs of the body of elizabeth dowden, her married daughter by her first husband, in fee simple, recoverable by fine--invested property, mind, for there is the difficulty--subject to leet and quit rent--in short, worded in the most guarded terms, to shut out the property from isaac dowden the husband. intelligence has just come of the death of this person in india, where he made a will, entailing this property (which seem'd entangled enough already) to the heirs of his body, that should not be born of his wife; for it seems by the law in india natural children can recover. they have put the cause into exchequer process here, removed by certiorari from the native courts, and the question is whether i should as executor, try the cause here, or again re-remove to the supreme sessions at bangalore, which i understand i can, or plead a hearing before the privy council here. as it involves all the little property of elizabeth dowden, i am anxious to take the fittest steps, and what may be the least expensive. for god's sake assist me, for the case is so embarrassed that it deprives me of sleep and appetite. m. burney thinks there is a case like it in chapt. sect. in fearn's _contingent remainders_. pray read it over with him dispassionately, and let me have the result. the complexity lies in the questionable power of the husband to alienate in usum enfeoffments whereof he was only collaterally seized, etc." [on the leaf at this place there are some words in another hand.--f.] "the above is some of m. burney's memoranda, which he has left here, and you may cut out and give him. i had another favour to beg, which is the beggarliest of beggings. a few lines of verse for a young friend's album (six will be enough). m. burney will tell you who she is i want 'em for. a girl of gold. six lines--make 'em eight--signed barry c----. they need not be very good, as i chiefly want 'em as a foil to mine. but i shall be seriously obliged by any refuse scrap. we are in the last ages of the world, when st. paul prophesied that women should be 'headstrong, lovers of their own wills, having albums.' i fled hither to escape the albumean persecution, and had not been in my new house hours, when the daughter of the next house came in with a friend's album to beg a contribution, and the following day intimated she had one of her own. two more have sprung up since. if i take the wings of the morning and fly unto the uttermost parts of the earth, there will albums be. new holland has albums. but the age is to be complied with. m.b. will tell you the sort of girl i request the ten lines for. somewhat of a pensive cast what you admire. the lines may come before the law question, as that cannot be determined before hilary term, and i wish your deliberate judgment on that. the other may be flimsy and superficial. and if you have not burnt your returned letter pray re-send it me as a monumental token of my stupidity. 'twas a little unthinking of you to touch upon a sore subject. why, by dabbling in those accursed annuals i have become a by-word of infamy all over the kingdom. i have sicken'd decent women for asking me to write in albums. there be 'dark jests' abroad, master cornwall, and some riddles may live to be clear'd up. and 'tisn't every saddle is put on the right steed. and forgeries and false gospels are not peculiar to the age following the apostles. and some tubs don't stand on their right bottom. which is all i wish to say in these ticklish times ---- and so your servant, chs. lamb." at the age of seventy-seven procter was invited to print his recollections of charles lamb, and his volume was welcomed in both hemispheres as a pleasant addition to "eliana." during the last eighteen years of lamb's life procter knew him most intimately, and his chronicles of visits to the little gamboge-colored house in enfield are charming pencillings of memory. when lamb and his sister, tired of housekeeping, went into lodging and boarding with t---- w----, their sometime next-door neighbor,--who, lamb said, had one joke and forty pounds a year, upon which he retired in a green old age,--procter still kept up his friendly visits to his old associate. and after the brother and sister moved to their last earthly retreat in edmonton, where charles died in , procter still paid them regular visits of love and kindness. and after charles's death, when mary went to live at a house in st. john's wood, her unfailing friend kept up his cheering calls there till she set out "for that unknown and silent shore," on the th of may, in . procter's conversation was full of endless delight to his friends. his "asides" were sometimes full of exquisite touches. i remember one evening when carlyle was present and rattling on against american institutions, half comic and half serious, procter, who sat near me, kept up a constant underbreath of commentary, taking exactly the other side. carlyle was full of horse-play over the character of george washington, whom he never vouchsafed to call anything but george. he said our first president was a good surveyor, and knew how to measure timber, and that was about all. procter kept whispering to me all the while carlyle was discoursing, and going over washington's fine traits to the disparagement of everything carlyle was laying down as gospel. i was listening to both these distinguished men at the same time, and it was one of the most curious experiences in conversation i ever happened to enjoy. i was once present when a loud-voiced person of quality, ignorant and supercilious, was inveighing against the want of taste commonly exhibited by artists when they chose their wives, saying they almost always selected inferior women. procter, sitting next to me, put his hand on my shoulder, and, with a look expressive of ludicrous pity and contempt for the idiotic speaker, whispered, "and yet vandyck married the daughter of earl gower, poor fellow!" the mock solemnity of procter's manner was irresistible. it had a wink in it that really embodied the genius of fun and sarcasm. talking of the ocean with him one day, he revealed this curious fact: although he is the author of one of the most stirring and popular sea-songs in the language,-- "the sea, the sea, the open sea!"-- he said he had rarely been upon the tossing element, having a great fear of being made ill by it. i think he told me he had never dared to cross the channel even, and so had never seen paris. he said, like many others, he delighted to gaze upon the waters from a safe place on land, but had a horror of living on it even for a few hours. i recalled to his recollection his own lines,-- "i'm on the sea! i'm on the sea! i am where i would ever be,"-- and he shook his head, and laughingly declared i must have misquoted his words, or that dibdin had written the piece and put "barry cornwall's" signature to it. we had, i remember, a great deal of fun over the poetical lies, as he called them, which bards in all ages had perpetrated in their verse, and he told me some stories of english poets, over which we made merry as we sat together in pleasant cavendish square that summer evening. his world-renowned song of "the sea" he afterward gave me in his own handwriting, and it is still among my autographic treasures. it was procter who first in my hearing, twenty-five years ago, put such an estimate on the poetry of robert browning that i could not delay any longer to make acquaintance with his writings. i remember to have been startled at hearing the man who in his day had known so many poets declare that browning was the peer of any one who had written in this century, and that, on the whole, his genius had not been excelled in his (procter's) time. "mind what i say," insisted procter; "browning will make an enduring name, and add another supremely great poet to england." procter could sometimes be prompted into describing that brilliant set of men and women who were in the habit of congregating at lady blessington's, and i well recollect his description of young n.p. willis as he first appeared in her _salon_. "the young traveller came among us," said procter, "enthusiastic, handsome, and good-natured, and took his place beside d'orsay, bulwer, disraeli, and the other dandies as naturally as if he had been for years a london man about town. he was full of fresh talk concerning his own country, and we all admired his cleverness in compassing so aptly all the little newnesses of the situation. he was ready on all occasions, a little too ready, some of the _habitués_ of the _salon_ thought, and they could not understand his cool and quiet-at-home manners. he became a favorite at first trial, and laid himself out determined to please and be pleased. his ever kind and thoughtful attention to others won him troops of friends, and i never can forget his unwearied goodness to a sick child of mine, with whom, night after night, he would sit by the bedside and watch, thus relieving the worn-out family in a way that was very tender and self-sacrificing." of lady blessington's tact, kindness, and remarkable beauty procter always spoke with ardor, and abated nothing from the popular idea of that fascinating person. he thought she had done more in her time to institute good feeling and social intercourse among men of letters than any other lady in england, and he gave her eminent credit for bringing forward the rising talent of the metropolis without waiting to be prompted by a public verdict. as the poet described her to me as she moved through her exquisite apartments, surrounded by all the luxuries that naturally connect themselves with one of her commanding position in literature and art, her radiant and exceptional beauty of person, her frank and cordial manners, the wit, wisdom, and grace of her speech, i thought of the fair giovanna of naples as painted in "bianca visconti":-- "gods! what a light enveloped her! .... her beauty was of that order that the universe seemed governed by her motion..... the pomp, the music, the bright sun in heaven, seemed glorious by her leave." one of the most agreeable men in london literary society during procter's time was the companionable and ever kind-hearted john kenyon. he was a man compacted of all the best qualities of an incomparable good-nature. his friends used to call him "the apostle of cheerfulness." he could not endure a long face under his roof, and declined to see the dark side of anything. he wrote verses almost like a poet, but no one surpassed him in genuine admiration for whatever was excellent in others. no happiness was so great to him as the conferring of happiness on others, and i am glad to write myself his eternal debtor for much of my enjoyment in england, for he introduced me to many lifelong friendships, and he inaugurated for me much of that felicity which springs from intercourse with men and women whose books are the solace of our lifelong existence. kenyon was mrs. browning's cousin, and in she dedicates "aurora leigh" to him in these affectionate terms:-- "the words 'cousin' and 'friend' are constantly recurring in this poem, the last pages of which have been finished under the hospitality of your roof, my own dearest cousin and friend;--cousin and friend, in a sense of less equality and greater disinterestedness than romney's.... i venture to leave in your hands this book, the most mature of my works, and the one into which my highest convictions upon life and art have entered; that as, through my various efforts in literature and steps in life, you have believed in me, borne with me, and been generous to me, far beyond the common uses of mere relationship or sympathy of mind, so you may kindly accept, in sight of the public, this poor sign of esteem, gratitude, and affection from your unforgetting "e.b.b." how often have i seen kenyon and procter chirping together over an old quarto that had floated down from an early century, or rejoicing together over a well-worn letter in a family portfolio of treasures! they were a pair of veteran brothers, and there was never a flaw in their long and loving intercourse. in a letter which procter wrote to me in march, , he thus refers to his old friend, then lately dead: "everybody seems to be dying hereabouts,--one of my colleagues, one of my relations, one of my servants, three of them in one week, the last one in my own house. and now i seem fit for little else myself. my dear old friend kenyon is dead. there never was a man, take him for all in all, with more amiable, attractive qualities. a kind friend, a good master, a generous and judicious dispenser of his wealth, honorable, sweet-tempered, and serene, and genial as a summer's day. it is true that he has left me a solid mark of his friendship. i did not expect anything; but if to like a man sincerely deserved such a mark of his regard, i deserved it. i doubt if he has left one person who really liked him more than i did. yes, one--i think one--a woman.... i get old and weak and stupid. that pleasant journey to niagara, that dip into your indian summer, all such thoughts are over. i shall never see italy; i shall never see paris. my future is before me,--a very limited landscape, with scarcely one old friend left in it. i see a smallish room, with a bow-window looking south, a bookcase full of books, three or four drawings, and a library chair and table (once the property of my old friend kenyon--i am writing on the table now), and you have the greater part of the vision before you. is this the end of all things? i believe it is pretty much like most scenes in the fifth act, when the green (or black) curtain is about to drop and tell you that the play of _hamlet_ or of john smith is over. but wait a little. there will be another piece, in which john smith the younger will figure, and quite eclipse his old, stupid, wrinkled, useless, time-slaughtered parent. the king is dead,--long live the king!" kenyon was very fond of americans, professor ticknor and mr. george s. hillard being especially dear to him. i remember hearing him say one day that the "best prepared" young foreigner he had ever met, who had come to see europe, was mr. hillard. one day at his dinner-table, in the presence of mrs. jameson, mr. and mrs. carlyle, walter savage landor, mr. and mrs. robert browning, and the procters, i heard him declare that one of the best talkers on any subject that might be started at the social board was the author of "six months in italy." it was at a breakfast in kenyon's house that i first met walter savage landor, whose writings are full of verbal legacies to posterity. as i entered the room with procter, landor was in the midst of an eloquent harangue on the high art of portraiture. procter had been lately sitting to a daguerreotypist for a picture, and mrs. jameson, who was very fond of the poet, had arranged the camera for that occasion. landor was holding the picture in his hand, declaring that it had never been surpassed as a specimen of that particular art. the grand-looking author of "pericles and aspasia" was standing in the middle of the room when we entered, and his voice sounded like an explosion of first-class artillery. seeing procter enter, he immediately began to address him compliments in high-sounding latin. poor modest procter pretended to stop his ears that he might not listen to landor's eulogistic phrases. kenyon came to the rescue by declaring the breakfast had been waiting half an hour. when we arrived at the table landor asked procter to join him on an expedition into spain which he was then contemplating. "no," said procter, "for i cannot even 'walk spanish' and having never crossed the channel, i do not intend to begin now." "never crossed the channel!" roared landor,--"never saw napoleon bonaparte!" he then began to tell us how the young corsican looked when he first saw him, saying that he had the olive complexion and roundness of face of a greek girl; that the consul's voice was deep and melodious, but untruthful in tone. while we were eating breakfast he went on to describe his italian travels in early youth, telling us that he once saw shelley and byron meet in the doorway of a hotel in pisa. landor had lived in italy many years, for he detested the climate of his native country, and used to say "one could only live comfortably in england who was rich enough to have a solar system of his own." the prince of carpi said of erasmus he was so thin-skinned that a fly would draw blood from him. the author of the "imaginary conversations" had the same infirmity. a very little thing would disturb him for hours, and his friends were never sure of his equanimity. i was present once when a blundering friend trod unwittingly on his favorite prejudice, and landor went off instanter like a blaspheming torpedo. there were three things in the world which received no quarter at his hands, and when in the slightest degree he scented _hypocrisy_, _pharisaism_, or _tyranny_, straightway he became furious, and laid about him like a mad giant. procter told me that when landor got into a passion, his rage was sometimes uncontrollable. the fiery spirit knew his weakness, but his anger quite overmastered him in spite of himself. "keep your temper, landor," somebody said to him one day when he was raging. "that is just what i don't wish to keep," he cried; "i wish to be rid of such an infamous, ungovernable thing. i don't wish to keep my temper." whoever wishes to get a good look at landor will not seek for it alone in john forster's interesting life of the old man, admirable as it is, but will turn to dickens's "bleak house" for side glances at the great author. in that vivid story dickens has made his friend landor sit for the portrait of lawrence boythorn. the very laugh that made the whole house vibrate, the roundness and fulness of voice, the fury of superlatives, are all given in dickens's best manner, and no one who has ever seen landor for half an hour could possibly mistake boythorn for anybody else. talking the matter over once with dickens, he said, "landor always took that presentation of himself in hearty good-humor, and seemed rather proud of the picture." this is dickens's portrait: "he was not only a very handsome old gentleman, upright and stalwart, with a massive gray head, a fine composure of face when silent, a figure that might have become corpulent but for his being so continually in earnest that he gave it no rest, and a chin that might have subsided into a double chin but for the vehement emphasis in which it was constantly required to assist; but he was such a true gentleman in his manner, so chivalrously polite, his face was lighted by a smile of so much sweetness and tenderness, and it seemed so plain that he had nothing to hide, that really i could not help looking at him with equal pleasure, whether he smilingly conversed with ada and me, or was led by mr. jarndyce into some great volley of superlatives, or threw up his head like a bloodhound, and gave out that tremendous ha! ha! ha!" landor's energetic gravity, when he was proposing some colossal impossibility, the observant novelist would naturally seize on, for dickens was always on the lookout for exaggerations in human language and conduct. it was at procter's table i heard dickens describe a scene which transpired after the publication of the "old curiosity shop." it seems that the first idea of little nell occurred to dickens when he was on a birthday visit to landor, then living in bath. the old man was residing in lodgings in st. james square, in that city, and ever after connected little nell with that particular spot. no character in prose fiction was a greater favorite with landor, and one day, years after the story was published, he burst out with a tremendous emphasis, and declared the one mistake of his life was that he had not purchased the house in bath, and then and there burned it to the ground, so that no meaner association should ever desecrate the birthplace of little nell! it was procter's old schoolmaster (dr. drury, headmaster of harrow) who was the means of introducing edmund kean, the great actor, on the london stage. procter delighted to recall the many theatrical triumphs of the eccentric tragedian, and the memoir which he printed of kean will always be read with interest. i heard the poet one evening describe the player most graphically as he appeared in sir giles overreach in at drury lane, when he produced such an effect on lord byron, who sat that night in a stage-box with tom moore. his lordship was so overcome by kean's magnificent acting that he fell forward in a convulsive fit, and it was some time before he regained his wonted composure. douglas jerrold said that kean's appearance in shakespeare's jew was like a chapter out of genesis, and all who have seen the incomparable actor speak of his tiger-like power and infinite grace as unrivalled. at procter's house the best of england's celebrated men and women assembled, and it was a kind of enchantment to converse with the ladies one met there. it was indeed a privilege to be received by the hostess herself, for mrs. procter was not only sure to be the most brilliant person among her guests, but she practised habitually that exquisite courtesy toward all which renders even a stranger, unwonted to london drawing-rooms, free from awkwardness and that constraint which are almost inseparable from a first appearance. among the persons t have seen at that house of urbanity in london i distinctly recall old mrs. montague, the mother of mrs. procter. she had met robert burns in edinburgh when he first came up to that city to bring out his volume of poems. "i have seen many a handsome man in my time," said the old lady one day to us at dinner, "but never such a pair of eyes as young robbie burns kept flashing from under his beautiful brow." mrs. montague was much interested in charles sumner, and predicted for him all the eminence of his after-position. with a certain other american visitor she had no patience, and spoke of him to me as a "note of interrogation, too curious to be comfortable." i distinctly recall adelaide procter as i first saw her on one of my early visits to her father's house. she was a shy, bright girl, and the poet drew my attention to her as she sat reading in a corner of the library. looking at the young maiden, intent on her book, i remembered that exquisite sonnet in her father's volume, bearing date november, , addressed to the infant just a month after her birth:-- child of my heart! my sweet, beloved first-born! thou dove who tidings bring'st of calmer hours! thou rainbow who dost shine when all the showers are past or passing! rose which hath no thorn, no spot, no blemish,--pure and unforlorn, untouched, untainted! o my flower of flowers! more welcome than to bees are summer bowers, to stranded seamen life-assuring morn! welcome, a thousand welcomes! care, who clings round all, seems loosening now its serpent fold: new hope springs upward; and the bright world seems cast back into a youth of endless springs! sweet mother, is it so? or grow i old, bewildered in divine elysian dreams! i whispered in the poet's ear my admiration of the sonnet and the beautiful subject of it as we sat looking at her absorbed in the volume on her knees. procter, in response, murmured some words expressive of his joy at having such a gift from god to gladden his affectionate heart, and he told me afterward what a comfort adelaide had always been to his household. he described to me a visit wordsworth made to his house one day, and how gentle the old man's aspect was when he looked at the children. "he took the hand of my dear adelaide in his," said procter, "and spoke some words to her, the recollection of which helped, perhaps, with other things, to incline her to poetry." when a little child "the golden-tressed adelaide," as the poet calls her in one of his songs, must often have heard her father read aloud his own poems as they came fresh from the fount of song, and the impression no doubt wrought upon her young imagination a spell she could not resist. on a sensitive mind like hers such a piece as the "petition to time" could not fail of producing its full effect, and no girl of her temperament would be unmoved by the music of words like these:-- "touch us gently, time! let us glide adown thy stream gently, as we sometimes glide through a quiet dream. humble voyagers are we, husband, wife, and children three. (one is lost, an angel, fled to the azure overhead.) "touch us gently, time! we've not proud nor soaring wings: _our_ ambition, _our_ content, lie in simple things. humble voyagers are we, o'er life's dim unsounded sea, seeking only some calm clime: touch us _gently_, gentle time!" adelaide procter's name will always be sweet in the annals of english poetry. her place was assured from the time when she made her modest advent, in , in the columns of dickens's "household words," and everything she wrote from that period onward until she died gave evidence of striking and peculiar talent. i have heard dickens describe how she first began to proffer contributions to his columns over a feigned name, that of miss mary berwick; how he came to think that his unknown correspondent must be a governess; how, as time went on, he learned to value his new contributor for her self-reliance and punctuality,--qualities upon which dickens always placed a high value; how at last, going to dine one day with his old friends the procters, he launched enthusiastically out in praise of mary berwick (the writer herself, adelaide procter, sitting at the table); and how the delighted mother, being in the secret, revealed, with tears of joy, the real name of the young aspirant. although dickens has told the whole story most feelingly in an introduction to miss procter's "legends and lyrics," issued after her death, to hear it from his own lips and sympathetic heart, as i have done, was, as may be imagined, something better even than reading his pathetic words on the printed page. one of the most interesting ladies in london literary society in the period of which i am writing was mrs. jameson, the dear and honored friend of procter and his family. during many years of her later life she stood in the relation of consoler to her sex in england. women in mental anguish needing consolation and counsel fled to her as to a convent for protection and guidance. her published writings established such a claim upon her sympathy in the hearts of her readers that much of her time for twenty years before she died was spent in helping others, by correspondence and personal contact, to submit to the sorrows god had cast upon them. she believed, with milton, that it is miserable enough to be blind, but still more miserable not to be able to bear blindness. her own earlier life had been darkened by griefs, and she knew from a deep experience what it was to enter the cloud and stand waiting and hoping in the shadows. in her instructive and delightful society i spent many an hour twenty years ago in the houses of procter and rogers and kenyon. procter, knowing my admiration of the kemble family, frequently led the conversation up to that regal line which included so many men and women of genius. mrs. jameson was never weary of being questioned as to the legitimate supremacy of mrs. siddons and her nieces, fanny and adelaide kemble. while rogers talked of garrick, and procter of kean, she had no enthusiasms that were not bounded in by those fine spirits whom she had watched and worshipped from her earliest years. now and then in the garden of life we get that special bite out of the sunny side of a peach. one of my own memorable experiences in that way came in this wise. i had heard, long before i went abroad, so much of the singing of the youngest child of the "olympian dynasty," adelaide kemble, so much of a brief career crowded with triumphs on the lyric stage, that i longed, if it might be possible, to listen to the "true daughter of her race." the rest of her family for years had been, as it were, "nourished on shakespeare," and achieved greatness in that high walk of genius; but now came one who could interpret mozart, bellini, and mercadante, one who could equal what pasta and malibran and persiani and grisi had taught the world to understand and worship. "ah!" said a friend, "if you could only hear _her_ sing 'casta diva'!" "yes," said another, "and 'auld robin gray'!" no wonder, i thought, at the universal enthusiasm for a vocal and lyrical artist who can alternate with equal power from "casta diva" to "auld robin gray." i _must_ hear her! she had left the stage, after a brief glory upon it, but as madame sartoris she sometimes sang at home to her guests. "we are invited to hear some music, this evening," said procter to me one day, "and you must go with us." i went, and our hostess was the once magnificent _prima donna!_ at intervals throughout the evening, with a voice "that crowds and hurries and precipitates with thick fast warble its delicious notes," she poured out her full soul in melody. we all know her now as the author of that exquisite "week in a french country-house," and her fascinating book somehow always mingles itself in my memory with the enchanted evening when i heard her sing. as she sat at the piano in all her majestic beauty, i imagined her a sort of later st. cecilia, and could have wished for another raphael to paint her worthily. henry chorley, who was present on that memorable evening, seemed to be in a kind of nervous rapture at hearing again the supreme and willing singer. procter moved away into a dim corner of the room, and held his tremulous hand over his eyes. the old poet's sensitive spirit seemed at times to be going out on the breath of the glorious artist who was thrilling us all with her power. mrs. jameson bent forward to watch every motion of her idol, looking applause at every noble passage. another lady, whom i did not know, was tremulous with excitement, and i could well imagine what might have taken place when the "impassioned chantress" sang and enacted semiramide as i have heard it described. every one present was inspired by her fine mien, as well as by her transcendent voice. mozart, rossini, bellini, cherubini,--how she flung herself that night, with all her gifts, into their highest compositions! as she rose and was walking away from the piano, after singing an air from the "medea" with a pathos that no musically uneducated pen like mine can or ought to attempt a description of, some one intercepted her and whispered a request. again she turned, and walked toward the instrument like a queen among her admiring court. a flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder that jarred the house, stopped her for a moment on her way to the piano. a sudden summer tempest was gathering, and crash after crash made it impossible for her to begin. as she stood waiting for the "elemental fury" to subside, her attitude was quite worthy of the niece of mrs. siddons. when the thunder had grown less frequent, she threw back her beautiful classic head and touched the keys. the air she had been called upon to sing was so wild and weird, a dead silence fell upon the room, and an influence as of terror pervaded the whole assembly. it was a song by dessauer, which he had composed for her voice, the words by tennyson. no one who was present that evening can forget how she broke the silence with "we were two daughters of one race," or how she uttered the words, "the wind is roaring in turret and tree." it was like a scene in a great tragedy, and then i fully understood the worship she had won as belonging only to those consummate artists who have arisen to dignify and ennoble the lyric stage. as we left the house procter said, "you are in great luck to-night. i never heard her sing more divinely." the poet frequently spoke to me of the old days when he was contributing to the "london magazine," which fifty years ago was deservedly so popular in great britain. all the "best talent" (to use a modern advertisement phrase) wrote for it. carlyle sent his papers on schiller to be printed in it; de quincey's "confessions of an english opium-eater" appeared in its pages; and the essays of "elia" came out first in that potent periodical; landor, keats, and john bowring contributed to it; and to have printed a prose or poetical article in the "london" entitled a man to be asked to dine out anywhere in society in those days. in the proprietors began to give dinners in waterloo place once a month to their contributors, who, after the cloth was removed, were expected to talk over the prospects of the magazine, and lay out the contents for next month. procter described to me the authors of his generation as they sat round the old "mahogany-tree" of that period. "very social and expansive hours they passed in that pleasant room half a century ago. thither came stalwart allan cunningham, with his scotch face shining with good-nature; charles lamb, 'a diogenes with the heart of a st. john'; hamilton reynolds, whose good temper and vivacity were like condiments at a feast; john clare, the peasant-poet, simple as a daisy; tom hood, young, silent, and grave, but who nevertheless now and then shot out a pun that damaged the shaking sides of the whole company; de quincey, self-involved and courteous, rolling out his periods with a pomp and splendor suited, perhaps, to a high roman festival; and with these sons of fame gathered certain nameless folk whose contributions to the great 'london' are now under the protection of that tremendous power which men call _oblivion_." it was a vivid pleasure to hear procter describe edward irving, the eccentric preacher, who made such a deep impression on the spirit of his time. he is now dislimned into space, but he was, according to all his thoughtful contemporaries, a "son of thunder," a "giant force of activity." procter fully indorsed all that carlyle has so nobly written of the eloquent man who, dying at forty-two, has stamped his strong personal vitality on the age in which he lived. procter, in his younger days, was evidently much impressed by that clever rascal who, under the name of "janus weathercock," scintillated at intervals in the old "london magazine." wainwright--for that was his real name--was so brilliant, he made friends for a time among many of the first-class contributors to that once famous periodical; but the ten commandments ruined all his prospects for life. a murderer, a forger, a thief,--in short, a sinner in general,--he came to grief rather early in his wicked career, and suffered penalties of the law accordingly, but never to the full extent of his remarkable deserts. i have heard procter describe his personal appearance as he came sparkling into the room, clad in undress military costume. his smart conversation deceived those about him into the belief that he had been an officer in the dragoons, that he had spent a large fortune, and now condescended to take a part in periodical literature with the culture of a gentleman and the grace of an amateur. how this vapid charlatan in a braided surtout and prismatic necktie could so long veil his real character from, and retain the regard of, such men as procter and talfourd and coleridge is amazing. lamb calls him the "kind and light-hearted janus," and thought he liked him. the contributors often spoke of his guileless nature at the festal monthly board of the magazine, and no one dreamed that this gay and mock-smiling london cavalier was about to begin a career so foul and monstrous that the annals of crime for centuries have no blacker pages inscribed on them. to secure the means of luxurious living without labor, and to pamper his dandy tastes, this lounging, lazy _littérateur_ resolved to become a murderer on a large scale, and accompany his cruel poisonings with forgeries whenever they were most convenient. his custom for years was to effect policies of insurance on the lives of his relations, and then at the proper time administer strychnine to his victims. the heart sickens at the recital of his brutal crimes. on the life of a beautiful young girl named abercrombie this fiendish wretch effected an insurance at various offices for £ , before he sent her to her account with the rest of his poisoned too-confiding relatives. so many heavily insured ladies dying in violent convulsions drew attention to the gentleman who always called to collect the money. but why this consummate criminal was not brought to justice and hung, my lord abinger never satisfactorily divulged. at last this polished sybarite, who boasted that he always drank the richest montepulciano, who could not sit long in a room that was not garlanded with flowers, who said he felt lonely in an apartment without a fine cast of the venus de' medici in it,--this self-indulgent voluptuary at last committed several forgeries on the bank of england, and the old bailey sessions of july, , sentenced him to transportation for life. while he was lying in newgate prior to his departure, with other convicts, to new south wales, where he died, dickens went with a former acquaintance of the prisoner to see him. they found him still possessed with a morbid self-esteem and a poor and empty vanity. all other feelings and interests were overwhelmed by an excessive idolatry of self, and he claimed (i now quote his own words to dickens) a soul whose nutriment is love, and its offspring art, music, divine song, and still holier philosophy. to the last this super-refined creature seemed undisturbed by remorse. what place can we fancy for such a reptile, and what do we learn from such a career? talfourd has so wisely summed up the whole case for us that i leave the dark tragedy with the recital of this solemn sentence from a paper on the culprit in the "final memorials of charles lamb": "wainwright's vanity, nurtured by selfishness and unchecked by religion, became a disease, amounting perhaps to monomania, and yielding one lesson to repay the world for his existence, viz. that there is no state of the soul so dangerous as that in which the vices of the sensualist are envenomed by the grovelling intellect of the scorner." one of the men best worth meeting in london, under any circumstances, was leigh hunt, but it was a special boon to find him and procter together. i remember a day in the summer of when procter had a party of friends at dinner to meet hawthorne, who was then on a brief visit to london. among the guests were the countess of ----, kinglake, the author of "eothen," charles sumner, then on his way to paris, and leigh hunt, the mercurial qualities of whose blood were even then perceptible in his manner. adelaide procter did not reach home in season to begin the dinner with us, but she came later in the evening, and sat for some time in earnest talk with hawthorne. it was a "goodly companie," long to be remembered. hunt and procter were in a mood for gossip over the ruddy port. as the twilight deepened around the table, which was exquisitely decorated with flowers, the author of "rimini" recalled to procter's recollection other memorable tables where they used to meet in vanished days with lamb, coleridge, and others of their set long since passed away. as they talked on in rather low tones, i saw the two old poets take hands more than once at the mention of dead and beloved names. i recollect they had a good deal of fine talk over the great singers whose voices had delighted them in bygone days; speaking with rapture of pasta, whose tones in opera they thought incomparably the grandest musical utterances they had ever heard. procter's tribute in verse to this "queen and wonder of the enchanted world of sound" is one of his best lyrics, and never was singer more divinely complimented by poet. at the dinner i am describing he declared that she walked on the stage like an empress, "and when she sang," said he, "i held my breath." leigh hunt, in one of his letters to procter in , says: "as to pasta, i love her, for she makes the ground firm under my feet, and the sky blue over my head." i cannot remember all the good things i heard that day, but some of them live in my recollection still. hunt quoted hartley coleridge, who said, "no boy ever imagined himself a poet while he was reading shakespeare or milton." and speaking of landor's oaths, he said, "they are so rich, they are really nutritious." talking of criticism, he said he did not believe in spiteful imps, but in kindly elves who would "nod to him and do him courtesies." he laughed at bishop berkeley's attempt to destroy the world in one octavo volume. his doctrine to mankind always was, "enlarge your tastes, that you may enlarge your hearts." he believed in reversing original propensities by education,--as spallanzani brought up eagles on bread and milk, and fed doves on raw meat. "don't let us demand too much of human nature," was a line in his creed; and he believed in hood's advice, that gentleness in a case of wrong direction is always better than vituperation. "mid light, and by degrees, should be the plan to cure the dark and erring mind; but who would rush at a benighted man and give him two black eyes for being blind?" i recollect there was much converse that day on the love of reading in old age, and leigh hunt observed that sir robert walpole, seeing mr. fox busy in the library at houghton, said to him: "and you can read! ah, how i envy you! i totally neglected the _habit_ of reading when i was young, and now in my old age i cannot read a single page." hunt himself was a man who could be "penetrated by a book." it was inspiring to hear him dilate over "plutarch's morals," and quote passages from that delightful essay on "the tranquillity of the soul." he had such reverence for the wisdom folded up on his library shelves, he declared that the very perusal of the _backs of his books_ was "a discipline of humanity." whenever and wherever i met this charming person, i learned a lesson of gentleness and patience; for, steeped to the lips in poverty as he was, he was ever the most cheerful, the most genial companion and friend. he never left his good-nature outside the family circle, as a mussulman leaves his slippers outside a mosque, but he always brought a smiling face into the house with him. t---- a----, whose fine floating wit has never yet quite condensed itself into a star, said one day of a boston man that he was "east-wind made flesh." leigh hunt was exactly the opposite of this; he was compact of all the spicy breezes that blow. in his bare cottage at hammersmith the temperament of his fine spirit heaped up such riches of fancy that kings, if wise ones, might envy his magic power. "onward in faith, and leave the rest to heaven," was a line he often quoted. there was about him such a modest fortitude in want and poverty, such an inborn mental superiority to low and uncomfortable circumstances, that he rose without effort into a region encompassed with felicities, untroubled by a care or sorrow. he always reminded me of that favorite child of the genii who carried an amulet in his bosom by which all the gold and jewels of the sultan's halls were no sooner beheld than they became his own. if he sat down companionless to a solitary chop, his imagination transformed it straightway into a fine shoulder of mutton. when he looked out of his dingy old windows on the four bleak elms in front of his dwelling, he saw, or thought he saw, a vast forest, and he could hear in the note of one poor sparrow even the silvery voices of a hundred nightingales. such a man might often be cold and hungry, but he had the wit never to be aware of it. hunt's love for procter was deep and tender, and in one of his notes to me he says, referring to the meeting my memory has been trying to describe, "i have reasons for liking our dear friend procter's wine beyond what you saw when we dined together at his table the other day." procter prefixed a memoir of the life and writings of ben jonson to the great dramatist's works printed by moxon in . i happen to be the lucky owner of a copy of this edition that once belonged to leigh hunt, who has enriched it and perfumed the pages, as it were, by his annotations. the memoir abounds in felicities of expression, and is the best brief chronicle yet made of rare ben and his poetry. leigh hunt has filled the margins with his own neat handwriting, and as i turn over the leaves, thus companioned, i seem to meet those two loving brothers in modern song, and have again the benefit of their sweet society,--a society redolent of "the love of learning, the sequestered nooks, and all the sweet serenity of books." i shall not soon forget the first morning i walked with procter and kenyon to the famous house no st. james place, overlooking the green park, to a breakfast with samuel rogers. mixed up with this matutinal rite was much that belongs to the modern literary and political history of england. fox, burke, talleyrand, grattan, walter scott, and many other great ones have sat there and held converse on divers matters with the banker-poet. for more than half a century the wits and the wise men honored that unpretending mansion with their presence. on my way thither for the first time my companions related anecdote after anecdote of the "ancient bard," as they called our host, telling me also how all his life long the poet of memory had been giving substantial aid to poor authors; how he had befriended sheridan, and how good he had been to campbell in his sorest needs. intellectual or artistic excellence was a sure passport to his _salon_, and his door never turned on reluctant hinges to admit the unfriended man of letters who needed his aid and counsel. we arrived in quite an expectant mood, to find our host already seated at the head of his table, and his good man edmund standing behind his chair. as we entered the room, and i saw rogers sitting there so venerable and strange, i was reminded of that line of wordsworth's, "the oldest man he seemed that ever wore gray hair." but old as he was, he seemed full of _verve_, vivacity, and decision. knowing his homage for ben franklin, i had brought to him as a gift from america an old volume issued by the patriot printer in . he was delighted with my little present, and began at once to say how much he thought of franklin's prose. he considered the style admirable, and declared that it might be studied now for improvement in the art of composition. one of the guests that morning was the rev. alexander dyce, the scholarly editor of beaumont and fletcher, and he very soon drew rogers out on the subject of warren hastings's trial. it seemed ghostly enough to hear that famous event depicted by one who sat in the great hall of william rufus; who day after day had looked on and listened to the eloquence of fox and sheridan; who had heard edmund burke raise his voice till the old arches of irish oak resounded, and impeach warren hastings, "in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name of every rank, as the common enemy and oppressor of all." it thrilled me to hear rogers say, "as i walked up parliament street with mrs. siddons, after hearing sheridan's great speech, we both agreed that never before could human lips have uttered more eloquent words." that morning rogers described to us the appearance of grattan as he first saw and heard him when he made his first speech in parliament. "some of us were inclined to laugh," said he, "at the orator's irish brogue when he began his speech that day, but after he had been on his legs five minutes nobody dared to laugh any more." then followed personal anecdotes of madame de stael, the duke of wellington, walter scott, tom moore, and sydney smith, all exquisitely told. both our host and his friend procter had known or entertained most of the celebrities of their day. procter soon led the conversation up to matters connected with the stage, and thinking of john kemble and edmund kean, i ventured to ask rogers who of all the great actors he had seen bore away the palm. "i have looked upon a magnificent procession of them," he said, "in my time, and i never saw any one superior to _david garrick_." he then repeated hannah more's couplet on receiving as a gift from mrs. garrick the shoe-buckles which once belonged to the great actor:-- "thy buckles, o garrick, another may use, but none shall be found who can tread in thy shoes" we applauded his memory and his manner of reciting the lines, which seemed to please him. "how much can sometimes be put into an epigram!" he said to procter, and asked him if he remembered the lines about earl grey and the kaffir war. procter did not recall them, and rogers set off again:-- "a dispute has arisen of late at the cape, as touching the devil, his color and shape; while some folks contend that the devil is white, the others aver that he's black as midnight; but now't is decided quite right in this way, and all are convinced that the devil is _grey_." we asked him if he remembered the theatrical excitement in london when garrick and his troublesome contemporary, barry, were playing king lear at rival houses, and dividing the final opinion of the critics. "yes," said he, "perfectly. i saw both those wonderful actors, and fully agreed at the time with the admirable epigram that ran like wildfire into every nook and corner of society." "did the epigram still live in his memory?" we asked. the old man seemed looking across the misty valley of time for a few moments, and then gave it without a pause:-- "the town have chosen different ways to praise their different lears; to barry they give loud applause, to garrick only tears. "a king! ay, every inch a king, such barry doth appear; but garrick's quite another thing,-- he's every inch _king lear!_" among other things which rogers told us that morning, i remember he had much to say of byron's _forgetfulness_ as to all manner of things. as an evidence of his inaccuracy, rogers related how the noble bard had once quoted to him some lines on venice as southey's, "which he wanted me to admire," said rogers; "and as i wrote them myself, i had no hesitation in doing so. the lines are in my poem on italy, and begin, "'there is a glorious city in the sea.'" samuel lawrence had recently painted in oils a portrait of rogers, and we asked to see it; so edmund was sent up stairs to get it, and bring it to the table. rogers himself wished to compare it with his own face, and had a looking-glass held before him. we sat by in silence as he regarded the picture attentively, and waited for his criticism. soon he burst out with, "is my nose so d----y sharp as that?" we all exclaimed, "no! no! the artist is at fault there, sir." "i thought so," he cried; "he has painted the face of a dead man, d--n him!" some one said, "the portrait is too hard." "i won't be painted as a hard man," rejoined rogers. "i am not a hard man, am i, procter?" asked the old poet. procter deprecated with energy such an idea as that. looking at the portrait again, rogers said, with great feeling, "children would run away from that face, and they never ran away from me!" notwithstanding all he had to say against the portrait, i thought it a wonderful likeness, and a painting of great value. moxon, the publisher, who was present, asked for a certain portfolio of engraved heads which had been made from time to time of rogers, and this was brought and opened for our examination of its contents. rogers insisted upon looking over the portraits, and he amused us by his cutting comments on each one as it came out of the portfolio. "this," said he, holding one up, "is the head of a cunning fellow, and this the face of a debauched clergyman, and this the visage of a shameless drunkard!" after a comic discussion of the pictures of himself, which went on for half an hour, he said, "it is time to change the topic, and set aside the little man for a very great one. bring me my collection of washington portraits." these were brought in, and he had much to say of american matters. he remembered being told, when a boy, by his father one day, that "a fight had recently occurred at a place called bunker hill, in america." he then inquired about webster and the monument. he had met webster in england, and greatly admired him. now and then his memory was at fault, and he spoke occasionally of events as still existing which had happened half a century before. i remember what a shock it gave me when he asked me if alexander hamilton had printed any new pamphlets lately, and begged me to send him anything that distinguished man might publish after i got home to america. i recollect how delighted i was when rogers sent me an invitation the second time to breakfast with him. on that occasion the poet spoke of being in paris on a pleasure-tour with daniel webster, and he grew eloquent over the great american orator's genius. he also referred with enthusiasm to bryant's poetry, and quoted with deep feeling the first three verses of "the future life." when he pronounced the lines:-- "my name on earth was ever in thy prayer, and must thou never utter it in heaven?" his voice trembled, and he faltered out, "i cannot go on: there is something in that poem which breaks me down, and i must never try again to recite verses so full of tenderness and undying love." for longfellow's poems, then just published in england, he expressed the warmest admiration, and thought the author of "voices of the night" one of the most perfect artists in english verse who had ever lived. rogers's reminiscences of holland house that morning were a series of delightful pictures painted by an artist who left out none of the salient features, but gave to everything he touched a graphic reality. in his narrations the eloquent men, the fine ladies, he had seen there assembled again around their noble host and hostess, and one listened in the pleasant breakfast-room in st. james place to the wit and wisdom of that brilliant company which met fifty years ago in the great _salon_ of that princely mansion, which will always be famous in the literary and political history of england. rogers talked that morning with inimitable finish and grace of expression. a light seemed to play over his faded features when he recalled some happy past experience, and his eye would sometimes fill as he glanced back among his kindred, all now dead save one, his sister, who also lived to a great age. his head was very fine, and i never could quite understand the satirical sayings about his personal appearance which have crept into the literary gossip of his time. he was by no means the vivacious spectre some of his contemporaries have represented him, and i never thought of connecting him with that terrible line in "the mirror of magistrates,"-- "his withered fist still striking at death's door." his dome of brain was one of the amplest and most perfectly shaped i ever saw, and his countenance was very far from unpleasant. his faculties to enjoy had not perished with age. he certainly looked like a well-seasoned author, but not dropping to pieces yet. his turn of thought was characteristic, and in the main just, for he loved the best, and was naturally impatient of what was low and mean in conduct and intellect. he had always lived in an atmosphere of art, and his reminiscences of painters and sculptors were never wearisome or dull. he had a store of pleasant anecdotes of chantrey, whom he had employed as a wood-carver long before he became a modeller in clay; and he had also much to tell us of sir joshua reynolds, whose lectures he had attended, and whose studio-talk had been familiar to him while he was a young man and studying art himself as an amateur. it was impossible almost to make rogers seem a real being as we used to surround his table during those mornings and sometimes deep into the afternoons. we were listening to one who had talked with boswell about dr. johnson; who had sat hours with mrs. piozzi; who read the "vicar of wakefield" the day it was published; who had heard haydn, the composer, playing at a concert, "dressed out with a sword"; who had listened to talleyrand's best sayings from his own lips; who had seen john wesley lying dead in his coffin, "an old man, with the countenance of a little child"; who had been with beckford at fonthill; who had seen porson slink back into the dining-room after the company had left it and drain what was left in the wineglasses; who had crossed the apennines with byron; who had seen beau nash in the height of his career dancing minuets at bath; who had known lady hamilton in her days of beauty, and seen her often with lord nelson; who was in fox's room when that great man lay dying; and who could describe pitt from personal observation, speaking always as if his mouth was "full of worsted." it was unreal as a dream to sit there in st. james place and hear that old man talk by the hour of what one had been reading about all one's life. one thing, i must confess, somewhat shocked me,--i was not prepared for the feeble manner in which some of rogers's best stories were received by the gentlemen who had gathered at his table on those tuesday mornings. but when procter told me in explanation afterward that they had all "heard the same anecdotes every week, perhaps, for half a century from the same lips," i no longer wondered at the seeming apathy i had witnessed. it was a great treat to me, however, the talk i heard at rogers's hospitable table, and my three visits there cannot be erased from the pleasantest tablets of memory. there is only one regret connected with them, but that loss still haunts me. on one of those memorable mornings i was obliged to leave earlier than the rest of the company on account of an engagement out of london, and lady beecher (formerly miss o'neil), the great actress of other days, came in and read an hour to the old poet and his guests. procter told me afterward that among other things she read, at rogers's request, the th chapter of isaiah, and that her voice and manner seemed like inspiration. seeing and talking with rogers was, indeed, like living in the past: and one may imagine how weird it seemed to a raw yankee youth, thus facing the man who might have shaken hands with dr. johnson. i ventured to ask him one day if he had ever seen the doctor. "no," said he; "but i went down to bolt court in with the intention of making dr. johnson's acquaintance. i raised the knocker tremblingly, and hearing the shuffling footsteps as of an old man in the entry, my heart failed me, and i put down the knocker softly again, and crept back into fleet street without seeing the vision i was not bold enough to encounter." i thought it was something to have heard the footsteps of old sam johnson stirring about in that ancient entry, and for my own part i was glad to look upon the man whose ears had been so strangely privileged. rogers drew about him all the musical as well as the literary talent of london. grisi and jenny lind often came of a morning to sing their best _arias_ to him when he became too old to attend the opera; and both adelaide and fanny kemble brought to him frequently the rich tributes of their genius in art. it was my good fortune, through the friendship of procter, to make the acquaintance, at rogers's table, of leslie, the artist,--a warm friend of the old poet,--and to be taken round by him and shown all the principal private galleries in london. he first drew my attention to the pictures by constable, and pointed out their quiet beauty to my uneducated eye, thus instructing me to hate all those intemperate landscapes and lurid compositions which abound in the shambles of modern art. in the company of leslie i saw my first titians and vandycks, and felt, as northcote says, on my good behavior in the presence of portraits so lifelike and inspiring. it was leslie who inoculated me with a love of gainsborough, before whose perfect pictures a spectator involuntarily raises his hat and stands uncovered. (and just here let me advise every art lover who goes to england to visit the little dulwich gallery, only a few miles from london, and there to spend an hour or two among the exquisite gainsboroughs. no small collection in europe is better worth a visit, and the place itself in summer-time is enchanting with greenery.) as rogers's dining-room abounded in only first-rate works of art, leslie used to take round the guests and make us admire the raphaels and correggios. inserted in the walls on each side of the mantel-piece, like tiles, were several of turner's original oil and water-color drawings, which that supreme artist had designed to illustrate rogers's "poems" and "italy." long before ruskin made those sketches world-famous in his "modern painters," i have heard leslie point out their beauties with as fine an enthusiasm. he used to say that they purified the whole atmosphere round st. james place! procter had a genuine regard for count d'orsay, and he pointed him out to me one day sitting in the window of his club, near gore house, looking out on piccadilly. the count seemed a little past his prime, but was still the handsomest man in london. procter described him as a brilliant person, of special ability, and by no means a mere dandy. i first saw procter's friend, john forster, the biographer of goldsmith and dickens, in his pleasant rooms, no. lincoln's inn fields. he was then in his prime, and looked brimful of energy. his age might have been forty, or a trifle onward from that mile-stone, and his whole manner announced a determination to assert that nobody need prompt _him_. his voice rang loud and clear, up stairs and down, everywhere throughout his premises. when he walked over the uncarpeted floor, you _heard_ him walk, and he meant you should. when _he_ spoke, nobody required an ear-trumpet; the deaf never lost a syllable of his manly utterances. procter and he were in the same commission, and were on excellent terms, the younger officer always regarding the elder with a kind of leonine deference. it was to john forster these charming lines were addressed by barry cornwall, when the poet sent his old friend a present of shakespeare's works. a more exquisite compliment was never conveyed in verse so modest and so perfect in simple grace:-- "i do not know a man who better reads or weighs the great thoughts of the book i send,-- better than he whom i have called my friend for twenty years and upwards. he who feeds upon shakesperian pastures never needs the humbler food which springs from plains below; yet may he love the little flowers that blow, and him excuse who for their beauty pleads. "take then my shakespeare to some sylvan nook; and pray thee, in the name of days of old, good-will and friendship, never bought or sold, give me assurance thou wilt always look with kindness still on spirits of humbler mould; kept firm by resting on that wondrous book, wherein the dream of life is all unrolled." forster's library was filled with treasures, and he brought to the dinner-table, the day i was first with him, such rare and costly manuscripts and annotated volumes to show us, that one's appetite for "made dishes" was quite taken away. the excellent lady whom he afterward married was one of the guests, and among the gentlemen present i remember the brilliant author of "the bachelor of the albany," a book that was then the novel sensation in london. forster flew from one topic to another with admirable skill, and entertained us with anecdotes of wellington and rogers, gilding the time with capital imitations of his celebrated contemporaries in literature and on the stage. a touch about edmund kean made us all start from our chairs and demand a mimetic repetition. forster must have been an excellent private actor, for he had power and skill quite exceptional in that way. his force carried him along wherever he chose to go, and when he played "kitely," his ability must have been strikingly apparent. after his marriage, and when he removed from lincoln's inn to his fine residence at "palace-gate house," he gave frequent readings, evincing remarkable natural and acquired talents. for dickens he had a love amounting to jealousy. he never quite relished anybody else whom the great novelist had a fondness for, and i have heard droll stories touching this weakness. for professor felton he had unbounded regard, which had grown up by correspondence and through report from dickens. he had never met felton, and when the professor arrived in london, dickens, with his love of fun, arranged a bit of cajolery, which was never quite forgotten, though wholly forgiven. knowing how highly forster esteemed felton, through his writings and his letters, dickens resolved to take felton at once to forster's house and introduce him as _professor stowe_, the _port_ of both these gentlemen being pretty nearly equal. the stowes were then in england on their triumphant tour, and this made the attempt at deception an easy one. so, felton being in the secret, he and dickens proceed to forster's house and are shown in. down comes forster into the library, and is presented forthwith to "_professor stowe_." "uncle tom's cabin" is at once referred to, and the talk goes on in that direction for some time. at last both dickens and felton fell into such a paroxysm of laughter at forster's dogged determination to be complimentary to the world-renowned novel, that they could no longer hold out; and forster, becoming almost insane with wonder at the hilarious conduct of his two visitors, dickens revealed their wickedness, and a right jolty day the happy trio made of it. talfourd informs us that forster had become to charles lamb as one of his oldest companions, and that mary also cherished a strong regard for him. it is surely a proof of his admirable qualities that the love of so many of england's best and greatest was secured to him by so lasting a tenure. to have the friendship of landor, dickens, and procter through long years; to have carlyle for a constant votary, and to be mourned by him with an abiding sorrow,--these are no slight tributes to purity of purpose. forster had that genuine sympathy with men of letters which entitled him to be their biographer, and all his works in that department have a special charm, habitually gained only by a subtle and earnest intellect. it is a singular coincidence that the writers of two of the most brilliant records of travel of their time should have been law students in barry cornwall's office. kinglake, the author of "eothen," and warburton, the author of "the crescent and the cross," were at one period both engaged as pupils in their profession under the guidance of mr. procter. he frequently spoke with pride of his two law students, and when warburton perished at sea, his grief for his brilliant friend was deep and abiding. kinglake's later literary fame was always a pleasure to the historian's old master, and no one in england loved better to point out the fine passages in the "history of the invasion of the crimea" than the old poet in weymouth street. "blackwood" and the "quarterly review" railed at procter and his author friends for a long period; but how true is the saying of macaulay, "that the place of books in the public estimation is fixed, not by what is written _about_ them, but by what is written in them!" no man was more decried in his day than procter's friend, william hazlitt. the poet had for the critic a genuine admiration; and i have heard him dilate with a kind of rapture over the critic's fine sayings, quoting abundant passages from the essays. procter would never hear any disparagement of his friend's ability and keenness. i recall his earnest but restrained indignation one day, when some person compared hazlitt with a diffusive modern writer of notes on the theatre, and i remember with what contempt, in his sweet forgivable way, the old man spoke of much that passes nowadays for criticism. he said hazlitt was exactly the opposite of lord chesterfield, who advised his son, if he could not get at a thing in a straight line, to try the serpentine one. there were no crooked pathways in hazlitt's intellect. his style is brilliant, but never cloyed with ornamentation. hazlitt's paper on gifford was thought by procter to be as pungent a bit of writing as had appeared in his day, and he quoted this paragraph as a sample of its biting justice: "mr. gifford is admirably qualified for the situation he has held for many years as editor of the 'quarterly' by a happy combination of defects, natural and acquired." in one of his letters to me procter writes, "i despair of the age that has forgotten to read hazlitt." procter was a delightful prose writer, as well as a charming poet. having met in old magazines and annuals several of his essays and stories, and admiring their style and spirit, i induced him, after much persuasion, to collect and publish in america his prose works. the result was a couple of volumes, which were brought out in boston in . in them there are perhaps no "thoughts that wander through eternity," but they abound in fancies which the reader will recognize as agile "daughters of the earth and sun." in them there is nothing loud or painful, and whoever really loves "a good book," and knows it to be such on trial, will find barry cornwall's "essays and tales in prose" most delectable reading. "imparadised," as milton hath the word, on a summer hillside, or tented by the cool salt wave, no better afternoon literature can be selected. one will never meet with distorted metaphor or tawdry rhetoric in barry's thoughtful pages, but will find a calm philosophy and a beautiful faith, very precious and profitable in these days of doubt and insecurity of intellect. there is a respite and a sympathy in this fine spirit, and so i commend him heartily in times so full of turmoil and suspicion as these. one of the stories in the first volume of these prose writings, called "the man-hunter," is quite equal in power to any of the graphic pieces of a similar character ever written by de quincey or dickens, but the tone in these books is commonly more tender and inclining to melancholy. what, for instance, could be more heart-moving than these passages of his on the death of little children? "i scarcely know how it is, but the deaths of children seem to me always less premature than those of elder persons. not that they are in fact so; but it is because they themselves have little or no relation to time or maturity. life seems a race which they have yet to run entirely. they have made no progress toward the goal. they are born--nothing further. but it seems hard, when a man has toiled high up the steep hill of knowledge, that he should be cast like sisyphus, downward in a moment; that he who has worn the day and wasted the night in gathering the gold of science should be, with all his wealth of learning, all his accumulations, made bankrupt at once. what becomes of all the riches of the soul, the piles and pyramids of precious thoughts which men heap together? where are shakespeare's imagination, bacon's learning, galileo's dream? where is the sweet fancy of sidney, the airy spirit of fletcher, and milton's thought severe? methinks such things should not die and dissipate, when a hair can live for centuries, and a brick of egypt will last three thousand years! i am content to believe that the mind of man survives (somewhere or other) his clay. "i was once present at the death of a little child. i will not pain the reader by portraying its agonies; but when its breath was gone, its _life_, (nothing more than a cloud of smoke!) and it lay like a waxen image before me, i turned my eyes to its moaning mother, and sighed out my few words of comfort. but i am a beggar in grief. i can feel and sigh and look kindly, i think; but i have nothing to give. my tongue deserts me. i know the inutility of too soon comforting. i know that _i_ should weep were i the loser, and i let the tears have their way. sometimes a word or two i can muster: a 'sigh no more!' and 'dear lady, do not grieve!' but further i am mute and useless." i have many letters and kind little notes which procter used to write me during the years i knew him best. his tricksy fancies peeped out in his correspondence, and several of his old friends in england thought no literary man of his time had a better epistolary style. his neat elegant chirography on the back of a letter was always a delightful foretaste of something good inside, and i never received one of his welcome missives that did not contain, no matter how brief it happened to be, welcome passages of wit or affectionate interest. in one of his early letters to me he says:-- "there is no one rising hereabouts in literature. i suppose our national genius is taking a mechanical turn. and, in truth, it is much better to make a good steam-engine than to manufacture a bad poem. 'building the lofty rhyme' is a good thing, but our present buildings are of a low order, and seldom reach the attic. this piece of wit will scarcely throw you into a fit, i imagine, your risible muscles being doubtless kept in good order." in another he writes:-- "i see you have some capital names in the 'atlantic monthly.' if they will only put forth their strength, there is no doubt as to the result, but the misfortune is that persons who write anonymously _don't_ put forth their strength, in general. i was a magazine writer for no less than a dozen years, and i felt that no personal credit or responsibility attached to my literary trifling, and although i sometimes did pretty well (for me), yet i never did my best." as i read over again the portfolio of his letters to me, bearing date from to , i find many passages of interest, but most of them are too personal for type. a few extracts, however, i cannot resist copying. some of his epistles are enriched with a song or a sonnet, then just written, and there are also frequent references in them to american editions of his poetical and prose works, which he collected at the request of his boston publishers. in june, , he writes:-- "i have encountered a good many of your countrymen here lately, but have been introduced only to a few. i found mr. norton, who has returned to you, and mr. dwight, who is still here, i believe, very intelligent and agreeable. "if all americans were like them and yourself, and if all englishmen were like kenyon and (so far as regards a desire to judge fairly) myself, i think there would be little or no quarrelling between our small island and your great continent. "our glass palace is a perpetual theme for small-talk. it usurps the place of the weather, which is turned adrift, or laid up in ordinary for future use. nevertheless it (i mean the palace) is a remarkable achievement, after all; and i speak sincerely when i say, 'all honor and glory to paxton!' if the strings of my poor little lyre were not rusty and overworn, i think i should try to sing some of my nonsense verses before his image, and add to the idolatry already existing. "if you have hotter weather in america than that which is at present burning and blistering us here, you are entitled to pity. if it continue much longer, i shall be held in solution for the remainder of my days, and shall be remarkable as 'oxygen, the poet' (reduced to his natural weakness and simplicity by the hot summer of ), instead of your very sincere and obliged "b.w. procter." here is a brief reference to judd's remarkable novel, forming part of a note written to me in :-- "thanks for 'margaret' (the book, _not_ the woman), that you have sent me. when will you want it back? and who is the author? there is a great deal of clever writing in it,--great observation of nature, and also of character among a certain class of persons. _but_ it is almost too minute, and for _me_ decidedly too theological. you see what irreligious people we are here. i shall come over to one of your camp-meetings and _try_ to be converted. what will they administer in such a case? brimstone or brandy? i shall try the latter first." here is a letter bearing date "thursday night, november , ," in which he refers to his own writings, and copies a charming song:-- "your letter, announcing the arrival of the little preface, reached me last night. i shall look out for the book in about three weeks hence, as you tell me that they are all printed. you americans are a rapid race. when i thought you were in scotland, lo, you had touched the soil of boston; and when i thought you were unpacking my poor ms., tumbling it out of your great trunk, behold! it is arranged--it is in the printer's hands--it is _printed_--published--it is--ah! would i could add, sold! that, after all, is the grand triumph in boston as well as london. "well, since it is not sold yet, let us be generous and give a few copies away. indeed, such is my weakness, that i would sometimes rather give than sell. in the present instance you will do me the kindness to send a copy each to mr. charles sumner, mr. hillard, mr. norton: but no--my wife requests to be the donor to mr. norton, so you must, if you please, write his name in the first leaf and state that it comes from '_mrs_. procter.' i liked him very much when i met him in london, and i should wish him to be reminded of his english acquaintance. "i am writing to you at eleven o'clock at night, after a long and busy day, and i write _now_ rather than wait for a little inspiration, because the mail, i believe, starts to-morrow. the unwilling minerva is at my elbow, and i feel that every sentence i write, were it pounded ten times in a mortar, would come out again unleavened and heavy. braying some people in a mortar, you know, is but a weary and unprofitable process. "you speak of london as a delightful place. i don't know how it may be in the white-bait season, but at present it is foggy, rainy, cold, dull. half of us are unwell and the other half dissatisfied. some are apprehensive of an invasion,--not an impossible event; some writing odes to the duke of wellington; and i am putting my good friend to sleep with the flattest prose that ever dropped from an english pen. i wish that it were better; i wish that it were even worse; but it is the most undeniable twaddle. i must go to bed, and invoke the muses in the morning. at present, i cannot touch one of their petticoats. "a sleepy song. "sing! sing me to sleep! with gentle words, in some sweet slumberous measure, such as lone poet on some shady steep sings to the silence in his noonday leisure. "sing! as the river sings, when gently it flows between soft banks of flowers, and the bee murmurs, and the cuckoo brings his faint may music, 'tween the golden showers. "sing! o divinest tone! i sink beneath some wizard's charming wand; i yield, i move, by soothing breezes blown, o'er twilight shores, into the dreaming land! "i read the above to you when you were in london. it will appear in an annual edited by miss power (lady blessington's niece). "friday morning. "the wind blowing down the chimney; the rain sprinkling my windows. the english apollo hides his head--you can scarcely see him on the 'misty mountain-tops' (those brick ones which you remember in portland place). "my friend thackeray is gone to america, and i hope is, by this time, in the united states. he goes to new york, and afterward i _suppose_ (but i don't know) to boston and philadelphia. have you seen _esmond_? there are parts of it charmingly written. his pathos is to me very touching. i believe that the best mode of making one's way to a person's head is--through his heart. "i hope that your literary men will like some of my little prose matters. i know that they will _try_ to like them; but the papers have been written so long, and all, or almost all, written so hastily, that i have my misgivings. however, they must take their chance. "had i leisure to complete something that i began two or three years ago, and in which i have written a chapter or two, i should reckon more surely on success; but i shall probably never finish the thing, although i contemplated only one volume. "(if you cannot read this letter apply to the printer's devil.--hibernicus.) "farewell. all good be with you. my wife desires to be kindly remembered by you. "always yours, very sincerely, "b.w. procter." "p.s.--can you contrive to send mr. willis a copy of the prose book? if so, pray do." in february, , he writes:-- "those famous volumes, the advent of which was some time since announced by the great transatlantic trumpet, have duly arrived. my wife is properly grateful for her copy, which, indeed, impresses both of us with respect for the american skill in binding. neither too gay to be gaudy, nor too grave, so as to affect the theological, it hits that happy medium which agrees with the tastes of most people and disgusts none. we should flatter ourselves that it is intended to represent the matter within, but that we are afraid of incurring the sin of vanity, and the indiscretion of taking appearances too much upon trust. we suspend our conjectures on this very interesting subject. the whole getting up of the book is excellent. "for the little scraps of (critical) sugar enclosed in your letter, due thanks. these will sweeten our imagination for some time to come. "i have been obliged to give all the copies you sent me away. i dare say you will not grudge me four or five copies more, to be sent at your convenience, of course. let me hear from you at the same time. you can give me one of those frequent quarters of an hour which i know you now devote to a meditation on 'things in general.' "i am glad that you like thackeray. he is well worth your liking. i trust to his making both friends and money in america, and to his _keeping_ both. i am not so sure of the money, however, for he has a liberal hand. i should have liked to have been at one of the dinners you speak of. when shall you begin that _bridge_? you seem to be a long time about it. it will, i dare say, be a bridge of boats, after all.... "i was reading (rather re-reading) the other evening the introductory chapter to the 'scarlet letter.' it is admirably written. not having any great sympathy with a custom-house,--nor, indeed, with salem, except that it seems to be hawthorne's birthplace,--all my attention was concentrated on the _style_, which seems to me excellent. "the most striking book which has been recently published here is 'villette,' by the authoress of 'jane eyre,' who, as you know, is a miss bronte. the book does not give one the most pleasing notion of the authoress, perhaps, but it is very clever, graphic, vigorous. it is 'man's meat,' and not the whipped syllabub, which is _all_ froth, without any jam at the bottom. the scene of the drama is brussels. "i was sorry to hear of poor willis. our critics here were too severe upon him.... "the frost king (vulg. jack frost) has come down upon us with all his might. banished from the pleasant shores of boston, he has come with his cold scythe and ice pincers to our undefended little island, and is tyrannizing in every corner and over every part of every person. nothing is too great for him, nothing too mean. he condescends even to lay hold of the nose (an offence for which any one below the dignity of a king--or a president--would be kicked.) as for me i have taken refuge in "a song with a moral. "when the winter bloweth loud, and the earth is in a shroud, frozen rain or sleety snow dimming every dream below,-- there is e'er a spot of green whence the heavens may be seen. "when our purse is shrinking fast, and our friend is lost, (the last!) and the world doth pour its pain, sharper than the frozen rain,-- there is still a spot of green whence the heavens may be seen. "let us never meet despair while the little spot is there; winter brighteneth into may, and sullen night to sunny day,-- seek we then the spot of green whence the heavens may be seen. "i have left myself little space for more small-talk. i must, therefore, conclude with wishing that your english dreams may continue bright, and that when they begin to fade you will come and _relume_ at one of the white-bait dinners of which you used to talk in such terms of rapture. "have i space to say that i am very truly yours? "b.w. procter." a few months later, in the same year ( ), he sits by his open window in london, on a morning of spring, and sends off the following pleasant words:-- "you also must now be in the first burst and sunshine of spring. your spear-grass is showing its points, your succulent grass its richness, even your little plant [?] (so useful for certain invalids) is seen here and there; primroses are peeping out in your neighborhood, and you are looking for cowslips to come. i say nothing of your hawthorns (from the common may to the classic nathaniel), except that i trust they are thriving, and like to put forth a world of blossoms soon. 'with all this wealth, present and future, the yellow cowslip and the pale primrose,' you will doubtless feel disposed to scatter your small coins abroad on the poor, and, among other things, to forward to your humble correspondent those copies of b---- c----'s prose works which you promised i know not how long ago. 'he who gives _speedily_,' they say, 'gives twice.' i quote, as you see, from the latins. "i have just got the two additional volumes of de quincey, for which--thanks! i have not seen mr. parker, who brought them, and who left his card here yesterday, but i have asked if he will come and breakfast with me on sunday,--my only certain leisure day. your de quincey is a man of a good deal of reading, and has thought on divers and sundry matters; but he is evidently so thoroughly well pleased with the sieur 'thomas de quincey' that his self-sufficiency spoils even his best works. then some of his facts are, i hear, _quasi_ facts only, not unfrequently. he has his moments when he sleeps, and becomes oblivious of all but the aforesaid 'thomas,' who pervades both his sleeping and waking visions. i, like all authors, am glad to have a little praise now and then (it is my hydromel), but it must be dispensed by others. i do not think it decent to manufacture the sweet liquor myself, and i hate a coxcomb, whether in dress or print. "we have little or no literary news here. our poets are all going to the poorhouse (except tennyson), and our prose writers are piling up their works for the next th of november, when there will be a great bonfire. it is deuced lucky that my immortal (ah! i am de quinceying)--i mean my humble--performances were printed in america, so that they will escape. by the by, are they on foolscap? for i forgot to caution you on that head. "i have been spending a week at liverpool, where i rejoiced to hear that hawthorne's appointment was settled, and that it was a valuable post; but i hear that it lasts for three years only. this is melancholy. i hope, however, that he will 'realize' (as you trans-atlantics say) as much as he can during his consulate, and that your next president will have the good taste and the good sense to renew his lease for three years more. "i have not seen mrs. stowe. i shall probably meet her somewhere or other when she comes to london. "i dare not ask after mr. longfellow. he was kind enough to write me a very agreeable letter some time ago, which i ought to have answered. i dare say he has forgotten it, but my conscience is a serpent that gives me a bite or a sting every now and then when i think of him. the first time i am in fit condition (i mean in point of brightness) to reply to so famous a correspondent, i shall try what an english pen and ink will enable me to say. in the mean time, god be thanked for all things! "my wife heard from thackeray about ten days ago. he speaks gratefully of the kindness that he has met with in america. among other things, it appears that he has seen something of your slaves, whom he represents as leading a very easy life, and as being fat, cheerful, and happy. nevertheless, _i_ (for one) would rather be a free man,--such is the singularity of my opinions. if my prosings should ever in the course of the next twenty years require to be reprinted, pray take note of the above opinion. "and now i have no more paper; i have scarcely room left to say that i hope you are well, and to remind you that for your ten lines of writing i have sent you back a hundred. give my best compliments to all whom i know, personally or otherwise. god be with you! "yours, very sincerely, "b.w. procter." procter always seemed to be astounded at the travelling spirit of americans, and in his letters he makes frequent reference to our "national propensity," as he calls it. "half an hour ago," he writes in. july, , "we had three of your countrymen here to lunch,--countrymen i mean, hibernically, for two of them wore petticoats. they are all going to switzerland, france, italy, egypt, and syria. what an adventurous race you are, you americans! here the women go merely 'from the blue bed to the brown,' and think that they have travelled and seen the world. i myself should not care much to be confined to a circle reaching six or seven miles round london. there are the fresh winds and wild thyme on hampstead heath, and from richmond you may survey the naiades. highgate, where coleridge lived, enfield, where charles lamb dwelt, are not far off. turning eastward, there is the river lea, in which izaak walton fished; and farther on--ha! what do i see? what are those little fish frisking in the batter (the great naval hospital close by), which fixed the affections of the enamored american while he resided in london, and have been floating in his dreams ever since? they are said by the naturalists to be of the species _blandamentum album_, and are by vulgar aldermen spoken carelessly of as _white-bait_. "london is full of carriages, full of strangers, full of parties feasting on strawberries and ices and other things intended to allay the heat of summer; but the summer herself (fickle virgin) keeps back, or has been stopped somewhere or other,--perhaps at the liverpool custom-house, where the very brains of men (their books) are held in durance, as i know to my cost. "thackeray is about to publish a new work in numbers,--a serial, as the newspapers call it. thomas carlyle is publishing (a sixpenny matter) in favor of the slave-trade. novelists of all shades are plying their trades. husbands are killing their wives in every day's newspaper. burglars are peaching against each other; there is no longer honor among thieves. i am starting for leicester on a week's expedition amidst the mad people; and the emperor of russia has crossed the pruth, and intends to make a tour of turkey. "all this appears to me little better than idle, restless vanity. o my friend, what a fuss and a pother we are all making, we little flies who are going round on the great wheel of time! to-day we are flickering and buzzing about, our little bits of wings glittering in the sunshine, and to-morrow we are safe enough in the little crevice at the back of the fireplace, or hid in the folds of the old curtain, shut up, stiff and torpid, for the long winter. what do you say to that profound reflection? "i struggle against the lassitude which besets me, and strive in vain to be either sensible or jocose. i had better say farewell." on christmas day, , he writes in rather flagging spirits, induced by ill health:-- "i have owed you a letter for these many months, my good friend. i am afraid to think _how_ long, lest the interest on the debt should have exceeded the capital, and be beyond my power to pay. "you must be good-natured and excuse me, for i have been ill--very frequently--and dispirited. a bodily complaint torments me, that has tormented me for the last two years. i no longer look at the world through a rose-colored glass. the prospect, i am sorry to say, is gray, grim, dull, barren, full of withered leaves, without flowers, or if there be any, all of them trampled down, soiled, discolored, and without fragrance. you see what a bit of half-smoked glass i am looking through. at all events, you must see how entirely i am disabled from returning, except in sober sentences, the lively and good-natured letters and other things which you have sent me from america. they were welcome, and i thank you for them now, in a few words, as you observe, but sincerely. i am somewhat brief, even in my gratitude. had i been in braver spirits, i might have spurred my poor pegasus, and sent you some lines on the alma, or the inkerman,--bloody battles, but exhibiting marks not to be mistaken of the old english heroism, which, after all is said about the enervating effects of luxury, is as grand and manifest as in the ancient fights which english history talks of so much. even you, sternest of republicans, will, i think, be proud of the indomitable courage of englishmen, and gladly refer to your old paternity. i, at least, should be proud of americans fighting after the same fashion (and without doubt they _would_ fight thus), just as old people exult in the brave conduct of their runaway sons. i cannot read of these later battles without the tears coming into my eyes. it is said by 'our correspondent' at _new york_ that the folks there rejoice in the losses and disasters of the allies. this can never be the case, surely? no one whose opinion is worth a rap can rejoice at any success of the czar, whose double-dealing and unscrupulous greediness must have rendered him an object of loathing to every well-thinking man. but what have i to do with politics, or you? our 'pleasant object and serene employ' are books, books. let us return to pacific thoughts. "what a number of things have happened since i saw you! i looked for you in the last spring, little dreaming that so fat and flourishing a 'statesman' could be overthrown by a little fever. i had even begun some doggerel, announcing to you the advent of the white-bait, which i imagined were likely to be all eaten up in your absence. my memory is so bad that i cannot recollect half a dozen lines, probably not one, as it originally stood. "i was at liverpool last june. after two or three attempts i contrived to seize on the famous nathaniel hawthorne. need i say that i like him _very_ much? he is very sensible, very genial,--a little shy, i think (for an american!)--and altogether extremely agreeable. i wish that i could see more of him, but our orbits are wide apart. now and then--once in two years--i diverge into and cross his circle, but at other times we are separated by a space amounting to miles. he has three children, and a nice little wife, who has good-humor engraved on her countenance. "as to verse--yes, i have begun a dozen trifling things, which are in my drawer unfinished; poor rags with ink upon them, none of them, i am afraid, properly labelled for posterity. i was for six weeks at ryde, in the isle of wight, this year, but so unwell that i could not write a line, scarcely read one; sitting out in the sun, eating, drinking, sleeping, and sometimes (poor soul!) imagining i was thinking. one sunday i saw a magnificent steamer go by, and on placing my eye to the telescope i saw some stars and stripes (streaming from the mast-head) that carried me away to boston. by the way, when _will_ you finish the bridge? "i hear strange hints of you all quarrelling about the slave question. is it so? you are so happy and prosperous in america that you must be on the lookout for clouds, surely! when you see emerson, longfellow, sumner, any one i know, pray bespeak for me a kind thought or word from them." procter was always on the lookout for hawthorne, whom he greatly admired. in november, , he says, in a brief letter:-- "i have not seen hawthorne since i wrote to you. he came to london this summer, but, i am sorry to say, did not inquire for me. as it turned out, i was absent from town, but sent him (by mrs. russell sturgis) a letter of introduction to leigh hunt, who was very much pleased with him. poor hunt! he is the most genial of men; and, now that his wife is confined to her bed by rheumatism, is recovering himself, and, i hope, doing well. he asked to come and see me the other day. i willingly assented, and when i saw him--grown old and sad and broken down in health--all my ancient liking for him revived. "you ask me to send you some verse. i accordingly send you a scrap of recent manufacture, and you will observe that instead of forwarding my epic on sevastopol, i select something that is fitter for these present vernal love days than the blaster of heroic verse:-- "song. "within the chambers of her breast love lives and makes his spicy nest, midst downy blooms and fragrant flowers, and there he dreams away the hours-- there let him rest! some time hence, when the cuckoo sings, i'll come by night and bind his wings,-- bind him that he shall not roam from his warm white virgin home. "maiden of the summer season, angel of the rosy time, come, unless some graver reason bid thee scorn my rhyme; come from thy serener height, on a golden cloud descending, come ere love hath taken flight, and let thy stay be like the light, when its glory hath no ending in the northern night!" now and then we get a glimpse of thackeray in his letters. in one of them he says:-- "thackeray came a few days ago and read one of his lectures at our house (that on george the third), and we asked about a dozen persons to come and hear it, among the rest, your handsome countrywoman, mrs. r---- s----. it was very pleasant, with that agreeable intermixture of tragedy and comedy that tells so well when judiciously managed. he will not print them for some time to come, intending to read them at some of the principal places in england, and perhaps scotland. "what are you doing in america? you are too happy and independent! 'o fortunatos agricolas, sua si bona nôrint!' i am not quite sure of my latin (which is rusty from old age), but i am sure of the sentiment, which is that when people are too happy, they don't know it, and so take to quarrelling to relieve the monotony of their blue sky. some of these days you will split your great kingdom in two, i suppose, and then-- "my wife's mother, mrs. basil montagu, is very ill, and we are apprehensive of a fatal result, which, in truth, the mere fact of her age (eighty-two or eighty-three) is enough to warrant. ah, this terrible _age_! the young people, i dare say, think that we live too long. yet how short it is to look back on life! why, i saw the house the other day where i used to play with a wooden sword when i was five years old! it cannot surely be eighty years ago! what has occurred since? why, nothing that is worth putting down on paper. a few nonsense verses, a flogging or two (richly deserved), and a few white-bait dinners, and the whole is reckoned up. let us begin again." [here he makes some big letters in a school-boy hand, which have a very pathetic look on the page.] in a letter written in he gives me a graphic picture of sad times in india:-- "all our anxiety here at present is the indian mutiny. we ourselves have great cause for trouble. our son (the only son i have, indeed) escaped from delhi lately. he is now at meerut. he and four or five other officers, four women, and a child escaped. the men were obliged to drop the women a fearful height from the walls of the fort, amidst showers of bullets. a round shot passed within a yard of my son, and one of the ladies had a bullet through her shoulder. they were seven days and seven nights in the jungle, without money or meat, scarcely any clothes, no shoes. they forded rivers, lay on the wet ground at night, lapped water from the puddles, and finally reached meerut. the lady (the mother of the three other ladies) had not her wound dressed, or seen, indeed, for upward of a week. their feet were full of thorns. my son had nothing but a shirt, a pair of trousers, and a flannel waistcoat. how they contrived to _live_ i don't know; i suppose from small gifts of rice, etc., from the natives. "when i find any little thing now that disturbs my serenity, and which i might in former times have magnified into an evil, i think of what europeans suffer from the vengeance of the indians, and pass it by in quiet. "i received mr. hillard's epitaph on my dear kind friend kenyon. thank him in my name for it. there are some copies to be reserved of a lithograph now in progress (a portrait of kenyon) for his american friends. should it be completed in time, mr. sumner will be asked to take them over. i have put down your name for one of those who would wish to have this little memento of a good kind man.... "i shall never visit america, be assured, or the continent of europe, or any distant region. i have reached nearly to the length of my tether. i have grown old and apathetic and stupid. all i care for, in the way of personal enjoyment, is quiet, ease,--to have nothing to do, nothing to think of. my only glance is backward. there is so little before me that i would rather not look that way." in a later letter he again speaks of his son and the war in india:-- "my son is _not_ in the list of killed and wounded, thank god! he was before delhi, having _volunteered_ thither after his escape. we trust that he is at present safe, but every mail is pregnant with bloody tidings, and we do not find ourselves yet in a position to rejoice securely. what a terrible war this indian war is! are all people of black blood cruel, cowardly, and treacherous? if it were a case of great oppression on our part, i could understand and (almost) excuse it; but it is from the _spoiled_ portion of the hindostanees that the revengeful mutiny has arisen. one thing is quite clear, that whatever luxury and refinement have done for our race (for i include americans with english), they have not diminished the courage and endurance and heroism for which i think we have formerly been famous. we are the same saxons still. there has never been fiercer fighting than in some of the battles that have lately taken place in india. when i look back on the old history books, and see that _all_ history consists of little else than the bloody feuds of nation with nation, i almost wonder that god has not extinguished the cruel, selfish animals that we dignify with the name of men. no--i cry forgiveness: let the women live, if they can, without the men. i used the word 'men' only." here is a pleasant paragraph about "aurora leigh":-- "the most successful book of the season has been mrs. browning's 'aurora leigh.' i could wish some things altered, i confess; but as it is, it is by far (a hundred times over) the finest poem ever written by a woman. we know little or nothing of sappho,--nothing to induce comparison,--and all other wearers of petticoats must courtesy to the ground." in several of his last letters to me there are frequent allusions to our civil war. here is an extract from an epistle written in :-- "we read with painful attention the accounts of your great quarrel in america. we know nothing beyond what we are told by the new york papers, and these are the stories of _one_ of the combatants. i am afraid that, however you may mend the schism, you will never be so strong again. i hope, however, that something may arise to terminate the bloodshed; for, after all, fighting is an unsatisfactory way of coming at the truth. if you were to stand up at once (and finally) against the slave-trade, your band of soldiers would have a more decided _principle_ to fight for. but-- "--but i really know little or nothing. i hope that at boston you are comparatively peaceful, and i know that you are more abolitionist than in the more southern countries. "there is nothing new doing here in the way of books. the last book i have seen is called 'tannhauser,' published by chapman and hall,--a poem under feigned names, but _really_ written by robert lytton and julian fane. it is not good enough for the first, but (as i conjecture) too good for the last. the songs which decide the contest of the bards are the worst portions of the book. "i read some time ago a novel which has not made much noise, but which is prodigiously clever,--'city and suburb.' the story hangs in parts, but it is full of weighty sentences. we have no poet _since_ tennyson except robert lytton, who, you know, calls himself owen meredith. poetry in england is assuming a new character, and not a better character. it has a sort of pre-raphaelite tendency which does not suit my aged feelings. i am for love, or the world well lost. but i forget that, if i live beyond the st of next november, i shall be _seventy-four_ years of age. i have been obliged to resign my commissionership of lunacy, not being able to bear the pain of travelling. by this i lose about £ a year. i am, therefore, sufficiently poor, even for a poet. browning, as you know, has lost his wife. he is coming with his little boy to live in england. i rejoice at this, for i think that the english should live in england, especially in their youth, when people learn things that they never forget afterward." near the close of he writes:-- "since i last heard from you, nothing except what is melancholy seems to have taken place. you seem all busy killing each other in america. some friends of yours and several friends of mine have died. among the last i cannot help placing nathaniel hawthorne, for whom i had a sincere regard.... he was about your best prose writer, i think, and intermingled with his humor was a great deal of tenderness. to die so soon! "you are so easily affronted in america, if we (english) say anything about putting an end to your war, that i will not venture to hint at the subject. nevertheless, i wish that you were all at peace again, for your own sakes and for the sake of human nature. i detest fighting now, although i was a great admirer of fighting in my youth. my youth? i wonder where it has gone. it has left me with gray hairs and rheumatism, and plenty of (too many other) infirmities. i stagger and stumble along, with almost seventy-six years on my head, upon failing limbs, which no longer enable me to walk half a mile. i see a great deal, all behind me (the past), but the prospect before me is not cheerful. sometimes i wish that i had tried harder for what is called fame, but generally (as now) i care very little about it. after all,--unless one could be shakespeare, which (clearly) is not an easy matter,--of what value is a little puff of smoke from a review? if we could settle permanently who is to be the homer or shakespeare of our time, it might be worth something; but we cannot. is it jones, or smith, or ----? alas! i get short-sighted on this point, and cannot penetrate the impenetrable dark. make my remembrances acceptable to longfellow, to lowell, to emerson, and to any one else who remembers me. "yours, ever sincerely, "b.w. procter." and here are a few paragraphs from the last letter i ever received in procter's loving hand:-- "although i date this from weymouth street, yet i am writing or miles away from london. perhaps this temporary retreat from our great, noisy, turbulent city reminds me that i have been very unmindful of your letter, received long ago. but i have been busy, and my writing now is not a simple matter, as it was fifty years ago. i have great difficulty in forming the letters, and you would be surprised to learn with what labor _this_ task is performed. then i have been incessantly occupied in writing (i refer to the _mechanical_ part only) the 'memoir of charles lamb.' it is not my book,--i.e. not my property,--but one which i was hired to write, and it forms my last earnings. you will have heard of the book (perhaps seen it) some time since. it has been very well received. i would not have engaged myself on anything else, but i had great regard for charles lamb, and so (somehow or other) i have contrived to reach the end. "i _have_ already (long ago) written something about hazlitt, but i have received more than one application for it, in case i can manage to complete my essay. as in the case of lamb, i am really the only person living who knew much about his daily life. i have not, however, quite the same incentive to carry me on. indeed, i am not certain that i should be able to travel to the real finis. "my wife is very grateful for the copies of my dear adelaide's poems which you sent her. she appears surprised to hear that i have not transmitted her thanks to you before. "we get the 'atlantic monthly' regularly. i need not tell you how much better the poetry is than at its commencement. very good is 'released,' in the july number, and several of the stories; but they are in london, and i cannot particularize them. "we were very much pleased with colonel holmes, the son of your friend and contributor. he seems a very intelligent, modest young man; as little military as need be, and, like coriolanus, not baring his wounds (if he has any) for public gaze. when you see dr. holmes, pray tell him how much i and my wife liked his son. "we are at the present moment rusticating at malvern wells. we are on the side of a great hill (which you would call small in america), and our intercourse is only with the flowers and bees and swallows of the season. sometimes we encounter a wasp, which i suppose comes from over seas! "the storys are living two or three miles off, and called upon us a few days ago. you have not seen _his_ sibyl, which i think very fine, and as containing a _very great_ future. but the young poets generally disappoint us, and are too content with startling us into admiration of their first works, and then go to sleep. "i wish that i had, when younger, made more notes about my contemporaries; for, being of no faction in politics, it happens that i have known far more literary men than any other person of my time. in counting up the names of persons known to me who were, in some way or other, _connected_ with literature, i reckoned up more than one hundred. but then i have had more than sixty years to do this in. my first acquaintance of this sort was bowles, the poet. this was about . "although i can scarcely write, i am able to say, in conclusion, that i am "very sincerely yours, "b.w. procter." procter was an ardent student of the works of our older english dramatists, and he had a special fondness for such writers as decker, marlowe, heywood, webster, and fletcher. many of his own dramatic scenes are modelled on that passionate and romantic school. he had great relish for a good modern novel, too; and i recall the titles of several which he recommended warmly for my perusal and republication in america. when i first came to know him, the duties of his office as a commissioner obliged him to travel about the kingdom, sometimes on long journeys, and he told me his pocket companion was a cheap reprint of emerson's "essays," which he found such agreeable reading that he never left home without it. longfellow's "hyperion" was another of his favorite books during the years he was on duty. among the last agreeable visits i made to the old poet was one with reference to a proposition of his own to omit several songs and other short poems from a new issue of his works then in press. i stoutly opposed the ignoring of certain old favorites of mine, and the poet's wife joined with me in deciding against the author in his proposal to cast aside so many beautiful songs,--songs as well worth saving as any in the volume. procter argued that, being past seventy, he had now reached to years of discretion, and that his judgment ought to be followed without a murmur. i held out firm to the end of our discussion, and we settled the matter with this compromise: he was to expunge whatever he chose from the english edition, but i was to have my own way with the american one. so to this day the american reprint is the only complete collection of barry cornwall's earliest pieces, for i held on to all the old lyrics, without discarding a single line. the poet's figure was short and full, and his voice had a low, veiled tone habitually in it, which made it sometimes difficult to hear distinctly what he was saying. when in conversation, he liked to be very near his listener, and thus stand, as it were, on confidential ground with him. his turn of thought was cheerful among his friends, and he proceeded readily into a vein of wit and nimble expression. verbal felicity seemed natural to him, and his epithets, evidently unprepared, were always perfect. he disliked cant and hard ways of judging character. he praised easily. he had no wish to stand in anybody's shoes but his own, and he said, "there is no literary vice of a darker shade than envy." talleyrand's recipe for perfect happiness was the opposite to his. he impressed every one who came near him as a born gentleman, chivalrous and generous in a marked degree, and it was the habit of those who knew him to have an affection for him. altering a line of pope, this counsel might have been safely tendered to all the authors of his day,-- "disdain whatever _procter's mind_ disdains." [illustration: _frontispiece._ little nell and her grandfather.] charles dickens' children stories re-told by his granddaughter and others with twelve full-page illustrations philadelphia henry altemus company copyright, , by henry altemus company trotty veck and his daughter meg. "trotty" seems a strange name for an old man, but it was given to toby veck because of his always going at a trot to do his errands; for he was a porter, and carried letters and messages for people who were in too great a hurry to send them by the post. he did not earn very much, and had to be out in all weathers and all day long. but toby was of a cheerful disposition, and looked on the bright side of everything. his greatest joy was his dear daughter meg, who loved him dearly. one cold day toby had been trotting up and down in his usual place before the church, when the bells chimed twelve o'clock, which made toby think of dinner. "there's nothing," he remarked, "more regular in coming round than dinner-time, and nothing less regular in coming round than dinner. that's the great difference between 'em." he went on talking to himself never noticing who was coming near to him. "why, father, father," said a pleasant voice, and toby turned to find his daughter's sweet, bright eyes close to his. "why, pet," said he, kissing her, "what's-to-do? i didn't expect you to-day, meg." "neither did i expect to come, father," said meg, smiling. "but here i am! and not alone, not alone!" "why, you don't mean to say," observed trotty, looking curiously at the covered basket she carried, "that you?----" "smell it, father dear," said meg; "only smell it, and guess what it is." toby took the shortest possible sniff at the edge of the basket. "why, it's hot," he said. but to meg's great delight he could not guess what it was that smelt so good. at last he exclaimed in triumph, "why, what am i a-thinking of? it's tripe!" and it was. just as toby was about to sit down to his dinner on the doorsteps of a big house close by, the chimes rang out again, and toby took off his hat and said, "amen." "amen to the bells, father?" "they broke in like a grace, my dear," said trotty, "they'd say a good one if they could, i'm sure. many's the kind thing they say to me. how often have i heard them bells say, 'toby veck, toby veck, keep a good heart, toby!' a millions times? more!" "well, i never!" cried meg. while toby ate his unexpected dinner with immense relish, meg told him how her lover richard, a young blacksmith, had brought his dinner to share with her, and had begged her to marry him on new year's day, "the best and happiest day of the whole year." "so," went on meg, "i wanted to make this a sort of holiday to you, as well as a dear and happy day to me, father, and i made a little treat and brought it to surprise you." just then, richard himself came up to persuade toby to agree to their plan; and almost at the same moment, a footman came out of the house and ordered them all off the steps, and some gentleman came out who called up trotty, and gave him a letter to carry. toby trotted off to a very grand house, where he was told to take the letter in to the gentleman. while he was waiting, he heard the letter read. it was from alderman cute, to tell sir joseph bowley that one of his tenants named will fern who had come to london to try and get work, had been brought before him charged with sleeping in a shed, and asking if sir joseph wished him to be dealt leniently with or otherwise. to toby's great disappointment the answer was given that will fern might be sent to prison as a vagabond, though his only fault was poverty. on his way home, toby ran against a man dressed like a countryman, carrying a fair-haired little girl. the man asked him the way to alderman cute's house. "it's impossible," cried toby, "that your name is will fern?" "that's my name," said the man. thereupon toby told him what he had just heard, and said "don't go there." [illustration: trotty veck's dinner. toby took a sniff at the edge of the basket.] poor will told him how he could not make a living in the country, and had come to london with his orphan niece to try and find a friend of her mother's and to endeavor to get some work, and wishing toby a happy new year, was about to trudge wearily off again, when trotty caught his hand saying-- "stay! the new year never can be happy to me if i see the child and you go wandering away without a shelter for your heads. come home with me. i'm a poor man, living in a poor place, but i can give you lodging for one night and never miss it," and lifting up the pretty little one, he trotted towards home, and rushing in, he set the child down before his daughter. the little girl ran into her arms at once, while trotty ran round the room, saying, "here we are and here we go. here, uncle will, come to the fire. meg, my precious darling, where's the kettle? here it is and here it goes, and it'll bile in no time!" "why, father!" said meg, "you're crazy to-night, i think. poor little feet, how cold they are!" "oh, they're warmer now!" exclaimed the child. "they're quite warm now!" "no, no, no," said meg. "we haven't rubbed 'em half enough. and when they're done, we'll brush out the damp hair; and we'll bring some color to the poor pale face with fresh water; and then we'll be so gay and brisk and happy!" the child sobbing, clasped her round the neck, saying, "o meg, o dear meg!" "good gracious me!" said meg, presently, "father's crazy! he's put the dear child's bonnet on the kettle, and hung the lid behind the door!" trotty hastily repaired this mistake, and went off to find some tea and a rasher of bacon he fancied "he had seen lying somewhere on the stairs." he soon came back and made the tea, and before long they were all enjoying the meal. after tea meg took lilian to bed, and toby showed will fern where he was to sleep. then he went to sit by the fire and read his paper, and fell asleep, to have a wonderful dream so terrible and sad, that it was a great relief when he woke to find meg sitting near him, putting some ribbons on her simple gown for her wedding, and looking so happy and young and blooming, that he jumped up to clasp her in his arms. but somebody came rushing in between them, crying,--"no! not even you. the first kiss of meg in the new year is mine. meg, my precious prize, a happy year! a life of happy years, my darling wife!" then in came lilian and will fern, and a band of music with a flock of neighbors burst into the room, shouting, "a happy new year, meg." "a happy wedding!" "many of 'em," and the drum stepped forward and said-- "trotty veck, it's got about that your daughter is to be married to-morrow. and there ain't a soul that knows you both that don't wish you both all the happiness the new year can bring. and here we are, to play it in and dance it in accordingly." then mrs. chickenstalker came in (a good-humored, comely woman, who, to the delight of all, turned out to be the friend of lilian's mother for whom will fern had come to look), to wish meg joy, and then the music struck up, and trotty, making meg and richard second couple, led off mrs. chickenstalker down the dance, and danced it in a step unknown before or since, founded on his own peculiar trot. tiny tim. there was once a man who did not like christmas. his name was scrooge, and he was a hard sour-tempered man of business, intent only on saving and making money, and caring nothing for anyone. he paid the poor, hard-working clerk in his office as little as he could possibly get the work done for, and lived on as little as possible himself, alone, in two dismal rooms. he was never merry or comfortable, or happy, and he hated other people to be so, and that was the reason why he hated christmas, because people will be happy at christmas, you know, if they possibly can. well, it was christmas eve, a very cold and foggy one, and mr. scrooge, having given his poor clerk unwilling permission to spend christmas day at home, locked up his office and went home himself in a very bad temper. after having taken some gruel as he sat over a miserable fire in his dismal room, he got into bed, and had some wonderful and disagreeable dreams, to which we will leave him, whilst we see how tiny tim, the son of his poor clerk, spent christmas day. the name of this clerk was bob cratchet. he had a wife and five other children beside tim, who was a weak and delicate little cripple, gentle and patient and loving, with a sweet face of his own, which no one could help looking at. it was mr. cratchet's delight to carry his little boy out on his shoulder to see the shops and the people; and to-day he had taken him to church for the first time. "whatever has got your precious father, and your brother tiny tim!" exclaimed mrs. cratchet, "here's dinner all ready to be dished up. i've never known him so late on christmas day before." "here he is, mother!" cried belinda, and "here he is!" cried the other children, as mr. cratchet came in, his long comforter hanging three feet from under his threadbare coat; for cold as it was the poor clerk had no top-coat. tiny tim was perched on his father's shoulder. "and how did tim behave?" asked mrs. cratchet. "as good as gold and better," replied his father. "he told me, coming home, that he hoped the people in church, who saw he was a cripple, would be pleased to remember on christmas day who it was who made the lame to walk." "bless his sweet heart!" said the mother in a trembling voice. dinner was waiting to be dished up. mrs. cratchet proudly placed a goose upon the table. belinda brought in the apple sauce, and peter the mashed potatoes; the other children set chairs, tim's as usual close to his father's; and tim was so excited that he rapped the table with his knife, and carried "hurrah." after the goose came the pudding, all ablaze, with its sprig of holly in the middle, and was eaten to the last morsel; then apples and oranges were set upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire, and mr. cratchet served round some hot sweet stuff out of a jug as they closed round the fire, and said, "a merry christmas to us all, my dears, god bless us." "god bless us, every one," echoed tiny tim, and then they drank each other's health, and mr. scrooge's health, and told stories and sang songs. [illustration: tiny tim. tiny tim was perched on his father's shoulder.] now in one of mr. scrooge's dreams on christmas eve a christmas spirit showed him his clerk's home; he saw them all, heard them drink his health, and he took special note of tiny tim himself. how mr. scrooge spent christmas day we do not know; but on christmas night he had more dreams, and the spirit took him again to his clerk's poor home. upstairs, the father, with his face hidden in his hands, sat beside a little bed, on which lay a tiny figure, white and still. "tiny tim died because his father was too poor to give him what was necessary to make him well; _you_ kept him poor," said the dream-spirit to mr. scrooge. the father kissed the cold, little face on the bed, and went down-stairs, where the sprays of holly still remained about the humble room; and taking his hat, went out, with a wistful glance at the little crutch in the corner as he shut the door. mr. scrooge saw all this, but, wonderful to relate, he woke the next morning feeling as he had never felt in his life before. "why, i am as light as a feather, and as happy as an angel, and as merry as a schoolboy," he said to himself. "i hope everybody had a merry christmas, and here's a happy new year to all the world." poor bob cratchet crept into the office a few minutes late, expecting to be scolded for it, but his master was there with his back to a good fire, and actually smiling, and he shook hands with his clerk, telling him heartily he was going to raise his salary, and asking quite affectionately after tiny tim! "and mind you make up a good fire in your room before you set to work, bob," he said, as he closed his own door. bob could hardly believe his eyes and ears, but it was all true. such doings as they had on new year's day had never been seen before in the cratchet's home, nor such a turkey as mr. scrooge sent them for dinner. tiny tim had his share too, for tiny tim did not die, not a bit of it. mr. scrooge was a second father to him from that day, he wanted for nothing, and grew up strong and hearty. mr. scrooge loved him, and well he might, for was it not tiny tim who had unconsciously, through the christmas dream-spirit, touched his hard heart, and caused him to become a good and happy man? little dombey. little dombey was the son of a rich city merchant, a cold, stern, and pompous man, whose life and interests were entirely absorbed in his business. he was so desirous of having a son to associate with himself in the business, and make the house once more dombey & son in fact, as it was in name, that the little boy who was at last born to him was eagerly welcomed. there was a pretty little girl six years old, but her father had taken little notice of her. of what use was a girl to dombey & son? she could not go into the business. little dombey's mother died when he was born, but the event did not greatly disturb mr. dombey; and since his son lived, what did it matter to him that his little daughter florence was breaking her heart in loneliness for the mother who had loved and cherished her! during the first few months of his life, little dombey grew and flourished; and as soon as he was old enough to take notice, there was no one he loved so well as his sister florence. in due time the baby was taken to church, and baptized by the name of paul (his father's name). a grand and stately christening it was, followed by a grand and stately feast; and little paul was declared by his godmother to be "an angel, and the perfect picture of his own papa." but from that time paul seemed to waste and pine; his healthy and thriving babyhood had received a check, and as for illnesses, "there never was a blessed dear so put upon," his nurse said. by the time he was five years old, though he had the prettiest, sweetest little face in the world, there was always a patient, wistful look upon it, and he was thin and tiny and delicate. he soon got tired, and had such old-fashioned ways of speaking and doing things, that his nurse often shook her head sadly over him. when he sat in his little arm-chair with his father, after dinner, they were a strange pair,--so like, and so unlike each other. "what is money, papa?" asked paul on one of these occasions, crossing his tiny arms as well as he could--just as his father's were crossed. "why, gold, silver and copper; you know what it is well enough, paul," answered his father. "oh yes; i mean, what can money do?" "anything, everything--almost," replied mr. dombey, taking one of his son's wee hands. paul drew his hand gently away. "it didn't save me my mamma, and it can't make me strong and big," said he. "why, you _are_ strong and big, as big as such little people usually are," returned mr. dombey. "no," replied paul, sighing; "when florence was as little as me, she was strong and tall, and did not get tired of playing as i do. i am so tired sometimes, papa." mr. dombey's anxiety was aroused, and the doctor was sent for to examine paul. "the child is hardly so stout as we could wish," said the doctor; "his mind is too big for his body, he thinks too much--let him try sea air--sea air does wonders for children." so it was arranged that florence, paul, and nurse should go to brighton, and stay in the house of a lady named mrs. pipchin, who kept a very select boarding-house for children. there is no doubt that, apart from his importance to the house of dombey & son, little paul had crept into his father's heart, cold though it still was towards his daughter, colder than ever now, for there was in it a sort of unacknowledged jealousy of the warm love lavished on her by paul, which he himself was unable to win. mrs. pipchin was a marvellously ugly old lady, with a hook nose and stern cold eyes. "well, master paul, how do you think you will like me?" said mrs. pipchin, seeing the child intently regarding her. "i don't think i shall like you at all," replied paul, shaking his head. "i want to go away. i do not like your house." paul did not like mrs. pipchin, but he would sit in his arm-chair and look at her. her ugliness seemed to fascinate him. as the weeks went by little paul grew more healthy-looking, but he did not seem any stronger, and could not run about out of doors. a little carriage was therefore got for him, in which he could be wheeled down to the beach, where he would pass the greater part of the day. he took a great fancy to a queer crab-faced old man, smelling of sea-weed, who wheeled his carriage, and held long conversations with him; but florence was the only child companion whom he ever cared to have with him, though he liked to watch other children playing in the distance. "i love you, floy," he said one day to her. florence laid her head against his pillow, and whispered how much stronger he was growing. "oh, yes, i know, i am a great deal better," said paul, "a very great deal better. listen, floy; what is it the sea keeps saying?" "nothing, dear, it is only the rolling of the waves you hear." "yes, but they are always saying something, and always the same thing. what place is over there, floy?" she told him there was another country opposite, but paul said he did not mean that, he meant somewhere much farther away, oh, much farther away--and often he would break off in the midst of their talk to listen to the sea and gaze out towards that country "farther away." after having lived at brighton for a year, paul was certainly much stronger, though still thin and delicate. and on one of his weekly visits, mr. dombey explained to mrs. pipchin, with pompous condescension, that paul's weak health having kept him back in his studies, he had made arrangements to place him at the educational establishment of dr. blimber, which was close by. florence was, for the present, to remain under mrs. pipchin's care, and see her brother every week. dr. blimber's school was a great hot-house for the forcing of boy's brains; and dr. blimber promised speedily to make a man of paul. "shall you like to be made a man of, my son?" asked mr. dombey. "i'd rather be a child and stay with floy," answered paul. miss blimber, the doctor's daughter, a learned lady in spectacles, was his special tutor, and from morning till night his poor little brains were forced and crammed till his head was heavy and always had a dull ache in it, and his small legs grew weak again--every day he looked a little thinner and a little paler, and became more old-fashioned than ever in his looks and ways--"old-fashioned" was a distinguishing title which clung to him. he was gentle and polite to every one--always looking out for small kindnesses which he might do to any inmate of the house. "the oddest and most old-fashioned child in the world," dr. blimber would say to his daughter; "but bring him on, cornelia--bring him on." and cornelia did bring him on; and florence, seeing how pale and weary the little fellow looked when he came to her on saturdays, and how he could not rest from anxiety about his lessons, would lighten his labors a little, and ease his mind by helping him to prepare his week's work. but one day, when his lessons were over, little paul laid his weary and aching head against the knee of a schoolfellow of whom he was very fond; and the first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes was that the window was open, his face and hair were wet with water, and that dr. blimber and the usher were both standing looking at him. "ah, that's well," said dr. blimber, as paul opened his eyes, "and how is my little friend now?" "oh, quite well, thank you, sir," answered paul, but when he got up there seemed something the matter with the floor, and the walls were dancing about, and dr. blimber's head was twice its natural size. he was put to bed, and presently the doctor came and said he was not to do any more lessons for the present. in a few days paul was able to get up and creep about the house. he wondered sometimes why every one looked at and spoke so very kindly to him, and was more than ever careful to do any little kindnesses he could think of for them: even the rough, ugly dog diogenes, who lived in the yard, came in for a share of his attentions. there was a party at dr. blimber's on the evening before the boys went home. paul sat in a corner of the sofa all the evening, and every one was very kind to him indeed, it was quite extraordinary, paul thought, and he was very happy; he liked to see how pretty florence was, and how every one admired and wished to dance with her. after resting for a night at mrs. pipchin's house, little paul went home, and was carried straight upstairs to his bed. [illustration: little paul and florence. a little carriage was got for him.] he lay in his bed day after day quite happily and patiently, content to watch and talk to florence. he would tell her his dreams, and how he always saw the sunlit ripples of a river rolling, rolling fast in front of him; sometimes he seemed to be rocking in a little boat on the water, and its motion lulled him to rest, and then he would be floating away, away to that shore farther off, which he could not see. one day he told florence that the water was rippling brighter and faster than ever, and that he could not see anything else. "my own boy, cannot you see your poor father?" said mr. dombey, bending over him. "oh yes, but don't be so sorry, dear papa. i am so happy,--good-bye, dear papa." presently he opened his eyes again, and said, "floy, mamma is like you, i can see her. come close to me, floy, and tell them," whispered the dying boy, "that the face of the picture of christ on the staircase at school is not divine enough; the light from it is shining on me now, and the water is shining too, and rippling so fast, so fast." the evening light shone into the room, but little paul's spirit had gone out on the rippling water, and the divine face was shining on him from the farther shore. the runaway couple. "supposing a young gentleman not eight years old was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, would you consider that a queer start? that there is a start as i--the boots at the holly-tree inn--have seen with my own eyes; and i cleaned the shoes they ran away in, and they was so little that i couldn't get my hand into 'em. [illustration: the runaway couple.] "master harry walmers's father, he lived at the elms, away by shooter's hill, six or seven miles from london. he was uncommon proud of master harry, as was his only child; but he didn't spoil him neither. he was a gentleman that had a will of his own, and an eye of his own, and that would be minded. consequently, though he made quite a companion of the fine bright boy, still he kept the command over him, and the child _was_ a child. i was under gardener there at that time i and one morning master harry, he comes to me and says-- "'cobbs, how should you spell norah, if you were asked?' and he took out his little knife and began cutting that name in print all over the fence. the next day as it might be, he stops, along with miss norah, where i was hoeing weeds in the gravel, and says, speaking up-- "'cobbs, i like you! why do i like you do you think, cobbs? because norah likes you.' "'indeed, sir,' says i. 'that's very gratifying.' "'gratifying, cobbs?' says master harry. 'it's better than a million of the brightest diamonds, to be liked by norah. you're going away ain't you, cobbs? then you shall be our head gardener when we're married.' and he tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks away. "i was the boots at this identical holly-tree inn when one summer afternoon the coach drives up, and out of the coach gets these two children. the young gentleman gets out; hands his lady out; gives the guard something for himself; says to my governor, the landlord: 'we're to stop here to-night, please. sitting room and two bed-rooms will be required. mutton chops and cherry pudding for two!' and tucks her under his arm, and walks into the house, much bolder than brass. "i had seen 'em without their seeing me, and i gave the governor my views of the expedition they was upon. 'cobbs,' says the governor, 'if this is so, i must set off myself and quiet their friends' minds. in which case you must keep your eye upon 'em, and humor 'em, until i come back. but before i take these measures, cobbs, i should wish you to find out from themselves whether your opinion is correct.' "so i goes upstairs, and there i finds master harry on an e-nor-mous sofa a-drying the eyes of miss norah with his pocket handkercher. their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible to express how small them children looked. 'it's cobbs! it's cobbs!' cries master harry, and he comes a-runing to me, and catching hold of my hand. miss norah, she comes running to me on t'other side, and catching hold of my t'other hand, and they both jump for joy. and what i had took to be the case was the case. "'we're going to be married, cobbs, at gretna green,' says the boy. 'we've run away on purpose. norah has been in rather low spirits, cobbs; but she'll be happy now we have found you to be our friend.' "'i give you my word and honor upon it that, by way of luggage the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a doll's hair-brush. the gentleman had got about a dozen yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded up surprisingly small, a orange, and a chaney mug with his name on it. "'what may be the exact nature of your plans, sir?' says i. "'to go on,' replies the boy, 'in the morning, and be married to-morrow.' "'just so, sir. well, sir, if you will excuse my having the freedom to give an opinion, what i should recommend would be this. i'm acquainted with a pony, sir, which would take you and mrs. harry walmers junior to the end of your journey in a very short space of time. i am not altogether sure, sir, that the pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait for him it might be worth your while.' "they clapped their hands and jumped for joy, and called me 'good cobbs!' and 'dear cobbs!' and says i, 'is there anything you want at present, sir?' "'we should like some cakes after dinner,' answers mr. harry, 'and two apples--and jam. with dinner we should like to have toast and water. but norah has always been accustomed to half a glass of currant wine at dessert, and so have i.' "'they shall be ordered, sir,' i answered, and away i went; and the way in which all the women in the house went on about that boy and his bold spirit was a thing to see. they climbed up all sorts of places to get a look at him, and they peeped, seven deep, through the keyhole. "in the evening, after the governor had set off for the elms, i went into the room to see how the run-away couple was getting on. the gentleman was on the window seat, supporting the lady in his arms. she had tears upon her face, and was lying very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder. "'mrs. harry walmers junior fatigued, sir?' "'yes, she's tired, cobbs; she's been in low spirits again; she isn't used to being in a strange place, you see. could you bring a norfolk biffin, cobbs? i think that would do her good.' "well, i fetched the biffin, and master harry fed her with a spoon; but the lady being heavy with sleep and rather cross, i suggested bed, and called a chambermaid, but master harry must needs escort her himself, and carry the candle for her. after embracing her at her own door he retired to his room, where i softly locked him in. "they consulted me at breakfast (they had ordered sweet milk and water, and toast and currant jelly, over night) about the pony, and i told 'em that it did unfortunately happen that the pony was half clipped, but that he'd be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to-morrow morning at eight o'clock he would be ready. my own opinion is that mrs. harry walmers junior was beginning to give in. she hadn't had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem quite up to brushing it herself, and it getting into her eyes put her out. but nothing put out mr. harry. he sat behind his breakfast cup tearing away at the jelly, as if he'd been his own father. "in the course of the morning, master harry rung the bell,--it was surprising how that there boy did carry on,--and said in a sprightly way, 'cobbs, is there any good walks in the neighborhood?' "'yes, sir, there's love lane.' "'get out with you, cobbs!'--that was that there mite's expression--'you're joking.' "'begging your pardon, sir, there really is a love lane, and a pleasant walk it is; and proud shall i be to show it to yourself and mrs. harry walmers junior.' "well, i took him down love lane to the water meadows, and there master harry would have drowned himself in another minute a getting out a water-lily for her. but they was tired out. all being so new and strange to them, they were as tired as tired could be. and they laid down on a bank of daisies and fell asleep. "they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting pretty clear to me, namely, that mrs. harry walmers junior's temper was on the move. when master harry took her round the waist, she said he 'teased her so'; and when he says, 'norah, my young may moon, your harry tease you?' she tells him, 'yes, and i want to go home.' "a boiled fowl, and baked bread and butter pudding, brought mrs. walmers up a little; but i could have wished, i must privately own, to have seen her more sensible to the voice of love and less abandoning herself to the currants in the pudding. however, master harry, he kep' up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. mrs. walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. therefore, mrs. walmers went off to bed as per yesterday; and master harry ditto repeated. "about eleven at night comes back the governor in a chaise, along of master harry's father and a elderly lady. and master harry's door being unlocked by me, master harry's father goes in, goes up to the bedside, bends gently down, and kisses the little sleeping face. then he stands looking at it for a moment, looking wonderfully like it; and then he gently shakes the little shoulder. 'harry, my dear boy! harry!' "master harry starts up and looks at his pa. such is the honor of that mite, that he looks at me, too, to see whether he has brought me into trouble. "'i am not angry, my child. i only want you to dress yourself and come home.' "'yes, pa.' master harry dresses himself quick. "'please may i--please, dear pa--may i--kiss norah before i go?' "master harry's father he takes master harry in his hand, and i leads the way with the candle to that other bedroom where the elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little mrs. harry walmers junior is fast asleep. there the father lifts the boy up to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the little warm face of poor little mrs. harry walmers junior, and gently draws it to him. "and that's all about it. master harry's father drove away in the chaise having hold of master harry's hand. the elderly lady mrs. harry walmers junior that was never to be (she married a captain long after and went to india) went off next day." poor jo! jo was a crossing-sweeper; every day he swept up the mud, and begged for pennies from the people who passed. poor jo wasn't pretty and he wasn't clean. his clothes were only a few poor rags that hardly protected him from the cold and the rain. he had never been to school, and he could neither write nor read--could not even spell his own name. poor jo! he was ugly and dirty and ignorant; but he knew one thing, that it was wicked to tell a lie, and knowing this, he always told the truth. one other thing poor jo knew too well, and that was what being hungry means. for little jo was very poor. he lived in tom-all-alones, one of the most horrible places in all london. the people who live in this dreadful den are the poorest of london poor. all miserably clad, all dirty, all very hungry. they know and like jo, for he is always willing to go on errands for them, and does them many little acts of kindness. no one in tom-all-alones is spoken of by his name. thus it is that if you inquired there for a boy named jo, you would be asked whether you meant carrots, or the colonel, or gallows, or young chisel, or terrier tip, or lanky, or the brick. jo was generally called toughy, although a few superior persons who affected a dignified style of speaking called him "the tough subject." jo used to say he had never had but one friend. it was one cold winter night, when he was shivering in a door-way near his crossing, that a dark-haired, rough-bearded man turned to look at him, and then came back and began to talk to him. "have you a friend, boy?" he asked presently. "no, never 'ad none." "neither have i. not one. take this, and good-night," and so saying the man, who looked very poor and shabby, put into jo's hand the price of a supper and a night's lodging. often afterwards the stranger would stop to talk with jo, and give him money, jo firmly believed, whenever he had any to give. when he had none, he would merely say, "i am as poor as you are to-day, jo," and pass on. one day, jo was fetched away from his crossing to a public-house, where the coroner was holding an inquest--an "inkwich" jo called it. "did the boy know the deceased?" asked the coroner. indeed jo had known him; it was his only friend who was dead. "he was very good to me, he was," was all poor jo could say. the next day they buried the dead man in the churchyard hard by. but that night there came a slouching figure through the court to the iron gate. it stood looking in for a little while, then with an old broom it softly swept the step and made the archway clean. it was poor jo; and as he went away, he softly said to himself, "he was very good to me, he was." now, there happened to be at the inquest a kind-hearted little man named snagsby, and he pitied jo so much that he gave him half-a-crown. jo was very sad after the death of his one friend. the more so as his friend had died in great poverty and misery, with no one near him to care whether he lived or not. a few days after the funeral, while jo was still living on mr. snagsby's half-crown, he was standing at his crossing as the day closed in, when a lady, closely veiled and plainly dressed, came up to him. "are you the boy jo who was examined at the inquest?" she asked. "that's me," said jo. "come farther up the court, i want to speak to you." "wot, about him as was dead? did you know him?" "how dare you ask me if i knew him?" "no offence, my lady," said jo humbly. "listen and hold your tongue. show me the place where he lived, then where he died, then where they buried him. go in front of me, don't look back once, and i'll pay you well." [illustration: jo and the policeman. "i'm always a moving on."] jo takes her to each of the places she wants to see. then she draws off her glove, and jo sees that she has sparkling rings on her fingers. she drops a coin into his hand and is gone. jo holds the coin to the light and sees to his joy that it is a golden sovereign. but people in jo's position in life find it hard to change a sovereign, for who will believe that they can come by it honestly? so poor little jo didn't get much of the sovereign for himself, for, as he afterwards told mr. snagsby-- "i had to pay five bob down in tom-all-alones before they'd square it for to give me change, and then a young man he thieved another five while i was asleep, and a boy he thieved ninepence, and the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more of it." as time went on jo's troubles began in earnest. the police turned him away from his crossing, and wheresoever they met him ordered him "to move on." once a policeman, angry to find that jo hadn't moved on, seized him by the arm and dragged him down to mr. snagsby's. "what's the matter, constable?" asked mr. snagsby. "this boy's as obstinate a young gonoph as i know: although repeatedly told to, he won't move on." "i'm always amoving on," cried jo. "oh, my eye, where am i to move to?" "my instructions don't go to that," the constable answered; "my instructions are that you're to keep moving on. now the simple question is, sir," turning to mr. snagsby, "whether you know him. he says you do." "yes, i know him." "very well, i leave him here; but mind you keep moving on." the constable then moved on himself, leaving jo at mr. snagsby's. there was a little tea-party there that evening, and when jo was at last allowed to go, mr. snagsby followed him to the door and filled his hands with the remains of the little feast they had had upstairs. and now jo began to find life harder and rougher than ever. he lost his crossing altogether, and spent day after day in moving on. he remembered a poor woman he had once done a kindness to, who had told him she lived at st. albans, and that a lady there had been very good to her. "perhaps she'll be good to me," thought jo, and he started off to go to st. albans. one saturday night jo reached that town very tired and very ill. happily for him the woman met him and took him into her cottage. while he was resting there a lady came in and asked him very kindly what was the matter. "i'm abeing froze and then burnt up, and then froze and burnt up again, ever so many times over in an hour. and my head's all sleepy, and all agoing round like, and i'm so dry, and my bones is nothing half so much bones as pain." "where are you going?" "somewheres," replied jo, "i'm a-being moved on, i am." "well, to-night you must come with me, and i'll make you comfortable." so jo went with the lady to a great house not far off, and there they made a bed for him, and brought him tempting wholesome food. everyone was very kind to him, but something frightened jo, and he felt he could not stay there, and he ran out into the cold night air. where he went he could never remember, for when he next came to his senses he found himself in a hospital. he stayed there for some weeks, and was then discharged, though still weak and ill. he was very thin, and when he drew a breath his chest was very painful. "it draws," said jo, "as heavy as a cart." now, a certain young doctor who was very kind to poor people, was walking through tom-all-alones one morning, when he saw a ragged figure coming along, crouching close to the dirty wall. it was jo. the young doctor took pity on jo. "come with me," he said, "and i will find you a better place than this to stay in," for he saw that the lad was very, very ill. so jo was taken to a clean little room, and bathed, and had clean clothes, and good food, and kind people about him once more, but he was too ill now, far too ill, for anything to do him any good. "let me lie here quiet," said poor jo, "and be so kind anyone as is passin' nigh where i used to sweep, as to say to mr. snagsby as jo, wot he knew once, is amoving on." one day the young doctor was sitting by him, when suddenly jo made a strong effort to get out of bed. "stay, jo--where now?" "it's time for me to go to that there burying-ground." "what burying-ground, jo?" "where they laid him as was very good to me, very good to me indeed he was. it's time for me to go down to that there burying-ground, sir, and ask to be put along of him. i wants to go there and be buried. will you promise to have me took there and laid along with him?" "i will indeed." "thankee, sir. there's a step there as i used to sweep with my broom. it's turned very dark, sir, is there any light coming?" "it's coming fast, jo." then silence for a while. "jo, my poor fellow----!" "i can hear you, sir, in the dark." "jo, can you say what i say?" "i'll say anything you say, sir, for i knows it's good." "our father." "our father--yes, that's very good, sir." "which art in heaven." "art in heaven. is the light a-coming, sir?" "it's close at hand. hallowed be thy name." "hallowed be thy"-- the light had come. oh yes! the light had come, for jo was dead. the little kenwigs. mrs. kenwigs was the wife of an ivory turner, and though they only had a very humble home of two rooms in a dingy-looking house in a small street, they had great pretensions to being "genteel." the little miss kenwigs had their flaxen hair plaited into pig-tails and tied with blue ribbons, and wore little white trousers with frills round their ankles, the highest fashion of that day; besides being dressed with such elegance, the two eldest girls went twice a week to a dancing school. mrs. kenwigs, too, had an uncle who collected the water rate, and she was therefore considered a person of great distinction, with quite the manners of a lady. on the eighth anniversary of their wedding day, mr. and mrs. kenwigs invited a party of friends to supper to celebrate the occasion. the four eldest children were to be allowed to sit up to supper, and the uncle, mr. lillyvick, had promised to come. the baby was put to bed in a little room lent by one of the lady guests, and a little girl hired to watch him. all the company had assembled when a ring was heard, and morleena, whose name had been _invented by mrs. kenwigs_ specially for her, ran down to open the door and lead in her distinguished great-uncle, then the supper was brought in. the table was cleared; mr. lillyvick established in the arm-chair by the fireside; the four little girls arranged on a small form in front of the company with their flaxen tails towards them; mrs. kenwigs was suddenly dissolved in tears and sobbed out-- "they are so beautiful!" "oh, dear," said all the ladies, "so they are; it's very natural you should feel proud of that; but don't give way, don't." "i can--not help it, and it don't signify," sobbed mrs. kenwigs: "oh! they're too beautiful to live, much too beautiful." on hearing this dismal prophecy, all four little girls screamed until their light flaxen tails vibrated again, and rushed to bury their heads in their mother's lap. at length she was soothed, and the children calmed down; while the ladies and gentlemen all said they were sure they would live for many many years, and there was no occasion for their mother's distress: and as the children were not so remarkably lovely, this was quite true. then mr. lillyvick talked to the company about his niece's marriage, and said graciously that he had always found mr. kenwigs a very honest, well-behaved, upright, and respectable sort of man, and shook hands with him, and then morleena and her sisters kissed their uncle and most of the guests. then miss petowker, who could sing and recite in a way that brought tears to mrs. kenwigs' eyes, remarked-- "oh, dear mrs. kenwigs, while mr. noggs is making that punch to drink happy returns in, do let morleena go through that figure dance before mr. lillyvick." "well, i'll tell you what," said mrs. kenwigs. "morleena shall do the steps, if uncle can persuade miss petowker to recite us the 'blood-drinker's burial' afterwards." everyone clapped their hands and stamped their feet at this proposal, but miss petowker said, "you know i dislike doing anything professional at private parties." "oh, but not here!" said mrs. kenwigs. "you might as well be going through it in your own room: besides, the occasion." "i can't resist that," interrupted miss petowker, "anything in my humble power, i shall be delighted to do." in reality mrs. kenwigs and miss petowker had arranged all the entertainment between them beforehand, but had settled that a little pressing on each side would look more natural. then miss petowker hummed a tune, and morleena danced. it was a very beautiful figure, with a great deal of work for the arms, and gained much applause. then miss petowker was entreated to begin her recitation, so she let down her back hair, and went through the performance with great spirit, and died raving mad in the arms of a bachelor friend who was to rush out and catch her at the words "in death expire," to the great delight of the audience and the terror of the little kenwigses, who were nearly frightened into fits. just as the punch was ready, a knock at the door startled them all. but it was only a friend of mr. noggs, who lived upstairs, and who had come down to say that mr. noggs was wanted. mr. noggs hurried out, saying he would be back soon, and presently startled them all by rushing in, snatching up a candle and a tumbler of hot punch, and darting out again. now, it happened unfortunately that the tumbler of punch was the very one that mr. lillyvick was just going to lift to his lips, and the great man--the rich relation--who had it in his power to make morleena and her sisters heiresses--and whom everyone was most anxious to please--was offended. poor mr. kenwigs endeavored to soothe him, but only made matters worse. mr. lillyvick demanded his hat, and was only induced to remain by mrs. kenwigs' tears and the entreaties of the entire company. [illustration: the little kenwigs. "they are so beautiful."] "there, kenwigs," said mr. lillyvick, "and let me tell you, to show you how much out of temper i was, that if i had gone away without another word, it would have made no difference respecting that pound or two which i shall leave among your children when i die." "morleena kenwigs," cried her mother, "go down on your knees to your dear uncle, and beg him to love you all his life through; for he's more an angel than a man, and i've always said so." just as all were happy again, everyone was startled by a rapid succession of the loudest and shrillest shrieks, apparently coming from the room where the baby was asleep. "my baby, my blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed baby! my own darling, sweet, innocent lillyvick! let me go-o-o-o," screamed mrs. kenwigs. mr. kenwigs rushed out, and was met at the door of the bedroom by a young man with the baby (upside down) in his arms, who came out so quickly that he knocked mr. kenwigs down; handing the child to his mother, he said, "don't be alarmed, it's all out, it's all over--the little girl, being tired, i suppose, fell asleep and set her hair on fire. i heard her cries and ran up in time to prevent her setting fire to anything else. the child is not hurt: i took it off the bed myself and brought it here to convince you." after they had all talked over this last excitement, and discussed little lillyvick's deliverer, the collector pulled out his watch and announced that it was nearly two o'clock, and as the poor children had been for some time obliged to keep their little eyes open with their little forefingers, the company took leave, declaring they had never spent such a delightful evening, and that they wished mr. and mrs. kenwigs had a wedding-day once a week. little dorrit. many years ago, when people could be put in prison for debt, a poor gentleman, who was unfortunate enough to lose all his money, was brought to the marshalsea prison. as there seemed no prospect of being able to pay his debts, his wife and their two little children came to live there with him. the elder child was a boy of three; the younger a little girl of two years old, and not long afterwards another little girl was born. the three children played in the courtyard, and were happy, on the whole, for they were too young to remember a happier state of things. but the youngest child, who had never been outside the prison walls, was a thoughtful little creature, and wondered what the outside world could be like. her great friend, the turnkey, who was also her godfather, became very fond of her, and as soon as she could walk and talk, he bought a little arm-chair and stood it by his fire at the lodge, and coaxed her with cheap toys to come and sit with him. one day, she was sitting in the lodge gazing wistfully up at the sky through the barred window. the turnkey, after watching her some time, said:-- "thinking of the fields, ain't you?" "where are they?" she asked. "why, they're--over there, my dear," said the turnkey, waving his key vaguely, "just about there." "does anybody open them and shut them? are they locked?" "well," said the turnkey, discomfited, "not in general." "are they pretty, bob?" she called him bob, because he wished it. "lovely. full of flowers. there's buttercups, and there's daisies, and there's--" here he hesitated, not knowing the names of many flowers--"there's dandelions, and all manner of games." "is it very pleasant to be there, bob?" "prime," said the turnkey. "was father ever there?" "hem!" coughed the turnkey. "o yes, he was there, sometimes." "is he sorry not to be there now?" "n--not particular," said the turnkey. "nor any of the people?" she asked, glancing at the listless crowd within. "o are you quite sure and certain, bob?" at this point, bob gave in and changed the subject. but after this chat, the turnkey and little amy would go out on his free sunday afternoons to some meadows or green lanes, and she would pick grass and flowers to bring home, while he smoked his pipe. when amy was only eight years old, her mother died, and the poor father was more helpless and broken-down than ever, and as fanny was a careless child, and edward idle, the little one, who had the bravest and truest heart, was inspired by her love and unselfishness to be the little mother of the forlorn family, and struggled to get some little education for herself and her brother and sister. she went as often as she could to an evening school outside, and managed to get her brother and sister sent to a day-school at intervals, during three or four years. at thirteen, she could read and keep accounts. once, amongst the debtors, a dancing-master came in, and as fanny had a great desire to learn dancing, little amy went timidly to the new prisoner, and said, "if you please, i was born here, sir." "oh! you are the young lady, are you?" said he. "yes, sir." "and what can i do for you?" "nothing for me, sir, thank you; but if, while you stay here, you could be so kind as to teach my sister cheap." "my child, i'll teach her for nothing," said the dancing-master. fanny was a very apt pupil, and the good-natured dancing-master went on giving her lessons even after his release, and amy was so emboldened with the success of her attempt that, when a milliner came in, she went to her on her own behalf, and begged her to teach her. "i am afraid you are so weak, you see," the milliner objected. "i don't think i am weak, ma'am." "and you are so very, very little, you see," the milliner still objected. [illustration: the blind toy maker.] [illustration: little dorrit and maggie. "she has never grown older since."] "yes, i am afraid i am very little indeed," returned the child, and began to sob, so that the milliner was touched, and took her in hand and made her a clever workwoman. but the father could not bear the idea that his children should work for their living, so they had to keep it all secret. fanny became a dancer, and lived with a poor old uncle, who played the clarionet at the small theatre where fanny was engaged. amy, or little dorrit as she was generally called, her father's name being dorrit, earned small sums by going out to do needlework. she got edward into a great many situations, but he was an idle, careless fellow, and always came back to be a burden and care to his poor little sister. at last she saved up enough to send him out to canada. "god bless you, dear tip" (his name had been shortened to tip), "don't be too proud to come and see us when you have made your fortune," she said. but tip only went as far as liverpool, and appeared once more before his poor little second mother, in rags, and with no shoes. in the end, after another trial, tip returned telling amy, that this time he was "one of the regulars." "oh! don't say you are a prisoner, tip. don't, don't!" but he was--and amy nearly broke her heart. so with all these cares and worries struggling bravely on, little dorrit passed the first twenty-two years of her life. then the son of a lady, mrs. clennem, to whose house amy went to do needlework, was interested in the pale, patient little creature, and learning her history resolved to do his best to try and get her father released, and to help them all. one day when he was walking home with little dorrit a voice was heard calling, "little mother, little mother," and a strange figure came bouncing up to them and fell down, scattering her basketful of potatoes on the ground. "oh maggie," said little dorrit, "what a clumsy child you are!" she was about eight and twenty, with large bones, large features, large hands and feet, large eyes and no hair. little dorrit told mr. clennem that maggie was the grand-daughter of her old nurse, and that her grandmother had been very unkind to her and beat her. "when maggie was ten years old, she had a fever, and she has never grown older since." "ten years old," said maggie. "but what a nice hospital! so comfortable wasn't it? such a ev'nly place! such beds there is there! such lemonades! such oranges! such delicious broth and wine! such chicking! oh, ain't it a delightful place to stop at!" "then when she came out, her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and was very unkind. but after some time, maggie tried to improve, and was very attentive and industrious, and now she can earn her own living entirely, sir!" little dorrit did not say who had taken pains to teach and encourage the poor half-witted creature, but mr. clennem guessed from the name little mother, and the fondness of the poor creature for amy. thanks to mr. clennem, a great change took place in the fortunes of the family, and not long after this wretched night, it was discovered that mr. dorrit was owner of a large property, and they became very rich. when, in his turn, mr. clennem became a prisoner in the marshalsea little dorrit came to comfort and console him, and after many changes of fortune, she became his wife, and they lived happy ever after. the blind toy-maker. caleb plummer and his blind daughter lived alone in a little cracked nutshell of a house. they were toy-makers, and their house was stuck like a toadstool on to the premises of messrs. gruff & tackleton, the toy merchants for whom they worked,--the latter of whom was himself both gruff and tackleton in one. i am saying that caleb and his blind daughter lived here. i should say caleb did, his daughter lived in an enchanted palace, which her father's love had created for her. she did not know that the ceilings were cracked, the plaster tumbling down, and the wood work rotten; that everything was old and ugly and poverty-stricken about her and that her father was a grey-haired stooping old man, and the master for whom they worked a hard and brutal taskmaster;--oh, dear no, she fancied a pretty, cosy, compact little home full of tokens of a kind master's care, a smart, brisk, gallant-looking father, and a handsome and noble-looking toy merchant who was an angel of goodness. this was all caleb's doings. when his blind daughter was a baby he had determined in his great love and pity for her, that her deprivation should be turned into a blessing, and her life as happy as he could make it. and she was happy; everything about her she saw with her father's eyes, in the rainbow-coloured light with which it was his care and pleasure to invest it. bertha sat busily at work, making a doll's frock, whilst caleb bent over the opposite side of the table painting a doll's house. "you were out in the rain last night in your beautiful new great-coat," said bertha. "yes, in my beautiful new great-coat," answered caleb, glancing to where a roughly made garment of sack-cloth was hung up to dry. "how glad i am you bought it, father." "and of such a tailor! quite a fashionable tailor, a bright blue cloth, with bright buttons; it's a deal too good a coat for me." "too good!" cried the blind girl, stopping to laugh and clap her hands--"as if anything was too good for my handsome father, with his smiling face, and black hair, and his straight figure." caleb began to sing a rollicking song. "what, you are singing, are you?" growled a gruff voice, as mr. tackleton put his head in at the door. "_i_ can't afford to sing, i hope you can afford to work too. hardly time for both, i should say." "you don't see how the master is winking at me," whispered caleb in his daughter's ear--"such a joke, pretending to scold, you know." the blind girl laughed and nodded, and taking mr. tackleton's reluctant hand, kissed it gently. "what is the idiot doing?" grumbled the toy merchant, pulling his hand roughly away. "i am thanking you for the beautiful little tree," replied bertha, bringing forward a tiny rose-tree in blossom, which caleb had made her believe was her master's gift, though he himself had gone without a meal or two to buy it. "here's bedlam broke loose. what does the idiot mean?" snarled mr. tackleton; and giving caleb some rough orders, he departed without the politeness of a farewell. "if you could only have seen him winking at me all the time, pretending to be so rough to escape thanking," exclaimed caleb, when the door was shut. now a very sad and curious thing had happened. caleb, in his love for bertha, had so successfully deceived her as to the real character of mr. tackleton, that she had fallen in love, not with her master, but with what she imagined him to be, and was happy in an innocent belief in his affection for her; but one day she accidently heard he was going to be married, and could not hide from her father the pain and bewilderment she felt at the news. "bertha, my dear," said caleb at length, "i have a confession to make to you; hear me kindly though i have been cruel to you." "you cruel to me!" cried bertha, turning her sightless face towards him. "not meaning it, my child! and i never suspected it till the other day. i have concealed things from you which would have given pain, i have invented things to please you, and have surrounded you with fancies." "but living people are not fancies, father, you cannot change them." "i have done so, my child, god forgive me! bertha, the man who is married to-day is a hard master to us both, ugly in his looks and in his nature, and hard and heartless as he can be." "oh heavens! how blind i have been, how could you father, and i so helpless!" poor caleb hung his head. "answer me father," said bertha. "what is my home like?" "a poor place, bertha, a very poor and bare place! indeed as little able to keep out wind and weather as my sackcloth coat." "and the presents that i took such care of, that came at my wish, and were so dearly welcome?" caleb did not answer. "i see, i understand," said bertha, "and now i am looking at you, at my kind, loving compassionate father, tell me what is he like?" "an old man, my child, thin, bent, grey-haired, worn-out with hard work and sorrow, a weak, foolish, deceitful old man." the blind girl threw herself on her knees before him, and took his grey head in her arms. "it is my sight, it is my sight restored," she cried. "i have been blind, but now i see, i have never till now truly seen my father. father, there is not a grey hair on your head that shall be forgotten in my prayers and thanks to heaven." "my bertha!" sobbed caleb, "and the brisk smart father in the blue coat--he's gone, my child." "dearest father, no, he's not gone, nothing is gone. i have been happy and contented, but i shall be happier and more contented still, now that i know what you are. i am _not_ blind, father, any longer." little nell. the house was one of those receptacles for old and curious things, which seem to crouch in odd corners of the town; and in the old, dark, murky rooms, there lived alone together an old man and a child--his grandchild, little nell. solitary and monotonous as was her life, the innocent and cheerful spirit of the child found happiness in all things, and through the dim rooms of the old curiosity shop little nell went singing, moving with gay and lightsome step. but gradually over the old man, to whom she was so tenderly attached, there stole a sad change. he became thoughtful, dejected, and wretched. he had no sleep or rest but that which he took by day in his easy chair; for every night, and all night long, he was away from home. at last a raging fever seized him, and as he lay delirious or insensible through many weeks, nell learned that the house which sheltered them was theirs no longer; that in the future they would be very poor; that they would scarcely have bread to eat. at length the old man began to mend, but his mind was weakened. as the time drew near when they must leave the house, he made no reference to the necessity of finding other shelter. but a change came upon him one evening, as he and nell sat silently together. "let us speak softly, nell," he said. "hush! for if they knew our purpose they would say that i was mad, and take thee from me. we will not stop here another day. we will travel afoot through the fields and woods, and trust ourselves to god in the places where he dwells." the child's heart beat high with hope and confidence. to her it seemed that they might beg their way from door to door in happiness, so that they were together. when the day began to glimmer they stole out of the house, and passing into the street stood still. "which way?" asked the child. the old man looked irresolutely and helplessly at her, and shook his head. it was plain that she was thenceforth his guide and leader. the child felt it, but had no doubts or misgivings, and putting her hand in his, led him gently away. they passed through the long, deserted streets, until these streets dwindled away, and the open country was about them. they walked all day, and slept that night at a small cottage where beds were let to travellers. the sun was setting on the second day of their journey, when, following a path which led to the town where they were to spend the night, they fell in with two travelling showmen, bound for the races at a neighboring town. they made two long days' journey with their new companions. the men were rough and strange in their ways, but they were kindly, too; and in the bewildering noise and movement of the race-course, where she tried to sell some little nosegays, nell would have clung to them for protection, had she not learned that these men suspected that she and the old man had left their home secretly, and that they meant to take steps to have them sent back and taken care of. separation from her grandfather was the greatest evil nell could dread. she seized her opportunity to evade the watchfulness of the two men, and hand in hand she and the old man fled away together. that night they reached a little village in a woody hollow. the village schoolmaster, attracted by the child's sweetness and modesty, gave them a lodging for the night; nor would he let them leave him until two days more had passed. they journeyed on when the time came that they must wander forth again, by pleasant country lanes. the afternoon had worn away into a beautiful evening, when they came to a caravan drawn up by the road. it was a smart little house upon wheels, and at the door sat a stout and comfortable lady, taking tea. the tea-things were set out upon a drum, covered with a white napkin. and there, as if at the most convenient table in the world, sat this roving lady, taking her tea and enjoying the prospect. of this stout lady nell ventured to ask how far it was to the neighboring town. and the lady, noticing that the tired child could hardly repress a tear at hearing that eight weary miles lay still before them, not only gave them tea, but offered to take them on in the caravan. now this lady of the caravan was the owner of a wax-work show, and her name was mrs. jarley. she offered nell employment in pointing out the figures in the wax-work show to the visitors who came to see it, promising in return both board and lodging for the child and her grandfather, and some small sum of money. this offer nell was thankful to accept, and for some time her life and that of the poor, vacant, fond old man, passed quietly and almost happily. one night nell and her grandfather went out to walk. a terrible thunder-storm coming on, they were forced to take refuge in a small public-house where men played cards. the old man watched them with increasing interest and excitement, until his whole appearance underwent a complete change. his face was flushed and eager, his teeth set. he seized nell's little purse, and in spite of her entreaties joined in the game, gambling with such a savage thirst for gain that the distressed and frightened child could almost better have borne to see him dead. the night was far advanced before the play came to an end, and they were forced to remain where they were until the morning. and in the night the child was awakened from her troubled sleep to find a figure in the room. it was her grandfather himself, his white face pinched and sharpened by the greediness which made his eyes unnaturally bright, counting the money of which his hands were robbing her. evening after evening, after that night, the old man would steal away, not to return until the night was far spent, demanding, wildly, money. and at last there came an hour when the child overheard him, tempted beyond his feeble powers of resistence, undertake to find more money to feed the desperate passion which had laid hold upon his weakness by robbing mrs. jarley. that night the child took her grandfather by the hand and led him forth; sustained by one idea--that they were flying from disgrace and crime, and that her grandfather's preservation must depend solely upon her firmness; the old man following as though she had been an angel messenger sent to lead him where she would. they slept in the open air that night, and on the following morning some men offered to take them a long distance on their barge. these men, though they were not unkindly, drank and quarrelled among themselves, to nell's inexpressible terror. it rained, too, heavily, and she was wet and cold. at last they reached the great city whither the barge was bound, and here they wandered up and down, being now penniless, and watched the faces of those who passed, to find among them a ray of encouragement or hope. they laid down that night, and the next night too, with nothing between them and the sky; a penny loaf was all they had had that day, and when the third morning came, it found the child much weaker, yet she made no complaint. faint and spiritless as they were, the streets were insupportable; and the child, throughout the remainder of that hard day, compelled herself to press on, that they might reach the country. evening was drawing on; they were dragging themselves through the last street. seeing a traveller on foot before them, she shot on before her grandfather and began in a few faint words to implore the stranger's help. he turned his head, the child uttered a wild shriek, and fell senseless at his feet. it was the village schoolmaster who had been so kind to them before. the good man took her in his arms and carried her quickly to a little inn hard by, where she was tenderly put to bed and where a doctor arrived with all speed. the schoolmaster, as it appeared, was on his way to a new home. and when the child had recovered somewhat from her exhaustion, it was arranged that she and her grandfather should accompany him to the village whither he was bound, and that he should endeavor to find them some humble occupation by which they could subsist. it was a secluded village, lying among the quiet country scenes nell loved. and here, her grandfather being tranquil and at rest, a great peace fell upon the spirit of the child. often she would steal into the church, and sit down among the quiet figures carved upon the tombs. what if the spot awakened thoughts of death? it would be no pain to sleep here. for the time was drawing nearer every day when nell was to rest indeed. she never murmured or complained, but faded like a light upon a summer's evening and died. day after day and all day long, the old man, broken-hearted and with no love or care for anything in life, would sit beside her grave with her straw hat and the little basket she had been used to carry, waiting till she should come to him again. at last they found him lying dead upon the stone. and in the church where they had often prayed and mused and lingered, hand in hand, the child and the old man slept together. little david copperfield. little david copperfield lived with his mother in a pretty house in the village of blunderstone in suffolk. his father died before david could remember anything and he had neither brothers nor sisters. he was fondly loved by his pretty young mother, and their kind, good servant peggotty, and david was a very happy little fellow. they had very few friends, and the only relation mrs. copperfield talked about was an aunt of david's father, a tall and rather terrible old lady, from all accounts. one visitor, a tall dark gentleman, david did not like at all, and he was rather inclined to be jealous that his mother should be friendly with the stranger. one day peggotty, the servant, asked david if he would like to go with her on a visit to her brother at yarmouth. "is your brother an agreeable man, peggotty?" he enquired. "oh, what an agreeable man he is!" cried peggotty. "then there's the sea, and the boats and ships, and the fishermen, and the beach. and 'am to play with." ham was her nephew. david was quite anxious to go when he heard of all these delights; but his mother, what would she do all alone? peggotty told him his mother was going to pay a visit to some friends, and would be sure to let him go. so all was arranged, and they were to start the next day in the carrier's cart. when they arrived at yarmouth, they found ham waiting to meet them. he was a great strong fellow, six feet high, and took david on his back and the box under his arm to carry both to the house. david was delighted to find that this house was made of a real big black boat, with a door and windows cut in the side, and an iron funnel sticking out of the roof for a chimney. inside, it was very cosy and clean, and david had a tiny bedroom in the stern. he was very much pleased to find a dear little girl, about his own age, to play with, and soon discovered that she and ham were orphans, children of mr. peggotty's brother and sister, whose fathers had been drowned at sea, so kind mr. peggotty had taken them to live with him. david was very happy in this queer house, playing on the beach with em'ly, as they called the little girl, and told her all about his happy home; and she told him how her father had been drowned at sea before she came to live with her uncle. david said he thought mr. peggotty must be a very good man. "good!" said em'ly. "if ever i was to be a lady, i'd give him a sky-blue coat with diamond buttons, nankeen trousers, a red velvet waistcoat, a cocked hat, a large gold watch, a silver pipe, and a box of money!" david was quite sorry to leave these kind people and his dear little companion, but still he was glad to think he should get back to his own dear mamma. when he reached home, however, he found a great change. his mother was married to the dark man david did not like, whose name was mr. murdstone, and he was a stern, hard man, who had no love for little david, and did not allow his mother to pet and indulge him as she had done before. mr. murdstone's sister came to live with them, and as she was even more difficult to please than her brother, and disliked boys, david's life was no longer a happy one. he had always had lessons with his mother, and as she was patient and gentle, he had enjoyed learning to read, but now he had a great many very hard lessons to do, and was so frightened and shy when mr. and miss murdstone were in the room, that he did not get on at all well, and was continually in disgrace. his only pleasure was to go up into the little room at the top of the house where he had found a number of books that had belonged to his own father, and he would sit and read robinson crusoe, and many tales of travels and adventures. but one day he got into sad trouble over his lessons, and mr. murdstone was very angry, and took him away from his mother and beat him with a cane. david had never been beaten in his life before, and was so maddened by pain and rage that he bit mr. murdstone's hand! now, indeed, he had done something to deserve the punishment, and mr. murdstone in a fury, beat him savagely, and left him sobbing and crying on the floor. david was kept locked up in his room for some days, seeing no one but miss murdstone, who brought him his food. at last, one night, he heard his name whispered at the key hole. "is that you, peggotty?" he asked, groping his way to the door. "yes, my precious davy. be as soft as a mouse or the cat will hear us." david understood she meant miss murdstone, whose room was quite near. "how's mamma, peggotty dear? is she very angry with me?" he whispered. "no--not very," she said. "what is going to be done with me, dear peggotty, do you know?" asked poor david, who had been wondering all these long, lonely days. "school--near london--" "when, peggotty?" "to-morrow," answered peggotty. "shan't i see mamma?" "yes--morning," she said, and went on to promise david she would always love him, and take the greatest care of his dear mamma, and write him every week. the next morning david saw his mother, very pale and with red eyes. he ran to her arms and begged her to forgive him. "oh, davy," she said, "that you should hurt anyone i love! i forgive you, davy, but it grieves me so that you should have such bad passions in your heart. try to be better, pray to be better." david was very unhappy that his mother should think him so wicked, and though she kissed him, and said, "i forgive you, my dear boy, god bless you," he cried so bitterly when he was on his way in the carrier's cart, that his pocket handkerchief had to be spread out on the horse's back to dry. after they had gone a little way the cart stopped, and peggotty came running up, with a parcel of cakes and a purse for david. after giving him a good hug, she ran off. davy found three bright shillings in the purse, and two half-crowns wrapped in paper on which was written, in his mother's hand--"for davy. with my love." davy shared his cakes with the carrier, who asked if peggotty made them, and david told him yes, she did all their cooking. the carrier looked thoughtful, and then asked david if he would send a message to peggotty from him. david agreed, and the message was "barkis is willing." while david was waiting for the coach at yarmouth, he wrote to peggotty: my dear peggotty,--i have come here safe. barkis is willing. my love to mamma.--yours affectionately." "_p. s._--he says he particularly wanted you to know _barkis is willing_." at yarmouth he found dinner was ordered for him, and felt very shy at having a table all to himself, and very much alarmed when the waiter told him he had seen a gentleman fall down dead, after drinking some of their beer. david said he would have some water, and was quite grateful to the waiter for drinking the ale that had been ordered for him, for fear the people of the hotel should be offended. he also helped david to eat his dinner and accepted one of his bright shillings. when they got to salem house, as the school was called, david found that he had been sent before the holidays were over as a punishment, and was also to wear a placard on his back, on which was written--"take care of him. he bites." this made david miserable, and he dreaded the return of the boys. some of the boys teased david by pretending he was a dog, calling him towser, and patting and stroking him; but, on the whole, it was not so bad as david had expected. the head boy, steerforth, promised to take care of him, and david loved him dearly, and thought him a great hero. steerforth took a great fancy to the pretty bright-eyed little fellow, and david became a favorite with all the boys, by telling them all he could remember of the tales he had read. one day david had a visit from mr. peggotty and ham, who had brought two enormous lobsters, a huge crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, as they "remembered he was partial to a relish with his meals." david was proud to introduce his friend steerforth to these kind simple friends, and told them how good steerforth was to him, and the "relish" was much appreciated by the boys at supper that night. when he got home for the holidays david found he had a little baby brother, and his mother and peggotty were very much pleased to see him again. mr. and miss murdstone were out, and david sat with his mother and peggotty, and told them all about his school and steerforth, and took the little baby in his arms and nursed it lovingly. but when the murdstones came back they showed plainly they disliked him, and thought him in the way, and scolded him, and would not allow him to touch the baby, or even to sit with peggotty in the kitchen, so he was not sorry when the time came for him to go back to school, except for leaving his dear mamma and the baby. about two months after he had been back at school he was sent for one day and told that his dear mamma had died! the wife of the head-master was very kind and gentle to the desolate little boy, and the boys were very sorry for him. david went home the next day, and heard that the dear baby had died too. peggotty received him with great tenderness, and told him about his mother's illness and how she had sent a loving message. "tell my dearest boy that his mother, as she lay here, blessed him not once, but a thousand times," and she had prayed to god to protect and keep her fatherless boy. mr. murdstone did not take any notice of poor little david, nor had miss murdstone a word of kindness for the orphan. peggotty was to leave in a month, and, to their great joy, david was allowed to go with her on a visit to mr. peggotty. on their way david found out that the mysterious message he had given to peggotty meant that barkis wanted to marry her, and peggotty had consented. everyone in mr. peggotty's cottage was pleased to see david, and did their best to comfort him. little em'ly was at school when he arrived, and he went out to meet her, but when he saw her coming along, her blue eyes bluer, and her bright face prettier than ever, he pretended not to know her, and was passing by, when em'ly laughed and ran away, so of course he was obliged to run and catch her and try to kiss her, but she would not let him, saying she was not a baby now. but she was kind to him all the same, and when they spoke about the loss of his dear mother, david saw that her eyes were full of tears. during this visit peggotty was married to mr. barkis, and had a nice little house of her own, and davy spent the night before he was to return home in a little room in the roof. "young or old, davy dear, so long as i have this house over my head," said peggotty, "you shall find it as if i expected you here directly every minute. i shall keep it as i used to keep your old little room, my darling, and if you was to go to china, you might think of its being kept just the same all the time you were away." david felt how good and true a friend she was, and thanked her as well as he could, for they had brought him to the gate of his home, and peggotty had him clasped in her arms. how utterly wretched and forlorn he felt! he found he was not to go back to school any more, and wandered about sad and solitary, neglected and uncared for. peggotty's weekly visits were his only comfort. no one took any pains with him, and he had no friends near who could help him. at last one day, after some weary months had passed, mr. murdstone told him he was to go to london and earn his own living. there was a place for him at murdstone & grinby's, a firm in the wine trade. his lodging and clothes would be provided for him by his step-father, and he would earn enough for his food and pocket money. the next day david was sent up to london with the manager, dressed in a shabby little white hat with black crape round it for his mother, a black jacket, and hard, stiff corduroy trousers, a little fellow of ten years old to fight his own battles in the world! his place, he found, was one of the lowest, with boys of no education and in quite an inferior station to himself--his duties were to wash bottles, stick on labels, and so on. david was utterly miserable at being degraded in this way, and shed bitter tears, as he feared he would forget all he had learnt at school. his lodging, one bare little room, was in the house of some people named micawber, shiftless, careless, good-natured people, who were always in debt and difficulties. david felt great pity for their misfortunes and did what he could to help poor mrs. micawber to sell her books and other little things she could spare, to buy food for herself, her husband, and their four children. if he had not been a very innocent-minded, good little boy, he might easily have fallen into bad ways at this time. but god took care of the orphan boy and kept him from harm. the troubles of the micawbers increased more and more, until at last they were obliged to leave london. the last sunday the micawbers were in town david dined with them. after he had seen them off the next morning by the coach, he wrote to peggotty to ask her if she knew where his aunt, miss betsy trotwood, lived, and to borrow half a guinea; for he had resolved to run away from murdstone & grinby's, and go to his aunt and tell her his story. peggotty wrote, enclosing the half-guinea, and saying she only knew miss trotwood lived near dover, but whether in that place itself, or at folkestone, sandgate, or hythe, she could not tell. hearing that all these places were close together, david made up his mind to start. as he had received his week's wages in advance, he waited till the following saturday, thinking it would not be honest to go before. he went out to look for some one to carry his box to the coach office, and unfortunately employed a wicked young man who not only ran off with his box, but robbed him of his half-guinea, leaving poor david in dire distress. in despair, he started off to walk to dover, and was forced to sell his waistcoat to buy some bread. the first night he found his way to his old school at blackheath, and slept on a haystack close by, feeling some comfort in the thought of the boys being near. he knew steerforth had left, or he would have tried to see him. on he trudged the next day and sold his jacket for one shilling and fourpence. he was afraid to buy anything but bread or to spend any money on a bed or a shelter for the night. after six days, he arrived at dover, ragged, dusty, and half-dead with hunger and fatigue. but here, at first, he could get no tidings of his aunt, and, in despair, was going to try some of the other places peggotty had mentioned, when the driver of a fly dropped his horsecloth, and as david was handing it up to him, he saw something kind in the man's face that encouraged him to ask once more if he knew where miss trotwood lived. [illustration: little david copperfield.] the man directed him towards some houses on the heights, and thither david toiled; a forlorn little creature, without a jacket or waistcoat, his white hat crushed out of shape, his shoes worn out, his shirt and trousers torn and stained, his pretty curly hair tangled, his face and hands sunburnt, and covered with dust. lifting his big, wistful eyes to one of the windows above, he saw a pleasant faced gentleman with grey hair, who nodded at him several times, then shook his head and went away. david was just turning away to think what he should do, when a tall, erect, elderly lady, with a gardening apron on and a knife in her hand, came out of the house, and began to dig up a root in the garden. "go away," she cried. "go away. no boys here." but david felt desperate. going in softly, he stood beside her, and touched her with his finger, and said timidly, "if you please, ma'am--" and when she looked up, he went on-- "please, aunt, i am your nephew." "oh, lord!" she exclaimed in astonishment, and sat flat down on the path, staring at him, while he went on-- "i am david copperfield, of blunderstone, in suffolk, where you came the night i was born, and saw my dear mamma. i have been unhappy since she died. i have been slighted and taught nothing, and thrown upon myself, and put to work not fit for me. it made me run away to you. i was robbed at first starting out and have walked all the way, and have never slept in a bed since i began the journey." here he broke into a passion of crying, and his aunt jumped up and took him into the house, where she put him on the sofa and sent the servant to ask "mr. dick" to come down. the gentleman whom david had seen at the window came in and was told who the ragged little object on the sofa was. "now here you see young david copperfield, and the question is what shall i do with him?" "do with him?" answered mr. dick. then, after some consideration, and looking at david, he said, "well, if i was you, i would wash him!" david knelt down to say his prayers that night in a pleasant room facing the sea, and as he lay in the clean, snow-white bed, he prayed he might never be homeless again, and might never forget the homeless. the next morning his aunt told him she had written to mr. murdstone, and at last mr. and miss murdstone arrived. mr. murdstone told miss betsy that david was a very bad, stubborn, violent-tempered boy, whom he had tried to improve, but could not succeed. if miss trotwood chose to protect and encourage him now, she must do it always, for he had come to fetch him away. "are you ready to go, david?" asked his aunt. but david answered no, and begged and prayed her for his father's sake to befriend and protect him, for neither mr. nor miss murdstone had ever liked him or been kind to him. "mr. dick," said miss trotwood, "what shall i do with this child?" mr. dick considered. "have him measured for a suit of clothes directly." "mr. dick," said miss trotwood, "your common sense is invaluable." then she pulled david towards her, and said to mr. murdstone, "you can go when you like. i'll take my chance with the boy. if he's all you say he is i can at least do as much for him as you have done. but i don't believe a word of it." some clothes were bought for him that same day and marked "trotwood copperfield," for his aunt wished to call him by her name. now david felt his troubles were over, and he began quite a new life, well cared for and kindly treated. he was sent to a very nice school in canterbury, where his aunt left him with these words, which david never forgot. "trot, be a credit to yourself, to me, and mr. dick, and heaven be with you. never be mean in anything, never be false, never be cruel. avoid these three vices, trot, and i shall always be hopeful of you." david did his best to show his gratitude to his dear aunt by studying hard, and trying to be all she could wish. when you are older you can read how he grew up to be a good, clever man, and met again all his old friends, and made many new ones. jenny wren. one day, a great many years ago, a gentleman ran up the steps of a tall house in the neighborhood of st. mary axe. the gentleman knocked and rang several times before any one came, but at last an old man opened the door. "what were you up to that you did not hear me?" said mr. fledgeby irritably. "i was taking the air at the top of the house, sir," said the old man meekly, "it being a holiday. what might you please to want, sir?" "humph! holiday indeed," grumbled his master, who was a toy merchant amongst other things. he then seated himself and gave the old man--a jew and riah by name--directions about the dressing of some dolls, and, as he rose to go, exclaimed-- "by the bye, how _do_ you take the air? do you stick your head out of a chimney-pot?" "no, sir, i have made a little garden on the roof." "let's look at it," said mr. fledgeby. "sir, i have company there," returned riah hesitating, "but will you please come up and see them?" mr. fledgeby nodded, and the old man led the way up flight after flight of stairs, till they arrived at the house-top. seated on a carpet, and leaning against a chimney-stack, were two girls bending over books. some creepers were trained round the chimney-pots, and evergreens were placed round the roof, and a few more books, a basket of gaily colored scraps, and bits of tinsel, lay near. one of the girls rose on seeing that riah had brought a visitor, but the other remarked, "i'm the person of the house downstairs, but i can't get up, whoever you are, because my back is bad, and my legs are queer." "this is my master," said riah speaking to the two girls, "and this," he added, turning to mr. fledgeby, "is miss jenny wren; she lives in this house, and is a clever little dressmaker for little people. her friend lizzie," continued riah, introducing the second girl. "they are good girls, both, and as busy as they are good; in spare moments they come up here, and take to book learning." "humph!" said mr. fledgeby, looking round, "humph!" he was so much surprised that apparently he couldn't get beyond that word. lizzie, the elder of these two girls, was strong and handsome, but the little jenny wren, whom she so loved and protected, was small, and deformed, though she had a beautiful little face, and the longest and loveliest golden hair in the world, which fell about her like a cloak of shining curls, as though to hide the poor little misshapen figure. the jew riah, as well as lizzie, was always kind and gentle to jenny wren, who called him godfather. she had a father, who shared her poor little rooms, whom she called her child, for he was a bad, drunken, disreputable old man, and the poor girl had to care for him, and earn money to keep them both. sometimes the two girls, jenny helping herself along with a crutch, would go and walk about the fashionable streets. as they walked along, jenny would tell her friend of the fancies she had when sitting alone at her work. "i imagine birds till i can hear them sing," she said one day, "and flowers till i can smell them. and oh! the beautiful children that come to me, in the early mornings! they are quite different to other children, not like me, never cold, or anxious, or tired, or hungry, never any pain; they come in numbers, in long bright slanting rows, all dressed in white, with shiny heads. 'who is this in pain?' they say, and they sweep around and about me, take me up in their arms, and i feel so light, and all the pain goes. i know they are coming a long way off, by hearing them say, 'who is this in pain?' and i answer, 'oh my blessed children, it's poor me! have pity on me, and take me up and then the pain will go.'" [illustration: jennie wren. "the beautiful children that come to me."] lizzie sat stroking and brushing the beautiful hair, when they were at home again, and as she kissed her good-night, a miserable old man stumbled into the room. "how's my jenny wren, best of children?" he mumbled, as he shuffled unsteadily towards her, but jenny pointed her small finger towards him exclaiming--"go along with you, you bad, wicked, old child, you troublesome, wicked, old thing, _i_ know where you have been; ain't you ashamed of yourself, you disgraceful boy?" "yes; my dear, yes," stammered the tipsy old father, tumbling into a corner. one day when jenny was on her way home with riah, they came on a small crowd of people. a tipsy man had been knocked down and badly hurt--"let us see what it is!" said jennie. the next moment she exclaimed--"oh, gentlemen--gentlemen, he is my child, he belongs to me, my poor, bad, old child!" "your child--belongs to you--" repeated the man who was about to lift the helpless figure on to a stretcher. "aye, it's old dolls--tipsy old dolls--" cried some one in the crowd, for it was by this name that they knew the old man. "he's her father, sir," said riah in a low tone to the doctor who was now bending over the stretcher. "so much the worse," answered the doctor, "for the man is dead." yes, "mr. dolls" was dead, and many were the dresses which the weary fingers of the sorrowful little worker must make in order to pay for his humble funeral, and buy a black frock for herself. often the tears rolled down on to her work. "my poor child," she said to riah, "my poor old child, and to think i scolded him so." "you were always a good, brave, patient girl," returned riah, "always good and patient, however tired." and so the poor little "person of the house" was left alone but for the faithful affection of the kind jew, and her friend lizzie. her room grew pretty comfortable, for she was in great request in her "profession" as she called it, and there was now no one to spend and waste her earnings. but nothing could make her life otherwise than a suffering one till the happy morning, when her child-angels visited her for the last time and carried her away to the land where all such pain as hers is healed for evermore. pip's adventure. all that little philip pirrip, usually called pip, knew about his father and mother, and five little brothers, was from seeing their tombstones in the churchyard. he was taken care of by his sister, who was twenty years older than himself. she had married a blacksmith, named joe gargery, a kind, good man, while she, unfortunately, was a hard, stern woman, and treated her little brother and her amiable husband with great harshness. they lived in a marshy part of the country, about twenty miles from the sea. one cold raw day towards evening, when pip was about six years old, he wandered into the churchyard, and trying to make out what he could of the inscriptions on his family tombstones, and the darkness coming on, he felt very lonely and frightened, and began to cry. "hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, and a man started up from among the graves close to him. "keep still, you little imp, or i'll cut your throat!" he was a dreadful looking man, dressed in coarse grey cloth, with a great iron on his leg. wet, muddy and miserable, his teeth chattered in his head, as he seized pip by the chin. "oh! don't cut my throat, sir," cried pip, in terror. "tell us your name!" said the man. "quick!" "pip, sir." "once more," said the man, staring at him. "give it mouth." "pip. pip, sir." "show us where you live," said the man. "point out the place." pip showed him the village, about a mile or more from the church. the man looked at him for a moment, and then turned him upside down and emptied his pockets. he found nothing in them but a piece of bread, which he ate ravenously. "now lookee here," said the man. "where's your mother?" "there, sir," said pip. at this the man started to run away, but stopped and looked over his shoulder. "there, sir," explained pip, showing him the tombstone. "oh, and is that your father along of your mother?" "yes, sir," said pip. "ha!" muttered the man, "then who d'ye live with--supposin' you're kindly let to live, which i han't made up my mind about?" "my sister, sir, mrs. joe gargery, wife of joe gargery, the blacksmith, sir." "blacksmith, eh?" said the man, and looked down at his leg. then he seized the trembling little boy by both arms, and glaring down at him, he said,-- "now lookee here, the question being whether you're to be let to live--you know what a file is?" "yes, sir." "and you know what wittles is?" "yes, sir." "you get me a file, and you get me wittles--you bring 'em both to me." all this time he was tilting poor pip backwards till he was dreadfully frightened and giddy. "you bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles--you do it, and you never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to live." then he let him go, saying--"you remember what you've undertook, and you get home." pip ran home without stopping. joe was sitting in the chimney corner, and told him mrs. joe had been out to look for him, and taken tickler with her. tickler was a cane, and pip was rather depressed by this piece of news. mrs. joe came in almost directly, and after having given pip a taste of tickler, she sat down to prepare the tea, and cutting a huge slice of bread and butter, she gave half of it to joe and half to pip. pip managed, after some time, to slip his down the leg of his trousers, and joe, thinking he had swallowed it, was dreadfully alarmed and begged him not to bolt his food like that. "pip, old chap, you'll do yourself a mischief,--it'll stick somewhere, you can't have chewed it, pip. you know, pip, you and me is always friends, and i'd be the last to tell upon you at any time, but such a--such a most uncommon bolt as that." [illustration: pip and the convict. half dead with cold and hunger.] "been bolting his food, has he?" cried mrs. joe. "you know, old chap," said joe, "i bolted myself when i was your age--frequent--and as a boy i've been among many bolters; but i never see your bolting equal yet, pip, and it's a mercy you ain't bolted dead." poor pip passed a wretched night, thinking of the dreadful promise he had made, and as soon as it was beginning to get light outside he got up and crept downstairs. as quickly as he could he took some bread, some cheese, about half a jar of mince-meat he tied up in a handkerchief, with the slice of bread and butter, some brandy from a stone bottle, a meat bone with very little on it, and a pork pie, which he found on an upper shelf. then he got a file from among joe's tools, and ran for the marshes. pip found the man waiting for him, half dead with cold and hunger, and he ate the food in such a ravenous way that pip, in spite of his terror, was quite pitiful over him, and said, "i am glad you enjoy it." "thankee, my boy, i do." pip watched him trying to file the iron off his leg, and then, being afraid of stopping longer away from home, he ran off. pip passed a wretched morning expecting every moment that the disappearance of the pie would be found out. but mrs. joe was too much taken up with preparing the dinner, for they were expecting visitors. just at the end of the dinner pip thought his time had come to be found out, for his sister said graciously to her guests-- "you must taste a most delightful and delicious present i have had. it's a pie, a savory pork pie." pip could bear it no longer, and ran for the door, and there ran head foremost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to him saying--"here you are, look sharp, come on." but they had not come for him, they only wanted joe to mend the handcuffs, for they were on the search for two convicts who had escaped and were somewhere hid in the marshes. this turned the attention of mrs. joe from the disappearance of the pie without which she had come back, in great astonishment. when the handcuffs were mended the soldiers went off, accompanied by joe and one of the visitors, and joe took pip and carried him on his back. pip whispered, "i hope, joe, we shan't find them," and joe answered "i'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, pip." but the soldiers soon caught them, and one was pip's miserable acquaintance, and once when the man looked at pip, the child shook his head to try and let him know he had said nothing. but the convict, without looking at anyone, told the sergeant he wanted to say something to prevent other people being under suspicion, and said he had taken some "wittles" from the blacksmith's. "it was some broken wittles, that's what it was, and a dram of liquor, and a pie." "have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?" enquired the sergeant. "my wife did, at the very moment when you came in." "so," said the convict, looking at joe, "you're the blacksmith, are you? then i'm sorry to say, i've eat your pie." "god knows you're welcome to it," said joe. "we don't know what you have done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable fellow creature. would us, pip?" then the boat came, and the convicts were taken back to prison, and joe carried pip home. some years after, some mysterious friend sent money for pip to be educated and brought up as a gentleman, but it was only when pip was quite grown up that he discovered this mysterious friend was the wretched convict who had frightened him so dreadfully that cold, dark christmas eve. transcriber's notes: text in italics is indicated with underscores: _italics_. inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original. punctuation has been corrected without note. obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows: page : fren changed to fern page : joe changed to jo page : dorritt changed to dorrit page : needlwork changed to needlework page : distresed changed to distressed page : grandfaather changed to grandfather page : hugh changed to huge little journeys to the homes of the great elbert hubbard memorial edition printed and made into a book by the roycrofters, who are in east aurora, erie county, new york wm. h. wise & co. new york publisher's preface elbert hubbard is dead, or should we say, has gone on his last little journey to the great beyond. but the children of his fertile brain still live and will continue to live and keep fresh the memory of their illustrious forebear. fourteen years were consumed in the preparation of the work that ranks today as elbert hubbard's masterpiece. in eighteen hundred ninety-four, the series of little journeys to the homes of the great was begun, and once a month for fourteen years, without a break, one of these little pilgrimages was given to the world. these little gems have been accepted as classics and will live. in all there are one hundred eighty little journeys that take us to the homes of the men and women who transformed the thought of their time, changed the course of empire, and marked the destiny of civilization. through him, the ideas, the deeds, the achievements of these immortals have been given to the living present and will be sent echoing down the centuries. hubbard's little journeys to the homes of these men and women have not been equaled since plutarch wrote his forty-six parallel lives of the greeks and romans. and these were given to the world before the first rosy dawn of modern civilization had risen to the horizon. without dwelling upon their achievements, plutarch, with a trifling incident, a simple word or an innocent jest, showed the virtues and failings of his subject. as a result, no other books from classical literature have come down through the ages to us with so great an influence upon the lives of the leading men of the world. who can recount the innumerable biographies that begin thus: "in his youth, our subject had for his constant reading, plutarch's lives, etc."? emerson must have had in mind this silent, irresistible force that shaped the lives of the great men of these twenty centuries when he declared, "all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons." plutarch lived in the time of saint paul, and wrote of the early greeks and romans. after two thousand years hubbard appeared, to bridge the centuries from athens, in the golden age of pericles, to america, in the wondrous age of edison. with the magic wand of genius he touched the buried mummies of all time, and from each tomb gushed forth a geyser of inspiration. hugh chalmers once remarked that, if he were getting out a blue book of america, he would publish elbert hubbard's subscription-lists. whether we accept this authoritative statement or not, there is no doubt that the pen of this immortal did more to stimulate the best minds of the country than any other american writer, living or dead. eminent writers study hubbard for style, while at the same time thousands of the tired men and women who do the world's work read him for inspiration. truly, this man wielded his pen like an archangel. not only as a writer does this many-sided genius command our admiration, but in many chosen fields, in all of which he excelled. as an institution, the roycroft shops would reflect credit upon the business acumen of the ablest men that america has produced in the field of achievement. the industry, it would seem, was launched to demonstrate the practicality of the high principles and philosophy preached by its founder, not only by the printed page, but from the platform. right here let it be noted that, as a public speaker, hubbard appeared before more audiences than any other lecturer of his time who gave the platform his undivided attention. where, one asks in amazement, did this remarkable man find the inspiration for carrying forward his great work? it is no secret. it was drawn from his own little pilgrimages to the haunts of the great. again like plutarch, these miniature biographies were composed for the personal benefit of the writer. it was his own satisfaction and moral improvement that inspired the work. following hubbard's tragic death, the announcement was made from east aurora that "the philistine" magazine would be discontinued--hubbard had gone on a long journey and might need his "philistine." besides, who was there to take up his pen? it was also a beautiful tribute to the father from the son. the same spirit of devotion has prompted the roycrofters to issue their memorial edition of the "little journeys to the homes of the great." in no other way could they so fittingly perpetuate the memory of the founder of their institution as to liberate the influence that was such an important factor in molding the career of his genius. if he should cast a backward glance, he would nod his approval. if there is to be a memorial, certainly let it be a service to mankind. he would have us all tap the same source from which he drew his inspiration. autobiographical the mintage of wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and that real life is in love, laughter and work. --_elbert hubbard_ i have been asked to write an article about myself and the work in which i am engaged. i think i am honest enough to sink self, to stand outside my own personality, and answer the proposition. let me begin by telling what i am not, and thus reach the vital issue by elimination. first, i am not popular in "society," and those who champion _my cause in my own town_ are plain, unpretentious people. second, i am not a popular writer, since my name has never been mentioned in the "atlantic," "scribner's," "harper's," "the century" or the "ladies' home journal." but as a matter of truth, it may not be amiss for me to say that i have waited long hours in the entryway of each of the magazines just named, in days agone, and then been handed the frappe. third, i am not rich, as the world counts wealth. fourth, as an orator i am without the graces, and do scant justice to the double-breasted prince albert. fifth, the roycroft shop, to the welfare of which my life is dedicated, is not so large as to be conspicuous on account of size. sixth, personally, i am no ten-thousand-dollar beauty: the glass of fashion and the mold of form are far from mine. then what have i done concerning which the public wishes to know? simply this: in one obscure country village i have had something to do with stopping the mad desire on the part of the young people to get out of the country and flock to the cities. in this town and vicinity the tide has been turned from city to country. we have made one country village an attractive place for growing youth by supplying congenial employment, opportunity for education and healthful recreation, and an outlook into the world of art and beauty. all boys and girls want to make things with their hands, and they want to make beautiful things, they want to "get along," and i've simply given them a chance to get along here, instead of seeking their fortunes in buffalo, new york or chicago. they have helped me and i have helped them; and through this mutual help we have made head, gained ground upon the whole. by myself i could have done nothing, and if i have succeeded, it is simply because i have had the aid and co-operation of cheerful, willing, loyal and loving helpers. even now as i am writing this in my cabin in the woods, four miles from the village, they are down there at the shop, quietly, patiently, cheerfully doing my work--which work is also theirs. no man liveth unto himself alone: our interests are all bound up together, and there is no such thing as a man going off by himself and corraling the good. when i came to this town there was not a house in the place that had a lavatory with hot and cold water attachments. those who bathed, swam in the creek in the summer or used the family wash tub in the kitchen in winter. my good old partner, ali baba, has always prided himself on his personal cleanliness he is arrayed in rags, but underneath, his hide is clean, and better still, his heart is right. yet when he first became a member of my household, he was obliged to take his saturday-night tub out in the orchard, from spring until autumn came with withered leaves. he used to make quite an ado in the kitchen, heating the water in the wash-boiler. six pails of cistern-water, a gourd of soft soap, and a gunny-sack for friction were required in the operation. of course, the baba waited until after dark before performing his ablutions. but finally his plans were more or less disturbed by certain rising youth, who timed his habits and awaited his disrobing with o'erripe tomatoes. the bombardment, and the inability to pursue the enemy, turned the genial current of the baba's life awry until i put a bathroom in my house, with a lock on the door. this bit of history i have mentioned for the dual purpose of shedding light on former bathing facilities in east aurora, and more especially to show that once we had the hoodlum with us. hoodlumism is born of idleness; it is useful energy gone to seed. in small towns hoodlumism is rife, and the hoodlums are usually the children of the best citizens. hoodlumism is the first step in the direction of crime. the hoodlum is very often a good boy who does not know what to do; and so he does the wrong thing. he bombards with tomatoes a good man taking a bath, puts ticktacks on windows, ties a tin can to the dog's tail, takes the burs off your carriage-wheels, steals your chickens, annexes your horse-blankets, and scares old ladies into fits by appearing at windows wrapped in a white sheet. to wear a mask, walk in and demand the money in the family ginger-jar is the next and natural evolution. to a great degree the roycroft shop has done away with hoodlumism in this village, and a stranger wearing a silk hat, or an artist with a white umbrella, is now quite safe upon our streets. very naturally, the oldest inhabitant will deny what i have said about east aurora--he will tell you that the order, cleanliness and beauty of the place have always existed. the change has come about so naturally, and so entirely without his assistance, that he knows nothing about it. truth when first presented is always denied, but later there comes a stage when the man says, "i always believed it." and so the good old citizens are induced to say that these things have always been, or else they gently pooh-pooh them. however, the truth remains that i introduced the first heating-furnace into the town; bought the first lawn-mower; was among the first to use electricity for lights and natural gas for fuel; and so far, am the only one in town to use natural gas for power. until the starting of the roycroft shop, there were no industries here, aside from the regulation country store, grocery, tavern, blacksmith-shop and sawmill--none of which enterprises attempted to supply more than local wants. there was hamlin's stock-farm, devoted to raising trotting-horses, that gave employment to some of the boys; but for the girls there was nothing. they got married at the first chance; some became "hired girls," or, if they had ambitions, fixed their hearts on the buffalo normal school, raised turkeys, picked berries, and turned every honest penny towards the desire to get an education so as to become teachers. comparatively, this class was small in number. most of the others simply followed that undefined desire to get away out of the dull, monotonous, gossiping village; and so, craving excitement, they went away to the cities, and the cities swallowed them. a wise man has said that god made the country, man the city, and the devil the small towns. the country supplies the city its best and its worst. we hear of the few who succeed, but of the many who are lost in the maelstrom we know nothing. sometimes in country homes it is even forbidden to mention certain names. "she went to the city," you are told--and there the history abruptly stops. and so, to swing back to the place of beginning, i think the chief reason many good folks are interested in the roycroft shop is because here country boys and girls are given work at which they not only earn their living, but can get an education while doing it. next to this is the natural curiosity to know how a large and successful business can be built up in a plain, humdrum village by simply using the talent and materials that are at hand, and so i am going to tell now how the roycroft shop came to start; a little about what it has done; what it is trying to do; and what it hopes to become. and since modesty is only egotism turned wrong side out, i will make no special endeavor to conceal the fact that i have had something to do with the venture. in london, from about sixteen hundred fifty to sixteen hundred ninety, samuel and thomas roycroft printed and made very beautiful books. in choosing the name "roycroft" for our shop we had these men in mind, but beyond this the word has a special significance, meaning king's craft--king's craftsmen being a term used in the guilds of the olden times for men who had achieved a high degree of skill--men who made things for the king. so a roycrofter is a person who makes beautiful things, and makes them as well as he can. "the roycrofters" is the legal name of our institution. it is a corporation, and the shares are distributed among the workers. no shares are held by any one but roycrofters, and it is agreed that any worker who quits the shop shall sell his shares back to the concern. this co-operative plan, it has been found, begets a high degree of personal diligence, a loyalty to the institution, a sentiment of fraternity and a feeling of permanency among the workers that is very beneficial to all concerned. each worker, even the most humble, calls it "our shop," and feels that he is an integral and necessary part of the whole. possibly there are a few who consider themselves more than necessary. ali baba, for instance, it is said, has referred to himself, at times, as the whole thing. and this is all right, too--i would never chide an excess of zeal: the pride of a worker in his worth and work is a thing to foster. it's the man who "doesn't give a damn" who is really troublesome. the artistic big-head is not half so bad as apathy. * * * * * in the month of december, eighteen hundred ninety-four, i printed the first "little journeys" in booklet form, at the local printing-office, having become discouraged in trying to find a publisher. but before offering the publication to the public, i decided to lay the matter again before g.p. putnam's sons, although they had declined the matter in manuscript form. mr. george h. putnam rather liked the matter, and was induced to issue the periodical as a venture for one year. the scheme seemed to meet with success, the novel form of the publication being in its favor. the subscription reached nearly a thousand in six months; the newspapers were kind, and the success of the plan suggested printing a pamphlet modeled on similar lines, telling what we thought about things in general, and publishers and magazine-editors in particular. there was no intention at first of issuing more than one number of this pamphlet, but to get it through the mails at magazine rates we made up a little subscription list and asked that it be entered at the post office at east aurora as second-class matter. the postmaster adjusted his brass-rimmed spectacles, read the pamphlet, and decided that it surely was second class matter. we called it "the philistine" because we were going after the "chosen people" in literature. it was leslie stephen who said, "the term philistine is a word used by prigs to designate people they do not like." when you call a man a bad name, you are that thing--not he. the smug and snugly ensconced denizens of union square called me a philistine, and i said, "yes, i am one, if a philistine is something different from you." my helpers, the printers, were about to go away to pastures new; they were in debt, the town was small, they could not make a living. so they offered me their outfit for a thousand dollars. i accepted the proposition. i decided to run "the philistine" magazine for a year--to keep faith with the misguided and hopeful parties who had subscribed--and then quit. to fill in the time, we printed a book: we printed it like a william morris book--printed it just as well as we could. it was cold in the old barn where we first set up "the philistine," so i built a little building like an old english chapel right alongside of my house. there was one basement and a room upstairs. i wanted it to be comfortable and pretty, and so we furnished our little shop cozily. we had four girls and three boys working for us then. the shop was never locked, and the boys and girls used to come around evenings. it was really more pleasant than at home. i brought over a shelf of books from the library. then i brought the piano, because the youngsters wanted to dance. the girls brought flowers and birds, and the boys put up curtains at the windows. we were having a lot o' fun, with new subscriptions coming in almost every day, and once in a while an order for a book. the place got too small when we began to bind books, so we built a wing on one side; then a wing on the other side. to keep the three carpenters busy who had been building the wings, i set them to making furniture for the place. they made the furniture as good as they could--folks came along and bought it. the boys picked up field-stones and built a great, splendid fireplace and chimney at one end of the shop. the work came out so well that i said, "boys, here is a great scheme--these hardheads are splendid building material." so i advertised we would pay a dollar a load for niggerheads. the farmers began to haul stones; they hauled more stones, and at last they had hauled four thousand loads. we bought all the stone in the dollar limit, bulling the market on boulders. three stone buildings have been built, another is in progress, and our plans are made to build an art-gallery of the same material--the stones that the builders rejected. an artist blew in on the way to nowhere, his baggage a tomato-can. he thought he would stop over for a day or two--he is with us yet, and three years have gone by since he came, and now we could not do without him. then we have a few remittance-men, sent to us from a distance, without return-tickets. some of these men were willing to do anything but work--they offered to run things, to preach, to advise, to make love to the girls. we bought them tickets to chicago, and without violence conducted them to the four-o'clock train. we have boys who have been expelled from school, blind people, deaf people, old people, jailbirds and mental defectives, and have managed to set them all at useful work; but the remittance-man of good family who smokes cigarettes in bed has proved too much for us--so we have given him the four-o'clock without ruth. we do not encourage people from a distance who want work to come on--they are apt to expect too much. they look for utopia, when work is work, here as elsewhere. there is just as much need for patience, gentleness, loyalty and love here as anywhere. application, desire to do the right thing, a willingness to help, and a well-curbed tongue are as necessary in east aurora as in tuskegee. we do our work as well as we can, live one day at a time, and try to be kind. * * * * * the village of east aurora, erie county, new york, the home of the roycrofters, is eighteen miles southeast of the city of buffalo. the place has a population of about three thousand people. there is no wealth in the town and no poverty. in east aurora there are six churches, with pastors' salaries varying from three hundred to one thousand dollars a year; and we have a most excellent school. the place is not especially picturesque or attractive, being simply a representative new york state village. lake erie is ten miles distant, and cazenovia creek winds its lazy way along by the village. the land around east aurora is poor, and so reduced in purse are the farmers that no insurance-company will insure farm property in erie county under any conditions unless the farmer has some business outside of agriculture--the experience of the underwriters being that when a man is poor enough, he is also dishonest; insure a farmer's barn in new york state, and there is a strong probability that he will soon invest in kerosene. however, there is no real destitution, for a farmer can always raise enough produce to feed his family, and in a wooded country he can get fuel, even if he has to lift it between the dawn and the day. most of the workers in the roycroft shop are children of farming folk, and it is needless to add that they are not college-bred, nor have they had the advantages of foreign travel. one of our best helpers, uncle billy bushnell, has never been to niagara falls, and does not care to go. uncle billy says if you stay at home and do your work well enough, the world will come to you; which aphorism the old man backs up with another, probably derived from experience, to the effect that a man is a fool to chase after women, because, if he doesn't, the women will chase after him. the wisdom of this hard-headed old son of the soil--who abandoned agriculture for art at seventy--is exemplified in the fact that during the year just past, over twenty-eight thousand pilgrims have visited the roycroft shop--representing every state and territory of the union and every civilized country on the globe, even far-off iceland, new zealand and the isle of guam. three hundred ten people are on the payroll at the present writing. the principal work is printing, illuminating and binding books. we also have a furniture shop, where mission furniture of the highest grade is made; a modeled-leather shop, where the most wonderful creations in calfskin are to be seen; and a smithy, where copper utensils of great beauty are hammered out by hand. quite as important as the printing and binding is the illuminating of initials and title-pages. this is a revival of a lost art, gone with so much of the artistic work done by the monks of the olden time. yet there is a demand for such work; and so far as i know, we are the first concern in america to take up the hand-illumination of books as a business. of course we have had to train our helpers, and from very crude attempts at decoration we have attained to a point where the british museum and the "bibliotheke" at the hague have deigned to order and pay good golden guineas for specimens of our handicraft. very naturally we want to do the best work possible, and so self-interest prompts us to be on the lookout for budding genius. the roycroft is a quest for talent. there is a market for the best, and the surest way, we think, to get away from competition is to do your work a little better than the other fellow. the old tendency to make things cheaper, instead of better, in the book line is a fallacy, as shown in the fact that within ten years there have been a dozen failures of big publishing-houses in the united states. the liabilities of these bankrupt concerns footed the fine total of fourteen million dollars. the man who made more books and cheaper books than any one concern ever made, had the felicity to fail very shortly, with liabilities of something over a million dollars. he overdid the thing in matter of cheapness--mistook his market. our motto is, "not how cheap, but how good." this is the richest country the world has ever known, far richer per capita than england--lending money to europe. once americans were all shoddy--pioneers have to be, i'm told--but now only a part of us are shoddy. as men and women increase in culture and refinement, they want fewer things, and they want better things. the cheap article, i will admit, ministers to a certain grade of intellect; but if the man grows, there will come a time when, instead of a great many cheap and shoddy things, he will want a few good things. he will want things that symbol solidity, truth, genuineness and beauty. the roycrofters have many opportunities for improvement not the least of which is the seeing, hearing and meeting distinguished people. we have a public dining-room, and not a day passes but men and women of note sit at meat with us. at the evening meal, if our visitors are so inclined, and are of the right fiber, i ask them to talk. and if there is no one else to speak, i sometimes read a little from william morris, shakespeare, walt whitman or ruskin. david bispham has sung for us. maude adams and minnie maddern fiske have also favored us with a taste of their quality. judge lindsey, alfred henry lewis, richard le gallienne, robert barr, have visited us; but to give a list of all the eminent men and women who have spoken, sung or played for us would lay me liable for infringement in printing "who's who." however, let me name one typical incident. the boston ideal opera company was playing in buffalo, and henry clay barnabee and half a dozen of his players took a run out to east aurora. they were shown through the shop by one of the girls whose work it is to receive visitors. a young woman of the company sat down at one of the pianos and played. i chanced to be near and asked mr. barnabee if he would not sing, and graciously he answered, "fra elbertus, i'll do anything that you say." i gave the signal that all the workers should quit their tasks and meet at the chapel. in five minutes we had an audience of three hundred--men in blouses and overalls, girls in big aprons--a very jolly, kindly, receptive company. mr. barnabee was at his best--i never saw him so funny. he sang, danced, recited, and told stories for forty minutes. the roycrofters were, of course, delighted. one girl whispered to me as she went out, "i wonder what great sorrow is gnawing at barnabee's heart, that he is so wondrous gay!" need i say that the girl who made the remark just quoted had drunk of life's cup to the very lees? we have a few such with us--and several of them are among our most loyal helpers. * * * * * one fortuitous event that has worked to our decided advantage was "a message to garcia." this article, not much more than a paragraph, covering only fifteen hundred words, was written one evening after supper in a single hour. it was the twenty-second of february, eighteen hundred ninety-nine, washington's birthday, and we were just going to press with the march "philistine." the thing leaped hot from my heart, written after a rather trying day, when i had been endeavoring to train some rather delinquent helpers in the way they should go. the immediate suggestion, though, came from a little argument over the teacups when my son bert suggested that rowan was the real hero of the cuban war. rowan had gone alone and done the thing--carried the message to garcia. it came to me like a flash! yes, the boy is right, the hero is the man who does the thing--does his work--carries the message. i got up from the table and wrote "a message to garcia." i thought so little of it that we ran it in without a heading. the edition went out, and soon orders began to come for extra march "philistines," a dozen, fifty, a hundred; and when the american news company ordered a thousand i asked one of my helpers which article it was that had stirred things up. "it's that stuff about garcia," he said. the next day a telegram came from george h. daniels, of the new york central railroad, thus: "give price on one hundred thousand rowan article in pamphlet form--empire state express advertisement on back--also state how soon can ship." i replied giving price and stated we could supply the pamphlets in two years. our facilities were small, and a hundred thousand pamphlets looked like an awful undertaking. the result was that i gave mr. daniels permission to reprint the article in his own way. he issued it in booklet form in editions of one hundred thousand each. five editions were sent out, and then he got out an edition of half a million. two or three of these half-million lots were sent out by mr. daniels, and in addition the article was reprinted in over two hundred magazines and newspapers. it has been translated into eleven languages, and been given a total circulation of over twenty-two million copies. it has attained, i believe, a larger circulation in the same length of time than any written article has ever before reached. of course, we can not tell just how much good "a message to garcia" has done the shop, but it probably doubled the circulation of "the philistine." i do not consider it by any means my best piece of writing; but it was opportune--the time was ripe. truth demands a certain expression, and too much had been said on the other side about the downtrodden, honest man, looking for work and not being able to find it. the article in question states the other side. men are needed--loyal, honest men who will do their work. "the world cries out for him--the man who can carry a message to garcia." the man who sent the message and the man who received it are dead. the man who carried it is still carrying other messages. the combination of theme, condition of the country, and method of circulation was so favorable that their conjunction will probably never occur again. other men will write better articles, but they may go a-begging for lack of a daniels to bring them to judgment. * * * * * concerning my own personal history, i'll not tarry long to tell. it has been too much like the career of many another born in the semi-pioneer times of the middle west, to attract much attention, unless one should go into the psychology of the thing with intent to show the evolution of a soul. but that will require a book--and some day i'll write it, after the manner of saint augustine or jean jacques. but just now i 'll only say that i was born in illinois, june nineteenth, eighteen hundred fifty-six. my father was a country doctor, whose income never exceeded five hundred dollars a year. i left school at fifteen, with a fair hold on the three r's, and beyond this my education in "manual training" had been good. i knew all the forest-trees, all wild animals thereabout, every kind of fish, frog, fowl or bird that swam, ran or flew. i knew every kind of grain or vegetable, and its comparative value. i knew the different breeds of cattle, horses, sheep and swine. i could teach wild cows to stand while being milked; break horses to saddle or harness; could sow, plow and reap; knew the mysteries of apple-butter, pumpkin pie pickled beef, smoked side-meat, and could make lye at a leach and formulate soft soap. that is to say, i was a bright, strong, active country boy who had been brought up to help his father and mother get a living for a large family. i was not so densely ignorant--don't feel sorry for country boys: god is often on their side. at fifteen i worked on a farm and did a man's work for a boy's pay. i did not like it and told the man so. he replied, "you know what you can do." and i replied, "yes." i went westward like the course of empire and became a cowboy; tired of this and went to chicago; worked in a printing-office; peddled soap from house to house; shoved lumber on the docks; read all the books i could find; wrote letters back to country newspapers and became a reporter; next got a job as traveling salesman; taught in a district school; read emerson, carlyle and macaulay; worked in a soap factory; read shakespeare and committed most of "hamlet" to memory with an eye on the stage; became manager of the soap-factory, then partner; evolved an idea for the concern and put it on the track of making millions--knew it was going to make millions--did not want them; sold out my interest for seventy-five thousand dollars and went to harvard college; tramped through europe; wrote for sundry newspapers; penned two books (couldn't find a publisher); taught night school in buffalo; tramped through europe some more and met william morris (caught it); came back to east aurora and started "chautauqua circles"; studied greek and latin with a local clergyman; raised trotting-horses; wrote "little journeys to the homes of good men and great." so that is how i got my education, such as it is. i am a graduate of the university of hard knocks, and i've taken several postgraduate courses. i have worked at five different trades enough to be familiar with the tools. in eighteen hundred ninety-nine, tufts college bestowed on me the degree of master of arts; but since i did not earn the degree, it really does not count. i have never been sick a day, never lost a meal through disinclination to eat, never consulted a doctor, never used tobacco or intoxicants. my work has never been regulated by the eight-hour clause. horses have been my only extravagance, and i ride horseback daily now: a horse that i broke myself, that has never been saddled by another, and that has never been harnessed. my best friends have been workingmen, homely women and children. my father and mother are members of my household, and they work in the shop when they are so inclined. my mother's business now is mostly to care for the flowers, and my father we call "physician to the roycrofters," as he gives free advice and attendance to all who desire his services. needless to say, his medicine is mostly a matter of the mind. unfortunately for him, we do not enjoy poor health, so there is very seldom any one sick to be cured. fresh air is free, and outdoor exercise is not discouraged. * * * * * the roycroft shop and belongings represent an investment of about three hundred thousand dollars. we have no liabilities, making it a strict business policy to sign no notes or other instruments of debt that may in the future prove inopportune and tend to disturb digestion. fortune has favored us. first, the country has grown tired of soft platitude, silly truism and undisputed things said in such a solemn way. so when "the philistine" stepped into the ring and voiced in no uncertain tones what its editor thought, thinking men and women stopped and listened. editors of magazines refused my manuscript because they said it was too plain, too blunt, sometimes indelicate--it would give offense, subscribers would cancel, et cetera. to get my thoughts published i had to publish them myself; and people bought for the very reason for which the editors said they would cancel. the readers wanted brevity and plain statement--the editors said they didn't. the editors were wrong. they failed to properly diagnose a demand. i saw the demand and supplied it--for a consideration. next i believed the american public. a portion of it, at least, wanted a few good and beautiful books instead of a great many cheap books. the truth came to me in the early nineties, when john b. alden and half a dozen other publishers of cheap books went to the wall. i read the r.g. dun & company bulletin and i said, "the publishers have mistaken their public--we want better books, not cheaper." in eighteen hundred ninety-two, i met william morris, and after that i was sure i was right. again i had gauged the public correctly--the publishers were wrong, as wrong as the editors. there was a market for the best, and the problem was to supply it. at first i bound my books in paper covers and simple boards. men wrote to me wanting fine bindings. i said, "there is a market in america for the best--cheap boards, covered with cloth, stamped by machinery in gaudy tinsel and gilt, are not enough." i discovered that nearly all the bookbinders were dead. i found five hundred people in a book-factory in chicago binding books, but not a bookbinder among them. they simply fed the books into hoppers and shot them out of chutes, and said they were bound. next the public wanted to know about this thing--"what are you folks doing out there in that buckwheat town?" since my twentieth year i have had one eye on the histrionic stage. i could talk in public a bit, had made political speeches, given entertainments in crossroads schoolhouses, made temperance harangues, was always called upon to introduce the speaker of the evening, and several times had given readings from my own amusing works for the modest stipend of ten dollars and keep. i would have taken the lecture platform had it not been nailed down. in eighteen hundred ninety-eight, my friend major pond wanted to book me on a partnership deal at the waldorf-astoria. i didn't want to speak there--i had been saying unkind things in "the philistine" about the waldorf-astoria folks. but the major went ahead and made arrangements. i expected to be mobbed. but mr. boldt, the manager of the hotel, had placed a suite of rooms at my disposal without money and without price. he treated me most cordially; never referred to the outrageous things i had said about his tavern; assured me that he enjoyed my writings, and told me of the pleasure he had in welcoming me. thus did he heap hot cinders upon my occiput. the astor gallery seats eight hundred people. major pond had packed in nine hundred at one dollar each--three hundred were turned away. after the lecture the major awaited me in the anteroom, fell on my neck and rained pond's extract down my back, crying: "oh! oh! oh! why didn't we charge them two dollars apiece!" the next move was to make a tour of the principal cities under major pond's management. neither of us lost money--the major surely did not. last season i gave eighty-one lectures, with a net profit to myself of a little over ten thousand dollars. i spoke at tremont temple in boston, to twenty-two hundred people; at carnegie hall, new york; at central music hall, chicago. i spoke to all the house would hold; at chautauqua, my audience was five thousand people. it will be noted by the discerning that my lectures have been of double importance, in that they have given an income and at the same time advertised the roycroft wares. the success of the roycroft shop has not been brought about by any one scheme or plan. the business is really a combination of several ideas, any one of which would make a paying enterprise in itself. so it stands about thus: first, the printing and publication of three magazines. second, the printing of books (it being well known that some of the largest publishers in america--scribner and appleton, for instance--have no printing-plants, but have the work done for them). third, the publication of books. fourth, the artistic binding of books. fifth, authorship. since i began printing my own manuscript, there is quite an eager demand for my writing, so i do a little of class b for various publishers and editors. sixth, the lecture lyceum. seventh, blacksmithing, carpenter-work and basket-weaving. these industries have sprung up under the roycroft care as a necessity. men and women in the village came to us and wanted work, and we simply gave them opportunity to do the things they could do best. we have found a market for all our wares, so no line of work has ever been a bill of expense. i want no better clothing, no better food, no more comforts and conveniences than my helpers and fellow-workers have. i would be ashamed to monopolize a luxury--to take a beautiful work of art, say a painting or a marble statue, and keep it for my own pleasure and for the select few i might invite to see my beautiful things. art is for all--beauty is for all. harmony in all of its manifold forms should be like a sunset--free to all who can drink it in. the roycroft shop is for the roycrofters, and each is limited only by his capacity to absorb. * * * * * art is the expression of man's joy in his work, and all the joy and love that you can weave into a fabric comes out again and belongs to the individual who has the soul to appreciate it. art is beauty; and beauty is a gratification, a peace and a solace to every normal man and woman. beautiful sounds, beautiful colors, beautiful proportions, beautiful thoughts--how our souls hunger for them! matter is only mind in an opaque condition; and all beauty is but a symbol of spirit. you can not get joy from feeding things all day into a machine. you must let the man work with hand and brain, and then out of the joy of this marriage of hand and brain, beauty will be born. it tells of a desire for harmony, peace, beauty, wholeness--holiness. art is the expression of man's joy in his work. when you read a beautiful poem that makes your heart throb with gladness and gratitude, you are simply partaking of the emotion that the author felt when he wrote it. to possess a piece of work that the workman made in joyous animation is a source of joy to the possessor. and this love of the work done by the marriage of hand and brain can never quite go out of fashion--for we are men and women, and our hopes and aims and final destiny are at last one. where one enjoys, all enjoy; where one suffers, all suffer. say what you will of the coldness and selfishness of men, at the last we long for companionship and the fellowship of our kind. we are lost children, and when alone and the darkness gathers, we long for the close relationship of the brothers and sisters we knew in our childhood, and cry for the gentle arms that once rocked us to sleep. men are homesick amid this sad, mad rush for wealth and place and power. the calm of the country invites, and we would fain do with less things, and go back to simplicity, and rest our tired heads in the lap of mother nature. life is expression. life is a movement outward, an unfolding, a development. to be tied down, pinned to a task that is repugnant, and to have the shrill voice of necessity whistling eternally in your ears, "do this or starve," is to starve; for it starves the heart, the soul, and all the higher aspirations of your being pine away and die. at the roycroft shop the workers are getting an education by doing things. work should be the spontaneous expression of a man's best impulses. we grow only through exercise, and every faculty that is exercised becomes strong, and those not used atrophy and die. thus how necessary it is that we should exercise our highest and best! to develop the brain we have to exercise the body. every muscle, every organ, has its corresponding convolution in the brain. to develop the mind, we must use the body. manual training is essentially moral training; and physical work is, at its best, mental, moral and spiritual--and these are truths so great and yet so simple that until yesterday many wise men did not recognize them. at the roycroft shop we are reaching out for an all-round development through work and right living. and we have found it a good expedient--a wise business policy. sweat-shop methods can never succeed in producing beautiful things. and so the management of the roycroft shop surrounds the workers with beauty, allows many liberties, encourages cheerfulness and tries to promote kind thoughts, simply because it has been found that these things are transmuted into good, and come out again at the finger-tips of the workers in beautiful results. so we have pictures, statuary, flowers, ferns, palms, birds, and a piano in every room. we have the best sanitary appliances that money can buy; we have bathrooms, shower-baths, library, rest-rooms. every week we have concerts, dances, lectures. besides being a workshop, the roycroft is a school. we are following out a dozen distinct lines of study, and every worker in the place is enrolled as a member of one or more classes. there are no fees to pupils, but each pupil purchases his own books--the care of his books and belongings being considered a part of one's education. all the teachers are workers in the shop, and are volunteers, teaching without pay, beyond what each receives for his regular labor. the idea of teaching we have found is a great benefit--to the teacher. the teacher gets most out of the lessons. once a week there is a faculty meeting, when each teacher gives in a verbal report of his stewardship. it is responsibility that develops one, and to know that your pupils expect you to know is a great incentive to study. then teaching demands that you shall give--give yourself--and he who gives most receives most. we deepen our impressions by recounting them, and he who teaches others teaches himself. i am never quite so proud as when some one addresses me as "teacher." we try to find out what each person can do best, what he wants to do, and then we encourage him to put his best into it--also to do something else besides his specialty, finding rest in change. the thing that pays should be the expedient thing, and the expedient thing should be the proper and right thing. that which began with us as a matter of expediency is often referred to as a "philanthropy." i do not like the word, and wish to state here that the roycroft is in no sense a charity--i do not believe in giving any man something for nothing. you give a man a dollar and the man will think less of you because he thinks less of himself; but if you give him a chance to earn a dollar, he will think more of himself and more of you. the only way to help people is to give them a chance to help themselves. so the roycroft idea is one of reciprocity--you help me and i'll help you. we will not be here forever, anyway; soon death, the kind old nurse, will come and rock us all to sleep, and we had better help one another while we may: we are going the same way--let's go hand in hand! contents publisher's preface v autobiographical xi george eliot thomas carlyle john ruskin william e. gladstone j.m.w. turner jonathan swift walt whitman victor hugo william wordsworth william m. thackeray charles dickens oliver goldsmith william shakespeare thomas a. edison george eliot "may i reach that purest heaven, be to other souls the cup of strength in some great agony, enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, beget the smiles that have no cruelty-- be the good presence of a good diffused, and in diffusion ever more intense. so shall i join the choir invisible whose music is the gladness of the world." [illustration: george eliot] warwickshire gave to the world william shakespeare. it also gave mary ann evans. no one will question that shakespeare's is the greatest name in english literature; and among writers living or dead, in england or out of it, no woman has ever shown us power equal to that of george eliot, in the subtle clairvoyance which divines the inmost play of passions, the experience that shows human capacity for contradiction, and the indulgence that is merciful because it understands. shakespeare lived three hundred years ago. according to the records, his father, in fifteen hundred sixty-three, owned a certain house in henley street, stratford-on-avon. hence we infer that william shakespeare was born there. and in all our knowledge of shakespeare's early life (or later) we prefix the words, "hence we infer." that the man knew all the sciences of his day, and had such a knowledge of each of the learned professions that all have claimed him as their own, we realize. he evidently was acquainted with five different languages, and the range of his intellect was worldwide; but where did he get this vast erudition? we do not know, and we excuse ourselves by saying that he lived three hundred years ago. george eliot lived--yesterday, and we know no more about her youthful days than we do of that other child of warwickshire. one biographer tells us that she was born in eighteen hundred nineteen, another in eighteen hundred twenty, and neither state the day; whereas a recent writer in the "pall mall budget" graciously bestows on us the useful information that "william shakespeare was born on the twenty-first day of april, fifteen hundred sixty-three, at fifteen minutes of two on a stormy morning." concise statements of facts are always valuable, but we have none such concerning the early life of george eliot. there is even a shadow over her parentage, for no less an authority than the "american cyclopedia annual," for eighteen hundred eighty, boldly proclaims that she was not a foundling and, moreover, that she was not adopted by a rich retired clergyman who gave her a splendid schooling. then the writer dives into obscurity, but presently reappears and adds that he does not know where she got her education. for all of which we are very grateful. shakespeare left five signatures, each written in a different way, and now there is a goodly crew who spell it "bacon." and likewise we do not know whether it is mary ann evans, mary anne evans or marian evans, for she herself is said to have used each form at various times. william winter--gentle critic, poet, scholar--tells us that the sonnets show a dark spot in shakespeare's moral record. and if i remember rightly, similar things have been hinted at in sewing-circles concerning george eliot. then they each found the dew and sunshine in london that caused the flowers of genius to blossom. the early productions of both were published anonymously, and lastly they both knew how to transmute thought into gold, for they died rich. lady godiva rode through the streets of coventry, but i walked--walked all the way from stratford, by way of warwick (call it warrick, please) and kenilworth castle. i stopped overnight at that quaint and curious little inn just across from the castle entrance. the good landlady gave me the same apartment that was occupied by sir walter scott when he came here and wrote the first chapter of "kenilworth." the little room had pretty, white chintz curtains tied with blue ribbon, and similar stuff draped the mirror. the bed was a big canopy affair--i had to stand on a chair in order to dive off into its feathery depths--everything was very neat and clean, and the dainty linen had a sweet smell of lavender. i took one parting look out through the open window at the ivy-mantled towers of the old castle, which were all sprinkled with silver by the rising moon, and then i fell into gentlest sleep. i dreamed of playing "i-spy" through kenilworth castle with shakespeare, walter scott, mary ann evans and a youth i used to know in boyhood by the name of bill hursey. we chased each other across the drawbridge, through the portcullis, down the slippery stones into the donjon-keep, around the moat, and up the stone steps to the topmost turret of the towers. finally shakespeare was "it," but he got mad and refused to play. walter scott said it was "no fair," and bill hursey thrust out the knuckle of one middle finger in a very threatening way and offered to "do" the boy from stratford. then mary ann rushed in to still the tempest. there's no telling what would have happened had not the landlady just then rapped at my door and asked if i had called. i awoke with a start and with the guilty feeling that i had been shouting in my sleep. i saw it was morning. "no--that is, yes; my shaving-water, please." after breakfast the landlady's boy offered for five shillings to take me in his donkey-cart to the birthplace of george eliot. he explained that the house was just seven miles north; but baalam's express is always slow, so i concluded to walk. at coventry a cab-owner proposed to show me the house, which he declared was near kenilworth, for twelve shillings. the advantages of seeing kenilworth at the same time were dwelt upon at great length by cabby, but i harkened not to the voice of the siren. i got a good lunch at the hotel, and asked the innkeeper if he could tell me where george eliot was born. he did not know, but said he could show me a house around the corner where a family of eliots lived. then i walked on to nuneaton. a charming walk it was; past quaint old houses, some with straw-thatched roofs, others tile--roses clambering over the doors and flowering hedgerows white with hawthorn-flowers. occasionally, i met a farmer's cart drawn by one of those great, fat, gentle shire horses that george eliot has described so well. all spoke of peace and plenty, quiet and rest. the green fields and the flowers, the lark-song and the sunshine, the dipping willows by the stream, and the arch of the old stone bridge as i approached the village--all these i had seen and known and felt before from "mill on the floss." i found the house where they say the novelist was born. a plain, whitewashed, stone structure, built two hundred years ago; two stories, the upper chambers low, with gable-windows; a little garden at the side bright with flowers, where sweet marjoram vied with onions and beets; all spoke of humble thrift and homely cares. in front was a great chestnut-tree, and in the roadway near were two ancient elms where saucy crows were building a nest. here, after her mother died, mary ann evans was housekeeper. little more than a child--tall, timid, and far from strong--she cooked and scrubbed and washed, and was herself the mother to brothers and sisters. her father was a carpenter by trade and agent for a rich landowner. he was a stern man--orderly, earnest, industrious, studious. on rides about the country he would take the tall, hollow-eyed girl with him, and at such times he would talk to her of the great outside world where wondrous things were done. the child toiled hard, but found time to read and question--and there is always time to think. soon she had outgrown some of her good father's beliefs, and this grieved him greatly; so much, indeed, that her extra-loving attention to his needs, in a hope to neutralize his displeasure, only irritated him the more. and if there is soft, subdued sadness in much of george eliot's writing we can guess the reason. the onward and upward march ever means sad separation. when mary ann was blossoming into womanhood her father moved over near coventry, and here the ambitious girl first found companionship in her intellectual desires. here she met men and women, older than herself, who were animated, earnest thinkers. they read and then they discussed, and then they spoke the things that they felt were true. those eight years at coventry transformed the awkward country girl into a woman of intellect and purpose. she knew somewhat of all sciences, all philosophies, and she had become a proficient scholar in german and french. how did she acquire this knowledge? how is any education acquired if not through effort prompted by desire? she had already translated strauss's "life of jesus" in a manner that was acceptable to the author. when ralph waldo emerson came to coventry to lecture, he was entertained at the same house where miss evans was stopping. her brilliant conversation pleased him, and when she questioned the wisdom of a certain passage in one of his essays the gentle philosopher turned, smiled, and said that he had not seen it in that light before; perhaps she was right. "what is your favorite book?" asked emerson. "rousseau's 'confessions,'" answered mary instantly. it was emerson's favorite, too; but such honesty from a young woman! it was queer. mr. emerson never forgot miss evans of coventry, and ten years after, when a zealous reviewer proclaimed her the greatest novelist in england, the sage of concord said something that sounded like "i told you so." miss evans had made visits to london from time to time with her coventry friends. when twenty-eight years old, after one such visit to london, she came back to the country tired and weary, and wrote this most womanly wish: "my only ardent desire is to find some feminine task to discharge; some possibility of devoting myself to some one and making that one purely and calmly happy." but now her father was dead and her income was very scanty. she did translating, and tried the magazines with articles that generally came back respectfully declined. then an offer came as sub-editor of the "westminster review." it was steady work and plenty of it, and this was what she desired. she went to london and lived in the household of her employer, mr. chapman. here she had the opportunity of meeting many brilliant people: carlyle and his "jeannie welsh," the martineaus, grote, mr. and mrs. mill, huxley, mazzini, louis blanc. besides these were two young men who must not be left out when we sum up the influences that evolved this woman's genius. she was attracted to herbert spencer at once. he was about her age, and their admiration for each other was mutual. miss evans, writing to a friend in eighteen hundred fifty-two, says, "spencer is kind, he is delightful, and i always feel better after being with him, and we have agreed together that there is no reason why we should not see each other as often as we wish." and then later she again writes: "the bright side of my life, after the affection for my old friends, is the new and delightful friendship which i have found in herbert spencer. we see each other every day, and in everything we enjoy a delightful comradeship. if it were not for him my life would be singularly arid." but about this time another man appeared on the scene, and were it not for this other man, who was introduced to miss evans by spencer, the author of "synthetic philosophy" might not now be spoken of in the biographical dictionaries as having been "wedded to science." it was not love at first sight, for george henry lewes made a decidedly unfavorable impression on miss evans at their first meeting. he was small, his features were insignificant, he had whiskers like an anarchist and a mouthful of crooked teeth; his personal habits were far from pleasant. it was this sort of thing, dickens said, that caused his first wife to desert him and finally drove her into insanity. but lewes had a brilliant mind. he was a linguist, a scientist, a novelist, a poet and a wit. he had written biography, philosophy and a play. he had been a journalist, a lecturer and even an actor. thackeray declared that if he should see lewes perched on a white elephant in piccadilly he should not be in the least surprised. after having met miss evans several times, mr. lewes saw the calm depths of her mind and he asked her to correct proofs for him. she did so and discovered that there was merit in his work. she corrected more proofs, and when a woman begins to assist a man the danger-line is being approached. close observers noted that a change was coming over the bohemian lewes. he had his whiskers trimmed, his hair was combed, and the bright yellow necktie had been discarded for a clean one of modest brown, and, sometimes, his boots were blacked. in july, eighteen hundred fifty-four, mr. chapman received a letter from his sub-editor resigning her position, and miss evans notified some of her closest friends that hereafter she wished to be considered the wife of mr. lewes. she was then in her thirty-sixth year. the couple disappeared, having gone to germany. many people were shocked. some said, "we knew it all the time," and when herbert spencer was informed of the fact he exclaimed, "goodness me!" and said--nothing. after six months spent at weimar and other literary centers, mr. and mrs. lewes returned to england and began housekeeping at richmond. any one who views their old quarters there will see how very plainly and economically they were forced to live. but they worked hard, and at this time the future novelist's desire seemed only to assist her husband. that she developed the manly side of his nature none can deny. they were very happy, these two, as they wrote, and copied, and studied, and toiled. three years passed, and mrs. lewes wrote to a friend: "i am very happy; happy with the greatest happiness that life can give--the complete sympathy and affection of a man whose mind stimulates mine and keeps up in me a wholesome activity." mr. lewes knew the greatness of his helpmeet. she herself did not. he urged her to write a story; she hesitated, and at last attempted it. they read the first chapter together and cried over it. then she wrote more and always read her husband the chapters as they were turned off. he corrected, encouraged, and found a publisher. but why should i tell about it here? it's all in the "britannica"--how the gentle beauty and sympathetic insight of her work touched the hearts of great and lowly alike, and of how riches began flowing in upon her. for one book she received forty thousand dollars, and her income after fortune smiled upon her was never less than ten thousand dollars a year. lewes was her secretary, her protector, her slave and her inspiration. he kept at bay the public that would steal her time, and put out of her reach, at her request, all reviews, good or bad, and shielded her from the interviewer, the curiosity-seeker, and the greedy financier. the reason why she at first wrote under a nom de plume is plain. to the great, wallowing world she was neither miss evans nor mrs. lewes, so she dropped both names as far as title-pages were concerned and used a man's name instead--hoping better to elude the pack. when "adam bede" came out, a resident of nuneaton purchased a copy and at once discovered local earmarks. the scenes described, the flowers, the stone walls, the bridges, the barns, the people--all was nuneaton. who wrote it? no one knew, but it was surely some one in nuneaton. so they picked out a mr. liggins, a solemn-faced preacher, who was always about to do something great, and they said "liggins." soon all london said "liggins." as for liggins, he looked wise and smiled knowingly. then articles began to appear in the periodicals purporting to have been written by the author of "adam bede." a book came out called "adam bede, jr.," and to protect her publisher, the public and herself, george eliot had to reveal her identity. many men have written good books and never tasted fame; but few, like liggins of nuneaton, have become famous by doing nothing. it only proves that some things can be done as well as others. this breed of men has long dwelt in warwickshire; shakespeare had them in mind when he wrote, "there be men who do a wilful stillness entertain with purpose to be dressed in an opinion of wisdom, gravity and profound conceit." lord acton in an able article in the "nineteenth century" makes this statement: "george eliot paid high for happiness with lewes. she forfeited freedom of speech, the first place among english women, and a tomb in westminster abbey." the original dedication in "adam bede" reads thus: "to my dear husband, george henry lewes, i give the manuscript of a work which would never have been written but for the happiness which his love has conferred on my life." lord acton of course assumes that this book would have been written, dedication and all, just the same had miss evans never met mr. lewes. once there was a child called romola. she said to her father one day, as she sat on his knee: "papa, who would take care of me--give me my bath and put me to bed nights--if you had never happened to meet mamma?" * * * * * the days i spent in warwickshire were very pleasant. the serene beauty of the country and the kindly courtesy of the people impressed me greatly. having beheld the scenes of george eliot's childhood, i desired to view the place where her last days were spent. it was a fine may day when i took the little steamer from london bridge for chelsea. a bird-call from the dingy brick building where turner died, and two blocks from the old home of carlyle, is cheyne walk--a broad avenue facing the river. the houses are old, but they have a look of gracious gentility that speaks of ease and plenty. high iron fences are in front, but they do not shut off from view the climbing clematis and clusters of roses that gather over the windows and doors. i stood at the gate of number cheyne walk and admired the pretty flowers, planted in such artistic carelessness as to beds and rows; then i rang the bell--an old pull-out affair with polished knob. presently a butler opened the door--a pompous, tall and awful butler in serious black and with side-whiskers. he approached; came down the walk swinging a bunch of keys, looking me over as he came, to see what sort of wares i had to sell. "did george eliot live here?" i asked through the bars. "mrs. cross lived 'ere and died 'ere, sir," came the solemn and rebuking answer. "i mean mrs. cross," i added meekly; "i only wished to see the little garden where she worked." jeemes was softened. as he unlocked the gate he said: "we 'ave many wisiters, sir; a great bother, sir; still, i always knows a gentleman when i sees one. p'r'aps you would like to see the 'ouse, too, sir. the missus does not like it much, but i will take 'er your card, sir." i gave him the card and slipped a shilling into his hand as he gave me a seat in the hallway. he disappeared upstairs and soon returned with the pleasing information that i was to be shown the whole house and garden. so i pardoned him the myth about the missus, happening to know that at that particular moment she was at brighton, sixty miles away. a goodly, comfortable house, four stories, well kept, and much fine old carved oak in the dining-room and hallways; fantastic ancient balusters, and a peculiar bay window in the second-story rear that looked out over the little garden. off to the north could be seen the green of kensington gardens and wavy suggestions of hyde park. this was george eliot's workshop. there was a table in the center of the room and three low bookcases with pretty ornaments above. in the bay window was the most conspicuous object in the room--a fine marble bust of goethe. this, i was assured, had been the property of mrs. cross, as well as all the books and furniture in the room. in one corner was a revolving case containing a set of the "century dictionary" which jeemes assured me had been purchased by mr. cross as a present for his wife a short time before she died. this caused my faith to waver a trifle and put to flight a fine bit of literary frenzy that might have found form soon in a sonnet. in the front parlor, i saw a portrait of the former occupant that showed "the face that looked like a horse." but that is better than to have the face of any other animal of which i know. surely one would not want to look like a dog! shakespeare hated dogs, but spoke forty-eight times in his plays in terms of respect and affection for a horse. who would not resent the imputation that one's face was like that of a sheep or a goat or an ox, and much gore has been shed because men have referred to other men as asses--but a horse! god bless you, yes! no one has ever accused george eliot of being handsome, but this portrait tells of a woman of fifty: calm, gentle, and the strong features speak of a soul in which to confide. at highgate, by the side of the grave of lewes, rests the dust of this great and loving woman. as the pilgrim enters that famous old cemetery, the first imposing monument seen is a pyramid of rare, costly porphyry. as you draw near, you read this inscription: to the memory of ann jewson crisp who departed this life deeply lamented, jan. , . also, her dog, emperor. beneath these tender lines is a bas-relief of as vicious-looking a cur as ever evaded the dog-tax. continuing up the avenue, past this monument just noted, the kind old gardener will show you another that stands amid others much more pretentious--a small gray-granite column, and on it, carved in small letters, you read: "of those immortal dead who live again in minds made better by their presence." here rests the body of "george eliot" (mary ann cross) born november, . died december, . thomas carlyle one comfort is that great men taken up in any way are profitable company. we can not look, however imperfectly, upon a great man without gaining something by it. he is the living fountain of life, which it is pleasant to be near. on any terms whatsoever you will not grudge to wander in his neighborhood for a while. --_heroes and hero-worship_ [illustration: thomas carlyle] while on my way to dumfries i stopped overnight at gretna green, which, as all fair maidens know, is in scotland just over the border from england. to my delight i found that the coming of runaway couples to gretna green was not entirely a matter of the past, for the very evening i arrived a blushing pair came to the inn and inquired for a "meenister." the ladye faire was a little stout and the worthy swain several years older than my fancy might have wished, but still i did not complain. the landlord's boy was dispatched to the rectory around the corner and soon returned with the reverend gentleman. i was an uninvited guest in the little parlor, but no one observed that my wedding-garment was only a cycling costume, and i was not challenged. after the ceremony, the several other witnesses filed past the happy couple, congratulating them and kissing the bride. i did likewise, and was greeted with a resounding smack which surprised me a bit, but i managed to ask, "did you run away?" "noo," said the groom; "noo, her was a widdie--we just coom over fram ecclefechan"; then, lowering his voice to a confidential whisper, "we're goin' baack on the morrow. it's cheaper thaan to ha' a big, spread weddin'." this answer banished all tender sentiment from me and made useless my plans for a dainty love-story, but i seized upon the name of the place whence they came. "ecclefechan! ecclefechan! why that's where carlyle was born!" "aye, sir, and he's buried there; a great mon he was--but an infideel." ten miles beyond gretna green is ecclefechan--a little village of stucco houses all stretched out on one street. plain, homely, rocky and unromantic is the country round about, and plain, homely and unromantic is the little house where carlyle was born. the place is shown the visitor by a good old dame who takes one from room to room, giving a little lecture meanwhile in a mixture of gaelic and english which was quite beyond my ken. several relics of interest are shown, and although the house is almost precisely like all others in the vicinity, imagination throws round it all a roseate wreath of fancies. it has been left on record that up to the year when carlyle was married, his "most pleasurable times were those when he enjoyed a quiet pipe with his mother." to few men indeed is this felicity vouchsafed. but for those who have eaten oatmeal porridge in the wayside cottages of bonny scotland, or who love to linger over "the cotter's saturday night," there is a touch of tender pathos in the picture. the stone floor, the bare, whitewashed walls, the peat smoldering on the hearth, sending out long, fitful streaks that dance among the rafters overhead, and the mother and son sitting there watching the coal--silent. the woman takes a small twig from a bundle of sticks, reaches over, lights it, applies it to her pipe, takes a few whiffs and passes the light to her son. then they talk in low, earnest tones of man's duty to man and man's duty to god. and it was this mother who first applied the spark that fired carlyle's ambition; it was from her that he got the germ of those talents which have made his name illustrious. yet this woman could barely read and did not learn to write until her firstborn had gone away from the home nest. then it was that she sharpened a gray goose-quill and labored long and patiently, practising with this instrument (said to be mightier than the sword) and with ink she herself had mixed--all that she might write a letter to her boy; and how sweetly, tenderly homely, and loving are these letters as we read them today! james carlyle with his own hands built, in seventeen hundred ninety, this house at ecclefechan. the same year he married an excellent woman, a second cousin, by name janet carlyle. she lived but a year. the poor husband was heartbroken, and declared, as many men under like conditions had done before and have done since, that his sorrow was inconsolable. and he vowed that he would walk through life and down to his death alone. but it is a matter for congratulation that he broke his vow. in two years he married margaret aitken--a serving-woman. she bore nine children. thomas was the eldest and the only one who proved recreant to the religious faith of his fathers. one of the brothers moved to shiawassee county, michigan, where i had the pleasure of calling on him, some years ago. a hard-headed man, he was: sensible, earnest, honest, with a stubby beard and a rich brogue. he held the office of school trustee, also that of pound-master, and i was told that he served his township loyally and well. this worthy man looked with small favor on the literary pretensions of his brother tammas, and twice wrote him long letters expostulating with him on his religious vagaries. "i knew no good could come of it," sorrowfully said he, and so i left him. but i inquired of several of the neighbors what they thought of thomas carlyle, and i found that they did not think of him at all. and i mounted my beast and rode away. thomas carlyle was educated for the kirk, and it was a cause of much sorrow to his parents that he could not accept its beliefs. he has been spoken of as england's chief philosopher, yet he subscribed to no creed, nor did he formulate one. however, in "latter-day pamphlets" he partially prepares a catechism for a part of the brute creation. he supposes that all swine of superior logical powers have a "belief," and as they are unable to express it he essays the task for them. the following are a few of the postulates in this creed of the brotherhood of latter-day swine: "question. who made the pig? "answer. the pork-butcher. "question. what is the whole duty of pigs? "answer. it is the mission of universal pighood; and the duty of all pigs, at all times, is to diminish the quantity of attainable swill and increase the unattainable. this is the whole duty of pigs. "question. what is pig poetry? "answer. it is the universal recognition of pig's wash and ground barley, and the felicity of pigs whose trough has been set in order and who have enough. "question, what is justice in pigdom? "answer. it is the sentiment in pig nature sometimes called revenge, indignation, etc., which if one pig provoke, another comes out in more or less destructive manner; hence laws are necessary--amazing quantities of laws--defining what pigs shall not do. "question. what do you mean by equity? "answer. equity consists in getting your share from the universal swine-trough, and part of another's. "question. what is meant by 'your share'?" "answer. my share is getting whatever i can contrive to seize without being made up into side-meat." i have slightly abridged this little extract and inserted it here to show the sympathy which mr. carlyle had for the dumb brute. one of america's great men, in a speech delivered not long ago, said, "from scotch manners, scotch religion and scotch whisky, good lord deliver us!" my experience with these three articles has been somewhat limited; but scotch manners remind me of chestnut-burs--not handsome without, but good within. for when you have gotten beyond the rough exterior of sandy you generally find a heart warm, tender and generous. scotch religion is only another chestnut-bur, but then you need not eat the shuck if you fear it will not agree with your inward state. nevertheless, if the example of royalty is of value, the fact can be stated that victoria, queen of great britain and empress of india, is a presbyterian. that is, she is a presbyterian about one-half the time--when she is in scotland, for she is the head of the scottish kirk. when in england, of course she is an episcopalian. we have often been told that religion is largely a matter of geography, and here is a bit of something that looks like proof. of scotch whisky i am not competent to speak, so that subject must be left to the experts. but a kentucky colonel at my elbow declares that it can not be compared with the blue-grass article; though i trust that no one will be prejudiced against it on that account. scotch intellect, however, is worthy of our serious consideration. it is a bold, rocky headland, standing out into the tossing sea of the unknown. assertive? yes. stubborn? most surely. proud? by all means. twice as many pilgrims visit the grave of burns as that of shakespeare. buckle declares adam smith's "wealth of nations" has had a greater influence on civilization than any other book ever writ--save none; and the average scotchman knows his carlyle a deal better than the average american knows his emerson: in fact, four times as many of carlyle's books have been printed. when carlyle took time to bring the ponderous machinery of his intellect to bear on a theme, he saw it through and through. the vividness of his imagination gives us a true insight into times long since gone by; it shows virtue her own feature, vice her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. in history he goes beyond the political and conventional--showing us the thought, the hope, the fear, the passion of the soul. his was the masculine mind. the divination and subtle intuitions which are to be found scattered through his pages, like violets growing among the rank swale of the prairies--all these sweet, odorous things came from his wife. she gave him of her best thought, and he greedily absorbed it and unconsciously wrote it down as his own. there are those who blame and berate; volumes have been written to show the inconsiderateness of this man toward the gentle lady who was his intellectual comrade. but they know not life who do this thing. it is a fact that carlyle never rushed to pick up jeannie's handkerchief. i admit that he could not bow gracefully; that he could not sing tenor, nor waltz, nor tell funny stories, nor play the mandolin; and if i had been his neighbor i would not have attempted to teach him any of these accomplishments. once he took his wife to the theater; and after the performance he accidentally became separated from her in the crowd and trudged off home alone and went to bed forgetting all about her---but even for this i do not indict him. mrs. carlyle never upbraided him for this forgetfulness, neither did she relate the incident to any one, and for these things i to her now reverently lift my hat. jeannie welsh carlyle had capacity for pain, as it seems all great souls have. she suffered--but then suffering is not all suffering and pain is not all pain. life is often dark, but then there are rifts in the clouds when we behold the glorious deep blue of the sky. not a day passes but that the birds sing in the branches, and the tree-tops poise backward and forward in restful, rhythmic harmony, and never an hour goes by but that hope bears us up on her wings as the eagle does her young. and ever just before the year dies and the frost comes, the leaves take on a gorgeous hue and the color of the flowers then puts to shame for brilliancy all the plainer petals of springtime. and i know mr. and mrs. carlyle were happy, so happy, at times, that they laughed and cried for joy. jeannie gave all, and she saw her best thought used--carried further, written out and given to the world as that of another--but she uttered no protest. xantippe lives in history only because she sought to worry a great philosopher; we remember the daughter of herodias because she demanded the head (not the heart) of a good man; goneril and regan because they trod upon the withered soul of their sire; lady macbeth because she lured her liege to murder; charlotte corday for her dagger-thrust; lucrezia borgia for her poison; sapphira for her untruth; jael because she pierced the brain of sisera with a rusty nail (instead of an idea); delilah for the reason that she deprived samson of his source of strength; and in the "westminster review" for may, eighteen hundred ninety-four, ouida makes the flat statement that for every man of genius who has been helped by a woman, ten have been dragged down. but jeannie welsh carlyle lives in the hearts of all who reverence the sweet, the gentle, the patient, the earnest, the loving spirit of the womanly woman: lives because she ministered to the needs of a great man. she was ever a frail body. several long illnesses kept her to her bed for weeks, but she recovered from these, even in spite of the doctors, who thoroughly impressed both herself and her husband with the thought of her frailty. on april the twenty-first, eighteen hundred sixty-six, she called her carriage, as was her custom, and directed the driver to go through the park. she carried a book in her hands, and smiled a greeting to a friend as the brougham moved away from the little street where they lived. the driver drove slowly--drove for an hour--two. he got down from his box to receive the orders of his mistress, touched his hat as he opened the carriage-door, but no kindly eyes looked into his. she sat back in the corner as if resting; the shapely head a little thrown forward, the book held gently in the delicate hands, but the fingers were cold and stiff--jeannie welsh was dead--and thomas carlyle was alone. * * * * * along the thames, at chelsea, opposite the rows of quiet and well-kept houses of cheyne walk, is the "embankment." a parkway it is of narrow green, with graveled walks, bushes and trees, that here and there grow lush and lusty as if to hide the unsightly river from the good people who live across the street. following this pleasant bit of breathing space, with its walks that wind in and out among the bushes, one comes unexpectedly upon a bronze statue. you need not read the inscription: a glance at that shaggy head, the grave, sober, earnest look, and you exclaim under your breath, "carlyle!" in this statue the artist has caught with rare skill the look of reverie and repose. one can imagine that on a certain night, as the mists and shadows of evening were gathering along the dark river, the gaunt form, wrapped in its accustomed cloak, came stalking down the little street to the park, just as he did thousands of times, and taking his seat in the big chair fell asleep. in the morning the children that came to play along the river found the form in cold, enduring bronze. at the play we have seen the marble transformed by love into beauteous life. how much easier the reverse--here where souls stay only a day! cheyne row is a little, alley-like street, running only a block, with fifteen houses on one side, and twelve on the other. these houses are all brick and built right up to the sidewalk. on the north side they are all in one block, and one at first sees no touch of individuality in any of them. they are old, and solid, and plain--built for revenue only. on closer view i thought one or two had been painted, and on one there was a cornice that set it off from the rest. as i stood on the opposite side and looked at this row of houses, i observed that number five was the dingiest and plainest of them all. for there were dark shutters instead of blinds, and these shutters were closed, all save one rebel that swung and creaked in the breeze. over the doorway, sparrows had made their nests and were fighting and scolding. swallows hovered above the chimney; dust, cobwebs, neglect were all about. and as i looked there came to me the words of ursa thomas: "brief, brawling day, with its noisy phantoms, its paper crowns, tinsel-gilt, is gone; and divine, everlasting night, with her star diadems, with her silences and her verities, is come." here walked thomas and jeannie one fair may morning in eighteen hundred thirty-four. thomas was thirty-nine, tall and swarthy, strong; with set mouth and three wrinkles on his forehead that told of care and dyspepsia. jeannie was younger; her face winsome, just a trifle anxious, with luminous, gentle eyes, suggestive of patience, truth and loyalty. they looked like country folks, did these two. they examined the surroundings, consulted together--sixty pounds rent a year seemed very high! but they took the house, and t. carlyle, son of james carlyle, stone-mason, paid rent for it every month for half a century, lacking three years. i walked across the street and read the inscription on the marble tablet inserted in the front of the house above the lower windows. it informs the stranger that thomas carlyle lived here from eighteen hundred thirty-four to eighteen hundred eighty-one, and that the tablet was erected by the carlyle society of london. i ascended the stone steps and scraped my boots on the well-worn scraper, made long, long ago by a blacksmith who is now dust, and who must have been a very awkward mechanic, for i saw where he had made a misstroke with his hammer, probably as he discussed theology with a caller. then i rang the bell and plied the knocker and waited there on the steps for jeannie welsh to come bid me welcome, just as she did emerson when he, too, used the scraper and plied the knocker and stood where i did then. and my knock was answered--answered by a very sour and peevish woman next door, who thrust her head out of the window, and exclaimed in a shrill voice: "look 'ere, sir, you might as well go rap on the curb-stone, don't you know; there's nobody livin' there, sir, don't you know!" "yes, madam, that is why i knocked!" "beggin' your pardon, sir, if you use your heyes you'll see there's nobody livin' there, don't you know!" "i knocked lest offense be given. how can i get in?" "you might go in through the keyhole, sir, or down the chimney. you seem to be a little daft, sir, don't you know! but if you must get in, perhaps it would be as well to go over to mrs. brown's and brang the key," and she slammed down the window. across the street mrs. brown's sign smiled at me. mrs. brown keeps a little grocery and bakeshop and was very willing to show me the house. she fumbled in a black bag for the keys, all the time telling me of three americans who came last week to see carlyle's house, and "as how" they each gave her a shilling. i took the hint. "only americans care now for mr. carlyle," plaintively added the old lady as she fished out the keys; "soon we will all be forgot." we walked across the street and after several ineffectual attempts the rusty lock was made to turn. i entered. cold, bare and bleak was the sight of those empty rooms. the old lady had a touch of rheumatism, so she waited for me on the doorstep as i climbed the stairs to the third floor. the noise-proof back room where "the french revolution" was writ, twice over, was so dark that i had to grope my way across to the window. the sash stuck and seemed to have a will of its own, like him who so often had raised it. but at last it gave way and i flung wide the shutter and looked down at the little arbor where teufelsdrockh sat so often and wooed wisdom with the weed brought from virginia. then i stood before the fireplace, where he of the eternities had so often sat and watched the flickering embers. here he lived in his loneliness and cursed curses that were prayers, and here for near five decades he read and thought and dreamed and wrote. here the spirits of cromwell and frederick hovered; here that pitiful and pitiable long line of ghostly partakers in the revolution answered to his roll-call. the wind whistled down the chimney gruesomely as my footfalls echoed through the silent chambers, and i thought i heard a sepulchral voice say: "thy future life! thy fate is it, indeed! whilst thou makest that thy chief question, thy life to me and to thyself and to thy god is worthless. what is incredible to thee thou shalt not, at thy soul's peril, pretend to believe. elsewhither for a refuge! away! go to perdition if thou wilt, but not with a lie in thy mouth--by the eternal maker, no!!" i was startled at first, but stood still listening; then i thought i saw a faint blue cloud of mist curling up in the fireplace. watching this smoke and sitting before it in gloomy abstraction was the form of an old man. i swept my hand through the apparition, but still it stayed. my lips moved in spite of myself and i said: "hail! hard-headed man of granite outcrop and heather, of fen and crag, of moor and mountain, and of bleak east wind, hail! eighty-six years didst thou live. one hundred years lacking fourteen didst thou suffer, enjoy, weep, dream, groan, pray and strike thy rugged breast! and yet methinks that in those years there was much quiet peace and sweet content; for constant pain benumbs, and worry destroys, and vain unrest summons the grim messenger of death. but thou didst live and work and love; howbeit, thy touch was not always gentle, nor thy voice low; but on thy lips was no lie, in thy thought no concealment, in thy heart no pollution. but mark! thou didst come out of poverty and obscurity: on thy battered shield there was no crest and thou didst leave all to follow truth. and verily she did lead thee a merry chase! "thou hadst no past, but thou hast a future. thou didst say: 'bury me in westminster, never! where the mob surges, cursed with idle curiosity to see the graves of kings and nobodies? no! take me back to rugged scotland and lay my tired form to rest by the side of an honest man--my father.' "thou didst refuse the knighthood offered thee by royalty, saying, 'i am not the founder of the house of carlyle and i have no sons to be pauperized by a title,' true, thou didst leave no sons after the flesh to mourn thy loss, nor fair daughters to bedeck thy grave with garlands, but thou didst reproduce thyself in thought, and on the minds of men thou didst leave thy impress. and thy ten thousand sons will keep thy memory green so long as men shall work, and toil, and strive, and hope." the wind still howled. i looked out and saw watery clouds scudding athwart the face of the murky sky. the shutters banged, and shut me in the dark. i made haste to find the door, reached the stairway--slid down the banisters to where mrs. brown was waiting for me at the threshold. we locked the door. she went across to her little bakeshop and i stopped a passing policeman to ask the way to westminster. he told me. "did you visit carlyle's 'ouse?" he asked. "yes." "with old mrs. brown?" "yes, she waited for me in the doorway--she had the rheumatism so she could not climb the stairs." "rheumatism? huh!--you couldn't 'ire 'er to go inside. why, don't you know? they say the 'ouse is 'aunted!" john ruskin put roses in their hair, put precious stones on their breasts; see that they are clothed in purple and scarlet, with other delights; that they also learn to read the gilded heraldry of the sky; and upon the earth be taught not only the labors of it but the loveliness. --_deucalion_ [illustration: john ruskin] at windermere, a good friend, told me that i must abandon all hope of seeing mr. ruskin; for i had no special business with him, no letters of introduction, and then the fact that i am an american made it final. americans in england are supposed to pick flowers in private gardens, cut their names on trees, laugh boisterously at trifles, and often to make invidious comparisons. very properly, mr. ruskin does not admire these things. then mr. ruskin is a very busy man. occasionally he issues a printed manifesto to his friends requesting them to give him peace. a copy of one such circular was shown to me. it runs, "mr. j. ruskin is about to begin a work of great importance, and therefore begs that in reference to calls and correspondence you will consider him dead for the next two months." a similar notice is reproduced in "arrows of the chace," and this one thing, i think, illustrates as forcibly as anything in mr. ruskin's work the self-contained characteristics of the man himself. surely if a man is pleased to be considered "dead" occasionally, even to his kinsmen and friends, he should not be expected to receive with open arms an enemy to steal away his time. this is assuming, of course, that all individuals who pick flowers in other folks' gardens, cut their names on trees, and laugh boisterously at trifles, are enemies. i therefore decided that i would simply walk over to brantwood, view it from a distance, tramp over its hills, row across the lake, and at nightfall take a swim in its waters. then i would rest at the inn for a space and go my way. lake coniston is ten miles from grasmere, and even alone the walk is not long. if, however, you are delightfully attended by "king's daughters" with whom you sit and commune now and then on the bankside, the distance will seem to be much less. then there is a pleasant little break in the journey at hawkshead. here one may see the quaint old schoolhouse where wordsworth when a boy dangled his feet from a bench and proved his humanity by carving his initials on the seat. the inn at the head of coniston water appeared very inviting and restful when i saw it that afternoon. built in sections from generation to generation, half-covered with ivy and embowered in climbing roses, it is an institution entirely different from the "grand palace hotel" at oshkosh. in america we have gongs that are fiercely beaten at stated times by gentlemen of color, just as they are supposed to do in their native congo jungles. this din proclaims to the "guests" and to the public at large that it is time to come in and be fed. but this refinement of civilization is not yet in coniston, and the inn is quiet and homelike. you may go to bed when you are tired, get up when you choose, and eat when you are hungry. there were no visitors about when i arrived, and i thought i would have the coffeeroom all to myself at luncheon-time; but presently there came in a pleasant-faced old gentleman in knickerbockers. he bowed to me and then took a place at the table. he said that it was a fine day and i agreed with him, adding that the mountains were very beautiful. he assented, putting in a codicil to the effect that the lake was very pretty. then the waiter came for our orders. "together, i s'pose?" remarked thomas, inquiringly, as he halted at the door and balanced the tray on his finger-tips. "yes, serve lunch for us together," said the ruddy old gentleman as he looked at me and smiled; "to eat alone is bad for the digestion." i nodded assent. "can you tell me how far it is to brantwood?" i asked. "oh, not far--just across the lake." he arose and flung the shutter open so i could see the old, yellow house about a mile across the water, nestling in its wealth of green on the hillside. soon the waiter brought our lunch, and while we discussed the chops and new potatoes we talked ruskiniana. the old gentleman knew a deal more of "stones of venice" and "modern painters" than i; but i told him how thoreau introduced ruskin to america and how concord was the first place in the new world to recognize this star in the east. and upon my saying this, the old gentleman brought his knife-handle down on the table, declaring that thoreau and whitman were the only two men of genius that america had produced. i begged him to make it three and include emerson, which he finally consented to do. by and by the waiter cleared the table preparatory to bringing in the coffee. the old gentleman pushed his chair back, took the napkin from under his double chin, brushed the crumbs from his goodly front, and remarked: "i'm going over to brantwood this afternoon to call on mr. ruskin--just to pay my respects to him, as i always do when i come here. can't you go with me?" i think this was about the most pleasing question i ever had asked me. i was going to request him to "come again" just for the joy of hearing the words, but i pulled my dignity together, straightened up, swallowed my coffee red-hot, pushed my chair back, flourished my napkin, and said, "i shall be very pleased to go." so we went--we two--he in his knickerbockers and i in my checks and outing-shirt. i congratulated myself on looking no worse than he, and as for him, he never seemed to think that our costumes were not exactly what they should be; and after all it matters little how you dress when you call on one of nature's noblemen--they demand no livery. we walked around the northern end of coniston water, along the eastern edge, past tent house, where tennyson once lived (and found it "outrageous quiet"), and a mile farther on we came to brantwood. the road curves in to the back of the house--which, by the way, is the front--and the driveway is lined with great trees that form a complete archway. there is no lodge-keeper, no flowerbeds laid out with square and compass, no trees trimmed to appear like elephants, no cast-iron dogs, nor terra-cotta deer, and, strangest of all, no sign of the lawn-mower. there is nothing, in fact, to give forth a sign that the great apostle of beauty lives in this very old-fashioned spot. big boulders are to be seen here and there where nature left them, tangles of vines running over old stumps, part of the meadow cut close with a scythe, and part growing up as if the owner knew the price of hay. then there are flowerbeds, where grow clusters of poppies and hollyhocks (purple, and scarlet, and white), prosaic gooseberry-bushes, plain yankee pieplant (from which the english make tarts), rue and sweet marjoram, with patches of fennel, sage, thyme and catnip, all lined off with boxwood, making me think of my grandmother's garden at roxbury. on the hillside above the garden we saw the entrance to the cave that mr. ruskin once filled with ice, just to show the world how to keep its head cool at small expense. he even wrote a letter to the papers giving the bright idea to humanity--that the way to utilize caves was to fill them with ice. then he forgot all about the matter. but the following june, when the cook, wishing to make some ice-cream as a glad surprise for the sunday dinner, opened the natural ice-chest, she found only a pool of muddy water, and exclaimed, "botheration!" then they had custard instead of ice-cream. we walked up the steps, and my friend let the brass knocker drop just once, for only americans give a rat-a-tat-tat, and the door was opened by a white-whiskered butler, who took our cards and ushered us into the library. my heart beat a trifle fast as i took inventory of the room; for i never before had called on a man who was believed to have refused the poet-laureateship. a dimly lighted room was this library--walls painted brown, running up to mellow yellow at the ceiling, high bookshelves, with a stepladder, and only five pictures on the walls, and of these three were etchings, and two water-colors of a very simple sort; leather-covered chairs; a long table in the center, on which were strewn sundry magazines and papers, also several photographs; and at one end of the room a big fireplace, where a yew log smoldered. here my inventory was cut short by a cheery voice behind: "ah! now, gentlemen, i am glad to see you." there was no time nor necessity for a formal introduction. the great man took my hand as if he had always known me, as perhaps he thought he had. then he greeted my friend in the same way, stirred up the fire, for it was a north of england summer day, and took a seat by the table. we were all silent for a space--a silence without embarrassment. "you are looking at the etching over the fireplace--it was sent to me by a young lady in america," said mr. ruskin, "and i placed it there to get acquainted with it. i like it more and more. do you know the scene?" i knew the scene and explained somewhat about it. mr. ruskin has the faculty of making his interviewer do most of the talking. he is a rare listener, and leans forward, putting a hand behind his right ear to get each word you say. he was particularly interested in the industrial conditions of america, and i soon found myself "occupying the time," while an occasional word of interrogation from mr. ruskin gave me no chance to stop. i came to hear him, not to defend our "republican experiment," as he was pleased to call the united states of america. yet mr. ruskin was so gentle and respectful in his manner, and so complimentary in his attitude of listener, that my impatience at his want of sympathy for our "experiment" only caused me to feel a little heated. "the fact of women being elected to mayoralties in kansas makes me think of certain african tribes that exalt their women into warriors--you want your women to fight your political battles!" "you evidently hold the same opinion on the subject of equal rights that you expressed some years ago," interposed my companion. "what did i say--really i have forgotten?" "you replied to a correspondent, saying: 'you are certainly right as to my views respecting the female franchise. so far from wishing to give votes to women, i would fain take them away from most men.'" "surely that was a sensible answer. my respect for woman is too great to force on her increased responsibilities. then as for restricting the franchise with men, i am of the firm conviction that no man should be allowed to vote who does not own property, or who can not do considerably more than read and write. the voter makes the laws, and why should the laws regulating the holding of property be made by a man who has no interest in property beyond a covetous desire; or why should he legislate on education when he possesses none! then again, women do not bear arms to protect the state." "but what do you say to mrs. carlock, who answers that inasmuch as men do not bear children, they have no right to vote: going to war possibly being necessary and possibly not, but the perpetuity of the state demanding that some one bear children?" "the lady's argument is ingenious, but lacks force when we consider that the bearing of arms is a matter relating to statecraft, while the baby question is dame nature's own, and is not to be regulated even by the sovereign." then mr. ruskin talked for nearly fifteen minutes on the duty of the state to the individual--talked very deliberately, but with the clearness and force of a man who believes what he says and says what he believes. thus, my friend, by a gentle thrust under the fifth rib of mr. ruskin's logic, caused him to come to the rescue of his previously expressed opinions, and we had the satisfaction of hearing him discourse earnestly and eloquently. maiden ladies usually have an opinion ready on the subject of masculine methods, and, conversely, much of the world's logic on the "woman question" has come from the bachelor brain. mr. ruskin went quite out of his way on several occasions in times past to attack john stuart mill for heresy "in opening up careers for women other than that of wife and mother." when mill did not answer mr. ruskin's newspaper letters, the author of "sesame and lilies" called him a "cretinous wretch" and referred to him as "the man of no imagination." mr. mill may have been a cretinous wretch (i do not exactly understand the phrase), but the preface to "on liberty" is at once the tenderest, highest and most sincere compliment paid to a woman, of which i know. the life of mr. and mrs. john stuart mill shows that perfect mating is possible; yet mr. ruskin has only scorn for the opinions of mr. mill on a subject which mill came as near personally solving in a matrimonial "experiment" as any other public man of modern times, not excepting even robert browning. therefore we might suppose mr. mill entitled to speak on the woman question, and i intimated as much to mr. ruskin. "he might know all about one woman, and if he should regard her as a sample of all womankind, would he not make a great mistake?" i was silenced. in "fors clavigera," letter lix, the author says: "i never wrote a letter in my life which all the world is not welcome to read." from this one might imagine that mr. ruskin never loved--no pressed flowers in books; no passages of poetry double-marked and scored; no bundles of letters faded and yellow, sacred for his own eye, tied with white or dainty blue ribbon; no little nothings hidden away in the bottom of a trunk. and yet mr. ruskin has his ideas on the woman question, and very positive ideas they are too--often sweetly sympathetic and wisely helpful. i see that one of the encyclopedias mentions ruskin as a bachelor, which is giving rather an extended meaning to the word, for although mr. ruskin married, he was not mated. according to collingwood's account, this marriage was a quiet arrangement between parents. anyway, the genius is like the profligate in this: when he marries he generally makes a woman miserable. and misery is reactionary as well as infectious. ruskin is a genius. genius is unique. no satisfactory analysis of it has yet been given. we know a few of its indications--that's all. first among these is ability to concentrate. no seed can sow genius; no soil can grow it: its quality is inborn and defies both cultivation and extermination. to be surpassed is never pleasant; to feel your inferiority is to feel a pang. seldom is there a person great enough to find satisfaction in the success of a friend. the pleasure that excellence gives is oft tainted by resentment; and so the woman who marries a genius is usually unhappy. genius is excess: it is obstructive to little plans. it is difficult to warm yourself at a conflagration; the tempest may blow you away; the sun dazzles; lightning seldom strikes gently; the nile overflows. genius has its times of straying off into the infinite--and then what is the good wife to do for companionship? does she protest, and find fault? it could not be otherwise, for genius is dictatorial without knowing it, obstructive without wishing to be, intolerant unawares, and unsocial because it can not help it. the wife of a genius sometimes takes his fits of abstraction for stupidity, and having the man's interests at heart she endeavors to arouse him from his lethargy by chiding him. occasionally he arouses enough to chide back; and so it has become an axiom that genius is not domestic. a short period of mismated life told the wife of ruskin their mistake, and she told him. but mrs. grundy was at the keyhole, ready to tell the world, and so mr. and mrs. ruskin sought to deceive society by pretending to live together. they kept up this appearance for six sorrowful years, and then the lady simplified the situation by packing her trunks and deliberately leaving her genius to his chimeras; her soul doubtless softened by the knowledge that she was bestowing a benefit on him by going away. the lady afterwards became the happy wife and helpmeet of a great artist. ruskin's father was a prosperous importer of wines. he left his son a fortune equal to a little more than one million dollars. but that vast fortune has gone---principal and interest--gone in bequests, gifts and experiments; and today mr. ruskin has no income save that derived from the sale of his books. talk about "distribution of wealth"! here we have it. the bread-and-butter question has never troubled john ruskin except in his ever-ardent desire that others should be fed. his days have been given to study and writing from his very boyhood; he has made money, but he has had no time to save it. he has expressed himself on every theme that interests mankind, except perhaps "housemaid's knee." he has written more letters to the newspapers than "old subscriber," "fiat justitia," "indignant reader" and "veritas" combined. his opinions have carried much weight and directed attention into necessary lines; but perhaps his success as an inspirer of thought lies in the fact that his sense of humor exists only as a trace, as the chemist might say. men who perceive the ridiculous would never have voiced many of the things which he has said. surely those sioux indians who stretched a hay lariat across the union pacific railroad in order to stop the running of trains had small sense of the ridiculous. but it looks as if they were apostles of ruskin, every one. some one has said that no man can appreciate the beautiful who has not a keen sense of humor. for the beautiful is the harmonious, and the laughable is the absence of fit adjustment. mr. ruskin disproves the maxim. but let no hasty soul imagine that john ruskin's opinions on practical themes are not useful. he brings to bear an energy on every subject he touches (and what subject has he not touched?) that is sure to make the sparks of thought fly. his independent and fearless attitude awakens from slumber a deal of dozing intellect, and out of this strife of opinion comes truth. on account of mr. ruskin's refusing at times to see visitors, reports have gone abroad that his mind was giving way. not so, for although he is seventy-four he is as serenely stubborn as he ever was. his opposition to new inventions in machinery has not relaxed a single pulley's turn. you grant his premises and in his conclusions you will find that his belt never slips, and that his logic never jumps a cog. his life is as regular and exact as the trains on the great western, and his days are more peaceful than ever before. he has regular hours for writing, study, walking, reading, eating, and working out of doors, superintending the cultivation of his hundred acres. he told me that he had not varied a half-hour in two years from a certain time of going to bed or getting up in the morning. although his form is bowed, this regularity of life has borne fruit in the rich russet of his complexion, the mild, clear eye, and the pleasure in living in spite of occasional pain, which you know the man feels. his hair is thick and nearly white; the beard is now worn quite long and gives a patriarchal appearance to the fine face. when we arose to take our leave, mr. ruskin took a white felt hat from the elk-antlers in the hallway and a stout stick from the corner, and offered to show us a nearer way back to the village. we walked down a footpath through the tall grass to the lake, where he called our attention to various varieties of ferns that he had transplanted there. we shook hands with the old gentleman and thanked him for the pleasure he had given us. he was still examining the ferns when we lifted our hats and bade him good-day. he evidently did not hear us, for i heard him mutter: "i verily believe those miserable cook's tourists that were down here yesterday picked some of my ferns." william e. gladstone as the aloe is said to flower only once in a hundred years, so it seems to be but once in a thousand years that nature blossoms into this unrivaled product and produces such a man as we have here. --_gladstone, "lecture on homer_" [illustration: william e. gladstone] american travelers in england are said to accumulate sometimes large and unique assortments of lisps, drawls and other very peculiar things. of the value of these acquirements as regards their use and beauty, i have not room here to speak. but there is one adjunct which england has that we positively need, and that is "boots." it may be that boots is indigenous to england's soil, and that when transplanted he withers and dies; perhaps there is a quality in our atmosphere that kills him. anyway, we have no boots. when trouble, adversity or bewilderment comes to the homesick traveler in an american hotel, to whom can he turn for consolation? alas, the porter is afraid of the "guest," and all guests are afraid of the clerk, and the proprietor is never seen, and the afro-americans in the dining-room are stupid, and the chambermaid does not answer the ring, and at last the weary wanderer hies him to the barroom and soon discovers that the worthy "barkeep" has nothing to recommend him but his diamond-pin. how different, yes, how different, this would all be if boots were only here! at the quaint old city of chester i was met at the "sti-shun" by the boots of that excellent though modest hotel which stands only a block away. boots picked out my baggage without my looking for it, took me across to the inn, and showed me to the daintiest, most homelike little room i had seen for weeks. on the table was a tastefully decorated "jug," evidently just placed there in anticipation of my arrival, and in this jug was a large bunch of gorgeous roses, the morning dew still on them. when boots had brought me hot water for shaving he disappeared and did not come back until, by the use of telepathy (for boots is always psychic), i had sent him a message that he was needed. in the afternoon he went with me to get a draft cashed, then he identified me at the post-office, and introduced me to a dignitary at the cathedral whose courtesy added greatly to my enjoyment of the visit. the next morning after breakfast, when i returned to my room, everything was put to rights and a fresh bouquet of cut flowers was on the mantel. a good breakfast adds much to one's inward peace: i sat down before the open window and looked out at the great oaks dotting the green meadows that stretched away to the north, and listened to the drowsy tinkle of sheep-bells as the sound came floating in on the perfumed breeze. i was thinking how good it was to be here, when the step of boots was heard in the doorway. i turned and saw that mine own familiar friend had lost a little of his calm self-reliance--in fact, he was a bit agitated, but he soon recovered his breath. "mr. gladstone and 'is lady 'ave just arrived, sir--they will be 'ere for an hour before taking the train for lunnon, sir. i told 'is clark there was a party of americans 'ere that were very anxious to meet 'im, and he will receive you in the parlor in fifteen minutes, sir." then it was my turn to be agitated. but boots reassured me by explaining that the grand old man was just the plainest, most unpretentious gentleman one could imagine; that it was not at all necessary that i should change my suit; that i should pronounce it gladstun, not glad-stone, and that it was harden, not ha-war-den. then he stood me up, looked me over, and declared that i was all right. on going downstairs i found that boots had gotten together five americans who happened to be in the hotel. he introduced us to a bright little man who seemed to be the companion or secretary of the prime minister; he, in turn, took us into the parlor where mr. gladstone sat reading the morning paper, and presented us one by one to the great man. we were each greeted with a pleasant word and a firm grasp of the hand, and then the old gentleman turned and with a courtly flourish said, "gentlemen, allow me to present you to mrs. gladstone." mr. gladstone was wise: he remained standing; this was sure to shorten the interview. a clergyman in our party who had an impressive cough and bushy whiskers, acted as spokesman, and said several pleasant things, closing his little speech by informing mr. gladstone that americans held him in great esteem, and that we only regretted that fate had not decreed that he should have been born in the united states. mr. gladstone replied, "fate is often unkind." then he asked if we were going to london. on being told that we were, he spoke for five minutes about the things we should see in the metropolis. his style was not conversational, but after the manner of a man who was much used to speaking in public or to receiving delegations. the sentences were stately, the voice rather loud and declamatory. his closing words were: "yes, gentlemen, the way to see london is from the top of a 'bus--from the top of a 'bus, gentlemen." then there was an almost imperceptible wave of the hand, and we knew that the interview was ended. in a moment we were outside and the door was closed. the five americans who made up our little company had never met before, but now we were as brothers; we adjourned to a side-room to talk it over and tell of the things we intended to say but didn't. we all talked and talked at once, just as people do who have recently preserved an enforced silence. "how ill-fitting was that gray suit!" "yes, the sleeves too long." "did you notice the absence of the forefinger of his left hand--shot off in eighteen hundred forty-five while hunting, they say." "but how strong his voice is!" "he looks like a farmer." "eighty-five years of age! think of it, and how vigorous!" then the preacher spoke and his voice was sorrowful: "oh, but i made a botch of it--was it sarcasm or was it not?" "was what sarcasm?" "when mr. gladstone said that fate was unkind in not having him born in the united states!" and we were all silent. then boots came in, and we put the question to boots, who decided it was not sarcasm. the next day, when we went away, we rewarded boots bountifully. * * * * * william gladstone is england's glory. yet there is no english blood in his veins; his parents were scotch. aside from lord brougham, he is the only scotchman who has ever taken a prominent part in british statecraft. the name as we first find it is gled-stane, "gled" being a hawk--literally, a hawk that lives among the stones. surely the hawk is fully as respectable a bird as the eagle, and a goodly amount of granite in the clay that is used to make a man is no disadvantage. the name fits. there are deep-rooted theories in the minds of many men (and still more women) that bad boys make good men, and that a dash of the pirate, even in a prelate, does not disqualify. but i wish to come to the defense of the sunday-school story-books and show that their very prominent moral is right after all: it pays to be "good." william ewart gladstone was sent to eton when twelve years of age. from the first, his conduct was a model of propriety. he attended every chapel service, and said his prayers in the morning and before going to bed at night; he could repeat the catechism backwards or forwards, and recite more verses of scripture than any other boy in school. he always spoke the truth. he never played "hookey"; nor, as he grew older, would he tell stories of doubtful flavor, or allow others to relate such in his presence. his influence was for good, and cardinal manning has said that there was less wine drunk at oxford during the forties than would have been the case if gladstone had not been there in the thirties. he graduated from christchurch with the highest possible honors the college could bestow, and at twenty-two he seemed like one who had sprung into life full-armed. at that time he had magnificent health, a fine form, vast and varied knowledge, and a command of language so great that he was a master of forensics. his speeches were fully equal to his later splendid efforts. in feature he was handsome: the face bold and masculine; eyes of piercing luster; and hair, which he tossed when in debate, like a lion's mane. he could speak five languages, sing tenor, dance gracefully, and was on more than speaking terms with many of the best and greatest men in england. besides all this he was rich in british gold. now, here is a combination of good things that would send most young men straight to perdition--not so gladstone. he took the best care of his health, systematized his time as a miser might, listened not to the flatterers, and used his money only for good purposes. his intention was to enter the church, but his father said, "not yet," and half-forced him into politics. so, at this early age of twenty-two, he ran for parliament, was elected, and has practically never been out of the shadow of westminster palace during these sixty-odd years. at thirty-three, he was a member of the cabinet. at thirty-six, his absolute honesty compelled him for conscience' sake to resign from the ministry. his opponents then said, "gladstone is an extinct volcano," and they have said this again and again; but somehow the volcano always breaks out in a new place, stronger and brighter than ever. it is difficult to subdue a volcano. when twenty-nine, he married catherine glynne, sister and heir of sir stephen glynne, baronet. the marriage was most fortunate in every way. for over fifty years this most excellent woman has been his comrade, counselor, consolation, friend--his wife. "how can any adversity come to him who hath a wife?" said chaucer. if this splendid woman had died, then his opponents might truthfully have said, "gladstone is an extinct volcano"; but she is still with him, and a short time ago, when he had to undergo an operation for cataract, this woman of eighty was his only nurse. the influence of gladstone has been of untold value to england. his ideals for national action have been high. to the material prosperity of the country he has added millions upon millions; he has made education popular, and schooling easy; his policy in the main has been such as to command the admiration of the good and great. but there are spots on the sun. on reading mr. gladstone's books i find he has vigorously defended certain measures that seem unworthy of his genius. he has palliated human slavery as a "necessary evil"; has maintained the visibility and divine authority of the church; has asserted the mathematical certainty of the historic episcopate, the mystical efficacy of the sacraments; and has vindicated the church of england as the god-appointed guardian of truth. he has fought bitterly any attempt to improve the divorce-laws of england. much has been done in this line, even in spite of his earnest opposition, but we now owe it to mr. gladstone that there is on england's law-books a statute providing that if a wife leaves her husband he can invoke a magistrate, whose duty it will then be to issue a writ and give it to an officer, who will bring her back. more than this, when the officer has returned the woman, the loving husband has the legal right to "reprove" her. just what reprove means the courts have not yet determined; for, in a recent decision, when a costermonger admitted having given his lady "a taste of the cat," the prisoner was discharged on the ground that it was only needed reproof. i would not complain of this law if it worked both ways; but no wife can demand that the state shall return her "man" willy-nilly. and if she administers reproof to her mate, she does it without the sanction of the sovereign. however, in justice to englishmen, it should be stated that while this unique law still stands on the statute-books, it is very seldom that a man in recent years has stooped to invoke it. on all the questions i have named, from slavery to divorce, mr. gladstone has used the "bible argument." but as the years have gone by, his mind has become liberalized, and on many points where he was before zealous he is now silent. in eighteen hundred forty-one, he argued with much skill and ingenuity that jews were not entitled to full rights of citizenship, but in eighteen hundred forty-seven, acknowledging his error, he took the other side. during the war of secession the sympathies of england's chancellor of the exchequer were with the south. speaking at newcastle on october ninth, eighteen hundred sixty-two, he said, "jefferson davis has undoubtedly founded a new nation." but five years passed, and he publicly confessed that he was wrong. here is a man who, if he should err deeply, is yet so great that, like cotton mather, he might not hesitate to stand uncovered on the street-corners and ask the forgiveness of mankind. such men are saved by their enemies. their own good and the good of humanity require that their balance of power shall not be too great. had the north gone down, gladstone might never have seen his mistake. in this instance and in many others, he has not been the leader of progress, but its echo: truth has been forced upon him. his passionate earnestness, his intense volition, his insensibility to moral perspective, his blindness to the sense of proportion, might have led him into dangerous excess and frightful fanatical error, if it were not for the fact that such men create an opposition that is their salvation. to analyze a character so complex as mr. gladstone's requires the grasp of genius. we speak of "the duality of the human mind," but here are half a dozen spirits in one. they rule in turn, and occasionally several of them struggle for the mastery. when the fisk jubilee singers visited england, we find gladstone dropping the affairs of state to hear their music. he invited them to hawarden, where he sang with them. so impressed was he with the negro melodies that he anticipated that idea which has since been materialized: the founding of a national school of music that would seek to perfect in a scientific way these soul-stirring strains. he might have made a poet of no mean order; for his devotion to spiritual and physical beauty has made him a lifelong admirer of homer and dante. those who have met him when the mood was upon him have heard him recite by the hour from the "iliad" in the original. and yet the theology of homer belongs to the realm of natural religion with which mr. gladstone has little patience. a prominent member of the house of commons once said, "the only two things that the prime minister really cares for are religion and finance." the statement comes near truth; for the chief element in mr. gladstone's character is his devotion to religion; and his signal successes have been in the line of economics. he believes in free trade as the gospel of social salvation. he revels in figures; he has price, value, consumption, distribution, import, export, fluctuation, all at his tongue's end, ready to hurl at any one who ventures on a hasty generalization. and it is a significant fact that in his strong appeal for the disestablishment of the irish church, the stress of his argument was put on the point that the irish church was not in the line of the apostolic succession. mr. gladstone is grave, sober, earnest, proud, passionate, and at times romantic to a rare degree. he rebukes, refutes, contradicts, defies, and has a magnificent capacity for indignation. he will roar you like a lion, his eyes will flash, and his clenched fist will shake as he denounces that which he believes to be error. and yet among inferiors he will consult, defer, inquire, and show a humility, a forced suavity, that has given the caricaturist excuse. in his home he is gentle, amiable, always kind, social and hospitable. he loves deeply, and his friends revere him to a point that is but little this side of idolatry. and surely their affection is not misplaced. some day a plutarch without a plutarch's prejudice will arise, and with malice toward none, but with charity for all, he will write the life of the statesman, gladstone. over against this he will write the life of an american statesman. the name he will choose will be that of one born in a log hut in the forest; who was rocked by the foot of a mother whose hands meanwhile were busy at her wheel; who had no schooling, no wise and influential friends; who had few books and little time to read; who knew no formal religion; who never traveled out of his own country; who had no helpmeet, but who walked solitary--alone, a man of sorrows; down whose homely, furrowed face the tears of pity often ran, and yet whose name, strange paradox! stands in many minds as a symbol of mirth. and when the master comes, who has the power to portray with absolute fidelity the greatness of these two men, will it be to the disadvantage of the american? * * * * * the village of hawarden is in flintshire, north wales. it is seven miles from chester. i walked the distance one fine june morning--out across the battlefield where cromwell's army crushed that of charles; and on past old stone walls and stately elms. there had been a shower the night before, but the morning sun came out bright and warm and made the raindrops glisten like beads as they clung to each leaf and flower. larks sang and soared, and great flocks of crows called and cawed as they flew lazily across the sky. it was a time for silent peace, and quiet joy, and serene thankfulness for life and health. i walked leisurely, and in a little over two hours reached hawarden--a cluster of plain stone houses with climbing vines and flowers and gardens, which told of homely thrift and simple tastes. i went straight to the old stone church, which is always open, and rested for half an hour, listening to the organ on which a young girl was practising, instructed by a white-haired old gentleman. the church is dingy and stained inside and out by time. the pews are irregular, some curiously carved, and all stiff and uncomfortable. i walked around and read the inscriptions on the walls, and all the time the young girl played and the old gentleman beat time, and neither noticed my presence. one brass tablet i saw was to a woman "who for long years was a faithful servant at hawarden castle--erected in gratitude by w.e.g." near this was a memorial to w.h. gladstone, son of the premier, who died in eighteen hundred ninety-one. then there were inscriptions to various glynnes and several others whose names appear in english history. i stood at the reading-desk, where the great man has so often read, and marked the spot where william ewart gladstone and catherine glynne knelt when they were married here in july, eighteen hundred thirty-nine. a short distance from the church is the entrance to hawarden park. this fine property was the inheritance of mrs. gladstone; the park itself seems to belong to the public. if mr. gladstone were a plain citizen, people, of course, would not come by hundreds and picnic on his preserve, but serving the state, he and his possessions belong to the people, and this democratic familiarity is rather pleasing than otherwise. so great has been the throng in times past, that an iron fence had to be placed about the ivy-covered ruins of the ancient castle, to protect it from those who threatened to carry it away by the pocketful. a wall has also been put around the present "castle" (more properly, house). this was done some years ago, i was told by the butler, after a torchlight procession of a thousand enthusiastic admirers had come down from liverpool and trampled mrs. gladstone's flowers into "smithereens." the park contains many hundred acres, and is as beautiful as an english park can be, and this is praise superlative. flocks of sheep wander over the soft, green turf, and beneath the spreading trees are sleek cows which seem used to visitors, and with big, open eyes come up to be petted. occasional signs are seen: "please spare the trees." some people suppose that this is an injunction which mr. gladstone himself has never observed. but when in his tree-cutting days, no monarch of the forest was ever felled without its case being fully tried by the entire household. ruskin, once, visiting at hawarden, sat as judge, and after listening to the evidence gave sentence against several trees that were rotten at the core or overshadowing their betters. then the prime minister shouldered his faithful "snickersnee" and went forth as executioner. i looked in vain for stumps, and on inquiry was told that they were all dug out, and the ground leveled so no trace was left of the offender. the "lady of the house" at hawarden is the second daughter of mr. and mrs. gladstone. all accounts agree that she is a most capable and excellent woman. she is her father's "home secretary" and confidante, and in his absence takes full charge of the mail and looks after important business affairs. her husband, the reverend harry drew, is rector of hawarden church. i had the pleasure of meeting mr. drew and found him very cordial and perfectly willing to talk about the great man who is grandfather to his baby. we also talked of america, and i soon surmised that mr. drew's ideas of "the states" were largely derived from a visit to the wild west show. so i put the question to him direct: "did you see buffalo bill?" "oh, yes." "and did mr. gladstone go?" "not only once, but three times, and he cheered as loudly as any boy." the gladstone residence is a great, rambling, stone structure to which additions have been made from one generation to another. the towers and battlements are merely architectural appendiculæ, but the effect of the whole, when viewed from a distance, rising out of its wealth of green and backed by the forest, is very imposing. i entered only the spacious front hallway and one room--the library. bookshelves and books and more books were everywhere; several desks of different designs (one an american roll-top), as if the owner transacted business at one, translated homer at another, and wrote social letters from a third. then there were several large japanese vases, a tiger-skin, beautiful rugs, a few large paintings, and in a rack a full dozen axes and twice as many "sticks." the whole place has an air of easy luxury that speaks of peace and plenty, of quiet and rest, of gentle thoughts and calm desires. as i walked across toward the village, the church-bell slowly pealed the hour; over the distant valley, night hovered; a streak of white mist, trailing like a thin veil, marked the passage of the murmuring brook. i thought of the grand old man over whose domain i was now treading, and my wonder was, not that one should live so long and still be vigorous, but that a man should live in such an idyllic spot, with love and books to keep him company, and yet grow old. j.m.w. turner i believe that these works of turner's are at their first appearing as perfect as those of phidias or leonardo, that is to say, incapable of any improvement conceivable by human mind. --_john ruskin_ [illustration: j.m.w. turner] the beauty of the upper thames with its fairy house-boats and green banks has been sung by poets, but rash is the minstrel who tunes his lyre to sound the praises of this muddy stream in the vicinity of chelsea. as yellow as the tiber and thick as the missouri after a flood, it comes twice a day bearing upon its tossing tide a unique assortment of uncanny sights and sickening smells from the swarming city of men below. chelsea was once a country village six miles from london bridge. now the far-reaching arms of the metropolis have taken it as her own. chelsea may be likened to some rare spinster, grown old with years and good works, and now having a safe home with a rich and powerful benefactress. yet chelsea is not handsome in her old age, and chelsea was not pretty in youth, nor fair to view in middle life; but chelsea has been the foster-mother of several of the rarest and fairest souls who have ever made the earth pilgrimage. and the greatness of genius still rests upon chelsea. as we walk slowly through its winding ways, by the edge of its troubled waters, among dark and crooked turns, through curious courts, by old gateways and piles of steepled stone, where flocks of pigeons wheel, and bells chime, and organs peal, and winds sigh, we know that all has been sanctified by their presence. and their spirits abide with us, and the splendid beauty of their visions is about us. for the stones beneath our feet have been hallowed by their tread, and the walls have borne their shadows; so all mean things are transfigured and over all these plain and narrow streets their glory gleams. and it is the great men and they alone that can render a place sacred. chelsea is now to the lovers of the beautiful a sacred name, a sacred soil; a place of pilgrimage where certain gods of art once lived, and loved, and worked, and died. sir thomas more lived here and had for a frequent guest erasmus. hans sloane began in chelsea the collection of curiosities which has now developed into the british museum. bishop atterbury (who claimed that dryden was a greater poet than shakespeare), dean swift and doctor arbuthnot, all lived in church street; richard steele just around the corner and leigh hunt in cheyne row; but it was from another name that the little street was to be immortalized. if france constantly has forty immortals in the flesh, surely it is a modest claim to say that chelsea has three for all time: thomas carlyle, george eliot and joseph mallord william turner. turner's father was a barber. his youth was passed in poverty and his advantages for education were very slight. and all this in the crowded city of london, where merit may knock long and still not be heard, and in a country where wealth and title count for much. when a boy, barefoot and ragged, he would wander away alone on the banks of the river and dream dreams about wonderful palaces and beautiful scenes; and then he would trace with a stick in the sands, endeavoring, with mud, to make plain to the eye the things that his soul saw. his mother was quite sure that no good could come from this vagabondish nature, and she did not spare the rod, for she feared that the desire to scrawl and daub would spoil the child. but he was a stubborn lad, with a pug-nose and big, dreamy, wondering eyes, and a heavy jaw; and when parents see that they have such a son, they had better hang up the rod behind the kitchen-door and lay aside force and cease scolding. for love is better than a cat-o'-nine-tails, and sympathy saves more souls than threats. the elder turner considered that the proper use of a brush was to lather chins. but the boy thought differently, and once surreptitiously took one of his father's brushes to paint a picture; the brush on being returned to its cup was used the next day upon a worthy haberdasher, whose cheeks were shortly colored a vermilion that matched his nose. this lost the barber a customer and secured the boy a thrashing. young turner did not always wash his father's shop-windows well, nor sweep off the sidewalk properly. like all boys he would rather work for some one else than for "his folks." he used to run errands for an engraver by the name of smith--john raphael smith. once, when smith sent the barber's boy with a letter to a certain art-gallery with orders to "get the answer and hurry back, mind you!" the boy forgot to get the answer and to hurry back. then another boy was dispatched after the first, and boy number two found boy number one sitting, with staring eyes and open mouth, in the art-gallery before a painting of claude lorraine's. when boy number one was at last forcibly dragged away, and reached the shop of his master, he got his ears well cuffed for his forgetfulness. but from that day forth he was not the same being that he had been before his eyes fell on that claude lorraine. he was transformed, as much so as was lazarus after he was called from beyond the portals of death and had come back to earth, bearing in his heart the secrets of the grave. from that time turner thought of claude lorraine during the day and dreamed of him at night, and he stole his way into every exhibition where a claude was to be seen. and now i wish that claude lorraine was the subject of this sketch, as well as turner, for his life is a picture full of sweetest poetry, framed in a world of dullest prose. the eyes of this boy, whom they had thought dreamy, dull and listless, now shone with a different light. he thirsted to achieve, to do, to become--yes, to become a greater painter than claude lorraine. his employer saw the change and smiled at it, but he allowed the lad to put in backgrounds and add the skies to cheap prints, just because the youngster teased to do it. then one day a certain patron of the shop came and looked over the shoulder of the turner boy, and he said, "he has skill--perhaps talent." and i think the recording angel should give this man a separate page in the book of remembrance and write his name in illuminated colors, for he gave young turner access to his own collection and to his library, and he never cuffed him nor kicked him nor called him dunce--whereat the boy was much surprised. but he encouraged the youth to sketch a picture in water-colors and then he bought the picture and paid him ten shillings for it; and the name of this man was doctor munro. the next year, when young turner was fourteen, doctor munro had him admitted to the royal academy as a student, and in seventeen hundred ninety he exhibited a water-color of the archbishop's palace at lambeth. the picture took no prize, and doubtless was not worthy of one, but from now on joseph m.w. turner was an artist, and other hands had to sweep the barber-shop. but he sold few pictures--they were not popular. other artists scorned him, possibly intuitively fearing him, for mediocrity always fears when the ghost of genius does not down at its bidding. then turner was accounted unsociable; besides, he was ragged, uncouth, independent, and did not conform to the ways of society; so the select circle cast him out--more properly speaking, did not let him in. still he worked on, and exhibited at every academy exhibition, yet he was often hungry, and the london fog crept cold and damp through his threadbare clothes. but he toiled on, for claude lorraine was ever before him. in eighteen hundred two, when twenty-seven years of age, he visited france and made a tour through switzerland, tramping over many long miles with his painting-kit on his back, and he brought back rich treasures in way of sketches and quickened imagination. in the years following he took many such trips, and came to know venice, rome, florence and paris as perfectly as his own london. when thirty-three years of age he was still worshiping at the shrine of claude lorraine. his pictures painted at this time are evidence of his ideal, and his book, "liber studiorum," issued in eighteen hundred eight, is modeled after the "liber veritatis." but the book surpasses claude's, and turner knew it, and this may have led him to burst his shackles and cast loose from his idol. for, in eighteen hundred fifteen, we find him working according to his own ideas, showing an originality and audacity in conception and execution that made him the butt of the critics, and caused consternation to rage through the studios of competitors. gradually, it dawned upon a few scattered collectors that things so strongly condemned must have merit, for why should the pack bay so loudly if there were no quarry! so to have a turner was at least something for your friends to discuss. then carriages began to stop before the dingy building at forty-seven queen anne street, and broadcloth and satin mounted the creaking stairs to the studio. it happened about this time that turner's prices began to increase. like the sibyl of old, if a customer said, "i do not want it," the painter put an extra ten pounds on the price. for "dido building carthage," turner's original price was five hundred pounds. people came to see the picture and they said, "the price is too high." next day turner's price for the "carthage" was one thousand pounds. finally, sir robert peel offered the painter five thousand pounds for the picture, but turner said he had decided to keep it for himself, and he did. in the forepart of his career he sold few pictures--for the simple reason that no one wanted them. and he sold few pictures during the latter years of his life, for the reason that his prices were so high that none but the very rich could buy. first, the public scorned turner. next, turner scorned the public. in the beginning it would not buy his pictures, and later it could not. a frivolous public and a shallow press, from his first exhibition, when fifteen years of age, to his last, when seventy, made sport of his originalities. but for merit there is a recompense in sneers, and a benefit in sarcasms, and a compensation in hate; for when these things get too pronounced a champion appears. and so it was with turner. next to having a boswell write one's life, what is better than a ruskin to uphold one's cause! success came slowly; his wants were few, but his ambition never slackened, and finally the dreams of his youth became the realities of his manhood. at twenty, turner loved a beautiful girl--they became engaged. he went away on a tramp sketching-tour and wrote his ladylove just one short letter each month. he believed that "absence only makes the heart grow fonder," not knowing that this statement is only the vagary of a poet. when he returned the lady was betrothed to another. he gave the pair his blessing, and remained a bachelor--a very confirmed bachelor. perhaps, however, the reason his fiancee proved untrue was not through lack of the epistles he wrote her, but on account of them. in the british museum i examined several letters written by turner. they appeared very much like copy for a josh billings almanac. such originality in spelling, punctuation and use of capitals! it was admirable in its uniqueness. turner did not think in words--he could only think in paint. but the young lady did not know this, and when a letter came from her homely little lover she was shocked, then she laughed, then she showed these letters to a nice young man who was clerk to a fishmonger and he laughed, then they both laughed. then this nice young man and this beautiful young lady became engaged, and they were married at saint andrew's on a lovely may morning. and they lived happily ever afterward. turner was small, and in appearance plain. yet he was big enough to paint a big picture, and he was not so homely as to frighten away all beautiful women. but philip gilbert hamerton tells us, "fortunate in many things, turner was lamentably unfortunate in this: that throughout his whole life he never came under the ennobling and refining influence of a good woman." like plato, michelangelo, sir isaac newton and his own claude lorraine, he was wedded to his art. but at sixty-five his genius suddenly burst forth afresh, and his work, mr. ruskin says, at that time exceeded in daring brilliancy and in the rich flowering of imagination, anything that he had previously done. mr. ruskin could give no reason, but rumor says, "a woman." the one weakness of our hero, that hung to him for life, was the idea that he could write poetry. the tragedian always thinks he can succeed in comedy; the comedian spends hours in his garret rehearsing tragedy; most preachers have an idea that they could have made a quick fortune in business, and many businessmen are very sure that if they had taken to the pulpit there would now be fewer empty pews. so the greatest landscape-painter of recent times imagined himself a poet. hamerton says that for remarkable specimens of grammar, spelling and construction turner's verse would serve well to be given to little boys to correct. one spot in turner's life over which i like to linger is his friendship with sir walter scott. they collaborated in the production of "provincial antiquities," and spent many happy hours together tramping over scottish moors and mountains. sir walter lived out his days in happy ignorance concerning the art of painting, and although he liked the society of turner, he confessed that it was quite beyond his ken why people bought his pictures. "and as for your books," said turner, "the covers of some are certainly very pretty." yet these men took a satisfaction in each other's society, such as brothers might enjoy, but without either man appreciating the greatness of the other. turner's temperament was audacious, self-centered, self-reliant, eager for success and fame, yet at the same time scorning public opinion--a paradox often found in the artistic mind of the first class; silent always--with a bitter silence, disdaining to tell his meaning when the critics could not perceive it. he was above all things always the artist, never the realist. the realist pictures the things he sees; the artist expresses that which he feels. children, and all simple folk who use pen, pencil or brush, describe the things they behold. as intellect develops and goes more in partnership with hand, imagination soars, and things are outlined that no man can see except he be able to perceive the invisible. to appreciate a work of art you must feel as the artist felt. now, it is very plain that the vast majority of people are not capable of this high sense of sublimity which the creative artist feels; and therefore they do not understand, and not understanding, they wax merry, or cynical, or sarcastic, or wrathful, or envious; or they pass by unmoved. and i maintain that those who pass by unmoved are more righteous than they who scoff. if i should attempt to explain to my little girl the awe i feel when i contemplate the miracle of maternity, she would probably change the subject by prattling to me about a kitten she saw lapping milk from a blue saucer. if i should attempt to explain to some men what i feel when i contemplate the miracle of maternity, they would smile and turn it all into an unspeakable jest. is not the child nearer to god than the man? we thus see why to many browning is only a joke, whitman an eccentric, dante insane and turner a pretender. these have all sought to express things which the many can not feel, and consequently they have been, and are, the butt of jokes and jibes innumerable. "except ye become as little children," etc.--and yet the scoffers are often people of worth. nothing so shows the limitation of humanity as this: genius often does not appreciate genius. the inspired, strangely enough, are like the fools, they do not recognize inspiration. an englishman called on voltaire and found him in bed reading shakespeare. "what are you reading?" asked the visitor. "your shakespeare!" said the philosopher; and as he answered he flung the book across the room. "he's not my shakespeare," said the englishman. greene, rymer, dryden, warburton and doctor johnson used collectively or individually the following expressions in describing the work of the author of "hamlet": conceit, overreach, word-play, extravagance, overdone, absurdity, obscurity, puerility, bombast, idiocy, untruth, improbability, drivel. byron wrote from florence to murray: "i know nothing of painting, and i abhor and spit upon all saints and so-called spiritual subjects that i see portrayed in these churches." but the past is so crowded with vituperation that it is difficult to select--besides that, we do not wish to--but let us take a sample of arrogance from yesterday to prove our point, and then drop the theme for something pleasanter. pew and pulpit have fallen over each other for the privilege of hitting darwin; a bishop warns his congregation that emerson is "dangerous"; spurgeon calls shelley a sensualist; doctor buckley speaks of susan b. anthony as the leader of "the short-haired"; talmage cracks jokes about evolution, referring feelingly to "monkey ancestry"; and a prominent divine of england writes the world's congress of religions down as "pious waxworks." these things being true, and all the sentiments quoted coming from "good" but blindly zealous men, is it a wonder that the artist is not understood? a brilliant picture, called "cologne--evening," attracted much attention at the academy exhibition of eighteen hundred twenty-six. one day the people who so often collected around turner's work were shocked to see that the beautiful canvas had lost its brilliancy, and evidently had been tampered with by some miscreant. a friend ran to inform turner of the bad news. "don't say anything. i only smirched it with lampblack. it was spoiling the effect of laurence's picture that hung next to it. the black will all wash off after the exhibition." and his tender treatment of his aged father shows the gentle side of his nature. the old barber, whose trembling hand could no longer hold a razor, wished to remain under his son's roof in guise of a servant; but the son said, "no; we fought the world together, and now that it seeks to do me honor, you shall share all the benefits." and turner never smiled when the little, wizened, old man would whisper to some visitor, "yes, yes; joseph is the greatest artist in england, and i am his father." turner had a way of sending ten-pound notes in blank envelopes to artists in distress, and he did this so frequently that the news got out finally, but never through turner's telling, and then he had to adopt other methods of doing good by stealth. i do not contend that turner's character was immaculate, but still it is very probable that worldlings do not appreciate what a small part of this great genius touched the mire. to prove the sordidness of the man, one critic tells, with visage awfully solemn, how turner once gave an engraving to a friend and then, after a year, sent demanding it back. but to a person with a groat's worth of wit the matter is plain: the dreamy, abstracted artist, who bumped into his next-door neighbors on the street and never knew them, forgot he had given the picture and believed he had only loaned it. this is made still more apparent by the fact that, when he sent for the engraving in question, he administered a rebuke to the man for keeping it so long. the poor dullard who received the note flew into a rage--returned the picture--sent his compliments and begged the great artist to "take your picture and go to the devil." then certain scribblers, who through mental disease had lost the capacity for mirth, dipped their pen in aqua fortis and wrote of the "innate meanness," the "malice prepense" and the "old adam" which dwelt in the heart of turner. no one laughed except a few irishmen, and an american or two, who chanced to hear of the story. of turner's many pictures i will mention in detail but two, both of which are to be seen on the walls of the national gallery. first, "the old temeraire." this warship had been sold out of service and was being towed away to be broken up. the scene was photographed on turner's brain, and he immortalized it on canvas. we can not do better than borrow the words of mr. ruskin: "of all pictures not visibly involving human pain, this is the most pathetic ever painted. "the utmost pensiveness which can ordinarily be given to a landscape depends on adjuncts of ruin, but no ruin was ever so affecting as the gliding of this ship to her grave. this particular ship, crowned in the trafalgar hour of trial with chief victory--surely, if ever anything without a soul deserved honor or affection we owe them here. surely, some sacred care might have been left in our thoughts for her; some quiet space amid the lapse of english waters! nay, not so. we have stern keepers to trust her glory to--the fire and the worm. nevermore shall sunset lay golden robe upon her, nor starlight tremble on the waves that part at her gliding. perhaps where the low gate opens to some cottage garden, the tired traveler may ask, idly, why the moss grows so green on the rugged wood; and even the sailor's child may not know that the night dew lies deep in the warrents of the old temeraire." "the burial of sir david wilkie at sea" has brought tears to many eyes. yet there is no burial. the ship is far away in the gloom of the offing; you can not distinguish a single figure on her decks; but you behold her great sails standing out against the leaden blackness of the night and you feel that out there a certain scene is being enacted. and if you listen closely you can hear the solemn voice of the captain as he reads the burial service. then there is a pause--a swift, sliding sound--a splash, and all is over. turner left to the british nation by his will nineteen thousand pencil and water-color sketches and one hundred large canvases. these pictures are now to be seen in the national gallery in rooms set apart and sacred to turner's work. for fear it may be thought that the number of sketches mentioned above is a misprint, let us say that if he had produced one picture a day for fifty years it would not equal the number of pieces bestowed by his will on the nation. this of course takes no account of the pictures sold during his lifetime, and, as he left a fortune of one hundred forty-four thousand pounds (seven hundred twenty thousand dollars), we may infer that not all his pictures were given away. at chelsea i stood in the little room where he breathed his last, that bleak day in eighteen-hundred fifty-one. the unlettered but motherly old woman who took care of him in those last days never guessed his greatness; none in the house or the neighborhood knew. to them he was only mr. booth, an eccentric old man of moderate means, who liked to muse, read, and play with children. he had no callers, no friends; he went to the city every day and came back at night. he talked but little, he was absent-minded, he smoked and thought and smiled and muttered to himself. he never went to church; but once one of the lodgers asked him what he thought of god. "god, god--what do i know of god, what does any one! he is our life--he is the all, but we need not fear him--all we can do is to speak the truth and do our work. tomorrow we go--where? i know not, but i am not afraid." of art, to these strangers he would never speak. once they urged him to go with them to an exhibition at kensington, but he smiled feebly as he lit his pipe and said, "an art exhibition? no, no; a man can show on a canvas so little of what he feels, it is not worth the while." at last he died--passed peacefully away--and his attorney came and took charge of his remains. many are the hard words that have been flung off by heedless tongues about turner's taking an assumed name and living in obscurity, but "what you call fault i call accent." surely, if a great man and world-famous desires to escape the flatterers and the silken mesh of so-called society and live the life of simplicity, he has a right to do so. again, turner was a very rich man in his old age; he did much for struggling artists and assisted aspiring merit in many ways. so it came about that his mail was burdened with begging letters, and his life made miserable by appeals from impecunious persons, good and bad, and from churches, societies and associations without number. he decided to flee them all; and he did. the "carthage" already mentioned is one of his finest works, and he esteemed it so highly that he requested that when death came, his body should be buried, wrapped in its magnificent folds. but the wish was disregarded. his remains rest in the crypt of saint paul's, beside the dust of reynolds. his statue, in marble, adorns a niche in the great cathedral, and his name is secure high on the roll of honor. and if for no other reason, the name and fame of chelsea should be deathless as the home of turner. jonathan swift they are but few and meanspirited that live in peace with all men. --_tale of a tub_ [illustration: jonathan swift] birrell, the great english essayist, remarks that, "of writing books about dean swift there is no end." the reason is plain: of no other prominent writer who has lived during the past two hundred years do we know so much. his life lies open to us in many books. boswell did not write his biography, but johnson did. then followed whole schools of little fishes, some of whom wrote like whales. but among the works of genuine worth and merit, with swift for a subject, we have sir walter scott's nineteen volumes, and lives by craik, mitford, forster, collins and leslie stephen. the positive elements in swift's character make him a most interesting subject to men and women who are yet on earth, for he was essentially of the earth, earthy. and until we are shown that the earth is wholly bad, we shall find much to amuse, much to instruct, much to admire--aye, much to pity--in the life of jonathan swift. his father married at twenty. his income matched his years--it was just twenty pounds per annum. his wife was a young girl, bright, animated, intelligent. in a few short months this girl carried in her arms a baby. this baby was wrapped in a tattered shawl and cried piteously from hunger, for the mother had not enough to eat. she was cold, and sick, and in disgrace. her husband, too, was ill, and sorely in debt. it was midwinter. when spring came, and the flowers blossomed, and the birds mated, and warm breezes came whispering softly from the south, and all the earth was glad, the husband of this child-wife was in his grave, and she was alone. alone? no; she carried in her tired arms the hungry babe, and beneath her heart she felt the faint flutter of another life. but to be in trouble and in ireland is not so bad after all, for the irish people have great and tender hearts; and even if they have not much to bestow in a material way, they can give sympathy, and they do. so the girl was cared for by kind kindred, and on november thirtieth, sixteen hundred sixty-seven, at number seven, hoey's court, dublin, the second baby was born. only a little way from hoey's court is saint patrick's cathedral. on that november day, as the tones from the clanging chimes fell on the weary senses of the young mother, there in her darkened room, little did she think that the puny bantling she held to her breast would yet be the dean of the great church whose bells she heard; and how could she anticipate a whisper coming to her from the far-off future: "of writing books about your babe there is no end!" * * * * * the man-child was given to an old woman to care for, and he had the ability, even then, it seems, to win affection. the foster-mother loved him and she stole him away, carrying him off to england. charity ministered to his needs; charity gave him his education. when swift was twenty-one years old he went to see his mother. her means were scanty to the point of hardship, but so buoyant was her mind that she used to declare that she was both rich and happy--and being happy she was certainly rich. she was a rare woman. her spirit was independent, her mind cultivated, her manner gentle and refined, and she was endowed with a keen sense of humor. from her, the son derived those qualities which have made him famous. no man is greater than his mother; but the sons of brave women do not always make brave men. in one quality swift was lamentably inferior to his mother--he did not have her capacity for happiness. he had wit; she had humor. we have seen how swift's father sickened and died. the world was too severe for him, its buffets too abrupt, its burden too heavy, and he gave up the fight before the battle had really begun. this lack of courage and extreme sensitiveness are seen in the son. but so peculiar, complex and wonderful is this web of life, that our very blunders, weaknesses and mistakes are woven in and make the fabric stronger. if swift had possessed only his mother's merits, without his father's faults, he would never have shaken the world with laughter, and we should never have heard of him. in her lowliness and simplicity the mother of swift was content. she did her work in her own little way. she smiled at folly, and each day she thanked heaven that her lot was no worse. not so her son. he brooded in sullen silence; he cursed fate for making him a dependent, and even in his youth he scorned those who benefited him. this was a very human proceeding. many hate, but few have a fine capacity for scorn. their hate is so vehement that when hurled it falls short. swift's scorn was a beautifully winged arrow, with a poisoned tip. some who were struck did not at the time know it. his misanthropy defeated his purpose, thwarted his ambition, ruined his aims, and--made his name illustrious. swift wished for churchly preferment, but he had not the patience to wait. he imagined that others were standing in his way, and of course they were; for under the calm exterior of things ecclesiastic, there is often a strife, a jealousy and a competition more rabid than in commerce. to succeed in winning a bishopric requires a sagacity as keen as that required to become a senator of massachusetts or the governor of new york. the man bides his time, makes himself popular, secures advocates, lubricates the way, pulls the wires, and slides noiselessly into place. swift lacked diplomacy. when matters did not seem to progress he grew wrathful, seized his pen and stabbed with it. but as he wrote, the ludicrousness of the whole situation came over him and, instead of cursing plain curses, he held his adversary up to ridicule! and this ridicule is so active, the scorn so mixed with wit, the shafts so finely feathered with truth, that it is the admiration of mankind. vitriol mixed with ink is volatile. then what? we just run swift through a coarse sieve to take out the lumps of seventeenth century refuse, and then we give him to children to make them laugh. surely no better use can be made of pessimists. verily, the author of gulliver wrote for one purpose, and we use his work for another. he wished for office, he got contempt; he tried to subdue his enemies, they subdued him; he worked for the present, and he won immortality. said heinrich heine, prone on his bed in paris: "the wittiest sarcasms of mortals are only an attempt at jesting when compared with those of the great author of the universe--the aristophanes of heaven!" wise men over and over have wasted good ink and paper in bewailing swift's malice and coarseness. but without these very elements which the wise men bemoan, swift would be for us a cipher. yet love is life and hate is death, so how can spite benefit? the answer is that, in certain forms of germination, frost is as necessary as sunshine: so some men have qualities that lie dormant until the coldness of hate bursts the coarse husk of indifference. but while hate may animate, only love inspires. swift might have stood at the head of the church of england; but even so, he would be only a unit in a long list of names, and as it is, there is only one swift. mr. talmage averred that not ten men in america knew the name of the archbishop of canterbury until his son wrote a certain book entitled "dodo." in putting out this volume, young benson not only gave us the strongest possible argument favoring the celibacy of the clergy, but at the same time, if talmage's statement is correct, he made known his father's name. in all swift's work, save "the journal to stella," the animating motive seems to have been to confound his enemies; and according to the well-known line in that hymn sung wherever the union jack flies, we must believe this to be a perfectly justifiable ambition. but occasionally on his pages we find gentle words of wisdom that were meant evidently for love's eyes alone. there is much that is pure boyish frolic, and again and again there are clever strokes directed at folly. he has shot certain superstitions through with doubt, and in his manner of dealing with error he has proved to us a thing it were well not to forget: that pleasantry is more efficacious than vehemence. let me name one incident by way of proof--the well-known one of partridge, the almanac-maker. this worthy cobbler was an astrologer of no mean repute. he foretold events with much discretion. the ignorant bought his almanacs, and many believed in them as a bible--in fact, astrology was enjoying a "boom." swift came to london and found that partridge's predictions were the theme at the coffeehouses. he saw men argue and wax wroth, grow red in the face as they talked loud and long about nothing--just nothing. the whole thing struck swift as being very funny; and he wrote an announcement of his intention to publish a rival almanac. he explained that he, too, was an astrologer, but an honest one, while partridge was an impostor and a cheat; in fact, partridge foretold only things which every one knew would come true. as for himself, he could discern the future with absolute certainty, and to prove to the world his power he would now make a prophecy. in substance, it was as follows: "my first prediction is but a trifle; it relates to partridge, the almanac-maker. i have consulted the star of his nativity, and find that he will die on the twenty-ninth day of march, next." this was signed, "isaac bickerstaff," and duly issued in pamphlet form. it had such an air of sincerity that both the believers and the scoffers read it with interest. the thirtieth of march came, and another pamphlet from "isaac bickerstaff" appeared, announcing the fulfilment of the prophecy. it related how toward the end of march partridge began to languish; how he grew ill and at last took to his bed, and, his conscience then smiting him, he confessed to the world that he was a fraud and a rogue, that all his prophecies were impositions; he then passed away. partridge was wild with rage, and immediately replied in a manifesto declaring that he was alive and well, and moreover was alive on march twenty-ninth. to this "bickerstaff" replied in a pamphlet more seriously humorous than ever, reaffirming that partridge was dead, and closing with the statement that, "if an uninformed carcass still walks about calling itself partridge, i do not in any way consider myself responsible for that." the joke set all london on a grin. wherever partridge went he was met with smiles and jeers, and astrology became only a jest to a vast number of people who had formerly believed in it seriously. when benjamin franklin started his "poor richard's almanac," twenty-five years later, in the first issue he prophesied the death of one dart who set the pace at that time as almanac-maker in america. the man was to expire on the afternoon of october seventeenth, seventeen hundred thirty-eight, at three twenty-nine o'clock. dart, being somewhat of a joker himself, came out with an announcement that he, too, had consulted the oracle, and found he would live until october twenty-sixth, and possibly longer. on october eighteenth, franklin announced dart's death, and explained that it occurred promptly on time, all as prophesied. yet dart lived to publish many almanacs; but poor richard got his advertisement, and many staid, broad-brimmed philadelphians smiled who had never smiled before--not only smiled but subscribed. benjamin franklin was a great and good man, as any man must be who fathers another's jokes, introducing these orphaned children to the world as his own. perhaps no one who has written of swift knew him so well as delany. and this writer, who seems to have possessed a judicial quality far beyond most men, has told us that swift was moral in conduct to the point of asceticism. his deportment was grave and dignified, and his duties as a priest were always performed with exemplary diligence. he visited the sick, regularly administered the sacraments, and was never known to absent himself from morning prayers. when harley was lord treasurer, swift seems to have been on the topmost crest of the wave of popularity. invitations from nobility flowed in upon him, beautiful women deigned to go in search of his society, royalty recognized him. and yet all this time he was only a country priest with a liking for literature. collins tells us that the reason for his popularity is plain: "swift was one of the kings of the earth. like pope innocent the third, like chatham, he was one to whom the world involuntarily pays tribute." his will was a will of adamant; his intellect so keen that it impressed every one who approached him; his temper singularly stern, dauntless and haughty. but his wit was never filled with gaiety: he was never known to laugh. amid the wildest uproar that his sallies caused, he would sit with face austere--unmoved. personally, swift was a gentleman. when he was scurrilous, abusive, ribald, malicious, it was anonymously. is this to his credit? i should not say so, but if a man is indecent and he hides behind a "nom de plume," it is at least presumptive proof that he is not dead to shame. leslie stephen tells us that swift was a churchman to the backbone. no man who is a "churchman to the backbone" is ever very pious: the spirit maketh alive, but the letter killeth. one looks in vain for traces of spirituality in the dean. his sermons are models of churchly commonplace and full of the stock phrases of a formal religion. he never bursts into flame. yet he most thoroughly and sincerely believed in religion. "i believe in religion, it keeps the masses in check. and then i uphold christianity because if it is abolished the stability of the church might be endangered," he said. philip asked the eunuch a needless question when he inquired, "understandest thou what thou readest?" no one so poorly sexed as swift can comprehend spiritual truth: spirituality and sexuality are elements that are never separated. swift was as incapable of spirituality as he was of the "grand passion." the dean had affection; he was a warm friend; he was capable even of a degree of love, but his sexual and spiritual nature was so cold and calculating that he did not hesitate to sacrifice love to churchly ambition. he argued that the celibacy of the catholic clergy is a wise expediency. the bachelor physician and the unmarried priest have an influence among gentle womankind, young or old, married or single, that a benedict can never hope for. why this is so might be difficult to explain, but discerning men know the fact. in truth, when a priest marries he should at once take a new charge, for if he remains with his old flock a goodly number of his "lady parishioners," in ages varying from seventeen to seventy, will with fierce indignation rend his reputation. swift was as wise as a serpent, but not always as harmless as a dove. he was making every effort to secure his miter and crosier: he had many women friends in london and elsewhere who had influence. rather than run the risk of losing this influence he never acknowledged stella as his wife. choosing fame rather than love, he withered at the heart, then died at the top. the life of every man is a seamless garment--its woof his thoughts, its warp his deeds. when for him the roaring loom of time stops and the thread is broken, foolish people sometimes point to certain spots in the robe and say, "oh, why did he not leave that out!" not knowing that every action of man is a sequence from off fate's spindle. let us accept the work of genius as we find it; not bemoaning because it is not better, but giving thanks because it is so good. * * * * * well-fed, rollicking priest is father o'toole of dublin, with a big, round face, a double chin, and a brogue that you can cut with a knife. my letter of introduction from monseigneur satolli caused him at once to bring in a large, suspicious, black bottle and two glasses. then we talked--talked of ireland's wrongs and woman's rights, and of all the irishmen in america whom i was supposed to know. we spoke of the illustrious irishmen who had passed on, and i mentioned a name that caused the holy father to spring from his chair in indignation. "shwift is it! shwift! no, me lad, don't go near him! he was the divil's own, the very worsht that ever followed the swish of a petticoat. no, no; if ye go to his grave it'll bring ye bad luck for a year. it's tom moore ye want--tom was the bye. arrah! now, and it's meself phat'll go wid ye." and so the reverend father put on a long, black coat and his saint patrick's day hat, and we started. we were met at the gate by a delegation of "shpalpeens" that had located me on the inside of the house and were lying in wait. all american travelers in ireland are supposed to be millionaires, and this may possibly explain the lavish attention that is often tendered them. at any rate, various members of the delegation wished "long life to the iligant 'merican gintleman," and hinted in terms unmistakable that pence would be acceptable. the holy father applied his cane vigorously to the ragged rears of the more presumptuous, and bade them begone, but still they followed and pressed close about. "here, i'll show you how to get rid of the dirty gang," said his holiness. "have ye a penny, i don't know?" i produced a handful of small change, which the father immediately took and tossed into the street. instantly there was a heterogeneous mass of young hibernians piled up in the dirt in a grand struggle for spoils. it reminded me of football incidents i had seen at fair harvard. in the meantime, we escaped down a convenient alley and crossed the river liffey to old dublin; inside the walls of the old city, through crooked lanes and winding streets that here and there showed signs of departed gentility, where now was only squalor, want and vice, until we came to number twelve angier street, a quaint, three-story brick building now used as a "public." in the wall above the door is a marble slab with this inscription: "here was born thomas moore, on the twenty-eighth day of may, seventeen hundred seventy-eight." above this in a niche is a bust of the poet. tom's father was a worthy greengrocer who, according to the author of "lalla rookh," always gave good measure and full count. it was ever a cause of regret to the elder moore that his son did not show sufficient capacity to be trusted safely with the business. the upper rooms of the house were shown to us by an obliging landlady. father o'toole had been here before, and led the way to a snug little chamber and explained that in this room the future poet of ireland was found under one of his father's cabbage-leaves. we descended to the neat little barroom with its sanded floor and polished glassware and shining brass. the holy father ordered 'arf-and-'arf at my expense and recited one of moore's ballads. the landlady then gave us byron's "here's a health to thee, tom moore." a neighbor came in. then we had more ballads, more 'arf-and-'arf, a selection from "lalla rookh," and various tales of the poet's early life, which possibly would be hard to verify. and as the tumult raged, the smoke of battle gave me opportunity to slip away. i crossed the street, turned down one block, and entered saint patrick's cathedral. great, roomy, gloomy, solemn temple, where the rumble of city traffic is deadened to a faint hum: "without, the world's unceasing noises rise, turmoil, disquietude and busy fears; within, there are the sounds of other years, thoughts full of prayer and solemn harmonies which imitate on earth the peaceful skies." other worshipers were there. standing beside a great stone pillar i could make them out kneeling on the tiled floor. gradually, my eyes became accustomed to the subdued light, and right at my feet i saw a large brass plate set in the floor and on it only this: swift died oct. , aged on the wall near is a bronze tablet, the inscription of which, in latin, was dictated by swift himself: "here lies the body of jonathan swift, dean of this cathedral, where fierce indignation can no longer rend his heart. go! wayfarer, and imitate, if thou canst, one who, as far as in him lay, was an earnest champion of liberty----" above this is a fine bust of the dean, and to the right is another tablet: "underneath lie interred the mortal remains of mrs. hester johnson, better known to the world as 'stella,' under which she is celebrated in the writings of doctor jonathan swift, dean of this cathedral. she was a person of extraordinary endowments and accomplishments, in body, mind and behavior; justly admired and respected by all who knew her, on account of her eminent virtues as well as for her great natural and acquired perfections." these were suffering souls and great. would they have been so great had they not suffered? who can tell? were the waters troubled in order that they might heal the people? did swift misuse this excellent woman, is a question that has been asked and answered again and again. a great author has written: "a woman, a tender, noble, excellent woman, has a dog's heart. she licks the hand that strikes her. and wrong nor cruelty nor injustice nor disloyalty can cause her to turn." death in pity took stella first; took her in the loyalty of love and the fulness of faith from a world which for love has little recompense, and for faith small fulfilment. stella was buried by torchlight, at midnight, on the thirtieth day of january, seventeen hundred twenty-eight. swift was sick at the time, and wrote in his journal: "this is the night of her funeral, and i am removed to another apartment that i may not see the light in the church which is just over against my window." but in his imagination he saw the gleaming torches as their dull light shone through the colored windows, and he said, "they will soon do as much for me." but seventeen years came crawling by before the torches flared, smoked and gleamed as the mourners chanted a requiem, and the clods fell on the coffin, and their echoes intermingled with the solemn voice of the priest as he said, "dust to dust, ashes to ashes." in eighteen hundred thirty-five, the graves were opened and casts taken of the skulls. the top of swift's skull had been sawed off at the autopsy, and a bottle in which was a parchment setting forth the facts was inserted in the head that had conceived "gulliver's travels." i examined the casts. the woman's head is square and shapely. swift's head is a refutation of phrenology, being small, sloping and ordinary. the bones of swift and stella were placed in one coffin, and now rest under three feet of concrete, beneath the floor of saint patrick's. so sleep the lovers joined in death. walt whitman all seems beautiful to me. i can repeat over to men and women, you have done such good to me i would do the same to you, i will recruit for myself and you as i go. i will scatter myself among men and women as i go, i will toss a new gladness and roughness among them. --_song of the open road_ [illustration: walt whitman] max nordau wrote a book--wrote it with his tongue in his cheek, a dash of vitriol in the ink, and with a pen that scratched. and the first critic who seemed to place a just estimate on the work was mr. zangwill (he who has no christian name). mr. zangwill made an attempt to swear out a "writ de lunatico inquirendo" against his jewish brother, on the ground that the first symptom of insanity is often the delusion that others are insane; and this being so, doctor nordau was not a safe subject to be at large. but the assize of public opinion denied the petition, and the dear people bought the book at from three to five dollars a copy. printed in several languages, its sales have mounted to a hundred thousand volumes, and the author's net profit is full forty thousand dollars. no wonder is it that, with pockets full to bursting, doctor nordau goes out behind the house and laughs uproariously whenever he thinks of how he has worked the world! if doctor talmage is the barnum of theology, surely we may call doctor nordau the barnum of science. his agility in manipulating facts is equal to hermann's now-you-see-it and now-you-don't, with pocket-handkerchiefs. yet hermann's exhibition is worth the admittance fee, and nordau's book (seemingly written in collaboration with jules verne and mark twain) would be cheap for a dollar. but what i object to is professor hermann's disciples posing as sure-enough materializing mediums, and professor lombroso's followers calling themselves scientists, when each goes forth without scrip or purse with no other purpose than to supply themselves with both. yet it was barnum himself who said that the public delights in being humbugged, and strange it is that we will not allow ourselves to be thimblerigged without paying for the privilege. nordau's success hinged on his audacious assumption that the public knew nothing of the law of antithesis. yet plato explained that the opposites of things look alike, and sometimes are alike--and that was quite a while ago. the multitude answered, "thou hast a devil." many of them said, "he hath a devil and is mad." festus said with a loud voice, "paul, thou art beside thyself." and nordau shouts in a voice more heady than that of pilate, more throaty than that of festus, "mad--whitman was--mad beyond the cavil of a doubt!" in eighteen hundred sixty-two, lincoln, looking out of a window (before lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed) on one of the streets of washington, saw a workingman in shirt-sleeves go by. turning to a friend, the president said, "there goes a man!" the exclamation sounds singularly like that of napoleon on meeting goethe. but the corsican's remark was intended for the poet's ear, while lincoln did not know who his man was, although he came to know him afterward. lincoln in his early days was a workingman and an athlete, and he never quite got the idea out of his head (and i am glad) that he was still a hewer of wood. he once told george william curtis that he more than half expected yet to go back to the farm and earn his daily bread by the work that his hands found to do; he dreamed of it nights, and whenever he saw a splendid toiler, he felt like hailing the man as brother and striking hands with him. when lincoln saw whitman strolling majestically past, he took him for a stevedore or possibly the foreman of a construction gang. whitman was fifty-one years old then. his long, flowing beard was snow-white, and the shock that covered his jove-like head was iron-gray. his form was that of an apollo who had arrived at years of discretion. he weighed an even two hundred pounds and was just six feet high. his plain, check, cotton shirt was open at the throat to the breast; and he had an independence, a self-sufficiency, and withal a cleanliness, a sweetness and a gentleness, that told that, although he had a giant's strength, he did not use it like a giant. whitman used no tobacco, neither did he apply hot and rebellious liquors to his blood and with unblushing forehead woo the means of debility and disease. up to his fifty-third year he had never known a sick day, although at thirty his hair had begun to whiten. he had the look of age in his youth and the look of youth in his age that often marks the exceptional man. but at fifty-three his splendid health was crowded to the breaking strain. how? through caring for wounded, sick and dying men, hour after hour, day after day, through the long, silent watches of the night. from eighteen hundred sixty-four to the day of his death in eighteen hundred ninety-two, he was, physically, a man in ruins. but he did not wither at the top. through it all he held the healthy optimism of boyhood, carrying with him the perfume of the morning and the lavish heart of youth. doctor bucke, who was superintendent of a hospital for the insane for fifteen years, and the intimate friend of whitman all the time, has said: "his build, his stature, his exceptional health of mind and body, the size and form of his features, his cleanliness of mind and body, the grace of his movements and gestures, the grandeur, and especially the magnetism, of his presence; the charm of his voice, his genial, kindly humor; the simplicity of his habits and tastes, his freedom from convention, the largeness and the beauty of his manner; his calmness and majesty; his charity and forbearance--his entire unresentfulness under whatever provocation; his liberality, his universal sympathy with humanity in all ages and lands, his broad tolerance, his catholic friendliness, and his unexampled faculty of attracting affection, all prove his perfectly proportioned manliness." but whitman differed from the disciple of lombroso in two notable particulars: he had no quarrel with the world, and he did not wax rich. "one thing thou lackest, o walt whitman!" we might have said to the poet; "you are not a financier." he died poor. but this is no proof of degeneracy, save on 'change. when the children of count tolstoy endeavored to have him adjudged insane, the court denied the application and voiced the wisest decision that ever came out of russia: a man who gives away his money is not necessarily more foolish than he who saves it. and with horace l. traubel i assert that whitman was the sanest man i ever saw. * * * * * some men make themselves homes; and others there be who rent rooms. walt whitman was essentially a citizen of the world: the world was his home and mankind were his friends. there was a quality in the man peculiarly universal: a strong, virile poise that asked for nothing, but took what it needed. he loved men as brothers, yet his brothers after the flesh understood him not; he loved children--they turned to him instinctively--but he had no children of his own; he loved women, and yet this strongly sexed and manly man never loved a woman. and i might here say as philip gilbert hamerton said of turner, "he was lamentably unfortunate in this: throughout his whole life he never came under the ennobling and refining influence of a good woman." it requires two to make a home. the first home was made when a woman, cradling in her loving arms a baby, crooned a lullaby. all the tender sentimentality we throw around a place is the result of the sacred thought that we live there with some one else. it is "our" home. the home is a tryst--the place where we retire and shut the world out. lovers make a home, just as birds make a nest, and unless a man knows the spell of the divine passion i hardly see how he can have a home at all. he only rents a room. camden is separated from the city of philadelphia by the delaware river. camden lies low and flat--a great, sandy, monotonous waste of straggling buildings. here and there are straight rows of cheap houses, evidently erected by staid, broad-brimmed speculators from across the river, with eyes on the main chance. but they reckoned ill, for the town did not boom. some of these houses have marble steps and white, barn-like shutters, that might withstand a siege. when a funeral takes place in one of these houses, the shutters are tied with strips of mournful, black alpaca for a year and a day. engineers, dockmen, express-drivers and mechanics largely make up the citizens of camden. of course, camden has its smug corner where prosperous merchants most do congregate: where they play croquet in the front yards, and have window-boxes, and a piano and veranda-chairs and terra-cotta statuary; but for the most part the houses of camden are rented, and rented cheap. many of the domiciles are frame and have the happy tumbledown look of the back streets in charleston or richmond--those streets where the white trash merges off into prosperous colored aristocracy. old hats do duty in keeping out the fresh air where providence has interfered and broken out a pane; blinds hang by a single hinge; bricks on the chimney-tops threaten the passersby; stringers and posts mark the place where proud picket fences once stood--the pickets having gone for kindling long ago. in the warm, summer evenings, men in shirt-sleeves sit on the front steps and stolidly smoke, while children pile up sand in the streets and play in the gutters. parallel with mickle street, a block away, are railway-tracks. there noisy switch-engines that never keep sabbath, puff back and forth, day and night, sending showers of soot and smoke when the wind is right (and it usually is) straight over number , where, according to john addington symonds and william michael rossetti, lived the mightiest seer of the century--the man whom they rank with socrates, epictetus, saint paul, michelangelo and dante. it was in august of eighteen hundred eighty-three that i first walked up that little street--a hot, sultry summer evening. there had been a shower that turned the dust of the unpaved roadway to mud. the air was close and muggy. the houses, built right up to the sidewalks, over which, in little gutters, the steaming sewage ran, seemed to have discharged their occupants into the street to enjoy the cool of the day. barefooted children by the score paddled in the mud. all the steps were filled with loungers; some of the men had discarded not only coats but shirts as well, and now sat in flaming red underwear, holding babies. they say that "woman's work is never done," but to the women of mickle street this does not apply--but stay! perhaps their work is never done. anyway, i remember that women sat on the curbs in calico dresses or leaned out of the windows, and all seemed supremely free from care. "can you tell me where mr. whitman lives?" i asked a portly dame who was resting her elbows on a windowsill. "who?" "mr. whitman!" "you mean walt whitman?" "yes." "show the gentleman, molly; he'll give you a nickel, i'm sure!" i had not seen molly. she stood behind me, but as her mother spoke she seized tight hold of one of my fingers, claiming me as her lawful prey, and all the other children looked on with envious eyes as little molly threw at them glances of scorn and marched me off. molly was five, going on six, she told me. she had bright-red hair, a grimy face and little chapped feet that made not a sound as we walked. she got her nickel and carried it in her mouth, and this made conversation difficult. after going one block she suddenly stopped, squared me around and pointing said, "them is he!" and disappeared. in a wheeled rattan chair, in the hallway, a little back from the door of a plain, weather-beaten house, sat the coatless philosopher, his face and head wreathed in a tumult of snow-white hair. i had a little speech, all prepared weeks before and committed to memory, that i intended to repeat, telling him how i had read his poems and admired them. and further i had stored away in my mind a few blades from "leaves of grass" that i purposed to bring out at the right time as a sort of certificate of character. but when that little girl jerked me right-about-face and heartlessly deserted me, i stared dumbly at the man whom i had come a hundred miles to see. i began angling for my little speech, but could not fetch it. "hello!" called the philosopher, out of the white aureole. "hello! come here, boy!" he held out his hand and as i took it there was a grasp with meaning in it. "don't go yet, joe," he said to a man seated on the step smoking a cob-pipe. "the old woman's calling me," said the swarthy joe. joe evidently held truth lightly. "so long, walt!" "good-by, joe. sit down, lad; sit down!" i sat in the doorway at his feet. "now isn't it queer--that fellow is a regular philosopher and works out some great problems, but he's ashamed to express 'em. he could no more give you his best than he could fly. ashamed, i s'pose, ashamed of the best that is in him. we are all a little that way--all but me--i try to write my best, regardless of whether the thing sounds ridiculous or not--regardless of what others think or say or have said. ashamed of our holiest, truest and best! is it not too bad? "you are twenty-five now? well, boy, you may grow until you are thirty and then you will be as wise as you ever will be. haven't you noticed that men of sixty have no clearer vision than men of forty? one reason is that we have been taught that we know all about life and death and the mysteries of the grave. but the main reason is that we are ashamed to shove out and be ourselves. jesus expressed his own individuality perhaps more than any other man we know of, and so he wields a wider influence than any other. and this though we only have a record of just twenty-seven days of his life. now that fellow that just left is an engineer, and he dreams some beautiful dreams; but he never expresses them to any one--only hints them to me, and this only at twilight. he is like a weasel or a mink or a whippoorwill--he comes out only at night. "'if the weather was like this all the time, people would never learn to read and write,' said joe to me just as you arrived. and isn't that so? here we can count a hundred people up and down this street, and not one is reading, not one but that is just lolling about, except the children--and they are happy only when playing in the dirt. why, if this tropical weather should continue we would all slip back into south sea islanders! you can raise good men only in a little strip around the north temperate zone--when you get out of the track of a glacier, a tender-hearted, sympathetic man of brains is an accident." then the old man suddenly ceased and i imagined that he was following the thought out in his own mind. we sat silent for a space. the twilight fell, and a lamplighter lit the street lamp on the corner. he stopped an instant to salute the poet cheerily as he passed. the man sitting on the doorstep, across the street, smoking, knocked the ashes out of his pipe on his boot-heel and went indoors. women called their children, who did not respond, but still played on. then the creepers were carried in, to be fed their bread-and-milk and put to bed; and, shortly, shrill feminine voices ordered the other children indoors, and some obeyed. the night crept slowly on. i heard old walt chuckle behind me, talking incoherently to himself, and then he said, "you are wondering why i live in such a place as this?" "yes; that is exactly what i was thinking of!" "you think i belong in the country, in some quiet, shady place. but all i have to do is to shut my eyes and go there. no man loves the woods more than i--i was born within sound of the sea--down on long island, and i know all the songs that the seashell sings. but this babble and babel of voices pleases me better, especially since my legs went on a strike, for although i can't walk, you see i can still mix with the throng, so i suffer no loss. "in the woods, a man must be all hands and feet. i like the folks, the plain, ignorant, unpretentious folks; and the youngsters that come and slide on my cellar-door do not disturb me a bit. i'm different from carlyle--you know he had a noise-proof room where he locked himself in. now, when a huckster goes by, crying his wares, i open the blinds, and often wrangle with the fellow over the price of things. but the rogues have got into a way lately of leaving truck for me and refusing pay. today an irishman passed in three quarts of berries and walked off pretending to be mad because i offered to pay. when he was gone, i beckoned to the babies over the way--they came over and we had a feast. "yes, i like the folks around here; i like the women, and i like the men, and i like the babies, and i like the youngsters that play in the alley and make mud pies on my steps. i expect to stay here until i die." "you speak of death as a matter of course--you are not afraid to die?" "oh, no, my boy; death is as natural as life, and a deal kinder. but it is all good--i accept it all and give thanks--you have not forgotten my chant to death?" "not i!" i repeated a few lines from "drum-taps." he followed me, rapping gently with his cane on the floor, and with little interjectory remarks of "that's so!" "very true!" "good, good!" and when i faltered and lost the lines he picked them up where "the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird." in a strong, clear voice, but a voice full of sublime feeling, he repeated those immortal lines, beginning, "come, lovely and soothing death." "come, lovely and soothing death, undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, in the day, in the night, to all, to each, sooner or later, delicate death. praised be the fathomless universe for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, and for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise for the sure enwinding arms of cool, enfolding death. dark mother, always gliding near with soft feet, have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? then i chant for thee, i glorify thee above all, i bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. approach, strong deliveress, when it is so, when thou hast taken them i joyously sing the death, lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, laved in the flood of thy bliss, o death. from me to thee glad serenades, dances for thee i propose, saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee, and the sights of the open landscape and the high spread sky are fitting, and life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. the night in silence under many a star, the ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice i know, and the soul turning to thee, o vast and well-veil'd death, and the body gratefully nestling close to thee. over the tree-tops i float thee a song, over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, over the dense-packed cities all, and the teeming wharves, and ways, i float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, o death." the last playing youngster had silently disappeared from the streets. the doorsteps were deserted--save where across the way a young man and maiden sat in the gloaming, conversing in low monotone. the clouds had drifted away. a great, yellow star shone out above the chimney-tops in the east. i arose to go. "i wish you'd come oftener--i see you so seldom, lad," said the old man, half-plaintively. i did not explain that we had never met before--that i had come from new york purposely to see him. he thought he knew me. and so he did--as much as i could impart. the rest was irrelevant. as to my occupation or name, what booted it!--he had no curiosity concerning me. i grasped his outstretched hand in both of my own. he said not a word; neither did i. i turned and made my way to the ferry--past the whispering lovers on the doorsteps, and over the railway-tracks where the noisy engines puffed. as i walked on board the boat, the wind blew up cool and fresh from the west. the star in the east grew brighter, and other stars came out, reflecting themselves like gems in the dark blue of the delaware. there was a soft sublimity in the sound of the bells that came echoing over the waters. my heart was very full, for i had felt the thrill of being in the presence of a great and loving soul. it was the first time and the last that i ever saw walt whitman. * * * * * a good many writers bear no message: they carry no torch. sometimes they excite wonder, or they amuse and divert--divert us from our work. to be diverted to a certain degree may be well, but there is a point where earth ends and cloud-land begins, and even great poets occasionally befog the things they would reveal. homer was seemingly blind to much simple truth; vergil carries you away from earth; horace was undone without his mæcenas; dante makes you an exile; shakespeare was singularly silent concerning the doubts, difficulties and common lives of common people; byron's corsair life does not help you in your toil, and in his fight with english bards and scotch reviewers we crave neutrality; to be caught in the meshes of pope's "dunciad" is not pleasant; and lowell's "fable for critics" is only another "dunciad." but above all other poets who have ever lived, the author of "leaves of grass" was the poet of humanity. milton knew all about heaven, and dante conducts us through hell, but it was left for whitman to show us earth. his voice never goes so high that it breaks into an impotent falsetto, neither does it growl and snarl at things it does not understand and not understanding does not like. he was so great that he had no envy, and his insight was so sure that he had no prejudice. he never boasted that he was higher, nor claimed to be less than any of the other sons of men. he met all on terms of absolute equality, mixing with the poor, the lowly, the fallen, the oppressed, the cultured, the rich--simply as brother with brother. and when he said to an outcast, "not till the sun excludes you will i exclude you," he voiced a sentiment worthy of a god. he was brother to the elements, the mountains, the seas, the clouds, the sky. he loved them all and partook of them all in his large, free, unselfish, untrammeled nature. his heart knew no limits, and feeling his feet mortised in granite and his footsteps tenoned in infinity he knew the amplitude of time. only the great are generous; only the strong are forgiving. like lot's wife, most poets look back over their shoulders; and those who are not looking backward insist that we shall look into the future, and the vast majority of the whole scribbling rabble accept the precept, "man never is, but always to be blest." we grieve for childhood's happy days, and long for sweet rest in heaven and sigh for mansions in the skies. and the people about us seem so indifferent, and our friends so lukewarm; and really no one understands us, and our environment queers our budding spirituality, and the frost of jealousy nips our aspirations: "o paradise, o paradise, the world is growing old; who would not be at rest and free where love is never cold." so sing the fearsome dyspeptics of the stylus. o anemic he, you bloodless she, nipping at crackers, sipping at tea, why not consider that, although evolutionists tell us where we came from, and theologians inform us where we are going to, yet the only thing we are really sure of is that we are here! the present is the perpetually moving spot where history ends and prophecy begins. it is our only possession: the past we reach through lapsing memory, halting recollection, hearsay and belief; we pierce the future by wistful faith or anxious hope; but the present is beneath our feet. whitman sings the beauty and the glory of the present. he rebukes our groans and sighs--bids us look about on every side at the wonders of creation, and at the miracles within our grasp. he lifts us up, restores us to our own, introduces us to man and to nature, and thus infuses into us courage, manly pride, self-reliance, and the strong faith that comes when we feel our kinship with god. he was so mixed with the universe that his voice took on the sway of elemental integrity and candor. absolutely honest, this man was unafraid and unashamed, for nature has neither apprehension, shame nor vainglory. in "leaves of grass" whitman speaks as all men have ever spoken who believe in god and in themselves--oracular, without apology or abasement--fearlessly. he tells of the powers and mysteries that pervade and guide all life, all death, all purpose. his work is masculine, as the sun is masculine; for the prophetic voice is as surely masculine as the lullaby and lyric cry are feminine. whitman brings the warmth of the sun to the buds of the heart, so that they open and bring forth form, color, perfume. he becomes for them aliment and dew; so these buds become blossoms, fruits, tall branches and stately trees that cast refreshing shadows. there are men who are to other men as the shadow of a mighty rock in a weary land--such is walt whitman. victor hugo man is neither master of his life nor of his fate. he can but offer to his fellowmen his efforts to diminish human suffering; he can but offer to god his indomitable faith in the growth of liberty. --_victor hugo_ [illustration: victor hugo] the father of victor hugo was a general in the army of napoleon, his mother a woman of rare grace and brave good sense. victor was the third of three sons. six weeks before the birth of her youngest boy, the mother wrote to a very dear friend of her husband, this letter: "to general victor lahorie, "citizen-general: "soon to become the mother of a third child, it would be very agreeable to me if you would act as its godfather. its name shall be yours--one which you have not belied and one which you have so well honored: victor or victorine. your consent will be a testimonial of your friendship for us. "please accept, citizen-general, the assurance of our sincere attachment. "femme hugo." victorine was expected, victor came. general lahorie acted as sponsor for the infant. a soldier's family lives here or there, everywhere or anywhere. in eighteen hundred eight, general hugo was with joseph bonaparte in spain. victor was then six years old. his mother had taken as a residence a quaint house in the impasse of the feullantines, paris. it was one of those peculiar old places occasionally seen in france. the environs of london have a few; america none of which i know. this house, roomy, comfortable and antiquated, was surrounded with trees and a tangle of shrubbery, vines and flowers; above it all was a high stone wall, and in front a picket iron gate. it was a mosaic--a sample of the sixteenth century inlaid in this; solitary as the woods; quiet as a convent; sacred as a forest; a place for dreams, and reverie, and rest. at the back of the house was a dilapidated little chapel. here an aged priest counted his beads, said daily mass, and endeavored to keep moth, rust and ruin from the house of prayer. this priest was a scholar, a man of learning: he taught the children of madame hugo. another man lived in this chapel. he never went outside the gate and used to take exercise at night. he had a cot-bed in the shelter of the altar; beneath his pillow were a pair of pistols and a copy of tacitus. this man lived there summer and winter, although there was no warmth save the scanty sunshine that stole in through the shattered windows. he, too, taught the children and gave them little lectures on history. he loved the youngest boy and would carry him on his shoulder and tell him stories of deeds of valor. one day a file of soldiers came. they took this man and manacled him. the mother sought to keep her children inside the house so that they should not witness the scene, but she did not succeed. the boys fought their mother and the servants in a mad frenzy trying to rescue the old man. the soldiers formed in columns of four and marched their prisoner away. not long after, madame hugo was passing the church of saint jacques du haut pas: her youngest boy's hand was in hers. she saw a large placard posted in front of the church. she paused and pointing to it said, "victor, read that!" the boy read. it was a notice that general lahorie had been shot that day on the plains of grenville by order of a court martial. general lahorie was a gentleman of brittany. he was a republican, and five years before had grievously offended the emperor. a charge of conspiracy being proved against him, a price was placed upon his head, and he found a temporary refuge with the mother of his godson. that tragic incident of the arrest, and the placard announcing general lahorie's death, burned deep into the soul of the manling, and who shall say to what extent it colored his future life? when napoleon met his downfall, it was also a waterloo for general hugo. his property was confiscated, and penury took the place of plenty. when victor was nineteen, his mother having died, the family life was broken up. in "les miserables" the early struggles of marius are described; and this, the author has told us, may be considered autobiography. he has related how the young man lived in a garret; how he would sweep this barren room; how he would buy a pennyworth of cheese, waiting until dusk to get a loaf of bread, and slink home as furtively as if he had stolen it; how carrying his book under his arm he would enter the butcher's shop, and after being elbowed by jeering servants till he felt the cold sweat standing out on his forehead, he would take off his hat to the astonished butcher and ask for a single mutton-chop. this he would carry to his garret, and cooking it himself it would be made to last for three days. in this way he managed to live on less than two hundred dollars a year, derived from the proceeds of poems, pamphlets and essays. at this time he was already an "academy laureate," having received honorable mention for a poem submitted in a competition. in his twentieth year, fortune came to him in triple form: he brought out a book of poems that netted him seven hundred francs; soon after the publication of this book, louis the eighteenth, who knew the value of having friends who were ready writers, bestowed on him a pension of one thousand francs a year; then these two pieces of good fortune made possible a third--his marriage. early marriages are like late ones: they may be wise and they may not. victor hugo's marriage with adele foucher was a most happy event. a man with a mind as independent as victor hugo's is sure to make enemies. the "classics" were positive that he was defiling the well of classic french, and they sought to write him down. but by writing a man up you can not write him down; the only thing that can smother a literary aspirant is silence. victor hugo coined the word when he could not find it, transposed phrases, inverted sentences, and never called a spade an agricultural implement. not content with this, he put the spade on exhibition and this often at unnecessary times, and occasionally prefaced the word with an adjective. had he been let alone he would not have done this. the censors told him he must not use the name of deity, nor should he refer so often to kings. at once, he doubled his topseys and put on his stage three uncle toms when one might have answered. like shakespeare, he used idioms and slang with profusion--anything to express the idea. will this convey the thought? if so, it was written down, and, once written, beelzebub and all his hosts could not make him change it. but in the interest of truth let me note one exception: "i do not like that word," said mademoiselle mars to victor hugo at a rehearsal of "hernani"; "can i not change it?" "i wrote it so and it must stand," was the answer. mademoiselle mars used another expression instead of the author's, and he promptly asked her to resign her part. she wept, and upon agreeing to adhere to the text was reinstated in favor. rehearsal after rehearsal occurred, and the words were repeated as written. the night of the performance came. superb was the stage-setting, splendid the audience. the play went forward amid loud applause. the scene was reached where came the objectionable word. did mademoiselle mars use it? of course not; she used the word she chose--she was a woman. fifty-three times she played the part, and not once did she use the author's pet phrase; and he was wise enough not to note the fact. the moral of this is that not even a strong man can cope with a small woman who weeps at the right time. the censorship forbade the placing of "marion delorme" on the stage until a certain historical episode in it had been changed. would the author be so kind as to change it? not he. "then it shall not be played," said m. de martignac. the author hastened to interview the minister in person. he got a north pole reception. in fact, m. de martignac said that it was his busy day, and that playwriting was foolish business anyway; but if a man were bound to write, he should write to amuse, not to instruct. and young hugo was bowed out. when he found himself well outside the door he was furious. he would see the king himself. and he did see the king. his majesty was gracious and very patient. he listened to the young author's plea, talked book-lore, recited poetry, showed that he knew hugo's verses, asked after the author's wife, then the baby, and--said that the play could not go on. hugo turned to go. charles the tenth called him back, and said that he was glad the author had called--in fact, he was about to send for him. his pension thereafter should be six thousand francs a year. victor hugo declined to receive it. of course, the papers were full of the subject. all cafedom took sides: paris had a topic for gesticulation, and paris improved the opportunity. conservatism having stopped this play, there was only one thing to do: write another; for a play of victor hugo's must be put upon the stage. all his friends said so; his honor was at stake. in three weeks another play was ready. the censors read it and gave their report. they said that "hernani" was whimsical in conception, defective in execution, a tissue of extravagances, generally trivial and often coarse. but they advised that it be put upon the stage, just to show the public to what extent of folly an author could go. in order to preserve the dignity of their office, they drew up a list of six places where the text should be changed. both sides were afraid, so each was willing to give in a point. the text was changed, and the important day for the presentation was drawing nigh. the romanticists were, of course, anxious that the play should be a great success; the classics were quite willing that it should be otherwise; in fact, they had bought up the claque and were making arrangements to hiss it down. but the author's friends were numerous; they were young and lusty; they held meetings behind locked doors, and swore terrible oaths that the play should go. on the day of the initial performance, five hours before the curtain rose, they were on hand, having taken the best seats in the house. they also took the worst, wherever a hisser might hide. these advocates of liberal art wore coats of green or red or blue, costumes like bullfighters, trousers and hats to match or not to match--anything to defy tradition. all during the performance there was an uproar. theophile gautier has described the event in most entertaining style, and in "l'historie de romanticisme" the record of it is found in detail. several american writers have touched upon this particular theme, and all who have seen fit to write of it seem to have stood under umbrellas when god rained humor. one writer calls it "the outburst of a tremendous revolution in literature." he speaks of "smoldering flames," "the hordes that furiously fought entrenched behind prestige, age, caste, wealth and tradition," "suppression and extermination of heresy," "those who sought to stop the onward march of civilization," etc. let us be sensible. a "cane-rush" is not a revolution, and "bloody monday" at harvard is not "a decisive battle in the onward and upward march." if "hernani" had been hissed down, victor hugo would have lived just as long and might have written better. civilization is not held in place by noisy youths in flaming waistcoats; and even if every cabbage had hit its mark, and every egg bespattered its target, the morning stars would still sing together. "the hunchback of notre dame" was next turned out--written in five months--and was a great success. publishers besieged the author for another story, but he preferred poetry. it was thirty years before his next novel, "les miserables," appeared. but all the time he wrote--plays, verses, essays, pamphlets. everything that he penned was widely read. amid storms of opposition and cries of bravo, continually making friends, he moved steadily forward. men like victor hugo can be killed or they may be banished, but they can not be bought; neither can they be intimidated into silence. he resigned his pension and boldly expressed himself in his own way. he knew history by heart and toyed with it; politics was his delight. but it is a mistake to call him a statesman. he was bold to rashness, impulsive, impatient and vehement. because a man is great is no reason why he should be proclaimed perfect. such men as victor hugo need no veneer--the truth will answer: he would explode a keg of powder to kill a fly. he was an agitator. but these zealous souls are needed--not to govern or to be blindly followed, but rather to make other men think for themselves. yet to do this in a monarchy is not safe. the years passed, and the time came for either hugo or royalty to go; france was not large enough for both. it proved to be hugo; a bounty of twenty-five thousand francs was offered for his body, dead or alive. through a woman's devotion he escaped to brussels. he was driven from there to jersey, then to guernsey. it was nineteen years before he returned to paris--years of banishment, but years of glory. exiled by fate that he might do his work! * * * * * each day a steamer starts from southampton for guernsey, alderney and jersey. these are names known to countless farmers' boys the wide world over. you can not mistake the channel island boats--they smell like a county fair, and though you be blind and deaf it is impossible to board the wrong craft. every time one of these staunch little steamers lands in england, crates containing mild-eyed, lusty calves are slid down the gangplank, marked for maine, iowa, california, or some uttermost part of the earth. there his vealship (worth his weight in gold) is going to found a kingdom. i stood on the dock watching the bovine passengers disembark, and furtively listened the while to an animated argument between two rather rough-looking, red-faced men, clothed in corduroys and carrying long, stout staffs. mixed up in their conversation i caught the names of royalty, then of celebrities great, and artists famous--warriors, orators, philanthropists and musicians. could it be possible that these rustics were poets? it must be so. and there came to me thoughts of thoreau, walt whitman, joaquin miller, and all that sublime company of singers in shirt-sleeves. suddenly the wind veered and the veil fell; all the sacred names so freely bandied about were those of "families" with mighty milk-records. when we went on board and the good ship was slipping down the solent, i made the acquaintance of these men and was regaled with more cow-talk than i had heard since i left texas. we saw the island of portsea, where dickens was born, and got a glimpse of the spires of portsmouth as we passed; then came the isle of wight and the quaint town of cowes. i made a bright joke on the latter place as it was pointed out to me by my jersey friend, but it went for naught. a pleasant sail of eight hours and the towering cliffs of guernsey came in sight. foam-dashed and spray-covered they rise right out of the sea at the south, to the height of two hundred seventy feet. about them great flocks of sea-fowl hover, swirl and soar. wild, rugged and romantic is the scene. the isle of guernsey is nine miles long and six wide. its principal town is saint peter port, a place of about sixteen thousand inhabitants, where a full dozen hotel porters meet the incoming steamer and struggle for your baggage. hotels and boarding-houses here are numerous and good. guernsey is a favorite resort for invalids and those who desire to flee the busy world for a space. in fact, the author of "les miserables" has made exile popular. emerging from my hotel at saint peter port i was accosted by a small edition of gavroche, all in tatters, who proposed showing me the way to hauteville house for a penny. i already knew the route, but accepted the offer on gavroche's promise to reveal to me a secret about the place. the secret is this: the house is haunted, and when the wind is east, and the setting moon shows only a narrow rim above the rocks, ghosts come and dance a solemn minuet on the glass roof above the study. had gavroche ever seen them? no, but he knew a boy who had. years and years--ever so many years ago--long before there were any steamboats, and when only a schooner came to guernsey once a week, a woman was murdered in hauteville house. her ghost came back with other ghosts and drove the folks away. so the big house remained vacant--save for the spooks, who paid no rent. then after a great, long time victor hugo came and lived in the house. the ghosts did not bother him. faith! they had been keeping the place just a' purpose for him. he rented the house first, and liked it so well that he bought it--got it at half-price on account of the ghosts. here, every christmas, victor hugo gave a big dinner in the great oak hall to all the children in guernsey: hundreds of them--all the way from babies that could barely creep, to "boys" with whiskers. they were all fed on turkey, tarts, apples, oranges and figs; and when they went away, each was given a bag of candy to take home. climbing a narrow, crooked street we came to the great, dark, gloomy edifice situated at the top of a cliff. the house was painted black by some strange whim of a former occupant. "we will leave it so," said victor hugo; "liberty is dead, and we are in mourning for her." but the gloom of hauteville house is only on the outside. within all is warm and homelike. the furnishings are almost as the poet left them, and the marks of his individuality are on every side. in the outer hall stands an elegant column of carved oak, its panels showing scenes from "the hunchback." in the dining-room there is fantastic wainscoting with plaques and porcelain tiles inlaid here and there. many of these ornaments were presents, sent by unknown admirers in all parts of the world. in "les miserables" there is a chance line revealing the author's love for the beautiful as shown in the grain of woods. the result was an influx of polished panels, slabs, chips, hewings, carvings, and in one instance a log sent "collect." samples of redwood, ebony, calamander, hamamelis, suradanni, tamarind, satinwood, mahogany, walnut, maples of many kinds and oaks without limit--all are there. a mammoth ax-helve i noticed on the wall was labeled, "shagbark-hickory from missouri." these specimens of wood were sometimes made up into hatracks, chairs, canes, or panels for doors, and are seen in odd corners of these rambling rooms. charles hugo once facetiously wrote to a friend: "we have bought no kindling for three years." at another time he writes: "father still is sure he can sketch and positive he can carve. he has several jackknives, and whittles names, dates and emblems on sticks and furniture--we tremble for the piano." in the dining-room, i noticed a huge oaken chair fastened to the wall with a chain. on the mantel was a statuette of the virgin; on the pedestal victor hugo had engraved lines speaking of her as "freedom's goddess." this dining-room affords a sunny view out into the garden; on this floor are also a reception-room, library and a smoking-room. on the next floor are various sleeping-apartments, and two cozy parlors, known respectively as the red room and the blue. both are rich in curious draperies, a little more pronounced in color than some folks admire. the next floor contains the "oak gallery": a ballroom we should call it. five large windows furnish a flood of light. in the center of this fine room is an enormous candelabrum with many branches, at the top a statue of wood, the whole carved by victor hugo's own hands. the oak gallery is a regular museum of curiosities of every sort--books, paintings, carvings, busts, firearms, musical instruments. a long glass case contains a large number of autograph-letters from the world's celebrities, written to hugo in exile. at the top of the house and built on its flat roof is the most interesting apartment of hauteville house--the study and workroom of victor hugo. three of its sides and the roof are of glass. the floor, too, is one immense slab of sea-green glass. sliding curtains worked by pulleys cut off the light as desired. "more light, more light," said the great man again and again. he gloried and reveled in the sunshine. here, in the winter, with no warmth but the sun's rays, his eyes shaded by his felt hat, he wrote, always standing at a shelf fixed in the wall. on this shelf were written all "the toilers," "the man who laughs," "shakespeare" and much of "les miserables." the leaves of manuscript were numbered and fell on the floor, to remain perhaps for days before being gathered up. when victor hugo went to guernsey he went to liberty, not to banishment. he arrived at hauteville house poor in purse and broken in health. here the fire of his youth came back, and his pen retrieved the fortune that royalty had confiscated. the forenoons were given to earnest work. the daughter composed music; the sons translated shakespeare and acted as their father's faithful helpers; madame hugo collected the notes of her husband's life and cheerfully looked after her household affairs. several hours of each afternoon were given to romp and play; the evenings were sacred to music, reading and conversation. horace greeley was once a prisoner in paris. from his cell he wrote, "the saint peter who holds the keys of this place has kindly locked the world out; and for once, thank heaven, i am free from intrusion." lovers of truth must thank exile for some of our richest and ripest literature. exile is not all exile. imagination can not be imprisoned. amid the winding bastions of the brain, thought roams free and untrammeled. liberty is only a comparative term, and victor hugo at guernsey enjoyed a thousand times more freedom than ever ruling monarch knew. standing at the shelf-desk where this "gentleman of france" stood for so many happy hours, i inscribed my name in the "visitors' book." i thanked the good woman who had shown me the place, and told me so much of interest--thanked her in words that seemed but a feeble echo of all that my heart would say. i went down the stairs--out at the great carved doorway--and descended the well-worn steps. perched on a crag waiting for me was little gavroche, his rags fluttering in the breeze. he offered to show me the great stone chair where gilliatt sat when the tide came up and carried him away. and did i want to buy a bull calf? gavroche knew where there was a fine one that could be bought cheap. gavroche would show me both the calf and the stone chair for threepence. i accepted the offer, and we went down the stony street toward the sea, hand in hand. * * * * * on the twenty-eighth day of june, eighteen hundred ninety-four, i took my place in the long line and passed slowly through the pantheon at paris and viewed the body of president carnot. the same look of proud dignity that i had seen in life was there--calm, composed, serene. the inanimate clay was clothed in the simple black of a citizen of the republic; the only mark of office being the red silken sash that covered the spot in the breast where the stiletto-stroke of hate had gone home. amid bursts of applause, surrounded by loving friends and loyal adherents, he was stricken down and passed out into the unknown. happy fate! to die before the fickle populace had taken up a new idol; to step in an instant beyond the reach of malice--to leave behind the self-seekers that pursue, the hungry horde that follows, the zealots who defame; to escape the dagger-thrust of calumny and receive only the glittering steel that at the same time wrote his name indelibly on the roll of honor. carnot, thrice happy thou! thy name is secure on history's page, and thy dust now resting beneath the dome of the pantheon is bedewed with the tears of thy countrymen. saint genevieve, the patron saint of paris, died in five hundred twelve. she was buried on a hilltop, the highest point in paris, on the left bank of the seine. over the grave was erected a chapel which for many years was a shrine for the faithful. this chapel with its additions remained until seventeen hundred fifty, when a church was designed which in beauty of style and solidity of structure has rarely been equaled. the object of the architect was to make the most enduring edifice possible, and still not sacrifice proportion. louis the fifteenth laid the cornerstone of this church in seventeen hundred sixty-four, and in seventeen hundred ninety the edifice was dedicated by the roman catholics with great pomp. but the spirit of revolution was at work; and in one year after, a mob sacked this beautiful building, burned its pews, destroyed its altar, and wrought havoc with its ecclesiastical furniture. the convention converted the structure into a memorial temple, inscribing on its front the words, "aux grandes hommes la patrie reconnaisante," and they named the building the pantheon. in eighteen hundred six, the catholics had gotten such influence with the government that the building was restored to them. after the revolution of eighteen hundred thirty, the church of saint genevieve was again taken from the priests. it was held until eighteen hundred fifty-one, when the romanists in the assembly succeeded in having it again reconsecrated. in the meantime, many of the great men of france had been buried there. the first interment in the pantheon was mirabeau. next came marat--stabbed while in the bath by charlotte corday. both bodies were removed by order of the convention when the church was given back to rome. in the pantheon, the visitor now sees the elaborate tombs of voltaire and rousseau. in the dim twilight he reads the glowing inscriptions, and from the tomb of rousseau he sees the hand thrust forth bearing a torch--but the bones of these men are not here. while robed priests chanted the litany, as the great organ pealed, and swinging censers gave off their perfume, visitors came, bringing children, and they stopped at the arches where rousseau and voltaire slept side by side, and they said, "it is here." and so the dust of infidel greatness seemed to interfere with the rites. a change was made. let victor hugo tell: "one night in may, eighteen hundred fourteen, about two o'clock in the morning, a cab stopped near the city gate of la gare at an opening in a board fence. this fence surrounded a large, vacant piece of ground belonging to the city of paris. the cab had come from the pantheon, and the coachman had been ordered to take the most deserted streets. three men alighted from the cab and crawled into the enclosure. two carried a sack between them. other men, some in cassocks, awaited them. they proceeded towards a hole dug in the middle of the field. at the bottom of the hole was quicklime. these men said nothing, they had no lanterns. the wan daybreak gave a ghastly light; the sack was opened. it was full of bones. these were the bones of jean jacques and of voltaire, which had been withdrawn from the pantheon. "the mouth of the sack was brought close to the hole, and the bones rattled down into that black pit. the two skulls struck against each other; a spark, not likely to be seen by those standing near, was doubtless exchanged between the head that made 'the philosophical dictionary' and the head that made 'the social contract,' when that was done, when the sack was shaken, when voltaire and rousseau had been emptied into that hole, a digger seized a spade, threw into the opening the heap of earth, and filled up the grave. the others stamped with their feet upon the ground, so as to remove from it the appearance of having been freshly disturbed. one of the assistants took for his trouble the sack--as the hangman takes the clothing of his victim--they left the enclosure, got into the cab without saying a word, and, hastily, before the sun had risen, these men got away." the ashes of the man who wrote these vivid words now rest next to the empty tombs of voltaire and rousseau. but a step away is the grave of sadi-carnot. when the visitor is conducted to the crypt of the pantheon, he is first taken to the tomb of victor hugo. the sarcophagus on each side is draped with the red, white and blue of france and the stars and stripes of america. with uncovered heads, we behold the mass of flowers and wreaths, and our minds go back to eighteen hundred eighty-five, when the body of the chief citizen of paris lay in state at the pantheon and five hundred thousand people passed by and laid the tribute of silence or of tears on his bier. the pantheon is now given over as a memorial to the men of france who have enriched the world with their lives. over the portals of this beautiful temple are the words, "liberte, egalite, fraternite." across its floors of rarest mosaic echo only the feet of pilgrims and those of the courteous and kindly old soldiers who have the place in charge. on the walls color revels in beautiful paintings, and in the niches and on the pedestals is marble that speaks of greatness which lives in lives made better. the history of the pantheon is one of strife. as late as eighteen hundred seventy the commune made it a stronghold, and the streets on every side were called upon to contribute their paving-stones for a barricade. yet it seems meet that victor hugo's dust should lie here amid the scenes he loved and knew, and where he struggled, worked, toiled, achieved; from whence he was banished, and to which he returned in triumph, to receive at last the complete approbation so long withheld. certainly not in the quiet of a mossy graveyard, nor in a church where priests mumble unmeaning words at fixed times, nor yet alone on the mountain-side--for he chafed at solitude--but he should have been buried at sea. in the midst of storm and driving sleet, at midnight, the sails should have been lowered, the great engines stopped, and with no requiem but the sobbing of the night-wind and the sighing of the breeze through the shrouds, and the moaning of the waves as they surged about the great, black ship, the plank should have been run out, and the body wrapped in the red, white and blue of the republic: the sea, the infinite mother of all, beloved and sung by him, should have taken his tired form to her arms, and there he would rest. if not this, then the pantheon. wm. wordsworth even such a shell the universe itself is to the ear of faith; and there are times, i doubt not, when to you it doth impart authentic tidings of invisible things; of ebb and flow and ever-during power; and central peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation. here you stand, adore and worship, when you know it not; pious beyond the intention of your thought; devout above the meaning of your will. --_wordsworth_ [illustration: william wordsworth] some one has told us that heaven is not a place but a condition of mind, and it is possible that he is right. but if heaven is a place, surely it is not unlike grasmere. such loveliness of landscape--such sylvan stretches of crystal water--peace and quiet and rest! great, green hills lift their heads to the skies, and all the old stone walls and hedgerows are covered with trailing vines and blooming flowers. the air is rich with song of birds, sweet with perfume, and the blossoms gaily shower their petals on the passer-by. overhead, white, billowy clouds float lazily over their background of ethereal blue. cool june breezes fan the cheek. distant knolls are dotted with flocks of sheep whose bells tinkle dreamily; and drowsy hum of beetle makes the bass, while lark song forms the air of the sweet symphony that nature plays. such was grasmere as i first saw it. to love the plain, homely, common, simple things of earth, of these to sing; to make the familiar beautiful and the commonplace enchanting; to cause each bush to burn with the actual presence of the living god: this is the poet's office. and if the poet lives near grasmere, his task does not seem difficult. from seventeen hundred ninety-nine to eighteen hundred eight, wordsworth lived at dove cottage. thanks to a few earnest souls, the place is now secured to the people of england and the lovers of poetry wherever they may be. a good old woman has charge of the cottage, and for a slight fee shows you the house and garden and little orchard and objects of interest, all the while talking: and you are glad, for, although unlettered, she is reverent and honest. she was born here, and all she knows is wordsworth and the people and the things he loved. is not this enough? here wordsworth lived before anything he wrote was published in book form: here his best work was done, and here dorothy--splendid, sympathetic dorothy---was inspiration, critic, friend. but who inspired dorothy? coleridge perhaps more than all others, and we know somewhat of their relationship as told in dorothy's diary. there is a little wordsworth library in dove cottage, and i sat at the window of "de quincey's room" and read for an hour. says dorothy: "sat until four o'clock reading dear coleridge's letters." "we paced the garden until moonrise at one o'clock--we three, brother, coleridge and i." "i read spenser to him aloud and then we had a midnight tea." here in this little, terraced garden, behind the stone cottage with its low ceilings and wide window-seats and little, diamond panes, she in her misery wrote: "oh, the pity of it all! yet there is recompense; every sight reminds me of coleridge, dear, dear fellow; of our walks and talks by day and night; of all the bright and witty, and sad sweet things of which we spoke and read. i was melancholy and could not talk, and at last i eased my heart by weeping." alas, too often there is competition between brother and sister, then follow misunderstandings; but here the brotherly and sisterly love stands out clear and strong after these hundred years have passed, and we contemplate it with delight. was ever woman more honestly and better praised than dorothy? "the blessings of my later years were with me when i was a boy. she gave me eyes, she gave me ears, and humble cares and gentle fears, a heart! the fountain of sweet tears, and love and thought and joy. and she hath smiles to earth unknown, smiles that with motion of their own do spread and sink and rise; that come and go with endless play, and ever as they pass away are hidden in her eyes." and so in a dozen or more poems, we see dorothy reflected. she was the steel on which he tried his flint. everything he wrote was read to her, then she read it alone, balancing the sentences in the delicate scales of her womanly judgment. "heart of my heart, is this well done?" when she said, "this will do," it was no matter who said otherwise. back of the house on the rising hillside is the little garden. hewn out of the solid rock is "dorothy's seat." there i rested while mrs. dixon discoursed of poet lore, and told me of how, many times, coleridge and dorothy had sat in the same seat and watched the stars. then i drank from "the well," which is more properly a spring; the stones that curb it were placed in their present position by the hand that wrote "the prelude." above the garden is the orchard, where the green linnet still sings, for the birds never grow old. there, too, are the circling swallows; and in a snug little alcove of the cottage you can read "the butterfly" from a first edition; and then you can go sit in the orchard, white with blossoms, and see the butterflies that suggested the poem. and if your eye is good you can discover down by the lakeside the daffodils, and listen the while to the cuckoo call. then in the orchard you can see not only "the daisy," but many of them, and, if you wish, mrs. dixon will let you dig a bunch of the daisies to take back to america; and if you do, i hope that yours will prosper as have mine, and that wordsworth's flowers, like wordsworth's verse, will gladden your heart when the blue sky of your life threatens to be o'ercast with gray. here southey came, and "thalaber" was read aloud in this little garden. here, too, came clarkson, the man with a fine feminine carelessness, as dorothy said. charles lloyd sat here and discoursed with william calvert. sir george beaumont forgot his title and rapped often at the quaint, hinged door. an artist was beaumont, but his best picture they say is not equal to the lines that wordsworth wrote about it. sir george was not only a gentleman according to law, but one in heart, for he was a friend, kind, gentle and generous. with such a friend wordsworth was rich indeed. but perhaps the friends we have are only our other selves, and we get what we deserve. we must not forget the kindly face of humphry davy, whose gracious playfulness was ever a charm to the wordsworths. the safety-lamp was then only an unspoken word, and perhaps few foresaw the sweetness and light that these two men would yet give to earth. walter scott and his wife came to dove cottage in eighteen hundred five. he did not bring his title, for it, like humphry davy's, was as yet unpacked down in london town. they slept in the little cubby-hole of a room in the upper southwest corner. one can imagine dorothy taking sir walter's shaving-water up to him in the morning; and the savory smell of breakfast as mistress mary poured the tea, while england's future laureate served the toast and eggs: mr. scott eating everything in sight and talking a torrent the while about art and philosophy as he passed his cup back, to the consternation of the hostess, whose frugal ways were not used to such ravages of appetite. of course she did not know that a combined novelist and rhymster ate twice as much as a simple poet. afterwards mrs. scott tucked up her dress, putting on one of dorothy's aprons, and helped do the dishes. then coleridge came over and they all climbed to the summit of helm crag. shy little de quincey had read some of wordsworth's poems, and knew from their flavor that the man who penned them was a noble soul. he came to grasmere to call on him: he walked past dove cottage twice, but his heart failed him and he went away unannounced. later, he returned and found the occupants as simple folks as himself. happiness was there and good society; few books, but fine culture; plain living and high thinking. wordsworth lived at rydal mount for thirty-three years, yet the sweetest flowers of his life blossomed at dove cottage. for difficulty, toil, struggle, obscurity, poverty, mixed with aspiration and ambition---all these were here. success came later, but this is naught; for the achievement is more than the public acknowledgment of the deed. after wordsworth moved away, de quincey rented dove cottage and lived in it for twenty-seven years. he acquired a library of more than five thousand volumes, making bookshelves on four sides of the little rooms from floor to ceiling. some of these shelves still remain. here he turned night into day and dreamed the dreams of "the opium-eater." and all these are some of the things that mrs. dixon told me on that bright summer day. what if i had heard them before! no difference. dear old lady, i salute you and at your feet i lay my gratitude for a day of rare and quiet joy. "farewell, thou little nook of mountain ground, thou rocky corner in the lowest stair of that magnificent temple which does bound one side of our whole vale with gardens rare, sweet garden-orchard, eminently fair, the loveliest spot that man has ever found, farewell! we leave thee to heaven's peaceful care, thee, and the cottage which thou dost surround." * * * * * at places of pleasure and entertainment in the far west, are often found functionaries known as "bouncers." it is the duty of the bouncer to give hints to objectionable visitors that their presence is not desired. and inasmuch as there are many men who can never take a hint without a kick, the bouncer is a person selected on account of his peculiar fitness--psychic and otherwise--for the place. we all have special talents, and these faculties should be used in a manner that will help our fellowmen on their way. my acquaintanceship with the bouncer has been only general, not particular. yet i have admired him from a distance, and the skill and eclat that he sometimes shows in a professional way has often excited my admiration. in social usages, america borrows constantly from the mother country. but like all borrowing it seems to be one-sided, for seldom, very, very seldom, in point of etiquette and manners does england borrow from us. yet there are exceptions. it is a beautiful highway that skirts lake windermere and follows up through ambleside. we get a glimpse of the old home of harriet martineau, and "fox howe," the home of matthew arnold. just before rydal water is reached comes rydal road, running straight up the hillside, off from the turnpike. rydal mount is the third house up on the left-hand side, i knew the location, for i had read of it many times, and in my pocketbook i carried a picture taken from an old "frank leslie's," showing the house. my heart beat fast as i climbed the hill. to visit the old home of one who was poet laureate of england is no small event in the life of a book-lover. i was full of poetry and murmured lines from "the excursion" as i walked. soon rare old rydal mount came in sight among the wealth of green. i stopped and sighed. yes, yes, wordsworth lived here for thirty-three years, and here he died; the spot whereon i then stood had been pressed many times by his feet. i walked slowly, with uncovered head, and approached the gate. it was locked. i fumbled at the latch; and just as there came a prospect of its opening, a loud, deep, guttural voice dashed over me like a wave: "there--you! now, wot you want?" the owner of this voice was not ten feet away, but he was standing up close to the wall and i had not seen him. i was somewhat startled at first. the man did not move. i stepped to one side to get a better view of my interlocutor, and saw him to be a large, red man of perhaps fifty. a handkerchief was knotted around his thick neck, and he held a heavy hoe in his hand. a genuine beefeater he was, only he ate too much beef and the ale he drank was evidently extra xxx. his scowl was so needlessly severe and his manner so belligerent that i--thrice armed, knowing my cause was just--could not restrain a smile. i touched my hat and said, "ah, excuse me, mr. falstaff, you are the bouncer?" "never mind wot i am, sir--'oo are you?" "i am a great admirer of wordsworth----" "that's the way they all begins. cawn't ye hadmire 'im on that side of the wall as well as this?" there is no use of wasting argument with a man of this stamp; besides that, his question was to the point. but there are several ways of overcoming one's adversary: i began feeling in my pocket for pence. my enemy ceased glaring, stepped up to the locked gate as though he half-wished to be friendly, and there was sorrow in his voice: "don't tempt me, sir; don't do ut! the missus is peekin' out of the shutters at us now." "and do you never admit visitors, even to the grounds?" "no, sir, never, god 'elp me! and there's many an honest bob i could turn by ut, and no one 'urt. but i've lost my place twic't by ut. they took me back though. the guv'ner 'ud never forgive me again. 'it's three times and out, mister 'opkins,' says 'ee, only last whitsuntide." "but visitors do come?" "yes, sir; but they never gets in. mostly 'mer'cans; they don't know no better, sir. they picks all the ivy orf the outside of the wall, and you sees yourself there's no leaves on the lower branches of that tree. then they carries away so many pebbles from out there that i've to dump in a fresh weelbarrel full o' gravel every week, sir, don't you know." he thrust a pudgy, freckled hand through the bars of the gate to show that he bore me no ill-will, and also, i suppose, to mollify my disappointment. for although i had come too late to see the great poet himself and had even failed to see the inside of his house, yet i had at least been greeted at the gate by his proxy. i pressed the hand firmly, pocketed a handful of gravel as a memento, then turned and went my way. and all there is to tell about my visit to rydal mount is this interview with the bouncer. * * * * * wordsworth lived eighty years. his habitation, except for short periods, was never more than a few miles from his birthplace. his education was not extensive, his learning not profound. he lacked humor and passion; in his character there was little personal magnetism, and in his work there is small dramatic power. he traveled more or less and knew humanity, but he did not know man. his experience in so-called practical things was slight, his judgment not accurate. so he lived--quietly, modestly, dreamily. his dust rests in a country churchyard, the grave marked by a simple slab. a gnarled, old yew-tree stands guard above the grass-grown mound. the nearest railroad is fifteen miles away. as a poet, wordsworth stands in the front rank of the second class. shelley, browning, mrs. browning, tennyson, far surpass him; and the sweet singer of michigan, even in uninspired moments, never "threw off" anything worse than this: "and he is lean and he is sick: his body, dwindled and awry, rests upon ankles swollen and thick; his legs are thin and dry. one prop he has, and only one, his wife, an aged woman, lives with him near the waterfall, upon the village common." jove may nod, but when he makes a move it counts. yet the influence of wordsworth upon the thought and feeling of the world has been very great. he himself said, "the young will read my poems and be better for their truth." many of his lines pass as current coin: "the child is father of the man," "the light that never was on land nor sea," "not too bright and good for human nature's daily food," "thoughts that do lie too deep for tears," "the mighty stream of tendency," and many others. "plain living and high thinking" is generally given to emerson, but he discovered it in wordsworth, and recognizing it as his own he took it. in a certain book of quotations, "the still sad music of humanity" is given to shakespeare; but to equalize matters we sometimes attribute to wordsworth "the old oaken bucket." the men who win are those who correct an abuse. wordsworth's work was a protest--mild yet firm--against the bombastic and artificial school of the eighteenth century. before his day the "timber" used by poets consisted of angels, devils, ghosts, gods; onslaught, tourneys, jousts, tempests of hate and torrents of wrath, always of course with a very beautiful and very susceptible young lady just around the corner. the women in those days were always young and ever beautiful, but seldom wise and not often good. the men were saints or else "bad," generally bad. like the cats of kilkenny, they fought on slight cause. our young man at hawkshead school saw this: it pleased him not, and he made a list of the things on which he would write poems. this list includes: sunset, moonrise, starlight, mist, brooks, shells, stones, butterflies, moths, swallows, linnets, thrushes, wagoners, babies, bark of trees, leaves, nests, fishes, rushes, leeches, cobwebs, clouds, deer, music, shade, swans, crags and snow. he kept his vow and "went it one better," for among his verses i find the following titles: "lines left upon a seat in a yew-tree," "lines composed a few miles above tintern abbey," "to a wounded butterfly," "to dora's portrait," "to the cuckoo," "on seeing a needlebook made in the shape of a harp," etc. wordsworth's service to humanity consists in the fact that he has shown us old truth in a new light, and has made plain the close relationship that exists between physical nature and the soul of man. is this much or little? i think it is much. when we realize that we are a part of all that we see, or hear, or feel, we are not lonely. but to feel a sense of separation is to feel the chill of death. wordsworth taught that the earth is the universal mother and that the life of the flower has its source in the same universal life from whence ours is derived. to know this truth is to feel a tenderness, a kindliness, a spirit of fraternalism, toward every manifestation of this universal life. no attempt was made to say the last word, only a wish to express the truth that the spirit of god is manifest on every hand. now this is a very simple philosophy. no far-reaching, syllogistic logic is required to prove it; no miracle, nor special dispensation is needed; you just feel that it is so, that's all, and it gives you peace. children, foolish folks, old men, whose sands of life are nearly run, comprehend it. but heaven bless you! you can't prove any such foolishness. jeffrey saw the ridiculousness of these assumptions and so he declared, "this will never do," and for twenty years "the edinburgh review" never ceased to fling off fleers and jeers--and to criticize and scoff. that a great periodical, rich and influential, in the city which was the very center of learning, should go so much out of its way to attack a quiet countryman living in a four-roomed cottage, away off in the hills of cumberland, seems a little queer. then, this countryman did not seek to found a kingdom, nor to revolutionize society, nor did he force upon the world his pattypan rhymes about linnets, and larks, and daffodils. far from it: he was very modest--diffident, in fact--and his song was quite in the minor key, but still the chain-shot and bombs of literary warfare were sent hissing in his direction. there is a little story about a certain general who figured as division-commander in the war of secession: this warrior had his headquarters, for a time, in a typical southern home in the tennessee mountains. the house had a large fireplace and chimney; in this chimney, swallows had nests. one day, as the great man was busy at his maps, working out a plan of campaign against the enemy, the swallows made quite an uproar. perhaps some of the eggs were hatching; anyway, the birds were needlessly noisy in their domestic affairs, and it disturbed the great man--he grew nervous. he called his adjutant. "sir," said the mighty warrior, "dislodge those damn pests in the chimney, without delay." two soldiers were ordered to climb the roof and dislodge the enemy. yet the swallows were not dislodged, for the soldiers could not reach them. so jeffrey's tirades were unavailing, and wordsworth was not dislodged. "he might as well try to crush skiddaw," said southey. william m. thackeray to mr. brookfield september , have you read dickens? oh, it is charming! brave dickens! "david copperfield" has some of his prettiest touches, and the reading of the book has done another author a great deal of good. --w.m.t. [illustration: w.m. thackeray] there are certain good old ladies in every community who wear perennial mourning. they attend every funeral, carrying black-bordered handkerchiefs, and weep gently at the right time. i have made it a point to hunt out these ancient dames at their homes, and, over the teacups, i have discovered that invariably they enjoy a sweet peace--a happiness with contentment--that is a great gain. they seem to be civilization's rudimentary relic of the irish keeners and the paid mourners of the orient. and there is just a little of this tendency to mourn with those who mourn in all mankind. it is not difficult to bear another's woe--and then there is always a grain of mitigation, even in the sorrow of the afflicted, that makes their tribulation bearable. burke affirms, in "on the sublime," that all men take a certain satisfaction in the disasters of others. just as frenchmen lift their hats when a funeral passes and thank god that they are not in the hearse, so do we in the presence of calamity thank heaven that it is not ours. perhaps this is why i get a strange delight from walking through a graveyard by night. all about are the white monuments that glisten in the ghostly starlight, the night-wind sighs softly among the grassy mounds--all else is silent--still. this is the city of the dead, and of all the hundreds or thousands who have traveled to this spot over long and weary miles, i, only i, have the power to leave at will. their ears are stopped, their eyes are closed, their hands are folded--but i am alive. one of the first places i visited on reaching london was kensal green cemetery. i quickly made the acquaintance of the first gravedigger, a rare wit, over whose gray head have passed full seventy pleasant summers. i presented him a copy of "the shroud," the organ of the american undertakers' association, published at syracuse, new york. i subscribe for "the shroud" because it has a bright wit-and-humor column, and also for the sweet satisfaction of knowing that there is still virtue left in syracuse. the first gravedigger greeted me courteously, and when i explained briefly my posthumous predilections we grasped hands across an open grave (that he had just digged) and were fast friends. "do you believe in cremation, sir?" he asked. "no, never; it's pagan." "aye, you are a gentleman--and about burying folks in churches?" "never! a grave should be out under the open sky, where the sun by day and the moon and stars----" "right you are. how shakespeare can ever stand it to have his grave walked over by a boy choir is more than i can understand. if i had him here i could look after him right. come, i'll show you the company i keep!" not twenty feet from where we stood was a fine but plain granite block to the memory of the second wife of james russell lowell. "just mr. lowell and one friend stood by the grave when we lowered the coffin--just two men and no one else but the young clergyman who belongs here. mr. lowell shook hands with me when he went away. he gave me a guinea and wrote me two letters afterward from america; the last was sent only a week before he died. i'll show 'em to you when we go to the office. say, did you know him?" he pointed to a slab, on which i read the name of sydney smith. then we went to the graves of mulready, the painter; kemble, the actor; sir charles eastlake, the artist. next came the resting-place of buckle--immortal for writing a preface--dead at thirty-seven, with his history unwrit; leigh hunt sleeps near, and above his dust a column that explains how it was erected by friends. in life he asked for bread; when dead they gave him a costly pile of stone. here are also the graves of madame tietjens; of charles mathews, the actor; and of admiral sir john ross, the arctic explorer. "and just down the hill aways another big man is buried. i knew him well; he used to come and visit us often. the last time i saw him i said as he was going away, 'come again, sir; you are always welcome!' "'thank you, mr. first gravedigger,' says he; 'i will come again before long, and make you an extended visit.' in less than a year the hearse brought him. that's his grave--push that ivy away and you can read the inscription. did you ever hear of him?" it was a plain, heavy slab placed horizontally, and the ivy had so run over it that the white of the marble was nearly obscured. but i made out this inscription: william makepeace thackeray born july , died dec. , anne carmichael smyth died dec. , , aged --his mother by her first marriage the unpoetic exactness of that pedigree gave me a slight chill. but here they sleep--mother and son in one grave. she who gave him his first caress also gave him his last; and when he was found dead in his bed, his mother, who lived under the same roof, was the first one called. he was the child of her girlhood--she was scarcely twenty when she bore him. in life they were never separated, and in death they are not divided. it is as both desired. thackeray was born in india, and was brought to england on the death of his father, when he was six years of age. on the way from calcutta the ship touched at the island of saint helena. a servant took the lad ashore and they walked up the rocky heights to longwood, and there, pacing back and forth in a garden, they saw a short, stout man. "lookee, lad, lookee quick--that's him! he eats three sheep every day and all the children he can get!" "and that's all i had to do with the battle of waterloo," said "old thack," forty years after. but you will never believe it after reading those masterly touches concerning the battle, in "vanity fair." young thackeray was sent to the charterhouse school, where he was considered rather a dull boy. he was big and good-natured, and read novels when he should have studied arithmetic. this tendency to "play off" stuck to him at cambridge--where he did not remain long enough to get a degree, but to the relief of his tutors went off on a tour through europe. travel as a means of education is a very seductive bit of sophistry. invalids whom the doctors can not cure, and scholars whom teachers can not teach, are often advised to take "a change." still there is reason in it. in england thackeray was intent on law; at paris he received a strong bent toward art; but when he reached weimar and was introduced at the court of letters and came into the living presence of goethe, he caught the infection and made a plan for translating schiller. schiller dead was considered in germany a greater man than goethe living, as if it were an offense to live and a virtue to die. and young william makepeace wrote home to his mother that schiller was the greatest man that ever lived and that he was going to translate his books and give them to england. no doubt there are certain people born with a tendency to infectiousness in regard to certain diseases; so there are those who catch the literary mania on slight exposure. "i've got it," said thackeray, and so he had. he went back to england and made groggy efforts at blackstone, and somebody's digest, and what's-his-name's compendium, but all the time he scribbled and sketched. the young man had come into possession of a goodly fortune from his father's estate--enough to yield him an income of over two thousand dollars a year. but bad investments and signing security for friends took the money the way that money usually goes when held by a man who has not earned it. "talk about riches having wings," said thackeray; "my fortune had pinions like a condor, and flew like a carrier-pigeon." when thackeray was thirty he was eking out a meager income writing poems, reviews, criticisms and editorials. his wife was a confirmed invalid, a victim of mental darkness, and his sorrows and anxieties were many. he was known as a bright writer, yet london is full of clever, unsuccessful men. but in thackeray's thirty-eighth year "vanity fair" came out, and it was a success from the first. in "yesterdays with authors," mr. fields says: "i once made a pilgrimage with thackeray to the various houses where his books had been written; and i remember when we came to young street, kensington, he said, with mock gravity, 'down on your knees, you rogue, for here "vanity fair" was penned; and i will go down with you, for i have a high opinion of that little production myself.'" young street is only a block from the kensington metropolitan railway-station. it is a little street running off kensington road. at number sixteen (formerly number thirteen), i saw a card in the window, "rooms to rent to single gentlemen." i rang the bell, and was shown a room that the landlady offered me for twelve shillings a week if i paid in advance; or if i would take another room one flight up with a "gent who was studying hart" it would be only eight and six. i suggested that we go up and see the "gent." we did so, and i found the young man very courteous and polite. he told me that he had never heard thackeray's name in connection with the house. the landlady protested that "no man by the name o' thack'ry has had rooms here since i rented the place; leastwise, if he has been here he called hisself by sumpthink else, which was like o'nuff the case, as most ev'rybody is crooked now'days--but surely no decent person can blame me for that!" i assured her that she was in no wise to blame. from this house in young street the author of "vanity fair" moved to number thirty-six onslow square, where he wrote "the virginians." on the south side of the square there is a row of three-storied brick houses. thackeray lived in one of these houses for nine years. they were the years when honors and wealth were being heaped upon him; and he was worldling enough to let his wants keep pace with his ability to gratify them. he was made of the same sort of clay as other men, for his standard of life conformed to his pocketbook and he always felt poor. from this fine house on onslow square he moved to a veritable palace, which he built to suit his own taste, at number two palace green, kensington. but mansions on earth are seldom for long--he died here on christmas eve, eighteen hundred sixty-three. and charles dickens, mark lemon, millais, trollope, robert browning, cruikshank, tom taylor, louis blanc, charles mathews and shirley brooks were among the friends who carried him to his rest. * * * * * to take one's self too seriously is a great mistake. complacency is the unpardonable sin, and the man who says, "now i'm sure of it," has at that moment lost it. villagers who have lived in one little place until they think themselves great, having lost the sense of proportion through lack of comparison, are generally "in dead earnest." surely they are often intellectually dead, and i do not dispute the fact that they are in earnest. all those excellent gentlemen in the days gone by who could not contemplate a celestial bliss that did not involve the damnation of those who disagreed with them were in dead earnest. cotton mather once saw a black cat perched on the shoulder of an innocent, chattering old gran'ma. the next day a neighbor had a convulsion; and cotton mather went forth and exorcised tabby with a hymn-book, and hanged gran'ma by the neck, high on gallows hill, until she was dead. had the reverend mr. mather possessed but a mere modicum of humor he might have exorcised the cat, but i am sure he would never have troubled old gran'ma. but alas, cotton mather's conversation was limited to yea, yea, and nay, nay--generally, nay, nay--and he was in dead earnest. in the boston public library is a book written in sixteen hundred eighty-five by cotton mather, entitled, "wonders of the invisible world." this book received the endorsement of the governor of the province and also of the president of harvard college. the author cites many cases of persons who were bewitched; and also makes the interesting statement that the devil knows greek, latin and hebrew, but speaks english with an accent. these facts were long used at harvard as an argument in favor of the classics. and when greek was at last made optional, the devil was supposed to have filed a protest with the dean of the faculty. the reverend francis gastrell, who razed new place, and cut down the poet's mulberry-tree to escape the importunities of visitors, was in dead earnest. attila, and herod, and john calvin were in dead earnest. and were it not for the fact that luther had lucid intervals when he went about with his tongue in his cheek he surely would have worked grievous wrong. recent discoveries in egyptian archeology show that in his lifetime moses was esteemed more as a wit than as a lawmaker. his jokes were posted upon the walls and explained to the populace, who it seems were a bit slow. job was a humorist of a high order, and when he said to the wise men, "no doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you," he struck twelve. when the sons of jacob went down into egypt and joseph put up the price of corn, took their money, and then secretly replaced the coin in the sacks, he showed his artless love of a quiet joke. shakespeare's fools were the wisest and kindliest men at court. when the master decked a character in cap and bells, it was as though he had given bonds for the man's humanity. touchstone followed his master into exile; and when all seemed to have forsaken king lear the fool bared himself to the storm and covered the shaking old man with his own cloak. and if costard, trinculo, touchstone, jaques and mercutio had lived in salem in sixteen hundred ninety-two, there would have been not only a flashing of merry jests, but a flashing of rapiers as well, and every gray hair of every old dame's head would have been safe so long as there was a striped leg on which to stand. lincoln, liberator of men, loved the motley. in fact, the individual who is incapable of viewing the world from a jocular basis is unsafe, and can be trusted only when the opposition is strong enough to laugh him into line. in the realm of english letters, thackeray is prince of humorists. he could see right through a brick wall, and never mistook a hawk for a hernshaw. he had a just estimate of values, and the temperament that can laugh at all trivial misfits. and he had, too, that dread capacity for pain which every true humorist possesses, for the true essence of humor is sensibility. in all literature that lives there is mingled like pollen an indefinable element of the author's personality. in thackeray's "lectures on english humorists" this subtle quality is particularly apparent. elusive, delicate, alluring--it is the actinic ray that imparts vitality. when wit plays skittles with dulness, dulness gets revenge by taking wit at his word. vast numbers of people taking thackeray at his word consider him a bitter pessimist. he even disconcerted bright little charlotte bronte, who went down to london to see him, and then wrote back to haworth that "the great man talked steadily with never a smile. i could not tell when to laugh and when to cry, for i did not know what was fun and what fact." but finally the author of "jane eyre" found the combination, and she saw that beneath the brusk exterior of that bulky form there was a woman's tender sympathy. thackeray has told us what he thought of the author of "jane eyre," and the author of "jane eyre" has told us what she thought of the author of "vanity fair." one was big and whimsical, the other was little and sincere, but both were alike in this: their hearts were wrung at the sight of suffering, and both had tears for the erring, the groping, and the oppressed. a frenchman can not comprehend a joke that is not accompanied by grimace and gesticulation; and so m. taine chases thackeray through sixty solid pages, berating him for what he is pleased to term "bottled hate." taine is a cynic who charges thackeray with cynicism, all in the choicest of biting phrase. it is a beautiful example of sinners calling the righteous to repentance--a thing that is often done, but seldom with artistic finish. the fun is too deep for monsieur, or mayhap the brand is not the yellow label to which his palate is accustomed, so he spews it all. yet taine's criticism is charming reading, although he is only hot after an aniseed trail of his own dragging. but the chase is a deal more exciting than most men would lead, were there real live game to capture. if pushed, i might suggest several points in this man's make-up where god could have bettered his work. but accepting thackeray as we find him, we see a singer whose cage fate had overhung with black until he had caught the tune. the "ballad of boullabaisse" shows a tender side of his spirit that he often sought to conceal. his heart vibrated to all finer thrills of mercy; and his love for all created things was so delicately strung that he would, in childish shame, sometimes issue a growl to drown its rising, tearful tones. in the character of becky sharp, he has marshaled some of his own weak points and then lashed them with scorn. he looked into the mirror and seeing a potential snob he straightway inveighed against snobbery. the punishment does not always fit the crime--it is excess. but i still contest that where his ridicule is most severe, it is thackeray's own back that is bared to the knout. the primal recipe for roguery in art is, "know thyself." when a writer portrays a villain and does it well--make no mistake, he poses for the character himself. said gentle ralph waldo emerson, "i have capacity in me for every crime." the man of imagination knows those mystic spores of possibility that lie dormant, and like the magicians of the east who grow mango-trees in an hour, he develops the "inward potential" at will. the mere artisan in letters goes forth and finds a villain and then describes him, but the artist knows a better way: "i am that man." one of the very sweetest, gentlest characters in literature is colonel newcome. the stepfather of thackeray, major carmichael smyth, was made to stand for the portrait of the lovable colonel; and when that all-round athlete, f. hopkinson smith, gave us that other lovable old colonel he paid high tribute to "the newcomes." thackeray was a poet, and as such was often caught in the toils of doubt--the crux of the inquiring spirit. he aspired for better things, and at times his imperfections stood out before him in monstrous shape, and he sought to hiss them down. in the heart of the artist-poet there is an inmost self that sits over against the acting, breathing man and passes judgment on his every deed. to satisfy the world is little; to please the populace is naught; fame is vapor; gold is dross; and every love that has not the sanction of that inmost self is a viper's sting. to satisfy the demands of the god within is the poet's prayer. what doubts beset, what taunting fears surround, what crouching sorrows lie in wait, what dead hopes drag, what hot desires pursue, and what kindly lights do beckon on--ah! "'tis we musicians know." thackeray came to america to get a pot of money, and was in a fair way of securing it, when he chanced to pick up a paper in which a steamer was announced to sail that evening for england. a wave of homesickness swept over the big boy--he could not stand it. he hastily packed up his effects and without saying good-by to any one, and forgetting all his engagements, he hastened to the dock, leaving this note for the kindest of kind friends: "good-by, fields; good-by, mrs. fields--god bless everybody, says w.m.t." charles dickens i hope for the enlargement of my mind, and for the improvement of my understanding. if i have done but little good, i trust i have done less harm, and that none of my adventures will be other than a source of amusing and pleasant recollection. god bless you all! --_pickwick_ [illustration: charles dickens] the path of progress in certain problems seems barred as by a flaming sword. more than a thousand years before christ, an arab chief asked, "if a man die shall he live again?" every man who ever lived has asked the same question, but we know no more today about the subject than did job. there are one hundred five boy babies born to every one hundred girls. the law holds in every land where vital statistics have been kept; and sairey gamp knew just as much about the cause why as brown-sequard, pasteur, agnew or austin flint. there is still a third question that every parent, since adam and eve, has sought to solve: "how can i educate this child so that he will attain eminence?" and even in spite of shelves that groan beneath tomes and tomes, and advice from a million preachers, the answer is: nobody knows. "there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." moses was sent adrift, but the tide carried him into power. the brethren of joseph "deposited him into a cavity," but you can not dispose of genius that way! demosthenes was weighted (or blessed) with every disadvantage; shakespeare got into difficulty with a woman eight years his senior, stole deer, ran away, and--became the very first among english poets; erasmus was a foundling. once there was a woman by the name of nancy hanks; she was thin-breasted, gaunt, yellow and sad. at last, living in poverty, overworked, she was stricken by death. she called her son--homely as herself--and pointing to the lad's sister said, "be good to her, abe," and died--died, having no expectation for her boy beyond the hope that he might prosper in worldly affairs so as to care for himself and his sister. the boy became a man who wielded wisely a power mightier than that ever given to any other american. seven college-bred men composed his cabinet; and proctor knott once said that "if a teeter were evenly balanced, and the members of the cabinet were all placed on one end, and the president on the other, he would send the seven wise men flying into space." on the other hand, marcus aurelius wrote his "meditations" for a son who did not read them, and whose name is a symbol of profligacy; charles kingsley penned "greek heroes" for offspring who have never shown their father's heroism; and charles dickens wrote "a child's history of england" for his children--none of whom has proven his proficiency in historiology. charles dickens himself received his education at the university of hard knocks. very early in life he was cast upon the rocks and suckled by the she-wolf. yet he became the most popular author the world has ever known, and up to the present time no writer of books has approached him in point of number of readers and of financial returns. these are facts--facts so hard and true that they would be the delight of mr. gradgrind. at twelve years of age, charles dickens was pasting labels on blacking-boxes; his father was in prison. at sixteen, he was spending odd hours in the reading-room of the british museum. at nineteen, he was parliamentary reporter; at twenty-one, a writer of sketches; at twenty-three, he was getting a salary of thirty-five dollars a week, and the next year his pay was doubled. when twenty-five, he wrote a play that ran for seventy nights at drury lane theater. about the same time he received seven hundred dollars for a series of sketches written in two weeks. at twenty-six, publishers were at his feet. when dickens was at the flood-tide of prosperity, thackeray, one year his senior, waited on his doorstep with pictures to illustrate "pickwick." he worked steadily, and made from eight to twenty-five thousand dollars a year. his fame increased, and the "new york ledger" paid him ten thousand dollars for one story which he wrote in a fortnight. his collected works fill forty volumes. there are more of dickens' books sold every year now than in any year in which he lived. there were more of dickens' books sold last year than any previous year. "i am glad that the public buy his books," said macready; "for if they did not he would take to the stage and eclipse us all." "not so bad as we seem," by bulwer-lytton, was played at devonshire house in the presence of the queen, dickens taking the principal part. he gave theatrical performances in london, liverpool and manchester, for the benefit of leigh hunt, sheridan knowles and various other needy authors and actors. he wrote a dozen plays, and twice as many more have been constructed from his plots. he gave public readings through england, scotland and ireland, where the people fought for seats. the average receipts for these entertainments were eight hundred dollars per night. in eighteen hundred sixty-three, he made a six months' tour of the united states, giving a series of readings. the prices of admission were placed at extravagant figures, but the box-office was always besieged until the ticket-seller put out his lights and hung out a sign: "the standing-room is all taken." the gross receipts of these readings were two hundred twenty-nine thousand dollars; the expenses thirty-nine thousand dollars; net profit, one hundred ninety thousand dollars. charles dickens died of brain-rupture in eighteen hundred seventy, aged fifty-eight. his dust rests in westminster abbey. * * * * * "to know the london of dickens is a liberal education," once said james t. fields, who was affectionately referred to by charles dickens as "massachusetts jemmy." and i am aware of no better way to become acquainted with the greatest city in the world than to follow the winding footsteps of the author of "david copperfield." beginning his london life when ten years of age, he shifted from one lodging to another, zigzag, tacking back and forth from place to place, but all the time making head, and finally dwelling in palaces of which nobility might be proud. it took him forty-eight years to travel from the squalor of camden town to poet's corner in westminster abbey. he lodged first in bayham street. "a washerwoman lived next door, and a bow street officer over the way." it was a shabby district, chosen by the elder dickens because the rent was low. as he neglected to pay the rent, one wonders why he did not take quarters in piccadilly. i looked in vain for a sign reading, "washin dun heer," but i found a bow street orf'cer who told me that bayham street had long since disappeared. yet there is always a recompense in prowling about london, because if you do not find the thing you are looking for, you find something else equally interesting. my bow street friend proved to be a regular magazine of rare and useful information--historical, archeological and biographical. a lunnun bobby has his clothes cut after a pattern a hundred years old, and he always carries his gloves in his hand--never wearing them--because this was a habit of william the conqueror. but never mind; he is intelligent, courteous and obliging, and i am perfectly willing that he should wear skirts like a ballet-dancer and a helmet too small, if it is his humor. my perliceman knew an older orf'cer who was acquainted with mr. dickens. mr. dickens 'ad a full perliceman's suit 'imself, issued to 'im on an order from scotland yard, and he used to do patrol duty at night, carrying 'is bloomin' gloves in 'is 'and and 'is chinstrap in place. this was told me by my new-found friend, who volunteered to show me the way to north gower street. it's only gower street now and the houses have been renumbered, so number four is a matter of conjecture; but my guide showed me a door where were the marks of a full-grown plate that evidently had long since disappeared. some days afterward i found this identical brass plate at an old bookshop in cheapside. the plate read: "mrs. dickens' establishment." the man who kept the place advertised himself as a "bibliopole." he offered to sell me the plate for one pun ten; but i did not purchase, for i knew where i could get its mate with a deal more verdigris--all for six and eight. dickens has recorded that he can not recollect of any pupils coming to the establishment. but he remembers when his father was taken, like mr. dorrit, to the debtors' prison. he was lodged in the top story but one, in the very same room where his son afterwards put the dorrits. it's a queer thing to know that a book-writer can imprison folks without a warrant and even kill them and yet go unpunished--which thought was suggested to me by my philosophic guide. from this house in gower street, charles used to go daily to the marshalsea to visit micawber, who not so many years later was to act as the proud amanuensis of his son. the next morning after i first met bobby he was off duty. i met him by appointment at the three jolly beggars (a place pernicious snug). he was dressed in a fashionable, light-colored suit, the coat a trifle short, and a high silk hat. his large, red neckscarf--set off by his bright, brick-dust complexion--caused me to mistake him at first for a friend of mine who drives a holborn bus. mr. 'awkins (for it was he) greeted me cordially, pulled gently at his neck-whiskers, and, when he addressed me as me lud, the barmaid served us with much alacrity and things. we went first to the church of saint george; then we found angel court leading to bermondsey, also marshalsea place. here is the site of the prison, where the crowded ghosts of misery still hover; but small trace could we find of the prison itself, neither did we see the ghosts. we, however, saw a very pretty barmaid at the public in angel court. i think she is still prettier than the one to whom bobby introduced me at the sign of the meat-axe, which is saying a good deal. angel court is rightly named. the blacking-warehouse at old hungerford stairs, strand, in which charles dickens was shown by bob fagin how to tie up the pots of paste, has rotted down and been carted away. the coal-barges in the muddy river are still there, just as they were when charles, poll green and bob fagin played on them during the dinner-hour. i saw bob and several other boys, grimy with blacking, chasing each other across the flatboats, but dickens was not there. down the river aways there is a crazy, old warehouse with a rotten wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide is in, and on the mud when the tide is out--the whole place literally overrun with rats that scuffle and squeal on the moldy stairs. i asked bobby if it could not be that this was the blacking-factory; but he said, no, for this one allus wuz. dickens found lodgings in lant street while his father was awaiting in the marshalsea for something to turn up. bob sawyer afterward had the same quarters. when sawyer invited mr. pickwick "and the other chaps" to dine with him, he failed to give his number, so we can not locate the house. but i found the street and saw a big, wooden pickwick on wheels standing as a sign for a tobacco-shop. the old gentleman who runs the place, and runs the sign in every night, assured me that bob sawyer's room was the first floor back. i looked in at it, but seeing no one there whom i knew, i bought tuppence worth of pigtail in lieu of fee, and came away. if a man wished to abstract himself from the world, to remove himself from temptation, to place himself beyond the possibility of desire to look out of the window, he should live in lant street, said a great novelist. david copperfield lodged here when he ordered that glass of genuine stunning ale at the red lion and excited the sympathy of the landlord, winning a motherly kiss from his wife. the red lion still crouches (under another name) at the corner of derby and parliament streets, westminster. i daydreamed there for an hour one morning, pretending the while to read a newspaper. i can not, however, recommend their ale as particularly stunning. as there are authors of one book, so are there readers of one author--more than we wist. children want the same bear story over and over, preferring it to a new one; so "grown-ups" often prefer the dog-eared book to uncut leaves. mr. hawkins preferred the dog-eared, and at the station-house, where many times he had long hours to wait in anticipation of a hurry-up call, he whiled away the time by browsing in his dickens. he knew no other author, neither did he wish to. his epidermis was soaked with dickensology, and when inspired by gin and bitters he emitted information at every pore. to him all these bodiless beings of dickens' brain were living creatures. an anachronism was nothing to hawkins. charley bates was still at large, quilp was just around the corner, and gaffer hexam's boat was moored in the muddy river below. dickens used to haunt the publics, those curious resting-places where all sorts and conditions of thirsty philosophers meet to discuss all sorts of themes. my guide took me to many of these inns which the great novelist frequented, and we always had one legend with every drink. after we had called at three or four different snuggeries, hawkins would begin to shake out the facts. now, it is not generally known that the so-called stories of dickens are simply records of historic events, like what-do-you-call-um's plays! f'r instance, dombey and son was a well-known firm, who carried over into a joint stock company only a few years ago. the concern is now known as the dombey trading company; they occupy the same quarters that were used by their illustrious predecessors. i signified a desire to see the counting-house so minutely described by dickens, and mr. hawkins agreed to pilot me thither on our way to tavistock square. we twisted down to the first turning, then up three, then straight ahead to the first right-hand turn, where we cut to the left until we came to a stuffed dog, which is the sign of a glover. just beyond this my guide plucked me by the sleeve; we halted, and he silently and solemnly pointed across the street. sure enough! there it was, the warehouse with a great stretch of dirty windows in front, through which we could see dozens of clerks bending over ledgers, just as though mr. dombey were momentarily expected. over the door was a gilt sign, "the bombay trading co." bobby explained that it was all the same. i did not care to go in; but at my request hawkins entered and asked for mister carker, the junior, but no one knew him. then we dropped in at the silver shark, a little inn about the size of a large dustbin of two compartments and a sifter. here we rested a bit, as we had walked a long way. the barmaid who waited upon us was in curl-papers, but she was even then as pretty if not prettier than the barmaid at the public in angel court, and that is saying a good deal. she was about as tall as trilby or as ellen terry, which is a very nice height, i think. as we rested, mr. hawkins told the barmaid and me how rogue riderhood came to this very public, through that same doorway, just after he had his alfred david took down by the governors both. he was a slouching dog, was the rogue. he wore an old, sodden fur cap, winter and summer, formless and mangy; it looked like a drowned cat. his hands were always in his pockets up to his elbows, when they were not reaching for something, and when he was out after game his walk was a half-shuffle and run. hawkins saw him starting off this way one night and followed him--knowing there was mischief on hand--followed him for two hours through the fog and rain. it was midnight and the last stroke of the bells that tolled the hour had ceased, and their echo was dying away, when all at once---- but the story is too long to relate here. it is so long that when mr. hawkins had finished it was too late to reach tavistock square before dark. mr. hawkins explained that as bats and owls and rats come out only when the sun has disappeared, so there are other things that can be seen best by night. and as he did not go on until the next day at one, he proposed that we should go down to the cheshire cheese and get a bite of summat and then sally forth. so we hailed a bus and climbed to the top. "she rolls like a scow in the wake of a liner," said bobby, as we tumbled into seats. when the bus man came up the little winding ladder and jingled his punch, hawkins paid our fares with a heavy wink, and the guard said, "thank you, sir," and passed on. we got off at the cheese and settled ourselves comfortably in a corner. the same seats are there, running along the wall, where doctor johnson, "goldy" and boswell so often sat and waked the echoes with their laughter. we had chops and tomato-sauce in recollection of jingle and trotter. the chops were of that delicious kind unknown outside of england. i supplied the legend this time, for my messmate had never heard of boswell. hawkins introduced me to "the cove in the white apron" who waited upon us, and then explained that i was the man who wrote "martin chuzzlewit." he kissed his hand to the elderly woman who presided behind the nickel-plated american cash-register. the only thing that rang false about the place was that register, perked up there spick-span new. hawkins insisted that it was a typewriter, and as we passed out he took a handful of matches (thinking them toothpicks) and asked the cashier to play a tune on the thingumabob, but she declined. we made our way to london bridge as the night was settling down. no stars came out, but flickering, fluttering gaslights appeared, and around each post was a great, gray, fluffy aureole of mist. just at the entrance to the bridge we saw nancy dogged by noah claypole. they turned down towards billingsgate fish-market, and as the fog swallowed them, hawkins answered my question as to the language used at billingsgate. "it's not so bloomin' bad, you know; why, i'll take you to a market in islington where they talk twice as vile." he started to go into technicalities, but i excused him. then he leaned over the parapet and spat down at a rowboat that was passing below. as the boat moved out into the glimmering light we made out lizzie hexam at the oars, while gaffer sat in the stern on the lookout. the marchioness went by as we stood there, a bit of tattered shawl over her frowsy head, one stocking down around her shoetop. she had a penny loaf under her arm, and was breaking off bits, eating as she went. soon came snagsby, then mr. vincent crummels, mr. sleary, the horseback-rider, followed by chops, the dwarf, and pickleson, the giant. hawkins said there were two picklesons, but i saw only one. just below was the stone pier and there stood mrs. gamp, and i heard her ask: "and which of all them smoking monsters is the anxworks boat, i wonder? goodness me!" "which boat do you want?" asked ruth. "the anxworks package--i will not deceive you, sweet; why should i?" "why, that is the antwerp packet, in the middle," said ruth. "and i wish it was in jonidge's belly, i do," cried mrs. gamp. we came down from the bridge, moved over toward billingsgate, past the custom-house, where curious old sea-captains wait for ships that never come. captain cuttle lifted his hook to the brim of his glazed hat as we passed. we returned the salute and moved on toward the tower. "it's a rum place; let's not stop," said hawkins. thoughts of the ghosts of raleigh, of mary queen of scots and of lady jane grey seemed to steady his gait and to hasten his footsteps. in a few moments we saw just ahead of us david copperfield and mr. peggotty following a woman whom we could make out walking excitedly a block ahead. it was martha, intent on suicide. "we'll get to the dock first and 'ead 'er orf," said 'awkins. we ran down a side street. but a bright light in a little brick cottage caught our attention--men can't run arm in arm anyway. we forgot our errand of mercy and stood still with open mouths looking in at the window at little jenny wren hard at work dressing her dolls and stopping now and then to stab the air with her needle. bradley headstone and charlie and lizzie hexam came in, and we then passed on, not wishing to attract attention. there was an old smoke-stained tree on the corner which i felt sorry for, as i do for every city tree. just beyond was a blacksmith's forge and a timber-yard behind, where a dealer in old iron had a shop, in front of which was a rusty boiler and a gigantic flywheel half buried in the sand. there were no crowds to be seen now, but we walked on and on--generally in the middle of the narrow streets, turning up or down or across, through arches where tramps slept, by doorways where children crouched; passing drunken men, and women with shawls over their heads. now and again the screech of a fiddle could be heard or the lazy music of an accordion, coming from some "sailors' home." steps of dancing with rattle of iron-shod boot-heels clicking over sanded floors, the hoarse shout of the "caller-off," and now and again angry tones with cracked feminine falsettos broke on the air; and all the time the soft rain fell and the steam seemed to rise from the sewage-laden streets. we were in stepney, that curious parish so minutely described by walter besant in "all sorts and conditions of men"--the parish where all children born at sea were considered to belong. we saw brig place, where walter gay visited captain cuttle. then we went with pip in search of mrs. wimple's house, at mill-pond bank, chink's basin, old green copper rope walk; where lived old bill barley and his daughter clara, and where magwitch was hidden. it was the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a dark corner as a club for tomcats. then, standing out in the gloom, we saw limehouse church, where john rokesmith prowled about on a 'tective scent; and where john harmon waited for the third mate radfoot, intending to murder him. next we reached limehouse hole, where rogue riderhood took the plunge down the steps of leaving shop. hawkins thought he saw the artful dodger ahead of us on the dock. he went over and looked up and down and under an old upturned rowboat, then peered over the dock and swore a harmless oath that if we could catch him we would run him in without a warrant. yes, we'd clap the nippers on 'im and march 'im orf. "not if i can help it," i said; "i like the fellow too well." fortunately hawkins failed to find him. here it was that the uncommercial traveler did patrol duty on many sleepless nights. here it was that esther summerson and mr. bucket came. and by the light of a match held under my hat we read a handbill on the brick wall: "found drowned!" the heading stood out in big, fat letters, but the print below was too damp to read, yet there is no doubt it is the same bill that gaffer hexam, eugene wrayburn and mortimer lightwood read, for mr. hawkins said so. as we stood there we heard the gentle gurgle of the tide running under the pier, then a dip of oars coming from out the murky darkness of the muddy river: a challenge from the shore with orders to row in, a hoarse, defiant answer and a watchman's rattle. a policeman passed us running and called back, "i say, hawkins, is that you? there's murder broke loose in whitechapel again! the reserves have been ordered out!" hawkins stopped and seemed to pull himself together--his height increased three inches. a moment before i thought he was a candidate for fatty degeneration of the cerebrum, but now his sturdy frame was all atremble with life. "another murder! i knew it. bill sykes has killed nancy at last. there 's fifty pun for the man who puts the irons on 'im--i must make for the nearest stishun." he gave my hand a twist, shot down a narrow courtway--and i was left to fight the fog, and mayhap this bill sykes and all the other wild phantoms of dickens' brain, alone. * * * * * a certain great general once said that the only good indian is a dead indian. just why the maxim should be limited to aborigines i know not, for when one reads obituaries he is discouraged at the thoughts of competing in virtue with those who have gone hence. let us extend the remark--plagiarize a bit--and say that the only perfect men are those whom we find in books. the receipt for making them is simple, yet well worth pasting in your scrapbook. take the virtues of all the best men you ever knew or heard of, leave out the faults, then mix. in the hands of "the lady novelist" this composition, well molded, makes a scarecrow, in the hair of which the birds of the air come and build their nests. but manipulated by an expert a figure may appear that starts and moves and seems to feel the thrill of life. it may even take its place on a pedestal and be exhibited with other waxworks and thus become confounded with the historic and though these things make the unskilful laugh, yet the judicious say, "dickens made it, therefore let it pass for a man." dear old m. taine, ever glad to score a point against the british, and willing to take dickens at his word, says, "we have no such men in france as scrooge and squeers!" but, god bless you, m. taine, england has no such men either. the novelist takes the men and women he has known, and from life, plus imagination, he creates. if he sticks too close to nature he describes, not depicts: this is "veritism." if imagination's wing is too strong, it lifts the luckless writer off from earth and carries him to an unknown land. you may then fall down and worship his characters, and there is no violation of the first commandment. nothing can be imagined that has not been seen; but imagination can assort, omit, sift, select, construct. given a horse, an eagle, an elephant, and the "creative artist" can make an animal that is neither a horse, an eagle, nor an elephant, yet resembles each. this animal may have eight legs (or forty) with hoofs, claws and toes alternating; a beak, a trunk, a mane; and the whole can be feathered and given the power of rapid flight and also the ability to run like the east wind. it can neigh, roar or scream by turn, or can do all in concert, with a vibratory force multiplied by one thousand. the novelist must have lived, and the novelist must have imagination. but this is not enough. he must have power to analyze and separate, and then he should have the good taste to select and group, forming his parts into a harmonious whole. yet he must build large. life-size will not do: the statue must be heroic, and the artist's genius must breathe into its nostrils the breath of life. the men who live in history are those whose lives have been skilfully written. "plutarch is the most charming writer of fiction the world has ever known," said emerson. dickens' characters are personifications of traits, not men and women. yet they are a deal funnier--they are as funny as a box of monkeys, as entertaining as a punch-and-judy show, as interesting as a "fifteen puzzle," and sometimes as pretty as chromos. quilp munching the eggs, shells and all, to scare his wife, makes one shiver as though a jack-in-the-box had been popped out at him. mr. mould, the undertaker, and jaggers, the lawyer, are as amusing as humpty-dumpty and pantaloon. i am sure that no live lawyer ever gave me half the enjoyment that jaggers has, and doctor slammers' talk is better medicine than the pills of any living m.d. because the burnt-cork minstrel pleases me more than a real "nigger" is no reason why i should find fault! dickens takes the horse, the eagle and the elephant and makes an animal of his own. he rubs up the feathers, places the tail at a fierce angle, makes the glass eyes glare, and you are ready to swear that the thing is alive. by rummaging over the commercial world you can collect the harshness, greed, avarice, selfishness and vanity from a thousand men. with these sins you can, if you are very skilful, construct a ralph nickleby, a scrooge, a jonas chuzzlewit, an alderman cute, a mr. murdstone, a bounderby or a gradgrind at will. a little more pride, a trifle less hypocrisy, a molecule extra of untruth, and flavor with this fault or that, and your man is ready to place up against the fence to dry. then you can make a collection of all the ridiculous traits--the whims, silly pride, foibles, hopes founded on nothing and dreams touched with moonshine--and you make a micawber. put in a dash of assurance and a good thimbleful of hypocrisy, and pecksniff is the product. leave out the assurance, replacing it with cowardice, and the result is doctor chillip or uriah heap. muddle the whole with stupidity, and bumble comes forth. then, for the good people, collect the virtues and season to suit the taste and we have the cheeryble brothers, paul dombey or little nell. they have no development, therefore no history--the circumstances under which you meet them vary, that's all. they are people the like of whom are never seen on land or sea. little nell is good all day long, while live children are good for only five minutes at a time. the recurrence with which these five-minute periods return determines whether the child is "good" or "bad." in the intervals the restless little feet stray into flowerbeds; stand on chairs so that grimy, dimpled hands may reach forbidden jam; run and romp in pure joyous innocence, or kick spitefully at authority. then the little fellow may go to sleep, smile in his dreams so that mamma says angels are talking to him (nurse says wind on the stomach); when he awakens the five-minute good spell returns. men are only grown-up children. they are cheerful after breakfast, cross at night. houses, lands, barns, railroads, churches, books, racetracks are the playthings with which they amuse themselves until they grow tired, and death, the kind old nurse, puts them to sleep. so a man on earth is good or bad as mood moves him; in color his acts are seldom pure white, neither are they wholly black, but generally of a steel-gray. caprice, temper, accident, all act upon him. the north wind of hate, the simoon of jealousy, the cyclone of passion beat and buffet him. pilots strong and pilots cowardly stand at the helm by turn. but sometimes the south wind softly blows, the sun comes out by day, the stars at night: friendship holds the rudder firm, and love makes all secure. such is the life of man--a voyage on life's unresting sea; but dickens knows it not. esther is always good, fagin is always bad, bumble is always pompous, and scrooge is always--scrooge. at no dickens' party do you ever mistake cheeryble for carker; yet in real life carker is carker one day and cheeryble the next--yes, carker in the morning and cheeryble after dinner. there is no doubt that a dummy so ridiculous as pecksniff has reduced the number of hypocrites; and the domineering and unjust are not quite so popular since dickens painted their picture with a broom. from the yeasty deep of his imagination he conjured forth his strutting spirits; and the names he gave to each are as fitting and as funny as the absurd smallclothes and fluttering ribbons which they wear. shakespeare has his gobbo, touchstone, simpcox, sly, grumio, mopsa, pinch, nym, simple, quickly, overdone, elbow, froth, dogberry, puck, peablossom, taurus, bottom, bushy, hotspur, scroop, wall, flute, snout, starveling, moonshine, mouldy, shallow, wart, bullcalf, feeble, quince, snag, dull, mustardseed, fang, snare, rumor, tearsheet, cobweb, costard and moth; but in names as well as in plot "the father of pickwick" has distanced the master. in fact, to give all the odd and whimsical names invented by dickens would be to publish a book, for he compiled an indexed volume of names from which he drew at will. he used, however, but a fraction of his list. the rest are wisely kept from the public, else, forsooth, the fledgling writers of penny-shockers would seize upon them for raw stock. dickens has a watch that starts and stops in a way of its own--never mind the sun. he lets you see the wheels go round, but he never tells you why the wheels go round. he knows little of psychology--that curious, unseen thing that stands behind every act. he knows not the highest love, therefore he never depicts the highest joy. nowhere does he show the gradual awakening in man of godlike passion--nowhere does he show the evolution of a soul; very, very seldom does he touch the sublime. but he has given the athenians a day of pleasure, and for this let us all reverently give thanks. oliver goldsmith jarvis: a few of our usual cards of compliments--that's all. this bill from your tailor; this from your mercer; and this from the little broker in crooked lane. he says he has been at a great deal of trouble to get back the money you borrowed. honeydew: but i am sure we were at a great deal of trouble in getting him to lend it. jarvis: he has lost all patience. honeydew: then he has lost a good thing. jarvis: there's that ten guineas you were sending to the poor man and his children in the fleet. i believe that would stop his mouth for a while. honeydew: ay, jarvis; but what will fill their mouths in the meantime? --_goldsmith, "the good-natured man"_ [illustration: oliver goldsmith] the isle of erin has the same number of square miles as the state of indiana; it also has more kindness to the acre than any other country on earth. ireland has five million inhabitants; once it had eight. three millions have gone away, and when one thinks of landlordism he wonders why the five millions did not go, too. but the irish are a poetic people and love the land of their fathers with a childlike love, and their hearts are all bound up in sweet memories, rooted by song and legend into nooks and curious corners, so the tendrils of affection hold them fast. ireland is very beautiful. its pasture-lands and meadow-lands, blossom-decked and water-fed, crossed and recrossed by never-ending hedgerows, that stretch away and lose themselves in misty nothingness, are fair as a poet's dream. birds carol in the white hawthorn and the yellow furze all day long, and the fragrant summer winds that blow lazily across the fields are laden with the perfume of fairest flowers. it is like crossing the dark river called death, to many, to think of leaving ireland--besides that, even if they wanted to go they haven't money to buy a steerage ticket. from across the dark river called death come no remittances; but from america many dollars are sent back to ireland. this often supplies the obolus that secures the necessary bit of cunard passport. whenever an irishman embarks at queenstown, part of the five million inhabitants go down to the waterside to see him off. not long ago i stood with the crowd and watched two fine lads go up the gangplank, each carrying a red handkerchief containing his worldly goods. as the good ship moved away we lifted a wild wail of woe that drowned the sobbing of the waves. everybody cried--i wept, too--and as the great, black ship became but a speck on the western horizon we embraced each other in frenzied grief. there is beauty in ireland--physical beauty of so rare and radiant a type that it makes the heart of an artist ache to think that it can not endure. on country roads, at fair time, the traveler will see barefoot girls who are women, and just suspecting it, who have cheeks like ripe pippins; laughing eyes with long, dark, wicked lashes; teeth like ivory; necks of perfect poise; and waists that, never having known a corset, are pure greek. of course, these girls are aware that we admire them--how could they help it? they carry big baskets on either shapely arm, bundles balanced on their heads, and we, suddenly grown tired, sit on the bankside as they pass by, and feign indifference to their charms. once safely past, we admiringly examine their tracks in the soft mud (for there has been a shower during the night), and we vow that such footprints were never before left upon the sands of time. the typical young woman in ireland is juno before she was married; the old woman is sycorax after caliban was weaned. wrinkled, toothless, yellow old hags are seen sitting by the roadside, rocking back and forth, crooning a song that is mate to the chant of the witches in "macbeth" when they brew the hellbroth. see that wizened, scarred and cruel old face--how it speaks of a seared and bitter heart! so dull yet so alert, so changeful yet so impassive, so immobile yet so cunning--a paradox in wrinkles, where half-stifled desperation has clawed at the soul until it has fled, and only dead indifference or greedy expectation is left to tell the tragic tale. "in the name of god, charity, kind gentlemen, charity!" and the old crone stretches forth a long, bony claw. should you pass on she calls down curses on your head. if you are wise, you go back and fling her a copper to stop the cold streaks that are shooting up your spine. and these old women were the most trying sights i saw in ireland. "pshaw!" said a friend of mine when i told him this; "these old creatures are actors, and if you would sit down and talk to them, as i have done, they will laugh and joke, and tell you of sons in america who are policemen, and then they will fill black 'dhudeens' out of your tobacco and ask if you know mike mcguire who lives in she-ka-gy." the last trace of comeliness has long left the faces of these repulsive beggars, but there is a type of feminine beauty that comes with years. it is found only where intellect and affection keep step with spiritual desire; and in ireland, where it is often a crime to think, where superstition stalks, and avarice rules, and hunger crouches, it is very, very rare. but i met one woman in the emerald isle whose hair was snow-white, and whose face seemed to beam a benediction. it was a countenance refined by sorrow, purified by aspiration, made peaceful by right intellectual employment, strong through self-reliance, and gentle by an earnest faith in things unseen. it proved the possible. when the nations are disarmed, ireland will take first place, for in fistiana she is supreme. james russell lowell once said that where the "code duello" exists, men lift their hats to ladies, and say "excuse me" and "if you please." and if lowell was so bold as to say a good word for the gentlemen who hold themselves "personally responsible," i may venture the remark that men who strike from the shoulder are almost universally polite to strangers. a woman can do ireland afoot and alone with perfect safety. everywhere one finds courtesy, kindness and bubbling good-cheer. nineteen-twentieths of all lawlessness in ireland during the past two hundred years has been directed against the landlord's agent. this is a very irish-like proceeding--to punish the agent for the sins of the principal. when the landlord himself comes over from england he affects a fatherly interest in "his people." he gives out presents and cheap favors, and the people treat him with humble deference. when the landlord's agent goes to america he gets a place as first mate on a mississippi river steamboat; and before the war he was in demand in the south as overseer. he it is who has taught the "byes" the villainy that they execute; and it sometimes goes hard, for they better the instruction. but there is one other character that the boys occasionally look after in ireland, and that is the "squire." he is a merry wight in tight breeches, red coat, and a number-six hat. he has yellow side-whiskers and 'unts to 'ounds, riding over the wheatfields of honest men. the genuine landlord lives in london; the squire would like to but can not afford it. of course, there are squires and squires, but the kind i have in mind is an irishman who tries to pass for an englishman. he is that curious thing--a man without a country. there is a theory to the effect that the universal mother in giving out happiness bestows on each and all an equal portion--that the beggar trudging along the stony road is as happy as the king who rides by in his carriage. this is a very old belief, and it has been held by many learned men. from the time i first heard it, it appealed to me as truth. yet recently my faith has been shaken; for not long ago in new york i climbed the marble steps of a splendid mansion and was admitted by a servant in livery who carried my card on a silver tray to his master. this master had a son in the "keeley institute," a daughter in her grave, and a wife who shrank from his presence. his heart was as lonely as a winter night at sea. fate had sent him a coachman, a butler, a gardener and a footman, but she took his happiness and passed it through a hole in the thatch of a mud-plastered cottage in ireland, where, each night, six rosy children soundly slept in one straw bed. in that cottage i stayed two days. there was a stone floor and bare, whitewashed walls; but there was a rosebush climbing over the door, and within health and sunny temper that made mirth with a meal of herbs, and a tenderness that touched to poetry the prose of daily duties. but it is well to bear in mind that an irishman in america and an irishman in ireland are not necessarily the same thing. often the first effect of a higher civilization is degeneration. just as the chinaman quickly learns big swear-words, and the indian takes to drink, and certain young men on first reading emerson's essay on "self-reliance" go about with a chip on their shoulders, so sometimes does the first full breath of freedom's air develop the worst in paddy instead of the best. as one tramps through ireland and makes the acquaintance of a blue-eyed "broth of a bye," who weighs one hundred and ninety, and measures forty-four inches around the chest, he catches glimpses of noble traits and hints of mystic possibilities. there are actions that look like rudiments of greatness gone, and you think of the days when olympian games were played, and finger meanwhile the silver in your pocket and inwardly place it on this twenty-year-old, pink-faced, six-foot "boy" that stands before you. in ireland there are no forests, but in the peat-bogs are found remains of mighty trees that once lifted their outstretched branches to the sun. are these remains of stately forests symbols of a race of men that, too, have passed away? in any wayside village of leinster you can pick you a model for an apollo. he is in rags, is this giant, and can not read, but he can dance and sing and fight. he has an eye for color, an ear for music, a taste for rhyme, a love of novelty and a thirst for fun. and withal he has blundering sympathy and a pity whose tears are near the surface. now, will this fine savage be a victim of arrested development, and sink gradually through weight of years into mere animal stupidity and sodden superstition? the chances are that this is just what he will do, and that at twenty he will be in his intellectual zenith. summer does not fulfil the promise of spring. but as occasionally there is one of those beautiful, glowing irish girls who leaves footsteps that endure (in bettered lives), instead of merely transient tracks in mud, so there has been a burke, a wellington, an o'connell, a sheridan, a tom moore and an oliver goldsmith. * * * * * while goldsmith was an irishman, swift was an englishman who chanced to be born of irish parents in dublin. in comparing these men thackeray says: "i think i would rather have had a cold potato and a friendly word from goldsmith than to have been beholden to the dean for a guinea and a dinner. no; the dean was not an irishman, for no irishman ever gave but with a kind word and a kind heart." charles goldsmith was a clergyman, passing rich on forty pounds a year. he had a nice little family of eight children, and what became of the seven who went not astray i do not know. but the smallest and homeliest one of the brood became the best-loved man in london. these sickly boys who have been educated only because they were too weak to work--what a record their lives make! little oliver had a pug-nose and bandy legs, and fists not big enough to fight, but he had a large head, and because he was absent-minded, lots of folks thought him dull and stupid, and others were sure he was very bad. in fact, let us admit it, he did steal apples and rifle birds' nests, and on "the straggling fence that skirts the way," he drew pictures of paddy byrne, the schoolmaster, who amazed the rustics by the amount of knowledge he carried in one small head. but paddy byrne did not love art for art's sake, so he applied the ferule vigorously to little goldsmith's anatomy, with a hope of diverting the lad's inclinations from art to arithmetic. i do not think the plan was very successful, for the pockmarked youngster was often adorned with the dunce-cap. "and, sir," said doctor johnson, many years after, "it must have been very becoming." it seems that paddy byrne "boarded round," and part of the time was under the roof of the rectory. now we all know that schoolmasters are dual creatures, and that once away from the schoolyard, and having laid aside the robe of office, are often good, honest, simple folks. in his official capacity paddy byrne made things very uncomfortable for the pug-nosed little boy, but, like the true irishman that he was, when he got away from the schoolhouse he was sorry for it. whether dignity is the mask we wear to hide ignorance, i am not sure, yet when paddy byrne was the schoolmaster he was a man severe and stern to view; but when he was plain paddy byrne he was a first-rate good fellow. evenings he would hold little oliver on his knee, and instead of helping him in his lessons would tell him tales of robbers, pirates, smugglers--everything and anything in fact that boys like: stories of fairies, goblins, ghosts; lion-hunts and tiger-killing in which the redoubtable paddy was supposed to have taken a chief part. the schoolmaster had been a soldier and a sailor. he had been in many lands, and when he related his adventures, no doubt he often mistook imagination for memory. but the stories had the effect of choking the desire in oliver for useful knowledge, and gave instead a thirst for wandering and adventure. byrne also had a taste for poetry, and taught the lad to scribble rhymes. very proud was the boy's mother, and very carefully did she preserve these foolish lines. all this was in the village of lissoy, county westmeath; yet if you look on the map you will look in vain for lissoy. but six miles northeast from athlone and three miles from ballymahon is the village of auburn. when goldsmith was a boy lissoy was: "sweet auburn! loveliest village of the plain, where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain, where smiling spring the earliest visits paid, and parting summer's lingering blooms delayed-- dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease, seats of my youth, when every sport could please-- how often have i loitered o'er thy green, where humble happiness endeared each scene; how often have i paused on every charm, the sheltered cot, the cultivated farm, the never-failing brook, the busy mill, the decent church, that topped the neighboring hill, the hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade for talking age and whispering lovers made: how often have i blessed the coming day, when toil remitting lent its turn to play, and all the village train from labor free, led up their sports beneath the spreading tree-- while many a pastime circled in the shade, the young contending as the old surveyed; and many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground, and sleights of art and feats of strength went round." in america, when a "city" is to be started, the first thing is to divide up the land into town-lots and then sell these lots to whoever will buy. this is a very modern scheme. but in ireland whole villages belong to one man, and every one in the place pays tribute. then villages are passed down from generation to generation, and sometimes sold outright, but there is no wish to dispose of corner lots. for when a man lives in your house and you can put him out at any time, he is, of course, much more likely to be civil than if he owns the place. but it has happened many times that the inhabitants of irish villages have all packed up and deserted the place, leaving no one but the village squire and that nice man, the landlord's agent. the cottages then are turned into sheep-pens or hay-barns. they may be pulled down, or, if they are left standing, the weather looks after that. and these are common sights to the tourist. now the landlord, who owned every rood of the village of lissoy, lived in london. he lived well. he gambled a little, and as the cards did not run his way he got into debt. so he wrote to his agent in lissoy to raise the rents. he did so, threatened, applied the screws, and--the inhabitants packed up and let the landlord have his village all to himself. let goldsmith tell: "sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn, thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn: amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, and desolation saddens all thy green; one only master grasps the whole domain, and half a tillage stints thy smiling plain. no more thy glassy brook reflects the day, but choked with sedges, works its weedy way; along thy glades, a solitary guest, the hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, and tires their echoes with unvaried cries. sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, and the long grass overtops the moldering wall; and, trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, far, far away, thy children leave the land." a titled gentleman by the name of napier was the owner of the estate at that time, and as his tenantry had left, he in wrath pulled down their rows of pretty white cottages, demolished the schoolhouse, blew up the mill, and took all the material and built a splendid mansion on the hillside. the cards had evidently turned in his direction, but anyway, he owned several other villages, so although he toiled not neither did he spin, yet he was well clothed and always fed. but my lord napier was not immortal, for he died, and was buried; and over his grave they erected a monument, and on it are these words: "he was the friend of the oppressed." the records of literature, so far as i know, show no such moving force in a simple poem as the re-birth of the village of auburn. no man can live in a village and illuminate it by his genius. his fellow townsmen and neighbors are not to be influenced by his eloquence except in a very limited way. his presence creates an opposition, for the "personal touch" repels as well as attracts. dying, seven cities may contend for the honor of his birthplace; or after his departure, knowledge of his fame may travel back across the scenes that he has known, and move to better things. the years went by and the napier estate got into a bad way and was sold. captain hogan became the owner of the site of the village of lissoy. now, captain hogan was a poet in feeling, and he set about to replace the village that goldsmith had loved and immortalized. he adopted the name that goldsmith supplied, and auburn it is even unto this day. in the village-green is the original spreading hawthorn-tree, all enclosed in a stone wall to preserve it. and on the wall is a sign requesting you not to break off branches. around the trees are seats. i sat there one evening with "talking age" and "whispering lovers." the mirth that night was of a quiet sort, and i listened to an old man who recited all "the deserted village" to the little group that was present. it cost me sixpence, but was cheap for the money, for the brogue was very choice. i was the only stranger present, and quickly guessed that the entertainment was for my sole benefit, as i saw that i was being furtively watched to see how i took my medicine. a young fellow sitting near me offered a little goldsmith information, then a woman on the other side did the same, and the old man who had recited suggested that we go over and see the alehouse "where the justly celebhrated docther goldsmith so often played his harp so feelin'ly." so we adjourned to the three jolly pigeons--a dozen of us, including the lovers, whom i personally invited. "and did oliver goldsmith really play his harp in this very room?" i asked. "aye, indade he did, yer honor, an' ef ye don't belave it, ye kin sit in the same chair that was his." so they led me to the big chair that stood on a little raised platform, and i sat in the great oaken seat which was surely made before goldsmith was born. then we all took ale (at my expense). the lovers sat in one corner, drinking from one glass, and very particular to drink from the same side, and giggling to themselves. the old man wanted to again recite "the deserted village," but was forcibly restrained. and instead, by invitation of himself, the landlord sang a song composed by goldsmith, but which i have failed to find in goldsmith's works, entitled, "when ireland is free." there were thirteen stanzas in this song, and a chorus and refrain in which the words of the title are repeated. after each stanza we all came in strong on the chorus, keeping time by tapping our glasses on the tables. then we all drank perdition to english landlords, had our glasses refilled, and i was called on for a speech. i responded in a few words that were loudly cheered, and the very good health of "the 'merican nobleman" was drunk with much fervor. the three jolly pigeons is arranged exactly to the letter: "the whitewashed walls, the nicely sanded floor, the varnished clock that clicked behind the door; the chest contrived a doubly debt to pay, a bed by night, a chest of drawers by day; the pictures placed for ornament and use, the twelve good rules, the royal game of goose." and behold, there on the wall behind the big oak chair are "the twelve good rules." the next morning i saw the modest mansion of the village preacher "whose house was known to all the vagrant train," then the little stone church, and beyond i came to the blossoming furze, unprofitably gay, where the village master taught his little school. a bright young woman teaches there now, and it is certain that she can write and cipher too, for i saw "sums" on the blackboard, and i also saw where she had written some very pretty mottoes on the wall with colored chalk, a thing i am sure that paddy byrne never thought to do. below the schoolhouse is a pretty little stream that dances over pebbles and untiringly turns the wheel in the old mill; and not far away i saw the round top of knockrue hill, where goldsmith said he would rather sit with a book in hand than mingle with the throng at the court of royalty. goldsmith's verse is all clean, sweet and wholesome, and i do not wonder that he was everywhere a favorite with women. this was true in his very babyhood. for he was the pet of several good old dames, one of whom taught him to count by using cards as object-lessons he proudly said that when he was three years of age he could pick out the "ten-spot." this love of pasteboard was not exactly an advantage, for when he was sixteen he went to dublin to attend college, and carried fifty pounds and a deck of cards in his pocket. the first day in dublin he met a man who thought he knew more about cards than oliver did--and the man did: in three days oliver arrived back in sweet auburn penniless, but wonderfully glad to get home and everybody glad to see him. "it seemed as if i 'd been away a year," he said. but in a few weeks he started out with no baggage but a harp, and he played in the villages and the inns, and sometimes at the homes of the rich. and his melodies won all hearts. the author of "vanity fair" says: "you come hot and tired from the day's battle, and this sweet minstrel sings to you. who could harm the kind vagrant harper? whom did he ever hurt? he carries no weapon--only the harp on which he plays to you; and with which he delights great and humble, young and old, the captains in the tent or the soldiers round the fire, or the women and children in the villages at whose porches he stops and sings his simple songs of love and beauty." * * * * * when goldsmith arrived in london in seventeen hundred fifty-six, he was ragged, penniless, friendless and forlorn. in the country he could always make his way, but the city to him was new and strange. for several days he begged a crust here and there, sleeping in the doorways at night and dreaming of the flowery wealth of gentle lissoy, where even the poorest had enough to eat and a warm place to huddle when the sun went down. he at length found work as clerk or porter in a chemist's shop, where he remained until he got money enough to buy a velvet coat and a ruffled shirt, and then he moved to the bankside and hung out a surgeon's sign. the neighbors thought the little doctor funny, and the women would call to him out of the second-story window that it was a fine day, but when they were ill they sent for some one else to attend them. goldsmith was twenty-eight, and the thought that he could make a living with his pen had never come to him. yet he loved books, and he would loiter about bookshops, pricing first editions, and talking poetry to the patrons. he chanced in this way to meet samuel richardson, who, because he wrote the first english romance, has earned the title of father of lies. in order to get a very necessary loaf of bread, doctor goldsmith asked richardson to let him read proof. so richardson gave him employment, and in correcting proof the discovery was made that the irish doctor could turn a sentence, too. he became affected with literary eczema, and wrote a tragedy which he read to richardson and a few assembled friends. they voted it "vile, demnition vile." but one man thought it wasn't so bad as it might be, and this man found a market for some of the little doctor's book reviews, but the tragedy was fed to the fireplace. with the money for his book reviews the doctor bought goose quills and ink, and inspiration in bottles. grub street dropped in, shabby, seedy, empty of pocket but full of hope, and little suppers were given in dingy coffeehouses where success to english letters was drunk. then we find goldsmith making a bold stand for reform. he hired out to write magazine articles by the day; going to work in the morning when the bell rang, an hour off at noon, and then at it again until nightfall. mr. griffiths, publisher of the "monthly review," was his employer. and in order to hold his newly captured prize, the publisher boarded the pockmarked irishman in his own house. mrs. griffiths looked after him closely, spurring him on when he lagged, correcting his copy, striking out such portions as showed too much genius and inserting a word here and there in order to make a purely neutral decoction, which it seems is what magazine readers have always desired. occasionally these articles were duly fathered by great men, as this gave them the required specific gravity. it is said that even in our day there are editors who employ convict labor in this way. but i am sure that this is not so, for we live in an age of competition, and it is just as cheap to hire the great men to supply twaddle direct as it is to employ foreign paupers to turn it out with the extra expense of elderly women to revise. after working in the griffith literary mill for five months, goldsmith scaled the barricade one dark night, leaving behind, pasted on the wall, a ballad not only to mrs. griffiths' eyebrow, but to her wig as well. soon after this, when goldsmith was thirty years of age, his first book, "enquiry into the present state of polite learning in europe," was published. it brought him a little money and tuppence worth of fame, so he took better lodgings, in green arbor court, proposing to do great things. half a century after the death of goldsmith, irving visited green arbor court: "at length we came upon fleet market, and traversing it, turned up a narrow street to the bottom of a long, steep flight of stone steps called breakneck stairs. these led to green arbor court, and down them goldsmith many a time risked his neck. when we entered the court, i could not but smile to think in what out of the way corners genius produces her bantlings. the court i found to be a small square surrounded by tall, miserable houses, with old garments and frippery fluttering from every window. it appeared to be a region of washerwomen, and lines were stretched about the square on which clothes were dangling to dry. poor goldsmith! what a time he must have had of it, with his quiet disposition and nervous habits, penned up in this den of noise and vulgarity." one can imagine goldsmith running the whole gamut of possible jokes on breakneck stairs, and green arbor court, which, by the way, was never green and where there was no arbor. "i've been admitted to court, gentlemen!" said goldsmith proudly, one day at the mitre tavern. "ah, yes, doctor, we know--green arbor court! and any man who has climbed breakneck stairs has surely achieved," said tom davies. in seventeen hundred sixty, goldsmith moved to number six wine-office court, where he wrote the "vicar of wakefield." boswell reports doctor johnson's account of visiting him there: "i received, one morning, a message from poor goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that i would come to him as soon as possible. i sent him a guinea and promised to come to him directly. i accordingly went to him as soon as i was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. i perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had half a bottle of madeira and a glass before him. i put the cork in the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. he then told me he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced for me. i looked into it and saw its merits; told the landlady i would soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. i brought goldsmith the money, and he discharged the rent, not without rating his landlady for having used him so ill." for the play of "the good-natured man" goldsmith received five hundred pounds. and he immediately expended four hundred in mahogany furniture, easy chairs, lace curtains and wilton carpets. then he called in his friends. this was at number two brick court, middle temple. blackstone had chambers just below, and was working as hard over his commentaries as many a lawyer's clerk has done since. he complained of the abominable noise and racket of "those fellows upstairs," but was asked to come in and listen to wit while he had the chance. i believe the bailiffs eventually captured the mahogany furniture, but goldsmith held the quarters. they are today in good repair, and the people who occupy the house are very courteous, and obligingly show the rooms to the curious. no attempt at a museum is made, but there are to be seen various articles which belonged to goldsmith and a collection of portraits that are interesting. when "the traveler" was published goldsmith's fame was made secure. as long as he wrote plays, reviews, history and criticism he was working for hire. people said it was "clever," "brilliant," and all that, but their hearts were not won until the poet had poured out his soul to his brother in that gentlest of all sweet rhymes. i pity the man who can read the opening lines of "the traveler" without a misty something coming over his vision: "where'er i roam, whatever realms i see, my heart untraveled fondly turns to thee; still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain, and drags at each remove a lengthening chain." this is the earliest english poem which i can recall that makes use of our american indian names: "where wild oswego spreads her swamps around, and niagara stuns with thundering sound." indeed, we came near having goldsmith for an adopted citizen. according to his own report he once secured passage to boston, and after carrying his baggage aboard the ship he went back to town to say a last hurried word of farewell to a fair lady, and when he got back to the dock the ship had sailed away with his luggage. his earnest wish was to spend his last days in sweet auburn. "in all my wand'rings round this world of care, in all my griefs--and god has given my share-- i still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, amidst those humble bowers to lay me down; to husband out life's taper at its close, and keep the flame from wasting by repose. i still had hopes--for pride attends us still-- amidst the swains to show my book-learned skill, around my fire an evening group to draw, and tell of all i felt and all i saw. and as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, pants to the place from whence at first she flew, i still had hopes, my long vexations past, here to return--and die at home at last." but he never saw ireland after he left it in seventeen hundred fifty-four. he died in london in seventeen hundred seventy-four, aged forty-six. on the plain little monument in temple church where he was buried are only these words: here lies oliver goldsmith. hawkins once called on the earl of northumberland and found goldsmith waiting in an outer room, having come in response to an invitation from the nobleman. hawkins, having finished his business, waited until goldsmith came out, as he had a curiosity to know why the earl had sent for him. "well," said hawkins, "what did he say to you?" "his lordship told me that he had read 'the traveler,' and that he was pleased with it, and that inasmuch as he was soon to be lord-lieutenant of ireland, and knowing i was an irishman, asked what he could do for me!" "and what did you tell him?" inquired the eager hawkins. "why, there was nothing for me to say, but that i was glad he liked my poem, and--that i had a brother in ireland, a clergyman, who stood in need of help----" "enough!" cried hawkins, and left him. to hawkins himself are we indebted for the incident, and after relating it hawkins adds: "and thus did this idiot in the affairs of the world trifle with his fortunes!" let him who wishes preach a sermon on this story. but there you have it! "a brother in ireland who needs help----" the brother in london, the brother in america, the brother in ireland who needs help! all men were his brothers, and those who needed help were first in his mind. dear little doctor goldsmith, you were not a hustler, but when i get to the spirit world, i'll surely hunt you up! william shakespeare it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness. --_as you like it_ [illustration: william shakespeare] i have on several occasions been to the shakespeare country, approaching it from different directions, but each time i am set down at leamington. perhaps this is by some act of parliament--i really do not know; anyway, i have ceased to kick against the pricks and now meekly accept my fate. leamington seems largely under subjection to that triumvirate of despots--the butler, the coachman and the gardener. you hear the jingle of keys, the flick of the whip and the rattle of the lawnmower; and a cold, secret fear takes possession of you--a sort of half-frenzied impulse to flee, before smug modernity takes you captive and whisks you off to play tiddledywinks or to dance the racquet. but the tram is at the door--the outside fare is a penny, inside it's two--and we are soon safe, for we have reached the point where the leam and the avon meet. warwick is worth our while. for here we see scenes such as shakespeare saw, and our delight is in the things that his eyes beheld. at the foot of mill street are the ruins of the old gothic bridge that leads off to banbury. oft have i ridden to banbury cross on my mother's foot, and when i saw that sign and pointing finger i felt like leaving all and flying thence. just beyond the bridge, settled snugly in a forest of waving branches, we see storied old warwick castle, with cæsar's tower lifting itself from the mass of green. all about are quaint old houses and shops, with red-tiled roofs, and little windows, with diamond panes, hung on hinges, where maidens fair have looked down on brave men in coats of mail. these narrow, stony streets have rung with the clang and echo of hurrying hoofs; the tramp of royalist and parliamentarian, horse and foot, drum and banner; the stir of princely visits, of mail-coach, market, assize and kingly court. colbrand, armed with giant club; sir guy; richard neville, kingmaker, and his barbaric train, all trod these streets, watered their horses in this river, camped on yonder bank, or huddled in this castle yard. and again they came back when will shakespeare, a youth from stratford, eight miles away, came here and waved his magic wand. warwick castle is probably in better condition now than it was in the sixteenth century. but practically it is the same. it is the only castle in england where the portcullis is lowered at ten o'clock every night and raised in the morning (if the coast happens to be clear) to tap of drum. it costs a shilling to visit the castle. a fine old soldier in spotless uniform, with waxed white moustache and dangling sword, conducts the visitors. he imparts full two shillings' worth of facts as we go, all with a fierce roll of r's, as becomes a man of war. the long line of battlements, the massive buttresses, the angular entrance cut through solid rock, crooked, abrupt, with places where fighting men can lie in ambush, all is as shakespeare knew it. there are the cedars of lebanon, brought by crusaders from the east, and the screaming peacocks in the paved courtway: and in the great hall are to be seen the sword and accouterments of the fabled guy, the mace of the "kingmaker," the helmet of cromwell, and the armor of lord brooke, killed at litchfield. and that shakespeare saw these things there is no doubt. but he saw them as a countryman who came on certain fete-days, and stared with open mouth. we know this, because he has covered all with the glamour of his rich, boyish imagination that failed to perceive the cruel mockery of such selfish pageantry. had his view been from the inside he would not have made his kings noble nor his princes generous; for the stress of strife would have stilled his laughter, and from his brain the dazzling pictures would have fled. yet his fancies serve us better than the facts. shakespeare shows us many castles, but they are always different views of warwick or kenilworth. when he pictures macbeth's castle he has warwick in his inward eye: "this castle hath a pleasant seat: the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses. this guest of summer, the temple-haunting martlet, does approve, by his loved mansionry, that the heaven's breath smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird hath made his pendent bed, and procreant cradle; where they most breed and haunt, i have observed, the air is delicate." five miles from warwick (ten, if you believe the cab-drivers) are the ruins of kenilworth castle. in fifteen hundred seventy-five, when shakespeare was eleven years of age, queen elizabeth came to kenilworth. whether her ticket was by way of leamington i do not know. but she remained from july ninth to july twenty-seventh, and there were great doings 'most every day, to which the yeomanry were oft invited. john shakespeare was a worthy citizen of warwickshire, and it is very probable that he received an invitation, and that he drove over with mary arden, his wife, sitting on the front seat holding the baby, and all the other seven children sitting on the straw behind. and we may be sure that the eldest boy in that brood never forgot the day. in fact, in "midsummer night's dream" he has called on his memory for certain features of the show. elizabeth was forty-one years old then, but apparently very attractive and glib of tongue. no doubt kenilworth was stupendous in its magnificence, and it will pay you to take down from its shelf sir walter's novel and read about it. but today it is all a crumbling heap; ivy, rooks and daws hold the place in fee, each pushing hard for sole possession. it is eight miles from warwick to stratford by the direct road, but ten by the river. i have walked both routes and consider the latter the shorter. two miles down the river is barford, and a mile farther is wasperton, with its quaint old stone church. it is a good place to rest: for nothing is so soothing as a cool church where the dim light streams through colored windows, and out of sight somewhere an organ softly plays. soon after leaving the church a rustic swain hailed me and asked for a match. the pipe and the virginia weed--they mean amity the world over. if i had questions to ask, now was the time! so i asked, and rusticus informed me that hampton lucy was only a mile beyond and that shakespeare never stole deer at all; so i hope we shall hear no more of that libelous accusation. "but did shakespeare run away?" i demanded. "ave coorse he deed, sir; 'most all good men 'ave roon away sometime!" and come to think of it rusticus is right. most great men have at some time departed hastily without leaving orders where to forward their mail. indeed, it seems necessary that a man should have "run away" at least once, in order afterward to attain eminence. moses, lot, tarquin, pericles, demosthenes, saint paul, shakespeare, rousseau, voltaire, goldsmith, hugo--but the list is too long to give. but just suppose that shakespeare had not run away! and to whom do we owe it that he did leave--justice shallow or ann hathaway, or both? i should say to ann first and his honor second. i think if shakespeare could write an article for "the ladies' home journal" on "women who have helped me," and tell the whole truth (as no man ever will in print), he would put ann hathaway first. he signed a bond when eighteen years old agreeing to marry her; she was twenty-six. no record is found of the marriage. but we should think of her gratefully, for no doubt it was she who started the lad off for london. that's the way i expressed it to my new-found friend, and he agreed with me, so we shook hands and parted. charlcote is as fair as a dream of paradise. the winding avon, full to its banks, strays lazily through rich fields and across green meadows, past the bright red-brick pile of charlcote mansion. the river-bank is lined with rushes, and in one place i saw the prongs of antlers shaking the elders. i sent a shrill whistle and a stick that way, and out ran four fine deer that loped gracefully across the turf. the sight brought my poacher instincts to the surface, but i bottled them, and trudged on until i came to the little church that stands at the entrance to the park. all mansions, castles and prisons in england have chapels or churches attached. and this is well, for in the good old days it seemed wise to keep in close communication with the other world. for often, on short notice, the proud scion of royalty was compelled hastily to pack a ghostly valise and his him hence with his battered soul; or if he did not go himself he compelled others to do so, and who but a brute would kill a man without benefit of the clergy! so each estate hired its priests by the year, just as men with a taste for litigation hold attorneys in constant retainer. in charlcote church is a memorial to sir thomas lucy; and there is a glowing epitaph that quite upsets any of those taunting and defaming allusions in "the merry wives." at the foot of the monument is a line to the effect that the inscription thereon was written by the only one in possession of the facts, sir thomas himself. several epitaphs in the churchyard are worthy of space in your commonplace book, but the lines on the slab to john gibbs and wife struck me as having the true ring: "farewell, proud, vain, false, treacherous world, we have seen enough of thee: we value not what thou canst say of we." when the charlcote mansion was built, there was a housewarming, and good queen bess (who was not so awful good) came in great state; so we see that she had various calling acquaintances in these parts. but we have no proof that she ever knew that any such person as w. shakespeare lived. however, she came to charlcote and dined on venison, and what a pity it is that she and shakespeare did not meet in london afterward and talk it over! some hasty individual has put forth a statement to the effect that poets can only be bred in a mountainous country, where they could lift up their eyes to the hills. rock and ravine, beetling crag, singing cascade, and the heights where the lightning plays and the mists hover are certainly good timber for poetry--after you have caught your poet--but nature eludes all formula. again, it is the human interest that adds vitality to art--they reckon ill to leave man out. drayton before shakespeare's time called warwick "the heart of england," and the heart of england it is today--rich, luxuriant, slow. the great colonies of rabbits that i saw at charlcote seemed too fat to frolic, save more than to play a trick or two on the hounds that blinked in the sun. down toward stratford there are flat islands covered with sedge, long rows of weeping-willows, low hazel, hawthorn, and places where "green grow the rushes, o." then, if the farmer leaves a spot untilled, the dogrose pre-empts the place and showers its petals on the vagrant winds. meadowsweet, forget-me-nots and wild geranium snuggle themselves below the boughs of the sturdy yews. the first glimpse we get of stratford is the spire of holy trinity; then comes the tower of the new memorial theater, which, by the way, is exactly like the city hall at dead horse, colorado. stratford is just another village of niagara falls. the same shops, the same guides, the same hackmen--all are there, save poor lo, with his beadwork and sassafras. in fact, a "cabby" just outside of new place offered to take me to the whirlpool and the canada side for a dollar. at least, this is what i thought he said. of course, it is barely possible that i was daydreaming, but i think the facts are that it was he who dozed, and waking suddenly as i passed gave me the wrong cue. there is a macbeth livery-stable, a falstaff bakery, and all the shops and stores keep othello this and hamlet that. i saw briarwood pipes with shakespeare's face carved on the bowl, all for one-and-six; feather fans with advice to the players printed across the folds; the "seven ages" on handkerchiefs; and souvenir-spoons galore, all warranted gorham's best. the visitor at the birthplace is given a cheerful little lecture on the various relics and curiosities as they are shown. the young ladies who perform this office are clever women with pleasant voices and big, starched, white aprons. i was at stratford four days and went just four times to the old curiosity-shop. each day the same bright british damsel conducted me through, and told her tale, but it was always with animation, and a certain sweet satisfaction in her mission and starched apron that was very charming. no man can tell the same story over and over without soon reaching a point where he betrays his weariness, and then he flavors the whole with a dash of contempt; but a good woman, heaven bless her! is ever eager to please. each time when we came to that document certified to by her "judith x shakespeare," mark i was told that it was very probable that judith could write, but that she affixed her name thus in merry jest. john shakespeare could not write, we have no reason to suppose that ann hathaway could, and this little explanation about the daughter is so very good that it deserves to rank with that other pleasant subterfuge, "the age of miracles is past"; or that bit of jolly claptrap concerning the sacred baboons that are seen about certain temples in india: "they can talk," explain the priests, "but being wise they never do." judith married thomas quiney. the only letter addressed to shakespeare that can be found is one from the happy father of thomas, mr. richard quiney, wherein he asks for a loan of thirty pounds. whether he was accommodated we can not say; and if he was, did he pay it back, is a question that has caused much hot debate. but it is worthy of note that, although considerable doubt as to authenticity has smooched the other shakespearian relics, yet the fact of the poet having been "struck" for a loan by richard quiney stands out in a solemn way as the one undisputed thing in the master's career. little did mr. quiney think, when he wrote that letter, that he was writing for the ages. philanthropists have won all by giving money, but who save quiney has reaped immortality by asking for it! the inscription over shakespeare's grave is an offer of reward if you do, and a threat of punishment if you don't, all in choice doggerel. why did he not learn at the feet of sir thomas lucy and write his own epitaph? but i rather guess i know why his grave was not marked with his name. he was a play-actor, and the church people would have been outraged at the thought of burying a "strolling player" in that sacred chancel. but his son-in-law, doctor john hall, honored the great man and was bound he should have a worthy resting-place; so at midnight, with the help of a few trusted friends, he dug the grave and lowered the dust of england's greatest son. then they hastily replaced the stones, and over the grave they placed the slab that they had brought: "good friend, for jesus' sake forbear, to dig the dust enclosed here, blest be the man who spares these stones, and cursed be he who moves my bones." a threat from a ghost! ah, no one dare molest that grave--besides they didn't know who was buried there--neither are we quite sure. long years after the interment, some one set a bust of the poet, and a tablet, on the wall over against the grave. under certain circumstances, if occasion demands, i might muster a sublime conceit; but considering the fact that ten thousand americans visit stratford every year, and all write descriptions of the place, i dare not in the face of baedeker do it. further than that, in every library there are washington irving, hawthorne, and william winter's three lacrimose but charming volumes. and i am glad to remember that the columbus who discovered stratford and gave it to the people was an american: i am proud to think that americans have written so charmingly of shakespeare: i am proud to know that at stratford no man besides the master is as honored as irving, and while i can not restrain a blush for our english cousins, i am proud that over half the visitors at the birthplace are americans, and prouder still am i to remember that they all write letters to the newspapers at home about stratford-on-avon. * * * * * in england poets are relegated to a "corner." the earth and the fulness thereof belongs to the men who can kill; on this rock have the english state and church been built. as the tourist approaches the city of london for the first time, there are four monuments that probably will attract his attention. they lift themselves out of the fog and smoke and soot, and seem to struggle toward the blue. one of these monuments is to commemorate a calamity--the conflagration of sixteen hundred sixty-six--and the others are in honor of deeds of war. the finest memorial in saint paul's is to a certain eminent irishman, arthur wellesley. the mines and quarries of earth have been called on for their richest contributions; and talent and skill have given their all to produce this enduring work of beauty, that tells posterity of the mighty acts of this mighty man. the rare richness and lavish beauty of the wellington mausoleum are only surpassed by a certain tomb in france. as an exploiter, the corsican overdid the thing a bit--so the world arose and put him down; but safely dead, his shade can boast a grave so sumptuous that englishmen in paris refuse to look upon it. but england need not be ashamed. her land is spiked with glistening monuments to greatness gone. and on these monuments one often gets the epitomized life of the man whose dust lies below. on the carved marble to lord cornwallis i read that, "he defeated the americans with great slaughter." and so, wherever in england i see a beautiful monument, i know that probably the inscription will tell how "he defeated" somebody. and one grows to the belief that, while woman's glory is her hair, man's glory is to defeat some one. and if he can "defeat with great slaughter" his monument is twice as high as if he had only visited on his brother man a plain undoing. in truth, i am told by a friend who has a bias for statistics, that all monuments above fifty feet high in england are to the honor of men who have defeated other men "with great slaughter." the only exceptions to this rule are the albert memorial--which is a tribute of wifely affection rather than a public testimonial, so therefore need not be considered here--and a monument to a worthy brewer who died and left three hundred thousand pounds to charity. i mentioned this fact to my friend, but he unhorsed me by declaring that modesty forbade carving truth on monuments, yet it was a fact that the brewer, too, had brought defeat to vast numbers and had, like saul, slaughtered his thousands. when i visited the site of the globe theater and found thereon a brewery, whose shares are warranted to make the owner rich beyond the dream of avarice, i was depressed. in my boyhood i had supposed that if ever i should reach this spot where shakespeare's plays were first produced, i should see a beautiful park and a splendid monument; while some white-haired old patriarch would greet me, and give a little lecture to the assembled pilgrims on the great man whose footsteps had made sacred the soil beneath our feet. but there is no park, and no monument, and no white-haired old poet to give you welcome--only a brewery. "ay, mon, but ain't ut a big un?" protested an englishman who heard my murmurs. yes, yes, i must be truthful--it is a big brewery, and there are four big bulldogs in the courtway; and there are big vats, and big workmen in big aprons. and each of these workmen is allowed to drink six quarts of beer each day, without charge, which proves that kindliness is not dead. then there are big horses that draw the big wagons, and on the corner there is a big taproom where the thirsty are served with big glasses. the founder of this brewery became rich; and if my statistical friend is right, the owners of these mighty vats have defeated mankind with "great slaughter." we have seen that, although napoleon, the defeated, has a more gorgeous tomb than wellington, who defeated him, yet there is consolation in the thought that although england has no monument to shakespeare he now has the freedom of elysium; while the present address of the british worthies who have battened and fattened on poor humanity's thirst for strong drink, since samuel johnson was executor of thrale's estate, is unknown. we have this on the authority of a solid englishman, who says: "the virtues essential and peculiar to the exalted station of british worthy debar the unfortunate possessor from entering paradise. there is not a lord chancellor, or lord mayor, or lord of the chamber, or master of the hounds, or beefeater in ordinary, or any sort of british bigwig, out of the whole of british beadledom, upon which the sun never sets, in elysium. this is the only dignity beyond their reach." the writer quoted is an honorable man, and i am sure he would not make this assertion if he did not have proof of the fact. so, for the present, i will allow him to go on his own recognizance, believing that he will adduce his documents at the proper time. but still, should not england have a fitting monument to shakespeare? he is her one universal citizen. his name is honored in every school or college of earth where books are prized. there is no scholar in any clime who is not his debtor. he was born in england; he never was out of england; his ashes rest in england. but england's budget has never been ballasted with a single pound to help preserve inviolate the memory of her one son to whom the world uncovers. victor hugo has said something on this subject which runs about like this: why a monument to shakespeare? he is his own monument and england is its pedestal. shakespeare has no need of a pyramid; he has his work. what can bronze or marble do for him? malachite and alabaster are of no avail; jasper, serpentine, basalt, porphyry, granite: stones from paros and marble from carrara--they are all a waste of pains: genius can do without them. what is as indestructible as these: "the tempest," "the winter's tale," "julius cæsar," "coriolanus"? what monument sublimer than "lear," sterner than "the merchant of venice," more dazzling than "romeo and juliet," more amazing than "richard iii"? what moon could shed about the pile a light more mystic than that of "a midsummer night's dream"? what capital, were it even in london, could rumble around it as tumultuously as macbeth's perturbed soul? what framework of cedar or oak will last as long as "othello"? what bronze can equal the bronze of "hamlet"? no construction of lime, or rock, of iron and of cement is worth the deep breath of genius, which is the respiration of god through man. what edifice can equal thought? babel is less lofty than isaiah; cheops is smaller than homer; the colosseum is inferior to juvenal; the giralda of seville is dwarfish by the side of cervantes; saint peter's of rome does not reach to the ankle of dante. what architect has the skill to build a tower so high as the name of shakespeare? add anything if you can to mind! then why a monument to shakespeare? i answer, not for the glory of shakespeare, but for the honor of england! thomas a. edison the mind can not conceive what man will do in the twentieth century with his chained lightning. --_thomas a. edison_ [illustration: thomas a. edison _photogravure from drawing by gaspard_] some years ago, a law was passed out in ohio, making any man ineligible to act as a magistrate who had not studied law and been duly admitted to the bar. men who had not studied law were deemed lacking in the sense of justice. this law was designed purely for one man--samuel m. jones of toledo. was ever a jones so honored before? in athens, of old, a law was once passed declaring that every man, either of whose parents was an alien, was not a citizen and therefore ineligible to hold office. this law was aimed at the head of one man--themistocles. "and so you are an alien?" was the taunting remark flung at the mother of themistocles. and the greek matron proudly answered, "yes, i am an alien--but my son is themistocles." down at lilly dale the other day, a woman told me that she had talked with the mother of edison, and the spirit-voice had said: "it is true i was a canadian schoolteacher, and this at a time when very few women taught, but i am the mother of him you call thomas a. edison. i studied and read and wrote and in degree i educated myself. i had great ambition--i thirsted to know, to do, to become. but i was hampered and chained in an uncongenial atmosphere. my body struggled with its bonds, so that i grew weak, worried, sick, and died, leaving my boy to struggle his way alone. my only regret at death was the thought that i was leaving my boy. i thought that through my marriage i had killed my career--sacrificed myself. but my boy became heir to all my hunger for knowledge, and he has accomplished what i dimly dreamed. he has made plain what i only guessed. from my position here i have whispered secrets to him that only the freed spirits knew. i once thought my life was a failure, but now i know that the word 'failure' is a term used only by foolish mortals. in the universal sense there is no such thing as failure." just here it seems to me that some one once said that we get no mind without brain. but we had here the brain of the medium, otherwise this alleged message from the spirit realm would not be ours. so we will not now tarry to discuss psychic phenomena, but go on to other things. but the woman from lilly dale said something, just the same. * * * * * edison was born at the little village of milan, ohio, which lies six miles from norwalk on the road between cleveland and toledo. on the breaking out of the civil war the boy was fourteen years old. his parents had moved to sarnia, canada, and then across to port huron. young edison used to ride up and down from detroit on the passenger-boats and sell newspapers. his standing with the detroit "free press," backed up by his good-cheer and readiness to help the passengers with their babies and bundles, gave him free passage on all railroads and steamboat-lines. there was a public library at detroit where any one could read, but books could not be taken away. all edison's spare time was spent at the library, which to him was a gold-mine. all his mother's books had been sold, stolen or given away. and ahoy there, all you folks who have books! do you not know what books are to a child hungry for truth, that has no books? of course you do not! books to a boy like young edison are treasures-trove, in which is stored the learning of all great and good and wise who have ever lived. and the boy has to read, and read for a decade, in order to find that books are not much after all. when edison saw the inside of that library and was told he could read any or all of the books, he said, "if you please, mister, i'll begin here." and he tackled the first shelf, mentally deciding that he would go through the books ten feet at a time. a little later he bought at an auction fifty volumes of the "north american review," and moving the books up to his home at port huron proceeded to read them. the war was on--papers sold for ten cents each and business was good. edison was making money--and saving it. he only plunged on books. over at mount clemens, at the springs, folks congregated, and there young edison took weekly trips selling papers. on one such visit he rescued the little son of the station-agent from in front of a moving train. in gratitude, the man took the boy to his house and told him he must make it his home while in mount clemens; and then after supper the youngster went down to the station; and what was more, the station-agent took him in behind the ticket-window, where the telegraph-instrument clicked off dots and dashes on a long strip of paper. edison looked on with open mouth. "would you like to become a telegraph-operator?" asked the agent. "sure!" was the reply. already the boy had read up on the subject in his library of the "north american review," and he really knew the history of the thing better than did the agent. edison was now a newsboy on the grand trunk, and he arranged his route so as to spend every other night at mount clemens. in a few months he could handle the key about as well as the station-agent. about this time the ice had carried out the telegraph-line between port huron and sarnia. the telegraph people were in sore straits. edison happened along and said to the local operator, "come out here, bill, on this switch-engine and we'll fix things!" by short snorts of the whistle for dots and long ones for dashes, they soon caught the ear of the operator on the other side. he answered back, "what t'ell is the matter with you fellows?" and edison and the other operator roared with laughter, so that the engineer thought their think-boxes needed re-babbitting. and that scheme of telegraphy with a steam-whistle was edison's first invention. * * * * * instead of going to college edison started a newspaper--a kind of amateur affair, in which he himself wrote editorials, news-items and advertisements--this when he was seventeen years old. the best way to become a skilled writer is to write; and if there is a better way to learn than by doing, the world has not yet discovered it. also, if there is a finer advantage for a youth who would be a financier than to have a shiftless father, it has not been recorded. when nineteen, edison had two thousand dollars in cash--more money than his father had ever seen at any one time. the grand trunk folks found that their ex-trainboy could operate, and so they called on him to help them out, up and down the line. then the western union wanted extra good men, and young edison was given double pay to go to new orleans, where there was a pitiful dearth of operators, the southern operators being mostly dead, and northern men not caring to live in the south. so edison traveled north and south and east and west, gathering gear. he had studied the science of telegraphy closely enough to see that it could be improved upon. one message at a time for one wire was absurd--why not two, or four, and why not send messages both ways at once! it was the general idea then that electricity traveled: edison knew better--electricity merely rendered the wire sensitive. edison was getting a reputation among his associates. he had read everything, and when his key was not busy, there was in his hand a copy of gibbon's "decline and fall." he wrote a hand like copperplate and could "take" as fast as the best could send. and when it came to "sending," he had made the pride of chicago cry quits. the western union had need of a specially good man at albany while the legislature was in session, and edison was sent there. he took the key and never looked at the clock--he cleaned up the stuff. he sat glued to his chair for ten hours, straight. at one time, the line suddenly became blocked between albany and new york. the manager was in distress, and after exhausting all known expedients went to edison. the lanky youth called up a friend of his in pittsburgh and ordered that new york give the pittsburgh man the albany wire. "feel your way up the river until you find me," were the orders. edison started feeling his way down the river. in twenty minutes he called to the manager, "the break is two miles below poughkeepsie--i've ordered the section-boss at poughkeepsie to take a repairer on his handcar and go and fix it!" of course, this plain telegraph-operator had no right to order out a section-boss; but nevertheless he did it. he shouldered responsibility like tom potter of the c., b. & q. not long after the albany experience, edison was in new york, not looking for work as some say, but nosing around wall street investigating the "laws automatic ticker." the machine he was looking at suddenly stopped, and this blocked all the tickers on the line. an expert was sent for, but he could not start it. "i'll fix it," said a tall, awkward volunteer, the same which was edison. history is not yet clear as to whether edison had not originally "fixed" it, and edison so far has not confessed. and there being no one else to start the machine, edison was given a chance, and soon the tickers were going again. this gave him an introduction to the stock-ticker folks, and the western union people he already knew. this was in eighteen hundred seventy, and edison was then twenty-three years old. he studied out how stock-reporting could be bettered and invented a plan which he duly patented, and then laid his scheme before the western union managers. a stock company was formed, and young edison, aged twenty-four, was paid exactly forty thousand dollars for his patent, and retained by the company as electrical adviser at three hundred dollars a month. in eighteen hundred seventy-four, when he was twenty-seven, he had perfected his duplex telegraph apparatus and had a factory turning out telegraph-instruments and appliances at newark, new jersey, where three hundred men were employed. in eighteen hundred seventy-six, the year of the centennial exposition, edison told the exposition managers that if they would wait a year or so he would light their show with electricity. he moved to the then secluded spot of menlo park to devote himself to experiments, spending an even hundred thousand dollars in equipment as a starter. results followed fast, and soon we had the incandescent lamp, trolley-car, electric pen and many other inventions. it was on the night of october the twenty-third, eighteen hundred seventy-nine, that edison first turned the current through an incandescent burner and got the perfect light. he sat and looked at the soft, mild, beautiful light and laughed a joyous peal of laughter that was heard in the adjoining rooms. "we've got it, boys!" he cried, and the boys, a dozen of them, came tumbling in. arguments started as to how long it would last. one said an hour. "twenty-four hours," said edison. they all vowed they would watch it without sleep until the carbon film was destroyed and the light went out. it lasted just forty hours. around edison grew up a group of great workers--proud to be called "edison men"--and some of these went out and made for themselves names and fortunes. edison was born in eighteen hundred forty-seven. consequently, at this writing he is sixty-three years old. he is big and looks awkward, because his dusty-gray clothes do not fit, and he walks with a slight stoop. when he wants clothes he telephones for them. his necktie is worn by the right oblique, his iron-gray hair is combed by the wind. on his cherubic face usually sits a half-quizzical, pleased smile, that fades into a look plaintive and very gentle. the face is that of a man who has borne burdens and known sorrow, of one who has overcome only after mighty effort. i was going to say that edison looks like a roman emperor, but i recall that no roman emperor deserves to rank with him--not even julius cæsar! the face is that of napoleon at saint helena, unsubdued. the predominant characteristics of the man are his faith, hope, good-cheer and courage. but at all times his humor is apt to be near the surface. had edison been as keen a businessman as rockefeller, and kept his own in his own hands, he would today be as rich as rockefeller. but edison is worth, oh, say, two million dollars, and that is all any man should be worth--it is all he needs. yet there are at least a hundred men in the world today, far richer than edison, who have made their fortunes wholly and solely by appropriating his ideas. edison has trusted people, and some of them have taken advantage of his great, big, generous, boyish spirit to do him grievous wrong. but the nearest i ever heard him come to making a complaint was when he said to me, "fra elbertus, you never wrote but one really true thing!" "well, what was that, mr. edison?" "you said, 'there is one thing worse than to be deceived by men, and that is to distrust them.' now people say i have been successful, and so i have, in degree, and it has been through trusting men. there are a few fellows who always know just what i am doing--i confide in them--i explain things to them just to straighten the matter out in my own mind." but of the men who have used edison's money and ideas, who have made it a life business to study his patents and then use them, evading the law, not a word! from eighteen hundred seventy to eighteen hundred ninety, edison secured over nine hundred patents, or at the rate of one patent every ten days. very few indeed of these patents ever brought him any direct return, and now his plan is to invent and keep the matter a secret in his "family." "the value of an idea lies in the using of it," he said to me. "you patent a thing and the other fellow starts even with you. keep it to yourself and you have the machinery going before the other fellow is awake. patents may protect some things, and still others they only advertise. up in buffalo you have a great lawyer who says he can drive a coach and four through any will that was ever made--and i guess he can. all good lawyers know how to break wills and contracts, and there are now specialists who secure goodly fees for busting patents. if you have an idea, go ahead and invent a way to use it and keep your process secret." * * * * * the edison factories at west orange cover a space of about thirty acres, all fenced in with high pickets and barb-wire. over two thousand people are employed inside that fence. there are guards at the gates, and the would-be visitor is challenged as if he were an enemy. if you want to see any particular person, you do not go in and see him--he comes to you and you sit in a place like the visitors' dock at sing-sing. with me it was different: i had a note that made the gates swing wide. however, one gatekeeper scrutinized the note and scrutinized me, and then went back into a maze of buildings for advice. when he came back, the general manager was with him and was reproving him. in a voice full of defense the county down watchman said: "ah, now, and how did i know but that it was a forgery? and anyhow, i'd never let in a man what looks like that, even if he had an order from bill taft." the edison factories, all enclosed in the high fence and under guard, include four separate and distinct corporations, each with its own set of offices. edison himself owns a controlling interest in each corporation, and the rest of the stock is owned by the managers or "family." with his few trusted helpers he is most liberal. not only do they draw goodly salaries, but they have an interest in the profits that is no small matter. the secrets of the place are protected by having each workman stick right to one thing and work in one room. no running around is allowed--each employee goes to a certain place and remains there all day. to be found elsewhere is a misdemeanor, and while spies at the edison factory are not shot, they have been known to disappear into space with great velocity. to make amends for the close restrictions on workers, an extra wage is paid and the eight-hour day prevails, so help is never wanting. ninety-nine workers out of a hundred want their wages, and nothing else. promotion, advancement and education are things that never occur to them. but for the few that have the stuff in them, edison is always on the lookout. his place is really a college, for to know the man is an education. he radiates good-cheer and his animation is catching. to a woman who wanted him to write a motto for her son, edison wrote, "never look at the clock!" the argument is plain--get the thing done. and around the edison laboratory there is no use of looking at the clock, for none of them runs. that is the classic joke of the place. years ago edison expressed his contempt for the man who watched the clock, and now every christmas his office family take up a collection and buy him a clock, and present it with great ceremony. he replies in a speech on the nebular hypothesis and all are very happy. one year the present assumed the form of an ingersoll dollar watch, which the wizard showed to me with great pride. in the stockade is a beautiful library building and here you see clocks galore, some of which must have cost a thousand dollars a piece, all silent. one clock had a neatly printed card attached, "don't look at this clock--it has stopped." and another, "you may look at this clock, for you can't stop it!" it was already stopped. one very elegant clock had a solid block of wood where the works should have been, but the face and golden hands were all complete. however, one clock was running, with a tick needlessly loud, but this clock had no hands. the edison library is a gigantic affair, with two balconies and bookstacks limitless. the intent was to have a scientific library right at hand that would compass the knowledge of the world. the laboratory is quite as complete, for in it is every chemical substance known to man, all labeled, classified and indexed. seemingly, edison is the most careless, indifferent and slipshod of men, but the real fact is that such a thorough business general the world has seldom seen. if he wants, say, the "electrical review" for march, eighteen hundred ninety-one, he hands a boy a slip of paper and the book is in his hands in five minutes. edison of all men understands that knowledge consists in having a clerk who can quickly find the thing. in his hands the card-index has reached perfection. edison has no private office, and his desk in the great library has not had a letter written on it since eighteen hundred ninety-five. "i hate to disturb the mice," he said as he pointed it out indifferently. he arrives at the stockade early--often by seven o'clock, and makes his way direct to the laboratory, which stands in the center of the campus. all around are high factory buildings, vibrating with the suppressed roar and hum of industry. in the laboratory, edison works, secure and free from interruption unless he invites it. much of his time is spent in the chemical building, a low, one-story structure, lighted from the top. it has a cement floor and very simple furniture, the shelves and tables being mostly of iron. "we are always prepared for fires and explosions here," said edison in half-apology for the barrenness of the rooms. the place is a maze of retorts, kettles, tubes, siphons and tiny brass machinery. in the midst of the mess stood two old-fashioned armchairs--both sacred to edison. one he sits in, and the other is for his feet, his books, pads and paper. here he sits and thinks, reads or muses or tells stories or shuffles about with his hands in his pockets. edison is a man of infinite leisure. he has the faculty of throwing details upon others. at his elbow, shod in sneakers silent, is always a stenographer. then there is a bookkeeper who does nothing but record the result of every experiment, and these experiments are going on constantly, attended to by half a dozen quiet and alert men, who work like automatons. "i have tried a million schemes that will not work--i know everything that is no good. i work by elimination," says edison. when hot on the trail of an idea he may work here for three days and nights without going home, and his wife is good enough and great enough to leave him absolutely to himself. in a little room in the corner of the laboratory is a little iron cot and three gray army blankets. he can sleep at any time, and half an hour's rest will enable him to go on. when he can't quite catch the idea, he closes up his brain-cells for ten minutes and sleeps, then up and after it again. mrs. edison occasionally sends meals down for the wizard when he is on the trail of a thought and does not want to take time to go home. one day the dinner arrived when edison was just putting salt on the tail of an idea. there was no time to eat, but it occurred to the inventor that if he would just quit thinking for ten minutes and sleep, he could awaken with enough brain-power to throw the lariat successfully. so he just leaned back, put his feet in the other chair and went to sleep. the general manager came in and saw the dinner on the table and edison sleeping, so he just sat down and began to eat the dinner. he ate it all, and tiptoed out. edison slept twenty minutes, awoke, looked at the empty dishes, pulled down his vest, took out his regular after-dinner cigar, lighted it and smoked away in sweet satisfaction, fully believing that he had had his dinner; and even after the general manager had come in and offered to bet him a dollar he hadn't, he was still of the same mind. this spirit of sly joking fills the place, set afloat by the master himself. edison dearly loves a joke, and will quit work any time to hear one. it is the five minutes' sleep and the good laugh that keep his brain from becoming a hotbox--he gets his rest! "when do you take your vacation, mr. edison?" a lady asked him. "election night every november," was the reply. and this is literally true, for on that night there is a special wire run into the orange clubhouse, and edison takes the key and sits there until daylight taking the returns, writing them out carefully in that copperplate western union hand. he is as careful about his handwriting now as if he were writing out train-orders. "if i wanted to live a hundred years i would use neither tobacco nor coffee," said edison as we sat at lunch. "but you see i'd rather get a little really good work done than live long and do nothing to speak of. and so i spur what i am pleased to call my mind, at times with coffee and a good cigar--just pass the matches, thank you! some day some fellow will invent a way of concentrating and storing up sunshine to use instead of this old, absurd prometheus scheme of fire. i'll do the trick myself if some one else doesn't get at it. why, that is all there is about my work in electricity--you know, i never claimed to have invented electricity--that is a campaign lie--nail it!" "sunshine is spread out thin and so is electricity. perhaps they are the same, but we will take that up later. now the trick was, you see, to concentrate the juice and liberate it as you needed it. the old-fashioned way inaugurated by jove, of letting it off in a clap of thunder, is dangerous, disconcerting and wasteful. it doesn't fetch up anywhere. my task was to subdivide the current and use it in a great number of little lights, and to do this i had to store it. and we haven't really found out how to store it yet and let it off real easy-like and cheap. why, we have just begun to commence to get ready to find out about electricity. this scheme of combustion to get power makes me sick to think of--it is so wasteful. it is just the old, foolish prometheus idea, and the father of prometheus was a baboon." "when we learn how to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves; until then we are tailless orangutans. you see, we should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy." "do we use them? oh, no! we burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel. we live like squatters, not as if we owned the property. "there must surely come a time when heat and power will be stored in unlimited quantities in every community, all gathered by natural forces. electricity ought to be as cheap as oxygen, for it can not be destroyed. "now, i am not sure but that my new storage-battery is the thing. i'd tell you about that, but i don't want to bore you. of course, i know that nothing is more interesting to the public than a good lie. you see, i have been a newspaperman myself--used to run a newspaper--in fact, veritas and old subscriber once took exception to one of my editorials and threw me into the detroit river--that is where i got my little deafness--what's that? no, i did not say my deftness--i got that in another way. but about lies, you have heard that one about my smoking big, black cigars! well, the story is that the boys in the office used to steal my cigars, and so i got a cigarmaker to make me up a box that looked just like my favorite brand, only i had 'em filled with hemp, horsehair and a touch of asafetida. then i just left the box where the boys would be sure to dip into it; but it seems the cigarman put them on, and so they just put that box into my own private stock and i smoked the fumigators and never knew the difference. "that whole story is a pernicious malrepresentation invented by the enemy of mankind in order to throw obloquy over a virtuous old telegraph-operator--brand it!" witness, therefore, that i have branded it, forevermore! * * * * * once upon a day i wrote an article on alexander humboldt. and in that article among other things i said, "this world of ours, round like an orange and slightly flattened at the poles, has produced but five educated men." and ironical ladies and gents from all parts of the united states wrote me on postal cards, begging that i should name the other four. let us leave the cynics to their little pleasantries, and make our appeal to people who think. education means evolution, development, growth. education is comparative, for there is no fixed standard--all men know more than some men, and some men know more than some other men. "every man i meet is my master in some particular," said emerson. but there are five men in history who had minds so developed, and evolved beyond the rest of mankind so far, that they form a class by themselves, and deserve to be called educated men. the men i have in mind were the following: pericles, builder of athens. aristotle, tutor of alexander, and the world's first naturalist. leonardo, the all-round man--the man who could do more things, and do them well, than any other man who every lived. sir isaac newton, the mathematician, who analyzed light and discovered the law of gravitation. alexander von humboldt, explorer and naturalist, who compassed the entire scientific knowledge of the world, issued his books in deluxe limited editions at his own expense, and sold them for three thousand dollars a set. newton and humboldt each wore a seven and three-fourths hat. leonardo and aristotle went untaped, but pericles had a head so high and so big that he looked like a caricature, and aristophanes, a nice man who lived at the same time, said that the head of pericles looked like a pumpkin that had been sat upon. all the busts of pericles represent him wearing a helmet--this to avoid what the artists thought an abnormality, the average greek having a round, smooth chucklehead like that of a bowery bartender. america has produced two men who stand out so far beyond the rest of mankind that they form a class by themselves: benjamin franklin and thomas a. edison. franklin wore a seven and a half hat; edison wears a seven and three-fourths. the difference in men is the difference in brain-power. and while size does not always token quality, yet size and surface are necessary to get power, and there is no record of a man with a six and a half head ever making a ripple on the intellectual sea. without the cells you get no mind, and if mind exists without the cells, it has not yet been proven. the brain is a storage-battery made up of millions of minute cells. the weight of an average man's brain is forty-nine ounces. now, humboldt's brain weighed fifty-six ounces, and newton's and franklin's weighed fifty-seven. let us hope the autopsist will not have a chance to weigh edison's brain for many years, but when he does the mark will register fifty-seven ounces. an orang-utan weighs about the same as a man, but its brain weighs only a pound, against three pounds for a man. give a gorilla a brain weighing fifty ounces, and he would be a methodist presiding elder. give him a brain the same size of edison's, say fifty-seven ounces, and instead of spending life in hunting for snakes and heaving cocoanuts at monkeys as respectable gorillas are wont, he would be weighing the world in scales of his own invention and making, and measuring the distances of the stars. pericles was taught by the gentle anaxagoras, who gave all his money to the state in order that he might be free. the state reciprocated by cutting off his head, for republics are always ungrateful. aristotle was a pupil of plato and worked his way through college, sifting ashes, washing windows and sweeping sidewalks. leonardo was self-taught and gathered knowledge as a bee gathers honey, although honey isn't honey until the bee digests it. sir isaac newton was a cambridge man. he held the office of master of the mint, and to relieve himself of the charge of atheism he anticipated the enemy and wrote a book on the hebrew prophets, which gave the scientists the laugh on him, but made his position with the state secure. newton is the only man herein mentioned who knew anything about theology, all the others being "infidels" in their day, devoting themselves strictly to this world. humboldt was taught by the "natural method," and never took a college degree. franklin was a graduate of the university of hard knocks, and edison's alma mater is the same. there is one special characteristic manifested by the seven educated men i have named--good-cheer, a great welling sense of happiness! they were all good animals: they gloried in life; they loved the men and women who were still on earth; they feasted on the good things in life; breathed deeply; slept soundly and did not bother about the future. their working motto was, "one world at a time." they were all able to laugh. genius is a great fund of joyousness. each and all of these men influenced the world profoundly. we are different people because they lived. every house, school, library and workshop in christendom is touched by their presence. all are dead but edison, yet their influence can never die. and no one in the list has influenced civilization so profoundly as edison. you can not look out of a window in any city in europe or america without beholding the influence of his thought. you may say that the science of electricity has gone past him, but all the sons of jove have built on him. he gave us the electric light and the electric car and pointed the way to the telephone--three things that have revolutionized society. as athens at her height was the age of pericles, so will our time be known as the age of edison. so here endeth "little journeys to the homes of good men and great," being volume one of the series, as written by elbert hubbard: edited and arranged by fred bann; borders and initials by roycroft artists and produced by the roycrofters, at their shops, which are in east aurora, erie county, new york, mcmxxii internet archive (http://www.archive.org) note: images of the original pages are available through internet archive. see http://www.archive.org/details/dickensaseducato hughrich dickens as an educator by james l. hughes inspector of schools, toronto author of froebel's educational laws mistakes in teaching, etc. new york and london d. appleton and company copyright, , by d. appleton and company. electrotyped and printed at the appleton press, u.s.a. editor's preface. the following pages are sufficient to establish the claim of mr. hughes for dickens as an educational reformer--the greatest that england has produced. it will be admitted that he has done more than any one else to secure for the child a considerate treatment of his tender age. "it is a crime against a child to rob it of its childhood." this principle was announced by dickens, and it has come to be generally recognised and adopted. gradually it is changing the methods of primary instruction and bringing into vogue a milder form of discipline and a more stimulative teaching--arousing the child's self-activity instead of repressing it. the child is born with animal instincts and tendencies, it is true, but he has all the possibilities of human nature. the latter can be developed best by a treatment which takes for granted the child's preference to adopt what is good rather than what is bad in social customs and usages. the child, it is true, is uneven in his proclivities, having some bad ones and some good ones. the true pedagogy uses the good inclinations as a lever by which to correct bad ones. the teacher recognises what is good in the child's disposition and endeavours to build on it a self-respect which may at all times be invoked against temptations to bad conduct. child depravity sometimes exists, but it can generally be traced to injudicious methods of education in the family, the school, or the community. dickens has laid so much emphasis on defects of method in these three directions that he has made the generation in which he lived and the next succeeding one sensitively conscious of them. he has even caricatured them with such vehemence of style as to make our ideals so vivid that we see at once any wrong tendency in its very beginning. walter scott, in his schoolmasters, has caricatured pedantry; so has shakespeare. but dickens has discovered a variety of types of pedantry and made them all easily recognisable and odious to us. more than this, he has attacked the evil of cramming, the evil of isolation from the family in the boarding school for too young children, and the evil of uninteresting instruction. whatever is good and reasonable for the child to know should be made interesting to the child, and the teacher is to be considered incompetent who can not find in the life histories of his class threads of daily experience and present interest to which he can attach every point that the regular lesson contains. dickens has done a great work in directing the attention of society to its public institutions--especially to its orphan asylums and poorhouses. the chill which the infant gets when it comes in direct contact with the formality of a state institution, or even a religious institution, without the mediation of the family, is portrayed so well that every reader of dickens feels it by sympathy. so, too, in those families of public men or women or in those of the directors of industry or commerce who crush out the true family life by bringing home their unrelaxing business manners and trying to regulate the family as they regulate the details of a great business house--the reading world has imbibed a sympathy for the rights of the home. free childhood and the culture of individuality has become a watchword. above all, dickens has introduced a reform as to the habit of terrorizing children. corporal punishment has diminished to one fourth of its former amount, and charles dickens is the prophet to whom the reform owes its potency. in fact, the habit of finding in the good tendencies of the child the levers with which to move him to the repression of his bad impulses has placed in the hands of the professional teacher the means of governing the child without appeal to force except in the rarest cases. the tendency to caricature an evil has its dangers, of course, and dickens, like all the other educational reformers, has often condemned as entirely unworthy of toleration what has really in it some good reason for its existence. it was the abuse that needed correction. reform instead of revolution should have been recommended, but the reformer often gets so heated in his contest with superficial evil that he attacks what is fundamentally good. he cuts down the tree when it needed only the removal of a twig infested with caterpillars. this defect of the reformer renders necessary a new reformer, and thus arises a pendulum swing of educational method from one extreme to another. dickens shares with all reformers some of their weaknesses, but he does not share his most excellent qualities with many of them. he stands apart and alone as one of the most potent influences of social reform in the nineteenth century, and therefore deserves to be read and studied by all who have to do with schools and by all parents everywhere in our day and generation. w. t. harris. washington, d. c., _october , _. author's preface. this book has two purposes: to prove that dickens was the great apostle of the "new education" to the english-speaking world, and to bring into connected form, under appropriate headings, the educational principles of one of the world's greatest educators, and one of its two most sympathetic friends of childhood. dickens was the most profound exponent of the kindergarten and the most comprehensive student of childhood that england has yet produced. he was one of the first great advocates of a national system of schools, and his revelations of the ignorance and the intellectual and spiritual destitution of the children of the poor led to the deep interest which ultimately brought about the establishment of free schools in england. he was essentially a child trainer rather than a teacher. in the twenty-eight schools described in his writings, and in the training of his army of little children in institutions and homes, he reveals nearly every form of bad training resulting from ignorance, selfishness, indifference, unwise zeal, unphilosophic philosophy, and un-christian theology. no other writer has attacked so many phases of wrong training, unjust treatment, and ill usage of childhood. he is the most distinctive champion of the rights of childhood. he struck the bravest blows against corporal punishment, and against all forms of coercive tyranny toward the child in homes, institutions, and schools, even condemning the dogmatic will control of such a placid, christian woman as mrs. crisparkle. he demanded a free, real, joyous childhood, rich in all a child's best experiences and interests, so that "childhood may ripen in childhood." he pleaded for the development of the individuality of each child. he taught the wisdom of giving a child proper food, and he showed the vital importance of real sympathy with the child, not mere consideration for him. he was the english father of true reverence for the child. but dickens studied the methods of cultivating the minds of children, as well as their character development. he exposed the evils of cramming more vigorously than any other writer. he taught the essential character of the imagination in intellectual and spiritual development. he showed the need of correlation of studies, and of apperceptive centres of feeling and thought in order to comprehend, and assimilate, and transform into definite power the knowledge and thought that is brought to our minds. it is said by some, who see but the surface of the work of dickens, that his work is done. much of the good work for which he lived has been done, but much more remains to be done. men are but beginning the work of child study and of rational education. the twentieth century will understand dickens better than the nineteenth has understood him. his profound philosophy is only partially comprehended yet, even by the leaders in educational work. teachers and all students of childhood will find in his true feeling and rich thought revelation and inspiration. contents. chapter page i.--the place of dickens among educators ii.--infant gardens iii.--the overthrow of coercion iv.--the doctrine of child depravity v.--cramming vi.--free childhood vii.--individuality viii.--the culture of the imagination ix.--sympathy with childhood x.--child study and child nature xi.--bad training xii.--good training xiii.--community xiv.--nutrition as a factor in education xv.--minor schools xvi.--miscellaneous educational principles xvii.--the training of poor, neglected, and defective children dickens as an educator. chapter i. the place of dickens among educators. dickens was england's greatest educational reformer. his views were not given to the world in the form of ordinary didactic treatises, but in the form of object lessons in the most entertaining of all stories. millions have read his books, whereas but hundreds would have read them if he had written his ideals in the form of direct, systematic exposition. he is certainly not less an educator because his books have been widely read. the highest form of teaching is the informal, the indirect, the incidental. the fact that his educational principles are revealed chiefly by the evolution of the characters in his novels and stories, instead of by the direct philosophic statements of scientific pedagogy or psychology, gives dickens higher rank as an educator, not only because it gives him much wider influence, but because it makes his teaching more effective by arousing deep, strong feeling to give permanency and propulsive force to his great thoughts. was dickens consciously and intentionally an educator? the prefaces to his novels; the preface to his household words; the educational articles he wrote; the prominence given in his books to child training in homes, institutions, and schools; the statements of the highest educational philosophy found in his writings; and especially the clearness of his insight and the profoundness of his educational thought, as shown by his condemnation of the wrong and his appreciation of the right in teaching and training the child, prove beyond question that he was not only broad and true in his sympathy with childhood, but that he was a careful and progressive student of the fundamental principles of education. dickens deals with twenty-eight schools in his writings, evidently with definite purposes in each case: "minerva house," in sketches by boz; "dotheboys hall," in nicholas nickleby; mr. marton's two schools, miss monflather's school, and mrs. wackles's school, in old curiosity shop; dr. blimber's school and "the grinders'" school, in dombey and son; mr. creakle's school, dr. strong's school, agnes's school, and the school uriah heep attended, in david copperfield; the school at which esther was a day boarder and miss donney's school, in bleak house; mr. mcchoakumchild's school, in hard times; mr. wopsle's great aunt's school, in great expectations; the evening school attended by charley hexam, bradley headstone's school, and miss peecher's school, in our mutual friend; phoebe's school, in barbox brothers; mrs. lemon's school, in holiday romance; jemmy lirriper's school, in mrs. lirriper's lodgings; miss pupford's school, in tom tiddler's ground; the school described in the haunted house; miss twinkleton's seminary, in edwin drood; the schools of the stepney union; the schoolboy's story; and our school. in addition to these twenty-eight schools, he describes a real school in american notes, and makes brief references to the misses nettingall's establishment, mr. cripples's academy, drowvey and grimmer's school, the foundation school attended by george silverman, scrooge's school, pecksniff's school for architects, fagin's school for training thieves, and three dancing schools, conducted by mr. baps, signor billsmethi, and mr. turveydrop. he introduces mr. pocket, george silverman, and canon crisparkle as tutors, and mrs. general, miss lane, and ruth pinch as governesses. mrs. sapsea had been the proprietor of an academy in cloisterham. one of the first sketches by "boz" was our schoolmaster, and his books are full of illustrations of wrong training of children in homes, in institutions, and by professional child trainers such as mrs. pipchin. clearly dickens intended to reveal the best educational ideals, and to expose what he regarded as weak or wrong in school methods, and especially in child training. dickens was the first great english student of the kindergarten. his article on infant gardens, published in household words in , is one of the most comprehensive articles ever written on the kindergarten philosophy. it shows a perfect appreciation of the physical, intellectual, and spiritual aims of froebel, and a clear recognition of the value of right early training and of the influence of free self-activity in the development of individual power and character. dickens is beyond comparison the chief english apostle of childhood, and its leading champion in securing a just, intelligent, and considerate recognition of its rights by adulthood, which till his time had been deliberately coercive and almost universally tyrannical in dealing with children. he entered more fully than any other english author into sympathy with childhood from the standpoint of the child. other educators and philanthropists have shown consideration for children, but dickens had the perfect sympathy with childhood that sees and feels _with_ the child, not merely _for_ him. dickens attacked all forms of coercion in child training. he discussed fourteen types of coercion, from the brutal corporal punishment of squeers and creakle in schools, of bumble and the christian philanthropist with the white waistcoat in institutions, and of the murdstones and mrs. gargery in homes, to the gentle but dwarfing firmness of the dominant will of placid mrs. crisparkle. he condemned all coercion because it prevents the full development of selfhood, and makes men negative instead of positive. among the many improvements made in child training none is more complete than the change in discipline. for this change the world is indebted chiefly to froebel and dickens. froebel revealed the true philosophy, dickens gave it wings; froebel gave the thought, dickens made the thought clear and strong by arousing energetic feeling in harmony with it. thought makes slow progress without a basis of feeling. dickens opened the hearts of humanity in sympathy for suffering childhood, and thus gave froebel's philosophy definiteness and propulsive power. the darkest clouds have been cleared away from child life during the past fifty years. teachers, managers of institutions for the care of children, and parents are now severely punished by the laws of civilized countries for offences against children that were approved by the most enlightened christian philosophy at the time of froebel and dickens as necessary duties essential in the proper training of childhood. dickens helped to break the bonds of the doctrine of child depravity. this doctrine had a most depressing influence on educators. it was not possible to reverence a child so long as he was regarded as a totally depraved thing. froebel and dickens did not teach that a child is totally divine, but they did believe that every child possesses certain elements of divinity which constitute selfhood or individuality, and that if this selfhood is developed in conscious unity with the divine fatherhood the child will attain to complete manhood. this thought gives the educator a new and a higher attitude toward childhood. the child is no longer a thing to be repressed, but a being to be developed. men are not persistently dwarfed now by deliberate efforts to define a blighting consciousness of weakness; they are stimulated to broader effort and higher purpose by a true self-consciousness of individual power. the philosophy that trains men to recognise responsibility for the good in their nature is infinitely more productive educationally than that which teaches men responsibility for the evil in their nature. dickens taught that loving sympathy is the highest qualification of a true teacher. he showed this to be true by both positive and negative illustrations. mr. marton, the old schoolmaster in old curiosity shop, was a perfect type of a sympathetic teacher. dr. strong was "the ideal of the whole school, for he was the kindest of men." phoebe's school was such a good place for the little ones, because she loved them. like mr. marton, she had not studied the new systems of teaching, but loving sympathy gave her power and made her school a place in which the good in human hearts grew and blossomed naturally. "you are fond of children and learned in the new systems of teaching them," said mr. jackson. "very fond of them," replied phoebe, "but i know nothing of teaching beyond the pleasure i have in it, and the pleasure it gives me when they learn. perhaps your overhearing my little scholars sing some of their lessons has led you so far astray as to think me a good teacher? ah, i thought so! no, i have only read and been told about that system. it seems so pretty and pleasant, and to treat them so like the merry robins they are, that i took up with it in my little way." she had heard of the kindergarten and had caught some of its spirit of sympathy with the child, but she did not understand its methods. jemmy lirriper received perfectly sympathetic treatment from mrs. lirriper and the major; agnes loved her little scholars; esther, who sympathized with everybody, loved her pupils, and was beloved by them; and the bachelor, who introduced mr. marton to his second school, was a genuine boy in his comprehensive sympathy with real, boyish boyhood. so throughout all his books dickens pleads for kindly treatment for the child, and for complete sympathy with him in his childish feelings and interests. he gave the child the place of honour in literature for the first time, and he aroused the heart of the christian world to the fact that it was treating the child in a very un-christlike way. he pleaded for a better education for the child, for a free childhood, for greater liberty in the home and in the school, for fuller sympathy especially at the time when childhood merges into youth and when the mysteries of life have begun to make themselves conscious to the young mind and heart. the poorer the child the greater the need he revealed. canon crisparkle, esther summerson, mr. jarndyce, joe gargery, rose maylie, allan woodcourt, betty higden, mr. sangsby, the old schoolmaster, the bachelor, mrs. lirriper, major jackmann, doctor marigold, agnes wickfield, mr. george, and mr. brownlow are types of the people with whom dickens would fill the world--men and women whose hearts were overflowing with true sympathy. esther summerson is the best type of perfect sympathy to be met with in literature. she expressed the central principle of dickens's philosophy regarding sympathy when she said: "when i love a person very tenderly indeed my understanding seems to brighten; my comprehension is quickened when my affection is." the need of sympathy with childhood was revealed by dickens most strongly by the cruelty, the coercion, and the harshness of such characters as squeers, creakle, bumble, the murdstones, mrs. gargery, john willet, mrs. pipchin, mrs. clennam, and the teachers in the grinders' school. dickens's description of dr. blimber's school is the most profound criticism of the cramming system of teaching that was ever written. he treats the same subject also in hard times, christmas stories, and a holiday romance. the vital importance of a free, rich childhood, the value of the imagination as the basis of intellectual and spiritual development, the folly of the herbartian psychology relating to the soul, the error of regarding fact-storing as the chief aim of education, and the terrible evils resulting from the tyranny of adulthood in dealing with childhood are all treated very ably in hard times, the most advanced and most profound of dickens's works from the standpoint of the educator. the need of a real childhood, so well expressed in froebel's maxim, "let childhood ripen in childhood," is shown also in nicholas nickleby, old curiosity shop, martin chuzzlewit, barnaby rudge, dombey and son, great expectations, and edwin drood. the true reverence for individual selfhood is shown in dombey and son, david copperfield, bleak house, hard times, little dorrit, our mutual friend, and edwin drood. the wisdom of studying the subject of nutrition as one of the most important subjects connected with the development of children physically, intellectually, and morally, and the meanness or carelessness too frequently shown in feeding children, were taught in oliver twist, old curiosity shop, martin chuzzlewit, dombey and son, david copperfield, bleak house, great expectations, edwin drood, christmas stories, and american notes. play as an essential factor in education is treated in martin chuzzlewit, dombey and son, david copperfield, and american notes. the folly of the old practice of attempting to educate by polishing the surface of the character, of training from without instead of from within, is revealed in bleak house and little dorrit. bleak house discusses the contents of children's minds and the need of early experiences to form apperceptive centres of feeling and thought in a comprehensive and suggestive manner. the need of practising the fundamental law of co-operation and the sharing of responsibilities and duties, as the foundation for the true comprehension of the law of community, is shown in barnaby rudge, david copperfield, dombey and son, and little dorrit. the need of child study is suggested in david copperfield and bleak house. the value of joyousness in the development of true, strong character is discussed in nicholas nickleby, barnaby rudge, old curiosity shop, martin chuzzlewit, dombey and son, david copperfield, hard times, little dorrit, great expectations, and edwin drood. dickens was one of the first englishmen to see the need of normal schools to train teachers, and to advocate the abolition of uninspected private schools and the establishment of national schools. he taught these ideals in the preface to nicholas nickleby, issued in , so that he very early caught the spirit of mann and barnard in america, and saw the wisdom of their efforts to establish schools supported, controlled, and directed by the state. he says, in his preface to nicholas nickleby: of the monstrous neglect of education in england, and the disregard of it by the state as a means of forming good or bad citizens, and miserable or happy men, this class of schools long afforded a notable example. although any man who had proved his unfitness for any other occupation in life, was free, without examination or qualification, to open a school anywhere; although preparation for the functions he undertook was required in the surgeon who assisted to bring a boy into the world, or might one day assist, perhaps, to send him out of it; in the chemist, the attorney, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker; the whole round of crafts and trades, the schoolmaster excepted; and although schoolmasters, as a race, were the blockheads and impostors who might naturally be expected to spring from such a state of things, and to flourish in it, these yorkshire schoolmasters were the lowest and most rotten round in the whole ladder. traders in the avarice, indifference, or imbecility of parents, and the helplessness of children; ignorant, sordid, brutal men, to whom few considerate persons would have intrusted the board and lodging of a horse or a dog; they formed the worthy corner-stone of a structure which, for absurdity and magnificent high-handed _laissez-aller_ neglect, has rarely been exceeded in the world. we hear sometimes of an action for damages against the unqualified medical practitioner, who has deformed a broken limb in pretending to heal it. but what about the hundreds of thousands of minds that have been deformed forever by the incapable pettifoggers who have pretended to form them? i make mention of the race, as of the yorkshire schoolmasters, in the past tense. though it has not yet finally disappeared, it is dwindling daily. a long day's work remains to be done about us in the way of education, heaven knows; but great improvements and facilities toward the attainment of a good one have been furnished of late years. this leaves no doubt in regard to the conscious purpose of dickens in writing with definite educational plans. incidentally he discusses every phase of what is called the "new education." he was the first and the greatest english student of froebel, and his writings gave wings to the profound thought of the greatest philosopher of childhood. froebel revealed the truth that feeling is the basis of thought. in harmony with this great psychological principle, it may fairly be claimed that the works of dickens so fully aroused the heart of the civilized world to the wrongs inflicted on childhood, and the grievous errors committed in training children, as to prepare the minds of all who read his books for the conscious revelation of the imperfections of educational systems and methods, and the imperative need of radical educational reforms. the intense feeling caused by the writings of dickens prepared the way for the thought of froebel. dickens studied froebel with great care. he was not merely a student of theoretical principles, but he was a very frequent visitor to the first kindergarten opened in england. madame kraus-boelte, who assisted madame rongé in the first kindergarten opened in london, says in a recent letter: "i remember very distinctly the frequent visits made by mr. dickens to madame rongé's kindergarten. he always appeared to be deeply interested, and would sometimes stay during the whole session." the description of the schools of the stepney union in the uncommercial traveller shows how keenly appreciative dickens was of all true new ideals in educational work. these were charity schools conducted on an excellent system. the pupils worked at industrial occupations half of their school hours, and studied the other half. they were taught music, and the boys had military drill and naval training. they had no corporal punishment in these schools. dickens approved most heartily of everything he saw in his frequent visits to the schools of the stepney union except the work of one of the younger teachers, who would, in his opinion, have been better "if she had shown more geniality." he commended the industrial work, the military training, the naval training, the music, the discipline without corporal punishment, and the intellectual brightness of the children. he pointed out at some length the difference in interest shown by the pupils in these schools and by the pupils in the school he himself attended when a boy, and drew the conclusion very definitely that shorter hours of study, with a variety of interesting operations, were much better for the physical and intellectual development of children than long hours spent in monotonous work. the folly and wrong of trying to make children study beyond the fatigue point was never more clearly pointed out than by dickens in the description of the school he attended when a boy, given as a contrast to the life and brightness and interest shown in the schools of the stepney union: when i was at school, one of seventy boys, i wonder by what secret understanding our attention began to wander when we had pored over our books for some hours. i wonder by what ingenuity we brought on that confused state of mind when sense became nonsense, when figures wouldn't work, when dead languages wouldn't construe, when live languages wouldn't be spoken, when memory wouldn't come, when dulness and vacancy wouldn't go. i can not remember that we ever conspired to be sleepy after dinner, or that we ever particularly wanted to be stupid, and to have flushed faces and hot, beating heads, or to find blank hopelessness and obscurity this afternoon in what would become perfectly clear and bright in the freshness of to-morrow morning. we suffered for these things, and they made us miserable enough. neither do i remember that we ever bound ourselves, by any secret oath or other solemn obligation to find the seats getting too hard to be sat upon after a certain time; or to have intolerable twitches in our legs, rendering us aggressive and malicious with those members; or to be troubled with a similar uneasiness in our elbows, attended with fistic consequences to our neighbours; or to carry two pounds of lead in the chest, four pounds in the head, and several active bluebottles in each ear. yet, for certain, we suffered under those distresses, and were always charged at for labouring under them, as if we had brought them on of our own deliberate act and deed. it was therefore out of a full heart and an enriched mind that dickens wrought the wonderful plots into which he wove the most advanced educational ideals of his time and of our time relating to the blighting influence of coercion, the divinity in the child, the recognition of freedom as the truest process and highest aim of education, the value of real sympathy, the importance of self-activity, the true reverence for the child leading to faith in it, the need of child study, the effect of joyousness on the child's development, the benefits of play, the influence of nutrition, the ideal of community, the importance of the imagination as a basis for the best intellectual growth, the narrowness of utilitarianism, the absolute need of apperceptive centres to which shall be related the progressive enlargement and enrichment of feeling and thought throughout the life of the individual, the arrest of development and the sacrifice of power and life due to cramming, and the weakness of all educational systems and methods that regard fact-storing as the highest work of the teacher. it has been said by critics of dickens that he exaggerated the defects and errors in the characters of those whom he described. two things should be kept in mind, however. dickens usually described the worst, not the best types, and he was justified in revealing a wrong principle or practice in the strongest possible light, in order to make it more easily recognisable and more completely repugnant to the aroused feeling and startled thought of humanity. he was writing with the definite purpose of making the world so thoroughly hate the wrong in education and child training as to lead to definite practical reforms. dickens himself did not admit the justness of the charge of exaggeration. his coarsest, most ignorant, and most brutal teacher is squeers, yet he says "mr. squeers and his school are faint and feeble pictures of an existing reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed impossible. there are upon record trials at law in which damages have been sought as a poor recompense for lasting agonies and disfigurements inflicted upon children by the treatment of the master in these places, involving such offensive and foul details of neglect, cruelty, and disease as no writer of fiction would have the boldness to imagine. since the author has been engaged upon these adventures he has received, from private quarters far beyond the reach of suspicion or distrust, accounts of atrocities, in the perpetration of which upon neglected or repudiated children these schools have been the main instruments, very far exceeding any that appear in these pages." dickens discusses the charge of exaggeration in the preface to martin chuzzlewit. he says: what is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions, is plain truth to another. that which is commonly called a long-sight, perceives in a prospect innumerable features and bearings nonexistent to a shortsighted person. i sometimes ask myself whether there may occasionally be a difference of this kind between some writers and some readers; whether it is _always_ the writer who colours highly, or whether it is now and then the reader whose eye for colour is a little dull? on this head of exaggeration i have a positive experience more curious than the speculation i have just set down. it is this: i have never touched a character precisely from the life, but some counterpart of that character has incredulously asked me: "now really, did i ever really see one like it?" all the pecksniff family upon earth are quite agreed, i believe, that mr. pecksniff is an exaggeration, and that no such character ever existed. it is worth remembering, too, that it is impossible to exaggerate the description of the effects of the evils dickens attacked. coercion in any form blights and dwarfs the true selfhood of the child. the coercion of mrs. crisparkle's placid but unbending will, which she kept rigid from a deep conviction of christian duty, is as clearly at variance with the elemental laws of individual freedom and growth by self-activity as the more dreadful forms of coercion practised by squeers, creakle, bumble, or murdstone. doctor blimber's cramming is not exaggerated. it would be quite possible to find in england or the united states or canada not only private but public institutions in which similar processes of illogical cramming are still practised. words are still given before the thought, and as a substitute for thought. "mathematical gooseberries" are yet produced "from mere sprouts of bushes," the "words and grammar" of literature are still given instead of the life and glory of the author's revelations, children yet are "made to bear to pattern somehow or other." whether dickens exaggerated or not in regard to other spheres of work or of existence without work, he certainly did not exaggerate in regard to school conditions. he studied them faithfully, and described them truly. he saw wrongs more clearly than other men, and he made them stand out in their natural hideousness. it is frequently asserted that dickens portrayed wrong training more than right, that he was destructive rather than constructive. in a sense, this is correct. his mission was to startle men, so that they would be made conscious of the awful crimes that were being committed by teachers and parents in the name of duty, as conceived by the highest christian civilization of his time. he knew that a basis of strong feeling must be aroused against a wrong before it can be overthrown and right practices substituted for it. the only sure foundation for any reform is an energetic feeling of dislike for present conditions. the chief work of dickens was to lay bare the injustice, the meanness, and the blighting coercion practised on helpless children not only by "ignorant, sordid, brutal men called schoolmasters," but in a less degree by the best teachers and parents of his time. his was a noble work, and it was well done. the grandest movement of the nineteenth century was the development of a profound reverence for the child, so deep and wide that his rights are beginning to be clearly recognised by individuals and by national laws, and that intelligent adulthood is studying him as the central element of power in the representation of god in the accomplishment of the progressive evolution of the race. christ put "the child in the midst of his disciples"; men are learning to follow his example, and study the child as the surest way to secure industrial, social, and moral reforms. froebel and dickens were the men who revealed the child. they were the true apostles of childhood. it must not be supposed that dickens was not conscious of the positive good while describing the evils. the expressions "child queller," "gospel of monotony," "bear to pattern," "taught as parrots are," etc., and the name "mcchoakumchild," reveal the possession of the highest consciousness of child freedom, of individuality, and of child reverence yet given to humanity. so in all his wonderful pictures it would have been impossible for him to have so vividly described the wrong if he had not clearly understood the right. he had perfect sympathy with childhood, he was a great student of the child and of the existing methods of training and educating him, and his insights and judgment were so clear and true that, as ruskin says, "in the last analysis he was always right." if he had never written anything but his article on the kindergarten, published july, , he would have proved himself to be an educational philosopher. chapter ii. infant gardens. dickens wrote the following article for household words in . it reveals a surprising mastery of the vital principles of "the new education." he wrote the article to direct attention to the work of the baroness von bülow, who had come to england to introduce the kindergarten system. dickens's works show that he had long been a close student of froebel's philosophy. the article must always take a front rank as a strikingly clear, comprehensive, and sympathetic exposition of the principles and processes of the kindergarten. kindergartens were called "infant gardens" when first introduced into england. seventy or eighty years ago there was a son born to the pastor froebel, who exercised his calling in the village of oberweissbach, in the principality of schwartzburg-rudolstadt. the son, who was called frederick, proved to be a child of unusually quick sensibilities, keenly alive to all impressions, hurt by discords of all kinds; by quarrelling of men, women, and children, by ill-assorted colours, inharmonious sounds. he was, to a morbid extent, capable of receiving delight from the beauties of nature, and, as a very little boy, would spend much of his time in studying and enjoying, for their own sake, the lines and angles in the gothic architecture of his father's church. who does not know what must be the central point of all the happiness of such a child? the voice of its mother is the sweetest of sweet sounds, the face of its mother is the fairest of fair sights, the loving touch of her lip is the symbol to it of all pleasures of the sense and of the soul. against the thousand shocks and terrors that are ready to afflict a child too exquisitely sensitive, the mother is the sole protectress, and her help is all-sufficient. frederick froebel lost his mother in the first years of his childhood, and his youth was tortured with incessant craving for a sympathy that was not to be found. the pastor froebel was too busy to attend to all the little fancies of his son. it was his good practice to be the peaceful arbiter of the disputes occurring in the village, and, as he took his boy with him when he went out, he made the child familiar with all the quarrels of the parish. thus were suggested, week after week, comparisons between the harmony of nature and the spite and scandal current among men. a dreamy, fervent love of god, a fanciful boy's wish that he could make men quiet and affectionate, took strong possession of young frederick, and grew with his advancing years. he studied a good deal. following out his love of nature, he sought to become acquainted with the sciences by which her ways and aspects are explained; his contemplation of the architecture of the village church ripened into a thorough taste for mathematics, and he enjoyed agricultural life practically, as a worker on his father's land. at last he went to pestalozzi's school in switzerland. then followed troublous times, and patriotic war in germany, where even poets fought against the enemy with lyre and sword. the quick instincts, and high, generous impulses of frederick froebel were engaged at once, and he went out to battle on behalf of fatherland in the ranks of the boldest, for he was one of lützow's regiment--a troop of riders that earned by its daring an immortal name. their fame has even penetrated to our english concert rooms, where many a fair english maiden has been made familiar with the dare-devil patriots of which it was composed by the refrain of the german song in honour of their prowess--"das ist lützow's fliegende, wilde jagd." having performed his duty to his country in the ranks of its defenders, froebel fell back upon his love of nature and his study of triangles, squares, and cubes. he had made interest that placed him in a position which, in many respects, curiously satisfied his tastes--that of inspector to the mineralogical museum in berlin. the post was lucrative, its duties were agreeable to him, but the object of his life's desire was yet to be attained. for the unsatisfied cravings of his childhood had borne fruit within him. he remembered the quick feelings and perceptions, the incessant nimbleness of mind proper to his first years, and how he had been hemmed in and cramped for want of right encouragement and sympathy. he remembered, too, the ill-conditioned people whose disputes had been made part of his experience, the dogged children, cruel fathers, sullen husbands, angry wives, quarrelsome neighbours; and surely he did not err when he connected the two memories together. how many men and women go about pale-skinned and weak of limb, because their physical health during infancy and childhood was not established by judicious management. it is just so, thought froebel, with our minds. there would be fewer sullen, quarrelsome, dull-witted men or women if there were fewer children starved or fed improperly in heart and brain. to improve society--to make men and women better--it is requisite to begin quite at the beginning, and to secure for them a wholesome education during infancy and childhood. strongly possessed with this idea, and feeling that the usual methods of education, by restraint and penalty, aim at the accomplishment of far too little, and by checking natural development even do positive mischief, froebel determined upon the devotion of his entire energy, throughout his life, to a strong effort for the establishment of schools that should do justice and honour to the nature of a child. he resigned his appointment at berlin, and threw himself, with only the resources of a fixed will, a full mind, and a right purpose, on the chances of the future. at keilhau, a village of thuringia, he took a peasant's cottage, in which he proposed to establish his first school--a village boys' school. it was necessary to enlarge the cottage; and, while that was being done, froebel lived on potatoes, bread, and water. so scanty was his stock of capital on which his enterprise was started, that, in order honestly to pay his workmen, he was forced to carry his principle of self-denial to the utmost. he bought each week two large rye loaves, and marked on them with chalk each day's allowance. perhaps he is the only man in the world who ever, in so literal a way, chalked out for himself a scheme of diet. after labouring for many years among the boys at keilhau, froebel--married to a wife who shared his zeal, and made it her labour to help to the utmost in carrying out the idea of her husband's life--felt that there was more to be accomplished. his boys came to him with many a twist in mind or temper, caught by wriggling up through the bewilderments of a neglected infancy. the first sproutings of the human mind need thoughtful culture; there is no period of life, indeed, in which culture is so essential. and yet, in nine out of ten cases, it is precisely while the little blades of thought and buds of love are frail and tender that no heed is taken to maintain the soil about them wholesome, and the air about them free from blight. there must be infant gardens, froebel said; and straightway formed his plans, and set to work for their accomplishment. he had become familiar in cottages with the instincts of mothers, and the faculties with which young children are endowed by nature. he never lost his own childhood from memory, and being denied the blessing of an infant of his own, regarded all the little ones with equal love. the direction of his boys' school--now flourishing vigorously--he committed to the care of a relation, while he set out upon a tour through parts of germany and switzerland to lecture upon infant training and to found infant gardens where he could. he founded them at hamburg, leipzig, dresden, and elsewhere. while labouring in this way he was always exercising the same spirit of self-denial that had marked the outset of his educational career. whatever he could earn was for the children, to promote their cause. he would not spend upon himself the money that would help in the accomplishment of his desire, that childhood should be made as happy as god in his wisdom had designed it should be, and that full play should be given to its energies and powers. many a night's lodging he took, while on his travels, in the open fields, with an umbrella for his bedroom and a knapsack for his pillow. so beautiful a self-devotion to a noble cause won recognition. one of the best friends of his old age was the duchess ida of weimar, sister to queen adelaide of england, and his death took place on the st of june, three years ago, at a country seat of the duke of meiningen. he died at the age of seventy, peaceably, upon a summer day, delighting in the beautiful scenery that lay outside his window, and in the flowers brought by friends to his bedside. nature, he said, bore witness to the promises of revelation. so froebel passed away. and nature's pleasant robe of green, humanity's appointed shroud, enwraps his monument and his memory. wise and good people have been endeavouring of late to obtain in this country a hearing for the views of this good teacher, and a trial for his system. only fourteen years have elapsed since the first infant garden was established, and already infant gardens have been introduced into most of the larger towns of germany. let us now welcome them with all our hearts to england. the whole principle of froebel's teaching is based on a perfect love for children, and a full and genial recognition of their nature, a determination that their hearts shall not be starved for want of sympathy; that since they are by infinite wisdom so created as to find happiness in the active exercise and development of all their faculties, we, who have children round about us, shall no longer repress their energies, tie up their bodies, shut their mouths, and declare that they worry us by the incessant putting of the questions which the father of us all has placed in their mouths, so that the teachable one forever cries to those who undertake to be its guide, "what shall i do?" to be ready at all times with a wise answer to that question, ought to be the ambition of every one upon whom a child's nature depends for the means of healthy growth. the frolic of childhood is not pure exuberance and waste. "there is often a high meaning in childish play," said froebel. let us study it, and act upon hints--or more than hints--that nature gives. they fall into a fatal error who despise all that a child does as frivolous. nothing is trifling that forms part of a child's life. that which the mother awakens and fosters, when she joyously sings and plays; that which her love so tenderly shelters. bears a blessing to future days. we quote froebel again, in these lines, and we quote others in which he bids us break not suddenly the dream the blessed dream of infancy; in which the soul unites with all in earth, or heaven, or sea, or sky. but enough has already been said to show what he would have done. how would he do it? of course it must be borne in mind, throughout the following sketch of froebel's scheme of infant training, that certain qualities of mind are necessary to the teacher. let nobody suppose that any scheme of education can attain its end, as a mere scheme, apart from the qualifications of those persons by whom it is to be carried out. very young children can be trained successfully by no person who wants hearty liking for them, and who can take part only with a proud sense of restraint in their chatter and their play. it is in truth no condescension to become in spirit as a child with children, and nobody is fit to teach the young who holds a different opinion. unvarying cheerfulness and kindness, the refinement that belongs naturally to a pure, well-constituted woman's mind are absolutely necessary to the management of one of froebel's infant gardens. then, again, let it be understood that froebel never wished his system of training to be converted into mere routine to the exclusion of all that spontaneous action in which more than half of every child's education must consist. it was his purpose to show the direction in which it was most useful to proceed, how best to assist the growth of the mind by following the indications nature furnishes. nothing was farther from his design, in doing that, than the imposition of a check on any wholesome energies. blindman's buff, romps, puzzles, fairy tales, everything in fact that exercises soundly any set of the child's faculties, must be admitted as a part of froebel's system. the cardinal point of his doctrine is--take care that you do not exercise a part only of the child's mind or body; but take thorough pains to see that you encourage the development of its whole nature. if pains--and great pains--be not taken to see that this is done, probably it is not done. the infant gardens are designed to help in doing it. the mind of a young child must not be trained at the expense of its body. every muscle ought, if possible, to be brought daily into action; and, in the case of a child suffered to obey the laws of nature by free tumbling and romping, that is done in the best manner possible. every mother knows that by carrying an infant always on the same arm its growth is liable to be perverted. every father knows the child's delight at being vigorously danced up and down, and much of this delight arises from the play then given to its muscles. as the child grows, the most unaccustomed positions into which it can be safely twisted are those from which it will receive the greatest pleasure. that is because play is thus given to the muscles in a form they do not often get, and nature--always watchful on the child's behalf--cries, we will have some more of that. it does us good. as it is with the body, so it is with the mind, and froebel's scheme of infant education is, for both, a system of gymnastics. he begins with the newborn infant, and demands that, if possible, it shall not be taken from its mother. he sets his face strongly against the custom of committing the child during the tenderest and most impressible period of its whole life to the care and companionship of an ignorant nursemaid, or of servants who have not the mother's instinct, or the knowledge that can tell them how to behave in its presence. only the mother should, if possible, be the child's chief companion and teacher during at least the first three years of its life, and she should have thought it worth while to prepare herself for the right fulfilment of her duties. instead of tambour work, or arabic, or any other useless thing that may be taught at girls' schools, surely it would be a great blessing if young ladies were to spend some of their time in an infant garden, that might be attached to every academy. let them all learn from froebel what are the requirements of a child, and be prepared for the wise performance of what is after all to be the most momentous business of their lives. the carrying out of this hint is indeed necessary to the complete and general adoption of the infant-garden system. froebel desired his infants to be taught only by women, and required that they should be women as well educated and refined as possible, preferring amiable unmarried girls. thus he would have our maidens spending some part of their time in playing with little ones, learning to understand them, teaching them to understand; our wives he would have busy at home, making good use of their experience, developing carefully and thoughtfully the minds of their children, sole teachers for the first three years of their life; afterward, either helped by throwing them among other children in an infant garden for two or three hours every day, or, if there be at home no lack of little company, having infant gardens of their own. believing that it is natural to address infants in song, froebel encouraged nursery songs, and added to their number. those contributed by him to the common stock were of course contributed for the sake of some use that he had for each; in the same spirit--knowing play to be essential to a child--he invented games; and those added by him to the common stock are all meant to be used for direct teaching. it does not in the least follow, and it was not the case, that he would have us make all nursery rhymes and garden sports abstrusely didactic. he meant no more than to put his own teaching into songs and games, to show clearly that whatever is necessary to be said or done to a young child may be said or done merrily or playfully; and although he was essentially a schoolmaster, he had no faith in the terrors commonly associated with his calling. froebel's nursery songs are associated almost invariably with bodily activity on the part of the child. he is always, as soon as he becomes old enough, to do something while the song is going on, and the movements assigned to him are cunningly contrived so that not even a joint of a little finger shall be left unexercised. if he be none the better, he is none the worse for this. the child is indeed unlucky that depends only on care of this description for the full play of its body; but there are some children so unfortunate, and there are some parents who will be usefully reminded by those songs, of the necessity of procuring means for the free action of every joint and limb. what is done for the body is done in the same spirit for the mind, and ideas are formed, not by song only. the beginning of a most ingenious course of mental training by a series of playthings is made almost from the very first. a box containing six soft balls, differing in colour, is given to the child. it is froebel's "first gift." long before it can speak the infant can hold one of these little balls in its fingers, become familiar with its spherical shape and its colour. it stands still, it springs, it rolls. as the child grows, he can roll it and run after it, watch it with sharp eyes, and compare the colour of one ball with the colour of another, prick up his ears at the songs connected with his various games with it, use it as a bond of playfellowship with other children, practise with it first efforts at self-denial, and so forth. one ball is suspended by a string, it jumps--it rolls--here--there--over--up; turns left--turns right--ding-dong--tip-tap--falls--spins; fifty ideas may be connected with it. the six balls, three of the primary colours, three of the secondary, may be built up in a pyramid; they may be set rolling, and used in combination in a great many ways giving sufficient exercise to the young wits that have all knowledge and experience before them. froebel's "second gift" is a small box containing a ball, cube, and roller (the last two perforated), with a stick and string. with these forms of the cube, sphere, and cylinder, there is a great deal to be done and learned. they can be played with at first according to the child's own humour: will run, jump, represent carts, or anything. the ancient egyptians, in their young days as a nation, piled three cubes on one another and called them the three graces. a child will, in the same way, see fishes in stones, and be content to put a cylinder upon a cube, and say that is papa on horseback. of this element of ready fancy in all childish sport froebel took full advantage. the ball, cube, and cylinder may be spun, swung, rolled, and balanced in so many ways as to display practically all their properties. the cube, spun upon the stick piercing it through opposite edges, will look like a circle, and so forth. as the child grows older, each of the forms may be examined definitely, and he may learn from observation to describe it. the ball may be rolled down an inclined plane and the acceleration of its speed observed. most of the elementary laws of mechanics may be made practically obvious to the child's understanding. the "third gift" is the cube divided once in every direction. by the time a child gets this to play with he is three years old--of age ripe for admission to an infant garden. the infant garden is intended for the help of children between three years old and seven. instruction in it--always by means of play--is given for only two or three hours in the day; such instruction sets each child, if reasonably helped at home, in the right train of education for the remainder of its time. an infant garden must be held in a large room abounding in clear space for child's play, and connected with a garden into which the children may adjourn whenever weather will permit. the garden is meant chiefly to assure, more perfectly, the association of wholesome bodily exercise with mental activity. if climate but permitted, froebel would have all young children taught entirely in the pure, fresh air, while frolicking in sunshine among flowers. by his system he aimed at securing for them bodily as well as mental health, and he held it to be unnatural that they should be cooped up in close rooms, and glued to forms, when all their limbs twitch with desire for action, and there is a warm sunshine out of doors. the garden, too, should be their own; every child the master or mistress of a plot in it, sowing seeds and watching day by day the growth of plants, instructed playfully and simply in the meaning of what is observed. when weather forbids use of the garden, there is the great, airy room which should contain cupboards, with a place for every child's toys and implements; so that a habit of the strictest neatness may be properly maintained. up to the age of seven there is to be no book work and no ink work; but only at school a free and brisk, but systematic strengthening of the body, of the senses, of the intellect, and of the affections, managed in such a way as to leave the child prompt for subsequent instruction, already comprehending the elements of a good deal of knowledge. we must endeavour to show in part how that is done. the third gift--the cube divided once in every direction--enables the child to begin the work of construction in accordance with its own ideas, and insensibly brings the ideas into the control of a sense of harmony and fitness. the cube divided into eight parts will manufacture many things; and, while the child is at work helped by quiet suggestion now and then, the teacher talks of what he is about, asks many questions, answers more, mixes up little songs and stories with the play. pillars, ruined castles, triumphal arches, city gates, bridges, crosses, towers, all can be completed to the perfect satisfaction of a child, with the eight little cubes. they are all so many texts on which useful and pleasant talk can be established. then they are capable also of harmonious arrangement into patterns, and this is a great pleasure to the child. he learns the charm of symmetry, exercises taste in the preference of this or that among the hundred combinations of which his eight cubes are susceptible. then follows the "fourth gift," a cube divided into eight planes cut lengthways. more things can be done with this than with the other. without strain on the mind, in sheer play, mingled with songs, nothing is wanted but a liberal supply of little cubes, to make clear to the children the elements of arithmetic. the cubes are the things numbered. addition is done with them; they are subtracted from each other; they are multiplied; they are divided. besides these four elementary rules they cause children to be thoroughly at home in the principle of fractions, to multiply and divide fractions--as real things; all in good time it will become easy enough to let written figures represent them--to go through the rule of three, square root, and cube root. as a child has instilled into him the principles of arithmetic, so he acquires insensibly the groundwork of geometry, the sister science. froebel's "fifth gift" is an extension of the third, a cube divided into twenty-seven equal cubes, and three of these further divided into halves, three into quarters. this brings with it the teaching of a great deal of geometry, much help to the lessons in number, magnificent accessions to the power of the little architect, who is provided, now, with pointed roofs and other glories, and the means of producing an almost infinite variety of symmetrical patterns, both more complex and more beautiful than heretofore. the "sixth gift" is a cube so divided as to extend still farther the child's power of combining and discussing it. when its resources are exhausted and combined with those of the "seventh gift" (a box containing every form supplied in the preceding series), the little pupil--seven years old--has had his inventive and artistic powers exercised, and his mind stored with facts that have been absolutely comprehended. he has acquired also a sense of pleasure in the occupation of his mind. but he has not been trained in this way only. we leave out of account the bodily exercise connected with the entire round of occupation, and speak only of the mental discipline. there are some other "gifts" that are brought into service as the child becomes able to use them. one is a box containing pieces of wood, or pasteboard, cut into sundry forms. with these the letters of the alphabet can be constructed; and, after letters, words, in such a way as to create out of the game a series of pleasant spelling lessons. the letters are arranged upon a slate ruled into little squares, by which the eye is guided in preserving regularity. then follows the gift of a bundle of small sticks, which represent so many straight lines; and, by laying them upon his slate, the child can make letters, patterns, pictures; drawing, in fact, with lines that have not to be made with pen or pencil, but are provided ready made and laid down with the fingers. this kind of stick-work having been brought to perfection, there is a capital extension of the idea with what is called pea-work. by the help of peas softened in water, sticks may be joined together, letters, skeletons of cubes, crosses, prisms may be built; houses, towers, churches may be constructed, having due breadth as well as length and height, strong enough to be carried about or kept as specimens of ingenuity. then follows a gift of flat sticks, to be used in plaiting. after that there is a world of ingenuity to be expended on the plaiting, folding, cutting, and pricking of plain or coloured paper. children five years old, trained in the infant garden, will delight in plaiting slips of paper variously coloured into patterns of their own invention, and will work with a sense of symmetry so much refined by training as to produce patterns of exceeding beauty. by cutting paper, too, patterns are produced in the infant garden that would often, though the work of very little hands, be received in schools of design with acclamation. then there are games by which the first truths of astronomy, and other laws of nature, are made as familiar as they are interesting. for our own parts, we have been perfectly amazed at the work we have seen done by children of six or seven--bright, merry creatures, who have all the spirit of their childhood active in them, repressed by no parent's selfish love of ease and silence, cowed by no dull-witted teacher of the a b c and the pothooks. froebel discourages the cramping of an infant's hand upon a pen, but his slate ruled into little squares, or paper prepared in the same way, is used by him for easy training in the elements of drawing. modelling in wet clay is one of the most important occupations of the children who have reached about the sixth year, and is used as much as possible, not merely to encourage imitation, but to give some play to the creative power. finally, there is the best possible use made of the paint-box, and children engaged upon the colouring of pictures and the arrangement of nosegays are further taught to enjoy, not merely what is bright, but also what is harmonious and beautiful. we have not left ourselves as much space as is requisite to show how truly all such labour becomes play to the child. fourteen years' evidence suffices for a demonstration of the admirable working of a system of this kind; but as we think there are some parents who may be willing to inquire a little further into the subject here commended earnestly to their attention, we will end by a citation of the source from which we have ourselves derived what information we possess. at the educational exhibition in st. martin's hall last year, there was a large display of the material used and results produced in infant gardens which attracted much attention. the baroness von marenholtz, enthusiastic in her advocacy of the children's cause, came then to england, and did very much to procure the establishment in this country of some experimental infant gardens. by her, several months ago--and at about the same time by m. and madame rongé who had already established the first english infant garden--our attention was invited to the subject. we were also made acquainted with m. hoffman, one of froebel's pupils, who explained the system theoretically at the polytechnic institution. when in this country, the baroness von marenholtz published a book called woman's educational mission, being an explanation of frederick froebel's system of infant gardens. we have made use of the book in the preceding notice, but it appeared without the necessary illustrations, and is therefore a less perfect guide to the subject than a work published more recently by m. and madame rongé: a practical guide to the english kindergarten. this last book we exhort everybody to consult who is desirous of a closer insight into froebel's system than we have been able here to give. it not only explains what the system is, but, by help of an unstinted supply of little sketches, enables any one at once to study it at home and bring it into active operation. it suggests conversations, games; gives many of froebel's songs, and even furnishes the music (which usually consists of popular tunes--mary blane, rousseau's dream, etc.) to which they may be sung. furthermore, it is well to say that any one interested in this subject, whom time and space do not forbid, may see an infant garden in full work by calling, on a tuesday morning between the hours of ten and one, on m. and madame rongé, at number tavistock place, tavistock square. that day these earliest and heartiest of our established infant gardeners have set apart, for the help of a good cause, to interruptions and investigations from the world without, trusting, of course, we suppose, that no one will disturb them for the satisfaction of mere idle curiosity. chapter iii. the overthrow of coercion. dickens, in the preface to nicholas nickleby, states that, as pickwick papers had given him an audience, he determined to carry out a long-cherished plan and write for the purpose of driving out of existence a class of bad private schools, of which certain schools in yorkshire were the worst types. he drew a picture of low cunning, avarice, ignorance, imposture, and brutality in squeers that astounded his audience, and led to the closing of most of the yorkshire private schools and to the overthrow of tyranny in schools throughout the civilized world. tyranny and corporal punishment still exist, but not in the best schools. not one child weeps now on account of corporal punishment for every hundred who wailed bitterly for the same reason when froebel and dickens began their loving work. year by year the good work goes on. men are learning the better ways of guiding and governing childhood. we can not yet say when men and women in the homes and schools everywhere shall understand the child and their own powers so thoroughly that there shall be no more corporal punishment inflicted, but we do know that the abatement of the terrible brutality began with the revelations of froebel and dickens. froebel taught the new philosophy, dickens sent it quivering through the hearts and consciences of mankind. members of the highest classes in england have been imprisoned near the close of the nineteenth century for improper methods of punishing children that would have excited no comment when dickens described squeers a little more than half a century earlier. in the report to the british government, at the close of his remarkable half-century of honourable and very able educational work, sir joshua fitch said: "in watching the gradual development of the training colleges for women from year to year, nothing is more striking than the increased attention which is being paid in those institutions to the true principles of infant teaching and discipline. the circular which has recently been issued by your lordships, and which is designed to enforce and explain these principles, would, if put forth a few years ago, have fallen on unprepared soil, and would indeed have seemed to many teachers both in and out of training colleges to be scarcely intelligible. now its counsels will be welcomed with sympathy and full appreciation." dickens describes squeers as a man "whose appearance was not prepossessing." he had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favour of two. the eye he had was unquestionably useful, but decidedly not ornamental: being of a greenish gray, and in shape resembling the fanlight of a street door. the blank side of his face was much wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a very sinister appearance, especially when he smiled, at which times his expression bordered closely on the villainous. his hair was very flat and shiny, save at the ends, where it was brushed stiffly up from a low protruding forehead, which assorted well with his harsh voice and coarse manner. he then proceeds to reveal the character of squeers by a series of incidents: mr. squeers was standing in a box by one of the coffee-room fireplaces. in a corner of the seat was a very small deal trunk, tied round with a scanty piece of cord; and on the trunk was perched--his lace-up half-boots and corduroy trousers dangling in the air--a diminutive boy, with his shoulders drawn up to his ears, and his hands planted on his knees, who glanced timidly at the schoolmaster, from time to time, with evident dread and apprehension. "half-past three," muttered mr. squeers, turning from the window, and looking sulkily at the coffee-room clock. "there will be nobody here to-day." much vexed by this reflection, mr. squeers looked at the little boy to see whether he was doing anything he could beat him for. as he happened not to be doing anything at all, he merely boxed his ears, and told him not to do it again. "at midsummer," muttered mr. squeers, resuming his complaint, "i took down ten boys; ten twentys is two hundred pound. i go back at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, and have got only three--three oughts is an ought--three twos is six--sixty pound. what's come of all the boys? what's parents got in their heads? what does it all mean?" here the little boy on the top of the trunk gave a violent sneeze. "halloa, sir!" growled the schoolmaster, turning round. "what's that, sir?" "nothing, please, sir," said the little boy. "nothing, sir?" exclaimed mr. squeers. "please, sir, i sneezed," rejoined the boy, trembling till the little trunk shook under him. "oh! sneezed, did you?" retorted mr. squeers. "then what did you say 'nothing' for, sir?" in default of a better answer to this question, the little boy screwed a couple of knuckles into each of his eyes and began to cry, wherefore mr. squeers knocked him off the trunk with a blow on one side of his face, and knocked him on again with a blow on the other. "wait till i get you down into yorkshire, my young gentleman," said mr. squeers, "and then i'll give you the rest. will you hold that noise, sir?" "ye--ye--yes," sobbed the little boy, rubbing his face very hard with the beggar's petition in printed calico. "then do so at once, sir," said squeers. "do you hear?" the waiter at this juncture announced a gentleman who wished to interview mr. squeers, and the schoolmaster, in an undertone, said to the poor boy: "put your handkerchief in your pocket, you little scoundrel, or i'll murder you when the gentleman goes." affecting not to see the gentleman when he entered, mr. squeers feigned to be mending a pen and trying to comfort the boy he had so grossly abused. "my dear child," said squeers, "all people have their trials. this early trial of yours, that is fit to make your little heart burst and your very eyes come out of your head with crying, what is it? nothing--less than nothing. you are leaving your friends, but you will have a father in me, my dear, and a mother in mrs. squeers." our indignation is still further aroused when we hear the conversation between mr. squeers and his visitor, who is named snawley, and who was "a sleek, flat-nosed man, bearing in his countenance an expression of much mortification and sanctity." he had brought with him two little boys, whose stepfather he was. their mother had a little money in her own right and he was afraid she might squander it on her boys, so he wished to dispose of them. our blood runs cold as we hear the two scoundrels plotting against the unfortunate boys. they are to be kept by squeers till grown up. no questions are to be asked "so long as the payments are regular." "they are to be supplied with razors when grown up, and never allowed home for holidays, and not permitted to write home, except a circular at christmas to say they never were so happy and hope they may never be sent for, and no questions are to be asked in case anything happens to them." we learn the unutterable selfishness of squeers as he sits eating a sumptuous breakfast, while the five wretched and hungry little boys, who are to accompany him to yorkshire to dotheboys hall, look at him. he had ordered bread and butter for three, which he cut into five portions, and "two-penn'orth of milk" for the five boys. while waiting for the bread to come he said, as he took a large mouthful of beef and toast, "conquer your passions, boys, and don't be eager after vittles. subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human natur." nicholas nickleby had been engaged to teach under squeers in dotheboys hall. he was shocked at many things he heard and saw the night he arrived in yorkshire. but the school itself and the appearance of the wretched pupils completed his discomfiture. the pupils--the young noblemen! how the last faint traces of hope, the remotest glimmering of any good to be derived from his efforts in this den, faded from the mind of nicholas as he looked in dismay around! pale and haggard faces, lank and bony figures, children with the countenances of old men, deformities with irons upon their limbs, boys of stunted growth, and others whose long meagre legs would hardly bear their stooping bodies, all crowded on the view together; there were the bleared eye, the harelip, the crooked foot, and every ugliness or distortion that told of unnatural aversion conceived by parents for their offspring, or of young lives which, from the earliest dawn of infancy, had been one horrible endurance of cruelty and neglect. there were little faces which should have been handsome, darkened with the scowl of sullen, dogged suffering; there was childhood with the light of its eye quenched, its beauty gone, and its helplessness alone remaining; there were vicious-faced boys, with leaden eyes, like malefactors in a jail; and there were young creatures on whom the sins of their frail parents had descended, weeping even for the mercenary nurses they had known, and lonesome even in their loneliness. with every kindly sympathy and affection blasted in its birth, with every young and healthy feeling flogged and starved down, with every revengeful passion that can fester in swollen hearts, eating its evil way to their core in silence, what an incipient hell was breeding here! it was mr. squeers's custom on the first afternoon after his return from london to call the school together to make announcements, and read letters written by himself, which he pretended had been written by the relatives of the boys. accordingly, the first afternoon after the arrival of nicholas, squeers entered the schoolroom "with a small bundle of papers in his hand, and mrs. s. followed with a pair of canes." "let any boy speak a word without leave," said mr. squeers, "and i'll take the skin off his back." two letters will serve as samples of the rest: "graymarsh. stand up, graymarsh." graymarsh stood up, while squeers read his letter: "graymarsh's maternal aunt is very glad to hear he's so well and happy, and sends her respectful compliments to mrs. squeers, and thinks she must be an angel. she likewise thinks mr. squeers is too good for this world; but hopes he may long be spared to carry on the business. would have sent the two pair of stockings as desired, but is short of money, so forwards a tract instead, and hopes graymarsh will put his trust in providence. hopes, above all, that he will study in every thing to please mr. and mrs. squeers, and look upon them as his only friends; and that he will love master squeers; and not object to sleeping five in a bed, which no christian should. ah!" said squeers, folding it up, "a delightful letter. very affecting indeed." "mobbs" was next called, and his letter was read to him: "mobbs's stepmother," said squeers, "took to her bed on hearing that he wouldn't eat fat, and has been very ill ever since. she wishes to know, by an early post, where he expects to go to, if he quarrels with his vittles; and with what feelings he could turn up his nose at the cow's-liver broth, after his good master had asked a blessing on it. this was told her in the london newspapers--not by mr. squeers, for he is too kind and too good to set anybody against anybody--and it has vexed her so much, mobbs can't think. she is sorry to find he is discontented, which is sinful and horrid, and hopes mr. squeers will flog him into a happier state of mind; with this view, she has also stopped his halfpenny a week pocket-money, and given a double-bladed knife with a corkscrew in it to the missionaries, which she had bought on purpose for him." "a sulky state of feeling," said squeers, after a terrible pause, during which he had moistened the palm of his right hand again, "won't do. cheerfulness and contentment must be kept up. mobbs, come to me!" mobbs moved slowly toward the desk, rubbing his eyes in anticipation of good cause for doing so; and he soon afterward retired by the side door, with as good a cause as a boy need have. there are still school tyrants who talk with philosophic air of flogging children to make them happier, and others who say with hard tones and clenched hands that "the one thing they will not allow in their schools is a sulky boy or girl," and they mean, when they say so, that if a boy is sulky they take no steps to find out the cause of his disease or the natural remedy for it, but they apply the universal remedy of the old-fashioned quack trainer and whip the poor boy, who is already suffering from some physical or nervous derangement. squeers and such teachers are brother tyrants. they practise the squeers's doctrine--"a sulky state of feeling won't do. cheerfulness and contentment must be kept up. mobbs, come to me"--to make children cheerful and contented. one of the most heart-stirring cases in dotheboys hall was that of poor smike. he had been sent to squeers when an infant. he was a young man now, but he had been starved so that he wore still around his long neck the frill of the collar that loving hands had placed there when he was a little child. ill treatment and lack of proper food had made him almost an imbecile, and he was the drudge of the institution. nicholas was attracted by the anxious, longing looks of the boy, as his eyes followed squeers from place to place on their arrival from london. he was lame; and as he feigned to be busy in arranging the table, glanced at the letters with a look so keen, and yet so dispirited and hopeless, that nicholas could hardly bear to watch him. "what are you bothering about there, smike?" cried mrs. squeers; "let the things alone, can't you." "eh!" said squeers, looking up. "oh! it's you, is it?" "yes, sir," replied the youth, pressing his hands together, as though to control, by force, the nervous wandering of his fingers; "is there----" "well!" said squeers. "have you--did anybody--has nothing been heard--about me?" "devil a bit," replied squeers testily. the lad withdrew his eyes, and, putting his hand to his face, moved toward the door. "not a word," resumed squeers, "and never will be." this is one of the pathetic pictures that awoke the heart of humanity. nicholas was the first person who had ever sympathized with smike, so the poor fellow naturally gave to nicholas the pent-up love of his dwarfed nature, and kept near him whenever it was possible to do so. dickens made smike the centre of the terrible interest in dotheboys hall. poor smike was so badly treated that he ran away, but, after a long chase, he was brought home in triumph by mrs. squeers, bound like an animal. squeers, of course, determined to flog him before all the boys as an example, and this led to the first great step toward the overthrow of the power of squeers in dotheboys hall. the news that smike had been caught and brought back in triumph, ran like wildfire through the hungry community, and expectation was on tiptoe all the morning. on tiptoe it was destined to remain, however, until afternoon; when squeers, having refreshed himself with his dinner, and further strengthened himself by an extra libation or so, made his appearance (accompanied by his amiable partner) with a countenance of portentous import, and a fearful instrument of flagellation, strong, supple, wax-ended, and new--in short, purchased that morning, expressly for the occasion. "is every boy here?" asked squeers, in a tremendous voice. every boy was there, but every boy was afraid to speak; so squeers glared along the lines to assure himself; and every eye drooped, and every head cowered down, as he did so. "each boy keep his place," said squeers, administering his favourite blow to the desk, and regarding with gloomy satisfaction the universal start which it never failed to occasion. "nickleby! to your desk, sir." it was remarked by more than one small observer that there was a very curious and unusual expression in the usher's face; but he took his seat, without opening his lips in reply. squeers, casting a triumphant glance at his assistant, and a look of most comprehensive despotism on the boys, left the room, and shortly afterward returned, dragging smike by the collar--or rather by that fragment of his jacket which was nearest the place where his collar would have been had he boasted such a decoration. in any other place the appearance of the wretched, jaded, spiritless object would have occasioned a murmur of compassion and remonstrance. it had some effect, even there; for the lookers-on moved uneasily in their seats, and a few of the boldest ventured to steal looks at each other, expressive of indignation and pity. they were lost on squeers, however, whose gaze was fastened on the luckless smike, as he inquired, according to custom in such cases, whether he had anything to say for himself. "nothing, i suppose?" said squeers, with a diabolical grin. smike glanced round, and his eye rested for an instant on nicholas, as if he had expected him to intercede; but his look was riveted on his desk. "have you anything to say?" demanded squeers again; giving his right arm two or three flourishes to try its power and suppleness. "stand a little out of the way, mrs. squeers, my dear; i've hardly got room enough." "spare me, sir!" cried smike. "oh! that's all, is it?" said squeers. "yes, i'll flog you within an inch of your life, and spare you that." "ha, ha, ha," laughed mrs. squeers, "that's a good 'un!" "i was driven to do it," said smike faintly, and casting another imploring look on him. "driven to do it, were you?" said squeers. "oh! it wasn't your fault; it was mine, i suppose--eh?" "a nasty, ungrateful, pig-headed, brutish, obstinate, sneaking dog," exclaimed mrs. squeers, taking smike's head under her arm, and administering a cuff at every epithet; "what does he mean by that?" "stand aside, my dear," replied squeers. "we'll try and find out." mrs. squeers, being out of breath with her exertions, complied. squeers caught the boy firmly in his grip; one desperate cut had fallen on his body--he was wincing from the lash, and uttering a scream of pain--it was raised again, and again about to fall--when nicholas nickleby suddenly starting up, cried: "stop!" in a voice that made the rafters ring. "who cried stop?" said squeers, turning savagely round. "i," said nicholas, stepping forward. "this must not go on." "must not go on!" cried squeers, almost in a shriek. "no!" thundered nicholas. aghast and stupefied by the boldness of the interference, squeers released his hold of smike, and, falling back a pace or two, gazed upon nicholas with looks that were positively frightful. "i say must not," repeated nicholas, nothing daunted; "shall not. i will prevent it." squeers continued to gaze upon him, with his eyes starting out of his head; but astonishment had actually, for the moment, bereft him of speech. "you have disregarded all my quiet interference in the miserable lad's behalf," said nicholas; "you have returned no answer to the letter in which i begged forgiveness for him, and offered to be responsible that he would remain quietly here. don't blame me for this public interference. you have brought it upon yourself, not i." "sit down, beggar!" screamed squeers, almost beside himself with rage, and seizing smike as he spoke. "wretch!" rejoined nicholas fiercely, "touch him at your peril! i will not stand by and see it done. my blood is up, and i have the strength of ten such men as you. look to yourself, for, by heaven, i will not spare you, if you drive me on!" "stand back!" cried squeers, brandishing his weapon. "i have a long series of insults to avenge," said nicholas, flushed with passion; "and my indignation is aggravated by the dastardly cruelties practised on helpless infancy in this foul den. have a care; for, if you do raise the devil within me, the consequences shall fall heavily upon your own head!" he had scarcely spoken, when squeers, in a violent outbreak of wrath, and with a cry like the howl of a wild beast, spit upon him, and struck him a blow across the face with his instrument of torture, which raised up a bar of livid flesh as it was inflicted. smarting with the agony of the blow, and concentrating into that one moment all his feelings of rage, scorn, and indignation, nicholas sprang upon him, wrested the weapon from his hand, and pinning him by the throat, beat the ruffian till he roared for mercy. the boys--with the exception of master squeers, who, coming to his father's assistance, harassed the enemy in the rear--moved not hand or foot; but mrs. squeers, with many shrieks for aid, hung on to the tail of her partner's coat, and endeavoured to drag him from his infuriated adversary; while miss squeers, who had been peeping through the keyhole in expectation of a very different scene, darted in at the very beginning of the attack, and after launching a shower of inkstands at the usher's head, beat nicholas to her heart's content: animating herself at every blow with the recollection of his having refused her proffered love, and thus imparting additional strength to an arm which (as she took after her mother in this respect) was, at no time, one of the weakest. nicholas, in the full torrent of his violence, felt the blows no more than if they had been dealt with feathers; but, becoming tired of the noise and uproar, and feeling that his arm grew weak besides, he threw all his remaining strength into half a dozen finishing cuts and flung squeers from him, with all the force he could muster. the violence of his fall precipitated mrs. squeers completely over an adjacent form; and squeers, striking his head against it in his descent, lay at his full length on the ground, stunned and motionless. having brought affairs to this happy termination, and ascertained, to his thorough satisfaction, that squeers was only stunned, and not dead (upon which point he had had some unpleasant doubts at first), nicholas left his family to restore him and retired to consider what course he had better adopt. he looked anxiously round for smike, as he left the room, but he was nowhere to be seen. after a brief consideration, he packed up a few clothes in a small leathern valise, and, finding that nobody offered to oppose his progress, marched boldly out by the front door and started to walk to london. near the school he met john browdie, the honest corn factor. john saw that nicholas had received a severe blow, and asked the reason. "the fact is," said nicholas, not very well knowing how to make the avowal, "the fact is, that i have been ill-treated." "noa!" interposed john browdie, in a tone of compassion; for he was a giant in strength and stature, and nicholas, very likely, in his eyes, seemed a mere dwarf; "dean't say thot." "yes, i have," replied nicholas, "by that man squeers, and i have beaten him soundly, and am leaving this place in consequence." "what!" cried john browdie, with such an ecstatic shout, that the horse quite shied at it. "beatten the schoolmeasther! ho! ho! ho! beatten the schoolmeasther! who ever heard o' the loike o' that noo! giv' us thee hond agean, yongster. beatten the schoolmeasther! dang it, i loove thee for't." and the world agreed, and still agrees, with john browdie. squeers and smike began the real movement against cruelty and corporal punishment not only in schools, but in homes. dickens described both characters so admirably that the world hated squeers and pitied smike to the limit of its power to hate and pity, and unconsciously the world associated cruelty and corporal punishment with squeers. this was exactly what dickens desired. the hatred of squeers led to a strong disapproval of his practices. corporal punishment was associated with an unpopular man, and it lost its respectable character and never regained it. the dislike for squeers was accentuated by the long-continued sympathy and hopefulness felt for smike as he gradually succumbed to the terrible disease, consumption, induced by poor food, neglect, and cruelty. squeers and smike are doing their good work still, and doing it well. they could do it much better if men and women when they have become acquainted with squeers would candidly ask themselves the question, "in what respects am i like squeers?" instead of yielding to the feeling of self-satisfaction that they are so very unlike him. just before writing about the coercive tyranny of squeers in his school, dickens had written oliver twist, in which he had made a most vigorous attack upon two classes of characters for their tyrannical treatment of children, and especially on account of their frequent use of corporal punishment. bumble represented the officials in institutions for children, and "the gentleman in the white waistcoat" was given as a type of the advanced christian philanthropy of his time. he meant well, gave his time freely to attend the meetings of the board, and supposed he was doing right; but dickens wished to let philanthropists see that they were terribly cruel to the helpless children, and that their good intentions could not condone their harshness, even though it resulted from ignorance and lack of reverence for childhood, and not from deliberate evil intentions. poor, friendless little oliver! his beautiful face and gentle spirit might have touched the hardest heart, but the institutional heart becomes hard easily, even two generations after the time of bumble and "the gentleman in the immaculate white waistcoat." dickens says: it must not be supposed that oliver was denied the benefit of exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages of religious consolation in the workhouse. as for exercise, it was nice cold weather, and he was allowed to perform his ablutions every morning under the pump, in a stone yard, in the presence of mr. bumble, who prevented his catching cold, and caused a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated applications of the cane. as for society, he was carried every other day into the hall, where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged as a public warning and example. and so far from being denied the advantage of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same apartment every evening at prayer time, and there permitted to listen to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of the boys, containing a special clause, therein inserted by authority of the board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of oliver twist. after oliver had been sent to work for mr. sowerberry he was goaded to desperation one evening by the disrespectful remarks of noah claypole about his mother, and bravely gave the mean bully the personal chastisement he so richly deserved. noah was sent to complain to the parish board, and the gentleman in the white waistcoat said: "bumble, just step up to sowerberry's with your cane, and see what's best to be done. don't spare him, bumble." "no, i will not, sir," replied the beadle, adjusting the wax end which was twisted round the bottom of his cane, for purposes of parochial flagellation. "tell sowerberry not to spare him either. they'll never do anything with him without stripes and bruises," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. the innocent, manly child was beaten unmercifully and abused cruelly by sowerberry and bumble, yet he bore all their taunts and floggings without a tear until he was alone. then, "when there was none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees on the floor, and, hiding his face in his hands, wept such tears as, god send for the credit of our nature, few so young may ever have cause to pour out before him!" there are not many "gentlemen in white waistcoats" of the type described by dickens now on charitable boards, and the enlightened sentiment of civilized countries turns the legal processes of nations upon officials who dare to treat children unkindly. dickens made humane people everywhere sympathize with mr. meagles, who said: "whenever i see a beadle in full fig coming down a street on a sunday at the head of a charity school, i am obliged to turn and run away, or i should hit him." ten years after squeers began his good work dickens produced squeers's associate, mr. creakle, the master of salem house. david copperfield was sent to salem house by his stepfather, mr. murdstone, because he bit his hand when he was punishing him unjustly. for this offence he was compelled to wear a placard on his back on which was written: "take care of him. he bites." this dastardly practice of labelling youthful offenders persisted until very recent times. children in schools are even yet in some places degraded by inconsiderate teachers by being compelled to wear some indication of their misconduct. dickens vigorously condemned this outrage in . david was sent to school during the holidays, and was soon brought before mr. creakle by tungay, his servant with the wooden leg. "so," said mr. creakle, "this is the young gentleman whose teeth are to be filed! turn him round." mr. creakle's face was fiery, and his eyes were small and deep in his head; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin. he was bald on the top of his head; and had some thin, wet-looking hair that was just turning gray brushed across each temple, so that the two sides interlaced on his forehead. "now," said mr. creakle. "what's the report of this boy?" "there's nothing against him yet," returned the man with the wooden leg. "there has been no opportunity." i thought mr. creakle was disappointed. i thought mrs. and miss creakle (at whom i now glanced for the first time, and who were, both, thin and quiet) were not disappointed. "come here, sir!" said mr. creakle, beckoning to me. "come here!" said the man with the wooden leg, repeating the gesture. "i have the happiness of knowing your stepfather," whispered mr. creakle, taking me by the ear; "and a worthy man he is, and a man of strong character. he knows me, and i know him. do _you_ know me! hey?" said mr. creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness. "not yet, sir," i said, flinching with the pain. "not yet! hey?" repeated mr. creakle. "but you will soon. hey?" "you will soon. hey?" repeated the man with the wooden leg. i afterward found that he generally acted, with his strong voice, as mr. creakle's interpreter to the boys. i was very much frightened, and said, i hoped so, if he pleased. i felt all this while as if my ear were blazing; he pinched it so hard. "i'll tell you what i am," whispered mr. creakle, letting it go at last, with a screw at parting that brought the water to my eyes, "i'm a tartar." mr. creakle proved to be as good as his word. he was a tartar. on the first day of school he revealed himself. his opening address was very brief and to the point. "now, boys, this is a new half. take care what you're about in this new half. come fresh up to the lessons, i advise you, for i come fresh up to the punishment. i won't flinch. it will be of no use your rubbing yourselves; you won't rub the marks out that i shall give you. now get to work, every boy!" when this dreadful exordium was over, mr. creakle came to where i sat, and told me that if i were famous for biting, he was famous for biting, too. he then showed me the cane, and asked me what i thought of _that_, for a tooth? was it a sharp tooth, hey? was it a double tooth, hey? had it a deep prong, hey? did it bite, hey? did it bite? at every question he gave me a fleshy cut with it that made me writhe. not that i mean to say these were special marks of distinction, which only i received. on the contrary, a large majority of the boys (especially the smaller ones) were visited with similar instances of notice, as mr. creakle made the round of the schoolroom. half the establishment was writhing and crying before the day's work began; and how much of it had writhed and cried before the day's work was over i am really afraid to recollect, lest i should seem to exaggerate. i should think there never can have been a man who enjoyed his profession more than mr. creakle did. he had a delight in cutting at the boys, which was like the satisfaction of a craving appetite. i am confident that he couldn't resist a chubby boy especially; that there was a fascination in such a subject which made him restless in his mind until he had scored and marked him for the day. i was chubby myself, and ought to know. i am sure when i think of the fellow now, my blood rises against him with the disinterested indignation i should feel if i could have known all about him without having ever been in his power; but it rises hotly, because i know him to have been an incapable brute, who had no more right to be possessed of the great trust he held than to be lord high admiral or commander-in-chief: in either of which capacities it is probable that he would have done infinitely less mischief. miserable little propitiators of a remorseless idol, how abject we were to him! what a launch in life i think it now, on looking-back, to be so mean and servile to a man of such parts and pretensions! twenty years after dickens described creakle a new teacher stood before a class in a large american city, and, holding a long rattan cane above his head, said in a fierce, threatening tone: "do you see that cane? would you like to feel it? hey? well, break any one of my forty-eight rules and you will feel it all right." the tyrant in adulthood dies hard. no wonder. tyranny has been wrought into our natures by centuries of blind faith in corporal punishment as the supreme agency in saving the race from moral wreck and anarchy in childhood and youth. men sought no agency for the development of the good in young lives. as they conceived it, their duty was done if they prevented their children from doing wrong, and the quickest, easiest, most effective way they knew to secure coercion was by corporal punishment. the most successful tyrant, he who could most thoroughly terrorize children and keep them down most completely, was regarded as the best disciplinarian. squeers and creakle were fair exponents of the almost universally recognised theory of their day, and they had many successors in the real schools of the generation that followed them. no man could remain a week in a school now if he began on the opening day in the way creakle did. dickens was right in revealing the position of the teacher as one of "great trust," and he was right, too, in insisting that creakle was no more fitted to be a teacher "than to be lord high admiral or commander-in-chief, in either of which capacities it is probable he would have done infinitely less mischief." this was another plea for good normal schools and for state supervision. dickens makes a good point in his remark about the degradation of abject submission to a man of such parts and pretensions as creakle. subordination always dwarfs the human soul, but when the child is forced to a position of abject subordination to a coarse tyrant the degradation is more complete and more humiliating. it does not mend matters for the child when the tyrant is his father. the tyranny of parenthood is usually the hardest to escape from. in the same book in which creakle is described--david copperfield--dickens deals with the tyranny of the home. david's widowed mother married mr. murdstone, a hard, severe, austere, religious man, with an equally dreadful sister--jane murdstone. firmness was the grand quality on which both mr. and miss murdstone took their stand. however i might have expressed my comprehension of it at that time, if i had been called upon, i nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way that it was another name for tyranny, and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil's humour, that was in them both. the creed, as i should state it now, was this: mr. murdstone was firm; nobody in his world was to be so firm as mr. murdstone; nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to his firmness. there was no more depressing tyranny in the time of dickens than the tyranny exercised in the name of a rigid and repressive religion. the gloomy taint that was in the murdstone blood darkened the murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful. i have thought, since, that its assuming that character was a necessary consequence of mr. murdstone's firmness, which wouldn't allow him to let anybody off from the utmost weight of the severest penalties he could find any excuse for. be this as it may, i well remember the tremendous visages with which we used to go to church, and the changed air of the place. again, the dreaded sunday comes round, and i file into the old pew first, like a guarded captive brought to a condemned service. again, miss murdstone, in a black-velvet gown, that looks as if it had been made out of a pall, follows close upon me; then my mother; then her husband. again, i listen to miss murdstone mumbling the responses, and emphasizing all the dread words with a cruel relish. again, i see her dark eyes roll round the church when she says "miserable sinners," as if she were calling all the congregation names. again, i catch rare glimpses of my mother, moving her lips timidly between the two, with one of them muttering at each ear like low thunder. again, i wonder with a sudden fear whether it is likely that our good old clergyman can be wrong, and mr. and miss murdstone right, and that all the angels in heaven can be destroying angels. again, if i move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, miss murdstone pokes me with her prayer book, and makes my side ache. mrs. chillip said: "mr. murdstone sets up an image of himself and calls it the divine nature," and "what such people as the murdstones call their religion is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance." mild and cautious mr. chillip observed, "i don't find authority for mr. and miss murdstone in the new testament," and his good wife added, "the darker tyrant mr. murdstone becomes, the more ferocious is his religious doctrine." when david first learned that mr. murdstone had married his mother he relieved the swelling in his little heart by crying in his bedroom. his mother naturally felt a sympathy for her boy. mr. murdstone reproved her for her lack of "firmness," ordered her out of the room, and gave david his first lesson in "obedience." "david," he said, making his lips thin, by pressing them together, "if i have an obstinate horse or dog to deal with, what do you think i do?" "i don't know." "i beat him." i had answered in a kind of breathless whisper, but i felt, in my silence, that my breath was shorter now. "i make him wince, and smart. i say to myself, 'i'll conquer that fellow;' and if it were to cost him all the blood he had, i should do it." there are still a few schoolmaster tyrants who boast of their ability "to subdue children." they are barbarians, who understand neither the new education nor the new theology, who have not learned to recognise and reverence the individual selfhood of each child, who themselves fear god's power more than they feel his love. when david was at home for the holidays he remained in his own room a considerable part of the time reading. this aroused the anger of mr. murdstone, and he charged david with being sullen. "i was sorry, david," said mr. murdstone, turning his head and his eyes stiffly toward me, "to observe that you are of a sullen disposition. this is not a character that i can suffer to develop itself beneath my eyes without an effort at improvement. you must endeavour, sir, to change it. we must endeavour to change it for you." "i beg your pardon, sir," i faltered. "i have never meant to be sullen since i came back." "don't take refuge in a lie, sir!" he returned so fiercely, that i saw my mother involuntarily put out her trembling hand as if to interpose between us. "you have withdrawn yourself in your sullenness to your own room. you have kept your room when you ought to have been here. you know now, once for all, that i require you to be here, and not there. further, that i require you to bring obedience here. you know me, david. i will have it done." miss murdstone gave a hoarse chuckle. "i will have a respectful, prompt, and ready bearing toward myself," he continued, "and toward jane murdstone, and toward your mother. i will not have this room shunned as if it were infected, at the pleasure of a child. sit down." he ordered me like a dog, and i obeyed like a dog. david's lessons, which had been "along a path of roses" when his mother was alone with him, became a path of thorns after the murdstones came. the lessons were a grievous daily drudgery and misery. they were very long, very numerous, very hard--perfectly unintelligible. let me remember how it used to be. i come into the parlour after breakfast with my books, an exercise book and a slate. my mother is ready for me, but not half so ready as mr. murdstone, or as miss murdstone, sitting near my mother stringing steel beads. the very sight of these two has such an influence over me, that i begin to feel the words i have been at infinite pains to get into my head all sliding away, and going i don't know where. i wonder where they _do_ go, by the bye? i hand the first book to my mother. i take a last drowning look at the page as i give it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while i have got it fresh. i trip over a word. mr. murdstone looks up. i trip over another word. miss murdstone looks up. i redden, tumble over half a dozen words, and stop. i think my mother would show me the book if she dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly: "oh, davy, davy!" "now, clara," says mr. murdstone, "be firm with the boy. don't say 'oh, davy, davy!' that's childish. he knows his lesson, or he does not know it." "he does _not_ know it," miss murdstone interposed awfully. "i am really afraid he does not," says my mother. "then you see, clara," returns miss murdstone, "you should just give him the book back, and make him know it." "yes, certainly," says my mother; "that's what i intended to do, my dear jane. now, davy, try once more, and don't be stupid." i obey the first clause of the injunction by trying once more, but am not so successful with the second, for i am very stupid. i tumble down before i get to the old place, at a point where i was all right before, and stop to think. but i can't think about the lesson. i think of the number of yards of net in miss murdstone's cap, or of the price of mr. murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous problem that i have no business with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. mr. murdstone makes a movement of impatience which i have been expecting for a long time. miss murdstone does the same. my mother glances submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by as an arrear to be worked out when my other tasks are done. there is a pile of these arrears very soon, and it swells like a rolling snowball. the bigger it gets the more stupid i get. the case is so hopeless, and i feel that i am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that i give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. the despairing way in which my mother and i look at each other, as i blunder on, is truly melancholy. but the greatest effect in these miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her) tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. at that instant, miss murdstone, who has been lying in wait for nothing else all along, says in a deep warning voice: "clara!" my mother starts, colours, and smiles faintly. mr. murdstone comes out of his chair, takes the book, throws it at me or boxes my ears with it, and turns me out of the room by the shoulders. it seems to me, at this distance of time, as if my unfortunate studies generally took this course. i could have done very well if i had been without the murdstones; but the influence of the murdstones upon me was like the fascination of two snakes on a wretched young bird. even when i did get through the morning with tolerable credit, there was not much gained but dinner; for miss murdstone never could endure to see me untasked, and if i rashly made any show of being unemployed, called her brother's attention to me by saying, "clara, my dear, there's nothing like work--give your boy an exercise." one morning when i went into the parlour with my books, i found my mother looking anxious, miss murdstone looking firm, and mr. murdstone binding something round the bottom of a cane--a lithe and limber cane, which he left off binding when i came in, and poised and switched in the air. "i tell you, clara," said mr. murdstone, "i have been often flogged myself." "to be sure; of course," said miss murdstone. "certainly, my dear jane," faltered my mother meekly. "but--but do you think it did edward good?" "do you think it did edward harm, clara?" asked mr. murdstone, gravely. "that's the point!" said his sister. to this my mother returned "certainly, my dear jane," and said no more. i felt apprehensive that i was personally interested in this dialogue, and sought mr. murdstone's eye as it lighted on mine. "now, david," he said--and i saw that cast again, as he said it--"you must be far more careful to-day than usual." he gave the cane another poise, and another switch; and having finished his preparation of it, laid it down beside him, with an expressive look, and took up his book. this was a good freshener to my presence of mind, as a beginning. i felt the words of my lesson slipping off, not one by one, or line by line, but by the entire page. i tried to lay hold of them; but they seemed, if i may so express it, to have put skates on, and to skim away from me with a smoothness there was no checking. we began badly, and went on worse. i had come in, with an idea of distinguishing myself rather, conceiving that i was very well prepared; but it turned out to be quite a mistake. book after book was added to the heap of failures, miss murdstone being firmly watchful of us all the time. and when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses (canes he made it that day, i remember), my mother burst out crying. "clara!" said miss murdstone, in her warning voice. "i am not quite well, my dear jane, i think," said my mother. i saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up the cane. "why, jane, we can hardly expect clara to bear, with perfect firmness, the worry and torment that david has occasioned her to-day. that would be stoical. clara is greatly strengthened and improved, but we can hardly expect so much from her. david, you and i will go upstairs, boy." they went upstairs. david was beaten unmercifully, notwithstanding his piteous cries, and in his desperation he bit the hand of murdstone. for this it seemed as if murdstone would have beaten him to death but for the interference of the women. "then he was gone, and the door locked outside; and i was lying, fevered and hot, and torn, and sore, and raging in my puny way, upon the floor." oh! blind, self-satisfied "child-quellers," who so ignorantly boast of your ability to conquer children! dickens described murdstone for you. think of that awful picture of the beautiful boy, created in the image of god, lying on the floor, "fevered and hot, and torn, and sore, and raging," with every element of sweetness and strength in his life turned to darkness and fury, and next time you propose to "conquer a child" who has been rendered partially insane, possibly by your treatment, and with whom you have unnecessarily forced a crisis, remember the murdstone tragedy--a real tragedy, notwithstanding the fact that the boy's life was spared. remember, too, that your very presence and manner may blight the young lives that you are supposed to develop. when mr. murdstone was sending david away to work he gave him his philosophy of coercion as his parting advice: "david," said mr. murdstone, "to the young, this is a world for action; not for moping and droning in." --"as you do," added his sister. "jane murdstone, leave it to me, if you please. i say, david, to the young, this is a world for action, and not for moping and droning in. it is especially so for a young boy of your disposition, which requires a great deal of correcting; and to which no greater service can be done than to force it to conform to the ways of the working world, and to bend it and break it." "for stubbornness won't do here," said his sister. "what it wants is to be crushed. and crushed it must be. shall be, too!" first he fills the boy as full as possible of self-depreciation, and then trains him to expect that his leading experiences in life will consist of being forced into submission, conforming to the plans of others, bending to authority, the breaking of his will, and the crushing of his interests and purposes. what a depressing outlook to give a child! john willet, in barnaby rudge, is used as a means of convincing parents that they should respect the feelings and opinions of children. no two maxims relating to child training are more utterly wrong in principle, more devoid of the simplest elements of child sympathy and child reverence, than the time-honoured nonsense that "children should be seen and not heard," and "children should speak only when they are spoken to." dickens exposes these maxims to deserved ridicule in john willet's treatment of his son joe. john kept the maypole inn. joe was a fine, sturdy young man, but his father still ruled him with an unbending stubbornness that he believed to be a necessary exercise of authority. john was encouraged in his tyranny over his son by some of his old cronies, who were in the habit of sitting in the maypole in the evenings and praising john for his firmness in training his son. one evening a stranger made a remark about a gentleman, to which joe replied. "silence, sir!" cried his father. "what a chap you are, joe!" said long parkes. "such a inconsiderate lad!" murmured tom cobb. "putting himself forward and wringing the very nose off his own father's face!" exclaimed the parish clerk metaphorically. "what _have_ i done?" reasoned poor joe. "silence, sir!" returned his father; "what do you mean by talking, when you see people that are more than two or three times your age sitting still and silent and not dreaming of saying a word?" "why that's the proper time for me to talk, isn't it?" said joe rebelliously. "the proper time, sir!" retorted his father, "the proper time's no time." "ah, to be sure!" muttered parkes, nodding gravely to the other two who nodded likewise, observing under their breaths that that was the point. "the proper time's no time, sir," repeated john willet; "when i was your age i never talked, i never wanted to talk. i listened and improved myself, that's what i did." "it's all very fine talking," muttered joe, who had been fidgeting in his chair with divers uneasy gestures. "but if you mean to tell me that i'm never to open my lips----" "silence, sir!" roared his father. "no, you never are. when your opinion's wanted, you give it. when you're spoke to you speak. when your opinion's not wanted and you're not spoke to, don't give an opinion and don't you speak. the world's undergone a nice alteration since my time, certainly. my belief is that there an't any boys left--that there isn't such a thing as a boy--that there's nothing now between a male baby and a man--and that all the boys went out with his blessed majesty king george the second." on another occasion joe had been hit with a whip by a stranger, and he expressed his opinion to mr. varden about the character of the man who hit him. "hold your tongue, sir," said his father. "i won't, father. it's all along of you that he ventured to do what he did. seeing me treated like a child, and put down like a fool, _he_ plucks up a heart and has a fling at a fellow that he thinks--and may well think, too--hasn't a grain of spirit. but he's mistaken, as i'll show him, and as i'll show all of you before long." "does the boy know what he's saying of!" cried the astonished john willet. "father," returned joe, "i know what i say and mean, well--better than you do when you hear me. i can bear with you, but i can not bear the contempt that your treating me in the way you do brings upon me from others every day. look at other young men of my age. have they no liberty, no will, no right to speak? are they obliged to sit mumchance, and to be ordered about till they are the laughingstock of young and old? i am a byword all over chigwell, and i say--and it's fairer my saying so now, than waiting till you are dead, and i have got your money--i say, that before long i shall be driven to break such bounds, and that when i do, it won't be me that you'll have to blame, but your own self, and no other." john never trusted his son, never entered into his plans, and treated even the most sacred things of joe's life with contempt. joe was about to start to london on business for his father, and he was to ride a mare that was so slow that a young man could not enjoy the prospect of riding her. "don't you ride hard," said his father. "i should be puzzled to do that, i think, father," joe replied, casting a disconsolate look at the animal. "none of your impudence, sir, if you please," retorted old john. "what would you ride, sir? a wild ass or zebra would be too tame for you, wouldn't he, eh, sir? you'd like to ride a roaring lion, wouldn't you, sir, eh, sir? hold your tongue, sir." when mr. willet, in his differences with his son, had exhausted all the questions that occurred to him, and joe had said nothing at all in answer, he generally wound up by bidding him hold his tongue. "and what does the boy mean," added mr. willet, after he had stared at him for a little time, in a species of stupefaction, "by cocking his hat, to such an extent! are you going to kill the wintner, sir?" "no," said joe tartly; "i'm not. now your mind's at ease, father." "with a military air, too!" said mr. willet, surveying him from top to toe; "with a swaggering, fire-eating, biling-water drinking sort of way with him! and what do you mean by pulling up the crocuses and snowdrops, eh, sir?" "it's only a little nosegay," said joe, reddening. "there's no harm in that, i hope?" "you're a boy of business, you are, sir!" said mr. willet disdainfully, "to go supposing that wintners care for nosegays." "i don't suppose anything of the kind," returned joe. "let them keep their red noses for bottles and tankards. these are going to mr. varden's house." "and do you suppose _he_ minds such things as crocuses?" demanded john. "i don't know, and to say the truth, i don't care," said joe. "come, father, give me the money, and in the name of patience let me go." "there it is, sir," replied john; "and take care of it; and mind you don't make too much haste back, but give the mare a long rest. do you mind?" "ay, i mind," returned joe. "she'll need it, heaven knows." "and don't you score up too much at the black lion," said john. "mind that too." "then why don't you let me have some money of my own?" retorted joe sorrowfully; "why don't you, father? what do you send me into london for, giving me only the right to call for my dinner at the black lion, which you're to pay for next time you go, as if i was not to be trusted with a few shillings? why do you use me like this? it's not right of you. you can't expect me to be quiet under it." dickens in this interview condemns several mistakes often made by parents in restraining instead of sympathizing with their children in the natural unfolding of their young manhood or womanhood. it was wrong for john willet to ridicule joe's desire to ride a smart horse. it was wrong to bid him "hold his tongue." it was wrong to criticise his method of dressing to look his very best. it was wrong to sneer at him because his consciousness of unfolding manhood and his hope of dolly varden's love made him carry himself with a "military air." what a difference it would make in the characters of young men if they all carried themselves with a military air, and walked with a consciousness of power and hope! it was especially wrong to make fun of the nosegay joe had pulled for dolly varden. what a pity it is that so few fathers or mothers can truly sympathize with their boys and girls during the period of courtship! why should the most sacred feelings that ever stir the soul be made the subject of jest and levity by those whose hearts should most truly beat in unison with the young hearts that are aflame? if there is a time in the life of young men or women when father or mother may enter the hearts of their children as benedictions and form a blessed unity that can never be broken or undone it is surely when young hearts are hallowed by love. yet there are few parents to whom their children can speak freely about the mysteries and the deep experiences of love that come into their lives. it was wrong to treat joe as if he was unworthy to be trusted with money. every wrong revealed by dickens in this interview had its root in john's feeling that it was his duty to keep joe down, to prevent the outflow of his inner life. old john having long encroached a good standard inch, full measure, on the liberty of joe, and having snipped off a flemish ell in the matter of the parole, grew so despotic and so great, that his thirst for conquest knew no bounds. the more young joe submitted, the more absolute old john became. the ell soon faded into nothing. yards, furlongs, miles arose; and on went old john in the pleasantest manner possible, trimming off an exuberance in this place, shearing away some liberty of speech or action in that, and conducting himself in this small way with as much high mightiness and majesty as the most glorious tyrant that ever had his statue reared in the public ways, of ancient or of modern times. as great men are urged on to the abuse of power (when they need urging, which is not often) by their flatterers and dependents, so old john was impelled to these exercises of authority by the applause and admiration of his maypole cronies, who, in the intervals of their nightly pipes and pots, would shake their heads and say that mr. willet was a father of the good old english sort; that there were no newfangled notions or modern ways in him; that he put them in mind of what their fathers were when they were boys; that there was no mistake about him; that it would be well for the country if there were more like him, and more was the pity that there were not; with many other original remarks of that nature. then they would condescendingly give joe to understand that it was all for his good, and he would be thankful for it one day; and in particular, mr. cobb would acquaint him, that when he was his age, his father thought no more of giving him a parental kick, or a box on the ears, or a cuff on the head, or some little admonition of that sort, than he did of any other ordinary duty of life; and he would further remark, with looks of great significance, that but for this judicious bringing up, he might have never been the man he was at that present speaking; which was probable enough, as he was, beyond all question, the dullest dog of the party. in short, between old john and old john's friends, there never was an unfortunate young fellow so bullied, badgered, worried, fretted, and browbeaten; so constantly beset, or made so tired of his life, as poor joe willet. the end came at last. one evening mr. cobb was more aggravating than usual, and joe's patience could hold out no longer. he knocked the offending cobb into a corner among the spittoons, and ran away from the unbearable tyranny of home. what a moral catastrophe occurs when a young man leaves home with a feeling of relief! dickens develops this thought in the case of tom gradgrind. with the best of intentions, with a single desire of training his son in the best possible way, mr. gradgrind had repressed his natural tendencies and robbed him of the joys of childhood and youth to such an extent that when he was about to go to live with mr. bounderby, and his sister, louisa, asked him "if he was pleased with his prospect?" he replied, "well, it will be getting away from home." the boy is never to blame for such a catastrophe. dickens attacked another phase of the flogging mania in barnaby rudge, in a brief but suggestive scene. barnaby and his mother were travelling, and were resting at the gate of a gentleman's grounds, when the proprietor himself came along and demanded to know who they were. "vagrants," said the gentleman, "vagrants and vagabonds. thee wish to be made acquainted with the cage, dost thee--the cage, the stocks, and the whipping post? where dost come from?" learning that barnaby was weak-minded, he asked how long he had been idiotic. "from his birth," said the widow. "i don't believe it," cried the gentleman, "not a bit of it. it's an excuse not to work. there's nothing like flogging to cure that disorder. i'd make a difference in him in ten minutes, i'll be bound." "heaven has made none in more than twice ten years, sir," said the widow mildly. "then why don't you shut him up? we pay enough for county institutions, damn 'em. but thou'd rather drag him about to excite charity--of course. ay, i know thee." now, this gentleman had various endearing appellations among his intimate friends. by some he was called "a country gentleman of the true school," by some "a fine old country gentleman," by some "a sporting gentleman," by some "a thoroughbred englishman," by some "a genuine john bull"; but they all agreed in one respect, and that was, that it was a pity that there were not more like him, and that because there were not, the country was going to rack and ruin every day. dickens always enjoyed ridiculing the people who long for the good old times and approve of the good old customs. there are some who even yet deplore the fact that children are not repressed and coerced as they used to be, and who prophesy untold evils unless the good old customs are re-established. they long for the recurrence of the days when "lickin' and larnin' went hand in hand," when "wallop the boy, develop the man" was the popular motto, expressive of the general faith. dickens pictured them in john willet and this "country gentleman of the true school." he also criticised them severely in the chimes. the depressing influence of another form of coercion is shown in our mutual friend by the effect of mr. podsnap's character on his daughter georgiana. mr. podsnap was one of the absolutely positive people who know everything about everything, who never allow other people to express opinions without contradicting them, and who take every possible opportunity of expressing their own opinions in a loud, emphatic, dogmatic manner. of course, no woman should hold opinions, according to mr. podsnap's way of thinking, although mrs. podsnap, in her own way, did credit to her more podsnappery master. it was therefore not to be dreamt of for a moment that a "young person" like their daughter georgiana could have any views of her own regarding life or any of its conditions, past, present, or future. she was a "young person" to be protected, and kept in the background, and guarded from evil, and sheltered, so that she should not even hear of anything improper, and shielded from temptation to do wrong, or to do anything, indeed, right or wrong. her father was rich; why should she wish to do anything but listen to him, and go away when he told her to do so, if he wished to speak of subjects that he deemed it unwise to let a "young person" hear discussed? there was a miss podsnap. and this young rocking-horse was being trained in her mother's art of prancing in a stately manner without ever getting on. but the high parental action was not yet imparted to her, and in truth she was but an undersized damsel, with high shoulders, low spirits, chilled elbows, and a rasped surface of nose, who seemed to take occasional frosty peeps out of childhood into womanhood, and to shrink back again, overcome by her mother's headdress and her father from head to foot--crushed by the mere dead weight of podsnappery. georgiana explained the reason of her shyness to mrs. lammle, for, strange as it may seem, considering her heredity, georgiana was shy. podsnappery as environment is always much stronger than podsnappery as heredity. "what i mean is," pursued georgiana, "that ma being so endowed with awfulness, and pa being so endowed with awfulness, and there being so much awfulness everywhere--i mean, at least, everywhere where i am--perhaps it makes me who am so deficient in awfulness, and frightened at it--i say it very badly--i don't know whether you can understand what i mean?" thoughtful people need no explanation regarding the influence of podsnappery on children. the time will come when in normal schools character analysis will be the supreme qualification of those who are to decide who may and who may not teach. when that time comes, as come it must, no podsnaps will be allowed to teach. it was no wonder that-- whenever georgiana could escape from the thraldom of podsnappery; could throw off the bedclothes of the custard-coloured phaeton, and get up; could shrink out of the range of her mother's rocking, and (so to speak) rescue her poor little frosty toes from being rocked over; she repaired to her friend, mrs. alfred lammle. dickens fired another thunderbolt, in our mutual friend, to set the world thinking about its method of teaching children, by his brief description of pleasant riderhood, the daughter of rogue riderhood. show her a christening, and she saw a little heathen personage having a quite superfluous name bestowed upon it, inasmuch as it would be commonly addressed by some abusive epithet; which little personage was not in the least wanted by anybody, and would be shoved and banged out of everybody's way, until it should grow big enough to shove and bang. show her a live father, and she saw but a duplicate of her own father, who from her infancy had been taken with fits and starts of discharging his duty to her, which duty was always incorporated in the form of a fist or a leather strap, and being discharged hurt her. in little dorrit dickens gives one of his most striking verbal descriptions of the effects of coercion in arthur clennam's account of his own early training. he said to mr. meagles, when the kind old gentleman spoke of working with a will: "i have no will. that is to say," he coloured a little, "next to none that i can put in action now. trained by main force; broken, not bent; heavily ironed with an object on which i was never consulted and which was never mine; shipped away to the other end of the world before i was of age, and exiled there until my father's death there, a year ago; always grinding in a mill i always hated; what is to be expected from me in middle life? will, purpose, hope? all those lights were extinguished before i could sound the words." "light 'em up again!" said mr. meagles. "ah! easily said. i am the son, mr. meagles, of a hard father and mother. i am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced had no existence. strict people, as the phrase is, professors of a stern religion, their very religion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and sympathies that were never their own, offered up as a part of a bargain for the security of their possessions. austere faces, inexorable discipline, penance in this world and terror in the next--nothing graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart everywhere--this was my childhood, if i may so misuse the word as to apply it to such a beginning of life." when he returned to the presence of his mother, after an absence of many years in china, "the old influence of her presence, and her stern, strong voice, so gathered about her son that he felt conscious of a renewal of the timid chill and reserve of his childhood." it was a terrible indictment of all coercive, child-quelling, will-breaking training that arthur made when he said to his stern mother: "i can not say that i have been able to conform myself, in heart and spirit, to your rules; i can not say that i believe my forty years have been profitable or pleasant to myself, or any one; but i have habitually submitted, and i only ask you to remember it." speaking of her own training, mrs. clennam said: "mine were days of wholesome repression, punishment, and fear," and she frankly avowed her deliberate purpose of "bringing arthur up in fear and trembling." those were the dreadful ideals that dickens aimed to destroy. repression, punishment, fear, and trembling are no longer the dominant ideals of the christian world regarding child training. they are rapidly giving way to the new and true gospel of stimulation, happiness, freedom, and creative self-activity. great expectations was a valuable contribution to the literature of child training. mrs. gargery was a type of repressive, coercive, unsympathetic women, who regard children as necessarily nuisances, and who are continually thankful for the fact that by the free use of "the tickler" they may be subdued and kept in a state of bearable subjection. mrs. gargery had no children of her own, but she had a little brother, pip, whom she "brought up by hand." her husband, joe gargery, was an honest, affectionate, sympathetic man, who pitied poor pip and tried to comfort him when his wife was not present. the dear old fellow said to pip one evening, as they sat by the fire and he beat time to his kindly thoughts with the poker: "your sister is given to government." "given to government, joe?" i was startled, for i had some shadowy idea (and i am afraid i must add hope) that joe had divorced her in favour of the lords of the admiralty, or treasury. "given to government," said joe. "which i meantersay the government of you and myself." "oh!" "and she ain't over partial to having scholars on the premises," joe continued, "and in particular would not be over partial to my being a scholar, for fear as i might rise. like a sort of rebel, don't you see?" i was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as "why----" when joe stopped me. "stay a bit. i know what you're a-going to say, pip? stay a bit! i don't deny that your sister comes the mo-gul over us, now and again. i don't deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down upon us heavy. at such times as when your sister is on the ram-page, pip," joe sunk his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door, "candour compels fur to admit that she is a buster.... "i wish it was only me that got put out, pip; i wish there warn't no tickler for you, old chap; i wish i could take it all on myself; but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, pip, and i hope you'll overlook shortcomings." poor joe! his father had been a blacksmith, but he took to drink, and, as joe said, "hammered at me with a wigour only to be equalled by the wigour with which he didn't hammer at his anwil." dickens gives an illustration of mrs. gargery's training which reveals not only her coercive and unsympathetic tendencies, but points to other errors in training children that are yet too common. pip was warming himself before going to bed one night, when a cannon sounded from the hulks, or prison ships, near the gargery home. "ah!" said joe; "there's another conwict off." "what does that mean?" said i. mrs. joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said snappishly: "escaped. escaped." administering the definition like medicine. "there was a conwict off last night," said joe, aloud, "after sunset gun. and they fired warning of him. and now it appears they're firing warning of another." "who's firing?" said i. "drat that boy," interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work; "what a questioner he is! ask no questions and you'll be told no lies." it was not very polite to herself, i thought, to imply that i should be told lies by her, even if i did ask questions. but she never was polite, unless there was company. "mrs. joe," said i, as a last resort, "i should like to know--if you wouldn't much mind--where the firing comes from?" "lord bless the boy!" exclaimed my sister, as if she didn't quite mean that, but rather the contrary. "from the hulks!" "and please, what's hulks?" said i. "that's the way with this boy!" exclaimed my sister, pointing me out with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. "answer him one question, and he'll ask you a dozen directly. hulks are prison ships, right 'cross th' country." "i wonder who's put into prison ships, and why they're put there?" said i, in a general way, and with quiet desperation. it was too much for mrs. joe, who immediately rose. "i tell you what, young fellow," said she, "i didn't bring you up by hand to badger people's lives out. it would be blame to me, and not praise, if i had. people are put in the hulks because they murder, and because they rob, and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking questions. now, you get along to bed!" i was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as i went upstairs in the dark, with my head tingling--from mrs. joe's thimble having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words--i felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were handy for me. i was clearly on my way there. pip said later: "i suppose myself to be better acquainted than any living authority with the ridgy effect of a wedding ring passing unsympathetically over the human countenance." my sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. in the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. it may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned irish hunter. within myself, i had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with injustice. i had known, from the time when i could speak, that my sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. i had cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by the hand gave her no right to bring me up by jerks. through all my punishments, disgraces, fasts and vigils, and other penitential performances, i had nursed this assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and unprotected way, i in great part refer the fact that i was morally timid and very sensitive. mrs. gargery's training was bad because she refused to answer the boy's questions, or abused him for asking them; and when she did condescend to answer she answered in a snappy, unsympathetic way. the cruelty of first scolding a child, then trying to terrify him from asking questions by telling him that "robbers, murderers, and all kinds of criminals began their downward career by asking questions," then rapping him on the head, and finally sending him to bed without a light, is admirably described. all these practices are terribly unjust to children. parents and teachers, in the picture of mrs. gargery, are warned against scolding, against threatening, against falsehood and misrepresentation in order to reduce children to submission, against corporal punishment with "the tickler," against the more dastardly and more exasperating corporal punishment by snapping and rapping the head, and against sending children to bed in the dark. he was especially careful to make the retiring hour in his own home a period of joyousness and freedom from all fear. he made the crime of sending children to bed without light and without sympathy one of the practices of that model of bad training--mrs. pipchin; and one of the most dreaded of little oliver twist's experiences was to be sent to sleep among the coffins in the dark at sowerberry's. the hour of retiring is the special time when children most need the affectionate spirit of motherhood, and wise mothers try to use this sacred hour to form their closest unity with the hearts of the little ones, and to sow in their young lives the apperceptive seeds of sweetness, and joy, and faith. the wrong of making children sensitive, and then blaming them for being sensitive, is admirably shown in pip's training. the revelation of the child's consciousness of the sense of injustice in the treatment of those who train it is worthy of most careful study and thought by parents and teachers. there can be no doubt that infants have a clear sense of wrongs inflicted on them, even before they can speak. the comparison of the child's rocking-horse with the big-boned irish hunter reveals one of the most essential lessons for adulthood: that what may appear trifling to an adult may mean much to a child. kind but thoughtless adulthood is often most grievously unjust to childhood, because it fails to consider how things appear to the child. however kind and good such adults are, they are utterly unsympathetic with the child. many people are very considerate for childhood who are very unsympathetic with children. consideration can never take the place of sympathy. an ounce of true sympathy is worth a ton of consideration to a child. adulthood has measured a child's corn in the bushel of adulthood. mr. gradgrind, for instance, was a good man, and he meant to be kind and helpful to his children. he was most considerate for them, and spared no money to promote their welfare and happiness. but he did it in accordance with the tastes and opinions of adulthood, and totally ignored the fact that children have opinions and tastes, and he ruined the children whom he most loved. "the rocking-horse and the big-boned irish hunter" suggest rich mines of child psychology. the pernicious habit of so many adults who fill the imaginations of children with bogies and terrors of an abnormal kind in order to keep them in the path of rectitude by falsehood, is exposed in mrs. gargery's method of stopping pip's questions by telling him that asking questions was the first step in a career of crime. this habit leads parents insensibly into a most dishonest attitude toward their children. it leads, too, in due time, to a lack of reverence for adulthood. falseness is certain to lead to the disrespect it deserves. parents who make untruthfulness a basis for terror should not be surprised at the irreverence or the scepticism of their children. in the schoolboy's story, old cheeseman was brought to school by a woman who was always taking snuff and shaking him. there is a great deal of pedagogical thought in dombey and son. at the period of its issue ( - ) dickens appears to have devoted more attention to the study of wrong methods of teaching than at any other time, so in dr. blimber, cornelia blimber, and mr. feeder he gave his best illustrations of what in his opinion should be condemned in the popular methods of teaching. but while this was evidently his chief educational purpose in writing the book, he gave a good deal of attention to wrong methods of training, especially to the most awful doctrine of the ages--that children must be coerced, and repressed, and checked, and subdued. he evidently accepted as his supreme duty the responsibility for securing a free childhood for children. mrs. pipchin is an admirable delineation of the worst features of what was regarded as respectable child training. her training is treated at length in chapter xi. it is sufficient here to deal with her coerciveness, and recall the epithet "child-queller" which dickens applied to her. no more expressive term was ever used to describe the wickedness of the coercionists. it means more than most volumes. it has new meaning every day as our reverence for the divinity in the child grows stronger, and the absolute need of the development of his selfhood by his own self-activity becomes clearer. it reveals a perfect charnel house full of dwarfed souls and blighted selfhood, and weak characters that should have been strong, and false characters that should have been true, and wailings that should have been music, and tears that should have been laughter, and darkness that should have been light, and wickedness that should have been a blessing. the one awful word "child-queller" means all of evil that can result from daring to stand between the child and god in our self-satisfied ignorance to check the free, natural output of its selfhood which god meant to be wrought out with increasing power throughout its life. our work is to change the direction of the outflowing selfhood when it is wrong, to direct it to new and better interest centres, but never to stop it or turn it back upon itself. there are thousands of child-quellers teaching still. would that they could see truly the dwarfed souls they have blighted, and the ghosts of the selfhood they have sacrificed on the altar of what they call discipline! the term child-queller was the creation of genius. mrs. pipchin disdained the idea of reasoning with children. "hoity-toity!" exclaimed mrs. pipchin, shaking out her black bombazine skirts, and plucking up all the ogress within her. "if she don't like it, mr. dombey, she must be taught to lump it." she would "shake her head and frown down a legion of children," and "the wild ones went home tame enough after sojourning for a few months beneath her hospitable roof." she tamed them by robbing them of their power, as froebel's boy tamed flies by tearing off their wings and legs, and then saying, "see how tame they are." teachers used to boast about their ability to tame children, when their ability really meant the power to destroy the tendency to put forth effort, to substitute negativeness for positiveness. susan nipper, in her usual graphic style, expressed her views regarding the coercive practices of mrs. pipchin and the blimbers. "goodness knows," exclaimed miss nipper, "there's a-many we could spare instead, if numbers is a object; mrs. pipchin as a overseer would come cheap at her weight in gold, and if a knowledge of black slavery should be required, them blimbers is the very people for the sitiwation." one of mrs. pipchin's favourite methods of coercing, or taming, or child-quelling was to send children to bed. "the best thing you can do is to take off your things and go to bed this minute." this was the sagacious woman's remedy for all complaints, particularly lowness of spirits and inability to sleep; for which offence many young victims in the days of the brighton castle had been committed to bed at ten o'clock in the morning. another assault on coercion was made in dombey and son in the brief description of the grinders' school. biler's life had been rendered weary by the costume of the charitable grinders. the youth of the streets could not endure it. no young vagabond could be brought to bear its contemplation for a moment without throwing himself upon the unoffending wearer and doing him a mischief. his social existence had been more like that of an early christian than an innocent child of the nineteenth century. he had been stoned in the streets. he had been overthrown into gutters; bespattered with mud; violently flattened against posts. entire strangers to his person had lifted his yellow cap off his head and cast it to the winds. his legs had not only undergone verbal criticism and revilings, but had been handled and pinched. that very morning he had received a perfectly unsolicited black eye on his way to the grinders' establishment, and had been punished for it by the master: a superannuated old grinder of savage disposition, who had been appointed schoolmaster because he didn't know anything and wasn't fit for anything, and for whose cruel cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination. poor biler went wrong, and when he was taken to task for it by mr. carker he gave his theory to account for the fact that he had not done better at school. "you're a nice young gentleman!" said mr. carker, shaking his head at him. "there's hemp-seed sown for _you_, my fine fellow!" "i'm sure, sir," returned the wretched biler, blubbering again, and again having recourse to his coat cuff: "i shouldn't care, sometimes, if it was growed too. my misfortunes all began in wagging, sir, but what could i do, exceptin' wag?" "excepting what?" said mr. carker. "wag, sir. wagging from school." "do you mean pretending to go there, and not going?" said mr. carker. "yes, sir, that's wagging, sir," returned the quondam grinder, much affected. "i was chivied through the streets, sir, when i went there, and pounded when i got there. so i wagged and hid myself, and that began it." when mr. dombey, by whose act of superior grace biler had been sent to the charitable grinders' school, upbraided the boy's father for his failure to turn out well, the simple father said that he hoped his son, the quondam grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and taught, as parrots are, by a brute jobbed into his place of schoolmaster with as much fitness for it as a hound, might not have been educated on quite a right plan. sagacious teachers and parents often blame and punish children for being what they made them. still another illustration of the cruel coercion practised on children is found in dombey and son, in the training of alice marwood. "there was a child called alice marwood," said the daughter, with a laugh, and looking down at herself in terrible derision of herself, "born among poverty and neglect, and nursed in it. nobody taught her, nobody stepped forward to help her, nobody cared for her." "nobody!" echoed the mother, pointing to herself, and striking her breast. "the only care she knew," returned the daughter, "was to be beaten, and stinted, and abused sometimes; and she might have done better without that." the picture of george silverman's early life is one of the most touching of all the appeals of dickens on behalf of childhood. he lived in a cellar, and when he was removed at length he knew only the sensations of "cold, hunger, thirst, and the pain of being beaten." the poor child used to speculate on his mother's feet having a good or ill temper as she descended the stairs to their cellar home, and he watched her knees, her waist, her face, as they came into view, to learn whether he was likely to be abused or not. many mothers realized their own cruelty by reading such descriptions of cruelty toward little children. the whole system of training of mr. gradgrind and his teacher, mr. m'choakumchild (the latter name contains volumes of coercion) was a scientific system of coerciveness and restraint, planned and carried out by a good man misguided by false ideas about child training and character building. coercion was only one of several bad elements in his system, but he was terribly coercive. his children were lavishly supplied with almost everything they did not care for, and robbed of everything they should naturally be interested in. the results were, as might be expected, disastrous. his son tom became a monster of selfishness, sensuality, and criminality. dickens uses the name "whelp" to describe him, and, in a satirical manner, accounts for his meanness and weaknesses in the following summary: it was very remarkable that a young gentleman who had been brought up under one continuous system of unnatural restraint should be a hypocrite; but it was certainly the case with tom. it was very strange that a young gentleman who had never been left to his own guidance for five consecutive minutes should be incapable at last of governing himself; but so it was with tom. it was altogether unaccountable that a young gentleman whose imagination had been strangled in his cradle should be still inconvenienced by its ghost in the form of grovelling sensualities; but such a monster, beyond all doubt, was tom. when mr. gradgrind became convinced that he had been altogether wrong in his educational ideals and was endeavouring to explain the matter to mr. bounderby, that gentleman gave expression to the views of many people of his time. fortunately there are few bounderbys now, but there are some even yet. "well, well!" returned mr. gradgrind, with a patient, even a submissive air. and he sat for a little while pondering. "bounderby, i see reason to doubt whether we have ever quite understood louisa." "what do you mean by we?" "let me say, i, then," he returned, in answer to the coarsely blurted question; "i doubt whether i have understood louisa. i doubt whether i have been quite right in the manner of her education." "there you hit it," returned bounderby. "there i agree with you. you have found it out at last, have you? education! i'll tell you what education is--to be tumbled out of doors, neck and crop, and put upon the shortest allowance of everything except blows. that's what _i_ call education." in his last book--edwin drood--dickens pictured mr. honeythunder as a type of coercive philanthropists, whom he regarded as intolerable as well as intolerant nuisances--people who would use force to compel everybody to think and act as they are told to think and act by the honeythunders. in speaking of mr. honeythunder and his class of philanthropists, rev. canon crisparkle said: it is a most extraordinary thing that these philanthropists are so given to seizing their fellow-creatures by the scruff of the neck, and (as one may say) bumping them into the paths of peace. neville landless described his training to canon crisparkle in telling words: "and to finish with, sir: i have been brought up among abject and servile dependents of an inferior race, and i may easily have contracted some affinity with them. sometimes i don't know but that it may be a drop of what is tigerish in their blood." there is a profound philosophy of one phase of the evils of coercion in this statement. coercion does not always destroy power by blighting it. often the power that was intended to bless turns to poison when it is repressed, and makes men hypocritical and tigerish. it is true, too, that a child who is brought up with the idea of dominating a servile class, or even servile individuals, can never have a true conception of his own freedom. dickens was not satisfied with his numerous and sustained attacks on the more violent forms of coercion and repression. he began in edwin drood to draw a picture of mrs. crisparkle, the mother of the canon, to show that the placid firmness of her strong will had a baleful influence on character. her character was not completed, but the outlines given are most suggestive. what could surpass the absolute indifference she showed to the slightest consideration for the individuality or opinions of other people when she spoke of her wards, who were grown up, it should be remembered, to young manhood and womanhood. "i have spoken with my two wards, neville and helena landless, on the subject of their defective education, and they give in to the plan proposed; as i should have taken good care they did, whether they liked it or not." how exquisitely he reveals the character of the eminently dogmatic, though quiet, christian lady by her remarking so definitely to her son, the canon: "i have no objection to discuss it, sept. i trust, my dear, i am always open to discussion." there was a vibration in the old lady's cap, as though she internally added, "and i should like to see the discussion that would change _my_ mind!" dickens meant to show that whether the coercion partook of the nature of that exercised by squeers or mrs. crisparkle, it resulted in forcing those compelled to submit to it to "give in," and that all children who are regularly made to "give in" acquire the habit of "giving in," and eventually become "give-iners" and hypocrites until circumstances make them rebels and anarchists. so he condemned every form of coercion, and taught the doctrine of true freedom for the child as a necessary element in his best development. when this doctrine is fully understood men will soon become truly free. all true education has been a movement toward freedom. all true national advancement has been toward more perfect freedom. the ideal of national, constitutional liberty has changed in harmony with the educational revelations of the broadening conception of freedom; and more progressive conceptions of national liberty have rendered it necessary for the educators to reveal truer, freer methods of training children in harmony with the higher national organization. when the ideal of national organization was the divine right of kings to rule their subjects by absolute authority, the system of national organization required passive obedience on the part of the subject. to secure this coercive discipline the prompt submission of the child to the immediate authority over him was the ideal process. passive submission was required as the full duty of the citizen, and passive obedience was the desired product of the school. but the new ideal of government is rule by the people through their representatives, and national citizenship means the intelligent co-operation of independent individuals; so the true educational ideal is a free selfhood, and a free selfhood in maturity demands a free selfhood in childhood. to secure this it is essential that schools shall become "free republics of childhood." "but a free selfhood in childhood must lead to anarchy," say those who cling to the coercive ideal. anarchy never springs from freedom. anarchy is the foul son of coercion. true freedom does not include liberty to do wrong. the "perfect law of liberty" is the only basis for perfect happiness, because it is not freedom beyond law, but freedom within law, freedom because of law. law should never be coercive to the child. when it becomes so the law is wrong and it makes the child wrong, and produces the apperceptive centres of anarchy in feeling and thought out of the very elements that should have produced joyous co-operation. law should give the child consciousness of power, and not of restraint. undirected selfhood, uncontrolled selfhood, is not true freedom. the exercise of power without limitations leads to confusion, indecision, and anarchy in everything except its spirit of rebellion. the guidance and control of adulthood and the limitations of law are necessary to the accomplishment of the best results in the immediate product of effort put forth by the child, in the effect on his character, and in the development of a true consciousness of freedom in his life. the terrible blunder of the past in child training has been to make law coercive instead of directive. law has been prohibitive, not stimulative. law has defined barriers to prevent effort, instead of outlining the direction effort should take. the limitations of law have been used to define the course the child should not take; they should have defined the course he ought to take, and within the range of which course he should use his selfhood in the freest possible way. law has said "thou shalt not" when it should have said "thou shalt"; it has said "don't" when it should have said "do"; it has said "quit" when it should have said "go on"; it has said "be still" when it should have said "work"; it has stood in the way to check when it should have moved on to lead to victory and progress along the most direct lines; it has given a consciousness of weakness instead of a consciousness of power; it has developed moroseness instead of joyousness, self-depreciation instead of self-reverence; and children for these reasons have been led to dislike law, and the apperceptive centres of anarchy have been laid by a coercive instead of a stimulative use of law. by false ideals of coercive law adulthood has been made repressive instead of suggestive, depressive instead of helpful, dogmatic instead of reasonable, tyrannical instead of free, "child-quellers" instead of sympathetic friends of childhood, executors of penalties instead of wise guides, agents to keep children under instead of helping them up; and so children have learned to dislike school, and work, and teachers, and often home and parents. and the children have not been to blame for their dislike of law and their distrust of adulthood. and the children themselves by coercion have been made don'ters instead of doers, quitters instead of workers, give-iners instead of persevering winners, yielders to opposition instead of achievers of victory, negative instead of positive, apathetic instead of energetic, passive instead of active, imitative instead of original, followers instead of leaders, dependent instead of independent, servile instead of free, conscious of weakness instead of power, defect shunners instead of triumphant creative representatives of the god in whose image man was created. every agency that robs a child of his originality and freedom and prevents the spontaneous output of his creative self-activity destroys the image of god in him. man is most like god when he is freely working out the plans of his own creative selfhood for good purposes. coercion has been the greatest destroyer of the image of god in the child, and anarchy is the product of the perversion of the very powers that should have made man hopefully constructive. the seeds of anarchy are sown in the child's life, when his selfhood is blighted and checked. the fountain that finds free outlet for its waters forms a pure stream that remains always a blessing, but the fountain that is obstructed forms a noisome marsh, wasting the good land it should have watered and destroying the plant life it should have nourished. the great salt seas and lakes and marshes of the world have been formed by the checking of beautiful fresh-water streams and rivers and the prevention of their outflow to the ocean they should have reached. so when the outflow of the soul of the child is checked the powers that should have ennobled his own life and enriched the lives of others turn to evil instead of good, and make a dangerous instead of a helpful character. so far as coercion can influence selfhood it destroys its power for good and makes it a menace to civilization, instead of a beneficent agency in the accomplishment of high purposes. the reason that coercion does not more effectively blight and dwarf the child is that childhood is not under the direct influence of adulthood all the time. the blessed hours of freedom in play and work have saved the race. the absurd idea that "anarchy will result from giving true freedom to the child" persists in the minds of so many people, partly through the strength of the race conception of the need of coercion, from which we have not yet been able fully to free ourselves; partly from a terrible misconception regarding the true function of law; partly through gross ignorance of the child and lack of reverence for him; and partly from failure to understand our own higher powers for guiding the child properly, or the vital relationships of adulthood to childhood. the child should recognise law as a beneficent guide in the accomplishment of his own plans. in froebel's wonderful kindergarten system the child is always guided by law, but he is always perfectly free to work out his own designs, and in doing so he is aided by law, not kept back or down by law. law is, to the truly trained child, a revealer of right outlets for power, and the supreme duties of adulthood in training childhood are to change the centre of its interest when from lack of wisdom its interest centre is wrong, and to reveal to it in logical sequence the laws of nature, of beauty, of harmony, and of life. with such training life and law will always be in harmony, and the seeds of anarchy will find no soil in human hearts or minds in which to take root. dickens uses the french revolution, in a tale of two cities, to show that anarchy results from coercion, from the unreasoning subordination of a lower to a higher or ruling class. against the reasoning of wisdom the marquis said: "repression is the only lasting philosophy. the dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend, will keep the dogs obedient to the whip as long as this roof shuts out the sky." the roof came off one wild night--burned off by an infuriated mob of the dogs who had been repressed and whipped into anarchy. yet the aristocracy of france claimed, as coercionist educators claim, that the anarchy was the result of insufficient coercion, instead of the natural harvest of the seed they had sown. it was too much the way of monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it was much too much the way of native british orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible revolution as if it were the one only harvest ever known under the skies that had not been sown--as if nothing had ever been done that had led to it--as if the observers of the wretched millions in france, and of the misused and perverted resources that should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. when the revolution was at its fearful height, and the repressed dogs were having their wild carnival of revenge, dickens says: along the paris streets the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. six tumbrels carry the day's wine to la guillotine. all the devouring and insatiate monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realization, guillotine. and yet there is not in france, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. six tumbrels roll along the streets. change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilets of flaring jezebels, the churches that are not my father's house but dens of thieves, and huts of millions of starving peasants! this is the most profound and most ably written exposition of the philosophy of anarchy. "but by coercion i can make the child do right, and in this way i can form habits of doing right that will control the child when he grows up." the habit that is really formed by coercion is the habit of submission, of passive yielding to authority, of subordination, and, in the last analysis, this means the degradation and enslavement of the soul. two habits are thus wrought into the child's nature by coercion: the habit of doing things because ordered to do them, which is slavery; and the habit of doing things he does not like or wish to do, which is the basis of hypocrisy. the meanest products that can be made from beings created in god's image are slaves and hypocrites. one of the remarkable facts regarding coercionists is that they blame god for creating the monstrosities they have themselves produced by false methods of training. "we should break the child's will, if it is wrong, to set it right, just as we should break a crooked leg to make it straight." this is a statement that betrays a lack of modern surgical knowledge, and a carelessness of psychological thought. modern treatment for the cure of deformity of body avoids harsh treatment whenever it is possible to do so. it has been found that many deformities of body may be cured by proper exercise of the undeveloped part or parts, and with wider knowledge of nature's laws will come a wiser use of the law of self-transformation, and a smaller and smaller use of the severer methods of treatment. but no good child psychologist now doubts that a child's will possesses the power of self-development and self-adjustment under proper guidance, nor should any one be ignorant of the fact that all true will development comes from within outward. it is only necessary that man should study the child more thoroughly, and learn how to change his interest centres from wrong to right, and how to surround him with an environment suitable to his progressive stages of development, in order to keep his own will in operation along productive lines of self-reformation and self-regulation by creative self-activity. thus the will can be set to work truly with undiminished power. when a will is broken, however, it can never regain its full power; the breaking process blights it forever. more rational processes retain its tendency to act and its energy of action while changing the purpose and direction of its action. one of the interesting anomalies of our language is the marvellous fact that the term "self-willed" should ever have been considered a term of reproach or a description of a defect in character. the child with strongest self-will may become the greatest champion for righteousness if properly trained. he needs a wise and sympathetic trainer, who will be reverently grateful for his strong self-will, and whose reverence will prevent him from doing anything that would weaken the strength or selfhood of the will. the attempt to break his will may make him a destroying force instead of a leader for truth and progress. if a strangled will ever regains vitality it rarely acts truly. there is perhaps no other relic of the theories of barbaric ignorance concerning child training still left that is so baneful and so illogical as the theory that justifies will breaking. "but god punishes the child. the child who touches the fire gets burned, and therefore it is right that coercive punishment should be used by adulthood in dealing with the child." the punishments referred to are the revelation of natural laws. there is no personal element of the punishing agency manifest to the child. god does not appear to the child as a punisher, and it is an astounding error in training to reveal such a consciousness of god to the child. responsibility for the consequences of their acts is a law of which all children approve. this appeals to their sense of justice, and there is no other sense to which we can appeal with success so universally in children as the sense of justice. "squareness" is the highest quality named in the lexicon of childhood. a boy would rather be deemed "square" than receive praise for any other characteristic or accomplishment. so he recognises the justice of being held accountable for the directly resulting consequences of his acts quite as readily as he accepts the fact, without blaming any one else, that he will be burned if he touches fire. there is no element of coercion in the law of consequences. it is a just and universal law in harmony with his moral responsibility; therefore he will respect it. coercion is directly contrary to the fundamental laws of his happiness and his true growth, and therefore he naturally and properly dislikes and disapproves of it, and of the individual who outrages justice by using it. the wonderful stories of dickens set the world thinking by first arousing the strongest feelings of sympathy for the child and then developing sentiment and thought against every form of coercion, more especially coercion by corporal punishment. the awakening has been most satisfactory in its results. when dickens began his writing against corporal punishment the rod was the almost universal remedy for all defects in animals or human beings. whatever the defect, the superior in the eyes of the law used the one agency to overcome it. mothers used the rod to subdue their children. husbands used the rod to keep their children and wives in order. men whipped their horses with impunity, as they did their children or wives. they owned them, and their right to punish them as they chose was unquestioned. men trained animals to perform tricks in menageries by beating them, and they trained dancing, or performing, or learning girls and boys quite as inhumanly. ownership or subordination justified unspeakable cruelty. the weakness of the child, the helplessness of the animal, appealed to the hardness of human nature, and not to its chivalry or sympathy. even the poor feeble-minded and idiotic, who were confined in asylums, were terribly flogged by the most advanced philanthropists of the highest christian civilization. they were weak. it was the duty of the authorities to control them, and "stripes and bruises" were regarded as the only true agencies for securing obedience. the rod was the highest controlling and directing force in the world. what a change has been wrought! horses and children and wives are protected from brutal treatment now by law. the insane are not flogged to make them sane in any well-conducted institutions. more than half the children in the schools of the civilized world are free from the terror and degradation of corporal punishment by law, or by the higher consciousness of more intelligent teachers. parenthood everywhere is studying the child and trying to become conscious of its own higher powers of guiding character so that it may be able to train the children in truer and more productive and less dangerous ways than formerly. and charles dickens was the great apostle of these grand reforms. we shudder now as we read of the outrages practised on helpless children and on the insane half a century ago not by the heathen, but by earnest, conscientious christians. the men who live half a century hence will shudder when they read that in some schools at the close of the nineteenth century children who were partially or temporarily insane from hereditary taint, or imperfect nutrition, or cruel treatment, or anger, or from some other removable or remediable cause were whipped, and that men, some of whom occupied respectable positions, advocated the breaking of children's wills! if these "will-breaking" educators were in charge of asylums they would resurrect the straitjacket and the whipping post for the insane. the few who advocate corporal punishment openly claim that they have the authority of the bible for their faith in the rod. they should remember that good men have stood with bibles in their hands misrepresenting god and attempting to stop the progress of every great movement toward freedom and reform. galileo was imprisoned by the church because he taught that the earth turns round. men had no difficulty in showing that the bible approved of slavery, or that it prohibited woman from the exercise of the right or the performance of the duties of responsible individuality. so men still quote solomon to show that corporal punishment is approved by god, though such a conclusion would be rejected by the highest interpreters. "whipping makes strong characters." no, it makes hard characters, and hardness is but one element of strength, and not the best element of strength. the strength of the english character has not been developed, as is claimed by some, by the whipping done in english schools and homes. it comes partly by race heredity from the sturdiness of the saxon and norman founders of the race, partly from the general practice of working hard from youth up, and largely from the fact that the english playgrounds are so universally used, and are the scenes of the severest struggles for supremacy in skill and power that are witnessed in any part of the world. the winning half inch or half length, the valorous struggle for leadership on track or river--these are the things that have preserved and developed english force and bravery, in spite of the fact that england in her schools and homes has done fully her share of whipping. a boy or girl who spends as much time in free strong play as the english boy, works out the effects of a great many evils from his or her life. when men see the futility of dependence on flogging for developing energetic strength of character they will study the influence of play to the great advantage of racial vigour, and courage, and moral energy. corporal punishment, like all other forms of coercion, robs the child of joyousness, and joyousness is one of the most essential elements in the true growth of a child. corporal punishment affects the nervous systems of children injuriously, and when applied to certain parts of the body it stimulates prematurely the action of the sexual nature, and leads to one of the worst forms of depravity. corporal punishment is ineffective as a disciplinary agency. in one american city during the generation after dickens began his great crusade against corporal punishment it was the practice to whip with a rawhide all children who came late, but the lateness steadily increased in defiance of the rawhide. it was reduced to less than one one-hundredth part of its former proportion when whipping for lateness was entirely abolished and more rational means adopted. the order and co-operation of pupils is best in those schools in which no corporal punishment is used. if in any school only one teacher relies on the rod as a stimulator to work and a restrainer of evil, her class is sure to be the most disorderly, the least co-operative, and the most defective in original power in the school. as the children throughout the school come from the same homes, play with the same companions, attend the same churches, and are subject to the same general influences, it is perfectly clear that the whipping is the distinctive feature of character training that deforms the children. they will become normal, reasonable children when they reach the next room. this illustration assumes that all the teachers are possessed of good natural ability to direct the child properly. the one who uses corporal punishment fails because she has been dwarfed by her faith in corporal punishment. she has believed in it so fully that she has not sought to understand higher and better means. she has studied neither the child nor her own powers of child guidance. dickens taught the inefficiency of coercion to accomplish what men hoped to accomplish by it in his criticism of the revolting use of capital punishment in former times. in a tale of two cities he says: accordingly, the forger was put to death; the utterer of a bad note was put to death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to death; the holder of a horse at tellson's door, who made off with it, was put to death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to death; the sounders of three fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of crime were put to death. not that it did the least good in the way of prevention--it might always have been worth remarking that the fact was _exactly the reverse_. the great prophets of modern education--pestalozzi, froebel, barnard, and mann--strongly condemned corporal punishment. these were men of clear insight and correct judgment. the opinion of one such man is worth more than the views of ten thousand ordinary men in regard to the subject of their special study. they were prophet souls who saw the higher truth toward which the race had been slowly growing, and revealed it. their revelations have been appreciated and adopted more and more fully as they have been understood more and more clearly. in the case of corporal punishment and all forms of coercion dickens has been the john the baptist and the paul of the revelation of the gospel of sympathy for the child. not one blow in a thousand is given to a child now as compared with the time of dickens's childhood. corporal punishment is prohibited in the schools of france, italy, switzerland, finland, brazil, new jersey, and in the following cities: new york, chicago, cleveland, albany, syracuse, toledo, and savannah. in washington and philadelphia teachers voluntarily gave up the practice of whipping. this is true of the majority of individual teachers in the cities of america, and the number of those who do without all forms of coercive discipline is rapidly increasing. the whipping of girls is prohibited in saxony, hessen, oldenburg, and in many cities. few girls are now whipped in schools anywhere. corporal punishment has been abolished for the higher grades in norway and in the lower grades in saxony, hessen, bremen, and hamburg. in the last-named city the cane is kept under lock and key. in some places the consent of parents must be obtained before children may be whipped, in some places the number of strokes is limited; in other places a record is kept of every case of corporal punishment and reports made monthly to the school boards. everywhere action has been taken to prohibit or restrict the use of the once universally respected and universally dominant rod. all wise trainers of children recognise the value of obedience, but truly wise trainers no longer aim to make children merely submissively obedient, nor even willingly responsive in their obedience. they try to make them independently, co-operatively, and reverently obedient; independent in free development of will, co-operative in unity of effort with their fellows and their adult guides, and reverent in their attitude to law. the substitution of independence for subserviency, of co-operation for formal, responsive obedience, and of reverence for law for fear of law are the most important development in child training. in dickens's ideal school, doctor strong's, there was "plenty of liberty." gladstone's criticism, when over seventy, of his own teachers was that they were afraid of freedom. he said: "i did not learn to set a due value on the imperishable and inestimable principles of human liberty. the temper which i think prevailed among them was that liberty was regarded with jealousy, and fear could not be wholly dispensed with." the true teacher is not afraid of freedom, but makes it the dominant element in his training and in his educational theory. may the profounder truth in regard to child training spread to the ends of the earth! may the time soon come when there shall be no disciples of susan nipper's doctrine, "that childhood, like money, must be shaken and rattled and jostled about a good deal to keep it bright"! may christian civilization soon be free from such memories as the remembrance of mr. obenreizer, in no thoroughfare, had of his parents: "i was a famished naked little wretch of two or three years when they were men and women with hard hands to beat me"! may christ's teaching soon be so fully understood that there will be no child anywhere like the shivering little boy in the haunted man, who was "used already to be worried and hunted like a beast, who crouched down as he was looked at, and looked back again, and interposed his arm to ward off the expected blow, and threatened to bite if he was hit"! may teachers and all trainers of children learn the underlying philosophy of the statement made by dickens, in connection with the schools of the stepney union, in the uncommercial traveller: "in the moral health of these schools--where corporal punishment is unknown--truthfulness stands high"! chapter iv. the doctrine of child depravity. dickens heartily accepted froebel's view of the doctrine of child depravity. they did not teach that the child is totally divine, but neither did they believe that a being created in god's image is entirely depraved. they recognised very clearly that the doctrine of child depravity was the logical (or illogical) basis of the theory of corporal punishment and all forms of coercion. what more natural or more logical than the practice of checking the outflow of a child's inner life if we believe his inner life to be depraved? the firm belief in the doctrine of child depravity compelled conscientious men to be repressive and coercive in their discipline. dickens understood this fully, and therefore he gave the doctrine no place in his philosophy. mrs. pipchin's training was based squarely on the doctrine of child depravity, for "the secret of her management of children was to give them everything that they didn't like, and nothing that they did." if the training of children under the "good old _régime_," for which some reactionary philosophers are still pleading, is carefully analyzed, it will be found that mrs. pipchin's plan was the commonly approved plan, and it was the perfectly logical outcome of the doctrine that the child, being wholly depraved, desired everything it should not have and objected to everything it should have. that was a touching question addressed by a little boy to his father: "say, papa, did mamma stop you from doing everything you wished to do when _you_ were a little boy?" how dickens despised the awful theology of the murdstones, who would not let david play with other children, because they believed "all children to be a swarm of little vipers [though there _was_ a child once set in the midst of the disciples], and held that they contaminated one another"! how he laughed at mrs. varden and miggs, her maid! "if you hadn't the sweetness of an angel in you, mim, i don't think you could abear it, i raly don't." "miggs," said mrs. varden, "you're profane." "begging your pardon, mim," returned miggs with shrill rapidity, "such was not my intentions, and such i hope is not my character, though i am but a servant." "answering me, miggs, and providing yourself," retorted her mistress, looking round with dignity, "is one and the same thing. how dare you speak of angels in connection with your sinful fellow-beings--mere"--said mrs. varden, glancing at herself in a neighbouring mirror, and arranging the ribbon of her cap in a more becoming fashion--"mere worms and grovellers as we are!" "i do not intend, mim, if you please, to give offence," said miggs, confident in the strength of her compliment, and developing strongly in the throat as usual, "and i did not expect it would be took as such. i hope i know my own unworthiness, and that i hate and despise myself and all my fellow-creatures as every practicable christian should." oliver twist was described by the philanthropists who cared for him as "under the exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and an article direct from the manufactory of the very devil himself." mr. grimwig had no faith in boys, and he tried hard to shake mr. brownlow's faith in oliver. "he is a nice-looking boy, is he not?" inquired mr. brownlow. "i don't know," replied mr. grimwig pettishly. "don't know?" "no. i don't know. i never see any difference in boys. i only know two sorts of boys: mealy boys and beef-faced boys." "and which is oliver?" "mealy. i know a friend who has a beef-faced boy--a fine boy, they call him; with a round head, and red cheeks, and glaring eyes; a horrid boy; with a body and limbs that appear to be swelling out of the seams of his blue clothes; with the voice of a pilot, and the appetite of a wolf. i know him! the wretch!" "come," said mr. brownlow, "these are not the characteristics of young oliver twist; so he needn't excite your wrath." "they are not," replied mr. grimwig. "he may have worse. he is deceiving you, my good friend." "i'll swear he is not," replied mr. brownlow warmly. "if he is not," said mr. grimwig, "i'll----" and down went the stick. "i'll answer for that boy's truth with my life!" said mr. brownlow, knocking the table. "and i for his falsehood with my head!" rejoined mr. grimwig, knocking the table also. "we shall see," said mr. brownlow, checking his rising anger. "we will," replied mr. grimwig, with a provoking smile; "we will." dickens always pleaded for more faith in children. in great expectations poor pip was continually reminded of the fact that he was "naterally wicious," and at the great christmas dinner party mr. pumblechook took him as the illustration of his theological discourse on "swine" and mrs. hubble commiserated mrs. gargery about the trouble he had caused her by all his waywardness. "trouble?" echoed my sister, "trouble?" and then entered on a fearful catalogue of all the illnesses i had been guilty of, and all the acts of sleeplessness i had committed, and all the high places i had tumbled from, and all the low places i had tumbled into, and all the injuries i had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and i had contumaciously refused to go there. again, when pip was just beginning his life away from home his guardian, mr. jaggers, said to him at their first interview: "i shall by this means be able to check your bills, and to pull you up if i find you outrunning the constable. of course you'll go wrong somehow, but that's no fault of mine." "of course you'll go wrong somehow," was an inspiring start in life for a young gentleman. abel magwitch, pip's friend, told him near the close of his career how he came to lead such a dissipated and criminal life. he evidently had ability and possessed a deep sense of gratitude, and might have developed the other virtues if he had been treated properly. dickens used him as an illustration of the fact that society fails often to do the best for a boy and make the most out of him through sheer lack of faith in childhood, and that this lack of faith results from the belief that a boy is so depraved that he would rather do wrong than right, and that when he starts to do wrong there is no hope of his reform. "dear boy and pip's comrade. i am not a-going fur to tell you my life, like a song or a story-book. but to give it you short and handy, i'll put it at once into a mouthful of english. in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. there, you've got it. that's _my_ life pretty much, down to such times as i got shipped off, arter pip stood my friend. "i've been done everything to, pretty well--except hanged. i've been locked up, as much as a silver teakittle. i've been carted here and carted there, and put out of this town and put out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. i've no more notion where i was born, than you have--if so much. i first become aware of myself, down in essex, a-thieving turnips for my living. summun had run away from me--a man--a tinker--and he'd took the fire with him, and left me wery cold. "i know'd my name to be magwitch, chrisen'd abel. how did i know it? much as i know'd the birds' names in the hedges to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. i might have thought it was all lies altogether, only as the birds' names come out true, i supposed mine did. "so fur as i could find, there warn't a soul that see young abel magwitch, with as little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him, and either drove him off or took him up. i was took up, took up, took up, to that extent that i reg'larly grow'd up took up. "this is the way it was, that when i was a ragged little creetur as much to be pitied as ever i see (not that i looked in the glass, for there warn't many insides of furnished houses known to me), i got the name being hardened. 'this is a terrible hardened one,' they says to prison wisitors, picking out me. 'may be said to live in jails, this boy.' then they looked at me, and i looked at them, and they measured my head, some on 'em--they had better a-measured my stomach--and others on 'em giv' me tracts what i couldn't read, and made me speeches what i couldn't understand. they always went on agen me about the devil." poor old toby veck, in the chimes, reflected the theories that dickens wished to overthrow. "it seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be righted," said toby. "i hadn't much schooling, myself, when i was young; and i can't make out whether we have any business on the face of the earth, or not. sometimes i think we must have--a little; and sometimes i think we must be intruding. i get so puzzled sometimes that i am not even able to make up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. we seem to be dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained of and guarded against." the most realistic picture of the influence of the child-depravity ideal on the training of childhood is given in mrs. clennam, in little dorrit. she was a hard, malignant, dishonest, unsympathetic woman, who had deliberately driven arthur's mother to madness and blighted his father's life in the name of her false religion, and blasphemously claimed that she was doing it in god's stead, as his devoted servant. yet she was sure she was truly religious, and had a pious vanity in the fact that she was "filled with an abhorrence of evil doers." she was filled with gladness, too, at the prospect of marrying a man of like training with herself. speaking of the training of herself and her husband she said: "you do not know what it is to be brought up strictly and straitly. i was so brought up. mine was no light youth of sinful gaiety and pleasure. mine were days of wholesome repression, punishment, and fear. the corruption of our hearts, the evil of our ways, the curse that is upon us, the terrors that surround us--these were the themes of my childhood. they formed my character, and filled me with an abhorrence of evil doers. when old mr. gilbert clennam proposed his orphan nephew to my father for my husband, my father impressed upon me that his bringing-up had been, like mine, one of severe restraint. he told me, that besides the discipline his spirit had undergone, he had lived in a starved house, where rioting and gaiety were unknown, and where every day was a day of toil and trial like the last. he told me that he had been a man in years long before his uncle had acknowledged him as one; and that from his school days to that hour, his uncle's roof had been a sanctuary to him from the contagion of the irreligious and dissolute." speaking of her training of arthur, she said: "i devoted myself to reclaim the otherwise predestined and lost boy; to bring him up in fear and trembling, and in a life of practical contrition for the sins that were heavy on his head before his entrance into this condemned world." dickens describes her religious character as such as might naturally be expected to develop in a woman whose childhood revealed to her only the self-abnegation and terrors of religion and the utter contempt for humanity shrouded in the doctrine of child depravity. she had seen god as an awful character of sleepless watchfulness to see her evil doing and record it, of wrathfulness, and of vengeance, but never of loving sympathy and forgiveness. so she fitted her religion to the character that such training had formed in her. great need had the rigid woman of her mystical religion, veiled in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and destruction, flashing through the sable clouds. forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, was a prayer too poor in spirit for her. smite thou my debtors, lord, wither them, crush them; do thou as i would do, and thou shalt have my worship: this was the impious tower of stone she built up to scale heaven. the old discipline and the old training were based on the belief that children like to do wrong better than to do right. there could be no greater error, or one more certain to lead to false principles of training, and prevent the recognition of the true methods of developing character in childhood. children do not like to do wrong better than to do right. they like to do. they like to do the things they themselves plan to do. they like to do the things that are interesting to themselves. their lack of wisdom leaves them at the mercy of their interests, and without guidance their constructiveness may turn to destructiveness. when it does so, it is because of the neglect of their adult guides to surround them with plenty of suitable material for construction or transformation adapted to their stage of development. with a sufficient variety of material for constructive plays the child will rarely exhibit destructive tendencies, and when he does so, the wisdom of his adult guide should find little trouble in changing his interest centre from the wrong to the right. the skilful trainer changes the interest centre without making the child conscious of adult interference. it costs little to supply the child with sand and blocks, and soft clay, and colors, and colored paper, and blunt scissors and gum, and other similar materials--much less than is usually spent for toys; yet such materials would save parents from much worry, and help them to get rid of the wrong ideals, and they would preserve the natural tendency of children to constructiveness, and afford them an opportunity for the comfort and the development of real self-activity. the child's most dominant tendency is activity in using the material things of his environment to transform them into new forms or relationships in harmony with his own plans. this tendency is intended to accomplish four great purposes in the child's development. it reveals the child's own powers to himself, it develops his originality, it trains him to use his constructive powers, and it gives him the habit of transforming his environment to suit his own plans. if he is not supplied with suitable material to play with he will appropriate the material he finds most available. in this way, through the absolute neglect of his adult guides, he has acquired a bad reputation. the instinct that leads the child to transform his material environment should lead to the conscious desire and determination to improve the physical, intellectual, and spiritual conditions around him at maturity. it is therefore a very essential element in his training, and to check or neglect it may weaken and warp his character as much as it was intended to strengthen and direct it. thus the children have been coerced because men believed them to be depraved, and the coercion has developed the apparent depravity. the darkest clouds have been lifted from the vision of adults and from the lives of the little ones by the breaking of the power of the doctrine of child depravity. the teacher especially has a more hopeful field opened to him. his great work of training is no longer restricted to putting blinders on the eyes of children to prevent their seeing evil, and bits in their mouths to keep them from going wrong. he believes that every child has an element of divinity, however small and enfeebled by heredity or encrusted by evil environment, and that his chief duty is to arouse this divinity (his selfhood or individuality) to consciousness and start it on its conscious growth toward the divine. the revelation of this new and grander ideal has led to all intelligent child study for the purpose of discovering what adulthood can do, and especially what childhood itself can do, in accomplishing its most perfect training for its highest destiny. dickens expressed his general faith in childhood in mrs. lirriper's remark to the major about jemmy: "ah, major," i says, drying my eyes, "we needn't have been afraid. we might have known it. treachery don't come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy--they do, thank god!" he taught his philosophy of the origin of many of the evils that are attributed to child depravity in nobody's story. "nobody" means the workingman. he says to the master: "the evil consequences of imperfect instruction, the evil consequences of pernicious neglect, the evil consequences of unnatural restraint and the denial of humanizing enjoyments, will all come from us, and none of them will stop with us. they will spread far and wide. they always do; they always have done--just like the pestilence. i understand so much, i think, at last." there is profoundness in these doctrines. chapter v. cramming. although dickens paid much more attention in his writings to the methods of training than to the methods of teaching, he studied the methods of teaching sufficiently to recognise some of their gravest defects. dombey and son is unquestionably the greatest book ever written to expose the evils of cramming. doctor blimber, cornelia, and mr. feeder, when closely studied, represent in the varied phases of their work all the worst forms of cramming. whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by doctor blimber, he might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. the doctor only undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had always ready a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; it was at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it. in fact, doctor blimber's establishment was a great hothouse, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. all the boys blew before their time. mental green peas were produced at christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under doctor blimber's cultivation. every description of greek and latin vegetable was got off the dryest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. nature was of no consequence at all. no matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, doctor blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other. this was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was attended with its usual disadvantages. there was not the right taste about the premature productions, and they didn't keep well. moreover, one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of the ten who had "gone through" everything) suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. and people did say that the doctor had rather overdone it with young toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains. the doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings at his knees, and stockings below them. he had a bald head, highly polished; a deep voice, and a chin so very double that it was a wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases. he had likewise a pair of little eyes that were always half shut up and a mouth that was always half expanded into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed a boy, and were waiting to convict him from his own lips. insomuch that when the doctor put his right hand into the breast of his coat, and, with his other hand behind him and a scarcely perceptible wag of his head, made the commonest observation to a nervous stranger, it was like a sentiment from the sphinx, and settled his business. miss blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft violence to the gravity of the house. there was no light nonsense about miss blimber. she kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles. she was dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. none of your live languages for miss blimber. they must be dead--stone dead--and then miss blimber dug them up like a ghoul. as to mr. feeder, b. a., dr. blimber's assistant, he was a kind of human barrel organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working, over and over again, without any variation. he might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny had been favourable; but it had not been; and he had only one, with which, in a monotonous round, it was his occupation to bewilder the young ideas of dr. blimber's young gentlemen. the young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. they knew no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. under the forcing system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits in three weeks. he had all the care of the world on his head in three months. he conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in four; he was an old misanthrope in five; envied curtius that blessed refuge in the earth in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterward departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning in the world. but he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the doctor's hothouse all the time; and the doctor's glory and reputation were great when he took his wintry growth home to his relations and friends. upon the doctor's doorsteps one day, paul stood with a fluttering heart, and with his small right hand in his father's. his other hand was locked in that of florence. how tight the tiny pressure of that one; and how loose and cool the other! the doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each knee, books all round him, homer over the door, and minerva on the mantelshelf. "and how do you do, sir?" he said to mr. dombey; "and how is my little friend?" "very well i thank you, sir," returned paul, answering the clock quite as much as the doctor. "ha!" said dr. blimber. "shall we make a man of him?" "do you hear, paul?" added mr. dombey; paul being silent. "shall we make a man of him?" repeated the doctor. "i had rather be a child," replied paul. paul's reply is one of the most touchingly beautiful of even dickens's wonderful expressions--wonderful in their exquisite simplicity and their profound philosophy. when this book was written dickens was beginning to get the conception of the great truth, which he illustrated at length in hard times and other works, that it is a crime against a child to rob it of its childhood. when doctor blimber in his cold, formal manner asked paul "why he preferred to be a child," the little fellow was unable to answer, and as they stared at him, he at length put his hand on the neck of florence and burst into tears. "mrs. pipchin," said his father in a querulous manner, "i am really very sorry to see this." "never mind," said the doctor blandly, nodding his head to keep mrs. pipchin back. "nev-er mind; we shall substitute new cares and new impressions, mr. dombey, very shortly. you would still wish my little friend to acquire----" "everything, if you please, doctor," returned mr. dombey firmly. "yes," said the doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes and his usual smile, seemed to survey paul with the sort of interest that might attach to some choice little animal he was going to stuff. "yes, exactly. ha! we shall impart a great variety of information to our little friend, and bring him quickly forward, i dare say. i dare say. quite a virgin soil, i believe you said, mr. dombey?" on leaving, mr. dombey said to paul: "you'll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man, won't you?" "i'll try," returned the child wearily. "and you'll soon be grown up now?" said mr. dombey. "oh! very soon!" replied the child. once more the old, old look passed rapidly across his features like a strange light. after his father and florence had left him the doctor said to cornelia: "cornelia, dombey will be your charge at first. bring him on, cornelia, bring him on. take him round the house, cornelia, and familiarize him with his new sphere. go with that young lady, dombey." cornelia took him first to the schoolroom. here there were eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very hard at work, and very grave indeed. mr. feeder, b. a., had his virgil stop on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. of the remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively, were engaged in solving mathematical problems; one, with his face like a dirty window from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through a hopeless number of lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his task in stony stupefaction and despair--which, it seemed, had been his condition ever since breakfast time. after being shown through the dormitories, cornelia told him dinner would be ready in fifteen minutes, and that in the meantime he had better go into the schoolroom among his "friends." his friends were all dispersed about the room except the stony friend, who remained immovable. mr. feeder was stretching himself in his gray gown, as if, regardless of expense, he were resolved to pull the sleeves off. "heigh-ho-hum!" cried mr. feeder, shaking himself like a cart horse "oh dear me, dear me! ya-a-a-ah!" "you sleep in my room, don't you?" asked a solemn young gentleman, whose shirt collar curled up the lobes of his ears. "master briggs?" inquired paul. "tozer," said the young gentleman. paul answered yes; and tozer, pointing out the stony pupil, said that it was briggs. paul had already felt certain that it must be either briggs or tozer, though he didn't know why. "is yours a strong constitution?" inquired tozer. paul said he thought not. tozer replied that _he_ thought not also, judging from paul's looks, and that it was a pity, for it need be. he then asked paul if he were going to begin with cornelia; and on paul saying "yes," all the young gentlemen (briggs excepted) gave a low groan. at dinner no boy was allowed to speak; every one was compelled to listen to the tedious discourse of doctor blimber on the customs of the romans. the cramming of youth was continued with great dignity even during meals. one boy, johnson, was unfortunate enough to choke himself by too suddenly swallowing his water in order to catch doctor blimber's eye when he began an account of the dinners of vitellius; and to punish him for his breach of manners, doctor blimber said before the boys were dismissed from the table: "johnson will repeat to-morrow morning before breakfast, without book, and from the greek testament, the first chapter of the epistle of saint paul to the ephesians. we will resume our studies, mr. feeder, in half an hour." it used to be a common practice to cultivate a loving reverence for god by using the bible as a means of punishment. this was in harmony with the old educational and the old theological ideal of punishment, as the supreme means available for guiding children properly. it was considered a perfectly appropriate use of the best book to use it for this best of purposes. the young gentlemen bowed and withdrew; mr. feeder did likewise. during the half hour the young gentlemen, broken into pairs, loitered arm in arm up and down a small piece of ground behind the house. but nothing happened so vulgar as play. punctually at the appointed time the gong was sounded, and the studies, under the joint auspices of doctor blimber and mr. feeder, were resumed. tea was served in a style no less polite than dinner; and after tea the young gentlemen, rising and bowing as before, withdrew to fetch up the unfinished tasks of that day or to get up the already looming tasks of to-morrow. after prayers and light refreshments at eight o'clock or so, the "young gentlemen" were sent to bed by the doctor rising and solemnly saying, "we will resume our studies at seven to-morrow"; the pupils bowed again, and went to bed. in the confidence of their own room upstairs, briggs said his head ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it wasn't for his mother and a blackbird he had at home. tozer didn't say much, but he sighed a good deal, and told paul to look out, for his turn would come to-morrow. after uttering those prophetic words, he undressed himself moodily and got into bed. briggs was in his bed too, and paul in his bed too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared to take away the candle, when he wished them good-night and pleasant dreams. but his benevolent wishes were in vain as far as briggs and tozer were concerned; for paul, who lay awake for a long while, and often woke afterward, found that briggs was ridden by his lesson as a nightmare; and that tozer, whose mind was affected in his sleep by similar causes, in a minor degree, talked unknown tongues, or scraps of greek and latin--it was all one to paul--which, in the silence of night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect. as paul was going downstairs in the morning miss blimber called him into her room, and, pointing to a pile of new books on her table, said: "these are yours, dombey." "all of 'em, ma'am?" said paul. "yes," returned miss blimber; "and mr. feeder will look you out some more very soon, if you are as studious as i expect you will be, dombey." "thank you, ma'am," said paul. "i am going out for a constitutional," resumed miss blimber; "and while i am gone--that is to say, in the interval between this and breakfast, dombey--i wish you to read over what i have marked in these books, and to tell me if you quite understand what you have got to learn. don't lose time, dombey, for you have none to spare, but take them downstairs, and begin directly." "yes, ma'am," answered paul. there were so many of them, that although paul put one hand under the bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book, and hugged them all closely, the middle book slipped out before he reached the door, and then they all tumbled down on the floor. having at last amassed the whole library and climbed into his place, he fell to work, encouraged by a remark from tozer to the effect that he "was in for it now"; which was the only interruption he received till breakfast time. at that meal, for which he had no appetite, everything was quite as solemn and genteel as at the others; and when it was finished, he followed miss blimber upstairs. "now, dombey," said miss blimber, "how have you got on with those books?" they comprised a little english, and a deal of latin--names of things, declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon, and preliminary rules--a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three weights and measures, and a little general information. when poor paul had spelled out number two, he found he had no idea of number one; fragments whereof afterward obtruded themselves into number three, which slided into number four, which, grafted itself on to number two. so that whether twenty romuluses made a remus, or hic hæc hoc was troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient briton, or three times four was taurus a bull, were open questions with him. "oh, dombey, dombey!" said miss blimber, "this is very shocking." so paul's cramming went on day by day. the delicate little boy, who should not have been sent to school at all, was forced to memorize confused masses of words that had no meaning to him, but he learned to repeat the words, and so got the credit of doing well, and because he learned easily was driven harder and harder. the more easily he carried his burden the higher it was piled on his back. it was not that miss blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that doctor blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in general. cornelia merely held the faith in which she had been bred; and the doctor, in some partial confusion of his ideas, regarded the young gentlemen as if they were all doctors, and were born grown up. comforted by the applause of the young gentlemen's nearest relations, and urged on by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would have been strange if doctor blimber had discovered his mistake, or trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack. thus in the case of paul. when doctor blimber said he made great progress, and was naturally clever, mr. dombey was more bent than ever on his being forced and crammed. in the case of briggs, when doctor blimber reported that he did not make great progress yet, and was not naturally clever, briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. in short, however high and false the temperature at which the doctor kept his hothouse, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a helping hand at the bellows and to stir the fire. when the midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations of joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at doctor blimber's. any such violent expression as "breaking up" would have been quite inapplicable to that polite establishment. the young gentlemen oozed away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they never broke up. they would have scorned the action. tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by a starched white cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of mrs. tozer, his parent, who, designing him for the church, was of opinion that he couldn't be in that forward state of preparation too soon--tozer said, indeed, that choosing between two evils, he thought he would rather stay where he was, than go home. however inconsistent this declaration might appear with that passage in tozer's essay on the subject, wherein he had observed "that the thoughts of home and all its recollections awakened in his mind the most pleasing emotions of anticipation and delight," and had also likened himself to a roman general, flushed with a recent victory over the iceni, or laden with carthaginian spoil, advancing within a few hours' march of the capitol, presupposed, for the purposes of the simile, to be the dwelling place of mrs. tozer, still it was very sincerely made. for it seemed that tozer had a dreadful uncle, who not only volunteered examinations of him, in the holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted innocent events and things, and wrenched them to the same fell purpose. so that if this uncle took him to the play, or, on a similar pretence of kindness, carried him to see a giant, or a dwarf, or a conjurer, or anything, tozer knew he had read up some classical allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of mortal apprehension; not foreseeing where he might break out, or what authority he might not quote against him. as to briggs, _his_ father made no show of artifice about it. he never would leave him alone. so numerous and severe were the mental trials of that unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of the family (then resident near bayswater, london) seldom approached the ornamental piece of water in kensington gardens without a vague expectation of seeing master briggs's hat floating on the surface and an unfinished exercise lying on the bank. briggs, therefore, was not at all sanguine on the subject of holidays; and these two sharers of little paul's bedroom were so fair a sample of the young gentlemen in general, that the most elastic among them contemplated the arrival of those festive periods with genteel resignation. dickens did not wish to lay all the blame for the stupid process of cramming on the teachers. he properly revealed to parents that they were even more to blame than the teachers, because they got what they demanded. doctor blimber summed up the whole philosophy of the adulthood of his time in regard to a child's education when he said to his daughter, "bring him on, cornelia! bring him on!" the standard of knowledge cramming fixed by parents and school boards is changing very slowly. even yet a teacher's success is measured and his chances of re-engagement decided in most places by the answer to the question, "how does he bring the children on?" when asked by doctor blimber what he wished his little sickly son to learn, mr. dombey answered, "oh, everything." when paul learned easily, his father pressed for more studies; and because briggs was dull, his father demanded that he be driven harder at school, and made the poor boy's life miserable at home by tedious lessons during the holidays. the uncle who made tozer wretched by asking him unexpected questions on all occasions is a type of an ogre who sometimes blights the lives of children still. dickens had a beautiful sympathy with childhood in its sufferings not merely on account of deliberate cruelty and neglect, but because of the burdens placed upon it by adults who, with the best intentions, robbed it of its natural rights of joyousness and freedom. whenever doctor blimber was informed that paul was "old-fashioned" or "peculiar," he said, as he had said when paul first came, that study would do much; and he also said, as he said on that occasion, "bring him on, cornelia! bring him on!" just before the close of the term paul fainted and had to be carried to his room, and after an examination the physician advised doctor blimber to "release the young gentleman from his books just now, the vacation being so near at hand." it was so very considerate to release him from study, when he was utterly unable to study any longer. at the close of the school party when he was leaving-- cornelia, taking both paul's hands in hers, said, "dombey, dombey, you have always been my favourite pupil. god bless you!" and it showed, paul thought, how easily one might do injustice to a person; for miss blimber meant it--though she _was_ a forcer. paul never returned to school. his life was sacrificed to his father's desire to have him "learn everything." in a brief look at the results of doctor blimber's teaching, dickens tersely outlines three common results of cramming: mr. tozer, now a young man of lofty stature, in wellington boots, was so extremely full of antiquity as to be nearly on a par with a genuine ancient roman in his knowledge of english; a triumph that affected his good parents with the tenderest emotions, and caused the father and mother of mr. briggs (whose learning, like an ill-arranged luggage, was so tightly packed that he couldn't get at anything he wanted) to hide their diminished heads. the fruit laboriously gathered from the tree of knowledge by this latter young gentleman, in fact, had been subjected to so much pressure, that it had become a kind of intellectual norfolk biffin, and had nothing of its original form or flavour remaining. master bitherstone now, on whom the forcing system had the happier and not uncommon effect of leaving no impression whatever, when the forcing apparatus ceased to work was in a much more comfortable plight; and being then on shipboard, bound for bengal, found himself forgetting with such admirable rapidity, that it was doubtful whether his declensions of noun-substantives would hold out to the end of the voyage. dickens, in his very able description of doctor blimber's school, directs attention to nearly every phase of the evils of cramming. toots is an illustration of the destruction of mental power by the "hard mathematics" and other subjects, when they are taught improperly. it is a serious result of an educational system, when the brightest young men "cease to have brains when they begin to have whiskers." paul's experience is used to show the terrible physical evils of cramming in any life, especially in the life of a delicate child. paul was killed by his father and doctor blimber. he should have lived. cornelia's aversion to live languages and her delight in "digging up the dead languages like a ghoul," and the address presented to doctor blimber "which contained very little of the mother tongue, but fifteen quotations from the latin and seven from the greek," were intended as a protest against paying too much attention to the classics to the neglect of other studies. he returned to this subject again in bleak house. richard carstone "could make latin verses," but although his powers were naturally excellent he was a complete failure in life. he was not educated properly, notwithstanding his ability to make latin verses. mr. feeder is the perfect type of a mechanical crammer, "a sort of barrel organ with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working, over and over again, without any variation." what suggestiveness there is in the sentence "mr. feeder had his virgil stop on, and was grinding that tune to four young gentlemen"! "bewilder the young ideas of doctor blimber's young gentlemen," used to be considered too strong a criticism, but modern psychology fully sustains dickens in his view. "arrested development" is well understood now to result from too much grinding at any one subject or department of a subject, from the monotonous drill of the crammer, or from directing the child's attention too much to any one study. the influence of uninteresting study on the spirits was clear to dickens. there is inspiration and physical advantage of a decided character in the successful study of an interesting subject--interesting to the child, of course--if the process of study includes the true self-activity of the child. there is blight, and nervous irritation, and "carking anxiety," if the child works under compulsion at the dead matter of study. no wonder the young gentlemen at doctor blimber's took leave of their spirits in three weeks, and passed through the subsequent stages of deeper gloom described by dickens. they had none of the joy of living interest in their study, none of the vital enthusiasm connected with independent thought, none of the health that comes from pleasant occupation, none of the happiness that is found in self-activity alone. one of the best criticisms of wrong methods of teaching done by mr. feeder is the criticism of the method of teaching literature. "at the end of the first twelvemonth the boys had arrived at the conclusion, from which they never afterward departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and the lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning in the world." there are high schools yet in which more attention is paid to the "words and grammar" than to the sacred and inspiring thought of the author. a professor in one of the leading educational institutions of america travelled in scotland with his daughters. they were graduates of a high school. he observed with deep regret that they visited the mountains, and valleys, and rivers, and islands, and battlefields, and cathedrals of the land, that to him had been filled with sacred interests by the writings of scott, and saw them all without emotion. one day he said to them: "why are you not interested here? to me every foot of ground here is full of living memories. scott describes it in the lady of the lake." one of them explained the reason. "oh!" she said, "we're sick of scott; we had enough of him in the high school." there are feeders yet who profane the temple of literature; who never connect the souls of their pupils with the soul life of the authors they study. very few of the graduates of high schools have learned the high art of loving literature for its beauty and ennobling thought, fewer still have learned how to dig successfully in the rich mines of wealth that literature contains, and even a smaller number have learned to transmute the revelations of literature into character and new revelations in life or richer literature for the happiness and culture of coming generations. we may yet learn from dickens. tozer became an antique pedant, learned but not educated. briggs grew to be dull and heavy-witted, and had his "knowledge so tightly packed that he couldn't get at anything he wanted." bitherstone was one of the few fortunate fellows who are gifted with natural power to pass through the cramming system without being affected seriously in any way. they get little, if any, good, and they speedily forget the wrongs inflicted upon them and the learning with which their teachers attempted to cram them. briggs showed the evil effects of cramming in the destruction of individuality. "his fruit had nothing of its original flavour remaining." this is one of the general charges made against doctor blimber's forcing establishment, or hothouse. "nature was of no consequence at all. no matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, doctor blimber made him bear to pattern somehow or other." the destruction of selfhood was the great evil of the old system of teaching. another important criticism made by dickens of the hothouse system is worthy of special attention by educators. he recognised the evil effects of giving any study or work to children, that is naturally adapted to a later stage of their development. the development of children is always arrested when the work of a higher stage is forced into a lower stage of their growth. the true evolution of the child consists in a growth through a series of progressive and interdependent stages. this was not recognised in the educational system dickens desired to improve. it is not yet recognised to a very large extent in practice. "all the boys blew before their time," in doctor blimber's school. "the doctor, in some partial confusion of ideas, regarded the young gentlemen as if they were all doctors, and were born grown up." dickens was so careful to make his names and terms express volumes of meaning that he probably meant the phrase "mathematical gooseberries" to be especially significant. the fact that they were grown on "mere sprouts of bushes," and as a consequence were "very sour ones, too," reveals the philosophy since made so clear by doctor harris, that early "drilling" in arithmetic has been one of the prolific causes of arrested development in children. the appeal against the common practice of growing "every description of greek and latin vegetable" _from_ "_dry twigs of boys_" was comprehensive and timely. they were not merely twigs, but dry twigs in whom the sap had not begun to circulate freely. no expressions, no volumes, could state the evil of untimely cramming more clearly than this group of phrases used by dickens in describing doctor blimber's school. "the frostiest circumstances" is another of the thought-laden phrases, which was evidently intended to warn teachers against the mistake of trying to produce any intellectual fruit at untimely periods of the child's development. "wintry growth" means unseasonable or untimely development. the condemnation of the feeling shown by paul in parting from florence, and the doctor's cold-blooded observation, "never mind; we shall substitute new cares and new impressions, mr. dombey, very shortly," were intended to show how utterly the knowledge cramming ideal had prevented the recognition of the fundamental fact that feeling is the basis and the battery power of intellectual force and energy. the same principle is taught by cornelia's shock at paul's affection for old glubb, and her father's summary settlement of the case, when he realized that the little child was intensely affectionate and sympathetic. "ha!" said the doctor, shaking his head, "this--is--bad, but study will do much." dickens deals in a most thorough manner with the absolute wickedness of neglecting, or attempting to smother feeling in the training and education of children in hard times. he undoubtedly received his clear conceptions relating to the intellectual value of feeling from froebel's writings. the bad effects of cramming on the physical constitution of children are pointed out in "the convulsive grasping of their foreheads" by the two boys engaged in solving mathematical problems. nervous exhaustion is here plainly indicated. they were "very feverish," too, and poor briggs was in even a worse condition, for "he was in a state of stupefaction and was flabby and quite cold." both briggs and tozer frightened paul the first night he tried to sleep in their room by talking latin and greek in their dreams. paul thought they were swearing. education should never interfere with a child's sleep, either with its soundness or its duration. even the boys told paul on the first day of his school life that he would need a good constitution to withstand the strain at doctor blimber's. the exhaustive and exasperating practice of piling up arrears of work, so naturally connected with cramming--in fact, so essential a part of the unnatural process--comes in for its share of condemnation, too. one of the boys, "whose face was like a dirty window, from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through a hopeless number of lines." the friends of briggs were constantly in terror "lest they should find his hat floating on a pond and an unfinished exercise on the bank." the same practice of charging up arrears of work is condemned in david copperfield by associating it with the hateful murdstones. the crammer's absolute indifference and contempt for any semblance of correlation in studies is revealed by cornelia's action in giving him a collection of books on his first morning before school with instructions to study them at the places she had marked for him. no wonder that "when poor paul had spelled out number two he found he had no idea of number one; fragments whereof afterward obtruded themselves into number three, which sidled into number four, which grafted itself on to number two--so that whether twenty romuluses made a remus, or hic hæc hoc was troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient briton, or three times four was taurus, a bull, were open questions with him." whenever words are given before thought, or as a substitute for thought, and without definite relationship to the thought already in the mind, they lie in the mind as unrelated, and therefore unavailable knowledge. a boy in london had received considerable historical teaching, and his mind had made a certain kind of unity out of the confused mass. when asked at his final examination "what he knew about cromwell," he answered: "cromwell interfered with the irish, and he was put in prison. when he was in prison he wrote the pilgrim's progress, and he afterward married mrs. o'shea." this was equalled by the other boy who wrote at an examination: "wolsey was a famous general who fought in the crimean war, and who, after being decapitated several times, said to cromwell: 'if i had served you as you have served me i would not have been deserted in my old age.'" paul's studies were always dark and crooked to him till florence bought copies of his books and studied them, and by patient sympathy made all that had been dark light, and all that had been crooked straight. the habit of giving definitions of abstractions to children, and expecting the definitions alone to be comprehended by children, is held up to deserved ridicule in the explanation of the word "analysis" to paul, when cornelia proposed to read the analysis of his character. "if my recollection serves me, the word analysis, as opposed to synthesis, is thus defined by walker: 'the resolution of an object, whether of the senses or of the intellect, into its first elements.' as opposed to synthesis, you observe. _now_ you know what analysis is, dombey." how perfectly simple and clear and expanding this would be to a child's mind! dickens says: "dombey didn't seem absolutely blinded by the light let in upon his intellect, but he made miss blimber a little bow." what loose habits of thought, and how much hypocrisy and mental vagueness are caused by using words instead of realities in the early teaching of children, and then asking them if they understand what we have been telling them! the "little bow" has usually a demoralizing effect. it is a mere farce to call the committing to memory of definitions "education." whatever the subjects, it is a dwarfing process, whether the definitions are memorized at home or at school, silently, by oral repetition, or by singing them. all definition learning as the origin of thought is certain to destroy interest and arrest development and lead to inaccuracy of thought. miss le row's collection of blunders made by children could never have been made if the children had been taught properly. such mistakes as "the body is mostly composed of water, and about one half of avaricious tissue" or "parasite, a kind of umbrella," or "emphasis, putting more distress on one word than on another," should suggest to teachers the absurdity of committing definitions to memory. it is one of the weakest forms of cramming, and is most ridiculous and least useful when the memorizing is done by simultaneous oral repetition. hard times exposes the evils of cramming in the teaching practised in the normal school in which mr. m'choakumchild was trained, and in the definition repetition as given by bitzer, and so highly praised by mr. gradgrind: "bitzer, your definition of a horse:" "quadruped, graminivorous. forty teeth, namely, twenty-four grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisors. sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries sheds hoofs, too. hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. age known by marks in mouth." how clear this would make the conception of a horse to a man who had never seen one! sissy jupe, too, is used to show the failure of cramming to educate a girl of quick intellect and strong emotions. she could not be crammed. m'choakumchild reported that she had a very dense head for figures; that, once possessed with a general idea of the globe, she took the smallest conceivable interest in its exact measurements; that she was extremely slow in the acquisition of dates, unless some pitiful incident happened to be connected therewith; that she would burst into tears on being required (by the mental process) immediately to name the cost of two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps at fourteenpence half-penny; that she was as low down in the school as low as could be; that after eight weeks of induction into the elements of political economy, she had only yesterday been set right by a prattler three feet high, for returning to the question, "what is the first principle of this science?" the absurd answer, "to do unto others as i would that they should do unto me." mr. gradgrind observed, shaking his head, that all this was very bad; that it showed the necessity of infinite grinding at the mill of knowledge as per system, schedule, blue book, report, and tabular statements a to z; and that jupe "must be kept to it." so jupe was kept to it, and became low-spirited, but no wiser. dickens makes the artist in somebody's luggage say: "who are you passing every day at your competitive excruciations? the fortunate candidates whose heads and livers you have turned upside down for life? not you, you are really passing the crammers and coaches." and jemmy lirriper, in describing his teacher, said: "oh, he was a tartar! keeping the boys up to the mark, holding examinations once a month, lecturing upon all sorts of subjects at all sorts of times, and knowing everything in the world out of a book." dickens saw the evils of competitive examinations more clearly than many educators do two generations after him. when educators in schools, colleges, and universities learn a better way to promote pupils, to classify men and women and to rank them at graduation, than by holding promotion and graduation examinations cramming will be of no use, and there shall be no more cramming. dickens was right as usual. the crammers and coaches are those who are tested by "competitive excruciations"; and how those who force through most students boast and strut and lord it over the less successful crammers and coaches on commencement days and other public occasions! what a misleading mockery examinations are as tests of power and character! few even of dickens's phrases contain such a condensation of fact and philosophy as the phrase "whose heads and livers you have turned upside down for life." few phrases deserve more careful consideration from educators. dickens makes the effect on the head still more startling by the description of miss wozenham's brother in mrs. lirriper's legacy. "miss wozenham out of her small income had to support a brother that had had the misfortune to soften his brain against the hard mathematics." in the same story he laughs at the practical results of language cramming usually done in the schools: and the way in which jemmy spoke his french was a real charm. it was often wanted of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable to me i says "noncomprenny, you're very kind but it's no use--now jemmy!" and then jemmy he fires away at 'em lovely, the only thing wanting in jemmy's french being as it appeared to me that he hardly ever understood a word of what they said to him, which made it scarcely of the use it might have been. dickens attempted to picture the feelings of a boy toward his teachers in the days when cramming was almost universally practised in the story of lieutenant-colonel robin redforth, aged nine. when the latin master was captured, he was saved by captain boldheart from the punishment of death to which he was condemned by the crew of the beauty. captain boldheart had been one of his pupils, and he said: "without taking your life, i must yet forever deprive you of the power of spiting other boys. i shall turn you adrift in this boat. you will find in her two oars, a compass, a bottle of rum, a small cask of water, a piece of pork, a bag of biscuit, and my latin grammar. go! and spite the natives if you can find any." when he afterward released him from the savages who were about to eat him, he granted him his life for the second time on condition: " . that he should never under any circumstances presume to teach any boy anything any more. " . that, if taken back to england, he should pass his life in travelling to find out boys who wanted their exercises done, and should do their exercises for nothing, and never say a word about it." when it finally became necessary to hang the latin master, boldheart "impressively pointed out to him that this is what spiters come to." there are many kinds of cram that yet pass as fairly respectable in schools and universities. when the teachers or the professors give notes to be copied by the pupils and memorized, they are cramming. when teachers are storing the memories of children with facts, tables, dates, etc., to be used at some future time, they are cramming. all memorizing by repetition of words, even if they are understood, is cram, if the pupil can work the thought into his life by repetition of process or of operation. words can never take the place of self-activity, nor even of activity. so long as knowledge storing is placed above character development, examinations by "examiners" will retain their power for evil, and so long as such examinations are held cramming will continue. all processes that attempt to educate from without inward, instead of from within outward, are in the last analysis cram. the selfhood must be active in going out for the new knowledge. the child must himself be originative, directive, and executive in the learning process if cram is to be avoided completely. this is the only sure way to secure perfect apperception, and without apperception the new knowledge lies dormant, if not dead, and unrelated in the memory until it disappears, as did bitherstone's. his declensions, according to dickens, were not likely to last out his journey from england to india. chapter vi. free childhood. adulthood can never be truly free till childhood is free. perfect freedom can not be developed in a soul filled with the apperceptive experiences of tyranny. no man is fully free in the freest country in the world who wishes to dominate even his child. the practice of tyranny develops the tyrant. guiding control is entirely different from domination. dickens taught the doctrine of a rich, full, free childhood from the time he wrote nicholas nickleby in . even the sunburned faces of gipsy children, half naked though they be, suggest a drop of comfort. it is a pleasant thing to see that the sun has been there; to know that the air and light are on them every day; to feel that they _are_ children, and lead children's lives; that if their pillows be damp, it is with the dews of heaven, and not with tears; that the limbs of their girls are free, and that they are not crippled by distortions, imposing an unnatural and horrible penance upon their sex; that their lives are spent, from day to day, at least among the waving trees, and not in the midst of dreadful engines which make young children old before they know what childhood is, and give them the exhaustion and infirmity of age, without, like age, the privilege to die. god send that old nursery tales were true, and that gipsies stole such children by the score! if he had written nothing but this exquisite quotation from nicholas nickleby he would have deserved recognition as an educator. it shows a clear insight into the great principles of physical freedom, intellectual freedom, and spiritual freedom. in the old curiosity shop he made the world sympathize with a child who lived with an old man. he gives the keynote to this fundamental thought of the book in the opening chapter: it always grieves me to contemplate the initiation of children into the ways of life when they are scarcely more than infants. it checks their confidence and simplicity--two of the best qualities that heaven gives them--and demands that they share our sorrows before they are capable of entering into our enjoyments. little nell had the sadness of a lonely childhood, though her grandfather lived with but the one aim of making her happy. in martin chuzzlewit-- tom pinch's sister was governess in a family, a lofty family; perhaps the wealthiest brass and copper founder's family known to mankind. they lived at camberwell; in a house so big and fierce that its mere outside, like the outside of a giant's castle, struck terror into vulgar minds and made bold persons quail. when mr. pecksniff and his daughters went to visit miss pinch she was at that moment instructing her eldest pupil; to wit, a premature little woman of thirteen years old, who had already arrived at such a pitch of whalebone and education that she had nothing girlish about her, which was a source of great rejoicing to all her relations and friends. one of the unsolved mysteries is the fact that such a large proportion of parents are so anxious to have their children grow up. the desire may be understood when poverty longs for the time when the little hands may help to win bread, but that wealthy parents should hasten the premature state of adulthood in their children is incomprehensible. a great deal of attention is paid to the blunder of robbing children of real childhood in dombey and son, which is so rich in several departments of educational philosophy. doctor blimber regarded the young gentlemen "as if they were born grown up." paul's life and death were intended as warnings to ambitious parents. florence was robbed of a true childhood by her mother's death and her father's lack of sympathy. briggs and tozer had no childhood; they were persecuted by the ingenious and ignorantly learned adults at home during vacations, as well as by doctor blimber during school time; so that "tozer said, indeed, that choosing between two evils, he would rather stay at school than go home." poor bitherstone had no childhood. he was shipped away from his parents in india to the respectable hell conducted by that widely known and highly reputed child trainer mrs. pipchin. poor little miss pankey spent a great deal of her time in mrs. pipchin's "correctional dungeon." what a mercy it would be if all such unfortunate children could be stolen by the gipsies! mrs. pipchin's theory taught "that it was wrong to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster." when doctor blimber asked paul, six-year-old paul, "if he would like them to make a man of him," the child replied: "i had rather be a child." one of dickens's most successful hits at the common philosophy, that the desired adult characteristics must be developed in childhood in their adult forms, was made in describing mrs. tozer's effort to qualify tozer for the position of a clergyman by making him wear a stiff, starched necktie while he was a boy. when edith upbraided her mother for practically compelling her to marry mr. dombey, her mother asked angrily: "what do you mean? haven't you from a child----" "a child!" said edith, looking at her; "when was i a child? what childhood did you ever leave to me? i was a woman--artful, designing, mercenary, laying snares for men--before i knew myself or you, or even understood the base and wretched aim of every new display i learned. you gave birth to a woman. look upon her. she is in her pride to-night." "you talk strangely to-night, edith, to your own mother." "it seems so to me; stranger to me than to you," said edith. "but my education was completed long ago. i am too old now and have fallen too low, by degrees, to take a new course, and to stop yours, and to help myself. the germ of all that purifies a woman's breast, and makes it true and good, has never stirred in mine, and i have nothing else to sustain me when i despise myself." later, on the night before she was to marry mr. dombey, she said: "oh, mother, mother, if you had but left me to my natural heart when i too was a girl--a younger girl than florence--how different i might have been!" bleak house gives dickens's most striking picture of the deterioration resulting from giving no real childhood to children for a series of generations. during the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this family tree, the house of smallweed, always early to go to business and late to marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has discarded all amusements, discountenanced all storybooks, fairy tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities whatsoever. hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born to it, and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced have been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something depressing on their minds. there has been only one child in the smallweed family for several generations. little old men and women there have been, but no child, until mr. smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weak in her intellect, and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. with such infantine graces as a total want of observation, memory, understanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition to fall asleep over the fire and into it, mr. smallweed's grandmother has undoubtedly brightened the family. there could be no more awful picture than that of a family in which for a series of generations the children had been, through heredity and training, made "little old men and women," who were never permitted to indulge in any childish plays, or to enjoy any stories, or in any way have a genuine childhood, so that they not only came to look like monkeys, but "like monkeys with something depressing on their minds"; and in which the only child for several generations had been mr. smallweed's grandmother, when she became weak in intellect and "fell (for the first time) into a childish state." in the haunted house the wretched child who came to mr. redlaw's room is described as "a baby savage, a young monster, a child who had never been a child." dickens made his greatest plea for a free childhood in hard times. the whole of the educational part of the book condemns the training of mr. gradgrind, although he was an earnest, high-minded gentleman, whose supreme purpose was to train his family in the best possible way. indeed mr. gradgrind was so sure he was right in his views regarding child training that he founded a school to teach the children of coketown in accordance with what he believed to be correct principles. mr. gradgrind is described as a kind cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow children clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge. he seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away. there were five young gradgrinds, and they were models every one. they had been lectured at from their tenderest years; coursed, like little hares. almost as soon as they could run alone they had been made to run to the lecture room. the first object with which they had an association or of which they had a remembrance was a large blackboard with a dry ogre chalking ghastly white figures on it. not that they knew, by name or nature, anything about an ogre. fact forbid! i only use the word to express a monster in a lecturing castle, with heaven knows how many heads manipulated into one, taking childhood captive, and dragging it into gloomy statistical dens by the hair. no little gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was up in the moon before it could speak distinctly. no little gradgrind had ever learned the silly jingle, "twinkle, twinkle, little star; how i wonder what you are"; it had never known wonder on the subject, having at five years old dissected the great bear like a professor owen and driven charles's wain like a locomotive engine driver. no little gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who swallowed tom thumb; it had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous ruminating quadruped with several stomachs. the effect of preventing all kinds of enjoyment for his children in their own home was that they naturally sought for enjoyment surreptitiously in a way of which their father disapproved. but when a man disapproves of legitimate amusements in his family his condemnation of what is improper will have little weight with his children. when mr. gradgrind was going home from the school examination he had to pass near the circus, and he was amazed to find his daughter louisa and his son thomas stealing a view of the performance. phenomenon almost incredible though distinctly seen, what did he then behold but his own metallurgical louisa peeping with all her might through a hole in a deal board, and his own mathematical thomas abasing himself on the ground to catch but a hoof of the graceful equestrian tyrolean flower act! dumb with amazement, mr. gradgrind crossed to the spot where his family was thus disgraced, laid his hand upon each erring child, and said: "louisa! thomas!" both rose, red and disconcerted. but louisa looked at her father with more boldness than thomas did. indeed, thomas did not look at him, but gave himself up to be taken home like a machine. "in the name of wonder, idleness, and folly!" said mr. gradgrind, leading each away by a hand; "what do you do here?" "wanted to see what it was like," returned louisa shortly. "what it was like?" "yes, father." there was an air of jaded sullenness in them both, and particularly in the girl; yet, struggling through the dissatisfaction of her face, there was a light with nothing to rest upon, a fire with nothing to burn, a starved imagination keeping life in itself somehow, which brightened its expression. not with the brightness natural to cheerful youth, but with uncertain, eager, doubtful flashes, which had something painful in them, analogous to the changes on a blind face groping its way. "you! thomas and you, to whom the circle of the sciences is open, thomas and you, who may be said to be replete with facts, thomas and you, who have been trained to mathematical exactness, thomas and you, here!" cried mr. gradgrind. "in this degraded position! i am amazed." "i was tired, father. i have been tired a long time," said louisa. "tired? of what?" asked the astonished father. "i don't know of what--of everything, i think." when they reached home, mr. gradgrind in an injured tone said to mrs. gradgrind, after telling her where he had found the children: "i should as soon have expected to find my children reading poetry." "dear me," whimpered mrs. gradgrind. "how can you, louisa and thomas! i wonder at you. as if, with my head in its present throbbing state, you couldn't go and look at the shells and minerals and things provided for you, instead of circuses!" said mrs. gradgrind. "you know as well as i do, no young people have circus masters, or keep circuses in cabinets, or attend lectures about circuses. what can you possibly want to know of circuses then? i am sure you have enough to do, if that's what you want. with my head in its present state, i couldn't remember the mere names of half the facts you have got to attend to." "that's the reason!" pouted louisa. "don't tell me that's the reason, because it can be nothing of the sort," said mrs. gradgrind. "go and be something-ological directly." after louisa had married mr. bounderby, tom and mr. harthouse were discussing her one evening, and tom said she thought a great deal when she was alone: "ay, ay? has resources of her own," said harthouse. "not so much of that as you may suppose," returned tom; "for our governor had her crammed with all sorts of dry bones and sawdust. it's his system." "formed his daughter on his own model?" suggested harthouse. "his daughter? ah! and everybody else. why, he formed me that way," said tom. "impossible!" "he did though," said tom, shaking his head. "i mean to say, mr. harthouse, that when i first left home and went to old bounderby's, i was as flat as a warming-pan, and knew no more about life than any oyster does." dickens describes a visit louisa made to her father's house, and shows how little of the true home feeling was stirred in her heart, as she approached the place, where she should have had a happy childhood. neither, as she approached her old home now, did any of the best influences of old home descend upon her. her remembrances of home and childhood were remembrances of the drying up of every spring and fountain in her young heart as it gushed out. the golden waters were not there. they were flowing for the fertilization of the land where grapes are gathered from thorns, and figs from thistles. when her father proposed to louisa that she should marry mr. bounderby, she said: "the baby preference that even i have heard of as common among children has never had its innocent resting place in my breast. you have been so careful of me, that i never had a child's heart. you have trained me so well, that i never dreamed a child's dream. you have dealt so wisely with me, father, from my cradle to this hour, that i never had a child's belief or a child's fear." mr. gradgrind was delighted at his apparent success. he could not see, he was so practical and so self-opinionated, that her heart was breaking while she was yielding with external calmness. but the reaping time came soon. mr. harthouse, young, attractive, and unscrupulous, made love to louisa, and finally persuaded her to run away with him. unable to resist the temptation in her own strength, she fled to her father's house through an awful storm. the thunder was rolling into distance, and the rain was pouring down like a deluge, when the door of his room opened. he looked round the lamp upon his table, and saw with amazement his eldest daughter. "louisa!" "father, i want to speak to you." "what is the matter? what is it? i conjure you, louisa, tell me what is the matter." she dropped into a chair before him, and put her cold hand on his arm. "father, you have trained me from my cradle." "yes, louisa." "i curse the hour in which i was born to such a destiny." he looked at her in doubt and dread, vacantly repeating, "curse the hour! curse the hour!" "how could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? where are the graces of my soul? where are the sentiments of my heart? what have you done, o father, what have you done, with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here?" she struck herself with both her hands upon her bosom. "if it had ever been here, its ashes alone would save me from the void in which my whole life sinks." he tightened his hold in time to prevent her sinking on the floor, but she cried out in a terrible voice, "i shall die if you hold me! let me fall upon the ground!" and he laid her down there, and saw the pride of his heart and the triumph of his system lying, an insensible heap, at his feet. in the schoolboy's story, the boy who was to have no holiday at home was invited to spend his holidays with "old cheeseman" and mrs. cheeseman. so i went to their delightful house, and was as happy as i could possibly be. they understand how to conduct themselves toward boys, _they_ do. when they take a boy to the play, for instance, they _do_ take him. they don't go in after it's begun, or come out before it's over. they know how to bring a boy up, too. look at their own! though he is very little as yet, what a capital boy he is! why, my next favourite to mrs. cheeseman and old cheeseman is young cheeseman. when dickens came to his last book his heart was still full of sympathy with the child. edwin drood said to mr. jasper: "life for you is a plum with the natural bloom on. it hasn't been over-carefully wiped off for _you_." in the same book mr. grewgious is described: he was an arid, sandy man, who, if he had been put into a grinding mill, looked as if he would have ground immediately into high-dried snuff. he had a scanty flat crop of hair, in colour and consistency like some very mangy yellow fur tippet; it was so unlike hair, that it must have been a wig, but for the stupendous improbability of anybody's voluntarily sporting such a head. the little play of feature that his face presented was cut deep into it, in a few hard curves that made it more like work; and he had certain notches in his forehead, which looked as though nature had been about to touch them into sensibility or refinement, when she had impatiently thrown away the chisel, and said, "i really can not be worried to finish off this man; let him go as he is." he tried to explain the reason for his peculiarities to rosa: "i mean," he explained, "that young ways were never my ways. i was the only offspring of parents far advanced in life, and i half believe i was born advanced in life myself. no personality is intended toward the name you will so soon change, when i remark that while the general growth of people seem to have come into existence buds, i seem to have come into existence a chip. i was a chip--and a very dry one--when i first became aware of myself." dickens takes a front rank among the educators who have tried to save the child from "child-quellers," and preserve for them the right to a free, rich, real childhood. the saddest sight in the world to him was a child such as he pictured in a tale of two cities: "the children of st. antoine had ancient faces and grave voices." in barbox brothers mr. jackson said of himself: "i am, to myself, an unintelligible book, with the earlier chapters all torn out and thrown away. my childhood had no grace of childhood, my youth had no charm of youth, and what can be expected from such a lost beginning?" dickens tried to save all children from such a beginning. chapter vii. individuality. dickens began to write definitely about individuality in martin chuzzlewit in . martin described a company he met in america "who were so strangely devoid of individual traits of character that any one of them might have changed minds with the other and nobody would have found it out." in david copperfield he makes traddles, who was trained by mr. creakle, say: "i have no invention at all, not a particle. i suppose there never was a young man with less originality than i have." david himself said sagely: "i have encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been born caterpillars." david emphasizes the phase of individuality that teaches the power of each individual to do some special good, when he said to martha when she spoke of the river as the end of her useless life: "in the name of the great judge, before whom you and all of us must stand at his dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! we can all do some good, if we will." in bleak house sir leicester dedlock is represented as of opinion that he should at least think for every one in connection with his estate. the present representative of the dedlocks is an excellent master. he supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any. if he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die. the same absolute contempt for the individuality of the poor is ridiculed in the chimes. sir joseph bowley is a type of the english squire who used to act on the assumption that he had to care for the workmen on his estate, and the poor of his neighbourhood, as he did for his horses and other animals. "i do my duty as the poor man's friend and father; and i endeavour to educate his mind by inculcating on all occasions the one great moral lesson which that class requires--that is, entire dependence on myself. they have no business whatever with--with themselves. if wicked and designing persons tell them otherwise, and they become impatient and discontented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and black-hearted ingratitude--which is undoubtedly the case--i am their friend and father still. it is so ordained. it is in the nature of things. they needn't trouble themselves to think about anything. i will think for them; i know what is good for them; i am their perpetual parent. such is the dispensation of an all-wise providence." it is strange that men so commonly ascribe to providence the dreadful conditions which have resulted from man's ignorance and selfishness, and which providence intended man to reform. esther, in bleak house, speaking of the influence of the chancery suit on richard carstone, said: "the character of much older and steadier people may be even changed by the circumstances surrounding them. it would be too much to expect that a boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences, and escape them." i felt this to be true; though, if i may venture to mention what i thought besides, i thought it much to be regretted that richard's education had not counteracted those influences or directed his character. he had been eight years at a public school, and had learned, i understood, to make latin verses of several sorts, in the most admirable manner. but i never heard that it had been anybody's business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to _him_. _he_ had been adapted to the verses, and had learned the art of making them to such perfection, that if he had remained at school until he was of age i suppose he could only have gone on making them over and over again, unless he had enlarged his education by forgetting how to do it. still, although i had no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very improving, and very sufficient for a great many purposes of life, and always remembered all through life, i did doubt whether richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying them quite so much. richard was one of those unstable men who have good abilities, but who do not use them persistently in the accomplishment of any one purpose, and who never seem to find the sphere for which they are best fitted. they are man-products, not god-products. when richard, after several attempts to work at other things with high enthusiasm for a few weeks, decided to be a physician, esther said: mistrusting that he only came to this conclusion because, having never had much chance of finding out for himself what he was fitted for, and having never been guided to the discovery, he was taken with the newest idea, and was glad to get rid of the trouble of consideration, i wondered whether the latin verses often ended in this, or whether richard's was a solitary case. richard very often came to see us while we remained in london (though he soon failed in his letter writing), and with his quick abilities, his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was always delightful. but though i liked him more and more the better i knew him, i still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted that he had been educated in no habits of application and concentration. the system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, always with fair credit, and often with distinction; but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. they were great qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously won; but, like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. if they had been under richard's direction, they would have been his friends; but richard being under their direction, they became his enemies. any educational system that "addresses hundreds of boys exactly in the same manner" must destroy their individuality. in hard times tom gradgrind became a low, degraded, sensual, dissipated criminal, and dickens accounts for his failure by the unnatural restraint, constant oversight, and the strangling of his imagination in his cradle and afterward. in other words, the boy's selfhood never had a chance to develop, and every power he had naturally to make him strong, true, and independent had helped to work his ruin. in little dorrit mrs. general is herself a model to be avoided, and her system of training is ridiculed because she paid no attention whatever to the selfhood of her pupils except to conceal it artfully and prevent the recognition of any of the evils by which it was surrounded and which it should help to overcome. mrs. general had no opinions. her way of forming a mind was to prevent it from forming opinions. she had a little circular set of mental grooves or rails, on which she started little trains of other people's opinions, which never overtook one another and never got anywhere. even her propriety could not dispute that there was impropriety in the world; but mrs. general's way of getting rid of it was to put it out of sight, and make believe that there was no such thing. this was another of her ways of forming a mind--to cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards, lock them up, and say they had no existence. it was the easiest way and, beyond all comparison, the properest. mrs. general was not to be told of anything shocking. accidents, miseries, and offences were never to be mentioned before her. passion was to go to sleep in the presence of mrs. general, and blood was to change to milk and water. the little that was left in the world, when all these deductions were made, it was mrs. general's province to varnish. in that formation process of hers, she dipped the smallest of brushes into the largest of pots, and varnished the surface of every object that came under consideration. the more cracked it was, the more mrs. general varnished it. there was varnish in mrs. general's voice, varnish in mrs. general's touch, an atmosphere of varnish round mrs. general's figure. dickens wished the training of the real inner selfhood, not the varnishing of the surface merely. not what george macdonald describes as "sandpapering a boy into a saint," but genuine character development by the working out of the selfhood in the improvement of its environment, physically, intellectually, and spiritually. briggs's education, in dombey and son, had been of such a character that "his intellectual fruit had nothing of its original flavour remaining." the character of his real selfhood had been destroyed, not developed, by his "education." in our mutual friend mr. podsnap is used as a type of the men who not only see no need for any person else forming opinions, but who take pains to prevent others forming opinions, so far as possible. as mr. podsnap stood with his back to the drawing-room fire, pulling up his shirt collar, like a veritable cock of the walk literally pluming himself in the midst of his possessions, nothing would have astonished him more than an intimation that miss podsnap, or any young person properly born and bred, could not be exactly put away like the plate, brought out like the plate, polished like the plate, counted, weighed, and valued like the plate. that such a young person could possibly have a morbid vacancy in the heart for anything younger than the plate, or less monotonous than the plate, or that such a young person's thoughts could try to scale the region bounded on the north, south, east, and west by the plate, was a monstrous imagination which he would on the spot have flourished into space. eugene wrayburn's criticism of his father's habit of choosing professions for his sons almost as soon as they were born, or even before, without the slightest possible consideration for their natural aptitudes for the work to which they were assigned, is a severe attack on a condition which exists even yet through the failure of the schools or the homes to discover and reveal to boys and girls their highest powers, so that they may reach their best growth in school or college and choose the profession in which they can do most good and attain their most complete evolution. there is no better field for co-ordinate work by the home and the school than the joint study of the children to find their sphere of greatest power. every child should be helped to find the sphere in which he can most successfully achieve the highest destiny for himself and for humanity. eugene wrayburn's father extended his paternal care and forethought for his children not only by choosing their professions without regard for their selfhood, but by considerately selecting partners for his sons without regard for their individual tastes. eugene, speaking to mortimer lightwood, said: "my respected father has found, down in the parental neighbourhood, a wife for his not-generally-respected son." "with some money, of course?" "with some money, of course, or he would not have found her. my respected father--let me shorten the dutiful tautology by substituting in future m. r. f., which sounds military, and rather like the duke of wellington." "what an absurd fellow you are, eugene!" "not at all. i assure you. m. r. f. having always in the clearest manner provided (as he calls it) for his children by prearranging from the hour of the birth of each, and sometimes from an earlier period, what the devoted little victim's calling and course in life should be, m. r. f. prearranged for myself that i was to be the barrister i am (with the slight addition of an enormous practice, which has not accrued), and also the married man i am not." "the first you have often told me." "the first i have often told you. considering myself sufficiently incongruous on my legal eminence, i have until now suppressed my domestic destiny. you know m. r. f., but not as well as i do. if you knew him as well as i do, he would amuse you." "filially spoken, eugene!" "perfectly so, believe me; and with every sentiment of affectionate deference toward m. r. f. but if he amuses me, i can't help it. when my eldest brother was born, of course the rest of us knew (i mean the rest of us would have known, if we had been in existence) that he was heir to the family embarrassments--we call it before company the family estate. but when my second brother was going to be born by and by, 'this,' says m. r. f., 'is a little pillar of the church.' _was_ born, and became a pillar of the church--a very shaky one. my third brother appeared considerably in advance of his engagement to my mother; but m. r. f., not at all put out by surprise, instantly declared him a circumnavigator. was pitchforked into the navy, but has not circumnavigated. i announced myself, and was disposed of with the highly satisfactory results embodied before you. when my younger brother was half an hour old, it was settled by m. r. f. that he should have a mechanical genius, and so on. therefore i say m. r. f. amuses me." in the same book bradley headstone's school is described as one of a system of schools in which "school buildings, school-teachers, and school pupils are all according to pattern, and all engendered in the light of the latest gospel according to monotony." bradley headstone himself was a mechanical product of a mechanical system of uniformity that destroyed independence and individuality of character. bradley headstone, in his decent black coat and waistcoat, and decent white shirt, and decent formal black tie, and decent pantaloons of pepper and salt, with his decent silver watch in his pocket and its decent hair guard round his neck, looked a thoroughly decent young man of six-and-twenty. he was never seen in any other dress, and yet there was a certain stiffness in his manner of wearing this, as if there were a want of adaptation between him and it, recalling some mechanics in their holiday clothes. he had acquired mechanically a great store of teacher's knowledge. he could do mental arithmetic mechanically, sing at sight mechanically, blow various wind instruments mechanically, even play the great church organ mechanically. from his early childhood up, his mind had been a place of mechanical stowage. the arrangement of his wholesale warehouse, so that it might be always ready to meet the demands of retail dealers--history here, geography there, astronomy to the right, political economy to the left--natural history, the physical sciences, figures, music, the lower mathematics, and what not, all in their several places--this care had imparted to his countenance a look of care. suppression of so much to make room for so much had given him a constrained manner over and above. the most remarkable description of a system of training that totally ignored individuality and chipped and battered and moulded and squeezed all students into the same pattern or mould is the description of the normal school in which mr. gradgrind's teacher, mr. m'choakumchild, was trained. "mr. m'choakumchild and one hundred and forty other schoolmasters had been lately _turned_ at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many piano legs." volumes could not make the sacrifice of individuality clearer than this sentence does. at "the grinders' school boys were taught as parrots are." doctor blimber was condemned because in his system "nature was of no consequence at all; no matter what a boy was intended to bear, doctor blimber made him bear to pattern somehow or other." in doctor strong's school "we had plenty of liberty." the boys had also "noble games out of doors" in this model school of dickens. liberty and noble outdoor sports are the best agencies yet revealed to man for the development of full selfhood in harmony with the fundamental law of education, self-activity. chapter viii. the culture of the imagination. in the preface to the first number of household words dickens said that one of the objects he had in view in publishing the magazine was to aid in the development of the imagination of children. from the time of barnaby rudge his unconscious recognition of the right of the child to have his imagination made freer and stronger can be felt in his writings. his conscious recognition of the absolute necessity of child freedom included the ideal of the culture of the imagination. he reached his educational meridian in hard times, and the pedagogy of this book was devoted almost entirely to child freedom and the imagination; to revealing the fatal error of mr. gradgrind's philosophy, which taught that fact storing was the true way to form a child's mind and character, entirely ignoring the fact that feeling and imagination are the strongest elements of intellectual power and clearness. in bleak house, which immediately preceded hard times, he gave a very able description of the effects of the neglect of the development of the imagination for several generations in the characteristics of the smallweed family. the smallweeds had strengthened themselves in their practical character, discarded all amusements, discountenanced all storybooks, fairy tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities whatsoever. hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born to it, and that the complete little men and women it has produced have been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something depressing on their minds. mr. smallweed's grandfather is in a helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper limbs; but his mind is unimpaired. it holds, as well as it ever held, the first four rules of arithmetic, and a certain small collection of the hardest facts. in respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and other such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used to be. everything that mr. smallweed's grandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. in all his life he has never bred a single butterfly. this alone is a treatise of great suggestiveness on the need of the development of the imagination and the means by which it should be developed. hard times was evidently intended to show the weakness of the herbartian psychology. dickens believed in the distinctive soul as the real selfhood of each child, and as the only true reality in his nature, the dominating influence in his life and character. he did not believe that knowledge formed the soul, but that the soul transformed knowledge. he did not believe that knowledge gave form, colour, and tone to the soul, but that the soul gave new form, colour, and tone to knowledge. he ridiculed the idea that the educator by using great care in the selection of his knowledge could produce a man of such a character as he desired; that ten pounds of yellow knowledge and ten pounds of blue knowledge judiciously mixed in a boy would certainly produce twenty pounds of green manhood. he believed that in every child there is an element "defying all the calculations ever made by man, and no more known to his arithmetic than his creator is." he did not agree with the psychology of which mr. gradgrind was the impersonation. mr. gradgrind believed that he could reduce human nature in all its complexities to statistics, and that "with his rule, and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table, he could weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to." mr. gradgrind had established a school for the training of the children of coketown, and had engaged mr. m'choakumchild to teach it. dickens criticised the normal school training of his time in his description of mr. m'choakumchild's preparation for the work of stimulating young life to larger, richer growth. he and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs. he had been put through an immense variety of paces, and had answered volumes of head-breaking questions. orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography as general cosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land surveying and levelling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the ends of his ten chilled fingers. he had worked his stony way through her majesty's most honourable privy council's schedule b, and had taken the bloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical science, french, german, latin, and greek. he knew all about all the watersheds of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the peoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two-and-thirty points of the compass. ah! mr. m'choakumchild, rather overdone. if he had only learned a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more! dickens criticised the lack of professional training, and the fact-storing process which subordinated feeling and imagination. mr. gradgrind's school was to be opened. the government officer was present to examine it. mr. gradgrind made a short opening address: "now, what i want is facts. teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. facts alone are wanted in life. plant nothing else, and root out everything else. you can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them. this is the principle on which i bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which i bring up these children. stick to facts, sir!" the scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a schoolroom, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's sleeve. the emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. the emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. the emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. "in this life we want nothing but facts, sir; nothing but facts." the speaker, and the schoolmaster, and the third grown person present, all backed a little, and swept with their eyes the inclined plane of little vessels then and there arranged in order, ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim. most of the schoolrooms of the world are yet "plain, bare, monotonous vaults," although nearly fifty years after dickens pointed out the need of artistic form and artistic decoration in schools we are beginning to awake to the idea that the architecture, the colouring, and the art on the walls and in the cabinets of schools may influence the characters of children more even than the teaching. mr. gradgrind proceeded to ask a few questions of the pupils, who in this new school were to be known by numbers--so much more statistical and mathematical--and not by their names. as he stood before the pupils, who were seated in rows on a gallery, "he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts, and prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at one discharge. he seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grim mechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to be stormed away." in the last sentence dickens reveals the true philosophy of sustaining and developing natural and therefore productive interest, and explains how, after destroying it, teachers try to galvanize it into spasmodic activity. "girl number twenty," said mr. gradgrind, squarely pointing with his square forefinger. "i don't know that girl. who is that girl?" "sissy jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and courtesying. "sissy is not a name," said mr. gradgrind. "don't call yourself sissy. call yourself cecilia." "it's father as calls me sissy, sir," returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another courtesy. "then he has no business to do it," said mr. gradgrind. "tell him he mustn't. cecilia jupe. let me see. what is your father?" "he belongs to the horse riding, if you please, sir." mr. gradgrind frowned and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand. "we don't want to know anything about that here. you mustn't tell us about that here. your father breaks horses, don't he?" "if you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring, sir." "you mustn't tell us about the ring, here. very well, then, describe your father as a horsebreaker. he doctors sick horses, i dare say?" "oh, yes, sir." "very well, then. he is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and horsebreaker. give me your definition of a horse." (sissy jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.) "girl number twenty unable to define a horse!" said mr. gradgrind for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. "girl number twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one of the commonest of animals! some boy's definition of a horse. bitzer, yours." bitzer: "quadruped. graminivorous. forty teeth, namely, twenty-four grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisors. sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries sheds hoofs too. hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. age known by marks in mouth----" thus (and much more) bitzer. "now, girl number twenty," said mr. gradgrind, "you know what a horse is." the keen edge of dickens's sarcasm will be felt when it is remembered that sissy jupe was born among horses, had lived with them, played with them, and ridden them all her life, but was "ignorant of the commonest facts regarding a horse." she could not define a horse. the government examiner then stepped forward: "very well," said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding his arms. "that's a horse. now let me ask you girls and boys, would you paper a room with representations of horses?" after a pause, one half the children cried in chorus, "yes, sir!" upon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman's face that "yes" was wrong, cried out in chorus, "no, sir!"--as the custom is in these examinations. "of course, no. why wouldn't you?" a pause. one corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing, ventured the answer, because he wouldn't paper a room at all, but would paint it. "you _must_ paper it," said the gentleman rather warmly. "you must paper it," said thomas gradgrind, "whether you like it or not. don't tell _us_ you wouldn't paper it. what do you mean, boy?" "i'll explain to you, then," said the gentleman, after another and a dismal pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with representations of horses. do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms in reality--in fact? do you?" "yes, sir!" from one half, "no, sir!" from the other. "of course, no," said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrong half. "why, then, you are not to see anywhere what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere what you don't have in fact. what is called taste is only another name for fact." thomas gradgrind nodded his approbation. "this is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery," said the gentleman. "now, i'll try you again. suppose you were going to carpet a room. would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?" there being a general conviction by this time that "no, sir!" was always the right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of "no" was very strong. only a few feeble stragglers said "yes," among them sissy jupe. "girl number twenty," said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge. sissy blushed, and stood up. "so you would carpet your room--or your husband's room, if you were a grown woman and had a husband--with representations of flowers, would you? why would you?" "if you please, sir, i am very fond of flowers," said the girl. "and is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?" "it wouldn't hurt them, sir. they wouldn't crush and wither, if you please, sir. they would be the pictures of what was very pretty, and pleasant, and i would fancy----" "ay, ay, ay! but you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to this point. "that's it! you are never to fancy." "fact, fact, fact," said the gentleman. "fact, fact, fact," repeated mr. gradgrind. "you are to be in all things regulated and governed," said the gentleman, "by fact. we hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. you must discard the word fancy altogether. you have nothing to do with it. you are not to have, in any object of use or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. you don't walk upon flowers in fact; you can not be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. you don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you can not be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. you must use for all these purposes combinations and modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures, which are susceptible of proof and demonstration. this is the new discovery. this is fact. this is taste." then mr. m'choakumchild was asked to teach his first lesson. he went to work in this preparatory lesson not unlike morgiana in the forty thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one after another, to see what they contained. say, good m'choakumchild, when from thy boiling store thou shalt fill each jar brim full by and by, dost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber fancy lurking within--or sometimes only maim him and distort him? the "maiming and distorting" of the imagination filled dickens with alarm. he recognised with great clearness the law that all evil springs from misused good, and he knew that if the imagination is not cultivated properly the child not only loses the many intellectual and spiritual advantages that would result from its true culture, but that it is exposed to the terrible danger of a distorted imagination. tom gradgrind is used as a type of the degradation that results from "the strangling of the imagination." its ghost lived on to drag him down "in the form of grovelling sensualities." that which, truly used, has most power to ennoble, has also, when warped or dwarfed, most power to degrade. as mr. varden told his wife, "all good things perverted to evil purposes are worse than those which are naturally bad." the five young gradgrinds had little opportunity to develop their imaginations. they were watched too closely to have any imaginative plays; they were not allowed to read poetry or fiction; they heard no stories; they had no fairies or genii in their lives; they heard nothing of giants or such false things; no little boy blue ever blew his horn for them; no jack horner took a plum out of any pie in their experience; no such ridiculous person as santa claus ever put anything in their stockings; no cow ever performed the impossible feat of jumping over the moon, so far as they knew; they had never even heard of the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that jack built. they knew, or they could say, that a cow was "a graminivorous ruminating quadruped," and that was enough, in the philosophy of mr. gradgrind. sissy jupe's father got into difficulties in coketown, and he became discouraged and ran away. mr. gradgrind was a good man, and meant to do right, so he adopted sissy. he told her his intentions rather bluntly: "jupe, i have made up my mind to take you into my house, and, when you are not in attendance at the school, to employ you about mrs. gradgrind, who is rather an invalid. i have explained to miss louisa--this is miss louisa--the miserable but natural end of your late career; and you are to expressly understand that the whole of that subject is past, and is not to be referred to any more. from this time you begin your history. you are, at present, ignorant, i know." "yes, sir, very," she answered, courtesying. "i shall have the satisfaction of causing you to be strictly educated; and you will be a living proof to all who come into communication with you, of the advantages of the training you will receive. you will be reclaimed and formed. you have been in the habit of reading to your father and those people i found you among, i dare say?" said mr. gradgrind, beckoning her nearer to him before he said so, and dropping his voice. "only to father and merrylegs, sir. at least, i mean to father, when merrylegs was always there." "never mind merrylegs, jupe," said mr. gradgrind with a passing frown. "i don't ask about him. i understand you to have been in the habit of reading to your father?" "oh, yes, sir, thousands of times. they were the happiest--oh, of all the happy times we had together, sir!" it was only now, when her grief broke out, that louisa looked at her. "and what," asked mr. gradgrind in a still lower voice, "did you read to your father, jupe?" "about the fairies, sir, and the dwarf, and the hunchback, and the genies," she sobbed out. "there," said mr. gradgrind, "that is enough. never breathe a word of such destructive nonsense any more." one night, in their study den, louisa had been overheard to begin a conversation with her brother by saying, "tom, i wonder--" upon which mr. gradgrind, who was the person overhearing, stepped forth into the light, and said, "louisa, never wonder!" herein lay the spring of the mechanical art and mystery of educating the reason without stooping to the cultivation of the sentiments and affections. never wonder. by means of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division settle everything somehow, and never wonder. "bring to me," says mr. m'choakumchild, "yonder baby just able to walk, and i will engage that it will never wonder." mr. gradgrind and mr. m'choakumchild deliberately planned, as a result of a false psychology, to destroy all foolish dreamings and imaginings and wonderings by the children. this same wonder power is the mightiest stimulus to mental and spiritual effort, the source of all true interest, man's leader in his work of productive investigation. wonder power should increase throughout the life of the child. unfortunately, the gradgrind philosophy is practised by many educators. the child's natural wonder power is dwarfed, and an unnatural interest is substituted for it. teachers kill the natural interest, and then try to galvanize its dead body into temporary activity. the child who was made a wonderer and a problem finder by god is made a problem solver by teachers. his dreamings and fancies have been stopped, and he has been stored with facts and made "practical." mr. gradgrind was much exercised by the fact that the people of coketown did not read the scientific and mathematical books in the library so much as poetry and fiction. it was a melancholy fact that after working for fifteen hours a day "they sat down to read mere fables about men and women more or less like themselves, and about children more or less like their own. they took de foe to their bosoms instead of euclid, and seemed to be, on the whole, more comforted by goldsmith than by cocker." this was very discouraging to mr. gradgrind. one night louisa and tom were sitting alone conversing about themselves and the way they were being trained by their father. in the course of their conversation tom said: "i am sick of my life, loo; i hate it altogether, and i hate everybody except you. as to me, i am a donkey, that's what i am. i am as obstinate as one, i am more stupid than one, i get as much pleasure as one, and i should like to kick like one." "not me, i hope, tom." "no, loo, i wouldn't hurt _you_. i made an exception of you at first. i don't know what this--jolly old--jaundiced jail"--tom had paused to find a sufficiently complimentary and expressive name for the parental roof, and seemed to relieve his mind for a moment by the strong alliteration of this one--"would be without you." "tom," said his sister, after silently watching the sparks a while, "as i get older, and nearly growing up, i often sit wondering here, and think how unfortunate it is for me that i can't reconcile you to home better than i am able to do. i don't know what other girls know. i can't play to you, or sing to you. i can't talk to you so as to lighten your mind, for i never see any amusing sights or read any amusing books that it would be a pleasure or a relief to you to talk about, when you are tired." "well, no more do i. i am as bad as you in that respect; and i am a mule too, which you're not. if father was determined to make me either a prig or a mule, and i am not a prig, why, it stands to reason, i must be a mule. and so i am." "i wish i could collect all the facts we hear so much about," said tom, spitefully setting his teeth, "and all the figures, and all the people who found them out; and i wish i could put a thousand barrels of gunpowder under them and blow them all up together." louisa sat looking at the fire so long that tom asked, "have you gone to sleep, loo?" "no, tom, i am looking at the fire." "what do you see in it?" "i don't see anything in it, tom, particularly, but since i have been looking at it i have been wondering about you and me, grown up." "wondering again?" said tom. "i have such unmanageable thoughts," returned his sister, "that they _will_ wonder." "then i beg of you, louisa," said mrs. gradgrind, who had opened the door without being heard, "to do nothing of that description, for goodness' sake, you inconsiderate girl, or i shall never hear the last of it from your father. and, thomas, it is really shameful, with my poor head continually wearing me out, that a boy brought up as you have been, and whose education has cost what yours has, should be found encouraging his sister to wonder, when he knows his father has expressly said that she was not to do it." louisa denied tom's participation in the offence; but her mother stopped her with the conclusive answer, "louisa, don't tell me, in my state of health; for unless you had been encouraged, it is morally and physically impossible that you could have done it." "i was encouraged by nothing, mother, but by looking at the red sparks dropping out of the fire, and whitening and dying. it made me think, after all, how short my life would be, and how little i could hope to do in it." "nonsense!" said mrs. gradgrind, rendered almost energetic. "nonsense! don't stand there and tell me such stuff, louisa, to my face, when you know very well that if it was ever to reach your father's ears i should never hear the last of it. after all the trouble that has been taken with you! after the lectures you have attended, and the experiments you have seen! after i have heard you myself, when the whole of my right side has been benumbed, going on with your master about combustion, and calcination, and calorification, and i may say every kind of ation that could drive a poor invalid distracted, to hear you talking in this absurd way about sparks and ashes!" when a boy hates home, and a girl in her teens is rejoicing at the prospect of a short life, there has been some serious blunder in their training. when her father was proposing to her that she should marry old bounderby, louisa said: "what do _i_ know, father, of tastes and fancies; of aspirations and affections; of all that part of my nature in which such light things might have been nourished? what escape have i had from problems that could be demonstrated, and realities that could be grasped?" as she said it, she unconsciously closed her hand, as if upon a solid object, and slowly opened it as though she were releasing dust or ash. after her marriage to bounderby louisa rarely came home, and dickens gives in detail a sequence of thought that passed through her mind on her approach to the old home after a long absence. none of the true feelings were stirred in her heart. the dreams of childhood--its airy fables, its graceful, beautiful, humane, impossible adornments of the world beyond, so good to be believed in once, so good to be remembered when outgrown, for then the least among them rises to the stature of a great charity in the heart, suffering little children to come into the midst of it, and to keep with their pure hands a garden in the stony ways of this world, wherein it were better for all the children of adam that they should oftener sun themselves, simple and trustful, and not worldly-wise--what had she to do with these? remembrances of how she had journeyed to the little that she knew by the enchanted roads of what she and millions of innocent creatures had hoped and imagined; of how, first coming upon reason through the tender light of fancy, she had seen it a beneficent god, deferring to gods as great as itself; not a grim idol, cruel and cold, with its victims bound hand to foot, and its big dumb shape set up with a sightless stare, never to be moved by anything but so many calculated tons of leverage--what had she to do with these? this quotation shows how clearly dickens saw the relationship between the imagination and the reason. her imagination had been dwarfed and perverted; and her power to feel, and to think, and to appreciate beauty, and to love, and to see god and understand him, was dwarfed and perverted as a consequence. her poor mother, who had always felt that there was something wrong with her husband's training, but dared not oppose him, and fully supported him for the sake of peace which never really came, was worn out, and had almost become a mental wreck. her mind was struggling with the one great question. she tried and tried vainly to find what the great defect of her husband's system was, but she was very sure it had a great weakness somewhere. she tried to explain the matter to louisa when she came to see her. "you learned a great deal, louisa, and so did your brother. ologies of all kinds, from morning to night. if there is any ology left, of any description, that has not been worn to rags in this house, all i can say is, i hope i shall never hear its name." "i can hear you, mother, when you have strength to go on." this, to keep her from floating away. "but there's something--not an ology at all--that your father has missed, or forgotten, louisa. i don't know what it is. i have often sat with sissy near me, and thought about it. i shall never get its name now. but your father may. it makes me restless. i want to write to him, to find out, for god's sake, what it is. give me a pen, give me a pen." when louisa, unable to resist alone the temptation to go with mr. harthouse, fled to her father and told him in such earnest words that she cursed the hour she had been born to submit to his training, she said: "i don't reproach you, father. what you have never nurtured in me, you have never nurtured in yourself; but oh! if you had only done so long ago, or if you had only neglected me, what a much better and much happier creature i should have been this day!" on hearing this, after all his care, he bowed his head upon his hand and groaned aloud. "father, if you had known, when we were last together here, what even i feared while i strove against it--as it has been my task from infancy to strive against every natural prompting that has arisen in my heart; if you had known that there lingered in my breast sensibilities, affections, weakness capable of being cherished into strength, defying all the calculations ever made by man, and no more known to his arithmetic than his creator is--would you have given me to the husband whom i am now sure that i hate?" he said, "no, no, my poor child." "would you have doomed me, at any time, to the frost and blight that have hardened and spoiled me? would you have robbed me--for no one's enrichment--only for the greater desolation of this world--of the immaterial part of my life, the spring and summer of my belief, my refuge from what is sordid and bad in the real things around me, my school in which i should have learned to be more humble, and more trusting with them, and to hope in my little sphere to make them better?" "oh, no, no! no, louisa." "yet, father, if i had been stone blind; if i had groped my way by my sense of touch, and had been free, while i knew the shapes and surfaces of things, to exercise my fancy somewhat in regard to them, i should have been a million times wiser, happier, more loving, more contented, more innocent and human in all good respects, than i am with the eyes i have. now, hear what i have come to say. with a hunger and thirst upon me, father, which have never been for a moment appeased; with an ardent impulse toward some region where rules, and figures, and definitions were not quite absolute, i have grown up, battling every inch of my way. "in this strife i have almost repulsed and crushed my better angel into a demon. what i have learned has left me doubting, misbelieving, despising, regretting what i have not learned; and my dismal resource has been to think that life would soon go by, and that nothing in it could be worth the pain and trouble of a contest." when she had finished the story of her acquaintance with mr. harthouse and his influence over her, she said: "all that i know is, your philosophy and your teaching will not save me. now, father, you have brought me to this. save me by some other means." dickens pictured mr. gradgrind as a good, earnest man, who desired to do only good for his family. in gauging fathomless deeps with his little mean excise rod, and in staggering over the universe with his rusty stiff-legged compasses, he had meant to do great things. within the limits of his short tether he had tumbled about, annihilating the flowers of existence with greater singleness of purpose than many of the blatant personages whose company he kept. a careful study of what louisa said to her father will show that dickens had made a profound study of froebel's philosophy of the feelings and the imagination which is now the dominating theory of psychology, and that he clearly understood what wordsworth meant when he wrote: "whose heart the holy forms of young imagination had kept pure." sissy jupe failed utterly to satisfy mr. m'choakumchild at school. she could not remember facts and dates. she could not be crammed successfully, and she had a very dense head for figures. "she actually burst into tears when required (by the mental process) to name immediately the cost of two hundred and forty-seven muslin caps at fourteen pence halfpenny," so mr. gradgrind told her she would have to leave school. "i can not disguise from you, jupe," said mr. gradgrind, knitting his brow, "that the result of your probation there has disappointed me--has greatly disappointed me. you have not acquired, under mr. and mrs. m'choakumchild, anything like that amount of exact knowledge which i look for. you are extremely deficient in your facts. your acquaintance with figures is very limited. you are altogether backward, and below the mark." "i am sorry, sir," she returned; "but i know it is quite true. yet i have tried hard, sir." "yes," said mr. gradgrind, "yes, i believe you have tried hard; i have observed you, and i can find no fault in that respect." "thank you, sir. i have thought sometimes"--sissy very timid here--"that perhaps i tried to learn too much, and that if i had asked to be allowed to try a little less, i might have----" "no, jupe, no," said mr. gradgrind, shaking his head in his profoundest and most eminently practical way. "no. the course you pursued, you pursued according to the system--the system--and there is no more to be said about it. i can only suppose that the circumstances of your early life were too unfavourable to the development of your reasoning powers, and that we began too late. still, as i have said already, i am disappointed." "i wish i could have made a better acknowledgment, sir, of your kindness to a poor forlorn girl who had no claim upon you, and of your protection of her." "don't shed tears," said mr. gradgrind. "don't shed tears. i don't complain of you. you are an affectionate, earnest, good young woman, and--and we must make that do." how blind a man must become when his faith in a system or a philosophy can make him estimate fact storing so much and character forming so little! sissy could not learn facts, therefore mr. gradgrind mourned. the fact that she was "affectionate, earnest, good," was only a trifling matter--a very poor substitute for brilliant acquirements in dates and facts and mental arithmetic. sissy became, however, the good angel of the gradgrind household. she helped louisa back to a partial hope and sweetness; she gave the younger children, with mr. gradgrind's permission, the real childhood of freedom and imagination, which the older children had lost forever; she brightened the lives even of mrs. and mr. gradgrind, and she helped to save tom from the disgrace of his crime. the closing picture of the book, one of the most beautiful dickens ever painted, tells the story of sissy's future: but happy sissy's happy children loving her; all children loving her; she, grown learned in childish lore; thinking no innocent and pretty fancy ever to be despised; trying hard to know her humbler fellow-creatures, and to beautify their lives of machinery and reality with those imaginative graces and delights, without which the heart of infancy will wither up, the sturdiest physical manhood will be morally stark death, and the plainest national prosperity figures can show will be the writing on the wall--she holding this course as part of no fantastic vow, or bond, or brotherhood, or sisterhood, or pledge, or covenant, or fancy dress, or fancy fair; but simply as a duty to be done. did louisa see these things of herself? these things were to be! dear reader! it rests with you and me whether, in our two fields of action, similar things shall be or not. let them be! we shall sit with lighter bosoms on the hearth, to see the ashes of our fires turn gray and cold. and the educational gradgrinds of the present time sneer at dickens because he puts the early training of a circus above the early training of a christian home like mr. gradgrind's. "the logical consequence of such reasoning," they say, "would be that all children should be trained in circuses." oh, no! dickens did not recommend a circus as a good place to train children. but he did believe that even a circus is a thousand times better than a so-called christian home for the true and complete development of a child, if in the circus the child is free and happy, and is allowed full play for her imagination, and is not arrested in her development by rote storing of facts and too early drill in arithmetic, and has the rich productive love of even one parent, and has blessed opportunities for loving service for her pets and her friends; and if in the so-called christian home she is robbed of these privileges even in the name of religion. sissy had a blessed, free childhood. she lived in her own imaginary world most of the time; she had the deep love of her kind-hearted father and of merrylegs, the dog; she read poetry and fairy tales; she attended to her father's needs; she had many opportunities to show her love in loving service for merrylegs and her father; and she was not dwarfed by fact cramming and formal drill. her chances of reaching a true womanhood were excellent, and when she got the opportunity for the revelation of character, she had character to reveal, and her character developed in its revelation for the benefit and happiness of others. hers was the true christian training after all. homes and schools with such training are centres of great power. one of the strongest pleas ever made for the cultivation of the imagination, "the fancies and affections," and for the teaching of literature, art, and music in the schools was given in hard times, which is an industrial as well as an educational story. indeed, dickens saw that the true solution of industrial questions was the proper training of the race. no attack on the meanness of utilitarianism and no exposition of its terrible dangers could be more incisive and philosophical than the following wonderful sentences: utilitarian economists, skeletons of schoolmasters, commissioners of fact, genteel and used-up infidels, gabblers of many little dog's-eared creeds, the poor you will have always with you. cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives so much in need of ornament; or, in the moment of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you! altogether hard times is one of the most remarkable educational books ever written. dickens made a plea for mental refreshment and recreation for the working classes in nobody's story, similar to that made in hard times: the workingman appealed to the bigwig family, and said: "we are a labouring people, and i have a glimmering suspicion in me that labouring people of whatever condition were made--by a higher intelligence than yours, as i poorly understand it--to be in need of mental refreshment and recreation. see what we fall into, when we rest without it. come! amuse me harmlessly, show me something, give me an escape!" beautiful lizzie hexam, one of the latest and highest creations of dickens, longed to read, but she did not learn to do so because her father objected so bitterly, and she wished to avoid everything that would weaken the bond of love between them, lest she might lose her influence for good over him. her brother charley said to her: "you said you couldn't read a book, lizzie. your library of books is the hollow down by the flare, i think." "i should be very glad to be able to read real books. i feel my want of learning very much, charley. but i should feel it much more, if i didn't know it to be a tie between me and father." dickens was revealing the strange fact that at first many poor and ignorant parents strenuously objected to their children being educated; and he was at the same time showing that great character growth could take place even without the power to read. lizzie's self-sacrifice for her father and charley was a true revelation of the divinity in her nature. though she had not read books, she had read a great deal by her imagination from "the hollow down by the flare." as dickens grew older he saw more clearly the value of the dreaming of childhood while awake, of the deep reveries into which young people often fall, and ought to fall, so that they become oblivious to their environment, and sweep through the universe in strange imaginings, that after all are very real. he was fond of drawing pictures of young people giving free rein to their imaginations, unchecked by intermeddling adulthood, while they watched the glowing fire, or the ashes falling away from the dying coals. lizzie's library from which she got her culture was in "the hollow down by the flare." crippled little jenny wren, the doll's dressmaker, said to lizzie hexam one day, when eugene wrayburn was visiting them: "i wonder how it happens that when i am work, work, working here, all alone in the summer time, i smell flowers." "as a commonplace individual, i should say," eugene suggested languidly--for he was growing weary of the person of the house--"that you smell flowers because you _do_ smell flowers." "no, i don't," said the little creature, resting one arm upon the elbow of her chair, resting her chin upon that hand, and looking vacantly before her; "this is not a flowery neighbourhood. it's anything but that. and yet, as i sit at work, i smell miles of flowers. i smell roses till i think i see the rose leaves lying in heaps, bushels, on the floor. i smell fallen leaves till i put down my hand--so--and expect to make them rustle. i smell the white and the pink may in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that i never was among. for i have seen very few flowers indeed in my life." "pleasant fancies to have, jennie dear!" said her friend, with a glance toward eugene as if she would have asked him whether they were given the child in compensation for her losses. "so i think, lizzie, when they come to me. and the birds i hear! oh!" cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking upward, "how they sing!" how life in any stage might be filled with richness and joy, if imaginations were stored with apperceptive elements and allowed to reconstruct the universe in our fancies! how truly real our fancies might become! in a child's dream of a star dickens gives an exquisite picture of the influence of imagination in spiritual evolution. there was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. he had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. these two used to wonder all day long. they wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of god who made the lovely world. they used to say to one another, sometimes, supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry? they believed they would be sorry. for, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hillsides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more. there was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. it was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. whoever saw it first cried out, "i see the star!" and often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. so they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again to bid it good night; and when they were turning round to sleep they used to say, "god bless the star!" but while she was still very young, oh very, very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so very weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, "i see the star!" and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, "god bless my brother and the star!" dickens had shown his recognition of the inestimable value of the imagination, and the importance of giving it free play and of doing everything possible to stimulate its activity by freedom, and story, and play, and literature, music, and art, but his description of jemmy jackman lirriper's training shows a keener appreciation than any of his other writings of the value of the child's games in which personation is the leading characteristic; in which spools, or spoons, or blocks, or sticks are people or animals, with regular names and distinct characteristics and responsible duties, and in which chairs and tables and boxes are coaches, or steamboats, or railway trains. no friends are ever more real than those of the child's creative imagination, with things to represent them; no rides ever give greater delight than those rides in trains that move only in the imaginations of the children, who construct them by placing the chairs in a row, and who act as engineers, conductors, and brakemen. such games form the best elements out of which the child's life power can be made, especially if the adulthood of his home sympathizes with him in his enterprises. they afford an outlet for his imaginative plans. in them he forms new worlds of his own, which are adapted to his stage of development, and in which he can be the creator and the centre of executive influence. jemmy jackman lirriper's training was ideal in most of his home life, though he had no father or mother to love and guide him. the miles and miles that me and the major have travelled with jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, jemmy driving on the coach box, which is the major's brass-bound writing desk on the table, me inside in the easy-chair, and the major guard up behind with a brown-paper horn doing it really wonderful. i do assure you, my dear, that sometimes when i have taken a few winks in my place inside the coach and have come half awake by the flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet driving and the major blowing up behind to have the change of horses ready when we got to the inn, i have believed we were on the old north road that my poor lirriper knew so well. then to see that child and the major both wrapped up getting down to warm their feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of the paper match boxes on the chimney piece, is to see the major enjoying it fully as much as the child i am very sure, and it's equal to any play when coachee opens the coach door to look in at me inside and say "wery 'past that 'tage.--'prightened old lady?" such plays as dickens here describes make one of the greatest differences between a real childhood and a barren childhood. the lack of opportunities for such perfect plays and such complete sympathy in their plays gives to the faces of orphan children brought up in institutions the distinctive look which marks them everywhere, so that they can be easily recognised by experienced students of happy childhood. but jemmy's make believe was not ruthlessly cut short with his early childhood. he continued his imaginative operations, or it might make it clearer to say his operative imaginations, after he went to school; and those beautiful old people, mrs. lirriper and major jackman, continued their interest, their real, perfectly sympathetic interest in his plans. neither should i tell you any news, my dear, in telling you that the major is still a fixture in the parlours quite as much so as the roof of the house, and that jemmy is of boys the best and brightest, and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty young mother, mrs. edson, being deserted in the second floor and dying in my arms, fully believing that i am his born gran and him an orphan; though what with engineering since he took a taste for it, and him and the major making locomotives out of parasols, broken iron pots, and cotton reels, and them absolutely a-getting off the line and falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal to the originals, it really is quite wonderful. and when i says to the major, "major, can't you by _any_ means give us a communication with the guard?" the major says, quite huffy, "no, madam, it's not to be done"; and when i says, "why not?" the major says, "that is between us who are in the railway interest, madam, and our friend, the right honourable vice-president of the board of trade"; and if you'll believe me, my dear, the major wrote to jemmy at school to consult him on the answer i should have before i could get even that amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that when we first began with the little model and the working signals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real), and when i says, laughing, "what appointment am i to hold in this undertaking, gentlemen?" jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells me, dancing, "you shall be the public, gran," and consequently they put upon me just as much as ever they like, and i sit a-growling in my easy-chair. my dear, whether it is that a grown man as clever as the major can not give half his heart and mind to anything--even a plaything--but must get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so or whether it is not so, i do not undertake to say; but jemmy is far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the major in the management of the united grand junction lirriper and jackman great norfolk parlour line, "for," says my jemmy with the sparkling eyes when it was christened, "we must have a whole mouthful of name, gran, or our dear old public"--and there the young rogue kissed me--"won't stump up." so the public took the shares--ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was spent twelve preference at one and sixpence--and they were all signed by jemmy and countersigned by the major, and between ourselves much better worth the money than some shares i have paid for in my time. in the same holidays the line was made and worked and opened and ran excursions and collisions and had burst its boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular, correct, and pretty. the sense of responsibility entertained by the major as a military style of station master, my dear, starting the down train behind time and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with the little coal scuttles off the tray round the man's neck in the street, did him honour; but noticing the major of a night when he is writing out his monthly report to jemmy at school of the state of the rolling stock and the permanent way, and all the rest of it (the whole kept upon the major's sideboard and dusted with his own hands every morning before varnishing his boots), i notice him as full of thought and care, as full can be, and frowning in a fearful manner; but, indeed, the major does nothing by halves, as witness his great delight in going out surveying with jemmy when he has jemmy to go with, carrying a chain and a measuring tape, and driving i don't know what improvements right through westminster abbey, and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside down by act of parliament. as please heaven will come to pass when jemmy takes to that as a profession! the major's participation in the plans of jemmy is a good illustration of the sympathy that froebel and dickens felt for childhood, a sympathy _with_, not _for_, the child. it meant more than approval--it meant co-operation, partnership. some educators would criticise dickens for allowing the major to make the locomotives with parasols, broken pots, and cotton reels. they teach that jemmy should have made these himself. dickens was away beyond such a narrow view as this. the child at first has much more power to plan than to execute. to leave him to himself means the failure of his plans and the irritation of his temper. it is a terrible experience for a child to get the habit of failure. the wise adult will enter into partnership with the child to aid in carrying out the child's plans. he will not even make suggestions of changes in plans when he sees how they might be improved. the plans and the leadership should be absolutely the child's own. the adult should be an assistant, and that only, when skill is required beyond that possessed by the child--either when the mechanical work is too difficult for the child or when more than one person is needed to execute his plan. the adult may sometimes lead the child indirectly to a change of plan, but he should not do it by direct suggestion. the joy is lost for the child when he becomes conscious of the adult as interfering even sympathetically with his own personality. there is a great deal of well-intentioned dwarfing of childhood. the consciousness of partnership, of unity, of sympathetic co-operation, is the best result of such blessed work as the major did with jemmy in carrying out jemmy's plans. he is the child's best friend who most wisely and most thoroughly develops his imagination as a basis for all intellectual strength and clearness, and for the highest spiritual growth. he is the wealthiest man who sees diamonds in the dewdrops and unsullied gold in the sunset tints. david copperfield tells the names of the wonderful books he found in his father's blessed little room, and describes their influence upon his life. they kept alive my fancy and my hope of something beyond that place and time--they and the arabian nights and the tales of the genii. it is curious to me how i could ever have consoled myself under my small troubles (which were great troubles to me) by impersonating my favourite characters in them, as i did, and by putting mr. and miss murdstone into all the bad ones, which i did, too. i have been tom jones--a child's tom jones, a harmless creature--for a week together. i have sustained my own idea of roderick random for a month at a stretch, i verily believe. "let us end with the boy's story," said mrs. lirriper, "for the boy's story is the best that is ever told." there are no other stories so enchanting, or so stimulating, as the stories that fill the imaginations of childhood. chapter ix. sympathy with childhood. the dominant element in dickens's character was sympathy _with_ childhood, not merely for it. he had the productive sympathy that feels and thinks from the child's standpoint. the illustration just given of major jackman's co-operative sympathy with jemmy lirriper in the perfect carrying out of what to most people would have been only "the foolish ideas" of a child, as sincerely as if he had been executing commissions from the prime minister, is an excellent exemplification of the true ideal of sympathy in practice. the major was not working for jemmy's amusement merely; he was a very active and genuinely interested partner with jemmy. "jemmy was far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the major" in the imaginative plays which were the most real life of jemmy. such was the sympathy of dickens with his own children; such sympathy he believed to be the most productive power in the teacher or child trainer for beneficent influence on the character of the child. there is no other characteristic of his writings so marked as his broad sympathy with childhood. sympathy was the origin of all he wrote against coercion in all its dread forms, of all he wrote about robbing children of a real childhood, about the dwarfing of individuality, about the strangling of the imagination, about improper nutrition, about all forms of neglect, and cruelty, and bad training. the more fully his nature is known the more deeply he is loved, because of his great love for the child. from the beginning of his educational work his overflowing, practical sympathy is revealed. he tells us in the preface to nickleby that his study of the yorkshire schools and his delineation of the character of squeers resulted from a resolution formed in childhood, which he was led to form by seeing a boy "with a suppurated abscess caused by its being ripped open by his yorkshire guide, philosopher, and friend with an inky penknife." the sympathy of nicholas, and john browdie, and the cheeryble brothers with smike and all suffering childhood are strong features of the book. dickens's own sympathy has cleared his mind of many fogs that still linger in some minds regarding a parent's rights in regard to his child, even though the parent has never recognised any of the child's rights. the movement in favour of the recognition of the rights of children even against their parents began with dickens. when nicholas discovered that smike was the son of his uncle, ralph nickleby, he went to consult brother charles cheeryble in regard to his duty under the circumstances. he modestly, but firmly, expressed his hope that the good old gentleman would, under such circumstances as he described, hold him justified in adopting the extreme course of interfering between parent and child, and upholding the latter in his disobedience; even though his horror and dread of his father might seem, and would doubtless be represented, as a thing so repulsive and unnatural as to render those who countenanced him in it fit objects of general detestation and abhorrence. "so deeply rooted does this horror of the man appear to be," said nicholas, "that i can hardly believe he really is his son. nature does not seem to have implanted in his breast one lingering feeling of affection for him, and surely she can never err." "my dear sir," replied brother charles, "you fall into the very common mistake of charging upon nature matters with which she has not had the smallest connection, and for which she is in no way responsible. men talk of nature as an abstract thing, and lose sight of what is natural while they do so. here is a poor lad who has never felt a parent's care, who has scarcely known anything all his life but suffering and sorrow, presented to a man who he is told is his father, and whose first act is to signify his intention of putting an end to his short term of happiness by consigning him to his old fate, and taking him from the only friend he has ever had--which is yourself. if nature, in such a case, put into that lad's breast but one secret prompting which urged him toward his father and away from you, she would be a liar and an idiot." nicholas was delighted to find that the old gentleman spoke so warmly, and in the hope that he might say something more to the same purpose, made no reply. "the same mistake presents itself to me, in one shape or other, at every turn," said brother charles. "parents who never showed their love complain of want of natural affection in their children; children who never showed their duty complain of want of natural feeling in their parents; lawmakers who find both so miserable that their affections have never had enough of life's sun to develop them are loud in their moralizings over parents and children too, and cry that the very ties of nature are disregarded. natural affections and instincts, my dear sir, are the most beautiful of the almighty's works, but, like other beautiful works of his, they must be reared and fostered, or it is as natural that they should be wholly obscured, and that new feelings should usurp their place, as it is that the sweetest productions of the earth, left untended, should be choked with weeds and briers. i wish we could be brought to consider this, and, remembering natural obligations a little more at the right time, talk about them a little less at the wrong one." it was chiefly to break the power of ignorant and cruel parenthood over suffering childhood that ralph nickleby was painted with such dark and repellent characteristics, and that poor smike's sufferings were detailed with such minuteness. the sympathy of the world was aroused against the one and in favour of the other, as a basis for the climax of thought which brother charles expressed so truly and so forcefully. the same thought was driven home by the complaint of squeers about one of the boys in dotheboys hall. "the juniorest palmer said he wished he was in heaven. i really don't know, i do _not_ know what's to be done with that young fellow; he's always a-wishing something horrid. he said once he wished he was a donkey, because then he wouldn't have a father as didn't love him! pretty wicious that for a child of six!" it required the genius of dickens to make such a clear picture of an unloving father. even before nicholas nickleby was written dickens had revealed his sympathetic nature. oliver twist's story was written to stir the hearts of his readers in favour of unfortunate children. what a contrast is made between the hardening effects of his treatment by bumble and the "gentleman in the white waistcoat," and the humanizing influence of rose maylie's tear dropped on his cheek. surely no sensitive little boy ever submitted to more unsympathetic treatment than poor oliver. when little oliver was taken before "the gentlemen" that evening, and informed that he was to go that night as general house lad to a coffin maker's, and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered mr. bumble to remove him forthwith. for some time mr. bumble drew oliver along, without notice or remark; for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should; and, it being a windy day, little oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of mr. bumble's coat as they blew open and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee breeches. as they drew near to their destination, however, mr. bumble thought it expedient to look down and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage. "oliver!" said mr. bumble. "yes, sir," replied oliver in a low, tremulous voice. "pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir." although oliver did as he was desired at once, and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. as mr. bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek. it was followed by another, and another. the child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one. withdrawing his other hand from mr. bumble's, he covered his face with both, and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and bony fingers. "well!" exclaimed mr. bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity. "well! of _all_ the ungratefullest and worst-disposed boys as ever i see, oliver, you are the----" "no, no, sir," sobbed oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; "no, no, sir; i will be good indeed; indeed, indeed i will, sir! i am a very little boy, sir; and it is so--so----" "so what?" inquired mr. bumble in amazement. "so lonely, sir! so very lonely!" cried the child. "everybody hates me. oh, sir, don't, don't, pray, be cross to me!" the child beat his hand upon his heart, and looked in his companion's face with tears of real agony. the poor boy was put to bed by sowerberry the first night. his master said, as they climbed the stairs: "your bed's under the counter. you don't mind sleeping among the coffins, i suppose? but it doesn't much matter whether you do or don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else. come, don't keep me here all night!" dickens pitied children for the terrors with which they were threatened, as oliver was threatened by the board, and he pitied them also for the terrors that their imaginations brought to them at night. sowerberry's lack of sympathy was as great as bumble's. when one of his own children showed evidence of dread of retiring alone, dickens sat upstairs with his family in the evenings afterward. he did not tell the child the reason, but she was saved from terror. oliver ran away from sowerberry's, and when passing the workhouse he peeped between the bars of the gate into the garden. a very little boy was there who came to the gate to say "good-bye" to him. he had been one of oliver's little friends. "kiss me," said the child, climbing up the low gate and flinging his little arms round oliver's neck: "good-bye, dear! god bless you!" the blessing was from a young child's lips, but it was the first that oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles and sufferings and troubles and changes of his after-life he never once forgot it. when oliver was taken to commit burglary by bill sykes, and was wounded and brought into the home he was assisting to rob, the good lady of the house sent for a doctor. the doctor dressed the arm, and when the boy fell asleep he brought mrs. maylie and rose to see the criminal. rose sat down by oliver's bedside and gathered his hair from his face. as she stooped over him her tears fell upon his forehead. the boy stirred and smiled in his sleep, as though these marks of pity and compassion had awakened some pleasant dream of a love and affection he had never known. thus a strain of gentle music, or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odour of a flower, or the mention of a familiar word, will sometimes call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that never were in this life; which vanish like a breath; which some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, would seem to have awakened; which no voluntary exertion of the mind can ever recall. "what can this mean?" exclaimed the elder lady. "this poor child can never have been the pupil of robbers!" "vice," sighed the surgeon, replacing the curtain, "takes up her abode in many temples; and who can say that a fair outside shall not enshrine her?" "but at so early an age!" urged rose. "my dear young lady," rejoined the surgeon, mournfully shaking his head, "crime, like death, is not confined to the old and withered alone. the youngest and fairest are too often its chosen victims." "but can you, oh, can you really believe that this delicate boy has been the voluntary associate of the worst outcasts of society?" said rose. the surgeon shook his head in a manner which intimated that he feared it was very possible, and, observing that they might disturb the patient, led the way into an adjoining apartment. "but even if he has been wicked," pursued rose, "think how young he is; think that he may never have known a mother's love, or the comfort of a home; that ill usage and blows, or the want of bread, may have driven him to herd with men who have forced him to guilt. aunt, dear aunt, for mercy's sake think of this, before you let them drag this sick child to a prison, which in any case must be the grave of all his chance of amendment. oh! as you love me, and know that i have never felt the want of parents in your goodness and affection, but that i might have done so, and might have been equally helpless and unprotected with this poor child, have pity upon him before it is too late!" "my dear love," said the elder lady, as she folded the weeping girl to her bosom, "do you think i would harm a hair of his head?" "oh, no," replied rose eagerly. "no, surely," said the old lady; "my days are drawing to their close, and may mercy be shown to me as i show it to others. what can i do to save him, sir?" dickens used the doctor to rebuke the large class of people who are ever ready to believe the worst about a boy, and who are always looking for his depravity instead of searching for the divinity in him. rose's plea for kind treatment for the boy, "even if he has been wicked," was a new doctrine propounded by dickens. the worst boys at home or in school need most sympathy. mrs. maylie's attitude was in harmony with christ's teaching, but quite out of harmony with much that was called christian practice at the time dickens wrote oliver twist. he taught the doctrine that children were turned into evil ways and confirmed in them through lack of sympathy. poor nancy said to rose maylie: "lady," cried the girl, sinking on her knees, "dear, sweet, angel lady, you _are_ the first that ever blessed me with such words as these; and if i had heard them years ago, they might have turned me from a life of sin and sorrow; but it is too late, it is too late!" in the old curiosity shop dickens gave a beautiful picture of a sympathetic teacher in mr. marton. his school was not well lighted or properly ventilated, the furniture was poor, there was no apparatus except a dunce's cap, a cane, and a ruler, his methods were old-fashioned, but he possessed the greatest qualification of a good teacher, deep sympathy with childhood. this was shown by the erasure of the blot from the sick boy's writing; by his asking nell to pray for the boy; by his appreciation of the boy's love; by his hoping for his recovery against the unfavourable reports; by his favourable interpretation of the worst signs; by his absent-mindedness in school; by his giving the boys a half holiday because he could not teach; by his asking them to go away quietly so as not to disturb the sick scholar; by his saying "i'm glad they didn't mind me" when the jolly boys went shouting away; by his telling the sick boy that the flowers missed him and were less gay on account of his absence; by his hanging the boy's handkerchief out of the window at his request, as a token of his remembrance of the boys playing on the green; by the loving way in which he embraced the dying boy, and held his cold hand in his after he was dead, chafing it, as if he could bring back the life into it. dombey and son is full of appeals for the tender sympathy of adulthood for childhood. the story of florence dombey longing for the one look of tenderness, the one word of kindly interest, the one sympathetic caress from her father, which never came to her during her childhood, is one of the most touching stories ever written. it was written to show that children in the most wealthy homes need sympathy as much as any other children, and that they are often most cruelly neglected by their parents. floy pleaded to be allowed to lay her face beside her baby brother's because "she thought he loved her." the love that is given back in exchange for loving interest is shown by paul's loving gratitude to floy for her interest in him, which led her to spend her pocket money in books, so that she might help him with his studies that confused him so. and high was her reward, when one saturday evening, as little paul was sitting down as usual to "resume his studies," she sat down by his side and showed him all that was rough made smooth, and all that was so dark made clear and plain, before him. it was nothing but a startled look in paul's wan face--a flush--a smile--and then a close embrace; but god knows how her heart leaped up at this rich payment for her trouble. "oh, floy," cried her brother, "how i love you! how i love you, floy!" "and i you, dear!" "oh, i am sure, sure of that, floy!" he said no more about it, but all that evening sat close by her, very quiet; and in the night he called out from his little room within hers, three or four times, that he loved her. there is no higher reward than that of the sympathetic teacher who for the first time lets light into a dark mind or heart. the lady whom florence overheard talking to her little orphaned niece about her father's cruel coldness toward her truly said: "not an orphan in the wide world can be so deserted as the child who is an outcast from a living parent's care." as dickens was one of the first to urge that children had rights, so he was one of the first to show that there had been altogether too much thought about the duty of children to parents, and too little about the duty of parents to children. alice marwood, one of the characters in dombey and son, said to harriet carker: "you brought me here by force of gentleness and kindness, and made me human by woman's looks and words and angel's deeds; i have felt, lying here, that i should like you to know this. it might explain, i have thought, something that used to help to harden me. i had heard so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that i took up with the belief that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed was sown the harvest grew." one other point in regard to sympathy was made in dombey and son, that a rough exterior may cover a sympathetic heart. long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision, which is the more beautiful evidence of the almighty's goodness: the delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough, hard captain cuttle hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment! in the model school of dickens doctor strong is said to have been "the idol of the whole school"; and david adds, "it must have been a badly composed school if he had been anything else, for he was the kindest of men." doctor strong's wife, who had been his pupil in early life, said: "when i was very young, quite a little child, my first associations with knowledge of any kind were inseparable from a patient friend and teacher--the friend of my dead father--who was always dear to me. i can remember nothing that i know without remembering him. he stored my mind with its first treasures, and stamped his character upon them all. they never could have been, i think, as good as they have been to me, if i had taken them from any other hands." david said, when telling the story of his first introduction to mr. murdstone: "god help me, i might have been improved for my whole life, i might have been made another creature, perhaps, for life, by a kind word at that season. a word of encouragement and explanation, of pity for my childish ignorance, of welcome home, of reassurance to me that it was home, might have made me dutiful to him in my heart henceforth, instead of in my hypocritical outside, and might have made me respect instead of hate him." in bleak house dickens gave in esther the most perfect type of human sympathy, and by his pathetic pictures of poor jo, phil, the jellyby children, the pardiggle children, and others, stirred a great wave of feeling, which led to a recognition of the duty of adulthood to childhood, and taught the value of sympathy in the training of children. esther laid down a new law, revealed by froebel, but given to the english world by dickens in the weighty sentence, "my comprehension is quickened when my affection is." the lack of sympathy in adulthood is revealed for the condemnation of his readers in mrs. rachael's parting from esther. mrs. rachael was too good to feel any emotion at parting, but i was not so good, and wept bitterly. i thought that i ought to have known her better after so many years, and ought to have made myself enough of a favourite with her to make her sorry then. when she gave me one cold parting kiss upon my forehead, like a thaw drop from the stone porch--it was a very frosty day--i felt so miserable and self-reproachful that i clung to her and told her it was my fault, i knew, that she could say good-bye so easily. "no, esther!" she returned. "it is your misfortune!" poor child, she cried afterward because mrs. rachael was not sorry to part with her. what a different parting she had when leaving the miss donnys' school, where for six years she had been a pupil, and for part of the time a teacher! she received a letter informing her that she was to leave greenleaf. oh, never, never, never shall i forget the emotion this letter caused in the house! it was so tender in them to care so much for me; it was so gracious in that father who had not forgotten me, to have made my orphan way so smooth and easy, and to have inclined so many youthful natures toward me, that i could hardly bear it. not that i would have had them less sorry--i am afraid not; but the pleasure of it, and the pain of it, and the pride and joy of it, and the humble regret of it, were so blended, that my heart seemed almost breaking while it was full of rapture. the letter gave me only five days' notice of my removal. when every minute added to the proofs of love and kindness that were given me in those five days; and when at last the morning came, and when they took me through all the rooms that i might see them for the last time; and when some one cried, "esther, dear, say good-bye to me here, at my bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!" and when others asked me only to write their names, "with esther's love"; and when they all surrounded me with their parting presents, and clung to me weeping, and cried, "what shall we do when dear, dear esther's gone!" and when i tried to tell them how forbearing and how good they had all been to me, and how i blessed and thanked them every one--what a heart i had! and when the two miss donnys grieved as much to part with me as the least among them; and when the maids said, "bless you, miss, wherever you go!" and when the ugly lame old gardener, who i thought had hardly noticed me in all those years, came panting after the coach to give me a little nosegay of geraniums, and told me i had been the light of his eyes--indeed the old man said so!--what a heart i had then! this was intended to show the results of her sympathy toward the pupils and everybody connected with the school. mrs. jellyby is an immortal picture of the woman who neglects her family on account of her interest in borrioboola gha, or some other place for which her sympathy is aroused. dickens held that a woman's first duty is to her children. the wretched mr. jellyby, almost distracted by the poor meals, the disorder of his home, and the wild condition of his unfortunate family, said to his daughter, "never have a mission, my dear." caddy emphasized the thought dickens had given in dombey and son through alice marwood when she said to esther: "oh, don't talk of duty as a child, miss summerson; where's ma's duty as a parent? all made over to the public and africa, i suppose! then let the public and africa show duty as a child; it's much more their affair than mine. you are shocked, i dare say! very well, so am i shocked, too; so we are both shocked, and there's an end of it!" on another occasion, overcome by emotion at the thought of her mother's neglect, she said to esther: "i wish i was dead. i wish we were all dead. it would be a great deal better for us." in a moment afterward she kneeled on the ground at my side, hid her face in my dress, passionately begged my pardon, and wept. i comforted her, and would have raised her, but she cried, no, no; she wanted to stay there! "you used to teach girls," she said. "if you could only have taught me, i could have learned from you! i am so very miserable, and like you so much!" how the jellyby children loved and trusted esther! how all children loved and trusted her for her true sympathy! poor jo swept the steps at the graveyard where the friend who spoke kindly to him lay buried, and he always said of him, "he wos wery good to me, he wos." and jo's other friends, mr. snagsby, whose sympathy drew half crowns from his pocket, and mr. george, and doctor woodcourt, and mr. jarndyce, and esther, showed their kindly sympathy for the wretched boy so fully that the reading world loved them as real friends, and this loving admiration led the christian world to think more clearly in regard to christ's teachings about the little ones. no heart can resist the plea for sympathy for such as jo in the description of his last illness and death. when the end was very near, as allan woodcourt was watching the heavy breathing of the sufferer, after a short relapse into sleep or stupor he makes of a sudden a strong effort to get out of bed. "stay, jo! what now?" "it's time for me to go to that there berryin'-ground, sir," he returns with a wild look. "lie down, and tell me. what burying-ground, jo?" "where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, he wos. it's time fur me to go down to that there berryin'-ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. i wants to go there and be berried. he used fur to say to me, 'i am as poor as you to-day, jo,' he ses. i wants to tell him that i am as poor as him now, and have come there to be laid along with him." "by and bye, jo. by and bye." "ah! p'raps they wouldn't do it if i was to go myself. but will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?" "i will, indeed." "thank'ee, sir. thank'ee, sir. they'll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it's allus locked. and there's a step there, as i used for to clean with my broom.--it's turned wery dark, sir. is there any light a-comin'?" "it is coming fast, jo." fast. the cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end. "jo, my poor fellow!" "i hear you, sir, in the dark, but i'm a-gropin'--a-gropin'--let me catch hold of your hand." "jo, can you say what i say?" "i'll say anythink as you say, sir, for i knows it's good." "our father." "our father!--yes, that's wery good, sir." "which art in heaven." "art in heaven--is the light a-comin', sir?" "it is close at hand. hallowed be thy name!" "hallowed be--thy----" the light is come upon the dark benighted way. dead! dead, your majesty. dead, my lords and gentlemen. dead, right reverends and wrong reverends of every order. dead, men and women, born with heavenly compassion in your hearts. and dying thus around us every day. one of the best of dickens's illustrations of gratitude for sympathy is the case of phil squod, mr. george's assistant in the shooting gallery. he was a mere child in everything but years of hard experiences, but he was devoted heart and soul to mr. george for a kindly word of hearty sympathy. so devoted was he that he attached himself to mr. george and became his faithful servant, and found his truest happiness in his service of love. phil recalled the story to mr. george. "it was after the case-filling blow-up when i first see you, commander. you remember?" "i remember, phil. you were walking along in the sun." "crawling, guv'ner, again a wall----" "true, phil--shouldering your way on----" "in a nightcap!" exclaims phil, excited. "in a nightcap----" "and hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries phil, still more excited. "with a couple of sticks. when----" "when you stops, you know," cries phil, putting down his cup and saucer, and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to me, 'what, comrade! you have been in the wars!' i didn't say much to you, commander, then, for i was took by surprise that a person so strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a limping bag of bones as i was. but you says to me, says you, delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was like a glass of something hot: 'what accident have you met with? you have been badly hurt. what's amiss, old boy? cheer up, and tell us about it!' cheer up! i was cheered already! i says as much to you, you says more to me, i says more to you, you says more to me, and here i am, commander! here i am, commander!" cries phil, who has started from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "if a mark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers take aim at me. they can't spoil _my_ beauty. _i'm_ all right. come on! if they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. let 'em knock me well about the head. _i_ don't mind! if they want a light weight, to be throwed for practice, cornwall, devonshire, or lancashire, let 'em throw me. they won't hurt _me_. i have been throwed all sorts of styles all my life!" pip said in great expectations: it is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted, duty-doing man flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by, and i know right well that any good that intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented joe, and not of restless aspiring discontented me. dear, simple-hearted joe gargery! when every one else was abusing pip at the great dinner party, he showed his sympathy for him by putting some more gravy on his plate. in our mutual friend lizzie hexam, sympathizing with her father so much that she would not learn to read because he was bitterly prejudiced against education, but sympathizing so much with her brother charley that she had him educated secretly so that he might become a teacher, is an illustration of nearly perfect sympathy. the happiness of the little "minders" at old betty higden's is in sharp contrast to the misery of the boarders of the respectable (?) establishment of mrs. pipchin. in the one case was abject poverty and loving sympathy, in the other plenty and cruel selfishness. when mr. and mrs. boffin were adopting johnnie from betty higden's care, the brave old woman said: "if i could have kept the dear child without the dread that's always upon me of his coming to that fate i have spoken of, i could never have parted with him, even to you. for i love him, i love him, i love him! i love my husband long dead and gone, in him; i love my children dead and gone, in him; i love my young and hopeful days dead and gone, in him. i couldn't sell that love, and look you in your bright kind face. it's a free gift." betty was not a logically reasoning woman, but god is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads. dickens spoke with great enthusiasm in his american notes of the practical sympathy of doctor howe with all afflicted children, especially with blind children, closing his sketch of the wonderful work he had done with the sentence: "there are not many persons, i hope and believe, who after reading these passages can ever hear that name with indifference." he noted that laura bridgman had a special desire for sympathy. she is fond of having other children noticed and caressed by the teachers, and those whom she respects; but this must not be carried too far, or she becomes jealous. she wants to have her share, which, if not the lion's, is the greater part; and if she does not get it, she says, "_my mother will love me_." dickens's types of sympathy with children grew more perfect as he grew older. in his later years his head began to catch up with his heart. major jackman, mrs. lirriper, and doctor marigold are among his most wonderfully sympathetic characters. what an ideal sending away to school jemmy lirriper had! so the major being gone out and jemmy being at home, i got the child into my little room here and i stood him by my chair and i took his mother's own curls in my hand and i spoke to him loving and serious. and when i had reminded the darling how that he was now in his tenth year, and when i had said to him about his getting on in life pretty much what i had said to the major, i broke to him how that we must have this same parting, and there i was forced to stop, for there i saw of a sudden the well-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that time! but with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon, and he says gravely, nodding through his tears: "i understand, gran--i knew it _must_ be, gran--go on, gran, don't be afraid of _me_." and when i had said all that ever i could think of, he turned his bright steady face to mine, and he says just a little broken here and there: "you shall see, gran, that i can be a man, and that i can do anything that is grateful and loving to you; and if i don't grow up to be what you would like to have me--i hope it will be--because i shall die." and with that he sat down by me, and i went on to tell him of the school, of which i had excellent recommendations, and where it was and how many scholars, and what games they played as i had heard, and what length of holidays, to all of which he listened bright and clear. and so it came that at last he says: "and now, dear gran, let me kneel down here where i have been used to say my prayers, and let me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me cry, for you have been more than father--more than mother--more than brothers, sisters, friends--to me!" and so he did cry, and i too, and we were both much the better for it. dear old doctor marigold, the travelling auctioneer, in his tender sympathy for his little girl when her mother was so cruel to her, whispering comforting words in her ear as he was calling for bids on his wares while she was dying, and afterward loving the deaf-mute child whom he adopted in memory of his own child whom he had lost, has made thousands more kindly sympathetic with children. in the novel that he was writing when he died dickens makes canon crisparkle say to helena landless: "you have the wisdom of love, and it was the highest wisdom ever known upon this earth, remember." david copperfield said, "i hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world." the effect of lack of true sympathy on the heart that should have felt and shown it is revealed in what sydney carton said to mr. lorry: "if you could say with truth to your own solitary heart to-night, 'i have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude and respect, of no human creature; i have won myself a tender place in no regard; i have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by,' your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight curses; would they not?" the contrast between the coldness and heartlessness of his parents or guardians and the encouraging sympathy of his teacher is one of the strongest features in the story of barbox brothers (mugby junction). "you remember me, young jackson?" "what do i remember if not you? you are my first remembrance. it was you who told me that was my name. it was you who told me that on every th of december my life had a penitential anniversary in it called a birthday. i suppose the last communication was truer than the first!" "what am i like, young jackson?" "you are like a blight all through the year to me. you hard-lined, thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask on! you are like the devil to me--most of all when you teach me religious things, for you make me abhor them." "you remember me, mr. young jackson?" in another voice from another quarter: "most gratefully, sir. you are the ray of hope and prospering ambition in my life. when i attended your course i believed that i should come to be a great healer, and i felt almost happy--even though i was still the one boarder in the house with that horrible mask, and ate and drank in silence and constraint with the mask before me every day. as i had done every, every, every day through my school time and from my earliest recollection." "what am i like, mr. young jackson?" "you are like a superior being to me. you are like nature beginning to reveal herself to me. i hear you again as one of the hushed crowd of young men kindling under the power of your presence and knowledge, and you bring into my eyes the only exultant tears that ever stood in them." "you remember me, mr. young jackson?" in a grating voice from quite another quarter: "too well. you made your ghostly appearance in my life one day, and announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly changed. you showed me which was my wearisome seat in the galley of barbox brothers. you told me what i was to do, and what to be paid; you told me afterward, at intervals of years, when i was to sign for the firm, when i became a partner, when i became the firm. i know no more of it, or of myself." "what am i like, mr. young jackson?" "you are like my father, i sometimes think. you are hard enough and cold enough so to have brought up an acknowledged son. i see your scanty figure, your close brown suit, and your tight brown wig; but you, too, wear a wax mask to your death. you never by a chance remove it; it never by a chance falls off; and i know no more of you." chapter x. child study and child nature. dickens was a profound student of children, and he revealed his consciousness of the need of a general study of childhood in all he wrote about the importance of a free childhood, individuality, the imagination, coercion, cramming, and wrong methods of training children. he criticised the blindness of those who saw boys as a class or in a limited number of classes, distinguished by external and comparatively unimportant characteristics, in mr. grimwig, "who never saw any difference in boys, and only knew two sorts of boys, mealy boys and beef-faced boys." he exposed the ignorance--the wilful ignorance--of vast numbers of parents and teachers who indignantly resent the suggestion that they need to study children, in jane murdstone. when jane was interfering in the management of david, and with her brother totally misunderstanding him and misrepresenting him, his timid mother ventured to say: "i beg your pardon, my dear jane, but are you quite sure--i am certain you'll excuse me, my dear jane--that you quite understand davy?" "i should be somewhat ashamed of myself, clara," returned miss murdstone, "if i could not understand the boy, or any boy. i don't profess to be profound, but i do lay claim to common sense." many jane murdstones still claim that it is not necessary to study so common a thing as a boy. yet a child is the most wonderful thing in the world, and, whether the jane murdstones in the schools and homes like it or not, the wise people _are_ studying the child with a view to finding out what he should be guided to do in the accomplishment of his own training. richard carstone had been eight years at school, and he was a miserable failure in life, although a man of good ability. "it had never been anybody's business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to him." esther wisely said: "i did doubt whether richard would not have profited by some one studying him a little, instead of his studying latin verses so much." dickens studied every subject about which he wrote with great care and discrimination. as an instance of this careful study it may be stated that medical authorities say that the description of smike's sickness and death is the best description of consumption ever written. dickens had a wonderful imagination, but he never relied on his imagination for his facts or his philosophy. it is therefore reasonable to believe that as he wrote more about children than any other man or woman, he was the greatest and most reverent student of childhood that england has produced. in addition to the revelations of his conclusions given in the evolution of his child characters, and in the many illustrations of good and of bad training, he continually makes direct statements in regard to child nature and how to deal with it in its varied manifestations. his central motive was expressed by the old gentleman who found little nell astray in london: "i love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from god, love us." his ideal of unperverted child nature was entirely different from that which had been taught by theology and psychology. he believed the child to be pure and good, and that even when heredity was bad, its baneful influences need not blight the divinity in his life, if he was wisely trained and had a free life of self-activity, a suitable environment, and truly sympathetic friends. "it would be a curious speculation," said i, after some restless turns across and across the room, "to imagine her in her future life, holding her solitary way among a crowd of wild, grotesque companions, the only pure, fresh, youthful object in the throng." to keep children pure and fresh was the chief aim of his life work. he had no respect for those who treated children as if they were grown-up, reasonable beings; who judged children as they would judge adults, and therefore misjudged them. he always remembered that a child was a little stranger in a new world, and that his complex nature had to adjust itself to its environment. he had a perfect, reverent, considerate sympathy for the timid young soul venturing to look out upon its new conditions. one of the most pathetic things in the world to him was the fact that children are nearly universally misunderstood and misinterpreted. how he longed to tear down the barriers of formalism, and conventionality, and indifference, and misconception from the lives of parents and teachers, so that timid children might be true to their better natures in their presence. when little florence timidly presented herself, mr. dombey stopped in his pacing up and down and looked toward her. had he looked with greater interest and with a father's eye, he might have read in her keen glance the impulses and fears that made her waver; the passionate desire to run clinging to him, crying, as she hid her face in his embrace, "oh, father, try to love me! there's no one else!" the dread of a repulse; the fear of being too bold, and of offending him; the pitiable need in which she stood of some assurance and encouragement; and how her overcharged young heart was wandering to find some natural resting place for its sorrow and affection. but he saw nothing of this. he saw her pause irresolutely at the door and look toward him; and he saw no more. "come in," he said, "come in; what is the child afraid of?" she came in, and after glancing round her for a moment with an uncertain air, stood pressing her small hands hard together, close within the door. "come here, florence," said her father coldly. "do you know who i am?" "yes, papa." "have you nothing to say to me?" the tears that stood in her eyes as she raised them quickly to his face were frozen by the expression it wore. she looked down again and put out her trembling hand. mr. dombey took it loosely in his own, and stood looking down upon her for a moment, as if he knew as little as the child what to say or do. "there! be a good girl," he said, patting her on the head, and regarding her, as it were, by stealth with a disturbed and doubtful look. "go to richards. go!" his little daughter hesitated for another instant as though she would have clung about him still, or had some lingering hope that he might raise her in his arms and kiss her. she looked up in his face once more. he thought how like her expression was then to what it had been when she looked round at the doctor--that night--and instinctively dropped her hand and turned away. it was not difficult to perceive that florence was at a great disadvantage in her father's presence. it was not only a constraint upon the child's mind, but even upon the natural grace and freedom of her actions. the child, in her grief and neglect, was so gentle, so quiet and uncomplaining, was possessed of so much affection that no one seemed to care to have, and so much sorrowful intelligence that no one seemed to mind or think about the wounding of, that polly's heart was sore when she was left alone again. the same lesson was given to parents and teachers in murdstone's treatment of davy. the sensitive, shy boy was regarded as sullen, and treated "like a dog" in consequence. oh, what bitterness it puts into a child's life to be misunderstood by its dearest friends! if there were no other reason for the co-operative study of children by parents and teachers, it would be a sufficient reason that they might be understood and appreciated. many lives are made barren and wicked by the failure of parents and teachers to understand them. it is so easy for children to get the impression that they are not liked by adults. when walter started life in mr. dombey's great warehouse, his uncle, old solomon gills, with whom he lived, asked him on his return from work the first day: "has mr. dombey been there to-day?" "oh, yes! in and out all day." "he didn't take any notice of you, i suppose?" "yes, he did. he walked up to my seat--i wish he wasn't so solemn and stiff, uncle--and said, 'oh! you are the son of mr. gills, the ships' instrument maker.' 'nephew, sir,' i said. 'i said nephew, boy,' said he. but i could take my oath he said son, uncle." "you're mistaken, i dare say. it's no matter." "no, it's no matter, but he needn't have been so sharp, i thought. there was no harm in it, though he did say son. then he told me that you had spoken to him about me, and that he had found me employment in the house accordingly, and that i was expected to be attentive and punctual, and then he went away. i thought he didn't seem to like me much." "you mean, i suppose," observed the instrument maker, "that you didn't seem to like him much." "well, uncle," returned the boy, laughing, "perhaps so; i never thought of that." this short selection reveals the disrespect for childhood which leads adulthood to flatly contradict what a child says, whether he is making a statement of fact or of opinion. this is most inconsiderate, and naturally leads to a corresponding disrespect for adulthood on the part of the child. the selection clearly intimates that childhood would be more happy, and like adulthood better, if adulthood was not so "solemn and stiff." parents and teachers should learn from solomon's philosophy that a child's feelings toward an adult partly determine his impressions regarding the attitude of adulthood toward him. the first thing necessary in training a child to be his real, best self is to win his affectionate regard and confidence. one has to be very true, very unconventional, and very joyous, to do this fully. dickens pitied the child because, even when he is understood, his wishes, plans, and decisions are not treated with respect. this is a gross injustice to the child's nature. as pip so truly said: "it may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned irish hunter." adulthood needs to learn no lesson more than that childhood lives a life of its own, that that life should not be tested by the scales and tape lines of adulthood, and that within its range of action its choice should be respected, and its opinions treated with reverent consideration. mrs. lirriper said that when she used to read the bible to mrs. edson, when that lady was dying, "though she took to all i read to her, i used to fancy that next to what was taught upon the mount she took most of all to his gentle compassion for us poor women, and to his young life, and to how his mother was proud of him, and treasured his sayings in her heart." the divinity in any child will grow more rapidly if his mother "treasures his sayings in her heart." we need more reverence for the child. dickens tried to make parents regard the child as a sacred thing, which should always be the richest joy of his parents. speaking of mrs. darnay, in the tale of two cities, he says: the time passed, and her little lucie lay on her bosom. then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. let greater echoes resound as they would, the young mother at the cradle side could always hear those coming. they came, and the shady house was sunny with a child's laugh, and the divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had confided hers, seemed to take her child in his arms, as he took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her. dickens had profound faith in children whose true development had not been arrested. doctor strong had a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall.... he appealed in everything to the honour and good faith of the boys, and relied on their possession of those qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy. reliance begets reliance. faith increases the qualities that merit faith. david said the doctor's reliance on the boys "worked wonders." no wonder it worked wonders. we can help a boy to grow no higher than our faith in him can reach. chapter xi. bad training. in addition to the bad training found in so many of his best-known schools, to show the evils of coercion in all forms, of the child depravity ideal, of the loss of a free, real, rich childhood, of the dwarfing of individuality, of the deadening of the imagination, and other similar evils, dickens's books, from oliver twist to edwin drood, contain many illustrations of utterly wrong methods of training children. the mean and cruel way in which children used to be treated by the managers of institutions is described in oliver twist. dickens said that when oliver was born he cried lustily. if he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of church wardens and overseers, perhaps he would have cried the louder. "bow to the board," said bumble, when he was brought before that august body. oliver brushed away two or three tears that were lingering in his eyes, and seeing no board but the table, fortunately bowed to that. "what's your name, boy?" said the gentleman in the high chair. oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which made him tremble; and the beadle gave him another tap behind, which made him cry. these two causes made him answer in a very low and hesitating voice; whereupon a gentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a fool. which was a capital way of raising his spirits and putting him quite at his ease. "boy," said the gentleman in the high chair, "listen to me. you know you're an orphan, i suppose?" "what's that, sir?" inquired poor oliver. "the boy is a fool--i thought he was," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. "hush!" said the gentleman who had spoken first. "you know you've got no father or mother, and that you were brought up by the parish, don't you?" "yes, sir," replied oliver, weeping bitterly. "what are you crying for?" inquired the gentleman in the white waistcoat. and, to be sure, it was very extraordinary. what _could_ the boy be crying for? "i hope you say your prayers every night," said another gentleman in a gruff voice, "and pray for the people who feed and take care of you--like a christian." "yes, sir," stammered the boy. the gentleman who spoke last was unconsciously right. it would have been _very_ like a christian, and a marvellously good christian, too, if oliver had prayed for the people who fed and took care of _him_. the dreadful practices of first making children self-conscious and apparently dull by abuse and formalism, and then calling them "fools," or "stupid," or "dunces," are happily not so common now. in barnaby rudge he makes edward chester complain to his father about the way he had been educated. from my childhood i have been accustomed to luxury and idleness, and have been bred as though my fortune were large and my expectations almost without a limit. the idea of wealth has been familiarized to me from my cradle. i have been taught to look upon those means by which men raise themselves to riches and distinction as being beyond my breeding and beneath my care. i have been, as the phrase is, liberally educated, and am fit for nothing. dickens was in terrible earnest to kill all the giants that preyed on the lifeblood of the joy, the hope, the freedom, the selfhood, and the imagination of childhood. he waged unceasing warfare against the system which he described as the excellent and thoughtful old system, hallowed by long prescription, which has usually picked out from the rest of mankind the most dreary and uncomfortable people that could possibly be laid hold of, to act as instructors of youth. the selfish and mercenary ideal and its consequences are dealt with in the training of jonas chuzzlewit: the education of mr. jonas had been conducted from his cradle on the strictest principles of the main chance. the very first word he learned to spell was "gain," and the second one (when he got into two syllables) "money." but for two results, which were not clearly foreseen perhaps by his watchful parent in the beginning, his training may be said to have been unexceptionable. one of these flaws was, that having been long taught by his father to overreach everybody, he had imperceptibly acquired a love of overreaching that venerable monitor himself. the other, that from his early habits of considering everything as a question of property, he had gradually come to look with impatience on his parent as a certain amount of personal estate which had no right whatever to be going at large, but ought to be secured in that particular description of iron safe which is commonly called a coffin, and banked in the grave. when charity pecksniff reproved jonas for speaking irreverently of her father, he said: "ecod, you may say what you like of _my_ father, then, and so i give you leave," said jonas. "i think it's liquid aggravation that circulates through his veins, and not regular blood. how old should you think my father was, cousin?" "old, no doubt," replied miss charity; "but a fine old gentleman." "a fine old gentleman!" repeated jonas, giving the crown of his hat an angry knock. "ah! it's time he was thinking of being drawn out a little finer, too. why, he's eighty!" "is he, indeed?" said the young lady. "and ecod," cried jonas, "now he's gone so far without giving in, i don't see much to prevent his being ninety; no, nor even a hundred. why, a man with any feeling ought to be ashamed of being eighty, let alone more. where's his religion, i should like to know, when he goes flying in the face of the bible like that? threescore and ten's the mark; and no man with a conscience, and a proper sense of what's expected of him, has any business to live longer." when jonas was particularly brutal in the treatment of chuffey, the old clerk, his father seemed to enjoy his son's sharpness. it was strange enough that anthony chuzzlewit, himself so old a man, should take a pleasure in these gibings of his estimable son at the expense of the poor shadow at their table; but he did, unquestionably, though not so much--to do him justice--with reference to their ancient clerk, as in exultation at the sharpness of jonas. for the same reason, that young man's coarse allusions, even to himself, filled him with a stealthy glee, causing him to rub his hands and chuckle covertly, as if he said in his sleeve, "_i_ taught him. _i_ trained him. this is the heir of my bringing up. sly, cunning, and covetous, he'll not squander my money. i worked for this; i hoped for this; it has been the great end and aim of my life." what a noble end and aim it was to contemplate in the attainment, truly! but there be some who manufacture idols after the fashion of themselves, and fail to worship them when they are made; charging their deformity on outraged nature. anthony was better than these at any rate. exaggerated! slightly exaggerated, but terribly true to nature. centring the life of a child on one base materialistic aim is certain to make a degraded if not a dangerous character. every noble energy that should have given spiritual strength and beauty is devoured by the material monster as he grows in the heart. respect for age, even for parents, is lost with all other virtues, and humanity becomes not a brotherhood to be co-operated with for noble purposes, but a horde to be entrapped and cheated. jonas delighted his father with his rule in business: "here's the rule for bargains--'do other men, for they would do you.' that's the true business precept. all others are counterfeits." speaking of the conversation heard by martin chuzzlewit at the boarding house in new york, he said: it was rather barren of interest, to say the truth; and the greater part of it may be summed up in one word: dollars. all their cares, hopes, joys, affections, virtues, and associations seemed to be melted down into dollars. whatever the chance contributions that fell into the slow cauldron of their talk, they made the gruel thick and slab with dollars. men were weighed by their dollars, measures gauged by their dollars; life was auctioneered, appraised, put up, and knocked down for its dollars. the next respectable thing to dollars was any venture having their attainment for its end. the more of that worthless ballast, honour and fair dealing, which any man cast overboard from the ship of his good name and good intent, the more ample stowage room he had for dollars. make commerce one huge lie and mighty theft. deface the banner of the nation for an idle rag; pollute it star by star; and cut out stripe by stripe as from the arm of a degraded soldier. do anything for dollars! what is a flag to _them_! this was a solemn warning against the training of a race with such low ideals. in the preface to martin chuzzlewit dickens shows that he deliberately planned jonas chuzzlewit as a psychological study. he says: i conceive that the sordid coarseness and brutality of jonas would be unnatural, if there had been nothing in his early education, and in the precept and example always before him, to engender and develop the vices that make him odious. but, so born and so bred--admired for that which made him hateful, and justified from his cradle in cunning, treachery, and avarice--i claim him as the legitimate issue of the father upon whom those vices are seen to recoil. and i submit that their recoil upon that old man, in his unhonoured age, is not a mere piece of poetical justice, but is the extreme exposition of a direct truth. mrs. pipchin was described as a child trainer of great respectability. she adopted the business of child training because her husband lost his money. dickens did great service to the world by ridiculing the outrageous practice of sending children to be trained by women or taught by men whose only qualification for the most sacred of all duties was the fact that they had lost their money, and were therefore likely to be bad tempered and severe. he had already introduced squeers to the world, but he knew that many people who shuddered at squeers would send their own children to such as mrs. pipchin, because she was respectable and poor. he wished to alarm such people; hence mrs. pipchin. mrs. chick, mr. dombey's sister, and miss tox called mr. dombey's attention to mrs. pipchin's establishment. "mrs. pipchin, my dear paul," returned his sister, "is an elderly lady--miss tox knows her whole history--who has for some time devoted all the energies of her mind, with the greatest success, to the study and treatment of infancy, and who has been extremely well connected." this celebrated mrs. pipchin was a marvellous, ill-favoured, ill-conditioned old lady, of a stooping figure, with a mottled face like bad marble, a hook nose, and a hard gray eye that looked as if it might have been hammered at on an anvil without sustaining any injury. forty years at least had elapsed since the peruvian mines had been the death of mr. pipchin; but his relict still wore black bombazine, of such a lustreless, deep, dead, sombre shade that gas itself couldn't light her up after dark, and her presence was a quencher to any number of candles. she was generally spoken of as "a great manager" of children; and the secret of her management was, to give them everything that they didn't like and nothing that they did--which was found to sweeten their dispositions very much. when paul and florence were taken to mrs. pipchin's establishment, mrs. pipchin gave them an opportunity to study her disciplinary system as soon as mrs. chick and miss tox went away. "master bitherstone was divested of his collar at once, which he had worn on parade," and miss pankey, the only other little boarder at present, was walked off to the castle dungeon (an empty apartment at the back, devoted to correctional purposes), for having sniffed thrice in the presence of visitors. at one o'clock there was a dinner, chiefly of the farinaceous and vegetable kind, when miss pankey (a mild little blue-eyed morsel of a child, who was shampooed every morning, and seemed in danger of being rubbed away altogether) was led in from captivity by the ogress herself, and instructed that nobody who sniffed before visitors ever went to heaven. when this great truth had been thoroughly impressed upon her, she was regaled with rice; and subsequently repeated the form of grace established in the castle, in which there was a special clause thanking mrs. pipchin for a good dinner. mrs. pipchin's niece, berinthia, took cold pork. mrs. pipchin, whose constitution required warm nourishment, made a special repast of mutton chops, which were brought in hot and hot, between two plates, and smelled very nice. as it rained after dinner and they couldn't go out walking on the beach, and mrs. pipchin's constitution required rest after chops, they went away with berry (otherwise berinthia) to the dungeon--an empty room looking out upon a chalk wall and a water butt, and made ghastly by a ragged fireplace without any stove in it. enlivened by company, however, this was the best place after all; for berry played with them there, and seemed to enjoy a game at romps as much as they did; until mrs. pipchin knocking angrily at the wall, like the cock lane ghost revived, they left off, and berry told them stories in a whisper until twilight. for tea there was plenty of milk and water, and bread and butter, with a little black teapot for mrs. pipchin and berry, and buttered toast unlimited for mrs. pipchin, which was brought in, hot and hot, like the chops. though mrs. pipchin got very greasy outside over this dish, it didn't seem to lubricate her internally at all; for she was as fierce as ever, and the hard gray eye knew no softening. after tea, berry brought out a little workbox, with the royal pavilion on the lid, and fell to working busily; while mrs. pipchin, having put on her spectacles and opened a great volume bound in green baize, began to nod. and whenever mrs. pipchin caught herself falling forward into the fire, and woke up, she filliped master bitherstone on the nose for nodding too. at last it was the children's bedtime, and after prayers they went to bed. as little miss pankey was afraid of sleeping alone in the dark, mrs. pipchin always made a point of driving her upstairs herself, like a sheep; and it was cheerful to hear miss pankey moaning long afterward, in the least eligible chamber, and mrs. pipchin now and then going in to shake her. at about half-past nine o'clock the odour of a warm sweetbread (mrs. pipchin's constitution wouldn't go to sleep without sweetbread) diversified the prevailing fragrance of the house, which mrs. wickam said was "a smell of building," and slumber fell upon the castle shortly after. the breakfast next morning was like the tea overnight, except that mrs. pipchin took her roll instead of toast, and seemed a little more irate when it was over. master bitherstone read aloud to the rest a pedigree from genesis (judiciously selected by mrs. pipchin), getting over the names with the ease and clearness of a person tumbling up the treadmill. that done, miss pankey was borne away to be shampooed, and master bitherstone to have something else done to him with salt water, from which he always returned very blue and dejected. paul and florence went out in the meantime on the beach with wickam--who was constantly in tears--and at about noon mrs. pipchin presided over some early readings. it being a part of mrs. pipchin's system not to encourage a child's mind to develop and expand itself like a young flower, but to open it by force like an oyster, the moral of these lessons was usually of a violent and stunning character; the hero--a naughty boy--seldom, in the mildest catastrophe, being finished off by anything less than a lion or a bear. sunday evening was the most melancholy evening in the week; for mrs. pipchin always made a point of being particularly cross on sunday nights. miss pankey was generally brought back from an aunt's at rottingdean, in deep distress; and master bitherstone, whose relatives were all in india, and who was required to sit, between the services, in an erect position with his head against the parlour wall, neither moving hand nor foot, suffered so acutely in his young spirits that he once asked florence, on a sunday night, if she could give him any idea of the way back to bengal. but it was generally said that mrs. pipchin was a woman of system with children; and no doubt she was. certainly the wild ones went home tame enough, after sojourning for a few months beneath her hospitable roof. at this exemplary old lady paul would sit staring in his little armchair by the fire for any length of time. he never seemed to know what weariness was when he was looking fixedly at mrs. pipchin. he was not fond of her; he was not afraid of her; but in those old, old moods of his, she seemed to have a grotesque attraction for him. there he would sit, looking at her, and warming his hands, and looking at her, until he sometimes quite confounded mrs. pipchin, ogress as she was. once she asked him, when they were alone, what he was thinking about. "you," said paul, without the least reserve. "and what are you thinking about me?" asked mrs. pipchin. "i'm thinking how old you must be," said paul. "you mustn't say such things as that, young gentleman," returned the dame. "that'll never do." "why not?" asked paul. "because it's not polite," said mrs. pipchin snappishly. "not polite?" said paul. "no." "it's not polite," said paul innocently, "to eat all the mutton chops and toast, wickam says." "wickam," retorted mrs. pipchin, colouring, "is a wicked, impudent, bold-faced hussy." "what's that?" inquired paul. "never you mind, sir," retorted mrs. pipchin. "remember the story of the little boy that was gored to death by a mad bull for asking questions." "if the bull was mad," said paul, "how did he know that the boy had asked questions? nobody can go and whisper secrets to a mad bull. i don't believe that story." "you don't believe it, sir?" repeated mrs. pipchin, amazed. "no," said paul. "not if it should happen to have been a tame bull, you little infidel?" said mrs. pipchin. * * * * * "berry's very fond of you, ain't she?" paul once asked mrs. pipchin when they were sitting by the fire with the cat. "yes," said mrs. pipchin. "why?" asked paul. "why?" returned the disconcerted old lady. "how can you ask such things, sir? why are you fond of your sister florence?" "because she's very good," said paul. "there's nobody like florence." "well!" retorted mrs. pipchin shortly, "and there's nobody like me, i suppose." "ain't there really, though?" asked paul, leaning forward in his chair, and looking at her very hard. "no," said the old lady. "i am glad of that," observed paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully. "that's a very good thing." to which every one would say "amen," if they could believe mrs. pipchin's statement to be actually true. mrs. pipchin combined in her "system" many of the evils of child training. she was not good-looking, and those who train children should be decidedly good-looking. they need not be handsome; they ought to be winsome. her "mottled face like bad marble, and hard grey eye" meant danger to childhood. she was gloomy in appearance, in manner, and in dress, all disqualifications for any position connected with child development. she was "a bitter old lady," and children should be surrounded with an atmosphere of sweetness and joyousness. her one diabolical rule was "to give children everything they didn't like and nothing they did like." this rule is the logical limit of the doctrine of child depravity. she was generally spoken of as a "great manager," simply because she compelled children to do her bidding by fear of punishment in the "dungeon," or of being sent to bed, or robbed of their meals, or by some other mean form of contemptible coercion. these processes were praised as excellent till dickens destroyed their respectability. his title "child-queller" is admirable, and full of philosophy. many a man has been able to form a truer conception regarding child freedom through the influence of the word "child-queller." every teacher should ask himself every day, "am i a child-queller?" it will be a blessed thing for the children when there shall be no more pipchinny teachers. the environment of the ogress was not attractive. the gardens grew only marigolds, snails were on the doors, and bad odours in the house. "in the winter time the air couldn't be got out of the castle, and in the summer time it couldn't be got in." dickens knew that the environment of children has a direct influence on their characters, and that ventilation is essential to good health. these lessons were needed fifty years ago. mrs. pipchin made children dishonest by putting on collars for parade. "the farinaceous and vegetable" diet, the "regaled with rice" criticisms show that dickens anticipated by half a century the present interest in the study of nutrition as one of the most important educational subjects. the combination of coercion and religion is ridiculed in the theological constraint of mrs. pipchin, when she told little miss pankey "that nobody who sniffed before visitors ever went to heaven." the outrageous selfishness of adulthood was exposed by the description of mrs. pipchin's anger at the play of the children in the back room when it was raining and they could not go out. the injustice of the "child-queller" was shown because she filliped master bitherstone on the nose for nodding in the evening, whenever she woke up from her own nodding. the sacrilege of having prayers between two processes of cruelty is worthy of note. religion should never be associated in the mind of a child with injustice, cruelty, or any meanness. the dreadful practice of driving timid children to sleep in the dark was another of mrs. pipchin's accomplishments. the retiring hour of childhood should be made the happiest and most nerve soothing of the day. wise and sympathetic adulthood, especially motherhood, can then reach the central nature of the child most successfully. the formal reading of a meaningless selection from the bible by bitherstone tended to prevent the development of a true interest in that most interesting of all books. the early readings, with the bad boy in the story "being finished off generally by a lion or a bear," were a fit accompaniment to a system in which no child's mind was encouraged to expand like a flower naturally, but to be opened by force like an oyster. dickens began with mrs. pipchin his revelation of the great blunder of checking the questions of children. "remember the story of the little boy that was gored to death by a mad bull for asking questions," she said to paul. the same evil is pointed out in the training of pip in great expectations. another common error is revealed by mrs. pipchin, when she called paul "a little infidel," because he did not accept her statement about the mad bull, although she knew it to be false herself. even when children doubt the truth they should not be called "infidels," unless, indeed, it is desired to make them definitely and consciously sceptical. the puritan sabbath was a part of mrs. pipchin's quelling system too. it was little wonder, therefore, that the wild children went home tame enough after a few months in her awful institution. few men who have ever lived have studied the child and his training so thoroughly as to be able to condense into such brief space so many of the evils of bad training. mrs. pipchin and mr. squeers have been made to do good work for childhood. biler was so badly treated at the grinders' school that he played hookey, but that was not the worst feature of his education. they did not feel any responsibility for character development in the school of the charitable grinders. but they never taught honour at the grinders' school, where the system that prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy; insomuch that many of the friends and masters of past grinders said, if this were what came of education for the common people, let us have none. some more rational said, let us have a better one; but the governing powers of the grinders' company were always ready for _them_, by picking out a few boys who had turned out well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they could have only turned out well because of it. which settled the business of those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the grinders' institution. in david copperfield, uriah heep, utterly detestable in character, is the natural product of the system of training under which both he and his father were brought up. uriah said: "father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. they taught us all a deal of umbleness--not much else that i know of--from morning to night. we was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. and we had such a lot of betters! father got the monitor medal by being umble. so did i. father got made a sexton by being umble. he had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man that they were determined to bring him on. 'be umble, uriah,' says father, 'and you'll get on. it was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it's what goes down best. be umble,' says father, 'and you'll do!' and really it ain't done bad!" it was the first time it had ever occurred to me that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the heep family. i had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. i had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but i fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit must have been engendered by this early, and this long, suppression. david himself tells how he suffered after the death of his mother from the cold neglect of mr. murdstone and jane murdstone. no child can be so destitute as the child who is neglected through dislike. and now i fell into a state of neglect, which i can not look back upon without compassion. i fell at once into a solitary condition--apart from all friendly notice, apart from the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts--which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as i write. what would i have given to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept! to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! no such hope dawned upon me. they disliked me, and they sullenly, sternly, steadily overlooked me. i think mr. murdstone's means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. he could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as i believe, to put away the notion that i had any claim upon him--and succeeded. i was not actively ill used. i was not beaten or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. day after day, week after week, month after month, i was coldly neglected. i wonder sometimes, when i think of it, what they would have done if i had been taken with an illness--whether i should have lain down in my lonely room and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out. but the greatest lesson in wrong training given in david copperfield is the character development of steerforth. he was ruined by the misdirected love of his mother, and his life is a fine psychological study. he was a boy of unusually good ability and great attractiveness. he possessed by nature every element of power and grace required to make him a strong, true, and very successful man; but the love of his mother degenerated to pride and admiration, indulgence was substituted for guidance, and the strong woman became weak at the vital point of training her boy. she allowed him to become selfish and vain by yielding to his caprices. she thought she was making his character strong by allowing no restraint to be put upon it. she failed to distinguish between license and liberty. she had conceived the ideal of the need of freedom, but she knew naught of the true harmony between control and spontaneity. she allowed the spontaneity, and gloried in his resistance to control. she was blind to the balancing element in "the perfect law of liberty." she made her boy a powerful engine without a governor valve. so his selfhood became selfishness, and his character was wrecked. among other immoral opinions that he gained from his mother's training was the idea that he belonged to a select class superior to common humanity. how dickens hated this thought! rosa dartle asked steerforth about "that sort of people--are they really animals and clods, and beings of another order? i want to know so much." "why, there's a pretty wide separation between them and us," said steerforth, with indifference. "they are not to be expected to be as sensitive as we are. their delicacy is not to be shocked or hurt very easily. they are wonderfully virtuous, i dare say--some people contend for that, at least, and i am sure i don't want to contradict them; but they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like their coarse, rough skins, they are not easily wounded." he was trained to despise work, which is a good start toward the utter loss of character. a boy who despises his fellow-beings whom he assumes to rank below him, and who also despises work, instead of recognising the duty of every man to be a producer or a distributor of power, may easily fall into moral degeneracy. "help yourself, copperfield!" said steerforth. "we'll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment to me--the more shame for me!" his character lacked seriousness. he had the fatal levity that led him to discuss the most sacred subjects in a flippant manner. his mother knew that creakle's school was not a proper place for him, but she wished to make him conscious of his superiority even over his teacher, and she knew that creakle, tyrannical bully though he was, would yield to steerforth, because his mother was wealthy. "it was not a fit school generally for my son," said she; "far from it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of more importance even than that selection. my son's high spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a man there." what a perversion of the ideal of freedom in the development of character, to suppose that it could only reach perfection by a consciousness of superiority; by having some one who should control him bow down before him! no man in the world is truly free who has a desire to dominate some one else--another man, a woman, or a child. yet mrs. steerforth sacrificed her son's education in order that his manly spirit might be cultivated by the subordination of the man who should have governed him. she showed better judgment in deciding that a coercive tyrant like creakle would make a subservient sycophant. "my son's great capacity was tempted on there by a feeling of voluntary emulation and conscious pride," the fond lady went on to say. "he would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station. it was like himself." as steerforth began consciously to feel his better nature surrendering to his sensuality, he experienced the pangs that all strong natures feel at the loss of moral power, and one time when he and david were visiting mr. peggotty at yarmouth he seemed to be moody and disposed to sadness. he said suddenly to david when they were alone one day: "david, i wish to god i had had a judicious father these last twenty years!" "my dear steerforth, what is the matter?" "i wish with all my soul i had been better guided!" he exclaimed. "i wish with all my soul i could guide myself better!" there was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. he was more unlike himself than i could have supposed possible. "it would be better to be this poor peggotty, or his lout of a nephew," he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney piece, with his face toward the fire, "than to be myself, twenty times richer and twenty times wiser and be the torment to myself that i have been, in this devil's bark of a boat, within the last half hour!" he had already begun to poison the fountains of little emily's purity. when steerforth, after running away with emily and deserting her, was drowned and brought home, rosa dartle, who had loved him, charged his mother with his ruin. she had a scar on her lip, made by a hammer thrown by steerforth when he was a boy. "do you remember when he did this?" she proceeded. "do you remember when in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? look at me, marked until i die with his high displeasure, and moan and groan for what you made him!" "miss dartle," i entreated her, "for heaven's sake----" "i _will_ speak," she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. "be silent you! look at me, i say, proud mother of a proud false son! moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your loss of him, moan for mine!" she clinched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, as if her passion were killing her by inches. "you resent his self-will!" she exclaimed. "you injured by his haughty temper! you, who opposed to both, when your hair was gray, the qualities which made both when you gave him birth! you, who from his cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! are you rewarded, _now_, for your years of trouble?" "miss dartle," said i, "if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for this afflicted mother----" "who feels for me?" she sharply retorted. "she has sown this. let her moan for the harvest that she reaps to-day!" to show that the seed for the harvest had been sown by his mother was dickens's aim in the delineation of his character. yet she loved him as a part of her own life. she said to mr. peggotty, when he came to plead with her for emily: "my son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom i have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom i have had no separate existence since his birth." there was a double sadness in david's soliloquy about steerforth, who had been his friend: in the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, i thought more of all that was brilliant in him, i softened more toward all that was good in him, i did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever i had done in the height of my devotion to him. in bleak house a great deal of attention is paid to child training. esther's sadness because of her neglected birthday touches a tender chord. it was my birthday. there were holidays at school on other birthdays; none on mine. there were rejoicings at home on other birthdays, as i knew from what i heard the girls relate to one another; there were none on mine. my birthday was the most melancholy day at home in the whole year. there is more than mere sentiment in birthday celebrations both at home and in school. it develops a pleasant consciousness of individuality and community--two of the greatest educational ideals. the cruelty of telling children of any supposed blight of heredity or of any other shadow that arrogant conventionality dares to throw over them, is criticised in the hard, gloomy way in which esther's godmother referred to her mother. even worse than this in the refinement of its cruelty was her parting injunction. it is a shameful thing to make a child believe that she is different from other children in any sense of either badness or goodness. "submission, self-denial, diligent work, are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. you are different from other children, esther, because you were not born, like them, in common sinfulness and wrath. you are set apart." i went up to my room and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom cried myself to sleep. imperfect as my understanding of my sorrow was, i knew that i had brought no joy, at any time, to anybody's heart, and that i was to no one upon earth what dolly was to me. dickens evidently meant to reveal more than her godmother's cruelty in her closing moralizings. she made the mistake of using self-denial and diligent work as curses instead of blessings. they were for the time none the less curses to the child, however. the gross negligence of parents in regard to the sacredness of the children's retiring hour is exposed in the management of the jellyby children. indeed, mrs. jellyby may be regarded as several volumes of treatises on how not to train children. caddy expressed her views of the training they received by saying: "i wish i was dead. i wish we were all dead. it would be a great deal better for us." she wisely added: "oh, don't talk of duty as a child! where's ma's duty as a parent?" esther said wisely: it struck me that if mrs. jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd; but i need scarcely observe that i kept this to myself. esther describes the process of putting the children to bed one evening she was visiting at the jellyby home: mrs. jellyby stopped for a moment her conversation with mr. quale, on the brotherhood of humanity, long enough to order the children to bed. as peepy cried for me to take him to bed, i carried him upstairs, where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst of the little family like a dragon, and overturned them into cribs. peepy was the unfortunate child who had fallen downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself with a slip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which ada and i did not know which to pity most, the bruises or the dirt. mrs. jellyby merely added, with the serene composure with which she said everything, "go along, you naughty peepy!" and fixed her fine eyes on africa again. here mrs. jellyby was guilty of two wrongs, one of commission, the other of omission. she did a positive wrong in unjustly calling the child "naughty" when he was merely unfortunate. even if children are so badly guided that they do wrong, it is a serious mistake to make them feel consciously "bad" by calling them unpleasant names. it is always wrong to define in the child's consciousness a passing wave of evil. mrs. jellyby's sin of omission was her neglect of the opportunity of sympathizing with the suffering boy, and of training him to bear suffering bravely by the suggestion that he was "a brave little soldier home from the war." mr. jarndyce, in speaking of harold skimpole's children, said, when richard carstone asked if he had any children: "yes, rick! half a dozen. more! nearer a dozen, i should think. but he has never looked after them. how could he? he wanted somebody to look after _him_. he is a child, you know!" said mr. jarndyce. "and have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?" inquired richard. "why, just as you may suppose," said mr. jarndyce, his countenance suddenly falling. "it is said that the children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up. harold skimpole's children have tumbled up somehow or other----" again dickens was impressing the responsibility of parents for the care and proper training of their children. mr. jarndyce accounted for the utterly unpractical nature of mr. skimpole by saying: "why, he is all sentiment, and--and susceptibility, and--and sensibility--and--and imagination. and these qualities are not regulated in him, somehow. i suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth attached too much importance to them, and too little to any training that would have balanced and adjusted them; and so he became what he is." mrs. pardiggle was given as a type of the philanthropic woman who does _not_ neglect her children, but whose training is worse--much worse than mrs. jellyby's neglect. the jellyby children had as much motherly sympathy as the pardiggles, and they had freedom. there is always this advantage in neglect. louisa gradgrind gave utterance to a philosophical principle when she said to her father: "oh! if you had only neglected me, what a much better and much happier creature i should have been." dickens did not teach that neglect is good training, but he did teach that it is a lighter curse than the gradgrind or pardiggle training. the jellyby children had a slight chance to turn out moderately well, but the pardiggle children were certain to be morose, hypocritical, and vicious. they were certain to hate all forms of christian philanthropy. mrs. pardiggle's intentions were undoubtedly good, but she destroyed the character of her children, nevertheless. "these, young ladies," said mrs. pardiggle with great volubility, after the first salutations, "are my five boys. you may have seen their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in the possession of our esteemed friend mr. jarndyce. egbert, my eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket money, to the amount of five and threepence to the tockahoopo indians. oswald, my second (ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and ninepence to the great national smithers testimonial. francis, my third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to the superannuated widows; alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the infant bonds of joy, and is pledged never through life to use tobacco in any form." we had never seen such dissatisfied children. it was not merely that they were weazened and shrivelled--though they were certainly that too--but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. at the mention of the tockahoopo indians i could really have supposed egbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave me such a savage frown. the face of each child as the amount of his contribution was mentioned darkened in a peculiarly vindictive manner, but his was by far the worst. i must except, however, the little recruit into the infant bonds of joy, who was stolidly and evenly miserable. "you have been visiting, i understand," said mrs. pardiggle, "at mrs. jellyby's?" we said yes, we had passed one night there. "mrs. jellyby is a benefactor to society, and deserves a helping hand. my boys have contributed to the african project--egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine weeks; oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, according to their little means. nevertheless, i do not go with mrs. jellyby in all things. i do not go with mrs. jellyby in her treatment of her young family. it has been noticed. it has been observed that her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to which she is devoted. she may be right, she may be wrong; but, right or wrong, this is not my course with _my_ young family. i take them everywhere." i was afterward convinced (and so was ada) that from the ill-conditioned eldest child these words extorted a sharp yell. he turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell. "they attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half past six o'clock in the morning all the year round, including, of course, the depth of winter," said mrs. pardiggle rapidly, "and they are with me during the revolving duties of the day. i am a school lady, i am a visiting lady, i am a reading lady, i am a distributing lady; i am on the local linen box committee, and many general committees; and my canvassing alone is very extensive--perhaps no one's more so. but they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable business in general--in short, that taste for the sort of thing--which will render them in after life a service to their neighbours, and a satisfaction to themselves. my young family are not frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many public meetings, and listened to as many lectures, orations, and discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. alfred (five), who, as i mentioned, has of his own election joined the infant bonds of joy, was one of the very few children who manifested consciousness on one occasion, after a fervid address of two hours from the chairman of the evening." alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the injury of that night. "you may have observed, miss summerson," said mrs. pardiggle, "in some of the lists to which i have referred, in the possession of our esteemed friend mr. jarndyce, that the names of my young family are concluded with the name of o. a. pardiggle, f. r. s., one pound. that is their father. we usually observe the same routine. i put down my mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according to their ages and their little means; and then mr. pardiggle brings up the rear. mr. pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation, under my direction; and thus things are made, not only pleasant to ourselves, but, we trust, improving to others." mrs. pardiggle invited esther and ada to go out with her to visit a "wicked brickmaker" in the neighbourhood. ada walked ahead with mrs. pardiggle and esther followed with the five children. she had an interesting experience. i am very fond of being confided in by children, and am happy in being usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me great uneasiness. as soon as we were out of doors, egbert, with the manner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me, on the ground that his pocket money was "boned" from him. on my pointing out the great impropriety of the word, especially in connection with his parent (for he added sulkily "by her!"), he pinched me and said, "oh, then! now! who are you? _you_ wouldn't like it, i think! what does she make a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away again? why do you call it _my_ allowance, and never let me spend it?" these exasperating questions so inflamed his mind, and the minds of oswald and francis, that they all pinched me at once, and in a dreadfully expert way; screwing up such little pieces of my arms that i could hardly forbear crying out. felix at the same time stamped upon my toes. and the bond of joy, who, on account of always having the whole of his little income anticipated, stood, in fact, pledged to abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we passed a pastry-cook shop, that he terrified me by becoming purple. i never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the course of a walk with young people, as from these unnaturally constrained children, when they paid me the compliment of being natural. in the brickmaker's hovel they heard something of how the very poor brought up children, or failed to bring them up, in dickens's time. the brickmaker was lying at full length on the floor, smoking his pipe. he gave them no welcome. i wants a end of these liberties took with my place. i wants a end of being drawed like a badger. now you are a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom--i know what you're a-going to be up to. well! you haven't got no occasion to be up to it. i'll save you the trouble. is my daughter a-washin'? yes, she is a-washin'. look at the water. smell it! that's wot we drinks. how do you like it, and what do you think of gin, instead? an't my place dirty? yes, it is dirty--it's nat'rally dirty, and it's nat'rally onwholesome; and we've had five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, and for us besides. the utter carelessness of some "society gentlemen" in regard to the education of their children is referred to in the description caddy jellyby gave of her lover, the son of the great turveydrop. caddy told me that her lover's education had been so neglected that it was not always easy to read his notes. she said if he were not so anxious about his spelling, and took less pains to make it clear, he would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short words that they sometimes quite lost their english appearance. "he does it with the best intention," observed caddy, "but it hasn't the effect he means, poor fellow!" caddy then went on to reason how could he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole life in the dancing school, and had done nothing but teach and fag, fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! and what did it matter? she could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it was far better for him to be amiable than learned. "besides, it's not as if i was an accomplished girl, who had any right to give herself airs," said caddy. "i know little enough, i am sure, thanks to ma!" the products of the fashionable education of dickens's time (there is not so much of it now, thanks largely to dickens) were shown in the cousins of sir leicester dedlock. the rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and capacities; the major part, amiable and sensible, and likely to have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be how to dispose of them. in little dorrit mrs. general is used as a type of two varieties of false training. her pupils were never to be allowed to know that there was anything vulgar or wrong in the world. she believed the good old theory, that adulthood had two duties in developing purity of character, one to prevent children knowing that there was any evil, the other to chain them back or beat them back from evil, if they accidentally found it and wished to investigate it. she never thought of training a child to do its part in reducing the evil around him. seclusion and exclusion took the place of community in her perverted philosophy. she believed, too, in educating the surface. she did not work from within intellectually or spiritually. she varnished the surface that it might receive the proper society polish, therefore neither heart nor head required much attention. according to her theory, young ladies should never be so unladylike as to have great purposes or great ideas. unfortunately some of her descendants are still living. "fanny," observed mrs. general, "at present forms too many opinions. perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative. "i have conversed with amy several times since we have been residing here on the general subject of the formation of a demeanour. she has expressed herself to me as wondering exceedingly at venice. i have mentioned to her that it is better not to wonder." her father sent for amy to reprove her for her lack of what mrs. general regarded as true culture, and amy said: "i think, father, i require a little time." "papa is a preferable mode of address," observed mrs. general. "father is rather vulgar, my dear. the word papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips. papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very good words for the lips; especially prunes and prism. you will find it serviceable, in the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to yourself in company--on entering a room, for instance--papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, prunes and prism. "if miss amy dorrit will direct her own attention to, and will accept of my poor assistance in, the formation of a surface, mr. dorrit will have no further cause of anxiety. may i take this opportunity of remarking, as an instance in point, that it is scarcely delicate to look at vagrants with the attention which i have seen bestowed upon them by a very dear young friend of mine? they should not be looked at. nothing disagreeable should ever be looked at. apart from such a habit standing in the way of that graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive of good breeding, it hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind. a truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant." great expectations has numerous illustrations of bad training. mrs. gargery had many of the worst characteristics of disrespectful and coercive adulthood. she abused pip for asking questions, scolded him, thimbled him, and sent him to bed in the dark. she told him he was on the way to commit murder and a great variety of crimes, because criminals always "begin by asking questions." she kept him in a state of constant terror. she tried in every possible way to lower his opinion of himself, which is a crime against childhood. one of the worst features of the old education was its teaching of a spurious humility, a depreciation of selfhood. one of the greatest weaknesses of humanity is the general lack of true faith of men and women in their own powers. he was told that he was "naterally wicious," and made the butt of all the observations relating to boys who possessed any vices whatever. dickens revealed all these characteristics to condemn them. pip discussed a very grave question for students of children when he was accounting for the fact that he deliberately misstated facts so systematically in answering the questions of his sister and mr. pumblechook, in regard to miss havisham and the peculiarities of her mysterious home. when i reached home my sister was very curious to know all about miss havisham's, and asked a number of questions. and i soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall, because i did not answer those questions at sufficient length. if a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in mine--which i consider probable, as i have no particular reason to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity--it is the key to many reservations. i felt convinced that if i described miss havisham's as my eyes had seen it i should not be understood. whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy perhaps. anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine. two thoughts are worthy of note in this part of pip's training: abuse, especially of the thumping, bumping, shaking variety, makes a child obstinate; and many of childhood's difficulties arise from not being understood, or the fear of being misunderstood. pip resented, as all children do, more than they can show, the unpleasant habit of taking patronizing liberties with them. and here i may remark that when mr. wopsle referred to me, he considered it a necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and poke it into my eyes. i can not conceive why everybody of his standing who visited at our house should always have put me through the same inflammatory process under similar circumstances. yet i do not call to mind that i was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family circle, but some large-handed person took some such ophthalmic steps to patronize me. and mr. pumblechook! what could a boy do but hate him? meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. that ass, pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects with my sister; and i really do believe (to this hour with less penitence than i ought to feel) that if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise cart, they would have done it. the miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him--as it were, to operate upon--and he would drag me up from my stool (usually by the collar) where i was quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the fire as if i were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, "now, mum, here is this boy! here is this boy which you brought up by hand. hold up your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did so. now, mum, with respections to this boy!" and then he would rumple my hair the wrong way--which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, i have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do--and would hold me before him by the sleeve: a spectacle of imbecility only to be equalled by himself. mrs. pocket's training was given as an illustration of the folly of giving girls no practical education. her father had directed mrs. pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who, in the nature of things, must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic knowledge. so successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless. her home proved that she had grown up a credit to her training. there never was a family more utterly without order, management, or system than mrs. pocket's. servants and children indulged in unending turmoil and conflict. dickens added a grim humour to the picture by saying: mr. pocket was out lecturing; for he was a most delightful lecturer on domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and servants were considered the very best text-books on those themes. but mrs. pocket was at home and was in a little difficulty, on account of the baby's having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the foot guards) of millers. and more needles were missing than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic. mrs. pocket continued to read her one book about the dignities of the titled aristocracy, and prescribed "bed" as a sovereign remedy for baby. dickens believed a mother should find her highest joy and most sacred duty in training her own children. mrs. pocket was a type to be avoided. the description of the dinner at mr. pocket's, after which the six children were brought in, and mrs. pocket attempted to mind the baby, is one of the raciest bits of dickens's humour. one observation in connection with the dinner is worth studying. after dinner the children were introduced, and mrs. coiler made admiring comments on their eyes, noses, and legs--a sagacious way of improving their minds. how few yet clearly understand this profound criticism of bad training! how many children are still made vain and frivolous by having their attention directed especially to their physical attributes and their dress, rather than to the things that would yield them much greater immediate happiness and a much truer basis for future development! in his last book, edwin drood, dickens showed that he still hated the tyranny that dwarfs and distorts the souls of children. neville landless described his own training to his tutor, who had won his confidence as it had never been won before. "we lived with a stepfather there. our mother died there, when we were little children. we have had a wretched existence. she made him our guardian, and he was a miserly wretch who grudged us food to eat and clothes to wear. "this stepfather of ours was a cruel brute as well as a grinding one. it was well he died when he did, or i might have killed him." mr. crisparkle stopped short in the moonlight and looked at his hopeful pupil in consternation. "i surprise you, sir?" he said, with a quick change to a submissive manner. "you shock me; unspeakably shock me." the pupil hung his head for a little while, as they walked on, and then said: "you never saw him beat your sister. i have seen him beat mine, more than once or twice, and i never forgot it. "i have had, sir, from my earliest remembrance, to suppress a deadly and bitter hatred. this has made me secret and revengeful. i have been always tyrannically held down by the strong hand. this has driven me, in my weakness, to the resource of being false and mean. i have been stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest possessions of youth. this has caused me to be utterly wanting in i do not know what emotions, or remembrances, or good instincts--i have not even a name for the thing, you see--that you have had to work upon in other young men to whom you have been accustomed." hatred instead of love; product, a secret and revengeful character. "tyrannically held down by a strong hand"; product, falseness and meanness. "stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest possessions of youth"; product, a manhood utterly barren in true emotions, or pleasant memories, or good instincts. no other writer has described so many phases of bad training as dickens. chapter xii. good training. dickens wrote much less about good training than about bad training. it was the part of a true philosopher and a profound student of human nature to do so. pictures of wrong treatment of children accomplished a double purpose. they made men hate the wrong, and made them more clearly conscious of the right than pictures of the right alone could have done. descriptions of ideal conditions can not make as deep impressions as descriptions of utterly bad conditions in the present stage of human evolution. his revelation of cruel tyranny, of will breaking, of cramming, of dwarfing of individuality, of distorting of imagination, of harshness, of lack of sympathy, of evil in a hundred hideous forms, made men more conscious of their corresponding opposites than attempts to reveal these opposites by direct effort could have done; and in addition it stirred in human hearts everywhere the determination to remove or remedy the wrong. little nell's grandfather gave her a good training. omitting poverty and loneliness, and some strange companionships, she had a training calculated to make her the supremely pure and attractive child she was. her grandfather loved her passionately; he had never been unkind to her, he had taught her carefully in the virtues that are learned by the unselfish performance of duty; she had the opportunity for simple, loving service, and she was trained to have profound reverence for and true faith in god. her grandfather left her alone every night, yet she was never afraid. dickens describes their usual parting in the evening. then she ran to the old man, who folded her in his arms and bade god bless her. "sleep soundly, nell," he said in a low voice, "and angels guard thy bed! do not forget thy prayers, my sweet." "no, indeed," answered the child fervently, "they make me feel so happy!" "that's well; i know they do; they should," said the old man. "bless thee a hundred times! early in the morning i shall be home." "you'll not ring twice," returned the child. "the bell wakes me, even in the middle of a dream." the toodle family is painted in direct contrast to the dombey family in the relationship of parents to children. mrs. toodle came to nurse paul dombey when his mother died. mr. toodle himself came too, and mr. dombey called him in to speak to him. he was a strong, loose, round-shouldered, shuffling, shaggy fellow, on whom his clothes sat negligently; with a good deal of hair and whisker, deepened in its natural tint, perhaps, by smoke and coal-dust; hard knotty hands; and a square forehead, as coarse in grain as the bark of an oak. a thorough contrast in all respects to mr. dombey, who was one of those close-shaved, close-cut moneyed gentlemen who are glossy and crisp like new bank notes, and who seem to be artificially braced and tightened as by the stimulating action of golden shower baths. "you have a son, i believe?" said mr. dombey. "four on 'em, sir. four hims and a her. all alive!" "why, it's as much as you can afford to keep them!" said mr. dombey. "i couldn't hardly afford but one thing in the world less, sir." "what is that?" "to lose 'em, sir." "can you read?" asked mr. dombey. "why, not partick'ler, sir." "write?" "with chalk, sir?" "with anything?" "i could make shift to chalk a little bit, i think, if i was put to it," said toodle, after some reflection. "and yet," said mr. dombey, "you are two or three and thirty, i suppose?" "thereabout, i suppose, sir," answered toodle, after more reflection. "then why don't you learn?" asked mr. dombey. "so i'm agoing to, sir. one of my little boys is agoing to learn me, when he's old enough, and been to school himself." what a beautiful picture of the true relationship that should exist between a mother and her children is given in the reception to mrs. toodle when she went home to visit her family! "why, polly!" cried her sister. "you! what a turn you _have_ given me! who'd have thought it! come along in, polly! how well you do look, to be sure! the children will go half wild to see you, polly, that they will." that they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the way in which they dashed at polly and dragged her to a low chair in the chimney corner, where her own honest apple face became immediately the centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks close to it, and all evidently the growth of the same tree. as to polly, she was full as noisy and vehement as the children; and it was not until she was quite out of breath, and her hair was hanging all about her flushed face, and her new christening attire was very much dishevelled, that any pause took place in the confusion. even then, the smallest toodle but one remained in her lap, holding on tight with both arms round her neck; while the smallest toodle but two mounted on the back of the chair, and made desperate efforts, with one leg in the air, to kiss her round the corner. unfortunately the eldest toodle, nicknamed biler, was sent to the grinders' school by mr. dombey, and he was so badly treated that he played truant and got into bad company; but his mother clung to him and treated him kindly, and hoped for him still. mr. carker went home with biler to satisfy himself in regard to his family. "this fellow," said mr. carker to polly, giving him a gentle shake, "is your son, eh, ma'am?" "yes, sir," sobbed polly, with a courtesy; "yes, sir." "a bad son, i am afraid?" said mr. carker. "never a bad son to me, sir," returned polly. "to whom, then?" demanded mr. carker. "he has been a little wild, sir," replied polly, checking the baby, who was making convulsive efforts with his arms and legs to launch himself on biler, through the ambient air, "and has gone with wrong companions; but i hope he has seen the misery of that, sir, and will do well again." when mr. carker had concluded his visit, as he made his way among the crowding children to the door, rob retreated on his mother, and took her and the baby in the same repentant hug. "i'll try hard, dear mother, now. upon my soul i will!" said rob. "oh, do, my dear boy! i am sure you will, for our sakes and your own!" cried polly, kissing him. "but you're coming back to speak to me, when you have seen the gentleman away?" "i don't know, mother." rob hesitated, and looked down. "father--when's he coming home?" "not till two o'clock to-morrow morning." "i'll come back, mother, dear!" cried rob. and passing through the shrill cry of his brothers and sisters in reception of this promise, he followed mr. carker out. "what!" said mr. carker, who had heard this. "you have a bad father, have you?" "no, sir!" returned rob, amazed. "there ain't a better nor a kinder father going than mine is." "why don't you want to see him, then?" asked his patron. "there's such a difference between a father and a mother, sir," said rob, after faltering for a moment. "he couldn't hardly believe yet that i was going to do better--though i know he'd try to; but a mother--_she_ always believes what's good, sir; at least i know my mother does, god bless her!" it was not the fault of his home that biler went astray. nor did dickens fail to give a picture for the fathers too. mr. toodle was a workman on a train, and great was the joy in the family when father came home. "polly, my gal," said mr. toodle, with a young toodle on each knee and two more making tea for him, and plenty more scattered about--mr. toodle was never out of children, but always kept a good supply on hand--"you ain't seen our biler lately, have you?" "no," replied polly, "but he's almost certain to look in to-night. it's his right evening, and he's very regular." "i suppose," said mr. toodle, relishing his meal infinitely, "as our biler is a-doin' now about as well as a boy _can_ do, eh, polly?" "oh! he's a-doing beautiful!" responded polly. "he ain't got to be at all secretlike--has he, polly?" inquired mr. toodle. "no!" said mrs. toodle plumply. "i'm glad he ain't got to be at all secretlike, polly," observed mr. toodle in his slow and measured way, and shovelling in his bread and butter with a clasp knife, as if he were stoking himself, "because that don't look well; do it, polly?" "why, of course, it don't, father. how can you ask?" "you see, my boys and gals," said mr. toodle, looking round upon his family, "wotever you're up to in a honest way, it's my opinion as you can't do better than be open. if you find yourselves in cuttings or in tunnels, don't you play no secret games. keep your whistles going, and let's know where you are." the rising toodles set up a shrill murmur, expressive of their resolution to profit by the paternal advice. "but what makes you say this along of rob, father?" asked his wife anxiously. "polly, old 'ooman," said mr. toodle, "i don't know as i said it partickler along o' rob, i'm sure. i starts light with rob only; i comes to a branch; i takes on what i finds there; and a whole train of ideas gets coupled on to him afore i knows where i am, or where they comes from. what a junction a man's thoughts is," said mr. toodle, "to be sure!" this profound reflection mr. toodle washed down with a pint mug of tea, and proceeded to solidify with a great weight of bread and butter; charging his young daughters meanwhile to keep plenty of hot water in the pot, as he was uncommon dry, and should take the indefinite quantity of "a sight of mugs" before his thirst was appeased. and as the jolly old fellow ate his supper he was surrounded by all his smaller children, some on his knees, and others under his arms, and all getting bites of bread and butter and sups of tea in turn, although they had had their own supper before he came home. dickens did not wish to teach that such relationships should exist between parents and children in the homes of the labouring classes only. he used toodle and his family as representing one extreme of society, as at present constituted, in sharp contrast with mr. dombey's family at the other extreme. how happy the one home with barely enough to secure the necessaries of life! how miserable the other with unlimited wealth! and the best things in the toodle home were the children, and the love and unconventional freedom between them and their parents. with such a feeling of community and love in all homes, and with schools of a proper character, the children will be trained for higher, and progressively advancing manhood and womanhood. david copperfield's training was not all coercive and degrading. before the murdstones came to blight his young life he had joy and sympathy to stimulate all that was good in him. his mother and peggotty were kind and true. the three had perfect faith in each other. they formed a blessed unity. "the memory of his lessons in those happy days recalled no feeling of disgust or reluctance. on the contrary, he seemed to have walked along a path of flowers, and to have been cheered by the gentleness of his mother's voice and manner all the way." again, after the murdstone interval of terror and cruelty, david was kindly treated and well trained by his aunt. her relationship toward him throughout his whole youth is well presented in her parting words, as she left him at mr. wickfield's house, where he was to live while at doctor strong's school. she told me that everything would be arranged for me by mr. wickfield, and that i should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and the best advice. "trot," said my aunt in conclusion, "be a credit to yourself, to me, and mr. dick, and heaven be with you!" i was greatly overcome, and could only thank her again and again, and send my love to mr. dick. "never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. avoid these three vices, trot, and i can always be hopeful of you." in mr. wickfield's home and in doctor strong's school he had ideal conditions of development. he received respectful consideration, fatherly interest, wise counsel, and generous hospitality from mr. wickfield. with agnes he had the most delightful relationship of sympathetic and stimulating friendship. there is no better influence in the life of a boy opening into young manhood than the true friendship of a girl of the character of agnes. in doctor strong's school david met with the best conditions of good training yet revealed by the "new education." the boys were taught politeness, courtesy, and consideration for the feelings of others in doctor strong's school. about five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books when we went in, but they rose to give the doctor good morning, and remained standing when they saw mr. wickfield and me. "a new boy, young gentlemen," said the doctor; "trotwood copperfield." one adams, who was the head boy, then stepped out of his place and welcomed me. he looked like a young clergyman, in his white cravat, but he was very affable and good-humoured; and he showed me my place, and presented me to the masters in a gentlemanly way that would have put me at my ease if anything could. physical education received due attention at doctor strong's school. "we had noble games out of doors." these outdoor sports have done more than anything else to develop the strength and energy of the british character. thoughtful educators everywhere recognise the value of play in the development of the physical, the intellectual, and the spiritual nature as taught by froebel. the love of play has been one of the distinctive elements of the british people. doctor strong's personal influence was good. "he was the idol of the whole school." he was not coercive nor restrictive; he was an inspiration to effort and to manliness of conduct. "he was the kindest of men," full of sympathy with boyhood and with individual boys. "he had a simple faith in him that might have touched the stone hearts of the very urns upon the wall." mr. wickfield told david that he feared some of the boys might take advantage of his kindness and faith, but boys do not abuse the confidence of such teachers. "he appealed in everything to the honour and good faith of the boys, and avowed his intention to rely on the possession of these qualities unless they proved themselves unworthy." david says this "worked wonders." he had no spies in schoolroom or grounds. he trusted his boys in a frank, unconventional way, and they proved themselves worthy of trust. in such an atmosphere a boy grows to be reliable. he does not need to be hypocritical or false. "the boys all became warmly attached to the school--i am sure i did for one, and i never knew, in all my time, of any other boy being otherwise--and learned with a good will, desiring to do it credit." they had independent self-activity. "we had plenty of liberty." without this no child can reach his best growth. the boys did not abuse their privilege. they respected themselves more because they had liberty. "as i remember, we were well spoken of in the town, and rarely did any disgrace, by our appearance or manner, to the reputation of doctor strong and doctor strong's boys." the community ideal was wrought into the lives of the boys by their experience in this model school. "we all felt that we had a part in the management of the place, and in sustaining its character and dignity." the highest work of schools, colleges, and universities is to fill the lives of men and women with the apperceptive centres of the community ideal. christian community can not be made clear by books or teaching or sermons unless its foundations are laid by experience, by "sharing in the management" of the conditions of the life of the boy, or girl, or student. froebel pleaded for a college and university education in which students should "share in the management." dickens applied this high ideal. there is another most important element in doctor strong's influence. he was not "a human barrel organ," like mr. feeder, "playing a little list of greek and latin tunes over and over again without any variation." he was an original investigator. he was preparing a dictionary of greek roots. he was not merely an accumulator of knowledge as it had been prepared by some one else. he was not a mere canal through which knowledge slowly flowed through artificial channels, nor a marsh in which knowledge had become confused and stagnant, nor a dead sea into which knowledge flowed, but from which there was no outlet. he was a fresh fountain from which knowledge came clear and pure. so the boys gained knowledge readily from him, but, far beyond knowledge, they learned incidentally the habit of work, and were filled with the desire to add to the store of knowledge as a basis for the progressive evolution of humanity. what a farce it is to say that dickens was not conscious of the pedagogic value of his work. he had great facility in learning, but he was also a hard student. no one could have written so much and so wisely about education unless he had studied carefully the thought of the most advanced educators. david's aunt had the wisdom to try to develop in him the characteristics of excellence that were lacking in his parents. this is a thought that is slowly making its way in the minds of educators. "but what i want you to be, trot," resumed my aunt--"i don't mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically--is a firm fellow. a fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. with resolution," said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clinching her hand. "with determination. with character, trot--with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. that's what i want you to be. that's what your father and mother might both have been, heaven knows, and been the better for it." i intimated that i hoped i should be what she described. "that you may begin, in a small way, to have a reliance upon yourself, and to act for yourself," said my aunt, "i shall send you upon your trip alone." in pursuance of my aunt's kind scheme, i was shortly afterward fitted out with a handsome purse of money and a portmanteau, and tenderly dismissed upon my expedition. at parting, my aunt gave me some good advice and a good many kisses; and said that as her object was that i should look about me, and should think a little, she would recommend me to stay a few days in london, if i liked it, either on my way down into suffolk, or in coming back. in a word, i was at liberty to do as i would for three weeks or a month; and no other conditions were imposed upon my freedom than the before-mentioned thinking and looking about me, and a pledge to write three times a week and faithfully report myself. betsy trotwood may safely be taken as a model in dealing with boys during the adolescent period, and with young men just about to start in the real work of life. dickens puts into the words of david copperfield a statement of the elements of character which he regarded as most essential to success in life, and which he would take pains to develop by the training in homes and schools. i will only add to what i have already written of my perseverance at this time of my life, and of a patient and continuous energy which then began to be matured within me, and which i know to be the strong part of my character, if it have any strength at all, that there, on looking back, i find the source of my success. i have been very fortunate in worldly matters; many men have worked much harder, and not succeeded half so well; but i never could have done what i have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time, no matter how quickly its successor should come upon its heels, which i then formed. my meaning simply is, that whatever i have tried to do in life, i have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever i have devoted myself to, i have devoted myself to completely; that, in great aims and in small, i have always been thoroughly in earnest. i have never believed it possible that any natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its end. there is no such thing as such fulfilment on this earth. some happy talent, and some fortunate opportunity, may form the two sides of the ladder on which some men mount, but the rounds of that ladder must be made of stuff to stand wear and tear; and there is no substitute for thoroughgoing, ardent, and sincere earnestness. never to put one hand to anything on which i could throw my whole self and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was, i find, now, to have been my golden rules. bleak house, which is so rich in illustrations of bad training, contains little direct teaching regarding the proper training of children. the value of a doll in the training of a girl is shown in esther's early experience. the doll had a real personal relationship to her. she made it her confidant, and in various ways gave it a distinct personal standing. she could pour out to it the joys and sorrows of her heart more fully than to any real person. the doll was an outlet for the pent-up emotions that were checked in their flow by the adults with whom she was associated. a doll is more than a mere plaything to a child; or perhaps it would be more exact to say play with a doll means much more than most people believe. dickens was able to sympathize with even a little girl. esther says: i can remember, when i was a very little girl indeed, i used to say to my doll, when we were alone together, "now, dolly, i am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!" and so she used to sit propped up in a great armchair, with her beautiful complexion and rosy lips, staring at me--or not so much at me, i think, as at nothing--while i busily stitched away, and told her every one of my secrets. my dear old doll! i was such a shy little thing that i seldom dared to open my lips, and never dared to open my heart, to anybody else. it almost makes me cry to think what a relief it used to be to me, when i came home from school of a day, to run upstairs to my room, and say "oh you dear faithful dolly, i knew you would be expecting me!" and then to sit down on the floor, leaning on the elbow of her great chair, and tell her all i had noticed since we parted. i had always rather a noticing way--not a quick way, oh, no!--a silent way of noticing what passed before me, and thinking i should like to understand it better. i have not by any means a quick understanding. when i love a person very tenderly indeed, it seems to brighten. when on her lonely birthday she had been told by her godmother that a shadow hung over her life she says: i went up to my room, and crept to bed, and laid my doll's cheek against mine wet with tears; and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom cried myself to sleep. dear, dear, to think how much time we passed alone together afterward, and how often i repeated to the doll the story of my birthday, and confided to her that i would try, as hard as ever i could, to repair the fault i had been born with (of which i confessedly felt guilty and yet innocent), and would strive as i grew up to be industrious, contented, and kind-hearted, and to do some good to some one, and win some love to myself if i could. mr. jarndyce emphasized the opinion of david copperfield when he gave advice to richard carstone: "trust in nothing but in providence and your own efforts. never separate the two, like the heathen wagoner. constancy in love is a good thing; but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. if you had the abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. if you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here." mr. george gave woolwich bagnet kindly counsel regarding his duty to his mother: "the time will come, my boy," pursues the trooper, "when this hair of your mother's will be gray, and this forehead all crossed and recrossed with wrinkles--and a fine old lady she'll be then. take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, '_i_ never whitened a hair of her dear head--_i_ never marked a sorrowful line in her face!' for of all the many things that you can think of when you are a man, you had better have _that_ by you, woolwich!" mr. meagles in little dorrit, good, kind mr. meagles, explained why little dorrit, amid all her trials and all her difficulties, had grown to be so true a woman, loved by so many people. if she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself that everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, and cast it at her, she would have led an irritable and probably a useless existence. yet i have heard tell, tattycoram, that her young life has been one of active resignation, goodness, and noble service. shall i tell you what i consider those eyes of hers that were here just now, to have always looked at, to get that expression? "yes, if you please, sir." "duty, tattycoram. begin it early, and do it well; and there is no antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us with the almighty, or with ourselves." although mr. pocket was not able to manage his own household and family, chiefly owing to the hopeless incompetence of mrs. pocket, he was an excellent teacher, and knew how to treat his pupils. pip found him a most satisfactory guide. he advised my attending certain places in london for the acquisition of such mere rudiments as i wanted, and my investing him with the functions of explainer and director of all my studies. he hoped that with intelligent assistance i should meet with little to discourage me, and should soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. through his way of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on confidential terms with me in an admirable manner: and i may state at once that he was always so zealous and honourable in fulfilling his compact with me that he made me zealous and honourable in fulfilling mine with him. if he had shown indifference as a master, i had no doubt i should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such excuse, and each of us did the other justice. in our mutual friend betty higden and mrs. boffin are given as true types of the proper spirit of adulthood toward childhood. betty, poor as she was, wept at the thought of parting from johnny, and mrs. boffin said to her: "if you trust the dear child to me he shall have the best of homes, the best of care, the best of education, the best of friends. please god, i will be a true good mother to him!" jemmy lirriper had an ideal training in many ways. he had freedom and love, and his imagination and individuality were developed as fully as mrs. lirriper and the major could secure these desirable results. his boyish personality received respectful consideration. the major's method of revealing mathematical conceptions and processes, while it did not fully reveal froebel's processes in reaching the same results (even the great mathematicians have been slow in doing that), was much in advance of the pedagogy of his time, and it shows the spirit in which dickens would have the child treated, and this is much more important than mathematics. mrs. lirriper tells the story: my dear, the system upon which the major commenced, and, as i may say, perfected jemmy's learning when he was so small that if the dear was on the other side of the table you had to look under it instead of over it to see him with his mother's own bright hair in beautiful curls, is a thing that ought to be known to the throne and lords and commons, and then might obtain some promotion for the major, which he well deserves, and would be none the worse for (speaking between friends, l. s. d-ically). when the major first undertook his learning he says to me: "i'm going, madam," he says, "to make our child a calculating boy." "major," i says, "you terrify me, and may do the pet a permanent injury you would never forgive yourself." "madam," says the major, "i would regret if this fine mind was not early cultivated. but mark me, madam," says the major, holding up his forefinger, "cultivated on a principle that will make it a delight." "major," i says, "i will be candid with you and tell you openly that if ever i find the dear child fall off in his appetite i shall know it is his calculations, and shall put a stop to them at two minutes' notice. or if i find them mounting to his head," i says, "or striking anyways cold to his stomach or leading to anything approaching flabbiness in his legs, the result will be the same, but, major, you are a clever man and have seen much, and you love the child and are his own godfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying, try." "spoken, madam," says the major, "like emma lirriper. all i have to ask, madam, is that you will leave my godson and myself to make a week or two's preparations for surprising you, and that you will give leave to have up and down any small articles not actually in use that i may require from the kitchen." "from the kitchen, major!" i says, half feeling as if he had a mind to cook the child. "from the kitchen," says the major, and smiles and swells, and at the same time looks taller. so i passed my word, and the major and the dear boy were shut up together for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and never could i hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and laughing and jemmy clapping his hands and screaming out numbers, so i says to myself "it has not harmed him yet," nor could i, on examining the dear find any signs of it anywhere about him, which was likewise a great relief. at last one day jemmy brings me a card in joke in the major's neat writing "the messrs. jemmy jackman," for we had given him the major's other name too, "request the honour of mrs. lirriper's company at the jackman institution in the front parlour this evening at five, military time, to witness a few slight feats of elementary arithmetic." and, if you'll believe me, there in the front parlour at five punctually to the moment was the major behind the pembroke table with both leaves up and a lot of things from the kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers spread atop of it, and there was the mite stood up on a chair, with his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes sparkling clusters of diamonds. "now, gran," says he, "oo tit down and don't oo touch ler poople"--for he saw with every one of those diamonds of his that i was going to give him a squeeze. "very well, sir," i says, "i am obedient in this good company, i am sure." and i sits down in the easy-chair that was put for me, shaking my sides. but picture my admiration when the major, going on almost as quick as if he was conjuring, sets out all the articles he names, and says, "three saucepans, an italian iron, a hand bell, a toasting fork, a nutmeg grater, four potlids, a spice box, two egg cups, and a chopping board--how many?" and when that mite instantly cries "tifteen, tut down tive and carry ler 'topping board," and then claps his hands, draws up his legs, and dances on his chair! my dear, with the same astonishing ease and correctness, him and the major added up the tables, chairs, and sofy, the picters, fender and fire irons, their own selves, me and the cat, and the eyes in miss wozenham's head, and whenever the sum was done young roses and diamonds claps his hands and draws up his legs and dances on his chair. the pride of the major! ("_here's_ a mind, ma'am!" he says to me behind his hand.) then he says aloud, "we now come to the next elementary rule--which is called----" "umtraction!" cries jemmy. "right," says the major. "we have here a toasting fork, a potato in its natural state, two potlids, one egg-cup, a wooden spoon, and two skewers, from which it is necessary, for commercial purposes, to subtract a sprat gridiron, a small pickle jar, two lemons, one pepper castor, a black-beetle trap, and a knob of the dresser drawer--what remains?" "toatin fork!" cries jemmy. "in numbers, how many?" says the major. "one!" cries jemmy. ("_here's_ a boy, ma'am!" says the major to me, behind his hand.) "we now approach the next elementary rule--which is entitled----" "tickleication," cries jemmy. "correct," says the major. but, my dear, to relate to you in detail the way in which they multiplied fourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of ginger and a larding needle, or divided pretty well everything else there was on the table by the heater of the italian iron and a chamber candlestick, and got a lemon over, would make my head spin round and round and round, as it did at the time. so i says, "if you'll excuse my addressing the chair, professor jackman, i think the period of the lecture has now arrived when it becomes necessary that i should take a good hug of this young scholar." upon which jemmy calls out from his station on the chair, "gran, oo open oor arms and me'll make a 'pring into 'em." so i opened my arms to him, as i had opened my sorrowful heart when his poor young mother lay a-dying, and he had his jump and we had a good long hug together, and the major, prouder than any peacock, says to me behind his hand, "you need not let him know it, madam" (which i certainly need not, for the major was quite audible), "but he is a boy!" doctor marigold's training of the little deaf-mute girl and "old cheeseman's" treatment of children are revelations of the mature ideals of dickens regarding the proper attitude of adulthood toward childhood. chapter xiii. community. while the opinions of dickens on the subject of community may not seem very advanced to some of the most progressive men and women of the present, they were much ahead of his own time, and they are beyond the practice of our time. i have had my share of sorrows--more than the common lot, perhaps, but i have borne them ill. i have broken where i should have bent; and have mused and brooded, when my spirit should have mixed with all god's great creation. the men who learn endurance are they who call the whole world brother. i have turned _from_ the world, and i pay the penalty. thus spoke mr. haredale to edward chester, in barnaby rudge. no one who has lived since the time of dickens could write a more striking statement of the responsibility of every man for his brother, and of the terrific consequences of neglect of the duties of brotherhood both to him who is neglected and to him who neglects, than dickens wrote in dombey and son. there is no phase of sociology that has stepped beyond the position taken by dickens in the following selection: was mr. dombey's master vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an unnatural characteristic? it might be worth while, sometimes to inquire what nature is, and how men work to change her, and whether, in the enforced distortions so produced, it is not natural to be unnatural. coop any son or daughter of our mighty mother within narrow range, and bind the prisoner to one idea, and foster it by servile worship of it on the part of the few timid or designing people standing round, and what is nature to the willing captive who has never risen up upon the wings of a free mind--drooping and useless soon--to see her in her comprehensive truth! alas! are there so few things in the world about us most unnatural, and yet most natural in being so! hear the magistrate or judge admonish the unnatural outcast of society; unnatural in brutal habits, unnatural in want of decency, unnatural in losing and confounding all distinctions between good and evil; unnatural in ignorance, in vice, in recklessness, in contumacy, in mind, in looks, in everything. but follow the good clergyman or doctor, who, with his life imperilled at every breath he draws, goes down into their dens, lying within the echoes of our carriage wheels and daily tread upon the pavement stones. look round upon the world of odious sights--millions of immortal creatures have no other world on earth--at the lightest mention of which humanity revolts, and dainty delicacy living in the next street, stops her ears, and lisps, "i don't believe it!" breathe the polluted air, foul with every impurity that is poisonous to health and life; and have every sense conferred upon our race for its delight and happiness, offended, sickened, and disgusted, and made a channel by which misery and death alone can enter. vainly attempt to think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome weed that, set in this fetid bed, could have its natural growth or put its little leaves off to the sun as god designed it. and then, calling up some ghastly child, with stunted form and wicked face, hold forth on its unnatural sinfulness, and lament its being so early far away from heaven--but think a little of its having been conceived, and born and bred, in hell! those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon the health of man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise from vitiated air were palpable to the sight, we should see them lowering in a dense black cloud above such haunts, and rolling slowly on to corrupt the better portions of a town. but if the moral pestilence that rises with them, and in the eternal laws of outraged nature, is inseparable from them, could be made discernible too, how terrible the revelation! then should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long train of nameless sins against the natural affections and repulsions of mankind, overhanging the devoted spots, and creeping on, to blight the innocent and spread contagion among the pure. then should we see how the same poisoned fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazar houses, inundate the jails, and make the convict ships swim deep, and roll across the seas, and overrun vast continents with crime. then should we stand appalled to know that where we generate disease to strike our children down and entail itself on unborn generations, there also we breed, by the same certain process, infancy that knows no innocence, youth without modesty or shame, maturity that is mature in nothing but in suffering and guilt, blasted old age that is a scandal on the form we bear. unnatural humanity! when we shall gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from the offal in the byways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fat churchyards that they cherish; then we may look for natural humanity and find it growing from such seed. oh, for a good spirit who would take the housetops off, with a more potent and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show a christian people what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to swell the retinue of the destroying angel as he moves forth among them! for only one night's view of the pale phantoms rising from the scenes of our too long neglect; and from the thick and sullen air where vice and fever propagate together, raining the tremendous and social retributions which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! bright and blessed the morning that should rise on such a night; for men, delayed no more by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust upon the path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves, like creatures of one common origin, owing one duty to the father of one family, and tending to one common end to make the world a better place! not the less bright and blessed would that day be for rousing some who never have looked out upon the world of human life around them to a knowledge of their own relation to it, and for making them acquainted with a perversion of nature in their own contracted sympathies and estimates; as great and yet as natural in its development when once begun as the lowest degradation known. this selection is worth rereading. the most advanced thinkers will understand it best. dickens showed that he understood clearly that a man becomes marred and degraded by shutting the world out of his heart, even though the reason for the exclusion may in itself be good. love is the highest of all sentiments, and dickens used it in the case of mr. wickfield to show that even the tender love he had for his dead wife became a source of evil to him, when it made him cease to think of the sorrows of his fellows, and only of his own affliction. either in joy or sorrow the benefit to the individual results from a deepening of his consciousness of unity with the whole of humanity. mr. wickfield said to david: "weak indulgence has ruined me. indulgence in remembrance and indulgence in forgetfulness. my natural grief for my child's mother turned to disease; my natural love for my child turned to disease. i have infected everything i touched. i have brought misery on what i dearly love, i know--_you_ know! i thought it possible that i could truly love one creature in the world, and not love the rest; i thought it possible that i could truly mourn for one creature gone out of the world, and not have some part in the grief of all who mourned. thus the lessons of my life have been perverted! i have preyed on my own morbid coward heart, and it has preyed on me. sordid in my grief, sordid in my love, sordid in my miserable escape from the darker side of both, oh, see the ruin i am, and hate me, shun me!" in tom tiddler's ground dickens attacks the ideal that there may be merit in seclusion. mr. traveller visits the hermit who had become famous, and who was so vain on account of his dirt and simplicity of living, and he tells him some plain truths regarding himself and the duty of man to his fellow-men. "now," said he, "that a man--even behind bars, in a blanket and a skewer--should tell me that he can see from day to day any orders or conditions of men, women, or children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything but the miserablist drivelling for a human creature to quarrel with his social nature--not to go so far as to say, to renounce his common human decency, for that is an extreme case, or who can teach him that he can in any wise separate himself from his kind and the habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle calculated to give the devil (and perhaps the monkeys) pleasure--is something wonderful!" "you think yourself profoundly wise," said the hermit. "bah," returned mr. traveller, "there is little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, and that all mankind are made dependent on one another. "it is a moral impossibility," continued mr. traveller, "that any son or daughter of adam can stand on this ground that i put my foot on, or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy tenure on which we hold our existence." "which is," sneered the hermit, "according to you----" "which is," returned the traveller, "according to eternal providence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and react on each other, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner." dickens saves little emily from her great sorrow, and lifts the load of "shame" from her heart by giving her the opportunity of helping to care for others. but theer was some poor folks aboard as had illness among 'em, and she took care of _them_; and theer was the children in our company, and she took care of _them_; and so she got to be busy, and to be doing good, and that helped her. and in the same great book he ridicules the misuse of the sacred word "society" by applying it to the sham and mockery of all that should be truly helpful and ennobling in the social intercourse of mankind. or perhaps this _is_ the desert of sahara! for, though julia has a stately house, and mighty company, and sumptuous dinners every day, i see no green growth near her; nothing that can ever come to fruit or flower. what julia calls "society," i see among it mr. jack maldon, from his patent place, sneering at the hand that gave it to him, and speaking to me of the doctor, as "so charmingly antique." but when society is the name of such hollow gentlemen and ladies, julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, i think we must have lost ourselves in the same desert of sahara, and had better find the way out. when he spoke of little dorrit as "inspired" he proceeded to say: she was inspired to be something which was not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and laborious, for the sake of the rest. inspired? yes. shall we speak of the inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life! dickens had reached the great conception that the duty of every individual is to add something by his life to the general good. that we should not leave the world as we found it; that our work is not done well if we spend our lives in digging among the richest treasures of the past and revealing them unselfishly to our fellow-men, but that each should make some existing thing or condition better, or reveal some new thought or principle, or plan, or process, so that humanity may climb more easily and more certainly from the mists and shadows to the higher glory of the clearer light. mr. doyce had made an invention, but had met with almost insuperable difficulties in getting it before the people. "it is much to be regretted," said clennam, "that you ever turned your thoughts that way, mr. doyce." "true, sir, true, to a certain extent. but what is a man to do? if he has the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the nation, he must follow where it leads him." "hadn't he better let it go?" asked clennam. "he can't do it," said doyce, shaking his head, with a thoughtful smile. "it's not put into his head to be buried. it's put into his head to be made useful. you hold your life on the condition that to the last you shall struggle hard for it. every man holds a discovery on the same terms." "that is to say," said arthur, with a growing admiration of his quiet companion, "you are not fully discouraged even now?" "i have no right to be, if i am," returned the other. "the thing is as true as it ever was." throughout his writings dickens vigorously condemns the class distinctions that separate mankind into sections, and thus destroy the bond of unity and brotherhood that should exist between them. miss monflathers, in old curiosity shop, drew the line very definitely between genteel children and the children of the poor. mr. dombey pompously consented to have the children of the poor educated, because "it is necessary that the inferior classes should continue to be taught to know their position." fancy using education to prevent the unity of men, when its highest function should be the revelation of community and the qualification of individuals for the functions of brotherhood. in david copperfield the pathetic side of the evil of class distinctions is shown by the appeals of mr. peggotty to mrs. steerforth that she would consent to her son's marriage with little emily, and her indignant refusal to allow her son to do so. in bleak house sir leicester dedlock was amazed at the audacity of mr. rouncewell's democratic ideas, and his mind was filled with gloomy forebodings of the evil that such principles as those held by mr. rouncewell would work in the social organization as planned and fixed by the dedlock class. these were his thoughts: from the village school of chesney wold, intact as it is this minute, to the whole framework of society; from the whole framework of society, to the aforesaid framework receiving tremendous cracks in consequence of people (ironmasters, lead mistresses, and what not) not minding their catechism, and getting out of the station unto which they are called--necessarily and forever, according to sir leicester's rapid logic, the first station in which they happen to find themselves; and from that, to their educating other people out of _their_ stations, and so obliterating the landmarks, and opening the flood gates, and all the rest of it; this is the swift progress of the dedlock mind. in american notes, after describing at length the admirable co-operative arrangements, and the varied means of culture, amusement, and refinement enjoyed by the young women in the factories at lowell, mass., he says: the large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim with one voice, "how very preposterous!" on my deferentially inquiring why, they will answer, "these things are above their station." in reply to that objection, i would beg to ask what their station is. it is their station to work. and they _do_ work. they labour in these mills, upon an average, twelve hours a day, which is unquestionably work. and pretty tight work too. perhaps it is above their station to indulge in such amusements on any terms. are we quite sure that we in england have not formed our ideas of the "station" of working people from accustoming ourselves to the contemplation of that class as they are, and not as they might be? i think that if we examine our own feelings, we shall find that the pianos, and the circulating libraries, and even the lowell offering, startle us with their novelty, and not by their bearing upon any abstract question of right or wrong. for myself, i know no station in which, the occupation of to-day cheerfully done and the occupation of to-morrow cheerfully looked to, any one of these pursuits is not most humanizing and laudable. i know no station which is rendered more endurable to the person in it, or more safe to the person out of it, by having ignorance for its associate. i know no station which has a right to monopolize the means of mutual instruction, improvement, and rational entertainment; or which has ever continued to be a station very long, after seeking to do so. walter wilding planned an ideal relationship between employer and employed in no thoroughfare. he advertised for a housekeeper so that he "might sit daily at the head of the table at which the people in my employment eat together, and may eat of the same roast and boiled, and drink of the same beer, and one and all form a kind of family." he planned, too, to train his employees to sing "handel, mozart, haydn, kent, purcell, doctor arne, greene, mendelssohn, to make music a part of the bond between us. we will form a choir in some quiet church near the corner." he touched the true chord of community when joey ladle used the word "they." joey asked, when mr. wilding unfolded his plan: "is all to live in the house, young master wilding? the two other cellarmen, the three porters, the two 'prentices, and the odd men?" "yes. i hope we shall all be a united family, joey." "ah!" said joey. "i hope they may be." "they? rather say _we_, joey." not many employers have reached the ideals of dickens yet. chapter xiv. nutrition as a factor in education. the influence of diet in the development not only of physical power, but of intellectual and spiritual power also, has now begun to attract general attention. there is no longer any doubt that the character of the bones, of the muscles, of the nerves, and of the brain itself, is decided to a considerable extent by the food that is eaten. there is no longer any doubt that many children have been urged to do work which becomes destructive beyond the fatigue point of their little brains, when their brains have not been properly nourished, either from lack of proper food or of properly cooked food, or from eating too much or too little. the deterioration of the physical system, and especially the deterioration of the neurological system, is one of the most startling subjects within the range of view of educators and psychologists. one of the most attractive departments of child study is that which investigates the means of deciding from external manifestations of form, proportion, action, voice, and attitude the nature and condition of the brain and neurological system of the child. when this discovery has been made, however, it but prepares the way for further investigation to discover in what way abnormal or weak systems may be helped to become normal and strong. one of the fundamental things to be done by scientists and educators is to discover the kinds of food adapted to different stages of the child's growth, and to the varied functions of study and work required of him. by proper nutrition and by proper exercise much may be done to increase the power and efficiency of the body and the brain and the rest of the neurological system. dickens saw the need of attention to the problems of nutrition very clearly. he began to write about it in oliver twist. he first exposed the horrors of baby farming, with its terrible percentage of deaths, resulting almost entirely from the villainous indifference to the diet of the children. children yet die in homes from similar causes, or, if they do not die, they go through life weakened and dwarfed. for the next eight or ten months oliver was the victim of a systematic course of treachery and deception. he was brought up by hand. the hungry and destitute situation of the infant orphan was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities. the parish authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities whether there was no female then domiciled "in the house" who was in a situation to impart to oliver twist the consolation and nourishment of which he stood in need. the workhouse authorities replied with humility that there was not. upon this the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely resolved that oliver should be "farmed," or, in other words, that he should be despatched to a branch workhouse some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders against the poor laws rolled about the floor all day, without the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and for the consideration of sevenpence halfpenny per small head per week. sevenpence halfpenny's worth per week is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got for sevenpence halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable. the elderly female was a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself. so she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter allowance than was originally provided for them. thereby finding in the lowest depth a deeper still; and proving herself a very great experimental philosopher. the system did not work well for the children. for at the very moment when a child had contrived to exist upon the smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want or cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned into another world, and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this. it can not be expected that this system of farming would produce any very extraordinary or luxuriant crop. oliver twist's ninth birthday found him a pale, thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference. it _was_ his ninth birthday; and he was keeping it in the coal cellar with a select party of two other young gentlemen, who, after participating with him in a sound thrashing, had been locked up for atrociously presuming to be hungry. the famous meal in the workhouse when oliver asked for more was intended to direct attention to the way children were fed and treated in institutions. the boys were fed on gruel. of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more--except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides. the bowls never wanted washing. the boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. boys have generally excellent appetites. oliver twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months; at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger that one boy who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cookshop), hinted darkly to his companions that unless he had another basin of gruel _per diem_, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next to him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. he had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed him. a council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to oliver twist. the evening arrived; the boys took their places. the master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over a short commons. the gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other and winked at oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. child as he was, he was desperate with hunger and reckless with misery. he rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said, somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: "please, sir, i want some more." the master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. he gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. the assistants were paralyzed with wonder; the boys with fear. "what!" said the master at length, in a faint voice. "please, sir," replied oliver, "i want some more." the master aimed a blow at oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle. the board were sitting in solemn conclave, when mr. bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said: "mr. limbkins, i beg your pardon, sir! oliver twist has asked for more." there was a general start. horror was depicted in every countenance. "for _more_!" said mr. limbkins. "compose yourself, bumble, and answer me distinctly. do i understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?" "he did, sir," replied bumble. "that boy will be hung," said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. "i know that boy will be hung." having shown how infants were starved in "farming," and how boys were starved in the workhouses, he next directed attention to the way apprentices were treated. mr. sowerberry was an undertaker, who decided to take oliver from the workhouse. he took oliver "upon liking," which meant that "if he could get enough work out of him without putting too much food into him, he should keep him for a term of years to do what he liked with him." when oliver had been driven to desperation by noah claypole, and had punished him as he deserved, mrs. sowerberry sent for mr. bumble. when mr. bumble asked oliver if he was not afraid of him, oliver bravely answered "no!" the beadle was petrified with amazement, and he accounted for oliver's wickedness by saying: "it's meat." "what?" exclaimed mrs. sowerberry. "meat, ma'am, meat," replied bumble, with stern emphasis. "you've overfed him, ma'am. you've raised a artificial soul and spirit in him, ma'am, unbecoming a person of his condition; as the board, mrs. sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. what have paupers to do with soul or spirit? it's quite enough that we let 'em have live bodies. if you had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am, this would never have happened." "dear, dear!" ejaculated mrs. sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to the kitchen ceiling; "this comes of being liberal!" the liberality of mrs. sowerberry to oliver had consisted in a profuse bestowal upon him of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody else would eat. by this conversation dickens meant to teach that a well-fed child is a different type from one who is not properly nourished; that food has an influence on the spirit, as well as on the body. he did not disapprove of oliver's spirit, but he heartily commended him for resenting the way he was treated. this lesson was needed too, as children were expected to submit uncomplainingly to those who were their legal guardians, whether strangers or parents. now, largely through dickens, children are not only encouraged to defend themselves against cruel and tyrannical guardians or parents, and to run away from them, but the state itself will take them away, if cruelty is proved against those who should be their protectors. dickens also revealed by this incident the meanness of adults not only in institutions but in homes, in giving to the children the "odds and ends," the scraps, the parts of the fowl or the meat that older people do not care for. he brought the matter up again in great expectations. at the christmas dinner pip "was regaled with the scaly tips of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork of which the pig, when living, had least reason to be vain." one of the reasons given by snawley to squeers to induce him to take his stepsons at a lower rate was that "they were not great eaters." the selfishness of adulthood toward childhood, and the stupidity of the general idea, that children do not require good food because they are young and do not have to work hard, were held up to deserved ridicule, in squeers's manner of breakfasting in london, and the food he provided for the five hungry little boys to strengthen them for their long ride to yorkshire in cold weather. he found that learned gentleman sitting at breakfast, with the three little boys before noticed, and two others who had turned up by some lucky chance since the interview of the previous day, ranged in a row on the opposite seat. mr. squeers had before him a small measure of coffee, a plate of hot toast, and a cold round of beef; but he was at that moment intent on preparing breakfast for the little boys. "this is two penn'orth of milk, is it, waiter?" said mr. squeers, looking down into a large blue mug, and slanting it gently, so as to get an accurate view of the quantity of liquid contained in it. "that's two penn'orth, sir," replied the waiter. "what a rare article milk is, to be sure, in london!" said mr. squeers with a sigh. "just fill that mug up with lukewarm water, william, will you?" "to the wery top, sir?" inquired the waiter. "why, the milk will be drownded." "never you mind that," replied mr. squeers. "serve it right for being so dear. you ordered that thick bread and butter for three, did you?" "coming directly, sir." "you needn't hurry yourself," said squeers; "there's plenty of time. conquer your passions, boys, and don't be eager after vittles." as he uttered this moral precept, mr. squeers took a large bite out of the cold beef, and recognised nicholas. "sit down, mr. nickleby," said squeers. "here we are, a-breakfasting you see!" nicholas did _not_ see that anybody was breakfasting, except mr. squeers; but he bowed with all becoming reverence, and looked as cheerful as he could. "oh! that's the milk and water, is it, william?" said squeers. "very good; don't forget the bread and butter presently." at this fresh mention of the bread and butter the five little boys looked very eager, and followed the waiter out, with their eyes; meanwhile mr. squeers tasted the milk and water. "ah!" said that gentleman, smacking his lips, "here's richness! think of the many beggars and orphans in the streets that would be glad of this, little boys. a shocking thing hunger is, isn't it, mr. nickleby?" "very shocking, sir," said nicholas. "when i say number one," pursued mr. squeers, putting the mug before the children, "the boy on the left hand nearest the window may take a drink; and when i say number two, the boy next him will go in, and so till we come to number five, which is the last boy. are you ready?" "yes, sir," cried the little boys with great eagerness. "that's right," said squeers, calmly getting on with his breakfast; "keep ready till i tell you to begin. subdue your appetites, my dears, and you've conquered human natur. this is the way we inculcate strength of mind, mr. nickleby," said the schoolmaster, turning to nicholas, and speaking with his mouth very full of beef and toast. nicholas murmured something--he knew not what--in reply; and the little boys, dividing their gaze between the mug, the bread and butter (which had by this time arrived), and every morsel which mr. squeers took into his mouth, remained with strained eyes in torments of expectation. "thank god for a good breakfast," said squeers, when he had finished. "number one may take a drink." number one received the mug ravenously, and had just drunk enough to make him wish for more, when mr. squeers gave the signal for number two, who gave up at the same interesting moment to number three; and the process was repeated until the milk and water terminated with number five. "and now," said the schoolmaster, dividing the bread and butter for three into as many portions as there were children, "you had better look sharp with your breakfast, the horn will blow in a minute or two, and then every boy leaves off." permission being thus given to fall to, the boys began to eat voraciously, and in desperate haste, while the schoolmaster (who was in high good humour after his meal) picked his teeth with a fork, and looked smilingly on. in a very short time the horn was heard. "i thought it wouldn't be long," said squeers, jumping up and producing a little basket from under the seat; "put what you haven't had time to eat in here, boys! you'll want it on the road!" young wackford squeers was fed on the fattest meats, so that he might be kept plump and energetic, in order that he might be taken to london to show intending patrons how well the boys were fed in dotheboys hall. again, in the old curiosity shop, the starving of child servants is condemned by the way sally brass fed the marchioness. dick swiveller's curiosity led him to peep through a crack in the kitchen door one day while sally was giving the little servant her dinner. everything was locked up; the coal cellar, the candle box, the salt box, the meat safe were all padlocked. there was nothing that a beetle could have lunched upon. the pinched and meagre aspect of the place would have killed a chameleon; he would have known, at the first mouthful, that the air was not eatable, and must have given up the ghost in despair. the small servant stood with humility in presence of miss sally, and hung her head. "are you there?" said miss sally. "yes, ma'am," was the answer, in a weak voice. "go farther away from the leg of mutton, or you'll be picking it, i know," said miss sally. the girl withdrew into a corner, while miss brass took a key from her pocket, and opening the safe, brought from it a dreary waste of cold potatoes, looking as eatable as stonehenge. this she placed before the small servant, ordering her to sit down before it, and then, taking up a great carving knife, made a mighty show of sharpening it upon the carving fork. "do you see this?" said miss brass, slicing off about two square inches of cold mutton, after all this preparation, and holding it out on the point of the fork. the small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to see every shred in it, small as it was, and answered, "yes." "then don't you ever go and say," retorted miss sally, "that you hadn't meat here. there, eat it up." this was soon done. "now, do you want any more?" said miss sally. the hungry creature answered with a faint "no." they were evidently going through an established form. "you've been helped once to meat," said miss brass, summing up the facts; "you have had as much as you can eat, you're asked if you want any more, and you answer 'no!' then don't you ever go and say you were allowanced, mind that." dickens showed the evil effects of eating too rapidly in his description of the dinner in mrs. pawkins's boarding house in new york, where martin chuzzlewit boarded for a short time after reaching america. it was a numerous company, eighteen or twenty perhaps. of these, some five or six were ladies, who sat wedged together in a little phalanx by themselves. all the knives and forks were working away at a rate that was quite alarming; very few words were spoken; and everybody seemed to eat his utmost in self-defence, as if a famine were expected to set in before breakfast time to-morrow morning, and it had become high time to assert the first law of nature. the poultry, which may perhaps be considered to have formed the staple of the entertainment--for there was a turkey at the top, a pair of ducks at the bottom, and two fowls in the middle--disappeared as rapidly as if every bird had had the use of its wings, and had flown in desperation down a human throat. the oysters, stewed and pickled, leaped from their capacious reservoirs, and slid by scores into the mouths of the assembly. the sharpest pickles vanished, whole cucumbers at once, like sugarplums, and no man winked his eye. great heaps of indigestible matter melted away as ice before the sun. it was a solemn and an awful thing to see. dyspeptic individuals bolted their food in wedges; feeding not themselves, but broods of nightmares, who were continually standing at livery within them. spare men, with lank and rigid cheeks, came out unsatisfied from the destruction of heavy dishes, and glared with watchful eyes upon the pastry. what mrs. pawkins felt each day at dinner time is hidden from all human knowledge. but she had one comfort. it was very soon over. dickens repeats this criticism of rapid eating in his american notes, when specifying the causes of disease among american people. he says: "the custom of hastily swallowing large quantities of animal food three times a day and rushing back to sedentary pursuits after each meal must be changed." poor paul dombey was sacrificed to his father's pride. mrs. toodle was dismissed by mr. dombey because she dared to take his infant son with her when she went to see her own children. paul was thus robbed of the natural food, which his sensitive nature needed so much. this was largely responsible for the fact that paul was delicate. by first depriving him of proper food, and then sending him to doctor blimber's school "to learn everything," mr. dombey led directly to paul's death. his pride and vanity overreached themselves. in mrs. pipchin's meals dickens tried to show two things: first, the selfishness of adulthood in regard to children's diet as compared with its own; second, the absolute insufficiency of the kind of food commonly supplied to children for building up strong, energetic, and well-developed men and women. she regaled the children with a repast of "farinaceous and vegetable foods--chiefly rice," but she herself had a good hot dinner with mutton chops. the children were required to repeat a form of grace thanking mrs. pipchin for a good dinner. oliver was told he must be thankful to the kind gentlemen who provided food for him in the workhouse. the same mockery of religion by mixing it up with the starvation of childhood is made ridiculous in the letter which squeers read to the unfortunate children in dotheboys hall, pretending that it had been written by the stepmother of mobbs. "mobbs's stepmother," said squeers, "took to her bed on hearing that he wouldn't eat fat, and has been very ill ever since. she wishes to know, by an early post, where he expects to go to if he quarrels with his vittles; and with what feelings he could turn up his nose at the cow's liver's broth, after his good master had asked a blessing on it." "cow's liver's broth" would not be a very strengthening diet for children even with the blessing of so good a man as squeers upon it. dickens makes a characteristic hit at the fashionable idea which was popular at one time, that it was rather indelicate, especially in a lady, to have a good robust constitution and a vigorous digestion in describing mr. vholes in bleak house. "his digestion was impaired, which is always highly respectable." mrs. cruncher, in a tale of two cities, objected to the questionable ways in which mr. cruncher earned his money sometimes. her husband charged her with flying in the face of providence by refusing the "wittles and drink" he provided for her, and especially for neglecting to give it to their son. "with you flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! i don't know how scarce you mayn't make the wittles and drink here by your flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. look at your boy: he is yourn, ain't he? he's as thin as a lath. do you call yourself a mother, and not know a mother's first duty is to blow her son out." abel magwitch, when describing the terrible training he received at the hands of a christian community in the most advanced christian civilization of the world, said that when he was in jail some philanthropists "measured his head to find out the cause of his wickedness," and added with great wisdom, "they had better a-measured my stomach." the folly of hoping that healthy infants can be nourished by mothers who are compelled to labour continuously through long hours without rest is shown in the description of the child whose mother was a waitress, in somebody's luggage. incidentally, too, dickens reveals in this case the facts that the power of assimilation of little children is usually impaired, and that, as a consequence, they become more peevish, and therefore get shaken and otherwise abused for the ignorance of the adults responsible for their care. speaking of the treatment of the baby, he says: you were conveyed--ere yet your dawning powers were otherwise developed than to harbour vacancy in your inside--you were conveyed by surreptitious means into a pantry adjoining the admiral nelson, civic and general dining-rooms, there to receive by stealth that healthful sustenance which is the pride and boast of the british female constitution. under the combined influence of the smells of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and malt liquors, you partook of your earliest nourishment; your unwilling grandmother sitting prepared to catch you when your mother was called and dropped you; your grandmother's shawl ever ready to stifle your natural complainings; your innocent mind surrounded by uncongenial cruets, dirty plates, dish covers, and cold gravy; your mother calling down the pipe for veals and porks, instead of soothing you with nursery rhymes. under these untoward circumstances you were early weaned. your unwilling grandmother, ever growing more unwilling as your food assimilated less, then contracted habits of shaking you till your system curdled, and your food would not assimilate at all. the schoolmaster in jemmy lirriper's original story was captured and put into confinement for his treatment of the boys, and he was to have nothing to eat but the boys' dinners, and was to drink half a cask of their beer every day. the schoolboy in the schoolboy's story describes the food given to the boys as one of the grievances they had against the institution. as to the beef, it's shameful. it's _not_ beef. regular beef isn't veins. you can chew regular beef. besides which, there's gravy to regular beef, and you never see a drop to ours. another of our fellows went home ill, and heard the family doctor tell his father that he couldn't account for his complaint unless it was the beer. of course it was the beer, and well it might be! however, beef and old cheeseman are two different things. so is beer. it was old cheeseman i meant to tell about; not the manner in which our fellows get their constitutions destroyed for the sake of profit. why, look at the pie crust alone. there's no flakiness in it. it's solid--like damp lead. then our fellows get nightmares, and are bolstered for calling out and waking other fellows. who can wonder! old cheeseman one night walked in his sleep, put his hat on over his nightcap, got hold of a fishing rod and a cricket bat, and went down into the parlour, where they naturally thought from his appearance he was a ghost. why, he never would have done that if his meals had been wholesome. when we all begin to walk in our sleeps, i suppose they'll be sorry for it. at doctor blimber's school they used "to crib the boys' dinners." there is no more outrageous practice than that of depriving a child of food as a means of punishment. dickens ended his sketch entitled a walk in a workhouse with a plea on behalf of the inmates for "a little more liberty--and a little more bread," and even in his last book, edwin drood, he was still directing attention to the poor food supplied in boarding schools. mrs. billickin was very plain in her hints about the poor board supplied to rosa at miss twinkleton's when she received the schoolmistress in her own home. referring to rosa, who was now residing with mrs. billickin, she said: "i did think it well to mention to my cook, which i 'ope you will agree with, miss twinkleton, was a right precaution, that the young lady being used to what we should consider here but poor diet, had better be brought forward by degrees. for a rush from scanty feeding to generous feeding, and from what you may call messing to what you may call method, do require a power of constitution, which is not often found in youth, particularly when undermined by boarding school! i was put in youth to a very genteel boarding school, the mistress being no less a lady than yourself, of about your own age, or, it may be some years younger, and a poorness of blood flowed from the table which has run through my life." chapter xv. minor schools. the schools of squeers, doctor blimber, mr. creakle, doctor strong, and mr. gradgrind and mr. m'choakumchild are the most celebrated schools of dickens, and they contain the greater part of his pedagogical teaching. his other schools are, however, worthy of very careful study. one of the first of the sketches by boz described a man who had passed through many vicissitudes, and at length was reduced to such poverty that he applied to the parish board for charity. this led to his appointment as a schoolmaster. dickens clearly intended to teach the lesson, afterward emphasized in nicholas nickleby and other books, that poverty should not establish a claim to the position of a school-teacher. minerva hall, also in sketches by boz, reveals "one of those public nuisances, a spoiled child," spoiled because his papa was too busy with public duties and his mamma with society duties to train him properly. it also shows the reason mrs. cornelius brook dingwall had for sending her daughter to school. she said: "one of my principal reasons for parting with my daughter is that she has lately acquired some sentimental ideas, which it is most desirable to eradicate from her young mind." here the public nuisance fell out of a chair, and mamma and papa showed their usual mode of training him. mamma called him "a naughty boy," and threatened "to send for james to take him away"--both name and threat being wrong. papa merely excused the cherub on the ground of "his great flow of spirits." the school also shows the silly training of so-called "finishing schools," as chiefly intended to teach young ladies the small conventionalities of "society." in the old curiosity shop there are four schools: mr. marton's two schools, mrs. wackles's school, and miss monflathers's school. mr. marton's first school was introduced to reveal all the good qualities that mr. squeers lacked, especially sympathy. mr. marton was the immediate successor of mr. squeers, and they possessed directly opposite traits of character in their relationship to childhood. mr. squeers was coarse, unsympathetic, and coercive. mr. marton was kind, considerate, and a perfect type of true sympathy with the child. it is reasonable to believe that mr. marton and mr. squeers were drawn as companion pictures to illustrate and enforce the same truth--that sympathy with the child is the fundamental element in the character of a true teacher. the old bachelor emphasized this when he said to mr. marton, "you are none the worse teacher for having learned humanity." there is a great deal of food for psychological and pedagogical study in the introduction of the boys he was to teach in his second school, given by the bachelor to mr. marton. the bachelor was as full of genuine boyish spirit as it is possible for any adult to be, and was in some respects a more perfect type for an ideal teacher than mr. marton. mr. marton had the tender, spiritual sympathy of a true woman, the motherhood spirit that constitutes the atmosphere in which all right elements of childhood find their richest development; the bachelor had the perfect manly sympathy that enabled him to enter heartily into boy life. he had especially the power of recognising in the things for which boys are often rebuked the best evidences of their strength, and he could remember his own boyhood so well as to fully sympathize _with_ the boys. mr. marton and the bachelor reveal the whole range of sympathetic possibilities. when nothing more was left to be done he charged the boy to run off and bring his schoolmates to be marshalled before their new master and solemnly reviewed. "as good a set of fellows, marton, as you'd wish to see," he said, turning to the schoolmaster when the boy was gone; "but i don't let 'em know i think so. that wouldn't do at all." the messenger soon returned at the head of a long row of urchins, great and small, who, being confronted by the bachelor at the house door, fell into various convulsions of politeness; clutching their hats and caps, squeezing them into the smallest possible dimensions, and making all manner of bows and scrapes, which the little old gentleman contemplated with excessive satisfaction, and expressed his approval of by a great many nods and smiles. indeed, his approbation of the boys was by no means so scrupulously disguised as he had led the schoolmaster to suppose, inasmuch as it broke out in sundry loud whispers and confidential remarks which were perfectly audible to them every one. "this first boy, schoolmaster," said the bachelor, "is john owen; a lad of good parts, sir, and frank, honest temper; but too thoughtless, too playful, too light-headed by far. that boy, my good sir, would break his neck with pleasure, and deprive his parents of their chief comfort--and between ourselves, when you come to see him at hare and hounds, taking the fence and ditch by the finger post, and sliding down the face of the little quarry, you'll never forget it. it's beautiful!" john owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession of the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy. "now look at that lad, sir," said the bachelor. "you see that fellow? richard evans his name is, sir. an amazing boy to learn, blessed with a good memory and a ready understanding, and moreover with a good voice and ear for psalm singing, in which he is the best among us. yet, sir, that boy will come to a bad end; he'll never die in his bed; he's always falling asleep in sermon time--and to tell you the truth, mr. marton, i always did the same at his age, and feel quite certain that it was natural to my constitution, and i couldn't help it." this hopeful pupil edified by the above terrible reproval, the bachelor turned to another. "but if we talk of examples to be shunned," said he, "if we come to boys that should be a warning and a beacon to all their fellows, here's the one, and i hope you won't spare him. this is the lad, sir; this one with the blue eyes and light hair. this is a swimmer, sir, this fellow--a diver, lord save us! this is a boy, sir, who had a fancy for plunging into eighteen feet of water, with his clothes on, and bringing up a blind man's dog, who was being drowned by the weight of his chain and collar, while his master stood wringing his hands upon the bank, bewailing the loss of his guide and friend. i sent the boy two guineas anonymously, sir," added the bachelor, in his peculiar whisper, "directly i heard of it; but never mention it on any account, for he hasn't the least idea that it came from me." having disposed of this culprit, the bachelor turned to another, and from him to another, and so on through the whole array, laying, for their wholesome restriction within due bounds, the same cutting emphasis on such of their propensities as were dearest to his heart, and were unquestionably referable to his own precept and example. thoroughly persuaded, in the end, that he had made them miserable by his severity, he dismissed them with a small present, and an admonition to walk quietly home, without any leapings, scufflings, or turnings out of the way; which injunction, he informed the schoolmaster in the same audible confidence, he did not think he could have obeyed when he was a boy had his life depended on it. what a model he was for teachers, this glorious bachelor, in his sympathy _with_ the boys, and in his unconventionality! when teachers begin to feel the grip of formalism on their better natures and begin to lose faith in so-called bad boys, they should read this introduction of the pupils by the bachelor. bless his memory! he will always rank among the greatest child trainers. his pretence of not letting the boys know that he thought they were good fellows was a pleasant rebuke of the miserable old doctrine that a boy should always be told his faults, but never be spoken to about his virtues. this false doctrine having been so carefully applied in homes and schools for centuries as a religious duty, based on the unscriptural doctrine of child depravity, has made a large portion of humanity in christian countries mere defect dodgers, instead of making them conscious of power to do independent work for god and their fellow-men. dickens had no faith in this doctrine, and he taught that one of the highest things a teacher can do for a child is to recognise and show honest appreciation of his best powers and qualities. when superintendents search as carefully for the good qualities and powers of their teachers as some yet do for their weaknesses, and when they are so unconventional as to be able to show genuine appreciation frankly to the teachers themselves, the schools will reach their proper rate of progressive development. through the whole series of criticisms of the boys, dickens is showing the full rich sympathy of his own great heart for the whole race of boys in the unreasonable and unjust criticism to which they are subjected by forgetful and ignorant adulthood. those who should be wisest in these matters--and especially many who think themselves wise--are still very forgetful of their own early life, and very ignorant of boyhood. mrs. wackles's school was called a "ladies' seminary," but it was in reality "a very small day school for young ladies of proportionate dimensions." the several duties of instruction in this establishment were thus discharged: english grammar, composition, geography, and the use of the dumb-bells, by miss melissa wackles; writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and general fascination, by miss sophy wackles; the art of needlework, marking, and samplery, by miss jane wackles; corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and terrors, by mrs. wackles. miss melissa wackles was the eldest daughter, miss sophy the next, and miss jane the youngest. miss melissa might have seen five-and-thirty summers or thereabout, and verged on the autumnal, miss sophy was a fresh, good-humoured, buxom girl of twenty; and miss jane numbered scarcely sixteen years. mrs. wackles was an excellent, but rather venomous old lady of threescore. mrs. wackles's school is described to show the frivolous nature of such so-called private educational institutions, and to strike again the abominable practice of abusing children by "corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and terrors" by "a venomous old lady of threescore." miss monflathers's school was a boarding establishment for young ladies, in which they were duly impressed with the dignity of their social position; with the terrible danger of yielding in any way to their natural impulses, all of which were assumed to be very wicked; with the sinfulness of sympathizing with or in any way recognising the lower classes; with the impropriety of knowing the fact that there was any wrong in the world to be righted or any suffering to be relieved; with the inestimable value of aristocratic birth; and with the most important truth that men are very dangerous animals, to be carefully shunned. little nell was sent to the establishment of miss monflathers with notices of mrs. jarley's waxworks, being temporarily in the employ of that lady. nell had no difficulty in finding out miss monflathers's boarding and day establishment, which was a large house, with a high wall, and a large garden gate with a large brass plate, and a small grating through which miss monflathers's parlour maid inspected all visitors before admitting them; for nothing in the shape of a man--no, not even a milkman--was suffered, without special license, to pass that gate. even the taxgatherer, who was stout, and wore spectacles and a broadbrimmed hat, had the taxes handed through the grating. more obdurate than gate of adamant or brass, this gate of miss monflathers's frowned on all mankind. the very butcher respected it as a gate of mystery, and left off whistling when he rang the bell. as nell approached the awful door, it turned slowly upon its hinges with a creaking noise, and forth from the solemn grove beyond came a long file of young ladies, two and two, all with open books in their hands, and some with parasols likewise. and last of the goodly procession came miss monflathers, bearing herself a parasol of lilac silk, and supported by two smiling teachers, each mortally envious of the other, and devoted unto miss monflathers. confused by the looks and whispers of the girls, nell stood with downcast eyes and suffered the procession to pass on, until miss monflathers, bringing up the rear, approached her, when she courtesied and presented her little packet; on receipt whereof miss monflathers commanded that the line should halt. "you're the waxwork child, are you not?" said miss monflathers. "yes, ma'am," replied nell, colouring deeply, for the young ladies had collected about her, and she was the centre on which all eyes were fixed. "and don't you think you must be a very wicked little child," said miss monflathers, who was of rather uncertain temper, and lost no opportunity of impressing moral truths upon the tender minds of young ladies, "to be a waxwork child at all?" poor nell had never viewed her position in this light, and not knowing what to say, remained silent, blushing more deeply than before. "don't you know," said miss monflathers, "that it's very naughty and unfeminine, and a perversion of the properties wisely and benignantly transmitted to us, with expansive powers to be roused from their dormant state through the medium of cultivation?" "don't you feel how naughty it is of you," resumed miss monflathers, "to be a waxwork child, when you might have the proud consciousness of assisting, to the extent of your infant powers, the manufactures of your country; of improving your mind by the constant contemplation of the steam engine; and of earning a comfortable and independent subsistence of from two and ninepence to three shillings per week? don't you know that the harder you are at work, the happier you are?" "'how doth the little----'" murmured one of the teachers in quotation from dr. watts. "eh?" said miss monflathers, turning smartly round. "who said that?" "the little busy bee," said miss monflathers, drawing herself up, "is applicable only to genteel children. 'in books, or work, or healthful play' is quite right as far as they are concerned; and the work means painting on velvet, fancy needlework, or embroidery. in such cases as these," pointing to nell with her parasol, "and in the case of all poor people's children, we should read it thus: 'in work, work, work. in work alway let my first years be passed, that i may give for ev'ry day some good account at last.'" just then somebody happened to discover that nell was crying, and all eyes were again turned toward her. there were indeed tears in her eyes, and drawing out her handkerchief to brush them away, she happened to let it fall. before she could stoop to pick it up, one young lady of about fifteen or sixteen, who had been standing a little apart from the others, as though she had no recognised place among them, sprang forward and put it in her hand. she was gliding timidly away again, when she was arrested by the governess. "it was miss edwards who did that, i _know_," said miss monflathers predictively. "now i am sure that was miss edwards." it was miss edwards, and everybody said it was miss edwards, and miss edwards herself admitted that it was. "is it not," said miss monflathers, putting down her parasol to take a severer view of the offender, "a most remarkable thing, miss edwards, that you have an attachment to the lower classes which always draws you to their sides; or, rather, is it not a most extraordinary thing that all i say and do will not wean you from propensities which your original station in life has unhappily rendered habitual to you, you extremely vulgar-minded girl?" "i really intended no harm, ma'am," said a sweet voice. "it was a momentary impulse, indeed." "an impulse!" repeated miss monflathers scornfully. "i wonder that you presume to speak of impulses to me"--both the teachers assented--"i am astonished"--both the teachers were astonished--"i suppose it is an impulse which induces you to take the part of every grovelling and debased person that comes in your way"--both the teachers supposed so too. "but i would have you know, miss edwards," resumed the governess, in a tone of increased severity, "that you can not be permitted--if it be only for the sake of preserving a proper example and decorum in this establishment--that you can not be permitted, and that you shall not be permitted, to fly in the face of your superiors in this extremely gross manner. if _you_ have no reason to feel a becoming pride before waxwork children, there are young ladies here who have, and you must either defer to those young ladies or leave the establishment, miss edwards." this young lady, being motherless and poor, was apprenticed at the school--taught for nothing--teaching others what she learned for nothing--boarded for nothing--lodged for nothing--and set down and rated as something immeasurably less than nothing, by all the dwellers in the house. the servant maids felt her inferiority, for they were better treated; free to come and go, and regarded in their stations with much more respect. the teachers were infinitely superior, for they had paid to go to school in their time, and were paid now. the pupils cared little for a companion who had no grand stories to tell about home; no friends to come with post horses, and be received in all humility, with cake and wine, by the governess; no deferential servant to attend and bear her home for the holidays; nothing genteel to talk about, and nothing to display. but why was miss monflathers always vexed and irritated with the poor apprentice--how did that come to pass? why, the gayest feather in miss monflathers's cap, and the brightest glory of miss monflathers's school, was a baronet's daughter--the real live daughter of a real live baronet--who, by some extraordinary reversal of the laws of nature, was not only plain in features but dull in intellect, while the poor apprentice had both a ready wit and a handsome face and figure. it seems incredible. here was miss edwards, who only paid a small premium which had been spent long ago, every day outshining and excelling the baronet's daughter, who learned all the extras (or was taught them all), and whose half yearly bill came to double that of any other young lady's in the school, making no account of the honour and reputation of her pupilage. therefore, and because she was a dependent, miss monflathers had a great dislike to miss edwards, and was spiteful to her, and aggravated by her, and, when she had compassion on little nell, verbally fell upon and maltreated her, as we have already seen. "you will not take the air to-day, miss edwards," said miss monflathers. "have the goodness to retire to your own room, and not to leave it without permission." the poor girl was moving hastily away, when she was suddenly, in a nautical phrase, "brought to" by a subdued shriek from miss monflathers. "she has passed me without any salute!" cried the governess, raising her eyes to the sky. "she has actually passed me without the slightest acknowledgment of my presence!" the young lady turned and courtesied. nell could see that she raised her dark eyes to the face of her superior, and that their expression, and that of her whole attitude for the instant, was one of mute but most touching appeal against this ungenerous usage. miss monflathers only tossed her head in reply, and the great gate closed upon a bursting heart. in addition to the gross evils of such institutions already suggested, dickens exposed the cruelty of miss monflathers, as a type of christian rectitude, toward nell, whom she assumed to be very wicked, and the tendency of society to treat teachers with contempt, if they are not rich. the standard based on mere wealth is happily changing. the tone of miss monflathers's lofty criticism in language and thought, quite incomprehensible to the person admonished, is very true to the life in cases of conventional people, who take no pains to understand child nature or human nature in any phase, except its depravity. the heartlessness of the distinction between the "genteel" children and poor children is clearly pointed out. there could scarcely be a more unchristlike thought than the one that would prohibit the children of the poor from the enjoyment of their natural tendency to play. no civilization in which either by deliberate purpose or by criminal negligence the children of the poorest are left without the privilege and the means for full free play should dare to call itself christian. yet miss monflathers's parody aptly represented the practical outworking of civilization at the time of dickens, and long since, too, in regard to poor children. miss monflathers told miss edwards majestically that she "must not take the air to-day," and contemptuously ordered her to remain in her room all day. this was written to condemn the common punishment of keeping children in at recess or confining them as a means of punishment. dickens always thought it a crime against childhood to punish a child by robbing it of any of its natural rights to food, or fresh air, or free exercise. the ecstasy of passion reached by miss monflathers because miss edwards passed her without saluting her showed dickens's attitude toward those who insisted and still insist on obeisance from those whom they are pleased to regard as "inferiors." public school education has been criticised because "it does not train poor children to courtesy to their superiors." any system deserves the support of all right-thinking people if it trains the children of the poorest to hold their heads up respectfully, and look the world squarely in the face without a debasing consciousness of inferiority. the greatest aim of education, so far as the individual is concerned, is freedom--spiritual freedom. respect for properly constituted authority should become a part of every child's consciousness, but this properly involves contempt for the arrogant assumption of certain people that certain other people should bow down in servile humility to them. education must always be the enemy of tyranny, slavery, and all kinds of abasement. the grinders' school was introduced to ridicule the practice of forcing all children in charitable institutions to wear a uniform dress, and to attack corporal punishment, neglect of moral training, and the practice of placing ignorant men in the high position of a teacher. the teacher in the grinders' school was "a superannuated old grinder of savage disposition, who had been appointed schoolmaster because he didn't know anything, and wasn't fit for anything, and for whose cruel cane all chubby little boys had a perfect fascination." the practice of dressing all children alike, and of dressing them all without taste, is continued in most homes for orphan children still. surely the poor orphans have suffered enough without subjecting them to the indignity of tasteless dressing. there might at least be a difference of taste in colour, for instance, for the blondes and the brunettes. the school taught by agnes in david copperfield is mentioned to show that if a teacher works with a true spirit (agnes was a splendid character for women to study with great care), teaching is a pleasant instead of an unhappy profession. david said: "it is laborious, is it not?" "the labour is so pleasant," she returned, "that it is scarcely grateful in me to call it by that name." the school attended by uriah heep and his father before him was described as an attack on the practice of instilling into the minds of poor children the consciousness of subserviency. david says: "i fully comprehended now for the first time (after hearing uriah describe his training at school) what a base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit must have been engendered by this early, and this long, suppression." the first school attended by esther in bleak house is apparently introduced to point out four evils in the social training of little children. the other children were all older than esther; her godmother refused to allow her to accept invitations to go to the homes of the other girls; she was never allowed out to play; and while holidays were given on the birthdays of other girls, none were ever given on hers. the cruelty of two of these evils was made still more bitter by the revelation of the fact that she was not treated like other girls because of some wrong her mother was supposed to have done. miss donny's school at greenleaf was a charming place, conducted in a "precise, exact, and orderly way." esther was taught well, and trained well. she was to be a governess, and so she taught as she learned. her barren childhood made her sympathize with the girls whom she taught, especially the new girls, and she naturally won their love, and was therefore happy. esther possessed every essential characteristic of a good teacher and a true woman. miss donny's school is one of the schools in which dickens was approving, not condemning. mr. cripple's academy is merely mentioned in little dorrit to complain about the habit of scribbling over buildings and on desks and walls in which boys used to indulge, and of which many evidences may yet be found on the fences and walls of the present day. "the pupils of mr. cripple's appeared to have been making a copy book of the street door, it was so extensively scribbled over in pencil." pip's early education, in great expectations, was received in mr. wopsle's great-aunt's school. mr. wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth, who paid twopence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it. she rented a small cottage, and mr. wopsle had the room upstairs, where we students used to overhear him reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, and occasionally bumping on the ceiling. there was a fiction that mr. wopsle "examined" the scholars once a quarter. what he did on those occasions was to turn up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us mark antony's oration over the body of cæsar. much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of biddy than of mr. wopsle's great-aunt, i struggled through the alphabet as if it had been a bramble bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every letter. after that i fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and baffle recognition. but at last i began, in a purblind groping way, to read, write, and cipher on the very smallest scale. biddy was mr. wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; i confessed myself quite unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was to mr. wopsle. the educational scheme or course established by mr. wopsle's great-aunt may be resolved into the following synopsis: the pupils ate apples and put straws down one another's backs, until mr. wopsle's great-aunt collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with a birch rod. after receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to hand. the book had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and a little spelling--that is to say, it had had once. as soon as this volume began to circulate, mr. wopsle's great-aunt fell into a state of coma, arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. the pupils then entered among themselves upon a competitive examination on the subject of boots, with the view of ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon whose toes. this mental exercise lasted until biddy made a rush at them and distributed three defaced bibles (shaped as if they had been unskilfully cut off the chumped end of something), more illegibly printed at the best than any curiosities of literature i have since met with, speckled all over with iron mould, and having various specimens of the insect world smashed between their leaves. this part of the course was usually lightened by several single combats between biddy and refractory students. when the fights were over, biddy gave out the number of a page, and then we all read aloud what we could--or what we couldn't--in a frightful chorus; biddy leading with a high shrill monotonous voice, and none of us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we were reading about. when this horrible din had lasted a certain time, it mechanically awoke mr. wopsle's great-aunt, who staggered at a boy fortuitously, and pulled his ears. this was understood to terminate the course for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks of intellectual victory. the reasons for describing this school were to renew the attack on bad private schools, conducted without any state control and no supervision or inspection by competent officers, to show the need of better appliances and text-books, and to teach the utter folly of allowing pupils to try to read any book, especially the bible, without understanding what they were reading. incidentally dickens taught that to use the bible as it was used in mr. wopsle's great-aunt's school develops a lack of reverence for it. the evil of corporal punishment of the indiscriminate and irregular kind comes in for a share of condemnation in this wretched school. dickens returned to the attack on bad private schools in our mutual friend. he had made a thorough study of the evening schools conducted in london--conducted many of them by organizations with good intentions. there are a good many sunday schools yet which in some respects are open to the criticisms made of charley hexam's first school. the school at which young charley hexam had first learned from a book--the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great preparatory establishment, in which very much that is never unlearned is learned without and before book--was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. its atmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy, and confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of stupefaction; the other half kept them in either condition by maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. the teachers, animated solely by good intentions, had no idea of execution, and a lamentable jumble was the upshot of their kind endeavours. it was a school for all ages and for both sexes. the latter were kept apart, and the former were partitioned off into square assortments. but all the place was pervaded by a grimly ludicrous pretence that every pupil was childish and innocent. this pretence, much favoured by the lady visitors, led to the ghastliest absurdities. young women, old in the vices of the commonest and worst life, were expected to profess themselves enthralled by the good child's book, the adventures of little margery, who resided in the village cottage by the mill; severely reproved and morally squashed the miller, when she was five and he was fifty; divided her porridge with singing birds; denied herself a new nankeen bonnet, on the ground that the turnips did not wear nankeen bonnets, neither did the sheep, who ate them; who plaited straw and delivered the dreariest orations to all comers, at all sorts of unseasonable times. so unwieldy young dredgers and hulking mudlarks were referred to the experiences of thomas twopence, who, having resolved not to rob (under circumstances of uncommon atrocity) his particular friend and benefactor, of eighteenpence, presently came into supernatural possession of three and sixpence, and lived a shining light ever afterward. (note, that the benefactor came to no good.) several swaggering sinners had written their own biographies in the same strain; it always appearing from the lessons of those very boastful persons that you were to do good, not because it _was_ good, but because you were to make a good thing of it. contrariwise, the adult pupils were taught to read (if they could learn) out of the new testament; and by dint of stumbling over the syllables and keeping their bewildered eyes on the particular syllables coming round to their turn, were as absolutely ignorant of the sublime history as if they had never seen or heard of it. an exceedingly and confoundingly perplexing jumble of a school, in fact, where black spirits and gray, red spirits and white, jumbled, jumbled, jumbled, jumbled, jumbled every night. and particularly every sunday night. for then an inclined plane of unfortunate infants would be handed over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with good intentions, whom nobody older would endure. who, taking his stand on the floor before them, as chief executioner, would be attended by a conventional volunteer boy as executioner's assistant. when and where it first became the conventional system that a weary or inattentive infant in a class must have its face smoothed downward with a hot hand, or when or where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system in operation, and became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. it was the function of the chief executioner to hold forth, and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their wretched faces, sometimes with one hand, as if he were anointing them for a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion of blinkers. and so the jumble would be in action in this department for a mortal hour; the exponent drawling on to my dearerr childerrenerr, let us say for example, about the beautiful coming to the sepulchre; and repeating the word sepulchre (commonly used among infants) five hundred times and never once hinting what it meant; the conventional boy smoothing away right and left, as an infallible commentary; the whole hotbed of flushed and exhausted infants exchanging measles, rashes, whooping-cough, fever, and stomach disorders, as if they were assembled in high market for the purpose. even in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally sharp boy exceptionally determined to learn, could learn something, and, having learned it, could impart it so much better than the teachers; as being more knowing than they, and not at the disadvantage in which they stood toward the shrewder pupils. in this way it had come about that charley hexam had risen in the jumble, taught in the jumble, and been received from the jumble into a better school. dickens slaughtered evils by wholesale in this brief description. the influence of the great preparatory establishment, the street, was brought to the notice of thinking people. the need of ventilation was pointed out, and the evil of crowding a large number of pupils into poorly ventilated rooms was made very clear. "half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of waking stupefaction." the teachers were untrained. "they were animated solely by good intentions, and had no idea of execution." the consequence was a lamentable jumble. the separation of the sexes was not approved. the stupid blunder of treating all pupils alike, without regard to heredity, environment, or past experience, is aptly caricatured in giving the adventures of little margery and the experiences of thomas twopence to young women old in vice and to young male criminals in order to reform them. incidentally he disapproves of such literature for any children, and also of the autobiographies of "swaggering sinners." the error pointed out in pip's education of using the new testament as a book from which pupils should be taught how to read is emphasized. "by dint of stumbling over the syllables and keeping their bewildered eyes on the particular syllables coming round to their turn, they were as absolutely ignorant of the sublime history as if they had never seen or heard of it." he criticised severely the old custom of giving least attention to the choice of a teacher for the little ones. the old theory was: they can not learn much any way; anybody will do to teach them. "the inclined plane of unfortunate infants would be handed over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers of good intentions, whom nobody older would endure." the dreadful practice, still kept up in some heathen-producing sunday schools, of having an "executioner's assistant to keep order," is severely condemned. "it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, restless infants, whimpering infants, and smooth, their wretched faces." the irritating influence of this operation on the suffering infants and the degrading effect on the executioner's assistant himself are clearly indicated. but the greatest cruelty was in having the infants talked at in a droning voice for an hour by the chief executioner in a voice that would sometimes deaden, sometimes irritate their nervous systems, and in language they could not comprehend, about subjects entirely foreign to their experiences. the danger of spreading contagious diseases in such badly ventilated schools was shown. dickens was a leader in the department of sanitation both in homes and in schools. the schools taught by bradley headstone and miss peecher were newly built, and there were so many like them all over the country, that one might have thought the whole were but one restless edifice with the locomotive gift of aladdin's palace. all things in these schools--buildings, teachers, and pupils--were according to pattern, and engendered in the light of the latest gospel according to monotony. these brief descriptions contained volumes of protest against the dead uniformity of school architecture, and against the sacrifice of individuality in schools. there are no other buildings in which there should be more care taken to have truly artistic architecture than in schools, because the children are influenced so much by their environment. correct taste may be formed more easily and more definitely by making the places in which children spend so much of their lives truly artistic than by studying the best authorities. the child's spirits should be toned by the colouring of the walls of the schoolroom, and by the pictures, statues, and other artistic articles around them. the phrase "gospel according to monotony" is one of the most effective phrases ever used to describe the destruction of individuality. the peecher-headstone schools were described as one of several protests against separating little girls from little boys in schools. phoebe, the happy young woman, who had never been able to sit up since she had been dropped by her mother when she was in a fit, is one of the sweetest of the characters of dickens. she lay on a couch as high as the window and enjoyed the view as she made lace. she taught a little school part of the day, and when barbox brothers was at mugby junction he heard the children singing in the school, and watched them trooping home happily till he became so interested in what was going on in the little cottage that he went in to investigate. he found a small but very clean room, with no one there but phoebe lying on her couch. he asked her if she was learned in the new system of teaching, meaning the kindergarten system, because he had heard her children singing as he passed. "no," she said, "i am very fond of children, but i know nothing of teaching, beyond the interest i have in it, and the pleasure it gives me, when they learn. i have only read and been told about the new system. it seemed so pretty and pleasant, and to treat them so like the merry robins they are, that i took up with it in my little way. my school is a pleasure to me. i began it, when i was but a child, because it brought me and other children into company, don't you see? i carry it on still, because it keeps children about me. i do it as love, not as work." what a beautiful school! what an ideal spirit for every true teacher! what a wise man dickens was to reveal so much sweetness and trueness in the life of such a woman as phoebe! when phoebe had overcome her restrictions so triumphantly, surely every one who dares to teach should try to rise above personal infirmities, and treat children like the "merry robins that they are." the holiday romance, in which three young children write romances for the edification of their adult friends and relatives, to show how adult treatment impresses young children, is usually regarded as merely an exquisite piece of humour. in writing to mr. fields about the story dickens said: "it made me laugh to that extent, that my people here thought i was out of my wits, until i gave it to them to read, when they did likewise." there is more philosophy than fun in these stories, however, and when carefully studied they should aid in the "education of the grown-up people"--not merely the "grown-ups" for whom they were intended, but all "grown-ups." this is especially true of the last story, written by miss nettie ashford, aged "half-past-six." the story is about mrs. lemon's school and mrs. orange's family. "the grown-up people" were the children in nettie's story, and the children were the managers of all things at home and at school. mrs. orange went to mrs. lemon's and told her that "her children were getting positively too much for her." she had two parents, two intimate friends of theirs, one godfather, two godmothers, and an aunt. she wished to send them to school, because they were "getting too much for her." many real mothers give the same reason. "have you as many as eight vacancies?" "i have just eight, ma'am," said mrs. lemon. "corporal punishment dispensed with?" "why, we do occasionally shake," said mrs. lemon, "and we have slapped. but only in extreme cases." mrs. orange was shown through the school, and had the bad "grown-ups" pointed out to her and their evil propensities explained to her in their hearing, as naturally as in a real school. she decided to send her family, and went home with her baby--which was a doll--saying, "these troublesome troubles are got rid of, please the pigs." a small party for the grown-up children was given by mrs. alicumpaine, and the arrangements made for the adults, and the ways in which they were treated by their child masters, and the criticisms on the way the seniors behaved are all instructive to thoughtful parents. the real things that adult people say and do appear delightfully stupid or exquisitely silly when made to appear as said and done by children. when mr. and mrs. orange were going home they passed the establishment of mrs. lemon, and necessarily thought of their eight adult pupils who were there. "i wonder, james, dear," said mrs. orange, looking up at the window, "whether the precious children are asleep!" "i don't care much whether they are or not, myself," said mr. orange. "james, dear!" "you dote upon them, you know," said mr. orange. "that's another thing." "i do," said mrs. orange rapturously. "oh, i do!" "i don't," said mr. orange. "but, i was thinking, james, love," said mrs. orange, pressing his arm, "whether our dear, good, kind mrs. lemon would like them to stay the holidays with her." "if she was paid for it, i dare say she would," said mr. orange. "i adore them, james," said mrs. orange, "but _suppose_ we pay her, then." this was what brought the country to such perfection, and made it such a delightful place to live in. the grown-up people (that would be in other countries) soon left off being allowed any holidays after mr. and mrs. orange tried the experiment; and the children (that would be in other countries) kept them at school as long as ever they lived, and made them do whatever they were told. this story was written about two years before the death of dickens, so it represents his maturest thought. its great fundamental motive was froebel's motto, "come, let us live with our children." it was a trenchant, though humorous criticism of the methods of treating children practised by adults, at home and at school. mrs. orange's adoration for children, while at the same time she was proposing to keep them at school during the holidays, is very suggestive to those mothers who in society talk so much about their "precious darlings," but who keep them in the nursery so that they have no share in the family life. the practice of calling children bad and describing their supposed evil propensities in the presence of others is also condemned in this story. one of the very best of the stories of dickens to show his perfect sympathy with boyhood is the story told by jemmy jackman lirriper about "the boy who went to school in rutlandshire." it reveals the feelings of boys to the "tartars" who teach school, as the boys, when they got control, put the tartar into confinement and "forced him to eat the boys' dinners and drink half a cask of their beer every day." it reveals, too, the psychological condition of a healthy boy just entering the adolescent period, if he has been fortunate enough to have had a life of love and freedom at home; with his heart filled with love for the schoolmaster's daughter seraphina, and his mind filled with hopeful dreams of success, and triumph, and fortune, and happiness ever afterward, not excluding those who had nurtured him, but sharing all with them, and finding his greatest joy in their affectionate pride at his success. blessed is the boy who has such glorious experiences and such hopeful dreams in his later boyhood and onward, and thrice blessed is he who finds in parenthood hearts so reverently sympathetic that it is natural for the young heart to overflow into them. "but such dreams can never come true." they are true. nothing is ever more true for the stage of evolution in which they naturally fill the life of the child. to stop them is a crime; to shut them up in the heart of the boy or girl makes them a source of great danger instead of an essential element in the ennoblement of character. let the boy dream on, and help him to dream by sympathetically sharing his visions with him. his own visions and the most wonderful visions of heroism and adventure dreamed by the best authors should fill his life during the most important stage of his growth, adolescence, when the elements of his manhood are rushing into his life and require an outlet in the ideal life as a preparation for the real life of later days. dickens recognises, too, in this story the great truth so little used by educators, that the child's imagination is not restricted by any conditions of impossibility or by any laws of nature or of man. the ideal transcends the real, the desired is accomplished. development is rapid under such conditions. "and was there no quarrelling," asked mrs. lirriper, "after the boy and his boy friend had gained high renown, and unlimited stores of gold, and had married seraphina and her sister, and had come to live with gran and godfather forever, and the story was ended?" "no! nobody ever quarrelled." "and did the money never melt away?" "no! nobody could ever spend it all." "and did none of them ever grow older?" "no! nobody ever grew older after that." "and did none of them ever die?" "o, no, no, no, gran!" exclaimed our dear boy, laying his cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him. "nobody ever died." "ah, major, major!" says mrs. lirriper, smiling benignly upon me, "this beats our stories. let us end with the boy's story, major, for the boy's story is the best that is ever told." miss pupford's school in tom tiddler's ground reveals the foolish conventional formalism of some teachers before their pupils; exposes the pretences of some teachers in private schools--"miss pupford's assistant with the parisian accent, who never conversed with a parisian and never was out of england"; and condemns the practice of sending mere children long distances from home to be trained and educated: "kitty kimmeens had to remain behind in miss pupford's school during the holidays, because her friends and relations were all in india, far away." in edwin drood dickens had begun a description of the school: "on the trim gate inclosing the courtyard of which is a resplendent brass plate flashing forth the legend: 'seminary for young ladies. miss twinkleton.'" the chief thing revealed by the brief description given of it is the formal conventionality of most teachers in such institutions, the unreality of manner and tone and character shown by most teachers in the schoolroom. how much greater miss twinkleton's power would have been to help in developing human hearts and heads, if she could have been more truly human during the day! she did not deceive the young ladies either by her formalism. they merely said, "what a pretending old thing miss twinkleton is!" when the rumour of the quarrel between neville landless and edwin drood reached the seminary, and began to cause dangerous excitement among the young ladies, miss twinkleton deemed it her duty to quiet their minds. it was reserved for miss twinkleton to tone down the public mind of the nuns' house. that lady, therefore, entering in a stately manner what plebeians might have called the schoolroom, but what, in the patrician language of the head of the nuns' house, was euphuistically, not to say roundaboutedly, denominated "the apartment allotted to study," and saying with a forensic air, "ladies!" all rose. mrs. tisher at the same time grouped herself behind her chief, as representing queen elizabeth's first historical female friend at tilbury fort. miss twinkleton then proceeded to remark that rumour, ladies, had been represented by the bard of avon--needless were it to mention the immortal shakespeare, also called the swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (miss jennings will please stand upright) sung sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological authority--rumour, ladies, had been represented by that bard--hem!-- "who drew the celebrated jew," as painted full of tongues. rumour in cloisterham (miss ferdinand will honour me with her attention) was no exception to the great limner's portrait of rumour elsewhere. a slight _fracas_ between two young gentlemen occurring last night within a hundred miles of these peaceful walls (miss ferdinand, being apparently incorrigible, will have the kindness to write out this evening, in the original language, the first four fables of our vivacious neighbour, monsieur la fontaine) had been very grossly exaggerated by rumour's voice. in the first alarm and anxiety arising from our sympathy with a sweet young friend, not wholly to be dissociated from one of the gladiators in the bloodless arena in question (the impropriety of miss reynolds's appearing to stab herself in the hand with a pin is far too obvious, and too glaringly unladylike to be pointed out), we descended from our maiden elevation to discuss this uncongenial and this unfit theme. responsible inquiries having assured us that it was but one of those "airy nothings" pointed at by the poet (whose name and date of birth miss giggles will supply within half an hour), we would now discard the subject, and concentrate our minds upon the grateful labours of the day. the unnatural formalism of her manner and her language are properly held up to ridicule by dickens. he incidentally shows the great blunder of interrupting a lesson to censure a pupil, the weakness of having to demand attention, and the error of punishing by impositions to be memorized or written. what a terrible misuse it is of the literature that should always be attractive and inspiring to have it associated with punishment! he exposes the greater crime of making children commit to memory selections from the bible as a punishment in dombey and son, and the association of the bible with tasks in our mutual friend. the schoolboy's story deals with the problems of nutrition, coercion, robbing a boy of his holidays, the declaration of perpetual warfare between pupils and teachers in the olden days, and the surprise of the boys when they found that one of their teachers had a true and tender heart (what a commentary on teachers that boys should be surprised at their being true and good!), and how to treat children as old cheeseman did, when he inherited his fortune and married jane, and took the disconsolate boys home to his own house, when they were condemned to spend their holidays at school. in our school the chief pedagogical lessons are: the man's remembrance of the pug dog in the entry at the first school he attended, and his utter forgetfulness of the mistress of the establishment; the folly of external polishing or memory polishing on which "the rust has long since accumulated"; the gross wrong of allowing an ignorant and brutal man to be a teacher--"the only branches of education with which the master showed the least acquaintance were ruling and corporally punishing"; the deadening injustice of showing partiality, whether on account of a boy's parentage or for any other reason; sympathy for "holiday stoppers"; the interest all children should take in keeping and training pet animals; the advantages to boys of having to construct "houses and instruments of performance" for these pets--"some of those who made houses and invented appliances for their performing mice in school have since made railroads, engines, and telegraphs, the chairman has erected mills and bridges in australia"; the fact that "we all liked maxby the tutor, for he had a good knowledge of boys"; and that teachers should be very particular about their personal neatness, because children note so accurately every detail of dress and manner. this is shown by the reminiscences about maxby, the latin master, and the dancing master. the ungenerous rivalry often existing between schools, and schools of thought, too, was pointed out: "there was another school not far off, and of course our school could have nothing to say to that school. it is mostly the way with schools, whether of boys or men." "the world had little reason to be proud of our school, and has done much better since in that way, and will do far better yet." this closing sentence of the sketch is very suggestive. dickens described one school that he visited in america in his american notes, evidently in order to show the need of more care than was then taken in the choice of matter for the pupils to read. i was only present in one of these establishments during the hours of instruction. in the boys' department, which was full of little urchins (varying in their ages, i should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the master offered to institute an extemporary examination of the pupils in algebra, a proposal which, as i was by no means confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, i declined with some alarm. in the girls' school reading was proposed, and as i felt tolerably equal to that art i expressed my willingness to hear a class. books were distributed accordingly, and some half dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs from english history. but it seemed to be a dry compilation, infinitely above their powers; and when they had blundered through three or four dreary passages concerning the treaty of amiens, and other thrilling topics of the same nature (obviously without comprehending ten words), i expressed myself quite satisfied. it is very possible that they only mounted to this exalted stave in the ladder of learning for the astonishment of a visitor, and that at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but i should have been much better pleased and satisfied if i had heard them exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood. "the world has done better since, and will do far better yet" in the choice of reading matter for children. the school recalled by memory in connection with the other ghosts of his childhood in the haunted house was described briefly, but the description is full of suggestiveness. then i was sent to a great cold, bare school of big boys; where everything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being enough; where everybody, large and small, was cruel; where the boys knew all about the sale before i got there [his father's furniture had been sold for debt], and asked me what i had fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, "going, going, gone." the inartistic bareness of the school, the tasteless clothing, the unattractive, unsatisfying food, the pervading atmosphere of cruelty, and the heartlessness of the boys in tearing open the wounds of the sensitive new boy--are all condemned. chapter xvi. miscellaneous educational principles. the need of apperception and correlation are shown in the result of paul dombey's first lessons under miss cornelia blimber, and in the same book in the description of the learning briggs carried away with him. it was like an ill-arranged luggage, so tightly packed that he couldn't get at anything he wanted. the absolute necessity for fixing apperceptive centres of emotion and thought in the lives of children by experience is shown in the case of neville landless in edwin drood. his early life had been so barren that, as he told his tutor, "it has caused me to be utterly wanting in i don't know what emotions, or remembrances, or good instincts--i have not even a name for the thing, you see--that you have had to work upon in other young men to whom you have been accustomed." dickens emphasized the fact that the lack of apperceptive centres of an improper kind is a great advantage. that heart where self has found no place and raised no throne is slow to recognise its ugly presence when it looks upon it. as one possessed of an evil spirit was held in old time to be alone conscious of the lurking demon in the breasts of other men, so kindred vices know each other in their hiding places every day, when virtue is incredulous and blind. there is no more suggestive work on the contents of children's minds than bleak house. when poor jo was summoned to give evidence at the inquest he was questioned in regard to himself and his theology. the results were startling. name, jo. nothing else that he knows on. don't know that everybody has two names. never heerd of sich a think. don't know that jo is short for a longer name. thinks it long enough for _him_. _he_ don't find no fault with it. spell it? no. _he_ can't spell it. no father, no mother, no friends. never been to school. what's home? knows a broom's a broom, and knows it's wicked to tell a lie. don't recollect who told him about the broom, or about the lie, but knows both. can't exactly say what'll be done to him after he's dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it'll be something wery bad to punish him, and serve him right--and so he'll tell the truth. jo sweeps his crossing all day long, unconscious of the link, if any link there be. he sums up his mental condition, when asked a question, by replying that he "don't know nothink." he knows that it's hard to keep the mud off the crossing in dirty weather, and harder still to live by doing it. nobody taught him, even that much; he found it out. jo comes out of tom-all-alone's, meeting the tardy morning, which is always late in getting down there, and munches his dirty bit of bread as he comes along. his way lying through many streets, and the houses not yet being open, he sits down to breakfast on the doorstep of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, and gives it a brush when he has finished, as an acknowledgment of the accommodation. he admires the size of the edifice, and wonders what it's all about. he has no idea, poor wretch, of the spiritual destitution of a coral reef in the pacific, or what it costs to look up the precious souls among the cocoanuts and breadfruits. he goes to his crossing, and begins to lay it out for the day. the town awakes; the great teetotum is set up for its daily spin and whirl; all that unaccountable reading and writing, which has been suspended for a few hours, recommences. jo and the other lower animals get on in the unintelligible mess as they can. it is market day. the blinded oxen, overgoaded, overdriven, never guided, run into wrong places and are beaten out; and plunge, red-eyed and foaming, at stone walls; and often sorely hurt the innocent, and often sorely hurt themselves. very like jo and his order; very, very like! a band of music comes and plays. jo listens to it. so does a dog--a drover's dog, waiting for his master outside a butcher's shop, and evidently thinking about those sheep he has had upon his mind for some hours, and is happily rid of. he seems perplexed respecting three or four; can't remember where he left them; looks up and down the street, as half expecting to see them astray; suddenly pricks up his ears and remembers all about it. a thoroughly vagabond dog, accustomed to low company and public houses; a terrific dog to sheep; ready at a whistle to scamper over their backs, and tear out mouthfuls of their wool; but an educated, improved, developed dog, who has been taught his duties and knows how to discharge them. he and jo listen to the music, probably with much the same amount of animal satisfaction; likewise, as to awakened association, aspiration, or regret, melancholy or joyful reference to things beyond the senses, they are probably upon a par. but, otherwise, how far above the human listener is the brute! turn that dog's descendants wild, like jo, and in a very few years they will so degenerate that they will lose even their bark--but not their bite. when lady dedlock met jo, she asked him: "are you the boy i've read of in the papers?" "i don't know," says jo, staring moodily at the veil, "nothink about no papers. i don't know nothink about nothink at all." when guster, mr. snagsby's servant, got him some food, she said: "are you hungry?" "jist!" says jo. "what's gone of your father and your mother, eh?" jo stops in the middle of a bite, and looks petrified. for this orphan charge of the christian saint whose shrine was at tooting, has patted him on the shoulder; and it is the first time in his life that any decent hand had been so laid upon him. "i never know'd nothink about 'em," says jo. "no more didn't i of mine," cries guster. when allan woodcourt took him to mr. george's and had his wants attended to, he told jo to be sure and tell him the truth always. "wishermaydie, if i don't," said jo. "i never was in no other trouble at all, sir--'cept knowin' nothink and starvation." when allan saw that jo was nearing the end, he said: "jo! did you ever know a prayer?" "never know'd nothink, sir." "not so much as one short prayer?" "no, sir. nothink at all. mr. chadband he was a-prayin' wunst at mr. snagsby's and i heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin' to hisself, and not to me. he prayed a lot, but _i_ couldn't make out nothink on it. different times, there was other genlmen come down tom-all-alone's a-prayin', but they all mostly sed as the t'other wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talkin' to theirselves, or a-passin' blame on the t'others, and not a-talkin' to us. _we_ never know'd nothink. _i_ never know'd what it wos all about." no? mr. chadband, your long sermon about "the terewth" found no place in jo in which to rest; nothing to which it could attach itself. no wonder he went asleep. he had no apperceptive centres in his experience or his training to which your kind of religious teaching was related. poor jo! he was the first great illustration, and he is still the best, of the great pedagogical truth, that we see, and hear, and understand in all that is around us only what corresponds to what we are within; that our power to see, and hear, and understand increases as our inner life is cultured and developed; and that a life as barren as that of the great class of whom jo was made the type makes it impossible to comprehend any teaching of an abstract kind. this revelation is of course most valuable to primary teachers in cities. dickens showed his wonderful insight into the most profound problems of psychology in his great character sketch of poor jo. he agreed with herbart regarding the philosophy of apperception so far as it related to intellectual culture, but he painted jo entirely out of harmony with herbart's psychology in relation to soul development. after describing mr. chadband's sermon on "terewth" dickens says: all this time jo has been standing on the spot where he woke up, ever picking his cap, and putting bits of fur in his mouth. he spits them out with a remorseful air, for he feels that it is in his nature to be an unimprovable reprobate, and it's no good _his_ trying to keep awake, for _he_ won't never know nothink. though it may be, jo, that there is a history so interesting and affecting even to minds as near the brutes as thine, recording deeds done on this earth for common men, that if the chadbands, removing their own persons from the light, would but show it thee in simple reverence, would but leave it unimproved, would but regard it as being eloquent enough without their modest aid--it might hold thee awake, and thou might learn from it yet! jo never heard of any such book. its compilers, and the reverend chadband, are all one to him--except that he knows the reverend chadband, and would rather run away from him for an hour than hear him talk for five minutes. when jo was eating at mr. snagsby's he stopped in the middle of his bite and looked petrified, because guster patted him on the shoulder. "it was the first time in his life that any decent hand had been so laid upon him." in the haunted man the six-year-old child was described as "a baby savage, a young monster, a child who had never been a child, a creature who might live to take the outward form of man, but who, within, would live and perish a mere beast." hugh, the splendid young animal who was john willet's stable boy in barnaby rudge, was as deficient of most intellectual and spiritual apperceptive centres as poor jo. when mr. chester asked him his name he replied: "i'd tell it if i could. i can't. i have always been called hugh; nothing more. i never knew nor saw, nor thought about a father; and i was a boy of six--that's not very old--when they hung my mother up at tyburn for a couple of thousand of men to stare at. they might have let her live. she was poor enough." little george silverman's mind was almost a blank when his mother and father died. he had been brought up in a cellar at preston. he hardly knew what sunlight was. his mother's laugh in her fever scared him, because it was the first laugh he had ever heard. when discovered alone with the bodies of his father and mother in the cellar, one of the horrified bystanders said to him: "do you know your father and mother are both dead of fever?" and he replied: "i don't know what it is to be dead. i am hungry and thirsty." after he had been supplied with food and drink he told mr. hawkyard that "he didn't feel cold, or hungry, or thirsty," and in relating the story in manhood he said: that was the whole round of human feelings, as far as i knew, except the pain of being beaten. to that time i had never had the faintest impression of duty. i had no knowledge whatever that there was anything lovely in this life. when i had occasionally slunk up the cellar steps into the street, and glared in at shop windows, i had done so with no higher feelings than we may suppose to animate a mangy young dog or wolf cub. it is equally the fact that i had never been alone, in the sense of holding unselfish converse with myself. i had been solitary often enough, but nothing better. redlaw, in the haunted man, said to the poor boy who came to his room: "what is your name?" "got none." "where do you live?" "live! what's that?" such pictures were not drawn to entertain, or to add artistic effect to his stories. they were written to teach the world of wealth and culture that all around it were thousands of human souls with as little opportunity for development as young animals have; with defined apperceptive centres of cold, hunger, thirst, and pain only. dickens makes a strong contrast between the condition of the mental and spiritual apperceptive centres in the city boy as compared with the country boy, in a conversation between phil squod and mr. george. "and so, phil," says george of the shooting gallery, after several turns in silence, "you were dreaming of the country last night?" phil, by the bye, said as much, in a tone of surprise, as he scrambled out of bed. "yes, guv'ner." "what was it like?" "i hardly know what it was like, guv'ner," said phil, considering. "how did you know it was the country?" "on account of the grass, i think. and the swans upon it," says phil, after further consideration. "what were the swans doing on the grass?" "they was a-eating of it, i expect," says phil. "the country," says mr. george, plying his knife and fork; "why, i suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, phil?" "i see the marshes once," said phil, contentedly eating his breakfast. "what marshes?" "_the_ marshes, commander," returns phil. "where are they?" "i don't know where they are," says phil; "but i see 'em, guv'ner. they was flat. and miste." governor and commander are interchangeable terms with phil, expressive of the same respect and deference, and applicable to nobody but mr. george. "i was born in the country, phil." "was you, indeed, commander?" "yes. and bred there." phil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at his master to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still staring at him. "there's not a bird's note that i don't know," says mr. george. "not many an english leaf or berry that i couldn't name. not many a tree that i couldn't climb yet, if i was put to it. i was a real country boy once. my good mother lived in the country. do you want to see the country, phil?" "n-no, i don't know as i do, particular." "the town's enough for you, eh?" "why, you see, commander," says phil, "i ain't acquainted with anythink else, and i doubt if i ain't a-getting too old to take to novelties." "how old are you, phil?" phil's answer is intended to indicate the lack of even mathematical power in those who, like phil, never had any training of the imagination, nor any other training to define their apperceptive centres of number beyond ten. "i'm something with a eight in it. it can't be eighty. nor yet eighteen. it's betwixt 'em somewheres. i was just eight, agreeable to the parish calculation, when i went with the tinker. that was april fool day. i was able to count up to ten; and when april fool day came round again i says to myself, 'now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' april fool day after that i says, 'now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' in course of time i come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight in it. when it got so high it got the upper hand of me; but this is how i always know there's a eight in it." the folly of trying to make a man moral by precept alone; the fact that character is developed by what we do, by true living, by what goes out in action, not by what comes in in maxims or theories, is shown in martin chuzzlewit. it has been remarked that mr. pecksniff was a moral man. so he was. perhaps there never was a more moral man than mr. pecksniff, especially in his conversation and correspondence. it was once said of him by a homely admirer that he had a fortunatus's purse of gold sentiments in his inside. in this particular he was like the girl in the fairy tale, except that if they were not actual diamonds which fell from his lips, they were the very brightest paste and shone prodigiously. he was a most exemplary man; fuller of virtuous precept than a copy book. some people likened him to a direction post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there. the best of architects and land surveyors kept a horse, in whom the enemies already mentioned more than once in these pages pretended to detect a fanciful resemblance to his master. not in his outward person, for he was a raw-boned, haggard horse, always on a much shorter allowance of corn than mr. pecksniff; but in his moral character, wherein, said they, he was full of promise, but of no performance. he was always, in a manner, going to go, and never going. one of the worst results that can follow a system of training is to make a man a hypocrite. it is nearly as bad to store a mind with good thoughts or fill a heart with good feelings without giving the character the tendency by practical experience to carry into effect so far as possible its good feelings and high purposes. mr. pecksniff was a moral monstrosity. we should create no more pecksniffs. a different ideal is taught in the remark made by martin chuzzlewit to mary, "endeavouring to be anything that's good, and being it, is, with you, all one." executive training is emphasized in nicholas nickleby. old ralph nickleby said of nicholas: "the old story--always thinking, and never doing." the same thought is expressed very clearly in the pregnant sentence written about sydney carton in a tale of two cities: "sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise." the saddest sight in the world is a man or woman using power for evil. it is nearly as sad to see a man or woman with power, but without power to use it wisely. in a tale of two cities he caricatures admirably the class who cling to old customs and conventions, and decline even to discuss changes or improvements, in his description of tellson's bank. tellson's bank by temple bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. it was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. it was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the house were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness. they were even boastful of its eminence in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. this was no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more convenient places of business. tellson's (they said) wanted no elbowroom, tellson's wanted no light, tellson's wanted no embellishment. noakes and co.'s might, or snooks brothers' might: but tellson's, thank heaven! any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding tellson's. in this respect the house was much on a par with the country; which did very often disinherit its sons for suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only the more respectable. every child should get into his consciousness by experience, not by theory, the idea that he is expected to do his share in the improvement of his environment. the worst conception he can get is that "whatever is is right"; that things can not be improved. every child should be encouraged to make suggestions for the improvement of his own environment and conditions in the schoolroom, in the yard, in the details of class management, or in anything else that he thinks he can improve. the closing sentence of our school should ring always in the minds of teachers, especially the last clause: "and will do far better yet." dickens had implicit faith in even weak humanity, and taught the hopeful truth, that every man and every child may be improved, if the men and women most directly associated with them are wise and loving. harriet carker said to mr. morfin: "oh, sir, after what i have seen, let me conjure you, if you are in any place of power, and are ever wronged, never for any wrong inflict punishment that can not be recalled; while there is a god above us to work changes in the hearts he made." the goblin of the bell said to toby veck in the chimes: "who turns his back upon the fallen and disfigured of his kind; abandons them as vile; and does not trace and track with pitying eyes the unfenced precipice by which they fell from good, grasping in their fall some tufts and shreds of that lost soil, and clinging to them still when bruised and dying in the gulf below, does wrong to heaven and man, to time and to eternity." the influence of nature on the awakening mind of the child was outlined in a child's dream of a star. these children used to wonder all day long. they wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of god who made the lovely world. nature is the great centre of interest to the child, and it may be the child's first true revealer of god, if adulthood does not impiously come between the child and god by trying to give him a word god for his intellect too soon to take the place of the true god of his imagination. dickens's best characters loved nature. esther, when recovering from her illness, said: i found every breath of air, and every scent, and every flower and leaf and blade of grass, and every passing cloud, and everything in nature, more beautiful and wonderful to me than i had ever found it yet. this was my first gain from my illness. how little i had lost, when the wide world was so full of delight to me! the deep, spiritual influences of nature are revealed in the effects of life in the growing country on oliver twist. who can describe the pleasure and delight, the peace of mind and soft tranquility, the sickly boy felt in the balmy air, and among the green hills and rich woods of an inland village! who can tell how scenes of peace and quietude sink into the minds of pain-worn dwellers in close and noisy places, and carry their own freshness deep into their jaded hearts! men who have lived in crowded, pent-up streets, through lives of toil, and who have never wished for change; men, to whom custom has indeed been second nature, and who have come almost to love each brick and stone that formed the narrow boundaries of their daily walks; even they, with the hand of death upon them, have been known to yearn at last for one short glimpse of nature's face; and, carried from the scenes of their old pains and pleasures, have seemed to pass at once into a new state of being. crawling forth from day to day, to some green sunny spot, they have had such memories wakened up within them by the sight of sky, and hill, and plain, and glistening water, that a foretaste of heaven itself has soothed their quick decline, and they have sunk into their tombs as peacefully as the sun, whose setting they watched from their lonely chamber window but a few hours before, faded from their dim and feeble sight! the memories which peaceful country scenes call up are not of this world, nor of its thoughts and hopes. their gentle influence may teach us how to weave fresh garlands for the graves of those we love--may purify our thoughts, and bear down before it old enmity and hatred; but beneath all this there lingers, in the least reflective mind, a vague and half-formed consciousness of having held such feelings long before, in some remote and distant time, which calls up solemn thoughts of distant times to come, and bends down pride and worldliness beneath it. it was a lovely spot to which they repaired. oliver, whose days had been spent among squalid crowds, and in the midst of noise and brawling, seemed to enter on a new existence there. in the story of the five sisters of york alice said to her sisters: "nature's own blessings are the proper goods of life, and we may share them sinlessly together. to die is our heavy portion, but, oh, let us die with life about us; when our cold hearts cease to beat, let warm hearts be beating near; let our last look be upon the bounds which god has set to his own bright skies, and not on stone walls and bars of iron! dear sisters, let us live and die, if you list, in this green garden's compass." dickens had very advanced opinions in regard to the importance of physical training, especially of play, as an agent not only in physical culture, but in the development of the mind and character. doctor blimber's school is condemned because the boys were not allowed to play, and doctor strong's school is highly commended because the boys "had noble games out of doors" there. what splendid runners and jumpers and divers and swimmers those grand boys were whom mr. marton had the good fortune to teach in his second school in the old curiosity shop! mrs. crupp recommended david copperfield to take up some game as an antidote for his despondency during his early love experience. "if you was to take to something, sir," said mrs. crupp, "if you was to take to skittles, now, which is healthy, you might find it divert your mind and do you good." mrs. chick told mr. dombey that paul was delicate. "our darling is not altogether as stout as we could wish. the fact is that his mind is too much for him. his soul is a great deal too large for his frame." yet his father paid no attention to the boy's food, and sent him, when but a little sickly child, to doctor blimber's to learn everything--not to play. "they had nothing so vulgar as play at doctor blimber's." one of the most vicious conventions is that which makes vigorous play vulgar and unladylike for girls. he called attention in american notes to the advantages possessed by the students of upper canada college, toronto, inasmuch as "the town is well adapted for wholesome exercise at all seasons." in the same book he gives his opinion that american girls "must go more wisely clad, and take more healthful exercise." he praised the free life of the gipsy children in nicholas nickleby. in martin chuzzlewit, when tom pinch and martin had to walk to salisbury instead of riding in mr. pecksniff's gig, dickens says it was better for them that they were compelled to walk. what a breezy enthusiasm he throws into his advocacy of walking as an exercise: better! a rare strong, hearty, healthy walk--four statute miles an hour--preferable to that rumbling, tumbling, jolting, shaking, scraping, creaking, villainous old gig? why, the two things will not admit of comparison. it is an insult to the walk to set them side by side. where is an instance of a gig having ever circulated a man's blood, unless when, putting him in danger of his neck, it awakened in his veins and in his ears, and all along his spine, a tingling heat much more peculiar than agreeable? when did a gig ever sharpen anybody's wits and energies, unless it was when the horse bolted, and, crashing madly down a steep hill with a stone wall at the bottom, his desperate circumstances suggested to the only gentleman left inside some novel and unheard-of mode of dropping out behind? better than the gig! better than the gig! when were travellers by wheels and hoofs seen with such red-hot cheeks as those? when were they so good-humouredly and merrily bloused? when did their laughter ring upon the air, as they turned them round, what time the stronger gusts came sweeping up; and, facing round again as they passed by, dashed on, in such a glow of ruddy health as nothing could keep pace with, but the high spirits it engendered? better than the gig! why here _is_ a man in a gig coming the same way now. look at him as he passes his whip into his left hand, chafes his numbed right fingers on his granite leg, and beats those marble toes of his upon the footboard. ha, ha, ha! who would exchange this rapid hurry of the blood for yonder stagnant misery, though its pace were twenty miles for one? better than the gig! no man in a gig could have such interest in the milestones. no man in a gig could see, or feel, or think, like merry users of their legs. dickens taught comparatively little about the subjects of instruction or the methods of teaching them. he dealt cramming its most stunning blow in doctor blimber's school, and he criticised sharply the methods of teaching classics and literature in the same school. he advocated the objective method of teaching number in jemmy lirriper's training at home by major jackman. he took more interest in reading and literature than in any other department of school study, so far as can be judged from his writings. he deplored the practice of allowing children to try to read before they could recognise the words readily, and understand their meaning in the training of pip and charley hexam. at the great party at mr. merdle's, the bishop consulted the great physician on the relaxation of the throat with which young curates were too frequently afflicted, and on the means of lessening the great prevalence of that disorder in the church. physician, as a general rule, was of opinion that the best way to avoid it was to know how to read before you made a profession of reading. bishop said, dubiously, did he really think so? and physician said, decidedly, yes, he did. he criticised, too, the reading in the school visited in an american city, because "the girls blundered through three or four dreary passages, obviously without comprehending ten words," and said "he would have been much better pleased if they had been asked to read some simpler selections which they could understand." mr. wegg, when reading for mr. boffin in our mutual friend, "read on by rote, and attached as few ideas as possible to the text." he discusses the advantages of reading suitable books in david copperfield, giving to david his own real experience in early boyhood. after describing the cruel treatment of the murdstones, he says: the natural result of this treatment, continued, i suppose, for some six months, was to make me sullen, dull, and dogged. i was not made the less so by my sense of being daily more and more shut out and alienated from my mother. i believe i should have been almost stupefied but for one circumstance. it was this. my father had left a small collection of books in a little room upstairs, to which i had access (for it joined my own) and which nobody else in our house ever troubled. from that blessed little room, roderick random, peregrine pickle, humphrey clinker, tom jones, the vicar of wakefield, don quixote, gil blas, and robinson crusoe, came out, a glorious host to keep me company. they kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that place and time--they, and the arabian nights, and the tales of the genii. his faith in the influence of reading increased as he grew older. in our mutual friend he says: "no one who can read ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who can not read." dickens taught a useful lesson in martin chuzzlewit regarding the way teachers used to be treated by society. even yet there is need of a higher recognition of the teaching profession in its true dignity by a civilization that reverences wealth more than intellectual and spiritual character. tom pinch's sister was engaged in the family of a wealthy brass founder. she was treated contemptuously by him and his wife, yet they complained to tom that his sister was unable to command the respect of her pupil. tom was naturally indignant, and he spoke his mind very clearly to the brass founder. "sir!" cried tom, after regarding him in silence for some time. "if you do not understand what i mean i will tell you. my meaning is that no man can expect his children to respect what he degrades." "when you tell me," resumed tom, who was not the less indignant for keeping himself quiet, "that my sister has no innate power of commanding the respect of your children, i must tell you it is not so; and that she has. she is as well bred, as well taught, as well qualified by nature to command respect as any hirer of a governess you know. but when you place her at a disadvantage in reference to every servant in your house, how can you suppose, if you have the gift of common sense, that she is not in a tenfold worse position in reference to your daughters?" "pretty well! upon my word," exclaimed the gentleman, "that is pretty well!" "it is very ill, sir," said tom. "it is very bad and mean and wrong and cruel. respect! i believe young people are quick enough to observe and imitate; and why or how should they respect whom no one else respects, and everybody slights? and very partial they must grow--oh, very partial!--to their studies, when they see to what a pass proficiency in those same tasks has brought their governess! respect! put anything the most deserving of respect before your daughters in the light in which you place her, and you will bring it down as low, no matter what it is!" "you speak with extreme impertinence, young man," observed the gentleman. "i speak without passion, but with extreme indignation and contempt for such a course of treatment, and for all who practise it," said tom. "why, how can you, as an honest gentleman, profess displeasure or surprise at your daughter telling my sister she is something beggarly and humble when you are forever telling her the same thing yourself in fifty plain, outspeaking ways, though not in words; and when your very porter and footman make the same delicate announcement to all comers?" dickens described a great variety of weak, and mean, and selfish, and degraded people in order to expose weakness, and meanness, and selfishness, and baseness, so that humanity might learn to overcome them, but he reserved his supreme contempt for those who oppose the general education of "the masses," because it fills their mind with ideas above their station, or disqualifies them for the work they were intended to do. this being interpreted, means in plain language that certain human beings who, because they possess wealth, or belong to what they arrogantly call the "upper classes," claim the right to dominate those who have not a sufficient amount of money to be independent of them; to fix what they selfishly call "the sphere of the lower classes"; and to prescribe the limits beyond which the children of the poor must not be educated, lest they be lifted beyond tame subserviency to their natural lords and masters, and fail to abase themselves dutifully or to be sufficiently grateful to those above them for the pittance they grudgingly give them for labouring in the menial occupations assigned them. dickens despised all barnacles, and dedlocks, and podsnaps, and dombeys, and merdles; he ridiculed all who violate the sacred bond of human brotherhood; but the vials of his bitterest wrath were poured upon those who because a child was born in the home of poor parents would therefore restrict its education and dwarf its soul. mr. dombey, after the christening of paul, called mrs. toodle before his guests, and in a very condescending but rigidly majestic manner told her he had graciously decided to send her son to the school of the charitable grinders. he prefaced his announcement by a brief statement of his views regarding education: "i am far from being friendly," pursued mr. dombey, "to what is called by persons of levelling sentiments, general education. but it is necessary that the inferior classes should continue to be taught to know their position, and to conduct themselves properly. so far i approve of schools." in mr. dombey's eyes, as in some others that occasionally see the light, they only achieved that mighty piece of knowledge, the understanding of their own position, who showed a fitting reverence for his. it was not so much their merit that they knew themselves, as that they knew him, and bowed low before him. there are thousands of dombeys still. two canadian judges recently said in speaking of education precisely what mr. dombey and his class said in the time of dickens. one objected to educating the common people because it unfitted them for positions as house servants, and made them so outrageously independent that they would not bow (bend their bodies properly, bow their heads, and look reverently at the floor) when in the presence of their mistresses. the other said that the very derivation of the word "education" meant to lead out, and it was therefore clear that "education should be used to develop a few, 'lead them out,' beyond the masses in order that they might be qualified for leadership." the necessary development to be imposed upon all but the favoured few in his system of government is willingness to follow leaders, and ignorance is the only condition that can make this possible. the glory of education is the awakening of the consciousness of freedom in the soul of the race and the revelation of the perfect law of liberty--individual right, social duty. the shackles, physical, intellectual, and spiritual, have fallen from humanity, as education has done its true work of emancipating the individual soul and revealing its own value and its responsibility for its brother souls. the most brutal of all the characters described by dickens is bill sikes. the most degraded and despicable of his characters is dennis the hangman in barnaby rudge. dickens makes bill sikes and dennis use the very same arguments, from their standpoint, that the so-called upper classes have used and still do use against the education of the masses. bill sikes, referring to the need of small boys in the trade of burglary, said: "i want a boy, and he mustn't be a big 'un. lord!" said mr. sikes, reflectively, "if i'd only got that young boy of ned, the chimbley sweeper's! he kept him small on purpose, and let him out by the job. but the father gets lagged; and then the juvenile delinquent society comes and takes the boy away from a trade where he was arning money, teaches him to read and write, and in time makes a 'prentice of him. and so they go on," said mr. sikes, his wrath rising with the recollection of his wrongs, "so they go on; and, if they'd got money enough (which it's a providence they haven't), we shouldn't have half a dozen boys left in the whole trade in a year or two." and fagin agreed with bill sikes. when hugh was formally admitted as a member of lord gordon's mob dennis the hangman was much delighted at the addition of such a strong young man to the ranks, and dickens adds: if anything could have exceeded mr. dennis's joy on the happy conclusion of this ceremony it would have been the rapture with which he received the announcement that the new member could neither read nor write: those two arts being (as mr. dennis swore) the greatest possible curse a civilized community could know, and militating more against the professional emoluments and usefulness of the great constitutional office he had the honour to hold than any adverse circumstances that could present themselves to his imagination. bill sikes objected to education because it spoiled the boys for the trade for which he required them; dennis the hangman objected to education because "it reduced the professional emoluments of his great constitutional office," or, in other words, reduced the number who had to be hanged; and their reasons are just as respectable as the reason given by any man in any position who objects to free education because it unfits boys for certain trades, or girls for "service," or because "it fills their minds with ideas above their station," or because they have to pay their just share of its cost, or for any other narrow and selfish reason. selfishness is selfishness, and it is as utterly loathsome in a bishop as in bill sikes, in a judge as in dennis the hangman. dickens never did any more artistic work than when he painted the aristocratic objectors to popular education in their natural hideousness with bill sikes and dennis the hangman for a harmonious background. chapter xvii. the training of poor, neglected, and defective children. it is a singular fact that humanity in its highest development so long neglected the poor, and the weak, and the defective. they were practically left out of consideration by educators and philanthropists. the fact that they more than any others needed education and care was not seen clearly enough to lead to definite plans for the amelioration of their misfortunes until the nineteenth century. dickens must always have the honour of being the great english apostle of the poor--especially of neglected childhood. he wrote in the uncommercial traveller: i can find--_must_ find, whether i will or no--in the open streets, shameful instances of neglect of children, intolerable toleration of the engenderment of paupers, idlers, thieves, races of wretched and destructive cripples both in body and mind; a misery to themselves, a misery to the community, a disgrace to civilization, and an outrage on christianity. i know it to be a fact as easy of demonstration as any sum in any of the elementary rules of arithmetic, that if the state would begin its work and duty at the beginning, and would with the strong hand take those children out of the streets while they are yet children, and wisely train them, it would make them a part of england's glory, not its shame--of england's strength, not its weakness--would raise good soldiers and sailors, and good citizens, and many great men out of the seeds of its criminal population; it would clear london streets of the most terrible objects they smite the sight with--myriads of little children who awfully reverse our saviour's words, and are not of the kingdom of heaven, but of the kingdom of hell. he sympathized with childhood on account of every form of coercion and abuse practised upon it by tyrannical, selfish, or ignorant adulthood, under the most favourable conditions; but his great heart was especially tender toward the little ones who, in addition to coercion and abuse, and bad training by the selfish, the ignorant, and the careless, were compelled to endure the terrible sufferings and deprivations of poverty. he was conscious not only of the material and physical evils to which the children of the very poor were exposed, but of the mental and spiritual barrenness of their lives, and one of his most manifest educational purposes was to improve social conditions, to arouse the spirit of truly sympathetic brotherhood (not merely considerate altruism, but genuine brotherhood) to place the poorest children in conditions that would develop by experience the apperceptive centres of intellectual and spiritual growth, and to direct special attention to the urgent need of education for the blind, the deaf, and the mentally defective. no other american touched his heart and won his reverence quite so thoroughly as dr. howe, of boston, who will undoubtedly be recognised as one of the greatest men yet produced by american civilization when men are tested by their purposes, and by their unselfish work for humanity in hitherto untrodden paths. after describing dr. howe's work for the blind, he reverently says: "there are not many persons, i hope and believe, who, after reading these passages, can ever hear that name with indifference." dickens charged on humanity, on society, the crime of making criminals. he said with great force and truth in the preface to martin chuzzlewit: nothing is more common in real life than a want of profitable reflection on the causes of many vices and crimes that awaken general horror. what is substantially true of families in this respect, is true of a whole commonwealth. as we sow, we reap. let the reader go into the children's side of any prison in england, or, i grieve to add, of many workhouses, and judge whether those are monsters who disgrace our streets, people our hulks and penitentiaries, and overcrowd our penal colonies, or are creatures whom we have deliberately suffered to be bred for misery and ruin. this thought was the motive that led him throughout his whole life to try to arouse sympathetic interest of the most active kind in the conditions and circumstances of the poor. one of his most striking appeals to thoughtful people is made in martin chuzzlewit. these profound words will always be worthy of careful study by teachers and reformers: oh, moralists, who treat of happiness and self-respect, innate in every sphere of life, and shedding light on every grain of dust in god's highway, so smooth below your carriage wheels, so rough beneath the tread of naked feet, bethink yourselves in looking on the swift descent of men who _have_ lived in their own esteem, that there are scores of thousands breathing now, and breathing thick with painful toil, who in that high respect have never lived at all, nor had a chance of life! go ye, who rest so placidly upon the sacred bard who had been young, and when he strung his harp was old, and had never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging their bread; go, teachers of content and honest pride, into the mine, the mill, the forge, the squalid depths of deepest ignorance, and uttermost abyss of man's neglect, and say can any hopeful plant spring up in air so foul that it extinguishes the soul's bright torch as fast as it is kindled! and, oh! ye pharisees of the nineteen hundredth year of christian knowledge, who soundingly appeal to human nature, see that it be human first. take heed it has not been transformed, during your slumber and the sleep of generations, into the nature of the beasts. dickens saw clearly the depravity of human nature, but he looked beyond the depravity to its cause, and he found a natural cause for the degradation, but not the cause that had been commonly assigned. he taught that the highest and holiest elements in human nature were the causes of its swiftest deterioration when misused, perverted, or neglected. alice marwood, in dombey and son, was introduced to teach parents and society in general the duties they owe to childhood, and to show how lives are wrecked by neglect and by a false use of power. when she returned, an outcast, to her mother, and her mother upbraided her, the young woman said: "i tell you, mother, for the second time, there have been years for me as well as you. come back harder? of course i have come back harder. what else did you expect?" "harder to me! to her own dear mother!" cried the old woman. "i don't know who began to harden me, if my own dear mother didn't," she returned, sitting with her folded arms, and knitted brows, and compressed lips, as if she were bent on excluding, by force, every softer feeling from her breast. "listen, mother, to a word or two. if we understand each other now, we shall not fall out any more, perhaps. i went away a girl, and have come back a woman. i went away undutiful enough, and have come back no better, you may swear. but have you been very dutiful to me?" "i!" cried the old woman. "to my own gal! a mother dutiful to her own child!" "it sounds unnatural, don't it?" returned the daughter, looking coldly on her with her stern, regardless, hardy, beautiful face; "but i have thought of it sometimes, in the course of _my_ lone years, till i have got used to it. i have heard some talk about duty first and last; but it has always been of my duty to other people. i have wondered now and then--to pass away the time--whether no one ever owed any duty to me." her mother sat mowing, and mumbling, and shaking her head, but whether angrily, or remorsefully, or in denial, or only in her physical infirmity, did not appear. "there was a child called alice marwood," said the daughter with a laugh, and looking down at herself in terrible derision of herself, "born among poverty and neglect, and nurtured in it. nobody taught her, nobody stepped forward to help her, nobody cared for her." "nobody!" echoed the mother, pointing to herself and striking her breast. "the only care she knew," returned the daughter, "was to be beaten, and stinted, and abused sometimes; and she might have done better without that. she lived in homes like this, and in the streets, with a crowd of little wretches like herself; and yet she brought good looks out of this childhood. so much the worse for her. she had better have been hunted and worried to death for ugliness." "go on! go on!" exclaimed the mother. "she'll soon have ended," said the daughter. "there was a criminal called alice marwood--a girl still, but deserted and an outcast. and she was tried, and she was sentenced. and lord, how the gentlemen in the court talked about it! and how grave the judge was on her duty, and on her having perverted the gifts of nature--as if he didn't know better than anybody there that they had been made curses to her!--and how he preached about the strong arm of the law--so very strong to save her, when she was an innocent and helpless little wretch! and how solemn and religious it all was! i have thought of that many times since, to be sure!" she folded her arms tightly on her breast, and laughed in a tone that made the howl of the old woman musical. "so alice marwood was transported, mother," she pursued, "and was sent to learn her duty where there was twenty times less duty, and more wickedness, and wrong, and infamy, than here. and alice marwood is come back a woman. such a woman as she ought to be, after all this. in good time, there will be more solemnity, and more fine talk, and more strong arm, most likely, and there will be an end of her; but the gentlemen needn't be afraid of being thrown out of work. there's crowds of little wretches, boy and girl, growing up in any of the streets they live in, that'll keep them to it till they've made their fortunes." bleak house is one of the greatest of the educational works of dickens. one of its chief aims was to arouse a sympathetic interest in the lives of poor children. the neckett children, charlotte, and tom, and emma, revealed a new world to many thousands of good people. "charley, charley!" said my guardian. "how old are you?" "over thirteen, sir," replied the child. "oh! what a great age," said my guardian. "what a great age, charley!" "and do you live alone here with these babies, charley?" said my guardian. "yes, sir," returned the child, looking up into his face with perfect confidence, "since father died." "and how do you live, charley? oh! charley," said my guardian, turning his face away for a moment, "how do you live?" "since my father died, sir, i've gone out to work. i'm out washing to-day." "god help you, charley!" said my guardian. "you're not tall enough to reach the tub!" "in pattens i am, sir," she said, quickly. "i've got a high pair as belonged to mother." "and when did mother die? poor mother!" "mother died just after emma was born," said the child, glancing at the face upon her bosom. "then father said i was to be as good a mother to her as i could. and so i tried. and so i worked at home, and did cleaning and nursing and washing, for a long time before i began to go out. and that's how i know how; don't you see, sir?" "and do you often go out?" "as often as i can," said charley, opening her eyes, and smiling, "because of earning sixpences and shillings!" "and do you always lock the babies up when you go out?" "to keep 'em safe, sir, don't you see?" said charley. "mrs. blinder comes up now and then, and mr. gridley comes up sometimes, and perhaps i can run in sometimes, and they can play, you know, and tom ain't afraid of being locked up, are you, tom?" "no-o!" said tom stoutly. "when it comes on dark the lamps are lighted down in the court, and they show up here quite bright--almost quite bright. don't they, tom?" "yes, charley," said tom; "almost quite bright." the hearts must be hard that are not moved to a deeper and more practical interest in the children of the poor by this pathetic story, and others of a kindred character which dickens told over and over again for the christian world to study. and the study led to feeling and thought and co-operative action. the fruits of these wonderful stories are the splendid homes, and organizations for children, and the laws to protect them from cruelty by parents or teachers, or employers, and the free public schools to educate them, and the joy, and happiness, and freedom, that are taking the place of the sorrow, and tears, and coercion of the time when dickens began his noble work. the tragic story of poor jo illustrated the poverty, the ignorance, the destitution, the hopelessness, the barrenness, and the dreadful environment of a london street boy. the world has done much better since, as dickens prophesied it would do, and the good work is going on. hundreds of thousands of the poor joes of london are now in the public schools of london alone of whom the christian philanthropy of the world thought little till dickens told his stories. in nobody's story dickens returns to his special purpose of changing the attitude of civilization toward the education of the poor. the bigwigs represent society, and "the man" means the poor man. but the bigwig family broke out into violent family quarrels concerning what it was lawful to teach to this man's children. some of the family insisted on such a thing being primary and indispensable above all other things; and others of the family insisted on such another thing being primary and indispensable above all other things; and the bigwig family, rent into factions, wrote pamphlets, held convocations, delivered charges, orations, and all varieties of discourses; impounded one another in courts lay and courts ecclesiastical; threw dirt, exchanged pummellings, and fell together by the ears in unintelligible animosity. meanwhile, this man, in his short evening snatches at his fireside, saw the demon ignorance arise there, and take his children to itself. he saw his daughter perverted into a heavy slatternly drudge; he saw his son go moping down the ways of low sensuality, to brutality and crime; he saw the dawning light of intelligence in the eyes of his babies so changing into cunning and suspicion, that he could have rather wished them idiots. dickens objected to a certain kind of sentimentality exhibited in his day toward criminals, and draws a very suggestive picture full of elements for psychological study in david copperfield, in which he makes the brutal schoolmaster creakle a very considerate middlesex magistrate, with an unfailing system for a quick and effective method of converting the wickedest scoundrels into the most submissive, scripture-quoting saints by solitary confinement. dickens did not approve of the system, and he did not approve either of the plan of the spending of so much money by the state in erecting splendid buildings for criminals, while the honest poor were in hovels, and especially while the state allowed the boys and girls, through neglect, to be transformed into criminals by thousands every year. dickens would have made criminals earn their own living, and he urged the establishment of industrial schools for the boys and girls of the streets, so that they might become respectable, intelligent, self-reliant, law-abiding citizens instead of criminals. david said: traddles and i repaired to the prison where mr. creakle was powerful. it was an immense and solid building, erected at a vast expense. i could not help thinking, as we approached the gate, what an uproar would have been made in the country if any deluded man had proposed to spend one half the money it had cost, on the erection of an industrial school for the young, or a house of refuge for the deserving old. as usual with great reformers, the philanthropists of his own day refused to accept the theories of dickens, but succeeding generations adopted them. the reforms for which he pleaded began to be practised so soon because he winged his thought with living appeals to the deepest, truest feelings of the human heart. dickens said truly of barnaby rudge: "the absence of the soul is far more terrible in a living man than in a dead one; and in this unfortunate being its noblest powers were wanting." he pleaded again for those who are weak-minded in mr. dick's case in david copperfield. mr. dick was evidently introduced into the story to show the effect of kind treatment on those who are defective in intellect. the insane were flogged and put in strait-jackets in the time of dickens. his teaching is now the practice of the civilized world. the insane are kindly treated, and weak-minded children are taught in good schools by the best teachers that can be obtained for them. betsy trotwood, david's aunt, was an embodiment of a good heart united with an eminently practical head. she did not talk about religion, as did the murdstones, but she showed her religious life in good, reasonable, self-sacrificing, helpful living. david asked her for an explanation of mr. dick's case. "he has been _called_ mad," said my aunt. "i have a selfish pleasure in saying he has been called mad, or i should not have had the benefit of his society and advice for these last ten years and upward--in fact, ever since your sister, betsy trotwood, disappointed me." "so long as that?" i said. "and nice people they were, who had the audacity to call him mad," pursued my aunt. "mr. dick is a sort of distant connection of mine--it doesn't matter how; i needn't enter into that. if it hadn't been for me, his own brother would have shut him up for life. that's all." i am afraid it was hypocritical in me, but seeing that my aunt felt strongly on the subject, i tried to look as if i felt strongly too. "a proud fool!" said my aunt. "because his brother was a little eccentric--though he is not half so eccentric as a good many people--he didn't like to have him visible about the house, and sent him away to some private asylum place; though he had been left to his particular care by their deceased father, who thought him almost a natural. and a wise man _he_ must have been to think so! mad himself, no doubt." again, as my aunt looked quite convinced, i endeavoured to look quite convinced also. "so i stepped in," said my aunt, "and made him an offer. i said, 'your brother's sane--a great deal more sane than you are, or ever will be, it is to be hoped. let him have his little income, and come and live with me. _i_ am not afraid of him; _i_ am not proud; _i_ am ready to take care of him, and shall not ill treat him as some people (besides the asylum folks) have done.' after a good deal of squabbling," said my aunt, "i got him; and he has been here ever since. he is the most friendly and amenable creature in existence; and as for advice!--but nobody knows what that man's mind is, except myself." dickens was greatly delighted with the asylums of the united states, and he strongly advocated the adoption in england of american methods of treating the insane. he says, in american notes: at south boston, as it is called, in a situation excellently adapted for the purpose, several charitable institutions are clustered together. one of these is the state hospital for the insane; admirably conducted on those enlightened principles of conciliation and kindness, which twenty years ago would have been worse than heretical, and which have been acted upon with so much success in our own pauper asylum at hanwell. "evince a desire to show some confidence, and repose some trust, even in mad people," said the resident physician, as we walked along the galleries, his patients flocking round us unrestrained. of those who deny or doubt the wisdom of this maxim after witnessing its effects, if there be such people still alive, i can only say that i hope i may never be summoned as a juryman on a commission of lunacy whereof they are the subjects; for i should certainly find them out of their senses, on such evidence alone. each ward in this institution is shaped like a long gallery or hall, with the dormitories of the patients opening from it on either hand. here they work, read, play at skittles, and other games; and, when the weather does not admit of their taking exercise out of doors, pass the day together. in one of these rooms, seated, calmly, and quite as a matter of course, among a throng of mad women, black and white, were the physician's wife and another lady, with a couple of children. these ladies were graceful and handsome; and it was not difficult to perceive at a glance that even their presence there had a highly beneficial influence on the patients who were grouped about them. every patient in this asylum sits down to dinner every day with a knife and fork; and in the midst of them sits the gentleman whose manner of dealing with his charges i have just described. at every meal, moral influence alone restrains the more violent among them from cutting the throats of the rest; but the effect of that influence is reduced to an absolute certainty, and is found, even as a means of restraint, to say nothing of it as a means of cure, a hundred times more efficacious than all the strait-waistcoats, fetters, and handcuffs, that ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty have manufactured since the creation of the world. how much those benighted teachers who so tragically ask "what _can_ you do with bad boys, if you do _not_ use corporal punishment?" might learn from the last sentence! blinded by old ideals, these teachers whip away, admitting that they fail to reform many of the best boys, and quieting their consciences with the horrible thought that the evil course was the natural one for the boys, and that they are not responsible for their blighted lives. they comfort themselves with the thought that it is god's business, and if he made a boy so bad that flogging would not reform him, they at any rate are free from blame, because they "have beaten, and beaten, and beaten him, and it did him no good." having beaten him, and beaten him, and beaten him, they rest contented with the sure conviction that they have faithfully done their duty; and when, perchance, the poor boy becomes a criminal, they solemnly say without a blush or a pang: "i knew he would come to a bad end, but i am so thankful that i did my duty to him." ignominious failure to save the brave boys who are not cowardly enough to be deterred from doing wrong by beating has taught nothing to some teachers. even yet they placidly beat on, and get angry if they are requested to try freedom as a substitute for coercion in the training of beings created in god's image. they even question the sanity and the theology of those who dare to doubt the efficiency of the sacred rod. they do not deem it possible that by studying the child and their own higher powers they could find easier, pleasanter, and infinitely more successful methods of guiding a boy to a true, strong life than by beating, and beating, and beating him. the keepers of asylums in the time of dickens were equally severe on the wise friends of the insane. they honestly believed that terrible evils would necessarily result from giving greater freedom to the afflicted patients in asylums. dickens took the side of freedom and common sense, and the strait-jackets, and handcuffs, and fetters have been taken off, and, _even as a means of restraint_, kindness and freedom have done better work than all the coercive fetters that "ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty have manufactured since the creation of the world." so all teachers who have grown wise enough have found that kindness and freedom are much better even as restraining agents, and infinitely better in the development of true, independent, positive, progressive characters than all the coercive terrors of rod, rule, strap, rawhide, or any form of cruelty ever practised on helpless childhood by ignorance, prejudice, and perverted theology since the creation of the world. in american notes dickens gave a long description of laura bridgman written by dr. howe, and showed his intense interest in what was then a new movement in favour of the education of the blind. speaking of laura bridgman, dickens himself wrote: the thought occurred to me as i sat down in another room before a girl, blind, deaf, and dumb; destitute of smell, and nearly so of taste; before a fair young creature with every human faculty, and hope, and power of goodness and affection inclosed within her delicate frame, and but one outward sense--the sense of touch. there she was before me; built up, as it were, in a marble cell, impervious to any ray of light, or particle of sound; with her poor white hand peeping through a chink in the wall, beckoning to some good man for help, that an immortal soul might be awakened. long before i looked upon her the help had come. her face was radiant with intelligence and pleasure. her hair, braided by her own hands, was bound about her head, whose intellectual capacity and development were beautifully expressed in its graceful outline, and its broad open brow; her dress, arranged by herself, was a pattern of neatness and simplicity; the work she had knitted lay beside her; her writing book was on the desk she leaned upon. from the mournful ruin of such bereavement there had slowly risen up this gentle, tender, guileless, grateful-hearted being. the touching story of caleb plummer and his blind daughter was intended to arouse interest in blind children. doctor marigold should be one of the best beloved of all the beautiful characters of dickens. if any kind of language could awaken an intense interest in the education of deaf-mutes, the story of the dear old cheap jack must surely do it. the sad picture of the cruel treatment of his own little sophy by her mother; of her dying on his shoulder while he was selling his wares to the crowd, whispering fondly to her between his jokes; and the suicide of the mother, when she afterward saw another woman beating her child, and heard the child cry piteously, "don't beat me! oh, mother, mother, mother!"--these prepare the heart for full appreciation of the tender, considerate, and intelligent treatment of the deaf-mute child adopted by doctor marigold in sophy's place. i went to that fair as a mere civilian, leaving the cart outside the town, and i looked about the back of the vans while the performing was going on, and at last, sitting dozing against a muddy cart wheel, i come upon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb. at the first look i might almost have judged that she had escaped from the wild beast show; but at the second i thought better of her, and thought that if she was more cared for and more kindly used she would be like my child. she was just the same age that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head had not fell down upon my shoulder that unfortunate night. it was happy days for both of us when sophy and me began to travel in the cart. i at once gave her the name of sophy, to put her ever toward me in the attitude of my own daughter. we soon made out to begin to understand one another, through the goodness of the heavens, when she knowed that i meant true and kind by her. in a very little time she was wonderful fond of me. you have no idea what it is to have anybody wonderful fond of you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that i have mentioned as having once got the better of me. you'd have laughed--or the rewerse--it's according to your disposition--if you could have seen me trying to teach sophy. at first i was helped--you'd never guess by what--milestones. i got some large alphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits of bone, and say we was going to windsor; i gave her those letters in that order, and then at every milestone i showed her those same letters in that same order again, and pointed toward the abode of royalty. another time i give her cart, and then chalked the same upon the cart. another time i give her doctor marigold, and hung a corresponding inscription outside my waistcoat. people that met us might stare a bit and laugh, but what did _i_ care if she caught the idea? she caught it after long patience and trouble, and then we did begin to get on swimmingly, i believe you! at first she was a little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of royalty, but that soon wore off. the way she learned to understand any look of mine was truly surprising. when i sold of a night, she would sit in the cart, unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes when i looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article or articles i wanted. and then she would clap her hands, and laugh for joy. and as for me, seeing her so bright, and remembering what she was when i first lighted on her, starved and beaten and ragged, leaning asleep against the muddy cart wheel, it give me such heart that i gained a greater height of reputation than ever. this happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen years old. by which time i began to feel not satisfied that i had done my whole duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching than i could give her. it drew a many tears on both sides when i commenced explaining my views to her; but what's right is right, and you can't neither by tears nor laughter do away with its character. so i took her hand in mine, and i went with her one day to the deaf and dumb establishment in london, and when the gentleman come to speak to us, i says to him: "now, i'll tell you what i'll do with you, sir. i am nothing but a cheap jack, but of late years i have laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding. this is my only daughter (adopted), and you can't produce a deafer nor a dumber. teach her the most that can be taught her in the shortest separation that can be named--state the figure for it--and i am game to put the money down. i won't bate you single farthing, sir, but i'll put down the money here and now, and i'll thankfully throw you in a pound to take it. there!" the gentleman smiled, and then, "well, well," says he, "i must first know what she has learned already. how do you communicate with her?" then i showed him, and she wrote in printed writing many names of things and so forth; and we held some sprightly conversation, sophy and me, about a little story in a book which the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read. "this is most extraordinary," says the gentleman; "is it possible that you have been her only teacher?" "i have been her only teacher, sir," i says, "besides herself." "then," says the gentleman, and more acceptable words was never spoke to me, "you're a clever fellow, and a good fellow." this he makes known to sophy, who kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries upon it. "now, marigold, tell me what more do you want your adopted daughter to know?" "i want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be, considering her deprivations, and therefore to be able to read whatever is wrote with perfect ease and pleasure." no one ever read this story and its delightful closing without being more deeply interested in deaf-mutes and their education. all the children, especially poor and defective children, should be taught how much they owe to dickens, that they might reverently love his memory. one of the most awful pictures shown to scrooge by the phantom was the picture of the two "wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable children." they were a boy and a girl. yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. no change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread. "they are man's," said the spirit, looking down upon them. "and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. this boy is ignorance. this girl is want. beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow i see that written which is doom, unless the writing be erased. deny it!" cried the spirit, stretching out its hand toward the city. "slander those who tell it ye! admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. and abide the end!" dickens bravely fought the battle against the enemies of the children, and helped to win the grandest victories of christian civilization. the end. international education series. _ mo, cloth, uniform binding._ the international education series was projected for the purpose of bringing together in orderly arrangement the best writings, new and old, upon educational subjects, and presenting a complete course of reading and training for teachers generally. it is edited by william t. harris, ll. d., united states commissioner of education, who has contributed for the different volumes in the way of introduction, analysis, and commentary. . the philosophy of education. by johann k. f. rosenkranz, doctor of theology and professor of philosophy. university of königsberg. translated by anna c. brackett. second edition, revised, with commentary and complete analysis. $ . . . a history of education. by f. v. n. painter, a. m. professor of modern languages and literature, roanoke college, va. revised edition, . $ . net. . the rise and early constitution of universities. with a survey of medi�val education. by s. s. laurie, ll. d., professor of the institutes and history of education, university of edinburgh. $ . . . the ventilation and warming of school buildings. by gilbert b. morrison, teacher of physics and chemistry, kansas city high school. $ . . . the education of man. by friedrich froebel. translated and annotated by w. n. hailmann, a. m., superintendent of public schools, la porte, ind. $ . . . elementary psychology and education. by joseph baldwin, a. m., ll. d., author of "the art of school management." $ . . . the senses and the will. 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sound and progressive pedagogy. in its scope and organization it aims to give ( ) a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the principles of education, ( ) the modern trend and interpretation of educational thought, ( ) a transition from pure psychology to methods of teaching and discipline, and ( ) practical applications of educational theory to the problems that confront the teacher in the course of daily routine. every practical pedagogical solution that is offered has actually stood the test of classroom demonstration. the book opens with a study of the function of education and a contrast of the modern social conception with those aims which have been guiding ideals in previous educational systems. part ii deals with the physiological aspects of education. part iii is taken up with the problem of socializing the child through the curriculum and the school discipline. the last part of the book, part iv, the mental aspect of education, is developed under the following sections: _section a._ the instinctive aspect of mind. mind and its development through self-expression. self-activity. instincts. _section b._ intellectual aspect of mind. the functions of intellect, perception, apperception, memory, imagination, thought activities. the doctrine of formal discipline and its influence upon educational endeavor. _section c._ emotional aspect of mind. _section d._ volitional aspect of mind. study of will, kinds of volitional action, habit vs. deliberative consciousness. the education of the will. education and social responsibility, the problems of ethical instruction, and the social functions of the school. in order to increase the usefulness of the book to teachers of education there is added a classified bibliography for systematic, intensive reference reading and a list of suggested problems suitable for advanced work. d. appleton and company new york chicago produced from scanned images of public domain material from the google print project.) transcriber's note the contents are placed after the introductory. a list of changes to the original publication is given at the end. in jail with charles dickens. in jail with charles dickens by alfred trumble editor of "the collector" illustrated london suckling & galloway copyright, , by francis p. harper. printed in america. introductory. readers of charles dickens must all have remarked the deep and abiding interest he took in that grim accessory to civilization, the prison. he not only went jail hunting whenever opportunity offered, but made a profound study of the rules, practices and abuses of these institutions. penology was, in fact, one of his hobbies, and some of the most powerful passages in his books are those which have their scene of action laid within the shadow of the gaol. it was this fact which led to the compilation of the papers comprised in the present volume. the writer had been a student of dickens from the days when the publication of his novels in serial form was a periodical event. when he first visited england, many of the landmarks which the novelist had, in a manner, made historical, were still in existence, but of the principal prisons which figure in his works newgate was the only one which existed in any approximation to its integrity. the fleet and the king's bench were entirely swept away; of the marshalsea only a few buildings remained, converted to ordinary uses. in this country, however, the two jails which interested him, still remain, with certain changes that do not impair their general conformance to his descriptions. these papers, therefore, consist of personal knowledge, as a voluntary visitor, be it understood, of newgate. the tombs in new york, and the eastern district penitentiary in philadelphia, supplemented by references to the records. for the fleet, marshalsea, and kings bench, the writer is indebted to the chronicles and descriptions of peter cunningham, john timbs, leigh hunt, and other ingenious and interesting historians of the london of the early victorian era. in connection with the paper relating to the eastern district penitentiary of philadelphia, his thanks are due for the assistance and information rendered by mr. michael j. cassidy, the warden. alfred trumble. new york, march . contents. chapter i. newgate without, chapter ii. newgate within, chapter iii. the fleet prison, chapter iv. the marshalsea, chapter v. the king's bench, chapter vi. the new york tombs, chapter vii. philadelphia's bastile, in jail with charles dickens. chapter i. newgate without. newgate was the first prison to which charles dickens gave any literary attention. an account of a visit to it appears among the early "sketches by boz." it is also the only one of the london jails of which he has left us graphic descriptions, or briefer, spirited sketches, which preserves to-day so much of its original character as to be identifiable in detail by the student of his works. the fleet and the king's bench have disappeared. the marshalsea may only be recognized by slight surviving landmarks. but the sombre and sullen bulk of newgate rears itself in the heart of london, a sinister monument to the horrors bred by a civilization rotten of its own over-ripeness, in the forcing-bed of the most magnificent, wonderful and monstrously terrible city of the world. if external gloom could exercise an influence to deter anyone from the commission of crime of which it is a part of the penalty, newgate would never have any inmates. surrounded at the time of my introductory visit to it, as an accidental but not legally involuntary visitor, by low public-houses, poor shops and a tumble-down market, all bearing the grime of age and the marks of decay, as if the frown of the great jail had blighted them; with the foul, miry lane of newgate street, and the scarcely-cleaner old bailey, alive with muddy carts and shabby people, skulking roughs, draggled women and squalling children, no man who had no business there would care, once having seen it, to seek it out again. being then new in london, i had been begriming myself among the old books of st. paul's churchyard until i was tired and thirsty, and strolling along ludgate hill in quest of refreshment, turned into the second street i came to. a few steps more and i found myself stopping at another street corner to look at an immense and grim mass of gray stone towering loftily in the fog, with little windows here and there along its frowning wall. they were so small that they might have been mere spaces where the builders had forgotten to put in a block of granite, if it had not been for the strong, rusty bars that crossed them. i asked a man who came out of a public-house wiping his mouth on the back of his hand what place that was. he stared at me in evident amazement for a minute, and then said, shortly, in an aggravated tone of voice, poking a finger, still moist from his libation, at it, like a dagger: "newgate, that is." he went along, shaking his head in a dubious way and looking back several times at me, clearly either suspicious of the genuineness of my stupendous ignorance, or unable to comprehend how anyone could be ignorant of the identity of the famous jail. i have no doubt that it was vastly stupid of me. in fact, i experienced a certain feeling of contempt for myself, now that i knew what the place was, and that it was the place of which i had read so much that i almost had its history by heart; but after all, london is a "very considerable-sized town," as i once had a chicago acquaintance generously admit, and one could scarcely be expected to know it like a guide-book, within forty-eight hours after making first acquaintance with its bitter beer, its bloody beef, and its beds into whose coverlids the essence of the fog seemed to have penetrated, if, indeed, the sheets were not woven out of the fog itself. newgate, in its external appearance, at least, is an ideal prison. its aspect, whether purposely or through the adaptation of its construction to its uses, is thoroughly jail-like. the few openings in the walls, the empty blind niches, which might have been left there for statues of great felons never set up in them; the entrance, with its festooned fetters carved in stone as an ornament to the gloomy and forbidding portal, all are appropriate to and a significant part of it. within a few feet of where i stood when i viewed it first was the spot where the scaffold used to be put up. here, on the occasion of an execution, as one may read in chapter of "oliver twist," the space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers painted black thrown across the road to break the pressure of the crowd, while the more favored portion of the audience occupied every post of vantage, at windows and housetops, that commanded a view of the ghastly show. here, as oliver noted when he came away from his last interview with fagin at the dawn of day: "a great multitude had already assembled; the windows were filled with people smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; the crowd was pushing, quarreling and joking. everything told of life and animation, but one dark cluster of objects in the very centre of all--the black stage, the crossbeam, the rope, and all the hideous apparatus of death." prisoners of old were executed on tyburn hill in public, or on some occasions, when it was especially desired to enforce an example, as close as possible to the scene of guilt. those who were punished for participation in the gordon riots of were swung off in the various parts of the city where their crimes were committed. in the common places of execution were changed to the old bailey, in front of newgate. there the first culprit was executed on december of that year. hanging was brisk when george iii was king. between february and december, , ninety-six persons suffered by the trap arrangement now in common use the world over, which was then known as the "new drop." previous to that time it had been the custom to perch the candidates for the halter on a cart, which was driven from under them at the fatal signal, while someone hung on to their legs to choke them more speedily and surely--an expeditious practice quite frequently resorted to by judge lynch in america in after years, and still not entirely out of use for extemporaneous executions. in "barnaby rudge" (volume , chapter ) dickens gives the most detailed description of a newgate execution which occurs in his works. the passage is well worth quoting at length: "the time wore on. the noises in the streets became less frequent by degrees until the silence was scarcely broken, save by the bells in the church towers marking the progress, softer and more stealthily while the city slumbered, of that great watcher with the hoary head, who never sleeps or rests. in the brief interval of darkness and repose which feverish towns enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed; and those who awoke from dreams lay listening in their beds, and longed for dawn, and wished the dead of the night were passed. "into the street, outside the gaol's main wall, workmen came straggling, at this solemn hour, in groups of two or three, and, meeting in the centre, cast their tools upon the ground and spoke in whispers. others soon issued from the gaol itself, bearing on their shoulders planks and beams: these materials being all brought forth, the rest bestirred themselves, and the dull sound of hammers began to echo through the stillness. "here and there among this knot of laborers, one with a lantern or a smoky link stood by to light his fellows at their work; and by its doubtful aid some might be seen dimly, taking up the pavement of the road, while others held upright great posts, or fixed them in holes thus made for their reception. some dragged slowly on toward the rest an empty cart, which they brought rumbling from the prison yard, while others erected strong barriers across the street. all were busily engaged. their dusky figures moving to and fro at that unusual hour, so active and so silent, might have been taken for those of shadowy creatures toiling at midnight on some ghostly, unsubstantial work, which, like themselves, would vanish with the first gleam of day, and leave but morning mist and vapor. "while it was yet dark a few lookers-on collected, who had plainly come there for that purpose and intended to remain; even those who had to pass the spot on their way to some other place, lingered, and lingered yet, as though the attraction of that were irresistible. meanwhile the noise of the saw and mallet went on briskly, mingled with the clattering of boards on the stone pavement of the road, and sometimes with the workmen's voices as they called to one another. whenever the chimes of the neighboring church were heard--and that was every quarter of an hour--a strong sensation, instantaneous and indescribable, but perfectly obvious, seemed to pervade them all. "gradually a faint brightness appeared in the east, and the air, which had been very warm through the night, felt cool and chilly. though there was no daylight yet, the darkness was diminished, and the stars looked pale. the prison, which had been a mere black mass, with little shape or form, put on its usual aspect; and ever and anon a solitary watchman could be seen upon its roof, stopping to look down upon the preparations in the street. this man, from forming, as it were, a part of the gaol, and knowing, or being supposed to know, all that was passing within, became an object of much interest, and was eagerly looked for, and as awfully pointed out as if he had been a spirit. "by and by the feeble light grew stronger, and the houses, with their signboards and inscriptions, stood plainly out in the dull gray of the morning. heavy stage-wagons crawled from the inn yard opposite, and travelers peeped out, and, as they rolled sluggishly away, cast many a backward look toward the gaol. and now the sun's first beams came glancing into the street, and the night's work, which in its various stages and in the varied fancies of the lookers-on had taken a hundred shapes, wore its own proper form--a scaffold and gibbet. "as the warmth of the cheerful day began to shed itself upon the scanty crowd the murmur of tongues was heard, shutters were thrown open, the blinds drawn up, and those who had slept in rooms over against the prison, where places to see the execution were let at high prices, rose hastily from their beds. in some of the houses people were busy taking out the window-sashes for the better accommodation of the spectators; in others, the spectators were already seated, and beguiling the time with cards, or drink, or jokes among themselves. some had purchased seats upon the housetops, and were already crawling to their stations from parapet and garret window. some were yet bargaining for good places, and stood in them in a state of indecision, gazing at the slowly-swelling crowd, and at the workmen as they rested listlessly against the scaffold--affecting to listen with indifference to the proprietor's eulogy of the commanding view his house afforded, and the surpassing cheapness of his terms. "a fairer morning never shone. from the roofs and the upper stories of the buildings the spires of the city churches and the great cathedral dome were visible, rising up beyond the prison into the blue sky, and clad in the color of light summer clouds, and showing in the clear atmosphere their every scrap of tracery and fretwork, and every niche and loophole. all was lightness, brightness and promise, excepting in the street below, into which (for it lay yet in the shadow) the eye looked down into a dark trench, where, in the midst of so much life and hope and renewal of existence, stood the terrible instrument of death. it seemed as if the very sun forbore to look upon it. "but it was better, grim and sombre in the shade, than when, the day being more advanced, it stood confessed in full glare and glory of the sun, with its black paint blistering and its nooses dangling in the light like loathsome garlands. it was better in the solitude and gloom of midnight, with a few forms clustering about it, than in the freshness and the stir of the morning, the centre of an eager crowd. it was better haunting the street like a spectre, when men were in their beds, and influencing, perchance, the city's dreams, than braving the broad day, and thrusting its obscene presence upon the waking senses. "five o'clock had struck--six, seven and eight. along the two main streets, at either end of the crossway, a living stream had now set in, rolling to the marts of gain and business. carts, coaches, wagons, trucks and barrows, forced a passage through the outskirts of the throng and clattered onward in the same direction. some of these, which were public conveyances, and had come from a short distance in the country, stopped, and the driver pointed to the gibbet with his whip, though he might have spared himself the pains, for the heads of all the passengers were turned that way without his help, and the coach windows were stuck full of staring eyes. in some of the carts and wagons women might be seen, glancing fearfully at the same unsightly thing; and even little children were held up above the peoples' heads to see what kind of a toy a gallows was and to learn how men were hanged. "two rioters were to die before the prison, who had been concerned in the attack upon it; and one directly after in bloomsbury square. at nine o'clock a strong body of military marched into the street, and formed and lined a narrow passage into holborn, which had been indifferently kept all night by constables. through this another cart was brought (the one already mentioned had been employed in the construction of the scaffold), and wheeled up to the prison gate. these preparations made, the soldiers stood at ease; the officers lounged to and fro in the alley they had made, or talked together at the scaffold's foot; and the concourse which had been rapidly augmenting for some hours, and still received additions every minute, waited with an impatience which increased with every chime of st. sepulchre's clock for twelve at noon. "up to this time they had been very quiet, comparatively silent, save when the arrival of some new party at a window, hitherto unoccupied, gave them something to look at or to talk of. but, as the hour approached, a buzz and a hum arose, which, deepening every moment, soon swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the air. no words, or even voices, could be distinguished in this clamor, nor did they speak much to each other; though such as were better informed on the topic than the rest would tell their neighbors, perhaps, that they might know the hangman when he came out, by his being the shorter one; and that the man that was to suffer with him was named hugh; and that it was barnaby rudge who would be hanged in bloomsbury square. "the hum grew, as the time drew near, so loud that those who were at the windows could not hear the church clock strike, though it was close at hand. nor had they any need to hear it either, for they could see it in the peoples' faces. so surely as another quarter chimed there was a movement in the crowd--as if something had passed over it--as if the light upon them had been changed--in which the fact was readable as on a brazen dial, figured by a giant's hand. three-quarters past eleven. the murmur now was deafening, yet every man seemed mute. look where you would among the crowd, you saw strained eyes and lips compressed; it would have been difficult for the most vigilant observer to point this way or that, and say that yonder man had cried out. it were as easy to detect the motion of the lips in a sea-shell. "three-quarters past eleven. many spectators who had retired from the windows came back refreshed, as though their watch had just begun. those who had fallen asleep aroused themselves; and every person in the crowd made one last effort to better his position, which caused a press against the sturdy barriers that made them bend and yield like twigs. the officers, who until now had kept together, fell into their several positions, and gave the words of command. swords were drawn, muskets shouldered, and the bright steel, winding its way among the crowd, gleamed and glittered in the sun like a river. along this shining path two men were hurrying on, leading a horse, which was speedily harnessed to the cart at the prison door. then a profound silence replaced the tumult that had so long been gathering, and a breathless pause ensued. every window was now choked up with heads; the housetops teemed with people clinging to chimneys, peering over gable-ends, and holding on where the sudden loosening of any brick or stone would dash them down into the street. the church-tower, the church-roof, the churchyard, the prison-leads, the very waterspouts and lampposts, every inch of room swarmed with human life. "at the first stroke of twelve the prison bell began to toll. then the roar, mingled now with cries of 'hats off!' and 'poor fellows!'--and, from some specks in the great concourse, with a shriek or groan--burst forth again. it was terrible to see--if anyone in that distraction of excitement could have seen--the world of eager eyes all strained upon the scaffold and the beam." the newgate gallows in "barnaby rudge" was set up for the ruffian hugh, the bastard of sir john chester and his gypsy light-o-love, and for dennis the hangman, who had been concerned as leaders in the attack on the prison by the gordon rioters. "two cripples--both were boys--one with a leg of wood, one who dragged his twisted body along with the help of a crutch, were hanged in bloomsbury square, where they had helped to sack lord mansfield's house, and other rioters in other parts of the town, in despoiling which they had been conspicuous." it may be recalled that the mother of hugh herself had died on the scaffold, at tyburn, for the crime of passing forged notes. to descend from the realm of romance to that of reality, the most memorable executions in the old bailey were those of mrs. phipoe, the murderess, in ; of governor wall of trinidad, for murder, on jan. , ; of halloway and haggerty, the murderers, on feb. , , when thirty spectators were trampled to death; of bellingham, the assassin of a member of parliament, percival, on may , ; of the cato street conspirators, who were cut down and decapitated on the scaffold in the presence of the multitude, on may , ; of fauntleroy, the banker, hanged for forging in ; of the assassin greenacre, in ; of courvoiser, who murdered lord william russell, in ; and of franz müller, the railway murderer, who was extradited from this country, as will doubtless be remembered by many, and sent to his doom in . that same year seven pirates were also suspended in the old bailey. since then executions have been carried out privately within the walls of the prison. a contemporary of dickens, in the "ingoldsby legends," has given us a picture, in a different vein, of the same period and subject. he has told us, in his own rattling verse, how my lord tomnoddy, having nothing to do, and being deucedly bored, learned from his faithful tiger tim that greenacre was to be hanged at newgate; here was indeed a sensation for his lordship: "to see a man swing, at the end of a string, with his neck in a noose, will be quite a new thing." so he hires the whole first floor of the magpie and stump, opposite the jail, and invites his friends to come and help him see a man die in his shoes. they help him so effectually during the night, what with "cold fowl and cigars, pickled onions in jars, welsh rabbits and kidney, rare work for jaws, and very large lobsters with fine claws," and the like, not to mention gin-toddy and cold and hot punch, that they fall asleep and lose the show after all, when, as they cannot have the man hung over again, they go home to bed in hackney coaches and a state of deep disgust. another contemporary, of more ample renown, thackeray to wit, gave some attention to the matter. in july, , he published, in frazer's magazine, a paper called "going to see a man hanged." the man was courvoiser; and thackeray, unlike lord tomnoddy, did not fall asleep over the feast, and so did see him mount the scaffold. surgeons' hall used to stand close to newgate and the old bailey, and the victims of the halter were handed over to the doctors for dissection. the corpse of wicked lord ferrers, who was executed in at tyburn for murdering his steward, was taken in his own landau and six to the burgeons' theatre to be cut up. after having been disemboweled, in conformance with the sentence, the body of the bad lord was put on show in the first floor window, to be hissed and hooted at by the mob. the account of the ferrers execution, by the way, provides a curious picture of the time. ferrers dressed himself in his wedding suit to be hanged. he had the harness of his horses decorated with ribbons. on the way to tyburn from the tower, my lord intimated a desire for some wine, being thirsty. the sheriff, who was in the coach with him, declined to allow him to refresh himself. "then," said the earl, taking a bite of pigtail tobacco from a plug which he had in his pocket, "i must be content with this." he harbored no malice against the sheriff, however, for he presented him with his watch as they neared tyburn. to the chaplain he gave five guineas, and to the executioner the same sum. the executioner had to pull him by the legs to effectually strangle him, and while the body swung for an hour on the gallows, the sheriffs and their friends had luncheon on the platform within reach of it. "the executioners fought for the rope," says the chronicler, "and the one who lost it, cried." but we have wandered far from newgate in this wicked company. old newgate, upon a portion of whose site the present jail stands, was built in the reign of king john. it derived its name from the fact that london was then a walled city, and the jail was erected close to the newest gate in the fortification. it was, in fact, at first a mere tower or appendage of the gate. newgate was used as a state prison long before the tower. one of the many captives of this sort which it held was william penn. the founder of pennsylvania spent six months there for the atrocious offense of street preaching. defoe spent some time here on account of a political tract, and wrote several others while in confinement. dr. dodd wrote his successful comedy, "sir roger de coverly," in newgate. one of the last persons confined here for political offense was mr. hobhouse, afterward lord broughton. the street used to be filled with people when he took his exercise on the roof, who watched and cheered at his hat, which was all they could see of him above the wall. an odd circumstance about mr. hobhouse's imprisonment is that byron had prophesied it in the remark that "having foamed himself into a reformer, he would subside in newgate." among the famous prisoners here we find savage, the poet, for murder; jack sheppard, whose remarkable escape, very much exaggerated upon fact, you may have read of from mr. ainsworth's pen; and jonathan wild, who, by the by, once lived nearly opposite the court-house, in the old bailey; catherine hayes, the abandoned heroine of thackeray's novel; mrs. brownrigg, the fiend who tortured her serving-maids; astlett, the bank of england clerk, who committed forgeries for over $ , , , and many more. lord george gordon, familiar to all who have read "barnaby rudge," died in , of gaol-fever, in one of the cells of newgate, after several years of confinement, for libelling the queen of france. the poor, mad lord, whose rioters had turned the jail into a ruin once, found it strong enough to hold him and his fantastic visions securely in the end. here is dickens's description of the attack upon the prison, caused by him, commencing in the second volume of "barnaby rudge," chapter fifth. "it was about six o'clock in the evening when a vast mob poured into lincoln's inn fields by every avenue, and divided, evidently in pursuance of a previous design, into several parties. it must not be understood that this arrangement was known to the whole crowd, but that it was the work of a few leaders, who, mingling with these men as they came upon the ground, and calling to them to fall into this or that party, effected it as rapidly as if it had been determined on by a council of the whole number, and every man had known his place. "it was perfectly notorious to the assemblage that the largest body, which comprehended about two-thirds of the whole, was designed for the attack on newgate. it comprehended all the rioters who had been conspicuous in any of their former proceedings; all those whom they recommended as daring hands and fit for the work; all those whose companions had been taken in the riots; and a great number of people who were relatives or friends of the felons in the gaol. this last class included not only the most desperate and utterly abandoned villains in london, but some who were comparatively innocent. there was more than one woman there, disguised in man's attire, and bent on the rescue of a child or a brother. there were the two sons of a man who lay under the sentence of death, and who was to be executed, along with three others, the next day but one. there was a great party of boys, whose fellow pickpockets were in the prison; and, at the skirts of all, a score of miserable women, outcasts from the world, seeking to release some other fellow creature as miserable as themselves, or moved by general sympathy, perhaps, god knows, with all who were without hope and wretched. "old swords, and pistols without ball or powder; sledge-hammers, knives, axes, saws, and weapons pillaged from the butcher shops; a forest of iron bars and wooden clubs; long ladders for scaling the walls, each carried on the shoulders of a dozen men; lighted torches, tow smeared with pitch, and tar, and brimstone; staves roughly plucked from a fence and paling; and even crutches taken from crippled beggars on the streets composed their arms. when all was ready, hugh and dennis, with simon tappertit between them, led the way. roaring and chafing like an angry sea, the crowd pressed after them." they halt upon the way to drag gabriel varden from his shop, in order to compel him to pick the lock of the prison gate. they march him at the head of the mob to the jail. they find that their visit was not wholly unexpected, "for the governor's house, which fronted the street, was strongly barricaded, the wicket of the prison gate was closed up, and at no loophole or grating was any person to be seen." the governor, inspecting the mob from the roof of his house, is summoned to surrender his charge. he refuses. the rabble call on the locksmith to pick the locks. he defies them, and is dragged away barely in time to save his life by joe willets and edward chester, who are in the mob in disguise. then the assault on the jail begins. "hammers began to rattle on the walls, and every man strove to reach the prison and be among the foremost rank. fighting their way through the press and struggle as desperately as if they were in the midst of the enemies rather than their own friends, the two men retreated with the blacksmith between them, and dragged him through the very heart of the concourse. "and now the strokes begin to fall like hail upon the gate and on the strong building; for those who could not reach the door spent their fierce rage on any thing, even on the great blocks of stone, which shivered their weapons into fragments, and made their hands and arms tingle as if the walls were active in their resistance and dealt them back their blows. the clash of the iron ringing upon iron mingled with the deafening tumult, and sounded high above it, as the great sledge-hammers rattled on the nailed and plated door; the sparks flew off in showers; men worked in gangs, and at short intervals relieved each other, that all their strength might be devoted to the work; but there stood the portal still, as grim and dark and as strong as ever, and, saving for the dints on its shattered surface, quite unchanged. "while some brought all their energies to bear upon this toilsome task, and some, rearing ladders against the prison, tried to clamber to the summit of the walls they were too short to scale; and some, again, engaged a body of police, and beat them back and trod them under foot by force of numbers; others besieged the house on which the gaoler had appeared, and, driving in the door, brought out his furniture and piled it up against the prison gate to make a low fire which should burn it down. as soon as this device was understood, all those who had labored hitherto cast down their tools and helped to swell the heap, which reached half way across the street, and was so high that those who threw more fuel on the top got up by ladders. when all the keeper's goods were flung upon this costly pile to the last fragment, they smeared it with pitch and tar and rosin they had brought, and sprinkled it with turpentine. to all the woodwork round the prison doors they did the like, leaving not a joist or a beam untouched. this infernal christening performed, they fired the pile with lighted matches and with blazing tow, and then stood by and waited the result. "the furniture being very dry, and rendered more combustible by wax and oil, besides the arts they had used, took fire at once. the flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the prison wall and twining up its lofty front like burning serpents. at first they crowded around the blaze, and vented their exultation only in their looks; but when it grew hotter and fiercer; when it crackled and leaped, and roared like a great furnace; when it shone upon the opposite houses, and lighted up not only the pale and wondering faces at the windows, but the inmost corners of each habitation; when through the deep red heat and glow the fire was seen sporting and toying with the door, now clinging to its obdurate surface, now gliding off with fierce inconstancy and roaring high into the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning grasp and lure it to its ruin; when it shone and gleamed so brightly that the church clock of st. sepulchre's, so often pointing to the hour of death, was legible as in broad day, and the vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted light like some thing richly jeweled; when blackened stone and sombre brick grew ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone like burnished gold, dotting the longest distance in the fiery vista with their specks of brightness; when wall and tower and roof and chimney-stack seemed drunk, and in the flickering glare appeared to reel and stagger; when scores of objects, never seen before, burst out upon the view, and things the most familiar put on some new aspect, then the mob began to join the whirl, and with loud yells and shouts and clamor, such as is happily seldom heard, bestirred themselves to feed the fire and keep it at its height. "although the heat was so intense that the paint on the houses over against the prison parched and crackled up, and swelling into boils, as it were, from an excess of torture, broke and crumbled away; although the glass fell from the window sashes, and the lead and iron on the roofs blistered the incautious hand that touched them, and the sparrows in the eaves took wing, and, rendered giddy by the smoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing pile, still the fire was tended increasingly by busy hands, and round it men were going always. they never slackened in their zeal or kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard that those in front had much ado to save themselves from being thrust in; if one man swooned or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and that, although they knew the pain and thirst and pressure to be unendurable. those who fell down in fainting fits and were crushed or hurt were carried to an inn yard close at hand and dashed with water from a pump, of which buckets full were passed from man to man among the crowd; but such was the strong desire of all to drink, and such the fighting to be first, that, for the most part, the whole contents were spilled upon the ground, without the lips of a man being moistened. "meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar and outcry, those who were nearest to the pile heaped up again the burning fragments that came toppling down, and racked the fire about the door, which, although a sheet of flame, was still a door, fast locked and barred, and kept them out. great pieces of burning wood were passed, besides, above the people's heads to such as stood above the ladders, and some of these, climbing up to the topmost stave, and holding on with one hand by the prison wall, exerted all their skill and force to cast these firebrands on the roof or down into the yards within. in many instances their efforts were successful, which occasioned a new and appalling addition to the horrors of the scene, for the prisoners within, seeing from between their bars that the fire caught in many places and thrived fiercely, and being all locked up in strong cells for the night, began to know that they were in danger of being burnt alive. this terrible fear, spreading from cell to cell and from yard to yard, vented itself in such dismal cries and wailings, and in such dreadful shrieks for help, that the whole gaol resounded with the noise, which was loudly heard even above the shouting of the mob and roaring of the flames, and was so full of agony and despair that it made the boldest tremble. "it was remarkable that these cries began in that quarter of the gaol which fronted newgate street, where it was well known that the men who were to suffer death on thursday were confined. and not only were these four, who had a short time to live, the first to whom the dread of being burnt occurred, but they were, throughout, the most importunate of all; for they could be plainly heard, notwithstanding the great thickness of the walls, crying that the wind set that way, and that the flames would shortly reach them; and calling to officers of the gaol to come and quench the fire from a cistern which was in their yard, and full of water. judging from what the crowds from without the walls could hear from time to time, these four doomed wretches never ceased to call for help; and that with as much distraction, and in as great a frenzy of attachment to existence, as though each had an honored, happy life before him, instead of eight-and-forty hours of miserable imprisonment, and then a violent and shameful death. "but the anguish and suffering of the two sons of one of these men, when they heard, or fancied they heard, their father's voice, is past description. after wringing their hands, and rushing to and fro as if they were stark mad, one mounted on the shoulders of his brother, and tried to clamber up the face of the high wall, guarded at the top with spikes and points of iron. and when he fell among the crowd he was not deterred by his bruises, but mounted up again, and fell again, and when he found the feat impossible began to beat the stones and tear them with his hands, as if he could in that way make a breach in the strong building and force a passage in. at last they cleft their way among the mob about the door, though many men, a dozen times their match, had tried in vain to do so, and were seen in, yes in, the fire, striving to pry it down with crowbars. "nor were they alone affected by the outcry from within the prison. the women who were looking on shrieked loudly, beat their hands together, stopped their ears and many fainted; the men who were not near the walls and active in the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the pavement of the street, and did so with a haste and fury that could not have been surpassed if that had been their gaol and they were near their object. not one living creature in the throng was for an instant still. the whole great mass were mad. "a shout! another! another yet, though few knew why or what it meant. but those around the gate had seen it slowly yield and drop from its topmost hinge. it hung on that side but by one, but it was upright still, because of the bar and its having sunk of its own weight into the heap of ashes at its foot. there was now a gap at the top of the doorway through which could be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous and dark. pile up the fire! "it burnt fiercely. the door was red hot and the gap wider. they vainly tried to shield their faces with their hands, and standing, as if in readiness for a spring, watched the place. dark figures, some crawling on their hands and knees, some carried in the arms of others, were seen to pass along the roof. it was plain that the gaol could hold out no longer. the keeper and his officers and their wives and children were escaping. pile up the fire! "the door sank down again; it settled deeper in the cinders, tottered, yielded, was down. "as they shouted again they fell back for a moment and left a clear space about the fire that lay between them and the gaol entry. hugh leaped upon the blazing heap, and scattering a train of sparks into the air, and making the dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon his dress, dashed into the gaol. "the hangman followed. and then so many rushed upon their track that the fire got trodden down and thinly strewed about the street; but there was no need of it now, for, inside and out, the prison was in flames." the rioters celebrated the capture of newgate in roaring style. they commanded and compelled the citizens all around the place to illuminate their houses from bottom to top, as if for a glorious national event, and at a time of public gayety and joy. "when this last task had been achieved the shouts and cries grew fainter; the clank of the fetters, which had resounded on all sides as the prisoners escaped, was heard no more; all the noises of the crowd subsided into a hoarse and sullen murmur as it passed into the distance; and when the human tide had rolled away, a melancholy heap of smoking ruins marked the spot where it had lately chafed and roared." among the spectators of the capture of newgate was the poet crabbe, then a young man seeking his fortune in london, and he has left a description of it in his journal. dr. johnson records the fact that "on wednesday i walked with dr. scott (lord stowell) to look at newgate and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. as i went by, the protestants were plundering the sessions house in the old bailey. there were not, i believe, a hundred; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed, in full day." at the period of the gordon riots, newgate was in the course of reconstruction. the present prison was designed by george dance, r. a., the architect of the mansion house and other public buildings. the famous lord mayor beckford, father of the author of "vathek," laid the foundation stone on may , , this being his last public act. work seems to have progressed slowly on it, for the newer portion was only in part completed when the gordon mob stormed the older sections. this event served as a warning, however. within two years newgate was in stronger shape than ever; and substantially in the shape which, after the passage of more than a century, it still presents to the world. newgate serves to london the purpose of a reception prison for offenders awaiting trial and for those condemned to death, and the executions of the great city are performed within its walls. the old bailey court, which is an adjunct to it, is practically a part of the mountain of masonry which sends its bleak shadow over newgate street and the old bailey. it is separated from it only by a yard, across which prisoners are led to be tried. the court-house, known colloquially, in london, as the old bailey, and politely as the central criminal court, was built in , was destroyed with newgate in the gordon riots, but rebuilt and enlarged in by the taking in of surgeons' hall. the court is a square hall, with a gallery for visitors. at one side is the chief seat for the judge, with a canopy overhead surmounted by the royal arms, and a gilded sheathed sword on the crimson wall. opposite is the prisoners' dock, with the stairs descending into the covered passageway, which gives access by the way of the press yard to newgate. to the left of the dock is the witness-stand, and further to the left the jury box. the counsel occupy the body of the court below. the old bailey court formerly sat at seven in the morning, but now sittings do not commence until ten. it tries crimes of every kind, from treason to petty larceny and offenses on the high seas, but only the heaviest ones are brought to judgment before this branch of the sessions. what is called the new court, adjoining the old one, sits upon the lighter misdemeanors. the judges at the old bailey are nominally the lord mayor, who is, in fact, only a gorgeous dummy to open the court with true dignity, the sheriff, the lord chancellor, and a long list of judges, aldermen, recorders and so on. of these the real judges are the recorder and common sergeant, and the judge of the sheriff's court. the law judges take part when knotty legal questions come in dispute, or when the trial is for a capital offense which may cost the prisoner his life. a curious old custom at the bailey is that one alderman must be present at every sitting of the court. above the old court is a stately dining-room where, during the old bailey sittings, the sheriffs used to give judges and court officials, and a few privileged visitors, dinners of rump steak and marrow puddings, according to a bill of fare provided by custom. the custom, i believe, is kept up still. there are two dinners, at and o'clock respectively, and a historic court chaplain is told of who for ten years ate both of these meals each day. there is a reverse to this pleasant picture of the old bailey. for many years it was a most unhealthy place to hold court in. the jail fevers which decimated newgate's population always found their way into the court room. in the fever caused the death of several judges and lord mayor pennant himself, and whenever there was an epidemic there are records of its effect among the potentates of the old bailey. in chapter of "a tale of two cities," in connection with the trial of charles darnay, dickens writes of the old bailey court: "they hanged at tyburn in those days, so the street outside of newgate had not obtained the infamous notoriety that has since attached to it. but the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practiced, and where dire diseases were bred, that came into the court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my lord chief justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. it had more than once happened that the judge in the black cap pronounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him." in the course of the same chapter he describes the accused as standing quiet and attentive, with his hands resting on the slab of wood forming the shelf of the prisoner's dock, "so composedly that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which it was strewn. the court was all bestrewn with herbs, and sprinkled with vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol fever." in , mr. ackerman, one of the keepers, testified before the house of commons, which had the question of rebuilding the prison before it, that in the spring of , the jail distemper had spread to the sessions house, now the old bailey, and had caused the death, in addition to two judges, and the lord mayor already alluded to, of several of the jury and others to the number of over sixty persons. the surroundings of newgate are full of historical memories. just off giltspur street, but a step away, is cock lane, where the ghost walked. along newgate street, going from the old bailey to cheapside, was the noble old charity of christ's hospital, otherwise famous as the blue-coat school, rich in works of art and richer in the recollections of such scholars within its cloisters as coleridge, charles lamb, leigh hunt, richardson, who wrote "clarissa harlowe," and many more. along the same street opens queen's head passage, in which dolly's chop-house, which is a part of the commercial history of england, stands, and ivy lane, where dr. johnson established his club of that name. newgate market, between newgate street and paternoster row, is the great meat market of london. it is what is known as the carcass market, and for many years was the chief source of slaughtered meat supply to the retail butchers of london. at a certain hour of the morning newgate street was a veritable butchers' exchange. newgate market was originally a meat market, but its convenient proximity to smithfield, which lies on the other side of newgate, only a few streets off, led to its conversion to its later uses. smithfield was the historic cattle market of london. here in the past were slaughtered beasts for food, and men and women for their opinions. the beasts had the better part of the bargain. they were killed before they were cooked. the human victims of smithfield shambles were roasted and boiled alive. in chapter of "oliver twist" we find a description of smithfield when sykes is carrying oliver off to assist in the burglary at chertsey. "it was market morning. the ground was covered nearly ankle deep with filth and mire, and a thick steam perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney tops, hung heavily above. all the pens in the centre of the large area, and as many temporary ones as could be crowded into the vacant space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and oxen three or four deep. countrymen, butchers, drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, vagabonds of every low grade, were mingled together in a dense mass; the whistling of the drovers, the barking of the dogs, the bellowing and the plunging of the oxen, the bleating of the sheep, the grunting and the squeaking of the pigs, the cries of the hawkers, the shouts, oaths, and quarreling on all sides, the ringing of bells and roar of voices that issued from every public house, the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, whooping, yelling, the hideous and discordant din that resounded from every corner of the market, and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, and bursting in and out of the throng, rendered it a stunning and bewildering scene which quite confounded the senses." it may be remembered too, vide "great expectations," chapter , that when pip came up to london to find his guardian, mr. jaggers, he beguiled that time while awaiting his return to his office by wandering about the neighborhood, and so "came into smithfield, and the shameful place being all asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. so i rubbed it off with all possible speed by turning into a street where i saw the great black dome of st. paul's bulging at me from behind a grim stone building which a bystander said was newgate prison." whenever he writes of the jail, he does so in the same spirit. his earliest impressions of it struck the keynote for his whole life's view of it. what those early impressions were one may discover in that paper of the "sketches by boz" which, in their collected shape, bears the number , and has for title, "criminal courts." "we shall never forget the mingled feelings of awe and respect with which we used to gaze on the exterior of newgate in our schoolboy days. how dreadful its rough, heavy walls, and how massive the doors appeared to us--the latter looking as if they were made for the express purpose of letting people in and never letting them out again. then the fetters over the debtor's door, which we used to think were a bona fide set of irons just hung up there for convenience sake, ready to be taken down at a moment's notice and rivetted on the limbs of some refractory felon. we were never tired wondering how the hackney coachman on the opposite stand could cut jokes in the presence of such horrors, and drink pots of half-and-half so near the last drop. "often have we strayed here in session's time to catch a glimpse of the whipping place or that dark building on one side of the yard in which is kept the gibbet with all of its dreadful apparatus, and on the door of which we half expected to see a brass plate with the inscription, 'mr. ketch,' for we never imagined that the distinguished functionary could by possibility live anywhere else. the days of those childish dreams have passed away, and with them many other boyish ideas of gayer nature. but we shall retain so much of our original feeling that to this hour we never pass the building without something like a shudder." chapter ii. newgate within. the entrance to newgate is through the keeper's lodge, which, with the house in which the keeper lives, occupies the centre of what has been well called "this vast quarry of stone." it fronts on the old bailey. the prisoner's quarters are in the wings, which extend from either side of the keeper's quarters. in the gloomy office, men with that indescribable prison air all such officials bear, lounge about, and come and go on business. there is iron everywhere, from the huge bolts on the outer doors, and the door inside of them, to the barred windows and other doors beyond number, that open and shut with a sullen clangor that goes echoing through the stone passages as if it would never die away. the smell of the jail is as powerful in its way as these evidences of its actual strength. it blows into your face in a strong breath when the door opens for you, and you find it lingering about you hours after your visit has been made. some scientist ought to analyze this odor of the prison. it is unique. a soldier's barracks, a hospital, a ship's forecastle--all places, in short, where men live in close quarters--have an odor that tells of their origin; but the scent of the jail is different from all, and as horrible as the thing it recalls to you whenever you breathe it, or fancy you do. "what london pedestrian is there," writes dickens, in chapter in the "sketches by boz," "who has not, at some time or other, cast a hurried glance through the wicket at which the prisoners are admitted into this gloomy mansion, and surveyed the few objects he could discern, with an indescribable feeling of curiosity. the thick door, plated with iron, and mounted with spikes just low enough to enable you to see leaning over them an ill-looking fellow, in a broad-brimmed hat, belcher handkerchief and top-boots; with a brown coat, something between a great-coat and a 'sporting' jacket, on his back, and an immense key in his left hand. perhaps you are lucky enough to pass just as the gate is being opened; then, you see on the other side of the lodge another gate, the image of its predecessor, and two or three more turnkeys, who look like multiplications of the first one, seated around a fire, which just lights up the white-washed apartment sufficiently to enable you to catch a glimpse of these different objects." in the next paper of the same series, he conducts us within the lodge. "one side is plentifully garnished with a choice collection of heavy sets of irons, including those worn by the redoubtable jack sheppard--genuine; and those said to have been graced by the sturdy limbs of the no less celebrated dick turpin--doubtful. from this lodge a heavy oaken gate, bound with iron, studded with nails of the same material, and guarded by another turnkey, opens on a few steps, if we remember right, which terminate in a narrow and dismal stone passage, running parallel with the old bailey and leading to the different yards, through a number of tortuous and intricate windings, guarded in their turn by huge gates and gratings, whose appearance is sufficient to dispel at once the slightest hope of escape that any newcomer may have entertained; and the very recollection of which, on eventually traversing the place again, involves one in a maze of confusion." the old newgate which the gordon rioters sacked was a horrible place. the cells were mere black caves, which riddled the tremendous masonry like a stone honeycomb. in these at one time, while a contagious fever was raging, prisoners were confined. the captives were packed in these dens like slaves in the hold of their prison-ship. mrs. frye describes the women as "swearing, gaming, fighting, singing, dancing, drinking, and dressing up in men's clothes," and as late as gambling with cards, dice and draughts was common among the male prisoners. jail distempers now and then purged this sink of vileness of a portion of its inmates, till at last, in , the reconstruction of its cellular system was completed. even with that, however, newgate is anything but a perfect jail. in the earlier dickens era it preserved many of its ancient characteristics. in "great expectations," when wemmick takes pip to visit it, we read: "at that time gaols were much neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on all public wrong-doing--and which is always its longest and heaviest punishment--was still far off. so, felons were not lodged and fed better than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavor of their soup. it was visiting time when wemmick took me in; and a potman was going his rounds with beer; and the prisoners behind the bars in the yards were buying beer, and talking to friends; and a frowsy, ugly, disorderly, depressing scene it was." the earlier description, "a visit to newgate," in the boz "sketches," thus depicts the women's side of the jail: "the buildings in the prison--or in other words the different wards--form a square, of which the four sides abut respectively on the old bailey, the old college of physicians (now forming a part of newgate market), the sessions house and newgate street. the intermediate space is divided into several paved yards, in which the prisoners take such air and exercise as can be had in such a place. these yards, with the exception of that in which the prisoners under the sentence of death are confined, run parallel with newgate street, and consequently from the old bailey, as it were, to newgate market. turning to the right, we came to a door composed of thick bars of wood, through which were discernible, passing to and fro in a narrow yard, some twenty women. one side of this yard is railed at a considerable distance, and formed into a kind of iron cage, about five feet and ten inches in height, roofed at the top, and defended in the front by iron bars, from which the friends of the female prisoners communicate with them. two or three women were standing at different parts of the grating conversing with their friends, but a very large portion of the prisoners appeared to have no friends at all, beyond such of their old companions as might happen to be within the walls. we were conducted up a clean and well lighted flight of stone steps to one of the wards. a description of one is a description of the whole. "it was in a spacious, bare, whitewashed apartment, lighted, of course, by windows looking into the interior of the prison, but far more light and airy than one could reasonably expect to find in such a situation. there was a large fire, with a deal table before it, round which ten or a dozen women were seated on wooden forms at dinner. along both sides of the room ran a shelf; below it, at regular intervals, a row of large hooks were fixed in the wall, on each of which was hung the sleeping mat of a prisoner; her rug and blanket being folded up, and placed on the shelf above. at night these mats are placed upon the floor, each beneath the hook on which it hangs during the day; and the ward is made to thus answer the purposes both of a day room and a sleeping apartment. over the fireplace was a large sheet of pasteboard, on which were displayed a variety of texts from scripture, which were also scattered about the room in scraps about the size and shape of the copy slips which are used in schools. on the table was a sufficient provision of a kind of stewed beef and brown bread, in pewter dishes which are kept perfectly bright, and displayed on shelves in great order and regularity when not in use. "in every ward of the female side a wards-woman is appointed to preserve order, and a similar regulation is adopted among the males. the wards-men and wards-women are all prisoners, selected for good conduct. they alone are allowed the privilege of sleeping on bedsteads: a small stump bedstead being placed in every ward for the purpose." this, in itself, was a vast improvement on the style of the last century in newgate. then the prisoner had no comfort unless he paid roundly for it. his cell contained a stone bench or two, on which the first comer might make his bed. the rest slept on the floor. once in a great while a truss of straw was tossed in to them, as it might have been to a beast in a stall. this straw remained until it rotted to a pulp. then another truss was used to scatter over it. so, in time, the prisoners slept on a veritable dunghill, the compost being generally left to fester till it bred a fever, when it would be carted off, to disseminate the germs of disease which it had engendered, outside the jail walls; and the same process was begun over again. in the matter of cleanliness a change for the better had been made in dickens's time; but one great evil of the jail was the herding together of the prisoners in the wards. here the possibly innocent learned evil lessons from the guilty; the depraved could deprave those not yet wholly debased; the gaol became, in short, not so much a place of punishment for crime as a powerful breeder of it, and many a man and boy, and woman and girl, who went into newgate for a trivial offense, emerged from it a full-fledged and incorrigible lawbreaker. so outrageous did this condition of things become that many thoughtful men began seriously to question whether the means of restricting crime, as practiced in newgate, were not really worse than the crime itself. in the sketch already quoted, dickens says: "they (the men's wards) are provided, like the wards of the women's side, with mats and rugs, which are disposed of in the same manner during the day; the only very striking difference between their appearance and that of the wards inhabited by the women is the utter absence of employment. huddled on two opposite forms by the fireside sit twenty men, perhaps; here a boy in livery; there a man in a rough great-coat and top-boots; further on, a desperate-looking fellow in his shirtsleeves, with an old scotch cap upon his shaggy head; near him again, a tall ruffian in a smock-frock; next to him a miserable being of distressed appearance, with his head resting on his hand--all alike in one respect, all idle and listless; when they do leave the fire, sauntering moodily about, lounging in the windows, or leaning against the wall, vacantly swinging their bodies to and fro. with the exception of an old man reading a newspaper, in two or three instances this was the case in every ward we entered. the only communication these men have with their friends is through two close iron gratings, with an intermediate space of about a yard in width between the two, so that nothing can be handed across, nor can the prisoner have any communication by touch with the person who visits him. the married men have a separate grating at which to see their wives, but its construction is the same." when the prisoners had visitors a keeper always sat in the space between the gratings, so that private communication was practically impossible. the only exception was made in favor of lawyers in visiting their clients; but prisoners of note could secure the privilege of privacy through the pressure of official influence on the head keeper. in fact, during later years an effort, only partially successful, was made in newgate to grade the prisoners according to their criminal standard, and to keep the classes apart. so, persistent and desperate offenders were assigned to one ward and those less confirmed in crime to another, while boys and youths were separated from the older prisoners, whose influence on them could not be but for evil. under the more humane management of the present century newgate was even provided with a school. "a portion of the prison," says boz, in his "visit," "is set apart for boys under fourteen years of age." "in a tolerable sized room, in which were writing materials and some copybooks, was the school-master with a couple of his pupils; the remainder having been fetched from an adjoining apartment, the whole were drawn up in a line for our inspection. there were fourteen of them in all, some with shoes, some without; some in pinafores without jackets, others in jackets without pinafores, and one in scarce anything at all. the whole number, without an exception, we believe, had been committed for trial on charges of pocket-picking; and fourteen such terrible little faces we never beheld. there was not a glance of honesty, not a wink expressive of anything but the gallows and the hulks, in the whole collection. as to anything like shame or contrition, that was entirely out of the question. they were evidently quite gratified at being thought worth the trouble of looking at; their idea appeared to be that we had come to see newgate as a grand affair, and that they were an indispensable part of the show; and every boy as he 'fell in' to the line actually seemed as pleased and important as if he had done something excessively meritorious in getting there at all." dickens had made a close study of this type of london gamin, as we have discovered in his artful dodger, master bates, and other demoralizing and diverting characterizations. in the boz sketch called "criminal courts" he describes the trial of such an imp at the old bailey court: "a boy of thirteen is tried, say, for picking the pocket of some subject of her majesty, and the offense is about as clearly proved as an offense can be. he is called upon for his defence, and contents himself with a little declamation about the jurymen and his country; asserts that all the witnesses have committed perjury, and hints that the police force generally have entered into a conspiracy against him. however probable his statement may be, it fails to convince the court, and some such scene as the following takes place: "court: have you any witnesses to speak for your character, boy? "boy: yes, my lord; fifteen gen'lm'n is a vaten outside, and vos avaten all day yesterday, vich they told me the night afore my trial vos a coming on. "court: inquire for these witnesses. "here a stout beadle runs out, and vociferates for the witness at the very top of his voice; for you hear his cry grow fainter and fainter as he descends the steps into the courtyard below. after an absence of five minutes he returns, very warm and hoarse, and informs the court of what he knew perfectly well before--namely, that there are no such witnesses in attendance. hereupon the boy sets up a most awful howling, screws the lower part of the palms of his hands into the corners of his eyes, and endeavors to look the picture of injured innocence. the jury at once find him 'guilty,' and his endeavors to squeeze out a tear are redoubled. the governor of the gaol then states, in reply to an inquiry from the bench, that the prisoner has been under his care twice before. this the urchin resolutely denies in some such terms as: 's'elp me, gen'lm'n, i never vos in trouble afore--indeed, my lord, i never vos. it's all a howen to my having a twin brother, vich has wrongfully got into trouble, and vich is so exactly like me, that no one ever knows the difference atween us.' "this representation, like the defence, fails in producing the desired effect, and the boy is sentenced, perhaps, to seven years' transportation. finding it impossible to excite compassion, he gives vent to his feelings in an imprecation bearing reference to the eyes of 'old big vig,' and as he declines to take the trouble of walking from the dock, is forthwith carried out, congratulating himself on having succeeded in giving everybody as much trouble as possible." in a similar vein, when the artful dodger falls into the toils ("oliver twist," chapter ) he asserts himself. "it was indeed mr. dawkins, who, shuffling into the office with the big coat sleeves tucked up as usual, his left hand in his pocket, and his hat in his right hand, preceded the gaoler, with a rolling gait altogether indescribable, and taking his place in the dock, requested in an audible voice to know what he was placed in 'that 'ere disgraceful situation for.' "'hold your tongue, will you?' said the gaoler. "'i'm an englishman, ain't i?' rejoined the dodger. 'where are my privileges?' "'you'll get your privileges soon enough,' retorted the gaoler, 'and pepper with 'em.' "'we'll see what the secretary of state for the home affairs has got to say to the beaks, if i don't,' replied mr. dawkins. "'now then. wot is this here business? i shall thank the madg'strates to dispose of this little affair, and not to keep me while they read the paper, for i've got an appointment with a gentleman in the city, and as i'm a man of my word and very punctual in business matters, he'll go away if i ain't there to my time, and then p'raps there won't be an action for damages against them as kept me away. oh, no, certainly not.' "at this point the dodger, with a show of being very particular with a view to the proceedings to be had thereafter, desired the gaoler to communicate 'the names of them two files as was on the bench,' which so tickled the spectators, that they laughed almost as heartily as master bates could have done if he had heard the request. "'silence there,' cried the gaoler. "'what is this?' inquired one of the magistrates. "'a pocket-picketing case, your worship.' "'has the boy ever been here before?' "'he ought to have been, a many times,' replied the gaoler. 'he has been pretty well everywhere else. i know him well, your worship.' "'oh, you know me, do you?' cried the artful, making a note of the statement. 'werry good. that's a case of deformation of character, any way.' "here there was another laugh, and another cry for silence. "'now then, where are the witnesses?' said the clerk. "'ah, that's right,' added the dodger. 'where are they? i should like to see 'em.' "this wish was immediately gratified, for a policeman stepped forward who had seen the prisoner attempt the pocket of an unknown gentleman in the crowd, and indeed take a handkerchief therefrom, which, being a very old one, he deliberately put back again, after trying it on his own countenance. for this reason he took the dodger into custody as soon as he could get near him, and the said dodger being searched, had upon his person a silver snuff-box, with the owner's name engraved upon the lid. this gentleman had been discovered upon reference to the court guide, and being then and there present, swore that the snuff-box was his, and that he had missed it on the previous day, the moment he had disengaged himself from the crowd before referred to. he had also remarked a young gentleman in the throng, particularly active in making his way about, and that the young gentleman was the prisoner before him. "'have you anything to ask this witness, boy?' said the magistrate. "'i wouldn't abase myself by descending to hold no conversation with him,' replied the dodger. "'have you anything to say at all?' "'do you hear his worship ask if you've anything to say?' inquired the gaoler, nudging the silent dodger with his elbow. "'i beg your pardon,' said the dodger, looking up with an air of abstraction. "'did you mean to say anything, you young shaver?' "'no,' replied the dodger, 'not here, for this ain't the shop for justice; besides which, my attorney is a breakfasting this morning with the wice-president of the house of commons; but i shall have something to say elsewhere, and so will he, and so will a wery numerous and 'spectable circle of acquaintances as'll make them beaks wish they'd never been born, or that they'd got their footman to hang 'em up to their own hat-pegs afore they let 'em come out this morning to try it upon me. i'll----' "'there. he's fully committed,' interposed the clerk. 'take him away.' "'oh, ah. i'll come on,' replied the dodger, brushing his hat with the palm of his hand. 'ah (to the bench) it's no use your looking frightened; i won't show you no mercy, not a ha'porth of it. you'll pay for this, my fine fellers. i wouldn't be you for something; i wouldn't go free now, if you was to fall down on your knees and ask me. here, carry me off to prison. take me away.' "with these last words, the dodger suffered himself to be led off by the collar, threatening, till he got into the yard, to make a parliamentary business of it, and then grinning in the officer's face with glee and self approval." to such scholars as these, all the schools that could be crowded into newgate would be of no avail. their biographies are summed up by magwitch, in "great expectations," who, blandly admitting to have been brought up to be "a warmint," says: "'in gaol and out of gaol, in gaol and out of gaol, in gaol and out of gaol. that's my life. i've been done everything to, pretty well--except hanged. i've been locked up as much as a silver tea-kettle. i've been carted here and carted there, and put out of this town and put out of that town. i've no more notion where i was born than you have, if so much. i first became aware of myself down in essex, a-thieving turnips for a living. summun had run away from me--a man, a tinker--and he'd took the fire with him and left me very cold. "'i knowed my name to be magwitch, christened abel. how did i know it? much as i knowed the birds' names in the hedges to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. i might have thought that it was all lies together, only, as the birds' names come out true, i suppose mine did. "'so fur as i could find, there warn't a soul that see young abel magwitch, with as little on him as in him, but what caught fright at him, and either drove him off or took him up. i was took up, took up, took up, to that extent that i reg'larly growed up took up.'" one of the most curious episodes of newgate is connected with the hanging of the rev. w. dodd, for forgery, on friday, june , . the clerical malefactor preached his own funeral sermon in the chapel of the prison before he was led out to die, the text being from acts xv, . the theatre of this remarkable valedictory went up in the smoke of the gordon riots, but there is a chapel in the reconstructed jail: "situated," says boz, "at the back of the governor's house; the latter having no windows looking into the interior of the prison. whether the associations connected with the place--the knowledge that here a portion of the burial is, on some dreadful occasions, performed over the quick and not over the dead--cast over it a still more gloomy and sombre air than art has imparted to it, we know not, but its appearance is very striking. the meanness of its appointments--the bare scanty pulpit, with the paltry painted pillars on either side--the women's gallery with its great heavy curtains--the men's with its unpainted benches and dingy front--the tottering little table at the altar, with the commandments on the wall above it, scarcely legible through lack of paint, and dust and damp--so unlike the velvet and gilding, the marble and the wood of a modern church--are strange and striking. there is one object, too, which rivets the attention and fascinates the gaze, and from which we may turn horror-stricken in vain, for the recollection of it will haunt us waking and sleeping for a long time afterward. immediately below the reading desk, on the floor of the chapel, and forming the most conspicuous object in the little area, is the 'condemned pew': a huge black pen in which the wretched people, who are singled out for death, are placed on the last sunday preceding their execution, in sight of all their fellow prisoners, from many of whom they may have been separated but a week before, to hear prayers for their own souls, to join in the responses of their own burial service, and to listen to an address warning their recent companions to take example by their own fate and urging themselves, while there is yet time--nearly four-and-twenty hours--to 'turn and flee from the wrath to come.' at one time--and at no distant period either--the coffins of the men about to be executed, were placed in that pew, upon the seat by their side, during the whole service." the chapel has been rearranged since the time in which boz wrote, and the ghastliest part of its show done away with. in the condemned ward boz found "five-and-twenty or thirty prisoners, all under sentence of death, awaiting the result of the recorder's report--men of all ages and appearances, from a hardened old offender with swarthy face and grizzly beard of three days' growth, to a handsome boy not fourteen years old, and of singularly youthful appearance even for that age, who had been condemned for burglary." it must be remembered that they hanged men for all sorts of offenses in england then, which made the population of the condemned ward abundant around sessions time, when the trials were on. the death penalty was as common then as it is now rare in its infliction. "the room was large, airy and clean. one or two decently dressed men were brooding with a dejected air over the fire; several little groups of two or three had been engaged in conversation at the upper end of the room, or in the windows; and the remainder were crowded around a young man seated at a table, who appeared to be engaged in teaching the younger ones to write. on the table lay a testament, but there were no tokens of its having been in recent use. in the press-room below were the men, the nature of whose offense rendered it necessary to separate them, even from their companions in guilt. it is a long sombre room, with two windows sunk in the stone wall, and here the wretched men are pinioned on the mornings of their execution, before moving toward the scaffold." "a few paces up the yard," he goes on, "and forming a continuation of the building, lie the condemned cells. the entrance is by a narrow and obscure staircase, leading to a dark passage, in which a charcoal stove casts a lurid light over the objects in its immediate vicinity, and diffuses something like a warmth around. prior to the recorder's report being made, all the prisoners under the sentence of death are removed from the day room at five o'clock in the afternoon, and locked up in these cells, where they are allowed a candle until ten o'clock; and here they remain until seven the next morning. when the warrant for the prisoner's execution arrives, he is removed to the cells, and confined in one of them until he leaves it for the scaffold. he is at liberty to walk in the yard; but both in the walks and in his cell, he is constantly attended by a turnkey, who never leaves him on any pretence." the cell was "a stone dungeon eight feet long by six feet wide, with a bench at the upper end, under which were a common rug, a bible and a prayer-book. an iron candle-stick was fixed into the wall at the side; and a small high window at the back admitted as much air and light as could struggle in between a double row of heavy, crossed iron bars." it was in one of these dens ("oliver twist," chapter ) that fagin spent his last hours. "they led him through a paved room under the court, where some prisoners were waiting till their turns came, and others were talking to their friends, who crowded around a gate which looked into the open yard. there was nobody there to speak to him; but, as he passed, the prisoners fell back to render him more visible to the people who were clinging to the bars; and they assailed him with opprobrious names, and screeched and hissed. he shook his fist, and would have spat upon them; but his conductors hurried him on, through a gloomy passage lighted by a few dim lamps, into the interior of the prison. "here he was searched, that he might not have about him the means of anticipating the law; this ceremony performed, they led him to one of the condemned cells, and left him there--alone. "he sat down on a stone bench opposite the door, which served for a seat and bedstead; and casting his bloodshot eyes upon the ground, tried to collect his thoughts. after a while, he began to remember a few disjointed fragments of what the judge had said; though it seemed to him, at the time, that he could not hear a word. these gradually fell into their proper places, and by degrees suggested more; so that in a little time he had the whole almost as it was delivered. to be hanged by the neck, till he was dead--that was the end. to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. "as it came on very dark, he began to think of all the men he had known who had died upon the scaffold; some of them through his means. they rose up, in such quick succession, that he could hardly count them. he had seen some of them die--and had joked, too, because they died with prayers upon their lips. with what a rattling noise the drop went down; and how suddenly they changed from strong and vigorous men to dangling heaps of clothes. "some of them might have inhabited that very cell--sat upon that very spot. it was very dark; why didn't they bring a light? the cell had been built for many years. scores of men must have passed their last hours there. it was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead bodies--the cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath that hideous veil. light--light. "at length, when his hands were raw with beating against the heavy door and walls, two men appeared: one bearing a candle, which he thrust into an iron candle-stick fixed against the wall; the other dragging a mattress on which to pass the night; for the prisoner was to be left alone no more. "then came night--dark, dismal, silent night. other watchers are glad to hear the clocks strike, for they tell of life and coming day. to the jew they brought despair. the boom of every iron bell came laden with one deep, hollow sound--death. what availed the noise and bustle of cheerful morning, which penetrated even there, to him? it was another form of knell, with mockery added to its warning. "the day passed off--day. there was no day; it was gone as soon as come--and night came on again; night so long, and yet so short, long in its dreadful silence, and short in its fleeting hours. at one time he raved and blasphemed; and at another howled and tore his hair. venerable men of his own persuasion had come to pray beside him, but he had driven them away with curses. they renewed their charitable efforts, and he beat them off. "saturday night. he had only one more night to live, and as he thought of this, the day broke--sunday. "it was not until the night of this last awful day, that a withering sense of his helpless, desperate state came in its full intensity upon his blighted soul; not that he had ever held any defined or positive hope of mercy, but that he had never been able to consider more than dim probability of dying so soon. he had spoken little to either of the two men, who relieved each other in attendance upon him; and they, for their parts, made no efforts to arouse his attention. he sat there, awake, but dreaming. now he started up, every minute, and with gasping mouth and burning skin, hurried to and fro in such a paroxysm of fear and wrath that even they--used to such sights--recoiled from him with horror. he grew so terrible, at last, in all the tortures of his evil conscience that one man could not bear to sit there, eyeing him alone; and so the two kept watch together. "he cowered down upon his stone bed, and thought of the past. he had been wounded with some missiles from the crowd on the day of his capture, and his head was bandaged with a linen cloth. his red hair hung down upon his bloodless face; his beard was torn and twisted into knots; his eyes shone with a terrible light; his unwashed flesh crackled with the fever that burnt him up. eight--nine--ten. if it was not a trick to frighten him, and those were the real hours treading on each other's heels, where would he be, when they came around again? eleven! another struck, before the voice of the previous hour had ceased to vibrate. at eight, he would be the only mourner in his own funeral train; at eleven---- "those dreadful walls of newgate, which had hidden so much misery and unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often and too long, from the thoughts, of men, never held so dreaded a spectre as that. the few who lingered as they passed, and wondered what the man was doing, who was to be hung to-morrow, would have slept but ill that night if they could have but seen him. "from early in the evening until nearly midnight, little groups of two and three presented themselves at the lodge-gate, and inquired, with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had been received. these being answered in the negative, communicated the welcome intelligence to the clusters in the street, who pointed out to one another the door from which he must come out, and showed where the scaffold would be built, and, walking with unwilling steps away, turned back to conjure up the scene. by degrees they fell off, one by one; and for an hour in the dead of the night, the street was left to solitude and darkness." when mr. brownlow and oliver appeared at the wicket, and presented an order of admission to the prisoner, signed by one of the sheriffs, they were immediately admitted to the lodge. "the condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man. his mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for he continued to mutter, without appearing conscious of their presence otherwise than as a part of his vision. "'fagin,' said the gaoler. "'that's me,' cried the jew, falling, instantly into the attitude of listening he assumed upon his trial. 'an old man, my lord; a very old man.' "'here,' said the turnkey, laying his hand upon his breast to keep him down. 'here's somebody wants to see you, to ask you some questions, i suppose. fagin, fagin, are you a man?' "'i shan't be one long,' replied the jew, looking up with a face retaining no human expression but rage and terror. 'strike them all dead! what right have they to butcher me?'" since hanging by wholesale went out in england, newgate has had no use for condemned wards, nor for its great number of condemned cells. the former are now broken up into cells, or used as exercise rooms or offices. most of the latter are now punishment cells, in which refractory prisoners are confined. the demoralizing system of confinement in gangs has been done away with also, the cells in which the prisoners froze in cold weather have been made comfortable, and the standard of the management of the jail raised in every way. such prisoners as may be condemned to death--there are only a few a year now, where in dickens's boyhood there were several every week--are kept apart from their fellows and from each other. they are confined in an ordinary cell until they are convicted. then they are transferred to a strong cell in the old condemned cell ward, and thence they travel to the scaffold. between the old bailey court house and the condemned ward of newgate is a yard called the press yard. the name has a hideous origin. this spot was for many years the scene of one of the most terrible tortures ever inflicted by the cruelty of man upon his kind, the awful torture of "pressing to death." this torture was imposed on prisoners held for higher crimes, like treason and felonies, who refused to answer in court. nowadays, this would be construed into contempt of court. until a century ago it was held an offense so hideous as to warrant death by torture. nowadays we do not ask a prisoner to criminate himself. then, if he did not, he was tortured; if he did he was punished anyway. the prisoner condemned to be pressed was stripped naked, except, for decency's sake, a cloth around the loins, and laid on his back on the pavement. then iron weights were piled upon a board placed on his body, in increasing number, and on a diet of three morsels of bread a day and three draughts of water, he was left to perish miserably. he never needed a full day's rations. sometimes he lasted for hours, and at others, as in the case of mayor strangeways, who was pressed for the murder of john fussel in , he died in a few moments. this poor wretch was stoned by the mob in the prison yard while undergoing the torture. highwaymen, house-breakers, forgers, utterers of forged and counterfeit money, as well as murderers and traitors, were pressed to death. brutal and callous as the era was, the shocking practice excited such denunciation in time that the victims were finally subjected to the torture privately in the room known as the press room whose door opens into the press yard. but the practice of pressing was kept up until as late as . the press yard to this day is devoted to quite as gloomy and deadly, if less revolting, service under sanction of the law. it is here that the executions of newgate are performed. the gallows is set up close to the door out of which the prisoner is brought. there is no march to the gibbet through a throng of spectators as in most of our own jails. the doomed man gets his last glimpse of the sky through a stone funnel down which no ray of sunlight ever finds its way. as far as i remember, from my london days, the only sign the outer world has of the work going on within the prison walls is the hoisting of a black flag over the lodge, and i know not if even this ceremonial is still observed. from the gallows to the grave in newgate used to be but a step. there was an old burying ground in the prison, now disused, which was opened in . thistlewood and the other cato street conspirators were the first criminals buried in it. they were buried in the night on the day of their execution, without services, and many others like them in after years. a pit and a shroud of quicklime were the appropriate newgate epitaph. the ingenious fancy of mr. ainsworth has made jack sheppard's escape from newgate one of the chief episodes of his famous book. the simple facts of his hero's evasion from the gaol are much less romantic, considering the number of prisoners it held. the escapes from newgate were very few, and in almost every instance they owed a great measure of their success to the connivance of officials within the walls. until the tidal wave of prison reform swept it clean of its old, corrupt practices, newgate was managed largely for the benefit and profit of its guardians, from the keeper down. each official was an adept at the art of extortion, and every palm that held a key was troubled with the itch. the prisoner could purchase most things he might desire, and even the chance of liberty was not beyond price. it was only the chance to be sure; his keeper would wink at the effort, but he must take the risk of being stopped upon his way by others, unless he could fairly buy his passage from his dungeon to the lodge gate. a few--a very few--did this, and got away. generally the escapes were mere attempts, frustrated before the last barrier was passed. the most remarkable escape made from the prison, because it was accomplished without aid within or without the walls, was that of the sweep. this ruffian, from practice in his trade of climbing chimneys, actually contrived to scale the rough stone wall in an angle of one of the jail yards, by working himself up with his back and feet, until he reached the leads, over which he made his way to the roof of a house in newgate street, which he entered through the scuttle, and so went down stairs and into the street. since that time the inner walls of newgate have been smoothed, so that even a fly could not crawl up them, and spiked at the top to make assurance doubly sure. chapter iii. the fleet prison. half a century ago, a stroller about the london streets whose loiterings carried him to the fleet market, could not but notice in the brick wall that extended along what is now entitled farringdon street, facing the market, a wide-grated window, set in a framework of granite blocks. under the arched top of the framework, between it and the grating, a stone slab or panel bore the carved inscription: "please remember poor debtors, having no allowance." through the grating one might look into a squalid, dark room, with a rough wooden bench fastened to one wall, and during the hours of daylight some miserable human creature, like a caged and starved beast, always glared from behind the bars upon the street, repeating, in the voice of wheedling mendicancy, the appeal cut in the stone above his head. there was a broad sill to the window, and an opening in the bars, like those of the counter windows in a modern bank, through which the jailed beggar could pass out and draw in a wooden box, in which the charitably inclined might drop an obolus as they passed by. this was what was called "the grate" of the fleet prison, one of the wickedest and most pestilential gaols that ever cursed the earth; and the grimmest satire upon this jail into which men were thrust for not paying money which they owed, was that among these debtors there were many whose absolute inability to pay was demonstrated by the fact that they would, literally, have starved there but for the chance charity of the public. apropos of this point dickens, in chapter xiv, volume ii, of "pickwick," says: "the poor side of the debtors' prison is, as its name imports, that in which the most miserable and abject class of debtors are confined. a prisoner, having declared upon the poor, pays neither rent nor chummage. his fees upon entering and leaving the gaol are reduced in amount, and he becomes entitled to a share of some small quantities of food--to provide which a few charitable persons have, from time to time, left trifling legacies in their wills. most of our readers will remember that, until a very few years past, there was a kind of iron cage in the wall of the fleet prison, within which was posted some man who, from time to time, rattled a money box, and exclaimed in a mournful voice: 'pray remember the poor debtors.' the receipts of this box, when there were any, were divided among the poor prisoners, and the men on the poor side relieved each other in this degrading office. "although this custom has been abolished and the cage is now boarded up, the miserable and destitute condition of these unhappy persons remains the same. we no longer suffer them to appeal at the prison gates to the charity and compassion of the passers-by; but we still have unblotted on leaves of our statute-book, for the reverence and admiration of the succeeding ages, the just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die in starvation and nakedness. this is no fiction. not a week passes over our heads but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some of these men must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of want, if they were not relieved by their fellow prisoners." the custom of beggary at the prison gate, it may as well be remarked here, was a relic of the ancient prison of the fleet, to which allusion is made in several of the old english comedies. leigh hunt, in his pleasant divagations upon london called "the town," remarks upon the practice in connection with ludgate prison, and, indeed, it was common to all the town jails in which debtors were incarcerated, without municipal provisions for their support. in the last century, as john timbs tells us, there was additional provision for the relief of the paupers of the prison, in what was known as the "running box." in this case a man ran to and fro in the neighboring streets to the prison, shaking a box, and begging passengers to put money into it for the poor prisoners in the fleet, while on his back he carried a capacious covered basket, to hold such broken victuals as the charitable might choose to spare for him. hard by the paupers' grating of the fleet was a grimy and gloomy doorway, heavily framed in stone, which, like the brick of the prison wall, sweated a sort of fungoid scum, originally a rank, unhealthy green in color, but, thanks to london fogs and soft-coal smoke, soon converted into the semblance of a thin glaze or varnish of liquid soot. the door stone was worn as smooth as glass, and even in the fairest weather was perilously greased with street slime. on either panel of the doorway was carved a huge numerical figure. the rude wit of the town called this the "fleet halter," which, once it was about a man's neck, held him almost as tight and fast as its rival noose at tyburn. fastidious debtors who preferred to preserve a fiction of respectability in their correspondence, were wont to have their letters addressed to them at fleet market, for was the halter-hinting number of the gateway to the gaol. it was through this gateway that the tipstaff preceded mr. pickwick, as you may read in chapter xii. of the second volume which chronicles that immortal gentleman's adventures, "looking over his shoulder to see that his charge was following close at his heels;" and in the gate-lodge, which they entered through a door at the left, mr. pickwick sat for his portrait to the assembled turnkeys, so that he might be remembered should he take the fancy to stroll out of the doors without a license. there was in this lodge "a heavy gate guarded by a stout turnkey with the key in his hand," and when mr. pickwick's likeness was completed, he passed through this inner gate, and down a short flight of steps, and "found himself, for the first time in his life, within the walls of a debtor's prison." the fleet in those days consisted principally of one long brick pile, which ran parallel with the fleet market, now farringdon street, with an open court around it, bounded by a lofty wall, over which, here and there, one could see the sooty chimney-tops and the smoky sky. the buildings were four stories in height above the ground, with a story half under ground among the foundations. no architectural art had been wasted on the exterior of the structure, and no sanitary ingenuity or sentimental seeking after the comfort of the inmates had been expended upon the interior. the one aim of the constructors had been to so divide the space as to cram within it the greatest possible number of persons. to this end, each floor was traversed by a single hallway or passage, "a long narrow gallery, dirty and low, and very dimly lighted by a window at each remote end," on either hand of which opened doors of innumerable single rooms, which rarely, however, failed to do duty as lodgings for less than several tenants. the floors, as mr. tom roker explained to mr. pickwick when he inducted him into the prison, were distinguished as the hall flight, the coffee-room flight, the third flight and the top flight. all the rooms on these floors were let by the week, at prices adjusted to their presumed desirability and the capacity of the lessee's purse, and governed by the number of tenants who entered upon them. the basement rooms, even, formed a source of revenue to the warden. this sunken story, which received its light from the low-browed windows whose sills were level with the slabs of the prison yard, was known as bartholomew fair. here misery might welter in its offal at the fee of one-and-threepence a week if it still held itself above the abject degradation of the common side, whose inmates took their turn at begging at the grate. the common side was a building apart from the main range, which latter was known as the warden side. here there was no rent to pay. the prisoners bunked in gangs, like emigrants on an ocean passage. as to bartholomew fair, let dickens describe it himself (vide "pickwick," chapter xiii, volume ii): "'oh!' replied mr. pickwick, looking down a dark and filthy staircase which appeared to lead to a range of damp and gloomy stone vaults beneath the ground, 'and these, i suppose, are the little cellars where the prisoners keep their small quantities of coals? unpleasant places to have to go down to, but very convenient, i daresay.' 'yes, i shouldn't wonder if they was convenient,' replied mr. roker, 'seeing that a few people live there pretty snug. that's the fair, that is!' 'my friend,' said mr. pickwick, 'you don't really mean to say that human beings live down these wretched dungeons?' 'don't?' replied mr. roker, with indignant astonishment; 'why shouldn't i?' 'live down there?' exclaimed mr. pickwick. 'live down there? yes, and die down there, too, wery often.'" nominally, each prisoner in the fleet on the warden side was entitled to a room at the charge of s. d. a week. actually, however, he never got one on any floor above the level of bartholomew fair. each room was made to quarter from two to four tenants in the space designed for one, so that it, at full seasons, actually produced at least a crown a week rental. this system, which was excused on the plea of overcrowding of the jail by commitments of the courts, was called "chummage," and the system produced another curious practice of prison life. if one or more prisoners occupied a room and another was "chummed" on them, they could buy him off by paying him a few shillings a week, and so keep the room to themselves. he, out of the money they paid him, paid in his turn for inferior quarters elsewhere. thus, a prisoner who was willing to pay full rent for a room to the warden, and buy off anyone who might be chummed upon him, could have a dirty box of a chamber to himself, at the average cost of a first-class parlor and bedroom outside the walls. prisoners who had been a certain number of years in the jail had a prescriptive right to a room to themselves, and most of these rented their apartments at good rates to new comers, and took beds for themselves in the common lodgings. when mr. pickwick entered the fleet as a resident (vide volume ii, chapter xiv) he was chummed on " in the third," whose door was to be distinguished by the likeness of a man being hung and smoking a pipe the while, done in chalk upon the panel. not liking his company of three here he, as may be recalled, rented the room of a chancery prisoner, in which he settled down. for the use of this room he paid £ a week, and for the furniture, which he hired from a keeper, £ s. more. these figures may serve as an indication of the rates prevailing in the fleet fifteen years before it was demolished. the episode of mr. pickwick's investigatory experiences in this connection is worth quoting, as a part of the panorama of prison life. there was only one man in the room upon which he was chummed, and he "was leaning out of the window as far as he could without overbalancing himself, endeavoring, with great perseverance, to spit upon the crown of the hat of a personal friend upon the parade below." he expressed his disgust at having had the newcomer chummed upon him, and summoned his two room-mates, who were a bankrupt butcher and a drunken chaplain out of orders, the expectoratory gentleman himself being a professional blackleg. "'it's an aggravating thing, just as we got the beds so snug,' said the chaplain, looking at the dirty mattresses, each rolled up in a blanket, which occupied one corner of the room during the day, and formed a kind of slab on which were placed an old cracked basin, ewer and soap-dish of common yellow earthenware with a blue flower; 'very aggravating.' "mr. martin (the butcher) expressed the same opinion, in rather stronger terms. "mr. simpson (the 'leg) after having let a variety of expletive adjectives loose upon society, without any substantive to accompany them, tucked up his sleeves and began to wash greens for dinner. "while this was going on mr. pickwick had been eyeing the room, which was filthily dirty and smelt intolerably close. there was no vestige of either carpet, curtain or blind. there was not even a closet in it. unquestionably, there were but few things to put away if there had been one, but, however few in number, or small in individual amount, still, remnants of loaves, and pieces of cheese, and damp towels, and scraps of meat, and articles of wearing apparel, mutilated crockery, and bellows without nozzles, and toasting-forks without prongs, do present somewhat of an uncomfortable appearance when they are scattered about the floor of a small apartment, which is the common sitting and sleeping room of three idle men. "'i suppose that this can be managed somehow,' said the butcher, after a pretty long silence. 'what will you take to go out?' "'i beg your pardon,' replied mr. pickwick, 'what did you say? i hardly understood you.' "'what will you take to be paid out?' said the butcher. 'the regular chummage is two-and-six; will you take three bob?' "'and a bender,' suggested the clerical gentleman. "'well, i don't mind that; it's only a twopence apiece more,' said mr. martin; 'what do you say now? we'll pay you out for three-and-sixpence a week; come!' "'and stand a gallon of beer down,' chimed in mr. simpson. 'there!' "'and drink it on the spot,' said the chaplain; 'now!' "after this introductory preface the three chums informed mr. pickwick, in a breath, that money was in the fleet just what money was out of it; that it would instantly procure him almost anything he desired; and that supposing he had it, and had no objection to spend it; if he only signified his wish to have a room to himself, he might take possession of one, furnished and fitted to boot, in half an hour's time. "with this the parties separated, very much to their mutual satisfaction, mr. pickwick once more retracing his steps to the lodge, and the three companions adjourned to the coffee-room, there to expend the five shillings which the clerical gentleman, with admirable prudence and foresight, had borrowed of him for the purpose. "'i knowed it,' said mr. roker with a chuckle, when mr. pickwick stated the object with which he had returned. 'lord, why didn't you say at first that you was willing to come down handsome?'" those who could afford to sleep well in the fleet, as sleeping went in such places, might feed well enough, too. they could be served in the coffee-room, and if they preferred to eat in privacy, there was a cookshop in the prison; and there were, besides, messengers who could be sent on errands of purchase outside the walls. in every case the charges were extortionate, for the one object of the prison was to squeeze the debtor dry by fair means or foul. but when the law sanctions such outrages as the fleet itself, the minor offenses by which the greater burden is mitigated to its victims may be condoned. there was a taproom in the prison where beer and wine were to be had, but the traffic in spirits was forbidden, and even the conveyance of them to the prisoners from without prohibited under heavy penalties; "and such commodities being highly prized by the ladies and gentlemen confined therein" ("pickwick" volume ii, chapter xvii), "it had occurred to some speculative turnkey to connive, for certain remunerative considerations, at two or three prisoners retailing the favorite articles of gin for their own profit and advantage." the spirit dispensaries were known in the jargon of the jail as "whistling-shops," and what with the strong waters they provided, and the malt liquors of the taproom, it was safe to assume that the bulk of such prisoners in the fleet as were not dying for the want of sufficient food were perishing of a superfluity of drink. the poor debtors who still had the price of "a chamber-pot of coals" and a scrag of mutton, could have it in from the market and cook it for themselves in their rooms or, for a penny or two, at the common kitchen in the prison-yard. in default of sufficient capital to this end they must live off bread and cheese, or cold meat, or hope, or, as many doubtless did, on the porter from the taproom. to secure the means of subsistence and indulgence they begged from the visitors. the sharper old residents borrowed from the shallower newcomers, and, as a matter of course, theft went hand in hand with mendicancy. of this shadowy side of a picture, dark enough, in all conscience, in its lightest spots, dickens gives us a glimpse in chapter xiv of volume ii, where mr. pickwick encounters mr. alfred jingle on the common side, and mr. jeb trotter, returning from pawning his master's last coat, with a scrap of meat for his dinner. and mr. jingle's own summary of the prevailing state of things at that period and place may serve as a description of the condition and prospects of his neighbors. "'lived on a pair of boots--whole fortnight. silk umbrella--ivory handle--week. nothing soon--lie in bed--starve--die--inquest--little bone-house--poor prisoner--common necessaries--hush it up--gentlemen of jury--warden's tradesmen--keep it snug--natural death--coroner's order--workhouse funeral--serve him right--all over--drop the curtain.'" in the son of the architect, dance, who built old buckingham house and guy's hospital, was imprisoned in the fleet for debt. he wrote and published a poem called "the humors of the fleet," which has an interest for comparison with what the prison became later. the book had a frontispiece showing the prison-yard, a newcomer treating the jailer and cook and others to drink; racket-players at their game; and in one corner of the yard a pump and a tree. when the fleet was rebuilt after the riots, there were two exercise grounds within the walls. one, the smaller, was on the side toward farringdon street, denominated and called "the painted ground," from the fact of its walls having once displayed the "semblances of various men-of-war in full sail, and other artistical effects, produced, in bygone days, by some imprisoned draughtsman in his leisure hours." on the other side of the prison was the larger yard where racket was played and games of skittles bowled beneath a shed. here might be seen the characterless "characters" of the place, in which every prison is sure to abound. smokers and other idlers loitered about the steps leading to the racket ground, draining their pots as they watched the game. here mr. smangle "made a light and wholesome breakfast on a couple of cigars" mr. pickwick had paid for, and here mr. weller, with a pint of beer and the day before yesterday's paper, divided his time between dipping into the news and the noggin, the skittle game and the affections of a young lady who was peeling potatoes at one of the jail windows, on that memorable morning when mr. stiggins called upon him and sampled the port wine in the coffee-room snuggery. here you might hear the roar of the great babel without; and from the same point see one or two of its churches aspiring above the 'chevaux-de-frise' of the prison walls. there was a torrent-like fury about the busy hum of the town in contrast with the stagnant life within the brick walls; and, as if to keep up the mockery, they verged upon the yard of the belle sauvage inn, where travelers constantly came and went on their journeys, free, if they chose, to roam around the world. in chapter xvii of volume ii, dickens sketches a vivid picture of the daily scene in the jail-yard. "sauntering or sitting about, in every possible attitude of listless idleness, were a number of debtors, the major part of whom were waiting in prison until their day of 'going up' before the insolvent court should arrive, while others had been remanded for various terms, which they were idling away as they best could. some were shabby, some were smart, many dirty, a few clean; but there they all lounged, and loitered, and slunk about, with as little spirit or purpose as the beasts in the menagerie. lolling from the windows which commanded a view of this promenade were a number of persons, some in noisy conversation with their acquaintances below, and others playing bat all with some adventurous throwers outside, and others looking on at the racket players, or watching the boys as they cried the game. dirty, slipshod women passed and repassed on their way to the cooking house in one corner of the yard; children screamed, and fought, and played together in another; the tumbling of the skittles and the shouts of the players mingled perpetually with these and a hundred other sounds, and all was noise and tumult." to this picture of the fleet by day, it is worth while to add one of the after dark, from chapter xii, of volume ii. "it was getting dark; that is to say, a few gas jets were kindled in this place, which was never light, by way of compliment to the evening which had set in outside. as it was rather warm some of the tenants of the numerous little rooms which opened into the gallery on either hand set their doors ajar. mr. pickwick peeped into them, as he passed along, with curiosity and interest. here, four or five great hulking fellows, just visible through a cloud of tobacco smoke, were engaged in noisy and riotous conversation over half-emptied pots of beer, or playing at all fours with a very greasy pack of cards. in the adjourning room some solitary tenant might be seen poring, by the light of a feeble tallow candle, over a bundle of soiled and tattered papers, yellow with dust, and dropping with age, writing, for the hundredth time, some lengthened statement of his grievances for the perusal of some great man whose eyes it would never reach, or whose heart it would never touch. in a third a man and his wife and a whole crowd of children might be seen making up a scanty bed on the ground, or upon a few chairs for the younger ones to pass the night in. and in a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh the noise, and the beer, and the tobacco smoke, and the cards all came over again in greater force than before. in the galleries themselves, and more especially on the staircases, there lingered a great number of people who came there, some because their rooms were foul and hot, and the greater part because they were restless and uncomfortable and not possessed with the secret of knowing exactly what to do with themselves. there were many classes of people here, from the laboring man and his fustian jacket to the broken-down spendthrift in his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately out at the elbows; but there was the same air about them all--a sort of listless, gaol-bird, careless swagger; a vagabondish, who's-afraid sort of bearing which is wholly indescribable in words, but which any man can understand in a moment, if he wish, by setting foot in the nearest debtors' prison, and looking at the very first group of people he sees there." the fleet prison was staggering along on its last legs, like some gouty monster whose swollen joints were rotting asunder of internal corruption, when dickens gave it a place in the fiction of picturesque fact. but it had a long history behind it, a history dating from the time when the fleet creek, now a noisome sewer under the foundations of the jail, was a pretty little river, winding down from a verdant and fertile country. when the town had grown toward and around it, the fleet river had become silted and clogged up into a foul and sluggish stream, and was such a nuisance that it was arched over, and a market built upon the arches. but below the market it still remained an open stream, where colliers' barges unloaded their cargoes at sea-coal lane, and what is now bridge street was a sluggish, polluted canal, whose reek infected the air. the gaol took its name from the stream upon whose banks it was built. the exact date of its foundation is unknown, but by various records it was formerly held in conjunction with the manor of leveland, in kent, and with "the king's house at westminster," the whole being a part of the ancient possessions of the see of canterbury, traceable in a grant from the archbishop lanfranc, soon after the accession of william the conqueror. the wardenship or sergeantcy of the prison was anciently held by several eminent personages, who also had custody of the king's palace at westminster. it was "a place," in the worst sense of the phrase, for, as long ago as , the persons to whom the warden had underlet it were guilty of cruelty and extortion, crimes, however, quite characteristic of the court of star chamber, of which the fleet was at this time the prison. up to this period its history is little better than a sealed book, the burning of the prison by the followers of wat tyler seeming to have been the only very noticeable event during the above interval. in the reigns of edward vi and of mary, the fleet was tenanted by several victims of religious bigotry. one of the most venerated of british martyrs, bishop hopper, was twice committed to the fleet, which he only quitted in for the stake and the fire, in the chief town in his diocese, gloucester. his captivity was truly wretched; he slept upon "a little pad of straw" with a rotten covering; "his chamber was vile and stinking," just as it might have been had he been a poor debtor in . the fees belonging to the warden of the fleet and his officers, in the reign of elizabeth, were very heavy. an archbishop, duke or duchess had to pay for a commitment fee and the first week's "dyett," £ s.; a lord, spiritual or temporal, £ s. d.; a knight, £ ; an esquire, £ s. d.; and even a poor man in the wards, "that hath a part at the box, to pay for his fee, having no dyett, s. d." the warden's charge for lawful license "to go abroad" was d. per diem. thus, as may be seen, the fleecing and flayings, the inhumanities and the injustices which characterized the later years of the prison were hereditary to it. from the reign of elizabeth to the sixteenth year of king charles i, , the star chamber court was in full activity, and several bishops and other persons of distinction were imprisoned in the fleet for their religious opinions. thither, too, were consigned political victims of the star chamber, two of the most interesting cases of this period being those of prynne and lilburne. prynne was taken out of the prison, and, after suffering pillory, branding, and mutilation of the nose and ears, was remanded to the fleet. lilburne--"freeborn john"--and his printer were committed to the fleet for libel and sedition; and the former was "smartly whipped" at the cart's tail, from the prison to the pillory place between westminster hall and the star chamber; and he was subsequently "doubled ironed" in the prison wards. another tenant of the fleet at this period was james howel, the author of the "familiar letters," several of which are dated from the prison. from a letter "to the earl of b----," from the fleet, nov. , , we gather that howel was arrested "one morning betimes" by five men armed with "swords, pistols and bils," and some days after committed to the fleet; and he says, "as far as i see, i must lie at anchor in this fleet a long time, unless some gentle gale blow thence to make me launch out." then we find him consoling himself in the reflection that the english "people" are in effect but prisoners, as all other islanders are. there are other letters by howel, dated from the fleet in - and . the prison was burnt on september , , during the great fire, when the prisoners were removed to carom or caroon house, in south lambeth, until the fleet was rebuilt on the original site. after the abolition of the star chamber, in , the fleet had become a prison for debtors only, and for contempt of the court of chancery, common pleas and exchequer. it appears that the prison had been used for the confinement of debtors from the th century, at least, a petition from john trauncy, a debtor in the fleet, a. d. , being still preserved. when the star chamber was abolished, the warden's power of exacting enormous fees by putting in irons does not appear to have ceased also, for the wardens continued to exercise their tyranny, "not only in extorting exorbitant fees, but in oppressing prisoners for debt, by loading them with irons, worse than if the star chamber were still existing." in the cruelties and the extortions of the wardens were made public, but it was not until that the enormity of the system of mismanagement came fully before the public, and indescribable was the excitement and horror it caused. a parliamentary committee was then appointed, and the result of their labors was the committal of wardens bambridge and huggins, and some of their servants, to newgate. they were tried for different murders, yet all escaped by the verdict of "not guilty." hogarth has, however, made them immortal in their infamy, in his picture of bambridge under examination, whilst a prisoner is explaining how he has been tortured. twenty years after, it is said, bambridge cut his throat. in consequence of these proceedings the court of common pleas, january , , established a new list of fees to be taken, and modified the rules and orders for the government of the fleet. the rents, perquisites, and profits of the office at the above period were £ , s. d. per annum. james gambier succeeded bambridge in the wardenship, was succeeded by john garth, and to him followed john eyles, and in eyles's son succeeded him in the office, which he held for sixty-two years. he was succeeded in by his deputy, nixon, who died in . the next appointed was w. r. h. brown, he being the last of the wardens of the prison. in the riots of the fleet was destroyed by fire, and the prisoners liberated by the mob; consequently a great part of the papers and prison records were lost, though there remain scattered books and documents of several centuries back. although he does not deal specifically with the attack on the prison at this period, dickens in "barnaby rudge" (volume ii, chapter ii) gives a brief but picturesque description of the surroundings of the gaol as they were at the time of the gordon riots. "fleet market at that time was a long, irregular row of wooden sheds and pent houses occupying the centre of what is now called farringdon street. they were jumbled together in a most unsightly fashion in the middle of the road to the great obstruction of the thoroughfare and the annoyance of passengers who were fain to make their way as best they could among the carts, barrows, baskets, trucks, casks, hulks, and benches, and to jostle with porters, hucksters, wagoners and a motley crowd of buyers, sellers, pickpockets, vagrants and idlers. the air was perfumed with the stench of rotten leaves and faded fruit, the refuse of the butchers' stalls, and offal and garbage of a hundred kinds. it was indispensable to most public conveniences in those days that they should be public nuisances likewise, and fleet market maintained the principle to admiration." further on, in chapter ix of the same work, he summarizes a peculiar episode in the history of the gaol at the same period. "the gates of the king's bench and the fleet prison, being opened at the usual hour, were found to have notices affixed to them announcing that the rioters would come that night to burn them down. the wardens, too well knowing the likelihood there was of this promise being fulfilled, were fain to set their prisoners at liberty, and gave them leave to move their goods; so all day such of them as had any furniture were occupied in conveying it, some to this place, some to that, and not a few to the brokers' shops, where they gladly sold it for any wretched price those gentry chose to give. there were some broken men among these debtors who had been in gaol so long, and were so miserable and destitute of friends, so dead to the world, and utterly forgotten and uncared for, that they implored their gaolers not to set them free, and to send them, if need were to some other place of custody. but they refusing to comply, lest they should incur the anger of the mob, turned them into the streets where they wandered up and down, hardly remembering the ways untrodden by their feet so long, and crying--such abject things those rotten-hearted gaols had made them--as they slunk off in their rags and dragged their slipshod feet along the pavement." in spite of the concession of the warden, the mob, as has been stated, burned the fleet down, and it was in the successor to the den which had risen on the ruins left by the great fire of that mr. pickwick prosecuted his studies of prison life and character. among the curiosities of the london archives are over a ton of books registering the fleet marriages between and , which are in the registry office of the bishop of london, where they were deposited by the government, which purchased them in . these fleet marriages were the scandal and disgrace of their time. while they lasted the debtor's gaol was the gretna green of london. there were no end of hard-living parsons flung into the fleet for debt, and as these men were always paupers in purse, they were put to strange shifts to keep themselves in meat and drink--especially the latter. the idea to convert clandestine marriages into a source of gain, once originated, with men who had neither money, character or liberty to lose, was not long in spreading. at first the ceremony was performed within the prison chapel. then they became too numerous and the business too extensive for the confines of the gaol, and every tavern around the prison had its marriage mill, and a parson who in the rules of the prison was permitted to go at large within certain limits, to grind the mill for anyone who listed. these clerical vagabonds employed touts, who roved about the market and the adjacent streets drumming up custom for the parson, who sat swigging while he waited for trade, very much as the slop-shop salesman of to-day seeks for custom passing on the sidewalk. tennant relates that in walking the street in his youth, on the side next to this prison: "i have often been tempted by the question, 'sir, will you be pleased to walk in and be married.'" along this most lawless space was frequently hung up the sign of a male and female hand conjoined, with "marriages performed within" written beneath. a dirty fellow invited you in. the parson was seen walking before his shop, a squalid, profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid night-gown, with a fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or roll of tobacco. "the grub street journal," in january, , says: "there are a set of drunken, swearing parsons, with their myrmidons, who wear black coats and pretend to be clerks and registers of the fleet, and who ply about ludgate hill, pulling or forcing people to some peddling ale-house or brandy shop to be married; even on a sunday stopping them as they go to church and almost tearing the clothes off their backs." competition in the business was fierce. while the fleet parsons sent their pullers-in forth to scour the streets, they hung their signs out in the windows under the shadow of the prison wall. thus at one corner might be seen a window, "weddings performed here cheap." the business was advertised in the newspapers. the marriage taverns lined fleet lane and fleet ditch. two of them--the bull and garter and the king's head--were kept by warders of the prison. the parson and the landlord divided the fee between them, after deducting a shilling for the tout who brought the customers in. if a marriage was desired to be secret it was not entered on the register of the house. otherwise it was, for a small fee, written down in a book which each tavern kept. thus a profligate man could victimize a confiding girl with impunity. men and women might commit bigamy at will, since any name they chose to give, along with their fee, satisfied the parson, and they could have the "ceremony" kept unregistered, or dated back as they chose. the law held a married woman free of the responsibility of her debts, while a single woman could be arrested and locked up for them. all a woman of free life had to do to defraud her creditors was to get some man to marry her at the fleet. then she could not be prosecuted. as for the man, the creditors had to find him before they could proceed against him. women of quality who had led extravagant lives did not hesitate at the same shift. there were parsons who kept husbands in hire at five shillings each. there is record of one fellow having been "married" to four women in one day. there is also a record of women, dressed as men, being hired out as mock husbands for the occasion. all classes were fish for the fleet parson's net. drunken sailors and soldiers were united to the gin-perfumed fairies of the market; roués fetched their silly, girlish victims in coaches to the altar reeking of stale beer and brandy; and great men of the realm utilized the functions of the clerical mountebanks to a similar result. in five months--from october, , to february, -- , marriages were recorded at the fleet. how many went unrecorded can only be surmised. the church strove in vain to eradicate the scandal, and it required an act of parliament to put an end to it in . the fleet marriages provided dickens with no material, although other and less distinguished romancers have found use for them, with more or less effect. in fact, dickens rarely wrote without a distinct object, and in "pickwick," desultory and irregular as the thread of the narrative is, he had such a purpose when he took the fleet in hand. at the time he wrote of it ( ) the monstrosity was at its worst. the prevalent system of imprisonment for debt rendered the hideous gaol a tool at the hands of a vengeful enemy, and in those of a rapacious and dishonest man. the outrages to which it lent itself, at the call of swindling lawyers and commercial extortioners, had commenced to attract public attention. that the chapters on the fleet in "pickwick" bore a share in arousing the general indignation which forced the government into action cannot be questioned. they shaped the popular sentiment and gave it a war-cry. but the good work was not to be done in a day. it required an act of parliament, debated on and contested with the usual ponderous procrastinativeness, to rid the earth of the fleet. the act was at last passed in , and by it the prison was abolished, and its inmates were drafted into the queen's prison. the fleet was later sold to the corporation of the city of london, and in the spring of it was razed to the ground. its site to-day is marked by business buildings, whose ceaseless industry makes a strange monument for the stagnant and idle life of which the spot was once the scene. chapter iv. the marshalsea. it was a good seven years--or an evil seven--for many a poor debtor, after the fleet was legislated out of existence, before its younger brother on the other side of the river followed it. the marshalsea was not officially abolished until , and even then it escaped the doom of extinction meted out to the fleet, and prolonged its material existence into our own day. what had been a frowsy jail became a frowsy shelter for a community scarcely poorer than that which had once inhabited it; albeit this newer community enjoyed the advantage of being miserable in freedom from the restrain of barred windows and spike-topped walls. of the prison, dickens sketches a good description in chapter of the first volume of "little dorrit." "thirty years ago," he says, "there stood, a few doors short of the church of st. george, in the borough of southwark, on the left-hand side of the way going southward, the marshalsea prison. it was an oblong pile of barrack buildings, partitioned into squalid rooms standing back to back, so that there were no back rooms; environed by a narrow paved yard, hemmed by high walls duly spiked on the top. itself a close and confined prison for debtors, it contained within it a much closer and more confined gaol for smugglers. offenders against the revenue laws, and defaulters to the excise or customs, who had incurred fines which they were unable to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated behind an iron-plated door, closing up a second prison, consisting of a strong cell or two, and a blind alley some yard and a half wide, which formed the mysterious termination of the very limited skittle ground in which the marshalsea debtors bowled down their troubles. supposed to be incarcerated there, because the time had rather outgrown the strong cells and the blind alley. in practice they come to be considered a little too bad, though in theory they were quite as good as ever; which may be observed to be the case at the present day with other cells that are not at all strong, and with other blind alleys that are stone blind. hence the smugglers habitually consorted with the debtors (who received them with open arms) except at certain constitutional moments when somebody came from some office, to go through the form of overlooking something, which neither he nor anybody else knew anything about. on these truly british occasions, the smugglers, if any, made a feint of walking into the strong cells and the blind alley, while this somebody pretended to do his something, and made a reality of walking out again as soon as he hadn't done it--nearly epitomising the administration of the most of the public affairs in our own right, tight little island." the marshalsea had several notable neighbors in its own line of trade. one of these was horsemonger lane gaol, the county jail for surrey. it was a sturdy, thick-set prison, with a massive-looking lodge and powerful walls. executions took place on the roof of the lodge, the gallows being set up there, and the drop cut in the roof itself. these hangings were a popular show in their day, and the tenants of the houses across the way from the jail used to reap a harvest by letting their front windows to sightseers. it is said that they would commonly make a year's rent, and often more, out of the morbid curiosity of the town on one of these occasions. what the occasions were like, dickens has left us an idea in his famous letter to the "times," on the occasion of the execution of the mannings, husband and wife, on november , . dickens and john foster attended this ghastly raree-show. here is a description of it: "i was a witness to the execution of the mannings in horsemonger lane. i went there with the intention of observing the crowd gathered to behold it, and i had excellent opportunities of doing so; at intervals all through the night, and continuously from daybreak until the spectacle was over. i believe that a sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at that execution could be imagined by no man, and could be presented in no heathen land under the sun. the horrors of the gibbet and of the crime which brought these wretched murderers to it, faded in my mind before the atrocious bearing, looks and language of the assembled spectators. when i came upon the scene, at midnight, the shrillness of the cries and howls that were raised from time to time, denoting that they came from a concourse of boys and girls already assembled in the best places, made my blood run cold. as the night went on, screeching and laughing and yelling, in strong chorus of parodies on negro melodies, with substitutions of 'mrs. manning' for 'susannah,' and the like, were added to these. when the day dawned, thieves, low prostitutes, ruffians and vagabonds of every kind flocked on to the ground, with every variety of offensive and foul behaviour. fightings, faintings, whistlings, imitations of punch, brutal jokes, tumultuous demonstrations of indecent delight when swooning women were dragged out of the crowd by the police with their dresses disordered, gave a new zest to the general entertainment. when the sun rose brightly, as it did, it gilded the thousands upon thousands of upturned faces, so inexpressibly odious in their brutal mirth or callousness, that a man had cause to feel ashamed of the shape he wore, and to shrink from himself, as fashioned in the image of the devil. when the two miserable creatures who attracted all this ghastly sight about them were turned quivering into the air, there was no more emotion, no more pity, no more thought that two immortal souls had gone to judgment, no more restraint in any of the previous obscenities than if the name of christ had never been heard in the world, and there was no belief among men but that they perished like beasts. i have seen, habitually, some of the sources of general contamination and corruption, and i think there are not many phases of london life that could surprise me. i am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in the same compass of time, could work such ruin as one public execution, and i stand astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits. i do not believe that any community can prosper where such a scene of horror and demoralization as was enacted this morning outside horsemonger lane gaol is presented at the very doors of the good citizens, and is passed by unknown or forgotten." this letter created a tremendous sensation, and started a whole flood of literature, condemnatory and demanding the abolishment of public hangings; but they were not finally done away with until nearly twenty years later. apropos of horsemonger lane, readers of "little dorrit" may recall that it was here that john chivery resided, assisting his mother "in the conduct of a snug tobacco business, which could usually command a neat connection within the college walls"--the college being a polite title for the marshalsea, whose inmates were, by natural association, technically known among themselves as collegians. "the tobacco business around the corner of horsemonger lane was carried on in a rural establishment one story high, which had the benefit of the air from the yards of the horsemonger lane gaol, and the advantage of a retired walk under the wall of that pleasant establishment. the business was of too modest a character to support a life-sized highlander, but it maintained a little one on the bracket on the door post, who looked like a fallen cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt." it was from the stock of this establishment that john chivery produced the cigars of which he made a sunday offering on the altar of the father of the marshalsea, who not only "took the cigars and was glad to get them," but "sometimes even condescended to walk up and down the yard with the donor, and benignantly smoke one in his society." it was also from this establishment that he issued forth on the memorable sunday, "neatly attired in a plum-colored coat, with as large a collar of black velvet as his figure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden sprigs, a chaste neckerchief much in vogue in that day, representing a preserve of lilac pheasants on a buff ground; pantaloons, so highly decorated with side stripes that each leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of state, very high and hard," not to mention a pair of white kid gloves, and a cane like a little finger post, surmounted by an ivory hand, to propose to little dorrit on the iron bridge. another of the famous southwark gaols was the king's bench, but in justice to mr. micawber, it demands a chapter to itself. to return to the marshalsea, it may be remarked that dickens knew it by such early experience that he was qualified to write about it, even more exhaustively than he did in "little dorrit." while he was still a boy, in , his father endured a period of compulsory retirement behind its lock, and the future chronicler of the jail lodged in a cheap garret near by, an episode of his life which he has introduced in "david copperfield," in connection with the micawbers and the king's bench. every morning, as soon as the gates were opened, the boy went to the marshalsea, where his mother had joined his father, to breakfast. in the evening he would go to the jail from the blacking factory, where he was employed, to get his supper. the family got along quite gayly while the elder dickens's affairs were in the courts. he had an income on which they lived and kept a servant, a workhouse girl, from whom the novelist is said to have drawn his character of the marchioness in "old curiosity shop." the girl and the boy had to leave the prison before ten, when the gate was locked for the night, and they became great friends. on holidays he would go to the seminary on tenterden street, where his sister fanny was at school, and fetch her to spend the day in the family circle, escorting her back in the evening. how freely he used his marshalsea experiences in "david copperfield," and transferred to mr. micawber the actualities of his own family life, may be appreciated from the passage, written by himself and quoted by foster, relating to his first visit to his father in the jail: "my father was waiting for me in the lodge, and we went up to his room (on the top story but one) and cried very much, and he told me, i remember, to take warning by the marshalsea, and to observe that if any man had twenty pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; but that a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched. i see the fire we sat before now, with two bricks in the rusted grate, one on each side to prevent its burning too many coals. some other debtor shared the room with him, who came in by-and-by; and, as the dinner was a joint-stock repast, i was sent up to captain porter in the room overhead, with mr. dickens's compliments, and i was his son, and could he, captain p., lend me a knife and fork. captain p. lent me a knife and fork, with his compliments in return. there was a very dirty lady in his room, and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. i thought i should not have liked to borrow captain porter's comb. the captain himself was in the last extremities of shabbiness, and if i could draw at all, i would draw an accurate portrait of the old, old brown great-coat he wore, with no other coat below it. his whiskers were large. i saw his bed rolled up in a corner, and what plates and dishes and pots he had on a shelf; and i knew (god knows how) that the two girls with the shock heads were captain porter's natural children, and that the dirty lady was not married to captain p. my timid, wondering station on his threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes, i daresay; but i came down into the room below with all this as surely in my knowledge as the knife and fork were in my hand." it was into this familiar scene that dickens introduced mr. william dorrit, a very amiable and very helpless middle-aged gentleman, who was "going out again directly. necessarily he was going out again directly, because the marshalsea lock never turned upon a debtor who was not. he brought in a portmanteau with him, which he doubted it worth while to unpack, he was so perfectly clear--like all the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock said--that he was going out again directly. he was a shy, retiring man, well-looking, though in an effeminate style; with a mild voice, curling hair, and irresolute hands--rings upon the fingers those days, not one of which was left" upon them a little while after--when the drunken doctor, fetched in haste, ushered little dorrit into the world, with the assistance of mrs. bangham and the brandy bottle. the doctor was a type of one class of tenants to be found in every debtors' prison. he lived in a wretched, ill-smelling room under the roof, with a puffy, red-faced chum, who helped to pass the time playing all fours, with pipe and brandy trimmings. "the doctor's friend was in the positive stage of hoarseness, puffiness, all fours, tobacco, dirt and brandy; the doctor in the comparative--hoarser, puffier, more red-faced, more all foury, tobaccoer, dirtier and brandier. the doctor was amazingly shabby in a torn, darned, rough weather sea jacket, out at the elbows, and eminently short of buttons (he had been in his time the experienced surgeon carried by a passenger ship), the dirtiest white trowsers conceivable by mortal man, carpet slippers and no visible linen. 'childbed?' said the doctor (to mr. dorrit, who had come to summon him) 'i'm the boy!' with that the doctor took a comb from the chimneypiece, and stuck his hair upright--which appeared to be his way of washing himself--produced a professional case or chest, of the most abject appearance, from the cupboard where his cup and saucer and coals were, settled his chin in a frowsy wrapper round his neck, and became a ghastly medical scarecrow." to enter the public establishment of which he was destined to become the patriarch, mr. william dorrit had passed through an open outer gate on high street in the borough, to give southwark its more familiar name; had crossed a little court-yard, ascended a couple of stone steps, traversed a narrow entry, and been admitted by a string of locked doors into the prison lodge. here he had waited, as the form and practice of the proceeding required, until his arrival was registered, and the tipstaff, who had kindly guided and guarded his feet to this harbor of refuge from the cares of the world which works for a living, had received a receipt for his safe delivery. through another door at the rear of the lodge, which was built in the wall of the jail itself, he was conducted to what was to be his home for half the lifetime allotted to mortal man. before him was the jail court, the aristocratic court, where the pump was; and facing the lofty wall which divided it from the street, the barrack, on the next to the top floor of which he found the shabby room in which the child of the marshalsea was to be born. debtors were playing at racket and skittles in the court, and grouped around the entrance to the snuggery or tap-room at the further end of the barrack. there were "the collegian in the dressing gown, who had no coat, the stout greengrocer collegian in the corduroy kneebreeches, who had no cares, the collegian in the seaside slippers, who had no shoes, and the lean clerk collegian in buttonless black, who had no hopes; the man with many children and many burdens, whose failure astonished everybody; the man of no children and large resources, whose failure astonished nobody; the people who were always going out to-morrow, and always putting it off; the slatternly women at the windows, gossiping shrilly, the smudgy children playing noisily; all those people in fine who belong to such a place, not forgetting the nondescript messengers, go-betweens and errand runners, who formed a class by themselves." every debtors' prison had its corps of such attendants, who came and went in the service of the inmates whose liberty ended at the lodge door. "the shabbiness of these attendants upon shabbiness, the poverty of the insolvent waiters on insolvency, was a sight to see. such threadbare coats and trowsers, such fusty gowns and shawls, such squashed hats and bonnets, such boots and shoes, such umbrellas and walking sticks, never were seen in rag fair. all of them wore the cast-off clothes of other men and women; were made up of patches and pieces of other peoples' individuality, and had no sartorial existence of their own proper. their walk was the walk of a race apart. they had a peculiar way of doggedly slinking around the corner, as if they were eternally going to the pawnbroker's. when they coughed, they coughed like people accustomed to be forgotten on the doorsteps and draughty passages, waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, which gave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental disturbance and no satisfaction. as they eyed the stranger in passing, they eyed him with borrowing eyes--hungry, sharp, speculative as to his softness if they were accredited to him, and the likelihood of his standing something handsome. mendicity on commission stooped in their high shoulders, shambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned and dragged their clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their figures in dirty ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in alcoholic breathings." in spite of occasional touches such as this, the comparative brightness of dickens's picture of the marshalsea, as contrasted with the gloom and horror of his delineation of the fleet, has been frequently commented upon, but there was a reason for this in fact. squalid and miserable enough the marshalsea was, but it was still more merciful and humane a house of confinement than the other. extortions were common to all such places, but they were carried to their worst extent at the fleet. the marshalsea, moreover, was a smaller prison, its population came and went at shorter intervals than that of the fleet, and it did not include so heavy a percentage of the baser elements of society as festered in the social cesspool opposite the fleet market. very few debtors remained in the gaol for an extended period. the average generation of a marshalsea prisoner was, as dickens himself says, three months. the case of the father of marshalsea--which, by the way, was based on that of a real prisoner in the last century--was unique. "the affairs of this debtor were perplexed by a partnership of which he knew no more than that he had invested money in it, by legal matters of assignment and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance there, suspicion of unlawful preference of creditors in this direction, and of mysterious spiriting away of property in that." in short, mr. william dorrit's affairs were so tangled up that even the lawyers could not untwist them, and finally they gave him up, and in the inextricable entanglement he remained fettered to the marshalsea as if he had never been a part of any world beyond its confining wall. "crushed at first by his imprisonment" (vide chapter , volume i, "little dorrit"), "he had soon found a dull relief in it. he was under lock and key; but the lock and key that kept him in kept numbers of his troubles out. if he had been a man with strength of purpose to face these troubles and fight them, he might have broken the net that held him, or broken his heart; but, being what he was, he languidly slipped into this smooth descent and never took one step upward. he had unpacked the portmanteau long ago; and his elder children played regularly about the yard, and everyone knew the baby and claimed a kind of proprietorship in her." the title conferred upon him by a turnkey he came to hear with pride, and under it he levied the tribute of selfish and ungrateful beggary upon the goodnatured subjects over whom he presumed to rule. there was a certain snugness about the marshalsea which was not to be found in the fleet. there the company was too numerous and heterogeneous to form any social combination. in the smaller prison a specie of club system was kept up. the tap-room, or snuggery, was a public room where meat and drink might be procured, and where a fire was maintained for the use of the prisoners who did not wish to cook in their rooms. the furnace was kept fed by assessment of those who used it. at the club, which met nightly, each man paid his own scot. the requisite for membership was the possession of the price of the potations served to the member. the club was of indefinite proportions and individuality. its members came with the tipstaves and went with the orders of release issued by the courts. the general form of its management was that which used to be known as the "free and easy." if any person present was a mimic, a singer, a musician, or otherwise gifted with a pleasing or popular accomplishment, he might be called upon to display it for the general good. poor debtors, who could do something to amuse, might have their beer free at the charge of the more solvent collegians whom they consented to divert. there is a legend of a comedian, broken down by drink, who was sent to the marshalsea and who lived off the fat of the jail for several years, until he died of it, all through the discreet application of his mimetic and comic powers in the snuggery club. once in a while the club would perform a piece of serious business. sometimes it would draft a memorial against imprisonment for debt to the throne or judges, which neither throne nor judges saw or read, of course. sometimes it would issue patriotic manifestoes to parliament, of which parliament remained equally ignorant. when a popular member secured his release the club would present him with a memorial, properly engrossed and framed, of its esteem. mr. dorrit received such a memorial when he came into his fortune and resigned his paternal supremacy over the college; and in return he treated the whole jail to a refection in the pump yard, as you may read in the last chapter of the first volume of the record of his prison patriarchy. but one drop of bitterness flavored the cup of the marshalsea club. its festivities were limited by the public hours of the prison. the clangor of the jail bell announced the closing of the gates at ten o'clock at night, and warned all visitors to retire or be locked in until morning. such experience befell mr. arthur clennam when he made his first visit to the dorrits' at home. "the stoppage of the bell, and the quiet in the prison, were a warning to depart. but he had remained too late. the inner gate was locked and the lodge closed. this brought them to the tavern establishment at the upper end of the prison, where the collegians had just vacated their social evening club. the apartment on the ground floor in which it was held was the snuggery: the presidential tribune of the chairman, the pewter pots, glasses, pipes, tobacco ashes and general flavor of members were still as that convivial institution had left them on its adjournment. the snuggery had two of the qualities popularly held to be essential for grog for ladies, in respect that it was hot and strong; but in the third point of analogy, requiring plenty of it, the snuggery was defective; being but a cooped-up apartment. "the unaccustomed visitor from the outside naturally assumed everybody to be prisoners--landlord, waiter, barmaid, potboy and all. whether they were or not did not appear; but they all had a weedy look. the keeper of the chandler's shop in the front parlor, who took in gentlemen boarders, lent his assistance in making the bed. he had been a tailor in his time, and had kept a phaeton, he said. it was evident, from the general tone of the whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state of mankind, and the payment of debts a disease that occasionally broke out. in this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting about him, arthur clennam looked on the preparations as if they were a part of a dream. pending the while the long initiated tip, with an awful enjoyment of the snuggery's resources, pointed out the common kitchen fire maintained by subscription of the collegians, the boiler for hot water, supported in the same manner, and other premises generally tending to the deduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy and wise was to come to the marshalsea. "the two tables put together in a corner were, at length, converted into a very fair bed; and the stranger was left to the windsor chairs, the presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, sawdust, pipelights, spittoons and repose. but the last item was long, long, long in linking itself to the rest. the novelty of the place, the coming upon it without preparation, the sense of being locked up, kept him waking and unhappy. speculations, too, bearing on the strangest relations towards the prison, but always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares through his mind while he lay awake. whether coffins were kept ready for people who might die there, where they were kept, how they were kept, where people who died in prison were buried, how they were taken out, what forms were observed, whether an implacable creditor could arrest the dead? as to escaping, what chances were there of escape? whether a prisoner could scale the walls with a cord and grapple? how he would descend on the other side; whether he could alight on a housetop, steal down a staircase, let himself out at a door, and get lost in the crowd? as to fire in the prison, if one were to break out while he lay there? "the morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look in at the snuggery windows; and when it did come, it would have been more welcome if it had come alone, instead of bringing a rush of rain with it. but the equinoctial gales were blowing out at sea, and the impartial southwest wind, in its flight, would not neglect even the narrow marshalsea. while it roared through the steeple of st. george's church, and twirled all the cowls in the neighborhood, it made a swoop to beat the southwark smoke into the gaol; and, plunging down the chimneys of the few collegians who were yet lighting their fires, half suffocated them. "heartily glad to see the morning through little rested by the night, he turned out as soon as he could distinguish objects about him, and paced the yard for two heavy hours before the gaol was opened. the walls were so near to one another, and the wild clouds hurried over them so fast, that it gave him a sensation like the beginning of seasickness to look up at the gusty sky. the rain, carried aslant by flaws of wind, blackened that side of the central building which he had visited last night, but left a narrow dry trough under the lee of the wall, where he walked up and down among the waifs of straw and dust and paper, the waste droppings of the pumps and the stray leaves of yesterday's greens. it was as haggard a view of life as a man need look upon." by the arrangement of the walls, all that the prisoners in the marshalsea could see out of doors was the sky. the view from the barred windows of the uppermost rooms was cut off by the higher line of the wall topped with its chevaux-de-frise. but little dorrit's own room, being in the warden's house, had a somewhat freer prospect. "a garret and a marshalsea garret without compromise was little dorrit's room," but "the housetops and the distant country hills were discernible over the walls in the clear morning." since the prison has been put to ordinary uses, such of the wall as is left has been lowered so that the view except from the lower windows is not obstructed. the sharp and cruel spikes that reddened in the sunrise like the bloody fangs of a savage beast, are gone. poverty looks out of the old windows without having to peep between iron bars, and in the prison where the smugglers did not abide a factory is busy. the place, when i saw it, had changed but little since dickens himself visited it in , and wrote: "i found the outer front court-yard, often mentioned here, metamorphosed into a butter shop; and i then almost gave up every brick of the gaol for lost. wandering, however, down a certain adjacent 'angel court, leading to bermondsey,' i came to 'marshalsea place,' the houses in which i recognized; not only the great block of the former prison, but as preserving the rooms that arose in my mind's eye when i became little dorrit's biographer. a little further on, i found the older and smaller wall, which used to inclose the pent-up inner prison, where nobody was put except for ceremony. but whosoever goes into marshalsea place, turned out of angel court, leading to bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving stones of the extinct marshalsea gaol; will see its narrow yard to the right and to the left, very little altered, if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon the rooms in which the debtors lived; and will stand among the crowding ghosts of many years." the marshalsea has a history nearly as ancient as the fleet. stow tells us that it was so called as "pertaining to the marshalls of england." in it were confined all manners of marauders, with a special tendency towards persons who had been guilty of piracy and other offenses on the high seas. some authorities place its foundation as far back as the twelfth century. it was a prison of considerable extent in , when a mob of sailors broke into it and murdered a gentleman who had been incarcerated there for killing one of their comrades in a pot-house brawl. three years later, wat tyler, in the course of his rebellion, seized and hanged the marshal of the marshalsea. the official title of the warden of the prison was, by the way, marshal. when bishop bonner was deprived of his see of london for his adherence to the church of rome, he was sent to the marshalsea. he lived there ten years, and there dying, in , he was buried at midnight in st. george's church hard by. this ancient prison occupied another site on the same street as the later structure. under henry viii, mary, and elizabeth, it was the second prison in importance in london, being inferior only to the tower. here christopher brooke, the poet, was confined for being concerned in the wedding of dr. donne, and here george wither was a prisoner for one of his satires against the government aggressions and the abuse of the royal prerogative. the nonconformist confessors were divided up among the southwark prisons, and the marshalsea received its share of them. john udall, the puritan martyr, fell a victim to its gaol fever. its blight extended through many generations, and the shadow of its walls darkened many useful lives for no crime worse than the accident of failure that may come to any man. a false system ground its abject shabbiness, its haggard anxiety, and hopeless stupor of energies, into natures that might, but for it, have triumphed over care, and converted the defeat of to-day into the victory of to-morrow. "changeless and barren, looking ignorantly at all seasons with its fixed, pinched face of poverty and care, the prison had not a touch of any of these beauties in it. blossom what would, its bricks and bars bore uniformly the same dead crop." long before "little dorrit" was projected, dickens introduced the marshalsea to his readers; even before he introduced the fleet, indeed. the ceremony was performed in volume i chapter of the "pickwick papers," in the sketch called "the old man's tale about the queer client." here is the passage: "in the borough high street, near st. george's church, and on the same side of the way, stands, as most people know, the smallest of our debtors' prisons--the marshalsea. although in later times it has been a very different place from the sink of filth and dirt it once was, even its improved condition holds out but little temptation to the extravagant or consolation to the improvident. the condemned felon has as good a yard for air and exercise in newgate as the insolvent debtor in the marshalsea prison. "it may be my fancy, or it may be that i cannot separate the place from the old recollections associated with it, but this part of london i cannot bear. the street is broad, the shops are spacious, the noise of the passing vehicles, the footsteps of a perpetual stream of people--all the busy sounds of traffic resound in it from morn to midnight, but the streets around are mean and close; poverty and debauchery lie festering in the crowded alleys; want and misfortune are penned up in the narrow prison; an air of gloom and dreariness seems, in my eyes at least, to hang about the scene, and to impart to it a squalid and sickly hue. "many eyes that have long since closed in the grave, have looked around upon that scene lightly enough, when entering the gate of the old marshalsea prison for the first time; for despair seldom comes with the first severe shock of misfortune. a man has confidence in untried friends, he remembers the many offers of assistance so freely made by his boon companions when he wanted them not, he has hope--the hope of happy inexperience--and however he may bend beneath the first shock, it springs up in his bosom, and flourishes there for a brief space, until it droops beneath the blight of disappointment and neglect. how soon have those same eyes, deeply sunken in the head, glared from faces wasted with famine, and sallow from confinement, in days when it was no figure of speech to say that the debtors rotted in prison, with no hope of release, and no prospect of liberty. the atrocity in its full extent no longer exists, but there is enough of it left to give rise to occurrences that make the heart bleed." chapter v. the king's bench. in the "pickwick papers" the fleet prison was made to serve as an important feature of the story. in "little dorrit," the story as far as its human interest, humor and pathos are concerned, centres in the marshalsea. the introduction of the king's bench into "david copperfield" is entirely episodic, but it makes one of the most brilliant chapters in the book, and, from its personal connection with the author's own life, one of the most important. that dickens drew largely on his own experience for the material in "david copperfield" has been abundantly shown by many commentators. without being an autobiography, the book gives one many glimpses into the real life of its author. he transfers scenes and changes names a trifle, as he was fond of doing, but the private memoranda furnished by him of his early toil and trials afford a key to much that one reads in "copperfield" in the flimsy disguise of fiction. thus, he adapts the knowledge of the marshalsea, which he acquired while his father was a prisoner there, to the fictitious figure and fortunes of old dorrit; and he bestows on mr. micawber, in the king's bench, the traits displayed by his father in the marshalsea. a recent compiler of odds and ends of dickens personalia, sapiently undertakes to show that the elder dickens must have been incarcerated in the king's bench and not in the marshalsea, because mr. micawber was locked up there. unfortunately for this arrangement, dickens himself had distinctly disproved it in advance. some years before he wrote "copperfield"--probably before he even thought of writing it--he jotted down a number of personal facts, many of which were used in forster's biography. these notes demonstrate positively that in it, as in "dorrit," he pursued his favorite plan of interchanging occurrences, scenes and characters, without, however, departing from the main facts, which he had grafted in this fashion on the inventions of his fantasy. at the very commencement of the king's bench interlude in "david copperfield" this becomes apparent. "at last mr. micawber's difficulties came to a crisis, and he was arrested one morning and carried over to the king's bench prison in the borough. he told me, as he went out of the house, that the god of day had now gone down upon him--and i really thought his heart was broken, and mine too. but i heard, afterwards, that he was seen to play a lively game of skittles before noon. "on the first sunday after he was taken there i was to go and see him and have dinner with him. i was to ask my way to such a place, and just short of that place i should see such another place, and just short of that i should see a yard, which i was to cross, and keep straight on until i saw a turnkey. all this i did, and when at last i did see a turnkey (poor little fellow that i was), and thought how, when roderick random was in a debtor's prison, there was a man there with nothing on but an old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed eyes and my beating heart. "mr. micawber was waiting for me within the gate, and we went up to his room (top story but one) and cried very much. he solemnly conjured me, i remember, to take warning by his fate; and to observe that if a man had twenty pounds a year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable. after which he borrowed a shilling from me for porter, gave me a written order on mrs. micawber for the amount and put away his pocket handkerchief and cheered up. "we sat before a little fire, with two bricks put within the rusted grate, one on each side, to prevent its burning too many coals until another debtor, who shared the room with mr. micawber, came in from the bakehouse with a loin of mutton, which was our joint stock repast. then i was sent up to 'captain hopkins,' in the room overhead, with mr. micawber's compliments, and i was his young friend, and would captain hopkins lend me a knife and fork. "captain hopkins lent me a knife and fork with his compliments to mr. micawber. there was a very dirty little lady in his little room, and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. i thought it was better to borrow captain hopkins's knife and fork than captain hopkins's comb. the captain himself was in the last extremity of shabbiness, with large whiskers, and an old, old brown great coat, with no other coat below it. i saw his bed rolled up in a corner; and what plates and dishes and pots he had, on a shelf; and i divined (god only knows how) that though the two girls with the shock heads of hair were captain hopkins's children, the dirty little lady was not married to captain hopkins. my timid station on the threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most; but i came down again with all this in my knowledge as surely as the knife and fork were in my hand." compare this with dickens's description of his actual visit to his father in the marshalsea. the difference is only that of a slight rounding off or modifying of a sentence in the "copperfield" version. in the case of captain hopkins, whose real name was captain porter, one may note how the actual suggested the fictitious title. the association between porter and hops is evident and direct. the real experiences of the dickens's, at this period, in and out of jail, parallel those credited to the micawbers. mrs. dickens and the family camped in gower street just as mrs. micawber and the children camped in windsor terrace. the dickenses even had a workhouse girl for servant, like the micawbers, and little charles made journeys to the pawnshop and the old book-stall in real life, just as david did in the story. throughout this portion of biography and book the entries go side by side. for example: charles dickens. "at last my mother and her encampment in gower street north, broke up and went to live in the marshalsea. the key of the house was sent back to the landlord, who was very glad to get it; and i (small cain that i was, except that i had never done harm to anyone) was handed over as a lodger to a reduced old lady, long known to our family, in little college street, camden town. i felt keenly living so cut off from my parents, my brothers and sisters. one sunday night i remonstrated with my father on this head, so pathetically and with so many tears, that his kind nature gave away. a back attic was found for me at the house of an insolvent court-agent, who lived in lant street, in the borough, where bob sawyer lodged many years afterwards. a bed and bedding were sent over for me and made up on the floor. the little window had a pleasant prospect of a timber yard; and when i took possession of my new abode i thought it was a paradise." david copperfield. "at last mrs. micawber resolved to move into the prison, where mr. micawber had now secured a room to himself. so i took the key of the house to the landlord, who was very glad to get it; and the beds were sent over to the king's bench, except mine, for which a little room was hired outside the walls in the neighborhood of that institution, very much to my satisfaction, since the micawbers and i had become too used to one another in our troubles to part. the orfling was likewise accommodated with an inexpensive lodging in the same neighborhood. mine was a quiet back garret, with a sloping roof, commanding a pleasant prospect of a timber yard; and when i took possession of it, with the reflection that mr. micawber's troubles had come to a crisis at last, i thought it quite a paradise." as dickens told forster, his family had no want of bodily comforts in the marshalsea. his father's income, still going on, was amply sufficient for that; and in every respect, indeed, but elbow room, they lived more comfortably in prison than they had done for a long time while out of it. as he told the public in "david copperfield": "i was now relieved of much of the weight of mr. and mrs. micawber's cares; for some relatives or friends had engaged to help them at their present pass, and they lived more comfortably in the prison than they had lived for a long time out of it." as forster tells us, directly from dickens's own statements to him: "they were waited on still by the maid-of-all-work from bayham street, the orphan girl of the chatham workhouse, from whose sharp little worldly and also kindly ways he took his first impression of the marchioness in the 'old curiosity shop.' she also had a lodging in the neighborhood that she might be early on the scene of her duties; and when charles met her, as he would do occasionally, in his lounging place by london bridge, he would occupy the time before the gates opened by telling her quite astonishing fictions about the wharves and the tower." as david copperfield tells us: "i used to breakfast with them, now, in virtue of some arrangement, of which i have forgotten the details. i forget, too, at what hour the gates were opened in the morning, admitting of my going in, but i know that i was often up at six o'clock, and that my favorite lounging place in the interval was the old london bridge, where i was wont to sit in one of the stone recesses, watching the people go by, or to look over the balustrades at the sun shining in the water, and lighting up the golden flame on the top of the monument. the orfling met me here sometimes, to be told some astonishing fictions respecting the wharves and the tower; of which, i can say no more than i hope i believed them myself. in the evening i used to go back to the prison, and walk up and down the parade with mr. micawber; or play casino with mrs. micawber and hear reminiscences of her mamma and her papa." charles dickens's father's "attempts to avoid going through the courts having failed, all needful ceremonies had to be undertaken to obtain the benefit of the insolvent debtors' act." mrs. micawber informed david that "her family had decided that mr. micawber should apply for his release under the insolvent debtors' act, which would set him free, she expected, in about six weeks." the elder dickens, while awaiting his discharge from the marshalsea, had drawn up a petition to the throne for the appropriation of a sum of money to enable the prisoners to drink his majesty's health on his majesty's forthcoming birthday. "i mention the circumstance," writes dickens in his autobiographical jottings, "because it illustrates to me my early interest in observing people. when i went to the marshalsea of a night, i was always delighted to hear from my mother what she knew about the histories of the different debtors in the prison; and when i heard of this approaching ceremony, i was so anxious to see them all come in, one after another (though i knew the greater part of them already, to speak to, and they me), that i got leave of absence on purpose, and established myself in the corner near the petition. it was stretched out, i recollect, on a great ironing board, under the window, which in another part of the room made a bedstead at night. the internal regulations of the place, for cleanliness and order, and for the government of a common room in the ale-house, where hot water and some means of cooking, and a good fire, were provided for all who paid a very small subscription, were excellently administered by a governing committee of debtors, of which my father was chairman for the time being. as many of the principal officers of this body as could be got into the small room without filling it up supported him, in front of the petition; and my old friend, captain porter (who had washed himself to do honor to the solemn occasion), stationed himself close to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents. the door was then thrown open, and they began to come in, in long file, several waiting on the landing outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, and went out. to everybody in succession captain porter said: 'would you like to hear it read?' if he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, captain porter, in a loud, sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. i remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such words as majesty--gracious majesty--your gracious majesty's unfortunate subjects--your majesty's well-known munificence--as if the words were something real in his mouth, and delicious to taste; my poor father meanwhile listening with a little of an author's vanity, and contemplating (not severely) the spikes on the opposite wall. whatever was comical in this scene, and whatever was pathetic, i sincerely believe i perceived in my corner, whether i demonstrated it or not, quite as well as i should perceive it now. i made out my own little character and story for every man who put his name to the sheet of paper. i might be able to do that now, more truly; not more earnestly or with closer interest. their different peculiarities of dress, of face, of gait, of manner, were written indelibly upon my memory. i would rather have seen it than the best play ever played; and i thought about it afterwards over the pots of paste-blacking, often and often. when i looked, with my mind's eye, into the fleet prison during mr. pickwick's incarceration, i wonder whether half-a-dozen men were wanting from the marshalsea crowd that came filing in again to the sound of captain porter's voice." here is the same scene, transferred to the king's bench. "by way of going in for anything that might be on the cards, i call to mind that mr. micawber, about this time, composed a petition to the house of commons, praying for an alteration of the law of imprisonment for debt. i set down this remembrance here, because it is an instance to myself of the manner in which i fitted my old books to my altered life, and made stories for myself out of the streets, and out of men and women; and how some main points in the character i shall unconsciously develop, i suppose, in writing my life, were gradually forming all the time. "there was a club in the prison, in which mr. micawber, as a gentleman, was a great authority. mr. micawber had stated his idea of this petition to the club, and the club had strongly approved the same. wherefore mr. micawber (who was a thoroughly good-natured man, and as active a creature about anything but his own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy as when he was busy about something that could never be any profit to him) set to work at the petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense sheet of paper, spread it out on the table, and appointed a time for all the club, and all within the wall if they chose, to come up to his room and sign it. "when i heard of this approaching ceremony, i was so anxious to see them all come in, one after another, though i knew the greater part of them already, and they me, that i got an hour's leave of absence from murdstone and grinby's, and established myself in a corner for that purpose. as many of the principal members of the club as could be got into the small room without filling it supported mr. micawber in front of the petition, while my old friend captain hopkins (who had washed himself to do honor to the solemn occasion) stationed himself close to it, to read it to all who were unacquainted with its contents. the door was then thrown open, and the general population began to come in, in a long file; several waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, and went out. to everybody in succession captain hopkins said: 'have you read it?' 'no.' 'would you like to hear it read?' if he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, captain hopkins, in a loud, sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. the captain would have read it , times if , people would have heard him, one by one. i remember a certain luscious roll he gave to such phrases as; 'the peoples' representatives in parliament assembled,' 'your petitioners therefore approach your honorable house,' 'his gracious majesty's unfortunate subjects,' as if the words were something real in his mouth and delicious to taste, mr. micawber, meanwhile, listening with a little of an author's vanity and contemplating (not severely) the spikes on the opposite wall. "as i walked to and fro daily between southwark and blackfriars, and lounged about at meal times in obscure streets, the stones of which may, for anything i know, be worn at this moment by my childish feet, i wondered how many of these people were wanting in the crowd that used to come filing before me in review again, to the echo of captain hopkins's voice. when my thoughts go back now to that slow agony of my youth, i wonder how much of the histories i invented for such people hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered facts. when i tread the old ground, i do not wonder that i seem to see and pity, going on before me, an innocent romantic boy, making his imaginative world out of such strange experiences and sordid things." the fortunate acquisition of a legacy of considerable amount released the elder dickens from the marshalsea. "in due time mr. micawber's petition was ripe for hearing, and that gentleman was ordered to be discharged under the act. mr. micawber returned to the king's bench when his case was over, as some fees were to be settled, and some formalities observed, before he could be actually released. the club received him with transport, and held a harmonic meeting that evening in his honor; while mrs. micawber and i had a lamb's fry in private, surrounded by the sleeping family." but you may read all there is to be read of the micawbers and the king's bench in the first volume of "david copperfield," chapters and , and compare it, if you choose, with the early passages of "the life of charles dickens," by john forster, volume i. dickens's presentations of the fleet and the marshalsea had, it will be noted, the interest of description as well as of personal association with the characters of the stories for which they provided a part of the scenario. the king's bench is an entirely personal episode. the figure of mr. micawber obscures all view of the prison. it poses on the merest suggestion of a background of barred windows and spiked walls. for this there are two reasons to be found. in the first place, all of the debtors' prisons of london were alike in their general features. they differed only in degrees and details of misery. in the fleet and in the marshalsea dickens had exposed all that fell within his vocation to expose. moreover, the necessity for invoking public obloquy upon the dens had passed away with the revision of the laws for debt. to have elaborated the material details of the life in the king's bench would have been to repeat a twice-told tale. apart from this, dickens had made no special study of the king's bench prison. his memories of the marshalsea were indelibly imprinted on his mind. it had been a part of his own life. he had explored the fleet with the purpose of lending what aid he could toward its abolishment. his boyish wanderings had made him familiar enough with the external aspect of the king's bench, and he had visited it on at least one occasion when an acquaintance was incarcerated there. but, after the fleet and marshalsea, its familiar features made no appeal to him. what could he say or write of it that had not been said or written by him already? the king's bench prison of micawber's time stood in the borough road. it was much more roomy and endurable than the marshalsea, and much less wretched than the fleet. it was enclosed by a wall thirty-five feet high, garnished with the usual chevaux-de-frise, and was entered through a stone lodge three stories in height. the jail buildings themselves carried four stories, and were broken up into nearly rooms, with a chapel, and out-buildings for officials and for cookery and other necessities. the courtyard was comparatively spacious, and was especially famous for its racket games. some champion scores of the day were scored by the collegians at the king's bench, who certainly had time enough for practice to perfect themselves in the sport. like the fleet and the marshalsea, the king's bench had its tap-room and its coffee-room, its poor side and its pay side, and its club, which nightly, over a pipe and pot, forgot for a few hours that the jail yard was not all out-of-doors. the prison derived its title from the fact that it was the gaol of the high court of justice, over which royalty was supposed to sit as supreme judge. so it became the queen's bench when england was ruled by a queen, and under the commonwealth, when royalty was not recognized, bore the name of the upper bench prison. the original king's bench prison was situated in southwark as early as the reign of richard ii. it was broken into and sacked by the kentish rebels under wat tyler, who, on this occasion, performed a similar service to the old marshalsea close at hand. it was to the king's bench that chief justice gascoigne so intrepidly committed the prince of wales, afterward henry v; and down to the time of oldys the room in which the wild young crony of sir john falstaff spent his term in gaol, was known as the prince of wales's chamber. the old king's bench seems to have been a decidedly easy-going jail. in we learn from the chronicles that the prisoners used to eat in a little low parlor next the street, and that they always had an audience staring at them through the barred windows, such as nowadays honors the repasts of the wild beasts in the zoo. during this year the prisoners petitioned for an enlargement of the prison and for a chapel, both of which requests seem to have been granted. defoe, who sampled the king's bench as well as newgate and the fleet, describes it as "not near so good" as the latter little prison, and complained that "to a man who had money the bench was only the name of a prison." indeed, the license of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries in the king's bench would be hardly credible to persons accustomed only to the rigid discipline of modern jail management. in all the debtors' gaols of this period, the gambler and the swindler, the pickpocket, and even the footpads, who robbed by violence, plied their trades. drunkenness was universal, and the commitment of loose women and the freedom of entry from without made worse debaucheries than those of the bottle easy of indulgence. at certain periods of their history the prisons seem to have been nothing less than vast bagnio-taverns, only the restriction upon the egress of the debtors distinguishing them from the common resorts of the town. the authorities of the jail were not supersensitive in their morality, provided their purses were kept filled. wealth might riot, if it paid the piper, as readily and freely as poverty might rot for the wherewithal to buy a crust of bread. roderick random's naked debtor shivering in a scrap of worn-out carpet was no fiction of the king's bench, nor captain blazer's banquets to his fair friends from over the river a romance. smollet knew the bench well enough. he had spent a term of probation behind its walls, and wrote "sir launcelot greaves" within its rules. john wilkes lay by the heels for one of his libels under its smoky roof, and hither came the mob to release him in . the mob assembled in st. george's field for the purpose, and thus in the gordon rioters gathered, who, a few days later, burst the prison gates and turned prisoners loose before they put the rotten and reeking old jail to the torch. combe was a prisoner under the rules of the king's bench when he wrote "dr. syntax," and haydon drew his idea of "the mock election" from a burlesque enacted among the prisoners while he was locked up in the jail for debt. a volume could be filled with the curious and characteristic events and personal episodes of the prison from the days of wat tyler down to , when the last debtor passed out at the lodge gate, and the brief career of the king's bench as a military prison began. its history covered really that of two prisons, for after the attack of by the rioters, the old site was abandoned and another chosen for the rebuilding of the jail. in one of dickens's last strolls in southwark, he noticed the fact that no vestige of the king's bench remained, but that a huge structure devoted to model homes for workingmen redeemed its unlamented grave from the uselessness which had made it a blight during many centuries. in chapter of volume of "nicholas nickleby," by the way, dickens adverts to a feature of the law of which the king's bench was one of the outgrowths, in connection with the first visit of nicholas to madeline bray. "the place to which mr. cheeryble had directed him was a row of mean and not over cleanly houses, situated within the 'rules' of the king's bench prison, and not many hundred paces distant from the obelisk in st. george's fields. the rules are a certain liberty adjoining the prison, and comprising some dozen streets in which debtors who can raise money to pay large fees, from which their creditors do not derive any benefit, are permitted to reside by the wise provisions of the same enlightened laws which leave the debtor who can raise no money to starve in gaol, without food, clothing, lodging, or warmth, which are provided for felons convicted of the most atrocious crimes that can disgrace humanity. there are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally obtainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets. "to the row of houses indicated to him by mr. charles cheeryble, nicholas directed his steps without much troubling his head about such matters as these; and at this row of houses--after traversing a very dirty and dusty suburb of which minor theatricals, shell-fish, ginger-beer, spring vans, green grocery and brokers' shops appeared to compose the main and most prominent features--he at length arrived with a palpitating heart. there were small gardens in the front which, being wholly neglected in all other respects, served as little pens for the dust to collect in, until the wind came around the corner and blew it down the road. opening the rickety gate which, dangling on its broken hinges, before one of these, half admitted and half repulsed the visitor, nicholas knocked at the street door with a faltering hand. "it was, in truth, a shabby house outside, with very dim parlor windows and very small show of blinds, and very dirty muslin curtain dangling across the lower panes on very loose and limp strings. neither, when the door was opened, did the inside appear to belie the outward promise, as there was a faded carpeting on the stairs and faded oil-cloth in the passage; in addition to which discomforts a gentleman ruler was smoking hard in the front parlor (though it was not yet noon), while the lady of the house was busily engaged in turpentining the disjointed fragments of a tent-bedstead at the door of the back parlor, as if in preparation for the reception of some new lodger who had been fortunate enough to engage it." the fleet had its rules like the king's bench, but there was no such legalized stretching of the bounds of confinement tolerated at the marshalsea. there the prisoner was supposed to remain a close prisoner within the walls until the courts ordained his release. in fact, however, if he had money he might buy sly periods of liberty under the eye of the keeper, and this abuse of his office brought the marshal and his subordinates many a sovereign above their legitimate emoluments. one young gentleman of sporting proclivities, who was committed to the marshalsea while his lawyer was settling up the wreck of his handsome patrimonial estate, afterwards published an account of his experiences as a detained debtor. from this it appears that during the entire term of his detention he was a regular spectator at the cock fights, dog fights and prize fights, of the day, and that he kept his wherry on the thames, and went out for a row whenever he felt the need of air and exercise. the keeper who accompanied him on these excursions, and who was of a sporting turn himself, left the prison to enter his employ, and was his faithful henchman at the time he printed his book, in the most genteel and elegant style, for circulation among his friends. it is curious to note that even to our own day, and in our own country, this system of prison favoritism is not entirely unknown. if a man is arrested on a judgment for debt, he can, if he knows the way, save himself from being locked up for a night at least by paying the sheriff's deputy for it. to be sure the deputy will have to be in his company until he is duly handed over at ludlow street jail, and properly receipted for, but there are such things as double bedded rooms in new york hotels. in the same way, it is shrewdly suspected, prisoners in ludlow street who can pay for it can enjoy a night out once in a while. it used to be so at least; and by the evidence brought out by investigations in the past it was not even an unusual occurrence. it is popularly believed, by the way, that there is no such thing in new york state as imprisonment for debt. some native realist in the line of fiction ought to take a turn over to the east side of the commercial metropolis of the united states, and weave his experiences of the ludlow street cage into some such shape as dickens did his of the fleet, the marshalsea, and the king's bench. chapter vi. the new york tombs. dickens may fairly be said to have begun his sight-seeing in america by going to jail. he commenced with those in boston, and wherever else he found a prison he had a look at it. the interest he took in penal reform, which rendered him familiar with nearly every gaol in england, did not desert him when he made his first voyage across the atlantic. in the "american notes," among a number of minor and comparatively unimportant observations, most of which are, in fact, long out of date, and lost in the changed conditions of jail construction, discipline and government, there are two descriptions, which retain their interest. the first in order of occurrence in the book, relates to a prison as famous throughout america as newgate is in great britain, and which, indeed, is the closest approach we have to the gloomy criminal cage of london. you may find it in a description of a walk about new york in chapter : "what is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard egyptian, like an enchanter's palace in a melodrama? a famous prison called the tombs. shall we go in? "so. a long, narrow and lofty building, stove-heated as usual, with four galleries, one above the other, going round it, and communicating by stairs. between the two sides of each gallery, and in its center, a bridge for the greater convenience of crossing. on each of these bridges sits a man, dozing or reading, or talking to an idle companion. on each tier are two opposite rows of small iron doors. they look like furnace doors, but are cold and black, as though the fires within had all gone out. some two or three are open, and women with drooping heads bent down are talking to the inmates. the whole is lighted by a skylight, but it is fast closed; and from the roof there dangle, limp and drooping, two useless windsails. "a man with keys appears to show us round. a good-looking fellow, and in his way civil and obliging. "'are those black doors the cells?' "'yes' "'are they all full?' "'well, they're pretty nigh full, and that's a fact and no two ways about it.' "'those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely.' "'why, we do only put colored people in 'em. that's the truth.' "'when do the prisoners take exercise?' "'well, they do without it pretty much.' "'do they never walk in the yard?' "'considerable seldom.' "'sometimes, i suppose?' "'well, it's rare they do. they keep pretty bright without it.' "'but suppose a man were here for a twelve-month? i know this is only a prison for criminals who are charged with some grave offenses, while they are awaiting trial, or are under remand, but the law affords criminals many means of delay. what with motions for new trials, arrest of judgment and what not, a prisoner might be here for twelve months, i take it, might he not?' "'well, i guess he might.' "'do you mean to say that in all that time he would never come out at that little iron door for exercise?' "'he might walk some, perhaps--not much.' "'will you open one of the doors?' "'all, if you like.' "the fastenings jar and rattle, and one of the doors turns slowly on its hinges. let us look in. a small, bare cell, into which the light enters through a high chink in the wall. there is a rude means of washing, a table, and a bedstead. upon the latter sits a man of sixty, reading. he looks up for a moment, gives an impatient, dogged shake, and fixes his eyes upon his book again. as we withdraw our heads the door closes on him, and is fastened as before. this man has murdered his wife and will probably be hanged. "'how long has he been here?' "'a month.' "'when will he be tried?' "'next term.' "'when is that?' "'next month.' "'in england, if a man is under sentence of death even, he has air and exercise at certain periods of the day.' "'possible?' "with what stupendous and untranslatable coolness he says this, and how loungingly he leads on to the woman's side, making, as he goes, a kind of castanet of the key on the stair rail. "each cell-door on this side has a square aperture in it. some of the women peep anxiously through it at the sound of footsteps; others shrink away in shame. for what offense can that lonely child, of ten or twelve years old, be shut up here? oh, that boy? he is the son of a prisoner we saw just now; is a witness against his father, and is detained here for safe keeping until the trial, that's all. "but it is a dreadful place for the child to pass the long days and nights in. this is rather hard treatment for a young witness, is it not? what says our conductor? "'well, it ain't a very rowdy life, and that's a fact.' "again he clinks his metal castanet and leads us leisurely away. i have a question to ask him as we go. "'pray, why do they call this place the tombs?' "'well, it's the cant name.' "'i know it is. why?' "'some suicides happened here when it was first built. i expect it came about from that.'" it did not "come about from that" by any means. the tombs was a comparatively new prison when dickens saw it first. it was erected under an authorization of the common council of the city of new york, issued in . at that time, mr. john l. stevens, of the hoboken family who still keep up seigneurial state on the bank of the hudson, having recently returned from an extended tour through asia and the holy land, issued an account of his travels, with many illustrations of the rare and curious things he had seen. among these was a representation of an ancient egyptian tomb, accompanied by a full and accurate description. the majestic proportions and sombre beauty of this mortuary structure so impressed the committee of the common council who had the selection of plans for the new jail that they adopted it as their model, and the general appearance and construction of the building was made to conform as closely as the necessities of its use permitted to stevens's design. as it stands it is probably the finest specimen of egyptian architecture of its order to be found outside of egypt itself, and the filth, squalor and grimy ugliness that hem it in only serve to accentuate its architectural beauty. its official title is the city prison, but the one by which it is best known was derived from the character of the edifice in "stevens's travels," after which it was planned. from an artistic point of view the selection of a site for the tombs was singularly unfortunate. at the date of its erection its location was upon the upper outskirts of the city. now the town has grown beyond it miles upon miles. for years it stood in the heart of the lowest and most dangerous criminal district. even now its surroundings of tenement-houses, workshops, dirty streets harboring dirty shops of the basest order, are anything but inviting to the sightseer. through leonard and franklin streets, which bound its lower and upper ends, one catches eastward glimpses of baxter street festooned with the sidewalk displays of the old clo' shops, and westward sees the passing life of broadway. elm street in the rear and centre street in front of it abound in sour-savored groggeries and the shabby hang-dog offices of the lower order of criminal lawyers who practice at the bar of the tombs court. the streets swarm with the children of the tenements, which line them with towering piles of unclean brick and mortar; and the pedestrians who navigate them, and who hang about the outside of the prison, as if held there by a spell and only awaiting their turn to pass within its walls, are for the most part of that skulking, evil class which knows the interior of the jail quite as well as its outer barriers, and the ways which lead to its frowning gate. for many years the passenger traffic of the new york central railroad was embarked at a depot occupying the block above the tombs. travelers were here taken on board cars which were dragged by mules or horses up to fourth avenue and twenty-sixth street, where the locomotive replaced the teams as a motor. as the town grew the railroad removed its station to the site of the present madison square garden building, and converted the old depot into a freight-house, in and out of which lines of cars drawn by long tandems of mules clanked day and night the year round. now the freight depot is gone, and an enormous granite structure, which accommodates the various criminal courts, rises on its site. between this building and the tombs an enclosed bridge for the passage of prisoners to and from court spans the street. the tombs itself was built in the basin of a little lake which was once one of the romantic spots of manhattan island, and a favorite resort of the angler and the pleasure seeker. the lake was known as the collect pond, a corruption of the dutch title "kalckhoek," or shell point, from a beach of shells which existed on its margin. the collect was a fresh-water pond, fed by natural springs, and having an outlet by small streams into both the north and east rivers. thus the pond and its creeks actually cut manhattan island in half and made two islands of it. there were pleasure houses on the hillocks around the collect, and on an island, in its centre, the city powder house was erected. the course of time worked the usual changes upon it for the worse. tanners set up their tan pits near it, the city garbage was dumped into it, and among the marshes to the eastward the criminal colony, since infamous as the five points, commenced to form itself. there was still water enough in it in for john fitch to experiment in navigating the first steamboat america ever saw, but a few years later, to give employment to clamorous and starving labor, at a period of industrial and commercial stagnation, the city ordered the hills around it to be leveled and the pond filled up with the earth removed from them. in spite of the reduction of the ground to the westward, the site remained much lower than the grade of broadway, and the tombs roof is scarcely above the line of that thoroughfare. to support the ponderous mass of maine granite, which constituted the prison, a forest of piles was sunk deep in the sodden soil. the work of construction occupied five years, so that the prison had been in use scarcely four years when dickens made his visit to it--and, while its outer walls remain substantially the same, its internal construction has been vastly augmented and improved. when he saw it the city watch-house occupied part of the building; and he makes a record of a night visit to "those black sties" where "men and women, against whom no crime is proved, lie all night in perfect darkness, surrounded by the noisome vapors which encircle that flagging lamp you light us with, and breathing this filthy and offensive stench." the watch-house was on the franklin street side of the jail, and was long kept up as a police station. now it is used as a common room for the confinement of vagrants and drunkards picked up on the streets, pending their confinement to the penal institutions. of another old and hideous institution which one cannot disassociate with the tombs, in spite of the abolition of it which has been decreed by law, dickens wrote: "the prison yard, in which he pauses now, has been the scene of terrible performances. into this narrow, grave-like place men are brought out to die. the wretched creature stands beneath the gibbet on the ground; the rope is about his neck; and when the sign is given a weight at its other end comes running down and swings him up into the air--a corpse. the law requires that there be present at this dismal spectacle the judge, the jury, and citizens to the amount of twenty-five. from the community it is hidden. to the dissolute and bad the thing remains a frightful mystery. between the criminal and them the prison wall is interposed as a thick and gloomy veil. it is the curtain to his bed of death, his winding sheet and grave. from him it shuts out life and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood in that last hour, which its mere sight and presence is often all sufficient to sustain. there are no bold eyes to make him bold; no ruffians to uphold a ruffian's name before. all beyond the pitiless stone wall is unknown space." at the time of dickens's visit ( ) london was still the scene of public hangings, and the privacy with which the executions in the tombs were conducted furnished him with a text for one of his protests against the existing state of things at home. the tombs hangings were private, as he stated, but they were not unattended by morbid interest on the part of the mob. on the morning of an execution, the obscene streets all about would swarm with obscene life. from their festering dens in the five points, and from the remoter haunts of vice and crime which had grown up with the growth of the town, the social banditti came in a scowling, ribald and revolting legion. they camped on doorsteps before dawn, and all the groggeries drove a roaring trade. they beguiled the time with gloating reminiscences of their criminal lives, and watched the jail roof for a signal that the ghastly work within was done. curiously enough, nature had provided them with a sign as certain as the running up of the black flag upon the wall of newgate. a great number of pigeons had found lodgment in the tombs yard, nesting in cotes which had been put up for them along the inner jail walls and in the eaves of the buildings themselves. long immunity from human aggressions had rendered them fearless, and when the audience gathered for an execution, under the gray shadow of the jail walls, the pigeons were equally certain to assemble, cooing and pluming themselves in the sunlight above. when, at the fatal moment, the heavy thud of the executioner's axe denoted the severing of the cord which supported the counterweights and sent the victim whirling to his death, the birds, startled by the sound, would rise upward in flurried flight, circle about a couple of times and settle at their perches again. it was by this confused and frightened movement of the pigeons above the walls that the waiting rabble knew the unseen tragedy of the law was done. a moment later the race of reporters and messenger boys from the prison gate to the newspaper offices close by would begin, and in half an hour all the ghastly details of the event, described with such circumstantiality and such sensational exaggeration as the horror-hungry public was expected to crave for, would be hawked at every street corner and carried by swift runners and overdriven wagons to the most distant quarters of the town. to such extreme was this practice stretched that, on the occasions of later executions in the tombs, reporters would actually be sent to spend the night in prison, and to record the last hours of a worthless brute whose just doom should have been a swift death and complete oblivion. evil as the influence of a public hanging may have been, it may be doubted if it was any worse than the practice of the press in investing the attendant circumstances of a vile and dangerous wretch's end with the mock heroism of cheap bravado and the clap-trap sentiment of literary fustian. the law providing for the execution of criminals by electricity, and in secret, has performed one public service, at least, in doing away with these outdoor gatherings at the tombs on hanging day. chapter vii. philadelphia's bastile. in philadelphia dickens made a special request for permission to visit the great prison of the state, remarking that it and the falls of niagara were the two objects he most wished to see in america. exceptional facilities were afforded him to gratify his desire, and make his investigation as thorough as he chose. nothing was concealed from him, and his account and opinion of the eastern state penitentiary ("american notes," chapter ) created a vast deal of comment in their day. he put himself on record as a violent opponent of the solitary system, and while he intended to make this chapter the strongest, it was really one of the weakest in the book. he had assailed the outrages of the debtors' prisons of london manfully. over the philadelphia system he became almost hysterical. in the former he had actual evils and wrongs and outrages to combat. in the latter his grievance was largely founded on sentimentality and purely personal feeling. he describes his visit: "in the outskirts stands a great prison called the eastern penitentiary, conducted on a plan peculiar to the state of pennsylvania. the system here is rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement. i believe it, in its effects, to be cruel and wrong. "i was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen officially connected with its management, and passed the day in going from cell to cell and talking with the inmates. every facility was afforded me that the utmost courtesy could suggest. nothing was concealed or hidden from my view, and every piece of information that i sought was openly and frankly given. the perfect order of the building cannot be praised too highly, and of the excellent motives of all who are immediately concerned in the administration of the system there can be no kind of question. "between the body of the prison and the outer wall there is a spacious garden. entering it by a wicket in the massive gate, we pursued the path before us to its other termination, and passed into a large chamber, from which seven long passages radiate. on either side of each is a long, long row of low cell-doors with a certain number over every one. above a gallery of cells like those below, except that they have no narrow yard attached (as those in the ground tier have), and are somewhat smaller. the possession of two of these is supposed to compensate for the absence of so much air and exercise as can be had in the dull strip attached to each of the others, in an hour's time every day; and, therefore, every prisoner in this upper story has two cells, adjoining and communicating with each other. "standing at the central point and looking down these dreary passages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails is awful. occasionally there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver's shuttle or shoemaker's last, but it is stilled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon door, and only serves to make the general stillness more profound. over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again comes forth until his whole term of imprisonment has expired. he never hears of wife or children, home or friends; the life or death of any single creature. he sees the prison officers, but, with that exception, he never looks upon a human countenance, or hears a human voice. he is a man buried alive, to be dug out in the slow rounds of years, and, in the meantime, dead to everything but torturing anxieties and horrible despair. "his name, and crime, and term of suffering are unknown, even to the officer who delivers him his daily food. there is a number over his cell-door, and in a book, of which the governor of the prison has one copy and the moral instructor another, this is the index to his history. beyond these pages the prison has no record of his existence; and though he live to be in the same cell ten weary years, he has no means of knowing, down to the very last hour, in what part of the building it is situated; what kind of men there are about him; whether in the long winter nights there are living people near, or he is in some lonely corner of the great gaol, with walls and passages, and iron doors between him and the nearest sharer in its solitary horrors. "every cell has double doors--the outer one of sturdy oak, the other of grated iron, wherein there is a trap through which his food is handed. he has a bible and a slate and pencil, and, under certain restrictions, has sometimes other books, provided for the purpose, and pen and ink and paper. his razor, plate and can, and basin hang upon the wall, or shine upon the little shelf. fresh water is laid on in every cell, and he can draw it at his pleasure. during the day his bedstead turns up against the wall and leaves more space for him to work in. his loom, or bench, or wheel is there, and there he labors, sleeps and wakes and counts the seasons as they change, and grows old." over the inmates of this philadelphia gaol dickens exuded a great deal of sympathy and sentiment. he invested each man he wrote about with a pathos that made good reading at any rate, and no doubt sincerely believed all that he wrote. to a man of a convivial and companionable nature like himself the idea of a life of solitude was naturally horrible. to a man fond of long walks among other men the enforced absence of exercise as well as of companionship was naturally dreadful. to charles dickens, in short, a term of imprisonment in the eastern penitentiary would unquestionably have been the cruelest torture. he would, in all likelihood, have worn his life out speedily here, like a wild bird in a cage, or have laid violent hands upon himself, or have become a madman. to the felons whom he visited, men for the most part of blunt sensibilities and brutal natures, he credited the same qualities as belonged to his own refined and sensitive composition, and he put himself in their place and spoke for them from his own standpoint. how far he was led astray by this was shown by the case of the character long known as "dickens's dutchman." of this fellow he wrote: "in another cell there was a german, sentenced to five years' imprisonment for larceny, two of which had just expired. with colors procured in the same manner (extracted from dyed yarn given him to weave) he had painted every inch of the walls and ceiling quite beautifully. he had laid out the few feet of ground behind him with exquisite neatness, and had made a little bed in the centre, that looked, by the bye, like a grave. the taste and ingenuity he had displayed in everything was most extraordinary, and yet a more dejected, heartbroken, wretched creature it would be difficult to imagine. i never saw such a picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind. my heart bled for him, and when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he took one of the visitors aside to ask, with his trembling hands nervously clutching at his coat to detain him, whether there was no hope of his dismal sentence being commuted, the spectacle was really too painful to witness. i never saw or heard any kind of misery that impressed me more than the wretchedness of this man." this was the dickensesque of it, and it gave its unfortunate subject an international notoriety. now mark the plain, unvarnished facts. the name of "dickens's dutchman" was charles langheimer. he was sentenced to the eastern penitentiary for the first time on may , , and it was while he was serving this term that dickens saw him. on june , , he came back on a year's sentence, and on feb. , , he was a third time convicted, for two years on this occasion. on april , , he came again for a year, on march , , he was returned for two years, on sept. , , and on april , , he began two terms of a year each. on sept. , , he received a three years' term, and he was no sooner through with this than he was once more convicted and sent up for a year, in . in the intervals of the sixteen years he spent in this one prison, since his first conviction, he had served five terms in other prisons, three in the county jail, of philadelphia, one in the baltimore penitentiary, and one in new york. in plain english, the man was a confirmed pauper and thief. he lived by mendicancy, and from time to time he would commit some larceny, for which offense all his sentences were imposed on him, merely in order to be sent to jail to be cared for--just as he might have gone on a vacation from his regular and miserable life upon the chance of charity. in view of dickens's positive and unqualified expression of sentiment in regard to him, the most curious fact of his life remains to be noted. this is that, fourteen years after dickens's own death, he returned voluntarily to the penitentiary, where he had ended a year's term only a few months before, and begged to be taken in. this place, so dreadful to the impressionable novelist, was the only approach to home the poor wretch knew. he was in a deplorable condition, was nearly eighty years of age, and had a horror of the almshouse. the inspectors consented that he should have his wish, and he was cared for for a month, until his death, which occurred on march , . it is interesting to know that dickens died at the age of fifty-eight years. this "picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind," this "dejected, heartbroken, wretched creature," who was born eight years before dickens, survived him nearly twice that period, and outlived him, in the mere number of his years, by twenty-two. it may be remembered, in connection with the fleet prison episode of "pickwick," that sam weller adverts to the almost identical case of an old prisoner, to whom the jail had become such a home that the fear of being locked out of it eventually deterred him from taking the sly tastes of liberty which the turnkeys were willing to allow him. the eastern state penitentiary is, in this day, admitted to be one of the model penal institutions of the world. when built it was in the northern suburb, but it is now in the heart of philadelphia. it occupies an entire block, comprising ten or twelve acres, and its site was originally known as cherry hill, a name which is often locally applied to the jail itself. the ground is elevated, and from the gateway tower a fine panorama of the vast city, spreading about for miles, may be obtained. all that is visible externally is a massive granite wall, some thirty-five feet high, slightly relieved or buttressed with towers at the angles and on the front. the enclosure is square, and the entrance, in the centre of the front wall, is by a lofty portal, defended by a heavy outer gate, in which there is a wicket, and an inner gate, and dominated by a tower taller than the others. within the walls the ranges of cells radiate from an octagonal central building, which is crowned with an observatory. to simplify the description it may be said that this central building forms the hub from which branch branch forth the spokes of this enormous wheel. a system of lighting the entire grounds by night is provided in a lantern of special ingenious construction, in the tower below the observatory or lookout. there are some detached buildings on the grounds, used for mechanical and culinary purposes. the living apartments of the warden and his family, offices, etc., are in the front building. the outer and inner gates of the prison are never opened at the same time. even a visitor or an official becomes in a manner a prisoner when he leaves the street. dickens's general description of the prison is good enough, but some of his statements are more picturesque than precise. prisoners are not shut off from intercourse by letter, or even personally, with their families. they do see various persons connected with the prison, although they cannot see other prisoners. even this, which dickens thought so cruel, and the concealment of their faces when they are brought in to the jail, is a precaution born of benevolence and mercy. the idea is that after a man has served a term at cherry hill and been discharged he may go where he will, and if he wishes to live an honest life no man can point him out as an ex-convict. except in the private record of the prison, known only and accessible only to a few responsible persons, john jimpson never existed in the eastern state penitentiary. the keepers, the doctor, the jail attendants only knew him as no. . the librarian never issued books to john jimpson, but to no. . the nurses in the infirmary never attended him when he was sick, but cared for no. . no one but the warden knew whether the letters sent to him by his wife or family or friends were meant for no. or no. . as far as the stigma of his crime and its punishment can be effaced it is effaced. he loses his social identity when he enters the prison, and puts it on when he comes out, like a new suit of clothes. it is a rule of the prison that each convict, when he enters, shall be taught a useful trade, if he has not one already. he then has a daily task set, and all that he can or cares to produce above this task is credited to him, and the money is paid to him when he departs. the illiterate convicts are taught to read and write. those who display intelligence are encouraged to cultivate it. convicts of superior education--such, for instance, as can produce literary work or paint pictures--are permitted the means to do so. the entire system of the prison is reformatory as well as punitive; the idea is not merely to cage a social beast, but to tame him and train him, so that he may be of use to the world when he has served his term of isolation. the idea of separate confinement--the philadelphia idea, as it has been called--originated nearly a century ago. in an admirable sketch of the origin and history of the eastern district penitentiary, compiled by mr. richard vaux, president of the board of inspectors, the history of pennsylvania's system of prison discipline and management is given in brief but interesting style. in the common jail of philadelphia was as horrible a den as the worst of london jails at its worst. an attempt was made by richard wistar, one of the famous family of that name, to reform it, but in the british army occupied the city and the good work was, perforce, suspended. in it was taken up again, and the philadelphia prison society was formed. the first president of the society was bishop william white, the first protestant episcopal archbishop of pennsylvania, and he held the office for forty years. the society's first work was to have the chain gangs, employed at cleaning the streets and repairing the roads, abolished. the next was to secure a separation of the sexes in the common jail. then the separation of actual criminals and of persons merely accused but not yet found guilty of crime demanded attention. so, by degrees, the idea of separate confinement took shape. in a law was passed by which this principle was put to the test, and finally, in , the legislature authorized the construction of the state penitentiary for the eastern district of pennsylvania. at this date the site of the present penitentiary was a farm, remarkable for its grove of fine cherry trees. it belonged to the warner family. the farm-house was a cheery old colonial mansion, and it is worth noting that when the warners sold the land they reserved the right to remove the mantels and fireplaces from the house. the place was purchased in . the plans of several competing architects were submitted to the board appointed by the legislature, and that of john haviland was selected. the cornerstone of the penitentiary was laid in , and it was opened for the reception of convicts in . up to that time about $ , had been expended on it, but since then the necessary enlargements and improvements have brought its cost up to probably $ , , or more. if dickens could revisit it in the flesh to-day he would find it a much more extensive establishment than the one he criticised so severely and unjustly; and his confidence in himself would perhaps be shaken when he read the record of his woebegone "dutchman." the end. transcriber's note list of changes from the printed edition (in parentheses the original text): p. : removed stray period (when george iii. was king) p. : "others" for "other" (while others erected) p. : "workmen's" for "workmens'" (with the workmens' voices) p. : "street" for "stret" (marched into the stret) p. : "landau" for "landeau" (in his own landeau and six) p. : "ladders" for "ladlers" (long ladlers for scaling) p. : "besieged" for "beseiged" (others beseiged the house) p. : "buckets full" for "bucketsfull" (of which bucketsfull were passed) p. : "sergeant" for "sargeant" (recorder and common sargeant) p. : "indescribable" for "indiscribable" (with an indiscribable feeling) p. : inserted space (forming a part of newgatemarket) p. : added final closing quote mark (as much trouble as possible.) p. : added period (werry good that's a case) p. : added final closing quote mark (i should like to see 'em.) p. : removed final closing quote mark (the prisoner before him.") p. : added final period (i suppose mine did) p. : "pew" for "pen" (the 'condemned pen') p. : "huge" for "hugh" (a hugh black pen) p. : removed duplicate "desperate" (helpless, desperate, desperate state) p. : added period (linen cloth his red) p. : changed opening double quote to single quote ("here's somebody) p. : "divagations" for "divigations" (in his pleasant divigations) p. : "preferred" for "prefered" (debtors who prefered to preserve) p. : added period (the charge of s. d a week) p. : "gallon" for "galllon" (and stand a galllon) p. : "wat" for "watt" (followers of watt tyler) p. : added period (£ s d.) p. : added period ( s d.) p. : "westminster" for "westminister" (between westminister hall) p. : guessed "are" as missing word (there other letters by howel) p. : removed duplicate "of" (the shadow of of the prison) p. : "made" for "maade" (when he maade his first visit) p. : "clennam" for "clenham" (arthur clenham looked) p. : added missing opening quote (i came to marshalsea place,') p. : added missing comma after "porter" (for porter gave me) p. : "handkerchief" for "handerchief" (his pocket handerchief) p. : removed duplicate "to" (a room to to himself) p. : apostrophe for comma (insolvent debtors, act) p. : added missing opening quote ('no.' would you like) p. : "hopkins's" for "hopkin's" (of captain hopkin's voice) p. : "rotten" for "rotton" (the rotton and reeking) p. : "huge" for "hugh" (but that a hugh structure) p. : "dickens's" for "dicken's" (at the time of dicken's visit) dickens's children dickens's children ten drawings by jessie willcox smith new york charles scribners sons mcmxii copyright, , by charles scribner's sons list of subjects illustrated by jessie willcox smith's paintings tiny tim and bob cratchit on christmas day _"a christmas carol," stave three_ david copperfield and peggotty by the parlour fire _"david copperfield," chapter ii_ paul dombey and florence on the beach at brighton _"dombey and son," chapter viii_ little nell and her grandfather at mrs. jarley's _"the old curiosity shop," chapter xxvi_ pip and joe gargery _"great expectations," chapter ii_ jenny wren, the little dolls' dressmaker _"our mutual friend," chapter i, book second_ oliver's first meeting with the artful dodger _"oliver twist," chapter viii_ mrs. kenwigs and the four little kenwigses _"nicholas nickleby," chapter xiv_ the runaway couple _"christmas stories," the holly-tree, second branch_ little em'ly _"david copperfield," chapter iii_ tiny tim and bob cratchit on christmas day tiny tim and bob cratchit on christmas day _"a christmas carol," stave three_ in came little bob, the father, with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; and tiny tim upon his shoulder. [illustration] david copperfield and peggotty by the parlour fire david copperfield and peggotty by the parlour fire _"david copperfield," chapter ii_ "peggotty," says i, suddenly, "were you ever married?" "lord, master davy," replied peggotty, "what's put marriage in your head?" she answered with such a start, that it quite awoke me.... "but _were_ you ever married, peggotty?" says i. "you are a very handsome woman, an't you?" [illustration] paul dombey and florence on the beach at brighton paul dombey and florence on the beach at brighton _"dombey and son," chapter viii_ his favourite spot was quite a lonely one, far away from most loungers; and with florence sitting by his side at work, or reading to him, or talking to him, and the wind blowing on his face, and the water coming up among the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing more. [illustration] little nell and her grandfather at mrs. jarley's little nell and her grandfather at mrs. jarley's _"the old curiosity shop," chapter xxvi_ "set 'em out near the hind wheels, child, that's the best place"--said their friend, superintending the arrangements from above. "now hand up the teapot for a little more hot water, and a pinch of fresh tea, and then both of you eat and drink as much as you can, and don't spare anything; that's all i ask of you." [illustration] pip and joe gargery pip and joe gargery _"great expectations," chapter ii_ "if you can cough any trifle on it up, pip, i'd recommend you to do it," said joe, all aghast. "manners is manners, but still your elth's your elth." [illustration] jenny wren, the little dolls' dressmaker jenny wren, the little dolls' dressmaker _"our mutual friend," chapter i, book second_ "oh! i know their tricks and their manners." [illustration] oliver's first meeting with the artful dodger oliver's first meeting with the artful dodger _"oliver twist," chapter viii_ "hullo, my covey! what's the row?" said this strange young gentleman to oliver. [illustration] mrs. kenwigs and the four little kenwigses mrs. kenwigs and the four little kenwigses _"nicholas nickleby," chapter xiv_ "oh! they're too beautiful to live, much too beautiful!" sobbed mrs. kenwigs. on hearing this alarming presentiment ... all four little girls raised a hideous cry, and burying their heads in their mother's lap simultaneously, screamed until the eight flaxen tails vibrated again. [illustration] the runaway couple the runaway couple _"christmas stories" the holly-tree, second branch_ so boots goes up-stairs to the angel, and there he finds master harry on a e-normous sofa,--immense at any time, but looking like the great bed of ware, compared with him, a drying the eyes of miss norah with his pocket-hankecher. their little legs was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible for boots to express to me how small them children looked. [illustration] little em'ly little em'ly _"david copperfield," chapter iii_ the light, bold, fluttering little figure turned and came back safe to me, and i soon laughed at my fears, and at the cry i had uttered; fruitlessly in any case, for there was no one near. [illustration] [illustration] generously made available by the internet archive.) english men of letters edited by john morley dickens by adolphus william ward new york harper & brothers, publishers franklin square english men of letters. edited by john morley. johnson leslie stephen. gibbon j. c. morison. scott r. h. hutton. shelley j. a. symonds. hume t. h. huxley. goldsmith william black. defoe william minto. burns j. c. shairp. spenser r. w. church. thackeray anthony trollope. burke john morley. milton mark pattison. hawthorne henry james, jr. southey e. dowden. chaucer a. w. ward. bunyan j. a. froude. cowper goldwin smith. pope leslie stephen. byron john nichol. locke thomas fowler. wordsworth f. myers. dryden g. saintsbury. landor sidney colvin. de quincey david masson. lamb alfred ainger. bentley r. c. jebb. dickens a. w. ward. gray e. w. gosse. swift leslie stephen. sterne h. d. traill. macaulay j. cotter morison. fielding austin dobson. sheridan mrs. oliphant. addison w. j. courthope. bacon r. w. church. coleridge h. d. traill. sir philip sidney j. a. symonds. keats sidney colvin. mo, cloth, cents per volume. _other volumes in preparation._ published by harper & brothers, new york. _any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states or canada, on receipt of the price._ preface. at the close of a letter addressed by dickens to his friend john forster, but not to be found in the english editions of the _life_, the writer adds to his praises of the biography of goldsmith these memorable words: "i desire no better for my fame, when my personal dustiness shall be past the control of my love of order, than such a biographer and such a critic." dickens was a man of few close friendships--"his breast," he said, "would not hold many people"--but, of these friendships, that with forster was one of the earliest, as it was one of the most enduring. to dickens, at least, his future biographer must have been the embodiment of two qualities rarely combined in equal measure--discretion and candour. in literary matters his advice was taken almost as often as it was given, and nearly every proof-sheet of nearly every work of dickens passed through his faithful helpmate's hands. nor were there many important decisions formed by dickens concerning himself in the course of his manhood to which forster was a stranger, though, unhappily, he more than once counselled in vain. on mr. forster's _life of charles dickens_, together with the three volumes of _letters_ collected by dickens's eldest daughter and his sister-in-law--his "dearest and best friend"--it is superfluous to state that the biographical portion of the following essay is mainly based. it may be superfluous, but it cannot be considered impertinent, if i add that the shortcomings of the _life_ have, in my opinion, been more frequently proclaimed than defined; and that its merits are those of its author as well as of its subject. my sincere thanks are due for various favours shown to me in connexion with the production of this little volume by miss hogarth, mr. charles dickens, professor henry morley, mr. alexander ireland, mr. john evans, mr. robinson, and mr. britton. mr. evans has kindly enabled me to correct some inaccuracies in mr. forster's account of dickens's early chatham days on unimpeachable first-hand evidence. i also beg captain and mrs. budden to accept my thanks for allowing me to see gad's hill place. i am under special obligations to mr. r. f. sketchley, librarian of the dyce and forster libraries at south kensington, for his courtesy in affording me much useful aid and information. with the kind permission of mrs. forster, mr. sketchley enabled me to supplement the records of dickens's life, in the period -' , from a hitherto unpublished source--a series of brief entries by him in four volumes of _the law and commercial daily remembrancer_ for those years. these volumes formed no part of the forster bequest, but were added to it, under certain conditions, by mrs. forster. the entries are mostly very brief; and sometimes there are months without an entry. many days succeed one another with no other note than "work." mr. r. h. shepherd's _bibliography of dickens_ has been of considerable service to me. may i take this opportunity of commending to my readers, as a charming reminiscence of the connexion between _charles dickens and rochester_, mr. robert langton's sketches illustrating a paper recently printed under that title? last, not least, as the germans say, i wish to thank my friend professor t. n. toller for the friendly counsel which has not been wanting to me on this, any more than on former occasions. a. w. w. contents. page preface v chapter i. before "pickwick" chapter ii. from success to success chapter iii. strange lands chapter iv. "david copperfield" chapter v. changes chapter vi. last years chapter vii. the future of dickens's fame dickens. chapter i. before "pickwick." [ - .] charles dickens, the eldest son, and the second of the eight children, of john and elizabeth dickens, was born at landport, a suburb of portsea, on friday, february , . his baptismal names were charles john huffham. his father, at that time a clerk in the navy pay office, and employed in the portsmouth dock-yard, was recalled to london when his eldest son was only two years of age; and two years afterwards was transferred to chatham, where he resided with his family from to . thus chatham, and the more venerable city of rochester adjoining, with their neighbourhood of chalk hills and deep green lanes and woodland and marshes, became, in the words of dickens's biographer, the birthplace of his fancy. he looked upon himself as, to all intents and purposes, a kentish man born and bred, and his heart was always in this particular corner of the incomparable county. again and again, after mr. alfred jingle's spasmodic eloquence had, in the very first number of _pickwick_, epitomised the antiquities and comforts of rochester, already the scene of one of the _sketches_, dickens returned to the local associations of his early childhood. it was at chatham that poor little david copperfield, on his solitary tramp to dover, slept his sunday night's sleep "near a cannon, happy in the society of the sentry's footsteps;" and in many a christmas narrative or uncommercial etching the familiar features of town and country, of road and river, were reproduced, before in _great expectations_ they suggested some of the most picturesque effects of his later art, and before in his last unfinished romance his faithful fancy once more haunted the well-known precincts. during the last thirteen years of his life he was again an inhabitant of the loved neighbourhood where, with the companions of his mirthful idleness, he had so often made holiday; where, when hope was young, he had spent his honey-moon; and whither, after his last restless wanderings, he was to return, to seek such repose as he would allow himself, and to die. but, of course, the daily life of the "very queer small boy" of that early time is only quite incidentally to be associated with the grand gentleman's house on gad's hill, where his father, little thinking that his son was to act over again the story of warren hastings and daylesford, had told him he might some day come to live, if he were to be very persevering, and to work hard. the family abode was in ordnance (not st. mary's) place, at chatham, amidst surroundings classified in mr. pickwick's notes as "appearing to be soldiers, sailors, jews, chalk, shrimps, offices, and dock-yard men." but though the half-mean, half-picturesque aspect of the chatham streets may already at an early age have had its fascination for dickens, yet his childish fancy was fed as fully as were his powers of observation. having learned reading from his mother, he was sent with his elder sister, fanny, to a day-school kept in gibraltar place, new road, by mr. william giles, the eldest son and namesake of a worthy baptist minister, whose family had formed an intimate acquaintance with their neighbours in ordnance row. the younger giles children were pupils at the school of their elder brother with charles and fanny dickens, and thus naturally their constant playmates. in later life dickens preserved a grateful remembrance, at times refreshed by pleasant communications between the families, of the training he had received from mr. william giles, an intelligent as well as generous man, who, recognising his pupil's abilities, seems to have resolved that they should not lie fallow for want of early cultivation. nor does there appear to be the slightest reason for supposing that this period of his life was anything but happy. for his sister fanny he always preserved a tender regard; and a touching little paper, written by him after her death in womanhood, relates how the two children used to watch the stars together, and make friends with one in particular, as belonging to themselves. but obviously he did not lack playmates of his own sex; and it was no doubt chiefly because his tastes made him disinclined to take much part in the rougher sports of his school-fellows, that he found plenty of time for amusing himself in his own way. and thus it came to pass that already as a child he followed his own likings in the two directions from which they were never very materially to swerve. he once said of himself that he had been "a writer when a mere baby, an actor always." of these two passions he could always, as a child and as a man, be "happy with either," and occasionally with both at the same time. in his tender years he was taken by a kinsman, a sandhurst cadet, to the theatre, to see the legitimate drama acted, and was disillusioned by visits behind the scenes at private theatricals; while his own juvenile powers as a teller of stories and singer of comic songs (he was possessed, says one who remembers him, of a sweet treble voice) were displayed on domestic chairs and tables, and then in amateur plays with his school-fellows. he also wrote a--not strictly original--tragedy, which is missing among his _reprinted pieces_. there is nothing unique in these childish doings, nor in the circumstance that he was an eager reader of works of fiction; but it is noteworthy that chief among the books to which he applied himself, in a small neglected bookroom in his father's house, were those to which his allegiance remained true through much of his career as an author. besides books of travel, which he says had a fascination for his mind from his earliest childhood, besides the "arabian nights" and kindred tales, and the english essayists, he read fielding and smollett, and cervantes and le sage, in all innocence of heart, as well as mrs. inchbald's collection of farces, in all contentment of spirit. inasmuch as he was no great reader in the days of his authorship, and had to go through hard times of his own before, it was well that the literature of his childhood was good of its kind, and that where it was not good it was at least gay. dickens afterwards made it an article of his social creed that the imagination of the young needs nourishment as much as their bodies require food and clothing; and he had reason for gratefully remembering that at all events the imaginative part of his education had escaped neglect. but these pleasant early days came to a sudden end. in the year his family returned to london, and soon his experiences of trouble began. misfortune pursued the elder dickens to town, his salary having been decreased already at chatham in consequence of one of the early efforts at economical reform. he found a shabby home for his family in bayham street, camden town; and here, what with the pecuniary embarrassments in which he was perennially involved, and what with the easy disposition with which he was blessed by way of compensation, he allowed his son's education to take care of itself. john dickens appears to have been an honourable as well as a kindly man. his son always entertained an affectionate regard for him, and carefully arranged for the comfort of his latter years; nor would it be fair, because of a similarity in their experiences, and in the grandeur of their habitual phraseology, to identify him absolutely with the immortal mr. micawber. still less, except in certain details of manner and incident, can the character of the elder dickens be thought to have suggested that of the pitiful "father of the marshalsea," to which prison, almost as famous in english fiction as it is in english history, the unlucky navy-clerk was consigned a year after his return to london. every effort had been made to stave off the evil day; and little charles, whose eyes were always wide open, and who had begun to write descriptive sketches of odd personages among his acquaintance, had become familiar with the inside of a pawnbroker's shop, and had sold the paternal "library" piecemeal to the original of the drunken second-hand bookseller, with whom david copperfield dealt as mr. micawber's representative. but neither these sacrifices nor mrs. dickens's abortive efforts at setting up an educational establishment had been of avail. her husband's creditors _would not_ give him time; and a dark period began for the family, and more especially for the little eldest son, now ten years old, in which, as he afterwards wrote, in bitter anguish of remembrance, "but for the mercy of god, he might easily have become, for any care that was taken of him, a little robber or a little vagabond." forster has printed the pathetic fragment of autobiography, communicated to him by dickens five-and-twenty years after the period to which it refers, and subsequently incorporated with but few changes in the _personal history of david copperfield_. who can forget the thrill with which he first learned the well-kept secret that the story of the solitary child, left a prey to the cruel chances of the london streets, was an episode in the life of charles dickens himself? between fact and fiction there was but a difference of names. murdstone & grinby's wine warehouse down in blackfriars was jonathan warren's blacking warehouse at hungerford stairs, in which a place had been found for the boy by a relative, a partner in the concern; and the bottles he had to paste over with labels were in truth blacking-pots. but the menial work and the miserable pay, the uncongenial companionship during worktime, and the speculative devices of the dinner-hour were the same in each case. at this time, after his family had settled itself in the marshalsea, the haven open to the little waif at night was a lodging in little college street, camden town, presenting even fewer attractions than mr. micawber's residence in windsor terrace, and kept by a lady afterwards famous under the name of mrs. pipchin. his sundays were spent at home in the prison. on his urgent remonstrance--"the first i had ever made about my lot"--concerning the distance from his family at which he was left through the week, a back attic was found for him in lant street, in the borough, "where bob sawyer lodged many years afterwards;" and he now breakfasted and supped with his parents in their apartment. here they lived in fair comfort, waited upon by a faithful "orfling," who had accompanied the family and its fortunes from chatham, and who is said by forster to have her part in the character of the marchioness. finally, after the prisoner had obtained his discharge, and had removed with his family to the lant street lodgings, a quarrel occurred between the elder dickens and his cousin, and the boy was in consequence taken away from the business. he had not been ill-treated there; nor indeed is it ill-treatment which leads to david copperfield's running away in the story. nevertheless, it is not strange that dickens should have looked back with a bitterness very unusual in him upon the bad old days of his childish solitude and degradation. he never "forgot" his mother's having wished him to remain in the warehouse; the subject of his employment there was never afterwards mentioned in the family; he could not bring himself to go near old hungerford market so long as it remained standing; and to no human being, not even to his wife, did he speak of this passage in his life until he narrated it in the fragment of autobiography which he confided to his trusty friend. such a sensitiveness is not hard to explain; for no man is expected to dilate upon the days "when he lived among the beggars in st. mary axe," and it is only the bounderbies of society who exult, truly or falsely, in the sordid memories of the time before they became rich or powerful. and if the sharp experiences of his childhood might have ceased to be resented by one whom the world on the whole treated so kindly, at least they left his heart unhardened, and helped to make him ever tender to the poor and weak, because he too had after a fashion "eaten his bread with tears" when a puny child. a happy accident having released the david copperfield of actual life from his unworthy bondage, he was put in the way of an education such as at that time was the lot of most boys of the class to which he belonged. "the world has done much better since in that way, and will do far better yet," he writes at the close of his description of _our school_, the "wellington house academy," situate near that point in the hampstead road where modest gentility and commercial enterprise touch hands. other testimony confirms his sketch of the ignorant and brutal head-master; and doubtless this worthy and his usher, "considered to know everything as opposed to the chief who was considered to know nothing," furnished some of the features in the portraits of mr. creakle and mr. mell. but it has been very justly doubted by an old school-fellow whether the statement "we were first boy" is to be regarded as strictly historical. if charles dickens, when he entered the school, was "put into virgil," he was not put there to much purpose. on the other hand, with the return of happier days had come the resumption of the old amusements which were to grow into the occupations of his life. a club was founded among the boys at wellington house for the express purpose of circulating short tales written by him, and he was the manager of the private theatricals which they contrived to set on foot. after two or three years of such work and play it became necessary for charles dickens once more to think of earning his bread. his father, who had probably lost his official post at the time when, in mr. micawber's phrase, "hope sunk beneath the horizon," was now seeking employment as a parliamentary reporter, and must have rejoiced when a gray's inn solicitor of his acquaintance, attracted by the bright, clever looks of his son, took the lad into his office as a clerk at a modest weekly salary. his office associates here were perhaps a grade or two above those of the blacking warehouse; but his danger now lay rather in the direction of the vulgarity which he afterwards depicted in such samples of the profession as mr. guppy and mr. jobling. he is said to have frequented, in company with a fellow-clerk, one of the minor theatres, and even occasionally to have acted there; and assuredly it must have been personal knowledge which suggested the curiously savage description of _private theatres_ in the _sketches by boz_, the all but solitary _unkindly_ reference to theatrical amusements in his works. but whatever his experiences of this kind may have been, he passed unscathed through them; and during the year and a half of his clerkship picked up sufficient knowledge of the technicalities of the law to be able to assail its enormities without falling into rudimentary errors about it, and sufficient knowledge of lawyers and lawyers' men to fill a whole chamber in his gallery of characters. oddly enough, it was, after all, the example of the father that led the son into the line of life from which he was easily to pass into the career where success and fame awaited him. the elder dickens having obtained employment as a parliamentary reporter for the _morning herald_, his son, who was living with him in bentinck street, manchester square, resolved to essay the same laborious craft. he was by this time nearly seventeen years of age, and already we notice in him what were to remain, through life, two of his most marked characteristics--strength of will, and a determination, if he did a thing at all, to do it thoroughly. the art of short-hand, which he now resolutely set himself to master, was in those days no easy study, though, possibly, in looking back upon his first efforts, david copperfield overestimated the difficulties which he had conquered with the help of love and traddles. but dickens, whose education no dr. strong had completed, perceived that in order to succeed as a reporter of the highest class he needed something besides the knowledge of short-hand. in a word, he lacked reading; and this deficiency he set himself to supply as best he could by a constant attendance at the british museum. those critics who have dwelt on the fact that the reading of dickens was neither very great nor very extensive, have insisted on what is not less true than obvious; but he had this one quality of the true lover of reading, that he never professed a familiarity with that of which he knew little or nothing. he continued his visits to the museum, even when in he had become a reporter in doctors' commons. with this occupation he had to remain as content as he could for nearly two years. once more david copperfield, the double of charles dickens in his youth, will rise to the memory of every one of his readers. for not only was his soul seized with a weariness of consistory, arches, delegates, and the rest of it, to which he afterwards gave elaborate expression in his story, but his heart was full of its first love. in later days he was not of opinion that he had loved particularly wisely; but how well he had loved is known to every one who after him has lost his heart to dora. nothing came of the fancy, and in course of time he had composure enough to visit the lady who had been its object in the company of his wife. he found that jip was stuffed as well as dead, and that dora had faded into flora; for it was as such that, not very chivalrously, he could bring himself to describe her, for the second time, in _little dorrit_. before at last he was engaged as a reporter on a newspaper, he had, and not for a moment only, thought of turning aside to another profession. it was the profession to which--uncommercially--he was attached during so great a part of his life, that when he afterwards created for himself a stage of his own, he seemed to be but following an irresistible fascination. his best friend described him to me as "a born actor;" and who needs to be told that the world falls into two divisions only--those whose place is before the foot-lights, and those whose place is behind them? his love of acting was stronger than himself; and i doubt whether he ever saw a play successfully performed without longing to be in and of it. "assumption," he wrote in after days to lord lytton, "has charms for me--i hardly know for how many wild reasons--so delightful that i feel a loss of, oh! i can't say what exquisite foolery, when i lose a chance of being some one in voice, etc., not at all like myself." he loved the theatre and everything which savoured of histrionics with an intensity not even to be imagined by those who have never felt a touch of the same passion. he had that "belief in a play" which he so pleasantly described as one of the characteristics of his life-long friend, the great painter, clarkson stanfield. and he had that unextinguishable interest in both actors and acting which makes a little separate world of the "quality." one of the staunchest friendships of his life was that with the foremost english tragedian of his age, macready; one of the delights of his last years was his intimacy with another well-known actor, the late mr. fechter. no performer, however, was so obscure or so feeble as to be outside the pale of his sympathy. his books teem with kindly likenesses of all manner of entertainers and entertainments--from mr. vincent crummles and the more or less legitimate drama, down to mr. sleary's horse-riding and mrs. jarley's wax-work. he has a friendly feeling for chops the dwarf, and for pickleson the giant; and in his own quiet broadstairs he cannot help tumultuously applauding a young lady "who goes into the den of ferocious lions, tigers, leopards, etc., and pretends to go to sleep upon the principal lion, upon which a rustic keeper, who speaks through his nose, exclaims, 'behold the abazid power of woobad!'" he was unable to sit through a forlorn performance at a wretched country theatre without longing to add a sovereign to the four-and-ninepence which he had made out in the house when he entered, and which "had warmed up in the course of the evening to twelve shillings;" and in bow street, near his office, he was beset by appeals such as that of an aged and greasy suitor for an engagement as pantaloon: "mr. dickens, you know our profession, sir--no one knows it better, sir--there is no right feeling in it. i was harlequin on your own circuit, sir, for five-and-thirty years, and was displaced by a boy, sir!--a boy!" nor did his disposition change when he crossed the seas; the streets he first sees in the united states remind him irresistibly of the set-scene in a london pantomime; and at verona his interest is divided between _romeo and juliet_ and the vestiges of an equestrian troupe in the amphitheatre. what success dickens might have achieved as an actor it is hardly to the present purpose to inquire. a word will be said below of the success he achieved as an amateur actor and manager, and in his more than half-dramatic readings. but, the influence of early associations and personal feelings apart, it would seem that the artists of the stage whom he most admired were not those of the highest type. he was subdued by the genius of frédéric lemaître, but blind and deaf to that of ristori. "sound melodrama and farce" were the dramatic species which he affected, and in which as a professional actor he might have excelled. his intensity might have gone for much in the one, and his versatility and volubility for more in the other; and in both, as indeed in any kind of play or part, his thoroughness, which extended itself to every detail of performance or make-up, must have stood him in excellent stead. as it was, he was preserved for literature. but he had carefully prepared himself for his intended venture, and when he sought an engagement at covent garden, a preliminary interview with the manager was postponed only on account of the illness of the applicant. before the next theatrical season opened he had at last--in the year --obtained employment as a parliamentary reporter, and after some earlier engagements he became, in , one of the reporting staff of the famous whig _morning chronicle_, then in its best days under the editorship of mr. john black. now, for the first time in his life, he had an opportunity of putting forth the energy that was in him. he shrunk from none of the difficulties which in those days attended the exercise of his craft. they were thus depicted by himself, when a few years before his death he "held a brief for his brothers" at the dinner of the newspaper press fund: "i have often transcribed for the printer from my short-hand notes important public speeches in which the strictest accuracy was required, and a mistake in which would have been to a young man severely compromising; writing on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through a wild country, and through the dead of the night, at the then surprising rate of fifteen miles an hour.... i have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery of the old house of commons; and i have worn my feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old house of lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep kept in waiting, say, until the woolsack might want restuffing. returning home from excited political meetings in the country to the waiting press in london, i do verily believe i have been upset in almost every description of vehicle known in this country. i have been in my time belated on miry by-roads, towards the small hours, forty or fifty miles from london, in a wheelless carriage, with exhausted horses and drunken post-boys, and have got back in time for publication, to be received with never-forgotten compliments by the late mr. black, coming in the broadest of scotch from the broadest of hearts i ever knew." thus early had dickens learnt the secret of throwing himself into any pursuit once taken up by him, and of half achieving his task by the very heartiness with which he set about it. when at the close of the parliamentary session of the year his labours as a reporter came to an end, he was held to have no equal in the gallery. during this period his naturally keen powers of observation must have been sharpened and strengthened, and that quickness of decision acquired which constitutes, perhaps, the most valuable lesson that journalistic practice of any kind can teach to a young man of letters. to dickens's experience as a reporter may likewise be traced no small part of his political creed, in which there was a good deal of infidelity; or, at all events, his determined contempt for the parliamentary style proper, whether in the mouth of "thisman" or of "thatman," and his rooted dislike of the "cheap-jacks" and "national dustmen" whom he discerned among our orators and legislators. there is probably no very great number of members of parliament who are heroes to those who wait attendance on their words. moreover, the period of dickens's most active labours as a reporter was one that succeeded a time of great political excitement; and when men wish thankfully to rest after deeds, words are in season. meanwhile, very tentatively and with a very imperfect consciousness of the significance for himself of his first steps on a slippery path, dickens had begun the real career of his life. it has been seen how he had been a writer as a "baby," as a school-boy, and as a lawyer's clerk, and the time had come when, like all writers, he wished to see himself in print. in december, , the _monthly magazine_ published a paper which he had dropped into its letter-box, and with eyes "dimmed with joy and pride" the young author beheld his first-born in print. the paper, called _a dinner at poplar walk_, was afterwards reprinted in the _sketches by boz_ under the title of _mr. minns and his cousin_, and is laughable enough. his success emboldened him to send further papers of a similar character to the same magazine, which published ten contributions of his by february, . that which appeared in august, , was the first signed "boz," a nickname given by him in his boyhood to a favourite brother. since dickens used this signature not only as the author of the _sketches_ and a few other minor productions, but also as "editor" of the _pickwick papers_, it is not surprising that, especially among his admirers on the continent and in america, the name should have clung to him so tenaciously. it was on a steamboat near niagara that he heard from his state-room a gentleman complaining to his wife: "boz keeps himself very close." but the _monthly magazine_, though warmly welcoming its young contributor's lively sketches, could not afford to pay for them. he was therefore glad to conclude an arrangement with mr. george hogarth, the conductor of the _evening chronicle_, a paper in connexion with the great morning journal on the reporting staff of which he was engaged. he had gratuitously contributed a sketch to the evening paper as a personal favour to mr. hogarth, and the latter readily proposed to the proprietors of the _morning chronicle_ that dickens should be duly remunerated for this addition to his regular labours. with a salary of seven instead of, as heretofore, five guineas a week, and settled in chambers in furnival's inn--one of those old legal inns which he loved so well--he might already in this year, , consider himself on the high-road to prosperity. by the beginning of the _sketches by boz_ printed in the _evening chronicle_ were already numerous enough, and their success was sufficiently established to allow of his arranging for their republication. they appeared in two volumes, with etchings by cruikshank, and the sum of a hundred and fifty pounds was paid to him for the copyright. the stepping-stones had been found and passed, and on the last day of march, which saw the publication of the first number of the _pickwick papers_, he stood in the field of fame and fortune. three days afterwards dickens married catherine hogarth, the eldest daughter of the friend who had so efficiently aided him in his early literary ventures. mr. george hogarth's name thus links together the names of two masters of english fiction; for lockhart speaks of him when a writer to the signet in edinburgh as one of the intimate friends of scott. dickens's apprenticeship as an author was over almost as soon as it was begun; and he had found the way short from obscurity to the dazzling light of popularity. as for the _sketches by boz_, their author soon repurchased the copyright for more than thirteen times the sum which had been paid to him for it. in their collected form these _sketches_ modestly described themselves as "illustrative of every-day life and every-day people." herein they only prefigured the more famous creations of their writer, whose genius was never so happy as when lighting up, now the humorous, now what he chose to term the romantic, side of familiar things. the curious will find little difficulty in tracing in these outlines, often rough and at times coarse, the groundwork of more than one finished picture of later date. not a few of the most peculiar features of dickens's humour are already here, together with not a little of his most characteristic pathos. it is true that in these early _sketches_ the latter is at times strained, but its power is occasionally beyond denial, as, for instance, in the brief narrative of the death of the hospital patient. on the other hand, the humour--more especially that of the _tales_--is not of the most refined sort, and often degenerates in the direction of boisterous farce. the style, too, though in general devoid of the pretentiousness which is the bane of "light" journalistic writing, has a taint of vulgarity about it, very pardonable under the circumstances, but generally absent from dickens's later works. weak puns are not unfrequent; and the diction but rarely reaches that exquisite felicity of comic phrase in which _pickwick_ and its successors excel. for the rest, dickens's favourite passions and favourite aversions alike reflect themselves here in small. in the description of the election for beadle he ridicules the tricks and the manners of political party-life, and his love of things theatrical has its full freshness upon it--however he may pretend at astley's that his "histrionic taste is gone," and that it is the audience which chiefly delights him. but of course the gift which these _sketches_ pre-eminently revealed in their author was a descriptive power that seemed to lose sight of nothing characteristic in the object described, and of nothing humorous in an association suggested by it. whether his theme was street or river, a christmas dinner or the extensive groves of the illustrious dead (the old clothes shops in monmouth street), he reproduced it in all its shades and colours, and under a hundred aspects, fanciful as well as real. how inimitable, for instance, is the sketch of "the last cab-driver, and the first omnibus cad," whose earlier vehicle, the omnipresent "red cab," was not the gondola, but the very fire-ship of the london streets. dickens himself entertained no high opinion of these youthful efforts; and in this he showed the consciousness of the true artist, that masterpieces are rarely thrown off at hazard. but though much of the popularity of the _sketches_ may be accounted for by the fact that commonplace people love to read about commonplace people and things, the greater part of it is due to genuine literary merit. the days of half-price in theatres have followed the days of coaching; "honest tom" no more paces the lobby in a black coat with velvet facings and cuffs, and a d'orsay hat; the hickses of the present time no longer quote "don juan" over boarding-house dinner-tables; and the young ladies in camberwell no longer compare young men in attitudes to lord byron, or to "satan" montgomery. but the _sketches by boz_ have survived their birth-time; and they deserve to be remembered among the rare instances in which a young author has no sooner begun to write than he has shown a knowledge of his real strength. as yet, however, this sudden favourite of the public was unaware of the range to which his powers were to extend, and of the height to which they were to mount. chapter ii. from success to success. [ - .] even in those years of which the record is brightest in the story of his life, charles dickens, like the rest of the world, had his share of troubles--troubles great and small, losses which went home to his heart, and vexations manifold in the way of business. but in the history of his early career as an author the word failure has no place. not that the _posthumous papers of the pickwick club_, published as they were in monthly numbers, at once took the town by storm; for the public needed two or three months to make up its mind that "boz" was equal to an effort considerably in advance of his _sketches_. but when the popularity of the serial was once established, it grew with extraordinary rapidity until it reached an altogether unprecedented height. he would be a bold man who should declare that its popularity has very materially diminished at the present day. against the productions of _pickwick_, and of other works of amusement of which it was the prototype, dr. arnold thought himself bound seriously to contend among the boys of rugby; and twenty years later young men at the university talked nothing but _pickwick_, and quoted nothing but _pickwick_, and the wittiest of undergraduates set the world at large an examination paper in _pickwick_, over which pretentious half-knowledge may puzzle, unable accurately to "describe the common profeel-machine," or to furnish a satisfactory definition of "a red-faced nixon." no changes in manners and customs have interfered with the hold of the work upon nearly all classes of readers at home; and no translation has been dull enough to prevent its being relished even in countries where all english manners and customs must seem equally uninteresting or equally absurd. so extraordinary has been the popularity of this more than thrice fortunate book, that the wildest legends have grown up as to the history of its origin. the facts, however, as stated by dickens himself, are few and plain. attracted by the success of the _sketches_, messrs. chapman & hall proposed to him that he should write "something" in monthly numbers to serve as a vehicle for certain plates to be executed by the comic draughtsman, mr. r. seymour; and either the publishers or the artist suggested as a kind of leading notion, the idea of a "nimrod club" of unlucky sportsmen. the proposition was at dickens's suggestion so modified that the plates were "to arise naturally out of the text," the range of the latter being left open to him. this explains why the rather artificial machinery of a club was maintained, and why mr. winkle's misfortunes by flood and field hold their place by the side of the philanthropical meanderings of mr. pickwick and the amorous experiences of mr. tupman. an original was speedily found for the pictorial presentment of the hero of the book, and a felicitous name for him soon suggested itself. only a single number of the serial had appeared when mr. seymour's own hand put an end to his life. it is well known that among the applicants for the vacant office of illustrator of the _pickwick papers_ was thackeray--the senior of dickens by a few months--whose style as a draughtsman would have been singularly unsuited to the adventures and the gaiters of mr. pickwick. finally, in no altogether propitious hour for some of dickens's books, mr. hablot browne ("phiz") was chosen as illustrator. some happy hits--such as the figure of mr. micawber--apart, the illustrations of dickens by this artist, though often both imaginative and effective, are apt, on the one hand, to obscure the author's fidelity to nature, and on the other, to intensify his unreality. _oliver twist_, like the _sketches_, was illustrated by george cruikshank, a pencil humourist of no common calibre, but as a rule ugly with the whole virtuous intention of his heart. dickens himself was never so well satisfied with any illustrator as with george cattermole (_alias_ "kittenmoles"), a connection of his by marriage, who co-operated with hablot browne in _master humphrey's clock_; in his latest works he resorted to the aid of younger artists, whose reputation has since justified his confidence. the most congenial of the pictorial interpreters of dickens, in his brightest and freshest humour, was his valued friend john leech, whose services, together occasionally with those of doyle, frank stone, and tenniel, as well as of his faithful stanfield and maclise, he secured for his christmas books. the _pickwick papers_, of which the issue was completed by the end of , brought in to dickens a large sum of money, and after a time a handsome annual income. on the whole this has remained the most general favourite of all his books. yet it is not for this reason only that _pickwick_ defies criticism, but also because the circumstances under which the book was begun and carried on make it preposterous to judge it by canons applicable to its author's subsequent fictions. as the serial proceeded, the interest which was to be divided between the inserted tales, some of which have real merit, and the framework, was absorbed by the latter. the rise in the style of the book can almost be measured by the change in the treatment of its chief character, mr. pickwick himself. in a later preface, dickens endeavoured to illustrate this change by the analogy of real life. the truth, of course, is that it was only as the author proceeded that he recognised the capabilities of the character, and his own power of making it, and his book with it, truly lovable as well as laughable. thus, on the very same page in which mr. pickwick proves himself a true gentleman in his leave-taking from mr. nupkins, there follows a little bit of the idyl between sam and the pretty housemaid, written with a delicacy that could hardly have been suspected in the chronicler of the experiences of miss jemima evans or of mr. augustus cooper. in the subsequent part of the main narrative will be found exemplified nearly all the varieties of pathos of which dickens was afterwards so repeatedly to prove himself master, more especially, of course, in those prison scenes for which some of our older novelists may have furnished him with hints. even that subtle species of humour is not wanting which is content to miss its effect with the less attentive reader; as in this passage concerning the ruined cobbler's confidences to sam in the fleet: "the cobbler paused to ascertain what effect his story had produced on sam; but finding that he had dropped asleep, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, _sighed_, put it down, drew the bedclothes over his head, and went to sleep too." goldsmith himself could not have put more of pathos and more of irony into a single word. but it may seem out of place to dwell upon details such as this in view of the broad and universally acknowledged comic effects of this masterpiece of english humour. its many genuinely comic characters are as broadly marked as the heroes of the least refined of sporting novels, and as true to nature as the most elaborate products of addison's art. the author's humour is certainly not one which eschews simple in favour of subtle means, or which is averse from occasional desipience in the form of the wildest farce. mrs. leo hunter's garden-party--or rather "public breakfast"--at the den, eatanswill; mr. pickwick's nocturnal descent, through three gooseberry-bushes and a rose-tree, upon the virgin soil of miss tomkins's establishment for young ladies; the _supplice d'un homme_ of mr. pott; mr. weller junior's love-letter, with notes and comments by mr. weller senior, and mr. weller senior's own letter of affliction written by somebody else; the footmen's "swarry" at bath, and mr. bob sawyer's bachelors' party in the borough--all these and many other scenes and passages have in them that jovial element of exaggeration which nobody mistakes and nobody resents. whose duty is it to check the volubility of mr. alfred jingle, or to weigh the heaviness, _quot libras_, of the fat boy? every one is conscious of the fact that in the contagious high spirits of the author lies one of the chief charms of the book. not, however, that the effect produced is obtained without the assistance of a very vigilant art. nowhere is this more apparent than in the character which is upon the whole the most brilliant of the many brilliant additions which the author made to his original group of personages. if there is nothing so humorous in the book as sam weller, neither is there in it anything more pathetic than the relation between him and his master. as for sam weller's style of speech, scant justice was done to it by mr. pickwick when he observed to job trotter, "my man is in the right, although his mode of expressing his opinion is somewhat homely, and occasionally incomprehensible." the fashion of sam's gnomic philosophy is at least as old as theocritus;[ ] but the special impress which he has given to it is his own, rudely foreshadowed, perhaps, in some of the apophthegms of his father. incidental sam wellerisms in _oliver twist_ and _nicholas nickleby_ show how enduring a hold the whimsical fancy had taken of its creator. for the rest, the freshness of the book continues the same to the end; and farcical as are some of the closing scenes--those, for instance, in which a chorus of coachmen attends the movements of the elder mr. weller--there is even here no straining after effect. an exception might perhaps be found in the catastrophe of the shepherd, which is coarsely contrived; but the fun of the character is in itself neither illegitimate nor unwholesome. it will be observed below that it is the constant harping on the same string, the repeated picturing of professional preachers of religion as gross and greasy scoundrels, which in the end becomes offensive in dickens. on the whole, no hero has ever more appropriately bidden farewell to his labours than mr. pickwick in the words which he uttered at the table of the ever-hospitable mr. wardle at the adelphi. "'i shall never regret,' said mr. pickwick, in a low voice--'i shall never regret having devoted the greater part of two years to mixing with different varieties and shades of human character; frivolous as my pursuit of novelty may appear to many. nearly the whole of my previous life having been devoted to business and the pursuit of wealth, numerous scenes of which i had no previous conception have dawned upon me--i hope to the enlargement of my mind, and to the improvement of my understanding. if i have done but little good, i trust i have done less harm, and that none of my adventures will be other than a source of amusing and pleasant recollection to me in the decline of life. god bless you all.'" of course mr. pickwick "filled and drained a bumper" to the sentiment. indeed, it "snoweth" in this book "of meat and drink." wine, ale, and brandy abound there, and viands to which ample justice is invariably done--even under mr. tupman's heart-rending circumstances at the (now, alas! degenerate) leather bottle. something of this is due to the times in which the work was composed, and to the class of readers for which we may suppose it in the first instance to have been intended; but dickens, though a temperate man, loved the paraphernalia of good cheer, besides cherishing the associations which are inseparable from it. at the same time, there is a little too much of it in the _pickwick papers_, however well its presence may consort with the geniality which pervades them. it is difficult to turn any page of the book without chancing on one of those supremely felicitous phrases in the ready mintage of which dickens at all times excelled. but its chief attraction lies in the spirit of the whole--that spirit of true humour which calls forth at once merriment, good-will, and charity. in the year , which the commencement of the _pickwick papers_ has made memorable in the history of english literature, dickens was already in the full tide of authorship. in february, , the second number of _bentley's miscellany_, a new monthly magazine which he had undertaken to edit, contained the opening chapters of his story of _oliver twist_. shortly before this, in september and december, , he had essayed two of the least ambitious branches of dramatic authorship. the acting of harley, an admirable dry comedian, gave some vitality to _the strange gentleman_, a "comic burletta," or farce, in two acts, founded upon the tale in the _sketches_ called _the great winglebury duel_. it ran for seventy nights at drury lane, and, in its author's opinion, was "the best thing harley did." but the adaptation has no special feature distinguishing it from the original, unless it be the effective bustle of the opening. _the village coquettes_, an operetta represented at the st. james's theatre, with music by hullah, was an equally unpretending effort. in this piece harley took one part, that of "a very small farmer with a very large circle of intimate friends," and john parry made his _début_ on the london stage in another. to quote any of the songs in this operetta would be very unfair to dickens.[ ] he was not at all depressed by the unfavourable criticisms which were passed upon his libretto, and against which he had to set the round declaration of braham, that there had been "no such music since the days of shiel, and no such piece since _the duenna_." as time went on, however, he became anything but proud of his juvenile productions as a dramatist, and strongly objected to their revival. his third and last attempt of this kind, a farce called _the lamplighter_, which he wrote for covent garden in , was never acted, having been withdrawn by macready's wish; and in dickens converted it into a story printed among the _picnic papers_, a collection generously edited by him for the benefit of the widow and children of a publisher towards whom he had little cause for personal gratitude. his friendship for macready kept alive in him for some time the desire to write a comedy worthy of so distinguished an actor; and, according to his wont, he had even chosen beforehand for the piece a name which he was not to forget--_no thoroughfare_. but the genius of the age, an influence which is often stronger than personal wishes or inclinations, diverted him from dramatic composition. he would have been equally unwilling to see mentioned among his literary works the _life of grimaldi_, which he merely edited, and which must be numbered among forgotten memorials of forgotten greatness. to the earlier part of belong one or two other publications, which their author never cared to reprint. the first of these, however, a short pamphlet entitled _sunday under three heads_, is not without a certain biographical interest. this little book was written with immediate reference to a bill "for the better observance of the sabbath," which the house of commons had recently thrown out by a small majority; and its special purpose was the advocacy of sunday excursions, and harmless sunday amusements, in lieu of the alternate gloom and drunkenness distinguishing what dickens called a london _sunday as it is_. his own love of fresh air and brightness intensified his hatred of a formalism which shuts its ears to argument. in the powerful picture of a sunday evening in london, "gloomy, close, and stale," which he afterwards drew in _little dorrit_, he almost seems to hold sabbatarianism and the weather responsible for one another. when he afterwards saw a parisian sunday, he thought it "not comfortable," so that, like others who hate bigotry, he may perhaps have come to recognise the difficulty of arranging an english _sunday as it might be made_. on the other hand, he may have remembered his youthful fancy of the good clergyman encouraging a game of cricket after church, when thirty years later, writing from edinburgh, he playfully pictured the counterpart of _sunday as sabbath bills would have it_: describing how "the usual preparations are making for the band in the open air in the afternoon, and the usual pretty children (selected for that purpose) are at this moment hanging garlands round the scott monument preparatory to the innocent sunday dance round that edifice with which the diversions invariably close." the _sketches of young gentlemen_, published in the same year, are little if at all in advance of the earlier _sketches by boz_, and were evidently written to order. he finished them in precisely a fortnight, and noted in his diary that "one hundred and twenty-five pounds for such a book, without any name to it, is pretty well." the _sketches of young couples_, which followed as late as , have the advantage of a facetious introduction, suggested by her majesty's own announcement of her approaching marriage. but the life has long gone out of these pleasantries, as it has from others of the same cast, in which many a mirthful spirit, forced to coin its mirth into money, has ere now spent itself. it was the better fortune of dickens to be able almost from the first to keep nearly all his writings on a level with his powers. he never made a bolder step forwards than when, in the very midst of the production of _pickwick_, he began his first long continuous story, the _adventures of oliver twist_. those who have looked at the ms. of this famous novel will remember the vigour of the handwriting, and how few, in comparison with his later mss., are the additions and obliterations which it exhibits. but here and there the writing shows traces of excitement; for the author's heart was in his work, and much of it, contrary to his later habit, was written at night. no doubt he was upheld in the labour of authorship by something besides ambition and consciousness of strength. _oliver twist_ was certainly written _with a purpose_, and with one that was afterwards avowed. the author intended to put before his readers--"so long as their speech did not offend the ear"--a picture of "dregs of life," hitherto, as he believed, never exhibited by any novelist in their loathsome reality. yet the old masters of fiction, fielding in particular, as well as the old master of the brush whom dickens cites (hogarth), had not shrunk from the path which their disciple now essayed. dickens, however, was naturally thinking of his own generation, which had already relished _paul clifford_, and which was not to be debarred from exciting itself over _jack sheppard_, begun before _oliver twist_ had been completed, and in the self-same magazine. dickens's purpose was an honest and a praiseworthy one. but the most powerful and at the same time the most lovable element in his genius suggested the silver lining to the cloud. to that unfailing power of sympathy which was the mainspring of both his most affecting and his most humorous touches, we owe the redeeming features in his company of criminals; not only the devotion and the heroism of nancy, but the irresistible vivacity of the artful dodger, and the good-humour of charley bates, which moved talfourd to "plead as earnestly in mitigation of judgment" against him as ever he had done "at the bar for any client he most respected." other parts of the story were less carefully tempered. mr. fang, the police-magistrate, appears to have been a rather hasty portrait of a living original; and the whole picture of bumble and bumbledom was certainly a caricature of the working of the new poor-law, confounding the question of its merits and demerits with that of its occasional maladministration. on the other hand, a vein of truest pathos runs through the whole of poor nancy's story, and adds to the effect of a marvellously powerful catastrophe. from nancy's interview with rose at london bridge to the closing scenes--the flight of sikes, his death at jacob's island, and the end of the jew--the action has an intensity rare in the literature of the terrible. by the side of this genuine tragic force, which perhaps it would be easiest to parallel from some of the "low" domestic tragedy of the elizabethans, the author's comic humour burst forth upon the world in a variety of entirely new types: bumble and his partner; noah claypole, complete in himself, but full of promise for uriah heep; and the jew, with all the pupils and supporters of his establishment of technical education. undeniably the story of _oliver twist_ also contains much that is artificial and stilted, with much that is weak and (the author of _endymion_ is to be thanked for the word) "gushy." thus, all the maylie scenes, down to the last in which oliver discreetly "glides" away from the lovers, are barely endurable. but, whatever its shortcomings, _oliver twist_ remains an almost unique example of a young author's brilliant success in an enterprise of complete novelty and extreme difficulty. some of its situations continue to exercise their power even over readers already familiarly acquainted with them; and some of its characters will live by the side of dickens's happiest and most finished creations. even had a sapient critic been right who declared, during the progress of the story, that mr. dickens appeared to have worked out "the particular vein of humour which had hitherto yielded so much attractive metal," it would have been worked out to some purpose. after making his readers merry with _pickwick_, he had thrilled them with _oliver twist_; and by the one book as by the other he had made them think better of mankind. but neither had his vein been worked out, nor was his hand content with a single task. in april, , several months before the completion of _oliver twist_, the first number of _nicholas nickleby_ appeared; and while engaged upon the composition of these books he contributed to _bentley's miscellany_, of which he retained the editorship till the early part of , several smaller articles. of these, the _mudfog papers_ have been recently thought worth reprinting; but even supposing the satire against the association for the advancement of everything to have not yet altogether lost its savour, the fun of the day before yesterday refuses to be revived. _nicholas nickleby_, published in twenty numbers, was the labour of many months, but was produced under so great a press of work that during the whole time of publication dickens was never a single number in advance. yet, though not one of the most perfect of his books, it is indisputably one of the most thoroughly original, and signally illustrates the absurdity of recent attempts to draw a distinction between the imaginative romance of the past and the realistic novel of the present. dickens was never so strong as when he produced from the real; and in this instance--starting, no doubt, with a healthy prejudice--so carefully had he inspected the neighbourhood of the yorkshire schools, of which dotheboys hall was to be held up as the infamous type, that there seems to be no difficulty in identifying the site of the very school itself; while the portsmouth theatre is to the full as accurate a study as the yorkshire school. so, again, as every one knows, the brothers cheeryble were real personages well known in manchester,[ ] where even the original of tim linkinwater still survives in local remembrance. on the other hand, with how conscious a strength has the author's imaginative power used and transmuted his materials: in the squeers family creating a group of inimitable grotesqueness; in their humblest victim smike giving one of his earliest pictures of those outcasts whom he drew again and again with such infinite tenderness; and in mr. vincent crummles and his company, including the phenomenon, establishing a jest, but a kindly one, for all times! in a third series of episodes in this book, it is universally agreed that the author has no less conspicuously failed. dickens's first attempt to picture the manners and customs of the aristocracy certainly resulted in portraying some very peculiar people. lord frederick verisopht, indeed--who is allowed to redeem his character in the end--is not without touches resembling nature. "'i take an interest, my lord,' said mrs. wititterly, with a faint smile, 'such an interest in the drama.' "'ye-es. it's very interasting,' replied lord frederick. "'i'm always ill after shakspeare,' said mrs. wititterly. 'i scarcely exist the next day. i find the reaction so very great after a tragedy, my lord, and shakspeare is such a delicious creature.' "'ye-es,' replied lord frederick. 'he was a clayver man.'" but sir mulberry hawk is a kind of scoundrel not frequently met with in polite society; his henchmen pluck and pyke have the air of "followers of don john," and the enjoyments of the "trainers of young noblemen and gentlemen" at hampton races, together with the riotous debauch which precedes the catastrophe, seem taken direct from the transpontine stage. the fact is that dickens was here content to draw his vile seducers and wicked orgies just as commonplace writers had drawn them a thousand times before, and will draw them a thousand times again. much of the hero's talk is of the same conventional kind. on the other hand, nothing could be more genuine than the flow of fun in this book, which finds its outlet in the most unexpected channels, but nowhere so resistlessly as in the invertebrate talk of mrs. nickleby. for her forster discovered a literary prototype in a character of miss austen's; but even if mrs. nickleby was founded on miss bates, in _emma_, she left her original far behind. miss bates, indeed, is verbose, roundabout, and parenthetic; but the widow never deviates into coherence. _nicholas nickleby_ shows the comic genius of its author in full activity, and should be read with something of the buoyancy of spirit in which it was written, and not with a callousness capable of seeing in so amusing a scamp as mr. mantalini one of dickens's "monstrous failures." at the same time this book displays the desire of the author to mould his manner on the old models. the very title has a savour of smollett about it; the style has more than one reminiscence of him, as well as of fielding and of goldsmith; and the general method of the narrative resembles that of our old novelists and their spanish and french predecessors. partly for this reason, and partly, no doubt, because of the rapidity with which the story was written, its construction is weaker than is usual even with dickens's earlier works. coincidences are repeatedly employed to help on the action; and the _dénoûment_, which, besides turning mr. squeers into a thief, reveals ralph nickleby as the father of smike, is oppressively complete. as to the practical aim of the novel, the author's word must be taken for the fact that "mr. squeers and his school were faint and feeble pictures of an existing reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed impossible." the exposure, no doubt, did good in its way, though perhaps mr. squeers, in a more or less modified form, has proved a tougher adversary to overcome than mrs. gamp. during these years dickens was chiefly resident in the modest locality of doughty street, whither he had moved his household from the "three rooms," "three storeys high," in furnival's inn, early in . it was not till the end of that he took up his abode, further west, in a house which he came to like best among all his london habitations, in devonshire terrace, regent's park. his town life was, however, varied by long rustications at twickenham and at petersham, and by sojourns at the sea-side, of which he was a most consistent votary. he is found in various years of his life at brighton, dover, and bonchurch--where he liked his neighbours better than he liked the climate; and in later years, when he had grown accustomed to the continent, he repeatedly domesticated himself at boulogne. but already in he had discovered the little sea-side village, as it then was, which for many years afterwards became his favourite holiday retreat, and of which he would be the _genius loci_, even if he had not by a special description immortalised _our english watering-place_. broadstairs--whose afternoon tranquillity even to this day is undisturbed except by the ethiopians on their tramp from margate to ramsgate--and its constant visitor, are thus described in a letter written to an american friend in : "this is a little fishing-place; intensely quiet; built on a cliff, whereon--in the centre of a tiny semicircular bay--our house stands; the sea rolling and dashing under the windows. seven miles out are the goodwin sands (you've heard of the goodwin sands?), whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. also there is a big light-house called the north foreland on a hill beyond the village, a severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea. under the cliff are rare good sands, where all the children assemble every morning and throw up impossible fortifications, which the sea throws down again at high-water. old gentlemen and ancient ladies flirt after their own manner in two reading-rooms and on a great many scattered seats in the open air. other old gentlemen look all day through telescopes and never see anything. in a bay-window in a one-pair sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny indeed. his name is boz." not a few houses at broadstairs may boast of having been at one time or another inhabited by him and his. of the long-desired fort house, however, which local perverseness triumphantly points out as the original of _bleak house_ (no part even of _bleak house_ was written there, though part of _david copperfield_ was), he could not obtain possession till . as like bleak house as it is like chesney wold, it stands at the very highest end of the place, looking straight out to sea, over the little harbour and its two colliers, with a pleasant stretch of cornfields leading along the cliff towards the light-house which dickens promised lord carlisle should serve him as a night-light. but in dickens was content with narrower quarters. the "long small procession of sons" and daughters had as yet only begun with the birth of his eldest boy. his life was simple and full of work, and occasional sea-side or country quarters, and now and then a brief holiday tour, afforded the necessary refreshment of change. in he made his first short trip abroad, and in the following year, accompanied by mr. hablot browne, he spent a week of enjoyment in warwickshire, noting in his _remembrancer_: "stratford; shakspeare; the birthplace; visitors, scribblers, old woman (query whether she knows what shakspeare did), etc." meanwhile, among his truest home enjoyments were his friendships. they were few in number, mostly with men for whom, after he had once taken them into his heart, he preserved a life-long regard. chief of all these were john forster and daniel maclise, the high-minded painter, to whom we owe a charming portrait of his friend in this youthful period of his life. losing them, he afterwards wrote when absent from england, was "like losing my arms and legs, and dull and tame i am without you." besides these, he was at this time on very friendly terms with william harrison ainsworth, who succeeded him in the editorship of the _miscellany_, and concerning whom he exclaimed in his _remembrancer_: "ainsworth has a fine heart." at the close of , dickens, ainsworth, and forster constituted themselves a club called the trio, and afterwards the cerberus. another name frequent in the _remembrancer_ entries is that of talfourd, a generous friend, in whom, as dickens finely said after his death, "the success of other men made as little change as his own." all these, together with stanfield, the landseers, douglas jerrold, macready, and others less known to fame, were among the friends and associates of dickens's prime. the letters, too, remaining from this part of dickens's life, have all the same tone of unaffected frankness. with some of his intimate friends he had his established epistolary jokes. stanfield, the great marine painter, he pertinaciously treated as a "very salt" correspondent, communications to whom, as to a "block-reeving, main-brace-splicing, lead-heaving, ship-conning, stun'sail-bending, deck-swabbing son of a sea-cook," needed garnishing with the obscurest technicalities and strangest oaths of his element. (it is touching to turn from these friendly buffooneries to a letter written by dickens many years afterward--in --and mentioning a visit to "poor dear stanfield," when "it was clear that the shadow of the end had fallen on him.... it happened well that i had seen, on a wild day at tynemouth, a remarkable sea effect, of which i wrote a description to him, and he had kept it under his pillow.") macready, after his retirement from the stage, is bantered on the score of his juvenility with a pertinacity of fun recalling similar whimsicalities of charles lamb's; or the jest is changed, and the great london actor in his rural retreat is depicted in the character of a country gentleman strange to the wicked ways of the town. as in the case of many delightful letter-writers, the charm of dickens as a correspondent vanishes so soon as he becomes self-conscious. even in his letters to lady blessington and mrs. watson, a striving after effect is at times perceptible; the homage rendered to lord john russell is not offered with a light hand; on the contrary, when writing to douglas jerrold, dickens is occasionally so intent upon proving himself a sound radical that his vehemence all but passes into a shriek. in these early years, at all events, dickens was happy in the society of his chosen friends. his favourite amusements were a country walk or ride with forster, or a dinner at jack straw's castle with him and maclise. he was likewise happy at home. here, however, in the very innermost circle of his affections, he had to suffer the first great personal grief of his life. his younger sister-in-law, miss mary hogarth, had accompanied him and his wife into their new abode in doughty street, and here, in may, , she died, at the early age of seventeen. no sorrow seems ever to have touched the heart and possessed the imagination of charles dickens like that for the loss of this dearly-loved girl, "young, beautiful, and good." "i can solemnly say," he wrote to her mother a few months after her death, "that, waking or sleeping, i have never lost the recollection of our hard trial and sorrow, and i feel that i never shall." "if," ran part of his first entry in the diary which he began on the first day of the following year, "she were with us now, the same winning, happy, amiable companion, sympathising with all my thoughts and feelings more than any one i knew ever did or will, i think i should have nothing to wish for but a continuance of such happiness. but she is gone, and pray god i may one day, through his mercy, rejoin her." it was not till, in after years, it became necessary to abandon the project, that he ceased to cherish the intention of being buried by her side, and through life the memory of her haunted him with strange vividness. at the niagara falls, when the spectacle of nature in her glory had produced in him, as he describes it, a wondrously tranquil and happy peace of mind, he longed for the presence of his dearest friends, and "i was going to add, what would i give if the dear girl, whose ashes lie in kensal green, had lived to come so far along with us; but she has been here many times, i doubt not, since her sweet face faded from my earthly sight." "after she died," he wrote to her mother in may, , "i dreamed of her every night for many weeks, and always with a kind of quiet happiness, which became so pleasant to me that i never lay down at night without a hope of the vision coming back in one shape or other. and so it did." once he dreamt of her, when travelling in yorkshire; and then, after an interval of many months, as he lay asleep one night at genoa, it seemed to him as if her spirit visited him and spoke to him in words which he afterwards precisely remembered, when he had awaked, with the tears running down his face. he never forgot her, and in the year before he died he wrote to his friend: "she is so much in my thoughts at all times, especially when i am successful and have greatly prospered in anything, that the recollection of her is an essential part of my being, and is as inseparable from my existence as the beating of my heart is!" in a word, she was the object of the one great imaginative passion of his life. many have denied that there is any likeness to nature in the fictitious figure in which, according to the wont of imaginative workers, he was irresistibly impelled to embody the sentiment with which she inspired him; but the sentiment itself became part of his nature, and part of his history. when in writing the _old curiosity shop_ he approached the death of little nell, he shrunk from the task: "dear mary died yesterday, when i think of this sad story." the _old curiosity shop_ has long been freed from the encumbrances which originally surrounded it, and there is little except biographical interest in the half-forgotten history of _master humphrey's clock_. early in the year , his success and confidence in his powers induced him to undertake an illustrated weekly journal, in which he depended solely on his own name, and, in the first instance, on his own efforts, as a writer. such was his trust in his versatility that he did not think it necessary even to open with a continuous story. perhaps the popularity of the _pickwick papers_ encouraged him to adopt the time-honoured device of wrapping up several tales in one. in any case, his framework was in the present instance too elaborate to take hold of the public mind, while the characters introduced into it possessed little or nothing of the freshness of their models in the _tatler_ and the _spectator_. in order to re-enforce master humphrey, the deaf gentleman, and the other original members of his benevolent conclave, he hereupon resorted to a natural, but none the less unhappy, expedient. mr. pickwick was revived, together with sam weller and his parent; and a weller of the third generation was brought on the stage in the person of a precocious four-year-old, "standing with his little legs very wide apart as if the top-boots were familiar to them, and actually winking upon the house-keeper with his infant eye, in imitation of his grandfather." a laugh may have been raised at the time by this attempt, from which, however, every true pickwickian must have turned sadly away. nor was there much in the other contents of these early numbers to make up for the disappointment. as, therefore, neither "master humphrey's clock" nor "mr. weller's watch" seemed to promise any lasting success, it was prudently determined that the story of the _old curiosity shop_, of which the first portion had appeared in the fourth number of the periodical, should run on continuously; and when this had been finished, a very short "link" sufficed to introduce another story, _barnaby rudge_, with the close of which _master humphrey's clock_ likewise stopped. in the _old curiosity shop_, though it abounds in both grotesquely terrible and boisterously laughable effects, the key-note is that of an idyllic pathos. the sense of this takes hold of the reader at the very outset, as he lingers over the picture, with which the first chapter concludes, of little nell asleep through the solitary night in the curiosity-dealer's warehouse. it retains possession of him as he accompanies the innocent heroine through her wanderings, pausing with her in the church-yard where all is quiet save the cawing of the satirical rooks, or in the school-master's cottage by the open window, through which is borne upon the evening air the distant hum of the boys at play upon the green, while the poor school-master holds in his hand the small cold one of the little scholar that has fallen asleep. nor is it absent to the last when nell herself lies at rest in her little bed. "her little bird--a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed--was stirring nimbly in its cage; and the strong heart of its child-mistress was mute and motionless forever." the hand which drew little nell afterwards formed other figures not less affecting, but none so essentially poetic. like many such characters, this requires, for its full appreciation, a certain tension of the mind; and those who will not, or cannot, pass in some measure out of themselves, will be likely to tire of the conception, or to declare its execution artificial. curiously enough, not only was little nell a favourite of landor, a poet and critic utterly averse from meretricious art, but she also deeply moved the sympathy of lord jeffrey, who at least knew his own mind, and spoke it in both praise and blame. as already stated, dickens only with difficulty brought himself to carry his story to its actual issue, though it is hard to believe that he could ever have intended a different close from that which he gave to it. his whole heart was in the story, nor could he have consoled himself by means of an ordinary happy ending. dickens's comic humour never flowed in a pleasanter vein than in the _old curiosity shop_, and nowhere has it a more exquisite element of pathos in it. the shock-headed, red-cheeked kit is one of the earliest of those ungainly figures who speedily find their way into our affections--the odd family to which mr. toots, tom pinch, tommy traddles, and joe gargery alike belong. but the triumph of this serio-comic form of art in the _old curiosity shop_ is to be found in the later experiences of dick swiveller, who seems at first merely a more engaging sample of the bob sawyer species, but who ends by endearing himself to the most thoughtless laugher. dick swiveller and his protégée have gained a lasting place among the favourite characters of english fiction, and the privations of the marchioness have possibly had a result which would have been that most coveted by dickens--that of helping towards the better treatment of a class whose lot is among the dust and ashes, too often very bitter ashes, of many households. besides these, the story contains a variety of incidental characters of a class which dickens never grew weary of drawing from the life. messrs. codlin, short, and company, and the rest of the itinerant showmen, seem to have come straight from the most real of country fairs; and if ever a _troupe_ of comedians deserved pity on their wanderings through a callous world, it was the most diverting and the most dismal of all the mountebanks that gathered round the stew of tripe in the kitchen of the jolly sandboys--jerry's performing dogs. "'your people don't usually travel in character, do they?' said short, pointing to the dresses of the dogs. 'it must come expensive if they do.' "'no,' replied jerry--'no, it's not the custom with us. but we've been playing a little on the road to-day, and we come out with a new wardrobe at the races, so i didn't think it worth while to stop to undress. down, pedro!'" in addition to these public servants we have a purveyor of diversion--or instruction--of an altogether different stamp. "does the caravan look as if _it_ know'd em?" indignantly demands the proprietress of jarley's wax-work, when asked whether she is acquainted with the men of the punch show. she too is drawn, or moulded, in the author's most exuberant style of fun, together with _her_ company, in which "all the gentlemen were very pigeon-breasted and very blue about the beards, and all the ladies were miraculous figures; and all the ladies and all the gentlemen were looking intensely nowhere, and staring with extraordinary earnestness at nothing." in contrast with these genial products of observation and humour stand the grotesquely hideous personages who play important parts in the machinery of the story, the vicious dwarf quilp and the monstrous virago sally brass. the former is among the most successful attempts of dickens in a direction which was full of danger for him, as it is for all writers; the malevolent little demon is so blended with his surroundings--the description of which forms one of the author's most telling pictures of the lonely foulnesses of the river-side--that his life seems natural in its way, and his death a most appropriate ending to it. sally brass, "whose accomplishments were all of a masculine and strictly legal kind," is less of a caricature, and not without a humorously redeeming point of feminine weakness; yet the end of her and her brother is described at the close of the book with almost tragic earnestness. on the whole, though the poetic sympathy of dickens when he wrote this book was absorbed in the character of his heroine, yet his genius rarely asserted itself after a more diversified fashion. of _barnaby rudge_, though in my opinion an excellent book after its kind, i may speak more briefly. with the exception of _a tale of two cities_, it was dickens's only attempt in the historical novel. in the earlier work the relation between the foreground and background of the story is skilfully contrived, and the colouring of the whole, without any elaborate attempt at accurate fidelity, has a generally true and harmonious effect. with the help of her portrait by a painter (mr. frith) for whose pictures dickens had a great liking, dolly varden has justly taken hold of the popular fancy as a charming type of a pretty girl of a century ago. and some of the local descriptions in the early part of the book are hardly less pleasing: the temple in summer, as it was before the charm of fountain court was destroyed by its guardians; and the picturesque comforts of the maypole inn, described beforehand, by way of contrast to the desecration of its central sanctuary. the intrigue of the story is fairly interesting in itself, and the gentlemanly villain who plays a principal part in it, though, as usual, over-elaborated, is drawn with more skill than dickens usually displays in such characters. after the main interest of the book has passed to the historical action of the george gordon riots, the story still retains its coherence, and, a few minor improbabilities apart, is successfully conducted to its close. no historical novel can altogether avoid the banalities of the species; and though dickens, like all the world, had his laugh at the late mr. g. p. r. james, he is constrained to introduce the historical hero of the tale, with his confidential adviser, and his attendant, in the familiar guise of three horsemen. as for lord george gordon himself, and the riots of which the responsibility remains inseparable from his unhappy memory, the representation of them in the novel sufficiently accords both with poetic probability and with historical fact. the poor lord's evil genius, indeed, gashford--who has no historical original--tries the reader's sense of verisimilitude rather hard; such converts are uncommon except among approvers. the protestant hangman, on the other hand, has some slight historical warranty; but the leading part which he is made to play in the riots, and his resolution to go any lengths "in support of the great protestant principle of hanging," overshoot the mark. it cannot be said that there is any substantial exaggeration in the description of the riots; thus, the burning of the great distiller's house in holborn is a well-authenticated fact; and there is abundant vigour in the narrative. repetition is unavoidable in treating such a theme, but in _barnaby rudge_ it is not rendered less endurable by mannerism, nor puffed out with rhetoric. one very famous character in this story was, as personages in historical novels often are, made up out of two originals.[ ] this was grip the raven, who, after seeing the idiot hero of the tale safe through his adventures, resumed his addresses on the subject of the kettle to the horses in the stable; and who, "as he was a mere infant when barnaby was gray, has very probably gone on talking to the present time." in a later preface to _barnaby rudge_, dickens, with infinite humour, related his experiences of the two originals in question, and how he had been ravenless since the mournful death before the kitchen fire of the second of the pair, the _grip_ of actual life. this occurred in the house at devonshire terrace, into which the family had moved two years before (in ). as dickens's fame advanced his circle of acquaintances was necessarily widened; and in he was invited to visit edinburgh, and to receive there the first great tribute of public recognition which had been paid to him. he was entertained with great enthusiasm at a public banquet, voted the freedom of the city, and so overwhelmed with hospitalities that, notwithstanding his frank pleasure in these honours, he was glad to make his escape at last, and refreshed himself with a tour in the highlands. these excitements may have intensified in him a desire which had for some time been active in his mind, and which in any case would have been kept alive by an incessant series of invitations. he had signed an agreement with his publishers for a new book before this desire took the shape of an actual resolution. there is no great difficulty in understanding why dickens made up his mind to go to america, and thus to interrupt for the moment a course of life and work which was fast leading him on to great heights of fame and fortune. the question of international copyright alone would hardly have induced him to cross the seas. probably he felt instinctively that to see men and cities was part of the training as well as of the recreation which his genius required. dickens was by nature one of those artists who when at work always long to be in sympathy with their public, and to know it to be in sympathy with them. and hitherto he had not met more than part of his public of readers face to face. chapter iii. strange lands. [ - .] a journey across the atlantic in midwinter is no child's-play even at the present day, when, bad though their passage may have been, few people would venture to confess doubts, as dickens did, concerning the safety of such a voyage by steam in heavy weather. the travellers--for dickens was accompanied by his wife--had an exceptionally rough crossing, the horrors of which he has described in his _american notes_. his powers of observation were alive in the midst of the lethargy of sea-sickness, and when he could not watch others he found enough amusement in watching himself. at last, on january , , they found themselves in boston harbour. their stay in the united states lasted about four months, during which time they saw boston, new york, philadelphia, baltimore, washington, richmond, cincinnati, st. louis, chicago, and buffalo. then they passed by niagara into canada, and after a pleasant visit to montreal, diversified by private theatricals with the officers there, were safe at home again in july. dickens had met with an enthusiastic welcome in every part of the states where he had not gone out of the way of it; in new york, in particular, he had been fêted, with a fervour unique even in the history of american enthusiasms, under the resounding title of "the guest of the nation." still, even this imposed no moral obligation upon him to take the advice tendered to him in america, and to avoid writing about that country--"we are so very suspicious." on the other hand, whatever might be his indignation at the obstinate unwillingness of the american public to be moved a hair's-breadth by his championship of the cause of international copyright,[ ] this failure could not, in a mind so reasonable as his, have outweighed the remembrance of the kindness shown to him and to his fame. but the truth seems to be that he had, if not at first, at least very speedily, taken a dislike to american ways which proved too strong for him to the last. in strange lands, most of all in a country which, like the united states, is not in the least ashamed to be what it is, travellers are necessarily at the outset struck by details; and dickens's habit of minute observation was certain not to let him lose many of them. he was neither long enough in the country to study very closely, nor was it in his way to ponder very deeply, the problems involved in the existence of many of the institutions with which he found fault. thus, he was indignant at the sight of slavery, and even ventured to "tell a piece of his mind" on the subject to a judge in the south; but when, twenty years later, the great struggle came, at the root of which this question lay, his sympathies were with the cause of disunion and slavery in its conflict with the "mad and villanous" north. in short, his knowledge of america and its affairs was gained in such a way and under such circumstances as to entitle him, if he chose, to speak to the vast public which he commanded as an author of men and manners as observed by him; but he had no right to judge the destinies and denounce the character of a great people on evidence gathered in the course of a holiday tour. nor, indeed, did the _american notes_, published by him after his return home, furnish any serious cause of offence. in an introductory chapter, which was judiciously suppressed, he had taken credit for the book as not having "a grain of any political ingredient in its whole composition." indeed, the contents were rather disappointing from their meagreness. the author showed good taste in eschewing all reference to his personal reception, and good judgment in leaving the copyright question undiscussed. but though his descriptions were as vivid as usual--whether of the small steamboat, "of about half a pony power," on the connecticut river, or of the dismal scenery on the mississippi, "great father of rivers, who (praise be to heaven) has no young children like him!"--and though some of the figure-sketches were touched off with the happiest of hands, yet the public, even in , was desirous to learn something more about america than this. it is true that dickens had, with his usual conscientiousness, examined and described various interesting public institutions in the states--prisons, asylums, and the like; but the book was not a very full one; it was hardly anything but a sketch-book, with more humour, but with infinitely less poetic spirit, than the _sketch-book_ of the illustrious american author whose friendship had been one of the chief personal gains of dickens's journey. the _american notes_, for which the letters to forster had furnished ample materials, were published in the year of dickens's return, after he had refreshed himself with a merry cornish trip in the company of his old friend, and his two other intimates, "stanny" and "mac." but he had not come home, as he had not gone out, to be idle. on the first day of the following year, , appeared the first number of the story which was to furnish the real _casus discriminis_ between dickens and the enemies, as well no doubt as a very large proportion of the friends, whom he had left behind him across the water. the american scenes in _martin chuzzlewit_ did not, it is true, begin till the fifth number of the story; nor is it probable from the accounts of the sale, which was much smaller than dickens had expected, that these particular episodes at first produced any strong feeling in the english public. but the merits of the book gradually obtained for it a popularity at home which has been surpassed by that of but one or two other of dickens's works; and in proportion to this popularity was the effect exercised by its american chapters. what that effect has been, it would be hypocrisy to question. dickens, it is very clear, had been unable to resist the temptation of at once drawing upon the vast addition to his literary capital as a humourist. that the satire of many of the american scenes in _martin chuzzlewit_ is, as satire, not less true than telling, it needs but a small acquaintance with american journalism and oratory even at the present day to perceive; and the heartrending history of eden, as a type of some of the settlements "vaunted in england as a mine of golden hope," at least had the warrant of something more than hearsay and a look in passing. nor, as has already been observed, would it have been in accordance either with human nature, or with the fitness of things, had dickens allowed his welcome in america to become to him (as he termed it in the suppressed preface to the _notes_) "an iron muzzle disguised beneath a flower or two." but the frankness, to say the least, of the mirror into which he now invited his late hosts to gaze was not likely to produce grateful compliments to its presenter, nor was the effect softened by the despatch with which this _souvenir_ of the "guest of the nation" was pressed upon its attention. no doubt it would have been easy to reflect that only the evil, not the good, sides of social life in america were held up to derision and contempt, and that an honourable american journalist had no more reason to resent the portraiture of mr. jefferson brick than a virtuous english paterfamilias had to quarrel with that of mr. pecksniff. unfortunately, offence is usually taken where offence is meant; and there can be little doubt as to the _animus_ with which dickens had written. only two months after landing at boston dickens had declared to macready, that "however much he liked the ingredients of this great dish, he could not but say that the dish itself went against the grain with him, and that he didn't like it." it was not, and could not be, pleasant for americans to find the "_new york sewer_, in its twelfth thousand, with a whole column of new yorkers to be shown up, and all their names printed," introduced as the first expression of "the bubbling passions of their country;" or to be certified, apropos of a conversation among american "gentlemen" after dinner, that dollars, and dollars only, at the risk of honesty and honour, filled their souls. "no satirist," martin chuzzlewit is told by a candid and open-minded american, "could, i believe, breathe this air." but satire in such passages as these borders too closely on angry invective; and neither the irresistible force nor the earnest pathos of the details which follow can clear away the suspicion that at the bottom lay a desire to depreciate. nor was the general effect of the american episodes in _martin chuzzlewit_ materially modified by their conclusion, to which, with the best of intentions, the author could not bring himself to give a genuinely complimentary turn. the americans did not like all this, and could not be expected to like it. the tone of the whole satire was too savage, and its tenor was too hopelessly one-sided, for it to pass unresented; while much in it was too near the truth to glance off harmless. it is well known that in time dickens came himself to understand this. before quitting america, in , he declared his intention to publish in every future edition of his _american notes_ and _martin chuzzlewit_ his testimony to the magnanimous cordiality of his second reception in the states, and to the amazing changes for the better which he had seen everywhere around him during his second sojourn in the country. but it is not likely that the postscript, all the more since it was added under circumstances so honourable to both sides, has undone, or will undo, the effect of the text. very possibly the americans may, in the eyes of the english people as well as in their own, cease to be chargeable with the faults and foibles satirised by dickens; but the satire itself will live, and will continue to excite laughter and loathing, together with the other satire of the powerful book to which it belongs. for in none of his books is that power, which at times filled their author himself with astonishment, more strikingly and abundantly revealed than in _the life and adventures of martin chuzzlewit_. never was his inventive force more flexible and more at his command; yet none of his books cost him more hard work. the very names of hero and novel were only the final fortunate choice out of a legion of notions; though "pecksniff" as well as "charity" and "mercy" ("not unholy names, i hope," said mr. pecksniff to mrs. todgers) were first inspirations. the ms. text too is full of the outward signs of care. but the author had his reward in the general impression of finish which is conveyed by this book as compared with its predecessors; so that _martin chuzzlewit_ may be described as already one of the masterpieces of dickens's maturity as a writer. oddly enough, the one part of the book which moves rather heavily is the opening chapter, an effort in the mock-heroic, probably suggested by the author's eighteenth century readings. a more original work, however, than _martin chuzzlewit_ was never composed, or one which more freshly displays the most characteristic qualities of its author's genius. though the actual construction of the story is anything but faultless--for what could be more slender than the thread by which the american interlude is attached to the main action, or more wildly improbable than the hazardous stratagem of old martin upon which that action turns?--yet it is so contrived as to fulfil the author's avowed intention of exhibiting under various forms the evil and the folly of selfishness. this vice is capable of both serious and comic treatment, and commended itself in each aspect to dickens as being essentially antagonistic to his moral and artistic ideals of human life. a true comedy of humours thus unfolded itself with the progress of his book, and one for which the types had not been fetched from afar: "your homes the scene; yourselves the actors here," had been the motto which he had at first intended to put upon his title-page. thus, while in "the old-established firm of anthony chuzzlewit and son" selfishness is cultivated as a growth excellent in itself, and the son's sentiment, "do other men, for they would do you," is applauded by his admiring father, in young martin the vice rather resembles a weed strong and rank, yet not so strong but that it gives way at last before a manly endeavour to uproot it. the character of the hero, though very far from heroic, is worked out with that reliance upon the fellow-feeling of candid readers which in our great novelists of the eighteenth century has obtained sympathy for much less engaging personages. more especially is the young man's loss of self-respect in the season of his solitary wretchedness depicted with admirable feeling. it would not, i think, be fanciful to assert that in this story dickens has with equal skill distinguished between two species of unselfishness. mark tapley's is the actively unselfish nature, and though his reiteration of his guiding motive is wearisome and occasionally absurd, yet the power of coming out jolly under unpropitious circumstances is a genuinely english ideal of manly virtue. tom pinch's character, on the other hand, is unselfish from innate sweetness; and never has the art of dickens drawn a type which, while closely approaching the border-line of the grotesque, is yet so charmingly true to nature. grotesque characters proper are numerous enough in this book, but all the others pale before the immortal presence of mrs. gamp. she had been traced to an original in real life, but her literary right to stand on her own legs has been most properly vindicated against any supposition of likeness to the different type, the subject of leigh hunt's _monthly nurse_--a paper, by-the-way, distinguished by shrewdness as well as feeling. imagination has never taken bolder flights than those requisite for the development of mrs. gamp's mental processes: "'and which of all them smoking monsters is the ankworks boat, i wonder? goodness me!' cried mrs. gamp. "'what boat did you want?' asked ruth. "'the ankworks package,' mrs. gamp replied. 'i will not deceive you, my sweet. why should i?' "'that is the antwerp packet in the middle,' said ruth. "'and i wish it was in jonadge's belly, i do!' cried mrs. gamp, appearing to confound the prophet with the whale in this miraculous aspiration." a hardly inferior exertion of creative power was needed in order to fix in distinct forms the peculiarities of her diction, nay, to sustain the unique rhythm of her speech: "'i says to mrs. harris,' mrs. gamp continued, 'only t' other day, the last monday fortnight as ever dawned upon this piljian's projiss of a mortal wale; i says to mrs. harris, when she says to me, "years and our trials, mrs. gamp, sets marks upon us all"--"say not the words, mrs. harris, if you and me is to be continual friends, for sech is not the case."'" yet the reality of mrs. gamp has been acknowledged to be such that she has been the death of her sisterhood in a great part (to say the least) of our hospital wards and sick-rooms; and as for her oddities of tongue, they are, with the exception of her boldest figures, but the glorified type of all the utterances heard to this day from charwomen, laundresses, and single gentlemen's house-keepers. compared with her, even her friend and patron, mr. mould, and her admirer, mr. bailey, and in other parts of the book the low company at todgers's and the fine company at mr. tigg montague's sink into insignificance. the aged chuffey is a grotesque study of a very different kind, of which the pathos never loses itself in exaggeration. as for pecksniff, he is as far out of the range of grotesque as, except when moralising over the banisters at todgers's, he is out of that of genial characters. he is the richest comic type, while at the same time one of the truest, among the innumerable reproductions in english imaginative literature of our favourite national vice--hypocrisy. his friendliness is the very quintessence of falsehood: "mr. pinch," he cries to poor tom over the currant-wine and captain's biscuits, "if you spare the bottle, we shall quarrel!" his understanding with his daughters is the very perfection of guile, for they confide in him, even when ignorant of his intentions, because of their certainty "that in all he does he has his purpose straight and full before him." and he is a man who understands the times as well as the land in which he lives; for, as m. taine has admirably pointed out, where tartuffe would have been full of religious phrases, pecksniff presents himself as a humanitarian philosopher. comic art has never more successfully fulfilled its highest task after its truest fashion than in this picture of the rise and fall of a creature who never ceases to be laughable, and yet never ceases to be loathsome. nothing is wanting in this wonderful book to attest the exuberance of its author's genius. the kindly poetic spirit of the christmas books breathes in sweet ruth pinch; and the tragic power of the closing chapters of _oliver twist_ is recalled by the picture of jonas before and after his deed of blood. i say nothing of merely descriptive passages, though in none of his previous stories had dickens so completely mastered the secret of describing scenery and weather in their relation to his action or his characters. _martin chuzzlewit_ ran its course of twenty monthly numbers; but already a week or two before the appearance of the first of these, dickens had bestowed upon the public, young and old, the earliest of his delightful _christmas books_. among all his productions perhaps none connected him so closely, and as it were personally, with his readers. nor could it well have been otherwise; since nowhere was he so directly intent upon promoting kindliness of feeling among men--more especially good-will, founded upon respect, towards the poor. cheerfulness was, from his point of view, twin-sister to charity; and sulkiness, like selfishness, belonged, as an appropriate ort, to the dust-heap of "tom tiddler's ground." what more fit than that he should mingle such sentiments as these with the holly and the mistletoe of the only english holiday in which remains a vestige of religious and poetic feeling? beyond all doubt there is much that is tedious in the _cultus_ of father christmas, and there was yet more in the days when the lower classes in england had not yet come to look upon a sufficiency of periodical holidays as part of their democratic inheritance. but that dickens should constitute himself its chief minister and interpreter was nothing but fit. already one of the _sketches_ had commended a christmas-dinner at which a seat is not denied even to "poor aunt margaret;" and mr. pickwick had never been more himself than in the christmas game of blind-man's-buff at dingley dell, in which "the poor relations caught the people who they thought would like it," and, when the game flagged, "got caught themselves." but he now sought to reach the heart of the subject; and the freshness of his fancy enabled him delightfully to vary his illustrations of a text of which it can do no man harm to be reminded in as well as out of season. dickens's christmas books were published in the christmas seasons of - , and of . if the palm is to be granted to any one among them above its fellows, few readers would hesitate, i think, to declare themselves in favour of _the cricket on the hearth_, as tender and delicate a domestic idyl as any literature can boast. but the informing spirit proper of these productions, the desire to stir up a feeling of benevolence, more especially towards the poor and lowly, nowhere shows itself more conspicuously than in the earliest, _a christmas carol in prose_, and nowhere more combatively than in the second in date, the "goblin story" of _the chimes_. of the former its author declared that he "wept and laughed and wept again" over it, "and excited himself in a most extraordinary manner in the composition; and thinking thereof he walked about the black streets of london, fifteen and twenty miles many a night, when all the sober folks had gone to bed." simple in its romantic design like one of andersen's little tales, the _christmas carol_ has never lost its hold upon a public in whom it has called forth christmas thoughts which do not all centre on "holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch;" and the cratchit household, with tiny tim, who did not die, are living realities even to those who have not seen mr. toole--an actor after dickens's own heart--as the father of the family, shivering in his half-yard of comforter. in _the chimes_, composed in self-absorbed solitude at genoa, he imagined that "he had written a tremendous book, and knocked the _carol_ out of the field." though the little work failed to make "the great uproar" he had confidently anticipated, its purpose was certainly unmistakable; but the effect of hard exaggerations such as mr. filer and alderman cute, and of a burlesque absurdity like sir joseph bowley, was too dreary to be counteracted by the more pleasing passages of the tale. in his novel _hard times_ dickens afterwards reproduced some of the ideas, and repeated some of the artistic mistakes, to be found in _the chimes_, though the design of the later work was necessarily of a more mixed kind. the christmas book has the tone of a _doctrinaire_ protest against _doctrinaires_, and, as forster has pointed out, is manifestly written under the influence of carlyle. but its main doctrine was one which dickens lost no opportunity of proclaiming, and which here breaks forth in the form of an indignant appeal by richard fern, the outlaw in spite of himself: "gentlefolks, be not hard upon the poor!" no feeling was more deeply rooted in dickens's heart than this; nor could he forbear expressing it by invective and satire as well as by humorous and pathetic pictures of his clients, among whom trotty veck too takes a representative place. _the cricket on the hearth_, as a true work of art, is not troubled about its moral, easily though half-a-dozen plain morals might be drawn from it; a purer and more lightsome creation of the fancy has never been woven out of homespun materials. of the same imaginative type, though not executed with a fineness so surpassing, is _the battle of life_, the treatment of a fancy in which dickens appears to have taken great pleasure. indeed, he declared that he was "thoroughly wretched at having to use the idea for so short a story." as it stands, it is a pretty idyl of resignation, very poetical in tone as well as in conception, though here and there, notwithstanding the complaint just quoted, rather lengthy. it has been conjectured, with much probability, that the success which had attended dramatic versions of dickens's previous christmas books caused "those admirable comedians, mr. and mrs. keeley," to be in his mind "when he drew the charming characters of britain and clemency newcome." at all events the pair serve as good old bits of english pottery to relieve the delicate sèvres sentiment of grace and marion. in the last of dickens's christmas books, _the haunted man and the ghost's bargain_, he returns once more to a machinery resembling those of the earliest. but the fancy on which the action turns is here more forced, and the truth which it illustrates is after all only a half-truth, unless taken as part of the greater truth, that the moral conditions of man's life are more easily marred than mended. once more the strength of the book lies in its humorous side. the picture of the good milly's humble protégés, the tetterby family, is to remind us that happiness consists precisely in that which the poor and the rich may alike obtain, but which it is so difficult for the poor, amidst their shifts and shabbiness, to keep fresh and green. even without the evil influence of an enchanted chemist, it is hard enough for the mrs. tetterbys of real life always to be ministering angels to their families; for the hand of every little tetterby not occasionally to be against the other little tetterbys, and even for a devoted johnny's temper never to rise against moloch. all the more is that to be cherished in the poor which makes them love one another. more than one of these christmas books, both the humour and the sentiment of which are so peculiarly english, was written on foreign soil. dickens's general conceptions of life, not less than his literary individuality, had been formed before he became a traveller and sojourner in foreign lands. in italy, as elsewhere, a man will, in a sense, find only what he takes there. at all events the changed life brought with it for dickens, though not at once, a refreshment and a brief repose which invigorated him for some of the truest efforts of his genius. his resolution to spend some time on the continent had not been taken rashly, although it was at least hastened by business disappointments. he seems at this time, as was virtually inevitable, to have seen a good deal of society in london, and more especially to have become a welcome guest of lady blessington and count d'orsay at gore house. moreover, his services were beginning to be occasionally claimed as a public speaker; and altogether he must have found more of his time than he wished slipping through his hands. lastly, he very naturally desired to see what was to be seen, and to enjoy what was to be enjoyed, by one gifted with a sleepless observation and animated by a genuine love of nature and art. the letters, public and private, which he wrote from italy, are not among the most interesting productions of his pen; even his humour seems now and then ill at ease in them, and his descriptive power narrow in its range. his eyes were occasionally veiled, as are those of most travellers in quest of "first impressions." thus i cannot but think his picture of naples inadequate, and that of its population unjust. again, although he may have told the truth in asserting that the eternal city, at first sight, "looked like--i am half afraid to write the word--like london," and although his general description of rome has been pronounced correct by competent judgment, yet it is impossible to ignore in it the undertone of bow bells. on the other hand, not even in his newspaper letters can he be said to fall into affectation; his impressions are never given pretentiously, and are accordingly seldom altogether worthless; while his criticisms of works of art, when offered, are candid and shrewd, besides being invariably his own. thus, there was never anything truer in its way than the account which he gave to maclise of his first impressions a few days after his arrival at albaro, a suburb of genoa, where he found himself settled with his family in july, . he re-christened his abode, the villa bagnerello ("it sounds romantic, but signor banderello is a butcher hard by"), "the pink jail." here, with abundance of space and time, and with a view from his writing-table of "the sea, the mountains, the washed-out villas, the vineyards, the blistering hot fort, with a sentry on the drawbridge standing in a bit of shadow no broader than his own musket, and the sky," he began his _villeggiatura_, and resolving not to know, or to be known where it could be helped, looked round him at his leisure. this looking round very naturally took up some time; for the circuit of dickens's daily observation was unusually wide. soon he was seeking winter-quarters in genoa it self, and by october was established in the palazzo peschiere, situate on a height within the walls of the city, and overlooking the whole of it, with the harbour and the sea beyond. "there is not in italy, they say (and i believe them), a lovelier residence." even here, however, among fountains and frescoes, it was some time before he could set steadily to work at his christmas story. at last the bells of genoa chimed a title for it into his restless ears; and, though longing with a nostalgy that was specially strong upon him at periods of mental excitement for his nightly walks in the london streets, he settled down to his task. i have already described the spirit in which he executed it. no sooner was the writing done than the other half of his double artist-nature was seized with another craving. the rage which possesses authors to read their writings aloud to sympathizing ears, if such can be found, is a well-worn theme of satire; but in dickens the actor was almost as strong as the author, and he could not withstand the desire to interpret in person what he had written, and to watch its effect with his own eyes and ears. in the first days of november, therefore, he set off from genoa, and made his way home by bologna, venice, milan, and the simplon pass. of this journey his _pictures from italy_ contains the record, including a chapter about venice, pitched in an unusually poetic key. but not all the memories of all the doges could have stayed the execution of his set purpose. on the th of november he reached london, and on the d of december he was reading the _chimes_, from the proofs, to the group of friends immortalised in maclise's inimitable sketch. three days afterwards the reading was repeated to a slightly different audience; and, indeed, it would seem, from an enthusiastic postscript to a letter addressed to his wife, that he had read at least part of the book to macready on the night before that of the first conclave. the distance was no doubt wide between the intimacy of these friendly readings and the stormy seas of public audiences; but, however unconsciously, the first step had been taken. it may be worth noticing, in connexion with this, that the scheme of a private dramatic performance, which was to occupy much of dickens's "leisure" in the year following, was proposed for the first time on the occasion of the first reading of the _chimes_. before christmas he was back again in his "italian bowers." if the strain of his effort in writing the _chimes_ had been severe, the holiday which followed was long. in the later winter and early spring of he and the ladies of his family saw rome and naples, and in june their italian life came to an end, and they were in london before the close of the month. projects of work remained in abeyance until the absorbing fancy of a private play had been realised with an earnestness such as only dickens could carry into his amusements, and into this particular amusement above all others. the play was _every man in his humour_; the theatre, the little house in dean street, of whose chequered fortunes no theatrical history has succeeded in exhausting the memories; and the manager was, of course, "bobadil," as dickens now took to signing himself. his joking remark to macready, that he "thought of changing his present mode of life, and was open to an engagement," was after all not so very wide of the mark. according to the inevitable rule in such things, he and his friends--among whom mark lemon, douglas jerrold, and forster were conspicuous--were "induced" to repeat their performance at a larger house for a public charity, and later in the year they played _the elder brother_ for miss fanny kelly's benefit. leigh hunt, whose opinion, however, could hardly fail to be influenced by the circumstances under which ben jonson's comedy was afterwards performed by the amateurs, and who was no longer the youthful draco of the _news_, afterwards spoke very highly of dickens's bobadil. it had "a spirit in it of intellectual apprehension beyond anything the existing stage has shown." his acting in the farce which followed leigh hunt thought "throughout admirable; quite rich and filled up." christmas, , had passed, and _the cricket on the hearth_ had graced the festival, when an altogether new chapter in dickens's life seemed about to open for him. the experience through which he now passed was one on which his biographer, for reasons easy to guess, has touched very slightly, while his _letters_ throw no additional light on it at all. most people, i imagine, would decline to pronounce upon the qualifications requisite in an editor of a great political journal. yet, literary power of a kind which acts upon the multitude rapidly and powerfully, habits of order so confirmed as to have almost become second nature, and an interest in the affairs of the nation fed by an ardent enthusiasm for its welfare--these would seem to go some way towards making up the list. of all these qualifications dickens at various times gave proof, and they sufficed in later years to make him the successful conductor of a weekly journal which aimed at the enlightenment hardly less than at the entertainment of no inconsiderable portion of the british public. but, in the first place, political journalism proper is a craft of which very few men have been known to become masters by intuition, and dickens had as yet had no real experience of it. his zealous efforts as a reporter can hardly be taken into account here. he had for a short time edited a miscellany of amusement, and had failed to carry beyond a beginning the not very carefully considered scheme of another. recently, he had resumed the old notion of _master humphrey's clock_ in a different shape; but nothing had come of his projected cheap weekly paper for the present, while its title, "_the cricket_," was reserved for a different use. since his reporting days he had, however, now and then appeared among the lighter combatants of political literature. in he had thrown a few squibs in the _examiner_ at sir robert peel and the tories; and from about the same date he had, besides occasionally contributing to the literary and theatrical columns of the same weekly journal, now and then discussed in it subjects of educational or other general interest.[ ] finally, it is stated by forster that in , when the greatest political struggle of the last generation was approaching its climax, dickens contributed some articles to the _morning chronicle_ which attracted attention and led to negotiations with the editor that arrived at no positive result. if these contributions treated any political questions whatever, they were, with the exception of the few _examiner_ papers, and of the letters to the _daily news_ to be mentioned in this chapter, the only articles of this kind which, to my knowledge, he ever wrote. for, from first to last, whether in the days when oliver twist suffered under the maladministration of the poor-law, or in those when arthur clennam failed to make an impression upon the circumlocution office, politics were with dickens a sentiment rather than a study or a pursuit. with his habits of application and method, it might have taken but a very short time for him to train himself as a politician; but this short time never actually occurred. there is, however, no reason to suppose that when, in , a feeler was put out by some more or less influential persons at reading, with regard to his willingness to be nominated for the representation of that borough, he had any reason for declining the proposal besides that which he stated in his replies. he could not afford the requisite expense; and he was determined not to forfeit his independence through accepting government--by which i hope he means whig party--aid for meeting the cost of the contest. still, in , though slack of faith in the "people who govern us," he had not yet become the irreclaimable political sceptic of later days; and without being in any way bound to the whigs, he had that general confidence in lord john russell which was all they could expect from their irregular followers. as yet, however, he had shown no sign of any special aptitude or inclination for political work, though if he addressed himself to questions affecting the health and happiness of the humbler classes, he was certain to bring to them the enthusiasm of a genuine sympathy. and a question of this kind was uppermost in englishmen's minds in this year , when at last the time was drawing near for the complete abolition of the tax upon the staple article of the poor man's daily food. the establishment of a new london morning paper, on the scale to which those already in existence had attained, was a serious matter in itself; but it seems to have been undertaken in no spirit of diffidence by the projectors and first proprietors of the _daily news_. with the early history of the experiment i cannot here concern myself; it is, however, an open secret that the rate of expenditure of the new journal was at first on a most liberal, not to say lavish, scale, and that the losses of the proprietors were for many years very large indeed. established on those principles of radicalism which, on the whole, it has in both good and evil times consistently maintained, the _daily news_ was to rise superior to the opportunism, if not to the advertisements, of the _times_, and to outstrip the cautious steps of the whig _morning chronicle_. special attention was to be given to those industrial enterprises with which the world teemed in that speculative age, and no doubt also to those social questions affecting the welfare and elevation of the masses and the relations between employers and employed, which were attracting more and more of the public attention. but in the first instance the actual political situation would oblige the new journal to direct the greater part of its energies to one particular question, which had, in truth, already been threshed out by the organs of public opinion, and as to which the time for action had at last arrived. no liberal journal projected in , and started early in , could fail to concentrate its activity for a time upon the question of the corn-laws, to which the session of was to give the death-blow. it is curious enough, on opening the first number of the _daily news_, dated january , , to find one's self transplanted into the midst of one of the most memorable episodes of our more recent political history. the very advertisements of subscriptions to the anti-corn-law league, with the good old manchester names figuring conspicuously among them, have a historic interest; and the report of a disputation on free-trade at norwich, in which all the hits are made by mr. cobden, another report of a great london meeting on the same subject, and some verses concerning the people's want of its bread, probably written by mr. charles mackay, occupy an entire page of the paper. railway news and accounts of railway meetings fill about the same space; while the foreign news is extremely meagre. there remain the leading articles, four in number--of which three are on the burning question of the day--and the first of a series of _travelling letters written on the road, by charles dickens_ (the avignon chapter in the _pictures from italy_.)[ ] the hand of the editor is traceable only in this _feuilleton_ and in the opening article of the new paper. on internal evidence i conclude that this article, which has little to distinguish it from similar manifestoes, unless it be a moderation of tone that would not have suited captain shandon, was not written by dickens alone or unassisted. but his hand is traceable in the concluding paragraphs, which contain the following wordy but spirited assertion of a cause that dickens lost no opportunity of advocating: "we seek, so far as in us lies, to elevate the character of the public press in england. we believe it would attain a much higher position, and that those who wield its powers would be infinitely more respected as a class, and an important one, if it were purged of a disposition to sordid attacks _upon itself_, which only prevails in england and america. we discern nothing in the editorial plural that justifies a gentleman, or body of gentlemen, in discarding a gentleman's forbearance and responsibility, and venting ungenerous spleen against a rival, by a perversion of a great power--a power, however, which is only great so long as it is good and honest. the stamp on newspapers is not like the stamp on universal medicine-bottles, which licenses anything, however false and monstrous; and we are sure this misuse of it, in any notorious case, not only offends and repels right-minded men in that particular instance, but naturally, though unjustly, involves the whole press, as a pursuit or profession, in the feeling so awakened, and places the character of all who are associated with it at a great disadvantage. "entering on this adventure of a new daily journal in a spirit of honourable competition and hope of public usefulness, we seek, in our new station, at once to preserve our own self-respect, and to be respected, for ourselves and for it, by our readers. therefore, we beg them to receive, in this our first number, the assurance that no recognition or interchange of trade abuse, by us, shall be the destruction of either sentiment; and that we intend proceeding on our way, and theirs, without stooping to any such flowers by the roadside." i am unable to say how many days it was after the appearance of this first number that dickens, or the proprietors of the journal, or, as seems most likely, both sides simultaneously, began to consider the expediency of ending the connexion between them. he was "revolving plans for quitting the paper" on january , and resigned his editorship on february following. in the interval, with the exception of two or three more of the _travelling letters_, very few signs of his hand appear in the journal. the number of january , however, contains an editorial contribution, in the shape of "a new song, but an old story," concerning _the british lion_, his accomplishment of eating corn-law leagues, his principal keeper, _wan humbug_, and so forth. this it would be cruel to unearth. a more important indication of a line of writing that his example may have helped to domesticate in the _daily news_ appears in the number of february , which contains a long letter, with his signature, urging the claims of ragged schools, and giving a graphic account of his visit to one in saffron hill. after he had placed his resignation in the hands of the proprietors, and was merely holding on at his post till the time of his actual withdrawal, he was naturally not anxious to increase the number of his contributions. the _hymn of the wiltshire labourers_--which appeared on february --is, of course, an echo of the popular cry of the day; but the subtler pathos of dickens never found its way into his verse. the most important, and so far as i know, the last, of his contributions to the _daily news_, consisted of a series of three letters (march , , and ) on capital punishment. it was a question which much occupied him at various times of his life, and on which it cannot be shown that he really changed his opinions. the letters in the _daily news_, based in part on the arguments of one of the ablest men of his day, the "unlucky" mr. wakefield, are an interesting contribution to the subject; and the first of them, with its hogarthian sketch of the temptation and fall of thomas hocker, sunday-school teacher and murderer, would be worth reprinting as an example of dickens's masterly use of the argument _ex concreto_. the few traditions which linger in the _daily news_ office concerning dickens as editor of the paper, agree with the conjecture that his labours on its behalf were limited, or very nearly so, to the few pieces enumerated above. of course there must have been some inevitable business; but of this much may have been taken off his hands by his sub-editor, mr. w. h. wills, who afterwards became his _alter ego_ at the office of his own weekly journal and his intimate personal friend. in the days of the first infancy of the _daily news_, mr. britton, the present publisher of that journal, was attached to the editor as his personal office attendant; and he remembers very vividly what little there can have been to remember about dickens's performance of his functions. his habit, following a famous precedent, was to make up for coming late--usually about half-past ten p.m.--by going away early--usually not long after midnight. there were frequently sounds of merriment, if not of modest revelry, audible from the little room at the office in lombard street, where the editor sat in conclave with douglas jerrold and one or two other intimates. mr. britton is not sure that the work did not sometimes begin _after the editor had left_; but at all events he cannot recollect that dickens ever wrote anything at the office--that he ever, for instance, wrote about a debate that had taken place in parliament on the same night. and he sums up his reminiscences by declaring his conviction that dickens was "not a newspaper man, at least not when in 'the chair.'" and so dickens seems on this occasion to have concluded; for when, not long after quitting the paper, he republished with additions the _travelling letters_ which during his conduct of it had been its principal ornaments, he spoke of "a brief mistake he had made, not long ago, in disturbing the old relations between himself and his readers, and departing for a moment from his old pursuits." he had been virtually out of "the chair" almost as soon as he had taken it. his successor, but only for a few months, was his friend forster. never has captive released made a more eager or a better use of his recovered freedom. before the summer had fairly set in dickens had let his house, and was travelling with his family up the rhine towards switzerland. this was, i think, dickens's only passage through germany, which in language and literature remained a _terra incognita_ to him, while in various ways so well known to his friendly rivals, lord lytton and thackeray. he was on the track of poor thomas hood's old journeyings, whose facetious recollections of rhineland he had some years before reviewed in a spirit of admiration rather for the author than for the book, funny as it is. his point of destination was lausanne, where he had resolved to establish his household for the summer, and where by the middle of june they were most agreeably settled in a little villa or cottage which did not belie its name of rosemont, and from which they looked upon the lake and the mighty alpine chain beyond. if rome had reminded dickens of london, the green woods near lausanne recalled to him his kentish glades; but he had the fullest sense and the truest enjoyment of the grandeurs of alpine scenery, and lost no opportunity of becoming acquainted with them. thus his letters contain an admirable description (not untinged with satire) of a trip to the great st. bernard and its convent, many years afterwards reproduced in one of the few enjoyable chapters of the second part of _little dorrit_. more interesting, however, because more characteristic, is the freshness and candour with which in switzerland, where by most english visitors the native inhabitants are "taken for granted," he set himself to observe, and, so far as he could, to appreciate, the people among whom he was a temporary resident. his solutions of some of the political difficulties, which were mostly connected with religious differences, at that time rife in switzerland, are palpably one-sided. but the generosity of spirit which reveals itself in his kindly recognition of the fine qualities of the people around him is akin to what was best and noblest in dickens. he had, at the same time, been peculiarly fortunate in finding at lausanne a circle of pleasant acquaintances, to whom he dedicated the christmas book which he wrote among the roses and the foliage of his lake-side cottage. of course _the battle of life_ was read aloud by its author to so kindly an audience. the day of parting, however, soon came; on the th of november _paterfamilias_ had his "several tons of luggage, other tons of servants, and other tons of children," in travelling order, and soon had safely stowed them away at paris "in the most preposterous house in the world. the like of it cannot, and so far as my knowledge goes, does not, exist in any other part of the globe. the bedrooms are like opera-boxes; the dining-rooms, staircases, and passages quite inexplicable. the dining-room"--which in another letter he describes as "mere midsummer madness"--"is a sort of cavern, painted (ceiling and all) to represent a grove, with unaccountable bits of looking-glass sticking in among the branches of the trees. there is a gleam of reason in the drawing-room, but it is approached through a series of small chambers, like the joints in a telescope, which are hung with inscrutable drapery." here, with the exception of two brief visits to england, paid before his final departure, he spent three months, familiarising himself for the first time of his life with the second of his "two cities." dickens came to know the french language well enough to use it with ease, if not with elegance; and he lost no opportunity, it need hardly be said, of resorting to the best of schools for the purpose. macready, previously addressed from "altorf," had made him acquainted with regnier, of the théâtre français, who in his turn had introduced him to the greenroom of the house of molière. other theatres were diligently visited by him and forster, when the latter arrived on a visit; and celebrities were polite and hospitable to their distinguished english _confrère_. with these, however, dickens was not cosmopolitan enough to consort except in passing; the love of literary society _because_ it is literary society was at no time one of his predilections or foibles. the streets of paris were to him more than its _salons_, more even than its theatres. they are so to a larger number of englishmen than that which cares to confess it, but dickens would have been the last to disown the impeachment. they were the proper sphere for his powers of humorous observation, as he afterwards showed in more than one descriptive paper as true to life as any of his london _sketches_. and, moreover, he _needed_ the streets for the work which he had in hand. _dombey and son_ had been begun at rosemont, and the first of its twenty monthly numbers had been published in october, . no reader of the book is likely to forget how, after writing the chapter which relates the death of little paul, dickens during the greater part of the night wandered restlessly with a heavy heart about the paris streets. sooner, however, than he had intended, his residence abroad had to come to a close; and early in he and his family were again in london. _dombey and son_ has, perhaps, been more criticised than any other amongst the stories of its author; and yet it certainly is not the one which has been least admired, or least loved. dickens himself, in the brief preface which he afterwards prefixed to the story, assumed a half-defiant air which sits ill upon the most successful author, but which occasionally he was tempted to assume. before condescending to defend the character of mr. dombey as in accordance with both probability and experience, he "made so bold as to believe that the faculty (or the habit) of correctly observing the characters of men is a rare one." yet, though the drawing of this character is only one of the points which have been objected against the story, not only did the book at the time of publication far surpass its predecessor in popularity, but it has, i believe, always preserved to itself a special congregation of enthusiastic admirers. manifestly, this novel is one of its author's most ambitious endeavours. in it, more distinctly even than in _chuzzlewit_, he has chosen for his theme one of the chief vices of human nature, and has striven to show what pride cannot achieve, what it cannot conquer, what it cannot withstand. this central idea gives to the story, throughout a most varied succession of scenes, a unity of action to be found in few of dickens's earlier works. on the other hand, _dombey and son_ shares with these earlier productions, and with its successor, _david copperfield_, the freshness of invention and spontaneous flow of both humour and pathos which at times are wanting in the more powerfully conceived and more carefully constructed romances of dickens's later years. if there be any force at all in the common remark that the most interesting part of the book ends together with the life of little paul, the censure falls upon the whole design of the author. little paul, in something besides the ordinary meaning of the words, was born to die; and though, like the writer, most readers may have dreaded the hour which was to put an end to that frail life, yet in this case there could be no question--such as was possible in the story of little nell--of any other issue. indeed, deep as is the pathos of the closing scene, its beauty is even surpassed by those which precede it. in death itself there is release for a child as for a man, and for those sitting by the pillow of the patient; but it is the gradual approach of death which seems hardest of all for the watchers to bear; it is the sinking of hope which seems even sadder than its extinction. what old fashion could that be, paul wondered with a palpitating heart, that was so visibly expressed in him, so plainly seen by so many people? every heart is softened and every eye dimmed as the innocent child passes on his way to his grave. the hand of god's angel is on him; he is no longer altogether of this world. the imagination which could picture and present this mysterious haze of feeling, through which the narrative moves, half like a reality, half like a dream, is that of a true poet, and of a great one. what even the loss of his son could not effect in mr. dombey is to be accomplished in the progress of the story by a yet stronger agency than sorrow. his pride is to be humbled to the dust, where he is to be sought and raised up by the love of his despised and ill-used daughter. upon the relations between this pair, accordingly, it was necessary for the author to expend the greatest care, and upon the treatment of those relations the criticism to which the character of mr. dombey has been so largely subjected must substantially turn. the unfavourable judgments passed upon it have, in my opinion, not been altogether unjust. the problem obviously was to show how the father's cold indifference towards the daughter gradually becomes jealousy, as he finds that upon her is concentrated, first, the love of his innocent little son, and then that of his haughty second wife; and how hereupon this jealousy deepens into hate. but, unless we are to suppose that mr. dombey hated his daughter from the first, the disfavour shown by him on her account to young walter gay remains without adequate explanation. his dislike of florence is not manifestly founded upon his jealousy of what mrs. chick calls her brother's "infatuation" for her; and the main motives at work in the unhappy man are either not very skilfully kept asunder, or not very intelligibly intermixed. nor are the later stages of the relations between father and daughter altogether satisfactorily conceived. the momentary yielding of mr. dombey, after his "coming home" with his new wife, is natural and touching; but his threat to visit his daughter with the consequences of her step-mother's conduct is sheer brutality. the passage in which mr. dombey's ultimatum to mrs. dombey is conveyed by him in her presence through a third person is so artificial as to fall not very far short of absurdity. the closing scene which leads to the flight of florence is undeniably powerful; but it is the development of the relations between the pair in which the art of the author is in my judgment occasionally at fault. as to the general effect of the latter part of the story--or rather of its main plot--which again has been condemned as melodramatic and unnatural, a distinction should be drawn between its incidents and its characters. neither edith dombey nor mr. carker is a character of real life. the pride of the former comes very near to bad breeding, and her lapses into sentiment seem artificial lapses. how differently thackeray would have managed the "high words" between her and her frivolous mother! how differently, for that matter, he _has_ managed a not altogether dissimilar scene in the _newcomes_ between ethel newcome and old lady kew! as for mr. carker, with his white teeth and glistening gums, who calls his unhappy brother "spaniel," and contemplates a life of sensual ease in sicily, he has the semi-reality of the stage. possibly the french stage had helped to suggest the _scène de la pièce_ between the fugitives at dijon--an effective situation, but one which many a novelist might have worked out not less skilfully than dickens. his own master-hand, however, re-asserts itself in the wondrously powerful narrative of carker's flight and death. here again he excites terror--as in the same book he had evoked pity--by foreshadowing, without prematurely revealing, the end. we know what the morning is to bring which rises in awful tranquillity over the victim of his own sins; and, as in turner's wild but powerful picture, the engine made by the hand of man for peaceful purposes seems a living agent of wrath.[ ] no other of dickens's books is more abundantly stocked than this with genuinely comic characters; but nearly all of them, in accordance with the pathetic tone which is struck at the outset, and which never dies out till the story has run its course, are in a more subdued strain of humour. lord jeffrey was, i think, warranted in his astonishment that dickens should devote so much pains to characters like mrs. chick and miss tox. probably the habit remained with him from his earliest times of authorship, when he had not always distinguished very accurately between the humorous and the _bizarre_. but polly and the toodles household, mrs. pipchin and her "select infantine boarding-house," and the whole of doctor blimber's establishment, from the doctor himself down to mr. toots, and up again, in the scale of intellect, to mr. feeder, b.a., are among the most admirable of all the great humourist's creations. against this ample provision for her poor little brother's nursing and training florence has to set but her one susan nipper; but she is a host in herself, an absolutely original character among the thousands of _soubrettes_ that are known to comedy and fiction, and one of the best tonic mixtures ever composed out of much humour and not a few grains of pathos. her tartness has a cooling flavour of its own; but it is the mrs. pipchinses only upon whom she acts, as their type acted upon her, "like early gooseberries." of course she has a favourite figure of speech belonging to herself, which rhetoricians would probably class among the figures "working by surplusage:" "'your toxes and your chickses may draw out my two front double teeth, mrs. richards, but that's no reason why i need offer 'em the whole set.'" dickens was to fall very largely into this habit of "labelling" his characters, as it has been called, by particular tricks or terms of speech; and there is a certain excess in this direction already in _dombey and son_, where not only miss nipper and captain cuttle and mr. toots, but major bagstock too and cousin feenix, are thus furnished forth. but the invention is still so fresh and the play of humour so varied, that this mannerism cannot be said as yet seriously to disturb them. a romantic charm of a peculiar kind clings to honest captain cuttle and the quaint home over which he mounts guard during the absence of its owner. the nautical colouring and concomitant fun apart--for only smollett could have drawn jack bunsby's fellow, though the character in his hands would have been differently accentuated--dickens has never approached more nearly to the manner of sir walter scott than in this singularly attractive part of his book. elsewhere the story passes into that sphere of society in describing which dickens was, as a novelist, rarely very successful. but though edith is cold and unreal, there is, it cannot be denied, human nature in the pigments and figments of her hideous old mother; and, to outward appearance at all events, the counterparts of her apoplectic admirer, major bagstock, still pace those pavements and promenades which it suits them to frequent. cousin feenix is likewise very far from impossible, and is besides extremely delightful--and a good fellow too at bottom, so that the sting of the satire is here taken away. on the other hand, the meeting between the _sacs et parchemins_ at mr. dombey's house is quite out of focus. the book has other heights and depths, and pleasant and unpleasant parts and passages. but enough has been said to recall the exuberant creative force, and the marvellous strength of pathos and humour which _dombey and son_ proves that dickens, now near the very height of his powers as a writer of fiction, possessed. in one of his public readings many years afterwards, when he was reciting the adventures of little dombey, he narrates that "a very good fellow," whom he noticed in the stalls, could not refrain from wiping the tears out of his eyes as often as he thought that toots was coming on. and just as toots had become a reality to this good fellow, so toots and toots's little friend, and divers other personages in this story, have become realities to half the world that reads the english tongue, and to many besides. what higher praise could be given to this wonderful book? of all the works of its author none has more powerfully and more permanently taken hold of the imagination of its readers. though he conjured up only pictures familiar to us from the aspect of our own streets and our own homes, he too wielded a wizard's wand. after the success of _dombey_ it might have seemed that nothing further was wanting to crown the prosperity of dickens's literary career. while the publication of this story was in progress he had concluded arrangements for the issue of his collected writings, in a cheap edition, which began in the year , and which he dedicated "to the english people, in whose approval, if the books be true in spirit, they will live, and out of whose memory, if they be false, they will very soon die." he who could thus proudly appeal to posterity was already, beyond all dispute, the people's chosen favourite among its men of letters. that position he was not to lose so long as he lived; but even at this time the height had not been reached to which (in the almost unanimous judgment of those who love his writings) he was in his next work to attain. chapter iv. "david copperfield." [ - .] the five years, reckoned roughly, from the beginning of to the close of , were most assuredly the season in which the genius of dickens produced its richest and rarest fruit. when it opened he was still at work upon _dombey and son_; towards its end he was already engaged upon the earliest portions of _bleak house_. and it was during the interval that he produced a book cherished by himself with an affection differing in kind, as well as in degree, from the common fondness of an author for his literary offspring, and a pearl without a peer amongst the later fictions of our english school--_david copperfield_. to this period also belong, it is true, not a few lesser productions of the same ready pen; for the last of his christmas books was written in , and in his weekly periodical, _household words_, began to run its course. there was much play too in these busy years, but all more or less of the kind which his good-humoured self-irony afterwards very correctly characterised: "'play!' said thomas idle. 'here is a man goes systematically tearing himself to pieces, and putting himself through an incessant course of training, as if he were always under articles to fight a match for the champion's belt, and he calls it "play." play!' exclaimed thomas idle, scornfully contemplating his one boot in the air; 'you can't play. you don't know what it is. you make work of everything!'" "a man," added the same easy philosopher, "who can do nothing by halves appears to me to be a fearful man." and as at all times in dickens's life, so most emphatically in these years when his physical powers seemed ready to meet every demand, and the elasticity of his mind seemed equal to every effort, he did nothing by halves. within this short space of time not only did he write his best book, and conduct a weekly journal of solid merit through its most trying stage, but he also established his reputation as one of the best "unpolitical" speakers in the country; and as an amateur actor and manager successfully weathered what may be called three theatrical seasons, to the labours and glories of which it would be difficult to find a parallel even in the records of that most exacting of all social amusements. one likes to think of him in these years of vigorous manhood, no longer the fair youth with the flowing locks of maclise's charming portrait, but not yet, i suppose, altogether the commanding and rather stern presence of later years. mr. frith's portrait was not painted till , by which time the face occasionally had a more set expression, and the entire personality a more weather-beaten appearance, than this well-known picture suggests. but even eight years before this date, when dickens was acting in lord lytton's comedy the part of a young man of _mode_, mr. sala's well-known comparison of his outward man to "some prosperous sea-captain home from a sea-voyage," was thought applicable to him by another shrewd observer, mr. r. h. horne, who says that, fashionable "make-up" notwithstanding, "he presented a figure that would have made a good portrait of a dutch privateer after having taken a capital prize." and in ary scheffer, to whom when sitting for his portrait he had excused himself for being a difficult subject, "received the apology as strictly his due, and said, with a vexed air, 'at this moment, _mon cher_ dickens, you look more like an energetic dutch admiral than anything else;' for which i apologised again." in , in the sympathetic neighbourhood of boulogne, he was "growing a mustache," and, by , a beard of the _henri quatre_ type had been added; but even before that time we may well believe that he was, as mr. sala says, "one of the few men whose individuality was not effaced by the mournful conventionality of evening-dress." even in morning-dress he unconsciously contrived, born actor as he was, to have something unusual about him; and, if report speaks the truth, even at the sea-side, when most prodigal of ease, he was careful to dress the character. the five years of which more especially i am speaking brought him repeatedly face to face with the public, and within hearing of the applause that was becoming more and more of a necessity to him. they were thus unmistakably amongst the very happiest years of his life. the shadow that was to fall upon his home can hardly yet have been visible even in the dim distance. for this the young voices were too many and too fresh around him behind the garden-wall in devonshire terrace, and amongst the autumnal corn on the cliffs at broadstairs. "they are all in great force," he writes to his wife, in september, , and "much excited with the expectation of receiving you on friday;" and i only wish i had space to quote the special report sent on this occasion to the absent mother concerning her precocious three-year-old. what sorrowful experiences he in these years underwent were such as few men escape amongst the chances of life. in he lost the sister who had been the companion of his earliest days, and three years later his father, whom he had learned to respect as well as love. not long afterwards his little dora, the youngest of his flock, was suddenly taken from him. meanwhile, his old friends clung to him. indeed, i never heard that he lost the affection of any one who had been attached to him; and though the circle of his real intimates was never greatly widened, yet he was on friendly or even familiar terms with many whose names belong to the history of their times. amongst these were the late lord lytton--then sir edward bulwer lytton--whose splendid abilities were still devoted mainly to literary labours, and between whom and dickens there were more points of contrast than might at first sight appear. of thackeray, too, he seems to have been coming to know more; and with leech, more especially during a summer sojourn of both their families at bonchurch, in , he grew intimate. mr. monckton milnes--then, and since as lord houghton, _semper amicus, semper hospes_ both to successful merit and to honest endeavour--lord carlisle, and others who adorned the great world under more than one of its aspects, were, of course, welcome friends and acquaintances; and even carlyle occasionally found his way to the house of his staunch admirer, though he might declare that he was, in the language of mr. peggotty's house-keeper, "a lorn lone creature, and everything went contrairy with him." it is not very easy to describe the personal habits of a man who is found seeing the spring in at brighton and the autumn out at broadstairs, and in the interval "strolling" through the chief towns of the kingdom at the head of a large company of ladies and gentlemen, according to the description which he put into mrs. gamp's mouth, "with a great box of papers under his arm, a-talking to everybody wery indistinct, and exciting of himself dreadful." but since under ordinary circumstances he made, even in outward matters and arrangements of detail, a home for himself wherever he was, and as a rule cared little for the society of companions whose ideas and ways of life were foreign to his own, certain habits had become second nature to him, and to others he adhered with sophistical tenacity. he was an early riser, if for no other reason, because every man in whose work imagination plays its part must sometimes be alone; and dickens has told us that there was to him something incomparably solemn in the still solitude of the morning. but it was only exceptionally, and when hard-pressed by the necessities of his literary labours, that he wrote before breakfast; in general he was contented with the ordinary working hours of the morning, not often writing after luncheon, and, except in early life, never in the evening. ordinarily, when engaged on a work of fiction, he considered three of his not very large ms. pages a good, and four an excellent, day's work; and, while very careful in making his corrections clear and unmistakable, he never rewrote what a morning's labour had ultimately produced. on the other hand, he was frequently slow in beginning a story, being, as he himself says, affected by something like despondency at such times, or, as he elsewhere humorously puts it, "going round and round the idea, as you see a bird in his cage go about and about his sugar before he touches it." a temperate liver, he was at the same time a zealous devotee of bodily exercise. he had not as yet given up riding, and is found, in , spending the whole of a march day, with forster, leech, and mark lemon, in riding over every part of salisbury plain. but walking exercise was at once his forte and his fanaticism. he is said to have constructed for himself a theory that, to every portion of the day given to intellectual labour should correspond an equal number of hours spent in walking; and frequently, no doubt, he gave up his morning's chapter before he had begun it, "entirely persuading himself that he was under a moral obligation" to do his twenty miles on the road. by day he found in the london thoroughfares stimulative variety, and at a later date he states it to be "one of his fancies that even his idlest walk must have its appointed destination;" and by night, in seasons of intellectual excitement, he found in these same streets the refreshment of isolation among crowds. but the walks he loved best were long stretches on the cliffs or across the downs by the sea, where, following the track of his "breathers," one half expects to meet him coming along against the wind at four and a half miles an hour, the very embodiment of energy and brimful of life. and besides this energy he carried with him, wheresoever he pitched his tent, what was the second cause of his extraordinary success in so much of the business of life as it fell to him to perform. he hated disorder as sir artegal hated injustice; and if there was anything against which he took up his parable with burning indignation, it was slovenliness, and half-done work, and "shoddiness" of all kinds. his love of order made him always the most regular of men. "everything with him," miss hogarth told me, "went as by clock-work; his movements, his absences from home, and the times of his return were all fixed beforehand, and it was seldom that he failed to adhere to what he had fixed." like most men endowed with a superfluity of energy, he prided himself on his punctuality. he could not live in a room or in a house till he had put every piece of furniture into its proper place, nor could he begin to work till all his writing-gear was at hand, with no item missing or misplaced. yet he did not, like so many, combine with these habits and tendencies a saving disposition. "no man," he said of himself, "attaches less importance to the possession of money, or less disparagement to the want of it, than i do." his circumstances, though easy, were never such as to warrant a display to which, perhaps, certain qualities of his character might have inclined him; even at a much later date he described himself--rather oddly, perhaps--as "a man of moderate savings, always supporting a very expensive public position." but, so far as i can gather, he never had a reasonable want which he could not and did not satisfy, though at the same time he cared for very few of the pursuits or amusements that are apt to drain much larger resources than his. he never had to think twice about country or sea-side quarters; wherever it might suit his purpose or fancy to choose them, at one of his south-coast haunts or, for his wife's health, at malvern, thither he went; and when the whim seized him for a trip _en garçon_ to any part of england or to paris, he had only to bid the infallible anne pack his trunk. he was a provident as well as an affectionate father; but the cost of educating his numerous family seems to have caused him no serious anxiety. in he sent his eldest son to eton. and while he had sworn a kind of _vendetta_ against begging-letter writers, and afterwards used to parry the attacks of his pertinacious enemies by means of carefully-prepared written forms, his hand seems to have been at all times open for charity. some of these personal characteristics of dickens were to be brought out with remarkable vividness during the period of his life which forms the special subject of the present chapter. never was he more thoroughly himself than as a theatrical manager and actor, surrounded by congenial associates. he starred it to his heart's content at the country seat of his kind lausanne friends, mr. and mrs. watson. but the first occasion on which he became publicly known in both the above-mentioned capacities was the reproduction of the amateur performance of _every man in his humour_. this time the audiences were to be in manchester and liverpool, where it was hoped that a golden harvest might be reaped for leigh hunt, who was at that time in sore straits. as it chanced, a civil-list pension was just about this time-- --conferred upon the most unaffectedly graceful of all modern writers of english verse. it was accordingly resolved to divert part of the proceeds of the undertaking in favour of a worthy playwright, the author of _paul pry_. the comedy was acted with brilliant success at manchester, on july , and at liverpool two days later; and then the "managerial miseries," which dickens had enjoyed with his whole heart and soul, were over for the nonce. already, however, in the following year, , an excellent reason was found for their recommencement; and nine performances of ben jonson's play, this time alternated with _the merry wives of windsor_, were given by dickens's "company of amateurs"--the expression is his own--at the haymarket, and in the theatres of five of the largest towns in the kingdom, for the benefit of sheridan knowles. nothing could have been more honourable than dickens's readiness to serve the interests of an actor with whom, but for his own generous temper, he would only a few months before have been involved in a wordy quarrel. in _the merry wives_, the manager acted justice shallow to mark lemon's falstaff. dame quickly was played by mrs. cowden clarke, who speedily became a favourite correspondent of dickens. but the climax of these excitements arrived in the year of wonders, , when, with a flourish of trumpets resounding through the world of fashion as well as of letters, the comedy _not so bad as we seem_, written for the occasion by bulwer lytton, was performed under dickens's management at devonshire house, in the presence of the queen, for the benefit of the guild of literature and art. the object was a noble one, though the ultimate result of the scheme has been an almost pitiable failure; and nothing was spared, by the host or the actors, to make the effect worthy of it. while some of the most popular men of letters took parts in the clever and effective play, its scenery was painted by some of the most eminent among the english artists. dickens was fired by the ardour of the enterprise, and, proceeding on his principle that the performance could not possibly "be a success if the smallest pepper-corn of arrangement were omitted," covered himself and his associates with glory. from devonshire house play and theatre were transferred to the hanover square rooms, where the farce of _mr. nightingale's diary_ was included in the performance, of which some vivid reminiscences have been published by one of the few survivors of that noble company, mr. r. h. horne. other accounts corroborate his recollections of the farce, which was the triumph of "gag," and would have been reckoned a masterpiece in the old _commedia dell' arte_. the characters played by dickens included sam weller turned waiter; a voluble barrister by the name of mr. gabblewig; a hypochondriac suffering from a prescription of mustard and milk; the gampish mother of a charity-boy (mr. egg); and her brother, a stone-deaf old sexton, who appeared to be "at least ninety years of age." the last-named assumption seems to have been singularly effective: "after repeated shoutings ('it's of no use whispering to me, young man') of the word 'buried'--'_brewed!_ oh yes, sir, i have brewed many a good gallon of ale in my time. the last batch i brewed, sir, was finer than all the rest--the best ale ever brewed in the county. it used to be called in our parts here "samson with his hair on!" in allusion'--here his excitement shook the tremulous frame into coughing and wheezing--'in allusion to its great strength.' he looked from face to face to see if his feat was duly appreciated, and his venerable jest understood by those around; and then, softly repeating, with a glimmering smile, 'in allusion to its great strength,' he turned about, and made his exit, like one moving towards his own grave while he thinks he is following the funeral of another." from london the company travelled into the country, where their series of performances was not closed till late in the succeeding year, . dickens was from first to last the manager, and the ruling spirit of the undertaking. amongst his latest recruits mr. wilkie collins is specially mentioned by forster. the acquaintance which thus began soon ripened into a close and lasting friendship, and became, with the exception of that with forster himself, the most important of all dickens's personal intimacies for the history of his career as an author. speech-making was not in quite the same sense, or to quite the same degree, as amateur acting and managing, a voluntary labour on dickens's part. not that he was one of those to whom the task of occasionally addressing a public audience is a pain or even a burden. indeed, he was a born orator; for he possessed both that strong and elastic imaginative power which enables a man to place himself at once in sympathy with his audience, and that gift of speech, pointed, playful, and where necessary impetuous, which pleads well in any assembly for any cause. he had moreover the personal qualifications of a handsome manly presence, a sympathetic eye, and a fine flexible voice, which, as his own hints on public speaking show, he managed with care and intelligence. he had, he says, "fought with beasts (oratorically) in divers arenas." but though a speaker in whom ease bred force, and force ease, he was the reverse of a mere builder of phrases and weaver of periods. "mere holding forth," he declared, "i utterly detest, abominate, and abjure." his innate hatred of talk for mere talk's sake had doubtless been intensified by his early reporting experiences, and by what had become his stereotyped notion of our parliamentary system. at the administration reform meeting in he stated that he had never before attended a public meeting. on the other hand, he had been for already several years in great request for meetings of a different kind, concerned with the establishment or advancement of educational or charitable institutions in london and other great towns of the country. his addresses from the chair were often of remarkable excellence; and this not merely because crowded halls and increased subscription-lists were their concomitants, and because the happiness of his humour--never out of season, and even on such occasions often singularly prompt--sent every one home in good spirits. in these now forgotten speeches on behalf of athenæums and mechanics' institutes, or of actors' and artists' and newsmen's charities, their occasional advocate never appears occasional. instead of seeming to have just mastered his brief while the audience was taking its seats, or to have become for the first time deeply interested in his subject in the interval between his soup and his speech, the cause which dickens pleads never has in him either an imperfectly informed or a half-indifferent representative. amongst many charming illustrations of a vein of oratory in which he has been equalled by very few if by any public men of his own or the succeeding generation, i will instance only one address, though it belongs to a considerably later date than the time of _david copperfield_. nothing, however, that dickens has ever written--not even _david copperfield_ itself--breathes a tenderer sympathy for the weakness of unprotected childhood than the beautiful little speech delivered by him on february , , on behalf of the london hospital for sick children. beginning with some touches of humour concerning the spoilt children of the rich, the orator goes on to speak of the "spoilt children" of the poor, illustrating with concrete directness both the humorous and the pathetic side of his subject, and after a skilfully introduced sketch of the capabilities and wants of the "infant institution" for which he pleads, ending with an appeal, founded on a fancy of charles lamb, to the support of the "dream-children" belonging to each of his hearers: "the dear child you love, the dearer child you have lost, the child you might have had, the child you certainly have been." this is true eloquence, of a kind which aims at something besides opening purse-strings. in he had spoken in the same vein of mixed humour and pathos on behalf of his clients, the poor actors, when, unknown to him, a little child of his own was lying dead at home. but in these years of his life, as indeed at all times, his voice was at the service of such causes as had his sympathy; it was heard at birmingham, at leeds, at glasgow; distance was of little moment to his energetic nature; and as to trouble, how could he do anything by halves? there was yet a third kind of activity, distinct from that of literary work pure and simple, in which dickens in these years for the first time systematically engaged. it has been seen how he had long cherished the notion of a periodical conducted by himself, and marked by a unity of design which should make it in a more than ordinary sense his own paper. with a genius like his, which attached itself to the concrete, very much depended at the outset upon the choice of a title. _the cricket_ could not serve again, and for some time the notion of an omnipresent _shadow_, with something, if possible, tacked to it "expressing the notion of its being cheerful, useful, and always welcome," seemed to promise excellently. for a rather less ambitious design, however, a rather less ambitious title was sought, and at last fortunately found, in the phrase, rendered proverbial by shakspeare, "_household words_." "we hope," he wrote a few weeks before the first number appeared, on march , , "to do some solid good, and we mean to be as cheery and pleasant as we can." but _household words_, which in form and in cost was to be a paper for the multitude, was to be something more than agreeable and useful and cheap. it was to help in casting out the many devils that had taken up their abode in popular periodical literature, the "bastards of the mountain," and the foul fiends who dealt in infamous scurrility, and to do this with the aid of a charm more potent than the most lucid argument and the most abundant facts. "in the bosoms of the young and old, of the well-to-do and of the poor," says the _preliminary word_ in the first number, "we would tenderly cherish that light of fancy which is inherent in the human breast." to this purpose it was the editor's constant and deliberate endeavour to bind his paper. "keep 'household words' imaginative!" is the "solemn and continual conductorial injunction" which three years after the foundation of the journal he impresses, with the artful aid of capitals, upon his faithful coadjutor, mr. w. h. wills. in his own contributions he was not forgetful of this maxim, and the most important of them, the serial story, _hard times_, was written with the express intention of pointing it as a moral. there are, i suppose, in addition to the many mysterious functions performed by the editor of a literary journal, two of the very highest significance; in the first place, the choice of his contributors, and then, if the expression may be used, the management of them. in both respects but one opinion seems to exist of dickens's admirable qualities as an editor. out of the many contributors to _household words_, and its kindred successor, _all the year round_--some of whom are happily still among living writers--it would be invidious to select for mention a few in proof of the editor's discrimination. but it will not be forgotten that the first number of the earlier journal contained the beginning of a tale by mrs. gaskell, whose name will long remain a household word in england, both north and south. and a periodical could hardly be deemed one-sided which included among its contributors scholars and writers of the distinction belonging to the names of forster and mr. henry morley, together with humorous observers of men and things such as mr. sala and albert smith. on the other hand, _household words_ had what every literary journal ought to have, an individuality of its own; and this individuality was, of course, that of its editor. the mannerisms of dickens's style afterwards came to be imitated by some among his contributors; but the general unity perceptible in the journal was the natural and legitimate result of the fact that it stood under the independent control of a vigorous editor, assisted by a sub-editor--mr. w. h. wills--of rare trustworthiness. dickens had a keen eye for selecting subjects from a definite field, a ready skill for shaping, if necessary, the articles accepted by him, and a genius for providing them with expressive and attractive titles. fiction and poetry apart, these articles have mostly a social character or bearing, although they often deviate into the pleasant paths of literature or art; and usually, but by no means always, the scenes or associations with which they connect themselves are of england, english. nothing could surpass the unflagging courtesy shown by dickens towards his contributors, great or small, old or new, and his patient interest in their endeavours, while he conducted _household words_, and afterwards _all the year round_. of this there is evidence enough to make the records of the office in wellington street a pleasant page in the history of journalism. he valued a good workman when he found him, and was far too reasonable and generous to put his own stamp upon all the good metal that passed through his hands. even in his christmas numbers he left the utmost possible freedom to his associates. where he altered or modified it was as one who had come to know the pulse of the public; and he was not less considerate with novices, than he was frank and explicit with experts, in the writer's art. the articles in his journal being anonymous, he was not tempted to use names as baits for the public, though many who wrote for him were men or women of high literary reputation. and he kept his doors open. while some editors deem it their duty to ward off would-be contributors, as some ministers of state think it theirs to get rid of deputations, dickens sought to ignore instead of jealously guarding the boundaries of professional literature. nothing in this way ever gave him greater delight than to have welcomed and published several poems sent to him under a feigned name, but which he afterwards discovered to be the first-fruits of the charming poetical talent of miss adelaide procter, the daughter of his old friend "barry cornwall." in the preparation of his own papers, or of those which, like the christmas numbers, he composed conjointly with one or more of his familiars, he spared no labour and thought no toil too great. at times, of course, he, like all periodical writers who cannot be merry every wednesday or caustic every saturday, felt the pressure of the screw. "as to two comic articles," he exclaims on one occasion, "or two any sort of articles, out of me, that's the intensest extreme of no-goism." but, as a rule, no great writer ever ran more gaily under his self-imposed yoke. his "uncommercial travels," as he at a later date happily christened them, familiarised him with whatever parts or aspects of london his long walks had still left unexplored; and he was as conscientious in hunting up the details of a complicated subject as in finding out the secrets of an obscure pursuit or trade. accomplished antiquarians and "commissioners" assisted him in his labours; but he was no _roi fainéant_ on the editorial sofa which he so complacently describes. whether he was taking _a walk in a workhouse_, or knocking at the door of another with the supernumerary waifs in whitechapel, or _on_ (night) _duty with inspector field_ among the worst of the london slums, he was always ready to see with his own eyes; after which the photographic power of his pen seemed always capable of doing the rest. occasionally he treats topics more properly journalistic, but he is most delightful when he takes his ease in his _english_ or his _french watering-place_, or carries his readers with him on _a flight to paris_, bringing before them, as it were, in breathless succession, every inch of the familiar journey. happiest of all is he when, with his friend mr. wilkie collins--this, however, not until the autumn of --he starts on _the lazy tour of two idle apprentices_, the earlier chapters of which furnish some of the best specimens of his most humorous prose. neither at the same time does he forget himself to enforce the claim of his journal to strengthen the imaginary side of literature. in an assumed character he allows a veteran poet to carry him _by rail to parnassus_, and even good-humouredly banters an old friend, george cruikshank, for having committed _frauds on the fairies_ by re-editing legendary lore with the view of inculcating the principle of total abstinence. such, then, were some of the channels in which the intense mental and physical energy of dickens found a congenial outlet in these busy years. yet in the very midst of this multifarious activity the mysterious and controlling power of his genius enabled him to collect himself for the composition of a work of fiction which, as i have already said, holds, and will always continue to hold, a place of its own among its works. "of all my books," he declares, "i like this the best. it will be easily believed that i am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as i love them. but, like many fond parents, i have in my heart of hearts a favourite child--and his name is david copperfield!" he parted from the story with a pang, and when in after life he returned to its perusal, he was hardly able to master the emotions which it recalled; perhaps even he hardly knew what the effort of its production had cost him. the first number of _david copperfield_ was published in may, --the last in november, . to judge from the difficulty which dickens found in choosing a title for his story--of which difficulty plentiful evidence remains in ms. at south kensington--he must have been fain to delay longer even than usual on the threshold. in the end the name of the hero evolved itself out of a series of transformations, from trotfield and trotbury to copperboy, copperstone--"copperfull" being reserved as a _lectio varians_ for mrs. crupp--and _copperfield_. then at last the pen could fall seriously to work, and, proceeding slowly at first--for the first page of the ms. contains a great number of alterations--dip itself now into black, now into blue ink, and in a small writing, already contrasting with the bolder hand of earlier days, produce page upon page of an incomparable book. no doubt what so irresistibly attracted dickens to _david copperfield_, and what has since fascinated many readers, more or less conscious of the secret of the charm, is the autobiographical element in the story. until the publication of forster's _life_ no reader of _copperfield_ could be aware of the pang it must have cost dickens to lay bare, though to unsuspecting eyes, the story of experiences which he had hitherto kept all but absolutely secret, and to which his own mind could not recur without a quivering sensitiveness. no reader could trace, as the memory of dickens always must have traced, some of the most vivid of those experiences, imbued though they were with the tints of a delightfully playful humor, in the doings and dealings of mr. wilkins micawber, whose original, by a strange coincidence, was passing tranquilly away out of life, while his comic counterpart was blossoming into a whimsical immortality. and no reader could divine, what very probably even the author may hardly have ventured to confess to himself, that in the lovely little idyl of the loves of doady and dora--with jip, as dora's father might have said, intervening--there were, besides the reminiscences of an innocent juvenile amour, the vestiges of a man's unconfessed though not altogether unrepressed disappointment--the sense that "there was always something wanting." but in order to be affected by a personal or autobiographical element in a fiction or poem, it is by no means necessary to be aware of its actual bearing and character, or even of its very existence. _amelia_ would gain little by illustrative notes concerning the experiences of the first mrs. fielding. to excite in a work of fiction the peculiar kind of interest of which i am speaking the existence of an autobiographical substratum need not be apparent in it, nor need its presence be even suspected. enough, if it be _there_. but it had far better be away altogether, unless the novelist has so thoroughly fused this particular stream of metal with the mass filling his mould that the result is an integral artistic whole. such was, however, the case with _david copperfield_, which of all dickens's fictions is on the whole the most perfect as a work of art. personal reminiscences which lay deep in the author's breast are, as effects, harmonised with local associations old and new. thus, yarmouth, painted in the story with singular poetic truthfulness, had only quite recently been seen by dickens for the first time, on a holiday trip. his imagination still subdued to itself all the elements with which he worked; and, whatever may be thought of the construction of this story, none of his other books equals it in that harmony of tone which no artist can secure unless by recasting all his materials. as to the construction of _david copperfield_, however, i frankly confess that i perceive no serious fault in it. it is a story with a plot, and not merely a string of adventures and experiences, like little davy's old favourites upstairs at blunderstone. in the conduct of this plot blemishes may here and there occur. the boy's flight from london, and the direction which it takes, are insufficiently accounted for. a certain amount of obscurity, as well perhaps as of improbability, pervades the relations between uriah and the victim, round whom the unspeakably slimy thing writhes and wriggles. on the other hand, the mere conduct of the story has much that is beautiful in it. thus, there is real art in the way in which the scene of barkis's death--written with admirable moderation--prepares for the "greater loss" at hand for the mourning family. and in the entire treatment of his hero's double love story dickens has, to my mind, avoided that discord which, in spite of himself, jars upon the reader both in _esmond_ and in _adam bede_. the best constructed part of _david copperfield_ is, however, unmistakably the story of little emily and her kinsfolk. this is most skilfully interwoven with the personal experiences of david, of which--except in its very beginnings--it forms no integral part; and throughout the reader is haunted by a presentiment of the coming catastrophe, though unable to divine the tragic force and justice of its actual accomplishment. a touch altered here and there in steerforth, with the rosa dartle episode excluded or greatly reduced, and this part of _david copperfield_ might challenge comparison as to workmanship with the whole literature of modern fiction. of the idyl of davy and dora what shall i say? its earliest stages are full of the gayest comedy. what, for instance, could surpass the history of the picnic--where was it? perhaps it was near guildford. at that feast an imaginary rival, "red whisker," made the salad--how could they eat it?--and "voted himself into the charge of the wine-cellar, which he constructed, _being an ingenious beast_, in the hollow trunk of a tree." better still are the backward ripples in the course of true love; best of all the deep wisdom of miss mills, in whose nature mental trial and suffering supplied, in some measure, the place of years. in the narrative of the young house-keeping david's real trouble is most skilfully mingled with the comic woes of the situation; and thus the idyl almost imperceptibly passes into the last phase, where the clouds dissolve in a rain of tears. the genius which conceived and executed these closing scenes was touched by a pity towards the fictitious creatures of his own imagination, which melted his own heart; and thus his pathos is here irresistible. the inventive power of dickens in none of his other books indulged itself so abundantly in the creation of eccentric characters, but neither was it in any so admirably tempered by taste and feeling. it contains no character which could strictly be called grotesque, unless it be little miss mowcher. most of her outward peculiarities dickens had copied from a living original; but receiving a remonstrance from the latter, he good-humouredly altered the use he had intended to make of the character, and thereby spoiled what there was in it--not much, in my opinion--to spoil. mr. dick belongs to a species of eccentric personages--mad people, in a word--for which dickens as a writer had a curious liking; but though there is consequently no true humour in this character, it helps to bring out the latent tenderness in another. david's aunt is a figure which none but a true humourist such as sterne or dickens could have drawn, and she must have sprung from the author's brain armed _cap-à-pie_ as she appeared in her garden before his little double. yet even miss betsey trotwood was not altogether a creation of the fancy, for at broadstairs the locality is still pointed out where the "one great outrage of her life" was daily renewed. in the other chief characters of this story the author seems to rely entirely on natural truthfulness. he must have had many opportunities of noting the ways of seamen and fishermen, but the occupants of the old boat near yarmouth possess the typical characteristics with which the experience and the imagination of centuries have agreed to credit the "salt" division of mankind. again, he had had his own experience of shabby-genteel life, and of the struggle which he had himself seen a happy and a buoyant temperament maintaining against a sea of trouble. but mr. micawber, whatever features may have been transferred to him, is the type of a whole race of men who will not vanish from the face of the earth so long as the hope which lives eternal in the human breast is only temporarily suspended by the laws of debtor and creditor, and is always capable of revival with the aid of a bowl of milk-punch. a kindlier and a merrier, a more humorous and a more genuine character was never conceived than this; and if anything was wanted to complete the comicality of the conception, it was the wife of his bosom with the twins at her own, and her mind made up _not_ to desert mr. micawber. delightful too in his way, though of a class more common in dickens, is tommy traddles, the genial picture of whose married life in chambers in gray's inn, with the dearest girl in the world and her five sisters, including the beauty, on a visit, may have been suggested by kindly personal reminiscences of youthful days. in contrast to these characters, the shambling, fawning, villanous hypocrisy of uriah heep is a piece of intense and elaborate workmanship, almost cruelly done without being overdone. it was in his figures of hypocrites that dickens's satirical power most diversely displayed itself; and by the side of uriah heep in this story, literally so in the prison-scene at the close, stands another species of the race, the valet littimer, a sketch which thackeray himself could not have surpassed. thus, then, i must leave the book, with its wealth of pathos and humour, with the glow of youth still tinging its pages, but with the gentler mood of manhood pervading it from first to last. the _reality_ of _david copperfield_ is, perhaps, the first feature in it likely to strike the reader new to its charms; but a closer acquaintance will produce, and familiarity will enhance, the sense of its wonderful _art_. nothing will ever destroy the popularity of a work of which it can truly be said that, while offering to his muse a gift not less beautiful than precious, its author put into it his life's blood. chapter v. changes. [ - .] i have spoken of both the intellectual and the physical vigour of charles dickens as at their height in the years of which the most enduring fruit was the most delightful of all his fictions. but there was no break in his activity after the achievement of this or any other of his literary successes, and he was never harder at work than during the seven years of which i am about to speak, although in this period also occasionally he was to be found hard at play. its beginning saw him settled in his new and cheerfully-furnished abode at tavistock house, of which he had taken possession in october, . at its close he was master of the country residence which had been the dream of his childhood, but he had become a stranger to that tranquillity of mind without which no man's house is truly his home. gradually, but surely, things had then, or a little before, come to such a pass that he wrote to his faithful friend: "i am become incapable of rest. i am quite confident i should rust, break, and die, if i spared myself. much better to die, doing. what i am in that way nature made me first, and my way of life has of late, alas! confirmed." early in the youngest of his children had been born to him--the boy whose babyhood once more revived in him a tenderness the depth of which no eccentric humours and fantastic _sobriquets_ could conceal. in may, , he had separated from the mother of his children; and though self-sacrificing affection was at hand to watch over them and him, yet that domestic life of which he had become the prophet and poet to hundreds of thousands was in its fairest and fullest form at an end for himself. in the earlier of these years dickens's movements were still very much of the same kind, and varied much after the same fashion, as in the period described in my last chapter. in the series of amateur performances in the country was completed; but time was found for a summer residence in camden crescent, dover. during his stay there, and during most of his working hours in this and the following year--the spring of which was partly spent at brighton--he was engaged upon his new story, _bleak house_, published in numbers dating from march, , to september, . "to let you into a secret," he had written to his lively friend, miss mary boyle, from dover, "i am not quite sure that i ever did like, or ever shall like, anything quite so well as _copperfield_. but i foresee, i think, some very good things in _bleak house_." there is no reason to believe that, by the general public, this novel was at the time of its publication a whit less favourably judged or less eagerly read than its predecessor. according to the author's own testimony it "took extraordinarily, especially during the last five or six months" of its issue, and "retained its immense circulation from the first, beating dear old _copperfield_ by a round ten thousand or more." to this day the book has its staunch friends, some of whom would perhaps be slow to confess by which of the elements in the story they are most forcibly attracted. on the other hand, _bleak house_ was probably the first of dickens's works which furnished a suitable text to a class of censors whose precious balms have since descended upon his head with constant reiteration. the power of amusing being graciously conceded to the "man of genius," his book was charged with "absolute want of construction," and with being a heterogeneous compound made up of a meagre and melodramatic story, and a number of "odd folks that have to do with a long chancery suit." of the characters themselves it was asserted that, though in the main excessively funny, they were more like caricatures of the stage than studies from nature. some approval was bestowed upon particular figures, but rather as types of the influence of externals than as real individualities; and while the character of the poor crossing-sweeper was generously praised, it was regretted that dickens should never have succeeded in drawing "a man or woman whose lot is cast among the high-born or wealthy." he belonged, unfortunately, "in literature to the same class as his illustrator, hablot browne, in design, though he far surpasses the illustrator in range and power." in other words, he was essentially a caricaturist. as applied to _bleak house_, with which i am at present alone concerned, this kind of censure was in more ways than one unjust. so far as constructive skill was concerned, the praise given by forster to _bleak house_ may be considered excessive; but there can be no doubt that, as compared, not with _pickwick_ and _nickleby_, but with its immediate predecessor, _david copperfield_, this novel exhibits a decided advance in that respect. in truth, dickens in _bleak house_ for the first time emancipated himself from that form of novel which, in accordance with his great eighteenth-century favourites, he had hitherto more or less consciously adopted--the novel of adventure, of which the person of the hero, rather than the machinery of the plot, forms the connecting element. it may be that the influence of mr. wilkie collins was already strong upon him, and that the younger writer, whom dickens was about this time praising for his unlikeness to the "conceited idiots who suppose that volumes are to be tossed off like pancakes," was already teaching something to, as well as learning something from, the elder. it may also be that the criticism which as editor of _household words_ dickens was now in the habit of judiciously applying to the fictions of others, unconsciously affected his own methods and processes. certain it is that from this point of view _bleak house_ may be said to begin a new series among his works of fiction. the great chancery suit and the fortunes of those concerned in it are not a disconnected background from which the mystery of lady dedlock's secret stands forth in relief; but the two main parts of the story are skilfully interwoven as in a spanish double-plot. nor is the success of the general action materially affected by the circumstance that the tone of esther summerson's diary is not altogether true. at the same time there is indisputably some unevenness in the construction of _bleak house_. it drags, and drags very perceptibly, in some of its earlier parts. on the other hand, the interest of the reader is strongly revived when that popular favourite, mr. inspector bucket, appears on the scene, and when, more especially in the admirably vivid narrative of esther's journey with the detective, the nearness of the catastrophe exercises its exciting influence. some of the machinery, moreover--such as the smallweed family's part in the plot--is tiresome; and particular incidents are intolerably horrible or absurd--such as on the one hand the spontaneous combustion (which is proved possible by the analogy of historical facts!), and on the other the intrusion of the oil-grinding mr. chadband into the solemn presence of sir leicester dedlock's grief. but in general the parts of the narrative are well knit together; and there is a subtle skill in the way in which the two main parts of the story converge towards their common close. the idea of making an impersonal object like a great chancery suit the centre round which a large and manifold group of characters revolves, seems to savour of a drama rather than of a story. no doubt the theme suggested itself to dickens with a very real purpose, and on the basis of facts which he might well think warranted him in his treatment of it; for, true artist though he was, the thought of exposing some national defect, of helping to bring about some real reform, was always paramount in his mind over any mere literary conception. _primâ facie_, at least, and with all due deference to chancery judges and eminent silk gowns like mr. blowers, the length of chancery suits was a real public grievance, as well as a frequent private calamity. but even as a mere artistic notion the idea of jarndyce _v._ jarndyce as diversely affecting those who lived by it, those who rebelled against it, those who died of it, was, in its way, of unique force; and while dickens never brought to any other of his subjects so useful a knowledge of its external details--in times gone by he had served a "kenge and carboys" of his own--hardly any one of those subjects suggested so wide a variety of aspects for characteristic treatment. for never before had his versatility in drawing character filled his canvas with so multitudinous and so various a host of personages. the legal profession, with its servitors and hangers-on of every degree, occupies the centre of the picture. in this group no figure is more deserving of admiration than that of mr. tulkinghorn, the eminently respectable family solicitor, at whose very funeral, by a four-wheeled affliction, the good-will of the aristocracy manifests itself. we learn very little about him, and probably care less; but he interests us precisely as we should be interested by the real old family lawyer, about whom we might know and care equally little, were we to find him alone in the twilight, drinking his ancient port in his frescoed chamber in those fields where the shepherds play on chancery pipes that have no stop. (mr. forster, by-the-way, omitted to point out to his readers, what the piety of american research has since put on record, that mr. tulkinghorn's house was a picture of the biographer's own residence.) the portrait of mr. vholes, who supports an unassailable but unenviable professional reputation for the sake of "the three dear girls at home," and a father whom he has to support "in the vale of taunton," is less attractive; but nothing could be more in its place in the story than the clammy tenacity of this legal ghoul and his "dead glove." lower down in the great system of the law we come upon mr. guppy and his fellows, the very quintessence of cockney vulgarity, seasoned with a flavour of legal sharpness without which the rankness of the mixture would be incomplete. to the legal group miss flite, whose original, if i remember right, used to haunt the temple as well as the precincts of the chancery courts, may likewise be said to belong. she is quite legitimately introduced into the story--which cannot be said of all dickens's madmen--because her madness associates itself with its main theme. much admiration has been bestowed upon the figures of an eccentric by or under plot in this story, in which the family of the jellybys and the august mr. turveydrop are, actively, or by passive endurance, engaged. the philanthropic section of _le monde où l'on s'ennuie_ has never been satirised more tellingly, and, it must be added, more bitterly. perhaps at the time of the publication of _bleak house_ the activity of our mrs. jellybys took a wider and more cosmopolitan sweep than in later days; for we read at the end of esther's diary how mrs. jellyby "has been disappointed in borrioboola gha, which turned out a failure in consequence of the king of borrioboola wanting to sell everybody--who survived the climate--for rum; but she has taken up with the rights of women to sit in parliament, and caddy tells me it is a mission involving more correspondence than the old one." but mrs. jellyby's interference in the affairs of other people is after all hurtful only because in busying herself with theirs she forgets her own. the truly offensive benefactress of her fellow-creatures is mrs. pardiggle, who, maxim in mouth and tract in hand, turns everything she approaches to stone. among her victims are her own children, including alfred, aged five, who has been induced to take an oath "never to use tobacco in any form." the particular vein of feeling that led dickens to the delineation of these satirical figures was one which never ran dry with him, and which suggested some forcible-feeble satire in his very last fiction. i call it a vein of feeling only; for he could hardly have argued in cold blood that the efforts which he ridicules were not misrepresented as a whole by his satire. when poor jo on his death-bed is "asked whether he ever knew a prayer," and replies that he could never make anything out of those spoken by the gentlemen who "came down tom-all-alone's a-prayin'," but who "mostly sed as the t'other wuns prayed wrong," the author brings a charge which he might not have found it easy to substantiate. yet--with the exception of such isolated passages--the figure of jo is in truth one of the most powerful protests that have been put forward on behalf of the friendless outcasts of our streets. nor did the romantic element in the conception interfere with the effect of the realistic. if jo, who seems at first to have been intended to be one of the main figures of the story, is in dickens's best pathetic manner, the bagnet family is in his happiest vein of quiet humour. mr. inspector bucket, though not altogether free from mannerism, well deserves the popularity which he obtained. for this character, as the pages of _household words_ testify, dickens had made many studies in real life. the detective police-officer had at that time not yet become a standing figure of fiction and the drama, nor had the detective of real life begun to destroy the illusion. _bleak house_ was least of all among the novels hitherto published by its author obnoxious to the charge persistently brought against him, that he was doomed to failure in his attempts to draw characters taken from any but the lower spheres of life--in his attempts, in short, to draw ladies and gentlemen. to begin with, one of the most interesting characters in the book--indeed, in its relation to the main idea of the story, the most interesting of all--is the youthful hero, if he is to be so called, richard carson. from the very nature of the conception the character is passive only; but the art and feeling are in their way unsurpassed with which the gradual collapse of a fine nature is here exhibited. sir leicester dedlock, in some measure intended as a type of his class, has been condemned as wooden and unnatural; and no doubt the machinery of that part of the story in which he is concerned creaks before it gets under way. on the other hand, after the catastrophe has overwhelmed him and his house, he becomes a really fine picture, unmarred by any grandisonianisms in either thought or phrase, of a true gentleman, bowed but not warped by distress. sir leicester's relatives, both dead and living; volumnia's sprightly ancestress on the wall, and that "fair dedlock" herself; the whole cousinhood, debilitated and otherwise, but of one mind on such points as william buffy's blameworthy neglect of his duty _when in office_; all these make up a very probable picture of a house great enough--or thinking itself great enough--to look at the affairs of the world from the family point of view. in lady dedlock alone a failure must be admitted; but she, with her wicked double, the uncanny french maid hortense, exists only for the sake of the plot. with all its merits, _bleak house_ has little of that charm which belongs to so many of dickens's earlier stories, and to _david copperfield_ above all. in part, at least, this may be due to the excessive severity of the task which dickens had set himself in _bleak house_; for hardly any other of his works is constructed on so large a scale, or contains so many characters organically connected with the progress of its plot; and in part, again, to the half-didactic, half-satirical purport of the story, which weighs heavily on the writer. an overstrained tone announces itself on the very first page; an opening full of power--indeed, of genius--but pitched in a key which we feel at once will not, without effort, be maintained. on the second page the prose has actually become verse; or how else can one describe part of the following apostrophe? "'this is the court of chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire; which has its worn-out lunatic in every mad-house, and its dead in every church-yard; which has its ruined suitor, with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress, borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance; which gives to moneyed might the means abundantly of wearing out the right; which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope; so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "suffer any wrong that can be done you, rather than come here!"'" it was possibly with some thought of giving to _bleak house_ also, though in a different way, the close relation to his experiences of living men to which _david copperfield_ had owed so much, that dickens introduced into it two _portraits_. doubtless, at first, his intention had by no means gone so far as this. his constant counsellor always disliked his mixing up in his fictitious characters any personal reminiscences of particular men, experience having shown that in such cases the whole character came out _more like_ than the author was aware. nor can dickens himself have failed to understand how such an experiment is always tempting, and always dangerous; how it is often irreconcilable with good feeling, and quite as often with good taste. in _bleak house_, however, it occurred to him to introduce likenesses of two living men, both more or less well known to the public and to himself; and both of individualities too clearly marked for a portrait, or even a caricature, of either to be easily mistaken. of that art of mystification which the authors of both english and french _romans à clef_ have since practised with so much transient success, he was no master, and fortunately so; for what could be more ridiculous than that the reader's interest in a character should be stimulated, first, by its being evidently the late lord p-lm-rst-n or the p---- of o----, and then by its being no less evidently somebody else? it should be added that neither of the two portrait characters in _bleak house_ possesses the least importance for the conduct of the story, so that there is nothing to justify their introduction except whatever excellence may belong to them in themselves. lawrence boythorn is described by mr. sydney colvin as drawn from walter savage landor with his intellectual greatness left out. it was, of course, unlikely that his intellectual greatness should be left in, the intention obviously being to reproduce what was eccentric in the ways and manner, with a suggestion of what was noble in the character, of dickens's famous friend. whether, had he attempted to do so, dickens could have drawn a picture of the whole landor, is another question. landor, who could put into a classic dialogue that sense of the _naïf_ to which dickens is generally a stranger, yet passionately admired the most _sentimental_ of all his young friend's poetic figures; and it might almost be said that the intellectual natures of the two men were drawn together by the force of contrast. they appear to have first become intimate with one another during landor's residence at bath--which began in --and they frequently met at gore house. at a celebration of the poet's birthday in his lodgings at bath, so forster tells us in his biography of landor, "the fancy which took the form of little nell in the _curiosity shop_ first dawned on the genius of its creator." in landor's spacious mind there was room for cordial admiration of an author the bent of whose genius differed widely from that of his own; and he could thus afford to sympathise with his whole heart in a creation which men of much smaller intellectual build have pronounced mawkish and unreal. dickens afterwards gave to one of his sons the names of walter landor; and when the old man died at last, _after_ his godson, paid him an eloquent tribute of respect in _all the year round_. in this paper the personal intention of the character of boythorn is avowed by implication; but though landor esteemed and loved dickens, it might seem matter for wonder, did not eccentrics after all sometimes cherish their own eccentricity, that his irascible nature failed to resent a rather doubtful compliment. for the character of boythorn is whimsical rather than, in any but the earlier sense of the word, humorous. but the portrait, however imperfect, was in this instance, beyond all doubt, both kindly meant and kindly taken; though it cannot be said to have added to the attractions of the book into which it is introduced. while no doubt ever existed as to this likeness, the case may not seem so clear with regard to the original of harold skimpole. it would be far more pleasant to pass by without notice the controversy--if controversy it can be called--which this character provoked; but a wrong done by one eminent man of letters to another, however unforeseen its extent may have been, and however genuine the endeavour to repair its effect, becomes part of literary history. that the original of harold skimpole was leigh hunt cannot reasonably be called into question. this assertion by no means precludes the possibility, or probability, that a second original suggested certain features in the portrait. nor does it contradict the substantial truthfulness of dickens's own statement, published in _all the year round_ after leigh hunt's death, on the appearance of the new edition of the _autobiography_ with thornton hunt's admirable introduction. while, dickens then wrote, "he yielded to the temptation of too often making the character speak like his old friend," yet "he no more thought, god forgive him! that the admired original would ever be charged with the imaginary vices of the fictitious creature, than he had himself ever thought of charging the blood of desdemona and othello on the innocent academy model who sat for iago's leg in the picture. even as to the mere occasional manner," he declared that he had "altered the whole of that part of the text, when two intimate friends of leigh hunt--both still living--discovered too strong a resemblance to his 'way.'" but, while accepting this statement, and suppressing a regret that after discovering the dangerous closeness of the resemblance dickens should have, quite at the end of the story, introduced a satirical reference to harold skimpole's autobiography--leigh hunt's having been published only a year or two before--one must confess that the explanation only helps to prove the rashness of the offence. while intending the portrait to keep its own secret from the general public, dickens at the same time must have wished to gratify a few keen-sighted friends. in march, , he writes to forster, evidently in reference to the apprehensions of his correspondent: "browne has done skimpole, and helped to make him singularly unlike the great original." the "great original" was a man for whom, both before and after this untoward incident in the relations between them, dickens professed a warm regard, and who, to judge from the testimony of those who knew him well,[ ] and from his unaffected narrative of his own life, abundantly deserved it. a perusal of leigh hunt's _autobiography_ suffices to show that he used to talk in skimpole's manner, and even to write in it; that he was at one period of his life altogether ignorant of money matters, and that he cultivated cheerfulness on principle. but it likewise shows that his ignorance of business was acknowledged by him as a misfortune in which he was very far from exulting. "do i boast of this ignorance?" he writes. "alas! i have no such respect for the pedantry of absurdity as that. i blush for it, and i only record it out of a sheer painful movement of conscience, as a warning to those young authors who might be led to look upon such folly as a fine thing, which at all events is what i never thought it myself." on the other hand, as his son showed, his cheerfulness, which was not inconsistent with a natural proneness to intervals of melancholy, rested on grounds which were the result of a fine as well as healthy morality. "the value of cheerful opinions," he wrote, in words embodying a moral that dickens himself was never weary of enforcing, "is inestimable; they will retain a sort of heaven round a man, when everything else might fail him, and consequently they ought to be religiously inculcated upon his children." at the same time, no quality was more conspicuous in his life than his readiness for hard work, even under the most depressing circumstances; and no feature was more marked in his moral character than his conscientiousness. "in the midst of the sorest temptations," dickens wrote of him, "he maintained his honesty unblemished by a single stain; and in all public and private transactions he was the very soul of truth and honour." to mix up with the outward traits of such a man the detestable obliquities of harold skimpole was an experiment paradoxical even as a mere piece of character-drawing. the merely literary result is a failure, while a wound was needlessly inflicted, if not upon leigh hunt himself, at least upon all who cherished his friendship or good name. dickens seems honestly and deeply to have regretted what he had done, and the extremely tasteful little tribute to leigh hunt's poetic gifts which, some years before the death of the latter, dickens wrote for _household words_,[ ] must have partaken of the nature of an _amende honorable_. neither his subsequent repudiation of unfriendly intentions, nor his earlier exertions on leigh hunt's behalf, are to be overlooked, but they cannot undo a mistake which forms an unfortunate incident in dickens's literary life, singularly free though that life, as a whole, is from the miseries of personal quarrels, and all the pettinesses with which the world of letters is too familiar. while dickens was engaged upon a literary work such as would have absorbed the intellectual energies of most men, he not only wrote occasionally for his journal, but also dictated for publication in it, the successive portions of a book altogether outside his usual range of authorship. this was _a child's history of england_, the only one of his works that was not written by his own hand. a history of england, written by charles dickens for his own or any one else's children, was sure to be a different work from one written under similar circumstances by mr. freeman or the late m. guizot. the book, though it cannot be called a success, is, however, by no means devoid of interest. just ten years earlier he had written, and printed, a history of england for the benefit of his eldest son, then a hopeful student of the age of five, which was composed, as he informed douglas jerrold at the time, "in the exact spirit" of that advanced politician's paper, "for i don't know what i should do if he were to get hold of any conservative or high church notions; and the best way of guarding against any such horrible result is, i take it, to wring the parrots' necks in his very cradle." the _child's history of england_ is written in the same spirit, and illustrates more directly, and, it must be added, more coarsely, than any of dickens's other works his hatred of ecclesiasticism of all kinds. thus, the account of dunstan is pervaded by a prejudice which is the fruit of anything but knowledge; edward the confessor is "the dreary old" and "the maudlin confessor;" and the pope and what belongs to him are treated with a measure of contumely which would have satisfied the heart of leigh hunt himself. to be sure, if king john is dismissed as a "miserable brute," king henry the eighth is not more courteously designated as a "blot of blood and grease upon the history of england." on the other hand, it could hardly be but that certain passages of the national story should be well told by so great a master of narrative; and though the strain in which parts of the history of charles the second are recounted strikes one as hardly suitable to the young, to whom irony is in general _caviare_ indeed, yet there are touches both in the story of "this merry gentleman"--a designation which almost recalls fagin--and elsewhere in the book not unworthy of its author. its patriotic spirit is quite as striking as its radicalism; and vulgar as some of its expressions must be called, there is a pleasing glow in the passage on king alfred, which declares the "english-saxon" character to have been "the greatest character among the nations of the earth;" and there is a yet nobler enthusiasm, such as it would indeed be worth any writer's while to infuse into the young, in the passionate earnestness with which, by means of the story of agincourt, the truth is enforced that "nothing can make war otherwise than horrible." this book must have been dictated, and some at least of the latter portion of _bleak house_ written, at boulogne, where, after a spring sojourn at brighton, dickens spent the summer of , and where were also passed the summers of and . boulogne, where le sage's last years were spent, was _our french watering-place_, so graphically described in a paper in _household words_ as a companion picture to the old familiar broadstairs. the family were comfortably settled on a green hill-side close to the town, "in a charming garden in a very pleasant country," with "excellent light wines on the premises, french cookery, millions of roses, two cows--for milk-punch--vegetables cut for the pot, and handed in at the kitchen window; five summer-houses, fifteen fountains--with no water in 'em--and thirty-seven clocks--keeping, as i conceive, australian time, having no reference whatever to the hours on this side of the globe." the energetic owner of the villa des moulineaux was the "m. loyal devasseur" of _our french watering-place_--jovial, convivial, genial, sentimental too as a buonapartist and a patriot. in the same obliging personage housed the dickens family in another abode, at the top of the hill, close to the famous napoleonic column; but in they came back to the moulineaux. the former year had been an exciting one for englishmen in france, with royal visits to and fro to testify to the _entente cordiale_ between the governments. dickens, notwithstanding his humorous assertions, was only moderately touched by the sebastopol fever; but when a concrete problem came before him in the shape of a festive demonstration, he addressed himself to it with the irrepressible ardour of the born stage-manager. "in our own proper illumination," he writes, on the occasion of the prince consort's visit to the camp at boulogne, "i laid on all the servants, all the children now at home, all the visitors, one to every window, with everything ready to light up on the ringing of a big dinner-bell by your humble correspondent. st. peter's on easter monday was the result." of course, at boulogne, dickens was cut off neither from his business nor from his private friends. his hospitable invitations were as urgent to his french villa in the summer as to his london house in the winter, and on both sides of the water the _household words_ familiars were as sure of a welcome from their chief. during his absences from london he could have had no trustier lieutenant than mr. w. h. wills, with whom, being always ready to throw himself into a part, he corresponded in an amusing paragraphed, semi-official style. and neither in his working nor in his leisure hours had he by this time any more cherished companion than mr. wilkie collins, whose progress towards brilliant success he was watching with the keenest and kindliest interest. with him and his old friend augustus egg, dickens, in october, , started on a tour to switzerland and italy, in the course of which he saw more than one old friend, and revisited more than one known scene--ascending vesuvius with mr. layard and drinking punch at rome with david roberts. it would be absurd to make any lofty demands upon the brief records of a holiday journey; and, for my part, i would rather think of dickens assiduous over his christmas number at rome and at venice, than weigh his moralisings about the electric telegraph running through the coliseum. his letters written to his wife during this trip are bright and gay, and it was certainly no roving bachelor who "kissed almost all the children he encountered in remembrance of the sweet faces" of his own, and "talked to all the mothers who carried them." by the middle of december the travellers were home again, and before the year was out he had read to large audiences at birmingham, on behalf of a public institution, his favourite christmas stories of _the christmas carol_ and _the cricket on the hearth_. as yet, however, his mind was not seriously intent upon any labours but those proper to his career as an author, and the year saw, between the months of april and august, the publication in his journal of a new story, which is among the most characteristic, though not among the most successful, of his works of fiction. in comparison with most of dickens's novels, _hard times_ is contained within a narrow compass; and this, with the further necessity of securing to each successive small portion of the story a certain immediate degree of effectiveness, accounts, in some measure, for the peculiarity of the impression left by this story upon many of its readers. short as the story relatively is, few of dickens's fictions were elaborated with so much care. he had not intended to write a new story for a twelvemonth, when, as he says, "the idea laid hold of him by the throat in a very violent manner," and the labour, carried on under conditions of peculiar irksomeness, "used him up" after a quite unaccustomed fashion. the book thus acquired a precision of form and manner which commends it to the french school of criticism rather than to lovers of english humour in its ampler forms and more flowing moods. at the same time the work has its purpose so visibly imprinted on its front, as almost to forbid our regarding it in the first instance apart from the moral which avowedly it is intended to inculcate. this moral, by no means new with dickens, has both a negative and a positive side. "do not harden your hearts," is the negative injunction, more especially do not harden them against the promptings of that human kindness which should draw together man and man, old and young, rich and poor; and keep your sympathies fresh by bringing nourishment to them through channels which prejudice or short-sightedness would fain narrow or stop up. this hortatory purpose assumes the form of invective and even of angry menace; and "utilitarian economists, skeletons of school-masters, commissioners of facts, genteel and used-up infidels, gabblers of many little dog's-eared creeds," are warned: "the poor you have always with you. cultivate in them, while there is yet time, the utmost graces of the fancies and affections, to adorn their lives, so much in need of ornament; or, in the day of your triumph, when romance is utterly driven out of their souls, and they and a bare existence stand face to face, reality will take a wolfish turn, and make an end of you." no authority, however eminent, not even mr. ruskin's, is required to teach reflecting minds the infinite importance of the principles which _hard times_ was intended to illustrate. nor is it of much moment whether the illustrations are always exact; whether the "commissioners of facts" have reason to protest that the unimaginative character of their processes does not necessarily imply an unimaginative purpose in their ends; whether there is any actual coketown in existence within a hundred miles of manchester; or whether it suffices that "everybody knew what was meant, but every cotton-spinning town said it was the other cotton-spinning town." the chief personal grievance of stephen blackpool has been removed or abated, but the "muddle" is not yet altogether cleared up which prevents the nation and the "national dustmen," its law-givers, from impartially and sympathetically furthering the interest of all classes. in a word, the moral of _hard times_ has not yet lost its force, however imperfect or unfair the method may have been in which it is urged in the book. unfortunately, however, a work of art with a didactic purpose is only too often prone to exaggerate what seems of special importance for the purpose in question, and to heighten contrasts which seem likely to put it in the clearest light. "thomas gradgrind, sir"--who announces himself with something of the genuine lancashire roll--and his system are a sound and a laughable piece of satire, to begin with, only here and there marred by the satirist's imperfect knowledge of the details which he caricatures. the "manchester school," which the novel strives to expose, is in itself to a great extent a figment of the imagination, which to this day serves to round many a hollow period in oratory and journalism. who, it may fairly be asked, were the parliamentary politicians satirized in the member for coketown, deaf and blind to any consideration but the multiplication-table? but in any case the cause hardly warrants one of its consequences as depicted in the novel--the utter brutalization of a stolid nature like "the whelp's." when gradgrind's son is about to be shipped abroad out of reach of the penalties of his crime, he reminds his father that he merely exemplifies the statistical law that "so many people out of so many will be dishonest." when the virtuous bitzer is indignantly asked whether he has a heart, he replies that he is physiologically assured of the fact; and to the further inquiry whether this heart of his is accessible to compassion, makes answer that "it is accessible to reason, and to nothing else." these returnings of mr. gradgrind's philosophy upon himself savour of the moral justice represented by gratiano in the fourth act. so, again, coketown, with its tall chimneys and black river, and its thirteen religious denominations, to which whoever else belonged the working-men did _not_, is no perverse contradiction of fact. but the influence of coketown, or of a whole wilderness of coketowns, cannot justly be charged with a tendency to ripen such a product as josiah bounderby, who is not only the "bully of humanity," but proves to be a mean-spirited impostor in his pretensions to the glory of self-help. in short, _hard times_ errs by its attempt to prove too much. apart, however, from the didactic purposes which overburden it, the pathos and humour of particular portions of this tale appear to me to have been in no wise overrated. the domestic tragedy of stephen and rachael has a subdued intensity of tenderness and melancholy of a kind rare with dickens, upon whom the example of mrs. gaskell in this instance may not have been without its influence. nor is there anything more delicately and at the same time more appropriately conceived in any of his works than poor rachael's dominion over the imagination as well as over the affections of her noble-minded and unfortunate lover: "as the shining stars were to the heavy candle in the window, so was rachael, in the rugged fancy of this man, to the common experiences of his life." the love-story of poor louisa is of a different kind, and more wordy in the telling; yet here also the feelings painted are natural and true. the humorous interest is almost entirely concentrated upon the company of horse-riders; and never has dickens's extraordinary power of humorous observation more genially asserted itself. from mr. sleary--"thtout man, game-eye"--and his protagonist, mr. e. w. b. childers, who, when he shook his long hair, caused it to "shake all at once," down to master kidderminster, who used to form the apex of the human pyramids, and "in whose young nature there was an original flavour of the misanthrope," these honest equestrians are more than worthy to stand by the side of mr. vincent crummles and his company of actors; and the fun has here, in addition to the grotesqueness of the earlier picture, a mellowness of its own. dickens's comic genius was never so much at its ease and so inexhaustible in ludicrous fancies as in the depiction of such groups as this; and the horse-riders, skilfully introduced to illustrate a truth, wholesome if not novel, would have insured popularity to a far less interesting and to a far less powerful fiction. the year after that which saw the publication of _hard times_ was one in which the thoughts of most englishmen were turned away from the problems approached in that story. but if the military glories of had not aroused in him any very exuberant enthusiasm, the reports from the crimea in the ensuing winter were more likely to appeal to his patriotism as well as to his innate impatience of disorder and incompetence. in the first instance, however, he contented himself with those grumblings to which, as a sworn foe of red tape and a declared disbeliever in our parliamentary system, he might claim to have a special right; and he seems to have been too restless in and about himself to have entered very closely into the progress of public affairs. the christmas had been a merry one at tavistock house; and the amateur theatricals of its juvenile company had passed through a most successful season. their history has been written by one of the performers--himself not the least distinguished of the company, since it was he who, in dickens's house, caused thackeray to roll off his seat in a fit of laughter. dickens, who with mark lemon disported himself among these precocious minnows, was, as our chronicler relates, like triplet, "author, manager, and actor too," organiser, deviser, and harmoniser of all the incongruous assembled elements; it was he "who improvised costumes, painted and corked our innocent cheeks, and suggested all the most effective business of the scene." but, as was usual with him, the transition was rapid from play to something very like earnest; and already, in june, , the tavistock house theatre produced mr. wilkie collins's melodrama of _the light-house_, which afterwards found its way to the public stage. to dickens, who performed in it with the author, it afforded "scope for a piece of acting of great power," the old sailor aaron gurnock, which by its savage picturesqueness earned a tribute of recognition from carlyle. no less a hand than stanfield painted the scenery, and dickens himself, besides writing the prologue, introduced into the piece a ballad called _the story of the wreck_, a not unsuccessful effort in cowper's manner. at christmas, -' , there followed _the frozen deep_, another melodrama by the same author; and by this time the management of his private theatricals had become to dickens a serious business, to be carried on seriously for its own sake. "it was to him," he wrote, "like writing a book in company;" and his young people might learn from it "that kind of humility which is got from the earned knowledge that whatever the right hand finds to do must be done with the heart in it, and in a desperate earnest." _the frozen deep_ was several times repeated, on one occasion for the benefit of the daughter of the recently deceased douglas jerrold; but by the end of january the little theatre was finally broken up; and though dickens spent one more winter season at tavistock house, the shadow was then already falling upon his cheerful home. in the midst of his children's christmas gaieties of the year dickens had given two or three public readings to "wonderful audiences" in various parts of the country. a trip to paris with mr. wilkie collins had followed, during which, as he wrote home, he was wandering about paris all day, dining at all manner of places, and frequenting the theatres at the rate of two or three a night. "i suppose," he adds, with pleasant self-irony, "as an old farmer said of scott, i am 'makin' mysel'' all the time; but i seem to be rather a free-and-easy sort of superior vagabond." and in truth a roving, restless spirit was strong upon him in these years. already, in april, he speaks of himself as "going off; i don't know where or how far, to ponder about i don't know what." france, switzerland, spain, constantinople, in mr. layard's company, had been successively in his thoughts, and, for aught he knew, greenland and the north pole might occur to him next. at the same time he foresaw that the end of it all would be his shutting himself up in some out-of-the-way place of which he had not yet thought, and going desperately to work there. before, however, these phantasmagoric schemes had subsided into the quiet plan of an autumn visit to folkestone, followed during the winter and spring by a residence at paris, he had at least found a subject to ponder on, which was to suggest an altogether novel element in his next work of fiction. i have said that though, like the majority of his fellow-countrymen, dickens regarded our war with russia as inevitable, yet his hatred of all war, and his impatience of the exaggerations of passion and sentiment which all war produces, had preserved him from himself falling a victim to their contagion. on the other hand, when in the winter of -' the note of exultation in the bravery of our soldiers in the crimea began to be intermingled with complaints against the grievously defective arrangements for their comfort and health, and when these complaints, stimulated by the loud-voiced energy of the press, and extending into censures upon the whole antiquated and perverse system of our army administration, speedily swelled into a roar of popular indignation, sincere conviction ranged him on the side of the most uncompromising malcontents. he was at all times ready to give vent to that antipathy against officialism which is shared by so large a number of englishmen. though the son of a dock-yard official, he is found roundly asserting that "more obstruction of good things and patronage of bad things has been committed in the dock-yards--as in everything connected with the misdirection of the navy--than in every other branch of the public service put together, including"--the particularisation is hard--"even the woods and forests." he had listened, we may be sure, to the scornful denunciations launched by the prophet of the _latter-day pamphlets_ against downing street and all its works, and to the proclamation of the great though rather vague truth that "reform in that downing street department of affairs is precisely the reform which were worth all others." and now the heart-rending sufferings of multitudes of brave men had brought to light, in one department of the public administration, a series of complications and perversities which in the end became so patent to the government itself that they had to be roughly remedied in the very midst of the struggle. the cry for administrative reform, which arose in the year , however crude the form it frequently took, was in itself a logical enough result of the situation; and there is no doubt that the angriness of the complaint was intensified by the attitude taken up in the house of commons by the head of the government towards the pertinacious politician who made himself the mouthpiece of the extreme demands of the feeling outside. mr. layard was dickens's valued friend; and the share is thus easily explained which--against his otherwise uniform practice of abstaining from public meetings--the most popular writer of the day took in the administrative reform meetings, held in drury lane theatre, on june , . the speech which he delivered on this occasion, and which was intended to aid in forcing the "whole question" of administrative reform upon the attention of an unwilling government, possesses no value whatever in connexion with its theme, though of course it is not devoid of some smart and telling hits. not on the platform, but at his desk as an author, was dickens to do real service to the cause of administrative efficiency. for whilst invective of a general kind runs off like water from the rock of usage, even circumlocution offices are not insensible to the acetous force of satire. dickens's caricature of british officialism formed the most generally attractive element in the story of _little dorrit_--originally intended to be called _nobody's fault_--which he published in monthly numbers, from december, , that year, to june, . he was solemnly taken to task for his audacity by the _edinburgh review_, which reproached him for his persistent ridicule of "the institutions of the country, the laws, the administration, in a word, the government under which we live." his "charges" were treated as hardly seriously meant, but as worthy of severe reprobation, because likely to be seriously taken by the poor, the uneducated, and the young. and the caricaturist, besides being reminded of the names of several eminent public servants, was specially requested to look, as upon a picture contrasting with his imaginary circumlocution office, upon the post office, or--for the choice offered was not more extensive--upon the london police, so liberally praised by himself in his own journal. the delighted author of _little dorrit_ replied to this not very skilful diatribe in a short and spirited rejoinder in _household words_. in this he judiciously confined himself to refuting an unfounded incidental accusation in the edinburgh article, and to dwelling, as upon a "curious misprint," upon the indignant query: "how does he account for the career of _mr. rowland hill_?" whose name, as an example of the ready intelligence of the circumlocution office, was certainly an odd _erratum_. had he, however, cared to make a more general reply to the main article of the indictment, he might have pointed out that, as a matter of fact, our official administrative machinery _had_ recently broken down in one of its most important branches, and that circumlocution in the literal sense of the word--circumlocution between department and department, or office and office--had been one of the principal causes of the collapse. the general drift of the satire was, therefore, in accordance with fact, and the satire itself salutary in its character. to quarrel with it for not taking into consideration what might be said on the other side, was to quarrel with the method of treatment which satire has at all times considered itself entitled to adopt; while to stigmatise a popular book as likely to mislead the ill-informed, was to suggest a restraint which would have deprived wit and humour of most of their opportunities of rendering service to either a good or an evil cause. a far more legitimate exception has been taken to these circumlocution office episodes as defective in art by the very reason of their being exaggerations. those best acquainted with the interiors of our government offices may be right in denying that the barnacles can be regarded as an existing type. indeed, it would at no time have been easy to point to any office quite as labyrinthine, or quite as bottomless, as that permanently presided over by mr. tite barnacle; to any chief secretary or commissioner so absolutely wooden of fibre as he; or to any private secretary so completely absorbed in his eye-glass as barnacle junior. but as satirical figures they one and all fulfil their purpose as thoroughly as the picture of the official sanctum itself, with its furniture "in the higher official manner," and its "general bamboozling air of how not to do it." the only question is, whether satire which, if it is to be effective, must be of a piece and in its way exaggerated, is not out of place in a pathetic and humorous fiction, where, like a patch of too diverse a thread, it interferes with the texture into which it is introduced. in themselves these passages of _little dorrit_ deserve to remain unforgotten amongst the masterpieces of literary caricature; and there is, i do not hesitate to say, something of swiftian force in their grotesque embodiment of a popular current of indignation. the mere name of the circumlocution office was a stroke of genius, one of those phrases of dickens which professor masson justly describes as, whether exaggerated or not, "efficacious for social reform." as usual, dickens had made himself well acquainted with the formal or outside part of his subject; the very air of whitehall seems to gather round us as mr. tite barnacle, in answer to a persistent enquirer who "wants to know" the position of a particular matter, concedes that it "may have been, in the course of official business, referred to the circumlocution office for its consideration," and that "the department may have either originated, or confirmed, a minute on the subject." in the _household words_ paper called _a poor man's tale of a patent_ ( ) will be found a sufficiently elaborate study for mr. doyce's experiences of the government of his country, as wrathfully narrated by mr. meagles. with the exception of the circumlocution office passages--adventitious as they are to the progress of the action--_little dorrit_ exhibits a palpable falling-off in inventive power. forster illustrates by a striking fac-simile the difference between the "labour and pains" of the author's short notes for _little dorrit_ and the "lightness and confidence of handling" in what hints he had jotted down for _david copperfield_. indeed, his "tablets" had about this time begun to be an essential part of his literary equipment. but in _little dorrit_ there are enough internal signs of, possibly unconscious, lassitude. the earlier, no doubt, is, in every respect, the better part of the book; or, rather, the later part shows the author wearily at work upon a canvas too wide for him, and filling it up with a crowd of personages in whom it is difficult to take much interest. even mr. merdle and his catastrophe produce the effect rather of a ghastly allegory than of an "extravagant conception," as the author ironically called it in his preface, derived only too directly from real life. in the earlier part of the book, in so far as it is not once again concerned with enforcing the moral of _hard times_ in a different way, by means of mrs. clennam and her son's early history, the humour of dickens plays freely over the figure of the father of the marshalsea. it is a psychological masterpiece in its way; but the revolting selfishness of little dorrit's father is not redeemed artistically by her own long-suffering; for her pathos lacks the old irresistible ring. doubtless much in this part of the story--the whole episode, for instance, of the honest turnkey--is in the author's best manner. but, admirable as it is, this new picture of prison-life and prison-sentiment has an undercurrent of bitterness, indeed, almost of contemptuousness, foreign to the best part of dickens's genius. this is still more perceptible in a figure not less true to life than the father of the marshalsea himself--flora, the overblown flower of arthur clennam's boyish love. the humour of the conception is undeniable, but the whole effect is cruel; and, though greatly amused, the reader feels almost as if he were abetting a profanation. dickens could not have become what he is to the great multitude of his readers had he, as a humourist, often indulged in this cynical mood. there is in general little in the characters of this fiction to compensate for the sense of oppression from which, as he follows the slow course of its far from striking plot, the reader finds it difficult to free himself. a vein of genuine humour shows itself in mr. plornish, obviously a favourite of the author's, and one of those genuine working-men, as rare in fiction as on the stage, where mr. toole has reproduced the species; but the relation between mr. and mrs. plornish is only a fainter revival of that between mr. and mrs. bagney. nor is there anything fresh or novel in the characters belonging to another social sphere. henry gowan, apparently intended as an elaborate study in psychology, is only a very tedious one; and his mother at hampton court, whatever phase of a dilapidated aristocracy she may be intended to caricature, is merely ill-bred. as for mrs. general, she is so sorry a burlesque that she could not be reproduced without extreme caution even on the stage--to the reckless conventionalities of which, indeed, the whole picture of the dorrit family as _nouveaux riches_ bears a striking resemblance. there is, on the contrary, some good caricature, which, in one instance at least, was thought transparent by the knowing, in the _silhouettes_ of the great mr. merdle's professional guests; but these are, like the circumlocution office puppets, satiric sketches, not the living figures of creative humour. i have spoken of this story with a censure which may be regarded as exaggerated in its turn. but i well remember, at the time of its publication in numbers, the general consciousness that _little dorrit_ was proving unequal to the high-strung expectations which a new work by dickens then excited in his admirers, both young and old. there were new and striking features in it, with abundant comic and serious effect, but there was no power in the whole story to seize and hold, and the feeling could not be escaped that the author was not at his best. and dickens was not at his best when he wrote _little dorrit_. yet while nothing is more remarkable in the literary career of dickens than this apparently speedy decline of his power, nothing is more wonderful in it than the degree to which he righted himself again, not, indeed, with his public, for the public never deserted its favourite, but with his genius. a considerable part of _little dorrit_ must have been written in paris, where, in october, after a quiet autumn at folkestone, dickens had taken a family apartment in the avenue des champs Ã�lysées, "about half a quarter of a mile above franconi's." here, after his fashion, he lived much to himself, his family, and his guests, only occasionally finding his way into a literary or artistic _salon_; but he sat for his portrait to both ary and henri scheffer, and was easily persuaded to read his _cricket on the hearth_ to an audience in the atelier. macready and mr. wilkie collins were in turn the companions of many "theatrical and lounging" evenings. intent as dickens now had become upon the technicalities of his own form of composition, this interest must have been greatly stimulated by the frequent comparison of modern french plays, in most of which nicety of construction and effectiveness of situation have so paramount a significance. at boulogne, too, mr. wilkie collins was a welcome summer visitor. and in the autumn the two friends started on the _lazy tour of two idle apprentices_. it came to an untimely end as a pedestrian excursion, but the record of it is one of the pleasantest memorials of a friendship which brightened much of dickens's life and intensified his activity in work as well as in pleasure. "mr. thomas idle" had indeed a busy time of it in this year . the publication of _little dorrit_ was not finished till june, and in august we find him, between a reading and a performance of _the frozen deep_ at manchester--then in the exciting days of the great art exhibition--thus describing to macready his way of filling up his time: "i hope you have seen my tussle with the _edinburgh_. i saw the chance last friday week, as i was going down to read the _carol_ in st. martin's hall. instantly turned to, then and there, and wrote half the article, flew out of bed early next morning, and finished it by noon. went down to gallery of illustration (we acted that night), did the day's business, corrected the proofs in polar costume in dressing-room, broke up two numbers of _household words_ to get it out directly, played in _frozen deep_ and _uncle john_, presided at supper of company, made no end of speeches, went home and gave in completely for four hours, then got sound asleep, and next day was as fresh as you used to be in the far-off days of your lusty youth." it was on the occasion of the readings at st. martin's hall, for the benefit of douglas jerrold's family, that the thought of giving readings for his own benefit first suggested itself to dickens; and, as will be seen, by april, , the idea had been carried into execution, and a new phase of life had begun for him. and yet at this very time, when his home was about to cease being in the fullest sense a home to dickens, by a strange irony of fortune, he had been enabled to carry out a long-cherished fancy and to take possession, in the first instance as a summer residence, of the house on gad's hill, of which a lucky chance had made him the owner rather more than a twelvemonth before. "my little place," he wrote in , to his swiss friend cerjat, "is a grave red-brick house (time of george the first, i suppose), which i have added to and stuck bits upon in all manner of ways, so that it is as pleasantly irregular, and as violently opposed to all architectural ideas, as the most hopeful man could possibly desire. it is on the summit of gad's hill. the robbery was committed before the door, on the man with the treasure, and falstaff ran away from the identical spot of ground now covered by the room in which i write. a little rustic ale-house, called 'the sir john falstaff,' is over the way--has been over the way ever since, in honour of the event.... the whole stupendous property is on the old dover road...." among "the blessed woods and fields" which, as he says, had done him "a world of good," in a season of unceasing bodily and mental unrest, the great english writer had indeed found a habitation fitted to become inseparable from his name and fame. it was not till rather later, in , that, after the sale of tavistock house, gad's hill place became his regular abode, a london house being only now and then taken for the season, while furnished rooms were kept at the office in wellington street for occasional use. and it was only gradually that he enlarged and improved his kentish place so as to make it the pretty and comfortable country-house which at the present day it appears to be; constructing, in course of time, the passage under the high-road to the shrubbery, where the swiss châlet given to him by mr. fechter was set up, and building the pretty little conservatory, which, when completed, he was not to live many days to enjoy. but an old-fashioned, homely look, free from the slightest affectation of quietness, belonged to gad's hill place, even after all these alterations, and belongs to it even at this day, when dickens's solid old-fashioned furniture has been changed. in the pretty little front hall still hangs the illuminated tablet recalling the legend of gad's hill; and on the inside panels of the library door remain the facetious sham book-titles: "hudson's _complete failure_," and "_ten minutes in china_," and "cats' _lives_" and, on a long series of leather backs, "hansard's _guide to refreshing sleep_." the rooms are all of a modest size, and the bedrooms--amongst them dickens's own--very low; but the whole house looks thoroughly habitable, while the views across the cornfields at the back are such as in their undulation of soft outline are nowhere more pleasant than in kent. rochester and the medway are near, even for those who do not--like dickens and his dogs--count a stretch past three or four "mile-stones on the dover road" as the mere beginning of an afternoon's walk. at a distance little greater there are in one direction the green glades of cobham park, with chalk and gravesend beyond; and in another the flat country towards the thames, with its abundance of market-gardens. there, too, are the marshes on the border of which lie the massive ruin of cooling castle, the refuge of the lollard martyr who was _not_ concerned in the affair on gad's hill, and cooling church and church-yard, with the quaint little gravestones in the grass. london and the office were within easy reach, and paris itself was, for practical purposes, not much farther away, so that, in later days at all events, dickens found himself "crossing the channel perpetually." the name of dickens still has a good sound in and about gad's hill. he was on very friendly terms with some families whose houses stand near to his own; and though nothing was farther from his nature, as he says, than to "wear topboots" and play the squire, yet he had in him not a little of what endears so many a resident country gentleman to his neighbourhood. he was head organiser rather than chief patron of village sports, of cricket matches and foot races; and his house was a dispensary for the poor of the parish. he established confidential relations between his house and the falstaff inn over the way, regulating his servants' consumption of beer on a strict but liberal plan of his own devising; but it is not for this reason only that the successor of mr. edwin trood--for such was the veritable name of mine host of the "falstaff" in dickens's time--declares that it was a bad day for the neighbourhood when dickens was taken away from it. in return, nothing could exceed the enthusiasm which surrounded him in his own country, and forster has described his astonishment at the manifestation of it on the occasion of the wedding of the youngest daughter of the house in . and, indeed, he was born to be popular, and specially among those by whom he was beloved as a friend or honoured as a benefactor. but it was not for long intervals of either work or rest that dickens was to settle down in his pleasant country house, nor was he ever, except quite at the last, to sit down under his own roof in peace and quiet, a wanderer no more. less than a year after he had taken up his residence for the summer on gad's hill, his home, and that of his younger children, was his wife's home no longer. the separation, which appears to have been preparing itself for some, but no very long, time, took place in may, , when, after an amicable arrangement, mrs. dickens left her husband, who henceforth allowed her an ample separate maintenance, and occasionally corresponded with her, but never saw her again. the younger children remained in their father's house under the self-sacrificing and devoted care of mrs. dickens's surviving sister, miss hogarth. shortly afterwards, dickens thought it well, in printed words which may be left forgotten, to rebut some slanderous gossip which, as the way of the world is, had misrepresented the circumstances of this separation. the causes of the event were an open secret to his friends and acquaintances. if he had ever loved his wife with that affection before which so-called incompatibilities of habits, temper, or disposition fade into nothingness, there is no indication of it in any of his numerous letters addressed to her. neither has it ever been pretended that he strove in the direction of that resignation which love and duty together made possible to david copperfield, or even that he remained in every way master of himself, as many men have known how to remain, the story of whose wedded life and its disappointments has never been written in history or figured in fiction. it was not incumbent upon his faithful friend and biographer, and much less can it be upon one whom nothing but a sincere admiration of dickens's genius entitles to speak of him at all, to declare the standard by which the most painful transaction in his life is to be judged. i say the most painful, for it is with a feeling akin to satisfaction that one reads, in a letter three years afterwards to a lady in reference to her daughter's wedding: "i want to thank you also for thinking of me on the occasion, but i feel that i am better away from it. i should really have a misgiving that i was a sort of a shadow on a young marriage, and you will understand me when i say so, and no more." a shadow, too--who would deny it?--falls on every one of the pictures in which the tenderest of modern humourists has painted the simple joys and the sacred sorrows of that home life of which to his generation he had become almost the poet and the prophet, when we remember how he was himself neither blessed with its full happiness nor capable of accepting with resignation the imperfection inherent in it, as in all things human. chapter vi. last years. [ - .] the last twelve years of dickens's life were busy years, like the others; but his activity was no longer merely the expression of exuberant force, and long before the collapse came he had been repeatedly warned of the risks he continued to defy. when, however, he first entered upon those public readings, by persisting in which he indisputably hastened his end, neither he nor his friends took into account the fear of bodily ill-effects resulting from his exertions. their misgivings had other grounds. of course, had there been any pressure of pecuniary difficulty or need upon dickens when he began, or when on successive occasions he resumed, his public readings, there would be nothing further to be said. but i see no suggestion of any such pressure. "my worldly circumstances," he wrote before he had finally made up his mind to read in america, "are very good. i don't want money. all my possessions are free and in the best order. still," he added, "at fifty-five or fifty-six, the likelihood of making a very great addition to one's capital in half a year is an immense consideration." moreover, with all his love of doing as he chose, and his sense of the value of such freedom to him as a writer, he was a man of simple though liberal habits of life, with no taste for the gorgeous or capricious extravagances of a balzac or a dumas, nor can he have been at a loss how to make due provision for those whom in the course of nature he would leave behind him. love of money for its own sake, or for that of the futilities it can purchase, was altogether foreign to his nature. at the same time, the rapid making of large sums has potent attractions for most men; and these attractions are perhaps strongest for those who engage in the pursuit for the sake of the race as well as of the prize. dickens's readings were virtually something new; their success was not only all his own, but unique and unprecedented--what nobody but himself ever had achieved or ever could have achieved. yet the determining motive--if i read his nature rightly--was, after all, of another kind. "two souls dwelt in his breast;" and when their aspirations united in one appeal it was irresistible. the author who craved for the visible signs of a sympathy responding to that which he felt for his multitudes of readers, and the actor who longed to impersonate creations already beings of flesh and blood to himself, were both astir in him, and in both capacities he felt himself drawn into the very publicity deprecated by his friends. he liked, as one who knew him thoroughly said to me, to be face to face with his public; and against this liking, which he had already indulged as fully as he could without passing the boundaries between private and professional life, arguments were in vain. it has been declared sheer pedantry to speak of such boundaries; and to suggest that there is anything degrading in paid readings such as those of dickens would, on the face of it, be absurd. on the other hand, the author who, on or off the stage, becomes the interpreter of his writings to large audiences, more especially if he does his best to stereotype his interpretation by constantly repeating it, limits his own prerogative of being many things to many men; and where the author of a work, more particularly of a work of fiction, adjusts it to circumstances differing from those of its production, he allows the requirements of the lesser art to prejudice the claims of the greater. dickens cannot have been blind to these considerations; but to others his eyes were never opened. he found much that was inspiriting in his success as a reader, and this not only in the large sums he gained, or even in the "roaring sea of response," to use his own fine metaphor, of which he had become accustomed to "stand upon the beach." his truest sentiment as an author was touched to the quick; and he was, as he says himself, "brought very near to what he had sometimes dreamed might be his fame," when, at york, a lady, whose face he had never seen, stopped him in the street, and said to him, "mr. dickens, will you let me touch the hand that has filled my house with many friends?" or when, at belfast, he was almost overwhelmed with entreaties "to shake hands, misther dickens, and god bless you, sir; not ounly for the light you've been in mee house, sir--and god love your face!--this many a year." on the other hand--and this, perhaps, a nature like his would not be the quickest to perceive--there was something vulgarising in the constant striving after immediate success in the shape of large audiences, loud applause, and satisfactory receipts. the conditions of the actor's art cannot forego these stimulants; and this is precisely his disadvantage in comparison with artists who are able to possess themselves in quiet. to me, at least, it is painful to find dickens jubilantly recording how at dublin "eleven bank-notes were thrust into the pay-box--arthur saw them--at one time for eleven stalls;" how at edinburgh "neither grisi, nor jenny lind, nor anything, nor anybody, seems to make the least effect on the draw of the readings;" while, every allowance being made, there is something almost ludicrous in the double assertion, that "the most delicate audience i had ever seen in any provincial place is canterbury; but the audience with the greatest sense of humour certainly is dover." what subjects for parody dickens would have found in these innocent ecstasies if uttered by any other man! undoubtedly, this enthusiasm was closely connected with the very thoroughness with which he entered into the work of his readings. "you have no idea," he tells forster, in , "how i have worked at them. finding it necessary, as their reputation widened, that they should be better than at first, _i have learnt them all_, so as to have no mechanical drawback in looking after the words. i have tested all the serious passion in them by everything i know; made the humorous points much more humorous; corrected my utterance of certain words; cultivated a self-possession not to be disturbed; and made myself master of the situation." "from ten years ago to last night," he writes to his son from baltimore in , "i have never read to an audience but i have watched for an opportunity of striking out something better somewhere." the freshness with which he returned night after night and season after season to the sphere of his previous successes, was itself a genuine actor's gift. "so real," he declares, "are my fictions to myself, that, after hundreds of nights, i come with a feeling of perfect freshness to that little red table, and laugh and cry with my hearers as if i had never stood there before." dickens's first public readings were given at birmingham, during the christmas week of -' , in support of the new midland institute; but a record--for the authenticity of which i cannot vouch--remains, that with true theatrical instinct he, before the christmas in question, gave a trial reading of the _christmas carol_ to a smaller public audience at peterborough. he had since been repeatedly found willing to read for benevolent purposes; and the very fact that it had become necessary to decline some of these frequent invitations had again suggested the possibility--which had occurred to him eleven years before--of meeting the demand in a different way. yet it may, after all, be doubted whether the idea of undertaking an entire series of paid public readings would have been carried out, had it not been for the general restlessness which had seized upon dickens early in , when, moreover, he had no special task either of labour or of leisure to absorb him, and when he craved for excitement more than ever. to go home--in this springtime of --was not to find there the peace of contentment. "i must do _something_," he wrote in march to his faithful counsellor, "or i shall wear my heart away. i can see no better thing to do that is half so hopeful in itself, or half so well suited to my restless state." so by april the die was cast, and on the th of that month he had entered into his new relation with the public. one of the strongest and most genuine impulses of his nature had victoriously asserted itself, and according to his wont he addressed himself to his task with a relentless vigour which flinched from no exertion. he began with a brief series at st. martin's hall, and then, his invaluable friend arthur smith continuing to act as his manager, he contrived to cram not less than eighty-seven readings into three months and a half of travelling in the "provinces," including scotland and ireland. a few winter readings in london, and a short supplementary course in the country during october, , completed this first series. already, in , we find him, in a letter from ireland, complaining of the "tremendous strain," and declaring, "i seem to be always either in a railway carriage, or reading, or going to bed. i get so knocked up, whenever i have a minute to remember it, that then i go to bed as a matter of course." but the enthusiasm which everywhere welcomed him--i can testify to the thrill of excitement produced by his visit to cambridge, in october, --repaid him for his fatigues. scotland thawed to him, and with dublin--where his success was extraordinary--he was so smitten as to think it at first sight "pretty nigh as big as paris." in return, the boots at morrison's expressed the general feeling in a patriotic point of view: "'whaat sart of a hoose, sur?' he asked me. 'capital.' 'the lard be praised, for the 'onor o' dooblin.'" the books, or portions of books, to which he confined himself during this first series of readings were few in number. they comprised the _carol_ and the _chimes_, and two stories from earlier christmas numbers of _household words_--may the exclamation of the soft-hearted chambermaid at the holly tree inn, "it's a shame to part 'em!" never vanish from my memory!--together with the episodic readings of the _trial_ in _pickwick_, _mrs. gamp_, and _paul dombey_. of these the _pickwick_, which i heard more than once, is still vividly present to me. the only drawback to the complete enjoyment of it was the lurking fear that there had been some tampering with the text, not to be condoned even in its author. but in the way of assumption charles mathews the elder himself could have accomplished no more protean effort. the lack-lustre eye of mr. justice stareleigh, the forensic hitch of mr. serjeant buzfuz, and the hopeless impotence of mr. nathaniel winkle were alike incomparable. and if the success of the impersonation of mr. samuel weller was less complete--although dickens had formerly acted the character on an amateur stage--the reason probably was that, by reason of his endless store of ancient and modern instances, sam had himself become a quasi-mythical being, whom it was almost painful to find reproduced in flesh and blood. i have not hesitated to treat these readings by dickens as if they had been the performances of an actor; and the description would apply even more strongly to his later readings, in which he seemed to make his points in a more accentuated fashion than before. "his readings," says mr. c. kent, in an interesting little book about them, "were, in the fullest meaning of the words, singularly ingenious and highly-elaborated histrionic performances." as such they had been prepared with a care such as few actors bestow upon their parts, and--for the book was prepared not less than the reading--not all authors bestow upon their plays. now, the art of reading, even in the case of dramatic works, has its own laws, which even the most brilliant readers cannot neglect except at their peril. a proper pitch has to be found, in the first instance, before the exceptional passages can be, as it were, marked off from it; and the absence of this ground-tone sometimes interfered with the total effect of a reading by dickens. on the other hand, the exceptional passages were, if not uniformly, at least generally excellent; nor am i at all disposed to agree with forster in preferring, as a rule, the humorous to the pathetic. at the same time, there was noticeable in these readings a certain hardness which competent critics likewise discerned in dickens's acting, and which could not, at least in the former case, be regarded as an ordinary characteristic of dilettanteism. the truth is that he isolated his parts too sharply--a frequent fault of english acting, and one more detrimental to the total effect of a reading than even to that of an acted play. no sooner had the heaviest stress of the first series of readings ceased than dickens was once more at work upon a new fiction. the more immediate purpose was to insure a prosperous launch to the journal which, in the spring of , took the place of _household words_. a dispute, painful in its origin, but ending in an amicable issue, had resulted in the purchase of that journal by dickens; but already a little earlier he had--as he was entitled to do--begun the new venture of _all the year round_, with which _household words_ was afterwards incorporated. the first number, published on april , contained the earliest instalment of _a tale of two cities_, which was completed by november following. this story holds a unique place amongst the fictions of its author. perhaps the most striking difference between it and his other novels may seem to lie in the all but entire absence from it of any humour or attempt at humour; for neither the brutalities of that "honest tradesman," jerry, nor the laconisms of miss pross, can well be called by that name. not that his sources of humour were drying up, even though, about this time, he contributed to an american journal a short "romance of the real world," _hunted down_, from which the same relief is again conspicuously absent. for the humour of dickens was to assert itself with unmistakable force in his next longer fiction, and was even before that, in some of his occasional papers, to give delightful proofs of its continued vigour. in the case of the _tale of two cities_, he had a new and distinct design in his mind which did not, indeed, exclude humour, but with which a liberal indulgence in it must have seriously interfered. "i set myself," he writes, "the little task of writing a picturesque story, rising in every chapter with characters true to nature, but whom the story itself should express more than they should express themselves by dialogue. i mean, in other words, that i fancied a story of incident might be written, in place of the bestiality that is written under that pretence, pounding the characters out in its own mortar, and beating their own interests out of them." he therefore renounced his more usual method in favour of one probably less congenial to him. yet, in his own opinion at least, he succeeded so well in the undertaking, that when the story was near its end he could venture to express a hope that it was "the best story he had written." so much praise will hardly be given to this novel even by admirers of the french art of telling a story succinctly, or by those who can never resist a rather hysterical treatment of the french revolution. in my own opinion _a tale of two cities_ is a skilfully though not perfectly constructed novel, which needed but little substantial alteration in order to be converted into a not less effective stage-play. and with such a design dickens actually sent the proof-sheets of the book to his friend regnier, in the fearful hope that he might approve of the project of its dramatisation for a french theatre. cleverly or clumsily adapted, the tale of the revolution and its sanguinary vengeance was unlikely to commend itself to the imperial censorship; but an english version was, i believe, afterwards very fairly successful on the boards of the adelphi, where madame celeste was certainly in her right place as madame defarge, an excellent character for a melodrama, though rather wearisome as she lies in wait through half a novel. the construction of this story is, as i have said, skilful but not perfect. dickens himself successfully defended his use of accident in bringing about the death of madame defarge. the real objection to the conduct of this episode, however, lies in the inadequacy of the contrivance for leaving miss pross behind in paris. too much is also, i think, made to turn upon the three words "and their descendants"--non-essential in the original connexion--by which dr. manette's written denunciation becomes fatal to those he loves. still, the general edifice of the plot is solid; its interest is, notwithstanding the crowded background, concentrated with much skill upon a small group of personages; and carton's self-sacrifice, admirably prepared from the very first, produces a legitimate tragic effect. at the same time the novelist's art vindicates its own claims. not only does this story contain several narrative episodes of remarkable power--such as the flight from paris at the close, and the touching little incident of the seamstress, told in dickens's sweetest pathetic manner--but it is likewise enriched by some descriptive pictures of unusual excellence: for instance, the sketch of dover in the good old smuggling times, and the mezzo-tint of the stormy evening in soho. doubtless the increased mannerism of the style is disturbing, and this not only in the high-strung french scenes. as to the historical element in this novel, dickens modestly avowed his wish that he might by his story have been able "to add something to the popular and picturesque means of understanding that terrible time, though no one can hope to add anything to mr. carlyle's wonderful book." but if dickens desired to depict the noble of the _ancien régime_, either according to carlyle or according to intrinsic probability, he should not have offered, in his marquis, a type historically questionable, and unnatural besides. the description of the saint antoine, before and during the bursting of the storm, has in it more of truthfulness, or of the semblance of truthfulness; and dickens's perception of the physiognomy of the french workman is, i think, remarkably accurate. altogether, the book is an extraordinary _tour de force_, which dickens never repeated. the opening of a new story by dickens gave the necessary _impetus_ to his new journal at its earliest stage; nor was the ground thus gained ever lost. mr. w. h. wills stood by his chief's side as of old, taking, more especially in later years, no small share of responsibility upon him. the prospectus of _all the year round_ had not in vain promised an identity of principle in its conduct with that of its predecessor; in energy and spirit it showed no falling off; and, though not in all respects, the personality of dickens made itself felt as distinctly as ever. besides the _tale of two cities_ he contributed to it his story of _great expectations_. amongst his contributors mr. wilkie collins took away the breath of multitudes of readers; mr. charles reade disported himself amongst the facts which gave stamina to his fiction; and lord lytton made a daring voyage into a mysterious country. thither dickens followed him, for once, in his _four stories_, not otherwise noteworthy, and written in a manner already difficult to discriminate from that of mr. wilkie collins. for the rest, the advice with which dickens aided lord lytton's progress in his _strange story_ was neither more ready nor more painstaking than that which he bestowed upon his younger contributors, to more than one of whom he generously gave the opportunity of publishing in his journal a long work of fiction. some of these younger writers were at this period amongst his most frequent guests and associates; for nothing more naturally commended itself to him than the encouragement of the younger generation. but though longer imaginative works played at least as conspicuous a part in the new journal as they had in the old, the conductor likewise continued to make manifest his intention that the lesser contributions should not be treated by readers or by writers as harmless necessary "padding." for this purpose it was requisite not only that the choice of subjects should be made with the utmost care, but also that the master's hand should itself be occasionally visible. dickens's occasional contributions had been few and unimportant, till in a happy hour he began a series of papers, including many of the pleasantest, as well as of the mellowest, amongst the lighter productions of his pen. as usual, he had taken care to find for this series a name which of itself went far to make its fortune. "i am both a town and a country traveller, and am always on the road. figuratively speaking, i travel for the great house of human interest brothers, and have rather a large connexion in the fancy goods way. literally speaking, i am always wandering here and there from my rooms in covent garden, london--now about the city streets, now about the country by-roads, seeing many little things, and some great things, which, because they interest me, i think may interest others." the whole collection of these _uncommercial traveller_ papers, together with the _uncommercial samples_ which succeeded them after dickens's return from america, and which begin with a graphic account of his homeward voyage _aboard ship_, where the voice of conscience spoke in the motion of the screw, amounts to thirty-seven articles, and spreads over a period of nine years. they are necessarily of varying merit, but amongst them are some which deserve a permanent place in our lighter literature. such are the description of the church-yards on a quiet evening in _the city of the absent_, the grotesque picture of loneliness in _chambers_--a favourite theme with dickens--and the admirable papers on _shy neighbourhoods_ and on _tramps_. others have a biographical interest, though delightfully objective in treatment; yet others are mere fugitive pieces; but there are few without some of the most attractive qualities of dickens's easiest style. dickens contributed other occasional papers to his journal, some of which may be forgotten without injury to his fame. amongst these may be reckoned the rather dreary _george silverman's explanation_ ( ), in which there is nothing characteristic but a vivid picture of a set of ranters, led by a clique of scoundrels; on the other hand, there will always be admirers of the pretty _holiday romance_, published nearly simultaneously in america and england, a nosegay of tales told by children, the only fault of which is that, as with other children's nosegays, there is perhaps a little too much of it. i have no room for helping to rescue from partial oblivion an old friend, whose portrait has not, i think, found a home amongst his master's collected sketches. pincher's counterfeit has gone astray, like _pincher_ himself. meanwhile, the special institution of the christmas number flourished in connexion with _all the year round_ down to the year , as it had during the last five years of _household words_. it consisted, with the exception of the very last number, of a series of short stories, in a framework of the editor's own devising. to the authors of the stories, of which he invariably himself wrote one or more, he left the utmost liberty, at times stipulating for nothing but that tone of cheerful philanthropy which he had domesticated in his journal. in the christmas numbers, which gradually attained to such a popularity that of one of the last something like a quarter of a million copies were sold, dickens himself shone most conspicuously in the introductory sections; and some of these are to be reckoned amongst his very best descriptive character-sketches. already in _household words_ christmas numbers the introductory sketch of the _seven poor travellers_ from watt's charity at supper in the rochester hostelry, and the excellent description of a winter journey and sojourn at the _holly tree inn_, with an excursus on inns in general, had become widely popular. the _all the year round_ numbers, however, largely augmented this success. after _tom tiddler's ground_, with the adventures of miss kitty kimmeens, a pretty little morality in miniature, teaching the same lesson as the vagaries of mr. mopes the hermit, came _somebody's luggage_, with its exhaustive disquisition on waiters; and then the memorable chirpings of _mrs. lirriper_, in both _lodgings_ and _legacy_, admirable in the delicacy of their pathos, and including an inimitable picture of london lodging-house life. then followed the _prescriptions_ of _dr. marigold_, the eloquent and sarcastic but tender-hearted cheap jack; and _mugby junction_, which gave words to the cry of a whole nation of hungry and thirsty travellers. in the tales and sketches contributed by him to the christmas numbers, in addition to these introductions, he at times gave the rein to his love for the fanciful and the grotesque, which there was here no reason to keep under. on the whole, written, as in a sense these compositions were, to order, nothing is more astonishing in them than his continued freshness, against which his mannerism is here of vanishing importance; and, inasmuch as after issuing a last christmas number of a different kind, dickens abandoned the custom when it had reached the height of popular favour, and when manifold imitations had offered him the homage of their flattery, he may be said to have withdrawn from this campaign in his literary life with banners flying. in the year dickens's readings had been comparatively few; and they had ceased altogether in the following year, when the _uncommercial traveller_ began his wanderings. the winter from to was his last winter at tavistock house; and, with the exception of his rooms in wellington street, he had now no settled residence but gad's hill place. he sought its pleasant retreat about the beginning of june, after the new experience of an attack of rheumatism had made him recognise "the necessity of country training all through the summer." yet such was the recuperative power, or the indomitable self-confidence, of his nature, that after he had in these summer months contributed some of the most delightful _uncommercial traveller_ papers to his journal, we find him already in august "prowling about, meditating a new book." it is refreshing to think of dickens in this pleasant interval of country life, before he had rushed once more into the excitement of his labours as a public reader. we may picture him to ourselves, accompanied by his dogs, striding along the country roads and lanes, exploring the haunts of the country tramps, "a piece of kentish road," for instance, "bordered on either side by a wood, and having on one hand, between the road-dust and the trees, a skirting patch of grass. wild flowers grow in abundance on this spot, and it lies high and airy, with a distant river stealing steadily away to the ocean like a man's life. to gain the mile-stone here, which the moss, primroses, violets, bluebells, and wild roses would soon render illegible but for peering travellers pushing them aside with their sticks, you must come up a steep hill, come which way you may." at the foot of that hill, i fancy, lay dullborough town half asleep in the summer afternoon; and the river in the distance was that which bounded the horizon of a little boy's vision "whose father's family name was pirrip, and whose christian name was philip, but whose infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than pip." the story of pip's adventures, the novel of _great expectations_, was thought over in these kentish perambulations between thames and medway along the road which runs, apparently with the intention of running out to sea, from higham towards the marshes; in the lonely church-yard of cooling village by the thirteen little stone-lozenges, of which pip counted only five, now nearly buried in their turn by the rank grass; and in quiet saunters through the familiar streets of rochester, past the "queer" townhall; and through the "vines" past the fine old restoration house, called in the book (by the name of an altogether different edifice) satis house. and the climax of the narrative was elaborated on a unique steamboat excursion from london to the mouth of the thames, broken by a night at the "ship and lobster," an old riverside inn called "the ship" in the story. no wonder that dickens's descriptive genius should become refreshed by these studies of his subject, and that thus _great expectations_ should have indisputably become one of the most picturesque of his books. but it is something very much more at the same time. the _tale of two cities_ had as a story strongly seized upon the attention of the reader. but in the earlier chapters of _great expectations_ every one felt that dickens was himself again. since the yarmouth scenes in _david copperfield_ he had written nothing in which description married itself to sentiment so humorously and so tenderly. uncouth, and slow, and straightforward, and gentle of heart, like mr. peggotty, joe gargery is as new a conception as he is a genuinely true one; nor is it easy to know under what aspect to relish him most--whether disconsolate in his sunday clothes, "like some extraordinary bird, standing, as he did, speechless, with his tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm," or at home by his own fireside, winking at his little comrade, and, when caught in the act by his wife, "drawing the back of his hand across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such occasions." nor since _david copperfield_ had dickens again shown such an insight as he showed here into the world of a child's mind. "to be quite sure," he wrote to forster, "i had fallen into no unconscious repetitions, i read _david copperfield_ again the other day, and was affected by it to a degree you would hardly believe." his fears were unnecessary; for with all its charm the history of pip lacks the personal element which insures our sympathy to the earlier story and to its hero. in delicacy of feeling, however, as well as in humour of description, nothing in dickens surpasses the earlier chapters of _great expectations_; and equally excellent is the narrative of pip's disloyalty of heart toward his early friends, down to his departure from the forge, a picture of pitiable selfishness almost rousseau-like in its fidelity to poor human nature; down to his comic humiliation, when in the pride of his new position and his new clothes, before "that unlimited miscreant, trabb's boy." the later and especially the concluding portions of this novel contain much that is equal in power to its opening; but it must be allowed that, before many chapters have ended, a false tone finds its way into the story. the whole history of miss havisham, and the crew of relations round the unfortunate creature, is strained and unnatural, and estella's hardness is as repulsive as that of edith dombey herself. mr. jaggers and his house-keeper, and even mr. wemmick, have an element of artificiality in them, whilst about the pocket family there is little, if anything at all, that is real. the story, however, seems to recover itself as the main thread in its deftly-woven texture is brought forward again: when on a dark, gusty night, ominous of coming trouble, the catastrophe of pip's expectations announces itself in the return from abroad of his unknown benefactor, the convict whom he had as a child fed on the marshes. the remainder of the narrative is successful in conveying to the reader the sense of sickening anxiety which fills the hero; the interest is skilfully sustained by the introduction of a very strong situation--pip's narrow escape out of the clutches of "old orlick" in the lime-kiln on the marshes; and the climax is reached in the admirably-executed narrative of the convict's attempt, with the aid of pip, to escape by the river. the actual winding-up of _great expectations_ is not altogether satisfactory; but on the whole the book must be ranked among the very best of dickens's later novels, as combining, with the closer construction and intenser narrative force common to several of these, not a little of the delightfully genial humour of his earlier works. already, before _great expectations_ was completely published, dickens had given a few readings at the st. james's hall, and by the end of october in the same year, , he was once more engaged in a full course of country readings. they occupied him till the following january, only ten days being left for his christmas number, and a brief holiday for christmas itself; so close was the adjustment of time and work by this favourite of fortune. the death of his faithful arthur smith befell most untowardly before the country readings were begun, but their success was unbroken, from scotland to south devon. the long-contemplated extract from _copperfield_ had at last been added to the list--a self-sacrifice _coram publico_, hallowed by success--and another from _nicholas nickleby_, which "went in the wildest manner." he was, however, nearly worn out with fatigue before these winter readings were over, and was glad to snatch a moment of repose before a short spring course in town began. scarcely was this finished, when he was coquetting in his mind with an offer from australia, and had already proposed to himself to throw in, as a piece of work by the way, a series of papers to be called _the uncommercial traveller upside down_. meanwhile, a few readings for a charitable purpose in paris, and a short summer course at st. james's hall, completed this second series in the year . whatever passing thoughts overwork by day or sleeplessness at night may have occasionally brought with them, dickens himself would have been strangely surprised, as no doubt would have been the great body of a public to which he was by this time about the best known man in england, had he been warned that weakness and weariness were not to be avoided even by a nature endowed with faculties so splendid and with an energy so conquering as his. he seemed to stand erect in the strength of his matured powers, equal as of old to any task which he set himself, and exulting, though with less buoyancy of spirit than of old, in the wreaths which continued to strew his path. yet already the ranks of his contemporaries were growing thinner, while close to himself death was taking away members of the generation before, and of that after, his own. amongst them was his mother--of whom his biography and his works have little to say or to suggest--and his second son. happy events, too, had in the due course of things contracted the family circle at gad's hill. of his intimates, he lost, in , augustus egg; and in john leech, to whose genius he had himself formerly rendered eloquent homage. a still older associate, the great painter stanfield, survived till . "no one of your father's friends," dickens then wrote to stanfield's son, "can ever have loved him more dearly than i always did, or can have better known the worth of his noble character." yet another friend, who, however, so far as i can gather, had not at any time belonged to dickens's most familiar circle, had died on christmas eve, --thackeray, whom it had for some time become customary to compare or contrast with him as his natural rival. yet in point of fact, save for the tenderness which, as with all humourists of the highest order, was an important element in their writings, and save for the influences of time and country to which they were both subject, there are hardly two other amongst our great humourists who have less in common. their unlikeness shows itself, among other things, in the use made by thackeray of suggestions which it is difficult to believe he did not in the first instance owe to dickens. who would venture to call captain costigan a plagiarism from mr. snevellici, or to affect that wenham and wagg were copied from pyke and pluck, or that major pendennis--whose pardon one feels inclined to beg for the juxtaposition--was founded upon major bagstock, or the old campaigner in the _newcomes_ on the old soldier in _copperfield_? but that suggestions were in these and perhaps in a few other instances derived from dickens by thackeray for some of his most masterly characters, it would, i think, be idle to deny. in any case, the style of these two great writers differed as profoundly as their way of looking at men and things. yet neither of them lacked a thorough appreciation of the other's genius; and it is pleasant to remember that, after paying in _pendennis_ a tribute to the purity of dickens's books, thackeray in a public lecture referred to his supposed rival in a way which elicited from the latter the warmest of acknowledgments. it cannot be said that the memorial words which, after thackeray's death, dickens was prevailed upon to contribute to the _cornhill magazine_ did more than justice to the great writer whom england had just lost; but it is well that the kindly and unstinting tribute of admiration should remain on record, to contradict any supposition that a disagreement which had some years previously disturbed the harmony of their intercourse, and of which the world had, according to its wont, made the most, had really estranged two generous minds from one another. the effort which on this occasion dickens made is in itself a proof of his kindly feeling towards thackeray. of talfourd and landor and stanfield he could write readily after their deaths, but he frankly told mr. wilkie collins that, "had he felt he could," he would most gladly have excused himself from writing the "couple of pages" about thackeray. dickens, it should be remembered, was at no time a man of many friends. the mere dalliance of friendship was foreign to one who worked so indefatigably in his hours of recreation as well as of labour; and fellowship in work of one kind or another seems to have been, in later years at all events, the surest support to his intimacy. yet he was most easily drawn, not only to those who could help him, but to those whom he could help in congenial pursuits and undertakings. such was, no doubt, the origin of his friendship in these later years with an accomplished french actor on the english boards, whom, in a rather barren period of our theatrical history, dickens may have been justified in describing as "far beyond any one on our stage," and who certainly was an "admirable artist." in mr. fechter had taken the lyceum, the management of which he was to identify with a more elegant kind of melodrama than that long domesticated lower down the strand; and dickens was delighted to bestow on him counsel frankly sought and frankly given. as an author, too, he directly associated himself with the art of his friend.[ ] for i may mention here by anticipation that the last of the _all the year round_ christmas numbers, the continuous story of _no thoroughfare_, was written by dickens and mr. wilkie collins in , with a direct eye to its subsequent adaptation to the stage, for which it actually was fitted by mr. wilkie collins in the following year. the place of its production, the adelphi, suited the broad effects and the rather conventional comic humour of the story and piece. from america, dickens watched the preparation of the piece with unflagging interest; and his innate and irrepressible genius for stage-management reveals itself in the following passage from a letter written by him to an american friend soon after his return to england: "_no thoroughfare_ is very shortly coming out in paris, where it is now in active rehearsal. it is still playing here, but without fechter, who has been very ill. he and wilkie raised so many pieces of stage-effect here, that, unless i am quite satisfied with the report, i shall go over and try my stage-managerial hand at the vaudeville theatre. i particularly want the drugging and attempted robbery in the bedroom-scene at the swiss inn to be done to the sound of a water-fall rising and falling with the wind. although in the very opening of that scene they speak of the water-fall, and listen to it, nobody thought of its mysterious music. i could make it, with a good stage-carpenter, in an hour." _great expectations_ had been finished in , and already in the latter part of , the year which comprised the main portion of his second series of readings, he had been thinking of a new story. he had even found a title--the unlucky title which he afterwards adopted--but in the tempting australian invitation had been a serious obstacle in his way. "i can force myself to go aboard a ship, and i can force myself to do at that reading-desk what i have done a hundred times; but whether, with all this unsettled, fluctuating distress in my mind, i could force an original book out of it is another question." nor was it the "unsettled, fluctuating distress" which made it a serious effort for him to attempt another longer fiction. dickens shared with most writers the experience that both the inventive power and the elasticity of memory decline with advancing years. already since the time when he was thinking of writing _little dorrit_ it had become his habit to enter in a book kept for the purpose memoranda for possible future use, hints for subjects of stories,[ ] scenes, situations, and characters; thoughts and fancies of all kinds; titles for possible books. of these _somebody's luggage_, _our mutual friend_, and _no thoroughfare_--the last an old fancy revived--came to honourable use; as did many names, both christian and surnames, and combinations of both. thus, bradley headstone's _prænomen_ was derived directly from the lists of the education department, and the lammles and the stiltstalkings, with mr. merdle and the dorrits, existed as names before the characters were fitted to them. all this, though no doubt in part attributable to the playful readiness of an observation never to be caught asleep, points in the direction of a desire to be securely provided with an armoury of which, in earlier days, he would have taken slight thought. gradually--indeed, so far as i know, more gradually than in the case of any other of his stories--he had built up the tale for which he had determined on the title of _our mutual friend_, and slowly, and without his old self-confidence, he had, in the latter part of , set to work upon it. "i want to prepare it for the spring, but i am determined not to begin to publish with less than four numbers done. i see my opening perfectly, with the one main line on which the story is to turn, and if i don't strike while the iron (meaning myself) is hot, i shall drift off again, and have to go through all this uneasiness once more." for, unfortunately, he had resolved on returning to the old twenty-number measure for his new story. begun with an effort, _our mutual friend_--the publication of which extended from may, , to november, --was completed under difficulties, and difficulties of a kind hitherto unknown to dickens. in february, , as an immediate consequence, perhaps, of exposure at a time when depression of spirits rendered him less able than usual to bear it, he had a severe attack of illness, of which forster says that it "put a broad mark between his past life and what remained to him of the future." from this time forward he felt a lameness in his left foot, which continued to trouble him at intervals during the remainder of his life, and which finally communicated itself to the left hand. a comparison of times, however, convinced forster that the real origin of this ailment was to be sought in general causes. in , as the year wore on, and the pressure of the novel still continued, he felt that he was "working himself into a damaged state," and was near to that which has greater terrors for natures like his than for more placid temperaments--breaking down. so, in may, he went first to the sea-side and then to france. on his return (it was the th of june, the date of his death five years afterwards) he was in the railway train which met with a fearful accident at staplehurst, in kent. his carriage was the only passenger-carriage in the train which, when the bridge gave way, was not thrown over into the stream. he was able to escape out of the window, to make his way in again for his brandy-flask and the ms. of a number of _our mutual friend_ which he had left behind him, to clamber down the brickwork of the bridge for water, to do what he could towards rescuing his unfortunate fellow-travellers, and to aid the wounded and the dying. "i have," he wrote, in describing the scene, "a--i don't know what to call it: constitutional, i suppose--presence of mind, and was not in the least fluttered at the time.... but in writing these scanty words of recollection i feel the shake, and am obliged to stop." nineteen months afterwards, when on a hurried reading tour in the north, he complains to miss hogarth of the effect of the railway shaking which since the staplehurst accident "tells more and more." it is clear how serious a shock the accident had caused. he never, miss hogarth thinks, quite recovered it. yet it might have acted less disastrously upon a system not already nervously weakened. as evidence of the decline of dickens's nervous power, i hardly know whether it is safe to refer to the gradual change in his handwriting, which in his last years is a melancholy study. all these circumstances should be taken into account in judging of dickens's last completed novel. the author would not have been himself had he, when once fairly engaged upon his work, failed to feel something of his old self-confidence. nor was this feeling, which he frankly confessed to mr. wilkie collins, altogether unwarranted. _our mutual friend_[ ] is, like the rest of dickens's later writings, carefully and skilfully put together as a story. no exception is to be taken to it on the ground that the identity on which much of the plot hinges is long foreseen by the reader; for this, as dickens told his critics in his postscript, had been part of his design, and was, in fact, considering the general nature of the story, almost indispensable. the defect rather lies in the absence of that element of uncertainty which is needed in order to sustain the interest. the story is, no doubt, ingeniously enough constructed, but admiration of an ingenious construction is insufficient to occupy the mind of a reader through an inevitable disentanglement. moreover, some of the machinery, though cleverly contrived, cannot be said to work easily. thus, the _ruse_ of the excellent boffin in playing the part of a skinflint might pass as a momentary device, but its inherent improbability, together with the likelihood of its leading to an untoward result, makes its protraction undeniably tedious. it is not, however, in my opinion at least, in the matter of construction that _our mutual friend_ presents a painful contrast with earlier works produced, like it, "on a large canvas." the conduct of the story as a whole is fully vigorous enough to enchain the attention; and in portions of it the hand of the master displays its unique power. he is at his best in the whole of the water-side scenes, both where "the six jolly fellowship porters" (identified by zealous discoverers with a tavern called "the two brewers") lies like an oasis in the midst of a desert of ill-favoured tidal deposits, and where rogue riderhood has his lair at the lock higher up the river. a marvellous union of observation and imagination was needed for the picturing of a world in which this amphibious monster has his being; and never did dickens's inexhaustible knowledge of the physiognomy of the thames and its banks stand him in better stead than in these powerful episodes. it is unfortunate, though in accordance with the common fate of heroes and heroines, that lizzie hexham should, from the outset, have to discard the colouring of her surroundings, and to talk the conventional dialect as well as express the conventional sentiments of the heroic world. only at the height of the action she ceases to be commonplace, and becomes entitled to be remembered amongst the true heroines of fiction. a more unusual figure, of the half-pathetic, half-grotesque kind for which dickens had a peculiar liking, is lizzie's friend, the doll's dressmaker, into whom he has certainly infused an element of genuine sentiment; her protector, riah, on the contrary, is a mere stage-saint, though by this character dickens appears to have actually hoped to redeem the aspersions he was supposed to have cast upon the jews, as if riah could have redeemed fagin, any more than sheva redeemed shylock. but in this book whole episodes and parts of the plot through which the mystery of john harmon winds its length along are ill-adapted for giving pleasure to any reader. the whole boffin, wegg, and venus business--if the term may pass--is extremely wearisome; the character of mr. venus, in particular, seems altogether unconnected or unarticulated with the general plot, on which, indeed, it is but an accidental excrescence. in the wilfer family there are the outlines of some figures of genuine humour, but the outlines only; nor is bella raised into the sphere of the charming out of that of the pert and skittish. a more ambitious attempt, and a more noteworthy failure, was the endeavour to give to the main plot of this novel such a satiric foil as the circumlocution office had furnished to the chief action of _little dorrit_, in a caricature of society at large, its surface varnish and its internal rottenness. the barnacles, and those who deemed it their duty to rally round the barnacles, had, we saw, felt themselves hard hit; but what sphere or section of society could feel itself specially caricatured in the veneerings, or in their associates--the odious lady tippins, the impossibly brutal podsnap, fascination fledgeby, and the lammles, a couple which suggests nothing but antimony and the chamber of horrors? caricature such as this, representing no society that has ever in any part of the world pretended to be "good," corresponds to the wild rhetoric of the superfluous betty higden episode against the "gospel according to podsnappery;" but it is, in truth, satire from which both wit and humour have gone out. an angry, often almost spasmodic, mannerism has to supply their place. amongst the personages moving in "society" are two which, as playing serious parts in the progress of the plot, the author is necessarily obliged to seek to endow with the flesh and blood of real human beings. yet it is precisely in these--the friends eugene and mortimer--that, in the earlier part of the novel at all events, the constraint of the author's style seems least relieved; the dialogues between these two templars have an unnaturalness about them as intolerable as euphuism or the effeminacies of the augustan age. it is true that, when the story reaches its tragic height, the character of eugene is borne along with it, and his affectations are forgotten. but in previous parts of the book, where he poses as a wit, and is evidently meant for a gentleman, he fails to make good his claims to either character. even the skilfully contrived contrast between the rivals eugene wrayburn and the school-master, bradley headstone--through whom and through whose pupil, dickens, by-the-way, dealt another blow against a system of mental training founded upon facts alone--fails to bring out the conception of eugene which the author manifestly had in his mind. lastly, the old way of reconciling dissonances--a marriage which "society" calls a _mésalliance_--has rarely furnished a lamer ending than here; and, had the unwritten laws of english popular fiction permitted, a tragic close would have better accorded with the sombre hue of the most powerful portions of this curiously unequal romance. the effort--for such it was--of _our mutual friend_ had not been over for more than a few months, when dickens accepted a proposal for thirty nights' readings from the messrs. chappell; and by april, , he was again hard at work, flying across the country into lancashire and scotland, and back to his temporary london residence in southwick place, hyde park. in any man more capable than dickens of controlling the restlessness which consumed him the acceptance of this offer would have been incomprehensible; for his heart had been declared out of order by his physician, and the patient had shown himself in some degree awake to the significance of this opinion. but the readings were begun and accomplished notwithstanding, though not without warnings, on which he insisted on putting his own interpretation. sleeplessness aggravated fatigue, and stimulants were already necessary to enable him to do the work of his readings without discomfort. meanwhile, some weeks before they were finished, he had been induced to enter into negotiations about a further engagement to begin at the end of the year. time was to be left for the christmas number, which this year could hardly find its scene anywhere else than at a railway junction; and the readings were not to extend over forty nights, which seem ultimately to have been increased to fifty. this second series, which included a campaign in ireland, brilliantly successful despite snow and rain, and fenians, was over in may. then came the climax, for america now claimed her share of the great author for her public halls and chapels and lecture-theatres; and the question of the summer and autumn was whether or not to follow the sound of the distant dollar. it was closely debated between dickens and his friend forster and wills, and he describes himself as "tempest-tossed" with doubts; but his mind had inclined in one direction from the first, and the matter was virtually decided when it resolved to send a confidential agent to make enquiries on the spot. little imported another and grave attack in his foot; the trusty mr. dolby's report was irresistible. eighty readings within half a year was the estimated number, with profits amounting to over fifteen thousand pounds. the gains actually made were nearly five thousand pounds in excess of this calculation. a farewell banquet, under the presidency of lord lytton, gave the favourite author godspeed on his journey to the larger half of his public; on the th of november he sailed from liverpool, and on the th landed at boston. the voyage, on which, with his old buoyancy, he had contrived to make himself master of the modest revels of the saloon, seems to have done him good, or at least to have made him, as usual, impatient to be at his task. barely arrived, he is found reporting himself "so well, that i am constantly chafing at not having begun to-night, instead of this night week." by december, however, he was at his reading-desk, first at boston, where he met with the warmest of welcomes, and then at new york, where there was a run upon the tickets, which he described with his usual excited delight. the enthusiasm of his reception by the american public must have been heightened by the thought that it was now or never for them to see him face to face, and, by-gones being by-gones, to testify to him their admiration. but there may have been some foundation for his discovery that some signs of agitation on his part were expected in return, and "that it would have been taken as a suitable compliment if i would stagger on the platform, and instantly drop, overpowered by the spectacle before me." it was but a sad christmas which he spent with his faithful dolby at their new york inn, tired, and with a "genuine american catarrh upon him," of which he never freed himself during his stay in the country. hardly had he left the doctor's hands than he was about again, reading in boston and new york and their more immediate neighbourhood--that is, within six or seven hours by railway--till february; and then, in order to stimulate his public, beginning a series of appearances at more distant places before returning to his starting-points. his whole tour included, besides a number of new england towns, philadelphia, baltimore, and washington, and in the north cleveland and buffalo. canada and the west were struck out of the programme, the latter chiefly because exciting political matters were beginning to absorb public attention. during these journeyings dickens gave himself up altogether to the business of his readings, only occasionally allowing himself to accept the hospitality proffered him on every side. thus only could he breast the difficulties of his enterprise; for, as i have said, his health was never good during the whole of his visit, and his exertions were severe, though eased by the self-devotion of his attendants, of which, as of his constant kindness, both serious and sportive, towards them it is touching to read. already in january he describes himself as not seldom "so dead beat" at the close of a reading "that they lay me down on a sofa, after i have been washed and dressed, and i lie there, extremely faint, for a quarter of an hour," and as suffering from intolerable sleeplessness at night. his appetite was equally disordered, and he lived mainly on stimulants. why had he condemned himself to such a life? when at last he could declare the stress of his work over he described himself as "nearly used up. climate, distance, catarrh, travelling, and hard work have begun--i may say so, now they are nearly all over--to tell heavily upon me. sleeplessness besets me; and if i had engaged to go on into may, i think i must have broken down." indeed, but for his wonderful energy and the feeling of exultation which is derived from a heavy task nearly accomplished, he would have had to follow the advice of "longfellow and all the cambridge men," and give in nearly at the last. but he persevered through the farewell readings, both at boston and at new york, though on the night before the last reading in america he told dolby that if he "had to read but twice more, instead of once, he couldn't do it." this last reading of all was given at new york on april , two days after a farewell banquet at delmonico's. it was when speaking on this occasion that, very naturally moved by the unalloyed welcome which had greeted him in whatever part of the states he had visited, he made the declaration already mentioned, promising to perpetuate his grateful sense of his recent american experiences. this apology, which was no apology, at least remains one amongst many proofs of the fact that with dickens kindness never fell on a thankless soil. the merry month of may was still young in the kentish fields and lanes when the master of gad's hill place was home again at last. "i had not been at sea three days on the passage home," he wrote to his friend mrs. watson, "when i became myself again." it was, however, too much when "a 'deputation'--two in number, of whom only one could get into my cabin, while the other looked in at my window--came to ask me to read to the passengers that evening in the saloon. i respectfully replied that sooner than do it i would assault the captain and be put in irons." alas! he was already fast bound, by an engagement concluded soon after he had arrived in boston, to a final series of readings at home. "farewell" is a difficult word to say for any one who has grown accustomed to the stimulating excitement of a public stage, and it is not wonderful that dickens should have wished to see the faces of his familiar friends--the english public--once more. but the engagement to which he had set his hand was for a farewell of a hundred readings, at the recompense of eight thousand pounds, in addition to expenses and percentage. it is true that he had done this before he had fully realized the effect of his american exertions; but even so there was a terrible unwisdom in the promise. these last readings--and he alone is, in common fairness, to be held responsible for the fact--cut short a life from which much noble fruit might still have been expected for our literature, and which in any case might have been prolonged as a blessing beyond all that gold can buy to those who loved him. meanwhile he had allowed himself a short respite before resuming his labours in october. it was not more, his friends thought, than he needed, for much of his old buoyancy seemed to them to be wanting in him, except when hospitality or the intercourse of friendship called it forth. what a charm there still was in his genial humour his letters would suffice to show. it does one good to read his description to his kind american friends mr. and mrs. fields of his tranquillity at gad's hill: "divers birds sing here all day, and the nightingales all night. the place is lovely, and in perfect order. i have put five mirrors in the swiss châlet where i write, and they reflect and refract in all kinds of ways the leaves that are quivering at the windows, and the great fields of waving corn, and the sail-dotted river. my room is up amongst the branches of the trees, and the birds and the butterflies fly in and out, and the green branches shoot in at the open windows, and the lights and shadows of the clouds come and go with the rest of the company. the scent of the flowers, and indeed of everything that is growing for miles and miles, is most delicious." part of this rare leisure he generously devoted to the preparation for the press of a volume of literary remains from the pen of an old friend. the _religious opinions of chauncey hare townshend_ should not be altogether overlooked by those interested in dickens, to whom the loose undogmatic theology of his friend commended itself as readily as the sincere religious feeling underlying it. i cannot say what answer dickens would have returned to an enquiry as to his creed, but the nature of his religious opinions is obvious enough. born in the church of england, he had so strong an aversion from what seemed to him dogmatism of any kind, that he for a time--in --connected himself with a unitarian congregation; and to unitarian views his own probably continued during his life most nearly to approach. he described himself as "morally wide asunder from rome," but the religious conceptions of her community cannot have been a matter of anxious enquiry with him, while he was too liberal-minded to be, unless occasionally, aggressive in his protestantism. for the rest, his mind, though imaginative, was without mystical tendencies, while for the transitory superstitions of the day it was impossible but that he should entertain the contempt which they deserved. "although," he writes-- "i regard with a hushed and solemn fear the mysteries between which, and this state of existence, is interposed the barrier of the great trial and change that fall on all the things that live; and, although i have not the audacity to pretend that i know anything of them, i cannot reconcile the mere banging of doors, ringing of bells, creaking of boards, and such like insignificances, with the majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all the divine rules that i am permitted to understand." his piety was undemonstrative and sincere, as his books alone would suffice to prove; and he seems to have sought to impress upon his children those religious truths with the acceptance and practice of which he remained himself content. he loved the new testament, and had, after some fashion of his own, paraphrased the gospel narrative for the use of his children; but he thought that "half the misery and hypocrisy of the christian world arises from a stubborn determination to refuse the new testament as a sufficient guide in itself, and to force the old testament into alliance with it--whereof comes all manner of camel-swallowing and of gnat-straining." of puritanism in its modern forms he was an uncompromising, and no doubt a conscientious, opponent; and though, with perfect sincerity, he repelled the charge that his attacks upon cant were attacks upon religion, yet their _animus_ is such as to make the misinterpretation intelligible. his dissenting ministers are of the _bartholomew fair_ species; and though, in his later books, a good clergyman here and there makes his modest appearance, the balance can hardly be said to be satisfactorily redressed. the performance of this pious office was not the only kind act he did after his return from america. of course, however, his own family was nearest to his heart. no kinder or more judicious words were ever addressed by a father to his children than those which, about this time, he wrote to one of his sons, then beginning a successful career at cambridge, and to another--the youngest--who was setting forth for australia, to join an elder brother already established in that country. "poor plorn," he afterward wrote, "is gone to australia. it was a hard parting at the last. he seemed to me to become once more my youngest and favourite child as the day drew near, and i did not think i could have been so shaken." in october his "farewell" readings began. he had never had his heart more in the work than now. curiously enough, not less than two proposals had reached him during this autumn--one from birmingham and the other from edinburgh--that he should allow himself to be put forward as a candidate for parliament; but he declined to entertain either, though in at least one of the two cases the prospects of success would not have been small. his views of political and parliamentary life had not changed since he had written to bulwer lytton in : "would there not seem to be something horribly rotten in the system of political life, when one stands amazed how any man, not forced into it by his position, as you are, can bear to live it?" indeed, they had hardly changed since the days when he had come into personal contact with them as a reporter. in public and in private he had never ceased to ridicule our english system of party, and to express his contempt for the legislature and all its works. he had, however, continued to take a lively interest in public affairs, and his letters contain not a few shrewd remarks on both home and foreign questions. like most liberal minds of his age, he felt a warm sympathy for the cause of italy; and the english statesman whom he appears to have most warmly admired was lord russell, in whose good intentions neither friends nor adversaries were wont to lose faith. meanwhile his radicalism gradually became of the most thoroughly independent type, though it interfered neither with his approval of the proceedings in jamaica as an example of strong government, nor with his scorn of "the meeting of jawbones and asses" held against governor eyre at manchester. the political questions, however, which really moved him deeply were those social problems to which his sympathy for the poor had always directed his attention--the poor-law, temperance, sunday observance, punishment and prisons, labour and strikes. on all these heads sentiment guided his judgment, but he spared no pains to convince himself that he was in the right; and he was always generous, as when, notwithstanding his interest in _household words_, he declared himself unable to advocate the repeal of the paper duty for a moment, "as against the soap duty, or any other pressing on the mass of the poor." thus he found no difficulty in adhering to the course he had marked out for himself. the subject which now occupied him before all others was a scheme for a new reading, with which it was his wish to vary and to intensify the success of the series on which he was engaged. this was no other than a selection of scenes from _oliver twist_, culminating in the scene of the murder of nancy by sikes, which, before producing it in public, he resolved to "try" upon a select private audience. the trial was a brilliant success. "the public," exclaimed a famous actress who was present, "have been looking out for a sensation these last fifty years or so, and, by heaven, they have got it!" accordingly, from january, , it formed one of the most frequent of his readings, and the effort which it involved counted for much in the collapse which was to follow. never were the limits between reading and acting more thoroughly effaced by dickens, and never was the production of an extraordinary effect more equally shared by author and actor. but few who witnessed this extraordinary performance can have guessed the elaborate preparation bestowed upon it, which is evident from the following notes (by mr. c. kent) on the book used in it by the reader: "what is as striking as anything in all this reading, however--that is, in the reading copy of it now lying before us as we write--is the mass of hints as to the by-play in the stage directions for himself, so to speak, scattered up and down the margin. 'fagin raised his right hand, and shook his trembling forefinger in the air,' is there on page in print. beside it, on the margin in ms., is the word '_action_.' not a word of it was said. it was simply _done_. again, immediately below that, on the same page--sikes _loquitur_: 'oh! you haven't, haven't you?' passing a pistol into a more convenient pocket ('_action_' again in ms. on the margin.) not a word was said about the pistol.... so again, afterwards, as a rousing self-direction, one sees notified in ms. on page the grim stage direction, '_murder coming!_'" the "murder" was frequently read by dickens not less than four times a week during the early months of , in which year, after beginning in ireland, he had been continually travelling to and fro between various parts of great britain and town. already in february the old trouble in his foot had made itself felt, but, as usual, it had long been disregarded. on the th of april he had been entertained at liverpool, in st. george's hall, at a banquet presided over by lord dufferin, and in a genial speech had tossed back the ball to lord houghton, who had pleasantly bantered him for his unconsciousness of the merits of the house of lords. ten days afterwards he was to read at preston, but, feeling uneasy about himself, had reported his symptoms to his doctor in london. the latter hastened down to preston, and persuaded dickens to accompany him back to town, where, after a consultation, it was determined that the readings must be stopped for the current year, and that reading combined with travelling must never be resumed. what his sister-in-law and daughter feel themselves justified in calling "the beginning of the end" had come at last. with his usual presence of mind dickens at once perceived the imperative necessity of interposing, "as it were, a fly-leaf in the book of my life, in which nothing should be written from without for a brief season of a few weeks." but he insisted that the combination of the reading and the travelling was alone to be held accountable for his having found himself feeling, "for the first time in my life, giddy, jarred, shaken, faint, uncertain of voice and sight and tread and touch, and dull of spirit." meanwhile, he for once kept quiet, first in london, and then at gad's hill. "this last summer," say those who did most to make it bright for him, "was a very happy one," and gladdened by the visits of many friends. on the retirement, also on account of ill-health, from _all the year round_ of his second self, mr. w. h. wills, he was fortunately able at once to supply the vacant place by the appointment to it of his eldest son, who seems to have inherited that sense of lucid order which was amongst his father's most distinctive characteristics. he travelled very little this year, though in september he made a speech at birmingham on behalf of his favourite midland institute, delivering himself, at its conclusion, of an antithetical radical commonplace, which, being misreported or misunderstood, was commented upon with much unnecessary wonderment. with a view to avoiding the danger of excessive fatigue, the latter part of the year was chiefly devoted to writing in advance part of his new book, which, like _great expectations_, was to grow up, and to be better for growing up, in his own kentish home, and almost within sound of the bells of "cloisterham" cathedral. but the new book was never to be finished. the first number of _the mystery of edwin drood_ was not published till one more short series of twelve readings, given in london during a period extending from january to march, was at an end. he had obtained sir thomas watson's consent to his carrying out this wish, largely caused by the desire to compensate the messrs. chappell in some measure for the disappointment to which he had been obliged to subject them by the interruption of his longer engagement. thus, though the christmas of had brought with it another warning of trouble in the foot, the year opened busily, and early in january dickens established himself for the season at hyde park place. early in the month he made another speech at birmingham; but the readings were strictly confined to london. on the other hand, it was not to be expected that the "murder" would be excluded from the list. it was read in january to an audience of actors and actresses; and it is pleasant to think that he was able to testify to his kindly feeling towards their profession on one of the last occasions when he appeared on his own stage. "i set myself," he wrote, "to carrying out of themselves and their observation those who were bent on watching how the effects were got; and, i believe, i succeeded. coming back to it again, however, i feel it was madness ever to do it so continuously. my ordinary pulse is seventy-two, and it runs up under this effort to one hundred and twelve." yet this fatal reading was repeated thrice more before the series closed, and with even more startling results upon the reader. the careful observations made by the physician, however, show that the excitement of his last readings was altogether too great for any man to have endured much longer. at last, on march , the night came which closed fifteen years of personal relations between the english public and its favourite author, such as are, after all, unparalleled in the history of our literature. his farewell words were few and simple, and referred with dignity to his resolution to devote himself henceforth exclusively to his calling as an author, and to his hope that in but two short weeks' time his audience "might enter, in their own homes, on a new series of readings at which his assistance would be indispensable." of the short time which remained to him his last book was the chief occupation; and an association thus clings to the _mystery of edwin drood_ which would, in any case, incline us to treat this fragment--for it was to be no more--with tenderness. one would, indeed, hardly be justified in asserting that this story, like that which thackeray left behind him in the same unfinished state, bade fair to become a masterpiece in its author's later manner; there is much that is forced in its humour, while as to the working out of the chief characters our means of judgment are, of course, incomplete. the outline of the design, on the other hand, presents itself with tolerable clearness to the minds of most readers of insight or experience, though the story deserves its name of a mystery, instead of, like _our mutual friend_, seeming merely to withhold a necessary explanation. and it must be allowed few plots have ever been more effectively laid than this, of which the untying will never be known. three such personages in relation to a deed of darkness as jasper for its contriver, durden for its unconscious accomplice, and deputy for its self-invited witness, and all so naturally connecting themselves with the locality of the perpetration of the crime, assuredly could not have been brought together except by one who had gradually attained to mastership in the adaptation of characters to the purposes of a plot. still, the strongest impression left upon the reader of this fragment is the evidence it furnishes of dickens having retained to the last powers which were most peculiarly and distinctively his own. having skilfully brought into connexion, for the purposes of his plot, two such strangely-contrasted spheres of life and death as the cathedral close at "cloisterham" and an opium-smoking den in one of the obscurest corners of london, he is enabled, by his imaginative and observing powers, not only to _realise_ the picturesque elements in both scenes, but also to convert them into a twofold background, accommodating itself to the most vivid hues of human passion. this is to bring out what he was wont to call "the romantic aspect of familiar things." with the physiognomy of cloisterham--otherwise rochester--with its cathedral, and its "monastery" ruin, and its "minor canon corner," and its "nuns' house"--otherwise "eastgate house," in the high street--he was, of course, closely acquainted; but he had never reproduced its features with so artistic a cunning, and the mystery of edwin drood will always haunt bishop gundulph's venerable building and its tranquil precincts. as for the opium-smoking, we have his own statement that what he described he saw--"exactly as he had described it, penny ink-bottle and all--down in shadwell" in the autumn of . "a couple of the inspectors of lodging-houses knew the woman, and took me to her as i was making a round with them to see for myself the working of lord shaftesbury's bill." between these scenes john jasper--a figure conceived with singular force--moves to and fro, preparing his mysterious design. no story of the kind ever began more finely; and we may be excused from enquiring whether signs of diminished vigour of invention and freshness of execution are to be found in other and less prominent portions of the great novelist's last work. before, in this year , dickens withdrew from london to gad's hill, with the hope of there in quiet carrying his all but half-finished task to its close, his health had not been satisfactory; he had suffered from time to time in his foot, and his weary and aged look was observed by many of his friends. he was able to go occasionally into society; though at the last dinner-party which he attended--it was at lord houghton's, to meet the prince of wales and the king of the belgians--he had been unable to mount above the dining-room floor. already in march the queen had found a suitable opportunity for inviting him to wait upon her at buckingham palace, when she had much gratified him by her kindly manner; and a few days later he made his appearance at the levee. these acknowledgments of his position as an english author were as they should be; no others were offered, nor is it a matter of regret that there should have been no titles to inscribe on his tomb. he was also twice seen on one of those public occasions which no eloquence graced so readily and so pleasantly as his: once in april, at the dinner for the newsvenders' charity, when he spoke of the existence among his humble clients of that "feeling of brotherhood and sympathy which is worth much to all men, or they would herd with wolves;" and once in may--only a day or two before he went home into the country--when, at the royal academy dinner, he paid a touching tribute to the eminent painter, daniel maclise, who in the good old days had been much like a brother to himself. another friend and companion, mark lemon, passed away a day or two afterwards; and with the most intimate of all, his future biographer, he lamented the familiar faces of their companions--not one of whom had passed his sixtieth year--upon which they were not to look again. on the th of may he was once more at gad's hill. here he forthwith set to work on his book, taking walks as usual, though of no very great length. on thursday, the th of june, he had intended to pay his usual weekly visit to the office of his journal, and accordingly, on the th, devoted the afternoon as well as the morning to finishing the sixth number of the story. when he came across to the house from the châlet before dinner he seemed to his sister-in-law, who alone of the family was at home, tired and silent, and no sooner had they sat down to dinner than she noticed how seriously ill he looked. it speedily became evident that a fit was upon him. "come and lie down," she entreated. "yes, on the ground," he said, very distinctly--these were the last words he spoke--and he slid from her arm and fell upon the floor. he was laid on a couch in the room, and there he remained unconscious almost to the last. he died at ten minutes past six on the evening of the th--by which time his daughters and his eldest son had been able to join the faithful watcher by his side; his sister and his son henry arrived when all was over. his own desire had been to be buried near gad's hill; though at one time he is said to have expressed a wish to lie in a disused graveyard, which is still pointed out, in a secluded corner in the moat of rochester castle. preparations had been made accordingly, when the dean and chapter of rochester urged a request that his remains might be placed in their cathedral. this was assented to; but at the last moment the dean of westminster gave expression to a widespread wish that the great national writer might lie in the national abbey. there he was buried on june , without the slightest attempt at the pomp which he had deprecated in his will, and which he almost fiercely condemned in more than one of his writings. "the funeral," writes dean stanley, whose own dust now mingles with that of so many illustrious dead, "was strictly private. it took place at an early hour in the summer morning, the grave having been dug in secret the night before, and the vast solitary space of the abbey was occupied only by the small band of the mourners, and the abbey clergy, who, without any music except the occasional peal of the organ, read the funeral service. for days the spot was visited by thousands. many were the tears shed by the poorer visitors. he rests beside sheridan, garrick, and henderson"--the first actor ever buried in the abbey. associations of another kind cluster near; but his generous spirit would not have disdained the thought that he would seem even in death the players' friend. a plain memorial brass on the walls of rochester cathedral vindicates the share which the ancient city and its neighbourhood will always have in his fame. but most touching of all it is to think of him under the trees of his own garden on the hill, in the pleasant home where, after so many labours and so many wanderings, he died in peace, and as one who had earned his rest. chapter vii. the future of dickens's fame. there is no reason whatever to believe that in the few years which have gone by since dickens's death the delight taken in his works throughout england and north america, as well as elsewhere, has diminished, or that he is not still one of our few most popular writers. the mere fact that his popularity has remained such since, nearly half a century ago, he, like a beam of spring sunshine, first made the world gay, is a sufficient indication of the influence which he must have exercised upon his age. in our world of letters his followers have been many, though naturally enough those whose original genius impelled them to follow their own course soonest ceased to be his imitators. amongst these i know no more signal instance than the great novelist whose surpassing merits he had very swiftly recognised in her earliest work. for though in the _scenes of clerical life_ george eliot seems to be, as it were, hesitating between dickens and thackeray as the models of her humorous writing, reminiscences of the former are unmistakable in the opening of _amos barton_, in _mr. gilfil's love-story_, in _janet's repentance_; and though it would be hazardous to trace his influence in the domestic scenes in _adam bede_, neither a christmas exordium in one of the books of _the mill on the floss_, nor the sam weller-like freshness of bob wakem in the same powerful story, is altogether the author's own. two of the most successful continental novelists of the present day have gone to school with dickens: the one the truly national writer whose _debit and credit_, a work largely in the manner of his english model, has, as a picture of modern life, remained unexcelled in german literature;[ ] the other, the brilliant southerner, who may write as much of the _history of his books_ as his public may desire to learn, but who cannot write the pathos of dickens altogether out of _jack_, or his farcical fun out of _le nabab_. and again--for i am merely illustrating, not attempting to describe, the literary influence of dickens--who could fail to trace in the californian studies and sketches of bret harte elements of humour and of pathos, to which that genuinely original author would be the last to deny that his great english "master" was no stranger? yet popularity and literary influence, however wide and however strong, often pass away as they have come; and in no field of literature are there many reputations which the sea of time fails before very long to submerge. in prose fiction--a comparatively young literary growth--they are certainly not the most numerous, perhaps because on works of this species the manners and style of an age most readily impress themselves, rendering them proportionately strange to the ages that come after. in the works of even the lesser playwrights who pleased the liberal times of elizabeth, and in lyrics of even secondary merit that were admired by fantastic caroline cavaliers, we can still take pleasure. but who can read many of the "standard" novels published as lately even as the days of george the fourth? the speculation is, therefore, not altogether idle, whether dickens saw truly when labouring, as most great men do labour, in the belief that his work was not only for a day. literary eminence was the only eminence he desired, while it was one of the very healthiest elements in his character, that whatever he was, he was thoroughly. he would not have told any one, as fielding's author told mr. booth at the sponging-house, that romance-writing "is certainly the easiest work in the world;" nor, being what he was, could he ever have found it such in his own case. "whoever," he declared, "is devoted to an art must be content to give himself wholly up to it, and to find his recompense in it." and not only did he obey his own labour-laws, but in the details of his work as a man of letters he spared no pains and no exercise of self-control. "i am," he generously told a beginner, to whom he was counselling patient endeavour, "an impatient and impulsive person myself, but it has been for many years the constant effort of my life to practise at my desk what i preach to you." never, therefore has a man of letters had a better claim to be judged by his works. as he expressly said in his will, he wished for no other monument than his writings; and with their aid we, who already belong to a new generation, and whose children will care nothing for the gossip and the scandal of which he, like most popular celebrities, was in his lifetime privileged or doomed to become the theme, may seek to form some definite conception of his future place among illustrious englishmen. it would, of course, be against all experience to suppose that to future generations dickens, as a writer, will be all that he was to his own. much that constitutes the subject, or at least furnishes the background, of his pictures of english life, like the fleet prison and the marshalsea, has vanished, or is being improved off the face of the land. the form, again, of dickens's principal works may become obsolete, as it was in a sense accidental. he was the most popular novelist of his day; but should prose fiction, or even the full and florid species of it which has enjoyed so long-lived a favour ever be out of season, the popularity of dickens's books must experience an inevitable diminution. and even before that day arrives not all the works in a particular species of literature that may to a particular age have seemed destined to live, will have been preserved. nothing is more surely tested by time than that originality which is the secret of a writer's continuing to be famous, and continuing to be read. dickens was not--and to whom in these latter ages of literature could such a term be applied?--a self-made writer, in the sense that he owed nothing to those who had gone before him. he was most assuredly no classical scholar--how could he have been? but i should hesitate to call him an ill-read man, though he certainly was neither a great nor a catholic reader, and though he could not help thinking about _nicholas nickleby_ while he was reading the _curse of kehama_. in his own branch of literature his judgment was sound and sure-footed. it was, of course, a happy accident that as a boy he imbibed that taste for good fiction which is a thing inconceivable to the illiterate. sneers have been directed against the poverty of his book-shelves in his earlier days of authorship; but i fancy there were not many popular novelists in who would have taken down with them into the country for a summer sojourn, as dickens did to petersham, not only a couple of scott's novels, but goldsmith, swift, fielding, smollett, and the british essayists; nor is there one of these national classics--unless it be swift--with whom dickens's books or letters fail to show him to have been familiar. of goldsmith's books, he told forster, in a letter which the biographer of goldsmith modestly suppressed, he "had no indifferent perception--to the best of his remembrance--when little more than a child." he discusses with understanding the relative literary merits of the serious and humorous papers in _the spectator_; and, with regard to another work of unique significance in the history of english fiction, _robinson crusoe_, he acutely observed that "one of the most popular books on earth has nothing in it to make any one laugh or cry." "it is a book," he added, which he "read very much." it may be noted, by-the-way, that he was an attentive and judicious student of hogarth; and that thus his criticisms of humorous pictorial art rested upon as broad a basis of comparison as did his judgment of his great predecessors in english humorous fiction. amongst these predecessors it has become usual to assert that smollett exercised the greatest influence upon dickens. it is no doubt true that in david copperfield's library smollett's books are mentioned first, and in the greatest number, that a vision of roderick random and strap haunted the very wicket-gate at blunderstone, that the poor little hero's first thought on entering the king's bench prison was the strange company whom roderick met in the marshalsea; and that the references to smollett and his books are frequent in dickens's other books and in his letters. leghorn seemed to him "made illustrious" by smollett's grave, and in a late period of his life he criticises his chief fictions with admirable justice. "_humphry clinker_," he writes, "is certainly smollett's best. i am rather divided between _peregrine pickle_ and _roderick random_, both extraordinarily good in their way, which is a way without tenderness; but you will have to read them both, and i send the first volume of _peregrine_ as the richer of the two." an odd volume of _peregrine_ was one of the books with which the waiter at the _holly tree inn_ endeavoured to beguile the lonely christmas of the snowed-up traveller, but the latter "knew every word of it already." in the _lazy tour_, "thomas, now just able to grope his way along, in a doubled-up condition, was no bad embodiment of commodore trunnion." i have noted, moreover, coincidences of detail which bear witness to dickens's familiarity with smollett's works. to lieutenant bowling and commodore trunnion, as to captain cuttle, every man was a "brother," and to the commodore, as to mr. smallweed, the most abusive substantive addressed to a woman admitted of intensification by the epithet "brimstone." i think dickens had not forgotten the opening of the _adventures of an atom_ when he wrote a passage in the opening of his own _christmas carol_; and that the characters of tom pinch and tommy traddles--the former more especially--were not conceived without some thought of honest strap. furthermore, it was smollett's example that probably suggested to dickens the attractive jingle in the title of his _nicholas nickleby_. but these are for the most part mere details. the manner of dickens as a whole resembles fielding's more strikingly than smollett's, as it was only natural that it should. the irony of smollett is drier than was reconcilable with dickens's nature; it is only in the occasional extravagances of his humour that the former anticipates anything in the latter, and it is only the coarsest scenes of dickens's earlier books--such as that between noah, charlotte, and mrs. sowerbery in _oliver twist_--which recall the whole manner of his predecessor. they resemble one another in their descriptive accuracy, and in the accumulation of detail by which they produce instead of obscuring vividness of impression; but it was impossible that dickens should prefer the general method of the novel of adventure pure and simple, such as smollett produced after the example of _gil blas_, to the less crude form adopted by fielding, who adhered to earlier and nobler models. with fielding's, moreover, dickens's whole nature was congenial; they both had that tenderness which smollett lacked; and the circumstance that, of all english writers of the past, fielding's name alone was given by dickens to one of his sons, shows how, like so many of fielding's readers, he had learnt to love him with an almost personal affection. the very spirit of the author of _tom jones_--that gaiety which, to borrow the saying of a recent historian concerning cervantes, renders even brutality agreeable, and that charm of sympathetic feeling which makes us love those of his characters which he loves himself--seem astir in some of the most delightful passages of dickens's most delightful books. so in _pickwick_, to begin with, in which, by the way, fielding is cited with a twinkle of the eye all his own, and in _martin chuzzlewit_, where a chapter opens with a passage which is pure fielding: "it was morning, and the beautiful aurora, of whom so much hath been written, said, and sung, did, with her rosy fingers, nip and tweak miss pecksniff's nose. it was the frolicsome custom of the goddess, in her intercourse with the fair cherry, to do so; or, in more prosaic phrase, the tip of that feature in the sweet girl's countenance was always very red at breakfast-time." amongst the writers of dickens's own age there were only two, or perhaps three, who in very different degrees and ways exercised a noticeable influence upon his writings. he once declared to washington irving that he kept everything written by that delightful author upon "his shelves, and in his thoughts, and in his heart of hearts." and, doubtless, in dickens's early days as an author the influence of the american classic may have aided to stimulate the imaginative element in his english admirer's genius, and to preserve him from a grossness of humour into which, after the _sketches by boz_, he very rarely allowed himself to lapse. the two other writers were carlyle, and, as i have frequently noted in previous chapters, the friend and fellow-labourer of dickens's later manhood, mr. wilkie collins. it is no unique experience that the disciple should influence the master; and in this instance, perhaps with the co-operation of the examples of the modern french theatre, which the two friends had studied in common, mr. wilkie collins's manner had, i think, no small share in bringing about a transformation in that of dickens. his stories thus gradually lost all traces of the older masters both in general method and in detail; whilst he came to condense and concentrate his effects in successions of skilfully-arranged scenes. dickens's debt to carlyle was, of course, of another nature; and in his works the proofs are not few of his readiness to accept the teachings of one whom he declared he would "go at all times farther to see than any man alive." there was something singular in the admiration these two men felt for one another; for carlyle, after an acquaintance of almost thirty years, spoke of dickens as "a most cordial, sincere, clear-sighted, quietly decisive, just, and loving man;" and there is not one of these epithets but seems well considered and well chosen. but neither carlyle nor dickens possessed a moral quality omitted in this list, the quality of patience, which abhors either "quietly" or loudly "deciding" a question before considering it under all its aspects, and in a spirit of fairness to all sides. the _latter-day pamphlets_, to confine myself to them,[ ] like so much of the political philosophy, if it is to be dignified by that name, which in part dickens derived from them, were at the time effective strokes of satirical invective; now, their edge seems blunt and their energy inflation. take the pamphlet on model prisons, with its summary of a theory which dickens sought in every way to enforce upon his readers; or again, that entitled _downing street_, which settles the question of party government as a question of the choice between buffy and boodle, or, according to carlyle, the honourable felix parvulus and the right honourable felicissimus zero. the corrosive power of such sarcasms may be unquestionable; but the angry rhetoric pointed by them becomes part of the nature of those who habitually employ its utterance in lieu of argument; and not a little of the declamatory element in dickens, which no doubt at first exercised its effect upon a large number of readers, must be ascribed to his reading of a great writer who was often very much more stimulative than nutritious. something, then, he owed to other writers, but it was little indeed in comparison with what he owed to his natural gifts. first amongst these, i think, must be placed what may, in a word, be called his sensibility--that quality of which humour, in the more limited sense of the word, and pathos are the twin products. and in dickens both these were paramount powers, almost equally various in their forms and effective in their operation. according to m. taine, dickens, whilst he excels in irony of a particular sort, being an englishman, is incapable of being gay. such profundities are unfathomable to the readers of _pickwick_; though the french critic may have generalised from dickens's later writings only. his pathos is not less true than various, for the gradations are marked between the stern, tragic pathos of _hard times_, the melting pathos of the _old curiosity shop_, _dombey and son_, and _david copperfield_, and the pathos of helplessness which appeals to us in smike and jo. but this sensibility would not have given us dickens's gallery of living pictures had it not been for the powers of imagination and observation which enabled him spontaneously to exercise it in countless directions. to the way in which his imagination enabled him to identify himself with the figments of his own brain he frequently testified; dante was not more certain in his celestial and infernal topography than was dickens as to "every stair in the little mid-shipman's house," and as to "every young gentleman's bedstead in dr. blimber's establishment." one particular class of phenomena may be instanced instead of many, in the observation and poetic reproduction of which his singular natural endowment continually manifested itself--i mean those of the weather. it is not, indeed, often that he rises to a fine image like that in the description of the night in which ralph nickleby, ruined and crushed, slinks home to his death: "the night was dark, and a cold wind blew, driving the clouds furiously and fast before it. there was one black, gloomy mass that seemed to follow him: not hurrying in the wild chase with the others, but lingering sullenly behind, and gliding darkly and stealthily on. he often looked back at this, and more than once stopped to let it pass over; but, somehow, when he went forward again it was still behind him, coming mournfully and slowly up, like a shadowy funeral train." but he again and again enables us to feel as if the christmas morning on which mr. pickwick ran gaily down the slide, or as if the "very quiet" moonlit night in the midst of which a sudden sound, like the firing of a gun or a pistol, startled the repose of lincoln's inn fields, were not only what we have often precisely experienced in country villages or in london squares, but as if they were the very morning and the very night which we _must_ experience, if we were feeling the glow of wintry merriment, or the awful chill of the presentiment of evil in a dead hour. in its lower form this combination of the powers of imagination and observation has the rapidity of wit, and, indeed, sometimes is wit. the gift of suddenly finding out what a man, a thing, a combination of man and thing, is like--this, too, comes by nature; and there is something electrifying in its sudden exercise, even on the most trivial occasions, as when flora, delighted with little dorrit's sudden rise to fortune, requests to know all "about the good, dear, quiet little thing, and all the changes of her fortunes, carriage people now, no doubt, and horses without number most romantic, a coat of arms, of course, and wild beasts on their hind legs, showing it as if it was a copy they had done with mouths from ear to ear, good gracious!" but nature, when she gifted dickens with sensibility, observation, and imagination, had bestowed upon him yet another boon in the quality which seems more prominent than any other in his whole being. the vigour of dickens--a mental and moral vigour supported by a splendid physical organism--was the parent of some of his foibles; amongst the rest, of his tendency to exaggeration. no fault has been more frequently found with his workmanship than this; nor can he be said to have defended himself very successfully on this head when he declared that he did "not recollect ever to have heard or seen the charge of exaggeration made against a feeble performance, though, in its feebleness, it may have been most untrue." but without this vigour he could not have been creative as he was; and in him there were accordingly united with rare completeness a swift responsiveness to the impulses of humour and pathos, an inexhaustible fertility in discovering and inventing materials for their exercise, and the constant creative desire to give to these newly-created materials a vivid plastic form. and the mention of this last-named gift in dickens suggests the query whether, finally, there is anything in his _manner_ as a writer which may prevent the continuance of his extraordinary popularity. no writer can be great without a _manner_ of his own; and that dickens had such a manner his most supercilious censurer will readily allow. his terse narrative power, often intensely humorous in its unblushing and unwinking gravity, and often deeply pathetic in its simplicity, is as characteristic of his manner as is the supreme felicity of phrase, in which he has no equal. as to the latter, i should hardly know where to begin and where to leave off were i to attempt to illustrate it. but, to take two instances of different kinds of wit, i may cite a passage in guster's narrative of her interview with lady dedlock: "and so i took the letter from her, and she said she had nothing to give me; and _i said i was poor myself, and consequently wanted nothing_;" and, of a different kind, the account in one of his letters of a conversation with macready, in which the great tragedian, after a solemn but impassioned commendation of his friend's reading, "put his hand upon my breast and pulled out his pocket-handkerchief, and _i felt as if i were doing somebody to his werner_." these, i think, were amongst the most characteristic merits of his style. it also, and more especially in his later years, had its characteristic faults. the danger of degenerating into mannerism is incident to every original manner. there is mannerism in most of the great english prose-writers of dickens's age--in carlyle, in macaulay, in thackeray--but in none of them is there more mannerism than in dickens himself. in his earlier writings, in _nicholas nickleby_, for instance (i do not, of course, refer to the portsmouth boards), and even in _martin chuzzlewit_, there is much staginess; but in his later works his own mannerism had swallowed up that of the stage, and, more especially in serious passages, his style had become what m. taine happily characterises as _le style tourmenté_. his choice of words remained throughout excellent, and his construction of sentences clear. he told mr. wilkie collins that "underlining was not his nature;" and in truth he had no need to emphasise his expressions, or to bid the reader "go back upon their meaning." he recognised his responsibility, as a popular writer, in keeping the vocabulary of the language pure; and in _little dorrit_ he even solemnly declines to use the french word _trousseau_. in his orthography, on the other hand, he was not free from americanisms; and his interpunctuation was consistently odd. but these are trifles; his more important mannerisms were, like many really dangerous faults of style, only the excess of characteristic excellences. thus it was he who elaborated with unprecedented effect that humorous species of paraphrase which, as one of the most imitable devices of his style, has also been the most persistently imitated. we are all tickled when grip, the raven, "issues orders for the instant preparation of innumerable kettles for purposes of tea;" or when mr. pecksniff's eye is "piously upraised, with something of that expression which the poetry of ages has attributed to a domestic bird, when breathing its last amid the ravages of an electric storm;" but in the end the device becomes a mere trick of circumlocution. another mannerism which grew upon dickens, and was faithfully imitated by several of his disciples, was primarily due to his habit of turning a fact, fancy, or situation round on every side. this consisted in the reiteration of a construction, or of part of a construction, in the strained rhetorical fashion to which he at last accustomed us in spite of ourselves, but to which we were loath to submit in his imitators. these and certain other peculiarities, which it would be difficult to indicate without incurring the charge of hypercriticism, hardened as the style of dickens hardened; and, for instance, in the _tale of two cities_ his mannerisms may be seen side by side in glittering array. by way of compensation, the occasional solecisms and vulgarisms of his earlier style (he only very gradually ridded himself of the cockney habit of punning) no longer marred his pages; and he ceased to break or lapse occasionally, in highly-impassioned passages, into blank verse. from first to last dickens's mannerism, like everything which he made part of himself, was not merely assumed on occasion, but was, so to speak, absorbed into his nature. it shows itself in almost everything that he wrote in his later years, from the most carefully-elaborated chapters of his books down to the most deeply-felt passages of his most familiar correspondence, in the midst of the most genuine pathos and most exuberant humour of his books, and in the midst of the sound sense and unaffected piety of his private letters. future generations may, for this very reason, be perplexed and irritated by what we merely stumbled at, and may wish that what is an element hardly separable from many of dickens's compositions were away from them, as one wishes away from his signature that horrible flourish which in his letters he sometimes represents himself as too tired to append. but no distaste for his mannerisms is likely to obscure the sense of his achievements in the branch of literature to which he devoted the full powers of his genius and the best energies of his nature. he introduced, indeed, no new species of prose fiction into our literature. in the historical novel he made two far from unsuccessful essays, in the earlier of which in particular--_barnaby rudge_--he showed a laudable desire to enter into the spirit of a past age; but he was without the reading or the patience of either the author of _waverley_ or the author of _the virginians_, and without the fine historic enthusiasm which animates the broader workmanship of _westward ho_. for the purely imaginative romance, on the other hand, of which in some of his works lord lytton was the most prominent representative in contemporary english literature, dickens's genius was not without certain affinities; but, to feel his full strength, he needed to touch the earth with his feet. thus it is no mere phrase to say of him that he found the ideal in the real, and drew his inspirations from the world around him. perhaps the strongest temptation which ever seemed likely to divert him from the sounder forms in which his masterpieces were cast lay in the direction of the _novel with a purpose_, the fiction intended primarily and above all things to promote the correction of some social abuse, or the achievement of some social reform. but in spite of himself, to whom the often voiceless cause of the suffering and the oppressed was at all times dearer than any mere literary success, he was preserved from binding his muse, as his friend cruikshank bound his art, handmaid in a service with which freedom was irreconcilable. his artistic instinct helped him in this, and perhaps also the consciousness that where, as in _the chimes_ or in _hard times_, he had gone furthest in this direction, there had been something jarring in the result. thus, under the influences described above, he carried on the english novel mainly in the directions which it had taken under its early masters, and more especially in those in which the essential attributes of his own genius prompted him to excel. amongst the elements on which the effect alike of the novelist's and of the dramatist's work must, apart from style and diction, essentially depend, that of construction is obviously one of the most significant. in this dickens was, in the earlier period of his authorship, very far from strong. this was due in part to the accident that he began his literary career as a writer of _sketches_, and that his first continuous book, _pickwick_, was originally designed as little more than a string of such. it was due in a still greater measure to the influence of those masters of english fiction with whom he had been familiar from boyhood, above all to smollett. and though, by dint of his usual energy, he came to be able to invent a plot so generally effective as that of _a tale of two cities_, or, i was about to say, of _the mystery of edwin drood_, yet on this head he had had to contend against a special difficulty; i mean, of course, the publication of most of his books in monthly or even weekly numbers. in the case of a writer both pathetic and humorous the serial method of publication leads the public to expect its due allowance of both pathos and humour every month or week, even if each number, to borrow a homely simile applied in _oliver twist_ to books in general, need not contain "the tragic and the comic scenes in as regular alternation as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon." and again, as in a melodrama of the old school, each serial division has, if possible, to close emphatically, effectively, with a promise of yet stranger, more touching, more laughable things to come. on the other hand, with this form of publication repetition is frequently necessary by way of "reminder" to indolent readers, whose memory needs refreshing after the long pauses between the acts. fortunately, dickens abhorred living, as it were, from hand to mouth, and thus diminished the dangers to which, i cannot help thinking, thackeray at times almost succumbed. yet, notwithstanding, in the arrangement of his incidents and the contrivance of his plots it is often impossible to avoid noting the imperfection of the machinery, or at least the traces of effort. i have already said under what influences, in my opinion, dickens acquired a constructive skill which would have been conspicuous in most other novelists. if in the combination of parts the workmanship of dickens was not invariably of the best, on the other hand in the invention of those parts themselves he excelled, his imaginative power and dramatic instinct combining to produce an endless succession of effective scenes and situations, ranging through almost every variety of the pathetic and the humorous. in no direction was nature a more powerful aid to art with him than in this. from his very boyhood he appears to have possessed in a developed form what many others may possess in its germ, the faculty of converting into a scene--putting, as it were, into a frame--personages that came under his notice, and the background on which he saw them. who can forget the scene in _david copperfield_ in which the friendless little boy attracts the wonderment of the good people of the public-house where--it being a special occasion--he has demanded a glass of their "very best ale, with a head to it?" in the autobiographical fragment already cited, where the story appears in almost the same words, dickens exclaims: "here we stand, all three, before me now, in my study in devonshire terrace. the landlord, in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife, looking over the little half-door; and i, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition." he saw the scene while he was an actor in it. already the _sketches by boz_ showed the exuberance of this power, and in his last years more than one paper in the delightful _uncommercial traveller_ series proved it to be as inexhaustible as ever, while the art with which it was exercised had become more refined. who has better described (for who was more sensitive to it?) the mysterious influence of crowds, and who the pitiful pathos of solitude? who has ever surpassed dickens in his representations, varied a thousandfold, but still appealing to the same emotions, common to us all, of the crises or turning-points of human life? who has dwelt with a more potent effect on that catastrophe which the drama of every human life must reach; whose scenes of death in its pathetic, pitiful, reverend, terrible, ghastly forms speak more to the imagination and more to the heart? there is, however, one species of scenes in which the genius of dickens seems to me to exercise a still stronger spell--those which _precede_ a catastrophe, which are charged like thunder-clouds with the coming storm. and here the constructive art is at work; for it is the arrangement of the incidents, past and to come, combined by anticipation in the mind of the reader, which gives their extraordinary force to such scenes as the nocturnal watching of nancy by noah, or carker's early walk to the railway station, where he is to meet his doom. extremely powerful, too, in a rather different way, is the scene in _little dorrit_, described in a word or two, of the parting of bar and physician at dawn, after they have "found out mr. merdle's complaint:" "before parting, at physician's door, they both looked up at the sunny morning sky, into which the smoke of a few early fires, and the breath and voices of a few early stirrers, were peacefully rising, and then looked round upon the immense city and said: 'if all those hundreds and thousands of beggared people who were yet asleep could only know, as they two spoke, the ruin that impended over them, what a fearful cry against one miserable soul would go up to heaven!'" nor is it awe only, but pity also, which he is able thus to move beforehand, as in _dombey and son_, in the incomparable scenes leading up to little paul's death. more diverse opinions have been expressed as to dickens's mastery of that highest part of the novelist's art, which we call characterisation. undoubtedly, the characters which he draws are included in a limited range. yet i question whether their range can be justly termed narrow as compared with that commanded by any other great english novelist except scott, or with those of many novelists of other literatures except balzac. but within his own range dickens is unapproached. his novels do not altogether avoid the common danger of uninteresting heroes and insipid heroines; but only a very few of his heroes are conventionally declamatory like nicholas nickleby, and few of his heroines simper sentimentally like rose maylie. nor can i for a moment assent to the condemnation which has been pronounced upon all the female characters in dickens's books, as more or less feeble or artificial. at the same time it is true that from women of a mightier mould dickens's imagination turns aside; he could not have drawn a dorothea casaubon any more than he could have drawn romola herself. similarly, heroes of the chivalrous or magnanimous type, representatives of generous effort in a great cause, will not easily be met with in his writings: he never even essayed the picture of an artist devoted to art for her own sake. it suited the genius, and in later years perhaps the temper, of dickens as an author to leave out of sight those "public virtues" to which no man was in truth less blind than himself, and to remain content with the illustration of types of the private or domestic kind. we may cheerfully take to us the censure that our great humourist was in nothing more english than in this--that his sympathy with the affections of the hearth and the home knew almost no bounds. a symbolisation of this may be found in the honour which, from the _sketches_ and _pickwick_ onwards, through a long series of christmas books and christmas numbers, dickens, doubtless very consciously, paid to the one great festival of english family life. yet so far am i from agreeing with those critics who think that he is hereby lowered to the level of the poets of the teapot and the plum-pudding, that i am at a loss how to express my admiration for this side of his genius--tender with the tenderness of cowper, playful with the playfulness of goldsmith, natural with the naturalness of the author of _amelia_. who was ever more at home with children than he, and, for that matter, with babies to begin with? mr. horne relates how he once heard a lady exclaim: "oh, do read to us about the baby; dickens is capital at a baby!" even when most playful, most farcical concerning children, his fun is rarely without something of true tenderness, for he knew the meaning of that dreariest solitude which he has so often pictured, but nowhere, of course, with a truthfulness going so straight to the heart as in _david copperfield_--the solitude of a child left to itself. another wonderfully true child-character is that of pip, in _great expectations_, who is also, as his years progress, an admirable study of boy-nature. for dickens thoroughly understood what that mysterious variety of humankind really is, and was always, if one may so say, on the lookout for him. he knew him in the brightness and freshness which makes true _ingénus_ of such delightful characters (rare enough in fiction) as walter gay and mrs. lirriper's grandson. he knew him in his festive mood--witness the amusing letter in which he describes a water expedition at eton with his son and two of his irrepressible school-fellows. he knew him in his precocity--the boy of about three feet high, at the "george and vulture," "in a hairy cap and fustian overalls, whose garb bespoke a laudable ambition to attain in time the elevation of an hostler;" and the thing on the roof of the harrisburg coach, which, when the rain was over, slowly upreared itself, and patronisingly piped out the enquiry: "well, now, stranger, i guess you find this a'most like an english arternoon, hey?" he knew the gavroche who danced attendance on mr. quilp at his wharf, and those strangest, but by no means least true, types of all, the pupil-teachers in mr. fagin's academy. but these, with the exception of the last-named, which show much shrewd and kindly insight into the paradoxes of human nature, are, of course, the mere _croquis_ of the great humourist's pencil. his men and women, and the passions, the desires, the loves, and hatreds that agitate them, he has usually chosen to depict on that background of domestic life which is in a greater or less degree common to us all. and it is thus also that he has secured to himself the vast public which vibrates very differently from a mere class or section of society to the touch of a popular speaker or writer. "the more," he writes, "we see of life and its brevity, and the world and its varieties, the more we know that no exercise of our abilities in any art, but the addressing of it to the great ocean of humanity in which we are drops, and not to by-ponds (very stagnant) here and there, ever can or ever will lay the foundations of an endurable retrospect." the types of character which in his fictions he chiefly delights in reproducing are accordingly those which most of us have opportunities enough of comparing with the realities around us; and this test, a sound one within reasonable limits, was the test he demanded. to no other author were his own characters ever more real; and forster observes that "what he had most to notice in dickens at the very outset of his career was his indifference to any praise of his performances on the merely literary side, compared with the higher recognition of them as bits of actual life, with the meaning and purpose, on their part, and the responsibility on his, of realities, rather than creations of fancy." it is, then, the favourite growths of our own age and country for which we shall most readily look in his works, and not look in vain: avarice and prodigality; pride in all its phases; hypocrisy in its endless varieties, unctuous and plausible, fawning and self-satisfied, formal and moral; and, on the other side, faithfulness, simplicity, long-suffering patience, and indomitable heroic good-humour. do we not daily make room on the pavement for mr. dombey, erect, solemn, and icy, along-side of whom in the road mr. carter deferentially walks his sleek horse? do we not know more than one anthony chuzzlewit laying up money for himself and his son, and a curse for both along with it; and many a richard carston, sinking, sinking, as the hope grows feebler that justice or fortune will at last help one who has not learnt how to help himself? and will not prodigals of a more buoyant kind, like the immortal mr. micawber (though, maybe, with an eloquence less ornate than his), when _their_ boat is on the shore and _their_ bark is on the sea, become "perfectly business-like and perfectly practical," and propose, in acknowledgment of a parting gift we had neither hoped nor desired to see again, "bills" or, if we should prefer it, "a bond, or any other description of security?" all this will happen to us, as surely as we shall be buttonholed by pecksniffs in a state of philanthropic exultation; and watched round corners by 'umble but observant uriah heeps; and affronted in what is best in us by the worst hypocrite of all, the hypocrite of religion, who flaunts in our eyes his greasy substitute for what he calls the "light of terewth." to be sure, unless it be mr. chadband and those of his tribe, we shall find the hypocrite and the man-out-at-elbows in real life less endurable than their representatives in fiction; for dickens well understood "that if you do not administer a disagreeable character carefully, the public have a decided tendency to think that the _story_ is disagreeable, and not merely the fictitious form." his economy is less strict with characters of the opposite class, true copies of nature's own handiwork--the tom pinches and trotty vecks and clara peggottys, who reconcile us with our kind, and mr. pickwick himself, "a human being replete with benevolence," to borrow a phrase from a noble passage in dickens's most congenial predecessor. these characters in dickens have a warmth which only the creations of fielding and smollett had possessed before, and which, like these old masters, he occasionally carries to excess. at the other extreme stand those characters in which the art of dickens, always in union with the promptings of his moral nature, illustrates the mitigating or redeeming qualities observable even in the outcasts of our civilisation. to me his figures of this kind, when they are not too intensely elaborated, are not the least touching; and there is something as pathetic in the uncouth convict magwitch as in the consumptive crossing-sweeper jo. as a matter of course it is possible to take exceptions of one kind or another to some of the characters created by dickens in so extraordinary a profusion. i hardly know of any other novelist less obnoxious to the charge of repeating himself; though, of course, many characters in his earlier or shorter works contained in themselves the germs of later and fuller developments. but bob sawyer and dick swiveller, noah claypole and uriah heep are at least sufficiently independent variations on the same themes. on the other hand, filer and cute in _the chimes_ were the first sketches of gradgrind and bounderby in _hard times_; and clemency in _the battle of life_ prefigures peggotty in _david copperfield_. no one could seriously quarrel with such repetitions as these, and there are remarkably few of them; for the fertile genius of dickens took delight in the variety of its creativeness, and, as if to exemplify this, there was no relation upon the contrasted humours of which he better loved to dwell than that of partnership. it has been seen how rarely his inventive power condescended to supplement itself by what in the novel corresponds to the mimicry of the stage, and what in truth is as degrading to the one as it is to the other--the reproduction of originals _from real life_. on the other hand, he carries his habit too far of making a particular phrase do duty as an index of a character. this trick also is a trick of the stage, where it often enough makes the judicious grieve. many may be inclined to censure it in dickens as one of several forms of the exaggeration which is so frequently condemned in him. there was no charge to which he was more sensitive; and in the preface to _martin chuzzlewit_ he accordingly (not for the first time) turned round upon the objectors, declaring roundly that "what is exaggeration to one class of minds and perceptions is plain truth to another;" and hinting a doubt "whether it is _always_ the writer who colours highly, or whether it is now and then the reader whose eye for colour is a little dull." i certainly do not think that the term "exaggerated" is correctly applied to such conventional characters of sensational romance as rosa dartle, who has, as it were, lost her way into _david copperfield_, while hortense and madame defarge seem to be in their proper places in _bleak house_ and _a tale of two cities_. in his earlier writings, and in the fresher and less overcharged serious parts of his later books, he rarely if ever paints black in black; even the jew fagin has a moment of relenting against the sleeping oliver; he is not that unreal thing, a "demon," whereas sikes is that real thing, a brute. on the other hand, certainly he at times makes his characters more laughable than nature; few great humourists have so persistently sought to efface the line which separates the barely possible from the morally probable. this was, no doubt, largely due to his inclination towards the grotesque, which a severer literary training might have taught him to restrain. thus he liked to introduce insane or imbecile personages into fiction, where, as in real life, they are often dangerous to handle. it is to his sense of the grotesque, rather than to any deep-seated satirical intention, and certainly not to any want of reverence or piety in his very simple and very earnest nature, that i would likewise ascribe the exaggeration and unfairness of which he is guilty against little bethel and all its works. but in this, as in other instances, no form of humour requires more delicate handling than the grotesque, and none is more liable to cause fatigue. latterly, dickens was always adding to his gallery of eccentric portraits, and if inner currents may be traced by outward signs, it may be worth while to apply the test of his _names_, which become more and more odd as their owners deviate more and more from the path of nature. who more simply and yet more happily named than the leading members of the pickwick club--from the poet, mr. snodgrass, to the sportsman, mr. winkle--nathaniel, not daniel; but with veneering and lammle, and boffin and venus, and crisparkle and grewgious--be they actual names or not--we feel instinctively that we are in the region of the transnormal. lastly, in their descriptive power and the faithfulness with which they portray the life and ways of particular periods or countries, of special classes, professions, or other divisions of mankind, the books of dickens are, again of course within their range, unequalled. he sought his materials chiefly at home, though his letters from italy and switzerland and america, and his french pictures in sketch and story, show how much wider a field his descriptive powers might have covered. the _sketches by boz_ and the _pickwick papers_ showed a mastery, unsurpassed before or since, in the description of the life of english society in its middle and lower classes, and in _oliver twist_ he lifted the curtain from some of the rotten parts of our civilisation. this history of a work-house child also sounded the note of that sympathy with the poor which gave to dickens's descriptions of their sufferings and their struggles a veracity beyond mere accuracy of detail. he was still happier in describing their household virtues, their helpfulness to one another, their compassion for those who are the poorest of all--the friendless and the outcast--as he did in his _old curiosity shop_, and in most of his christmas books. his pictures of middle-class life abounded in kindly humour; but the humour and pathos of poverty--more especially the poverty which has not yet lost its self-respect--commended themselves most of all to his descriptive power. where, as in _nicholas nickleby_ and later works, he essayed to describe the manners of the higher classes, he was, as a rule, far less successful; partly because there was in his nature a vein of rebellion against the existing system of society, so that, except in his latest books, he usually approached a description of members of its dominant orders with a satirical intention, or at least an undertone of bitterness. at the same time i demur to the common assertion that dickens could not draw a real gentleman. all that can be said is that it very rarely suited his purpose to do so, supposing the term to include manners as well as feelings and actions; though mr. twemlow, in _our mutual friend_, might be instanced as a (perhaps rather conscious) exception of one kind, and sir leicester dedlock, in the latter part of _bleak house_, as another. moreover, a closer examination of lord frederick verisopht and cousin feenix will show that, gull as the one and ninny as the other is, neither has anything that can be called ungentlemanly about him; on the contrary, the characters, on the whole, rather plead in favour of the advantage than of the valuelessness of blue blood. as for dickens's other noblemen, whom i find enumerated in an american dictionary of his characters, they are nearly all mere passing embodiments of satirical fancies, which pretend to be nothing more. another ingenious enthusiast has catalogued the numerous callings, professions, and trades of the personages appearing in dickens's works. i cannot agree with the criticism that in his personages the man is apt to become forgotten in the externals of his calling--the barrister's wig and gown, as it were, standing for the barrister, and the beadle's cocked hat and staff for the beadle. but he must have possessed in its perfection the curious detective faculty of deducing a man's occupation from his manners. to him nothing wore a neutral tint, and no man or woman was featureless. he was, it should be remembered, always observing; half his life he was afoot. when he undertook to describe any novel or unfamiliar kind of manners, he spared no time or trouble in making a special study of his subject. he was not content to know the haunts of the london thieves by hearsay, or to read the history of opium-smoking and its effects in blue-books. from the office of his journal in london we find him starting on these self-imposed commissions, and from his hotel in new york. the whole art of descriptive reporting, which has no doubt produced a large quantity of trashy writing, but has also been of real service in arousing a public interest in neglected corners of our social life, was, if not actually set on foot, at any rate re-invigorated and vitalised by him. no one was so delighted to notice the oddities which habit and tradition stereotype in particular classes of men. a complete natural history of the country actor, the london landlady, and the british waiter might be compiled from his pages. this power of observation and description extended from human life to that of animals. his habits of life could not but make him the friend of dogs, and there is some reason for a title which was bestowed on him in a paper in a london magazine concerning his own dogs--the landseer of fiction. his letters are full of delightful details concerning these friends and companions, turk, linda, and the rest of them; nor is the family of their fictitious counterparts, culminating (intellectually) in merrylegs, less numerous and delightful. cats were less congenial to dickens, perhaps because he had no objection to changing house; and they appear in his works in no more attractive form than as the attendant spirits of mrs. pipchin and of mr. krook. but for the humours of animals in general he had a wonderfully quick eye. of his ravens i have already spoken. the pony whisker is the type of kind old gentlemen's ponies. in one of his letters occurs an admirably droll description of the pig-market at boulogne; and the best unscientific description ever given of a spider was imagined by dickens at broadstairs, when in his solitude he thought "of taming spiders, as baron trenck did. there is one in my cell (with a speckled body and twenty-two very decided knees) who seems to know me." in everything, whether animate or inanimate, he found out at once the characteristic feature, and reproduced it in words of faultless precision. this is the real secret of his descriptive power, the exercise of which it would be easy to pursue through many other classes of subjects. scenery, for its own sake, he rarely cared to describe; but no one better understood how to reproduce the combined effect of scenery and weather on the predisposed mind. thus london and its river in especial are, as i have said, haunted by the memory of dickens's books. to me it was for years impossible to pass near london bridge at night, or to idle in the temple on summer days, or to frequent a hundred other localities on or near the thames, without instinctively recalling pictures scattered through the works of dickens--in this respect, also, a real _liber veritatis_. thus, and in many ways which it would be labour lost to attempt to describe, and by many a stroke or touch of genius which it would be idle to seek to reproduce in paraphrase, the most observing and the most imaginative of our english humourists revealed to us that infinite multitude of associations which binds men together, and makes us members one of another. but though observation and imagination might discern and discover these associations, sympathy--the sympathy of a generous human heart with humanity--alone could breathe into them the warmth of life. happily, to most men, there is one place consecrated above others to the feelings of love and good-will; "that great altar where the worst among us sometimes perform the worship of the heart, and where the best have offered up such sacrifices and done such deeds of heroism as, chronicled, would put the proudest temples of old time, with all their vaunting annals, to the blush." it was thus that dickens spoke of the sanctity of _home_; and, english in many things, he was most english in that love of home to which he was never weary of testifying. but, though the "pathway of the sublime" may have been closed to him, he knew well enough that the interests of a people and the interests of humanity are mightier than the domestic loves and cares of any man; and he conscientiously addressed himself, as to the task of his life, to the endeavour to knit humanity together. the method which he, by instinct and by choice, more especially pursued was that of seeking to show the "good in everything." this it is that made him, unreasonably sometimes, ignobly never, the champion of the poor, the helpless, the outcast. he was often tempted into a rhetoric too loud and too shrill, into a satire neither fine nor fair; for he was impatient, but not impatient of what he thought true and good. his purpose, however, was worthy of his powers; nor is there recorded among the lives of english men of letters any more single-minded in its aim, and more successful in the pursuit of it, than his. he was much criticised in his lifetime; and he will, i am well aware, be often criticised in the future by keener and more capable judges than myself. they may miss much in his writings that i find in them; but, unless they find one thing there, it were better that they never opened one of his books. he has indicated it himself when criticising a literary performance by a clever writer: "in this little ms. everything is too much patronised and condescended to, whereas the slightest touch of feeling for the rustic who is of the earth earthy, or of sisterhood with the homely servant who has made her face shine in her desire to please, would make a difference that the writer can generally imagine without trying it. you don't want any sentiment laboriously made out in such a thing. you don't want any maudlin show of it. but you do want a pervading suggestion that it is there." the sentiment which dickens means is the salt which will give a fresh savour of their own to his works so long as our language endures. the end. footnotes: [ ] see _idyll_. xv. . this discovery is not my own, but that of the late dr. donaldson, who used to translate the passage accordingly with great gusto. [ ] for operas, as a form of _dramatic_ entertainment, dickens seems afterwards to have entertained a strong contempt, such as, indeed, it is difficult for any man with a sense of humour wholly to avoid. [ ] w. & d. grant brothers had their warehouse at the lower end of cannon street, and their private house in mosely street. [ ] as there is hardly a character in the whole world of fiction and the drama without some sort of a literary predecessor, so dickens may have derived the first notion of grip from the raven ralpho--likewise the property of an idiot--who frightened roderick random and strap out of their wits, and into the belief that he was the personage grip so persistently declared himself to be. [ ] after dining at a party including the son of an eminent man of letters, he notes in his _remembrancer_ that he found the great man's son "decidedly lumpish," and appends the reflexion, "copyrights need be hereditary, for genius isn't." [ ] from a list of mss. at south kensington, kindly furnished me by mr. r. f. sketchley, i find that mr. r. h. shepherd's _bibliography of dickens_ is incomplete on this head. [ ] by an odd coincidence, not less than four out of the six theatres advertising their performances in this first number of the _daily news_ announce each a different adaptation of _the cricket on the hearth_. amongst the curiosities of the casts are observable: at the adelphi, wright as tilly slowboy, and at the haymarket buckstone in the same character, with william farren as caleb plummer. the latter part is taken at the princess's by compton, mrs. stirling playing dot. at the lyceum, mr., mrs., and miss mary keeley, and mr. emery, appear in the piece. [ ] it is, perhaps, worth pointing out, though it is not surprising, that dickens had a strong sense of what i may call the poetry of the railway-train. of the effect of the weird _signalman's story_ in one of his christmas numbers it is not very easy to rid one's self. there are excellent descriptions of the _rapidity_ of a railway journey in the first chapter of _the lazy tour_, and in another _household words_ paper, called _a flight_. [ ] among these is mr. alexander ireland, the author of the _bibliography of leigh hunt and hazlitt_, who has kindly communicated to me part of his collections concerning the former. the tittle-tattle against leigh hunt repeated by lord macaulay is, on the face of it, unworthy of notice. [ ] _by rail to parnassus_, june , . [ ] one of the last things ever written by dickens was a criticism of m. fechter's acting, intended to introduce him to the american public. a false report, by-the-way, declared dickens to have been the author of the dramatic version of scott's novel, which at christmas, -' , was produced at the lyceum, under the title of _the master of ravenswood_; but he allowed that he had done "a great deal towards and about the piece, having an earnest desire to put scott, for once, on the stage in his own gallant manner." [ ] dickens undoubtedly had a genius for titles. amongst some which he suggested for the use of a friend and contributor to his journal are, "_what will he do with it?_" and "_can he forgive her?_" [ ] this title has helped to extinguish the phrase of which it consists. few would now be found to agree with the last clause of flora's parenthesis in _little dorrit_: "our mutual friend--too cold a word for me; at least i don't mean that very proper expression, mutual friend." [ ] in the last volume of his _magnum opus_ of historical fiction gustav freytag describes "boz" as, about the year , filling with boundless enthusiasm the hearts of young men and maidens in a small silesian country town. [ ] the passage in _oliver twist_ (chapter xxxvii.) which illustrates the maxim that "dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine," may, or may not, be a reminiscence of _sartor resartus_, then ( ) first published in a volume. english men of letters. edited by john morley. the following volumes are now ready: samuel johnson by leslie stephen. edward gibbon by j. c. morison. sir walter scott by r. h. hutton. percy bysshe shelley by j. a. symonds. david hume by t. h. huxley. oliver goldsmith. by william black. daniel defoe by william minto. robert burns by j. c. shairp. edmund spenser by r. w. church. william m. thackeray by anthony trollope. edmund burke by john morley. john milton by mark pattison. nathaniel hawthorne by henry james, jr. robert southey by e. dowden. geoffrey chaucer by a. w. ward. john bunyan by j. a. froude. william cowper by goldwin smith. alexander pope by leslie stephen. lord byron by john nichol. john locke by thomas fowler. william wordsworth by f. w. h. myers. john dryden by g. saintsbury. walter savage landor by sidney colvin. thomas de quincey by david masson. charles lamb by alfred ainger. richard bentley by r. c. jebb. charles dickens by a. w. ward. thomas gray by e. w. gosse. jonathan swift by leslie stephen. laurence sterne by h. d. traill. thomas b. macaulay by j. cotter morison. henry fielding by austin dobson. richard brinsley sheridan by mrs. oliphant. joseph addison by w. j. courthope. lord bacon by r. w. church. samuel taylor coleridge by h. d. traill. sir philip sidney by j. a. symonds. john keats by sidney colvin. mo, cloth, cents per volume. also, people's edition ( volumes in ), mo, cloth, $ per volume. _other volumes in preparation._ published by harper & brothers, new york. harper & brothers _will send any of the above works by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, canada, or mexico, on receipt of the price_. * * * * * samuel johnson. boswell's johnson. the life of samuel johnson, ll.d. including a journal of a tour to the hebrides. by james boswell, esq. portrait of boswell. vols., vo, cloth, $ ; sheep, $ ; half calf, $ . johnson's works. the complete works of samuel johnson, ll.d. with an essay on his life and genius, by arthur murphy, esq. vols., vo, cloth, $ ; sheep, $ ; half calf, $ . samuel johnson. by leslie stephen. samuel johnson. by leslie stephen. a critical and biographical sketch. 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"the inns and taverns of pickwick" has proved one of the most successful books of the season. the reviewers have been unanimous in its praise, and in speaking of its value and qualities have used such adjectives as famous, friendly, entertaining, delightful, well-informed, irresistible, valuable, fascinating, jolly, glowing, jovial, great, favourite, charming, congenial, and agreed that it is the "final authority and worthy of its mighty subject." london: cecil palmer * * * * * * [illustration: john browdie and fanny squeers arrive at the saracen's head _drawn by t. onwhyn_] dickensian inns & taverns by b. w. matz editor of "the dickensian" author of "the inns and taverns of pickwick" etc., etc. with thirty-nine illustrations by t. onwhyn, charles g. harper, l. walker, f. g. kitton, g. m. brimelow and from photographs and old engravings london cecil palmer oakley house, bloomsbury street, w.c. i first edition copyright printed in great britain by burleigh ltd. bristol to ridgwell cullum contents _chapter_ _page_ preface i dickens and inns ii oliver twist iii nicholas nickleby: the saracen's head iv nicholas nickleby (_continued_) v barnaby rudge: the maypole vi barnaby rudge (_continued_) and the old curiosity shop vii martin chuzzlewit viii dombey and son ix david copperfield x bleak house, little dorrit, hard times xi a tale of two cities and great expectations xii our mutual friend xiii edwin drood, and the lazy tour of two idle apprentices xiv sketches by boz, and the uncommercial traveller xv christmas stories and minor writings list of illustrations john browdie and fanny squeers arrive at the saracen's head. drawn by t. onwhyn _frontispiece_ the red lion, barnet. photo by t. w. tyrell _page_ the coach and horses, isleworth. drawn by c. g. harper " the eight bells, hatfield. drawn by f. g. kitton " the sign of the saracen's head " the saracen's head, snow hill. from an old print " the peacock, islington. from an old engraving " the george inn, greta bridge. drawn by c. g. harper " the king's head, barnard castle. photo by t. w. tyrrell " the bottom inn, near petersfield. drawn by c. g. harper " the king's head, chigwell. drawn by l. walker " the chester room, king's head. drawn by l. walker " the old boot inn, . from an old engraving " the red lion, bevis marks. drawn by g. m. brimelow " the george, amesbury. drawn by c. g. harper " the george inn, salisbury. photo by t. w. tyrrell " the black bull, holborn. drawn by l. walker " the sign of the black bull. drawn by l. walker " the bedford hotel, brighton. from an old engraving " the royal hotel, leamington. from a lithograph " the plough inn, blunderstone. photo by t. w. tyrrell " the buck inn, yarmouth. photo by t. w. tyrrell " the duke's head, yarmouth. photo by t. w. tyrrell " the little inn, canterbury. drawn by f. g. kitton " jack straw's castle. drawn by l. walker " the london coffee house. from an old engraving " the old cheshire cheese. from a photo " the ship and lobster, gravesend. drawn by c. g. harper " the grapes inn, limehouse. photo by t. w. tyrrell " limehouse reach. drawn by l. walker " the ship hotel, greenwich. drawn by l. walker " the red lion, hampton. drawn by c. g. harper " wood's hotel, furnival's inn. drawn by l. walker " the king's arms, lancaster. drawn by l. walker " the eagle tavern. from an old print " the crispin and crispianus. drawn by c. g. harper " the mitre inn, chatham. from an engraving " the lord warden hotel, dover. from an engraving " the pavilion hotel, folkestone. from an engraving " preface the very friendly reception given to my previous book on the inns and taverns of pickwick has encouraged me to pursue the subject through the other novels and writings of dickens, and to compile the present volume. i do not claim that it is encyclopædic in the sense that it will be found to supply a complete index to every inn mentioned in the novelist's books. many a reader will recall, i expect, a certain inn in his favourite story which has been overlooked; but, while my chief aim has been to deal with the famous and prominent ones, i have not ignored the minor ones which, in many cases, are also the most alluring, and often play an important part in the story. the plan has been to take the long novels in something approximating to chronological order, followed by the shorter stories and sketches; and, where an inn is mentioned in more than one book, to deal with it fully in the chapter devoted to the story in which it was first alluded to. inns associated with the novelist's own life find no place in this volume, unless they have association also with his books. in such a volume as this it is obviously necessary to quote freely from dickens's books, but, when one recalls the young person's comment on lectures about dickens that "she always loved them because of the quotations," no apology or excuse is needed here. i am greatly indebted to my friends t. w. tyrrell and charles g. harper for much valuable advice and assistance in my task. the former has kindly loaned me prints from his unique collection of topographical photographs, and has also given me the advantage of his expert knowledge of the subject. how much i owe to the latter goes without saying. no one can write of old inns, old coaches, or old coaching roads without acknowledging indebtedness to the score of books standing in mr. harper's name, which are rich mines for any student of the subject quarrying for facts. he has not only permitted me to dig in his mines, but has allowed also the use of many of his charming drawings. acknowledgment is also made to messrs. a. & c. black, messrs. methuen & co., and the proprietors of the cheshire cheese for the use of blocks on pages , and respectively. b. w. matz. dickensian inns & taverns chapter i dickens and inns in these days when life is, for the most part, and for most of us, a wearying process of bustle and "business," it is comforting as well as pleasant to reflect that the old coaching inn still remains in all its quiet grandeur and the noble dignity which quaint customs and unbroken centuries of tradition have given to it. for a brief period in our recent history, it seemed that even so great a british institution as the old english inn, and its first cousin the tavern, were doomed to pass away. indeed, the invention of railways, followed by the almost automatic suspension of the coach as a means of locomotion, did succeed actually in closing down many of them. but the subsequent invention of the motor-car reopened england's highways and by-ways so that to-day there are unmistakable indications that the old english inn is once more acquiring that atmosphere of friendly hospitality and utility with which it was endowed in the past, and which is so faithfully reflected in every book of dickens. no one can really believe that the palatial and gilded hotels that sprang up in the place of scores of the old coaching inns possessed the same snug cheerfulness, the same appeal to the traveller, as did the old hostelries of the coaching era. to-day, this is being realised more and more, and when the time comes, as we are told is not far off, when everyone will have his own motor-car, mine host of every wayside inn and county town hostelry will once again become the prominent figure that dickens made him. the real romance of the coaching era may never return. perhaps we have become too matter-of-fact for that. but something approximating to the spirit and glamour of those days is possible still for those who are content to undertake a motor journey minus the feverish ambition for breaking speed records. in many an old-world english village stands an old-world english inn, and when that hour before sunset arrives that all travellers of the open road know--the moment when a luxurious and healthy weariness overcomes us--ah, well, be sure the right sort of inn awaits you if you deserve such good fortune, and, when the time comes to fill pipes and sit at ease before a blazing log-fire, what better subject for your dreams will you find than the glowing pages of a dickens book? in them you get not only the romance and the glamour of the journey from place to place, but also descriptive pictures of the various inns, of their picturesque outward appearances, of their interior comfort and customs, of their glorious and luscious array of wholesome food and wine, to say nothing of the wonderful description of the happy company assembled there, all told with that incomparable charm and grace and good humour of a writer of genius. dickens not only knew how to describe an inn and its comforts (and its discomforts, too, sometimes), but he seemed to revel in doing so, and became filled with delight when he was one of the guests within its walls. he seems to have shared dr. johnson's view that there was no private house in which people could enjoy themselves so well as at a good tavern, where there was general freedom from anxiety, and where you were sure of a welcome; and to agree with him that there is nothing as yet contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as in a good tavern or inn. his books are full of the truth of this, and provide many such happy occasions when, after a cold coach drive, the hospitable host conducts the passengers to a large room made cosy with a roaring fire, and drawn curtains, and presenting an inviting spread of the good things of life, and a plentiful supply of the best wines or a bowl of steaming punch, for the jovial company. and the coach journey which brings one to these inns! is there any described with so much exhilaration to be found elsewhere? take the coach ride of nicholas nickleby along the great north road to his destination in yorkshire. here is reflected the real spirit of old-time travelling which brings us in touch with the old customs of the coaching age in a manner that no historian could possibly convey so realistically. read again tom pinch's ride to london. we not only encounter old inns and old houses with their cherished memories, their old rooms, each with its own romantic atmosphere and a tale to tell, but we traverse picturesque by-ways and highways, which in themselves recall the past as well as reveal unchanging scenes of glorious nature; we can experience these feelings to-day in a way our fathers could not. the railroad, for a spell, made this impossible. to-day the road has come into its own again, and the motor-car brings back to us the glory of the road, the pleasure of the inn, and the enjoyment of the wonderful country which is england. there seems to have been a positive allurement about an inn or tavern for dickens which he could not resist. he lingered over the most decrepit and lowly public-house, such as the dirty three cripples, the resort of bill sikes, as he did over the sumptuous pavilion hotel at folkestone. a wayside inn was as real a joy to him in its modest way as was the chief coaching hotel in a country town with its studied comfort. when travelling about the country himself with his friends, some comment or pen-picture of the inn they stayed at creeps into his letters, as it would seem, by instinct. even in his unpublished diary we see noted items about delightfully beautiful drives, coach offices, stage-coaches, and excellent inns. and, when he and wilkie collins went for their idle tour, it resolved itself into visiting the inns and coast corners in out-of-the-way places. his knowledge of inns was stupendous. in that christmas story, "the holly tree," there are scores of them recalled, each recollection no doubt reminiscent of experiences and association. one gets a gleam of the joy he experiences at such times in the extract from a letter to an american friend, in , after he had gone for a trip into cornwall with some bright and merry companions: "if you could but have seen one gleam of the bright fires by which we sat at night in the big rooms of the ancient inns, or smelt but one steam of the hot punch which came in every evening in a huge broad china bowl!" but instances could be multiplied. dickens saw something different in every inn, and succeeded in conveying it to the reader. there were no two inns alike to him. each had its own tale to tell, its own individuality to reveal, its own atmosphere and fare to present, whatever its grade or social environment. as for an inn sign, it transported him into his most whimsical and pleasant of moods. in the following pages an attempt has been made to gather together the material from his books which shows how dickens delighted in everything appertaining to inns, and how he extracted from association with them all that glow of sentiment and joy which permeated their atmosphere in the old days, leaving their pictures in glowing words for all time. there is nothing so calculated to make a place famous as mention of it in a classic story. it may have already had a past history by association with notable names and events, which gave it prominence in our annals for a time; but in the case of a building, when it is demolished, it soon passes out of memory. if, however, dickens has drawn a pen-picture of it, or, in the case of an old inn, has used it for a scene in one of his books, it can never be forgotten; even when razed to the ground its fame survives, and the site becomes a dickens landmark. chapter ii oliver twist the red lion, barnet--the angel, islington--the coach and horses, isleworth--the three cripples--the george inn--the eight bells, hatfield there are not many inns that can be identified in _oliver twist_, and those that can play very little part in the enactment of the story, or have any notable history to relate in regard to them. the first one to attract attention is that at barnet, where the artful dodger took oliver twist for breakfast on the morning they encountered each other on the latter's tramp to london. although dickens does not name this inn, we believe he had in mind the red lion, for it was one of those inns that was an objective when he and his friends went for a horse-ride out into the country. one such occasion was chosen when his eldest daughter, mamie, was born, in march, . he invited forster to celebrate the event by a ride "for a good long spell," and they rode out fifteen miles on the great north road. after dining at the red lion, in barnet, on their way home, they distinguished the already memorable day, as forster tells us, by bringing in both hacks dead lame. this trip along the great north road was a favourite one, and dickens consequently became well acquainted with the highway. at the time of forster's specific reference to the red lion, dickens was engaged on the early chapters of _oliver twist_, and we find him describing the district in those pages wherein particular mention is made of barnet. tramping to london after leaving mr. sowerberry, the undertaker, oliver, on the seventh morning, "limped slowly into the little town of barnet," we are told. "the windows," dickens proceeds, "were closed; the street was empty; not a soul was awakened to the business of the day." oliver, with bleeding feet, and covered with dust, sat upon a doorstep. for some time he wondered "at the great number of public houses (every other house in barnet was a tavern, large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches as they passed through." here he was discovered by jack dawkins, otherwise the artful dodger, who, taking pity on him, assisted him to rise, escorted him to an adjacent chandler's shop, purchased some ham and bread, and the two adjourned finally into a public-house tap-room, to regale themselves prior to continuing their journey to london. as the red lion was so familiar to dickens, we may assume that this was the inn to which he referred. the inn, no doubt, was the same from which esther summerson, in _bleak house_, hired the carriage to drive to mr. jarndyce's house, near st. albans. arriving at barnet, esther, ada and richard found horses waiting for them, "but, as they had only just been fed, we had to wait for them, too," she said, "and got a long fresh walk over a common and an old battle-field, before the carriage came up." doubtless the posting-house where this change was made was the red lion, for dickens had used it for posting his own horse many a time. it is there to-day, and drives a busy trade, more as a suburban hostelry than as a posting-inn. continuing their walk to london, the artful dodger and oliver gradually reached islington, and entered the city together. islington in days gone by was a starting point for the mail-coaches going to the north, and as a consequence was famous for its old inns. perhaps the most famous, particularly from the antiquarian standpoint, was the old queen's head, a perfect specimen of ancient domestic architecture, which was destroyed in . another was, of course, the angel; but the house bearing that name to-day can claim none of the romance or attractiveness of its ancient predecessor, and has recently been modernised on the lines adopted by a very modern firm of caterers. but the angel of its palmy days was well-known to dickens, and, although he does not make it the scene of any prominent incident in his books, it has mention in _oliver twist_ in the chapter describing oliver's trudge to london. it was nearly eleven o'clock when he and the artful dodger reached the turnpike at islington. they then crossed from the angel into st. john's road, on their way to the house near field lane, where oliver was dragged in and the door closed behind him. [illustration: the red lion, barnet _photograph by t. w. tyrrell_] the inn is mentioned again in the same book on the occasion when noah claypole and charlotte traversed the same road. "mr. claypole," we read, "went on, without halting, until he arrived at the angel, at islington, where he wisely judged, from the crowd of passengers and number of vehicles, that london began in earnest." he, too, led the way into st. john's road. the angel has been a london landmark for over two centuries. there have been at least three houses of the same name, but the one dickens knew and referred to was apparently that built after the destruction in of the original. in those days, it was the first halting-place, after leaving london, of coaches bound along the holyhead and great north roads. the original house presented the usual features of a large old country inn, and "the inn yard, approached by a gateway in the centre, was nearly a quadrangle, with double galleries, supported by plain columns and carved pilasters, with caryatides and other figures." now, as we have said, it is merely a very ordinary, everyday modern refreshment house. the low public-house in the "filthiest" part of little saffron hill, in whose dark and gloomy den, known as the parlour, was frequently to be found bill sikes and his dog, bull's-eye, probably was no particular public-house so far as the novelist was concerned, although he gave it the distinguishing name of the three cripples. at any rate, it has not been identified, and must be assumed to be typical of the many with which this district at one time was infested. first referred to in chapter xv, it is more minutely described in chapter xxvi. "the room," we are told, "was illuminated by two gas-lights, the glare of which was prevented by the barred shutters and closely drawn curtains of faded red from being visible outside. the ceiling was blackened, to prevent its colour from being injured by the flaring lamps; and the place was so full of dense tobacco smoke that at first it was scarcely possible to discern anything more. by degrees, however, as some of it cleared away, through the open door, an assemblage of heads, as confused as the voices that greeted the ear, might be made out; and, as the eye grew more accustomed to the scene, the spectators gradually became aware of the presence of a numerous company, male and female, crowded round a long table, at the upper end of which sat a showman with a hammer of office in his hands, while a professional gentleman with a bluish nose, and his face tied up for the benefit of a toothache, presided at a jingling piano in a remote corner." that was a scene common to the "low public-house," of which the three cripples was a notorious example, and the atmosphere depicted no doubt applied generally to most of them. [illustration: the coach and horses, isleworth _drawn by c. g. harper_] on the other hand, the coach and horses, at isleworth, where bill sikes and oliver alighted from the cart they had "begged a lift" in, is no flight of dickens's imagination and can be discovered to-day exactly where he located it. the tramp of the two from spitalfields to chertsey on the burglary expedition can easily be followed from dickens's clearly indicated itinerary. the point on the journey where they obtained their lift in a cart bound for hounslow was near knightsbridge. having bargained with the driver to put them down at isleworth, they at length alighted a little way beyond "a public-house called the coach and horses, which stood at the corner of a road just beyond isleworth leading to hampton." they did not enter this public-house, but continued their journey. mr. john sayce parr, in an article in _the dickensian_, vol. i, page , speaks of the topographical accuracy of dickens in this instance: "the literary pilgrim," he says, "sets out to follow the route he indicates, doubtful if he will find the places mentioned. there is, however, not the slightest excuse for making mistakes, for dickens apparently visited the scenes and described them with the accuracy of a guide-book. thus, one finds the coach and horses, sure enough, at the point where brentford ends and isleworth begins, by the entrance to sion park, and near the spot where the road rambles off to the left." [illustration: the "eight bells" hatfield _drawn by f. g. kitton_] the coach and horses, the same writer says, is not a picturesque inn. it is a huge four-square lump of a place, and wears, indeed, rather a dour and forbidding aspect. it is unquestionably the house of which dickens speaks, and was built certainly not later than the dawn of the nineteenth century. it still exists to-day, although the surroundings have altered somewhat by the advent of the electric tramways and other "improvements." the george inn, mentioned in chapter xxxiii, where oliver took the letter for mr. losberne to be sent by "an express on horseback to chertsey," cannot be identified, as the market-town in whose market-place it stood is not mentioned or hinted at. mr. percy fitzgerald claims that the description applies to chertsey, but, as the letter had to be taken to chertsey, something seems wrong in his deduction. in the chapter describing the flight of bill sikes, we read that, on leaving london behind, he shaped his course for hatfield. "it was nine o'clock at night when the man, quite tired out, and the dog, limping and lame from the unaccustomed exercise, turned down the hill by the church of the quiet village, and, plodding along the little street, crept into a small public-house whose scanty light had guided them to the spot. there was a fire in the tap-room, and some of the country labourers were drinking before it. they made room for the stranger, but he sat down in the farthest corner, and ate and drank alone, or rather with his dog, to whom he cast a morsel of food from time to time." here he met the pedlar with his infallible composition for removing blood-stains. this particular public-house is no doubt the eight bells, a picturesque old house which still remains on the spot where dickens accurately located it. it is a quaint little building with a red-tiled roof and dormer windows, and local tradition assigns it as that at which bill sikes sought refuge for a short time before continuing his journey to st. albans, enabling hatfield to claim it as a veritable dickens landmark, together with that other, the churchyard, where mrs. lirriper's husband was buried. chapter iii nicholas nickleby the saracen's head, snow hill the saracen's head inn, snow hill, long since demolished, is familiar to all readers of _nicholas nickleby_, because it was the hotel from which squeers took coach with his boys for dotheboys hall; and, but for the fact, the name of saracen's head would recall little or nothing to the ordinary londoner. it stood on snow hill or snore hill, as it was called in the very early days, and its exact location was two or three doors from st. sepulchre's church, down the hill, and was one of london's oldest and most historic inns, dating back to the th century. the first mention of it that we can find is in a volume by john lydgate, the benedictine monk who flourished in the early part of the th century, who is best remembered by his poem, "the london lyckpenny." he tells the story of the origin of the name, which is interesting as fixing an early date at which the inn existed; even if it cannot be vouched for as correct in face of the fact that others have been suggested, it is at least as plausible. it would appear that, when richard coeur-de-lion returned from the third crusade in , he approached the city of london and entered it by the new gate, on the west. being much fatigued by his long journey, the weary monarch, on arriving at snow hill, outside the gate, stopped at an inn there and called loudly to a tapster for refreshment. he drank rather freely, "untille ye hedde of ye kinge did swimme ryghte royallie." he then began laying about him right and left with a battle-axe, to the "astoundmente and dyscomfythure of ye courtierres." upon which one of the barons said, "i wish hys majestie hadde ye hedde of a saracen before hym juste now, for i trowe he woulde play ye deuce wyth itte." thereupon the king paid all the damage and gave permission that the inn should be called "ye saracen's hedde." it is a pretty story, and, as we have suggested, may or may not be true; but it gives us a starting point in the history of the inn. how long before this incident the inn had existed and what its name was previously, we cannot say. lydgate refers to the inn's name again in the following stanza of one of his poems: richarde hys sonne next by successyon, fyrst of that name--strong, hardy and abylle-- was crowned kinge, called cuer de lyon, with sarasenys hedde served at hys tabyelle. the inn, by virtue of its situation, was in the centre of many an historic event enacted in the surrounding streets, and would naturally be the resort of those taking part in them. if records existed, many a thrilling tale could be gathered from their perusal; as it is, only meagre details can be furnished. in , charles v of germany, when on his visit to london, stayed at the inn, and his retinue occupied three hundred beds, whilst stabling for forty horses was needed also; evidence that it was no mean hostelry, in spite of the fact that stow's record of the inn's existence in his "survey of london" is confined to the following sentence: "hard by st. sepulchre's church is a fayre and large inn for the receipt of travellers, and hath to signe the 'saracen's head.'" a few years later ( ) we get another reference to the hostel, in wm. fennor's "the comptor's commonwealth," a book describing the troubles of an unfortunate debtor in the hands of serjeants and gaolers. therein is an allusion to a serjeant "with a phisnomy much resembling the 'saracen's head,' without newgate," alluding, of course, to the figurehead on the sign-board of the inn. [illustration: the sign of the saracen's head] it goes without saying that the famous pepys knew the house, and we have the following entry in his diary as confirmation: " nov. . to the wardrobe with mr. townsend and mr. moore and then to the 'saracen's head' to a barrel of oysters." how bob sawyer and benjamin allen would have revelled in that occasion! the inn and the church were both victims of the great fire in , but both were rapidly rebuilt on the old sites. from the time the original inn was erected in the th century, until the last of its race on the same site was demolished in , doubtless there had been more than one saracen's head, and through this long stretch of years it was a favoured resort of all sorts and conditions of men. in , john bunyan, after his release from bedford gaol, paid frequent visits to london by coach to the saracen's head, and it is recorded that he spent several nights within its hospitable walls; and we are told that dean swift made the inn his headquarters in , on his visits to london from ireland. an even more famous man, in the person of horatio nelson, at the early age of twelve years, stayed a night there prior to making his first voyage in a merchant ship in . many years afterwards, when he had become world-famous as lord nelson, the proprietor of the hostelry, in honour of the early event, named his smartest coach after the admiral. these are a few bare facts worth recording of an inn which was the most prominent of the coaching inns of london, as it was one of the largest and most flourishing. at one period of its history, coaches started from it for almost every large town in england and scotland, and over horses were kept in readiness for the purpose. during the years - , the inn had been managed by three generations of the mountain family, the most notable member of which, owing perhaps to the coaching era then being at its height, was sarah ann mountain, who succeeded her husband in . innkeeping in those days was one of the most ancient and honourable of professions, and mrs. mountain was evidently an ornament to the calling. she was a keen competitor in the business of coach proprietors, and set the pace to other coach owners by putting on the first really fast coach to birmingham, which did the journey of miles in hours. at that time thirty coaches left her inn daily, amongst them being the "tally ho!" the fast coach referred to, whose speed was, we are told, the cause of the furious racing on the st. albans, coventry and birmingham roads up to . at the rear of the inn, mrs. mountain had a busy coach factory, and sold her vehicles to other coach proprietors. one of her advertisements announced that "good, comfortable stage-coaches, with lamps," could be purchased "at to guineas." it was at this period of its prosperity that dickens made the saracen's head a centre of interest in his novel, _nicholas nickleby_. ralph nickleby, being anxious to find employment for his nephew nicholas, called upon him one day and produced the following advertisement in the newspaper: "education.--at mr. wackford squeers' academy, dotheboys hall, at the delightful village of dotheboys, near greta bridge, in yorkshire, youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of globes, algebra, single stick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. terms, twenty guineas per annum. no extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. mr. squeers is in town, and attends daily, from one till four, at the saracen's head, snow hill. n.b.--an able assistant wanted. annual salary £ . a master of arts preferred." "there!" said ralph, folding the paper again. "let him get that situation, and his fortune is made." after some little discussion, nicholas decided to try for the post, and the two men set forth together in quest of mr. squeers at the meeting place announced in the advertisement. before nicholas and his uncle met squeers, dickens proceeded, in one of his very picturesque passages, to give a description, first of snow hill and then of the saracen's head: "snow hill! what kind of place can the quiet town's-people who see the words emblazoned, in all the legibility of gilt letters and dark shading, on the north-country coaches, take snow hill to be? all people have some undefined and shadowy notion of a place whose name is frequently before their eyes, or often in their ears. what a vast number of random ideas there must be perpetually floating about regarding this same snow hill. the name is such a good one. snow hill--snow hill, too, coupled with a saracen's head: picturing to us by a double association of ideas something stern and rugged! a bleak, desolate tract of country, open to piercing blasts and fierce wintry storms--a dark, cold, gloomy heath, lonely by day and scarcely to be thought of by honest folks at night--a place which solitary wayfarers shun, and where desperate robbers congregate; this, or something like this, should be the prevalent notion of snow hill, in those remote and rustic parts, through which the saracen's head, like some grim apparition, rushes each day and night with mysterious and ghost-like punctuality; holding its swift and headlong course in all weathers, and seeming to bid defiance to the very elements themselves." the reality, he goes on to say, was rather different, and presents the true picture of it as it really was, situated in the very core of london, surrounded by newgate, smithfield, the compter and st. sepulchre's church-- "and, just on that particular part of snow hill where omnibus horses going eastward seriously think of falling down on purpose, and where horses in hackney cabriolets going westward not unfrequently fall by accident, is the coach-yard of the saracen's head inn; its portal guarded by two saracens' heads and shoulders--there they are, frowning upon you from each side of the gateway. the inn itself, garnished with another saracen's head, frowns upon you from the top of the yard; while from the door of the hind boot of all the red coaches that are standing therein there glares a small saracen's head, with a twin expression to the large saracen's head below, so that the general appearance of the pile is decidedly of the saracenic order. [illustration: the saracen's head, snow hill _from an old print_] "when you walk up this yard, you will see the booking-office on your left, and the tower of st. sepulchre's church, darting abruptly up into the sky, on your right, and a gallery of bedrooms on both sides. just before you, you will observe a long window with the words 'coffee-room' legibly painted above it; and, looking out of the window, you would have seen in addition, if you had gone at the right time, mr. wackford squeers with his hands in his pockets." here, mr. squeers was standing "in a box by one of the coffee-room fire-places, fitted with one such table as is usually seen in coffee-rooms, and two of extraordinary shapes and dimensions made to suit the angles of the partition," waiting for fond parents and guardians to bring their little boys for his treatment. at the moment he had only secured one, but presently two more were added to the list, and, during the bargaining with their stepfather, ralph nickleby and his nephew arrived on the scene. the incident of nicholas's engagement for the post will be recalled by all and need not be repeated here. as the uncle and nephew emerged from the saracen's head gateway, ralph promised nicholas he would return in the morning to see him "fairly off" by the coach. nicholas kept his appointment by arriving at the saracen's head in good time, and went in search of mr. squeers in the coffee-room, where he discovered him breakfasting with three little boys. the sound of the coach horn quickly brought the frugal repast to an end, and "the little boys had to be got up to the top of the coach and their boxes had to be brought out and put in." all was animation in the coach-yard when nicholas's mother and sister and his uncle arrived to bid him good-bye. "a minute's bustle, a banging of the coach doors, a swaying of the vehicle to one side, as the heavy coachman, and still heavier guard, climbed into their seats; a cry of all right, a few notes from the horn, a hasty glance of two sorrowful faces below and the hard features of mr. ralph nickleby--and the coach was gone too, and rattling over the stones of smithfield." and so the saracen's head is left behind, and is not referred to again until john browdie comes to london with his newly wed wife, tilda price that was, and her friend, fanny squeers. dismounting near the post office he called a hackney coach, and, placing the ladies and the luggage hurriedly in, commanded the driver to "noo gang to the sarah's head, mun." "to the _were_?" cried the coachman. "lawk, mr. browdie," interrupted miss squeers. "the idea! saracen's head." "surely," said john, "i know'd it was something aboot sarah's son's head. dost thou know thot?" "oh ah! i know that," replied the coachman gruffly, as he banged the door. arriving there safely they all retired to rest, and in the morning partook of a substantial breakfast in "a small private room upstairs, commanding an uninterrupted view of the stables." fanny squeers made anxious enquiries for her father who had been in london some time seeking the lost smike. she was under the impression that he made the saracen's head his headquarters, but was woefully disillusioned when she was informed that he "was not stopping in the house, but that he came there every day, and that when he arrived he should be shown upstairs." he shortly appeared, and the good-hearted john browdie invited him to "pick a bit," which he promptly did. mr. squeers did not make the saracen's head his abiding place; he was too mean for that; john browdie, who was up for a holiday, stayed there the whole time he was in london, and some very merry, not to say solid meals he enjoyed during the period--for john liked a good meal. on one such occasion, when nicholas was a guest, the conviviality was sadly marred by a terrible quarrel between fanny squeers and her father, and mrs. and john browdie--nicholas incidentally coming in for some of the abuse. very nasty and cutting things were said on both sides, and mr. squeers was summarily dismissed with a threat from john that he would "pound him to flour." after the excitement had subsided and the squeers family had withdrawn in a perfect hurricane of rage, john calmly ordered of the waiter another "sooper--very coomfortable and plenty o' it at ten o'clock ... and ecod we'll begin to spend the evening in earnest." the storm had long given place to a calm the most profound, and the evening pretty far advanced, when there occurred in the inn another incident more angry still, and reached a state of ferocity which could not have been surpassed, we are told, if there had actually been a saracen's head then present in the establishment. nicholas and john browdie, following to where the noise came from, discovered coffee-room customers, coachmen and helpers congregating round the prostrate figure of a young man, with another young man standing in defiance over him. the latter was no other than frank cheeryble, who, overhearing disrespectful and insolent remarks coming from his opponent in the fray, relative to a young lady, had taken the part of the latter by vigorously setting about the traducer, who was ultimately turned out of the inn. frank cheeryble was staying the night in the house, and so the four friends adjourned upstairs together and spent a pleasant half-hour with great satisfaction and mutual entertainment. these are the chief associations the saracen's head had in connection with _nicholas nickleby_, except that it might be mentioned that mrs. nickleby, as she would, confused its sign with that of another notable inn, by referring to it as the "saracen with two necks." there are, however, two other references to the inn in dickens's books. in _our mutual friend_, we read that: "mrs. wilfer's impressive countenance followed bella with glaring eyes, presenting a combination of the once popular sign of the saracen's head with a piece of dutch clockwork"; and again, in one of his uncommercial papers, dickens, speaking of his wanderings about london and of having left behind him this and that historic spot, says he "had got past the saracen's head (with an ignominious rash of posting bills disfiguring his swarthy countenance) and had strolled up the yard of its ancient neighbour," making clear that the old inn was a notable landmark to him. he knew it in the flourishing days of the coaching era and lived to see it demolished in to allow of the metropolitan improvements in the neighbourhood. but its name was not to be entirely erased from london's annals, for another inn, although quite an unromantic one, was erected at the lower end of snow hill, only to wither in course of time into an unprofitable concern and to give up the ghost as a tavern. in , this building was taken over by a firm of manufacturers of fancy leather goods and kindred articles of commerce, who recast the building for the purpose of their trade and its necessary business offices. the proprietors have retained the old sign of the saracen's head and have done much to keep up the association of the name with the most notable and living part of its history--that of its connection with dickens's story of _nicholas nickleby_. over the entrance they have placed a bust of dickens mounted on a pedestal, flanked on each side by full-length figures of nicholas and squeers. whilst on each side of the entrance porch is a bas-relief of a scene from _nicholas nickleby_: one representing nicholas, squeers and the boys preparing to leave the inn by coach, and the other, the well-known scene in dotheboys hall, depicting nicholas thrashing squeers. and so, from out of seven centuries of historical associations, the one that emerges and remains to-day is that created by dickens. chapter iv nicholas nickleby (_continued_) the peacock, islington--the white horse, eton slocombe--the george, grantham--the george and new inn, greta bridge--the king's head, barnard castle--the unicorn, bowes--the inn on the portsmouth road--the london tavern--and others the first stop of nicholas's coach after it had left the saracen's head was at the peacock, at islington, an inn of immense popularity in those palmy days when the north-country mail-coaches made it their headquarters. it stood a little further north of the angel, and was even more famous than that historic inn. besides being the starting point for certain coaches, it was the house of call for nearly all others going in that direction out of london, and the busy and exciting scenes which ensued outside its doors became more bewildering still by the ostlers calling out the name of each coach as it arrived. such a scene, no doubt, was witnessed by nicholas, in whose charge squeers had placed the scholars, when, "between the manual exertion and the mental anxiety attendant upon his task, he was not a little relieved when the coach stopped at the peacock, islington. he was still more relieved when a hearty-looking gentleman, with a very good-humoured face and a very fresh colour, got up behind, and proposed to take the other corner of the seat," as he thought it would be safer for the youngsters if they were sandwiched between nicholas and himself. everything and everybody being settled, off they went "amidst a loud flourish from the guard's horn and the calm approval of all the judges of coaches and coach-horses congregated at the peacock." that was in ; later (in ) dickens refers again to the same inn. but on that occasion the scene must have been one of great tranquillity and calm, if not a little dismal. this was when the bashful man, as related in the "first branch" of _the holly tree_, starts on his journey to the holly tree inn. "there was no northern railway at that time," he says, "and in its place there were stage-coaches; which i occasionally find myself, in common with some other people, affecting to lament now, but which everybody dreaded as a very serious penance then. i had secured the box seat on the fastest of these, and my business in fleet street was to get into a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best of my way to the peacock at islington, where i was to join this coach.... when i got to the peacock, where i found everybody drinking hot purl, in self-preservation, i asked if there were an inside seat to spare. i then discovered that, inside or out, i was the only passenger. this gave me a still livelier idea of the great inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded particularly well. however, i took a little purl (which i found uncommonly good), and got into the coach. when i was seated they built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a rather ridiculous appearance, i began my journey. it was still dark when we left the peacock." [illustration: the peacock, islington _from an old engraving_] a reference to the same inn is made in "tom brown's schooldays," when tom and his father stayed the night there in order to catch the "tally-ho" coach for rugby the next morning. there is still a reminder of the old peacock at high street, where a sign-board announces the date of its establishment in , and a relic of the coaching days may be seen in the form of an iron hook upon a lamp-post opposite, to which horses were temporarily tethered. following nicholas's coach on its journey north we find it passing through the counties of hertford and bedford in bitterly and intensely cold weather. in due course it arrived at eton slocombe, where a halt was made for a good coach dinner, of which all passengers partook, "while the five little boys were put to thaw by the fire, and regaled with sandwiches." mr. squeers, it may be noted in passing, had, in the interim, alighted at almost every stage to refresh himself, leaving his charges on the top of the coach to content themselves with what was left of their breakfast. eton slocombe is dickens's thinly disguised name for eaton socon, a picturesque little village of one straggling street in huntingdonshire. he does not mention the inn by name, but it may be rightly assumed that it was the white horse, an attractive old road-side coaching-house, which, in those days, was the posting inn for the mail and other coaches passing through the county. in later years it became the favourite resort of the north road cycling club, and witnessed the beginning and ending of many a road race in the "'eighties" and "'nineties," and is, no doubt, a welcome place of call for motorists to-day. leaving eton slocombe, the coach took the turnpike road via stilton, as the night and the snow came on together. in the dismal weather the coach rambled on through the deserted streets of stamford until twenty miles further on it arrived at the george at grantham, where "two of the front outside passengers, wisely availing themselves of their arrival at one of the best inns in england, turned in for the night." the remainder of the passengers, however, "wrapped themselves more closely in their coats and cloaks, and, leaving the light and the warmth of the town behind them, pillowed themselves against the luggage, and prepared, with many half-suppressed moans, again to encounter the piercing blast which swept across the open country." grantham has the reputation of being a town of many and excellent inns, of which the honours seem to have been divided between the angel and the george. when dickens set out on his voyage in search of facts concerning the yorkshire schools prior to writing _nicholas nickleby_ he took the same coach journey which he describes so realistically in his book, accompanied by his artist friend, phiz. they slept the night at the george, like the two wise "front outsides" of the story; and in a letter to his wife dickens said that the george was "the very best inn i have ever put up at," and he repeats this encomium in his book. the george was burnt down in and its beautiful mediæval structure replaced by a building not so picturesque, but none the less comfortable. it was a famous coaching inn and consequently always busy with the mail and stage coaches of the period. it is a square red-bricked building of the georgian type, and, although its outward appearance is not so inviting from an antiquarian point of view as its predecessor, the testimony of travellers confirms its interior comfort. the coach carrying squeers and his party was little more than a stage out of grantham, "or half-way between it and newark," to be precise, when the accident occurred which turned the vehicle over into the snow. after the bustle which ensued and after casualties had been attended to, all walked back to the nearest public-house, described as a "lonely place, with no great accommodation in the way of apartments." here, having "washed off all effaceable marks of the late accident," they settled down to the comfort of a warm room in patient anticipation of the arrival of another coach from grantham. as this entailed a two hours' wait the company amused themselves by listening to the narration of the story of "the five sisters of york" by the grey-haired gentleman, and of "the baron of grogzwig" by the merry-faced gentleman. which was the "public-house" round whose fire these two famous stories were told, the chronicler does not say, nor has it been identified. at the conclusion of the last-named story the welcome announcement of the arrival of the new coach was made and the company resumed the journey. nothing further of any note occurred until at six o'clock that night, when nicholas, squeers "and the little boys and their united luggage were all put down together at the george and new inn, greta bridge." the coach having traversed the road via retford and bawtry, crossed yorkshire, via doncaster and borough bridge to this inn "in the midst of a dreary moor," as dickens so described it. although greta bridge was but a small and picturesque hamlet at the time dickens visited and wrote of it, it nevertheless boasted at least two important inns doing a busy trade with the coaches and mail on the main coaching route to glasgow. these were known as the george and the new inn respectively, and were about half a mile apart. in his book the novelist combines the two names, perhaps to avoid identification; but there seems no doubt that the george was the inn dickens and phiz stayed at themselves, and therefore it may be assumed it was at that inn nicholas and squeers also alighted when their coach journey ended. the george stands near the bridge which spans the greta river a little above its junction with the tees. it is no longer an inn, having since been converted into a residential building known as "the square" and let out in tenements. but it still shows unmistakable signs of its former calling. its large square yard remains, although want of use has allowed grass to overgrow it; whilst its commodious stabling, empty and bare as it is, conjures up the busy scenes of excitement and animation the mail-coaches and travellers must have created in those far-off days. the inn was the coaching centre of the district, received the mail as it arrived and despatched it to the villages round about. dickens was evidently very pleased with the hospitality he received on his arrival after a dreary journey, for when writing to his wife he said: [illustration: the george inn, greta bridge _drawn by c. g. harper_] "at eleven we reached a bare place with a house standing alone in the midst of a dreary moor, which the guard informed me was greta bridge. i was in a perfect agony of apprehension, for it was fearfully cold, and there were no outward signs of anyone being up in the house; but to our great joy we discovered a comfortable room, with drawn curtains, and a most blazing fire. in half an hour they gave us a smoking supper, and a bottle of mulled port, in which we drank your health, and then retired to a couple of capital bedrooms, in each of which there was a rousing fire half-way up the chimney. we had for breakfast toast, cakes, a yorkshire pie, a piece of beef about the size and much the shape of my portmanteau, tea, coffee, ham, eggs; and are now going to look about us." dickens seems to be a little misleading in saying the inn stood on the heath. it was actually in the village by the side of the road. but he apparently got this idea that the house stood "alone in the midst of a dreary moor" well into his mind, for, when using the inn again as the original of the holly tree inn in the charming christmas story with that name, we find that the bashful man is made to speak of it as being on a bleak wild solitude of the yorkshire moor. he describes the interior in many whimsical details, perhaps at times a little exaggerated, as, for instance, when he says his bedroom was some quarter of a mile from his huge sitting-room. next day it was still snowing, and, not knowing what to do, he, in desperation, invited the boots "to take a chair--and something in a liquid form--and talk" to him. this he did and the delightful story of mr. and mrs. harry walmers, junior, the chief incidents of which all took place in the same inn, was recalled by the boots. but to return to squeers and his party: having run into the tavern to "stretch his legs," he returned in a few minutes, as, at the same time, there emerged from the yard a rusty, pony-chaise, and a cart, driven by two labouring men. by these conveyances he transported his charges to "the delightful village of dotheboys" about three miles away. nicholas was preparing for bed that evening when the letter newman noggs had given him in london fell out of his pocket unopened. this letter interests at the moment by reason of its postscript, which runs: "if you should go near barnard castle, there is good ale at the king's head. say you know me, and i am sure they will not charge you for it. you may say _mr._ noggs there, for i was a gentleman then. i was indeed." it is not recorded that nicholas had occasion to visit the king's head, barnard castle, but we know that dickens went there after having explored the neighbourhood of greta bridge. he and phiz made the journey in a post chaise, there to deliver the letter mr. charles smithson, the london solicitor, had given him by way of introduction to a certain person who would help him in his discoveries about the yorkshire schools. barnard castle is about four miles from greta bridge, and is in the county of durham, just across the yorkshire border. arriving there dickens made the king's head his headquarters. since that date the inn has been enlarged somewhat, but much of the older portion remains the same as when he stayed there. it was here the interview referred to above took place before a fire in one of the cosiest rooms in the building, and the person who furnished the information became the original of john browdie. many legends about dickens's stay at the king's head have got into print, such as that he stayed there six weeks, that he wrote a great part of the book there, working hard at a table in front of the window all day, and that he spent the nights in the bar parlour gathering facts from the frequenters. actually he only remained two nights, and wrote no more of his book there than a few brief notes, in the same way that phiz made rough pictures in his sketch-book. it was whilst on this short visit that dickens made the acquaintance of mr. humphrey, who kept a watchmaker's shop lower down the street. this worthy conducted him to some of the schools in the neighbourhood, and from the friendly association sprang the title of _master humphrey's clock_, used by the novelist for his next serial. when dickens first met mr. humphrey, who we believe was the source from which sprang all the legendary stories about dickens and barnard castle, he exhibited no clock outside his shop. it was not until two years after dickens's visit that the old man, having moved opposite the inn, placed a clock above the door. [illustration: the king's head, barnard castle _photograph by t. w. tyrrell_] the king's head in those days was kept by two sisters, who were wont to inform customers that dickens wrote a good deal of _nicholas nickleby_ in their house. he was always writing, it was said, and they could show the ink-stand he used during the long stay he made. this is a little exaggeration which reflected glory engenders sometimes. the inn is of the georgian period and was built about the middle of the eighteenth century. it is situated in the market place, and the room dickens occupied is still cared for and exhibited to visitors. the house is practically the same, with its intricate staircases, low ceilings, its old-world atmosphere, and old-fashioned appurtenances. dotheboys hall, squeers's academy, has been identified as being at bowes, and at the unicorn inn there dickens is said to have met shaw, the original of squeers. it was squeers's custom, we are told, "to drive over to the market town every evening, on pretence of urgent business, and stop till ten or eleven o'clock at a tavern he much affected," and no doubt it was to the unicorn that he repaired. this ancient inn stands midway in the village and was at that time the most important inn between york and carlisle. a dozen or more coaches changed every day in its yard, which was, and still is, with its abundant stabling, one of the largest of the ancient road-side hostelries surviving the old coaching days. it is still unspoiled, and we believe remains much the same as when dickens and phiz drew up there and partook of a substantial lunch, and ultimately interviewed the veritable mr. shaw, squeers's prototype. the next inn carries us a good way into the story and brings us in company with nicholas and smike on their tramp to portsmouth. chapter xxii of the book describes how these two, having deserted squeers, sally forth to seek their fortune at the naval port. on the first evening they arrived at godalming, where they bargained for two beds and slept soundly in them. on the second day, they reached the devil's punch bowl, at hindhead, and nicholas, having read to smike the inscription upon the stone, together they passed on with steady purpose until they were within twelve miles of portsmouth, just beyond petersfield. here they turned off the path to the door of a road-side inn, where they learned from the landlord that it was not only "twelve long miles" to their destination, but a very bad road. following the advice of the innkeeper nicholas decided to stay where he was for the night, and was led into the kitchen. asked what they would have for supper "nicholas suggested cold meat, but there was no cold meat--poached eggs, but there were no eggs--mutton chops, but there wasn't a mutton chop within three miles, though there had been more last week than they knew what to do with, and would be an extraordinary supply the day after to-morrow." nicholas determined to leave the decision entirely to the landlord, who rejoined: "there's a gentleman in the parlour that's ordered a hot beefsteak pudding and potatoes at nine. there's more of it than he can manage, and i have very little doubt that, if i ask leave, you can sup with him. i'll do that in a minute." in spite of nicholas's disinclination to consent to do any such thing, the landlord hurried off and in a few minutes nicholas was shown into the presence of mr. vincent crummles, who was rehearsing his two sons in "what is called in play-bills a terrific combat" with broadswords. after the rehearsal was finished nicholas and crummles drew round the fire and the conversation revealed the latter's profession and business. the appearance of the beefsteak pudding put a stop to the discussion for the time being; but after smike and the two young crummleses had retired for the night nicholas and mr. vincent crummles continued their conversation over a bowl of punch, which sent forth "a most grateful and inviting fragrance." under the influence of this stimulant mr. vincent crummles proposed that nicholas should join his theatrical company. "there's genteel comedy in your walk and manner, juvenile tragedy in your eye, and touch-and-go farce in your laugh," said mr. vincent crummles. "you'll do as well as if you had thought of nothing else but the lamps from your birth downwards." after further flattery and persuasiveness, nicholas agreed to try, and without more deliberation declared it was a bargain and gave mr. vincent crummles his hand upon it. next morning they all continued their journey to portsmouth in mr. vincent crummles's "four-wheeled phaeton" drawn by his famous pony. dickens does not name the inn in which this incident took place, and beyond stating it was twelve miles from portsmouth gives no other indication helpful in identifying it. [illustration: the bottom inn, near petersfield _drawn by c. g. harper_] mr. charles g. harper however says from dickens's very accurate description there can be no question as to the identical spot the novelist had in mind, which is just below petersfield. there is an inn, the coach and horses, standing by the wayside to-day, but according to mr. harper it did not exist at the time of the story, so that the inn to which dickens referred was the bottom inn, or gravel hill inn, as it was sometimes called, which stood there in those days, and exists to-day as a gamekeeper's cottage. there are other inns in the book that are referred to without name and one or two which leave no doubt as to their identity. the handsome hotel, for instance, where nicholas accidentally overheard sir mulberry hawk talking familiarly about his sister kate, was situated, dickens tells us, in one of the thoroughfares lying between park lane and bond street. it cannot, however, definitely be identified. it was in one of the boxes of the coffee-room that the incident took place and there were many such hotels at the time in the district whose coffee-rooms were partitioned off into such boxes as dickens describes this one. it has been suggested that mivart's, afterwards claridge's--the old one, not the present building--was possibly the one dickens meant. it stood in brook street and for that reason would perhaps answer the purpose. but this is mere conjecture. this hotel may also be the one referred to in chapter xvi of book ii of _little dorrit_, where we are told "the courier had not approved of mr. dorrit's staying in the house of a friend, and had preferred to take him to an hotel in brook street, grosvenor square." he had just returned from the continent and remained for a short time only. but it was the scene of two or three momentous interviews with mr. merdle, flora finching and young john chivery. the crown public-house newman noggs used to frequent in the neighbourhood of golden square, london, and which he told nicholas was "at the corner of silver street and james street, with a bar door both ways," has been rebuilt and greatly altered since those days. the names of the streets, too, have been changed to upper james street and beak street, but at the corner where they meet is to be found a crown public-house occupying the site of newman noggs's favoured house of call. there is something more definite and real in the london tavern referred to in the second chapter of the book, where the "united metropolitan improved hot muffin and crumpet baking and punctual delivery company" was to hold its first meeting with sir matthew pupker in the chair, which company was being floated and engineered by ralph nickleby and his fellow conspirator, mr. bunney. arriving in bishopsgate street within, where the london tavern was, and still is situated, they found it in a great bustle. half a dozen men were exciting themselves over the announcement of the meeting which was to petition parliament in favour of the wonderful company with a capital of five hundred thousand shares of ten pounds each. the two men elbowed their way into a room upstairs containing a business-looking table and several business-looking people. the report of that meeting is too long to quote, but, long as it is, not too long for the reader to relish every word of it if he will but turn again to the pages describing it. after the petition was agreed upon, mr. nickleby and the other directors adjourned to the office to lunch, and to remunerate themselves; "for which trouble (as the company was yet in its infancy) they only charged three guineas each man for every such attendance." the london tavern where this meeting was held was opened in . it was built on the tontine principle, the name of the architect one richard b. jupp. the great dining-room was known as the "pillar-room" and was "decorated with medallions and garlands, corinthian columns and pilasters." it had a ball-room running the whole length of the structure, which was also used for banquets, and was hung with paintings and contained a large organ at one end. in those days the hotel was famous for its turtle soup, the turtles being kept alive in large tanks, and as many as two tons were seen swimming in the vat at one time. the cellars were filled with barrels of porter, pipes of port, butts of sherry, and endless other bottles and bins. the building was erected to provide a spacious and convenient place for public meetings, such as had drawn ralph nickleby and his friends on the occasion referred to above. in _household words_ in was a long article on the tavern to which we are indebted for some of the facts here recorded. meetings of mexican bondholders were held on the second floor; of a railway assurance "upstairs, and first to the left"; of an asylum election at the end of the passage; and of the party on the "first floor to the right," who had to consider "the union of the gibbleton line of the great-trunk-due-eastern junction"; all these functions brought persons in great excitement and agitation to its hospitable walls. for these meetings the rooms were arranged with benches, and sumptuously turkey-carpeted: the end being provided with a long table for the directors, with an imposing array of paper and pens. in a word, it was a city tavern for city men, and it still exists to-day to cater for the requirements of the same class of business men, although perhaps not so ostentatiously. banquets are still held there; city companies hold their meetings there, and masonic institutions their lodges. dickens knew the tavern very well, having given dinners there himself or taken the chair for some fund, as he did in june , in aid of the "sanatorium or sick-house," an institution for students, governesses and young artists who were above using hospitals and could not afford the expenses of home-nursing in their lodgings. on another occasion (in ) dickens presided there at the annual dinner held in aid of the general theatrical fund. the thought of this dinner may have come back to him when he was writing one of his short pieces entitled "lying awake," ( ) in which, among the strange things which came to his mind on those occasions, he mentions that he found himself once thinking how he had "suffered unspeakable agitation of mind from taking the chair at a public dinner at the london tavern in my night clothes, which not all the courtesy of my kind friend and host, mr. bathe, could persuade me were quite adapted to the occasion." there are a few other inns not mentioned by name, or merely alluded to in passing, which, together with those we have dealt with, make _nicholas nickleby_ almost as interesting from this point of view as _pickwick papers_. chapter v barnaby rudge the maypole, chigwell of all the inns with which dickens's books abound there is none that plays so important a part in any of his stories as the maypole at chigwell does in _barnaby rudge_. other inns are just the scene of an incident or two, or are associated with certain characters or groups of characters; the maypole is the actual pivot upon which the whole story of _barnaby rudge_ revolves. it is associated in some way with every character that figures prominently in the narrative, and scene after scene is enacted either in it or near by. the story begins with a picturesque description of the inn and its frequenters, and ends with a delightful pen-picture of young joe willet comfortably settled there with dolly as his wife, and a happy family growing up around them. for these reasons it may therefore be said to be the most important of all the dickensian inns. it is also one of the few hostels dickens describes in detail, and perhaps the only one he admittedly gave a fanciful name to, for its real name is the king's head. ever since it has been an inn it has been so called, and is known by that name to-day, although it is never referred to in conversation or print without the corroborative appendage of "the maypole of _barnaby rudge_," nor does the sign-board omit this important fact. there are the remains of an inn near by at chigwell row, boasting the sign of the maypole, and this may have suggested the name to dickens, but that is all it can claim: the king's head is the inn and chigwell is the place chosen by dickens for the centre of some of the chief scenes in his story, and the few fanciful touches he gives to it and its surroundings are nothing but the licence allowed a novelist for rounding off and completing the details necessary for the presentment of his ideal. as long as the king's head exists, therefore, it will always remain famous as "the maypole of _barnaby rudge_," and reflect pleasant memories to all who know the book. in dickens, writing to his friend and biographer, john forster, inviting him to take a trip to chigwell, said: "chigwell, my dear fellow, is the greatest place in the world. name your day for going. such a delicious old inn, opposite the churchyard--such a lovely ride--such beautiful forest scenery--such an out-of-the-way, rural, place--such a sexton! i say again name your day." in quoting this alluring invitation in his biography of the novelist, john forster adds: "the day was named at once, and the whitest of stones marks it, in now sorrowful memory. dickens's promise was exceeded by our enjoyment; and his delight in the double recognition of himself and of barnaby, by the landlord of the nice old inn, far exceeded any pride he would have taken in what the world thinks the highest sort of honour." as _barnaby rudge_ had been published by this time, the novelist must have made many a trip to the king's head previously, for the early chapters of the story in which the inn is introduced had been written long before. time has played very few tricks either with the building or with chigwell, for they are practically the same to-day as they were at the period in which dickens was writing. the inn can still be said to be a delicious old one, and, if one rides to it as dickens did, his description of the forest scenery and the nature of the out-of-the-way, rural place will be found as true to-day as when he discovered it, nearly a century ago: facts which many a pilgrim to it since can substantiate. [illustration: the king's head, chigwell _drawn by l. walker_] the description of the maypole in the opening chapter of _barnaby rudge_ has been quoted often, but we make no apology for quoting it again, for no more enticing way of introducing it could be imagined. besides which it incidentally suggests its past history as well as affirms its present picturesqueness: "the maypole was an old building, with more gable ends than a lazy man would care to count on a sunny day; huge zigzag chimneys, out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not choose but come in more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted to it in its tortuous progress; and vast stables, gloomy, ruinous, and empty. the place was said to have been built in the days of king henry the eighth; and there was a legend, not only that queen elizabeth had slept there one night while upon a hunting excursion, to wit, in a certain oak-panelled room with a deep bay window, but that next morning, while standing on a mounting-block before the door, with one foot in the stirrup, the virgin monarch had then and there boxed and cuffed an unlucky page for some neglect of duty.... whether these, and many other stories of the like nature, were true or untrue, the maypole was really an old house, a very old house, perhaps as old as it claimed to be, and perhaps older, which will sometimes happen with houses of an uncertain, as with ladies of a certain, age. its windows were old diamond-pane lattices, its floors were sunken and uneven, its ceilings blacked by the hand of time, and heavy with massive beams. over the doorway was an ancient porch, quaintly and grotesquely carved; and here on summer evenings the more favoured customers smoked and drank--aye, and sang many a good song, too, sometimes--reposing in two grim-looking high-backed settles, which, like the twin dragons of some fairy tale, guarded the entrance to the mansion. in the chimneys of the disused rooms swallows had built their nests for many a long year, and, from earliest spring to latest autumn, whole colonies of sparrows chirped and twittered in the eaves. there were more pigeons about the dreary stable-yard and outbuildings than anybody but the landlord could reckon up. the wheeling and circling flights of runts, fantails, tumblers and pouters were perhaps not quite consistent with the grave and sober character of the building, but the monotonous cooing, which never ceased to be raised by some among them all day long, suited it exactly, and seemed to lull it to rest. "with its overhanging stories, drowsy little panes of glass, and front bulging out and projecting over the pathway, the old house looked as if it were nodding in its sleep. indeed, it needed no great stretch of fancy to detect in it other resemblances to humanity. the bricks of which it was built had originally been a deep dark red, but had grown yellow and discoloured like an old man's skin; the sturdy timbers had decayed like teeth; and here and there the ivy, like a warm garment to comfort it in its age, wrapt its green leaves closely round the time-worn walls." that is a charming pen-picture of the maypole's outward appearance, and beyond a little exaggeration as regards some details almost perfectly fits the "delicious" old inn to-day. some topographers have seen fit to quarrel with the picture because the porch was never there as described by dickens and because the gable ends could easily be counted without trouble, and because in their hurried visit they had failed to discover the old bricks and the warm garment of ivy wrapping its green leaves closely round the time-worn walls. but that is being meticulous, not to say pedantic, and if a visit is made to the back of the building this delightful simile can be thoroughly appreciated. indeed, no more appropriate words could be found to describe its appearance to-day than those written by the novelist many years ago. cattermole, who drew a picture of the inn for the book, went woefully wrong. he did not even follow dickens's words, but drew a picture more representing an old english baronial mansion than an inn. even granting that, before the maypole was an inn it was a mansion, cattermole very much overstepped the mark. history tells us that about the king's head was used for sittings of the court of attachments, and that farther back in "the bailiff of the forests was directed to summon the constables to appear before the forest officers, for the purposes of an election," at the "house of bibby," which probably was no other than what became the king's head at chigwell. "in this quaint and pleasant inn," we are informed, "may still be seen the room in which the court of attachments was held." this evidently is the chester room to which we shall refer later. the same writer also mentions "an arched recess in the cellar, made to hold the wine which served for the revels of the officers of the forest, after the graver labours of the day." let us follow the story of _barnaby rudge_ through, and see how everything in it focusses on the maypole inn. the story dates back to , and opens with john willet, the burly large-headed landlord with a fat face, sitting in his old seat in the chimney-corner before a blazing fire surrounded by the group of regular habitués. here this company assembled each night in the recess of the huge wide chimney with their long clay pipes and tankards to discuss the local history and events. here solomon daisy told his maypole story. "it belongs to the house," says john willet, "and nobody but solomon daisy has ever told it under this roof, or ever shall, that's more." this room, long since turned to the more modern use of an up-to-date kitchen, was the scene of many an incident in the book. its cosy chimney-corner and high-back settles are no more, but the scene can be adjusted easily, even though a gas stove stultifies the vision somewhat. it was the resort of all and sundry in those days. gabriel varden credited himself with great resolution if he took another road on his way back from the warren in order that he should not break his promise to martha by looking in at the maypole. it was a bold resolution, for the maypole was as a magnet, and we are often told of how its cheery lights in the evenings were a lure to those within sight of them; for when gabriel did go, as related on one occasion, and left the door open behind him, there was disclosed "a delicious perspective of warmth and brightness--when the ruddy gleam of the fire, streaming through the old red curtains of the common room, seemed to bring with it, as part of itself, a pleasant hum of voices, and a fragrant odour of steaming grog and rare tobacco, all steeped, as it were, in the cheerful glow." there he would find a company in snug seats in the snuggest of corners round a broad glare from a crackling log, and from a distant kitchen he would hear a gentle sound of frying, with musical clatter of plates and dishes, and a savoury smell that made even the boisterous wind a perfume--on such occasions gabriel, we are told, would find his "firmness oozing rapidly away. he tried to look stoically at the tavern, but his features would relax into a look of fondness. he turned his head the other way, and the cold black country seemed to frown him off, and to drive him for a refuge into its hospitable arms." we can well imagine it, for who could resist its clean floor covered with crisp white sand, its well-swept hearth, its blazing fire, such as this friendly meeting place possessed? that was but one of its many attractive rooms. up the "wide dismantled staircase" was the best apartment, in which john chester had his momentous interview with geoffrey haredale. this is known to-day, as we have already said, as the chester room. "it was spacious enough in all conscience, occupying the whole depth of the house, and having at either end a great bay window, as large as many modern rooms ... although the best room in the inn, it had the melancholy aspect of grandeur in decay, and was much too vast for comfort." this room exists to-day, and one can readily realise, on reading dickens's meditation on its dullness and its chilly waste, how desolate it must have been as a living-room in a mansion, such as the maypole once was. "god help the man whose heart ever changes with the world, as an old mansion when it becomes an inn," dickens exclaims. [illustration: the chester room _drawn by l. walker_] the best bedroom to which mr. chester repaired for the night after his interview with mr. haredale was nearly as large and possessed "a great spectral bedstead, hung with faded brocade, and ornamented, at the top of each carved post, with a plume of feathers that had once been white, but with dust and age had now grown hearse-like and funereal"; but the room, john willet informed his guest, was "as warm as a toast in a tankard." and so mr. chester was left to his rest in the maypole's ancient bed. these apartments, stately and grand as they were, could not compare or compete in comfort with the bar, the bar parlour and other corners frequented by the more menial coterie of the inn. even the stables were pleasant in their way, and, when hugh, the ostler--maypole hugh as he was called--was ordered to take mr. chester's horse, john willet assured his guest that "there's good accommodation for man and beast," which was true then and is true to-day. later came lord george gordon, john grueby and mr. gashford on their "no popery" mission, all looking like "tagrag and bobtail," asking if there are any inns thereabouts. "there are no inns," replied mr. willet, with strong emphasis on the plural number; "but there's a inn--one inn--the maypole inn. that's a inn indeed. you won't see the like of that inn often." after being assured that his visitors were really the persons they represented themselves to be, john willet recovered so far as to observe that there was ample accommodation at the maypole for the party; "good beds, neat wines, excellent entertainment for man and beast; private rooms for large and small parties; dinners dressed upon the shortest notice; choice stabling, and a lock-up coach-house; and, in short, to run over such recommendatory scraps of language as were painted up on various portions of the building, and which in the course of forty years he had learnt to repeat with tolerable correctness." and so they were "put up" for the night, and they could desire nothing better. without following the story in its relation to the horrors of the gordon riots, we record in passing that both maypole hugh and barnaby joined the throng on leaving their cosy quarters of the inn. passing over the frequent visits of such characters as mr., mrs. and dolly varden, miss haredale and others, we reach the stage in the story when the rioters arrived at the inn on their way to burn and raid the warren in the neighbourhood. they encounter john willet at the porch, and immediately demand drink. their ringleader was no other than maypole hugh, who confronted his late master with "these lads are thirsty and must drink. bustle, jack, bustle! show us the best--the very best--the over-proof that you keep for your own drinking, jack!" then ensued a mad scene. the rabble entered the bar--"the sanctuary, the mystery, the hallowed ground: here it was, crammed with men, clubs, sticks, torches, pistols; filled with a deafening noise, oaths, shouts, screams, hootings; changed all at once into a bear-garden, a madhouse, an infernal temple; men darting in and out, by door and window, smashing the glass, turning the taps, drinking liquor out of china punch-bowls, sitting astride of casks, smoking private and personal pipes, cutting down the sacred grove of lemons, hacking and hewing of the celebrated cheese ... noise, smoke, light, darkness, frolic, anger, laughter, groans, plunder, fear, and ruin." finally binding john to a chair they left him alone in his dismantled bar and made for the warren, which they burned to the ground. in despair, mr. haredale seeks his niece and servants at the maypole, only to find the spectacle of john willet in the ignominious position the rioters left him, with his favourite house stripped and pulled about his ears. damaged as the "maypole" was in many ways, it never actually drops out of the story's interest; but during the trend of events in london we naturally hear little of it. john willet had flown in despair from it, and took up his abode in the black lion in london for safety's sake, where eventually he again met his son joe, now a one-armed hero back from the wars. here in his solitude we find him sitting over the fire, "afar off in the remotest depths of his intellect," with a lurking hint or faint suggestion "that out of the public purse there might issue funds for the restoration of the maypole to its former high place among the taverns of the earth." what actually did happen, however, was the marriage of his son joe to dolly, whose father gave her a handsome dowry, enabling the happy couple to return to the maypole, reopen it, and there install themselves as host and hostess. and so they brought back to the inn all its famous glory, earning for it the epithet that there was no such country inn as the maypole in all england. barnaby returned to live with his mother on the farm established there, and grip was his cherished companion throughout the rest of his life. john willet retired into a small cottage in the village, where the fire-place was widened and enlarged for him, and where a boiler was hung up for his edification, and, furthermore, in the little garden outside the front door a fictitious maypole was planted; so that he was quite at home directly. to this new abode came his old friends and cronies of the old chimney-corner of the maypole to chum over the things that once were. no doubt they talked of the old days in the old inn, and occasionally turned in to its enticing haven and challenged anyone to find its equal by asking, as was asked before, "what carpet like its crunching sand, what merry music as its crackling logs, what perfume like its kitchen's dainty breath, what weather genial as its hearty warmth?" and we are sure that they all endorsed its historian's benediction--"blessings on the old house, how sturdily it stood." we have attempted to bring to mind the atmosphere of the maypole as it was in the days of the story of _barnaby rudge_, and to recall the characters and incidents associated with it. the pilgrim to this notable dickens shrine to-day, remembering these things, will find that time has dealt kindly with the old inn. it is changed, of course, in many ways, but it is still the old maypole, with its bar, its chester room, its stables, its cellars running under the adjoining cottages, and its ivy still clinging to the old worn bricks at the back. its windows are still diamond-paned, and its floors are still uneven and sunken in places; its heavy beams run across the ceiling. one can even hear the sparrows chirp and see the other birds disport themselves in their revels. the building has many gables, and its stories overhang and bulge over the pathway as if the old house was nodding in its sleep just as the novelist described it. and, in the churchyard opposite, the scene of barnaby and his mother sitting upon a tombstone and eating their frugal meal can easily be visualized. still set in a rural and beautiful district of england's verdant lanes, long may the maypole survive! it is interesting to note that in "the charles dickens lodge" was consecrated in the maypole, and still holds its meetings there. the lodge is held in what was undoubtedly the "best bedroom" of the inn, and the banquet follows in the chester room. chapter vi barnaby rudge (_continued_) and the old curiosity shop the boot--the black lion--the crooked billet--the red lion, bevis marks--gray's inn coffee-house--and others there are very few instances in dickens's descriptions of london that were not the outcome of his own actual observations. but in writing _barnaby rudge_, the action of which took place thirty years or so before he was born, he was forced to rely a good deal on tradition and history books. yet, so particular was he about facts and details, it would be very difficult to find him tripping even in his geography. in regard to the inns and taverns of the book, we find, as we have shown, how intimately he knew the maypole, and we believe it to be true, although in a lesser degree, in regard to the boot, the headquarters of the gordon rioters, which, next to the maypole, is the most notable inn in the book. having lived in the neighbourhood where for over a century and a half this old inn or its predecessors stood, he no doubt visited it and absorbed the atmosphere of its past. it is first mentioned in chapter xxxviii, where we are told that, after being enrolled as "no popery" men, dennis and hugh left gashford's house together and spent two hours in inspecting the houses of parliament and their purlieus. "as they were thirsty by this time, dennis proposed that they should repair together to the boot, where there was good company and strong liquor. hugh yielding a ready assent, they bent their steps that way with no loss of time." the boot, we are told, was "a lone house of public entertainment, situated in the fields at the back of the foundling hospital; a very solitary spot at that period, and quite deserted after dark. the tavern stood at some distance from any high road, and was approached only by a dark and narrow lane; so that hugh was much surprised to find several people drinking there, and great merriment going on." [illustration: the old boot inn. . _from an old engraving_] here it was that sim tappertit, as chief or captain of the united bulldogs, swaggered about with majestic air, among his fellow conspirators, creating a great impression by his dignity and assumed demeanour of importance, whilst plots and acts of menace were hatched out. in those days the fields were known as lamb conduit fields, which district has become now a very thickly populated neighbourhood between euston road and gray's inn road, with the name still perpetuated in lambs conduit street. there is a boot tavern still standing to-day at cromer street, and there is no reason to doubt that it is the successor of the boot mentioned in _barnaby rudge_ as the headquarters of the gordon rioters, which actually stood at that spot in . situated as it was then, the solitary surroundings became a refuge at night for rioters in lanes, under the hay-stacks, or near the warmth of brick-kilns, when they were not in the tavern planning desperate deeds in the name of the protestant association of england, sanctioned by lord george gordon. the present boot was rebuilt in by peter speedy, and five generations of the family have owned it for something like years. even as far back as we learn that a thomas cleave invested £ in the boot tavern, the interest on which was to be spent weekly on thirteen penny loaves, to be distributed to the poor at the door of st. pancras' church every sunday morning. among the original illustrations to the book is one of the boot engraved from a drawing by george cattermole, who made it from a contemporary etching, which we reproduce here. in comparing it with cattermole's picture it will be observed that it differs very slightly in detail, but is turned the other way round. this, no doubt, is accounted for by the fact that the drawing was made on wood and when engraved and printed the picture became reversed. the stream running in front of the inn is the fleet, which still flows underground. a correspondent in _the times_ on the th october, , writing on the subject said that dickens confirmed to him with his own lips in the boot itself about the year "that this was the identical inn he had in his mind's eye when he conceived _barnaby rudge_." unhappily the frontage has been aggressively modernised. luckily the present landlord, mr. harry ford, has retained the sign of "ye olde boote" and is proud of the tavern's traditions. the three or four other inns of the book do not figure so realistically in it as do the maypole and the boot. the half-way house between chigwell and london referred to in chapter ii, although unnamed, was no doubt the green man at leytonstone, still standing near the present-day railway station. the black lion in whitechapel, where joe willet took his frugal dinner after having settled his father's bills with the vintner in thames street, and where on another occasion, having determined to enlist in the army, he met the recruiting sergeant, may have existed in those days, but that cannot be determined definitely. there certainly was a black lion yard there, and maybe, at one time, an inn of that name stood close by, exhibiting the sign, which, we are told, was painted by the artist under instructions from the landlord "to convey into the features of the lordly brute whose effigy it bore as near a counterpart of his own face as his skill could compass." the result was "rather a drowsy, tame and feeble lion; and as these social representatives of a savage class are usually of a conventional character (being depicted, for the most part, in impossible attitudes, and of unearthly colour) he was frequently supposed by the most ignorant and uninformed among the neighbours to be the veritable portrait of the host as he appeared on the occasion of some great funeral ceremony or public mourning." this inn was the scene too of the meeting of dolly varden and joe when the valiant soldier returned from the defence of the "salwanners" minus an arm; and of the interview of the youthful couple when they came to that very pleasant understanding, after an enjoyable supper. the crooked billet, the headquarters of the recruiting sergeant, where joe, "disconsolate and downhearted, but full of courage," was enrolled "among the gallant defenders of his native land," was in tower street, so we are told; and we read that, having taken the king's shilling, he was "regaled with a steaming supper of boiled tripe and onions, prepared, as his friend assured him more than once, at the express command of his most sacred majesty the king." after he had done ample justice to it he was "conducted to a straw mattress in a loft over the stable, and locked in there for the night." until there actually was an old weather-beaten public-house with that name at no. little tower hill, at the corner of shorter street. it was a very fine specimen of eighteenth-century architecture, although the frontage was not as old as the rest of the structure. as it would have been standing at the period of the story, no doubt this was the house dickens had in mind. it was demolished, with other buildings, to conform to the necessity of city improvements. the noted coffee-house in covent garden to which mr. chester repaired after leaving the locksmith's might be any one of the many that flourished in that district at the time, such as "tom's," "white's," "wills's," and "button's." "tom's" was perhaps the most fashionable, and for that reason more likely to be favoured by mr. chester, as he would be only too proud to think he would be numbered among such folk as dr. johnson, sir joshua reynolds, garrick, defoe, and all those famous men who resorted to it in its palmiest days. it was situated at no. russell street. turning to _the old curiosity shop_, we can find but few inns or taverns that have any real importance to the story. of those that are mentioned by name, no detailed description is given, nor is any very vital incident or character associated with them. in chapter xxi, however, where quilp invites dick swiveller to partake of liquid refreshment with him, we get the real dickens touch: "as we are companions in adversity," he said, "shall we be companions in the surest way of forgetting it? if you had no particular business, now, to lead you in another direction, there is a house by the waterside where they have some of the noblest schiedam--reputed to be smuggled, but that's between ourselves--that can be got in all the world. the landlord knows me. there's a little summer-house overlooking the river where we might take a glass of this delicious liquor with a whiff of the best tobacco ... and be perfectly happy, could we possibly contrive it; or is there any particular engagement that peremptorily takes you another way, mr. swiveller, eh?" there remained nothing more to be done but to set out for the house in question. the summer-house of which mr. quilp had spoken was "a rugged wooden box, rotten and bare to see, which overhung the river's mud and threatened to slide down into it. the tavern to which it belonged was a crazy building, sapped and undermined by the rats, and only upheld by the bars of wood which were reared against its walls, and had propped it up so long that even they were decaying and yielding with their load, and of a windy night might be heard to creak and crack as if the whole fabric were about to come toppling down. the house stood--if anything so old and feeble could be said to stand--on a piece of waste ground, blighted with the unwholesome smoke of factory chimneys.... its internal accommodation amply fulfilled the promise of the outside. the rooms were low and damp, the clammy walls were pierced with chinks and holes, the rotten floors had sunk from their level, the very beams started from their place and warned the timid stranger from their neighbourhood." [illustration: the red lion, bevis marks _drawn by g. m. brimelow_] dickens gives no name to this tavern so minutely and wonderfully described, where quilp and dick drank with so much freedom. yet, although it cannot be identified, the word-picture is too good to pass unheeded. however, many years ago there were scores of such which would answer to the description, on the surrey side of the thames, and no doubt dickens hit upon one of them for quilp's favourite resort near by his wharf. they have long since disappeared. no sign is mentioned either of dick swiveller's favourite inn "across the street," from sampson brass's office in bevis marks, where he obtained his "modest quencher." there is, however, at no. , the red lion tavern that claims that honour and acquaints the world of the fact from its sign-board. it is quite an old-fashioned public-house, and has scarcely been altered since it numbered so bright and merry a soul as dick among its frequenters. there is, however, one tavern mentioned in the story that leaves us in no doubt about its identification. it will be remembered how annoyed, indeed how desperate, sampson brass gets with the single gentleman for encouraging the punch and judy shows to the house. "i wish i only knew who his friends were," muttered sampson, as another appeared in bevis marks. "if they'd just get up a pretty little commission _de lunatico_ at the gray's inn coffee-house and give me the job, i'd be content to have the lodgings empty for awhile, at all events." the building which was once known as gray's inn coffee-house stands to-day, although its front has been stuccoed and turned into chambers. it is the next house on the east from the holborn gate of gray's inn. it is referred to at length in chapter lix of _david copperfield_, when david, reaching london, plans to call on traddles in his chambers in the inn. he puts up at gray's inn coffee-house. having ordered a bit of fish and a steak he stood before the fire musing on the waiter's obscurity: "as i followed the chief waiter with my eyes, i could not help thinking that the garden in which he had gradually blown to be the flower he was was an arduous place to rise in. it had such a prescriptive, stiff-necked, long-established, solemn, elderly air. i glanced about the room, which had had its sanded floor sanded, no doubt, in exactly the same manner when the chief waiter was a boy, if he ever was a boy, which appeared to be improbable; and at the shining tables, where i saw myself reflected, in unruffled depths of old mahogany; and at the lamps, without a flaw in their trimmings or cleaning; and at the comfortable green curtains, with their pure brass rods, snugly enclosing the boxes; and at the two large coal fires, brightly burning; and at the rows of decanters, burly as if with the consciousness of pipes of expensive old port wine below; and both england and the law appeared to me to be very difficult indeed to be taken by storm. i went up to my bedroom to change my wet clothes; and the vast extent of that old wainscoted apartment (which was over the archway leading to the inn, i remember) and the sedate immensity of the four-post bedstead, and the indomitable gravity of the chests of drawers, all seemed to unite in sternly frowning on the fortunes of traddles, or on any such daring youth. i came down again to my dinner; and even the slow comfort of the meal, and the orderly silence of the place, were eloquent on the audacity of traddles, and his small hopes of a livelihood for twenty years to come." we wonder if the staid men who conduct their business in those rooms to-day are conscious that they occupy one of london's historic old coffee-taverns and a noted dickens landmark to wit. the jolly sandboys inn, mentioned at the beginning of chapter xviii of _the old curiosity shop_, is doubtless a purely imaginary one. it was "a small road-side inn of pretty ancient date, with a sign representing three sandboys increasing their jollity with as many jugs of ale and bags of gold, creaking and swinging on its post on the opposite side of the road." but, as we have no definite information as to the identical spot codlin and short had reached at that moment, no attempt can be made to identify it. the same remarks apply to the valiant soldier, the public-house where nell and her grandfather took shelter from the storm, in chapter xxix, and where the old man gambled away nell's last coin in a game of cards. chapter vii martin chuzzlewit the blue dragon--the half moon and seven stars--two salisbury inns--the black bull, holborn the blue dragon is an inn whose name, through the magic pen of dickens, has become as familiar as that of the veritable pecksniff himself, and almost as important. dickens found evident delight in describing it and its beaming mistress, mrs. lupin, but was careful not to disclose its real whereabouts beyond saying that it was located in a "little wiltshire village within easy journey of the fair old town of salisbury." it is first introduced in chapter ii of _martin chuzzlewit_ in that wonderful description of an angry wind, which, among the other extraordinary and wilful antics it indulged in, gave "the old sign before the ale-house door such a cuff as it went that the blue dragon was more rampant than usual ever afterwards." in the following chapter we are allowed to become more intimate with this sign and learn what "a faded, and an ancient dragon he was; and many a wintry storm of rain, snow, sleet, and hail had changed his colour from a gaudy blue to a faint lack-lustre of grey. but there he hung; rearing, in a state of monstrous imbecility, on his hind legs; waxing, with every month that passed, so much more dim and shapeless that as you gazed at him on one side of the sign-board it seemed as if he must be gradually melting through it, and coming out upon the other. he was a courteous and considerate dragon, too; or had been in his distincter days; for in the midst of his rampant feebleness he kept one of his fore paws near his nose, as though he would say, 'don't mind me--it's only my fun'; while he held out the other in polite and hospitable entreaty." no less delightful is dickens's picture of the mistress of the blue dragon, who "was in outward appearance just what a landlady should be: broad, buxom, comfortable and good-looking, with a face of clear red and white, which, by its jovial aspect, at once bore testimony to her hearty participation in the good things of the larder and cellar, and to their thriving and healthful influences. she was a widow, but years ago had passed through her state of weeds, and burst into flower again--and in full bloom she had continued ever since; and in full bloom she was now; with roses in her ample skirts, and roses on her bodice, roses in her cap, roses in her cheeks--aye, and roses, worth the gathering too, on her lips for that matter ... was comely, dimpled plump, and tight as a gooseberry." to this inn and the care of its jovial landlady unexpectedly came old martin chuzzlewit and mary graham in a rusty old chariot with post-horses. the old man, suffering horrible cramps and spasms, was accommodated in the best bedroom, "which was a large apartment, such as one may see in country places, with a low roof and a sunken flooring, all downhill from the door, and a descent of two steps on the inside so exquisitely unexpected that strangers, despite the most elaborate cautioning, usually dived in head first, as into a plunging bath. it was none of your frivolous and preposterously bright bedrooms, where nobody can close an eye with any kind of propriety or decent regard to the association of ideas; but it was a good, dull leaden drowsy place, where every article of furniture reminded you that you came there to sleep, and that you were expected to go to sleep." here old martin was put to bed in the old curtained four-poster, and was soon discovered by mr. hypocrite pecksniff, who knew the blue dragon and its bar well and had come in from his house not far away. in short time followed the other relatives until all the beds in the inn and village were at a premium. these relatives included mr. and mrs. spottletoe, anthony chuzzlewit and his son jonas, the widow of a deceased brother and her two daughters, a grand-nephew, george chuzzlewit, all of whom we assume slept at the inn; whilst montague tigg and chevy slime put up at the half moon and seven stars, where they ran up a bill they could not pay and so tried the blue dragon. the king's arms in the village was no doubt the original of the half moon and seven stars. throughout the first portion of the book the blue dragon is the meeting place of many of the characters, with mrs. lupin the friend of most of them. therefore within its walls many scenes and incidents of the story take place, apart from the visits of old martin and mary graham. one of its chief claims to affection, however, is its intimate association with mark tapley, the ostler there, and his attraction to mrs. lupin, in connection with which we need only recall the scene on the night of his departure for america and that on his ultimate and unexpected return. on this latter occasion he arrived at the blue dragon wet through and found mrs. lupin alone in the bar. wrapped up in his great coat, she did not know him at first, but soon recognised him as he vigorously caught her in his arms and showered kisses upon her. he excused his final burst by saying "i ain't a-kissing you now, you'll observe. i have been among the patriots: i'm kissing my country." this exuberance ultimately led to the marriage of mark to the buxom widow and the conversion of the sign of the blue dragon into that of the jolly tapley, a sign, mark assured us, of his own invention: "wery new, conwivial and expressive." and so with such a warm-hearted and homely couple to guide the fortunes of the blue dragon, we may assume that its comfort and hospitality continued to be a byword in the village and surrounding country. the blue dragon has been carefully identified as the george inn at amesbury, eight miles north of salisbury, and not far from mr. pecksniff's house, for which an old mansion on the wilsford road near the village is made to stand. it is true that at alderbury there is a green dragon, and, although it may reasonably be assumed that dickens knew of this and appropriated the sign and changed its colour, he did not otherwise adopt the inn for the scene of those incidents we have referred to, for it was not commodious enough for the purpose. whereas the george at amesbury fulfils all the requirements of the story and was at the time a coaching inn and a hostelry capable of supplying all the wants and all the accommodation demanded by old martin chuzzlewit and the retinue that pursued him wherever he went. h. snowden ward, who made a minute study of this district in relation to the blue dragon, became convinced by means of ordnance maps and coach routes that amesbury answered in every detail the requirements of the little wiltshire village described by dickens. he found that the turnpike house where tom pinch left his box still existed, and the church where he played the organ was rightly situated, and, though there was no walk through the wood from the house selected as pecksniff's, there was a path through a little plantation making a short cut to the north-west corner of the churchyard. [illustration: the george, amesbury _drawn by c. g. harper_] amesbury also fits geographically into the story in regard to the route of the london coach which carried tom pinch and others on their journeys to london, and the george inn still stands a famous dickens landmark there, where visitors can be shown the identical bedroom occupied by old martin chuzzlewit, and where they can otherwise indulge the sentiment of being in the blue dragon once presided over by the very attractive, comely and dimpled mrs. lupin when in her bloom, and utterly ignore the disparagement and contempt poured upon it by that unprincipled adventurer, montague tigg. leaving the "little wiltshire village" with as much reluctance as mark tapley did on one occasion, let us visit the "fair old town of salisbury" in the company of tom pinch, who, it will be remembered, was commissioned to drive there to meet and bring back martin chuzzlewit, the new pupil. mr. pecksniff's horse, which resembled, it was said, his own moral character in so far that "he was full of promise, but of no performance," was harnessed to the hooded vehicle--"it was more like a gig with a tumour than anything else"--and simple-hearted tom, with his gallant equipage, pursued his way to the cathedral town, which he had a shrewd notion was a very desperate sort of place. having put up his horse at an inn and given the hostler to understand that he would look in again in the course of an hour or two to see it take its corn, he set forth to view the streets. salisbury was noted for its inns then, and the day being market day--still a notable sight to-day--he watched the farmers standing about in groups on the tavern steps. later, as the evening drew in, he returned to the parlour of the tavern where he had left his horse, "had his little table drawn out close before the fire, and fell to work upon a well-cooked steak and smoking hot potatoes, with a strong appreciation of their excellence, and a very keen sense of enjoyment. beside him, too, there stood a jug of most stupendous wiltshire beer; and the effect of the whole was so transcendent that he was obliged every now and then to lay down his knife and fork, rub his hands and think about it. by the time the cheese and celery came, mr. pinch had taken a book out of his pocket, and could afford to trifle with the viands, now eating a little, now drinking a little, now reading a little." whilst thus comfortably and happily occupied, a stranger appeared in the room, who turned out to be martin chuzzlewit, for whom he was waiting. on becoming friends a bowl of punch was ordered which in due course came "hot and strong," and "after drinking to each other in the steaming mixture they became quite confidential." when the time came to depart, tom settled his bill and martin paid for the punch, and, "having wrapped themselves up, to the extent of their respective means, they went out together to the front door, where mr. pecksniff's property stopped the way," and started on their way back. dickens makes no mention of the inn where this meeting took place, but h. snowden ward identified it as the old george hotel in the high street. we cannot vouch for the accuracy of this, although we are not inclined to dispute it. it may have been the inn dickens had in his mind's eye, but it must have been a recollection of an earlier visit to salisbury, for at the time he was writing _martin chuzzlewit_ the george had lost its licence and would have been unable to supply the "jug of most stupendous wiltshire beer" or the bowl of hot strong punch with which tom pinch and martin regaled themselves. it may be the waiter sent for it as is done to-day. however, if the assumption that this is the tavern where the two met draws visitors to it, there can be no regrets, for it is surely one of the most ancient hostelries in the country. it dates back to and retains its fine gothic arches of oak, its timbered roofs and ceilings, its massive oak supports to the cross-beams in several rooms, its splendid example of an oak jacobean staircase, its four-poster bedsteads, old fire-places, and ancient furniture. in one of the rooms there is also a portion of a very ancient wall of roman bricks in herringbone work, where in were found roman coins, some of which are to be seen in the hotel to-day. [illustration: the george inn, salisbury _photograph by t. w. tyrell_] it is no longer a coaching inn. the court-yard where the strolling players of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gave their dramatic performances is now the garden, and the entrance for the coaches has been narrowed to an ordinary hotel entrance. in doing this, the rooms on each side were widened, and in this process the massive rough-hewn oaks that support the cross-beams of the ceilings, and which at one time formed part of the walls, became isolated, and stand now like trees growing out of the earth. such an ancient inn naturally has many historic stories and traditions associated with it, and these are not overlooked by the present proprietor in a little brochure available to visitors. shakespeare, we are informed, acted in its court-yard, oliver cromwell slept in the inn when passing through the city to join his army on the th october, , whilst samuel pepys makes mention of it in his diary where he records his welcome to a silk bed and a very good diet. this inn is referred to again in chapter xxxi, when tom pinch, having parted from mr. pecksniff, tramped on foot to salisbury and "went to the inn where he had waited for martin," and ordered a bed, which, we are told "was a low four-poster shelving downward in the centre like a trough." he slept two nights at the inn before starting on his ride to london, so graphically described by dickens, meeting mrs. lupin at the finger-posts where she had brought the box of good things which he shared with the coachman on the journey. where was situated the baldfaced stag, where four fresh horses were supplied to the admiring gaze of the topers congregated about the door, cannot be determined. but the inn where tom alighted in london, and where, in one of the public rooms opening from the yard, he fell fast asleep before the fire, although not named, was probably the "swan with two necks," which stood in lad lane (now gresham street) until . it was a famous coaching inn whence the exeter and other coaches set out and returned. there was another inn at salisbury where john westlock entertained tom pinch and martin to dinner one evening. it is described as "the very first hotel in the town." tom and martin had walked in from pecksniff's on a very cold and dry day and arrived at the inn with such flushed and burning faces and so brimful of vigour that the waiter "almost felt assaulted by their presence." dickens describes the hostelry in these words: "a famous inn! the hall a very grove of dead game and dangling joints of mutton; and in one corner an illustrious larder, with glass doors, developing cold fowls and noble joints, and tarts wherein the raspberry jam coyly withdrew itself, as such a precious creature should, behind a lattice-work of pastry. and behold, on the first floor, at the court end of the house, in a room with all the window-curtains drawn, a fire piled half-way up the chimney, plates warming before it, wax candles gleaming everywhere, and a table spread for three, with silver and glass enough for thirty--john westlock." what a greeting for hungry souls after a long tramp in the brisk cold country air. "i have ordered everything for dinner that we used to say we'd have, tom," said their host, and an excellent idea of a dinner it was, too--"like a dream," as he added. "john was wrong there," the narrator goes on, "because nobody ever dreamed such soup as was put upon the table directly afterwards; or such fish; or such side-dishes; or such a top and bottom; or such a course of birds and sweets; or, in short, anything approaching the reality of entertainment at ten-and-sixpence a head, exclusive of wines. as to _them_, the man who can dream such iced champagne, such claret, port or sherry, had better go to bed and stop there." it was a right royal, jolly dinner, and they were very merry and full of enjoyment all the time; "but not the least pleasant part of the festival was when they all three sat about the fire, cracking nuts, drinking wine, and talking cheerfully." they parted for the night, "john westlock full of light-heartedness and good humour, and poor tom pinch quite satisfied." after breakfast next morning the two young men returned to pecksniff's and john westlock to london. again dickens does not give a name to this hotel. he tells us it was not the same one where tom pinch met martin on the occasion referred to previously; but he does tell us that it was the very first hotel in the town and that it was a famous inn. that has given the clue to many students of the book who have identified it as the white hart, a very old house where many coaches stopped and were horsed in the coaching days of the period of the story. the white hart was certainly famous and quite capable of providing such a dinner as john westlock gave his two friends. it is called an hotel to-day and is evidently very proud of its tradition and stories. here are one or two anecdotes relating to its past taken from local histories. in the year king james came to sarum and it was just before this visit that sir walter raleigh passed through the city. he was on his way from plymouth after the failure of his last voyage to guiana and reached salisbury on the evening of monday, the th july, in company with his wife, sir lewis stukeley and manourie, a french empiric. his forebodings were of the gloomiest and he feared to meet the king whose early arrival was expected. he therefore resorted to stratagem, and feigned sickness, hoping by this means to gain time to employ the intercession of friends, arrange his affairs and perhaps awaken the king's compassion. he feigned sickness, then insanity, and by means of unguents provided by manourie acquired the appearance of suffering from a loathsome skin disease. three local physicians were called in and pronounced the disease incurable. this treatment and his exertions produced at the end of the second day an acute sense of hunger, and, in the words of the chronicler, "manourie accordingly procured from the white hart inn a leg of mutton and some loaves, which raleigh devoured in secret and thus led his attendants to suppose that he took no kind of sustenance." it was in salisbury at this time that he wrote his apology for his last voyage to guiana. the court arrived before he left, but he did not see the king and gained a temporary respite. on the th october, , the celebrated henry laurens, president of the american congress, arrived at the white hart on his way to london, where he was committed to the tower. the duke and duchess of orleans with a numerous retinue arrived at the white hart on the th september, . on october th, , the duchess of kent and princess victoria, with their suite, arrived at the white hart from erlestoke park. they were attended by a guard of honour from the salisbury troop of yeomanry. the white hart is probably the most famous in the city to-day. its outside appearance is more like a small replica of the national gallery, with its stone pillars and stucco work. prominently placed over the entrance is a graceful white hart with its neck encircled with the gold band of tradition. a fitting inn, john westlock, for your royal repast! the exciting and romantic days of coaching were beginning to ebb away at the time _martin chuzzlewit_ was published; but so wonderfully does dickens describe the scenes on the road, and so exhilarating are his word-pictures, the spirit of those times can better be visualized from its pages than from any history of the period. not only are those days not allowed to be forgotten, but inns that have since been wiped out of existence have had their name and fame indelibly marked on the tablets of time for ever. [illustration: the black bull, holborn _drawn by l. walker_] such is the case of the black bull that once stood in holborn. it was here that the two estimable females, sairey gamp and betsey prig, professionally attended mr. lewsome in his illness. mr. lewsome, it will be remembered, was the young man who sold the drugs to jonas chuzzlewit with which old anthony was poisoned, and who after the death of the latter made a voluntary confession of the fact, impelled to do so by the torture of mind and dread of death he himself endured by his severe sickness. this is mrs. gamp's announcement of her appointment: "there _is_ a gent, sir, at the bull in holborn, as has been took ill there, and is bad abed. they have a day-nurse as was recommended from bartholomew's; and well i knows her, mr. mould, her name bein' mrs. prig, the best of creeturs. but she is otherwise engaged at night, and they are in wants of night-watching; consequent she says to them, having reposed the greatest friendliness in me for twenty year, 'the soberest person going, and the best of blessings in a sick room, is mrs. gamp. send a boy to kingsgate street,' she says, 'and snap her up at any price, for mrs. gamp is worth her weight and more in goldian guineas.' my landlord brings the message down to me, and says, 'bein' in a light place where you are, and this job promising so well, why not unite the two?'" dickens then describes how mrs. gamp went to her private lodgings in kingsgate street close to the tavern, "for a bundle of robes and wrappings comfortable in the night season; and then repaired to the bull in holborn, which she reached as the clocks were striking eight. "as she turned into the yard, she stopped; for the landlord, landlady, and head chambermaid, were all on the threshold together, talking earnestly with a young gentleman who seemed to have just come or to be just going away. the first words that struck upon mrs. gamp's ear obviously bore reference to the patient; and, it being expedient that all good attendants should know as much as possible about the case on which their skill is brought to bear, mrs. gamp listened as a matter of duty." at a suitable moment she ventured the remark, "ah! a rayal gentleman!" and, advancing, introduced herself, observing: "the night nurse from kingsgate street, well beknown to mrs. prig the day-nurse, and the best of creeturs.... it ain't the fust time by many score, ma'am," dropping a curtsy to the landlady, "that mrs. prig and me has nursed together, turn and turn about, one off, one on. we knows each other's ways, and often gives relief when others failed." regarding herself as having now delivered her inauguration address, mrs. gamp curtsied all round, and signified her wish to be conducted to the scene of her official duties. the chambermaid led her, through a variety of intricate passages, to the top of the house; and, pointing at length to a solitary door at the end of a gallery, informed her that yonder was the chamber where the patient lay. that done, she hurried off with all the speed she could make. "mrs. gamp traversed the gallery in a great heat from having carried her large bundle up so many stairs, and tapped at the door, which was immediately opened by mrs. prig, bonneted and shawled and all impatience to be gone." having learned from mrs. prig that the pickled salmon was quite delicious, that the cold meat tasted of the stables, that the drinks were all good, that "the physic and them things is on the drawers and mankleshelf," and other valuable bits of information, thanked her and entered upon her occupation. "a little dull, but not so bad as might be," mrs. gamp remarked. "i'm glad to see a parapidge in case of fire, and lots of roofs and chimley-pots to walk upon." mrs. gamp was looking out of the window at the time, and the observations she made then applied to the view seen from the same window during a visit to it just before the inn was destroyed. having unpacked her bundle and settled things to her liking she came to the conclusion that it was time for supper and promptly rang for the maid. "i think, young woman," said mrs. gamp to the assistant chambermaid, in a tone expressive of weakness, "that i could pick a little bit of pickled salmon, with a nice little sprig of fennel, and a sprinkling of white pepper. i takes new bread, my dear, with jest a little pat of fresh butter, and a mossel of cheese. in case there should be such a thing as a cowcumber in the 'ouse, will you be so kind as bring it, for i'm rather partial to 'em, and they does a world of good in a sick-room. if they draws the brighton tipper here, i takes _that_ ale at night, my love; it bein' considered wakeful by the doctors. and whatever you do, young woman, don't bring more than a shilling's-worth of gin and water warm when i rings the bell a second time; for that is always my allowance, and i never takes a drop beyond!" "a tray was brought with everything upon it, even to the cucumber; and mrs. gamp accordingly sat down to eat and drink in high good humour. the extent to which she availed herself of the vinegar, and supped up that refreshing fluid with the blade of her knife, can scarcely be expressed in narrative." this was the occasion, and the black bull the place, where mrs. gamp gave utterance to her famous piece of philosophy: "what a blessed thing it is--living in a wale--to be contented." without following mrs. gamp through the details of her effort to help the patient to convalescence--albeit those efforts were peculiar to herself and have a unique interest on that account--we need only record that, in spite of her assurance that, "of all the trying invalieges in this walley of the shadder, that one beats 'em black and blue," mr. lewsome was eventually able to be moved into the country and mrs. gamp was deputed to accompany him there by coach. "arriving at the tavern, mrs. gamp (who was full-dressed for the journey, in her latest suit of mourning) left her friends to entertain themselves in the yard, while she ascended to the sick-room, where her fellow-labourer, mrs. prig, was dressing the invalid," who was ultimately assisted downstairs to the coach, just then on the point of starting. "it was a troublesome matter to adjust mrs. gamp's luggage to her satisfaction; for every package belonging to that lady had the inconvenient property of requiring to be put in a boot by itself, and to have no other luggage near it, on pain of actions at law for heavy damages against the proprietors of the coach. the umbrella with the circular patch was particularly hard to be got rid of, and several times thrust out its battered brass nozzle from improper crevices and chinks, to the great terror of the other passengers. indeed, in her intense anxiety to find a haven of refuge for this chattel, mrs. gamp so often moved it, in the course of five minutes, that it seemed not one umbrella but fifty. at length it was lost, or said to be; and for the next five minutes she was face to face with the coachman, go wherever he might, protesting that it should be 'made good' though she took the question to the house of commons. "at last, her bundle, and her pattens, and her basket, and everything else, being disposed of, she took a friendly leave of poll and mr. bailey, dropped a curtsy to john westlock, and parted as from a cherished member of the sisterhood with betsey prig. "'wishin' you lots of sickness, my darling creetur,' mrs. gamp observed, 'and good places. it won't be long, i hope, before we works together, off and on, again, betsey: and may our next meetin' be at a large family's, where they all takes it reg'lar, one from another, turn and turn about, and has it businesslike.'" and so the coach rolled out of the bull yard with mrs. gamp and her charge comfortably seated within, amidst a cloud of bustle and commotion, terminating events which have left their mark for all time on the history of the famous dickensian tavern. although the black bull during its existence in so important a thoroughfare as holborn must have been the centre of much activity in the coaching days, the resort of many notables and the scene of important events, there seem scanty records of its past history available. we find but few references to it in the annals of london beyond the fact that it was a busy coaching inn from the seventeenth century until the passing of the coaches from the road in the nineteenth century, when its association with the notorious mrs. gamp gave it its chief claim to fame. [illustration: the sign of the black bull] how far its history dates back it is difficult to say. it may even have been one of those many fair houses and inns for travellers referred to by stow as existing on the north side of oldbourne in the middle of the sixteenth century. in the days when access to the city of london was not possible after sundown, the black bull and many others, situated outside the boundary, catered for those late comers who could not enter the gates. no doubt these inns were established to meet such contingencies, and perforce did a good trade. they were all very similar in general appearance and in accommodation. the black bull was the terminus and starting place for coaches, and its court-yard, like most of the others, was large and surrounded by galleries. it had, of course, many flights of stairs, and a variety of intricate passages up to the top of the building. but it had a more distinctive and prominent sign than the rest of them in this district, which, perhaps, made it more conspicuous. this was the very fine specimen of a black bull, with gilt horns and hoofs, and a golden band round its body. its perfection of workmanship stamped it as that of some renowned artist. resting on a bracket fixed to the front of the building, it naturally attracted attention immediately, and it was to be seen as late as when the building was finally demolished to make room for a different kind of business altogether. by that time all the romance of the coaching era had left the tavern, and its court-yard had long before been put to other uses. this building of mrs. gamp's day was erected in , but many such had flourished earlier on the same site, although we believe the splendid effigy which adorned its exterior first appeared in that year. prior to that date the inn was known as the bull and gate, unless fielding enlarged its designation unwittingly when he tells us in that tom jones, on entering london after his exciting encounter with highwaymen between barnet and the metropolis, put up at the "bull and gate in holborn." whatever it may have been called in fielding's days, its fame will survive in history as the black bull of holborn, immortalized by association with sairey gamp. chapter viii dombey and son the bedford, brighton--the royal, leamington--long's hotel, bond street--and others although a good deal of _dombey and son_ is enacted at brighton, only one of its famous hotels plays any prominent part in the story, and that is the bedford. it is first mentioned during a conversation between major bagstock and mr. dombey, when the former asks "are you remaining here, mr. dombey?" "i generally come down once a week, major," returned that gentleman; "i stay at the bedford." "i shall have the honour of calling at the bedford, sir, if you'll permit me," said the major, and in fulfilment of his promise he did so. on another occasion, "mr. dombey, bringing down miss tox and mrs. chick to see the children, and finding the major again at brighton, invited him to dinner at the bedford, and complimented miss tox highly beforehand on her neighbour and acquaintance." the major was considered to possess an inexhaustible fund of conversation, and showed as great an appetite in that respect "as in regard of the various dainties on the table, among which he may be said to have wallowed." after dinner, they had a long rubber of whist, before they took a late farewell of the major, who retired to his own hotel, which, by the way, is not mentioned. on the following day, when mr. dombey, mrs. chick and miss tox were sitting at breakfast, florence came running in to announce in great excitement the unexpected arrival of walter and captain cuttle, who had come to ask the favour of a loan of three hundred pounds or so of mr. dombey to liquidate the financial embarrassment of their old friend sol gills. it will be recalled how captain cuttle offered as security his silver watch, the ready money he possessed, his silver teaspoons, and sugar-tongs; and "piling them up into a heap that they might look as precious as possible" delivered himself of these words: "half a loaf's better than no bread, and the same remark holds good with crumbs. there's a few. annuity of one hundred pound prannum also ready to be made over." the simple and transparent honesty of captain cuttle succeeded in the task he set himself, mr. dombey arranging the little matter for him. the bedford can rightly claim the honour of having been the house where this memorable scene in the story of captain cuttle took place. in those days it was a prominent and fashionable hotel, and remains so to-day. dickens frequently stayed at brighton and very often at the bedford, where he wrote a good deal of _the haunted man_ and portions of other stories. the princess's arms, spoken of as being "much resorted to by splendid footmen," which was in princess's place, where miss tox inhabited a dark little house, cannot be identified. indeed, search for princess's place in old directories of brighton has entirely failed, and it must be assumed that no such place ever existed there. at the time dickens was writing _dombey and son_ in , the royal hotel at leamington, where mr. dombey stayed with major bagstock, and where edith granger, who became his second wife, visited him with her mother on one occasion, did not exist, having been demolished about - to make way for railway improvements. but he knew the hotel in its palmy and aristocratic days, for in he and his artist friend, phiz, made a bachelor excursion in the autumn of that year into the midlands by coach, their first halt being leamington, and the hotel they put up at there was copp's royal hotel, which stood at the corner of clemens street and high street. in writing to his wife of his arrival there, he said: "we found a roaring fire, an elegant dinner, a snug room, and capital beds all ready for us at leamington, after a very agreeable (but very cold) ride." from here they visited kenilworth, warwick, and stratford, and the outcome of the jaunts is reflected in the story. [illustration: the bedford hotel, brighton _from an old engraving_] [illustration: the royal hotel, leamington _from a contemporary lithograph_] some writers, in referring to the incidents in _dombey and son_ associated with the royal hotel, have either assumed that it is still there, or, having discovered that there is no hotel with that name in the town, have given the regent the credit of being the original of mr. dombey's royal hotel. neither is correct. the royal hotel of _dombey and son_ was the royal hotel of dickens's visit to leamington in , and his descriptions of it in the book must have been made from memory, for in , when he was writing of it in the novel, the hotel had already been demolished. leamington always boasted one peculiarity which it claimed did not belong to any other watering-place: the "truly select nature and high rank of respectability of the greater part of its frequenters." for the reception of such notables several really first-class hotels were provided. the regent was the most fashionable for a period, owing to the fact that it was the resort of royalty; but copp's royal hotel was a keen rival, and when in it was "re-erected on a scale of magnificence almost unprecedented, displaying a grand front, cased in roman cement to imitate stone ... in the style of grecian architecture," it even outshone the regent. the building was rusticated to the height of the first story and a balcony on a level with the second floor ran the whole extent of the hotel. its appearance is fully described in an old and very rare guide-book, and so minutely described that it is worth quoting: "the wings, which are both slightly projected, are embellished with four fluted pilasters of the corinthian order, which, springing from the level of the second floor and terminating at the top of the third, support a rich entablature extending the whole length of the building. each wing is surmounted by four ornamental vases, and, at the extreme height of the centre, beneath the ornamental scroll, is a tablet containing the name of the hotel. the principal entrance is in the centre, beneath a portico projecting ten feet from the building, supported by duplicated pillars of the doric order, fluted and surmounted by the royal arms, richly carved in stone. the interior of this building for chasteness of design, richness of material, and correctness of execution is, we believe, equal to any in the kingdom. the entrance hall ... is lighted by a beautiful window of coloured glass, in the centre of which, on a fawn-coloured mosaic ground, are the royal arms, richly emblazoned, surrounded by an ornamental gold scroll on a purple ground containing medallions representing the principal views in the vicinity. the sideboards are supported and adorned by appropriate grecian ornaments. on the right of the public dining-room, upwards of fifty feet by twenty-four feet, the ceiling is supported by pillars and pilasters of doric order. a geometrical staircase of twenty-one steps conducts you to the public drawing-room, of the same noble dimensions as the dining-room; on the same floor are a number of private sitting-rooms, papered with rich french paper, of vivid colouring, representing subjects classical, mythological, etc. the bedrooms are fitted up with every attention to comfort and convenience.... detached are extensive lock-up coach houses, stabling, etc." this meticulous description of it does not suggest that the royal hotel was one which would have appealed very much to dickens, but it was the ideal spot for major bagstock and mr. dombey, and so we find that eight years later the novelist makes use of his knowledge of it, and it becomes the headquarters of his two characters during their visit to the fashionable watering-place, whilst its rooms furnish the background for a series of scenes to be found in the pages of _dombey and son_. it will be recalled that major bagstock persuaded mr. dombey that he wanted a change, and suggested that he should accompany him to leamington. mr. dombey consented, became the major's guest and the two travelled down by train, making the royal hotel their headquarters, "where the rooms and dinner had been ordered," and where the major at their first meal "so oppressed his organs of speech by eating and drinking that when he retired to bed he had no voice at all, except to cough with, and could only make himself intelligible to the dark servant by gasping at him. he not only rose next morning, however, like a giant refreshed, but conducted himself, at breakfast, like a giant refreshing." at this meal they arranged their daily habits. the major was to take the responsibility of ordering everything to eat and drink; and they were to have late breakfast together every morning, and a late dinner together every day. they occupied, no doubt, a suite of the private rooms referred to above, for there is no reference to the large dining-room, nor would it have suited the personal and special requirements of the two men and the friends they brought there. it will be remembered that, whilst these two friends were taking a constitutional, they encountered the major's acquaintances, mrs. skewton and her daughter edith, and dombey was formally introduced. on taking their departure from the fair enchantress, the major volunteered the fact that he was "staying at the royal hotel with his friend dombey," and invited the ladies to join them "one evening when you are good," as he put it to mrs. skewton. having met once or twice in the pump-room and elsewhere, and the men having called upon the ladies, the latter were invited to breakfast at the royal hotel, prior to a drive to kenilworth and warwick. in the meantime, carker had arrived to transact some business with his master, and in the evening the three men dined together. at a fitting moment the wine was consecrated "to a divinity whom joe is proud to know, and at a distance humbly and reverently to admire. edith," went on the major, "is her name; angelic edith!" "angelic edith," cried the smiling carker, "edith, by all means," said mr. dombey. and thus, in a private dining-room of the royal hotel was pledged the toast of dombey's future wife--the second mrs. dombey. the breakfast was punctually prepared next morning, and dombey, bagstock and carker excitedly awaited the ladies' arrival. a pleasant time ensued and ultimately all set out on the little trip which proved so momentous a one for mr. dombey. for had he not made an appointment with edith for the next day, "for a purpose," as he told mrs. skewton? at any rate, the three men returned to the royal hotel in good spirits, the major being in such high glee that he cried out, "damme, sir, old joe has a mind to propose an alteration in the name of the hotel, and that it should be called the three jolly bachelors in honour of ourselves and carker." after keeping his appointment with edith, and having been accepted, mr. dombey and the major left leamington, and the royal hotel has no further place in the story. when mr. toots, having come into a portion of his worldly wealth and furnished his choice set of apartments, determined to apply himself to the science of life, he engaged the game chicken to instruct him in "the cultivation of those gentle arts which refine and humanise existence." the game chicken, we are informed, was always to be heard of at the bar of the black badger. towards the end of the book, when toots and the chicken part company, the latter seems to have chosen another house of call. "i'm afore the public, i'm to be heard on at the bar of the little helephant...." whether these two taverns existed, or where, history does not relate. cousin feenix, on his arrival from abroad expressly to attend mr. dombey's wedding, stayed at long's hotel in bond street. no incident of any great moment takes place within its walls, except that lord feenix slept and was shaved there. long's hotel does not now exist, but was a fashionable and well-known house in those days when lord feenix was a man about town. it stood at the junction of clifford street and bond street, and was a square-standing corner building. it was frequented by the leading lights of the aristocracy and of the literary world in its flourishing days, and it is recorded that byron lived there for a time. that he and sir walter scott dined there together on one occasion is an outstanding fact of its history. from cousin feenix's fashionable hotel we turn to a very different kind of house in the king's arms, balls pond way, where mr. perch seemed to be a well-known figure. mr. perch had an air of feverish lassitude about him that seemed referable to drams, "and which, in fact, might no doubt have been traced to those numerous discoveries of himself in the bars of public-houses." the king's arms was one of these, in whose parlour he met the man "with milintary frogs," who took "a little obserwation" which he let drop about carker and mrs. dombey, and worked it up in print "in a most surprising manner" in the sunday paper, a journalistic method that apparently is not an invention of modern times. chapter ix david copperfield the royal hotel, lowestoft--the plough, blunderstone--the village maid, lound--the yarmouth inns--the blue boar--the red lion--two canterbury inns--the piazza hotel--jack straw's castle--the swan, hungerford stairs--and others before dickens commenced to write _david copperfield_, he visited all the districts of its early scenes to obtain local colour, and to learn something of the geography of blunderstone, lowestoft and yarmouth. he was a guest of sir morton peto's at somerleyton and was invited there ostensibly to see lowestoft, a town then just emerging into prominence as a watering-place, in the hope that he might introduce it into one of his books. on another occasion he, with john leech and mark lemon, visited yarmouth and stayed at the royal hotel on the marine parade. he either did not care very much for lowestoft, or else found that yarmouth was more suitable to the purpose of his book, for we only find one small incident in it associated with the first-named town. this occurred on one autumn morning when mr. murdstone took little david on to the saddle of his horse and rode off with him to lowestoft to see some friends there with a yacht. "we went to an hotel by the sea, where two gentlemen were smoking cigars in a room by themselves," says david. "each of them was lying on at least four chairs and had a large rough jacket on. in a corner was a heap of coats and boat-cloaks, and a flag, all bundled up together." here mr. murdstone was chaffed about david, whom his friends referred to as "the bewitching mrs. copperfield's incumbrance," and he warned them to take care as "somebody's sharp." "who is?" asked quinion. "only brooks of sheffield," replied mr. murdstone, which caused much amusement, and whenever any reference was made to david he was always styled "brooks of sheffield." sherry was ordered in with which to drink to brooks, and david was made to partake of the wine with a biscuit, and drink to the toast of "confusion to brooks of sheffield." after this incident they all walked about the cliffs, looked at things through a telescope, and then returned to the hotel to an early dinner, and david and his future father-in-law afterwards wended their way back to blunderstone. the hotel in which all this took place was probably the royal, which stands to-day facing the pier and harbour, but it has evidently been rebuilt, or very much altered structurally. blunderstone has a village ale-house called the plough, from which started barkis the carrier on his daily trip to yarmouth. david speaks of this inn, and pictures the parlour of it as the room where "commodore trunnion held that club with mr. pickle." it is still a comfortable ale-house and a centre of attraction to visitors of the unspoiled village where david was born. on the occasion of david's drive in the carrier's cart to yarmouth for a stay with daniel peggotty in order to be out of the way for his mother's marriage to mr. murdstone, we are introduced to the road between the village and the famous seaside town, so frequently used by barkis and so often referred to in the course of the story. [illustration: the plough inn, blunderstone the buck inn the duke's head yarmouth _photographs by t. w. tyrrell_] the first halt was made at a public-house where a long wait occurred whilst a bedstead was delivered there. this inn was probably the village maid, at lound, a name that may also have suggested that of the willing mind, the public-house where mr. peggotty went occasionally for short spells, as he put it to mrs. gummidge. but no public-house with that name, or anything like it, existed in yarmouth, and it must, therefore, be assumed that no particular one was intended. arriving at yarmouth, david found ham awaiting him at the public-house which was the stopping place of the blunderstone carrier. although dickens does not mention its name, the buck inn undoubtedly was the identical house where barkis came to a halt on such occasions, and it still exists in the market square. at the end of his visit, david, arm-in-arm with little em'ly, made for the same inn once again to meet barkis for the homeward journey in his cart. the inn, however, at yarmouth which has more importance attaching to it than any other is that where david met the friendly waiter whilst waiting for the coach to take him to london, and where he procured the sheet of paper and ink-stand to write his promised note to clara peggotty assuring her that "barkis is willing." there is little doubt that the inn referred to here was the duke's head. it was the principal coaching inn of the town, and we know that dickens knew it well. on his arrival there in barkis's cart, david observed that "the coach was in the yard shining very much all over, but without any horses to it as yet; and it looked in that state as if nothing was more unlikely than its ever going to london." to the coffee-room, which was a long one with some maps in it, david was conducted by william the waiter, who assisted him to get through his meal, and told him the horrible tale of the man who died from drinking a glass of ale that was too old for him. but that incident of david and the friendly waiter is too well known to need recapitulation here. before leaving yarmouth, there is one more inn that claims attention. when david and steerforth later on in the story visited the peggottys, the hotel they stayed at has been identified as the star hotel, an old mansion, with moulded ribbed ceilings and the sides of the rooms panelled with oak. it has been added to since those days, but the old part still remains. it was in this house that miss mowcher was first introduced into the story. it is also believed that the feathers at gorleston is the "decent ale-house" on the road to lowestoft where david copperfield, as stated in chapter xxxi, stopped to dine, when out for a walk whilst on a visit to yarmouth. but let us return to david on the coach waiting to start for salem house, blackheath, via london. having suffered a good deal of chaff from the maids and others over the huge dinner he was supposed to have eaten, the coach started on its journey, during which the jokes about his appetite continued. he reached his destination at last, having approached london "by degrees, and got, in due time, to the inn in the whitechapel district," he says, "for which we were bound. i forget whether it was the blue bull or the blue boar; but i know it was the blue something, and that its likeness was painted up on the back of the coach." here, more solitary than robinson crusoe, he went into the booking-office, and, "by invitation of the clerk on duty, passed behind the counter, and sat down on the scale at which they weighed the luggage." thus he waited until called for by mr. mell, when the clerk "slanted me off the scale, and pushed me over to him, as if i were weighed, bought, delivered, and paid for." this inn was the blue boar, an old coaching inn long demolished, where the daily coach from yarmouth made its halting place. there is still a relic of it in the shape of a sculptured effigy of a boar, with gilded tusks and hoofs, built into the wall of a tobacco factory marking the site of the inn. in chapter xi of the book, describing david's start in life on his own account, there are one or two inns and taverns mentioned where he partook of meals and other refreshment. he tells us he had "a plate of bread and cheese and a glass of beer, from a miserable old public-house opposite our place of business, called the lion, or the lion and something else that i have forgotten." this has not definitely been identified, but may have been the white swan at hungerford stairs, referred to later. on another occasion he went into a public-house one hot evening and said to the landlord, "what is your best--your _very best_--ale a glass?" "twopence-halfpenny is the price of the genuine stunning ale," was the reply. "then," says i, producing the money, "just draw me a glass of the genuine stunning, if you please, with a good head to it." having served him, the landlord invited his wife to join him in surveying the little customer and "the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door of the bar, and bending down, gave me my money back, and gave me a kiss that was half-admiring and half-compassionate, but all womanly and good, i am sure." this incident actually occurred to dickens himself when a lad in the blacking factory, for he has admitted it to be so, in his own words, recorded in forster's "life," book , chapter xi. he there states that on the occasion in question he "went into a public-house in parliament street, which is still there, though altered, at the corner of the short street leading into cannon row." the public-house where it took place was the red lion at parliament street, and is situated at the corner of derby street. there is a red lion public-house there to-day--not the same one dickens visited--that was demolished in --but on the same spot. it is more pretentious than the old one, but keeps its red lion rampant as a sign, and has a bust of the novelist, standing within a niche in the front of the building as a hall-mark of its dickensian association. the "little public-house close to the river, with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing," referred to in the same chapter, was the fox under the hill[ ] in the adelphi. there are two inns in canterbury associated with the book, the county inn where mr. dick stayed when on his visits to david copperfield every alternate wednesday, and the "little inn" where mr. micawber stayed on his first and subsequent visits to the ancient city. the county inn was without doubt the royal fountain hotel in st. margaret's street, for it was invariably referred to in the coaching days as _the_ county inn of the city, in the same manner that david speaks of it in the seventeenth chapter of david copperfield, where he tells us that he "saw mr. dick every alternate wednesday when he arrived by stage-coach at noon, to stay until next morning.... mr. dick was very partial to gingerbread. to render his visits more agreeable, my aunt had instructed me to open a credit for him at a cake shop, which was hampered with the stipulation that he should not be served with more than one shilling's worth in the course of any one day. this, and the reference of all his little bills at the county inn where he slept, to my aunt, before they were paid, induced me to suspect that he was only allowed to rattle his money, and not to spend it." on these occasions, mr. dick would be constantly in the company of david, and on the thursday mornings he would accompany him from the hotel to the coach office before going back to school. and so the royal fountain hotel has added to its traditions that of being the hotel where mr. dick slept. dickens does not describe it in detail, and does not even refer to it again in the book; but on the th of november, , which he describes as a "windy night," dickens himself stayed there after giving a reading of _david copperfield_ at the theatre. writing to his daughter mamie on that date he says, "a word of report before i go to bed. an excellent house to-night, and an audience positively perfect. the greatest part of it stalls, and an intelligent and delightful response in them, like a touch of a beautiful instrument. 'copperfield' wound up in a real burst of feeling and delight." this letter was headed "fountain hotel, canterbury." dickens visited the city again in the summer of , driving there from gads hill with some american friends, and made the fountain hotel his halting place, whilst he and his companions explored the city. they drove into canterbury just as the bells of the cathedral were ringing for afternoon service, george dolby informs us, and "turned into the by-street in which the fountain hotel is situated, where the carriages and horses were to be put up," and where the party took tea prior to starting back for home. "the inns in england are the best in europe, those in canterbury are the best in england, and the fountain wherein i am now lodged as handsomely as i were in the king's palace, the best in canterbury." so wrote the ambassador of the emperor of germany to his master on the occasion of his visit to this country to attend the marriage ceremony of edward the first to his second queen, margaret of france, in canterbury cathedral on the th of september, . the royal fountain hotel, as it is now called, is one of the oldest inns in england; indeed, it is so old as to claim that the wife of earl godwin, when she came to meet her husband on his return from denmark in the year , stayed there. it also claims to have been the temporary residence of archbishop lanfranc whilst his palace was being built in ; and there is a legend associated with it that the four knights who murdered thomas à becket made it their rendezvous in . to-day the inn still retains its old-world atmosphere, although certain of its apartments and appurtenances have been made to conform to modern requirements. its passages and stairs are narrow and winding, antique furniture, brasses, and copper utensils are in great evidence, and the huge kitchen with its wide fire-place and open chimney still reminds us of the old days. upstairs is a spacious room measuring some forty or fifty feet in length, in the centre of which is one of those priceless tables made in separate pieces going the whole length of the room, looking, when we last saw it, with scores of chairs set around it, like a gigantic elongated board-room table waiting for a meeting to begin. this room is used for banquets, and often the mayor holds his official dinners there. but it would seem that the chief claimants to its use is "the canterbury farmers' club and east kent chamber of agricultural commerce," for its walls are covered with portraits in oils of some of the past presidents, whilst a long list of them dating from - hangs in a prominent position. the "little inn" where mr. and mrs. micawber stayed on the occasion when they thought it was so advisable that they should see the medway in the hope of finding an opening in the coal trade for mr. micawber is the sun inn in sun street, once the stopping-place for the omnibus which plied between canterbury and herne bay. it will be remembered that david was taking tea with the heeps when suddenly mr. micawber appeared. david, rather apprehensive of what his old friend might say next, hurried him away by asking, "shall we go and see mrs. micawber, sir?" and they both sallied forth, mr. micawber humming a tune on the way. "it was a little inn where mr. micawber put up, and he occupied a little room in it, partitioned off from the commercial room, and strongly flavoured with tobacco smoke. i think it was over the kitchen, because a warm greasy smell appeared to come up through the chinks of the floor, and there was a flabby perspiration on the walls. i know it was near the bar, on account of the smell of spirits and jingling of glasses. here, recumbent on a sofa, underneath a picture of a race-horse, with her head close to the fire and her feet pushing the mustard off the dumb-waiter at the other end of the room, was mrs. micawber." undaunted by the fact that his resources were extremely low, mr. micawber pressed david to dine with him, and the repast was accordingly arranged. david describes it as "a beautiful little dinner. quite an elegant dish of fish; the kidney end of a loin of veal, roasted; fried sausage-meat, a partridge, and a pudding. there was wine and there was strong ale; and after dinner mrs. micawber made us a bowl of hot punch with her own hands. mr. micawber was uncommonly convivial.... he got cheerfully sentimental about the town and proposed success to it, observing that mrs. micawber and himself had been made extremely snug and comfortable.... as the punch disappeared, mr. micawber became still more friendly and convivial. mrs. micawber's spirits becoming elevated, too, we sang 'auld lang syne.'... in a word, i never saw anybody so thoroughly jovial as mr. micawber was, down to the very last moment of the evening, when i took a hearty farewell of himself and his amiable wife." [illustration: "the little inn" canterbury _drawn by f. g. kitton_] the "little inn" is the scene of another incident in the book, as narrated in chapter lii, where uriah heep is exposed. david, mr. dick, traddles, and betsey trotwood are invited down to canterbury "to assist at an explosion." arriving by the dover mail, they all put up at this inn on the recommendation of mr. micawber, and there awaited his arrival. it is recorded that they got into the hotel with some trouble in the middle of the night, and "went shivering at that uncomfortable hour" to their respective beds, through various close passages, "which smelt as if they had been steeped for ages in a solution of soup and stables." in the morning david took a stroll, and states how he "looked at the old house from the corner of the street ... the early sun was striking edgewise on its gables and lattice-windows, touching them with gold, and some beams of its old peace seemed to touch my heart." they all breakfasted together, full of anxiety and impatience for mr. micawber's appearance, which was punctually timed at the first chime of the half-hour. this "little inn," with its gables and lattices telling of its age, still occupies the angle of the peaceful streets close to the cathedral close. but dickens's designation of it is hardly fitting, for it is quite a commodious building with stabling for about a dozen horses. it is, perhaps, a trifle smaller than when dickens knew it, for the rooms on the ground-floor corner and one side are used as a jeweller's and a butcher's shop respectively. the inn still boasts of its "splendid accommodation for all," and is determined that its identification with dickens should not be overlooked. on one side of the building is a hanging sign bearing the words: the sun inn built the "little inn" of dickens fame whilst in case this should be missed by pilgrims, it has, painted up on the wall the other side: sun hotel formerly known as "the little inn" made famous by chas. dickens in his travels thro' kent built it would seem that the proprietor who was responsible for these words was a little uncertain of the exact association of his "little inn" with dickens. but, being determined to receive some of the reflected glory of the novelist's fame, and evidently ignorant of the book in which his "little inn" figured, played for safety in the use of a general, rather than a specific phrase. the inn is worth a visit, for it is still quaint, attractive, and picturesque. although actually built, as we are told, in , we understand that it was altered in the seventeenth century. anyway, it is sufficiently old to be in keeping with its ancient surroundings. turning to london, there is the piazza hotel in covent garden, mentioned by steerforth in chapter xxiv, where he was going to breakfast with one of his friends, which was no doubt the well-known coffee-house at the north-eastern angle of covent garden piazza. it was the favourite resort of the actors and dramatists of the period. sheridan and john kemble often dined together in its coffee-room, and there is a record of them disagreeing on a certain matter. sheridan, in a letter replying to one from kemble, told him he attributed his letter "to a disorder which i know ought not to be indulged. i prescribe that thou shalt keep thine appointment at the piazza coffee-house to-morrow at five, and, taking four bottles of claret instead of three, to which in sound health you might stint yourself, forget that you ever wrote the letter, as i shall that i ever received it." dickens stayed there himself in and again in , two letters from him to his wife being dated from there. the piazza facade where stood the coffee-house was taken down to build the floral hall, which is reputed to have been modelled on the crystal palace. in chapter xxxv, david copperfield, after a plunge in the old roman bath in strand lane, went for a walk to hampstead, and got some breakfast on the heath. the inn where he took his repast, although not named, no doubt was jack straw's castle. this is the only allusion to the famous hostelry in dickens's books that we know of, but the novelist frequented it in his earlier writing years, when he was very fond of riding and walking, and indulged those forms of recreation to his profit during that hard-worked period of his literary career. in those brilliant days of pickwick he would wander in all directions out of the london streets, and invite forster to accompany him on these jaunts by sending him brief commands to join him. one of these ran: "you don't feel disposed, do you, to muffle yourself up and start off with me for a good brisk walk over hampstead heath? i know a good 'ous where we can have a red-hot chop for dinner, and a glass of good wine." and off they went, leading, as forster says, to their "first experience of jack straw's castle, memorable for many happy meetings in coming years." on another occasion, whilst writing _the old curiosity shop_, maclise accompanied them, but this time they drove to the heath and then walked to the "castle." here dickens read to his friends a number of the new story. again, in , he wrote: "stanfield and mac have come in, and we are going to hampstead to dinner. i leave betsey prig as you know, so don't you make a scruple about leaving mrs. harris. we shall stroll leisurely up, to give you time to join us, and dinner will be on the table at jack straw's at four." a few months later, it is recorded, they dined there again, and it is evident that the old inn was a favourite haunt of the novelist on such occasions, and the dickens traditions have so clung to it that during the flight of time they have become, as such traditions do, somewhat exaggerated. to-day, visitors are not only shown the chair he sat on, but have pointed out to them the bedroom he used to sleep in. there is no record, however, that he ever stayed the night there, or any reason for believing that he did, seeing how easy it was for him and his friends to get there and back from town. but jack straw's castle has good reasons for being proud of its literary associations; for, in addition to those of dickens and his famous friends, such names as washington irving, thackeray, du maurier, lord leighton, and a host of others may be mentioned as frequenting it. to say nothing of the fact that "the castle" is mentioned in richardson's _clarissa harlowe_. [illustration: jack straw's castle, as it was in _drawn by l. walker from an old engraving_] apart, however, from its literary associations, jack straw's castle has a romantic history. it is generally agreed that its name is derived from that of the notorious peasant leader of the rising in the reign of richard ii. and this may be so in spite of the fact that its present designation is not older than the middle of the eighteenth century. the peasants' revolt took place in , and we are told that it is more than likely that the hampstead villeins took part in the famous march to london. one authority says that "the st. albans men, in their advance to join jack straw at his headquarters at highbury, might or might not have passed through hampstead. if a contingent of adherents was ready to join them at hampstead, they probably took the village into their route, especially as it would give them particular pleasure to make an offensive demonstration against the knights hospitallers, who had a temple there and were the objects of bitter hatred. the attack of the mob upon the house of the knights hospitallers at highbury is a well-known incident of the rising. whether they visited hampstead or not, they passed at no great distance from it--near enough to bring the hampstead villeins within their influence. may it not be that the events of these few days provided the reason for the local name of jack straw's castle? the mere fact of there being hampstead sympathisers with jack straw who held their meetings at a certain house would be sufficient excuse to gain that house the title of jack straw's castle." sir walter besant thought that, although there is no direct evidence of jack straw being connected with the hostelry named after him, "it is quite possible that the heath formed a rendezvous for the malcontents of his time." in early days there had been an earthwork on the site, which might have given rise to the name "castle." referring to this point, professor hales, who leans to the opinion that jack straw was no more than a generic appellation, and instances the fact of there being an inn called jack straw's castle in a village near oxford, says: "'jack straw's castle' is so commanding and important that there can be little doubt there would be erected upon it some kind of earthwork or fort at a very early period. traces of both the neolithic and the bronze age man have been found on and near the heath, and, possibly enough, both these races raised or held on the spot some rude fortification which subsequent times would call a 'castle.' this being so, we have only to infer, from facts already stated, that the place was used as a tryst for the local partisans of jack straw to arrive at the origin of the name of 'jack straw's castle'--that is, the castle of the jack strawites." to-day, jack straw's castle is the favoured resort of the district, and perhaps the dickens traditions act as the strongest lodestone to visitors, and do more to sustain its popularity than any others. at any rate, the dickensian pilgrim on his ramble through hampstead places great store on jack straw's castle for the simple and justifiable reason that it had such attractions for the great novelist. the "little, dirty, tumble-down public-house" at the foot of hungerford stairs, where the micawber family were lodged the night before their departure for australia, was called the swan. it was there at the time dickens worked in the factory as a boy, and appears in contemporary pictures of hungerford stairs. the micawbers occupied one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath. we read that betsey trotwood and agnes were there, "busily making some little extra comforts in the way of dress for the children. peggotty was quietly assisting with the old insensible work-box, yard measure, and bit of wax candle before her that had outlived so much." in that ramshackle old inn was enacted that last wonderful scene with mr. micawber, when he insisted on making punch in england for the last time. having obtained the assurance that miss trotwood and miss wickfield would join him in the toast, he "immediately descended to the bar, where he appeared to be quite at home; and in due time returned with a steaming jug," and quickly served out the fragrant liquid in tin mugs for his children, and drank from his own particular pint pot himself. there are three other inns calling for brief reference. the gray's inn coffee-house, where david copperfield stayed on his return from abroad, was first mentioned in _the old curiosity shop_, and is dealt with in our chapter devoted to that book; the golden cross at charing cross, a prominent feature in chapter xix, is commented upon at length in "the inns and taverns of pickwick"; and the coffee-house in doctors' commons where mr. spenlow conducted david copperfield to discuss a certain delicate matter (chapter xxxviii) demolished in . chapter x bleak house, little dorrit, hard times sol's arms--the dedlock arms--the london coffee--house--pegasus' arms--etc. there are very few inns of any importance mentioned in _bleak house_, and only one that plays any prominent part in the story. the one at barnet, where esther summerson hired the carriage to drive to mr. jarndyce's house, was no doubt meant to be the red lion, and is dealt with in the first chapter of the present volume; while the white horse cellar, where she alighted on her entry into london from reading, claims attention in "the inns and taverns of pickwick." of the two other taverns, sol's arms, where the inquest on nemo was held, and the dedlock arms at chesney wold, the former is the chief. the original of sol's arms was the old ship tavern which once stood at the corner of chichester rents off chancery lane. it is first referred to in chapter xi as the place of the coroner's inquest. "the coroner is to sit in the first-floor room at the sol's arms, where the harmonic meetings take place twice a week, and where the chair is filled by a gentleman of professional celebrity, faced by little swills the comic vocalist.... the sol's arms does a brisk stroke of business all the morning." according to allbut, dickens took the name from a tavern in the hampstead road where the harmonic meetings of the sol's society were held, and it certainly seems that he adapted its characteristics to the ship. at the appointed hour the coroner arrived, and was conducted by the beadle and the landlord to the harmonic meeting room, "where he puts his hat on the piano, and takes a windsor chair at the head of the long table, formed of several short tables put together, and ornamented with glutinous rings in endless involutions, made by the pots and glasses. as many of the jury as can crowd together at the tables sit there. the rest get among the spittoons and pipes, or lean against the piano." all in readiness, the famous inquest on nemo, with poor joe as a witness, took place, after which the sol's arms gradually "melts into the shadowy night, and then flares out of it strong in gas." that was a special event for the sol's arms, which generally speaking was just a tavern frequented by lawyers' clerks and the inhabitants of chichester rents and its neighbourhood. it, no doubt, was krook's habitual place of call, it certainly was patronized by mrs. piper and mrs. perkins, and mr. guppy must often have looked in; but its chief claim to fame was its being the meeting place of the harmonic company, of whom little swills was so distinguished a member. although chichester rents, which exists to-day, is not the same chichester rents as when the old ship tavern was there, and krook lived there, with miss flite as a lodger, one is easily reminded of these things, and of the inquest, of poor joe, and of the great little swills, when one wanders through this district of dickens land. it is common knowledge that chesney wold, the country seat of the dedlocks of the story, was rockingham castle, the home of the hon. richard watson and mrs. watson, to whom dickens dedicated _david copperfield_. there is, therefore, no difficulty in tracing the dedlock arms. the village of chesney wold was the village of rockingham. in rockingham is an old inn bearing the date of , known as sonde's arms, which stands for the dedlock arms of the story. _little dorrit_ is almost as devoid of reference to inns and taverns that count as _bleak house_. in few cases the references are as a rule but passing ones. perhaps the most interesting is to the coffee-house on ludgate hill, where arthur clennam stayed, for it remains almost as it was in those days. in the third chapter of the first book, dickens gives one of those telling pen-pictures of london for which he had no rival. it is of rather a dull and doleful hue, and depicts the aspect the city presents on a sunday: "gloomy, close and stale." arthur clennam had just arrived from marseilles by way of dover and its coach "the blue-eyed maid," and "sat in the window of a coffee-house on ludgate hill, counting one of the neighbouring bells, making sentences and burdens of songs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how many sick people it might be the death of in the course of the year. at the quarter, it went off into a condition of deadly-lively importunity, urging the populace in a voluble manner to come to church, come to church, come to church! at the ten minutes, it became aware that the congregation would be scanty, and slowly hammered out in low spirits, they _won't_ come, they _won't_ come, they _won't_ come! at the five minutes it abandoned hope, and shook every house in the neighbourhood for three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per second, as a groan of despair. 'thank heaven!' said clennam when the hour struck, and the bell stopped." [illustration: the london coffee house, ludgate hill _from an old engraving_] the particular coffee-house in whose window clennam sat was the famous old london coffee-house, and the particular church whose bells prompted his reflections, so microscopically described by the novelist, must have been st. martin's next door. there can be little doubt of this, for we are told that clennam "sat in the same place as the day died, looking at the dull houses opposite, and thinking, if the disembodied spirits of former inhabitants were ever conscious of them, how they must pity themselves for their old places of imprisonment.... presently the rain began to fall in slanting lines between him and those houses, and people began to collect under cover of the public passage opposite, and to look hopelessly at the sky as the rain dropped thicker and faster." that "public passage opposite" must have been what is now the entrance to ludgate square. with these facts to guide us, we can supply the name and location of the coffee-house on ludgate hill. it exists to-day, nestling close to st. martin's church, on the west side, and, but for the substitution of a plate-glass shop-front, is to all intents and purposes unchanged in its outward appearances from what it was when clennam sat in meditation at one of its windows. the illustration from an old engraving by s. jenkins, after a drawing by g. shepherd, shows the coffee-house and church as they were in ; and, if comparison of the picture of the former building is made with the present structure, it will be seen that it is practically identical, except so far as the ground floor is concerned. the house was first opened as a coffee-house in by one james ashley, and its vast cellars stretched under ludgate hill to the foundations of the city walls. in those days, it was "within the rules of the fleet prison, and was noted for the sales held there of booksellers' stocks and literary copyrights," and used to afford hospitality to the juries from the old bailey sessions when they disagreed. the grandfather of john leech, the illustrator of _a christmas carol_ was the landlord of the tavern for some years, and later the father of the famous _punch_ artist became the tenant, and filled it with the merry crowd associated with mr. punch's early days. leech was followed as landlord by mr. lovegrove from the horn tavern in doctors' commons. there is a casual mention of the famous old george inn in the borough high street, in chapter xxii of book of _little dorrit_, where tip dorrit is spoken of as going into the inn to write a letter; and also passing references to garraway's and the jerusalem coffee-house, as occasional resorts of mr. flintwinch. full details concerning the george and garraway's will be found in "the inns and taverns of pickwick." the jerusalem coffee house was one of the oldest in the city of london, and was famous for its news-rooms, where merchants and captains connected with the commerce of india, china and australia could see and consult the files of all the most important papers from those countries, as well as the chief shipping lists. the hotel in brook street, grosvenor square, where mr. dorrit stayed when he reached london from the continent, was probably mivart's, and is dealt with in the chapter devoted to nicholas nickleby. coketown, of _hard times_, is generally supposed to be manchester. we suspect it to be a composite picture, with a good deal of preston in it, and other manufacturing towns as well. it is not possible, therefore, to identify the one or two inns which figure in the story. the hotel where mr. james harthouse stayed when he went there with an introduction to mr. bounderby might be any hotel in any town; and there seems no means of tracing the original of the "mean little public-house with red lights in it" at pod's end, where sissy jupe brought gradgrind and bounderby. dickens describes it "as haggard and as shabby as if, for want of custom, it had itself taken to drinking and had gone the way all drunkards go, and was very near the end of it." the name he gives to the public-house was the pegasus' arms. the pegasus' leg, he informs us, might have been more to the purpose; but, underneath the winged horse upon the sign-board, the pegasus' arms was inscribed in roman letters. beneath that inscription, again, in a flowing scroll, the painter had touched off the lines: good malt makes good beer, walk in, and they'll draw it here; good wine makes good brandy, give us a call, and you'll find it handy. these lines were taken from an old inn-sign, the malt shovel, which once stood at the foot of chatham hill. chapter xi a tale of two cities and great expectations the royal george, dover--ye old cheshire cheese--the three jolly bargemen--the cross keys, wood street--hummum's, covent garden--the ship and lobster, gravesend--the fox under the hill, denmark hill notwithstanding the fact that _a tale of two cities_ is to some persons dickens's best book, or the one that many prefer to any other, it is the most barren for our purpose. apart from the fact that its scenes are laid chiefly in another country, those that concern our own supply little enough material in the way of taverns that can be identified. in chapter iv of book , dickens gives a fine description of the london mail coach's journey to dover, but no incident associated with an inn is touched upon on the way, and not until the journey is terminated at dover is an inn mentioned by name. "when the mail got successfully to dover, in the course of the forenoon," we are told, "the head drawer at the royal george hotel opened the coach door, as his custom was. he did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey from london in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller upon." here mr. lorry, the only passenger left, shaking himself of straw, alighted from the coach and engaged a room for the night, where he awaited the arrival of lucy manette for the momentous interview which was to terminate in their voyage to calais. we cannot, however, discover that there was any hotel with the name of the royal george in dover at that or any other period; but robert allbut, hunting for one to serve its purpose, hit upon the king's head hotel, which he says was the old coaching-house for the london mail, and therefore must have been the hostelry dickens had in mind. other authorities mention the ship, long since disappeared, upon whose site now stands the lord warden hotel, where dickens often stayed himself, and occasionally mentions in his writings. taking into consideration the date of the story, one may rightly assume that the ship was the hotel at which mr. lorry's coach deposited him. it was the ship no doubt that byron sang of in the following verse: thy cliffs, dear dover! harbour and hotel; thy custom-house, with all its delicate duties; thy waiters running mucks at every bell; thy packets, all whose passengers are booties to those who upon land or water dwell; and last, not least, to strangers uninstructed, thy long, long bills, whence nothing is deducted. but it has long ago gone, and in its place the fashionable lord warden now stands. ye old cheshire cheese, that popular tavern in fleet street, was never, we believe, ever mentioned in any one of dickens's books by name, nor can we discover that it was alluded to or described even under an assumed name. it is known that he visited it, and the menu card bearing a picture of what is known as dr. johnson's room, with dickens and thackeray seated at the table presided over by the shade of the lexicographer itself, is familiar to visitors. [illustration: the old cheshire cheese] dickens students, however, are of opinion that the cheshire cheese is the tavern where charles darnay and sydney carton dined after the trial at the old bailey, described in chapter iv of book . the evidence offered for this is as follows: darnay tells carton that he is faint for want of food. "then why the devil don't you dine? i dined myself while those numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to--this, or some other." "let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well in," replied carton. "drawing his arm through his own, he took him down ludgate hill to fleet street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. here they were shown a little room, where charles darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine: while carton sat opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port before him, and his full half-insolent manner upon him." the cheshire cheese no doubt was the tavern dickens was thinking of when he wrote the foregoing passages. it certainly was the resort of the literary and legal professions in those days, as it has been since. it is too well known to warrant any detailed account of it here. besides, its two-and-a-half-century history is too packed with anecdote and story to allow of adequate description in our limited space. an excellent book is issued by the proprietors fully dealing with its past, and copiously illustrated. there seems to be a growing desire on the part of dickens students to prove that cooling, the hamlet in kent near to gads hill is not the spot where are laid certain scenes of _great expectations_, in spite of the fact that dickens told forster it was. we do not propose to argue the matter here. the chief point at issue seems to be that there is no blacksmith's forge at cooling, whereas there is at chalk and at hoo, two other villages in the district that claim the honour. yet at chalk there are no "graveyard lozenges," but at hoo we believe there happens to be both lozenges in the churchyard and a forge in the village. on the other hand, we are told there _was_ a blacksmith's forge at cooling in dickens's time. if, therefore, we accept cooling as joe gargery's village, the horseshoe and castle inn there would stand for the three jolly bargemen where joe gargery and pip used to while away certain hours of the evening, as described in chapter x of the book. it is first referred to on the occasion when pip had promised "at his peril" to bring joe home from it. "there was a bar at the jolly bargemen," pip tells us, "with some alarmingly long chalk scores in it on the wall at the side of the door" which seemed never to be paid off. they had been there ever since he could remember, and had grown more than he had. there was a common-room at the end of the passage with a bright large kitchen fire, where joe smoked his pipe in company with mr. wopsle. it was here that pip again encountered his convict who stirred his drink with the file pip had borrowed for him earlier in the story, and where he was presented with a shilling wrapped in "two fat sweltering one-pound notes that seemed to have been on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattle markets in the country." it is the scene of many incidents in the story. indeed, it was the meeting place of all the men of the village, to whom mr. wopsle read the news round the fire, and where all the gossip of the district was retailed. the horseshoe and castle is a typical village inn, in all appearances like a doll's house, built of wood in a quite plain fashion, lying a little back from the road. it was in this inn that mr. jaggers unexpectedly appeared one day enquiring for pip, which ultimately resulted in the change in pip's fortune and his journey to london. pip's journey from "our town," as he calls it, to the metropolis, was, we read, "a journey of about five hours. it was a little past midday when the four-horse stage-coach by which i was passenger got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about the cross keys, wood street, cheapside, london." this incident of the early life of pip, related in , was a reminiscence of dickens's early childhood, which he recalls in _the uncommercial traveller_, when he tells us that, as a small boy, he "left dullborough in the days when there were no railroads in the land," and he left it in a stage-coach. "through all the years that have since passed," he goes on, "have i ever lost the smell of the damp straw in which i was packed--like game--and forwarded, carriage paid, to the cross keys, wood street, cheapside, london.... the coach that carried me away was melodiously called timpson's blue-eyed maid, and belonged to timpson at the coach office up street." in speaking of dullborough and "our town," it is known that dickens was referring to rochester. the cross keys was a notable coaching inn of those days, and the rochester coaches started and ended their journey there. it was demolished over fifty years ago. although dickens does not give us one of his pleasant pen-pictures of it, he refers to it occasionally in other of his stories, such as _little dorrit_ and _nicholas nickleby_. another one-time famous london inn, referred to in _great expectations_, but no longer existing, is hummum's, in covent garden. when pip received that note one evening on reaching the gateway of the temple, warning him not to go home, he hired a chariot and drove to hummum's, covent garden. he spent a very miserable night there. in those times, he tells us, "a bed was always to be got there at any hour of the night, and the chamberlain, letting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order on his shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next in order. it was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the back, with a despotic monster of a four-post bed in it, straddling over the whole place, putting one of its arbitrary legs into the fire-place, and another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched little washing-stand in quite a divinely righteous manner." he goes on to wail of his doleful night. the room smelt of cold soot and hot dust, the tester was covered in blue-bottle flies, which he thought must be lying up for next summer. "when i had lain awake a little while, those extraordinary voices, with which silence teems, began to make themselves audible. the closet whispered, the fire-place sighed, the little washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the chest of drawers." he then thought of the unknown gentleman who once came to hummum's in the night and had gone to bed and destroyed himself and had been found in the morning weltering in his blood. altogether a dismal, doleful and miserable experience of hummum's. but no doubt pip's liver or nerves were the cause of it, not the hotel. another reference to it is made in _sketches by boz_ in the chapter describing the streets in the morning. speaking of the pandemonium which reigns in covent garden at an early hour after daybreak, the talking, shouting, horses neighing, donkeys braying, dickens says "these and a hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to a londoner's ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of country gentlemen who are sleeping at hummum's for the first time." there is an hotel standing in covent garden with the same name to-day, but, although it is on the same spot, it is not the hummum's of which pip speaks. that was demolished long ago, and was the scene of a marvellous ghost story told in boswell's johnson concerning parson ford. the ship at gravesend, mentioned as the waterside inn where pip and his assistants managed to row the convict magwitch, with the idea of smuggling him out of the country, is known as the ship and lobster. [illustration: the ship and lobster, gravesend _drawn by c. g. harper_] having run alongside a little causeway made of stones, pip left the rest of the occupants of the boat and stepped ashore, and found the light they had observed from the river to be in the window of a public-house. "it was a dirty place enough, and i daresay not unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat and various liquors to drink. also there were two double-bedded rooms--'such as they were,' the landlord said.... we made a very good meal by the kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms.... we found that the air was carefully excluded from both as if air was fatal to life; and there were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than i should have thought the family possessed. but we considered ourselves well off, notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found." outside this inn magwitch was again captured, and transferred to a galley, where pip eventually joined him and accompanied him to his destination. dickens knew gravesend well, and his description of the ship and lobster is a faithful one. it is situated on the shore at denton, a village adjoining the town, not far from the official lighterman's at denton wharf. at one time it flourished as a popular tea-garden resort. there are two other inns in the book that must not be overlooked. the blue boar at rochester, where pip stayed when he visited his old town, which was the bull inn there, and is dealt with in "the inns and taverns of pickwick"; and the tavern where wemmick's wedding-breakfast was held. this is said to be the fox under the hill, nearly at the top of denmark hill. it is now a modern public-house, but sixty or seventy years ago it was an old wayside inn--a pleasant little tavern, and a favourite resort, especially on sunday evenings in the summer, for the youthful population of walworth and camberwell. we close this chapter with the brief account of the festive occasion: "breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so away upon the rising ground beyond the green[ ] and there was a bagatelle board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after the solemnity. it was pleasant to observe that mrs. wemmick no longer unwound wemmick's arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done. we had an excellent breakfast, and, when anyone declined anything on the table, wemmick said, 'provided by contract you know; don't be afraid of it!' i drank to the new couple, drank to the aged, drank to the castle, saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as i could." chapter xii our mutual friend the six jolly fellowship-porters--the three magpies--the ship, greenwich--the white lion--the anglers' inn--the exchequer coffee-house the outstanding tavern in _our mutual friend_ is that with the pleasant-sounding name of the six jolly fellowship-porters, the favoured resort of rogue riderhood, gaffer hexam, and their boon companions, which is so closely associated with the unravelling of the mystery of john harmon. it exists to-day as the grapes, and continues to be the favoured resort of river watermen whose business keeps or brings them to the picturesque reach. when dickens was engaged on his book, it is said that he wrote some chapters in a house adjoining the grapes, overlooking the river. the dropsical tavern, as he calls it, was then known as the bunch of grapes, which, by a process of clipping, became first the grapes inn, and then finally the grapes, by which it is known at the present time. its front entrance is at narrow street, limehouse, and occupies little more space (as noted by the novelist) than to allow for its front door. although the front of the building has been modernised, it still remains as narrow and tall as when dickens likened it to "a handle of a flat iron set upright on its broadest end." the inn has been very little altered in other respects since he so minutely described it. certainly, an ordinary public-house bar has cut off a portion of the original bar, and, if in those days "the available space in it was not much larger than a hackney-coach," its area is even smaller to-day, but yet quite comfortable enough to "soften the human breast." it is in describing this bar that dickens gives the clue to the identification of the tavern. "no one," he says, "could have wished the bar bigger, that space was so girt in by corpulent little casks, and by cordial bottles radiant with fictitious _grapes in bunches_, and by lemons in nets, and by biscuits in baskets, and by polite beer-pulls that made low bows when customers were served with beer ... and by the landlady's own small table in a snugger corner near the fire...." many of these alluring etceteras have given place to others, perhaps less enticing, and among those that have gone are the cordial bottles with the "grapes in bunches" on them. we have learned, however, from the present genial hostess, mrs. higgins, that at one time, not only did the cordial bottles bear the engraved sign of a bunch of grapes, but certain of the windows also were so embellished, and it was only a few years ago, when the front was altered, that these disappeared. it is not, however, necessary merely to rely on this piece of identification to assure us that the grapes inn was the original of the six jolly fellowship-porters, for a visit to it with chapter vi of _our mutual friend_ for a guidance leaves no doubt in the mind. therein we read that "the six jolly fellowship-porters, already mentioned as a tavern of a dropsical appearance, had long settled down into a state of hale infirmity. in its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, and hardly a straight line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yet outlast, many a better-trimmed building, many a sprucer public-house. externally, it was a narrow, lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon another as you might heap as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the water; indeed, the whole house, inclusive of the complaining flag-staff on the roof, impended over the water, but seemed to have got into the condition of a faint-hearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he will never go in at all." that is how dickens describes the river frontage of the six jolly fellowship-porters, and his words apply just as accurately to the grapes inn. as one stands on the crazy wooden verandah, which is reached from the foreshore by steep wooden steps, one can call to mind the scene in the book describing gaffer hexam landing the "found drowned," and then, by turning into the "tap and parlour" behind, "which gave on to the river, and had red curtains to match the noses of the regular customers," one finds oneself in the room where the inquest on john harmon was held, with gaffer hexam as witness before the coroner's jury, mr. mortimer light wood as "eminent solicitor," and mr. inspector watching the proceedings on behalf of the home office. the room is not used for such purposes to-day, but is put to the more pleasant one of social intercourse between workers on the great waterway during and after their labours, who, if you are so disposed, will welcome you there, and discourse on the mystery of tides and ships. if you accept them as fellow-creatures you may be invited to a game of darts, meanwhile regaling yourself with the modern substitutes for "those delectable drinks" known in the days when miss abbey potterson reigned supreme on her throne as sole proprietor and manager of the fellowship-porters, as purl, flip, and dog's nose. these watermen reach this haven, if the tide is out, by means of the wooden steps; when the tide is high and the house is "all but afloat," the small row-boats are brought into use and the occupants approach the inn like veritable gondoliers and moor their craft outside whilst they refresh themselves within. [illustration: the grapes inn, limehouse _photograph by t. w. tyrrell_] beyond this room is the small one which served as miss abbey potterson's haven. "this haven," dickens says, "was divided from the rough world by a glass partition and a half-door with a leaden sill upon it for the convenience of resting your liquor; but over this half-door the bar's snugness so gushed forth that, albeit customers drank there standing, in a dark and draughty passage where they were shouldered by other customers passing in and out, they always appeared to drink under an enchanting delusion that they were in the bar itself." the glass partition and the half-door, over which gaffer hexam is seen leaning in marcus stone's picture in the book, is still there, but is not now used for the same purpose. it is the private entrance to the back of the modern public bar. what dickens said of the antiquity of the fellowship-porters is true of the grapes inn. "the wood forming the chimney-pieces, beams, partitions, floors, and doors of the six jolly fellowship-porters seemed in its old age fraught with confused memories of its youth. in many places it had become gnarled and riven, according to the manner of old trees; knots started out of it, and here and there it seemed to twist itself into some likeness of boughs. in this state of second childhood, it had an air of being in its own way garrulous about its early life. not without reason was it often asserted by the regular frequenters of the porters that, when the light shone full upon the grain of certain panels, and particularly upon an old corner cupboard of walnut wood in the bar, you might trace little forests there, and tiny trees like the parent tree in full umbrageous leaf." unfortunately, most of these oak panels and beams are now hidden from view by varnished match-boarding, but some of the panels and some of the beams remain exposed to confirm dickens's fanciful picture. miss abbey potterson, the mistress of this establishment, was "a tall, upright, well-favoured woman, though severe of countenance, and had more the air of a schoolmistress than mistress of the six jolly fellowship-porters." here she ruled supreme, and at the closing time she ordered one after the other to leave with such admonitions as "george jones, your time is up! i told your wife you should be punctual," and so all wished miss abbey good night and miss abbey wished good night to all. she knew how to manage the rough class of river-men who frequented her house, and was the more respected for it. "being known on her own authority as miss abbey potterson," dickens tells us, "some waterside heads, which (like the water) were none of the clearest, harboured muddled motions that, because of her dignity and firmness, she was named after, or in some sort related to, the abbey at westminster. but abbey was only short for abigail, by which name miss potterson had been christened at limehouse church some sixty years and odd before." without recording all the references in the book to the fellowship-porters, we note that, towards the end of it, john and bella paid an official visit to the police station and visited afterwards the six jolly fellowship-porters with mr. inspector for purposes of identification. during this visit, mr. inspector gives this very good character to the inn, "a better-kept house is not known to our men. what do i say? half so well a kept house is not known to our men. show the force the six jolly fellowship-porters, and the force--to a constable--will show you a piece of perfection." this, no doubt, was dickens's own opinion, too. the grapes to-day serves the same purpose as did the six jolly fellowship-porters in the story, and is of as good repute. it is the house of call of the watermen from the river in the day-time and from the road after work is done, and it seems to be conducted by the present hostess much as it was by miss abbey potterson, not so rigidly perhaps, but with the same good-natured friendliness which is reflected in the attitude and behaviour of all the frequenters. there does not even seem the necessity for a bob glibbery; at any rate, we have not met his successor on the occasions of our visits there. nor does his room down "towards the bed of the river," where he was ordered to proceed to his supper, exist at the present time. that must have been somewhere contiguous to the secret smuggling arches which ran under the building from the river, now filled in. [illustration: limehouse reach _drawn by l. walker_] the grapes inn is a place to visit. if one can choose a fine summer's evening to sit under "the corpulent windows" on the "crazy wooden verandah" and watch the busy river with its myriads of craft floating by, one can enjoy the view and atmosphere much as did whistler, napier hemy, and dickens himself. in j. ashby sterry's "a river rhymer," is a set of verses entitled "down limehouse way," two of which may be appropriately quoted here: close by i mind an inn you'll find, where you will not refuse to rest a bit, as there you sit, and gaze on river views-- 'tis very old--with windows bold, that bulges o'er the tide; whence you can spy ships passing by or watch the waters glide! you can sit in the red-curtained bay and think, while you're puffing a clay, 'tis no indecorum to drink sangarorum-- while musing down lime'us way! you'll find this spot--now does it not recall and keep alive the varied crew charles dickens drew in eighteen sixty-five? here hexam plied his trade and died, and riderhood conspired; while things they'd pop at pleasant's shop, when cash might be required! here under miss abbey's firm sway, who made all her clients obey, was ruled with discretion and rare self-possession the "porters" down lime'us way! the name of the fellowship-porters which dickens adopted for the sign of miss abbey potterson's public-house was that of one of the old city guilds. for over years the city of london successfully claimed and exercised the sole right to unload grain vessels arriving in the thames, and realised enormous revenues from the privilege. in , the guild or brotherhood of fellowship-porters was incorporated and a charter was granted. it was reincorporated in , and appointed by the city to carry or store corn, salt, coals, fish, and fruit of all kinds. the fellowship-porters at one time numbered , members, and the guild had the power granted by act of council in to choose twelve rulers, the lord mayor and aldermen reserving the right to appoint one of the number. the company had a hall of its own which stood near to the waterman's hall in st. mary's hill, billingsgate, but had no livery or arms, and ranked the nineteenth in the order of procedure. membership carried with it the freedom of the city by payment of £ s. d., and five guineas to fellowship hall--these fees being demanded before they could work as dock labourers. when millwall docks were built, the city challenged the docks on the matter of their privilege, and the case went to the law courts. it was then discovered that the charter could not be produced, it having been destroyed by the great fire of london, so it was supposed. this blow ruined the guild, and some thirty years ago the organization was wound up, the then present members being deprived of work, pensions, and everything else their charter entitled them to as freemen of the city. another notable tavern in _our mutual friend_ is the ship, at greenwich, where two memorable little dinners were given. the first was the occasion when, bella wilfer having been presented with a purse and a fifty-pound bank-note by mr. boffin, took her dear old father, the cherub, to greenwich by boat on a secret expedition, as she called it, and entertained him to dinner there. first calling for her father at his city office, where the messenger described her to her father as "a slap-up gal in a bang-up chariot," she handed him the purse with instructions, not to be disregarded, to "go to the nearest place where they keep everything of the very very best, ready made; you buy and put on the most beautiful suit of clothes, the most beautiful hat, and the most beautiful pair of bright boots (patent leather, pa, mind!) that are to be got for money; and you come back to me." after half an hour he came back "so brilliantly transformed that bella was obliged to walk round him in ecstatic admiration twenty times before she could draw her arm through his and delightfully squeeze it." she then ordered him to "take this lovely woman out to dinner." the question came, "where shall we go, my dear?" "greenwich!" said bella valiantly. "and be sure you treat this lovely woman with everything of the best." and off they went in quest of the boat to take them down the river, and eventually arrived at the ship tavern. the little expedition down the river to reach it, we are told, "was delightful, and the little room overlooking the river into which they were shown for dinner was delightful. everything was delightful. the park was delightful, the lunch was delightful, the dishes of fish were delightful, the wine was delightful. bella was more delightful than any other item in the festival." and, as they sat together looking at the ships and steamboats making their way to the sea with the tide that was running down, "the lovely woman imagined all sorts of voyages for herself and pa." so enchanted did pa become that he was as willing "to put his head into the sultan's tub of water as the beggar-boys below the window were to put _theirs_ in the mud"; and so the happy moments flew by and the time came to ring the bell, and pay the waiter, and return to london. later on in the same identical room in the same identical tavern overlooking the thames, the same delightful couple, with john rokesmith, partook of another delightful dinner. earlier in the day bella wilfer had become mrs. john rokesmith and celebrated the event with breakfast at bella's cottage at blackheath, and with a dinner at the ship tavern later, bella's father being the only other guest. "what a dinner! specimens of all the fishes that swim in the sea surely had swum their way to it, and, if samples of the fishes of divers colours that made a speech in the 'arabian nights,' and then jumped out of the frying pan, were not to be recognised, it was only because they had all become of one hue by being cooked in the batter among the whitebait. and the dishes being seasoned with bliss--an article which they are sometimes out of at greenwich--were of perfect flavour, and the golden drinks had been bottled in the golden age and hoarding up their sparkles ever since." the whole function was a sheer delight, a crowning success; but the full appreciation of its charm cannot be indicated by short quotations; it must be read in detail to be thoroughly enjoyed. the scene inspired j. ashby sterry to again drop into poetry: a wedding banquet here must dwell within one's brightest recollection; where bella, john and pa, as well, made merry o'er the choice refection! the sparkling wine, the happy pair, with all their aged affection; the bland "archbishop's" tender care, and rumpty wilfer's smart oration!-- a scene where fun and pathos blend, with all the heart and truth that lend a charm unto "our mutual friend!" alas! the tavern in which these happy hours were spent is a thing of the past, but its prosperous and palmy days are recorded in time's annals. [illustration: the ship hotel, greenwich _drawn by l. walker_] in the days when greenwich was famous for its whitebait dinners, the town was noted for its hotels overlooking the waterside. the chief of these was the ship, whilst another notable one was the trafalgar, hard by, patronised by members of the cabinet of the day, who led the fashion in these functions; it being "the correct thing" then, when a little special festivity was forward, to resort to one of these inns at greenwich for the purpose, it is not surprising to learn that on several occasions dickens and his literary and artistic coterie followed the custom by arranging social gatherings in celebration of some event connected with one of the company either at the ship or the trafalgar. as early as we find him suggesting greenwich for a friendly meeting-place. but there were two very noteworthy occasions associated with dickens when greenwich was selected for jovial and pleasant parties of close friends. the first of these took place on the novelist's return from america in , when a few of his kindred spirits adopted this method for welcoming him back to england. among the company were talfourd, tom hood, monckton milnes, b. w. procter, d. maclise, r.a., clarkson stanfield, r.a., captain marryat, "ingoldsby" barham, george cruikshank, and john forster. "i wish you had been at greenwich the other day," he wrote to felton, "where a party of friends gave me a private dinner; public ones i have refused. c---- was perfectly wild at the reunion, and, after singing all manner of marine songs, wound up the entertainment by coming home (six miles) in a little open phaeton of mine, _on his head_, to the mingled delight and indignation of the metropolitan police. we were very jovial, indeed." on the other occasion dickens was the instigator of the feast. this was in , when, on the retirement of john black from the editorial chair of the old _chronicle_, the novelist arranged a dinner in honour of his old friend at greenwich, on the th of may. dickens ordered all things to perfection and the dinner succeeded in its purpose, as in other ways, quite wonderfully, forster tells us. among the entertainers were sheil and thackeray, fonblanque and charles buller, southwood smith and william johnson fox, macready and maclise, as well as forster and dickens. these dinners took place at the ship or the trafalgar, both well known to the novelist, as was greenwich generally, for he frequently refers to the ancient town and its customs in his writings. the ship tavern was originally built with a weather-board front, overlooking the river. but, about the middle of the last century, the newer and much handsomer structure as seen in our illustration, was erected upon the site of the original one, and its pretty garden was the scene of many gay parties, whilst its rooms often rang with merriment from the festive diners. after the waning of the fashion for whitebait banquets, it long maintained its popularity with visitors to the thames historic town. _our mutual friend_ is essentially a story of the thames, and certainly the inns and taverns of the book are either on the water's edge or in close proximity to it. the two already dealt with are below london bridge, in the midst of the busy traffic of trade, whilst the remainder are situated in its more picturesque district where pleasure is sought. it will be recalled that, when mrs. boffin and the secretary set out in search of the charming orphan recommended by the rev. frank milvey, they hired a phaeton and made their way to the abode of mrs. betty higden in whose care was the child. they discovered that old lady in complicated back settlements of "muddy brentford," and, having left their equipage at the sign of the three magpies, continued their quest on foot. a second visit to brentford is recorded later in the book, on which occasion a carriage was ordered, for bella and sloppy were also of the party. "so to the three magpies as before; where mrs. boffin and miss bella were handed out, and whence they all went on foot to mrs. betty higden's." no other allusion to the inn is made than the bare mention of the name; but the original inn to which dickens alludes undoubtedly is the three pigeons, that ancient hostelry at brentford whose history is associated with shakespeare, ben jonson and their contemporaries, many of whom referred to it in their plays and essays. in goldsmith's _she stoops to conquer_, it will be remembered, tony lumpkin sings a song in praise of it, whilst two scenes of the comedy take place in the inn. lowen, a leading actor in shakespeare's company, we are told, kept the inn at the time, and shakespeare personally instructed him in henry viii. it was a well-known coaching inn then, and at one time its stables occupied several acres. in it was partially reconstructed, and in it was closed under order of the licensing justices of middlesex. [illustration: the red lion hotel, hampton _drawn by c. g. harper_] in the chapter describing the flight of betty higden we are told that her pilgrimage took her through chertsey, walton, kingston, and staines, and so on to her journey's end. one day she was sitting in a market-place on a bench outside an inn. here she became nervous of those who questioned her, and determined to move on. as she left the spot she had looked over her shoulder before turning out of the town, and had seen the "sign of the white lion hanging across the road, and the fluttering market booths and the old grey church, and the little crowd gazing after her, but not attempting to follow her." although the name of this town is not mentioned, there is no doubt that the description is of hampton, and that the inn is the red lion, whose picturesque sign still spans the street, with the view of the "old grey church" behind it. the scenes of the fourth book bring us to the district of henley, although the name is never mentioned and the locks and inns are given fictitious names. but it has not been difficult to locate the spots from the novelist's accurate descriptions. the only inn which plays an important part in the unravelling of the story in this neighbourhood is given the name of the anglers' inn. all authorities identify this as the red lion, henley. it was here that eugene wrayburn found accommodation when in pursuit of lizzie hexam. the inn is on the west bank of the river and north of the bridge, and, being a favourite resort of anglers, the name dickens gives it is appropriate enough. it was to this inn that lizzie hexam brought the apparently lifeless body of eugene wrayburn after her brave rescue of it from the water, following the murderous attack on him by bradley headstone. "she rowed hard--rowed desperately, but never wildly--and seldom removed her eyes from him in the bottom of the boat.... the boat touched the edge of the patch of inn lawn sloping gently to the water. there were lights in the windows, but there chanced to be no one out of doors. she made the boat fast, and again by main strength took him up, and never laid him down until she laid him down in the house." this patch of green lawn sloping gently to the river coincides with that of the red lion, henley. it was also in this inn, some weeks later, that lizzie and eugene were married. it was still uncertain if he would recover, and, in conformity with his wish, the ceremony was performed round his bed, the rev. frank milvey officiating, bella and her husband, mortimer lightwood, mrs. milvey and jenny wren being in attendance. the red lion is a famous old coaching-inn, as well as a fishing and boating one of renown. it is not only very old but large. standing by the bridge in prominent fashion it appeals to the eye at once: 'tis a finely toned, picturesque, sunshiny, place, recalling a dozen old stories; with a rare british, good-natured, ruddy-hued face, suggesting old wines and old tories. to quote once more from ashby sterry's rhymes. it was on a window in this old inn that shenstone the poet scratched with a diamond about that celebrated stanza of his: who'er has travelled life's dull round, where'er his stages may have been, may sigh to think how oft he found the warmest welcome at an inn; --at least, so tradition has it. but mr. charles g. harper thinks it doubtful, and feels that the henley referred to by historians must have been henley-in-arden. there is one inn mentioned in the book which has not, that we are aware of, been identified. it is the exchequer coffee-house, palace yard, westminster, the address given by mr. julius handford to mr. inspector on the occasion when he viewed the body of the drowned man (bk. , chapter iii). chapter xiii the mystery of edwin drood and the lazy tour of two idle apprentices wood's hotel, furnival's inn--the tilted wagon--the travellers' twopenny--the crozier, cloisterham--the king's arms, lancaster--the ship, allonby--the angel, doncaster, and others it is a curious fact that wood's hotel, one of london's old-time inns which must have been familiar to dickens in his very early days--even before he commenced writing his _pickwick papers_--did not furnish a scene in any of his books until it figured in _edwin drood_, his last. as early as , when on the staff of the "morning chronicle," dickens lived at furnival's inn, and in the following year moved to no , where he commenced _the pickwick papers_, and where he took to himself a wife and where his first child was born. during these days wood's hotel occupied the north side of the quiet quadrangle of furnival's inn, and dickens must have known it well. it was a staid and respectable house with an air about it of domestic comfort, suitable for country visitors, and where, we are informed, family prayers, night and morning, were included in the accommodation. its stately building of four stories had dignity added to it by the four tall white stone pillars in the centre portion of the front reaching to the third floor. although stolid-looking, it was not aggressively so, nor was it altogether unpicturesque, with its grass plot immediately before the entrance, encircling a statue of the founder of the inn, surrounded by white posts connected by chains. its imposing appearance from without reflected the comforts which the inside of a reputable family hotel is expected to provide. at such an hotel one would naturally look for courteous attention from waiters and chambermaids, and good meals cleanly served, and at wood's no disappointment in these respects was experienced. indeed, dickens conveys that idea in referring to it in _edwin drood_. entering through the archway of furnival's inn, the hotel caught the eye immediately, and acted as a relief to the straight, angular, and flat appearance of the buildings which formed the once famous quadrangle so intimately associated with dickens. it is believed by some, and was definitely stated to be a fact by a writer in the american magazine, the "cosmopolitan," for may, , and again by a writer in the "middlesex and hertfordshire notes and queries," july, , that dickens in his bachelor days had apartments on the second floor of the hotel in the right-hand corner, and that in the latter years of its existence the walls of this same room were decorated with pictures of scenes and characters from his works. we have, however, been unable to find any authority for this statement. but it is quite possible that he frequented the hotel, and we may even assume that he and his friends, hablôt k. browne and robert young, who occupied rooms in furnival's when they were executing engravings for pickwick, would perhaps chat over details in a snug room in the hotel, when they would be joined by their other friend and engraver, finden. bearing all these ideas in mind, it is certainly a little strange that dickens waited for his last book before he introduced the hotel into his writings. in that book we are told that mr. grewgious crossed over to the hotel in furnival's inn from staple inn opposite for his dinner "three hundred days in the year at least," and after dinner crossed back again. on one occasion, a very important interview between him and edwin drood took place in his chambers, and edwin was pressed to stay for a meal. "we can have dinner in from just across holborn," grewgious assured him, and bazzard, his clerk, was not only invited to join them, but asked if he would mind "stepping over to the hotel in furnival's, and asking them to send in materials for laying the cloth.... for dinner we'll have a tureen of the hottest and strongest soup available, and we'll have the best made dish that can be recommended and we'll have a joint (such as a haunch of mutton) and we'll have a goose, or a turkey, or any little stuffed thing of that sort that may happen to be in the bill of fare--in short, we'll have whatever there is on hand." bazzard, after bringing out the round table, accordingly withdrew to execute the orders. his return with the waiters gives dickens an opportunity for one of his humorous descriptive passages which we make no excuse for quoting in full: "bazzard returned, accompanied by two waiters--an immovable waiter, and a flying waiter; and the three brought in with them as much fog as gave a new roar to the fire. the flying waiter, who had brought everything on his shoulders, laid the cloth with amazing rapidity and dexterity; while the immovable waiter, who had brought nothing, found fault with him. the flying waiter then highly polished all the glasses he had brought, and the immovable waiter looked through them. the flying waiter then flew across holborn for the soup, and flew back again, and then took another flight for the made-dish, and flew back again, and then took another flight for the joint and the poultry, and flew back again, and between whiles took supplementary flights for a great variety of articles, as it was discovered from time to time that the immovable waiter had forgotten them all. but, let the flying waiter cleave the air as he might, he was always reproached on his return by the immovable waiter for bringing fog with him and being out of breath. at the conclusion of the repast, by which time the flying waiter was severely blown, the immovable waiter gathered up the table-cloth under his arm with a grand air, and, having sternly (not to say with indignation) looked on at the flying waiter while he set clean glasses round, directed a valedictory glance towards mr. grewgious, conveying: 'let it be clearly understood between us that the reward is mine, and that _nil_ is the claim of this slave,' and pushed the flying waiter before him out of the room." thus the waiters of wood's hotel, which was the name of the hotel referred to, although not mentioned by dickens. later in the book, we get a more intimate association with it. after the murder of edwin drood, rosa bud hurriedly takes coach from rochester and presents herself to her guardian in his chambers. she is tired and hungry, naturally, and grewgious, concerned for her welfare, asks her what she will take after her journey. "shall it be breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea or supper?" he enquires. "your rest, too, must be provided for," he went on; "and you shall have the prettiest chamber in furnival's. your toilet must be provided for, and you shall have everything that an unlimited head chambermaid--by which expression i mean a head chambermaid not limited as to outlay--can procure." [illustration: wood's hotel, furnival's inn _drawn by l. walker_] "rosa thanked him, but said she could only take a cup of tea. mr. grewgious, after several times running out, and in again, to mention such supplementary items as marmalade, eggs, watercresses, salted fish, and frizzled ham, ran across to furnival's without his hat, to give his various directions. and soon afterwards they were realised in practice, and the board was spread." after a friendly chat over tea, he escorted her to her rooms. he "helped her to get her hat on again, and hung upon his arm the very little bag that was of no earthly use, and led her by the hand (with a certain stately awkwardness, as if he were going to walk a minuet) across holborn, and into furnival's inn. at the hotel door, he confided her to the unlimited head chambermaid, and said that while she went up to see her room he would remain below, in case she should wish it exchanged for another, or should find that there was anything she wanted." rosa's room was airy, clean, comfortable, almost gay. the unlimited had laid in everything omitted from the very little bag (that is to say, everything she could possibly need) and rosa tripped down the great stairs again, to thank her guardian for his thoughtful and affectionate care of her. "'not at all, my dear,' said mr. grewgious, infinitely gratified; 'it is i who thank you for your charming confidence and for your charming company. your breakfast will be provided for you in a neat, compact, and graceful little sitting-room (appropriate to your figure) and i will come to you at ten o'clock in the morning. i hope you don't feel very strange indeed in this strange place.' "'oh no, i feel so safe!' "'yes, you may be sure that the stairs are fireproof,' said mr. grewgious, 'and that any outbreak of the devouring element would be perceived and suppressed by the watchmen.'" having seen rosa comfortably settled, he left her, assuring the night porter as he went that, "if someone staying in the hotel should wish to send across the road to me in the night, a crown will be ready for the messenger." to the hotel next morning mr. grewgious went faithfully to time with mr. crisparkle, who had followed rosa up from rochester as fast as he could. soon also tartar arrived. after a long consultation between them about mr. landless and the use tartar's chambers could be put to for certain spying purposes, tartar took rosa and mr. grewgious for a row up the river. apartments ultimately being found for rosa elsewhere, she left wood's hotel, and no further reference is made to it in the book. in furnival's inn was demolished with its hotel. upon its site now stand an insurance company's huge premises. in chapter xv, detailing neville landless's long tramp from cloisterham, we are told that he stopped at the next road-side tavern to refresh. dickens describes it in the following words: "visitors in want of breakfast--unless they were horses or cattle, for which class of guests there was preparation enough in the way of water-trough and hay--were so unusual at the sign of the tilted wagon that it took a long time to get the wagon into the track of tea and toast and bacon; neville, in the interval, sitting in a sanded parlour, wondering in how long a time after he had gone the sneezy fire of damp fagots would begin to make somebody else warm. indeed, the tilted wagon was a cool establishment on the top of a hill, where the ground before the door was puddles with damp hoofs and trodden straw; where a scolding landlady slapped a moist baby (with one red sock on and one wanting) in the bar; where the cheese was cast aground upon a shelf in company with a mouldy table-cloth and a green-handled knife in a sort of cast-iron canoe; where the pale-faced bread shed tears of crumbs over its shipwreck in another canoe; where the family linen, half-washed and half dried, led a public life of lying about; where everything to drink was drunk out of mugs, and everything else was suggestive of a rhyme to mugs: the tilted wagon, all these things considered, hardly kept its painted promise of providing good entertainment for man and beast." mr. edwin harris, in his guide to dickensian rochester, has identified the coach and horses on the top of strood hill as the original of the tilted wagon. the travellers' twopenny, where the boy deputy was a "man-servant," as he explained to jasper, was originally the white duck, and afterwards kit's lodging-house, and stood in the maidstone road at rochester. it degenerated into a crazy wooden sort of cheap public-house, and was not demolished before it was necessary. on its site now stands a business warehouse. the crozier, the "orthodox hotel," where datchery lodged in the same city, was the crown, and is dealt with in "the inns and taverns of pickwick." in the late autumn of , dickens and wilkie collins started "on a ten or twelve days' expedition to out-of-the-way places, to do (in inns and coast corners) a little tour in search of an article and in avoidance of railroads." their selection was the lake district, but the outcome of their expedition was not one article merely but a series of five under the title of _the lazy tour of two idle apprentices_, written in collaboration. the two idle apprentices were francis goodchild and thomas idle, the first name being the pseudonym of dickens. these misguided young men, they inform us in the narrative, "were actuated by the low idea of making a perfectly idle trip in any direction. they had no intention of going anywhere in particular; they wanted to see nothing; they wanted to know nothing; they wanted to learn nothing; they wanted to do nothing. they wanted only to be idle ... and they were both idle in the last degree." in that spirit they set forth on their journey. carrock fell, wigton, allonby, carlisle, maryport, hesket newmarket, were all visited in turn, and the adventures of the twain in these spots duly set forth in the pages of the book. in due course they came to lancaster, and, the inn at that town being the most important of the tour, we deal with it first. the travellers were meditating flight at the station on account of thomas idle being suddenly filled with "the dreadful sensation of having something to do." however, they decided to stay because they had heard there was a good inn at lancaster, established in a fine old house; an inn where they give you bride-cake every day after dinner. "let us eat bride-cake," they said, "without the trouble of being married, or of knowing anybody in that ridiculous dilemma." and so they departed from the station and were duly delivered at the fine old house at lancaster on the same night. this was the king's arms in the market street, the exterior of which was dismal, quite uninviting, and lacked any sort of picturesqueness such as one associates with old inns; but the interior soon compensated for the unattractiveness of the exterior by its atmosphere, fittings and customs. being then over two centuries old, it had allurement calculated to make the lover of things old happy and contented. "the house was a genuine old house," the story tells us, "of a very quaint description, teeming with old carvings, and beams, and panels, and having an excellent staircase, with a gallery or upper staircase cut off from it by a curious fence-work of old oak, or of old honduras mahogany wood. it was, and is, and will be, for many a long year to come, a remarkably picturesque house; and a certain grave mystery lurking in the depth of the old mahogany panels, as if they were so many deep pools of dark water--such, indeed, as they had been much among when they were trees--gave it a very mysterious character after nightfall." a terrible ghost story was attached to the house concerning a bride who was poisoned there, and the room in which the process of slow death took place was pointed out to visitors. the perpetrator of the crime, the story relates, was duly hanged, and in memory of the weird incident bride-cake was served each day after dinner. the complete story of this melodramatic legend is narrated to goodchild by a spectre in the haunted chamber where he and his companion had been writing. dickens wove into the story much fancy and not a little eerieness, and it is said that the publicity given to it in _household words_, in which it first appeared, created so much interest that the hotel was sought out by eager visitors who love a haunted chamber. as this was situated in an ancient inn with its antique bedstead all complete, to say nothing of the curious custom of providing bride-cake at dinner in memory of the unfortunate bride, the king's arms, lancaster, discovered its fame becoming world-wide instead of remaining local. at the time of the visit of dickens and wilkie collins to this rare old inn, the proprietor was one joseph sly, and dickens occupied what he termed the state bedroom, "with two enormous red four-posters in it, each as big as charley's room at gads hill." he described the inn as "a very remarkable old house ... with genuine rooms and an uncommonly quaint staircase." a certain portion of the "lazy notes" for the book were, we are told, written at the king's arms hotel. [illustration: the king's arms, lancaster _drawn by l. walker_] on their arrival, dickens and collins sat down to a good hearty meal. the landlord himself presided over the serving of it, which, dickens writes in a letter, comprised "two little salmon trout; a sirloin steak; a brace of partridges; seven dishes of sweets; five dishes of dessert, led off by a bowl of peaches; and in the centre an enormous bride-cake. 'we always have it here, sir,' said the landlord, 'custom of the house.' collins turned pale, and estimated the dinner at half a guinea each." mr. sly became quite good friends with the two distinguished novelists, and cherished with great pride the signed portrait of dickens which the author of _pickwick_ presented him with. he left the old place in and it was soon afterwards pulled down and replaced by an ordinary commercial hotel. although the bride-cake custom was abandoned, and the haunted chamber with its fantastic story swept away, it is interesting to know that the famous oak bedstead, in which dickens himself slept, was acquired by the duke of norfolk. mr. sly, who died in , never tired of recalling the visit of the two famous authors. he took the greatest pride in his wonderful old inn, and found real delight in conducting visitors over the building and telling amusing stories about dickens and wilkie collins. indeed, he was so proud of the association that he obtained dickens's permission to reprint those passages of _the lazy tour of two idle apprentices_ relating to the hostelry, in pamphlet form, with an introductory note saying, "the reader is perhaps aware that mr. charles dickens and his friend wilkie collins, in the year , visited lancaster, and during their sojourn stayed at mr. sly's king's arms hotel." there is a further association with the inn and dickens to be found in "doctor marigold's prescriptions." we find it recorded there that doctor marigold and his library cart, as he called his caravan, "were down at lancaster, and i had done two nights' more than the fair average business (though i cannot in honour recommend them as a quick audience) in the open square there, near the end of the street where mr. sly's king's arms and royal hotel stands." "doctor marigold" was published in , seven years after dickens's visit. but he not only remembered the king's arms, but also mr. sly, the proprietor, who thus became immortalised in a dickens story. mr. sly evidently was a popular man in the town, and his energy and good nature were much appreciated. that this was so, the following paragraph bears witness: it is recorded as an historical fact that, on the marriage of h.r.h. the prince of wales, the demonstration made in lancaster exceeded any held out of the metropolis. the credit of this success is mainly due to mr. sly, who proposed the programme, which included the roasting of two oxen whole, and a grotesque torchlight procession. the manner in which the whole arrangements were carried out was so satisfactory to the inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood that, at a meeting held a short time after the event, it was unanimously resolved to present mr. and mrs. sly with a piece of plate, of a design suitable to commemorate the event. the sum required was subscribed in a few days, the piece of plate procured, and the presentation was made in the assembly rooms on the th of november by the high sheriff, w. a. f. saunders, esq., of wennington hall, in the presence of a numerous company. in its palmy days the king's arms was a prominent landmark for travellers _en route_ to morecambe bay, windermere, the lakes, and scotland. it was erected in , and in the coaching era was the head hotel in the town for general posting purposes, and was the most suitable place for tourists to break their journey going north, or in returning. consequently, it was one of the most important in the north of england. the inn the two idle apprentices entered at hesket newmarket "to drink whiskey and eat oat-cake" is not named, but it has been identified with a house which is no longer an inn. at the time of the story it was called the queen's head, and was quite a prominent hostelry in the town, the innkeeper of which is described as having "a ruddy cheek, a bright eye, a well-knit frame, an immense hand, a cheery, outspeaking voice, and a straight, bright, broad look. he had a drawing-room, too, upstairs, which was worth a visit to the cumberland fells." "the ceiling of this drawing-room," we are further told, "was so crossed and re-crossed by beams of unequal lengths, radiating from a centre, in a corner, that it looked like a broken starfish. the room was comfortably and solidly furnished with good mahogany and horsehair. it had a snug fireside, a couple of well-curtained windows, looking out upon the wild country behind the house. what it most developed was an unexpected taste for little ornaments and knick-knacks, of which it contained a most surprising number," which dickens goes on to describe in his own whimsical manner. hesket has not altered very much, we understand, since those days, and the inn itself remains, not as an inn, but as a private house, and the room where the oat-cake and whiskey were served still has its crossed and re-crossed beams of unequal length. from this inn, and under the guidance of the landlord, the two idle apprentices mounted carrock--with what disastrous effects to mr. idle on the way down, readers of the story well know. on again reaching the inn, under uncomfortable circumstances, they remained only a few hours, and continued the tour to wigton in a covered carriage. here, mr. idle was "melodramatically carried to the inn's first floor and laid upon three chairs." the king's arms is said to be the wigton inn referred to, but no details are given of it in the book. their next halting place was allonby, where they put up at the ship. thomas idle, we are informed, "made a crab-like progress up a clean little bulk-headed staircase, into a clean little bulk-headed room, where he slowly deposited himself on a sofa, with a stick on either hand of him, looking exceedingly grim," and both partook of dinner. the little inn is described as delightful, "excellently kept by the most comfortable of landladies and the most attentive of landlords." it still exists, and, "as a family and commercial hotel and posting-house commanding extensive views of the solway firth and the scottish hills," is apparently little altered since dickens and collins visited it. its dickensian associations are cherished by the owner to-day, who shows with pride the room occupied by the two literary giants. after their visit to lancaster, already referred to, the two idle apprentices went on to doncaster, and arrived there in the st. leger race week. they put up at the angel hotel, where they had secured rooms, which dickens described as "very good, clean and quiet apartments on the second floor, looking down into the main street." his own room was "airy and clean, little dressing-room attached, eight water-jugs ... capital sponge bath, perfect arrangement, exquisite neatness." doncaster during the race week is described as a collection of mad people under the charge of a body of designing keepers, horse-mad, betting-mad, vice-mad. but the two novelists managed to find it enticing enough to remain there a week. the angel hotel was often called the royal because queen victoria stayed there in . it was built in , has always been a celebrated hotel, and was a busy coaching-inn in those days. it remains much as it was when thomas idle lay in the room for a week with his bad ankle and his friend francis goodchild went roaming around the city with his usual observant eyes. chapter xiv sketches by boz and the uncommercial traveller the goat and boots--the blue lion and stomach warmer--the red house--the freemasons' tavern--the eagle--offley's--the rainbow--the albion--the flower-pot--the bull's head--the dolphin's head--the lord warden hotel--the crispin and crispianus in dickens's minor writings there are mentioned many inns, taverns and coffee-houses, some merely fictitious with fanciful names, others whose fame has been recorded in the social history of their times. _sketches by boz_ is fairly well supplied in this respect, but none of them is described at any length; indeed, scarcely anything but the names are mentioned, and those only in passing. in the second chapter of "our parish," we are introduced to the new curate who became so popular with the ladies that their enthusiasm for him knew no bounds. it culminated, we are told, when "he spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes at an anti-slavery meeting at the goat and boots." a proposal was forthwith set on foot to make him a presentation, and this, in the shape of a splendid silver ink-stand engraved with an appropriate inscription, was publicly handed to him at a special breakfast at the aforementioned goat and boots, "in a neat little speech by mr. gubbins, the ex-churchwarden, and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into the eyes of all present--the very waiters melted." the goat and boots was no doubt a highly respectable hostelry, but its whereabouts is "wropped in mystery." so is the blue lion and stomach warmer, except that we are told that it was at great winglebury, and we know that great winglebury was a fictitious name for rochester. but which was the inn that received this whimsical name at the hands of the novelist under whose roof horace hunter penned his challenge to that base umbrella-maker alexander trott, we are unable to state. on the other hand, the winglebury arms where alexander trott was staying at the time was the bull hotel, rochester.[ ] the red house, battersea, casually mentioned in the chapter on "the river" as the "red-us," was a popular tavern and tea-gardens in those days and notorious for its pigeon-shooting; indeed, tradition has it that it took the lead in the quality and quantity of the sport, and that the crack shots assembled there to determine important matches. it was also famous as the winning-post of many a boat race from westminster bridge, and was the place "where all the prime of life lads assembled," the joy and fun of which is vividly described by dickens in the chapter referred to. it was a red-bricked building, and a prominent landmark of what was then known as battersea fields, the one-time scene of many a duel. the cross keys mentioned in the chapter on "omnibuses" we have already referred to when dealing with _great expectations_; whilst for particulars of the golden cross, the busy coaching-inn mentioned in "hackney coach stands," and in "early coaches," we must refer the reader to "the inns and taverns of pickwick." the freemasons' tavern in the chapter on "public dinners" does not receive much attention from dickens. he is describing the public dinner given in aid of the "indigent orphans friends' benevolent institution," and no reference beyond the use of the name is made to the building itself. the tavern still stands to-day, and no doubt more glorious in its splendour than it was on the occasion of the public dinner dickens refers to. it is used to-day for similar purposes, the ceremony and atmosphere at which being little changed from what it was then. it is interesting to note that in the same building a farewell dinner was given dickens on the eve of his departure for america in , with lord lytton in the chair. the chapter devoted to the story of miss evans and the eagle, recalls the notorious tavern immortalised in the famous jingle: up and down the city road, in and out the eagle, that's the way the money goes-- pop goes the weasel! and the chronicle of miss jemima evans's visit to the highly famed pleasure-resort will contribute more towards retaining the eagle on the recording tablets of history than the contemporary rhymster's poetic effort. it was in that the eagle tavern turned its saloon into what was the forerunner of the music hall, and was the making of many a well-known singer. it was to this gay spot in london that mr. samuel wilkins took miss jemima evans, with whom he "kept company." they were joined in the pancras road by miss ivins's lady friend and her young man. we do not attempt to identify the crown where they stayed on the way to taste some stout, and are content with the knowledge that they reached the rotunda where the concert was held, and to remind our readers of the impression it had on miss j'mima ivins and miss j'mima ivins's friend, who both exclaimed at once "how 'ev'nly!" when they were fairly inside the gardens. dickens's description of the place will convey some idea of its splendour: "there were the walks, beautifully gravelled and planted--and the refreshment boxes, painted and ornamented like so many snuff-boxes--and the variegated lamps shedding their rich light upon the company's heads--and the place for dancing ready chalked for the company's feet--and a moorish band playing at one end of the gardens--and an opposition military band playing away at the other. then, the waiters were rushing to and fro with glasses of negus, and glasses of brandy and water, and bottles of ale, and bottles of stout; and ginger-beer was going off in one place, and practical jokes were going off in another; and people were crowding to the door of the rotunda; and, in short, the whole scene was, as miss j'mima ivins, inspired by the novelty, or the stout, or both, observed, 'one of dazzling excitement.' as to the concert room, never was anything half so splendid. there was an orchestra for the singers, all paint, gilding, and plate-glass; and such an organ!... the audience was seated on elevated benches round the room, and crowded into every part of it; and everybody was eating and drinking as comfortably as possible." [illustration: the eagle tavern pleasure gardens _from an old print_] what happened to our friends there, and how the trouble over the waistcoat and whiskers was adjusted, is not our business here. the printed account must be read elsewhere. but we have quoted what is perhaps one of the best pictures of this famous resort extant. ultimately, the rotunda was turned into the grecian theatre, and was not demolished until . by then, of course, the real glory of the eagle had departed and succeeding generations of jemima evanses and their young men friends had sought other glittering palaces for their pleasures. there are two taverns mentioned in the following paragraph appearing in the chapter on mr. john dounce: "there was once a fine collection of old boys to be seen round the circular table at offley's every night, between the hours of half-past eight and half-past eleven. we have lost sight of them for some time. there were, and may be still for aught we know, two splendid specimens in full blossom at the rainbow tavern in fleet street, who always used to sit in the box nearest the fire-place, and smoked long cherry-stick pipes which went under the table with the bowls resting on the floor." offley's, long ago demolished, was a noted tavern in its day, and, according to timbs, enjoyed great and deserved celebrity, though short-lived. it was situated at no. henrietta street, covent garden, and its fame rested on burton ale and the largest supper-room in the neighbourhood. it had a certain dignity about it, and eschewed "pictures, placards, paper-hangings, or vulgar coffee-room finery," in order that its customers should not be disturbed in their relish of the good things provided. of these good things may be mentioned offley's chop, which was thick and substantial. the house of commons chop was small and thin, and honourable members sometimes ate a dozen at a sitting. "offley's chop was served with shalots shred and warmed in gravy, and accompanied by nips of burton ale, and was a delicious after-theatre supper." there was a large room upstairs with wines really worth drinking, and withal offley's presented a sort of quakerly plainness, but solid comfort. there was singing by amateurs one day a week, and, to prevent the chorus waking the dead in their cerements in st. paul's churchyard opposite, the coffee-room window was double. upon other evenings, there came to a large round table (a sort of privileged place) a few well-to-do, substantial tradesmen from the neighbourhood, and this was the little coterie to which dickens refers. the rainbow, also mentioned in the quotation above, was the second house in london to sell coffee and was at one time kept by a mr. farr, who was prosecuted for the nuisance caused by the odious smell in the roasting of the berry. in later years (about ) the tavern was kept by alexander moncrieff, grandfather of the author of "tom and jerry," and was known as the rainbow coffee-house. in those days the coffee-room had a lofty bay-window at the south end, looking into the temple; the room was separated from the kitchen only by a glazed partition. in the bay was a table for the elders, amongst whom doubtless were the "grand old boys" dickens speaks of as being always there, puffing and drinking away in great state. everybody knew them, and it was supposed by some people that they were both "immortal." in the chapter "making a night of it," we learn that mr. potter, in his "rough blue coat with wooden buttons, made upon the fireman's principle, in which, with the addition of a low-crowned, flower-pot, saucer-shaped hat," created no inconsiderable sensation at the albion in little russell street, and divers other places of public and fashionable resort. "making a night of it" is no doubt mainly reminiscent of a merry evening in the business life of dickens, and possibly the albion was one of the favourite resorts of his, and of his co-clerk, potter. in their day, the albion was favoured by the theatrical profession and all those associated with things theatrical, and also by those young men who hung on the skirts of actors. dickens used the albion in the 'fifties. in a letter to w. h. wills ( ) there are instructions to order a plain cold supper at simpson's, the albion, by drury lane theatre, for the next play night. "i would merely have cold joints, lobsters, salad, and plenty of clean ice," he says. "perhaps there might be one hot dish, as broiled bones. but i would have only one, and i would have it cheap." the play referred to was "not so bad as we seem," which dickens and his friends were rehearsing for the guild of literature and art. the supper was to be paid for at so much per head, "not including wines, spirits or beers, which each gentleman will order for himself." mr. percy fitzgerald tells of another evening when dickens took his friends to the albion. it was the occasion of hollingshead's revival of "the miller and his men," and dickens was determined to be there. he gave a little dinner party at "the good old albion," and all were in great spirits, seated in one of the "boxes" or eating pews as they might be called, and then crossed over the drury lane theatre afterwards. in the chapter devoted to "mr. minns and his cousin," in giving instructions as to the best way for mr. augustus minns to get to mr. budden's in poplar walk, the latter says, "now mind the direction; the coach goes from the flower pot in bishopsgate street, every half-hour. when the coach stops at the swan, you'll see, immediately opposite you, a white house." the flower pot was a coaching inn of some distinction in those days, for not only did the coaches ply between it and the north-east of london, but the inn was also the starting point of the norwich coach and others to the eastern counties. the swan was at stamford hill, and, beyond that it was the scheduled stopping-place for coaches, to and from london, we can find no record of its history. the innumerable references to inns and taverns in _the uncommercial traveller_ are for the most part purely imaginary. even when it is clear that dickens is describing something he actually saw and experienced, he has taken the precaution, in this book, to disguise the inn's name and whereabouts. there are several such in the chapter entitled "refreshments for travellers," a chapter made up of a series of complaints and adverse criticisms verging on the brink of libel. for instance: "take the old-established bull's head with its old-established knife-boxes on its old-established sideboards, its old-established flue under its old-established four-post bedsteads in its old-established airless rooms, its old-established frouziness upstairs and downstairs, its old-established cookery, and its old-established principles of plunder. count up your injuries, in its side-dishes of ailing sweetbreads in white poultices, of apothecaries' powders in rice for curry, of pale stewed bits of calf ineffectually relying for an adventitious interest on forcemeat balls. you have had experience of the old-established bull's head stringy fowls, with lower extremities like wooden legs sticking up out of the dish; of its cannibalistic boiled mutton, gushing horribly among its capers, when carved; of its little dishes of pastry--roofs of spermaceti ointment erected over half an apple or four gooseberries. well for you if you have yet forgotten the old-established bull's head fruity port; whose reputation was gained solely by the old-established price the bull's head put upon it, and by the old-established air with which the bull's head set the glasses and d'oyleys on, and held that liquid gout to the three-and-sixpenny wax candle, as if its old-established colour hadn't come from the dyers." had that inn been properly named at the time, the proprietor's ire would have been raised, with serious consequences. then there is the chapter on "an old stage-coaching house," whose title seemed to augur well for our purpose. yet, although it is interesting as picturing the decay of coaching and how it resulted on a coaching town, there is nothing by which we can fix the name of the town, and so identify the dolphin's head there. it had been a great stage-coaching town in the great stage-coaching times, and the ruthless railways had killed and buried it. that is all we are told about its whereabouts. "the sign of the house was the dolphin's head. why only head i don't know; for the dolphin's effigy at full length, and upside down--as a dolphin is always bound to be when artistically treated, though i suppose he is sometimes right side upward in his natural condition--graced the sign-board. the sign-board chafed its rusty hooks outside the bow-window of my room, and was a shabby work. no visitor could have denied that the dolphin was dying by inches, but he showed no bright colours. he had once served another master; there was a newer streak of paint below him, displaying with inconsistent freshness the legend, by j. mellows. "pursuing my researches in the dolphin's head, i found it sorely shrunken. when j. mellows came into possession, he had walled off half the bar, which was now a tobacco shop with its own entrance in the yard--the once glorious yard where the post-boys, whip in hand and always buttoning their waistcoats at the last moment, used to come running forth to mount and away. a 'scientific shoeing-smith and veterinary surgeon' had further encroached upon the yard; and a grimly satirical jobber, who announced himself as having to let 'a neat one-horse fly, and a one-horse cart,' had established his business, himself, and his family, in a part of the extensive stables. another part was lopped clean off from the dolphin's head, and now comprised a chapel, a wheelwright's, and a young men's mutual improvement and discussion society (in a loft); the whole forming a back lane. no audacious hand had plucked down the vane from the central cupola of the stables, but it had grown rusty and stuck at nil: while the score or two of pigeons that remained true to their ancestral traditions and the place had collected in a row on the roof-ridge of the only outhouse retained by the dolphin, where all the inside pigeons tried to push the outside pigeon off. this i accepted as emblematical of the struggle for post and place in railway times." there are, however, at least three inns we have been able to trace: the blue boar, london (dealt with in a previous chapter), the crispin and crispianus at strood, and the lord warden hotel at dover. the latter is referred to in the chapter entitled "the calais night mail" as follows: "i particularly detest dover for the self-complacency with which it goes to bed. it always goes to bed (when i am going to calais) with a more brilliant display of lamp and candle than any other town. mr. and mrs. birmingham, host and hostess of the lord warden, are my much esteemed friends, but they are too conceited about the comforts of that establishment when the night mail is starting. i know it is a good house to stay at, and i don't want the fact insisted upon in all its warm bright windows at such an hour. i know the warden is a stationary edifice that never rolls or pitches, and i object to its big outline seeming to insist upon that circumstance, and, as it were, to come over me with it, when i am reeling on the deck of the boat. beshrew the warden likewise for obstructing that corner, and making the wind so angry as it rushes round. shall i not know that it blows quite soon enough without the officious warden's interference?" the lord warden was evidently built on the site of the ship, as we have already noted in the chapter devoted to _a tale of two cities_. the crispin and crispianus at strood is mentioned in the chapter on "tramps." the tramp in question is a clockmaker, who, having repaired a clock at cobham hall, and paid freely for it, says, "we should be at liberty to go, and should be told by a pointing helper to keep round over yonder by the blasted oak, and go straight through the woods till we should see the town lights right before us.... so should we lie that night at the ancient sign of the crispin and crispianus, and rise early next morning to be betimes on tramp again." the crispin and crispianus is a very old-fashioned inn still standing just outside strood. it is a long building with an overhanging upper floor built with wood. how long the present house has existed we cannot tell, but its hanging sign speaks of st. crispin's day, , and it is said that it may probably have had its origin from the battle of agincourt fought on that day. mr. harper thinks the sign older than that, and probably was one of the very many religious inn-signs designed to attract the custom of thirsty wayfarers to becket's shrine. the brothers crispin and crispian were members of a noble family in ancient rome, who, professing christianity, fled to gaul and supported themselves by shoemaking in the town of troyes. they suffered martyrdom in soissons in a.d. . the sign represents the patron saints of the shoemaking fraternity, as these holy brothers are designated, at work on their cobblers' bench, and is understood to have been faithfully copied from a well-known work preserved to this day at the church of st. pantaleon at troyes. [illustration: the crispin and crispianus _drawn by c. g. harper_] the inn's interior is typical of those to be found in country villages, with its sanded floor of the parlour, and wooden settles with arms at each corner. one of these corners is said to have been the favourite seat of dickens, for it is known that he sometimes called at the inn as he drew near the end of one of his long walks, either alone or with friends, for refreshments. it was an inn, as he said elsewhere, that no thirsty man was known to pass on a hot summer's day. chapter xv christmas stories and minor writings the mitre inn--the salisbury arms--the peal of bells--the nutmeg-grater--the dodo--the pavilionstone hotel--hen and chickens--the swan in the first branch of "the holly tree," in _christmas stories_, there are many inns far and wide referred to, and reminiscences associated with each recalled. these reminiscences may be personal to dickens or merely of an imaginary nature. the holly tree inn itself is real enough, and has been identified as the george, greta bridge, referred to in our chapter on _nicholas nickleby_. there is no doubt, either, that the inn in the cathedral town where dickens went to school was the mitre inn at chatham. "it was the inn where friends used to put up," he says, "and where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fowls, and to be tipped. it had an ecclesiastical sign--the mitre--and a bar that seemed the next best thing to a bishopric, it was so snug. i loved the landlord's daughter to distraction--but let that pass. it was in that inn that i was cried over by my rosy little sister, because i had acquired a black eye in a fight. and though she had been, that holly tree night, for many a long year where all tears are dried, the mitre softened me yet." [illustration: the mitre inn, chatham _from an engraving_] the mitre inn and clarence hotel still exists at chatham, very much as it was in dickens's childhood days when his family lived in ordnance terrace. it was kept in those days by a mr. tribe, who was a friend of john dickens, and the two families met there and enjoyed many friendly evenings when dickens and his sister, as he has told us, mounted on a dining-table for a stage, would sing some old sea-songs together. he had a clear treble voice then, but, recalling these incidents many years afterward, said, "he must have been a horrible little nuisance to many unoffending grown-up people who were called upon to admire him." the mitre inn was described in as being the manor house, and the first posting-house of the town. it is also on record that, at the close of the eighteenth century, lord nelson used to reside there when on duty at chatham, and that the room he occupied was known as "nelson's cabin" till recent times. william the fourth, when duke of clarence, used to stay there, hence the added word of clarence to the sign. the salisbury arms at hatfield where mr. and mrs. lirriper went upon their wedding-day, "and passed as happy a fortnight as ever happy was," adjoined the little post-office there, and now exists as a private house. mr. lirriper's youngest brother also had a sneaking regard for the salisbury arms, where he enjoyed himself for the space of a fortnight and left without paying his bill, an omission mrs. lirriper rectified in the innocent belief that it was fraternal affection which induced her unprincipled brother-in-law to favour hatfield with his presence. it is believed that dickens and phiz stayed the night of october the th, , at the salisbury arms, when they made their excursion to the west country. the scene of the first four chapters of "a message from the sea," is laid in "steepways, north devon, england," the name dickens gives to clovelly, and the story opens with a faithful and unmistakable description of one of the most beautiful and quaintest villages in england. to it comes captain jorgan to unravel a sea mystery, but no reference is made to his staying at the inn there. the task he has set himself, however, eventually takes him to another adjacent village, which dickens calls lanrean. there he puts up at the king arthur's arms, to identify which we must first identify lanrean. that dickens had a certain village near clovelly in mind, there is little doubt, for he and wilkie collins, who collaborated in writing the story, went there for the purpose. their description of clovelly being so accurate and meticulous, it is only natural that lanrean has a prototype, and, if found, the original of king arthur's arms would be forthcoming. the original of the peal of bells, the village ale-house, in "tom tiddler's ground," on the other hand, has been discovered, for mr. traveller seeking mr. mopes the hermit, naturally had to go where mr. mopes the hermit located himself. this we know to have been near stevenage, and f. g. kitton identified the ale-house as the white hart there, where dickens called on his way to see lucas, the original of mr. mopes, to enquire of the landlord, old sam cooper, the shortest route to his "ruined hermitage" some five miles distant. no particular coffee-houses were, we suspect, intended for the slamjam coffee-house or the admiral nelson civic and general dining rooms, mentioned in "somebody's luggage"; nor can we hope to identify the george and the gridiron, where the waiters supported nature by what they found in the plates, "which was, as it happened, and but too often thoughtlessly, immersed in mustard," or what was found in the glasses, "which rarely went beyond driblets and lemons." no name either is given to the inn in "mugby junction" where the traveller arrived at past three o'clock on a tempestuous morning and found himself stranded. having got his two large black portmanteaux on a truck, the porter trundled them on "through a silent street" and came to a stop. when the owner had shivered on the pavement half an hour, "what time the porter's knocks at the inn door knocked up the whole town first, and the inn last, he groped his way into the close air of a shut-up house, and so groped between the sheets of a shut-up bed that seemed to have been expressly refrigerated for him when last made." it is known that mugby stood for rugby, but that is all. the particular shut-up inn, if it ever had any original, has not, so far as we are aware, been discovered. in _a christmas carol_ we are told that scrooge "took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed." there were many taverns in the city of london at which scrooge might have dined, and it may be that baker's chop-house in change alley, as has been suggested, was the one he chose. it is no longer a chop-house, having a year or so back been taken over by a city business company, and the building added to their premises. but it had been for a century or more a noted city chop-house, where, up to the last, meals were served on pewter plates, and other old-time customs were retained. it was one of those city houses, of which some still exist happily, where the waiters grow old in the service of their customers. baker's had at least one such waiter, known familiarly as james, who pursued his calling there for thirty-five years, and became famous by having his portrait painted in oils and hung in the lower room, where it remained until the end of the career of the house as a tavern. perhaps old scrooge was one of his special customers. the nutmeg-grater, the inn kept by benjamin britain in "the battle of life," has no real prototype, but such an inn as described would entice any country rambler into its cosy interior. it was "snugly sheltered behind a great elm tree, with a rare seat for idlers encircling its capacious bole, addressed a cheerful front towards the traveller, as a house of entertainment ought, and tempted him with many mute but significant assurances of a comfortable welcome. the ruddy sign-board perched up in the tree, with its golden letters winking in the sun, ogled the passer-by, from among the leaves, like a jolly face, and promised good cheer. the horse trough, full of clear, fresh water, and the ground below it sprinkled with droppings of fragrant hay, made every horse that passed prick up his ears. the crimson curtains of the lower rooms, and the pure white hangings in the little bedrooms above, beckoned come in! with every breath of air. upon the bright green shutters, there were golden legends about beer and ale, and neat wines, and good beds, and an affecting picture of a brown jug frothing over at the top. upon the window-sills were flowering plants in bright red pots, which made a lively show against the white front of the house; and in the darkness of the doorway there were streaks of light, which glanced off from the surface of bottles and tankards"---- an ideal picture of an inn any traveller would love to encounter and sample. _reprinted pieces_ would form a happy hunting-ground for tracking down inns and public-houses mentioned in its pages if one were so minded. few of them would prove to be of any importance if discovered, but the task would have its excitement and interest. take for instance the chapter devoted to the detective police. no doubt the taverns used by the criminals which the police had to visit were real houses, as the detectives whom dickens interviewed were real persons. in this chapter alone there is the warwick arms, through which, and the new inn near r., tally-ho thompson the horse stealer was tracked and captured; the "little public-house" near smithfield, used by journeymen butchers, and those concerned in "the extensive robberies of lawns and silks"; and the setting moon in the commercial road, where simpson was arrested in a room upstairs. then there is the extinct inn, the dodo, in one of the chiefest towns of staffordshire--the pivot of the chapter on "a plated article." which is the town, and which is the inn referred to, we know not. but dickens's description of it is very minute: "if the dodo were only a gregarious bird," he says, "if he had only some confused idea of making a comfortable nest, i could hope to get through the hours between this and bedtime, without being consumed by devouring melancholy. but the dodo's habits are all wrong. it provides me with a trackless desert of sitting-room, with a chair for every day in the year, a table for every month, and a waste of sideboard where a lonely china vase pines in a corner for its mate long departed, and will never make a match with the candlestick in the opposite corner if it live till doomsday. the dodo has nothing in the larder. even now i behold the boots returning with my sole in a piece of paper; and, with that portion of my dinner, the boots, perceiving me at the blank bow-window, slaps his leg as he comes across the road, pretending it is something else. the dodo excludes the outer air. when i mount up to my bedroom, a smell of closeness and flue gets lazily up my nose like sleepy snuff. the loose little bits of carpet writhe under my tread, and take wormy shapes. i don't know the ridiculous man in the looking-glass, beyond having met him once or twice in a dish-cover--and i can never shave _him_ to-morrow morning! the dodo is narrow-minded as to towels; expects me to wash on a freemason's apron without the trimming: when i ask for soap, gives me a stony-hearted something white, with no more lather in it than the elgin marbles. the dodo has seen better days, and possesses interminable stables at the back--silent, grass-grown, broken-windowed, horseless. this mournful bird can fry a sole, however, which is much. can cook a steak, too, which is more. i wonder where it gets its sherry? if i were to send my pint of wine to some famous chemist to be analysed, what would it turn out to be made of? it tastes of pepper, sugar, bitter-almonds, vinegar, warm knives, any flat drinks, and a little brandy. would it unman a spanish exile by reminding him of his native land at all? i think not. if there really be any townspeople out of the churchyards, and if a caravan of them ever do dine, with a bottle of wine per man, in this desert of the dodo, it must make good for the doctor next day!" if the dodo is undiscoverable, the same need not be said of the pavilionstone hotel, because we know that dickens gave that name to the town of folkestone, in the chapter entitled "out of town." the lion of pavilionstone, he tells us, is its great hotel, and one sees at once how he manufactured the name, for its hotel was, and is to-day, called the pavilion. "a dozen years ago, going over to paris by south-eastern tidal steamer," the narrative goes on, "you used to be dropped upon the platform of the main line pavilionstone station (not a junction then) at eleven o'clock on a dark winter's night, in a roaring wind; and in the howling wilderness outside the station was a short omnibus which brought you up by the forehead the instant you got in at the door; and nobody cared about you, and you were alone in the world. you bumped over infinite chalk, until you were turned out at a strange building which had just left off being a barn without having quite begun to be a house, where nobody expected your coming, or knew what to do with you when you were come, and where you were usually blown about, until you happened to be blown against the cold beef, and finally into bed. at five in the morning you were blown out of bed, and after a dreary breakfast, with crumpled company, in the midst of confusion, were hustled on board a steamboat, and lay wretched on deck until you saw france lingering and surging at you with great vehemence over the bowsprit." [illustration: the lord warden hotel, dover _see page _] [illustration: the pavilion hotel, folkestone _from old engravings_] this was written in , and even by then dickens had to admit that things had changed considerably for the better. "if you are going out to great pavilionstone hotel, the sprightliest porters under the sun, whose cheerful looks are a pleasant welcome, shoulder your luggage, drive it off in vans, bowl it away in trucks, and enjoy themselves in playing athletic games with it. if you are for public life at our great pavilionstone hotel, you walk into that establishment as if it were your club; and find ready for you your news-room, dining-room, smoking-room, billiard-room, music-room, public breakfast, public dinner twice a day (one plain, one gorgeous), hot baths and cold baths. if you want to be bored, there are plenty of bores always ready for you, and from saturday to monday in particular you can be bored (if you like it) through and through. should you want to be private at our great pavilionstone hotel, say but the word, look at the list of charges, choose your floor, name your figure--there you are, established in your castle, by the day, week, month, or year, innocent of all comers or goers, unless you have my fancy for walking early in the morning down the groves of boots and shoes, which so regularly flourish at all the chamber doors before breakfast that it seems to me as if nobody ever got up or took them in.... "a thoroughly good inn, in the days of coaching and posting, was a noble place. but no such inn would have been equal to the reception of four or five hundred people, all of them wet through, and half of them dead sick, every day in the year. this is where we shine, in our pavilionstone hotel...." the hotel has, alas, made way for something still more imposing. its extensive red-brick building, containing hundreds of rooms, with its spacious gardens in front, would both astonish and disappoint the novelist if he saw it to-day, for there is no doubt that he was very fond of its predecessor, very frequently used it, and found hearty welcome there. the hotel is again referred to in the sketch entitled "a flight" in the same volume, where, however, he calls it the royal george hotel. in the volume of _miscellaneous papers_ there is one describing a visit to birmingham and wolverhampton, under the heading of "fire and snow." at the latter town dickens stayed at the swan, which he says "is a bird of a good substantial brood, worthy to be a country cousin of the hospitable hen and chickens, whose company we have deserted for only a few hours, and with whom we shall roost again at birmingham to-night." the hen and chickens here referred to was an hotel dickens knew very well indeed. apart from his books, birmingham is very closely connected with dickens himself and the various schemes he embarked upon for the welfare of others. he visited it on several occasions, either for the purpose of public reading from his works, to give theatrical performances for charity, or to appear at some national function associated with the city. these visits were spread over the whole of his life, the last occasion being on the th of january, , when he presented the prizes to the students of the birmingham and midland institute. during his stay in the city, dickens usually put up at the old royal hotel in temple row, or at the hen and chickens in new street, and it may be assumed that he knew both hotels well. only the former, however, is made the scene of an incident in his novels, and that is, when it is introduced into _the pickwick papers_.[ ] he visited birmingham some dozen times from to , and on most of the early occasions it is believed that he stayed at the old royal hotel. but during his later visits he made the hen and chickens hotel his headquarters. he was there in christmas week, , for the series of readings from his books, and before he left the city he and his friends were entertained at breakfast at the hotel, and a presentation was made to mrs. dickens. he was a guest there again in , and on the occasion wrote his autograph in the album of the proprietress, dated "last day of the year ." for some reason he does not describe the hotel in the same manner as he does the swan at wolverhampton. the latter, he tells us, "has bountiful coal-country notions of firing, snug homely rooms; cheerful windows looking down upon the clusters of snowy umbrellas in the market-place.... neat, bright-eyed waitresses do the honours of the swan. the swan is confident about its soup, is troubled with no distrust concerning codfish, speaks the word of promise in relation to an enormous chine of roast beef.... the swan is rich in slippers--in those good old flip-flap inn-slippers which nobody can keep on, which knock double knocks on each stair as their wearer comes downstairs, and fly away over the banisters before they have brought him to level ground." there are many other hotels and taverns mentioned in this collection of _miscellaneous papers_, but usually only by name, the mere list of which would serve no purpose. those already touched upon or dealt with at length in the course of the present volume practically exhaust the subject, from which it will be seen how overwhelmingly attracted dickens was to every kind of house of refreshment and in every thing relating thereto. the works of no other author of genius provide so much material for such a purpose, and no other writer has treated the subject with so much healthy realism, so much refreshing good nature and humour, or with such expressions of genuine joy. index a'becket, thomas, admiral nelson, albion, drury lane, alderbury, allbut, , allonby, amesbury, angel, doncaster, -- grantham, -- islington, , anglers' inn, ashley, james, baker's chop-house, baldfaced stag, _barnaby rudge_, barnard castle, barnet, , battersea fields, _battle of life_, bawtry, beak street, bedford hotel, brighton, besant, sir walter, bevis marks, birmingham, , bishopsgate street, black badger, black bull, holborn, blackheath, , black lion, whitechapel, , _bleak house_, - blue boar, whitechapel, -- rochester, blue dragon, - blue-eyed maid coach, , blue lion and stomach warmer, blunderstone, bond street, , borough bridge, boot, - bottom inn, near petersfield, bowes, brentford, , brighton, -- tipper, buck inn, yarmouth, bull, rochester, bull and gate, holborn, bull's head, bunch of grapes, bunyan, john, byron, , camberwell, cannon row, canterbury, -- farmers' club, carlisle, , carrock fell, cattermole, george, , chalk, charles v of germany, chertsey, , cheshire cheese, chesney wold, , chichester rents, chigwell, -- row, _christmas carol_, christmas stories, - claridge's brook street, _clarissa harlowe_, cleave, thomas, clifford street, clovelly, coach and horses, isleworth, -- petersfield, -- strood, coaching, romance of, coketown, collins, wilkie, , , compter, the, _compter's commonwealth, the_, cooling, coventry, crispin and crispianus, cromer, , cromwell, oliver, crooked billet, tower st., cross keys, wood st., , crown, golden square, crozier, _david copperfield_, , - dedlock arms, defoe, denmark hill, denton, devil's punch bowl, dickens, charles, lodge, -- and inns, _dickensian_, _doctor marigold's prescriptions_, dodo, dolby, george, dolphin's head, _dombey and son_, - doncaster, , dotheboys hall, - dover, , duke's head, yarmouth, du maurier, eagle, eaton socon, edward i, _edwin drood_, - eight bells, hatfield, , eton slocombe, euston road, exchequer coffee-house, exeter, feathers, gorleston, fellowship-porters, fennor, wm., fielding, henry, field lane, fitzgerald, percy, , fleet prison, flower pot, folkestone, -- royal george, fountain hotel, canterbury, ford, harry, forster, john, , , , , foundling hospital, fox under the hill, adelphi, -- denmark hill, freemasons' tavern, furnival's inn, , garraway's, garrick general theatrical fund, george, amesbury, -- grantham, george and gridiron, george hotel, salisbury, george inn, borough, -- market town, george and new inn, greta bridge, george inn, greta bridge, , goat and boots, godalming, godwin, earl, golden cross, grantham, grapes inn, - gravel inn, petersfield, gray's inn coffee-house, , gray's inn road, _great expectations_, - , great fire of london, , great north road, , great winglebury, grecian theatre, green dragon, alderbury, green man, leytonstone, greenwich, gresham street, greta bridge, , - hales, prof., half moon and seven stars, hampstead, hampton, , _hard times_, - harper, c. g., , , , hatfield, , _haunted man_, hen and chickens, birmingham, henley, henley-in-arden, henry viii, herne bay, hesket newmarket, highbury, hindhead, holborn, _the holly tree_, , , holly tree inn, , hoo, holyhead road, horn tavern, horseshoe and castle, cooling, hounslow, _household words_, , hummum's, covent garden, hungerford stairs, , inns and railways, -- -- motor cars, , -- -- coaching, -- dr. johnson on, inn on the portsmouth road, irving, washington, isleworth, islington, , jack straw's castle, james street, jerusalem coffee-house, johnson, dr., , , jolly sandboys inn, jupp, r. b., kemble, kenilworth, , kent, duchess of, king arthur's arms, king james, king's arms, amesbury, -- ball's pond, -- lancaster, - -- wigton, king's head, barnard castle, - -- hotel, dover, -- chigwell, kingsgate street, kingston, kitton, knightsbridge, lad lane, lamb conduit fields, -- -- street, lancaster, lanfranc, archbishop, laurens, henry, _lazy tour of two idle apprentices_, - leech, john, , leamington, leighton, lord, lemon, mark, limehouse, _little dorrit_, , - , little helephant, little inn, canterbury, -- saffron hill, -- tower hill, london coffee house, _london lyckpenny, the_, london tavern, bishopsgate, - long's hotel, bond street, lord warden, dover, , lound, lowestoft, ludgate hill, lydgate, john, _lying awake_, maclise, daniel, , malt shovel, manchester, margaret of france, _martin chuzzlewit_, - maryport, _master humphrey's clock_, maypole, chigwell, - _message from the sea_, mitre inn, chatham, mivart's, brook street, , _morning chronicle_, mountain, mrs. s. a., _mrs. lirriper's lodgings_, _mugby junction_, nelson, lord, , newark, newgate, , new inn, near r, _nicholas nickleby_, - , , north road cycling club, nutmeg grater, offleys, old bailey, , _old curiosity shop_, , , old royal, birmingham, _oliver twist_, - orleans, duke of, _our mutual friend_, , - park lane, parliament street, parr, j. s., pavilion, folkestone, , pavilion hotel, peacock, islington, - peal of bells, peasants' revolt, pegasus' arms, pepys, samuel, , petersfield, peto, sir morton, phiz, , , , , , , piazza hotel, covent garden, _pickwick papers_, _plated article_, plough, blunderstone, plymouth, portsmouth, , preston, princess's arms, public house, near grantham, _punch_, queen elizabeth, queen's head, hesket new-market, -- islington, quilp's favourite tavern, rainbow, raleigh, sir walter, reading, red house, battersea, red lion, barnet, , -- bevis marks, -- hampton, -- henley, -- parliament street, regent hotel, leamington, _reprinted pieces_, retford, reynolds, sir joshua, richard coeur-de-lion, richard ii, _river rhymer_, rockingham, roman bath, strand lane, royal george hotel, dover, royal hotel, leamington, -- lowestoft, rugby, , russell street, st. albans, , , , st. pancras' church, st. sepulchre's church, , , salem house, blackheath, salisbury, , - salisbury arms, hatfield, saracen's head, snow hill, - scott, setting moon, shakespeare, , shaw, wm., sheridan, _she stoops to conquer_, ship, allonby, -- chichester rents, -- dover, , -- gravesend, -- greenwich, shorter street, , silver street, six jolly fellowship-porters, - _sketches by boz_, , - slamjam coffee house, smithfield, , smithson, charles, snow hill, , , sol's arms, _somebody's luggage_, somerleyton, speedy, peter, spitalfields, staines, stamford, stanfield, clarkson, , staple inn, star hotel, yarmouth, sterry, j. ashby, , , stevenage, stilton, stow, stratford-on-avon, strood, stukeley, sir lewis, sun inn, canterbury, swan, hungerford stairs, -- stamford hill, -- wolverhampton, swan with two necks, swift, dean, _tale of two cities_, - tally ho! coach, , thackeray, w. m., , , thames, , three cripples, , three jolly bachelors, three jolly bargemen, three magpies, brentford, three pigeons, brentford, tilted wagon, strood, _tom brown's schooldays_, tom's coffee house, covent garden, _tom jones_, _tom tiddler's ground_, tower street, trafalgar, greenwich, traveller's twopenny, tyrrell, t. w., _uncommercial traveller_, , , - unicorn, bowes, upper james street, valiant soldier, victoria, princess, village maid, lound, walton, walworth, ward, h. snowden, , warwick, , warwick arms, watson, hon. r. and mrs., white duck, white hart, salisbury, -- stevenage, white horse, eaton socon, white horse cellar, white lion, hampton, white swan, hungerford stairs, wigton, willing mind, winglebury arms, wolverhampton, wood's hotel, - yarmouth, york, footnotes: [ ] see _the inns and taverns of pickwick_. [ ] camberwell green. [ ] see _the inns and taverns of pickwick_. [ ] see _the inns and taverns of pickwick_. [illustration] scenes and characters from the works of charles dickens being eight hundred and sixty-six pictures printed from the original wood blocks scenes and characters from the works of charles dickens being eight hundred and sixty-six drawings by fred barnard hablot k. browne (phiz) j. mahoney charles green a. b. frost gordon thomson j. mcl. ralston h. french e. g. dalziel f. a. fraser and sir luke fildes printed from the original woodblocks engraved for "the household edition" the musson book co. limited london england toronto canada printed by ballantyne & co. limited tavistock street, covent garden, london list of works and artists title design _by gordon thomson_ sketches by boz _illustrations by fred barnard_ the pickwick papers " " _phiz_ oliver twist " " _j. mahoney_ nicholas nickleby " " _fred barnard_ master humphrey's clock and other stories " " _fred barnard_ the old curiosity shop " " _charles green_ barnaby rudge " " _fred barnard_ american notes " " _a. b. frost_ martin chuzzlewit " " _fred barnard_ christmas books " " _fred barnard_ pictures from italy " " _gordon thomson_ dombey and son " " _fred barnard_ david copperfield " " _fred barnard_ a child's history of england " " _j. mcl. ralston_ bleak house " " _fred barnard_ hard times " " _h. french_ little dorrit " " _j. mahoney_ reprinted pieces " " _e. g. dalziel_ a tale of two cities " " _fred barnard_ uncommercial traveller " " _e. g. dalziel_ great expectations " " _f. a. frazer_ our mutual friend " " _j. mahoney_ christmas stories " " _e. g. dalziel_ edwin drood " " _luke fildes_ life of dickens " " _fred barnard_ introductory note there is one question upon which the critics and lovers of dickens seem never able to get into agreement, and that is the question of the original illustrations to his works. to the thorough-going enthusiast phiz and dickens seem inseparable, and no edition which does not contain the old, familiar grotesques of hablot browne's imagination, or, in the earlier volume, the equally abnormal lineaments portrayed by cruikshank or seymour, would be deemed worthy of a place upon his bookshelf. but a younger generation is growing up, for whom the time-honoured pictures have not the charm of long association, and among them it is common to hear the complaint that the natural humour and pathos of the author's best works are spoiled to modern fancy by the violent caricatures of the illustrator. "let us abolish these pictures altogether," they say: "and illustrate the books with pretty conventionalities by more fashionable artists." at the opposite pole stands yet another group of critics--the "superior people" who have made up their minds that dickens himself was a caricaturist, and that therefore the early illustrations, even if they do a little emphasise his exaggerations, are only conceived in fitting harmony with a world of fancy which drowns itself in excesses of the grotesque. among so many doctors, and all so emphatic, who shall decide? it is, at any rate, no easy task. it happens, however, that there does exist a series of dickens illustrations, now in some danger of being unduly neglected, in which the artists were wonderfully happy in preserving the original features of phiz and cruikshank's interpretations, while they toned down the more extravagant details and brought imagination into closer harmony with reality. these were the illustrations to the square-shaped "household edition," published in , just after the great novelist's death--and now reissued in this dickens picture-book, in the hope that those who love the stories may like to possess in separate form what is, perhaps, the best pictorial accompaniment that the novels ever received. at the time of its first publication, the "household edition" enjoyed an enormous success. at the moment the name of dickens was on every one's lips, and the fact that this splendidly illustrated reprint was issued in penny numbers and sixpenny parts placed it within reach of even the most humbly stocked purse. its sale was stupendous, and the familiar green-covered pamphlets percolated through every town and village where the english tongue is spoken. the original copies may still be met with, under many a country timbered roof, carefully treasured as one of the most cherished household possessions. undoubtedly, a great part of the success was due to the art of the illustrators. to begin with, there was an unusually liberal display of pictures--the edition, as a whole, containing close upon nine hundred. but more important than the number were the truth and sincerity of the interpretations--qualities which helped to give a new life to characters already secure of immortality. first and foremost, of course, the edition will always be associated with the memory of fred barnard, whose pictures are the outstanding feature of the present volume. barnard seemed destined by nature to illustrate dickens; the spirit of "boz" ran again in his veins. and nothing in his work is more impressively ingenious than the skill with which he took the types already created by his predecessors, preserved their characteristics, so that each was unmistakably himself, and yet by the illuminating touch of genius transferred them every one from the realm of caricature to that of portraiture. not far inferior to him was that admirable draughtsman, charles green, who exactly adopted barnard's attitude to the originals. the reader who will compare green's illustrations to "the old curiosity shop" with phiz's, will scarcely fail to notice with interest how often green has chosen the same subject as his predecessor, and all but treated it in the same manner, save that a twisted grotesque suddenly becomes, under the magic of his wand, a natural human being. his picture of sally brass and the marchioness is a remarkable instance in point: but there are many others equally eloquent of his sympathetic and interpretative method. nor should the work of mahony, a. b. frost, gordon thomson and others be forgotten, for each in his own way has helped to make this volume, what its publishers confidently claim it to be, a collection of dickens pictures unrivalled for humour, pathos, character, and interpretative skill. in the certainty that such a gallery of good work can hardly fail to find appreciators, the volume is now offered to all lovers of the most widely popular author of the victorian era. sketches by boz illustrative of every-day life and every-day people. [illustration] thirty-four illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: the half-pay captain completely effaced the old lady's name from the brass door-plate in his attempts to polish it with aqua-fortis--_our parish_, chap. ii.] [illustration: "why the devil ain't you looking after that plate?"--_our parish_, chap. v.] [illustration: when he first came to look at the lodgings, he inquired most particularly whether he was sure to be able to get a seat in the parish church--_our parish_, chap. vii.] [illustration: "it is nearly eleven o'clock, and the cold thin rain, which has been drizzling so long, is beginning to pour down in good earnest"--_scenes_, chap. ii.] [illustration: the gravesend boat.--_scenes_, chap. x.] [illustration: different women of the house gossiping on the steps ... the native diallers--_scenes_, chap. v.] [illustration: it was a wedding party and sketched from one of the interior streets near fitzroy square--_scenes_, chap. vii.] [illustration: the gentleman described looks extremely foolish, and squeezes her hand, and fees the gipsy liberally--_scenes_, chap. xii.] [illustration: "i may as well get board, lodgin', and washin' till then, out of the country, as pay for it myself; consequently here goes"--_scenes_, chap. xvii.] [illustration: "his line is genteel comedy--his father's coal and potato. he does alfred highflier in the last piece, and very well he'll do it--at the price."--_scenes_, chap. xiv.] [illustration: tureens of soup are emptied with awful rapidity--_scenes_, chap. x. ] [illustration: a gin-shop--_scenes_, chap. xxii.] [illustration: the pawnbroker's shop--_scenes_, chap. xxiii.] [illustration: children were playing on the grass; groups ... chatting and laughing; but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and unheeded--_characters_, chap. i.] [illustration: "what do you mean by that, scoundrel?" exclaimed mr. samuel wilkins.... "what's the matter with you, you little humbug?" replied whiskers--_characters_, chap. iv.] [illustration: the prisoners' van--_characters_, chap. xii.] [illustration: hurrying along a by-street, keeping as close as he can to the area railings, a man of about forty or fifty, clad in an old rusty suit of threadbare black cloth--_characters_, chap. x.] [illustration: "i received a note"--he said tremulously, in a voice like a punch with a cold--"yes," returned the other, "you did,"--"exactly,"-- "yes"--_tales_, chap. i.] [illustration: "no what?" inquired mrs. bloss with a look of the most indescribable alarm "no stomach," repeated mrs. tibbs with a shake of the head--_tales_, chap. i.] [illustration: the dear little fellow, having recovered his animal spirits, was standing upon her soft tender foot--_tales_, chap. iii.] [illustration: "so exactly the air of the marquis," said the military gentleman--_tales_, chap. iv.] [illustration: "how delightful, how refreshing it is, to retire from the cloudy storms, the vicissitudes, and the troubles of life, even if it be but for a few fleeting moments."--_tales_, chap. v.] [illustration: "who was he?" inquired the surgeon. "my son!" rejoined the woman; and fell senseless at his feet--_tales_, chap. vi.] [illustration: the facetious hardy, in fulfilment of his promise, had watched the child to a remote part of the vessel, and, suddenly appearing before him with the most awful contortions of visage, had produced his paroxysms of terror--_tales_, chap. vii.] [illustration: one gentleman was observed suddenly to rush from table without the slightest ostensible reason, and dart up the steps with incredible swiftness, thereby greatly damaging both himself and the steward, who happened to be coming down at the same moment--_tales_, chap. vii.] [illustration: "leave that 'ere bell alone, you wretched loo-nattic!" said the boots, suddenly forcing the unfortunate trott back into his chair, and brandishing the stick aloft--_tales_, chap. viii.] [illustration: the black veil--_tales_, chap. vi.] [illustration: "why," replied mr. walkins tottle evasively; for he trembled violently, and felt a sudden tingling throughout his whole frame; "why--i should certainly--at least, i _think_ i should like----"--_tales_, chap. x. ] [illustration: mr. nicodemus dumps ... cross, cadaverous, odd and ill-natured--_tales_, chap. xi.] [illustration: "i've brought this here note," replied the individual in the painted tops in a hoarse whisper; "i've brought this here note from a gen'l'm'n as come to our house this mornin'."--_tales_, chap. x. ] [illustration: he raised his manacled hands in a threatening attitude, fixed his eyes on his shrinking parent and slowly left the room--_tales_, chap. xii.] [illustration: looks that he had long forgotten were fixed upon him once more; voices long since hushed in death sounded in his ears like the music of village bells--_tales_, chap. xii.] [illustration: the body was washed ashore, some miles down the river, a swollen disfigured mass--_tales_, chap. xii.] the posthumous papers of the pickwick club [illustration] fifty-seven illustrations by phiz [illustration: "come on," said the cab-driver, sparring away like clockwork. "come on--all four on you"--chap. i.] [illustration: "what! introducing his friend!"--chap. ii.] [illustration: mr. snodgrass and mr. winkle had each performed a compulsory summerset with remarkable agility--chap. iv.] [illustration: the horse no sooner beheld mr. pickwick advancing with the chaise whip in his hand--chap. v.] [illustration: there was a scream as of an individual--not a rook--in corporeal anguish. mr. tupman had saved the lives of innumerable unoffending birds by receiving a portion of the charge in his left arm--chap. vii.] [illustration: mr. wardle looked on, in silent wonder--chap. vii.] [illustration: old mr. wardle, with a highly-inflamed countenance, was grasping the hand of a strange gentleman--chap. viii.] [illustration: mr. tupman looked round. there was the fat boy--chap. viii.] [illustration: sam stole a look at the inquirer--chap. x.] [illustration: "god bless me, what's the matter"--chap. xi.] [illustration: "take this little villain away," said the agonised mr. pickwick--chap. xii.] [illustration: "he has come out," said little mr. perker, greatly excited; the more so as their position did not enable them to see what was going forward--chap. xiii.] [illustration: the chair was an ugly old gentleman; and what was more, he was winking at tom smart--chap. xiv.] [illustration: "permit me to introduce my friends--mr. tupman--mr. winkle--mr. snodgrass"--chap. xv.] [illustration: the heroic man actually threw himself into a paralytic attitude, confidently supposed by the two bystanders to have been intended as a posture of self-defence--chap. xv.] [illustration: mr. weller was dispelling all the feverish remains of the previous evening's conviviality, ... when he was attracted by the appearance of a young fellow in mulberry-coloured livery--chap. xvi.] [illustration: the door was just going to be closed in consequence, when an inquisitive boarder, who had been peeping between the hinges, set up a fearful screaming--chap. xvi.] [illustration: old lobbs gave it one tug, and open it flew, disclosing nathaniel pipkin standing bolt upright inside, and shaking with apprehension from head to foot--chap. xvii.] [illustration: "who are you, you rascal?" said the captain, administering several pokes to mr. pickwick's body with the thick stick. "what's your name?"--chap. xix.] [illustration: "you just come away," said mr. weller. "battledore and shuttlecock's a wery good game, when you an't the shuttlecock and two lawyers the battledores"--chap. xx.] [illustration: "heyling!" said the old man wildly. "my boy, heyling, my dear boy, look, look!" gasping for breath, the miserable father pointed to the spot where the young man was struggling for life--chap. xxi.] [illustration: standing before the dressing-glass was a middle-aged lady in yellow curl-papers, busily engaged in brushing what ladies call their "back hair"--chap. xxii.] [illustration: mr. pickwick no sooner put on his spectacles, than he at once recognised in the future mrs. magnus the lady into whose room he had so unwarrantably intruded on the previous night--chap. xxiv.] [illustration: a compliment which mr. weller returned by knocking him down out of hand: having previously, with the utmost consideration, knocked down a chairman for him to lie upon--chap. xxiv.] [illustration: the kitchen door opened, and in walked mr. joe trotter--chap. xxv.] [illustration: sam looked at the fat boy with great astonishment, but without saying a word--chap. xxviii.] [illustration: before mr. pickwick distinctly knew what was the matter, he was surrounded by the whole body, and kissed by every one of them--chap. xxviii.] [illustration: seated on an upright tombstone, close to him, was a strange unearthly figure--chap. xxix.] [illustration: mr. pickwick .... went slowly and gravely down the slide, with his feet about a yard and a quarter apart, amidst the gratified shouts of all the spectators--chap. xxx.] [illustration: a little fierce woman bounced into the room, all in a tremble with passion, and pale with rage--chap. xxxii.] [illustration: with a countenance greatly mollified by the softening influence of tobacco, requested him to "fire away"--chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: before sam could interfere to prevent it, his heroic parent had penetrated into a remote corner of the room, and attacked the reverend mr. stiggins with manual dexterity--chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: an admonitory gesture from perker restrained him, and he listened to the learned gentleman's continuation with a look of indignation--chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: poor mr. pickwick! he had never played with three thorough-paced female card-players before--chap. xxxv.] [illustration: he no sooner heard the horrible threat of the valorous dowler, than he bounced out of the sedan--chap. xxxvi.] [illustration: mr. tuckle, dressed out with the cocked-hat and stick, danced the frog hornpipe among the shells on the table--chap. xxxvii.] [illustration: mr bob sawyer's boy ... peeped through the glass door, and thus listened and looked on at the same time--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: "unlock that door, and leave this room immediately, sir," said mr. winkle--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: "my dear," said mr. pickwick, looking over the wall, and catching sight of arabella on the other side. "don't be frightened, my dear, 'tis only me"--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: mr. pickwick sitting for his portrait--chap. xl.] [illustration: letting his hat fall on the floor, he stood perfectly fixed and immovable with astonishment--chap. xlii.] [illustration: with this, the speaker snatched that article of dress from mr. pickwick's head--chap. xli.] [illustration: sam, having been formally introduced .... as the offspring of mr. weller, of the belle savage, was treated with marked distinction--chap. xliii.] [illustration: "do you always smoke arter you goes to bed, old cock?" inquired mr. weller of his landlord, when they had both retired for the night--chap. xliv.] [illustration: mr. stiggins, getting on his legs as well as he could, proceeded to deliver an edifying discourse for the benefit of the company--chap. xlv.] [illustration: mrs. bardell screamed violently; tommy roared; mrs. cluffink shrunk within herself and mrs. sanders made off without more ado--chap. xlvi.] [illustration: mr. pickwick could scarcely believe the evidence of his own senses--chap. xlvii.] [illustration: these attentions were directed, not towards him, but to a young lady who just then appeared at the foot of the steps--chap. xlix.] [illustration: mr. bob sawyer was seated: not in the dickey, but on the roof of the chaise--chap. l.] [illustration: snatching up a meal-sack, effectually stopped the conflict by drawing it over the head and shoulders of the mighty pott--chap. ii.] [illustration: suddenly aware that he was in the presence of a stranger, mr. ben allen advanced--chap. l.] [illustration: it was a still more exciting spectacle to behold mr. weller .... immersing mr. stiggins's head in a horse-trough full of water, and holding it there until he was half suffocated--chap. lii.] [illustration: "i say insolent familiarity, sir," said mr. pickwick, turning upon fogg with a fierceness of gesture which caused that person to retreat towards the door with great expedition--chap. liii.] [illustration: "i say, how nice you look!"--chap. liv.] [illustration: the mottled-faced gentleman reviewed the company, and slowly lifted his hand--chap. lv.] [illustration: the words were scarcely out of the old gentleman's lips, when footsteps were heard ascending the stairs--chap. lvi.] the adventures of oliver twist [illustration] twenty-eight illustrations by j. mahoney [illustration: oliver asks for more--chap. ii.] [illustration: "liberal terms, mr. sowerberry, liberal terms!"--chap. iv.] [illustration: oliver rather astonishes noah--chap. vi.] [illustration: "hullo, my covey! what's the row?"--chap. viii.] [illustration: "stop thief!"--chap. x.] [illustration: "what's become of the boy?"--chap. xiii.] [illustration: "you are on the scent, are you, nancy?"--chap. xv.] [illustration: "a beadle! a parish beadle, or i'll eat my head"--chap. xvii.] [illustration: the boy was lying fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor--chap. xix.] [illustration: sikes, with oliver's hands still in his, softly approached the low porch--chap. xxi.] [illustration: "directly i leave go of you, do your work. hark!"--chap. xxii.] [illustration: "fagin!" whispered a voice close to his ear--chap. xxvi.] [illustration: "don't sigh, mrs. corney," said mr. bumble--chap. xxvii.] [illustration: "just send somebody out to relieve my mate, will you, young man?"--chap. xxxi.] [illustration: when it became quite dark, and they returned home, the young lady would sit down to the piano, and play some pleasant air--chap. xxxii.] [illustration: looking round, he saw that it was a post-chaise, driven at great speed--chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: a "few--a very few--will suffice, rose," said the young man, drawing his chair towards her--chap. xxxv.] [illustration: "were you looking for me," he said, "when you peered in at the window?"--chap. xxxvii.] [illustration: the evidence destroyed--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: then, stooping softly over the bed, she kissed the robber's lips--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: "look there! those are the lights of london"--chap. xlii.] [illustration: "what is this?" inquired one of the magistrates. "a pick-pocketing case, your worship"--chap. xliii.] [illustration: when she was about the same distance in advance as she had been before, he slipped quietly down, and followed her again--chap. xlvi.] [illustration: he moved, backward, towards the door: dragged the dog with him--chap. xlviii.] [illustration: and creeping over the tiles, looked over the low parapet--chap. l.] [illustration: "do you know the young lady, sir?"--chap. li.] [illustration: he sat down on the stone bench opposite the door--chap. lvi.] the life and adventures of nicholas nickleby [illustration] fifty-nine illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: ralph nickleby and newman noggs--chap. ii.] [illustration: the uncle and nephew looked at each other for some seconds without speaking--chap. iii.] [illustration: the schoolmaster and his companion looked steadily at each other for a few seconds, and then exchanged a very meaning smile--chap. iv.] [illustration: "snubs and romans are plentiful enough, and there are flats of all sorts and sizes when there's a meeting at exeter hall"--chap. v.] [illustration: "very glad to make your acquaintance, miss," said squeers, raising his hat an inch or two--chap. v.] [illustration: on the opposite side of the fire, there sat with folded arms a wrinkling hideous figure--chap. vi.] [illustration: the first class english spelling and philosophy--chap. viii.] [illustration: "pain and fear, pain and fear for me, alive or dead. no hope, no hope!"--chap. viii.] [illustration: kate walked sadly back to their lodgings in the strand--chap. x.] [illustration: "oh! as soft as possible, if you please"--chap. ix.] [illustration: "wretch," rejoined nicholas fiercely, "touch him at your peril! i will not stand by, and see it done. my blood is up, and i have the strength of ten such men as you"--chap. xiii.] [illustration: "i can--not help it, and it don't signify," sobbed mrs. kenwigs. "oh! they're too beautiful to live, much too beautiful!"--chap. xiv.] [illustration: there came into the office an applicant in whose favour he immediately retired, and whose appearance both surprised and interested him--chap. xvi.] [illustration: "i don't forget you, my soul, and never shall, and never can," said mantalini, kissing his wife's hand and grimacing aside to miss nickleby, who turned away--chap. xvii.] [illustration: "a miserable wretch," exclaimed mr. knag, striking his forehead. "a miserable wretch"--chap. xviii.] [illustration: "i am afraid you have been giving her some of your wicked looks, my lord," said the intended--chap. xviii.] [illustration: but the young lady making a violent effort to disengage herself, he lost his balance, and measured his length upon the ground--chap. xix.] [illustration: the dressing-room door being hastily flung open, mr. mantalini was disclosed to view, with his shirt collar symmetrically thrown back: putting a fine edge to a breakfast knife by means of his razor strop--chap. xxi.] [illustration: "you can just give him that ere card, and tell him if he wants to speak to me, and save trouble, here i am, that's all"--chap. xxi.] [illustration: mr. crummles looked, from time to time, with great interest at smike, with whom he had appeared considerably struck from the first. he had now fallen asleep, and was nodding in his chair--chap. xxii.] [illustration: the indian savage and the maiden--chap. xxiii.] [illustration: "as an exquisite embodiment of the poet's visions, and a realisation of human intellectuality, gilding with refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama is gone, perfectly gone," said mr. curdle--chap. xxiv.] [illustration: "nickleby," said his client, throwing himself along the sofa on which he had been previously seated, so as to bring his lips nearer to the old man's ear, "what a pretty creature your niece is!"--chap. xxvi.] [illustration: sir mulberry hawk and his friend exchanged glances over the top of the bonnet--chap. xxvi.] [illustration: "i see how it is," said poor noggs, drawing from his pocket what seemed to be a very old duster, and wiping kate's eyes with it as gently as if she were an infant--chap. xxviii.] [illustration: "but they shall not protect ye!" said the tragedian, taking an upward look at nicholas, beginning at his boots and ending at the crown of his head--chap. xxix.] [illustration: mr. snevellicci repeated the wink, and, drinking to mrs. lilyvick in dumb-show, actually blew her a kiss--chap. xxx.] [illustration: lashing himself up to an extraordinary pitch of fury, newman noggs jerked himself about the room with the most eccentric motion ever beheld in a human being--chap. xxxi.] [illustration: "look at them tears, sir!" said squeers with a triumphant air, as master wackford wiped his eyes with the cuff of his jacket; "there's oiliness"--chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: sir mulberry, shortening his whip, applied it furiously to the head and shoulders of nicholas. it was broken in the struggle: nicholas gained the heavy handle, and with it laid open one side of his antagonist's face from the eye to the lip--chap. xxxii.] [illustration: night found him, at last, still harping on the same theme, and still pursuing the same unprofitable reflections--chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: "i'm not coming an hour later in the morning, you know," said tim, breaking out all at once, and looking very resolute. "i'm not going to sleep in the fresh air--no, nor i'm not going into the country either"--chap. xxxv.] [illustration: with this the doctor laughed; but he didn't laugh half as much as a married friend of mrs. kenwigs's, who had just come in from the sick chamber--chap. xxxvi.] [illustration: "ye'es," said the other, turning full upon him. "if you had told him who you were: if you had given him your card, and found out, afterwards, that his station or character prevented your fighting him, it would have been bad enough then"--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: darting in, covered smike's mouth with his huge hand before he could utter a sound--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: the meditative ogre--chap. xl.] [illustration: concluded by standing on one leg, and repeating his favourite bellow with increased vehemence--chap. xli.] [illustration: "i say," said john, rather astounded for the moment, "mak' theeself quite at whoam, will 'ee?"--chap. xlii.] [illustration: fell upon his face in a passion of bitter grief--chap. xliii.] [illustration: "i am a most miserable and wretched outcast, nearly sixty years old, and as destitute and helpless as a child of six"--chap. xliv.] [illustration: mr. squeers executes an impromptu "pas seul"--chap. xlv.] [illustration: was presently conducted by a robber, with a very large belt and buckle round his waist, and very large leather gauntlets on his hands, into the presence of his former manager--chap. xlviii.] [illustration: "no matter! do you think you bring your paltry money here as a favour or a gift; or as a matter of business, and in return for value received"--chap. xlvi.] [illustration: "aha!" cried the old gentleman, folding his hands and squeezing them with great force against each other. "i see her now; i see her now; my love, my life, my bride, my peerless beauty! she is come at last--at last--and all is gas and gaiters"--chap. xlix.] [illustration: two men, seizing each other by the throat, struggled into the middle of the room--chap. l.] [illustration: all the light and life of day came on; and amidst it all, and pressing down the grass whose every blade bore twenty tiny lives, lay the dead man, with his stark and rigid face turned upwards to the sky--chap. l.] [illustration: "i'll be married in the bottle-green," cried arthur gride--chap. li.] [illustration: "thieves! thieves!" shrieked the usurer, starting up and folding his book to his breast; "robbers! murder!"--chap. liii.] [illustration: "i must beseech you to contemplate again the fearful course to which you have been impelled"--chap. liii.] [illustration: he drew ralph nickleby to the further end of the room, and pointed towards gride, who sat huddled together in a corner, fumbling nervously with the buttons of his coat, and exhibiting a face of which every skulking and base expression was sharpened and aggravated to the utmost of his anxiety and trepidation--chap. liv.] [illustration: "there is something missing, you say," said ralph, shaking him furiously by the collar. "what is it?"--chap. lvi.] [illustration: "do you see this? this is a bottle"--chap. lvii.] [illustration: "who tampered with a selfish father, urging him to sell his daughter to old arthur gride, and tampered with gride too, and did so in the little office, with a closet in the room"--chap. lix.] [illustration: "total, all up with squeers!"--chap. lx.] [illustration: ralph makes one last appointment--and keeps it--chap. lxii.] [illustration: clasping the iron railings with his hands, looked eagerly in, wondering which might be his grave--chap. lxii.] [illustration: "oh, mr. linkinwater, you're joking!" "no, no, i'm not. i'm not indeed," said tim. "i will, if you will. do, my dear!"--chap. lxiii.] [illustration: the little people could do nothing without dear newman noggs--chap. lxv.] master humphrey's clock and other stories [illustration] nine illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: at such times, or when the shouts of straggling brawlers met her ear, the bowyer's daughter would look timidly back at hugh, beseeching him to draw nearer.--_master humphrey's clock_, chap. i.] [illustration: as he sat upon a low seat beside my wife, i would peer at him for hours together from behind a tree.--_master humphrey's clock_, chap. ii.] [illustration: "vith these vords he rushes into the shop, breaks the dummy's nose with a blow of his curlin'-irons, melts him down at the parlour fire, and never smiles afterwards."--_master humphrey's clock_, chap. v.] [illustration: at last they made a halt at the opening of a lonely, desolate space, and, pointing to a black object at some distance, asked will if he saw that yonder.--_master humphrey's clock_, chap. iii.] [illustration: "with a look of scorn, she put into my hand a bit of paper, and took another partner. on the paper was pencilled, 'heavens! can i write the word? is my husband a cow?'"--_holiday romance_, part i.] [illustration: "what is the matter?" asked brother haukyard. "ay! what is the matter?" asked brother gimblet.--_george silverman's explanation_, chap. vi.] [illustration: george silverman writes his explanation.--chap. ix.] [illustration: "you shall see me once again in the body, when you are tried for your life. you shall see me once again in the spirit, when the cord is round your neck and the crowd are crying against you."--_hunted down_, chap. v.] the old curiosity shop [illustration] thirty-nine illustrations by c. green [illustration: the door being opened, the child addressed him as her grandfather--chap. i.] [illustration: the old man sat himself down in a chair, and, with folded hands, looked sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange companion--chap. i.] [illustration: when he did sit down, he tucked up his sleeves and squared his elbows and put his face close to the copy-book--chap. iii.] [illustration: daniel quilp sat himself down in a wherry to cross to the opposite shore--chap. v.] [illustration: he soon cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with uncommon agility, and, perching himself on the back with his feet upon the seat, was thus enabled to look on--chap. ix.] [illustration: "i'll beat you to pulp, you dogs"--chap. vi.] [illustration: "is it good, brass, is it nice, is it fragrant?"--chap. xi.] [illustration: not to be behindhand in the bustle, mr. quilp went to work with surprising vigour--chap. xiii.] [illustration: nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her task--chap. xvii.] [illustration: "now, gentlemen," said jerry, looking at them attentively, "the dog whose name's called, eats"--chap. xviii.] [illustration: there was but one lady who seemed to understand the child, and she was one who sat alone in a handsome carriage--chap. xix.] [illustration: a small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face appeared at the door while he was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow, came in--chap. xxv.] [illustration: and then they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly together--chap. xxiii.] [illustration: she handed down to them the tea-tray, the bread and butter, the knuckle of ham, and, in short, everything of which she had partaken herself--chap. xxvi.] [illustration: "that, ladies and gentlemen," said mrs. jarley, "is jasper packlemerton of atrocious memory"--chap. xxviii.] [illustration: and in this state and ceremony rode slowly through the town every morning--chap. xxix.] [illustration: in some of these flourishes it went close to miss sally's head--chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: "you're the wax-work child, are you not?"--chap. xxxi.] [illustration: "oh please," said a little voice very low down in the doorway, "will you come and show the lodgings?"--chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: "do you see this?"--chap. xxxvi.] [illustration: at length everything was ready, and they went off--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: the old man stood helplessly among them for a little time--chap. xiii.] [illustration: a man of very uncouth and rough appearance was standing over them--chap. xliii.] [illustration: "she is quite exhausted," said the schoolmaster--chap. xlvi.] [illustration: "aquiline!" cried quilp, thrusting in his head--chap. xlix.] [illustration: both mother and daughter, trembling with terror and cold, .... obeyed mr. quilp's directions in submissive silence--chap. l.] [illustration: "halloa!"--chap. l.] [illustration: elevating his glass, drank to their next merry-meeting in that jovial spot--chap. li.] [illustration: the child sat down in this old silent place--chap. liii.] [illustration: "then, marchioness," said mr. swiveller, "fire away!"--chap. lviii.] [illustration: the air was, "away with melancholy"--chap. lvlli.] [illustration: "is it like kit--is it his picture, his image, his very self?"--chap. lxii.] [illustration: the marchioness jumped up quickly, and clapped her hands--chap. lxiv.] [illustration: she had nothing for it now, therefore, but to run after the chaise--chap. lxv.] [illustration: tom immediately walked upon his hands to the window, and--if the expression be allowable--looked in with his shoes--chap. lxvii.] [illustration: the strong tide filled his throat, and bore him on its rapid current--chap. lxvii.] [illustration: "master!" he cried, stooping on one knee and catching at his hand. "dear master! speak to me!"--chap. lxxi.] [illustration: two wretched people were more than once observed to crawl at dusk from the inmost recesses of st. giles's--chap. lxxiii.] barnaby rudge a tale of the riots of 'eighty [illustration] forty-six illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: "stand--let me see your face"--chap. ii.] [illustration: "does the boy know what he's a-saying of!" cried the astonished john willett--chap. iii.] [illustration: "i can't touch him!" cried the idiot, falling back and shuddering as with a strong spasm; "he's bloody!"--chap. iii.] [illustration: "if i am ever," said mrs. v.,--not scolding, but in a sort of monotonous remonstrance--"in spirits, if i am ever cheerful, if i am ever more than usually disposed to be talkative and comfortable, this is the way i am treated"--chap. vii.] [illustration: those lips within sim's reach from day to day, and yet so far off--chap. iv.] [illustration: "chester," said mr. haredale after a short silence, during which he had eyed his smiling face from time to time intently, "you have the head and heart of an evil spirit in all matters of deception"--chap. xii.] [illustration: "he melts, i think. he goes like a drop of froth. you look at him, and there he is. you look at him again, and--there he isn't"--chap. x.] [illustration: father and son--chap. xv.] [illustration: "come, come, master," cried the fellow, urged on by the looks of his comrades, and slapping him on the shoulder; "be more companionable and communicative. be more the gentleman in this good company"--chap. xvi.] [illustration: with that he advanced, and bending down over the prostrate form, softly turned back the head and looked into the face--chap. xvii.] [illustration: she sat here, thoughtful and apart, until their time was out--chap. xxv.] [illustration: emma haredale and dolly varden--chap. xx.] [illustration: "huff or no huff," said mr. tappertit, detaining her by the wrist. "what do you mean, jezebel! what were you going to say! answer me!"--chap. xxii.] [illustration: how the accomplished gentleman spent the evening in the midst of a dazzling and brilliant circle--chap. xxiv.] [illustration: now he would call to her from the topmost branch of some high tree by the roadside--chap. xxv.] [illustration: "i beg pardon--do i address miss haredale!"--chap. xxix.] [illustration: finished by driving him with surprising swiftness against a heap of spittoons in one corner--chap. xxx.] [illustration: lord george gordon leaving the maypole--chap. xxxvii.] [illustration: "if they're a dream," said sim, "let sculptures have such wisions, and chisel'em out when they wake. this is reality. sleep has no such limbs as them"--chap. xxxi.] [illustration: "ha, ha!" roared the fellow, smiting his leg; "for a gentleman as 'ull say a pleasant thing in a pleasant way, give me muster gashford agin all london and westminster!"--chap. xxxvii.] [illustration: a nice trio--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: gabriel varden--chap. xii.] [illustration: "he retort!" cried haredale. "look you here, my lord. do you know this man!"--chap. xliii.] [illustration: "in the name of god no!" shrieked the widow, darting forward. "barnaby--my lord--see--he'll come back--barnaby--barnaby!"--chap. xlviii.] [illustration: "a brave evening, mother! if we had chinking in our pockets but a few specks of that gold which is piled up yonder in the sky, we should be rich for life"--chap. xlv.] [illustration: then seating himself under a spreading honeysuckle, and stretching his legs across the threshold so that no person could pass in or out without his knowledge, he took from his pocket a pipe, flint, steel, and tinder-box, and began to smoke--chap. xlv.] [illustration: the pole swept the air above the people's heads, and the man's saddle was empty in an instant--chap. xlix.] [illustration: it flitted onward, and was gone--chap. l.] [illustration: "you have been drinking," said the locksmith--chap. li.] [illustration: flung itself upon the foremost one, knelt down upon its breast, and clutched its throat with both hands--chap. lvi.] [illustration: putting his staff across his knees in case of alarm or surprise, summoned grip to dinner--chap. lvii.] [illustration: looked moodily on as she flew to miss haredale's side--chap. lix.] [illustration: "will you come?" "i!" said the lord mayor most emphatically. "certainly not"--chap. lxi.] [illustration: "stop!" cried the locksmith, in a voice that made them falter--presenting, as he spoke, a gun. "let an old man do that. you can spare him better"--chap. lxiii.] [illustration: the burning of newgate--chap. lxiv.] [illustration: "no offence, no offence," said that personage in a conciliatory tone, as hugh stopped in his draught and eyed him, with no pleasant look from head to foot--chap. lxix.] [illustration: "tender-hearted!" echoed dennis. "tender-hearted! look at this man. do you call this constitootional! do you see him shot through and through, instead of being worked off like a briton! damme if i know which party to side with"--chap. lxix.] [illustration: "you ought to be the best instead of the worst," said hugh, stopping before him. "ha, ha, ha! see the hangman when it comes home to him!"--chap. lxxvi.] [illustration: "i shall bless your name," sobbed the locksmith's little daughter, "as long as i live"--chap. lxxii.] [illustration: sat the unhappy author of all--lord george gordon--chap. lxxiii.] [illustration: he rose from his bed with a heavy sigh, and wrapped himself in his morning gown. "so she kept her word," he said, "and was constant to her threat!"--chap. lxxv.] [illustration: the locksmith's ruddy face and burly form could be descried, beating about as though he was struggling with a rough sea--chap. lxxix.] [illustration: reclining, in an easy attitude, with his back against a tree, and contemplating the ruin with an expression of pleasure--chap. lxxxi.] [illustration: raising himself upon his hands, he gazed at him for an instant with scorn and hatred in his look--chap. lxxxi.] [illustration: grip the raven--chap. the last.] american notes [illustration] ten illustrations by a. b. frost [illustration: "rather a heavy sea on, sir, and a head wind"--chap. ii]. [illustration: railway dialogue--chap. v.] [illustration: when suddenly the lively hero dashes in to the rescue--chap. vi.] [illustration: in the white house--chap. vii] [illustration: in the cabin of the canal boat--chap. x.] [illustration: emigrants--chap. xi.] [illustration: "not yet awhile, sir, not yet"--chap. xiii.] [illustration: and having his wet pipe presented to him, etc.--chap. xv.] [illustration: as the coach stops a gentleman in a straw hat looks out of the window--chap. xiv.] the life and adventures of martin chuzzlewit [illustration] fifty-nine illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: "i see you," cried miss pecksniff to the ideal inflictor of a runaway knock, "you'll catch it; sir!"--chap. ii.] [illustration: mr. pecksniff, looking sweetly over the half-door of the par, and into the vista of snug privacy beyond, murmured, "good evening, mrs. lupin"--chap. iii.] [illustration: "we will say, if you please," added mr. pecksniff, with great tenderness of manner, "that it arises from a cold in the head, or is attributable to snuff, or smelling salts, or onions, or anything but the real cause"--chap. iii.] [illustration: mr. pecksniff is introduced to a relative by mr. tigg--chap. iv.] [illustration: "he turned a whimsical face and very merry pair of blue eyes on mr. pinch."--chap. v.] [illustration: "let us be merry." here he took a captain's biscuit--chap. v.] [illustration: "still a-bed," replied the boy; "i wish they wos still a-bed. they're very noisy a-bed; all calling for their boots at once"--chap. viii.] [illustration: "oh chiv, chiv," murmured mr. tigg, "you have a nobly independent nature, chiv"--chap. vii.] [illustration: "you're a pair of whittingtons, gents, without the cat, ... my name is tigg; how do you do?"--chap. vii.] [illustration: "i say--there's fowls to-morrow, not skinny ones. oh no!"--chap. ix.] [illustration: "do not repine, my friends," said mr. pecksniff, tenderly. "do not weep for me. it is chronic"--chap. ix.] [illustration: "we sometimes venture to consider her rather a fine figure, sir. speaking as an artist, i may perhaps be permitted to suggest, that its outline is graceful and correct"--chap. x.] [illustration: the door of a small glass office, which was partitioned off from the rest of the room, was slowly opened, and a little blear-eyed, weazen-faced, ancient man came creeping out.--chap. xi.] [illustration: "stand off for a moment, tom," cried the old pupil, ... "let me look at you! just the same! not a bit changed!"--chap. xii.] [illustration: "i'm going up," observed the driver; "hounslow, ten miles this side london"--chap. xiii.] [illustration: stuck his hands in his skirt pockets and swaggered round the corner.--chap. xiii.] [illustration: seeing that there was no one near, and that mark was still intent upon the fog, he not only looked at her lips, but kissed them into the bargain--chap. xiv.] [illustration: on board the "screw"--chap. xv.] [illustration: "it is in such enlightened means," said a voice almost in martin's ear, "that the bubbling passions of my country find a vent"--chap. xvi.] [illustration: "you're the pleasantest fellow i have seen yet," said martin, clapping him on the back, "and give me a better appetite than bitters"--chap. xvi.] [illustration: jiniral bladdock!--chap. xvii.] [illustration: "matter!" cried the voice of mr. pecksniff, as pecksniff in the flesh smiled amiably upon him. "the matter, mr. jonas!"--chap. xviii.] [illustration: "well, mrs. gamp, and how are _you!_ mrs. gamp," said the gentleman, in a voice as soft as his step--chap. xix.] [illustration: "oh! i don't mind your pinching," grinned jonas, "a bit"--chap. xx.] [illustration: "i was merely remarking, gentlemen--though it's a point of very little import--that the queen of england does not happen to live in the tower of london"--chap. xxi.] [illustration: "well, sir!" said the captain putting his hat a little more on one side, for it was rather tight in the crown: "you're quite a public man i calc'late"--chap. xxii.] [illustration: he flourished his stick over tom's head; but in a moment it was spinning harmlessly in the air, and jonas himself lay sprawling in the ditch--chap. xxiv.] [illustration: "look about you," he said, pointing to the graves; "and remember that from your bridal hour to the day which sees you brought as low as these, and laid in such a bed, there will be no appeal against him!"--chap. xxiv.] [illustration: "whether i sicks or monthlies, ma'am ... i do require it, which i makes confession, to be brought reg'lar and draw'd mild"--chap. xxv.] [illustration: "there's nothin' he don't know; that's my opinion," observed mrs. gamp. "all the wickedness of the world is print to him"--chap. xxvi.] [illustration: the spider and the fly--chap. xxvii.] [illustration: "times is changed, ain't they! i say, how you've growed!"--chap. xxviii.] [illustration: rustling among last year's leaves, whose scent woke memory of the past, the placid pecksniff strolled--chap. xxx.] [illustration: "i say," cried tom, in great excitement, "he is a scoundrel and a villain! i don't care who he is, i say he is a double-dyed and most intolerable villain"--chap. xxxi.] [illustration: "mr. pinch," said mr. pecksniff, shaking his head, "oh, mr. pinch! i wonder how you can look me in the face!"--chap. xxxi.] [illustration: on the fourteenth night he kissed miss pecksniff's snuffers, in the passage, when she went upstairs to bed: meaning to have kissed her hand, but missing it--chap. xxii.] [illustration: "jolly"--chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: "why, what the 'tarnal!" cried the captain. "well! i do admire at this, i do!"--chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: mr. pecksniff, placid, calm, but proud. honestly proud ... gently travelling across the disc, as if he were a figure in a magic lantern--chap. xxxv.] [illustration: "no right!" cried the brass and copper founder--chap. xxxvi.] [illustration: mr. nadgett produces the result of his private inquiries--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: "i am going to begin, tom. don't you wonder why i butter the inside of the basin!" said his busy little sister, "eh, tom?"--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: "i can't say; it's impossible to tell. i really have no idea. but," said fips, taking off a very deep impression of the wafer-stamp upon the calf of his left leg, and looking steadily at tom, "i don't know that it's a matter of much consequence"--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: mrs. gamp creates a sensation with her umbrella--chap. xl.] [illustration: "now, could you cut a mans throat with such a thing as this!" demanded jonas--chap. xli.] [illustration: awoke to find jonas standing at his bedside watching him. and that very door wide open.--chap. xlii.] [illustration: familiar faces--chap. xliii.] [illustration: "oh fie, fie!" cried mr. pecksniff. "you are very pleasant. that i am sure you don't! that i am sure you don't! how can you, you know"--chap. xliv.] [illustration: mr. moddle, with a dark look, replied: "the drivers won't do it"--chap. xlvi.] [illustration: mrs. gamp favours the company with an exhibition of professional skill--chap. xlvi.] [illustration: done--chap. xlvii.] [illustration: "speak out!" said martin, "and speak the truth"--chap. xlvii.] [illustration: then mrs. gamp rose--morally and physically rose--and denounced her--chap. xlix.] [illustration: brother and sister--chap. l.] [illustration: he started back as his eyes met those, standing in an angle of the wall, and staring at him. his neckerchief was off; his face was ashy pale--chap. li.] [illustration: the fall of pecksniff--chap. lii.] [illustration: "yes sir," returned miss pecksniff, modestly, "i am. i--my dress is rather--really mrs. todgers!"--chap. liv.] [illustration: tom's reverie--chap. liv.] christmas books [illustration] twenty-eight illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: "it's not convenient," said scrooge, "and it's not fair. if i was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, i'll be bound!"--_a christmas carol_, stave i.] [illustration: marley's ghost--_a christmas carol_, stave i.] [illustration: he had been tim's blood-horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant--_a christmas carol_, stave iii.] [illustration: this pleasantry was received with a general laugh--_a christmas carol_, stave iv.] [illustration: "what do you call this!" said joe, "bed curtains!"--_a christmas carol_, stave iv.] [illustration: "no," said toby, after another sniff. "it's--it's mellower than polonies. it's very nice. it improves every moment. it's too decided for trotters. an't it!"--_the chimes_, first quarter] [illustration: the poor man's friend.--_the chimes_, second quarter] [illustration: "never more, meg; never more! here! here! close to you, holding to you, feeling your dear breath upon my face!"--_the chimes_, third quarter] [illustration: "whither thou goest, i can not go; where thou lodgest, i do not lodge; thy people are not my people; nor thy god, my god!"--_the chimes_, third quarter] [illustration: "you're in spirits tugby, my dear," observed his wife.... "no," said tugby. "no; not particular. i'm a little elevated. the muffins came so pat!"--_the chimes_, fourth quarter] [illustration: john peerybingle's fireside--_the cricket on the hearth_, chirp the first] [illustration: "did its mother make it up a beds, then!" cried miss slowboy to the baby; "and did its hair grow brown and curly when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious pets, a sitting by the fires!"--_the cricket on the hearth_, chirp the first] [illustration: "the extent to which he's winking at this moment!" whispered caleb to his daughter. "oh, my gracious!"--_the cricket on the hearth_, chirp the second] [illustration: suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as they moved slowly down the dim wooden gallery--_the cricket on the hearth_, chirp the second] [illustration: after dinner caleb sang the song about the sparkling bowl--_the cricket on the hearth_, chirp the third] [illustration: the ploughshare still turned up, from time to time, some rusty bits of metal, but it was hard to say what use they had ever served, and those who found them wondered and disputed--_the battle of life_, part the first] [illustration: "by the bye," and he looked into the pretty face, still close to his, "i suppose it's your birthday"--_the battle of life_, part the first] [illustration: "i think it will be better not to hear this, mr. craggs!" said snitchey, looking at him across the client. "i think not," said craggs--both listening attentively--_the battle of life_, part the second] [illustration: "what is the matter!" he exclaimed. "i don't know. i--i am afraid to think. go back. hark!"--_the battle of life_, part the second] [illustration: guessed half aloud, "milk and water," "monthly warning," "mice and walnuts"--and couldn't approach her meaning--_the battle of life_, part the third] [illustration: "merry and happy, was it?" asked the chemist in a low voice. "merry and happy old man!"--_the haunted man_, chap. i.] [illustration: it roved from door-step to door-step, in the arms of little johnny tetterby, and lagged heavily at the rear of troops of juveniles who followed the tumblers, etc.--_the haunted man_, chap. ii.] [illustration: "mr. redlaw!" he exclaimed, and started up--_the haunted man_, chap. ii.] [illustration: "i'm not a-going to take you there. let me be or i'll heave some fire at you!"--_the haunted man_, chap. ii.] [illustration: "you speak to me of what is lying here," the phantom interposed, and pointed with its finger to the boy--_the haunted man_, chap. iii.] [illustration: "what a wonderful man you are, father! how are you father? are you really pretty hearty, though?" said william, shaking hands with him again, and patting him again, and rubbing him gently down again--_the haunted man_, chap. iii.] [illustration: the sedate face in the portrait, with the beard and ruff, looked down at them--_the haunted man_, chap. iii.] pictures from italy [illustration] eight illustrations by gordon thomson [illustration: the malle post--_going through france_] [illustration: playing at mora--_genoa and its neighbourhood_] [illustration: the church and the world--_to parma, modena, and bologna_] [illustration: an italian dream] [illustration: a sketch at the carnival--_rome_] [illustration: artists' models--_rome_] [illustration: priests and monks--_a rapid diorama_] dealings with the firm of dombey and son wholesale, retail and for exportation [illustration] sixty-two illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: a thorough contrast in all respects to mr. dombey--chap. ii.] [illustration: "i may be fond of pennywinkles, mrs. richards, but it don't follow that i'm to have 'em for tea"--chap. iii.] [illustration: "so here's to dombey--and son--and daughter"--chap. iv.] [illustration: mr. dombey dismounting first to help the ladies out--chap. v.] [illustration: "why, what can you want with dombey and son's!" ... "to know the way there, if you please."--chap. vi.] [illustration: florence obeyed as fast as her trembling hands would allow; keeping, all the while, a frightened eye on mrs. brown--chap. vi.] [illustration: dombey and son--chap. viii.] [illustration: listening to the sea--chap. viii.] [illustration: and when he got there, sat down in a chair, and fell into a silent fit of laughter with which he was sometimes seized, and which was always particularly awful--chap. x.] [illustration: when the doctor smiled auspiciously at his author, or knit his brows, or shook his head and made wry faces at him, as much as to say, "don't tell me, sir; i know better," it was terrific--chap. xi.] [illustration: "your father's regularly rich, ain't he!" inquired mr. toots. "yes, sir," said paul; "he's dombey and son"--chap. xii.] [illustration: "you respect nobody, carker, i think," said mr. dombey. "no!" inquired carker, with another wide and most feline show of his teeth--chap. xiii.] [illustration: during this conversation, walter had looked from one brother to the other with pain and amazement--chap. xiii.] [illustration: paul also asked him, as a practical man, what he thought about king alfred's idea of measuring time by the burning of candles, to which the workman replied that he thought it would be the ruin of the clock trade if it was to come up again--chap. xiv.] [illustration: the breaking-up party at doctor blimber's--chap. xiv.] [illustration: before they had gone very far, they encountered a woman selling flowers: when the captain, stopping short, as if struck by a happy idea, made a purchase of the largest bundle in her basket--chap. xv.] [illustration: all this time, the bereaved father has not been seen even by his attendant; for he sits in a corner of his own dark room--chap. xviii.] [illustration: it was repeated often--very often, in the shadowy solitude; and broken murmurs of the strain still trembled on the keys, when the sweet voice was hushed in tears--chap. xviii.] [illustration: took uncle sol's snuff-coloured lappels, one in each hand; kissed him on the cheek, etc.--chap. xix.] [illustration: "take advice from plain old joe, and never educate that sort of people, sir," returned the major. "damme, sir, it never does! it always fails!"--chap. xx.] [illustration: withers the wan, at this period, handing round the tea, mr. dombey again addressed himself to edith--chap. xxi.] [illustration: "do you know that there is some one here!" she returned, now looking at him steadily--chap. xxxvi.] [illustration: "let you alone!" said mr. carker. "what! i have got you, have i!" there was no doubt of that, and tightly too. "you dog," said mr. carker, through his set jaws, "i'll strangle you!"--chap. xxii.] [illustration: "what do you want with captain cuttle, i should wish to know!" said mrs. macstinger. "should you! then i'm sorry that you won't be satisfied," returned miss nipper--chap. xxiii.] [illustration: the flowers were scattered on the ground like dust; the empty hands were spread upon the face; and orphaned florence, shrinking down upon the ground, wept long and bitterly--chap. xxiv.] [illustration: the captain's voice was so tremendous, and he came out of his corner with such way on him, that rob retreated before him into another corner; holding out the keys and packet, to prevent himself from being run down--chap. xxv.] [illustration: "go and meet her!"--chap. xxvii.] [illustration: "thank you. i have no desire to read it," was her answer--chap. xxvi.] [illustration: "a child!" said edith, looking at her. "when was i a child! what childhood did you ever leave to me!"--chap. xxviii.] [illustration: lucretia tox's reverie--chap. xxix.] [illustration: one of the very tall young men on hire, whose organ of veneration was imperfectly developed, thrusting his tongue into his cheek, for the entertainment of the other very tall young man on hire, as the couple turned into the dining-room--chap. xxx.] [illustration: she started, stopped, and looked in--chap. xxx.] [illustration: in a firm, free hand, the bride subscribes her name in the register--chap. xxxi.] [illustration: "go," said the good-humoured manager, gathering up his skirts, and standing astride on the hearth-rug, "like a sensible fellow, and let us have no turning out, or any such violent measures"--chap. xxxii.] [illustration: and reading softly to himself, in the little back parlour, and stopping now and then to wipe his eyes, the captain, in a true and simple spirit, committed walter's body to the deep--chap. xxxii.] [illustration: a certain skilful action of his fingers as he hummed some bars, and beat time on the seat beside him, seemed to denote the musician--chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: "she's come back harder than she went!" cried the mother, looking up in her face, and still holding to her knees--chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: withers, meeting him on the stairs, stood amazed at the beauty of his teeth, and at his brilliant smile--chap. xxxvii.] [illustration: ran sniggering off to get change, and tossed it away with a pieman--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: "and you're a-going to desert your colours, are you, my lad," said the captain, after a long examination of his face--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: mr. toots replies by launching wildly out into miss dombey's praises, and by insinuations that sometimes he thinks he should like to blow his brains out--chap. xli.] [illustration: "dombey," says cousin feenix, "upon my soul, i am very much shocked to see you on such a melancholy occasion"--chap. xli.] [illustration: "do you call it managing this establishment, madam," said mr. dombey, "to leave a person like this at liberty to come and talk to me!"--chap. xliv.] [illustration: "miss dombey," returned mr. toots, "if you'll only name one, you'll--you'll give me an appetite. to which," said mr. toots, with some sentiment, "i have long been a stranger"--chap. xliv.] [illustration: flung it down, and trod upon the glittering heap--chap. xlvii.] [illustration: thrown down in a costly mass upon the ground was every ornament she had had since she had been his wife; every dress she had worn; and everything she had possessed--chap. xlvii.] [illustration: florence made a motion with her hand towards him, reeled and fell upon the floor--chap. xlviii.] [illustration: when he had filled his pipe in an absolute reverie of satisfaction, florence lighted it for him--chap. xlix.] [illustration: blessed twilight stealing on, and shading her so soothingly and gravely as she falls asleep, like a hushed child, upon the bosom she has clung to!--chap. l.] [illustration: it appears that he met everybody concerned in the late transaction, everywhere, and said to them, "sir," or "madam," as the case was, "why do you look so pale!" at which each shuddered from head to foot, and said, "oh, perch!" and ran away--chap. li.] [illustration: d. i. j. o. n--chap. lii.] [illustration: still upon her knees, and with her eyes upon the fire--chap. liii.] [illustration: he saw the face change from its vindictive passion to a faint sickness and terror--chap. lv.] [illustration: after this, he smoked four pipes successively in the little parlour by himself, and was discovered chuckling at the expiration of as many hours--chap. lvi.] [illustration: "wy, it's mean .... that's where it is. it's mean!"--chap. lvi.] [illustration: "joe had been deceived, sir, taken in, hoodwinked, blindfolded, but was broad awake again, and staring"--chap. lviii.] [illustration: "yes, mrs. pipchin, it is," replies cook, advancing. "and what then pray!"--chap. lix.] [illustration: "oh, my god, forgive me, for i need it very much!"--chap. lix.] [illustration: "no, no!" cried florence, shrinking back as she rose up, and putting out her hands to keep her off. "mamma!"--chap. lxi.] [illustration: captain cuttle gives them the lovely peg--chap. lxii.] [illustration: "dear grandpapa, why do you cry when you kiss me?"--chap. lxii.] the personal history of david copperfield [illustration] sixty-one illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: peggotty seemed to swell and grow immensely large. i propped my eyelids open with my two forefingers and looked perseveringly at her, as she sat at work--chap. ii.] [illustration: "dead, mr. peggotty!" i hinted, after a respectful pause. "drowndead," said mr. peggotty--chap. iii.] [illustration: "that's not it!" said i, "that ship-looking thing!" "that's it, mas'r davy," returned ham--chap. iii.] [illustration: and when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses (canes he made it that day, i remember), my mother burst out crying--chap. iv.] [illustration: i saw to my amazement, peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart--chap. v.] [illustration: "he knows me, and i know him. do you know me! hey!" said mr. creakle, pinching my ear with ferocious playfulness--chap. vi.] [illustration: "let him deny it," said steerforth--chap. vii.] [illustration: "don't go, steerforth, if you please. these are two yarmouth boatmen--very kind, good people--who are relations of my nurse, and have come from gravesend to see me"--chap. vii.] [illustration: "father!" said minnie playfully. "what a porpoise you do grow!"--chap. ix.] [illustration: i begin life on my own account, and don't like it--chap. xi.] [illustration: i am presented to mrs. micawber--chap. xi.] [illustration: the young man still replied: "come to the pollis!" and was dragging me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity between that animal and a magistrate--chap. xii.] [illustration: "oh, my lungs and liver, will you go for threepence!"--chap. xiii.] [illustration: mr. micawber, impressing the names of the streets and the shapes of corner houses upon me as we went along, that i might find my way back easily in the morning--chap. xi.] [illustration: the battle on the green--chap. xiv.] [illustration: she always roused him with a question or caress--chap. xv.] [illustration: "oh, thank you, master copperfield," said uriah heep, "for that remark! it is so true! 'umble as i am, i know it is so true! oh, thank you, master copperfield!"--chap. xvi.] [illustration: the doctor's walk--chap. xvii.] [illustration: "i ask an inestimable price for it, miss larkins".... "indeed! what is that!" returns miss larkins. "a flower of yours, that i may treasure it as a miser does gold"--chap. xviii.] [illustration: "oh, really! you know how ignorant i am, and that i only ask for information, but isn't it always so! i thought that kind of life was on all hands understood to be--eh!"--chap. xx.] [illustration: presently they brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy--chap. xxi.] [illustration: "that is a black shadow to be following the girl," said steerforth, standing still; "what does it mean!"--chap. xxii.] [illustration: "trot! my dear trot!" cried my aunt, in a terrified whisper, and pressing my arm. "i don't know what to do"--chap, xxiii.] [illustration: and mrs. crupp said, thank heaven she had now found summun she could care for--chap. xxiii.] [illustration: hamlet's aunt betrays the family failing, and indulges in a soliloquy on "blood"--chap. xxv.] [illustration: dora--chap. xxvi.] [illustration: "here," drawing the cloth off with great pride and care, "are two pieces of furniture to commence with"--chap. xxvii.] [illustration: mr. micawber in his element--chap. xxviii.] [illustration: he was fast asleep; lying easily, with his head upon his arm, as i had often seen him lie at school--chap. xxix.] [illustration: "give me breath enough," says i to my daughter minnie, "and i'll find passages, my dear"--chap. xxx] [illustration: "read it, sir," he said, in a low shivering voice. "slow, please. i doen't know as i can understand"--chap. xxxi.] [illustration: "take a word of advice, even from three foot nothing, try not to associate bodily defects with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason"--chap. xxxii.] [illustration: under the lilac tree--chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: i parted from him, poor fellow, at the corner of the street, with his great kite at his back, a very monument of human misery--chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: "deuce take the man!" said my aunt sternly, "what's he about! don't be galvanic, sir!"--chap. xxxv.] [illustration: "i hardly ever take breakfast, sir," he replied with his head thrown back in an easy chair. "i find it bores me"--chap. xxxvi.] [illustration: "you have heard miss murdstone," said mr. spenlow, turning to me. "i beg to ask mr. copperfield, if you have anything to say in reply!"--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: "papa, you are not well. come with me!"--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: i stood face to face with mr. peggotty!--chap. xl.] [illustration: "i wonder why you ever fell in love with me!" said dora, beginning on another button of my coat--chap. xli.] [illustration: he caught the hand in his, and we stood in that connection, looking at each other--chap. xlii.] [illustration: holding the pens--chap. xliv.] [illustration: "then, i have got it, boy!" said mr. dick--chap. xlv.] [illustration: mr. littimer tells his story--chap. xlvi.] [illustration: "oh, the river!" she cried passionately. "oh, the river!"--chap. xlvii.] [illustration: "when i can run about again, as i used to do, aunt," said dora, "i shall make jip race. he is getting quite slow and lazy"--chap. xlviii.] [illustration: "and the name of the whole atrocious mass is--heep!"--chap. xlix.] [illustration: rosa dartle sprang up from her seat: recoiled, and in recoiling struck at her, with a face of such malignity, so darkened and disfigured by passion, that i had almost thrown myself between them--chap. l.] [illustration: "approach me again, you--you--you heep of infamy," gasped mr. micawber, "and if your head is human, i'll break it. come on, come on"--chap. lii.] [illustration: "it is much better as it is!"--chap. liii.] [illustration: i have myself directed some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking--chap. liv.] [illustration: they drew him to my very feet--insensible--dead--chap. lv.] [illustration: i found mr. micawber sitting in a corner, looking darkly at the sheriff's officer who had effected the capture--chap. lvii.] [illustration: the storm--chap. lv.] [illustration: i walked up to where he was sitting, and said, "how do you do, mr. chillip!"--chap. lix.] [illustration: for an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in the start it gave me, it was gone--chap. lx.] [illustration: i took agnes in my arm to the back of her chair, and we both leaned over her--chap. lxii.] [illustration: "if a ship's cook that was turning settler, mas'r davy, didn't make offers fur to marry mrs. gummidge, i'm gormed--and i can't say no fairer than that!"--chap, lxiii.] [illustration: "trotwood, you will be glad to hear that i shall finish the memorial when i have nothing else to do, and that your aunt's the most extraordinary woman in the world, sir!"--chap. lxiv.] [illustration: but one face, shining on me like a heavenly light by which i see all other objects, is above them and beyond them all--chap. lxiv.] a child's history of england [illustration] fifteen illustrations by j. mcl. ralston [illustration: the archbishop of canterbury and the danes--chap. iv.] [illustration: the escape of queen matilda from oxford castle--chap. xi.] [illustration: hubert de burgh and the black band--chap. xv.] [illustration: the duchess of gloucester doing penance--chap. xii, part third] [illustration: king john of france at the battle of poitiers--chap. xviii.] [illustration: lambert simnel--chap. xxvi.] [illustration: sir edward howard--chap. xxvii.] [illustration: the spanish armada--chap, xxxi., third part] [illustration: before he went away, the landlord came behind his chair--chap. xxxiv., first part] [illustration: mary queen of scots leaving france--chap. xxxi.] [illustration: the seizure of guy fawkes--chap. xxxii., first part] [illustration: oliver cromwell and ireton at the blue boar--chap. xxxiii., fourth part] [illustration: execution of sir charles lucas and sir george lisle--chap. xxxiii., fourth part] [illustration: charles the first taking leave of his children--chap, xxxiii., fourth part] bleak house [illustration] sixty-one illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: "who copied that!"--chap. ii.] [illustration: i am introduced to conversation kenge--chap. iii.] [illustration: in an atmosphere of borrioboola--gha--chap. iv.] [illustration: the lord chancellor relates the death of tom jarndyce--chap. v.] [illustration: "we are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in private life you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal of poetry in your nature, of which you may not be conscious"--chap. vi.] [illustration: the growlery--chap. viii.] [illustration: "alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the infant bonds of joy, and is pledged never, through life, to use tobacco in any form"--chap. viii.] [illustration: "if i were in your place i would seize every master in chancery by the throat to-morrow morning, and shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets, and his bones rattled in his skin"--chap. ix.] [illustration: nemo--chap. x.] [illustration: "he wos wery good to me, he wos!"--chap. xi.] [illustration: "why, do you know how pretty you are, child!" she says, touching her shoulder with her two fore-fingers--chap. xii.] [illustration: deportment--chap. xiv.] [illustration: "honoured, indeed," said she, "by another visit from the wards in jarndyce!"--chap. xiv.] [illustration: "'i'm fly," says jo. "but fen larks, you know. stow hooking it"--chap. xvi.] [illustration: to my great surprise, on going in, i found my guardian still there, and sitting looking at the ashes--chap. xvii.] [illustration: "i have frightened you!" she said--chap. xviii.] [illustration: "jo"--chap. xvi.] [illustration: "who ud go and let a nice innocent lodging to such a reg'lar one as me!"--chap. xix.] [illustration: "i am grown up, now, guppy. i have arrived at maturity"--chap. xx.] [illustration: grandfather smallweed astonishes mr. george--chap. xxi.] [illustration: "there she is!" cries jo--chap. xxii.] [illustration: "o, you ridiculous child!" observed mrs. jellyby, with an abstracted air, as she looked over the despatch last opened; "what a goose you are!"--chap. xxiii.] [illustration: "of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me, and i am fit for"--chap. xxiv]. [illustration: "what's gone of your father and your mother, eh!"--chap. xxv.] [illustration: "i believe you!" says mrs. bagnet. "he's a briton. that's what woolwich is. a briton!"--chap. xxvii.] [illustration: the ironmaster--chap. xxviii.] [illustration: mr. guppy's catechism--chap. xxix.] [illustration: "o my child, o my child!"--chap. xxix.] [illustration: "never have a mission, my dear child"--chap. xxx.] [illustration: and he shivered in the window-seat with charley standing by him, like some wounded animal that had been found in a ditch--chap. xxx.] [illustration: "my love, you know these two gentlemen!" ... "yes!" says mrs. snagsby, and in a rigid manner acknowledges their presence--chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: "i have come down," repeats grandfather smallweed, hooking the air towards him with all his ten fingers at once, "to look after the property"--chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: puts his hand on his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath--chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: my mother--chap. xxxvi.] [illustration: "for i am constantly being taken in these nets," said mr. skimpole, looking beamingly at us over a glass of wine-and-water, "and am constantly being bailed out--like a boat"--chap. xxxvii.] [illustration: we danced for an hour with great gravity--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: she made no sound of laughter: but she rolled her head, and shook it, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appealed to caddy with her elbow--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: "you are to be congratulated, mr. guppy, you are a fortunate young man, sir"--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: under the lincoln's inn trees--chap. xxxix] [illustration: a bird of ill omen--chap. xli.] [illustration: "turns the key upon her, mistress," illustrating with the cellar key--chap. xlii.] [illustration: richard--chap. xlv.] [illustration: here, against a hoarding of decaying timber, he is brought to bay--chap. xlvi.] [illustration: the cart is shaken all to pieces, and the rugged road is very near its end--chap. xlvii.] [illustration: mr. bucket urging a sensible view of the case with his fat forefinger--chap. xlix.] [illustration: peepy was sufficiently decorated to walk hand-in-hand with the professor of deportment--chap. l.] [illustration: "esther, dear," she said very quietly, "i am not going home again"--chap. li.] [illustration: "has'nt a doubt--zample--far better hang wrong f'ler than no f'ler"--chap. liii.] [illustration: "can you make a haughty gentleman of him ... the poor infant!"--chap. liv.] [illustration: he puts his hands together ... and raising them towards her breast, bows down his head, and cries--chap. lv.] [illustration: mr. bucket in lady dedlock's boudoir--chap. lvi.] [illustration: in the brickmaker's cottage--chap. lvii.] [illustration: the old housekeeper weeping silently; volumnia in the greatest agitation, with the freshest bloom on her cheeks; the trooper with his arms folded and his head a little bent, respectfully attentive--chap. lviii.] [illustration: she lay there, with one arm creeping round a bar of the iron gate, and seeming to embrace it--chap. lix.] [illustration: "miss summerson," said mr. vholes, very slowly rubbing his gloved hands, .... "this was an ill-advised marriage of mr. c's"--chap. lx.] [illustration: "to which! say that again," cried mr. smallweed, in a shrill, sharp voice--chap. lxii.] [illustration: "get out with you. if we ain't good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good enough. go along and find 'em"--chap. lxiv.] [illustration: "but i never own to it before the old girl. discipline must be maintained"--chap. lxvi.] [illustration: volumnia's devotion to sir leicester--chap. lxvi.] [illustration] hard times [illustration] twenty illustrations by h. french [illustration: "louisa!! thomas!"--chap. iii.] [illustration: "this is a very obtrusive lad!" said mr. gradgrind--chap. vi.] [illustration: "heaven's mercy, woman!" he cried, falling farther off from the figure, "hast thou come back agen!"--chap. x.] [illustration: "it would be a fine thing to be you, miss louisa!"--chap. ix.] [illustration: he felt a touch upon his arm--chap. xii.] [illustration: he went down on his knee before her on the poor mean stairs, and put an end of her shawl to his lips--chap. xiv.] [illustration: "what a comical brother-in-law you are!"--book , chap. iii.] [illustration: "louisa, my dear, you are the subject of a proposal of marriage that has been made to me"--chap. xv.] [illustration: "this, sir," said bounderby, "is my wife, mrs. bounderby"--book , chap. ii.] [illustration: "heaven help us all in this world!"--book , chap. v.] [illustration: "mrs. bounderby, i esteem it a most fortunate accident that i find you alone here"--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: mrs. sparsit advanced closer to them--book , chap. xi.] [illustration: left alone with her mother, louisa saw her lying with an awful lull upon her face--book , chap. ix] [illustration: "i only entreat you to believe, my favourite child, that i have meant to do right"--book , chap. i.] [illustration: "you have seen me once before, young lady," said rachael--book , chap. iv.] [illustration: "now, thethilia, i don't athk to know any thecreth, but i thuppothe i may conthider thith to be mith thquire"--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: she stooped down on the grass at his side, and bent over him--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: here was louisa, on the night of the same day, watching the fire as in the days of yore--book , chap. ix.] [illustration: he drew up a placard, offering twenty pounds reward, for the apprehension of stephen blackwood--book , chap. iv.] little dorrit [illustration] fifty-eight illustrations by j. mahoney [illustration: in marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. in one of its chambers, so repulsive a place, that even the obtrusive stars blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men--book , chap. i.] [illustration: "nothing changed," said the traveller, stopping to look round. "dark and miserable as ever"--book , chap. iii.] [illustration: the observer stood with her hand upon her own bosom, looking at the girl--book , chap. ii.] [illustration: "but what--hey?--lord forgive us!"--mrs. flintwinch muttered some ejaculation to this effect, and turned giddy--for mr. flintwinch awake, was watching mr. flintwinch asleep--book , chap. iv.] [illustration: they looked tempting; eight in number, circularly set out on a white plate, on a tray covered with a white napkin, flanked by a slice of buttered french roll and a little compact glass of cool wine and water--book , chap. v.] [illustration: "give me the money again," said the other eagerly, "and i'll keep it and never spend it"--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: in the back garret--a sickly room, with a turned up bedstead in it, so hastily and recently turned up that the blankets were boiling over, as it were, and keeping the lid open--a half finished breakfast of coffee and toast, for two persons, was jumbled down anyhow on a rickety table--book , chap. ix.] [illustration: "is it," said barnwell junior, taking heed of his visitor's brown face, "anything--about--tonnage--or that sort of thing?"--book , chap. x.] [illustration: one man, slowly moving on towards chalons, was the only visible figure on the landscape. cain might have looked as lonely and avoided--book , chap. xi.] [illustration: and stooping down to pinch the cheek of another young child who was sitting on the floor, staring at him, asked mrs. plornish how old that fine boy was? "four year, just turned, sir," said mrs. plornish. "he's a fine little fellow, a'int he, sir, but this one is rather sickly." she tenderly hushed the baby in her arms as she said it--book , chap. xi.] [illustration: the parlour fire ticked in the grate. there was only one person on the parlour hearth, and the loud watch in his pocket ticked audibly. the servant maid had ticked the two words, "mr. clennam," so softly, that she had not been heard; and he consequently stood, within the door she had closed, unnoticed--book , chap. xiii.] [illustration: his door was softly opened, and these spoken words startled him, and came as if they were an answer, "little dorrit"--book , chap. xiii.] [illustration: they went to the closed gate, and peeped through into the courtyard. "i hope he is sound asleep," said little dorrit, kissing one of the bars, "and does not miss me." the gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put down maggy's basket in a corner to serve for a seat, and keeping close together, rested there for some time--book , chap. xiv.] [illustration: then the bell rang once more, and then once more, and then kept on ringing; in despite of which importunate summons, affery still sat behind her apron, recovering her breath. at last mr. flintwinch came shuffling down the staircase into the hall, muttering and calling "affery woman!" all the way. affery still remaining behind her apron, he came stumbling down the kitchen stairs, candle in hand--book , chap. xv.] [illustration: as arthur came over the style and down to the water's edge, the lounger glanced at him for a moment and then resumed his occupation of idly tossing stones into the water with his foot.--book , chap. xvii.] [illustration: "o don't cry!" said little dorrit piteously. "don't, don't! good-bye, john. god bless you!" "good-bye, miss amy. good-bye!" and so he left her--book , chap, xviii.] [illustration: as she stood behind him, leaning over his chair so lovingly, he looked with downcast eyes at the fire. an uneasiness stole over him that was like a touch of shame; and when he spoke, as he presently did, it was in an unconnected and embarrassed manner--book , chap. xix.] [illustration: they spoke no more, all the way back to the lodging where fanny and her uncle lived. when they arrived there they found the old man practising his clarionet in the dolefullest manner in a corner of the room--book , chap. xx.] [illustration: arthur clennam with the card in his hand, betook himself to the address set forth on it, and speedily arrived there. it was a very small establishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the counter working at her needle--book , chap. xxii.] [illustration: "what nimble fingers you have," said flora, "but are you sure you are well?" ... "oh yes, indeed!" flora put her feet upon the fender and settled herself for a thorough good romantic disclosure--book , chap. xxiv.] [illustration: mounting to his attic, attended by mrs. plornish as interpreter, he found mr. baptist with no furniture but his bed on the ground, a table and a chair, carving with the aid of a few simple tools, in the blithest way possible. "now, old chap," said mr. pancks, "pay up!"--book , chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: mr. doyce had been to twickenham to pass the day. clennam had excused himself, mr. doyce was just come home. he put in his head at the door of clennam's sitting-room to say good night. "come in, come in!" said clennam--book , chap. xxvi.] [illustration: he was slowly resuming his way, when he saw a figure in the path before him which he had, perhaps, already associated with the evening and its impressions. minnie was there alone--book , chap. xxviii.] [illustration: why she should then stoop down and look in at the key-hole of the door, as if an eye would open it, it would be difficult to say. from this posture she started suddenly, with a half scream, feeling something on her shoulder. it was the touch of a hand; of a man's hand--book , chap. xxix.] [illustration: the stranger, taking advantage of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked intently and wonderingly at him--book , chap. xxx.] [illustration: on their arrival at mr. blandois's room, a bottle of port wine was ordered by that gallant gentleman; who coiled himself up on the window-seat, while mr. flintwinch took a chair opposite to him, with the table between them--book , chap. xxx.] [illustration: they were within five minutes of their destination, when, at the corner of her own street, they came upon fanny, in her new bonnet, bound for the same port--book , chap. xxxi.] [illustration: "dear little dorrit, let me lay it down." she yielded to him, and he put it aside! her hands were then nervously clasping together--book , chap. xxxii.] [illustration: "what a good fellow you are, clennam!" exclaimed the other stopping to look at him, as if with irrepressible admiration. "what a capital fellow! you have never been disappointed. that's easy to see."--book , chap. xxxiv.] [illustration: worn out with her own emotions, and yielding to the silence of the room, her hand slowly slackened and failed in its fanning movement, and her head dropped down on the pillow at her father's side. clennam rose softly, opened and closed the door without a sound--book , chap. xxxv.] [illustration: through these spectators, the little procession, headed by the two brothers, moved slowly to the gate. mr. dorrit, yielding to the vast speculation how the poor creatures were to get on without him, was great, and sad, but not absorbed--book , chap. xxxvi.] [illustration: "permit me!" said the traveller, rising and holding the door open. "good repose! to the pleasure of seeing you once more! to to-morrow!" as he kissed her hand, with his best manner, and his daintiest smile, the young lady drew a little nearer to her father, and passed him with a dread of touching him--book , chap. i.] [illustration: nevertheless, as they wound round the rugged way while the convent was yet in sight, she more than once looked round, and descried mr. blandois, backed by the convent smoke which rose high from the chimneys in a golden film, always standing on one jutting point looking down after them--book , chap. iii.] [illustration: "it ought to bring a judgment on us. brother, i protest against it in the sight of god!" as his hand went above his head and came down upon the table, it might have been a blacksmith's--book , chap. v.] [illustration: little dorrit was in front, with her brother and mrs. general (mr. dorrit had remained at home). but on the brink of the quay, they all came together. she started again to find blandois close to her, handing fanny into the boat--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: "good-bye, my love! good-bye!" the last words were spoken aloud as the vigilant blandois stopped, turned his head, and looked at them from the bottom of the staircase--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: he stopped at the corner, seeming to look back expectantly up the street as if he had made an appointment with some one to meet him there; but he kept a careful eye on the three. when they came together, the man took off his hat and made miss wade a bow--book , chap. ix.] [illustration: "despatch then! achieve then! bring mr. flintwinch! announce me to my lady!" cried the stranger, clanking about the stone floor. "pray tell me, affery," said arthur aloud and sternly, as he surveyed him from head to foot with indignation, "who is this gentleman?"--book , chap. x.] [illustration: there is a curtain, more dirt-coloured than red, which divides it, and the part behind the curtain makes the private sitting-room. when i first saw her there she was alone, and her work had fallen out of her hand, and she was looking up at the sky shining through the tops of the windows--book , chap. xi.] [illustration: "and you have really invested," clennam had already passed to that word, "your thousand pounds, pancks?" ... "to be sure, sir!" replied pancks boldly, with a puff of smoke, "and only wish it ten."--book , chap. xiii.] [illustration: little dorrit used to sit and muse here, much as she had been used to while away the time on her balcony in venice. seated thus one day, she was softly touched on the shoulder, and fanny said, "well, my dear," and took her seat at her side--book , chap. xiv.] [illustration: "to preserve your approbation, mrs. general," said fanny, returning the smile with one in which there was no trace of those ingredients, "will of course be the highest object of my married life; to lose it, would of course be perfect wretchedness"--book , chap. xv.] [illustration: "where is this missing man? have you come to give us information where he is? i hope you have." "so far from it, i--hum, have come to seek information."... "unfortunately for us, there is none to be got here. flintwinch, show the gentleman the hand-bill. give him several to take away. hold the light for him to read it"--book , chap. xvii.] [illustration: the sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the walls of rome, when mr. dorrit's carriage, still on its last wearisome stage, rattled over the solitary campagna--book , chap. xix.] [illustration: as each of the two handsome faces looked at each other, clennam felt how each of the two natures must be constantly tearing the other to pieces--book , chap. xx.] [illustration: one figure reposed upon the bed, the other kneeling on the floor, drooped over it the arms easily and peacefully resting on the coverlet; ... the two brothers were before their father; far beyond the twilight judgments of this world; high above its mists and obscurities--book , chap. xix.] [illustration: after one of the nights that i have spoken of, i came down into a greenhouse before breakfast. charlotte (the name of my false young friend) had gone down before me, and i heard her aunt speaking to her about me, as i entered. i stopped where i was, among the leaves and listened--book , chap. xxi.] [illustration: "if i draw you into this black closet and speak here."... "why do you hide your face?"... "because i am afraid of seeing something."... "you can't be afraid of seeing anything in this darkness, affery"--book , chap. xxiii.] [illustration: "he couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round," mr. sparkler made bold to opine.... "for a wonder i can agree with you," returned his wife, languidly turning her eyelids a little in his direction, "and can adopt your words"--book , chap. xxiv.] [illustration: the day was sunny, and the marshalsea, with the hot noon striking upon it was unwontedly quiet. arthur clennam dropped into a solitary arm-chair, itself as faded as any debtor in the gaol, and yielded himself to his thoughts--book , chap. xxvii.] [illustration: he arose and opened it, and an agreeable voice accosted him with "how do you do, mr. clennam? i hope i am not unwelcome in calling to see you." it was the sprightly young barnacle, ferdinand--book , chap. xxviii.] [illustration: and she came towards him with her hands laid on his breast to keep him in his chair, and with her knees upon the floor at his feet, and with her lips raised up to kiss him, and with her tears dropping on him as the rain from heaven had dropped upon the flowers, little dorrit, a loving presence, called him by his name--book , chap. xxix.] [illustration: in a moment, affery had thrown the stocking down, started up, caught hold of the window-sill with her right hand, lodged herself upon the window seat with her right knee, and was flourishing her left hand, beating expecting assailants off--book , chap. xxx.] [illustration: the sun had set, and the streets were dim in the dusky twilight, when the figure, so long unused to them, hurried on its way--book , chap. xxxi.] [illustration: mr. pancks and the patriarch were instantly the centre of a press, all eyes and ears; windows were thrown open, and doorsteps were thronged--book , chap. xxxii.] [illustration: such a box had affery flintwinch seen in the first of her dreams, going out of the old house ... this, tattycoram put on the ground at her old master's feet; this, tattycoram fell on her knees by, and put her hands upon....--book , chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: little dorrit and her husband walked out of the church alone--chap. xxxiv.] reprinted pieces nine illustrations by e. g. dalziel [illustration: the moment comes, the fire is dying--and the child is dead--_the long voyage_] [illustration: "oh, git along with you, sir, if you please, me and mrs. bigby don't want no male parties here"--_births--mrs. meeks of a son_] [illustration: "look at the snivelling milksop," said my uncle--_the poor relation's story_] [illustration: in the midst of the kitchen ... sits a young, modest, gentle-looking creature, with a beautiful child in her lap--_on duty with inspector field_] [illustration: "whether he was the vicar, or moses, or mr. burchill, or a conglomeration of all four, i knew not"--_the ghost of art_] [illustration: "are you from the country, young man?" "yes," i say, "i am"--_the detective police_] [illustration: "in another room were several ugly old women crouching, witch-like, round a hearth, and chatting and nodding, after the manner of monkeys"--_a walk in a workhouse_] [illustration: "mr. blinkins, are you ill, sir?"--_our school_] [illustration: he took her in his arms and told her it was fancy--_a christmas tree_] a tale of two cities [illustration] twenty-five illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: miss manette curtsied to mr. lorry, with a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser he was than she. he made her another bow--book , chap. iv.] [illustration: the wine shop--book , chap. v.] [illustration: the shoemaker--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: messrs. cruncher and son--book , chap. i.] [illustration: and smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: the lion and the jackal--book , chap. v.] [illustration: he stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the carriage. all his fellows stooped to look under the carriage--book , chap. viii.] [illustration: drive him fast from the tomb. this from jacques--book , chap. ix.] [illustration: "think now and then that there is a man who would give his life to keep a life you love beside you"--book , chap. xiii.] [illustration: "it is frightful, messieurs. how can the women and children draw water? who can gossip of an evening under that shadow?"--book , chap. xv.] [illustration: saint antoine--book , chap. xvi.] [illustration: "still, the doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot nervously on the ground"--book , chap. xix.] [illustration: dragged, and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that were thrust into his face by hundreds of hands--book , chap. xxii.] [illustration: among the talkers was stryver, of the king's bench bar ... broaching to monseigneur his devices for blowing the people up, and exterminating them from the face of the earth.--book , chap. xxiv.] [illustration: some registers were lying open on a desk and an officer of a coarse dark aspect presided over these--book , chap. i.] [illustration: the grindstone--book , chap. ii.] [illustration: the carmagnole--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: here mr. lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most remarkable goblin shadow on the wall--book , chap. x.] [illustration: twice he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his forefinger drew a cross in the air--book , chap. x.] [illustration: the trial of evrÃ�monde--book , chap. ix.] [illustration: as he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer--book , chap. xi.] [illustration: his head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with helpless look straying all round, he took his coat off, and let it drop on the floor--book , chap. xii.] [illustration: "you might, from your appearance, be the wife of lucifer," said miss pross in her breathing. "nevertheless you shall not get the better of me. i am an englishwoman"--book , chap. xiv.] [illustration: the third tumbrel--book , chap. xv.] the uncommercial traveller [illustration] twenty-six illustrations by e. g. dalziel [illustration: saw from the ladder's elevation, as he looked down by chance towards the shore, some dark, troubled object close in with the land--_the shipwreck_] [illustration: a cheap theatre, sunday night--_two views of a cheap theatre_] [illustration: stood a creature remotely in the likeness of a young man, with puffed, sallow face, and a figure all dirty and shiny and slimy, who may have been the youngest son of his filthy old father, thames--_wapping workhouse_] [illustration: mr. grazinglands looked into a pastrycook's window, hesitating as to the expediency of lunching at that establishment --_refreshments for travellers_] [illustration: "bags to hold your money," says the witch, shaking her head and setting her teeth; "you as has got it"--_poor mercantile jack_] [illustration: the tall glazed head-dress of his warrior straudenheim instantly knocked off--_travelling abroad_] [illustration: he was taken into custody by the police--_shy neighbourhoods_] [illustration: "drop of something to drink," interposed the stranger. "i am agreeable"--_chambers_] [illustration: "'then you're a tramp,' he ses. 'i'd rather be that than a beadle,' i ses"--_tramps_] [illustration: "am i red to-night?" "you are," he uncompromisingly answered--_night walks_] [illustration: "a lemon has pips, and a yard has ships, and i'll have chips!"--_nurses' stories_] [illustration: the wind blows stiffly from the nor'-east ... and the shapeless passengers lie about in melancholy bundles--_the calais night mail_] [illustration: then dropped upon her knees before us, with protestations that we were right--_some recollections of mortality_] [illustration: on the starboard side of the ship a grizzled man dictated a long letter to another grizzled man in an immense fur cap--_bound for the great salt lake_] [illustration: blinking old men who are let out of the workhouse by the hour have a tendency to sit on bits of coping stone in these churchyards ... the more depressed class of beggars too bring hither broken meals, and munch--_the city of the absent_] [illustration: mr. j. mellows, of the "dolphin's head"--_an old stage-coaching house_] [illustration: building h.m.s. achilles--_chatham dockyard_] [illustration: at the station they had been sitting about in their threadbare homespun garments ... sad enough at heart, most of them--_in the french-flemish country_] [illustration: it was agreed that mr. battens "ought to take it up," and mr. battens was communicated with on the subject--_titbull's almshouses_] [illustration: at the upper end of this dungeon ... the englishman first beheld him, sitting on an iron bedstead, to which he was chained by a heavy chain--_the italian prisoner_] [illustration: trotting about among the beds, on familiar terms with all the patients, was a comical mongrel dog called poodles--_a small star in the east_] [illustration: over the grog, mixed in a bucket, presides the boatswain's mate--_aboard ship_] [illustration: this engaging figure approached the fatal lamps--_mr. barlow_] [illustration: look at this group at a street corner--_the ruffian_] [illustration: and white riding hood was fined ten shillings--_the ruffian_] great expectations [illustration] thirty illustrations by f. a. fraser [illustration: "hold your noise!" cried a horrible voice ... "keep still, you little devil, or i'll cut your throat"--chap. i.] [illustration: the sergeant ran in first--chap. v.] [illustration: "why, here's a j!" said joe, "and a o equal to anythink!"--chap. vii.] [illustration: she gave a contemptuous toss ... and left me--chap. viii.] [illustration: he said, "aha! would you!" and began dancing backwards and forwards--chap. xi.] [illustration: "well, pip, you know, ... you yourself see me put 'em in my 'at, and therefore you know as they are here"--chap. xiii.] [illustration: orlick ... was very soon among the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come out of it--chap. xv.] [illustration: then she softly patted my shoulder in a soothing way--chap. xvii.] [illustration: "now, this," said mr. trabb ... "is a very sweet article"--chap. xix] [illustration: "say another word--one single word--and wemmick shall give you your money back"--chap. xx.] [illustration: "this chap ... murdered his master"--chap. xxiv.] [illustration: we found the aged heating the poker, with expectant eyes--chap. xxv.] [illustration: "do you take tea, or coffee, mr. gargery?"--chap. xxvii.] [illustration: drawling to his attendants, "don't know yah, don't know yah!"--chap. xxx] [illustration: "oh, you must take the purse!"--chap. xxxiii.] [illustration: it was fine summer weather again--chap. xxxv.] [illustration: "it is of no use," said biddy--chap. xxxv.] [illustration: "what!" said estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she leaned against the great chimney-piece, and only moving her eyes, "do you reproach me for being cold! you!"--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: "why should i look at him?" returned estella--chap. xxxviii.] [illustration: i rose out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking wildly at him--chap. xxxix.] [illustration: gradually i slipped from the chair, and lay on the floor--chap. xl.] [illustration: "when i say to compeyson 'once out of this court, i'll smash that face o' yourn!' ain't it compeyson as prays the judge to be protected, and gets two turnkeys stood betwixt us!"--chap. xiii] [illustration: he came back calling for a light for the cigar in his mouth, which he had forgotten. a man in a dust-coloured dress appeared with what he wanted--chap. xliii.] [illustration: i had to feel my way back among the shipping--chap. xlvii.] [illustration: i entreated her to rise--chap. xlix.] [illustration: "him that i speak of," said the landlord, "mr. pumblechook"--chap. lii.] [illustration: "do you know this!" said he--chap. liii.] [illustration: he had spoken his last words--chap. lvi.] [illustration: we sat down on a bench that was near--chap. lix.] our mutual friend [illustration] fifty-eight illustrations by j. mahoney [illustration: the bird of prey--chap. i.] [illustration: "show us a picture," said the boy. "tell us where to look!"--chap. iii.] [illustration: when it came to bella's turn to sign her name, mr. rokesmith, who was standing, as he had sat, with a hesitating hand upon the table, looked at her stealthily, but narrowly--chap. iv.] [illustration: "here you are again," repeated mr. wegg, musing. "and what are you now?"--chap. v]. [illustration: lizzie, looking for her father, saw him coming, and stood upon the causeway that he might see her--chap. vi.] [illustration: after holding her to his breast with a passionate cry, he took up his bundle and darted out at the door, with an arm across her eyes--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: "you're casting your eyes round the shop, mr. wegg. let me show you a light"--chap. vii.] [illustration: "noody!" said mrs. boffin, coming from her fashionable sofa to his side on the plain settle and hooking her comfortable arm through his--chap. ix.] [illustration: that he knew it as well as she, she knew as well as he, when they were left together standing on the path by the garden-gate--chap. ix.] [illustration: she sits upon her stone, and takes no heed of him--chap. x.] [illustration: "apparently one of the ghosts has lost its way, and dropped in to be directed. look at this phantom!"--chap. xii.] [illustration: it was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was not curtained; he chose it because the larger window near it was--chap. xiii.] [illustration: they had opened the door at the bottom of the staircase giving on the yard, and they stood in the sun-light looking at the scrawl of the two unsteady childish hands two or three steps up the staircase--chap. xv.] [illustration: "come here, toddles and poddles"--chap. xvi.] [illustration: mr. bradley headstone, highly certificated stipendiary schoolmaster, drew his right fore-finger through one of the button-holes of the boy's coat, and looked at it attentively--book , chap. i.] [illustration: he stood leaning by the door at lizzie's side--book , chap. ii.] [illustration: "one thing, however, i can do for you," says twemlow, "and that is, work for you." veneering blessed him again--book , chap. iii.] [illustration: ah! here was alfred. having stolen in unobserved, he playfully leaned on the back of sophronia's chair--book , chap. iv.] [illustration: perched on the stool, with his hat cocked on his head, and one of his legs dangling, the youth of fledgeby hardly contrasted to advantage with the age of the jewish man as he stood with his bare head bowed--book , chap. v.] [illustration: "come up and be dead! come up and be dead"--book , chap. v.] [illustration: "good evening, mr. wegg. the yard-gate lock should be looked to, if you please; it don't catch"--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: "you never charge me, miss wilfer," said the secretary, encountering her by chance alone in the great drawing-room, "with commissions for home. i shall always be happy to execute any commands you may have in that direction"--book , chap. viii.] [illustration: "now you may give me a kiss, pa"--book , chap. viii.] [illustration: "a kiss for the boofer lady"--book , chap. ix.] [illustration: "meaning," returned the little creature, "every one of you but you. hah! now look this lady in the face. this is mrs. truth. the honourable. full-dressed"--book , chap. xi.] [illustration: and now, as the man held out the bottle to fill all round, riderhood stood up, leaned over the table to look closer at the knife, and stared from it to him--book , chap. xii.] [illustration: yet the cold was merciful, for it was the cold night air and the rain that restored me from a swoon on the stones of the causeway--book , chap. xiii.] [illustration: the dark look of hatred and revenge with which the words broke from his livid lips ... made her so afraid of him that she turned to run away. but he caught her by the arm--book , chap. xv.] [illustration: mrs. lammle, on a sofa by a table, invites mr. twemlow's attention to a book of portraits in her hand--book , chap. xvi.] [illustration: it was an edifying spectacle, the young man in his easy chair taking his coffee, and the old man, with his grey head bent, standing awaiting his pleasure--book , chap. i.] [illustration: "it's summat run down in the fog"--book , chap. ii.] [illustration: "oh, indeed, sir! i fancy i can guess whom you think that's like"--book , chap. iv.] [illustration: jenny twisted her venerable friend aside, to a brilliantly lighted toy-shop window, and said, "now look at 'em! all my work!"--book , chap. ii.] [illustration: feigning to be intent on her embroidery, she sat plying her needle until her busy hand was stopped by mrs. boffin's hand being lightly laid upon it--book , chap. v.] [illustration: "he can never be going to dig up the pole!" whispered venus as they dropped low and kept close--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: "there'll shortly be an end of you," said wegg, threatening it with the hat-box, "your varnish is fading"--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: lizzie hexham very softly raised the weather-stained grey head, and lifted her as high as heaven--book , chap. viii.] [illustration: so they walked, speaking of the newly-filled-up grave, and of johnny, and of many things--book , chap. ix.] [illustration: "and you see, as i was saying, mortimer," remarked eugene aloud with the utmost coolness, as though there were no one within hearing but themselves, "and you see, as i was saying--undergoing grinding torments"--book , chap. x.] [illustration: she shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his face, at parting, as earnestly and reproachfully as she had ever shaken it at her grim old child at home--book , chap. xiii.] [illustration: mr. venus produced the document, holding on by his usual corner. mr. wegg, holding on by the opposite corner, sat down on the seat so lately vacated by mr. boffin, and looked it over--book , chap. xiv.] [illustration: "you have been a pleasant room to me, dear room! adieu! we shall never see each other again"--book , chap. xv.] [illustration: the cherub, whose hair would have done for itself under the influence of this amazing spectacle, what bella had just now done for it, staggered back into the window seat from which he had risen, and surveyed the pair with his eyes dilated to their utmost--book , chap. xvi.] [illustration: "now, dolls, wake up!" "mist wrayburn! drection! fifteen shillings!"--book , chap. xvii.] [illustration: rogue riderhood recognised his "t'other governor," mr. eugene wrayburn--book , chap. i.] [illustration: there were actually tears in the bold woman's eyes as the soft-headed and soft-hearted girl twined her arms about her neck--book , chap. ii] [illustration: it was a pleasant sight, in the midst of the golden bloom, to see this salt old gruff and glum waving his shovel hat at bella, while his thin white hair flowed free, as if she had once more launched him into blue water again--book , chap. iv.] [illustration: "there!" said bella, when she had at last completed the final touches. "now you are something like a genteel boy! put your jacket on and come and have your supper."--book , chap. v.] [illustration: he had sauntered far enough. before returning to retrace his steps, he stopped upon the margin to look down at the reflected night--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: when the bather had finished dressing, he kneeled on the grass, doing something with his hands, and again stood up with his bundle under his arm. looking all around him with great attention, he then went to the river's edge, and flung it in as far, and yet as lightly, as he could--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: she took the liberty of opening an inner door, and then beheld the extraordinary spectacle of mr. fledgeby in a shirt, a pair of turkish trousers, and a turkish cap, rolling over and over on his own carpet, and spluttering wonderfully--book , chap. viii.] [illustration: miss jenny gave up altogether on this parting taking place between the friends, and sitting with her back towards the bed in the bower made by bright hair wept heartily though noiselessly--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: bella's husband stepped softly to the half-door of the bar and stood there--book , chap. xii.] [illustration: "it looks as if the old man's spirit had found rest at last; don't it!" said mrs. boffin--book , chap. xiii.] [illustration: bradley hesitated for a moment, but placed his usual signature, enlarged, upon the board--book , chap. xv.] [illustration: "there, there, there!" said miss wren, "for goodness' sake stop, giant, or i shall be swallowed up alive before i know it"--book , chap. xvi.] [illustration: riderhood went over into the smooth pit backwards, and bradley headstone upon him--book , chap. xv.] christmas stories from "household words" and "all the year round" [illustration] twenty-three illustrations by e. g. dalziel [illustration: "i'm only a common soldier, sir," said he. "it signifies very little what such a poor brute comes to"--_seven poor travellers_, chap. ii.] [illustration: and when the visitor (oppressed with pie) had fallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, would cut his throat, &c.--_holly tree inn_, first branch.] [illustration: "my dear captain kavender," says he. "of all the men on earth, i wanted to see you most. i was on my way to you"--_the wreck of the golden mary_--the wreck] [illustration: "o christian george king sar berry sorry!" says the sambo vagabond--_the perils of certain english prisoners_, chap. i.] [illustration: a grizzled personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was found smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels--_going into society_] [illustration: an imperturbable and speechless man, he had sat at his supper, with streaker present in a swoon--_the haunted house_, the mortals in the house] [illustration: "might you be married now?" asked the captain when he had some task with this new acquaintance.... "not yet." ... "going to be?" said the captain.... "i hope so"--_a message from the sea_, chap. i.] [illustration: "what is your name, sir, and where do you come from!" asked mr. mopes the hermit--_tom tiddler's ground_, chap. i.] [illustration: "but it is not impossible that you are a pig!" retorted madame bouclet--_somebody's luggage_, chap. ii.] [illustration: "i am glad to see you employed," said mr. traveller.... "i am glad to be employed," returned the tinker-_tom tiddler's ground_, chap. vii.] [illustration: willing sophy down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful but always smiling with a black face--_mrs. lirriper's lodgings_, chap. i.] [illustration: "come, sir! remove me to my vile dungeon. where is my mouldy straw!"--_mrs. lirriper's legacy_, chap. i.] [illustration: and at last sitting dozing against a muddy cart wheel, i come upon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb--_dr. marigold_] [illustration: while i was speaking to him, i saw it open, and a man look in, who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me--_two ghost stories_, i.] [illustration: "i took you for some one else yesterday evening. that troubles me"--_two ghost stories_, ii.] [illustration: "what would you do with twopence, if i gave it you!"... "'pend it"--_mugby junction_, chap. ii.] [illustration: cotched the decanter out of his hand, and said "put it down, i won't allow that!"--_mugby junction_, chap. iii.] [illustration: "it's from the best corner of our best forty-five-year-old bin," said mr. wilding.... "thank you, sir," said mr. bintry. "it's most excellent"--_no thoroughfare_, act i.] [illustration: "we are famous for the growth in this vault, aren't we!"--_no thoroughfare_, act i.] [illustration: "if there had been a wrestle with a robber, as i dreamed," said obenreizer, "you see i was stripped for it."... "and armed too," said vendale, glancing at his girdle--_no thoroughfare_, act iii.] [illustration: he became roused to the knowledge that obenreizer had set upon him, and that they were struggling desperately in the snow--_no thoroughfare_, act iii.] [illustration: at the side door of the church are the same two men from the hospice--_no thoroughfare_, act iv.] the mystery of edwin drood twelve illustrations by sir luke fildes, r.a. [illustration: in the court--chap. i.] [illustration: under the trees--chap. iii.] [illustration: at the piano--chap. vii.] [illustration: on dangerous ground--chap. viii.] [illustration: mr. crisparkle is overpaid--chap. x.] [illustration: durdles cautions mr. sapsea against boasting--chap. xii.] [illustration: "good-bye, rosebud, darling!"--chap. xiii.] [illustration: mr. grewgious has his suspicions--chap. xv.] [illustration: jasper's sacrifices--chap. xix.] [illustration: mr. grewgious experiences a new sensation--chap. xx.] [illustration: up the river--chap. xxii.] [illustration: sleeping it off--chap. xxiii.] the life of charles dickens [illustration] twenty-eight illustrations by fred barnard [illustration: if he weakly showed the least disposition to hear it, captain porter, in a loud sonorous voice, gave him every word of it--book , chap. ii.] [illustration: one of whom told us she "had no money for beggar boys"--book , chap. iii.] [illustration: jack straw's castle, memorable for many happy meetings in coming years--book , chap. i.] [illustration: "it a'nt a smokin' your way, sir, i says;" he says, "no more it is, coachman, and as long as it smokes anybody else's way, it's all right and i'm agreeable"--book , chap. viii.] [illustration: if you could but know how i hated one man in very dirty gaiters, and with very protruding upper teeth, who said to all comers after him, "so you've been introduced to our friend dickens--eh!"--book , chap. ii.] [illustration: he looked up at me; gave himself an odd, dogged kind of shake; and fixed his eyes on his book again--book , chap. iv.] [illustration: he is perhaps the most horrible bore in the country--book , chap. v.] [illustration: visit to a tramps' lodging-house--book , chap. viii.] [illustration: genoese washerwomen--book , chap. v.] [illustration: the radicofani wizard--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: "i say, what's french for a pillow!" "is there any italian phrase for a lump of sugar! just look, will you!" "what the devil does echo mean! the garsong says echo to everything"--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: neapolitan lazzaroni--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: reading "dombey" at the snuff shop--book , chap. vii.] [illustration: "i have never been able to see what they are, because one of the old ladies always sits before them; but they look, outside, like very old backgammon boards"--book , chap. iv.] [illustration: "halloa, mrs. gamp, what are you up to!"--book , chap. i] [illustration: off yarmouth--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: likewise an old man who ran over a milk-child rather than stop!--with no neckcloth, on principle; and with his mouth wide open to catch the morning air--book , chap. vi.] [illustration: bye and bye i came upon a polenta-shop in the clouds, where an old frenchman with an umbrella like a faded tropical leaf (it had not rained in naples for six weeks) was staring at nothing at all, with a snuff-box in his hand--book , chap. iii.] [illustration: "c'est vrai donc," says the duke, "que madame la duchesse n'est plus!"... "c'est trop vrai, monseigneur."... "tant mieux," says the duke, and walks off deliberately, to the great satisfaction of the assemblage--book , chap. v.] [illustration: a warm corner in the pig-market at boulogne--book , chap. v.] [illustration: whenever he felt toots coming again, he began to laugh and wipe his eyes afresh; and when toots came once more, he gave a kind of cry, as if it were too much for him--book , chap. iv.] [illustration: he ... slightly cocked up his evil eye at the goldfinch. instantly a raging thirst beset that bird; and when it was appeased he still drew several unnecessary buckets of water, leaping about his perch and sharpening his bill with irrepressible satisfaction--book , chap. v.] [illustration: the uneducated father in fustian and the educated boy in spectacles--book , chap. v.] [illustration: sam weller in sierra nevada--book , chap. viii.] [illustration: in a transport of presence of mind and fury, he instantly caught him up in both hands, and threw him over his own head out into the entry, where the check-takers received him like a game at ball--book , chap. ii.] [illustration: "i beg your pardon, sir," he answered, "but if it hadn't been for my pipe, i should have been nowhere"--book , chap. iii.] [illustration: "in a miserable court at night," says mr. fields, "we found a haggard old woman blowing at a kind of pipe made of an old ink-bottle"--book , chap. xii.] * * * * * transcriber's notes: many of these notes will only apply to the html version as they refer to captions that are small-capped in the original which cannot be represented in a plain text version. obvious punctuation repaired. page , "the" changed to "the" at start of sentence. (the body washed ashore) page , "i" changed to "i" (i'll eat my head) page , "i" changed to "i" (directly i leave go) page , "i" changed to "i" (and i have the strength) page , "vi" changed to "xvi" (chap. xvi.) page , "i" changed to "i" (here i am) page , first word of new sentence "he" capitalized. (he had now fallen) page , "i" changed to "i" (no, no, i'm not) page , "--chap. lxiii." added to illustration page , "heavans" changed to "heavens" (heavens! can i write) page , "is'nt" changed to "isn't" (there he isn't) page , "--chap. xlviii." added to illustration page , "xxvl" changed to "xxvi" (chap. xxvi.) page , "hamlet' " changed to "hamlet's" (hamlet's aunt betrays) page , "buckett" changed to "bucket" (mr. bucket urging a sensible) page , "i" changed to "i" (that i have meant) page , "rome" changed to "rome" (the walls of rome) page , "sunday" changed to "sunday" (theatre, sunday night) page , "wraeburn" changed to "wrayburn" (mr. eugene wrayburn) page , "p easant" changed to "pleasant" (it was a pleasant sight) page , "i" changed to "i" (if i gave it you)